Work Text:
“Can you not?”
“I’m bored!”
“That doesn’t mean you have to breathe down my neck. I’m working on something.”
“Can I help?”
“No, you cannot help. Please go away.”
A huff.
“There’s a whole ship for you to annoy and you have to stay here?”
“I’m not annoying.”
“You are when you’re breathing down my neck! Hunter!”
Wrecker grumbles something and stalks off, heavy footfalls following a pattern Tech has known all his life. Tech rolls his eyes and leans over the table where he’s working again. Maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll get five or six minutes uninterrupted before Wrecker comes back.
:::
Echo doesn’t think he’ll ever quite get used to the prosthetic legs Tech built for him, no matter what his brother says. On safe planets, Republic planets, sometimes he’ll go out and wander, practice walking over things like tree roots and rocks. Things that he used to be able to feel--clones don’t have access to that sort of technology.
Walking alone helps clear his mind, too, helps him to focus. Some nights are still bad, and it’s hard to breathe and hard to sleep and he feels alone, like he doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the Bad Batch. It doesn’t help that they all seem to know each other’s nightmares but not his. Besides, his brain is all jumbled--memories don’t quite fit in where they used to, like someone took a jigsaw puzzle and flipped the pieces around and then tried jamming them back together without caring.
Echo wonders if he’ll ever have the mind he once did, if he’ll ever feel the love he once felt surrounded by the Dominos first, and the 501st next.
With a great deal of focus, Echo looks down at a rock in front of him and kicks it, aiming nowhere in particular. He follows its trajectory into a bush. The bush yowls at him, rustling with more than just the force of the rock, and out leaps an angry-looking creature.
He recognizes it, he knows he does. It’s something he’s seen on several planets before. But his brain won’t supply any information about it, and he wants to kick another rock. Not at the thing, of course, but just out of--out of the frustration he feels.
The creature comes to just about his knees, with long, pointed ears and a fluffy tail. Its ears are back, and it glares at him with bared teeth, but the rounded face and flat snout are more endearing than threatening. Legs that look far too skinny to hold the thing up properly spread out, and its fur stands on end. It growls at Echo.
“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “I disturbed you. It was an accident. Go back to your--hey, what’s that about?”
The thing shrinks in on itself, then spins in a very feline about-face and leaps back into its bush, and that’s when Echo hears the pounding footsteps.
“Echo!” Wrecker exclaims, and claps him on the shoulder with almost enough force to knock him to the ground. “I’m bored.”
Echo grimaces, pulling his lips between his teeth. If he’s not actively blowing things up or smashing things together, Wrecker is often bored. “Do you want to see an animal?” Echo asks, because it might be his only shot at getting any sort of identification and at least it will keep Wrecker’s attention on something other than destruction for a few minutes.
“What sort of animal?” Wrecker asks, and Echo bites back a chuckle, because the way Wrecker’s voice lights up is almost exactly what he was expecting.
“Dunno. I know I’ve seen it before, but I can’t remember what it’s called. I thought you might be able to help me.” He takes a moment to think about it before crouching, low to the ground, and moving toward the bush slowly. “Come here,” he calls to the creature living in there. He holds his hand out and clicks his tongue. “It’s all right. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
The thing in the bush hisses at him.
“I don’t know what that means,” Echo mutters, but he clicks his tongue again, trying to get the creature to come check him out.
Wrecker comes up behind Echo again, and Echo can feel his presence, but at least the larger clone is making an effort to be quiet.
“Come on,” Echo coaxes again.
Finally, the creature sneaks around the side of the bush, sniffing, its ears still back and its tail still puffy. Slow and steady, it moves toward his hand, one foot at a time until it can smell him properly. It takes a few moments, thinking, but its ears eventually relax and it butts its head against Echo’s hand.
“I’ve always wanted a tooka,” Wrecker says, and his voice is quieter than Echo thinks he’s ever heard it, except maybe when Hunter gets his migraines.
“Tooka,” Echo breathes. That’s it. A tooka, a carnivorous feline that lives throughout the galaxy. They like milk. There are a few feral colonies in Coruscant’s underbelly, including one that lives near 79’s. The staff at the clone bar love that colony. They feed it every night, and if the bar goers are lucky, sometimes they get to help.
Echo moves his hand around, scratching behind the tooka’s ears, and the creature makes a rumbling sound that seems to come from deep in its chest.
“It’s purring!” Wrecker exclaims, and with his voice so quiet the excitement comes out as a little bit of a squeak. “Echo, can we keep it?”
Echo finds himself making a noise between a laugh and a groan. “No, Wrecker, we can’t keep the tooka.” But he turns his head toward his brother anyway and winks, and the way Wrecker’s eyes light up--Echo hasn’t made a brother happy since Fives. Even Rex was sad, when he found Echo, when Echo came back, because he blamed himself and because Fives was gone. So it’s been a year, maybe more, since a brother has smiled at him like that, genuine and giddy.
Over a tooka, of all things.
Echo moves so that Wrecker can pet the thing, but he probably should have been prepared for Wrecker to scoop it up instead. The tooka gives a little meow of protest, but doesn’t struggle, letting Wrecker carry it back in the direction of the ship.
