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#rfh headcanons
raccoonfallsharder · 2 months
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I just found out Rockets VA can sing (really good actually) do you have any headcanons based on that?
mmmmm. sorry for the delay, i got distracted by rocket prompt week and also by thinking about rocket crooning in your ear.
he’s always humming, you know? (this is not a headcanon — it’s in the movies.) he’s often humming while he works. and that scene on berhert? where he’s sort of purring along with the music while plotting severe injury to the incoming ravagers? i…
sorry. focusing.
im sure the first few times you hear him mumbling lyrics under his breath, you damn near need to excuse yourself. you know you can’t call attention to it — in a best-case scenario, he'll stop singing entirely. you say nothing, and your silence is rewarded: rocket's mumbling a tune — so low your toes curl in your boots — almost whenever the two of you are working quietly on some project or another. most of the time, he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. the rest of the time, he thinks you can’t hear him.
once, while the entire crew was dicking around in the common room and rocket started humming under his breath, pete had commented on it. you'd shot him a murderous look but it had been too late: rocket’s ears had gone flat and his tail had tucked between his ankles and his eyes had swiveled around the room. he'd been shifting and snapping out harsh words so frantically that you were sure he was scarlet under his fur. you’d had to go a miserable dozen cycles before you’d stumbled across him lilting low to himself again in the engine room one night.
fuckin pete. you still haven’t forgiven that guy.
but things get easier — at least between you and rocket — after that. there's a day when rocket looks up and realizes that you can hear him — maybe you're swaying slightly to the sound of his voice, or lightly tapping the soft pads of your fingertips like raindrops on your knee. he stumbles to a fumbling halt. you don’t say anything, though: you just pass him an encouraging half-smile before returning to whatever you were doing. you’ll hang out with him regardless of whether you get to lull yourself to the sound of his deep, pretty voice or not, you figure.
it happens again — and then again. and eventually, rocket stops stopping. he sees you walk into the otherwise-empty common area while he’s clanging away on some new cannon, or you slide into the seat next to him while he’s piloting the bowie alone — and he tosses you a little smirk and keeps going, keeps humming those bars or rumbling those words up over his ribs and out the corners of his mouth.
you’re not the first person he’s sung to, of course.
there’s a reason groot loves music. when he was just a sprout, rocket would carefully place groot's small pot right next to where he lay his own head, and he’d croon a lullaby from star-lord’s library of songs. this was how the little flora colossus first learned to fall asleep — and how he woke up — every rotation for the first dozen cycles of his life. even when groot got a little bigger and could leave his pot and run around chasing orloni, he’d still drift off sprawled on rocket’s shoulder or across the top of his head: dozing to the sound of his father clinking away on aero-rigs while humming some melody or another.
even before that — i think rocket probably sung to groot the elder, too, at least once or twice. maybe the first time rocket had seen the big guy lose his limbs, before he'd learned that they would grow back. rocket had promised tibius lark that he’d look out for the flora colossus, and now here's groot — mutilated and in pain. rocket had tried to soothe the groaning, moaning groot to sleep, wracked by guilt before eventually realizing the big idiot was just a giant frickin’ crybaby with limbs that would essentially regenerate.
still, rocket hadn’t minded singing to his friend too much after that.
maybe even earlier, too. maybe there had been a time, after explaining music to his cagemates but before telling them about flying machines. maybe he’d hummed for batch 89 too.
they would’ve thought his childish voice was the most comforting, lovely thing they’d ever heard, i think. sometimes, as you might guess, the members of batch 89 would have nightmares or be in too much pain to close their eyes and rest, and when those nights happened, rocket would have hummed them back to sleep, all low and slow and sweet.
floor would have begged for songs every chance she got. teefs would have marveled at how beautiful rocket had sounded, and lylla — lylla would have told him, very solemnly, that he had a gift.
rocket doesn't think about that very often — tries not to think about those days at all, if he's being honest — but eventually, as you know, his past comes out. it's long after he’s gotten comfortable with you, of course — and raised his son, and saved half the universe, and purchased the skull of a god, and freed himself from the high evolutionary for the last time, and become a captain, but now—
now, he remembers lylla's words.
the star children descend from the arête and different households try to take them in, but it only takes one or two failed sleep-shifts across all of knowhere before it becomes apparent that none of the kids can rest. the children have nightmares — of course they do — and they’re used to sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder with each other in cages, on hard floors. they're used to whispering stories and comforts to each other, listening gratefully to the quiet words of their siblings, small hands gripping small hands in the darkness.
