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witch-off · 1 year

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“How to heal a broken bone.”

SPOILERS FOR THE BAD BATCH S2

Rating: Explicit +18

Pairing: Tech x (F)Reader

Synopsis: Tech is very frustraded after breaking his femur, to say the least. He can’t go on missions. He can't fix his ship. He can't even walk straight with crutches. Luckily you are there to help him.

Warnings: Established relationship, poly relationship with the rest of the Batch, a little bit of angst, smut, fingering (female receiving) and oral sex(male receiving).

You hear Tech sigh for the 10th time. Or maybe it was the 15th time. You were already losing count.

Your eyes move from your current task to Tech sitting in the pilot's chair. He seemed bored while staring at his datapad, which was something unusual. "Bored" was one of the last words you would use to describe him. He always seemed to be involved in some research or working on something with his hands. But now he was navigating through files in a distracted way in search of some interesting information.

The culprit of this situation was the cast that went from his foot to half of his left thigh. Luckily, the fracture in the femur wasn’t serious, it would take 3 months for him to recover, but with the help of AZI and a lot of bacta Tech would be back much sooner. Unfortunately, this also meant that he couldn’t go on missions for quite a while.

The others had left early to explore for supplies, but you had chosen to stay and make some improvements to the ship. But it was an obvious excuse to stay with Tech and take care of him. You hated the idea of leaving him alone, especially in these conditions.

Tech lets another frustrated sigh escape and you can't help but copy him.

"Do you need anything, darling?" You ask from your place on the floor where you been fixing some wires on the wall.

"I don't think you can fix my leg. So no, thank you." He answers without even looking away from the datapad.

"Watch your tone, Mister. I know you're upset, but it's no reason to talk to me like that." You use a warning tone and Tech quickly turns to you with a guilty expression.

"My apologies, dear." He says in a softer voice this time. That’s more like it."I didn't mean to sound so rude. It's just that I'm so..."

"Bored?" You suggest.

"Frustrated. But ‘bored’ also works."

You shake your head slightly, getting up to go to him. Tech's mind it’s never quiet, it wasn't a surprise that he was so antsy. His good leg kept bouncing up and down nonstop while he was reading. You were afraid that at any moment he was going to snap and rip out his own cast.

You put one hand on your waist, using your other forearm to prop yourself against his chair to get a good look at what he was reading. From this angle you can finally see that It was a medical article about the speed of regeneration of a broken femur. You couldn't blame him for his impatience.

Luckily, the Batch managed to find a pair of crutches for Tech, but he could barely get around with it. So most of the time Wrecker helped him move around the ship. Tech also needed help when it came to showering and getting dressed, and as happy as you were to help him, having your independence taken away is something horrible.

"I should be out there helping or at least doing something useful. But I'm here, being a dead weight for the team." He complains, letting his body sink against the chair.

You frown, tugging slightly at his ear. Tech does a little “ouch” sound and rubs the bruised skin with his hand. "You know that's not true. Everyone's glad you're okay. I'm glad you're okay. We just want you to rest now."

The proof of your words was right there. His leg was on a small stool, resting on a pillow that was given by Omega as a way to make him more comfortable. The whole Batch wanted to sign his cast - Even Cid wanted to be a part of it. Omega's name had little stars doodles. Wrecker's was the one that occupied the largest space with an imitation of an explosion around it. Hunter's was accompanied by a small drawing of a skull while Echo's was only his name written in blue. And of course, yours was accompanied by hearts.

He sighs, nodding with his head. "You're right. It's just that this reminds me of Kamino. Clones that didn't heal fast enough were sent to maintenance work or just... decommissioned.”

You can feel the weight in his words. You can't even imagine what it's like to be discarded so easily. Clones were considered replaceable, so it was likely that several of them were thrown away just because the Kaminoans didn’t have the patience or empathy at all.

"Well, this isn't Kamino. You have all the time you need to recover, we'll still be here when you’re done." You pass your fingers through Tech's hair, feeling him relax with your touch.

"Thank you." He gives you a small smile, closing his eyes for a moment and breathing deeply as your hands continue to caress him.

"At least I'm here to keep you company." You say. "I can take a break for now. We can play Sabacc, what do you think?"

He seems to consider your proposal, but he gives up quickly. “I've played 5 times with Wrecker. And 4 of Denjarik with Omega. I still don't know how she always manages to win." The last part was definitely a blow to his ego. "Besides, I want to do something with my hands. Something constructive."

"Well, I can’t carry you around like Wrecker. But maybe I can bring you something to work on?"

"No, stay here. Please." Tech tilts his head back, staring at you with his big brown eyes behind his lenses. His hand pulls the hem off your blouse gently, making a silent request.

You could never say no to him.

You lean towards him until your lips met. The angle is a bit awkward, but the kiss is deep and sweet. He lets a deep sound slip from the back of his throat, something needy for more. You need to hear it again.

One of your hands holds the back of the seat to keep you balanced, while the other goes to his face, stroking his cheek with your thumb. This time it’s you who let out a low moan as his tongue invades your mouth, exploring it eagerly.

A shiver runs through your body as Tech partially lifts your blouse, the cold air of the ship hitting the skin of your belly. But soon his warm hands are on you, grabbing everything they can reach. His calloused fingers sending shockwaves through your nerves.

You feel them creeping up your ribs, coming too close to your chest and you know where this is going. You hold his wrists, moving his hands away from you. You already miss them. "Hold on, baby." You sigh. "You're still hurt."

"But it's been so long since we've done anything." He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, raising his forefinger in the same way when he’s about to explain something. "Exactly 3 weeks, 4 days and 16 hours."

You roll your eyes without being able to contain a smile. But it was true, it's been a long time. Between missions and taking care of Omega there was not much time left and no privacy to do something more intimate.

You stare at the cockpit door, mulling over what to do next. You probably had a few more hours alone, and the Batch used to let you know when they were on their way back.

"All right, but we need to be quick. What do you want to do, pretty boy?"

His face lights up, as it always does when he gets something he wants. "On the control panel, I want to touch you."

You chuckle, starting to take off your clothes with the confidence of someone who has undressed more than once in the cockpit. "So when you said you wanted to do something with your hands you were talking about me?”

You lean against the control panel, just in your underwear, feeling the icy metal bite your backside. You put one leg on his lap so he had better view, being mindful of his cast. He can’t turn fully in your direction because his extended leg, but it is good enough. "I'd rather do you than anything in the galaxy."

You hate how flushed you get just from that. You're still not used to this kind of sweet talk and how it makes your insides turn. "Really smooth." You mock him, pushing him slightly on the shoulder."Come on, I'm freezing here."

Tech fix his goggles once more, giving you a mischievous smile before starting. His palm moves slowly along your calf to your thigh , blooming chills along it’s path. He stops when his fingers bump against your panties, toying with the hem.

"I missed that." Tech whispers, leaning over to kiss the inside of your leg. "I missed you."

"You see me every day." You try to joke, but your voice gets breathless when his fingers start approaching your core.

"You know what I meant."

"I don't know if I quite follow. Can you show me?" You bite your lip, giving him a playfully look.

You can see the desire burning in his eyes. The way his pupils are dilated behind his lenses. How heavy his breathing gets. Tech doesn't bother to pull your panties to the side, his thumb stimulating your clit over the fabric while his other fingers cupped your vulva.

You moan softly, your hips moving in sync with his hand, searching more for that feeling. But it's just enough to keep you on edge. It's not what you need to scratch that itch.

"Tech, come on." You pull the last part with a whimper, to close to begging already."Give me more." It’s really been a while, you didn’t notice how needy you were until now.

"I enjoy taking my time, dear. You know this better than anyone." He says while applying a little more pressure to your throbbing clit.

You let out a breathless laugh that quickly becomes a moan. "I think what you enjoy is to torture me."

Tech doesn’t deny it, only giving you a small smirk. But he finally gives in to your pleas, his fingers entering your panties and stroking your folds.

"You're soaking wet." He says the obvious with a smug look.

The answer on the tip of your tongue disappears when he penetrates you with one finger. You let out a silent scream, holding his arm to ground yourself. Tech begins to move it slowly, letting you get used to the stretch. But it’s not enough and soon you’re begging again.

The second digit comes shortly after, throwing you in the borderline between pleasure and pain. Tech watches you closely in the same way he does his experiments. You can't help how even your ears get warm under his insistent gaze.

You feel your leg start shaking, trying it’s best to keep you standing while holding your weight on it’s own. Your free hand grab the edge of the control panel, stopping you from falling.

Tech rotates his hand, causing his thumb to brush against your clit every time this fingers thrusted deeper, hitting your spongy spot. The wet sound of skin against skin fills the cockpit, being only overcome by your loud moans.

“Take off your bra. I want to see you.” You think you would do anything he asked as long he didn’t stop.

With one shaky hand you pull up your bra, your tits jumping out of its confinement. Tech watch hungrily as your breasts bounce with each movement. He lick his lips before giving the next order. “Now touch yourself.”

You do as you’re told, pinching your already hard nipple. You decide to give Tech a good show, since you knew he liked to give extra attention to them during sex. You pant softly, sweat running down you temples as you pull and pinch your nipples before soothing the tender skin.

You stare at Tech's parted lips in a greedy way. You wanted to ravish them, to kiss him until you two were out of breath. But the angle didn't allow that at the moment. You're content with his fingers moving inside you for now. More than content actually.

"Are you close, dear?" You can hear his voice through the hum of your ears, nodding your head weakly. "Good. Just relax and come for me."

That definitely wouldn't be a problem for you. You chant his name while your orgasm is ripped from you, making your legs tremble with the intensity. Tech continues with the deep thrusts, prolonging your high until you’re too sensitive. Your head falls back as your chest rose with every breath.

You put your other feet on the ground for balance, both still fragile with the aftershocks. Your heart melts a little inside your chest when you realize the way Tech looks at you. Like you're the most amazing thing he's ever seen.

"You're beautiful." He mumbles.

You cover your face with a grunt. "You can't say that kind of thing while you have two fingers inside me."

"Oh, my apologies." He finally seems to realize that he's still deep inside you, pulling his fingers out slowly. You hiss softly, felling empty all of a sudden."I must say, it definitely helped me get less anxious." Tech says while analyzing your juices in between his digits.

You shake your head at him. Tech was sometimes unbelievable.

Your back complains about being in so many strange positions for so long, but you don't hesitate to duck your head to capture his lips again. Tech looks surprised, but returns the kiss quickly, pulling you to him.

You squeeze him over his pants, making him moan against your mouth. You could feel the hard line of his cock against your palm, applying a little more pressure to hear his desperate groans. Unconsciously, Tech tries to move his hips against your hand, causing a painful grunt from him.

Your eyes widen and you stop immediately. "Are you okay?" You'd hate to have to explain to Hunter that Tech got more hurt during sex. That you shouldn’t be having… because his femur is broken. Kriff.

"I'm alright, don't worry. I just moved my thigh in the wrong way." He tries to pull you for another kiss, but you push him gently against the chair.

“Relax, pretty boy. I will be taking it from here.”

You push away his good leg just enough to get in between them. The ground is cold against your knees, but you're more focused on what comes next. Tech watched you closely as you unzip his pants, pulling his cock out. He was throbbing in your hand, a drop of precum dripping down his head.

You always though Tech had a nice dick. It wasn’t very thick like Hunter or Wrecker, but it was quite long. He always managed to reach that sweet spot inside you that drive you crazy. You almost want to try to ride him, but you couldn’t risk hurting Tech or broking his cast. So that was a idea for another time.

Your fingers close around the base of his cock, letting your breath ghost along his shaft. Tech whines with the tease, pushing his hips in your direction.

You place a hand on his waist to keep him in place. “Stay still for me, love. I don’t want you getting hurt.” He just nods in agreement, desperate for you to continue.

Oh, but you don’t have the heart to tease him for too long. He has been so good to you. You want to give him whatever he asks for.

You stroke him a few times, his cock craving for the attention. You lap at him, taking your time as your tongue explore him slowly. You stare at him, drinking from every sweet expression of pleasure on his face.

Your lips wrap the head of his cock, felling his taste invading your mouth. You start bobbing your head up and down, going deeper each time.

Tech places a hand on your nape, not forcing you down, only resting in there.

You love how vocal he his during sex, but in moments like this, when your mouth is around him, Tech can hardly form a word to save his live. Just letting out broken praises and little pleas. It’s like song to your ears.

This time, it's his moans that reverberate through the walls. You want to smile satisfied with yourself when you hear his little whines every time you suck a bit harder, but that would mean having to take your mouth off Tech, and you wouldn't allow that.

When he hits the back of your throat Tech starts speaking gibberish.“If you keep it up like this I’m going t- Oh maker.” You take him deeper, hollowing your cheeks. His face scrunching in pleasure.“Please, it’s been a while, I c-can’t.”

"I don't want you to hold back, love." You stop for a moment to catch your breath, but keep stroking him with your hand. You fold his balls with the other and it’s cute how hard he’s trying not to move his hips. Without any warning, you go down on him again, leaving Tech in a speechless mess.

Tech gives a weak moan before coming, filling your mouth with hot strings of cum. You close your eyes, savoring his musky taste. You keep milking him until he's totally spent, humming around him before removing his soft cock from your mouth.

You make sure he’s watching while you swallow and lick your lips. You rest your head against his thigh, smiling sweetly at him.

"Feeling more relaxed now?"

He strokes your head, letting out a deep breath. "Oh, Yes. Definitely. Thank you, dear.”

“You know I’m always happy to help.” You rise from the floor, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Do you think you'll be okay while I go take a shower?"

He nods, eyes half closed. “Yes, I will be here waiting for you.” His voice is sleepy and you can see how hard he’s trying not to fall asleep.

You give him a sympathy look, petting his hair. “Go take a nap, I will be back in a minute.”

You have enough time to clean up and finish fixing the ship. No one suspects anything when they return with a crate full of supplies. Well, except Hunter, who gave you a quick side eye.

But you couldn't help but realize that for the rest of the day Tech didn't sigh or bounce his leg, not even once. Maybe you found the cure for his agitation after all.

#the bad batch #bad batch tech #tech x reader #tech x you #bad batch Tech x Reader #tbb tech x reader #tbb s2 #the bad batch season 2 #tech tbb #poly relationship #poly reader #star wars reader insert #star wars fanfiction #star wars smut #the bad batch fanfiction

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queen-of-writing-bad-things · 5 months

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Henry Danger Reader Insert | Captain Man x Reader: SEASON 4

Episode 9: Back to the Danger Part 2

~Swellview Tech University~

Okay, in a pinch, Ray Manchester could be pretty smart, or rather, he actually started listening.

They had the biggest problem of their superhero careers on their hands, well, one of them, and as such, he'd stopped, thought about what they were doing and as per his sweet girl's advice, had borrowed two whiteboards from Schwoz and some coloured pens so he could draw up a plan of attack.

It was a bit simple and a bit all over the place with some doodles to fill in the empty space, but it was good enough and (y/n) was happy that they weren't gonna jump in headfirst without thinking things through. She was proud of him and tried to cover up her fear with a soft smile as he finished the last doodle and she and Henry sat down to listen.

"Okay, guys, here's the plan." Ray started, tapping the board with a random chopstick he'd found in Schwoz's dorm room. It had probably been left over from a batch of Chinese takeout, but for this purpose, it would do for pointing at his bullet points and the equations (y/n) had worked out for him about velocity, time and distance in a taxi. They were ready to hear it, especially since this was the first time they'd ever sat down as a team for a pow-wow. "Go."

"We leave here in a taxi cab, which'll take us to Glass Tech Industries, where my daddy works." Ray started, going through the first half of the board pretty quickly as it wasn't a particularly complex step, but there was one thing that made Henry shiver. And (y/n) honestly, but it was for a vastly different reason.

"Ummm, you're too old to say daddy." Henry cringed, thinking it sounded weird that his boss, who was well into his thirties, was using a word that was generally associated with little kids and their parents.

"Well, this is nineteen-eighty-nine, back when I called him daddy, so..." Ray shrugged, not seeing the big deal. It was just a title for a man he rarely saw and it reminded him that once upon a time, he had been a normal kid and things between them were good. Henry still didn't like it though, thinking it played too much into his alter-ego as a man-child.

"Um, well, you sound like a baby."

"'Kay, how about dad? Dad? Can I call him dad? Da-da-da-dad? That okay with you?!" Ray snapped back, feeling like they were getting too into this, but (y/n) didn't mind. It was great entertainment in such a tense moment and she was half tempted to stir the pot and make the kid next to her really blush. Was it cruel to make him internally puke and groan? Nah... "Yes, please!"

