Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"What're you doing?”

There was a bit of a broken rhythm to the bar’s ambiance. It wasn’t the highest class sort of place to be stuck in to begin with, but they kept the music playing at least. And that in itself should have been his tip off that things were getting ready to fly south quicker than usual.

The stuttering remix hardly got a rise out of the other patrons either. That was what made it so simple to ignore. 

He reached up without looking away from his palm pad, grabbing a drink from the zipping by automaid, and brought it back down to his lips without even thinking twice about the commotion over his earpiece.

The blinking blip on his readout remained in place.

“What?” Church finally asked, letting his eyes dart up into the crowd for just a moment before returning to the map.

“Church! What the fuck are you doing? I need you to confirm. I mean, goddamn, dude!”

“What, you don’t trust your own eyes?” he scoffed in return, reaching up to his ear and fiddling a bit with the earpiece. “Your reception’s good. Did I fix it this time or are you close by?”

“You can’t fix shit. I’ve got eyes on the guy, nearby. Just tell me if that’s our guy!”

“Jesus, Tucker, calm down,” Church groaned before taking a long swig from his cup and looking back to rest of the bar. He scowled a bit, turning off the palm screen and pocketing the minute device as he checked around.

“What the hell were you doing anyway?” Tucker asked almost scornfully.

“Making sure our transport didn’t take off without us, Tucker. It’s kind of important if we want to get off this piece of shit rock after we bag--” Church stopped short as his eyes came across a stocky man, his faded neon pants and awful excuse for a crown line doing little for him other than to be some pretty dead give aways for the same guy responsible for stealing an entire cargo from a friendly Kig-Yar collective sent to the UNSC.

“Dude, Sheila wouldn’t leave me. Sheila loves me. She packed me a lunch for today.”

“Tucker,” Church spoke up again, not tearing his eyes from the target even as he pulled the last credit out of his pocket and handed it toward the nearest floating automaid to swipe. “You want your confirmation? You’ve got it.”

“Fucking finally. Okay, I’m by the exit, so if you want to approach him right now I can block him off--”

“Yeah, yeah, gimme a minute, I gotta make sure he doesn’t have anything on him,” Church muttered as he slowly made his way toward the table where the thief was all too comfortably sprawled out.

Only a few feet from the table, Church began reaching for the back of his belt, feeling for the hilt of his gun when a shoulder crashed into his arm, nearly sending him spinning on his heels.

“What the fuck--” he growled, looking as the other passed only to feel his chest clench painfully at the familiar back walking away into the crowd.

Church dropped his shoulders and stood dumbfounded. “Tex?” he asked almost weakly before rushing after the woman all in black. “Hey! Wait, Tex!”

“Tex? What the fuck is she doing here? Is she going after our guy? Church, don’t let her take our guy! We need that bounty! How am I ever going to get a ship without us ever getting a--” Tucker near yelped over the their commlink. “Church? Church, are you there? Aw, fuckberries! Not again--”

Ignoring his partner, Church raced after the woman, nearly knocking over every other patron in his way and flicking at least one of the floating automaids from the air in order to get to her.

“Ohhhh, no you don’t, you owe me--” Church growled out before grabbing the woman’s shoulder and turning her around just in time to get smacked in the face with a purse.

Church vaguely heard the gasps and laughs from the rest of the crowd as he went reeling back from the hit, hand reaching up to his reddened face immediately. But he was more baffled as he let out, “Tex doesn’t carry a purse--”

The woman, who once around showed to be far from the muscle toned freelancer with a winning scowl Church knew, was shaking with anger as she twirled her accessory. “I am so sick of getting grabbed in bars!”

“I, uh, thought you were someone else. Sorry,” Church grunted just before there was screaming and the firing of a gun from back behind him. He turned around quickly and threw up his hands in aggravation before racing over. “Don’t get started without me!”

“I FUCKING HATE YOU!” Tucker howled over comm. “He’s heading out the back! Cut him off from the front!”

“Got it!” Church yelled back, skidding to a halt before redirecting himself toward the front of the bar, leaping over the last table and taking off toward the streets. “Meet you there!”

He had barely burst out onto the streets and turned himself toward the alley when Church felt another full body freeze and stepped closer to the curb, keeping his feet in jog. He glared knowingly at the shitty vehicle parked beside the bar curb and, in particular, at the tubby driver snoozing audibly in the driver’s seat.

“Oh, you’re fucking kidding me, them?” Church cried out before heading toward the alley. “Tucker! Listen to me!”

There was a yelp over the earpiece before Tucker screamed out, “WHAT?”

“Push this guy the other direction. We’ve got competition. Stupid fucking Warthog trash are here--”

“CHURCH! We’re on the fucking roof, dude, I don’t know how much more of an exclusive I can get us beyond that!”

“What, seriously?” Church asked before looking up. “Ugh. I’ll meet you there. Hold tight!”

“I can’t!”

“Just do it!” Church screamed back as he rushed into the alley and looked for the nearest ladder. “I’m on my way!”

Tucker glared forward as he continued pursuit, exhaling thickly through his nose as he listened to his teammate. “On his way my fine ass,” he snapped.

The asshole they were after was running out of roof fast, and Tucker couldn’t wait to see the dumb look on his face once that happened. Which was a little too soon for the bounty’s liking.

He backed away from the ledge, getting a good look at the distance to the next roof and realizing that, since it wasn’t a fucking movie, it probably wasn’t the best idea to leap over the distance.

“Ho ho! Look at this!” Tucker laughed, pulling his gun as he slowed to a stop just a few feet from the man. “Ran out of roof so soon, buddy? What a shame!”

The man turned, raising his hands. “I-I don’t want any trouble!”

“Pfft, fuck that! You shot at me first, dude!” Tucker ground out, holding his gun higher. “By the way, asshole, you’re a terrible shot. I have no idea how you’ve managed to steal what you have.”

“I never shot anyone!”

“Obviously!”

Tucker heard the loud wheezing and annoyed garbling behind him before the bounty ever looked over Tucker’s shoulder toward their approaching company. Which was fine, because Tucker didn’t need to look to know that it was the asshole he was still mad as hell at.

“Whoo. You guys got far. Want to introduce me?” Church asked, pulling out his gun as he got by Tucker’s side.

Tucker took his eyes off the bounty and growled out, “You know what, Church? Why don’t you head back in and get a few more drinks with Tex. Obviously this is one I’m handling alone anyway.”

Church looked back at him. “What? Oh. It wasn’t Tex--”

“Oh, gee. Fucking imagine. It’s never Tex, dude! That’s the goddamn point!”

“Oh, don’t start. I’m here now, aren’t I?”

Eye twitching slightly, Tucker waved toward their target. “Hey, asshole, doesn’t matter that you’re here now. I had him. It was under control. I’m just going to take this one and cash it and be that much closer to my own fucking ship so I don’t have to deal with your bullshit anymore!”

Church blinked, almost in surprise. “What? You’re not taking all the money on this one! It’s fifty-fifty--”

“He almost got away because you’re too busy dicking around in a bar, pining over old bitches!”

“Ha. I want you to say that to Tex’s face,” Church sneered.

“Fine, I will. I’m pretty sure she likes to refer to herself as Queen Bitch for a reason, though, Church!” Tucker snapped back.

“What’s your problem with Tex?” Church growled a little more aggressively.

“I don’t have a problem with Tex. My problem is with my asshole, unreliable partner--”

Stopping only as they were cut off by a desperate yell, Church and Tucker both turned to look just as the hijacker tried to dive for their guns. Without a second’s hesitation, they both slid to the sides, allowing the man to stumble past them and right toward the edge.

“NO!” they both yelled, reaching too late as their target tumbled over the side.

“Why didn’t you catch him!?” Church screeched. “I was diving away--”

“Why didn’t you!? I was diving away!” Tucker yelled back.

He looked over the ledge just in time to see that the bounty was dangling just two windows below, two red garnished men sticking out from the window keeping him hoisted up.

“Good work, Simmons!”

“Thank you, Sir!”

Tucker’s fingers dug into his palms as he watched the Reds pull the prize right into the building. “Aw, fuckberries!” he growled, looking back just to see Church already heading toward the ladder. “Church! The assholes from the Warthog are here--”

“I fucking know! C’mon, if we’re lucky we can cut them off. Their driver’s asleep!”

“Goddammit!” Tucker roared, tearing after Church. “This is all your fault!”

“It is not!”

“It so is!” Tucker snapped, leaping down the levels of the escape rather than taking the meticulous stepping Church was opting for. He landed on the pavement and glared up. “Hurry your ass up, dude! Or tell me where it is--”

“Right at the--” Church looked up, Tucker following his gaze just in time to see the Reds tossing the bounty into a waiting car and taking off at top speed, music obnoxiously blaring. “Son of a bitch.”

Somewhat in awe, Tucker jogged toward the road, watching the vehicle speed away with their reward money -- not to mention the food budget, the repairs budget, and the Tucker gets his own ship budget. He then turned to face Church as the man came up closer.

“I’m not losing another paycheck to those assholes!” Tucker growled.

“Yeah, me neither,” Church replied, reaching to his earpiece before running toward their speeder.

Tucker didn’t hesitate to follow. “What’re you doing?”

“Shut up a second, Tucker,” Church snapped. “Sheila? It’s me! Who else would it be? Get ready to rumble. We’ve got a space fight on hand!”

“Aw, dammit,” Tucker moaned. “This will end well.”

Sheila always found herself waiting on the return of her crew not in glorious success, but half panic and more than a seventy percent chance of walking away without a paycheck. Its consistency alone had her somewhat impatiently waiting for the call where her captain said that everything was falling apart.

That call had come at least fifteen minutes earlier than scheduled.

“SHEEEEEEIIIIIIIILLLLLAAAAAAAA!!!”

Without so much as a blink, the AI looked to her control panel and assured herself that the hatch was already opening while Church and Tucker raced across the docking bay to get to her.

“Start the engines start the engines!” Church cried out from the back, impatiently yanking (rather uselessly) on the hatch doors as if that would quicken their closing behind him and Tucker.

“Sheila! We’re up shit creek without a paddle!” Tucker called out, diving for the pilot’s chair. “Think you can go ahead and lock on the Warthog’s signal?”

“I already have the Warthog pulled up,” she informed Tucker, waving toward the bay screen. “Not to be presumptive about your failures.”

“Nah, it’s okay, I presumed it, too,” Tucker responded with a wave.

“What!? Oh you fucking -- Sheila!” Church screamed, racing to the front. “Are you telling me you knew the Red guys were here and didn’t tell us?”

“You didn’t--”

“And don’t tell us it’s because we didn’t ask!”

“You did not ask, Captain,” she informed him, hands on her hips as she narrowed her eyes in warning. She tilted her robotic head down to Tucker. “During take off, unstrapped in passengers often have colliding injuries...”

“Nah, sorry, Sheila, I need him for now,” Tucker responded as their ship began to rattle with takeoff. “Besides, pretty sure you would be left to Tex in his whipped-ass will.”

“Oh, I would very much like that,” Sheila said, tapping her chin.

“Tucker, man, you’re not helping my crazy ass ship AI’s desires to kill me,” Church growled.

“Depends on which results you’re hoping for-- HERE WE GO!” Tucker cried out just as their thrusters blasted.

Sheila smiled proudly at how well her tutoring had made their young pilot over the short time since he was brought onto their crew. She had grown rather fond of him -- enough so to pack him snacks. But her true smile came when, as her own mechanical feet grav locked to the metal flooring, Church let out a choked off howl and flew from the cockpit through the door into the back hall.

“I did warn him,” Sheila announced to Tucker.

“Yeah, I guess in a way you did!” he exclaimed in that way that perfectly encapsulated why Sheila approved of him on her crew.

“Oh, shut up, both of you!” Church growled, gripping to the door frame in order to pull himself through to the cockpit as they began to exit orbit. “Sheila! I need you to take aim for the Warthog the second we’re in cleared space. I don’t want those fuckers getting away again--”

“I am afraid I can’t do that,” Sheila responded, crossing her arms.

“What!?” Church near squealed. 

“Is it dangerous this close to docking stations? Or illegal or something?” Tucker asked, looking over his shoulder.

“Oh, no, not at all,” Sheila responded with a wave of her hand. “But it is entirely too rude--”

Before the words had even finished coming form her mouth, the Tank shook, jarring all three of them at once and sending Church plummeting forward, face to the ground.

“Ow, motherfuckers!”

Tucker looked to Sheila just as their lights began flickering out.

“However, it seems that the Warthog is very rude,” Sheila announced. “Also, I believe we are now in need of immediate repairs--”

“Goddammit,” Church growled. “I don’t have money for this shit!!!”

Once again, Sheila and Tucker looked to each other.

“There is one mechanic that would still take your credit, Church...” Tucker began.

“We’re not going to him.”

“It is our only option at this point, Captain,” Sheila reminded him.

Church rolled over on the floor, glaring at the ceiling. “But I don’t want to go to Caboose...”

Chapter Text

With the Warthog finally at rest, Simmons was able to lay out his tools in the exact proper order. Alphabetized. By size. Perfect. And it only took him twenty minutes in order to do so. 

Sarge hated when he reduced productivity, but after the pie charts Simmons spent all night on in order to prove the efficiency of properly laying out the tools prior to working on the puddle jumper Sarge had said something incomprehensible, thrown up his hands, and left the Warthog for a few hours with Lopez. 

Which was all the go ahead Simmons needed to continue doing exactly what he was doing. 

But, of course, the frequency at which he had to perform his duties as the onboard mechanic wouldn’t be happening if Sarge listened to his suggestions to begin with. 

“I told him to not use the automated cannons until we calibrated them for close range firing,” Simmons called out as he grabbed the first tool he needed and then began to climb down the ladder into the small engine room. “Didn’t you hear me tell him that, Grif? I said it right before he even started shooting! Unbelievable!”

Up above, on the main floor, Grif sat nearby, giving a stifled noise before responding. “Huh? What? Oh. Yeah. Sure, Simmons.”

“Grif, I’m being serious!” Simmons called up, tightening the bolts he had loosened to get into the access panels. 

When that was done, he nodded to himself, flipped the tool over, and began to climb again. He placed the tool delicately back into alignment, then reached for the next, climbing down again.

Grif stared at him the entire way. 

“Hey, Simmons,” Grif called out.

“What, Grif? I’m busy,” he mumbled. 

“How much work do you think you could get done in half the time if your big brain thought to carry two of those doohickeys at the same time?” Grif called down, going so far as to lean over the hatch and give Simmons his full glare. 

“What? Are you a mechanic all of the sudden?” Simmons cried back out, looking up. 

“No, I just have common sense!” Grif yelled before leaning back away. “Fucking prick. Lopez never complained this much.”

“That’s because you two never gave him a functioning speech unit,” Simmons hissed. “I bet if we knew what he was thinking, he’d be just as pissed as me. Just all the time. Because none of his complaints are heard out.”

“Yeah, right. Like Lopez would ever be a smartass. He’s a computer. They love to do this mechanical shit or whatever,” Grif snorted over the sound of pages turning.

“Are you looking at dirty magazines again instead of helping me like Sarge asked?”

“Are you forgetting that you won’t let me touch anything so I can’t do what Sarge asked even if I wanted to? This is a two-way street, Simmons,” Grif replied briskly. 

“Whatever,” Simmons groaned. He turned one of the pipe’s handles only to let out a small screech when hot steam started spewing out above him. “Goddammit! Everything breaks on this stupid ship every time Sarge uses that updated rocket! I told him that putting all our resources into updating the weapons without first updating the main ship components was going to over stress the older parts and eventually put us in constant disrepair!”

“That sounds like a mouth full in between kissing his ass,” Grif hummed. 

“Grif! Don’t you care about this ship falling to fucking pieces?” Simmons cried out, finally getting the pipe to stop. “You’re the goddamn captain!”

“Well, you always get us back up and running, so fuck if I care how many times it beaks in between the times I drive,” Grif responded.

“You’re going to make a great captain someday,” Simmons retorted, dripping with sarcasm. 

“Pfft, why would I ever be a captain of anything? That sounds like fucking work,” Grif replied. 

“I can’t believe you’re too lazy to even join in on complaining about Sarge, I thought that was your favorite hobby,” Simmons grunted as he climbed back up, reaching for a third tool. 

“Oh, you want to complain about Sarge? I can complain about Sarge,” Grif replied, sitting up and folding his magazines over his knee. “You just can’t mix it with shit I could care less about. Like nerd stuff. Like... everything you were saying about the engine and updates. Whatever. No one cares.”

“I care,” Simmons defended, putting his used tool back down. 

“Like I said: no one,” Grif snapped. “But I can tell you what’s the worst things about Sarge. Bar none.”

“I’m sure they’re not self-centered choices and completely follow logic,” Simmons replied crisply as he began to descend once more.

Grif leaned over, looking at Simmons now that his own interests were piqued in the conversation again. “No, dude. Seriously. The worst fucking things about Sarge have to be that the asshole still thinks that he can run this stupid ship without me. Like we don’t equally have stake in it or that my blood isn’t as responsible for running the damn thing as his is.”

“Well, he’s the captain. You should have thought about that before you agreed to his terms,” Simmons responded from below. “After all, you don’t sign my checks. I don’t give a fuck if it’s your blood or his that gets the damn thing running. I do care who’s running the operations though.”

“And he still thinks I’m plotting something. Me. Like I do any plotting whatsoever.”

“Okay, that’s true. Only an insane person would think you’d get off your ass and disrupt the easy stream of things going your way,” Simmons replied. 

“Exactly,” Grif nodded with a snap of his fingers.

“Okay, fine,” Simmons groaned, looking up. “How about this, though: Who’s the one going out right now, talking to Vic, dealing with the police, getting the money, and distributing it between all of us?”

Grif grunted in response.

“And who’s the one who Lopez answers to... in his own... not verbal way?” Simmons pressed.

“I still don’t see how that effects anything,” Grif huffed, crossing his arm.

“Yeah, our ship’s AI preferring and answering to one of you over the other almost always doesn’t mean anything at all,” Simmons snorted. “Hey, Grif, do everyone on the ship a favor and try not pretending to be our brain trust, alright? It really doesn’t suit you. And, most likely, will get the rest of us killed somehow.”

“I don’t see how that could happen,” Grif grumbled. 

“I can. In at least twenty different scenarios just now. Would you like for me to make a chart--”

“NO!”

They glared at each other in silence, some sort of silent competition between the two of them. It was one Grif was so intent on winning, he didn’t even flinch when the ship’s communicator began buzzing just behind his head. Though, Simmons reminded himself that Grif probably had a lot of practice since he refused to acknowledge the communicator at all on a regular basis.

Unable to take it much longer, Simmons pointed behind Grif’s head. “Answer that!”

“Ha, you moved!”

“Grif! The communicator!”

“Right. That annoying thing,” Grif said, rolling over to reach the communicator. “This is the Warthog. This is Grif speaking. What do you want?”

Simmons stared in horror at the lack of manners. 

“I have a bounty--”

“Eh, already got one today,” Grif replied before canceling the call. 

“Grif!”

“Oh, we’re fine,” Grif responded with a wave of his hand. “You said it yourself, Sarge is getting us money and we just have to split it between the three of us and the funds for the stupid ship. We’re golden. In fact, between this and the asshole we got two weeks ago, we’re swimming in the cash.”

“I’m literally having to put the engine together with duct tape right now, you fucking jackass,” Simmons growled. “Are you seriously not paying attention to me?”

“Huh? What was that, Simmons? I couldn’t hear you over how amazing we are,” Grif replied, tilting his head back. “Oh, man. We have enough cash to go out and eat today! We could go to a fancy restaurant, get like three -- no, FIVE -- appetizers. We could get entrees with every side. Endless breadsticks. No. Cheddar biscuits. My god, Simmons. The food we can eat today.”

Simmons glared at Grif just before his stomach gave out a queasy growl. “Fuck you, Grif. Why would you mention food?”

“Think about the possibilities--”

They both looked to the blinking light as the communicator rang again. 

Angrily, Grif punched the button. “No thanks, we’re busy,” he snapped and then canceled the call.

“Grif! We can only afford as much as we get bounties for! You have to let us get those calls!” Simmons shouted.

“Eh,” Grif shrugged. “That sounds like a lot of work.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Simmons pointed out toward the hall. “Grif, just go! You’re literally dragging me and the ship down to your murky, fatass depths. And I refuse to sink any lower.”

“Whatever,” Grif groaned, pushing himself up. “You were boring at conversation anyway.

Simmons just shook his head and watched the man leave. “Unbelievable.”

