FIC: "Flight Plan" (Star Wars: Original Trilogy, sort of)
Flight Plan
Wedge Antilles/Col "Fake Wedge" Takbright, 1357 words, all audiences
also hosted on AO3, whenever the archive's up
Notes: This was written as a treat for lesbian-hawke in the SpaceSwap2018 exchange. Col Takbright goes through quite a journey in his one canonical appearance (the short story "Duty Roster"), and I wanted to follow that trajectory and check in on Col and his relationship to Wedge later in the war. It was a lot of fun to write. Thank you to Margot for putting this epic pairing on her wish list, to Jason Fry for doing something so ridiculous so seriously, and to the great Colin Higgins for being so real that they kicked him off the movie.
"You need to look where you’re going."
Wedge said it with the faint exasperation of someone who’s tried to keep a piece of advice to himself for too long. Col had honestly no idea what he was talking about. He hadn’t even been walking anywhere, they were both leaning against the wall of the rec room, talking about the duty roster. Well, it was mostly Col talking about the duty roster, and Wedge hearing out his complaints until he broke in with that apparent non-sequitur.
"Did I-" Col looked around and tried to figure out if he’d knocked something over while he was lost in his own thoughts.
"No, in space. When you fly. Look where you’re going, and you’ll go where you’re looking."
"That’s… rookie stuff. Come on."
"That’s why they drill it into you, Tak. Because it’s so easy not to do."
"Well, it’s not like you can keep your eyes on one spot every kriffin’ second when you have a cockpit full of data readouts to keep track of and people shooting at you."
"That’s why," Wedge said again, not impatiently. "It doesn’t come naturally. It takes practice." Col could imagine him teaching one day. He was firm but not judgmental.
"Each time something pulls your attention away, you’re going towards the obstacle. Even just for a second. Even if it hasn’t changed the trajectory of your ship, it changes this." Wedge tapped his own temple. "And that changes how you fly. Look where you want to go, and you’ll go there."
"Well," Col said. "I’ll keep that in mind." He couldn’t hide that he was skeptical, and a little offended, at the idea that he’d been assigned so few missions because he was bad at something so elementary.
Yet even as he felt the pinch of defensiveness in his chest, Col had to appreciate what Wedge was doing. He would have resented Wedge once for trying to tell him how he was flying wrong. But with his old haze of anger faded, he could see Wedge for the born leader that he was. And Col knew how lucky he was, to have had a second chance to get to know the man.
Col skipped holo night and hit the simulators. First he tried to load up the Death Star run, the mission that killed so many of his - so many pilots who should have been his friends.
Now it was a training mission for new recruits, to test how long they could last as Captain Skywalker. Col had flown it a couple times when he felt like blowing a lot of things up and crashing early, which was usually what happened.
All the pain and anger of what the Empire had done buzzed in the back of his head. He wondered why the simulator wasn’t letting him take off, and he held the lever down a full thirty seconds before remembering that the simulator wouldn’t let you get off the ground until you reviewed your flight plan. Not that he needed to review the -
Goddammit. All right. He rebooted the simulator and sat quietly with his eyes closed as it went through its reboot cycle. He picked something easier this time. Very easy, a factory preset. Idealized conditions for newbies. These milk runs were boring and he hated being bored. But he was here to focus on one thing at a time.
He read his brief carefully. He did his checklist. The flight took him through some choppy weather in atmosphere and a pretty easy dogfight out in space. He kept his annoyance in check and found there was a kind of calm that came with focusing on one simple directive. Go where you’re going. He dodged more easily - he even shot more confidently.
He did the milk run a few more times, but the enemy fighters weren’t even randomized, and it soon started to feel more like watching a holo than flying a simulator.
He tried some better missions. He was starting to get a feel for when his mind pulled away from his destination, and catching himself earlier. It was about more than where his eyeballs were literally pointed - although as he practiced he also began to notice how his own peripheral vision, which always narrowed as it focused on a threat, expanded in turn when he followed Wedge’s advice.
"One of these days," Col said as he sat down next to Wedge in the mess the next morning, "you’re going to be wrong, and I hope I’m there to see it."
Wedge smiled. Not a hint of smugness, only good humor and maybe, Col thought, he looked impressed that Col had put the work in already. Or maybe he was just hoping to see Wedge impressed.
In time, his name moved up the duty roster. Flying more missions, he was stretched thin and saw even less rest than he had been before. But in a way he felt less tired than he had.
When they took down the second Death Star, he flew that mission at Wedge’s side, and they both made it back to solid ground, another miracle. On the moon there was a party, like Yavin but not like Yavin at all. Yavin was a desperate kind of party, the gasp of air just as you felt sure you were going under. This was more like a sigh, of relief and awe.
There was music tonight. On Yavin after the battle, people had made out and set off fireworks and gotten hammered, but nobody sang.
"When are you gonna just go in for the kiss, Captain?" Col said, feeling as he said it like he was being a little too loud, though the night was already so full of loud voices and music (and intermittent explosions in the sky).
"-I’m sorry?" Wedge said.
"Skywalker." He waved toward the other side of the celebration, where he’d watched Wedge hug Luke Skywalker a few moments ago before coming over to him. "Every time, you look like you’re gonna go right in and kiss his perfect face, but you never do."
Wedge laughed. "I guess? I mean, I have eyes. You see that man, you want to kiss him. I don’t think I’m any more fixated on it than the average human."
"If you say so," Col said. He felt a little warmth of embarrassment. He really had thought Wedge was probably in love with Luke Skywalker, based on how he always seemed to act around the golden boy, but Wedge sounded sincere.
Wedge was looking at him sidelong. After a moment he said, "'Every time'?"
"…More than once." Col felt even more embarrassed now. Everyone probably did look like that when they got close to Captain Skywalker. He’d just been noticing how Wedge did it, and cataloguing those particular hugs between them, because, well.
"I’m doing it again, aren’t I," Col said. "That thing you told me about."
"Oh, so you like Luke," Wedge said, bumping his shoulder against Col’s with a smile, clearly knowing that wasn’t the right answer.
"Yeah, that’s it." Col laughed, meeting Wedge’s eyes for a second and looking away. "We’re made for each other. I can’t wait to run off from the war with him for an unknown amount of time on his next kriffin’ - vision quest, or something."
Wedge laughed again, and Col could feel it as they leaned their arms together. "Yeah," Wedge said. "That sounds like the dream." He looked at Col and Col looked back at him and then they went back and forth avoiding each other’s eyes for a second, as if Wedge was actually feeling shy about making a move too, which was ridiculous, because he was Wedge Antilles. Col framed Wedge’s face gently in his hands and Wedge closed his eyes in contentment, and Col leaned in and finally kissed that perfect smile.
Col really wanted to say "I love you" when he came up for air, but he put a lid on that for now and went with his second thought.
"Everyone’s gonna make fun of us," he said instead.
Wedge grinned back at him. "I know."