"Honestly, I don't mind him saying daddy..." The woman added slyly, watching as the smirk grew on Ray's face when he saw the mischievous look in her eyes at the idea of the name. How scandalous, his sweet girl ruined by such filth...he loved it, the wickedness that laid underneath her innocence. Henry, however, reacted predictably, gagging and retching at her comment that was perfectly calculated to wind him up, which showed when the adults burst out laughing at his strong reaction.

"Oh god! You two are animals!" Henry groaned as they chuckled, finding the way he rubbed his eyes and screwed up his nose hilarious. It was so easy to tease him, just a little bit and it wasn't like they were telling him the truth. Ray and (y/n) had their own little names already sorted out, ranging from cute and harmless to downright sinful when put to use. They could've said a lot worse, but their teasing was only that, some harmless fun before they returned to the matter at hand.

"Okay, now, Drex is most likely gonna try locate eight-year-old me to stop me before I skateboard into the densitiser. See the way it happened was...rode in on ma skateboard." Ray smirked at his sidekicks, getting all giddy at the thought of his epic story and how he'd been made indestructible, but the problem was that he'd told it to them a million times.

Henry had only been enduring it for a couple of years, thankfully, but (y/n), she knew it word for word after eleven damn years of repetition. It was cool the first few times, sure, and lord knows how much she loved that bouncy, little grin he had on his face when he recounted the tale but god almighty, she didn't need to hear it again in exactly the same way he always phrased it.

"No, please, don't tell us the story, I can say it in my sleep now, doofus." She whined, sticking out her bottom lip to pout a little in the hopes that he'd shut up, but this was Ray and he had an opportunity to brag with a stranger in the room. The stranger was young Schwoz, who hadn't yet heard the glorious densitisation story, and since he was busy collecting every crinkled dollar he kept in pants pockets and his piggy bank, the superhero figured that it was as good a time as any to tell him.

"That's funny, 'cause when I hear you at night, it sure don't sound like the story." Ray grinned smugly, watching as her cheeks darkened and her eyes darted away, embarrassed that he knew about whatever she dreamed about at night. It made sense, she loved to clamp onto him whenever they fell asleep in their bed, her head on his chest and a leg slung on his hips, arms keeping her close, so it was inevitable that he sometimes woke to hear her incoherent mumblings, but did he really have to say it out loud?

"Okay, gross, but she's right, dude. You've told it us a billion times." Henry grumbled, from both the revolting image they'd planted in his mind and the idea of sitting through his boss's dumb speech. He knew the words too and the actions he always did, in fact, he could probably do a perfect impersonation at this point, after having heard it told to friends, family, hot moms previously and anyone unfortunate enough to be in listening range. That didn't stop Ray though...

"My daddy had just finished demonstrating his latest invention, unbreakable glass, unbreakable glass, unbreakable glass..." Ray started, going all dreamy-eyed when he drifted off into the past, recalling wistfully the same old story of how he was screaming happily on his skateboard before he accidentally turned the densitiser on. The same thing every time and he finished with his hands on his hips, something Henry couldn't help but mimic since it never changed, (y/n) giggling at how he even mouthed the final sentence. "And that's how I became indestructible."

"Fascinating, doofus. Now, Schwoz, have you found enough money for us to take a cab to Glass Tech?" (y/n) asked the genius once her dumb boyfriend had finished and she glanced over to he how he was doing. He had begun to crawl off of the top bunk, so she assumed that he'd found as much as he could, which for a struggling student, wasn't much. Still, he was being very generous, a Schwoz trademark, and she'd make sure that whatever they were given was repaid in heaps of gratitude.

"Yeah, I have eleven dollars...and this extra dollar I once used as a tissue." He grinned, dumping the first few crumpled notes into Ray's hands so he could recount them. Sure, they were a little wrinkly and it was next to nothing, but still, this was nineteen-eighty-nine, back when a dollar stretched a lot further than it did in their time, so hopefully, it would be enough. That last one though, they could do without, the heroes being sure that no taxi driver would want to receive money that was glued shut, thanks to a freak's mucus. No, they could get by with the clean bills.

"I think eleven ought to do it." Ray grinned at him sheepishly, shoving the money deep into his pocket, where it would remain safe until they had to hand it over. Right, they had the funds, no they just had to get to the old factory and pray they weren't too late, so he gestured for his sidekicks to follow hot on his heels. "Come on, let's move."

"Okay, daddy." (y/n) smirked, biting her lip to keep in her laughter when his cheeks went red and Henry nearly tripped over from the shock. The man cleared his throat and felt her hand slip into his, him begging that she didn't see the way he practically had an embolism at all the thoughts popping up in his head. Just because it hadn't been used before didn't mean he didn't like it, which couldn't be said for Henry, who was also having an embolism, for all the wrong reasons.

"Don't call him daddy..." He groaned, prompting the woman to throw her head back as the glee escaped her. What? It was hilarious to see them both on opposite ends of the fluster spectrum, one trying to cover up his blatant desire and red ears, and the other picking up the pace to hide his mortified blush. Cute kid, silly doof, why would she stop when they gave her everything she was looking for?

~Glass Tech Industries~

Y'know, taxi drivers used to be a lot slower. Ray, Henry and (y/n) had really picked a fucking awful time for a high-speed dash across time, right in the middle of rush hour. Despite their protests to the cab driver, they couldn't go any faster because apparently, speed limits are a thing and he wanted to keep his license. What a scaredy-cat. They weren't making time, that's the important thing and in their absence, shit was going down in the labs that made up Glass Tech.

Drex had infiltrated the building, sneakily joining the group of doctors, physicists and general science enthusiasts who had booked themselves onto the tour of Professor Manchester's demonstration and calmly walked around with them as things were pointed out and explained, discussed and exhibited. When the time came for the famed scientist and father of his greatest enemy to finally show off how he could make glass indestructible, he merely clapped along with the rest, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike, which came when the same old story became true.

When the tour group moved off to go have refreshments with the inventor and his team, which was a very foolish thing to do considering that the densitiser could do a lot of damage in the wrong hands, he stood in position, waiting for the moment when he'd alter the course of history; no more Captain Man, no more Kid Danger and his silly, sweet cupcake would forget all about those ideas in her head and come back to him because that's where she'll have been all along. No one could stop him, not Ray, not Henry Hart, not (y/n) and her stupid "confidence", nobody. This time, Drex would be the winner.

"Daddy, daddy! Hey, daddy! Daddy, daddy, woah!" Little Ray shouted as he was always meant to when he came rolling in on the skateboard, headed straight for the densitiser and his destiny, but just before he could reach the lever and metallic frame, a pair of strong arms swooped in and pulled him from the skateboard. Ray's head was spinning as he looked up and saw the evil sneer of some dude with blond hair and a pair of safety goggles over his eyes, making him feel incredibly confused and highly intimidated. "Hey, little Ray..."

"Who are you?" The kid asked with a frown, having never seen him around his dad's workplace before and yet, somehow, he knew his name. It should've been a friendly gesture, after all, he had just saved him, right? The only thing was, the way he was snarling and growling as he breathed down his neck wasn't very friendly, in fact, it made him want to run and hide as the mystery man yanked down his goggles, revealing that the crazy went all the way up to his eyes.

"Doctor Night-Night." Drex sneered, knowing that he couldn't just leave Little Ray to wander around, not when he could get densitised and ruin all of his evil plans and hard work. He had to be stopped from talking, walking and telling anyone else that he was poking around the laboratory, although he didn't have to say it in such a weird way, one that made the boy's confusion deepen.

"What do you mean, Doctor Night-Night?—" Ray's words slurred when Drex large, calloused hands rested on his shoulder before squeezing into the pressure point that made his central nervous system shut down and his brain go to sleep. The kid collapsed into his arms, completely defenceless once the man had used his stupid nerve knowledge to turn his brain into mush and Drex dragged him off to the back of the lab where he could sleep through his nap whilst he completed his heinous schemes.

"Okay, let's rewrite some history." He smirked after ridding himself of the goggles and lab coat that had made up his disguise and with a crick of his neck, he sauntered over to the unpredictable, highly dangerous machine that was gonna give him everything he took away from Ray, just like that bastard had taken away his girlfriend. Standing in between the densitiser's columns, he braced himself for the pain and reminded himself that he was doing this for world domination, for the woman he wanted to rule by his side and worship him, to prove to the world that he could take what Ray Manchester did and be a better Captain Man than he ever was. So, he pulled the lever.

Instantly, Drex's body was bombarded with energy, his DNA altering and mutating as his muscle density hardened and his atoms realigned, causing him to convulse and groan as he felt his skin on fire and his nerves being fried. It was like electricity was igniting his skin and cooling it at the same time, providing an oddly invigorating experience that grew all the more terrible as the seconds passed.

Like all the other suckers who'd used the densitiser, apart from Ray and (y/n) who were both built different, his body couldn't take the straining change and as quickly as it started to gain density, it also began to morph into something hideous, concentrated particularly on his hand.

"Holy gosh! Who's in my densitiser?" Professor Manchester exclaimed when he saw the illuminations shining through the glass that separated the refreshment room and the testing space, but he was too late, Drex was already densitised and couldn't be stopped, something which was heartbreaking for the three heroes who ran into the room, late by only a few minutes. Damn taxi.

Ray immediately yanked his girlfriend behind his back as they all witnessed the transformation with wide, horrified eyes, watching as Drex became invincible. They didn't know it yet, that he was no longer the human shield he'd always been and that by putting himself in front of her to take any blows, he was risking the possibility of breaking her heart, but indestructible or not, Ray would always put her before himself, let him be the one to take the hits.

She needed protecting, not necessarily saving, but she deserved to stay safe and happy and loved, something he'd promised himself after seeing how that bastard being fried treated her. He'd never understood his desire for her to think, feel and speak independently, had always thought that good girls say nothing, do nothing, sit still and look pretty, which was where Drex fell from being mighty and became a fool. A self-absorbed, cruel fool who would never deserve her and would never hurt her again, because Ray was the opposite of all that.

"What do we do?!" Henry yelled at Ray as the energy continued to fry Drex, probably for a lot longer than it should've done. The burn was becoming unbearable now and whilst he definitely deserved it, they had to do something, only thinking of a good idea was impossible when plonked in their situation. They never expected it to get that far, had hoped that they'd get there in time to stop Drex from doing something insane, which hadn't exactly gone to plan.

"Turn the fucking thing off!" (y/n) screamed as she cowered behind her boyfriend's back, terrified for what this meant for them. Shit, would the process have worked? Just the thought of that asshole having the same power as her boyfriend chilled her to the bone because she knew that it had been Ray's only advantage against him; Drex had enough fury to fuel every attack, every punch, every kick, so he always managed to beat Ray in a fistfight, but Captain Man was always okay and had always managed to get back on his feet. But what would happen now that Drex could do the same and would be able to take hit after hit and never tire? They were about to find out.

Ray edged closer to the densitiser, ensuring that his sweet girl stayed back with Henry so the electrical rays couldn't hurt them. They'd both been through once before, the boy suffering terrible consequences as a result, and whilst it had turned out fine for (y/n), they didn't need to be zapped again, so he was the one to go for it.

Shielding his eyes in the crook of his arm, the superhero reached out and yanked the power level back into neutral, ending the process and causing the villain to black out for a few seconds, which gave Professor Manchester the chance to steam over. He sure wasn't happy about someone else touching his invention. "Hey, you! Don't touch that!"

"Daddy, not now!" Ray exclaimed, swatting away his baffled father, who was repulsed at the name he'd been given since he didn't recognise his adult son, even though there was a hint of recognition that flashed through his eyes. Curious, there was a striking resemblance in this man's face that cut deep into his soul like he was looking into a mirror. Maybe it was the fact that he had the exact same eyes as his wife that was odd, either way, he batted the idea away when the disgust of "daddy" made him shudder. He just put it down to the guy being an all-around weirdo.

"My God, it's like an episode of Jerry Springer in here." (y/n) muttered, feeling a bit awkward that she was standing fairly close to Ray as his father looked him up and down and then her. She'd never met the man, not once in her and Ray's friendship and not even in their relationship, even though he'd been shyly introduced to her parents on numerous occasions when they came to town to see how she was doing.

He'd met her father and yet his remained an absolute mystery, a figure she only knew as the man who'd ruined his childhood and grown to be an estranged man living in the same house her boyfriend had been raised in. This honestly wasn't how she'd thought their first meeting would go.

"Ray, (y/n), look at his hand, look at his hand!..." Henry's frantic words broke her out of her daydream, making her gawp at Drex's left hand, where the densitisation process had gone predictably, no doubt giving the superpower but also a hideous mutation to go with it. It wasn't a hand anymore, the skin had gone green, rough and rugged, like that of an alligator and instead of a normal nail and cuticle, he had five long claws that dully gleamed under the laboratory lights and looked really fucking sharp. It was a mess, but strangely, it just seemed to entice Drex even more at how he'd gain a new way of tearing someone limb from limb. "Yes! Look at my hand! Don't you like it, cupcake?"

"You're an idiot, Drex." (y/n) gulped, eyeing the mutation with a weary apprehension, but she kept her thundering heart steady by breathing deeply and laying a hand on Ray's shoulder blade, both letting him know that she was there and reminding herself that with him, she was safe.

"Except for Ray and (y/n), any other person who gets densitised also gets some weird side effect. Like your freaky, monster paw." Henry explained, glancing at the couple, the only people who had experienced the harsh energy and come out the other side perfectly fine with nothing but their superpowers. It was still a mystery as to what made them so different, but no one questioned it, they were just grateful that they were healthy and happy, not mutant freaks with extra eyeballs or seconds heads.

"I like it freaky and I know that my girlfriend does too. Ain't that right, Ray?" Drex smirked at the glaring hero through his monster fingers and took deep enjoyment at how his muscles tensed and his jaw clenched.

"She's not your girlfriend, she's mine," Ray growled in reply, resisting the urge to wrap his hands around his throat just because he dared to say that after how he treated her. She'd left all that behind long ago, he was the one she wanted, the one she slept next to and woke up with, he was the one who was gonna marry her and love her for the rest of their lives and yet he still wanted to try and ruin that? Well, good fucking luck to him.

"Okay, I don't know who you people are, but I'm going to get the police!" Professor Manchester exclaimed, having had enough of the reckless use of his equipment, evil guys making ominous threats and strangely familiar men and their female/male counterparts bursting in at random moments. None of it sat right with him and it was his lab, his rules and he wasn't about to lose that control, well, that was his mentality before Drex whipped around and roared at him, brandishing his mutant paw, like he was about to slash his face. Asshole.

"Help! There's a weirdo in my science lab!"

Mr Manchester ran off screaming and in search of someone, anyone who could help him, leaving the heroes to face their villain alone, only a soft moan and the sound of corduroy fabric rustling told (y/n) that they weren't as quite alone as they first thought.

On the floor, Little Ray's brain had finally shaken off the induced sleep and he groaned as he woke up, stretching his sore neck as he sat up and looked around the room, which still had the scary man from before, plus a new one, who looked a whole lot nicer. There was a boy too, just a tad older than he was and a really pretty lady staring at him with blown-out, wonder-filled eyes and he couldn't help but pick up on how her hair framed her face nicely and made her eyes sparkle. Some things never change. "Wha—what happened?"

"Holy shit..." (y/n) breathed out, feeling her heart jump into her mouth as she instantly recognised the boy from old family photo albums and school yearbooks that she'd giggled at over the years.

It was Ray, Little Ray, Ray, her boyfriend, Ray, Raymond Manchester, son of the inventor, Carl Manchester, her sweetheart and doofus. Even without the photos she'd seen and the hint she got from how pale Adult Ray turned, she knew in her heart that it was him, she just knew it. No one else had that brown hair and those crystal blue eyes or that cheeky smile, and it made her speechless.

"Who's that kid?" Henry asked, looking at the dumbstruck woman and her gasping boyfriend and he wondered why they were looking at the boy like he couldn't exist. Obviously, he did, without an existence, Ray wouldn't be Ray and (y/n) would be missing her soulmate, but it was so fucking weird to have both of them in the same room, the boy and the man he'd grow into. A little too weird if you asked (y/n), she'd never asked to meet her boyfriend back when he was a kid and wasn't sure if she felt comfortable knowing him before his innocence was ruined and he became the man she loved and...did things with.

