Work Text:
The Razor Crest has been drifting in hyperspace for about half an hour when he decides it might be time to get something to eat.
He turns around and spares a glance at the asset—the kid—sitting in the passenger seat, exactly where Din left him. If the kid is traumatised by the extreme violence of their narrow escape from Nevarro, he’s not showing it, instead rolling the shifter knob between his tiny clawed fingers and occasionally burbling to himself.
He thinks back to their first meeting on Arvala-7. Judging by the kid’s lack of reaction when Din slaughtered all those Niktos, he suspects this isn’t the first time the kid has had a brush with death, and the thought tugs at his heart like the sharp end of a fishing rod. Fifty years old. Din can only imagine what else the kid must have witnessed in those five decades, and none of them are pretty.
The kid notices him staring, and perks up his ears in what Din interprets as curiosity. “Mweh?” he seems to ask, momentarily tearing his attention away from the shifter knob to meet Din’s gaze with those huge, watery brown eyes.
Right. Food. For him, and for the kid. “You hungry?” he hears himself asking. The kid doesn’t answer, instead tilting his head and letting out a soft coo. Din decides to take that as a yes. “Stay here,” he says. “I’ll get us something.”
He climbs down the ladder from the cockpit to the cargo hold, where he stashed an emergency supply of ration bars a few months ago during a particularly lean stretch between jobs. It’s coming in handy now, given that he still hasn’t stocked up on any actual food since taking the bounty on the kid. He reminds himself it was worth it, both to save the kid and to restore the beskar to the Tribe, but beskar alone doesn’t put credits in his pocket.
He’ll have to provide for two now, he realises. Din doesn’t know the first thing about taking care of children, but he knows they need to be fed and clothed just like everybody else. He’ll have to economise, line up double the jobs, accumulate as many credits as possible to feed the other living soul who’s now wholly dependent on him—at least until Din can find somewhere safe to drop him off.
The thought calms him a little. This isn’t permanent. Din has saved the kid from certain death, but Din is not his caregiver (or worse, his parent). His only responsibility to this kid is to find him a new home, somewhere the Imps won’t find him, where he can live out the rest of his life in relative safety and peace. Then they’ll go their separate ways, and Din will go back to being alone, the way things are meant to be.
He shakes his head. For now, he has to make sure the kid doesn’t starve to death. He grabs a crate from the cargo hold and plucks two neatly wrapped ration bars out of it—one for him, one for the kid. He surveys the remainder: they should have enough to float for a couple of weeks, but soon he’ll need to find somewhere to refuel and pick up a job.
He tucks both ration bars into his utility belt and shoves the crate back where it came from, then climbs the ladder back up to the cockpit—only to find that the kid isn’t there.
A momentary twinge of panic surges through him, before he realises the kid can’t have gone far. “Kid?” he calls, thumbing the controls on his helmet to search for the kid’s heat signature. Sure enough, the kid is hiding underneath the control panel behind the pilot’s seat, his tiny form glowing orange in Din’s head-up display. He sighs, and the kid seems to take that as a signal to emerge slowly from his hiding place, the tips of his ears outstretched.
“I told you to stay,” Din grumbles, hoisting the kid back into the passenger seat. The kid, for his part, whines and tries to wriggle out of his grip, but Din buckles him in securely and wags a stern finger at him. “Don’t go running off like that again,” he says, with as much authority as he can muster.
The kid blinks owlishly at him and says nothing. Din pauses, then retrieves one of the ration bars and holds it up in front of the kid. “Here,” he says, trying to soften his tone a little. The kid has been through a lot. He can afford to be a little nicer. He unwraps the ration bar and holds it out to the kid, who studies it intently and makes a high, questioning noise.
“It’s a ration bar,” Din explains, waving it around a little. Does his species not eat? Can’t be—he remembers the kid swallowing a whole frog at the Ugnaught’s farm on Arvala-7. Maybe they can’t digest ration bars? Din finds it hard to believe that a species that swallows live frogs would have any trouble with ration bars specifically engineered to be edible by most organics. “You can have it,” he adds. “The whole thing.”
Now the kid seems to understand. He reaches out and takes the bar in both tiny green hands, cooing softly before putting the end in his mouth. Din watches the kid chew thoughtfully for a few moments, his little face scrunching up in concentration, before his eyes widen and he starts chowing down on the rest of it with a force that Din didn’t think little kids were capable of. The kid must be really hungry if he’s going to town on a dry, tasteless ration bar, of all things.
He thinks back to the Imp hideout he rescued the kid from, where that scientist was keeping him sedated. The kid was so weak, so drained and tired when Din saw him again. Those Imps probably didn’t even feed him once between the time that Din dropped him off and when he busted in to rescue him. His right hand curls into a fist at the thought. Bastards.
“Bah.” The sound of the kid’s voice interrupts his thoughts, and he looks down to see the kid brandishing the remaining half of the ration bar in his face. “You done?” Din asks.
Once again, the kid makes no reply, but crawls closer towards Din and pushes one end of the ration bar up against the outside of his helmet. “Bah,” the kid says again.
