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#named after wupiupi cause his eyes are fuckin GOLD mate
crispyjenkins · 4 years
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Prompt where the 212 gets together to paint Obi-Wan’s armor so he would wear it more but at some point our fool gets captured and his captor wears the armor to piss Kenobi off so when the 212 comes in Cody goes absolutely feral when he sees someone else where his general’s armor and Kenobi gets absolutely railed by Cody after.
(i don’t do smut, but i love this idea so so much, i really don’t know why i haven’t come across more painted armour Obi stuff, and y’all have probably realised i’m all about Obi angst, sooo this one was a lot of fun. thank you so much for prompting, lovely! threw in some headcanon mandalorian family and courting culture just for you) 
  Jedi were not made to wear armour, they were not soldiers, at least not before. Cody knows his general picked up clone culture better than most, from the little bits of Mando’a to the importance of Vode An, and he should perhaps be thankful that General Kenobi wears any armour at all, but what good are simple pauldrons and vambraces when Kenobi throws himself against hundreds of clankers without backup on a weekly basis?
  It’s Wupi that suggests it, drunk on Waxer’s rotgut and going grey with how often he has to patch up their general after missions. Boil is mostly amused by Kenobi’s apparent death wish, but he isn’t like their medic, or Cody: he doesn't have to deal with the fallout when Kenobi comes back to the Negotiator so much worse off than his men.
  “Why don’t we give him one o’ yours armours?” Wupi had slurred, half out of his blacks and staring into his cup like it would relieve him of his duty. “S’General’s too nice to lose someone else’s.” 
  Wooley had jerked his attention from his own cup and stared at Cody because that... that wasn’t a bad idea. 
  And because Wupi is too hungover the next day to do anything about it himself, it’s Wooley that starts the task of finding and retrofitting pieces of clone armour to fit their general (their “wonderfully tiny" general, as Wupi had put before passing out in his chair). It takes a few days, bouncing between three different quartermasters and Commander Tano for input on how to wear it over more traditional Jedi clothes, but Wooley finally amasses something close to a full set that they might convince Kenobi to wear, and then goes around giving each member of the Ghost Company a few pieces to paint. 
  Cody tries not to think about why Wooley gives him the chestplate. He tries really hard.
  There’s something to be said about family giving each other armour, of course, Cody doesn’t think Wooley or Boil or Wupi or Waxer are trying to woo their general, and it shows in the pieces of armour they choose to paint, but the breastplate is... forward, when not given in a familial sense, and Cody can’t pretend that he is. Giving it in a familial sense. Kriff. 
  Ghost Company all sit together in the empty mess one night, Cody having strategically made sure their sleeping shifts line up, and they paint the pieces while drinking more of Waxer’s rotgut and pretending they don’t have a battle tomorrow that they might not win. Cody’s men paint each piece to match their own, so that Kenobi’s set is a mix of bits of each of them. They aren’t quite sure how it works for natborn Mandalorians, there were limits on what the Kaminoins let the Cuy’val Dar teach them, but this is as close as they can get to claiming Ken— Obi-Wan as one of the vode. The meaning won’t be lost on him.
  Cody carefully paints his sun rays onto Obi-Wan’s chestplate, the orange crisp and shiny-bright, and he wonders if Obi-Wan knows the meaning of colours on beskar’gam. He seems to know a lot about Mandalorian culture that even the clones don’t, but Cody has never pushed to know more about why, not when it makes Obi-Wan clam up like that.
  Boil finishes quickly, and just as quickly gets completely smashed to the point he’s singing the last raunchy jig they’d picked up planet-side, and it’s almost calming to see him so relaxed. Waxer smiles fondly at his brother and switches his cup for one of water instead, shaking his head at Wooley’s disapproving glare. 
  Cody waits until the others have gone to bed to ask for the medic’s steady hand, to help him stencil a beskar’ta right above the sternum. He isn’t sure if he’s ever seen another vode with a beskar’ta, and perhaps it’s a little presumptuous for Cody to give Obi-Wan one without discussing it with him first, but he can offer no greater protection to his general. The way Wupi doesn’t say anything when Cody carefully paints in the lines says more about his relationship with Obi-Wan than he’d really like to admit. 
  Cody isn’t there when Wooley presents the armour to him, but when Obi-Wan joins them in the hangar before descent planet-side, he wears every piece as if it were the regalia of some ancient royal, and not a cobbled-together attempt to keep him alive. The rest of the 212th hide their stares inside their buckets, and Obi-Wan still wears his outer robe over it all, but Ghost Company all preen at the sight of their general not only protected, but in their colour and crests. 
