Chapter Text
“You lied.”
The accusation was growled through clenched teeth. Hunter didn’t want him to see how badly it hurt. How confused and angry he was. But Crosshair always did have a knack for bringing out the side of him that was feral snarls and gnashing teeth.
The sniper sneered, even though he was in no position to do so. Quite literally. He was lying in a medbay bed, a fresh bandage on the side of his head, his Imperial armor replaced with medical scrubs.
The object of their argument had been incinerated by the medical droid, but it still hung heavy in Hunter’s chest. Proof that Crosshair had lied to him. Lied to them all.
The others would have been shocked at the heated scowl on their commander’s face, except perhaps Tech. Sometimes he saw even more than Hunter, and the observant clone probably understood just how deeply he’d been wounded.
And for what? Why had Crosshair lied about removing his inhibitor chip?
“Why?” Hunter demanded when Crosshair hadn’t answered.
“Like I said before, Hunter.” Crosshair’s voice was dark like rotten nectar. “You take things too personally.”
Hunter was across the medbay in two steps and grabbed Crosshair by the front of his scrubs.
The sniper did little more than slightly widen his eyes as Hunter’s fists curled into the material and pulled him up from the bed until they were barely two inches apart.
“Um, excuse me, sir?” chirped their medical droid from his elbow. “You shouldn’t handle the patient so roughly. He needs to rest—”
“AZI,” Hunter said as evenly as he could. “Get out.”
“But—”
“Now.”
The droid hovered for a moment before spinning one half of his body, followed by the other, and exiting the room with a quiet, “oh dear.” The door whooshed shut behind him.
Crosshair’s lips curled into a smile that was both graceful and nasty.
“Abusing droids now? How beneath you.”
Hunter searched his eyes, looking for something, anything that would break through this mask of bravado he’d erected for himself, but Crosshair didn’t budge an inch. It would take more than that to put a dent in his barriers, especially if it was Hunter doing the pushing.
Hunter released his hold, and Crosshair fell back onto the pillow, catching himself by the elbows as his lips twitched with displeasure. A small gesture, but Hunter took it as the victory it was.
“Damn right I’m taking this personally. You chose to lie to us. The chip didn’t make you do it.” A pause, some of the fury seeping out of his voice as he tacked on, “Did it?”
Crosshair let out a small huff, looking away as his teeth chewed on the inside of his lip in that way that meant he was craving a toothpick.
“No. It didn’t. I deceived you of my own volition.”
“Why?”
“Does it matter?”
Maker, he was trapped in the training room on Kamino all over again. Asking, pleading, begging Crosshair for an answer, but being stonewalled in return.
Hunter said the same thing he’d said then, curling the tail end of the word with a snarl.
“Yes.”
Crosshair leaned back against his pillow and stared at the ceiling.
“It didn’t matter to you when you believed I still had my chip. Why would it matter if you thought it was gone.”
“What?”
Crosshair met his eye and bit out each word, as if Hunter were being obtuse on purpose.
“You left me behind when I was helpless to follow. Why would you care if it was my choice to turn on you? Reject you, just as you’d rejected me?”
It was as if a thunderbolt had struck him. Not so unlike when Crosshair had floored him with his revelation in the training room.
You weren’t loyal to me.
“I…” Hunter took a step closer. “Cross, we never rejected you. But there was nothing we could do—”
“Did you even try to find me?”
“Hunting down an Imperial sniper in the midst of enemy territory wouldn’t have been—”
“Did you try?”
Hunter blinked. The venom in that last word alone was more potent than the way he’d spoken on Kamino. He’d mocked Hunter, challenged him, belittled his leadership. But hatred? Hatred was new.
“We couldn’t—”
One moment Crosshair had been lying in bed, the next he had Hunter pinned to the wall, a forearm braced against his collarbone, his other hand curled around Hunter’s wrist, as if expecting him to go for his knife.
Hunter could only stare, breath catching in his throat at the raw anger reflected in those dark golden eyes.
“Couldn’t? Or wouldn’t?” Crosshair’s voice was quiet, subdued compared to the violence coiled in his lanky body, ready to strike. “Do you think the squad would have left you behind if you were in my place? Do you think I would have left you behind? To be broken and remade, over and over, each time the chip began to fail?”
Hunter’s eyes widened with every word.
“Would you have left Wrecker? Or Tech? Or Echo?” His eyes blazed, scope tattoo piercing straight through him. Each name was tallied off like a list of ways he’d been wronged, each word levied against Hunter like a damnation. “You returned to Kamino for a child. You would have come back for any of the others. Anyone… except me.”
Hunter wanted to deny it, would have denied it all. But the threat in Crosshair’s eyes told him if he tried, he might not walk out of the medbay.
He had to choose his words very carefully.