"What. A. Dick,” Grif huffed as he shuffled toward the back of the Warthog. His hands traced over the shelves and walls as he passed -- a habit he picked up as a kid and kept as an adult just to spite Sarge’s insistence that he touch nothing on their ship. 

Small victories. 

As usual, the anger that had ignited from interacting with Simmons had little to do with their onboard mechanic and everything to do with the underlying issues that never got solved on the Warthog. 

Lopez being the finicky AI that he was, Sarge being the insistent and hapless leader that he was, and Grif just trying to make a buck on the stupid machine matched to his DNA one way or another. 

Making his way toward the supply shelves, Grif stopped and cocked his head to the side, eyes wandering over the various boxes and packages of food.

His nose curled as he reached and grabbed the first box available. It had been Sarge who had stocked up last, and it was more than a little apparent in their food.

“What the fuck is this shit?” Grif cried out, turning the survival grain bars over a few times in his hands before looking to the rest of the shelves, knocking away the identical boxes. 

The only different looking packages happened to be old UNSC reserve MREs that Sarge ate religiously. Grif stared in horror. 

Leaning back, looking toward the engines where Simmons was still clanging away, Grif shouted out, “Hey, Simmons! I’ll tell you one thing for-fucking-sure! Sarge had better be using his cut to get us some real goddamn food while he’s out! That whole Killing-Grif-Might-Cause-More-Problems-For-The-Ship excuse will be the LEAST of his concerns if I get hungry.”

“God forbid you eat something healthy,” Simmons’ voice carried back.

“Exactly!” Grif snapped, looking to the shelves angrily before knocking the last of the packages off for good measure. 

Kicking around the boxes by his feet, Grif noticed the opened bars which had littered the floor. His stomach growling, he sighed and leaned over, picking up one and scooping up a handful before opening one and taking a bite.

“Oh, god he eats these willingly?” Grif groaned around the dry crumbs of a food bar. 

As if on cue, there was a violent rapping at the nearby port door, getting his attention. He tossed back the wrapper and bar and made his way toward the door with the logic that Lopez could clean up what Simmons didn’t neurotically take care of on his own.

“Hey! About time, I have a beef with you. And specifically it’s the lack of beef on this fucking thing,” Grif called out, reaching for the door’s control panel and keying in his own pin. The incessant knocking continued. “For fuck’s sake, calm down, Sar--”

The door swished open, leaving Grif face to face with a bright eyed, blonde guy in a red jumper. 

For some reason the asshole was saluting.

“Hi, there!” the younger man called out excitedly.

Grif stared at him for a moment before reaching for the control panel. “We don’t want anything, go away,” he said as he began to close the door only for the young man to step into the doorframe, keeping the door from operating. 

“Is this the Warthog?” the man asked, unphased.

Looking the man over, Grif sized him up -- he wasn’t very wide, kinda like a toothpick really. But he was a hair taller than Grif himself. Which was always a cause for annoyance since, like Simmons, people taller than Grif usually were people who annoyed him something fierce.

So, without much else to contribute to the situation, Grif already could see that he didn’t like whoever it was trying to get on his ship.

“What’s it to you?” Grif demanded.

The boyish man blinked, pointing at his chest. “I’m... Franklin Delano Donut. I’m the new member of your crew!” he answered far too enthusiastically.

“Ha,” Grif said completely devoid of humor. “No you’re not.”

“Uh, yeah I am!” Donut pressed. “The owner of the ship said so!”

Grif stared at the man like he was a Sangheili in bright polka dots. His gaze only drifted once he heard footsteps coming up behind him, in order to see Simmons’ wiping down his hands and forearms from grease. He blinked at the door then to Grif.

“What’s going on here?” Simmons asked curiously.

“Nonsense,” Grif responded before looking back to Donut. He held up one finger. “First off: Donut? Seriously? That’s not a real name. Not even in space is that a real name.”

Donut puffed out his bottom lip, putting his hands on his hips. “That’s not true. It’s totally real--”

Holding up a second finger, Grif cut off the intruder. “Secondly: the owner of this ship isn’t hiring new crew members. I should know because that would be stupid since we already cut everything three ways. And because I’m the fucking owner of this ship. And I say no more goddamn crew members.”

Looking only more and more confused, Donut shifted to look out the door toward an approaching Sarge and Lopez. “Um. Sir?”

“Sarge!” Grif shouted, pointing to Donut. “Do something about this colony trash clogging the door!”

“You’re not in the door, numbnuts,” Sarge huffed, shoving his way past Donut with his arms filled by bags of supplies. “Donut! I want you to take these things and find somewhere to store them in the hold. I don’t care how. Just orderly. And away from Grif.”

“Yessir!” Donut responded with a salute as Sarge dropped all the bags on the floor. He immediately dropped down and began sifting through them with a slight hum coming from his throat.

“Sarge! What the fuck is this?” Grif cried out, waving emphatically to Donut.

Sarge followed the motion and began kicking around the boxes and health bars. “It looks like a goddamn mess on my ship is what it looks like! Boys! What the hell were you doing here!? I leave for a few hours and you wreck the place.”

“Speaking of wrecks, Sir, we need to talk about upgrading the engines,” Simmons said, motioning toward the engines.

“Ugh, sounds terrible,” Sarge growled. He looked over his shoulder as Lopez pushed past them all to make his way toward the cockpit. “Maybe you can talk it over with Lopez instead. I’m sure he’d care more. Because I don’t.”

“Sir!” Simmons cried out only to be mowed over when Grif stepped up to Sarge.

“Sarge! You’re not answering my question!” Grif growled.

“That’s correct!” the old man replied with a nod. “How very observant of you, Grif. You must have finally knocked the wax out of your ears.”

“Sarge, you’re hiring crew without my say so!” Grif yelled, waving to Donut as the man stood up, arms full of bags. “You  can’t do that! Don’t you realize that we’ll be splitting the cut even smaller if we have more crew!”

“Of course I do!” Sarge roared. “And don’t you realize that, with me as captain of this ship, I can do whatever the hell I want as far as crew is concerned.”

“Pretty sure that’s not true,” Grif snapped back.

“It is true, actually,” Simmons spoke up.

“Shut up, Simmons,” both Grif and Sarge snapped out.

“And beside that,” Sarge said pointing to Donut. “Donut here is not only an excellent addition to this crew with several attributes that we need in our business, but is working entirely for room and board! We will not be cutting checks any smaller than we already are!”

“That’s right!” Donut chirped.

Grif stared at Donut before looking back to Simmons. The mechanic met Grif’s shocked look with his own.

“What, seriously?” Grif asked critically. “Wait, are you one of those space pirate guys that is looking for treasure on the side?”

“Nope!” Donut responded gleefully. “All I ask is once a year to be given a fully paid week at the Hot Spring Planet out by the Vegas Quadrant!”

Blinking, Grif ran his hand through his hair. “I... don’t even know if I have words for that.”

“Sarge, this is still going to cut in massively when it comes to our food expenses,” Simmons pointed out.

“Then I suggest we make good use of what we have, boys!” Sarge replied, punching the door controls, making it zip closed behind him. He then carelessly walked across the health bars, crunching them under his feet. “We’re about to begin a whole new era in the art of bounty hunting, boys! Can’t you feel it?”

“I feel something,” Grif grouched, giving Donut a scrutinizing glance as the man whistled and carried off the bags Sarge brought in. “It reminds me of indigestion.”

“Everything reminds you of indigestion,” Simmons huffed, throwing the dirty rag at Grif’s head before following Sarge. “But yeah. I have a bad feeling, too...”

Chapter Text

The glow sticks cracked against his knee and sparked on. They had about twenty minutes of life to them each and Church always complained when they went through them too fast, but Tucker figured it was their illustrious Captain’s fault anyway for always managing to break down the Tank some way some how on every mission.

“And he wonders why Sheila hates his guts,” Tucker sighed, holding up the stick to look around the ship before making his way back to the cockpit. 

Sheila was standing center to the room, the gravlock of her feet keeping the AI’s metallic body sanctioned to the floor as she stared out into the front window. She was waiting expectantly, which Tucker guessed was better than her trying to find wherever Church landed in the back and strangling him.

Small improvements.

“Hey, Sheila! Need a stick?” he asked, offering the spare he grabbed. 

“Tucker, that is so very sweet of you,” she responded softly, turning her head to smile at him. “Fortunately for me, however, my sensors are not reliant on the visible light spectrum alone. I can see perfectly fine in our current condition. Which is why I am currently waiting for the arrival of our transport instead of either of you humans with your inferior and limited vision.”

“That’s a no then, right?” he asked as he dropped the stick into his pocket. “Alrighty then. Sorry about the Tank.”

“Oh, Tucker. It is fine. It was not your misbehavior that led to this current situation.”

“HEY!” Church’s voice carried from the back, leading to both other members of the Tank to turn entirely and face him. 

There was a small crash and the sound of Church smacking into something before his tell-tale shouts and frustrated cursing. “Fuck! I can’t find the glow sticks!” 

“Oh, hey,” Tucker said, fishing out the spare. “I have ‘em, man. Here you go.”

He tossed the stick into the darkness of the Tank’s narrow hall and heard a signature THUNK before Church made another yell. Then the sound of something rolling away. 

“Tucker, I fire you,” Church announced.

“You can’t fire me, I’ll quit before you can fire me,” Tucker snorted before the ship shifted, barely giving Tucker time grab onto one of the belt straps by the cockpit seats to stay upright. 

There was another crash in Church’s direction.

“We have been docked and are currently being pulled into port!” Sheila announced happily, having not budged a bit.

Finally bursting forward out of the darkness, Church gripped the doorframe with all his might and gnashed his teeth at his ship’s AI.

“You didn’t find it pertinent to warn me?” he snapped at her.

Sheila blinked and tilted her head. “Why, Captain, you never told me you wanted that information up front.”

“You are just the worst,” he grouched before pushing himself forward and taking his usual seat at the cockpit.

Tucker shrugged and dropped into his own pilot’s chair, spinning a few times. “So, who are we gettingthis time?” he asked.

“Why are you even bothering to ask, man? You know who it is,” Church groaned, sinking his head into his hands. “God. I just wanted to get away. But they’re the only garage that will take your credit now.”

Scowling, Tucker drug his heels on the floor until his chair came to a stop facing Church. His eyes narrowed. “Dude, who’s fault is it charging everything to my credit anyway? Spoiler alert: probably the same douchebag whose credit is no good any-fucking-where now.”

“That’s not my fault,” Church defended, glaring back at Tucker.

“Yeah, it is. You were dumb enough to let Tex rob you dry. Ergo dumbass Church’s fault,” Tucker responded, crossing his arms. “Speaking of which, that shit in the bar, man – we wouldn’t be having this problem if you got the fuck over your ex. So I say again: dude. She’s just not that into you.”

“Oh, she’s into me just fine,” Church responded with a wave. “I just haven’t heard from her in a while.”

Tucker glared.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Church ordered.

“Hey, you know who really loves you?” Tucker asked, ignoring as they reentered the atmosphere and began to slightly shake.

“He doesn’t count.”

“Aw, don’t let him hear that. He’ll stop letting us charge credit,” Tucker snorted. 

“Speaking of which, Tucker,” Church said, rubbing his hands together. “I think you should step up your first mate duties and handle business this time around. I’ll hide in one of the trunks in the back and you work out a deal with the mechanics.”

Snorting, Tucker shook his head. “Dude, that’s not going to work. Like. At all.”

“Sure it will!” Church defended. “Why wouldn’t it?”

*

“CHUUUUURRRRRRRRCCCCHHHHHHHH!!!”

It took every bit of self control Tucker absolutely did not have over himself to not burst at the seams the moment the large, bumbling mechanic pushed past him and instead tackled the captain to the floor of the Tank. 

“No! Wait! Caboose! Let go!!!” Church cried out between bone crunching squeezes.

Tucker grinned ear to ear, standing back and putting his hands on his hips. 

“Ah, it’s always good to see you, Caboose,” Tucker said. “And by that I mean never. Unless it’s like right about now and I don’t have to deal with shit.”

Without breaking his bear hug, Caboose stood up – showing off his impressive height an girth, before turning to narrow his eyes at Tucker. There was a set scowl that was in special reserve for the Tank’s first mate. 

“Tucker, are you cursing at me?” Caboose asked almost suspiciously.

“What if I am?” Tucker asked.

Caboose’s mouth opened as if to form a response, but instead his squeeze of Church’s midsection tightened and the Captain arched back in a howl. It immediately broke Caboose’s already limited concentration and had him looking back to Church with a surprised blink.

“Church! Oh, no! Church! Are you hurt, Church?” Caboose cried out in genuine concern. 

“Ca-Caboose–” Church coughed.

“Oh, no. Was it Tucker? Just tell me if it was Tucker,” Caboose muttered. 

Tucker glared. “It wasn’t me, you big idiot. How about looking a little closer to figure out who’s hurting Church. Specifically looking a little closer to yourself. As in you. Do you get it yet?”

“Tucker, no one likes riddles,” Caboose snapped over his shoulder. 

“I thought,” Church spat out between gasps as he struggled, “I’d… die with more dignity… than this!”

Tucker snorted. “Pfft. Whatever, dude. You’ve really been lying to yourself if you ever dreamed that,” he replied before looking over Church and Caboose toward Sheila as she approached. “Hey, Sheila! You need me to tell Miller anything in particular?”

“Only the basics of what I told you before, Tucker,” Sheila said with a bright smile.

Immediately at the sound o Sheila’s voice, Caboose gasped and dropped Church entirely. “Sheila?” he called out before turning around.

The AI smiled pleasantly and waved to the mechanic. “Hello, Caboose–”

“SHEILA! You came back!” Caboose called out, rushing to her but not without stepping on Church first, making him cough and roll on the floor.

Tucker stared at him before shaking head. “So weak, dude,” he sighed before turning and heading out into the rest of the garage. “I’ll see what I can do while you try to gather that missing dignity.”

“Fucking hate you,” Church coughed from the floor.

“Uh-huh,” Tucker replied without much mind to Tucker as he moved on his way to the inside of the large ship garage. There was plenty going on, and several more mechanics working on the various models, but through a series of misfortune Tucker at least knew his way around enough to head straight toward the main office. 

He wasn’t really looking forward to having to talk their way out of this busted up old place, but he’d do it so they could be on their way to the next bounty. 

Hanging around Church and, for a shorter amount of time, Tex had also taught Tucker a thing or two about being watched. Especially to not like it when he caught onto it happening. 

Stopping within view of Miller’s head office, Tucker turned and glared at the alien working on a small speedster just a few feet off from him. The guy looked like an Unggoy, a little heavier set than Tucker was used to from living in the outer realms but too small to really be anything else.

His eyes were trained on Tucker’s tattoos before flicking up to Tucker’s face. The gaze kept for a bit leading to the hairs on Tucker’s back to begin standing on end.

“I swear to fuck,” he growled, shifting his weight to his other leg before making it clear he wasn’t moving on. “I’ve gotten in more fights since those assholes gave me tats than–” he shook his head and threw up his arms at the little guy. “What, asshole!? What the fuck do you want?”

Letting out a low string of curses in his native tongue, the Grunt flipped down his soldering helmet and went back to work. 

Tucker rolled his eyes so hard they were in danger of rolling right out and turned to leave. “Swear. Fucking alien–”

“That had better not be Lavernius Tucker distracting my goddamn workers!” 

With a low breath, Tucker shook his head before stepping forward and tried desperately to coat himself in what charm hadn’t been drained by Church over the past year. “Heeeeyyyy! If it isn’t my favorite mechanic!” Tucker called out.

Miller stalked forward, eyes set on Tucker. “No! I said hell no it had better not be that goddamn bounty hunter distracting my goddamn workers unless he has a goddamn payment on him like he promised!”

Dropping his shoulders a bit, Tucker scratched at his chin. “About that–” he ducked under the hammer thrown at his head. “Okay, c’mon now. People could get hurt with that.”

“I told your sleazy no good boss that you two aren’t welcome here unless he’s going to finally pay me!” Miller snapped right in Tucker’s face. “And allow me to say again: there’s no excuse for a ship like thatto be ending up in a junk pile like this except for poor management.”

“You sound like someone who’s dated Church before,” Tucker offered jokingly.

“This shit’s not funny, son,” Miller snapped. “Where the fuck is it?”

Tucker motioned back behind him. “Caboose parked her over–”

“Caboose!? You had Caboose bring her in?” Miller sputtered. “Oh for the love of– Where is that stupid sonovabitch now? What’s he touched since you all landed? Did he break my towing brig?”

Shrugging, Tucker just looked back behind him. “I… have no idea, dude. I just know that every time we come here and Caboose is here, he latches onto my captain and our ship AI like glue. I kind of just let them do their thing together. Though at least Caboose is always quick when he’s trying to impress Sheila.”

Miller stared at Tucker for a moment. “Now wait a goddamn minute. You’re telling me the one of my boys who has been fixing your shit has been Caboose this whole time?”

“Yeah,” Tucker answered, looking back. “I mean, I kinda wish someone else would, just because Caboose annoys the fuck out of me, but I guess he does the job. And he never takes a tip. Or asks for one since, y’know, it’s not like we’d offer.”

“Well, I’d be damned,” Miller said, rubbing at his chin. 

“So… you’re going to fix us up, right?” Tucker asked, a little worriedly. “I mean… my pretty face should be payment enough.”

Miller smirked in a way that made Tucker almost uncomfortable. “I tell you what, son, you get your boss to agree to a deal I’ve got in mind, I’ll do more than just fix your ship again. I’m thinking of letting you boys off, free of charge!”

Tucker’s eyes widened. “What? Seriously!? What’s the catch…?”

Church stared at the floor. It was a lot to consider, enough so that he was rubbing his hand over his hair and making it more of a mess than usual. Enough so that he could almost look past Tucker’s utter disbelief.

“No,” Tucker said sternly.

“It’s not your decision to make!” Church reminded him. 

Miller was standing with a cocky grin. He knew how much it would physically pain Church to walk away from something debt free for once. Church hated when people could figure him out. 

“I’m half of the crew!” Tucker snapped. “And if this is a democracy–”

“It is not a democracy, the Tank is my ship,” Church snapped, looking up at Tucker fully. “And, ergo, mydecision so just don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not worrying because I’m half the crew and I vote no so it’s not happening,” Tucker said firmly, putting his hands on his hips. “Church, I’m fucking serious!”

“Okay, and I vote yes we’re going to get our debts paid off,” Church snapped back. “And my vote’s all that counts. It’s worth, like, ten of your votes. And I vote to be debt free.”

“Being debt free is also a vote for sharing enclosed oxygen with Caboose for the rest of forever!” Tucker roared.

“I also vote for that option,” Caboose called out as he continued to carry boxes of his things into the Tank.

“Your vote doesn’t count because you’re not crew!” Tucker cried out.

“I am crew,” Sheila piped up as she stepped into their circle. She smiled too pleasantly which always had Church feeling a bit on edge. “And I vote to have an onboard mechanic so that we do not have to spend time or resources stopping at every inconvenience Captain Church places us in.”

“Sheila, you betrayed me?” Tucker gasped in horror.

“Sheila, you agree with me?” Church asked in confusion.

The AI blinked in confusion, her silver body growing rigid at the very thought. She put a slim hand on her chin and looked down seriously to the ground. “That can’t be right,” she muttered. “Allow me to reprocess…”

Tucker looked to Church for mercy. Church had none to give.

“Well, Tucker, there you go: two to one. You lose. Which means we have a new crew member. Which makes it actually three to one. You lose even worse,” Church said, putting his hands in his belt. “I actually could get used to that. Tucker’s a whiny li’l bitch loser. Has a great ring to it.”

“You know what? Fine,” Tucker snapped. “I can handle this. I’ll ignore Caboose as much as I ignore you. It’s your fucking life he’s going to make absolutely miserable from now on. What the fuck do I even care?”

That was a point Church could actually deem worth considering. He looked worriedly back to Miller. “Is there any other way this could work out?” he begged.

“Nope,” Miller said firmly. “Take Caboose off my hands, I’ll forget I ever even knew ya. Don’t and I’m calling the debt collectors. And Mister Bounty Hunter will suddenly be Mister Bounty Hunted.”

“Well, that’s hard to disagree with,” Church sighed before reaching his hand forward. “Fine. You have a deal.”

Miller’s grin only grew more unnerving as he clasped onto Church’s hand. “Ha ha, I sure do, son. I suredo.”

Church glared back at the mechanic before hearing a large crash from inside his ship. He lowered his head and groaned. “Goddammit.”

“Oh, and, Captain,” Tucker called over Church’s shoulder. “You might wanna remember that this means you now have to split our checks three ways. And you haven’t paid any of us in a while. So you might want to get your ass over to Vic’s and figure out a remedy for that.”