it takes a while to figure out, but eventually arrangements are made — at least until the kids can adjust. spaces are shifted so the children can nest together, and it helps — mostly. drax tries telling stories. cosmo recommends warm milk. howard suggests a quarter-shot of ginsky for each kid (you promptly put the kibosh on that one). nebula comes one night to tell the kids in great detail how she’ll destroy anyone who dares to harm them. you’re so happy mantis went on her journey to find herself but sometimes, when you see how exhausted and hollow-eyed the kids are in the morning, you just wish she were back so she could help them sleep.
and then suddenly it's a few cycles later, and you realize you haven’t heard any more concerns about the kids’ night terrors. you look around and realize they’re bright-eyed again, cheeks glowing, chattering at breakfast. curious as to what ended up working — if it was the indigarran lavender satchets sent by one of kraglin’s ex-wives or it it was the broker boring them with the droning details of the histories of various artifacts he’d once had in his shop on Xandar — you come visiting one night on tip-toe, just to check in.
rocket’s there — curled up on an old armchair someone had brought in for the neverending parade of storytellers and caregivers. his voice rolls over the sleepy children, and their eyelashes droop while he lingers on some notes and skips up and down others. the sound of it curls around them — and you. his voice nestles into the shadows, practically plucking up the edges of the blankets and tucking the kids in all on its own.
you watch as, handful after handful, they drift: eased deeply into dreaming by the power and protection of the captain’s voice, all on its own.
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raccoonfallsharder · 4 months
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wtf is wrong with me and why am i laughing so fucken hard like this is so hilarious to me and i don't know why
the infamous rocket pjs
i just couldn’t decide if i needed cute baby Rocket in too-big pjs or sexy Rocket looking ridiculous with his eye mask
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(forgive the ink splotches leaking thru from my previous sketchpage)
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i still haven’t written any answers to these questions
but one day i will
one day i will
probably should’ve given the baby the sleeping cap too. that woulda been cute. maybe if i ever clean this up
anyway close-ups behind the cut
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raccoonfallsharder · 4 months
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pete has yet to learn his lesson. keeps trying to make rocket & nebs “behave” at the annual nova corps gala.
keep fighting the good fight, you two
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i was kinda disappointed that neb’s what if? episode wasn’t more explicitly antifash but like. what was i expecting. that’s on me
about a thirty-minute doodle. first time drawing nebs & probs not my best rocket but who knows? maybe ill redraw at some point.
original
follow-up
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raccoonfallsharder · 1 month
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I wonder if there's any songs the guardians can't listen to, or just skip when they play on shuffle. Peter can't listen to Brandy because it just reminds him of his mother and of Ego. Maybe whenever he 'returns' his grandpa could have it playing on a record, and Peter just asks to turn it off, prompting an awkward conversation.
On a more humorous note Rocket can't listen to Crazy on You, especially around windows, without getting nervous. I'm imagining a scene where it comes on and Adam just appears behind him and sighs and says "This was playing the first time we met." And Rocket just waits a second and says "You crashed through a window and almost killed me with your flashy lazer hands but yeah, get nostalgic about it."
when i tell you i CACKLED. i scared my cats
i can absolutely imagine rocket staring up at adam with his most deadpan expression like are you shitting me right now and adam being completely clueless, just a small little wistful smile on his golden face. i suspect that adam sometimes calls rocket dad and rocket is like.... absolutely not.
(sure, rocket, whatever you say)
pete's all well grampa i met my dad and. i mean you probably guessed he wasn't a great guy since he took off on mom and all. but whatever you're imagining, it was worse. and he, uh-
grampa probably says something like no need to say more, pete. i've hated that guy since the first time your mom mentioned him. seemed like a real piece of work. he takes the record off the player and offers it to pete. do you want to break it?
maybe they do break it, or maybe they don't. either way, catharsis is had, and pete is relieved, and the record is never played again. pete picks out something new, and the two of them sit and bitch - rightfully - about ego, and pete talks about how he's pretty sure all his friends except groot and maybe drax have had terrible dads -
and at some point, between the dry laughter and the can you believe its, just under the low croon of aretha franklin and over the quiet whisper of the newspaper pages and the clink of the coffee cups on the table - pete tells his grandfather how lucky meredith had been, to have him for a father.
