Archive of Our Own

The Organa Science Expo
Queens, New York
June 1943

The air is alive with the floating scents of buttery popcorn and roasted peanuts. People gather in clusters, gawking, laughing, and pointing at the large, wonderous exhibitions set up around the grounds. Din can hear the distant crackling pops of fireworks, the bursting reflections of colour tinting the night sky.

It’s in all ways a celebration, a bright spot of joy in the midst of constant ever-looming dread.

Din feels miserable.

Because instead of lining up to see the world's first impenetrable suit of armour, or gathering around the nearby stage to watch Bail Organa unveil a prototype for his supposed flying car, his eyes are glued to the drab, olive-green fabric that hugs the line of Luke’s shoulders. He never thought he could hate a colour so much, especially when the other man looks so beautiful in it, but the muted tones of Luke’s uniform seem to taunt him, sinking deep into his stomach until Din begins to feel sick.

Luke’s gotten his uniform, gotten his orders and that means Luke’s shipping out first thing tomorrow morning. Leaving home and safety and everything else behind to go and stand against those who would take that away from others.

Leaving Din behind.

Because Luke is going and Din is not.

As if he’s able to sense the thoughts trailing through Din’s head (and at times, Din truly thinks he can), Luke turns to face him. There’s an easy, soft smile on his face and the glittering fireworks make his eyes light up in a kaleidoscope of blues that Din can never seem to look away from on a good day. Today is not a good day. Right now, it’s both a pain and a necessity to take in every inch of Luke’s face. The soft curve of his jaw, the dimple on his chin, the small mole right underneath his eye. All the marks and lines that Din can’t live without, but is going to have to. It makes him feel anxious and desperate. He catalogues and each piece of Luke in his mind, committing them to memory tucking them away safely in a place where he won't forget.

Luke’s smile drops into a worried frown as his eyes flit over Din’s face, eyebrows pulling together in concern as he steps forwards and puts a hand on Din’s shoulder.

“Hey,” he says carefully. “You feeling okay, pal?”

Din nods, swallowing around the sour taste that rises in his mouth. He takes a step back, letting Luke’s hand fall away from his shoulder. The touch lingers, the heat from Luke’s palm burning through the fabric of his dress shirt. Din looks around, but everybody around them is too entranced by the exhibits to be paying them any mind.

“Fine,” he tells Luke. “Just a bit tired is all.”

From the look on Luke’s face, he can tell that the other man doesn’t believe him.

“Really,” Din continues. “It was a long day at work today. We had some extra shipments come in so the guys and I had to scramble to move them. Wore me out.”

Luke scratches at his cheek and nods thoughtfully. “Okay,” he says slowly, a small smile returning to his face. “Let’s go home then, yeah? I think we’ve seen everything anyway. I’ll go find Leia and Cara and tell them that we- ”

“You should stay,” Din interrupts, the words sounding tired and closed-off even as they leave his mouth. He hates himself a little bit for it. “Spend some time with Leia before you go. I’ll see you back home later.”

Luke is quiet for a moment, expression unreadable as he watches Din. Luke has always been able to do that- read Din like a book while he still remains an enigma to him after all these years. His mind works in ways that Din thinks he’ll never understand, but that’s part of the reason why he was drawn to him in the first place. It’s been part of the reason why he loves Luke so much. A level of trust comes from not knowing and being let in. Every time Luke speaks his mind and tells Din what he’s thinking and feeling, he knows that he’s being trusted with something special.

But there are times, like right now, that Din wishes it was easier.

“You’re not going to go to that recruitment booth we saw on the way in, are you?” Luke asks, sounding all too tired. Like he knows the answer already.

It makes Din feel guilty, for ruining what was supposed to be a fun night out, but the twisting feeling in his gut is too much for him to handle right now. He feels like a juggling act, trying to balance his love, worry and jealousy all at once. His desire and his fear. The overwhelming feeling of helplessness that has been plaguing him since this damn war started.

“Luke- ” he starts.

“They’re not going to pass you, Din. They can’t, you're not fit for service.”

“It’s just asthma.”

“It’s enough!” Luke exclaims and a few people turn their heads to look. “And they’re right not to!”

Din presses his lips together, glancing around at those watching them. Their eyes on them make him itch. They just seem mildly curious, attracted to the ruckus, but that’s how it always starts. Instinctively, he grabs Luke by the arm and starts tugging him away from the crowd, off towards one of the quieter parts of the exhibition. He does his best to sort his face into something impassive, if a bit annoyed. To any onlooker, he’s just another poor schmuck dealing with his friend that’s maybe had one too many before his deployment.

Luke goes along with him easily, stumbling over his feet a few times in a way Din knows is for show. They’ve done this routine before. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

The hub of noise and chatter slowly fades out behind them as Din pulls Luke along. Neither of them says a word and the silence is deafening. Din walks them further and further away before eventually dropping Luke’s arm. The paved street underneath them turns into bumpy cobblestone as Din quickly swerves off into an alleyway. He doesn’t have to look behind him to know that Luke is still following. His dress shoes are loud against the stone.

“Look, I don’t want to fight,” Luke begins, voice strained. “It’s my last night here and I just want- ”

Din cuts him off again, except this time instead of with words, he grabs Luke by the lapels of his ugly, awful uniform and pushes him up against the brick wall of the alley, sealing their mouths together.

Luke lets out a soft, muffled noise of surprise as his hands fly up to cup the sides of Din’s face. “Din,” he breathes. “We’re outside. We- ”

“We’re far enough away that we’ll hear anybody coming,” Din finishes, pressing a kiss to Luke’s cheek. “I’m sorry, I just… I don’t want to fight either. But, Luke, you know I can’t stand around here and do nothing. Not when everybody we know is getting shipped off to do their part. Not when you are getting sent out there.”

Luke’s fingers stroke gently against his jaw. His eyes are dark in the dim light of the alley, but Din can still see the warmth within them. “You’re not doing nothing, Din,” he says softly. “The work you do down at the docks is important. It’s not lugging around some gun, sure. But it’s important nonetheless.”

“Yeah, well,” Din huffs. “It doesn’t feel that way.”

Luke sighs, “What do you wanna do then, huh? Go out there and try to enlist again? Din, they’re going to catch on. Or worse, they won't and what then? You know they got special bombs over there and shit?” his voice cracks. “One of those things goes off near you with your lungs and you’re done for, Din.”

Din steps back and runs his fingers through his hair, shrugs and drops his arms down to his sides. “I don’t know,” he says truthfully. “I just know that I can do more than move boxes, Luke.”

He watches as Luke nods, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath for a moment before pushing off the wall. He reaches a hand out to take Dins from where is hangs limply at his side.

“What’s this really about?” Luke asks quietly, a challenge. “Because this has to be about more than lifting boxes, Din. It has to. I’ve known you almost all my life and you’ve never been the kind of man who has wanted to rush headfirst into war just for the sake of it.”

Din falters, his heart seizing up in his chest as Luke’s thumb runs across his knuckles. A small, rough laugh falls from his lips. Of course Luke noticed. He always does.

“You know that my parents died before the rest of my family moved here,” he begins, taking in a shuddering breath and looking down at their intertwined fingers. Luke has dirt under his fingernails. “The war in my country was terrible, Luke. It was torn apart with nothing left over and I was too young to do anything about it then. Too young to help my people. But now? Now I have a chance to help people who are going through the same things I did. It’s not that I want to run into a war. I don’t want to kill anybody. I just want to help. And I hate the feeling of not being able to.”

He feels Luke’s fingers on his face again, lifting Din's chin back up to meet his eyes. Luke says nothing, just gives him a long, searching look before pulling him in for a slow, sweet kiss.

“You have the best heart I’ve ever seen,” he says against Din’s lips. “But as I said, love, carrying a gun isn’t the only way for you to help. There are better ways. You’re big and strong, I’m sure that you’ll be able to find a position somewhere. Just please stop trying to join the military. I have this awful feeling they’re going to catch on and something bad’s gonna happen. I just feel it, Din.”

Din rests his forehead against Luke’s, letting their breath mingle in the rapidly cooling night air. “I don’t like the thought of you going over there alone, either,” he admits. “I don’t want to lose you too. I can’t.”

“And you won't,” Luke says quickly, shaking his head. “I’ll be back here getting on your nerves so fast that you’ll forget I was ever gone. I can’t leave my best guy all alone now, can I?”

“Yeah,” Din snorts, chest feeling overwhelmingly full. His chest still aches, restless with the burn of indignation, of injustice. Of wanting to do more. It surges just under his skin, but there is a solace that he finds in Luke’s words. In his touch. It still never fails to astound him how his lover is able to put him at ease with just a few sentences. How he can pull at the most tender threads of thought and leave Din feeling grounded. His words don’t magically make it all go away, but they remind him that he's still just a man underneath it all. “Who knows,” he continues. “If you’re gone too long I might just have to run off with your sister.”

