“I wear black all the time,” Jyn countered, shooting for wry but ending up somewhere near brusque like always.

“Not like that you don’t.”  His gaze raked over her body, the air suddenly thick and heavy.  “You look lovely,” he said, and Jyn tucked a lock of hair that had already fallen out of her knot back behind her ear.

“You look...nice,” she said, and she hoped he understood what she meant.  Because black suited him too, his dark eyes and sharp cheekbones accentuated by his high collar.  But she struggled with words, especially when it came to him.

A glimmer of a smile flickered across Cassian’s lips and he held his arm out.  “Our mission awaits,” he said, and she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow.  

He kept her close while they boarded the lift down to the casino.  Part of the cover, she knew, but she let a secret part of herself enjoy the warmth radiating from him.  There were precious few people who had touched Jyn in the years since she struck out on her own, and even fewer of those touches had been like this— gentle but strong, comforting and purposeful.  He covered her hand with his, dropping his lips to her ear.  “My contact said the buyer arrived earlier today.  He should be plenty drunk by now.”

Jyn nodded, sternly reminding herself the point of tonight was to intercept one of the Empire’s most prolific arms dealers, not to lean against Cassian’s side, breathing in the hint of expensive scent he was wearing.

The buyer was easy enough to spot when they exited the lift.  He was a bloated, lumpy human, with bloodshot eyes and a suit so rumpled he had to be richer than a Hutt, because otherwise the casino would have shown him the door hours ago.  He gestured angrily to the dealer, and Cassian took her hand to lead her to the dance floor.

They joined the other couples, human and alien, and fell into step.  Situated in the middle of the casino tables, the floor gave both of them an easy vantage point from which to watch him.  The music was slower than Jyn would have liked, if only because romantic swaying had a tendency to lull her into complacency, and she needed to be sharp, not fighting the urge to bury her face in Cassian’s neck and shut out the rest of the galaxy.

Cassian’s hand spanned her bare lower back, his palm burning into her skin.  He swallowed and made a soft noise, half-cough and half-grunt, and she wished she could have half his professionalism.  Nothing threw Cassian from a mission objective, and here she was, mooning like an Alderaanian schoolgirl.

He turned them a quarter revolution so her eyes were on the buyer’s table.  “He’s standing up,” she whispered, and Cassian’s hand flexed against her.  “But leaving his credits behind, so probably just a piss break.”

Cassian snorted at her crudeness and swept his hand down across her hip, feeling for her holster.  Guns were officially banned in this particular Canto Bight establishment, but given that the majority of their customers had at least one finger in an illegal pie, it was hardly well-enforced.

“I’ll follow him,” she said, because Cassian’s hand was making her feel things she didn’t want to think about, and that gave her the urge to punch something.  “He’ll be less suspicious of me.”

“You have your comlink?” Cassian fussed, and she rolled her eyes, stepping away from him.

She could feel Cassian watching her from the bar as she disappeared down the dim hallway.  She kept her pace measured and leisurely, but the second she rounded the corner she gave up the pretense.  She straightened and dropped her hand to the slit of her dress, spinning the holster around so her blaster was more accessible.

Jyn stopped in front of the toilets and frowned.  All were unoccupied, but this was a blind hall— K2 had made her memorize the schematics of the building, and she was sure this hall led to nothing more than these stalls.  The back of her neck prickled and she eased her blaster from the holster, scanning the walls for vents and hidden panels.

Where did he go?  She considered raising Cassian on the com, but she didn’t want to alert him unnecessarily.  

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than something slammed into the back of her head like a hammer.  Her vision went black and Jyn went down, but Jyn hadn’t survived years in the scummier parts of the galaxy without learning to take a punch.  She rolled the second her shoulder hit the floor, and the buyer was on her in seconds, his bulk pinning her.  “Think I didn’t notice you?” he hissed in crisply accented Basic.  “You were about as subtle as a Gundark.”

Jyn twisted underneath him, trying to raise her blaster, but he caught her hand and slammed it against the floor until her wrist was numb.  The blaster went skittering across the polished tiles, her comlink unreachable.  She kneed him between the legs and he winced, but his meaty paw landed a solid punch to her jaw that had her seeing stars.  Notice that this is taking too long, she thought desperately.  Realize something is wrong, Cassian, please, she pleaded.

There was the sharp, whistling reverb of a blaster shot and suddenly the buyer went limp.  Cassian emerged from the darkness as if she’d conjured him through the Force, her blaster in his hand.  Jyn grunted and shoved the dead body off, scrambling backwards.  Cassian caught her arm and pulled her to standing, his face impassive as always.

“We were supposed to arrest him and bring him back for questioning,” she pointed out.  “Kind of hard to do that when he’s dead.”

Cassian shrugged and pocketed her blaster.  “Plans change.  K2, ready the ship,” he said into his comlink, and he put one finger under her chin to tilt her face towards the light.  “You took a hell of a punch there.”

She shrugged away from him and tried to straighten her dress.  The scuffle had ripped it in several places, but hopefully they could sneak out without drawing any more attention.  “I could have fought him off,” she said gruffly, and Cassian rolled his eyes.

“You sure had him on the ropes,” he said drily, and then he was pulling his jacket off and slinging it over her shoulders.  “Come on, let’s get out of here before anyone finds the mess.”  His jacket was warm and despite their peril, Jyn wanted to smile and burrow into it, wrapping it around her like a protective blanket.

The Force was with them and no security teams stopped them before they boarded the ship, and Canto Bight’s we’ll-look-the-other-way-if-you-pay-us-enough-credits policy meant they were able to jump the head of the queue to take off.  “Command won’t be happy we didn’t even get to question him,” Jyn said once they were safely above atmo.

“Command can deal,” Cassian said, setting the hyperspace calculations and pushing back from the controls.  “We need to see about that jaw.”

“It’s just a bruise,” she protested but followed him into the belly of the ship anyway, letting him pull down a med kit and scan her jaw and skull for fractures.  Cassian frowned at the readout and her anger flared.  He’d been treating her like a child since he intervened, and now they were going to get read the riot act by half a dozen rebel commanders who already had it out for her.  Cassian Andor, Savior of the Rebellion might be fine, but Jyn Erso, unwanted orphan and constant problem, would not be.

“It didn’t have to end that way, you know,” she snapped. She flinched away when he went to apply healing gel to her cheek.  “You could have knocked him out.  He wasn’t about to kill me, he was just knocking me around.”

Cassian ran his hands through his hair and shook his head.  “I thought— no, that’s not it.  I didn’t think.  I saw you, and I acted.” Jyn scoffed, but Cassian grabbed her arm and pulled her back towards him.  His eyes were dark, serious, searching.  “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you,” he said lowly, and for a moment her bravado wavered.  This was something she wanted, something she didn’t think she should have, something she wasn’t sure she could embrace in a galaxy of war and uncertainty.  But oh, she wanted to.  He touched her cheek— the uninjured one— and threaded his fingers into her hair.  “You were in danger, and that was the end of the mission.”

Jyn licked her lips and watched Cassian’s eyes drop to her mouth.  “Oh,” she said softly, and the moment hung between them.