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He can still feel, sometimes, the crushing, smothering grip of his little brother’s fingers over his neck, pinning him and smothering. Tech’s neck and bruised up just as much, Hunter knows, but he’s never seen Tech have nightmares about it. He probably does, no doubt, but he hasn’t seen it.
He wishes he didn’t remember it so vividly, remember struggling and yelling until Wrecker had him pinned and all he saw in his little brother’s eye was a wild bout of uncharacteristic rage. It was Wrecker, so soft and gentle, the unquestioning sweetest of all of them – and seeing him with that much rage was terrifying.
It reminded him of Crosshair. And Hunter really doesn’t want to think about Crosshair – ever.
But he had seen a side of Wrecker that day, lost and unable to do anything but hurt or kill, a side he never should’ve had.
He still sees that look of murder in his dreams, and sits upright and listens feels the unheard flickering and pulsing of his sibling’s heartbeats all around, the one knew one instead of one old, but safe is safe and family is family.
***
Tech wakes, feeling cold and sometimes, thinking far too long about Wrecker flinching if he touches him wrong, or about his own flinch when Wrecker moves too fast. He’s been making a great effort to avoid triggering anyone off, even Tech, and it feels like something of a failure of his own to know how much his little brother has been hurt by it.
He should have known Wrecker’s chip was activating, on account of the fact that his siblings evidently were entirely unaware the things even existed, much less how they worked. Somehow. Tech will not try to comprehend their extreme lack of knowledge.
But Wrecker is tossing, asleep in the rack next to Omega, and that means he’s fine. – and Tech does not need to sleep in a chair, he can take his own bed – or Crosshair’s, since he conveniently left that open to whomever wanted to steal it.
***
Wrecker has nightmares about all sorts of things. He tells everybody he doesn’t remember much, about all the things that bother him, just because he never wants to talk about it and it should make the memories go away, right? But he still remembers the flames crawling over half his face, and that hurt. It was fast, so so fast and then he was out, but Wrecker still remembers. He remembers Crosshair shooting at him and he has nightmares about losing Lula for a month after misplacing his new favorite stuffie, so nightmares are nothing new or strange.
Neither is anybody else having them.
But sometimes, now, he doesn’t know how many of them are his fault, and some little bit of him slinks away in instant shame instead of where he once tried to help, and then he remembers Omega cowering from him and feels like he just saw exactly what he could do for the first time in his life.
That’s Omega, she was just a kid, she wasn’t even part of this war and wrecker was still going to kill her even if she’s tiny and amazing. He was going to kill his kid.
If Rex had been a millisecond late, he can just hope he’d have messed up depth again and totally missed, but he probably wouldn’t have.
Or if Omega had been a second late and he’d have killed Hunter, or…
Something.
Wrecker hates being angry. Hated it since he first hurt somebody when he was little, and still really, really hates it.
The Marauder’s floor creaks with the stamp of boots on it, and Echo’s face comes over him. “Sleep issues?” his oldest brother asks, unsurprised.
Wrecker sags miserably. “Yeah,”
The reg is prickly, but he still knows when – and how – to be nice. He pats Wrecker’s shoulder and tugs his half kicked-off blanket back over him. “We’re fine, Wrecker,” he promises, “We’re not in any danger, either inside or outside, got it?”
“Yeah,” he says with an appreciative smile. “Thanks, Echo.”
“Besides, we’re in hyperspace,” Echo adds as he starts walking away, “Nothing can go wrong here.”
“Actually,” Tech intervenes, “That is entirely incorrect. There are many possible complicates in hyperspace.”
Wrecker sits up. “There are?!”
“Tech, shut up and let him sleep.”
***
Echo doesn’t really have nightmares, not of things after joining Clone Force 99. He has too many, he expects, of Fives, the Rishi Outpost, and everything prior in the Clone Wars.
He also thinks he’s the only one, even if it’s something everyone tries their best never to poke at – Wrecker feels bad enough about it already.
***
Omega’s dreams never used to be violent. It’s something from growing up in a lab, she expects, utterly unaware of what the world around her was like or how dangerous it got. Wrecker nearly killing her was terrifying, but completely dwarfed in the face of what Crosshair did and then when Hunter nearly died and she was kidnapped.
Seeing that place had brought back a ton of awful memories and even more imaginations, but even if it’s terrifying, it doesn’t really stand out as much as seeing her brother’s rage filled face.
“I don’t know why I keep having nightmares about Bracca,” she finally confesses to Hunter, hating having to tell it to him, but not seeing any way out anymore. “I know it wasn’t Wrecker’s fault, and I’m not afraid of him! I’m not. But I still have these dreams.”
“Tech says nightmares are how your mind processes unpleasant things while you’re sleeping,” Hunter tells her, comforting hand on her shoulder. “It’s not your fault, kid.”
“It doesn’t feel fair to him. I knew he wasn’t in control.” Just like Crosshair, Omega wants to add, but she won’t, because he’s too touchy a topic.
“You can’t help what you dream,” Hunter replies, “And they’ll go away eventually, just… give it time.”
Omega sighs, sinking back onto her seat. “Okay.”