Luke feigns a shocked gasp, “You wouldn’t! Han would have your head when he gets back. Besides, I think you like me too much to do that.”

“Just like, huh?”

“Just like,” Luke agrees with a hum, using his hand still on Din’s face to pull him closer. “Unless you’d like to convince me otherwise?”

Din kisses him soundly then, leaving no room for interpretation about how he feels. Luke tastes like popcorn and the cheap, bitter beer that he’d had earlier. Din licks over his bottom lip, stealing a stifled groan from his lover’s lips. He draws it out as long as he can, as languid and unpressed as he dares, until the gasping need for air forces him to break away.

“I love you,” Din says hushed, a vow just for the two of them.

“I love you too,” Luke whispers back. It’s almost enough to drive away the pain of losing him.

Din steps back reluctantly, letting his hands linger against Luke’s body, fingers dragging along the sides of his torso as he puts distance between them.

He clears his throat, “You really should get back to Leia. Even if to say goodbye. She’ll be upset if you just disappear.”

“I can’t convince you to come with me?”

Din shakes his head, putting his hand in his pockets. “I really am tired, cyar’ika. I’ll see you back at home.”

Luke still looks a little unsure, but he nods anyway, leaning in to press one more chaste kiss right behind Din’s ear. “I’m not going to be gone long,” he says and Din has the very distinct feeling that he’s not talking about going back to the expo. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Right,” Din rasps, throat suddenly and inexplicably tight. “Before I know it.”

Luke steps back, eyes not once leaving Din’s face, mouth still twisted up with concern. This isn’t the first variation of this conversation that they’ve had since the war began, but it's the first they’ve had since finding out that Luke is leaving. A charged, uneasy tension crackles in the air. Not entirely unpleasant, but it doesn’t do anything to help his angry gut.

“We’ll talk more at home, okay?” Luke says, shoving his hands in his pockets as he continues to walk backwards. “Come up with something together.”

“Okay,” Din agrees weakly, yet as it passes from his lips he’s struck with the horrifying clarity that it feels like more of a goodbye than anything else that he’s said to Luke all day. More than the ‘I love yous’, more than the hard kisses and frantic touches that they shared in their bed this morning. More than any of the promises that Luke has hushed against his skin. It sinks into Din’s chest and sits there like a stone. Heavy, unmovable and crushing.

Luke’s lips twitch into a soft smile and he nods, turning on his heel under the moonlight and walking back down the street toward the expo. Din follows him to the mouth of the alley, swallowing harshly around the lump bobbing in his throat, watching him go. Luke looks back at him over his shoulder, the backlight from the streetlamps around them washing him in gold as he gives Din a small wave. It makes him want to scream. He wants to run and grab Luke again, drag him away to somewhere where it’s just them. Away from the threats of war and death and fear. He wants. He wants and wants and oh does Din want. He wants so many things that he holds himself back. Balls his hands into fists at his sides and bites his tongue. He keeps his eyes on Luke until his form becomes fuzzy, swallowed by the bustling lights of the expo.

Din sighs heavily, letting his eyes fall shut. His head falls back to rest against the brick wall behind him, tilting up and back toward the night sky. It’s a beautiful night out. Mild compared to the sweltering summer they’ve been having and the soft night breeze carries with it a hint of sweetness. He wishes once again that he’d been able to just let himself enjoy it.

Peeling himself off the wall, Din glances down the street once more toward where Luke had gone. He’s long gone by now, off to find Leia and Cara and say his goodbyes for the next however long. He’ll be heading back to their apartment soon enough, expecting to find Din there waiting for him.

The guilty feeling in his gut returns with a vengeance as he looks down the block in the other direction.

The lights of the pop-up recruitment center stand out starkly amidst the relative dark of the rest of the street. A small line leads out the door, far less than there had been when they’d walked past it earlier that day, the bustle around it having long died down. He’s not sure Luke even noticed that Din had led them back towards it.

One last try. He’ll just give it one last try and then go home to Luke. They’ll get to say their goodbyes for real and Din can pretend that his heart isn’t breaking and that he’s not hanging on by a thread. He can get lost in the press of Luke’s skin, in his task to imprint it into his mind forever without the nagging thought of not having tried just one more time.

A roar of applause arises from the direction of the exhibition grounds and Din turns his back to it pointedly, rolling his shoulders back and putting one foot in front of the other as he strides down the empty street. He forces aside the rising tide of grief that pools in his veins, mentally apologizing to Luke as he crosses over to the registry booth set up outside the recruitment center.

He’ll understand. He has to.

Din smiles at the young woman manning the booth.

One last try.

–

Unmarked Enemy Facility
Azzano, Italy
November 1943

The first thought that Din has when he enters the lab room is that Luke is dead.

It stops him in his tracks, frozen amidst the chaos of blaring alarms and the distant rattling of explosions and gunfire. It climbs up his throat and threatens to bring him to his knees, to tear open his chest to let his heart spill out onto the floor.

The room that he’s barreled into, the one that the other soldiers had directed him to with grim faces full of pity, is dark and dank. It reeks of piss and vomit and shit, the filth of it all caked onto the walls. Dripping water echoes loudly, puddling onto the floor, and it’s the only sound in the room save for the dull, monotonous hum of the lone pale light that illuminates Luke’s body.

He’s strapped to some kind of metal slab, something more akin to a torture device than a lab table. Din can see the harsh red lines where the leather restraints dig into his wrists, raw and bright in opposition to the deathly pallor of his skin. Din has never seen him so pale- not even in the coldest winters of their childhoods, when all of the freckles would fade from his face and his hair would go from gold to straw. He looks like a washed-out photograph, left out and faded in the sun. Like if Din blinks, if he lets out too harsh a breath, this mirage of Luke will fade away. It doesn’t help that the single, old light only seems to be illuminating every bruise, highlighting every fleck of dirt and pain that stains Luke’s body in vivid clarity. His eyes linger on the cuts that sting Luke’s face, the deep bags beneath his eyes. There’s a gash above his eyebrow and a jagged laceration on his sunken cheek, both glazed over with dry, crusted blood. But, what get’s him the most, what scares him the most, is the horrifying stillness of Luke’s chest. “Luke?” Din croaks, still stuck in the doorway. He can’t move. Can’t swallow. They’ve fixed his lungs but he still can’t breathe. He can’t. Not when Luke had promised Din that he’d come back to him. Not when Din has come all this way to find him.

Not when Luke looks dead.

“Luke,” he says again louder, forcing his feet into action even though his legs have turned to ice. He thinks his hands may be shaking, his grip on the flimsy shield he’d swiped from the costume closet feels weak and unsteady as he crosses the room to Luke’s body. Some part of him must go into autopilot, taking charge and making sense of what he needs to do while his heart continues to shut down. He grabs at the thick leather straps around Luke’s wrists, tearing one off with a mighty heave, “Luke!”

A whispery, rattling groan falls from Luke’s lips and Din feels a crush of relief so strong that he almost doubles over.

“Luke,” Din repeats, voice wet and cracking as he hunches himself over Luke’s thin form. Close as he is now, Din can see the laboured rise and fall of the other man's chest beneath his threadbare shirt. See the sickly sheen of sweat across his skin. The sight of him both nourishes and kills him, Din’s stomach roiling at the evidence of pain clear on Luke’s face. He reaches over to yank the other restraint off Luke’s other wrist, bolts clattering to the ground as it snaps.

Hazy, unfocused eyes blink open, both looking at Din and looking past him at the same time. Mumbled, slurring words tumble from Luke’s lips as his heavy eyes slide around the room, looking for someone or somethings unknown, and Din has to lean in even closer to make sense of what his lover is saying.

“Sergeant… Sergeant Luke Skywalker… three, two, five, five…”

A fresh, chilled wave of dread and anger courses through Din’s body as Luke deliriously repeats himself over and over. If his hands weren’t shaking before, they certainly are now. He curls them into fists and then flexes them out, exhaling a sharp breath out through his nose. He needs to keep calm no matter how much fear is coursing through his body.

Gently as he can, Din reaches up to push back some of the sweaty, matted hair that hangs limply over Luke’s forehead.

“Luke,” he all but begs this time, the other man’s name the only word that he can seem to say, the only one that he wants to. He’ll plead and shout Luke’s name over and over until his call receives a response. Because, for that moment when he had thought Luke was dead- Din will admit that he had begun to imagine his life without him.

He’d begun to imagine having to pull Luke off the table, cold and lifeless. Hold Luke in his arms and feel no pulse, no ever-burning warmth. Dodge no kisses nor sneak any of his own. Din imagined having to carry his still body back to camp. Having to give a report on how he found him. Having to send those stale, formal messages off to Luke’s parents, to Leia and tell them he was never coming home. Not alive, anyway. Din imagined going home by himself. Having to walk into the apartment they’d shared and see the remnants of Luke everywhere. Imagined never getting to see the spark in his eyes again and the way they’d light up brighter than the sun. Never again get to kiss the dimple on his chin or the one on the small of his back. Din imagined the lonely chill that would forever haunt his heart. Knowing that he found Luke too late. That if he was faster, if he pushed to tour overseas sooner, he might have been able to save him. He imagined never going home at all.

