do you promise to play nice?

Huffing, you arch your back and stretch in the uncomfortable chair, then cross your arms and spread out across your desk, forehead nestled in your elbow. You blindly search and tap your datapad with a finger, turning off your work session. The holographic screen floating in front of you disappears, letting the golden glow of the library take over. 

Sunlight filters through the small rectangular windows on each side of the front door. It shines over the stony center pathway, lined by rows and rows of tall shelves. But the mid-afternoon rays aren’t long enough to reach your work station at the end of the main aisle, leaving you in the dim twinkle of the ceiling pot lights. Occasionally, the spines of the holobooks flicker, a brilliant electric blue.

Silence. You could count how many visitors you’ve had in the last week on your two hands. Hunters, soldiers, pilots, even plain old civilians… they don’t have the time or interest for research. No time for pleasure reading either—but does anyone? 

At least you have a job. One that revolves around archiving military reports, for the most part. 

Stationed in the heart of Nevarro City, the library was ordered and built in collaboration with the New Republic. In exchange for funding the collection of holobooks, you’re tasked with creating an archive on the New Republic’s business in the Outer Rim. 

Your datapad pings several times a day with messages from colonels and commanders at ranger outposts, passing along reports on missions, prisoners, and Imperial remnants. You store the information on a data stick in a private back office, away from public access. Once in a while, you also aid the closest neighbouring base on Adelphi by researching planets of interest and crime syndicates. 

There’s a handful of other repositories like yours; the New Republic established one in each galactic region, creating an expansive network of information. You share the filing duties remotely with other librarians, each constructing an archive on the Core Worlds, Inner Rim, Mid Rim, so on. The arrangement allows inactive records to be stored separately from ranger outposts, while providing a few lucky cities like yours with social development.

Still. The contract doesn’t make much of a difference with in-library patronage. The people who do come in are nine-times-out-of-ten looking for help with configuring their holoprojector so they can talk to their friends on some backwater planet you’ve never heard of. The other time, it’s someone convincing you the Death Star was a hoax and that Alderaan is going strong. 

Eyelids fluttering, fingers drumming, breathing slowing–

The rumble of a throat clearing snaps you out of your reverie.

“Librarian.”

Your palm slaps against the surface of your desk as you whip your head up, your wide eyes falling upon a stock-still, shiny wall of armour. One that you might’ve seen before, stalking through the market streets. Just never up close.

Swallowing, you straighten your back and fail to come up with a reason as to why you’d just been lazing about on your desk.

God, he’s tall. And broad. You might find him slightly more terrifying than you already do, if it wasn’t for the green baby.

The Mandalorian’s silver armour glints in the low light of the library as he shifts his weight onto one foot. A pair of enormous eyes watch you from over his shoulder, leathery ears flapping against his helmet. For a short, mortifying moment, you can see your face reflected in his chestplate, and what you find is a pretty dumb expression.

So, you stand from your chair and put on a smile.

“Hello,” you greet them both quietly, hiding the timid quiver of your vocal chords. “Can I help you find something?”

“Yes.” It’s one word and yet, devastatingly, it’s so raspy and deep and… The baby blinks at you as one of its claws reaches further up the Mandalorian’s pauldron, then its nail catches on the wooly cowl underneath, tugging the fabric. The baby slips a few inches down Mando’s shoulder, constricting the fabric around his neck.

“Ah,” he hisses, casually reaching behind him before the baby slides all the way down his back and plops into his palm.

Then– “Yes,” he repeats, “I’m looking for information about my apprentice.”

He maneuvers the green and beige bundle to the front of his body, then holds him there against his stomach. His helmet tilts up by the chin in a proud manner, and you let yourself just stare at the baby, all swaddled in a too-large sack of a coat.

“Well,” you finally respond, eyes drifting back to the Mandalorian’s visor, “what is it that you’d like to know?”

The baby reaches its claws out for you, which are immediately restrained by the Mandalorian’s gloved thumbs and tucked back into his hold.

Faintly, you can hear him mutter something to the child.

“I want to learn about his species. I… do not know what he is. I’d like to know how to train him better.”

It makes you feel small; this unconventional request is likely too big for your little library, and never in your life have you seen a creature like this one. 

The last time someone needed research help, you had but to refer them to an almanac. Identifying a mysterious alien species? You pause, calculating your response.

“I want to be honest with you,” you start, trying to make your voice confident, “the repository is newer. We’re still rebuilding after the whole, you know… Although I’m working on acquisitions, there’s a slim chance I have information on your little friend here.”

The helmet tilts again, this time to the side. And he doesn’t say anything. Just stands there, shining at you, as big as a Bantha.

You take a deep breath, noticing how much of his body is covered with weapons. In fact, right now, he’s holding the baby against a bandolier of ammo. There’s a red splotch on his right glove that you’re certain is blood. Your exhale ends with a shiver. More silence. A challenge to see who will speak first.

Would it be worse if you could see his face, in all this quiet nothingness, and stare at each other blankly? Probably.

“I can try.” You cut through the stillness, just above a mumble. Your shoulders relax a little when the Mandalorian makes a quiet hum of approval.

“Good.”

Good. Twist my arm, you think, not missing the continued raspiness of his modulated voice.

“But I’m not a scientist,” you add, attempting to make your face into something severe, but since he won’t take no for an answer, you doubt he’ll hear out your concerns.

After a beat, “Excellent sleeper, though.” 

Your breath catches in your throat.

You shoot him a weak glare, unsure if that was humour or contempt in his voice. Was he judging you? Of course, he picked the one time you decided to take a five-second snooze to barge in with this baby and demand help. An impeccable first impression on your part.

“You just caught me at a bad time.” You grumble, then curse yourself for taking the bait. Why would this clearly seasoned Mandalorian still want a dozing librarian’s help? The desire to prove yourself creeps along your shoulders, pools in the bottom of your stomach.

He takes another step toward the desk.

“Yeah?”

Fuck, why is it so stuffy in here?

After gaping at him for a few more seconds, not knowing what to say, you shift. He inhales, like he’s about to rag on you further. “Or are you always—”

You cut in.

“So, what can you tell me about him already? I’ll need some time to find proper resour–” Your gaze flits back to the creature, who is currently making your cup of caf float in mid air.

His little hand stretches out, eyes closed in a deep focus as the mug moseys towards him, a full foot above the desk. 

“Hey, kid–” Mando reaches to wrap his fingers around the mug at the same time that you do. His hand gracelessly closes around yours, and out sloshes the caf, dripping onto the counter. He withdraws his hand lightning quick, as you, stupefied, set the mug back on the surface.

What the fuck?

“Suppose we can start there,” a nervous laugh bubbles out of you, and Mando heaves a sigh, humbled.

He reprimands the baby by shaking a finger, but it’s a half-assed attempt. Those big, shiny eyes crease with laughter.

“Sorry, he’s… still learning his manners. But I don’t need to learn more about his powers. I want to know what he is. What planet he came from.”

“I see,” you nod, reaching for a tissue, but the Mandalorian is already wiping away the liquid with the edge of his cape. 

***

Turns out, the baby’s name is Grogu. He’s fifty, and an absolute pain to research. But, as it also turns out, you’re able to import certain holofiles from repositories on other planets. It grants you a welcome respite from tinkering with the new search function and lets you work on some much needed acquisitions. The repository will ideally grow into a grand hub of knowledge for the New Republic, so, if that means importing several hundred files to the database to help figure out what species the green baby is, then… fine.

A few days after your initial encounter, the Mandalorian brought the baby back in with him to check for an update. Graciously, he’d let you take Grogu to test with the new search function, in which you’d taken a scanner and held it over the baby for a good five minutes before the system spat out some results. The Mandalorian leaned against a tall shelf and crossed his arms, somehow managing to look like a concerned father even with his casual stance and lack of a visible face.

“Careful,” he murmured, as you held the baby still under the scanner’s undulating blue light.

“He’s okay. I’m a librarian, not a Wampa.”

“I see that,” came his flat reply. 

His discomfort permeated through the armour, though he remained unmoving. 

“Would you prefer I stop scanning him?” You looked up from your control panel, ceasing to press any more buttons.

A grumble. “Keep going.” 

The scan worked, to a certain degree.

It pulled up all creatures with big ears and anything to do with the colour green. Nowhere near as specific as you’d hoped, which meant the scan-search function was going to need a lot of refining. 

To your surprise, the Mandalorian didn’t show any signs of disappointment. His brief combativeness died once the baby was back on his shoulder. Instead, he told you he could pay handsomely for your continued efforts, to which you replied that it was simply part of your job to connect people with information. Besides, you didn’t need the New Republic on your back for accepting money under the table.

It’s the first proper query someone has brought to you in an age, and it’s effectively made you question both your sanity and choice of career. Even with all your determination, you find nothing. Nothing, nothing. Not in the holobooks, not in the research databases, not even in the searchable catalogues of other repositories on the holonet. You curse the authors of the galaxy for not writing a guide on identifying green, floppy eared babies with bottomless pits for stomachs. 

You try not to let it eat away at you. Finding answers is what you do, and you want to give an answer to the mysterious hunk of beskar. 

***

Two weeks later, you have zero leads on the species, but a good deal of information on the Jedi.

After another day of adding New Republic documents to the data stick in the back room – and getting nowhere on the Grogu case – you switch the library lights off and make your way to the entrance. 

Unsurprisingly, one of the few patrons you welcomed today was a grumpy Quarren who wanted a holobook on how to fix a speeder. He then proceeded to ask you to read it so you could fix it after your shift.

You reminded him that you could help to locate information, but you were not a teacher, nor a mechanic, which resulted in you being yelled at for refusing service and the Quarren storming out. You whispered curses under your breath as he bellowed his own.

Now, you slip out the door and into a purple, dying sunset. Once the bolt clicks in place and you key in the secondary lock’s passcode, you swivel on your heel, turning smack into another wall.

Gasping, your key — a silver rod — clatters to the ground.

“Anything yet?” The Mandalorian questions you, visor tilted low. Even though he hadn’t trapped you in a corner, the sheer size and proximity of him gives the same effect. Hiding his face must have an impact on his idea of personal space.

Heat blazes across your cheeks in embarrassment; you’d been hoping for a breakthrough before the next time he decided to check in. Now he’s (somewhat) cornered you, demanding answers after giving you a perfectly reasonable amount of time to have found something. Anything. 

Your mouth opens to say hello first, then you remember he hadn’t the mind to greet you properly either. Why he insists on stealthily materializing behind you instead of saying hello like a normal person is beyond you. If he means to scare you, it’s quite effective.

“Still no…” you draw the last syllable out as you try and think of how to explain it. Well, why would he care if you were the best keeper of knowledge in Nevarro if you can’t find anything on where his sorcerer baby came from?

He sighs, and the sound slices your ego in half. The plaza behind him is nearly empty, street vendors packing away their tents and wares, a few people headed for a drink at the cantina.

“There’s nothing, not even in the remains of the Coruscant archives.” You scrape the toe of your boot along the thin layer of dirt covering the step, avoiding him.

His eyeless stare bores into you, your skin. Had you angered him? What was he expecting, for you to find a birth certificate?

Steeling yourself, you cross your arms, waiting for him to lash out the way other patrons do at the tiniest, inconsequential things. 

The silence stretches for long enough that the flagstone street outside the repository has now fully emptied, leaving you alone with the Mandalorian, who is once again swimming in weapons. It only occurs to you now that you should probably start begging for your life. Sure, he had been rather well-mannered during your two previous meetings, apart from making a jab at you sleeping, and not knowing how to make his presence known without giving you a heart attack. Your soft heart reminds you he’s just a father trying to understand his son. Ward. Apprentice — whatever it is. Then again. There is a warrior standing not two feet away from you, in a vacant street, while you tell him you failed at his one, simple request. Another glance at the blaster on his hip gets your mouth running.

“I’m serious, I spent hours looking everywhere— believe me, I wanted to, I appreciated the challenge, but there was just—”

“Thank you.” 

“I–”

What?

