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starqueensthings · 10 months

Text

Dork Love: Part Two

Ao3 | Chapter 1 | Chapter 3

Summary: Life had returned to normal. Despite the budding adoration that had plagued you since meeting him, hopes of any type of relationship with Tech had diminished as time continued to pass, and you’d shifted your attention to the continued demands of owning a successful business. Until a surprise arrives to brighten your day…

Pairing: GN!Reader x Tech (can also read as ND!GN!Reader x ND!Tech if you look hard enough)

POV/Rating/WC: 2nd, all readers welcome, 7594 (I am so sorry lol)

A/N: This is the *slowest* of slow burns… borderline painfully slow, but writing accelerated intimacy feels really off-brand for Tech, especially when it’s a strangers to lovers trope. The man needs time to process! This chapter kinda drags a bit because there’s a lot of scene structure, but all of the seemingly useless details will play a part in chapter 3, I promise. Enjoy!

Thank you to @staycalmandhugaclone for beta reading ❤️

Days, differentiated only by the restful hours between evening and morning, passed underfoot without the appearance of anything even remotely as thrilling as the adventure of the riflescope. Mirroring the return of mundanity, the sun had become a recluse, the warmth of its exquisite majesty virtually smothered by a dark, dense veil of cloud that, despite the persistent bite of a cool wind, refused to shift aside.

This morning saw the clamouring chime of your chrono alarm rouse you from a slumber enriched with renderings of large brown eyes crinkled under the pressure of a shy smile, though the moment that yours fluttered open, unfocussed and narrowed against the jarring intonation that abruptly robbed you of your reverie, the imagery vanished from both thought and memory.

The recurring cool drizzle, falling mercilessly from the grey blanket above, had imbued the road outside of your shop so completely that it now more resembled a path of mirrors, capable of nothing except intensifying the gloom lingering overhead.

The drafty windows of your storefront whistled to the tune of the cold wind as if resolute that no area be free of its subjugate song, and in an effort to retain as much body heat as possible, a steaming cup of caf had found itself a permanent extension of your left hand. Despite the handicap that accompanied a continuously occupied limb, the counter behind your register was nearly barren, laden with only a sporadic collection of tasks left to complete.

Ten cold fingers had oriented themselves in a wreath around the ceramic mug still poised in your clutches, all of them trembling under the duress of your insistent need to sip at the warm pool of caffeine. With lips bunched to one side in a motion that inexplicably corralled your concentration, your eyes scanned the trio of trays scattered across the back counter. The urgency in which they needed to be addressed dwindled as the clock ticked the present into the past, and it was with a mumbled, “I’ll call them tomorrow” that you hastily stacked the containers and stowed them away.

A satisfied sigh poured from your lips and your shoulders squared pridefully of their own volition as you turned and departed the area, offering only a fleeting peek toward the mizzling outside as you passed. Semi-concealed in the shadowed corner beside the refresher, and adorned with an unostentatious sign that read “authorized personnel only”, was a door that separated the retail space from the backroom. On the left side past the threshold, and traversed so frequently over the years by various shoes that the stain itself had worn off the floorboards, was a piteous excuse for a kitchen. A single bank of cupboards anchored a derelict aluminum sink, the deep basin bespeckled with water spots and blotches that refused to dissipate despite countless, vigorous scrubs. The durasteel countertop flanking either side of the vessel still held much of its original integrity, though its formerly reflective surface was now hazy from decades of being scratched, buffed, and rescratched. An unpretentious caf machine found itself perched on the end of the counter nearest to the door, and its repeated call-to-arms as a reinforcement in your battle against early mornings and human fatigue, had seen it begin to look worse for wear, the heating element encrusted and charred in spots, and the glass carafe cracked and hastily repaired with industrial grade glue.

Arranged parade style in the depths of the sink was a legion of used and forgotten mugs, silently awaiting the shower that would free them from the sticky residue of a caf long since devoured. Their appearance wasted no time robbing your shoulders of their gratified posture, and you were reminded, once again, that mental checklists were growing increasingly insufficient in the thralls of your overstimulated mind.

“Wash mugs, water plants.”

Your chilled hands dug their way from one pocket to the next, furtively searching every crevasse and fold of your lab coat for any semblance of a pen; any tool that you could use to ensure the tasks did not continue to slip from the forefront of your mind. A cantillating chant erupted on your lips, repeating the small series of words as you yanked the cap off a red lens marker and hurried to ink a scrawled reminder on the back of your hand.

Your feet guided you thoughtlessly from the room, the familiar cadence taking you back atop the worn footpath and across the narrow hallway to the Mecca of your business: the workshop.

