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mattzerella-sticks · 1 year

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fated. (ao3 link)

While milling about the halls of Kamino's military complex, Kote had overheard a transmission his Prime had taken that would take him off-planet and into the heart of the Republic on Coruscant. The Republic, the very organization Kote and his brothers had been created to protect but hadn't had the chance, yet, because no one had come for them. The Kaminoans promised them that it would be soon, but every year that passed he and his brothers lost more and more faith their time would come.

Kote decided that he was tired of waiting.

He took initiative, like he'd been trained to, and snuck aboard Prime's ship so he could demand an audience with the Republic and tell them of the army they had waiting for them back on Kamino.

Of course, there are problems with executing his plan.

It rained extraordinarily less here than it did on Kamino. Kote schooled his features to keep the wonderment off his face lest he drew any unwanted attention to himself, but he couldn’t keep his gaze from flicking upwards every couple of clicks with the expectation that he’d spy storm clouds brewing overhead signaling an end to Coruscant’s dry weather. He was proven wrong with every glance. Kote was happy being wrong if it meant he could enjoy the outdoors even longer.

He continued wandering the crowded streets as he searched for any indication he was heading in the right direction. Kote was unfamiliar with the city’s layout and hadn’t asked for directions from any of the civilians he passed. His plans would be for naught if he was recognized by simply asking the wrong person where to go. Instead he relied on his instincts to guide him where he needed to be. They had gotten him this far, aiding him as he snuck off his home planet, maintaining cover throughout his entire voyage as a stowaway and, most recently, escaping the ship he'd been on without discovery. Kote wasn’t one who normally put his faith in such unpredictable things. Yet he hadn’t been shown his faith was misplaced. Hopefully, it never was.

Kote came upon an intersection with the intention of turning right. However, at the last second, he decided to pause before he hit the corner. His instincts had flared warningly and told him to do so. He scanned his surroundings, searching for the reason why he stopped.

Suddenly a pod of young cadets raced by where he would have been standing. They were playing, chasing after the lead boy who held a miniature spacecraft in his hand that he piloted terribly. Kote drew his cloak tighter around himself as a few of them rushed past closer than he liked. It was better than being trampled. The cadets hurried along, crossing the street and disappearing into the mingling crowd one after the other until the slowest of them jumped between a couple of Twi’leks and an Ithorian and vanished. As they did, so did the alarm in Kote’s head.

He still hadn’t moved.

Kote stared at where the cadets were and was caught in a nostalgia trap, remembering when he had been at a similar age. He and his batchmates liked to pretend they were flying in outer space, too. Except they never had any miniatures like them. Kote, his batchmates, and all his brothers within the compound ran flight simulations based around archival data from old skirmishes in preparation for their duties as soldiers. Immature handling of a craft like he’d seen from that batch’s leader would have gotten him a fierce reprimand from his trainers and the Kaminoans or, if it had been on an actual battlefield, killed. Kote doubted any of those cadets were aware of this fact as he was.

Unlike him, those cadets were not raised to know. They shouldn’t have to, either.

He shook himself free of the past with that last thought. Kote could not let himself be distracted now that he had already come so far. He was a man with a mission. And, like he’d been taught, he swallowed down the tempting bitterness that cloyed in the back of his throat and marched forward with renewed determination.

Republic business waited for no man, especially if that man was a clone.

Kote weaved an uncertain path through the streets of Coruscant. Though he walked blindly, a strong warmth had settled deep within his chest that inspired an odd sense of confidence within him. A voice, somewhat reminiscent of his Prime, whispered in his ear. Kote was nearly convinced it was his Prime save for the manner in which the voice spoke. While it had Prime’s timbre and pitch, the cadence was completely off. The voice sounded too dull to be Prime’s, who was known for his sharp and caustic tongue. When the voice said, ‘you are almost there’ the sentence didn’t cut. Its words wrapped around his spirit and sent a dizzying thrill across his body. It was then Kote realized he wasn’t hearing those words. They had come from some place deep inside him.

Kote ground his teeth around a curse. A few days without his batch and he was already starting to go mad, hearing voices…

He slowed regardless of how the voice urged him further onwards. ‘A few more steps’. Kote spun in a mad circle, catching his breath as he surveyed the area. It didn’t look like an area suitable for politics.

The massive crowds had thinned to a few stragglers who didn’t hide their suspicions about him. They were dispersed amongst the buildings in sparse clusters and had a more noticeably rougher edge to them. The buildings, too, seemed less shiny than what he had seen previously. It was dark on the other side of their transparisteel, enough that he could see his reflection clearly if there wasn’t a glowing neon tumor fixed somewhere above.

