"What did you just say?"

Rocket stared in disbelief at what Peter just said. Rocket was the first and currently to his knowledge only, besides Groot for obvious reasons, who Peter had opened up to about his history on earth involving his mother's death and subsequent abduction by Yandu and his crew. So Rocket only could imagine the emotions going through Peter's head at the moment. Rocket looked around and it was obvious earth was not as his partner left it. There were all sorts of high tech buildings and skyscrapers and in all if Rocket had to find a brief comparison description to the new design of earth he would say it looked like a poor man's prototype of the home city of the Nova Core.

Rocket looked back at Peter after surveying his surroundings right as he noticed Peter wiping away a face of remorse before looking back to speak to Rocket to speak to him. Believing the Raccoon had not noticed his moment of weakness he had just shown as he felt an ongoing need to be as strong if not stronger than Rocket for his boyfriend's sake right now with all of his doubts and self-loathing, he spoke with a voice as if the memories didn't affect him.

"Well come on Rocket let's go have this day off Gamora and Drax so desperately feel we need huh?"

He gently punched Rocket's shoulder playfully. Despite his worry for Peter's emotional state, Rocket felt it best just to drop it for now and play along, so he had settled for allowing a smirk to play across his face.

"Yeah, yeah you Dork let's just go find somewhere to eat shall we?"

He said allowing for some of his original snark and sass to leak back into his tone.

This caused Peter to chuckle, then with a nod shared between the two they set off into the city below in search of somewhere to get a bite to eat. After a bit of walking the pair came across one street that wasn't quite like the others... Unlike the other streets which all kept with the futuristic look this one had kept to it's original design and based on Peter's educated guess he would say it looked to be what he heard some people refer to as China Town in what used to be New York city, which he now assumed is where they were...

"Figures Gamora would send us here... Guess she did some research on earth before sending us down here and figured here would be a good place..."

Peter half sighed, half muttered. Rocket looked at him with slight confusion.

"I don't get it,where the flark are we?"

"They used to call this place New York basically it was one of the highlights of tourists who came to area of earth to come and see the sights here and they have tons of different foods from different regions of the world here.."

'Okay so mabye Gamora isn't the only one who did their homework on earth... God mabye I am a dork...'

Peter admitted to himself before continuing on with his explaination.

"This part is historically on record referred to as "China Town" it serves food from China which is part of the SouthEast region of earth never tried it though."

Rocket licked his lips a bit as he caught the scent of some food wafting from a nearby restaurant and he looked up to Peter.

"Well... There's a first time for everything let's go try it out together that way if one of us looks like an idiot we both go down together as idiots."

"Har, Har..."

Peter mockingly laughed at that snyed comment and led the way to the restaurant. As they walked inside they found that contrary to the design of the place being respectful to the original it was just as blended as everything else in the area as Xandarian was there to greet them and take them to their seats. As they were seated they were handed menus and the hostess went back to greeting other costumers.

Rocket and Quill opened their menus and began scanning through them. Both men were thankful that each menu item had a brief description next to them to describe what everything was. Their waitress approached them with a small notepad and pen in her hands with a cheerful grin on her face.

"Can I start you two off with some drinks?"

Rocket gave Quill a look as if to ask,

'Should I binge a little or just go for something simple like a glass of water?'

Peter answered Rocket in the form of ordering for him.

"Just two waters thanks."

He replied to the waitress.

After jotting the order down in her pad she nodded curtly and walked away.

"You gotta just suck the fun out of everything don't you?"

Rocket replied jokingly. He both knew why Peter has had him cut back on the alchoholic drinks and also didn't care anyway. Even though he hasn't told peter this, Rocket had actuallyrecently lost his taste for Alchohol of any sort and has actually avoided them.

"I just don't feel like explaining to Gamora that the one day she lets us off the ship I am coming back on the ship carrying my drunken boyfriend passed out over my shoulder."

Both him and Rocket let out a snicker at the mental image of Gamora's face if that happened.

Quill grew a deviously evil grin on his face.

"Am I thinking what you are Rocket?"

"We should totally pretend to do that just to see how she will react?"

Rocket replied with a smirk that just told you he was up to no good. His reply being more of a statement than a question despite how he phrased it. As the waitress came back with their drinks they had given her their meal orders. The two ate with some small talk but were mainly focused on the food.

After the meal Peter paid the bill (Despite objections from Rocket who was trying to insist he cover it.) and the couple walked out. As they were traversing the alleyways on their way to see some more sights. Before Rocket could sense or react to it someone had come up behind Peter and knocked him unconcious. Rocket immediately noticed Peter fall to the ground in the empty alley and immediately spun around to see two men wearing masks similar to Peter's mask going to try and grab Peter. Rocket quickly hopped on all fours draping his body over Peter's and getting animalistic as he bared his teeth and growled protectively.

However in his blind rage over someone hurting Peter he failed to calculate just how stupid that course of action was but quickly realized it when one of the two men kicked Rocket to the side and sent him into the nearby stone wall. As Rocket regained his bearings and got on his feet he tried to open his comlink to contact Gamora to get backup, only to find that Gamora had disabled the communication link. Possibly to give the two less distractions and if anything came up her and Drax would handle it.

"That bitch..."

Rocket muttered in frustration before activating a new jetpack that Peter had crafted for him and taking off after Peter's captors. He caught up with them just in time to see them boarding their ship he tried to shoot one of the men down with a hangun but missed and hit the bay door instead as it closed.

Rocket boarded the Milano in a rage quickly hopping into the pilot's seat that normally belonged to Peter and took off after the ship that the unknown men took off in. Gamora and Drax entered the cockpit not long after and Gamora was the first to speak up.

"What the hell are you doing Rocket? Where is Peter?"

Her voice triggered Rocket's anger to skyrocket and he quickly gave Drax the controls and told him to keep following the ship. Before Gamora could get another word out Rocket was in the cargo bay and slammed the door. He threw his back against a wall and slumping to the floor in defeat as he finally did what he refused to do infront of Gamora and Drax, and rarely does so in front of Peter or Groot, he sobbed.

Rocket was so lost right now. He lost Peter, and worse he blamed himself he was telling himself how weak he was if he couldn't even save the one person who mattered to him more than his own life. It was at that moment when Gamora decided to enter the cargo bay, and that moment when Rocket suddenly changed his mind that it wasn't his fault his boyfriend was just taken... But in fact it was Gamora's fault.

"Rocket... I-"

Gamora began in a gentle voice, but Rocket cut her off.

"It's YOUR fault! If you just left the flarking Comm channel open then Peter wouldn't have been taken from me by those men!"

Rocket screamed at Gamora Launching himself from his sitting position to face her, the pain evident on his face. Gamora now pieced together most of what happened out of what Rocket had said just now and her face grew apologetic.

"I know Rocket... This I will take the responsibility for and I promise you we wil get Peter back..."

Rocket was still pissed at Gamora but decided to follow what Peter had been teaching him and to not let his anger get out of control and calmed himself down enough to speak reasonably with Gamora, because he knew that's what Peter would want.

"I wasn't... I wasn't strong enough to rescue him..."

Rocket now looked at the floor and clenched his fists. Gamora, judging the scene safe enough approached Rocket and knelt down a placed a gentle hand on his shoulder,

"Thanks Gamora..."

Rocket said loking back up to her. Gamora simply nodded and her and Rocket went back to the cockpit to continue their pursuit of Peter Quill's captor's.