Work Text:
Crosshair’s breath caught when the operative’s helmet came off in his grip. Everything seemed to still as they froze in their stances, even the world’s very rotation at the whims of what happened on this pitted and half-destroyed platform.
No. No, no.
This was impossible. How?
Crosshair’s panting from the fight renewed, his heart pumping hard, adrenaline still shooting like cold-hot needles through his system. And his stomach clenched, feeling like it might fall right out of him. The ruined durasteel platform seemed to drop out from beneath him from where he crouched; the muggy, smoky, night air was some other man’s air; the flames and explosions nothing but a background that was fading away like a nearly-forgotten dream. Or perhaps the dream was before him.
Crosshair tried to speak.
His breath caught.
When he did speak he realized it was with a guttural sob, the name wrenched out from his twisted insides, injected with countless days and moments of grief, with head-spinning confusion, and the deepest horror born right in the bowels of this cursed mountain: “Tech.”
The operative—Tech—had had his face set in a grimace, a hatred of some sort. At this name—his name—his features softened. No longer was he looking at Crosshair like he was planning best how to defeat him. His eyes were wide, vulnerable.
Then he frowned, brows scrunching together.
“Why… Why would you say that? What does it mean?”
Shaking, wanting to look for his family amidst the screams and blood and fire coming back to him, but knowing he couldn’t take his eyes off of the man in front of him, Crosshair stayed, he held his ground. Perhaps he couldn’t even move as it was, or look elsewhere. What if he blinked and Tech was gone? His eyes burned without the safety of his helmet on.
“That’s…” He licked his dry lips, but to no avail. “That’s your name,” Crosshair got out.
Horror still clenched his gut. Horror from those months they’d thought him dead, from… from everything. They’d failed him.
They’d failed him.
Crosshair couldn’t fail him now.
Tech was missing his left eye, a cybernetic one in place of his real one, scars ripping furrows across the left side of his face.
Crosshair looked him over, knowing these were surely not the only injuries he’d sustained from his fall.
Staring across from him was suffering in its deepest form, twin to his own, perhaps.
I did this.
“I… I don’t have a name.”
Crosshair somehow managed to shuffle closer. What few pieces were left of his heart broke when Tech moved back, moved away from him. His head was down now, and he was clearly thinking hard.
“Yes, you do. You do. Your name is Tech. I’m… I’m your brother. Crosshair.”
“I—”
Crosshair was on his knees, begging, “Please. Please, just… just listen to me. You’re a clone, a defective clone, made on Kamino, part of Clone Force 99, the Bad Batch. Your number is CT-9902, and your name—your name—is Tech. You chose it because you’re smart—smarter than anyone—you’re good with technology, with everything you put your mind to.”
“No. No, no. I’m CX-2.”
“You love your datapad (we could barely get your head out of it some days), you love languages, you record everything even when it annoys the ever-living shab out of us, you love to talk about the weirdest creatures out there, your favorite color is dark blue because it makes you think of the blue in clear night skies, the blue between the stars, pistols are your favorite type of blaster, you love to pull the craziest stunts while flying, you… you have a family: me, Hunter, Wrecker, Echo, Omega. And there’s someone waiting for you. Phee? You told her all about my sparkling personality, you—you told her about me even though I was still with the Empire. Somehow I still mattered to you then. And you matter to me… to us.”
Tech was sounding out each of the names Crosshair had spoken, as if trying to see if anything felt familiar, like trying to put stars back in a sky full of holes.
“Please, you have to believe me.”
Tech stilled, and so did Crosshair.
When Tech looked up there was a grim determination, something burning in his right eye, though tears tracked down his cheeks, running in rivulets through his scars.
The hot air was like mud, leaving Crosshair barely able to move. All he could do was watch as Tech moved into the perfect stance to level his blaster at him: kneeling on one leg, torso perfectly straight, sights lined up. Crosshair had faced down the barrels of many blasters, even of tanks, but nothing frightened him more than this one.
“I have to assume this is either some tactic to stall for time, to try and control me, or… you’ve lost your mind.”
Crosshair ducked and rolled. Tech fired.
Crosshair knew he had to end this fight quickly. Tech would kill him.
With a cry he launched himself at Tech. He ended up on top of him, pushing hard against his rifle so he couldn’t use it.
“You’re my brother,” Crosshair insisted.
Tech fired, blast going sideways, and the recoil did its job, knocking Crosshair off balance.
“I am no one!” he cried, whacking Crosshair in the temple with his rifle.
