Chapter Text

“Head on over to bay three-five.”

The transmission on the radio echoes out, and Mando gives a curt response through the radio as he starts the descent into Tatooine. He lets the kid flip some of the switches on the board, pointing to each one that needs to be off before they land in an all-too-familiar hanger. His kid starts cooing at the opportunity, his eyes twinkling at the blinking lights and blips as his clawed fingers reach for the panel. He’s more obedient this morning, and actually listening to Mando’s instructions, instead of following his toddler instincts. Once the console is set, he sets the kid back in the pram. The whining is immediate. 

“You’ve had your fun,” Mando tells him. “C’mon, we’re not staying in this place for too long.”

As the Razor Crest lowers into the hanger, he can see the curly-haired proprietor from the dashboard, who watches his ship with the eyes of a felucia bird. Once they settle on the ground, he can see the droids start to gather their tools. He sighs, and starts to head to the ramp, the kid’s pram following a safe distance behind him. The second his boots touch the ramp, a whirl of mechanics and rust starts to approach him.

“Knock it off, ya tin cans!” the proprietor’s shrill voice cuts through the air. The things scatter off, their tools falling in their scurry as they take shelter behind the crates that are littered around the hanger and peer at him from the sides. She approaches him, arms crossed, and face contorted. “Back so soon to make trouble? Y’know, it was a lot harder getting rid of that body than one would think!” 

He steps to the side to show the pram following a little ways behind, and the kid waves at her from inside his nest of blankets. She gasps and immediately rushes over to fetch him from the comfort of his bed–and, Maker, for a split-second, he’s worried about the kid getting vertigo from how fast she does it–and tuck the kid in her arms.

“Well, look who it is!” Her tone lilts in an off-key sing-song voice. “Did you miss me, Bright Eyes?”

“Can you take care of him for a while?” he asks, straight to the point. Better now to ask when the kid is buttering her up. Though, the some-toothed grin the kid gives her is only enough to take the edge off the glare she throws Mando’s way.

“Y’know, the last time I took care of this one,”–her tone shifts in a split-second as she coos and cradles the kid closer– “it nearly ended with a blaster through my head. What makes you think that I’m going to be okay with it again?” 

“I’ve got a bounty to pick up and drop off here,” he says. Her eyebrows raise in suspicion but also seem to curb her initial frustration. “It’ll take less than a day. It’s a spice tweaker.” 

Her shoulders sag. She rolls her eyes and continues to rock the toddler in her arms, the kid’s peal of giggling filling the air as he’s bounced back and forth. “As if Tatooine doesn’t have enough issues. Fine, but when the time comes to pay, y’better not skimp on price. And, for another thing, y’better come on time too. Last thing I need is another sad excuse, wannabe bounty hunter body to get rid of.”

☼

The bounty’s tracks lead him further from Mos Eisley than he anticipated. Hunts like this, with targets with addled minds, tend to stay closer to people, closer to areas where they can get their fix. The buildings become more and more sparse, the spaces between each start to widen. There are some families continuing on with their lives, stealing glances at him, or rather, stealing glances at the beskar armor that the light glints off of. There are children that roam the streets as well, probably without a school to go to in a place like Mos Eisley. 

He’s reminded of Nevarro. Past the heart of the city, even past the trenches of the sewers where his cover is–was–hidden, Nevarro becomes just as empty as the outskirts of Tatooine cities. The vastness is always a comfort to him. It’s quiet, a place to think. Even here, with its two blazing suns that bakes him inside his armor, it’s something he takes solace in. 

The steps on his tracker continue to glow on his radar. The bounty is always uneven, uneasy, and leaves his tracks in complete and utter disarray. The amount of people around Mando continues to thin, and soon there’s only one or two buildings that are in the area. As his visor starts to reset a scan, he notices two younglings enter his peripheral view, two Jawas trailing behind them, as they slow to a stop in front of him. 

The children look up at him, their eyes filled with more curiosity than fear. They’re small, young. Their big eyes are quiet, observing, and remind him of the kid. If the kid was a common species–something that isn’t a babbling toddler at fifty years old–Mando thinks that the little womp rat would be the same age as the two in front of him. Maybe a bit younger. One of them moves closer, a grin spreading across her face as her brown skin glows in the sunlight. 

