Chapter Text
You were always running, it seemed.
It was second nature by now, an instinct that hadn’t seemed to decommission itself in the years since the war ended.
Running to the Rebel Alliance. Another fight. A better future. Running from the Empire. Enemy fire. Leftover Imperial sympathizers. Bounty hunters.
And now, you were running from the Mandalorian.
Losing him in the ebb and flow of city markets and labyrinthine alley-ways would have been simple. Sneaking back to your transport would have been simple. Leaving him to track a trail gone cold would have been simple. It had been simple before, usually, and it would probably be simple this time as well.
Here’s the thing: simple was too easy. You had tried the simple life after the Empire had fallen, when the Alliance wasn’t needed anymore, when it melted back into the shadows. You had the opportunity to try for simple, and you took it. It was too anticlimactic, too eventful. After half a life caught in the middle of a war, you had grown accustomed to adventure and risk. You craved it now, kept it as much apart of you as your storybook tattoos, your accent from your home world, and the memories and nightmares that threaded themselves through your dreams and clothing and the blood flowing gracefully through your veins. It was as familiar as the feel of your blaster weighted in your hand, your finger on the trigger ready to be pulled.
You lost the others that hunted you before – most time of the time besting them so they hunted you no more.
But the Mandalorian-
You’ve let him hunt you. You’ve let him get close enough that maybe, he thought, this was it. He knew it was either you or him, and some days, he was foolish enough to think it would be you on the sizzling end of the blaster. He was wrong every time.
You always turned into the wind when he was close enough to touch you. Smoke and mirrors, he realized. He began to wonder if that’s all you were anymore.
It was unclear to either of you why you let this drag on as long as it had. Was it because he had his own code, was different from the others apart of the guild? Was it a guarantee of an edge worth having, or part of some scheme dripping grandeur and drama? It had become a game of sorts, and the rules were dealt in secrets.
Until one day – the day, probably – everything melted into a hazy, blurred afternoon in Bothawui. Afternoon faded to dusk, sunshine took cover behind the horizon to leave the city drowning in starlight, moonlight, adrenaline. The thrill of the hunt.
A warm breeze kicked up - you saw the cape flutter first, waving to you out of the corner of your eye like an old friend.
Secrets, you thought, creating a path through side streets and alley-ways that wound away from the night market. Secrets always have a funny way of coming back to you, when you least expected them.
A nice evening this would have been if either of you had a different life. A different course chosen for the future. The recklessness to take just one night for yourselves, however you wanted to spend it.
Secrets.
The wind whispered in your ear, whispered all around you.
The bounty hunter cornered you, finally, that night. You had planned it, he knew. It was calculated. He assumed you would make your graceful escape at any moment you chose. That’s how you operated - you were good, but even those with talent made mistakes every now and then. He was ready for it. For all of it.
But you never tried to run.
You watched him come closer, and closer still, silent as the freshly dead, hand grazed a holstered weapon; the closest you’ve ever allowed. He was near enough to touch you with an outstretched blaster, closed fist, gloved fingertips.
Closer still.
Be careful with this secret.
The wind whispered all around.
“Face to face, at last,” you said with the twinge of a smile on your lips. “Well. Face to helmet, but I won’t hold that against you.”
The growing darkness, the lack of reach from the market lights cast yourselves deeper and deeper into shadow. You saw his silhouette give his head a shake.
“We can do this the easy way,” he said, the dig of a blaster nozzle slowly jammed into your side. “Or the hard way.”
You grinned.
“Is that any way to greet an old friend?” your eyes were unblinking, a stare with metal you refused to break. “I remember you, you know. From before all of this.”
He didn’t respond, but he heard the whispers about secrets too.
You raised a hand slowly, the Mandalorian’s blaster dug harder into your body; the heat felt through your clothing despite the warmth already one with your skin.
“I’m unarmed, hunter.”
You knew he watched your movements, knew he calculated and tried to predict you. You had some tricks up your sleeve you hadn’t revealed, and you knew it was time to reveal one of them tonight.
You knew that. You knew him, too.
He didn’t know you at all. Not anymore.
Careful, clever spy.
Then and now, you knew he would have welcomed the simple gesture - the rare allowance from a memory so far, far away it couldn’t have existed. You knew that when your hand slowly drifted closer, closer, to the metal of his prized armor, the metal that never left his face.
There were some secrets better left buried, he knew. Some memories, better left to rot and become tainted by the test of time and space.
This was a distraction, probably, and all it took was a second. Eternity in a heartbeat.
When his eyes came back into focus, he was face to face with smoke and mirrors.
You were gone.