#though Crosshair didn’t replace him

[panic-in-the-multiverse]

​nah but the way Omega hugged Crosshair before Hunter hurt a part of my heart but at the same time healed a part of my heart

[stardust-kenobi]

Nerves

Crosshair x F!Reader

Warnings: SMUT, angst, fluff, friends to lovers, soft and slightly ooc Crosshair (not much though, I think he really is a softy)

Word count: 2.7k

Summary: You'd been helping Crosshair work on his aim after his traumatic experience being held captive by the Empire. After not much progress, you get into a heated discussion when he tries to give up, which turns even more heated after he admits his feelings for you.

Read on AO3

“Try it again” You paced behind his stoic stance, doing your best to encourage him without showing any sign of your very present empathy. The slow-setting Pabu sun would still provide you both with another hour of visibility. The amber glow warmed your skin, which was a welcomed change of environment from being cramped on the ship for days on end. 

“Why?” Crosshair growled, fueled by the burning rage built up by his defeat. The tremble in his fingertips broke your heart, but you could see that he’d made progress from the exercises. It was slow, sure, but there were definitely improvements. T

“Because I said so. You won’t make any progress if you don’t keep trying” You emphasized, doing your best not to express your impatience with his pessimism. 

���It’s useless, Y/N” He lowered his blaster from his shaking hand and let it fall from his grasp before lowering himself to sit on the rock beneath him. You sighed, but this time your breath didn’t hold any frustration, only disappointment in his self-defeat. You couldn’t even begin to imagine what he’d been through, and you still didn’t know the extent of the torture he’d endured. Months had passed since he and Omega escaped. Omega had worked with him a few times, mostly with meditation, but you were better skilled with blasters and aim. 

Crosshair held his head low, focusing his vision on the sand beneath his sore feet. You joined him without another word, sitting next to him on the rocks that scattered the shore. There were no words to comfort him in this moment, so you opted out of a conversation this time. The breeze from the ocean enveloped your frame, almost as if pushing you closer to Crosshair. 

The seconds passed. Then minutes. All the while you soaked in each other’s company, for good or for bad. He was growing annoyed with you lately, despite being one of his closest friends, all because you were insistent upon helping to heal his trauma from his captivity with the Empire. 

As the moments passed, Crosshair never tried to leave his spot next to you. He didn’t push you away this time. This, you decided, was an achievement. 

The half-hidden sun drifted slowly below the horizon, replaced then by a casting a blue-toned light from the rising moon. It was peaceful, sitting together, communicating without saying a word. 

“I’ll probably head back soon. We’ll try again tomorrow” You spoke gently when breaking the silence.

“I’m done” Crosshair spoke softly, his tone was firm and assured. 

“Cross-” You sighed.

“I said I’m done” He reiterated, interrupting your plea. 

“You’re just going to give up?” You scoffed. 

“Seems so” He shrugged. 

You crossed your arms to your chest and stood in front of him now, staring at him in disappointment.

“You can stand there all night if you’d like. I’m not changing my mind” He muttered, finally looking up to meet your gaze. 

You pondered your next breath, but ultimately fell short on your words. With a subtle nod in his direction, you began walking away from your peaceful corner on the beach. 

“I’m sorry for what they did to you, Crosshair. But you can’t punish yourself forever” You spoke calmly as the distance between you grew. 

“What did you say?” He sneered, turning his body toward you, still sitting on the rock. 

You froze in your tracks. You’d struck a nerve. Good. 

“You heard me”

He slowly stood up and turned to you, “You think it’s my fault that I’m not improving?”

“You are improving, Crosshair. But, you’re giving up too easily”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about”

“I care about you, Crosshair. Believe it or not, I do. I know you’re not used to that but…you’re going to have to get used to it because I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not giving up on you”

His eyes grew subtly sorrowful as he stared into you, absorbing your words slowly. His head drifted from your gaze over to the open water that was now glistening in the moonlight.

“It's..my nerves” He said shamefully.

“Okay…” You tried to understand what he meant. Maybe you’d been pushing him too hard “Would it help if we took a break for a few d-”

“You. You make me…nervous” He admitted with a loud sigh trailing the end of his words like he had to force himself to say it. 

As you pondered what he’d just said, your heart fluttered with unexpected excitement. 

“What? How do I make you nervous?” You breathed out with what was almost a chuckle. 

“Forget it” he scoffed, picking up his blaster and turning back toward the island, passing you in the process. You grab his arm to stop him. He doesn’t resist even though your gentle touch should not have stopped him in his tracks, but it did tonight. 

“No. Tell me what you mean.” You demanded. 

Crosshair contemplated it for a second before yanking his arm from your grasp, “You really want to know? Fine”.

He looked toward the island as if to check and make sure you were alone. 

“I can’t…I can’t think around you. I can’t focus” He lowered his head,”I’ve tried to ignore how I feel around you, but it’s been just as useless as you training me”

For the first time in a long time, you were speechless. Crosshair was not a man of many words, nor was he one to express his feelings.

“Crosshair-” You tried to answer but he was uninterested in your counter argument. What he didn’t know was that there was no counter argument to be had. 

“Don’t. Just don’t” He groaned.

“I love you” You hurriedly responded spitting it out like it was stuck on your tongue. You laid  it all out plainly and simply. You loved him. You had for months. 

Crosshair’s expression held a look of pure disbelief that quickly transformed to warmth and content.

Your longing gaze pierced through his tough exterior. Something ignited within you as a tension pulled you into him, leaving hardly any room between the two of you

“I…” You whispered softly, but lost yourself in his eyes.

Without another breath, Crosshair curled his finger beneath your chin, pulling your lips up to meet his.

Nothing this electrifying had ever grazed your skin before. His lips pressed passionately against yours as if he’d waited years to do this. You leaned into him, resting your hands on his shoulders as your mouths became intertwined so rhythmically. 

Every fantasy you’d ever had of a moment like this that had always been shoved to the back of your mind came flooding back. Never did you think he’d feel the same way, but everything about his lips on yours just felt right. His finger beneath your chin trembled, and you were unsure how much it was from the overwhelming nerves of kissing you or the already present shake in his hands. You wrapped your hand around his, intertwining your fingers to calm him. The kiss was deep and raw, devouring each other as the motions intensified. A warmth spread through your body while your heart nearly lept from your chest. 

Slowly and hesitantly, you pulled away from the kiss to look up into his uncertain gaze. 

“You have no idea how long I have wanted to do that” He whispered, and a smile crept upon his face. Something rare and welcome that you never saw too often with him. 

“Me too” You smiled back, holding his hands in yours.

You wasted no more time before pulling him for another kiss. It was heavy and breathless. Your hands wandered from his to the firm muscles on his chest. Crosshair let his hands wander, too, until they hovered gently above your breasts. 

“Touch me” You breathed in between the motions of your lips. 

Your permission was all he needed. His hands explored your body like he was lost in the dark. Like he was starving for you. The boulders on this corner area of the beach kept you hidden in your own oasis, with very little concern of being discovered. Your fingertips found the hem of his black shirt, and tugged at it gently. 

“Here?” He pondered. 

“Why not?” You smirked. He nodded and helped you remove his shirt, revealing his battle scars and perfectly carved muscle. You admired it, trailing your hands down his abdomen. 

Conveniently, you had a blanket in your satchel that you brought with you. Crosshair rushed over to lay it out. He then took your hand in his and guided you to it.

“Lay down,” He instructed. As you did so, he hovered above you, his lips exploring your exposed neck and chest just above the neckline of your dress. You whimpered softly, unable to contain yourself even with the slightest of his touch.

His nervous touch was endearing as he traced up your thigh, searching for your most sensitive area. You shuffled your hips a bit, encouraging him to keep going 

“Are you sure?” He asked, his brows furrowed. It was a look of longing, concern, and desperation all in one. Crosshair needed you, but wouldn’t dare touch you like this without assurance. 

“Yes,” You breathed. 

He pulled your panties down, and you lifted your hips to help him remove them completely. 

He returned his fingers to your aching heat and discovered your arousal for him, which earned a small whimper from his lips. Crosshair knew exactly what he wanted to do to you. He’d surely thought about it enough in his head while he sat alone in his quarters, pumping himself to the fantasy of having you in his grasp like this. But, he was letting his nerves get the better of him now, and felt weary about how he’d perform for you. 

“Cross, please” You begged with a tone of reassurance. His hand rested on your thigh, just beneath where you craved his touch.

You felt his hand tremble subtly against your skin.

“Hey,” You started, pulling his attention to you, “it's just me and you” 

He nodded and kissed you hard, letting himself dive into you again, and found his fingers sliding through the wetness between your legs. He rubbed your clit in delicate circles and you bucked your hips up into his touch. He found a perfect rhythm and responded to your body’s signals as he felt them. 

“Maker…You’re so wet for me” He muttered in total awe of the effect he’d had on you. Looking down to your exposed cunt as the bottom of your dress now rested against your abdomen. Suddenly his middle finger found its way to your entrance and slid inside, pumping slowly and pushing you to the edge while his thumb kept working at your clit. 

Crosshair was propped on his side next to you, and instinctively ground his hips against your body, overcome with his desire to feel friction. He added another finger inside and fucked you as you rolled your hips into his hand. Each thrust of his curled digits grazed your most sensitive spot against your walls. A tingling sensation bundled and tightened in your lower belly, pushing you closer to your climax. 

“Don’t stop” You begged, and he listened.

“Come for me, darling” He instructed, which sent chills down your body. Hearing him say something so arousing was unfamiliar but absolutely intoxicating. 

With his lips at your neck and his fingers working eagerly inside of you, your release was so close now. Your senses were deliciously overwhelmed. 

“Crosshair” You cried his name before rolling your eyes into the back of your head, seeing stars, overwhelmed with the pleasure that flowed through your body as your orgasm overcame you. Your hips rolled up into his body still hovered above you and your back arched in response to the sensational feeling radiating through you. Your fingers dug into his arm but he never slowed his pace. Crosshair was absolutely infatuated with watching you fall apart for him. You came down from your euphoric high slowly, catching your breath in the process. 

“Are you alright?” He whispered. This was a side of him you never expected. You knew he could be caring and kind when he wanted to be, but seeing that translated to handling your body was a pleasant surprise. Your cunt hopelessly clenched around the emptiness as he removed his fingers. 

“Never better. Now, please fuck me” You demanded, chuckling softly. 

“Only because you asked so nicely,” He wasted not another moment before helping you lean up to remove your dress completely. Your breasts fell from the restraint of the fabric and caught his eye immediately. He took them into his hands massaging them gently before bringing his lips to your mounds and kissing them. 

He pulled his pants down just enough to release his length that begged to be touched. You stared in awe of his size. You opened your legs slightly, allowing room for him to adjust himself in between your legs. 

As he lined himself up with your entrance, he looked into your eyes and devoured you with a loving gaze. He kissed you softly before slowly sinking his cock into your wetness.

Crosshair choked on his next breath, your warmth encasing him perfectly as you took his length with ease. Once he bottomed out within you, he whimpered softly and buried his face into your neck. He was slow at first, allowing you to adjust to his size, which you probably needed as he was bigger than you expected. 

“Fuck, Y/N” He cursed, overwhelmed by it all. To be able to take you like this, having you begging for his cock, you writhing beneath him…it was all wonderfully too much, and he loved it. 

“Maker, it feels so good, Cross” You encouraged him. His cock stretched you open with each thrust as he picked up the pace. He fit inside you like you were made for each other, and you felt a closeness and intimacy you’d never experienced before. It was indescribable. 

You held his face in your hands as he thrust into you faster and harder, holding his gaze while you both let profanities and cries of pleasure fly from your lips. If there was anyone nearby, they would have heard you, but it was a remote area, and you could feel safe. Each curl of his hips snapping into you sent your mind and body into a frenzy of pleasure.

“You take me so well, sweetheart” He praised, turning his attention to looking down where he disappeared inside of you. Crosshair was no virgin, but he’d never experienced such intimacy and passion for someone like he did for you in this moment. He wanted this for so long, same as you. The months of lingering glances at one another, your heart racing each time your skin grazed his on the ship, the way you’d cared for him since he’d escaped Tantiss. It was all leading up to this moment of pure desire for one another, and you wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

“I won’t last much longer” He 

You nodded to assure him it was okay. It was then that you felt another orgasm quickly creeping up on you. He could feel you tightening and knew you were close. 

“Come on my cock, that’s it” He spoke softly, his words sending you over the edge. 

It burst open, washing over your entire body, more captivating and intense than the first release. You dug your nails into the rigid muscles of his back, pulling him into you as he kept his pace. You cried out, feeling overtaken by the pleasure that electrified your entire body. His thrust began to falter and his body shook beneath your fingertips. 

Crosshair’s moans were low and rough as he reached his climax, spilling his release deep inside you, his brows furrowed and face twisted in pleasure. 

You both took time to catch your breath, soaking in the highs you were riding and taking in this feeling of closeness with one another. He was careful to remove himself from you, knowing you were both sensitive. 

He lay beside you, wrapping his arms around your body and pulling you into him.

“I love you too” He said suddenly, confusing you for a moment, before realizing that he was finally responding to your declaration of love to him earlier. 

You smiled up at him and laid your head onto his chest. As you listened to a combination of the gentle waves and the beating of his heart, you felt warm and loved for the first time in a long time.

[leapingbadger]

Amends

Summary: Takes place after the season 3 episode “The Return”. Hunter and Crosshair trust each other again and are on their way to a reconciliation, but they still need to communicate. That’s where Wrecker comes in. Read on AO3

Notes: This follows along with canon for the most part. If interested, you can also check out some of my other stories at these links: Hope; Sunrise; Sunset, Goodbye, Tattoo, Tested and Safe

Word Count:2644

Wrecker stood at the foot of the steps to the Marauder. The Pabu sun was beating down on him, sweat prickling at his neck. He hesitated before taking the first step up to the ship. It had been three days since they had returned from the ice planet. Things were better. Hunter and Crosshair weren’t actively avoiding each other anymore, but the tension was too much for Wrecker to take.

Hunter had been like his old self since Omega had returned and Wrecker was so relieved. He’d spent months trying to keep hope alive, trying to keep Hunter alive, despite his best efforts. His strong and steady sergeant had become a walking hazard. Erratic, volatile and with no regard for his own safety.

He was surprised to come across Crosshair first. Wrecker knew he had been deliberately avoiding the ship. Maybe there were too many memories tied up in it for him. He was sitting at the Comm station, carefully holding Tech’s goggles. He hastily put them down as Wrecker entered. The glass clinked as they landed face down on the control panel, a sliver of yellow glass falling out and onto the floor.

Crosshair hastily picked them up and put them on the shelf they had found themselves on since they had arrived back into their lives without their owner.

“Don’t worry. Happens all the time,” Wrecker said matter-of-factly. He picked up the glass shard, carefully tucked it back into the frame and replaced them on the shelf again.

Both he and Hunter had held vigil over the goggles as the long search for Omega had continued. They had become a kind of shrine they prayed to in the dark, as though Tech would bestow some wisdom from the grave.

Crosshair looked embarrassed and turned away from his brother. “Was just looking,” he mumbled under his breath.

“We do it all the time,” Wrecker said with a shrug, “keeps him close, you know.”

Crosshair scowled but didn’t reply.

“You’re going to have to talk to him eventually, you know that, right?” Wrecker said, sitting in the seat opposite.

“It’s fine, Wrecker, we sorted it out.”

Wrecker paused and looked down at his hands. Hunter and Crosshair had always been close. They were so similar. The quiet, observant members of the team. Crosshair would occasionally bristle when Hunter didn’t agree with him, but he believed in Hunter, respected him. That’s why Wrecker couldn’t stand this, how far they had come from who they used to be.

“He didn’t let Omega get taken to Tantis,” he said quietly. Crosshair raised an eyebrow but didn’t reply, “your comms were on. We all heard,” He added.

“It doesn’t matter, Wrecker,” Crosshair hissed, clearly not wanting to have this conversation.

“It does,” Wrecker said louder than he intended. He wanted to defend his brother. Defend himself. Crosshair paused and looked at him, clearly not sure what to do next.

“You haven’t known Omega for very long. She’s a great kid…really amazing, sweet, caring, and funny. But she’s also willful and stubborn and has no sense of self preservation,” he chuckled, “Just like Hunter, actually…He told her to find Echo. Told her to run…I…I wasn’t sure he was going to make it, Cross…after we lost her…and Tech.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from Crosshair at the mention of Tech’s name. They both instinctively looked at the goggles and Crosshair’s mood seemed to sour further.

Wrecker blinked at his little brother, suddenly realizing. This wasn’t about Omega. It was about Tech. Crosshair had always had the ability to wound with words alone. This talent had landed him and the whole squad in trouble when they were cadets. Most of their fights with the Regs broke out because of Crosshair’s mouth. Wrecker was surprised that he was holding this back. That even Crosshair knew that to bring this up to Hunter, to start a fight about Tech, would be something they might not come back from. But they still had to have the conversation.

“You really need to talk to him,” Wrecker said again.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Crosshair hissed, swiveling the chair so his back was to his brother, “Tech’s dead.”

The words were sharp, cutting like a virboknife to the face. Wrecker closed his eyes, anger bubbling up inside of him. Anger at himself, at their situation, at Tech, and at his remaining brothers. It wasn’t a conscious decision. His body moved before his brain was fully aware but Wrecker stood up, grabbed Crosshair at his waist and threw him over his shoulder, carrying him with heavy footfalls through the ship to the cockpit where Hunter sat.

“Wrecker, what are you…” Crosshair spluttered as his toothpick fell from his mouth and onto the floor. Wrecker all but threw him in the seat next to Hunter.

Hunter was in the pilot seat, leg propped up on the console, eyes closed. Wrecker knew he wasn’t asleep, that he’d likely heard their hushed conversation with ease.

“What’s your damage, Wrecker?” Crosshair spat, squaring up to his enormous brother.

Wrecker pushed him back into the seat again.

“Sit.” He looked from Crosshair to Hunter and back again, “Don’t come out until you’ve talked about it. I’m sick of this.” He scowled as he walked to the ramp of the Marauder.

“Hey, Kid, wanna get some icecream?” Wrecker called down to Omega.

“Yeah,” she called back sunnily, unaware of the turmoil within the ship.

“Talk,” Wrecker barked again, before heading down the ramp and closing the door. Shutting off the sun and leaving his brothers in darkness.

***

“He’s had one too many blows to the head,” Crosshair said, standing up and brushing himself off.

Hunter remained in the chair; eyes still closed. “He’s right,” Hunter said quietly, “he usually is about this kind of stuff.” He sat up and took in his younger brother.

Crosshair was glaring, but not at him. He couldn’t seem to make eye contact and Hunter wasn’t going to push it. He noticed him favoring his right hand and frowned as he noticed it shake involuntarily. He’d have to ask Omega about that later.

“I already know what you need to say,” Hunter continued, standing up, “just say it and we can try and move on.”

Crosshair looked at him with narrow eyes, turning and walking to the back of the ship. He was pacing like a caged creature. He paused again and turned back. Hunter knew that look on his face. He had seen it thousands of times, from when they were cadets to when they were in the field. Crosshair wasn’t angry, he was wounded, and he was searching for the words that would hurt the most.

Hunter tried his best to prepare himself, knowing it would hurt. Knowing it would cut to his core and knowing that while this may make things easier for Cross, it would likely kill him on the inside. But he waited.

“You killed him,” Crosshair growled, his eyes so narrowed his iris’s looked like black holes.

Hunter felt a weight drop in his chest and stay there. He couldn’t speak, a rock had landed in his throat too. But he nodded and croaked out, “I did,” in a strained voice that didn’t sound like his own.

“I told you to hide,” his brother spat.

“We don’t leave our own behind. We had to try and get you out,” Hunter said.

“And look where that got you. Tech died because of your negligence,”

Hunter felt like he’d been stabbed between the ribs. He couldn’t get enough air in his lungs, but it was nothing that he hadn’t said to himself already. He knew anything Crosshair would and could say would pale in comparison to the destain he already had for himself, every day, every second since his brother fell.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” Crosshair said, taking a step closer.

Hunter did. He could have said any number of things to defend himself. But he didn’t want to. His squad had had a one hundred percent success rate. They didn’t fail in anything until they left Kaminio, until they were on their own, and until Crosshair got left behind.

“I’m sorry. For leaving you on Kamino. You were tying to kill us. But we should have taken you with us. Somehow.”

Crosshair balked. Shaking his head as if to shake the memory out. “This isn’t about that…I…this is about Tech.”

Hunter nodded, “I failed you Crosshair, in the same way that I failed Tech, and the same way that I failed Omega, and Echo, and Wrecker.”

“Wha…just stop…Hunter…” Crosshair’s hand was shaking more violently now. He brought it to his forehead, as though trying to wipe away his thoughts. He was shrinking in on himself, retreating entirely.

Hunter moved forward and went to put his hand on Crosshair’s shoulder, but his brother caught it, his left fist reaching out instead, punching him in his side. Hunter winced as he let his brother land the hit. He staggered back and knelt down; arm wrapped around his side. If he thought he couldn’t breathe before, he really couldn’t now.

“All that time with the Empire and they still couldn’t train you to hit better?” Hunter growled. He didn’t know why he was baiting his brother. Maybe the same reason that he had been throwing himself into more and more dangerous situations of late. Because deep down he felt like he deserved every bruise, stab wound, blaster bolt that came his way. If he hurt enough, maybe that would be enough penance for Tech. Maybe every drop of blood was a sacrifice.

