A/N: Please read until the end for another note. And Please Enjoy!

(The italicized texts are meant to be moments that don't fit in this linear jump off for the beginning of Mantis and Rocket bonding. If I tried to write an entire linear narrative for these two, I'd be shooting myself in the foot because Rocket needs soooooo much time to adjust to liking a person, let along loving a person).

When Mantis awoke, it was to the barely discernable sound of shredding fabric.

She came to slowly, convinced that she was dreaming the sound while still half-asleep. Eventually, her large eyes opened for long enough that she could coherently look around and confirm that she was, indeed, not dreaming, but still in the engine room. Mantis looked at the machinery that surrounded her and, without processing it fully, confirm what was what and that everything was where it should be.

It was still a marvel to her.

The bug-eyed woman didn't dwell on her progress for very long, as she could still hear tearing and ripping not far from where she'd slept. Mantis looked about, trying to pinpoint where the noise was coming from.

Rocket was still asleep beside her, curled up in his cot – and having a nightmare.

"Ro… Rocket?" She arose from her sleeping place. Mantis slid her hands down her front to straighten out her clothes, and to try and contain the nerves that had started in her stomach.

Mantis ambled toward Rocket with measured steps, clutching the lapels of her tunic as they swung in time with her movements. Once she'd reached the edge of his bunk, Mantis's racing heart wrenched painfully as she could not only hear Rocket shredding his blankets with his sharp, sharp claws, but he was actively whimpering into his pillow.

She didn't need to feel his emotions directly to see the fear on his face once she was close enough to lean over him, or hear the pain in his snarls and cries.

Tears began to form in Mantis's black eyes. Whatever Rocket dreamt of, it was clearly torturing him.

Mantis looked away from the raccoon and down to her hands for a split second, feeling frustrated with herself over her innate diffidence. She knew she wasn't brave, but to stand idly and watch someone you cared for in absolute pain? It brought back too many memories of when Mantis been small and had watched children her age and younger be murdered by their father, of when Mantis had…

Had pacified Ego's children to calm them…

Mantis gazed at Rocket again, hands still held out in front of her. She could help him! It would require her touching him, which was precarious. Rocket avoided her hands all the time, even when they were working in tandem and side by side. But then, Mantis had literally held him in her arms hours prior to now so that she could carry him to the ship.

She sent a prayer to the stars before reaching out to rest her hand against his upper back, hoping that he wouldn't mind. That if Rocket should wake up, that he would understand why she had touched him. The last thing that the bug woman wanted was for her friend to hate her like he had in the beginning.

Mantis rested her hand against the raccoon's shoulders. She registered straightaway that, instead of fur or muscle, there was what felt like a panel of some kind with strange knobs raising out of his body. Tough skin stretched over and around the foreign entity, but Mantis was sure that the object inside was made of metal.

A torrent of questions ran through her mind, questions like what and why and how, but in the blink of an eye, Mantis's entire being drowned in pure, intense feeling. Anger was channeled like an all-consuming flame into the Empath's mind and body. Underneath that rage was no better, a bubbling tar pit of fear, dread, and agony. She could feel pain oozing from Rocket's very soul as though that itself had been wounded beyond repair. And in her mind's eye, Mantis saw something she couldn't have possibly experienced, brief images of a life that was not her own but which belonged to Rocket.

Every image terrified her.

Mantis's hand fell away from him and clapped against her mouth in horror. The girl fought to control her panicked gasps for a long, drawn-out moment as she regained her senses.

Rocket continued to groan in his sleep before her.

The woman closed her eyes, carefully.

Mantis steadied herself before resting her hand against his temple this time, while bracing for the impact that she now knew was coming. Pushing her way through the still torrid, raw sensations, Mantis's antennae lit up as she willed their conjoined pain to subside. She breathed in and out steadily while conjuring up memories from within that brought her comfort and peace.

Peter was spinning her around to one of those lovely songs that often played in their ship on lazy days, trying to teach her how to dance. He was smiling, but it looked nothing like Ego's; Peter smiled happily and sadly at the same time, and Mantis could feel him mourning at her fingertips. She was balanced on Peter's feet as a nebula of stars and ethereal purples, blues, and greens filled the Quadrant's viewing port.

