Are We Human? || Rocket (rxcketrxccoon) & Richard (rchardriders)

rxcketrxccoon:

Rocky. The guy called him Rocky. The familiarity of it was startling. What if—what if it really was him? Richard, back from the dead. Stranger things had happened, even recently. Everything about this guy was familiar. Even the way he moved was right, the way he held himself. It was too uncanny not to be real. 

“You’re really him,” he said as the realization set in. “How the flark—” He bit his tongue, because somehow, how the flark are you alive seemed a little…unwelcoming, given the circumstances. Kind of made him wish he’d prepared something. Although it wasn’t like greeting an old friend back from the dead was really a common occurrence. Not even in Rocket’s world. 

Reflex had him stiffening when Richard stepped closer, but his hand loosened on his gun. Not a threat, he had decided. Which was a good thing, because in that body, his best chance of even having a chance was good distance and better aim. He was still getting the hand to hand stuff back under grips; he wasn’t sure how long it would take, but he practiced every second he could.

“What are you doing here again?” he asked after a second. Because that seemed relatively normal. He’d never been good at the sappy stuff, so big as this reunion was, he’d kind of reached his shock quota. Best to just let it happen. He could process it later, possibly over one of Stark’s seemingly endless bottles of liquor. 

“How the hell did you get humanised?” Richard asked again, a mirror to the raccoon’s own question, hoping that Rocket wasn’t too uncomfortable with the issue to actually share it. He couldn’t exactly answer Rocky’s question after all.

How did he manage to come back? Yeah, well he didn’t know himself, so it wasn’t like he could actually tell Rocket the story. Kinda funny, now that he thought about it. And sad, actually, not knowing the how and why. Such was the life of Richard Rider. Hey, at least he was alive, which couldn’t be said for some countless other unfortunate people, and not people, aliens, creatures to be exact.

Richard moved to sit down at one of the sofas that were within a few steps distance, opting out of shocking Rocket further with a hug. “I’m - I was going to talk to Stark, but if you’re here I can just talk to you.” He replied honestly. At least that was one thing he knew, it being his conscious choice and all.

He picked at the fabric of the sofa, not doing much to dispel the awkward tension around them. Awkward was better than shock or hostility he supposed. “You know being dead tends to keep you out of the loop of certain events.” He joked, following it with a nervous laugh. D'ast, how much time had he spent with Pete to actually pick up both bad jokes and space lingo?