Swallowing the bile steadily rising up the back of his throat, he pushes the ‘what-ifs’ away. Din grabs Luke by the shoulders, squeezing them as tightly as he dares. He’s not sure if he’s trying to ground Luke or himself, but there is a wounded, desperate pain aching in his stomach that very much wants them to leave this place. The sounds of explosions from outside the building have gotten louder and more frequent, shaking the very foundations around them. “Luke,” he grits out. “Hey, Luke, please- it’s me. Luke, please.”

Slow, searching eyes drift over to finally focus on Din, a small crease forming between Luke’s brows as a dawning, heartbreaking look of disbelief settles onto his face. “Din?” he says.

It’s raspy and sounds like it takes every last shred of energy that he has. Painful and perfect. Din can’t help but smile. Luke’s confirmation that he sees him, knows him, pulling a wild-sounding, relieved laugh from his lips.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s me, Luke. I got you,” he nods, moving a hand back to cup the side of Luke’s face. His thumb gently traces over a dark bruise that is turning from purple to green on the others cheekbone. The skin feels hot and feverish under his touch, a red-hot aura of sick radiating out like a sordid pulse. He’s always loved how flushed Luke’s face could get, but this is different. It makes Din want to bathe him in cold, drive the infected heat from his body, but yet, at the same time he can’t help but press his palm more firmly to Luke’s cheek, careful of his sores. It’s hot, but alive.

“What are you doing here?” Luke fumbles, words heavy as he blinks his eyes open and shut again and again.

“You were taking too long,” Din breathes, stepping closer and easing a hand under Luke’s back to help him sit up. Luke reaches out to grip Din’s arms to steady himself, but it leaves his entire body shivering with the effort. It strikes a lance of pain through Din’s gut, to see Luke like this. His strong, bullheaded, beautiful Luke. It pushes him past the point of caring and Din leans down and presses a kiss to the top of Luke’s sweaty, dirty hair. “Couldn’t let my best guy get lonely now, could I?”

Luke huffs a laugh, though it sounds more like a crackling warble before it descends into a deep cough. “They really let you in?” Luke asks, sucking in a shaky breath. “Or am I finally dead?”

Din feels something inside him crack, a feat considering how his chest has already been split and his heart thrown into Luke’s weak hands. He steadies Luke on the table and then ducks his head low so they’re face to face. Luke tilts his head up to meet Din’s eyes better, a grimace on his face as it seems that even the smallest of movements is a chore. His eyes are bloodshot, but Din can only see blue and it makes him feel like a man finding water in the desert. It makes him feel like he’s come home.

“You’re not dead. I’m here, Luke,” Din promises. “I’m real. It’s not easy to see, but they’ve fixed me all up. I can run longer and farther than you now and not have to stop for a second.”

Luke sniffs, jaw working like he wants to say something but has stopped himself. One of his hands reaches out to drag along Din’s flank. “You do seem a little taller,” he mumbles, sounding unsure.

“Yeah, just a little,” Din shrugs, shooting a glance over his shoulder. “Now, we gotta get out of here, okay? I’ll explain everything later, but right now we have to go.”

Luke nods his head, pushing himself off the table. Din swoops down and tucks himself underneath one of his arms before Luke can lose his balance, taking the brunt of the other man's weight as they start to hobble towards the door. Luke’s feet drag across the floor, but he’s doing much better than Din would have thought someone in his condition could. Still, with the explosions sounding outside, Din’s nerves itch to get them out of there as quickly as possible.

The facility outside the isolation room doors is eerily empty and silent save for the alarms. When Din had stormed in he’d been met with swaths of Nazi goons, soldiers and guards that he’d had to beat off with nothing but a single revolver and his fists.

There’s no sign of any of them now save for the bodies on the floor.

Din hurries them down the hallway, looking into each room as they pass to make sure they aren’t in for any surprises. Papers, scattered and half-shredded litter the ground, blowing out from what looks like countless meeting rooms. One of the rooms houses nothing but an upturned table and a lone map still tacked to the wall. It looks like someone had tried to rip it down and fell short, tearing away only a corner and leaving the rest of it up- tiny red flags still stuck to it and all. Din takes a breath to track their places on the map, logging it away for later.

“Din,” Luke calls out, snapping his attention back to the man at his side. His voice sounds stronger than it had just minutes ago, words clearer and less slurred. Luke is pointing over to a flight of rickety-looking metal stairs leading up to what looks to be a series of catwalks. “That’s our way out.”

“Where do they go?” Din asks, straining his neck and trying to get a better look.

“I don’t know,” Luke shakes his head, letting his arm slip from around Din’s shoulders. “But I wouldn’t risk going back down to the ground floor, not with all the fighting going on down there. Up is our best bet.” He’s hardly finished speaking before he starts moving towards the stairs, a set and determined look in his eyes that Din knows well from scrapyard fights and long nights of cleaning his bloody knuckles.

“Wait,” Din says quickly, grabbing Luke’s arm before he can get more than a step away. He’s not sure what his face looks like, what worried, frantic emotions are bleeding through, but whatever is there is enough to make the hardened look on Luke’s face soften as he turns back to Din. “Let me go first.”

Luke huffs but doesn’t object, giving Din a short nod before falling into step behind him as they move towards the stairs. He keeps up better than Din had feared that he would, astonishingly so for a man who was strapped to a lab table just minutes ago and looks like a good stiff breeze could blow him over. He’d been prepared to face Luke’s ire and carry him out of here, but save for a slight, hitching limp, Luke keeps pace with him nearly step for step.

“Fuck,” Din curses, glancing down as he climbs the first of the twisting stairs. The factory pit below them is ablaze. He hadn’t noticed it before, not with his attention so focused on Luke. The crates and machinery are engulfed in fast-spreading flame. It inches up the sides of the building, the old supports acting like tinder, helping it climb, reaching for them. The metal catwalks will take them high enough out of its path for a moment, but Din just hopes that Luke was right about there being a way out. Thinking fast, he starts to formulate a new plan in his head. He reaches back and grabs Luke by the front of his shirt, hauling him forwards so he’s ahead of him on the stairs, ignoring the sputtered protests his love makes in objection to the manhandling.

“What the hell are you doing? This isn’t the time to- ” Luke cuts himself off, alert blue eyes catching sight of the encroaching fire. “Fuck.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Din grunts, slinging his shield onto his back the best he can. It doesn’t want to stay put against the odd-fitting, steel grey leather coat that he’d grabbed from his trunk, but once he makes it stick Din knows that it’ll work as a better barrier between them and the fire than just his jacket. He presses his hand to the small of Luke’s back, urging him up and onwards. “Let’s go.”

They clamber higher and higher, each set of stairs leading to another. Smoke begins to rise with them, however, and the tightness of Luke’s breathing is like a vice around his chest. Din doesn’t let himself look down. He already knows what he’ll see. He can feel the hot tongues of fire licking at the rubber soles of his boots. Like Luke said, up is the only option for them now. It has to be- Din’s going to make sure of it. He keeps one hand firmly planted on the other man's back, more for himself than anything, pressing on even as an ear-shattering boom sends streaks of flame rocketing up, curling over the rails.

“Come on!” Luke shouts, tumbling onto the stretch of metal catwalk ahead of them. “Over there! A door!”

Din races up behind him, looking around frantically until he spots it. A lone door high on the other side of the building. It must lead to one of the exterior ladders that Din had seen mounted to the building on the way in. Convenient and most likely a new addition to the facility.

“There’s a way across up ahead,” he starts, eyeing the climbing inferno around them. The building is a tinderbox, the screaming of overheated machinery louder at this point than the frantic pounding of his heart. “We need to- ”

“Well, if it isn’t ‘the man with a plan’ himself!” a cold, sneering voice cuts through the crackling heat. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your uniform.”

Din’s eyes snap towards the voice, straining against the smoke steadily clouding around them. It’s almost impossible to make anything out, yet through the noxious haze, almost as if appearing from thin air, the figure of a man begins to take shape. He steps out of the smoke on the other side of the factory, a way down from the catwalk that he and Luke are stationed on- tall and thin, but not in the way the prisoners had been, but in the way that only the wealthy and in power come to be, as if their evil deeds have begun to eat them from the inside out. His face is lined with age, white hair styled back in the way of a military man. A long coat hangs from one of his shoulders and Din can just spy the edges of a silver and black patch affixed to its arm.

“I must say, I’m a fan of your work. All those little songs,” the man continues, taking slow and measured steps towards them, his boots loud against the metal walk. He steps onto the catwalk that bridges them, the same one that he and Luke need to cross to get out. The man stops when he’s nearly halfway to them. There’s something strange about the way he talks, Din can see it even from a distance. The movement of his mouth is off. Like his lips aren’t moving in time with his words. It makes the hairs on the back of Din’s neck prick up.