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raccoonfallsharder · 3 months
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I think Rocket's actually smarter than Tony in the sense that Tony has a bunch of super advanced tools. Sure a good amount of them he probably invented but we also know he steals inventions. He stole Quentin's hologram tech, who knows what else he didn't make. Tony has notepads and things to write stuff down, to visualise what he's doing, to keep track of equations. Rocket needs none of that, I've never seen him write down anything, it appears he can just do quantum mechanics in his head. Really the only Deus ex Machina tech Tony made that we see is the Arc Reactor. Rocket as you said regularly builds shit he's probably never conceived of before in minutes.
YESSSSSSS
all of this
great points, great points
i know iw/endgame were meant to serve a specific purpose of wrapping up the og avengers storylines but im like…. you all were like “how do make time machine?” and didn’t immediately call the guy who probably has to do regular maintenance (with unique upgrades) to make his spaceships survive literal jumps through the space/time continuum??
(everyone talks about the bowie’s ridiculous ship design but i headcanon that the mechanics of it generate a way of either condensing information or creating an “information shield” that allow for less wear-and-tear AND/OR outright danger of improper reconstitution through the jump-points if we assume they operate through mechanics similar to current theories on teleportation? has there been any canonical talk of how jump points work?)
anyway tony’s like. fine. i guess. but rocket was an underutilized resource, constantly & repeatedly & vocally underestimated & underappreciated by the avengers. possibly because of classism, or possibly because they continually are like (insert snooty condescending voice) “he eats trash! he’s a raccoon!”
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raccoonfallsharder · 3 months
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do you think Rocket could've used more "tech genius" moments in the movies? For someone supposedly smarter than Stark, it's not actually really shown..
love your fics btw AAAH
yayyyy! i love asks of any variety and it’s been a while since i’ve gotten one so thank you for this! ♡ unfortunately that means you’re getting a novel ( ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)*.゚ I’d love to hear YOUR thoughts if you wanna share! and also thank you for saying something so nice about my fics. im so glad you’ve enjoyed them!
and i'm turning this into
headcanon 18 ˚₊‧✶
a standard disclaimer: i am highly biased in the fact that i am like “every scene should have 100% more rocket, even scenes that are already rocket”
but i think two things are going on here
the first is that i think as a general audience, we read tony’s genius more easily than rocket’s (and yes this is a cultural indictment). tony spends a long time making a pretty iron suit with his bruce-wayne-money and some cool weird holographic touchscreens in a shiny lab, and people pick up on that more easily than rocket scavenging parts from the milano to make a bunch of bombs and a moon-killing firearm in five minutes (tantamount to less than a second of actual screen time) because it’s quick and grimy and he just keeps them in a dirty box. audiences are classist ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and im making this assertion because we do it all the time with real-life geniuses too
this relates to my second point which is that i think that “tech genius moments” probably don’t play well with a general audience when there are “too many” of them, and that in the main trilogy the writers relied on a lot of narrative cues that the audience was meant to pick up (but didn’t, or didn’t in quite the same way that they did with tony because again — pretty shiny lab vs dirty box) & we’re supposed to use those to attribute intuitive technological, strategic, and piloting genius to rocket
let’s break it down! (because im up early && work doesn’t start for another hour)
in volume one, when rocket breaks everyone out of the Kyln im pretty sure we’re meant to read that as a sequence establishing him as the tech & strategic mastermind of the group. i think that is meant to be confirmed in the sequence where in like five minutes he’s salvaged a ton of parts from the milano to make his box-o-bombs & the hadron enforcer, which is the weapon that makes the end of volume one possible, having been used to knock out ronan initially and to break the stone from the cosmi-rod or universal weapon or whatever. (keep in mind he repaired the hadron enforcer within moments of crashing the warbird into the dark aster, crashing the aster into a planet, losing his best friend, getting tossed around by the cosmi-rod, AND having only the resources available to him on a crash-site/battlefield. i do wish we’d gotten more of THIS sequence but like i guess we had to make time to watch chris pratt dance. whatever; i guess i get it from a cinematic standpoint — a classic “it was your story all along but the studio wanted us to focus on starlord” situation)
in volume two, every tech advancement the team has is directly or indirectly credited to rocket. the aero rigs being the main one, i think? but there’s also the mines in the berhert forests with the yondu clan, a conflict where one lil guy almost beat a hoarde of ravagers all by his lonesome due to his strategic genius (and i suspect still would have if not for the unexpected addition of nebula). we also have the dialogue with quill where he asserts that he’s a piloting genius. and rocket’s genius is once again the main reason they win the fight — his ability to create the battery-bomb in like twenty seconds or less.