"He's me! Twenty-eight years ago! Dang, I was cute!" Ray squealed, the excitement of seeing himself overtaking the weirdness for him. Okay, he was right on one thing, he was a freaking adorable child and if he was anyone else, (y/n) probably would've ruffled his hair or pinched his cheeks, but he wasn't. He was her boyfriend, minus three decades of experience, something she was having trouble getting over, unlike him. And, in their distraction, Drex had been shifting his plan along, satisfied that the kid would keep them busy whilst he made sure that Captain Man's indestructibility wouldn't be a problem anymore.

"Well, you better get little you outta here," Henry warned him as his eyes flickered to Drex, who was slowly creeping towards them. Ray quickly got (y/n) and his younger self behind him, adamant that he'd be the one throwing the punches whilst she guided the weak, defenceless boy to safety and it was so peculiar to put his hands on his boyfriend's shoulders and feel them be dwarfed by her fingers, and even stranger to see over the top of his head. Yeah, he was pretty tall for an eight-year-old, but she was so used to Ray towering over her and having broad shoulders for her to cling to.

"Right, you keep Drex busy until we get back," Ray told Henry, who wasn't afraid to be left alone with the asshole since he still had his hyper-motility and the knowledge that the last time they met, he'd wiped the floor with him. Little Ray was the priority and they needed to keep him safe until they'd dealt with Drex, he could make the first few hits, no biggie. "No problem."

"Okay, come on, handsome and...little handsome." (y/n) ushered the kid out the door with her boyfriend close behind, not caring if she sounded weird. Superpower or not, Henry would need their help as soon as mini-Ray was safe, so she was more worried about getting back to the action than her using one of her nicknames for her boyfriend on his younger self. Doofus probably would've been better, especially since the boy gave her a grossed-out look, but honestly, she didn't care. "Handsome, ew..."

"It's okay, we're related," Ray mumbled as they tumbled through the door, knowing that his girlfriend could call him handsome all she wanted, it didn't matter to him, he loved it. Suddenly though, (y/n) cared, she cared a lot when he said they were related because the implications of it made her heart clench. Not related in a weird way, that would be gross and very wrong but related in the sense that he saw her as family like they'd always be connected and it was the best thing she'd heard in hours. "What?"

"It doesn't matter." (y/n) muttered to the incredibly confused kid as they dragged him to an adjacent room and made him crouch down behind a counter, a nice, snug little corner where no one would notice him and he'd be safe from all the violence that was ensuing just a few metres away. They could come back and collect him after, it would be fine, he just needed to stay right where they left him so they could make sure that the timeline stayed secure. "Okay, I need you to stay here and not move, 'kay?"

"But what about the man with the monster hand?!" Little Ray cried, not liking how he was being forced to trust the two strangers, even if the man seemed chill and the woman was really pretty, but then again, anyone was better than the freak who'd attacked him. It had been a confusing day, nothing like how he'd expected his day at his dad's lab to go, but all things considered, this felt like the safest place to be and it wasn't like they were giving him a choice.

"We'll take care of him, you just stay here and keep yourself safe. Do you understand me?" The woman reiterated her point in a clear, commanding tone, making her younger boyfriend look deeply into her eyes until he nodded slowly, giving her his silent promise that he'd do as she said.

Ray gulped at the sight of himself and his girl, and the way she took control of his safety like it was the most important thing to her, everything seeming like an out-of-body experience. Would he remember this? He didn't remember it now and he wasn't sure he wanted to, everything how worked out perfectly for him in the end, a little slowly perhaps, but he'd gotten the girl of his dreams eventually and the idea of spoiling the ending made his eye twitch.

"We need to go, sweet girl. The kid needs us." He told her, taking her hand as she backed away from the boy sitting with his back to the counter, his knees pulled up to his chest. Adult Ray slipped his hand into hers as she nodded, knowing that whilst her brain told her to stay and keep the child in the matter safe, her heart knew that Henry would be struggling and they needed to go to him. Little Ray would be fine here, he was safe and oh, look, he had a packet of Haribo gummies in his pocket, yeah, he'd be okay.

"Then let's go." She replied, following quickly as he led her out of the room and back to where the fight was going..badly, which left Little Ray to sit on the floor and stare at the chemistry sets around him as he kept eating the gummy bears and other gummy shapes. How long would this take? It was pretty boring sat there with nothing to do and no one to talk to, his mind wandering at what those people were doing to the scary man. Just the thought sent a shiver down his spine and so did the sound of footsteps approaching the lab he was in.

They were heavy and stomping, like the person coming to get him wasn't used to getting around or maybe they were just particularly heavy-footed, but either way, he felt trapped.

There was only one way of this lab and that was the way the person was walking towards, so what options did he have?

Run? No, the lady told him to stay here. Fight? No, that man would pulverise his puny body with his freakish paw. So where did that leave him? One option; clutch the bag of Haribo, squeeze his eyes shut and pray that the evil guy didn't want to hurt him, after all, he was just a kid, he didn't know anything about his dad's inventions or science or—

"Hwello." Wait a second. It wasn't a person coming to get him. It wasn't a man or even an adult. They weren't even that scary because, the stomping, bloodthirsty monster wasn't a monster at all, it was a little girl with curious eyes, hair tied in two messy braids and a raggedy cat plushie being dragged along the floor as if it could actually walk.

Hang on, he must've missed something because this girl couldn't be more than three years old, all cute and wobbly as she walked around in her brightly coloured, garishly eighties-style pinafore dress, which made him wonder why she was wandering around his father's science labs.

"H-Hi, are you lost?" Little Ray asked in a shaky voice, his adrenaline still running a little high from thinking that he was about to be found by the lunatic freak, but he tried to remain calm. If anyone was gonna help this kid, it would be him, from the safety of his hiding corner that is.

"No, I'm expworing. Mommy and Daddy are talking to rweally boring people." She replied, shaking her head as she patted her cat and licked at her lips, clearly unbothered and not at all daunted by the prospect of going around the building unattended, despite the place being huge with lots of dangerous experiments lying around the place, not to mention the weirdos that seemed to be on the loose too.

"Oh...are your mommy and daddy here for my daddy's invention?" Ray pressed on, wanting to make sure that she was one of the guest's kids and not a child who'd walked across town or something. It made sense that she'd been brought there by someone interested in the demonstration, after all, babysitters are expensive and no one said children weren't allowed, just as long as they behaved themselves.

"I don't knwow, dwoofus! I got bored! We came all da way here for somefing rweally boring." The girl giggled, using that silly word that her daddy sometimes called the football players on TV when she was in the room, although most of the time he used the words that mommy didn't like. This boy was funny, he had a goofy face and was obviously a lot dumber than she was despite being a few years older. She liked him and plonked her butt down next to him with her cat in the middle, so she could keep hearing him say those funny things.

"Okay...well, do you want a Haribo?" Ray offered the girl, who again giggled at his face and reached out a starfish-like hand to dive into his paper bag, her chubby little fingers rummaging around until she found one that was just the right shape and the perfect colour. The boy laughed too as she suddenly became shy as she ate it, like him finding her funny made her annoyed or bashful, a sentiment that was lost on both of them as he started asking her about her favourite colour, but never her name.

The choice of candy was lost on them too, the girl having pulled out a Haribo ring from the bag when he offered it to her, the one she chose amongst the bears and cola bottles. How interesting.

So, Drex had definitely gotten tougher, no doubt about it. Henry slugged his face, his abdomen, his chest, anywhere he could hit him at lightning speed, he did, but nothing was working. He must've punched that dumb face a million times, his arms becoming a blur from how quickly he threw his fists, but each time, the villain just shook it off once the pain had dissipated, meaning that he wasn't getting tired, but Henry was.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" Henry yelped as Drex caught his punch and began to bend his arm backwards, forcing his muscles, bones and ligaments to stretch unnaturally. He curved his body to lessen the strain before doubling back and kneeing his opponent in the groin, certain that no dude could take that and not have watery eyes. Drex could though, he could be crushed, beaten and battered over and over again in the most sensitive places, but he'd be absolutely fine afterwards, something that made his smirk grow. "Whoa, you're indestructible everywhere..."

The second the kid gulped, Drex's smirk turned into a sneer as he pushed the boy away with all of his strength, causing him to collide with a trolley holding tubes, pots and syringes. The glass crushed under his weight and with no super-suit on to protect him, Henry felt searing pain bloom in his arms and ribs as the sharp metal and glass dug into his skin, causing him to fall to the floor winded.

"Sorry, kid. You may be faster than me but you're not indestructible." Drex bragged, looking down at the boy's shaking body with a victorious smirk. That's how he wanted him, broken on the floor and unable to fight just so he could show Ray how much of a useless sidekick he really was and how he'd grown stronger at the same time.

"Well, I am..." A powerful voice countered, belonging to Ray and (y/n) as they stepped back into the room with glares on their faces, the woman carefully eyeing her groaning friend on the floor. That bastard, she'd kill him for this, Henry was just a kid, he didn't deserve to be thrown around like a rag doll and the way he enjoyed, it made her rage burn.

"And I'm sort of indestructible...either way, we're gonna beat your ass." She growled, still being made to stand behind Ray but she was equally ready to fight side-by-side with her boyfriend. So she could be hurt, it didn't really matter, not when her injuries instantly disappeared along with the pain; it was like indestructibility, just a few steps behind and that was good enough for her. Henry needed a moment, so they were gonna give him one. "Hey, kid, you all right?"

"Yeah, I kept him busy..." Henry mewled, trying to overcome the agony in his gut and chest as he crawled along the floor. He wanted to get back in on the action, but jeez, everything hurt and Ray seemed to have it covered, bouncing back and forth on his toes as he prepared to strike out at Drex, who was also snarling a battle cry. (y/n) carefully stepped to the side, crouching down next to him so she could assess his wounds whilst Ray took the first few punches, clearly desperate to put some of his muscle to good use.

She ducked with Henry as Drex charged forward, the woman dragging the boy further away from the fighting since Ray immediately kicked the blaster out of the man's hand and dodged his first punch, allowing him to return one blow to the ribs and one to the jaw. (y/n) helped Henry to his feet as they watched with wide eyes, silencing cheering for their team as Ray battled it out, kicking Drex in the stomach so he could push him back for a second. Damn, he really was the best fighter in the world and so fucking hot as he glared and ignored the sweat dabbing at his forehead, a sight that made his sweet girl breathless as the criminal went in again with two, swift roundhouse kicks.

Ray dodged them perfectly, leaning back so the steel-toe boots merely sliced through the air on each rotation, only Ray wasn't expecting him to move so quickly and after the second spin, Drex jabbed him in the ribs, making him stumble back at the sudden pain. It was fine, it would stop in a few seconds, he was Captain Man, he could do this, especially when he had his best friend and future wife cheering from the sidelines. "Come on, Ray!"

Inspired by the support and the wide-eyed gaze of the girl he was fighting to protect, Ray growled through the pain and charged forward, his fist in the air and ready to bring it down on Drex, but he predicted his emotional reaction perfectly. The villain grabbed hold of his abdomen, halting his furious attack and slinging him to the ground in a brutal shoulder throw, causing (y/n) to gasp in panic as Ray sprawled out on the tiled floor.

His forearm was exposed and Drex being the cruel bastard he was, boot-stomped it, relishing the way he felt and heard the bones crunch underneath the rubber sole, something that Ray couldn't comprehend because he'd never broken anything before or been in that much pain. The hero screamed in pain, clutching his arm to his chest as his girl and sidekick knelt beside him, the former putting her arms around him as he panted through the agony.

"Ray, sweetheart, what's wrong? Tell me what's wrong." (y/n) sniffled when she saw the tears in his eyes and the way he bent over like he was trying to struggle with pain and she gulped at the prospect. His clammy forehead rested against her shoulder as he waited for his arm to stop hurting, although this pain was different to everything he'd ever felt before, it was more intense, pulsing as if his body was freaking out as much as he was. Still, he couldn't let his sweet girl see that, he already hated the terrified look in her eyes and he knew that he'd be okay because he was always okay, he had to be if he was gonna keep her safe and be worthy of having her by his side.

"Don't worry about me, sweet girl, I'm ok—oh, god! That hurts!" Ray gave her a strained smile and tried to straighten up his arm to show her that it was fine, he was fine, but the moment his bones and muscles flexed, the agony flared up, causing his reflexes to shove it back into the bent position where it didn't hurt as much. Her breathing caught as she and Henry shared a petrified look when they saw how his free fist squeezed the fabric of her shirt like it was a stress ball, which caused Drex to grin evilly as he watched his enemy pretend to be fine. "But not to worry, 'cause it's gonna stop hurting any second now—argh! That's broken! That is a broken arm!"

"Aw, tough break, Ray!" Drex hissed softly, pouting his lips like he felt some degree of sympathy, even though on the inside he was preening with happiness, mixed with a splash of rage when he saw how his cupcake pressed her lips to his enemy's forehead and gently tucked his arm into his chest properly, stopping it from getting squished and aggravated any more. He'd won, he'd beaten him, he'd come out on top like some psychotic alpha male, why was she sticking with that loser and telling him that it would be all right in breathless whispers?

"But Ray, you can't have a broken arm, you're indestructible!" Henry exclaimed, the panic setting in as he watched his formidable boss slump over in his girlfriend's arms, on the verge of crying from how much pain he was in. He was Captain Man, he couldn't be hurt, bent over with shattered bones, whilst the young woman tried to take the pain away, but she couldn't, leaving them frozen in shock.

"No. Not anymore... This was the day eight-year-old me was supposed to become densitised." Ray explained in a gravelly voice, leaning on (y/n) as she helped him to his feet, mindful of his throbbing arm. He'd failed her...he couldn't protect her like this, he couldn't protect Henry either, now he was just like any other man and Drex was the one with the superpower, leaving his sweet girl open to be dragged away. That hurt the most, not the injury, not the theft of his indestructibility, the fact that he'd tried his best and his enemy had still won and he was gonna lose the one good thing he had. Fuck...

"I'm not gonna let you hurt him." (y/n) told Drex bravely, pushing her boyfriend back into Henry and stepping in front of both of them so she could shield him like he so often did to her. Drex might have stolen his power, but she still had hers and he could hit her all he wanted, she'd come out of it okay. After all, Ray always protected her, made her feel safe and loved, none of the things she'd felt during their brief relationship, so she was gonna give it all back, be the one who kept him safe for once. "Sweet girl, no.."

"Come on, then, cupcake. You think he's worth protecting, so show me how much you can take." Drex smirked, clenching his fists together as Ray's uninjured arm came shooting around his girl's waist to tug her back towards him, whatever strength he had left screaming at him to keep fighting just for her. Brave girl, she wanted to save him, but who was saving her? Henry was already bruised, he was broken, but neither of them could take the sight of her being thrown around. "Ray..."

"Don't worry, I know exactly what to do." The man panted and staggered forward, standing hip-to-hip with (y/n) as she immediately helped his posture, supporting his tired legs and arm. His spine was curved as she took most of his weight, one arm around his waist and the other propped against his chest whilst she glared daggers at Drex, who was curious to hear what the superhero had to say. "All right, Drex. Stand aside so I can walk into the densitiser and make myself indestructible again."

"NO!" Drex bellowed, causing the three heroes to fall back since Ray's pathetic plan had failed. It was a nice idea, but a naive one too and it made Henry and (y/n) roll their eyes as they huddled together again, not sure what else they could try. Either way, they couldn't successfully fight and just standing there left them like fish in a barrel, sitting ducks, easy targets, which is why the panic was starting to set in. "Okay, I'm not sure what to do."

"Well, you two stand here while I kill him. See if he's still smirking then." (y/n) told him, turning to look at Drex as he stood there with a grin on his face that was marred slightly by how she kissed her boyfriend's cheeks just to piss him off. It worked, a soft smile flickered onto Ray's face at the feeling of her lips on his skin and Drex growled lowly at how he hadn't felt the same velvety softness for over a decade, not since she was stolen from him by an assehole with stupid good looks and a stupid kind heart.

"My silly, little cupcake, you're forgetting who you're talking to." He chuckled, finding her courage more amusing than admirable. Once Ray was swept away with Henry, once and for all, he'd stamp that back out of her, teach her that he didn't like it when she mouthed off and it was her place to be his pretty plaything, nothing more.

"Okay, wha—what's your problem, Drex? I mean, seriously, what reason do you have to hate us so much?" Henry asked indignantly, thinking that the villain's unbridled rage was a bit unfair, but he didn't know the full story, he wasn't there, so how could he? He didn't know the past relationship between him and Ray as hero and sidekick, the past relationship between him and (y/n) as lovers, if you could call them that, he had no idea how much each side hated the other, apart from the things he'd been around for.

