Chapter Text
The jungle is fucking hot, humid and sticky even with the trooper armour off and his own clothes back on, the kind of hot that makes you sweat and then doesn’t do the decent thing and dry it away. It doesn’t help that they’re out in the light, taking the brunt of the midday heat while they patch up some connective welding on one of the wings of Fett’s old Firespray and scrub out the scorch marks from the TIE fighters’ blasters.
Well, he says ‘they’, but so far he’s the only one wielding the welding torch; Shand and Dune are off somewhere talking about something he sure as shit doesn’t care about, and Fett's inside running diagnostics just in case they want to give him any more work to do while they’re waiting for the excitement to die down enough that they can actually take off again without attracting too much unwanted attention and blasterfire, and Mando-- Mayfeld pauses, switching off the torch and squinting about through the darkened welding goggles at the green and brush around them. Where the fuck is Mando.
Seriously, how does a guy in a gleaming metal can disappear in broad daylight, he should be shining like a landing beacon in an empty hangar, honestly-- oh. Well, not if he’s tucked into the shadow of the wing Mayfeld’s working on, leaning close to the worn hull. Maybe even tackling some of that carbon scoring after all. Guy had to be good at polishing shit, what with that fancy get-up to take care of and all.
“You know,” he says, just conversation-like, “most people wouldn’t pick to stand under the part of the ship that someone else is trying to make sure isn’t about to just fall off. At least I wouldn’t. But that’s just me, huh?”
Nothing. He’s not sure if Mando even heard him, but to be fair, the rigid posture and complete lack of response is about equal for half of their interactions over all today. He lets the other half slide sideways out of his mind, nothing he needs to think about. Nothing he wants to think about. Especially not right now.
“Not that I blame you for looking for some shade, you gotta be roasting in that personal oven. Unless you got a built-in cooling system? Do you? I mean, I know you got a blowtorch.”
Nothing.
He flicks the welding torch back on, taking another go at strengthening the patchwork, making sure nothing vital caught the edge of that concussive blast and splintered. A fucking seismic charge. Because what else.
Mando doesn’t move. Mayfeld’s pretty sure he’s not scrubbing those scorch marks.
He turns the torch off again. “You know, those blaster marks are a lot more likely to come off if you do something about them, huh, Mando? What do you think? Gonna put your back into it, give them a little rub?”
He waits. Stares at the back of the armour, counts-- yeah he’s pretty sure it moved. Probably still alive in there.
“You having a nap there, Mando? Maybe you outta get out of the heat before you end up steamed. Don’t want to have to explain that one to your kid, huh?”
Still nothing. Fucking kriffing fuck.
“Hey, Mando. Mando. Can you hear me?” He hooks the welder onto his belt, steps down the little pull out ladder nice and slow. “Hey, I’m coming over for those scrub cloths you have there, okay?”
He thumps onto the ground. No surprises here, not from him, no sir. “Mando, hey, pass me a scrub cloth, okay?”
He pushes the goggles up, squints and shakes his head at the sudden bright light, already dazzling after the dim and then swears and stumbles back against the ladder when he gets a reflection bounced right off the gleaming silver beskar helmet and into his eyes.
He’d been trying not to think about that helmet. Trying not to think about the face under that helmet, to be more precise, and there it had to go and try to blind him.
“Mando?” he says, a little more gently than maybe he meant to, because now all he can think of is that helmet and the raw, open wound it had exposed when it had been taken away, and what he hadn’t been supposed to see. Fuck. “Hey, Mando, you with me here? Mando, I need that scrub cloth, yeah?”
He inches closer, careful, arm outstretched before him, no surprises, because he knows what shock and grief can do to someone and he’s seen what this man can do in a normal state of mind and he’s actually fairly fond of staying alive and in one piece, thanks.
“Mando? Hey, Mando. Come on, Mando, the scrub cloth, okay? Hey. Brown Eyes.”
Mando flinches, turns, his whole body spinning around. “What.”