“We… we didn’t know.” Hunter swallowed, the apple of his throat bumping uncomfortably against Crosshair’s arm. “We didn’t know about the, the inhibitor chips until later.”
Crosshair’s eyebrows rose a fraction.
“And after you learned the truth, you came straight back to Kamino to—… Oh, wait… No, you didn’t.”
“We didn’t know where you were,” Hunter responded weakly. Crosshair’s eyes narrowed, cutting his flimsy excuses to ribbons.
“I was right where you left me.”
A sharp ache cut through his chest as effective as a vibroknife, but Crosshair hadn’t moved, and there was no weapon. Only the burden of realization and the weight of Hunter’s shame.
Would he have done anything different if it had been Tech’s inhibitor chip that had activated? Or Echo’s? Wrecker’s had eventually come online, and they’d done everything they could to subdue him, but the circumstances had been different. It wasn’t the same.
“All it took for the squad to return to Kamino to retrieve one of their own was for you to be the one in the Empire’s hands.” Crosshair’s lips tilted into a crooked smirk, absent of humor. “Guess we know who the most expendable member of the squad was.”
Hunter catches it then, what he had apparently failed to see: the sting in Crosshair’s voice, the vulnerable glint in his eyes. He was hurt. He truly believed he’d been abandoned.
The words were past Hunter’s lips, flowing as easily as air.
“I’m sorry.”
It was Crosshair’s turn to blink, but that was all he did. The rest of him went rigid like a statue.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, Cross. We should have come back for you.”
Crosshair’s eyes narrowed, searching Hunter’s for deceit. When he found none, Hunter was finally released, Crosshair eyeing him like he was going to pull a blaster on him.
“I don’t want your apology.” Crosshair turned his back on him, the lines of his shoulders tense and unyielding.
“Then what do you want?”
The sniper scoffed again, as if the question were so ridiculous it didn’t deserve an answer, in the process of returning to his bed when Hunter’s words stopped him cold.
“I understand now why you lied.”
When Crosshair turned, there was an unfriendly smirk curling his lips.
“Please,” he nearly purred, “enlighten me.”
Hunter braced himself and took in a breath. This was going to hurt, probably. Not Crosshair, but him.
“You wanted us to believe everything you’d done was of your own free will. That hunting us down, trying to kill us, that was all your doing. You felt abandoned, rejected, like you’d never mattered to begin with. So you took what little control you had and claimed it as your own.
“One thing about you the chip didn’t change. You’d rather be hated than pitied. And you’d rather be seen as a monster than a victim.”
Crosshair launched forward again, but Hunter was ready this time. He sidestepped the attack, slung his arm around Crosshair’s chest, and curled his other arm around his throat as a headlock.
The sniper was trapped, unable to move with his back pinned to Hunter’s chest. Crosshair spit, cursed, even tried to bite him, but his blunt teeth didn’t so much as scratch Hunter’s armor.
“You are still under bedrest orders,” Hunter said as Crosshair hadn’t just tried to maul him. “And I won’t be the reason you don’t recover.”
Crosshair had stopped struggling at this point, though his muscles were locked, dead weight as Hunter dragged him back to bed. Maker, but the man was stubborn. It would have been almost funny, but there was nothing humorous about a pissed off sniper ready to tear out his throat with his teeth, something Hunter wouldn’t put past him.
But no larynxes were bitten as Hunter laid him down, though that might have been because he didn’t let Crosshair up from the mattress, pressing him down against the sheets to silently tell him to stay there.
Crosshair was absolutely fuming, hard eyes narrowed with his mouth turned into a scowl. Hunter kept his hands right where they were, pressed against Crosshair’s shoulders.
“You can be pissed at me later,” Hunter said, some of the weariness weighing his words. “Right now, you need rest.”
“Don’t start pretending you care now.”
“Cross. I never stopped.”
That shut him up. Even the scowl lessened, his eyes not as narrow as his brows lifted. It reminded him of Onderon, when Hunter had pulled out his pistol and shot the probe droid following them in the shadows of the jungle. With the weapon right next to his head, Crosshair’s eyes had slightly widened, as if surprised Hunter had spared him the bolt.
It was the look he wore now: wary acknowledgement that Hunter hadn’t pulled the trigger this time, but he might the next.
It was a look that surprisingly hurt.
“You were the one who barged in here, on a crusade to cry about your hurt feelings,” Crosshair carelessly tossed back. The words were unkind but there was no true anger behind them. The fire in his gaze smoldered to embers, and his exhaustion showed on the unhealthy shadows of his face, grown too gaunt during his time with the Empire.
Hunter wondered when he last got some decent sleep. Sleep where he didn’t have to be constantly alert from enemies and allies alike.
If he had to guess, Hunter would say before the issue of the final order. The order that caused the first splinter of his team. His family.
Guilt had Hunter releasing his hold on Crosshair, and he sat on the edge of the hospital bed. It should be safe enough to do so. Any lunges from Crosshair now wouldn’t have much force behind them.
