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The armour is just a little too small, maybe an inch too short and vaguely tight in the shoulders. Luke’s frame draws in to accommodate it, an almost imperceptible stoop; Din doesn’t think anyone will notice, unless they’re used to seeing Luke at his full height, shoulders endless beneath the black of his cloak. There really hadn’t been many options to choose from; who’d have thought it would be so hard to find a stormtrooper to ambush on a Star Destroyer?
Luke glances in the direction of the unconscious figure, tucked away out of sight where hopefully no one will find him. The plastoid of his borrowed armour gleams dully under the flickering lights of the utility room. “If you could inform my sister that I’m too tall to be a stormtrooper these days, I’d appreciate it,” Luke says, turning back to face Din. Even distorted by the voice modulator in his helmet, he sounds wry and amused.
“I know better than to get in the middle of that argument,” Din tells him, because after nearly a decade of friendship with the twins, even the Mand’alor knows when to cut his losses.
“Thanks,” Luke says, and Din knows he’s rolling his eyes behind the helmet, but there’s a smile in his voice as he says it, one that no modulator in the galaxy could hide. “How do I look?”
Din gives him a final once over, quick but thorough, and fights the urge to clear his throat. Luke looks—he looks fine, for the most part. He looks more than fine; he looks like Luke, at least to Din’s eyes, the lines of his body all deadly competence and skill. Din thinks he could recognize Luke anywhere, no matter the circumstances.
But none of that’s the problem. Luke will easily pass muster long enough to get in and out of the control room for the datachip they need. No one else on this ship will be capable of picking out the precise cadence of Luke’s breathing or the exact fall of his footsteps, and Din doubts they’ll pay enough attention to notice that the armour isn’t an exact fit.
No, the problem lies in the fact that where the helmet doesn’t quite seal properly into the body of the suit, hardly noticeable unless one really looks, the barest hint of a golden curl peeks out.
“What is it?” Luke asks, and he must read something in the set of Din’s shoulders or the tilt of his head, because Din is silent behind the safety of his beskar; the flush rising in his cheeks goes unseen, nothing more than a faint warmth upon his own skin.
Without a word, Din reaches out one hand to brush at the offending curl, there at the side of Luke’s neck. The sight of it against the leather of his glove, worn but well-tended, makes something coil hot and heady through Din’s veins.
“Ah,” Luke says, realization dawning in his voice. “It is getting a little long.”
“I like it,” Din says, voice on automatic, because Luke sounds just a little bit self-conscious. The moment the words register, he allows himself to press his eyes closed for a moment, because it might be true—it’s certainly true—but he’d never meant to actually say it. He forces his words to match the rhythm of his own breathing, careful and steady, rather than tripping on ahead. “It looks good, I mean,” he amends, and leaves it at that. In the end, it’s only the truth. It looks like sunlight on Yavin, and the wind in the trees as Luke trains the younglings. It looks like daybreak on Coruscant, if you can get high enough above the city to avoid the smog.
It looks like first light on Mandalore.
“Does it,” Luke says. It’s pitched as a statement, the words even further stripped down by the modulator, but there’s still something to it, a kind of skepticism that says he’s not quite sure if Din’s joking or not. Do you is what he really means, and Din distracts himself from how much he wants to examine that question from every angle by zeroing back in on that curl.
It’ll be hard for Luke to tuck it away with the clumsy bulk of his gloves, and he’s just finished getting the damned suit on in the first place, so Din pulls his hand away—slowly, regretfully—from Luke and that curl of hair. He strips off one glove, movements brisk and efficient, and then reaches back out.
This time, the brush of Luke’s hair against one knuckle, the slide of silk against his fingers as Din tucks it into the neck of Luke’s suit—
It must tug, a little, sensitive against Luke’s scalp, because Luke’s breath catches in his throat. It’s just the tiniest of sounds, but the modulator captures it, amplifies it, and this really isn’t the time for years of fantasies to come rushing to the surface of Din’s mind—thoughts of running his hands through hair disordered by battle. Thoughts of causing a little disorder himself, early in the morning or at the end of a long day.
“You’re good to go,” Din says, because he needs to say something, needs the sound of a voice to fully anchor him back to the here and now. They have a mission, and a whole lot of people counting on them to complete it. He tucks all other thoughts away as firmly as he's tucked Luke's hair away, where they won't be able to interfere.
“Thanks,” Luke says, but this time, there’s no amusement in it, just something that’s maybe a touch breathless.
Luke turns to go, but somehow, very suddenly, Din doesn’t think he can quite leave it there. “Luke,” he says, and when Luke turns to look at him, his white helmet impassive in the gloom, Din stops. “Be careful,” is all he says, finally, which on the surface of things is more than a little laughable, because this is Luke. He’ll probably end up doing the craziest thing Din’s ever heard of and yet somehow still manage to save the day.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” Luke assures him.
“Good. I’ll be here when you need me,” Din says, and if there’s an undercurrent of promise to it that has nothing to do with the mission—well, it’s only true.
“Before you know it,” Luke says again, and then he’s gone, but Din doesn’t think he’s imagining the thread of hope in those words.