[Once things have settled down and Rocket has built what amounts to a prototype he can tinker with once everyone's asleep, then Rocket finally goes and hunts down Quill, after spending the better part of the day staying out of his way. He's pretty sure if they share so much as a glance in the other's direction everything he knows they're both thinking is just going to get spilled in front of all these idiots who don't need to know their business.]
Yo, Quill. I wanna do some scouting and some of these assholes are a little too trigger happy. I don't wanna get shot at, 'cause then I'll shoot back, and then this trip'll be a whole lot less fun for everybody.
[Seeing the little furry bastard alive and scrabbling around actually gives him fuzzy feelings. There's tripping over him in the Milano and finding his shed fur in new, exciting places and then there's thinking he might've turned into a red paste on the landing.
He gets up when Rocket motions that he wants to talk - private-like]
I get you.
[As much as he gets there's some capable people here, people with legit skills and abilities, the kinds he wouldn't have minded on a heist watching his back, he also doesn't know them. Doesn't know the borderline civilians they got in the last wave, doesn't know what what stress will do to them. Rocket's a known quantity. Sure, he's an asshole three times bigger than his body, but at least he knows where his head's at.
Grabbing his quad blaster, automatically checking the settings with a flick of his wrist that's pure muscle memory, he picks up the flashlight someone, somewhere, scavenged, heads with Rocket away from the main camp. The buzz of conversation dies down after awhile]
You see anyone else? I saw Mantis but Groot, Drax and Gamora are still MIA.
Groot's in a pod back on the station. That wolf chick helped me find him. [What are their lives right now that he can say "that wolf chick" with a straight face and be too worn down to even bitch about the fact that he got led around by the hand by a very maternal animal with a weirdly ethereal vibe.] So I figure Gamora and Drax are still sleeping this shit off, too. Lucky bastards.
[Even as he says it, he cringes. Yeah, lucky. The station is under attack and he doesn't accept promises on faith alone. People have made him a lot of promises- hell he's done the same- and they haven't come to anything.
He's willing to work for the incentives he was promised, because he can't lose Groot again, and, as hard as he tries to push everyone away, he doesn't want to lose any of them. (Except maybe Nebula. She can take a walk.) That doesn't mean he can't be wary of how infallible their plans are.]
Not gonna lie, Quill, when Darma and her boytoy started talkin' about some other Celestial, I got a real bad feelin' it had somethin' to do with your old man.
[Lucky, maybe. Except for the part where they're still in cryo or whatever they call it here and they can't do a damn thing to defend themselves like that. He can make a guess what happens if something breaks into the pods without the awakening procedures doing their thing]
He isn't my old man.
[Peter's already scowling in a kneejerk reaction, embarrassed that he'd even believed for a second that Ego could've been anything but a galactically huge asshole. He must have "gullible" written all over his forehead that everyone can see now]
I didn't see him with the others today. Could be he's in cryo and from what it sounded like, he hadn't run into any other Celestials while he was sleeping his way around the universe.
[Which might be good news. At least he thinks - hopes; crosses his fingers - that Ego won't have any of immortal buddies swinging by to check up on him.]
Sorry. My mistake. Shitbag of a sperm-doner. [There's a time and a place for Rocket to be a prick about sensitive subjects- this is not the time, nor the place, and that subject is a gaping maw of a raw wound. Yondu already called him out on wanting to lord coming to their rescue over Quill's head, and he's not going to start it just because Yondu isn't here to smack him about it.]
Yeah. [Rocket exhales in relief.] Kinda wish he'd heard about the one they made Knowhere out of. That would've knocked him down a peg.
[Maybe. It's the little things. Right now, they're all knocked down a peg, as evidenced by the fact that Rocket almost trips over an exposed branch while snickering about imagining Ego's face when he saw that hollowed out severed skull floating in space.
He staggers as he corrects himself, swearing at the offending root.] Sonuva-
[And Peter actually has it in him to grin a little at that, because that's all Ego was, in the end. Some douchebag who apparently had an immortal's stamina to go with his dick.]
You good?