She could feel soothing, repetitive motion while Gamora's brushed Mantis's dark hair and felt the blue grasses of Xandar's play park beneath her fingers. Blue like Gamora's sister, appearing in and out of Mantis's line of sight when she called on the newly fixed holocom. Of a burst of light scattering like a gleaming silver shower when Yondu's, no Kraglin's, arrow accidentally cut into the hazardous net of circuits above them. A calloused, rough hand pulled her away from the sparks, and admonished her for being thoughtless like Peter had been when he was a boy.

Drax's favorite knife was just as silver and sparking when he sharpened it, and it gleamed in the starlight like it was made of pure fire. Perhaps it was just as hazardous to lay her head on his lap like a child's and listen to his tales as a Destroyer while he dangled said knife above her, but she felt safer than she had ever felt before.

Everything was still dark, but it was real. As real and new as Groot offering tiny wisps of flowers she had never seen before while their feet swung from the balcony of a skyscraper that made her feel heady and silly. She asked gaily if Groot would ever be as tall, twirling the flowers in her fingers and watching all the spores float away in the breeze.

The memories brought with them echoes of her feelings in those instants. All of them filled her with unceasing delight that she soaked up and gave to Rocket, who had already begun to settle where he lay.

Mantis concentrated. At the center of her mind, she could see Rocket, looking past the hub of one of their engines. He was looking at her and laughing quietly and genuinely, at something she'd done or something she said, and he seemed fond, proud… of her.

Lingering shrouds of fear and alarm faded gradually from her senses in the wake of her jumbled reminiscing; but Mantis dutifully fed her happiness into her friend's psyche without begrudging it.

She retracted her hand only when she was sure that Rocket was once again resting peacefully.

The metal bars got closer and closer every day.

Steel was always biting into his skin, whether in a cage or when he was being squeezed between sterile gloves. It was the one sensation he knew best, always at his heels, backing him into a corner, and still closing in on him while he struggled. But it kept him grounded. The feel of it, the scent of it barely distinguishable from the red fluid they drummed out of him daily with their poking and pinching.

Metal, keeping him in place, sticking out of his arms that had been ripped off and slapped back on again. Metal, giving him posture, broadening his shoulders and changing his hand-eye coordination instantaneously. His screams bounced off metal surfaces, cleaned of guts and gore when it was polished every morning so that he could look at his reflection and be confronted with a face that didn't look right, didn't look like what he felt it should.

Metal, comfortably cool in his hands, that let him destroy the only world he'd known with the pull of a trigger.

Rocket thought he'd been pissed when he'd had to endure one of the most obnoxious hangovers he'd ever had in his life, but no, the anger and irritation had carried over from that night into the morning, and onward.

No one had even bothered to apologize. Not Kraglin, not Gamora, or Drax; and certainly not Quill.

Was he the only one that actually gave a damn about their team?

Star-Dork was supposed to be their leader, but aside from defensively pushing his own agenda to tour Korova's watering holes and thanking Mantis for being just as much of a pushover as always, he hadn't cared much how the rest of them felt.

Rocket wasn't all that thoughtful, he could admit that, but an idiot would hold some reservations over pushing an Empath into cramped spaces filled with loads of drunken slobs.

He could tell that Gamora had had similar thoughts, not solely when Mantis had begun to get unusually distracted and clumsy throughout the night when she didn't have a drop of alcohol in her system. What did that amount to in the end? Absolutely nothing.

Rocket conceded that maybe Thanos's former daughter didn't have Peter by the balls as much as he'd assumed, not when she was this tolerant of the Terran's arrogance and stupidity.

Then again, what did his own complacency amount to in the end?

He'd been quietly fuming the entire trip on that infamous planet, but Rocket had milled around while Mantis was strung along and put into situations that were obviously uncomfortable for her.

Rocket shifted in his seat, the captain's chair, and scratched at his neck. The others were avoiding him, even Groot… although that didn't make as much of a difference from the norm anymore.

He couldn't stop the uncomfortable prickling at his spine at the memory of Mantis struggling in silence as she walked into Korova's nightclub. She had barely kept up with them by the end of the night, caught up in the bewildering the constant swirl of people that they passed. It was just as easy to pretend that the bug lady's disorientation came from being susceptible to hundreds of new sights and sounds. Doubtless, Ego had never taken her to anywhere or to see anything if he could've helped it. Maybe, for the rest of the crew it hadn't been an issue in the first place, but the more that he thought about it, the more Rocket wondered if he'd played willfully ignorant that night.

