#raccoonfallsharder fanfic

[raccoonfallsharder]

fanfiction masterlist i guess ♡

*this masterlist is OLD! find the new masterlist here

here's what you need to know about what is behind this cut: lots of smut, always with feelings and fluff, praise kinks, dirty talk, maybe some light d/s, enthusiastic consent. a few clean headcanons/minifics & fan art of your amazing OCs

(it's all rocket raccoon, all the time) also, please let me love your OCs (doodle requests temporarily paused)

If you would like to be added to the fanfiction update taglist (or removed), please let me know via comment, message, or ask! ♡

recently updated

headcanon 8 - rocket, lylla, & drax [NEW posted 9/17] headcanon 9 - dad glasses [NEW posted 9/21]

Reconnaissance for Beginners: An Instruction Manual (Fourteenth Visit) [ONESHOT. added 9/18] Part Three of Domestic Scenes in Space Travel

Chapter 1/6 Year Zero: Seed [NEW posted 9/24] florescence ❀ (a meetgroot)

Chapter XIV. Exactly Like a Flower. in which comfort is shared. [WIP 9/27] Chapter XV. Galaxy-Breaking Shit. in which more comfort is shared, and life is good. Briefly. [WIP 10/5] Window Across the Galaxy

I can't keep up with updating my kinktober prompts on a daily basis (I'm honestly amazed I've managed to keep up with the writing as well as I have and I've only been doing this for a few days) So for now, please find them with the tag #rfh kinktober and when the month is over I'll make a masterlist. [NEW all month] based on @flightlessangelwings’ Kinktober 2023 Prompt List

[complete works behind the cut ♡]

spoilers: I have a preferred trope/formula that I lean into quite hard (girl falls first; raccoon falls harder) and while I do really love tragic fanfic, I firmly believe rocket's suffered enough of that so it's only happy endings here (even if it takes a minute to get there). Well, more or less, anyway.

Domestic Scenes in Space Travel

reader x rocket fluff, medium-burn?? (at least for Part One), smut. comics-based but you don't need any comics background knowledge to read this - you just need to enjoy fluff + smut + rocket (and be 18 i guess). multiple parts. see notes for summary + warnings.

The Very Boring Adventures of Space Pilot & Sweatshirt Girl Part One of Domestic Scenes in Space Travel [COMPLETE 5/5 chapters] Summary: 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?? get in loser we're gonna fix it Chapter One (The First Visit) Chapter Two (The Second Visit) Chapter Three (The Third Visit) Chapter Four (The Fourth Visit) Chapter Five (The Fifth Visit) complete post - The Very Boring Adventures of Space Pilot & Sweatshirt Girl

Outer Space Safety & Spaceship Maintenance Training (Ninth Visit) Part Two of Domestic Scenes in Space Travel [Oneshot. COMPLETE 8/21] Sequel to The Very Boring Adventures of Space Pilot & Sweatshirt Girl [domestic fluff, dirty talk, oral sex - mind the ao3 tags.] Summary: Study Night. or - why study when you can seduce your hot local Space Pilot into oral? When you were a kid, you imagined yourself growing up, working a cool job, living in a cute house, getting a big dog, marrying, and having kids of your own. You've currently got none of those things, but you are getting regularly railed by a raccoon-shaped cosmic adventurer, and he's currently showing you around his spaceship. Which is kinda better than anything you could have dreamed up for yourself. [comics-inspired, though i'm fucking around with timelines/continuity and you really don't need any comics-context to ride this ride] complete post - Outer Space Safety & Spaceship Maintenance Training

Reconnaissance for Beginners: An Instruction Manual (Fourteenth Visit) Part Three of Domestic Scenes in Space Travel [Oneshot. COMPLETE 9/18] [domestic fluff, dirty talk, orgasm delay, bf/gf silliness. - mind the ao3 tags.] Summary: 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 bf/gf silliness & fluff. extensive smut. comics-knowledge isn't needed but HIGHLY recommend starting at the beginning of this collection for context (The Very Boring Adventures of Space Pilot & Sweatshirt Girl).

florescence ❀ (a meetgroot)

[WIP: Year 0/5] [mcu-based, slight au, medium-burn, eventual smut circa chapter four. tentative allies to friends to lovers. the middle is angsty but there are only happy endings here. no use of y/n.] Summary: “The only chance we got is to get to the other side of the universe as fast as we can and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to live full lives before that whack-job ever gets there.” Rocket & Groot leave their friends behind on Knowhere, despite the latter’s protests, and end up hiding out on a nothing-planet (with a non-extradition policy) at the edge of the Shi’ar Galaxy. It was the flowers that drew you in.

