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“Steve, do you copy?”
Steve swears under his breath, bodily throwing himself in the darkness of an alcove as Dustin’s scrambled voice echoes through the quiet hallway of the cruiser. He stays there for a moment, unmoving, listening intently for any sort of indication that he’s been spotted. When it’s mostly clear that his cover has not been blown, he brings the commlink to his mouth, hand wrapped a little too tightly around it.
“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters back through the device, jaw clenched. “I copy.”
“Did you retrieve the intel?”
“Not yet, no,” Steve answers, patience already running thin. “I thought we agreed on keeping this channel quiet save for emergencies.”
“We did,” Dustin answers anyway, though his voice comes out quieter. “This kind of absolutely qualifies as an emergency, though, so.”
Steve takes a deep inhale, eyes glossing over the thankfully empty hallway, and buries himself deeper in the darkness. “Hit me.”
“Remember when Hopper said we could trust his contact?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he was wrong.”
“What?”
“Creel’s ship is boarding the cruiser.”
“What do you mean it’s boarding? I thought—”
“Yeah, well, we all thought wrong,” Dustin interrupts, sounding more and more tense with every word. “They pulled out of hyperspace not a minute ago and they’re entering the main hangar as we speak. Which means—”
“We need to get the hell out of here,” he grits through the commlink, stomach tight.
“Bingo,” Dustin agrees. “I’ll help you extract. What’s your position?”
“Third level. What about the others?” Steve asks instead as he starts retreating, taking large steps back to the elevator. It’s bitter, walking away from his mission, but their crew has come toe-to-toe with Henry Creel too many times for Steve not to know better. The leader of the syndicate will probably sense their presence aboard his mothership the second his own starship is done landing — the only thing they can do now is run and hope for the best.
“Robin’s extracting them as we speak.”
“And Jonathan?”
“Busy preparing our next jump out of here,” Dustin answers. “Sorry, buddy, I’m all you’ve got.”
“Perfect, this is just perfect,” Steve mumbles as he slams his fist over the elevator button.
“I’m sensing some kind of sarcasm in that statement,” the kid answers blankly, though Steve can hear the muted sounds of his fingers typing, probably to find Steve a way out of here. They’re both silent for a moment, Steve constantly looking over his shoulder as he waits for that goddamn elevator to come. His hand is resting on the blaster strapped against his leg, fingers digging into the cool, familiar crannies in the metal. This was meant to be a simple mission. Take advantage of Creel's absence. Board the ship. Gather the intel. Sabotage. Get out. “Uh, Steve,” Dustin’s voice crackles through after a moment. “Are you anywhere near an elevator, by any chance?”
“Yeah, why?”
Dustin makes a small unusual sound. “Get away from it. Right now.”
Steve opens his mouth to ask, but ends up not requiring any more information, for the elevator doors finally slide open — and reveal half a dozen people dressed head to toe in mismatched combat gear.
They all stand there for a moment, quietly assessing each other. Steve’s own outfit isn’t so different from theirs, between his worn boots and jackets. Maybe if he plays his cards just right…
“Hey, guys,” he says as nonchalantly as possible. An ear-splitting alarm starts blaring overhead at exactly the same time.
They all glance up — and when Steve looks back down, the soldiers are all staring back, and reaching for their weapons.
“Henderson,” he hears himself call out like a prayer.
“Get him!” One of them screams out right as Steve’s muscles instinctively makes him turn around and start running.
Steve fumbles with his commlink, nearly dropping it. “Henderson!”
A hand tries to grab at his sleeve, but the sudden rush of adrenaline makes it almost too easy for him to slip away. There’s a distant order to open fire and he finds himself taking a sharp right and curling himself into a somersault to shield his body from the blaster shots. He gets back up with a slight wince as his left knee twinges but does not allow himself any respite, for he can already hear his new friends round the corner to follow him.
Dustin’s voice is flooding through the commlink, screaming Steve’s name over and over again, but there’s no time for the rebel to answer. He covers the back of his head with his hand as another handful of blaster shots rain through the hallway, swearing as a couple of them clip his arms and legs.
Another blaster bolts grazes his side and Steve grunts, his steps faltering for a moment. A flash of annoyance takes over the instinct to run away and he spins around, firing at the flock of henchmen with a yell before resuming his run. The sound of bodies hitting the ground is a small satisfaction in the grand scheme of things, but it does pull Steve’s lips into a small, exhilarated smile.
“Steve,” Dustin’s voice comes through again, urgency seeping through the words. “I can’t figure out how to lead you back to the others, but I’ve got another idea. Can you tell me exactly where you are?”
Steve swallows as he blindly fires another round of shots behind him. “Ran away from the elevator. One right and one left,” he pants as he takes another turn. “Two lefts.”
Dustin is silent for only a few seconds. “Holy shit,” he says eventually. “You’re actually headed in the right direction. Amazing.”
Steve scoffs at that very unfitting last word, and would have probably snapped at his friend had he enough time and energy to spare.
“What’s the plan?” he wheezes out instead.
“I’m leading you to the escape pods. Take a right when you make it to the end of the hallway,” Dustin tells him as Steve forces himself to go faster, uncaring for the ache in his legs as he follows Dustin’s order blindly. “And do you still have those hand grenades we found on Tatooine?”
Steve frowns, his free hand coming to squeeze the pouch holding said grenades. He’d almost forgotten about them. “Why?”
“Next time you take a left, there’ll be a emergency forcefield you can activate.”
The wheels are turning in Steve’s head, somewhat slower than they usually do (sue him, there’s a lot happening), but eventually he gets it. “Won’t that compromise the entire ship?” he asks, digging into the pouch and closing his fingers around the small, deadly device. The door is getting closer.
“You’re the only one left to extract, man. Do with that what you will.”
“Hopper’s not gonna be happy about this.”
“Hopper’s never happy about anything. Fireball those sons of bitches.”
Steve has half a mind to tell the kid to watch his mouth or to stop bringing up that stupid game he and the other toddlers like to play, but instead he shoves his commlink back in his pocket, takes that ultimate left turn and drops the grenade like a pebble behind him. He can’t do more than grit his teeth and wince as he smashes his entire fist against the emergency button, both shattering its protective glass and activating the mechanism.