“Thank you,” he repeats himself, and all the rising fear inside you fizzles out.

“I’m not sure I follow.” Your arms fall from their crossed position to rest at your sides. Looking down, you notice the baby is here too, wrapped around the Mandalorian’s boot. He wags his fingers to make a tinkling sound with your key that he’d picked up off the ground.

The Mandalorian’s voice comes soft and steady as he kneels down to take the key from Grogu. “You’re the only one who’s agreed to even try.”

His helmet comes rather close to your face as he rises back up, his palm open.

You pluck the rod from his hand, fingertips grazing the smooth leather glove. You had almost refused him; you knew it was a shot in the dark as soon as he asked you for help. But who else had he tried talking to anyway?

“Did you try a xenobiologist?”

“Five.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. Another librarian almost tried but it fell through when Grogu… made a mess of their repository.”

You snort. Apparently, stealing your caf was nothing compared to what this baby is capable of. It makes you feel a little better, knowing you weren’t the only one stumped by it.

Your meek voice mumbles, “Your friend is just…”

“Rare.” Mando peers down at Grogu, who has now detached himself from his father’s boot, and is gazing up at you. Lovingly, almost.

You reach into your pocket, recalling your unfinished snack from this afternoon.

“May I?”

Mando nods, hands on his hips. You toss the remainder of your cookie to the grabby hands at your feet. Grogu swallows it whole, gulping.

It’s probably nothing, but you offer it anyway: “I did find a lot of information about the Jedi, though I guess you probably know a thing or two already.”

He stills. “Tell me.”

***

Ten minutes later, a server droid thrusts a Bloody Rancor into your right hand.

Grogu slurps a bowl of soup, caged in between you and Mando, who eats nothing, drinks nothing.

You’d been stunned by his suggestion to come here. He shrugged, said it was just a comfortable place to talk about your research. You stifled a laugh, doubting he knows much about comfort based off of his everyday attire – but you said yes, despite your nerves.

You hadn’t been to the cantina since its relocation after the magistrate fashioned the old one into a school. To be fair, there was a lot of the city you hadn’t explored since its makeover, always skittering between your home and the library. Now, there’s yellow fabric streamers, multicoloured mood lighting, more server droids, and considerably less scowly faces going around. Along the walls are small booths nestled in private alcoves, each glowing a different colour. 

There’s even softer music, you noticed, washing over your ears when you stepped foot into the cantina. Heads turned, conversation halted. Your cheeks burned so hot with the attention you thought they might catch fire. Then, lightning zipped up your spine as the ghost of a hand brushed your back, leading you to a booth. You wanted to think it was gentlemanly, but considering the stares, it was just protective. A shield. Hardly a touch. It hit you again just how intimidating he was when he wasn’t asking for help with his baby in your quaint community library. Even then, he had you cowering a little.

The chatter and drinking resumed as the Mandalorian took a seat across from you.

And it’s weird. It’s really, properly weird to sit across from this giant, metal stranger. His presence fills the room with talk, with whispers of awe and fear and you — you are so unlike him. Your soft edges and flowy clothing are a stark contrast to his gleaming suit of armour, the bandolier, the holster. Oddly, his fearsomeness is the same thing that gives you a sense of security. He could take on anyone in this cantina without breaking a sweat, but no one is brave enough to approach your table in the first place, leaving you in utter peace.  

Perhaps he is more like a giant, metal… acquaintance, now that you’re settled in together.

The alcove you share glows a deep pink. Beskar reflects the warm colour as you quietly relay your findings on the Jedi. Some of it he claims to know, some of it is new. Some of it he plans to incorporate into training his apprentice. He watches you intently, one hand resting on the table. Occasionally, he peers at Grogu, wiping his chin with the cloak. 

Multipurpose, you think, wondering how many mysterious liquids are trapped in the fibers.

“How did you two…” You trail off, unsure whether to take the conversation from business to personal. You then consider the hours and hours of work you put into this. “...Meet?”

They look at each other. It’s sweet, how the tiny creature leans closer to the Mandalorian, watching him with adoring, crinkled eyes and a wide smile full of soup cracker crumbs.

An answer doesn’t come. You shift awkwardly on the cushioned leather seat. What, was that the wrong thing to say?

“Well, I highly doubt you’re his biological father, so. You must have met at some point.”

An exhale. Whether amusement or annoyance, you don’t know. You’re hoping it’s the former, and that hope is satisfied when he finally replies.

“Grogu was a target of the Empire.”

Frowning, you turn to Grogu, who looks like he could be mistaken for a pillow in that coat. “Him?”

Crumbs line his collar. You study him for another moment; his big flappy ears, his fuzzy white baby hairs. His claws – you remember your mug, floating above your desk. “Oh. Of course.”

“They wanted to… extract his powers. I spared him.” A beat. “It was messy.”

With a little more convincing, he tells you how he shot up the Guild to save Grogu, then how he’d lost him to the Jedi. How upon reuniting, he’d formally adopted him as an apprentice.

You lose focus halfway through the story, the mention of the Guild perking you up.

“That was you?” You ask, an incredulous smile spreading on your face. There was hardly a repository at that point; there was simply a credit-operated kiosk where citizens could access information on the holonet. You’d been scavenging to make ends meet, trading for money at the junk dealer. There was the shootout between the Guild members, then a full-fledged Imperial siege of the town, explosions and all. You should honestly thank him. Once it had all blown over, the town was made anew. New paint jobs, new amenities, resources – and the construction on the repository was finally finished. “Messy indeed.”

“I thought we were talking about the kid.”

“Yeah, okay,” you laugh on the rim of your glass, citrus zest wafting up your nose. “The kid.”

He looks at Grogu and wipes his messy chin again, managing to look resigned even under the helmet. “I’m not going to get anywhere with this, am I.”

It’s not a question. Just a tired remark.

“In my honest opinion, no. Especially not if you’ve already tried five xenobiologists.” 

He goes quiet again. He’s pretty and shiny to look at, if a little stunted at conversation, so you turn to the side, watching the rest of the cantina bustle about. Under the low lights, a few pairs of eyes are still trained on your companion — the bounty hunter, you presume. Unless parenting has become his full time job.

The buzz of your drink encourages you to turn back to him and change the subject.

“Do you get tired of the staring? From, like, everyone?”

The helmet tilts, barely. “Like you?”

You hiccup.

Stars, he makes this booth look tiny. He fills his seat and then some, miles between his pauldrons. Your face burns for the third time today as you look down into your lap.

“Sometimes. But not from librarians.”

His voice is so low you’re certain you imagined the last part. Whatever it was you thought about him being poor at conversation vanishes in an instant. Is he flirting with you?

You snap your gaze back up to find him leaning ever so slightly over the table.

You swallow thickly, throat dry. 

The look you share is charged, electric, even though his eyes are invisible. 

Mando relaxes back against the cushion of the booth, slinging an arm across the top edge, thighs spreading. The hand that was resting on the table finds purchase on his knee. His position taunts you, invites you to say something. It takes you a moment to remember how to form words into a sentence.

“My point is, you must be used to getting what you want,” you muse, “considering how spooked everyone is when you walk in a room. How they stare.” 

It’s all too true. You gave him exactly what he wanted once he walked into the library, and all he had to do was stare at you until you agreed. But you don’t find him as frightening now as you did the first time you met, or even earlier when he appeared outside the library door. You’re glad to admit that the Mandalorian has a decent sense of manners, for the most part. He says his pleases and thank yous, but you get the sense he’s likely as violent as he is courteous.

“Or I take it by force,” he replies. At your vaguely horrified expression, he continues, “I’m a bounty hunter. No one is happily running into my arms.”

You nod at the clarification, wiggling your finger at the baby who’s already finished his second bowl of soup. “Except you. You’re always running into his arms, isn’t that right?” Claws gently close around your finger as you turn back to Mando. “Who do you work for now, with the Guild gone?”

“The New Republic, occasionally.” His fingers tap on the counter.

You brighten. “Oh, so I’ve probably filed some old reports about you.” When his helmet tips in confusion, you fill him in. “The library doubles as a private archive for the New Republic.”

“Yeah? What do the reports say?” The lilt in his voice is rousing, a teasing kind of curiosity. 

You bite the inside of your lip, emboldened by it. “That you need to stop tormenting poor librarians with difficult questions.”

Glinting in the magenta haze, Mando leans back in, fixed on you. The baby watches him with wide, puzzled eyes.

“Am I tormenting you by buying you drinks?”

The Mandalorian did pay for you earlier, slapping credits onto the table as the server droid handed you the beverage. 

You take a swig. The alcohol is fire on your tongue, his unyielding, black gaze fire in your belly.

“No.”

He hums, satisfied. “Good.”

The Mandalorian escorts you home after a second Bloody Rancor slips down your throat. He waits in the darkness until you’re inside with the door locked, then saunters away with the sleeping baby in his arms.

You’re not certain just how long you sat there with him, explaining away your life while he gave little snippets of his. He told you little else of himself, other than that he occasionally takes breaks from hunting and settles in his small home on the Nevarro plains.

You’d also discovered that no, the helmet does not come off.

It’s funny, how much more human he seems after sitting with him in that booth. How surprisingly gentle, you think, watching him through the window, cradling the bundled baby.

***

The Mandalorian is unpredictable. Human, yes. Gentle, somewhat. But unpredictable. And it’s definitely on purpose, you think, that he can’t help himself from startling you, whether in the street or in the repository. You’d think he was stalking you, but it’s just infrequent enough that your meetings are plausibly accidental.

Over the months, he flickers in and out of your life. Hunting, then not hunting. Creeping up on you once in a while, seemingly just to watch you quiver.

Two months ago, as you shopped at the market, he appeared from behind a stall’s red draping. 

“Hungry?” 

“Fuck, Mando!”

Four weeks ago, as you dropped off holofiles containing textbooks for the school, he was there, dropping off Grogu. 

“Your kid goes to school?” 

“Just when I need daycare.”

When you finally decided to give the cantina another visit, he happened to be leaning outside the entrance, his back on the wall and his hands clasped in front, a heel resting on the toe of his opposite boot. A smear of blood ran down his chestplate, dried to the colour of rust. He beckoned you toward him with two fingers. 

“Buy you a drink?”

It’s annoying, how big and fast and debilitating your crush grows, despite not knowing his name or what he looks like. Despite not really knowing who he is, other than the fact that he loves his child and hunts Imperial remnants for the New Republic.

Despite not knowing whether you’ve graduated from acquaintances to friends. 

You want to say you have a friendship together, because you’d finally gotten over the remaining dregs of fear in your belly when he’s around. The absence of that fear had made room for something else, something like admiration. Excitement. 

***

As another morning turns to afternoon, you wander through the aisles on a hunt to locate a particular book on droid mechanics for a technician. You slide your fingers along the edge of the shelf, the holobooks glimmering with light. Some of them are out of order, you notice, until you spot the one you’re searching for. You pull the tablet out and carry it to the waiting technician at your desk. The device comprises of two screens folded together, the outside cover reinforced by sturdy metal. The spine, where the screens hinge, emits the bright blue light of electronic data within. 

“Page seventy-eight is all about fuses,” you call, approaching the Twi’lek. You work the holobook open. The two screens sputter to life, text forming in flickers, until settling down to a steady glow. You slide a finger across the right-hand screen, scrolling through digital pages until you land on the fusing section. “Try starting with this, and good luck repairing your droid.”

The purple Twi’lek wordlessly takes the tablet and hurries out of the repository. Even without an expression of gratitude, it was still the most decent interaction you’ve had this month. She didn’t even ask you to read the book and fix the droid.

You return to the disordered section to start re-filing the holobooks. By no surprise, Old Republic history books have somehow weaseled their way into mechanics. You gather a stack of misfiles in your arms and take them around the corner. The first book in your pile, on the Seventh Battle of Ruusan, belongs on the top shelf. You huff. You can still see a gap on the ledge where it was taken from.

Your calves pull tight as you rise to your toes. Your wrist strains, and the top edge of the holobook barely scrapes the underside of the shelf. A frustrated groan rumbles in your chest before you catch sight of someone in the corner of your eye.

