A Lovelier And More Poignant Beginning And Ending I Haven’t Read. I Cried And Smiled At The Same Time.

A lovelier and more poignant beginning and ending I haven’t read. I cried and smiled at the same time.

the raccoon, the witch, & the roadtrip.✮ part seven. you've arrived at your destination.

the raccoon, the witch, & the roadtrip masterlist prev | main masterlist

angst, comfort, friendship, & fluff for @hibatasblog rocket & wanda | part 7/7 | word count: 3006.

rocket and wanda complete the most important mission in the galaxy.

During a watch party for Avengers: Endgame on Twitter, Markus revealed the idea to team Wanda with the Guardian of the Galaxy captain actually made it into several versions of the film's script. "We had whole drafts with Wanda on a road trip with Rocket," Markus wrote, "but after the Vision plot in Infinity War, nothing we came up with was anything but wheel spinning for her character." CBR

Needless to say, Rocket hadn’t slept that night. He thinks he might never sleep again. The witch had said what she’d said and he’d promptly spun on his heel and said Welp, time for me to get to bed, and parked himself on the sofa at the foot of the mattress. He’d stayed there all night, staring up wide-eyed at the ceiling, each hand clutched into a pocket: the key-plate in his right palm, and the zune tucked into his left. Both memorized so well by his fingertips that he could take them apart and put them back together, blindfolded in the dark — both grafted onto the skin of his hands so lovingly that the ghosts of their shapes stay with him always, whether he’s awake or sleeping.

It hadn’t been his finest captain-moment. He can admit that to himself. Wanda had just told him something all…vulnerable an’ shit, and he’d been a jackass.

He’s been trying to get better about stuff like that. Not that Rocket would recommend himself as an ideal person to talk about feelings with, but he’s been trying. Kraglin’s surprisingly softhearted and Rocket’s had to get used to offering some awkward emotional first-aid every once in a while, even if he is frickin’ useless at it. And both himself and Nebula get drunk enough that sometimes they end up saying things they’d never say sober.

But the witch had said what she’d said, and every strand of Rocket’s fur had stood up in its follicle, prickling with awareness and an instinctive fear. He’d kept track of his sire’s whereabouts, more or less, since his own escape from HalfWorld. At least, he’d listened for the gossip. But he hadn’t considered where else the bastard might’ve had labs back when Rocket himself was still just a kid, still just a scrawny degenerate escapee on the run, living on the streets of Contraxia and Conjunction and anywhere else he could lay low.

He hadn’t considered the High Evolutionary might’ve ever come to Terra. That even this backwater mudball might not be safe.

So Rocket had tossed and turned all night and stared sullenly out at the landscape all morning, drinking the rest-stop coffee Wanda had silently brought him in some kind of terrible cup she called styrofoam. Now he watches her sideways through slanted crimson eyes, calculating. The lab she’d walked into willingly, with the infinity stone — that had been some bad decision-making on her part. But the other — the place in the mountains, when she’d just been a little humie gargoyle? The one where Herbert E Wyndham had probably gripped her jaw with his palm and wrapped his spindly fingers around the back of her skull like he was measuring it, ready to crack it open and feast on what was inside? Unlikely she’d ever had any sort of choice in that.

And besides. Who’s Rocket to judge, really? It’s not like he hasn’t made a bad decision or two since being raised in the High Shitbag’s lab.

“Sorry,” he grunts at last, into the weird plastic lid on the styrofoam cup. The coffee smells bitter and acrid, and it tastes worse. Not like the stuff that comes outta Nat’s Nespresso, or even the shit they’d had at the little diners sprinkled throughout their route across this stupid continent.

Her eyelids flicker. “I’m not sure what you’re apologizing for,” she says at last, dryly, gaze still locked on the mountains and trees ahead of them.

Some kind of weird sound shuffles up from under his ribs: something between a scoff and a reluctant groan. He pinches the bridge of his nose, right between his eyes, and scrunches his body down into the stack of books and the chair cushion under his ass. His tailtip flicks out his discomfort in dots and dashes. He’d always been on the outside — since Halfworld. He’d had his little family — his precious family — in the cages. And then he’d been alone, apart, and separate. No thing like me ‘cept me.

What did the galaxy ever do for you? he’d asked Pete, shrill on the side of a blown-apart skull, still reeling from the tidal wave of purple death. The High Evolutionary’s afterimage had seemed burned into his retinas, glowing the same color as the power stone’s blast. Why would you want to save it?

Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in it!

No thing like me ‘cept me, he thinks again. But he’d found his second family, his second precious family — of morons. And he’d found Nebs, almost as singular as himself in the ways she’d been remade.

And now there’s Wanda. Maybe something like a sister, if he dares to think that way again.

“Don’t give yourself a migraine,” the witch says sardonically with a sideways flick of her own dark-star, volcanic gaze. He cuts a glare at her from behind the squeeze of his fingers, and makes sure she sees it.

“Can’t give myself what I already frickin’ got,” he mutters, and there’s a soft breath of a chuckle from her corner of the Terran vehicle. He sighs again. “I dunno. Shoulda said somethin’ last night. Not good at that shit. But what you said…” He hesitates. Clears his throat. Swallows. “Reminded me of some things I’d rather not think about.”