He didn’t linger on his face. Vanity wasn’t encouraged where he’d been raised.

His eyes were on all the others’ reflections. Part of his covert operations training involved watching without being caught. This way, if he noticed an unfriendly face sneaking his way, he could strike first. The element of surprise was necessary since he hadn’t any weapons on him. His armor was supposed to withstand a lot of fire and blows, but there was no practical data to back these claims. It hadn’t been tested in actual combat. He didn’t plan on acquiring that information first-hand.

Kote pulled the hood of his cloak lower over his head and marched at a slower pace than he had before.

He took great pains to ignore the voice he’d been hearing as it wasn’t making any sense. Every attempt at silencing it made the voice louder. Every shove against it was met with an equal response that made him wince in the aftermath. Kote broke from his surveillance to wipe at his eyes with a tired fist as the latest battle with the voice was like trying to move a freighter-class ship using only his forehead. Because he wasn’t looking where he’d step, Kote’s foot landed on a foreign object that almost made him lose his balance.

The voice cried out again. Kote was doubly sure it couldn’t be his Prime since he doubted Prime would ever sound so melodic.

Luckily, loud as it had been, the voice didn’t utter another note after its short song.

Kote sighed in relief. His pain began to ebb away since the voice wasn’t taking up all the space in his mind. He blinked back into awareness soon enough. Kote stepped off of the foreign object once he had his bearings and peered down at it. Its cylindrical shape was familiar to him. He crouched for a better look, scooping the object up into his hand to study it from all angles. It was as he recognized the shape to be of a hilt that Kote identified the object in his hands.

It was a lightsaber.

Like with most things, Kote never had the experience of seeing a lightsaber with his own eyes. He knew the basics of it. Battle strategies involving lightsabers were downloaded into his head, both for fighting with and against. The Kaminoans even taught him about those who could wield lightsabers.

The files on them weren’t as robust as he would have liked, but there were a few important facts contained within.

Firstly, that they – or rather, one of their members – had commissioned the Kaminoans to build an army that led to Kote’s creation. Secondly, wherever there is a lightsaber, its wielder should not be far behind.

“Excuse me. I believe that what you’re holding there belongs to me.”

Kote knew that this new voice wasn’t imaginary like the last. He had never heard it, nor an accent like it. The notion that he enjoyed how this new voice spoke, how he wouldn’t mind hearing it speak more, crossed his mind and confused Kote greatly. It was the first time he’d ever found a voice to be pleasant and didn’t know what to do with this information.

“Sir?”

He was drawing too much attention to himself by not responding. Kote had to act quickly. His grip on the lightsaber tightened as he rose to full height. The voice had come from behind him, so he spun on his heel with trained precision and faced the lightsaber wielder.

None of his years on Kamino prepared him for this.

“Hello,” the wielder said, smiling at Kote as if he were another one of his brothers. Except Kote’s brothers’ smiles never inspired such strange and precise reactions within him. “It looks like you’ve found my lightsaber.”

“Hnn.”

Kote was trained for war in any terrain, but he was unable to handle the battlefield that used to be his body. His face warmed to a significant degree like he’d been in the midst of an intensive exercise. Kote’s chest stuttered as if it couldn’t remember how to breathe, and his heart had lost the careful pattern of its beat and couldn’t reclaim it. There was a desire to take this new man in his hands, like he had done with the lightsaber, and observe him every which way until Kote knew him as if it were his own. Already Kote catalogued the waviness his gingery hair and beard, the softness of blue gaze, the slim build hidden beneath flimsy armor, and, as he already mentioned, the man’s amazing smile.

Kote had been warned that those who wielded lightsabers were capable of other tricks that could confound their enemies. Was this one of them?

No. For some reason, Kote didn’t believe it was. Though it meant his inner turmoil went unexplained.

He would have to leave it that way, as his silence went on for far too long. The other man’s smile started to dim. Kote hated that he was the cause of it.

“Here,” he said. His hand shot forward rigidly as he presented the lightsaber to its wielder. “Take it.”

“…Thank you.”

The lightsaber wielder reaches out hesitantly for his weapon, his stare unblinkingly turned onto Kote as he moved. Their fingers brushed during the exchange, and it required every ounce of willpower Kote had to not cling to the lightsaber because he’d been touched by someone who wasn’t his brother. He thought to himself that he was acting like a fool. Kote was wearing gloves. Their skin hadn’t made contact. Why would he think this simple act was that important? Why did he believe, had he not been wearing gloves, it would have been worse?

Kote’s empty hand hung in the air between them as the lightsaber wielder clipped his weapon onto his belt. Belatedly, Kote realized how useless his hand was just floating there. He dropped it back to his side.

