Work Text:
Tatooine was a dry place, not only in climate but in activity. The backwater planet was of little interest to tourists aside from petty criminals wanting to spend some credits. Those situated on the planet were not there out of choice but out of poverty, the inability to escape the heat of the two suns which seemed to beat relentlessly down on it’s populous.
This is why it came as a surprise when your employer, a caring, albeit stern, middle aged woman of the name Peli Motto asked you to come into the landing bay on your day off. She described to you a masked bounty hunter with a distinct distrust of droids willing to pay a large sum of credits for his ship to be fixed within the day. This venom toward droids was where you came in.
In the community you were known as a prodigy, this generation's Anakin Skywalker (whoever he was) when it came to engineering ships. As you moved through the dusty landing bay you came to understand why Peli needed more help when it came to the ship, it was obvious that the bounty hunter had gotten into a firefight on their way to your discarded planet.
“You start getting to work on the interior damage, I need to go and make sure the droids stop making such a fuss,” Peli ordered as she began walking toward a door where, indeed, a cacophony of distressed beeps and squeaks was emanating.
“You got it boss,” You replied, making your way up the exit ramp.
As you entered the ship there was a distinct smell of fuel, the fumes filled the cabin. You pulled up the dark handkerchief which hung around your neck, usually reserved for the frequent dust storms which plagued the region. Stifling a cough, you began moving around the ship, scanning the machinery from any discernible damage. You opened a cabinet and was taken aback by the professional collection of blasters, meticulously placed with almost as much care as a collector. You brushed your calloused fingers over an imperial blaster, feeling the cold metal sting against your skin.
Before you were able to explore further, you heard a small squeak from a compartment behind you. Carefully closing the cabinet’s doors with hiss you moved cautiously toward the sound. Perhaps the fumes were getting to you, you reasoned as you stood before the compartment where the sound had emanated from. Almost subconsciously you raised your fingers to press against the button to open the compartment, despite reasoning that you were on an obviously dangerous bounty hunter’s ship and thus had no business putting your nose where it didn’t belong. Perhaps it was a quarry, gagged and tied up, trying to escape. No, you shouldn’t get involved in these matters. But no matter what your logic your brain was speaking, your gut instinct staunchly ignored it as you pressed the button and the compartment swiftly opened.
Whatever you expected it was not this.
A small creature, wrapped tightly in what resembled a sack stood watching you with large, obtrusive eyes. His head quirked to the side, it’s ears raising slightly in an inquisitive manner. Within it’s small hands it held a tiny orb, it resembled the top of a lever that one may find on a gearstick. It looked down at the object in its hands before raising it as an offering, letting out a small exuberant laugh that spoke to your very soul. It wanted to play with you.
“What’re you doing?” A low, modulated voice echoed from the entrance of the cabin.
“Fuck!” You cursed, jumping from your position and not realising that you had subconsciously leaned forward, leaving your head inside the compartment. You reached back to the throbbing pain at the tip of your skull. “Sorry, I thought you were gone,” You murmured, sheepishly as you turned to look at the man.
He was tall, his helmet threatening to touch the ceiling. His whole body was clad in a glinting metal, winking as it caught the light from outside. He appeared to be in a halo, almost an irreverent figure in the light. That was, however, until you saw that he had pulled a blaster and had it leveled at your chest.
“Friendly!” You replied swiftly, without thinking. You briskly raised your arms in a surrender, however. “I’m- I’m just your mechanic; Miss Moto said you didn’t like droids.”
“Oh,” The figure replied, though he still didn’t lower his weapon. “Step away from the kid.”
“Sure, yeah- yeah.” You moved away from the compartment but, to your horror, the small creature had latched onto your belt and was holding on. “I’m sorry-” You said helplessly as, with your hands still raised, tried moving away from the child to no avail.
Somewhere in the back of your mind you registered the click of a safety and a blaster being re-holstered. You stumbled through the ship, much like the movements of a toddler, highly aware that you were in the presence of a deadly bounty hunter but also that you had a small child clutching your hip like it was the only thing keeping it afloat in sea. The child turned out to have an iron grip as you spun around clumsily, you heard it let out a small giggle that reminded you of bells.
You continued mumbling under your breath apologises until a strong hand snaked around your waist, steadying you. You whipped your head around to set your eyes on the mask clad figure. You stood there for a second, your chest heaving, your face flushing from the close proximity and embarrassment. There, suspended between the dust bowl that was Tatooine and the cabin which held the mysterious stranger with his hand encircling your waist, keeping you steady.
