Dincember Day 1 & 2: Snow and Fire
Summary: Grogu has never seen snow before, so Din tries his best to help the little guy get over his fear.
Warnings: none! Fluff!
Pairing: din x reader
WC: 1.3k
You’re bundled up in the warmest clothes you have in your trunk, a heavy fleece lined pair of leggings and a thick sweater of Din’s he picked up years ago on Alderaan and a heavy jacket, trying to find something warm to wrap Grogu in. Currently, you’ve got his little brown sack pulled tightly over his tiny frame, and you've attempted to insulate him by stuffing clean socks inside the coat, hoping to conserve any extra body heat. “Just bare with me bug,” you murmur, wrapping a woolen scarf around his ears. Finally, you take a step back to admire your handiwork.
Grogu is standing completely still, arms out to the side like one of the figures you’d seen standing in farmland. He doesn’t move towards you, bundled up so tight you aren’t sure it’s even possible. Still, he’s unbearably cute.
You move to scoop up the bundle of Grogu in front of you, and he coos at your touch, moving to squish his hands up in the direction of your face. “Your dad said he had a surprise for us, you wanna go check it out?”
Grogu attempts to move his head in a motion you can only interpret as “of course! There’s nothing I’d rather do!” so you move forward towards the ramp of the crest, lowering it slowly open before stepping outside.
You’re met with, as expected, a gust of cold wind and a flurry of snow, kissing your cheeks and making your stomach flip excitedly. You haven’t been on a system with snow in ages, and you suddenly feel like a schoolgirl again, racing forward to jump into the soft powder. The light outside looks equally soft, the setting suns casting a soft, pastel glow over the landscape. You can’t remember the name of the system you’re on, someplace inconsequential with a small town and even smaller fishing industry, but the scenery is beautiful. Large, blue glaciers jut out from the landing, looking as if they’ve been pushed out of the ground by some giant. Snow coats the ground with a thick blanket, and as you step into it you guess it’s at least five inches deep, enough to threaten to reach Grogu’s midriff if you set him down.
The thought brings you back to reality, and you look down to see your small bundle wrapping himself into you, timidly looking at the landscape around and the snow on the ground. “Do you want to play?”
At your words, he moves even closer inwards, pressing against you further. Suddenly, it dawns on you. Is he scared? Has Grogu even seen snow before? Before you can attempt to find an answer, there’s a glint in the distance that catches your eye. Din walks towards you, sparkling like an icicle against the setting sun, and your heart flutters the tiniest bit as you watch his pace quicken slightly when he spots the two of you.
“Aliit,” he murmurs as he gets closer, wrapping an arm around you as he brings his forehead to yours, and placing a hand on Grogu. “You bundled this one up good.” He says, inspecting Grogu, who is softly cooing into his father’s touch.
“I think I immobilized him,” you chuckle, and from the subtle shift in his body language you can tell he’s rolling his eyes at you beneath the helmet. “Din, has he ever seen snow before?”
He thinks this over for a moment as he picks the baby up from your arms, settling him against his chest. Again, Grogu clings to him, eyes wide at the snow beneath his father’s feet. “Don’t know, don’t think it snows much in Coruscant. Hard to say where he’s been before I found him, but it’s not like it snows on Arvala-7.”
This much you know for sure. The three of you walk a bit further to a small clearing a few minutes from the crest. Not far enough to be dangerous, but just far enough that you can forget you’re here on business. Din has, as expected, surprised you, setting up a small but roaring bonfire and a blanket on a patch of snow he’s excavated. There’s a pot of something brewing over the fire, and three sticks of meat roasting on the side.
“S’not much, but I know it’s been awhile since you’d seen snow.”
It has been awhile. Honestly, it’s been longer than you can remember. You’d had to leave your home system, a smaller system good for nothing but ski hills and lumber, when you were young, and it seemed every place you bounced to was hotter (and dustier) than the next.
