Chapter Text
“Maker,” you growl, startled at the seemingly silent suit of armor that came up behind you, putting unexpected hands on your shoulders. “Mando, if you—“
“Yeah?” His modulated baritone rasps through the beskar helmet, never failing to make you melt at least just a little. He kneads your shoulders a little more before stepping back, and you resist the urge to think about what his strong hands could do to you elsewhere. “We should go,”
“Exactly what I was doing when you interrupted me,” you grumble, grabbing your blaster out of the Razor Crest armory and stuffing it into your holster. You take a few more knives, placing them in their strategic holsters—one at your chest, another on the other hip, and down both calves. You swear you can hear a grin through that silent helmet, and shake your head as you follow him off the ramp into the watery Nevarro sunlight.
It’s been at least a few months, if not a year, since your fate had somehow been entangled in the Mandalorian’s. You’d been an innocent bystander on Alzoc III when all hell was raised, and he’d tackled you to the ground when an explosion rocked the building next to you, shielding you from shrapnel. Before you could clear your head and process, he’d already grabbed your hand and was running, far and fast. You saw a whole crowd, angry and armed, in pursuit, and your heart pounded in your throat as you hurled yourself inside the Razor Crest and screamed at him to “Go, go, go!”
Once in hyperspace, he had come down to the hatch, where you sat, shaking slightly. A solid wall of metal and silent armor, he regarded you for a second. “Sorry.”
Your brow knit in confusion. “For what? Saving my life?”
He gestured around. “Well. Now you’re here. And it’s not safe to go back to Alzoc right now,”
That’s the understatement of the millennia, you thought sarcastically, but kept it to yourself.
In the end, Mando was supposed to put you down in some neighboring star system and you’d find your way. But a few jobs came first, and while initially he was reluctant to let you come along, he learned that you were a good asset and ally. And, you thought. Maybe he missed running with a crew, just a little bit.
You shake your head, bringing yourself back to present day as you enter Nevarro’s archway. The pungent smells of cooking meats, oil and metal mix in the air, a sharp tang that settles into the light dust that coats your mouth.
Mando suddenly turns to a cantina door, and you almost walk into him. “Kriff, Mando,” but your voice is entirely without heat as you feel a hand shooting up to your waist to steady you. Sun glints off the curve of his helmet as he glances at you slightly before the door whooshes open and he steps inside.
At this hour, there’s only a few customers lingering at the bar.
“Hey, Mando!” A rich, unctuous voice cuts across the light chatter, and a man sitting at the booth gestures to you both.
As you slide into the booth, Mando makes brief introduction. So this was Karga. A new head of the Guild, as the other one ran afoul of some Hutt business.
“…there is another job. Unusual, but pays handsomely.”
Your ears perk up. Maker knows you could both use some credits.
“Let’s see the puck,” Mando says.
“No puck. Face to face,” Karga leans back, regarding Mando through half closed eyes. For some reason, his words send a shiver down your spine, a deja vu of a moment that has not yet come to pass. “It’s not exactly bounty work either, but you will understand if you meet him. If you want it, you will meet him at the Cave Plains at suns down.” He shoves a data stick across the table.
The silence grows thick. Finally, Mando nods, grabs the stick and sweeps from the booth, leaving you to scramble after him.
“What do you think,” he asks lowly as you both wind your way back down the Main Street.
You shrug. “I’ve only been doing this since you picked me up,”
He grunts noncommittally, but from what you’ve gathered, he’s only been in this for a handful of years as well, off and on while he wasn’t running with Ran’s crew. “Use your…intu….intut…”
“Intuition?” You laugh. Of course that wouldn’t be in his dictionary.
“That.”
“I don’t have feelings about it. Not about the way I did with Corellia,” you shudder a bit to think about how close both of you were to getting caught and killed by the Imps. You had told him it was a bad idea, and it was. Thank the Maker there had been two bacta kits on board, one for the deep blaster burn on your thigh and one for the ugly gash across his abdomen, the other in his back. Once you’d staggered over to him and shot him with the Bacta, you had passed out. You had a fever that wouldn’t break for three days, and when you returned to consciousness, the first thing you saw was Mando’s metal visor hovering over you, one hand cradling your cheek, the other hand tight around yours. When he saw you open your eyes, his hands withdrew silently, leaving you to wonder if his touch was also just part of the fever dream.
“Good,” he opens the door to the Razor Crest. Once you’re both inside, he suddenly spins you around to face him, hands firm but gentle on your arms. “Because I would hate to lose you,” he almost whispers, and before you can do anything but part your lips and stare dumbly at him, he’s gone, disappeared into the cockpit. What in the wide galaxy did that mean?