The grenade explodes at the exact same time the forcefield appears and Steve can only watch, bewildered and half out of his mind, as his assailants get either blown to pieces or sucked into outerspace through the hole the explosion has dug in the ship’s transparisteel window.
He stays there for a moment, chest heaving and limbs shaking with adrenaline, a relieved smile tugging at his dry lips. Then he snaps back into action, Dustin’s voice screeching his name through the commlink buried in his pocket.
“I’m alright, dude,” Steve says, cutting Dustin’s next plea short. “That was a really good fucking call,” he adds as he makes his way to the nearest escape pods, wincing as the multiple blaster burns adorning his body pull at his skin. “I can’t believe I almost talked Mayfield out of stealing those gre—”
Something smashes into his back at full speed and Steve loses his footing, falling headfirst into the small escape pod. He wheezes as he goes, the winds knocked out of him, and crashes against the floor with a grunt. Despite everything he still manages to turn around, bringing his arms up in a poor attempt of shielding himself.
A hand breaks through anyway, twisting itself in his shirt as the cold metal of a blade comes to rest against his throat, and Steve freezes.
His assailant is on top of him, thighs caging Steve’s ribs as a pair of somewhat familiar brown eyes stare him down.
“Thought you could get away that easy, big boy?”
Steve wheezes out a breath, from his fall but also probably from the sudden realization that he’s absolutely fucked. Because he knows those eyes, for he’s fought against them before, for they belong to one of Creel’s deadliest men — Kas, as the kids have taken to calling him during their debriefings.
“Was kinda hoping on it, yeah,” Steve grits out, and gets rewarded by the blade digging a bit deeper into the delicate skin of his throat.
Kas presses his lips together, looking down at Steve like he’s the most adorable thing he’s ever seen. It’s terrifying. “That’s cute.”
Steve swallows, pondering on how to proceed without getting his throat immediately sliced when he realizes that he can still hear Dustin’s voice screeching through his commlink. Bingo.
He opens his mouth to reply and watches Kas’ focus turn to his lips, then takes advantage of that split second to smash his commlink against the side of the man’s head, effectively dislodging him and cutting Dustin’s calls short.
Kas goes down with a groan and Steve rushes to his feet to take the upper hand, grabbing the other man’s knife and throwing it out of the pod. He swears he hears a whine come out of Kas’ throat but doesn’t get to dwell on it, for the assassin jumps up and bodily throws himself at him. They both go crashing against the control board, buttons and sharp edges digging against Steve’s back as they do, and Kas’ face is only inches away from his as he grits out, “that was my favorite knife, dude.”
“Go get it, then,” Steve replies, drawing his blaster and smashing it against Kas’ head again before pushing the man backwards with all his strength.
Kas doesn’t stumble out of the pod, though — he stumbles right into its closed door.
It’s only then that Steve notices, dumbly, the soft whirring of the machine surrounding them. Those buttons that bruised his back were probably more than just a pain, he thinks dimly, grabbing onto the nearest wall as the escape pod mortifyingly does what it was built to do and detaches itself from the ship.
As his brain rushes through his options (which, let’s be honest, are not numerous), he catches Kas’ eyes and realizes that they’re both going through the same thought process.
Kas gets to his own conclusions faster than him, though — because a second later, Steve gets smashed against the control board again, a grunt escaping his lips as he fights back.
It’s a never-ending back and forth that probably looks like an awkward dance, the two men wrestling each other in the tight space of the pod, backs crashing against surfaces and heads knocking against the low ceiling and feet getting caught in the leg of the pilot seat.
There’s a voice at the back of his mind (it sounds terribly like Robin) telling Steve that having a wrestling match inside an escape pod is a terrible, terrible idea that will resolve in a painful death, but everytime he tries to slow down, Kas takes it as an opportunity to take the upper hand.
He’s vaguely aware of the pod spluttering around them, undoubtedly confused by their random button-smashing, but Steve can’t do much more than keep fighting as they rapidly careen to their assured death.
He’s in the middle of getting strangled to death when Kas’ eyes go wide, the darkness of space turning into the blues of a planet’s atmosphere in his pupils. His hands falter just enough around Steve’s neck for him to push the outlaw away, raising a leg and kicking him to the other side of the pod.
Steve whirls around, the entirety of his brain letting go of the fight to focus on the bigger problem at hand — namely, the incoming planet. His fingers fly over the control board, the setup unfamiliar but rendered simple enough for anyone to pilot, and he lets the instincts that have been trained into him for years take over everything else.
He’s vaguely aware that there’s no scenario where they make it to the ground unscathed. The pod is plummeting despite Steve’s best efforts at making their descent less vertical and half of the controls have been damaged in their scuffle. Robin’s voice is getting even louder in his head, screaming at him that he’s a karking idiot as he tries the emergency landing lever again but can’t manage to pull it down.
“Dank—farrik,” he grits out, his other hand too busy handling the half-useless steering stick to help.
The ground is getting closer and closer, the nook and crannies of Geonosis’ surface getting more detailed with each passing moment and Steve lets out a frustrated shout, the lever still ungiving under his fisted hand.
He’s about to entirely give up on it when another hand covers his, and Steve glances to his right just long enough to find Kas’ bloodied face looking back.
What a weird fucking day, he muses, jaw tight. “Now!” he shouts, and the lever finally gives under the strain of their joined hands.
The emergency mechanisms activate and their descent is slowed, but they’re still going too fast — years of piloting and a few too many crashlandings have taught Steve that.
“Dude, we’re too fast,” Kas says, letting go of Steve’s hand and the lever in favor of grabbing the edge of the control desk.
“Yeah, thanks for the warning,” Steve grits out, scanning the grounds for the safest place to land. “Brace yourself, man. This isn’t gonna be pretty.”
He tries not to dwell too much on Kas following his advice as if they were good friends and not sworn enemies, the other man disappearing to the back of the escape pod as Steve rushes to sit down in the pilot seat, hands tight on the control as he keeps on pulling up, up, up.
He doesn’t get to put on his seatbelt. He doesn’t think it would make a difference anyway.
The pod hits the ground with all the finesse of a bantha bursting into a china shop, Steve’s body thrown forward by the impact. The pain is all-consuming but he keeps his hands wrapped around the steering stick, teeth rattling along with the pod as it bounces against the ground. Waves of dust and sand make it impossible for him to see through the viewport, so all he can do is brake and hope for the best.
