Powers Regrowth

Once upon a time, someone asked Rocket a question.

The question was: "What exactly can Groot do?"

Rocket sat back in his chair on the Milano's flight deck, crossed his arms, and looked at the person who had asked — one of the Nova Corps officers who had come aboard to coordinate the next mission. She was waiting, stylus raised, ready to add Groot to a standard capabilities database.

Rocket looked at her stylus. He looked at her database. He thought about Groot, who was currently sitting in the cargo bay doing something extremely gentle with a small injured creature that had gotten into the ship through a ventilation duct.

Then he said, "That's going to take a while."

Let's start with strength.

Groot can bend steel beams and punch through ship hulls rated for heavy bombardment. When he moves through a fight, there are dents in walls and enemies who are surprised about being on the floor. He is one of the strongest beings in the galaxy.

But here is something people often miss: Groot is also precise. He can grow a single vine — fine as a thread — and thread it into a locked door mechanism and feel the tumblers, one by one, and unlock the door without a sound. He can reach a branch-tip into a narrow gap to retrieve something tiny.

Storm one moment. Surgeon the next. Both are Groot.

And then there is the regeneration.

If Groot breaks a branch — it grows back. If his bark is scorched — new layers form, smooth and pale, over the damage within days. On worlds with rich soil like the forested moons of the Pama system, Groot grows noticeably taller within hours of landing. His chest brightens. His branches lengthen and strengthen.

Even on the barren rock of an asteroid, with almost no soil and very little light, Groot keeps his quiet process of growth going. He draws whatever he needs from whatever is there. He cannot be permanently stopped. He is, at his very roots, a creature of renewal.

Scientists and xenobiologists who have briefly studied Groot's biology — and there have been a few, though their research notes tended to devolve into the word "remarkable" repeated over many pages — believe this connects to something extraordinary: his consciousness is not concentrated in his head. It spreads through his entire body, from the crowns of his tallest branches to the tips of his deepest roots. His whole self thinks. His whole self feels. A blow to the head barely troubles him — his mind is not there alone. It is everywhere.

This is why, when Groot is happy, the happiness moves through him like sap rushing up a tree in spring — quick and sweet and unstoppable. And when Groot is sad, the sadness settles in him the way autumn settles over a whole forest: gently, thoroughly, changing the colour of everything.

Rocket knows all of this because he has watched Groot for a long time and is smarter about Groot than about most things.

He knows, for instance, about the bird.

It happened on the Milano. A small pale bird had been sheltering in the landing strut when the ship made a fast, turbulent landing. The bird tumbled onto the deck, dazed and injured. The Guardians were busy. They did not see it.

Groot saw it.

He sat down next to it on the deck floor — this enormous tree-creature, folding himself into the small space — and very carefully grew a tiny shelter around the bird. Curved bark, just the right size. Holes in the top so air could come through. A little roof against the cold of the deck.

Then he rested one finger — gently, so gently — against the outside of the shelter, where he could feel, through his own living wood, the tiny rapid heartbeat of the bird inside.

He sat there all night.

In the morning, the bird was better. It hopped to the edge of the shelter, ruffled its feathers, and flew out through the air circulation duct.

Groot watched it go.

"I am Groot," he said.

Which meant: I hope you go somewhere warm.

Back on the flight deck, the Nova Corps officer had stopped writing in her database. She was just listening.

"So," said Rocket, when he had finished. "You want to file all that under 'capabilities'?"

The officer looked at her empty page for a moment.

"I'll put 'remarkable,'" she said.

Rocket nodded. "Yeah," he said. "That'll do."

Close your eyes now. Think of something that grows back after hard times. A tree after a storm. A garden after winter. A good heart after a sad day.

That is Groot. Remarkable from root to crown.

Goodnight.