As you turn, you find the Mandalorian standing at the end of the aisle, perfectly centered between the two rows of shelves.

Heat pools in your belly at the familiar sight of him; tall, shiny, decorated in weapons. You slowly lower back to your heels, the history book still in your hand and the rest of the misfiles tucked in your other arm.

He walks to you, lowering his visor the closer he gets, keeping his gaze trained on your face. A hand, with fingers wrapped in orangey leather, plucks the holobook from your grasp. 

Mando briefly studies the book. Then he reaches the top shelf, effortlessly slotting it in with the others. His visor tilts down in your direction before he’s even finished tucking it all the way back.

“I need to brush up on my Rodian.”

He leaves his hand up on the ledge, the other resting on his hip. 

Your heartbeat picks up. A coy smile separates your lips. “Say hello first and then I’ll help you.”

When he doesn’t say anything, you raise your brows.

“Bright… suns, librarian.” It sounds like it pains him, obeying your frivolous demand. His flat tone coaxes a giggle out of you.

“That’s a bit dramatic, but thank you.”

He sighs. You attempt to peer behind him, but fail to see past the silvery breadth of his shoulders. “Where is the kid?”

“He’s with his friends.”

He leans just an inch closer, hand still braced somewhere above your head.

It’s been two weeks since you’ve seen him — you’ve gone a lot longer before — but it’s hard to hide your excitement. Stars, are you always this shaky around him?

“Why do you need to practice your, uh, Rodian?”

He exhales, retreating slightly from your personal bubble, miffed by the reminder of his duties. “I have some New Republic business with a group of Rodians. They don’t speak Basic.”

You could almost whine at the way he straightens away from you, then — you realize he’s just granted you an opportunity to prove you are capable at your job, seeing as his last request went south almost as soon as he’d asked. For a split second, you reason that it shouldn’t matter what he thinks of you and your abilities. His kid is a flat out enigma, and he understood that. Then again… you look up at him, shining in his armour. 

“Follow me.” You step forward. Mando drops his hand and turns his body to let you pass, then trails closely as you lead him to the language section.

You crouch down, sliding a finger across the spines until you land on a Rodian instructional book.

“Will this do?” You pass the tablet to him. He opens the device, screens sputtering to life, then scans through some pages.

“Good enough.”

It might as well be praise.

While Mando settles down in the corner at a carrel that is two sizes too small for his body, you check the communications log at your desk for messages from the ranger outposts or the Head of Repositories on Chandrila.

Nothing.

You could go back and finish putting away the misfiles, but you can’t conceive of focusing while the Mandalorian studies nearby.

Instead, to your complete and utter dismay, the Quarren returns.

He stomps up the central aisle, fuming, sandy-toned tentacles whipping around the bottom of his grim face.

“You are going to fix my speeder.” His seething voice scrapes your ears, and you’re already shrinking into yourself.

“Sir…” Your nails dig crescents into your palm. “Surely you have some time to read the instructional—?”

You cut yourself off when the Quarren’s eyes darken even more, his laboured breathing growing faster and faster. In your defence, it had been a good few months since the first time he yelled at you, yet he still hasn’t solved his problem. What has he been doing this whole time?

“It’s broken again, and I do not have the patience for any scalper mechanics this time.” His words burst with venom. You might feel sorry for him if he wasn’t spitting in your face. 

Desperate, you look to your left in search of Mando, who is no longer sitting at the carrel.

Fuck. 

You probably shouldn’t, but… “Again, just so we’re clear. You expect me, a librarian, to read a manual for you and fix your speeder?”

A bitter laugh. His hands fly up in exasperation. “You got something more important to do?” He looks behind you at your tidy desk, then he gestures to the aisles, the carrels, void of other people. He regards you with an air of contempt, pinning you as some sort of imbecile for not doing him a favour well outside your jurisdiction. “Thought you were here to help the community.”

You power through the overwhelming urge to roll your eyes.

“Sir,” you try again, “You misunderstand. I have told you already, I can show you how to find the information you need, but I am not—”

You stop yourself. Exhausting as it is, you try to form an understanding with each of your patrons, even when they’re exploding in front of your face. You wonder, maybe he can’t read? Perhaps his anger is just insecurity—

Your seedling of sympathy is squashed when the Quarren stomps one foot closer, his arm raising as if he’s going to smack the holobooks out of your arms. The first syllable of a derogatory name forms on his lips, but he fails to get the whole word out before a calmer, raspier voice overpowers him.

“Quit.” The Mandalorian emerges behind him. Bigger, taller, scarier. The Quarren chokes on his unspoken wrath, then slowly turns, revealing his palms in a placating fashion. You like it a little too much, how fast he crumbles at the sight of the towering Mandalorian. “Leave. Take your speeder to the Anzellan shop down the road.”

Mando tosses credits at the squid-like agitator, who barely manages to catch them all.

“Now.”

A gloved hand hovers near the blaster on his hip.

The Quarren scrambles, crashing a shoulder into the side of the automatic door on his frenzied way out.

You stare at the door for a few seconds, gathering yourself, then cross your arms. “That is not how we deal with angry people in a library.”

Paying the man for being a nuisance? It was effective, you can admit that much. You could also admit that the display of sheer power made your knees weak. But you won’t tell him either of those things.

Mando’s voice comes flat out of the modulator. “It didn’t look like he was leaving anytime soon.”

True.

“I took care of him last time. I could have done it again.” 

Another truth – but were you secretly hoping the Mandalorian would save you from the trifling Quarren? Yes. Were you going to pretend like you wanted to handle it all by yourself? Absolutely.

“Yeah?”

“Yes!” You guffaw, incredulous, trying to ignore the effortlessly sultry tone of his voice.

His helmet and shoulders start to shake as if he’s chuckling, but the vocoder doesn’t pick anything up.

“I believe you,” he says, not without a trace of humour. “Let’s just say I sped up the process.”

You frown at him, although it’s becoming harder and harder to conceal your smile. “You’re not a security guard.”

Mando tilts his helmet in a lazy shrug.

Your semi-feigned frustration morphs into gratitude, but you manage to maintain your displeased expression as you tell him, “Thank you.”

You’d learned how to de-escalate situations like this in the library — namely, patrons who want to get in a yelling match and call you names — but it nags at you that you probably wouldn’t know where to start if someone like Mando was that displeased.

You must be wearing the thought on your face, because he slices through the silence with a blunt, “What.”

“Nothing, I’m just… imagining how to get rid of you.”

He slants his head in such a way that you can feel the exasperation coursing through him. “I just helped you.”

“No, I mean… if someone like you came in here, all angry and ready to pick a fight.”

Mando shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “You get a lot of people like him? In here?” 

He gestures around the emptiness, just like the Quarren had. It’s borderline serene right now. But you don’t feel like explaining the woes of librarianship and all its intricacies – the fact that it’s not always this quiet and you’re most often acting as a community therapist for patrons with emotional issues. Holobooks are seldom your concern.

“More than you could imagine,” you mumble.

Mando hums in acknowledgment, glancing at the door where the Quarren had careened away. “You said you’ve handled him before. And I believe you.”

Your brows lift. Before you can speak, remind him that he handled it this time with credits, he adds, “He was berating you.”

A spark flies from the top of your head and down to your toes at the protective lilt in his voice. Your knees wobble. He’d intercepted not because he didn’t trust you, but because he didn’t like it. As if he couldn’t help himself from shutting the Quarren up. 

When the spark fizzles down to a dull zap and you regain a sense of composure, you groan, arms crossing over your chest. “But the Quarren, he’s not like you.” 

He steps closer. 

It’s the same as when he’d appeared outside the door to check if you’d found anything out about Grogu’s kind. He’s not cornering you, but it feels like he is, the spread of his shoulders crowding your view of the library behind him.

Your eyes widen.

“Not like me?” He’s toying with you now – just wants to hear you stutter out the obvious: that he's big, he’s strong, whatever else. You start to squirm, shifting your feet and rolling your shoulders.

“I think you know what I mean.” You turn your gaze from him, finding the fold of your arms very, very interesting.

“Librarian.” 

He says it carefully, like a prompt; he won’t let you avoid him. You want to shake your head at him, but you bask in it – how he sometimes uses your title instead of your name. It makes you feel like you’re equals, makes you forget that you still don’t know his name. Mandalorian. Librarian. 

You take a while to croak out a shy response, cringing at each word that exits your mouth. “You’re… big. And sort of scary.”

“Sort of.” Fuck, you can tell he’s smirking with that tone.

“Well, very.”

He must be enjoying this, under all that metal.

You clarify, “Because you’re covered in weapons.”

“They’re part of my religion.” He speaks plainly, a thumb tucking under his utility belt.

“I’m aware. But they’re still there.”

“Uhuh.” 

You tear your eyes from your own body to find his visor slowly shifting down, then back up. Studying you, calculating. Almost… admiring you. 

“Guess you have a point.”

You drop your arms. “What?”

Mando stalks across the floor, retrieving the holobook from his carrel. He offers it to you.

“I don’t think you could handle me either.”

***

Another month passes, each morning the same.

Except this one. 

The eerily vacant streets draw tension in your shoulders as you walk to the repository. It’s not just the lack of people, but the fact that the merchant tents flap in the wind, wares laid out on shelves, with no one staffing them.

Slowing your step, you make your way past the empty stalls, past the silent school, past the lifeless cantina. A hanging flower basket lies crumpled in its own dirt, petals strewn across the street. Not even the leaves on the trees are rustling. The alley is still in the absence of any life form but you.

Unease fills your lungs. You look up, finding the spires and stony white roofs stark against an ordinarily sunny sky.

When the repository comes into view across the main plaza, your jaw slackens. Your hand claps to your mouth.

What used to be the door is now a yawning, jagged hole, sizzling with the embers of a blast. Your legs turn to jelly, but you force them to take you wobbling to the crumpled mess of rubble that used to be the entrance.

Heart in your throat, you step through and peek inside. To your relief, all the shelves and carrels – even your desk – appear to be untouched, except for a few holobooks scattered on the floor that must have been knocked from the blast.

Creeping further into the dark building, you ignore the voice in your head, clawing and screaming at you to leave, to get help first. You tip toe towards the back room where the data stick is kept, holding the New Republic archives. You bite the inside of your cheek when you find its door slightly ajar. You bite down even harder, stomach going hollow, as you peek into the room. No data stick.

“Wha–” 

A red, searing bolt of plasma erupts from somewhere in the corner of the back room, whizzes past your shoulder, then explodes on the wall behind you.

Your hand slaps to your chest, clammy fingers clutching and pulling the fabric of your shirt. You hold your breath, paralyzed.

“Who’s there?” Comes the muffled, crazed voice of an anonymous man hidden behind the door. From your position, you see only the toe of a white boot on the stone floor. Another voice responds, equally as muffled as the first. At the sound of them shuffling, you bolt away from the back room with tears forming in your eyes and your heart beating so hard it dizzies you. The stomp of boots follows somewhere behind you as you careen through the bays of shelves.

Just as you reach what is left of the front door, another shot from the blaster rips through the air, a hair’s breadth from grazing your calf. It crashes and fizzles into the debris at the entrance, pebbles skittering to the ground. 

You scrape through the hole and stumble across a heap of jagged rubble from the wall. A sharp, rocky edge slices across your palm as you grasp it for balance. Rivulets of blood swim through the creases of your hand, mimicking the tears rapidly slipping down your face. 

Your thigh muscles strain in protest as you sprint back through the ghostly, abandoned street. 

Parts of your vision blur, the buildings and alleys turning black and distorted, but you don’t look back. The only sound in your ears is that of your ragged breaths and heavy foot falls as you lose speed.

You fight against the adrenaline pounding through your veins, threatening to make you vomit. You compel your legs to keep moving until you find someone. Anyone. 

Soon, a jog is all you can manage. Sobs break out of your throat. You wipe at your face with a forearm, trying not to collapse there in the middle of the road at the feeling of failure weighing you down. Trying not to think of what they’ll do with the information on the data stick that you’d so easily let them get away with.