“Who are you?” he asks, not liking the feeling that has come over him. Din slowly pushes forward, stepping past Luke and placing himself between him and the stranger. Below them, a hissing eruption of flame sweeps up one of the walls.

The man just stares, eyes dragging over Din’s body. Inspecting him. It makes his fingers itch to grab the gun strapped to his thigh, because there’s something strange in the man’s eyes. It’s not wanting, not exactly, not any of the kinds Din knows at least. It looks like more of a greed. A judgement. A challenge. His eyes rake back up to Din’s face, meeting his eyes with an unnerving level of contact. A thin smile settles on the man's face.

Din is moving towards the catwalk before he can even think twice about it.

Behind him, he can hear Luke suck in a sharp breath, but he doesn’t look back, keeping his eyes on the unknown variable in the room. The man's thin smile turns into what Din could only call a manic grin, stretched out in a way that only adds to the feeling of wrong that emanates from him. Din pushes the feeling aside, swallowing back his hesitancy. He’s faced bigger bullies before with much less favourable odds. This man, this Nazi, whoever he is, is blocking their one way out. Din hasn't come all this way to back down now. He made a promise to himself to get Luke out of here alive and stars above he was going to keep it.

“You’re a great deal plainer than I was expecting. It seems the old man’s work didn’t hold up a second time,” the man states plainly, clasping his hands behind his back and taking a step towards Din. “Though, I suppose, a medium man would produce medium results.”

“Who are you?” Din asks again, even as the pieces begin to slot together in his mind. Dr. Karga had told him about another man. A man who took the serum by force and left decimation in his wake.

Tarkin.

“I am the victor where you have failed,” the man goes on. “Though I will not hold it against you, even a man such as Karga could not replicate perfection. It was good he was put to a stop before he could disgrace himself any further.”

Din feels more than sees red, the scorching heat around them nothing more than a conduit as he reels his fist back and throws it forwards, his entire body moving with the force of the swing as it connects with a hard, satisfying crack against Tarkin’s face.

He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t need to, he just watches as the man stumbles back, a shocked look replacing the smug one on his face as he braces himself against the railing. He doesn’t fall, much to Din’s surprise. He had expected him to, a punch like that should have had him laid out unconscious. Instead, Tarkin starts to laugh, head ducked low as the hollow, sinister sound reverberates across the catwalk. Din watches as the man reaches a hand up toward his face, holding it against his mouth before pulling it away. The flames that are ever encroaching around them highlight the shine of fresh blood on the leather of his gloves.

Tarkin brings his head up to look at Din.

“Holy fuck,” Luke curses loudly from behind him and in the back of Din’s mind, he can’t help but agree.

His hit had done something to the other man’s face. It hadn’t just left a cut or a bruise, no. The man’s entire face had shifted. The skin around his mouth seems to pull away from his face like it had been glued down and had now become unstuck. He moves his jaw back and forth and Din can only watch in wide-eyed horror as the skin does not move with it, if anything it looks to loosen further, making Tarkin’s mouth seem like an open wound, dark red and cavernous in the center of his face.

Luke’s hands are on him then, grabbing at his shoulders and pulling him back and away from the monster before them.

“Now maybe you will see,” Tarkin shouts, pulling himself back up to his full height. “The true difference between the two of us!”

Underneath them, the catwalk starts to move, shifting backwards and Din’s attention flies toward the stout, nervous-looking man with circular glasses who he hadn’t even noticed earlier. His shaking hands are wrapped around a lever and it doesn’t take Din more than a moment to realize what he’s done.

“No!” he yells, lurching forward, only held back by Luke’s firm grip on his arms.

The space between them and the Nazis, them and their one way out of here, continues to widen, and Din feels like he’s going to be sick once again as Tarkin reaches his hand into the loose flap of his skin and begins to pull.

“No matter what Karga told you,” he spits. “I was his greatest success!”

Din couldn’t look away even if he wanted to as Tarkin stretches and tugs the skin of his face up and over and off, leaving bits of leftover, stuck-on flesh hanging from his temples and sunken nose. There is no gore, no pouring blood or corded muscle. Just smooth, wine-red bone that looks like something off the cover of one of Luke’s science fiction novels. Just bone. Just skull. It makes Din’s chest feel empty, a cool pit in his stomach as he stares over the flames into the pitted, unblinking eyes of Tarkin.

“Don’t you see? You have been wasting your gift!” he shouts across the chasm, the mask of his face falling from his fingers into the inferno below. He bares his teeth at Din, the torn and stripped sides of his mouth putting his teeth on full display as he scowls. “Shirking your destiny to gallivant and play soldier, refusing to face the truth that you and I? We have left humanity behind. Superior men. Yet unlike you, I do not cower, but elevate myself without fear!”

“Then why are you running?” Din can’t help but yell, watching as the smaller, shaky man grabs Tarkin’s coat and helps the red-skulled demon slip into it.

Tarkin simply laughs, raising his hand to give a mocking wave as he climbs the stairs to the door, his smaller companion rushing him along. “Without fear!” he repeats, something about the words making Din grit his teeth in irritation, before he slips out the door. Gone just as soon and as silently as he came.

“There’s gotta be another way out of here,” Luke breaths from just behind him, pulling Din’s gaze away from the empty doorway. He blinks and all he can see behind his eyes is red.

“Keep going up,” he croaks, shaking his head to will the image away, forcing himself back into the moment. They still need to get out of here. Luke still needs him. “The rafters. Keep going up.”

He finally turns around and catches sight of Luke’s face. It’s dark save for the firelight, and Luke’s cheeks and forehead are streaked with dirt and soot, but for a moment Din is taken back to their apartment. Back home. Huddled with Luke under a blanket at night, an old camping flashlight between them as they trade kisses and penniless thoughts. His face is golden and Din is filled with a fresh rush of relief. Of affection. Of urgency. He’s got Luke back. Here in front of him and looking beaten-up and beautiful.

“Let’s go,” Luke says, reverent, his eyes lingering on Din’s face for just a moment too long. Reading him before he grabs the sleeve of his jacket and begins pulling Din along.

They run to the nearest set of stairs, all but sprinting up, pausing only halfway when an explosion rocks the ground. The next level is their last, their final chance. It takes them high enough to be nearly brushing the ceiling, with a single steel support beam jettisoning out from one side of the roof to the other. It’s about chest height, thick and welded together in intervals. It sways with the building as another rocket of explosives rattle off.

“You first,” Din nods at Luke, putting his back to the beam and cupping his hands together atop his knee to help boost his partner up. Luke moves quickly, hoisting himself nearly all the way up with the help of Din’s hands- only needing a small shove so he can get to his feet.

Din’s heart is in his throat as he watches Luke carefully step his way across the beam, the burning factory around him lighting up his frame like one of those stained-glass, holy pictures that Din would stare at whenever he’d volunteer to help the ladies down at the old church. From below, another great wall of fire reaches up and up toward them.

It all happens so fast.

The hungry flame licks at the bottom of the beam and spreads itself down towards the catwalks on either side of the long support. The beam lets out a thumping, scraping noise that sounds like nails on a chalkboard as the metal begins to buckle.

“Luke!” Din shouts, watching both stunned and panicked as the other bounds across the beam. The metal breaks away with a sickening crunch and Luke leaps into the air, flinging himself the few steps towards the railing on the opposite side. He scrambles up onto the catwalk, ducking to safety around the warped parts of metal that the beam had sliced through.

He made it.

Din is once again so relieved he doesn’t immediately spot the distressed, terrified look in Luke’s eyes until he looks across the void of space between them and reality sets in.

“There’s got to be a rope or something!” Luke calls out desperately, hands gripping the rail in front of him so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

Din looks down into the blaze. The beam had ripped out a good chunk of the factory's guts on its way down, including any of the other smaller supports that Din could have tried to cross on. He presses his lips together and looks back over at Luke, shaking his head.

“Just get out of here! I’ll find another way.”

“No,” Luke shouts back at him almost immediately. His eyes go wide and wild as he stares Din down. “I’m not leaving here without you! Where you go, I go.”

The words strike him right in the chest and Din’s mouth suddenly goes very dry in a way that he doesn’t think is from the smoke. There is a surety, a resoluteness in Luke’s words that Din knows well. His Luke does not let things go easily, not when it comes to the people he loves and Din has been on the receiving end of that devotion time and time again over the years. He knows that Luke is not going to budge.

He swallows around the lump in his throat. There’s nothing around. No rope, no stray cable or pipe he could attempt to use. Nothing. Just the look in Luke’s eyes and the steady beat in his veins that pushes him on because - you came all this way.

Din doesn’t think, something he’s been doing too much of lately, and does the only thing he can see to do - bend back the jagged, torn bars of the railing and try to jump.