Oh. The kid wants to share. It’s the first time in a long time he’s been on the receiving end of such generosity, but he couldn’t live with himself if he took food from a hungry baby who’s already been through worse in the past day than most people go through in their entire lives. Besides, he’s supposed to go somewhere private to take off his helmet and have his meals. Eating in front of the kid comes dangerously close to skirting the Creed, and he’s still wrestling with the regret of giving up the kid—a foundling, now—to the Empire in the first place. The last thing he needs is more guilt on his hands.
“You finish it,” he tells the kid, pushing the ration bar away. The kid looks unconvinced, so he pulls out the other unopened ration bar from his utility belt and wiggles it in front of the kid’s face. “I’ll eat later,” he explains. “That one’s for you.”
The kid seems satisfied, and resumes munching on the remainder of his ration bar. Din lowers himself onto the floor of the cockpit and leans his back against the control panel, eyes trained on the kid in the passenger seat. This is nice. They’re safe in the Razor Crest, just the two of them, and no one is chasing them. Maybe he could take a quick power nap right here…
He’s about to drift off to sleep when something pierces through the haze: a series of sudden noises from the kid, who’s coughing weakly while holding the last bit of the ration bar in one hand. “Hey, hey,” Din hears himself say, both hands immediately shooting out to pick up the kid and pat him gently on the back to ease the coughing fit. He’s seen it done by others in the covert, and he figures it can’t hurt here. Thankfully, the kid’s coughing abates quickly, and he coos plaintively in Din’s arms, holding up the unfinished ration bar in his little hand.
“Too dry?” Din asks, even though he’s starting to suspect the kid can’t talk back. “Let’s get you some water,” he decides. He carefully shifts the kid into one arm and crawls slowly down the ladder back into the cargo hold, where he sets the kid down on a stack of crates and roots around in his cabinets.
He pulls out a half-empty canteen left over from a job three days ago and uncaps it, then pauses. This is way too big for the kid to hold in his hands. He doesn’t have any kid-sized cups, either, so he’s going to have to hold it up for the kid. Grunting, he turns back to the kid. “Come here,” he says, beckoning with one hand.
The kid understands immediately, waddling over and shifting his weight carefully into Din’s left arm. Din picks up the canteen in his other hand and positions the mouth of the bottle over the kid’s lips. “Drink,” he instructs.
The kid does, swallowing great big gulps of water like someone who’s been stranded in Tatooine’s Dune Sea for days on end. Din shifts uncomfortably. This, too, is something he’s seen new parents in the covert do, but he’s never been in a situation where he had to do it himself. For all that the Tribe believes foundlings are the future, Din’s role is—was—well-defined, and none of his responsibilities involved childminding.
The truth is, he’s not equipped to look after a child, much less an infant of an unknown alien species. Better to leave him somewhere with people who know how to care for him better than Din can. The galaxy is a big place. Someone out there must be willing to take him in. It’s just that that person can’t be Din.
The kid squirms in his grip, and Din removes the canteen, placing it on the floor. “Had enough?” he asks, and takes the kid’s satisfied coo as a yes. The kid lets out a loud, wet burp, and giggles softly as he burrows into Din’s arms.
Must be getting sleepy, Din realises. He’s heard that children often nap after a meal, and he supposes this kid is no exception. As if on cue, the kid yawns and his eyelids flutter closed. He’s out like a light within minutes, and Din sits on the floor of the cargo hold with his back to the floor, listening to the sound of the kid’s tiny, quiet breaths. He’s okay, Din thinks to himself, and lets the thought comfort him.
We’re going to be okay.
Din quickly learns that the kid will eat just about anything.
He starts small, ordering bone broth for the kid when they land on Sorgan, figuring a clear soup is about as safe for a kid’s digestive system as he can get. He lets Winta feed the kid a tiny mushroom and watches out for any signs of vomiting, but nothing comes. At night, he spoons tiny bites of blue krill into the kid’s mouth and watches him gurgle contentedly, giving no indication that it disagrees with his stomach.
Soup, fungus, crustacea. Din adds them to his mental list of things the kid can eat that won’t immediately kill him, right behind ration bars and live frogs.
As the months pass, he slowly expands the list through trial-and-error, though he starts to wonder if anything short of literal poison would count as an error. He watches the kid swallow everything from foul-smelling swamp weeds to live insects without the slightest hint of digestive discomfort, and slowly the knot of anxiety in his chest starts to unravel itself.
A strip of bantha jerky during their stop on Tatooine. Red meat.
A bright purple jogan fruit during a quick supply run on Oanne, when Din notices the kid reaching out a hand and cooing in something like recognition. Raw fruit.
A fried thylefire scorpion on the desert world of E’ronoh that the vendor assures Din is “completely non-venomous”. Desert arachnids.
Back on Nevarro, the night before launching their offensive against the Empire, he lets Kuiil feed pieces of freshly roasted meat to the kid. “I guess the little bugger’s a carnivore,” Greef Karga remarks offhandedly. Din thinks about the two bowls of rootleaf stew the kid downed at a wet market on Five Points Station and adds swamp vegetables to his list.
Eventually, he stops keeping track. He buys whatever’s cheap and convenient whenever they stop for a supply run, guessing—correctly so far—that anything he can eat, the kid can eat too. Three weeks’ worth of polystarch portion bread rations on Pasaana. Two barrels of grain as payment for a quick and easy job on Mina-Rau. A whole crate of meilooruns for a rare treat of fresh fruit when he picks up a particularly lucrative job on Falleen.
