#tooka half an hour at least

[nteabodies]

Qui gon has a space youtube channel where he uploads videos of cool plants and reviews books on space botany with the occasional random footage of jedi stuff. The content is either very dry or very chaotic with shaky cam and somewhat blurry footage.

He made the account when he was a padawan after Dooku (nursing a headache from Qui Gon's latest hyperfixation) wearily asked him to channel his love for plants somewhere else at least until this migraine subsides, padawan

He realises that he actually loves making videos and chatting endlessly to a camera. His first few videos end up being 3 to 4 hours long and focuses on obscure plants and random books he found in Dookus room

The jedi Council is a little illiterate when it comes to social media (it hasnt caused any problems for the order yet so its pretty much unregulated) so QuiGon isn't actually breaking any rules when he posts videos without making them private. Many jedi do have social media accounts but they tend to use it for more professional purposes, so Qui Gon's channel slips under the radar with an average of like 5 views per video.

He continues using the channel as a botany/cute animals/philosophy/ranting outlet throughout his apprenticeship.

Once he's knighted he has less time to upload videos so his most common type of videos end up being those 20 second to 1 minute clips ft. Something Funny or Something Cool or just blurry footage with unintelligible audio.

Ofc when he gets padawans, he also posts random vids of them when he catches them in 4k doing sth stupid/cute.

By the time obi wan comes around, qui gon's space youtube channel has like, 50 short videos of feemor and xanatos doing things like petting tookas, failing spectacularly at executing a flashy ataru form, being sappy while high on painkillers, running away from qui gon as he holds a flesh-eating parasite towards them and shouts 'why are you running?' etc etc

At this point he has about 20 or so regular viewers who either think he's roleplaying a jedi or are members of the jedi order who find it hilarious (mainly Qui-Gon's friends and, for some reason, Master Yoda)

Anw the point of this is to lead to the premise of one of his videos going viral during the clone wars (possibly the one of general kenobi when he was 14 doing a backflip and landing on his face. Or the one of him sleeping while half his body is dangling outside a window. Or the one where he does this).

It's good PR for the jedi bc it shows them as slightly chaotic but peaceful people who are at their core just like everyone else (idiots).

It's memed to the extent that it reaches the eyes of the Jedi Council and Anakin who immediately like brings it to obi wan like "Master is this really you??"

Obi Wan randomly discovering this treasure trove of videos that shows so much of the person his master used to be, missing his dad so much but at the same time feeling a little betrayed that Qui Gon uploaded such embarrassing videos to a public forum where anyone could view it: you are haunting me from beyond the grave master

And the channel has both clips of Qui Gon and Obi wan as padawans, so there would definitely be fan compilation videos comparing their feral padawan energy. Obi Wan feels seen bc no one used to believe him when he told them that calm Master Jinn was actually crazier than him but now he finally has proof but then angst bc Qui Gon is not there so he can't rub his face in it :(

Anakin and ahsoka discovering that their cool and calm master used to be wilder and more feral than them before qui gon died and left him to raise a child: that's actually very sad.

The general public seeing Dooku in the bg of qui gon's padawan videos: is General Kenobi... fighting a war... against his jedi grandpa?

Anw this can go two ways: either this is just a cute thing that happened during the clone wars and everything else happened the same as canon OR it inadvertently saves the galaxy

Canon: the videos make everyone involved Feel Things but don't change their actions. The empire never gets around to banning the channel so Obi wan uses it as one of his last sources of comfort in the desert as he watches over luke. Once he reconnects with Qui-Gon's force ghost, they bond by watching old videos from the channel. Years later, Luke discovers Obi Wans old datapad and inadvertently finds out about the original viral video and the channel. It ends up being a very good reference for painting a picture of jedi life pre-empire. Luke uses it as a reference when building his jedi academy but not before spending a solid hour laughing at the padawan kenobi fail compilations

AU:

Dooku watching some of the videos and all the fluff (and possibly seeing the vlog where padawan qui gon talks about the differences between attachments and love with regards to jedi and bringing up his bond with dooku): Actually maybe I can leave the jedi order and make positive change without becoming a sith lord. Maybe I can help the jedi order without agreeing with everything they do.

Anakin watching the same video on attachments vs love and going to obi wan

Anakin: Do you love me master?

Obi wan: ???

Obi wan: You are my brother anakain??? Of course I love you??? But why are you asking me?? Are you okay?? Do you have something to confess perhaps?? Like about a senator?? A senator that has a name beginning with a p??

Anakin, panicking: Ah yes p-pa-palpatine did tell me a strange story about a wise sith lord when we went for our weekly bonding session yesterday

Obi wan: I -

Obi wan: I meant your marriage to Padme actually but wtf there is a lot to unpack there.

And anakin is just reeling from the fact that

1) obi wan loves him

2) obi wan knew about padme and didn't say anything

So he doesn't get angery when Obi wan brings the palpy matter to the jedi Council and investigates him. Then add in a few well-timed coincidences bc this is a fix it and yay palpy overthrown!!

Anakin prolly voluntarily leaves the order and becomes a happy trophy husband for Padme after a long talk with Obi wan about his future where he reevaluates his life decisions. ("Anakin you will be my brother whether or not you're in the order")

Obi wan meets Qui Gons force ghost and does get to rub it in his face that he was a less feral padawan than Qui Gon.

And they all lived happily ever after except palpatine who died angrily ever after.

[moodymisty]

The tooka reader have me another idea!!!

So,tooka reader gets scared (maybe they had bad experiences in the past idk)

But they really HISS at our bois,like fear full/angry cat hiss because they got scared

I really wanna know how the bois (maybe also rex?) React!

Tooka/CatlikeSpecies!Reader continues!

✦ Wrecker ✦

Wrecker- bless the man- is constantly startling you.

He's used to walking up behind people and clapping a hand on their shoulder to rest there casually, and the first time he does the same to you, you nearly jump in the air.

He's learned to not do that over time, but he ends up learning his lesson again by accident when he finds something he thinks you'll enjoy, and ends up stomping up the gangplank of the Marauder yelling your name.

When he gets inside he yells again and you nearly screech, nearly falling as you'd been trying to get something out of one of the high storage areas.

He quickly moves to catch you, but you're already half on the ground when he does so.

'Sorry! I didn't mean to scare ya!' He helps you up, noticing how you still look more than a little frazzled.

You forgive him of course, just like every other time, but sometimes you can't help but keep a keen eye on him when he's being particularly rambunctious.

✦ Echo ✦

Echo is a very troubled sleeper. When he does manage to get down, he rarely stays down for long. So he considers it a win, when he manages to sleep for more than two or three hours at a time.

More often than not, when he does wake up he just lays there until he eventually falls asleep again. Though sometimes he gets up and walks around a bit; If the pain in his legs isn't bad enough to prevent him from doing so.

He gets up in the middle of sleeping again, brushing a hand along his head and slipping off of his bunk. He'll just pace around a bit, and then try to lay back down. His brothers are all asleep, so he assumes you are as well, and starts walking towards the cockpit. He then walks back to his bunk, then starts over. Hunter knows he does this, and pays it no mind if the sounds wake him up. If it works for Echo, it works.

But it turns out you weren't actually asleep, and instead in the refresher that opens up right as he's walking towards it. You turn and are instantly face to face with him in the dark, your eyes catching his silhouette perfectly.

Needless to say you scurry back and yelp, him startling you out of your wits and sounding up a storm. Everyone else is up in moments, as you clap your hand to your chest.

'Kriff, I thought you were asleep,' He mumbles, hand stretched outward. You quickly say it's ok, even if you're still bristled and your heart is still racing so he doesn't take it personally.

He apologizes again after you wake up from your nap, and makes sure that you aren't sneaking about when he gets up next time.

✦ Tech ✦

Tech is used to you either sleeping next to him or at least close by, and quite often you do so while he's tinkering on something.

This time the two of you are in his bunk, resting while he's leaned up against the wall with his current project in his hands.

Wrecker had accidently cracked the visor on his helmet and damaged some of the circuitry within it, so he's trying to fix it with a various array of small tools. They're all laying on his lap, tucked between or beside his thighs.

You're laying down beside him getting some shuteye, and taking advantage of the fact that it's one of the few times that Tech has actually sat down in a decent while.

When he reaches forward to grab something one of his larger tools slides off the bunk and hits the ground with a hideous 'CLANG' and moments later you're startled awake; Instantly rising up and smacking your head into the bunk above you. You're still half asleep, letting out a seething little noise from your throat.

'Are you ok?!' Tech watches you rubbing your head, while Hunter peeks his head upside down over the bunk to see as well. He'd felt that hit, for sure. He knows you have keen ears, and he's normally pretty good on avoiding loud noises. He'd already been doing it for Hunter for awhile now.

You nod but are still wincing, feeling Tech move your head to take a look. His gloved hands cup your face to take a look.

'I'm sorry for startling you. I'll be more careful next time.'

✦ Hunter ✦

Hunter and you sometimes startle each other, given you both have good hearing, but typically you react more extremely than Hunter does.

He also sometimes forgets that it isn't just touching you on the shoulder than can spook you.

The lot of you are all outside of the ship, restocking before heading out again. Wrecker is doing most of the heavy lifting but Tech is assisting with some, as it Hunter. You're can get into the smaller parts of the ship to do repairs that they can't reach, so you've got your hand down in a tight spot as Wrecker begins goofing off.

He's being reckless, whipping a large crate around like a toy before it almost slips from his hand. It was close enough to you and Echo that Hunter yells at him to quit goofing off with firm and loud 'HEY! Quit it!'

His voice is firm and you instantly pull your arm from the tight spot, watching him with wide eyes. You are distinctly not a fan when people yell like that, for multiple reasons.

Hunter notices it moments later, and when Echo walks off to get some more tools with you, Hunter comes in and taps his boot.

'Hey, uh, sorry for spooking you like that.'

You have no reason to not forgive him, nodding and keeping at your work. Hunter jots down in his memory to not do that again with you nearby in the future.

✦ Crosshair ✦

Since Crosshair is an ass, he does it a few times on purpose when you're not close.

But as time passes he stops doing it, largely because he actually had started to care about hurting your feelings or effecting you in a negative way. He doesn't say it, he just slowly tapers off.

At one point you're out in the middle of a cold, rainy planet; You, Crosshair, and Echo separated from the rest of the group.

The electrical storm above has made comms unreliable, and Echo is currently commenting about how it's going to be impossible to meet up again, given how lost you all seem to be.

Sick of his 'complaining', Crosshair suddenly aims his rifle in the air and fires one shot. 'There. Now Hunter knows where we are. Happy?'

He's looking at Echo and sneering under his helmet, before glancing towards you and seeing you have an angry look your face, all bristled up like an angry little thing. You're a little farther away from him, as well.

'Quit your hissing,' He jokes, seeing the way your face scrunches up even more. 'Didn't mean to spook you. Lets go.'

[frostycatblr-fandom-files]

Sorry, Wrong Comms! : Hunter x Medic!Reader [Chapter 7]

Warnings and Information: Intended audience is 13+ (18 if you squint.) **THIS IS PART ONE OF CHAPTER 7.** I needed to cut the chapter in “half” to avoid a nearly 14k word count (at my current estimation)! There will be a Chapter 7.5 with the bulk of the chapter material, and the W&I has been halved appropriately to cover each respective part without being a mile long or spoiling what's to come. ;)

Should hopefully know the drill about my use of italics, Mando'a and headcanons by this point in the series. Mostly Star Wars swearing. Couple of lines throughout both halves get suggestive. Batch throws a surprise birthday party via trickery à la Crosshair. (Read as, to Hunter: mildly "weaponizing" the profession of Medic!Reader.) Vague, passing mention of self-injurious behavior brought up with discomfort and anxiety. Mentions of stitches and vague descriptions of healing injuries. Hopefully the explanation for the reason Hunter's (mostly) healed so fast within two days makes sense [as a reminder we're just pretending we understand how Star Wars medicine works for this AU]. Trying to explain the layout of the house is tricky, but at least bedrooms aren't. Party shenanigans start kicking off. Passing reference to alcoholic beverages, but none are actually present.

Word-count: 5,899

tpp-tpp-tpp-tpp-TPP!

The stern scratching at her door in the afternoon roused her from the holofilm she'd been watching, and she realized with a start what time it was. Blast, she'd honestly meant to grab a bite to eat an hour ago, but she'd been so absorbed in the plotline of the film Tech had said Omega and Hunter had been watching in the picture she was shown that she hadn't actively kept track of the time. Maybe that ruckus at the door was the little stray Tooka kitten she'd been seeing lately, hearing another round of scratching start up. 

Poor little thing - she wasn't sure how to tell the difference between male and female Tooka, she wasn't in animal medicine but at least knew that Tookas were a specific breed of Loth-cat - had been so skinny and malnourished the last time she'd seen it she left a plate of meat scraps out for the little mite the first time she'd noticed them skulking around and hoped for the best. 

Every now and then, the little thing she'd named Spoon showed up, looking healthier with each visit. (Why the name "Spoon", she couldn't remember.) Maybe that was them. "Spoon? That you, little thing?" Blast it, the door was acting sticky again and wouldn't open all the way. "Hold on little guy, gimme a second…" 

Dexterous fingers wrapped around the exposed lip of the blast door and helped [____] wrench it back to her surprise in a burst of frustrated strength. "Who the shit you calling little?" Crosshair inquired in a voice of shivering silk as the medic fully tugged open the door. 

He did not enjoy being called "little" ironically. He'd tolerated it well enough on the rare occasion he got sick and decided he wouldn't tough it out like a foolish cadet might; he understood well enough the woman had her habits given the age range of her patients. But he did not tolerate the memory of the old impressions that he was incapable of minding himself or keeping his brothers safe just because he didn't fit the general body type of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Her hands went icy and the knuckles paled with the force of the tight curling as she tried to explain herself. "Er, definitely not you Crosshair. I'm so kriffing sorry about that; I thought there was-" 

Rrow! Hccck! 

Spoon darted between the pair, skittering to a halt in front of the man with its hackles raised up at the sniper, one chicken-like paw raised threateningly and poised to swat. The toothpick rolled with the dry chuckle in response to further hissing and teeth-baring, the fleeting moment of the marksman's anger gone. "Hm. Didn't know you had a pet, doc. Don't think your Loth-cat likes me."

Her giggle was returned with a single, hearty chuckle as he bent over and scooped the light-furred feline off the stoop by the scruff like it weighed nothing in his hand. [____]'s head wagged slowly, eyes fixed on the feline currently held aloft in the dexterous hands of the often-moodiest member of the Bad Batch. "Oh the little one isn't mine, he or she's a stray, far as I can tell," she murmured, still distractedly watching the pissed-off critter do their best to intimidate the sniper. "I'm sorry, Cross, guess this stray I've been feeding on occasion really doesn't like you!"  

"Nothin' I'm not used to." The drawl of Crosshair's slightly smoky, serpentine voice was devoid of any self-pity or anger she might have expected, forgetting he tended to look back on his time as a cadet with near-total apathy as a way to cope with the experimentation. (It's the past, doll. Shit sucked, I won’t lie to you. Long-necks probably pretended they were deities while making the perfect soldiers for the perfect army. I try not to cry about it much.) "And this little womp rat doesn't scare me. Takes a guy with a tough act to recognize another's; I don't give a Sith's left tit if… she doesn't like me." 

Duh, looking under the Tooka's tail, why hadn't she thought of that? "Spoon is a “she”?" 

Crosshair just nodded and set the wriggling critter down, laughing softly at her when Spoon swiped at him in warning (and missed) before she slunk off into the open door of [____]'s house with a final spitting hiss and bared teeth. Looks like the medic had been adopted by a Tooka kitten now. Crosshair stitched his arms loosely across his chest, casually leaning back against the doorframe to soften his stance. "Guess I should stop circling the gunship and get to the hangar. Sorry to make you play doctor on your birth-day, kid, but I've got a concern about Hunter that I wanted to run by you, if that's alright." 

Right to it, no excuses: Clearly if Crosshair was concerned, this had to be something. He never liked openly admitting things weren't quite right to those he didn't trust. She knew she was one of the lucky few, so she took it seriously. "More than; I take it something came up?" She had a few possibilities in mind. Bad reaction to something she prescribed? Did he need something stronger? Did his brother think Hunter had come down with something since his immune system was going to be temporarily out of sorts with severe injuries like that?

"His stitches. They haven't torn, but they're driving him crazy because those lacerations seem to have nearly healed up. We're not sure how long they take to, uh, absorb? Dissolve?" Crosshair shrugged when he wasn't sure what the appropriate word to use was. Yeah, he'd heard her go over the jargon with Omega just two days ago, but so much had happened since then that the doctor was unaware of. "I'm not the JOAT-med, so I figured that was better to ask you." 

"Right, right…" [____] hummed softly in agreement, thinking before gently probing into the problem, "when you say they're driving him "crazy" you mean…?"

"He keeps trying to scratch at them if they aren't covered with gauze." Blast, that wasn't what she hoped to hear, but it was hardly a surprise all the same. She found them unpleasantly itchy herself in a past incident that necessitated their use after a classmate wasn't being careful with his scalpel. No surprises that student was thrown out of that intergalactic med school shortly after, and she got to be the live demonstration for how to stitch wounds by hand.

To this day she could still find a faint, pinkish scar on her non-dominant hand. A reminder that her profession was only just beginning, back then. The smallest taste of things to come in her efforts to aid the sick and the injured in the galaxy. "I see. Well, glad to hear we're trying to keep them covered, from the sound of things." Look on the bright side. "I don't mind swinging by and checking those stitches, if that's what you have in mind." 

"So long as you really don't mind…" Crosshair checked once more. He and the others, minus Hunter who was against the idea of being used as bait no matter what truth there was to the stitches, were sure this would guarantee that they'd get her over to their housing so they could throw her a little party. Nothing too fancy by any means, but they knew that wouldn't be an issue. Nobody ever remembers how well a party was decorated, just how much fun it was. 

And they did hope it'd be a night to remember, with or without Hunter professing his feelings. Her first birthday she wasn't working at her clinic in a few years, and a long awaited taste of normalcy - participating in a special occasion - for all of the vode. 

"Not at all, I swear. Let me grab my medbag." [____] insisted with a sunny smile. “Be right back.”

“No rush,” Crosshair promised, pulling something out of his pocket. When she ducked back into the house, Cross tapped out a simple message into the communication device.

target acquired ETA five min

think you better take something for your nerves, lover boy

He smirked devilishly at the unamused reply from his bandana’d brother just before the medic stepped out of the house, her bag of supplies in-hand.

Shut the kriff up.

"SURPRISE, KID!" Wrecker's voice boomed loudest over his brothers' and sister's as [____] and Crosshair breached the threshold. 

There were party decorations at eye level and near the ceiling that immediately caught her attention. All the same color/s in various shades and hues. Plastic and foil balloons scattered throughout the house. Tacked to the wall in the central room was a large paper banner, bearing her name in Echo's tidy Aurebesh behind the Clone-specific quirk of a hyphenated happy birth-day. 

"A-aw guys…" she spluttered, voice tight and choked with emotion, "...y-you really-?" She felt silly that she was dangerously close to crying, not quite sure why the simple act of them throwing a little surprise party for her, such a happy notion, was bringing tears to her eyes like this. 

"Sorry, kid…" Echo tutted soothingly, drawing her close to him with the tight encircling of both arms, that steady and comfortable pressure that allowed her to feel the rumble of his chest as he spoke, "we didn't overwhelm you, did we?" 

"N-no! No-no, I just wasn't expecting this," [____] assured her friends as they came closer to make sure she was okay, or going to be, drawing the heel of her hand across her face to dry her eyes with a light-hearted chuckle. "I came 'cause Crosshair said that Hunter's stitches were bothering him, as a way to get me here I guess, and I wanted to see how I could help… I hadn't expected a little party at all." Oh Maker, she had to admit he'd gotten her good, that kind of concern specific to Crosshair had felt so real and… 

She looked up at Hunter directly for the first time once Echo had released her, asking Wrecker to help him pull the party snacks out of the kitchenette and set them out now that [____] was here. She expected to see a sheepish and apologetic grin from the man with that dark, handsome half-skull tattoo, maybe hear a gentle murmur of apology for weaponizing her profession in order to get her to come by; that he was fine, that she didn't need that big medbag carried in her non-dominant hand.