“You’re a Mandalorian.” You uttered dumbly, finally placing the helmet.
“I am,” He replied.
Despite being unable to see his eyes you felt them piercing you, a sense of heat emanating from his gloved fingers and seeming to encircle you to your very core. The moment felt grossly intimate for, only a few seconds ago, one of the most infamous bounty hunters in the galaxy had been pointing a blaster at your chest and now you felt like your face was being studied, a map with a secret that the man was just itching to discover.
The two of you were taken out of your individual reveries when a joyous laugh emanated from your belt. Simultaneously, yourself and the Mandalorian looked down at the child, still gleefully holding onto a pound that held various gears and cogs used for repairs. You suddenly stepped back, though the bounty hunter didn’t move; aside from the tiniest tilt of the helmet, indicating he had fixed his gaze once more on you.
“He- uh- he’s got a strong grip… for a little guy.” You said as you tried to pry the tiny creature from your belt as the allusive Mandalorian watched. You had the slight inkling that he was laughing at you from behind the impenetrable mask.
“Stand still,” He asked, though it was more of a command.
You complied, your heart beginning to beat restlessly as he moved toward you silently. His mask was motioned toward your face as he stood but a hair’s breadth away, so close you were able to see your own reflection in the visor. You could hear him breathing, just louder than the blood thundering through your ears.
All the while still looking at you, his hands moved toward the child, gently prying him from the belt with an indignant noise from his counterpart. He held the child in his arms, almost like one would a baby: there was something odd, you thought, to seeing someone so infamous for their violence and brutality holding a being with such care. You had unconsciously quirked an eyebrow as you watched the child look at you from behind the dark fabric. There was something knowing to those eyes, something you couldn’t place.
You stepped aside, rubbing the back of your neck awkwardly as you suddenly felt pressured by his gaze. He took the opportunity to return the creature to its blanketed cot from which it had came. You turned back just to see the child give you an open mouthed wave before the doors of the compartment shut with a hiss.
“I’m sorry for prying, I swear I was just assessing the damage inside the ship,” You swiftly said, feeling although with the child gone the bounty hunter could do anything he wanted. The guild didn’t appreciate loose ends after all.
“It’s fine. I just came back for a different blaster,” He replied, his voice softer, now that you could concentrate on the timbre of it.
“Oh, I can leave if you’d like?” You asked, gesturing toward the door with a brief wave.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll be out in a minute,” The Mandalorian replied, moving toward the cabinet of weapons before opening it. You hovered awkwardly in the background, looking anywhere but him so to give yourself a brief reprimand for how hot your face had gotten.
“Will you be on Tatooine long?” You murmured at, what you told yourself was, a vague attempt at small talk. Though, somewhere deeper, somewhere you were unwilling to admit existed, you wanted to know him more, this murderer-for-hire: you wanted a taste of the danger that you had previously only had a whiff of.
“Just passing through,” He said after a brief pause that could have been seconds or hours. “Do you live here?” The Mandalorian asked swiftly, surprising you. He had turned around now, his fingers moving over the blaster with the familiarity of a pianist and his keys,
“Yes- well, no.” You amended yourself, still looking anywhere but him. “Not here-here, not in this port but in this town, yes.” You felt yourself clamming up with every ill thought of word out of your mouth.
The Mandalorian pushed the long, intricate blaster into his holster, his eyes piercing you through the dark mask the whole time. His helmet cocked to the side slightly while speaking, like a child when confronted with something that entices their curiosity. You were far too concerned with the complexity of the wiring at your feet to notice.
“You should probably be going,” You said finally after a prolonged period of silence in which the tension in the small cabin was palpable. “Work to do, you know.” You tried not to think about the capacity of his work, however.
“Yes,” He seemed to shake himself from a daze, moving toward the hatch of the ship before turning to you. “Maybe if I pass through here again I’ll look you up.” There was a certain implicature to his voice that you didn’t dare interpret for fear of false hope.
“I doubt you will,” You replied, already cursing yourself for the inability to simply agree. “No one ever comes to Tatooine twice.”
“You never know.” There was a hint of a smile in his voice as he began to move from the cabin.
“You never know,” You murmured under your breath as he moved down the ramp.
But little did you know that the tiny creature, while latched onto you, had moved his orb, of which he was so fascinated with, into your utility belt.
You also had no idea to what lengths a Mandalorian would go to procure what was his.