[It's rhetorical, Peter's hand freezing just before he makes the mistake of instinctively reaching down to catch Rocket by his skinny arm. Spend a few months bumming around the galaxy cleaning up other people's messes and you tend to pick a few things up about your new crew. Rocket, he's learned, is real big on the no-touching. Groot's about the only one he's seen who can - who's allowed - to slide up into Rocket's personal space, a bubble that's surprisingly bigger than a human's. Peter used to think his was huge compared to the rest of the galaxy...until he met Rocket.]
Man, now I wish I'd asked him about that. Grilled him on Celestials while we had the window. [What if there's more out there? What if (and this is the part that has Peter quietly shitting his pants) what if Ego not even the worst one?]
I'm good, I'm good. There's a root there, in case you were wonderin'.
[Classic Rocket- just hide the embarrassment with sarcasm and humor when anger isn't appropriate. Not that anger isn't usually appropriate where he's concerned, but this is a quiet moment.
Those are... very rare, especially where it concerns him and Quill. Honestly, given the fight they had before they reunited in the middle of Ego's attempt at universal conquest, it's kind of nice. In a way Rocket won't cop to. No one really needs to know that he genuinely wants to impress Quill like an extremely belligerent little brother might, and lacks the social skills to do it like a person who doesn't panic at the first sign of genuine affection. Sure, Quill is extremely lame and most of his bullshit consists of things that Rocket would never want the charisma to pull off (all things related to "pelvic sorcery," for example, make him want to gag), but everything he does, he makes it look effortless.
He could do just about anything and it would just work somehow.
...On second thought, he doesn't want anymore quiet moments. They give him too much time to think. In fact, he looks like he's been mulling over this Ego matter for longer than it really deserved.]
Well, I uh... I only knew the guy for five minutes, but he didn't strike me as the kinda guy who goes to all the fancy Celestial gatherings and shoots the shit. And I definitely don't think he picked that name 'cause it sounded ironic.
[Peter wisely resists the urge to point out that root might be big for Rocket and his three feet of height, but for him, it isn't even a trip hazard. He just nods, grunts out an "uh uh" and keeps walking]
Wonder if that's even the first one he went with or he just cycles through 'em.
[If Ego hadn't turned out to be the biggest douchebag in existence, he would've liked to sit him down and ask him all kinds of questions - problem is, now that he knows his true colors, how he killed Mom, and suddenly all the other questions are piling in too. Guess now they'll never get the answers.
Shrugging, he's silent for a bit while they go deeper, the trees closing in until he can only see flickers of the campfires through the trunks. Getting too deep into the sticks bothers him on a level: not a lot of resources, no idea how big the local wildlife is and the noise is way too different compared to the banging of the Milano as she chugs along on auto-pilot. He speaks again to break the silence, figuring they still need to talk about Ego...and Mantis]
What's your take on Mantis? Think she's someone you could trust?
[Look, he likes the lady, and he thinks she got a bum deal having to grow up with Ego. Doesn't necessarily means he'd jump to having her riding around as a new crewmate. He'd liked a lot of people in his lifetime, friends and business contacts and fuck buddies. Doesn't mean he trusts them, just like that.
Much as he butts heads with Rocket and one of these days he's convinced he'll find gray hairs that are so his fault, he's been around the guy long enough to feel like he'd want to know his opinion, too.]
[Rocket huffs a little. He's had less time around Mantis than the others have, but he saw her at a very vulnerable moment, and that makes all the difference. For someone who disdains emotions and other people leading with their hearts and not their heads, he does a remarkable amount of leading with his.]
I think she's too honest to be sleazy. Like a little bit of Drax and lot of Groot, too- Old Groot, that is.
[Groot, Jr. is a product of his environment, unfortunately. Which isn't exactly a bad thing- better than no Groot at all- but it does mean there has to be a distinction made between them when the twig isn't around to be confused by it.
Rocket crosses his arms over his chest and glances behind him, like he's going to find Mantis tailing them. It wouldn't matter if she was- what she told him in the pod chamber wasn't private. She'd probably tell Quill the same thing.