But she could see it when she really looked at his face, the sharp pinch in his brow and the raised tracklines of his fingernails where he scratched around the gauze she could see under the neckline of his shirt, (again in her favorite color, all of them were wearing something in her favorite color she realized), that there was truth to Crosshair's admittance of concern for one of his family after all. "Oh… Hunter, would you like me to take a look at the stitching?" 

Hunter shifted his weight from left to right foot, then back again. "I-if you don't mind..."

She was not about to let her friend, a dear friend and an often selfless man, wave off his needs or deny himself some relief, comfort, just because it was her birthday. "Not at all, I swear. Where would you prefer we take care of this for you?" 

Hunter regarded the question with a healthy degree of guilt. You could take the doctor out of her clinic, but you couldn't stop her from doing her job. Not even on her birthday. Maker, she was so selfless. So devoted to the sick and injured. So worried. 

"Hunter, I really do mean it when I said I don't mind at all. Crosshair, he, uh…" she glanced at the brother in question with a look of uncertainty, and when given an approving nod she continued, "Crosshair said the stitches were driving you crazy. Or he was worried that they were. S-something like that." Of course Crosshair had noticed, as expected, but telling her? That's what he'd gone with in order to lead her to their house? Did he weaponize her dedication to her profession?

Why was she looking at him like that?

Crosshair's hand caught his wrist, voice a sharp but low rumble, the warning thunder before a storm. "Hunter. Stop trying to scratch your stitching, for Maker's sake. Let her take care of it." 

"S-sorry," Hunter tried, hoping to placate Crosshair's temper and [____]'s expression of gnawing worry. "didn't realize I was…" 

Crosshair turned back to the grown woman, addressing her while he kept Hunter's hand in check. "His room is the door you can see at the end of the hall. You won't want to use the 'fresher, still need to mop up some water on the floor." 

"Meant to get a pipe fixed… Got fixated and caught up with helping decorate." Tech muttered apologetically, rattling down a note-to-self with the keys of his datapad at the sniper's reminder. "It should not pose a problem and prevent use of the refresher during the party for anyone." 

"No worries! Good to know." [____] chuckled softly, giving Tech a reassuring smile and a nod to Crosshair so she could take Hunter's hand. The casual nature of the gesture made his heart flutter. "Okay, bedroom it is. Shouldn't be too long." With every door they passed, Hunter just wanted to sink into the floor, deep into the planet's crust if he could. Yes he'd once dreamed of a moment like this, whether that would've been with someone special or just a casual little tryst during the days of the Clone Wars, feeling so dominant and powerful and wanted with some sexy little thing caged on the mattress below him but… 

Those steamy scenes didn't take place in corners of the galaxy that looked so dull. Sterile. A carbon copy of a minimalism showroom out of those one-in-a-million remodeling shows you could find somewhere on the Holonet. 

"Wow," [____] started, breaking Hunter's cycle of thoughts, "pretty tidy in here. Think I might have to ask you for some pointers on how to organize mine, heheh…" He understood the teasing was meant also as a compliment, but Maker, he hated his room. Barren walls. The muted paint the housing came with. The snug, uneven desk he never used aside from doing weapon care in the upper right-hand corner. A few dingy, beat up books on top of the footlocker at the foot of his bed that he found kicking around the Marauder that no one had memory of collecting. 

That's what caught her eye first as she moved past the footlocker to set the medkit at the end of the bed. "Those look well loved… I didn't take you for reading in your spare time," she admitted with a gentle smile, hoping by talking about general things, Hunter wouldn't be so embarrassed about stripping off half of his clothing in front of her if he had something to focus on. As he slowly hiked the short-sleeve over his head she noted the two different names on the spine of each book and asked over the soft grunt of pain, "Your favorite authors?" 

Through gritted teeth as he did his best not to swear out loud, Hunter shook his head stiffly. "Kriff… N-not really… just kinda keep 'em around, I guess." [____] hummed pleasantly, breaking open the seal around a blindly selected fresh roll of gauze. Get the last step ready and waiting for her so she could cap off this unofficial in-house treatment that much quicker for him once she'd relieved him of his bothersome sutures. "Is it just the stitching on your shoulder that's being a nuisance? Or the ones here too?" Gesturing to the larger patch of gauze taped to his stomach, she couldn't immediately see signs he'd been itching around or messing with the bandage tape since the last time he or his brothers had likely changed out the wrappings. 

Hunter shook his head, sucking in his teeth as [____] gingerly removed the medical wrapping taped to his shoulder. It was peculiar that the smaller of the two injuries was the one that hurt most. "Sorry… Doing my best to be gentle."

"Y-you're fine, burc'ya."

"Let's see how turning your skin blue with all that bacta-gel the past two days has been doing." The wrapping removed, [____] was now visually assessing the remnants of the detonation injury. There was no burning, glaring redness or discharge that suggested infection, and the regenerating, recovering edges that were pale and pinkish were a promising sight. She was surprised that the injury had closed so rapidly already. (Okay, she really had to pick Tech's brain about healthcare in Clones to get to the bottom of a few questions one of these days.) 

"Everything looks good. Like, really good. I can remove the sutures pretty painlessly, and you just keep on doing whatever it is that's made this close up so fast. Hiding some kind of accelerated healing factor Clones have from me, or are you using some kind of super bacta?" she couldn't help herself and paused for a moment to have a silly little giggle at her own joke, missing the moment that Hunter's pained frown briefly mirrored the medic's smile before she took a calming, self-soothing breath and went back to removing the monofilament thread. "Keeping on top of your pain with the short-term prescription, too, right?"

Hunter said nothing and just simply nodded; a lie. The last time he'd taken one of his last remaining doses was lunch, hours ago, the last of the nuna stew Wrecker had made. Echo's joking comment that the painkillers made him weepy led him to be more than a little hesitant to take them before they planned on finding an "excuse" to bring [____] by. He planned on finding a moment to discreetly take the now-tardy dose when she wasn't looking and just hoped for the best. Hope that this lie won't come back to bite him. 

Hope that he'll be brave enough tonight… tell her the truth, no more lies. No more avoidance.

“Hey-” [____]’s voice cut in softly, catching his hand wandering closer to the two-day-old injury, “no scratching, silly. I’m not afraid to wrap your hand in gauze so you can’t touch yoursel- oh Maker, that sounded- Nevermind!” Both stubbornly pretended their faces weren’t burning with embarrassment for different reasons, faces mere inches away at times as she carefully cut and removed segments of the stitching, being sure not to tug on the regenerating skin too harshly.

And neither called any attention to how they went from her holding Hunter’s hand down and away from his shoulder to interlocked fingers by the time she’d extracted the last bit of medical-grade thread.

Omega was waiting for them at the end of the hall, hands behind her back with a barely contained grin. She clearly had something for them at first glance as the door opened. "[____] needs a party hat! Hunter too!" Omega declared emphatically, rocking excitedly on the balls of her feet as Hunter and the medic returned from the back bedroom and rejoined everyone in the central area, fresh medical wrapping with a marbling pattern in a blue color-scheme peeking under the collar of the shirt he wore. 

They were the only ones not wearing hats made of thick cardstock and carefully cut ribbons of glitter-foil somewhere on their body. Echo was wearing his blue party hat on his right shoulder, the galaxy's pointiest (and most sparkly) pauldron. Wrecker's orange hat was fixed at a playful angle on his head, and Tech's yellow and Crosshair's purple party hats were perfectly upright on their own heads. 

In Omega's hands there were three remaining party hats. [____] could tell there was a hat Omega likely had in mind for her. "Oh do I, now? Whatcha got for me little lady?" Brighter than the twin stars over Tatooine, Omega grinned before singling out the party hat covered in all of the colors of the light spectrum from end to end in glitter-foil. She motioned for [____] to bend forward so Omega could easily affix the handmade hat to the head of the medic with an elastic strap, effectively crowning her with the rainbow cone. "This one's for you! Which one do you want, Hunter?" 

The last hats available were green and red. It was to the medic's slight surprise that Hunter requested the green party hat over the red, and that Crosshair was quick to step in behind Hunter and help him comfortably adjust it so Hunter didn't upset the fresh wrapping over his left shoulder by trying to reach over his head. "Thanks, Cross…" 

There was a firm squeeze around the right shoulder. "Don't mention it. I'll go get the drinks now. Really get this party kicked off." Crosshair ducked into the kitchen unit and could be heard rooting through several shelves in various cabinets, calling out to one of his brothers after a long, contemplative pause. "What did they call these things again at that one place we tried after getting the ban from 79's?"  

"Oh-oh, don't forget the kid's favorite stuff in the cold unit too!" Wrecker called back, drawing out a peal of giggles from his sister after sweeping Omega in the air with one arm. "We picked up a lot of your favorite drinks tha’ ya typically would have to get imported for your party; all the stuff for mocktails too!" All the fun, creative flavors without the hassle of a hangover the following morning for anyone, and nothing was anything Omega would have been excluded to due to alcoholic content.

[____] smiled at the thoughtfulness and attention to detail that was so evident all around her. "Awh, you guys are too sweet..." Far sweeter than she would have ever guessed nearly a year ago. 

Tonight was gonna be a good night.

"Cross, you're not reaching high enough!" Echo called out in a singsong tone, face lit up in a mischievous smile. "Little higher… no, to the left!"

They were trying their hand at a rendition of pin-the-tail-on-the-Bantha, everyone's sides aching as everyone did their best to subtly mess with one another by giving false directions to the person playing, or a deliberate handicap beyond the simple blindfold. [____] had gone first, and had been messed with the least for her first turn. Once Cross had completed his turn, she'd be taking the blindfold again, maybe even the defunct helmet the Batchers had found kicking around in Tech's half of his and Wrecker's bedroom.

It had no functioning audio sensors or modulator microphone that allowed the wearer to speak to anyone or hear very well, and the visor had been glazed over in fifteen different coats of a thick, black paint so you couldn't even see out of it. That's the deliberate handicap they had to use on Hunter due to his finely attuned sense of direction. Crosshair briefly lamented that they had no alcohol on hand just for Hunter to try to further confuse him beyond Wrecker carefully blindfolding, then spinning the current player in place fifteen times before aiming them at the wall.

Hunter had grumbled darkly about that joke before he put on the defective equipment, saying that the label on the prescription medication (which he'd secretly taken just minutes ago at the time of the remark) warned against the mixing of painkillers and spirits, so he wouldn't have done it. Crosshair only laughed and started repeating the directions for Hunter in a louder voice once the helmet was firmly in place.

Tech had explained to the medic, while he was fitting it over Hunter's head and holding onto the green party hat for his brother for the time being, that he was intending to make the helmet suitable for the episodic instances of sensory overload that would severely overwhelm Hunter, Crosshair, and on occasion himself. That's why, for the time being, Cross was assigned the chore of speaking loud enough for Hunter to hear the directions from everyone. (For Wrecker and Echo, Tech briefly lamented he'd have to rework separate non-standard helmets. And he expressed his earnest relief that this did not appear to be an issue Omega suffered from; he still planned to make one of these helmets for her as a precaution.)

Crosshair's dominant hand shot five inches above the play-space at his new set of instructions from the ARC trooper who was really enjoying his chance to screw with the often snarky vod. "No, wait Cross, liiiiittle too high!" [____] counteracted, she and Omega giggling together on the two-seater as Wrecker gave a thirty second warning. The hand dropped three inches and the tail was tacked to the wall so he could complete his turn to remove the blindfold and inspect his attempt.

He was roughly two inches off-target. Wrecker was careful as he gave the sniper's shoulder a good-natured slugging and congratulated him on his attempt. "Hah, not bad! Got pretty close, Cross!"

"Indeed," Tech chuckled agreeably, scratching down the results in the scoring chart that came with the game, "that attempt is now tied for second-closest to the target with [____]'s first attempt after Omega's first." Somehow the female Clone had managed to get her tail just an inch and a half off target despite how unsteady she'd been after being spun fifteen times. Both the medic and marksman had been two inches off target, followed up by Tech's two and a half, Hunter's three (and in the bantha's foot), then Echo's smack in the middle of the nose (too dizzy much like Omega, and got his left and right mixed up), and finally Wrecker's tail tacked very gingerly between the bantha's eyes. "[____], it's your turn again. Here is your next tail, and the helmet, if you are interested in giving it a try still. I can hold onto your party hat if you wish."

She carefully removed the cardstock hat from her head and smoothed down her hair before trading the helmet for the conical hat from the goggled Clone. "Thanks, Techie."

"Certainly, Miss Medic."

Echo, Wrecker and Crosshair snorted with barely contained laughter at the sight of Hunter's expression of blatant confusion, his eyes enormous in disbelief. Tech of all people calling someone something other than their preferred name - or designation number - was a real rarity, let alone being so cool about having one used on him in turn by someone who wasn't one of his brothers. "Wha-? Miss Medic? And since when has she started calling you by Wrecker's nickname for-"

"That is an explanation for another time," Tech cut in, pretending not to notice the deep dive of Hunter's eyebrows as they furrowed in frustration at having been interrupted. "Perhaps after she has completed her turn. Who would you like to relay instructions to you, [____]?"

She stalled for time to think about it for a moment by once again smoothing down her hair, adjusting her grip on the helmet experimentally. Crosshair had already proven he had a volume, a sweet spot in his silken voice that was good at giving commands and directions with an edge that drew one's attention. She'd gathered many, many hints of Echo's tactical expertise that made him another suitable candidate, but there was an impulse to satisfy some new curiosities of her's since the mystery mission just two days ago… What was Hunter's voice like when he was giving orders?

Would it be like she imagined; domineering and confident without being a touch too stern like other authoritative voices she's heard throughout her life? Would she still hear hints of that same golden, tender edge she's heard him use to soothe his brothers and promise them that they couldn't be in safer hands when he thought she couldn't hear him?

She was feeling strangely shy about asking, suddenly. "Uh, Hunter, I guess? If you don't mind… Just so we're not making your brother do it every time." she added with a careful, teasing lilt in her voice that she hoped would mask the quickened pace of her heart if she could bring Crosshair into it. Crosshair just chuckled and snatched his drink along with her's to go top them off, most likely. "Don't mind at all." Hunter promised. "I'll do my best to be loud enough to hear."

With an affirming nod that it was settled and she was good to go, Wrecker carefully slipped the helmet down her head and once sure she was tucked in, spun her in place fifteen times by her shoulders, a steady hand on her at all times so she didn't lose her balance. Things were well and truly muffled outside of the helmet; the regular, steady dance of her breath was the only thing she could clearly hear inside the cranial cavity of the plastoid bell.

"Can you hear me, ad'ika?" Hunter sounded very faraway with her head submerged in this malfunctioning helmet. It would certainly serve the brothers well if they needed this darkened pocket of sensory deprivation. [____] nodded and stretched her arm out to the wall, hovered somewhere in front of that poster of a bantha to show she was ready, knowing her own voice would be too dampened within the helmet the same way their voices were outside of it.

His voice sounded deeper when he gave the next directive, finding his sweet spot, "Little to your left." There was a muted rumble of speech around her after she slowly swung her hand in the appropriate direction, trying to keep it the same height for the time being. “Too high.” Hunter suggested. “Go a little lower.” It was repeated again, the third word stressed this time. There seemed to be a murmur of praise behind her after she made the minor adjustment, hand falling just a smidgen. “... Crosshair says you need to go right. Just a little.” She briefly knocked elbows with Wrecker as she followed the suggestion, sparking a surprised jolt that knocked her arm slightly out of place and subsequent apology from the gentle giant that she could hear with far more clarity due to his proximity.

“Whoops, sorry kid!” He gingerly guided her back to her previous trajectory and once all were satisfied she was back on track, Hunter was back to instructing her where to go, those deep, warm and smokey timbres all the medic had to go on with the added challenge of the helmet that made it harder to hear the room around her.

“Slight climb up…” She slowly floated her hand up the poster before coming to a stop when there was a jump in the noise. “Stop there!” Moving her hand straight out in front of her, she planted the game piece into the poster and shucked the helmet to see how she did.

The cardstock bantha tail was perfectly in place on the poster.

“Ya got it, kid!” Wrecker whooped, giving [____] a celebratory hoist in the collective excitement. Once she was back on solid ground, Tech returned the party hat and congratulated the medic on her accuracy. “Well done, [____]. You started out surprisingly close to the target,” he demonstrated by lightly tapping the area of the poster where she had initially reached forward after being spun, “and with how well you interpreted Hunter’s guidance, it only took you a total of fifteen seconds to successfully pin the tail on this rendition of a bantha with… several creative liberties.” Everyone chuckled, all in agreement that this poster must be geared for slightly younger audiences given the cartoonish quality to the art style when it had been hung on the wall earlier when they were first getting ready to play the first of many games Crosshair and Omega had thought to gather when picking up the decorations and gifts from each brother the other day.

“It’ll be hard to beat a dead win,” Crosshair hummed pleasantly, handing her the drink he’d kindly refilled once she resituated the hat, “so whaddya say we give another game a try, doc? Entirely up to you.”

She took a light swig of the mocktail with a little smile, head turned to the game. Echo and Wrecker’s game pieces in particular caught her eyes, “Night’s still plenty young, Cross. Think there’s time for everyone to have a second shot at this, uh, “cute” lil’ bantha, y’know?” His sharp eyes caught the same two tails and mirrored that same casual, friendly shrug with a devil may care smile. “Alright Tech, that means you’re up next. Don’t worry, I won’t mess up your precious little scorecard.”

Tech could only direct a look of mild complaint at his brother before slipping his goggles over his head and surrendering them to Echo with a troubled sigh. “That’s not comforting…”

“I’ll watch him!” Omega’s promise was interrupted with a burst of giggles before she could climb out of her half of the two-seater and convince Hunter to trade places with her, leaning into the pretense of the “little sister charm” to sweeten Hunter to the idea of the swap. “[____]’s finished with her turn now, so you can ask her about the Miss Medic nickname she’s gotten while Tech has his turn.” That seemed to settle it for Hunter, the hesitancy to the idea of seat-swapping for “no reason” gone and forgotten in an instant when replaced with curiosity at the reminder of the earlier offer.

They offered each other timid little smiles as Hunter took Omega’s previous place next to [____] on the piece of furniture that encouraged a greater sense of sharing the same surface than the spacious sofa that had been pushed against another wall for the time being; the simple, undeniable fact of being nearly elbow-to-elbow felt more intimate to them both.

After a beat of silence to allow Tech to start his round on the best foot, she returned the smile that Hunter silently prayed to the Maker didn’t look nervous.

“So, uh… where’d “Miss Medic” from Tech come from?”

“Heh…” [____] chuckled softly, quickly considering how much detail she’d include, “Not all that long or interesting a story, honestly, but if you really wanna know… It originally started because Wrecker accidentally used “Techie” instead of Tech when he wasn’t around; that was while Tech was piloting my medical ship back to the planet. Then I accidentally let it slip that I knew about the nickname when the two of them swung by my clinic at lunch to get more medical supplies after they’d heard my last patient before closing for lunch-rush call and referred to me as “Miss Medic”, several times, I’m sure...”

As the two of them shared a little laugh together, Hunter surmising that Tech had been fine with the medic knowing such a silly little nickname because he could now give her one of her own in kind, each of them easily missed the conspiratorial smiles on the other side of the room.

Things seemed promising from this vantage point.

“So far so good.” Echo muttered under his breath with a knowing toss of his head to the marksman, easily playing off the overheard remark as encouragement meant for Tech. “That’s definitely looking like a step in the right direction…”

Taglist: @dragonrider9905  @ladytano420  @the-hexfiles @ilovethosebrowneyes9904​

Note from Frost: Hope you’re all ready for a real long one next time! If you would like to be added to the taglist that is currently just specific for Sorry, Wrong Comms!, (I may start a taglist for all Star Wars related fanfiction projects that will be marked accordingly with #frostfics in the near future if there is interest) don’t hesitate to shoot me an ask or a comment loves. 🩷 

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[vodika-vibes]

Arachne having to point out trauma therapy for the Jedi & their battalions 🤦‍♀️ Honestly she’s just cleaning up their messes

I feel like this is a conversation that she's had with them before, lol

In fact! Let's rewind to the Jedi Council's first meeting with Arachne.