"Well, for starters, he stole my girlfriend! She left me for him! I watched as he tricked her into falling in love with him, how he hugged her and giggled behind my back..." Drex spat, pointing at the couple as his ex put her hand on her boyfriend's unhurt shoulder and shared a slightly worried but mostly bored look with him. What a load of shit, he was so up his own ass he hadn't seen the truth, even when it was unfolding before his eyes in the place he used to call home.

"Right, let's get one thing straight. I can't be stolen, I'm not an object. And, I left you because you used to threaten me and make me cry for the stupidest things and it was Ray who made me feel safe and cared for. I love him because he wants me to be happy, which is something you can't seem to understand." (y/n) snapped in reply, latching herself onto Ray's side as she got out everything she'd ever wanted to say to the bastard, free of fear since she had him next to her. Her boyfriend was a superhero, power or not, she wasn't afraid of him.

"Okay, cupcake, you and those two butt-chumps froze me and locked me in a storage room for over a year!" The criminal carried on, raising a somewhat valid point since yes, they did do that. He kinda deserved it though, he was a danger to society and to them, plus, it wasn't like he could feel or think or see what was happening, so...

"All right, when you put it that way, I can see how you—" "That's like--that's taken out of context, like—" Ray and Henry started, understanding why he might be frustrated with that but he'd do the same or worse to them if it was the other way around, so could they really be blamed? According to Drex, they could.

"WHATEVER! Now that I'm indestructible and you're not, I'm gonna make sure it stays that way. Oh, and I'm gonna take away my cupcake's power too, stop her from getting any ideas." Drex smirked, firing up the disintegrating blaster in his hand as he looked at the densitiser. Shit, he wasn't going to destroy the thing, was he? He'd be taking away Ray's chances of ever becoming indestructible again and also stealing (y/n)'s super-regeneration too as she needed the machine in the future to accidentally gain them. If the machine was destroyed now, she'd never receive her powers, no...

"Drex, no, no, no... Come on, Drex—Oh, god!" "You don't have to do this—NO!" "Drex, please...no—Are you insane?!" Ray, (y/n) and Henry pleaded with him, trying to get through to the dead stone sitting in his chest, but their begging fell on deaf ears, causing them to scream out in anguish as Drex pulled the trigger, causing a beam of energy to envelop the densitiser as it dissolved into nothing but atoms, floating around the space where it used to stand.

"You bastard, how could you?!" (y/n) cried as she cradled her boyfriend before suddenly feeling faint, limp and dizzy. Drex's curdling laugh echoed through the room as she fell into Ray's arms, Henry holding her too, feeling the energy in her body drain away. The man's breath was stolen as her eyes glowed a faint yellow before fading to dullness, her muscles twitching as her cells lost their ability to regenerate and her body adjusted to normality again. He'd done it, just like he said, she couldn't fight back anymore, not without feeling it for hours afterwards.

"Sweet girl, sweet girl, please! Can you hear me?!'" Ray shook her body as she blanked for a second, feeling the world as if she was underwater and she could only hear a faint muffling as he shouted at her, his shaking feeling quite numb. The young woman blinked a few times before the ocean in her head drain away, leaving her clarity intact but her heart broken when she saw how terrified he looked and how empty she felt with a superpower. It had been hers for so long and it left her feeling disgustingly normal, like all those girls she'd tried to outdo when she wanted her now-boyfriend to notice her.

"I'm okay, doofus, I'm okay...just without my superpower." She replied, brushing her nose against his as his head craned down to breathe a sigh of relief with their foreheads touching. His heart ached for their lost powers just as much as hers did, but they had each other still, and that's what they were clinging to. She was safe, now, they just had to get out of there alive.

"Okay, Drex, we're willing to make a deal with you." Ray offered, keeping Henry and (y/n) safely behind him since they were in a real pickle. It's not like they had any bargaining power, anything left that they could propose or fight back with, so seeing them so desperate was laughable and amusing to the villain who revelled in their downfall. "Oh, are you?"

"Yeah, you let us go and promise not to cause us any more trouble..." Ray started, not knowing where he was going with his offer, he was just making it up on the spot, something that Drex picked up instantly. He was in control as if they could make a deal, but it made him chuckle, so he let them struggle on. "Yeah?"

"And...well...yes or no, we got a deal?" Ray cringed, hoping that he'd take it for some unknown reason and let him take his girl back home where he could send her somewhere safe, somewhere he couldn't reach her, but it was useless. It was dumb, to begin with.

"Counteroffer...I blast the two of you out of existence and take back my cupcake." The man growled, flicking the safety off the blaster and pointing it at the boys as (y/n) shielded them, knowing that if she got hit, she was gonna die, but then again, being with Drex was like death, numb, cold and loveless. She much preferred to go down with her boyfriend, knowing that they loved each other to the very end, but that didn't mean all three of them weren't terrified.

"Drex, no, no, no, er...we have money!—" "Come on, don't—" "Yes, lots of money, we'll split it with you—" They each cried, huddling closer together, (y/n) wrapping an arm around Henry as her fingers curled into Ray's shirt, all of them preparing for death. It wasn't how they thought it would happen, the best scenario would be living until a ripe old age and dying peacefully, but they braced themselves for the afterlife as a bright light surrounded them and they felt space tightened around them. This was the end, right? They could feel their skin get hot and then cold, their screams intensifying in tandem with the brightness of the light until...nothing.

The light dimmed, but still remained bright and their bodies were still tired but no longer felt as though they were being tugged apart. They slowly cracked open their eyes to see...home?

"What happened?" Ray asked as they got their bearings, unable to believe that they were in the Man Cave with a very dirty Schwoz, Charlotte and Jasper looking at them with wide, hopeful eyes and once the shock passed, they all screamed with joy and relief that they were now safe. Okay, the three back home had been on a right trek to fix the time machine after Drex blew it up, but their mission had succeeded and they were home, safe and sound and so very relieved to see that it was all still there. They'd assumed that the minute Drex destroyed the densitiser, their future had changed and they'd lost, but miraculously, it was all still there, all their friends, their home, their titles, they still had a chance.

(y/n) dashed forward to embrace Charlotte, so relieved to see her and everyone else after their ordeal and gave her the biggest, warmest hug she could since she thought she'd never get the chance to again. Henry grinned at Schwoz as he too rushed to embrace him and his best girl friend, but Jasper, well, he made the mistake of tackling Captain Man, his hero with a battered ego and body.

"Ow! Please, don't touch my arm!" He cried when, in his excitement, Jasper bumped up against the broken bones that laid beneath his skin, causing him to wince at the reminder that he was still vulnerable and Drex was still causing havoc in the past.

"What's wrong with your arm?" "Did you find Drex?" "Did you bring me a present?" So many questions, so little time. Two of them were genuine, valid questions, and they were gonna answer them eventually, but first Henry needed to hug Jasper, the best friend he thought he'd never see again and Ray, well, he had missed his weird helper.

Ever since they'd left young Schwoz's dorm room, he'd realised how much he meant to him, how helpful he was and how screwed he'd be if he'd never taken him into his employment. Not only had he literally saved him by yanking them back from the past, but he'd been there since the start, encouraging and coaching him to make a move when he was still gathering the balls to ask (y/n) out. He'd played a huge part in getting them together and it was only now that he knew just how thankful he was. "Oh, Schwoz...my sweet, little, foreign employee. I never thought I'd see you or your silly, bald head ever again!"

"Oh, yes, please hold me..." Schwoz purred as Ray pulled him against him in a short but sweet hug, just so he knew that whilst he never showed it, the boss did actually care about him and valued his contributions. But when Schwoz started snuggling and making it weird, he shoved him away with a disgusted face; he didn't care that much. (y/n), however, definitely cared.

"Oh, come on, Schwozie, bring it in!" She giggled, wrapping him in another hug as soon as her dumb doofus pushed him away, meaning the sting wasn't so bad since he was getting two hugs in one day. His face pressed into her abdomen, making her laugh slightly at how catlike he was behaving, purring and rubbing his coconut-like head against her shirt. Ray rolled his eyes, thinking that he was overindulging a bit with his girl, but deep down, he thought it was cute and yeah, Schwoz deserved a hug after working so hard, although the sudden stony expression that hit his face perplexed him. What gives?

"Hey, (y/n/n)..." He mumbled, cracking open his eyes and looking up at her as he pulled back, Henry still happily patting his friends on the back. She looked down at him, wondering why he had that unreadable gaze fixated on her and she couldn't think of what had gotten to him, not after their joyous return. "Yeah?"

"Time-dependence in quantum mechanics is easy. You just need to know that for temporal variation of wavefunctions and so of probability density, you need a more general time-dependent Schrödinger equation." He deadpanned, making the teens and Ray look at him like he'd grown a second head. Wait, that was the thing from the ...how did he remember? (y/n) just looked at him with a bemused smile, glad to have her science buddy back and this time, he actually knew who she was, not that she needed any help.

"Yeah, I know, Schwoz. In that equation, you use an upper case symbol for the time-dependent wavefunction to distinguish it from the spatial-only wavefunction." She replied, rubbing his smooth head just to show him her affection as Ray came over to drag her back to him, a move she immediately followed after thinking she was gonna lose him like a million times in the space of fifteen minutes. He kissed her for the first time in what felt like ages and tears sprang in their eyes when they thought about how for a moment, it looked like they'd never feel the sensation again.

Not wanting to be a party-pooper or a stick-in-the-mud, but still, in need of answers, Charlotte cleared her throat, forcing the young woman to pull back prematurely, much to the disappointment of her boyfriend, whose lips chased after hers. "Hey, why did you guys think you'd never see us again?"

"Because, when we went back in time, Drex stopped me from being densitised when I was a kid," Ray explained, looking around at the equipment, couch, sprocket, everything that made up his home, his sweet girl most of all, and he wondered how it could all still be there. He was unbelievably grateful, of course, otherwise, they'd all be strangers and he'd lose the love of his life only a year and a bit after confessing to her, but still, it baffled him.

"Oh my god..." "That's terrible..." Charlotte and Schwoz gasped, suddenly realising the gravity of the situation as they connected the dots. Right, Ray's arm was properly broken and they were all in mortal peril, basically another day at the office for them.

"Yeah, but...but how can you all—how can me and (y/n) still be—how this all still be here?" Ray asked, crossing the room to stand next to Jasper as he peered around, his eyes finally landing on Schwoz and the angel who was giving him an amused look. If anyone knew about what was going on, then it'd be them, plus, he loved any excuse to admire her, particularly after the afternoon they'd had.

"Yeah, the future should be different 'cause Drex won," Henry stated, just as confused as his boss since the past had been changed, therefore things should have altered into some kind of dystopian world where Captain Man never existed, Drex ruled the city and (y/n) followed every word he said because she never met her doofus. "So, what's going on?"

"Do you wanna explain it or should I?" (y/n) sighed to Schwoz, and whilst she was by no means a physics expert like he was, she could make them understand. Sure, her talents were in chemistry, metallurgy and mechanics, but she dabbled in force, energy and particles occasionally and had been lectured by him enough to know how it all worked.

"I'll lead and you join in." He offered, to which she agreed and followed him as he wandered to the supercomputer, thinking about how he could say the facts without confusing them. Schwoz had the most experience and knew the ins and outs, but she was better at dumbing it down, so together they made a good pair. "Okay...let us try to say this in a way that even a stupid child could understand..."

"How respectful of you..." Charlotte retorted. She wasn't dumb, she was one of the brightest kids in her school and just because they had degrees and PhDs and god knows what else, didn't mean that they were better. They needed enlightening, that's all.

"See...a time portal is like, uh..." Schwoz started, trying to think of a suitable metaphor that would get the point across, but his head was just filled with complex crap like quantum physics, general relativity and time dilation, so he looked to (y/n) for help, who had a splash more creativity than he did.

"Uh, like a door to a...hallway to the past or the future." She described and they all nodded in understanding at the picture she was creating. The concept was a lot more complicated in reality, but for them, it made sense. They could walk either way, to the past or the future with this hallway, that was easy enough.

"You guys went to the past and you changed things but the doors remain open as long as that time machine is active." Schwoz finished, pointing at the time portal, which was still sucking in power and swirling with the blue vortex of time. Okay, that meant that it was their only lifeline and the most precious thing they had, something that sadly, Jasper didn't pick up on.

"Okay, so let's turn it off." He shrugged, strolling over to the lever that would kill the power if he pulled it and his friends screamed in terror when his fingers brushed against it, him tempting fate by toying with their only chance of reversing all of the damage done. Jeez, talk about giving them all heart attacks.

"No, no, no, no, no, no!" Henry yanked him away from the controls and looked at him sternly as they all tried to calm their racing heart. Shit, that was a close one and it was scary how so much was riding on one thing. That time machine was everything and if (y/n) wasn't holding him back and his arm wasn't broken, Ray probably would've killed the kid. "Dude, don't you get it?! If you turn that off, it's over. We're done!"

"Everything we know here would disappear into nothingness!" Ray snapped, his eyes flickering to his oblivious girlfriend next to him several times to suggest to the boy that nothingness included no girlfriend and certainly no proposal for him, so by almost turning their only hope off, Jasper was walking on very thin ice, almost on the verge of being fired (like (y/n) would ever let that happen), not that he showed any particular care "Oh." He did care though, he cared a lot.

"All right, let's just stay focused. Schwoz, the time machine, can you send us back, like I don't know, half an hour before the time you just pulled us back from?" (y/n) calmed them down before looking at the genius, who was the one controlling the machine. It would be a little tricky and fiddly, with a lot of precision, but he had the skills, especially when they needed him most. "I can try."

"Well, try, okay? Try, try!" Henry insisted, seeing where the woman was going with this. He had to give it a go, he couldn't fail them in their hour of need, he was supposed to be intelligent with his stupid gold chains and grubby white t-shirt. They had to get back there and prevent Drex from ruining their lives and the world, so Schwoz needed to get his ass moving. "Okay...pushy. You want to go right now?"

"No, not yet," Ray told him and nodded to Charlotte to get their gumball tubes. They hadn't picked them up after chilling all afternoon before the blackout, so they needed them. This was war and they were soldiers, and soldiers were a uniform, which just so happened to be blue, red and more protective against blaster shots and punches than their civilian clothes. Reaching into a cabinet drawer, Charlotte pulled out three tubes of glowing gum and passed one each to the heroes. They each popped a gumball, which was easier said than done for Ray since he only had one arm, but they each began to chew, much to Schwoz's excitement.

"Oh, my. They're chewing, they're chewing!" He squealed, hugging Jasper's arm as the bubbles formed and burst, causing the super suits to materialise around them. They wiggled around to get used to the new fabric, (y/n) checking to see if Ray's arm was still okay, well, as okay as a broken arm can be. He smiled at her care, cupping her cheek with his good hand and pressing a kiss to her forehead, a move that made the three watching smirk and coo.

"Okay, let's blast to the past..." Henry smirked, wiggling his eyebrows at the man as he peered over his girlfriend's head, causing him to smile shyly as she pulled back to finish the quip, one that they'd preprepared for a situation where they were about to go and kick ass.

"And reck some Drex!" They exclaimed together, giggling at how they said it in sync and they conjoined their hands before turning towards the portal with Henry, who was shaking his head at how dumb they were, ignoring how cute they were at the same time. Ugh, why did he work with idiots and why did they have to be so lovey-dovey all the time?

"You sure you wanna come? He took away your super-regeneration, he can hurt you now." Ray mumbled to her, causing the woman's eyes to snap from the cascading blue energy to his worried face and she realised how underneath all that confidence, he was still hurting and not just from his arm.

"Hey...I'm not afraid of him anymore because I have you. And I don't have to worry about getting hurt because I know you'll do everything you can to keep me safe, just like you always do. I'm not staying behind." (y/n) replied, meeting his intense gaze as she silently swore to not abandon him, even if it sort of made sense to remain in the Man Cave. It was her turn to be the strong one, the brave one who protected the other and since he was one arm down, she'd be slightly more useful for once and if she got hurt, fuck it. She was only gonna love once and she was gonna make damn sure he was okay.

Ray pressed their lips together, mumbling those three little words against them as she stood up to move with him, feeling the strain of a lack of oxygen burn even more since she couldn't survive without it now. They pulled back grinning, her returning the sentiment as she caught her breath and trailed her fingers down his cheek, wondering how anyone could want to hurt such a gentle, lovable doofus like him.