Crosshair launched himself at his brother, knocking him to the floor. Hunter let him land every punch, kick and bite. He let his brother unleash his fury, his hurt, his loss on him in the dim hope that maybe afterwards, he could heal. Hunter gave no thought to his own healing though; he knew that wasn’t possible.

“Fight back,” Crosshair yelled. But Hunter didn’t move to protect himself. He continued to bait his brother.

“Is that all you’ve got, Commander?” Hunter asked.

“Arrr…. I hate you,” his brother screamed, tears welling up in his eyes, “I wish…It should have been… you…I wish you died instead of Tech!” Crosshair froze, as if horrified by his own words. His fist was raised, pulled back to his ear, ready to unleash another blow.

“Me too,” Hunter said looking directly into his little brother’s eyes, voice gravely and horse.

Crosshair collapsed to the floor with a clank, wiping the sweat and tears off his face. Hunter sat up with a wince, wiping the blood that was pouring out his nose. He tasted copper on his tongue and could hear Crosshair’s erratic heartbeat gradually starting to slow.

Hunter looked wearily at Crosshair. He was cradling his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees, silent tears falling on his cheeks.

“He was the best of us, Crosshair,” Hunter said through sniffs of his likely broken nose, “that’s why we have to be better. For him,” he slammed his palm on the door release, letting the Marauder swim with light once more and slowly walked into the sunlight.

***

The moon shone bright white on the dark Pabu Sea as Crosshair made his winding way down to the beach. He fought against the memories of earlier, attempting to push them out of his head but failing. He shook his head to rid himself of the image of his big brother, covered in blood, wincing but taking every blow he threw at him or Omega and Wrecker’s horrified faces as Hunter left the ship, bloodied and bruised. His stomach dropped in shame, and he tried again to shake the memory out.

The warm Pabu air was usually comforting, peaceful, but now it felt lonely and oppressive. The lights of the island cast shadows as he walked. He hesitated to round the corner, unable to see what was ahead but not wanting to turn back.

When he reached the beach, he struggled to find him, noticing some of his clothes, bandana, blaster and virboknife were scattered in the sand. His heart sank and he started searching for the water in earnest. Wrecker had told him how Hunter had changed, and Crosshair feared it was more than not being cautious, his brother had a death wish.

“Hunter,” he shouted, urgently, panicked.

“Hmm” came a grunt from the water.

Crosshair got closer to the water to find his brother, floating in a star shape, long, dark hair trailing behind him. His eyes were closed, and he barely moved, except when the waves lapped around him, slowly moving him this way and that.

“What are you doing?” Crosshair hissed quietly, trying not to intrude too loudly on what seemed like something important.

“The saltwater helps with the bruises and the pain,” his brother replied.

“I’m…sorry,” Crosshair said in a whisper. His brother didn’t respond, and he wondered if there was any way back from this, from what he’d said, from what he’d done.

“I know.” Hunter said

“I don’t just mean about today…I…”

“I know, Crosshair,” Hunter interrupted.

“Will you let me finish?” Crosshair spat, exacerbated, “I’m sorry…for all of it. I should have come with you on Kamino…I should have been there…help with…I don’t know. I’m just…” he trailed off. How could he apologize for all of it. For all the pain he’d cause. He nearly killed them multiple times. How would he be able to live with himself if he had?

And then it occurred to him, that’s what Hunter was feeling. Hunter thought he’d killed Tech. Crosshair had told him he had. And Hunter couldn’t live with himself.

“You have to stop,” Crosshair said into the darkness. His brother had floated further out, his silhouette dancing on the moon lit water.

“It’s just water, Crosshair. I’ll be out in a minute,”

“Not that. You have to stop blaming yourself. It’s killing you. It will kill you,”

Hunter pulled himself upright in the water, he wet hair plastered flat against his head, the long tendrils covering his skull tattoo. He ran his hand through it, to get it out of his face.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re not. Wrecker told me. You’re the leader.  You don’t get to go to pieces. The squad needs you. I need you; Omega needs you.”

Crosshair noticed something change Hunter’s face at the mention of Omega. He looked past his brother and up at Pabu and the Marauder, the warm light shining through the gunner’s mount as the ship rested by the weeping maya tree. And he suddenly understood. Omega wasn’t just some kid, and she wasn’t just his sister either. Crosshair had been right all along.

“Stop pretending to be something you’re not, Hunter” he had told him on Kamino. But Hunter wasn’t pretending, he was like a father to her in the way that the rest of them just weren’t.

“You need to stay around, for her, if nothing else,” Crosshair continued. “Tech would want you to survive. He’d want all of us to survive.”

Hunter was still looking at him with an expression Crosshair couldn’t quite place. He nodded, an almost imperceptible nod and started to swim towards the shore.

Crosshair noticed a collection of new scars on his brother’s torso that he’d never seen before.

“What’s all that from,” Crosshair asked suspiciously.

He was surprised to hear Hunter laugh, “ran in with a few bounty hunters, the Pikes and a Hutt or two,”

“So, you did have a death wish,” Crosshair said gravely.

“Desperate times…” Hunter started but didn’t finish.

“Are any of those my fault?” crosshair asked

“You wish Crosshair,” Hunter said with a grin, “you still hit like a cadet,” he clapped his brother on the back as they started to make the winding trek back to the Marauder, together.

[99tech99]

gif by @moonstrider9904 !!!

A/N: I originally wrote a fluff piece as a submission for Summer of Bad Batch. But it’s Tech and the prompt is “Need a Hand?” How can I not be a lil spicy?? 😏

Original here.

Warnings: hand job, getting caught.

2.2k words under cut

You first met the group of siblings you learned to be Clone Force 99 when they stopped at your shop in Ord Mantel. You were rewiring some components at the counter when the little blonde girl had come dashing over first. “What’s a…Certified Preowned Assorted Parts Emporium?” she asked you, reading the sign over your stall. She had expressive brown eyes and a heavy accent.

You laughed. “Fancy name for a junkyard, kid.”

The rest of the group had caught up. Despite the fact that they were with such a sweet young girl, they seemed like an extremely rough crowd. The one with the long hair a had half his face tattooed like a skull, and the one glowering at you with a toothpick in his mouth had a sniper’s crosshair tattooed around his eye. One had lost an arm and replaced it with a scomp. There was also an absolute giant of a man who looked like he could snap anyone or anything in half without effort. Last, though, came was someone who didn’t look like he belonged at all. He didn’t have any visible tattoos and seemed to have all his appendages. He wore goggles and was walking along with his nose in his datapad. When he spoke, it was in a crisp, matter of fact tone.

“Hunter.” Face Tattoo turned. “I sincerely doubt any of the second-rate establishments on a backwater planet such as this would carry the precise components we need for the Marauder.”

“Hey nerd,” you called, only mildly offended. “Fortunately for you, you found the only first rate establishment around.” You winked at the girl. She giggled.

“The definition of first rate is debatable,” Nerd replied, fidgeting with his goggles.

“Alright, then. Let’s deal with the objective,” you shot back. “Give me the list of parts you need and if I don’t have them in stock or I can’t get them with in a standard week, I’ll settle for second rate.”

You held out your hand for his datapad. Nerd looked at Face Tattoo, who nodded. With a heavy sigh, Nerd handed it to you.

“You’ll have to excuse Tech,” said Sniper lazily as you scrolled through the list of parts. “He’s always convinced he has the only brain cells for a radius of 100 clicks.”

You had every part in stock. “C’mon,” you told the group, leading the way to your inventory out back.

After you were able to win your wager with Tech, the Batch started coming around a lot more.

Omega had been the first to capture your heart, and no wonder. She saw the best in everyone and every situation, but was still tougher and more resilient than most adults you knew. Wrecker was almost just sweet but had a knowledge of weapons and explosives that far surpassed your own. It took a minute to figure out Crosshair, but he respected someone who could dish out the sarcasm as well as they could take it. Echo and Hunter were fiercely protective of their squad, and as soon as you demonstrated that same loyalty, you were as good as one of their own. You had even accompanied the Batch on a few missions when your technical expertise would come in handy.

But Tech…It was almost a year since you had met the Batch, and despite the trust and friendship you had with the rest of the squad, you were still getting nowhere with him.

At first it seemed like he should be the easiest for you to get along with. You were both mechanically minded and loved ships and flying. But he almost never even looked up from his datapad when you were around, and when he did, he was always annoyed whenever you tried to help.

It wouldn’t have bothered you so much if you didn’t have such a silly crush on the man. He could rattle off facts for hours on just about any topic in the galaxy. You hadn’t known him to encounter a technological problem he couldn’t resolve. You were tall, but Tech’s lean body still towered over yours. And he was just as much a super solider as any of his brothers. Some of the missions you had accompanied the squad on had gotten pretty rough. Tech was right in the middle of the action, taking tactical risks and scoring hits as much as any of his brothers.

You had spoken to Hunter about your concern a few months ago. “I just don’t understand why he dislikes me so much. I don’t know what I did to offend him.”

Hunter sighed. “Nothing. That’s just Tech. Usually he might have warmed up to someone by now, but I would try not to take it too personally.”

“I’d take it personally,” Crosshair sneered as he walked by.

“Yes, you definitely should,” you quipped back grinning, “since everyone dislikes you on a personal level.”

“Want me to talk to him?” Hunter asked.

You considered. “No, it’s ok. If it really starts to bother me, I’ll bring it up myself.”

You tried to push the issue to the back of your mind, but to no avail.

When you received a message from Omega saying they had returned from their most recent mission, you made up your mind to talk to Tech about it. You headed over to the usual docking bay to welcome the Batch back. The ramp of the Marauder was closed, but you heard the metallic clicking of tools coming from underneath.

“Hello?” you called.

Tech’s voice answered. “Down here.”

Instantly you felt the sensation of butterflies in your stomach. You knelt down, leaning your head under the ship. “Need a hand?” you asked brightly.

“I do not,” he said in a clipped tone.

You held back your disappointed sigh. “Where’s everyone else?” you inquired, still trying to sound cheerful.

“Supply run.”

“And I bet Omega and Wrecker are getting their celebratory mantel mix after another successful mission.”

“That would be a logical deduction based on their past patterns of behavior.”

You examined the underside of the ship. There was quite a bit of carbon scoring.

“Oof, glad you made it back in one piece!” you exclaimed. “Looks like the last mission got pretty hot!”

“Hence the repairs,” Tech replied.

You scooted under the ship to see what he was working on.

He was trying to rewire a circuit board, but his hands were too big to access the compartment properly to remove the panel. He was holding the screwdriver at an angle. Instead of loosening the screw, the tool just kept slipping.

You leaned over him slightly, extending your hand for the screwdriver. “Here, my hands are smaller, I bet I can do it.”

“I do not require assistance,” he said stubbornly.

“I know you know how but that doesn’t change the physics of your hands. Just let me…Ugh, you’re gonna strip the screw, Tech!” you said frustratedly. You tried to take the tool from him but he held it out of your reach.

“What is your problem with me?” you demanded angrily.

“You make everything much harder than it has to be, regardless of what you do, just by being present,” he replied immediately.

You were shocked into silence. You were embarrassed to feel your eyes stinging with tears. “Well, fuck. I’ll go,” you said, starting to wriggle out from under the ship.

“Wait. Will you allow me to clarify what I mean?”

Great, you thought. Hearing in excruciating detail exactly why Tech hates you. “Fine,” you mumbled, blinking furiously to try to keep from crying.

Tech didn’t look at you, but stared up at the underside of the Marauder.

“It is hard for me to say goodbye to you before we leave on missions. While the squad does have an undeniable success rate, there are always variables that cannot be accounted for, and there is no guarantee we will return unscathed, if at all.

“Similarly, it is hard for me to watch you leave at night to return your domicile. I am well aware you are capable of looking after yourself, but I am concerned for your safety and I do not want any harm to befall you.”

Wait. This was not what you were expecting.

“It is hard to watch you interact with my brothers and sister. You have an ease with them you have never had with me. I am quite certain the issue is with me, but I am equally uncertain how to fix it.

“It is hard for me when you seem to know as much about the mechanics and systems of the Marauder as I do. I both resent and respect you for that, and I cannot comprehend how I can harbor both conflicting emotions.”

A pink tinge was apparent in his cheeks now. You could tell he was steeling himself to say something. “And in the spirit of full disclosure…um, yes…THAT gets, uh, hard too on occasion.” He cleared this throat. “Particularly one day when you were performing repairs in a certain pair of pants. I’m inexplicably drawn to you physically. But I don’t know what to do or how you would react to such a gesture.”

He lapsed into silence. Your heart was beating wildly at the implications of his lengthy speech, especially the last bit. “Tech…” you whispered.

“Thank you for your courtesy in listening. You may leave if you like.” he said returning to his usual brusque manner. Tech turned his attention back to the repairs.

“Conduct an experiment,” you suggested with a sly smile.

“An experiment?” he asked, confused.

You rolled over placing one hand on either side of Tech’s head so you were leaning against his chest. You could feel his heart beating through his armor. “Sure. Conduct an experiment and see how I react.”

He looked unsure.

“If it helps,” you whispered mischievously, “I know the pants you mean. I’m wearing them today.”

Hesitantly, Tech reached up. He ran his fingers through your hair, tucking the loose strands behind your ear. Your smile widened.

His hand lingered on your cheek. Slowly he raised his face to yours. Behind his goggles, his beautiful eyes searched your face, settling on your mouth. You couldn’t wait any longer. You pressed your lips to his. For a moment he didn’t react, but then he was kissing you back.

“How do you find the results of your experiment?” you asked, slightly breathless, when you finally broke apart.

“Very favorable,” he said. “However, tests often need to be run multiple times to verify the validity of the original results.”

You laughed softly. “I think that’s a good idea.”

He pulled you back to him.

“So…” you murmured against his lips. “You said I make that hard too?” You grinned, blushing. “May I?”

“You want to?” he asked in disbelief.

“I want everything with you,” you breathed.

Tech fiddled with his goggles. “Yes you may.”

You slid off his chest, lying sideways next to him on the ground. Your hand made its way down his chest and abdomen to the waistband of his pants.

You palmed his erection straining against his pants. He felt huge. His cock twitched under your touch. For a moment you fumbled one-handed with the closure on his pants.

Tech moaned softly as you freed him, running your hand up and down his length with a steady pressure.

“Am—am I of sufficient size?” he asked hesitantly.

Gods he was adorable. “Yes,” you said emphatically.

Tentatively his fingers wandered up your body, pausing just under your breasts.

“Here,” you said softly. You tugged down the zipper of your leather vest.

“Mesh’la,” he whispered. Gently he cupped your breast. His thumb traced a gentle circle around your nipple, causing you to shiver in delight.

His brown eyes met yours. “So beautiful, cyar’ika.”

You didn’t know how long the two of you lay there, basking in the touch of each other’s hands and lips. Neither of you were paying any attention to anything else. Not even even when the sound of voices came floating across the landing pad. Or when a pair of boots appeared. A moment later Crosshair’s head peered under the Maurader.

“Found him,” he drawled, making you both jump. “Ooh, look, if it isn’t our favorite little mechanic giving Tech a hand,” he added in taunting delight.

You heard Wrecker’s booming laugh.

You sat up to tell Crosshair off, but smacked your head on the underside of the ship. You rubbed your head, already feeling a bump. “Crosshair!”

Omega’s cheerful voice rang out, “I’ll give Tech a hand too!”

“Omega!” barked Hunter and Echo in unison. “On the ship!”

“Ookayy,” said Omega, simultaneously annoyed and mystified.

“For kriff’s sake Cross, go away,” you snapped.

He didn’t. He was very obviously staring at your tits with a sly grin. “Kitten, I’ll volunteer to give you something to really get a grip on.”

“Ugh!” you quickly zipped your vest back up and threw yourself back down on the ground.

Meanwhile Tech was struggling to contain himself back in his pants.

“Crosshair,” Hunter growled. You could tell he had grabbed Cross by the scruff of the neck and was shoving him onboard.

Another pair of boots appeared. “When you’re both, uh, decent,” said Echo’s voice, “come aboard for a debriefing. And please hurry up about it,” he added.

You turned your head to Tech. He was blushing furiously. For a moment you stared at each other, unable to believe the entire series of events that had transpired. Then you both burst out laughing.

“Next time, we’re going to my place!” you declared.

“Next time?” he asked hopefully.

You grinned and kissed him on the nose. “Mhmm. Lots of times.”

My Master List

[screamingintothestarss]

winner!

summary: you go to an arcade with crosshair

pairing: crosshair x reader

rating: 16+

warnings: light swearing, banter, slightly suggestive content, crosshair being a gremlin, light fluff?

word count: 3.1k

notes: so sorry for the lack of content, school is eating up all of my time rn but we ball regardless. enjoy!

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

“You coming?” A low voice drawls, its serpentine timbre rattling around in your ears. 

A carton of mantell mix is plopped into your hands, and you flash the vendor a pretty smile before turning to the voice’s owner.

“Thought you weren’t excited,” you quip, popping a piece into your mouth.

“I’m never excited.” It comes out flat and lifeless, but you know him better than that. Like the popcorn crumbs on your shirt, you brush him off and head towards strobing lights and neon signs. 

He’s like a shadow, you’d say: a silent protector–an assassin. He remained in the shadows so your light could shine. Wherever you went, rest assured he was somewhere nearby, keen eyes clear-cut and focused. You remained in his scope, and if someone else dared to come into the picture, he wouldn’t hesitate to take the shot. He took pride in it, silently puffing out his chest and putting on a show for you, and you loved it. 

Deft fingers snake their way toward the carton, breaking the shadow, and you quickly pull the box close to your chest.

“Nuh-uh, you said you didn’t want any!”

“Well, I do now,” he counters, a playful lilt to his voice.  

“Crosshair, you do this every time. You always say that you don’t want anything, and when I get something, then, and only then, do you want it!” 

“Maybe I just like you,” he drawls, and you hate how it has you reeling, stripping your head of all logic and replacing it with cotton candy and heat. You sharpen your tongue, but before your words can spear him, the carton of mix is plucked from your hands, and you groan. 

“Are you kriffing-”

A large hand digs in and pulls up a handful. He’s full of smug, lithe body craning down to your ear only to shovel it into his mouth, and then he’s crunching into your ear–loudly. Bleeding behind the eyes, you’re seeing red, and you shoot him a withering glare. He stares at you; your brows knit together and lips all pouty–he thinks he’s fallen in love for the fifth time today. 

You’re not having it. 

You shove his face away from your ear and try to retrieve your snack, but he’s dodging your attacks with infuriating finesse. You’re flailing around his lean form, arms swinging this way and that without avail. It’s almost like a game: you go left, and he’s going right; you step forward and he’s stepping back: going up? Well, he’s coming back down. Your simmering frustration boils over, and he laughs, the sound burrowing into your ears like a parasite.

This is the most fun he’s had all day, he thinks.

He activates his finisher: holding the mix in one hand and raising it straight into the air. You were done for. 

“I swear I’m actually going to kill you!”

“Mhm.”

Then he’s staring at you, and he has to keep himself from getting lost in your colors. He figures red doesn’t suit you though, and sets the box into your hands with a dull thunk. He stalks off, dripping with audacity, and you try not to slip on the puddles. 

“You’re such an asshole!” It’s venomous: slick and corrosive, but non-lethal. A part of you knows it’s all in good fun, but it doesn’t assuage the feeling of wanting to rip his head off. You stick an indignant hand into the mix, and your eyebrows shoot up.

It’s nearly empty. 

“Your mother’s a droid!”

He ignores your insults, a sly smile smudged across his face. His arms are loosely folded across his torso as he uses his side to keep the door propped open for you. You smack his stomach as you brush past him, and he laughs through his nose, staring at your backside as you fade into bright lights. 

A cacophony of strobing lights, sounds, and smells override your senses as you try to gauge where to go first. Familiar blue and white lights catch your eye, and you make your way over. 

You stand before a skeeball machine, setting your snack down to run a hand over its console. You’re about to lay a heavy hand on the start button, but realization hits you. 

“Kriff, I forgot the-”

“Tokens?” That slithering tone wraps itself around your ears again, and you swallow the annoyance bubbling up your throat. You lazily whirl your body around, and find that same smirk you wanted to wipe off of him earlier. He’s leaning against the body of a machine, little gold coins clinking in his palm as they shift. He’s devilishly alluring, and it's the effortlessness that has you perplexed. He’d be doing the most mundane of tasks, and it would have you fiending, your eyes tracing long fingers and even longer legs. 

Cool brown eyes slide up and down your frame, stripping you bare on the arcade floor. You have half a mind to smack him, a staccato tch tch tch snapping off your tongue, but instead you redden, the tips of your ears ablaze.

“T-thanks.”

He slots a coin into the machine for you, and the start button blinks to life. You turn towards him, a question waiting behind your lips. 

“You’re not going to-?” The words die in your throat as he gives you that look, and you huff. 

“You’re such a buzzkill, you know that?”

He tuts. “You’d lose.”

Oh. Oh.

So that was the game he wanted to play.

Crosshair loved to goad you on, pushing your buttons to see what made you tick. You both were in a constant game of tug of war, and he wasn't cutting you any slack. If this was the hill he wanted to die on, fine: you just had to pull on the end of your rope a little harder. 

