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fanfoolishness · 5 months

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the waves flowing, the dawn blooming

Hunter and Crosshair have a heart-to-heart, after their girl takes wing. Set directly after the epilogue, stuffed full of soft Dad Batch feels, lots of healing, and Hunter and Crosshair being close again <3. I cried all through the back half, sorry not sorry. ~1900 words.

Beach-crickets shivered the last of their evening songs as Hunter and Batcher wended their way back to Lower Pabu. The house wasn’t far from the cove, and a brisk walk would have done it in ten minutes, but they took their time. Batcher was eager to follow her favorite smells along the beach, and Hunter waited patiently for her. His back and knees had warmed up with the walk, but there was plenty to think about.

Their kid was gone.

He didn’t know what to call this feeling in his chest: a deep and full-bodied sorrow, mingled with the fierce pride he always felt every time he looked at Omega, tangled with joy and worry and the longing for more time. He grappled with it as they followed the familiar path back to their little home, as the stars shimmered among the slowly lightening sky.

Batcher whuffed softly as they approached the gate. Light from the kitchen glowed gently through the side window, and Hunter smiled, catching a faint scent of caf. Batcher scampered up to the door, morning stiffness long forgotten, and trotted inside as it opened. Hunter followed, slipping off his boots and heading to the kitchen.

“I wondered when you’d be back,” said Crosshair, raising his eyebrows at Hunter. He sat at the kitchen table with a pitcher of caf and two mugs. One steamed merrily before him, and he cradled it in his left hand to take a sip. He never wore his prosthetic first thing in the morning.

“Well… she’s off.” Hunter drew up a chair and sat down at the table.

A small smile creased Crosshair’s face. “You caught her?”

“You knew?” he asked. “Ahhh, of course you did.” He waved an annoyed hand at his little brother.

“Said her goodbyes to Wrecker and me last night. Swore us to secrecy.” Crosshair shrugged, taking a sip of his caf. “I can’t say no to her. Never could.”

Hunter chuckled. He remembered a time, long ago, that that hadn’t been the case; it felt like another lifetime. “She let me catch her. She acted like I’d found her out, but she could have hidden her tracks if she’d wanted.” He sighed. “I know I was hard on her.”

”You’ve always protected her. She knows that’s all it was. Though she did complain about it.” Crosshair smirked, wearing the same punchable little half-grin he’d perfected in their brief cadet years. “‘Doesn’t he know I’m not a kid anymore?’”

Hunter groaned, rubbing his face. He reached for the pot of caf and poured himself a cup. “I deserve that.”

”Mm-hm.”

He took a sip of caf. It was bracing, strong, just how Crosshair always brewed it. He savored it, letting it swirl over his tongue, so much richer and fuller than the stim drinks they used to have in their rations. He closed his eyes, lost in thought.

The war had never ended. It just took on a new name.

This is my fight, Hunter.

Why did she have to have one, when she’d already fought so hard? Didn’t she deserve the peace they’d won so dearly?

”Are you all right?” Crosshair said in a quiet voice, breaking his reverie.

Hunter blinked, glancing over at his brother. Crosshair regarded him with that cool, observant gaze, the weight of it familiar and steady.

It was the same look he used to give him in the Marauder on missions during the Clone Wars; but the face giving it was older, softer. Crosshair’s narrow cheeks had filled in somewhat with the years, rounding the sharp angles he’d once carried. His gray hair had grown out and gone fully white, curling gently at his forehead and the nape of his neck, except at the old scar at his temple where it had never regrown. His short white beard held a hint of the same curl.

You can wear it how you like, you know. We’re defective. Nobody cares as long as we complete the mission.

Grow it long like yours? I don’t think so. These blasted curls are a nightmare. Give me that trimmer, I don’t know how you stand it.

It’s the headband, obviously.

Sure it isn’t cutting off circulation to your brain?

Hunter stifled a laugh. They’d been so young. Things had changed so much since those days, and Crosshair was different now… yet still the same as ever.

They all were, he supposed.

“Just feeling thoughtful,” Hunter said. He sighed. “I don't know where the time went.”

“We’re clones. We never had very much of it to begin with.” Crosshair’s eyes softened. “Tech should have had more.”

Hunter nodded slowly. “He should have.”

He thought of Tech’s goggles, safely stowed on Omega’s little ship, where she could see them with every pitched turn or hyperspace leap. It was the right place for them, a testament to all he’d taught her. His breath caught in his throat.

“She told me this was her fight,” Hunter said. “But she shouldn’t have to have one. Not again.” Tantiss was a victory -- and a cruelty -- that should have been enough for one lifetime. It tore at him, thinking of her taking on another brutal fight, one with no guarantee of victory. They hadn’t been blind, these years on Pabu; he knew what she was up against. He rubbed at his chest, taking a deep breath.

Crosshair poured himself another cup of caf. “It’s not the galaxy we live in, Hunter. It never has been.”

”When did you get so wise?”

Crosshair ducked his head in one of his rare guffaws, the laugh echoing sharply in the kitchen. “That’s not wisdom. That’s just living.”