Echo follows, smiling.
:::
“What is that?” Hunter asks. He sees it as soon as the door to the Havoc Marauder opens. Wrecker is carrying a tooka. A kriffing tooka! Hunter has told him no at least a dozen times at this point.
“It’s a tooka,” Echo says, following Wrecker into the ship.
“I know,” Hunter replies dryly. “Why is it on my ship?”
Echo and Wrecker exchange a glance, but neither of them answer. Wrecker holds the creature closer to his chest.
“You know we can’t have a tooka, Wrecker. We’ve been over this before.”
Problems with tookas, and pets in general, include:
Being against the regulations
Hunter is pretty sure he’s allergic
Tech says they have a tendency to chew on things they’re not supposed to, including cords and cables
Crosshair sees anything small and moving as “fun target practice”
(Addendum: that might be an exaggeration--okay, it is an exaggeration--but the sentiment has stopped Wrecker from bringing a pet onboard in the past)
They smell, and Hunter cannot handle any more sensory input
Wrecker knows this. He keeps a list, and occasionally tries to find excuses to cross things off. He should know better than to bring a tooka on the ship.
“It’s purring,” Wrecker says, rather than replying to Hunter. “I think it likes you.”
Hunter rolls his eyes. “Sure it does, Wrecker. And regs can fly.”
Echo snickers, but when Wrecker turns to give him a look, he’s perfectly composed and smiling sweetly.
“Is that a tooka?” Crosshair asks, coming out of the bunkroom to see what the commotion is all about. “I’ve always wanted a tooka.”
Hunter groans. “Not you, too!”
Crosshair looks up to see Wrecker holding the tooka, and Hunter catches the corner of a malicious smile before Crosshair keeps going.
“I thought about naming it Nala Se or Lama Su and using it as target practice.”
Wrecker glares at Crosshair, pulling the tooka closer to his chest and turning away from his brothers.
“I’m kidding, Wreck. Although good luck getting Hunter to agree to keeping it.” Crosshair wanders back into the bunkroom.
Hunter sighs. “No pets.”
“We bonded over it,” Echo says. “I think it’s a team-bonding tooka.”
Hunter rolls his eyes. “Tookas were not evolved for team bonding.”
“We could use them as team bonding,” Tech pipes up. He’s looking down at a datapad, hardly watching where he’s stepping, going from the galley to the bunkroom. He stops when he processes what he’s said, and looks up. “That’s a tooka.”
“Yep!” Wrecker says, holding the creature out proudly. It’s still purring.
Tech purses his lips. “I stand by what I said.” And then he looks down at his datapad again and keeps walking, into the bunkroom.
“That’s four against one,” Echo points out. “I think that’s a clear majority.”
Hunter grumbles. “Fine. But you have to figure out how to keep it without Them finding out.”
Wrecker and Echo exchange grins, and Hunter has to admit that their happy smiles soften him up a bit.
:::
It’s been three weeks since Wrecker and Echo found the tooka.
Its name is 99, and Echo smiles fondly every time he says it. He still teases Wrecker that they should have named him Fives, though. Wrecker’s face when he suggests naming the tooka after a reg will never not be funny. (Echo doesn’t remind him that, if it weren’t for the Techno Union, he would still be a reg too.)
Tech turned out to be right. Keeping the creature under control has turned out to be something like a massive team-bonding exercise. The last time Echo felt this close to his brothers--Fives. It always comes back to Fives, but then, why wouldn’t it, with what they went through together?
On top of making sure the tooka doesn’t try to eat things it’s not supposed to, and gets enough playtime and enrichment, they’ve also been trying to keep the creature hidden from the watchful eyes of the Kaminoans and the Republic at large. Most of its toys are homemade, gifts from children they save, or scraps of metal and wire that Tech doesn’t need (and that they’ve made sure are harmless). Its meals come from the Bad Batch’s leftovers, although they do buy just a little more food than usual now. Enough to feed five full-grown soldiers and a tooka without anyone knowing they’re feeding a tooka. Protecting the thing, keeping it healthy, has been a huge exercise in patience and communication.
Keeping 99-the-Tooka has come with added benefits, though. It calms the whole squad when they have nightmares, and it snuggles with Hunter when he has migraines, protecting his ears or his eyes, whatever he needs most, like it knows.
Echo sits on his bunk with the creature in his lap, petting it gently with his flesh hand, occasionally giving it a scratch around the ears or under the chin, and Crosshair comes up to join him.
“How’s Ninety-Nine?” Crosshair asks. He pets the tooka with one hand, using the other to keep his balance, and leans his head on Echo’s shoulder.
“Well,” Echo begins, tone mock-haughty, and Crosshair barely contains his scoff. “He’s cuddling with his favorite brother, so he is obviously very happy.”
“Favorite,” Crosshair grumbles, playful. “Sure, Echo. You keep telling yourself that.” He sits up straight, ruffles Echo’s growing hair, and hops down off the bunk. “Hunter says lights out in an hour, by the way.” He gives the tooka one last stroke and leaves the bunkroom.
And Echo smiles, feeling safe and warm and happy and loved and wanted.