“I shouldn’t have gotten angry at you,” Hunter said, running a hand through his hair, trying to ease some of the tension between them. It didn’t help Crosshair followed the movement of his hand like a starving massif. “And you’re right, I did start this conversation, so I’m going to end it. Try to get some rest. We can talk later.”
Hunter rose from the bed, but before he could take a single step, long fingers encircled his wrists. There was insistent strength behind them, and he eyed Crosshair warily.
But he wouldn’t meet his eye. In fact, he stared at the ground, glared at it as if it had done him wrong.
“What?” Hunter asked, curiosity creeping in behind the caution.
“You owe me,” Crosshair finally grunted.
He raised a brow.
“Owe you?”
“I need something, and you owe me.”
Hunter turned fully to face him, searching the half of Crosshair’s face he could see for some kind of insight, but he didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
“All right,” Hunter said, drawing out the words. “What is it?”
Crosshair’s grip tightened briefly before relaxing again, though it was the only thing about him that wasn’t rigid and braced for a blow.
“Stay.”
Hunter’s own body went lax, shock loosening his muscles.
“What?”
“Stay,” Crosshair hissed out the word. “I haven’t slept in weeks, and you owe me, and, fuck, just—Forget it!”
Crosshair released him and yanked back his hand, expression soured as he rolled over to put his back to Hunter.
Hunter continued to stare, dumbfounded, and slowly dawning realization broke over him. Crosshair turning his back wasn’t the refusal it seemed to be. He never turned his back on anyone he didn’t trust. And sleeping back-to-back, that was something they did in the old days on missions when they were away from the Marauder.
Tech and Wrecker had always slept with their backs to each other, and once Echo joined, he would wedge himself between them. But it was Crosshair that Hunter had always put his back up against when they slept lightly and in shifts, always prepared for an ambush.
It was Crosshair he relied on the most. It was Crosshair he’d trusted to help him track down the Padawan. It wasn’t Crosshair’s fault what had happened after.
And what had Hunter done? He’d gotten angry. Given Crosshair the cold shoulder. They’d grown apart, the distance growing with each challenge to Hunter’s leadership, Hunter so distracted by the burgeoning Empire that he didn’t see the changes happening right before his eyes to the person he confided in the most.
Hunter’s gaze roved over Crosshair’s form, vulnerable and unprotected without his armor. No wonder he hadn’t been able to rest yet.
No wonder he’s pissed at me.
Hunter didn’t leave, and he didn’t speak. Instead, he lowered himself onto the bed, and very slowly, very carefully pressed his back against Crosshair’s. It wouldn’t be all that comfortable with Hunter’s armor on, but they’d endured worse.
Crosshair went as stiff as a board, Hunter wasn’t sure he even breathed, before his muscles gradually relaxed into something that wasn’t a tight vice.
The medbay was quiet, dim as Hunter had turned down the lights before joining Crosshair, and only the hum of the machines made a sound, quickly fading into the background as he adjusted to this new environment.
It was a few minutes before the silence broke, and surprisingly, Crosshair was the one to break it.
“I was trying not to kill you.”
The quiet confession had Hunter glancing over his shoulder, eyebrows lifted in question. Crosshair couldn’t see him, but most have felt the slight shift, because he clarified, “All those close calls. You didn’t stop to question why they were near-misses and never hits?”
Hunter frowned.
“What do you mean?”
Crosshair released a heavy breath, but his back stayed resolutely to Hunter.
“Bracca. Ryloth. Tipoca City. Every encounter, I let you walk away.”
It was Hunter’s turn to make a noise of disbelief.
“You shot Wrecker and used him as bait!”
“I could have fatally wounded him and accomplished the same goal.”
“You still almost shot Omega. You would have shot me if not for her.”
Crosshair released a small growl, reverberating up his back at their points of contact. Hunter nearly shuddered at the unexpected sensation.
“They had amplified my chip moments beforehand. I was still trying to gain control of it.” His voice lowered back into its usual silky growl. “You were lucky I was able to do as much as I did.”
Now Hunter sat up on his elbows and turned to eye him, brows furrowed.
“Amplified?”
Crosshair’s shoulders tensed, and the silence dragged on for long enough that Hunter didn’t expect an answer. But he got one, the words slow and reluctant.
“Apparently, the chip wasn’t working at full capacity. The Admiral wished to rectify that, and the Kaminoans obliged.”
Crosshair gave a huff, and Hunter could hear the smirk in his voice.
“It’s why the Padawan was able to escape in the first place. I didn’t want to kill him, so my shots never hit.”
Hunter laid back down, had to in order to process this next thunderbolt, his mind racing as he stared up at the ceiling. He was no longer on his side, his shoulder pressed lightly between Crosshair’s shoulder blades, but he didn’t move away or complain.