Until the pod crashes violently against something and Steve’s entire world goes blank.
He wakes up with burning lungs, a loud ringing in his ears and a hand slapping his cheek.
“Wake up, dude, c’mon! Wake up!”
Steve can only groan, his own hand coming to push the other away. He tries opening his eyes but all he can see is smoke, and all that does is trigger a coughing fit that seizes his chest and reverberates through his already aching throat.
He hears someone swear, and then two hands slip under his armpits and pull — which brings Steve right back to the moment, for the sudden pressure on his right leg rips a scream out of him.
“What, what?” that same person yells in his ear. “Oh, dank farrik—”
Steve forces his eyes open again and looks down to find the control desk crumpled over his thigh. Right. Control desk, pod. The crash. He brings his hands up to try and push the desk away, but freezes when a mop of curly black hair appears in his field of vision.
He can’t do much more than watch as Kas starts battling with the desk, slipping his gloved fingers underneath it and pulling with what appears to be all his might.
“Move, man!” the outlaw grunts once he manages to give Steve the slightest of space to slip his leg out.
Which Steve does. Which brings a new problem to light — the control desk isn’t the only thing that got crushed in the crash.
He can’t help the scream that slips out as he pulls his leg to the side but he doesn’t get to dwell on it either, for Kas’ hands are back under his armpits and pulling him out of his seat. If the pain wasn’t so mind-numbing, Steve might have felt self-conscious at the thought of being dragged out of the pod like a ragdoll.
“The transponder,” he gasps when Kas unceremoniously drops him on the ground next to a large boulder. Now that Steve can see the pod and their surroundings, a new sense of urgency starts clawing its way through his heart. They’re surrounded by sand and rocks and sand, Geonosis true to itself and offering no apparent oasis or traces of technology. And the escape pod is on fire. “Get the transponder out.”
The other man rushes back inside without a single word, and Steve doesn’t dare to breathe until Kas comes back out, hacking a lung but holding the transponder close to his chest.
The pod explodes in waves of heat that grate against Steve’s skin and make the air even less breathable. Somewhere on his left, Kas crumbles to the ground, arms still tight around the communication device.
The air settles, and the pod is nothing more than a shadow of itself, smoke raising toward the sky as whatever flammable parts left keep on burning quietly.
Steve turns his head to find Kas already staring at him. They stay like that for a moment, Steve painfully aware of having lost his only blaster to the explosion. The knife he keeps in his pocket won’t be any use to him if he can’t manage to even stand up.
Kas is still hugging the transponder. There’s soot all over his face and his disheveled hair makes him look even crazier than the unusual width of his eyes. There’s a hint of unsteadiness to him, his entire body seemingly vibrating. Probably the adrenaline.
Steve’s knee is pounding. “Truce?” he offers.
Kas is silent for a moment longer. Then he sniffs and stands up, nonchalantely brushing off his ruined clothes. “Sure,” he says with a shrug, then throws the transponder in Steve’s lap. “I prefer my fights fair and square anyway.”
“The hell is that supposed to mean?”
“The hell do you think? Look down, princess — I’m pretty sure human knees aren’t supposed to look like that.”
Steve doesn’t look down. He’s caught a glimpse of his knee back in the pod, and feels like looking at it again will only make it all too real. He can deal with denial. He’s good at denying things. Robin tells him all the time. “Don’t call me that,” he replies, focusing on the transponder instead. He swears. “It’s broken.”
“Well, can you fix it?”
“Shut up,” Steve answers absent-mindedly, turning the device over in his hands. The truth is simple — no, he can’t. He didn’t join the rebellion for his talent in tech. He’s a pilot. He doesn’t build things, he flies them.
But Kas is staring at him expectantly, and from where he’s sitting, Steve can see the blaster hanging from a holster attached to his belt. It makes him wonder exactly how much the man’s words mean, and if he can trust him to honor their (admittedly flimsy) truce.
So. “Yeah,” Steve lies, hoping that if he thinks about Dustin hard enough, he’ll invoke his friend’s genius brain and actually manage to fix the damn thing. “I think so.”
“You think so?”
“Hey, fuck off, man,” Steve snaps. He’s starting to be painfully aware of how dry his throat feels and how badly his entire body aches. “You’d be a damn goner if I hadn’t managed that landing, you know that?”
“And you’d be a karking roasted nuna if I hadn’t pulled you out of that wreck, so who’s the real loser here?”
“Well, no one asked you to fucking do that,” Steve spits out, fingers digging into the transponder. He looks down and immediately closes his eyes when he accidentally catches a glimpse of his leg.
Kas is silent for a moment. Steve doesn’t look up. “I wasn’t gonna let you burn to death, man.”
“Because strangling me to death was way more fun for you, I guess?” Steve snarls as he glares at the other man.
“I wasn’t—” Kas cuts himself off, shaking his head. “Whatever. Can you fix this thing or not?”
“Can you stop bothering me for one fucking second so I can try?”
He can actually see the muscle of Kas’ jaw move as the other man grits his teeth and glares back. “Whatever, man,” he says before spinning on his heels and leaving.
For a split second, Steve wonders if he’s just going to leave him here alone, stranded and unable to even acknowledge his injuries, but Kas just walks back to the ruined escape pod and disappears in it.
While the company was a pain, the silence is somehow worse, for the brutal pounding in his leg makes it hard for Steve to focus on anything else. He starts taking the transponder apart anyway, despite the fact that his fingers are still shaking from the adrenaline of everything, and finds some comfort in the fact that the mechanism doesn’t seem too complicated. He’s seen other people do this before. Hell, he’s even had to give emergency surgery to his ship a few times. Maybe this can end well.
The transponder looks kind of old and rusty, just like the escape pod and the cruiser it was attached to did, which he thinks is pretty representative of the Creel Syndicate. He dimly wishes they’d gone toe-to-toe with Crimson Dawn instead, for their tech is much more recent and wouldn’t leave him scared of causing irreparable damage to the pieces he’s pulling out.
Hell, Crimson Dawn probably has transponders that can survive a crash.
