Work Text:
"Droidian Slip"
Leia was getting increasingly annoyed with everyone's desire to babysit her at all times. She understood conducting missions and patrol in pairs, but she strongly suspected that the reason she always had someone with her whenever she stepped foot off Hoth had more to do with the Rebellion fearing they'd lose their most iconic figurehead than anything else.
Well, maybe not entirely that. Several people here actually did care about her, and she did think Carlist was vaguely afraid she'd kill herself one of these days.
She wanted to reassure him pleasantly that she'd resolved not to think about killing herself until the Empire was defeated, but she also knew he would not find that the least bit funny. And such an unhinged joke would probably result in more babysitting.
As it were, the topic of the current meeting was, unsurprisingly, and annoyingly, 'who is going to escort Princess Leia on this latest meet.' It was unsurprising for obvious reasons. It was annoying because usually, it would just be Han or Luke, and they'd all be done with it, but Luke was off planet, and Han was mad at her, so he'd made several asinine comments about how he didn't feel like it, and he might feel like it if Leia decided to be nicer to him. It didn't help that the meet was on a tropical resort planet, so everyone was dying to be her escort, just to get off this stupid fucking ice rock.
Leia had been sitting at the table, listening to the Rogues argue with Carlist, and Carlist cajole Han, and Han act like an ass, for the better part of an hour. She was occupying her thoughts glaring at Han and thinking he had no right to be mad at her.
He was the one who decided to spring it on her out of the blue that he had romantic feelings for her - that was exactly what he said, romantic feelings. Where did he get off being a brash, irreverent, rough smuggler and saying gentle things like ‘romantic feelings?’ He was also the one who decided she was being rude when she told him she did not have time to think about that right now. And he said she was being stupid for thinking this was out of the blue.
"I don't even know why we are arguing about this," snapped Carlist suddenly. "I am in charge here."
"Then make a decision, sir," snorted Wes Jansen.
Crix Madine shot him a side-eyed, incredulous look.
Jansen shrugged.
"We're arguing because we all want to escort, but you want to assign Han," Wedge Antilles said loudly, "because at some point you became his personal matchmaking service."
"That is nonsense," Carlist said.
"He's real bad at it, too," Han offered loudly.
Leia glared at him more aggressively.
Crix folded a napkin into a messy semblance of a ship and threw it across the table.
"We don't have time for this anymore," he said. "Yeah, yeah, we get it, you all want to go on a little vacation - it's gonna be dangerous, though," he said sharply. "Real dangerous. You could get your ass blown off for some time in the sun."
"Worth it," Jansen said. "I don't need my ass. Antilles does, though. Skywalker would miss it."
"He's right. I really can't be writing checks my ass can't cash without Luke's input."
Crix laughed, tipping back in his chair.
"Seems to me we do what we should have done in the first place and let Her Highness choose," he said gallantly.
"But she'll choose Han," whined Hobbie Klivian, "and someone else deserves a chance to escape this depression pit."
"Han won't go," Han said loudly.
"Oh, shut the fuck up," Jansen said, rolling his eyes. “No one believes you.”
Carlist put his face in his hands. He looked up and sighed, raising his brows at Leia.
"Leia, who do you want to come with you?" he asked.
Leia, who had tuned out this ridiculous debate several minutes ago and had been busy increasing the intensity of her moody glaring at Han - he was absolutely refusing to look at her - blinked blearily to focus on Carlist. It was usually Han who went on these missions - it was always Han! Why change it now - and hell, if he wanted to be a stubborn little gundark about all this, she'd just force his hand, and make him hang out with her - Jansen was right, he'd never actually -
"Princess?" Carlist sighed.
Leia folded her arms. She shrugged.
"Crix is right. Why make this difficult? I want Han to come on me."
She didn't think there was anything outrageous or surprising about what she'd said, until the room went entirely silent. Crix's chair slammed to the floor with an almighty bang, and he turned his face away, staring straight ahead across the table with his back suddenly ramrod straight. After a moment - during which Leia pursed her lips curiously - Wedge made a choking, sobbing noise, Hobbie twitched, Jansen's mouth fell open, and Han put his head down on the table.
He put his head down on the table, placed both of his hands on the back of his neck like he was bracing for impact, and made a noise that sounded suspiciously like hysterical laughter.
