You're Cute When You're Jealous (Echo x f!OC)

Word count: 1.6k

Max I-

This is so cutee😭😭 Echo holding a baby? Yes fucking please.

And the description of grumpy Echo looking like a kicked tooka is perfect, exactly how I imagine his little pout would look.

idk why this picture does this to me but

I WANNA BOOP HIS NOSE

edit:

this would be his reaction too, I just know it

@jealous-sloth77 @saturn-sends-hugs im sure you can share my opinion on this sentiment

So I’ve been stewing on this…

(It’s really long because I have no control over my feelings 🙃)

Echo has always shouldered the roll of “rally man” for the emerging rebellion. At first, I thought it was simply because he had only ever known life as a solider, and operating as a paid mercenary for a stranger with increasingly questionable ideals (Cid), just didn’t sit right with him. A conversation between him and Hunter on Bracca reinforced that theory: 👇🏼

Then I wondered if it was maybe just deeply engrained loyalty, and an intense devotion to his former captain that fuelled his desire to join the cause. After all, Rex was the one that put the plan in place to rescue him from the Techno Union. Maybe he felt as if he owed his captain a ‘life-debt’ of sorts. It’s even possible, when he was first rescued, that he felt the same sort of debt towards the Bad Batch, and that may have been a driving factor in his decision to go with them.

But then there was this: 👇🏼

And suddenly, my previous theory didn’t seem accurate. His continued pleads, each time eliciting a larger and larger emotional response from him: 👇🏼

It no longer seemed like simple devout loyalty to his captain that was fuelling his desperation. It seemed deeper than that, as if there was a deeply emotional, yet unspoken reason why his top priority had shifted to helping the rebellion. And it was a strong enough pull for him to upheave himself from the comfort of the squad that had whole-heartedly accepted him. Enough to send him into the clutches of unknown imminent danger, with few allies and fewer resources. And then we got this: 👇🏼

This exchange could easily just be rolled off the shoulders, and it rolled off of mine the first time I saw it. But there was something about Hunter’s comment about “being enough” that sat kinda odd in me, and I started to wonder. Maybe Echo’s persistent urge to aid in the bigger cause had nothing to do with loyalty to Freedom, his captain, or his brothers… Maybe it had everything to do with guilt. Maybe he struggles to get through his days, thinking about all the brothers had been forced to betray while his mind was under the control of the Techno Union. Maybe the weight of knowing how many brothers were lost on his account, rendered him completely submerged in shame, and this is how he was trying to make up for it.

And then I remembered Hunter saying to him when he left: “Wherever you end up, remember what I said.” Had Echo had conversations with his Sergeant about his feelings before? Had Hunter tried numerous times in the past to rid the ARC of the guilt that he walked around with on his shoulders?

This makes... so much sense.

If Echo is still struggling with feelings of guilt about how he aided in the death of his fellow brothers and how his abilities were used, against his will, to destroy the very things he had spent his life fighting so hard for; then he would most definitely want to save his brothers to try to make up for the losses he caused (as you explained so beautifully)

But he also knows about the inhibitor chips and how they work. Not only that but he fully understands how it feels to be used against your will and probably wants to spare as many of his brothers as he can of the guilt of committing even more atrocities in the name of a cause that they don't even believe in.

it took him a whole minute to get it