#dad batch

Omega frowned as her request for a playmate was denied yet again, leaving her out of people to ask.

“You’re going to have to play by yourself for a little,” Hunter told her. “We’re all busy.”

Omega’s frown turned into a scowl. She didn’t like it when they all couldn’t play with her; it felt like Nala Se’s lab.

“We’ll play with you when we’re done, I promise.” Hunter’s fingertips ghosted over her hair, and she grabbed at his hand.

“P’ay now!” she cried out, clinging to him.

“I can’t, Omega,” Hunter insisted firmly. “You have to be patient.”

Omega whined and stomped her foot, upset by the wait.

Hunter raised an eyebrow. “Unless you’d rather go take a nap early…”

“No!” Omega ran like he had suggested something utterly horrific, retreating to the corner of the barracks that housed her toys. She sulked for a minute before grabbing Lula and trundling away to make her own fun, wanting to go somewhere different.

The shelves near the refresher caught her attention. A box sat open on the floor under the lowest shelf, back in the shadows, and she approached it with curiosity. Inside, she found a pile of clothes, and her imagination ran wild with thoughts of caves and bushes and other places to hide. She hopped into the box with Lula, taking herself on a grand adventure across soft hills and plains, the previous injustice of having to play by herself forgotten.

After a while, she grew sleepy, but she did not care to leave her new hideout. The fabric surrounding her was soft, warm, and familiar. She sank into the pile and held Lula close, giving in to the pull of sleep.

“Where is Omega?”

Hunter surfaced from the painstaking process of mending a hairline fracture in Wrecker’s chestplate, the question automatically sending a surge of adrenaline through him. He turned to face Tech and Crosshair, who had just returned to the barracks, and there was a distinct lack of joyful greetings from Omega, who was nowhere in his line of sight.

“Where are you, bog leech?” Crosshair called. They waited for excited squeals and the patter of tiny feet, but no response came.

“Wrecker!” Hunter barked, panic starting to build inside him, “Have you seen Omega?”

Wrecker rolled over on his bunk, blinking drowsily at him. “Huh?”

“That’s a no.” Crosshair marched deeper into the room, his sharp gaze roving over every corner. “Don’t tell me you’ve kriffing lost her…”

Hunter’s rising panic halted when he realized why he hadn’t noticed Omega’s absence in the first place: her heartbeat still drummed within the scope of his senses, slow with sleep but steady. “She’s in here somewhere,” he murmured, feeling incredibly foolish for his lapse.

It took less than a minute to find Omega, asleep and oblivious to the world in their box of spare clothes like it was her own bed.

“Alright Tech, explain this one,” Crosshair said.

Tech shrugged helplessly even as he documented the sight. “I’m not entirely sure what brought this on. Perhaps the familiarity of the clothes was comforting to her.”

“Well, she’s taking a nap on her own for once, so let’s not interrupt it yet,” Hunter decided, carefully rearranging the clothes around Omega to make her more comfortable. “We’ll figure out her logic later.”

“Alright, time to get out of there.” Crosshair’s voice stirred Omega into reluctant wakefulness. “If you sleep any longer you’ll stay up half the night.”

Omega twitched as her soft surroundings moved sideways. She opened her eyes, staring groggily into Crosshair’s face.

“This isn’t your bed, bog leech,” Crosshair said, the toothpick in his mouth twitching from a fond smirk.

Omega huffed, too sleepy to care about that. She tried to roll over, but Crosshair stopped her, tugging her up from her nest.

“Oh no you don’t.” Crosshair pulled her out completely, seating her in his arms. “It’s almost time to eat, anyway.”

Omega whined with discontent, grasping for Lula. Crosshair obliged her, handing her the toy.

“What were you doing in there, hm?” Crosshair asked, holding her close.

It took Omega a moment to remember what she had been doing before she fell asleep. “P’ayin’.”

“Didn’t look like you were playing.”

“Was before!” Omega huffed, sounding similar to Tech in her indignation.

Crosshair raised an eyebrow with a teasing smirk. “Why in my clothes?”

“Hun’er an’ Wricker woul’n’t p’ay wif me,” Omega proclaimed as her logic. “Hidin’.”

“They deserved it. How dare they do such a thing.”

“Hey, I was busy and Wrecker was trying to catch up on sleep,” Hunter argued from across the room.

