Description: Tech x GN!Reader Batcher, established relationship;
POV is 1st person so there's no use of gendered pronouns (:
Warnings: Angst, major character death, grief, very vague allusion to suicidal thoughts and self-destructive tendencies
Word Count: 916
A/N: This is the first time I've really written any fandom content since high school. Or at least, with the intention of letting others read it. Tried to balance the mix of recounting the past while also shifting to how reader/oc is in the present which can be tricky so I hope it reads well.
Image Credit: @ilcuoreardendo-fic
Everything happened so fast.
It was like any other mission gone bad — shots from grounded enemies, shots from the sky, and having to problem-solve on the fly amidst the chaos. Then… it was very different.
There was a violent shake as the rail cars were hit and then I was looking down at my husband hanging far below the car. Momentarily, all sound became an indistinguishable noise, garbled voices of distress mixed with ringing and roaring in my ears, as you struggled to climb up to the car.
As I moved to help you, the car creaked and, snapping back to reality, I heard you shout up, “Whoa! Don't! Any shift in weight could send both of these cars over. You must sever the connection hinge. Now!” Wrecker and I immediately exclaimed our rejection of that idea.
I could feel my panic rising, my desperation increasing. There must be something. There HAS to be something. Anything to fix this mess and save you.
Your next words, spoken so calmly and matter-of-fact, slammed into me. “There is no time, cyare. Plan 99.”
“Don’t. You. Dare, Tech.” My voice cracked on your name. Gently, desperately, I repeated my words, punctuating them with “please”. Your eyes locked with mine — soft, sad, and full of love. “I love you, cyar’ika, but when have we ever followed orders?”
When you shot the connection and began to fall, a deafening scream ripped out of me. “NO!” My body automatically lunged for the side with my hand outstretched before Wrecker grabbed me and held me firmly. Thrashing to escape his grasp as the car began to move, I screamed, “TECH! No! No no no! Go back!”
As the car got further and further away, the shock of the situation overtook me — numb, unseeing, unmoving with that same mix of indistinguishable sounds in my ears. My body went into a survival autopilot – moving as prompted but I wasn’t there – and the team had to help drag me back to the Marauder through the attacks.
Once aboard the Marauder, standing in the middle of our quarters, my knees gave out as I crumbled. Ripping off my helmet and goggles, my agonized sobs finally broke free and echoed through the ship. So full of grief, my body shaking, I leaned forward on my hands for support, fingers digging into the metal floor. One hand reached up, taking my chained wedding ring from underneath my undershirt and I clutched it so hard a mark was left in my hand.
At some point, I had stopped crying and left my body. I didn’t even know the ship stopped. Feeling a gentle hand on my shoulder, the only acknowledgment of awareness I could give was a hoarse, emotionless mumble, “You should have let me go with him.”
From there, I don’t truly remember much of anything. There’s a blur of being dragged to my feet and out of the ship, and of having wet hair and clean clothes while AZ checked me over with no memory of cleaning up or changing. I’m ashamed to say that I don’t even truly remember Omega being taken. All I truly remember from the past month and a half is waves of soul-crushing pain surrounded by numbness as I attempted to lose myself in my work. I keep crying and feeling flashes of disbelief and anger. I’ve lost my appetite… and my desire for self-preservation. All this while moving on autopilot to complete my tasks and finish the mission. Find and save Omega. That is all that matters right now.
Hunter, Wrecker, and Echo are concerned for me, often pushing food on me and otherwise fussing. Up until now, there were eyes on me almost all the time, it felt like, and I hated it, but I understood why they hovered. Echo left a couple of weeks after the events to rejoin Rex, but I still hear him comm Hunter every so often to check in on me and find out how the search for Omega is going.
The days are often easier than the nights since I’ve taken on most of Tech’s tasks alongside my own. Hunter and Wrecker have tried to take some of them, wishing to lighten my load, but I adamantly refuse. I need them. I need the memory of helping with and hearing about them from him by doing them. They’ve let the situation be, but still intervene to make me sleep.
That’s when it gets unbearable.
