Chapter Text
It had been exactly 3 days since the Mandalorian had saved your life. It was an accident, really. He was on a regular hunt, tracking down a bounty who had ‘accidentally’ forgotten to pay someone a pretty significant amount of money. You weren’t very clear on the details.
In the process he had found you, unconscious in the back room of the cantina he was searching for his target in. Unbeknownst to you, at that time, you’d been drugged by one of the bartenders and stuffed into a back closet until he decided it was time to collect his prize.
Mando, the unexpected softy, punched a stimshot into your left leg and you woke suddenly, face to face with cold beskar and a gentle hand against your cheek. You were afraid at first, who wouldn’t be? You didn’t know much about Mandalorians but you did know that most of them were bounty hunters and some of the most dangerous people in the entire galaxy. You immediately recoiled from him, pressing your back against the closest hard surface. You stared, uncertain and scared into the unreadable black bar where you assumed his eyes would be.
Before you could say anything though, he dropped his shoulder, letting his rifle fall into his hand before gently placing it on the floor.
“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” He said softly. His voice was strange, robotic because of the modulator built into his helmet. Underneath the static, you thought you could hear… tenderness? Almost as if he was as concerned about scaring you as you were scared.
“Do you remember how you got here?”
You were certain of it now, he was trying to be comforting, his voice solid, if barely above a whisper in the very quiet and low lit room. The juxtaposition of his voice and his countenance threw you for a loop.
“W-where exactly am I?” you asked, still reeling from the drugs now being broken down in your system.
“The cantina.” he said simply.
You stared, attempting and failing to process anything.
“Mos Eisley.” More concern seeming to edge into his voice.
You still couldn’t take it all in, the circumstances and your previous tipsiness as well as the expressionless man in front of you making you feel a little dizzy. Nauseous, even.
“I don’t…” Your vision blurred and you tried to clear your head, blinking slowly with heavy eyelids, your head tilting back and hitting the wall behind you. “I can’t… what’s… Who…?” Your adrenaline was wearing off, it was getting harder and harder to think. You tried to steady yourself, pushing up of the floor a little in an ill advised attempt to correct your position. Your hand slipped and you tumbled forward.
In a moment, he was on you. With one hand on your shoulder and one on your side as he steadied you, his grip loose but solid, a sort of supportive pressure that didn’t hurt but you knew wouldn’t budge until you were safe. The contact made you drop your guard, the soft rhythm of his breathing in your ear was pulling you in, lulling you into sleep. You were so tired. You didn’t want to fight anymore. As you let your eyes slip closed, the last thing you saw with the black T of the Mandalorian’s helmet.
The next few sights and sensations came in flashes, in and out of consciousness. Your remembered arms beneath you, a swaying motion that soothed you but irritated your aching head, the image of an old ship, a hard and rough excuse for a mattress contrasted against the softness of a pillow under your head.
The next thing you knew, your eyes were opening slowly, the sound of running water playing in the back of your mind before you brought yourself to full consciousness and realized that it was a shower. You were in a very small cabin with no floorspace, the room taken up by a small bed and some mesh hangings lining the walls. The room was clean, although you thought you could smell the scent of sweat on the sheets, not bad, just there, as though someone else was sharing the cot with you.
The shower outside the door of the cabin stopped, followed by the sound of wet feet padding softly across the floor. You heard the clinking of metal and the soft huff and shush of clothing as if someone was getting dressed.
Dread hit your stomach like a rock and you thought for a moment that you were going to vomit. It started coming back to you now, the cantina, the Mandalorian and his hands on you, the walk back to the ship in his arms that you remembered in bits and pieces. You were waking up in his bed, he was showering and you were waking up in his bed. You’d been drugged and he was showering and you were waking up in his bed.
Your heart pounded in your chest, all groggy tiredness forgotten as you now heard the sound of heavy boots clomping around outside the door. Should you scream? Should you call for help? Should you find something to use as a weapon?
Before you had the time to decide, the door whooshed open and the Mandalorian stood before you, his armoured shoulders taking up the entire doorway as your mind raced with options, all of them more improbable than the last, all underlaid with a jumble of jargon that you couldn’t shake. Bounty hunter. Deadliest individuals in the galaxy. Beskar. Murderer.
As your mind raced he moved to take a step forward, his posture shifting.
“Stop!” You shouted, scooting to the back of the bunk, hands up. You hadn’t realized yet that you’d started crying. “What do you want from me? Where am I?!” Your voice was rough, scratching at your throat, you’d never heard yourself like this before.
And there he stood, unmoving, unreadable.
“I’m not going to hurt you. Do you remember what happened?” he asked softly.
Hi voice was the same, coming back to you now from before. Static filled and almost gentle.
“What did you do to me?” you ask, your voice shaking as you pulled a blanket up to cover yourself.