It's just... Habitual to make sure his private talks stay that way.] She said if given the chance, she'd get rid of Ego, herself. Damn the consequences. Now I dunno about you, but given our circumstances, that's not something I'd bullshit if I didn't have to.
And, again, if she's got anything in common with Drax, the long con is well beyond her.
[Peter mulls that one over, his jaw working as he unconsciously chews the inside of his cheek]
I'm okay with that.
[Drax might be an (entertaining) pain in the ass, but the point is, he trusts the guy to have his back, to stand his ground in a fight instead of running. If Rocket says Mantis is like a combo of Drax and Groot, well...she can't be all that bad, then. Hell, maybe she'll kill his bathroom a little less and she won't be drooling sap everywhere whenever it's lunch: she manages those two, and Peter's easy: he'll totally dig that]
So she's legit is what you're saying. No funny business. [It almost seems too good to be true. Still, he'd talked with her himself and what he got out of it was she was...nice. He liked her. She was funny, in a disarming, almost unaware way. ]
Did she have any ideas about how she'd kill Ego?
[Feels weird to be talking about killing his Dad - or maybe it should feel more weird than it does. Far as Peter was concerned, he's got zero history with the guy. He's closer to a talking raccoon than his own flesh and blood dad, come to think of it]
No funny business. [He nods firmly. It's a pretty grand gesture for Rocket, the first to be paranoid and the first to call bullshit on tactics based entirely on faith in other people, but their situation sucks right now. Maybe back on their own turf, he'd expect Mantis to endure a proper trial by fire (as if they weren't already in one), but here... She's got nothing to gain by betraying them.
No secret deals with Kree supremacists for the money to start herself a new life. No parlays with the Sovereign to keep her off their radar. Nothing.
His ears flick as he gazes up past the leafy canopy of the woods to catch sight of the unfamiliar stars- and the moon, specifically, which is supposed to be the station.]
Same way I said- try to destroy the pod somehow. It ain't like there's a planet core we can blow up this time. He's got nothin' but that body, so if it was ever gonna happen, it'd be before he wakes up- just in case.
Wonder if that would actually kill him for good. Ego could've been lying about that core for all we know.
[Peter doesn't sound a hundred percent sure on the pod idea. He remembers shooting his old man full of holes back on his planet, the quad blasters lighting up like it's a Fourth of July display on steroids, the barrels starting to overheat because he wasn't giving them a chance to cool down.
Then he'd seen Ego reform. How he kept walking and talking as a glowing network of...whatever knit quicker than any healing tech he'd seen. Real spooky. It's that mental image that keeps him from getting hopeful about the pod thing]
We can't do anything to the pod from down here, anyway. [He jogs his shoulders, frowns, and adjusts the robe that's toeing the line between keeping him from freezing his nuts off and being slightly too heavy to be comfortable. Feels like he's wandering around in a bathrobe.] We hit civilization, I want to see what their spaceport looks like.
[...if they even have one. It's a depressing thought]
[He could have been- that's the sick part. Tell Mantis some bedtime story about the core, play it up like it's the true essence of his existence, and nope. Like everything else, it's just mildly inconvenient if you damage it.
If he thinks about it too hard, he'll get stuck in an endless cycle of what-ifs and "okay-but-alsos," which he does not need right now. Not when there's other, much more pressing matters to discuss.
Rocket claps his hands together, perking up immediately.] Hell yeah! They were handling us with kid gloves back on the station, but there's no way anyone can stop us from borrowing a ship just to take a look at what's out there.
[They'll come back. They have to. But Rocket doesn't want to spend the rest of his pathetically short life on one planet. He needs to be out there.]
[Usually he doesn't talk the heavy stuff with Rocket. Before all this, his biggest concern was making sure the Milano kept on flying, he kept his crew fed, and no one did anything too illegal where he could see it. Now they're talking about some jerkoff who's probably older than a whole bunch of civilizations and their homeworlds, and they have no guarantee they can even kill him.
Sobering thought. Never met a species he didn't know how to give some serious second thoughts to. Blame Yondu for teaching him that valuable lesson about the galaxy.]
I didn't see anything that was long range. Those mobile suits were pure suck.