The fabrication lab was a modestly sized and minimally furnished room, and likely appeared to the untrained eye as a recipient unworthy of the several thousand credits that you had funneled into its refurbishment, yet the space had become both your sanctuary and your perdition. Several purchases later, all of them procrastinated in the name of thorough research, saw all new manufacturing equipment installed in the space. Despite your uncle’s repeated claims of their superiority to modern machinery, the equipment he’d bestowed upon you with the purchase of his business had deteriorated at a rate similar to his wizened mind, the tools habitually seizing mid cycle, their mechanics unable to overcome the strain that decades of neglect that had enchained them.

Their sophisticated replacements now encircled the perimeter of the room, meticulously and deliberately placed to maximize functionality in the void of square footage, and their sparkling infancy created a drastic yet welcome contrast to the decrepit cupboards of which they sat atop. But the flame ignited by the potential of efficiency upon their installation, was aglow for only hours before being snuffed completely by an unaccounted for realization: voltage requirements had apparently changed since the previous equipment had been wired. It was now a frustratingly common occurrence for fuses in the electrical panel to blow if you didn’t maintain a hyperfocussed awareness of which machines were cycling simultaneously, the infancy of the equipment now a hindrance, as your role of mechanical babysitter emerged.

The lights overhead buzzed menacingly as you brought them to life, and it was with haste that you added “call electrician” to the tasklist on the back of your hand, but despite the dirty dishes having stolen a portion of your resolve, the tower of orders waiting to be manufactured saw your cold knuckles cracked into action, and your sleeves yanked to your elbows before the flickering bulbs ceased their warning.

With knitted brows, you turned your attention to the counter on the right, hands instantly working to dismantle and sort the acrylic containers into an arrangement with some semblance of priority, while your eyes searched relentlessly for a specific triad of exigent orders; three small pairs of the glasses, the colourful frames fated to remain lens-less for only minutes longer now that the opportunity to initiate their fabrication had finally presented itself. You found your prize in the third tray from the bottom, you gaze quickly unfocussing upon the invoice as the sight of their exotic names launched your mind’s eye into a recollection of that humbling day:

Tarlu, a Twi’lek man from the 22nd level of Coruscant’s underworld had made the trip into your shop several weeks ago, a stunning turquoise chain of clasped hands stumbling in tow behind him; three small children, all of whom appeared at first glance to be a spitting image of their broad shouldered father, though their sparkling, violet eyes, dancing around the foreign corners of your shop, were largely unlike the electric blue of his own. He uttered a cautionary warning to them, a demand for the respect of good behaviour while he ‘spoke to the nice shop owner’, and the half dozen steps that he took away from his children, purposefully orienting his back to them in some semblance of privacy, were not lost on you.

Age and the innate understanding that accompanied life experience had yet to rob the children of their naivety, and innocent shrieks laden with insouciant joy left their mouths as they disobeyed their father’s plea, running amok around the confines of your shop. Their violet eyes blind to the slump in their father’s dejected shoulders; their youthful minds still too ignorant to identify the tension that riddled his brow as he quietly and solemnly confessed his desperation. Their mother was blind, he explained grimly, diagnosed at a young age with a degenerative visual condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa. Her most recent years had seen her vision and her hope recede to nullity, and it had taken every credit left in their savings to purchase a transport ticket and hire a protocol droid to see her safely returned to Ryloth.

Coruscant, he divulged, and its esteemed medical field had offered them a glimmer of hope in the face of impending visual darkness; whispers of a corrective procedure inaccessible to them in the primitive outer rim saw them willingly and enthusiastically uproot themselves… their family… their entire lives. But the usurious capital planet had repudiated them, and the system had swiftly exposed itself as corrupt, only willing to accede to the needs of those whose wallets would support their owners plea’s, shunting all others into the cold embrace of exorbitantly long waitlists.

A grave shift in the children’s behaviour since last seeing their mother had only amplified his despondency; tantrums, repeated condemnations from their school teachers, fights escalated over trivial issues, an increase in their desire for isolation, a rejection of things and experiences that once brought them joy. The intelligent Twi’lek man couldn’t and wouldn’t deny that the fracturing of their family had likely acted as the catalyst for the behavioural decline, though he admittedly couldn’t shake the dread that something else was amiss.

The way your voice shook under the constraints of suppressed emotion offered the truth before your lips had finished somberly wrapping their way around the explanation, and despite every effort to remain professional, your glistening eyes betrayed your composure as you confirmed his suspicions; his children were all showing signs of the same condition that had robbed their mother of her sight and her freedom. “I can’t stop the progression,” you whispered with a quivering chin, “but give me a couple of weeks and I’ll make some glasses that will maximize what vision they have left.”

“I have no desire to linger here.” His tone was that of a man utterly broken, a man whose hopes had been stripped and excoriated within an inch of complete eradication. “Nor do I have the funds to pay you for your services. I will need every available credit to transport us back to Ryloth. The children need their mother, and I need help.”

