So we know that Wrecker is the demolitions expert of The Bad Batch. So naturally he would need tools to do his job, right? Wires would need connected, cut, panels taken off, etc.But he doesn’t have obvious pockets and such to carry tools in the way that Tech does.
So you could say that Tech has the tools and he uses them. But that’s not really practical. What if Tech was too far away in a situation? Or if he was busy with another task? No, that’s not the answer.
I figure the answer is this…
A “space” Swiss Army Knife. Who knows what it would be called in universe. Would it be a multitool? 🤷🏻♀️
But picture Wrecker full on MacGyvering a bomb while the chaos that is the rest of the squad reigns around him. (Sorry if you don’t get the reference)
Tags/warnings: Reader is a Jedi, referenced death of a sibling, grief/morning, sleeping problems, including false awakening loops/sleep paralysis, angst, hurt/comfort
Summary: As a Jedi, you’re supposed to be able to let go of people after you lose them. But when your twin brother, who is also a Jedi, is killed mid battle during the clone wars, you find your grief manifesting in a plethora of sleeping problems that you hadn’t been prone to experiencing since childhood. When it all starts to become too much, only the batch’s resident demolitions expert/human teddy bear Wrecker is able to ground you and, little by little, help you feel safe again.
Authors note: So uh... if you didn’t know, one of my older brothers unexpectedly died several weeks ago, and this is just my way of coping with my grief, as well as the sleeping problems, discussed in this fic, that I’ve developed as a result. Often, I wake up feeling deeply unsettled and like I’m not entirely real, and this is immediately followed by the thought man, I could really use the strength of Wrecker to comfort me and make me feel grounded in this moment. So basically... this is that. Also written for @wrecker-week 😁
All the lights that blink and beam within each of the cockpit’s various displays are a normal, reassuring glow of green, indicating that all sensor readings, as of this moment, are blissfully, unremarkably normal.
Wrecker, to the shock of almost everyone who knows him, doesn’t actually mind this job. Sure, it’s probably the least exciting duty he and his brothers are forced to contend with on a semi-regular basis, what with operations needing to be split between such a small crew. But someone, especially whilst they were using some of the more clandestine hyperspace routes, needed to keep a constant eye on the various monitors, particularly for the critical systems and proximity sensors to detect for foreign vessels whilst travelling around the Outer Rim.
Wrecker, having what some would call an overactive mind and as a result, an abundance of energy that needed to be burned off somehow during the long stretches of nothingness that came with extraneous hyperspace forays such as this one, could always be counted on to find something to keep himself occupied through the night.
What he hadn’t counted on, but what was quickly becoming the standard routine, was you at some point or another joining him in the cockpit.
When you had joined them, his squad had been apprehensive.
But when a Jedi general who they had later learned was your former master had asked if they had room to take you in, well...
It wasn’t like Hunter could really raise any objections to that.
So you had come aboard, and little by little they had learned of the circumstances that had brought you to them.
You were a twin, and in a slightly less-conventional Jedi upbringing, were trained in the ways of the Force alongside your brother. You both had different masters and were encouraged to find balance within your familial relationships so as not to form unhealthy attachments. But regardless, family was family, and you often found yourselves, once you had both become knights, working alongside each other and in later years fighting at each other’s side to defend peace and to protect vulnerable planets as the war tore its way across the galaxy.
Which, in the end, had made it all the more devastating when, mid battle, in a bid to protect his men, your brother was overpowered and cut down by General Grievous.
The worst part, which should have been viewed as a mercy but in reality felt like a final blow to you, was that you weren’t even there to witness his final, heroic sacrifice.
You were at the Temple, and subsequently had woken up in bed with a horrible, aching pain in your chest and an instinctive, loud, and screeching feeling that something was irrevocably and unspeakably wrong.
Even before the Temple Guards had arrived at your quarters to inform you, deep within the confines of your soul, where the ever-present song of the Force had faded into a clashing, churning dissonance within your ears, you had already known.
You were left with the shadow, the memory of him everywhere you went, and an inescapable, desperate urge to run away from it all. So, with your master unable to convince you to stay out of the fight entirely and to instead take some time to go on a meditation retreat, he had sent you to them, where you could still be of use without yours and your brother’s mutual acquaintances, friends, and the familiar settings that brought the memory of him back just to haunt you, and that with some luck, you could grieve whilst also maintaining some degree of distance from the brother and the childhood that you had lost.
The only problem now?
You’ve come to associate your bed, and by extension getting to sleep, as not safe anymore.
Your bed, of all places, should be the one place where you do feel safe. It’s warm, it’s comfortable, and it’s the place you always go when you find yourself in need of rest.
But the bed was not safe.
Bed meant lying down, going to sleep, and waking up to news that could shatter you as easily as if you were glass. Going to sleep, in the same vein, became a fretful nightly event, where you would lie down and try to convince yourself, sometimes for up to several hours, that everything was fine, that you would close your eyes, wake up in the morning, and most everything would remain the same—safe, familiar and unchanging, much like the monitors and sensor readings on the cockpit’s various displays.