Karga had never told him the full extent to which the serum would alter his body. He’s given Din knowledge of the basics. Sight, sound and taste would all be extra sensitive. Strength and stamina too. His lungs would be fully functional, with not a hint of asthma in sight. He never said anything about this. Din has to hope that the enhancements are more than just trivial, that his strength goes beyond lifting motorbikes and throwing goons around. It was reckless maybe, to test his limits by jumping across a literal sea of fire, but it’s the only choice he’s got.

Bending his knees, Din backs to the far side of the catwalk. Above the gap, a chunk of the roof crumbles in and smashes to the ground. Luke watches him, rapt and pale.

“Hell with it,” Din breathes to himself. “Where you go, I go.”

There are three, maybe four, moments where he feels absolutely weightless. His only point of vision is Luke and his only thought is for him to live. Heat hugs his body as Din sails through the air, the distance between him and the other side closing rapidly. He doesn’t ponder on if he’ll make it or not - he just lets reaches out and prays.

He collides with the railing first, the metal digging into his gut like a sucker punch, but then there are hands. Luke’s hands, like always, are reaching back, scrambling over Din’s arms and pulling him the rest of the way forwards until he clears the rail and the two of them collapse into a heap of limbs onto the catwalk. Luke swears, loud and filthy and it fills Din with a bubbling light. He untangles himself just enough to stare down at Luke, who had taken the brunt of their fall, and cannot stop himself from smiling. Luke grins back, scraped and bruised and Dins. He looks feral.

It doesn’t stop Din from leaning down to press their lips together.

They made it.

–

R.E.B.E.L. Sanctioned Housing Unit 1112
Washington, DC
May 2014

Ice bites at Din’s nose and cheeks, sharp prickles that make him long for a warm scarf like the one that was wrapped around Vizsla’s neck.

“You doin’ alright, Mando?” Luke chirps, coming to stand beside him, bumping his shoulder into Dins. His face is pink from the chill and Din wants nothing more than to press his lips to the wind-chafed curve of his cheekbone.

Instead, he scoffs at the nickname, sending a puff of white, frosty breath curling up into the dull, alpine sky. From the corner of his eye, he watches as Luke’s lips twist into a smirk.

“Can’t believe you got that to catch on,” he grumbles, shifting to shove his hands into his pockets as they look out over the mountain peaks. The new, silver and grey suit that he’d been outfitted with back at base shifts uncomfortably against the back of his neck. The extra armour it provided was appreciated, it was leagues better than his beat-up old bomber coat, but Din wasn’t in love with the fanfare that’s come about with his new title of ‘the Mandalorian’.

“I think it makes you seem mysterious,” Luke hums. “Like some kind of folk hero.”

“I’m no hero,” Din sighs, watching as snow dusts the train tracks below them. “I’m just a man, Luke. Still just me. I did what was right, saving them.”

‘Saving you’ goes unsaid, but he knows they can both hear it anyways.

“Still,” Luke sniffs, scuffing his foot on the ground. They’ve already talked about this in the hush of Din’s tent. About the whispers that had followed Din around once they’d marched back into camp. About how the government suits that still thought of him as an investment spread the news of his rescue mission to the papers, branding him the lone warrior of the people. About how that had just spared him disciplinary action and how he was granted a team instead. A team and a title. “You have to admit, it’s not the worst thing they could have come up with. You could have been called Mr. Military.”

“Christ…” Din huffs.

“Super Patriot.”

“No.”

“General Do-Good.”

“Luke.”

“The American Dream.”

“Please stop.”

Luke laughs, a single sunny blot in the gloomy cold. He fills Din with a warmth that he cannot help but cling to, more now than ever. War was no man’s friend, and though Din believed in the fight they put forward, knew the people they were going against needed to be stopped, the weight of it pulled heavy at his soul. The taste of fear and nerves was ever present on his tongue. His mind is a battlefield torn between worry and doing his job. There was so much at stake in his heart and for the world at large. But Luke… Luke had somehow managed to change, adapt to it all and still keep shining. He carried himself like a soldier now, was a better shot than damn near every other troop he’d trained with and had gone through a kind of hell that Din would never know, yet he still had hope. An indescribable, bone-deep hope for the future that never seemed to dim. Din knew he wasn’t the only one to appreciate it. The rest of the guys in their unit were stronger for it- Luke’s hope was infectious, never in-your-face or naive, but a powerful thread that kept them all going.

Din couldn’t imagine being here without him.

“At least the shield is cool,” Luke nods to the upgraded, far more durable shield strapped to his back. It had been one of the additional pieces of armour he’d fought against having, but it had come rather in handy on a few occasions.

“Cut the chit-chat,” Vanth shushes them from his spot as the lookout, binoculars pressed flush to his eyes. “Fett’s picking up a signal.”

“What’s it saying?” Din asks, turning over to where Fett and Antilles are huddled around the Empire-frequency radio they managed to salvage during the squads' last mission.

“It’s hard to make out, they’re speaking fast and my German could use some work,” Fett says as he looks up at Din. “But I’m pretty sure they just said that Dr. Pershing is on the train. Empire dispatch just gave them the go to put it in full gear. Wherever he’s headed, they need him fast.”

“That means showtime, boys,” Solo quips, grabbing the hooks for the zipline they’ve installed. The line travels down the cliffside, intersecting right above the tracks where they’ll be able to hop aboard the train and Din watches as it sways under the cold breeze. They’ve only got one shot at this.

He grabs the first hook, slinging it over the line. “There’s a ten-second window,” he warns Luke and Viszla who grab the two others. “Miss that and you’re dead.”

“Mind the gap,” Vanth snorts.

“Alright, move it, pretty boy!” Solo calls. “Now!”

He looks over his shoulder and sees Luke. There’s a calm set to his face, but his eyes spare nothing as they meet Dins. He gives a small nod.

Din nods back. He gives one last tug on his hook, making sure it’s secure, and steps off the cliff.

Wind whips at his face and Din can hardly see anything in front of him as he glides down. Speed starts to build up underneath his hands, he can feel the grating vibration of metal against metal through his gloves as the roaring chug of the train grows closer. It’ll be time to drop soon. Din takes a breath, preparing himself to stick the landing when all of a sudden he feels the cable holding him up snap.

His stomach plummets out of his body as he’s sent into freefall, this horrid swooping feeling twisting around his gut and seizing control of his entire body- except, no. No. this isn’t what happened. The line never broke, did it?

Before he can think any more, his body connects with the ground, only it’s not the ground at all. He’s fallen onto the train.

It’s still moving, flying forwards at a breakneck speed and Din’s ears start to ring as he looks around. He’s somehow managed to land inside the train instead of atop of it. A groan falls from his lips as he pushes himself up onto his elbows. His entire body feels like one big bruise, achy and stuffed with cotton. Looking around, he takes in the black-masked goon slumped over in the corner, a gigantic gun prone in his lap.

Din thinks he’s going to be sick.

“No,” the word leaves his mouth without permission. He’s seen this before. How has he seen this before? “No, no, no.”

“Din.”

There is a gust of wind, sharp and insistent from his left and Din looks over to see an enormous chunk of the train compartment has been blown out. Warped metal bursts every which way like a firework and Din can almost hear the screeching of metal in his head as the ringing gets louder. Louder and louder until it clicks in his mind that it’s not his ears ringing at all.

It’s somebody screaming.

Somebody is screaming and it’s still getting louder and Din looks at the hole and the wall and knows with every fibre of his being that it’s Luke.

“Din, you have to wake up.”

He stumbles forward, catching himself on one of the torn edges of metal. It digs into his palm, but Din feels nothing. The black hole of a pit in his stomach grows, like a shadow looming over his shoulder as dread fills him entirely. It urges him to look, but, Din knows what he’ll see, doesn’t he? He knows this moment- has lived it a million and one times awake and asleep. He knows what he’ll see. Who he’ll see. Again and again in a cyclone of anguish. He doesn’t have to look.

He needs to.

Din takes another step forward and-

“Din! Wake up!”

He wakes up. Jolting upright as a strangled, heaving gasp is ripped from his chest. He fumbles uselessly for purchase against the too-soft sheets of his bed. His heart feels like it’s going to burst out of his chest it’s ramming against his ribs so hard. Sweat clings to his skin, rapidly cooling. His hair is stuck to the side of his face unpleasantly.

His vision swims, eyes still imprinted with the blinding glare of snowy mountains, jagged metal and reaching hands. He squeezes them shut, bringing his hands up to dig the heels of his palms into them, pressing down until he sees spots instead of terrified blue eyes.

“Din,” says the same voice that had called to him in his dream. Soft but not gentle. Familiar. “Do you know where you are?”

“What are you doing in my house, Kryze?” he sighs, throwing his legs over the side of his bed and letting his forearms come to rest on his thighs, leaving his head to hang low.

“Oh, good, you remember me at least,” she clucks her tongue. “Do you know what year it is?”