Crosshair grunted. His world spun, nearly going black. Before he could gather himself, Tech was crashing into him, getting him onto his back. The butt of Tech’s rifle smashed against his chest, and he coughed, the air driven out of him.
“I have no one!” he insisted. “No family, no brothers, nothing but what Dr. Hemlock has given me.”
Every few words were punctuated with a blow.
Crosshair grabbed Tech’s arm, and he tried to get a knee under him, but Tech’s grip was too strong.
“Not… true,” Crosshair forced out.
Tech punched him.
He once again fought to stay conscious.
Then Tech grabbed his armor, lifting him up to snarl in his face, “Then what do I have?”
“You have me.”
Tech dropped him, and actually got up. Crosshair tried to lift himself up, but his head was spinning and pounding, his face throbbing and swelling from multiple blows. Blood was hot and wet on his face.
Tech stood, rifle leveled at him. Crosshair wondered if this would be the last thing he ever saw, and he hoped it wouldn’t. Not because he didn’t want to die (of course he didn’t), but because this would mean he had failed. Tech, who had apparently been a captive of the Empire this entire time, would remain so, their brother perhaps lost to them forever.
Crosshair wanted to rest his head back down in defeat, but the least he owed Tech was to stare his own death, his own failure, right in the eye.
“No, I don’t.”
A gunship laser hit a meter from Tech’s left. Maybe it was targeting Tech, maybe Crosshair, maybe it was nothing but an accident. The reason didn’t matter. It had happened.
Crosshair thought maybe he screamed as he watched Tech get thrown off his feet, tumbling through the air in a painful dance of twisted limbs. A human body was not meant to withstand that; even the force of the blast itself was surely too much to withstand. Fire erupted near him, debris rained down in squealing and crashing metal. The blast was deafening, and Crosshair shoved himself up onto his hands and knees. He’d lost sight of Tech and where he’d landed through all the fire.
Struggling to catch his breath, Crosshair tried to stand. The world dropped out beneath him.
He came to on his stomach, not sure what he was looking at, confused as to why he hurt so much. Sound was filtering back into him.
He lifted up his head, exploring his surroundings. Darkness and flames, durasteel, ruin.
Where am I?
It came back to him, and he burst into action, crawling, and scrambling across the platform.
Tech. Have to find Tech.
Crosshair saw his legs sticking out from under debris. He rushed over, and groaned as he moved the ripped up metal off of him, muscles straining.
Blood. Check for any blood, injuries.
A pipe was pinning Tech’s left leg, perhaps crushing it. Crosshair tried in vain to move it. It only budged a few centimeters, if that.
He examined Tech’s torso, his face, feeling him over.
He couldn’t find anything serious, but he knew something could be wrong internally that he couldn’t see.
Tech coughed, blinking his eyes open. Crosshair held his head in one hand, and was surprised to feel something harder than bone at the back of his head. A metal plate? Some kind of implant?
Oh, Tech.
Tech coughed, and Crosshair held him close.
Usually comforting words weren’t his style, but they spilled out of his mouth now like what he imagined a prayer might be, “You’re okay, you’re okay. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
Tech reached up with a shaking hand and touched Crosshair’s face, following the lines of his tattoo.
“Crosshair?”
Crosshair would have broken out into a grin if not for the dire situation. Had he hit his head, knocking some memory loose?
“Yes, yes, it’s me.”
Kriff, he was crying again. He sniffled, and tried to hold in a sob.
Tech laughed, maybe the first and only laugh Tantiss would ever know. Some of its darkness crept away.
“You’ve gotten so talkative,” Tech observed.
“Well, I had to fill in for you, didn’t I? Now, are you okay? What hurts? Tell me—your leg?”
Tech looked down.
“That one isn’t real anyway. Not anymore.”
“I’m… sorry” was all he could say, no words in any language across the galaxy able to encompass the devastation wrought on their family.
“For what? You… didn’t lock me in here, you didn’t make me into this.” His voice was dark with hatred and shame.
“But I heard what happened. You tried to rescue me. You fell.”
“It was… my choice. My choice.”
“I got out,” Crosshair informed him, words practically punched right out of him. “Omega—s-she got me out. She finished your mission.”
Tech had a wide grin on his face that Crosshair could half-attribute to a possible concussion (something they both currently shared), but the rest was surely at Omega’s success.
“How about I get you out this time?”
Tech’s lips pulled together, chest heaving on a sharp inhale. “Crosshair.”