Looking up just as there was another crash and Caboose’s frantic cry of, “WHOOPS! Not my fault. There was a bed in my way!” Church felt a headache beginning to built between his eyes. 

“I’m going to get on over to Vic’s then,” Church grunted, pulling his hand from Miller’s and starting toward the garage street exit.

Tucker snorted and crossed his arms. “Yeah, you do that.”

“And you move Caboose in and get us ready for launch!” Church called back.

“Aw fuckberries,” Tucker groaned in return.

*

Vic, for being a man no one had seen outside of a small flat camera view, was one of the easier assholes to find in the galaxy. 

As many evil eyes as the galactic enforcers liked to throw bounty hunters’ ways on most days, none seemed to have too much gripe with the network of bounties and fines setting up view screens to their offices and their face of the industry, Vic, in every precinct. 

Church hated it. 

For being a man who had never done any time himself, he never could seem to quite get on the right foot with the police forces themselves. Which only led to aggravation and disappointment with the job. 

And he also suspected it didn’t win him any favors with Vic either.

Leaning against the machine, Church looked at the screen in aggravation. 

“C’mon, Vic,” he groaned. “Throw me a bone here.”

“Duuuuude,” Vic responded, making a highly animated shrug. “I throw you bones. I throw you bones all the boning time. If there’s one thing your buddy Vic understands, it’s how to bone a good friend. You get what I’m saying, dude.”

Glaring at the screen, Church cocked his head. “No, Vic. Can’t say that I do. At least… there’s two ways you can be meaning that, and I’m taking it as you like to fuck me over a lot.”

“That’s quite an accusation, dude,” Vic responded sleazily. “I don’t know what you mean. But it doesn’t sound very nice.”

“It means, I’m kind of suspicious of the fact that despite me getting that great deal with the hijacker this week, the one you promised me was pretty exclusive to me and the Tank, those sons of bitches in the Warthog showed up out of fucking nowhere!” Church yelled. “How else am I supposed to take that?”

“Ohhhhhh riiiiiiiight, dude,” Vic chuckled. “Ah. Yeah. No I know those guys, too. They also asked for an exclusive hunt to go on.”

In aggravation, Church his his head against the machine before taking a step back and giving Vic a good look at his face. “Are you fucking serious? That is not what an exclusive means!”

“Dude, I have hundreds of clients,” Vic reminded him, waving to the screen. “Exclusivity to me means, I’m not telling everybody. Just somebodies. And telling you two groups of dudes? That’s pretty exclusive to me–”

“Okay, how about this, Vic,” Church growled, leaning forward. “I want a me exclusive. I want it just for my crew. I want it to be a good chunk of money. And I want the danger rating low.”

Vic blinked. “Okay, dude. You want a lot of things. But… dude… why should I give them?”

“Because, last I checked, you still owe me for the thing,” Church snapped. “The thing with mygirlfriend.”

“Aw, duuuuude,” Vic groaned, leaning his head back. “You can’t still be blaming me for the thing.”

“I am. I’m still blaming you for the stupid thing,” Church snapped. “Now give me a good bounty. Andjust me.”

He waited a moment, wondering just how long he could milk the man’s guilt for these sorts of favors – or non-favors, really – before the drive he had inserted at the start of the conversation popped out, lit up with a new assignment. Church’s eyes could have lit up with the joy of it. 

“Fine, dude. Here you go,” Vic huffed. “Don’t thank me too much.”

Church tapped on the drive only for the bounty to project right in front of his face. HIs eyes widened in horror. 

“What the– Former Freelancer!? Are you fucking serious!? This is a high stakes bounty, Vic! What the fuck! This is not what I wanted–” Church began to rant just before looking up to see Vic’s screen go blank.

“What the fuck,” Church whined, looking back at the drive before taking it out entirely. He sighed and looked to the ceiling. “Tucker is not going to like this. Ugh.”

*

As often as Tucker and him squabbled, it was still surprising to Church when he made it to the docks and saw that not only had the Tank made it there, but that her engines were already purring. 

“Wow,” Church laughed as he entered the vessel, “note to self: very pissed off Tucker means a Tucker that actually does his fucking job. Amazing.”

He closed the door behind him, secured everything for launch that he saw on his way, flinched a little at seeing Caboose’s stuff scattered around the bunks, and made his way toward the deck. The more impressively working and in order things he saw, the more Church’s eyebrows reached for his hairline.

This wasn’t looking like his ship at all.

As he came toward the door of the cockpit he could see Sheila already standing in her place and Tucker at the driver’s seat and staring straight ahead, not even bobbing his head to see Church.

Caboose smiled and waved emphatically but also didn’t get up. 

“What the hell? Do I actually have a functioning crew?” Church joked, reaching for the chair across from Tucker.

Tucker’s eyes moved to look at Church but his head didn’t budge. His hands were on the launching lever. 

“Are you ready to take off?” Tucker asked stiffly.

“Um. Yeah,” Church responded before taking his seat and looking at his crewmate suspiciously. “Why?”

“I just need to know… that we’re doing this… right now,” Tucker responded.

“I already have my clearance,” Sheila said in a surprisingly peppy tone.

“Yes, we’re doing this, weirdo,” Church responded, carefully observing Tucker’s eyes as the pilot finally pulled the lever forward and the Tank began to take off. 

“I love this part,” Caboose said excitedly. “Don’t you, mean lady?”

Church buckled himself in and looked toward Sheila. “What’d you do to make Caboose realize what a bitch you can be?”

“Oh, Captain,” Sheila laughed. “He is not referring to me. He is referring to the ship’s true owner.”

“True owner?” Church spat out just before there was a click of a gun and he felt the brush of cold steel against the back of his head. His eyes shut and he swore. “Son of a bitch.”

“That’s right,” Tex’s voice hummed. “He’s referring to me,” she said just before she dropped her active camouflage. She smirked. “And I’m recruiting all of you for a bit of a treasure hunt.”

Chapter Text

The crew of the Warthog never did things normally, but they were at the very least predictable.

And considering his track record of how he handled disagreements with Sarge, Grif didn’t surprise any of the regular crew by marching off to the bunks, settling down with what remained of the non-nutritious candy bars, and sprawling out, glaring at Simmons’ bunk above him while he chowed down. 

It worked until there were no candy bars and Grif realized he was shockingly still too annoyed to make a nap out of the situation. 

Pushing himself to his feet, he marched out toward the narrow halls of the ship only for the first door to slide open and Donut step out in front of him. 

“Oh, hiiiiiiiiii, Grif!” Donut called out cheekily. He put his hands on his hips and tilted his head to the side. “You are Grif, right?”

Grif’s lip curled and he shoved past Donut, which was easier said than done considering the limited space of their ship. 

“Ohhh, getting handsy on the first day! That’s okay! If there’s one thing I can handle, it’s the touch of another man!”

Stopping, Grif turned and glared at Donut, receiving bright eyed blinking in response. 

“Something the matter?” Donut asked.

“Yes,” Grif grouched. “You.”

Pointing at his chest, Donut seemed completely shocked. “Me?”

“Yes, you. What were you doing in there?” Grif asked, nodding toward the bathroom door that he had just seen Donut leave. 

Donut turned, looked at the door, then back to Grif. “Well, if you must know--”

“Nevermind,” Grif said, shaking his head and continuing back on his path toward the cockpit. “I don’t care.”

“You sure?” Donut asked, peppily keeping in step with Grif down the hall. “You’re the owner of this ship, too, right? I should answer to you! And if you want to know what I’m doing in the bathroom, that’s important to let you know! See, I had this spot on my back that I was worried was a boil--”

“Stop talking,” Grif ordered in disgust as he navigated through the halls. “And don’t follow me. Actually, stop being on my ship. I’m not in the mood to have you on it in the first place--”

“Oh, because it’s gross, right? Well no worries, because this is where the story gets really really good! Because while I was getting out my manicure kit it occurred to me that someone with my good hygiene and tiny tiny pores could never have that kind of blockage! Especially not on my back. So I grabbed this luffa that was in the shower--”

Grif felt himself grow squeamish. “Luffa!? That’s mine!”

“And I decided to rub as hard as I could over the spot I thought was a boil--”

“Oh my god,” Grif choked, rubbing his eyes. He blindly reached forward and smashed his hand on the door jam to open up the cockpit.

“I know, that feeling’s just so divine once you have the relief,” Donut continued. “Anyway, long story short, I irritated it enough that it turned out not to be a boil but a Mariposa skin crawling tick! It must’ve gotten buried in there when I met that guy from the rings who--”

Grif held up his hand, finally stopping Donut, and stood before Sarge.

The old man was on his knees, working with Simmons’ tool kit on Lopez as the brown armored AI stood at the room’s center and gave the thousand yard stare out the window. 

“Sarge,” Grif called out.

Sarge just grunted in response with no signs of actually paying attention. 

“I fucking hate this new kid,” Grif announced. “I vote to drop him off at the first station we find.”

"Grif,” Sarge grouched out without ever looking their way, “Why would we ever leave a man behind that wasn’t you? It wouldn’t do anything to lighten the weight of this vessel!”

“Bite me,” Grif hissed before turning to head back out only to run into Donut again. He threw up his arms in frustration. “FUCKING MOVE, KID!”

Donut blinked before pointing at himself. “Oh, am I in your way?”

Grif felt his eye twitching just before his attention was drawn to the cockpit door as it slid open again, that time to a surprised looking Simmons. Grif motioned to Donut. “Simmons! Take him. Take him before I kill him because I swear to god I’m going to kill him.”

Simmons just stared at him before completely ignoring Grif and stretching his neck to look past them all for Sarge. “Hey, Sarge! Something’s fucking wrong with the ship, Sir. She’s not moving.”

“She’s not moving ‘cuz we ain’t driving, numb nuts!” Sarge barked back, pausing to look apologetically to Lopez. “Sorry if that seemed crude considering what part of your bits I’m working at for now, Lopez.”

The silent AI shrugged. 

Grif rolled his eyes which was how he was caught off guard by Simmons’ shoving him aside to get more into the cockpit, mouth gaping like a fish. 

“Sir!!! You can’t work on the ship’s AI while we’re in space! Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”

“Hush, Simmons, it’s fine,” Sarge huffed.

“No! It isn’t. As the mechanic, I am telling you that it’s not fine!!!” Simmons cried out. “What if you cause Lopez to forget to regulate our oxygen! Or what if we use up all the fuel while we’re not moving? What if he converts all the controls to another language through a subroutine we don’t know about!!!”

Sarge stopped just to glare at them. “I said it’s fine!” he yelled.

Twisting his pinky in his ear, Grif shuddered. “Seriously, Simmons. I’m with Sarge. Your voice is fucking annoying, just give it up.”

Turning on his heels, Simmons glared holes into Grif. “That’s not at all what he said!”

“Wasn’t it?” Grif mocked. “I wasn’t paying attention. The only thing I’m paying attention to is the fact that we need to get rid of fucking annoyances. I thought maybe that was Donut, but perhaps it’s you.”

“You’re an ass,” Simmons growled.

“And you’re a bitch, so be a good bitch and take Donut off my hands before I strangle him!” Grif roared.

“Leave him with Sarge if you’re so annoyed,” Simmons suggested, hands on his hips. “He seems interested in whatever Sarge’s doing right now anyway.”

They both looked over to see Donut leaning over Sarge’s shoulder and Sarge continued to work at Lopez’s waistline. 

“Do I get a turn to play with his bits?” Donut asked genuinely.

“Have you ever worked on an AI’s bits before?” Sarge asked suspiciously.

“Oh, no, but I have a lot of experience with other kinds of bits--”

Sarge turned just enough to point a wrench at Donut. “Hands off my robot, buttercup,” he ordered before looking over Donut’s shoulder. “Grif, take Donut back to the rooms--”

“Fuck no,” Grif hissed. “I came here because I wanted to tell you he’s not allowed around me anymore.”

“Fine,” Sarge growled and nodded to Simmons. “You’re taking him, Simmons.”

“But, Sir!” Simmons tried to protest.

“Now, Simmons!” Sarge growled before returning to Lopez.

Grif just smirked as Simmons’ head dropped and he let out a long groan. 

“Hey, man,” Grif snickered, “boss’ orders!”

“I hate you,” Simmons hissed before waving for Donut and heading out the door.

“Oh, neat!!” Donut shouted as he followed suit. 

There were things that desperately needed to get done. Not the least of which included a barely functioning engine under the control of currently being deconstructed AI.

Instead of working on those, however, Simmons found himself babysitting their new recruit. 

Simmons glared at Donut, particularly at his perfectly straight, white teeth, and felt the very Grif-like urge to punch them.

He didn’t, of course, because Simmons wasn’t a barbarian. 

Instead he turned back to Sarge and tried to plea yet again. 

“Sarge! I need you to help make sure we don’t die in this hunk of junk in the middle of space,” he complained.

“That’d be an adventure!” Donut chirped in. 

Looking over his shoulder, Simmons just glared. “Don’t agitate the situation.”

“Oh, I won’t. Believe me, after a few experiences waxing I know how important it is to avoid agitation!” Donut exclaimed. 

Unable to help himself, Simmons looked to Grif then back to Donut before simultaneously blurting out, “Wait what.”

“SIMMONS!” Sarge yelled.

“Uh, yes, Sir?” Simmons asked suspiciously as he looked at the captain. 

“I know you did not just refer to my ship as a hunk of junk in the middle of space. I know you know better than that,” Sarge said, eyeing Simmons carefully. “Else I’d have to take my favorite boot and kick your butt out to the curb. Which is probably an asteroid field. Because as you said yourself, we’re in the middle of space. Which means no tricks to get you home, Sally!”

“Sarge, I’m just trying to stress how important it is to fix up everything before continuing any further,” Simmons explained, feeling nauseous from the arguing already. “I just... Can’t we at least get Lopez back online as soon as possible? I really can’t trust these engines on their own!”

“I will put Lopez back in charge when I’m done with him, which I clearly am not!” Sarge yelled back before holding a wrench at Grif. “And I won’t be getting back to putting him together until I’m done yelling at Grif!”

Narrowing his eyes, Grif crossed his arms and huffed at Sarge. “Whatever, Sarge. I’m not done saying my peace either!”

Simmons animatedly threw up his arms. “But, guys!”

“Take a walk, Simmons!” they both yelled together. Then Grif added, “And take that asshole Donut with you!”

Angrily, Simmons turned on his heel and started for the door, muttering under his breath. He could barely even process the fact that Donut was keeping step in step with him as he took down the hall. 

“Oh, wow! You’re going to show me the engine room!” Donut cried out like an excited eleven year old.

“Under duress,” Simmons responded guardedly.

“Is there a lot to do with the engine?” Donut asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever really seen one up close and personal for a ship this rustic.”

“You mean for a piece of junk like this ship?” Simmons asked. “Yeah, no one has. That’s why no one’s really willing to work that extensively on it. Except me, of course. Which is why they keep me on the crew.” He paused, looking slyly Donut’s way to size him up. Coughing into his fist, Simmons proceeded to straighten up. “Well, of course, also because I’m a bit of what they call a badass.”

Donut’s electrifying smile never left his face. “I’ve heard that phrase before!” he added uselessly.

Simmons paused as they neared the porthole for the engine room and paused. He eyed Donut suspiciously. “Are you a kiss ass?” he asked suspiciously.

“I don’t think so,” Donut answered.

"Good,” Simmons replied, prying the hatch open. “Because that’s my job. And I refuse to have any more of my duties taken from me like Grif did -- he took every easy job I had for himself and he still barely does them. Now all I have is repair and engine work. The least you can give me is my position as the Yes Man.”

“Got it,” Donut replied too cheekily as he followed Simmons down the ladder.

The engine room was small, cramp. And with Simmons as lanky and tall as he was, it was a bit of a hell to work with at all, his dropped head being all that kept him from bashing himself against every low bearing pipe.. After years of dealing with an overbearing mother, his consistently bad posture was good for something.

There was steam escaping around literal paperclips, duct tape, and chewing gum he had resorted to several times over thanks to Sarge’s bad budgets, and by about the third fan during his run through with Donut, Simmons could see the glaze beginning to work over the new recruit’s eyes. 

“You’re not paying attention to any of this,” Simmons snapped at him. “You’re not! I can tell you’re not. This is really important and really complex information. Stuff that could be the difference between life and death to us on these voyages. Fuck. Why does no one think that’s cool?”

Snapping out of his stupor with shocking speed, Donut shook his head. “Simmons, I think it’s really cool!” he replied. “And amazing! I just don’t understand because I was never a nerd. Got it?” He tossed his head happily. “I was a cheerleader.”

Simmons glared at him. “Thanks. Good to know you’re one of the people who picked on people like me during important foundational years. Now you get a free ride across the galaxy in someone else’s ship, and even though I’m the one who makes all of this amazing technology possible, you’re the one reaping benefits and scratching your big fat neanderthal butt while not appreciating it!”

Donut put his hands on his hips and clicked his tongue. “Someone’s a touch sensitive,” he replied. “But, uh, Simmons, I really think you’re talking over me here. I said the opposite! I think it’s really amazing what you do for the ship.”

Blinking in complete surprise, Simmons tilted his head. “R-really?”

“Oh, yeah,” Donut continued. “Way more important than what everyone else has been doing so far today. You know what I saw Grif do earlier? Eating. Great job assignment, but he almost bit my head off when I warned him about the carb intake--”

“Pfft, tell me about it,” Simmons said with a sigh, reaching up and pushing the riding up ends of a piece of duct tape before it completely blew off the pipe. “They have no idea how much I do to keep this think flying.”

“It’s frustrating!” Donut decried.

“It is! Oh my god, Donut, you totally get this,” Simmons said in relief.

“Sure do!” Donut said cheekily before pointing a thumb toward his chest. “I also think that for you and your work to get more appreciation you’ve got to fight for it. You’ve got to let them know how important this is!”

“Yeah!” Simmons nodded before slowly withdrawing, eyeing Donut again suspiciously. “Wait... really? You think I should?”

“Sure do!” Donut replied.

“Yeah.. Yeah, you’re right!” Simmons said, turning to the ladder again. “C’mon, Donut. We’re doing this!”

Grif knew better than most people that holding an argument with Sarge was completely futile, but it satisfied an itch he had that was hard to even describe. “You’re completely delusional, old man.”

Sarge’s eyes bulged with the insult and he wasted breath stammering out nonsense and reaching for the gun rack he kept close at hand. About the only sentence that made sense through all of it was “Why I oughtta...” which was usually the sign Grif took that he was winning. 

To Grif’s disappointment, however, the old former marine turned back to Lopez and continued working. “I don’t have to justify my personnel decisions to you, Grif!” he snapped.

“You do when I own the ship just as much as you do,” Grif  yelled back. 

“That’s a bureaucratic fluke!” 

“No, it’s a fact, you coot,” Grif argued just before the cockpit door opened again. “Are you kidding!? That engine better be working perfectly!”

“Like you would ever know the difference,” Simmons huffed back more defensively than usual. 

Somewhat suspicious of the reply, Grif narrowed his eyes at Simmons only to see Donut at the mechanic’s side again, making Grif sputter out, “You brought him back, too? Really!?”

“Simmons! Good thing you’re finally back here!” Sarge bared out. He finally got off the floor and wiped off his grease covered hands on his pant legs. 

Simmons blinked in surprise. “You mean you wanted to reaffirm my self worth even before I said anything?” 

Crossing his arms, Grif just shook his head. “No. He just wants to contradict everything I say.”

“How about none of the above,” Sarge snapped. “No, Simmons. I needed you here because I need someone as close to reaching my brilliance as possible to properly appreciate the modifications I have just made to our most valuable crewmate: Lopez.”

Everyone took the moment to stare at eh AI. 

Grif rolled his eyes. “I can already tell this is about to reach ridiculous levels of stupid.”

But Simmons began to release a more awkward laugh. “Most valuable crewmate? Sarge, you must be joking. Lopez can’t be a crewmate. He’s the ship!”

“And is a ship not the most important part of any crew!?”  Sarge demanded. 

Glaring, Grif shook his head. “What did I tell you? Ridiculously stupid.”

“I don’t know,” Donut spoke up, rubbing his chin. “Sarge is making pretty good points.”

Looking increasingly mortified, Simmons gasped at Donut. “What about me!?”

Putting his hands on his hips, Grif snorted. “What about you, Simmons?” 

“I keep the ship running! I’m the most important crewmate!” he yelled back. Turning on his heels, he stared at Donut. “You’re the one who told me to come up here and argue for myself!”

Donut blinked owlishly before pointing toward Sarge. “Sure, but... That was before Sarge was making his really good points.”