Arachne frowns as she looks at Dogma, who's half wrapped around her, with his head pillowed on her stomach, while he dozes, and then she looks at Tup, who's using one of her couch pillows as a stuffed animal. Her boys are traumatized. And she knows that the battalions don't have mental health specialists on them, or else she would have met them before now. Her frown deepens as she lightly strokes the top of Dogma's head. This is unacceptable. Just because they've been trained their whole life for war doesn't mean that they can't get trauma. The answer is simple, bully the Jedi into letting the battalions use their mind healers. Yes! Perfect! She's so clever~ Carefully she shimmies out of Dogma's grasp, and slides one of her stuffed tookas in her place, and then she presses a feather light kiss to the top of Dogma's head and she ghosts into her bedroom. It's time for your friendly, neighborhood Arachne to make an appearance at the Jedi temple. She pulls her suit on, and moves to the window, before she pauses in thought. Quickly she scrawls a note on a sticky note, and she sticks it to Tup's forehead, and then she jumps out the window. The Jedi temple isn't that far away, all things considered, especially when she can swing from speeder to speeder, and soon enough she's crawling through the vents, up to the council room. The adults...adultier adults, at least, are talking about something, and Arachne is curious as to how long she can lurk before someone notices her...or calls her out. Oh, she's well aware that they're well aware that she's there, based on the way that eyes keep flickering up towards her, but they haven't called her out yet. Half an hour later, there's a pause in conversation, and Master Koon tilts his head, "Would you care to join us, my dear? The vent can't be comfortable." Arachne laughs softly, and opens the vent to flip into the room, "You'd be surprised," she quips as she lands lightly on her feet, "Nice ta meetcha. I'm Arachne, and I'm here to argue for allowing the clones use of your mind healers." The room is silent for a moment, and then there's a soft laugh, "Miss Arachne," Master Kenobi says lightly, "We're Jedi...we don't use mind healers." Arachne pauses when she receives that, admittedly shocking, information. It reminds her of the time when she, Miles, and Pete had to stand in front of the Avengers and argued that they (the Avengers) definitely needed therapy. She nods slowly, and then beams, "Hello! My name is Arachne, and I'm here to encourage the jedi and the clones to start seeing Mind Healers. I have a presentation."

[thirsty-boba-fett-posts]

Part II of this unnamed fic - feel free to suggest a title

tw: injuries, misogyny, PTSD, Daddy kink (if you squint)

It took seven full days for her to recover. The bacta tank signaled the end of the healing session in the wee small hours of the morning when the moon was still visible and the cool night air blew softly through the windows of Fett’s healing room, gently fluttering the curtains.

She was wet and shivering, but still groggy. Fett wrapped her in one of his own fluffy black robes and inspected her face in the dim light. Her tooka chirped anxiously.

“Can you walk on your own?”

She mumbled affirmatively, but he still braced her at the elbows as she stood up. The robe fell open and he momentarily caught a glimpse of her breasts through the still wet muslin, her soft stomach, and her dimpled thighs. He did not need to avert his gaze - she leaned her forehead against his chest and sighed softly. Her reaction wasn’t unusual. Extensive healing necessitated long periods of time in a bacta tank, resulting in something akin to hibernation sickness, although not as severe.

Fett showed The Princess and her tooka to a soft bed, a new addition to his healing room, and the ratcatcher droid brought a small tray of meats, cheeses, and fruit pastries to offer her. Fett knew, for the sake of propriety, that he should call for Drash to attend to her. He suspected the two of them would get along well. For the moment, though, he could not tear himself away. The split in her lip had knit into a barely visible scar, but the bruises were gone completely. Her bright eyes were half lidded and her breathing was slow and steady. He helped her lay back into a pile of squishy pillows and covered her with a bantha hide blanket. Her tooka snuggled blissfully into her side, finally reunited with his favorite person.

…

Word would get out, eventually, that an exiled princess, the daughter of a disgraced and dethroned king, was now under the protection of a Daimyo of Mos Espa. This was Fennec’s pronouncement, and Fennec Shand was as adroit in politics as she was in combat. Before The Princess had even awakened from the bacta tank, Fennec was strategizing. She’d sent Drash into town to order clothing suitable for a Princess of Brao, form fitting and supple as is the custom of her people but in colors more suited to Tattooine - burnt sienna, rust, taupe, and a green that matched the Daimyo’s own signature armor. He’d have her wear the green dress when he strategically debuted her in Mos Espa.

…

Boba Fett recognized two fundamental truths: that he was strongly attracted to The Princess and that the power imbalance between them meant that she could not, at least in her current state, meaningfully consent to any kind of sexual relationship with him. He was not a bounty hunter in a cantina and she was not a pretty dancing girl. He was the head of a crime family and she was under his protection, having fled a coup and a death sentence. She must never feel that his protection is contingent upon being receptive to his sexual advances. What the bacta tank had done for her body it could not do for her spirit, and Fett was acutely aware that her practiced royal demeanor hid the trauma of interrogating by torture and her narrow escape to Tattooine.

…

I have more mapped out but I’m open to suggestions. Requests are open.

[nerfpuncher]

Made With love.

Reader X Wrecker fic.

I have no idea if i am doing this right. I wrote the first half of this almost 6 months ago then found it this evening and decided ya know? Why not? So I finished it, proof read it lightly and here we are. 

its fluff people. Pure and simple. Cause i love that big goof so much and he deserves all the happiness in the world. 

------------------

You are a large animal vet that has befriended the Batch. You may not be trained on people, but it beats helping a Nexu birth a litter. 

Female Reader goes by the nickname Patches. 

I hope i am doing this right. 

------------------

Looking back, you would have never expected one small tooka to be the cause of your entire lifestyle being tuned upside down. Two months ago, you had been two glasses of wine deep when someone pounded on your front door with enough force to knock the calendar off the wall and spook you to the floor a few feet from your couch. Knowing what you know now, they could have easily just ripped the door off the hinges. Thankfully they hadn’t. You were greeted by a sight you had half thought a hallucination; a small blonde girl, sobbing her eyes out holding a small yearling tooka, surrounded by black armored clone troopers. The girl, thorough her sobs, had said “I was moving crates off our ship and didn’t see her, the crate fell and hit her and she cried and Cid said you might be able to help her”

 The rest had been history.

 However, you now found yourself in a similar situation with the youngest member of the Bad Batch.

 “He is gunna*hick* be so mad *sniff* at me!” Omega cried as she buried her face into your shoulder, her cries muffled by your coat as she you held her tightly, walking carefully through the side streets of Ord Mantell back towards the Marauder’s hangar. “He trusted me with her and I messed up!”

 “Omega honey, Wrecker is gunna know it was an accident. I don’t think any of us could have expected that pup to give us that much trouble.” You cooed softly, absent mindedly running your fingers through her hair. The afternoon had started off so simple, head down to the livestock pens and preg check a few Banthas for some side cash. In and out done in a few hours. That was until one of the stock yard’s massif pups decided that Lula would be the ideal play toy. Omega had been sitting on the fence panels, Lula in her lap when the pup reached up and snatched the doll away by a foot. After an hour of both of you chasing, a few stock hands, and a well aimed loop; you had managed to get the stuffie back.

 But the damage had been done.

 Lula now rested wrapped in a small towel in your backpack, well what remains of her. Both ears were gone, along with a leg and an arm. Most of her stuffing was gone and a lot of the fabric was shredded. Simply put, the wrangle had been body recovery. You had not been expecting this kind of aftermath, however. It was only as Omega clutched the dolls remains to her that you found out the doll had originally been Wreckers. Now the poor kid was more distraught over her brother’s potential reaction, no matter how you tried to sooth and calm her while making the hour-long trek back home.

 At times it was strange to think of the Marauder as home, seeing as you regularly passed your old house to get to it. After the tooka incident, that turned out only be a sprained paw and a quick recovery, The Batch had taken notice in your medical training. Even when you explained to them all that your training was on livestock and other animals, not sentient beings of any form. In the two weeks following, they showed up at least five more times on your doorstep. Turns out helping patch the guys up was a lot easier than helping a Nexu birth a littler. Not by much though. So when Hunter approached you and offered a bunk rent free, you took it.

 “I promise, if he gets upset, I’ll deal with him okay? I doubt it will come to that” Omega was now just down to sniffles as you set her down on the path leading into the Marauder’s hangar. Carefully rolling your pack from your shoulders you dig though to pull out the wounded doll and hand to her. She took the buddle, hugging it to her chest with a sigh before turning to lead the way towards the ship. Your heart hurt for her, seeing as she didn’t have much for kids toys and Lula had been by far her favorite. However, you doubted that Wrecker would be even close to angry with her. You had yet to see the big guy as anything other that cheerful. Well, there was that one time in the market when someone asked how much for Echo, resulting in Wrecker launching them across four vendor stalls, but he had not exactly seemed mad about doing it.

 As you rounded the corner to the hangar, you could see Echo and Tech contently fiddling with the ship, their bickering gaining volume as you neared. Meaning Hunter and Wrecker must have been inside. Omega had almost made it to the ramp when the tell tale sound of Wrecker’s boots coming down it filled the surrounding area. “Hey kiddo how was your trip?”  his excitable tone booming around them as he came to a stop at Omega, who was standing with her head down clutching Lula’s remains to her chest.

 You stopped just behind her, watching as Wrecker’s cheerful expression changed in an instant. “Omega are you okay?” Even his volume lowered, something that you had come to understand was very uncommon. He knelt down, big hands holding to the girl’s shoulders as he tried to figure out what had happened. Eyes flashing towards you once before he was about to speak, only to be cut off by Omega.

 “Im so sorry Wrecker, I wasn’t paying attention I was sitting with Lula on the fence, then suddenly she was gone-“ The last bit of her story came out as a sob, that quickly had the attention of the rest of the Batch. Echo and Tech poked their heads up from around the ramp, when as Hunter began to make his way down towards you. Omega tearfully looked at her brother, before opening the towel as carefully as she could to reveal what remained of Lula. “He just wouldn’t give her back.” She sniffed, presenting the demolished doll to her brother.

 You grimaced as Echo and Tech’s eyes alike widened at the sight of the obliterated stuffie. Hunter’s eye brows had shot into his bandana, before he looked straight at you. All you could do was shrug, “Massif pup at the yards got a hold of her, took us a bit to get her back; why we are as late as we are.” You explained gently, trying to be somewhat sensitive to the situation. Before you, Wrecker had simply stared at Lula for a moment, before taking her into his hands with a gentleness you didn’t realize he was capable of.

 He held Lula carefully as he could, but even them a small glob of stuffing fell onto the floor. His eyes locked on the now green stained face of the doll, you could have sworn you could see his good eye get teary. However, he recovered quickly when he looked up at the sniffling Omega. Grabbing her and pulling her into his embrace. “Its okay kid, accidents happen and that Massif just thought she was so great he had to play with her too.” It was a great recovery, causing Echo and Tech to visibly sigh in relief. “At least you two managed to get her back! Patches can fix her up for us!”

 Oh now this might be a problem.

 Before you can even begin to rebuttal that comment; Hunter finally speaks: “ Well, the rescue mission was a success it looks like to me. However you are an hour over due and it’s time for bed” Omega looks up at him from were Wrecker is still hugging her, nodding her head silently before breaking away to follow the Sargent up the ramp and into the ship. *thank Maker he knows how to deal with this better than me*

 But you were not off the hook yet. As Echo and Tech both climbed up onto the ramp and into the ship, Wrecker stayed still. Omega now gone you could see that the dolls loss was a bit more of a big deal to him than you would have realized. He still held tightly to the fabric, standing about as still as you had ever seen him on the end of the ramp. *this is why you chose animals* you though to yourself, as you approached the large clone with the same caution you would have used on a mother Nurf.

 Before you could even begin to apologize. Wrecker’s gaze shifted from Lula to you. Never in your life had one look broke your heart the way his did. There were unshed tears in his eyes, his shoulders slouched. You understood his reputation. The muscle of the group; however much like the large pulling bred equus, Wrecker was one of the sweetest and most emotional of the batch. Very much making up for the distance his brothers often maintained. “You can fix her, right Patches?”

 He had been the one to start with your nickname, after watching you spend nearly three hours carefully stitching Hunter back together after he lost a fight with some kind of barbed plant. He looked down at you, as hopeful as he could possibly be given the circumstance. How could you even say no to him? How the hell could anyone say no to him for anything when he could ask in a way that almost didn’t even sound like it had come from him? You swallowed “of course big guy, I’ll get her fixed up for ya.”

 You didn’t get a chance to step onto the ramp, Wrecker had taken a hold of you the same way he had Omega. Arms wrapped around you as he crushed you to his chest, lifting your feet off the ground as he began to walk you both into the ship. He was smiling again, ear to ear as you allowed the massive clone to carry you back into the ship.  *you dumbass, you have never made a stuffed animal in your life and now you volunteer?* you scolded yourself. But when he offered you that smile and that softness, causing your stomach to flip and heart to sputter, there was no way you could tell him no.

 It had been a week and a half since Lula the first (as you had come to call her) had met her untimely fate. You had carefully stowed her remains away in one of your supply trunks, hoping to calm your stress over her with the “out of sight out of mind” approach. It had failed miserably. Mainly because in the short time since you promised to fix her, you had learned how truly important the doll was not just to Omega, but Wrecker as well. While Omega was sad, she was more upset having hurt her brother. She still had her trooper doll, when as he had nothing. Even though the doll had been passed down, it was still his in her eyes.

 You had also managed to get more information on the doll and all its importance from Tech. He had been stuck doing dishes with you, and with some very innocent questions you had found out new details that made things click into place. “Wrecker has never been a sound sleeper. I am surprised that you have survived bunking with him.” Tech had explained. “He was hardly a toddler when 99 had given her to him as a gift, seeing as he slept so badly alone. It had the desired affects, though he out grew her somewhat, she is still very special to him, seeing as she is the only gift he has ever been given.”

 You had agreed to sharing a bunk room with Wrecker, seeing as the rest of the batch could not stand his snoring. Having grown up on a livestock transport, you had adapted to sleeping like the dead though most normal background noises. Yet once Tech had said something about his brother’s sleeping habits, you couldn’t stop noticing. In the past week alone you had woke up to his bunk empty below yours, only to realize he had wandered away and climbed in with one of his brothers. Finding him securely wrapped around a half-asleep Echo had been a sight. You had even been staying up to try and spy on the big guy, watching him toss and turn in his sleep while trying to hug his much too small pillow against his chest.

 It broke your heart to bits, but lit a fire under your ass to fix it.

 You had spent every spare second you had researching, watching videos, and reading about how to even begin to make the stuffed doll. While you had been taught at a young age how to fix clothing and stitch animals, this was a ways out of your comfort zone. Then of course there was finding the needed fabric, stuffing, and other hardware necessary for the dolls creation. You had already concluded that as it stands, Lula The First was not salvageable. Many attempts had been made to wash the stains and grime out, but it only made her deteriorate. Just your luck, this would have to be an entirely new doll, not just patching up the original.

 The hyper fixation had managed to kick in when you needed it most, as you devoured as much information as you could; even Hunter had asked if everything was fine. It was, you assured him, you just had shit to get done and not much time to do it. Hell, you didn’t even have a machine to work with, Lula was going to be done by hand, and that was a challenge you were stubbornly going to conquer.

 So after a long night of reading about different plushie fillings and their purpose; you had to hide your excitement when Rex parked his small ship the next hangar over, asking for a favor. You had not quite been up for a lot of the more dangerous stuff the batch did. While you could handle a blaster, you simply were not good under that kind of pressure. But this time was different, as you watched the boys and Omega all cram themselves into the Captain’s ship. The Marauder was too big for the needed mission, much to Tech’s dismay. Not that you would complain, it meant you got to stay behind and enjoy the peace and quiet.

 Wrecker had lagged behind, bucket propped up on his head he cast you a grin “See you when we get back Patches!”

 Maker why did his smile have to be so damn beautiful.

 Three and a half days later you stood in the cockpit of the Marauder. Your hands folded up and held to your mouth as you took a long and exaggerated breath. Before you on the dash of the Marauder sat two stuffed tooka dolls. In your self-induced hyper fixation, you had decided that you did in fact need to make two new tooka dolls. Wrecker needed his Lula there was no doubt there, but Omega did two. She had lost one of the few toys she had, she sure as hell was going to get another. Did it double the stress? Certainly. Did you care? Not entirely.

 You had also been given a shocking reminder of how bad you really are at math. You thought a little bigger wouldn’t hurt, just a little more to snuggle with. Nope, you should have known better the instant the math started to have dots in the numbers. Instead of two tooka dolls that were maybe an inch around larger than Lula The First, you had two dolls that were close to double the size of their ancestor. Maker the doll was almost Omega sized.

 However, you were too excited with the general end product to get to worked up over size. The stitching had come together better than expected, the colors were a bit off, but they were close enough. The stuffing had been high quality, you had wanted to make these things perfect snuggle buddies. The finishing touch had been sticking the cleanest pieces of Lula The First into the main body of each new one. They would both get to still have a piece of the original.

 You knew they were due back any minute. Half a day late but alive and unscathed according to the comm you had received. Yet somehow even with all the past weeks of panicked learning, few days of needle pricked fingers and fleeting sanity the last ten minutes had your entire mind running in an anxious circle. You just had to give it to them, how hard could it be? Omega you didn’t worry much on. The girl loved anything and everything that could be given to her.

 Wrecker though.

 Overhead the familiar hum of idling engines began to fill the ship. You picked up both dolls, darting back to your bunk, shoving both dolls under your blanket before scurrying back to the ramp of the ship just in time to watch as the batch along with Rex tumble back out of the small ship. Their voices filled the hanger, the evening sun having just started to hang across it.

 “Patches!!” A familiar small voice called across the hanger. Omega came sprinting out ahead of all of them, she nearly skidded to a halt next to you looking up with wide eyes, her clothes absolutely soaked with water “Wrecker blew up a huge dam! There was so much water it made everything almost look like Kamino!”

 You chuckled “Oh did he now?” *This man I swear* Omega simply giggled shaking her head to send droplets of water flying before looking back up to see the group had split. Everyone but Wrecker was heading out of the hanger, calling out something about being at Cids. “You and the big guy going to get your mix then?”

 Omega shook her head with a small frown. “No, they already closed for the night, so we will have to in the morning.” The disappointment was evident, hell if they had commed you twenty minutes sooner you would have picked it up for them.

 “That’s okay though! Just means we get the fresh stuff tomorrow!” Wrecker had come to a stop beside you now, looking down with grin. However, this time you took notice of how tied he looked. His volume was low and his eyes were droopy.

 “Good idea!” The girl laughed, “Now I have to go shower, Tech says I smell like a swamp!” She practically skipped up the ramp ahead of you. Only then did the smell of rotten wood and stagnant water fill your nose.

 “Maker, she does!” You chuckled, shaking your head as you took a step up the Marauder. You half glanced back at Wrecker, who had finished pulling his bucket off to set on a bench. “So she claims you blew up a dam? Care to elaborate?”

 The smile that plastered his face was nothing short of magical. “Yeah I did! Took out soo many battle droids! Some thug had managed to reprogram them and was using them to terrorize a village! Not any more!” You listened intently, leaning up against the wall as he began to unceremoniously discard his armor bit by bit.

 “I was able to get Omega safe before the blast but I got hit with some water. Had to swim for a bit but nothing I couldn’t handle.”

 He made it sound so mundane. Like it was just another afternoon jaunt. Part of you was thankful for that, it helped settle that always nerved side of you that knew what they did was dangerous. That the man before you could very well not return with the others. It made something hurt thinking about it

 You swallowed hard and prayed he didn’t notice. When had those feelings started? You shoved it aside, smiling as you walked over to Wrecker who was stripped down to just his leg armor and blacks. “Well, you better hope that Omega leaves the hero of this mission some hot water.”

 “Nah its okay. She deserves all of it more than me.”

 Maker this man was going to be the death of you.