"Ugh, you guys, let's go. You can be gross when we get back!" Henry groaned, wafting his hands between their faces so they'd split and they did, albeit their hands stayed connected whilst their cheeks flushed. Oops, they got carried away again and judging by the smirks of Schwoz and Charlotte's faces, it was for longer than they had originally intended. No matter, they were gonna go this time, staring down into the vortex once Henry had turned them around, their toes about to move when...

"Wait! I'm gonna record this moment! Right, jump to the past on one! And, thirty...twenty-nine...twenty-eight—" Jasper started counting down, ready to start recording after his ridiculously long wait, but the three heroes decided that they didn't have the time to wait or rather, they couldn't be bothered. Three seconds in and they took the plunge, leaping through the portal before Jasper had a chance to do anything, much to his disappointment. Oh well, they had a job to do and he couldn't fault them for that. It was too damn important.

~Glass Tech Industries...again~

"What do we do?" The old Henry yelled to the couple as Drex got densitised, the three of them not realising that shit was about to get real weird and real complicated. Again, Rain crept forward after his girlfriend screamed to turn the machine off, shielding his arms in his arm as he pulled the lever, ending the process. Then came Professor Manchester complaining about him touching his invention and Ray made things strange by calling him daddy, the same old story from before.

"Ray, (y/n), look at his hand!" Old Henry exclaimed as he saw the freaky monster paw, only this time, there was a chink in the already messed-up timeline. The group gasped and went wide-eyed as there was a flash of light and three superheroes landed back in the past, Old Ray pushing his sidekicks behind his back at the new intrusion. Seriously, what now?

They shook their heads as they got used to the change in...everything before focusing their eyes again and looking up to see themselves? Okay, this was real freaky; the old Ray, (y/n) and Henry, looked at their newer selves with horror and disbelief, baffled at how they could be here. Ray looked at Ray, Henry gulped at Henry and when (y/n) waved her hand, her twin did the same, both of them gasping at how it was real and wow, she did look good in the super suit, huh.

"Oh, wow..." Old Ray breathed out, looking from his superhero counterpart to the superheroine who was his girlfriend, but then she was also next to him, clutching his hand with slight fear and awe written across her face. This was like her science nerd dream come to life, having a her from another time, also holding her other boyfriend's hand like she was, but neither of them could quite find the words to describe it.

"This is..." "So freaky..." The two Henries muttered, finishing the sentence and summing up what everyone else was thinking, their minds running as one, 'cause technically they were one, the same kid. The same could be said for the two Rays, who took a moment to admire each other from a different perspective. They'd always seen themselves in the mirror or in pictures, but now, they could have the full, 3-D experience as if they were seeing another person.

"Good lord, I'm handsome." Ray from the present stated, unable to stop the egotistical comment slipping from his lips as he took in himself. Well, now he felt worthy of the nickname his girl gave him 'cause honestly, he wasn't a bad-looking guy, in fact, he was fucking hot and could see why his girl always whispered it in his ear when he showered or lifted weights.

"Whoa! I was just about to say that!" Old Ray exclaimed when his other self read his mind, or rather, had the same thought and beat him to it. This was also incredible to them and for the old Ray, he was beginning to get the same picture, understanding why his girlfriend was always like putty in his hand when he wore the suit, all over him when they returned from missions and finally retreated to the privacy of their bedroom. It fit nicely everywhere and he got why she always proclaimed it to be her favourite, now, it was his too. "Really?"

"Yeah, man! I'm standing here looking at you and I'm thinking dannnng!" The men finished the sentence together, smirking at how they were tooting each other's horns, much to the mild annoyance of their girlfriends. Yeah, they were handsome, they could've told them that, in fact, they did, a lot. They were fortunate enough to be dating the hottest man in the world but to go with that, they were also dating the one with the biggest head.

"Don't be a doofus, doofus!" The girls said together, smiling and then blushing at their boyfriends when they scolded them with the exact same line. The men chuckled, finding them unbelievably adorable at that moment, especially when they giggled at each other and shyly looked down at the ground. The same idea passed through their heads, resulting in the Rays pressing a kiss to the side of their heads, resulting in more blushes and a highly pissed off/confused Drex, who had no idea what was going on.

"Hey! Shut up!" He yelled, spooking poor Professor Manchester as he struggled to understand the situation too, backing off slowly since he didn't want to get beaten up, not by the freak who'd commandeered his densitiser.

Henry looked at Drex, who was scowling and snarling at the intruders and saw one alarming thing, namely that he still had the weird, alligator, monster paw, which only meant one thing. "Ray, (y/n), look at his hand..."

"We see it, it's still weird and dangerous." (y/n) gulped, eyeing the claws apprehensively as one swipe now could do some real damage to all of them and she didn't fancy bleeding out in nineteen-eighty-nine. Dang it, their calculations must've been slightly wrong, Drex had already been fried, but there was a silver lining, the machine that could solve all their problems was still here, so it wasn't over yet.

"Schwoz dropped us here too late, Drex is already densitised," Ray exclaimed, knowing that things were still gonna be really fucking difficult considering that he still was indestructible and he was still...destructible. But they had to look at the positives, which were mainly that they could fix his broken arm and everything else quite easily. "Yeah, but he hasn't destroyed the densitiser yet.

"What are you talking about?!" Drex questioned, so confused that they were talking about him and his actions that he had done but at the same time hadn't. This time-travelling shit was so complicated and confused everyone who listened to it, especially Professor Manchester, who was more into chemistry and molecular structure than complex general relative physics and had no clue who they were or why they were in his lab. "I would also like to know what you are talking about."

"Hi, past me, (y/n), whatever. You, Henry and your doofus, get Professor Manchester and all those people out of this building." (y/n) told her old self the plan since she knew that the battle would get hairy and there were too many civilians in the building who needed protecting from Drex's fury, something her rational mind understood. They'd come here for a reason, so she was willing to listen, unlike her boyfriend whose heart strangely leapt at the thought of her staying with his enemy, even though she was from a different time stream and had her version of Ray to keep her safe. Some things can't be changed, not even when you mess around with time. "But we gotta stay here and fight Drex!"

"No, we'll handle that." Ray calmed his twin, snaking his injured arm around his girlfriend's waist and giving him a subtle nod as if to say that like him, he wanted her safe, so that's what she'd be under his protection, utterly unharmed. He didn't have to worry, they weren't gonna be alone because he knew what was coming and how to stop it, unlike his old self who was still floundering from being thrown in the deep end.

"Trust us, we know what we're doing, we're twenty minutes older," Henry added, trying to emphasise that they'd already lived this and had come back, fully geared up, to rewrite it all, armed with the knowledge that Drex's rampage hadn't finished and they needed to prevent him from ruining the future. Sure, they had a lot of work to do, but it would be worth it in the end, they just needed to get everyone not involved out safely, something that they finally understood as they started ushering the professor out of the door. "Okay..."

"Hey, dude..." Old Ray looked at his newer self as they back away, his girlfriend trying to tug him to the exit with all of her strength, but he wouldn't budge, not until he said the thing he'd been thinking for the past few minutes. It wasn't particularly important, not to anyone else, but it had to be said because dannnnng. "Your girlfriend is real hot."

"I know. So's yours." Ray smirked at himself, nodding towards the embarrassed yet flattered girl pulling him away and then looking down at his version.

"What's wrong with your arm, Ray?" The villain sneered, automatically noticing how his archenemy was keeping it close to his chest and unmoving, telltale signs that it was injured, although he didn't know exactly why. If these three really were from the future, he guessed that he'd done it somehow and the same proud, evil smirk crossed his face when he saw that Captain Man was gonna be punching with just one fist.

"What's wrong with your face?" Ray retorted, causing Drex to falter at the burn and Henry and (y/n) to laugh at how subtly funny it was, not too over the top and not too cringey, but just enough to insult the man and what would be a handsome face if he didn't scowl so much and do evil things. "Dude! Nice!"

"Thanks, just came to me," Ray replied cooly, glad that he'd made his sweet girl giggle because of how much it pissed his former sidekick off, his lips twitching upwards when he saw the jealousy burning in his eyes. Yeah, he made her laugh like he never did, he loved her like he never could and that stung deep. Perfect.

"Keep laughing 'cause guess what? I stopped little you from being densitised, which means I'm the only one in the room who's indestructible!" Drex bragged, fully aware that he could fight all day and not get tired or, at the very least, injured, unlike silly Ray who was already struggling, nursing his throbbing arm, which probably should've been reset before they came back. But there was one thing that Drex wasn't counting on, and that was Little Ray Manchester, who was once again waking up from being knocked out cold. "What-what happened?"

"It's little you..." (y/n) breathed out, looking at Ray with a surprised expression. Right, they hadn't moved him away yet and if he was here, then all they had to do was fry him and set things straight, an idea that was whirring in both of their minds. "Yeah..."

"Look out! It's Doctor Night-Night!" Little Ray cried, pointing at Drex and screeching the humiliating name that the villain was now regretting, especially since it made his cupcake snort and laugh at him, along with her dumb friends. He should've picked something cooler, something more menacing, 'cause now he was the one looking stupid.

"Doctor Night-Night? No, no, no, Captain Man, yeah, I never went to medical school—" Oh, Ray, did he ever learn? He couldn't tell that his younger self was pointing at Drex and not him, causing him to turn his back on the villain, a foolish mistake that meant he didn't see him sneaking closer and pulling back his arm. Before Henry or (y/n) could warm him, a freakish, calloused hand came over his eyes, Drex ensuring that he dug his claws into his cheek as he brought his steel-like fist into his lower back, aiming for his kidney so it hurt like bitch.

Ray roared in pain from the blow, trying to do something, anything, but he was shoved into the room and into the same trolley that Henry had collided with previously, falling to the floor harshly as glass shattered around him.

"Captain Man, no!" (y/n) gasped, her and Henry running to his side as he writhed in agony. It wasn't as bad as what Henry had experienced, thanks to the integrity of his padded suit, but still, there was definitely some internal bruising and maybe some scratches from where the glass slashed at his skin, causing them and the little boy in the room to go pale at the violence.

"Just get little me into that densitiser and pull the big lever. Don't worry about me, sweet girl." Ray panted after growling through the pain, his blown-out pupils boring into hers as she knelt next to him and patted his ribs and arms for injuries, only for him to hold her wrists together. He'd be fine, he could cope, as long as he got back his indestructibility and her super-regeneration, that would fix the future and for that to happen, they had to leave him to get beaten up and force a child into a horrific experiment. Oh well, for the greater good and all that.

"I think Kid Danger and my cupcake should worry about ya..." Drex threatened, creeping towards the hero as (y/n) tried to get him back on his feet, knowing that he wasn't gonna argue with her on this one, she had to let him get hurt to save him. Ironic and heartbreaking, but it's what needed to be done, as soon as he gathered his strength.

"Hang on, where'd my fist go?" Ray questioned, looking confused as he pushed his girl away from him and towards Henry. He knew he'd have to play smart if he was going to have any chance of distracting Drex and for them to densitise him, they'd need to be out of the way, so that's what he was doing. The criminal walked over, predictably perplexed since the man's hand was still on the floor, clear as day in his eyes since he was looming over him and Ray had him just where he wanted him. "Right there!"

"Oh, right!" Ray growled and smashed Drex in the nose with his strongest punch, thankful that his dominant arm wasn't the one that had been broken. His open stumbled backwards for a few seconds, dazed as the pain faded, which gave Henry and (y/n) the opportunity to slip over to Little Ray and take him by the shoulders. Okay, Ray was already exhausted and it was almost unbearable for the young woman to watch as Drex lunged forward, slinging her boyfriend over his shoulder and carrying him to the next room where their fight continued.

"Okay, come on, we gotta get you in that machine and bombard you with proton beams." (y/n) told Little Ray, expecting the whole thing to go smoothly, but the kid wasn't as dumb and gullible as he looked, him going pale at the thought of becoming a lab rat for two strangers. He turned and to run for it, heading for the room where Drex was no doubt pummelling Ray and the sidekicks barely managed to keep ahold of his sweater vest as he booked it. "Daddy! Daddy!"

"No, no, no, no, come back! No, no, seriously we need to do this, it's very important, come on!" Henry panted as they each took an arm and lugged him, literally kicking and screaming, back over to the densitiser. He didn't know it, but he was gonna be the most important person in Swellview when he was older and it was all riding on him going in the damn machine, so like it or not, they were gonna get him in it, no matter how much he screamed for his father.

"Hurry! Get little me into the densitiser!—" Big Ray exclaimed as he crawled into the room on his tummy, no doubting trying to wriggle away from Drex and his harsh kicks and punches and they understood his urgency, moving even faster when he was dragged back inside. He wasn't dead yet and Drex wasn't finishing until he looked so beaten that even his "sweet girl" didn't recognise him, after all, it was his looks that had taken her away, nothing else, right?

"Okay, kid, come on! We need to do this!" Henry grunted, him and (y/n) doubling their efforts when they began to the tortured screams again, this time picking Ray up and lugging him in short bursts. He was shouting and protesting again, but they blocked it out, trying to get his feet to move against the floor as they inched closer to the densitiser. "Let go! You're gonna wrinkle my sweater vest!" He had really weird priorities.

"We're trying to make you a superhero! And not to sound weird but I really want you to be my boyfriend in the future, so get—in!" (y/n) grunted as they gave him one last push, causing the boy to trip a little and stumble in between the columns, perfectly in line for Henry to yank the lever.

Little Ray didn't know what hit him. The minute the power turned on, he convulsed and yelped at the power flooding through his veins, the woman backing up quickly so she didn't get a double dose, but not before a small zap tickled her arm and caused a jolt to pass through her body.

She paid no mind to it, too focused on the kid as he shook and her boyfriend as he rolled back into the room, no doubt being tossed by Drex. He got back to his feet groaning, not ignorant to the asshole's taunts, so he stumbled over to them and grabbed one of the baseball bats that had been used to test the unbreakable glass. Well, a weapon was a smart idea.

"Okay, that's enough! Kill the power!" (y/n) told Henry as Ray charged at Drex with the bat held high and the boy did as he was told, cranking it back so the proton beams stopped flowing and little Ray was left floppy and dizzy. Shit, did it work? They really hoped so, still hearing Ray screaming and Drex's malicious laughter and they caught the boy as he hobbled forward.

"Are—are you okay?" Henry asked him, praying that their efforts hadn't been in vain and judging by the enormous grin that spread across his face, it appeared like little Ray was injured and not smouldering at the very least. Well, that was a good start, but not quite what they were looking for, they had to test him properly. "Yeah! I feel great!"

Aware that words meant nothing unless proven, Henry looked to his right and saw a sliver, metal baton thing attached to the densitiser's scanner and picked it up calmly. The boy assumed that he was just going to scan him because that's what his daddy did after testing his invention, but (y/n) knew better and squeezed her eyes shut as Henry whacked on the kid's head, breaking the device but not his skull. Huh...

"Ow! Hey, that only hurt for a second!" Little Ray grinned, pulling his hand back from his hair and miraculously finding no blood, causing Henry to gasp out a small, victorious laugh that it had worked, holy shit, it had worked! He snapped his head to (y/n), wanting to share the glorious moment with her, but his smile fell when he saw her holding her temples and wincing as if her head was thumping in pain.

"(y/n/n), are you o—" He reached out to touch her shoulder, worried that the densitiser had hurt her in some way, however, the moment his fingertips brushed her arm, her eyes snapped open, shining a vibrant, golden hue that enveloped all of her iris'. He recoiled in shock as she panted and blinked a few times, each fluttering of her eyelids diminishing the glow bit by bit until her normal colour returned, along with the colour in her cheeks and the same strong demeanour that came with her superpower. Hell yes. "Oh my god..."

"Kid, I'm going need you to hit me too..." She told him firmly, her gaze stern and determined as she breathed steadily and she exuded so much authority that he couldn't but nod slowly, lifting the metal pipe above his head once more. Her muscles visibly tensed as he brought it back down again, cracking her skull much like he'd done to little Ray and she staggered back at the force, her hand flying to the damaged area.

It was sticky and messy, much like she had expected after such a hard hit, but less than a second later, the warm blood that had pooled in the area evaporated and the indent she could feel vanished, the wound stitching itself back together like she knew it would.

