Accidentally deleted this ask too, sorry anon (I need a new phone screen. This one’s been glitching out something fierce.)
Crosshair ends up surprising most of the rest of them (the exception being K’serii) when it comes to the kid. I don’t want to divulge too much but prior to the kid being born (possibly before Tech and K’serii ever even found out they were having them), Tech makes it clear to Crosshair in no uncertain words what he’ll do to him if Crosshair ever betrays them again. Crosshair doesn’t end up having as much of a presence within the story until towards the end.
There’s an unideal time where their rifleman is the one who ends up having to watch the baby while the rest of them are working elsewhere or outside the ship. When the kid starts crying however, Crosshair frowns as he looks down at the kid and just says “That’s enough.”
And immediately, the kid stops crying. Crosshair didn’t actually think it would work, but as he looks down at him, the baby looks back, quiet and curious.
“… Are you serious?” Wrecker whisper-yells at him, having ducked back in at the sound dying down as quickly as it did. “Why does he like you?!”
The reason Crosshair ends up seeming weirdly good with the baby is bc he’s unconsciously capable of keeping his heart rate low while handling something delicate that takes a steady hand in a chaotic and constantly-changing environment that requires him to be aware of his surroundings while also able to make crazy fast analyses and decisions at a moment’s notice. He doesn’t let the kid upset him, and him being more chill on the inside than people realize inadvertently contributes to calming the kid down. It’s not an immediate thing, he’s definitely not a fan of having a crying baby on the ship, it’s just that the second someone hands him the kid he basically defaults to work mode
I know you haven’t officially posted anything for the Dad!Tech AU, but if it’s not too spoilers could we know how he and his girl met? 👉👈
I’ll be honest I didn’t/don’t really have anything all that specific in mind. The story starts with them already being together. I just give you a quick overview before we jump right into the day they figure out why she’d been sick recently. The generic idea I had in mind was that she was a stowaway or thief or something like that, and she ended up traveling with them unexpectedly at first before eventually becoming a more permanent fixture on the crew.
This exact scenario is subject to change, but this is the kind of back-and-forth I imagine the two of them started off with.
—
K’serii had always admired her husband’s work even before they were married. Tech was sharp and efficient and had seen through her ruse almost immediately when he found her dismantling the Marauder under the guise of being one of the station mechanics. In her defense, she had been immediately distracted by the appearance of a rather attractive soldier with fierce eyes that pinned her in place and made her forget how to talk.
“I have had,” he’d said, “A very bad day. I am not interested in having to fight for the capacitors currently in your possession. Do me the favor of gently— gently— setting them down where you are and I’ll let you go.”
K’serii was unable to do anything besides stare, mouth agape as her neck and face started to burn. The soldier’s clothes and armor were tattered and scorched, a pair of broken goggles hanging around his neck with shattered lenses. He looked like he’d been dragged through hell and came out annoyed by the inconvenience on the other side.
K’serii barely saw any of that. What she saw was dark curls, strong features, a proud stance, a lean and compact build with enough muscle to show he could carry any of the cargo crates around them with ease… By the divines, his shoulders—
The soldier brought one blaster up almost lazily, his tired expression turning less amused by the second. “K’chey tala c’chek,” he said. He gestured down with the blaster. “Undusi kay vana halek.”
His voice was strong too, even clipped and short with her as it was. There was something captivating about how he looked in the waning sunlight, sharp shadows contrasting beautifully with bronze skin, warm in the sunset behind him. His forearm flexed as he shifted, squaring his feet. K’serii was still staring, stumbling briefly as she swayed off balance, what was wrong with her—
“Igjoaan alzbi vetar,” he said, switching languages again. “Handasa keeli-kuat? Anything?”
“You speak Jawa?”
“And you speak Basic, apparently,” he said, exasperated. “Put the equipment down. Now.”
K’serii did. Despite a rather consistent track record of high-tailing it out of confrontations when caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to, there was something about the soldier that kept her attention locked on him. When she found herself thinking I could stand to hear him give orders some more she immediately shook her head in an effort to clear it, embarrassed beyond reason to realize the cause of her distraction.
“Thank you.” The soldier nodded, holstering his gun as he came down to pick up one of the capacitors and, pausing to pluck the tools she’d commandeered from her coveralls, went to the ventral access panel to start undoing it one-handed. “Goodbye.”
“Well hold on, handsome, who are you?” she asked, quickly trying to catch up with him. “Where you from?”
“I’m the person whose ship you’ve half-dismantled, and where I’m from is irrelevant,” he said curtly from under the cowling. “Why are you still here?”