Leia furrowed her brow, baffled. A strange, nervous feeling crawled up her spine.
"What?" she asked.
"I, ah," Carlist began, clearing his throat. "I believe you meant you'd like Han to come with you?"
Han shot up out of his seat, glaring at Carlist.
"Let the woman speak!" he demanded gleefully.
"She'd probably prefer after her," Jansen piped up seriously.
Wedge burst out laughing.
"That was a droidian slip if I ever heard one," Hobbie gasped.
Leia looked around, her mouth dry, cheeks flaming.
"Yes, I want Han to come with me," she said. "What did you think I said?"
"Um, that's not what you said," Hobbie offered, almost apologetic. His face was red, too.
"It is," Leia said.
Carlist rubbed his forehead. He blew air out into his palm.
"Alright - can we all just - quiet, let's - shut up!"
"Why are you all acting like animals?" Leia demanded. "Crix is right. Han always comes with me - "
The effect of these words was deafening, riotous. Alarmed, Leia stood, staring around her colleagues. She was quiet convinced they had all lost their minds, between Wedge - was suddenly furiously typing on his comm - and Jansen, who had doubled over in his chair, wheezing, and Han, who was holding up his hands innocently, giving Carlist a wide-eyed, faux naive look, shaking his head rapidly.
In the midst of all this, Crix got up, walked over to Leia, took her arm, and pulled her aside. He pulled his tablet from his jacket pocket, tapped a few things on it, and handed it to her.
"You didn't hear yourself," he said quietly. Then nodded. "That's what you said."
Leia stared at him suspiciously, then looked down at the datapad, wordless. She knew what she'd said. She'd heard it. She'd said exactly what she'd meant, she'd -
She read what he'd typed.
She read it again.
She looked up at Crix, aghast.
He winced.
"I didn't - "
He nodded.
Leia handed him the tablet back, mute. Crix dipped his head to her in a magnanimous bow. Then he bolted out of the room, as if he wanted no more part in this. Leia stared at the spot where he'd stood, eyes wide, mustering a very cool, blank expression. She turned to the room.
"Right," she said, folding her arms in front of her. "Well. You are all being...monumentally immature. What I meant to say was - I would like Han to come with me - "
Chaos erupted once more; it was too late to be serious. The word had lost any of its innocuous meaning. It was out there, all slang and no function, fluttering around in a room full of men to be batted around like an abused Smashball.
And she had started it.
"At your service, Your Worship," Han said, bowing.
"Solo," snapped Carlist, an edge of warning to his voice.
"She started it," Han protested, folding his arms. "In fact, I got half a mind to file a sexual harassment claim."
"You have to enlist to do that," Hobbie piped up.
Han mimed patting his chest as if looking for a stylus.
"Where do I sign?"
"Oh, is that what it takes?" Leia asked, rounding on him.
Han fumbled his hands, looking startled. He took a step back and smacked right back into the conference table.
"Wh-what are you offering?"
"Don't tell me you're shy now, Captain Solo," she goaded, flicking her eyes over him.
"Should we leave?" Jansen asked.
Wedge stood, holding up his comm.
"Leia, can you tell Luke what you said? He doesn't believe me," he whined.
Leia glared at him. Carlist stood up and slapped Wedge's hand down. He pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Enough," he said coolly, his voice low, but serious enough to quell the room. "One more peep out of anyone, and I will court martial all of you."
Out of all of them, only Han gave a vague grimace. Carlist turned to look at Leia stonily.
"Fine," he said. "Solo wil co - go with you," he said, hitting the consonant in the word 'go' so hard it was comical.
Jansen muffled some more laughter, hastily disguising it as a cough.
Carlist looked around the room stiffly, shaking his head as if he could not be more disappointed in any of them. His gaze lingered finally on Leia, and she read slight concern in them. She turned her lips up at the corner just slightly and cocked her brow, silently telling him she was alright. He nodded once, grabbed his hat off the table, and marched from the room - obviously in a hurry to get away from them. Jansen, Klivian, and Antilles made no move to leave, and Leia turned ferociously on Hobbie, flicking him behind the ear.
"Droidian slip?" she snapped, repeating his cute little phrase.
"What else would you call it?" Hobbie asked.