You trudge through the arch at the edge of the city, sleeves wet. The solid grey plains of Nevarro spread out wide in front of you. With a shuddering breath, you shield your eyes from the sun and scan for any signs of life. Nothing, nothing, and…

There.

A land speeder coming your direction. Before long, you make out the Mandalorian’s helmet and his cape, whipping behind him. You trade your sobbing for a sigh of relief. He brakes. The speeder screeches and swerves to the right as he comes crashing out of it. He lands on his feet, steady, Grogu clutching his shoulder. You stumble toward him while he closes the distance with a determined sprint, his armoured body clanking.

Gloved hands stabilize you with a firm grip beneath your elbows.

“Are you alright?” Mando asks, hoarse and intense. The visor raises and lowers rapidly as he looks you over.

You stutter, mind fuzzy. “There was– the library. Tw–two men. The data stick–”

“I know. Adelphi base received a breach signal. Colonel Ward paged me. Are you alright?”

Adelphi, breach signal? How does he–?

Your thoughts slog through mud.

Bounty hunter. New Republic. Adelphi – the closest outpost.

“I’m… yes, I’m just– scared.” Your bottom lip quivers and your teeth chatter as you try to get the words out. “They missed.”

He stiffens under your tight grip on his forearms. You don’t have to say anything more for him to understand. 

Pathetic. You feel pathetic and embarrassed and… what were you supposed to do? It’s not as if you show up to work everyday with a blaster, ready to defend the building from Imperials. 

Mando’s voice softens as he says your name. His sudden tenderness lets loose another well of tears. “Can you get yourself home?”

“What about–”

You must be bleeding on his vambrace.

“Go home. Stay inside. I will take care of it.”

The finality in his voice sobers you a smidge. You blink away some of the saltiness in your eyes. The teasing, the laughter, the natural ease from your previous encounters – none of it is here. There’s a methodicalness to him. He’s so rigid and focused – like he’s flipped a switch, like he needs to hunt down the cause of your tears. 

“You’re taking a break, aren’t you? It’s not safe, a–anyways. But the data stick, I need to get–”

He shakes his head, bright morning sunlight dancing across the silver helmet. He loosens his grip on your elbows, ensuring your stability before letting go completely. Then his palms rest heavy on your shoulders, squeezing and grounding you.

With bold conviction, “It will be done.”

***

Puffs of steam curl out of the kettle’s spout as the water boils. The room is dark, the only light a golden glow from the lantern on your tiny kitchen table. Your bleary eyes sting, your palm now haphazardly bandaged in gauzy white strips. A patch of dried blood marks the center.

It’s been hours since the Mandalorian caught you at the edge of town. Hours since you watched a yellow and silver gunship chase a pair of TIE-fighters out of the atmosphere.

Hours since Kallu, the head of the New Republic repositories, contacted you through hologram from Chandrila, her miniscule blue figure alight in your palm. You were expecting one of three things; to be severely reprimanded, suspended, or fired for not protecting the data stick. But she had no end of employment notice to relay. Instead, she confirmed your safety and informed you that it would be a few days before you could return to work. A group of New Republic builders would soon arrive to repair the site and install improved security equipment.

She would not take your apologies nor your shame for the situation, but her reassurance did little to calm your nerves; Imperial remnants now had access to loads of New Republic intelligence on the Outer Rim.

She passed on Colonel Ward’s statement that an independent contractor was working on retrieving the data stick before ending the call. This, you already knew.

Your thoughts turn to the Mandalorian as the wireless kettle sings. The way he carefully held you up as you sobbed, how he told you with such confidence that he would take care of it all for you. Amidst the storm raging through your head, the memory of his heavy, warm hands on your shoulders provides a faint relief.

You pad across the cramped kitchen and grab a sachet of tea from the cabinet.

If anyone were to ask, you could not describe this feeling. To say that your insides feel hollow and black, that your limbs weigh sluggishly, that your heart beats only to pump more shame through you, is an understatement.

You pour the boiling water into a mug and drop the teabag in. The water darkens with the herbs, swirling and rippling, reminiscent of your palm, wet with blood. Every muscle in your body draws tight in discomfort.

You trudge from the kitchen, through the tiny living space, and sweep away the jewel-toned curtain and beads separating your bed from the rest of your home. You set the mug beside your mattress then plop onto the covers with a groan.

Eyes on the ceiling, your mind bursts with worry. What could you have done? What was going to happen now that Imperials had captured tons of New Republic information? Or could the Mandalorian intercept them before they accessed the data? 

You sit up, reaching for the tea. The minty water burns your tongue, but you hardly notice as the questions dance tauntingly, around and around. You close your eyes. 

***

It’s humiliating. With your job on hold and the rest of the villagers shaken from the intrusion, all you can think about is him. For the week that New Republic contractors work on repairing the entrance door and the surrounding wall, the Mandalorian is wrapped around your every waking thought.

It’s been months since you’ve had the time to read a holonovel. A stack of them perches lonely and untouched on your bedside table, the teacup from the other night next to them, half drunk. Yet you find yourself incapable of slogging through even just a paragraph without the beskar-clad man interrupting your focus.

A trashy holodrama should work. You curl up on the mismatched mound of cushions on your living room floor and flick one on. A terrible mistake, really. Watching two people kiss dramatically makes your stomach constrict and your heart swell with longing.

Sure, you’d been harbouring a crush on the Mandalorian for the past several months. You’re not going to pretend like this is the first time he’s been stuck on your mind. You’d spent afternoons wondering about his face, picturing what features went along with his short but strangely caring nature. You’d guessed at his eyes – brown, you decided. Not blue. They had to be warmer than his silver exterior. Deep and vast. And his nose would be prominent, his lips contrastingly pillowy, but you could never figure out how they all would come together and make his face. 

It was all a fanciful daydream. Now, with him gone fighting Imperials Maker-knows-where, no indication of when or if he’ll return – it’s a worry-stricken frenzy.

“I’m being ridiculous.” You blurt out loud, frustratedly shutting off the holodrama with a thwack. He’s dealt with much worse if the tales he’s spun at the cantina are all true. This should be a piece of cake. 

So why does it feel like you can’t breathe, won’t be able to breathe until he makes it back safe?

You still don’t even know his name. It’s a fact that hurts you more than you thought it could, and right now it stings particularly strong in your eyes. This was New Republic business. He wasn’t just doing it for you.

You like to think that you could have prevented the Imperials from snatching the data stick had you been there. That you could have stealthily plucked it from the back and snuck out a hero. In reality, you probably wouldn’t be breathing, blinking, thinking about Mando right now if you were.

They might have destroyed more than just the door. And perhaps, that’s the only thing keeping you sane right now – that they didn’t take away your library, not entirely. They didn’t trash everything. Just blew down the door and took the data stick, which, with any luck, will be returned along with Mando.

***

The day Kallu calls and gives you permission to go back to work is the same day that you find a green baby in your chair.

Just as she’d said, a New Republic officer is waiting for you just outside the building to pass along your new key, which is twice the size of your old one. 

After admiring the refinished doors – now double layered, fashioned in a stronger metal with more locks and alarm systems — you hurry down the center aisle to get the library prepped and open for the day. Even with the new security measures, you arrive at your workspace with a sprinkle of dread. The memory of your last time here flashes in your mind, makes you feel like you’re not alone.

Which… is technically true. Grogu is in your chair, using his powers to spin it around and around, a silver rod in his hand. 

“Oh, thank the Maker, you’re alright.”

Your heart swells at the sight of him, and you scan through the building in search of Mando. You don’t find anything. You peek around the corner towards the archival office in the back, still nothing.

“What are you doing here by yourself?” You crouch down to his level, bracing your hands on the seat to stop it from spinning.

Grogu has a big, fat… frown on his face. Not what you were expecting from a baby in a spinny chair. Your expression mirrors his own. 

“What’s wrong? Where’s your buddy?”

You check him over, patting his fuzzy head, rubbing his back. You notice the rod in his hands is in fact the data stick.

You yelp. Then you squeeze Grogu in the gentle grip of your palms, raising him up and down, up and down. “Thank you, little guy. Thank you so much.”

You fit him in the crook of your elbow as you take the data stick to the back room. You punch in the passcode, walk through the sliding door, and insert the stick back into its proper home. You press a few buttons on the control panel, and the contents of the data stick light up the room with a blue holographic interface.

You look through some folders, some files, images, all intact. Nothing corrupted. Everything, just as it was. Relief crashes through you like a wave in a storm, so strong it threatens your balance.

With a heavy exhale, you exit back to your desk and flop into the chair, the baby in your lap. The sensation of relief leaves you as quick as it came.

Grogu’s face is still scrunched up, in the worst of ways. He trembles in your hands, looking left, right, skittishly.

“Grogu?”

He throws a little arm up, pointing to the entrance.

You point, too. “Go?”

He nods twice.

“Where?” You ask, panic fluttering up your spine, down your limbs. “Is it your dad?”

His bottom lip juts out, his eyes even bigger than you thought possible. Fuck. Where is he?

You tuck the baby back into the crook of your elbow and race out the front door, locking everything back up. Outside, it takes less than ten seconds for the sun to start weakening your body with its oppressive heat.

“Now where?” 

Grogu gazes up at you, then turns his head downward. You follow his eyes to the ground, where a tiny speeder seats four greyish-blue critters about the same size as Grogu. Their wrinkly faces are half covered by goggles, chins sprouting fuzzy little beards. Taupe stomachs peek out of their utility belts. They each throw their arms up in unison, chanting, “Baby! Baby!”

You crouch down, bringing Grogu to their height. “Um, hello?”

Grogu skitters out of your arms and climbs onto the mini speeder. He rolls over the outer ledge and plops in without a sound.

The creatures greet you with a series of “Heys” and other noises you can’t pick out.

“You know where the Mandalorian is?” You interrupt the chatter, bracing your palm on the ledge where Grogu had just flopped over.

They bellow affirmative sounds, their voices gurgly. You make out the word “house” amongst the four of them.

“Well,” you say, rising up from your crouched position. “I can’t come with you on that thing.”

“No, no! That one!” The creature in the driver’s seat points further down the road to a red, regular-sized speeder bike, parked beside the cantina.

“I’m not going to steal a speeder.” You shield your eyes from the sun, studying your surroundings. Yellow banners stretch across the street, attached from one roof to another. They billow in the wind, their shade traversing back and forth across the ground. The creatures jump up and down in the vehicle, their tiny bodies flitting between sunlight and shadows.

“Not steal! From our shop. You bring it back.”

You eye them, unsure whether to grant your trust. But then you think of the Mandalorian.

“Fuck,” you whisper under your breath, jogging toward the speeder bike. With another brief scan around the street – rather empty, you suppose – you straddle it, toggle a few buttons, and engage the repulsorlift.

“Okay, guys,” you call back, and the baby-sized speeder takes off in front of you. You follow them close, through a cramped alleyway and out to a wide backroad, the wind drying the perspiration on your forehead. The cool breeze calms your nerves only slightly – your heart is still hammering away, dread shrouding over you like a billowing cloak.

Grogu and his companions continue past the docking bay at the edge of town, traversing the rocky plains. The horizon ripples with heat, breaking the ground into wavy ribbons. You ride long enough to cross a small cropping of lava streams, and then the rough terrain starts sprouting with spiky green leaves and other widely dispersed shrubs.

They slow to a stop once they reach an enclosure with two rotund beasts. Beyond it lies a quaint, white cabin with a wooden chair at the front. You recognize the ship resting on the rocks behind it– the one that chased the TIE-fighters away when the data stick was stolen.

You screech to a stop behind the creatures and bolt off of the bike, gravelly rocks crunching under your boots. Grogu follows, but his friends stay behind.

Nausea churns in your stomach when you notice a body – a dead one – laying in the distance between the house and the ship. It’s a man in a cheap suit of white armour. The handle of a blade juts out of his abdomen, the sliver of space where the armour couldn’t protect him. But you can’t bring yourself to study him any further. The Mandalorian clouds your thoughts as you barrel through the open doorway and into a singular room. 