in volume three, we see him invent gravity boots, we’re meant to attribute the creation of the bowie and presumably the entire speaker system threading knowhere to him (im not sure but possibly also the ocular cannon and some other other knowhere shit??). he’s responsible for all nebula’s upgrades (⸝⸝o̴̶̷᷄‸o̴̶̷̥᷅⸝⸝) which are FANCY. and even though he’s just a babby, we see him solving complex equations, resolving problems the high evolutionary struggled with, crafting a key out of stolen odds-and-ends, and piloting a spacecraft he’s probably never even seen before.. additionally the gravity boots circle back around and are key in his overcoming the high evolutionary (through a combo of tech skill & strategic genius)
i think, narratively speaking, this is a solid amount of “genius establishment” with the time we had, imo. if we made the movies longer to add in more genius moments, i would not complain, though!
THAT SAID. look infinity war and endgame treated our boy so badly. SO badly. i feel certain that given five minutes in Nidavellir he could’ve figured out another way to get that forge up and running. I think we see rocket with the science bros working on the gauntlet (a dynamic i would quite have enjoyed more if) and working on… maybe he’s prepping the benatar for the time heist? I can’t remember, but it’s when he gives stark the classic “you’re only a genius on earth” line. but iw/endgame didn’t give a fuck about the guardians (i get it, i get it, it was the send-off for the og avengers, whatever) so it’s a lot of weak shit and i do wish we had more things establishing him as the true brains of that outfit lol
ANYWAY that’s all my thoughts!! thanks for this really fun ask!!!
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raccoonfallsharder · 6 months
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i decided to take my fifteen-minute workday sketch and make it look (semi) presentable (thanks for inspiring this @lazarel-3000 )
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raccoonfallsharder · 1 month
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˚₊‧✶ headcanon 21 ✶‧₊˚
i write about raccoon sense of touch a lot [this kinda spicy rumination] and i think about it a lot
like two-thirds of a raccoon’s sensory perception area in the cerebral cortex is just… focused entirely on interpreting tactile data. their fingers have whiskers (okay, vibrissae) so they can identify objects without even making paw-contact. their hands become hypersensitive when wet (lord). if they identify things with their paws, they can remember them for up to/around a year without touching them again.
so yeah, when you press a kiss to rocket’s palm, it damn near lights up his whole brain. holding hands? palm-to-palm? it’s so intimate that he’s probably absolutely scarlet under all that fur. he probably thinks it feels like you might as well be reading his mind. he memorizes you the same way he memorizes every gun he takes apart and every bomb he puts together.
i suppose this means he thinks mostly in tactile sensation, too. when he’s imagining you, it’s less about the color of your hair (assuming the high evolutionary’s made sure he can see the same color-range as humans, anyway). it’s not about the clarity of your eyes, or how you’d looked with the sun haloing you that morning on xandar when he’d first let you touch his shoulder. nope. when rocket thinks about you, it’s how warm your hands are, every little soft pillow and rasping callus on your palm and fingertips. the brush of them through his fur, every one of his little hairs standing on end in its follicle. it's the shape of the bones in your wrists from that time he traced them into memory.
similarly, rocket doesn’t remember lylla’s liquid-dark eyes so much as the silkiness of her pelt, the cool graze of her vibranium-alloy hands. the delicate touch of the damp fabric on his forehead that very first day, and the squeeze of her arms on the very last.
and so, the natural outcome of all this is that he dreams in touch, too. it’s not the silver flash of scalpels and the blood on the ground — it’s not even the gunshots and floor’s desperate pleading and his own wails, or the scent of laser-burnt fur and blood — though of course those are all there too. it’s the pain he dreams of: feeling it fresh in his body, every incision and broken bone and careless laser-stitch, every screw and metal plate soldered in. it’s not the lights for their white-brightness; it’s the tearful squinting squeeze of his eyes, the burning in his pinpoint-pupils. it’s the way lylla’s body had buckled and loosened, and pulled from his arms to the ground by gravity — the last of her warmth wisping through his fingers, already a ghost between the cold arête cages. it’s the plummet in his own belly — that terrible twisting knot that dropped when his first family did, and never ever stopped.
all that pain. it’s so much. it’s so much to make up for.
it’s so much to make up for.
but you’ll get started.