”I’m not sure the two aren’t the same.” Hunter took another drink of his caf, but it had cooled significantly. How long had he been musing?

“You’re worried about her.”

”And you aren’t?” Hunter asked skeptically.

Crosshair raised an eyebrow. “Of course I am.” He gazed down into his mug, tracing his thumb over the top of the cup. He rubbed thoughtfully at the side of his face with his stump. “Of course I am,” he said again. “But — I trust her, Hunter. If she has to do this, I have to let her.” He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were bright. He blinked rapidly.

Hunter reached out, taking him by the shoulder and nodding. For a moment, it was hard for either of them to speak.

Crosshair cleared his throat, and Hunter let his hand fall. Crosshair tilted his head towards the back door. “Maybe you should join us.”

”You and Batcher?” Hunter asked. He did, sometimes. When memories of Eriadu, Kamino, Tantiss crept in; when his senses jangled, when it was hard to sleep or think. It wasn’t often that he needed it, but it did help, he’d had to admit. And he’d seen the changes meditation had wrought in Crosshair through the years, a calm held deep within, so different from the twisted guilt and painful memories that had once defined him.

“An open invitation,” said Crosshair. He swallowed, and Hunter could tell he was thinking of Omega, sunny and centered, always happy to join him when she wasn’t sleeping in or off with friends.

”All right, then,” Hunter agreed. “If there’s room on that patio for another old man.”

”Who are you calling old?” Crosshair snarked, getting to his feet with an audible creak. Now it was Hunter’s turn for a sharp, short laugh.

”Both of us, brother,” Hunter said fondly.

They shuffled out to the back patio, Batcher at Crosshair’s heels. She curled up in her comfy bed on the patio, knowing the routine. Crosshair pulled out the stack of pillows piled against the side of the house, tossing two down. The ground had somehow gotten a lot harder in recent years than it used to be, and the pillows helped.

They settled down beside each other, their folded knees brushing. The dawn was rising, blushes of faint pink and orange and gold nipping at the edges of the deep inky blue. The beach-crickets had quieted their songs, only to be replaced by the sweet tittering music of the saltbush sparrows and the sandcatchers and the buzzing starthroats.

Hunter gazed out at the lightening sky, eyes straining as if to catch the glimmer of a ship’s lights. But there was nothing out there besides the glow of pre-dawn, no lights making their way home. Omega was gone, and he knew she’d had to go, knew she had to follow what was right just as she always had, and he hung his head, his breath stuttering.

What were they going to do without her? Her laughter echoing through the house with Wrecker’s booming joy, her tinkering with Gonky or parts from her little ship at the kitchen table so like what Tech used to do, her wicked banter and her kind understanding with Crosshair --

The soft, trusting way she’d look up at him, when she was small?

Cut had tried to warn him, once. Tried to tell him what it meant to love a child, to give everything for them, to do what was best for them even when it was so, so hard. Hunter had thought he’d be able to figure it out. Turned out he’d had no idea.

He rubbed at his eyes, trying to master his breath, and looked out at the sea. The dawn was in full bloom now, gold lining the flowers along their patio and glittering in the suncatcher standing at the east boundary. Hunter relaxed as the light danced around him, reflecting off the mirrors twirling slowly in the morning breeze. He remembered when Crosshair had shyly shown him what he’d made, his old mirror pucks strung together with shells and colorful stones, shimmering beacons of art instead of cold devices of war.

He glanced at Crosshair out of the corners of his eyes. His brother sat with his eyes closed, head slightly bowed, his hand and his stump resting atop his knees. The lines in his face had softened, his expression calm, grounded. Peaceful. His breath flowed in Hunter’s ears like waves on the shore, in and out, in… and out.

Tears pricked his eyes again, and Hunter smiled, nodded, bowed his head, and let his eyes fall closed.

His brother was right. If she has to do this, I have to let her.

He knew it, as much as he knew anything.

She knows what to do. Of course she did; they’d taught her, hadn’t they, Echo, Tech, Wrecker, Crosshair, all of them. She’d come through floods and fire, destruction and capture and all-out war, and she’d never stopped hoping, never given up, never stopped loving all of them through everything. Part of them would always be with her in the emblems on her jacket, in her treasured Lula-doll, in Tech’s goggles, in Hunter’s old headband. And after that, she’d have the memories, long after they’d breathed their last and gone to join their brother.

Tears dampened his face, but he didn’t mind: a small price to pay for a love this fierce and good. He breathed in, and breathed out, his breath matching Crosshair’s, melding with the sounds of the waves below.

She’d be brave, just like they’d taught her, just like she’d always been.

He hoped the galaxy was ready for her.

#the bad batch #the bad batch spoilers #the bad batch finale #tbb spoilers #hunter bad batch #crosshair bad batch #omega bad batch #the dad batch #my batcher fic #seriously tears just dripping down my face writing this #not in a sad angsty hurty way #but in a soft my heart a splode way #hope y'all like it <3

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