She arches a dark-cherry brow skeptically. “You met an evil, purple-clad mad scientist with no face, too?”

He cringes, and does what he does best: evades. “More or less.”

I'm one of the idiots who lives in it!

Rocket had been lucky to find his idiots. A little pocket of belonging in the glittering junkyard of the galaxy. He drops the hand that’s been pinching his brow and tilts a curious look at Wanda now: open. Thoughtful.

Ain’t no thing like me ‘cept me — except the witch reminds him of himself: his whole first family lost, and then with nothing and no-one to his name. Not till he’d found himself in a pit-prison with a robot and a flora colossus, promising to take care of Groot. Rocket himself doesn’t need any taking-care-of, of course.

…but Wanda seems like she maybe needs a Groot.

And then her own pack of idiots, ‘cause the frickin’ Avengers sure ain’t it.

He clears his throat again, and flips the zune in his hand nervously. His eyes dampen and he looks out the window at the flashing scenery. Terran vehicles are so slow, but sometimes — like this — there’s so much to see that they still feel fast. “I think we got more stuff in common than I realized, is all,” he admits at last, and turns back to narrow his eyes on the witch until she finally glances over, her eyes shifting from the road to his face.

“What?” Wanda asks.

“Meant what I said the other day,” he says at last. The words are slow and measured. Deliberate. For once, he doesn’t leave space to hide behind any sarcasm or jokes. “You should think about comin’ and hanging out with the cool kids in space.”

“Turn here,” Rocket says, consulting the map he’s made on his datapad and pointing at a sidestreet. His clawed hands grip the cylinders that hold the screen open, and the zune is tucked safely between his knees. Then he points. “Now here.” It’s been a maze of streets for the last hour or so, and he wishes Terran travel weren’t so damn two-dimensional. If he’d had the Benatar, he could’ve just dropped down right on top of the place.

“Can you tell me what we’re doing yet?” the witch asks dryly. “How am I supposed to help you if I don’t know—”

“Here, turn here,” he interrupts urgently, and Wanda taps the brakes and lurches to an undignified stop. Her red-dark eyes slash to him, confused, and then furious. Somebody honks, and she mutters something under her breath in a language that his translator identifies as Terran-Sokovian but can’t interpret. She drifts the car across the bikelane and against the curb.

“I said turn,” Rocket mumbles sulkily.

“Microsoft?” she growls. The sound is incredulous, but not condemning. Not yet. “Danvers has you completing a mission at the Microsoft campus?”

Rocket grimaces, then offers up what he hopes is a charming smile, even though he knows he’s a toothy little goblin without an ounce of charisma in his scarred-up, metal-riddled body. He can feel his ears trying to flatten plaintively, against his will. It’s not like he’s suddenly developed a conscience or anything, but…

“Uh. Hm. About that—“

Wanda throws the car into park. A biker swerves around her and gives her the finger, a gesture Rocket recognizes from having seen it delivered almost-daily by Pete. The witch ignores it though, crossing her arms over her chest and turning in her seat to glower at Rocket.

“What kind of evil lurks at the heart of the Microsoft campus?” she drawls sarcastically, but he sees an escape hatch and his ears prick forward.

“Actually—”

“If this is another one of your rants about how fucked-up Terran capitalism is, save it,” she cuts in flatly, and he blinks and tries to remember if he’s heard her swear before. “We all know.”

He gives her a look he just knows can only be interpreted as a pout, and tries to cover it up with a scowl. “Not well enough to change anything, though. F’you people would just adopt the Intergalactic Accords—”

“Enough,” she says sharply, and for a second she’s so like Gamora that it brings a sheen of tears into his eyes and a lump like an infinity stone into his throat. “Rocket. Were you serious about me coming to space?”

He blinks again at the shift in subject. Verbal whiplash. He hadn’t thought she’d even been considering it — not really. Someone should let her know that come hang out with the cool kids really means come hang out with the losers — the people who lose things. But all that comes out of his mouth is,

“I was.”

He cringes. There’d been more sincerity in those two words than he’s entirely comfortable with.

“Then start telling me the truth,” she grows, her voice low and ominous. Each word is clipped and demanding — unyielding. Unwilling to be dissuaded. Rocket grimaces, lips curling back from his teeth, and coughs a little, trying to scratch out some words.

“Okay,” he mutters at last. “Okay. So, maybe Danvers didn’t send me on a mission.”

Wanda groans and rolls her face into her palms. “You lied to Natasha?”

Not, you lied to me, which Rocket decides is a good sign. Or maybe he’s just fundamentally optimistical after all. The captain of the Guardians of the Galaxy lifts one shoulder in a cautious shrug. “I lie to most everybody at some point.”

Wanda makes a sound that might have been a laugh, if it hadn’t been so choked in frustration.