Chapter 1/6 Year Zero: Seed [NEW posted 9/24]

Blackmail Material

[WIP: Chapter 2/4] reader x rocket pwp with feelings; smut & fluff & love confessions. MCU-based, post-Endgame, friends-to-lovers. Summary: a classic tale of "this fuckin raccoon found your sex-toy." as per usual: girl falls first; raccoon falls harder. see notes for summary + warnings.

Chapter One: Blackmail Material Chapter Two: Self-Sufficience [NEW posted 8/29] Chapter Three: Firearms over Flowers ???

Window Across the Galaxy

[WIP: Chapter 15/25+] [NEW chapter posted 10/5] rocket x oc angst/hurt/comfort; slow burn + eventual smut with feelings. MCU-based. slight AU starting pre-GOTG volume 1. enemies to friends to lovers but only one of these idiots thinks they're enemies. see notes for summary + warnings. could become 1 part of a 2-part series, if I have the energy/inspiration. Summary: Rocket is captured by a Ravager crew hoping to get rich off the excessively large bounty on his head. Throwing a wrench in everyone’s plans is the Terran girl they hired to do some freelance assessing on a recent haul of goods they’ve seized from a Xandaran luxury liner. Oops.

Chapter I. A Delicacy. in which our reluctant heroes meet atop a crate of Sovereign porn in the bowels of a Ravager ship. Chapter II. Monster For A Pet. in which one hero wrestles with his inner Groot, and the other is quite possibly a moron. Chapter III. A Kindness.in which Rocket gets in his own damn way: not for the first time, and certainly not for the last. Chapter IV. Got There First. in which our heroes obtain an arsenal and street food. Chapter V. Things No-One Has Said Before. in which one hero refuses to babysit and the other refuses to leave. Chapter VI. Two and a Half Billion Units. in which we lean into the “they were roommates” trope. Jolie has misgivings, while Rocket has fantasies - about getting rich, of course. Chapter VII. I'm Here.in which we visit Knowhere. Chapter VIII. The Care & Feeding of Human Pets.in which our heroes practice breathing and we lean into a new trope: “there was (technically) one bed.” Chapter IX. Scrapmetal and a Dream. in which we redefine homemaking. Chapter X. Thin Fucking Ice. in which our heroes get fucked. Not in the good way. Chapter XI. Let It Be. in which Xandar is saved and good lives are lost. Chapter XII. So Much It Hurts. in which we try not to fuck up the vibes. Chapter XIII. Don’t Wait. in which a lost sister is found and Drax grapples with the concept of sarcasm. Chapter XIV. Exactly Like a Flower. in which comfort is shared. Chapter XV. Galaxy-Breaking Shit. in which more comfort is shared, and life is good. Briefly. [WIP 10/5]

Autopilot Systems Check [Oneshot. COMPLETE 9/3/2023] Est Word Count: 1409 reader x rocket soft fluff & domestica. MCU-based, post-Endgame i guess. Summary: reader wakes up in the middle of the night and rocket is nowhere to be found. drabble based on this post/inadvertent prompt.[complete post - Autopilot Systems Check]

Kinktober 2023

based on day 8 of @flightlessangelwings’ Kinktober 2023 Prompt List Kinktober Day 8: Turbulence. rocket needs you to hold. flarkin. still. [NEW 10/8]

Other Duties As Assigned

[WIP: ???] rocket x oc email romance/LDR (lol); slow burn + probable smut with feelings. Begins five months after The Snap. I don't have an intended outcome for this fic yet (just kind of rambling around) so this has the most uncertain publishing date. Summary: Natasha Romanoff is an administrative nightmare - a fact that does not go unnoticed by the (interim) captain of the Milano. First she demands that the remaining two Guardians of the Galaxy be reachable via a primitive Terran messaging system, and then she can't be bothered to read the frickin' emails. Thank fuck she's hired a new assistant.