Simmons’ eye twitched erratically and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m pretty sure I hate you.”

Grif rolled his eyes. “Finally. Welcome to my club!”

“Everyone shut up!” Sarge commanded. And, at once, everyone returned their gazed to Sarge and Lopez. “Alright, Lopez, one flip of this switch and you can tell us how much more important you are than Simmons yourself!”

Still anticipating it all could blow up in the old man’s face, Grif sat back and watched as Sarge walked up and flipped a switch on the AI. He then stepped back, hands on his belt loops, ready to marvel at his scientific accomplishment. They all stared in wait before Lopez lifted his head.

“Hola. Soy Lopez. Yo soy su matriz de la inteligencia artificial barco. Estoy de hecho más importante que su mecánico . Él todavía tiene que resolver las configuraciones manuales. Estoy tentado a ellos arreglarlo yo mismo.”

Once more, the entire crew of the Warthog stood in silence before Grif sighed and rubbed at his eyes. 

Simmons looked to Sarge. “Is he speaking Spanish?” 

Sarge chuckled. “Sure is!”

“Why!?” Grif demanded.

“To imporve our crew’s diversity for tax purposes!” Sarge exclaimed. “The sort of concerns any great leader would have such foresight to consider.”

“Taxes? Really?” Grif sneered.

“I am learning so much today!” Donut cheered.

“Shut up,” Grif and Simmons ordered in unison. 

“Okay, great, we have a Spanish speaking AI,” Simmons continued. “Now what, Sarge?”

“Well, now that our AI has the means to speak to us, I have set Lopez up with our direct line to Command,” Sarge explained. “Which of course means Lopez delivers our new bounty orders from Vic! Isn’t that right, Lopez?”

The AI seemed utterly unenthused before grunting out a very low, “Sí.”

Donut looked around with the enthusiasm that Lopez had lacked and said, “That means yes!”

“Everyone understands that, dumbass,” Grif grouched in return before pausing and looking to Simmons worriedly. “I mean... it does, right?” 

Simmons glared right back. “Why would you try to clarify with me?”

“Everyone put a sock in it!” Sarge barked, fully squared with Lopez. “Alright, Señor Roboto! Time to spill the beans. Play back all messages marked from Vic to the Warthog.”

Lopez groaned and nodded.

Grif watched as Lopez went stiffer and a series of mechanical whines escaped him. While everyone else looked to each other in concern for the very real probability that the order wouldn’t work, Sarge remained utterly unmoved. 

Finally, Lopez looked back at them and began speaking from his mouth, but in a voice very much like that of Vic’s.

“Hola hola hola, Warthog! Veo que has puesto en una solicitud para más assighments. Sólo para hacerle saber, de Vic a su amigo. Así que me tengo algunos trabajos alineados ese sonido hasta su callejón. No hay problema. Déjame ver--”

Everyone stared at Lopez in silence again before Grif threw up his hands. “Why the hell is it in Spanish!?” 

Sarge put a hand on his chin and hummed. “I gotta admit, I did not see that happening!” 

“No one did because it doesn’t make any sense!” Simmons cried out. “It’s a recording. It should be in the language Vic recorded it in: English.”

Pulling at his hair, Grif gritted his teeth. “What the hell are we supposed to o for jobs now? More importantly, what’re we supposed to do for food now!?”

“Why don’t we just grab one of the first public postings in the area?” Donut asked.

The room’s gaze shifted to him. 

“Because it’s dangerous to do that?” Simmons asked as his brows knit together. 

“Because it’s hard when everyone’s going for the same job,” Grif added.

“Because it’s perfect!” Sarge declared. 

Together, Grif and Simmons looked to their captain critically and blundered out a, “HUH!?”

“We would be competing with every other bounty hunter in the galaxy!” Sarge howled.

“Which is why it’s a terrible idea,” Grif restated.

“It’s a chance to prove how glorious our ship and crew truly are!” Sarge continued.

“Any duress could put us in the shipyard,” Simmons warned.

Sarge turned to them glaring. “Grif! Simmons! Where’s your sense of adventure!? See, this is why I brought Donut on board.”

“I also make great culinary treats!” Donut piped up.

Grif looked to Simmons only to have his look returned. 

“Fuck,” they said together. 

Chapter Text

Seeing Tex again should have felt like coming up for fresh air again after hours of drowning. It should have felt like touching foot to ground again after months of driving the Tank through the depths of space.

Should have. Would have.

But Tex was pointing a loaded gun at his head and looking smug.

So instead, Church likened the experience to a recording of cats screaming at each other on the back porch put on repeat. 

“What the fuck, Tex” he said with no aspirations of getting out of the situation favorably.

“Hello, Church,” she said. “I see you’ve done shit to take care of my ship while I was gone.” 

“I’m sure none of that has to do with you taking off in the middle of the night with all of his money for the ship,” Tucker chipped in. 

Tex feigned a frown in Tucker’s direction. “Aw, I thought you’d be a fan of that one, Tucker.”

“Oh, I thought it was hilarious,” Tucker agreed. “Only then I had to listen to Church bitch about it forever and then the joke wore a little thin.” He then tilted his head back enough to smirk at her. “For what it’s worth, I think at least Sheila’s glad to have you back.” 

The ship AI put her hands together joyously. “Oh, I am. I am very glad to see you again, Agent Texas.”

“Same to you, Sheila,” Tex smirked back her way before concentrating down the sights of her gun for Church again. “So I’m back. Are you happy>”

“I’d be happier without a gun in play,” Church replied. 

“Well, too bad,” she snapped back. “I’m recruiting my ship and grew back for a bit of a hunt. Off the books. Huge reward.” Her smirk deepened. “Huge enough I’d even consider sharing a small percentage of the earnings.”

“What? Like half?” Tucker asked too optimistically. 

“What, like a third?” Church asked, also fairly optimistic.

“Like maybe three percent between the two of you,” she replied.

“Oh, fuck off,” Church snapped. 

“Believe me, Church, even that would be worth it,” Tex said with a cocky grin. “You know something’s up because I can already see the gears turning in that head of yours. You want to know more.”

“That has nothing to do with the fact that I’m already fully ready to say no to you, Tex,” Church replied, daring to move enough to cross his arms. “I already got fucked once today by having to take on that guy,” he threw a nod toward Caboose. “I don’t plan on getting fucked by you today, too.”

“That’s too bad,” Tex snarked. 

Tucker leaned back in his chair. “Wait. Wait, he doesn’t speak for both of us. What way of getting fucked are we talking about here? I’m open, baby–”

Church barely reacted when Tex pistol whipped his first in command. 

“Seriously, Tex, what the fuck are you expecting from us here? A crew at your beck and call?” Church demanded.

“Yeah, we kinda suck,” Tucker added. “Why would you even want us?”

Turning just enough to glare Tucker’s way, Church hissed, “Yeah, believe it or not, Tucker, that was not the angle I was going for in this argument.”

The first mate shrugged. “Hey, man. You know what they say – the truth will set you free.”

“Shut up,” Church ordered before glaring back at a highly amused Tex. “What Imeant to say before I was interrupted was that we can’t do shit for you now, Tex. Because we’re busy.”

“We are?” Caboose asked genuinely. 

”Yes, we are,” Church continued. “We have a special assignment. Straight from Vic.”

Tex’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “Wow, you still talk to Vic after we–”

“I’m very professional,” Church said in a sniff. It took everything in him to not let his face drop when Tucker snorted behind them.

Caboose blinked cluelessly. “What happened with Vic?”

“We don’t talk about it, Caboose!” Church snapped out in warning.

“Wow, I can really believe you’ve moved on,” Tex snarked. “But it doesn’t matter if you morons are still playing bounty hunters or not. You’re going to drop it all and come with me to get this huge ass reward worth more than all the bounties in your dreams combined.”

“I doubt it, Tex,” Church snorted. “You’d be amazed how many fucking dreams I have with a dollar sign attached to them.”

“Yeah, Tex, I can’t imagine any treasure worth that much,” Tucker agreed. “I mean, fucking think about it. How many space pirates have we come across over the years? Just how many of them had millions to show for it?”

Raising his hand, Caboose called out, “Please don’t ask questions. I haven’t studied yet.”

Tucker glared back at him. “Here’s a hint, Caboose: literally nones of them.”

“This treasure isn’t like those,” Tex assured them. “I know it’s real. And it’s not like some hidden secret. Its worth is well known. Even you idiots could imagine how much it’ll be.”

Interest piqued, Church narrowed his eyes at Tex. “What is it?”

“Y’know, besides not being real,” Tucker amended.

"Alien artifacts,” Tex explained. “Weapons, vehicles, currency, religious icons – the kind of thing that you see everywhere in the outer colonies.”

“Yeah. And it’s junk!” Tucker yelled back. “Dude. Tex. C’mon. I grew up out there. I used to know all kinds of aliens. They’re not even interested in finding that ancient crap because it doesn’t work.”

“None of that’s worth jackshit if it doesn’t turn on, Tex,” Church said critically. “Which, by the way, no one has figured out how to do. Like. Ever.”

Tex smirked. “Guess who did.”

They all stared at her quietly before Caboose looked back and forth between them all and raised his hand.

“Miss Tex Lady… was it you?”

Her grin widened. “Better fucking believe I did!” 

Tucker snorted. “What? No way.”

“Yeah, I don’t believe you for a second,” Church snapped. “Like how the fuck do you go about turning them on then?”

She blinked simply at him. “With a key.”

“Oh. Yeah. That makes sense,” Caboose put in needlessly.

“Shut up, Caboose. Not it fucking doesn’t,” Church snapped angrily. “Tex, just what exactly are you trying to pull here?”

“If I was trying to pull something over on you, church, I’d just knock you all the fuck out and take what I came for.”

Humming, Tucker looked back to Church. “You know, she does have a point. It’s not exactly like Tex has ever been indirect with us.”

“I still don’t like it,” Church responded sourly. “Tex, if we say no, what’re our options.”

“I take back my ship and hire my own crew,” she said with a shrug.

“Pfft, go ahead,” Tucker snapped back. “Since we apparently put things up to a vote on this stupid ship, I can tell you where my vote’s going: not going with you on some dumb interstellar museum hunt. It’s not like the ship even likes Church. We’d probably be better off teaming up with some other bounty hunters anyway.”

Almost eagerly, Sheila raised her hand. “I vote to join Agent Texas! Oh, to be a part of a crew lead by her again would be just wonderful!”

Smirking, Tucker threw a thumb in Sheila’s direction. “See what I mean?”

Church tried to think over the options, chewing on the insides of his cheeks as he let out a long breath. 

What wasn’t expected was for Caboose to also eagerly raise his hand. “Oh! Oh! I want to go with Sheila!” He looked to Tucker and Church. “I really like her. She’s nice. And a robot. Which means she’s not as mean as other girls are probably.”

Tucker scowled. “Other girls like the one you’re voting to work with?” he clarified. 

Caboose blinked before nodding. “Yes.”

“Well, it’s a draw then,” Tucker said with a turn of his hand. “Try to come up with a better deal, Tex–”

“Oh, it’s not a draw yet, Tucker,” Tex replied, her eyes set on Church. “Is it, Church?”

Realizing Church had been quiet, Tucker looked to him almost suspiciously and turned his head. “Church?”

“We’re not going to get another ship on our credit, Tucker,” Church reasoned out loud. “And it’s not like we’re doing so hot right now in the bounty hunting scene. So… yeah. Tex’s offer is the only vote I can give.”

Tucker’s jaw hung open slightly in shock. “You’re not fucking serious.”

“It’s the only offer there is, Tucker!” he snapped back.

“Yeah. I’m sure that’s the only factor you’re considering,” Tucker hissed, drawing back and looking rather betrayed. 

“Well, good,” Tex said with a smirk, hands on her hips as she finally put her gun away. “I was almost worried you were dumb enough to reject the offer.”

“Don’t think too highly of us yet,” Church warned. “Because if I know you like I think I do, you’re also happy to have us on board because you don’t have any money and are thinking Tucker and I can pay for whatever-the-fuck for you.”

Tex just smiled. “Aw, Church. You do remember.”

“Uh-huh,” Church sniffed, crossing his arms. “I also happen to know that Tucker and I are both broke. In fact, the entire ship is broke. So if you reallywant to get this little treasure quest started, we need to make a few bucks fast. Like… fast enough that we don’t break down or need to refuel beforehand.”

Almost immediately, the bounty hunter’s face dropped and Tex glared at Church like he was a bug. “Are you fucking serious?”

“As can be,” Church replied crisply.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake – I literally just get here and I’m already carrying this goddamn team,” Tex growled before nodding to the ship AI. “Sheila, make a course for the nearest colony and pull up every available bounty around it. I’ll make quick work of it and then get our asses out of this miserable scene.”

“Absolutely, Captain!” Sheila chirped as Tex walked out of the cockpit. 

Sputtering, Church waved to himself. “Sheila! What the fuck? I’m still captain!”

Sheila only smiled in return.

Enraged, Church looked to Tucker and waved toward Sheila. “Can you believe this?”

For a moment Tucker just glared right back into Church’s eyes before pushing off his chair and beginning to walk out. “Yeah. Guess you’re not the only one on this stupid ship who’s unbelievable.”

Watching as Tucker exited, Church threw up his hands. “What doesthat mean!? Hey, Tucker! C’mon!”

The door closed behind his partner and left Church standing and blinking. 

Tex got them to some patch of rock that Tucker had never even heard of before when she declared that she was going to be back and that they shouldn’t touch anything on the ship. 

She then made it a point to tell Sheila to make sure they didn’t touch anything on the ship. 

Which was fine by Tucker because it gave him ample opportunity to settle into the cockpit once everyone had left it and settle into his seat with his arms crossed petulantly. 

Sheila stared at him warily from her dock and crossed her arms behind her back. 

“You won’t be making any moves to touch something while you’re in here, Tucker, correct?” the AI asked curiously. 

Laying back and closing his eyes Tucker huffed. “No, Sheila. I won’t be messing with yours and Tex’s precious ship, alright? I’m just here to brood.”

“Hmm,” the AI hummed before smiling and shrugging. “Agent Texas did not mention any rules against brooding. So I do think I can let you continue to do that, Tucker! I do hope you have a good time brooding.”

“Oh, just the best,” Tucker grumbled.

Silence carried between them as they continued the wait for Tex’s return. 

One of the good things about having Tex back for the bounty hunting business was that Tucker had almost no anxiety about whether or not there would be money at the end of the deal. No anxiety about not everyone not making it back to the ship. Hell, he wasn’t even worried about Sheila or the Tank getting damaged in a way that would mean more cuts to his paycheck. 

But it all came with a pretty steep price that he wasn’t all that happy about paying.

When the door to the cockpit slid open behind them, Tucker did’t even so much as open his eyes. He didn’t need to give a greeting to whoever it was – Caboose or Church. Especially Church. 

“There you are,” Church said gruffly as he came up into the cockpit. “Man, you’ve gotta be on Caboose duty for a bit today. I’m about to pull my eyeballs out of my skull.”

“You wanted a pet, Church,” Tucker snapped. “Now it’s time to take responsibility for it!”

Church stopped and glared at Tucker for a moment before narrowing his eyes. ‘Man, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” Tucker said, finally turning to face Church directly. “I’m just fine.You’re the one whipped beyond compare.” 

“What? I am not whipped!”

"You are so whipped,” Tucker snapped back. “Like what the hell was that earlier with the whole vote thing? You could’ve gotten us out of this stupid wild goose chase. Now instead we’re stuck here, listening to your stupid ex’s orders and probably going to blow whatever money she doesn’t feel like stealing from you this time.”

There was an indignant noise that came from Church’s throat. “I thought youliked Tex.”

“I already told you, Tex is fine. She’s fucking Tex,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I get Tex.”

“Then what’s your goddamn problem, Tucker?” Church continued, completely uncomprehending. 

Releasing an aggravated sigh, Tucker waved over Church. “You, Church! You’re the problem. You act like such a tool when Tex is around, you make stupid decisions, and then you completely lose your head about things and get surprised when Tex just acts herself.”

Narrowing his eyes further, Church put his hands on his hips. “Tex and I have been through a lot together, Tucker.”

“I know,” Tucker hissed. “You two together long enough I’m sure I’ll get a full ear full of it. Again. I don’t care. The only thing I care about for sure right now is that I don’t get fucked over by my best friend because he’s too busy pining over the girl who probably doesn’t really want him.”

Not liking that one bit, Church turned away and shook his head at Tucker. But he didn’t have a good rebuttal. 

Groaning, Tucker rubbed his face tiredly and waited for Church’s mood to change.

It wasn’t something he had to be hopeful for for long as Sheila’s monitor rang and drew all of their attention toward it. The screen opened up before the AI and she tilted her head at the Tank’s galactic bank account suddenly alerted them to a deposit of four grand. 

Tucker nearly fell out of his seat. “Holy shit – already!?” 

Church grinned ear to ear and nearly jumped over to Sheila’s docking bay to get a better look at the screen. He turned back on his heels and grinned at Tucker. 

“Ha! Fuck you, Tucker! See? This is working out for us already! Tex is back and our crew is back on top!”

As much as he hated it, Tucker was beginning to feel that Church might be right when a secondary alarm began going off. They all glanced to the other corner of the screen where yellow flashing lights were going off with DANGER being flown across the screen.

“Oh, my,” Sheila said, blinking. 

“What? What’s going on? What is that?” Church demanded as he stood on his toes to look over Sheila.

“That is Agent Texas’ emergency beacon. She is heralding us for a rescue!” Sheila said, sounding almost shocked.

“What?” Tucker and Church spat out together.

“Who the fuck could that be!?” Tucker asked critically. 

Chapter Text

“What are we even doing here?” Grif groaned.

Simmons almost rolled his eyes so hard he was in danger of losing the cybernetic one. 

It felt like every mission they had started since they got the damn crew together began that way. With Grif complaining and Sarge’s nose growing redder than his way-post-retirement red uniform.

It honestly might have been funny to Simmons at that point if it hadn’t gotten so sad.

The mechanic’s gaze shifted from the blossoming battle to where Donut was sitting on the edge of his seat with bright eyed enthusiasm. The kind that Simmons would not have been able to fake even on his best day.

“Yeah, Sarge!” Donut called out with that irritatingly genuine energy. “I, for one, can’t wait to see what you have in store for us here!”

Grif gave Donut a judging glare for daring to diffuse any situation between him and Sarge.

Sarge, however, looked positively delighted.

“That’s the exact kind of attitude that has made you my yes man, Donut!” Sarge said happily. 

Sputtering, Simmons spun his chair around to stare at Sarge in horror. “Your yes man!?” Simmons cried out. “But that’s me! I’m your yes man!” 

The Warthog leader gave him a scrutinizing look over. “That’s right,” he said. “You were.”

Simmons gaped. “But–”

“But then you stopped yessin’ and started guessin’!” Sarge announced. “I can’t have a yes man who thinks for himself! Especially when the thinking’s againstme!”

Donut nodded firmly. “You tell him, Sarge! I won’t think one thing the whole time I’m your yes man!”

“Guessing?” Simmons repeated in disbelief. “Sir, you can’t mean me bringing up engine problems to you! THat’s my job! I’m the mechanic!”

“Which is why Donut is now my official yes man,” Sarge said before giving the whole situation a hand wave. “Which means we can officially ignore the Discerning Position in the crew.” The old man looked back to Grif whose arms were folded across his chest. “That means you, numb nuts.”

Scathingly, Grif replied, “Does it?”

“It does, it also mean you are even more useless to the millionth degree.”

Behind them all, Lopez shook his head at the math. 

“Ohhhh snap!” Donut cheered. “Get fucked!”

Simmons glanced at the younger man. “How is that at all called for?”

Grif threw a thumb toward his chest. “Yeah, Sarge. I’m so useless I’m co-owner of the goddamn ship. Real useless over here. You got me.”

“Damn right you’re useless!” Sarge bellowed. “You can’t even follow orders like a good co-owner!”

The exasperation on Grif’s face was so blatant. “Probably because co-ownersdon’t have an obligation to follow orders!”

Sarge squinted at Grif. “Are you about to mutiny? Do I need to assert my dominance?” he asked, fingers inching toward the shotgun nearly always on display. 

Letting out a defeated sigh, Grif shook his head. “No.”

“Good! Then you take Donut and start being on the look out for our bounty!” Sarge ordered.

Indignant, Grif threw up his hands. “Why me?” 

Having heard enough, Simmons turned on Grif and snapped, “For the love of god just leave already! This fighting is getting us nowhere!”

Betrayal crossing his face, Grif shook his head. “Come on, Donut. Let’s go before I rethink not killing everyone.”