Willfully, wretchedly ignorant, until he couldn't afford to be.

"What's wrong with that one?"

The group had decided to hole up not too far from the main bar, and Rocket was, unfortunately, the Guardian nearest two of most unseemly, slovenly scum-sucking alcoholics he'd seen in a long time.

They'd been difficult to disregard in the first place, being as loud as they were – and without Drax to literally yell into their ears over this nightclub's deafening "music" – Rocket found it difficult not to glare at them every five minutes. Even when Mantis had given up in trying to pretend that she was having a good time and excused herself from their table.

The Empath had left the club at a crawl and, on her way toward the exit, had accidentally bumped into one of the slobber-ers – the one with a snout for a nose.

"What's wrong with that one?" Pig-face bellyaches, while they all watch Mantis leave after profusely apologizing for her clumsiness.

"Probably ain't too bright." His companion (Rocket barely remembers him apart from his pock-marked face and oily hair) could barely hold onto his drink but his gait was proud, arrogant – infuriating, if you asked Rocket – "Ha! Did you see her walkin' funny when she came in? Took too many on the street corner, I'd say!"

The bastard had then burst into laughter as if what he'd said was a riot. He had no idea his words could've well started a riot had Rocket managed to not just pin him to the ground in five seconds flat, but legitimately tear his fucking face off like he'd sworn to do.

The very thought of those two morons made Rocket's claws crick and his lips furl back in a snarl. He could feel the charge of aggression in already tensing muscles as though the scum

Rocket's scowl worsened as he remembered that it had been him and him alone that had defended one of his teammates. And that he had been punished for it, like a fucking infant.

And he was still being punished; they were still avoiding him, even days later. Even Groot. Even Mantis.

He can almost picture himself; his already ugly maw, screwed up and scrunched while he convulses and covers his eyes like a child, trying to hide the burning tears that soak through his fur.

Rocket buried further into the sheets, gripping them for dear life. The sheets on Mantis's bed were nearly torn up from the nights he'd spent there in the past, and while he spared a thought to how he was ruining her possessions, there was little that the mechanic could do about it. Not now, when he could already feel the beginnings of a headache pounding in his skull. He'd brought it upon himself after thrashing so violently in his dizzying nightmares.

He still caught glimpses of those memories even awake. Those dreams had to be so – visceral – no matter how often he had them. Rocket couldn't even remember if what he was frightened of had happened the way he saw it in his mind, but whatever his brain fabricated would never fail to scare him wide awake.

In the aftershock, that still makes his skin crawl and ripple against the implants that hadn't healed correctly, he can feel something soft against his hand. The ring in his ears dulled gradually, until Mantis's voice drove away the remaining flurry of images. She sounded anguished beyond measure but her hand was holding his hand, to keep him anchored in case the dreams returned.

"Let go." He said finally, hoarsely. "You shouldn' have ta… it's… you…"

Mantis clutched his hand tighter. "Please. I want to help."

"I share with you all the time."

She sobbed, his pain coursing through her like blood through veins. "Please share this with me."

Rocket's entire frame shook; rage and sorrow were still clouding his mind. "I can't give you nothin' good. Don' you get that?"

He made a feeble attempt to pull his hand away from hers, but her grip was strong while his strength is meager. Maybe he isn't even trying.

"I'm right here! You don't have to be alone." Mantis exclaimed thickly. She moved closer to him, until he could feel her breath on the hands still covering his eyes. "I would not ever abandon you, Rocket, even if… if… even if you bit my head off!"

Rocket doesn't know what to do. His ears flattened tightly against his skull and despite himself, he sobbed into the mattress. It sounded like a scream and a whine rattling from his rattling from his tired throat. The raccoon could only imagine the noise he made when he'd been deeply unconscious.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be; he's always been certain that he doesn't deserve his friends' concern or compassion. And now he was making her sick because of all the scars that lay beneath his surface that would never completely heal.

And yet, Mantis hadn't manipulated his pain this entire time; her hand was only intertwined with his. She wanted to share this with him, this of all things.

"It ain't fair." Rocket moaned in between sobs. "It's not… fair."

He wasn't sure what he was talking about then, if he was addressing his own screwed up personality or this thing that he and Mantis had fallen into that didn't have a name yet.