You flutter your eyelashes at him and shrug. Fronting nonchalance, you lay your hand on the start button with a smack. Blue and white lights snap to strobes of rainbow, and balls dispense from the holder with a hiss.  

It's on.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

You're moving like a well-oiled machine, gracefully rolling smooth little balls up the lane into little holes. 

75 points turn into 100, 100 quickly turns into 250, and 250 shoots up to 500. 

Crosshair stands behind you with folded arms, feigning uninterest, but the way you're looking right now chips away at that mask as your points rack up.

The timer runs down, and you get a few more tosses in before flashing red lights put you to a stop. A cheeky grin lines your face, and you saunter over to him, tongue slick with audacity. 

"Read it."

"What?"

"My score."

He stares at you for a moment and scoffs. That smug he'd been dripping with earlier was drying up, and you were loving it. 

Wordlessly, he strides over to the machine and cranes his head to peek at the purple 8-bit font. 

"25,000." The number rolls around uncomfortably on his tongue, and he isn't sure he likes the taste. 

Then you're at his side, laying an insincere hand on a broad shoulder. 

"Remember it when I wipe ass with you."

Your warm breath fans in his ear, igniting the sparks in his chest. His sharp eyes slide over to yours, oozing with challenge. He straightens, and the glow of the machine highlights that familiar glint in his eye. 

He reaches into his pants pocket, retrieving two tokens, the cheap metal slotted between his pointer and middle finger. 

"The bet?" And the way it rolls off his tongue has you short-circuiting. 

You don't break eye contact though, keeping that grip on your rope. You pluck a token from his fingers and the number falls from your lips with an enviable coolness. 

"One hundred." 

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

"Your balls were coming out faster."

"Well maybe if you focused on your own balls instead of mine, you'd have won," you snark. 

"Don't have to, you give mine enough attention already."

"Crosshair!" you hiss, a confusing blend of heat and embarrassment settles at the base of your stomach, and you're unsure if you want more. 

He's laughing again, and that bug in your ear buries itself even deeper, and you wish you could snatch it out.

He may have been down one hundred credits, but he'd gladly throw them to the wind if it meant he could keep drawing reactions like these from you. 

But you didn’t need to know that just yet.

He was having too much fun right now.

Your annoyance dissipates as wide eyes lock onto your favorite fighting game: Star Fighters 6. His gaze follows yours, and that smirk plays across his features again. You turn to him, but he’s already staring back at you, and he feels that familiar fullness in his skull; those flowers you’d planted up there all those years ago were beginning to bloom. 

He knows you feel it too, and he’s tempted to hook an arm around your waist and lug you through those doors, but you made a bet.

“Crosshair…” you say tentatively, debating giving in to that heady feeling in your gut.

He hums, your voice like a hook in his ear, and he’s being reeled in. He hears his name slip past your lips again, and he’s about to make a break for the surface until he feels something being shoved into his hands. He looks down, and you’d placed the mantell-mix-carton-turned-ticket-bucket into his hand, moving on to play your video game. Like the sun shifting behind a cloud, your warmth had disappeared, and he’d claw his way into the stratosphere to find it again. 

You slip a coin into the slot and tinny theme music sounds. It’s balmy and familiar: a blast-to-the-past wave of nostalgia that swaddles your ears like a warm hug. You never held onto your credits for long, laying them in the hands of some moody teenager for tokens in a heartbeat. You made it your own little mission: rocketing up leaderboards, dismantling high scores, and leaving some poor kid in tears. Times were a lot simpler then, so you kept the memory tucked close to your heart, eventually giving him access to that little corner too. 

“C’mon, let’s do this one!” You’re beaming, and Crosshair commits it to memory. He almost tells you to stop, wanting to cover your pretty face and lock that smile away for himself. Selfish–he’s selfish. 

He nods and slots himself next to you, his frame brushing against your own. You pay it no mind, your head swimming in the bloody waters of combos and finishers. The character selection screen blinks up on the monitor, and you click-clack away at blue buttons; selecting your favorite character and adjusting her stats like it’s second nature. 

Crosshair hesitates for a bit, the grip on his rope slipping. He’s like a fish out of water when it comes to stuff like this, flip-flopping around and mouth hanging open after you’ve knocked the air out of him. He was privy to what went on inside that pretty little head of yours: you had the advantage. He’d allow it, for now. 

He selects a character and does whatever with the stats before pushing a slender finger down on the start button. You don’t even try to hide the snicker tickling your nose. 

His expression is incredulous, a silent what the hell? that has you nearly keeling over, your knees knocking together. 

“Nothing,” you sing, and the melody has him suspicious. 

He’d picked the worst kriffing character, you thought. 

You mash the start button and your characters blink into existence, standing across from each other in some type of natural arena. Their stances exude battle readiness and you lock in, colorful lights fading into black and gray. 

You grip the joystick and jerk it to the left, mashing down on the buttons simultaneously, hitting Crosshair’s character with a lethal combo that has him floored. You’re merciless–decisive. If he liked to come at you with all teeth and fangs, then you wouldn’t hesitate to bite. Your moves are devastating; each one leaving his ego all bloodied and purple–but he’d patch himself up later. He wasn’t finished with you yet.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

To say you were shocked was an understatement. That tick tick ticking in your head comes to a full stop, a creaking and crackling of nerves that has you sick. You’re short-circuiting, a droid in disrepair, all of your bells and whistles are going off and Crosshair’s reveling in the chaos. The thought is like poison, something you’d use to silence some unruly senator. 

He’d beat you. And he cheated!

“You’re such a-!”

“Winner?” You want to grab that serpentine tone of his by the tail, wrap it around his throat, and pull. 

Your eyes flit to the monitor, its bright chromatic screen flashing winner, winner, winner! in the same shade of red you’re seeing right now. 

“You pushed me over so you could get the power up! I had you!”

“You would have lost anyways, your health bar was too low,” he shrugs, loose and nonchalant like throwing credits at a dancer. He’s staring at you, feasting on your reaction, and he’s far from satisfied. He’d pulled you over to his side, your feet skidding in the mud, but you had no intention of falling over.

You didn’t want to admit that he’d picked up on the mechanics rather quickly; what took weeks of memorizing a myriad of move sets and tactics for you only took a few rounds for him. You let the salt in your head settle in on the fact that he was a super soldier, learning and adapting quickly was in his genetic code.

It didn’t make it sting any less, though. 

“I want a kriffing rematch!”

“Fine.”

You kick his ass this time.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Tickets spill from the bucket, the papery material stringing down the container like vines on a tree. They sit up high and bouncy, and you try to gauge where you’re even walking by peeping through the holes. 

“You're sure you can carry all that?” He asks for the fourth time, and you have half a mind to chuck it at his handsome face.

“I told you, I got it-”

You collide with something firm and unmoving, and the bucket slips from your palms. 

“...sorry,” you’re muttering into his back. 

He turns and peers down at you with a pointed look. You don’t even need to meet his eyes to know that it’s there; you’ve seen it plenty. Whether you spilled something, tripped, or stumbled over your words, he’d either laugh or give you that look, a pointy silver brow and the pretty little corners of his mouth downturned ever so slightly. He’s steadfast; severe and unyielding, as Tech had once put it. He was stubborn, sure, but you’d grabbed him by the horns and steered him into your orbit. He was always there for you, like air to your lungs, he’d given you life. It didn’t matter how much shit you spilled or how many times you fell, he’d be there waiting, a rag in one hand and the other reaching out to you. 

He’s taken the ticket bucket from you now, and you pretend you’re not grateful. 

You shift in your shoes, that familiar ache bleeding into the soles of your feet. You’d both made a day of it, bouncing from game to game like that pinball machine Crosshair whooped you on. You both came to a draw, but the game was far from over. You’d pick it back up another day, you thought.

He feeds the tickets into the counter and that familiar crunch crunch crunching has your ears tingling. You peer over at him, your eyes rolling over the steep slopes and angles of his face, and you think maybe if you were some mathematician, he’d be a perfect object of study. He’s like your favorite meal, you think, you know what he looks like, feels like, tastes like, but you’d never grow tired of him. Never him.

“Take a holo, it’ll last longer,” he drawls, not even having to face you and your shamelessness. 

You’re snickering, and he strolls up, handing you a coupon for 2,500 tickets. 

“That’s all?” your voice is incredulous, dripping with suspicion. Surely you’d have more than that, considering how you both had nearly gutted the place. 

“Mhm.”

You blow, laughing to yourself. You weren’t one for the prizes: a cornucopia of cheap plasticky gizmos and doodads that crumbled like Tatooine sand as soon as you forked over your fortune. You figured a special someone would appreciate the gesture, though.

“Maybe we can get Omega something?” 

“We’d have to get Wrecker something too, you know how he is,” he says, and it’s that faux annoyance in his tone that has you chuckling.

“I know just the thing!”

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

“Why’d you get two?” you prod at him, and he bats you away with a hip. Wordlessly, he extends an arm, holding out one of the cartons of mantell mix up to your face. Your eyes narrow, and you see a serpent tempting the unassuming, its tail wrapped around something forbidden and primed to strike. 

“You’re screwing with me, aren’t you?” The question is cautious, wrapped in suspicion with a pretty little bow of skepticism on top. You weren’t exactly too keen on having an instant replay of today’s earlier events–served with a side of embarrassment and a bruised ego. 

He shakes his head and a small smile splits his face; it should be something sacred, a rare jewel coveted by some royalty on a faraway planet, but instead, it has you narrowing your eyes even further. 

You reach a tentative hand out, and ease the box from his hands, ready for him to attack at any moment.

He doesn’t, but instead waves a white flag of truce, and you delightedly munch away. 

You both make your way towards the ship, the Mantellian sun making its final descent into the horizon, and Crosshair stops for a moment to watch you glow in its light. 

You’re perfect, he thinks, and he feels his heart melt into putty. It was as if the galaxy had compressed itself into your form, lighting a path his gaze could always follow. He chuckles to himself, remembering when he’d first met you, all starry-eyed and pure mischief. He’d readily admit that he found you rather annoying and cumbersome at first; like a raging Wookiee in a cantina, you’d made a mess of his carefully crafted space–a mess he slowly grew fond of. Like ringed ripples in a pond, you created movement within the stillness of his heart, and one day he’d pluck one of those rings from the surface and place it on your finger.

“You coming?”

Lost in the weeds, your voice pulls him back out again.

“Mhm.”

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

-

-

-

[yoitsjay]

Cat got your tongue?

Pairings: Crosshair x Fem! Reader

Summary: you and crosshair get into another one of your daily bickers, which becomes a fistfight, which becomes something a little... more.

Warnings: cannon typical violence, smut, cunnalingus, pussy eating, cum eating, crosshair eats good- use of pet names.

Word count: 1,627

A/n: inspired by the wrecker headcannons I just wrote- and the fanart I rebloged 🤭

The dimly lit engine room of the Marauder hums with the low rumble of machinery. Tools and spare parts are scattered around, and the air is thick with dust. Crosshair stands hunched over a malfunctioning power conduit, his expression a mix of frustration and concentration. He wouldn't have to be fixing this if Tech wasn't asked to make the supply run with Wrecker, though this piece of junk should have been replaced months ago.

Crosshair let out a grunt of frustration as he hit the power conduit with a wrench, sending some sparks flying from the impact. “Stubborn fucking thing- Should have been replaced.” He muttered

Across the room by the boiler, you are rummaging through a crate of supplies. You are a mercenary, employed temporarily by the Republic, and have been assigned to The Bad Batch for a few dangerous missions, which was being prepared for.

You glanced over at the man, a smirk falling across your lips as you pulled out the part you were looking for, kneeling down by the hyperdrive to fix it. “Maybe if you actually took a break once in a while and properly fixed the ship, you wouldn’t have to deal with these messes.” you replied snarkily.

Crosshair just snarled in return, narrowing his eyes at you as he leaned back slightly. “And maybe if you stopped getting into trouble, we wouldn't need to fix things every time we turn around.” He hissed, and you spun your head around. If looks could kill, he would have a giant hole in his head that would have done the job.

“Oh, so it’s my fault now? Last I checked, you were the one who blew up the last generator.” You replied, turning back to the hyperdrive as you started to replace its main panel with a new functioning one.

Crosshair straightens up, glaring daggers at you. The day had already been frustrating with Wrecker being unhelpful. “I didn’t see you volunteering to help, did I?”

your eyes narrow again. and you throw your wrench down onto the nearby workbench, its clatter echoing in the confined space as you stand and turn to face him, now bristling with annoyance. “Maybe because I’m not the one who causes the problems. I’m just here to clean up your mess.” She hissed, knowing she was only assigned here because they needed her help.

“You need me.” She added, voicing what she had been thinking. Crosshair scoffed, now rising to his feet as he set down his own tools, much gentler than you had moments ago. “Right, and I’m sure you’re perfect at everything you do.” He snarled.

Your face reddens with irritation, and without thinking twice you stride toward Crosshair, fists clenched. “You know what, Crosshair? If you think you’re so much better, why don’t you back up your talk?” She asked, though before Crosshair could respond, you shoved him roughly. He stumbles back but quickly regains his balance. His eyes flash with anger as he pushes her back with equal force.

Without another word you and Crosshair lunge at each other. You throw a punch, which Crosshair ducks, countering with a swift jab. You engage in a fast-paced, physical tussle amidst the clutter of the engine room. Tools and parts are knocked over, creating a chaotic backdrop to your fight. Each move is precise and aggressive, which really showed off the fact that you truly despise each other.

You then attempt a kick, which Crosshair grabs and twists, sending you sprawling onto a pile of metal parts. You let out a grunt of pain, but scramble up to your feet once more, determination in your eyes as you charge again. Crosshair, breathing heavily, manages to catch you off guard with a deft move, pinning your arms above your head against the wall.

Panting, you and Crosshair stare each other down, before finally he speaks up.

“Satisfied now?” He asks with a smirk. You just glare at him, breathing ragged as you rolled your eyes and look away. “Not quite. But I guess this will do for now.” you muttered. Crosshair raises an eyebrow, bringing his free hand up to your face as he cups your chin with his fingers, turning your head so you are looking at him again.

“How else can I satisfy you then, princess?” He asked, his own eyes widening as if he hadn’t meant to say what he had said. Your eyes also go wide, and you glance downwards before looking away again, muttering something under your breath.

“What was that, sweetheart?” Crosshair asked, overcoming that brief shock, taking back his confidence as he pressed into you a bit more, unable to ignore the soft whimper that fell from your lips. You looked over at him again, your pupils dilated as you stared at him with something other than hate.

“I said, you could get on your knees and eat me, but it probably wouldn’t feel good.” you snarked, a surge of your own confidence swelling inside of you

And it caught Crosshair off guard.

“What?” He asked, lips parted slightly as he pulled back from you. But you wouldn’t let him escape, not this time…

You wiggled your arms out of his grasp, and instead grabbed him by the top of his armor plating, pulling him closer to you as you grinned almost wickedly, leaning in to whisper by his ear.

“You heard me.” You whispered, feeling him shiver slightly as your breath fanned down his neck. Crosshair closed his eyes for a moment, then slid his hands to your waist, pulling it against him as he squeezed lightly. “I just wanted to make sure you really said that… because it sounds like a challenge to me.” He whispered, staring into your eyes as his nose brushed against yours.

“Oh it's a challenge, Crosshair. You couldn’t make me feel good if you tried.” You whispered, feeling his grip tighten against your hips. Then he slid his hands down, and he dropped to his knees in front of you.

You gasped slightly, not expecting him to actually take up that challenge. You let out a squeak as he unclasped the armor on your thighs, then tugged down your trousers. “Crosshair what are you-”

“You said I couldn't please you, princess. I’m gonna prove you wrong.” He started, grabbing your thigh as he lifted your leg over his shoulder, using his other hand to hold your abdomen against the wall so you wouldn’t fall.

“Crosshair, what if they come back?” You asked frantically, sliding your left hand into his silvery short hair, pushing his head back slightly. He just grinned, sliding his hand down as he pulled your underwear down.

“Oh Princess…” He trailed off, pushing his face into the plush softness of your thigh, listening to you gasp or inhale every time he nipped at the skin, or lick closer and closer to where you were aching for him to be.

Then he leans in, tentatively licking a stripe up your folds before he groans, and flattens his tongue against you, his nose nudging against your clit which makes you jolt.

“Cross-” You whined, looking down into his eyes momentarily before you let your head fall back against the engine room wall as he brought his tongue up to your clit, and circled it before flicking his tongue upwards.

Crosshair ate you out like it wasn’t even an issue, the way he drove his tongue into your sopping wet cunt, drinking in your juices as he groaned, it made your heart flutter.

You gripped his head, pushing him against you as you bucked your hips slightly, letting out soft pants, or little whimpers, trying to stay quiet, though the way he was making you feel- it was getting hard too.

“Crosshair i���m-”

You could feel that coil winding up tight in your gut, though the man below you didn;t relent, keeping his mouth on you as he drank you up and made you feel like you were on cloud nine.

You pressed the heel of your boot into his back, pushing him closer as you desperately grinded against his face, letting out a high pitched and loud whine as your vision clouded and you saw stars, coming undone on his tongue.

You expected him to pull away, leave you dripping and dirty from your orgasm. But he kept his tongue at your entrance, drinking up the slick that seeped out, until you were shaking from the overstimulation. Only then did he pull away, reaching for a clean cloth which he used to clean up the mess he made between your thighs.

“See Princess? I can clean up my messes.” He teased, lowering your leg off his shoulder as he rose to his feet. You could only huff in response, pulling up your pants and underwear before you clipped your armor back on, face red as you avoided looking at him.

“Cat caught your tongue sweetheart?” Crosshair asked mockingly. You glared at him, turning to walk away, only to turn back around as you delivered a swift punch to his torso, making him double over, only for you to pull him close as you pressed your lips to his, swallowing up his gasp as you invaded your tongue into his mouth, tasting yourself before you pulled away, chuckling.

“Cat caught your tongue, Crosshair?” You repeated, patting his chest before you turned and walked out of the engine room.

Crosshair watched you leave, then grunted as he was suddenly all too aware of the raging hard on that was straining against his codpiece. He grunted, looking back up to the exit you walked out of before he groaned, and quickly ran after you.

You were going to be the death of him.

➺

Crosshair tag:

@nyctophobiart

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@only-my-unexistent-fiances

All:

@moomoog017

[frostycatblr-fandom-files]

Hey, Frost! Congratulations on reaching 200 followers!!

This is Carol (@clonethirstingisreal), just asking on anon rather than my main account.

For my request, I was wondering about a fic focusing on Hunter & Omega with a father & daughter vibe (or just siblings is fine too.) I really don't have anything specific in mind. It could be after everyone (including Tech) is living safe on Pabu. Maybe Hunter comforting Omega about something...or vice versa. I don't know...sorry! If you need more to go on, let me know. I'm blanking...

Thanks!

New Night Routines [Hunter and Omega Family Fic]

Warnings and Information: Officially settling into island life after everything they’ve been through since the emergence of the Empire will take time, Hunter knows that. Patience is paramount in times like these, and the people of Pabu’s limitless generosity and neighborly nature make light work of helping all six members of Clone Force 99 lay down roots. Now, the biggest battle for him, his brothers, and Omega is getting a good night’s sleep.  TBB AU where everyone gets to live happily ever after. Reference and allusion to canon-typical injury and violence. Mainly fluff and feel-good family moments. Minimal Star Wars and real-world swearing. Limited Mando’a. Fictional sea creatures. Narrative and stylistic use of italics. 

Word count: 4,020

When the decision had been made to carve out a comfortable life for themselves at long last, Shep Hazard was all too happy to provide the Batch with a proper Pabuan house. He’d been insisting upon it for some time now, but the offer had always been turned down, saying the same thing each occasion.

“There’s still a lot to sort out. We need more time to come to a proper decision.”

They had the Empire to contend with. Brothers to help. Sowing the seeds of a growing rebellion.

So when the time finally came, Hunter was thrilled to take Shep up on the next offer. No more living on the run. No more sleeping and living out of the attack shuttle. They would have a safe roof to sleep under, and a steady supply of surf and sun to fill their days. The island community came together when news broke that they were here to stay, rolling up their sleeves to repay a multitude of favors from repairing Lower Pabu following the last sea surge. 

Without the whip-smart fishermen, rewiring the house would have taken Tech many long weeks of steady work in order to bring everything up to his standards on his own. 

Wrecker had the help of the community’s woodworkers in replacing anything suffering from wood rot and constructing newer, sturdier furniture. 

Artists pooled themselves together and slung paint in every room of the house under Crosshair’s watchful eye; by lunch every room had been given a base coat, and by dinner, detail-work began once it was agreed who slept where, giving those spaces tailored touches. 

Echo, though he would often be away assisting Captain Rex and the Clone rebellion, found ways to contribute to construction, incorporating hidden compartments and caches in their eventual living space for safekeeping their old armor and weaponry. 

Omega had grand plans to decorate not just the room she had all to herself, but the whole of the house all on her own if Hunter didn’t insist upon helping between his own odd jobs. The prospect of having more than just the barest of bare essentials, but now the ‘basics’ was entirely thrilling to Omega, and perhaps more than a little overwhelming at times for Hunter. 

There’s just so much… stuff.

Blankets and pillows had been small familiarities with the GAR, but patterned bedding and special linens? Decorative pillows? Was that all really necessary?