The emptiness beside me screams, his scent got fainter with each passing day until it disappeared, remembering the quiet moments we shared in this space, and hearing his final words on a loop in the silence. Once the exhaustion finally takes me… I often watch Tech fall and wake with tears streaming down my face or stinging eyes and a heavy heart. Some nights, I think Hunter has been slipping me medicine in my food ‘cause those are the only nights I get any decent sleep.
Despite all this, I have, believe it or not, been getting better. Slowly, I began to reengage with the boys and be open with them. They stopped having to watch me as close or force me to take care of myself. Now, it’s reminders and intervention as necessary along with occasional check-ins when I seem particularly off one day. I’m still far from okay and I won’t ever be the same but, thanks to our brothers, I become a little less hollow each day.
sounds silly but. one of the greatest things ever as someone with a trauma background is learning that things aren't inherently as bad or as scary as I thought. it IS possible to assemble Ikea furniture without arguments. is IS possible to discuss boundaries without having something thrown at me for speaking out of turn. it IS possible to spend hours on end sharing your favourite things with your favourite people, and not get called annoying for it. the world is an incredible place
didn’t include the wildest things in the original post, so here’s some more: it is possible to be upset and not be accused of being too much! it is possible to be honest about your feelings and not have them used against you! it is possible to learn that having your own thoughts and feelings does not make you a bad person! it is possible to find people who will hold you while you cry and hug you when they’re proud of you! there are people who will remind you to be easier on yourself when you’re finding it hard to cope!
the world is not perfect, and even once you’re out of traumatic environments you may continue to suffer. but there are people out there who will not use your pain against you. there are people who make it easier to cope instead of harder !!
Imma be real with y’all… I never really thought of myself as a monster fucker but I’m coming to realise that I do fit under the monster fucker umbrella. Probably only go up to like a level 3 I think but that’s still mid-level.
I’ve been thinking about everything (what’s happened so far, what might happen in the finale) since yesterday morning after watching Ep.14 — really trying to process everything. Mainly thinking about Tech and Echo. I have so many thoughts and feelings about all these characters and yet can’t find the words for any of it right now but what I do need to say is that…
Part of me is still hoping that we’ll be surprised with Tech in the finale and that the creators won’t be so cruel to reference him with goggles, mentions, and such; as well as, avoid truly addressing his death all season just to find out he’s actually dead. But at this point… I feel like he really is which is just a knife twist to the heart.
All the times I’ve sobbed over the fact he might be dead but maybe there’s still hope… desperately clinging to “maybe it’s not as it seems”. I’ll have to actually fully grieve him and sit with how much I love him and how much he means to me, knowing that he’s gone.
But as gut wrenching as that is, as upset as I may be over his death… I find myself begging, sobbing “please don’t take Echo too.” I was thinking about him in these last couple episodes and just how much I love him more than words will ever be enough for. I was thinking about like koala bear hugging Echo so tightly with him hugging me back (which I really want to commission some art for once I have the money) and how much he’s helped me through Tech’s absence as my other favourite character (tied with Tech). I’ll be really upset if any more of the Bad Batch die because they all mean so much to me but if they take Echo… I think that’ll shatter me. That’s the worst possible ending for me. So no matter what happens in the finale, I find myself begging for just one thing. “Please, please, please don’t take Echo from me too.”
And with everything… I wish my friends understood how I felt and that this isn’t just a show and characters that I love — some frivolous obsession or whatever. I wish they understood how important TBB are to me.
Maybe once this is all over, I’ll finally find a way to sit down and write out all my thoughts and feelings about these characters. Maybe in time for May 4th. Just to have it out of me.
Everything you (n)ever wanted to know about archery
Don’t watch Lord of the Rings, the Hunger Games, or Avatar. At least, not for the archery. Hollywood is stock full of misinformation and misrepresentation about archery. Sadly, not a lot of writers have the opportunity to really delve into the practice. So here is my all you wanted to know primer from how bows are constructed, to lining up and releasing the shot, to treating your friend’s nasty broadhead wound.
people always talk about evil clones like oooh a dark mirror oohh what if you saw what a cruel person you were/are capable of becoming. and well yes but what if you were the evil clone. what if you looked in the mirror and what you saw was so bright it blinded you. what if you had to know exactly how good you could have been.
