Chapter Text
Omega took a deep breath, staring down the length of her energy arrow to the tree she was aiming at.
“Elbow,” Crosshair’s voice called behind her.
She raised her right elbow, adjusting her aim slightly. “Now?”
A set of fingers grabbed her arm, adjusting it slightly.
“You barely changed anything!” Omega cried, glancing back at him.
“Eye on the target,” Crosshair grunted, stepping back, “and the slightest change in your positioning can make a big difference.”
She huffed, returning her gaze to the tree she was targeting. “Now?”
“Have at it.”
She frowned with concentration, trying to keep her arms steady. However, the moment before she loosed the arrow, a gentle breeze blew her hair into her eyes, obscuring her view. She let out a cry of dismay but was too late to stop herself, the arrow missing the tree and flying off to the left.
“You missed,” Crosshair observed flatly.
“I know,” she grumbled, lowering her bow and brushing her hair back. “My hair is long enough now that it gets in my eyes.”
Now that she mentioned it, Crosshair realized that her hair had indeed grown over the past few months, now long enough to cover her ears and brush against her cheeks. “You could cut it.”
Omega shook her head. “I was never allowed to have it long on Kamino, so I want to let it grow. It’s just…”
“If you want to shoot well, you need to do something about this.” Crosshair flicked the offending bangs into her face. “You have to minimize obstructions.”
“Yeah, I know.” Omega swatted his hand away, an idea forming in her mind, and she eagerly started towards the Marauder.
“What about practice?” Crosshair called after her.
“Later! I want to look at something!”
Crosshair scowled, wondering just what he had started.
It took Omega a bit of digging through datapads, but she finally found what she was looking for: human hairstyles. At first, she found holos of empresses and queens that bore complicated hairstyles woven into glittering headdresses, so beautiful it left her breathless but not what she was looking for. After searching a bit longer, she found more normal hairstyles like the ones she was used to seeing in the towns and cities they had visited. She looked over them with great consideration, stunned by the amount of variety she was faced with.
Eventually, she found one that she liked that was suitable for her length of hair. It was simple compared to most of the ones she had seen, consisting of two small braids above the ears, tied together at the back.
Hopeful and excited, she bounced away to find the one person she figured would know how to do it best.
“Hunter!”
At the sound of his name, Hunter leaned back in his chair, craning his neck to see Omega coming towards him with a datapad. “Yeah?”
“Do you know how to braid hair?” she asked, stopping beside his chair.
Hunter didn’t reply right away, surprised by the question, so Tech provided an answer for him.
“He barely knows how to keep tangles out of his hair,” he said from the other side of the cockpit.
Hunter shot him a glare. “I don’t know how to braid hair. Why do you ask?”
Omega deflated a little. “Well, my hair’s gotten longer and it’s getting in the way when I practice with my bow.”
“I have some spare bandanas I could lend you.”
“Yeah, but that’s not as pretty.” Omega showed him the holo on the datapad. “I think this is prettier.”
“It is,” Hunter agreed, eyeing the braids. “Pretty” was not a concept he and his brothers were terribly familiar with in their lives as soldiers, prioritizing practicality and hardly thinking about appearance, except with their armor. Armor was what displayed their individuality first and foremost before people ever saw their faces, as well as the colors and insignia of Clone Force 99, but Hunter would not consider his armor pretty. However, the concept had come up more and more the longer Omega was with them, and though he was unfamiliar with it, he would not deprive her of what she wanted.
“I could give it a shot,” he said.
Omega’s face lit up. “Really?”
Hunter shrugged. “Yeah. I may not be the best at it but I can try.”
“Fortunately for you, Hunter owns one of the only combs on the ship,” Tech said.
Hunter gave him an exasperated look as he rose from his seat. “Come on, kid. Let’s see what we can do.”
Omega grinned and skipped after him, following him through the ship to the refresher. He pushed a crate up to the tiny sink and mirror for her to use as a stool, digging through the spare toolbox they used to hold toiletries.
“No promises,” he warned her.
“That’s okay,” she said, hopping up on the crate and setting the datapad against the wall beneath the mirror.
Hunter got to work, combing out her hair as gently as he could. Fortunately, her hair was still short enough that any tangles were easily removed in contrast to his own.
As he suspected, his troubles came with the braiding. He was used to working with ropes, but hair was far more slippery and delicate. The hair he did manage to braid was sloppy, though most of it slipped through his fingers.
Omega bore his attempts with patience, trying to hold in laughter as she saw him glaring at the back of her head with fierce concentration. From what she could see, the braids were there, but they were crooked and not as neat as the picture.
His curiosity finally getting the best of him, Tech wandered over from the cockpit, watching Hunter struggle for a couple of minutes.
“It seems you are ill-suited for this,” he said when the left braid halfway fell apart again.
Hunter shot a frown his way. “Do you want to try?”
“Certainly,” Tech said, “if that is what Omega wishes.”
The girl shrugged. “Sure.”
Hunter stepped back, releasing the strands of hair into a halfway-braided mess. Secretly, he was relieved Tech had stepped in. He had never tried anything complicated with his own hair out of practicality, nor had he attempted anything on another. He was surprised at Tech’s offer, as his brother was just as inexperienced as he if not more so.
Tech plucked the comb from Hunter’s hand, beginning to straighten the snarls that had been created. Omega watched him through the mirror with great interest, curious as to how his unexpected participation would play out.
