ive been thinking, what do you think rocket’s love language is??? >3<
hey bby. i've been thinking about you a lot lately and i hope you’re doing well ♡ i've been thinking about this question a lot, too. it’s such a good one and i’m so glad you asked!
i wrote a little about rocket's gift-giving tendencies a while ago, and briefly touched on love-languages in general. but i think it might be hard to parse out what he's like when you first meet him, you know? he's so damn prickly, keeping everyone at arm's length. his words are always so sarcastic and dry that they're practically crackling apart. plus, one time, you tapped his shoulder for something, and he startled and bared his teeth at you in a full-snarl before recognizing you.
doesn't like to be touched, you'd noted to yourself.
i’d guess that it takes at least a few cycles before he starts acknowledging you when he doesn't have to. and thank god he finally does, because you'd been starting to feel really lonely and isolated up there. drax and mantis are always off causing mayhem and pete's constantly trying to convince gamora to sneak off somewhere, and groot's buried in his game most of the time.
but once the two of you actually start talking, it probably isn't too long before rocket warms up to you. you're clever, and warm, and you seem like you really care, which he manages to casually inform you is rare in his experience. and sometimes, when you're having a bad day — staring into the melancholy void, bones flooded with a kind of sadness that feels too pervasive and constant to take you by surprise anymore, or maybe numb with old memories, and thoughts of a future that hollow you out — sometimes, when you're having a bad day, you catch him watching you with something in his eyes that feels like recognition. familiarity. connection.
those are the days he's extra nice to you — at least, by his standards. bringing you a warm fresh cup of your favorite hot beverage of choice, or grudgingly offering to teach you how to fly the benatar.
pete's always muttering about his unspoken thing with gamora, but this feels like a real "unspoken thing": the silent comfort of someone who seems like he understands you, without ever uttering a word.
it's on one of these days — when rocket’s made you breakfast, even though your sleep has been all fucky lately and you missed the first wake-shift meal that the others had shared that rotation — that you find yourself staring at the rim of your coffee-mug and your plate of grilled orloni, watching the steam curl out of your bowl of synth-cinnamon indigarran-oats. and you ask him about it.
what's your love-language?
he blinks over at you, ears flattening in confusion. my fuckin what?
your love-language. you hesitate, then take a bite of your oats. they're a little too hot, but they don't burn your mouth, and you're surprised by the pleasantness of the texture. they're the perfect amount of sweetness, too. it's a terran term, i guess, you tell him thoughtfully. it's basically, like, how you like to be acknowledged. appreciated.
he doesn't respond, and you don't look up from your meal — still feeling morose, maybe, in the first few hours of wakefulness.
like, some people like to be told nice things, you say with a casual wave of your spoon. to be reassured that they're useful or good, reminded that they're important to someone. that's called words of affirmation. for other people, there's something called quality time...
and you go on to explain each one to him.
i thought maybe you were a gifts-person, you tell him at last. on account of the breakfasts and the coffee and the guns. but then i thought, maybe acts of service? you're making pretty much every thing you give me. and you sometimes do my dishes.
you wrangle up a tired grin for him, realizing you've been rambling, and he hasn't spoken a single word. when your eyes meet his, you realize he's gone utterly still: not even a flicker in his ears or a twitch in his tailtip.
i dunno, he admits at last, slowly. his head cocks to one side. i don't tell people i like ‘em or appreciate ‘em very much. i don’t really tell people nice things at all.
you blink back, and feel yourself soften. you tell me nice things just fine, you tell him, lifting your coffee mug pointedly. you spare him a lopsided little grin. when you want to, anyway.
he snorts.
so how do you like to be told them, then? you ask gently. nice things, i mean.
he shifts from foot to foot: awkward. i dunno, he repeats. considers, then opens his mouth to speak ~ grimaces, and shakes his head. i don't think i, uh. i don't think i ever got enough to know.
his voice crinkles at the end, like he's embarrassed by that — as if he thinks he's the one to blame. as if, had he only been more lovable...
you'd been feel distant and pensive all morning, but something inside you is suddenly distilled: a purpose, maybe. one you've grabbed for yourself.
you don't need to be ashamed of that, you tell him abruptly. that shame belongs everyone else in your life who should have loved you, and should have made sure you knew it.
you nod once, firmly — too lost in your own thoughts to catch the slight widening of his eyes, the clench of his fists, the way his tail tucks in against his ankle: all vulnerability.
we have a new mission, you say instead. top-secret. just you and me.
yeah? his voice is thick with curiosity, and something else.
mmhm, you nod. figuring out what your love languages are.
you spend the next quarter making it a point to find new ways to show him how much you care for him — pretty much every rotation. notes of appreciation, picking out one specific trait or action of his that you've been impressed by or secretly adored. translating it painstakingly into kree so he could read about how clearly you'd noticed it, how you'd remembered it, how much it had meant. read it, and keep it. with your spoken words, too, you shower him in praises and compliments, both alone and in front of the rest of the crew. each time, he scoffs and scrubs the back of his hand over his whiskers. but you can tell he's glowing under all that fur: flustered, and flattered, and so fuckin pleased that his toes are probably curling in his boots.
