To Heal Poignancy ■ TECH - The Bad Batch ■

To Heal Poignancy

Tantiss was difficult for everyone to process. On the shuttle, Tech looked over her injury. It was actually worse than anyone thought due to the close range, but she would live another day. She would just have a gnarly scar in its place. At least she also didn't have a concussion from slamming her head onto the stolen shuttle when they first soared through Wayland's atmosphere.

"You will have to remove your shirt or I will cut a bigger hole."

"What?" Adla jerked away from Tech. Her left hand flew to try and cover her right shoulder. "No. I like this stealth suit. If you cut a bigger hole then the fabric will shrink when I go to sew it up."

Tech stared blankly at her. "Adla, there is already a hole from where the blaster disintegrated the cloth. It will make no difference. The garment is already damaged." Adla frowned. "I need to apply bacta."

Adla stood her ground about wanting to save the shirt. So, slowly and quite painfully, she peeled her arm out of the sleeve.

Tech sighed heavily. "I never understood why you feel the need to make situations more difficult for yourself," he muttered under his breath.

His touch was utterly gentle. His fingers were two feathers brushing lightly against her angry skin. The only reason Adla knew Tech had touched her shoulder was because of the sting from the bacta. She hissed through her teeth as it made contact with the wound.

When he stepped away, Adla's eyes were large and tracking his every move. He cleaned up the supplies he used on her. When he faced her again, she decided to speak.

"Thank you," she whispered.

He took a step forward, hovering above her. His chin tilted down to look at her face properly. "You're most welcome."

Her eyes darted to his lips. "You know, I think I still need your help. I'm still in pain elsewhere." She licked her lips.

"Ugh, get a room you two," Crosshair hissed from his corner. He rolled his eyes dramatically, wanting to be seen by them. "This doesn't mean you get to act all disgusting just because the tooka is out of the bag." The sniped jabbed his stump in their direction. He blinked down at his wrist as he remembered that his fingers were missing.

Afterwards, Tech had looked over Crosshair's hand. So, Adla snuck off to the back and kept to herself. Crosshair's interruption caused Adla's energy to drop significantly. There was finally a moment to breathe again.

It could've been worse, Adla thought, one of the boys could've died. Omega could've died. But they didn't! So... hooray!

The boys had apparently scaled the mountain and entered from where the zillo beast escaped. They were met with CX clone assassins, who took the skilled soldiers down one by one. One of them had stepped on Crosshair's arm and cleanly disconnected his shooting hand from his wrist. Adla had visibly recoiled when she heard that information (even if she had already seen his missing body part).

For the journey back to Pabu, Adla secluded herself from everyone. At some point, Crosshair also came to the back to escape. They sat on the same cot and leaned against the wall. She turned her head to stare at his stub of a wrist.

"Does it feel any better?"

Crosshair grunted and shrugged, his eyes were closed as his head tilted backward. It softly thudded against the ship's wall. "Feels weird."

Adla nodded her head thoughtfully, "Yeah, that can happen when you lose an appendage that you've had your whole life."

Crosshair opened the eye closest to her, slid it in her direction, stared at her for a few beats, then shut it once more.