Fire raged around them, Crosshair and Tech starting to cough from all the smoke.
Crosshair tried to shove the large pipe aside, but to make matters worse, the other end was angled against what remained of the wall in such a way that it was stuck.
Tech sat up, mouth going a bit green around the edges, yet he tried to help.
“It is of no use. I require a blaster,” Tech said.
Crosshair paused.
“Don’t you trust me?”
Crosshair met Tech’s eyes, and he said, “Following your previous line of thinking, I have to work under the assumption that you’re pretending to know me so I can help you survive. Without me you’d die. I’m sorry, but I have to consider every odd.”
“I understand.”
Crosshair grabbed Tech’s rifle since he had lost his own, feeling odd holding it, feeling odd that Tech could even now use a rifle with such proficiency.
He shook that from his mind.
“What do I do?” he asked.
Tech directed him where to shoot—not at the pipe, but his leg. Crosshair hesitated, part of his brain not up to speed with the fact that this was a mechno-leg he was going to be firing at, and not a flesh one.
Crosshair took aim.
His right hand trembled.
Oh, please, no.
“Crosshair? Crosshair, what’s wrong?”
“I… I can’t do it.”
“You have perfect aim. You can—”
“No, I don’t!” he cried, ducking his head to hide his face. “That’s the problem, I don’t. Not anymore.” Crosshair was crying in fitful sobs punctuated by coughs. His shoulders slumped. “I can’t do this. I can’t do this.”
“Fine, I do not really care whether you possess perfect aim or not. We need to get out of here.” Tech’s voice lost its composure. “Please, I… I have to get out.”
“You’re asking the wrong soldier.”
To Crosshair’s surprise Tech let out a frustrated growl. “For once you need to not be so severe and unyielding with yourself. The calculated odds are that you will hit my leg more times than not. This is the right plan. I believe in you.”
“Since when do you have belief?” Crosshair scoffed.
“Clearly, you have not been paying attention. I… I believe in my family,” he said, the words slow like he was surprised to find them true, surprised his mind was his own. “I believe in you.”
Crosshair faced him, and the surety in Tech’s gaze gave his body strength.
He lifted the rifle.
“Don’t put it right against my leg,” Tech instructed. “The force of the blasts could injure me, and I’d rather not have part of my spine remade again.”
Crosshair’s breath caught at the admittance of the pain his brother had suffered through.
Breathe. Just breathe. That was getting more and more difficult by the moment, the roaring of hot flames loud in his ears, heat hitting him like a solid object.
“Ready?”
“Go.”
Crosshair fired. The blast barely hit Tech’s leg. A scream wanted to leave him, but he held it in, gritting his teeth, chest heaving. He was shuddering.
“Again.”
Crosshair inhaled.
Exhale.
Squeeze the trigger.
The blast hit, burning through a third of Tech’s leg, sparks firing. He groaned, but otherwise made no protest.
With three more shots, Tech’s mechno-leg was completely separated above the knee.
Crosshair let out a hurried breath of triumph, and he released the rifle, leaning forward to wrap an arm around Tech to help him up.
Debris shifted and landed where Tech had been stuck. Sparks flew up, Crosshair throwing up an arm to shield their eyes. His stung, and even with his lids closed orange flickered in his vision.
They both struggled to properly stand, and then struggled even more to remain standing once that first feat had been accomplished.
Together they hobbled out of the fires. As they half-sat half-fell to the platform, leaning against each other to stay up, Crosshair noticed the back of Tech’s head was bleeding. He put a hand to it. The blood seemed to be coming from above the plate.
Tech winced. “I’m fine.”
Then he reached for Crosshair’s bloodied face, the injuries he’d given him.
Crosshair smiled.
“It’s just a scratch.”
Crosshair and Tech laughed together, tears running down their soot-blackened faces. Their foreheads pressed together, and that’s when Crosshair knew for sure that Tech was himself again, that his brother was able to come home.
Crosshair searched around for his helmet, which he could not find, and when he explained he needed his comm, Tech started fidgeting with a band on his armor.
Through Tech’s brilliance they were soon hearing their family’s voices, and they were okay, they were alive. Omega was free. Oh, Omega. They could almost, all of them, finally go home. They could go home.
Tech handed over the band. “Here.”
Crosshair couldn’t stop grinning.
“Hunter,” he said, watching the battle die down, gunships flying through the air across a brilliant dawn Tantiss had surely never seen the likes of before, a dawn they could all see, “you’re never going to believe this.”