  Obi-Wan smiles at Cody as they load into the shuttles, tapping a closed fist over the beskar’ta in all-too-knowing thanks. So he knows at least the familial connotations, which doesn’t bode well for Cody’s half hope that that’s all he knows.
  Crys claps Cody on the shoulder with an eyebrow wiggle, and Cody wishes Jango hadn’t taught them a damn thing. 
-
  Day three without water, even with the Force sustaining him, leaves Obi-Wan more than a little delirious. The Nikto bounty hunter that thought they could somehow convince Count Dooku that they’d captured the famed Negotiator grows increasingly agitated as the hours roll by, and Obi-Wan wishes he had better presence of mind to appreciate it. 
  They have him on his knees and strung up in chains like a barbarian, and stick him with a needle every three hours with some sort of Force suppressor that makes him even more incoherent — Obi-Wan is fairly sure they’re over-drugging him. Actually, perhaps the Force isn’t sustaining him properly; that would certainly explain a lot. 
  The morning of day four in the brig of a ship Obi-Wan can’t remember the make of, the Nikto starts picking through his removed armour, with scathing comments about the colour and fact that it had come from “cannon-fodder slaves that are better put-down than eating up the galaxy’s resources”, and oh, Obi-Wan wishes he could rend them limb from limb.
  “A bastardisation of Mando armour, you know,” the Nikto grumbles, sending Obi-Wan a pitying look when all he can do is grunt angrily. “Look, this even has an iron heart; what poor kriffing fool told you you were allowed to wear such a mark?” Scoffing, the Nikto discards their cloak to slip on Obi-Wan’s chestplate; every last scrap of energy in Obi-Wan screams at the wrongness, and he jerks in his chains.
  The Nikto startles and doesn’t get to fastening the sides as they stare at their prisoner. “You shouldn’t have any mobility left,” they say in part surprise, part anger, getting back to their feet to drag the small medical crate of suppressors back across the room. They kick it open and pull out an almost-empty vial, but don’t get to the needles before a proximity alarm goes off.
  They drop the vial and grab the blaster from their hip, and barely get it up in time for the single door to explode inwards, Ghost Company forcing their way into the room before the smoke has even cleared. And Obi-Wan trusts his men, his family, with every Force-forsaken bit of him, which means he promptly passes out at the sight of them.
  He doesn’t wake in safety, rather with a vibroblade pressed to his throat and a hand twisting cruelly in his hair. His vision is filled with white and orange and warmth, before his brain catches up to what he’s actually seeing, and he focuses on the blank helmets of his men. The suppressors in his system do nothing to hide the molten metal anger that leaks into the Force all around them, and Obi-Wan must look worse than he thought, if Cody’s hand is trembling on his blaster.
  ‘Easy,’ Obi-Wan whispers without moving his lips, Cody giving the smallest of jerks so Obi-Wan knows the message is received.
  ‘Sir?’ Cody shifts on his feet, the Nikto saying something from behind Obi-Wan that’s surely full of gloating and threat, but Cody’s helmet is tilted towards Obi-Wan, his presence fluttering in the Force like a lamp in the dark.
  ‘I’m not quite sure how you’re managing this,’ Obi-Wan admits, with half a thought to the cosmic implication of Cody giving him a beskar’ta, which has meaning even outside Mandalore, outside even the Force. ‘But my lovely captor is weak on their left side, an old injury, I think.’
  ‘He’s wearing your armour,’ Cody all but growls and raises his blaster properly, and the Nikto must sense the change as they nervously fumble the vibroblade and cut through the collar of Obi-Wan’s tunic.
  And Obi-Wan is tired, he’s been in chains for four days with drugs he’s never encountered burning the ends of his nerves and cutting off an entire sense he has never been without, so he looks up until he meets Cody’s eyes squarely. ‘Then relieve them of it.’
  ‘With pleasure, sir.’
Mando’a: Vode An — "Brothers All" (a Mando’a war chant taught to the clones by Jango and the Cuy’val Dar)  Cuy’val Dar — “Those who no longer exist”, group of 75 Mando’ade and 25 others put together by Jango to train the clones beskar’gam — Armour made of beskar, “Mandalorian Iron” that was actually probably a steel alloy beskar’ta — “Iron heart”, the elongated hex-shape common in Mandalorian armour designs (great post here comparing them to katana tsuba). also called ka’rta beskar or “heart of the iron”
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