Headcannons & Drabbles headcanon 1 - rocket & sex work headcanon 2 - rocket & occassional post-sex feelings headcanon 3 - quill & innocence/optimism headcanon 4 (minific/drabble) - rocket & nebula (2014) in endgame/post time-heist headcanon 5 (minific/drabble) - rocket & quill were scooped at the same time headcanon 6 - cinnamon roll peter quill continued headcanon 7 - rocket & nova corps headcanon 8 - rocket, lylla, & drax [NEW posted 9/17] headcanon 9 - dad glasses [NEW posted 9/21]

Fan Art of Your Amazing OCs (and maybe sometimes mine)

Rose (@love-for-faeries-go-burrrr ) & Moon (@glow-autumz) Thank you for letting me draw these two lovelies. You know I headcanon them as interdimensional besties ♡

Brita (@pretty-chips) is such a pure, delightfully fun character with record-store-clerk vibes. Thank you for letting me draw her. She is a glowing sunbeam-soul. ♡ another Brita wearing a terran t-shirt gifted to her by my oc, Jolie Spinner

Moon (@glow-autumz) Thank you again for letting me illustrate some of Moon's rad powers. i am OBSESSED. I appreciate so much you bringing her to life!

Chérie (Cherry) (@aliasrocket) I have a crush. 10/10 would attempt to flirt with (badly). Thank you so much for creating her and letting me doodle her!

Jolie (Window Across the Galaxy) - my gremlin child. just some scritchy-scratchy character concepts. feel free not to look if you want to imagine Jo in your own way. ♡ the "real" Jolie doodle - refined, finished, && in color

Fleuret (I think?) (@elegant-fleuret) is my personal caffeine deity. i now pray to her for the ability to scrap myself out of bed and deliverance from coffee crashes. she is also the dj of knowhere which is possibly the coolest fucking job in the universe and i would like to be her friend.

Star (@cleo-is-babygirl) is a pure fluffy little sundrop and a brilliant self-taught medic/surgeon. she is also the first tanuki/anthropomorphic animal i have drawn other than rocket so i was very nervous but i did my best. thank you for letting me try something new and expand my experience, friend!

Juno (@lazarel-3000) is one of my favorite OCs ever. she is everything. i want to be her && i want to date her (unfortunately she only has eyes for rocket).

[thirteens-lucky-tardis]

I was thinking of who I could use as a face claim for Ember in a fanfic, and in editing these pictures, Sydney Sweeney is perfect??

I'm proud of some of these, but not so proud of others, but you know 🤭 I hope you like these 🫶

Taglist 🫶:

@rxin3akamallory @pretty-chips @glow-autumz @toiletpaperchick @evolvingchaoswitch @raccoonfallsharder

[gimmiesomehoneynsugar]

Rant time of one of my fav Fanfic Writers: RaccoonFallsHarder Pt 2

Like my other favourite writers this amazing bitch stole my car my keys my sleep cycle along with my mental stability along with my heart.

If you haven’t read the Grammy Award Winning story ‘The Very Boring Adventures of Space Pilot and Sweatshirt Girl’ that slow burns you till your crying sad and happy tears then I have the right to slap you, it’s got jokes, words to describe lighting when I read it I am in the small New Yorker apartment with a shitty job and with the sweetest cat, btw that cat triggered my own sadness bc I also lost a cat very dear to me so that fucked me up in a good way.

Speaking of fucked, every smut scene was immaculate descriptive got us like fish on a hook and their most recent (posted two days ago of this post) ‘Blackmail Material’, which as I’m writing this only has one chapter it already has me hooked I’m exited truly like a child counting down the days till Christmas.

Or if you want a story more space story with a slow burn story to burn a house down you will love ‘Window Across the Galaxy’ It has me tugging at my chest and slapping my knee.

And great news this amazing skilled writer is here on Tumblr! But go check their Ao3 via their tumblr please go follow them drop them a couple likes and reposts bc they are fucking brilliant. I just love them and their writing it makes me really happy.

@raccoonfallsharder

[evolvingchaoswitch]

Fanfic Update

I am going to be taking a break from my fanfics for an undetermined amount of time as I'm currently in impatient mental health facilities.

I am hoping to return to writing within the month but unfortunately cannot give any concrete timelines.

