Chapter Text
There are a lot of things that mandalorians don’t mind. They are a warrior race, with no qualms with inflicting pain or death. Follow the way, and you’re in the clear. However, when he comes waltzing through the covert with a weighty camtono in hand in the midst of talk that he had led a child, no, an ik'aad through the town, because yes, gossip penetrates into the covert, there is something to be questioned. When he is noticeably without said child, that is enough to warrant Paz Vizsla following his movements behind his helmet.
“What happened to the kid?” Someone mumbles once he is far enough ahead.
“Think he sold ‘em out? That was his payment I bet.”
“No, he wouldn’t!”
“Wouldn’t he?” If you asked, Paz would say it’s spiteful curiosity that makes him get up to follow Din, and definitely not the sudden feeling of every pair of eyes within earshot drifting in his direction.
It becomes clear to him what Din had deemed valuable enough to trade in a child for. Paz turns the corner and paces up behind a pair of onlookers to see him sitting across from the Armorer, the camtono now splayed open and stacked high with ingots of beskar.
“I must warn you, it will draw many eyes.” He feels it more than sees when the Armorer looks up at him. He doesn’t acknowledge the underlying comment of her words and lets himself into the bounty hunter’s space, picking up one of the ingots. The stamp on the corner of the slab makes the scars on his arms burn and his stomach drop. Not again.
“These were cast in an imperial smelter.” He doesn’t even try to keep the contempt out of his voice. “These are the spoils of the Great Purge.” The growl he does manage to corral when he notices the presence of the others.
“The reason we live like sand-rats.” The beskar drops onto the table loudly. Din winces and Paz can’t even find enjoyment in that. The Armorer picks up the ingot.
“Our secrecy is our survival. Our survival is our strength.”
“Our strength was once in our numbers. Now we live in the shadows and only come above ground one at a time.” The implied intimacy in the way he can see Din tighten his shoulders and try to make his turn away appear casual bothers him. It’s outweighed by the satisfaction he gets from knowing he’s caused the man pain. Even if it never seems to match his own, speaking of,
“Our world was shattered by the Empire, with whom this coward shares tables.” The move to remove his helmet is an impulsive one, but the thrill that moves through Paz’s gut when he feels the strength in the smaller body of Din twist and grip his forearms is instinctive and entirely unwelcome.
He pulls the bounty hunter up by the two-handed grip on his helmet, the movement caused less by his own pull and more by Din’s ironclad determination to keep the damn thing on. He releases Paz’s vambrace in favor of slamming his fist down on each of his forearms to break his grip. He reaches for the vibroblade tucked into his boot and swipes at him, earning a startled yell out of the larger man. He catches his next swing and they grapple for a moment before Paz shoves Din away and draws his own blade, holding it to his throat. His mind does not have the permission it seems to believe it has to bring up unwanted images of similar positions in friendlier situations, or the realization that Din has been injured.
“The Empire is no longer, and the beskar has returned.” The Armorer has stood now.
“When one chooses to walk the Way of the Mandalore, you are both hunter and prey. How can one be a coward if one chooses this way of life?
Have you ever removed your helmet?” Her attention is on Din.
“No.” Din’s response is underlined by a deep breath.
“Has it ever been removed by others?”
“Never.”
“This is the Way.” She has turned to Paz now, a silent challenge in her stance. The group that has gathered echoes her words.
“This is the Way.” Even the bitter aftertaste of his anger and disgust cannot take the reverence the phrase warrants from Paz’s tongue.
“What caused this damage?” She gestures an appraising hand at the crushed cuirass on his chest and dents along the length of his body as she returns to her seat.
“A mudhorn.” Din moves forward and joins her again.
“Then you have earned the Mudhorn as your signet.” Her eyes are on him as she counts the beskar with her hands. She looks down at them again. “I shall craft it.”
“I can’t accept. It wasn’t a noble kill.” He is looking down now. Paz doesn’t react to the glance the Armorer sends his way.