He wonders if the others would even be able to pick up a distress signal from here, were he to actually fix it. Maybe they’ve left the system altogether already. He’s come far enough to know better than thinking his friends abandoned him, but they might not have had a choice but to flee for their safety. Steve trusts that Nancy will have made the right call, whatever that call might have been.
Maybe no of them made it out alive. Maybe Creel’s men got to them before they could even try. Steve doesn’t let himself think about that.
He’s starting to assemble the pieces of the transponder back together, chanting Dustin’s name in his head as he does, when something lands next to him hard enough to make him jump.
He stares at the pile of random rubbish. “What the fuck?”
“Salvaged everything I could,” Kas answers, dropping to his knees next to the pile. He’s not wearing his jacket anymore, and there’s a black bandana wrapped around his head. “Doesn’t seem like there’s anything around us for miles on end, so, this is all we’ve got.”
Steve can’t help but stare at the man as he starts sorting out his treasure. The few times he’s encountered the smuggler had left him with nothing more than flashes of memories and bruises — their altercations certainly never long enough for Steve to notice anything like the furrow in his brow or the curve of his upper lip.
It takes him a humiliatingly long time to realize that those lips are moving.
“—good news is, we’ve got a fireproof medpack,” Kas is saying when Steve tunes back into the conversation. He looks down at the metallic box the man is opening. “Bad news is, half of its content got roasted by the heat anyway.”
Steve winces at the sight of melted painkillers and plasters, but as Kas pulls an intact bottle of bacta and a suturing kit out of the medpack, something else entirely catches his eye.
There’s a hole in the smuggler’s sleeve, where the fire apparently managed to burn through thick leather and the fabric of his shirt. When Steve notices the burn marks, he can’t help but reach out.
“Dude, your arm,” he says, but his hand gets harshly slapped away.
“Don’t,” Kas snarls, his previously focused expression replaced by something that looks like bitterness (and a little bit like fear, too, maybe). Steve clenches his jaw and watches silently as the other man inhales, then turns back to the medpack, inner turmoil drawing a deeper crease between his eyebrows. “The gauze survived,” he says after a while, voice low and controlled. “I think we’ll have enough.”
Steve blinks. “Enough for what?”
When Kas looks back up at him, the anger is gone, replaced by a blank slate. “For me to tie you up and offer you as a sacrifice to the geonosian gods,” he says matter-of-factly. There must be something showing on Steve’s face, because the other man’s face breaks into a blinding crooked smile. “I’m messing with you, man. We need to bind your leg or some shit if you ever want the chance to walk again.”
Kas actually giggles at his own joke, and it dawns on Steve right there and then that this criminal he’s come to think of as highly dangerous might actually be a fucking idiot.
It’s a long process, and Steve can only be grateful for their solitude whenever a whimper of pain comes out of his mouth as Kas secures his leg in a makeshift splint made of pod parts and bandage. Despite his best efforts he’s crying by the end of it and focusing all his might on pinching himself in the ribs to try and forget about the agony in his knee. He’s finally been forced to confront the injury. His knee is most definitely broken, crushed by the impact, and there’s a gash across his thigh, not too deep but wide and ugly enough for Kas the bite open the suturing kit.
Steve instinctively tries to pull his leg away and bites back a scream. “I don’t think this is necessary.”
Kas watches him silently, half of the pack still stuck between his teeth. “You don’t think sewing up the open wound on your leg is necessary?” he asks, spitting out the plastic.
Steve winces at the sight and thinks of Robin harping on about sanitary measures during medical procedures. “I just—look, do you even know how to do this?”
Kas snorts. “How do you think I’m still alive, man?”
“What, the syndicate doesn’t have enough money to pay for its employees basic medical needs?”
“The syndicate’s got plenty of money,” Kas answers dryly, washing his hands with a few drops of bacta (for the bottle of disinfectant melted and so did the emergency rations of water). “They’ve just got more important things to focus on, as you can guess.”
Steve can’t say he does. The Rebel Alliance might not be clean on all front and might even often run low on everything, but Steve can’t remember ever being turned down by the medbay’s workers when coming in injured. Their leaders always made sure to provide whatever was needed, given that the fighters made it back to base in the first place.
And he knows for sure that the Creel Syndicate operates on a much higher number of credits.
He says nothing as Kas begins suturing the wound, the stitches wonky but somewhat good and delicate despite the agony that they shoot right through Steve’s nerves. He looks up at the reddening sky, jaw clenched as he tries to focus on just about anything other than the pain.
“Done,” Kas says after a while, and Steve looks down to find him pouring some bacta onto the wound. The thick substance drips to the sides of Steve’s thigh, mixing with blood and disappearing into the ripped material of his pants. When he realizes that the bottle is almost empty, he reaches to right it.
“For your arm,” he explains when Kas looks at him with a frown. “I saw those burns. They've gotta hurt.” Something indescribable flashes over the other man’s face, a mix of emotions that come and go too fast for Steve to understand them. It does confirm his suspicion, though — this isn't the man's first experience with fire. “Wouldn't even wish it on your worst enemy, huh?
Kas snorts, visibly trying to shrug it off, but the unease is getting clearer and clearer on his face. “You hardly qualify as worst enemy material, princess,” he says as he closes the bottle and puts it away.
“Don’t call me that,” Steve repeats, though he’s too busy observing the way Kas crosses his arms against his chest to truly care about anything else. “Is it just your arm?”
Kas’ eyebrow shot up. “If you want me to strip, there are other, much more efficient ways to ask.”
Steve pointedly ignore the burning in his cheeks at the reply. “When did it happen?”
Kas stays silent for so long that Steve thinks the conversation is over. Until the other man turns his head to look at the setting sun and says, “Years ago. I don’t wanna talk about it.”
Steve’s tongue is burning with more questions. How did it happen? Was Kas alone, or was someone there to pull him out of the fire like he did for Steve today? Is it healed, does it still hurt like Steve’s head does on a bad day? Is it just his arm?
Those are not questions you ask a stranger, though — and Kas looks stricken enough that all of those wondering thoughts immediately die in Steve’s throat.
The silence stretches, and Steve picks up the transponder to give the other man some space (it’s not like he can physically go away). Kas doesn’t move, except for when he digs into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette and a lighter. It’s a weird kind of quiet, not quite comfortable, but at the same time not excruciating. Kas smokes and stares at the sun, and Steve works on the transponder with a dexterity that would make Henderson weep with pride.