She continued to lay side by side with him as words failed them both. Rocket didn't expect her to say anything more, although the persistent but gentle squeeze of her hand at regular intervals (those in which his muffled cries grew loudest and more panicked) let him know that she hadn't fallen asleep again.

"wild horses, couldn't drag me away…

wild horses… we'll ride them someday…"

Rocket's brow furrowed in confusion when he slowly turned to look at her fully. He listened to her in puzzled silence for a little while, keeping himself from wincing as she butchered the lyrics the more she went on.

Eventually, he couldn't help but let out a strained laugh while rubbing his tired eyes. "What're ya doin'?"

"I am singing." Mantis smiled at him serenely. She stroked her fingers against his knuckles lightly, at the ready to withdraw if he wanted her to now that things had calmed down. "You love this song, don't you?"

Rocket regarded Mantis's resting feelers and bare face, framed by her messy dark hair and even darker, absolutely adoring eyes.

"Yeah. I do." Rocket said.

"Hand me that screwdriver, would ya?" Rocket concentrated on the grooves that lined the Quadrant's backboard thrusters.

He had no idea what was keeping their ship from propelling like it should, but assumed that it had something to do with the asteroid field they had plummeted through a day ago. Rocket ran a paw over the trailing indents and his hands came back glittery and slightly greenish-yellow in between the dark grease.

The mechanic grimaced, rubbing his gloved together as he felt the familiar weight of a screwdriver placed daintily in his other hand. He hopped up into the satellite-shaped opening and continued to feel around. It was dumb luck that had allowed them to survive not only a rush of asteroids, but an atmospheric cloud of Sulphur – of all things!

Rocket tapped at the crown-shaped center where laser-guided matter usually exited their ship. He had a hunch that asteroid debris was stuck inside, snug with a coating of highly heated Sulphur to keep it in place. He'd been afraid that whatever mucked up the Quadrant's gear was not going to be easily removed, and of course he'd been right.

He sighed and went back the way he came, squinting in the light of day before his eyes fell on Mantis's lone form. The bug woman was standing stiffly, in the same position as she had been when he'd called her over to help him. Her hands twisted together while she kept her head bowed and refused to meet his gaze, like a servant waiting for their master to bark another order at them.

It shouldn't have troubled him all that much, but Rocket had already been irritated when their ship nearly dropped out of space that 'morning'. He didn't have time for this chick to act all (confusingly, hurtfully) subdued around him like he was the second coming of her former manipulator.

Rocket sniffed. "You just gonna stand there all day or what?"

Their routine of fixing whatever little thing on the ship was never this tense and quiet, not since the beginning of Mantis's technical training. He was used to her talking constantly, asking all kinds of random questions from 'what does this button do?' to 'do you know what jello is made of?' and to her telling him about whatever she had discovered that day.

Mantis looked up, startled. "Oh! I…"

She continued to wring her hands nervously against her tunic, perhaps due to nervousness after being caught for spacing out.

"If you ain't here to help, then you should just go back and spend time with the rest a' them." Rocket huffed. His mood continued to sour as he jumped off of the thruster and to where his toolbox lay. "I'm sure you'd be better off havin' fun with 'em than being here with me."

Mantis visibly swallowed before she managed to make eye contact with him for the first time (in a while).

"I'm sorry." She said timidly, like Rocket hadn't said anything at all. He looked into her eyes from across the tarp beneath their feet and felt a wave of nausea over what he saw in them.

Pity.

Mantis was looking at him with pity. Mantis felt sorry for him.

"Ya know what?" Rocket threw his tools to the wayside. Why did it still have to cut so deeply, to be pitied?

"Ya don't gotta help me. I can do this by myself. Later." He turned away from her and clapped his hands of the oil and diesel like she was no longer there.

Taking a breath, Rocket couldn't help but glance toward Mantis impulsively. He should have felt some satisfaction, in himself for not letting her have it or in seeing her cowed at his dismissive tone.

Damn it all though, the sight of Mantis shrinking back as if he'd gone and snapped his jaws at her only made him feel guilty and ashamed.

The hurt and distress in her eyes only worsened that ugly feeling, but Rocket didn't wait to hear what the girl had to say before he turned his back on her and walked out of the room.

A/N: Thank you so much to all those who reviewed and favorited this story! I know this isn't everyone's cup of tea, and I sincerely appreciate it when anyone takes time out of their day to read one of my stories. I've read all of your reviews, rest assured, and I'll reply to all of them as soon as I can!