Despite every cell in your body yearning to ease the father’s dejection, the gift of hope was not one that you were capable of bestowing on him, as the recent past had seen his very soul calloused by the greed of business and politics; you could not promise him that his children would have a future free of obstacle, all of them destined to walk in their mothers footsteps with the unbearable weight of depleting vision on their shoulders, but what you could offer was a helping hand: three free pairs of glasses and the promise to expedite the process to the best of your ability so he could leave the planet that had forsaken him and return home.

It was their tray held firmly in your grip as you marched across the lab toward the lens generator, refusing to deviate your attention to anything and anyone until their needs of this family were satiated…

As if determined to challenge your resolve, the harrowing tinkle of the doorbell saw you halted in your tracks barely two paces from your destination, drenched in the cold realization that, in your haste to recuse yourself to the lab, you’d overlooked the routine task of locking the front door.

“For kriff’s sake…” you grumbled, your eyelids aflutter in frustration as a familiar cool, damp draft whistled through the gaps of the door and raised the fine hairs on your arms. An unceremonious flick of your wrist saw the plastic container tossed onto the counter beside the machine, and an irritable huff sagged your shoulders as you turned on the spot and retreated back toward the door.

“Hello,” you called blindly, summoning the pitiful remnants of your patience from the depths of your soul as you pulled open the door that led back into the retail space, tugging your sleeves back down.

For the second time in as many seconds, you found your steps halted abruptly and another intense wave of gooseflesh erupting across your skin. “Tech!” His name escaped your parted lips drenched in startled disbelief.

A tall, poorly postured figure stood patiently at your counter, and it was the prompt of your voice echoing around the quiet room that had him turn to face your direction. His magnified gaze was alert and twinkling with an unexplained light as it fell upon you, and the ingenuine smile that you’d hitched onto your face at the prospect of an unexpected interruption, lost all sense of insincerity at the sight of the familiar, thick goggles.

“Hello.” His answer came accompanied by a respectful nod, his fingers suspending their dance across the device in his hand to needlessly shift his goggles on the bridge of his nose.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” you admitted, crossing the handful of steps between you and leaning against the counter next to him. “Either of you. Did my fix on the scope not hold up?”

“On the contrary,” he began after a quiet clearing of the throat. “Crosshair remains quite pleased with your repair. The rigidity of his nature does not coincide with being a proponent of change, particularly so with his weaponry. Your repair has ensured his continued satisfaction, indirectly maintaining symbiosis amongst the rest of the squad… for now, anyways.”

The familiarity of his curt, matter-of-fact tone only intensified the smile on your face, forcing you to fleetingly avert your gaze to the floorboards below your feet, eager to minimize the flush rising to your cheeks. Your attraction to him was as enigmatic to you as he was; the simplified truth was, you knew almost nothing about him, other than the fact that he was exceedingly poor sighted without the aid of his goggles, and that he was remarkably well educated to have been brought up by the indurate embrace of combat training and war, and yet you were drawn to him with an unexplained appetence.

“Good, I’m glad,” you answered, leaning onto an elbow. “Your goggles look like they’ve stayed in decent repair since I last saw you, too.”

The departure of his eyes from yours to the void of space over your left shoulder saw you promptly regretting your comment, as the swift flush of his cheeks and the deliberate bob of his Adam's apple exposed the fact that your unintentional scolding of his dirty lenses during your previous conversation had rendered him somewhat embarrassed.

“Ah… yes,” he murmured, the warmth of his eyes only blessing you with a fleeting glance before departing again. “I have since managed to incorporate a routine cleaning into my morning regimen, though despite having extensively researched varying techniques, I can not seem to achieve the same result as yourself.”

Disapproval bathed his every feature, the corners of his lips inverting into a reproachful frown more adorable than any quirky half-smile he’d previously gifted you, and it was with great difficulty and another quick aversion of your eyes that you repressed the chuckle threatening to spill from your lips. Intent on alleviating even a portion of his indignity, you permitted your brows to offer a jesting, egotistical wiggle and uttered, “Well… you won’t.”

His gaze darted back to you instantly, lids narrowing only slightly in befuddlement at the smirk twisting your lips. “Opticians have the magic touch. Hand ‘em over.”

You extended a hand toward him, the eagerness to award him with even a fraction of the same satisfaction that you’d somehow gifted his brother outweighing all else in that moment, but his response to your gesture was as apprehensive as yours was determined. His affronted gaze danced across your awaiting palm, his long fingers fidgeting needlessly around his datapad as he seemingly blinked away a myriad of intrusive thoughts. Reassurances flooded the tip of your tongue, poised to express promises of meticulous care and affirmations that you fully understood how desperately he relied on his goggles, but your lips had barely parted wide enough to permit an intake of breath before the datapad was released of his grip and placed gently atop the counter as his hand reached instead for the strap around his head.