“That’s why they took you away after they placed us in the brig.”
“Correct.”
He didn’t say the word with any smugness or arrogance. Crosshair was simply stating a fact, objective and clear, while Hunter was trying to digest all of the horror blooming in his mind. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what the Empire had done to him. Guilt wracked his thoughts, but he couldn’t give voice to them. Not to Crosshair. He wouldn’t want the pity.
But perhaps he did want understanding.
“And on Bracca…” Hunter said slowly. “You… didn’t try to kill us right away when you cornered us on the weapons deck.”
“I didn’t try to kill you at all,” Crosshair added in a lazy drawl. Hunter’s voice regained some of its heat.
“You told your soldiers to aim at Omega.”
“But did I tell them to shoot?”
Once again, Hunter was caught off-guard, blinking like a convor.
“No.” He pressed on, refusing to cede yet. “You did try to incinerate us in the ion engine.”
“What I did,” Crosshair snapped, “was allow Tech the time he needed to come up with a plan of escape. Which he did.”
Hunter opened his mouth. Closed it.
“And Ryloth?” he asked quietly.
“All of my shots somehow missed the Senator’s slow, unwieldy private shuttle.” He could hear the sneer in Crosshair’s words. “Surely you noticed that.”
He had. He’d been too preoccupied to think about it, but Hunter was certainly thinking about it now.
“You used me as bait in Tipoca City. You wanted the rest of the squad so you could… could try and convince us to join the Empire. We were never going to do that, Cross.”
“Clearly.”
“Then why did you—”
Hunter found himself facing Crosshair when the sniper quickly turned on his side toward him, eyes narrowed, and his brows pulled into severe lines.
“Do you ever use that head of yours, Hunter? I couldn’t very well say get this goddamn chip out of my head now could I? I was, once again, buying you time.”
Crosshair searched his face. Hunter was barely able to breathe, Crosshair’s presence distracting at such a close distance.
“I had just executed my own troopers to give you a chance to escape. Not a chance to join the Empire. Did you really believe I thought they would accept all of you into their ranks? That they would accept me? Especially after what I’d done?”
When Hunter had nothing to respond with, Crosshair scoffed and rolled onto his back, glaring up at the ceiling as if he could drill holes through it with looks alone.
“Bringing you to Kamino as bait was the only way I could get the Empire to spare your life. And yes, I was hoping for the entire squad initially, because all four of you had a chance of taking me down while escaping with your lives.”
Crosshair shifted, his eyes shifting toward Hunter before resuming their lethal stare at the ceiling.
“I didn’t really expect you to take me with you.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you behind, Cross.” His words dropped an octave, softening at their edges. “Not again.”
Crosshair huffed.
“We can see how well that turned out.”
He was speaking of the surgery to remove his chip. It had been touch-and-go for a while, his vitals dropping just to stabilize again, giving Hunter a small heart attack each time the monitors deviated from their normal beeping. Whatever the Empire had done to Crosshair had left its mark. AZI had spoken of scar tissue and residual damage left in its wake, and that Crosshair would need time to recover. Now Hunter understood why there had been so much damage to begin with.
The beginnings of real anger curled in his chest. He would make the Empire pay for what it had done to Crosshair, but for now, Hunter needed to focus on his recovery. That had to be his only priority at the moment. Crosshair deserved Hunter’s full attention, something he clearly hadn’t had until now.
“At least we’re all here,” Hunter said quietly. “Together again.”
Crosshair said nothing, simply turned his back once more to Hunter. But Hunter couldn’t leave it at that, not yet.
“When you shot at Tech on Bracca, you missed.” Hunter swallowed. “Intentional?”
“Yes.”
“And when that third shuttle chased us from the planet. That was you shooting at us?”
“You’re still alive, aren’t you?” Another huff. “These new troopers are terrible shots, but not that terrible.”
A small smile curled on Hunter’s lips. That shuttle had chased them from the surface of Bracca like a demon, hot on their trail, but each shot somehow missing all their critical systems until they could jump to hyperspace.
Only Crosshair could have made shots like that, always just inches away from hitting their mark but strategically never achieving it.
Crosshair’s next words were like gravel against his chest.
“Still think I wanted to be the monster?”
Hunter’s eyes widened, but he didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say, so he stared at the ceiling, processing everything Crosshair had told him, turning it over and over in his mind.
After enough time had passed that the conversation was definitely over, Hunter turned on his side, back lightly pressed against Crosshair’s. In the quiet of the medbay, the only sounds the quiet hum of machines, Hunter gave a whispered, “I’m sorry, Cross,” when his breathing began to even out into the beginnings of sleep.
The breathing paused—he’d heard the apology after all—and then his breathing resumed, not as steady as before. Hunter remained where he was, the places where they touched burned.
He didn’t know what to make of the fact that it wasn’t unpleasant.