“You know, I can’t begin to tell you the number of times I’ve dropped this…”

It was an unnecessary comment to make. For some reason, the lightsaber wielder thought to continue their conversation far past its logical conclusion.

Kote blinked at him as he struggled to respond. Improvisation wasn’t his strongest suit. “You should be more careful then,” he told the other man. “A weapon like that could easily wind up in some enemy combatant’s hands at some point, statistically speaking. And without your only means of offense and defense, you’d be dead.”

He observed how the lightsaber wielder’s eyes widened a fraction of an inch in a manner that sent ripples across his placid expression. Kote gathered that he might have been too blunt, critiquing how he managed his weapons despite never holding a lightsaber before today. Usually that had never bothered Kote back on Kamino. In this instance, Kote wished he could strike what he had said from the record. Or for the ground to open beneath his feet and swallow him whole. Whichever was the most plausible, and fastest.

“Right.” The lightsaber wielder was too kind as he still entertained Kote after his verbal gaffe. He arched his brow and stroked his beard. His smile had returned. “Well, maybe if I’m lucky the only hands my lightsaber will end up in other than mind own is yours.” Those words caused the wielder to react in a certain manner as well, tripping over himself in apology. “Or rather,” he amended, “hands that are like yours.”

Kote relaxed. It seemed like the wielder was aware of his brothers, then, and what they had been made to do. Which made it easier for Kote to ask him, “If you don’t mind, I could use your help.”

“Of course.” He was glad to move past their bout of awkwardness much like Kote was. “What do you need?”

He allowed a tiny smile to crack his regimented expression. “I’ve been trying to find my way to the Republic’s Main Building, and I believe I might be lost.”

The wielder’s gaze travelled from left to right as he leaned closer, conspiratorially. “You are correct. We are far from where the Senate conducts their business.”

But why were his instincts ordering him here? That was a question for a different day. Kote stayed on task, “Do you happen to know how I can get there?”

“I do.”

Kote listened intently as the lightsaber wielder provided detailed directions on how he could reach the Galactic Senate from where he was. He also offered up ancillary information like its hours of operation, whose office he could petition for an audience, lodgings near the Senate for him to stay in and – once Kote mentioned how he hadn’t a single credit to his name – the location of his base that always had bunks at the ready for those in need.

The wielder had been explaining the distance between his base and the Senate, using a holographic map of Coruscant as an aid, when they were interrupted by an incoming transmission.

His map disappeared and was replaced with a tinier man in similar uniform as the wielder. He was noticeably sterner than his contemporary but, if Kote were to guess, he was the younger of the two.

“Master,” the younger man said, “where are you? I believe I’ve tracked the assassin heading back towards Senator Amidala’s apartment.”

“I was a little sidetracked reclaiming my lost lightsaber, Anakin,” he said. “I’ll reconvene with you at the apartment. May the Force be with you.”

“And with you, Master.” The transmission had ended there.

Kote stared at the other man in concern as he weighed what the younger wielder had said in his mind. “You’re in the midst of an operation,” he said, “yet you’re helping me out? Why?”

The lightsaber wielder chuckled and laid a supportive hand against his shoulder. They were separated by his cloak, pauldron, and the thick, black bodysuit he wore under his armor. Kote was keenly interested in how delicately the wielder’s fingers curled and the heat it inspired beneath his skin. “I couldn’t very well have continued my duties without my lightsaber,” he told Kote, “It’s only right that I help you after you’ve helped me.”

“Oh…”

Kote catalogued his delight at hearing the wielder admit how helpful he was to him. It was what he had been made for. He was thrilled to have served well, even if it had been as small a task as weapon retrieval. Kote had to start somewhere. However, besides that, there was another emotion Kote couldn’t name that existed along the boundaries of his earlier delight. It was similar to it though wholly different. The closest Kote came to understanding it was the fact that its happiness wasn’t born out of an accomplished mission but rather because the lightsaber wielder had recognized his usefulness.

He liked it a lot.

“I’m glad to have been of service.” Then, as the lightsaber wielder began to turn away from him, he hurriedly called out after him. “I’m… Kote.”

The lightsaber wielder glanced back at him, smiling. He waved as he continued striding off towards his next destination. “And I am Obi-Wan Kenobi!” he replied, “It was a pleasure to meet you Cody! May the Force have our paths cross again.”

“It’s Kote, actually…” Obi-Wan had fled by then, and his name was swallowed up by the silence.

Cody wasn’t much different from the name he had chosen for himself. “Cody…” It didn’t sound sweet like Obi-Wan said it, but Kote thought it nice all the same. He wouldn’t object to being called it, especially if it were Obi-Wan doing so.

Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan.

The lightsaber wielder had taken too much of his time, and his focus. Kote had his mission, and much like Obi-Wan’s, it demanded his attention. He couldn’t be distracted, now that he was so close.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Kote heard Prime’s voice again. Only it hadn’t been soft and blunt like it was earlier, nor did it come from within. It had been spat out by the source and stabbed into Kote’s chest.

He staggered and slumped over sideways as his Prime loomed over him, decked menacingly in his full besk’ar. “No,” he gasped, “I… how did you…”

“You are one bad clone.”

Kote’s last thought wasn’t of Obi-Wan. It was of the boot crashing into his face and knocking him unconscious.

#star wars #star wars fanfic #sw ff #cc-2224 #obi wan kenobi #cc-2224 fanfic #obi wan kenobi fanfic #codywan #codywan fanfic #cody/obi-wan #cody x obi-wan

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cactusspatz · 2 years

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September recs

Whelp, I've started my annual fall DCU binge. I don't know what it is about this time of year, but every October for the last three years has been Batfamily Time in the Spatz household. I just started a little early this year!

Five DCU fics above the cut, plus four more DCU and five other fandom recs underneath!

DCU

Like a Hinge, Like a Wing by Ultrageekatlarge/ @bonesbuckleup

The problem is that Tim’s spent the past month or so slowly getting murdered.

(AKA, An AU where Jason never went to Ethiopia, and Tim takes a different road home to the Waynes.)

SO GREAT. I went absolutely feral about this fic, which I have already read twice and have open in a tab for reccing so I'll...probably go read it again after this. Just A++ Tim h/c where he's being poisoned for his trust fund after his parents die, and tries desperately to rescue himself before finally reaching Bruce and telling him he needs Batman's help, and then the fallout of all that. Wonderful!

Send to All by kerosceene

I, ___________________________, hereby acknowledge that this form represents my wishes should I contract phytoaphrodisiac-induced delirium (hereafter referred to as “PAID”) during engagements with or while apprehending Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley (“Poison Ivy”).

The bats have a sex pollen release form. Because of course they do.

Hilarious and extremely chaotic Batfamily epistolary goodness, and Barbara is the absolute best and does not deserve this shit.

two against the world by carolinaa / @officialratprince

“I’m Tim,” he says, though introducing himself to a puppy makes him flush in embarrassment. “Are you hungry?”

The dog blinks at him, all scared eyes.

“Where’s your family?” Tim asks. “Did they leave you?”

(Or: Tim Drake finds a friend.)

This is a sweet and achy AU, but Tim is also a feral little goblin boy, so it's basically perfect.

Immersion by @smilebackwards

Father’s Day is going to be a disaster. What precisely is Tim supposed to get Bruce? The man has everything—cars, planes, a space station—and millions of dollars to buy anything he doesn’t.

Or: Tim is this close to calling Bruce ‘Dad’ when life takes an unexpected turn.

The final part of the Surveillance series (my beloved)! Absolutely love this story where something objectively miraculous happens to Tim but it is actually The Worst, because that's how Tim's life is. <3

Aftermath by ivy_and_ivory

Now: Batman is in Paris, pulled there by a case that extends beyond Gotham’s borders, when circumstances lead him to a badly injured Red Hood – who might hold the key to Batman’s investigation.

Then: The Red Hood storms into Gotham, begins to stake his claim on the criminal underground, then abruptly disappears – but only after he breaks into Arkham Asylum and leaves the Joker dead in his own cell.

Or: A study of why Bruce couldn’t kill the Joker, what would happen if someone else could – and how you move on from the aftermath.

Really fascinating AU with some brilliant identity porn and wrenching Jason-Bruce interactions, plus a dash of casefile for your plotty pleasure.

More DCU recs under the cut, plus recs for Murderbot Diaries (more amnesia fic!!!), 9-1-1, Star Wars, and Biggles.

Missed Calls by nightwalker

Five times Jack Drake didn't answer his phone.

And one time he did, but it was already too late.

Mmm, tasty neglected!Tim h/c. (yes, I'm predictable, shhh)

Grilled Cheese by crumpetz

"Tim doesn’t step around Jason like he’s fielding landmines and he laughs at Jason’s jokes instead of flinching. Which Jason finds interesting, given that he’s definitely tried to kill the kid a couple times."

Tim and Jason have a bad fight, and then Tim gets really hurt on his way home right afterward.

This one's seriously whumpy, but vivid and intense with a fantastic Jason POV.