She glances at the child beside her and calls out, “Skrif! Issa one of those soldier things!” 

The other one bobs their head, and signs in Tusken. Mandalorian.

“Yeah, one of those!” she affirms proudly. She copies the sign and then looks up Mando again. “Bye!”

The skirt off to each side, the Jawas copying their movements, and run off. He stands still for a moment, processes the absolute whirlwind that just brushed past, and collects his thoughts. The kid isn’t much different, he guesses. The Child has recently decided that he feels comfortable enough to babble nonstop around him, and will do it often, but especially when Mando has collapsed on his cot for the night. He doesn’t know if the kid does it out of spite, but every night is filled with endless gibberish chat from the sling that hangs above him.

He takes the detour in stride. The visor completes and sets a latest path of his bounty, and the beeping of the tracker starts to echo in his pocket. The red markings lead to a singular house further down right beside a Jawas’ marketplace. The hooded creatures are set up in what seems to be a semi-permanent settlement, and there’s no sight of a Sandcrawler nearby. They pay him no mind until he steps closer to the house. They snap into high alert, and a gaggle of them start to flood the side with an open window. One uses another as a stepstool, and then it starts to howl like an alarm. Utinni! Utinni! The voice is annoying, frantic, and he starts to wonder if the bounty pays the Jawa for a personal surveillance system. Before he reaches the threshold, he sees you rush outside.

“What are you guys doing?” you ask them. You dust your hands off on the apron that tied taut around your waist, chalking a few white handprints on the fabric before you poise them at your hips. “The door is right there, you can just come in.” 

The group of them start to clamor all at once, waving their arms and pointing fingers in Mando’s direction. You cant your head to the side, confused, before you follow their wild motions. You aren’t the bounty. Nothing on your features indicate that you may be related to the person either. But, the last traces of the bounty lead to you, the footsteps stopping directly at your front door. You meet his gaze.

“Good morning,” you greet. You don’t move from your spot, and your eyes rest on the different weapons that are strapped to his body. Despite the obvious apprehension, you regard him with an unwavering politeness. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“I’m looking for someone,” he says vaguely. 

The Jawas continue their noise, and he swears he hears some of them cursing at him, calling him names that he remembers from his time in Arvala-7, when the sand rodents stole from him, ripping his ship for every wiring and metal scrap that they could. He wonders how far the network of the things go. You start to turn on your heel, and then motion for him to head inside.

“Please, come in then,” you say. You spare one last look at the Jawas, press a finger to your lips as if to shush them, but they only continue to wail and whine in complaint. “I won’t be able to hear you much with them.”

As he steps inside, the immediate smell of sun and sand becomes a distant memory as the smells of Ithroian saffron, blackhole pepper, and tigmary start to waft from underneath his helmet. Tatooine, a dried planet that permeates with the stench of oil and metal seems a world away. The space inside is tight–cozy, he supposes is the polite term–and filled with shelves and baskets of children’s books and toys. Despite the blazing heat outside, and even the slight simmer that lingers in the house, it reminds him of Sorgan. A home. A rare thing–a rare, soft thing–to find amongst the Tatooine sands.

He is lost for all of two seconds until the sound of Jawas echoes and bounces off the stone walls. They have piled high against the open window, and continue to hurl expletives at him. His fingers twitch. He’s half-ready to aim a blaster at one of them when you walk to the window and draw the curtains shut on their peering, hooded faces.

“Enough!” The whining outside continues, muffled by the thick drapes, but it starts to die down as the Jawas seem to turn their attention elsewhere. When it quiets down, you turn to him with an apologetic smile. “Sorry. They can be… a lot.

“You said that you’re looking for someone,” you say as you head to the kitchen counter. You clean the area, station your body close enough to a cleaver that’s aside next to the sink. Your body is stiff, but your hands have a slight tremor to them. His radar picks up on your elevated heart rate, and the curves of your body radiate orange and red with the raise in body temperature. As you speak, the unease in your tone is undeniable. “I don’t know if I’ll be of much help, though. In the meantime, would you like something to drink?”