Maybe not to him, but making sure Omega felt like an equal contributor to putting together their home meant entertaining her enthusiasm in other ways when there were no tasks suitable for her to assist with. If there were heavy shelves to hang, Hunter helped her find the best baskets offered by the island’s artisans to use for storage. When the sturdier bed frames were carefully squeezed into the house, he went with Omega on a walk to collect the blankets that had been set aside for them by the many fibercraft artists. 

And every evening after dinner, Hunter promised to do whatever she wanted for an hour to reward her for being so patient throughout all of this. Occasionally, one hour often bled into two, sometimes three before both would be thoroughly worn out and ready to turn in for the night. 

Sometimes she wanted to sit under the weeping maya tree, gazing at the star-crusted indigo skies together. Other nights, Omega wanted to roam the Archium and proudly show off all she had learned from Phee, or Layana, or Tech about each of the valuable items stored here. They’ve crawled through several of the island’s coves in the growing twilight, collecting enough sea glass that Phee offered to find a jeweler who could turn the frosted fragments into beautiful sun-catchers for them. 

Enjoying this nightly routine with her, Hunter considered making this a weekly thing once the house had been finished, which wouldn’t be much longer now. While he and his vode were accustomed to sleeping in the Havoc Marauder during the Clone Wars, he was growing tired of it long term. 

Maker, he couldn’t wait to get into that house. 

As hard as it could be to accept, her brothers knew Omega wouldn’t stay little forever. She was a growing girl who needed more room to grow, to decide what kind of life to make for herself, to simply live. And a gunner’s mount was no place for any of that. 

Laying down roots on Pabu would be good for her. 

For all of them. 

After two weeks of continuous construction and regular after-dark adventures, the morning finally came that the Batch’s new house would be complete by lunch time. Perhaps even before, depending on how many members of this selfless community came together to help the vode furnish each room. 

Omega woke shortly before dawn, too excited to sleep, or think about trying. 

Hunter found himself roused from a comfortable slumber by a bright-eyed pre-teen, her pale, curly hair an adorably bedraggled mess as she gingerly shook his arm. 

“Hunter. Hunter!”

Crosshair, ever the light sleeper, began to stir in the bunk across from Hunter’s just as the other began to sit up and work feeling into his limbs. They had all promised her long ago that if she ever needed anything, and they meant anything, from one of them for any reason, she never had a reason to hesitate waking her brothers.

“What’s wrong?” 

Hunter tugged the blanket over the sniper’s head, chuckling warmly. “Go back to sleep, Cross. I’ve got it handled.” He didn’t even know what it was, but it didn’t matter. By nature of his engineering and training, Hunter had a life’s worth of experience in waking up suddenly and quickly. Alert in just a short time, he came up with something to do to let the others get as much sleep as they could while tugging on his boots. 

“Think we can find something new in our favorite tide pools that Tech hasn’t seen before?”

It should be enough to keep them occupied for an hour or two before joining the others in putting the finishing touches on the house. 

Omega nodded, enthusiastic and eager. 

“Atta girl.” 

Hunter ruffled her hair before sending her up to the cockpit to collect the beach bag Lyana had gifted her. This would give him more than enough time to shimmy out of the shirt he slept in and into something different. Once dressed, he rounded up a few more things around the Marauder he thought they might want - a drybag for when Omega inevitably wanted to splash her feet in the water, the datapad she used for her studies, and laid a change of clothing out for each of them at the foot of his bunk. Just in case. 

They met at the gangplank, Hunter keying in the appropriate sequence to lower the ramp. 

“All set, Havoc Five?”

Omega grinned, giddy and full of energy. “Ready, Havoc One!”

“Good,” Hunter returned the smile with one of his own. “Race you down to the water, then?” 

Scuttling down the ramp together, Omega tore off in a burst of gleeful giggles, Hunter close behind. 

Having been on the run for so long, living hand-to-mouth and facing peril after peril with the bravest of faces, Omega had begun laughing less and less. As their arrangement with Cid crawled to a boiling point, tempers flaring in the backroom of the Parlor, Bolo and Ketch found less and less success in making the adolescent laugh. After their treacherous ordeal on Ipsidon was met with complete apathy, it wasn’t much longer that the Batch parted ways with the Trandoshan without so much as a word. 

Phee selflessly sharing her safe haven had given Omega back her laugh. 

Pabu and the generosity of her people were giving Omega a chance at a normal life, with normal experiences. Making friends her own age exposed her to many new things. When Lyana and other girls their age invited her to her first sleepover, Tech helped her prepare for it the day before with research and reassurance. 

“If, in the event you miss us, just remember that you have Lula. She’s been with the team for a long time. She’ll help you be brave, Omega.” 

It wouldn’t be beloved tooka dolls alone that brought Omega her new-found bravery here in Pabu’s safe harbor. It would be her brothers, too. 

Patiently learning to act less like a team, and more like a family, they were navigating this new life together. Hunter would certainly never take this for granted after everything the Batch had been through to get to this point. 

Just as Omega claimed she was going to reach the beach first, Hunter would catch up in a burst of speed and swoop his sister into his arms. Both of them would reach the beach at the same time this way. The laughter shared between them felt good. Freeing. Racing down to the water without a care in the galaxy, still new and novel to each of them, would become a memory more valuable than any vault of credits he could ever imagine. 

He had wanted that kind of life, once. As a cadet, likely younger than Omega had been when they first met, the prospect of living lavishly with his rowdy band of brothers after the war had been among the grandest dreams. A distraction, really, from the growing pains that plagued him and the endless hours of rigorous training, testing and tweaking of his enhancements. 

Now, settling into an easy life from the Imperial forces that poisoned a predator with fear and slowly turned him into prey was his dream. A dream free of being faced with situations so dire and desperate he would be forced to gnaw off a part of himself to escape, or keep Omega safe. 

Safe to create new routines of poking about the deeper tide pools for shells and strange, quad-eyed crustaceans with her brothers, her family. 

“Look at this one!” 

Omega carefully plucks a large crab out of the saltwater pool, keeping her hands behind its largest claw. She holds it out to Hunter, showing it off like a trophy with the proudest of smiles that she could catch one. They were often lightning-fast, scuttling down to the surf in a flash. Crosshair had figured out how to catch them to make it less challenging for Tech to study them, but not without several pinched fingers, first. 

Once he’d mastered the technique, Cross taught it to Omega and encouraged her to show Hunter the next time he and Omega went down to the cove for their after-dark adventures. (Probably in hopes of scaring the hell out of Hunter, the little shit.) Crosshair had always been talented at finding ways to catch things that didn’t like being caught. It had been a useful pastime during the war. 

“Looks very nice.” Hunter said, verbally applauding her accomplishment. “Can you tell what it is, Megs?”

“This is a false flotsam crab!” she declared, indicating the lack of splinter-like spikes lining the smallest claw. 

Hunter had to stifle a chuckle over how much she sounded and acted like their bespectacled brother. After the sea surge, they had seen a lot of flotsam crabs and the pretenders in the wreckage of Lower Pabu. Upon identifying them, Tech declared both species were perfectly edible - though they would want more of the flotsam crabs than the false ones - and basketfuls of these crabs were collected. People may have lost their homes, but there would be enough food to prevent anyone from going hungry. 

It was like the sea’s way of apologizing. 

It was also the first time the Batch had seen the scale of Pabu’s generosity, and resilience. No wonder they had fled the Empire and come to Pabu; these were good people. Good people who were helping him give his sister a good life. 

Omega brought the false flotsam closer to her brother, holding it out to him.

“Do you want to hold it?” 

Hunter shook his head, smiling. “That’s okay. Maybe another time, Omega.” There would be plenty of chances to catch crabs in the future. Endless opportunities to splash in the cool coastal waters, and bask in the salt-laden breeze and island sun. 

Placing the cranky creature back in the water, Omega returns to the task of finding something new to show Tech before they return to the others, where together, they’ll make their house a proper home. 

When the sun has risen high enough, Omega leads the way to their new house, a large shell clutched tightly in her hands. Wearing her pack, Hunter follows behind, listening to her excited babbling of all the things she thinks her prize find could be. 

Found further down the beach by his sister, it had recently washed ashore, glimmering in the young sunlight of dawn the way Hunter had heard rumors of the appearance of kyber. Opalescent, clearer than ice. Some surfaces were smooth to the touch. Others, jagged and unpleasant. It was unlike anything the siblings had seen before. 

Omega called out their return the closer they were to the house. 

“Tech! Look what we found!” 

Hunter thought ‘we’ was being generous, but he did nothing to correct her. Tech, putting away his tools, takes the shell and examines it for all of ten seconds before announcing what they found. “Another glacial turban. That’s a rather remarkable specimen, Omega.” Omega pouts in disappointment to hear that they did not find something new, but it is soon forgotten as Tech spurs her youthful curiosity with a simple question. 

“Would you like to know what makes it so remarkable?”

“Yes!”

He asks her to wait there while he ducks inside a moment, collecting his datapad, most likely. When Tech returns, he has a second shell in hand rather than his trusty technology. “This is also a glacial turban.” he explains, kneeling beside her. Comparing the two together, he shows her how the first shell has far more opalescence and clarity than the other, and the color is stronger. 

Textbook perfect, he calls it. 

The others have crowded around to see, only opting to hold it once Omega says it’s okay. “S’beautiful, kid,” Wrecker says, carefully turning the turban over in his hands, “A real keeper!” Once he’s had a good look, the turban is passed to Echo, and the ARC trooper says the shell’s a real stunner. Crosshair says nothing, but the way he smiles as he studies the way the light warps and shifts on the surface explains more than enough. 

A teasing smile works its way free when Omega takes the shell back from him. 

“So? Do you like it?”

“Can’t get any better than textbook perfect, I suppose.” he replies, smiling wryly around a toothpick. 

Hunter lays a hand on one of Omega’s shoulders, looking down at her with a soft smile. “Sounds like we should find a special spot for you to show it off, then, Megs.” Now, looking up at his brothers, Hunter says the three words they had become very familiar with before all hell broke loose, once upon a time.

“You boys ready?”

Many hands make light work. Taking it room by room, they lay down rugs, make the beds and fluff up the pillows, and wrestle furniture into place. It would go a lot quicker if there was less fooling around, but making these new memories on what will soon be their first official day in a new house trumps efficiency. 

Phee drops in around mid-morning to check on their progress, finding the six of them piled on the floor, taking a short break in Tech and Wrecker’s room. “Getting tired? Neighbors have said you guys sound like you’ve been having a great time for several hours now.” Arms folded loosely against her chest, their friend is all smiles as Phee gives her report.

Tech adjusts his goggles before he replies. “Decorating a domicile has been more fun than I anticipated.”

Omega’s room is left for last out of the bedrooms, and every item within is a testament of love the people in her life had for her.

They started with the gifts from Phee and Lyana first. The sea glass sun-catcher was hung in a corner of the window, and a soft moon-yo toy was added beside Lula and her trooper doll on the bed. Next, each brother helped Omega fit his contribution to the room in only the most perfect places. 

The traditional telescope Crosshair had found and restored was tucked by the window, alongside other tools for stargazing. The bed frame that Wrecker had worked on longest of all was well worth the splinters when Omega lovingly awed over each embellishment that had been added by hand. The beaded curtains hung around her bed had been fashioned by Echo, worked on each night after she had gone to sleep. Tech gifted her a small set of shelves to display the special specimens she had collected in their travels. And adorning the bed laid the quilt Hunter had commissioned from one of Pabu’s reclusive-yet-crafty artisans, combining the common gray and red tones of Clone Force 99’s armor with the brighter hues found in Omega’s favorite colors. 

In spite of her excitement over her first proper bed since Kamino, Omega avoided climbing on it for fear of getting sand in the freshly-laundered sheets. Besides, they still had parts of the house to finish, chiefly the kitchen and living area, and Omega didn’t want them to lose the current momentum. If they wanted to have things finished by lunch, then they had less than an hour to do it. 

She would have the chance to find out just how comfortable the sleeping arrangements would prove at bedtime. 

Since the two of them had gone down to the beach before dawn, Hunter and Omega opted not to do a part of their nightly routine in favor of making their first night in a proper house an early one. Instead, they stayed with the rest of the Batch, playing a few short rounds of Sabbac or doing other things while waiting on their turn to shower. 

Wrecker would kindly offer to help Omega finish getting ready for bed while Hunter had his turn, but she declined. Her answer was less surprising than she might have expected; Hunter was already halfway to the refresher to get the water going before she had the chance to finish.

“I wanted to ask Tech to help me organize my specimens while waiting for Hunter…”

In good humor, Wrecker chuckles warmly before offering his sister’s hair a careful ruffle. 

“Alrigh’, ad’ika.” 

Ordinarily, Hunter never took long to wash up, but tonight he dawdled a bit more than usual to give Omega and Tech the opportunity to make decent progress. By the time he had dried, dressed, and detangled most of his hair from itself, he found the two of them sitting in the middle of Omega’s room. 

She had changed into a fresh pair of brushed-cotton sleepwear at some point, and was now allowing Tech to finish her haircare for the night. Joining this rather sweet scene, Hunter waits by Omega’s bed, quietly listening as they talk over her collection. Tech, kneeling behind her, is mostly focused on the instructions he is reading over her shoulder on how to start taking better care of the hair-type they have inherited from Jango Fett, the Clone template. 

“This appears to be mostly in chronological order, now. But a few items appear to be… missing.”

“I think some of them are still in your footlockers.” Omega replies, patiently enduring an unpleasant tug from the brush as Tech finds a rather stubborn knot. 

Promising to help her take care of getting the missing items in the morning, Tech asks Hunter to carefully set everything aside on the desk for the time being while he finishes up. He obliges his brother’s request, working quickly as both of them can see how drowsy she’s becoming. Being up before dawn will do that. Once he’s finished, Hunter lifts Omega from the floor, carrying her to bed.  

“C’mere, Megs. Bedtime.” 

He tucks her in, pulling the quilt up to her shoulder after making sure Lula is secure in Omega’s arms. It shouldn’t be long before she’s asleep, so Hunter and Tech don’t linger longer than it takes to say goodnight and shut off the light. 

“Jate ca, Omega.”

There’s little more than a sleepy hum in response. She is well and truly tuckered out. 

Omega sleeps soundly for about an hour before being stirred awake by something outside her window. It’s nothing more than playful moon-yo chatter outside, thankfully. Once they scamper off, she settles back down, but something feels… off. Not necessarily the room itself, but how quiet it is. After living on the run for so long, little more than a curtain between her and her brothers, the utter silence of the room is uncomfortable. Unsure what else to do about failing to fall asleep, Omega climbs carefully out of bed, and slips down to her brothers’ room. 

Hunter stirs before she’s gotten farther than the foot of his bed, waking easily with his keen sense of hearing. “What’s the matter, Megs?” His voice, low and sleepy, is partially muffled by his pillow before sitting up to address the situation. 

“It’s… it’s too quiet to fall back asleep. It’s making me feel uneasy.” she admits in a whisper, squeezing one of Lula’s paws to try to soothe herself. 

“... too quiet?” 

Hunter furrows his brow, wondering why a room being too quiet would make it hard to sleep when you’re sharing a room with someone. Then he remembers that she’s not sharing a room with anyone. She’s been given her own room, and she’s likely not used to being by herself anymore. Of course. All of them, for one reason or another, had forgotten to consider what might happen when she would be sleeping on her own for these new night routines… 

That was their fault, his fault, more than her’s. 

“C’mere, ad’ika. I have an idea.” 

Pillow under one arm and Omega in the other, he carries her back to her bedroom, giving her a choice. “Until we can find a sound machine to help you sleep, I’ll stay with you to help you get used to your room. Now, where do you want me to sleep?” Unsurprisingly, Omega quickly makes space so he can share both her bed and new quilt.

As she pulled it over them, she noticed the backing wasn’t just any old material. Her brothers had taken portions of their old bodysuits, carefully washing the material before donating these pieces to the blanket. Designs dear to them had been stitched in contrasting thread so she would know who particular patches came from. 

In the dark, fingers traced out the words “We’ll always have your back” at the very top of the blanket. The artisan’s neat work made her brothers’ collective loyalty and a promise all the more tangible.

As Hunter lay next to her, it wasn’t long before she was able to settle down again. Holding her close, he listened as her breathing evened out, eyelids growing heavier and heavier. Omega would be asleep before long, but not before she had one last thing to say. 

“Thank you, Hunter…”

“You’re welcome, Omega. Sweet dreams.”

Once she had drifted off, tucking her head under her brother’s chin, Hunter would carefully lay a kiss in the crown of her hair, bidding her to sleep well for the rest of the night. He listened to her for a while longer, quietly grateful that this instance of being unable to sleep was so easy to remedy. Grateful too, in a sense, that that was now among their biggest battles. 

Until their roots were firmer, settling down on Pabu would have a few growing pains. Adapting to change could be hard. Adjusting to new routines could be hard, too. 

But they didn’t have to be, so long as the Batch had each other’s backs.

Thank you for making such a sweet request for this little event Carol. I tried to include most of your ideas without rambling too too much, haha. I hope you enjoyed it! 🩷 (And apologies if the pacing feels a bit "off" in places as things were cut for brevity!)

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[lifblogs]

Imperial Property

@ailesswhumptober Day 4 Painful Transformation, Non-Consensual Body Modifications, "You're a monster."

Fandom: The Bad Batch Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Word Count: 1453 Summary: Tech wakes up from one of the many surgeries he needs after Plan 99, and he is sorely reminded that his body is no longer his own. WARNINGS: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Suicidal Thoughts READ ON AO3

Tech’s left ankle was restrained when he awoke, dazed, and wishing to keep his eyes closed.

Someone was poking at his left foot, left leg.

As the poking and prodding got closer to his thigh, closer to— oh no, the break in his femur.

The shock of adrenaline shook off many effects of the anesthesia, and he started, trying to pull away, to sit up. His wrists were restrained, a strap even across his chest.

Tech was breathing harshly, turning his awkwardly-heavy head till his neck hurt to try and see the person who he guessed was poking at him. There was still nothing but darkness from… from where his left eye should be.

“CT-9902, you are awake,” the man breathed.

Tech didn’t bother arguing about the fact that he had a name. Sometimes he himself didn’t feel as if he had a name. But right now he was not just CT-9902.

Hemlock lifted up his head from where he’d been observing the mechno-leg he’d just installed. There was a glint in his eyes that had Tech swallowing roughly. His whole body felt cold, goosebumps rising across his skin. And he was very bare under the sheet, though he supposed it didn’t matter anymore.

Hemlock had been the one to amputate his ravaged leg. He’d seen everything already.

Everything was moving so fast that Tech wasn’t sure how to feel about any of this. He still had a soft helmet on his head, protecting the hurt, exposed part of his brain. His plate to replace part of his skull couldn’t be attached just yet as his brain still had healing to do. The remains of his left eye had been scooped out, and he hadn’t been gifted a cybernetic eye yet.

His gut had been repaired, but his abdomen and lower back were a mass of stitches. His back had yet to fully be repaired, and he didn’t know what was worse: waiting for yet another surgery, in pain; or having things continually happen to his body without any approval or form of consent from him. Hemlock just drugged him, did whatever he wanted, and waited for Tech to wake up to yet another change to his destroyed and now-foreign body.

He hadn’t told the doctor, but he’d started having chest pains. He secretly hoped his heart would give out from all it had been through. He wasn’t ready yet to appreciate surviving his fall. In fact, he hated himself for finding a way to survive, and in a way that had given him so many injuries and nearly killed him.

Hemlock should have let him die.

At some point (the surgeries were becoming a blur), Tech had had two mechno-fingers attached to his left hand, replacing his middle and ring fingers that had been shorn off by a thick tree branch, and they were connected to the joint. He figured his new leg could not be removed, and was attached to his hip now.

“Your new leg seems to be working rather well,” Hemlock said, “though I will have to run some… tests.”

Tech didn’t like the way he said that word, didn’t like anything about this man.

Not for the first time, Tech tried, “Where’s Crosshair?”

It was all he’d been asking once he’d been able to speak again, no longer aspirating, brain no longer killing him. Yes, he was alive, he loathed being alive, and all he felt seemingly everywhere was pain, pain, pain. But his mission wasn’t finished yet. If he was at Hemlock’s base, Crosshair had to be here too.

“Oh, he’s being kept in a secure place.”

A cell, of some sort, clearly.

Tech growled, and though it made his blood run cold, and the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, something deep in his brain telling him this was life-threateningly dangerous, he turned his head away from Hemlock.

Tech went through Hemlock’s tests, and while the leg itself didn’t hurt, he was soon groaning through clenched teeth at the skin and soft tissue that had been cut open to install this, and had only just been stitched up.

The stitches didn’t pull—Hemlock was smarter than that—but his ripped apart body protested, his still-healing spine that had shattered protested, and even his patched up abdomen did.

Tech’s breathing turned heavy, and he felt like he was going to be sick as his leg was moved around.

“Please…” he begged for some reason. “No more. I—”

He tossed his head back at renewed pain in his hip as Hemlock lifted his leg, which sent flashes and stars into his vision, his very brain aching, and he twitched in his restraints.

Hemlock sighed as if Tech was some insufferable experiment he had to deal with (Tech had already learned that he was nothing more than an object to this man), and dropped his leg unceremoniously.

“Fine.”

Suddenly the sleeve on his gown was pulled up, and a needle jabbed carelessly into his muscle.

Exhaustion hit Tech—if that’s who he even still was after all these injuries and surgeries and… modifications—and he lay back, wanting to sleep, and sleep, and never wake up.