“I was helped by an enemy.” Ah, was it the child, perhaps? The internal tone is mocking, bouncing around Paz’s head as he leans against the wall, waiting for the next moment he could drag the man’s failings back into the spotlight.
“Why would an enemy aid you in battle?” Somehow, the Armorer never seems to not know the answer to the questions she poses.
“It did not know it was my enemy.” There is hesitation in his voice, and that is all the information Paz needs.
When he had thought of the possibility it was the child he had brought into town that had helped him, it had been a joke. The only way an “enemy” couldn’t have known whether it was his enemy or not is if it actually had been the child.
The anger and surprise shouldn’t be as potent as they are. Paz knows of Din’s nature. Borderline demagolka, working with imps even when he was there during the purge, when he knew what they’d done, when he knew they had taken her-
Paz takes a deep breath, his belly simmering. Of course he knows, and he doesn’t care. Aiding imperials seems to be ingrained into Din’s every action.
“Since you forgo a signet,” the Armorer’s voice tunes Paz back into the room, “I shall use the excess to forge whistling birds.”
“Whistling birds will do well. Reserve some for the foundlings.” Paz restrains himself from a snort. Your show may fool everyone else here, Djarin, but not me.
“As it should always be. The foundlings are the future. This is the Way.” She calls, and the crowd answers. Din responds in kind, his eyes trained on her.
Paz pushes off the wall. There is nowhere this conversation is going that could warrant his attention anymore. He hears the Armorer stand as he leaves, the stacks of beskar making a quiet clink sound in her hands, and the flames of the forge roar just a little louder in his ears.
---
Mandalorians are not likely to share their personal thoughts and feelings with you. What they will not tell you, in alignment with this, is that having beskar forged is a deeply personal and sometimes spiritual process. The steady rhythm of the Armorer’s hammer, the tempestuous howl of the flames, and the confidentiality of someone knowing exactly what is required to sufficiently protect you combines into a potent cocktail of security and repetitive tedium that is likely to send even the most hyper-focused of individuals into a meditative trance. The things a mandalorian sees in the flames of the forge from within the confines of their helmet are reminiscent of visions, and are gebbar kar’ta.
“Whistling birds are a powerful defense against multiple enemies. Use them sparingly, for they are rare.” The Armorer brushes the surface of his mind with her voice. He is not present enough to acknowledge her, but she knows he has heard her.
What Din sees behind his helmet would be difficult to watch for anyone. He sees fire, and death, and fear from behind much younger eyes, eyes that aren’t always framed by a tinted visor. He sees his every loss, along with that his every triumph. He sees his first mission, and the loss of his birth parents. He sees the day of his gai bal manda, and the day his buir was killed. He sees the happiest day of his life, and he sees her eyes…
The Armorer pulls his hands away from his body and tugs off the remains of his former cuirass. He snaps back to reality and holds his arms away, allowing her to seal the new beskar shell to his chest. She takes his arms and slides the repaired vambraces onto his forearms. Pauldrons are next, and then cuisses.
She stands up fully, the mangled mess of what was once his cuirass in her hands. She regards it carefully and runs a finger along the fresh scratch Paz had put on it.
“He does not believe you did all you could.” Suddenly all he can see are those eyes, small and almond-shaped. He inhales sharply and leaves. A bounty might get his mind off of the way history seems to rhyme for the purpose of mocking him.
When he enters the cantina looking for Greef Karga, it goes nearly silent. Every set of eyes or photoreceptors in the building seem intent on following his every move. He moves directly for Karga.
“Ah! Mando!” He chuckles. “They all hate you Mando. Because you’re a legend!”
“How many of them had tracking fobs?” Karga moves uncomfortably at this, a snort and a glance around giving away his discontent.
“All of them. All of them! But not one of them closed the deal. Only you, Mando. Only you.” Din takes a moment to pan his gaze around the room briefly, if not solely for the purpose of diluting the thickness of the guildman’s flattery.