 The half hour delay of waiting for both Omega and Wrecker to finish cleaning off had done nothing to help the growing anxiety you had over how the big guy would react. What if he didn’t want a new one? What if it was too soon to replace her? Maker you had not been this unsure of something in a long time. It was time to rip off the band aid. You were better than this. You carefully picked up both of the dolls before calling out. “Hey I have a surprise for both of you!”

 The playful commotion from outside in the common area went dead quiet. What had once been the sound of Wrecker attempting to herd Omega to bed was replaced with the not so quiet sound of them rushing to the bunk room door. They both looked on with equal amounts of child like curiosity.

 “Whattcha got?” Wrecker asked, attempting to peek around and see whatever it was that you were hiding behind your back.

It was now or never.

 Carefully with one in each hand, you held out the tooka dolls. Both Omega and Wrecker’s eyes going wide in unison. “While I am sad to say, I couldn’t save Lula. I know these won’t replace her, she was special to both of you. But I did put the fabric I could salvage from her and put in in these new ones.” You presented them each with their respective doll. “I hope you like them”

 Omega was first to react, snatching the doll out of your hand with lightning speed. The ship was instantly filled with her excited laughter “Patches I love it!!! Its even bigger than Lula was!!” as you had delightfully predicted, the doll was nearly perfect hugging size for the girl. “Thank you Thank you Thank you!!”

She nearly took you out with a hug, her arms desperately trying to hug both you and the doll at the same time. Your heart melted; this sweet kid had the incurable disease of enthusiasm. Maker you prayed nothing ever took it from her. She grinned up at you, big eyes full of unbridled joy. “I’m glad you like her!”

 However, your attention was brought back to Wrecker, who was holding the other doll between his hands staring at it. This doll looked more his size. Lula the first had been so small in his hands, but this new one could actually be held between two hands. He finally looked up at you and Maker you could have melted in a puddle then and there had Omega not been hugging you.

 You had seen him interact with Omega with a gentleness that was impressive, but he looked so soft, so unbelievably thankful that it was almost too much. However, he closed the gap between you both, pulling you into a rather gentle hug. Leaning down to bury his face in your neck, he had never done that before.

 “Thank you so much Patches.” It was hardly a whisper.

 “she is the only gift he has ever been given”

 Your heart ached. He deserved so much more than the life that he had been forced into. The urge to harm anyone that had hurt him in the past danced in your mind. He had seen so much, gone though so much yet he was one of the most compassionate people you had ever met. His heart was the one thing they could never train out of him.

 In a moment of clarity, you reached one hand up and cupped his face. Holding him steady so you could press your cheek to his. “Anytime sweetheart.” It slipped out, you couldn’t help it. His warm embrace had melted any resistance you had to accepting you had fallen head over heels for the brawler. All you could do was bask in the warm fuzzy feeling of surrendering to it.

 The tension melted away from his fame, before he pulled away. This time his gaze was different. You couldn’t place it. But you liked it. You both simply stared at each other. “Wrecker what are you going to name yours? Still Lula? I gotta think of names come on!”

 You had nearly forgotten Omega was there. Wrecker snapped his arms back from around you, recovering quicker than you had he beamed down at Omega “I’m not sure yet! But I agree we can’t reuse Lula’s name! Maybe we can figure that out later.”

 She darted away from the bunkroom just as the voices of their returning brothers began to fill the hanger. She stumbled to a stop, before spinning and sprinting down the ramp. “HUNTER LOOK WHAT PATCHES MADE ME!”

 You couldn’t help the laughter that spilled from your chest, her enthusiasm was infectious You finally glanced back up to Wrecker, who looked at you with such adoration that it made your heart sing.

  It was long after the ship had grown quiet that you finally made it to your bunk. The weeks of painstaking preparation had come to a close and now the relief had turned into a crash. You scrambled up into the bunk you called yours, stacked just above Wreckers. He had turned in early, not that you blamed him. He needed sleep. You could hardly make him out in the dark room, all that was visible was a dark pile of blankets and a pair of stuffed tooka ears.

 You couldn’t help but grin. Settling in you laid out on your stomach, one arm hanging over the side as you carefully peered down at the pile of blankets below you. He had been so restless for weeks, but now he seemed unusually still.

 “Hey Patches?” His voice broke the silence. You thought he had been asleep. The blankets below shifted around, then the soft pressure of his hand taking yours shocked you. The hold was tender, ever so gentle as he ran his thumb over your knuckles. “Thank you again. For everything”

 There was something about the way he said everything. It was more than just the doll he was talking about. It was things you didn’t quite know how to talk to him about. *Maker he just short circuits me*

 “Any time Wrecker. I’m always here.” You squeezed his hand slightly, hoping to convey everything that you wanted to say to him but couldn’t find the words for.

 There was a low rumble from the bunk below you, as he returned the hand squeeze delicately. You could only describe the sound as a content purr. A soft giggle escaped you.

 Maker you loved his man.

[ofpolitics]

CONTINUED FOR BETA EDITOR ›› ( @honorhunt )

                    sober russet gaze tracked his progress along the stuccoed wall, remaining sat still against the bed until he reached the opposite side.   only then did she shift onto a hip, an arm resting atop the blankets.   he reminded her of the myriad of feral tookas she had met in her journeys in how he spat and hissed before retreating into a low growl.   but, unlike those, ones who could be carefully caught and tenderly coaxed into domesticity once more, the young senator knew far too well she instead had a nexu kitten in her life.

                    his bites did smart, but unlike all the others before, a half hearted smile remained her only response.   for the moment, she no longer struggled to convince him to cooperate at least in the smallest measure.   responding to each lash of his tongue in hopes to find some weak point to persuade had been her only recourse.   hardly would she have attempted to drag him into the steamer kicking and screaming…

                    that would have been nothing short of a disaster.

                    led by her chin, a soft nod leaned in the direction of the main door out of the room, a threshold he had refused to cross since they’d arrived a few hours before.    ❝  directly across the hall.  ❞     simply exiting the room had become a milestone, shiraya help her.     ❝  when you’re done, come find me in the kitchen.  ❞      it was about as far from an order as a jest, but in hopes of soothing any still ruffled feathers, padmé tacked on an encouraging smile.

                    and remained frozen to her spot until the door closed behind him.

                    curls spread across the coverlet as her face fell against it, chin tucked into her arm.   somehow, she’d taken upon herself another front in this war she struggled so relentlessly to fight, and she understood it from the moment she knew she would not leave the prison without boba beside her.  still knowing all that, she could feel the drag of more weights laying across her shoulders.   at least these were chosen only by her.

                    a full minute passed before she gathered the strength to stand, having snatched no more sleep than the boy.   their one distinguisher there remained only her dark circles were well covered by a skilled hand.  for a moment, as she slid through the doorway into the oh so familiar hall, with its holos and flora which looked all the galaxy like they had always been there, the sight of her own childhood room tempted her.  but alas, not yet.

                    she had promises to keep.  foremost, updating her parents…

                    ❝  he’s so angry, mom.   i knew he would be, but i worry for him.  ❞     after a sigh of relief had spread through the kitchen at the news that boba finally had been somewhat reasoned with, her father escaped outside with the girls, leaving a mother and her two daughters alone… and padmé to finally breathe her fears leaning against the counter as if she were merely a child again.

                    a dark brow so like her own raised as the family’s matriach failed to bite back a chuckle.     ❝  oh?   i couldn’t tell.  ❞     a fresh and steaming loaf of five blossom bread settled onto the tiles.

                    padmé gave into the long desperate urge to bury her head in her hands, elbows propped on the counter’s edge.     ❝  mom…  ❞      the groan held no anger, but she was in no fit state for jokes, even from her mother.

                    a soft hand settled upon her bare back, stroking along the long white lines remaining from the nexu’s claws, her sister’s soothing voice settling the jump in her heart.     ❝  just keep on being patient with him.   he’ll eventually realize you’re being honest.  ❞    then too did humor bleed into sola’s warm voice, more welcome now that it followed some advice.     ❝  probably won’t tell you though.  ❞     

                    a soft groan escaped her lips as padmé shook her head still cradled by her palms, curls falling in a veil about her forearms.     ❝  as long as he knows, i don’t need him to tell me, but i mostly worry about when we return to coruscant.  ❞     the mere words pressed dread cold and heavy into her belly.   and how horrible was it that the crux of her concerns were not the harm he could muster?     ❝  it will be so easy for him to slip out, disappear into the city even with someone watching him.   i know he can take care of himself, but if he goes after master windu, someone again…  ❞     most importantly, she would lose him, fail this duty she had taken onto herself, but both of the women beside knew as much from her frantic call the night before.   there were other, even more practical issues pertaining only to her.     ❝  i put a lot of credits into his bond, mom.   if i only had the trouble it’d cause to deal with, that’s one thing, but that amount of credits?  ❞    a small bit of weight slid off her shoulders at the admission.   at least, they knew.   they understood.

                    her sister’s vexed sigh spoke as loudly as her mother’s horrified breath of a whisper.     ❝  oh, padmé, you didn’t.  ❞     

                    once more, her head felt too heavy to lift, her only defense a weak but stubborn,    ❝  if either of you had been there, you wouldn’t have been able to leave him either.  “     and she knew in her heart they wouldn’t have been, financially ruinous or not.

[spokewar]

"If I'm getting in trouble for this, you're gonna share some of the blame, too." - Quinlan (Who else?)

──✶prompts from star wars: the clone wars

"Yes, because why wouldn't I take half the blame for a situation you wholly caused?" It was spoken with a roll of his eyes, less a complaint and more a taunt. Their clan had always been in the habit of sharing, first taking the fall for several of Obi-Wan's worse outbursts and then somehow progressing to the opposite where his good standing with the Council meant lesser reprimands for the rest of them going off script. He didn't mind it—far from it—especially with Quinlan who was the only constant he'd ever known through his tremulous apprenticeship with Qui-Gon all the way to his first chaotic days of knighthood. And perhaps that turbulence was what kept them bonded stronger than the rest of their clan mates. They had both been brought to temple a little too late in life, both unruly, slightly-less-than-human children plagued visions that left them shaking for hours on end, one from touch and the other, his own mind. How the creche teachers made do, he would never know.

And as they aged, Obi-Wan's own recklessness faded while Quinlan stepped into the foreground and spending any field time with the man became increasingly exhausting (once Obi-Wan had wondered how Aayla could even stand to keep up with him until she'd been left in his charge one night and had the audacity to complain he was boring). Perhaps he ought to sick Anakin on him in the coming days, give him a taste of his own medicine. "I hope you have a good cover story in mind or, at the very least, a decent excuse, I am far too busy to be put on Temple suspension." And far too old, though he left the latter half unspoken. "Are you injured anywhere? Perhaps they will take pity on us if I drag you in looking like a sodden Tooka."

[ironmandeficiency]

random poly bad batch hc’s

pairing: poly bad batch / reader

word count: 1038

summary: just a cluster of random hc’s that kinda link together. i’m just soft for these boys

a/n: another piece retrieved from c&m but with extra content bc i used to not be very comfortable writing for echo, but i feel like i’ve kinda become ready to delve into him deeper

tech:

tech??? a flirt??? more likely than you’d think

it blindsides the boys bc like everyone else that meets the genius, they think he’ll be a shy, bumbling fool when trying to impress someone

but he ends up being a smooth motherfucker who uses some random study that says “eight hugs a day is recommended to keep the mind and body healthy” to get you to cuddle in bed longer or to stop doing something that isn’t holding your boys

”how many hugs have you today?” “um…” “unacceptable. to be safe, we’re starting the count over” you were close to eight but since you couldn’t recount them when he asked, he takes it as zero (even if he knows he was at least two of the day’s recommended hugs)

they’ll never admit it but the others are extremely grateful bc his tactic works every time

echo:

echo gets cold much easier than anyone else in the group for obvious reasons, but hates to make it known

you were quick to catch on to his shivering in the few nights he would let you sleep next to him during brief breaks & decided to do something to help: get him a heated blanket

during a brief refuel stop on coruscant, you made your way into the shopping district and bought him a 501st blue heated blanket that had considerable weight to it. not enough to smother him, but just enough to feel like he’s wrapped in a hug

the heating and ventilation system in the marauder went kaput in hyperspace which turned the ship into a flying icebox. echo was already an icicle on the best days, but this level of cold would be almost unbearable for him

the boys had commed you to let you know the situation & that they were a couple hours out

you cranked the blanket to the next highest setting and let it warm up before they got there, and made sure to have some food ready for all five of them

an echo-shaped blanket burrito was carried through your front door by wrecker, the others trailing behind the hulk of a soldier like lost tookas

wrecker knew to bring echo to your bed where you wrapped him in the new blanket, waiting until you knew it was warm before sliding all but two blankets out from underneath the heated one

before leaving him be, you smoothed out his brow with your thumb and kissed his forehead gently, careful to not wake him

when he finally woke up, he wrapped you in the biggest hug he possibly could with a smile that nearly overtook the rest of his face

wrecker:

wrecker would be the most obvious when missing you, more open with his emotions than the others (which doesn’t say much, i know)

he’ll be the one in the middle of a mission talking about how comfy your bed is and how much he misses your cooking

absolute cuddle bug. no one even comes close to his strong need to constantly have some sort of physical contact with you

he keeps an arm slung around you at nearly all times, whether it be around your shoulder or your waist he’s always wanting to hold you

if one of the others has themselves wrapped around you, he’ll resort to having a hand in your back pocket or even a couple fingers hooked into your belt loop

the grumpiest and poutiest wrecker is the one not around you

crosshair:

crosshair quickly becomes a food critic whose ratings seem quite biased toward the cook

he would praise every dish you made not just bc the rations were depressingly bland, but bc you make everything with love and the intention of taking care of your boys.

crosshair is the most likely to shoot a bitch for just a bite of your cooking (he’s most likely to shoot a bitch period but that’s beside the point)

so you started cooking in bulk and freezing it so they can have a taste of home when they’re half a galaxy away

since each one has different preferences when it comes to some ingredients (crosshair loathes corn while hunter enjoys extra), you always put their names or draw their symbols on the top so they don’t get mixed up

when you draw a crosshair for him you always put a heart in the center of it and it makes him smile every time, especially when he lifts the foil top and sees the secret note you always leave him

he’s nonchalantly checked the others’ containers and doesn’t find a note for them, and to him it makes him feel special that there’s something solely his in the universe, no matter how trivial it may seem

hunter:

speaking of the word “home”

hunter’s the first one to use it out of the four of them

he’s giving a pre-mission of what they need to do and casually says “the quicker we get this done, the quicker we get home”

crosshair calls him on it and hunter tries to say he didn’t say that but tech recorded it and he very clearly said-

there wasn’t anything wrong with hunter saying it, it just came as a shock bc the only “homes” they knew were kamino (terrible first experience) and the havoc marauder (not terrible but i hey were just alone together 24/7, they get on each other’s nerves sometimes)

but then they met you, and you turned their world topsy-turvy. suddenly they have someone that sees them as people & is so absolutely genuine that it makes them ache when they suddenly remember “hey, there’s this person i would do anything for and apparently they’d do the same for me, holy shit”

the first time they saw photos of themselves hanging in your apartment, it caught them off guard. it wasn’t a grand gesture that required a lot of fanfare, it wars a simple thing you did to have pieces of them be with you when they’re worlds away

plus, there’s no way you can be sad when looking at a picture of wrecker using a disgruntled crosshair as weights

these boys love you to the ends of the galaxy and then even farther & will make sure you don’t forget

[padawansuggest]

Okay so I decided I wanted a fic where Cin Drallig takes Obi-Wan (11 years old) as a Padawan but since he’s the head of the temple guard and an instructor, he leaves the temple very rarely, and he wanted to make sure his padawan had field experience too, so Mace (very fond of the baby) Plo (chronic dad syndrome, very fatal) and Dooku (who saw the child and was like ‘awww… he’s Qui-Gon shaped… I’m gonna tame him’ and decided Komari could use a friend) all agree to occasionally help out by bringing him on various searches and missions. It works out for about a year…

And then Obi-Wan wakes up in the healing halls after a painful vision that looked like a 20 minute seizure to everyone else and Cin trying stoically not to cry over his new tiny boy being hurt, and not even in a way Cin can protect him from, and Obi-Wan says sorry to him in the force for making his time hard, only to immediately make a fuss so big it brings half the council down on them wondering what the child could have seen to cause that much issue.

Anyways. No one listens to him, he doesn’t have enough facts, he doesn’t even know where it takes place, he’s barely got any experience with visions, yadayadayada.

Except. Sifo-Dyas. Who unfortunately, had a quarter of the vision Obi-Wan just did, and didn’t like a lick of it.

Which is why Obi-Wan conveniently disappears from the temple less than ten hours later and sends the whole temple into a flurry. It’s. Bad.

They don’t know where the child is. They’ve started double checking the temple and combing the streets.

And here’s where it gets time-line-fuckery cause I KNOW these things didn’t happen at this time but I don’t care.

Dooku makes planetfall on Galidraan less than two days after the child went missing. He hasn’t heard back from anyone while in hyperspace tho, so he doesn’t know to concern himself… until a red haired blur comes streaking past him into a clearing and talking all fast and frantic and then… well… have you ever see a human try to catch a rabbit that keeps running in circles? Yeah so that ensues with Dooku chasing after the tiny one while a bunch of True Mandalorians are lookin on like 👁👄👁 from the edge of the clearing cause these two Just Appeared.

And Dooku is asking why Obi-Wan felt the need to stowaway in the ship (and that it explains the ‘stowaway tooka kitten’ Komari had shiftily said she was leaving ration bars out for) and he’s finally got Obi-Wan exactly where the child does not want to be, which is perched on his hip like a toddler.

Obi-Wan keeps answering his questions with ‘can I go down now?’ And being firmly told no, unless someone had a child leash he can’t slip, he will not be put down anytime soon.

Obi-Wan gives adorable little baby growls and explains that there are ‘Kyr’tsad’ over the hill and they came to kill the Manda’lor and no one was listening to him in the temple but Obi-Wan knows the senate is ordering the Jedi to kill Haat’mando’ade and no one listened to him when it needed to be stopped-

Anyways. So. The Manda’lor and his son are like lol cause this kid really managed to escape the Jetii temple just to warn them the Death Watch was here and now he’s in Annoying Child Timeout, huh, these jetii kids are a lot like mando kids.

So Dooku hands Obi-Wan off to his co-conspirator Komari (who is also grounded but can now be trusted not to let her tiny friend wander off or she won’t leave the temple for a year) while the Jedi forces go to help the True Mandos (Obi-Wan obviously gets bored and convinces Komari to let him talk to the pretty one, Jango, so they can be friends too, and now Jango has a 12 year old who thinks he’s cute lol) and everything was happy forever ever.

Until the moment Obi-Wan gets back into the temple, at which point he is in Dumb Padawan Baby Jail which means Cin is not putting him down for a month and he will be grounded for at least two years and that vision and it actually coming true means he’s in a million new classes for the unifying force and Yoda hisses every time he sees him, which means Obi gives Yoda Extra Tight Hugs cause he seems like he could use them and also Mace got a migraine upon Obi-Wan revealing the Death Watch to the True Mandalorians and he needs to be told sorry, right now, be nice to the master, say sorry for creating a shatter point. Plo is just. Still dad shaped. I just can’t leave Plo out.

Cin refuses to let the child out of his sight for at least a week.

[moodymisty]

Couldn't help jumping in the tooka reader train, because a thought struck me and wouldn't leave: but imagine if reader gets the 3am zoomies inside the Marauder for the first time and the batcher on watch goes to check on the noise. Reader looks over and the eyes catch the light in that eerie way cats do sometimes. Do you think any of them would spook?

Author's Note: Catlikespecies!reader continues :3

✦ Hunter ✦

Now I don't know what artist drew it, but I remember a meme post with Hunter having glowing catlike eyes also because of his senses. So I fully think that it would be a case of having a bit of a stare off.

He heard some noises and decided to slide off his bunk and check it out, in case something fell he needed to pick up. Wouldn't be unusual.

Instead however he catches sight of you in the pitch black of the ship, other than the safety lights that glow on the floor and the glow of the control panels.

