Work Text:
The Child gurgled happily as he looked up at the Mandalorian, hands reaching out with grasping fingers.
It was a universal sign, one seen from children of many species who wished desperately for the same thing. Up, pick me up . I want to be held. I feel better, safer when you hold me.
The Mandalorian couldn’t believe he was the one the innocent Child reached for with such trust and longing.
Carefully, slowly, gently, he knelt to wrap his hands around the small middle of the Child. He hoisted him up and was rewarded with a soft giggle.
It had been days, many days, since the last time their feet touched solid ground. Somehow, now that Din shared his ship with another, the confines seemed much more… confining.
The baby adored the stars. He could stare at them for many hours at a time, wide eyes reflecting the glow of starlight.
Din loved the stars too but somehow he found himself staring more at the Child in his lap than the glory out the window. Every once in a while, the Child would turn his face up to the man’s and thump a tiny fist against his chest.
“Yes, little one, I’m still here, I’m watching with you,” Din would say softly. He rarely spoke above a whisper these days. It never seemed fitting to break the happy silence with unnecessary noise. When it was just him and the Child, so much suddenly seemed unnecessary.
It has been a very long time since the Mandalorian has truly known that he is loved.
He knows it now. He knows it in the way the Child’s eyes follow him about the cabin. In the way the trembling only stops when he allows the Child to curl up on his chest when they sleep. In the way the Child shows his unyielding, immensely dangerous trust in the man who once sold him for new armor.
The Child’s love scared him more than anything had since the day his own parents died.
And yet still - he thrived on it. The Mandalorian spent so long as a wanderer that he nearly forgot what it was like to be needed by another. To be depended upon. To have something greater than his fool self.
Perhaps it was he who needed the Child.
“Gah-a!”
Din’s eyes shot down to the bundle in his arms. The Child’s own wide watery eyes stared back at him as he made another soft noise of annoyance.
“Not paying enough attention to you, am I?” Din asked with fond exasperation. “I swear you need to be looked after all the hours of the day. And night, to think of it.”
The Child simply hummed happily and reached another grasping hand up.
“I’m already carrying you, little one,” Din said in confusion. Even now, the baby was a mystery to him and each new day seemed to bring out more of the Child’s mischievous personality.
Still, Din was soft for the Child, there was no use denying it. He carefully lifted the baby higher until the Child was in front of his dark helmet.
The Child strained his little hands forward and knocked them against the helmet’s face. A tiny tinning noise echoed in the small space.
“Eh?” the Child said, looking at the Mandalorian expectantly.
Din’s stomach sank. Over the years, he’d been asked by many to remove his helmet. Some wanted to know the man underneath, others simply wanted to know that the Mandalorians were more than myths. All had been denied. Din owed everything to the Mandalorians who took him in when he was just a child who was utterly alone in the far reaches of the galaxy. He’d never thought twice about snapping a wrist that ventured too close to his sacred headpiece.
Now, however, everything was different. For the first time, the Mandalorian’s fingers twitched.
“Not yet,” he told the Child softly, his stomach churning at denying his charge anything. “Perhaps one day… but not yet.”
“I’m sorry,” he added as an afterthought. Din winced. How could one explain Mandalorian culture to a baby?
The Child studied him for a long moment, large eyes staring down at the metal beneath his hands.
Then, as though he had perfectly understood all the man had said, the Child cooed and reached out again to rub a little hand over the top of the helmet. Satisfied, his head turned back to once again gaze out the window at the stars flying past.
Din resettled the Child back on his lap. That had been unexpected. Perhaps, the Child understood more than the Mandalorian gave him credit for.
A comfortable silence once again stole over the two. Din was nearly asleep when a soft touch jerked him back to alertness. He looked down at his hand, which now had green fingers entangled with his own gloved ones.
The Child rubbed gently over the man’s knuckles. There was no question this time, only a simple desire to be closer.
Din fought against the closing of his throat. The Child likely had no idea what his little life meant to the Mandalorian. What he meant to the man who, not so long ago, had lived a meaningless, meandering life. How could the Child know that he had become the reason for another to keep on living, to wake up each day striving for something better? Something more?
Then again, the Mandalorian thought with rapturous wonder, perhaps the Child knew more than he could ever possibly imagine.