“And with it, the richest reward this parsec has ever seen. Please sit, my friend.” He gestures to the empty seat in his booth. Din unclasps his disruptor rifle and sits down abruptly, a silent hope that this will wrap up soon.
“They’re all waying the beskar in their minds,” guess not, “but not me. No. I, for one, I celebrate your success. Because it is my success as well.” He takes a deep breath as the man rambles on.
“Hell, even I am rich.” The glower he levels at the beskar he sees in Karga’s meaty hand is private.
“Now, how can I show my gratitude to my most valuable partner?” Why the guildsman is so set on getting the entire bar to hate him is anyone’s guess, but if that is his goal, he’s succeeding. Din doesn’t want to think about them, or Karga, or those eyes.
“I want my next job.”
“Next job? Take some time off. Enjoy yourself.” He glances around and thumbs over his shoulder. “I’ll take you to the twi’lek healing baths.”
“I want my next job.”
“Sure, fine, you hunters like to keep busy, right? Well, these are all far away.”
“The further, the better.” Din’s fingers wrap around one of the pucks he slides out onto the table and he pulls it back to his chest.
“Well, take your pick. You’ve earned it.” He flips a switch on the puck and sets it down on the table. It flickers to life, blue and red glowing from the hovering letters and images of the poster.
“Ah, that’s the best one of the lot. A nobleman’s son skipped bail.” Karga scoffs. “Looks like you’re headed to the Ocean Dunes of Karnak.”
Din swipes the puck back and stands, grabbing his disruptor rifle as he turns to leave. He takes a step away and pauses.
“Any idea what they’re gonna do with it?”
“With what?”
“The kid.” He turns around to face Karga again.
“I didn’t ask. It’s against the Guild Code.” The man makes an attempt at acting reasonable.
“They work for the Empire. What are they doing here?” There are explosions behind his eyes again, and the edge of a small head.
“The Empire is gone, Mando. All that are left are mercenaries and warlords. But, if it bothers you, just go back to the Core and report them to the New Republic.” Karga uses the same tone a parent would, the pitch of his words as if he were speaking with a child.
“That’s a joke.”
“Mando, enjoy your rewards.” He pauses and considers his next works. “Buy a camtono of spice. By the time you come out of hyperdrive you will have forgotten all about it.”
Din considers refuting that for a second, decides against it, and picks up his rifle. He certainly won’t get wrecked on spice, but maybe getting a job on the move will help his mind learn how to be quiet.
He is almost completely through the start-up sequence when he sees the ball of the lever grip is gone, placed on the side console, and suddenly the two eyes have become four and he can’t let it happen again.
---
The droid eye extending from the wall comes off with a satisfying pop and a shower of sparks. Din steps out of the door frame and turns the corner before the stormtroopers file out of the compound. The explosive he plants on the wall beeps its way to an entry point and the pair of troopers investigating fall dead with blaster bolts in their backs.
A door at the end of the hall slides open and a third muddy trooper stomps in, swinging a rifle and lamp around the area. Dispatching him took nothing but a bit of grappling, the satisfying crunch of a strike to his armor, and a blaster bolt through his heart.
Din pauses in the next hall, glances around and continues on. The next one, he crouches, shoots his grappling line around the trooper’s torso, and hugs him in, his vibroblade finding his heart from his back. He falls with a wet groan and his body is easy to step over.
The next trooper is lucky and gets a shot in on Din’s shoulder. It bounces off the beskar harmlessly, and his stumble is not significant enough to stop him from shooting the long-since-white armored trooper down.
“No, no, no no, please! Please. No. No, no!” The scientist, Dr. Pershing, is pleading and shielding the child with his body. Din ignores him for the moment in favor of shooting the interrogation droid, why do they have an interrogation droid for a child?
