Chapter Text
You hear the lock click open from the other room, followed by the door opening and boots on the wooden floors that creak over the droid repair shop. You know who it is, he’s the only visitor you have and the only person you know who could crack the ridiculously complicated hexadecimally scrambled lock you installed. You take a couple more moments to fluff your hair and admire you’re the loose cotton dress you bought, before slipping out of the bathroom.
Your apartment is tiny and dingy. Its all you can afford working for Cid in the early days of this strange new world they call the Galactic Empire. The few acquaintances you have made hanging around Cid’s bar have assured you of the credits you could make offering other ‘services’ besides your programming, hacking and espionage related skills you possess, but you’re not interested. Between Cid and a few other clients, you make rent and buy food. You suspect no one is going to be wealthy in this new Empire except for the Chancellor and arms dealers.
He’s sat with his back to you on the edge of the bed and you immediately sense his exhaustion by the way he clumsily reaches up to pull his helmet off. You crawl across the bed and settle behind him as he carefully puts his helmet on the ground before you pull him back against your chest, wrapping your arms around his neck.
“Hello my dear,” Tech mumbles sleepily.
You answer by planting a kiss on his forehead. His eyes flutter shut in simple enjoyment as the lines on his face relax. He’s fairer than his team mates and Tech took great care to explain to you how the Kaminoans used the genetic material of Jango Fett, a bounty hunter to create the clone army and that Jango’s mother was fair with blonde hair which is why their kid, Omega was fair despite all of them being genetically speaking siblings. Being fairer than Hunter and Wrecker you can just make out a faint dappling of freckles across the bridge of his nose and under his soft brown eyes.
“Was Cid’s latest job that good?” you prompt him when he still hasn’t opened his eyes.
He finally blinks his eyes open, finds yours and breathes deeply. “I feel like all I did on that mission was run.”
“You getting old?” you tease him playfully.
His mouth pulls into a vague smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes as he looks up into yours. “I know it’s been weeks…” he begins hesitantly.
“Shh Tech. Its ok,” you cut him off, realising what he means. “That’s not all this is about.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Shhh lets get you out of your armour.”
He mostly lets you strip him out of his armour, he’s fanatical about its maintenance and cleanliness but trusts you enough to remove it piece by piece after he explained to you previously how it all clips together, where the hinges are and what sections need to be handled carefully not to disrupt the wiring, he threaded into it. You stack the chest plate, back plate, vambraces and elbow guards but he takes over, taking off his forearm pieces. He trusts you but not that much. He tiredly leans forward and carefully places it on the floor beside his helmet before flopping onto his back causing a big woof of air to escape from your blankets. You rest your hand on his stomach, feeling it rise and fall softly as he closes his eyes again. He really is exhausted, you muse to yourself before you take over stripping him out of his bottom half down to his black under suit. You reach his boots and drape yourself across his lower half and gently slap his calf.
“Boots sleepy head. I don’t know where these have been.”
“Toydaria.”
“Yeesh that explains the smell,” you mutter as you begin to undo the straps. You pause to readjust your position and now stripped of his cod-piece and thigh plates you feel a tell-tale firmness under your thigh.
“You’re not that tired,” you grin playfully.
“Biological response beyond my control my dear, don’t get too excited.”
You get his other boot off before twisting around and crawling up to his head, straddling him around his skinny waist. You reach for his goggles but he stops you, gently wrapping his skinny hands around your wrists, blinking up at you.
“I’d like to see your face not a blur,” he murmurs.
“Alright,” you relent with a smile, amused that despite being a genetically enhanced clone with breath-taking mental capabilities, it came at expense of his vision which is woeful without his distinctive goggles. You gently untangle your wrists from his grip so you can lace your fingers through his. He’s watching you, gently dragging his thumb against the back of your hand and you sense he wants to tell you something.
“What’s up? You look pensive,” you prompt him.
“I told Hunter about us,” he says softly, an edge of nervousness creeping into his voice.
“And?”
He draws out a sigh. “I think he suspected something before now, Echo teased me pretty relentlessly after that mission and Hunter’s heightened ability means he can sense electromagnetic vibrations for miles and we’re only three blocks from Cid’s bar. He trusts you, so I don’t think he minds but I think Echo is jealous.”