He pointedly ignores the offer, and keeps quiet until he gets the puck from his satchel. He slides it onto the table, the metal scraping against the cool stone surface, and the holographic picture flickers into the air. The image rates, and the red light of the letters dust across your cheeks, and your lips purse into a tight, thoughtful line. Everything about you is a giveaway. The slight rise and fall of your chest, how you bite into the corner of your plush lip. You know the quarry. He readies himself to deflect any verbal defenses, to press further at any bit of subterfuge.

“Yes, I know him,” you say simply. “He’s a neighbor, of sorts.”

You make a vague motion towards the right side of the house. “He’s just a little ways down.”

That was much simpler than expected.

“I’ll go with you,” you tell him. “I want to say goodbye to him.”

It’s more of a statement than a request, and he watches as you untie the apron around your waist and leave it on the countertop before retrieving a small set of keys from a drawer. You take nothing else with you–no weapons, no items that may help the bounty escape. He trails behind at a distance, but feels no need to be too alert, given everything he has observed thus far. You carry yourself well enough, a strong aura enough to ward off most, and your hands, as small and delicate as they may seem, appear strong enough. He can tell all of it is a front. Your steps are too close together, nothing indicative of a fighter, or of someone who can put up a proper fight against him. The roughness on your hands is from work, lack of moisture, nothing more. 

He thinks that your features, as soft and pretty as they are, are unfit for Tatooine. 

As he follows, he notices that two Jawas start to rush from the marketplace straight to your side, their weapons gripped tight in their gloved hands. They flock protectively in front of you, shoot him a look of what he can only assume is full of spite at him, and continue to jibber in their nasally, high-pitched voices. His body pulses from the memory of his last ionization shot, and he keeps a hand poised on his blaster. 

“Oh, stop,” you say. At first, he thinks it’s directed at him, but then sees the Jawas are the ones that recoil, affronted. “He’s done nothing. He’s going to pick up Colgia and then he’s off.”

Manee fani! One of them pulls out a letter from–Mando isn’t quite sure, to be honest, as it feels like he blinked and the letter just materialized in their hand–and waves the envelope around. As you take the letter, you thank them, then tell them that they’re allowed to “get some things from the greenhouse,” and then shoo them off.  The two giggle, their nasal pitches muffled by the layers of their cloak, and flit off, but not without hurling a few more choice words at Mando. 

☼

The outside of the house is dilapidated. What should be a stark white exterior, bleached from the suns’ rays, is riddled with what seems to be soot, blaster shots, and amongst other extremities caused by more than just simple wear and tear. The front door is open slightly, and the smell that slips past the small crack is faint but pungent. It’s familiar, this sickly sweet smell, and he can discern what it is immediately. He puts an arm out in front of you when you start to move closer to the door. As you look up at him, he gives a slight nod towards the house, and starts to push past the steel-plated entrance.

“I’ll go in,” he says. “Wait out here.”

“No,” you refuse. He remains still, unwavering in his conviction to move, even as you look as though you’re willing to push past him and the few pounds of beskar and artillery on him. “He may not have made the best choices, but Colgia made sure my kids were safe whenever they were out. Let me say goodbye.”

“I’ll bring him outside,” he says. He decides not to mention the “If He’s Alive” addendum.

He watches for a few seconds, keeping your gaze, as you seem to debate whether or not to go in spite of his presence. You chew the corner of your lip, and furrow your brows as an array of emotions splay across your features. The answer then seems to suffice. You hesitate, then step away from him with a simple nod. 

Inside the house is just as terrible as the outside, if not worse. He scans the walls, hand ready at the blaster, as the diagnostics continue to run through his visor. Traces of Sansanna spice are embedded into the walls, the fumes from whenever the bounty was tweaking, stuck to the stone as permanent splotches of discoloration. He shuffles through the mounds of trash that is scattered on the ground, and the red steps start to blink onto his vision. The traces of the bounty are mapped in erratic movements across the floor, and all lead to the one bedroom in the household.

He draws his blaster. Though, something sits in the pit of his gut that tells him that it won’t be needed. The sickeningly sweet smell begins to permeate through his helmet even more, a nauseating stench that twists Mando’s stomach, sends him to a time when he was a youngling. The suffocating smoke, the metallic taste of iron, the sound of blasters. He shakes his head. Bounty. Credits. Kid. He turns the knob, and hears the sound of empty cans and vials roll against the ground as the bottom of the doorway swings open to show his bounty.

His dead bounty.

“Dank farrik,” he mutters.