Instead, he starts to learn the kid’s likes and dislikes. Despite his enthusiasm for that first ration bar after they escaped Nevarro, the kid quickly loses his taste for them, confirming Din’s theory that his response was driven more by hunger than genuine enjoyment. He starts whining plaintively whenever they run out of fresh food, and sometimes, Din gives in and scrounges up something else from the Razor Crest’s meagre stores—a forgotten can of soup, his secret stash of dried nuna jerky, a leftover sleeve of travel biscuits—to ply the kid with, his irritation all but dissipating when he sees the kid’s face light up in a satisfied smile.
He’s not half bad at this caretaking thing. He thought he was in over his head with a fifty-year-old toddler from an unknown alien species, but despite the kid’s voracious appetite, Din thinks he’s done a pretty good job of keeping him happy, healthy and—most importantly—fed. The kid tucks into almost anything Din puts in front of him with relish, and more often than not Din finds himself sharing some of his own portion with the kid, just to make absolutely sure the kid will never go hungry under Din’s watch.
He tries, at first, to maintain his boundary of eating alone with his helmet off after the kid is done. This is the Way, he reminds himself. No living thing may see his face, especially if that living thing is the only other passenger on the ship and happens to have huge, inquisitive brown eyes that make Din feel as if the kid is staring directly into his soul. He tries to get the kid into the habit of taking a nice long nap after each meal, so that Din can shut himself in the privy and scarf down a cold can of soup or half a ration pack before the kid wakes up.
But that’s the other thing he’s learned about this caretaking business: the kid will always find a way to throw a wrench into his plans. When it comes to mealtimes, the kid is strangely, perennially insistent that they dine together, clinging like a barnacle to Din’s boot and whining loudly as if refusing to let Din out of his sight. Din supposes he can’t blame the kid for his separation anxiety, given all that he’s been through both before and after he met Din, but it does get a whole lot harder to steal away by himself so he can eat.
He spends a lot of time rationalising it in the privacy of his own mind. You are a clan of two, the Armourer had told him before they left Nevarro. That means something, even if Din still isn’t the kid’s parent, even if the lack of a true familial relationship between them remains just that—an empty, gaping hole. They are a clan until Din finds a Jedi to give the kid to, and he wants to believe that that grants him a certain level of flexibility. Plus, he has to make sure the kid doesn’t choke on his own food one of these days, with the speed at which he eats. Really, when he thinks about it, he really has no other choice than to start sharing meals with the kid. It’s what any good guardian should do for their foundling.
So he does. He stops waiting until the kid finishes his food and starts lifting his helmet just an inch to partake alongside him, always trying to empty his bowl as fast as he can so he can pull the helmet back down over his face. The kid, for his part, welcomes this new development, burbling with joy every time Din sits down with him for a meal. “Go slow,” he takes to telling the kid before they start eating—though the kid only listens about half the time.
It’s been a long time since he sat down for a proper meal with the Tribe. He’s missed having someone to share the space with, someone to fill the silence while he makes quick work of his own food, someone to serve seconds when the first inevitably disappears in moments. Slowly, he admits to himself that he’s come to enjoy these shared mealtimes. But always, he stops short of allowing himself to think too far ahead, to the day when he will have to give up the kid once and for all, to someone much better equipped to care for him.
This is temporary, he reminds himself constantly. The kid deserves a better life than this.
But sometimes, when they sit down to dinner and he watches the kid inhale a big serving of topato stew, then let out a satisfied burp and giggle with delight, he can’t help but wonder if the kid feels the same way.
Not all of it is easy.
On Maldo Kreis, he has to scramble to stop the kid from eating all of that poor frog lady’s eggs. “That is not food,” he admonishes. “Don’t do that again.”
The kid ignores him in favour of popping his ill-gotten gains into his mouth. Din picks up the tank and examines the contents. “How many did you eat?”
The kid swallows, then burps. Din suspects it was more than one.
As usual, the kid turns up his nose at the ration pack Din presses into his hands and elects to curl up next to Din and go to sleep instead. Later, Din supposes he shouldn’t be surprised when the kid tries again to grab another egg floating in the hot spring, but luckily this time he manages to put a stop to it. “No!” he almost shouts, wagging a stern finger in front of the kid. “No.”
The kid whines, but toddles off somewhere else—Din later suspects that he had something to do with the horde of ice spiders that descended upon them in the cave, but he’s too tired to think about it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the thought echoes: I should have been watching him. But it’s quickly replaced by his usual mantra. This is temporary. The kid will be better off with a Jedi.
Din is not his parent.
On Trask, he adds chowder and weird tentacle creatures to his list of foods the kid can eat, and crosses out live squid after one jumps on the kid’s face. Back in space, repairs on the Razor Crest prove too complicated for the two of them to handle on their own, so he gives the kid a bowl of bone broth as his reward for helping out with the wires and sits down on the crate next to him. The kid raises the bowl to his lips immediately, and Din hears his tiny breaths as he swallows.