In the center, there’s a small counter with a pack of turquoise cookies on top. In one corner, a dwarfish kitchen, in the next, the fresher. You spot a twin bed, a baby pram, some propagating plants. You circle the counter and come upon the Mandalorian, sprawled out on the floor, unmoving. Puddles of almost-dried blood accompany him, staining his clothes and the tile beneath his body. His blaster is a few feet from his outstretched arm.

Grogu climbs on top of his chest and pats the beskar plate. You watch, frozen, while he turns his head to look up at you. His eyes are pleading, expectant. He points at his father again. Claws tinkle against silver. The sound spurs you to action.

You lurch to your knees and ease your fingers under his cowl, wishing you were touching him under any other circumstance. It takes a moment to find bare skin. When you do, it sears you. Your fingers glide over his neck, searching, until you find a weak pulse.

You groan in relief, slipping your hand away. “Grogu, what happened?”

You know it’s futile. If you could communicate with the baby, Mando wouldn’t still be splayed on the floor. He fully settles down on his father’s chest, as if for a snooze. 

Your fingers tremble as you brace them on Mando’s bicep, steadying your nerves. You squeeze. Calculate. You’re not going to remove his helmet. Out of the question.

Instead, you study his torso. There’s a gash– or there was one. His flightsuit gapes, blood crusting down the curve of his body. So much of it, in fact, there’s a gummy, congealed layer of blood on top of what’s already dried. But whatever wound he had is already closed up and healing into a fresh scar.

Brows furrowed, you rise to your feet and call out to the little creatures. They amble into the cabin, distracted by the body out front.

“Do you know where they just came from?” You gesture vaguely behind you at the pile of the Mandalorian and the baby on the floor. When they notice Mando, they give sad sighs, like they’d already seen this earlier. Then they shake their heads in unison, all speaking at once. You parse through the jumble of words, stringing together something along the lines of “Baby no speak, know nothing.”

You didn’t expect much, but your heart still drops. It beats too hard, as if sinking and settling against your diaphragm.

You kneel by the Mandalorian again, slipping your fingers back underneath his woolly cowl. His neck still pulses against your fingertips. 

Grogu squeaks as you push your palms against Mando’s blood-smeared chest. “Mando,” you croak, “wake up.”

You press rhythmically against him, leaning your weight into your wrists, but it’s not accomplishing much — you’re just sort of nudging the chestplate into his ribs and smudging the streaks of blood. Grogu slides off and pats his chest along with you.

“Mando!”

You stop, then give the hardest push you can muster. Your hands ball into fists as you give one brutal pound to the chestplate, hurting yourself more than him. A dull metallic thud is all you hear before your hands are flaring with pain. You recoil, shaking them out. 

And… he’s not moving. Not doing anything. Nothing. You sit back on your heels, heaving raw breaths and shaking down to the bone. Grogu frowns.

What are you missing here?

Your eyes flit back to the red scar on his side. 

A cough. Mando’s chest rumbles, barely. The movement is so minute, as if the effort might kill him.

“Mando?”

You grab him by the shoulders and shake him again, or try to. He’s too heavy for you to truly jostle.

Your name brokenly scratches through his vocoder.

You lean over him, easing your hands under his head, cradling his helmet. “Are you alright? Can you hear me? What happened?”

He groans. Doesn’t move a finger. It scrapes at the back of your mind that he should have startled awake and reached for his blaster, or grabbed you, or thrown his arms up in defence before recognizing you— but no. He just lays there, utterly frozen.

“Data st– stick… on a ship… tracked me.” He coughs again. “Gone now.”

Your gaze flits between where you imagine his eyes are, behind the black visor. Although he can’t feel it, you stroke your thumbs softly over the helmet, over his covered jaw. 

A silver pin glints. You pull back and notice a dart lodged in his other side, opposite the knife wound. He doesn’t even wince as you pinch it between your thumb and forefinger and pull it out. A dollop of yellow liquid slips off the sharp end.

“What is this? Can you move?” Something roils in your stomach at the sight of the unknown substance that is clearly running its course. 

“S’okay… Senf-f-lax. Not… lethal…”

“Not lethal?” You repeat, anxiety warbling your voice. “Then what is it?”

“Watch the k–kid. I’ll… stay–” His voice crackles out, and so does he. But his shallow breathing continues.

*** Every muscle in your body aches after somehow shoving the Mandalorian on his bed. Even with the help of Grogu’s powers, you probably pulled something. You considered removing his armour first, but figured he’d prefer not to wake up with half his wardrobe missing. So you hoisted him up with your hands under his armpits, dragging him with all your might to the mattress in the corner. Grogu closed his eyes in focus, easing your burden.

You double checked his injuries, still baffled by the fresh scar over his rib cage– there was so much blood on the floor, on his armour, in his cape — yet it was almost as if he’d never been cut. Then you scrubbed away the rusty, dried blood on the floor, and tucked the blaster back into his holster, trying and mostly failing to keep positive.

Not lethal, he’d said. It does little to ease your worries.

Now, with Mando asleep on the bed, you pick up the baby and mount the speeder bike with him in your elbow. Grogu makes his dislike of leaving the house abundantly clear. He whines and scratches at you with his nails, but it’s decidedly gentle.

To be fair, you don’t like it either. You feel like a fool, leaving Mando here, but you need to head back to the repository so you can figure out what Senflax-something means and fix this stupid, horrible fucking mess. You can’t just lug his body to the repository with you. He should be fine. Totally fine. His wounds had already been tended to, by whoever or whatever it was. You’d just have to hope no other Imps show up while you’re gone. You’ll find out what’s wrong with him and come right back here to fix it. Everything is fine. Not lethal, you repeat in your head. 

“I’m not going to leave you here alone,” you murmur to Grogu, engaging the speeder. Alone is technically untrue — unsupervised is more applicable. Either way, you’re not leaving him with a sleeping Mando and a dead body.

Not lethal.

The creatures in the mini speeder follow you back to the library, the sun hanging higher than before. Graciously, they allow you to keep the bike for another day. You thank them for helping you find Mando, then creep into the repository with Grogu. You leave the door locked, only intending to stay until you’ve figured out Mando’s condition. No time for Quarrens.

Grogu sits patiently in your lap while you scour the holonet, the bright interface painting your clothes blue in the dark room.

“Senflax…”

You swipe through articles. Cadannia. Jungle planet. Toxins. Plants. Senflax.

“Oh,” you whisper. You switch gears, taking Grogu with you to the botany section.

Your shoulders relax for the first time since this morning as you read about the Senflax plant, native to Cadannia. A neurotoxin that paralyzes the body’s major muscles while leaving vital organs, cognition — and judging by Mando — the ability to speak intact. As for healing, the effects can only be waited out.

“Paralytics such as this are often used by hunters to capture prey.” You read to Grogu, who leans curiously over your shoulder, gazing at the text on the holobook’s screen. “If only you coulda told me that, hey?”

His velvety ear brushes across your cheek, and you sigh, leaning against the shelf. 

If it’s just a muscle paralytic, it doesn’t explain why Mando was knocked out, nor why it took a pounding to the chest to wake him up. Blood loss? The thought twists in your stomach.

He spoke to you. That was good. Then he passed right back out. You could determine the state of him much easier if you could just… look at his face. But you won’t, you’ll just — you’ll just hurry back and keep watch.

***

You spend the evening in Mando’s hut making dinner for you and the baby. He’s nestled between his father’s chest and bicep. It feels intrusive, what you’re doing, but you’d rather be here watching over the two of them than anxiously twiddling your thumbs at home.

You set a steaming bowl of soup on the island in the center of the hut. Grogu peeks at it from the comfort of his father’s arm, then soars, flipping through the air and landing on the counter. 

You stare, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, as he slurps up the broth. He clutches the bowl in his hands, which is about half the size of his body, and finishes it up in less than ten seconds.

He lets it go with a clatter.

You laugh, “More?”

While Grogu works on his second bowl, you work on your own. It’s a simple, salty broth, a few veggies thrown in. Mando didn’t have much to work with. 

You think of sitting by him on the edge of the mattress, then decide against it and sit cross-legged on the floor.

When your bowl is empty and your belly full, you consider moving the body that’s still laying outside, then quickly squash that thought when your soup threatens to come right back out.

When he’s ready, Mando can handle it. You have nowhere to take it, anyways.

He hasn’t moved an inch since you shoved him on the bed, which tracks, given the Senflax, but his extended slumber is troubling you. He should at least be awake. 

Guilt washes over your face, your shoulders. It heats up your cheeks. 

All this for the data stick.

As night falls, you turn on the lantern hanging above the counter. It casts a warm glow around you, the plants, the baby, and the sleeping Mandalorian. 

You check his pulse a third time, his neck warm as ever. It’s stronger now, but still slow. Then you check his wound again and decide to set about cleaning it. It may be healed – how, you have no clue – but it’s still dirty. You locate a medkit by the fresher and settle next to the mattress. 

“I’m going to clean you up,” you murmur to him. No response.

Carefully, you reach into the tear of his flightsuit, holding the fabric up, and pass an alcohol wipe over the bloodied area. He doesn’t stir.

It didn’t hit you then, but it does now – his skin. You can see his skin; tan and soft, yet blemished by scars. It’s as warm as his neck was– but you didn’t get to look at it. Even this tiny glimpse of his bare body is overwhelming. Swallowing, you quickly swipe bacta gel over the wound and pack up the medkit. As good as it feels to touch and admire the warm tone of his skin, it’s also so wrong – him, unconscious, unknowing. 

Fingers trembling, you toss the medkit back in the cabinet by the fresher and plop down, your back against the wall. You debate whether to take Grogu home with you for the night. It feels too much to stay here without the Mandalorian’s knowledge, yet unsafe to leave him defenseless. What if he didn’t want you here, staying in his private space?

You fight with yourself long enough to fall asleep like that, sitting on the floor with your legs spread out before you, your back digging into the wall.

***

You wake with a start against the floor, the urgency of getting to work spinning your head. Blinking, you recall where you are— the night before. You scramble to your knees and peer across the room to find the Mandalorian as still as ever. Grogu snores in the crook of his elbow.

Now. He should absolutely be awake by now.

You stumble toward the medpack, this time in search of the stimshot. You slip it out of the package and, bleary eyed, move Grogu from the bed to his pram.

“Mando,” you sigh, “say something.”

You stand over top of him, staring into the nothingness of his visor.

“Say something, or I am going to give you a stimshot.” 

You press a hot palm on his chestplate, leaving a sweaty, temporary imprint. You push. 

Nothing.

You crouch down and raise the needle, finding the sliver of skin through the gash in his suit.

“Mandalorian.”

You hold it an inch shy of his side, radiating heat. You don’t even poke him before he jolts awake, his hand closing around your wrist, and gripping it hard.

A startled, ragged grunt fills your ears. It fills your whole body.

The leather of his glove squeaks with the intensity of his hold. The stimshot clatters to the floor.

You gasp. 

The helmet turns toward you with the grace of a malfunctioning droid, then he relaxes. Your name is a quiet sigh of recognition, floating from his helmet, his fingers still wrapped around you.

“Librarian.” His voice softens. It’s one word, yet it carries so much relief. Warmth. A glint of humour. He releases you, fingers slipping off your skin. His hand drops against the mattress. “Didn’t think… still here…”

You keep your voice low. “Are you okay?” 

He shifts his legs, testing his mobility, then plants his palms on either side of his body, pushing himself up. His thigh brushes your fingers as he moves. 

Slowly, he looks down at you, kneeling by his side. You swallow, removing your hand from the bed. His next movement is so small, you could have missed it – but you don’t. You don’t miss the way his thigh twitches forward, chasing the trail of your touch.

He chokes a dull sound.

As if you’d been poisoned yourself, your own body goes rigid as you gaze at each other. His helmet drops down without severing your stare, and you notice he’s panting.