A blend of gratitude and adoration welled inside your chest as your fingers enveloped the rubberized surface of the unexpectedly rigid frame, your pinky fingers hooking themselves securely around the strap lest the staggering weight of his lenses cause the equipment to fall from your clutches. If any apprehension or doubt of your abilities lingered in his exceptional mind, it was seemingly usurped by the need to massage his tired eyes, as he forewent the motion of possessively watching your hands to grind his knuckles against lids clamped tightly closed.

Dismal as it may be, the dwindling daylight meekly cascading in your windows threw into sharp relief the poor condition of his spectacles, and the thoughtless action of retrieving the trusty cleaning cloth in your pocket was halted entirely by the sight of several deep gouges across his lenses, all of which had been previously hidden from your scrutiny by the darkness of the shooting range.

A contemplative hum rumbled past your pursed lips, the rounded edge of your thumbnail trying in vain to scrape away the remnants of a mysterious, encrusted substance from the front surface, achieving nothing but imparting another microscratch to the wide array of others. A scoff of contempt threatened to escape you, scorned by the fact that someone in Tech’s situation, so highly reliant on their eyewear, would be issued such a subpar set of lenses; the material obviously too soft to uphold the demands of his lifestyle, the subjective magnification exacerbated by the poor choice of curvature by whichever ignorant being had manufactured them, the coatings improperly sealed before being thrust into the scrupulous edging process.

‘I bet these are Polycarbonate…’ you thought to yourself with a disdainful roll of your eyes. ‘But only one way to find out.’

Without even a breath of hesitation or an ounce of consideration for his potential reaction, you gripped the goggles tightly in one hand and applied firm pressure around the rim of the right lens with the other. His knuckles fell from his eyes immediately, the ungodly snapping sound of the lens separating from the frame triggering a wave of horror to erupt across his features, but you remained blind his unspoken objection, too deeply enthralled in the abhorrence of his glasses to notice his mouth falling open and his unfocussed eyes widening in terror.

“Did– did you just–?” His stammered query trailed away to an aghast silence, too appalled to finish vocalizing the question that he feared the answer to.

“Hmm?” you hummed innocently, wrenching your rolling eyes away from a series of small pressure cracks in the plastic between your fingers and directing your attention back to him. “Oh! No, they’re not broken!” you hurried to assure him, recognizing the semblance of panic tugging his eyebrows together. “Lenses are manufactured with an angled bevel to permit repeated insertion and removal, as long as you apply the pressure in the correct place.”

He swallowed heavily, his gaze still affixed at the disc-like plastic clutched loosely in your palm. “I just wanted to identify the lens material,” you continued pleadingly, convinced that if you provided a detailed enough explanation for your objectively impulsive action, there may be a chance you could placate his evident fear and surging mistrust. “I’m assuming they’re polycarbonate lenses based on how easily they’re damaged, but without seeing the initial paperwork, the only real way to tell is the sound that the lens makes when tapped against a rigid surface.”

To no avail; periodic blinks over widened eyes robbed of their warmth was the only indication that he hadn’t simply died of fright. “Listen,” you beseeched, gesturing for him to step closer and prepare to witness the presumed madness behind your methods. His gaze reluctantly followed your hand as it began gently tapping the very edge of the lens against the counter top. “Hear how it sounds kind of… tinky and light? Polycarbonate is a fibrous material so it makes a sharper tone compared to resin plastic. Resin is a powdery material, so it makes more of a deep thunk.”

The dramatic expansion of his eyes softened significantly as they watched you extract the orphaned plastic lens that you’d pocketed this morning after finding it astray under the desk, his gaze intent on following your every move as you knocked it rhythmically against the surface to demonstrate the difference.

“That is… fascinating,” he admitted in a mumble, the tension in his shoulders dissipating enough to collect the pieces you were extending out to him.

“Do you have a few minutes?” you asked him, teeth nibbling against the smile threatening to tug at your lips as he immediately turned and began percussing the lenses against the countertop. “I’d like to give them a thorough clean with my favourite solution, but it’s a peroxide blend and needs a good five minutes to neutralize.”

“Thank you, that is very kind of you,” he replied with a nod.

“My pleasure,” you answered with a bashful shrug, another wave of heat surging to your cheeks as his already narrowed and unfocussed eyes shrunk even further under the expanse of his bashful smile. “Would you mind flipping the sign and locking the door for me?”

He followed your gesture to the entryway, the lights of your shop reflecting brightly in the glass door against the dark backdrop of the deepening sky beyond, before nodding and departing the counter, lenses pinched protectively between his long fingers. An empathetic frown tugged at your lips as you watched him fumble to engage the deadbolt, his movements clearly impeded by the lack of depth perception, robbed of him by the removal and disassembly of his glasses. “Just come meet me in the backroom when you’re done,” you called, sending him one last adoring glance before retreating through the threshold to your workshop.