He reaches over to the body and gives it a slight shove as his visor tries to pick up on any signs of vitals. The body is rigid. He starts a comm with the contact for the bounty with the burner holotransmitter he was provided when he first accepted the mission, and waits until the holo flickers on. A grainy image of a Twi’lek woman settles into the air, her arms poised and taut behind her back.

“Mandalorian,” she regards him. Her head cranes to the side, as if she can see the corpse behind him. “I assume the bounty is dead.”

“Yes.”

The person on the line pinches the bridge of her nose. He thinks, for a second, that he should be the one that’s annoyed–he’s the one that loses out on the pay. He stays silent. After a few seconds of the static of the holovid increasing as the weak signal starts to affect the transmission, the woman straightens herself out.

“The bounty was our only link to the spice trade,” she explains. He didn’t ask–didn’t care to ask, honestly. “This is beyond the scope of our agreement.”

He frowns. His body stiffens, prepares for the words “our terms of our contract has been breached” and “perhaps another job will pop up,” and starts listing off different ways he can pay for the wasted fuel, for another week of rations, and for the hanger proprietor and her hour of childcare. The latter, he suspects, will be a thievery in itself. The kid alone, for Maker’s sake, eats through credits with how many rations the little womp rat shovels into his mouth each day.

“However,” she adds, “we, ourselves, are an odd organization, and act beyond the scope of a typical guild mission. Go through Colgia Deecru’s belongings. There might be some letters or traces of evidence. You will be compensated both for your travel from the original contact point from Naboo to Tatooine, as well as any information that is collected. Send your coordinates, and I will meet you there.”

“Understood.”

“Lovely. You have three hours, Mandalorian.”

The transmission cuts out, her image shutting off with a simple blink, and he heaves a sigh, one that has built up throughout the entirety of this bounty. Still, he has little to complain about. This contractor has been generous with pay and, if he cared enough to research more, he would have garnered a guess that their grassroots organization started somewhere from the Middle Rim. Credits are credits.

He decides to start at the front of the house, and leaves the bounty in the bedroom. As he sends the coordinates through the burner, his radar tracks a slight movement from the doorway. His muscles tense reflexively. He catches a glimpse of a skirt, the hem dusting against the sands beneath it, and he allows himself to ease. 

“You’re clear to come in,” he tells you as he tucks the comm back into his satchel.

You peer in cautiously, as if any sudden movements will have him pointing a blaster in your direction. He wonders how long a person, with such wide ash-rabbit eyes like yours, is able to survive on Tatooine. It’s endearing, he supposes, but endearing can get a person chained and sent to the hands of a slaver. He waits, scans the room. When you deem the space safe, you walk in, an open letter clutched tight in your hands, and you steal a glance to the bedroom door he closed earlier. You stare at him with those same ash-rabbit eyes.

“He’s dead,” he reports.

He doesn’t wait for you to ask. He’s never had a gentle hand for breaking news. Hell, he’s pretty sure that just the other day, he broke the kid’s heart, or whatever is lodged in that small chest cavity of his. The green furball was looking through a children’s book of Tatooine, one that the proprietor left on the Razor Crest’s dashboard panel on their last visit to Tatooine. Some author in the galaxy had a sick sense of humor to make a picture book about a dried-up planet teeming with bandits and outlaws from every corner of space. When the kid asked Mando to read the story to him, the kid babbled and pointed to everything he saw. The drawings were colorful, bright. The tall buildings were Krayt dragon pearl white, and surrounded by the vast Dune Sea, and proud warriors and civilians were across the landscape. The kid cooed, the few teeth he had peeking through his little smile. 

“It doesn’t exist any more, kid,” Mando told him. The kid looked up at him from his lap, ears drooping low, as though he was insulted by the comment. “Kid, it was all sand the last time we went.”

The kid knocked the book out of his hands and refused to read any more bedtime stories with him.

However, unlike the kid, you seemed only slightly perturbed by the news, but the downturn of your ash-rabbit eyes are undeniable. You hold up the letter again, and give a slight nod to the fifth-degree droid parked outside, a wagon attached to it. Its top begins to rotate in jittery, staccato motions. 

“The Jawas sent it. The letter was a will,” you explain. You fold the paper and tuck it into your pockets. “They said that Colgia gave it to them last night to give to me.” 