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headcanons & imagines masterlist
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raccoonfallsharder · 7 months
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headcanon 8
the very first time rocket ever felt physical touch - intended kindly - was when a loving otter reached through the bars of their shared cages and tenderly pressed a bit of fabric to his forehead, carefully cleaning his open wound. she couldn’t take away his pain, but she could try to make the healing easier. she could sit beside him in his hurt, and offer him kindness through the compassion of her touch.
rocket carries this memory in his body: as real and tangible as his reinforced bones, his replaced pelvis, the steal rods that press his shoulders out and to the sides. as visceral as the aching scars and terminals, the bruised and contorted muscles, the painful bolts and bars. alongside all these physical things lives this ghost of that first kind, comforting touch - and the loss of it.
he carries that ghost with him always, even right into the battle for xandar.
afterward - while he’s lost again to pain, cut open by the sacrifice of the last best friend he’s ever known - another hand reaches out. it is also gentle. and kind. and careful. it touches the same spot on his forehead and strokes, and it says, i can’t take your pain, but i can be with you while you’re in it.
rocket doesn’t flinch because he associates drax’s touch with his own history as the recipient of violence and pain. he flinches because, for just the softest breath of a second, he feels lylla.
and he isn’t wrong, exactly.
there are the hands that guide the hands, after all
@evolvingchaoswitch ♡ @wren-phoenix ♡ @pretty-chips ♡ @suicidalshitstick
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raccoonfallsharder · 8 months
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headcanon 7
thank you all for so much wonderful artistic advice but I gotta be honest I am probably only drawing rocket once to get this image out of my head and then never again. but if I do you will all be the first to know (and seriously the artistic advice is appreciated & I love that everyone in this community is literally like JUMPING to help out fellow artists or in my case doodlers)
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acab includes corpsman dey ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ i don’t make the rules. the nova corps is an organization rooted in kree imperialism && this guy escaped over twenty-two prisons
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raccoonfallsharder · 5 months
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so @thirteens-lucky-tardis had a lovely headcanon about Rocket just absolutely entranced by lava lamps. And I love it and it made me think like, take a moment to just breathe, or relax for a second or something? Just sit here and look at this frickin’ lamp thing. Idk it was such a nice visual I thought I’d bring it up to you ☺️
i went hunting for this but couldn't find it! i need to read it o(╥﹏╥)o
it makes complete sense. i'm just imagining you notice how much he likes yours - maybe you come home one day and you can't find him. he's normally clanking around with some invention or another - dismantling your toaster or building a new gun. muttering to himself, or humming one of those old songs. but today your apartment is silent, and if it weren't for the runabout still parked on the roof like a goddamn sleigh, you'd think he'd gone right back up into the stars.
you find him in your room, staring at the lava lamp that he must've turned on at some point. he's transfixed. it's the first time you've seen him still and quiet in your entire time of knowing him.
"are you okay?" you ask him cautiously.
he doesn't look away - just reaches out with one clawed hand and beckons you. "here-" he says, gesturing for you to come over. "-get over here. look at this weird frickin' thing."
a little chuckle huffs its way up out of your lungs, a breath like the beat of a small bird's wing. you come and perch next to him on the bed. i like to think you both lose time like this: breath slowing, hearts slowing, eyes growing heavy. At some point, he shifts and curls into a ball next to you, a compact bundle of fur pressing warmth into your thigh and flank. He rests his chin on your knee, eyes following the soft floats of wax, reflecting the slow-moving light.
i imagine you both end up dozing off, actually. much-needed naps for the two of you.
of course rocket remains entranced in the coming days and eventually - maybe for winter holidays, or as a parting gift - you give him a package to take with him back to knowhere. two lava lamps: one to keep, you tell him, and one to take apart.
i imagine he comes back to visit you often. you're basically best frickin friends - how could he stay away? no matter how much he hates this rotten mudball, you're here, and that makes it a little bit of a home. on one visit - months later; maybe a year - he finally convinces you to join him. he's still trying to get you to move permanently out to knowhere so you can hang out whenever he's not, like, saving the galaxy - but for now, he just wants you to see how it is. a little vacation, he tells you.
he's sure you'll fall in love.
and you do. the streets, the people, the life. cosmo and kraglin and nebula. drax and the kids. yaro root is surprisingly delicious, and they put it in everything. the streets are built on music. string-lights spangle the streets when the artificial sun sets, and the milky fizzes are way more delicious than they'd sounded when rocket had described them.
and those aren't even the best parts.