[He really dug the lightsabers, though. Or the idea of them. But getting stuck in a mobiles suit twenty minutes out from the station, and you got a new respect for your average ship. Firepower and shields and life support and the whole part where you didn't need to have a spacesuit just to pilot it? Yeah, he took that for granted until now.
The corner of his mouth quirks as he glances down at Rocket. The guy's doing that thing again, the one that still weirds out his Earth-born side: when Rocket claps his little black hands together, it still takes Peter a split second to wipe away the mental image of your average trash panda washing an apple in some dirty puddle.]
You see a color you like, you got dibs.
[He hasn't said this yet, but there's also the scenario where they hit civilization and...there's no ships. Nothing that can do anything but fart around a moon and back, maybe, but long distance is a big no way.
[That said, there's another thing he needs to point out. His habit of being overprepared came in handy when they got swept up in all of this. He was carrying quite a bit in his pockets at the time.]
I got one spare spacesuit and three aero-rigs, but I can get more suits. [He lowers his voice conspiratorially.] There's this broad here who can replicate anything. She gave me a freebie, but I'll probably owe her for anything else.
It won't do us any good- the rigs won't travel outta the atmosphere- but it's somethin' if we need it.
[Peter wasn't expecting the news Rocket drops into his lap, all casually badass like he hadn't totally planned it (he had to, right? If it was him in Rocket's shoes, he would've been carefully planning out the perfect time to drop that bombshell]
You serious?
[After the whole thing with the mobile suits and Heero, Peter has a new appreciation for something as simple as a spacesuit disc. If Rocket can get more - more suits, more aero-rigs for those just in case scenarios - then he's all for that. You can never have too many. The stuff they don't use, they can probably barter, try to work their way up to a ride that isn't just flat-out stealing it and getting themselves on this planet's shit list right off the bat.
Rocket might have gotten the reaction he was looking for: Peter actually looks surprised and stops in his tracks, swinging around to face his crew mate with his eyebrows arched]
Sounds like a plan to me. Hit me up if she needs extra motivation.
[AKA Rocket shamelessly abuses the IOU and Peter will do his best to flirt another one out of her, assuming he's still got what it takes]
[Normally, Rocket would roll his eyes at the shameless implications, but they might have to follow what are commonly referred to as "prison rules" around here. Anything that gets them what they need, he's... willing to let Quill try.]
Yeah. But don't get your hopes up. She thinks I'm the coolest person she's ever met, so she might have good taste. [He smirks impishly- all things considered, he's still going to be a little bit of a brat about it.]
[Now maybe he hasn't been in as many hardcore shank-or-be-shanked prisons like Rocket here. But he's flexible and he gets that whatever you can do or sell to get your way, you gotta be at least open to the idea of some unsavory stuff to make that happen. Usually he'd say it's worth it most of the time]
Then you'll have no problem blinding her with your coolness.
[Peter will grudgingly admit that Rocket's...actually cool sometimes. But the coolest person in existence? Not too sure he agrees with that. Last thing he wants to do is even acknowledge to Rocket's smug face that he even thinks he's got a shred of coolness because that guy will run with it if you give him even an inch]
[He wheezes a delighted little snicker- even that little bit he'll take and run with. No one with as much self-loathing and self-deprecation as Rocket has should also have an ego that big, but that's Rocket for you. He contains multitudes and they're all contradictory.]
I probably don't have to tell you to keep it on the downlow. Last thing I need is anyone slitting my throat in my sleep to get at my bag.
Obviously. I know how to keep a secret, I'm not five.
[And he also knows when to sell one but Rocket's on that very short list of people that he wouldn't do that to. He isn't sure he'd say they're, like, best friends but he isn't a client, he isn't a mark, and he'd probably miss him if he ever got fed up of the Milano and took off.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beatupgrass) wrote2017-07-02 05:08 am
ACTION; for Peter Quill
Yo, Quill. I wanna do some scouting and some of these assholes are a little too trigger happy. I don't wanna get shot at, 'cause then I'll shoot back, and then this trip'll be a whole lot less fun for everybody.
no subject
He gets up when Rocket motions that he wants to talk - private-like]
I get you.
