Chapter Text
Hyperspace can be summed up in one word: boring.
Especially in a tiny, cramped Omicron-class attack shuttle with 4 other sweaty soldiers with personal space and privacy at a premium. Of course, the others tend to give Echo more space - and he appreciates it - but there's only so much space he can get without throwing himself out the airlock.
He checks the chrono and groans, rubbing his eyes. 12 more hours in hyperspace until they get to Kamino. 12 more hours of sitting in the cockpit by himself, staring at the endless blue. Echo hates solitude now. He had way too much of it on Skako. The chair swivels and Echo finds himself looking back at the main cabin, smiling at the sight of his new brothers.
Tech sits at the small workbench shoved in between the wall and the many screens, tinkering with who-knows-what. Wrecker sits on the chair across from him, staring up at the ceiling and clearly bored. Echo grins, the 501st mischief coursing through his veins.
"Hey, Tech,"
The engineer looks up, frowning a little, but that's just Tech. "Yes?"
"What animal are you least afraid of?"
Tech actually frowns then. "You interrupted me…to ask that?"
"Yeah. Just answer the question, we've got 12 hours stuck in this can - might as well do something stupid."
Tech huffs, going back to his tinkering. "I suppose…the dartfish. It is quite cute and non-threatening."
Echo nods. A fair response. But Wrecker laughs. "Echo said 'animal', Tech."
"A fish is an animal."
"No, it's not?"
Echo has to physically bite the inside of his lip to stifle the laugh as Tech whips around, eyes wide under the goggles. This is what Echo had been hoping for.
"Repeat yourself please, Wrecker, I must have misheard you." Tech says slowly, clasping his hands together and leaning his elbows on his knees. Echo knows that pose, even with his limited time in the Batch. This is Tech's Idiotic Stress™ pose. But Wrecker doesn't back down.
"A fish isn't an animal. That's like...a…a sea creature."
Echo coughs, slapping his hand over his mouth before the laugh actually has a chance to come out. The look on Tech's face is even better than anything Echo could get out of Rex. The engineer splutters for a second, his eyes wide and disbelieving. Wrecker's comically confused expression just tops it off. Echo's ribs are starting to hurt from holding in his laughter.
"I…come again?"
"A fish isn't an animal. Something with paws is an animal."
"That would be classified as a 'mammal', Wrecker. A fish is an animal."
"You can't go to a zoo and see a fish." Wrecker shoots back, his tone so victorious that Echo has to actually close his eyes for a couple seconds in order not to burst out laughing. When he opens his eyes again, Tech's look like they're about to burst out of his head.
"I..."
At that moment, Hunter enters the main cabin, his eyes flicking from Tech - speechless with shock - to Wrecker - a blank face of confusion - to, lastly, Echo - hand over his mouth, face going bright red with the force of his stifled laughter.
"Echo," Hunter starts, and Echo knows he won't be able to hold on much longer, "Why is Tech…buffering?"
That. That is what makes Echo break.
The ARC trooper cackles so hard he starts coughing, gasping for air through the borderline hysterical laughter. Out the corner of his eye, Echo can see Hunter and Wrecker's shocked expressions and that only makes him laugh harder. His midsection hurts with the force of it - he's pretty sure he's crying at this point.
"Echo, are you…okay?"
Echo makes a pained noise, barely keeping his laughter under control. He breathes closing his eyes in order to get a hold of himself.
"What's wrong with the reg?" Comes Crosshair's vaguely worried drawl. And Echo starts dying all over again.
Force, he's missed this. The stupid pranks - ragebaiting, as Fives had fondly called it - the chaos, the laughter. The looks of complete confusion as his victims try to process why Echo is laughing so hard.
Fives would have loved the Bad Batch.