“Sorry for the breaking and entering, your ride just looked like it could spare a couple parts, I’m in a tight spot right now and just needed to borrow them for a hot minute—”
“This is scavenging,” the trooper interjected, swiftly putting pieces of the sublight engines back together with such a precise, militant efficiency K’serii wouldn’t have believed could be done by one person, were she not watching it happen. “And theft, and further setbacks to an already unpleasant day. I do not care what your reasoning is. Leave, please.”
“Look, I am sorry, but for what it’s worth I only just got here, everything is still here—”
“As are you.” The soldier pushed off the engine casing and pulled the cover shut, sealing it before moving on to the electrical system on the port side. “I am well aware of what has been pulled apart and spliced into, but luckily for me, this—” (And he pulled her powered down scan-log from his belt, wiggling it.) “— Was still charging in the booth and I have no reason to believe you’re working with anyone else. Your input is no longer required. Please go.”
“Hey, I need that!”
“Oh, what a cruel irony,” he deadpanned. “Go buy another. Or steal one, I suppose.”
“I just needed the capacitor and a few converters, I promise I wasn’t trying to—”
“Your problems are not my concern,” he said over his shoulder with an irritated huff.
“They could be, if we stay here long enough.”
The trooper paused, looking back out to her; K’serii held up the stripped coupler from the ignitor on the sublight drives, effectively grounding the Marauder.
“… That is neither a capacitor nor a converter,” he said coldly.
“Didn’t want to risk a power surge, if whoever owned the ship came back early.”
The trooper set aside his tools and slowly, purposefully came over to where K’serii stood. She didn’t move, aside from holding out the coupler for him to take, which he did, her eyes locked on his the entire time.
“… Why are you still here?” he asked.
“Why didn’t you just shoot me?”
He hesitated, mulling over his thoughts as he looked at her. K’serii shivered at the attention. It didn’t go unnoticed.
“… I don’t know,” he said finally. “I suppose because it would be one less thing for me to have to deal with and as I have said, it has already been a bad day. I assumed you could intuit my level of irritation, but seeing as you have not moved, I am compelled to ask again: why are you still here?”
I will take Unexpected or Crumple Zones for 400, Alex
(jk but anything to do with Tech, grazie🙏🙏)
Deal!
The Unexpected AU is the one where he becomes a father but doesn’t know if that’s a good thing. His partner is a near-human woman who wasn’t supposed to be able to have kids with him. (Spoiler alert: Everything turns out okay in the end, even if the journey there is often fraught with legitimate concerns and difficulties.) Here’s a bit of dialogue I was pleased with.
The baby appears almost entirely like a normal human. No shimmery chromatophores, no cranial horns, not even her species’ markings or skin color. Just a normal human baby boy that looks almost entirely like his father.
“Unbelievable,” Tech hears her griping. “Spend nine months carrying that little dingbat, only for him to come out exactly like his father.” She points a finger at him. “Don’t talk to me about the probability of what genetics he could have ended up with, I don’t want to hear it.”
“You hear that?” Tech murmurs to the baby. “Your mother doesn’t want to hear about how much of statistical marvel you are.”
—
Crumple Zones was a writing warmup I did to get back into Tech’s/TBB’s voices/mindsets while working on Deserters. It won’t end up in that fic, it’ll either be its own short one-shot or used in a longer story as a flashback. Takes place when they’re the equivalent of about fourteen years old.
Tech was uncharacteristically quiet, his round face screwed up in a concerning look of contemplation. The analytical approach to whatever problem he deemed needed his undivided attention was starting to bother Hunter.
“All right, spill,” Hunter said, bracing his forearm on the bunk. “What’s eating you?”
“Literally? Nothing,” Tech said without looking at him. “Figuratively, also nothing. I’m focused.”
“You focus any harder, you’ll bore a hole through that screen. Fill me in.”
“I will do so when I’m ready.”
Hunter hmmph’d in disapproval, leaning in to look at his brother’s layout. There were a number of diagrams and bullet point lists cross-referenced and itemized between multiple data pads, and Hunter realized they all bore the same symbol in the upper right corner denotating their category.
“Are those the plans?”
“Yes.”
Hunter tilted his head to get a better look. “Ninety-nine? We haven’t gotten that far.”
“We will at some point,” Tech said. “Plan Ninety-Nine is a “worst case scenario” contingency plan though, one I hope would only be taken if all other plans are exhausted first.”
Tech shifted so Hunter couldn’t read over his shoulder. “I’d rather iron out the details first before proposing it,” Tech said. “It’s unpleasant.”
“Is it something to plan to test in the arena?”
“No,” Tech said simply. “It will be case specific if it ever comes up. Everyone will respond differently, and I believe only if they absolutely have to.”
“… Exactly what “worst case scenario” did you have in mind?” Hunter asked, now scrutinizing his brother with suspicion.
“I will have you assemble the team once I have condensed the pitch,” Tech said. “Please don’t hover.”