[As much as he gets there's some capable people here, people with legit skills and abilities, the kinds he wouldn't have minded on a heist watching his back, he also doesn't know them. Doesn't know the borderline civilians they got in the last wave, doesn't know what what stress will do to them. Rocket's a known quantity. Sure, he's an asshole three times bigger than his body, but at least he knows where his head's at.
Grabbing his quad blaster, automatically checking the settings with a flick of his wrist that's pure muscle memory, he picks up the flashlight someone, somewhere, scavenged, heads with Rocket away from the main camp. The buzz of conversation dies down after awhile]
You see anyone else? I saw Mantis but Groot, Drax and Gamora are still MIA.
...Ego too.
no subject
[Even as he says it, he cringes. Yeah, lucky. The station is under attack and he doesn't accept promises on faith alone. People have made him a lot of promises- hell he's done the same- and they haven't come to anything.
He's willing to work for the incentives he was promised, because he can't lose Groot again, and, as hard as he tries to push everyone away, he doesn't want to lose any of them. (Except maybe Nebula. She can take a walk.) That doesn't mean he can't be wary of how infallible their plans are.]
Not gonna lie, Quill, when Darma and her boytoy started talkin' about some other Celestial, I got a real bad feelin' it had somethin' to do with your old man.
no subject
He isn't my old man.
[Peter's already scowling in a kneejerk reaction, embarrassed that he'd even believed for a second that Ego could've been anything but a galactically huge asshole. He must have "gullible" written all over his forehead that everyone can see now]
I didn't see him with the others today. Could be he's in cryo and from what it sounded like, he hadn't run into any other Celestials while he was sleeping his way around the universe.
[Which might be good news. At least he thinks - hopes; crosses his fingers - that Ego won't have any of immortal buddies swinging by to check up on him.]
no subject
Yeah. [Rocket exhales in relief.] Kinda wish he'd heard about the one they made Knowhere out of. That would've knocked him down a peg.
[Maybe. It's the little things. Right now, they're all knocked down a peg, as evidenced by the fact that Rocket almost trips over an exposed branch while snickering about imagining Ego's face when he saw that hollowed out severed skull floating in space.
He staggers as he corrects himself, swearing at the offending root.] Sonuva-
no subject
[And Peter actually has it in him to grin a little at that, because that's all Ego was, in the end. Some douchebag who apparently had an immortal's stamina to go with his dick.]
You good?
[It's rhetorical, Peter's hand freezing just before he makes the mistake of instinctively reaching down to catch Rocket by his skinny arm. Spend a few months bumming around the galaxy cleaning up other people's messes and you tend to pick a few things up about your new crew. Rocket, he's learned, is real big on the no-touching. Groot's about the only one he's seen who can - who's allowed - to slide up into Rocket's personal space, a bubble that's surprisingly bigger than a human's. Peter used to think his was huge compared to the rest of the galaxy...until he met Rocket.]
Man, now I wish I'd asked him about that. Grilled him on Celestials while we had the window. [What if there's more out there? What if (and this is the part that has Peter quietly shitting his pants) what if Ego not even the worst one?]
no subject
[Classic Rocket- just hide the embarrassment with sarcasm and humor when anger isn't appropriate. Not that anger isn't usually appropriate where he's concerned, but this is a quiet moment.
Those are... very rare, especially where it concerns him and Quill. Honestly, given the fight they had before they reunited in the middle of Ego's attempt at universal conquest, it's kind of nice. In a way Rocket won't cop to. No one really needs to know that he genuinely wants to impress Quill like an extremely belligerent little brother might, and lacks the social skills to do it like a person who doesn't panic at the first sign of genuine affection. Sure, Quill is extremely lame and most of his bullshit consists of things that Rocket would never want the charisma to pull off (all things related to "pelvic sorcery," for example, make him want to gag), but everything he does, he makes it look effortless.
He could do just about anything and it would just work somehow.
...On second thought, he doesn't want anymore quiet moments. They give him too much time to think. In fact, he looks like he's been mulling over this Ego matter for longer than it really deserved.]