"I'm back in business, baby!" She exclaimed gleefully, brandishing her hands like she'd pulled off a magic trick, Henry pulling her into a tight hug as the indestructible boy next to them stared in baffled amazement. He had no idea how she just did that, but it must've been good considering how happy they were, the older boy laughing too as they embraced, them feeling overjoyed at how it had worked for her, it had worked for him, but they were yet to see all the fruits of their labour.

Ray tumbled back into the room, looking terrible as Drex stood and smirked in the doorway. The sidekicks protectively stood in front of little Ray, (y/n) feeling extra pumped now that she had healing fire coursing through her veins and she looked at her boyfriend with a worried yet steadily beating heart. He just needed to readjust, soon they hoped because he was damn near spent with Drex moving ever closer.

Ray tried to bring the baseball bat down on his head, much like Henry had done to (y/n) and his younger self only moments before, but he was too slow and too weak, therefore Drex easily caught his arm and twisted it behind his back, no doubt cracking or even breaking more bones as he then shoved him into the wall. She didn't know what to do, neither did Henry; should they stick to the plan and stay put or rush in and help now that she was back to normal?

They didn't have to do anything. The moment his back collided with the plaster, Ray felt a strange wave of calm wash of his body before muscles began to contract and relax wildly, causing him to shudder and jerk violently as the timeline shifted and his cells magically received their density once more. His eyes glowed blue and his body illuminated in waves of energy as his broken bones healed, his bruises disappeared and every cut sealed back up, never to be broken again. With one final groan, the convulsions stopped and he flexed his arm muscles, feeling stronger, energetic and ready to fucking go again. Captain Man was back in business too, baby.

"Captain Man, how do you feel?" Henry asked his friend excitedly, dropping the scanner, as Ray clenched and unclenched the fingers of his previously broken arm. The kid recognised the same look of determination that had taken hold of (y/n) and knew the answer without him replying verbally, but he just wanted to hear it. He needed it to calm his pounding heart rate.

"In two letters...O!... And K!" He replied in that baritone voice his girl loved so much, the one that oozed power and made her go weak at the knees. So did his actions; on each syllable of his catchphrase that left his lips, he punched Drex as he came again with another attack, this time not expecting Captain Man to punch back with his legendary force, one hit going into his gut and the other being a whack across the face that made him collapse on the floor.

Overcome by happiness, (y/n) ran at her boyfriend and connected their lips in a flying kiss, smiling into it as both of his arms wrapped around her waist with their usual strength. She let out a relieved, overjoyed, on-the-verge-of-tears laugh when they gently broke apart, her hands stroking over his forehead, cheekbones and jaw as he grinned and let her kiss him again, fully enamoured as they always were.

The only thing that interrupted their endlessly sweet moment was when Drex growled at the sight of them, his pain-filled haze gone and the first thing he was his enemy holding his girl closely, her standing on tiptoe so she could reach his soft lips and cherish having him back in one piece. Upon hearing him clamber for traction, (y/n) turned around, making a point of keeping Ray's hands on her hips and leaning back into his warmth. "Sorry, cupcake, looks like Captain Man's indestructible again."

"Everywhere," Ray added, coming forward to hug her from behind as her ears warmed slightly and he chuckled into her hair, especially at how it infuriated the man, even more, when he understood the undertones. That made him see red, knowing that his plan had been foiled and he was no doubt going to go home and drown in her soft sounds and velvet touch, something he'd had once upon a time and lost to the same man. He was still equal in ability, the student having become a master and he flaunted his clawed hand as he bared his teeth. "So am I!"

"(y/n), I need you to take little me and put him in the safe space!" Ray told her quickly, seeing that Drex was tensing and ready to charge, but his younger, weaker self was still in the room. He was indestructible, yeah, but he still didn't need to see such violence and she nodded quickly at what he was asking her to do, gesturing her head to the kid so he'd look at the door.

"Come on, kid, you need to get out of here!" She instructed him, hurrying out of the room and using her head to keep his head bowed low as they scurried into the adjacent room and towards the hidey-hole where he'd been deposited last time. That left Henry and Ray tensed to start fighting, their heels braced against the tiles as their muscles twitched to run, only they didn't run.

They were frozen in place as a plastic beaker was thrown at Drex's head, the flimsy object pinging off his head weakly since it had been thrown by little to no force. What the hell?

"Meanie!" Drex whipped around at the sound of a pathetic but nonetheless spirited insult, him, Ray and Henry staring wide-eyed at a little girl who stood adjacent to the densitiser with several conical flasks, test tubes and beakers lined up next to her as if the first thing she'd thrown wasn't going to be the last.

The boys looked at her grumpy face like they'd seen a ghost, instantly recognising her (y/c/h), braided hair and lively eyes that seemed to burn into everything they looked at. She was just a toddler, the same one that had spoken to little Ray in the old timeline, the one that had gotten screwed up and written over, but she still wore the same hideously eighties pinafore dress and carried her cat plushie under her arm, glaring at Drex, who was apparently the meanie.

"Oh my god..." Ray breathed out, knowing her face from embarrassing family photos he'd been shown and much like his girl had been with him, he couldn't believe what he was looking at.

How could she be here?

It was nineteen-eighty-nine, she was barely three years old and should've been safely tucked up in her hometown, but she wasn't. She was here, throwing lab equipment at his archenemy because he was shouting and snarling. He was speechless, genuinely couldn't say a word even if he tried, and his breathing was shaky as Henry laid a quivering hand on his shoulder, equally stunned.

"Is that...?" He asked quietly, not able to take his eyes off the girl as she sniffed and wrinkled her nose in anger, much like she did as an adult, although she had long since dropped the habit of continuously licking her lips. She was tiny with chubby arms, wobbly legs and a damn big personality that would shrink over the years before finally being coaxed back out with gentle encouragement and he felt a sudden protective urge take hold of her, the same with Ray.

Both of them felt like in this state, it was only right to smother her with a safety blanket because they noticed the way Drex saw the same thing, his lips twisting into a sinister smirk when he recognised the opportunity that had been put in front of him.

"Hey, little (y/n/n), are you here to see me?" He asked creepily, gesturing to himself with a supposedly friendly smile to try and make her trust him. But she had those good instincts and clutched her cat tightly as his face frightened her, causing her to squeal and run to Ray's legs. His grip narrowly missed her arm as she bolted past him, whining for the big, friendly superhero to protect her and he instinctively did, bending down to pick her up in strong arms that wrapped around her body and cradled her like they always did.

"It's okay, sweet girl, I've got you. The bad man won't hurt you." He whispered to her, feeling her wet eyelashes brush against his exposed neck, causing him and Henry to glare daggers at Drex, whose jaw was clenched so tight, he was in danger of grinding down his teeth. Fuck, even as a kid, she still ran to him, still ignored him and found comfort in his arms. It made him furious.

"Give me the kid and no one gets hurt." He growled lowly, forming a despicable plan in his head. If he could take her now, then she'd grow with him as her idol, something only his sick, twisted mind could come up with and the mere thought made Henry put one foot forward, the sound of his boot hitting the tiles reverberating around the room.

"We'd never give her to you. We don't even know why she's here but it's not for you, Drex!" The boy replied curtly in an icy tone, placing a protective hand on the child's back as Ray rocked her back and forth, cooing that she was safe and so brave for someone so precious and small.

He didn't know that a person could feel so much love for another person, even though by the time he'd come to know her, she'd be completely different, fully grown and beautiful, inside and out. Just the thought of her being with him at any age scared him to death, but right now, she was so helpless with nothing but a stuffed cat covered in dirt, food and god knows what else as protection, he couldn't bear letting her go.

"Daddy bwought us here. He said he nweeded to see a dennytider." She mumbled against his skin, resting a hand on his cheek, her fingers barely covering half of it even as they spread out from the tickle of his slight stubble. Her eyes were still the same, a bit fearful but familiar and he wondered if the day's events were fated.

He knew vaguely that her dad had scouted out tech for his company or something along those lines when she was growing up, but he had never imagined that he'd take her with him to see his father's invention on Take Your Kid To Work Day. They were in the same building as children, completely ignorant to each other's presence but together all the same and it felt like the universe kept trying to throw them together until one day they stuck and never let go again. How many other times had they just so happened to be so close and yet so far?

"I bet you like science stuff, huh?" Ray asked her, feeling how she wriggled excitedly in his arms and ran her hands down his dumb-looking face and he felt the contrast of how her pudgy fingers were different to how touched him thirty years later. She was his girl, but not yet; she had to experience a lot more and have her heart broken a few times before he got to say that, but it gave him an insight into a few things, namely whether his daughter would be similar or not.

"Mommy says that one day, I'll be a smart scientist and I'll be able to swolve everyone's problems because that's what swience is meant to do." She replied, licking her lips at the end of the sentence like she always did. He softened at the habit and at her response, knowing that she'd never be able to cure every illness, prevent every disaster, but she'd do her best to help anyone who needed it, including him when he was being too proud or too dumb to see reason.

She was smart, she was a scientist, even if sometimes she didn't feel like one, and he grinned at Henry, who felt prouder for what she was going to achieve.

"And you'll be awesome, sweetheart. I know you will." He muttered, kissing her forehead and drawing another growl from Drex's mouth, making him realise that the longer she stuck around, the more endangered she was becoming. The next room was safe, she could hide there until her parents came looking for her and in the meantime, perhaps she could see his younger self and start the clock for when they'd meet for real.

"Run along, we need to stop the bad man."

"There's a boy in that room there. He'll show you where to hide." Henry told her, carefully guiding her to the door behind them once she was back on her unsteady feet. Drex stepped forward to try and chase after her, causing Ray to move too, Henry jumping back to his side as the girl took off running, bolting into the next room and dragging her cat behind her.

She passed a pair of metal-lined boots on her way in, causing (y/n) to stumble back as a patchwork dress blur knocked into her knees before disappearing as quickly as she appeared. The woman panted against the doorframe as she stared at her boyfriend, friend and their raging nemesis, wondering why they hadn't started fighting whilst she got little Ray to stay hidden.

"What the hell was that?"

"Doesn't matter, sweet girl. Just know that I love you so much." Ray grinned at her like he was drunk, making her frown in confusion as she stepped into the room and quickly joined his side, fists clenched as Drex felt his self-control disintegrate; couldn't she see that he did it all for her? She had no clue why he was being so mushy all of a sudden, but she wasn't complaining, not one bit when he said it so earnestly. "Okay...I love you too."

"I'm gonna make you wish you never left me!" Drex yelled as his fish clenched and his monster hand stretched, claws ready to swipe as they prepared themselves for the actual fighting bit, letting out long, roaring battle cries as they clashed in the middle. Their fists didn't even get a chance to touch as light burst around them and they felt the familiar pull of the time vortex wrap around them, contorting their bodies as they came back from the past and moved through the "hallway".

"Here they come!" Schwoz shouted as he stabilised the controls, having decided to remove them from the last, Drex and all as the time machine became more and more unstable with each moment it was in use. It had been on for too long and was overheating from all the electricity pumping into it, so really they'd had no choice, squinting as three figures appeared on the floor and the fourth stayed floating in the portal, just like he'd planned. Jasper and Charlotte rushed forward to greet them as they realised that they'd been saved just in the nick of time, with no need for any violence from anyone.

"Schwoz, you got them back!" Charlotte exclaimed to the genius and Jasper hugged the couple, relieved to see them back and still together. The future was saved and they were a whole team once again.

"Yeah, and look it!" He smiled and pointed to the portal, making them jump and scream when they saw Drex floating in the middle, clawing from grip as he bobbed up and down, but he couldn't move, he could do anything apart from groan in anger at the nothingness that surrounded him.

"What's going on?" Ray asked, wondering whether the fight was truly over or not. Maybe they'd just brought him back to their time and still had to defeat and trap him again, something he wasn't opposed to, but it seemed like another stumbling block after an already exhausting mission. "I have him trapped in a time warp!"

"Time warp?" "What does that mean?" Henry and Charlotte asked, all of them apart from (y/n) and Schwoz looking incredibly confused at the term and the genius rolled his eyes, He worked with amateurs and he couldn't believe that they sometimes had the audacity to pick on him and call him weird when they didn't know basic time travel stuff. Who was the stupid one now?

"It basically means he's in limbo. It's like he's floating in time, trapped somewhere between the past, the present and the future." (y/n) explained briefly, making them all look at the villain again, thinking that he was good there. But it made the woman wonder; he couldn't stay there forever, the moment the time machine was switched off, he'd come tumbling through, hellbent on revenge and whatnot, so the problem wasn't solved, not really, so it was time to get brainy. She was a scientist, she could figure something out. "Schwoz, out of my way, I've got an idea."

(y/n) gulped as her eyes raked over all of the buttons, knobs and levers that made up the time machine's controls, trying to decipher all of their meanings in just a matter of seconds. She took in a deep breath, momentarily looking back to see her friends and her doofus staring at her with perplexed faces, although Ray's eyes were nothing but trusting and with a slight confirmation nod from him, she got to work.

"Okay, okay, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this... Time destination, today's date minus, I don't know...one hundred million years." She breathed out, looking at her ex-boyfriend with an emotionless face. It seemed cruel on face value, but at the same time, that was him all over and perhaps, one hundred million years would be enough for him to think about what he'd done, almost like a prehistoric naughty step. Punching in the coordinates, she spun around to grasp the power lever, the one that would activate the time stream, but she wasn't gonna do the honours alone.

Sensing what she was doing, Ray's gloved hand came down over hers, engulfing it completely as they held onto the lever and glanced at Schwoz for confirmation. He nodded slightly, sure that she'd done everything right and it was only a matter of sending him off, which they were more than happy to do. "Together?"

"Always." He smiled at his girl, the arms yanking the lever down as she chuckled and relaxed the energy beams. Drex moaned at the sudden influx of pressure, feeling like he was being shredded apart as he travelled back to the time of the dinosaurs, which was definitely more painful than a quick hop to the eighties. Oh well, he was indestructible, he could deal with it.

"Yeah!" "We did it! The Man Cave team cried as they realised what they'd done; successfully send Drex so far away that he'd never be a problem for them again, fingers crossed. They exchanged high-fives, a few big hugs and lots of smiles as they celebrated for a brief second and allowed the relief to finally settle over them, Ray moving in to give his sweet girl a victory kiss, but their cheers came too soon. It turned out that, unlike Drex, the time portal wasn't so sturdy and the amount of energy it took to send him back started to make its already frayed and frazzled wires spark and its frame jerk. Shit, the danger wasn't over yet, the vortex became a worrying shade of violet as it started to crumble, causing the group to panic, Schwoz in particular. "Oh, dear..."

"What's going on with the time machine?" Henry yelled over the thunderous sound of the portal folding in on itself and the creaking of the metal, his eyes glued on the genius as he hurried to try and sort it out of turn it off or something, anything to stop it from inevitably exploding.

"It's overloading! Ahhh, it's going to explode it's going to kill us! It will kill us all!" Schwoz panicked as his warning systems all flashed red, predicting a meltdown that he couldn't stop. Nothing was responding, the heat having deadened the controls and ruined all of his solderings, leaving him to clutch his bald head as he anticipated the end and ignited terror in his most vulnerable and squishy friends.

"No, not me and (y/n), just you guys!" Ray told them with a shrug, knowing that no blast could hurt him or his sweet girl, their bodies were adapted to either repel the shockwave completely or heal as quickly as it was ripped apart. He didn't mean it to sound so insensitive, but it kinda did and made the boys fall into an argument as they debated what to do for survival, and (y/n) knew that they didn't have time for such things.

"Shit, get behind us! Get behind us!" She yelled to Schwoz, Henry and Jasper, tugging her boyfriend forward so they could form a human shield, their bodies covering their heads and torsos as much as possible so they'd take the force and not their friends, not the kids and little guy they were so fond of. If they died, got blown to bits of all things, they never forgive themselves, so they all braced for th explosion, Ray hugging them as tightly as he could whilst (y/n) tucked Jasper's head into her neck, a place where it would be sort of safe. Here it came, the shaking was getting worse, dear god, don't make them suffer and...silence.

The boys and woman turned around to stare at the machine in shock, looking at it with dropped jaws when it stops shaking completely, fell lifeless and safe, no energy, no time crap, nothing. They were fine, they weren't atoms in the air or ash on the ground or jelly on the walls, they were good. And Charlotte, dear, sweet, incredibly clever Charlotte stood in front of the damn thing with the power cord in her hand. Oh.

"I unplugged it... You're welcome." She told the sassily, twirling the orange cable around in her fingers as they took it all in. Right, well, that was a lot simpler than they thought had been and after a moment of being frozen, the cheers returned, laughter filling the room once again as they encased her in a group hug. She wasn't a particularly touchy person and felt like they were overreacting, especially when Henry and Jasper began to pick her up with the force of their hug, but she let them have their moment because it was hers as well.