the best part is when you head in to rocket's place later that night, after meeting everyone and sharing food and playing card games and listening to music and talking for the majority of the night. though rocket has a few other places he think you might like to actually live if he's successful in persuading you to stay, he'd planned on you crashing at his place for the duration of your visit. you both stumble in the shadowy doors - a little buzzy out of pure exhaustion and happiness.
and then he turns on the lights.
rocket doesn't think about it - doesn't even realize he hadn't already told you about it. but the dark room slowly blooms into a soft, moon-pale glow, all the light emanating from dozens on dozens of smooth, luminous columns.
rocket's whole apartment is jeweled with lava lamps.
they're set into shelves lining the space above his workbench. there's a massive pillar of soft light shining next to his bed - his real bed, mattress and everything, because he knew you were comin' and though he'd never say it, your comfort is important to him. there are lamps set into the walls, into the corners. a hundred strange, alien light-forms, plucked from planet earth like flowers and improved: made safer, made softer, made more hypnotic and soothing.
inadvertently, from millions of lightyears away, you've touched this place. you've helped turn his shell of a living space into a home for him - into a haven.
a soft bed.
blankets and pillows.
the beautiful living light of countless shimmering columns, welcoming him into something close to peacefulness, something close to rest.
the two of you stay up late that night: sprawled on the soft, cozy mattress, bundled up in blankets. talking, warming the air with your words and your breaths and your quiet laughs. you both watch the shifting shadows on the walls and the swimming shapes of the wax, as slow-moving as moon-jellies, and just as lovely. your eyelashes and his both grow heavier and heavier, softer and softer, until they rest, finally, feather-light on your cheeks.
and eventually, wrapped in these plush shadows and quilts and the quiet glow, you both fall asleep.
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raccoonfallsharder · 3 months
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I think Rocket would be like, INSANELY good at Hanayama Enigma puzzles. They're these little puzzles made out of interlocking metal parts, and the goal is to take them apart and then put them back together. I could see him just coming across one and fiddling with it for a few seconds before having it taken apart not even realizing it's supposed to be a challenge. He's so good at intuitively knowing how things fit together that these puzzles would be no match for him.
sorry for my delay, sweet nonnie. i've been a little burnt-out and reclusive lately, and i apologize! i'm back now (sorta), and so grateful you sent me this ask. i had to look these up and then i fell into a hole watching youtube videos of people solving them. wild. my brain does not work this way.
rocket's brain, however, absolutely works this way. you are 100% correct. of course, you'd know. the first time he sees you fucking around with one of these puzzles, he peers over your shoulder for a whole two seconds before being like, you're doing it wrong.
you don't even know what i'm trying to do, you say, annoyed, and he rolls his eyes.
fuck off. do too. twist that piece there. no, not that much. moron.
you follow his less-than-stellar directions - more out of curiosity than anything else - and outside of a few false starts when he's just not being clear about what he wants you to do, every new step takes you closer to the perfect solution.
it would be enraging if it weren't for how fascinated he looks. not by the puzzle itself, so much as the idea that it is a puzzle. for him, it just makes sense. he looks at these pieces of metal and - from your perspective - it's like he can see right through time, to the thing it's supposed to be. and god forbid he gets his actual hands on it. he's even faster when you convince him to try one himself and to do it blindfolded. if anything, it's almost like his eyes get in the way.
of course, it makes sense. every gun and weapon and ship he builds is ultimately just a bigger puzzle.
he doesn't understand why any of these toys are more difficult for you to figure out than something as simple as a clothespin, and that's what's got him all entranced. if you can understand how a key works in a lock or how to take apart a quad blaster to clean it, why can't you understand how to dismantle this tiny sculpture and put it back together again? that's the real puzzle, as far as rocket's concerned, and it's the one he decides he's gonna solve. so he starts making puzzles of his own - for you - little bits of interlocking metal, shapes that come together into new shapes. he tries to figure out the perfect combination of pieces that makes a thing hard for you to solve, but not too hard.
when a planet isn't being saved and the galaxy doesn't need guarding, this is how the citizens of knowhere find the two of you: in the dim dusky light of the artificial knowhere sunset, sitting outside mantlo's with either a pair of gargleblasters (yours is watered down) or milky fizzes, depending on the night. both of you are clinking away, the streetlights reflecting on the smooth glossy pieces of metal in your hands. you're trying to figure out the most recent puzzle rocket has given you, and rocket's busy bending and twisting metal to make the next one.
