Summary: Once upon a time, Belle gets sick and then never recovers. Her loved ones are growing impatient with her, and her doctors are of no help. With the Ogre Wars encroaching on her doorstep, she is desperate to recover, determined to secure an advantageous marriage with Gaston to protect her kingdom.
She calls upon The Dark One, Rumplestiltskin, for help, and he offers her an intriguing deal: A return to her old self, at the moments when it's most needed, but for a great price.
As he draws her deeper and deeper into his plans, Rumple discovers echoes of his past self, begging to be seen. And Belle finds that maybe, she's worthy of being loved, just as she is.
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Belle was tired of pushing through. Everything hurt, and took more energy then she had to give, but still, she tried. She wanted to be useful. She said yes to things she shouldn’t, events she knew would leave her aching and bedbound for days. She kept a pretty smile on her face as she listened to yet another “suggestion” from a friend. She did her best to fulfill her obligations as a noblewoman, putting off rest and expending energy on socializing. Even standing and walking, something once so thoughtless, took their toll on her.
But even so, she could tell that everyone was growing tired of her.
She could see it in her father’s expression, when she excused herself to rest. She noticed it in her friends, who fidgeted at her bedside when they came to visit, and then stopped inviting her to things entirely. She could hear it in the voices of her doctors, when they insisted that she was just, “focusing on it too much.” She wondered what else there was to focus on. She wanted her life back.
But it seemed that everyone had decided: she just wasn’t trying hard enough.
Belle had been nervous to jump into the swirling whirlpool that her Master had opened. Sure, Rumplestiltskin was going too, but he was immortal and Belle was not. Not that she had been given much time to think about it before being pushed in.
She was reminded of the sickening feeling of missing the last step. Only when she felt solid ground beneath her feet, did she open her eyes.
The place where they landed was vastly different from the Enchanted Forest. Colors seemed violently vivid, the sounds of nature unlike any she had ever heard. Belle surmised they were in a hedge maze of some sort, noticing the neatly trimmed identical bushes on either side of them.
Rumplestiltskin seemed agitated. Questions like: “Where are we? What are we doing here? What did we just jump into?” Had been met with one word answers or none at all.
Wonderland, had been the response given as to where they were, but explanations as to what that meant, were not.
She tried again as she followed him through corridors of indistinguishable shrubbery. “What is this place?”
He stopped. She was getting on his nerves. “This is exactly why I don’t take you anywhere. You’re far too curious, with an entirely unreasonable amount of questions,” he hissed.
Normally, her Master punctuated his words with a pointed finger, or a flourish of his hands. He would roll his ‘r’s for the theatricality of it all. She suspected it quite amused him, but today his affect was eerily flat. His normally sharp gaze seemed distant, and his jaw was tense.
Belle crossed her arms. “I think they’re quite reasonable.” He had no answer for her, so she continued, arguing with his back, “Look, if you don’t like taking me with you, then why did you insist I come with you?”
Rumple scoffed, “And leave you to run away again? I think not.”
She was relieved to see him shake his finger at her, even if he was being unfair.
“I didn’t run away. You know that.”
He rolled his eyes. “Right. You chased after some mangy mutt you saw in the woods and got yourself captured.”
She frowned. “I said I was sorry for that.”
He had already turned away before calling back over his shoulder, “Fat lot of good that does me after they stole my THINGS.”
Eventually, he stopped his hurried pace and waited for her to catch up, pulling a gold necklace from his pocket.
“Put this on,” he instructed.
Belle inspected the jewelry in his hand, her head tilted quizzically. Rumple had never given her anything like this, it was remarkably pretty.
Her fingers brushed against his as she took the necklace. He shifted his weight, readjusting his jacket as she turned over the jewelry in her hands.
“Don’t take it off. It’s important!” he huffed, swiftly turning his gaze from her. If she took it off he would have a difficult time finding her again.
“Why?” She clasped the locket around her neck. “What do you need here?”
“Oh, it’s not for me, it’s for you dearie!” he announced, his impish grin returning, “No one will find you in here!”
She froze. “What?”
“A few things,” he continued, not bothering to explain, “Don’t wander too far. This realm is quite dangerous. And whatever ya do, DON’T eat or drink anything.” And with that, he disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
Belle let out an aggravated sigh. Of course.
Rumple considered the object he was after. The Vorpal Sword. It was powerful enough to kill any magical beast, himself disincluded. Powerful enough, that one being in this realm would have been certain to take it.
Cora.