“Here, I’ll set him down.” He places Grogu on the blanket, towards the edge, and the baby tentatively looks between you two. He moves his arm first in the direction of his dad, then you, and finally, the snow. “Kriff, he’s really packed in there.”
As if in response, Grogu makes a half-hearted attempt to move towards the offending white powder, and nearly falls flat on his face, barely being caught by you in time. “He’s tiny! He could freeze!”
Din’s low chuckle comes through his modulator in a way that makes your head spin. “Your mom is trying to suffocate you.”
“Am not,” you scoff, moving to kneel in the snow and placing him down softly. “Go on bug, it’s soft, see?”
Grogu moves, tentatively, and touches the snow. Feeling it’s chill he quickly pulls back a hand and then, slowly, reaches back to pat it. Once he’s successfully deemed it not a threat, he makes a flop to the ground and sits square in it, the flurries coming close to his face as he gleefully coos and pats his arms all around him.
Din kneels beside him, grabbing a handful of the soft snow and rolling it between his palms, shaping it carefully. He’s so gentle with it, so slow with his movements as he carefully shapes the ball to sit in front of his son.
“Did you ever make a snowman?” You ask, watching as he shows Grogu how to push the ball along the snow.
He shakes his head subtly, “No. We never got snow on Concordia. It’s not like there’s really time for a bounty hunter to make one when I’ve been anywhere else.”
“Let me show you,” you sit down beside them, ignoring the way the cold sends a chill down your spine as the snow seeps through your layers. You don’t even feel it from how warm your heart is at the sight. “Let's make a smaller one,” you say, partially to Din and partially to Grogu, as you roll a second, slightly smaller ball and place it atop Din’s.
Grogu coos, and flaps his arms, and you help him as best you can to roll a third, even tinier ball to set a top the two. “Look bug, we made a little guy!”
He beams, his tooth glinting in the nearly gone sun, and flaps his arms excitedly. You and Din move to go sit closer to the fire while he continues to squish around towards the end of the blanket.
He gets up and removes the kettle from the fire, removes two small cups from his pack and pours the contents in each. “Stopped in a small shop while I was looking for the quarry, the shopkeeper said this was a local specialty.”
It smells heavenly, spiced and chocolate and sweet. It’s thick, coating your tongue with the delightful taste and clinging to the roof of your mouth. “Oh yeah, I could get used to this.”
You can tell he’s smiling beneath his helmet as he wraps an arm around you, pulling him flush to his side. Snow is softly beginning to fall, and Grogu is still playing, the moment so perfect in its silence. So perfect in fact, you barely catch the whisper that nearly escapes Din’s modulator.
“Yeah, me too.”
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Cover Me (Din x Reader) - Shatter Part 4 | Dincember 2023
A/N: This is Part 4 of Shatter. It’s also my contribution to the wonderful event known as Dincember 2023! All 25 prompts in 6k words. 😮💨 All the prompts are in bold. I’m so excited to share it with all of you. It can be read as a stand alone, but it’ll make a lot more sense if you read the other parts first. I hope you enjoy it! Happy New Year! No use of Y/N.
I do not own Star Wars or it’s characters. Sadly. But I carry them in my heart. Does that count for something? My soul says yes.
Warnings: Maybe some light swearing and mention of spiders??? Snark, Grogu being the cutest thing you ever did see, Din is a warning in and of himself in this one. Typical show violence. Space swearing. Mando’a. My Mandalorians do what they want. Banter. So much banter. And you’ll probably fall in love with them like I did. (I don’t make the rules.) Let me know if I missed something. (Again, all the prompts are in bold. No use of Y/N.)
Word count: 6,000 (MaGiC. ✨)
Thank you to @fordo-kixed-rex for reading this every step of the way, counting all the words for me when I had a full day, and just being amazing. You’ve been my blessing from this hell site, and I’m not sorry I made you read about spiders so many times. 🧟♀️ Also a shout out to @what-the-heckin-heck and @littlemisspascal for just being amazing cheerleaders as I started this process, you guys always make me smile so much and make my little shit voice shut up, so thank you. ❤️
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Xxx
“Is this information reliable?”