“No, please. Please don’t hurt him. It’s just a child.” Remarkable bravery out of the imperial with a blaster trained on him. Even as Din advances, he doesn’t move, though his “please, no. No! Please. No. No. No, no,” raises in pitch, continuing after he throws him out of the way.
Din points his blaster at him and he braces, even as he no longer protects anything but himself. He is no threat, so Din diverts his attention to the child. It is unconscious, and for all Din doesn’t understand the readings the monitors are displaying, they spike nervousness in his gut and the thoughts of dead possibilities.
“What did you do to it? What did you do to it?!” Only a few people would be able to tell there is fear in Din’s voice.
“I protected him! I protected him. If it wasn’t for me, he would already be dead! Please.” If Din didn’t hold a grudging respect for his efforts to protect the child, he would call what Pershing is doing sniveling. While he curls up on himself, pleading for his life, Din wraps the child in a blanket and leaves the room.
With the child in his arms, he has to change tactics. No longer can he run around without steady caution, his arm occupied with priceless cargo. He hides from the first pair of troopers and slips past them through a doorway. Unfortunately, the next two troopers are not so unobservant, and they pepper the area around him with blaster bolts. He slips behind some crates while they reload and let them split up and come to him, each hardly a fight for him even one handed.
“Hey!” The next stormtrooper in the door meets the end of his disruptor rifle and blue arcs of electricity flood across the off-colored armor until he falls. Din advances into the next corridor.
A trooper comes in behind him and falls to a shot in the chest. A shot comes from his front so he turns and opens fire with his flamethrower, holding the flame there until the stormtrooper stops screaming. Din steps over him and continues on.
The next room is mostly empty, and wide open. It’s the room Din recognizes at where the Client had held their meetings. He enters slowly, scanning the room. A door slides open on his left.
“Freeze!” Two come in at his front, two at his back.
“Don’t move!”
“Drop the blaster!” Stormtroopers somehow manage to all sound the same, even if three of them are speaking.
“Wait. What I’d holding is very valuable. Here.” Din lowers himself slowly, placing his blaster on the floor. The child whimpers gently against his chest. He sets him down next to the blaster.
“Now turn and face me.” The stormtrooper at his front orders. He begins to rise slowly, and gives his new vambrace a tug. The whistling birds pop forward with a slide and a click.
“Stand up.” The trooper is nearly cut off by the telltale singing of the projectiles flying from his wrist. Once they have found their mark and the whistling has subsided, Din glances around and picks the child up again.
He makes it out of the compound with no more incidents. Next step, make it to the Razor Crest and get offworld.
The walk to the shipyard is getting less and less casual the longer it goes on. He started to pick up tails half way through, and they’re multiplying. Soon, he’s surrounded by half-rate bounty hunters, drawn blasters and blinking tracking fobs. He slows to a stop.
“Welcome back, Mando! Now put the package down.” Karga. Kriffing Karga. He’s stepped directly between Din and the shipyard and is thumbing his blaster. Din touches his own and considers his options. He can try talking it out. Probably not gonna work, but worth a shot.
“Step aside. I’m going to my ship.” Karga snorts.
“You put the bounty down and perhaps I’ll let you pass.”
“The kid’s coming with me.”
“If you truly care about the kid, then you’ll put it on the speeder and we’ll discuss terms.” Oh like hell that was gonna happen.
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“Because I’m your only hope.” Well, that way’s shut, they left him with no choice. He walks up to the speeder and pauses. The child’s eyes are shut. Kriff.
His draw is the kind of speed that is built up to be faster and faster, beginning with early childhood. Thus, the hunter he shoots is already falling and he is flipping over the speeder by the time any of them take a shot.
The resulting shootout allows him only a few shots over the cover of the edge of the speeder, and he uses his blaster to menace forward movement out of the operator droid with a grunted “drive!” The droid squeals and begins moving the speeder closer to the shipyards. Din uses the moment to take out more hunters from behind his cover.