"Nice work, Char. You did us proud." (y/n) told her with a huge grin as she slumped on the computer chair, feeling her legs give up as she did, but her smile was still bright and her cheeks were still rosy. She laughed at the teens and Schwoz, who were still one, big tangle of arms and legs as they refused to let her go and her eyes snapped to Ray, looking at him just like she had done as a child, with the same amount of awe, but with so much more love. It made him freeze.

She looked so beautiful, hair messy, chest heaving, no doubt exhausted from the emotional day, but still he lost himself in the sight of her, hearing nothing but the sound of himself swallowing the dryness of his mouth away, not the chatter of his friends as they told Charlotte how amazing she was. His friends were here, the family that really mattered to him, not his father, he was important but not like they were and today had taught him where his priorities were.

They were here, with a little weirdo scurrying about the place with a spanner in hand and three teenagers causing him more problems than he knew how to solve, but he wouldn't give it up for the world. This was home and at the centre, she was there, still smiling as she turned around in the chair, oblivious to how he was barely breathing since she wanted to check if there had been any emergency messages. Always helping, that was his sweet girl, which made him reflect on their earlier meeting.

He'd gotten the chance to see her as a little girl, she'd been there when he'd become densitised, even if they probably never spoke or knew about each other's presence. From the very start, she'd been there, crashing in and picking him up when he needed it, putting him before her feelings because she'd rather him be happy than have her heart's desire, not knowing that they'd been star-crossed for all those years, just waiting to fall together and see that they were right there if only they'd open their eyes. He had her home, safe and sound, his family was still here and he didn't need anything else to confirm it.

"Guys..." He told Schwoz, Charlotte, Jasper and Henry firmly in a soft but stern voice, making their excited voices go quiet and their bodies fall apart. They saw his tense shoulders and shaking fingers, thinking about what the hell could be wrong now, but nothing was wrong, rather everything was right, something he proved to them as he dug into the pocket of his super suit and pulled out a velvet box. It had been living there and in his normal jeans since the day he'd decided to go for it, not that he'd ever found the right time, not even close.

The sight of it shut them up as silent, shocked grins grew on their faces as they realised what he was about to do, at last, the thing they'd all been waiting for and the woman of the hour was completely clueless, humming under her breath as she scrolled through the database.

It didn't matter to Ray though because whilst he was terrified, absolutely fucking petrified, he was also certain and alive with adrenaline because the moment had come finally. It had taken a while, but the time was right, he just knew it. He knew that he'd found his moment.

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weyrwolfen · 8 months

Text

Eidola: Chapter 17 - CT-25-9102 Sketch

Rating: T

Characters: Gen, Clone Trooper OCs, Captain Rex, Ahsoka Tano, and other canon members of the 501st/332nd

Warnings: canon-typical violence; references to self-harm, injuries, and substance abuse; PTSD; it’s post-Order 66 and nobody is having a good time (but they’re all working on it)

Summary: The mission was never to bring down the Empire. Not really. The mission was to save every single one of their chipped brothers. But if doing do helped break the Empire’s stranglehold on the galaxy? Well, that was just a bonus.

“Sketch! Sketch!”

Sketch, who’d been walking down the Scythe’s ramp, overfilled rucksack dragging at his sore shoulders, looked up to see Pry running full-tilt across the hanger bay, grinning like a loon. The other Reapers had stopped whatever they were doing to watch Pry’s progress, no doubt wondering what all the fuss was about.

“What?” Sketch called back, nudging the brother in front of him, Knots, to try to get him to start moving again.

“The bacta everybody brought back from Wadj was enough,” Pry gasped as he skidded to a stop at the edge of the ramp, panting like he’d just outrun a pack of commando droids. “The Captain’s lifting the rationing.”

Oh! Well, maybe that was news worth sprinting across base to deliver. “Does Canvas know?” Sketch asked, grinning wide enough to match Pry’s ebullient expression.

“He’s taken over one of the empty bunks. Come on!”

“I thought they were blue.”

“They were, but they were green before that.”

“How does that even work?”

“No idea. Some kind of Force osik.”

“What’re you thinking about getting?” That last question came from Pry, distractingly close to Sketch’s ear.

Sketch looked up from his flimsipad and found Pry peeking over his shoulder. They were both sitting on the floor, outside of the room Canvas had commandeered. It was in the section of the residential floors that had been given over to natborns and brothers with natborn families, but most all of them had already shipped out to Wadj, leaving the smaller, private rooms temporarily unclaimed. Sketch assumed that wouldn’t last for long, not with all the new Mandos arriving on base, but for now, this part of the base should be safe enough. Besides, Weaver had apparently signed off on the whole thing, so it wasn’t like anyone with any authority was going to come tell them they had to move.

Nano was inside with Canvas now, which meant that it was Sketch’s turn next. He had a lot of ideas, designs he’d been working on for ages, but he needed to choose one. Just one, to start. The rest could come later.

The brothers behind Sketch and Pry in line – Midge, Rancor, Vista, and a freshly cleared brother from the latest rescued batch whose name Sketch hadn’t caught quite yet – kept up their conversation in the background.

Sketch was only half-listening, letting their words wash over him, but Pry was still waiting for an answer, so he finally admitted, “I’m having some trouble deciding.”

“I heard Vader did it. Changed them,” the conversation continued, further down the hall.

“You’re serious.”

“Yeah. I mean, he wasn’t Vader then. It was before.”

“Huh. That’s karked up.”

“Understatement.”

Pry was eyeing the page in Sketch’s book. “That one would be pretty wizard,” he said, pointing at one of the smaller doodles in the lower, lefthand corner of the page. It was a drawing of a chipped stone knife, cutting edge crude and scalloped, with a handle wrapped in intricately-knotted cording.

In the second year of the war, Sketch had been stationed on a moon so remote it didn’t even have a formal name, just a number. XR-33-419 had been pretty boring, in all honesty. They’d been tasked with guarding a small base with a stockpile of supplies nobody had seemed interested in either deploying or stealing. It had been nice at first. He could draw whenever he wanted, and nobody was actively shooting at him, but after a while, the boredom had started getting to him.

Their CO, Sergeant Ellis, had been stationed there since the beginning of the war. Nobody knew who he’d pissed off, to get stuck with such a jerkwater assignment for so long. Sketch had liked him well enough, but he had to admit that their CO had come across as more than a little weird. The Sergeant had cultivated all sorts of obscure hobbies he’d picked up from watching holonet videos on a contraband datapad.

One of them was chipping primitive stone tools out of the surrounding volcanic rocks. Sketch hadn’t really seen the appeal at first, but after a while, he’d gotten bored enough with endless, uneventful patrols to give it a try. He’d never quite gotten the hang of it. The Sergeant had never stopped trying to teach Sketch, had actually been way more patient than Sketch himself had been, the couple of times brothers had asked him to teach them how to draw.

In the end, Sergeant Ellis had ended up making so many blades during those doomed demonstrations that he’d started handing them out to the other brothers on base. Sketch had carried his for the rest of the war, even after he’d been transferred back into a front-line battalion. It had even gotten him out of a tight spot once, when he’d been grabbed by one of the giant, semi-sentient plants on Felucia. Apparently, if you knew how to work it correctly, natural volcanic glass could be pretty kriffing sharp.

Force only knew where that knife was now. He had no memory of what he’d done with it, once his chip had activated. Probably chucked it in a trash receptacle somewhere, seeing as how it had been decidedly non-regulation.

He also didn’t know what had happened to Sergeant Ellis. He’d asked some of his brothers in the control center to check, but they’d never found anything. The designation number he’d known had been attached to a brother who’d died at the First Battle of Geonosis.

Maybe Sketch had remembered the number wrong.

Maybe the Sergeant was still stationed on XR-33-419, making his rock knives, except apparently Sketch had remembered the moon’s stupid designation incorrectly too. They couldn’t find any record of the place.

Maybe Sketch had knocked more than a few screws loose, during the chip or after. Maybe none of that had ever happened.

Kriff, he was going to have to sit down and chat with Sling again, wasn’t he?

“Yeah,” he’d said to Pry noncommittally, not wanting to talk about it. He flipped to the next page in his book.

Their brothers continued their conversation, which seemed to be annoying Pry, assuming Sketch was interpreting the glower his brother threw over his shoulder correctly. “So, now they’re green again.”

“Obviously.”

“Okay, but why are they green?”

“Maybe she changed them back?”

“How does that even work?”

“I don’t know. Whatever he did to them, but in reverse?”

“I’m going to get Commander Tano’s markings on my shoulder,” Pry finally said, turning his attention back to Sketch’s book. Some of the art wasn’t really appropriate for Canvas to use, detailed studies of ships or buildings or people Sketch had seen, so he flipped past those pages quickly. “Maybe in 44th silver? I think Canvas said the machine they found can do the fancy metallic stuff.”

Pry’s plan wasn’t exactly surprising, especially now that the Commander had given everyone her blessing to use her markings as a semi-official symbol of their operation. Or at least that was what Jesse had said on the flight back from Wadj.

Sketch had come up with a couple of designs incorporating her mirrored marks too, but he wasn’t happy with any of them just yet. It felt wrong, to only credit her for their work here and not the Captain, but referencing Rex was a little harder to pin down, graphically speaking. There were his jaig eyes, of course, but those had a kind of cultural weight Sketch wasn’t comfortable claiming for his own. Not without doing something to actually earn them. He’d been playing around with incorporating a pair of DC-17s, but it was all very much a work in progress.

But Pry’s comment about metallic inks did give him an idea. Sketch turned a couple more pages, looking for another half-completed design he’d been playing with, off and on, for weeks.

It didn’t take long to find it: a pair of crossed scythes, shorter-bladed and longer-handled than the purely agricultural variant. He’d first seen them on the belts of some local farmers on a few of the Mid-Rim agriworlds. That style of blade had apparently worked just as well on grain as pirates, and Sketch had figured they’d make just about the perfect symbol for the Reapers.

He’d only mentioned it to a couple of the others, but they’d all like it. Feathers had been enthusiastic enough that he’d insisted on renaming their ship. Sketch was supposed to float the design past Jesse and Ridge for approval, whenever he got around to finishing it.

He hadn’t realized they’d be able to get metallic tattoos. It got him thinking about the design again.

Maybe if he added a couple mirrored slashes, near where the handles crossed. That would be kind of reminiscent of the Captain’s jaig eyes without actually being them, and adding in the top half of the commander’s markings above that sort of filled in the visual dead space nicely. Oh, and he could continue her paired lines below the crossed scythes too. Now that was an idea…

The door next to Sketch swished open and Nano stepped out, a bacta patch peeking out from under the high collar of his blacks on the side of his neck. “You’re up,” he said, smiling down at Sketch, who was still sitting on the floor.

Osik! Maybe he’d have time to rough out the design for Canvas? He’d heard something about sanitizing the equipment in between uses. Or maybe he should just stick with one of his other designs, so he could finish working up this one?

“What does it feel like?” Pry asked while Sketch started to push himself to his feet, turning the question around and around in his head.

“It tingled some,” Nano admitted, starting to reach up to maybe rub at his neck, but he arrested the gesture before he’d actually made contact. “The improvised stuff we had on the Fearless used needles instead of lasers and stung a whole lot more.”

That was interesting. In the privacy of his own mind, Sketch could confess that he hadn’t realized there would be a difference. He bent over to pick up his helmet.

“Quartz said they used to be two different greens. Like, regular green and kind of yellow green.”

“Shouldn’t they have matched? I thought the colors meant something. You know, like spiritually.”

“I don’t think they do.”

“I mean, red means something pretty kriffing specific.”

“Yeah, okay fair. But I think that’s an exception.”

“Sith-flavored Force osik.”

“Exactly.”

“I swear some of the 91st said purple meant something about balance.”

“She got new crystals,” Pry said loudly, interrupting the ongoing debate which had continued, unabated, further down the line in the hallway. “She went into that Force temple and brought out a big chunk of kyber. So did everyone else on that–”

Sketch, who’d actually heard all of that straight from Jesse, didn’t stick around to listen to the rest. He just stepped into Canvas’s improvised studio and let the door whisk shut behind him, muffling the rest of Pry’s lecture.

Canvas looked up from whatever he’d been doing to the device in his hands, the intricate, geometric lines of his own facial tattoos crinkling at the corners of both eyes. “Got a design ready for me?”

“Uh, more like too many designs, and I’m leaning towards one I haven’t even finished,” Sketch admitted awkwardly.

“Well, let me take a look,” Canvas said, gesturing for Sketch to sit down on the stool next to him. “I’m sure we can work something out.”

The bacta patch pulled at the skin across the back of Sketch’s neck and down onto his upper back. It itched, but beneath his armor, there wasn’t a kriffing thing he could do about that right now. Honestly, he should have taken the stupid thing off hours ago, but he’d gotten a little waylaid.

The Martez sisters had arrived earlier in the shift to drop off their latest shipment and pick up the gold-plated pleasure craft which had been junking up the base’s exterior. Apparently there’d been some kind of haggling to be done with the chop shop owner who’d agreed to take the thing, because while he was very much in favor of earning credits and sabotaging slavers, the craft itself was well-enough known in certain circles to be a liability if it was recognized. Also, there’d been news of some sort, way too sensitive to discuss out in the hanger, amongst the rank and file. Commander Tano, Captain Rex, and both of their remaining Corries had disappeared off with the sisters to deal with whatever that situation was shaping up to be.

And that had left the hanger bay unusually light on clones this shift.

Which was bad news for Sketch, because firstly, he’d been saddled with doing an inventory of everything the Martezes had delivered, and secondly, one of the Mandalorians had cornered him in a dead end made by the walls of newly delivered crates.

Granted, she was a very small Mandalorian, but still.

“Do clones take foundlings?” the girl was asking, all sharp, bright-eyed curiosity.

“Uh…” Sketch said, sounding like a complete idiot, but in all fairness, he was kind of panicking on the inside. He wasn’t entirely sure what a ‘foundling’ was, but he was absolutely sure that Weaver would skin him as a warning to their other brothers if he did something to offend their guests. “What’s a foundling?”

The girl looked at him like he’d lost his mind. She was a tiny little thing, maybe three or four years old if Sketch guessed right. Or, what, seven or so, given that she was a natborn? In any case, she was wearing barely any armor, just a couple bracers and one spaulder over a utilitarian, blue-gray jumpsuit. It’d be cute, if she had been one of Sketch’s younger siblings.

But she wasn’t.

“Like, kids who don’t have any clan to take care of them, so an adult takes them in?” the kid said, sounding like it was entirely possible that Sketch was the stupidest sentient she’d ever had the misfortune of meeting.

“Uh, yes?” Sketch said, because that sounded like half a dozen examples on base, where clones had adopted natborn kids.

“Hmm,” the kid said consideringly, like he’d said something far more interesting that Sketch thought he had. “Do you have an Armorer? Because Lira says you do, but Rian says you don’t, because plastoid doesn’t count.”

Kriff, kriff, kriff. He had a better idea of what the kid meant by that, beyond the obvious. Armorers were like religious leaders, or something. Ori had sent around a memo, once a couple weird interactions had started going down between the Mandalorians and Buckler’s team.

Sketch punched a button on his vambrace, again, hoping someone on his squad would see his distress signal and come save him. He didn’t even care that this obviously wasn’t a combat situation. He needed kriffing exfil before he accidentally started some kind of diplomatic incident because he couldn’t figure out how to escape from a kriffing natborn kid without offending her, her natborn parents, who really should be watching their kid better, and whoever else fell in this cadet’s direct chain of command.

His brothers weren’t ever going to let him hear the end of this.

At the moment, Sketch didn’t really care. He didn’t see another way out, short of shoulder-checking the kid out of the way. She was planted right in the middle of his only exit, which was a complete shiny mistake on his part, except this was his base, his home, and he shouldn’t be getting ambushed by tiny Mandalorians here anyway.

“We have brothers who make our armor,” he hedged, taking another step backwards, but he was hemmed in on all sides by crates from the Silver Angel.

“Do you speak Mando’a?” the kid asked, crossing her arms across her chest and glaring at Sketch significantly.

Yes, yes Sketch did, a little. A very, very little. And he wasn’t about to demonstrate any of the words he used most often in front of a political timebomb of a natborn child who he absolutely could not offend.