“Why?” he asks.”

You shrug, keeping your eyes trained on the one room. “I guess he had no one else.”

“No, I mean, why do those things listen to you?” he clarified. The sand rodents seem more than happy to flock around you as though you’re one of them. 

“Oh, I’m, uh,” you stammer, “I’m not really sure.”

“You’re not… sure,” he repeats.

The silence sits stale in the air. You offer an apologetic smile. Your brows are furrowed, and the corner of your eyes are crinkled in amusement. It’s soft. You are soft. The thought unsettles something in him. He turns his head somewhere else, somewhere not soft, and starts investigating the area.

“Are you finished here?” you question. Again, soft . “What about your contract?”

“Parameters changed,” he says, and begins to move through the space.

He taps the side of his visor, allows the radar to scan the floors and walls for anything that may be of interest. Any last few footsteps, any traces of spice, or even steps that may not belong to the bounty. He feels your eyes on him. Then, there is the faint shuffling of heavy skirts, and you’re moving further into the house.

“He gave me permission to loot in the letter,” you say. He didn’t ask. “I’m going to get what I need. If I find anything that may be of interest, I’ll be sure to give it to you.”

You pass his right, head straight for the kitchen, and fling open the lower cupboard doors. Inside are vats of water. You lift one up, tuck it between your two arms, and keep an unsteady pace as you lug it to the droid outside. He watches, considers that he can spare a minute to stow two cases onto the wagon and then return to his mission. But, you meet his gaze, his staring, and then grin at him, like the kid does when he tries to climb up the ladder to his sling without help. 

He decides that, even if he offered, you’d deny his assistance.

☼

“Anything else?” you ask. 

“No,” he admits. He snaps another shot of what seems to be useful. Though, given his streak, probably not. He sends the data to the burner, and then spares a glance to the droid outside, its garbled voice box recordings echoing to no one in particular. “That thing actually going to explode?”

The droid–you call it the Patchwork Jawa–was somehow created by the Jawas, you explained to him between trips to the wagon and the now empty kitchen cupboards. The cloaked cretins managed to gather enough engineering skills to give the damned droid blaster capabilities and a chip with one vocal line that repeats “self-destruct activated” in staggering beats, as if each word was stolen from three different droids. They definitely were, you agreed. Because, apparently, this was the amalgamation of stolen parts from scrap heaps and trash bins. However, the mechanical nightmare works wonders on any passerbys. As if the sight of a Mandalorian wasn’t enough to have people running, the droid repeating empty threats of exploding was. Though, from his stolen glimpses between scans, he noticed that you were also enough to have the rare stranger running.

“Mm, no, I don’t think so,” you answer back. “The Jawas don’t like self-destruct features. I think they’re scared that the poor thing will gain sentience and realize that it has had enough of them.”

He chuckles. As soon as the sound leaves his mouth, he’s thankful for the voice coder embedded into the helmet, as it is unable to pick up on it. You hand him another stack of wrinkled slips of paper–receipts again–and continue to rifle through the rest of the drawers and shelves. He has told you, twice now, that this is his job, and that you needn’t bother with it. 

“I’m not going to ask for a share of your bounty,” you told him when you started to rifle through the drawers alongside him. You had sequestered yourself to far corners of the living spaces, careful of the piles of debris littering the floor. “But, I’m just going to ask if you could close the door when you’re done with Colgia’s body. With scanning it. Or, the room. Or him. When you’re done with him.” 

When he finishes the autopsy scan, he shuts the door as asked.

The two of you search for a little while longer, and the results remain the same. Paltry receipts, a few notes of chicken scratch, but nothing else of substance. It isn’t long before three hours passes, and the contact comes in. The Twi’lek woman comes in, regards the Patchwork Droid with concerned look, before pointedly ignoring it and stepping into the home, her crew trailing behind her. Just as the holovid, her figure is unwavering, carries a presence of authority. He pulls away from his scanning–though, there isn’t much left that hasn’t been recorded–and cants his head to the side as he waits for her to speak. 

“Mandalorian,” she greets. She turns to acknowledge you as well, her painted brows perfectly arched in intrigue. “What a surprise. I didn’t expect to see you here, Ms…?” 