When he started the braids, her curiosity turned to amazement as he wove her hair together with hardly a mistake, his hands working as though he had done this thousands of times before.
“How are you doing it so well?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“I do not mean to insult your hair, but this is very much like threading circuitry together,” Tech explained. “I have been doing that for quite some time, so this comes easily.”
Omega smiled, watching hopefully as her desired hairstyle formed before her eyes. It was only a matter of a couple of minutes before Tech grabbed a spare piece of twine from one of his pouches, tying off the two braids together at the back of her head.
“Is that sufficient?” he asked.
“Yes! They’re so pretty!” She turned her head this way and that, admiring the braids in the mirror before facing her brothers, giving Hunter an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Hunter. I think Tech’s a little better than you.”
Tech’s face remained neutral, but Hunter caught the smallest hint of a smug smile on his lips. “That’s okay, kid. I’ll learn.”
“Do you think the others would be good at it?” Omega asked, running her fingers over the interwoven strands of hair.
“Echo is disqualified, unfortunately,” Tech said. “Wrecker…perhaps. Crosshair would definitely excel at it.”
“I should show them!” Omega ran out of the ship, yelling, “Wrecker, Echo, Crosshair, look at what Tech did for me!”
Hunter smiled as her excited chatter grew distant. “I didn’t think that was something we would have to worry about when we took her off Kamino.”
“I am not surprised,” Tech said. “It only makes sense that she would want to try and look like other girls her age, especially after a more…restricted life before.”
“I guess so.” Hunter gave him an expectant look. “Think you can take care of that until I get better at it?”
“Certainly.” A smile touched Tech’s face. “If the others don’t get roped into it as well.”
“Sorry, kid. I think my fingers are too big for this,” Wrecker lamented, looking down at the tangled mess of pale hair in front of him.
“That’s okay,” she said with a laugh. “Maybe once my hair gets longer you can try again.”
Wrecker set about smoothing her hair. “Sure!”
Once he was done, Omega turned a hopeful gaze on Crosshair. “What about you?”
Crosshair scowled at her. “What about me?”
“Tech said you would be great at braiding!”
“Weren’t you supposed to be in bed half an hour ago?”
Omega pouted. “Maybe.”
“Go to bed,” he growled. “Maybe tomorrow.”
That appeased her enough to get her off to bed without further argument. Crosshair forgot about it until she appeared at his elbow the next morning.
“If you want caf then steal Wrecker’s once he wakes up,” he grumbled into his cup.
“It’s not that!” Omega said. “You said you’d braid my hair!”
Crosshair let out a growling sigh as he remembered. “I said maybe.”
Her face fell. “So you won’t do it?”
“I didn’t say that either.” Crosshair fixed her with a look. “Don’t bother me until I finish my caf. Then I’ll do it.”
Omega performed a small dance of glee, barely remembering to keep her volume down for the sake of her sleeping brothers, and scampered back to her room. Crosshair huffed, rolling his eyes as his morning peace temporarily returned.
When he finished his caf, he headed for the refresher without a word, knowing she was eagerly waiting for him. Sure enough, he heard the shuffling as she scrambled from her room and the patter of footsteps.
“It had better not be too complicated,” he muttered, looking back at her.
She shook her head, pushing her crate-turned-stool up to the sink. “I just want to see if you can do the same thing Tech did.”
“And if I can’t?”
“Then you can learn!”
Crosshair scowled habitually, accepting the comb as she passed it to him. “This is more work than it’s worth.”
“But I like how it looks!” Omega argued. “When there are so many things you can do, just have a bandana like Hunter would be boring.”
Crosshair suppressed a smirk at the excitement in her voice as he started combing through her sleep-tousled hair. “Maybe you have a point.”
“Once my hair gets long enough, I can braid try braiding it myself.”
“How long do you want it?”
“As long as it’ll go!”
“You’ll regret that,” Crosshair said, beginning the process of braiding. “Hunter gets things stuck in his hair all the time.”
“Like what?”
“Dirt, leaves…” Crosshair kept his face carefully straight. “Bugs.”
Omega’s eyes went huge. “Really?”
“Of course,” Crosshair said in the snide tone she had come to realize meant he was messing with her.
“You’re mean,” she grumped.
“And you’re a rat,” he returned with no malice.
True to Tech’s prediction, the braids were formed just as easily beneath Crosshair’s fingers. When he finished, he stepped back, satisfied with his work though he wouldn’t say as much.
“If you don’t like it I’m not redoing it,” he said.
“It’s perfect,” she said, turning to grin at him. “Maybe you could try a different one tomorrow!”
Crosshair snorted. When he suggested she figure out a way to keep her hair out of her eyes, he had not envisioned himself doing anything with her hair, much less braiding it, but here he was.
Echo, who had woken up a few minutes prior, approached the pair with a smile. “Looks great, kid.”
“Tech was right! He’s really good at it,” Omega beamed.
Crosshair couldn’t sound as annoyed as he wanted to in the face of her grateful enthusiasm. “You’d better bother Tech just as much as you bother me.”
“If it bothered you, you wouldn’t do it,” Omega retorted. “Neither would Tech.”
“Congratulations, brother,” Echo said. “It seems you and Tech have given yourself a new responsibility as Omega’s braiders.”
“It’s Tech’s job,” Crosshair growled. “I was just proving I could do it.”
Omega shared an amused look with Echo. Neither of them believed him for a second.