“Are the nights cold on Geonosis?” Kas asks after a while.
Steve glances at the disappearing sun and shrugs, before focusing back on the device for their last moments of sunlight. “Don’t know. It’s my first time visiting.”
Kas snorts. “What, not a fan of desert planets that have been sterilized by the Empire?” he asks, turning back to Steve.
“I’m more of a city guy, I think,” Steve answers, slotting one last component into place before wrapping the transponder in gauze to keep it from falling apart. He presses on the activation button and both men hold their breath.
A small green light appears, and Steve can’t help the smile that spread his dry lips as Kas whoops.
“You did it, man!” the smuggler exclaims with a wide, crooked smile that makes him look like a friend.
Steve’s cheeks ache as he tears his eyes away from Kas’. “I actually did it,” he mutters, amazed. In your face, Henderson.
“How strong d’you think the signal is?”
“I—I don’t know,” Steve answers as he adjusts the few settings. “It’s meant for those kinds of situation, I’d like to think it’ll go pretty far.”
“So anyone can pick it up?”
“Yeah,” Steve says as he gently puts the transponder down, watching as the green light flickers. “Anyone who’s looking hard enough for it.”
A beat. “Let’s wait and see whose team works faster, then.”
They glance at each other in a loaded silence. Then Steve settles back, watching the first stars appear as the sun sinks under the burning horizon, and tries to ignore the twist in his gut as he wishes for a familiar starship to appear.
A gust of surprisingly icy wind blows through his hair and through the holes in his clothes, pulling Steve out of his contemplation and making him shiver.
“Cold night it is, then,” Kas mutters from where he’s sitting on Steve’s right and playing with his knife. He’s already put his jacket and vest back on. They found a glowstick in the pile of rubble he salvaged, which is now shedding a soft white light on both of their faces.
Steve looks down at himself and winces at the sight of his vest and ruined shirt sleeves. He distinctly remembers his thought process of dressing lightly for the mission, for it was never meant to lead him anywhere else than in and out of the Syndicate’s cruiser. “Maybe it’d be warmer inside the pod,” he says half-heartedly, for he can’t really bring himself to think about moving and jostling his injury.
“Yeah,” Kas replies, digging around his pocket for a moment. “Maybe.”
Steve turns his head at the sound of paper rustling, and watches as the other man peels the wrapper off a ration bar. His own stomach growls at the sight and he looks away quickly, discreetly patting his own pockets though he knows he’ll come back empty-handed.
He squints when half of a ration bar lands in his lap, but when he looks back at Kas, the smuggler is ignoring him, eyes scanning the desert as he chews on his own portion.
Steve knows better than to refuse such an offer. He takes a small bite and tries to ignore how dry the ration bar is. When he swallows, the dryness mixes with his bruised throat and forces a wince onto his face. In the grand scheme of things, he’d almost forgotten about the other man nearly strangling him to death.
They eat in silence for a while, the both of them taking tiny bites after tiny bites in a poor attempt at making the split ration bar feel like a real dinner. Steve swears right then and there that he’ll never complain about canned food and mushy space waffles ever again.
He’s in the middle of forcing another bite down his throat when Kas speaks up.
“Sorry about that, by the way,” he says.
Steve glances at him quickly enough to find the smuggler’s eyes on his throat. He feels his own eyebrows shoot up. “You’ve got a really fucked up moral compass, you know that?”
“Thanks,” Kas snorts, looking back down at the wrapper he’s twisting between his fingers.
They fall into a new kind of silence as Steve finishes eating, the tension palpable between the two men. “It’s never personal, you know,” Kas says after a while, voice low. “What I do. It’s never personal.”
“Course not,” Steve answers, aware of the bitterness of his tone. “It’s all just transactional for you, isn’t it? Killing and maiming so that maybe you’ll get a raise and a pat on the head from Daddy Creel.”
“Fuck you, man,” Kas replies immediately, and Steve finds some weird comfort in their dynamic switching back towards hostility. “You don’t know shit about what I do, so don’t even fucking try.”
“I know you’re one of Creel’s favorite attack dogs,” Steve replies nonchalantly. “That tells me plenty.”
Kas laughs but it’s a harsh sound, so far away from the whoop of joy he let out earlier. “Rebels,” he says, shaking his head. “You guys really think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you? Well, let me tell you something, sweetheart,” Kas sits up, turning to poke a finger at Steve’s chest. “The world isn’t just black and white like you think it is. Nuance exists. Maybe this fucked moral compass of mine just means I’m capable of sticking to my own damn beliefs instead of following blindly what everyone says is right.”
“The Creel Syndicate has been terrorizing entire civilizations for decades,” Steve retorks, trying to ignore the remaining pressure where Kas’ finger has dug. “Bombing places, killing people. Trafficking them. You can’t possibly be okay with that.”
“And how many innocent people have been collateral damages to the Alliance’s actions? Huh?” When Steve can’t find his voice to answer, he continues. “That’s right. Whether you like it or not, we’ve both done some pretty fucked-up shit. The difference is, man, that despite everything, you made a choice. You joined the Alliance. You decided to fight. I—” His voice dies, and for a split second his face shifts from anger to something else. “Not everyone gets to pick their battles. Not everyone’s that lucky. The best some of us can do is survive.”
He leans back against the boulder after that, turning his back to Steve and marking a swift end to their conversation. This new silence is heavier, Kas’ words swimming around Steve’s stomach like venom.
Kas is not wrong, and it leaves a bitter taste in Steve’s mouth. He likes to think that their own little crew gets to pick its battles and stick to its morals moreso than other rebel cells do, but still — ever since Hopper officially recruited them, they’ve become a part of this bigger fight. And Steve might only be twenty-three, but he’s already fought enough to know the dangerous, unstable nature of a battle. Collateral damages will never stop being a painful reality of war.
They’re just harder to face when someone is spitting that truth right in your face.
Not everyone gets to pick their battles. Steve thinks about his own life, about which choices he was able to make and which were ripped away from him. He can’t imagine a world where he wasn’t able to break out of his parents’ grip and follow his own trail. He can’t imagine depending on an entity he doesn’t agree with in order to survive. Kas is right; Steve made a choice. He chose to fight. It’s a privilege, he knows, deep down. He feels it whenever he looks at El for a little too long and finds himself remembering the scared child she used to be.