“Yes.”
Din hesitated, shifting his weight to one side before he went on. “What about the informant?” His head followed his weight, looking down at you with a dubious tilt.
You sighed, clutching your helmet under your arm a bit too tightly, the leather of your gloves groaning in protest as your hands stretched as far as they could to contain what you really wanted to say. With a roll of your eyes while your own weight shifted the opposite way, you huffed again for good measure, leveling his visor with a look. “Din, I am your head of strategy and tactics. When are you going to let me do my job and trust me?”
“I do trust you,” he defended, his spine straightening with the effort of his words, before his shoulders rounded just slightly with a quietly added, “I don’t trust the situations you get us into.”
You simply stared at him for a long moment, the only sounds Peli’s droids beeping in the background of the hangar somewhere as Grogu chased them with a squeal that echoed off the stone walls, before turning and walking up the ramp of the newly renovated Crest.
“Ti,” he called out after you, voice exasperated but resigned. “Look,” he sighed again, then took a few steps forward, the sand crunching underfoot until he thought better of it, and came to a halt near the bottom of the ramp when you stopped at the top, your back still to him. “I’m sorry. But your sources are usually questionable at best….”
“Your face is questionable,” you grumbled under your breath, not bothering to turn around, but he heard you, huffing softly at the slight. Holding your helmet in front of you with both hands, looking down at your visor needlessly, you sighed to yourself as was the custom in this clan, looking at the wall of the ship across from you. Finally looking over your shoulder just enough to see Din in your peripheral, still at the bottom of the ramp, you felt your features soften. “Get the kid and let’s go. We’re following my lead on who attacked Mandalore.”
Xxx
“You have the worst leads,” you said exasperatedly before pulling the trigger on the controls of the Crest, shooting a rogue ship out of the sky in front of you.
“Me?” Din barked from his copilot seat beside you. “You’re the one who trusted a pirate.” He shook his head, looking back out the viewport. “Two more, left and point three.”
The cockpit had been modified to have two pilots sit side by side, putting you on the right and Din on the left. While the controls had to be slightly recessed to make room for two people, wrapping them around the space slightly more than they had been, it worked much better for the tandem tag team style you and Din often fell into. Everything was in arms reach, or just overhead, and if for some reason one of you were incapacitated, the other would take over.
The kid still had his seat a little back and to the right of the cabin, clapping gleefully at each burst of a fireball that was an enemy ship streaked past the viewport. The rest of the cockpit was taken up with wiring and rerouting for the new controls. Peli really had worked some magic to get it all to fit in the shell of the old Crest.
With a swerve of the steering, you swept the ship to the left, Grogu squealing from his seat behind the two of you, giggling when you pulled the trigger again and caused another fireball in front of you.
“Roll.”
You followed Din’s order without hesitation.
“No, to the left.”
“I am going left.”
“No, not your left, my left.”
“Din, we are facing the same way!” You yelled. “My left is your left!”
“Then go to the other left!” He barked.
“Right.”
“Why are you confirming again, there is only one other direction other than left-”
“No, I-” you groaned in frustration, entering a tight barrel roll to the right, making the kid let out a grunt as his safety belt held him in place. “First of all, I was saying ‘right’ as in ‘right we agree’.” The stars streaked by outside the viewport in one giant circle as you continued to spiral. “Secondly, there are several other directions besides left.”
He scoffed. “Name three.”
You ended the roll and fired on another ship. “Up. Down. Forward.” You looked across your shoulder at him pointedly, your head tilted slightly back, chin jutted forward toward the viewport. “Backward.”
“That’s four,” Din grumbled, pulling his own set of triggers to down an enemy ship that had gotten too close. The Crest flew through the remaining ball of flames, dousing the cockpit in an eerie glow.
“We need to get down there,” you pointed at a nearby planet through the viewport, glancing at him just briefly, grinning under your helmet at his slight head shake at your jab.