Crosshair ignored him. “How about this: you eat your vegetables without complaining, and we can all play afterward.”

Omega nodded happily. “‘Kay!”

“Good.” Crosshair pushed the box back under the shelf. “Just don’t make a habit of sleeping in our clothes.”

***

As Omega stared at the pile of clothes before her, she was quickly starting to regret offering to fold and organize them by herself. She had done so in an effort to take work off of her brothers’ hands; they worked hard to scrounge credits in an uncertain galaxy, and if she could not assist with missions, she could do something as simple as this. She was not a little kid anymore, and she wanted to help them.

But in truth, she was tired too. She was past her sleep cycle thanks to a chaotic stop on the moon Droxu. It supposed to be a quick break, but some pirates had other ideas, forcing an exit with lots of blaster fire. She had spent the next several hours of transit jittery with residual adrenaline, and she had every intention of going to sleep when they landed safely until the waiting pile of unorganized clothing presented itself, left waiting by whoever had originally planned to fold it.

“Are you sure you don’t want help?” Echo asked behind her.

“I’m sure.” Omega tried to hide every trace of weariness. Accepting Echo’s offer was tempting, as it would make it easier to complete the task before the rest of the Batch came back and sent her to bed. However, she wanted desperately to accomplish it by herself, and she would try.

She seated herself on the floor, using Gonky as a backrest, beginning to sort the clothing by its owner. They had little more than what they escaped Kamino with and a couple of extra things bought later, but the combination of six people increased the amount significantly. Some things, like Wrecker’s size or Echo’s alterations, made it easy to identify who each piece of clothing belonged to, but others she had to go by guesswork and memory.

Slowly, individual stacks of clothing began to take shape around her, forming a soft enclosure. The textures of the fabric were pleasant in their familiarity, even the ones from Kamino. She had grown to dislike the Kaminoan garments she had escaped with; they were coarse and constricting compared to clothes from other places, but the items belonging to her brothers were always comforting. She had a vague inclination of playing amidst their clothing when she was very small, her present sense of ease echoing a time when she had never felt safer.

Somewhere in the process of hunting down each sock’s match, her eyelids became heavy. It became harder and harder to dig through the pile of unorganized socks, drowsiness settling heavy and persistent over her. She finally gave up when her head drooped, the softness around her too tantalizing to ignore. She let herself tilt, falling into the heap of fabric and letting it swallow her up in comfort.

Hunter wanted Omega to be asleep by the time they returned to the ship, but he did not expect to find her slumbering in folded stacks of clothes that used to be a pile. Upon seeing her, he held up a closed fist, immediately silencing the conversation behind him.

“What is it—oh.” Crosshair materialized beside him, relaxing with a smirk when he saw the cause of the abrupt signal. “She looked close to dropping when we left.”

“I know.” Hunter aimed a pointed look at Echo when he appeared, keeping his voice to a whisper. “You should have told her to go to bed.”

Echo shrugged, smiling fondly at Omega. “She was bound and determined to fold those, so I let her. I figured she’d wear herself out.”

“I was supposed to take care of those…”

“Just like old times, huh?” Wrecker said with a grin. “She did love sleeping in our clothes.”

Echo arched an eyebrow. “Why?”

Tech stepped carefully around Omega, undoubtedly snapping a holo. “She was too young to provide us with a rational answer previously, but if I had to make a guess, it would be the comfort of familiarity.”

The conversation went on as Wrecker regaled Echo with stories of some of the many times they had discovered Omega slumbering amongst their clothing. Hunter stooped, gently lifting her into his arms. She clutched one of his shirts, and she didn’t seem eager to let go of it, so it went with her.

“Hun’er?” Omega’s eyes fluttered, briefly opening fully. “Wait, m’not done with the clothes yet…”

“The only thing you’re not done with is sleeping,” Hunter insisted, carrying her to her bed. “Don’t worry about the clothes.”

A small pout, reminiscent of her younger years, appeared on her face. “Wanted t’help.”

“You’ve done plenty.” Hunter laid her down, drawing the blanket up around her. “Just rest.”

Omega appeared to give up arguing as she curled on her side, hugging the shirt to her like it was Lula.

“You might never get that one back.” Crosshair murmured somewhere behind Hunter, a humorous lilt to his tone.