The burns on Kas’ arm tell a story, he thinks — the flashes of emotions that constantly threaten to take over his face tell another.
The best some of us can do is survive.
Steve wraps his arms around himself as another shiver rocks his body, and looks up at the starry sky with a sigh.
It’s going to be a long night.
“Hey, wake up. Come on.”
Steve once again wakes to a hand slapping his face, though this time it’s much softer, and there’s no urgency in Kas’ voice. “What?” he mumbles as he forces his eyes open, frowning when he sees the other man’s face so close.
“You’re shivering, dude.”
Steve blinks. He doesn’t remember falling asleep. It’s still nighttime, and the cold that used to be a simple bother seems to have established residence under Steve’s skin, wracking his body with embarrassingly strong tremors. There’s something else there, he slowly realizes, the tinge of unease that comes with a low-grade fever. He pushes Kas away. “I’m fine.”
Kas scoffs. “It’s cold as shit out here, man. There’s no shame in admitting it.”
“Yeah, and there’s nothing to be done about it, so,” he mutters as he lets his eyes close again. He’s vaguely aware that he sounds like a petulant child, but he feels terrible, and his sleep-addled brain can’t exactly comprehend who he’s speaking to.
Kas is silent for a while, long enough that Steve thinks he gave up. Then there’s rustling sound, and something warm envelops Steve’s chest.
“Wh—” he opens his eyes with a frown, looking down to find a vest wrapped around him like a wonky blanket. Kas is kneeling in front of him, hands holding the garment down like he’s expecting Steve to try and shake it off. “No, I don’t want it.”
“Wasn’t asking,” Kas answers, waiting a few more seconds before letting go. Steve’s skin tingles disturbingly where the smuggler’s hands have lingered. “I’ve got multiple layers, I don’t mind. You, on the other hand, look like you’re shit at being ready for anything.”
“Well, crashing an escape pod on Geonosis wasn’t on my to-do list for the day,” Steve mutters, but burrows himself deeper into the warmth of the jacket. It smells like leather and smoke and tobacco. “But… thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” Kas answers, pulling another cigarette out of his pocket and lighting it.
They stay like that for a while, Steve slowly gaining some warmth back as Kas blows smoke toward the sky. He can’t help but stare at the smuggler as he takes a drag, at how his fingers hold the cigarette, at the rings that adorn his dirty hands. Kas looks pensive, his face smooth in the light of the glowstick. Steve thinks back to all their previous encounters — how ferocious the other man would look, forever keeping his eyes on his mission or prize. They had only met two or three times before today, but through those short moments the smuggler had left an impression on their entire crew. He’d painted himself as a menace, an antagonist; someone to fear.
Buried under Kas’ vest, Steve doesn’t feel afraid.
“You really are something else, aren’t you?” he asks, voice soft in the dead of the night.
Kas’ mouth twists into a lopsided smile as he crushes the butt of his cigarette against a small rock, blowing one last breath of smoke through his nose. “I told you, man. It’s never personal.”
“And you really don’t have a choice,” Steve says, unsure of whether he’s asking a question or stating a fact.
“No way out, no,” Kas replies, still avoiding Steve’s eyes. His smile turns bitter, in a way Steve should not be able to notice. “But smaller personal decisions can impact my life, too. Like saving a random rebel wannabe’s ass instead of letting him get roasted to a crisp.”
He glances at Steve and their eyes meet, a glint of of something shining in Kas’ irises. “Yeah?” Steve asks, his own lips turning into a smile. “How’d that impact your life?”
“Pretty insignificantly,” Kas answers with a shrug, chucking the butt of his cigarette out of sight. “But the company’s nice.”
Kas looks back at him and smiles softly. It makes something unlock in Steve’s chest, and the feeling that suddenly flows through him is so warm and unexpected that his breath hitches. He tries his best to cover it with a laugh. He doesn’t think it’s working.
“Steve,” he hears himself say after a while, and doesn’t know which one of them is most surprised by the sudden name. Kas turns to look at him. Steve offers him a shrug. “Random Rebel Wannabe’s kind of a mouthful. My name’s Steve.”
The smuggler says nothing for a moment, his big brown eyes inspecting Steve’s face like he’s only just noticing it. The silence stretches and Steve rubs his nose, slightly self-conscious.
“You don’t have to tell me—”
“Nice to meet you, Steve,” Kas says, holding out a hand in the space between them. He’s smiling. “I’m Eddie.”
Steve can’t help but gap at the offered hand for a second, but then he looks up at Kas — at Eddie — and finds that soft smile again, and, well. At least Robin’s not around to make fun of the probably obvious look on Steve’s face as he shakes Eddie’s hand.
Eddie’s palm is slightly colder than Steve’s now, and he has half a mind to give the man his vest back, but also selfishly wants to keep it all to himself. Eddie’s palm presses against his and then it's gone, buried in the pockets of his leather jacket. Steve finds himself mourning the contact, and decides to pin it on the fact that he’s stranded on a planet away from his friends and in serious need of some actual comfort. He’s definitely not actually mourning the touch of Kas.
A chuckle slips past his lips, maybe a bit deliriously. Eddie looks back at him with a frown, probably thinking the same thing. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” Steve runs a hand down his face but he’s still laughing. “Nothing, it’s just—” he drops his hand in his lap. “We didn’t know your name, and you’ve kicked our asses so many times, and so the kids gave you this nickname. And now your actual name’s as simple as Eddie.” He laughs again, then shakes his head. “Sorry, it’s not funny. I think I’m losing it a bit.”
“You’ve got kids on your crew? Actual kids?”
“Shit, no, they’re like, all older than twenty now. I’m just used to them being the kids, y’know,” he shrugs, waving his hands like that’ll explain it.
Eddie is staring at him like Steve’s a puzzle he can quite crack. “What’s the nickname?”
“It’s, uh…” Steve sighs and raises his eyebrow. “It’s from this stupid game they’re always playing. The character’s named Kas. He’s like a big bad guy or something. Don’t let it go to your head.”
When he risks a glance at the other man, he’s met with a most surprising sight — the most manic grin he’s ever seen, stretching from one side of Eddie’s face to the other.