Disgust flickered in his coal black heart. Another monster of his own creation, although unintentionally made. He had opened his heart to her, something unnatural to a creature of darkness, and she had crushed it. Used his own loopholes and tools against him. Took the fine point of a deal and held it to his throat that he had so stupidly bared to her.
It had been decades since their ill-fated love affair, but Rumplestiltskin had never forgotten, and he had never forgiven. So who better to steal from, really.
Although, she was dangerous. She had learned from the best, after all. He had once found her blood lust attractive but now it was a disadvantage. Even banished to this realm, she had become Queen of it. Rumplestiltskin had no desire to alert her to his presence, and if he had his way, he wouldn’t have taken Belle with him either.
He had been backed into a corner. Maleficient, Ursula and Cruella had discovered his dear little maid and used her as a bargaining chip to extract what they wanted from him. He had never felt such relief as when they relinquished Belle back into his arms.
Big problem.
Three of the most notorious villains in his realm, as weak and stupid as they were, now knew he had a crack in his armor. What was to keep them from exploiting it again when Belle was left alone, Rumplestiltskin away in another realm?
So he had taken her with him. Even in Cora’s dangerous domain, Belle was safe simply because he was there too.
Cora was having her annual masquerade ball tonight. Every resident of Wonderland would be there, including all of her guards, watching over the proceedings. Therefore, none would be in her twisted little labyrinth. The perfect place to deposit Belle as he did his work. As long as Belle could keep from getting herself hurt. Which was a tall order most days, with that one’s curiosity.
He approached the castle gates within the swell of the crowd. Mask on, golden suit fitted to perfection, and a glamour spell over his appearance just in case, he entered the party. As he expected, everyone was attending. Couples twirled about in lavish costumes, glitter and gold filling the packed ballroom.
One dress caught his eye in particular, a radiant golden gown with rosettes. Something like that would certainly suit Belle. Although, he would change it to blue. She looked lovely in blue.He had closed many deals on the dance floor, almost a prerequisite for dealing with royals, but now he wondered if Belle would like this sort of thing. As the pairings waltzed around him, he wondered what it would be like to be one of them, but this time, with his hands around Belle’s waist. Funny. He had never had these types of thoughts about Cora, who he had spotted, seated on her throne, high above the crowd.
Her face was covered by a shroud, but he knew it was her from the imperious way she held her shoulders. She had always been so proud. Rumple had expected to feel something stronger upon seeing her, but he just felt bored. Now that he had confirmed Cora and her guards were occupied here, he disappeared to where she kept the sword.
Meanwhile, Belle had wandered. She felt she had been waiting for hours, but the sun didn’t seem to behave the same way in Wonderland, so it was hard to tell. As time crept on, she started to feel a bit queasy. Where was Rumplestiltskin? Usually, his deals were much quicker than this.
From her peripheral, she spotted small, multicolored fuzzballs lining up around the bottom of a hedge. Squatting down, she leaned in, observing them closely.
“Oh! I’ve read about you!” she giggled, “You’re mome raths!” She reached out to softly stroke one of the tiny creatures with her fingertip, unaware of the large figure creeping behind her. A knight in crimson armor on an equally red horse approached, silently drawing his sword. Belle heard the soft snort of his horse and turned, now facing the knight. She shrieked, stumbling backwards into the hedge.
But before her life could flash before her eyes, the knight’s helmet fell to the ground. She watched in confusion as he and his horse crumbled in front of her, until they were no more than a pile of dust.
Rumplestiltskin stepped forward, a strange twisted sword in hand.
“I told you not to wander,” he scolded.
“Rumple! Where have you been?!” Belle demanded, picking herself up from the ground.
His heart skipped a beat at her lack of formality.
“That doesn’t sound like a thank you for saving your life,” he huffed, “Again,” he was sure to add, “And I was getting this!” he exclaimed gleefully as he brandished the sword and twirled it about ostentatiously. Belle, although irritated with him, was relieved to see that Rumple seemed to be in higher spirits.
“Did you steal that from someone?”
“Yes! And so easily too. Like candy from a baby!” he grinned, all teeth and victory.
Belle rolled her eyes. “Congratulations.”
Rumple frowned. His little maid seemed a bit… miffed. He supposed the Red Knight incident had scared her, but how was he to know that Cora left one of those in the maze?
He pranced up beside her, “Thank you! We can go home now! Shall we?”
Belle’s eyes widened. Home? She wondered. As in, theirs? Together?
Rumple stuttered, “To MY home. Your….. workplace,” he added, as he twiddled his fingers together, inspecting the hedge closest to him.