Hemlock left him alone, but didn’t leave through the ray-shielded doorway. He was doing some work on a datapad and was monitoring Tech’s vitals. Oh, he was always hooked up to something.

In a few minutes, the nausea left. Tech painstakingly lifted up his head, and looked at his new leg. It was black, and gray, with some fine wiring in yellow hooked up throughout it. The knee was shaped like a knee-joint of a droid, almost like a pulley system. It had been freed of its restraints for the tests, and now, for the first time, he tried moving it for himself.

Tech willed it to move, and it did.

And he almost threw up.

This… this wasn’t him. This wasn’t his body. No, no, no. This was all a mistake, some kind of nightmare.

He was supposed to be hanging, hanging, looking up at Wrecker, and Omega through the slats of the nearly-detached railcar, nothing but clouds and death beneath him.

He was supposed to be saying, “When have we ever followed orders?”

Tech was supposed to be there. Surely he still was, terror creating this confusing, stifling miasma of waking moments rolled into endless hours, days, his body destroyed. That was all his fear, playing with his mind.

But he had to do it.

He had to grab his blaster, and blast what still held him above the clouds.

Tech had to fall.

He had to.

His family was depending on him.

They were, they were!

They would all die—

Tech didn’t close his eyes as he blasted the connecting line. He wasn’t afraid.

Please, let me die.

Only the sight of his new leg through his right eye met him. He didn’t even have a left eye anymore, was even missing part of his small intestine.

He was…

I’m broken. I’m nothing.

Tech couldn’t get himself to purposefully move his leg again, but any motion of his abdomen slightly moved his thigh. His thigh of metal, this… this thing.

That’s not my leg.

These fingers are not my fingers.

Any eye will not be mine.

Tech wasn’t a person anymore. How could he be?

Of course, he’d always seen Echo as a person, but… to experience something like him. Echo had been rescued.

Tech was sure he never would be, and he hadn’t gotten any wind of his team knowing where he was, where Crosshair was.

I’m going to die here.

A voice, cold, and clinical, not wholly his responded, You already have.

I suppose Crosshair’s as good as dead then too.

Maybe someone should just kill us all rather than rescue us. We’re just Imperial property, meant to suffer at Hemlock’s bloody hands.

Tech wiggled his new toes, almost threw up again, remembered his own leg getting destroyed, breaking, a branch shoving right through it, coming to eventually with no leg at all.

Now this.

Property didn’t need to consent to changes, to experimentation, to whatever body modifications were seen as necessary.

A numbness took hold in his chest, spreading throughout him, and what was left of him, taking root in his injured brain.

Hemlock startled Tech by coming over and stroking the leg attached to him. Not his. It couldn’t be his.

He stiffened at it, almost crying out.

“Beautiful,” Hemlock whispered, voice a low, breathy thing, almost like it was filled with want.

Tech just squeezed his eyes shut and let out a small moan.

But he weathered it, as he was supposed to. After all, he was nothing but Imperial property.

[freesia-writes]

Crosshair x Reader, Post Episode 3

SPOILERS for the first three episodes of The Bad Batch season 3.

Just a little drabble of where Crosshair and Omega may have gone while trying to figure out what to do next after escaping. I originally wanted it to be a lot more touchy/romantic/comforting/warm and fuzzy/etc but it just didn't come out that way cause it felt like it would have been forcing it. So here's 2.7k words of just... comfort.

GN Reader, 2.7k words, SFW. Previous intimacy alluded to in one sentence. Dividers by @ve-ti-ver. <3

The knock on your door is so quiet, it seems as though the person on the other side is second-guessing every move. You pause your holofilm, glancing at the clock and grumbling that it’s far later than you thought. Must have lost track of time as usual. Pulling your robe around you and fastening it around your waist, you shuffle to the entryway, grabbing your blaster out of habit. No matter how much of a backwater planet this is, you’ve heard stories of the Empire showing up with zero warning and wrecking an entire way of life, and you’re not about to lose everything you’ve worked so hard to protect. 

A glance through the peephole freezes you in your tracks. 

You look to the side, scanning the perimeter cameras to see if there’s anyone else on the property. You can’t believe your eyes. But something inside of you is compelling you, more strongly than you’d ever have anticipated, but then again, you’d never have thought something like this would happen. You press the button and the front door whooshes open. 

“Crosshair?!” you whisper in disbelief, taking in his very different appearance. There’s a girl at his elbow, looking tired but curious, and they’re both in some weird white outfits covered in mud and grass stains. “What the kriff…”

“Can we come in?” His voice is broken. Weathered. It taps at the edges of your fortified heart. 

“You alone?”

“Very.”

* * * 

The fire has grown low in the hearth, reduced to the occasional flicker above glowing coals that emit a cozy scent. The girl, Omega as you’ve learned, is fast asleep on the couch, and Crosshair is hunched in the armchair across from you. You’ve never seen him look like this – his silver hair is gone, replaced by a hint of stubble and a hideous scar. He seems a shell of what he was, and you yearn to ask him everything, but he looks so, so tired. They’d both been grateful for the soup you offered, but no amount of insistence on your part had been able to convince him to take a nap in your bed. So instead you sat quietly in the living room, alternating between sporadic, pointless conversation and long stretches of silence. 

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” you confessed, trying to keep your tone neutral. 

“Sorry,” he muttered, saying nothing else. 

“What… uh… What are you doing? Like… Why are you here?”

“The long-range communicator on the shuttle was damaged. We need to contact our… Some others.”

“Ah. I don’t have anything like that…”

“Where’s the closest comm center?”

“I can show you tomorrow.”

“Mmm.”

“Crosshair?” you said, more softly now. The faintest wince crossed his face before disappearing without a trace. He lifted his sharp eyes to your face, his face completely passive, and waited. “I don’t know what all you’ve been through, but…” You faltered, unsure what you were even trying to express. A quick sigh, a shift of the gaze, a reposition in your seat… “Well, just let me know how I can help.”

He nodded, eyes drifting back to the floor beneath shoulders that hunched beneath a thousand regrets.

* * * 

You’d apologized a few times about the scattered assortment of food in front of your guests, having had to throw together a dinner the next day with what you had left in your cooling chamber and cupboards. Money was tight and the added mouths made it difficult. But you’d managed to scrounge something acceptable, and Omega had gratefully proclaimed that it was more than enough. Better than the bland nuggets she’d survived on for months, at least. Crosshair was silent, but the way he ate – intentionally and without hurry – hinted at a bit of enjoyment. 

The comm center had been mercifully empty, allowing them to get a transmission out, but there had been no reply. Crosshair’s encryption knowledge was impressive, and you made plans to return the next day to see if there would be any response, although he seemed fairly certain there would not be. Omega refused to believe such a thing, insisting that things would only get better from here. 

Another night of staring silently at each other across the tiny living room, with the girl sleeping fitfully on the couch and your feet stretched out opposite his. He’d slept in the armchair the night before, and you’d accidentally woken him with a start when you appeared in the kitchen, feeling terrible for the awkward way his tall frame was bent and crumpled in slumber. 

“It’s been… what… almost five years?” you said quietly, staring into the flames of the hearth as it pushed away the nighttime chill, encompassing all of you in its warm glow. 

“Who knows,” came the curt reply.

“I’m surprised you even remembered where I lived,” you pointed out, unable to decide if you were pleased or paranoid by that revelation. 

“Hmm.”

Conversation stopped and started, and you found yourself noticing more about him that seemed different from before, although you weren’t sure your memory was accurate. You’d only seen each other a handful of times, when he was the signature snarky member of Clone Force 99 during the war. When the Republic became the Empire, everything seemed to hit the fan, and nothing had been quite the same since. Now, he was carefully guarded, seemingly unfazed by anything, but the occasional twitch of a muscle seemed to indicate pain or trauma of sorts. There was a tremor in his hand that was always quickly stifled by a clenched fist or grasp from the other, as well as a grimace of frustration. But most of all, the haunted look in his eyes chilled you to the core. You were known for your compassion, and the impact of the war on so many innocents across the galaxy rested heavily on your shoulders. It was easy to spiral if you dwelt on it too long, so you pushed it away and worked hard to fortify both your heart and home. 

* * * 

“Crosshair! It’s there!” Omega exclaimed, tapping rapidly on the control panel at the comm center. “Look!”

He sidled up beside her, leaning over her shoulder to squint at the screen. A transmission had indeed come through, although by the look on his face, you couldn’t tell if he was relieved or repulsed. 

“Good news, I hope?” you asked, curiosity getting the better of you. 

“They can meet us in a few days!” Omega read, tracing her finger across the lines of text. “They just have to… drop off a few… kids?” She glanced at Crosshair with questioning eyes, and his expression almost made you laugh aloud. 

“Hunter is so kriffing soft,” he muttered, face sour with disgust. 

“Well either way… We’re going home!” she insisted, eyes filling with tears. You felt a sense of awe at the girl’s ineffable hope in the face of so much pain, and you hoped her attitude would inspire Crosshair a bit too. 

“There is no home,” he spat, turning to exit the building, arms clasped around himself.

No such luck, it seemed.

* * * 

Things felt somehow lighter that evening. You’d picked up a large pot of soup from a friend on the way, effusive with thanks and promises to make it up to him, and had enough supplies at home to make a large loaf of bread. It felt like a good night for a candle, creating a distinctly cozy atmosphere as the three of you crowded around your tiny table, bent over steaming bowls of fairly bland soup. 

“So how did you and Crosshair meet?” Omega asked, realizing that part had somehow been left out so far. 

“Who cares,” he grunted, casting a sideways glance at her.

“I do,” she said simply, and you found yourself smiling at the stark contrast between the two of them. 

“His squad was here a few times during the war. The first time, they were held up for… what was it? Technical issues?” You glanced at him, hoping for a better memory than your own, but he barely made an effort to lift a single shoulder in a noncommittal shrug, so you continued. “Well, something like that. The other times, I’m not quite sure what happened.” A wry smirk tugged at the corner of your lips. “He just happened to find himself here.”

“Hm. Well it’s nice to have old friends,” she nodded, missing the tiny look you flashed his way as she moved on to ask about your own life experiences.

* * * 

Another day of work, another evening of sitting by the fire. The quiet felt soothing, somehow. Perhaps you were imagining it, but it seemed to be some sort of salve for whatever he’d endured, and the sight of him allowing himself to relax, just a little, warmed your heart. You felt a bit jittery too, however, having come up with a plan that you hoped he’d agree to, but you were fully expecting to get raked over the coals for it too. So when Omega was fast asleep, and he had slumped further and further in his chair with the passing minutes, you rose to your feet, stretching the stiffness away. 

“Can you help me with something?” you ventured tentatively.

“No,” he said, not moving a muscle as he sat there with his eyes closed. You were equally miffed and amused, but the slight reminder of his old snark goaded you on. 

“Then get out,” you quipped. He cracked an eye to assess you with a squint. 

“No.”

“Okay,” you chuckled, “But please come here.” Your tone softened, an honest request, and he got up with an eyeroll. You led the way to your bedroom, which was really just a single bed stuffed against the wall with some space on the side and at the foot. 

“No,” was all he could say when you set foot inside and turned to face him, earning a little eyeroll and chuckle from you this time.

“That’s not what I’m–”

“Just leave me be,” he snapped, with a slight sharpness that sobered you up very quickly. 

“Alright, stop it.” You’d had enough, for now at least. “I get that you’ve been through it. And you can make yourself pay for all your terrible deeds for the rest of your life. But you’re not accomplishing anything by this… martyr stuff.”

“Say what you want,” he sniffed. “I’m not sleeping with you again.”

Now you did laugh, clapping a hand over your mouth at the flash of affront that quickly dissipated behind his sardonic expression. “Nope,” you shook your head, “Not where I was going. I want you to sleep here–”

“No.”

“--and I will sleep on an air pad in the living room,” you finished. “I borrowed one from my friend when we picked up the soup.”

“No.”

“Maker above, Crosshair!!” you breathed, thoroughly exasperated. “Just get one night of rest for your pathetic, sad body and stop insisting on being miserable!”

“How insensitive,” he hissed, lips pressed together as he scrutinized you with dark eyes. 

“If you don’t, I’m waking up Omega and kicking you both out.”

“Going after the kid? That’s just cruel,” he taunted.

“Yeah, well, I mean it,” you said, and he could tell by your tone that you did. There was a frustration that had risen like a dragon out of deep slumber, and your eyes glittered with challenge. “Now stop arguing with me, take a hot shower, and allow yourself one kriffing night of comfortable sleep.” Without waiting for a response, because you were fairly certain you’d start yelling if he said “no” one more time, you turned on your heel and marched out of the bedroom, closing the door behind you. 

You waited a moment in the hallway, half expecting him to come right back out, but it was quiet. A thought crossed your mind, based on what little you knew about what had happened to him, and you turned back, knocking once before opening the door. 

“Changed your mind?” he drawled.

“No,” you said obstinately. “But… I mean… You’re not a prisoner in there… But just… Like… You can go wherever you want… except… I want you to sleep there… So… Stay there… But you’re free to go… Oh kriff.” You could swear you saw the ghost of a smirk on his sharp features as you waved him off and closed the door again, and the tiny snort of mirth that reached your ears definitely wasn’t a figment of your imagination. The memories that surfaced suddenly were surprising in their potency – his strong fingers entwined with yours, hands clenched together on your pillow, his heavy breath against your neck – and you fought them off as you made your bed in the living room, trying, and not always succeeding, to write them off as relics of a past life.

* * * 

You knew one night of sleep wasn’t going to magically fix him, but there was a muted look on his face when he emerged the next morning, accepting your proffered cup of caf with a wordless tip of the chin. You left for work with the standard lecture of where everything was and how to avoid getting into trouble, which both he and Omega received with good-natured eyerolls and nods. They were scheduled to meet their friends the next morning, and you’d been shocked at the magnitude of care you felt toward both of them after just a few days. From what you’d gathered, they’d both been through suffering beyond belief, and you wished you could just snap your fingers and make it all go away. 

You made some tea that evening, as you returned to your customary seats by the fire, and he took the mug from your hand without any protest. You noticed later that he never actually drank any but left it steaming on the table beside him. The conversation was sparse, and you couldn’t quite determine why it was that he seemed so dreary when he was about to be reunited with his family. But there was no need to press, and you were grateful that he tolerated your company at all, considering the shell of a person he seemed to be. 

After a long silence, he got up, grimacing through some stiff stretches and turning to head toward the hallway.

“Ahem,” you said, arching an eyebrow as he looked back. “Where do you think you’re going?” You made no effort to hide the playful smirk on your face, thoroughly undeterred by his narrowed eyes in response.

“Bed.” 

“I said ‘one night’ of comfortable sleep,” you jabbed, watching him press his lips into a thin line at the way you’d caught him in a tricky position. He turned without a word to head back to the chair, but you were on your feet quickly, waving both hands with a dumb grin on your face. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Please. Go.”

He cast one last steely squint in your direction before disappearing, and you hoped that his old spark would continue to return, inch by inch, wherever he ended up. 

* * * 

The next morning, they were packed and ready at the door. Omega had given you a short, chaste hug and heartfelt thanks before heading outside, pausing to take a deep breath of the fresh air. Crosshair lingered for a moment, staring at the ground before muttering something under his breath. 

“What’s that?” you poked, stepping closer and tilting your head to try to catch his gaze. 

“Nothing,” he grumbled, lifting his chin to look at you evenly. 

“I believe the words are ‘thank you’, but if you need to get a few ‘no’s in there first, I’ll allow it.”

He snorted.

“I hope it all works out for you two,” you said, moving on to some sincerity. “I… I’m sorry for all that’s happened.” His brow furrowed for a moment before relaxing back into an expressionless line, and he stood silently, leaving you room to shift awkwardly on your feet and flex your hands at your sides. Everything simmering under the surface was hard for you to ignore, and you lifted one shaky hand toward his face, pausing as he stiffened at the sight of it. 

You lowered it slowly. 

“Sorry,” you whispered, returning it to your side. 

He reached forward suddenly, taking it and shaking it briefly, holding on for a split second, then letting go. 

“Thanks for everything.”

I really wanted there to be some cheek-cupping and head-stroking and the slow closing of the eyes in quiet allowance of affection. But he's just not there yet, in my estimation. So I kinda want to apologize for this existing at all, LOL, but whatever. 😂

[littlemissmanga]

Song of the Caged Bird (1/3)

Summary: Crosshair has failed. Still imprisoned on Tantis, he sees Omega and knows that his brothers didn't heed his warning. Unable to face his failure, he starts losing what little hope remained as he and his sister are offered as tribute to Hemlock's ambition. But every night, a voice echoing off the mountains soothes his battered and broken soul. But can Crosshair recover himself before that voice is silenced, forever?

Pairing: Crosshair x f!OC

Rating: PG-13 (there will be violence and a lot of dark thoughts and eventually a very vengeful Crosshair)

Tone: Hurt/comfort overall with a happy ending, but this first chapter will be 90% hurt with only 10% comfort.

Warnings: Some depressive/suicidal thoughts, imprisonment, threats of torture, characters dealing with grief and guilt spoiler if you haven't seen season 2 - Tech is dead in this fic, despite my beliefs to the contrary

Chapter w/c: 2,000

It was the constant tinkering near his head that dragged him back to consciousness.

Tap, tap, tap.

Nails against the light metal underneath him, pricking at his ears and sending sharp vibrations along the slab.

Damn Imps were even worse than the Kaminoans. At least the long necks would let him sleep after an experiment.

Arms and legs extended out from his body, cuffed and locked at the wrists and ankles for maximum exposure, Crosshair could feel the cold from the table seeping through his thin prison uniform. He didn’t remember passing out this time, but he already wished he could again.

The exhaustion was starting to wear on him. Though, if he were really being honest, the physical ache he felt in his bones was nothing he couldn’t handle.

It was the rest that was harder to ignore.

Crosshair was tired to the core of his being. Giving up was something wholly unfamiliar to him. The thought used to earn a sneer and a snide comment. But he was slowly coming to understand the allure. How easy it would be to just not wake up.

“Crosshair?”

What was he even waking up for? If he succeeded, his brothers would be far away with the kid. If he didn’t … well, he didn’t want to find that out, anyway.

“Crosshair!?”

The voice was louder that time, more insistent, and the sniper was aware enough to catch a quiver in his name. Emerie Karr had never so much as flinched in his presence. The discrepancy scratched at his brain, irritating until he opened his eyes.

And his heart sank.

Neatly combed blonde hair and large, sad brown eyes filled his vision.

“Crosshair! You’re awake! I was so worried; it was taking so long.” The kid threw herself on top of him, and if he had any air in his lungs, it would have been pushed out by the weight of her solid form pressing down on his.

The moment she pulled back, his eyes narrowed at her, ignoring the tear stains marking her cheeks and the spark of hope now hiding in the corner of her eyes.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Her face fell, and somewhere deep in his heart, Crosshair cared. But that didn’t matter. More important was the fact that she was here. His karking wanna-be hero brothers ignored the warning he risked his neck to send and the kid was still kidnapped.

It was only then that the cold shock of reality bit, clawing deep.

Hunter would never have let her go without a fight … or alone.

“The others?”

The kid sighed and fell back into a seat next to his table. “Safe, I think."

“You think?” he spit.

“Yeah. I think,” she snapped, though it lacked much bite. “I … I was able to distract the troopers long enough for Hunter and Wrecker to get free, and Echo was never captured. But I got grabbed. And I saw Maia in the transport with me.”

The name wasn’t familiar, but Crosshair knew who Omega was talking about. Her. That woman who had been with them on Kamino. The one they replaced him with in the squad mere rotations after they left him.

Of course she got caught, too. A kid and a civvie had no place in this.

“Figures. I risk my neck and you still get caught.” Crosshair strained against his bindings, his muscles aching from disuse. “I assume Tech at least got a tracker on your transport?”

It took a beat longer that it should have for Crosshair to realize the optimistic response he expected from the kid never came.

Omega’s silence said more than her incessant chattering ever did. Never in his life had Crosshair wanted her irritating, chipper voice to grate his ears as he did right then, and every moment he waited for it pulled at his heart until it felt stretched like the silence, far too thin to survive yet it was the heaviest weight he ever carried.

“Tech … he …”

Shut up, shut up, shut up.

“Shut up.”

How many times had he told his brother that? Told him to stop annoying him with his endless rants and useless information briefs?

But Crosshair didn’t dwell on the fact that he’d never tell Tech to shut up again. That the last thing he did say to him was cruel and spiteful. No, he didn’t focus at all on how he could feel the loss as acutely as he did the armor-penetrating cold on Barton IV.

Instead, he retreated to what he knew: turning pain to anger. He let it sit just as heavy as Omega’s silence, his accusations unsaid but understood. If they just karking listened to him, for once, Tech would still be alive.

It wasn’t long before Emerie Karr’s voice actually rang out, calling for Omega. And though he could feel the kid’s stare as she paused before leaving, he kept his face turned away.

He wanted to be left alone with his failure. And finally, he was getting his wish.

It was hours later when the Imps finally returned him to his cell. Just one of countless holding clones prisoner for experimentation and decommissioning.

The densely populated prison was surprisingly quiet, something for which Crosshair was thankful. The somber silence was as far from his experiences with his squad as possible. At least the regs could give him this.

