#techxphee

Hi, this is another Bad Batch Summer contribution! Due to some technical difficulties, i may or may not be able to do all in the deadline, but I'll post them here anyway! The prompt was the title, alternate prompt for week 1.

How was Echo able to get the hang of prosthetics too quick?

This was the question that echoed in Tech’s mind while he hobbled around in his prosthetic legs.

As Crosshair had very kindly reminded him, he was now just like ‘the reg the way we found him’, his mind (and intelligence, thank goodness), torso and face being the only things left intact.

It was getting embarrassing, really, to struggle with such a trivial matter, especially when he had once walked and saved a house on a twisted ankle, but as Hunter had pointed out, he at least had legs then.

He, Tech, of all, should have figured this out, and that’s why he decided to spare everyone the humiliation of being his walking stick and came out to the beach at night, when logically nobody should be out on the coast unless someone had a mind like him, a situation like him (both too unlikely) or something to do with him.

Getting off the wheelchair – again, one of his contraptions he had cooked up for a rainy day – he adjusted his prosthetic legs and then tentatively put a foot out. While it sunk slightly in the sand, slightly unnerving him, he regained composure and took another step. Then another. And another.

The calming night breeze and blanket of stars, paired with the rush of water soothed his nerves and it gave him a rush of bravado: he decided he wanted to go for a run. Just as he adjusted into his pre-sprint pose:

“I wouldn’t do that alone, if I were you.”

Logically nobody should be out on the coast unless someone had something to do with him.

“What are you doing at this time of night at such a location?” Tech asked the female pirate now marching up behind him, her hands placed on her hips.

“Coming to ask you the same question. You need your rest.”

So had she repeated every time he even met the sunlight outside Shep’s house. Scrunching his eyebrows in annoyance, he sighed, turning away from her. “I believe you need your rest too. Doctors should practice what they preach.”

“Look how the tables have turned,” she muttered underneath her breath before walking up to him. “I’m serious.”

“And so am I.” Not being able to stand on the metallic leg for a long time, Tech found a rock to perch on. “I find it quite tedious to be bedridden when there is so much to attend to. My leg won’t fix itself.”

“How about you crash somewhere in the sand.” Phee followed him, placing herself beside him. “I believe that will fix it.”

“Absolutely not,” he rambled, choosing to ignore Phee’s voice practically drenched in sarcasm. “Sand jammed in knees will damage the prosthetics. It won-”

“Never mind.” She stood and yanked his elbow before beginning to drag him back.

“Phee.”

She paused upon hearing him say her name, his eyes brown and wide through the glasses while he looked up at her.

“Please. I’m tired of staying inwards.”

She kept peering into his face, now looking downwards as if ashamed of the admission, and she knew. He wasn’t tired of inactivity – he was ashamed of being the odd one out, the useless, the one being waited upon.

“Alright. On one condition.”

He perked up as if having been offered a new datapad.

“I’m coming with you.”

She was surprised when he said without hesitation, “Of course.”

Every few steps, when she’d see Tech slightly disbalance, she would reach out to hold his hand, so tantalizingly close, until he’d stabilize and in his swinging, would unknowingly swing his hand away from her, draining her of whatever nervous confidence she’d gained.

She was so absorbed in her thoughts on ‘how-to-get-a-brown-haired-clone’s-hand-in-yours’ when a pebble, masked by the dark sand, knocked her boots, nearly sending her face forward.

She shut her eyes for the impact that never came.

Nearly. Had it not been for the strong pair of arms – the cold metal biting through her skin, but she couldn’t care less – and the chest against which she toppled, she would have had the most embarrassing moment a girl could ever have in front of her crush.

“Therefore reinforcing my statement.” Tech’s voice was very low, his chest’s movements too close to her pressed face, “you’re the one who needs the rest.”

“No,” she pushed herself off him, glad for the darkness to hide her red face while she stared defiantly. “I was looking out so you don’t hit anything.”

“But…” a bewildered silence followed, and Phee prayed hard he would not point out the fact that he was walking ahead of her. “Never mind. Thank you for looking out.”

It was her turn to be bewildered now, but she took it in stride while she beamed. “The pleasure is all mine, brown eyes. If we’re done being emotional over an occupational hazard, let’s continue our walk.”