Belle laughed at the awkward sorcerer and took his elbow, “Let’s go then.”
Rumple smiled despite himself, resting his hand on top of hers as he opened the portal.
Summary: The Bad Batch & Co. attempt to throw a surprise party for Omega. It should be a piece of cake, right? Only, they realize in order to have a party, you must have a cake, and in order to have a cake, you have to actually have the ingredients for it.
Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair struggle in the kitchen. Omega suspects something is up. Jax and Stak get attacked by a crab. Echo and Viram have a lovely walk and conversation through the Pabu marketplace.
Word Count: 6.8k
Tags: Fix-It, Tech Lives, Post "Canon," Domestic Fluff
Apparently baking a cake was the most difficult thing they’d ever done.
“Who keeps pots and pans in the oven?!”
Hunter hissed as he held his hands underneath the cold water, doing his best to ignore the sting caused by the mild, red burns on his fingertips and palms.
“Who the kark grabs hot pans out of an oven without an oven mitt?!” Wrecker retorted, pulling said pots and pans out of the pre-heated oven with oven mitts on before placing them up on the counter.
“I wasn’t thinking!”
“Obviously!”
Crosshair snorted, rolling his eyes in fond amusement as he watched the exchange between his two older brothers. Apparently Hunter has started to pre-heat the hypersonic oven before checking if anything was actually in there and apparently the oven was storage space in the Nultez household, but by the time they smelled burning it was too late.
Hunter had yanked open the pre-heated oven to find a pile of pots and pans stuffed into the oven, with a few plastic containers (some with leftovers in them), and in the mix of panic and confusion, he reached in to grab and pull the items out–barehanded.
“Kriffin’ hell-” Hunter muttered through gritted teeth as he looked down at his hands. It wasn’t anything too bad, definitely something that just needed a bit of ointment of some kind and a bandage, but their resident medic was out trying to get ingredients for the cake.
Nothing Hunter couldn’t deal with, though his pride was hurt more than anything.
“Something wrong? We heard screaming-”
Khea poked her head into the kitchen with a small frown, looking between the three clones with mild concern. She then made a face after sniffing the air; “Did you guys burn something already?”
“No!” - “Yes.”
Khea raised an eyebrow and looked to Crosshair who shrugged.
“What can I say, they’re miracle workers,” he chuckled, shaking his head as he tossed his toothpick into the trash bin.
“Everything’s fine,” Wrecker assured, giving his girlfriend a less-than convincing smile as he glanced at the dripping melted plastic in the oven.
"Just, uh, technical difficulties," he laughed nervously as he quickly shut the oven with his hip.
"Right…" Khea nodded slowly, clearly not convinced, "Do I need to get Tech or-"
"It's fine!" Hunter reassured, shaking his head as he shut off the water and quickly wrapped his hands up in a hand towel, “We’ve got it covered on this end, don’t worry about us-”
“It’s a little late for that, ruus'alor,” Khea chuckled, shaking her head, “but alright…just…save the whole ‘burning a cake before actually making a cake’ for the island talent show.”
“Hilarious,” Hunter grumbled, rolling his eyes as Khea snickered as she grabbed some wipes before heading back out the door again.
“There’s an island talent show?” Wrecker asked, his eyes widening in surprise and interest.
“She was joking,” Hunter sighed, shaking his head.
“Too bad,” Crosshair frowned with a shrug, “you two would take the cake.”
Crosshair smirked as he watched Hunter put his head in his hands before hissing out as he touched the still slightly raw skin while Wrecker burst out laughing at Crosshair’s little joke, quickly recovering from his initial disappointment about there not actually being an island talent show.
“Good one Cross!” Wrecker exclaimed, beaming as he slapped Crosshair on the back, causing him to stumble slightly.
“Can we just focus on making the cake?” Hunter groaned, furrowing his brow slightly at his two younger brothers.
“Sure, let’s start on that-” Crosshair nodded, his tone playfully sarcastic as he rolled up his sleeve with his one hand, “-since we have all the ingredients ready to go to actually make the cake.”
Hunter rolled his eyes; “Not helping.”
Crosshair just grinned, his smile reading, ‘Not trying to help.’
“Ah, well, even if we had the ingredients we now have to clean out the oven,” Wrecker pointed out with a small frown, rubbing the back of his neck as he opened up the oven and took a peek inside at the melting plastic on the metal grates.
“Wonderful,” Hunter huffed.
Wrecker shut the oven door and shuffled around his kitchen, rummaging around a few drawers before he pulled out a first aid kit and opened it up to grab Hunter some medicine and bandages.