“In my frickin’ defense, I did need to come out here an’ see this place,” he adds quickly. “And Nebs really is busy workin’ on making Knowhere into a place for refugees with Kraglin and Cosmo. Just got in a transport of displaced Xandarans and everything.” He winces. “Not that those three morons are very good at refugee-work. But like Pete used to say, it’s the thought that costs—”

“—that counts,” Wanda snaps. She lifts her head from her palms and glowers. “And you needed to see this place for what.” It’s delivered so tonelessly that his translator almost doesn’t pick up on it being a question. “So help me, if you tell me this is some…. bizarre space-alien tourist-type shit while everyone else is back in New York doing very important things—”

He grapples. He’s such an impulsive frickin’ creature and he never thinks things through. He’s had days to scheme up what to tell her and now here they are, and he’s been caught empty-handed. “Look, I was just hoping for some ideas to improve my tech—”

“Your tech is better than anything on this planet,” she almost-snarls. “And you know it—”

“What not to do, then—”

“Stop lying.”

He hates the way the words claw and crawl up his ribs, scrabbling scabbed little gremlins with gawky unhinged limbs, like bony monsters climbing in his throat. He tries to cage them with his teeth, but they pry open his jaws and tumble out anyway, sticky and keening and malformed.

“I read they made the zune here.”

The words hit the console between the two of them and lay there, pathetic and dripping over the armrests, into the cupholders. Another biker swerves past the car and somewhere, someone honks. Rocket clenches his jaw and looks away, glaring at the decimated dashboard and the upgraded sound system that looks like a wreck. The datapad snaps shut and he grips the two cylinders in one fist, crossing his arms and trying to pull up every defense he’s still got in his arsenal—

Wanda breathes out, and he can feel it when she deflates against the car door.

“You could’ve told me that,” she says quietly.

He snickers darkly. “Would you have come? Drove me out here from New York, and left all the other Avengers doing their very important things?” The words are a sneer.

The witch sighs, and he winces in spite of his commitment to pretending to be unbothered. “I don’t know,” she admits. “Maybe not at first, but honestly, there wasn’t much keeping me in New York anyway. And — look at me, Rocket.”

He doesn’t want to. Sure, maybe he’s acting too sullen to be considered much of a captain right now, but there’s comfort in sullenness and he’s decided he kinda hates being the captain if it means he has to give up Pete and the others to do it. But Wanda waits, and eventually, he deflates too, and turns his firestorm eyes to hers.

But hers aren’t glowing right now — not like when she’s mad, anyway.

Huh.

He’d always thought her irises were dark around the fire, but he suddenly realizes they’re actually a kind of tawny hazel: clear, and soft, and sad.

And honest.

“You could’ve told me back in Chicago,” she says, so gently it hurts. “In Pennsylvania, even. I would’ve said we should keep going. I would’ve wanted you to be here.”

His mouth feels suddenly dry, and every nerve is scraped raw and wounded. He tosses the closed datapad into the backseat and palms the zune from where it’s still gripped between his knees. “It’s stupid,” he admits. “Sen’imentalistic—”

“I think it’s a really good idea,” she interrupts, and her voice is a quiet hum. “I at least—” She hesitates, and he hears her throat working. “Thanos took the part of Vis that made him Vis, and someone—” She stumbles. “I never saw his body after Wakanda. I don’t know who did it, but someone took that away from me, too. And I think not having any little part of him made losing it all so much harder.” She closes her eyes, and Rocket feels his ears flatten further when the corner of her mouth trembles. “I know — with the Snap, I know it was like that for you too. If there’s something you can do that makes you feel closer to — to Pete, then you should do it.” Her eyes open and meet his again, and hold them. “We should do it. Together.”

Rocket feels himself swallow. The witch doesn't remind him of Gamora right now. Instead, her voice and all the words in it sound like they're coming from Lylla. He looks away — out the front, and then out the copilot-side window. Passenger-side, he corrects himself mentally. Tears clutter up on his lower lashes, silvering everything in his line of sight. “What about your very-important Avengers things?”

There’s a sound in the back of her throat that he can’t identify: something cynical, and amused, and sad.

“I’ve never really been much of an Avenger,” she admits softly. “Besides. At this point, I’m beginning to feel like this is the most-important thing we could be doing right now.”

The silver runs over his lower lids and into his fur. He sighs, and scrubs the back of his paw over the end of his nose, and slants his head toward her. When he speaks, he can’t keep the words from sounding strangled. “There’s, like, tours or some shit here. At this Microsoft-place.” He tries to wrangle out a cocky smirk, but he knows it falls lopsided on his mouth. “Real tourist-type shit.”

Wanda huffs out a low, forlorn little laugh. “I have a feeling you’re going to be disappointed,” she tells him. “This company has nothing on your inventions, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He shrugs, and something in him eases. He allows himself a single sniffle while the tight knot of ice in the back of his throat starts to melt at the edges. “If it’s all crap, I can still enjoy myself by makin’ fun of it,” he reasons, and she snorts softly. Those eyes of hers are warm with affection.

“Even though they made the zune?" she teases gently.

He opens his palms in mock-helplessness. “Even a broke multicalendar is right once a circumrotation.”

She smiles and shakes her head, and turns in her seat to wrap her palms around the steering wheel. “You’re going to have to teach me what all these phrases mean, if I’m coming out to space with you,” she tells him lightly, and shifts into drive.

His ears tilt forward, and he grins — small, but real, this time. There’s a little flare of gleeful triumph at the base of his skull. His legs swing in front of his seat without his conscious permission, and he turns the zune over in his palm, fingers tracing the well-known ridges and rounded corners without taking his eyes off Wanda’s profile, and the sun glancing all gold-and-green off her hazel irises.