Someone manages to shoot the operator droid, and it screams its way into a collision with a stack of crates, stopping the speeder sharply. Din rolls up against the back of the vehicle and unstraps his disruptor rifle.
The sniper on the nearby roof goes first, floating down to street level in a cloud of ashes. Next is a hunter across the street. Din is reloading faster than he’s done since his buir was hanging over his shoulder and telling him to speed it up. He gets one more hunter, a rodian, before the pack gets smart and takes cover.
“That’s one impressive weapon!” Karga’s voice is getting more and more aggravating every time Din hears it.
“Here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna walk to my ship, with the kid, and you’re gonna let it happen.” He is sick and tired of these hunters’ osik.
“No. How about this? We take the kid, and if you try to stop us, we kill you and we strip your body for parts.” Karga has actually breached the border into pissed off, and it’s somehow overshadowed any semblance of fear he has of Din’s hypercompetence. That is definitely a cause for concern.
Suddenly there’s a weapon careening down at Din, and he rolls out of the way, shoving the prod of his disruptor into the hunter’s torso. He falls easily, but unfortunately, now Din is in the open again, and every hunter in the area takes a shot at him. He takes cover again and reaches over the edge of his stronghold, unleashing his flamethrower. It only lasts for a few seconds, and sputters out completely soon thereafter. The blaster fire resumes and all he can think to do is cover the child.
Oh, but when that little tiny thing with no concept of object permanence, let alone self-defense opens it’s big eyes and looks up at him and fills his heart with the need to protect, suddenly he understands exactly what Paz has been through and wants to live purely to grovel at his feet until that man understands how sorry he is.
Then, all of a sudden, there is white fire in the sky and hunters are falling to blasters that are not his own. The covert, his tribe has come. Mandalorians on sen'tra'e are landing among Din’s hunters and it’s all Din can do to not cry tears of relief. The child will be safe.
There’s the sound of a repeating cannon and Din looks up and despite himself, despite the years of pain and regret, his heart, already so full, is overflowing because Paz is here. The man he would trust more than anyone in the universe, even though it wasn’t mutual, was here and was saving him and Din might actually be crying now.
“Get out of here! We’ll hold them off!”
“You’re going to have to relocate the covert.” Din prays that Paz had forgotten how his voice sounds through his helmet when he’s crying.
“This is the way.” Paz looks back at him and for some reason there is a tone in his voice Din would’ve never thought he’d hear again. Understanding.
“This is the Way.” Din manages, receiving a nod in response. Paz opens fire on the hunters as he scoops up the child and makes a dash for the shipyards. A quick tap on his wrist and the Razor Crest opens for him. He makes a beeline for the cockpit and-
“Hold it, Mando.” Kriffing Karga managed to slip away and followed him.
“I didn’t want it to come to this, but then you broke the Code.” Din listens for most of his words, until his gaze drifts over to the carbonite freezer. If he could just…
His grappling hook shoots out and the belly of the Razor Crest is filled with gas. Karga lets off several shots, but his visibility is a fraction of Din’s right now, and dodging is easy. He just needs the one shot and Karga is flying off his ship with a blaster bolt to the heart.The startup sequence flicks by in seconds and soon the Crest is off the ground, passing over the surface of Navarro without a glance.
Just as he’s breaking atmo on the coattails of an adrenaline high, his slowing heart picks up speed again as he looks out the viewport on his right to see Paz, jetpack roaring, as imposing as the day they met. He raises a hand in a salute and peels off and it’s all Din can do to look forward and continue his current course and not turn back to follow him.
“I gotta get one of those.” He mutters out loud, trying to convince himself? The child? Anyone who happened to be paying attention that his focus was on the jetpack and not the man attached to it.
A tiny, green hand reaches up at his elbow and he looks down, affection blooming in his soul, and unscrews the ball from that lever. The child giggles when he drops it into his hand and that affection just multiplies with every second, doesn’t it? He’s gotta get to hyperspace quickly so he can figure out more ways to get that giggle out of the little one again.