“There’s no way we’re making it to Corvus in this shape,” Din muses out loud, before lifting up his helmet and drinking from his own bowl. This time, he feels the kid’s big, watery eyes looking up at him, his tiny breaths quickening in something like anticipation.
“You know, I think we need to visit some friends for repairs,” he continues. As expected, the kid says nothing, so he adds, “So how’d you like to go back to Nevarro?”
The kid makes a noncommittal sound, and Din takes that as acknowledgement. He lifts his helmet to have some more soup. Beside him, he can see the kid doing the same in his peripheral vision, both hands clutching the child-sized bowl that Din bought for him a few months ago. “You want some more?” Din asks.
The kid nods. They’ve developed their own way of communicating throughout all these months of travel, and even though the kid still hasn’t said a word that Din recognises, he thinks he’s starting to understand the kid somewhat. Din pours the remainder of his soup into the kid’s bowl, and the kid drinks it heartily.
Nevarro brings another confrontation with the Empire, and Din is so caught up in the urgency of escaping that he barely registers the sleeve of blue cookies the kid has somehow acquired when he picks him up from the schoolhouse. He focuses all his energy on surviving a dogfight with three TIE fighters, ignoring the excited squeals from the kid in the passenger seat. “Not too bad, huh, kid?” he says, when all that’s over.
He turns back just in time to see the kid throw up bright blue vomit all over the front of his collar. Dank farrik. He should have known better than to let the kid eat sweets while going upside-down in the Razor Crest. “Oh boy,” he sighs.
“That was some pretty impressive flying, Mando. What do I owe ya?” Greef chuckles over the comm.
“With the repairs, let’s call it even.” He grabs the end of his cape and starts dabbing at the stain on the kid’s collar.
“Can I at least buy you a drink?” Greef asks.
“Sorry. I have some… onboard maintenance I gotta take care of,” he replies, getting out of his seat and plucking the half-finished sleeve of cookies out of the kid’s hand. The kid whines in protest, but Din shakes his head. “No more,” he says firmly. “You’ve already made yourself sick. Now let’s get you cleaned up.”
He lifts the kid into his arms and climbs down the ladder to the cargo hold, then sighs. Another day, another catastrophe.
The kid is gone.
Grogu, he corrects himself in his head. Grogu is gone. After months of being on the run, Din finally learned his name, and then almost immediately afterwards, Grogu was kidnapped by Moff Gideon’s dark troopers. Din had gone through hell to get him back, only to lose him to the Jedi.
Not lost, he corrects himself again. He knows exactly where Grogu is: on Ossus with the Jedi Skywalker, exactly where he’s meant to be. He’d gone bearing a gift, and returned without it, and without any new memory of the kid’s little face to keep him company.
“Grogu misses you a great deal,” Ahsoka had told him. “If he sees you, it will only make things more difficult for him.”
The last thing Din wants is to make things difficult for Grogu. He’s spent so long trying to keep Grogu safe, happy and fed that the thought of doing the opposite is unconscionable. He remembers saying as much to Grogu, the day they parted. That’s who you belong with, he’s one of your kind. The Jedi Skywalker is one of Grogu’s people, whereas Din no longer is. With each day that passes, he’s less sure that he ever was.
Grogu belongs with the Jedi. Din will be nothing but a distraction, never more than a footnote in the story of the long life that Grogu is destined to live. It was temporary. Din was never his parent.
This is the Way.
Now he’s back to having meals alone, sitting in Boba’s palace on Tatooine with his helmet off and a tray of food in front of him. He can’t remember the last time he lived in such luxury, with a private room all to himself and a hot meal served whenever he wants it. Though, he supposes, with how big this operation against the Pykes is shaping up to be, Boba needs all the allies he can get—and Din is more than willing to serve.
He completed his quest. The kid is safe with a Jedi, and yet Din is still an apostate. The Tribe has roundly rejected him, the Jedi have made it clear he’s not welcome around the kid, and though he considers Boba and Fennec trusted friends, their food and credits aren’t enough to fill the gaping Grogu-shaped hole in his heart.
He looks down at the tray in front of him. Three loaves of haroun bread, a bowl of hearty bantha bone broth and a hefty serving of fresh jogan fruit—all things he’s eaten countless times before whenever he was passing through Tatooine, familiar and comforting. In his younger days, he thought about settling down here, working with the Tuskens to pick off bounties in the Dune Sea. He takes a bite of the bread, and for the briefest of moments it almost feels like home—but it isn’t.
Home is half a galaxy away on a distant forest planet, lost to Din forever, and the grief is a kind of pain that Din didn’t know existed until now.
Din has eaten some truly awful things in his life: slimy, raw hagfish when he was briefly stranded at sea during a job gone wrong on Iloh, heaps of black melons while running jobs with the Tuskens out in the Dune Sea, roasted spiders on Christophsis when his credits would stretch no further. But all of those pale in comparison to the tray of rich, nourishing food in front of him, because he’s stopped being able to bear the loneliness of having no one to share it with.
The food crumbles to sawdust in his mouth. He pushes the tray away and lies sprawled out on the comfortable bed, staring up at the ceiling. He wants to go back to Ossus. He wants to fuss and argue and threaten until he’s allowed to see the kid again, to fulfil the promise he made all those months ago when they saw each other for the last time.