“You good, man?” Steve asks, unable to look away as Eddie’s smile seems to grow even wider.
“Your kids named me after Kas the Bloody-Handed from Dungeons and Dragons?”
Steve’s entire body deflates. “Shit, don’t tell me you play that shit too.”
But Eddie’s body language is entirely too revealing, from his sparkling eyes to the way he seems to be bouncing on his own ass. He looks like a goddamn child, eons away from the ruthless criminal that once threw a dagger at Steve’s head.
His excitement is intoxicating, so much that despite his best efforts, Steve’s own lips are starting to ache from smiling.
“That’s the best fucking thing I’ve heard all year, are you kidding me?” Eddie says — squeals — before visibly forcing himself to quiet down. He’s still grinning like a maniac. “Didn’t realize you were a part of the cool crowd, Stevie.”
“I’m not,” Steve scoffs. “We’ve got enough demons to fight in real life, I don’t get why they’re so entranced with fighting them in board games too.”
“What, one real-life Kas is already too much for you to handle?” Eddie asks, batting his eyelashes.
“Fuck off, man.” Steve gives him a halfhearted shove, which Eddie replies to by throwing himself backwards like he’s been shot, one hand on his heart.
Once their laughter dies down, it’s quiet again. Eddie is still sprawled out on the floor, eyes on the sky. Steve can’t help but look at him, still mystified by this new character oozing out of a man he thought he knew.
He tries to wrap his head around it all, he really does. But the truth is, Eddie is likeable. His outburst reminds Steve of Dustin whenever one of his favorite interests is mentionned — pure unashamed joy and endless energy. More than that, he’s kind. The splint, the ration bar, the vest; Steve stares, and it’s hard to see any traces of Kas left in the smuggler’s face.
“You know,” Steve calls out as nonchalantly as he can, looking up to the stars. “About that choice we were talking about earlier. There’s… I mean, we’ve got a free bunk left in the ship.” He keeps his eyes on the stars despite itching to look down at Eddie, not wanting to make this a bigger deal than it already is. “The kids would love a new member in their party, I’m sure.”
Eddie doesn’t answer for a long time, to the point where Steve wonders if he’s fallen asleep.
“You’re a good dude, Steve,” he says eventually, unmoving. His voice is much quieter than it was before. “But this isn’t something you can fix.”
Steve’s throat is tight. “Why not?”
Eddie moves to cross his hands behind his head, never looking away from the stars. “You should get some rest before the heat comes back. Sweet dreams, Random Rebel Wannabe.”
It’s said lightheartedly. Steve can’t bring himself to reply.
He wakes up to the feeling that his knee is trying to pull itself apart. Remnants of a stressful dream cling to his thoughts as he slowly blinks himself awake, trying and failing to ignore the agony that his body is in.
Whatever miracle helped him work through the excruciating pain yesterday is gone, and Steve can only grit his teeth as the simple act of flexing his hip sends spikes of agony down his leg and through his injured knee.
The sun is slowly rising and Eddie’s nowhere to be seen, but Steve can’t really focus on any of it, too busy blinking stars out of his eyes. Maker, he’s thirsty. it feels like the walls of his throat are sticking to each other, and that alone is almost enough to make him crack.
“You look like shit,” Eddie says, and Steve looks up to see him walking back from the pod. He’s shed his jacket already and the bandana’s back on his head.
“Good mornin’ to you too,” Steve grumbles, wincing as he tries to get some blood flowing through his body without really moving much of it. “Still nothing?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure a ship flew by earlier and blatantly ignored us,” Eddie answers, squinting at the sky. “Other than that, no.”
Steve glances at the transponder, its small light still flickering. He tries to focus on that instead of the growing pit in his stomach and the inferno in his knee. Eddie comes back to sit next to him in the shadow of the boulder. He pulls another ration bar out of his pocket and snaps it in half.
“How many of those d’you have on you?” Steve asks as he accepts the food.
Eddie nearly shoves the entire bar in his mouth in one-go, then shrugs. “Let’s just say that we’ll probably die of thirst before we run out of food,” he says with his mouth full.
Steve takes a bite and tries to ignore the unhelpful wailing of his brain at the mention of his thirst. He can’t help but picture it — ice-cold water soothing his dry mouth and rehydrating his sandy throat, the rush of coolness spreading through his chest and down his stomach.
He’s never going on a mission again without his flask, he just decided.
“How’s the leg?” Eddie asks, pulling him out of his thirst-induced insanity.
“In dire need of cutting-edge surgery and a bucket of pain medication strong enough to knock out a Bantha,” Steve answers, pulling a chuckle out of the other man’s lips. “You ever broken a bone?”
“Once, yeah,” Eddie lights another cigarette, and Steve doesn’t understand how he’s still capable of smoking when he must be just as thirsty as him. “My collarbone.” He takes a long drag, eyes on the horizon. “I was seven or something.”
“Yeah?” Steve asks, suddenly feeling like he’s walking on eggshells. “What happened?”
“Fell out of a tree,” Eddie says, smoke coming out of his mouth with the words. A smile is trying to worm its way onto his lips. “I was trying to reach the top but I tripped over my own feet like a damn idiot. My mom, she—”
His voice dies down, along with the smile. He clears his throat, and Steve can’t help but hold his breath, wishing for more, for the rest of the sentence, for anything. How tall was that tree? Where was it? What system does Eddie come from, is it a place he still calls home? Where is his mother, and did she comfort him when the pain surely made him cry?
Steve feels like he’s standing on a ledge and the wrong word will send him tumbling down the cliff.
“I broke my arm when I was nine,” he offers instead, the sentence rushing out of his mouth without his consent. Eddie glances at him, lips tight around his cigarette. “I was messing around with a friend and I fell down a flight of stairs. My parents were so mad, they grounded me for a month.”
It’s funny, how this memory that used to leave him feeling sad and bitter and scared has no grip left on Steve. The story is his, but no emotions are attached to it anymore — not when he’s learned what family actually means, and not when he’s learned that those people were never truly his.
“Your parents sound like assholes,” Eddie says after a while.
“They are,” Steve replies. “Took me longer than I’d like to admit to realize it.”
“They’re still around?”