“Twenty-fourteen,” he bites back. He can taste iron and ice in the back of his throat. “What are you doing here?”

“Windu sent me to check in on you,” she says plainly and Din finally looks up to look at her. She’s lounging against the doorframe of his room like she owns it, the backlight from the hallway making her almost indistinguishable save for her red hair and the gun she’s tucking into the back of her pants. “He said you were still upset about our last mission. I got here and heard you screaming. Thought maybe you were getting murdered,” she shrugs. “Or fucked.”

“Gee,” Din drawls, pressing his lips together. “Thanks.”

She straightens up, crossing her arms, “So you are still pissed about the mission.”

“Of course I am,” he grits, running a hand through his hair. “You and Windu left me in the dark. Let me run around clueless while you went behind my back.”

“We both had our objectives, Din,” she shakes her head. “You know this.”

He scoffs, standing up even though his legs feel like they’re going to collapse under him and steps toward her. “What are you really doing here, Bo?”

A dour look crosses her face, the carefully constructed mask she wears shuttering for a hint of a moment. Her eyes flick to the corners of the room and she casually moves to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

Listening.

Din feels hollow. He should have known. He’d swept his apartment for bugs when R.E.B.E.L. had first moved him in and hadn’t found any, but he should have known better to think that meant anything. Nothing in the future has been what it seems.

“Windu sent me to check in on you,” she repeats, taking a slow step toward him. She reaches into her pocket and pulls something out, her fist wrapped tightly around it, obscuring it from his view. “He told me to remind you to trust in your friends.”

“What if I’m not sure who my friends are?” he pushes back, the exhaustion that had been stuck in his bones vanishing, replaced with hair-pin nerves. He hates talking in code. “What if I don’t know?”

She takes another step closer, holding her hand out between them and letting it unfurl, palm side up, to reveal a small, silver USB.

“You will.”

He looks at her for a long, silent moment. Bo-Katan has never been an easy read, what with the whole ‘spy’ thing and all, but Din thinks for a moment he can see the truth in her eyes. She’s one of the people that he’s known the longest since being out of the ice. He had truly been starting to think of her as a friend before the whole Star debacle happened. He’s not so sure about that now, but still, on the list of people in Din’s life that he thinks want him dead, Bo isn’t on it.

Something is going on here. Something bad, Din can feel it. There’s more to what Bo-Katan is trying to say, she’s holding back. Said only what she can say in this location. He gets that as much as it sets him on edge- being in the dark. The silver stick in her hand is an olive branch, perhaps one he has no choice in not taking if the situation is as dire as he fears it is, but it’s a branch nonetheless.

Din reaches out, the ghost of a cold touch drifting along his knuckles and takes the USB.

–

Din had thought when he’d first come out of the ice, that his days of running around trying to save the world were over.

It had been a bittersweet moment. He’d never wanted fighting to be his life. He’d only ever wanted to help. There was supposed to be a life afterwards. After all the fighting and death and pain. A life after the war filled with laughter and joy and Luke. Din was supposed to go home.

He supposes he did in a way. Just not to a home he remembered. Not a home he wanted.

He’d figured then, in this new world filled with strange lights and even stranger people, that they’d leave him on his own. Free to drift off with his head and heart still frozen in the past. Free to try and cobble together some sort of existence out of his loneliness.

Then the attack on New York happened and swarms of bug-like aliens had descended from the sky like some sort of biblical plague.

Then they needed Din’s help again.

Din never wanted fighting to be his life, but suddenly, it was all he knew.

He just hopes it is enough.

–

In under twenty-four hours, Din has gone from having an apartment, a job and a semblance of a life to finding out that his boss is dead and that the agency that he’s been working for has actually been taken over by the Nazi organization that he lost everything to trying to destroy. He’s been shot at no less than a dozen times by at least a dozen people, found himself talking to the disembodied consciousness of the scientist that had tortured his lover, nearly gotten himself and Bo-Katan blown up, and now, apparently, is being hunted down by an elusive immortal assassin.

Sometimes Din wishes they never fished him out of the water.

There was something to be said, however, about how things never really change. As grim as it sounded, if he closed his eyes, maybe squinted a little and turned his head to the side, Din could just as easily imagine he was back in the forties. All that was really different was the technology and the people at his side, other than that, well, it all came down to the same thing. Power. Bullies.

Fortunately, Din knows just how to deal with those.

He just needs to make sure he finishes the job this time.

Letting a deep sigh fall from his lips, Din pinches at the bridge of his nose, fighting against the throbbing pain building behind his eyes. He looks out the window at the fuzzy Washington scenery, leg jiggling anxiously. It's not much to look at, buildings and concrete as they speed along the highway, but it's better than the awkward silence that radiates off of Boba.

Din hadn't been sure what to think of the young man. Jango’s great-grandson had reached out to him soon after he’d moved to D.C., but they’d only ever talked a few times before now. It was strange to talk to a man that shared the same face as one of his old friends, a friend who was long gone like everyone else from his past. It filled Din with a feeling of longing and regret that he didn’t much care to reflect on. Still, Boba was good people and a hell of a fighter in his own right. Din hadn’t been able to think of anyone else to go to after their run-in with Pershing’s techno ghost.

“The Empire doesn’t like leaks, you know,” the gratingly dry voice of Orson Krennic puffs from the backseat.

“Yeah? Well how about putting a sock in it, mate,” Boba rolls his eyes, but Din catches the way that his grip tightens around the steering wheel.

“We’re cutting it close here, boys,” Bo-Katan says, leaning forward and snapping on a piece of gum. “Insight is launching in t-minus sixteen. You sure we need this guy, Din?”

“We need his DNA scans to get through the door,” Din rubs at his patchy beard. “Gotta bypass all the security and get up to the carriers directly. Stop ‘em before they can even take off.”

Krennic scoffs, “You think your little plan will work? The Empire will know something is amiss the second I walk into the building. You’re mad to think they won't notice that you’re holding one of their own hostage! You’ll just be getting yourselves killed.”

Din meets his gaze in the front-view mirror. Krennic is an eel of a man and his cold eyes are far too reminiscent of the men that Din had put down during the war. Self-centred, power-hungry and vile.

“That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

Kernnic’s face drops.

Before Din can say another word, however, a heavy thud impacts the top of the car, the roof giving in as an arm of all things, gleaming and made of some kind of metal, smashes through the back seat window and grabs Krennic around the throat. A shout hardly has time to leave the man's lips before he’s pulled through the shattered window and thrown from the car.

“Fucking hell!” Boba swears as three shots are fired at them through the roof in quick succession, hitting the spot where Bo-Katan had been sitting just as she lurches forward, folding herself into Din’s lap.

“Stop the car!” Din roars, ducking his head as another shot explodes through the back of his headrest.

Boba slams on the brakes, sending the person on top of their car flying off. They tumble through the air, a blur of black and silver that whips around, bouncing off the pavement once before flipping through the air again, and Din watches in a horrified state of awe as the man's metal arm swings out and digs into the pavement. It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen before. The arm cuts through the road like butter, sparking claw marks carved into the ground, slowing the man to a halt. He doesn’t appear to have a scratch on him, standing like taking a high-velocity hit is child's play. Like it was nothing. The metal arm gleams in the sun, menacing and deadly and Din knows who this man is.

The assassin.

The Sith.

He moves like a machine, rolling his shoulders back as he stands in the middle of the road, face obscured by a full mask and eye covering- it looks kind of like a blindfold tied around his head, disappearing into a halo of unkempt blond hair. The visual is almost enough to make Din laugh, in a hysterical, at-wit’s end sort of way. Bubbling up in his chest. The contrast of this dark, haunting figure having a head full of sunny blond locks strikes a chord within him. Like some sort of twisted image of justice.

No. Not justice. Executioner.

Another car slams into them from behind, the sickening crunch of metal against metal throwing Din forward and knocking his thoughts from his head. His seatbelt cuts into his neck and chest as he, Bo-Katan and Boba are whiplashed forward. Boba’s hands fruitlessly try to regain control of the wheel as the vehicle behind them, some sort of military-grade truck, rams them along the road- closing the distance between them and the figure in black.

Din’s heart rallies in his chest, mind racing as he tries to think fast enough to get them out of this mess. They’re too open to make any sort of clean escape, whoever these people are have made sure of that, trapping them on a civilian-filled bridge like sitting ducks. Nothing but road and cityscape and either direction. This is a take-down. The question here isn’t about getting out, it’s about whether they are being taken in warm or cold.

The truck behind them speeds up, revving its engine as it barrels on. The masked figure takes three leaping bounds toward them, meeting the car face-on and throwing himself up and over the hood.

“Shit!” Boba curses as the man lands heavily on top of the car once again. Glass from the back windshield scatters throughout the car, raining down behind them.