Yeah. Maybe she could be something like a sister, after all.

“We can start on the way back to New York,” he promises.”You’ll have the best guide in the galaxy, sweetheart.”

“Okay, okay,” the witch utters sardonically, one eyebrow raised. She glides the Terran vehicle carefully back out into the street. “Guide me to a parking spot first, Captain.”

that's it. that's the fanfic. clearly i’ve never been to the microsoft campus before so i was relying a hundred percent on maps and streetview and reddit and the campus website lol. thank you thank you for suspending your disbelief, and for all your kindness ♡ i hope you enjoyed this LENGTHY fuckin headcanon of mine, all inspired by the magical @hibatasblog, the gorgeous rocket raccoon, and the incompetence of the endgame creators lol. my gratitude to them forever. ˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

the raccoon, the witch, & the roadtrip masterlist prev | main masterlist this will eventually be posted on ao3, probably as a one-shot.

below the cut, you'll find individual sfw & nsfw rocket fanfics completed in 2023.

relevant ratings key: fluff ✮ | spice ✩ | some smut ❤︎‬ | much smut ❤︎‬❤︎‬

more detail about what you can expect from my fiction

typically, platonic & spicy stories will feature a gn reader (no use of y/n). smutty stories are more likely to feature a "female" reader or oc.

a separate post for headcanons & imagines organized by year will be forthcoming. eventually.

check out the navigation & full fanfiction pages for links to future projects and expected updates, other recommended writers in the fandom, my rocket fan art, writing tips, marvel critique, fic previews, new posts, etc ♡

July 2023

The Very Boring Adventures of Space Pilot & Sweatshirt Girl. ❤︎‬❤︎ 18+ only MDNI | f!reader | 5/5 visits | word count: 37,783. In Rocket Raccoon: Grounded (2016) / Issue #3, Rocket asks a stranger on the ferry to "make sure nobody does anything weird" to him while he naps, and the stranger just, like, abandons him while he's sleeping?? who does that? when a stranger asks you to watch their stuff in a coffee shop, it's a holy obligation. x100 if it's a hot local space pilot trying to catch some Zs on the ferry. get in loser we're gonna fix it. | Domestic Scenes in Space Travel.

August 2023

Outer Space Safety & Spaceship Maintenance Training. ❤︎‬❤︎ 18+ only MDNI | f!reader | word count: 9,853. study night. or: why study when you can seduce your hot local Space Pilot into oral? | Domestic Scenes in Space Travel.

September 2023

Autopilot Systems Check ✮ fluff | gn reader | word count: 1,406. reader wakes up in the middle of the night and rocket is nowhere to be found. mcu-based, post-endgame. | anthology

Reconnaissance for Beginners: An Instruction Manual. ❤︎‬❤︎ 18+ only MDNI | f!reader | word count: 14,329. date night. in a gesture of true romance, rocket takes you to a dive bar. of all the stories he's shared with you, his favorites are the ones where he gets saved by the space princess. not that he'd tell you that. loosely based on Rocket (2017): The Blue River Score. | Domestic Scenes in Space Travel.

October 2023

Blackmail Material. ❤︎‬❤︎18+ only MDNI | f!reader | word count: 30,591. a classic tale of "that fuckin raccoon found your sex toy." post-endgame friends-to-lovers smut with feelings, fluff, & love confessions. see post for warnings and contex

kinktober 2023. ❤︎‬❤︎ f!reader x rocket. please read all warnings.

Turbulence ♡ cockwarming word count: 1,229 rocket needs you to hold. flarkin. still.

Practice ♡ hunter/prey word count: 987 rocket requests your assistance in brushing up on some of his old résumé skills. expansion: evasive maneuvers.

Nod for Yes ♡ blindfold word count: 1,261 rocket saves you.

Heavy Artillery ♡ gunplay word count: 3,796 rocket sets you up with terran internet access on knowhere.

Proof ♡ recording rocket wants something to remember you by while he’s away. overlaps with Domestic Scenes in Space Travel.

Soft ♡ nipple/tit play word count: 4,280 rocket just wants something soft.

Sunshine ♡ against a wall word count: 5,489 you take a stranger home. expansion: sunshine.

Triptych ♡ praise word count: 5,514 rocket’s girlfriend is a virgin in three different universes.

Good Dreams ♡ dacryphilia & somnophilia word count: 3,256 rocket stays up late to finish some work.

Tech ♡ sex toys word count: 1,326 rocket made you something.

Giftwrap ♡ lingerie word count: 6,484 semi-shy, ultrafeminine reader goes shopping with friends; picks out something nice for rocket. sequel to windfall (can be read alone).

Wyndham; or, the Intergalactic Prometheus ♡ free space 21 ~ hate sex ♡ 23 ~ dirty talk/begging/cnc ♡ 26 ~ choking ♡ 29 ~ creampie word count: 13,512 a smutty ode to a halloween classic ♡ mary shelley’s frankenstein; or, the modern prometheus. au rocket essentially lives the creature's life; visits the high evolutionary’s bride on your wedding night per the novel. things go off the rails from there. READ WARNINGS. expansion: cicatrix.

tomorrow. ✩ 18+ only MDNI | f!reader | word count: 2,441. you had a long day at work. rocket decides to comfort you. no real smut (this was a failed kinktober 2023 fic) but some explicit references to sex acts. unhealthy coping mechanisms. PLEASE check main page for warnings. | anthology

November 2023

adorations. ❤︎‬❤︎‬ 18+ only | f!reader | word count: 4,518. you have a habit of complimenting rocket. he decides to give you plenty of reasons to keep doing so. aka rocket has a praise kink and no-one can convince me otherwise. mcu-based smut with feelings. see post for warnings and context.

