He's not dumb, he's traumatized. Allow me to explain.
Rocket's childhood taught him that kindness and trust will get you killed. Truly good people die young, (Lylla, Teefs, Floor) and anyone else buttering him up with pretty words are only manipulating him to get what they want out of him until he's no longer useful (High Evolutionary.)
He's angry, he's hurting and he lashes out at others because getting attached gets you hurt, and violence is your only chance at freedom. Besides, who could ever really care for a monster like him but another monster like him? And there's no one else like Rocket. Not anymore.
So why be kind in a galaxy that punishes kindness? Why be gentle when you've only known cruelty?
After Batch 81, no one treated him with care and respect until Groot (someone humies also looked down on because they didn't understand him) and then once again, as soon as he's learned to let someone in a little, Groot gets taken from him too. Why? Because Groot was kind, he trusted, and he cared.
This reinforces the views instilled in him as a child, and he pushes people away before they can hurt him or end up hurt because of him.
Yet still, he stays with the Guardians because it benefits him he has nothing else, and as much as he hates himself for it, he desperately craves approval and connection. He thinks they're pretty decent people, not that he'll admit it, so either they'll die or more likely they'll get tired of his shit and decide his usefulness isn't worth the hassle, and abandon him in a self fulfilling prophecy. He'll push them away before they can push him away.
Either way, he'll end up alone. Either way, the only way to not get hurt is to not care. Or at least, fake it til you make it, because while he pretends not to care, deep down he does.
He slowly has to unlearn all these core beliefs and unhealthy coping mechanisms that have kept him alive for so long. And that's not an easy process. It takes time and there are moments where he backslides into what he knows. But eventually he gets there.
Eventually he learns that there are people who will stick around. There are people who care and there are people worth caring for. And maybe a lot of people were just like him once — angry, hurting and in need of someone to show them the kindness no one ever has before. He's still rough around the edges, but he's learning and he's trying.
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