You were granted only a short minute to calm the bounding of your heart against your chest, launched into a fervent dance by Tech’s unexpected appearance, yet despite funneling every effort into stifling the persistent smile on your face, the joy that his visitation had triggered simply refused to be so easily contained. Your confession to him had been truthful, the concept of seeing him again was one that you’d actively avoided entertaining since your introduction, for it was simply too impractical of a hope; he was a soldier living too nomadically to risk establishing relationships of any kind… yet here he was, but why?

The thunk of his boots on the wood floor alerted you of his approach, and you hurried to clear the surging giddiness from your mind with a gentle shake of your head before retrieving the bottle of cleaning solution from the cabinet below the counter.

“My apologies,” he offered as his tall frame filled the expanse of the doorway a moment later. “I did not familiarize myself with your hours of operation prior to arriving. I hope I am not keeping you from any prior endeavours?”

“Not unless you consider several hours of grinding lenses a ‘prior endeavour’.” you chuckled, upturning the bottle until the entirety of its contents drained into the small steel bowl perched in front of you. He folded his arms across his chest in a near perfect impression of his sniper brother, a passively curious expression on his face as he watched you finish formulating your concoction.

“Do you still have your other lens?” you questioned after submerging the entirety of his goggles into the effervescent, blue liquid.

He gently dropped the loose disc into the tub with its counterparts, stooping comically low to study the bubbling substance, the tip of his nose barely an inch from the surface, and eyes narrowed to nearly full occlusion in an effort to refocus his vision.

“I didn’t mean to scare you when I popped your lens out,” you offered apologetically, leaning casually backward against the counter and watching him. “It does tend to freak people out, I should have warned you.”

He stood and cleared his throat quietly, unfolding his arms in a motion to shift his goggles on his nose, only to remember half way through the gesture that there was nothing presently on his nose to shift, instead justifying the awkward motion with a small scratch of his reddening ear.

“I will admit my knowledge of the Optometric industry to be lacking in comparison to other subjects,” he voiced, turning to lean on the counter beside you. “My brothers and I are subjected to visual testing on Kamino as a subsection of a routine complete sensory examination. My oldest brother has senses heightened to a nearly inhumane degree, and by the time the result of our inspections have been collected for further processing, departing the clinic for the comfort of our barracks is typically his first priority. I have never lingered long enough to expand my limited knowledge of optics and ophthalmic correction.”

“Heightened senses?” you repeated instantly. The snippet of information had been delivered so blithely that it had almost failed to register, yet the implication of the statement could simply not be ignored.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “All clones are genetically modified in the embryonic stage of formation to allow several decidedly ‘desirable’ characteristics to take precedence during growth. Regular clones have an enhanced sense of loyalty, obedience, tenacity, and stamina amongst several other attributes. My squad was the first and only to have our DNA further reconfigured to enhance additional qualities. The aforementioned brother is our leader, and Hunter has senses incomparable to any other being. He perceives every movement, hears every sound, feels minute vibrations, senses lingering energy signatures… As such, he became plagued with recurrent episodes of extreme overstimulation while in the depths of our training, but has established a sense of near-complete autonomy since our convocation.

“My genetic structure was deviated to permit the rapid collection and categorization of data. I am able to perceive much of which the typical mind overlooks, with the subsequent ability to recall information at a moment’s notice. As you may have deduced by my chosen moniker, an interesting and perceptibly correlated mutation has bestowed upon me a particular proclivity with technology and mechanics, and during rare instances where I am not able to direct my thoughts into research or the customization of various equipment, I too can become overstimulated.

“Wrecker is our resident ordnance expert, having extensively studied the science of detonations and their various implementations in warfare, and is both the physically strongest and arguably the most emotionally intelligent member of our squad, though a recent poorly-timed detonation has compromised a large portion of his eyesight and an even larger portion of his mental reasoning skills, a challenge of which we are still shifting to accommodate.

“Crosshair, our youngest brother whom you have met, has a mathematical brain that could rival most modern software. He can process calculations and formulations in mere fractions of a second without the plague of human distraction. Paired with his remarkable eyesight, his mutations have formed him into a marksman of incomparable skill and ability, though at the cost of charisma; he would rather concede his crown than to engage in a lengthy conversation of any topic.”

The effervescent cleaner had long since stilled, only mere remnants of the microbubbles tasked with removing surface grime and grease were still clinging to the rubberized surface of Tech’s submerged goggles. Both thought and speech were robbed of you; unable to fully compute the implication of his explanation, you could only stand there, lips parted to permit shallow breaths from your lungs as your eyes unfocussed on his features.