His head tilted to the side ever so slightly. “I brought you from the cantina to my ship and put you to bed. You needed to sleep off whatever you were dosed with.”
Your felt yourself ball your fists tighter into the blank as more silent tears ran down your face.
“You were passed out in one of the back rooms of the cantina. I tried to wake you up, get you coherent, but you just needed sleep. The safest place at the time for that was in my ship. I promise you, nothing happened.” His voice was steady, almost matter of fact, a soothing deep and velvet sound that slowed your heart. If he was telling the truth… he’d saved you.
“Then why were you showering? Just now?” You asked, trying to pry and find the lie.
His head tilted to the side again and you heard him sigh, you almost thought you could hear an eye roll in there. “Do you know how hot it is under the armour on Tatooine? I needed a shower.” He deadpanned.
“Tatooine?” You repeated. Now you remembered… you’d come to look for work, running from the boredom of home.
“Do you not remember coming to Tatooine?” It was the first time you thought he sounded worried.
“No I… I do, it’s coming back to me now.” You thought for a moment. “I-I was in the cantina, asking about a job and the- the bartender offered me a drink…”
The Mandalorian let out a deep breath, bordering on a growl, as his shoulders tensed. “What did he look like?” He asked.
You cocked your head. “What?”
“The bartender.” He repeated. “What does he look like?” You couldn’t read anything in his voice anymore, his body had gone rigid, the body language you were relying on earlier as a way to read him was gone.
“Tall? Human, with a little scar on his chin I think… Why?”
“Don’t leave the ship.” And then he was gone.
Suddenly, you were alone, faced with the solitude of a foreign environment. It was so quiet you could hear your own breath, coming in more steadily now as you fought to calm down. The only other sound was the quiet whirring of the O2 scrubbers. You listened for a while, making sure he was gone before you made your way slowly to the edge of the bed. Your shoes touched the metal floor lightly as you lowered yourself off the cot, leaning forward to get a better view of the ships interior.
It was old, of that you were sure. It looked well lived in, put to use and rarely fully gone over with a good scrub. But you supposed it didn’t need to be, this stoic bounty hunter probably didn’t have many visitors.
You stood on shaky legs, taking hesitant steps forward. The interior was quite large once you looked at it properly, a ladder went up to what you assumed was the cockpit and there was webbing strung up out here like in the cabin, holding crates and other goods. There was still a slight dampness in the air from when the Mandalorian had showered.
You didn’t know how long you’d been out or how powerful the stimshot was but you were awake now, taking in every detail, wondering where the Mandalorian had gone and, strangely enough, hoping he would be back soon. His presence seemed to calm you, although you knew you shouldn’t trust anyone within minutes or hours of meeting them. But your body felt fine, you weren’t injured, you had been taken back to a ship and put to bed. He even closed the kriffing door to give you privacy.
You decided eventually to sit on the floor, legs crossed, back against the wall, staring at the entrance, and waiting for him to return.
You didn’t need to wait long, either. In less than half an hour the Mandalorian appeared, breathless and tense as the door slid open. He didn’t speak, staring at you through the safety of his helmet.
“What happened?” You asked, scared to hear the answer.
“He’s dead.”
“He’s… dead?” you asked. Receiving no response you pushed again. “And you… killed him?”
“Yes.” His voice was low again, gravely, and it was the first time that you wondered what the face under that helmet looked like.
The next few hours were long and boring. He’d told you to stay on the ship again and you honestly had no idea why you listened. It might have been your curiosity about the man, the way he’d touched your face in that small room, carried you to his ship, drugged and incapacitated and left you to sleep instead of taking advantage. Okay, wow, maybe the standards were a little low. But it was more than that. It was also the way he made you feel, you hardly knew the guy and here he was going out to kill assholes for you. Well, not explicitly for you. Maybe he just really hated scumbags. Or maybe it was his mission to rid the universe of dipshit guys who wanted to take advantage of women.
Whatever it was, you were curious and there was nothing keeping you on Tatooine. There was nothing keeping you anywhere. You’d wanted adventure and seemed to have gotten much more than you’d bargained for.
So you waited for him.
After the first few hours you decided to sleep again just to pass the time. The cot wasn’t particularly comfortable but something about the phantom presence in there soothed you and made you feel less alone.
When you woke, he still wasn’t back. Again you had no idea how long you’d slept but you thought it must be a while considering the rumble in your stomach and the dryness in your mouth. You decided if you were going to be stuck here you might as well put yourself to use and help out the guy that had potentially saved your life.
You spent a couple hours tidying the ship, organizing things, making the bed, snooping a little, finding piles of thick clothes that you assumed were the layers under the armour which you folded and tucked away again in their crates, washing the ones that you thought were dirty in the sink of the fresher and hanging them to dry. You tried your best to scrub the ship, polishing things that you thought deserved it, more out of boredom, eventually, than anything else.