“Okie dokie!” Donut cheered before rushing out the doors.

Grif drug his feet as he followed.

Simmons waited until the other two crewmen were gone before turning to Sarge. “Do you have a special assignment for me, Sarge?” he begged. “I’m sure I’ll say yes to it! No guess work involved!”

Sarge hummed a bit before shaking his head. “Eh, nope. Doesn’t look like it!”

Simmons found himself floundering. “I just… Sir, I really think I could prove myself as a yes man if given a chance. You didn’t need to go out and get Donutfor that!”

For a moment the old man seemed to consider Simmons’ words. He then said, “Do you really want to prove yourself?” he asked.

Heart picking up a pace, Simmons sat on the edge of his chair. “Oh absolutely, Sir! Yes!” 

“Then how about we play the quiet game for a bit until we hear back from our two numbskulls in the field?”

Immediately deflated, Simmons curled his shoulders inward. “Oh… okay.Yessir.”

Lopez laughed from his dock.

He had incorrectly believed Donut was incapable of being much more annoying, but Grif had not previously taken into account that the new crewmate could have had a literal bounce in his step.

Grif really hadn’t taken into account that anyone could have bounces in their step before.

Yet there they were.

“Isn’t it already enough bullshit that we’re going straight into another bounty?” he complained openly. “Do you have to keep that up?”

Turning on his heels, smile still bright, Donut tossed his head back. “What do you mean?”

“Stop skipping,” Grif ordered.

“Why?”

“Because we’re bounty hunters and you’re going to draw attention to us, which will spook the guy we’re after,” Grif grouched. He then stopped and considered that alternative. “Actually, that’d be way less work for us. So you just keep doing what you’re doing.”

“Sorry if I’m spooking bounty, Grif!” Donut exclaimed, apparently electing to ignore the rest of the conversation entirely. “I guess I’m just so excited to be working with you, it puts some extra pep in my step!”

Grif glared back at him. “Astounding.”

“Also the baby oil from this morning has me feeling all smooth and free andfun!” Donut continued. 

“Baby oil?” Grif questioned before he caught himself. Stomach lurching, he raised his hands up and began waving frantically. “No, no! Nevermind! I’m not curious about this at all!”

Again, seeming to only pick up on half the conversation, Donut tossed his head to the side and gave a twist of his wrist. “Well you see, I love the look of these space suits, but you have to wear them tight if you want the additional glute concentration at the gym to get its due service. But then that gives you a chaffing problem because I just couldn’t imagine any underoos that wouldn’t show with this stuff. Especially chaffing in the crotch. Which is bad if you wax–”

Recoiling, Grif tried to literally walk away from the conversation. “Oh my god. Stop talking to me,” he cried out. “I can’t think of anything I want to know less about right now than this conversation!”

Donut pouted slightly. “Well that’s rude!” He kept in step with Grif all the same. “I thought we were paired together so we could get to know each other more! Like me and Simmons earlier! Did you know he keeps the ship running and feels, like, super under appreciated for it?”

“You give Sarge way too much credit if you think he had reasoning behind any decisions he’s made in any of the years that I’ve known him,” Grif grumbled before coming to a stop and glaring over Donut carefully. “Did Simmons actually say these things?”

Donut blinked almost cluelessly as if he was confused about why Grif was even talking.

“Yeah, of course he did,” Donut finally answered. “I mean, he said a lot of junk I didn’t really understand, too. I didn’t pay so much attention to those parts. But I definitely heard him say the whole under appreciated part. I can totallyappreciate that kind of stuff. I felt the same way back home any time I’d rearrange the family’s closets to be more seasonally coordinated. No one everappreciated it.”

Scowling, Grif refused to even look away from Donut, somewhat in an effort to at least get acknowledgement for the aggravated glance. But the effort was ruined by the beeping alarm of his comm.

“You’re a useless partner,” Grif settled with insulting instead before reaching to his ear for the communicator. “What?”

“Grif!” Sarge howled from the other end. 

Donut stared at Grif in confusion once more. “What what? I didn’t say anything!”

Grif gave Donut a look of pure bile before turning to face the other way. “Yeah, it’s Grif.”

Making an offended noise, Donut threw up his arms. “I know who you are, Grif! Why’re you being so weird!?”

Ready to pull out his hair, Grif looked over his shoulder and shouted, “Donut! Shut the fuck up already!” He ignored the offended looks shot their way as he turned back to the communicator. “Whatever it is, Sarge, get it out before I murder your new Simmons-lite.”

“Señor Navigator here has been monitoring police scanners in the area, and he believes that there’s an ongoing pursuit in the marketplace. So you and Donut need to get your keisters over there while we head over with the fire power that is my glorious ship!”

His eye twitching, Grif shouted, “Our ship, you old bastard! And we’re in the marketplace.”

Releasing a frustrated groan, Donut grabbed his head. “Grif! I already knowwe’re in the marketplace! I’m here with you!”

Having had enough, Grif flipped around on Donut and pointed to his earpiece. “Goddammit, Donut! I”m talking to Sarge! Pay fucking attention!”

Donut’s mouth opened and he gave a long “Ahhh!” He then gave a hearty laugh and put his hands on his hips. “Well that sure explains some things! Gosh, Grif! Why didn’t you just say you were talking on the communicator?”

For a moment, Grif considered how difficult it would be to hide a Donut-sized body. It was hypothetically a lot of unnecessary effort so instead he said clearly, “You know what? I really fucking hate you.”

Sarge on the other end of the line was seemingly not phased in the least. “Grif, you’re full of lies and nonsense! You can’t be in the market because there’s ahuge fight in the market! And it doesn’t sound to me like you’ve been eviscerated by your own shining incompetence in the field yet. Therefore you couldn’t possibly be near the glory of battle!”

Grif scowled even more. “Maybe your information’s wrong, Old Man,” he replied testily.

There was some low grumbling on the other end as Sarge apparently considered the accusation before announcing, “No, no that can’t be it. You should definitely be seeing an epic battle unfolding before your very eyes in the middle of the market square.”

As if on cue, there was screaming and a minor explosion around the corner. The crowds dove out of the way as a single Unggoy alien began racing down the roads, screaming at the top of his lungs.

Grif stared at the calamity while Donut kept grinning and pointed. 

“Hey, Grif!” Donut chirped. “That kinda looks like the guy on the wanted poster!”

Lowering his head, Grif sighed. “Sarge, we’ll get back to you.”

Donut was already bouncing with excitement as Grif reached for his gun and began to groan heavily. The aggravation of the assignment was pouring off of him. 

“Oh! Oh! Do you have some elaborate trap set up from all the seemingly pointless walking we’ve been doing?” the rookie asked eagerly.

“Yeah, sure,” Grif huffed just as the screaming grunt ran by and he clocked it over the head with his pistol. “Lesson number one, Donut: never feel bad about taking over someone else’s dirty work. That’s what makes you the best – if theywere the best, they’d have finished their work before you came along.”

Nodding sagely, Donut crossed his arms. “I’ll remember that until I have time to write it down in my diary!”

Nose curling slightly, Grif shook his head. “You know what? Don’t. My lifestyle’s too cool to be written down. Writing down things is for pansies. Like rules and honor and Simmons. Dexter Grif style is for cool people. Your Mavericks, if you will.”

Again, Donut’s head bobbed in a confident nod. “Alrighty!”

Grif groaned and reached down for the alien. “Forget it, you’re a waste of my coolness–”

Donut pointed ahead. “What about them? Are they a waste of your coolness? Because black was so last season. I totally call them not being cool. Phonies.”

“Them?” Grif repeated before turning back to the streets. He felt his stomach drop as he saw the black armored form nearing them, rocket launcher slung over the shoulder, and full face mask drawn over their heads. They stalked over confidently and what remained of the marketplace’s crowd swiftly depleted. 

Grif leaned back. “oh, fuck. That can’t be her.”

Donut glanced toward Grif. “You guys know each other?”

“Not really,” he responded as he backed up. “She’s just the bitch that used to own the Tank and would beat us at every bounty.”

“Ohhh,” Donut responded. “Neat! I’ll just tell her that if she was the best, like us, she would already have caught this guy.”

Doing a double take at Donut, Grif’s mouth hung open. “What? No! Don’t do that! Are you fucking stupid!?”

But Donut cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. “Hey, bitch! Back off! We’re the best, so this is our bounty now!”

Grabbing his hair, Grif screamed at Donut. “What the fuck is wrong with you!?”

Tex stared at Donut, then pulled up the rocket launcher to aim.

Grif grabbed his comm. “Sarge! Simmons! Come now! AHHHH!”

They barely had time to duck out of the way as the rocket launcher fired.

Simmons blinked in shock over Sarge’s shoulder. He waited a moment, processed the static that followed the booming sounds of explosion, then nearly knocked the ship’s captain over in an attempt to get at the radio.

“Grif! Grif!” he yelled out before the old man grouchily shoved him off like he weighed no more than a couple of grapes.

“Get a hold of yourself, Simmons!” Sarge commanded. 

“Sarge! Grif called for help just before there was a giant transmission ending explosion!” Simmons cried out. 

Sarge stared at him suspiciously for a moment. “And?”

“He could be hurt! Or dead!” Simmons cried out. “Come on, I know you don’t actually hate him that much. You let him stay on the stupid ship to begin with, Sir! You could have very easily kicked him off by now.”

That made Sarge sputter and reel back on Simmons. “Simmons! Just what is your gearhead brain implying here!?” 

“Just that you would actually care if Grif’s in danger – which it sounds like he actually is!” Simmons howled back before throwing his hands toward the radio. “Mostly because we’re going after a dangerous bounty and you sent him with no one but Donut on his side!”

“Ah, right. I did send out the rookie with him,” Sarge huffed, rubbing his stubbly chin. “Hmm. I’d hate to lose that rookie. Especially when he’s promised to befantastic at back rubs. But saving him could mean saving Grif. And not only would I be loathed to do that, but it would mean that I’d be giving evidence to your outrageous claims!”

Mouth hanging slightly ajar, Simmons jumped closer to Sarge. “Sarge! Come on!”

“Choices,” Sarge continued to grumble. He finally turned and faced Simmons. “Tell you what, Simmons! I might help out the situation once we’re there and what not, mostly because of Donut. But just to show you how wrong you are about me giving a flying monkey’s bottom about Grif, I won’t do a damn thing to get us on the road toward that ultimate goal!”

“That’s hardly help at all, Sir!” Simmons snapped.

“That would be the point, Simmons,” Sarge shrugged.

Simmons continued to stare at the captain in disbelief before shaking his head and rushing over to where Lopez kept himself docked for control of the Warthog. 

The AI’s red eyes turned on him rather suspiciously as he approached. 

“Lopez!” Simmons called out. “Get the Warthog to Grif’s last coordinates on the pronto! Kapeesh?”

The AI hummed for a moment before crossing his arms behind his back. “No.”

Simmons balked. “Did you just tell me no?”

“No. No lo creo,” Lopez continued. “No me gusta el gordo. No me gusta ninguno de ustedes realmente. Pero sobre todo él. Él es repugnante. ¿Cuándo es la última vez que se aseguró de que se dio una ducha?”

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I’m human and I’m telling you to move the Warthog to Grif’s location!” Simmons barked out.

The AI stared at him.

Simmons stared back.

“Oh. Okay. That is how it is,” Lopez said before turning away from Simmons. “Al entrar en modo de espera.”

Blinking a few more times, Simmons watched in wait for Lopez to follow orders only to start noticing all the viewscreens around the AI’s dock to begin powering down and disappearing from around him. What screens of the Warthog that were still in English carried the familiar standby logo.

“Standby!?” Simmons cried out shrilly. “No no no! Lopez, don’t–”

By the time Simmons looked at the AI, the robotic head was down and all of his lights turned off.

Sarge chuckled behind Simmons.

Angry, Simmons turned and glared at Sarge. “You know, since people just need Grif’s blood to activate the Warthog, this criminal could easily kill him and still your ship right out from under you.”

The old man stopped chuckling and stared at Simmons.

“Well, fiddlesticks.”

If there was one thing Grif was still sure of in the universe, it was Murphy’s Law. So why there was any surprise at Bounty Hunter Tex’s return was completely beyond him.

He ducked behind the first solid metal vendor table he could find and did his best to stay upright as another explosion shook the grounds.

When Donut’s shrill cry filled the air, Grif couldn’t have looked more expectant.

If there was a second comment that Grif held to still be true in all of the universe, it was that he would find it in him to be bothered enough to kill Donut for this. Even if it would come agains his eternal desires to do nothing.

Given they both survived first, of course.

There was another blast but Grif looked up instead to the nearby crunch of boots. He also should not have been surprised by Sarge arriving. Shotgun in tow. 

“Grif! You’re alive,” the old man said before grumbling, “I guess. If slothful existences are ‘living’. Hmph.”

“Gee, don’t get too happy all at once, Sarge. It’ll be bad for your image,” Grif replied sourly. 

“You’re right, dirtbag!” Sarge called out before glancing around the area. He didn’t so much as blink at the ground shaking and fire blazing by them to the tune of Donut’s high pitched screaming. “Where’s my bounty?”

Glaring back, Grif pointed to Tex and Donut’s one-way battle. “With Donut,” he answered roughly. 

Sarge growled disappointingly. “Grif! What the hell do you think you’re doing!? Shirking off responsibilities to the no-experience rookie!”

“Well, Sarge, that’s the great part about shirking off my responsibilities,” Grif explained. “I honestly don’t give a rat’s ass about them once they’re no longer mine.”

"What? Like a space rat’s ass?” Sarge asked.

“No. I don’t know! A regular sized rat’s ass,” Grif yelled back.

“What? What in Sam Hill is a regular rat?” Sarge demanded. “We don’t have time for you to make up your fake stupid animals, Grif!”

Grif glared even as another explosion shook them. 

Sarge glanced up. “And who the hell keeps blowing up the damn place!?”

Again pointing to the source of the explosions, Grif replied, “That would beTex.”

Finally reacting like a normal person, Sarge flinched back. “Who? Like Tex the Bounty Hunter!? She’s back!?”

Grif hummed. “Sure seems like it, Sarge.”

“Well that’s unfortunate,” Sarge huffed. “I liked that Donut kid.”

“Believe me, Sarge,” Grif sighed. “You were the only one.”

Neither one made any moves as there was another scream and Donut’s body landed with a heavy thud by them. The rookie coughed and rolled onto his back before glancing toward them. “Oh, hiii guys!” he wheezed. “Sarge! I wasn’t expecting to see you in action on this mission. Lookin’ good!”

“Donut! Sarge shouted back. “I was told you were given the bounty. But now all I see is you and Grif!”

As if it was all suddenly coming together for him, Donut called out. “Ohhhhright! That’s actually a funny story, Sarge. But this Tex guy got it back.”

So angry he could hardly string words together, Sarge turned his sights back onto Grif. “I shoulda known you’d find ways to sink my disappointing expectation even lower! Goddammit, Grif!” 

Honestly caught off guard, Grif raised up his hands. “Whoa, what? Why the fuck is this suddenly my fault!?”

“Oh, all the usual reasons. Pick one!” Sarge spat. 

“Yeah! You tell him, Sarge! Get fucked, Grif!” Donut yelled.

Disgustedly curling his nose at Donut, Grif pointed toward the rookie. “Stop phrasing things like that. Also: shut up. The second I’m not around to be blamed, just who do you think he’ll blame for losing the bounty?”

Donut blinked and cocked his head to the side. “Oh, probably Simmons.”

Grif blinked in return before rubbing his neck. “Okay, true. Good point.” He paused for a moment and glowered at himself. “Never wanted to catch myself saying that to Donut.”

“You both coming to get along like decent folk is fine and sweet for a couple of Sally’s,” Sarge mocked as he cocked his gun. “But I want my bounty! And I want it right the square now–”

There was a fateful scream and they all glanced to the same area where Donut had landed before a smoldering pile of Unggoy made its splat exactly there. 

They stare at the carcass for a moment in complete horror before Donut cheerfully pointed toward it and looked back. “Hey! There it is, Sarge! Just what you always wanted!”

“I prefer my meat rare as opposed to overly well done,” Sarge growled, stepping closer to it. “In fact, I prefer it being alive. Breathing. And able to stand before the court of law so that they have a chance with a jury of their peers. The American way. Where the only way justice is taken from you, is in a jail cell by those manipulating the people’s trust and abusing powers.”

“Wow, I’m sure that alien’s really sorry to have missed out on that,” Grif snapped before covering his nose to avoid the smell of the Unggoy. “For fuck’s sake, though. Even I’m not cool with this.”

They all jumped and broke into absolute silence as the heavy bootsteps of the bounty hunter approached. 

Tex took one look over the body and then slung it over her shoulders.

“That’s ours!” Sarge called out.

She paused just enough to glare at him through her full mask. “I say it’s mine,”she snapped dauntingly, her voice heavily filtered. 

Grif squinted. “I don’t see your name on it.”

For a moment, she just stared at him which was enough to make him yell slightly and scoot further away. Then Tex threw the body on the ground and took the measure of grinding her boot into the soot covered forehead of the grunt. When her foot was removed, the print of her boot included in bold lettersTEX hollowed out.

She then stared back at Grif expectantly.

Gulping, Grif shrugged. “My mistake?”

Without another word, Tex grabbed the bounty, threw it over her shoulders, and began walking toward the police station.

They wall watched silently.

“What a bitch,” Grif groaned.

“I did not miss that,” Sarge sighed. “Guess we’ll have to step up our game if she’s back.”

Donut scratched at his head. “I’m confused. Who was that again?” he asked.

“One of those Freelance people,” Grif groaned, pushing himself back up. “They work for the Project, get all the best stuff, real cut throat. Don’t wanna cross them. They’re the best bounty hunters of the best. And they have a license to kill people who aren’t up for bounty either. So. Y’know. Watch out, all that shit.”

“Tex hangs out with the Tank,” Sarge huffed. “Bunch of Blusers.”

Confused looking still, Donut pulled up his palm pad and searched for Tex.

Grif rolled his eyes and began to move back toward the docks. “Forget it, Donut. She’s a Freelancer. We lost. Let’s go home, get some food. I’m fuckingstarved and smelling burning flesh just works up my appetite–”

“I knew I recognized her!” Donut called out.

“She’s famous,” Sarge explained. “It almost makes losses to her acceptable.”

“No, I remember her from this morning when I was looking for bounties for us,” Donut replied, turning his palm pad around for them to see Tex’s Wanted bulletin. “She’s defunct from those special forces guys! She’s up for a cash in!”

Grif felt his heart stop and he looked worriedly to Sarge. “No,” he said before Sarge let out a vibrating shout of joy.

“Boys!!!” he cried out. “I have us a plan!”

Considering that Lopez was still on his self-mandated standby, Simmons was honestly surprised Sarge wanted him to leave the ship. There was probably nothing in the galaxy that Sarge cared about more than that ship. 

Definitely not his crew. 

But being the very good yes man that he was, Simmons decided against voicing his own concerns and instead did exactly what was told. Including getting the tranq darts and giant net that Sarge kept in the back room. 

What they were kept for in the back room was still completely beyond Simmons, but that wasn’t something a yes man questioned.

Instead he ran right up to the group of his crewmates and held up the heavy metal net and the tranq gun. 

“I’m here! Just like you needed me to be. Yessir, that’s what I do,” Simmons called out with a nervous laugh.

Sarge was staring forward at the precinct building with an intensity that Simmons hadn’t seen in months. He grumbled to himself a bit before looking to Simmons and straightening up. “Ah. Oh. Simmons! Very good then. I guess. Good fetching.” 

His human eye nearly watering up, Simmons gave a sniffling, “Thank you, Sir!”

As Sarge grabbed the tools from Simmons’ arms, Donut turned a bright smile to the cyborg. 

“Yeah! Great job, Simmons!” Donut chimed in.

Immediately letting his face drop, Simmons glared at the rookie. “Don’t patronize me.”

“Oh my god, would you guys stop kissing his ass for three seconds?” Grif begged. “She’s about to come out!”

Not following, Simmons looked back and forth between them all. “What? Who’s coming out–”

Sarge grinned and raised his gun, aiming for the precinct door.

Simmons’ eyes threatened to bulge out of his head. “Guys!? Someone explain what’s going on–”

The doors slung open and Simmons watched in face paling horror as a tall, black clad bounty hunter with a full set of body armor and mask marched out of the precinct and down the stairs.

“That’s… is that Bounty Hunter Tex?” Simmons asked, voice cracking.

“Fire!” Sarge howled before pulling the trigger of the tranq gun no less than seven times. 

Donut grabbed the net and without any warning, expertly chucked it toward the several times stuck Texas. “IN THE HOLE!!!” he cried out.