Well, I uh... I only knew the guy for five minutes, but he didn't strike me as the kinda guy who goes to all the fancy Celestial gatherings and shoots the shit. And I definitely don't think he picked that name 'cause it sounded ironic.
[It really was a day for dumbass names.]
no subject
Wonder if that's even the first one he went with or he just cycles through 'em.
[If Ego hadn't turned out to be the biggest douchebag in existence, he would've liked to sit him down and ask him all kinds of questions - problem is, now that he knows his true colors, how he killed Mom, and suddenly all the other questions are piling in too. Guess now they'll never get the answers.
Shrugging, he's silent for a bit while they go deeper, the trees closing in until he can only see flickers of the campfires through the trunks. Getting too deep into the sticks bothers him on a level: not a lot of resources, no idea how big the local wildlife is and the noise is way too different compared to the banging of the Milano as she chugs along on auto-pilot. He speaks again to break the silence, figuring they still need to talk about Ego...and Mantis]
What's your take on Mantis? Think she's someone you could trust?
[Look, he likes the lady, and he thinks she got a bum deal having to grow up with Ego. Doesn't necessarily means he'd jump to having her riding around as a new crewmate. He'd liked a lot of people in his lifetime, friends and business contacts and fuck buddies. Doesn't mean he trusts them, just like that.
Much as he butts heads with Rocket and one of these days he's convinced he'll find gray hairs that are so his fault, he's been around the guy long enough to feel like he'd want to know his opinion, too.]
no subject
I think she's too honest to be sleazy. Like a little bit of Drax and lot of Groot, too- Old Groot, that is.
[Groot, Jr. is a product of his environment, unfortunately. Which isn't exactly a bad thing- better than no Groot at all- but it does mean there has to be a distinction made between them when the twig isn't around to be confused by it.
Rocket crosses his arms over his chest and glances behind him, like he's going to find Mantis tailing them. It wouldn't matter if she was- what she told him in the pod chamber wasn't private. She'd probably tell Quill the same thing.
It's just... Habitual to make sure his private talks stay that way.] She said if given the chance, she'd get rid of Ego, herself. Damn the consequences. Now I dunno about you, but given our circumstances, that's not something I'd bullshit if I didn't have to.
And, again, if she's got anything in common with Drax, the long con is well beyond her.
no subject
I'm okay with that.
[Drax might be an (entertaining) pain in the ass, but the point is, he trusts the guy to have his back, to stand his ground in a fight instead of running. If Rocket says Mantis is like a combo of Drax and Groot, well...she can't be all that bad, then. Hell, maybe she'll kill his bathroom a little less and she won't be drooling sap everywhere whenever it's lunch: she manages those two, and Peter's easy: he'll totally dig that]
So she's legit is what you're saying. No funny business. [It almost seems too good to be true. Still, he'd talked with her himself and what he got out of it was she was...nice. He liked her. She was funny, in a disarming, almost unaware way. ]
Did she have any ideas about how she'd kill Ego?
[Feels weird to be talking about killing his Dad - or maybe it should feel more weird than it does. Far as Peter was concerned, he's got zero history with the guy. He's closer to a talking raccoon than his own flesh and blood dad, come to think of it]
no subject
No secret deals with Kree supremacists for the money to start herself a new life. No parlays with the Sovereign to keep her off their radar. Nothing.
His ears flick as he gazes up past the leafy canopy of the woods to catch sight of the unfamiliar stars- and the moon, specifically, which is supposed to be the station.]
Same way I said- try to destroy the pod somehow. It ain't like there's a planet core we can blow up this time. He's got nothin' but that body, so if it was ever gonna happen, it'd be before he wakes up- just in case.
no subject
[Peter doesn't sound a hundred percent sure on the pod idea. He remembers shooting his old man full of holes back on his planet, the quad blasters lighting up like it's a Fourth of July display on steroids, the barrels starting to overheat because he wasn't giving them a chance to cool down.