I found him first, he wants to say to the Jedi. He wants Grogu to remember Din—if not as his parent, then as his saviour. I saved him first. I protected him first. I knew him first. All that time alone with Grogu, and it’ll still never be enough.
Will the Jedi know how to take care of Grogu, Din wonders? Will he figure it out better and faster than Din did? Will he know how to season bone broth just the way Grogu likes it? Let Grogu have sweets before dinner even though he really shouldn’t? Understand the precise cadence of each of Grogu’s hungry noises to know what exactly it is he wants? Din has spent so long learning Grogu that he thinks he should have recorded a holo or ten, left instructions to the Jedi on how to take the best possible care of his kid.
The kid, he corrects himself. Not his kid. Grogu was never his, no matter how much Din might want to stake a claim on him, but knowing it doesn’t ease the pain of his loss.
He falls into a deep, dreamless sleep, hoping beyond hope that somewhere out there, Grogu is eating frogs to his heart’s content. Happy and healthy and safe without Din.
Just like things were always meant to be.
“You’ve never eaten pog soup?” Bo-Katan asks incredulously.
They’re somewhere in the ruins of Sundari, away from the dangers lurking in the lower levels. The cup she’s just given him is warm in his hand, filled with a creamy-looking orange-yellow liquid. “No,” he replies softly.
She scoffs. “Can you appreciate the irony?”
He lifts his helmet and takes a tiny sip of the soup—just enough for his throbbing headache to melt away—before handing the cup to Grogu, who Din knows is hungry judging from the fact that he hasn’t taken his eyes off the cup since Bo-Katan put it on the stove, and because, well… Din just knows him.
“Any Mandalorian worth their armour was raised on this since they were his size,” Bo-Katan adds. Grogu peers into the cup, his ears drooping in disappointment as he sees how much is left, but wastes no time in finishing off the remainder of the soup.
Din’s heart gives a small tug. Grogu has been back with him for a few weeks now, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever get over the feeling of being able to share food with the kid once again. Some days he wakes up and he can’t believe that Grogu is there, that he’s lucky enough to have been given the gift of more time with the kid he thought he would never see again.
Grogu hasn’t given any indication of what transpired on Ossus that led him to find his way back to Din, but it’s clear he’s given up the path of a Jedi and wants to be a Mandalorian instead. In the absence of a summons from the Jedi to return Grogu, Din has been bringing the kid along with him on his travels, and they’ve fallen right back into their old routine: falling asleep together in the cockpit of the N-1, exploring new planets across the Outer Rim, Din picking up enough bounties to put food on the table for both of them. They’re in much closer quarters now that the Razor Crest is gone and they have to squeeze themselves into the compact N-1, but Din has found that he doesn’t mind the closeness. He’s missed Grogu, and the simple joy of having the kid snuggled up against his chest as they fall asleep is one of his favourite feelings in the world.
He doesn’t know what they are to each other, now that his quest is complete but Grogu seems intent on staying with him. By Creed, he ceased to be Grogu’s guardian when the Jedi took him, but Grogu is still a Mandalorian foundling nonetheless. Is it against the Creed for Grogu to be in his charge once again, and for Din to train him in the ways of the Mandalore? Din has spent many nights lying awake trying to think of a reason why it would be, and has always come up empty. That’s why he’s here with Grogu on the surface of Mandalore, to be purified in the Living Waters. He can’t raise Grogu as a Mandalorian if he isn’t one himself—that much is certain.
He watches Grogu let out a wet burp, and wipe his mouth with the back of one tiny hand. “Good?” he asks. Grogu nods earnestly.
Din feels himself smile underneath his helmet. Maybe when this is all over, when he’s been redeemed in the eyes of the Creed and can start training Grogu as a Mandalorian, he’ll make some time to pick up a few traditional recipes to fill the kid’s bottomless stomach. To give the kid a true Mandalorian upbringing, a place where he can belong.
Grogu deserves that much.
The days that follow the reconquest of Mandalore are peaceful ones.
He and Grogu stay on Mandalore with the other tribes for a little while, helping to establish a permanent encampment in Sundari that will become the foundation of a new capital city. They spend their days scouring the planet for other pockets of survivors, eliminating Alamite infestations within the city limits and rebuilding parts of the Great Forge, where one day the holy flames will rise again.
Din makes it a point to help out in the field kitchens at least once a day, learning how to make enough spicy red tiingilar and sticky uj cake to feed a hundred warriors at once. He leaves Grogu with the other foundlings, who are more than happy to play hide-and-seek with him while Din works.
He’s glad Grogu is fitting in, that he’s happy here. But for the first time in a long time, he finds that he wants more for them. He wants them to be something permanent—more than a protector and his charge, more even than a teacher and his apprentice. He remembers being unsure of what they were to each other when Grogu first wandered back into his life, but now he’s as certain of the answer as he can be.
In the end, what he really wants is simple. He wants Grogu to be his son, and he wants to be Grogu’s father.
And he wants something else, too: a place where they can be alone, where he can cook hot meals for Grogu and chase him around the yard and teach him how to fix up the N-1. Somewhere they can go back to between jobs, somewhere he can fall asleep on a real bed and have Grogu curl up in the crook of his arm. Somewhere just for the two of them.