Critical Interview Questions for Potential Crewmates ✩ | ❤︎‬❤︎ varies | f!reader | word count: 6,111 - 6,723. you take rocket on a fall-themed date. unbeknownst to you, he also has plans: specifically, to introduce you to some potential roommates. just pumpkin-spiced, apple-scented, maple-flavored FLUFF. see post for clarifying info and context. | Domestic Scenes in Space Travel.

take what you need. eat somethin. ✮ fluff | gn reader | word count: 576.

take what you need. get outta bed & get your shit done. ✮ fluff | gn reader | word count: 925. for @/caesarhamato22 ♡

take what you need. go to frickin bed already. ✮ fluff | gn reader | word count: 737.

take what you need. leave your frickin skin alone. ✮ fluff | gn reader | word count: 1,579. for nonnie! ♡

take what you need. take a damn bath. ✮ fluff | gn reader | word count: 1,375. for @/hibatasblog ♡

December 2023

frostnip. ✮ fluff | gn reader | word count: 1,880. you teach rocket about appropriate winterwear. mcu-based. | borealis: year one

snow & stars. ❤︎‬❤︎ 18+ only MDNI | f!reader | word count: 16,450. citing a lack of "team spirit," corporate requires you to attend the annual holiday office party (off the clock, of course) if you want to be eligible for your raise. luckily, the new guy makes things... interesting. | borealis: year one

take what you need. drink some goddamn water. ✮ fluff | gn reader | word count: 1,209.

take what you need. stop destroying your frickin clothes. ✮ fluff | gn reader | word count: 1,609. for nonnie!♡

take what you need. take a fuckin study break. ✮ fluff | gn reader | word count: 1,020. for like 80% of you probably ♡

traditions.✮ fluff | gn reader | word count: 3,368. every winter, rocket comes to your place to celebrate the holidays and take a nap. mcu-based. can be read romantically or platonically. just pure feel-good shit, warm as cocoa and twice as sweet. | borealis: year one

ugly sweater. ✩ suggestive! spice | gn reader | word count: 5,196. rocket might make fun of your holiday attire, but he kind of wishes you'd wear it more often. | borealis: year one

frostnip.✮ fluff | gn reader | word count: 1,880. you teach rocket about appropriate winterwear. mcu-based. | borealis: year one

Winter Across the Galaxy ✩ spice | rocket x f!oc | word count: ?? a super-casual barely-edited oneshot written in response to a reader comment, "Thinking about how Jolie would have reacted to the events in the Holiday Special and laughing." | borealis: year one | Window Across the Galaxy.

13 notes View Post

hibatasblog

2 months ago

So...I know the doylist reason Rocket looks different throughout the gotg movies is his CGI-model graphics improving.

But the watsonian reason I imagine is:

That the slow chipping away at his self-loathing throughout the movies, starts to show outwardly...His fur looks so much softer and well-kept. That's what a found family and home can do to a guy. His fur is literally mimicing his emotinal arc. Finally learning to show that he cares. I'm not crying

yesssss. A+ take. genius. phenomenal. sobbing sniffling crying ~ thank you for sharing, bumblebee.

i have thoughts about each of rocket's designs, tbh ~ minor preferences in coloration, clothing, et cetera ~ but none of it matters at all when compared to the soft look on his face at the end of 3, when he sits down with the little raccoons and pete's zune. and none of it can compare to the look on his face when he finally starts dancing, and letting himself feel all the joy and connection and community that he's been denying himself since the moment his siblings were taken from him.

ugh i'm gonna cry again i love him so much

36 notes View Post

hibatasblog

7 years ago

226K notes View Post

hibatasblog

7 years ago

Make it so, number one.

685K notes View Post

hibatasblog

1 year ago

75K notes View Post

hibatasblog

10 months ago

A secret or a heartbreaking revelation? Wanda and Rocket have more in common than one would think.

the raccoon, the witch, & the roadtrip.✮ part six. idaho. washington.

the raccoon, the witch, & the roadtrip masterlist prev | next [est june 25] | main masterlist

angst, comfort, friendship, & fluff for @hibatasblog rocket & wanda | part 6/7 | word count: 2210.

our heroes share their secrets.

The city of Missoula spreads out underneath them like a lakeful of stars or a well of distant coins, glimmering in the night-velvet hug of the mountains. When the sun crests the horizon, they'll make their way through Idaho and onto the last little part of their journey — but for now, Wanda leans against the open window of the bed-and-breakfast where they’ve holed up for the night and lets the Montana breeze kiss the ends of her hair. She closes her lashes, and for a moment, she can almost imagine it’s Vis, leafing through her crimson locks with gentle, marveling hands.

You’re only gonna become someone’s nightmare.