You can both quite clearly see each other, and it's a bit of a stare off for a moment as you both decide how to go about this.

'Just keep it down?' He ends up whispering to you quietly, and shaking his head.

✦ Echo ✦

Echo gets up a lot when he sleeps, he rarely gets more than about two or three hours of sleep at a time if he's lucky. So it's not uncommon to stumble across him in the night while he's getting himself something to drink, returning from the refresher or just stretching.

But needless to say he isn't at all used to being the one stumbling across someone else.

He almost freezes as he catches sight of you in the dark, before putting a hand to his chest and letting out a breath.

'Nearly scared me half to death...' he breathily jokes. Once you apologize and he gets his water, he lays back down and hums. 'So that's what those weird noises were.'

✦ Crosshair ✦

Crosshair finds it hilarious, and gets not a small amount of amusement from startling you. Him however...

You can't scare him; It's pretty much impossible. At least outwardly, if he gets startled by you he doesn't show it visibly.

'Quit darting around in the dark', he says, watching you stare wide-eyed right at him surprised. His eyebrows are raised as he looks at you, before he goes back to his bunk.

What's amusing is that he never tells any of his brothers that he found you like that, or that you're the source of the random noises at night. He'll make jokes about it, but it stays between you two.

✦ Tech ✦

Tech is actually still awake at the time, which you had totally forgotten about when you decided to slip from your bunk and stretch your legs.

When he first hears some noise he completely ignores it, distracted enough that it doesn't even register for awhile. Though after a bit he becomes curious enough that he gets out of his seat, and leaves the cockpit only to come face to face with you.

You almost yelp with how he came out of nowhere, as your eyes are wide with surprise. Tech however seems largely unphased. It's Tech's dirty little secret that he's done more than a bit of research on your home planet, but he hasn't told you yet. It doesn't mean he still isn't curious, especially as you stand in front of him showing of a myriad of things that interest him.

'Is this usual behavior for your species?' He asks, sucking you into an hour long conversation.

✦ Wrecker ✦

Wrecker is half asleep when he decides to get up and take a drink, since he normally sleeps like the dead and doesn't wake up like this.

Since it's so unusual, you never thought anyone would be around to witness your quick movements to try and get rid of some pent up energy, as the Marauder is sometimes borderline suffocating.

Very much so, as suddenly you ram straight into Wrecker's chest, nearly scaring him and yourself in the process.

He doesn't even notice anything different about you, he's just making sure you're ok.

His hands are on your shoulders and you nod, before he lets you go with a brush and grabs a drink to wet his throat.

He suddenly has a ton of questions once he lays back down, but it's too late to ask any of them now.

[frostycatblr-fandom-files]

Sorry, Wrong Comms! : Hunter x Medic!Reader [Chapter 11]

Warnings and Information: Intended audience is 13+ (18 if you squint). Should know the drill on my use of Mando'a, italics and my headcanons by now if you've been following along with the AU series this far. Star Wars and real-world swearing. Can you call it a road trip if there's no cars in Star Wars? Who knows, who cares. Batch and Medic!Reader go on a road trip back to that mining planet so the brothers can have a nice little day to use their skill sets in peace and quiet away from the Empire. More domestic(-ish) moments. Only days into dating Hunter and basically like one of the family, lucky lucky you. If you don't try to embarrass your siblings in front of their significant others, are you really even siblings? Someone figured out where to make a "nap nest" in the Marauder to escape the heat? Sure why not, we don't know the exact layout of the attack shuttle so fuck it we vibe. ❤️✌️ Couple of suggestive lines but overall this is just me finding excuses for fluff/soft content. Batchers need a break and so do you. 

Word-count: 5,479

Trp-trp-trp-trp!

Scraping wet food out of the can, [____] glances down at the light-furred critter winding eagerly around her feet, the sound of the Tooka's curved nails tip-tipping against the floor as she prances and paces in tight circles. "I'm going as fast as I can without making a mess, silly!"

Rorw! M'oww!

She sets the plate down along with the ceramic bowl with water just as there's a knock at the door. The hour, exactly on the dot, Hunter said he'd be by to walk her to the shipyards. "Spoon, you be good for me, okay girl? I'll be home before dinner. Sounds like that's him." Straightening out the hem of an older, comfortable shirt she won't mind getting dirty, she plucks the emergency medkit off the counter as she walks past it. "Be right there!"

Hunter doesn't hide the visual head-to-toe sweep when she opens the door to him, the dark ink that makes up his tattoo of the half-skull making it very easy to notice when he starts to smile at the sight of her. "Hey… Good morning." He looks bright-eyed in a way beyond possibly being awake for an hour or two longer than the medic. She'd slept in pretty late - compared to the days she was working at least - since she'd gone home late after dinner. It was difficult to say no to Omega's suggestion to watch a holofilm once the leftovers were tucked away in the cold-unit and dishes were washed up.

Besides, more excuses to remain close to one another and enjoy the company, the chance to hold one another close while she laid out her thoughts for how to spend tomorrow? (Distract themselves from the collective thoughts of the Imperial at her health practice.) Would they really have passed that up?

She smiles back, threading her arm in the offered space to walk arm in arm once she's locked the door. "G'morning, Hunter." She realizes he's clean-shaven when he moves in close to peck her cheek with a sweet little sound. "Sleep well, mesh'la?"

"Mhm. You?" she asks.

"Probably better than Wrecker and Crosshair…" Hunter chuckles, sighing just slightly. "They were pretty excited, y'know. They have a chance to show off, so there's a chance they'll get a bit competitive like the old days." he warns her; not that [____] needed the reminder that his brothers' habit of competition had survived the war.

"Still a little confused how exactly they competed with such different skill sets at times." [____] admits and laughs softly under her breath as they pass one of the management-personnel of the shipyards, the top fin of the Marauder easy to spot, "But siblings always find a way, don't they? So I suppose that's enough of an explanation."

Ducking under the wing of another ship just before they get to the Omicron-class ship, the two of them are greeted by the sight of his brothers waiting for them, and Omega breaks away from helping Tech with last-minute supply checks to greet her friend. "[____]!" Ordinarily someone would be warning her for forgetting (once again) that shipyards were no place to be running around, but she doesn't go too far before the medic catches her with a laugh and hoists her up in her arms.

"Good morning to you too, sweetie! Looks like someone's excited for today!"

"Yeah, we get to spend it with you!" Omega giggles, lacing her arms around the grown woman's neck and shoulders. Tech was pointedly looking away to conceal a grimace of annoyance, likely having lost track of what he was counting within a very full crate. Oh dear. Lowering the youngster, [____] kindly reminds the girl she was in the middle of helping one of her brothers with a wink and loving ruffle of her hair.

"And as much as I love a good hug from the galaxy's cutest little heat-seeking missile, you were helping your brother count something important from the look of things before you ran off." The crate was marked "SNACKS" in bold, sloppy Aurebesh, but something told her the contents inside were most definitely not bursting with flavor.

Omega's hands wring and twist the hem of her shirt. "Ri-right, sorry Tech! I just got excited."

"It's fine Omega, I understand..." Tech smiles softly, finally nodding in greeting in [____]'s direction to be polite, "I just lost track of how many I've already count-"

"Twenty-four!" Omega declares confidently, swinging off [____]'s wrist with a slight laugh.

"Oh, excellent, I was only one off. Twenty-five, six… twenty-eight. Perfect. Full crate." Lid latched tightly, the container is pawned off to Wrecker, excitedly prancing in place, so he can haul it up the ramp into the shuttle. "Awh right! Can't wait!"

[____] gives Hunter a questioning and amused look. Did Wrecker really have twenty-eight explosives in that crate? "Don't worry, those snacks aren't any spicier than the way Cross likes his fruit and spice-dough pastries." he assures her, nudging Tech and Omega to get into the ship and get things running now that Echo's called from the cockpit that the shipyard crew has given them the go-ahead to lift-off with the rest of the morning rush. They ought to hurry before the skyway was choked with ships.

Crosshair scoffed lazily, collecting his case for the 773 Firepuncher with a lifted brow and a gentle shoulder slugging. "Big words for the guy who didn't make the cut for galaxy's number one cutest heat-seeking missile."

"I'm okay with that." Hunter retorts in a gruffer voice, returning the slug with a touch more effort. He's the last up the ramp after the medic, so he hits the proper button on the panel to draw in the ramp. "I'll gladly settle for being number two." he adds with a smug, confident expression. Oh Maker, her face feels warm, suddenly. Something about Hunter's moments of confidence in himself could be so attractive.

Tech calls a final warning from the cockpit as the engines rumble and burst to life. "Ready for lift-off! Strap in, this will not be very smooth, I'm afraid!"

Finding a crash seat for herself, [____] gets her medkit secured and carefully straps in. Hunter joins her shortly after, having helped Omega get settled in in the cockpit's seats. (Until she was a little more acclimated to a bumpier than average take-off, she could get airsick being further back in the ship.) Crosshair takes a seat directly across from his brother, a devious smirk washing over every feature.

Oh boy, here comes trouble. Hunter senses it too, preliminarily rolling his eyes after securing the shoulder harness. "What is it, Cross?" He's certain he's going to wish he hadn't asked, so he chooses a non-Basic language to get this over with and spare [____] the potential for embarrassment. "Out with it."

Adopting the same language, Cross purrs delicately around the toothpick with a mirthful smile. "Shame you can't act out that bunkroom fantasy you had as a cadet, Hunter." He only groans regretfully, ignoring the provocative grins from the sniper and the strongman once he's gotten seated. "And I shouldn't have asked…"

She looks sideways at him and across the ship at his brothers, and her later reply only makes Wrecker laugh harder. Hunter's mortified because forgot she understands this language thanks to the time she was employed at her first of two health centers. That smirk tells Hunter he should have worried about himself being embarrassed.

Kark…

"Now, now, Crosshair. We both know he'd want a door he can lock before anything else." [____] croons in a salacious voice.

Hunter sinks further into the seat in a way that has nothing to do with the spacecraft picking up speed once hitting clear skies.

Kark!

"That looks like a mining town." Omega marvels, pointing to something she sees out of the viewport.

"That's because it is," Echo replies, reaching overhead to hit some control as part of the landing sequence, "that's the mountain [____] fell down, actually. Thank the Force she wasn't badly hurt at least." Omega shudders, shrinking back against her seat until the landing struts have made contact with the surface of the desert planet. "I know that she said it was more of an uncontrolled slide than a fall after she slipped on loose shale, but still… That must've been scary…"

[____] and Hunter briefly glanced at one another by chance as they gathered their things. The twisting expression of torment in his face when his eyes found that fading evidence of her partially unsuccessful exploit left no doubt in [____]'s mind that Hunter had some really strong what if? thoughts surging right now. Maybe the very same ones she'd had that day when making her way home.

What if she'd hit her head and ended up severely concussed? If she'd been badly hurt, would the wildlife here pose a threat to her? (What wildlife was out here, actually? She didn't know; hopefully no big carnivores.) How quickly would help have come to her if she'd given Echo the SOS; that unfortunately yes, their "favorite medic" had gotten herself hurt?

Was Echo serious about that… is she really their favorite medic?

"Wow. Hardly a cloud in the sky…" Wrecker rumbles with wonder as he's the first to step off the Havoc Marauder. "Good thing we brought so much water and stuff for shade! But first, needa put on all the sun-stuff before someone ends up lookin' like a roasted porg again; c'mere you!" He plucks his sister off her feet with frightening ease as she tries to skip past him after Tech, who'd wandered off ahead to inspect the desert vegetation. She giggles and struggles in mild protest, swearing she can put the protective lotion on herself without any help. "Nuh-uh, we're not repeatin' last time, Omega. Fried the back of your poor neck 'cause you forgot."

"But what about Te-!" she tries asking, gasping when Wrecker accidentally tickles her by moving her hair off the back of her neck to apply the sun protectant. He apologizes, large fingers making quick work of the application process before she's thoroughly covered and she can take it from there. "Awh, someone'll drag him back eventually if he's not coming back on his own. Y'know how Techie is."

"Don't be stingy on the lotion, sweetie," [____] encourages her, "I brought plenty."

Echo laughs, taking one of the many bottles from the crate she and Hunter had collected from her clinic last night as part of the preparation for today with a grateful smile. "Benefits of knowing a damn good medic." He tosses his head in a nodding motion at Cross, "Mind helping me out? Goes a lot faster with two hands." Both chuckle when Echo whirrs the scomplink attachment once for good measure to emphasize his point.

"Sure thing."

"Hey… uh-uh." [____] chides Hunter softly for quickly smearing the sun cream across his face before reaching behind his head to apply it to his neck, "Come here. I want to make sure that nice tattoo of yours is properly covered so it stays nicer longer." Her fingertips carefully paint a thin layer of the lotion over the dark ink of the half-skull on the left side of his face, glazing it in a coat of white before tenderly massaging it into his face so it absorbs into the skin. The whole ordeal, Hunter's keen eyes are trained on her, watching her with rapt attention. She'd become the galaxy's most interesting spectacle to Hunter since freeing himself from refraining from expressing how he realized he felt about her. Becoming braver, bolder, to watch her with adoration, without much shame if she caught him staring.

Her kindness, her compassion, her soothing, nurturing nature that served as the groundwork for her inner and outer beauty had him so enamored shortly from the start, perhaps.

And she… she's wearing the Nabooian pendant.

How in the stars did he miss that? It looked so beautiful in the sunlight. She looked so beautiful in the sunlight. "Something on my face, or…?" she asks softly, teasingly as she takes the container again and carefully applies some to her own face. "Am I missing something?"

"Mm-m." he confirms shortly and leans in to pepper her in sweet little kisses, feeling bold, daring, in this moment.

"Ew," Omega giggles brightly behind them when Hunter grimaces reflexively after hitting a patch of lotion, "I bet that didn't taste very good."

"No… Definitely went a lot better in my head…" he murmurs in answer, pulling on the collar of his civvies to clean the opaque residue from his lips. "Sorry."

She chuckles sympathetically, watching as Wrecker tramped up the gangplank and said he was gonna start getting the charges ready once he had them out of the ship, "Someone better ask Techie if there's a safe place to set these bad boys off! Don't want any serious debris comin' our way!" She agrees to go ask, taking the lotion with her to gently interrupt Tech's deep analysis if she can. He's hunched over in a squat, studying the roots of the shrub-tree now, muttering scientific names from the sound of things.

Recognizing her by the shadow she casts, Tech greets her with an enthusiastic question. "Aren't these fascinating, [____]?"

"Gotta know what I'm looking at, Tech," she laughs lightly, trading his datapad for the bottle of lotion, "and after you put this on, Wrecker wants your input on where he can safely plant the explosives to get the day kicked off with a bang." He takes the lotion with a sheepish smile. He’d gotten so ahead of himself he forgot to explain what he was looking at first. "Ah, of course-'' Tech murmurs apologetically, "These are ucca brevifolia - common name “shu'ah tree”. They have thick, waxy leaves that are capable of retaining critical moisture through prolonged drought that are protected against herbivores with a mild, serrated, outer edge. It serves as a deterrent to grazers.”

“Oh yeah? Is that an adaptation to grazing wildlife or something they’ve always had?” [____] asks with genuine interest as she walks with him back to the ship. Tech grinned appreciatively, a little relieved, as always, when someone wanted to know what was currently of-interest to him without brushing him off. (When he’d given Hunter’s letter a final read-through to catch any errors Hunter worried there being, he was surprised by some of the additional observations his brother had made about [____]’s friendship with him.) “I haven’t gotten that far in the reading I was doing, but I can determine such a thing once I’ve assisted Wrecker.” he admits with an offering, carefully lifting his goggles so someone can help him apply everything without squinting in the sunlight.

Wrecker looks from Tech to [____] with a curious smile, settling the crate at his feet to wait while she helps his brother carefully distribute the protective coverage around his eyes as Hunter helps out by holding Tech’s goggles for the time being. “Whatcha talking about?”

“Oh, Techie was telling me those trees out there,” she pointed over Tech’s shoulder with a free hand to indicate to everyone what their brother had wandered off to inspect, “the ones that have the shaggy-looking trunks and those red-tipped, blade-like leaves. I think they’re kinda pretty, in a way.”

Adding with a nod, Tech turns his face to the left to speak with Wrecker, “Which, once I’ve helped you, Wrecker, I can return to researching to answer her question once we’ve gotten the day ‘kicked off with a bang’. Ack, that tickles…” Wrecker chortles alongside Hunter, stitching his arms across his chest with a warm smile.

This was gonna be a fun day for everyone.

“HAHAHA! That last one could bring down the whole mountain!” Wrecker whooped, caught up in the excitement of planting the last of his charges at the foothills of the mountain the mining town is perched on as he gleefully jogs back to the safety zone.

Tech shakes his head as he ducks back into the ship. “Seems like a gross exaggeration for the amount of-”

“Hah! Dumb ol’ mining town deserves it!” Wrecker declares decidedly, tossing his head at Hunter knowingly, which only makes him chuckle and shake his head with a sigh, “Wrecker… Are you going to try to teach a whole mountain a lesson for hurting [____] when she slipped?”

“Nah,” Wrecker laughs, idly tossing and catching the primer, “not unless you want to.”

[____] and Omega exchange glances and shake their heads softly for more or less the same reason. "Boys…" they agree with a knowing sigh. The explosive charge wasn't going to be enough to bring down a boomtown mountain even if it was riddled with hollowed-out passageways and tunnels, but it wouldn't stop the brothers from arguing - playfully - if it would or not. The idea of showing an inanimate object who's boss after her mistake of not minding her footing was at least a little endearing and nothing she was stranger to either. The first time the medic had been invited to the Batcher's housing, she'd knocked on the door in the middle of Wrecker's tirade against a chair Omega had tripped over.

"Think you can get away with hurtin' MY sister, HUH?! You think you're tough?!"

"Hi... Did I come at a bad time, Hunter?"

"Er, no, it's just- You're fine. H-he's yelling at a chair Omega tripped over to try to cheer her up; make her laugh.”

“Aw, that’s nice of him. Is she hurt?”

Hunter shook his head, perhaps for the fifth time at Wrecker’s insistent offering. “No, really, I- I’m good, Wreck. Kind of you to offer, but it’s not really my thing. You can ask someone else.” He was more interested in just watching his brothers have fun, relax, and do their own things. More interested in listening to Tech rattle off a parts list inside the ship as he worked on repairing something, expressing terse disinterest to Wrecker. More interested in hearing the languid sweep of a cleaning cloth over a trusty 773 Firepuncher as Crosshair made sure sand didn’t settle into the grooves and crevices in the weaponry. Comforted by the aroma of sun-warmed cotton and skin from a pace away where Echo sat, happily soaking in the sun for some much-desired phototherapy. Amused by Wrecker’s delight in this opportunity to blow something up that was coming to a close as soon as he found someone to take him up on his offer. Entertained by Omega and [____] trailing their fingers in the sand of the desert planet, an endless, completely reusable canvas for their creativity together.

Stolen, precious memories the Empire could never take from him no matter how hard they tried. Acts of resistance in their own right. A refusal to be stifled, to be silenced, to comply blindly.

Man, someone in the Empire would hate knowing a stolen crate of their precious bombs were being used to blow craters in the desert sand for the hell of it. That Wrecker had scoffed over the fancy, intimidating exteriors and pulled them apart to scrutinize some sap’s work.

“Hah, that’s pathetic. I’ve made better bombs with half as many wires that I secured so much better than that under pressure! Tech, look!”

“... pathetic. Their wiring is so sloppy.”

“Tha’s what I said!!”

Omega lifts her head from her current work of art in the sand, brows lifted in question when [____] waves down the offer. “Can I set off the last charges?” Initially, Hunter wasn’t sure he liked that idea. Omega understood perfectly well that the vode didn’t mess with bombs of any sort that Wrecker or Tech cobbled together, and her first experience trying to disable a smoke bomb nearly a year ago with Wrecker’s tutelage had ended in, well, a smokeshow on Bracca.

“You let the kid try to disarm a bomb…? That has to be one of your dumbest-”

“C’mon, I’m not an idiot, Crosshair… I’m not gonna let her train with a live explosive. And would you stop calling her ‘the kid’ already? Omega has a name, just like you.”

