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Boba checked the status of the bacta tank, making sure that it was working correctly and ready to use. He'd tended the worst of his own injuries already, and though his shoulder was still giving him some trouble, he didn't think he would be needing the tank himself for a while. At least not until he'd paid his debt to the people of Freetown by trying to save their Marshall.
"Thinking of taking a dip?"
He turned around to find Fennec casually leaning to a pillar behind him, as if she'd appeared out of thin air. She'd already commed him that her mission had been successful, but he was nevertheless glad to see her alive and well with his own eyes.
"Turns out Marshall Vanth isn't as dead as Cad Bane said he was, and his people are bringing him over to see if we can help him." He tilted his head, studying Fennec carefully. She seemed uninjured, but she was a warrior, and would go to great lengths to hide any weakness. He patted the tank. "It'll take about 12 hours for them to get the Marshall here, so if anyone from the crew needs to get patched up, there's still time before they arrive."
She gave him a sideways glance, her lips quirking into a smile that told Boba that she knew exactly what he was really asking.
"The Mods came through with just scratches. Nothing that a welding torch and some bacta patches won't fix. And Krrrsantan won't fit in the tank unless you cut off his legs," she said, ignoring the question about her own health. "But if you insist on putting someone into that thing, I recommend Mando."
Boba frowned. "Why? I saw him take a few hits, but nothing his beskar couldn't handle. Did something happen with the scorpenek?"
"From what I heard from the Majordomo and his new lady friend, he almost got trampled by one of the droids and then your little pet used him as a chew toy. I saw him feeding the kid in one of Jabba's old rooms, so he's still standing at least, but who knows what he looks like under all that armor."
Like Fennec had said, Boba found Djarin in one of the bedrooms. He heard his voice before he saw the man.
"No. I told you, you need to go to bed now."
Boba couldn't help smiling at the contrast between the hard, modulated voice and the words which indicated that Djarin had met an opponent he couldn't defeat.
"Go. To. Sleep."
When he entered the room, he found Djarin leaning over a small cot, trying to wrap something small, green and wriggling in a blanket. The Jedi child. When Boba got closer, he could see that the child's eyes were half closed, and he looked like he was barely awake even as he stubbornly fought against Djarin's attempts to tuck him in.
"So this is the little one that took down my rancor."
Din looked up from the child, startled, at the sound of Boba's voice. Boba frowned. It wasn't like Djarin to be caught unawares.
"This- yes, this is Grogu."
Boba looked at the child and bowed his head.
"I'm glad to have finally met you, Grogu. I owe both you and your father a great debt for what you did today."
From the corner of his eye, Boba saw Djarin still when he said the word 'father'. The child took advantage of the momentarily distraction and struggled free of the blanket. His eyes narrowed as he raised his hand, reaching towards Djarin's helmet.
When Djarin saw what the child was doing he shook his head. "No. I told you not to do that."
Boba chuckled. "Do what? Stay up past his bedtime?"
Djarin hesitated for a second before responding.
"He has... powers. He can heal people, and he is trying to heal me."
Boba narrowed his eyes. So perhaps Fennec really was onto something. "Do you need healing?"
Djarin shook his head, and then went oddly still for a second, as if the movement had caused him pain. "No, I'm - I'm fine."
Boba's frown deepened. The child had been clearly reaching for Djarin's helmet. Not towards any of the visible tears or bloodstains on his flight suit. "You were knocked out a few times, I heard. Sure you don't need someone to look at your head?"
"No, like I said, I'm fine. A little headache, but it'll pass."
Grogu reached for the helmet again, and Djarin again gently pushed down the little clawed hand.
"Grogu, no. You need to rest."
"He seems to think otherwise."
"He's wrong. It's nothing."
Boba crossed the room and knelt down next to the cot.
"Here's what we'll do, Grogu," he said, meeting the child's eyes. "You go to sleep like a good little eopie, and I'll take your father to my bacta tank and fix him up. Sound like a fair deal to you, kid?"