Despite his muscles aching for use, Crosshair could only curl up on the pathetic excuse for a bed. He wanted the weight he felt to crush him, to actually wreck him the way it felt it could. Maybe then he’d be free.

A small part of his brain surged in resistance. Omega was here. He should keep her safe.

But he tried that before. And look where it got him. Where it got all of them.

Where it got Tech.

So instead, he let himself drown in the silence.

That is, until a small, frail sound made its way from somewhere above. A higher level of the compound, maybe. The echo made it difficult to pinpoint, but Crosshair didn’t care to know anyway.

It was a tune, hushed and broken. Its stuttering stops and starts were irritating, distracting him from his guilt and solitude until finally, the source seemed to gain enough strength to force the sound from their diaphragm.

"Somewhere … over the rainbow,

Way up high,

There's a land that I heard of

Once in a lullaby."

The staccato start had smoothed, and the voice rang through clean. It still wasn't loud, but it bounced off the fortress and surrounding mountain range, making it seem as if it were coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once.

Unable to block it out and unwilling to resist anything Tantis had left to throw at him, Crosshair gave in and lost himself in the sound.

"Somewhere over the rainbow

Skies are blue,

And the dreams that you dare to dream

Really do come true."

At first, he bristled at the words. But as the song kept repeating, the lyrics fell away. He felt the bittersweet tune envelope him and, after just a little longer, he allowed it to lull him to sleep.

And when the early morning light cut across his eyes and forced him from the blissful emptiness of his sleep the next morning, Crosshair intentionally ignored the fact that it was his first night without nightmares in weeks.

a/n: This is so not my usual style as I tend to be a fluff author all the way. BUT I had a scene pop into my head (it'll come in chapter 2) and this whole fic started unraveling. It'll be a 3-part series, not very long at all, and it'll be entirely from Crosshair's POV. I hope to get it done before Season 3 debuts so I get all my nerves out here and can still be hopeful for our boys canonically.

Taglist: (This is still broken cause I'm broke AF right now and can't upgrade my google storage so if your name isn't on here and you want to be alerted when Chapter 2 comes out, then drop a comment or DM and I'll add you to the list.

@dreamie411, @wings-and-beskar @starrylothcat @sev-on-kamino @wolffegirlsunite @secondaryrealm @idontgetanysleep @freesia-writes @clonemedickix @multi-fan-dom-madness @dystopicjumpsuit @sinfulsalutations @sunshinesdaydream @wizardofrozz @anxiouspineapple99 @dhawerdaverd @mythical-illustrator

People who liked my announcement post (Let me know if you want/don't want to be tagged going forward. I just wanted to let you know it was out since you showed interest): @ci-avmovies14 @rogue616, @marvel-starwarsfangirl

Like this fic? Check out the rest of my Masterlist!

[mandos-mind-trick]

Here's To The Future - Part 7: Bounty Lost

Summary: The war’s over. That should be cause for celebration, except the wrong side won. Things begin to change quickly, and it doesn’t take long for Midnight to realize something’s not right among the clone army. She should be glad the war is over, but the threat of her losing her boys is all too real. She did swear she would do everything she could to keep them from being separated when the war ended.

She’s not going to give up on that promise. Even if it kills her.

Pairing: The Bad Batch x reader (no clonecest)

Warnings: Angst, a bit of violence, injuries, angst, Hunter and Crosshair have some issues, brief discussion of torture, lots of cuteness and fluff though.

A/N: This one isn't really one of my favorites, it's more of a filler than anything as the story begins to shift away from canon and into my own little AU of how their stories play out.

The threesome is up next, though I'm busy this weekend and I want to work on other stuff, so it might not be up until Monday or later. We'll see.

< Previous | Next > | SERIES MASTERLIST | MAIN MASTERLIST

“I see things have been going well in my absence.” 

Hunter sighs, hands balling into fists. He resists the urge to turn around and throw a punch. He deserves it, after everything, but the snarky remarks are starting to get on Hunter’s nerves. 

He has bigger things to worry about. 

“I get why Bane took Omega, but why Midnight too?” Echo asks. 

“I think she knows him.” Hunter says. “She tried to warn me not to take the shot.” 

“How would she have met someone like him?” Wrecker asks. 

“It’s very likely she’s met all sorts of fugitives, pirates, and bounty hunters.” Tech says, stepping out of the cockpit. “She is from the Coruscant underground, where those types of unsavory characters flourish. I’m more surprised she hasn’t recognized more of them during our recent escapades. I’ve relayed a message to Cid. She will be in touch.” Tech pulls out his scanner, fiddling with it. 

“There’s another possibility.” Crosshair says. 

“What?” Hunter asks, turning around. 

“We were sent to Bracca to terminate a group of deserter clones.” He says flippantly. “But we were given special orders to bring Midnight back alive.” 

“Who gave those orders?” Echo asks. 

“Admiral Tarkin is putting together a nat-born army to replace the clones. He tested his idea using a small group of volunteer nat-born soldiers.” 

“We know that.” Hunter says. 

“It worked, to a point. Some of the nat-borns were...less willing to comply with orders. Tarkin wants to develop a way to control nat-borns as efficiently as clones.” 

“Mind control?” Echo asks, horrified. 

Crosshair smirks. “And who better to test it on than a highly skilled nat-born with unwavering loyalty to a group of deserter clones.” 

Hunter’s hands ball into fists. “That’s why you didn’t aim to kill on Kamino.” 

“I was given explicit directions. You were to be terminated, but Midnight was to be brought in alive.” 

“You think Tarkin would send bounty hunters after her?” Echo asks.

“News will have already reached him of my...compromised state.” Crosshair crosses his arms, leaning back in his seat. “He will only double down on retaking us both.” 

“Would Bane risk landing on Kamino openly?” Echo asks. 

“It is unlikely.” Tech answers. “Though he was wanted by the Republic, we cannot be certain if the Empire intends to prosecute those on the Republic’s list as well. Perhaps Cid will return us some valuable information regarding Bane. For now, it is in our best interest to ensure there is no present danger.” 

They all turn to look at Crosshair, his eyes narrowing at them. “It’s a bit unbelievable for you, Hunter, having such little trust in your teammate.” 

“After everything you’ve done, I have no trust in you at all.” Hunter says, meeting Crosshair’s glare unwaveringly. 

“I’m not talking about me.” 

Hunter deepens his glare, but Crosshair’s words slam into his chest as hard as Bane’s blaster shot. He does regret it now. The last thing he’d said to Midnight was that he couldn’t trust her and now she’s gone, in the hands of a brutal bounty hunter. The thought has been digging at him, ever since he’d come back to consciousness to find his worried squad mates asking where the girls are. 

Midnight knows Bane. Would she have left willingly? 

He doesn’t think she would have, not after risking everything to try and save Crosshair. 

To successfully save Crosshair. 

He won’t believe it. Not until he has proof. He hates it, that he has to distrust her. He had been so angry at her. Going off on her own like that, defying him so openly. It’s not the first time she’s done it, but those times had never been as high risk as what she had done to save Crosshair. 

He does regret his words, though. If something happens to her, he doesn’t want his last words to be that he can’t trust her. He does love her, but he has to think about the safety of his whole squad above all else. 

Tech calibrates the device, running the scan on Crosshair. They wait tensely, for the scan to be done, for Cid to get back to them, for any crumb they can find about where the girls are. Hunter needs to do something. 

If he’s not careful, it’s going to be punching the glare right off Crosshair’s face. 

“She was telling the truth.” Tech says. “His chip is gone.” 

He shows them his datapad, the place where the chip had shown up on previous scans of their minds missing from Crosshair’s. 

Guilt starts to chew away at Hunter. Of course she had been telling the truth. She wouldn’t have come back, risked leading Crosshair directly to them if she hadn’t been sure he was back to his normal, insufferable self. She wouldn’t have put them at risk like that. As much as she loves Crosshair, she’s not that careless. 

He’s already beginning to feel worse. 

But he can’t trust Crosshair. Not completely. 

Just because his chip is gone, doesn’t mean he’s changed. The Empire could have done something else, something worse to him, and they wouldn’t know. For all Hunter knows, as soon as they turn their backs, he’ll strike. 

***

“I have the girl.” 

“What is her condition?” 

“Alive, so I expect a premium.” 

“See that she stays that way.” 

“That depends on you. I’ll be at the rendezvous. Bring my unmarked credits.” 

Midnight frowns as Bane ends the call. So it was the Kaminoans that had sent the bounty hunters after Omega. Midnight had a sneaking suspicion there was more to the girl than they thought. After all, she is a female clone. She’s not enhanced, even as much as the regs are. 

This is going to complicate things. 

Midnight groans quietly, shifting her arms. They’re cuffed above her head to a bar. She can feel the strain in her shoulders already. She straightens her legs out in front of her, trying to stretch as much as she can. 

“You haven’t changed much.” Bane says, his back still turned to her. 

“How would you know?” She snaps, tugging at the cuffs. They’re not going anywhere, but she has to try. “It’s been, what, ten years since my mom took pity on you?”

“Bad decision on her part.” Bane smirks. “Then again, she never was very smart, was she?” 

“You don’t know anything.” Midnight snaps at him. She knows he’s not wrong, but she won’t tolerate anyone speaking ill about her mother, especially him. 

Bane turns in his seat, glaring down at her. “I see it runs in the family.” 

Midnight’s jaw clenches, her hands balling into fists. “Where’s Omega.” 

“She’s fine.” Bane says, stepping down from his seat. “I get paid more if she’s alive.” He kneels in front of her, grabbing her chin. 

“Why take me too?” She asks, partially out of genuine curiosity.

Bane smirks at her, running a thumb over her lips. “You’re nice to look at.” 

He releases her, taking his seat once more. 

***

Midnight braces her foot against the wall, tugging hard at the restraints. Her wrists are raw and sore, the metal biting into her skin. The bar groans as she pulls, but it won’t give. 

Bane is gone, and likely so is Omega. She has to get to them before he can hand her off to the Kaminoans. She’s not going to give Omega up that easily, even if it means having to go up against Cad Bane again. 

She tugs harder at the restraints, groaning in pain as her wrists strain against the metal. 

“What are you doing?” 

She pauses, turning her head to look at the service-droid. “I...” She looks down at her hands before looking back at the droid. “I have to use the fresher.” 

“Nice try.” The droid says. “Under no circumstances am I allowed to set you free.” 

“Please.” She puts as much desperation in her voice as she can. “I really have to go.” 

“Mr. Bane said I must not let you out of the cockpit.” The droid says, staying firm on his stance. 

Midnight looks down at the floor, thinking. She needs to get these cuffs off and find Omega. “You’d you prefer I go right here? Bane’s going to make you clean it up.” 

The droid pauses before turning back to her. “Just to the fresher?” 

Midnight nods. “I swear.” 

The droid removes one of her cuffs, Midnight swinging as soon as the cuff is off. The droid slides across the floor, sparking a bit. She hadn’t planned on hitting it that hard. She didn’t know she could hit that hard. 

She climbs down from the cockpit, glancing around the hull. Omega is nowhere to be seen, not that she had expected her to still be in the ship. Midnight looks through the opened closets, finding a spare blaster. She’s going to need that if she’s going to go up against Bane. 

She takes off running before the droid can fully recover, heading into the building. They look just like the facilities on Kamino, but they’ve long been abandoned. Midnight hurries into the building, trying to wave away the dense fog inside. 

The sound of blaster fire somewhere above draws her attention. Her heart is pounding in her chest. What’s happening? Did the Kaminoans trick Bane? That’s not really their style, she thinks. Is someone else here? Have the boys found them already? She hadn’t seen the Marauder, but then again, she hadn’t really looked. 

She presses onwards, following the sound of the blaster fire. Her stomach twists nervously. She needs to find Omega. She needs to make sure she’s safe. The thought of something happening to her...she’d never forgive herself. 

Midnight peeks around a corner, blaster in hand. She can hear footsteps coming, her grip on her blaster tightening. She turns the corner, blaster ready. 

Relief floods through her. 

“Omega!” 

“Midnight!” The young girl runs straight to Midnight, Midnight waiting with open arms. 

Midnight wraps her arms around Omega, holding her tightly. “Are you alright?” 

“Fennec Shand is here.” She says, pulling away from Midnight. “She killed Taun We.” 

Both of them here? Midnight knows she won’t stand a chance against both of them together. “We need to get out of here.” 

“I contacted the others but the signal wasn’t strong enough. Tech said we need to create a power surge.” 

Midnight’s brow furrows. The chances of them finding something to do that, and having enough time to do it, are low. Not with two bounty hunters on their tail. 

“I’ve got a better idea.” She says, removing Omega’s cuffs. “We’re going for Bane’s ship.” She takes Omega’s hand, heading back in the direction she’d come from. “Even if we can find a way to contact them, there’s no guarantee they’ll make it in time.” 

“So we’re going to steal a ship?” Omega asks. 

“We’re going to try.” Midnight says, determined. 

It’s a bit of a crazy plan, but then again, rescuing Crosshair had been as well, and that had worked in the end. She only hopes her luck won’t run out. It’s not just her to worry about this time. It’s Omega as well. 

If anything happens to her, Hunter will never forgive her. 

She’ll never forgive herself. 

“I wouldn’t bother trying.” 

Midnight comes to a stop, pushing Omega behind her as she points her blaster at Shand. “Why are you here?” 

“I took a job.” Shand says, removing her helmet. “And I hate leaving things unfinished.” 

“I won’t let you take her.” Midnight says, backing up a couple steps. There’s a hallway within reach. All she has to do is distract Shand and Omega can run for it. 

“You’re a good soldier, but you’re not going to win this one.” 

“I’ve faced worse odds.” Midnight tightens her grip on her blaster. 

“I’m trying to help.” Shand says, taking a step closer. 

“You said the same thing on Pantora.” Omega says, tightening her grip on Midnight’s hand. 

“There you are!” Bane’s droid appears down the hall behind Shand. “You are coming with-” The droid is cut off as Shand turns, tossing a knife at it. 

Midnight and Omega are already halfway down the hall by the time she turns back around, racing towards the landing platform. 

Midnight pushes as fast as she can, Omega keeping a hold of her hand as they weave through the hallways. She prays they don’t run into Bane or his droid on their way. It had been luck that had gotten them away from Shand, but she doesn’t trust that luck to hold much longer. 

They reach the landing platform, Midnight breathing heavily as they board Bane’s ship. Her hands are shaking from the adrenaline as she climbs into the cockpit, Omega right behind her. She powers on the ship, praying to whatever deities she can think of that they can take off before Bane notices. 

Or before Shand gets to her own ship. 

The ship rocks as she lifts it off the ground, her grip on the controls unsteady. She’d learned the basics of flying during her training, and Tech had taught her a few times how to pilot the Marauder, but she was by no means an expert. This isn’t a starfighter or the Marauder. 

“Hang on.” She says, pushing the ship as fast as she can towards the atmosphere. 

It’s a rough flight, Midnight not relaxing her grip on the controls until the atmosphere is gone, replaced by the inky blackness of space. As unnerving as it can be sometimes, she’s never been happier to see it. 

She puts the ship on autopilot, typing in the comm channel. “Echo? Tech?” She says, getting static. “Anyone?”

“Midnight?” 

She’s never been more relieved to hear Hunter’s voice. She feels like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders. So he had survived Bane’s shot. “We’re here. We’re alright.” 

“Where are you? Send us coordinates.” 

“We’re in the Lido system.” She says. 

“Midnight stole a ship.” Omega says proudly. 

“She did what?” Hunter asks in disbelief. 

“I’ll tell you later.” Midnight says, flipping through the navigator. “I’m making the jump to the next system over. We can’t risk staying here much longer. I’ll send coordinates and meet you there.” 

“Midnight,” Hunter says, his voice low and thick with emotion. “Be careful.” 

A small smile tugs at her lips. “It’s a bit late for that.” 

She sends the coordinates, jumping the ship into hyperspace. She doesn't relax until the familiar blue is flashing around them. She leans back in the seat, reaching over for Omega. She lifts the young clone into her lap, wrapping her arms around her. 

“I’m so glad you’re alright.” She breathes, resting her cheek on top of Omega’s head. 

“I’m glad you were there.” Omega says, leaning against her. “I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t.” 

Midnight smiles. “I’m sure you would have figured something out. But I’m glad you weren’t alone. I promised I’d always be there.” 

Midnight holds Omega as they fly through hyperspace, her eyes beginning to droop. It’s been a very long past few days and she’s ready for a break. She knows it’s not over, though. She’s going to have hell to pay once Hunter sees her. He’s had plenty of time to think over what he’s going to say. 

She’s in for quite the reprimanding. 

***

The ship beeping as they near their destination wakes her. She hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep. Omega is asleep as well, still tucked against her chest. She drops the ship from hyperspace, heading towards the small desert planet. It’s mostly uninhabited, perfect to drop Bane’s ship and meet the others without risking being seen. 

She lands in an empty spot, relaying the beacon so the guys can find her. Omega stirs as she relaxes in the seat again, Midnight wrapping an arm back around her. She’d let the girl sleep as long as possible. She’s had a rough few days too. She deserves it. 

Not long after they’ve landed, the proximity alarm begins going off. Midnight doesn’t relax until the Marauder sits down next to Bane’s ship. Midnight shakes Omega awake, the young girl groaning and rubbing her eyes. 

“They’re here.” Midnight says, lifting her back to her feet. “Let’s go.” 

Omega seems to perk up a bit, excitedly climbing down the ladder. Midnight opens the hatch, stepping out into the bright sun. Hunter’s already halfway to their ship, Omega running to meet him. She slams into him, wrapping her arms around his waist. 

He grimaces for a moment, his abdomen wrapped with bandages. So he hadn’t totally been protected against the shot, but at least it hadn’t been fatal. 

He kneels down in front of her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Are you okay, Omega? Are you hurt?” 

“Why is this happening?” Omega cries. “Why are the Kaminoans after me?” 

“Hunter, you have to tell her.” Echo says. 

Hunter sighs. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll explain everything.” 

Wrecker picks up Omega, holding her close. “Good to have you back, kid.” 

Hunter stares at Midnight, her gaze lowered to her hands. She’s ready, prepared for the yelling, the reprimanding. 

She’s shocked when arms wrap around her, pulling her against a warm chest. She leans into Hunter’s arms, squeezing her eyes shut. 

“Thank you.” He says, leaning the side of his head against hers. 

“For what? I was just keeping my promise.” Midnight shakes her head. “I meant it.” 

He squeezes her tighter for just a moment. “Come on. Let’s get out of here, then we can all have a long talk.” 

***

Hunter tucks the blanket closer around them, a small smile tugging at his lips. Midnight is going to be sore when she wakes up. She’s curled up on Omega’s sleeping pad, wrapped around the young clone. He’d heard every word of their quiet conversation, until both of them had dropped off into sleep. He had debated moving her, but he can’t bring himself to. 

They’d had a long discussion over ration bars. They’d talked about Omega and why the Kaminoans were after her. They’d talked about Cad Bane and Midnight’s history with him. They’d briefly discussed what had happened while Crosshair was with the Empire and their current situation. 

Above all, they were just happy the girls were back and safe. 

Hunter pulls the curtain closed, making his way back towards the bunks. Crosshair is pulling the extra blanket from his bunk, the one Midnight had added. 

“She slept there the whole time you were gone.” Hunter says. “She never gave up on you.” 

“She seems to be the only one.” Crosshair says. 

“I had to worry about my squad first.” Hunter tries to defend himself. 

“I was part of that squad once. You left me behind.” He scathes, narrowing his eyes at Hunter. 

“What did you expect me to do when you were ready to kill us any chance you could?” He takes a step closer to the sharpshooter, ready to defend himself if he needs to. 

“That didn’t stop Midnight.” Crosshair seethes. “I was still in there, you know. I remember all of it. They tortured me, played with my mind, strengthened the chip’s control as much as they could. I was still under there, watching as someone else controlled me.” 

Hunter deflates a bit at Crosshair’s words. He didn’t know what it was like. He’d been saved from having to experience that. Wrecker hadn’t spoken about it, not that he would ever ask him to. “You’re right. Maybe I did give up too quickly.” 

“I don’t want your apologies.” Crosshair snaps. “You still don’t trust me.” 

“I can’t. Not yet.” Hunter goes to move past him, but pauses as Crosshair responds. 

“Trust me on this, then, Hunter. If I wanted to, I would have already.” 

Taglist:

@amyroswell, @dangraccoon, @hunnythebee, @lokigirlszendaya, @kriffingmeshla, @storm-breaker7, @burningfieldof-clover,

[tikkisfanart]

The Return of Thrawn… and C’baoth?

Story hypothesis of how The Bad Batch season 3 could re-canonize Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire

(Spoiler warning for The Bad Batch season 2, and The Mandalorian season 3)

Before the Ahsoka show came out, I figured I would read the Thrawn books to prep for the show. Even though the first several books were de-canonized after Disney bought the franchise, I feel that Dave Filoni has tried to be respectful to Timothy Zahn’s original character of Thrawn and his story. I feel like it could still be possible to bring back a lot from the original book, Heir to the Empire.

First off, I want to just point out that the events in Ahsoka do not necessarily have to replace the original story. In Heir to the Empire, we are not given the “how” of Thrawn’s return. In fact, he was a mysterious warlord that the original saga heroes didn’t know existed until he just suddenly showed up. The first season of Ahsoka could just be the bridge between Rebels and Heir to the Empire to explain this return.

