Chapter Text
You hadn't intended on ever meeting the famed Mandalorian, much less fly with him and the child, although you had heard the stories of his achievements - swirled rumors about the men he'd killed in the crowded tunnels during your morning commute, tales about the people he'd saved plastering the stall of the meat vendor outside your building.
The morning begins like any other, unremarkable in its simplicity. In fact, you wake up with even more energy than you usually do, the warm morning sunlight brightening your mood as you slowly make your way down the crowded road on your way to work. You'd been lucky to score a job helping manage inventory for a local merchant, Neiki, organizing the piles and piles of salvage equipment, hardware, and scrap metal that decorated the cramped shop’s teetering shelves. He's a grumpy old man, sure, and he always pays you a day or two late, but he's honest, and he makes you feel helpful, more than anyone else has for a long while. He never minds if you crank up the heat when the cold makes your bones stiffen, and he always lets you take a break when your brain gets too loud. As far as bosses were concerned, he’s the best (and only) you’ve ever had.
“Morning, old man,” you greet him, placing your things under the small table you used as a desk. He grunts a hello at you over his mug of coffee and flips the page of his newspaper, but you can see a smile creep along the edge of his mouth.
You’re in the truly thrilling process of sorting through a bin of washers and bolts when one of the small pieces suddenly rises into the air, floating weightlessly. You look up from your seat on the floor to see a small, green child standing in front of you, his large eyes focused on the floating bolt, hand outstretched. How the hell is he doing that?
“Hello,” you say softly, “Where did you come from, little guy?” You reach out and pluck it from the air, holding it out to him in your palm. His tiny hands stretch out and take it, ears perking up, and the smile he gives you makes your heart melt.
“Sorry.” A man’s voice startles you, and you both swivel to look at the source. A tall stranger stands in the doorway, covered in dark, shining armor, his helmet masking his face. You can’t help but notice the blaster on his hip, located within arm’s reach, and feel panic begin to rise in your throat. The child, however, seems unaffected, happily toddling over to the man, who picks him up easily and scratches his ears. “He has a tendency to wander.”
“That’s okay,” you say, suddenly feeling powerless on the floor. As you slowly move to sit at your desk, your knees click and pop, protesting at the movement. “I don’t mind - he’s adorable.” The compliment is genuine - you haven’t interacted with too many children in your lifetime, but you’ve always desired a family of your own someday, a hopeless fantasy you knew would never pan out.
The man looks at you, his head tilted, and something about his gaze makes you feel scrutinized, a pinned butterfly under glass. Thankfully, Neiki chooses that moment to interrupt the tense silence, the back door opening and closing with a loud clang.
“Good news, bad news - I can get my hands on those parts you want, but it’s gonna take a few days - think you can wait that long?”
You keep your eyes trained on the bucket in your lap, your fingers fidgeting with the metal pieces, but you can’t help but wonder about the dangerous, mysterious life of this masked stranger and his adorable kid. What are you repairing? Are you green, too? What’s with the metal armor, shiny man?
“I can come back in a week.” The stranger says.
“Sounds good to me,” Neiki says, and you watch him shuffle some papers on his perpetually messy workbench out of the corner of your eye. When he retreats into the back office, indicating for the stranger to follow, he hesitates, shifting the child in his arms, who is squirming to be put down.
“Could you, uh, watch him for a second?” He asks, and you’re surprised at the nervousness you hear in his voice.
“Of course!” You say, grinning. He puts the child down, who shuffles over to you happily. He places one small green hand on your knee, the other still holding the bolt, and you scoop him into your lap. He coos as you bounce him, and you don’t realize until much later just how natural it feels. When you look up again, your breath catches - the stranger is staring at you, the dark gaze of his visor unwavering. He gives you a nod of thanks, then follows Neiki into the back office.
The child seems content to watch you work, resting his head on your shoulder. You flick on the ancient radio on your desk, and it crackles to life. You hum along quietly - Neiki never minds if you listen to music, and you like the way it helps fill the quiet on long days. Absorbed in your task, you don’t realize the stranger returns until he touches your shoulder. You jump - you’d always been easy to startle - and the movement wakes the child, who had drifted off to sleep.
“Sorry,” he says, stepping back. You shake your head.
“No, no - I’m sorry, I just get so focused sometimes.” You smile down at the child, who is sleepily blinking, and pass him back to his father, who settles him in a leather satchel at his side. “Looks like someone had a good nap.”
“Thank you,” the stranger says. “For watching him, I mean.”
“No problem,” you say, and you mean it. “Bye, little guy.” You wave at his sleeping form as the man heads for the door. A glint of metal in the low sunlight catches your eye, and you realize the child still has the bolt grasped in his claw.
“See you in a week.” Neiki says, and the stranger nods, then steps outside into the crowded street. You find yourself hoping you’ll be here when he returns.
Later, Neiki fills you in a bit as you poke at the bowl of dried fruit you’d brought for lunch. The stranger is a Mandalorian, a bounty hunter, and he needed to repair a carbonite chamber - you shudder, imagining the horrifying feeling of being frozen. The parts he needed were rare, but not impossible to find, and Neiki had connections in lots of places.