He punched a few buttons and the readout on the planet came up, the holo spinning above the panel between you both. After a few seconds he shook his head more vehemently. “Maldo Kreis. No. Uh-uh. No way. Been there, done that.” He pressed a button and the holo disappeared with a beep.
“Why? What’s wrong with it?” You pulled the controls back, sending the ship into an ascent to avoid some ships, snorting out a laugh at Din’s abrupt huff of air and Grogu’s ruckus laughter as he squealed in joy. Reaching out, you pulled the holo back up with a press of the same button, only studying it for a second after the beep before Din had pressed it again, collapsing it with a final, hollow beep.
Ignoring your curious gaze until you turned back to look out the viewport, Din spoke tightly as you sent the ship into another spin to the right. “Crash landed there with the kid once. Don’t need to go back. Once is enough.”
“Is it safe?”
He made a sound of indecision. “Lots of snow. Lots of ice. Very cold.” He sighed. “It was no holiday, I’ll just say that-”
“But was it safe?” You reiterated.
He didn’t answer for a moment. “Giant icicles. Frost spiders….”
Your eyebrows shot up. “Spiders?”
“Spiders.” His tone was flat.
The two of you sat in silence aside from the surging of the engines of the ship and the fire of the enemies.
“Aw, is the Mand’alor afraid of some little bugs….?” You finally teased, sending the ship into a dive.
“Little-” he scoffed, his voice tight against the force of the gravity pushing against him until you evened the ship back out again. “No,” groaning softly, he settled back into his chair and flipped a switch to his side that released some tracking torpedoes at the enemy ships. “No,” he repeated less emphatically, looking to his right at you as the projectiles hit their mark and ignited, causing a muffled boom through the viewport, accompanied by a soft orange glow. Both the sound and illumination faded before he continued with a mumbled, “But I don’t particularly like them.”
“So it’s no Life Day celebration,” you mused, mulling over his words. Pointing the controls down toward the ball of ice looming larger and larger through the transparisteel, you sighed. “Maldo Kries it is.”
Grogu squealed excitedly.
Din turned to look at him from his seat with the biggest sigh yet. “Don’t worry, kid. We’re going in prepared this time.”
Xxx
“I thought you stocked up on rations last.”
Both you and Din stared at the single crate of food once the ship had touched down and the pirates had quit making pass by’s as frequently. His hands hung limply at his sides while yours were across your chest. You wished you’d taken your helmet off so he could feel the full force of your raised brow when you turned your gaze up to look at him, but you didn’t feel like unwinding your arms from their sternly disapproving hold.
No.
He would break first.
“Me?” He questioned, his weight shifting just slightly to the side and away from you at the accusation. “No. No, no, that was on your list.”
Your arms broke their hold on instinct and you grimaced at them, thankful for the cover of your helmet as you glared at their betrayal briefly before lifting your visor to fully stare at the other Mandalorian.
“Me?” You pointed to your chest before poking him in his, right in the center of his breastplate. “No. Nuh-uh, don’t do that, Din. You know Peli had me doing final repairs. She sent you to the market with R5 and the kid last minute-”
“To get her some parts!”
The two of you stared at each other.
You reached out and pushed the button on his vambrace that pulled up the holo projection of Peli’s request that hovered right above it. Pointing to the bottom, you waited while he read silently.
Finally there was a quiet, belated, “Oh.”
“What’s that? I’m sorry.” You pulled your helmet off, tucking it under your arm and resting it on your hip. This required eyebrows. “I didn’t get the list, can you read it out loud?”
There was something so entirely…. Domestic about this entire argument, that it almost made you smile. Almost. Who bought the food, who was supposed to take care of this, fixing that, running a little home together, a family, responsibilities…. It was a pattern the three of you had fallen into easily since having to flee Mandalore, and if you’d told yourself that before leaving…. You’d have laughed in your own face. But now…. Now you couldn’t see it any other way.
