Chapter 2: Rebuilding

A/N: I was thrilled that so many people from so many countries checked out Chapter 1. I could not be more honored. I wanted this second part to be as perfect as possible. Enjoy!

"Why are you moping over that old thing?" Rocket admonished Peter. "You got 300 more songs and even digitized all your old ones. Not to mention that this 'Zune' sounds a lot better than what you used to have."

Peter sighed, exasperated. "You really want to hear the reason?"

"If you're about to go all weepy on me, you can cut it," Rocket sneered.

Peter continued in a sullen tone. "All right. That 'old thing' was the last thing aside from the tapes that I had of my mother, and of my old life. Happy?"

"I can't believe how fast you can make me feel all slimy," Rocket shivered, flouncing away in disgust. Retrieving the parts of that Walkman was not going to be easy.

The planet of Ego having been destroyed, the Walkman parts had drifted off into space and required advanced, robot-aided searches. Fortunately, Rocket found the main body. One look at the tape inside, fortunately still in working order, told the mechanic how to machine the parts that had fallen away.

Taking a sample of the antiquated plastic, he synthesized a batch and strengthened it, making it unlikely to break in the same place again. After repairing the plastic of the shattered frame with the styling of the damaged part recalled from his memories of the device, he began to dismantle the internal workings of the tape deck, audio amplifier, and power system. He laid every metal part and wire in front of him. Not having a circuit diagram for the circuit board, he painstakingly recreated one based on assumptions, reasoning, and just enough luck.

Certain parts were simply bent, but filling in the missing pieces was far beyond the difficulty Rocket usually encountered in his work. He spent many hours slotting different widths of pins into the tiny holes on the tape and welding (and de-welding) them to and from the tape deck pieces. The most perplexing part to deal with had been the magnetic tape reader. Its absence from the Walkman's carcass gave Rocket a long new list of reasons to cuss out Ego. Not having designed the cassette tape or the cassette player, Rocket found himself irreversibly stumped. Fortunately, Kraglin knew the location of the junkyard where Yondu had seen the Zune.

Stepping through the piles of abandoned artifacts from dozens of worlds as rain drizzled down, Rocket once again questioned, "Why?" The project had been exhausting and time consuming, and if their collectively stunted nature was any indication, Peter might even laugh at the whole situation. Still, he continued. Part of it stemmed from Rocket's guilt over teasing Peter about his obsession with the old music player, but he owed the majority to how Peter had treated him after Groot's apparent death. He dropped a tear onto his furry cheek as he compared Peter's kindness to his own callous snark. He had to do this, to apologize to Peter without having to face the man directly. A few Terran artifacts, presumably taken unnoticed from a landfill somewhere on that world, lay in a corner. Perched on top, like a sign from above, was the magnetic reader from a Sony Walkman cassette player.

Once again laying all the parts on his desk, Rocket completed the rebuild. Toddler Groot danced his approval as the tape inside started in the middle of Surrender, the last song Peter had listened to before the player had been destroyed. "Still needs something new…" Rocket mused, and then jumped in his seat, shocked at himself. Why had he just volunteered himself from more of this painstaking work with technology he had no understanding of?

After a second trip to the junkyard, Rocket sat down in front the ship's wall-mounted cassette deck and set up a communicator designed for secretive deep space signal interception. A signal broadcast from Terra for all to hear would be easy to obtain given the device's intended use, and a cable to link the two worlds-apart devices would be easy to splice. The main delay facing Rocket was the talkative nature of the voices over the radio. They provided a semi-constant stream of bumbling commentary on humans Rocket knew nothing about but whose lives sounded awesome. Finding songs that gave him the same joyful vibes as Peter's originals would take forever considering the ways the planet had evidently changed.

Three more-or-less constant days later, Rocket emerged. He didn't care to wrap the Walkman; he just threw it into a bag with the headphones and called the project done. What remained made all of the technical work seem easy.

That evening, Peter was startled by an impatient rap on his room door. A nervous-looking Rocket was the last thing he expected to find. Shoving the rolled-up bag into Peter's startled grasp, Rocket mumbled, "Don't mention it," and vanished down the hall.

"Uh, thanks?" Peter issued confusedly. Then, more to himself, he mused, "Let's see what we've got."

As he pulled the Walkman out of the bag, his eyes grew moist. He ran his fingers lovingly over the authentic but sturdy plastic substitute. With a tearful laugh, he tried on the cheap plastic headphones that had been there for him through 25 years. Inside the tape deck was his Awesome Mix Vol. 2, its cracked casing also having been repaired. Against his will, Peter overflowed in excitement. He looked back inside the bag to discover what looked like a folded paper. Drawing it out, he found it to be a small box with a message attached. The tiny card read, "This was hell. You'd better appreciate it."

"Same old Rocket," Peter chuckled, opening the box. Inside glistened a brand new tape. Peter gasped when he saw it. Written on the factory-blank label were the words, "Awesome Mix?"

Despite recently receiving more fresh music than he ever thought possible, he scrambled to insert and start the new tape just like a young boy. With more enthusiasm than any other time in his life, he hit the scratched and dented Play button.

The Things We Do for Love began.

He listened in shock for several minutes, and then, in a voice loud enough to fill the ship, yelled, "Rocket! Too awesome!"

From across the ship, Rocket just face-palmed and shook his head. This would be fun to explain.

A/N: As usual I appreciate all well-worded opinions. The 10CC song "The Things We Do for Love" was mentioned during this story. Not essential to the story but I strongly recommend checking it out.