Tech, to her surprised relief, did not object while he began his walk, this time slowing down enough to let her catch up with him, their feet in sync in the sand.

“Don’t the limbs ever rust?” Phee tried to break the silence with a question she hoped would pique his knowledge, not his annoyance.

“No, Echo made sure of that. Though they do pull at the shreds of skin a bit.”

Phee winced. “Too much information.”

Tech huffed out something dangerously close to a chuckle. “Not if you have to process it. I won’t recommend it, though.”

Phee was quiet before she mumbled, “you’re really the bravest one I know.”

Tech merely pushed his glasses back before aiming a curiously puzzled glance at the girl walking beside her. “I’m sure you’ve met more than I am.”

“I haven’t. I never lie, Brown Eyes, and you’d do well to remember that. You’ve done things others would think ten times before doing it.”

She’s referring to Plan 99. “It was my duty. I had to do it.”

“Stop being so humble and self-sacrificial all the time!”

Phee only realized after it escaped how harsh it sounded, and when Tech halted in front of her, a string of apologies came out of her.

“It’s quite all right. I’ve heard worse from Crosshair.”

“I really didn’t mean it,” she mumbled, mentally berating herself – you ruined it, you ruined everything between you two, you idiot – looking down at her boot-clad feet. “I just don’t understand. Why do you think it always has to be you, you alone? Why won’t you let anyone else do it for you?”

He hesitated, his fingers twitching towards her face, his heart stuttering when he saw a tear roll down. Finally, he extended his fingers and gently held her chin, before tilting it to meet her dewy gaze.

“As much as I like to believe,” he whispered to her, entrusting a great, haunting secret of his life to her, “I don’t know everything. I have still a lot of things to learn, and well…learning to live for one is one of those things. I’ve always known how to die for someone, and that’s what I’m good at. And even though,” he wiped the stray tear tracks that had long dried, “it’s difficult to step out of what others may call our comfort zone, if it means I get to comfort someone else, I guess I could learn that.”

Taking the liberty, she took his fingers from her face and pressed her lips to it gently, all the while locking his shocked gaze. The moment she disconnected and let go of his hand, he took it back slowly.

“I believe I’ll need to learn to get used to this too,” he muttered, eliciting a laugh out of her. While she laughed, he wished he could record her shining face, his modified helmet back up at the house, so he dedicated his memory to her.

Another thing I learned for you, how to remember everything about you. Please, never cry again like that.

While Phee regained her composure, her fingers still touching the place where his fingers had caressed her, he was now looking up to the sky, his glasses reflecting the stars. “It is getting late, even by my standards. You don’t need to stay here any longer, I can now walk by myself.”

“Not a chance.”

He looked to her. “What if I walk you back home?”

Her brain short-circuited.

“It’s a double benefit, really,” he kept explaining, oblivious to the storm he had just cooked up within her, “I get my walking practice, and you get your rest without having to worry about me tripping over.” As an afterthought, he added, “and the village gets its rumours.”

Phee snorted in response, before nodding in assent. “Is that your way of taking me to a date?”

“Is that your way of saying yes to one?”

Smirking, she turned back to the city with him, the horizon barely luminated by the rising sun, setting a fiery glow to the water. Beginning the trek up the road, she heard him clear his throat, and his hand was extended in her direction.

“To prevent any further accidents,” he commented sincerely. “Let me look out for you this time.”

Let me learn to love you.

In my newest one-shot, Changes, I gave them a son. His name is Hunter Racer Genoa, but everyone just calls him Racer. He’s got his father’s intelligence and his mother’s spunk. Oh, and let’s not forget that adorable head of curls :)

I started on this piece a week or so ago, but I’m an over-thinker and fretted over even the smallest details. Since then I’ve worked on more Bad Batch art that I might post. I’m addicted to creating anything AU where the Bad Batch is content and living life to the fullest on Pabu.

As an Echo fangirl, I have resigned myself to the understanding that Echo's first love will always be service to the greater good. None of us have a chance against people in need. That's why we love and adore him. I would be so happy if my precious man-droid found a special someone to make him smile like that....... and then I would draw a series of comics about all the ways I would replace her. So I can relate to your frustrations, but it's also a great creative opportunity 😅