Then, while you were twirling a small wrench between your fingers, sighing heavily, the door slid open. He was halfway into the ship before he stopped abruptly.
You looked up at him, almost scared of what he would think. Why were you so nervous?
“What did you do?” he asked.
“Do you like it?” You hoped he didn’t catch the slight tremble in your voice.
“You touched my things.” It wasn’t a question. He shifted his weight between he feet and looked around.
“I cleaned your things.” You corrected, a smirk twisting at your mouth. The more you heard him speak the less intimidating he was and you wanted to see what he would do if you teased him. “Well, sort of. I couldn’t really do your laundry because, as advised, I did not leave the ship, but, I washed some stuff in the fresher, I tidied up a bit and gave her a good scrub where she needed it. I’m not even going to ask why there was so much dried blood spread around this place.”
You expected him to answer once you’d finished but he just stood there, rigid. You wondered if he was trying to find a way to scold you without scaring you.
“It’s…” he looked around again, in the direction of the still drying clothes hanging on the mesh against the walls and the folded piled of clothes in the crates. “Thank you.” Was all he said.
You smiled in spite of yourself, maybe this guy was actually a softy. “You’re welcome.”
The silence spread out between you, growing uncomfortable. You broke eye contact with his helmet and stared at the floor for a few seconds. When you looked back up he was surveying the interior of the ship again.
“I should take you home.”
The statement broke the warmth that his thanks had put in your chest. Take you home? He kept you in his ship for Stars knew how long to just take you home? Just like that?
“What?”
“Where do you want me to take you?” You thought you heard a flicker in his voice bellow the modulator.
“Nowhere.” You didn’t know what you expected he wanted but you certainly weren’t expecting him to kick you out after basically holding you hostage.
“Well I’m not letting you get off this ship in Mos Eisley, you clearly aren’t capable of taking care of yourself.”
You scoffed in indignation. “Well excuse me, Mando, but I don’t remember asking for your opinion. I’m fully capable of taking care of myself. I just didn’t expect a bar tender to drug me. How fucked up is that?”
“It’s thinking like that that makes me sure you can’t handle yourself in a place like this.” He crossed his arms.
Your cheeks burned with embarrassment. He was right, obviously. You had no idea how to deal with this world. Your planet, while still on the Outer Rim, was much quieter and much less dangerous. You decided to play his game.
“Well, I’m not interested in going home, so let me off here or your stuck with me.” You grinned at him, thinking you’d won.
He stood silently for a very long time before he let out a long sigh. “Fine, you said you wanted a job?”
“Yeah?” You weren’t sure if you liked where this was going.
“Work for me.”
And there it was. What could he possibly need you for? “What could you possibly need me for?”
He chuckled. The first honest to god emotion you’d been able to get out of him. He gestured around them. “Cleaning the ship, helping me out, for somewhere to stay and a chance to see some of the big unknown out there. I’m assuming that’s why you left home isn’t it?” He sounded like he could have been smiling.
“Sure, I guess.” Was all you could manage.
“There’s something else.” He stepped aside and tapped one of the controls on his forearm, a floating pram moving into view from behind him.
The pram slid open and you were met with the worlds biggest green ears and cutest big brown eyes. You couldn’t help the giggle that escaped you as you stood and reached for the child.
“I could use some help with this little guy.”
“He’s the cutest little guy I’ve ever seen!” You picked him up as he reached for you, touching a small clawed hand to your face. “What is he?” you giggled. The kid made an adorable little sound and tilted his head to the side, ears canting with it. Your heart swelled.
“I don’t know what he is. But he’s in my care and I can’t always keep an eye on him.” You thought you could hear the soft care in his voice as he spoke of the kid.
“I guess it’s kinda hard to do when you’re out killing people.” You teased.
“I don’t just kill people.” He said, open exasperation in his voice. With every interaction he was easing up and you liked it.
You fixed him with a stare and raised an eye brow.
“Pretty much.” He concede. “Mostly I capture people, put them in carbonite, and the client gets to decided whether they live or die.”
“So you are a bounty hunter.”
He nodded.
“I’ve never met a bounty hunter before.” You wondered absentmindedly how many people this man had killed. The thought made a shiver run up your back. “And you trust me to take care of him?” You asked. “You’ve never even met me before. Not that I’m trying to talk myself out a job but it kind of makes me question your parenting skills a little.”
He huffed what you thought might have been a small laugh. “I have good instincts.”
And that’s how you found yourself still on the ship, three days later, with a job, a kid, and a Mandalorian who’s name you didn’t even know. When you’d asked for his name he’d told you just to call him Mando. You didn’t love how impersonal it was but, considering you’d never met another Mandalorian, it seemed to suit him.