Grogu tilted his head, watching Boba with a serious expression before seemingly making up his mind. He babbled something incomprehensible and then pulled the blanket around himself and curled up in the cot. A few seconds later he was already asleep.
Djarin stared at the sleeping child for a moment, and then looked up at Boba.
"Thank you." He lay his hand on the child, gently brushing his thumb across the furrowed little brow. "Using his powers takes a lot out of him. He's already done too much today to help me."
Boba allowed Djarin a few moments before gripping his shoulder. "Right. Now get up, we're going to my chambers."
"What?"
"You heard me. I promised your kid I'd put you in the bacta tank. You wouldn't want to make an oathbreaker out of me, would you?"
Din eyed the bacta tank suspiciously, keeping a distance to it as if he suspected it was actually a rabid anooba in disguise. "I thought you promised that Marshall Vanth could use the tank?"
"He's not due to arrive in another twelve hours. Plenty of time for us to fix your head."
The tilt of Djarin's helmet communicated very clearly that he did not consider that fixing his head was a valuable use of the twelve hours. For a moment Boba wondered if he'd misjudged Djarin's respect for oaths and promises, but then there was a barely audible sigh, and Djarin reached for his right pauldon and unlatched it from his flight suit. His movements were slow and slightly hesitant as he removed his armor, resting each piece revelently on Boba's bed before moving on to the next.
When he twisted around to remove his backplate, he hissed in pain, the movement aggravating some injury. Boba, used to helping his father with his armor, reflexively reached out to him. Djarin moved lightning fast, gripping Boba's wrist as soon as his fingers touched the beskar. For a moment they were frozen in place, but then Djarin let go, tilting his helmet towards the ground to avoid Boba's gaze. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean...I'm not used to..." He let out another frustrated sigh, and resumed removing his armor without another word.
"Would you prefer if I got one of the droids to help you instead?"
Djarin looked up. "No. No droids." There was a sharp edge to his voice, and Boba couldn't blame him. After the scorpeneks, he wasn't particularly keen on their kind either.
Carefully signaling his movements, Boba reached for the cuirass again, and this time Djarin didn't stop him. Together they removed the rest of the armor, with Boba unlatching the pieces that Djarin was unable to reach and helping him take off the flak vest and padding. When he helped pull the flighsuit off Djarin's shoulders, he couldn't help wincing at the sight of the man's battered body.
Boba could still acutely feel his own injuries from the battle, but as sore as he was, Djarin had fared far worse. Deep bruises covered his back and sides, ranging from vibrant reds and purples to already fading yellows, with cuts and abrasions marking the edges of his protective armor. His right thigh was the worst; nothing but one large black-and-blue bruise that looked like Djarin had only barely avoided having his femur crushed by whatever had hit him. Most of the injuries were fresh and bloody, earned in the battle they'd just fought, but some of them were clearly older. There were knotted scars crisscrossing his body that looked like they'd been cauterized, a history of pain documented on Djarin's skin. But also newer injuries that Boba couldn't match with anything that had happened in the battle - jagged vibroblade cuts that couldn't have been more than a week old, and a nasty healing burn on his thigh.
Boba folded the flightsuit and and placed it and the boots with the armor, turning back just in to see Djarin remove his helmet. He didn't believe in the Bantha fodder that Djarin's people believed in, but Djarin clearly did, and so there was something almost obscene in seeing him bare his face.
Underneath the helmet Djarin looked like... like an ordinary human man.
Boba wasn't sure what he'd expected. Perhaps something more like Bane and the other bounty hunters he had known in his life. Hard and cold like beskar. Djarin's body was all whipcord muscle, made strong by a lifetime of carrying the weight of his armor, but his face was soft. Kind. The face of a man who Boba could more easily imagine being a bookish Core Worlder like the Majordomo than one of the best hunters on the Outer Rim.
In that other life Djarin might have been handsome, but in this one he looked like something dragged in by a hungry massif. His hair was matted and tangled from wearing the helmet, and glued to his forehead with sweat and blood. It looked like he'd at some point tried to clean his face with a wet cloth, but there were still remnants of blood in his hairline and under his nose, dried and mixed with dust and grime. His left eye was nearly swollen shut, and there was a starburst of blood in the sclera of his right one.