The information itself was a repulsive dichotomy of fascinating and horrifying. Largely sheltered from the ramifications of the war, your knowledge of the Clones from Kamino was limited to only that with which you had firsthand experience; that they were typically lovely people, barred from extensive interaction with civilians though seemingly drawn toward the dynamic of humanity. The science of genetic manipulation was not one that you’d ever heard of before, and despite finding the notion of it unethical, there was no denying that it was medically captivating.

But layered atop the affronting information was the casual tone in which he delivered it, as if he was merely describing a mildly unusual childhood, or reciting a paragraph that he’d written in the book of his upbringing, and if ever he had shared in your feeling of revulsion, he’d long since learned to mask all evidence of it.

“That’s… wild.”

It wasn’t the correct word… if there even was a correct word, though ‘wild’ suited the horrifying notion more appropriately than anything else that came to mind; it certainly wasn’t tame, or humane.

Hurrying to conceal the conflict ghosting behind your eyes, you turned and retrieved his dismantled goggles from the basin on the counter beside you, gently shaking the excess liquid from the frame before swaddling it in a soft towel. Tech watched you nurture his glasses intently, showing exceedingly more interest in the technique you used to reinsert his lens than he had while discussing the unique dynamics of his family.

“Nothing can remove the scratches unfortunately,” you lamented, wiping away the last of your fingerprints from his lens before handing his goggles back to him. “But they probably haven’t been that clean since you first got them.”

“That is likely an accurate estimation,” he answered, shifting their weight on his nose and attempting to blink away the strain that several, prolonged minutes of blurred vision had imbibed on him.

“Isn’t that an oxymoron?” you chuckled absently, tossing the damp hand towel over your shoulder.

His attention returned to you so urgently that it stilled your hand on the empty bottle of cleaning solution, the dripping container poised in your fingertips mid-way to the trash bin below the counter. You’d seen that look before, and it had adorned you just as urgently then; wide eyes, lips parted, gaping at you as if you’d just uttered the very secret to human existence. It was an expression reminiscent of your first encounter, interrupting you mid-muse about the dislodgement of a focal plane in a riflescope with the sudden intensity of his eyes, and the vulnerability setting your skin alight under his awestruck gaze was no less palpable the second time around.

“What did you say?” he probed, brows furrowing slightly.

Hesitation paused your response, momentarily abashed by the dubious smirk beginning to tug on his lips as his eyes continued to look upon you quizzically.

“Wouldn’t– wouldn’t that be considered an oxymoron?” you repeated tentatively. “I mean… you can’t really have an ‘accurate estimate’. They’re technically opposing ideologies, thus making that an oxymoronic statement…”

All semblances of a smile that had previously blessed his features were instantly outshone by the grin unfolding across his face. The doming of his cheeks under the embrace of a true smile lifted the goggles off the bridge of his nose, and it was quite possibly the most attractive thing you’d ever seen.

“Yes,” he answered, with a reassuring nod. “It is precisely an oxymoronic statement. Excellent catch. I am impressed.”

“Um… thank you,” you muttered, barely able to wrap your own grinning lips around the two measly words as the pounding of your heart nearly deafened you. “Not just a pretty face… I guess…”

“No, you are much more than that.” The deep reddening of his cheeks rivaled only that of your own, and that moment saw both of you equally embarrassed by the comment that had seemingly poured from his mouth without second thought. “I– I surmised your intelligence almost immediately upon gaining your acquaintance,” he continued, the aversion of his eyes entirely negating the welcome shift of his body to face you. “Your practiced recital of the laws of refraction was fluent and precise, and your charitable willingness to assist Crosshair with his problem in combination with the extensive knowledge that you possess of a topic that has always been of intrigue to me, is the reason for my intrusion… not just your attractive features.”

If you hadn’t known it to be completely medically ludicrous, every credit would have left your bank account on a bet that the butterflies in your stomach were rearranging your organs as if they were pieces of furniture. Yet greater than the uncomfortable flap-a-bout happening inside of you, was the sudden and mystifying crave for his touch; an increasingly gnawing desire to feel the solidity of his presence, desperate for the affirmation that his enigma wasn’t just a trick of the mind. A gentle hand, trembling slightly from the spontaneity of his flattery rose into the space between you, palm facing him with softly bent fingers.

He swallowed heavily and cast an apprehensive glance toward your gesture, his hesitancy to mirror your intimate motion swatting violently at the butterflies in your stomach with the paddle of rejection. It felt like years were passing under the disguise of mere seconds on the clock, his eyes darting back and forth between yours as the tips of his fingers fidgeted anxiously against each other. His jaw clenched, once, twice, until… at long last…

The slippery material of his gloves felt strange against your skin; unexpectedly metallic and silky despite the apparent density of the material, yet it accommodated the swell of his knuckles with ease as his fingers interlaced yours.

Had the clock simply stopped now? Had Father Time so easily forsaken his fateful duty, halting the progression of anything and everything else to permit you this quiet moment of delicate connection? Or was it the gentle caress of those stunning brown eyes atop your features that manifested the wistful longing stay in this lingering second for eternity?

