There's no stopping the smile that curls on his face when Rocket's shoulder knocks up against his, small and tired but genuine in its warmth. For as often as they like to catch on each other, bickering until Gamora is ready to kill them both or else Peter somehow getting coaxed into a game of chicken he's incapable of backing down from(but that he rarely wins), he likes Rocket. They all got their baggage and he suspects Rocket's is probably more fucked up than any of the rest of theirs put together, but he's still here and, even if he'd probably laugh in Peter's face if he suggested it, he knows Rocket is doing the best he can to figure out how this teamwork shit is suppose to go down. It's all they can ask from each other. Fuck, it's more than enough. "After saving the universe a couple times what's a few days of puttin' in some elbow grease, right?"
He knows it could be a lot worse than a week of hard work to get his baby up and going again. He could be doing it alone, for one thing, which would only yield mixed, potentially literally explosive results. Whether or not his ego would ever let him admit out loud that the Milano might benefit under the sweet, sweet love of another mechanic's hands, he knows that he's damn lucky Rocket had been willing to come back to Berhert with him to finish what he started.
And it turns out that, for once, the luck just keeps on coming for them. The pro to touching down in the middle of some massive fuck off forest is that there's no shortage of wood to burn and coaxing a fire big enough to keep them warm for the night to life is only a matter of a little TLC and patience. There's something steadying in it, something calming, to letting his mind hit a little bit of autopilot while he's stripping bark and stacking wood and stoking a flame around it all, poking at it until he's satisfied enough to see what kind of rations they have to work with for the next handful of days. The Milano stays much better stocked on food and water these days than it ever did while Peter was flying solo, partly out of necessity and mostly because people like Gamora are smart enough to take inventory more than once every few weeks, and while they may not be looking at any five star feasts they should have enough to keep the two of them going until they can drag themselves into a real port. They'll be fine.
Unless, of course, the local wildlife decides it's tired of old Ravager and want to see what else is on the menu, but they'll just have to shoot that bridge whenever it tries to sneak up on them.
"Alright," he says when he settles up around the fire, his jacket tossed over the log he's sitting on and a bowl of something that smells much better than it probably tastes in hand. He tries for a crooked grin that probably misses the mark by miles, but it's just gonna have to do. "Talk dirty to me. What are we looking at?"
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He knows it could be a lot worse than a week of hard work to get his baby up and going again. He could be doing it alone, for one thing, which would only yield mixed, potentially literally explosive results. Whether or not his ego would ever let him admit out loud that the Milano might benefit under the sweet, sweet love of another mechanic's hands, he knows that he's damn lucky Rocket had been willing to come back to Berhert with him to finish what he started.
And it turns out that, for once, the luck just keeps on coming for them. The pro to touching down in the middle of some massive fuck off forest is that there's no shortage of wood to burn and coaxing a fire big enough to keep them warm for the night to life is only a matter of a little TLC and patience. There's something steadying in it, something calming, to letting his mind hit a little bit of autopilot while he's stripping bark and stacking wood and stoking a flame around it all, poking at it until he's satisfied enough to see what kind of rations they have to work with for the next handful of days. The Milano stays much better stocked on food and water these days than it ever did while Peter was flying solo, partly out of necessity and mostly because people like Gamora are smart enough to take inventory more than once every few weeks, and while they may not be looking at any five star feasts they should have enough to keep the two of them going until they can drag themselves into a real port. They'll be fine.
Unless, of course, the local wildlife decides it's tired of old Ravager and want to see what else is on the menu, but they'll just have to shoot that bridge whenever it tries to sneak up on them.
"Alright," he says when he settles up around the fire, his jacket tossed over the log he's sitting on and a bowl of something that smells much better than it probably tastes in hand. He tries for a crooked grin that probably misses the mark by miles, but it's just gonna have to do. "Talk dirty to me. What are we looking at?"