Boba resisted the urge to roll his eyes. No wonder the kid had been trying to use his magic powers to heal Djarin's head. From the looks of it, Djarin was lucky to be still standing. He took hold of Djarin's arm and led him to the bacta tank.
Djarin hesitated again for a moment before climbing into the tank. He picked up the respirator, studying it carefully before putting it on and settling down on his back. He seemed oddly nervous, and based on all the cauterized scarring in his body, Boba assumed that he'd just never been in a bacta tank before.
There was a soft hiss as the lid of the tank closed, and the bacta solution began to flow. Djarin's eyes were open until the bacta reached his face, and when he closed them, his expression remained tense. He was breathing heavily, the rapid rise and fall of his chest making waves in the fluid.
Boba frowned. Something was wrong.
He walked to the tank and was just about to knock on the transparisteel lid to catch Djarin's attention, when the man suddenly sat up, his palms smashing against the tank as if he was trying to break out of it. Boba quickly reached over the tank and hit the release button. The lid slid open, and Djarin sat up, scrambling out of the tank, dripping with bacta. Boba tried to help him, but it was like trying to hold on to a panicked bantha calf, and they were both pulled gracelessly to the floor. Djarin's respirator had come out, and he was coughing, his breaths coming in wheezing gasps, as if he couldn't pull any oxygen into his lungs.
"I'm sorry," Djarin rasped between the gasping breaths. "I'm sorry. This was a bad idea. I'm sorry."
He was shaking, his hands and knees slipping on the spilled bacta as he tried to get back to his feet. Finally he calmed, collapsing against Boba, who pulled him closer, cupping Djarin's head in his palm and allowing him to bury his face against his shoulder. Boba could feel the wet heat of his breaths against his neck, and the slight tremors still running through his muscles.
"Easy, brother, easy," Boba whispered. "You're safe here."
Djarin was clearly exhausted, burned out by the adrenaline that had sustained him during the battle. He'd been thrown around, shot at, and quite likely had a concussion to show for it. And based on the injuries on his body, Boba could tell this wasn't the only fight he'd had in the last few days. Even now, Boba could feel the knotted bruises and flakes of dried blood against his fingers as he gently stroked Djarin's hair to calm him.
Boba had come to learn that when the body reached the limits of what it could take, it was easy for the mind to wander.
"The tank, the bacta. It reminded you of something, didn't it, brother?"
He did not expect Djarin to actually answer, but after a while the man spoke, his voice quiet and hoarse.
"We were on Trask. There were Quarren fishermen who said they could lead us to Mandalorians, but it was a trap, they just wanted the beskar. They had a mamacore on the ship, and pushed Grogu into its tank. I went after him, but they closed the tank, and I..." His breath sped up again, and Boba could feel his fingers wrap tighter around Boba's arm. "If Bo-Katan hadn't saved us, we would have drowned."
Boba hummed under his breath, continuing to stroke Djarin's hair.
If he tried, he could still feel the claustrophobic pressure of the sarlacc's stomach around him; could easily remember how at first going into that tank had felt too much like voluntarily stepping into its maw.
Boba had always been a hard man; he'd had to have been. But after the Tuskens he'd also learned the joy of helping others, of being kind. Something that he assumed came naturally to people like Djarin.
"Would it help, if I stayed with you?"
When Djarin said nothing, Boba helped him to his feet. He was still shivering, but now more from cold than the panic that had possessed him earlier.
He again hesitated for a second when Boba led him back to the bacta tank, his muscles tensing against Boba's grip, but then took a deep breath and allowed Boba to help him into the tank. Boba cradled Djarin's head with his right hand, making sure his face remained above the surface of the bacta as it flowed into the tank.
Djarin frowned, and reached out to touch Boba's shoulder.
"You don't need-"
Boba interrupted him. "No, I don't, but I want to."
He took Djarin's hand in his free one, and gave it a squeeze.
"Be easy, brother. You're safe with me."