Even though there are some things in the new canon that has changed, I do think there are other things that could still be revived through the final season of The Bad Batch. Anyone else who has read Heir to the Empire may have thought about this too, but I just wanted to share my hypothesis.

Mount Tantiss, and the Guardian

In Heir to the Empire, Thrawn travels to Wayland—where Mount Tantiss is located. While there, Thrawn seeks the Guardian and wants him to take him to the emperor’s storehouse inside the mountain. He encounters a strange, old man who says he could lead him to the Guardian. The old man takes him to the crypt of the Guardian and proudly proclaims that he killed the Guardian.

Mount Tantiss is the secret cloning laboratory of the new empire in The Bad Batch—the one where Omaga and Crosshair are being held. I suspect that “the Guardian” of Mount Tantiss is Dr. Royce Hemlock.

As the story continues, the man claims to be the jedi master Joruus C’baoth. He actuality turns out to be a clone of the dark jedi Jorus C’baoth, who disappeared before the Clone Wars. In Ahsoka, perhaps Baylan Skoll could have been the “replacement” dark jedi for the new canon. However, I feel like they could still bring C’baoth back.

Force cloning

I hypostasize that in The Bad Batch the secret project that Hemlock wants Nala Se to work on is the cloning of the dark jedi—but not just the cloning of the man, himself, but also the cloning of the ability to wield the force.

I know some people suspect that Omega is an experiment of this kind of force cloning. Perhaps she is. I actually suspect that all the original members of the Bad Batch might be as well. Perhaps the attempt to clone force sensitivity is what gave each of them their special enhancements. However, the difference is that they cannot wield the force. Force wielding is what Hemlock wants Nala Se to clone, and it actually does work. The clone of C’baoth can wield the force.

That brings to question: if force cloning is possible, why does Moff Gideon have trouble with it? In The Mandalorian season 3, he admits that this is why he needed blood from Grogu—because he needed a force sensitive subject to clone force sensitivity. But why doesn’t it work for him? It is well after The Bad Batch, so why did he not have the knowledge to complete it? I suspect that the knowledge was lost when Mount Tantiss fell, and that is something that The Bad Batch may just explain.

The Clone Rebellion and the Fall of Mount Tantiss

There is no question that at the end of The Bad Batch, there will be a final battle at Mount Tantiss to free Omega, Crosshair, and all of their clone brothers.

Before reading the Thawn books, I suspected that during this inevitable infiltration the Zillo beast would play a big part and possibly be the downfall of Hemlock. However, my hypothesis changed when I read Heir to the Empire and clone C’baoth claimed to have killed the emperor’s guardian. I do think the Zillo beast will still play a big role in the fall of Mount Tantiss, but it will not be the one to end Hemlock. C'baoth will be. It would be poetic irony: the project that Hemlock obsessed so much over would ultimately bring his demise.

Mount Tantiss has returned from de-canonization, so it is possible that the Guardian, force cloning, and C’baoth may all be brought back as well. They could all be revived in the final season of The Bad Batch, paving the way for the Heir to the Empire movie. Perhaps not everything in the original canon has been lost. On the other hand, perhaps Dave Filoni and the creators are planning to actually take it all in a different direction, but I can see how they could still bring back the original canon if they want. But that is just my hypothesis. If anything, I hope you enjoyed my nerdy ramble.

[corvusalbus93]

Reunion: Omega

In Mt. Tantiss Omega is finally reunited with Tech, if only for a short while.

Sometime in the future...

Omega rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, not feeling quite awake yet, fairly certain it was still night. It was difficult to judge the passage of time, as she had not seen the sun in...well, weeks perhaps. She really couldn’t tell at this point, and only had a rough idea based on the number of meals she’d received.

All she knew for certain was that Emerie Karr had woken her up a couple of minutes ago, and was now taking her to a part of the facility she’d never been to. Frankly, Omega was too tired at the moment to worry about where they were going and if their previous interactions were anything to go by she’d be fine. Relatively.

Omega still didn’t like her much. Sure, Emerie was nicer to her than anyone else in this base, though that wasn’t much of a contest, but the girl still didn’t quite believe that Emerie was her sister. Even if, she was a stranger, someone working for the Empire. How could Omega trust her?

Besides, Omega didn’t want a sister thrust into her life like this, not after Eriadu. She just wanted Tech back. She wanted to be with her brothers again, all five of them.

In her first “nights” here, Omega had found herself crying more often than ever before in her life, while her dreams were haunted by Tech’s sacrifice. When have we ever followed orders? The words rang in her mind, as she’d watch helplessly from a distance as he took aim and fired. Frozen she’d see him fall over and over again, each time waking up as she called out to him, sometimes finding herself upright in bed, reaching out into the darkness.

She had lost Kamino, her old home, but with her brother by her side and the Marauder as her new home it had been somewhat easy to carry on. Losing the ship and Echo had been harder after that, like something had been shaking on the very foundations of her family. But this time she was alone, the loss was permanent and there no way to replace her brother.

Omega glared at Emerie. She would not let this woman, who appeared to be Hemlock’s right hand assistant or something, take advantage of her sorrow.

“Are you this angry at me for waking you up?” Emerie suddenly asked, breaking the silence.

Unwilling to answer, Omega merely twisted her mouth and looked away. As they took a turn into another corridor, she pulled up her shoulders, hugging herself to keep warm. As they appeared to be underground, this base was well ventilated, a little too well in certain areas. “Where are you taking me?”

Emerie smiled, as if happy the young girl finally spoke to her. “The laboratories...”

“So you can perform tests on me?” Her mind wandered back to Crosshair and she suppressed a shudder.

“Nothing of the sorts, Omega. It’s more of a concession, but you have to promise me not to tell Dr. Hemlock; he hasn’t exactly signed off on this.”

The girl frowned. Why would she go behind his back? Maybe she was lying; after all, Emerie had been trying to gain Omega’s trust from the very beginning, so this could be just a ploy. “Why would I want to go visit your laboratories? Whatever you and Empire are doing here, I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

“It’s not about our work, but you will see. You might even thank me later.”

Omega very much doubted that, but was too tired to argue further. They continued to walk in silence, until they reached a guarded door. Despite the helmets, Omega could feel the TK-troopers eyes on her and did her best to ignore them. Emerie scanned her identification, the door soundly unlocking a moment later, and the guards stood aside to let them in.

“Come on.”

The young girl stepped inside, greeted by the light of half a dozen screens. It was a small lab, and given the setup meant to be used for analysis rather than any practical lab work. It was really just a few computers and screens showing data and models of anything from DNA-sequences to fully folded proteins and other complex biopolymers, as well as a central table, capable of holo-projections.

Aside from a commando standing guard inside by the door, there was only one other person still working at this hour, sitting in front of one of the computers in a repoulsorlift-chair. Omega squinted, as there was something familiar about this man, the way he was leaning forward, the hair. He turned his head. He kind of looked like...

...

Tech rubbed his eyes and the bridge of his nose, trying to stay awake. There was still a dull pain whenever he touched the latter, but at least the fracture had healed completely. As he pulled his hand back, his new pair of glasses slid back into place. He still wasn't quite used to them, which made him take them off every now and then, to give his nose a break.

He sighed tiredly as his eyes wandered back to the screen.

These last few days had been exhausting. Since day he'd woken up in the medical bay, Nala Se had been instructing him about Kaminoan cloning and genetic engineering. Lessons that Kaminoan scientist learned over several years he was now meant to absorb within mere weeks. Even with his enhanced intellect that was no small feat, but Nala Se kept pushing forward and it was taking its toll.

It didn’t help that his body was still healing, which took much of his strength and Tech had taken notice how quickly he tired, feeling drained by the end of each day. But he knew Hemlock was keeping track of his progress, so he could ill afford to slow down.

Tech hadn’t seen either of his siblings since the Imperial chief scientist had used them as leverage, but the clone had a feeling that he would be witness to any punishment they would receive for his failures.

Of course it could also mean that Hemlock was experimenting on them without him knowing, something Tech feared, but was powerless to prevent. It was as Hemlock had said; Tech’s cooperation would prevent further suffering, nothing more.

No, there was no point in thinking about that. More and more he was trusted to work independently, with only a single guard being in the same room at all times, which allowed him to finally set his own plans in motion.

Anyone watching him right now would merely see a program running simulations on recently proposed DNA-edits and their effects amino acid synthesis, but in the background Tech’s own software was slowly working on cracking various security measures. A first step.

Speaking of the screen, Tech watched as the simulation discovered the first defective protein, a result of the changed DNA-sequence. Naturally, Tech had expected this, but the program took longer and if he could waste Hemlock’s time without putting his siblings in danger, he would gladly do so as much as possible.

And there was still the rest of the edited sequence left to analyse. Maybe he could rest a little until the programs had finished. He wasn’t granted much time to sleep, only the bare minimum, which not only added to him tiring more easily, but he suspected further slowed his recovery.

Just as he was about to lean back into his hover-chair, he could hear one of the doors opening and twisted his mouth. Of course they had to check on him now.

He turned around, expecting to see either Hemlock or more likely Nala Se, but to his surprise saw another scientist and by her side was...

“Tech?” There was his sister, staring at him in disbelief, with wide eyes and mouth agape.

“Omega?”

The sound of his voice seemed to break some kind of spell, as suddenly her eyes filled with tears and she ran across the small room, as he turned his hover chair around. “Tech!” she cried mere moments before all but talking him, the force of impact pushing his chair back against the console. “How? I saw you fall!” Her arms wrapped themselves around him, head against the crook of his neck. “I thought...I thought you...”

Here she was, alive and unharmed by the looks of it, yet he was barely able to suppress a wince. His ribs were protesting, a sharp pain briefly rushing across his chest, and frankly, being hugged like this was...strange.

Close, physical contact was not something he was used to or generally desired, but he looked down at his sister, clearly shaken and in tears, and so resolved to bear it despite how awkward he felt. Besides, another part of him was simply happy to see her again, and he found himself not minding as much as expected. Gently he rested a hand on her head in a gesture he hoped was comforting.

“I was able to guide my fall, merely sustaining severe injuries upon impact. Eventually, I was found by a search party and brought here by Hemlock.” Upon him mentioning his injuries, Omega started hugging him more tightly, until finally he could no longer hide it and he flinched in pain. “Argh; careful.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Omega gasped, immediately letting go, though remaining on his lap. Her fingers gingerly hovered over his hands, has he pressed them against his still healing ribs. “Tech, your chest...and what happened to your face?”

He took a deep breath, or as deep as he was able, while the pain slowly faded. “Among my other injuries I sustained multiple fractured ribs. As to my facial scars; I was hit by several branches during my descent. While they slowed my fall at least one shattered my goggles, resulting not only in a broken nose bridge, but several lacerations.” Having seen them just this morning, Tech knew that while the bruises had healed, the cuts running across his eyes hadn’t completely. Still, as they didn’t impair him like his other injuries, he paid them no mind.

“I’m not aggravating any other injuries, right?” Omega asked, looking down since she was sitting on his lap at this point.

“No, my femurs were not fractured, if that’s what you are worried about.”

“But the chair.”

“Ah yes. Unfortunately, I lost voluntary motor function from the waist down, as the result of a spinal cord injury.”

Her eyes got wider than he’d ever seen. “You can’t walk?”

“Afraid not, though I suspect this ability could eventually be restored with the proper treatment. As I have no access to my medical file, I am unable to confirm this, however,” he replied truthfully.

New tears welled up in Omega’s eyes, which she quickly tried to wipe away. “We should have come back for you; we shouldn’t have left you there!” she sniffed.

Tech frowned. “You had no reason to assume I would survive my fall. Besides, had you come for me, all of you would have been inevitably captured or killed. Speaking of; what happened after we...parted ways?”

“The sky rail...we crashed into the station. I don’t remember much, but the others carried me back to the Marauder while we were pursued. When I woke up again, we were at Cid’s, getting treated by AZI.” He saw her fists clench and anger seeped into her voice. “But Cid betrayed us. She told the Empire. Hemlock came himself and told us you were dead, that they only found your goggles and demanded Hunter hand me over.”

“I’m certain he refused.” None of his brothers would give her up without a fight, which, considering she was here with him, had troubling implications.

“Yeah, but they, uhm....got me anyway,” Omega admitted sheepishly.

“Yes, so I’ve noticed. Were the others taken as well?” While he couldn’t deny feeling anger at Cid’s betrayal, Tech wasn’t surprised considering her past actions, threats and Millegi’s warning. But what mattered now was finding out if his brothers were alright, not just for their sake, but because Tech’s plan hinged on them being still out there.

“Last time I saw them, Hunter and Wrecker were brought to a shuttle.” She grabbed his arm, looking excited, as if she’d suddenly thought of something. “But Echo was still at the Marauder.”

Tech considered this for a moment. “Then there is a chance they are still out there.” After all, Hemlock had never used them to pressure him, like he did with Omega or Crosshair. Besides, he knew how capable Echo was, and it wouldn’t be the first time his brothers made a last minute escape. “Knowing my brothers, they’re looking for you as we speak, if they are indeed still out there.”

“But how are they going to find us here?” His sister rightfully pointed out. “I’ve been here for weeks and all I could learn is that this base is located within a mountain.” Tantiss. Tech had learned the name of the base, though it meant nothing to him and like her knew little else.

He glanced over to his guard and the scientist. They were still beside the door, the woman talking or questioning the Commando by the looks of. Still, it seemed safer to keep his voice low. “While I don’t know what they are doing to find this base, I am working on getting a message out.”

“You are?” Thankfully, Omega had caught on quickly and spoke more quietly now as well.

He nodded. “Crosshair’s was easily discovered, but I’m confident that in time I’ll be able to leave hidden patterns in transmissions send out from this base for our brothers to find and trace back. Ones the Empire hopeful won’t be able to notice unless they know exactly what to look for.”

“But the others will?”

“My hope is that at least Echo will.” They’d worked closely together since Anaxes and with his cybernetic enhancements Echo could perceive data differently from any other human, when using his scomp link. Additionally, he was now the most likely to still be free, and had been looking to find Hemlock’s base of operation since before re-joining them on Pabu. “It is a gamble, but I’m afraid that is all I can do without endangering us all for the time being.”

“How are you getting access? I’m hardly let out of my cell, unless...” She paused, all of the sudden looking appalled. “You’re helping them?”

Her disappointment was expected, the way seeing it now in person affected him was not, but he had made his choice for sound reasons. Tech sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. Your wellbeing, as well as Crosshair’s, were made conditional on my assistance.”

“But the clones here, all these people that are going to get hurt...”

Tech grasped her arm. “Omega, there are not always optimal solutions. Those clones here would have suffered regardless of my participation. As for helping Hemlock and the Empire, I have to admit while I am aiding their efforts at the moment, I only provide them with just enough to keep my end of the agreement. Additionally, I’ve started hacking into their system, creating hidden backdoors that should eventually allow me to tap into everything in this facility,” he explained, nodding toward the computer beside them. “Once our brothers come to get you out of here, I’ll be free to destroy every bit of data compiled, everything they’ve gained from their research here and hopefully undo some of what I’ve done. I can’t allow this research to continue.” Of course that wouldn’t affect anything stored off-site, but it would still represent a significant loss to the Empire. Maybe then he could rest a little easier.

“There must be some way I can help.”

She said it with such conviction that Tech was certain she would try something foolish unless he directed her. Then again, he would probably need someone’s assistance. “There might be. I’m still working out the details, but I might need to access other computers to complete my hidden network.”

Her eyes all but lit up. “You want me to do it for you?”

“If there is no other way. I’m reluctant to put you into further danger, and I would have to construct the proper tools first.” It would have to be a discreet device, something she could quickly insert.

“Tech, I know you are trying to protect me, but I’m not safe here, no matter what you do. You gotta let me know how I can help; I don’t want to just sit around and wait,” Omega implored, before glancing over her shoulder to their respective chaperones. “They’ve already done something to Crossahair, they’ve examined my DNA...I don’t care what Hemlock promised you, but he won’t leave us alone.”

“I’m acutely aware of that, but at this point I don’t have enough information to point you at a specific target. Do you think you will be allowed to visit me again?”

“Emerie is still trying to gain my trust. I think if I play nice, she might allow me to see you again.” Omega paused, as if something troubled her. “She...she says she’s my sister.”

“Interesting.” Curious, though that would mean that this woman shared their accelerated aging, while also serving as a scientific assistant rather than a soldier. A prototype or previous attempt before Omega had been created, perhaps. Or did Jango Fett have a biological sister? In that case she would technically be their sister as well. No, those questions had to wait, especially with no way to verify any of his theories. “Do you believe her?”

“I’m not sure, but she works for Hemlock, so I don’t think we can trust her.”

Wise. “No, but perhaps she can be of use regardless. See if you can convince her to bring you round regularly. Maybe next time I have something you can help me with.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” He noticed movement in the corner of his eyes and as he looked up, watched the scientist approaching them, having ended her conversation with his guard. “Ah, I guess this is it.”

Quickly his sister took hold of his shirt, fingers digging into the fabric, until her knuckled paled. “No, I just found you again!”

Before Tech could reply, the woman reached them. “Omega, I’m afraid we’ll have to leave.” While firm, her tone was not without warmth. If she really cared a little about Omega that would make matters simpler.

Meanwhile, Omega didn’t even turn around, still looking at her brother. “Can I see him again?” A little early for that question in Tech’s opinion, but it was too late to stop her now.

“Maybe. His work is important, so we shouldn’t be distracting him too often.”

“I can multitask. Besides, it would be good to know, if Hemlock kept his side of our deal,” he added with a meaningful glare.

This Emerie seemed to consider his words for a moment. “Well, maybe not in the near future, but I’m sure another visit can be arranged.”

Omega remained reluctant. “Tech...?”

He nodded; this was probably the best they could hope for anyway at this point. “Go, I’ll be fine. Just keep out of trouble.”

“That’s not what I’m good at,” she noted with a weak smile.

“That’s why I’m reminding you.” Then, with a small smile of his own, he added. “Stay safe.”

“You too.”

“Come on, Omega.”

Slowly his sister slipped off his lap and followed the scientist, though she looked back one more time and waved before disappearing into the dimly lit corridor. Tech sank back into his hover chair, eyes lingering on the closed door a while longer.

A million thoughts were running through his mind, already devising new plans, required gadgets and equipment. He would have to procure the pieces in secret. Perhaps he could cause a malfunction at one of the computers to get a chance to rummage through the hardware.

With each new idea is mood improved. His mind was always active; it was nice to have it fully occupied with concepts to help his family once again, if only for a little while.

Beside him the computer emitted a subtle hum, catching his attention. On screen another faulty peptide  had been revealed, but the sound told Tech that the background program had done its job. Pretending to go over the new date, he checked on his malware.

It had worked. Not surprising of course, he’d written the program himself, but he noted the sense of satisfaction as he freely accessed the computers of the labs on this level surrounding his.

The first step in creating his personal network.

The first crack in Tantiss’ defences.

___

A bonus/continuation to Aftermath

[leapingbadger]

Entangled - Chapter 1 - The Mission

Here it is! the first chapter of my Fennter fic. I really hope you enjoy it; I had a blast writing it. I don't know how frequently I'll be adding chapters, but the story is complete so likely pretty frequently.

Rating: T

Please note: this isn't smut (because honestly, I have no idea how to write that convincingly) so if you're looking for that I'm sorry in advance to disappoint. However, there is a little suggestive content in the final chapter. The violence depicted is a little darker than what's in the show and there are a few morally ambiguous torture adjacent moments. If you think I should change the ratings, just let me know.

***

Hunter sat on the couch in the common room of his house on Pabu. The blue light from the comm was the only light in the dark room. It was a rare quiet, solitary evening until the comm lit up with an incoming transmission.

Hunter smiled as he recognized the pale face and amber eyes of his brother, Echo looking back at him.

“It’s been a long time. Was starting to think you forgot about us,” he said.

Echo had the common sense to look sheepish as he made his excuses. Hunter waved off his comments. He knew Echo had more pressing things to concern himself with of late. It didn’t stop Hunter from missing him though.

“Where are the others?” Echo asked, peeking around as if Hunter was hiding Omega, Wrecker and Crosshair behind him.

“They’re at the crest. There’s an arts and craft show, and Crosshair’s been selling some of his paintings.”

Echo raised his eyebrows, “Well, you’ll have to tell them I say hi when they get back.”

Hunter nodded, “So, how’s everything going?” he asked,

“Eh, you know it’s not easy work but we’re slowly finding more brothers to join the cause. Emery’s been helpful, able to counteract some of the conditioning. We’re basically a chip removal service at this point.”

Hunter laughed, “You’re being careful though, right?” he said, concern in his voice. `

Echo laughed and scratched the back of his neck. “I mean, as careful as I always am.” He said with a chuckle. “Besides, I was only in imperial custody for a couple of…”

“Imperial custody? Echo!”

“It was a tiny occupation in the outer rim, Hunter. They thought I was a droid. Put a restraining bolt on me and everything. I’m sure it won’t get back to Coruscant.”

Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose and felt the familiar looming headache that was associated with one of his brother’s reckless antics. It was just unusual that Echo was the offending brother.

“Why didn’t you call for help?”

Echo looked shifty, like he was searching aimlessly for the right words.

“Even if I did, Hunter, you don’t have ship. You wouldn’t have been able to get to me in time. But I made it out.”

The words stung even if Hunter knew he was right. Since the Marauder was blown up, they had to rely solely on Rex, Echo or Phee for transportation. Shuttles arrived from neighboring planets occasionally but not frequently enough to be of any use.

