Chapter 1
Quentin wanted to kill him.
Hours of planning, days of scoping out when an opening would appear, hundreds of souls waiting for them to save them, all put at risk because of the Iron Man, as they liked to call him.
He was amazing, Quentin heard. Filled with roguish charm and a penchant for danger, he was the sort of pilot able to maneuver ships through the most complicated of spaces and circumstances.
Of course, having never met the pilot, he didn’t know what to expect.
His foot tapped impatiently, waiting for Tony Stark to arrive.
“Hey, you, I’m looking for Quantum Beck?” An arrogant voice that immediately got on Quentin’s nerves called out.
Quentin narrowed his eyes. “You’re late. And it’s Quentin.”
Stark smiled charmingly (Quentin wanted to hit him) and gave him a mock-solute. “Tony Stark, but you can call me Tony.” He said flirtatiously with a wink.
Quentin twitched, fingers drumming on the control panel steadily.
“Well, Tony, you fucked up the plan.” He spat.
Tony looked taken aback. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Not only did you prolong the mission unnecessarily, you happened to endanger multiple lives in the process.”
The pilot narrowed his eyes, chin jutting out rebelliously. “But I got the work done.”
Quentin pointedly jerked his chin behind him, where a few of their ships were falling apart. “Barely.”
Tony tried to look down his nose at Quentin, but couldn’t quite achieve it with their height difference.
“The mission was completed, no one died. What’s the issue?” Tony looked thoughtful before tacking on a seething, “Sir.”
Quentin grit his teeth and promptly pulled up holograms.
“You see these two? Remember their faces?”
Tony shrugged. “I saved them as the mission entailed.”
Quentin huffed. “Were you aware of their situation when you activated the emergency system?”
Tony continued glaring at him. “No. Why don’t you enlighten me, Quintunn.”
Quentin pointed at the two captives, choosing to ignore the deliberate mispronunciation. “They were being interrogated. If you had followed the damn plan instead of spinning, which, by the way, is not a good trick, information, vital information, wouldn’t have been shared.”
Tony crossed his arms.
“I wasn’t debriefed. It’s not my fault.” He spat.
Quentin growled audibly, looking down at Tony with a poisonous glare.
“Oh, but it is.”
“The hell it is! How would that be my fault!?”
Quentin lowered his face to glare directly into the pilot’s eyes.
“Because, Pilot, you missed the debriefing on purpose, and for what? To catch a few winks in your bunk? Play a couple of card games with a Gungan? Not one, but two of our bases were revealed, an outcome that certainly wouldn’t have happened if you would just focus and stop being an arrogant little bastard!”
Tony stepped back at the explosive anger, tilting his head curiously at Quentin, lips quirking up in the most insufferable smirk Quentin had ever seen.
“You’re awfully worked up, sir. This is more than just your plan being disobeyed. What’s got you riled up so?” He asked smugly, as if Quentin’s outburst was more important than the lives he had risked.
Quentin blanked his face, before turning back to the panels before him.
“If you must know, Stark, the bases that were revealed hold the rescued children that were recovered from the First Order’s training camps. You’re dismissed.”
Tony blanched, smirk falling from his face, mouth opening and closing, wanting to say something, anything.
He couldn’t speak, all he could do was stare at the taller man, and suddenly, the slump of the best Resistance strategist’s shoulders was less amusing and far more painful.
Quentin sensed the gaze and looked over his shoulder to give Tony a long, disappointed stare.
“This isn’t a podrace, or a game of any sort, pilot. This is war, and your arrogance has no place in it. I said you’re dismissed.”
Tony, for once in his life, bowed his head and followed orders, walking out quickly.
Hours had numbed the shock Tony had went through, and he complained loudly to his fellow fighters over a game of cards.
“What’s his deal? How’d he even get here? I was raised in the Resistance, what right does Quentin have to lecture me on- on children from boot camps!?”
The Twi’lek to his left looked at him incredulously, glancing to the other two at the table with pointed looks.
“He doesn’t know?”
The Twi’lek shifted uncomfortably, wincing at Tony. “He doesn’t know.”
Tony raised his hand, “Uh, what is it I apparently don’t know?” He asked sarcastically.
The man in front of him looked around shiftily. “It’s a sensitive topic, but you might offend him if you don’t know.” The others at the table nodded.
“Quentin Beck is- he was a stormtrooper.”
Tony balked, cards fluttering from his hands. “No.”
The Twi’lek nodded, eyes wide. “He was. He took out a whole class of First Order ships and his whole squadron of troops, the QN troop, before hijacking a fighter and turning himself in to us, hoping that we’d kill him. You should’ve seen him, he was so…”
She struggled for words, “...so convicted that he deserved to die, and he kept telling us about the civilians he had gunned down, and oh, it’s so sad.”
Tony blinked, guiltily looking away. “So he does have the right…”
The man in front of him nodded solemnly. “He didn’t even have a name when he got here. More than anyone, Beck knows about the boot camps kids go through to become troops for the Order.”
Tony groaned, slumping forward. “I really fucked up, didn’t I?”
“Mhm,” came the chorus of agreement.
Tony suddenly straightened, rushing to his feet. “I gotta do something.”
Quentin sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Sometimes he wished he still had his helmet, the heavy weight was comforting at times.
His fingers picked at a thread in the fabric of his clothes distractedly as he mourned the children whose lives had barely just begun for real, whose lives would be lost just as quickly as they were gained. Quentin closed his eyes.
He bet most of them still hadn’t chosen names. It had taken him long enough.
His mind flashed back to when his ship had been gunned down by Resistance fighters, how relieved he was when he realized he had a chance to be punished, a chance to right his wrongs.
He hadn’t even had a name, then, just a black shirt that went up to his chin, a pair of pants he had found on the ship, and a whole lot of regret.
His lips mouthed his serial number, to himself.
QN74616.
QueNt1n.
Quentin. Funnily enough, it was a girl half his age to name him, young voice unable to wrap around the numbers and letters correctly. She called him Quen, which, combined with her comments of “tin-man” due to his remaining stormtrooper armor, evolved into the unconventional name of Quentin.
He wasn’t sure where he got the “Beck” from; perhaps it was irony. He was at no one's beck and call, only his own. He called the shots.
Quentin frowned, face twisting into a grimace. He obviously wasn’t good at calling the shots, was he?
As if summoned by the displeasure, Tony Stark came careening into the control center, shouting Quentin’s name.
“Beck! Beck! I’ve got- shit-“
Tony skidded to a halt, helmet under his arm, looking a second away from flying out.
Quentin raised a brow, unimpressed.
“Beck, I’ve got a plan.”