The light bounces back at him. Fucking dazzling. He squints. Fuck. Hadn’t meant to say that. Hadn’t meant to say that again. “Pass me a scrub cloth. Someone needs to actually put one to use, you know.”
The cloth gets flung at him, on target and he would expect nothing less, but someone else steps in and catches it before he can.
“Brown Eyes?” Shand asks.
Fuck. Of all the fucking luck.
“Interesting nickname,” says Dune. Because it can always get kriffing worse.
Mando’s rooted to the spot, and Mayfeld’s probably imagining things, because there’s no seeing through the visor from the outside on that helmet, but all he can see is those big fucking eyes staring at him, and fuck, his brain stutters like it’s right back in the officers' mess.
He’s usually quicker than that. Than this. He’s a fast talker, always has been, it’s kept him alive this long, his mouth moving just a blessed sliver of a nanosecond behind his brain and both of them nearing hyper speed. But not today. Not when all the things he’s ever called this man in the privacy of his own head-- Chatty. Tightlips. Asshole-- just cleared away when all he could see were those brown eyes and how goddamn lost they were and how close Mando was to some edge Mayfeld couldn't quite make out--
“What?” Mayfeld turns, keeps his face innocent, open. “Gotta call him something, don’t I? Keep saying ‘Mando’ and I start feeling kind of culturally insensitive, you know?”
“Brown Eyes?” Dune says, ignoring him, looking past him to Mando.
He’d been trusted with this. He knows that. Doesn’t know what it is, exactly, not the whole shape of it, but he knows something precious and fragile when he holds it, remembers how raw the relief had been, the little twitch of a smile when Mando had ducked his head to put that shitty trooper bucket back on-- kriff and fucking fuck.
“Well, yeah,” he says, leaning against the ladder and in front of Dune, blocking her path and pulling her attention, all smiles and just waiting for a punch in the jaw and another ten years to end up on his sentence. “I mean, what, you never asked him?” He pulls a face. “Seems kinda rude. I thought you were friends.”
That may have been pushing it a bit too far, and yeah, he’s ready to be punched but he still braces for it when the force of her glare comes down on him--
“A fair point.”
He blinks-- Dune blinks. Shand nods, considering. “An oversight. If you don’t mind me asking, Mandalorian. What colour are your eyes?”
He might be holding his breath. The whole jungle might have gone silent except for the way his heart is pounding and how clearly he can remember the way those eyes caught the light, how their gaze couldn’t stay focused, glancing away and back--
“Blue,” says Mando.
Asshole. Thank fuck.
Dune smirks, a little involuntary twitch, but she’s stepping around him and he gets the ladder between them but she’s happy to ignore him, her focus back on Mando. “That so. Well I think I’ve made that same oversight. My sincere apologies, Mando. What colour are your eyes?”
“Green,” says Mando, quicker this time, tone just as flat.
Mayfeld closes his own eyes, slides the goggles back down to get to back to work, while Dune snorts and Shand tosses Mando the scrub cloth back and calls out as Fett appears at the boarding ramp.
“Fett, we have been remiss. Come, ask our friend here what colour his eyes are.”
Fett looks back and forth between them, Dune’s smirk and Shand’s deliberate passivity, Mando’s stiff posture. “I see,” he says. “Friend, tell me then, if you will. What colour are your eyes?”
For a second, Mayfeld thinks the joke’s been pushed too far, but then there’s a tiny cock of the gleaming helmet.
“Which set.”
Fett laughs low and knowing, and Mayfeld gets a secondary shock today, because after a moment, he hears a low, gruff ‘Heh’ from under Mando’s helmet.
Dune laughs louder, bright and practiced, but no more true than that little chuckle that wants to take Mayfeld’s knees out from under him, and slaps Mando’s shoulder with a soft silvery ring of beskar, guiding him away. Mayfeld feels that thing-- whatever it is he’s been trusted to hold, that thing that was never, ever meant for him-- flutter and grow and he clutches to it tight.
He’s got you, Brown Eyes. Or maybe you’ve got him. Fuck.