“Sora! Where did you get to?” another voice cut in, and maybe that might have made Sketch relax a little if he’d recognized them, but he didn’t.

The kid’s face scrunched up, like she very badly wanted to stomp her foot or throw some other kind of tantrum, but she did turn halfway around and reply, “I’m over here!”

The voice’s owner appeared at the end of the row of crates, and of course it was another Mandalorian, except this one was an adult woman, fully-armored in green and blue plate. “I told you not to leave the ship!” she said, storming down the aisle between the crates, headed straight for the kid.

Headed straight for Sketch.

The back of his cuirass clacked against the crates as he took another involuntary step backwards.

A voice, which sounded an awful lot like Sling, was saying in the back of Sketch’s head, ‘Breathe. You’re safe. Just breathe with me.’

Sketch breathed, or tried to, as the Mandalorian woman stomped closer.

He hated this. He hadn’t been like this before. General Talmani had been kind. The natborn officers on the Synchronicity had been professional. Most of the civilians he’d interacted with had been fine. Some had even been nice.

But then his chip had activated, and then the nature of his interactions with natborns had taken a definite turn.

You’re safe. Breathe. You do not answer to them. They haven’t done anything, and if they do, you have the right to defend yourself now. Just breathe.

Kark every last square centimeter of all of this. He was not going to have his first panic attack in a kriffing year because he’d let himself get cornered by an overly-curious if overbearing natborn child and her parent? Sibling? Guardian?

Didn’t matter. She could be Lady Kryze herself, and she still wouldn’t be in Sketch’s chain of command. He was safe. He hadn’t done anything wrong.

He must have fuzzed out for a second, because it took him a minute to realize that the Mandalorian woman was lecturing the kid, not him. Unless he was really misjudging the angle of her helmet’s T-visor, she wasn’t even looking at him.

“… going to apologize to him. Right now,” she was saying, sounding very annoyed.

Which, what? That seemed like a trap.

“That’s not necessary, ma’am,” he found himself saying mechanically.

Both of the Mandalorians were looking at him now. The kid was pouting, and the adult’s helmet was tipped to one side at an angle Sketch might have called ‘assessing’ if he’d seen it on one of his brothers.

The datapad in Sketch’s hands was starting to creak in protest of how hard he was gripping it.

After a very long, very awkward silence, the woman reached up to remove her helmet, revealing what was, in all fairness, a very attractive, seemingly human face. Close-cropped brown hair, high cheekbones, rich brown eyes, and lips that seemed more prone to smiles than their current, small frown.

Sketch didn’t relax even a little, still every bit as tripwire tense as he’d been since the woman had first appeared.

She opened her mouth to say something, but the sound of heavy boot treads behind her drew her attention instead.

The choking, smothering feeling of panic loosened its hold inside Sketch’s chest when he saw the Republic cog on his brother’s helmet.

Jesse.

Thank kriff. Jesse would know how to handle this.

“What seems to be the problem?” Jesse said, sounding perfectly cordial. His stance was anything but.

Sketch didn’t miss the way the woman angled herself, where the slightest twist would put her armored body in between the child and either one of the troopers who were now surrounding her, but her voice sounded utterly calm, even casual when she said, “I’m afraid my little sister cornered one of your troopers with, I’m sure, a large number of highly nosy questions. For which she was just about to apologize.”

The child’s pout intensified, but she did look up at Sketch and mumble, “Sorry.”

Sketch jerked a small nod. “No harm done, ma’am,” he said in the same mechanical tone.

If anything, that made Jesse’s posture go even more tense, but none of that was obvious in his voice when he said, “That’s good to hear. Brother, could you join me?”

Something occurred to the woman then. Unhappy surprise flashed across her features before her eyes shuttered. She put a hand on her sister’s shoulder and turned, backing them both against the long line of crates, opening an obvious escape route for Sketch.

One foot in front of the next, measured and perfect. Above reproach. He even managed a marginal nod, conveying appropriate gratitude as he passed the two Mandalorians. He hated to give them his back, but Jesse was here. His brother, his team leader was here, watching over the situation. Sketch was safe enough, with an ARC as his backup.

When he got in range, Jesse took him by the elbow, his gloved and gauntleted hand solid and grounding.

Sketch took a shaky breath in the privacy of his own helmet.

“I hear you’ve finally come up with a design for a Reaper logo,” Jesse said as they started walking swiftly away, still sounding supremely casual. Sketch was grateful for the distraction.

The Mandalorians weren’t following them. Sketch looked back to check.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, sounding humiliatingly unsteady. “Canvas just finished up the coloring earlier this shift.”

“I hear he does good work,” Jesse said, steering them both towards the bay’s side door rather than the main exit. That led towards the medics’ area rather than the main part of the base, which wasn’t exactly surprising. Sketch didn’t have it in him to protest. He was having a bad reaction, way out of proportion with the severity of the actual situation. He knew that. Knowing didn’t make his heart stop pounding though. “We’ll have to compare notes, after you chat with Kix.”

Kriff, that was right. Kix had accompanied them back from Wadj. It was looking like their Reaper team had picked up a dedicated medic. Kind of a step down from being the functional CMO of their little operation, but Kix had insisted. Jesse certainly wasn’t about to tell his closest brother no, and apparently, neither were his former COs.

Sketch still winced a little. Kix could be kind of intense. “I was going to talk to Sling,” he said, sounding as sulky as the kid had.

Something about that seemed to amuse Jesse, given the angle of his bucket. “You can do that too, but you’re still seeing Kix.”

Kark.

Jesse liked the tattoo. So did all of the others.

Canvas had some kind of personal rule about not copying the same tattoos between brothers without explicit permission, but Sketch was happy to share. That was sort of the whole point of the design, after all.

Smaller versions showed up on Quartz’s shoulder and Mirror’s chest. List added a version to his armor. Feathers wanted Sketch to paint a bigger version on the side of the Scythe. Apparently some of Ridge’s team had gotten wind of it too, not that Sketch had seen what they’d done yet.

Kix surprisingly hadn’t insisted on benching Sketch, but it didn’t escape anyone’s attention that Sketch was always assigned a partner, when he was given any task which might bring him into contact with the Mandalorians on base. He might have protested being coddled like that if it hadn’t been such a relief.

When word of their next mission came down, a major raid on some kind of independent pirate enclave, Kix still didn’t flag Sketch’s file.

When pressed, their way-too-senior team medic had sourly pointed out that Sketch had proven time and again that he was perfectly capable of keeping it together when his mission involved shooting natborns. He just couldn’t kriffing talk to them.

“It’s not ideal, but what is these days?” Kix had said, which was abrasive as all kriff, but also weirdly comforting. If Sketch was a basket case, then at least he was in good company.

For an osik’la, independent pirate base on the shebs-end of Mandalorian space, their target apparently had some unexpected perimeter defenses.

“Hold on!” Feathers yelled over the ship’s comms even as the ship swerved to miss… whatever the kriff had just hit them. Not a missile. Missiles didn’t clang against the hull like that and not explode. Not unless something had gone badly wrong with their internal mechanisms, and clones just didn’t get that lucky.

They were already in atmo, which was a karking good thing, because all of them could hear the whistling howl of air ripping across a new hole somewhere in the ship. Whatever had happened had better not have cut across the Scythe’s new nose art. Sketch had worked hard getting it just right.

His absurdly misplaced priorities almost made him laugh out loud, but he knew it would come out sounding a little hysterical, so he swallowed the reaction back down.

On the other hand, they were already in atmo, which also meant that Dive’s rapid, irregular maneuvers were hitting Sketch’s stomach in a way they just didn’t in zero-G. He had a pretty solid stomach, as such things went, but there were limits. Oof.

“Coming in hot!” Feathers shouted again, which was the only warning any of them got before

the ship rolled to one side, dropped abruptly, and impacted the ground, metal screaming in protest as they skidded across whatever surface Feathers had picked as his emergency landing area.

Sketch must have hit his head, or something, because the next thing he knew, he was staggering out of the half-deployed loading ramp, blaster rifle in hand. The ship was tilted at an awkward angle, wedged up against a wall and listing over what looked like a drain culvert for a massively polluted stream. There was a Kom’rk fighter downed on the other side of the courtyard, burning ferociously and bristling with what looked like four giant, metal spears.

What the kriff? Is that what had been hitting them?

His vision swam a little when he jumped down to the flagstones, staggering to get into formation behind Jesse and the others. Definitely a head injury then. Great.

The only good news was that the base’s defenses got a whole lot squishier now that they were past the automated aerial systems. Pirates were, on the whole, a sloppy, undisciplined lot; and this group was shaping up to fit with that pattern.

Didn’t mean the whole mission went off without a hitch though.

Sketch was starting to feel pretty rough, maybe thirty minutes later when Jesse’s Reapers had reached the base’s large mess hall or cantina. Whatever was served here, alcohol was clearly a major component of it, given the round bar area which dominated the center of the room. Quad’s Raiders had already cleared the space, so the room should have been clear. This should have been mop-up, on the way to back up Ridge’s team, who had run into some pockets of resistance in the base’s brig.

Sketch’s vision was getting worse by the second, and his head was starting to pound, but he just happened to be angled the right direction to see the scrawny weequay peek over the edge of the bar.

A lot of things happened in very rapid succession.

Sketch shouted out a warning.

The weequay pointed something at Torque. It wasn’t a blaster, or at least it wasn’t any model Sketch recognized, but it was clearly some kind of projectile weapon.

His brothers swung around, pivoting their blasters towards the perceived threat.

Torque was raising his blaster too, but he wasn’t going to get it up in time.

Sketch was already moving, throwing himself at his brother.

A shot rang out, a loud crack instead of a sharp sizzle.

Something slammed into Sketch’s back, right as he collided with Torque.

The two of them went down in a heap.

Rings of blue light, stunning blasts in preparation for the possibility of civilians on base, flew over Sketch’s head, in the direction of the bar.

Sketch rolled off of Torque, trying to get his own blaster up, even from this awkward position. Nothing hurt, but something was definitely wrong. His arm wasn’t working right.

Oh.

Oh wait.

Now he hurt.

Right, because shock was still a thing.

There was a lot of shouting happening, but Sketch was having trouble following most of it, especially when Kix appeared in his field of vision and started tearing at the releases on his cuirass.

The inside of his chest plate, as Kix lifted it away, was red. That wasn’t right.

“Slug thrower,” Kix barked to somebody off to Sketch’s left. “Hold still,” he said, obviously to Sketch himself.

Sketch wanted to say something, maybe a joking, ‘Sir, yes sir,’ but all he managed to do was half-raise one hand. To do what, exactly, he wasn’t sure. Everything was hurting now.

Kix pulled something out of his belt, tugged the high collar of Sketch’s blacks down, and jabbed something into the side of his neck.

It was cold.

Everything went dark.

Waking up was a process.

Sketch’s head felt like it was stuffed with fluff. He was lying on his front, face pressed into a soft surface. It was unreasonably comfortable. Maybe he didn’t need to wake up just yet.

The next time he drifted back towards consciousness, he heard voices nearby.

“… Commander’s great,” someone was slurring. A brother. “’S her marks, see? Sort of. She lets us wear ‘em.”

“Is that so?” another voice asked, and even though it sounded soft and kind, it decidedly wasn’t a brother.

Sketch tensed, and something started beeping. He was still face-down on a cot, he couldn’t see what was going on. He tried to push himself up, needing to see where he was, needing to assess the current threat, when a hand landed in the middle of his back.

“Yeah, no,” another brother, apparently the hand’s owner, said. “You’re not going anywhere.” His tone was sharp, but the hand on Sketch’s back was gentle, even as it inexorably pressed him back down. “Mirror, I’m gonna need you to stop talking.”

“Sure thing, Kix,” Sketch’s brother, Mirror, said, still sounding very drugged.

Kix. Their medic. The medic.

Kriff, Sketch had been injured, hadn’t he? It was hard to remember.

The weight of Kix’s hand disappeared from Sketch’s back and the beeping sound stopped abruptly. “Mel, could you go check on Chat and Rico?” the medic asked, but the tone of voice made it very obvious to everyone that it wasn’t really a request.

“Of course,” the natborn, this ‘Mel,’ said. Sketch could hear footsteps retreating and a door opening and closing.

“Come on back down, Sketch,” Kix said, hand returning to the back of Sketch’s neck, heavy and grounding. “It’s just Mirror and me in here with you now.”

Okay. Okay, that was good.

“What happened?” Sketch mumbled into his… pillow? It was thicker than the ones he was used to. Softer.

“You got shot in the back,” Kix said dryly. “The slug just missed your subclavian artery, or else we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. Don’t worry, we managed to dig it out and patch you back together well enough.”

The haze of the lingering drugs was fading just enough that Sketch was able to think through that information, at least a little. “Who’s ‘we’?” he asked. He didn’t think they’d brought any other medics on this mission. Maybe Kipp? He’d been training with the real medics lately, hadn’t he?

Kix was silent for a long moment, but he did answer when Sketch managed to turn his head to look up at his brother. “Mel has medical training,” he admitted, expression very serious. “You were never alone with them. I promise.”

Sketch couldn’t help the shudder that inched up his spine.

“Right,” he said, brain sluggishly working through the implications. At the moment, Kix was here, and that was enough. Sketch let himself relax, just a little.

Now that he’d had his attention drawn to it, he could feel the bandage across his upper back and shoulders. That… wasn’t great.

“Did it mess up my tattoo?” he asked, because that would be just about typical. He’d only just gotten the kriffing thing.

Kix snorted. “Nothing Canvas won’t be able to fix,” he said, sounding more than a little sardonic. “And we took the base, by the way.”

Right. The base. Yeah, that was probably a little more important. “Casualties?”

“Light, all things considered. Kryze’s people got the worst of it,” Kix admitted. “But we can go over that later, when you’re more likely to remember the conversation.”

“Yeah,” Sketch said, rolling his face back into the pillow. He was feeling awfully groggy again. “Okay.”

“I need to go check on my other patients,” Kix said, almost sounding apologetic, but he huffed a small laugh when Sketch managed to flap one hand in permission or agreement or something. “If you need anything, tell Mirror to call me.”

“S’that mean I can talk again?” Mirror asked, still sounding at least twice as out of it as Sketch felt. And he was getting sleepier by the second.

“Yeah, I guess it does,” Kix said with an audible sigh. “Try not to talk Sketch’s ear off though. He could use some more sleep.”

Wasn’t that the truth?

The admonition didn’t slow Mirror down for long though. Kix had barely left when he said, “Mel’s alright. The pirates apparently bought them off some Hutts. I know you’ve got issues with…” he paused, apparently recognizing that he was verging into dangerous territory, even in his highly drugged state. “Uh, the point is, they’re one of the good ones.”

Sketch wasn’t in the mood to unpack any of that. “What’d Kix give you?” he asked instead, because even in his own drugged state, he still wasn’t half as karked up as Mirror sounded.

“Dunno, Kix said they’d burned through the regular stuff on you and some of the Mandos,” Mirror said cheerfully. “I got some of the good osik from the pirates’ supplies.”

“Lucky,” Sketch grumbled into his pillow.

“But seriously, you don’t have to worry about Mel.”

Sketch didn’t bother to dignify that with an answer. If he thought about it too much, he was going to tense up all over again, and what he really wanted was sleep.

“They liked your tattoo design,” Mirror tried again, sounding almost hopeful.

That… wasn’t actually very comforting, but Sketch was having trouble pinning down why exactly. Other than his blanket aversion to natborns he didn’t know.

“Going to try to sleep some more,” he mumbled, hoping Mirror would take the hint.

“Right, you do that,” Mirror said cheerfully. “I’ve got the watch.”

That also wasn’t half as comforting as Mirror clearly meant for it to be.

AN: Apologies for the delay with this one. This chapter fought me tooth and nail. I did write a little vignette in the interim, just to try to kick myself out of wy writing funk though. It's called Lazarus and it's from Rex's POV during Echo's rescue on Skako Minor, in case you're interested.

I know that canonically there is already a clone named Sketch. I remembered him pretty early on while writing this chapter, but the other names I tried out just didn't fit. So no, they're not the same person, but also meh, my guess is in an army of millions, there are at least a few clones running around with duplicate names.

Other chapters are available here.

Dividers by freesia-writes using helmets by lornaka. More designs available here.

#eidola tcw fanfic #star wars #tcw #clone wars #the clone wars #star wars the clone wars #tcw fanfic #clone wars fanfic #the clone wars fanfic #star wars the clone wars fanfic #clone troopers #original clone trooper

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