@elegant-fleuret @raccoonfallsharder @satcu

[raccoonfallsharder]

‧₊˚ ⋅♡ ࣪ ִֶָ☾. Autopilot Systems Check ‧₊˚ ⋅☽ ࣪ ִֶָ♡.

fluff | no use of y/n | gn reader | oneshot | word count: 1,406.

reader wakes up in the middle of the night and rocket is nowhere to be found. drabbly.

reader x rocket soft fluff & domestica. MCU-based, post-Endgame i guess. @rebel-21 said a thing and i thought about it all morning so now it is a little <1500 word ficlet (unbetaed & unbothered - be prepared for typos & messiness). it is pure soft fluff for your sunday afternoon. some romantic undertones.

When you wake in the middle of the sleep rotation, the Bowie is quiet. The flight engines murmur their little lullabies, and everything in your bunk is layered with soft ink-purple shadows, pinned at the floorboards by tiny gold security lights shivering like fireflies. The engines are purring, but there are no accompanying purrs from Rocket. You wait in the stillness, listening. You would know if he was here, even if - unlikely though it might be - he wasn’t pressed against you in some way. After all, you can pick him out of a crowd by the thrum of his heartbeat alone. Blindfolded, you think you can find him in a Praxius IX windstorm, just by the sound of his breathing. He had been working on something with the fuel injectors earlier. And a shifting mechanism for the shields. Dreaming up a more intuitive thruster steering system. Something with the atmospheric barrier, too, and the air re-filtration chambers. He’d been making repairs, all day, and you’ve missed him. The sarcastic cracks and slanted glances. The smirks and snickers. The lingering touches: sometimes when no-one is looking, and other times almost defiantly, as if to say to anyone in the room: yeah, I belong to ‘em. And they belong to me. And we touch each other all the time and we’re very frickin’ intimate an’ affectionate. You gotta problem with that?

read more on ao3. anthology masterlist | main masterlist

[raccoonfallsharder]

if you liked "Space Pilot & Sweatshirt Girl," you might like...

I have been writing like a motherfucker. I think Date Night might be out sooner but I'm not trying to box myself in. be 18+ readers

Outer Space Safety & Spaceship Maintenance Training (The Tenth Visit) Part Two of Domestic Scenes in Space Travel [COMPLETE: 8/21] Summary: Study Night. When you were a kid, you imagined yourself growing up, working a cool job, living in a cute house, getting a big dog, marrying, and having kids of your own. You've currently got none of those things, but you are getting regularly railed by a raccoon-shaped cosmic adventurer, and he's currently showing you around his spaceship. Which is kinda better than anything you could have dreamed up for yourself. [comics based, though i'm fucking with timelines/continuity. mind the ao3 tags]

Date Night (The Fourteenth Visit) Part Three of Domestic Scenes in Space Travel [WIP: oneshot by September 18??] Summary: 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. [based loosely on Rocket (2017): The Blue River Score Issue #1. fuck the timeline - comics continuity is bad anyway. mind the ao3 tags]

Up next [all rough working titles]: House-Hunting, Kitten Adoption, Caretaking 101

[raccoonfallsharder]

Chapter 9/20 - Window Across the Galaxy

let me know via comment, message, or ask if you'd like to be added or removed from my fanfic taglist ♡

girl falls first; raccoon falls harder.

Jolie chews her lip. She’s pretty sure she might be about to cross a line by asking him if he’s coming to bed - by straddling some hesitant hope that they’re going to sleep together again - but she really can’t help herself.  There’s no harm in asking, she tells herself staunchly. If she’d previously thought just sharing a room had done wonders for her sleep, it was nothing compared to the deep-rooted rest she’d gotten with him curled up next to her. And even if she’d fucked it up immediately, waking up with him pressed against her had been delicious. She’ll be thinking about it for weeks, probably.  “Bedtime?” She asks hopefully from the doorway, leaning into the utility closet. 

Chapter IX. Scrapmetal and a Dream. in which we redefine homemaking.

exposition + fluff.

General summary/notes + links to recently preceding chapters behind the cut.

