Homowingian

Part 3 - Searching

Author's Note: Better get your tissues out. :)

This is for the square "flashbacks" on the Bad Batch Bingo. :D

~ Amina Gila

It's been months since they lost Crosshair, and Hunter still misses him. It doesn't help that it feels like Omega's drifting away from him. She was teaching him to use the wings he had and never wanted, and then something... changed. He doesn't know if it's him, her, or just his imagination. Either way, it feels like he's stuck watching as what's left of his family tears itself apart.

Omega taught him about flying. The little bit she knew, at least. She never had anyone to teach her either. Everything she knew was self-taught, but she said used to do it all the time when she was little.

Every time she mentions it, Hunter wishes he grew up with wings. If he did, he might not hate them so much. They might not be so hard to accept or deal with, and Crosshair...

Crosshair wouldn't have reacted to them like he did.

If they grew up knowing they had them, he wouldn't have...

Yeah.

It's pointless to think about, but Hunter broods about it obsessively. He ought to have moved on from that by now, but he hasn't, and doesn't really think he ever will. Everything about their life is different now, and Hunter isn't fully sure he recognizes himself anymore. They're trying to be more than what they used to be. Crosshair certainly wouldn't recognize him if he saw him, though that point is probably moot since he didn't know them at all anyway.

Apparently.

That's not something Hunter wants to think about, either.

Nor is the fact that Tech evidently threw Omega off the Marauder by accident the same way he did Hunter back on Daro. Except, unlike Hunter, she can fly, and found the whole thing fun.

She deserves better than this, and Hunter has no idea how to give her a different life.

He doesn't want to think about the fact that he doesn't trust Cid, either, but considering that she just told some random pirate about them, he's thinking about it very much.

Cid claims Phee is trustworthy, but Hunter doesn't believe it. He doesn't even trust Cid. They stick with her because they have nowhere else to go, and she won't let them go. She knows the details of all their missions, and they don't need conflict or the Empire on their tail.

They've avoided the Empire since Kamino, and Hunter has no intention of changing that.

Cid can say what she may, but Hunter doesn't trust anyone anymore.

He had a little brother once, who slept beside him when they were little for no reason at all, and they played and grew together, and then that little brother tried to cut his throat.

So, no, Hunter has no idea what the word trust even means.

He still wakes up sometimes, half expecting to feel a familiar warm weight next to him but there's nothing, and then he remembers the thump of Wrecker's body hitting the duracrete floor on the hangar after Crosshair shot him and Tech's yelp and the spiking feel of his heartbeat as Crosshair shot him into free fall, remembers the icy cold heartless "this is who I am" and he wants to scream, but if he started, he'd never stop.

"Aren't clones supposed to look alike?" Phee asks snarkily, and Hunter grows tenser than he already is. He can already guess what's coming, and he doesn't like the topic of his wings or the memories they bring.