“What about the kid?” You ask. The old man shrugs.
“No clue - I’ve only ever met him twice, and he wasn’t with him the first time. Seems like a nice kid. Don’t think it’s his, though - pretty sure the Mandalorian is human.” So you aren’t green. You can’t help but imagine what he might look like under that cold metal, wondering if the dark, smooth voice belongs to a matching handsome face, and you feel yourself blush at how hot the idea makes you. Chill. He is literally a dangerous, armed stranger who could kill you. You clear your throat and take a long sip of water, trying to calm yourself down. Thankfully, Neiki doesn’t seem to notice.
When you fall asleep that night, you dream of the stranger, his cold metal pressing against your feverish skin as he pins you to the wall, easily. He towers over you, holding your wrists above your head with one large, gloved hand, the other pressing the warm barrel of his blaster to the underside of your jaw.
You wake up soaked in sweat, your inner thighs damp, and you press your face into the pillow, silently praying the week will pass quickly.
The Mandalorian reappears at the door to the shop exactly a week later, true to his word. The child is strapped into the satchel at his side, covered by the man’s long cape, and he peers out at you with a happy coo. Your heart skips the moment you see the bounty hunter, and your brain helpfully supplies a flashback of the dream you’d had the day you met him. You push it to the back of your mind and smile in greeting.
“You’re back!” You say, hoping you don’t sound too eager. “I’ll go get Neiki.” You head into the back office to find the old man, who is waist deep in a tangle of wires. He waves a distracted hand at you and tells you to give him a moment.
When you return, the Mandalorian is sitting at your desk, spinning one of the scrap metal rings like a top as the child watches excitedly from his perch on the tabletop. The sight is sweet, in stark contrast to the calculated, dangerous demeanor of the famed bounty hunter, hinting at a kinder personality that lay shielded beneath it.
You clear your throat. “He’ll, uh, be out in a minute.” He hums in response, fingers deftly spinning the top despite wearing his thick gloves, and you can’t help but think about the talented ways he could use those large, strong hands to -
“Ah, my favorite customer!” Neiki emerges from his office, squinting from behind his thick, magnified glasses. He drops them on the workbench as he passes by, clasping the man on one armor-covered shoulder. “You’re in luck, I managed to score you a discount. They’re in the back, if you want to check them out?” The Mandalorian stands and nods, then turns to look at you.
“I got him, don’t worry,” you say, sitting on the stool he vacates. He pats the child on the head, then turns and follows Neiki out the back door. You pick up the ring and give it a spin, but your stiff hands make for a much less exciting experience, and the child grows bored of it quickly. You watch as he shuffles over to the radio, then points at it and blinks up at you.
“Oh - you want me to turn it on?”
He gives you a big toothy smile, so you do, flipping the channels until you find some music. It’s a slow song, some ballad you’re unfamiliar with, but it makes for nice background noise. You rummage through the workbench drawers, attempting to come up with something to entertain the child, and finally settle on some scrap paper and a stubby pencil, pushing them towards him on the table. He stares at them, wide-eyed, like he’s never drawn anything before.
“Look, I’ll do it too!” You tell him, grabbing another pencil and a fresh sheet of paper. It’s been years since you doodled anything, but you begin to sketch, a sun in the corner of the page, a small, pointy-eared figure, a spaceship. He watches you quietly, then reaches for his own pencil and paper, grabbing it in his tiny fist like a spear.
“There you go, you’ve got it!” You encourage, reaching over to roll his sleeves up and out of the way. The child goes to town, scribbling enthusiastically, making large swirls and tornadoes of gray.
By the time Neiki and the Mandalorian return, you’ve finished your picture, a crude depiction of the child and the bounty hunter aboard a spaceship, and he’s used several sheets, the graphite staining his hands. The Mandalorian crouches down next to the table, eye-level with the child, and points to the artwork he’d created.
“Did you make these?” He asks, and you can hear the hint of amusement in his voice. The child nods, then takes his hand and pulls it towards the drawing you’d made.
“Wow, this one looks great,” says the man, and before you think better of it, you blurt out, “Actually that’s mine. Not that it looks much better.”
He tilts his head and looks at it for a moment, like an art critic, before he says, “I like it.” The compliment makes you blush. You stack all the drawings, the family portrait on top, and roll them into a tight scroll, handing it to the bounty hunter.
“Here, keep them.”
“Are you sure?”
You nod. He tucks the scroll into the satchel, then lifts the child off the table and bounces him in the air. “Let’s go find you some food, buddy.” The Mandalorian says. He turns to Neiki, nodding in thanks, then heads for the door. The child peeks over his shoulder, eyes sad, and waves goodbye with a tiny hand. It makes your heart ache, for some reason, but you return the wave with a sad smile. You want them to be safe, of course, but part of you secretly hopes he’ll need repairs soon.
Neither you nor Neiki notice the dark, hooded figure watching from the dusty window.