Chapter Text
Zero ambles into the common room like he’s taking a casual stroll around the block, his hands slung in his pockets and his head turning slightly as he takes in the whole room. The door slams shut on his heels and he draws to a halt, his gaze making one final sweep of the room before coming to rest on the Mynock crew.
“Well,” he says in an infuriating deadpan drawl. “Fancy seeing you here.”
There’s a pause as all attention in the room turns to the Mynock crew and Zero.
“Zero,” Bacta says, finally. He edges closer, pulling the bounty hunter's attention off of the rest of the crew and onto him. At least, he hopes that's what he does--it's all but impossible to tell under the faceplate. “It’s nice to see you again off the battlefield.”
Zero cocks his head and when he speaks again he almost sounds amused. “Oh, is that where we are? I must have been thrown off by the death arena I was just in.”
“That’s where we are in this room, and I think we’d all like to keep it that way,” Bacta says with a warning edge to his tone.
Zero shrugs, looking around again. “Fine by me.” He pauses, looking at the display showing the red screen that signals the end of a broadcast. “Did he live, by the way?”
Bacta hesitates, “I--” he says, stopping himself and looking at Lyn for help, looking troubled. “I didn’t see.”
“Yes, he lived,” Lyn says, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I hope when he returns you two can be… civil.”
It’s incredible the sheer range of expression Zero can convey just with the tilt of his head. Lyn gets the distinct feeling that he is not impressed by her request, or being patronized. “I have no problems with him.”
There’s another long silence, as Zero and the crew consider each other. Zero remains deceptively relaxed, but Lyn can see the slight tension in his legs and shoulders, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. She can see the same tension in her crew.
“Y’know, he doesn’t seem crazy to me,” Lux suddenly pipes up, his arms crossed and his weight back on one foot as he looks Zero up and down. “The way you talked about him, Leenik, I figured he’d start swinging the second he got here.”
“Lux--” Bacta says, whirling around to face him, and Lyn stifles a frustrated groan.
Zero chuckles. Lyn watches suspiciously as he slowly turns to look at Leenik, who goes from purposefully looking everywhere but at the other bounty hunter to glaring directly at his faceplate.
“What?” he asks belligerently.
Lyn sees Tryst surreptitiously take a step closer to him.
Zero slowly tilts his head to the other side as he looks at Leenik, considering him for a long moment.
“Nice arm.”
Leenik lunges at him.
--
Blue is three cups of caf, about a year’s worth of bounty records, very few suspects, and only a few hours past dawn into his current research session when the files from Synox start popping into his inbox.
He muffles a pleased sound with his current cup when he gets the first notification, followed at regular intervals by several more.
Synox sent them all individually. They’re going to have to work on that--later.
But not now. Blue drains his cup and tosses it aside, opening the first file. He skims it, trying to pick out anything different from what he remembers of his own interviews of the same troopers.
They hadn’t been very forthcoming with him, insisting that they’d been where they’d been ordered to be and seen no sign of Agent Zero and refusing to say anything more. They’re rather more communicative when it’s Synox asking the questions, and it would rather ruffle Blue’s feathers if he wasn’t just glad to have the information. (It maybe does a little anyways.)
He quickly flips through a handful more transcripts, to confirm that yes--they’re either telling the truth or all have their story very straight. Each trooper he checks claims that they received an order from their commander reassigning them to a different patrol route instead of gate-duty that day, and in fact seem… surprised that Synox didn’t know.
With an itching suspicion in the back of his head, Blue closes the Bluebird’s mission logs and pulls up more general Imperial records. He set his algorithm to search for any mention of Zero while he opens his inbox and scans the names of the files Synox sent.
They're listed by name and trooper number is ascending order by rank (good old Synox) and at the bottom he finds, thank god, an interview with the commander as well.
Blue opens it and scans over it quickly, letting out a pleased noise as he finds what he’s looking for.
Synox: Commander Brotingo, you say you did order your troops to leave the gate at the time mentioned?
Brontigo: Yes, sir, I… well, permission to speak freely, sir?
Synox: Granted, soldier.
Brontigo: Did they not tell you about the exercise?
Blue’s display pings with a notification informing him that his search is complete. Blue sets it to run only on records outside of mission and official reports and restricts the date to within the past few months, then goes back to reading.
Synox: Exercise, Commander Brontigo?
Brontigo: The prototype test.
Synox: What are you talking about? Explain, Commander.
Brontigo: I received an order that morning telling me to reassign the troopers. It said there was going to be a prototype weapon test in that area and it was confidential--no one was to be there without a security clearance that none of the troopers have. I would've thought you'd know, given, y'know...
Synox: Show me the order, Commander.
Blue closes out the file and his eyes light up as a final file shows up in his inbox.
“Synox, you beautiful, thorough bastard,” he mutters under his breath as he opens the copy of the order the clone trooper included with the files.
His display pings again notifying him of one incident of Zero’s name coming up in Imperial records in the past month. Blue turns his attention to the window that pops up and stares uncomprehendingly at it for a moment.
Zero’s official personnel photo stares up at him from above a list of crimes and a bold headline declaring Agent Zero Wanted Dead or Alive For Crimes Against the Empire.
That. That is... not what he expected. For one, he doesn't recall Zero killing anyone he didn't have express permission to, and he certainly never abandoned his post. And treason? Zero? Sure, he doesn't necessarily believe whole-heartedly in the ideals of the Empire, but he's always been happy in its employ. Blue always made sure of it. Zero had no reason to turn traitor. And he certainly wouldn't do it on his cherished vacation time.