Part of the Unexpected AU, where Tech finds out he’s going to be a father but isn’t sure that’s a good thing. I think this snippet gives a pretty good snapshot of the fic/AU.
You’re still allowed to want me the same way, she’d said. If you do.
Ratcheting spanner to bolt, steady the anterior flux grating, one-hundred-and-eighty degree twist clockwise, cinch and replace the cowling. Slide the fins back into place, secure the casing, lock in the tabs. Confirm they're flush, square the spaces between, align them until parallel.
You don’t touch me as often. Not unless it’s clinical.
Tech grit his teeth, slamming the locks back in place more forcefully than was necessary.
It feels like you’re avoiding me. I’m still me, Tech. I still want you.
K’serii wasn’t Tech’s first physical partner, but she was his only relationship. Having feelings for someone had been a first, and though he took it seriously the ramifications of having said serious relationship with both the physical and emotional sides in play were only catching up to him recently.
He thought he was ready for anything with her, but that was before prevailing understandings of physiology turned out to be entirely different than earlier thought.
She was pregnant. She was pregnant and it was undoubtedly his and they were living on a cramped, wanted-by-the-Empire, military attack shuttle with his four brothers and their little sister, being hunted and chased around on dangerous jobs with an unreliable and dubious source of income, working and eating hand to mouth every single day. Their combined genetics weren't supposed to be viable. She was a pilot. They made hyperspace jumps almost daily.
She was pregnant and stuck in some of the worst possible circumstances with somebody who had next to no idea how to handle something like this and was desperately worried for her health and safety at every turn.
The bolt head snapped off under the ratchet, falling to the ground. Tech turned and threw his tools as hard as he could at the wall of the hangar.
She was pregnant and on a ship he had to fix every week.
This was all his fault. He could hardly stand to touch her without being reminded of that.
In the Dad Tech AU, why did you choose another couple for him than the one we seen it in canon??
Not hater, just genuinen curiosity =))
♡
That’s a great question, and an easy answer! I got the idea after Season 1 ended and before Season 2 began, and I’d already had the idea for his partner to be nonhuman
Even after Season 2 began and Phee and her interest in him was introduced, I’d already written out a lot of the ideas and how I thought it would go. (I also didn’t see Season 2 until much later after it came out. Once I did the story just expanded to involve bits and pieces of the rest of the series as I saw fit)
One of the biggest problems they face in the story is that he and his partner weren’t supposed to be biologically compatible, and they can’t find any record of their two species having any offspring together 🤷♂️ His partner (who I am having the worst time coming up with a name for) was raised in a children’s home not on her own planet or around her own species, and never felt any particular draw to seeking them out. (In-universe, her species’ culture looks down on/doesn’t approve of unions [or really contact in general] with outsiders and didn’t historically venture beyond their own planet as far as space travel is concerned, which is why they’re having a lot of trouble finding any resources or references to other cases during the pregnancy.) Gives them a lot of scientific questions to figure out together as they go along :)
If you want, I actually have a scene between Phee and Tech’s partner on Pabu a few months after the kid is born:
Phee hummed appreciatively next to Tech’s wife, watching him sort through cargo. “You sure got yourself quite a catch.”
“I like to think so.”
“If you ever get tired of him,” Phee said, “Send him my way.”
She laughed heartily. “I would share if he were amenable, but I doubt that’d be the case.”
Tech shifted the baby to one hip and reached down to haul a footlocker up onto his other shoulder one-handed. Both women simultaneously made appreciative sounds, laughing again when they realized it.
“Smart, strong, and has pretty eyes,” Phee said. “I’m not much of a kid person, but seeing him with yours is certainly appealing.”
“Easy, tiger.”
“That’s a compliment to both of you,” Phee teased, nudging her. “You make cute kids.”
“Little tadpole looks just like his father,” she grumbled. “The audacity.”
🍁 I always love hearing about the Toro Calican Lives AU, Tech as a Father AU, and Flashpoint AU in particular, but ⭐️ if there’s something else you’re bursting to chatter about 😉☺️
Ask Game
AUTUUUUUMN 💕💕💕
I could talk about any of these for days but Tech’s been on the mind recently (It feels like cheating to give a ‘director’s cut’ of something mostly unposted, but I never intended for it to be a chapter by chapter fic anyway; most of it will be given in more of an outline format, with different scenes written out here and there. It was meant to be more of a dialogue between me and the audience. “Here’s the circumstances for this universe, here are some of the details, come along and see where it goes, ask me what I think these characters would do.”)