Instead of All the Colors That I Saw by SilverSkiesAtMidnight

Dick comes around to stand fully in front of him, keeping a steadying hand on Tim’s arm. “Just because you know you’re safe intellectually doesn’t mean you always feel safe,” he says softly. “It’s okay if you don’t feel safe.”

“But it’s not okay!” Tim bursts out. “Because if I don’t feel safe, then how is Jason supposed to feel safe? He shouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable just because my brain is screwed up!”

There’s a faint sound by the door, barely more than an intake of breath, and his eyes snap to the no-longer empty doorway.

Lovely, wrenching examination of Tim and Jason's relationship: the trials of loving your brother after he tried to murder you that one time.

Gotham CPS by ebjameston

A CPS agent gets sent to investigate a tip that Tim Drake has been abandoned by his parents and is living with the Red Hood. The CPS agent leaves with no Tim Drake, a date with Red Hood's lieutenant, and an intern who's promising to fix the IT systems at his office.

It's a weird day for Theo.

Bordering on cracky, but so fun! Until it punches you in the face with feelings, of course. Theo is a delight.

OTHER

If This Story Had A Title Then I Forgot by CompletelyDifferent (Murderbot, gen)

Murderbot is at a party.

This is not a normal state of affairs for SecUnits. Neither is the comfy clothes or the sitting or the way the humans keep smiling in its general direction. The smiling, it suspects, will stop, if/when they realise their SecUnit has suffered some sort of catastrophic glitch and has no idea where it is or the specifics of its current assignment.

So it's not going to let them find out.

I would just like to thank the universe/internet for bringing me all this great amnesia fic lately. And this one goes in the rare but delightful subcategory of 'characters who would 100% try to bluff their way through having amnesia a la John Mulaney'! Plus good portrayal of Murderbot's organic vs computer memory, and wonderful use of the Mensahs.

The Best Lie is a Truth (My Best Mask is My Face) by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (9-1-1, Buck/Eddie)

The Buckleys are celebrating their 50th Anniversary, and Maddie and Buck are both expected to come. To take the heat off Maddie, Buck impulsively blurts out that he's seeing someone new.

Obviously, there's only one solution: bring Eddie as his fake boyfriend, pretend to be in love with him, and survive the weekend with minimal bloodshed. No problem, except for the, uh. "Pretend" part.

Oops.

A very classic fake dating setup, but the execution is perfect! I really loved how Buck and Eddie's support and partnership is so sharply contrasted with his parents' shittiness, plus there's some really great and necessary conversations that I can only hope happen in actual canon at some point.

Come from Over the Horizon by rosepetalfall / @islandbetweenrivers (Star Wars, gen)

They never stayed anywhere for long, so Luke and Leia both had spacer’s accents - an indeterminate amalgam of the blandly Core-adjacent tones of their holoschool lessons and Ben’s cut-glass Coruscanti, colored in at the edges by Outer Rim spaceport slang.

D'awww, chaotic Skywalker twins growing up together! And Rosie's writing is so good in the details - there's a vivid sense of familiarity and fondness in every interaction of their little family.

True Love's Kiss by thosenearandfarwars (Star Wars, Codywan)

Cody had never actually planned to tell Obi-Wan that he loved him. There was the war, their age difference, their difference in rank, the fact that Cody wasn’t really a person and Obi-Wan was too kind to let something like galactic prejudice against clones stop him from being his friend, and a half-dozen other logical, sound, well founded reasons he had in a spreadsheet titled “Reasons Why I Will Never Kiss or Kriff Obi-Wan.”

A T-rated, crack-treated-seriously fill for my Codywan Kiss Bingo square for "True Love's Kiss," featuring secret romance novel author and Space Excel wizard Marshal Commander Cody.

This is absurdly charming, with the crack premise balanced out by Cody's very pragmatic reactions to everything, and an adorable ending.

Something Old, Something New by @sholiofic

In order to stay in Britain after the events of Biggles Buries a Hatchet, von Stalhein must wed a British subject.

I read this on a late-night plane trip and thus totally failed to leave a comment, sorry Sholio! The pining domesticity is FIERCELY good in this one, and the slow burn finely tuned - all their prickles and misunderstandings subsiding into a true partnership was so satisfying. Plus every time the ensemble showed up was warm and bubbly and perfect!

#does that gif have anything to do with the recs?#nope #just bats petting wonder-woman-magically-turned-into-a-pig #tho if anyone has batman/wonder woman recs pls share #JLU otp nostalgia is for always #anyway #batman #dcu #murderbot #9-1-1 #buck/eddie #star wars #cody/obi-wan #codywan #biggles #biggles/von stalhein #monthly recs #fic rec

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