Espionage | HunterxOC Story

Grief

She cant believe it, one of her closest friends, who she believed to be dead, is standing right in front of her. She walks up to the former arc trooper, his facial expression is mixed with nervousness, sorrow, Pain and relief. Once Widow makes her way to Echo she slowly places her hands on both sides of his hollowed face, brown eyes staring into each other. After a moment she directs Echos head to lean forward a bit as she is leaning her head forward, their foreheads meet in the middle with both of their eyes closed. "Hey Echo." She says in a low tone with a Smile, Echo silently snorts "Hey Wid, miss me?" He smiles back at her.

Widow laughs as they pull away from another "I mean I spent the last almost two years thinking you were dead you di'kut, of course I missed you." Widows says as she grabs her gear, Echo holds his hand out motioning for her to hand him the gear bag. Widow shakes her head "no its alright Echo, Im more than capable to bring this onto the ship" she states calmly  "Im not saying youre not capable I just want to have some sort of normalcy and to not be treated like some fragile Cadet, who is afraid of being broken." Echo states firmly as he takes her bag from her making his way up the ramp.

She looks over to Hunter with a shocked, confused and grateful look on her face. "H-how?" She asked as she walked back over to him. Hunter sighs  "apparently the explosion did not kill him, and when the separatist found out, they sold him to the technical union." He pauses rubbing his face before continuing  "he looks better than when we found him, Im glad you werent there to witness it. We werent sure if he were a corpse or a severely malnourished man" he finishes. Widow nods in understanding of the severity of the situation. "Thank you" she says as she looks up to the Sergeant , she carefully decides her next move as she places a hand  against the sergeant's shoulder and gives him a small kiss on his cheek. "I mean it, thank you." She says as she steps away to head onto the ship. Leaving Hunter standing on the platform looking out to the horizon of Ryloth.

Later That Night

Widow is sitting with Echo telling him of the events that have transpired since his absence. Echo is absorbing every story she has told him from Umbra all the way to recent trip to Ryloth. She takes a long deep sigh "Did Rex happen to tell you what happened to Fives?" She questions the ARC trooper, "Not much except for the fact he died" Echo responded. Widow drops her head  and looks back up to Echo, "I didn't think Rex would tell you what happened. I was there that night it happened" Widow pauses as she closes her eyes to recall the memory "Fives investigated the circumstances of Tup's death, apparently Tup killed a jedi on the mission they were on together. Tup was sent back to Tipoca City for further investigation but he did not survive the procedure from my understanding" She sighs "Its hard to recall because fives wasn't okay when he came by my apartment to explain what was happening."

She looks down once again not opening her eyes because of tears threatening to fill her eyes "He tried to tell me about how there are these inhibitor chips that are placed in every clone, but he wasn't able to go into full detail. He had received word that Rex and General Skywalker wanted to speak with him." She looks back up and opens her eyes, tears involuntarily leave her eyes as she starts to sniffle. Echo is looking at her in shock, he has never seen her in this emotional state before, he reaches out to hold her hand with his flesh hand, he grabs it and holds it firmly squeezing it to urge her to continue.

She smiles gently but sadly  at him "He didn't tell me where he was going, so me being me I decided to follow him. Once I was able to find him I saw Rex and Skywalker in a ray shield. I heard how Fives was trying to explain himself but from the tones of their voices both Rex and Anakin didn't believe him, or even understand where he was coming from!" Her voice gradually gets louder as she continues to talk about it. Her anger is boiling at this point. She feels another gentle squeeze on her hand for reassurance. "He was gunned down by the Coruscant guards who had also followed him. They had gunned him down once he reached for his weapons Echo." She breaks down falling out of her chair loudly sobbing recalling the memory, she never grieved for Fives, she ran instead of confronting Rex and Anakin about this.

She wasn't aware that Echos hand had left hers and then his arms were wrapped around her tightly, he pulled her close to him as he settled on the floor next to her. He guides her to where her head is in the crook of his neck, she buries her head in the area trying to hide her cries but is failing since everyone had heard her break down and one other who had tried not to listen to conversation but he heard every single word, making him happy that Widow won't have to repeat it for him later.

Hunters heart broke hearing her break down like that, he had known her to not have her guard down, shes that bright light of the team who takes an interest in everyone's activities, she treats them like normal human beings, not like troopers, clones or anything. That is what he admires most about her, among many other things.

He gives them a moment before he gets up to check on her, he was able to find them in the Gunners seat. He saw Echo holding Widow closely to himself, Hunter can tell Echo is having a hard time containing his own emotions in order to keep the red headed agent from losing it even more. Hunter walks up to Echo quietly "Do you need me to take over?" He mouths and motions to her, Echo looks down at her and sees she calmed down slightly but clinging onto him. He shakes his head no "I cant leave her like this, her and I have been through a lot together. She's my sister Hunter and I won't leave her  like this." The arc trooper says quietly as Widow and slowing drifting off to sleep. Hunter nods and walks away leaving them alone to grieve.

A/N: this is definitely a shorter chapter but I really wasn't sure how to further this more than what I already have. This was a nice filler to give you better insight on why Widow had left initially in the first chapter. The next episode we will be going into The Bad Batch show though! Boy do I have things lined up for Widow in it!

Also! Thank you guys so much for the reads and the likes on this story!! You have no idea how much I appreciate you guys! Till next time 💋💜