Chapter Text
"Get back, now." Fennec’s voice cuts across Boba’s comm minutes after he leaves hyperspace.
He blinks, a little surprised despite himself. He hits the sequence for the jump to lightspeed, frowning at the comm. “That was fast.”
"Dark Troopers are coming back."
“Two minutes,” he responds, the stars already stretching around him.
He manages to get there in time, just barely, the alarms blaring as everyone hustles aboard. Boba wants to look for the kid but keeps his eyes on the horizon, watching the tiny platoon get bigger and bigger until he can see their red glowing eyes.
That's new, he thinks.
“Go!” Dune shouts from below, ship sealing behind them.
He slams the ship back into hyperspace, barely clearing the light cruiser.
Boba blinks. From his end this was almost easy. He hits Fennec’s comm.
“All accounted for?”
"Yeah, we’re all here."
“Tell the Mandalorian if he wants to check on the kid, my quarters lock.”
"You’re getting soft, Fett."
Boba rolls his eyes and hangs up (and he’s not soft, he just wants the mission to be a success). He can hear people moving about below but can’t quite hear their voices. He spares a thought to regret not bugging the cargo hold. But then -- most of his guests have been frozen in carbonite.
After a minute he hears the sound of his door sliding open and shut again and smiles. Then frowns. Kriff, maybe he is getting soft.
After another minute or so Kryze and her lackey climb up to the cockpit, helmets off. They both look like they just ate bantha shit, and that makes Boba smile under his helmet too.
Not that soft, then.
The Marshall climbs up not long after, looking more like the lothcat who got the cream. “Shand suggested carbonite transport for the Moff. I had no objections.”
“Good,” Boba nods.
He pauses, casting a glance at the Mandalorians muttering in the corner of the cockpit, looking at the ladder to the hold occasionally.
He looks back to see the Marshal - Dune, he mentally revises. Nothing about this was Republic business. - watching the others talking too. Her hand sits on top of the blaster on her hip, fingers drumming.
“Who gets Gideon’s bounty?” He asks.
Kryze nearly snaps her neck whipping to look at him so quickly. She narrows her eyes.
“Mando,” Dune says, still watching Kryze. “He won the Darksaber, too.”
It takes a second, but when it clicks -- Boba bursts into laughter.
--
He doesn't see Mando for hours.
Everyone has long since left to find a corner in the cargo hold, and it’s just Boba in the cockpit now. He’s taken off his own gloves and helmet, setting it on top of the console to stare back at him. It reminds him of his father. Sometimes he wonders what Jango would think of him. Sometimes he wonders what he thinks of Jango.
Mando is surprisingly quiet despite the weighty armor, and it takes a moment for Boba to notice he’s there, catching the glint of the beskar as a reflection in the glass. He’s barely standing, mostly just slumped against the doorway. No sign as to how long he’d been waiting.
Boba nods to the reflection, and Mando straightens. He settles into the co-pilot’s seat stiffly, carefully.
“That medkit was for both of you, Mandalorian,” Boba says, face still turned toward the stars.
“I’m fine,” Mando says quietly. “I’m not --” He stops. “My name is Din. I’m not sure I’m a Mandalorian anymore.”
Boba is relieved he’s already facing away from Man-- Din. He watches the reflection, though. Din’s head is bent, staring at his gloves. His helmet is still on.
“Why wouldn’t you be?” Boba asks.
Din exhales, loud enough to be picked up by the vocoder. “On Morak -- I removed my armor. Showed my face to people outside of my Clan. I am dar’mada. This is the Way.”
It's the most words Boba’s ever heard Din say in a row and he sounds devastated. Boba wants to shake him, to tell him his soul is his own and only he can decide the Way.
“Why did you take it off?” He says instead. He doesn’t know enough about Din’s Creed, but he knows that it’s different from most. More intense.
Din clenches his hands in his lap. “We needed a face that wasn't in the system to access Moff Gideon’s coordinates. Mayfeld wouldn’t do it. I-- I needed to find the child. Grogu.”
A bubble of fury in Boba’s chest at Din’s voice, cracked and uncertain -- Mayfeld wouldn’t do it. He clenches his hands on the controls, working to keep the anger off his face lest Din think it’s directed at him.
“Foundlings are the future,” Boba says instead of what he wants to say. Again.
“Yes,” Din says, voice cracking again.
Boba can’t do it, can't stay quiet. He can’t say what Din wants to hear. Not when it makes him sound like that. He turns to face him, but Din’s head is still bowed, shoulders drawn up tight to his ears.
“Vod.”
Din shrinks further. Boba can’t let this go.
He spins in his chair, reaching out with both hands to clamp down on Din’s shoulders. Most of his hands stay on the pauldrons, but his thumbs dig into the rough fabric of Din’s flight suit, warm and -- wet?
Din flinches and Boba immediately removes his hands, looking down at his bare hands. Blood.
“Din,” he says quietly.
“I’m f--,” Din cuts himself off. “I fought a Dark Trooper and the Moff.”
He doesn’t say where he’s been injured, or even that he’s hurt at all. But the blood is still on Boba’s hands.
Boba stands, ignoring the way Din’s helmet follows him moving around the cockpit. There -- a shelf in the back.
He comes back with a heavy-duty medkit, swiveling Din’s chair to face his, and setting the kit set beside his helmet on the console.
“I keep one here just in case I have to patch myself up while making a getaway,” Boba finds himself explaining as he unpacks a large tube of bacta gel and bacta patches. He doesn’t know why he wants to explain anything. “Generally if the patch job can’t wait until after the getaway, it’s bad.”
“I normally use a cauterizer,” Din says quietly.
Boba’s head flips up at that, hands stilling. Nobody used those anymore, really. Painful, nasty things.
“You’re about as likely to catch an infection from the burn as you are to successfully stop the bleeding.”
Din just shrugs. “It’s been fine.”
Boba inhales and exhales slowly. He picks up a clean cloth, setting the bacta aside for now.
“I’ll need the top flight suit off,” at least, Boba doesn’t add. He suspects there are more injuries than whatever has blood seeping through the shoulder of Din's flight suit.
It takes a moment for Din to nod and an even longer one for him to start removing the armor. Pauldrons, cuirass. Boba resists the urge to offer aid in this -- armor is sacred and there are some lines he’s not sure he’s willing to cross. Lines he's not sure he's welcome across.
Din’s smaller without the armor, but not small by any stretch. He struggles to raise his arms, but manages to unfasten the flight suit. It goes loose at the neck and back, sliding down his arms to reveal a mess.
Blood, some dry but most fresh or still tacky, spread across the back of his neck and shoulders. Coming from under his helmet. Dark red splotches already darkening to bruises covering the skin not already bloody. Whatever scars Din has, Boba can't see.
Boba stares and then looks up to meet Din’s gaze.
“I didn’t think it was that bad,” Din says quietly, already looking down and away. He pokes at a bruise and hisses.
“Where’s the blood coming from?” Boba says in lieu of yelling.
One hand lightly touches the back of the helmet. “I hit my head on a wall.”
Boba raises an eyebrow but doesn’t answer, leaning in with the cloth to wipe away the blood. Din shivers at the touch but doesn’t pull away this time. Boba swallows hard.
“You did, huh?”
Din doesn’t answer until Boba looks up from his chest. The visor is as blank as ever, but trained steadily on Boba. The moment stretches. Din looks away first.
“A Dark Trooper did. Repeatedly.”
This is Boba’s first lesson is exactly how little self-preservation Din has.