“Jesus,” Grif groaned, rubbing his eyes.

“What are you all doing!?” Simmons near screamed before looking and seeing Tex, taken completely by surprise, on her hands and knees under the heavy net. 

“Getting ourselves a bounty! A big one!” Sarge answered with a chuckle.

“Getting ourselves killed,” Grif shrugged.

“Putting an end to too-short leather jackets everywhere,” Donut replied. 

Simmons just looked worriedly to the barely conscious super bounty hunter and knew that they had all just made a terrible mistake. 

Chapter Text

Tucker stared at the beacon again before turning to look at Church with a great degree of scrutiny. “So Tex is in trouble. What the fuck are we supposed to do about it?”

“Get her out of trouble, Tucker, obviously!” Church growled as he took Tucker’s usual seat at the controls. “Sheila, can you navigate us to Tex’s beacon?”

“I can and will!” Sheila said before pausing. The AI shuddered on her ship dock and looked back warily to the crew. “I believe I’m agreeing with you again, Captain. My servers are not sure how to process our current trend of compliance.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s freaking me out, too!” Church responded as he settled by the controls.

“I have an idea: not agree anymore,” Tucker offered. “Seriously, guys, what the fuck are we going to do? Go blasting in on a situation that Tex couldn’t handle?”

“That does sound like a rescue,” Caboose hummed, tapping a finger against his chin in the back.

“Yeah, Tucker. It does sound like a rescue!” Church snapped. “Got a problem with it?” 

“Only about eight,” Tucker snapped. “Newsflash, crew! We fucking suck. We’re awful. We’re not even decent at catching bounties on our own. The only thing that ever makes us successful is when we’ve got either a shitton of luck or Tex by our sides. We have neither, and we want to rescue Tex on our own. What kinda fucking sense does that make!?”

“Tucker, you want to continue being negative nancy, how about you move back a seat with Caboose!?” Church demanded, turning his glare on his partner. “You know, so I can keep all my annoyances in the same place.”

“Sheila doesn’t like you as much as she likes me, you want to test your luck in the driver’s seat without me close enough to grab the steering wheel when needed?” Tucker asked critically.

Church stared at him for a moment then looked to the AI. “We’re good, aren’t we, Sheila? So long as it’s about saving Tex?”

“Oh, yes,” Sheila nodded. “I can tolerate the captain so long as the ship’s original owner’s needs require it.”

“Oh, hear that, Tucker? Fuck off, that’s what she just said to you,” Church grinned before starting up the Tank.

Tucker narrowed his eyes at Church and leaned in. “By the way, I stand by what I said earlier. Tex is fine. I like Tex. You, however, are a real fucking prick whenever she’s around. So. Y’know. Work on that if you’re interested in improving your personality any.”

“Saying I want to improve something that’s perfect is superfluous,” Church snapped. “So get in the back and shut up.”

Flipping Church off, Tucker stepped backwards to the seats where Caboose was already sitting patiently with his seatbelt on. 

The mechanic was grinning so widely at Tucker that it took everything in him to not snap the smile right off. Instead, Tucker just seated himself and began to strap in. 

“Can you believe him? What a prick,” Tucker growled.

“The tracker is on the move, Captain!” Sheila warned.

“Then we’ll move faster,” Church ordered.

Tucker stared at them in confusion. It was unnerving to have Church and Sheila on the same page. It also made his job somewhat useless, which left a curious twisting in his guts he didn’t want to deal with.

“Believe who?” Caboose asked.

“What?” Tucker asked back, turning to face Caboose.

The mechanic blinked and pointed at himself. “You said believe him. Who am I believing or not believing?” he asked.

“I made that comment like a full twenty seconds ago. I thought you weren’t answering,” Tucker said back, furrowing his brows. “What? Does it take that long for your brain to process a question?”

Caboose sputtered before crossing his arms and looking off. “Well I won’t answer your question until I get an answer for my question! That is how the question game works, Tucker!”

“Fucking hell,” Tucker said, shaking his head. “Church. I was talking aboutChurch! Can you believe what an asshole he is?”

Lighting up at the very mention of Church, Caboose began nodding rapidly. “Oh yes! Church! I believe in Church. Church is a great guy.”

Groaning, Tucker began rubbing his face.

If the old crew sucked, the new crew really sucked.

Having no patience for Tucker’s attitude, Church kept concentrated on saving Tex. What part of his attention span that wasn’t imagining how sweet it would be for Tex to have to play the grateful and recently saved one in the relationship for once.

It was a complete flight of fancy for his mind to take but he enjoyed it nonetheless.

“We are pulling in on Agent Texas’ signal,” Sheila informed them.

Church scowled. “This is another shipping dock, why the fuck is she being taken here?”

Tucker leaned forward some and offered, “Maybe she’s abandoning us again and this is where she’s been keeping her other ship all along. One with a crew that gives a fuck about being space pirates.”

“That’s not true,” Church scoffed.

“Sure?” Tucker ribbed.

“Tucker, let me put it this way,” Church explained, looking over his shoulder to his partner. “There isn’t a chance in this entire universe that Tex found an entire team of people willing to put up with her. She barely has a team of losers like us cooperating with her. She’s not taking off without us under some delusions of grandeur. She knows how bitchy she is and what kinds of people will put up with it.”

Tucker thought for a moment before cocking his head to the side. “Alright, fair point.”

“Damn right it is,” Church said as he looked forward again. Only that time his gaze fell upon a very familiar, very shitty vessel. “Son of a– Hey! Tucker! Isn’t that the fucking Warthog?”

“What!?” Tucker called out, unhooking from his seat and leaping up to look over Church and Sheila. “Holy shit – yeah it is.”

From the back, Caboose let out an audible gasp which sounded a lot more like a fish taking in air. “There are pigs in space. I knew it.”

“What? No!” Church snapped, looking back at Caboose. “The Warthog is a ship.”

“A ship with pigs on it?” Caboose asked with a blink.

“Jesus christ, NO,” Tucker groaned, turning to face Caboose while Church concentrated while pulling the Tank in for a landing. “The Warthog is the name of a regular crew. They’re a bunch of dickbags who suck, but they’re almost always after the same bounty that we are. And they get it.”

“Oh, because we suck more?” Caboose asked.

“Yeah,” Tucker answered.

“We do not! Now shut up,” Church snapped as he got up and went for the gun case he hadn’t touched in weeks. “If it’s these guys involved, I’ll try to talk Tex’s way out of whatever mess we have. If things get hairy or they take too long, I want you and Caboose to grab some weapons and come down to take them by surprise. Got it?”

“Sure thing, Church!” Caboose all but cheered.

Tucker narrowed his eyes. “Uh, no. What exactly do they want with Tex? Also you really think Tex couldn’t take them.”

Church strapped his sniper rifle over his back and shrugged as he walked backwards out of the cockpit door. “I don’t have a fucking clue, Tucker. All I know is that my girlfriend–”

“Ex-girlfriend,” Tucker and Sheila corrected at the same time.

“–needs help and I’m going to be the knight in shining armor, so, don’t take that from me. Unless I’m dying and need help,” Church completed as he walked toward the exit.

“Yeah, okay,” Tucker mocked. “Hey, Church. You know why that armor is shining? Because it has your blood all over it! Because a sniper rifle is a long range weapon and you’re fucking going to a hostage negotiation!”

Flicking them all off, Church stepped out of the tank and glared ahead. 

These docks were far nicer than the shit part of town they had been parked at, which went only to serve Church’s slight humiliation at the fact that the Warthog crew might have been doing better off than them. 

But on the other hand they were mostly surrounded by alien designs which as far as Church was concerned fuck that noise because it was bad enough to walk past a Sangheili cruiser and see the cloaked alien’s beady eyes peering at him suspiciously just because he was walking by. He couldn’t imagine keeping his very obviously human ship unmanned as he fucked around on the miserable planet. 

Almost on pure instinct, Church directed himself toward the Warthog’s path and, sure enough, saw four idiots huddled around his black clad ex. 

Tex saw him and rolled her eyes. “Oh fucking great.”

“Tex!” Church called as he neared.

“Heh, here’s a Bluser after all,” the leader of the red dressed team said, looking cheekily to Tex. “Looks like they are dumb enough to try to rescue you. You owe me money.”

“Not fucking happening,” Tex growled. She then whipped her head around to glare at Church. “And what the fuck are you planning to do here?”

“Uh, negotiate? I guess?” Church said, slowing down. “What the fuck did you do to get captured by these losers?”

The squatty orange once bristled immediately. “Hey who the fuck are you calling a loser?”

“Grif, I didn’t give you the right to speak to the enemy!” the leader snapped.

If possible, the orange one got even more enraged. 

“You guys took our bounty,” the lean one in maroon said, trying and failing to straighten himself up intimidatingly. “So we’re taking yours!”

Church squinted at them a bit before turning his head toward Tex who was growing less reactive to the circumstances by the second, her eyelids heavy in a way that was distinctly not her at all.

“Tex, what the fuck are you talking about?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” she grunted. “Why don’t you know? You’re the hero.”

“Didn’t the space babe tell you she had a bounty on her head?” a short, spiky haired new face asked, hans on his hips and a far too confident smirk across his face. “It’s way more than what the guy we were looking for was worth!”

“That can’t be right,” Church huffed.

“It is right!” the leader snapped. “But it’s only from Freelancer HQ. So we gotta find somewhere with a direct line to them before we can collect.”

“Unless you want to pay us and we’ll be on our way,” the orange one bantered.

Blinking, Church considered it. “Really?”

“NO!” the old man roared before rounding on his crew. “Grif! Did I authorize such a thing? No! Then why the hell’s bells are you negotiating.”

“Because I’m co-owner of the goddamn ship!” Grif snapped back. “Because carrying around a crazy ex-bounty hunter is fucking dangerous and she’ll probably murder us all once the drugs wear off. And because we could make money now instead of later after we’ve spent a shit ton on fuel and resources to get this bitch somewhere that’ll take her off our hands!”

The other members of the crew looked to each other then back to the supposed leaders.

“He actually is making good points, Sarge,” the tall one pointed out.

“This is why you’re not the yes man anymore, Simmons!” Sarge barked.

The other man flinched. “Damn it!”

Completely fuming by that point, the orange dressed bounty hunter turned on Sarge and threw up his arms. “Listen, you old coot, my blood gets a response out of the goddamn ship as much as yours does! So if you want to start shit, go ahead, but I have just as much right to be making decisions here as you do. Or did you forget I’m your original crew!”

Glaring at them, Church crossed his arms. “Well then, as interesting as your guys’ personal problems are, I’ll just be taking Tex back now. Okay? Thanks!”

“Not so fast!” Sarge snapped.

It was such a loud outburst that Church nearly missed how the Sangheili from before had perked up at the sound of Tex’s name and was making his way over to the scuffle. Nearly. But Church was definitely paying attention as the alien shoved him aside and began to hold up a palmpad with Tex’s picture surrounded by Sangheili text and then lowered it to look at her again.

“Hey, what the fuck!” Church growled.

Tex, however, widened her eyes. “Son of a–”

Shaking off whatever hold the tranquilizers had had on her, she grabbed hold of the cuffs Simmons had on her and let out a low growl before using them to throw the lean man into the rest of his crew. 

“Church! Tell Tucker to stay away!” Tex yelled at him just before ducking under the Sangheili’s laser blast. 

“He’s not interested in coming until I need backup!” Church yelled back before pulling his sniper rifle around and aiming at the alien’s head. “Which I don’t need, right, buddy–”

There was an echoing shot before everyone turned their eyes on Church. He looked at his gun, then at the alien he had missed from less than two feet. 

“Son of a– The sights on this are off!” he growled. 

“Church!” Tex roared just before the Sangheili Elite snarled and reached forward, grabbing Church’s trigger hand and squeezing with all his might.

"Hey! Wait a second!” Church called just before the Sangheili ripped his arm forward and elicited a pained yell, the limb tearing and revealing the sparking and grinding metal within. 

Watching from Sheila’s monitors, Tucker stood up so fast he nearly overturned his chair. His eyes bulged as he watched Church’s body hit the ground. 

“Holy shit!” he yelled out.

Even Sheila covered her mouth as she watched. “Oh my,” she gasped. “Those repairs will likely cost a lot of money!” 

Tucker frowned and gave the ship AI an even look. “Yeah, Sheila, that’s the important part here!”

Not wasting anymore time, Tucker turned on his heels and raced out of the cockpit. He smacked Caboose’s shoulder along the way. “C’mon – we have to go save Church now!” 

At firs the lug of a mechanic didn’t move, eyes squinting at the distant image of their Captain in a heap on the grounds outside of their ship. He then stiffened and pointed at the sight as he got up. “That’s not Church! That’s a robot!”

Pausing just long enough to turn around, Tucker glared at Caboose. “What?No! Haven’t you ever seen a cyborg before? He’s only part robot. Obviously.”

“Oh, right,” Caboose said before giving an owlish blink. “Is he robot on his mommy’s side or his daddy’s side?”

“Oh my god, I refuse to explain this to you,” Tucker groaned before racing out to the door of the ship. “Church is going to owe me enough for all the saving his ass shit. I don’t need to add holding his pet mechanic’s hand along to it.”

While he could hear Caboose lumbering after him, Tucker kept his focus and ran toward the fight outside. 

The Reds and the Sangheili were already in heated dispute over Tex it seemed, which left Church open for Tucker to approach. 

“Hey, Church buddy!” Tucker called as he skidded to a halt by his friend’s side. “How are you feeling?”

Church’s head snapped in Tucker’s direction and he scowled before yelling out, “How am I feeling!? He ripped my goddamn arm off! That’s how I’m feeling, Tucker! Like I just had an arm ripped off!”

Glaring right back, Tucker put his hands on his hips. “What the hell am I supposed to do with that description? I’ve never had an arm ripped off. I can’t relate. Are you sad, happy–”

Accepting Tucker’s help sitting up despite his fidgeting, Church whirled around on him. “I’m fucking pissed about it!”

Coming up behind them, Caboose tilted his head to the side. “Yeah, uh, I don’t think Church being angry is very different from normal. Maybe.”

Snorting, Tucker looked back to Church. “Hear that, Church? The new guy has you all figured out already!”

“I could kill both of you,” he threatened in turn.

“Pfft, with one arm?” Tucker mocked. “I had a hard time believing that threat when you had both of your arms, asshole.” He then glanced around the shootout taking place just feet away. “Speaking of believable threats, where’s your ex?”

By the time he was standing back up with Church, Tucker locked eyes not with their bounty hunting friend but instead with the giant alien fucker in blue armor who had ripped off Church’s arm.

The Sangheili straightened in mid battle and completely turned their way, mandibles clicking together as it looked at Tucker intently. 

“What the fuck – have you alien fucks honestly never seen a black guy before!? What’s the deal with you all staring at me all the goddamn time!?” Tucker cried out. He looked back at Church. “Dude, I’m starting to think aliens are racist.”

Church stared back incredulously. “Hey, Tucker, you ever think it’s because you have a bunch of shit tattoos in an alien language plastered over your face? You probably insult people just by walking into rooms with them!”

Blinking a few times, Tucker considered it before snorting and shaking his head. “No way. That can’t be it.”

"It totally can be,” Church mocked. “You’re basically on the same level as stupid people who think they’re getting Japanese words for fire or peace on their shoulders when really it says dickfarts or something. Y’know. Except you got them on your face like a lunatic,” Church continued.

Before Tucker could form his retort, they looked up and saw the Sangheili Elite standing directly over them, jaws unhinging as it snarled. 

The two of them screamed just before Tex flew out of the periphery and kicked the alien right in the head. 

She landed, pivoted on her heels to glare at them, then pointed angrily to the ship. 

“Get the fuck inside!” she ordered.

“Okay!” Caboose said cheerfully before turning right back around.

“Yeah, don’t have to tell me twice!” Tucker called out as he tugged Church closer and hastily made way back to the Tank. 

They moved so fast back onboard that Tucker nearly tripped twice and Caboose did fall flat on his face once. Tex didn’t, of course, sliding in and slamming the door’s button closed behind them.

The bounty hunting pro looked over her shoulder and screamed, “Sheila! Take off! Count down from two! Ignore waiting for safety procedures! Just go go go!”

“Of course, Agent Texas!” Sheila called back as the ship began to rumble.

“Don’t we need to be in our seats?” Tucker asked, turning to face Tex.

The words had barely left his mouth before she was slapping both him and Church over the head. “You fucking idiots!” she roared. “You don’t need seatsbecause I’m going to murder you before we hit the atmosphere. What the fuck were you thinking!? Do you realize what just happened?

Tucker rubbed his head sorely and glared back at Tex. “Obviously not!”

Tex gritted her teeth at them. “Short answer? You just fucked us.”

“Bow chicka–”

While it was deserved and expected, Tucker couldn’t help but double over after Tex punched him right in the gut. He coughed out in pain as he curled up on his haunches. 

“What the fuck did that guy want with you, Tex!?” Church demanded, his good hand rubbing at the absent hole of his arm. 

“The map,” Tex replied thickly. 

“To?” Church pressed.

“Disneyland,” Caboose answered.

“The fucking treasure, Church. What else would I have a map to!?” she hissed back.

“You had a map?” Tucker asked, looking up at them from the floor. “Whoa whoa whoa. When did this happen?”

“I don’t,” Tex answered, folding her arms. Her sights settled heavily on Tucker. “You do.”

Chapter Text

There was a lot of reasons piling up for why Simmons hated his lot in life. And few of them felt as poignant and true as the sputtering and stalling of their dumbass ship when Sarge insisted on flooring their old as dirt engines. 

One of the reasons that managed to remotely make it toward that scale of terrible was Grif and Sarge finding no better place to argue than the door to the engine room as Simmons desperately tried to work.

“It was a strategy,” Grif uselessly defended. 

“it was all out mutiny!” Sarge bellowed back. 

“Let’s run through this. Again!” Grif snapped. “You wanted to take down another bounty hunter. Alive. One we’ve lost to in the past. Take her on our ship. Travel colony to colony looking for an acceptable straight line to Freelancer. Hope they will accept her there. Then get paid? Possibly after using up all our current resources in travel alone?”

“Absolutely!” Sarge barked back. 

“And that was more reasonable than just getting paid by her crew right then and there!?” Grif marveled out loud. 

“It’s a matter of honorable mayhem and debauchery and unhonorable mayhem and debauchery,” Sarge explained. “Where’s the honor in letting a criminal pay for themselves!”

“Fuck honor, it’s just a word,” Grif growled. “Honor’s so much extra work. And for what? Basically just bragging rights that you did it the honorable way, while scum and thieves are happier, richer, and probably lack your worry lines!”

“Oh, my god! You two are killing me!” Simmons cried out.

Propped up against the distant wall, scowling as much as an AI construct could scowl, Lopez shook his head. “Estoy muriendo a su incompetencia mecánica. Literalmente. Su trabajo es tan mala que dará lugar a la muerte de mi nave. Por favor, dejen de pensar que sabe lo que está haciendo cuando es obvio que no lo hace.”

Simmons stared cluelessly at Lopez before shaking his head. “No one can understand you, Lopez. And I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t care if we could,” he informed the old robot. 

“Obviamente,” Lopez retorted. 

Exacerbated, Simmons looked to Donut. The rookie sat on top of some boxes and beamed with happiness as he looked back and forth between the squabbling of Grif and Sarge. 

“Donut!” Simmons called out ,getting the younger man’s attention. “Aren’t you going to help out here at all?”

Blinking owlishly, Donut tilted his head to the side. “Like with what?” 

“Anything!” Simmons groaned. “Stop the fighting, help me with the engine –anything!” 

“En el momento en que se aleje, me va a arreglar todo el barco. Ni siquiera va a ser difícil. Su trabajo es innecesaria,” Lopez said lowly.

Once more, Simmons ignored the AI. His focus was entirely on Donut. 

Still blinking, Donut shrugged. “No thanks,” he replied with what sounded like genuine sincerity. “I don’t want to interfere too much on my first day. But that isreally considerate of you, Simmons! You really know how to make me feel like part of the crew!”

Staring at Donut in shock, Simmons threw up his arms, nearly tossing his wrench out of his hands. “What!? You’ve done nothing but interfere since the second you got on this ship!”

“Yeah, I met my quota,” Donut nodded. “I’m dangerously close to overdoing it. So now I’m just observing you guys in your natural habitats.”

Glaring back, Simmons couldn’t help but snarl, “I think I hate you.”

“And since you don’t know it, that means I still have plenty of time to change that attitude right back around!” Donut cheered. 

Grif and Sarge’s argument picked up in volume once again and Simmons grabbed his hair before dropping all his tools completely. 