He puts in a holocall to Greef to enquire about that tract of land on Nevarro near the lava flats, and Greef promises to take care of it. “No better place for a child to grow up,” Greef says, and it might just be his usual High Magistrate blustering, but somehow, Din finds that he believes him. He believes that Nevarro can be a place for him and Grogu to call home.
But first, one last thing. He stands at the mouth of the Living Waters, feeling the weight of Grogu’s gaze on him, and says, I will adopt him as my own.
The thing is, he’s spent so long thinking of Grogu as not his that it hadn’t occurred to him that things could be different—or maybe, in the back of his mind, he’s been thinking of Grogu as his for long enough that he’d simply neglected to make things official. The moment he says the words, he feels as if something has slotted perfectly into place, like the world has spun on its axis and become whole again. He should have done this a long time ago.
Grogu can barely contain his happiness as they celebrate that night with a plate of warm cassius tea cookies, fresh from the communal ovens. Din has put a lot of effort into mastering this particular recipe, knowing how much of a sweet tooth Grogu—his son—has, and it’s nothing short of a miracle to see him scarfing down half the plate with unchecked enthusiasm, getting crumbs all over his robe and Din’s flight suit in the process.
Just this once, Din decides to indulge him. It’s a special occasion, after all.
Before long, Grogu is all tuckered out, and he yawns and curls up in Din’s lap, one tiny green hand curled around Din’s thumb. Din watches him sleep, listens to the steady rhythm of his baby breaths. We should all be so lucky, he muses to himself. Somehow, deep in his heart, he knows that raising Grogu will be the greatest privilege of his life.
Eventually, they make it back to Nevarro, where—as promised—Greef presents him with the deed to a cabin in the outskirts, free from the hustle and bustle of the city but close enough for frequent grocery runs and visits to the Office of the Magistrate. The first time Din lands the N-1 next to the small, unassuming cabin that will become their permanent home, Grogu pushes himself up onto Din’s lap to peer out of the canopy, ears twitching with curiosity.
“Mweh?”
“This is our new home,” Din tells him, unable to keep some of the pride he feels from colouring his voice. “We’re going to live here from now on, between missions. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Grogu makes a high, exuberant noise that Din chooses to interpret as a Yes.
They get out of the ship, Din carrying Grogu securely in the crook of his left arm, and survey the area. Plenty of room to park a ship (or two, if Peli ever gets another lead on a new Razor Crest). A tree with a pond right outside their front door, close enough that Din can sit on the porch and watch Grogu play. A hitching post where he can build a pen to house a couple of blurrgs, if he so desires. And enough empty space to plant that vegetables garden he spent the whole journey back to Nevarro thinking about, one where they can grow their own Mandalorian red gourds now that they’ve settled so far from the marketplaces of Sundari.
He’s surprised to find the inside of the house already furnished—another indicator of High Magistrate Karga’s tendency to go the extra mile. He sets Grogu on the floor and lets him have the run of the place, his little feet making pitter-patter sounds as he explores the sleeping area (two beds, one human-sized, one Grogu-sized), the living area (a table and a few chairs, plus a cabinet with room for more storage) and the kitchen (surprisingly well-equipped for its size).
It’s not much, but it’s home. Their home. They have all the time in the world to make it so.
“What do you think, buddy?” he asks Grogu. Grogu beams at him in response, his breaths quickening as the exertion catches up to him. Din chuckles, then picks him up again and places him in the high chair at the table. “How about dinner?”
Grogu babbles excitedly, and Din takes that as a cue to open the kitchen cabinets, which—as expected—are already stocked with a variety of canned goods and condiments. For their first night at home, though, he wants to do something special. He pauses, then slowly retrieves the can of pog soup he’s been keeping hidden in his utility belt, swiped from the field kitchens back on Mandalore.
He holds up the can in front of Grogu and shakes it a little. “Let’s start with something simple.”
“Bah,” Grogu says in agreement, thumping his hands on his tray table as if to say, Get on with it already.
Din immediately sets about turning on the stove and emptying the can into a shiny new pot he finds in the big cabinet. Of all the traditional recipes he’s been learning in the field kitchens, this is the one he’s most invested in getting right. A little water, but not too much. Some salt to taste, but just a pinch. Stir until creamy and smooth, then serve. He remembers it all, performing each step as precisely as possible, but still somehow nervous about the end result. Will Grogu like it this way? Nothing to it but to find out.
He turns off the stove, grabs two bowls and ladles some soup into each, then sets the smaller green bowl in front of Grogu. “Here you go, kiddo,” he says, handing his son a small wooden spoon clearly specially made for his size. Greef really did think of everything.
Grogu looks down at the soup, then back up at Din, and an odd look passes over his face. “Boo-wah,” Grogu says, placing both hands on his face.
This throws Din for a loop. He’s gotten pretty good at interpreting Grogu’s non-verbal communication, but he can’t for the life of him figure out what Grogu is trying to say. “Are you feeling okay? You feel like throwing up again?” he ventures. Should he be worried?
