The first time Rocket recognized he felt something for Peter, he ignored it.
He brushed it off, as he does with most things. He’ll “brush it off”, and “get over it”, but it’s still inside of him, just hidden deep deep down. Where Rocket felt like he couldn’t get hurt by it.
Like how you hide under your blanket as a kid and hope the monster under your bed goes away, except the monster is real and it will never go away.
Eventually, of course, Rocket couldn’t shove away his feelings towards Peter anymore. But he couldn’t tell Peter either. Never. Never.
You wanna know why? Is it not obvious? Peter could never love Rocket like that. Never.
In Rocket’s eyes, Peter was gorgeous. His eyes. Rocket could never stop staring. It infested his mind like a parasite, he could never get Peter’s face out of his mind.
His hair was perfect too. Rocket wanted to put his paw— his hand in Peter’s hair and just play with it, even for just five minutes.
In more simple terms, Rocket adored Peter. Even if he never said it. No matter how much he makes fun of Peter, he loved him more than anything. No matter how hard he denied it to himself.
But, like said before, Peter could never love Rocket romantically.
He could never love Rocket romantically because Rocket is ugly. His fur was matted half the time, he had teeth that could bite through metal, which isn’t exactly appealing to most people.
Not to mention, his cybernetics. His fucking cybernetics. Implanted into his bones, unremoveable.
Ugly.
Rocket stopped shoving his thoughts about Peter down, but he still kept it to himself. He would lie awake at night, making a fake scenario where he could be happy with Peter.
Where he could fly high into the sky, with Peter.
Rocket wouldn’t lie, he had thought about confessing about how he felt. But each time, he stopped himself. Because of the millions of different outcomes.
Vermin.
Why would Peter ever love someone like you?
Disgusting creature.
Subject 89P13.
See, that was the problem. That’s all Rocket was. A test subject. How could Peter love a test subject?
The answer is, he couldn’t.
Peter could never love Rocket.
Peter could never love 89P13.