i'm using you, he tells you one night, after he's finished crafting your next puzzle and is just drinking his booze and looking down the street, watching people snack on streetfood and the star children play something like tag because drax is a pushover when it comes to enforcing bedtimes.
yeah? you mumble distractedly.
mmhm. he nods solemnly. i figure out how hard a puzzle is, depending on how long it takes your dumb ass to solve it. then, when some asshole comes to ask me questions or wants something, i give it to them so they get distracted and leave me alone.
yeah, okay, captain, you drawl, taking a sip of your drink and going back to the cool metal between your fingers. you've seen him doing exactly what he's describing, but you've noticed he never gives anyone a puzzle that's too difficult for them - just something for them to wrap their minds around for a few rotations, something to stretch their brains. they're always so proud when they come back to their captain with their toy figured out, even if he just gives them a blank stare - pretending he really does think they're idiots.
of course, the people of knowhere see right through him.
rocket's such a hard ass, you mock. who knew.
he makes a typical scoffing sound, but when you look up, you can see him: watching his people with soft eyes. nebula's out today, talking with some of the vendors, and one of the kids is perched on her back. you can hear drax laughing down the street, and somewhere, cosmo barks happily. rocket's shoulders are relaxed, and his tail flicks lazily, and you're not sure you've ever seen him so at ease.
you lean over and nudge him with your elbow.
joke's on you, bud.
everyone here just thinks you're handing out presents because you like them.
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raccoonfallsharder · 9 months
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headcanon 5
Rocket was taken from Earth/Terra around the exact same time as Quill. Intergalactic attention is increasingly on Terra in the late 1980s (the Kree are searching for Mar-Vell, Skrull refugees are moving in, Ravagers are trawling for Ego’s son. Both Quill and Danvers get snatched within about a year of each other). This is when the High Evolutionary’s attention is also drawn to Terra, and he harvests his initial crop of Terran wildlife, as well as his concept of Terran culture, as we see play out on CounterEarth / HalfWorld.
It’s possible that Rocket and Quill were scooped within days of each other. Within miles of each other. It’s possible that a distressed and grieving eight-year-old Pete, in the days before his mother’s death, was roaming around outside the hospital while his grandfather went to pick up some dinner for them both from the cafeteria. It’s possible that he stumbled across a tiny den of raccoons high up in a tree, and they watched him curiously while he kicked rocks and scrubbed at his wet eyes. This little boy - who is angry and mourning his dying mother, who gets into fights for protecting small frogs, whose teachers lament his behavior as if he’s not going through one of the worst things a kid can go through - sees these tiny animals peering down at him with their big eyes and their dark masks, and for just a minute - for maybe the first time in days or weeks or longer - he smiles.
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raccoonfallsharder · 9 months
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headcanon
sex-workers are some of the only professionals rocket respects don't bother trying to change my mind
he thinks they're criminally underpaid. tips well. something something bodily autonomy.
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raccoonfallsharder · 2 months
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˚₊‧✶ headcanon 20 ✶‧₊˚
comics-rocket raccoon has eclectic cinematic tastes.
you'd think a guy like that would be all about the action and heist movies, but they actually annoy him to the point of fury. imagine skottie young's rocket waving rageful fists while he screws up his furry face and bellows cursewords at the screen, crimson eyes gleaming and teeth flashing.
they're so flarkin' impractical, he tells you later, mournfully, cradling his second six-pack of acanti blubber ale against his chest. i'd do it so much better.
ewing's rocket is too serious and cynical to allow himself to be seen enjoying movies, but you're suspicious. He always seems to have something to work on in the common room when drax is watching his intergalactic soap operas and his very-earther k-dramas. you're pretty sure you once saw him dismantle and rebuild an ion blaster four times in one sitting just so he wouldn't miss the end of romance is a bonus book.
he never acknowledges the screen and if you'd asked him to tell you about what you'd missed in today's episode of drax's current favorite historical love story, the missing princess of zen-whoberi, rocket would probably just stare at you blankly and tell you he didn't have a frutackin' clue what you were talking about.
but he knows. you know he knows.
mcu rocket? well. like many of his space-faring contemporaries—
he just frickin' hates actors.
they're liars, he reasons. pretending to be something they're not. and worse. kevin bacon's not too bad, but rocket only has a soft spot for him because he met the guy personally, and kb had apologized for the raccoon-comment. you try to repackage the idea to rocket: actors aren't liars, you say to him. they're story-tellers.