Grogu shakes his head. “Boo-wah,” he repeats, more insistently this time. Then he climbs out of his high chair, almost tipping over the bowl of soup in the process, and Din has to pick him up before he makes a mess. “Mmmm,” Grogu whines, little feet flailing in the air.
“What is it?” Din tries again.
Grogu reaches both hands out, placing them on his helmet, and tugs gently. “Bwah,” Grogu says, and now Din thinks he understands.
Helmet off. In thirty years of being sworn to the Creed, he’s never even contemplated the possibility—except when it comes to Grogu. He’s already done it twice for Grogu, been branded an apostate for it, and yet somehow, Din would do it again in a heartbeat if it meant keeping his son safe. He supposes this is the burden of all parents. Love takes precedence over belief.
He remembers talking to the Armourer, right before he and Grogu left Mandalore for Nevarro. Seeking her guidance on how to be the best possible teacher to Grogu, to teach his apprentice the Way just as his teacher did for him. The child walks two worlds, she had mused cryptically. You cannot teach him the same way you were taught. Perhaps the Way must change.
I thought there was only one Way, he remembers replying. The Way of the Mandalore.
You will find, Din Djarin, that the universe is rarely so absolute, she had told him. The tribes are united once again. Perhaps what we understand to be the Way will mean different things to different people.
Grogu is still staring up at him with those huge, pleading eyes. It’s different now, he realises. He and Grogu are officially a clan. Father and son. No sense in hiding from the one person in the galaxy he cares most about.
No time like the present to change.
Perhaps the Way must change.
Slowly, tentatively, he places both hands on his helmet and pulls. There’s a hiss, and then his helmet is off completely, the warmth of the cabin brushing against his bare skin. It’s an odd feeling. A new feeling, but not a bad one.
He looks back at Grogu. Grogu’s expression is, for once, unreadable, as he studies his father’s face with a look of sheer concentration Din’s not sure he’s ever seen. Then Grogu smiles, a wide, toothy smile that betrays all of his excitement all at once. “Bah,” Grogu says, and dissolves into a fit of giggles, patting his hands all over Din’s cheeks.
“Okay, okay,” Din chuckles, placing Grogu back in his high chair. “Back to dinner. You don’t want it to get cold.”
Grogu picks up his spoon and sticks it into the bowl. “Blow on it first, to make sure it’s not too hot,” Din instructs him. “Like this.” He leans closer and blows gently on the spoonful of orange-yellow soup, and Grogu does the same.
“Try it,” Din encourages him. Grogu puts the spoon in his mouth, and for a split second, time seems to stand still. He watches tensely as Grogu swallows.
“Good?” he asks. Grogu answers almost immediately, letting out a satisfied coo that fills Din’s heart with warmth.
“Better than Bo-Katan’s?” he tries, just for good measure. Grogu seems to ponder the question quite seriously, before looking Din straight in the eye and shaking his head.
Din can’t help it—a burst of laughter escapes him, and Grogu joins in with a high-pitched squeal of his own, banging the end of his spoon against the table. Din ladles a bowl of soup for himself and joins Grogu at the table, relishing the opportunity to drink soup with a spoon instead of having to down it underneath his helmet. He hopes he’ll have many more opportunities like this, for as long as they live in this house.
“I’ll make it better next time. You just watch,” he tells Grogu fondly.
Grogu blows a raspberry, and laughs before tucking into the rest of his meal.
In time, Din comes to understand that home is not a place, but a feeling.
Sure, the place itself starts to feel more homely. They fill the drawers with spare outfits and the tall cabinet with a new weapons collection, including a dart launcher gifted to Grogu by the Armourer when they next visit Mandalore. Their kitchen shelves fill up with fresh meat and vegetables from the town market. They finally get around to building that vegetable garden on a small plot next to the house, and he teaches Grogu how to plant red gourd seeds in the fertile volcanic soil.
But home is not just the bounds of their land and cabin. Home is the sound of his son’s steady baby breaths as they curl up next to each other at night, the kid sleeping more peacefully than Din has ever seen him. Home is the look of pure, unbridled joy in Grogu’s eyes as he levitates a frog out of the pond outside their house, Din watching from a distance, always in awe of his son’s abilities. Home is the smell of Grogu’s favourite spicy red tiingilar brewing on the stove, filling the whole house with a heavenly aroma.
It’s three years to the day Din found him on Arvala-7—the day they’ve come to commemorate as Grogu’s birthday. Gifts have been pouring in from all their friends across the galaxy, mostly consisting of enough new toys to make Grogu shriek with excitement. Still, Din has decided that the birthday boy deserves an even bigger treat—not least because it’s also his first birthday since that nasty business with the Twins on Nal Hutta. He wants this to be special for Grogu, to give him a memory he can look back on with fondness.
That’s part of why he’s allowing Grogu to help him make a big pot of tiingilar, even though Grogu’s skill at cooking is practically non-existent compared to his powers in the Force (or his growing skill with his dart launcher after many months of practice). “Don’t spill,” Din tells him as he toddles over to the edge of the kitchen counter to pick up a can of ground orange peppers. Grogu blows a raspberry and hands him the can, which Din gives a few good shakes over the pot of bubbling stew.
“Mweh?” Grogu asks. Din shakes his head. “Not yet. We still have to add the vegetables.”