Despite the nimble swipes of his thumb along the back of your hand pulling a shiver down your spine, it wasn’t until the lights overhead launched into their menacing flicker that you returned to some illusion of cognition. “So… hang on,” you muttered, pausing to briefly nimble on your bottom lip. “Are you here to hangout with me? Or to learn the laws of refraction?”

“Um… my priority was the former,” he admitted, “Though I would quantify both being a desire of mine.”

“I can do both,” you offered through a giddy grin, relaxing the entanglement of your fingers from his until your hands separated. “You said you have an affinity for mechanics? Maybe you can help me grind some lenses, and I’ll serenade you with facts about the deviation of light waves through a prism with a biconvex curvature.”

The speed of which he mastered the lens manufacturing process quickly eradicated any lingering scrutiny in your mind of the validity of his mutations. It took less than three complete demonstrations to have achieved a near flawless understanding of what each piece of machinery did and how it accomplished its goal. The clock had barely ticked an hour into the past before Tech was independently running lenses through the sealant process, happily chirruping about his fascination with optics; about how he’d always longed for a deeper understanding of differing refractive indices, about how he found it truly remarkable that a minor decrease in curvature on the front of a lens, when paired with the correct backside curvature, could drastically alter the magnification through the lens itself.

Thrice more did he reach for your hand, his fingers long since freed from the protective confines of his gloves and draping themselves around yours with affectionate intention; every fleeting glance he sent your way, every barely-there brush of his arm against yours continued to reinvigorate your enrapturement for each other.

“How’d we do?” you probed him coyly, sneaking a peek at the sparkling, blemish free lens that he held delicately over the ocular of the lensometer. “Prescription accurate?”

You nibbled gently on your bottom lip, teeth only barely containing the knowing smirk tugging at your lips as you held your breath in expectation of his response. “It is precisely correct,” he answered without diverting his attention from the screen in front of him. “Perfectly on axis, with zero induced prismatic effect. It seems I have attuned my lens manufacturing skills quite remarkably, if I may say so.”

The irony of his words threatened to dissolve your feigned complacency; a man so intelligent that he’d achieved a near mastery in optical technologies in record time, unable to determine that the lens clutched between his fingers being so heavily scrutinized by his eyes had been manufactured to his prescription.

“You may,” you permitted slyly, disguising the grin on your face as nothing more than a reaction to your own audacity. He merely offered you a small snort, exchanging the lens in his fingertips for its counterpart. “You know,” you choked out, lungs nearly seizing under the controlled repression of a chuckle. “That last pair of lenses that you made are for yo—”

The admonition so desperately vying to leave your tongue was robbed of its overdue spotlight by a sudden and complete blanket of darkness. The whirring chorus of engines descending into utter silence inducing a stark ringing in your ears more deafening than the hum it replaced, and you hurried to jump down from your seated perch on the counter.

“Kriff,” you grumbled, fingertips obtusely patting around in the darkness to reestablish a bearing of your positioning.

“It appears that we have lost power,” Tech mumbled introspectively from your right, his arm brushing gently against your chest as he stepped away from the equipment.

“Hang on,” you advised through an undignified grunt, bending over carefully to reach for the handle on the drawer situated somewhere in the proximity of your right hip. “I forgot to keep an eye on what machines were cycling together,” you admitted. “The generator and the polisher always… always trip the electrical breakers if… if they cycle at the same time. Maker have mercy, where is the fucking handle?”

A spotlight appeared abruptly on your right hand, illuminating the pair of pliers clutched stupidly in your grasp, the steel handle having felt convincingly similar to the drawer pull you’d been blindly hunting for in the utter blackness of the windowless room.

“Where is the electrical panel located?” Tech asked you, his free hand deftly snapping closed the pouch from which he’d just retracted his flashlight.

“On the wall beside the edger,” you advised, pointing uselessly in the dark toward the culprit across the room.

Visible only as a dark figure sauntering behind a stark beam of light, you watched him cross the room, the grotesque squeak of the panel’s aluminum door indicating through the echoing silence that he’d successfully found the perpetrator. “That is… alarming,” he muttered, triggering a snort of laughter from your nose. “The breakers in this panel are both drastically undersized for the required pull of amperage and… discernibly ancient.”

“I would merit that both of those claims are accurate,” you confirmed glumly, wincing as your fingers knocked dumbly against your nose in their intention to rub your eyes. “Getting an electrician has been on my to-do list for a shamefully long time.”

Several loud, familiar clicks saw the overhead lights flickering back into some illusion of life, and a cacophony of dissonant chimes erupted around the room as each machine simultaneously launched into a reboot cycle. Tech deactivated his flashlight and stowed it deftly away in the pouch strapped to his right thigh while his other hand trailed gently along the series of cobweb-laden breakers.