“Whatever.”

“No, not whatever-”

“Hunter, don’t! Enough fighting, you two! We all just got our chips out for kriff sake!”

Omega looks to Hunter for permission when Wrecker hesitates. Deferring to the leader. But he wasn’t just their leader anymore, he was their brother. He was trying to be their brother more than a low-ranking commanding officer. They didn’t need his permission for every little thing, but it was so habitual. For all of them.

Good soldiers…

“Hunter, can I?” Omega asks softly.

“I’ll leave that up to Wrecker to decide.” he gives Wrecker a slow nod. I trust you, it says.

… follow orders.

“I’d feel better if we did it together, Omega. Jus’ to be safe, y’know. C’mere.” Omega took Wrecker’s outstretched hand and walked forward to get in-range of the charge with the primer, listening to his instructions intently as they walked a few paces closer to the old mountain mining town. Crosshair called over his shoulder into the Marauder that Tech might wanna watch this one, carefully laying aside his rifle. Echo sat up and climbed out of his low seat to move back towards their ship out of an abundance of caution. Hunter and [____] scooched closer together on the old blanket now that Omega had gotten up, leaning comfortably against one another. Hands finding the other’s, clasped comfortably.

“This oughta be good.” she murmurs fondly, head against his shoulder.    

“THREE!” Wrecker called; the signal for all spectators to brace themselves for the noise to come. Three seconds to detonation and total, momentary chaos.

Cross calls them rib-rattlers. She can understand why. A thick plume of dust, debris and spent powder smoke shoots high into the blue expanse of the sky above the seven of them. They can feel the shockwave through the ground below their feet and booming into their chest cavities. Omega shrieks with delighted laughter alongside Wrecker, both of them whooping on their way back to the ship to watch as the dust cloud begins to disperse and dissipate with the gentle breeze that’s picked up across the arid plain.

“Not bad,” Cross approves, nodding to Wrecker and Omega as they get closer to the ship, approvingly before glancing around at his datapad for the time, “think I’ll go sneak a quick break from the heat. Then I hope you’re up for a- Hunter?”

Hunter’s suddenly on his feet in a flash, instinctually and visibly bristling at the sight of a second plume building and rising into the sky from the side of the mountain. The blast in the foothills has one last trick to play; one of the buildings nestled in the winding, serpentine road that had been worked into the stony surface of the natural formation has been knocked from its crumbling foundation and has become mobile. The entire structure is slowly sliding down the slope. It looks like a tiny, very old-fashioned and simple prison house; probably would have held no more than four cells for the roughest and rowdiest in a boomtown.

“Hunter, it’s okay.” [____] says soothingly as she too sees the little building coming down the mountain. “It’s coming to a stop on the next level of the switch-back. We’re not in any danger so far away.” she reminds him, putting a comforting hand on his back, his shoulder. “It’s okay. We’re okay. We’re safe. Right?”

It’s about a moment before he’s satisfied that the little structure sliding down the mountainside is in fact not going to move again before he settles himself down, softening his stance, feeling the fine hairs on the back of his neck lay flat once more the longer [____] keeps her hands on him, the longer her heartbeat remains so steady. “R-right…”

Crosshair cautiously utters under his breath to avoid breaking this newly established sense of calm for his brother that he’s going to find a snap-activated cold pack and hide out from the heat for roughly twenty minutes, and they’d front row seats to another impressive spectacle.

Twenty minutes of calm would do them all some good.

Well, calm as “calm” could be with his brothers. But, Crosshair supposed he wouldn’t have it any other way.

It was just a simple snap-pack and he couldn’t find the blasted thing, Hunter could hear Crosshair tramping through the whole of the Marauder, opening the odd cabinet here and there in his search. Just like he couldn’t find the spare blankets or pillows. Or the misplaced tool when the box tipped over as he helped Tech shift everything outside.

"Hunterrrr… I can't find it!"

He sighs heavily, finally and reluctantly pushing himself off the edge of the old blanket for the third time to assist his brother. "Do I seriously have to find everything around here?" He just wants to spend a little time in the sun, dammit. Some time to settle his head after that last detonation, and the ear-splitting clatter of tools after Tech had tripped over his own toolbox after moving everything so people could escape the heat in peace. (“Apologies! Don’t worry: I’m not hurt!”)

Tech was now working on his project in the shadow cast by the bulk of the Marauder's body, a long cable snaking out of the cockpit plugged into some radio-like device so he could continue listening along to an educational program about the insectoid Yalbec species. (No, she didn't want to know what happened on Yalbec Prime apparently.)

Echo just chuckles softly as his younger brother begrudgingly trudges past him to the ship for the fifth time in as many minutes. "Hey, I'd ask for help finding something from an expert tracker too." Poor guy just sighs, trotting up the steps to the side-ramp a little faster now after asking Tech to turn down the radio a notch. "Shut up…"

"You're a good brother, Hunter!" the ARC calls after him. Sometimes, try as he might, it was harder than other days to turn off that part of his conditioning to lead and look out for his brothers all the time. While letting go of leadership and rank was getting better with practice, it was that gnawing, almost screaming urge to constantly be on high alert and let his brothers mind themselves that was harder to wrangle.

What was it Crosshair had teased Hunter for once? Something about being paternal?

She wasn't quite sure what that remark was off the top of her head while she was more concerned with making sure she had a proper eye on Wrecker while he was moving heavy stones out in the dry heat of the desert. Thank the stars they brought so much water, no one would run the risk of being dehydrated at least, she thought as she watched Wrecker take another pull from his hydro pack. (Her bigger concern was heatstroke or overexertion.) Looked like he was crafting a makeshift bench for the targets and novelty props Cross had brought with them so he could show off his sharpshooting skills; the whole reason [____] had hinted to Hunter she could think of a good excuse to stay away from her clinic today last night over dinner.

(She thought of that letter often, and had read it last night before going to sleep as a way of warding away any dreams of the Imperial forces at her clinic.)

Wrecker sat down under the shade of a low shrub-tree after she flashed him a flat palm that morphed into a cupping motion with a turn of the wrist.

Rest.

"I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't laugh," [____] chuckles softly behind that same raised hand to stifle her laughter, "but is Crosshair getting whiny?" She's no stranger to the often high and nasally whines of a tired tot or a fussy baby thanks to her professional experience, and the hint of impatience in Cross's voice is enough to remind her of the little ones she's treated over the years since completing medical training.

Echo just chuckles before adjusting his sun shades. Omega glances at the medic's time device on her wrist. "It's around the time Crosshair naps at home some days. He sleeps in bursts." Her voice drops into that timid, nervous whisper when she’s afraid someone will hear one of her inner observations that might not be taken so well if said out loud. “He can get… a little cranky in the heat, too…”

“Ahh…” she replies, understanding now, “I see. But hey, he’s got the right idea to escape the heat. Wouldn’t be a bad idea at all to do the same thing. Oh kriff, that’s right; should I tell ‘em they’re not gonna find any snap-packs in there, or do you wanna do it?” [____] had told them while they were traveling and hadn’t quite reached the planet that she was going to add the packs she found in their tiny infirmary aboard the attack shuttle to her medbag so they’d be in easy reach. (She couldn’t blame them for forgetting she did that when she’d done it herself until Echo diligently touched up his UV coverage with more lotion just a moment ago.)

“You better,” Omega tells the medic with a smile, “I’m gonna go get Wrecker. He looks tired.”

[____] nods. “Good idea.” Climbing up the ramp a step at a time, she’s got two snap-activated packs in her opposite hand that are a very welcome sight for the sniper.

“Oh, Maker, forgot they wouldn’t be on the ship. Thanks, doc.”

“I forgot too, sorry boys.” [____] offers an apologetic smile, peering around the marksman and tracker at a mess on the floor between all the sleeping racks near the back of the ship and gunner’s mount. “What’s all that?” It looked like a rumpled nest of blankets and pillows on the cool durasteel floor.

“Omega calls them ‘nap nests’,” Crosshair offers, biting down a yawn (Hunter less successfully) and thanking her for the rapidly chilling pack, “or, somethin’ like that… And how come you’re suddenly tired, vod?” Hunter shrugs. He’d truly slept fine last night, but he felt pretty tired being in the ship, suddenly. Admitted to feeling a little lightheaded, too. Neither [____] or Cross liked the sound of that. “That doesn’t sound good, vod.”

“Have you been drinking enough water?” [____] asks, patting down her pockets. Blast, she’d finished off the last of her hydro pack. “Shiiiit.” the medic hissed, mentally rattling off symptoms. “Are you also feeling like it’s difficult to concentrate?”

Omega and Wrecker poked their heads into the ship before climbing in, a hydro pack, unopened, in her hands. “Hunter accidentally let himself get dehydrated didn’t he? I-I found this where he was sitting.”

“I’ve had at least one pack,” Hunter tried thinking back, feeling that wave of guilt washing over him when his siblings, his… could he call her that, yet? “Girlfriend”? (Would she prefer something else?) “I think I just got distracted and forgot to open the next one. I’m sor-”

“Some water is better than none, could be worse.” [____] conceded with a tender smile, allowing Omega to take a seat next to her in the middle of the “nap nest” when Crosshair suggested Hunter better lay down and he’d climb into a sleeping rack instead, popping in a pair of ear-jammers so he could sleep while sister and friend teamed up to take care of his brother. “Here, bandana comes off, and we’ll give you the second cold pack while you slowly nurse this…” The scarlet bandana was pawned to Omega, and once it was carefully laid aside in a neat fold, she watched with interest (and confusion) as her little brother’s eyes fluttered reflexively at the first pass of [____]’s hand through his hair once his head was propped up with one of the pillows from the nap nest in the back of the ship, but not her’s. That was strange. How’d she do that? What did Omega do differently than the medic?

“Here, try it like this.” the grown woman offered kindly, noticing the girl’s cute pout of confusion. She tried encouraging Omega to give it another shot when it didn’t work as expected. “You’ll get it, sweetie. Just try again. He’s not going anywhere until I feel he’s properly hydrated again.” [____] laughed lightly at Hunter’s mumbled apology for making her play medic when she was supposed to have the day off, again, just to take care of him when he wasn’t being proactive about his safety and health.

Before bending forward to kiss Hunter, [____] playfully rolled her eyes in his line of vision before closing the distance. “Oh, hush, handsome. Like I told Captain Rex, you guys just keep my job interesting for me. And I don’t mind a bit.”

Taglist: @dragonrider9905 @ladytano420​ @the-hexfiles @ilovethosebrowneyes9904

Note from Frost: The "shu'ah" trees Tech described for you are space!Joshua trees (I just tried to creatively modify the name and description a bit). The mining town is heavily inspired by Jerome, Arizona, which is what inspired the beginning and opening location of this fic even though it wasn't described in detail until now. Threw in a vague reference to Sliding Jail for funsies. As a born-and-raised desert dweller, this chapter felt like writing about home for me as much as it's about your more domestic/everyday-flavored moments with Hunter and his siblings. Start thinking now if you wanna be added to the all-encompassing SW fic taglist (sans OC stories, most likely) while I get the last chapter all nice and purdy!  🩷 

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[phoenixyfriend]

for the made-up fic title game: Tooka Outta the Bag

send me a made-up fic title and i’ll tell you what i would write to go with it

raisudfah;jsdkf

Ezra and Kanan fall through a Time Hole in the temple on Malachor while Fulcrum is fighting Vader and Maul is doing... whatever the fuck he's doing, IDK, we'll say it's his fault.

And they end up a year before the clone war kicks off! It sucks! Terrible timing, everyone! Kanan is like three seconds away from a mental breakdown about the horrible time this part of his life was about to be at any given moment, or at least he would be if he wasn't busy having a breakdown about how he's just been given a debilitating injury and has no access to bacta or any other way to prevent an infection, because they don't have the ship, just themselves and what they had on their backs.

It's the two of them, with their sabers, and one's at risk of dying if he doesn't get medical attention, because an infection in that kind of wound, that close to the brain? Not great.

So, they... get that handled. IDK how. Hondo, who doesn't know them but does appreciate Ezra's vibes, was involved. Neither of them want to talk about it.

And they kind of get dumped on Coruscant by Hondo and his people, because Ezra really did just make that good of an impression on the prince of pirates, and now it's time to bluff like hell. Kanan can navigate the Temple despite being blind, and it's not just the Force; he definitely grew up here! But nobody in his supposed age group knows him, and Ezra's just kinda. Trailing along. Taking in the sights. Having a time. Sometimes he helps Kanan with reading signs and stuff that Kanan hasn't figured out how to adjust to yet. The Force lets him walking around without hitting walls! It doesn't let him read a datapad, and he hasn't internalized how to turn on the accessibility features yet.

(I want to say that he does use a white cane or similar assistive device for daily stuff, because relying entirely and constantly on the Force sounds exhausting.)

ANYWAY

They don't come out and say they're from the future. Kanan's still half-convinced this is some Empire illusion to get information out of them, and Ezra doesn't trust that easy. So they lie, and hedge, and dither. Kanan feels tiny Caleb Dume walking around, and also Depa's right there, and he tries not to have a mental breakdown.

(Anakin Skywalker nearly gets into a fistfight with Ezra within ten minutes of meeting him.)

(An additional three hours later, and Padawan Skywalker has decided that Ezra's little-brother-shaped.)

(Ezra, who recently learned that Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader, has very mixed feelings on this.)

So we have some plot happen, and assurances from vague force gods and magic owls and giant ethereal wolves that this is, in fact, time travel.

(Fulcrum might be leading Vader on a merry chase around the Outer Rim. Haven't decided.)

And then someone says a thing and it is suddenly and uncomfortably clear to, like, an entire cafeteria's worth of Jedi that these two are from The Future, and the future absolutely sucks.

Ezra, under his breath, just mutters, "Well, Tooka's Outta the Bag now..."

[allie-scribbles]

Love, Found

Summary: It’s the big reunion. But will it be a happy one?

Pairing: Crosshair x fem!reader

Word Count: 3k (whoops)

Series Tags/Warnings: Angst, sad feels, implied pregnancy (now there's a baby!), cussing because I can't help it, a smidge of violence.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Interlude | Part 4

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

You swear you aren’t force sensitive, but the way you step outside one day and somehow, deep down, know he’s there makes you re-evaluate that assumption - if only for a second.

You had just gotten Amaia down for a nap and were planning for a moment of peace and quiet in your garden when you felt it: you were being watched. Only this didn’t feel like the uncomfortable gaze of a stranger or a judgemental look from an acquaintance. It was calm and focused. Warm, if a bit distant. It was him, and you didn’t need to be a Jedi to know it.

It almost takes you by surprise, how quickly he’d arrived on Wrea. It had only been a couple weeks since Hunter had let you know he’d given your coordinates to Crosshair. To be honest, part of you was expecting to wait months for him to show up. But there was never any doubt that he’d observe from afar first, making his move when he felt comfortable. The Empire may have changed him, but you still were confident you knewhim like the back of your hand.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Crosshair had been in the same position for hours upon hours, yet the fatigue and stiffness didn't register. He pushed them to the back of his mind, quite easily in fact, putting all his focus on you. You, who had haunted his dreams since he begged you to defect to the Empire with him. The person who betrayed him even more than his brothers. He had bared things to you he’d never dare whisper to them, trusted you with his ramshackle heart, and in the end, you didn’t choose him.

That’s what he had been telling himself, at least, until you were there in his scope. Cliché as it was, he couldn’ breathe for a moment when he saw you. You were exactly the same, yet different somehow. You seemed softer around the edges, both physically and in the way you moved. Where your movements before were purposeful and precise, there was now a graceful ease.

He watched through the window as you readied breakfast, singing to yourself and dancing in the kitchen. He watched you slip on a shawl and shoes as you exited the front door, a bundle strapped to your chest that he quickly realized was a baby in a very fuzzy hat with Tooka ears (not an actual Tooka). He felt a sharp panic then, easily quelled when you returned from the village minutes later without the child. He knew you had always liked children, so it made perfect sense you’d help the villagers watch them when needed.

A few household chores later and you returned to the village, coming back after a short while with what he assumed was another child strapped to you - the Tooka hat was gone and replaced with a plain bonnet. He allowed himself a half smile then - you were still his girl, caring and always willing to lend a hand where needed.

That led him to now, when you stepped out to the garden alone, taking a deep breath and smiling as the wind brushed your hair away from your face. As he watched you through his scope, he felt the full weight of his situation hit him for the first time. He could reveal himself, or not… risk being rejected again, or not.

He made his decision, removing himself from the patch of ground he had made his home for the day, packing up his kit with the intent to leave you once and for all. His fragile heart couldn’t take rejection again from the one thing it loved above all else. Just as he was about to tuck his scope into its compartment, he caved, stealing one last glance your way. If he didn’t know better, he’d say you were staring right at him, a serene smile on your face, like you knew he was there. He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face and shoving the scope angrily into his kit. Whatever previous decision he made wasthrown to the wind. He fucking loved you, and he hadto try.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

You were washing dishes when the energy in the apartment shifted. Your hands stilled, and you took a deep breath. This was it. The moment you had been waiting for. But your movements were slow and deliberate as you set down the now clean plate, drained the water from the sink, and wiped your hands on the towel before folding it neatly on the counter. You steeled yourself as you turned, not sure what version of Crosshair you were going to find. The imperial soldier? The stoic sniper you first met? Or the man you were irrevocably in love with?

When you turned around, he was seated at the kitchen table, feet up and toothpick in his mouth, a smirk on his face. You gave his feet a pointed look, and he huffed out a chuckle as he swung them down to the floor.

“Miss me, sweetheart?” he drawled, legs spread wide and one arm slung over the back of the chair, looking for all intents and purposes like a permanent fixture in your home instead of the (welcomed) intrusion that he was. But still you could see the apprehension, the uncertainty in his eyes. The concern that what has transpired has changed you, changed him, too much. That what you had was completely and utterly gone.

The only sign of surprise is his soft “oof” as you flung yourself at him, arms around his neck and knees hitting the floor as you hug him as best you can in your awkward position. He immediately returned your embrace with one arm, the other hand resting under your chin. Both work in tandem to guide you both to a standing position. Though he still says nothing, you can see how much he missed you shining in his eyes, felt it vibrating through his body, tasted it in the searing kiss he pressed to your lips as he held you close.

You stood there together reveling in the closeness for what seems like hours, until a soft cry from the next room breaks the silence. Panic flooded through you; while Amaia was asleep you had been able to pretend this moment you’ve dreaded would never come. But Crosshair doesn’t seem surprised, which you guess made sense if he had been watching you. But did he know?

He spun you around to face the bedroom door and pats you on the ass, a smirk on his face as he jutted his chin towards the source of the cry. You give his hand one last squeeze before you go, and his responding squeeze gave you both hope that maybe things would be just like they were.

Admittedly, you took longer than you needed to gather Amaia, drawing out changing her diaper and tidying the blankets in her crib as long as you could. You could feel your heart beating a mile a minute, your muscles tensed your skin clammy. Amaia sensed it too, refusing to settle in your arms as she continued whining and wiggling.

You took one last deep breath to fortify yourself, and slipped back into the main room. Crosshair was examining some baby paraphernalia carefully, as if it may bite him. His back was to you, and you couldn’t help but snort a little at his posture and the confusion you knew was on his face. But your laugh gave you away, and he suddenly spoke as he turned toward you.

“I should’ve known you’d be helping out with the village’s babies. You were always so good with my…” his voice died mid sentence as he took you in.

He froze, going stiller than you’d ever seen before. His eyes darted from Amaia to you and back, tracing every similarity the two of you share and cataloging each difference. You could see him connect the dots almost instantly… how could he not? A shock of white hair, his warm eyes set just as yours were, and his skin tone on a face shaped exactly like yours left no doubt. In your arms was a perfect blend of him and you.

You want to plead with him to not be mad, to let you explain, to do anything to make him stay, but when you registered the newest emotion on his face as fear - true, genuine fear - the words just didn’t come. You could count the number of times you’d seen this man scared on one hand; hell, on one finger. And the one thing you had learned is that a scared Crosshair was an angry Crosshair.