“Not around me, no,” Steve clears his throat. “But last I heard, yeah, they’re still alive.” His heart jumps in his chest. “What about yours?” he asks, trying to play it cool, the question like an offered palm.
Eddie is silent for a moment. He looks down and stubs out his cigarette. “They’re not around anymore,” is all he says. He doesn’t say anything for a long time after that, and Steve starts thinking that the conversation is over. But then, “All I’ve got left is my uncle.”
Steve’s lungs are tight. “Your uncle?”
Eddie nods, eyes still looking at the crushed cigarette he’s still torturing against a rock. “He’s my only priority. I’d do anything to keep him safe.”
He glances at Steve, then, and when their eyes meet, his are shining with a sad determination — almost like he’s daring Steve to disapprove. Like he’s expecting it.
But all Steve can do is think about the people he’d move entire systems to keep safe. He suddenly wonders what he would do, were he asked to choose between saving Robin’s life or the rest of the universe. He’s short of an answer and his stomach churns at the thought.
Eddie is still staring at him with those big brown eyes. Steve offers him a tight-lipped smile, and takes another bite of his ration bar.
Steve is staring at the sky, fiddling absent-mindedly with a loose thread of his ruined pants. “Hey, Eddie?”
“Yeah?” the other man asks from where he’s laying down in the shadow of the boulder, eyes on the sky.
“What happens if your people find us first?”
Steve holds his breath. Eddie doesn’t answer.
They’re munching on another ration bar when Steve spots it — a moving, flickering red light that clashes with the evening sky.
His entire body goes rigid, eyes locked on the moving starship as whatever Eddie is saying flies right above his head. The other man takes a few seconds to notice his sudden absence.
“Steve?”
Steve’s throat is tight when he swallows, but it’s got nothing to do with the thirst. “I win,” he says simply, staring as the familiar silhouette of the Squawk (his beautiful, beautiful ship) grows closer.
When he glances to his left, Eddie is staring at the starship too, his face a nearly blank slate. A day ago, maybe, Steve wouldn’t have noticed the slight bend of his brow, or the blatant relief in the white of his eyes. He wouldn’t have cared.
Today, he does care. He cares enough that his heart clenches.
Eddie’s eyes meet his, and the man’s throat bobs as he swallows.
“Don’t ask me again,” he says, looking away.
“Why?” Steve asks, heart in his throat. “Because you’re scared you might say yes?”
Eddie stares, unmoving, as ashes cascade from the cigarette he’s holding. “You know my answer,” he says eventually, voice neutral. “I’ll wait for the Syndicate.”
“What if they never come, Eddie?”
Eddie looks up at the sky, then, nose scrunching. Distantly, Steve hears the Squawk deploy its landing gear — but in this instant, nothing matters but the man sitting next to him.
“They’ll find me, Stevie,” he says, brown eyes turning orange in the burning twilight. “They always find me.”
A voice is calling Steve’s name in the distant, its sound so familiar that it acts like a balm to Steve’s heart. He finds himself drawn to it, sucked right back into Robin Buckley’s orbit as she runs towards him. She’s waving her arms as she goes, as if she’s scared Steve won’t notice her, and as her face comes closer and closer his shoulders finally loosen.
She crashes next to him in an uncoordinated mess of limbs, arms locking around his neck in a deathgrip that he does his best to reciprocate. Dustin is not far behind, and followed by most of the Squawk’s inhabitants, blinding smiles on all of their faces as they run across the sandy plain.
Robin is babbling inaudible strings of words in his hair that get drowned by the ringing in his ears. It pulls a frantic laugh out of his lungs. “I’m okay, Rob. I’m alright.”
She pulls away and she’s crying, and it makes Steve’s stomach twist that he’s the reason for it, that perhaps for a day she’d thought he’d abandoned her.
“You’re a fucking idiot, Steve Harrington,” she tells him as she wipes away a wave of fresh tears, her other hand crushing his fingers. “A stupid fucking idiot.”
Steve can’t help but smile. “I love you too, Rob.”
“We’ve been scouring the entire system,” Dustin says from where he’s kneeling on Steve’s other side. His eyes are misty. “Fifteen fucking moons, Steve.”
Steve laughs again, vaguely aware that he's on the verge of tears. “I’m well aware.”
“The signal was so weak we almost missed it,” Nancy says, and Steve looks her to find his friend standing before the setting sun, a more serious look on her face.
“What the hell happened?” Dustin asks, shaking his head as he takes in Steve’s state.
“And how in the world did you survive that?” Lucas asks as he points at the crashed escape pod.
Steve’s mouth opens and closes a few times, the sudden assault of company and questions hurting his head more than he’d ever admit.
“Did you stitch this up yourself?” Robin asks, frowning at his injured thigh.
Steve makes a face at her, because of course he didn’t. “No, Ed—”
His voice dies in his throat when he glances to his left and sees no one there. Just the crushed butt of a cigarette abandoned on the ground, and an almost unnoticeable dip in the sand where Eddie had sat. His eyes scan the area, from the pod to the horizon and back to the boulder.
Nothing. No one.
“Steve, hey,” Robin’s fingers are cold against his cheek. “You alright, dingus?”
He’s not. He’s really, really not. “Yeah,” he says anyway. “Just—long day, you know?” he forces out a small laugh, looking up at the rest of the crew. "And I'm, like, really fucking thirsty."
Robin smiles at him, brushing a hand through his probably disgusting hair. “Let’s get you home, then.”
It’s a long process. Lucas and Robin eventually manage to get him up, and Steve grits his teeth through the entire walk back to the ship, keeping his bad leg off the ground as the rest of their party follows them in a loud and chaotic procession. Steve wishes he could listen to their chatter but finds himself lost in thoughts, eyes scouring the horizon up until he’s walked up ramp of the Squawk, the metal of the ship solid under his feet.
When he spares one last glance at the crash site, he catches Nancy staring at him, a furrow in her brow.
Later, when they’re safely back in hyperspace and Steve’s heart is aching like a string has been tied around it and pulled taut, he avoids Robin’s questioning eyes.
And when they make it back to Yavin IV and Vickie Dunne makes a comment on the quality of his stitches, Steve pretends to be fast asleep.
He chases a shadow in his dreams every night after that. He never quite manages to catch it.