Rocket snorts. "Guess we got some of that goin' around on our ship too," he says, casting Quill a wry, sideways look. It's as close as he's ever going to come to admitting that he might have fucked up by fighting Quill over the controls right before they met Berhert's tree-covered surface at high velocity. Either of them could have made that flight blind if they hadn't been too damn busy bickering over who got to sit in the hot seat. But for better or for worse, it's never exactly been in his nature to sit back and let someone else take the controls.
Having people he can count on when push comes to shove isn't something he has a huge amount of experience with. In as long as he can remember, ever since he first came to in a sterile white room with nothing in his head to tell him who or what he was but pain and driving fury, there's only ever been Groot. And if he's honest with himself, he knows the fact that their partnership has endured owes a lot more to Groot's patience and good nature than it does to any positive qualities on his part. He doesn't know how to defer to someone else and trust them to lead the way. He's never had to before.
He can hear the cracks in Quill's offhanded tone, but even he has the basic courtesy to pretend he doesn't notice a damn thing. There's a whole conversation there he doesn't know how to even begin to navigate, an abyss of guilt and grief and regret that he couldn't touch even if he wanted to. Even if it was his place to. It's real people shit of the highest order, dealing with losing family, and Rocket knows it's nothing he's remotely equipped to understand.
The Milano though. That's something he can see and touch, something he knows how to fix. She's torn up pretty bad, but he'd made a solid catalogue of what needed fixed and made some headway on getting started before Yondu's crew caught up with them. It's all fixable. It'll be a few days of hard work, and it won't be pretty or perfect at the end, but they have what they need to at least get her airborne again. Once they catch up with the others they can deal with the rest.
The view she makes when they clear the treeline isn't the most reassuring one, tendrils of smoke still rising raggedly from her torn hull. But he's salvaged more pitiful piles of scrap in his time; he's confident he can get her to break orbit, and after that, all they really need is for the main drive and life support to last long enough to let them limp off to a friendly port with a decent dry-dock.
"Four days' work," he says, bumping his shoulder up against Quill's. "A week tops. We'd already made some headway before everything went to shit."
The smell of ozone only gets stronger as they approach the ship; she's definitely got a coolant leak somewhere. The sinter beam's still sitting where he'd left it, ready to continue knitting the hull back together as soon as it's reprogrammed with the shape of the next section of plating. Those tools he hadn't hastily grabbed to serve as makeshift weapons are still scattered around the floor near the hatch. It's almost as though he'd just stepped away for a few moments, instead of a few weeks and the near destruction of all sentient life in the galaxy.
He squints critically at the sky where it's already flaring fiery shades of sunset beyond the spindly silhouettes of the treetops. "Dunno if we can get anything much done before it gets dark," he says. "But if you wanna get a fire going, I'll walk you through the damage report."
no subject
Having people he can count on when push comes to shove isn't something he has a huge amount of experience with. In as long as he can remember, ever since he first came to in a sterile white room with nothing in his head to tell him who or what he was but pain and driving fury, there's only ever been Groot. And if he's honest with himself, he knows the fact that their partnership has endured owes a lot more to Groot's patience and good nature than it does to any positive qualities on his part. He doesn't know how to defer to someone else and trust them to lead the way. He's never had to before.
He can hear the cracks in Quill's offhanded tone, but even he has the basic courtesy to pretend he doesn't notice a damn thing. There's a whole conversation there he doesn't know how to even begin to navigate, an abyss of guilt and grief and regret that he couldn't touch even if he wanted to. Even if it was his place to. It's real people shit of the highest order, dealing with losing family, and Rocket knows it's nothing he's remotely equipped to understand.
The Milano though. That's something he can see and touch, something he knows how to fix. She's torn up pretty bad, but he'd made a solid catalogue of what needed fixed and made some headway on getting started before Yondu's crew caught up with them. It's all fixable. It'll be a few days of hard work, and it won't be pretty or perfect at the end, but they have what they need to at least get her airborne again. Once they catch up with the others they can deal with the rest.
The view she makes when they clear the treeline isn't the most reassuring one, tendrils of smoke still rising raggedly from her torn hull. But he's salvaged more pitiful piles of scrap in his time; he's confident he can get her to break orbit, and after that, all they really need is for the main drive and life support to last long enough to let them limp off to a friendly port with a decent dry-dock.
"Four days' work," he says, bumping his shoulder up against Quill's. "A week tops. We'd already made some headway before everything went to shit."
The smell of ozone only gets stronger as they approach the ship; she's definitely got a coolant leak somewhere. The sinter beam's still sitting where he'd left it, ready to continue knitting the hull back together as soon as it's reprogrammed with the shape of the next section of plating. Those tools he hadn't hastily grabbed to serve as makeshift weapons are still scattered around the floor near the hatch. It's almost as though he'd just stepped away for a few moments, instead of a few weeks and the near destruction of all sentient life in the galaxy.
He squints critically at the sky where it's already flaring fiery shades of sunset beyond the spindly silhouettes of the treetops. "Dunno if we can get anything much done before it gets dark," he says. "But if you wanna get a fire going, I'll walk you through the damage report."