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English
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Published:
2019-11-29
Completed:
2020-01-08
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1,274
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2/2
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Infant Car Seat Required

Summary:

The kid sits on the floor of the ship and that can't possibly be safe. 

Notes:

i forgot star wars doesn't call glass glass but i also forgot what it did call glass and i was on wookiepedia for five minutes frantically searching for not glass anyway its transperisteel

immediately after episode 3

(See the end of the work for more notes and other works inspired by this one.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

The kid sits on the floor of the ship and that can't possibly be safe. 

He's quiet for the most part, twisting the silver ball in his hands, occasionally trying to put it in his mouth which stresses the bounty hunter out way more than he thought it would. Probably because he has no idea what to do with the thing. He's not a dad- he's the polar opposite of a dad. He barely had a childhood, barely interacted with parents in anyway that he could remember. 

Except for when they ditched their respective spouse and then he got paid to drag them back in carbonate but that's not really a good frame of reference to work from. 

He can't head back for a while, better not cause anymore problems for the clan until he can help it. 

He could take some cheap jobs, work up enough credits to- to what? He's never raised a child, he's never even seen a child raised before. All of the younglings weren't his prerogative and back when he was allowed to be a child, allowed to live outside of armor, he didn't have any siblings. 

And even then, human children are one thing. 

The child blinks up at him, chirps around the silver ball. There's a small urge to reach out and touch it, pat it's head or something but even that seems like a bad idea now. 

It can walk on it's own. And eat on its own. He doesn't think it can talk, or at least it's never bothered to to before. And then there's that... force thing. 

Wait, the ball is in his mouth again- He pulls it out and presses it back into the child's hands. 

“Don't eat it.” 

There's no reaction really, just an ear twitch and a few blinks. The child looks down at the ball and then at the Mandalorian, and holds it up to him. Ah. 

“You can have it.” 

He looks down at the ball, back at the shiny reflective armor, and then back at the ball. 

“Don't put it in your mouth.” The child frowns at that, and holds it up for the bounty hunter. “No, you can have it. Just don't eat it. It's metal. It hurts.” As much as he tries to make his voice lighter the vocoder in his helmet muffles all of his efforts. 

What do kids like- 

“Here.” He gets up and lifts the kid up by the robes again, setting him down on the pilots seat. All of the controls we're locked until they came out of the jump anyway. He lifted the seat up a bit higher, so that the kid could see the stars streaming by. 

His already big eyes got even bigger. His little hands clung to the ball even tighter, but it definitely wasn't the focus anymore. The appeal of streaks of white have long since disappeared for the man, but it's something right? He's trying. 

The fact that he lost his carrier was probably the biggest problem. There's no way for him to just walk into a store and ask for one with out raising the kind of suspicion that only ever ended in blaster fire. Maybe he could threaten someone into buying one? But they could buy the wrong one- 

Parenting was a nightmare. 

He's shaken from his pity spiral when he hears something clatter- the ball rolls to his boots and stops. He picks it up and rubs it on the cleanest part of his armor. He just rebuilt the ship, it's probably clean right- 

The kid is leaning on the dash, barely blinking. 

“Want to get higher?” 

The Mandalorian scoops him up lightly, and lets him settle up close to the transperisteel. 

The kid makes the usual noises, just slow and drawn out, and it turns back to make sure the man holding him is looking too. 

“I see it, don't worry.” 

He could probably figure out the parent thing. 

The child reaches for the ball again and settles against his armor. 

Probably. 

Chapter 2

Summary:

Child-proof your secret compartments.

Notes:

right before episode 6

Chapter Text

He takes a few steps back and looks at his handy work. 

Well he never claimed to be an engineer. Or a crafter. Or an artisan. Or someone who could fix anything. He wasn't trained to do stuff like this, rip apart his ship and put in a secret child safe compartment. Obviously. Though thinking about how often his covert picked up foundlings, maybe he should have had that drilled into him like everything else. 

It's about the effort, alright. 

As long as the kid likes it, nothing else matters. 

Well, okay, technically the kid doesn't have to like it, he just has to be able to fit in there and not get out, but some part of him really wants to make up for the cockpit situation. 

And safe, it has to be safe. That's what the blankets are for. 

He still doesn't have actual toys but there are some light panels that blink along and thats- kids like searching for patterns right? Or staring at bright things? One or the other. Or both. He's knocking it out of the park if it's both. 

The divot is big enough for the Mandalorian to fit in, if he really wanted to. An awkward knees to chin sort of situation for him but he's a fully grown man, and the kid doesn't even reach his knees so that's a whole play pen right there. 

Maybe he can fashion a garland out of something, there's probably some duraplast he can melt down somewhere. 

Does the kid teeth- no right? Does... He's never even bothered to check if the child has teeth. He's an awful parent- not a parent. He's not a parent. He's an awful care taker. 

Because he murders people for a living. 

Sometimes. 

Only sometimes. 

Moralizing very far aside, what matters is that his little hide-y-hole is complete. He's done at least that much. 

“Hey.” He calls up into the cockpit and after a moment of waiting, the kid's little face pears down. “Come on.” He holds his hands up. “I've got you.” 

The child is light, obviously, its tiny. It stresses him out just a little, thinking about accidentally dropping him. Something tells the Mandalorian the kid would be fine though. Probably would take the fall well, lightly even. 

“Here.” He caries the child to the compartment and sets him inside. 

The kid just keeps blinking at him, staring like he usually does, ears twitching a little at the background noise of his old ship. 

“Do you like it?” Why is he asking it- he's losing his mind. He's for sure losing his mind. “Here.” He pushes the child a little further back and presses the keypad and the door slides shut. 

How long is he supposed to wait? Well there's no wailing- he gets a little closer to the panel- no chirping either. Good? Bad? He pushes the buttons again and the door slides open fast enough that he can see the kid turn his head form the lights. See? He totally knows all about child enrichment. 

“It's for hiding you. Don't freak if I put you in there. Okay?” 

Just a quiet 'Weh' in return. 

So... he did good. Probably. 

He's going to consider it a victory. 

The kid waddles closer to the edge and reaches his hands up and The Mandalorian picks him up. Tiny hands open and close and press flat against his armor before the kid rests his head against it and goes kind of still. Okay, okay, okay.

Still and quiet, still and quiet.

He's great at that.

He's totally got this.

Probably.

Notes:

comments always very very appreciated

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