#arc training

“Daydreaming on duty, Cadet?” a wry voice cuts into Cody’s reverie, and he startles, but recovers himself with aplomb. ARC training is no time to be caught unawares.

“My apologies, Lieutenant—”

“—Captain—“

“—oh, are we using correct ranks, Captain Alpha-Seventeen, sir?”

“Cody.”

Cody grins and turns to go, secure in victory.

“Commander-prospective, you didn’t answer my question,” Seventeen says pointedly, undeterred. “What exactly were you fantasizing about so dopily?”

“Nothing,” Cody shrugs, shaking his head.

Seventeen is unconvinced. “Not the mutie whose ass you were staring at in formation earlier?”

“Oh, him? He’s not bad,” Cody says nonchalantly.

Seventeen blats a laugh. “Damn him with faint praise, why don’t you!”

Cody shifts, caught between conflicting desires, to remain aloof or to correct the misapprehension. Seventeen reads it off him as easy as breathing and pounces on the vulnerability Cody’s hesitation left open.

“Got nothing better to say about him?” he mocks. “Speak freely, now!”

Cody frowns. “What’s being a mutie got to do with anything, honestly? If you can’t see for yourself that he’s far and away the best and brightest of this entire class—and I am including myself—you might need corrective eye surgery, sir.”

Seventeen’s smirk goes smug and satisfied in a truly concerning way at the same moment as Cody recognizes his own theoretical need for potential corrective surgery—on his ears. He hadn’t heard anyone walk up, but someone had just stifled a gasp a pace away over his shoulder, and now he’s afraid to turn around.

Seventeen salutes him, quite ironically, and moves out, likely to incite unrest elsewhere as well.

“You meant that?” the blond captain asks quietly. “Most people just notice my glaring deviation.”

“I’m sure you’re aware of how talented you are,” Cody says with an awkward little laugh. “No need for me to reinforce your ego, Lieutenant.”

“Coming from a veteran of the illustrious Squad Seven, I take that as a very high compliment,” he replies, genuinely. “I’m Rex, pleased to make your acquaintance.” He’s in fatigues, lightly sweating. Must have just come from the gym.

“Cody,” Cody says, “likewise.” He keeps his eyes up.

“So,” Rex says innocently, after a long moment of comfortably fraught silence, “want to expound on what was so fascinating about my backside?”

Under his breath, Cody grumbles nonsensically, “…pound that, fascinating my ass,” and Rex’s hearing must be better than perfect, because he cackles delightedly.

damn, with praise do I faint 🔒 https://archiveofourown.org/works/51631990

🥰 (in legends they meet at ARC training after the start of the war but before being assigned to units)

ALSO

@brokenphoenix99 you’ve tagged me twice for it since I last was able to do any last line stuff so here are two new last lines for you as well!

There are some things we just don’t say.

^ from my wip for fordo week that i didn’t get done in time, and

He could have done that thoughtlessly. Something in his eyes clues Rex in to how deliberate the timing of the reveal was.

Echo’s favorite part of ARC training was the day they got to jump out of planes.

They were crowded onto a gunship, the slots of the windows closed. Armor on, helmets on, landing packs slung over their shoulders. His gun was strapped to his side, shifting weightily when he moved. The engines hummed and fired, a background that kicked up his adrenaline. In some strange way, it felt right. He was meant to be here. Meant to be a soldier. This was his element.

Fives nudged him from behind. Echo tipped his bucket in his direction. Yes, I’m here, I see you.

He turned the orders over in his head. Drop to your assigned zone. Scout for a landing zone. Rendezvous at 5 klicks east, 8 north at the beginning of the next rotation. Not much to go off of. The ARCs weren’t big on step-by-step instructions. Here’s the goal. Stay alive. Go.

Fives nudged him again, sensing the internal overanalysis. Echo nodded.

Rex’s voice sounded in his ear. I used to be just like you. But the reg manual can’t show you how to be a good soldier. You’ve got to do that yourself.

The doors of the gunship slid open, filling the belly of the LAAT/i with light. Under his bucket, Echo blinked hard, and readjusted the settings of his HUD. “Coming up on the drop zone.”

Fives shifted. “This is going to be interesting.”

That was putting it lightly.

“Three - two - one - ”

Echo jumped. His heart skipped a beat when his feet found nothing but air beneath them, another when he was too far for the gunship to catch him. Another when, out of the corner of his eye, Fives was falling too.

Would he ever get used to Fives in harm’s way?

Not the time. He could catch up to his heart later.

Manda, what if -

Not the time.

The trees were getting closer, alarmingly quickly. Echo deployed his parachute, and the whiplash from slowing down so fast knocked the breath out of his body. He aimed for the nearest gap in the trees.

Echo got lucky, narrowly avoiding a limb thick enough to use as a battering ram. Leaves brushed against his face, hissing as if surprised when they made contact with his skin. In a less-than-graceful landing, he crashed to the forest floor and nearly broke his wrist.

Fives’s arrival was even less coordinated. “Aaaaaah! Kark! Sithsp - OW!”

In a tangle of flailing limbs, he disappeared into a thick thatch of shrubbery, parachute caught helplessly on the branches of a nearby tree.

“Fives!” Echo yelled. “You okay?” He kicked a fold of material off of his legs, trying to find the strings of the parachute.

The bushes trembled, sending some kind of furry rodent in a mad dash for a new shelter. Fives’s bucket popped up, scattering sticks and leaves. He coughed. “Never better.” He cursed softly, beginning to fumble for the buckles.

They left the parachutes behind, stumbling for a clear patch of ground to catch their breath. Fives popped his helmet off, flushed red. His hair stuck up merrily, the close-cropped curls bouncing when he turned like they were excited to feel the open air. He grinned, the corners of his eyes crinkling adorably. His smile was so big, so wide and so bright that Echo was sure he’d always be able to see the way forward if Fives was there with him.

Echo took his off, too, sinking to the forest floor alongside him. Even through the plastoid, the earth was cool, shaded and safe. Birds chirped from the trees above, exchanging songs and conversations. When the wind blew, the leaves rustled peacefully, some kind of harmonious message he couldn’t read.

“We should get moving.”

Fives shrugged, a little loopily. “We can stay for a minute. We’ve got time.”

Echo looked at him, at the easy slope of his shoulders, at his legs sprawled out in front of him and at some kind of something that made the tense lines in his face evaporate. His lips twitched, just barely, when the breeze swept by, a movement so slight Echo doubted he realized he was smiling.

The reg manual can’t show you how to be a good soldier. You’ve got to do that yourself.

Maybe part of being a good soldier was not always having to be.

Maybe it was taking these moments.

Maybe it was just being here, just for a second, with Fives and the birds and the breeze.

Hesitantly, Echo reached out for Fives’s hand.

Okay.

*******

They proceed to have a baby cuddle session before Echo's like, we really need to go now. And Fives is like, uuugggghhhh whyyyyy. But they're both competitive as heck and they're going to make it back to rendezvous first.

Echo's completely cool with jumping out of LAAT/is. Fives is a little more skeptical and mutters/screams naughty words the whole time. But if Echo's doing it, he's doing it.