You wait for an answer to your question, heat spreading everywhere. 

But he whips his head around, breaking each of you out of whatever trance had just enveloped you. He calms, finding Grogu still asleep in the pram. Then he glances toward the counter, probably eyeing the bowls from last night’s dinner.

“You took care of him,” the Mandalorian declares hoarsely after a moment, his breathing slowing. 

You situate yourself on the floor. “Of course. He came and found me.” 

You don’t know how long he’d been unconscious before you got here. How long Grogu had sat with him, trying to wake him up.

“He’s smart,” Mando murmurs, shifting higher and groaning with effort. “He trusts you.” 

He’s still looking at the baby.

The words dance around your head – glittery, special. Pride shimmers in your chest. Hearing him say it is like receiving a heavy, golden medal.

Mando turns back to you, studies you for a long moment. You try not to shrink yourself.

“Thank you.” It’s weighty, meaningful, charged.

You shrug, mostly to soothe the shiver creeping up your spine. “Least I could do. Thank you for getting my data stick. I feel… kind of terrible.” You laugh, gesturing at his body, the state of him.

He shrugs back, winces, and collapses on the bed. 

You clamber onto your knees once more, hand on his forearm. It’s breathtakingly solid under your touch, his muscles flexing. “What is it?”

He shudders. “Hurts.”

Your brows furrow. “Everywhere?”

His chuckle is ragged, scraping out of his throat. “Something like that.”

“You slept for a long time,” you whisper, “like… really long. I think you stopped being paralyzed quite a while ago.”

“Yeah, well…” Another grunt. “Hit my head on the way down.”

You picture the dart piercing his skin and his whole body freezing, and — he had a long way to fall.

“What do you need?”

He replies faster than you expected. “Water.”

You set a glass beside him and step outside, giving him the privacy to remove his helmet and drink. It's a cloudy, drizzly day. The raindrops lift a fresh scent out of the dry rock and steam rises from the lava fissures in the far off distance. 

You look out the other direction, and the body is still crumpled over by the ship. You cringe as you look at it— him. Whoever he was. Though you have yet to witness Mando use his weapons, you know he’s grossly capable with them. And here you are, staring at the aftermath. A conflicting blend of remorse and relief fill your chest. Is it so terrible to be glad that because the Imp is dead, Mando is okay? That because he killed him first, Mando is drinking water next to his sleeping kid?

After a few minutes have passed in torn reflection, you knock as a warning, then slip back inside.

He’s sitting up again, the baby in his lap.

“I have to get back to the repository.” You cross your arms, leaning by the door. 

They both lift their heads. You smile at their coordination, the way they watch you together. You notice Grogu’s small claw wrapped around Mando’s thumb.

“You’ll both be alright?”

“I’ll send Grogu back to you if I find myself paralyzed again.” 

You laugh at his deadpan tone. “Okay. Put that baby to work.”

The vocoder crackles with a sigh. 

You take one more look around the cabin – the tiny kitchen, and its shelf with Grogu sized-mugs nestled inside Mando-sized mugs. The plants, which surprised you. You hadn’t thought of him as a plant person. Then again, he didn’t look like a baby person either. You glance again at the cookies on the counter. 

“Should I, um, check on you later?”

You’d yet to establish whether the Mandalorian was actually comfortable with your presence in his house, or whether he was just grateful you’d looked after his kid.

“No need,” Mando says, and it suddenly becomes hard to hide the disappointment on your face.

You turn to leave, once more recalling the Imp in the rain. You don’t know what exactly went down, what Mando remembers. Could he have forgotten, in the foggy haze of paralysis, that he’d killed a man who is still laying out on his property? There’s so many questions, so much you need to know – but he’s only just woken up. 

You swivel, shy. “Mando, there’s… a man outside…”

He shoots to his feet, the baby rolling onto the mattress with a gleeful sound. Mando shuffles a boot forward, wavering slightly as he fingers the handle of his blaster.

“The dead one…?” You clarify, eyes shooting to the floor.

His shoulders drop. “Yeah. I’ll handle it.” He falls back on the bed, resting his elbows on his knees. “Just… try to be more specific next time.”

***

You ride back to town and return the speeder bike to the little creatures. You’d never noticed their minuscule shop before; it’s tucked away in the basement of a round building, the entrance about three feet tall. You finally piece together who they are when you catch a glimpse of a squid-like man crouched inside by a worktable covered in wires, retrieving his land speeder. The Anzellans.

You skitter away to the repository before he can spot you.

It’s midmorning now. There’s a few people waiting outside the library who grumble at you for not being open yet. A mother and her child give you a weird look as you unlock the door. You glance down at your clothes – blood on your knees, a little more on your hands. The capacity to mind has escaped you. You shrug it off and walk inside.

You spend the rest of the day like that, sprinkled in blood, a certain absence in your mind as you think about Mando. He doesn’t come in, nor does Grogu – which is a good sign, you suppose. 

After arguing about the library’s right to keep holobooks on various religions with a disapproving old woman (“Ma’am, the library is here to reflect the viewpoints of all its users, not just one”), you close early and head home.

You flop onto your bed in your bloody clothes and fall asleep.

There’s no sign of Mando the next day, nor the one after that. You grow annoyed with yourself and the incessant bobbing of your knee, anxiously wondering whether it will be weeks or months before you see him again. Every ten seconds, you imagine him walking through the door to rescue you from your constant agonizing over whether you’d dually succeeded in damaging his trust and violating his privacy. Grogu was the one who took you to the house – he trusted you to help his father. Mando had even seemed relieved to see you when he awoke, but the way he’d denied your offer to check up on him left you – admittedly – spiraling.

By the third day, you almost wonder whether you should just go back – perhaps he really wasn’t okay – then you find the sliver of reason left in you. Grogu would come and find you again if he needed to.

On the fourth day, your nerves finally begin settling down. You busy yourself with researching Nar Shaddaa for a commander from Adelphi base. Once you finish gathering resources and notes on its atmosphere, you send them off and work on re-shelving holobooks.

There’s more than you expected in the return bin. The cart’s squeaky wheel sings as you roll it around to your starting point: the microscopic fiction section.

You trudge through the shelving, the remainder of your shift dragging as slow as it ever has.

***

The Mandalorian is waiting across the street under the leaves of a tree when you lock up the library. 

He leans against the white bark, his hands resting politely at the front of his body, one atop the other. Everything inside you floods with warmth as you take him in. It’s like the edges of your vision turn all pink and dreamy, the anxieties you’d piled and fussed over the last few days melting away. It’s like… nothing happened. 

He’s here, standing tall and strong and clean, beckoning you forward as he nods in greeting. Your limbs go numb as you walk to him. 

He manages to look handsome without a sliver of skin on display. Perhaps it’s the freshly polished armour and how he gleams in it. Or the way his helmet makes attractive angles over his hidden face. Maybe it’s the size of him, from his big heavy boots to his wide shoulders and the slim waist in between. How a sense of safety envelops you just looking at him. Whatever it is – your heart is fluttering a mile a minute. 

Words catch and pile in your throat.

“Dinner?” He pushes off the tree, nodding towards a market stall a few metres away from which a mouthwatering steam curls.

“Please,” you breathe, all at once conscious of the intense hunger roiling in your stomach.

He pays for your food, and you walk comfortably alongside him as you eat, your face warming at the occasional stares from other villagers.

Once you leave the main plaza, he leans into your side, bringing his helmet closer to your ear. “Thank you for watching the kid.”

“Oh.” You swallow a bite, taken aback. “It was no problem.”

He straightens his back, voice suddenly slashed with guilt. “It could have been. I was there for a day before you came.” 

A day. You recall Grogu’s trembling little body when you found him in the library. A fissure forms in your chest. You want to reach out, place your palm on Mando’s shoulder and comfort him, but you keep your hands to yourself.

The road thins here and there with the spread of other street vendors and their lineups, interrupting your conversation. Mando fits himself in front of you when the path squeezes, reaching behind to gently hook his fingers around your forearm and guide you through the swarms. Your heart trips, as if over a boulder. You almost drop your napkin.

You return to his side when the crowd dwindles, taking two steps for every one of his long strides. 

“What… happened?” You have no clue whether it’s up for discussion, and a bolt of adrenaline zips through your body as the question leaves your lips. “You were gone for a week, and then I found you paralyzed and covered in not just your own blood.”

He doesn’t pause or sigh. He merely seems to take notice of your doubled footfalls and relents, slowing his pace. You pass a fiber artist’s booth, a jeweler, and several more leafy trees before he responds.

“I tracked the Imps for a few days,” he offers, cutting the quiet. “Found a covert operations unit on Coruscant. Took a little while to take it down.”

“The whole thing?” You blurt. 

“Whatever they’d already accessed from the data stick had to be compromised,” he answers, plain. “But I was sloppy. A couple strays followed me home.”

You lift your eyes from the flagstone paving to him, a casual sway in his shoulders as he walks. “I thought there was only one body outside the house…?” 

“Uhuh. Rest of his crew didn’t make it that far.”

He shot down their ship, he explains. It crashed miles out from the house in the lava flats. “I was going to bring you the data stick when he… showed up.”

He says no more, the rest of the story forming easily in your head. 

You chew your last bite and toss the napkin into a receptacle on the side of the street.

The guilt hasn’t fully washed away yet – it’s still nestled somewhere within you, stirring as you contemplate the magnitude of what he’d gone through to return your stupid data stick. He spent a week taking down an entire Imperial unit on your behalf, and when he got home, his reward was a knife in the ribs and a nasty paralytic dart wedged in his other side. He swung violently between sleep and consciousness while you watched over him – was he awake when the kid healed him? Did he try to move, comfort him, and find himself utterly incapable?

And – there’s still a missing piece.

“When I got there, you had this… cut on your side. There was blood everywhere but the wound had already closed.” 

“Grogu,” he mutters. “Like I said, he’s smart.”

You hum, in both astonishment and agreement. 

It hadn’t quite occurred to you that Grogu could have done it, even though it was the only probable explanation. Healing capabilities never came up in your research all those months ago. But thank the Maker for that. You don’t really want to entertain the alternative — but without Grogu’s strange, wondrous abilities, you wonder if Mando would be here, walking alongside you and just barely brushing the back of your hand as your arms swing back and forth. If the gash in his side would have killed him, had Grogu not forced it closed. 

Something builds in your chest, makes you stand a little straighter. The kid had been strong enough to heal his father’s wound, but when he still didn’t wake or stir, when Grogu no longer knew what to do, he gathered his friends and came to find you.

When you open your mouth to thank Mando, your voice barely coasts above a whisper. “It means a lot to me, everything you did. I know you were trying to take a break, but… I guess it just worked out that you were so close.”

The hand plate on his glove skims your sleeve. “I could have said no.”

Just like that – your heart is leaping again. “What do you mean?”

“They could have sent someone else.”

Your head swims, vision blurring. Your pulse tingles in your fingertips. You want to ask who, you want to ask why, but an understanding is taking form. It blossoms in your chest, delicate but sure. This wasn’t about a contract. This was about you.

Another silence passes over you.

You keep walking in tandem, his admission hanging in the evening air. You crest the town’s border where the buildings end and the rocky terrain takes over. 

It’s quiet here, under the city’s white arch, the crowds having thinned to nothing. The orange sun hangs low over the distant grey bluffs. A few silvery ships rest in the docking area to the left, dwarfing the lone land speeder parked at the boundary. 

You’re still processing what he said, absently admiring how the sunset shimmers across his pauldron when he stops, perching his weight on one leg. He seems to eye the docking bay, calculating, before turning and looking down at you. The attention pins you to the spot. Your feet cement to the ground. Holding his gaze is a challenge – one that you lose when you avert your eyes and focus instead on the way his cape rustles in the slight breeze. 

“You know, the kid misses you,” he murmurs. “Think he wants you to come back.”

You choke on nothing. Is he joking? “He wants me to come back. To your house.”

In fairness, that would be understandable. You did make a pretty good soup. But what is this? 

“Did he tell you that himself?” You cross your arms over your chest, tilting up your chin to meet his dark visor. 