So when you softly whispered, “Cross-,” part of you wasn’t surprised when his blank mask snapped back over his face, or when he simply stated, “No,” and stalked right out your front door, gone as quickly as he appeared. Part of you knew it was coming. But the other part of you collapsed on the floor, sobs wracking your body as you held Amaia close.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

It was 2 a.m. when you heard the door to your and Amaia’s shared room squeak. When you finally worked up the nerve to roll over some minutes later, you saw a tall, thin figure slightly bending over the crib, backlit by the soft nightlight.

You slipped out of bed and padded over to Crosshair, stopping a few feet away. You could see the tension in his shoulders, yet they’re slumped almost in defeat. He tentatively reached out as if to brush a lock of silver hair off of Amaia’s forehead, but retracted his hand a millimeter away, quickly as if he had been burned.

“I had a right to know,” he whispered, and there was no mistaking the anger, the fear in his voice. “I had a right to know about her,” he practically spat, and that was what snapped you out of your trance. There was no way he was getting away with talking about your daughter in that tone.

You grabbed his wrist as firmly as you could, and dragged him into the main room of the cottage where the low light over the stove casted just enough light.

“And I had to do what I thought would keep our daughter safe,” you seethed. “Do you know what the Empire would do with the daughter of a clone? Because I don’t, and I don’t ever want to find out.”

He jerked his hand out of your grasp. “I could’ve kept you safe,” he all but whispered, anger lacing his words. “If I had known, I could’ve kept you and her safe.”

“Her name is Amaia,” you threw back at him, “and since you decided to leave, I had to do what I thought was best.”

You stared at each other for what felt like an eternity before the unthinkable happened. Crosshair broke. He slumps into your kitchen chair, head hanging in his hands, and you swore you see a tear make its way down his cheek.

“I don’t know what to do,” he confessed in a broken whisper. “I love you and I think I love her, and I don’t know what to do.”

You felt all the anger leave your body at the sight of the broken man in front of you. Slowly, you crossed over to him and sunk to your knees between his legs as best you could, in a more somber mirroring of your earlier position. You took his hands in yours and lowered them from his face, releasing them only to wipe the tear track from his cheek. Pressing your forehead to his, you whispered one simple word: “Stay”.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

He stayed. For the next day, at least. Much to your shock - and delight - Crosshair was a natural with Amaia. You attempted to reassure him the first time he tried to hold her, wanting him to know he didn’t have to be afraid of dropping or hurting her, but your words were met with a smirk and an eye roll.

“Honey, these are the steadiest hands in the galaxy. They don’t drop anything they don’t mean to.”

He was a bit flustered the first time she cried, but quickly recovered by standing her up and balancing her in the palm of his hand (which was met with squeals of delight from her and mild terror from you).

The afternoon found you all in your small bed, Amaia napping contentedly between Crosshair and yourself. His fingers ghosted up and down your arm, gaze flirting between your small daughter and you, and you swore you had never seen him look more at peace. Until suddenly, he wasn’t. The sound of a ship passing overhead startled him out of his daze, and he suddenly went back to his stoic self.

“I have to leave tonight,” he stated simply, as if unaware of the effect those simple words would have on you.

“Crosshair, what… why? You said you would stay!“ you whispered, determined to not wake Amaia.

He motioned for you to wait a second, and scooped her up and placed her in her crib oh so gently. Then, he beckoned you to follow him into the kitchen.

“I thought you said you were staying,” you hissed, somewhere between pleading and anger.

He slowly approached you and gently pulled you into his arms, resting his head atop yours. He held you there for a moment until your body relaxed into soft sobs.

“Mesh’la,” he whispered, tilting your chin up so you met his eyes. “Mesh’la, I’m not leaving you. I just… if I aim to get away from the Empire and not endanger you, endanger my family… I have to go back. But I’ll return to you both.”

His thumbs stroking tears off your cheeks did nothing to calm you as you tore yourself from his grip. Logically, you knew he was right. But after so long expecting him to find you and Amaia and being disgusted by what he found, you couldn’t bear to let him go after the slice of normalcy you’d gotten a taste of today. You stood by the kitchen window, sobbing into the sink.

You heard him shift awkwardly behind you; he was never the best at handling displays of emotion. After a few long minutes, he cleared his throat. “Baby, you know I… Maker, I don’t want to kriffing leave! But I can’t bear the thought of something happening to you. Either of you.”

His voice broke on the last sentence, and you turn around and are met with a sight you never thought you’d see. Tears were shining in Crosshair’s eyes. His hair was mussed, short strands normally kept down now flying in all directions. His hand not supporting his weight on the small table was digging into the back of his neck.

You regarded him calmly as you could, waiting for him to finish. Apparently he didn’t know where to go next, because he paced and ran his hands through his hair again.

He stopped in front of you several times as if to speak, but resumed his pacing before he finally stopped for good.

“Six months,” he breathed “Give me six months. I’ll come back. I’ll be her buir and your riduur. But I need to keep you safe.”

The look of sheer desperation on his face would have been enough to convince you. You nodded slowly, and let him collapse into your arms. After all, what was another six months when you had a lifetime ahead of you?

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

The sun rose the next morning, and Crosshair was gone as quickly as he had come.

Six months. That’s all you had to endure. Six months.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

You woke up, once again filled with anticipation. It had been just about six months since Crosshair left. Actually, six months and 14 days. But who was counting? Not you.

The day passed slowly and uneventfully, with you and Amaia mostly spending the time outside as you were accustomed to doing. Not only was the weather delightful, but being able to see Crosshair as soon as he appeared was a motivation you were all too willing to own up to.

Like every other day recently, it ended in disappointment. When you finally wrangled Amaia into bed, you made yourself a cup of tea and sat by the window to wistfully look over the darkening horizon until your hope for the day was extinguished.

And so passed six months and 15 days. Six months and 28 days. Seven months and 12 days. Nine months and three days. One year, two months and 17 days. Two years on the dot.

Of course there were visits from Amaia’s ba’vode. And any time they came was a delightful distraction, but even they could see the wear the waiting was taking on you. You were no longer your chipper self, convinced Crosshair had either changed his mind or was dead. You weren’t sure which was worse.

At two years, one month, and one day, you finally gave up. He wasn’t coming.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Amaia was now a rambunctious five-year-old, running around with the village children and making all sorts of trouble and mess. Today, you had sent her off to a friend's house, with the promise you would take the terrors that were your children the next day so Carra could have a break of her own.

You were engrossed in washing dishes, humming and swaying to an impromptu song. You’d finally started to feel yourself again, even entertained thoughts of seeing one of the men in the village. Kane was kind, and was never anything but gentle in his interactions with Amaia.

You were so wrapped up in your thoughts you didn’t hear the door open, didn’t hear the bag that was sat down in the entryway, or the sound of feet swung up on your kitchen table. In fact, you didn’t notice anything until you were suddenly aware of everything. The dish slipped from your hand and shattered in the sink. Swallowing in an attempt to wet your suddenly dry-as-Tatooine mouth, you could only think of one thing to say.

“Get your kriffing feet off my table, Cross.”

You could hear the smirk in his voice as he responded. “Come over here and make me, mesh’la.”

[starwarstbbfan]

THE BAD BATCH: THE RUNAWAY

Chapter 51 - Almost Kisses and a New Team Member

All too soon, the week of vacation came to a close. The night where Calli had her nightmare was never spoken of again, thank goodness, though she couldn't help but notice how Jace would ask her if she's alright at least once every hour for the rest of the vacation. And something shifted between them that night - more specifically in Calli. She still got nervous around him, yet that anxiety was coupled with something warm in her chest. The way he'd been so gentle and nice to her after the nightmare had left an impact on her and only added to the weird feelings, he made her... feel. Calli was too stubborn and just plain scared to deal with such feelings and instead kept her focus on Scruffy.

Try as she did, Calli did get super attached to the little tooka cat, so when the time came to let him go (he'd recovered well and was deemed fit enough to be released back into the wild) Calli almost asked Hunter if he'd changed his mind about letting her keep him. But she knew her brother, and what his answer would be.

The boys were totally not excited to be leaving, even if they did get up at dawn and began preparing for take-off without even having their morning caf first. Calli slept in until 09:00 regardless, and surprisingly she wasn't as eager for their departure.

In one word, Calli was bummed, which wasn't like her. She's always looked forward to being able to travel and explore new planets they were assigned to for missions, but this time around Calli wished she had a few more days of leisure time. For the first time ever, she was able to be her age and do what other normal sixteen-year olds do. Of course, Calli was not your normal sixteen-year-old and she came to accept that reality, even if she wasn't thrilled about it. But to hang out with another person her age - ok, Jace was a year or so older than her but whatever - was kind of ... nice? Perhaps because it reminded her of when she and Boba would do stuff together. And it was better once Calli got Jace to come out of his shell a little and be more expressive and such instead of the serene, basically emotionless Jedi persona he normally was supposed to have.

Calli was thinking of all this as she picked up things around the lounge while keeping an eye on Scruffy from the corner of her vision as he explored the lounge area, Calli having let him in there so he wouldn't get into things in the med bay.

So far Scruffy hadn't caused any trouble, though he did jump onto Tech's worktable a couple times. The first didn't bother Tech so much, and he calmly picked up Scruffy and set him back on the ground. Scruffy made a noise of protest yet appeared to understand that Tech did not want him on the table. A couple minutes went by, and as Tech packed his tools into a box, a screwdriver slipped from his hands and fell to the ground. The goggled clone stooped down to grab it, and when he stood straight once more, he was met with a pair of big, curious eyes.

Scruffy was on the table again. Ok, no big deal. Tech for the second time, with minimal irritation, lifted the small animal and deposited him back on the floor.

The third time Scruffy was smart enough to wait until Tech stepped out of the room before hopping back onto the table, and Calli was too busy gathering all the garbage on the floor into a container to notice, which again he took advantage of.

He sniffed at all the little parts and tools that littered the table and eventually his attention was zeroed in on the lightbulb near the edge of the table. His head tilted to the right curiously, something about the clear, round thing mesmerizing his little brain and cat logic told him to bat it. So, he did. It rolled a half inch closer to the edge, then stopped. Scruffy stared at the bulb for a second, then his little paw reached out and batted it again. He did this one, two, three more times before the lightbulb toppled over the edge and was sent falling to the floor, shattering upon impact with the durasteel.

Calli spun around quickly just as Tech hurried into the room upon hearing the shattering noise, and behind his goggles Tech glared at the cat that was oblivious to what he just did and was already batting at something else.

"Alright, this kriffing cat has to go!" Tech declared and he plucked Scruffy off the table and began making his way to the off ramp. But Calli ran over and blocked his path to the door.

"Wait! Don't just throw him out!" She exclaimed in a panic, not ready for her and Scruffy to part ways.

"Why not?" Tech questioned, not understanding Calli's protests, "We're leaving in the next hour, and Hunter specifically said that this nuisance would have to be released back into the wild before then. Now is as good a time as ever."

"A-Alright just, just let me say goodbye at least before you toss him out." Tech looked a little apprehensive but eventually handed Scruffy off to Calli and left the pair alone to go clean up the pile of broken glass.

Once in Calli's arms, Scruffy nudged his face against her cheek while beginning to purr, and the former internally groaned as this wasn't making saying goodbye any easier. A small ache was beginning to form in her chest, making Calli hug her feline friend a little tighter while making her way to the ramp.

The reasonable side of Calli had known that this time would come, and she kept telling herself over and over to not get attached to Scruffy. Yet here she was, unable and unwilling to let Scruffy out of her grasp even after they were outside and a slight distance away from the ship. Scruffy was none the wiser when Calli nuzzled her face into the soft fur on his neck while hugging him a little tighter. Some tears may or may not have formed in her eyes as well.

"I'll miss you, little guy." Calli murmured, and she was glad none of the boys were around to see her get emotional. While Calli did her best to appear tough and such, sometimes it was hard to keep up that facade and hide what she was truly feeling. Half the time she didn't even know what it was she felt, so suppressing it all was the solution. But right now, Calli was sad, and she allowed herself to fully embrace it for a moment.

After giving Scruffy a little peck between his ears, she set him on the grassy floor and made a shooing motion with her hand. When Scruffy merely looked up at her with a blank expression, Calli sighed. "Go. Go on. Get!" She tried saying while continuing her shooing, yet instead of running off, Scruffy let out a big yawn before sitting down at Calli's feet, and he looks up at her with innocent eyes, his ear doing a little twitch that made him look all the more adorable and all the harder to get rid of.

Calli sighed again, and while she didn't want to, there might be only one way to make Scruffy take off. Taking the blaster from the holster on her thigh, Calli took a couple steps back from the tooka cat and aimed it at the ground next to Scruffy. After a moment's hesitation, Calli fired the blaster and the laser bullet hit the ground inches away from the feline. He jumped but didn't scurry away like Calli hoped, and she recalled how that first night when she shot the light he barely startled at the noise. But Calli wasn't going to give up just yet. She continued to fire, and after five shots Scruffy jumped to his feet and after letting out a short hiss at Calli ran off, disappearing into the tall grass.

After slipping her blaster back into its holster, Calli stood there for a little while to process what had happened before deciding to go say goodbye to Jace and Padme. The others staying behind to prepare for take-off - though the young clone knew that their social batteries had run low, and they were ready to get back to their normal lives. She was fine going on her own though, and she picked up her pace to get to the villa quicker.

Calli found the two cousins waiting for her at the front entrance. Padme was carrying a small wooden box in her hands and Calli wanted to ask what it was, but she was brought into a hug by the woman before she could.

"I'm sad you're leaving," Padme admitted while they were still hugging, and Calli felt the woman tighten her arms for a brief moment before she was finally let go. It was strange at how friendly and attached Padme had become.

"I am too, if I'm being honest." Calli told her, surprising herself again by saying that. But it was true. Being around someone who weren't her brothers or the boy that made her feel weird feelings had been refreshing.

And Padme felt the same way. Her company usually consisted of haughty, uptight members of government, Jedi, and Anakin, and the last was rare with the duties they both had to the Republic that took up a majority of their time. Calli reminded Padme of her husband's former apprentice, Ahsoka, who'd recently left the Order after a whole ordeal that left both the young Togruta and her master shaken up. Padme shook the memory away and held the box out to Calli.

"I want to give you something, as a thank you for helping me and risking your life for me." Calli once again took notice of the box as it was held out to her, but instead of eagerly taking it into her grasp she gently pushed the item towards Padme.

"There's no need to, Senator. I was just doing my duty as a soldier." Calli felt weird saying this, but it's what Hunter always told anyone they worked - the ones that appreciated their efforts that is. She decided that it got the point across, even though she wasn't sure she considered herself a soldier. But Padme didn't accept Calli's words and said so.

"I'm not sure if I'll ever see you again, so I don't know if I'll ever get another chance to show my thanks. If I were a soldier, I'd gladly take a shot for you when the time came, but that isn't the case." Padme held the box out again with a pleading look, "Please, take this as a token of my appreciation." Before Calli could argue further, Padme opened the box so Calli could see what was inside.

It appeared to be another circlet crown like the one that she wore to the fancy dinner, only instead of being golden colored - Calli had wondered if it had been real or fake - this was a simple silver colored circlet crown, and much thinner than the other one, which Calli liked. And there was a string of veda pearls that extended from the middle of the back to the center of the curved front, and when it was put on it looked like it would lay perfectly on the parting in her hair.

"Oh... this is beautiful but - but it's too much." Calli said while shaking her head, unable to fathom owning something so pretty and delicate looking.

"I made sure it didn't look so extravagant as I know now that isn't your style. And the string of pearls has a meaning. It's called a suspensa, and is worn mainly on the headdresses of the Queen of Naboo. This is one of mine from when I was Queen. When someone has done a great act of service, it's customary that a Queen takes one of the suspensas from her headdress and gives it to whomever earned it as a show of her gratitude. That person then wears it, so everyone knows they've done something noble. And the other night you did something that deserves such a gift." After that explanation, Calli was rendered speechless, being deeply touched that Padme considered her worthy enough to be given such a gift. It made her feel proud, which isn't something she felt that often. Because of that, Calli couldn't resist the present any longer and she let Padme place it on her head as her heart swelled. She never thought she'd feel something other than irritation towards a senator, but Padme was different and Calli went as far as to consider her a friend now. She hoped to meet her again sometime in the future, though she was doubtful about that. But if there's one thing she learned over the years, is that life is unpredictable, and you never know what the future holds.

Once the headpiece was properly placed, Padme gave Calli one final hug, which the young clone reciprocated, and then said her final goodbye before heading back inside, sneakily leaving the teens alone in hopes something might happen between them. Maybe Jace will finally muster up the courage to admit his feelings to Calli. If that did happen, Padme would take partial credit for getting them together as she'd orchestrated the plan last night. What the teens didn't know - and would never find out - was that Padme had made the mission up, creating the scenario as an excuse for the pair to be around each other without The Bad Batch breathing down their necks. Padme hadn't entirely made up the mission. It was true that there was some unrest among the lower classes and a few upstanding members of the community had had their places vandalized and such. It was a fifty fifty chance an actual attack would happen, and she rolled the dice so to speak. And Padme was extremely fortunate that her secret was never exposed, and she'd take it with her to her grave.

"I had fun this week." Jace told Calli once they were alone, hoping Calli would say the same. The female clone smiled.

"I did too. And I'll have a scar to remember it by." Jace chuckled at this, yet admired how she wasn't ashamed of her scars, save for the minor resentment of the ones caused by experiments. He'd learned about them after seeing the ones on her arm when they spoke the morning after the mission, and she'd been only wearing a tank top. After some initial discomfort at him seeing them, Calli opened up and told him about what her childhood consisted of, if anything to help him understand her distrust of other people. But Jace didn't pity her for it, in fact his admiration grew for the girl, not to mention his feelings and attraction grew as well.

Yet Jace was still unsure as to how Calli felt, and that's why he held back from saying anything, even at the risk that this war would never allow them to see each other again, at least for a while.

"I uh, have something for you too. I didn't know Padme had already put together a gift for you, and she didn't tell me even after I asked to borrow some money. I guess she feels you deserve two gifts. Not that I don't think you don't, I just don't want you to feel overwhelmed or embarrassed or have your brothers give you a hard time." Jace was rambling, totally second guessing his gift and he wished he'd just kept his mouth shut so he could give it at a later time. Maybe have it sent to her if he could pinpoint their location.

Calli's smile grew as she watched the boy in front of her become flustered and she gently placed a hand on his shoulder to stop his spiraling, trying to ignore the sparks it sent down her arm (and Jace felt the sparks from where her hand laid).

"Ok, stop before you pass out, I don't think you've drawn a breath during that entire speech." This was an exaggeration of course, but Jace got the memo and did take a couple of deep, calming breaths to ground himself because while he wouldn't admit it out loud, he was feeling a little lightheaded and unsteady on his feet. He worried the gift would slip from his grasp as his hands that were hidden behind his back had begun sweating profusely. He decided it was now or never and brought his arms around to reveal what he'd been hiding the entire time.

Calli's jaw dropped in total surprise, her eyes becoming round as saucers. It was an electro staff - the very same one she'd ogled over during their little excursion to Kaadara! He actually remembered and went and bought it for her?

"Jace I..." Calli couldn't formulate the right words to express what she was feeling. She wanted to say it was too much like she'd said to Padme before, but at the same time it touched her so much that he went out of his way to buy her something, and boy what a gift it was. Calli loved her weapons and gadgets and if she could she'd have a collection that included every single device known in the galaxy. And Jace knew this.

"I knew it was something you wanted, so I went out early this morning to go get it. It's a good thing I did too, because the seller was packing everything away to set up shop on another spaceport." Calli let out a small chuckle, imagining Jace looking frazzled as he talked the seller into letting him purchase the electrostaff even though the shop was technically closed. If anything, it made her appreciate the gesture even more.

The thrill of owning a weapon she'd wanted for so long overpowered her awkwardness over receiving one - no two - extravagant gifts. Never has Calli had someone as thoughtful and sweet as the young man before her - and Padme but right now Calli's sole focus was on Jace.