General Summary~

Rocket is captured by a Ravager crew hoping to get rich off the excessively large bounty on his head. Throwing a wrench in everyone’s plans is the Terran girl they hired to do some freelance assessing on a recent haul of goods they’ve seized from a Xandaran luxury liner. Oops.

let me be real with you: this fic is really about wish-fulfillment. not just the eventual smut (but that too). mostly i just want someone to be nice to my best raccoon

Chapter I. A Delicacy. in which our reluctant heroes meet atop a crate of Sovereign porn in the bowels of a Ravager ship. Chapter II. Monster For A Pet. in which one hero wrestles with his inner Groot, and the other is quite possibly a moron. Chapter III. A Kindness.in which Rocket gets in his own damn way: not for the first time, and certainly not for the last. Chapter IV. Got There First. in which our heroes obtain an arsenal and street food. Chapter V. Things No-One Has Said Before. in which one hero refuses to babysit and the other refuses to leave. Chapter VI. Two and a Half Billion Units. in which we lean into the “they were roommates” trope. Jolie has misgivings, while Rocket has fantasies - about getting rich, of course. Chapter VII. I'm Here.in which we visit Knowhere. Chapter VIII. The Care & Feeding of Human Pets. in which our heroes practice breathing and we lean into a new trope: “there was (technically) one bed.” Chapter IX. Scrapmetal and a Dream. in which we redefine homemaking. Coming Soon: Chapter X. Thin Fucking Ice. in which our heroes get fucked. Not in the good way.

slight AU starting pre-GOTG volume 1 (but will hit most of the same major plot points). slooowww burn + eventual smut with a lot of pining in the middle. kinda enemies-to-lovers? (but only one of these idiots thinks they're enemies). elements of hurt/comfort because rocket is the saddest-angriest boy. rating will go up and tags will be added to as needed.

@evolvingchaoswitch ♡

[raccoonfallsharder]

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.

[raccoonfallsharder]

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.

[raccoonfallsharder]

oh my god! so i kept on telling myself that i’ll read window across the galaxy whenever i find time (haven’t really done that yet T_T it feels like i have all the time in the world and yet not enough) and i come to do my daily check of raccoonfallsharder to find out IT’S FINISHING SOON?! you work at the SPEED OF LIGHT (which is a compliment ❤️‍🩹 i am a snail and i wish i wasn’t.) but hopefully i can start binge reading WATG soon, the excerpts i’ve seen look amazing (which isn’t shocking coming from you. everything you write is a masterpiece!)

all of this to be said, i hope you’re doing okay. i know you write the Rocket Reminders for others but i hope you apply them to yourself as well. you deserve amazing things And More!

okay first of all you do a DAILY CHECK of my blog?? ｡°(°.◜ᯅ◝°)°｡ i mean that has to be an exaggeration but it’s still the sweetest fucken thing ive ever heard?? this seriously has made my whole shitty week better (hello tuesday morning, ive peaked). this whole ask is just so sweet and caring and kind. i might be tearing up in my office. thank you. i am carrying your words with me everywhere i go today, like armor ♡

secondly window will be here waiting for you whenever you’re ready babydoll. it’s not going anywhere (also you don’t gotta binge it! it’s perfectly fine to take bitesized chomps)

thirdly snails are incredibly important. they’re recyclers and pollinators and they are very cute when drinking water. there is nothing wrong with taking time, and fanfic writing should be enjoyable — not something to punish or pressure yourself about. 6 out of 10 experts agree that in all likelihood, trying to rush something like this is just a result of capitalism convincing you of the lie that “productivity” (whatever that is) is the most important thing. the other 4/10 say that you would have more time to create if it weren’t for capitalism in the first place, so it’s still not your fault. anyway the point is please keep being a lovely perfect snail going at your own lovely perfect pace and don’t be too hard on yourself

finally here’s an extra window excerpt (the very beginning) just for you ♡♡♡ may your day be full of soft and happy moments, you gorgeous winter sunrise, and may you feel loved & cared for every second

☆✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The Eclector is dark and, despite the raucous laughter and fighting of the crew, every footfall on the gridded catwalks seems to echo. It smells like rust and oil and old metal, and sometimes sweat, and there’s generally very little that is pleasant about it.

But Kraglin Obfonteri had sent word that the Yondu clan had recently overtaken a Xandaran luxury liner. Among its treasures, there had been a pretty vast art collection, and Jolie is a reliable assessor and - for some of the more common mediums, as well as a few blindingly unique ones - a restorer. It’s not the first time she’s contracted her services out to a Ravager crew. Hell, it’s not even the first time she’s worked with the Yondu Clan. She crosses paths with them at least once every fifteen cycles or so.