“That’s it, I can’t work under these conditions!” he exclaimed as he marched out of the engine room. “I don’t know how many times I’ve warned you guys that I don’t deal with stress very well!”

“This would be my first time!” Donut chirped.

“Shut up,” Simmons growled just as Lopez brushed by him. 

“Finalmente,” the robot grumbled as Simmons made it out of the room.

“I’m going to do something useful, since none of you morons have thought of it yet,” Simmons snapped mostly to Donut.

“Simmons!” Sarge bellowed.

Blood running cold, Simmons quickly spun on his heels to face Sarge. “Uh, morons being those who wouldn’t have thought of it, Sarge! Not you, obviously,” he stammered out quickly. Then, glancing off with a bit of irritation. “And of course you heard that and not everything else I said today…”

“Of course! Good work, Simmons!” Sarge chuckled. “Uh… What did we think of doing, again?”

“Looking up why that alien was so interested in the Tank’s crew,” Simmons alerted him. “Obviously there’s some value outside of just the bounty on the Freelancer. It seemed pretty interested in the guy with tattoos.”

“Yeah, and they were yelling really loudly that it had something to do with his tattoos all over his face,” Grif snarked.

Simmons glared at the orange clad man. “Okay, yes. That, too, Grif.”

Without warning, the ship released a low, calming hum and all the lights flickered before burning brighter – no longer in power saver mode. The entire human crew looked around in amazement. 

“Simmons!” Sarge yelled again. “Did you already fix the ship!?”

Blinking in surprise, Simmons nodded. “I… Yeah! I guess I did!”

“Great work,” Sarge complimented.

Giving a small sniff, Simmons did his best to stiffen his wobbly lip. “Thank you, Sir!”

“Tienes que estar bromeando,” Lopez sighed from the nearby room.

The argument carried through the halls and toward the cockpit. Sarge was so riled up he didn’t even take a spare breath to comment on the fact that Grif grabbed rations along the way and began stuffing his face.

Which was good for Grif, because by god he needed the refueling. 

Nothing short of arguing with Sarge would have ever made him so intent on nottaking a nap after a mission. Especially a failed mission. But he’d just about had it. 

So long as he could refuel on snacks and continue his ranting through a full mouth, of course.

“And another thing,” he continued, ignoring how granola spewed from him at every puff. “I thought you said other bounty hunting teams were beneath us? So what the fuck do we care about this other bounty team causing us any trouble? Who gives a fuck! We’re supposed to be better than them!”

“They’re hoarding a criminal!” Sarge snapped, punching the button to the cockpit door. “They’re giving bounty hunting a bad name!”

“How can you give bounty hunters a bad name? Everyone thinks you’re a piece of shit when you’re a bounty hunter already,” Grif reminded him. “And they’d be right! We are pieces of shit! That’s what builds our charm!”

Sarge glared at Grif as the doors opened and he walked in. “And you would be the reason people don’t take bounty hunters seriously at all! Goddammit, Grif! Where’s your sense of pride?”

“Pride’s stupid,” Grif snapped. “And by the way, I don’t approve of this mission going after the Tank yet. And like it or not I’m co-owner so–” He paused in his stride, staring at the chair he almost always took in the cockpit. “Simmons,” he said to the mechanic.

“What?” Simmons asked, not even looking up from his computer.

“You’re in my chair, what the fuck, get up,” Grif ordered. 

“I can’t sit in my chair,” Simmons explained, looking over his screen to glare at Grif. “Donut’s been doing something in it. It’s like… oily and warm… I’m not sitting in it.”

Doing a full body shudder, Grif looked suspiciously to Simmons newly shiny chair then looked back. “Well, whatever, that’s not my problem. Get up.” He paused and tilted his head. “Say, how did you get in here before us anyway?”

“Oh, you know, the usual,” Simmons sighed, looking to his screen and ignoring Grif’s orders. “It’s easy to slip by people when they’re not even fucking looking for you.”

“Wow, how emo,” Grif snorted, crossing his arms. He paused for a moment, taking a breath and glancing to his somewhat-friend. Donut’s words about Simmons from before were catching up with him. “Hey, uh, Simmons?”

“What?” Simmons sighed, sounding truly exhausted of the conversation before it ever even got started. 

“You… uh, need to say anything buddy? Or, like… want to to tell me… what’s going on,” Grif tried, finding that the lead-ins for such conversational heart-to-hearts literally did not exist in his brain. “I mean. Inside your head. Right now?”

Squinting at him like he was speaking a foreign language, Simmons tilted his head. “What the hell are you trying to say?” he asked. 

“I have no idea,” Grif admitted freely.

“Are you asking what I’m doing and trying to not seem like you’re sticking your nose in my business?” Simmons asked critically. “Because allow me to inform you: you are failing.”

“Alright, asshole, maybe I don’t care one fuck after all. How do you like that?” Grif asked incredulously. He then paused and crossed his arms. “Okay, actually now I’m a bit curious. What are you looking at on your computer?”

“I knew it,” Simmons said with a roll of his eye. “I’m looking up those tattoos like I told you and Sarge I would be,” he explained as he turned his screen toward Grif. 

"Oh,” Grif replied, vaguely remembering Simmons and Sarge talking about such a thing as Grif gathered his breath in between arguments with Sarge. He sat in the seat beside his usual and glanced at the screen. “Yeah, I can’t read this.”

“Of course you can’t,” Simmons said in aggravation. “It’s in an alien language. It was the only thing that popped up. Now I’m just waiting for it to translate.”

“You know, when you describe your job you really make it sound like almost anyone can do it,” Grif warned him. 

“Well, you sure as hell didn’t think to do this before me, did you?” Simmons asked. “And I bet even me describing what I did has made you bored and think of taking a nap rather than actually doing it.”

Letting out a yawn, Grif had to nod. “Well, you’ve got me there, Simmons!”

Simmons stared at him dully for a few moments before glancing back to his computer. A confident smirk grew on his face. “Ha! There it is,” he announced, his eye scanning the page, widening slightly. “Holy shit… Is this right?”

“How would I know?” Grif asked.

Looking back at Grif, Simmons sat on the edge of his seat. “Grif, if this is all true, then those tattoos aren’t just tattoos! Their alien glyphs marking for some sort of prophecy.”

Grif frowned and scratched at his chin. “That doesn’t really sound like something I care about, Simmons.”

“Yeah? Well how about this: they also supposedly lead to a treasure worth millions if not billions of credits to aliens all over the galaxy!” Simmons exclaimed.

“What? That can’t be true,” Grif said, waving his hand. “How’d you find that?”

“The internet, duh,” Simmons replied, turning the screen over for Grif to read himself. “Which means it has to be true, of course. Browsers don’t let false things to get through anymore unless they’re paid ads.”

"Oh, right,” Grif said as he briefly scanned the article. “Holy shit… that’s a whole lot of money.”

“Enough money that if we got it, we’d probably never have to work again,” Simmons said with a lofty sigh. “That engine would be replaced in no time… given I was allowed to make the budget. And that everyone actually kept to my budget. And then that no one touched my stuff. Especially Donut–”

Feeling an epiphany, Grif straightened. He looked to Simmons in wide-eyed wonder. “Simmons.”

“What?” the mechanic asked with a blink.

“Say that again,” he ordered.

“Uh… say what again?” Simmons asked. 

“About never working again if we got that money, say it!” Grif exclaimed. 

“Why? You just said it yourself? What would be the point–”

Raising to his feet, Grif dramatically pointed to where Sarge was steering the ship. “Old man! We’re going after the Tank!” he yelled.

“Of course we are!” Sarge barked. “Where do you think I’ve been stirrin’ us the whole time, dirtbag? Now sit down and shuddup! We’ve got one refueling stop on the way and then we’re going to catch us some bounty hunters.”

Satisfied, Grif plopped back down and folded his arms. “This is gonna be sweet! I’ll never work again!”

Simmons squinted suspiciously at him. “Do you even have a plan?”

“Pfft,” Grif handwaved. “Simmons, just leave it all up to me.”

“Yeah, well,” the mechanic sighed as he settled in his chair. “I always do. And it always fucks me. So. Looking forward to that backfiring soon enough. Again”

The one good thing about Sarge becoming almost immediately distracted by the prospect of the new hunt was that it made things much simpler when Simmons threw mechanical jargon at him to slip “unnecessary” equipment under the radar. 

It was the sort of covert handling of Sarge that Grif would never dream of.

So it was simply coincidence when they fueled up and Simmons restocked his equipment that he was using the back loading dock of the Warthog where neither Sarge nor Grif bothered to replace the broken security camera. And likewise it was coincidence that he saw Donut standing there with some white armored behemoth with a domed head.

“What the…” Simmons began, arms full with the only technically approved supplies.

As he moved closer, he could pick up on more of Donut’s babbling.

“Yeah, so I don’t know if the boys like hitchhikers that much, but personally, I always love trying to fit in another man!” Donut said jovially. His eyes widened and he gave a giant grin as he waved Simmons over. “Oh! There’s Simmons! Simmons! What’s the ship’s policy on hitchhikers!?”

Confused as well as concerned, Simmons doubled his pace to come right up to Donut. “What are you going on about?” he asked before turning to directly face the white armored man. In doing so he nearly jumped out of his skin – nowonder the guy had seemed so tall! 

It might not have stood at full height, but Simmons knew an AI trooper when he saw one.

The machine’s internal workings continued to produce a low, rumbling growl.

“Donut! That’s not a hitchhiker!” Simmons scolded. “It’s not even a person.”

At that, the machine turned its head, the golden orb leering at Simmons as if it didn’t like what he had said. 

Donut blinked cluelessly. “He’s not?”

“No, it’s just one of those self-serving AI that used to be all the rage,” Simmons explained. “Like a Lopez without a ship it’s linked to.”

Still lost, Donut put his hands on his hips. “Then what were they used for?”

“I don’t know. Lots of stuff,” Simmons answered. “No one uses them anymore though. They malfunction and start doing their own thing.”

“Oh,” Donut said, looking back to the robot then to Simmons. “It wanted onboard!”

Alarmed, Simmons sized up the AI then shook his head. “Yeah… That’s not happening. Are you kidding?” He carried his parts onto the ship. “We already have one AI we can’t understand, Donut.”

“Aw,” the rookie moped. “Oh, well. Good luck finding a ride, li’l guy!” 

Simmons waited until Donut boarded then closed the hatch. He shook his head.

Meta units gave him the creeps. 

Chapter Text

They sat in the cockpit, Tucker resigned to the back seat, staring at Tex’s head as she took his pilot’s chair. Church beside him, rubbing at his sparking stump of a limb. Tex glaring straight ahead. Sheila working tirelessly at her dock. 

And then there was Caboose, happily disrupting the silence by tapping his hands against his thighs like they were drums. 

They had escaped the atmosphere of their one-time stop planet minutes ago, but there was still a firm embargo on conversation.

Which Tucker decided to neglect for obvious reasons.

“What the fuck? Are we honestly not going to talk about this?” he demanded.

“Yes,” Tex said without hesitation.

Squinting at his friend, Tucker crossed his arms. “What the fuck ever, Tex. You can’t just drop a bomb like that and not explain a fucking thing,” he snapped back. “You can’t just say I have some magic map to your ridiculously untrue stupid treasure and then give us the silent treatment.”

“Funny, because that’s exactly what’s going to happen on this ship,” Tex decided.

Church gave Tucker a scowl. “Tucker, let’s just shut up and be happy she’s not tearing off my other arm.”

“I did that to a toy once,” Caboose announced. “He was no fun after that. I called him Strongarm. Then he had no name either. And then I forgot him on the moon. Probably because it’s hard to remember someone with no name.”

With a low growl, Tucker pointed at Caboose. “First off, dude? Shut up. I cannot untangle the mess that is your existence any further than I’ve tried already. That’s just fact.” He then pointed to Church. “Second off, Church, you’re so fucking predictable I could time my clock on your whipped ass.” Then he pointed to Tex. “And you? I… am fucking terrified,” he course corrected as he saw Tex slightly turn her head toward her shoulder. “So I’m just going to voice my general grievance with the situation.” Finally, he pointed to their AI. “Finally, Sheila? … Actually we’re cool.”

Sheila’s face brightened and she tilted her head. “Oh, that is wonderful. I shall archive your sentiment, Tucker!”

“I’m touched,” Tucker replied dryly.

Tex let out a hiss and slammed her fist on the dashboard. “For fuck’s sake, Tucker, are you going to bitch the entire time?”

“I don’t know, maybe,” he sniffed. “I was kinda planning on it, to be honest.”

“It’s what he does,” Church agreed, sounding more and more tired every time he interjected. 

Ignoring his continued annoyance with everything, Tucker spared his friend a worried glance. “Dude, that’s so fucked up. You gonna be alright?”

“He’ll live,” Tex hand waved dismissively.

“And so will you, thanks to us, by the way,” Church reminded her. “Hate to point it out to you, Tex, but you kind of owe us.”

Blinking, Tucker thought over the chaos that had happened not thirty minutes before and let out a small collection of awe. “Holy shit, we did totally save you. And still haven’t like turned you in or anything for that reward money the Warthog guys were talking about. That’s huge!”

Church frowned. “Okay, Tucker, let’s not embellish too much here or we’ll over play our hand,” he warned.

“I did that once in Go Fish,” Caboose informed them. “It doesn’t help find the Old Lady card.”

“Holy shit, Caboose, shut up,” Church groaned.

“No, he’s right,” Tex sighed.

Tucker stared, mortified. “Caboose?”

Tex shook her head. “What? No! Of course not, Caboose. Everything he says is white noise to me right now. I mean you. You’re right, Tucker. I owe you,” she agreed. But her scowl deepened. “I hate owing people.”

Looking to each other and back, Church and Tucker settled in their seats.

“Uh… Damn straight, you owe us,” Church replied. 

“Right. What he said,” Tucker answered. “So… maybe pay us back by telling me what the fuck you meant by me having a map I know nothing about?”

For a moment, Tex actually opened her mouth to begin answering when Church waved his remaining arm firmly. 

“Wait wait! No, don’t fucking waste this opportunity for us, Tucker!” Church cried out. “Use your brain, man, she wants whatever is at the other end of this so-called map you have. She has to tell you eventually. So let’s just do some self-serving favors for her to pay us back for real first.”

Tucker crossed his arms and huffed. “Fuck. You are actually making sense for once. I hate it.”

Looking aggravated at the loophole herself, Tex sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll pay you back another way,” she huffed. “What do you want?”

As Tucker opened his mouth to respond to the golden opportunity, Church stood up and smacked the dashboard right beside Tex. It brought up Vic’s proposed bounty immediately.

Tex stared at the Freelancer bounty call. 

“One of your former associates, Agent Maine, apparently is wanted by Freelancer. Same as you,” Church announced. “And Vic stuck us with the assignment, so–”

“That’s not happening,” Tex replied before turning off the screen.

“You owe us!” Church cried out, bringing the screen back online and pointing to the millions the bounty was worth. “Like, I was just going to gladly ignore this assignment for the rest of my life, but since you’re here and you’re the best and you just happen to owe us–”

“Not doing it, Church, it’s too risky,” she said with a firm glare his way. “However, if you just want me to do your job for you and get you some money on the way to our next destination, I can do that.”

Thinking about going against a Freelancer was enough to make Tucker truly consider Tex’s offer. But Church didn’t look nearly as convinced.

Tucker hated their stubborn Captain sometimes.

“What bounty can compare to passing up this?” Church demanded.

“A smaller bounty plus fixing your junky arm? How about that?” Tex asked, tossing her head to the side. “That good enough for you?” she asked. 

Church stared before huffing and glaring at his sparking limb. Or lack thereof. 

“Just take it, Church,” Tucker groaned. “Unless you want Caboose to fix your arm.”

Caboose lit up, bouncing in his seat. “Oh! Oh, yes! Church! Let me! Please I want to so bad! I will give you a machine gun arm! And instead of bullets it will shoot happiness into everyone!”

Almost immediately, Church turned to Tex. “I accept.”

Church could see the relief wash over Tex as Caboose followed them into the back, as if she had been hoping to avoid actual one-on-one time with him. 

He supposed some things never changed at the end of the day. 

“Caboose, you don’t need to be here,” Church snapped off at the lumbering mechanic. 

“No, let him stay,” Tex responded a breath too quickly as she shoved a chair behind his legs and forced Church to sit in it. “Someone needs to know how to fix you up once I leave you all in my dust again.”

“Oh, so you’re planning on leaving us behind this time,” Church grouched as he plopped down and watched her steadily. “Not just going to bail after everyoneexcept me figures out about one of your one night stands.”

Tex turned and raised a brow to him, her fingers tapping on the blow torch. “Oh, sorry, Church. Did you want me to air out all the shit you’ve done in the past, too? I forgot my list. Let me just get it–”

“Eh, it’s fine,” Church sputtered out. 

“Right, it makes it easier when you can just remember how shitty I am and not how shitty you are,” she hummed to herself as she dug through the toolbox. “Where’s your spare parts?”

“Lower cabinet, you know the combo already for the lock,” he grumped. 

From the short distance, Caboose bounced back and forth on the balls of his feet. He had been oddly quiet, waiting for an opening before delivering, “Were you two in love?” he asked. There was practically a spark to his eyes at the notion.

“Shut up,” both Church and Tex snapped at once before glaring at each other. 

“Have you guys known each other a long time?” Caboose asked. 

“Yes,” Church answered at the same time Tex said, “No.”

Church gritted his teeth and watched as Tex threw his spare arm onto the table. It was one of the cheaper ones, not even a synthetic cover, so he was going to be baring his parts to the world until they could get some income and afford a new one. 

Fantastic. 

“So you’re still on about that?” he demanded.

Tex dropped into the seat beside Church and began to work a wrench into the socket of his missing limb, making Church jump a bit at the pain of it. 

“You think I shouldn’t be?” she demanded. “You know, Church, I’m curious. Just how long do you think it should take for me to move on from it?”

“Shorter than now?” he replied, confused. 

“You’re unbelievable,” she snapped as she ripped out one of the hanging wires and made Church yowl.

“I’m confused,” Caboose informed them.

“Tex and I had an accident a few years ago,” Church clarified, looking at Caboose. “I remember more than she does. And she’s never going to forgive me for it.”

“You’re so melodramatic,” she growled. “I’m never going to forgive you for being an utter asshole about it. And for not giving two shits about how I feel with it all. That’s the problem, Mister Memory.”

“I’m the melodramatic one? Tex, you’re mad at me because I didn’t have permanent brain damage,” he reminded her. “And by the way, I would like to know just what the fuck is going on with this nutso treasure hunt thing. As much money as you make with bounties I know it can’t just be about the treasures.”

She kept quiet as she slowly worked on his repairs. But her eyes darted over to Caboose. “Hey, mechanic-guy,” she called out. “Yeah, you. You ever heard of ley lines?” 

At that, Church couldn’t help but roll his eyes so hard he was at risk of damaging them as well. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. I knew it was something like this again. Tex!”

“I know about them!” Caboose declared. “Inside the line is two points. Outside the line is three points. You don’t bounce the ball outside the lines. Then the cops in black and white get angry and blow whistles. Nobody likes that part.”

“No,” Tex corrected with no amusement whatsoever. “Ley lines are lines that stretch across space, across worlds – they connect everything on a harmonious level. Spiritual. All that shit. And if you cross to where they intersect, you can use their converging energies to fulfill unexpected, and powerful, plans.”

“They’re also full of shit,” Church snapped. “Seriously, Tex. I cannot believe you are still on about this–” He felt an electric shock of pain throughout his left side and let out another yelp. Then he glared at Tex. “You’re a sadistic motherfucker.”

“And I keep telling you that these sorts of things are based on something,” Tex snapped. “I’m not looking for the ley lines. Not really. I’m looking for what the aliens would have built at the ley lines in hopes of using them.”

Caboose scratched his head. “Don’t things move in space?”

“Yes, Caboose, good job! They do move in space,” Church said in his best patronizing tone. He then looked Tex over. “See, even Caboose has enough common sense to poke holes into the ley line idea.”

There was an angry line drawn across Tex’s face as she shoved Church back to a sitting position and moved away to the toolbox again. She was pissed at him.

“Tex, they can’t bring your memory back,” he groaned. “You were fine with that for so long? What the fuck changed overnight?” 

“It’s not about the memories, Church,” she informed him as she grabbed his arm. “It’s about everything else. Hold up on whatever stupid things you’re about to say. You know this hurts like a mother.”

Paying her warning no mind, Church just scowled and followed her gaze. “Everything else? What the fuck does that mean?”

She stared at him dully before immediately snapping his arm in place and immediately electrifying all the nerve endings in his nub.