I think I’ve said before that part of the reason I got the idea to play in this universe was because I wasn’t finding many fics where Tech was at the forefront AND written in-character. I probably sound catty and picky but he either didn’t sound like an adult, didn’t sound like himself, didn’t sound like a soldier, or he was just written like every cardboard cutout stereotype that gets attributed to him. Writing him as the embodiment of the phrase “Um, actually” and basing his entire personality around infodumping gets old very fast and doesn’t give his character any depth or complexity
I also didn’t feel like I was finding a lot of fics where any of the squad, in this kind of scenario, were being written like most of the men/fathers I know. They didn’t sound real or believable. It seemed like their worries were always waved away or not actually a big deal and all they needed was some reassurance and fluff and all would be well. That doesn’t feel as meaningful to me if there were never actually real stakes to begin with
I wanted a conflict that would force this specific character to adapt to circumstances he’s not usually chosen for in fic and would be the least likely (and prepared) for it to happen to (especially when it does, here just about a year or so after the end of the war). I don’t really write fluff and domesticity if there isn’t like, a plot to put it with, so this was never going to be a happily-ever-after kind of nuclear family settling down story. I wanted for this complication to be given the gravity it would have if it were to happen in the most unideal circumstances, and I wanted for Tech to have reservations about it because I also don’t see many fics where expecting parents react in more complicated ways. Everyone’s either happy, or the major life shift that it is doesn’t actually affect much in the grand scheme of things.
What would Tech realistically be like as a father-to-be, and what would it be like if other characters and the audience could see he was right to have those worries?
To complicate things further I made his wife a different species too, so they weren’t supposed to be biologically compatible in the first place. A future with kids of their own wasn’t something on either of their minds, and part of the establishing circumstances of the story will be him having to contend with not having or being able to find answers to the sudden influx of questions and worries he has. He doesn’t get the luxury of relative predictability that would come with a human partner. I don’t want anything to be easy for him.
Basically, what happens if you put a guy who thinks about every possibility for a course of action into a situation where he doesn’t have any guarantees or concrete answers and there isn’t a readily available way for him to get them? What happens to a logical person suddenly thrust into a complex emotional conflict that he has no basis of comparison for and doesn’t know how he feels about it and doesn’t think he can fix the problems that could arise from it? How does he navigate this new dynamic with a relatively new spouse? What if he thinks he’s the reason one or both of them might not make it, whether by default of genetic incompatibility or by complications that he won’t be able to fix or remedy as time goes on? What about the simple fact they work a dangerous and unpredictable life on the run, with this new Empire subjugating everybody across the galaxy and hunting down those they believe are traitors or rebels?
Tech isn’t just the repository of information for the squad, he’s as much a problem solver and forward thinker as Hunter and Echo. Even normal pregnancies in our world exist on a spectrum of possible symptoms and complications. These exact circumstances have just opened up an infinite number of possible directions their lives could go and… He can’t even begin to unravel his feelings about it because of all the logistical worries in his way. What does it take for a guy who is almost always levelheaded and in control to start to have doubts about himself and circumstances he can’t predict? All of that together prompts interesting and dynamic character choices and responses that keep it from being predictable even if I tell you everything will be okay in the end.
(That’s the other thing I want people to know coming in: this story was always going to have a happy ending. I think setting up this specific scenario without giving the most likely audience I imagine would read it some measure of transparency/reassurance would be unconscionable. Things are going to be okay. Just come along for the ride and see how Tech and the rest of the squad react to unexpected problems.)
The AU also doesn’t end once the baby is born either. If anything, that’s the first real chance Tech has to start to figure out his feelings regarding being a father in the first place.
I don’t know if that actually gives any more information than what I’ve talked about here and there, but the fact you said you were looking forward to it both surprised and encouraged me. I don’t know what the best way to categorize and post things would be, so right now I still have to go back through my backlog of notes to make sure I don’t miss anything good :)
Last line challenge: @autumnwoodsdreamer tagged me!
This is part of the mostly unposted Unexpected AU, where Tech finds out that he’s going to become a father, and nobody (Tech included) is sure if that’s a good thing or not. (Basically the idea of, what if this kind of life-changing event had a lot more impact and mixed emotions than it’s usually given in fanfic, centered around a person nobody expects to see in this role)
For a long time Tech is silent and reserved. Wrecker doesn’t like that and wants him to talk to him, but when Tech finally faces him, the fire in his eyes is alarming.
“I don’t think I have ever been more angry with you,” he says quietly to his brother.
Wrecker’s stunned, hurt, and feels unbelievably guilty. He can’t say anything in response, and Tech turns away from him. “Please don’t distract me right now.”
Lando stayed over on Friday nights because they made a date night pact. Every Friday, they got take out and watched movies until they were distracted or fell asleep. Lance would carry Lando to bed whenever that happened, and he'd get to wake up to this.
Send me a word, if it’s in my wip document I’ll answer your ask with the sentence that it appears in