So here she is, following some hulking brute named Taserface and dodging when pirates on the catwalk above decide to spit over the side.

What a way to spend my morning, she thinks. There better be something worthwhile in this pile of junk.

They finally leave the belly of the ship and Taserface leads her through a network of cargo holds and corridors, trying to make very awkward conversation and occasionally leering at her. Jolie is a consummate professional, though, and she’s dealt with a lot of creeps. She keeps a polite smile on her lips and a dead look in her eyes. She’d been hoping today’s escort would be the aforementioned Kraglin, or maybe fellow-Terran Peter Quill. Pete’s been family since Jolie met him - almost seven years ago - even if they don’t usually see each other more than once every few cycles at most. He’s a handful of years older than her, but his relative optimism still makes her feel like he’s a sweet, annoying little brother. Frankly, it pulls some heartstrings, because Jolie has baggage where younger siblings are concerned.

Kraglin, on the other hand, is a remarkably endearing moron, and Jolie kind of adores him, the same way she adores particularly stupid cats.

Unfortunately, Jolie gathers that Pete has apparently disappeared in his M-Ship without a word - much to the irritation of the rest of the Yondu clan - and Obfonteri is offsite on orders from the captain, engaging in some kind of criminal activity or another. So here she is, stuck with a guy who could’ve picked any name in the galaxy and settled on Taserface.

Each chamber the pirate guides her through is packed with stolen goods, and she keeps her eyes open in case there’s some incredible artistic masterpiece that has somehow escaped the haul he’s currently taking her to examine. No luck so far, and Taserface is pulling ahead of her, trying to impress her by droning on about some recent brawl he’s been in. She zones out of the conversation, only smiling placidly and nodding vacantly when he glances back at her.

They pass another corridor, this one even more abandoned, and enter yet another chamber. More goods are stacked all around, a disorganized horde of stolen treasures: casks of silverwine from Vanaheim, crates of shimmering pearls from Morag, pleasure-bots from Contraxia. At the far end, she sees what looks like the corner of a cage.

Her eyes narrow, and her head tilts.

That’s unusual.

Normally, bounties are housed in the caged cells lining the main corridors just off the belly of the ship - not hidden, and not mixed in with the loot. As they draw closer, Jolie can just make out a shadow shifting inside - something the size of a kid.

Her blood runs cold.

She’d heard Yondu and his crew had already been exiled from the loose coalition of Ravager clans due to trafficking children, but she’d thought they’d stopped doing that years ago, when Pete had come on board. Is that why this cage is hidden way out here?

They draw closer, and she catches a glimpse of fur moving behind the rusted bars. Out here in space, that doesn’t mean anything in particular: it could still be a child. Her stomach becomes a stone in her gut, and she knows she's not leaving this stupid fucking ship without knowing what's going on, and making sure everything is okay. She’s got enough units on her that she can probably afford one or two kids, maybe a few if she needs to - a bribe more than a purchase, she thinks, and a mean fucking talking-to for Yondu Udonta. But if he's making some kind of a habit out of this, she’s going to need a lot more resources than she currently has available to her.

And maybe he’s not. She's trying very hard not to jump to conclusions, because to be honest - despite his reputation - Yondu really doesn’t seem like the type to continue engaging in this shit. And she kind of likes him, like the grumpy old uncle she's never had.

Taserface keeps heading straight across the chamber to the other door, boasting and blathering, but Jolie’s drawn to the cage. Smoothly - never breaking stride - she veers to the left, and her tour guide doesn't even notice.

The metal box is about three feet tall, sitting on top of a knee-high crate scrawled with the words “sovereign porn” in Kree - lovely, Jolie thinks drily - and there’s definitely a lifeform inside. She leans in just a bit, and catches a flash of bright eyes and teeth and - she thinks that’s a ringed tail, and a mask.

That can’t be right.

Her eyes scan him again, and yeah: the caged creature looks almost like a raccoon from back home, but he’s standing upright on his hindlegs and…yep, he is most certainly wearing pants.

The lifeform rears back: teeth bared in a vicious, silent snarl, ears flat against his skull. In this position, she can see some kind of metal has been embedded in his chest. The fur around it - and in a few other places - has long since stopped growing due to scarring, and the flesh around the metal itself looks painfully inflamed. Her heart slams into her sternum and her stomach drops.