“I have female acquaintances around here I could introduce Echo to,” you offer.
“Are you trying to set up the entire Bad Batch with girlfriends? That’s very sweet but an impossible task I’m afraid.”
“Maybe I am, you’re not soldiers for the Republic anymore.”
“That didn’t stop some regs,” Tech murmurs dryly.
“I’m sure it didn’t. What does Echo like?”
Tech chuckles, opening his eyes and realises you are at least partially serious. After Tech, Echo is your second favourite member of his crew and definitely the most interesting. A few months ago, you asked why he had a cybernetic socket in place of his right arm and two hours later you had heard the entire story of Skako Minor and what happened to Echo, which was horrifying to say the least. You knew from personal experience that the Techno Union were ruthless, cold bastards but you had no idea they could stoop to the inhumane levels of hooking a clone up to a machine for years.
Tech loves to talk and loves sharing his knowledge but for the most part gets told to shut up, whereas you listen and even ask questions. A few times he’s apologised for boring you but you’ve been quick to shut down that line of thought and prompt him to continue because you genuinely love hearing him talk. About everything and anything. The weirdest thing will prompt a memory about a mission and how he recorded the distress call of a flying reptile and saved their backsides. Or how he rewired a battle droid in the heat of battle to turn against Separatist forces. Or what he knows about Ord Moon Dragons.
“I appreciate the thought but I’m not sure Echo would go in for it,” he murmurs sadly.
“Why?”
“Echo is more machine than man after what the Techno Union did to him. I don’t think he’ll ever be the clone he was before that… in more ways than one.”
“You know some people go for droids, right? Ord Mantell is a pretty seedy place,” you say with a grin.
“Yes,” he says with a laugh. “I am aware.”
“And Wrecker?” you ask after a few moments.
“Unless you know someone who looks like the Senator from Naboo who died recently, then no.”
“Padme Amidala?” you ask in surprise.
Tech’s smile widens, creasing the corners of his closed eyes. “We used to have a piece of nose art on the Marauder of her but Captain Rex made us paint over it. We all thought she was pretty amazing but Wrecker was the sweetest on her by a long shot.”
“He made you paint over it? That’s harsh.”
“It was before Skako Minor. We were carrying out a mission with Commander Cody and the Jedi, Obi Wan Kenobi, who I might add admired it and found it amusing that a bunch of us rogue clones watched holo-scans of the Senate hearings just for her. Rex didn’t share his opinion and ordered us to paint over it before joining him at Anaxes for a special mission. Wrecker cried.”
The laugh escapes you and you immediately feel bad but he opens one eye and grins at your response. “Ok so be on the look out for a Padme Amidala look alike. Gotcha,” you note in amusement.
“And before you ask about the Sargent, don’t. He’s too preoccupied with keeping Omega safe,” Tech adds quickly.
“That’s a shame. I’ve seen the way women, Twi’s especially eye him up at the bar.”
“He wouldn’t notice and if he did, he wouldn’t care.”
He’s lagging, you can feel it in the way his grip has softened, his words have started slurring together and he’s barely opened his eyes in the last ten minutes. You swing over him, releasing his grip. “Come on, into bed with you,” you murmur.
Tech sleepily crawls under the covers in his blacks and you settle into the crook of his arm, draping a leg across his thighs and snuggling your head against his. In minutes he’s out, settling into a rhythmic pattern of soft snores. You carefully reach up and finally remove his goggles which he doesn’t even stir at, a sign of how exhausted he really is. You won’t lie, you are a little disappointed you didn’t get a chance to make up for lost time after his being away for a few weeks but honestly you enjoy his company so much its not that much of a loss. You settle back into his arms and breath a contended sigh, thinking about how you first met.
Ord Mantell isn’t your home world, but like the Bad Batch you fled here after the Republic collapsed taking your main employers with it. You knew you were a target for the Empire, you saw things in the data, encrypted comm chatter and data transfers that meant you knew more than you should. You bounced between planets in the first little bit after the Republic fell but ended up on Ord Mantell with a fake chain code that allowed you to travel and work. A job you pulled put you on Cid’s radar, which is how you met the boys.