Bo-Katan shifts on Din’s lap, pulling a gun from her waistband and firing two rounds upwards. It doesn’t seem to do much, if anything it must only serve to piss the guy off even more because between one second and the next the steering wheel in Boba’s hands is gone - torn straight through the windshield.

Another hit to the back of the car has the brakes squealing against the pavement, grinding and pushing them forward with a surprising burst of speed. Din can see bits of debris fly off, chunks of back bumper gone. The front end of the car starts to list sideways- sending them careening toward the road dividers. Din sucks in a sharp breath at the impact, eyes scanning the road frantically for the best way out. The nose of the car lifts as they take another hit to the trunk and a deafening pop rings through his ears as they fly up the divider and crash harshly back onto the ground, rocking on their broken axis as yet another jolt sends them skidding along the highway. Another, and suddenly they’re airborne.

Din hardly has time to think as he leans forward to grab his shield from the footwall, wrapping one arm securely around Bo-Katan’s middle while the other reaches out for Boba. ‘Survive,’ a voice that sounds a lot like Luke’s whispers in his mind. ‘Get them out of here, Din.’The car begins to flip in the air, but the world around Din slows as he takes a deep breath, counts down in his head so he’s sure he has the timing right, and then throws his entire body weight the best he can against the car door.

“Hold on!” he shouts, the urgency of it scraping his throat raw.

He feels his body tense, surging with a mix of adrenaline and blood-pounding fear as the door gives underneath him, sending the three of them hurtling towards the ground in a flurry of limbs and scraping metal. Din feels a bit like a turtle in a very decimated shell, hunched and praying and clinging to his friends as tightly as he can. He hopes that his quick exit has bought them enough time to get back onto their feet, that the angel of death and leather won't be upon them too quickly.

The weight of the three of them on the door provides just enough drag to slow them down so that the armoured truck speeds past them, unable to stop fast enough. Din stares as the Sith stands tall on the hood of the other car, masked face whipping around to look back at him, and while Din can’t see the other man’s eyes, a chill still runs down his spine as they watch each other.

Bo-Katan scrambles out of his hold, the first to get back onto her feet. Boba had slipped from his grasp during the action, but Din is happy to see that he still looks relatively unharmed, if a little scuffed up.

Ahead of them, the truck slams to a halt, the Sith jumping from the hood before it even comes to a complete stop. Four others in black tactical gear spill out of the vehicle and Din feels a fresh wave of alarm wash over him as one of them unloads what looks like a fucking grenade launcher into the assassin's hands.

Instinctively, Din shoves Bo-Katan as far away from him as he can, heaving his shield up just in time for the whistling-sharp sound of something being shot in their direction to reach him. All he has time to do is duck his head, bracing his knees before the impact hits him.

And boy does it.

It starts in his arms, this rippling, jarring shock that flows through his body like a lightning strike. Din doesn’t even realize the moment his feet are no longer touching the ground as his body is thrown, blown back through the air by the force of the grenade. He hears, distantly, the gong-like knoll of his shield being hit. It chimes dull and deep and wonky in his head, fading into the background under the sound of blood raging in his ears. He feels weightless, lightheaded, unsure if his eyes are open or shut as his entire being reverberates. He is floating and drowning, knocked so below the waters of his mind that his body swims to keep up. He is not sure if he sees stars or the soft haze of marine snow. Never before has Din felt so disconnected from his body, his mind. Not even when he crashed his plane into the ocean. Not when his parents died. Not when he woke up alone and afraid and stiff.

Perhaps only after Luke he felt such a way, but the comparison there is incomparable.

He has the vague feeling of his back colliding with something, feels the give and crunch of glass underneath him before his body is sent ricocheting off it. His shield falls from his grasp, tumbling into the ether. His body connects again, this time with something more solid. He thinks he’s gone through more glass. Another windshield? A storefront maybe? The slam of metal against the side of his face and the crumpling sound of metal has his groggy mind betting on windshield.

The next few minutes (or are they seconds?) pass in a blur, his head still reeling and trying to piece itself back together. There’s blood in his mouth and a cut somewhere on his leg that he can already feel healing. Terrified, panicked screams douse the air like gas on an open flame, rising and tapering off in never-ending bursts. A pained groan falls from his lips as he gets his hands underneath him. Glass shards dig into his palms and he blinks the floating lights from his eyes.

Gazing around, Din takes in his surroundings. He’s flat in the middle of an upturned bus and it disorients him even further for a moment until he takes note of the man-shaped hole in the front window that a handful of people are scampering out of. He winces.

Gunfire clips the front side of the bus, sending the few civilians still there scattering to the wind in a new burst of chaos. Din’s heart picks up speed, fight mode settling back in as he remembers why he was thrown off the highway and headfirst into a bus in the first place.

The next round of bullets eat through the framework of the bus like hungry moths to an old tattered nightshirt. Din’s on his feet in a flash, pushing down the aching scream of protest his leg gives at the movement. He sprints towards the back of the bus and the machine gun rattles behind him. He can feel the breezy distortion of the air around his body as the bullets just miss him- urging him to go faster, mover quicker. Din crashes through the back of the bus without thought, tucking into a roll as he hits the ground outside. In some stroke of dumb, miracle luck, he feels the cool, curved edge of his shield under his fingertips and scoops it up with him in one swift motion, raising it just in time to block the fresh wave of ammo being pelted at him.

There are three men, two with handhelds and one with an automatic. They flank him on each side and Din mentally counts their bullets as they fire, keeping low and hunching to the ground as he breathes in dust and gunpowder and copper.

A weight settles in his gut with each round fired. The lead doesn’t reach his skin, but Din can still feel it. He wonders when he got so used to being shot at, and not for the first time, Din thinks about what his life would have looked like if he never walked into that registration office. Would he have kept working at the docks? Gone to dinner with Leia while they each waited for a love away at war? Would Luke have even come back? Or would he have died in some factory in Italy, alone and cold and washed out? Or was everything that happened after that night one big, cosmic flap of a butterflies wings? The bullets, like his thoughts, bombard him and Din wants to take them both between his teeth and bite. Bite down until they crumble into dust.

The sudden swell of rage that fills him spurs Din forward. He waits for the clicks of empty magazines to move, throwing his shield arm out quickly, letting the metal fly from his arm to meet its target. It’s as natural to him as breathing now, to play boomerang with his shield- it has become a weapon in its own way. It hits the man he was aiming for directly in the chest, knocking him out before bouncing off a nearby car and then back to Din.

One down. Two to go.

The one wielding the automatic reloads first, barreling off a fresh clip at him with a roaring shout from atop a burnt-out car. Din hikes his shield higher, the other man’s lack of mobility giving him the advantage. He continues to press on, slowly angling his shield as he goes- listening to the sounds of the shells until he knows he’s got the placement just right- before he tilts the shield up, letting the bullets deflect back to the shooter.

A gurgling thump.

Two down. One remaining.

The last man shoots frantically. Sloppy, panicked shots that would seem easy enough to evade from the outside, but Din knows better. It’s fear that makes people dangerous, so, of course, it’s this man that gets a hit off on him, clipping Din in the bicep after a second-too-slow dodge.

It stings a sizzling burn. A mere graze, but it shakes Din’s bones. He’s been too in his head this entire fight. With the stakes that are on the line he really needs to be more focused, but something has felt off since the man on the bridge showed up and Din can’t figure out what it is. It’s like a buzzing in the back of his mind, getting louder and covering all rational thoughts.

Biting back a hiss of pain, Din swings his shield at the man, an odd shuffle of two steps forward and one back as the goon tries to shoot him again.

“Hey!” the shout comes from above, followed by a volley of gunfire aimed at the man coming at him.

Din’s head shoots up to see Boba leaning over the highway, pilfered weapon in his hands as he pulls the focus onto himself with another round of fire. They lock eyes and the younger man gives him a nod. “Go!” he tells Din. “Cover Bo-Katan, I’ve got this!”

He’s hit with memories of the old days, of Jango and his mirror image smirk, but Din brushes them aside as quickly as they come. Boba is his own man, a good friend and Din knows a thing or two about the pressure of living up to a legacy. That’s not something he ever wants to put on anybody.

With a nod back, Din turns on his heel. He hadn’t seen where Bo-Katan ran off to, but he follows the sounds of screaming and explosions, figuring he is on the right track as people sprint past him in the opposite direction.

That’s when Din spots him.

The Sith stands tall and formidable on top of a hastily abandoned mini-van, grenade launcher still in hand and pointed down at someone who Din can only assume is Bo. His mask has seem to have slipped from his eyes, but the lower part of his face remains covered. The tangle of his hair continues to hide his eyes for the most part as well. Still, Din does not need to see them to know that the Sith is out for the kill.

Forcing himself to go faster, Din hurls himself in between the two of them. He can tell he’s caught the assassin off guard with the way he jolts as he turns to face Din, dropping the arm holding his weapon and rearing his metal one back for a punch. Din lifts his shield just in time, intercepting the blow and the bell-toll of metal against metal rings throughout the street. He grits his chattering teeth as his arm wavers and shakes under the pressure of the other man's metallic fist.