then you test him out with little gifts of your own: left for him here and there, or shared and explained in detail while you hang out in the dim cockpit after everyone else has gone to sleep. treats and sweets. he likes chocolate-covered espresso beans, you'd learned, though they're a dangerous thing to give him. bottles of booze, too. and little bits of tech, no matter how old or broken — though you’ve found he particularly likes the shiny bits. he grins at each one, looking smug and satisfied, and his pockets grow heavy with whatever library of treasures he’s decided will bring him good luck today. he pulls them out on occasion to rub his thumbs over them, or look at them bemusedly: perusing his little gifted treasures. sometimes when he catches you watching him, he even winks at you before shuffling the clinking bits back into his pockets.
once or twice a cycle, you'd also tried to do his chores, but he'd only seemed annoyed by the effort. you'd though that meant you could write off acts of service as one of his love languages, and you’d almost done it, too. but then one night, purely coincidentally, you'd cut up some bandages for him after a fight. he'd actually teared up at the kindness: shameless silver puddles rivering into his fur-covered cheeks. after that, you'd realized that even sitting by his side and handing him tools while he works will make him sigh with contentment, the muscles easing in his shoulders in something close to peace.
and you can't dismiss quality time, either ~ not with the way he starts demanding your presence all rotation long. these days, he’s refusing to take side-commissions if you're not on his team. he stays up late with you and plays Krylorian card-games while you read in the copilot's seat, or tinkers with gadgets while you doze off on the unused mattress in his bunk.
cycles pass. you think about asking him again. have you decided yet? which way you like to receive messages of love? which means the most to you?
but you don’t. you expect you've learned the truth already — which is that rocket has just been too love-starved for almost his entirely life.
he'll take whatever kindness you want to give him.
it’s okay, though, you tell yourself. you're happy to oblige him.
so you relax into this new routine of camaraderie. there are still melancholy mornings and hard days, but each seems easier than the last. you spend each day giving each other the best you’ve got, and growing closer. i like to think that, in time, you both realize that you've become more and more confident that even when things are at their worst, you're not alone in them. your respective memories may sometimes haunt you and the future might feel like it’s looming; the universe might seem large and empty, but the two of you have each other.
and the sky is forever and beautiful.
it's not until another two quarters have passed that it happens. you're chilling in your own quarters with him: you, sprawled and reading on the bed; him, seated on the floor and leaned against the edge of your bunk, tinkering with something. some vague part of you is aware of him hissing and rolling his shoulders — trying to work out the tension and the muscle contractures that you've slowly realized are a part of his daily life. he can’t help it, and neither can you. his pain is just the natural result of all his knotted sinews, contorted around prosthetics and implants — the screws and bolts driven deep into whatever natural bones he still has left.
so you're not consciously aware of his grumbling, indrawn breath or his hitching shoulders — no. you're too used to it. you just keep reading on your datapad, unthinking — lost in the companionship of the moment, the quiet clatter of his work, the words on your screen.
which is the only reason why you casually drape one arm down off the mattress, your hand sifting through the fur along his shoulder and sinking under the strap of his jumpsuit: soothing and easing the twisting muscle with an instinctive squeeze of your furrowing fingers, a thoughtlessly-kind and careful knead of your palm.
perhaps you should have realized. you're pretty sure you know what he used to be, after all — before some monster got their hands on him and turned him into the person he is today, the person you're so grateful to know. and what you think you remember about his original species is this:
two-thirds of the sensory perception areas in a raccoon's cerebral cortex are dedicated to touch. they learn primarily through the palms of their hands, the sensitive pads of their fingertips. they see things based on the brush of the whiskers that bristle from their claws; they recognize things they've held cradled in their hands — even if it was only once, years ago.
for a raccoon, to touch things is to know them.
you've watched the way he handles his flight controls, his mines and firearms, every screen and set of buttons he's ever come across. as soon as his fingers dance over them once, he's got them memorized.
doesn't like to be touched, you'd thought when you'd first met him, but that's not quite right, is it? it's only that someone else has wounded him — taken that strength of sensitivity and turned it into something vulnerable, something that could hurt. and maybe doesn't like to be touched really just means likes it so much that it feels dangerous.
rocket doesn’t bare his teeth this time. he doesn’t even shake you off. instead, his hands still, and you feel his shoulders sag under the firm press of your probing fingers. his head rolls back on his neck, and he groans in a way thy turns into something else: a rumble under his fur, low and hollow.
a purr.
that's it, he manages to mumble. you stare at him, too stunned to look away even as your hand keeps moving of his own accord. his eyes close, and his wire-tight tension continues to soften under your touch. he sounds half-wondering, and half-asleep already.
that's my frickin' love-language.
headcanons & imagines | navigation | fanfiction masterlist related imagines: love languages part one: gift-giving/acts of service | petting rocket till he purrs | rocket "fixes" your car | raccoon sensory perception
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