Well, she thinks savagely — she’s always been someone’s nightmare. They hadn’t decided to call her a witch for no reason. Made by circumstance and bastardized science — layers of folded power. Sure, people fear Danvers for her strength, too — but Danvers has blond hair and an impulsive, crooked smile. For some reason, blond hair and an easy smile always seem to set the rest of the Avengers at ease, as if it’s skin and hair color that make a person good.

Wanda — with her dark eyes lit from within and her hellish tendrils of magic — stands no chance when compared to a woman who radiates iridescent power like something avenging and divine. No — the Scarlet Witch is made of nightmares, and she has been since long before Hydra. The only ones who have looked at her with anything other than trepidation or terror or disdain were her adopted parents, and Pietro, and Vis.

And now, perhaps Rocket.

Yes, she’d made the captain of the Guardians of the Galaxy nervous — she can tell. But that was a fear she’d earned — a result of her less-than-noble confession. If Rocket had been anxious in that last hour on the road, it hadn’t been because of who she is.

Or what she is.

She sighs, and leans out into the breeze.

“Don’t go making any magic cities out there, now.”

She half-turns, casting a look over her shoulder. He’s sauntering up beside her, scrabbling up onto the desk chair next to the window to peer out over the sweep of the midnight city, studding the valley like a jewelry-box full of diamond strands. From this angle, she can see the lights catching and flickering in his eyeshine, turning them into flat red coins and then back again. She feels one brow arch.

“We’re making jokes about it now?”

He shrugs, peering down into the spangled mountainside. “What’s the alternative?” A sideways smirk. “I blow you up?”

She snorts. “You could try.”

His grin widens.

Well, his fear has apparently been short-lived. Something about that feels like a quiet reassurance — a flicker of candleflame in the winter solstice of her life.

“You’re not worried about me turning myself into a monster?” she asks anyway. She’s trying to make it sound light, but the words are laced with bitterness and salt.

He shrugs. “Not yet.” He raises his own brow and slants her a calculated glance. “Hopefully not ever.”

She keeps her eyes on the city, unwilling to spare him her own stare.

“Where’d you, uh, get your powers anyway?” he asks after a moment. The words ripple in the cool night air. “Lab or infinity stone?”

She huffs a soft, almost-laugh. “How do you know I wasn’t born with them?”

“What, like Dazzler?” he asks doubtfully.

She tears her eyes from the valley now, brow creased. “You know Dazzler?”

He shrugs. “Sure. She sings, doesn’t she? Wouldn’t mind getting some of her stuff on the zune, actually.”

An incredulous chuckle bursts in the back of her throat like a ripe cherry. “Not like Dazzler,” she concedes. “Dazzler has a genetic condition—”

“That makes her cool as hell,” Rocket supplements, and Wanda offers an acquiescing half-shrug laced up with a half-smile.

“That makes her cool as hell,” she concedes. “I was born with — something else. And then, I think—” she pauses, feeling the crease form between her brow. “Well. Whatever it was, it was enhanced, I guess.”

“Lab then,” Rocket says, and sighs. “How come so many of you Terran-types can walk into labs and say, hey, fuck me up, with no frickin’ regard to your own lives and bodies? And then you come out with cool powers and super-strength and shit?” He scowls down at the city and his next words are so low under his breath that she almost doesn’t hear them. “Need a t-shirt that says, all I got was chronic pain and indigestion.”

She could leave it. Pretend she hadn’t heard him, which is probably what he’d intended. But for whatever reason, his sarcasm always seems to pull out these bite-sized heart-to-hearts from her. “Anxiety and depression.”

He blinks up at her, nonplussed. “What?”

“My t-shirt. I got experimented on! And all I got was anxiety and depression.”

He holds her eyes, his own rounding out, then flicking away. “Yeah, well. You say yaro root, I say yaro fruit.”

She lets the moment slide through her fingers, lingering and bittersweet over the star-spattered valley. “Besides,” she says, and she’s surprised to hear a thread of humor weaving together her own words, “I’m special. I was made by an infinity stone and in a lab.” She feels the corner of her mouth twist. She hadn’t been going to admit it, but why not? Who else would she ever tell, now that Vis is gone? “Labs, actually. I think.”

His ears flicker. “Plural? Wait, how’d that happen?”

The twist turns into a quiet smirk. When was the last time she’d smirked? “Which one?”

He furrows his brow. “The first. No, the most recent. Both.”

She braces her forearms on the window sill and leans out further, letting the wind whisk her words away: keeping them as short-lived as a luna moth. Maybe shorter. There’s safety in the brevity of the words, in how transparent and transitory they seem when they’re caught up and spiraled in the shadowed mountain-breeze.

“I remember the second one best. I was older, and — foolish. And fixated on revenge for the loss of my parents.” She gives him a sideways look. “The horrors of the universe, you know. Pietro and I had been orphaned and adopted, only to be orphaned again. I joined a — well, I joined the bad guys, I guess, and I let them experiment on me with the mind stone. It was before anyone really knew what the mind stone was. At the time, I thought it gave me my powers, but now…” She hesitates.