The scream Church released was far from a dignified one.

To get to the outer limits where Tex seemed determined to take them, there was a mandatory customs check. 

Being from the outer limits of colonization like he was, Tucker could never quite figure out what exactly it was the government thought they were keeping from getting in or out of the outer colonies. He lived there. There was shit all to get or do. Save for a few colonies like the one he was from that were fairly evenly distributed between human and the various alien collectives. 

Sometimes you got drunk and ended up with tattoos your friends claimed were some kind of secret space mumbo jumbo treasure map. That was about all that happened. As they halted at the closest station, Tucker groaned and stretched and basically put off having to talk to the customs agent as much as he could before he saw Caboose wandering around outside the ship, too.

“Perfect!” he cheered, letting go of his arm and racing over to where Caboose was standing. “Caboose! Buddy! Glad you’re out here.” 

Caboose turned a suspicious eye toward Tucker and shook his head. “No you’re not. You’re never happy I’m on the ship. See, Tucker, people think I’m not listening but I listen. You say mean things,” Caboose concluded.

“You’re right, way to catch me in a lie,” Tucker responded without hesitation. “But I am glad to have you here right now because you’re going to have your first official job as a part of the Tank’s crew!”

Curiosity piqued, Caboose shifted his feet. “I am!?”

“Yeah! Of course you are!” Tucker said, grabbing the mechanic’s arm and leading him toward the customs window. “I’m going to give you Sheila’s credit clearance, our ship manifest, and some money to give this nice, awesome customs agent and then you get to be responsible for letting us leave without any further hitches! Isn’t that great?”

“Hmm,” Caboose hummed in response. 

“Oh, what?” Tucker demanded, already getting irritated that he wasn’t completely done with the issue. 

"I don’t know,” Caboose continued. “I think you’re getting out of doing work because now you’re scared your stupid-face is going to make more aliens angry.” He looked Tucker suspiciously over. “Also you never said you did like me and I was wrong.”

“Well, maybe I didn’t feel like lying,” Tucker replied only for Caboose to start to turn back for the ship. “Wait wait! Okay, fine, Caboose. Please. I’ll… I don’t know. I’ll tell Church how awesome you are. And Sheila, too. You know they both take my every word seriously.”

When Caboose began to hum again, Tucker wanted to pull out his hair. 

“Jesus christ, Caboose, what do you want?” he demanded. 

“A cupcake,” Caboose responded too quickly to have not been exactly what was intended all along.

“Really?” Tucker asked flatly before it looked like the mechanic was beginning to turn away again. “Okay okay! Fine! You’ll get a cupcake. I will personally find you a cupcake and pay you back if you do this.”

“Yes!” Caboose cheered before grabbing the drives from Tucker’s hand. “Score. Stupid Tucker. Now he owes me a cupcake.”

Tucker narrowed his eyes and put his hands on his hips, watching as Caboose skipped toward the custom’s window. “Yeah, I am standing right here! Jackass. What is with this crew and its attraction to assholes?”

Shaking his head, Tucker turned back around to get to the Tank only to run smack into the broad chest of someone right behind him. Which was odd because Tucker could have sworn he never heard anyone behind him in the first place. 

“Ow! What the fuck?” he cried out, rubbing his face as he stepped back a few steps. 

Far enough away that he could get a good look at who he had run into, Tucker blinked in surprise. He had to crane his neck back in order to get a full view of the giant who he had ran face first into. 

Doing a double take, Tucker realized that the towering creature was actually just a Meta unit and let out an easy breath at his own jumpiness. 

“Man, I’m too nervous for my own good lately,” Tucker breathed to himself before glancing back to the faceless gaze of the droid. 

If he didn’t know any better he would have thought that the thing was staring at him. Which, of course, it wouldn’t be. Unlike aliens, robots had no reason to take any interest in Tucker’s face. 

“What do you want?” Tucker demanded after a solid moment of staring between them. He cocked his head to the side. “And why are you sneaking up on people? Don’t you have a job assigned to you or something? Lazy robot. Go do your job! Whatever it is. I mean, that’s why we make you things–”

Without any warning, a beam of red light shot out from the bot and started at Tucker’s chest before beginning to move up his body. 

Tucker blinked a few times before realizing he was being scanned and immediately began waving his arms around erratically and walking away from the Meta. 

“Dude, what the fuck? Who gave you permission to scan me?” he demanded, just as the domed head of the Meta read out ERROR and the beam stopped. “Better fucking believe Error. Your face is an error. Heh. Literally.”

Before Tucker could get any further, the Meta unit grabbed his arm with a vice grip and yanked him back. Tucker released an undignified yelp in the process.

“Hey! Let go of me!” Tucker demanded, pulling back on his arm just as the Meta began to scan again. “Dude! Fucking stop it I told you no already!” 

While the robot paid no mind to Tucker’s demands, in the not-so-far distance, the bounty hunter could hear Caboose’s distinct voice. 

“Oh, yeah. That’s Tucker. The guy I was telling you about. He owes me a cupcake.”

Turning the best he could in the Meta’s grip, Tucker looked over his shoulder and shouted, “Caboose! Fucking help me! This robot won’t let me go!”

The words had left his mouth before he could process the sight before him of the ship mechanic standing beside the tall, angry looking alien that if Tucker didn’t know better seemed to be the bastard alien from before. 

“Blargh!” the alien snarled.

“Oh, son of a bitch!” Tucker cried out. “Caboose!” 

“Hey, Tucker!” Caboose waved. “This is Crunchbite! Crunchbite! Can you say hello to Tucker and… Hey! Tucker! You didn’t tell me you had a new friend! I’m going to tell Church!” 

“Caboose!” Tucker growled just before screaming as the Sangheili lunged toward him. 

He expected to be torn apart, though not handily to expose circuits and wires like Church, but Tucker was surprised when instead the tackle led to the Meta letting go. 

Without the robot holding him up, Tucker fell flat on his ass, watching in bewilderment as the two began duking it out, presumably over this map Tex still hadn’t told them about. He blinked, a little shellshocked as the behemoths snarled and growled at each other, throwing punches that sounded like they hurt like hell.

Caboose dropped to his knees beside Tucker. 

“Caboose!” Tucker yelled again.

“Yes, hello,” Caboose responded with an oblivious blink.

“Dude! Get to the Tank! Fucking now!” Tucker ordered as he scrambled to his feet. 

He took the first couple of steps to following his own orders before realizing Caboose was still kneeling on the ground. He groaned and backpedaled, grabbing Caboose’s wrist. 

"Move your ass! For fuck’s sake!” Tucker snapped as he drug Caboose along.

“Okay!” Caboose said, actually bothering to smack the door close button behind them as they entered the Tank. He followed Tucker even after the first mate let go of his hand.

Tucker booked it to the cockpit and slid into his seat. 

“Sheila! We’re clear!” he yelled. “Take off take off take off!”

The AI turned around and blinked curiously at the orders. “So soon? Should we not allow the captain to rest some before–”

“Um, yeah, Sheila. I don’t think we have time,” Caboose agreed with Tucker just as there was a clanging from outside the ship.

Sheila tilted her head back before ultimately nodding and looking forward. “Very well! Everyone prepare for takeoff!”

Flinging his own seatbelt on, Tucker glanced to Caboose. “Strap in, Caboose! You don’t want to be Church, do you?”

“Oh, right,” Caboose responded, sitting back and doing just that. He chuckled. “That was funny.”

“Heh, hell yeah it was!” Tucker agreed. 

He wasn’t the least bit surprised when Tex all but bust down the cockpit door to glare at them. 

“What the fuck is going on!?” the bounty hunter extraordinaire demanded.

“We’ll tell you,” Tucker promised as Sheila took off. “But you had better start telling me what the fuck everyone wants with my tattoos!”

Chapter Text

Grif had been saddled with the job of pilot since the moment it was apparent that Sarge thought it was even possible to stick the Warthog in gear. The phrase hadn’t made sense in at least a century and the fact that their commander used it all brought about several questions all at once.

Questions Grif was not keen on ever investing energy into answering. But still.Questions.

The sort of thing that would normally take one’s mind off the fact that they were trailing a fellow group of bounty hunters so that they could get beat up by one of the best bounty hunters around if things didn’t go perfectly. Or at least take his mind off the fact that Donut was all but breathing in his ear. 

“Oh, man, this is going to be awesome!” Donut all but squealed right into Grif’s left side.

“For fuck’s sake, I’m parking the fucking Warthog, Donut!” he cried out. “You know what’s not awesome? Having to try and concentrate with you breathing down my neck!”

“But is my breath at least fresh and minty?” Donut asked.

“Shut the fuck up,” Grif hissed as they moved forward. His fingers tapped against the steering column before he shut his eyes and shook his head. “Yeah. Your breath is fine.”

“Scooooore!” Donut called out with an excited throw of his arms into the air. 

Sitting lower in his seat, Grif gritted his teeth and thought out all the exaggerated ways that he could put Donut back in his place. There were several accidents that could happen to a hapless rookie on a ship as old and uncared for as their personal rust bucket. He just had to be clever enough to discern one…

“So,” Simmons said awkwardly from the back row of the cockpit. He rubbed nervously at the back of his neck. “Does it strike anyone else as strange that the Tank has stopped so many times.”

“No,” echoed across the cockpit, even from the steadfast Lopez.

Simmons sighed and pinched at the bridge of his nose. “I’m trying to be logical here, guys.”

“Well, that duty wasn’t in the job description I gave to you,” Sarge huffed, crossing his arms testily in his seat. “I think the real problem here is that you’re taking on too many inconsequential duties, Simmons! My recommendation: pile them on Grif’s plate. Then, when they get done, we’ll all join together in despising Grif for his incompetence. Just as I always meant for us to.”

Grif stared ahead and sighed tiredly.

“Okay, guy, I’m being serious,” Simmons pleaded. “Just hear me out.”

“Isn’t being logical and being serious pretty much the same thing?” Donut interrupted as he tapped on his lips. “Hey, Sarge! I don’t think those are different jobs. Simmons is padding out his resume!”

“I’m not–” Simmons sputtered in that way that got a snicker out of Grif despite himself. “Okay, everyone listen! This map thing that Grif and I read about, the number of trips the Blues have been making. I think they’re preparing for a deep space mission. And if that’s the case, they’ve been gathering supplies this whole time while we’ve not been getting prepared at all. If we keep following them without getting supplies of our own? We’ll end up stranding ourselves in pursuit!”

For a moment, Grif considered the idea before turning enough to glare at Simmons. “Nuh uh. That only happens in movies!”

“Only because so far no one’s been dumb enough to do it in real life, jackass!” Simmons barked back.

“It’s all hogwash!” Sarge declared.

Simmons swiveled his chair wildly to face Sarge. “But, Sir–”

“This concern is completely irrelevant to our mission, Simmons!” Sarge promised. “Because we will simply capture the bountied bounty hunter, taketheir supplies, and be on our way back!”

"That actually doesn’t address my concerns at all,” Simmons argued uselessly.

“I like it, Sarge!” Donut kissed up.

“Okay, everyone shut up, I’m parking us,” Grif informed them.

“En realidad todavía no disponemos de espacio libre,” Lopez informed them all, leaning closer toward the end of his dock toward a bright red, flashing exclamation point – first upright, then inverted, then back. “Parecen estar alerta barcos que se mantenga alejado. En caso de ser peligroso.”

Grif scratched at his stubble for a moment before tilting his head. “What?”

“I can speak a little Spanish!” Donut informed them, looking toward Lopez. “It looks like he’s telling us that there’s a party at the port waiting for us! Did any of you enter a prize?”

“¿Qué? No. No hablar por mí. No sabes lo que estás hablando,” Lopez spat back while Grif began to pull forward. “Madre de Dios.”

Ignoring the AI as well as Donut, Grif leaned forward and squinted at the docks below. He blinked a few times. 

“Hey, I don’t see the Tank,” Grif informed them. “And more than that… Hey. Hey, Simmons. Come here a sec.”

With a low sigh of aggravation, Simmons leaned forward over Grif’s shoulder and looked toward the docks as well. His irritation dropped fairly quickly and he straightened up. “What the hell is that? Is that…”

“A UFC match between one of the alien fellers and an old Meta unit!” Sarge cried out excitedly. “Ah, this reminds me of the days. We used to have cage matches all the time between species and robots and good ol’ members of the corps. Like yours truly.”

“Wow! Really?” Donut asked with a bounce in his stance.

Grif snorted. “Wrestling’s fake.”

Simmons pressed forward so lose to the glass it began to bend his nose. “Hey. There’s another one coming up – that looks like a person.”

Immediately, all of their crew leaned forward and watched, sure enough, as some darker figure entered the fray. 

There was a huge fight, lasers firing off between the three, snarls and roars loud enough that they could hear it even from their ship’s platform.

Then, without warning, the dark figure in a full mask and armor turned and looked directly at them. It waved at them erratically, attempting to get their attention for some reason. Everyone in the Warthog just stared back.

“Huh,” Donut vocalized. “Wonder what he wants.”

No sooner had the words left the rookie’s mouth than the fight escalated behind the dark figure and a fireball came bellowing through the platforms.

The dark armored figure turned and saw the burst of fire before racing toward the Warthog. He disappeared from their vision before they heard a loud thud against the side of their hull. 

Grif had never wanted popcorn more in his life. 

“Sarge! What do we do!?” Simmons cried out. He pointed toward the shipyard again to get everyone’s attention. “The whole station is about to collapse!”

“We take off, Simmons,” Sarge ordered, nodding to Grif. 

“Hey, for once we can agree,” Grif said, pulling out the landing dock almost immediately. 

“What about the guy outside?” Donut asked. 

“He either gets off or falls off, not our concern, Donut,” Sarge said with a hefty nod to himself. “Either way, no need to worry about ourselves. No one can get into the Warthog without explicit access–”

They all glanced toward the door in takeoff as it lit up green and opened.

While the others screamed, Grif shook his head. 

“Okay, one of these days one of us will put our foot in our mouths and rather than be terrifying and possibly painful, it’s going to be hilarious,” Grif growled just as the dark armored man stepped in, slammed the hull door behind him.

Up close they could see the heavy movement of his body as he breathed, the yellow tinges of his scraped up armor, and the general tenseness about his person. 

Which made it all the more terrifying when he turned his masked face their way.

“Who the hell are you! And how did you get on my ship!” Sarge demanded. 

“I’m Agent Washington,” the man breathed, reaching up and removing his mask, further easing that he wasn’t an alien or android beneath. “I’m from the Freelancers. You still have your vehicle registered under the Freelancer Bounty Hunters Union which gives me keypad access and the right to commandeer this ship. Which I’m doing right now.”

“You’re commandeering the Warthog?” Grif asked skeptically. “Of all shitty ships–”

“I don’t know if you noticed out there, but I didn’t have the pick of the mill,” the bounty hunter hissed. “And beyond that, I’m licensed whereas my information tells me,” he said, looking down to a palmpad. “You are three payments behind on your Union dues.”

“Then you can’t commandeer our ship!” Sarge tried to argue.

“Oh, no, it’s still registered,” he informed them. “You registered this ship for life. But… for reasons completely beyond me you didn’t sign yourself up for the renewal program.”

Angrily, Grif and Simmons glared at Sarge who seemed to have no reaction at all.

“Regardless, you’re commandeered, and by the orders of Freelancer I amordering you to follow these coordinates,” Washington continued, pulling something onto his palm pad and sending it their way. 

Grif grabbed the pad and looked at it first as the others crowded around. His brows knitted together. “You’re… cashing in a bounty on another Freelancer? That’s not Agent Texas?”

“I’m going after Agent Maine,” Washington said as he walked toward the seats only to go rigid. He looked at them suspiciously. “What do you mean Agent Texas?”

The Warthog’s crew went silent until Simmons lowered his head and sighed. “Goddammit, Grif.”

There were few things that Simmons trusted less than the double team of Sarge and Donut checking the Bounty Hunters Handbook for loopholes. A job thatshould have been Simmons’ but it seemed like the only one who cared aboutthat particular detail was Simmons himself. 

But Simmons was needed to show their strange guest/captor the engine room to his satisfaction, and Grif couldn’t because he was Grif and also because Lopez wasn’t enough to steer the Warthog for the Freelancer’s satisfaction.

“I don’t trust AI,” Washington had said clearly and snidely enough that it had ended most of their protests. 

Not Sarge’s, but nothing ended Sarge’s protests at the end of the day.

Washington inspected the engine room, eyes at a constant squint and lip continuously curling as he tested the sturdiness of pipes and swiped his finger down terminals for the level of grime. 

“If I didn’t know any better,” Simmons said slowly, crossing his arms, “I’d say you didn’t like our home very much.”

“Your home is a floating piece of garbage,” Washington said, shaking his head. “I have no idea how you get this thing in the air. Let alone between planets.”

Simmons rubbed at his neck. “Well, I guess it’s thanks to my mechanical skills and repairs.”

“The repairs are the problem,” he said coldly. “If I were you, I wouldn’t take too much credit for them.”

“Well, that just sounds rude,” Simmons muttered in hushed tones. 

Washington turned and stared at Simmons intently. It was enough to get a squeak out of the mechanic and force him to move back away from the Freelancer. 

“I’ll be honest,” Washington said with a grunt. “I wanted to check the engines of this antique, but I also needed to get you away from the rest of your crew.”

Immediately on edge, Simmons backed up until he knocked over half of the equipment from his workbench. 

Washington stared at him like he had just turned into a Mgalekgolo before his eyes. “What? What’s wrong with you?”

“That’s something a serial killer says after he’s lured in a prey!” Simmons squeaked.

Brows furrowing, Wash tilted his head. “What the– No. I’m not going to kill you or… whatever you think in that overreactive brain of yours. I just wanted to get some straight answers out of you without the rest of your squad hanging over head. You seemed sensible.”

Surprised, and slightly flattered, Simmons pointed at his chest. “Who? Me? Sensible? Really?”

“By comparison,” Washington clarified. 

“Oh, well, that’s definitely the case,” Simmons agreed. “So… Scary Freelancer Dude, what exactly do you need to know?”

“You all were commissioned by Freelancer Command a bounty on Agent Texas?” he asked seriously. “So that’s why you’re tracking this other ship, they’re harboring her?”

Simmons steepled his fingers. “Not… exactly. We found out about her having a bounty on accident. Donut actually figured it out.”

“You must be somewhat decent bounty hunters to want to take on one of Freelancer’s best private operatives,” Washington decided, putting a hand to his chin. “Most teams would consider that a suicide mission.”

“Well… we have some additional reasons,” Simmons acknowledged. Immediately, however, he knew that explaining the whole thing about treasureand tattoo maps according to google  probably would not sit well with the very,very serious Freelancer he was locked alone with in the engine room. Instead he went with, “We kind of have a history with that team anyway. They’re losers but they have an amazing ship. Not that we’re jealous or anything…”

Looking back at Simmons seriously, Washington tilted his head. “What ship?”

"The Tank,” Simmons replied.

“God damn it, I should have known this would all come back around!” Wash hissed. He brushed past Simmons on an angry stomp toward the ladder. “We need to tell your captain–”

“Captains,” Simmons stressed. “It’s a long story, but believe me, if you don’t say it plural then the same argument I’ve heard every day for about three years now will come back up and it’s not worth it.”

“It doesn’t matter!” Washington snapped. “Freelancer loves to give their agents competition. Says it keeps our skills sharpened. Really it’s just to remind us that we’re expendable and only as good as the job we do. I’ve got a guy who issupposed to help me out as a favor and give my bounties to the worst competition possible so I can concentrate on stopping Maine without juggling Bounty Hunter politics on top of it all.”

Simmons scratched at his head curiously. “Is that guy Vic?” 

Washington paused his ascent before taking a deep breath. “Goddammit.You’re one of the teams, aren’t you?”

“I didn’t think so until you said it like that. Now I’m starting to be a little offended,” Simmons said with a droop of his shoulders. “Worst teams? Really–”

“It doesn’t matter,” Wash hissed. “If Tex is on that ship, I’ve got more than just Maine to worry about.” He glared at Simmons. “And that means, as long as I have your ship commandeered, so do you.”

“Yeah, I’m likening this commandeering thing more and more to hostage situation the further we go,” Simmons replied dryly.

“Good, then it won’t surprise you if you all annoy me into killing you and just taking the ship solo,” Washington said before climbing the rest of the way.

“What the fuck!? Was that supposed to be a joke!?” Simmons cried out, voice cracking. 

Washington didn’t say one way or the other and Simmons’ nerves exploded into a yet unseen frenzy of emotions. 

“Fuck!” he groaned. “This whole trip keeps getting worse!”