And then there were the nightmares, which themselves were an issue all on their own.
The thing about nightmares is that a lot of the time, they don’t have to be this vivid, terrifying experience in which you watch as your twin brother is, viciously and without mercy, stabbed through the chest and back with two lightsabers in quick succession.
You don’t need to go to sleep at night for that image to burn behind your eyes if you happen to fixate on it too much.
Your nightmares nowadays were quiet and deceptive in their appearance, which in the end makes them all the more deeply unsettling to wake up from.
Disappointingly, in a painful twist that really shouldn’t have been all that surprising given the circumstances, they were also recurring, a remnant of your childhood that you thought you had left in your Padawan days long ago.
“False-awakening loops” your master, with patience and a seemingly endless reserve of compassion, had called them. “When you are stressed or are anticipating something stressful is about to happen, you are unable to fully relax into sleep. To try and compensate, your brain will aim to re-create the familiar scenario of waking, sometimes over and over again, in an attempt to process the stress or trauma that has triggered it.”
So, as it was, you found yourself reverting back to those subtle but frightening dreams that cropped up on particularly stressful occasions when you were a youngling.
You would wake up. You would start your day, and then something strange, disquieting, or a frightening mixture of both would slowly alert you to the fact that you were dreaming, and then, as soon as you would begin to struggle to get yourself out and actually wake up for real, it would repeat, happening up to five or six times on a loop until, somehow you were able to pull yourself out of the tangle of dreams, stumbling back into your awareness with a blurry, visceral fear that this too was not real, leaving you with the sick feeling of being caught, ensnared in a trap.
What you hadn’t accounted for, when these dreams started to disrupt your sleep more often than they ever did when you were a child, was him.
But he was there, warm and strong and so, so incredibly real when he held you in the aftermath that really, at the end of the day, falling for him had been easy.
As easy as it is for you to stumble from your bunk in this moment, quick, urgent footsteps carrying you to the cockpit, your eyes wet as you search for him until finally, finally he’s standing in front of you, and he’s real. You’re reaching for him and collapsing into his arms, legs shaky and threatening to give out, but it’s fine, he has you, and he isn’t going to let you fall.
“Oh, sweetheart.” You feel yourself being lifted, arms gently tucking you against a broad, strong chest as he sinks down into one of the cockpit seats, settling you in his lap. “We’re okay, see? You’re safe.”
His hands brush along your shoulders and back and he frowns, feeling every muscle tense, shaking uncontrollably within his hold.
“It was the usual one, wasn’t it?”
You sniffle, barely able to look up at him as you shiver, slowly nodding your head. The muscles in his arms flex against your trembling form as his hold tightens slightly.
“Oh,” he says, sounding disheartened. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
His hands run up and down your arms in a slow, soothing rhythm.
“I-I couldn’t move this time,” you shudder, belatedly supposing that maybe that’s why your body has decided to shake uncontrollably now that it’s been given the freedom. In all your years of experiencing these loops, sleep paralysis has never been part of the deal, and it frightened you even more than the usual, unsettling loops of false awakenings. Something about being aware of everything around you but being unable to get up or even twitch One of your fingers has rattled something deep within your bones, and it still lingers within your quivering, tensed muscles even now. “I, I could hear my alarm going off but I couldn’t...”
When you say it out loud, it feels stupid, almost ridiculous and silly and certainly not deserving of the amount of fear that’s still rolling off of you like waves right now. But Wrecker—sweet, gentle Wrecker—only gathers you closer to his chest, tender as he presses a kiss to the top of your head.
“Shh,” he soothes, his hand drawing slow, soft circles against the shaky and tensed muscles of your back. “You’ve been so brave, my sweet thing. But it’s okay, see?”
He lightly nuzzles his nose against your hair, taking a slow, steady inhale before dipping to press a soft kiss to the curve of your cheek.
“You’re safe, see?” he whispers, his breath a warm caress against your ear. “I’ve got you, mesh’la. You know I’ll keep you safe.”
“P-Promise?” you ask, trying not to grimace at how small your voice sounds.
“I promise,” Wrecker murmurs, his voice low and gravelly. All you can do is nod, dropping your head to rest against him, feeling yourself continuing to shake as his thumb gently circles between your shoulder blades.
“Do you need anything?” he asks, his voice softened. “Is there somethin’ I can do to make it better?”
“I-I don’t know,” you whisper, still shivering all over despite your best attempt to stop the uncontrollable spasms.
You don’t know how to explain it, don’t know how to tell him without sounding insane that you don’t feel 100% convinced that you’re real at the moment, but somehow, looking down at you with his brows pinched together and his expression contemplative, he figures it out anyway.
He hums a low, thoughtful sound within his chest before taking your hand between his, slowly guiding it up and beneath his shirt until your palm is pressed against the slow, steady beat of his heart.
“Breathe, cyar’ika,” he whispers, his hand still idly tracing the back of yours as he holds it there. “This is real, I promise. We’re both real, and we’re safe, and I’ve got you.”
