The Bad Batch: One Shot Collection

Soultwins

Author's Note: This for the square "Soulmate AU" on the Bad Batch Bingo. :D

Also, I knoooow Hunter and Crosshair aren't canonically twins (if anyone was, it would be Wrecker and Crosshair), but I just. Love the idea of tiny baby Hunter and Crosshair snuggling in their tube before they're born. :)

PS. This was partially inspired by a what-if-Hunter-got-badly-hurt-from-falling-of-a-mountain thing. So. Yeah. No regrets. ;)

~ Amina Gila

Soulmates have a very special bond with one another. That's doubly true when the soulmates in question are twins. Hunter falls on Daro, and he doesn't walk away without an injury. He doesn't walk away at all, his spine damaged from the impact. And the only one who can heal him is Crosshair, his twin, his soulmate.

Hunter falls.

And falls.

And falls.

He's terrified and panicking, scrambling to grab ahold of something to break his fall or at least slow it so he doesn't get smashed and killed when he hits the forest floor far, far below. He uses his vibroknife, stabbing into the rocks he tumbles past, and it slows him slightly but not enough. Not nearly enough.

He crashes through branches as he hits the top of the tree line, and everything is blur around him. His body collides with something – a rock or a tree or something else entirely, he doesn't know – and he feels the crack. Hears it. White-hot agony spears through him, and he screams when he hits the ground. For a moment, he lies there, gasping for air that won't seem to come, spasms of pain spiking through the lower half of his body.

It doesn't matter. He needs to get up and keep moving, but he's too injured, and he knows it. The impact fractured his vertebrae, and he can't feel the lower half of his body properly anymore. It's fading it in and out, alternating between numbness and a searing pain so severe that tear prick at his eyes. He fumbles, hand reaching for his comm. Even if, by some miracle, Tech could get the Marauder down here before the Empire shows up, Hunter knows it'll be useless. There's nothing they can do for a broken spine. He'll be a liability for them, and he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life paralyzed.

What kind of leader could he be for them if he can't even walk?

If the Empire gets him, there's a chance Crosshair will come, and Crosshair is the only one who will be able to heal him. He doesn't know if he's more afraid of seeing his brother again or resigned. He knew they'd meet again, knew their paths would cross. It's inevitable. They're linked. They always have been, and because of their soulmate bond, they will always find a way back to each other, whether for better or worse.

Bracca had been the final straw. It had been when Hunter had gathered up what strength he could dredge and slammed shut the golden link that binds them together. He couldn't bear to keep feeling Crosshair anymore, even if they're soulmates, even if they're twins, not when feeling Crosshair would mean being able to feel his rage and pain and desire to hurt them. He tried to kill them in the ion engine, and Hunter couldn't – feeling Crosshair's twisted satisfaction at knowing they were trapped had been his breaking point.

"Tech, get out of here," Hunter says over the comm, struggling to keep his voice steady when all he wants to do is lay there and scream. "I'll find another way back."

He'll try at any rate. If Crosshair comes for him, if he heals him, if –

If, if, if. So many ifs, but Hunter won't abandon the squad, not like Crosshair abandoned them. Sure, it might not have been his fault, and Hunter knows he failed him, but that doesn't stop him from being bitter about the whole thing. They're supposed to be together. That's what soulmates do. They stay together. They're two halves of a whole. He's been missing half of himself since Crosshair turned on them, and nothing, nothing can dull the gaping emptiness in his soul.