“I would estimate that the sum of the required amperage for each breaker largely exceeds the allotted amount for the panel in its entirety,” he mused, cringing mildly against the abhorrent squeak of the door as he pushed it closed and latched it. “It will be both a costly and a laborious installation.”

“Glorious,” you sighed, knotting your arms tightly over your chest, anxiety rippling through you at the implication of his conclusion.

“However, the odds that I may be of assistance are in your favour.” He hesitated for only a second before gently wrapping his fingers around your wrists, dismantling the hug that you’d bestowed upon yourself as anxiety began to simmer in your gut. “Commercial electrical panels are of a different mechanical structure than those regulated for areospace,” he continued quietly, lacing his fingers between yours, “but the circuitry should be vastly similar to that of my ship. I would be happy to attempt the installation for you, pending we can locate the correct mater—”

“Tech… Come in…”

A loud chirp and a foreign, husky voice issued from several feet to the left, robbing you of the listful smile that had begun to peel across your face at the reintroduction of his touch. His posture straightened immediately, his body reacting instinctively to the summons echoing from the comlink on his gauntlet, long ago stripped from his hands and buried under the thick blanket of his gloves on the counter.

He flicked his gloves aside impatiently, collecting the rigid plastoid piece and bringing it to hover in front of his mouth. “Sarge,” he addressed, his eyes flickering to you apologetically before adhering themselves intently to the blue light illuminating his chin.

“Where the hell are you? I’ve pinged your datapad a dozen times.”

“Ah,” Tech vocalized awkwardly, left hand absently patting the empty pouch perched on his lower back that typically housed his beloved device when not in use; the device abandoned to a live a solitary existence on the front counter. “My apologies. I… I fear my task of locating a spare condenser valve was hindered by a… um… distraction.”

“Does this ‘distraction’ happen to wear a labcoat?”

The jeering inquiry was bathed in a slithering smoke all too familiar to you, the mild distortion from the vocabulator failing to deplete any of its intensity. The image of Crosshair’s sneering face erupted in your mind as a ringing, potent silence ensued in response to his sardonicism.

Tech’s lips pursed into a thin line, eyes wide and unmoving as if his mind had simply seized under the effort of frantically searching for a plausible excuse that did not entail he divulge the truth of his whereabouts.

“Just get back to the ship… now,” the first, hoarse voice demanded. “We’re overdue on Ithica. Cody’s holding his advance until we get there.”

Tech offered a simple “understood,” before silencing the comlink with a prod of a button, and you met the return of his gaze with a fearful, guilty grimace. All-too thrilled to waste your time in his presence, basking in the joy that walked hand-in-hand with the emergence of his affection for you, time had simply vanished.

“I lament that I must depart so quickly,” he spoke, wiggling his fingers back into his gloves. “I have unknowingly delayed my squad’s departure significantly.” He paused to reaffix the plastoid pieces to the backs of his hands, flexing his joints until satisfied with the comfort of their positioning.

“Don’t worry, I get it,” you reassured him with a meek shrug, meeting him at this position in the doorway. “Thank you for coming to waste your time with me.”

“Time with you is never wasted, darling.” The endearing term embraced you with a warmth so layered that you doubted even the sheets of cold rain cascading from the clouds above could have robbed it from you, your adoration for him only intensified by the brazenness he was now showing in the face of his frenzied departure. “And if it is,” he continued scooping your hand into his, “I will happily do so again when I return… if you would still desire my company.”

Your movements stilled, breath halted in your lungs, lids refusing the innate need to blink lest you miss a fraction of this moment. His eyes attuned to you, soft yet determined, as he gently guided your hand upward, setting your nerves alight with the tender press of his lips to your skin.

“Oh, I will,” you reassured him in barely more than a whisper, the tingles radiating from the spot where he’d adorned your hand with a kiss, rendering you numb to the gentle squeeze that he gave before releasing it.

Budding disappointment forced a slump into your shoulders as he offered you a small nod of salutation and turned toward the door. “Tech!” you interjected, watching his tall figure begin to disappear behind the doorframe. His head poked back through the doorway, cheeks aflush and eyes atwinkle. “Good luck.” It left your lips somewhat meekly, the two words nowhere near expressive enough to convey all the thoughts and reassurances of understanding that you couldn’t verbalize.

He paused, reaching up to pacify his feelings by shifting his goggles on his nose before granting you a smile, the same quirky grin that had stolen the breath from your lungs hours earlier. “The ideology of luck i—”

“Yeah, yeah… an ‘illogical concept’…”

Taglist: @anxiouspineapple99

#the bad batch #tbb #bad batch #bad batch fanfic #tech x gn!reader #tech x reader #tech x you #tbb tech #bad batch tech #starqueenswrittenworks

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