He’s heartened when Grogu takes the initiative to grab some of the chopped kajaka root—grown in their own backyard—out of the bowl on the counter, before looking to Din for further instructions. “Okay, add it in,” Din smiles, and Grogu huffs with excitement before sprinkling the pieces into the pot.
It was strange at first, taking his helmet off around Grogu at home and suddenly having to contend with the fact that the kid could see every expression on his face. Now, he looks forward to these rare moments where he can relax in his own home with his son, stripped of all his armour—both literal and metaphorical. He knows that Grogu has welcomed the change too, judging from the way he always perks his ears up in anticipation when they get home after a long journey and Din shuts the door behind them.
Din knows better than most that the life of a bounty hunter is riddled with uncertainty. Nothing in this line of work is guaranteed. Everything is temporary. He used to think he was never one for permanence, but this—building a home on Nevarro for himself and his son is the most permanent thing he’s ever done. Maybe the best thing he’s ever done.
He lets Grogu shake a little bit of salt into the stew—guiding his son’s tiny yet unsteady hands as he does—before closing the lid on the pot. “Now we let it simmer for a little while,” he tells Grogu, who nods in understanding. “Want to help me set the table?”
Grogu chirps, and Din opens one of the kitchen cabinets and grabs Grogu’s favourite green bowl—the one from which he drank that very first serving of pog soup, the first night they spent in this house. Instead of taking it, Grogu raises a hand and levitates it up onto the tray table in his high chair, the way he’s been practising for weeks now.
“Good job, buddy,” Din praises. Grogu grins, and does the same with the rest of their dishes and cutlery.
He places Grogu in the high chair and uncovers the pot, then ladles some stew into both of their bowls. “Tell me if it’s too spicy,” he says as he places Grogu’s bowl in front of him, but Grogu merely blows a raspberry, as if to say, As if. For such a small being, Grogu has a surprisingly high tolerance for spicy food, but Din supposes it’s to be expected given that he’s personally witnessed Grogu’s iron stomach digest swamp scorpions with no ill effects.
They sit down for a hearty meal, the sound of Grogu’s slurping assuring Din that he is very much enjoying his special birthday stew. “Go slow,” he says automatically, but as usual, Grogu ignores him in favour of putting his spoon down and holding the entire bowl up to his lips. Din sighs. He should really start working on Grogu’s table manners—but that can wait for tomorrow. Today is all about celebration.
When they’re finished, Grogu lets out a long, wet burp, and slumps back in his high chair, patting his own stomach. Din chuckles. “Hope you saved some room for dessert, buddy.”
“Bwah,” Grogu affirms.
Din pulls out a brand-new box of Grogu’s favourite blue cookies from its hiding place underneath the sink, and his son’s face immediately lights up, his ears furling in excitement. “Here you go,” Din says, handing him a sleeve of the cookies, and Grogu wastes no time in ripping it open and stuffing one in his mouth, a contented smile spreading over his face.
While Grogu is occupied with those, Din slips over to the sleeping area and retrieves a wrapped package from underneath his bed. Grogu watches with interest as he returns and places the package on the table, then slides it towards Grogu.
“Bweh?” Grogu asks, confused.
“Go on. It’s for you,” Din tells him. “It’s a present.”
Grogu abandons the half-eaten sleeve of cookies and hops out of his high chair onto the table, clawing at the wrapping paper with a childlike curiosity. Din helps him tear it open to reveal a small black box. “Bah,” Grogu says, clearly disappointed.
Din chuckles. “Open it, buddy.”
In truth, he’s not sure if Grogu will like his gift. He’s had it tucked away in a hidden corner underneath his bed for some time, after it arrived on Nevarro about two weeks ago. I’m sure Grogu will appreciate it, the Armourer had assured him when he’d first holo-called her to make the request. He hopes she’s right.
Grogu carefully pries open the lid of the box to reveal a small durasteel charm in the shape of their mudhorn signet. “Boo-wah,” Grogu chirps in recognition, running his little fingers over the Armourer’s smooth handiwork.
“That’s right,” Din says. “It’s our signet. And this goes…”
He reaches two fingers into the front of Grogu’s robe, pulling out the mythosaur necklace he knows Grogu wears at all times. “Right here,” he finishes. He takes the mudhorn charm from Grogu’s hands and attaches it to the cord, hearing it clink softly against the mythosaur charm.
“This,” Din taps the mythosaur charm, “represents all Mandalorians. It’s a symbol of our people.”
“Bah,” Grogu replies.
Din taps the mudhorn charm. “And this represents you and me. Our clan.”
Grogu nods in understanding.
“I want you to have both,” Din continues, “so you always remember where you come from. We’re a clan, but we’re also part of a bigger whole. The Mandalorian creed. This way, no matter where you are in the galaxy, you’ll always be able to find your way home.”
His son burbles happily, and Din feels as if his heart might burst. Then Grogu is wrapping both arms around his neck, cooing softly like he always does when he wants to be cuddled.
Well. It’s the kid’s birthday. Din gathers Grogu up in both arms, hugging him close, running one hand over the small of his back. Grogu coos contentedly at his touch, burrowing deeper into his hold.
“Happy birthday, Grogu,” Din whispers into his ear. “I love you.”