"I misspoke."
"That's what a droidian slip is," Jansen said seriously. He held up his hands as if explaining the concept to a small child. "It's when you say what you really mean out loud without thinking. Like droids. 'Cause droids only present facts and act out their programming."
Leia, quite well aware of the idiom, glared at him. She glared around at all of them, then folded her arms and relaxed her features.
"Ah, so you all think I was privately dying to announce to a room full of my colleagues and subordinates," she threw pointed looks at each of the Rogues with that last word, pronouncing it crisply, "that I would like Han to ejaculate on me?"
Three men cringed at her. She wasn't looking at Han, but she sensed him cringing, too.
"Ugh, wow," Jansen muttered. “What a gross word.”
"Yeah, that was truly impressive, Leia," Wedge sighed. "Outstanding. Brilliant. You could win awards for just beating the sexy right out of a situation."
"I think you all ought to beat it," Leia said severely, this time well aware of the double entendre - and it sent the boys scattering, all except Han, who dropped down into a seat, leaned back in his chair obnoxiously, balancing on the back two legs.
She turned to glare at him. He put a hand over his mouth, hiding a grin, eyeing her thoughtfully.
“You don’t want to run away, too?” she goaded.
Han cleared his throat. He let the chair fall.
“Nah, I can handle myself in adult situations,” he answered smoothly.
“And now I suppose you’re suddenly interested in escorting me again,” she said crisply.
He leaned forward on his knees and shrugged. He grinned at her.
“Yeah, I’m feelin’ a little more charitable now,” he drawled. “Must’ve really got in your head. Got you thinkin’, huh?” he teased.
His eyes darkened a little. Leia flared her nostrils at him.
“It was a slip of the tongue, Han.”
“Slip of the tongue? I can arrange that.”
“You are insufferable,” she snapped. She folded her arms and turned away, leaning against the table, and shaking her head furiously. “Droidian slip,” she hissed under her breath, gnashing her teeth.
“Hey, nothin’ wrong with a little daydreamin’, Sweetheart,” he said, standing up. He stepped up next to her, cocking his hip against the table. He lifted his hand, hesitated, then put two fingers under her chin lightly and tilted her head up.
She cut her eyes at him but didn’t object to the touch. She arched a brow.
“I dunno if it’s a ‘romantic’ thought, but it’s a start,” he quipped, flashing a grin at her.
She lifted her chin a little higher, away from his touch, and Han let his hand fall swiftly. He folded his arms, looking down at her. She held her head to the side, watching him.
“I think it’s been made clear which of us is the more romantic,” she said, almost dismissive. Han grimaced at her slightly, and it made her feel bad for how callous she’d been towards him over the past few days.
She sighed and pursed her lips.
“Well?” she prompted “Will you go with me, then?”
“Sure, I’ll come,” Han said, deadpan.
She rolled her eyes at him, trying to bite back a smile. This ridiculous incident was going to be all over the base by supper, and it occurred to her that it likely didn’t help that she and Han had stayed behind in here while the rest of the witnesses scattered.
“Got a logistical question, though,” Han said.
“Hmm?"
He leaned a bit closer, relaxing his features into the most devious expression of innocence she’d ever seen in her life.
He cleared his throat.
“Where?”
Leia frowned. She knit her brows.
“You know the mission is on – “
She broke off, narrowing her eyes, but he was already interrupting –
“No, Your Highness, where on you did you want – “
Leia launched her arm to the side and whacked him squarely in the stomach. He back of her hand made a satisfying sound, and Han doubled over wheezing with laughter. He reached out to brace a palm on the table, feigning injury, unable to stop laughing.
She put her hands to her face, cheeks flushing, and she tried to hold back her own laughter, finally unable to keep her composure – it figured that she’d get so lost in her own thoughts she’d blurt out something unintentionally vulgar; anything was better than admitting to deeper emotion.
Impulsively, Han slid an arm around her waist and pulled her towards him, laughing still, his forehead against her shoulder. She touched the back of his head, grinning – a very well-behaved, long dormant part of her was whispering that this was undignified behavior, and she should cease entertaining this sort of familiar joking immediately, but a better part of her wanted to keep bantering with him – and even if it was a volley of filthy double entendres, there was still something a little romantic in that.