Cid had a contact who needed intel on Imperial transport routes and that’s when she suggested you work with the Bad Batch. You’d met clones before, lots of them but these guys were evidentially different which came out of your mouth before you could stop yourself. Wrecker laughed, Echo shuffled awkwardly on the spot, Hunter didn’t respond but Tech gave you an on-the-spot detailed reason why they were different which was interrupted by Cid telling him to save it. You felt bad for him as Cid explained the job and later on the ship you asked him to finish what he was saying about their genetic enhancements. Tech blinks at you in surprise, pushing his goggles up his nose as Echo grins to himself over the ships computer he was fiddling with.
The job wasn’t too difficult but required getting behind Imperial lines to a relay station and recording encrypted data on shipping routes. Easy enough job for you as the Empire was still using the old hardware you used for the Republic which impressed Tech no end. While he had a broad knowledge of relay stations and how they worked, he picked your brain for most of the trip home about how they worked down to the minutest detail. Hunter tried to save you at one point, convinced you were tired and needed a break from the questions but you waved him off, eager to talk to someone who was as interested in something as boring as data relays as you were.
Tech reaches across the board and inadvertently bumps your knee with his and that’s when you felt it. That all too familiar twinge in your chest followed by the unmistakable flutter in your stomach as he began excitedly showing you something he had been working on for tracing Imperial ships. You only half listened, aware suddenly of every flutter, every twinge in your chest and the curling of your fingers against the material of your pants. You hadn’t felt that feeling for a long time, too preoccupied with work and helping the Republics efforts against the Separatists but you knew it.
You had to lure him here the first time with slightly nefarious means. You had got hold of a data spike containing intel about Imperial droids being produced and you needed help unscrambling it. Truth be told, you could have done it yourself with time but it was an excuse to lure him into your shoebox apartment. You told him about the lock and your first indication that he had arrived was an excited little whoop noise he made when he cracked it the first time. Tech obliviously wanders into your one room apartment, ignoring the bed pushed against the wall and your attempt to clean, focused on your work station. He unscrambled the data easily and then sat there staring at you for a few moments, cogs clearly turning behind his bright eyes.
“You could have done that without my help,” he states eventually.
“I like your company,” you state truthfully. “I wanted an excuse to see you more.”
“And I like yours, I haven’t met anyone as proficient as I am with this kind of thing,” he replies obliviously.
“Is that the only thing you like about me?” you say sounding bolder than you feel. You hadn’t seen any indication of feelings towards you, but life’s short and the Empire will happily shorten it, so you figure its time to throw all the cards on the Sabacc table.
His eyes widen in realisation and he visibly swallows hard. You begin to panic, thinking maybe you overstepped the mark when he pushes his goggles up his nose and finally meets your gaze.
“No, its not but I didn’t think someone as beautiful as you would be interested in me.”
Once you picked your jaw off the floor you got up and stood over him, standing between his splayed feet, feeling your heart pound in your chest. “Well, you were wrong.”
It was then he stumbled over the explanation that between being created in a bacta tank on Kamino, being rushed into combat as soon as possible and spending the last few years working back-to-back missions for the Republic; he had zero experience of any kind with the opposite sex. He also felt it necessary to explain that the only females of any race he had encountered regularly were Kaminoans who weren’t his type and Shaak Ti the Jedi, also not his type. You on the other hand, he assured you fumbling for words, were his type but he had never even considered anything beyond a working relationship. So, you were kind to him and the following morning he left and you didn’t hear from him for months.
You had nearly given up, convinced you had scared him off when one day he returned, awkwardly knocking at your front door. It turns out Echo figured it out and when they finally returned to Ord Mantell after losing Omega to bounty hunters and getting her back, Echo told him to come see me. Tech awkwardly explained he had been dropping the bundle as far as work went to the point even Wrecker noticed and gave him a hard time over it.
From then on you had settled into a comfortable, relatively open-ended relationship. It wasn’t open ended in the sense you were seeing other people, but that you both worked transient, dangerous jobs hiding from the Empire and any meeting could be your last. You tilt your head up to watch him sleep in the darkness punctuated by the fluro lights of Ord Mantell seeping through your crappy curtains and sigh, hoping the Empire doesn’t find either of you to soon.
Within moments you’re asleep as well.