It is, quite simply, obviously a fake.
While he's still marvelling at the sheer audacity--to counterfeit a bounty against Zero, of all people--Blue’s hands type in the commands necessary to trace whoever posted it without conscious direction.
As it runs, he opens the troop order again and skims through to find whoever sent it.
His display pings him with the result of the trace and a name pops up on his display at the same time his eyes fall on the very same name at the bottom of the order sent to Commander Brontigo.
Blue lets out a deep breath and leans back in his chair, dialing Aava on his comm. The moment it clicks over he says, “I found it. Well, I found someone. They probably didn't abduct Zero themselves--but they definitely set it up. We're going on a field trip."
Aava sounds interested as she responds, "Good work, Blue. Where are we going?"
Blue narrows his eyes at the screen, immediately beginning to pull up information from the Imperial records on the new name. "We need to pay a visit to the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Industry.”
There’s a pause, then Aava’s voice comes through the comm again. She sounds amused by this new turn of events, and almost pleased. “And who exactly is this new friend of ours?”
Blue frowns as he looks at all the information he could find at hand, a vaguely familiar face with red hair and a pinched expression popping up on his screen. “An old one, actually,” he says. “His name is Quinzel Bannforr.”
--
Leenik is fast, but fortunately Tryst is ready and he grabs his friend around the middle and hauls him back before the blow can connect.
Zero, for his part, is quick to slip into a defensive position, arms up and feet squared, but makes no move to retaliate as Tryst wrestles Leenik into submission.
“Leenik--c’mon, we said we weren’t gonna do this, pal, just--ow! That’s my nose, asshole! Calm the hell down, would you?! Leenik!”
Bacta and Lyn quickly put themselves between the two struggling men and Zero. Bacta instinctively reaches one hand out towards Zero as if he to stop him, the other one angled back towards his friends.
“Look, don’t--” Bacta begins, but Zero snorts and straightens up, shaking his head and crossing his arms casually.
“Don't worry,” he says, and he actually sounds amused. “I won't. I asked for it.”
Bacta exchanges a glance with Lyn then turns around and hurries over to Tryst and Leenik, who have mostly quieted down, aside from Tryst’s muttered curses as he gingerly fingers the bridge of his nose. Leenik stands in front of him facing away from Zero, arms crossed and shoulders hunched defensively as he glares at the floor.
Bacta puts a hand heavily on his shoulder. “Leenik--”
“Get off me,” Leenik mutters, wrenching out of his grip.
“Kriffing son of a nerf-herding…” Tryst mutters, wincing.
“Leenik, listen to me,” Bacta persists.
Leenik scowls.
“Don’t even know what a nerf is… stupid cyborg bug person with a stupid cyborg rocket hand--”
“Sorry about your nose,” Leenik mutters.
Bacta sighs and pushes past Leenik to take Tryst by the wrists and gently draw his hands away from his face. “Okay, just let me look at that--”
“Don’t, you’ll just make it worse, you're a terrible medic, oh my god don't touch me, I don’t trust you near my face, that’s my--ow!”
Tryst yelps as Bacta sets his nose despite his squawks of protests and wriggling, then glares at him. Bacta looks between his two sulking crewmates and sighs again.
“All right, can we just--calm down? Not start any more fights?”
“I’m calm,” Tryst huffs. “I'm totally calm. We're both calm. Right, Leenik?”
“Yup,” Leenik grumbles. “Totally.”
“Guys,” Bacta growls warningly.
Tryst rolls his eyes. “Look, I didn’t start the fight. I finished it, all right?”
“Neither did I!” Leenik insists, turning to glare at Tryst and jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “He started it!”
“He can also hear everything you’re saying,” Zero calls out in that same amused tone.
Leenik whirls around to glare at him, jabbing a finger in his direction. He makes to storm over towards him and Bacta reaches out and plants a hand on his chest, halting his movement with a warning look.
“All right, look, I don’t care who started it, no more, okay? Don’t let him get to you, buddy.” His expression softens and he gives Leenik a pleading look, who shrugs.
“Fine. Whatever.”
Bacta reluctantly lets him go and scrubs a hand over his face, deciding that’s probably the best he’s gonna get.
“Okay. Let’s just… let’s just all sit down over here, and Zero can sit down over there, and we can all just pretend this is a bad dream. Okay? Can we do that?”
“If this was a dream my nose wouldn’t hurt this much,” Tryst grouches. “Plus, none of you would be wearing this much clothing.”
“Ew.” Leenik's surly expression drops for a moment as his whole face scrunches up at the thought.
“Stop touching that, it’s fine,” Bacta says, swatting Tryst's hand away from his nose. Tryst scowls at him, wincing as it bothers the injury.
He shepherds them over to the wall and sinks to the ground with a sigh. Lyn comes to join them warily, and Zero looks over them all, then ambles away to sit against a wall on his own, fiddling with his cybernetic arm.
Lux flops down beside them. “So, that’s Agent Zero, huh?”
As one, the four of them turn to glare at him.
He puts his hands up defensively and leans backwards. “Okay, okay, I can take a hint,” he says. He mimes zipping his lips and they turn away from him again.
Bacta lets his head drop back against the wall with a groan.
That was a narrowly-avoided disaster, and he desperately hopes the coming days aren’t just full of the same.
Then he hopes he didn't just jinx them.