but the idea of a fiction that isn't a lie is hard to sell. and games of pretend are dangerous.
you eventually get him to settle into your living room for some reality television, which you remind him is still cut and clipped and manipulated to represent something that is only perhaps marginally-true. he snickers and makes rude comments the whole time, but seems to enjoy it — falling asleep curled around the enormous bowl of popcorn you'd made to sustain him while he binged the latest season of love is blind.
eventually, he shows a willingness to try to watch some other things with you. he's distrustful at first, but after some time, you catch him sniffling during certain scenes, and on the edge of his seat in others. like his skottie young counterpart, he's not a big fan of action and heist movies, always rolling his eyes with annoyance. he finds space-comedy to be boring as hell, staring flat-eyed at the screen — but serious space-dramas are hysterical to him. he cackles through every star wars movie and is literally crying with laughter during jupiter ascending and rebel moon. perhaps unsurprisingly, it's the documentaries he loves: nature and culture and pyramid schemes, though he's always mumbling about how frickin' primitive terrans are. he's also weirdly into slow, pensive coming-of-age dramas, which had surprised you until you'd realized that rocket's transition into adulthood must have been something far more traumatic than you could ever dream.
one more thing you've noticed about his viewing habits — he's got no taste for horror. when you mention it, he tells you that there are too many monsters out there to watch more of them in here.
except for michael flanaghan's fall of the house of usher, which rocket has watched in-full at least three times — possibly more often, because you're pretty sure he's hacked your netflix account and is watching stuff from space when you're not around. and you're not sure why he keeps watching it, when it makes him so damn morose afterward.
wish there was justice like that in the universe, he only mutters when you ask.
it's a haunting little curl of sound, coming from his mouth. so you don't press it — just hand him tonight's bowl of popcorn, studded with m&ms, and wrap the blanket around the both of you together.
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i had to take a break from pompt week i'm sorry! the bite prompt is killing me. i rewrote it fifty-seven times (well, five) so i'm just gonna give myself a day or two to come back at it with fresh eyes. in the meantime please have this kinda depressing headcanon as a peace offering
also now i just gave myself the idea for a oneshot of rocket as a - participant? player? - on love is blind sooooo that might happen. eventually. i currently have too many ideas and not enough time.
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raccoonfallsharder · 9 months
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headcanon 4
after five years of being each others' only family, when rocket sees nebula (2014) arrive on the quantum platform, he can tell something is off. sure, the luphomoid doesn't broadcast her thoughts the way other people do (especially these frickin' terrans) but he's developed the ability to pick up on the nuances of her body language and expressions. the other avengers are freaking out about nat (and yeah, sure, it's sad, but he and nebs never made gamora's death and all their collective loss in the snap anyone else's problem, did they?) but rocket notices that the tension in nebula's body is different from what he's used to. he knows nebula's i am excited to fight tension, her i am irritable and cranky today tension, her i didn't know i could miss anything but i miss my sister tension, her my implants are causing me pain tension. but this tension is different from all the others. right now, she reminds him of the nebula he'd met on ego: all bundled-up hostility and electric resentment, without a frickin' friend in the galaxy.
he makes a face at her. someone else in the circle might think it's some kind of weird "animal" expression - eyebrows raised, lips grimacing, ears forward-facing and attentive - but nebs knows what it means. it's a face that says dude, are you okay? what the fuck happened out there? you're actin frickin weird. nebula doesn't even blink at him, doesn't even look at him. doesn't seem to recognize him at all.
the other avengers argue out their grief, leaving the platform without a second look to move their mourning to the lakeside. nebs takes her cue from them and disappears, and rocket's like, something's wrong with blue. gotta make sure she's okay. she's his only crew, after all.
stark calls out from the lab. "i'm adding the stones to the gauntlet," he tells rocket. “i could use you and banner there as our other two resident geniuses. just to make sure nothing goes wrong." what the fuck is rocket gonna do if something goes wrong? it's a stupid request. his eyes trail the path nebula took when she left the platform. "pretty sure you science bros can handle it without me," rocket says, turning to follow her.
"you're the one who pointed out i'm only a genius on earth," stark reminds him. "c'mon, pom poko. go get banner and let's do this."
"apparently you're also only funny on earth, 'cause i don't get that reference," rocket says, rolling his eyes. but he grimaces, and reluctantly redirects his feet so he can retrieve banner from the edge of the lake.
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