Without time for another thought, the Sith grabs the edge of Din’s shield and shoves it aside and planting a thick-booted kick to the center of his chest.

It knocks him back but doesn’t steal his breath, giving Din just enough time to haul his shield back and crouch behind it as the assassin switches to a thinner, automatic gun and empties a clip at him.

Din’s mind is going into overdrive. There are no thoughts, only the urge to act as the other man dives around the side of the van, dropping his empty automatic as he goes. Din follows, tucking into a roll as the Sith pulls out a handgun and proceeds to fire burst after burst at him. He takes his chance when he hears it run dry, leaping over the hood of the car and using his shield to knock the weapon from the man's hands, but as he turns back on the follow-through, the Sith has yet another firearm, pulled from his seemingly endless personal arsenal.

Cracking bolts hit his shield rapid fire, but Din doesn’t stop moving, not letting the man get a clean shot. He can't. From such point-blank a range, not even he could bounce back from something like that. He takes his opening when there’s a delay in the firing, pulling his shield back and letting his fist fly, clipping the other man in the temple.

The Sith swings back, the parts of his face that Din can see are flush red with anger. His metal fist wails down and Din is so focused on blocking the hit from his right, that he fails to notice when the assassin reels back his left and sends an uppercut straight into his gut.

A shout falls from Din’s lips, but it dies quickly as the other man grabs him by the shield still strapped to his arm and twists.

Panic grabs him by the throat and Din can only play along with the move less he risks decapitation by his own weapon. The Sith starts to flip him and Din kicks off the ground, letting his body cartwheel through the air. There is a sharp, wrenching pain on his arm as he feels his shield pulled from his grasp. It churns something awful in his stomach, but the moment also provides monumental clarity.

The Sith is an enhanced.

How? Din doesn’t know, but anyone who can lift and throw him around like he weighs less than a pillowcase is no ordinary human. He’d thought that maybe it was just the arm at first, the biomechanics giving him an edge of strength, but not even that could explain how the Sith has been able to match him blow for blow. Din had heard that some people had never stopped trying to replicate Karga’s serum, people other than Dr. Yoda and his unfortunate green side effects. Was it possible that someone had succeeded?

Din is ripped from his thoughts by his own shield smacking him in the face. He feels his head whip back, vision doubling, and when he looks back at the Sith, red drips into his field of view.

Wasting no more time, he pulls back, aiming a punch to the assassin's face and then one to his side. The first is easily blocked, but Din feels a dull satisfaction when his second hit gets the man in his torso. The layers of tactical gear and leather strappings he’s wearing made for a rather padded hit, but Din is glad to get one in nonetheless. The feeling doesn’t last for long, however, with the Sith taking a quick counterstep, spinning with the shield in hand and using it to knock Din in the gut, tossing him back.

His feet skid along the pavement and Din covers his head with his arms as he tumbles, falling back into a low crouch with one knee on the ground, almost akin to a runner's stance. It steadies him enough that he can look up through the sweat and blood on his face and get a hazy glimpse of the man in black before him.

The Sith holds his shield like it’s his own, but Din can see the eclectic, hair-trigger line of the man’s body. This fight is difficult for him too and he does not seem pleased. His mess of blond hair spikes like a crown of thorns, brushed free from his face enough that all Din can get is an impression of blue as he stands and sprints toward him.

In a blur, the Sith throws his shield back at him as he runs, and Din only gets a moment to hop out of the way as it flies by him and buries itself into the side of a parked truck. He doesn’t stop running though, meeting the Sith head-on, even as the man pulls a knife from a holster on his leg, flipping the blade in his hands. Din uses his momentum to his advantage, taking a running jump and bringing a fist down onto the assassin, knocking his head to the side.

The Sith rebukes in kind with slashing arcs of his knife, diving at Din with an unrelenting ferocity that he only manages to evade by shutting his mind off, falling into a dance of parryswingduckswipedodge. His chest heaves with giant breaths as their feet tangle, stepping over each other- the glint of steel flashing right before Din’s eyes. The Sith stabs at him, tossing the blade from one hand to the other, moving like a machine. His arms bruise against Dins. It’s wild and desperate and the most in danger that Din has felt since the forties.

He gets in a lucky shot as the assassin swings wide, hitting him in the face with a stunning blow. It gives Din the quick opportunity to rear up and kick the man in the chest, sending him stumbling back and putting space between the two of them, if just for a moment.

Din’s ragged breathing is loud in his ears. His body aches. This needs to end. Soon.

He rushes the Sith yet again, eyes burning, entire body shaking with adrenaline. He’s not sure what it will take to take the other man down and the thought hangs heavy in the back of his mind.

Slamming the other man against a nearby car, Din snaps his head away to avoid the shattering glass. He feels the framework of the car give under the combined weight of both he and the Sith slammed against it. He pulls his fist back for the put-down. He has the Sith disoriented and pinned down. This is it.

It’s not.

A hand, cold and metallic, wraps around his throat. It happens so fast, a lightning skrike he never saw coming. Din feels a gasp try to escape him, it rises up his throat, he can feel it, but it’s cut off, dead under the pressure of the Sith’s fingers against the fragile veins of his neck. His hands scramble against the metal, but it's useless. Raw, unfiltered fear twists around his heart and Din can’t focus on anything but trying to breathe. The Sith’s arm whirrs, letting out a series of short, mechanical clicks as it flexes and tightens around his neck even more. Deliriously, Din notes that it’s the most noise he’s heard the assassin make throughout their entire fight.

A haggard, wheezing breath fights to fill his lungs and Din grits his teeth under the sudden flash of cold that runs through his body. It eerily reminds him of the ice for a moment. Of the dark, cold, angry part of himself that never fully unthawed. It reminds him of dying, his soul being separated from his body on a snowy mountaintop. He needs to get away from it.

He kicks at the side of the Sith’s knee, making his leg buckle and his grip on Din’s throat slacken. Din moves to jump back, but the Sith is fast, his metal hand reaching for his neck again, but instead grabbing onto the collar of his shirt. Din’s hands shoot out to push against the assassin's chest, he’s not going to let himself get dragged in close enough for another chokehold. His fingers grasp at the smooth edge of the Sith’s mask just as the other man uses the hold that his metal arm has on Din’s shirt to shove him backwards, sending Din flying ass over teakettle across the hood of a car.

Din’s back hits the pavement with a thump and a groan, something bright and hot shooting up his spine. He hears something clatter to the ground next to him just as a shadow flies over him. He rolls instinctively, just in time to avoid the crater-sized hole that the Sith’s metal arm puts in the concrete- right where Din’s head had been.

Still stuck on his back, Din brings his arms up to cover himself as the Sith pounces on him, slashing down with his knife once more. It nicks at the fabric of Din’s jacket, just missing his arm. Din grunts and brings his legs up between them, using all of his core strength to catch the Sith in the gut with his feet and kick him off.

The Sith pitches back, Din’s kick sending him flying, tumbling and hitting the ground a few feet away. Din is on his feet in an instant, breathing heavily through his nose as he falls back into a fighting stance, watching as the Sith peels himself back up as well. Din blinks blood from his eye.

There is a haze of smoke around them. The exploded cars and demolished pieces of road and highway filling the air with a distinctly chalky, gritty dust. Gunpowder, an old friend at this point, clogs the back of Din’s nose. The Sith stands like a beacon of darkness amidst the cloud of white. It outlines him, almost like a photograph, putting all the focus onto his figure while everything else becomes a fuzzy background. He is clear and true in Din’s vision, the only thing he can see. The only thing.

He turns around, blond hair a mess and he is the only thing Din sees.

He turns around and suddenly Din is Atlas. He has to be. Because the world from underneath him has been ripped away and the sky he had once been so tenuously holding up comes crashing down.

“Luke?” his voice is a near whisper, garroted and mangled as white-hot pain and hope and disbelief roil through him.

Kaleidoscope blue eyes, wide and flighty flick over Din’s face as the ghost of a man in front of him tenses.

It can’t be. It can’t be Luke. Din watched him die once and then every night since. He has had the sound of Luke’s last, shocked breath, of his final scream, on a loop in his mind for years. He has had those eyes, those lips, locked in a vault in his mind so he cannot forget them. Because Luke is dead.

Except he’s not.

He’s staring at Din. Pale and haunted and tangled. Changed but the same, Din can see it now. See the line of his shoulders that he’d spent so many nights wrapped around. Sees the mole just below his eye. He sees the way he holds his center of gravity. It’s Luke. Somehow it’s him, through time and space and death it’s him. Din would know him anywhere.

Kaleidoscope blue eyes, panicked and so, so familiar, settle onto Din’s face. Empty, as the man he loves shifts one foot back and pulls out a gun. Aiming it right between Din’s eyes.

“Who the hell is Luke?”