Rocket stares at her, then scowls. “I meant what I said earlier. What is with you morons walkin’ into labs like that? Sure, I don’t know what this glowing rock is. Hit me with it,” he mimicks — but there’s something half-shrill underneath his voice, clenched into the back of his teeth. She wonders if it’s concern, just a decade or two too late. “You know, I kinda liked Banner at first. He seemed like a genius-idiot, and — you know—” He holds up two fingers, a scant half-inch apart. “—tiny little temper problem. Kinda like me. But he did that to himself?” Rocket clicks his tongue against his teeth. “Thought I liked Steve too, but he just walked into a situation with strangers and said, yeah, gimme this highly-experimental drug and let’s see what frickin’ happens.” He shakes his head. “You morons are reckless. And ungrateful.”

She hums. And she doesn’t deny it.

“But now, what?”

She blinks and casts him a questioning glance.

“You said, you thought the stone gave you your powers. But now. But now what?”

She grimaces, dark-cherry brows furrowed. Not a thing slips past him, apparently. “I don’t know,” she admits. “Maybe it was just a dream. But—”

She hesitates, and he waits — surprisingly patient.

She takes a breath. She can already tell the words are going to hollow her out. She tries to say his name so little, because it guts her every time, and because so few of the Avengers seem to want to hear it.

And she has no-one else to listen.

“Vis never had a childhood,” she says at last. “Not a bad one or a good one — just none at all. The idea of it — all the complexities of physical development combined with cognition and learning and vulnerability — it meant so much to him. He thought it was beautiful, and strange. One of the great mysteries of the universe, he said.” The last few words are strangled. She’d opened her mouth and said his name, and it had floated up out of her like a butterfly tethered to ghostly memories she’d tried to keep down. Ribbons and bows in the tail of a haunted kite. Each word starts to drift up and out of her and she just knows, if she doesn’t choke them back, they’ll keep rising. And while she’s happy to sacrifice the words of her own past to the nightsky, every bit of Vis is too precious and rare to let them slip away into midnight mountain breezes.

“He’d always ask about mine,” she finishes abruptly, shrugging. The words quietly click the whole story closed. “The more he asked, the more I think I remembered.”

Of course, Rocket doesn’t let anything rest, she’s learning. Not unless it suits him. He squints one gleaming red eye up at her.

“What’d you remember?”

She looks out on the sea of tiny lights, like fireflies and gemstones and stars. Over seventy-three thousand little lives, all cradled in the palms of a single mountain range on an unremarkable little planet the midst of a galaxy and universe far wider than she can ever really know.

“I think it was another lab,” she says quietly. “One in the mountains. Not like these mountains — more severe. Cliffs and crags. It felt….haunted.” She takes a steadying breath. “I think there was a man — cold. Casually cruel. He would be silhouetted against these vaulted glass windows overlooking a sheer drop, staring down at me and Pietro. I could feel his disdain — even as a child.” She hesitates. “Sometimes he would hold my head in his hands and stare into my eyes like he was trying to see into my brain. I remember having nightmares after we were adopted. I would dream that he carved into my skull while I was sleeping, to try to find where I kept it.” She shivers. “The magic.”

She can feel Rocket shuttering closed next to her, and she supposes she’s already said too much. Made things uncomfortable between them — been too vulnerable. These intimate little exchanges are never supposed to last more than a handful of sentences, but here she is: spilling them out onto Missoula, as personal and quiet as if she were on a midnight walk with Vis, or curled up beside Pietro in their dark orphanage bed.

But then Rocket sighs beside her, and even in her periphery, she can see his stiff shoulders loosen. He wedges his own forearms against the sill, mimicking her posture as he leans out over Missoula too. She turns her head slowly to look at him, and the breeze that has been playing with her hair now ruffles his fur, too.

“I knew a guy like that once,” he says roughly. “I knew a guy — too much like that.”

She inhales, more slowly than she has since long before she’d ever heard of Thanos. She thinks she can remember the last time she took in air like this: the morning before the Black Order had found them in the streets. She’d stretched against the faded sheets of the bed she’d shared with Vis, and everything had come easy — even her breath.

She exhales — just as slow.

“I don’t trust my memory,” she admits. “I was a child. Maybe I made it all up.”

Rocket grunts. “Don’t sound like something little humie gargoyles just make up.”

She huffs a laugh. “Maybe not, but my adult-mind says he can’t possibly be real,” she tells him quietly. “My memories make him into too much of a… a ghost story. Too much of a legend, or a monster under the bed. A caricature of what he probably really was.”

Rocket doesn’t look at her, but she can see him raise his eyebrow doubtfully. “Prob’ly we all do that with the things that fucked us up when we were kids,” he concedes grudgingly, and she shifts uncomfortably. How to make Rocket understand? The imposing figure, so severe — the words, so cultured and sophisticated — the surrealism of the mountain, snowy and mist-shrouded, stabbing the sky? It’s too fantastical to be real. She’d told Rocket her secret, perhaps ill-advised dream of a town based on the old TV shows she’d seen her childhood; how can she explain how these shadows of her childhood seem like the other side of the coin? She thinks of the man again, and all she can picture is a caricature of a cartoon villain.