“You’re right.” He said glumly.

“Have you had any luck finding a replacement?”

“We’re a little short of credits right now. Can’t exactly barter for it like we do everything else.”

Echo nodded, “what about the salvage? Can you piece something together?”

“Not if we want it to fly,” Hunter said morosely. “Got any suggestions in how we can make some money?”

“Crosshair’s paintings?” Echo said with a smile.

Hunter scowled at him. Not because Crosshair wasn’t talented, but Pabu functioned mostly on a bartering system. Hunter, Wrecker and Crosshair had managed to precure food, furnishings and clothes by doing odd jobs around the village. Wrecker had a permanent job at the docs but that didn’t pay in credits.

Echo sighed and looked guilty, “look, I wasn’t going to mention it, but Rex had a call with a contact the other day. Wanted to see if you would help with a bounty. Sounded like it could be a big score, but I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Why’s that?” Hunter asked, already dreading the answer.

“It’s who the job’s for. You would certainly make a lot of credits quickly.” He said, “But you’re not gunna like it.”

***

“You can’t be serious,” Wrecker said over dinner that night.

Hunter shrugged and reached for another piece of bread, “it’s a means to make some credits, quickly. We can’t afford a ship any other way.”

“Why do we need a ship at all?” Wrecker said, shoving more fish in his mouth and reaching for another piece. “We’re staying here, right? There’s a shuttle if we need to go off world.”

“And what if the empire comes? or Echo needs us? We’re sitting porgs here if we don’t have a way to get off this planet quickly.”

“Plus, I could practice flying.” Omega piped in hopefully. “I never got to finish my lessons.”

Hunter flinched slightly at her words and the implication that Tech’s death was the reason her lessons had stopped.

“You seem pretty good to me,” Wrecker said with an encouraging smile.

“You weren’t with her when she crashed,” Crosshair said with a wry smile.

Omega stuck her tongue out, “That wasn’t my fault.”

“Still, we can’t trust Shand. You can’t work with her, again. We almost died how many times on that poisoned planet.” Wrecker said with unusual firmness.

Hunter studied his brother’s face. His eyebrows were dipped with concern but there was a hardness behind his eyes. Wrecker rarely asserted himself in this way, doing so meant he must feel strongly about it.

“She’s a part of the path now with Rex and Echo, right?” Omega piped up, absentmindedly scratching Batcher under the table. “Maybe she’s changed.”

“Or maybe she’ll send another Sith assassin after us.” Wrecker grumbled.

“What do you think, Cross?” Hunter asked.

His younger brother was much harder to read. His lips were pressed into a thin line, a chop stick taking place of his usual toothpick and he picked at another vegetarian roll. Raw fish wasn’t something he could stomach these days.

“I agree that we can’t trust this bounty hunter. But if the empire knows Echo’s alive, and it sounds like they could, we need to be prepared. I think you should do it, with backup.”

“I don’t know if she’ll go for that. She said she only needed one.”

“And why should it be you?” Wrecker asked.

“She wanted my tracking skills. That’s all Echo said.”

“Maybe that’s not all she wants,” Omega said with a smile.

The three brothers looked at her questioningly.

“Never mind,” she said quietly, scratching under Batcher’s chin so that her long tongue fell out of her mouth, and she rolled to the floor.

“Why does she get to set all the terms?” Crosshair asked, eyes narrowed, jabbing the chopstick in the air for emphasis.  

“Because she’s got the credits.” Hunter said sullenly.

***

Of all the places in the galaxy Fennec Shand had wanted to meet, Ord Mantell had to be the last on the list for Hunter. Commercial flights to the underworld haven weren’t frequent but the timing had lined up perfectly. The Jedi generals may have called it the will of the force, that Hunter was meant to be here, on this mission, at this time, but he wasn’t so sure it wasn’t a trick the universe planned to play on him instead.

He’d survived a lot on this arid soil and humid climate, would he be lucky enough to survive whatever this place offered up for him next?

Collecting his blasters from the droid as he exited the ship (they hadn’t noticed his knife and he hadn’t volunteered its presence), he strode purposely through the city he knew so well. He passed the alleyway that led to Cid’s Parlor and hesitated, as though his feet wanted to take him there automatically. He sighed and kept moving.

There had been rumors about the fate of Cid, Hunter wasn’t sure what to believe but knew if he walked into the parlor now, she wouldn’t be there.

His fists clenched as he thought of the face that had cost him so much and regretted that he hadn’t been the one to watch the light go out in her eyes. He was a good man, he thought, he didn’t kill indiscriminately, didn’t kill if he didn’t have to. He had a code, a compass, that pointed him in the right direction, but this one test he knew he was sure to fail. He had had to rectify that with himself long ago. He wasn’t as good a man as he thought, when it came to this anyway.

He walked through the market towards the side of town he and his squad rarely frequented. The Mantel Mix stand wafted the sweet and spicy scent with fans and his mind crossed to Omega, young and bright eyed, eating the concoction atop Wrecker’s shoulders.

It was dangerous for him to be here, he knew that. He held Tech’s datapad up as he wended his way through alleyways and backstreets until he came upon the heavy durasteel door to a large, abandoned warehouse. A circular droid, akin to an eyeball, poked its head out of the wall and grumbled something in binary that he didn’t understand. Almost immediately the door opened.

“You’re late” Fennec Shand said, stepping aside just to let Hunter pass.

“I have no ship. Avoiding imperial channels takes a while these days.” Hunter said,

“Not my problem.” she said coolly.

“You asked for my expertise, right?” he asked gruffly, taking off his helmet and tucking it under his right arm.

She scowled.

Hunter smirked, “Then It looks like it is your problem.” He could feel himself on edge already. Something about Shand brought out the worst in him.

She turned and walked through a dark hallway, her long, dark braid swinging with every step. She looked strangely relaxed, so much so that Hunter felt like he was intruding. Her heavy jacket and helmet were strewn on the floor like an afterthought. She clearly didn’t see him as a threat, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

He followed her through the cavernous building, their footsteps echoing around them. He kept his hand next to his blaster and attuned every one of his senses simultaneously. When combined he could create a blueprint of sights, sounds, tastes and feelings that could prepare him for almost any threat.

He heard speeders outside, felt thumping of music from a bar down the street. The empty warehouse had the scent of machinery and droids. He tasted oil on his tongue and tried to ignore it. He wished he had something to wash it away with.

Shand kicked a small piece of metal as she walked, it ricochet across the room to a small living quarters she had set up. Hunter thought their home on Pabu was sparse, but compared to this it was positively luxurious.

A small holotable sat in the middle of the space, a messy bed pushed up against the far wall, littered with weapons in various stages of cleaning. The table next to the bed was covered in several containers and half eaten meals.

“Nice place” Hunter said, his tone neutral.

“You think I’d bring you to my place?”

Hunter shrugged.

“I don’t trust anyone enough for that,” she said bluntly.

“That makes two of us,” he said.

She turned to look at him, “You know, I was surprised that you took this job, after last time.”

“Your credits are as good as anyone else’s.” He said in a low voice.

Fennec’s eyebrow raised, “you’ve changed your tune, I thought money wasn’t everything.”

Hunter flinched and changed the subject. “So, who’s the stakeout for?” he asked, gesturing to the electobinoculars on the edge of the bed and rifle propped against the window.

“Observant.” she said, sounding pleased.

“Isn’t that why I’m here?” Hunter asked.

“I thought you were here because you needed the credits,” she said with eyebrows raised.

Hunter chewed on the inside of his cheek, biting back a response. “I’m here to do a job. Do you want to tell me to what you need me for?”

Shand sat on the edge of the bed, right leg crossed over her left leg, picking at the food from the table in front.

“Need is a bit of an overstatement, but I’m short on time. There’s a guild traitor, Moto, I’m trying to track him down along with every other bounty hunter in the sector. I need someone outside of the guild to help me get into places or in front of people I might not otherwise be able to. Figured you might be open to the assignment. And it looks like I was right.”

She pulled out a small, silver bounty puck and pressed a button on the side. A hologram burst to life, The Rodian didn’t look particularly dangerous to Hunter but then looks could be deceiving.

“What did he do?” Hunter asked,

“He tried to stage a coup. The guild leaders didn’t appreciate it.” She said, as though bored.

“Why not team up with other guild members? Doesn’t sound like the kind of job you should need my help with.” Hunter said, eyes narrowed.

“I’m not the most popular member of the guild. Alliances are…tricky when you’re the best.” She said.

Hunter scoffed but didn’t say anything,

“And I don’t ‘need’ you but an extra body who’s capable of combat and who isn’t a guild member will give me a leg up. And that’s all I need to beat them to the score. So, do you want the credits or not?”

Hunter sighed, His entire being was screaming for him to walk away, but for some reason he ignored it. “Fine. Where do we start?”

“He frequents a bar on the other side of town. It’s crawling with guild members.”        

“What makes you think you’ll be able to get intel that they don’t already have?” Hunter asked.

“I have my ways,” Fennec said cryptically. “Waiting on you, Tracker,” she called as she crossed the room, picked up her coat and helmet and strode to the door. Hunter rolled his eyes and sighed.

[99tech99]

Need a Hand? - Summer of Bad Batch

gif by @moonstrider9904 !!

A/N: This was completed to fulfill week 5 of Summer of Bad Batch! The prompt was “Need a Hand?” This version is fluffy, but I’m working on a spicer version too 😏

WARNINGS: Fluff

1.9k words under cut

You first met the group of siblings you learned to be Clone Force 99 when they stopped at your shop in Ord Mantel. You were rewiring some components at the counter when the little blonde girl had come dashing over first. “What’s a…Certified Preowned Assorted Parts Emporium?” she asked you, reading the sign over your stall. She had expressive brown eyes and a heavy accent.

You laughed. “Fancy name for a junkyard, kid.”

The rest of the group had caught up. Despite the fact that they were with such a sweet young girl, they seemed like an extremely rough crowd. The one with the long hair a had half his face tattooed like a skull, and the one glowering at you with a toothpick in his mouth had a sniper’s crosshair tattooed around his eye. One had lost an arm and replaced it with a scomp. There was also an absolute giant of a man who looked like he could snap anyone or anything in half without effort. Last, though, came was someone who didn’t look like he belonged at all. He didn’t have any visible tattoos and seemed to have all his appendages. He wore goggles and was walking along with his nose in his datapad. When he spoke, it was in a crisp, matter of fact tone.

“Hunter.” Face Tattoo turned. “I sincerely doubt any of the second-rate establishments on a backwater planet such as this would carry the precise components we need for the Marauder.”

“Hey nerd,” you called, only mildly offended. “Fortunately for you, you found the only first rate establishment on this backwater planet.” You winked at the girl. She giggled.

“The definition of first rate is debatable,” Nerd replied, fidgeting with his goggles.

“Alright, then. Let’s deal with the objective,” you shot back. “Give me the list of parts you need and if I don’t have them in stock or I can’t get them with in a standard week, I’ll settle for second rate.”

You held out your hand for his datapad. Nerd looked at Face Tattoo, who nodded. With a heavy sigh, Nerd handed it to you.

“You’ll have to excuse Tech,” said Sniper lazily as you scrolled through the list of parts. “He’s always convinced he has the only brain cells for a radius of 100 clicks.”

You had every part in stock. “C’mon,” you told the group, leading the way to your inventory out back.

After you were able to win your wager with Tech, the Batch started coming around a lot more.

Omega had been the first to capture your heart, and no wonder. She saw the best in everyone and every situation, but was still tougher and more resilient than most adults you knew. Wrecker was almost just sweet but had a knowledge of weapons and explosives that far surpassed your own. It took a minute to figure out Crosshair, but he respected someone who could dish out the sarcasm as well as they could take it. Echo and Hunter were fiercely protective of their squad, and as soon as you demonstrated that same loyalty, you were as good as one of their own. You had even accompanied the Batch on a few missions when your technical expertise would come in handy.

But Tech…It had been almost a year since you had met the Batch, and despite the trust and friendship you had with the rest of the squad, you were still getting nowhere with him.

At first it seemed like he should be the easiest for you to get along with. You were both mechanically minded and loved ships and flying. But he almost never even looked up from his datapad when you were around, and when he did, he was always annoyed whenever you tried to help.

It wouldn’t have bothered you so much if you didn’t have such a silly crush on the man. He could rattle off facts for hours on just about any topic in the galaxy. You hadn’t known him to encounter a technological problem he couldn’t resolve. You were tall, but Tech’s lean body still towered over yours. And he was just as much a super solider as any of his brothers. Some of the missions you had accompanied the squad on had gotten pretty rough. Tech was right in the middle of the action, taking tactical risks and scoring hits as much as any of his brothers.

You had spoken to Hunter about your concern a few months ago. “I just don’t understand why he dislikes me so much. I don’t know what I did to offend him.”

Hunter signed. “Nothing. That’s just Tech. Usually he might have warmed up to someone by now, but I would try not to take it too personally.”

“I’d take it personally,” Crosshair sneered as he walked by.

“Yes, you definitely should,” you quipped back grinning, “since everyone dislikes you on a personal level.”

“Want me to talk to him?” Hunter asked.

You considered. “No, it’s ok. If it really starts to bother me, I’ll bring it up myself.”

You tried to push the issue to the back of your mind, but to no avail.

When you received a message from Omega saying they had returned from their most recent mission, you made up your mind to talk to Tech about it. You headed over to the usual docking bay to welcome the Batch back. The ramp of the Marauder was closed, but you heard the metallic clicking of tools coming from underneath.

“Hello?” you called.

Tech’s voice answered. “Down here.”

Instantly you felt the sensation of butterflies in your stomach. You knelt down, leaning your head under the ship. “Need a hand?” you asked brightly.

“I do not,” he said in a clipped tone.

You held back your disappointed sigh. “Where’s everyone else?” you inquired, still trying to sound cheerful.

“Supply run.”

“And I bet Omega and Wrecker are getting their celebratory mantel mix after another successful mission.”

“That would be a logical deduction based on their past patterns of behavior.”

You examined the underside of the ship. There was quite a bit of carbon scoring.

“Oof, glad you made it back in one piece!” you exclaimed. “Looks like the last mission got pretty hot!”

“Hence the repairs,” Tech replied.

You scooted under the ship to see what he was working on.

He was trying to rewire a circuit board, but hands were too big to access the compartment properly to remove the panel. He was holding the screwdriver at an angle. Instead of loosening the screw, the tool just kept slipping.

You leaned over him slightly, extending your hand for the screwdriver. “Here, my hands are smaller, I bet I can do it.”

“I do not require assistance,” he said stubbornly.

“I know you know how but that doesn’t change the physics of your hands. Just let me…Ugh, you’re gonna strip the screw, Tech!” you said frustratedly. You tried to take the tool from him but he held it out of your reach.

“What is your problem with me?” you demanded angrily.

“You make everything much harder than it has to be, regardless of what you do, just by being present,” he replied immediately.

You were shocked into silence. You were embarrassed to feel your eyes stinging with tears. “I’ll just go then,” you said, starting to wriggle out from under the ship.

“Wait. Will you allow me to clarify what I mean?”

Great, you thought. Hearing in excruciating detail exactly why Tech hates you. “Fine,” you mumbled, blinking furiously to try to keep from crying.

Tech didn’t look at you, but stared up at the underside of the Marauder.

“It is hard for me to say goodbye to you before we leave on missions. While the squad does have an undeniable success rate, there are always variables that cannot be accounted for, and there is no guarantee we will return unscathed, if at all.

“Similarly, it is hard for me to watch you leave at night to return your domicile. I am well aware you are capable of looking after yourself, but I am concerned for your safety and I do not want any harm to befall you.”

Wait. This was not what you were expecting.

“It is hard to watch you watch you interact with my brothers and sister,” he continued. “You have an ease with them you have never had with me. I am quite certain the issue is with me, but I am equally uncertain how to fix it.

“It is hard for me when you seem to know as much about the mechanics and systems of the Marauder as I do. I both resent and respect you for that, and I cannot comprehend how I can harbor both conflicting emotions.”

He hesitated. “It…is also hard for me when I see you smile or your hair falls in front of your face when you are working. Or…” he cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Or when you are in…certain positions, making repairs. I’m inexplicably drawn to you physically. But I don’t know what to do or how you would react to such a gesture.”

He lapsed into silence.

Your heart was beating wildly at the implications of his lengthy speech. “Tech…” you whispered.

“Thank you for your courtesy in listening. You may leave if you like,” he said returning to his usual brusque manner. Tech turned his attention back to the repairs.

“Conduct an experiment,” you suggested with a shy smile.

“An experiment?” He looked over at you, confused.

You rolled over onto your stomach, propped up on your elbow so your face was above Tech’s. Your hair fell forward in front of your shoulder. “Sure. You said you’re physically drawn to me when my hair is down. Or when I smile. Conduct an experiment and see how I react.”

Hesitantly Tech reached up. He ran his fingers through your hair, tucking the loose strands behind your ear. Your smile widened.

His hand lingered on your cheek. Slowly he raised his face to yours. Behind his goggles, his beautiful eyes searched your face, settling on your mouth. You couldn’t wait any longer. You pressed your lips to his. For a moment he didn’t react, but then he was kissing you back.

“How do you find the results of your experiment?” you asked, slightly breathless, when you finally broke apart.

“Very favorable,” he said. There was a pink tinge to his cheeks. “However, tests often need to be run multiple times to verify the validity of the original results.”

You laughed softly. “I think that’s a good idea.”

He pulled you back to him.

Neither of you were paying any attention to anything else. Not even even when the sound of voices came floating across the landing pad. Or when a pair of boots appeared. A moment later Crosshair’s head peered under the Maurader.

“Found him,” he drawled, making you both jump. “Ooh, and if it isn’t our favorite little mechanic too. Looks like she found something she likes,” he added in taunting delight.

You heard Wrecker’s booming laugh. “About time!”

You sat up to tell Crosshair off, but smacked your head on the underside of the ship. You rubbed your head, already feeling a bump. “For kriff’s sake Cross, go away,” you snapped.

With a final smirk, he stood up and walked onboard.

You turned your head to Tech. He was blushing furiously now. Then you both burst out laughing.

“Next time, we’ll go to my place!” you declared.

“Next time?” he asked hopefully.

You grinned and kissed him on the nose. “Mhmm. Lots of times.”

(My Master List)

Slightly 🌶️ version here

@summer-of-bad-batch

[viva-la-whump]

Whumptober/Whumperless Whump Event (WWE) - #8

More tags HERE

“I am fine. I can still work.”

Tech had been saying that for over a day now, but still he forced himself to work, even to the point of forgoing the sleep they all knew he desperately needed. He was notorious for his hatred of being sick and always refused to take care of himself, insisting that he could work through it.

It had started with a stuffy nose, then general fatigue, eventually developing into a fever that persisted even now and was starting to rise.

“Tech, you’ll be no good to anyone if you end up collapsing,” Hunter said.

“That will not happen. The mission is too important. I can continue on. I must.”

Hunter shook his head and started to turn away when Tech suddenly shouted, “Get down!”

Hunter felt Tech try to shove him to the ground (though unsuccessfully and not too strongly, he noted absently) and started firing at…a tree?

Regardless, Hunter drew his own gun and looked around for any sign of the enemy. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Crosshair and Wrecker do the same. But there was no one there. They were alone.

“Tech, what- Whoa!”

Turning to look at his cousin, Hunter had to act quickly as the older man started to wilt where he stood, his knees giving way. Hunter caught hold of him and gently lowered him to the ground. And almost recoiled in shock. Tech was burning up! The head was radiating off of him.

“What’s going on?” Wrecker asked as he rushed over. Crosshair, Hunter noticed, was still standing a few paces off, keeping watch.

“His fever’s gotten too high. We need to cool him down, and fast.”

“I can do that,” Wrecker said and scooped the smaller man into his arms. Hunter jogged along behind him as he waded in up to his chest in the nearby river. He carefully arranged Tech so his head remained above water while as much of him as possible was submerged in the cool water.

Hunter heard Crosshair come up behind him.

“There’s no sign of anyone here but us.”

“He must have hallucinated it,” Hunter guessed.

Crosshair’s eyebrows rose. “His fever is that bad?” Tech was unarguably the brains of their group, so to think that his mind was that compromised…

“I should have seen it, forced him to stop and get some rest.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Crosshair said. “You know how stubborn he can be.”

Hunter smirked, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Our greatest family trait. Or our worst.”

Hours later, after the sun had set and they’d made camp for the night, Tech lay fitfully on his bedroll, tossing and turning as nightmares plagued his uneasy sleep. His fever still raged, his dip in the river having done little to cool him down. They kept a cool, damp cloth on his head, arms, chest, and legs, but his thrashings kept flinging them off and they  had to keep replacing them.

Finally, a few hours before dawn, Tech jolted awake with a wordless cry, bolting upright. Hunter, keeping vigil beside him while the others slept, grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Easy now,” he soothed. “It’s just a nightmare. You’re safe. Try to get some rest.”

Tech blinked his eyes, struggling to focus through the haze and darkness and without his goggles. But he recognized Hunter’s voice and allowed himself to relax enough for Hunter to lay him back down. He closed his eyes and began to breathe slowly and deeply.

As Hunter replaced the cloths that had been thrown off, he was relieved to find that a layer of sweat had started to cover Tech’s body. The fever was finally breaking. Tech would be alright.