“Eh, ‘bout time we’ve cleaned it,” Wrecker chuckled, trying to make light of the conversation as he held out his hand to Hunter, motioning for him to show him the burns.
Hunter stared down at Wrecker’s hands for a second before sighing softly and placing his hands on top of Wreckers, muttering a small ‘thanks’ as he let Wrecker take care of the burns for him.
“Alright, we’ll clean it, but at least we should get started on some of the dinner items, right?” Hunter suggested as he looked between his brothers.
“Oh right, dinner,” Crosshair nodded slowly, running his one hand through his hair.
Hunter snorted and smiled a bit; “What? You think we were going to just eat cake for dinner?”
“At this rate, I’ll be surprised if we even have batter made by dinner time,” Crosshair joked, rolling his eyes, as a faint grin tugged at his lips.
With a kiss to the top of Hunter’s bandages and a quick murmur of “jahaala, jahaala”, Wrecker wrapped up his medical aid and saved the kit while Hunter once again thanked him and flexed his fingers. Already the ointment Wrecker had used seemed to be working its magic and Hunter’s hands felt cool and tingly from the minty feeling the medicine gave him.
“Any updates from Phee or Echo?” Hunter asked, looking up from his bandages over to Crosshair who was scrolling through the datapad now.
Crosshair shook his head, “Not yet. We still planning on making those cold noodles?”
“Yeah, we have all the ingredients for that, I know that much,” Wrecker confirmed, opening up the cooling chamber to pull out the ingredients for them to at least start on dinner.
With no update from Phee or Echo, Hunter frowned a little, the nerves creeping back in, but as soon as it showed on his face, Crosshair patted Hunter’s shoulder reassingingly.
“Relax, Echo’s on it,” he reminded, “besides, it’ll be worth it in the end. Omega’s going to love it.”
“You think so?” Hunter asked, his voice strained as he glanced up and over at Crosshair.
Crosshair hummed and gave a curt nod, “Yeah. She’ll be surprised for sure. I don’t think she suspects anything, anyways.”
Summary: The Bad Batch & Co. attempt to throw a surprise party for Omega. It should be a piece of cake, right? Only, they realize in order to have a party, you must have a cake, and in order to have a cake, you have to actually have the ingredients for it.
Word Count: 4.6k
Tags: Fix-It, Tech Lives, Post "Canon," Domestic Fluff
You would think that an elite squad such as Clone Force 99 with their years of experience on the battlefield would be good at planning ahead and being ready for the unknown, but that is far from the case.
Despite their skillsets, they’ve come to find that being a civilian is harder than it looks and the adjustment to that life hasn't been easy. But they’re the Bad Batch - they live for the unpredictable and for the improv. They live for a challenge. Even if change is difficult and something that’s hard to handle, over time they’ve managed to slowly adjust to their lives on Pabu. Some days were easier than others, a lot of their nights were rougher than most, but at the end of the day, their new lives were all they could ever hope for and more.
They could try their hand at ‘normal’ things. They could be a ‘normal’ family (thought they were far from it) and with that came the concept of birthdays.
Birthdays were always a particular thing–they never really talked about it or bothered with them while in the GAR or even after–but once settling into Pabu and attending a few of them, Omega expressed a desire to have something special like a birthday.
And if Omega wanted something, her brothers were going to make sure she got it.
It was Wrecker’s idea, he brought it up one day on the beach to Hunter while Omega was out of earshot, playing in the waves with Batcher and Lyana. After having seen and heard Omega’s subtle desires to have a birthday, Wrecker thought it would be nice to have something like that for her and Hunter immediately agreed to the idea.
From there they told Tech, who immediately went into looking through as many databanks he could to see if he could find any information about when Omega was “birthed” from her tube. Echo helped look too, but the pair found nothing–no record of anything that might give them an idea of what day it specifically was, much to their disappointment.
It was Crosshair who suggested to have the day be the day they met Omega. The day everything went to shit but paved the way to change their lives like none of them would have ever expected.
The day they formally met Omega was a day none of them would ever forget, despite everything that went wrong on that day, so they agreed to have the birthday on that date to celebrate her and the light she brought to their lives and to the galaxy itself.
Lucky for them, it was in a few rotations, so they planned for a big surprise party, making sure to keep it as much as a secret as possible (Wrecker almost let it slip a few times) from Omega to make it all the more special. They got their partners in on it as well and soon, they had a plan set for the day to make sure that things went as smoothly as possible.
Well, as smoothly as things could go for the Bad Batch.