“In my memory, I think he always wore all purple,” she explains. Like a uniform. Wanda shakes her head, frustrated. It’s not clear enough. She inhales again, slow and steady. She exhales again — just as measured. When she speaks, her voice is hushed, and she can’t keep that old childhood terror from seeping in at the edges. “In my memory, I think he came back one day without a face.”

scarlet witch was one of the high evolutionary’s subjects in the citadel of science at mount wundagore pass it on. look this is a fluffpiece so will anything come of this? not beyond a lil bit of emotional bonding. maybe volume three would play out a bit differently but we're not going that far. still, i couldn't bear to leave this bit in the comics ♡♡

the raccoon, the witch, & the roadtrip masterlist prev | next [est june 25] | main masterlist

Hay Amor (There’s Love)

I lost some art due to some carpet flooding. So I hope to repost what I can on here.

archiveofourown.org

Hay Amor (En Tu Cuerpo) - Chapter 1 - Asmodeus1987 - Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies) [Archive of Our Own]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

By @bbasmos!! I adore this story so much! It throws everything at you that you could want. Sadly, I don’t have all the art that I made for this fic anymore, but I’ll attempt to salvage what I can. It wakes a google translate but it’s so good that not even google can deter it!

31 notes View Post

hibatasblog

1 year ago

So excited! I can’t wait for the Wanda and Rocket roadtrip!

may aspirations

friday, may 3: ꧁･:☁︎⋆. cicatrix .⋆☁︎ :･꧂chapter eight. keep. ✩

sunday, may 5: happy birthday, volume 3! begin posting new Domestic Scenes in Space Travel masterlists (my first gotg fanfic!) *may 5: the very boring adventures of space pilot & sweatshirt girl❤︎❤︎ *may 8: outer space safety & spaceship maintenance training ❤︎❤︎ *may 11: reconnaissance for beginners: an instruction manual ❤︎❤︎

thursday, may 9: cicatrix .⋆☁︎ :･꧂chapter nine. mal de coucou. ✩

tuesday, may 14: the raccoon, the witch, & the roadtrip. [headcanon part one] ✮

thursday, may 16: cicatrix .⋆☁︎ :･꧂chapter ten. querinous. ✩

wednesday, may 24: cicatrix .⋆☁︎ :･꧂chapter eleven. hailbound. ✩

tuesday, may 28: the raccoon, the witch, & the roadtrip. [headcanon part two] ✮

fluff ✮ | spice ✩ | some smut ❤︎ | much smut ❤︎❤︎

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆ other things i'm working on ⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆ for june and beyond...

the raccoon, the witch, & the roadtrip. [part three and four] ✮

cicatrix .⋆☁︎ :･꧂ chapter twelve. ochisia. ❤︎ chapter thirteen. heartspur. ✩ chapter fourteen. ghough. ❤︎❤︎

warm compress ☾.༊·˚⋆⭒ oneshot. ✮

florescence❀, chapter five year four: formation. ❤︎❤︎

⭑˚.⚘𖡼𖥧𖤣 windfall, part three: candied apples. ❤︎❤︎

･:*𑁍✧˚₊ overheard on the bowie. oneshot. ❤︎❤︎ ︎

✩࿐࿔ take what you need. [on standby] ✮

other future projects

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hibatasblog

1 year ago

This needs to be tucked in every Rocket fans bedside table as a naughty guilty pleasure. It’s also so beautifully written.

꧁･:☁︎⋆. cicatrix .⋆☁︎:･꧂

chapter four. anthrodynia. [new 3/19] ❤︎

18+ only | rocket x f!oc | 4/25 | wip | word count: pending.

the monster regrets. see below for warnings & notes.

There are two berth-style bunks but he’s always been on his own, and so one has been covered in tools and machines and mines, all in various stages of being constructed or dismantled. She clutches her hands in at her collarbone — just as well, the Monster thinks, because she probably shouldn’t touch any of this shit unless she wants to possibly lose her cute little fingers at best, or blow a hole in the side of the runabout at worst — but he’s startled when she sways over his makeshift workbench, peering down with something like fascination painted on her pretty face. “You made all these?” she asks. Fuck — she sounds so nice like that, voice all drenched with awe and admiration. He abruptly realizes that he’s still gonna have to figure out the bunk situation. “Shit,” he hisses, and she jumps. “S-sorry—“ “What—? Not you, pearl.” He sighs. He’s not gonna get any sleep tonight anyway — too focused on getting as far away from HalfWorld as possible, on figuring out where to drop the first careful misdirection, figuring out where to drop her — and would it be so wrong to just have her sleep in his bunk tonight? His dick twitches in response and he seethes. “Lay down,” he orders in a growl. She hesitates only for a second, then skirts him and lowers herself carefully to the berth, leaning awkwardly as she balances on her unbruised side.

read chapter four on ao3 :･꧂

WARNINGS: aftercare. references to chapter two’s violence. regret. sexual fantasies and general horniness. references to food restriction/dieting.

i appreciate every one of you who has stuck around for this. i'm working hard on this (i have about ten chapters drafted and i'm watching this fic become longer and longer because we will eventually get to "real" plot with like. reuniting with old friends and shit.) there's a little bit of a fix-it fantasy in here for me beyond just comforting & fucking the raccoon. anyway if you stick around i hope you won't be disappointed.

꧁･:☁︎⋆. masterlist, notes, & moodboard .⋆☁︎ :･꧂