Nevarro was surprisingly large. The flight across took at least several hours, but that at least gave you plenty of time to mull over the feelings you’ve had for Mando as you polish the weapons in the armory. Wasn’t it natural, at some point, to feel a bond with your partner? The battle and adrenaline of pulling through something you thought impossible causes high emotions, right? But it still doesn’t explain how his every movement, whether it’s his deft hands loading a gun, cleaning the ship controls, or beating the everloving shit out of the Imp on Corellia who was too close to incapacitating you during a fight, makes your abdomen fill with heat, your mouth dry and your pussy wet and pulsing at the thought of him. And that voice. Maker, that dark, rough voice of his—you want to hear that in your ear, as he runs his hands along your body.
But you have absolutely no idea how he feels. Sure, you’ve gotten better at reading the impassable metal helmet through his body language, his silences speaking as much as his words, but you have no idea how he actually feels about you. He’s so taciturn and private, and most of your conversations are business, tactics and tasks that need to be completed. Except for days like today. Where sometimes he’ll come up behind you silently and scare you just for the hell of it (he’s been unbearable since he discovered this about you a few months back), or he’ll put his hands on your arms and tell you that he doesn’t want to lose you. As a business partner..? You muse. I guess he does trust me to watch his back in a fight.
You’re suddenly jolted back to the present as the Razor Crest switches into landing mode. The sun is starting to set as Mando pulls into the coordinates that Karga’s data stick presumably gave him.
“Charming,” you remark, as you step out and gaze over the desolate, black lava fields, punctuated by crumbling caves here and there.
You’re rewarded with a slightly amused huff. “Let’s go,”
Crunching over the lava field, you wince as you step on a charred skeleton embedded in the hardened substance. You’re too preoccupied thinking about what sort of poor animal got caught in that to notice the slight, shadowy figure lounging at one of the cave entrances, though Mando clearly does. He abruptly raises a fist and halts about fifty feet away, and for the second time that day you almost run into him. You immediately cease your grumbling as the shadowy figure emerges from the cave. Your fingers inadvertently tighten over the knife handle in your chest pocket. A man steps forward into the pale light.
His dark eyes are large, guileless and piercing, black hair wavy, five o’clock shadow playing around his high cheekbones, a mustache over his thin lips and pointed chin. He’s dressed simply, clothes that fit his tall, lean frame well. His eyes flicker over you with interest as he walks closer. Mando’s body tenses subtly.
“You are the Mandalorian?” He stops in front of you both, his eyes on Mando. His voice is not deep but he has a lovely accent that you cannot place.
Mando stays immobile, but you can almost hear him thinking “obviously.” A ghost of a smile flits across your face for a second, and it catches the attention of the man. He turns to you, the full force of his gaze magnetic, and you feel a little breathless as you feel like you could drown a little in those deep, dark eyes. You introduce yourself as coolly as possible.
“Andor. Cassian Andor,” he nods his head in your direction. “Come with me,” he turns and motions for you both to follow him into the cave.
You can feel Mando’s heavy presence behind you, more so than normal. For some reason, he seems to feel taller, broader than he usually does. You almost turn back to look at him, but he shakes his head very slightly, ushering you gently in.
“I need a bounty hunter,” the man states baldly as he looks at both of you, as you both settle on some ledges across from him. When neither of you respond, he continues. “Canto Bight. Bazlar is a nobleman’s son who has been wanted for many illegal gambling rings. But it is all a front. He works for his uncle, Beeshlat.”
You frown. “I thought he was Imperial,”
Cassian laughs mirthlessly. “Yes. But he’s also a weapons dealer. He arms and deals prototypes of Imperial weapons to their underground allies. On one hand, it gives him live tests to see how effective it is. On the other, it helps to silence the opposition. The less the Empire looks like it’s helping with that, the less fuss will be made in the Senate for reducing Palpatine’s control.”
“What does this have to do with us?” Mando’s voice is sharp beneath the modulator in a way you haven’t heard before.
Cassian sighed. “I need to find Bazlar. The thought of jail terrifies him. He will talk if he’s caught by Guild and thinks he’s going to be turned in. I need to know where Beeshlat’s actual compound is, where he deals from. And if I can find that compound, I can take that network and destroy it.”
“Thinks he’s going to be turned in?” Your eyes narrow.
The thin lips curve up in a half smile. “You’re one to watch. He’s not going to the authorities. I’ll be interrogating him.”
He looks at his hands, then at Mando. “Look, Karga said you were the best,” his gaze slides over to you. “But I didn’t realize there were two of you. We could use this to our advantage,” he says slowly, as if pondering, his brows knit in concentration.
“We? What advantage?” Mando’s voice is still harsh through the modulator.
“Are you taking the job or not? I will not risk the Alliance’s secrets if you’re going to walk away,”
Mando glances at you. “How much?”
Cassian holds his breath, then releases it. “One hundred thousand credits,”
You’re stunned. Even Mando’s breath hitches. “Deal,” he sticks out his hand, and Cassian shakes.