He’s been through this particular song and dance with you many times before. By now, he knows and has learned the hard way that asking you to name five things you can see, four things you can hear, etc is often times not very helpful, only serving to stress you out further when it’s too hard for you to form the words because there isn’t a part of you that just won’t stop shaking against him.
But this though. Warm, slightly flushed bare skin beneath yours. His heartbeat is tangible, real, too vivid and too present for even the most realistic of dreams to be able to replicate. His strength, which he could so easily use against you if he wanted to, is only used to hold you gently now, the strong, comforting bulk of him, his muscles settled against you is grounding like a weighted blanket, keeping you tethered to the real and holding your thoughts back from spiraling.
“There we go,” he says in a soft murmur, lips against your hair. He’s begun to rock you gently, still cradled to his chest as your shaking slowly ebbs and subsides, leaving you limp and boneless within his arms. “Doin’ so good for me, sweetheart. You’re okay.”
You shiver, only this time it’s not out of fear. It’s out of a visceral, pure relief that floods through you as you look up into his warm, amber eyes that are bright with attentiveness and concern.
“You're real,” you whisper, your voice cracking as you reach up to brush your fingers against his cheek. You feel the resulting upward tilt of his lips and he smiles, warm, soft eyes melting with tender, sweet love as he nods his head.
“I’m real,” he confirms, reaching down to bring your hand to his lips, leaving a slow, soft kiss along the back of each knuckle. “And so are you, sweet girl.”
You nod, little by little melting into his strong embrace, and for a while the cockpit is silent save for the soft, synchronized patterns of your breathing as Wrecker’s fingers lightly stroke through your hair.
“It’s still not mornin’ yet,” he says, his voice quiet, cautious. “Do you wanna...maybe lie down for a bit and see if—”
You’re shaking your head before he’s even finished his sentence.
“No,” you say, uncaring that your voice sounds petulant like that of a child. “I can’t, Wrecker. It isn’t…my bed…it doesn’t feel safe right now.”
Your fingers curl within the material of his shirt, struggling to find the words to explain that the only thing, the only place that feels safe for you right now is here in his arms while he holds you, keeping you grounded...keeping you feeling like you’re real.
“Easy, cyar’ika, ‘s okay.”
He turns your hand over, pressing a quick kiss to the inside of your wrist.
“I’ll think of somethin’,” he promises, and sure enough, a few moments later, he has.
You watch as he returns from the bunk room, arms laden with pillows and blankets, biting your lip as you tilt your head.
“Where’d you get all those?” you ask, because even with yours and his bedding combined, it wouldn’t be this much.
“Tech’s pillow almost always ends up on the floor, and he usually ends up kicking his blanket off without even noticing during the night,” he explains, offering a small, sheepish grin.
You watch him as he arranges pillows on the floor, only sparing one which he places over his folded legs.
“Come here, sweetheart,” he beckons, and uncharacteristically timid, you do, letting him arrange you as you settle.
“This one is yours,” he says with careful and precise movements while wrapping a warm and familiar blanket around you. “This one is mine.”
You blush because before he even says it, you can already tell because the blanket smells like him.
“And this one,” he says with a flourish that makes you quietly giggle before he gently wraps you up in the last of the three blankets, “is Tech’s, and don’t worry,” he adds, being sure to tuck the blanket beneath your chin, “I’m sure he won’t mind. Now lie down for me, cyar’ika. I’ve got you.”
He gently eases you into a lying position, your head resting against the pillow that’s settled across his lap. It’s now that you realize he’s effectively swaddled you within the blankets, wrapping you up tightly like you’re in some kind of blanket burrito. You sigh, snuggling contentedly down into the soft pile of bedding.
It is safe, and his hand is in your hair, gently playing with the strands, and that, too, feels safe. You stifle a yawn, only now realizing how tired, how exhausted, really, you feel, and that as well, you know is because you’re safe.
Not only that, you realize. Specifically, it’s because you feel safe with him. Nowhere else, no one else has been able to provide that kind of comfort and surety, and you let out a breath, nuzzling your cheek against his hand when he strokes it, like a tooka asking for more pets. From the low, contented sound he makes within his chest, you don’t think he minds very much as he obliges.
“Close your eyes, mesh’la,” he coaxes, watching you as your eyes begin to flutter. “I promise I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
You’re reluctant, because you don’t want to fall back into sleep and its sometimes untrustworthy, careless hands. But you’d also do anything for Wrecker, and really he’s not actually asking you to sleep. He only wants for you to get some rest however you can manage it. So, with some trepidation, you do, his thumb gently brushing along your cheek as you finally allow your eyes to close.
When it’s morning, when you do wake up from a peaceful sleep that you somehow manage to fall into, he’s still there. Strong, OnGard and protective but so, so gentle and soft as he touches you, keeping you safe through the night, just as he promised to do.
•Thank you to @freesia-writes and @snotbuggle for these wonderful Wrecker themed dividers😊
•If you enjoyed this work, please consider leaving a comment and/or reblog. :-) They are very appreciated