Jace held the weapon closer to her and Calli took a step closer and placed her hands on either side of Jace's, yet she didn't make a move to pull away. She made the mistake of looking up and suddenly she felt like she was in a trance when her eyes locked onto Jace's, having only been this close once when they first met, and she fell on top of him. From being so close in proximity, Calli was privileged to get a closer look at his eyes that had captivated her the second they met. She could see just how beautiful they really were, and vice versa Jace liked being this close to Calli so he could admire her alluring features better.

Calli's gaze suddenly moved from Jace's eyes to his lips, and she didn't mean for that to happen, but it did and there was a shift in the atmosphere as Jace mirrored her actions and he subconsciously moved his face a fraction closer to Calli's without thinking, yet Calli didn't say nor do anything that told him to stop. To be honest, Calli wasn't sure how to react, as Jace continued bringing his face closer to hers she found herself doing the same, yet not being as confident as Jace was being - but again, she didn't stop him and part of her didn't want him to.

Calli could feel hers and Jace's hearts racing and she wondered if he was able to hear or sense hers because it was beating so loud it was all she could hear as they drew closer together, their faces now only being a hair over two inches away from each other. Jace's eyes slowly closed and after a moment of hesitation Calli followed suit, and her entire body was trembling as she anticipated what was about to happen. She felt one of his hands lift from the electrostaff to brush her cheek.

Just as their lips were about to touch in what would have been a light and delicate kiss, something, or someone came along to ruin the moment.

"Callista!" Just like that the moment was ruined and, in a panic, Calli pulled back, becoming panicked as she swiveled around to address the owner of the voice that called out to her.

"Uh, over here Tech!" Calli answered, her voice being high pitched and shaky from the almost kiss that just happened. Thank goodness the front entrance was partially hidden by a large bush, so Tech couldn't have possibly seen what had transpired - well almost that is. He must have been heading for the side door which led directly to the living room area where they normally entered through.

As she heard Tech growing closer, Calli looked back at Jace who looked just as flustered as she did, and slightly disappointed as well. Letting out a nervous chuckle, Calli moved closer to him once more, but only to gently take the electro staff out of Jace's hands.

"Uh, d-did I say thank you already?" It took Jace a moment to respond, as he was still in a daze and was trying to catch up with reality. He nodded and forced himself to smile at her and pretend that nothing had happened. He understood why Calli reacted the way she did and while it did sting a little, he didn't hold it against her.

Tech walked around the bush and found his squad mate and Jace, looking like an animal caught in the headlights. "Ah, there you are. Hunter is anxious to leave, are you ready?" Calli nodded, suddenly being uncharacteristically enthusiastic and Jace feared she'd snap her neck.

"Yep! All ready! Jace and I were just saying our goodbyes." Calli explained and Tech tilted his head, perplexed by her odd behavior. But his mind was too preoccupied for their soon departure, so he just let it slide and gestured for her to come along. Calli gave one final glance to Jace before descending the steps to join Tech's side.

Once they were back at the ship, Hunter immediately noticed the extra accessories to Calli's outfit and pointed to the thing in her hair and then the weapon.

"Where did you get that - and that!" He was more intrigued by the electro staff.

"This is from Senator Amidala," Calli answered, gesturing to the headpiece with her free hand, and she was reluctant to say anything about the staff but figured it'd be better to tell the truth then lie, "- and uh, Jace got me this."

"How come you got all the gifts?" Wrecker asked with a childish pout that made Calli chuckle.

"They're thank you gifts for helping on the mission. And don't worry Wrecker, so long as you don't break it, you're welcome to use this beautiful weapon whenever you want."

"Sweet!" Crosshair, who'd been lazily sitting at the couch, took out the tooth pick he'd been chewing on and pointed it at the electro staff while smirking.

"You'll have to shorten it a little cause right now it's almost as big as you are." Crosshair said with a light joking undertone, and he expected Calli to maybe give him a lighthearted sneer or maybe a punch to the shoulder like she always did when Crosshair joked about her height. They hadn't really spoken the last few days, but mostly because Calli spent all her time with Scruffy and Jace. He stupidly thought maybe she had let go of the argument they had which is why he made this joke.

He was taken aback by the cold glare Calli cast in his direction, no hint of humor whatsoever in the expression. Ok so she was still mad at him. Crosshair had to stop himself from scoffing in annoyance at Calli's juvenile behavior. He was no stranger to holding grudges, but over something like this was just plain ridiculous in Crosshair's opinion. He simply spoke the truth and wasn't one to sugar coat it either. Calli knew this, and yet still harbored anger towards him for it.

Fine, if she wanted to act like a baby, then he wasn't going to try and smooth things over until she grew up. He stood up from his seat, and mirrored Calli's glare and spitefully flicked his toothpick at her, leaving the room right after. Calli glowered at the back of Crosshair's head as he left and had to use all of her willpower to not run after him and punch him so hard, he saw stars.

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Once the Havoc Marauder was in hyperspace, Calli couldn't wait to start working on her electro staff. While she hated Crosshair for making a dig about her being vertically challenged, he was unfortunately right about the fact that the staff needed to be fitted to her height. Unfortunately, the staff didn't have a way of shortening the length, but that wasn't a problem when you're Calli, who is very handy with tools and such, so it wouldn't be a problem for long. And she chose to personalize it a little as well, adding some cool markings with paint and carving her name into the metal so

She tinkered away at Tech's workstation, while the others lounged around. Hunter was reading up on the new mission they'd just gotten, literally just as they left Naboo while Tech tapped away on his datapad, Crosshair chose to stay in the cockpit to keep an eye on things, mostly to avoid Calli and Wrecker was taking a nap in his room.

"Hey Tech, where's the plasma welder?" Calli asked, having searched the table and the boxes next to it and not finding it anywhere.

"It's in mine and Wrecker's room. I used it to do some repairs in there a few days ago and haven't brought it back out yet. Do you need me to go get it?" Calli shook her head.

"Nah I got it." Calli said as she got up from the bench and after stretching her muscles that were sore from being hunched over for so long, headed for Tech and Wrecker's bunk room. Wrecker looked away from the hologram when he noticed Calli leaving and asked where she was going. "To go get the plasma welder from your room...?" She answered, and Wrecker jumped up from his seat, suddenly looking very panicked.

"No that's ok! I got it!" He all but shouted before running out of the room before Calli had a chance to answer. She glanced questionably at Hunter and Tech and without having to say anything the two men got up and followed Calli who chased Wrecker down the hallway to his shared room with Tech.

Wrecker made it to the door but hesitated to go in when Calli, then his two brothers joined him, which only further made them suspicious that something was up. Hunter narrowed his eyes at his brother.

"Wrecker...." He used his Sergeant voice, and he didn't have to say anything else as his tone expressed the underlying question everyone else was thinking: What are you hiding?

"What?" Wrecker asked, feigning ignorance in a pathetic attempt to weasel his way out of the situation, yet he kept glancing over his shoulder at the door and Calli could have sworn she heard something - a noise coming from inside the room.

"Uh uh, that's not going to work. Now spill it."

"What's the big deal, Sarge?" Wrecker shot back, not ready to fess up and Calli spoke up next.

"Uh, because the last time someone hid something on this ship, we were infested with fireflies!" Tech snapped his head in her direction, and you could see the minor glare underneath his goggles.

"You're just never going to let that go, are you?" He asked, clearly annoyed that that unfortunate event had been brought up again.

"Hey, out of all the thousands of fireflies species, you got the only ones that liked to bite. With our tight body gloves and heavy armor, it was practically unbearable! Especially with those of us that have enhanced senses. And for some reason they bit me the most!

"Perhaps they were drawn to your "sweet" personality." Was Tech's snarky retort and Calli's jaw clenched at this and she was prepared to fire a sarcastic remark if not for Hunter interjecting.

"Guys!" The Sergeantexclaimed, cutting their argument short and the pair glared at each other before looking away as the Sergeant focused his attention back on Wrecker, "Now you can come out and say what it is you're hiding or-" Calli didn't have the patience wait for Hunter to finish and then waiting even longer for Wrecker to fess up. So, while Wrecker was distracted by the verbal scolding his brother was about to give him, Calli took the opportunity to slink around Wrecker's big form and successfully open the doors and barge into the room, making Hunter sigh in defeat, "- Or Calli can force her way in..." He finished, and his voice sounded equal parts annoyed and tired. But Calli paid no attention to that as she had stopped dead in her tracks when in the middle of the room sat a certain scruffy looking tooka cat which Calli had thought she'd never see again.

"What's he doing back here?" Hunter demanded upon setting eyes on the little furball he'd presumed they'd left behind on Naboo, and Scruffy hissed at him, then at Calli, obviously remembering the fact that she shot at him numerous times. When Hunter recovered from the shock, he gave Calli an accusing look, to which she gawked in return while holding up her hands.

"Don't look at me!" She exclaimed and then everyone looked at the only other culprit who remained standing at the door and was shuffling in his spot while refusing to look at any of his siblings.

"Wrecker." Hunter said again, more sternly this time and even though he wasn't yelling, Wrecker winced. "What is Scruffy doing back on the ship?"

"Look, I got a real good reason, Sarge." Hunter crossed his arms and looked at his brother expectantly, which didn't make Wrecker any less nervous. He began massaging the back of his neck, and glanced at Calli briefly before he began explaining, "Well - the other night, Cal had a real bad nightmare and - and she was real messed up after and the Commander and I didn't know what to do. But ya should have seen how Scruffy helped calm her down! It was like magic!"

"So?" Hunter asked, not quite getting what his younger brother was saying.

"So... I thought it'd be stupid to just let the little guy go. If it helps Cal, then I think he's worth keepin' around."

Instead of being touched that Wrecker went to great lengths on her behalf, Calli became self-conscious, and she looked at her brother with equal parts hurt and defeat. It was as if her worst fears were just confirmed.

"You think I'm so mentally unstable that I need an emotional support animal?" She asked in a small voice and Wrecker's jaw dropped as he began to panic, not meaning to offend her.

"N-No that's not what I meant-"

"Am I really that bad to where you can't deal with me and want to put the burden on Scruffy?!" Said feline perked up upon hearing his name, having learned it fairly quickly in the short time he'd been in Calli's care.

"I just meant that maybe he can help ya, like when you are having bad days and don't wanna talk to us. You know how I have my Lula and she helps me. I mean, you have Prescious (the tooka doll Wrecker gave her) but maybe you need Scruffy too. I mean, you've been... better - happier - since he showed up, more happy than you've been in a while." Calli's lips pursed, and she looked down at Scruffy, finding it easier to focus on him and not Wrecker as he continued reasoning with her, "So, I just thought if I he makes you happy, then he's worth keepin' around." Wrecker brightened up when he thought of something, and said while grinning, "He can be our mascot!" Seeing as Wrecker was not going to be any help in his argument, Hunter turned to his youngest brother in hopes that he would.

"Tech, can you reason with these two about why keeping an animal on this ship would be a terrible idea?" Hunter figured Tech would already have the statistics or whatever about how a pet on a ship that traversed to new planets very often would be hard on the animal itself or at least something along those lines. He'd been fairly silent up until now, yet when he started talking Hunter couldn't believe what he ended up saying.

"Technically, as far as tooka cats go, they are one of the best and most versatile pets to have. Clearly Scruffy is able to adapt to being in space and isn't suffering from motion-sickness, which tells me that perhaps he had a previous owner that dumped him on Naboo or possibly died." You could tell Tech was about to go on one of his super long tangents as he began to list off the different ways they'd have to acclimate Scruffy into their hectic lives if he stayed, "We'd have to find a way to strap him into seats, so he's not tossed around when we're flying, and get a litter box for when we're in space, and if he is to be allowed to run off on his own when we are planet side then there's vaccinations he'll need to get-"

"You're not helping at all here, Tech." Hunter complained, almost whined, feeling ganged up on by his siblings when all he wanted was a peaceful atmosphere on the ship and having a small animal getting into things and scratching things up would be the exact opposite of that. The word hellish came to mind and he also wondered how Tech was so on board with this when just a few hours ago he'd been ready to throw the little beast out over a light bulb breaking.

"I'm just saying that Wrecker may have a point. While I'm not particularly fond of the idea of having that small animal wreak havoc on my ship," Tech's nose wrinkled at the thought of Scruffy tearing up the couches and knocking stuff over, but it quickly disappeared as he looked at Calli with a softer expression, "- yet if it benefits one of our own than I give my full support."

"Hey, there's a reason our ship is called the HAVOC Marauder. Right Scar? Whaddaya say, wanna keep him? We can use of Hunter's extra bandanas to make him a collar since it's got the skull on it to show he's a part of the squad!"

"I-I don't know. I don't want to create any more trouble for anyone." Since when, Hunter wanted to ask, but he stopped himself, thankfully because now that he figuratively took a step back, he could see that Calli was in a vulnerable spot right now, he saw it in her eyes. The fear, the anxiety that always appeared when they spoke about her nightmares or occasional emotional instability they sometimes caused. He didn't exactly know what the nightmares were about, as none of them really spoke about those things. Nightmares just sort of came with the territory of being a soldier and they weren't the type to sit down and share what said nightmares were about because deep down they all had a pretty good idea of what it was about since they experienced a lot of the same trauma in battles and such.

Hunter internally sighed. He was now between a rock and a hard place. If he allowed Scruffy to stay, it'd probably be a living hell. That cat would get into everything, and what's worse is that it'd probably want to sleep on his bed. But he couldn't argue with the fact Wrecker pointed out: Calli had appeared to be happier while Scruffy was around. He didn't quite understand it, maybe it was having something to take care of or the fact that Scruffy was very affectionate and Calli enjoyed all the love and attention.

Hunter sighed again, and this time it wasn't in his head, and it caught the attention of everyone else in the room. Calli mistook it as his way of saying that there was no way Scruffy would be allowed to stay and despite being disappointed, was quick to assure him that they'd turn the ship around so they could bring the cat back to his home world.

"I didn't say we had to take him back." Hunter said without thinking it through and everyone was surprised, including himself. But it was his job as Sergeant to look after the well being of his team, which sometimes meant doing things that he didn't necessarily like.

"Are you saying Scruffy can stay?" Calli asked, and despite trying to keep her voice neutral there was a bit of hope that she couldn't stop from slipping into her tone, which Hunter of course noticed and any resolve he might have had left to stand his ground about getting rid of the little monster crumbled away. How could he say no when the little bundle of fur brought Calli so much joy?

He'd blame her recent injury and his guilt over not being there for allowing himself to give in... again.

"If you promise to take good care of him but also not let it get in the way of missions... then I guess he can stay." The way Calli's face lit up was enough to suppress any apprehension for the time being.

"Seriously?"

"So long as he stays out of my things - specifically my bed."

"You got it Sarge." Calli promised, and she couldn't stop herself from grinning as she looked down at the newest member of their little family. He must have forgiven her for shooting at him earlier, as he trotted over - well as best as one could with only three legs- and rubbed his head against her leg.

For a moment Hunter wondered if Scruffy knew that Calli needed him. No, that's insane, he's just a cat. Shaking his head, Hunter left to go take a well deserved nap before he changed his mind, leaving Wrecker and Calli to dote on their quote unqoute new mascot.

Whatever, but there's no way they were going to paint tooka cats on their armor...

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I'm so so so so sorry it took me this long to finish this chapter. My mental health has been kinda bad lately and it made writing super hard to do.

This ending is not the way I originally planned it, but I was so done with this chapter and just did a rush ending to get it over with. I'll rewrite it one day though, when I have the motivation to!

Thankfully, the next few chapters are already written (For those of you who are new to my story, I'd written ahead but decided to go back and add in this whole Scruffy the cat thing cause I'd forgotten I'd originally wanted to do it in the Naboo Arc and it kept bugging me that I hadn't done it).

My goal is to finish this book before the new season of the Bad Batch comes out. I've got so much planned for Season 1😏😏😏😏.

I want your predictions. What do you think will happen in my story post Order 66? I'll be following the season 1 story line but adding my own stuff in it as well and I hope it'll be good! 😏😏😏

Anyways, thanks you guys for sticking around despite my updates becoming less frequent. And every time I get a new reader I still get all giddy🤗

~B.C.

[echos-newlegs]

If you're in a Wrecker mood may I also requested 16. “I got you, it’s going to be okay, you’re going to be okay.” for him bc u know I love hurt and comfort 👀

Accident Prone

Bro yes, of course. We love comforting our space teddy bear 😩

Wrecker x NB! Reader: "I got you, it's going to be okay, you're going to be okay."

Warnings: angst and fluff guys. Wrecker being clumsy. I've been thinking about how he got his face scars and kind just went with this.

Words: 768

Tag List: @murdertoothpick @andiebell2023 @kaitou2417 @tacticalsparkles @baroclinicinstability @captain-rexs-girlfriend @kirinpl

If you want added or removed just let me know in the comments, message me, or send me an ask once I reopen them!

"Wrecker!" You shouted when you saw him come back to the Marauder with his brothers. Your friend was in and out of consciousness as he had Tech and Hunter on either side of him. His helmet under Crosshairs arm. Leavibg his bloodied face uncovered. 

"I can't feel my face," he muttered as they hauled him past you. You following by like a worried, mother hen. "What happened?" You asked with a shrill voice as they laid him down. Tech rushing to the cockpit to ready the engines. Crosshair shutting the door of the Marauder. 

"He was caught in crossfire, a droid set off a detonator near him and he got most the damage." Hunter told you. Watching as you moved over to help with his wounds. 

Crosshair handing you and Hunter both a damp towel. 

Wreckers eyes opened to look at you. Though his one eye was practically gone. You cringed, and he caught sight of it with his good eye, frowning a bit. "Bad?" He asked. Voice wavy. Evident that he was in a lot of pain. 

"You're going to be okay, Wrecker. Okay? I'm here for you." You told him. Dabbing some of the areas on his face with the cloth. The areas you could tell weren't that sensitive. He let out a scream when Hunter pressed the cloth on a wound. Tears pricking his eye. You reached over to grab his hand and sush him. Trying to keep him calm as Hunter hurried to remove some of the pieces he knew wouldn't kill him. 

The ride back to Kamino was rough, to say the least. You spent most of it comforting Wrecker. While the rest tried to help stop the bleeding and fly there without crashing the ship. Since everyone was worried for their brother, your friend. 

You went to their quarters as they unloaded the brute and brought him to the medical center. Grabbing his Lula for him. You knew it would be the one thing that helped hold him together. No matter what sort of eye roll Crosshair gave you, you knew it would make him feel better. 

It took almost 3 hours of you pacing back and forth in front of the medical center with Lula in your arms before you could go in and see them. You got a few weird glances from clones since you weren't a Kaminoan or a clone, yourself. You were "normal," compared to them. 

You stepped through the doorway. Creeping up to the bed to see Wrecker looking away. A frown on your lips. "Hey there," he wouldn't look at you. So you reached out. Placing a hand on his good arm. "I brought you somethin," you spoke gently. 

You handed him the tooka doll, and watched his eyes light up. "Thank you," his voice was quieter than normal, but you were sure the burns hurt too much for him to move his mouth a lot. 

"I probably look horrible." He stated, causing you to shrug. 

"I'd say you look better than you would six feet under." He grinned at that. A wince following after. 

"What if I don't recover?" He asked. Eyes darting down. "They'll throw me out, I'm already a reject." 

You frowned. Sitting in a chair next to the bed. Watching as he tried to move up, but you placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him. "Wrecker, I got you, it's going to be okay, you're going to be okay." You soothed him. Rubbing his shoulder with a smile. 

His eye watched you. Half smiling back. The most he could, at least. Without hurting himself. 

"Can you hold my hand, like you did on the ship?" He asked. You felt your stomach tense at his words. Your smile growing sheepish as you glanced down to his free hand. That was now open and free of the doll. Waiting patiently for you to place your smaller hand in his. 

"'Course," you placed your hand in his. Watching as your fingers intertwined. To think it took an explosion and him nearly dying for this to happen was beyond the both of you. 

"You're really pretty, y'know." He spoke, and you giggled. Rolling your eyes.

"You're on pain medication right now, Wrecker. Say that again when you're sober." You leaned in to press a kiss to his temple. A giddy smile on his face. "Sure thing, gorgeous." "You're a dork." You followed his words. Using your free hand to rub his wrist a bit while.you pulled his hand into your lap. Watching as he drifted back to sleep with a rather content smile.