Mando huffs impatiently. “I can tell.”

You almost feel bad, giving him a hard time. But watching him get a little ruffled, hearing the slight irritation in his voice – it’s exhilarating.

“And what about you,” you say, a certain boldness mixing in with your nerves. “You miss me? Do you want me to come back?” 

A step forward brings you toe to toe.

His chestplate caves like you’d stolen his breath with that simple question. But he doesn’t look away. You watch his fingers roll against his palm. Is he… fidgeting?

Finally, a gruff murmur. “Yes.”

Yes, I want to take you home, now. Not “if you want,” not “I guess you could.” Yes.

Your pulse is a drum throughout every vein in your body. You waver on your feet and fall silent, no longer trusting your voice to come out as sure and as steady as it was mere seconds ago. First, he admits to putting himself through this whole debacle for you – not the New Republic – and now he’s inviting you home with this aggravatingly sultry yes. You think your knees might give out.

The helmet angles closer into your face, as if he’s narrowing his eyes at you beneath the visor, waiting.

“O-okay,” you blink, eyelids fluttering as you fight to maintain your composure. By some miracle, your next words come out casual and collected. “Only if you got rid of that man outside your house.”

He pulls away, no longer crowding you so closely. There’s remorse in his grumbling. “I wouldn’t invite a lady home if there was still a dead body at my door.”

It’s so… ridiculous, how a sentence like that sets your whole being on fire. He’d called you a lady, and it makes you feel precious, like some coveted, sweet thing. Then he’d referred to a man he killed, probably quite easily, the bloody image of it playing in your head. Instead of making you recoil from him in fear, there’s a heat that sears through your abdomen, a pulse that sings in your core. You sober yourself with a deep, deep breath.

His fingers find your wrist once again, and he swivels on his heel, stalking with you toward the docking bay.

“Get in the speeder.”

***

On the outside, the ride to his house is breezy and peaceful – inside, you’re anything but calm. The wind rustles your clothes, tussles your hair, and dries the sweat collecting in your palms. Anticipation prickles across your skin. It doesn’t feel real, sitting beside him and watching his hands guide the speeder. That question – what is this? – echoes in your mind. It couldn’t just be a friendly kickback, not with the way his voice dragged low when he asked for you to join him. But you’re not sure what else to expect, and you don’t want to hope. You lace your fingers together and try to squeeze out the shakes. 

You’re vaguely aware of him watching you as you cross the hot springs, the landscape now sprinkled with green shrubs. The sun has dipped behind the bluffs on the horizon, taking the warmth with it. Pink and blue swathes in the sky slowly meld into one purple blanket.

When you climb out of the speeder, the familiar racket of Anzellans floats from the ship behind the house. You squint, making out the shape of Grogu’s ears through the window of the cockpit.

“Repairs,” Mando grunts, already trudging away from the speeder. “Come on.”

You chortle to yourself. The kid misses you, Mando said. He’s not even waiting for you.

Mando points you to the front door while he approaches the enclosure housing the two round-backed beasts. You watch from the small porch as he reaches into a large barrel beside a tree, tossing what looks like flaky cubes of dried grass over the wired fence. They each take a block in their gigantic mouths, swallowing without a single bite. You think of asking him what they are, why he has them, but that curiosity dies when he turns in your direction, watching you from a distance.

Your heart quickens when he begins striding to you with purpose. A shiver runs through you. Here you are – alone. 

He stops just short of your body, closing you between himself and the front door. 

“You’re nervous.” It’s almost satisfied, the way he says it. 

Fuck – he’s so close, you can hear his breathing under the helmet without the vocoder having to pick it up. 

You force your voice to carry some semblance of flirtation and not betray the way you’re burning up inside. “Should I not be?”

His arm reaches past your face, caging you, as he presses a button on the wall. The door slides open.

“Get inside.”

Lightheaded, you swivel and walk towards the counter. You place your palms on the smooth surface, letting it cool them down.

The door seals with a hiss. It’s dark; the hot air consumes you. You’re painfully aware of his presence somewhere behind you, but you stay there, hands braced on the ledge of the counter.

Seconds pass. They feel like hours.

“When you were here,” his voice is scraping, so low you can almost feel it vibrate at the base of your core. “You took care of the kid. You fed him. You cleaned the blood off the floor.”

Mando is still standing by the door when you look back. His body takes up the whole archway. It feels like he takes up the whole room, really – he’s nearly as tall as the ceiling.

He approaches you at the counter, taking slow, careful steps. 

You’re trembling. He steadies you by grasping your upper arms.

The warmth of his palms seeps through his leather gloves, through your shirt, onto your skin. Your pulse races, beating violently against his grip. You want to speak, ask him what his point is, but the words aren’t coming. Your mind is lost to his touch that is somehow blazing through layers of fabric.

“You cleaned the blood off of me,” he says. “You touched me.”

Your backside presses against the counter. Fear tugs weakly at the back of your mind at his severe tone, but it’s nothing to the intensity of the arousal warming between your thighs.

“I–I’m sorry,” you plead, blindsided. Perhaps you really shouldn’t have. “You were paralyzed, I couldn’t just leave you there, filthy–”

“You could have waited.”

And – oh, fuck – this is exactly what you were hoping for, isn’t it?

He’s panting, just like when you’d tried to give him a stimshot. So are you, you realize, air puffing rapidly out of your nose. Another shiver knocks through you.

“I wish you would have waited,” he groans. “Then I could have felt– ngh–”

A wrecked gasp tears through your lungs when he presses himself against your thigh, rutting his hard cock against you. It’s harsh, lacking control – he shudders at the sensation. Your head falls back and he instantly invades the space, letting his helmet rest in the curve of your neck. 

Something strains in him, causing his voice to rumble brokenly through the modulator. “Would you have touched me if I was awake? Or were you scared?”

He rocks against you, giving another soft grunt that makes your head swim. When you don’t respond, he lifts his head from your neck and pinches your chin between his fingers, holding you at attention. “Would you?”

There’s truly nothing computing in your mind right now. It’s blank. You just watch him dumbly as his thumb presses to your bottom lip and grazes your teeth.

“I–” You hear a pitiful little whine, and you realize it’s yours over the blood pounding in your ears. “I don’t know… I – oh, please, let me touch you now, I wanna feel you.”

Your hand slips downward, and his whole body goes rigid when you give him a squeeze. The sheer size of him is so much more apparent in your hand, although still covered by the canvas texture of his suit. As you look into his visor, hand pushing against his hard cock, beskar pressing into your thighs, he rasps, “Go to the bed.”

He pulls off of you and your body slackens without the support. He stays by the counter, watching, as you walk to the single mattress and settle on the edge of it. The sheets are crisp and fresh – he’s washed them since you were here last. 

He follows, taking a knee at the side of the bed. His palm smooths down your thigh, dipping under your calf, then he lifts your foot onto his raised thigh and starts pulling off your boot. He tosses it to the side and grabs your other foot. When the second boot slips off, his gloved fingers work into the flesh of your calves, massaging and loosening the tight muscles. 

Your head lolls to the side, resting on your shoulder as you watch him deftly work his way up your leg.

“Take off your shirt,” he demands, hands now resting on your knees, his voice full of want.

Slow– so awfully, frustratingly slowly, you lift the hem of your shirt. Maybe you take so long because you’re shy. Maybe you just want to tease him. He doesn’t care – his fingers dig into your knees all the same when he catches sight of your bare skin, the soft swell of your breasts.

You let the fabric fall beside you, adjusting yourself. 

He stares. And he stares. Finally, his hands coast up your thighs, his fingers find your torso–

“Wait—” You cover his hands with your own. They’re butterflying over your ribs, painfully close to where you want them – but they’re gloved.

You sigh, “Please, can you take those off?”

At that, he tenses, gripping your torso tighter. The tips of his fingers dig into your skin. He looks up at you for a prolonged moment, chest heaving. Then he releases your torso and offers his hands up, holding them steady for you to take off the gloves.

Oh.

Not what you expected.

It's almost too much, the image of him kneeling before you with his hands raised, as if pledging fealty, waiting for you to start undressing him. Your hands shake as you start pulling off one glove. His tan, veiny hand is slowly revealed. You work on the other, then hold his wrists up as you admire his strong, calloused fingers, the thickness of his palms. He lets you look for a few more seconds before he breaks out of your hold.

A breathy moan is stolen from your mouth at the sensation of his hot, bare touch as he cups your chest. He massages around your curves, gentle at first, then with a slight, impatient roughness. He takes your soft noises as encouragement, sliding his thumbs over your nipples. They harden at his touch, and your thighs squeeze with need, and you force yourself not to beg for his mouth.

You cry out for him, “Mando, fuck–” 

It must be the wrong thing to do. He stills, and his hands drop from your chest to brace on the edge of the mattress. Your skin prickles over the plushness of your breasts at the loss of his touch. Your eyes snap open to find the helmet turned down as if he’s pondering something, and your heart starts pumping anxious adrenaline through your veins as you wait for him to spit it out.

“If we’re gonna do this,” his thumbs slowly find your skin again, stroking at your sides. You start to quiver. “I don’t want you to call me that.”

Fuck, what does that mean?

You don’t know what to say, so you just tilt your head at him like he’s done countless times to you. Your stomach does obnoxious little flips. His helmet lifts, finding your eyes. Then his whole body lifts too, as he comes to stand between your spread thighs.

His rough hand catches under your chin, guiding your eyes back to his visor. He’s exceptionally big from this angle, and it makes you squirm under the rigid hold on your jaw.

What is he doing?

“I’ll give you my name,” he says. “Do you want it?”

And… white. Your vision goes completely white, no matter the darkness of the room. It’s just pure nothingness for a moment, a blankness you’ve never known. You don’t even bother stuttering out some helpless form of nonsense to fill the quiet.

“Do you want it?” He repeats huskily, pulling your chin up a touch higher, forcing you to finally think.

It doesn’t escape you – how you’re sitting half-naked before him as he offers you a deeper form of intimacy than anything you could imagine. More intimate than his soft grunts as he’d rutted against you, more intimate than his own bare hands brushing your naked chest. More intimate than it will be, when he slides himself inside you and curses out your name.

It’s barely audible when you whine out a simple yes.

“Fuck– come here.” He pulls you up off the mattress, supporting you and your jelly limbs by wrapping an arm around your waist and holding you to him. He releases you once you find your balance and fits his hands underneath the fabric of your pants, squeezing your ass. Your lip slides between your teeth as his hands go lower, working the fabric off of your body, and you step once, twice, out of your last piece of clothing. He kicks the garment to the side with a boot.

He undoes the strap of his utility belt. Your chest constricts at the way his fingers work the leather, just above his straining erection. It falls, along with the bandolier, slapping against the floor.

He’s still covered head to toe, except for his bare hands. But you’re perfectly naked, and it’s perfectly fair that way, when he’s giving you something so much more than his skin and his body.

“I won’t take anything else off,” he murmurs, dark and hoarse and full of desire. “I’ll give you my name, and you’ll just – you’ll let me have you. Okay?”

You nod, anticipation knocking against every bone, arousal burning white hot between your legs.

It’s like your heart itself knows what’s coming, and it stops for a few seconds. The noise of your blood pumping ceases to fill your ears, just so you can hear the way he whispers his own name to you.

“Din.”

Din.

Your heart kicks back on after a few more seconds, thrashing against your ribs as you process his name. It’s short. It’s simple. Easily spoken; a press of the tongue against the roof of the mouth, a push of air, a petal soft close.

“Din?” You fit his name in your mouth, tasting it for the first time. It’s just a weak murmur when you say it. Din. It feels strange yet right to call him by his name instead of his creed. Din. Unembellished. Entirely him.

You’re hardly aware of how he falters at the sound before your mind starts racing. What do you say now? Do you thank him? But he’s already laying you down on the bed with a new sense of urgency.