“Oh, love,” she breathes out, unthinking. “What did they do to you?”

The raccoon tilts his head to one side, eyes bright with biting intelligence, and she could swear he’s practically sneering. He opens his mouth and for all the world, she almost thinks he’s going to answer her.

Taserface interrupts any miraculous revelations with his too-loud, too-boastful voice, suddenly behind her, leaning too close. “T’was the High Evolutionary Hisself what cut the critter up and stitched it back together. Replaced some of its bones with new ones and made it walk like it’s tryin’ to be a man.”

She straightens and stares up at him, and the asshole chuckles, like it’s funny.

Jolie makes a noise in her throat before she can stop it. “Nope. Don’t like that.”

She turns back, still eyeballing the creature on the other side of the rusty bars. It’s shadowy in there, but she’d guess he’s maybe three-feet tall with change. And if he is a raccoon - and he sure does look like one - he’s probably already plotting his escape.

She gnaws on her lower lip. “And where are you all taking him now?”

Taserface looks at her like she’s an idiot. Maybe she is.

“Back t’ HalfWorld an’ the High Evolutionary, a’course.”

Her head snaps around to face him so quickly that something in her neck audibly cracks, sending a hot flare of pain up the back of her skull. She ignores it. “So they can torture him some more?”

Taserface shrugs and glowers and spits dismissively. “It'll be two hunnert-thousand units.”

Jolie sucks in a breath through her teeth. That’s more than…well, that’s more than a few children.

She looks at the rusted bars, and back to her brute of a tour guide, and sighs heavily. Slowly, she turns back to the cage, swaying toward the bars so she can peer in at eye-level. She’s immediately face-to-face with the creature. His ears are still pressed flat against his head, fur bristling, and he’s gazing back, clearly suspicious and probably - justifiably - feeling more than a little bit mean. She’s suddenly certain that if she got close enough, he’d take out her eyes.

There’s no helping herself, is there? Goddamn, she’s an idiot. One corner of her mouth twists up in exhausted resignation and she sighs.

“Welp,” she says solemnly to the raccoon with a polite nod, “fuck me, my dude.”

Swiftly, she stands back up, turning to Taserface and flattening her palms together in front of her with a soft clap. Her fingers lace together and she presses her knuckles to her lips in half a prayer. She’s not going to think about the consequences too much. Not till later, anyway. She’s going to move through these next moments in a flurry, a manufactured whirlwind: partly so she doesn’t second-guess herself, and partly to keep Taserface from applying too much critical thinking to anything she’s about to say.

She imagines that second part should be easy.

“It looks like it’s Udonta’s lucky day, because I happen to have two-hundred-and-thirty thousand units on hand, and I’ve always wanted a raccoon.”

[raccoonfallsharder]

guess what, it’s chip anon. IM IN SUCH A GOOD MOOD

i have an update on the last thing i sent to u — all is resolved ! like i said before , i’m on the aromantic spectrum so it’s very rare for me to get crushes - so when my friend heard i got a crush , she was just trying to be supportive , but also didn’t know what to do . ty for ur advice too , because i did use it ! <3

putting that aside , i have chips again !! i also found myself time to watch gotg today (finally) so today has been fulfilling . also like , i haven’t read ur fanfictions / fanfic in general in a hot MINUTE cuz i’ve been busy . but now i got free time and i’m going to spend my time reading ur fics and eating chips . pretty relaxing if u ask me

sorry for the long ass ramble again , it’s probably obvious but i have adhd and i also have a huge problem with ranting LOLL

have a good day tumblr user raccoonfallsharder u are what keeps my rocket hyperfixation standing

my crispy golden little chip!!! it makes me so happy to know that you are so happy right now! i am so glad things worked out with your friend. i feel like sometimes friendships can become even stronger after something like this -- like you know each other better, and you know you can safely talk through your feelings and understand each other. i'm so glad for you ♡ this seriously makes my heart so fuckin happy ♡♡

i am so grateful we live in a world and a time where you have been able to have chips, watch gotg, and catch up on some highly-questionable reading lol

your "rants" and "rambles" are never a problem for me so come back any time, lil chip nonnie ♡♡♡ and may the rest of your day be full of tasty chips & happiness & good reads in sunbeams