Then he'd seen Ego reform. How he kept walking and talking as a glowing network of...whatever knit quicker than any healing tech he'd seen. Real spooky. It's that mental image that keeps him from getting hopeful about the pod thing]
We can't do anything to the pod from down here, anyway. [He jogs his shoulders, frowns, and adjusts the robe that's toeing the line between keeping him from freezing his nuts off and being slightly too heavy to be comfortable. Feels like he's wandering around in a bathrobe.] We hit civilization, I want to see what their spaceport looks like.
[...if they even have one. It's a depressing thought]
no subject
If he thinks about it too hard, he'll get stuck in an endless cycle of what-ifs and "okay-but-alsos," which he does not need right now. Not when there's other, much more pressing matters to discuss.
Rocket claps his hands together, perking up immediately.] Hell yeah! They were handling us with kid gloves back on the station, but there's no way anyone can stop us from borrowing a ship just to take a look at what's out there.
[They'll come back. They have to. But Rocket doesn't want to spend the rest of his pathetically short life on one planet. He needs to be out there.]
no subject
Sobering thought. Never met a species he didn't know how to give some serious second thoughts to. Blame Yondu for teaching him that valuable lesson about the galaxy.]
I didn't see anything that was long range. Those mobile suits were pure suck.
[He really dug the lightsabers, though. Or the idea of them. But getting stuck in a mobiles suit twenty minutes out from the station, and you got a new respect for your average ship. Firepower and shields and life support and the whole part where you didn't need to have a spacesuit just to pilot it? Yeah, he took that for granted until now.
The corner of his mouth quirks as he glances down at Rocket. The guy's doing that thing again, the one that still weirds out his Earth-born side: when Rocket claps his little black hands together, it still takes Peter a split second to wipe away the mental image of your average trash panda washing an apple in some dirty puddle.]
You see a color you like, you got dibs.
[He hasn't said this yet, but there's also the scenario where they hit civilization and...there's no ships. Nothing that can do anything but fart around a moon and back, maybe, but long distance is a big no way.
Basically his nightmare scenario is Earth.
The very idea sends a shiver up Peter's spine]
no subject
[That said, there's another thing he needs to point out. His habit of being overprepared came in handy when they got swept up in all of this. He was carrying quite a bit in his pockets at the time.]
I got one spare spacesuit and three aero-rigs, but I can get more suits. [He lowers his voice conspiratorially.] There's this broad here who can replicate anything. She gave me a freebie, but I'll probably owe her for anything else.
It won't do us any good- the rigs won't travel outta the atmosphere- but it's somethin' if we need it.
no subject
You serious?
[After the whole thing with the mobile suits and Heero, Peter has a new appreciation for something as simple as a spacesuit disc. If Rocket can get more - more suits, more aero-rigs for those just in case scenarios - then he's all for that. You can never have too many. The stuff they don't use, they can probably barter, try to work their way up to a ride that isn't just flat-out stealing it and getting themselves on this planet's shit list right off the bat.
Rocket might have gotten the reaction he was looking for: Peter actually looks surprised and stops in his tracks, swinging around to face his crew mate with his eyebrows arched]
Sounds like a plan to me. Hit me up if she needs extra motivation.
[AKA Rocket shamelessly abuses the IOU and Peter will do his best to flirt another one out of her, assuming he's still got what it takes]
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Yeah. But don't get your hopes up. She thinks I'm the coolest person she's ever met, so she might have good taste. [He smirks impishly- all things considered, he's still going to be a little bit of a brat about it.]
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Then you'll have no problem blinding her with your coolness.
[Peter will grudgingly admit that Rocket's...actually cool sometimes. But the coolest person in existence? Not too sure he agrees with that. Last thing he wants to do is even acknowledge to Rocket's smug face that he even thinks he's got a shred of coolness because that guy will run with it if you give him even an inch]
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I probably don't have to tell you to keep it on the downlow. Last thing I need is anyone slitting my throat in my sleep to get at my bag.
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[And he also knows when to sell one but Rocket's on that very short list of people that he wouldn't do that to. He isn't sure he'd say they're, like, best friends but he isn't a client, he isn't a mark, and he'd probably miss him if he ever got fed up of the Milano and took off.
So maybe they are friends. Huh. Weird thought.]