He fits himself beside you on the tiny mattress, the armour cold against your skin. In your delirium, still reeling– Din, Din is his real name – you absently murmur something about not getting his boots on the bed. He just grunts dismissively, to the effect that the sheets are going to get dirty either way – fix it later– while his fingers skate down your torso and dip between your thighs. 

This time, his name is an urgent plea, a heavy moan on your lips. “Din–”

“That’s right,” he sighs alongside you, fingers sliding easily over your clit. “Fuck– you’re wet.”

He continues whispering under his breath. Words like pretty and need and soft slur together as he circles your clit, finding only more and more of your dripping arousal. Your back arches off the mattress. You might have felt embarrassed at the ridiculously soaked state of your cunt– it’s borderline pathetic – but he just groans louder in your ear, and his hand moves lower, shallowly dipping inside you. It’s almost too easy for him to sink his knuckles deeper. Din shifts, perching himself slightly more upward on a supporting elbow. He angles his hand so that his thumb can press against your clit while his fingers massage against something achingly sweet inside of you. That spot – you didn’t really know it existed, until now. You thought you’d brushed against it yourself before, but it didn’t feel like this. It didn’t knock the breath out of you like it’s doing now, as Din rubs circles against it.

You reach out, finding purchase with a hand on his shoulder. Your muscles pull taut. You tense your stomach to mitigate the overwhelming sensation of Din’s fingers working you open. Your core pulses around him — and he doesn’t miss the way you hug his fingers tighter.

“Good?”

You make some sort of desperate noise at him, reaching for his waist, searching for his cock. It’s even harder than it was minutes ago. He rolls his hips against your touch, letting you blindly unzip the trousers of his flightsuit and pull his devastatingly hard, thick cock through the opening.

You start to stroke him, spreading the bead of arousal leaking from the tip. You fit your fist around the head and slide down. He shudders, ragged breaths punching out of the vocoder.

“Fuck, you want it? You want me to fuck you? Tell me you want me to fuck you.” He pushes forward, urging his cock through the tightness of your fist. “I bet you feel– I bet you feel good.”

He’s on top of you before you’re even aware that you’re nodding, bobbing your head profusely against the pillow. A whine breaks your lips open when he slides his fingers out of you. 

Faintly, you feel his cock twitch on your thigh, but he catches your wrist when you reach for it again. His gaze doesn’t break from yours as he gathers your other wrist in the same hand, holding them both to his chest. He crowds your vision like this — his helmet, his wide shoulders and chest making up your whole world.

“Din,” you whine again, his name already tasting familiar. You feel his thighs stiffen against yours at the sound. 

“Tell me.” He tightens his grip around your wrists as if you might slip away from underneath his body.

You suck in a breath, then your mouth starts running before you know what you’re saying. “I want you, Din, I’ve wanted you for months, please don’t make me wait any longer–”

“I won’t, fuck, I won’t,” he hushes you, your name slurring wantonly somewhere amongst his hurried promises. He releases your wrists, dragging you down the mattress by the hips.

“Open your legs,” he orders, though he’s already using his palms to shove them apart. You obediently let him spread them wide, reaching for his shoulders.

Din slides a fist down his cock and holds it at the base before notching the head at your entrance.

The need is no longer a dull beat in your abdomen. It’s a violent strike, a painful throb.

“Hurry up– hurts–” You’re mewling at him, and it sends his hips jerking forward in answer. One second, you’re so empty it hurts, and the next, you’re full of him.

The sound he makes… is the sound you imagine he would have made when he was stabbed. It’s tattered. It’s a low, broken moan that ends on a hiss of pain. But it’s so beautiful, too, because he keeps moving, and more sounds tumble out of him, softer than the last. Sounds that aren’t so pained. Just sounds of pleasure – and that’s what’s tearing out of your lungs as the initial pain burns away, turning into a blissful stretch.

“Fuck, I knew you were– you’re perfect–” His voice lands somewhere between a whimper and a growl as he adjusts.

He cradles your jaw in his palm and slides his thumb back between your lips. You run your tongue over it, holding it between your teeth. Then he pushes his cock further, taking another inch, and another.

“Shit,” you cry around his thumb.

The stretch might have been painful if you weren’t this soaked – but it only soothes the ache. He fills you, his cock sliding against that sweet spot, and then he fills you some more.

His thumb falls from your mouth. 

“I thought of you,” he rasps, his palm travelling further down and pressing against the base of your stomach. It transforms the stretch of his cock into something more. “On Coruscant, I thought of you like this– ngh– to keep me going–”

You must be soaking the fabric surrounding his cock already. His flightsuit chafes against your skin each time he sinks himself into you, but the rough sensation is wholly overpowered by the way he’s moving against that point of pleasure inside you. “And then I– fuck, I make it back home, and the next time I see you, I can’t fucking move.”

He’s increasing the pace now, rolling his hips upward each time he bottoms out inside you.

“You were like a-an angel when I woke up, but I blacked out ag–again–”

You wrap your fingers around both of his biceps, between the pauldrons and vambraces. The muscles are hard beneath your touch, working and flexing to hold himself over top of you.

“–and ngh– I fucking missed it when you cleaned my– fuck– I c–couldn’t feel you.”

He sounds desperate and frustrated even now as he’s working you open on his cock. You don’t think he’s ever talked this much, or so freely – he hardly ever talks, even with prompting. But now, it’s like he’s baring all of his inner thoughts to you in place of his skin, and it’s working a certain kind of magic; his raspy voice worsens the pulse between your thighs.

“You can feel me now, Din,” you reassure him, purposely tensing your walls around him, “I’m here, you can have me as long as you want.”

The pressure on your stomach disappears. He stops moving. Your brows raise in the middle, your bottom lip threatens to jut out. You squirm, refusing to look away from the visor, your cunt squeezing around his cock that’s buried, now motionless inside you. You're sure he’s looking back into your eyes as he pants above you. 

Then he reaches underneath you, taking your body with him as he leans back on his knees and gathers you into his lap. 

He wraps his arms around you, hands grabbing at your ass as he guides you back down his length. Your thighs cage his kneeling frame, and your hands lock over his traps, clutching at the gathered wool of his cape.

At this angle, the underside of your clit slides against his cock as he bucks up into you. 

“Din.” You sigh his name. Again, and again, and again. A lightning strike thunders in your ribcage every time you say it, and your voice stumbles with each bounce, “Din, you f-feel, fuck, you feel so big.”

“Yeah?” The cold beskar of his helmet presses against your shoulder as his hips stutter. His vambraces dig into your sides. He fucks you like that for a while, an absurd display of strength – he could fuck you however he wants to, but he elects to kneel on the bed with you on top of him, using his arms and hands to help you bounce on his cock. “God, you’re fucking tight, ngh– and soft–”

Soon, he lets you just grind against him, stimulating your clit against the coarse dark hair at the base of his cock. He must notice when you’re getting close – your head falls back and your eyes shut in pleasured focus, and your walls seize around him – then he’s stammering, “No, no, no, hang on,” into the vocoder.

You’re dizzy with pleasure when he eases you onto your back again. A whimper catches in your lungs when you lose some of the friction on your clit, the dull ache of your building orgasm fizzling away. 

One of his hands travels up underneath your spine, and his fingers slide through your hair at the nape of your neck before he closes them in a fist, pulling. Your scalp tingles as his other hand grabs the underside of your thigh to hike it up higher against his body. It only slightly alters his angle but it’s doing something, causing your eyes to shut tight and your cunt to drench him with more of your already excessive slick.

He slows, milking it, admiring how your wetness makes his cock glisten. “Shit, how are you–? You’re soaking.” 

You take his brief pause to try and roll back on top of him and gain some control — you want to lay him down, use your mouth, show him just how grateful you are for all he’d done. But you can’t move, can’t get him to yield to the weak pushes at his shoulders.

He says something that is lost between his concealed lips and your ears; you’re too busy squirming helplessly under his body. He tightens his grip in your hair, forcing you to look at him. 

“Hey— relax,” he soothes, albeit a tiny bit rough and gravelly. “What?” 

You clench your jaw under his grip, struggling against the feeling of fullness, battling the words out of your mouth. “Please let me back on top. You did so much for me, let me do the w–”

He cuts you off, although your words clearly affect him, judging by the strain in his voice. “Fuck, it doesn’t matter. I’d do it again. Just– just let me fuck you. Just stay there for me.”

Din starts to move again, a new pressure building in your core. It sings with every thrust he gives, and you can’t form a single argument. 

“Then just…” you cry, “don’t stop until you c—come. Please, I’m close enough, I'll g–go with you.”

He chokes out a torn sound when you wrap your legs around his back, bringing him closer and locking him against you. 

His hand moves to rest possessively on your neck, but he doesn’t close it around you or choke you. He just lays it there, adding a pleasant weight, and holds you like that as he starts fucking you harder, your legs squeezing his waist.

“–Needed you, I needed you,” he rasps, hardly audible above the sound of him pounding into you. It’s rough. Every part of him is digging into you, beskar no doubt leaving temporary dents in your skin. But it’s all an afterthought to his thick girth, his wrecked voice. 

“Wanted to fuck you since, ngh– since I took you to the c-cantina, ‘nd you looked so fucking pretty–”

He’s losing rhythm now, just helplessly rutting his hips against you, sliding his cock back and forth through your soaking entrance.  “You st–stared at me for s-so long and then you f-finally smiled and fuck– I wanted to – oh shit, I would have taken you out back and fucked you right th—there.”

His words make your walls pull tight around his cock as he grinds against you. You wrap your arms around his shoulders — or you try to – he’s too fucking broad to hold the way you want to and bring him close.

He slides his grip from your hair and rips off a pauldron, then the other, tossing them to the floor with a loud clank.

“Better?” He grunts. 

You snake your arms back around his shoulders, enjoying the lack of the cold, hard armour against them. You don’t have the mind to tease him that he said he wouldn’t take anything else off.

“Yeah– oh fuck, Din…” 

His hand slips between your bodies, palm pressing once more to your stomach and his thumb extending down over your curve to put pressure on your clit.

Your whole body is hurtling back towards the orgasm he’d delayed. “I’m gonna–” 

“Can feel it,” Din strains, fighting to regain a sense of rhythm to coax it out of you. “Come on, give it to me.”

His thumb slides through the wetness on your clit and you hear another hiss slip from the helmet before the ache in your core becomes a shattering, white hot release, spreading through your limbs, tingling in your fingertips. It knocks the breath out of you and holds you there, shaking beneath Din’s body as he continues to fuck you through it. 

“Fuck– good girl…” He’s not so much talking anymore as he is breathily moaning out praises, drawing out syllables like he can hardly think of what word comes after the next. “You get t-tighter when you— fuck, I might—”

You’re still coming, neck straining against the pillow, and he’s panting in your ear like he might collapse.

“Wh–where do you–?”

Before you can form an answer, he’s giving you one last deep push and then dragging himself out of you to come on your stomach. It spills warm and thick on your skin, trickling down the curve of your belly.

“Fuck, you’re so–” 

Without thinking, your fist closes around his cock, pumping out the rest of his cum. Your grip slides easily up and down his length with the mixture of both your orgasms, and he twitches hard when your thumb passes over the tip. Gently, he guides your hand away, too sensitive to withstand your touch.

Now, he just gasps over top of you. He doesn’t get up or move or do anything at all. His helmet shifts with each heavy breath. He’s either contemplating something or he’s not thinking at all. Maybe his eyes are closed and he’s not even looking down at you.

“Din?”

He tumbles beside you, works himself under you, and pulls you onto his metal chest.

“Sleep here tonight,” is all he says before his arms close around you and his breathing evens out.

***

The next time the Mandalorian – Din – returns to the holorepository, he’s not there to brush up on an alien language. He’s not there to pester you about researching his baby. No, he stalks toward you through the shelves, corners you until you slip backward into the archival office. Then one hand covers your eyes while his other lifts the helmet. He kisses you, and it’s more. More than sex. It’s more than knowing his name, when he trusts you won’t try to peek between his fingers.

His lips are warm and soft and searching, a moustache prickling your skin. 

Going on a hunt, he says.

Could be days, he says.