You fill in the blank with your name. He makes note of it. Why? He isn't quite sure. In fact, he feels more sure that he’ll never see you again after this mission is complete. The contact makes a vague motion to the bedroom door, and asks if Colgia Deecru’s body is inside. He nods, and the crew behind her sets in motion their duty. The door swings open, and the stench billows into the room. Neither him nor the contact are affected as you. You bring up the collar of your blouse to your nose and turn away at the sight of the body being hauled out. 

“We’ll handle the remains,” the Twi’lek woman explains. “If you’d like to say goodbye, you can. We’ll cover Deecru’s face.” 

You excuse yourself. As you and the crew pass the threshold of the house, Mando hands the contact the small collection of notes, and the burner with the data stored on it. She gives the papers a quick shuffle, and flips through the images posted on the burner, a frown etched on her face.

“This is it, hm?” she asks. He nods, and she heaves a sigh. “It’ll have to do.” 

She tucks away all the items into a case, and locks it shut with a quick code. She digs through her pockets and hands him a small pouch, and the lightness of it is already concerning. He says nothing. Credits are better than no credits.

“Any other jobs you got?” he decides to ask. 

She shrugs. “Not really. Though, there is an interesting case in Tatooine. No bounty for it, however. A bandit–ex-bandit, I suppose–has found his way into the city. Has done major harm to people–pillaging, assault, everything–but it wasn’t enough to gather a bounty.”

“Why?” he asks. As lawless as Tatooine may be, there are still laws and regulations in place, especially if someone was out there harming civilians. 

She says simply, “Because he committed his crimes against the Sand People.” 

He doesn’t say a word. Though, an anger coils in the stomach–one that twists and bends, until he is able to swallow it down to a simple simmer. She keeps her eyes on him, as if waiting for a response. When she receives none, she starts to gather her items.

“There’s no bounty, however,” she says as she begins to head towards the door, “you’ll find that people may be more willing to pay for his, ah, disappearance, than a guild would.”

He sees you return to the entrance. He wonders for a moment how long you have been holding in a cry, for the corners of your eyes are red, and the skin around them is puffy. The Twi’lek woman allows you to step inside, and she looks over to him.

“Tatooine is a big, lawless place,” she says. “Anything could happen, after all.”

“Did I miss something?” you ask, unsure of what part of the conversation you walked into. 

“Arijake Poucstre,” the contact says simply. “Last spotted in Mos Eisley last night.”

Mando watches as your whole body stiffens. Again, the curves of your body flash an ombre of red and orange as your body temperature starts to rise, and your heart rate elevates. As you clench the sides of your skirt, you ask her, “With a bounty?”

“None.” Your fists tighten even more, and your body flashes red. “But, I was telling the Mandalorian that non-guild people would be more than happy to pay for his disappearance.”

The silence starts to stretch in the room. Unlike the easy quiet of the vast outside, or even the comfortable quiet when the two of you had been searching in the house for hours, this is one that pulses, tenses, and hitches its breath. The contact thanks Mando for his time. She presses a firm hand to your shoulder, gives a reassuring squeeze, and then walks off with her crew in tow. 

He starts to plan what to do next. The credits in the bag are too light, too meager. Two hundred can cover half a refuel and, if the proprietor was softened up enough by the kid’s big eyes and floppy ears, maybe he can get away without having to pay the babysitter fee. Unlikely. He thinks about rations, and what else him and the kid need to get to a guild that doesn’t know who they are.

“I have a job for you,” you blurt out, and it breaks him from his thoughts. “I can pay you too.”

He looks up from the small pouch of credits in his glove, and stares down at you. There’s this undeniable fire that lights your eyes as you press your lips together. The amount of certainty is mixed with an equal amount of anxiety. It’s confusing, contrasts. It’s something he avoids. Paradoxes mean unease, which means unclear, and unclear usually leads him to not getting paid, or worse. His mind traces back to the guild on Naboo. The contacts, just like the previous one, cared little for his history and had better, more secure forms of payment. He tucks the pouch into his satchel, and turns to properly deny this job, when he sees you looking up at him with those pleading ash-rabbit eyes.

“Please,” you urge him. And the voice is so sweet, so small, that he knows that he’ll be getting absolutely nothing from this.

He means to say no, suggest looking elsewhere, but what instead leaves him is, “All right.”