This was home. It was ragged, and broken, and quite frankly, falling apart at the seams most days. But it had everything you needed. Every bit of warmth. Every bit of joy, and laughter, and love. You’d quickly become a family. An aliit. And if any pirate scum was going to try and come between you…. They’d soon learn why the galaxy didn’t mess with Mandalorian’s.
Din clicked the list off without answering you. “We need to come up with a solution if we have to stay here long term.” He turned back to the crate, hands resting on his hips. “I wouldn’t think the pirates would stick around that long, but we only have enough for about three days, a week max if we stretch it.”
“That’s about one day if we let the kid anywhere near it,” you grumbled, sighing as you turned to look at the crate as well. “Guard it with your life, Mandalorian.” You looked back up at him, his visor turning to you. “It may very well count on it.”
Xxx
The Crest had a broken hyperdrive.
Din rounded on you in the main hull, slowly, in a way you didn’t like. It oozed sarcasm. “Okay,” he drawled, “I know I was supposed to get the rations, but you were supposed to fix the hyperdrive.”
You huffed, looking down at your vambraces as you fixed them for no good reason, your helmet jostling under your arm where it once again rested on your hip as you tugged on the armor needlessly. “No-”
“Do I need to look at your list?”
Your eyes whipped up to glare at him through your lashes, his visor tilted just so. Grumbling, you let your arms fall back to your sides as you stared at the wall just over his shoulder. It was fascinating. “I don’t have a list.” You let a scathing breath out through your nose, before your next words came out on a mumbled mutter more to yourself than anything. “Besides, I did fix it. ….just seems like it was temporary.” You got lost in thought for moment, your voice wandering with them. “Maybe that’s what Peli meant by ‘partial’ converter instead of the full-”
“No wonder you forgot.”
Your eyes flew back up to meet the T of his visor once again, wide in disbelief that he’d willingly left himself this open to retaliation. “So what’s your excuse?”
Din hesitated. “Excuse me?” His weight shifted to one side just slightly, as if realization was slowly dawning after the fact.
Grinning, you mimicked him, tilting your head just so. “You had a list, and you forgot, so what’s your excuse?”
Din simply stared at you for a long moment before he turned and walked away, climbing up the ladder into the cockpit in silence.
“Don’t challenge my time management skills, Shiny,” you muttered under your breath, smirking to yourself. “I’m gonna go make a fire,” you called after him in amusement, barely looking over your shoulder his way before turning back toward the cargo hold and putting your helmet on. Once the seal had hissed all the way, you surveyed the ship for something you could use for fuel. “You’re not too attached to these extra capes, are you?”
He was down the ladder in an instant, dropping in one go. “What are you-” Din looked at the box you were staring at across the hull. “That’s a box of ammo.”
“I know,” you grinned at him through your visor. “But now I know I was right and you do have a box of backups somewhere on board.” Pulling the corner of his cape out to the side, you made a tis-king sound. “Think it’s time for a switch, Mando. This one has seen better days. Smelled them, too.”
The Mandalorian snapped the material out of your grip. “It doesn’t smell that ba-”
“Why do you think I put on my helmet?” You teased.
You chuckled, turning away from Din while he grunted at the slight as you lowered the ramp, a blast of cold air rolling up the plank.
“Just stay inside the ship, it’s warmer,” he protested.
“The repairs needed have to start outside.” Tugging your own cape around you a bit more snuggly, you suddenly felt a lift of weight off your shoulders as Din removed your jetpack. “What are you doing? I need that in case I have to make a dash-”
“Be quiet,” he grumbled, setting it gently at his feet before you felt a bit of extra weight coming around your shoulders, and an extra layer of heat. “This will help some. Not much, but it’s better than nothing.” He smoothed the shoulders of his cape over your own before pulling the back to the side and reattaching your jetpack back to where it needed to be. The warmth from his own body heat still clung to the tattered fibers, weaving into your own, bleeding into a pleasant hum of contentment that settled into your very bones.
Pulling the cape tighter around you, its larger size swallowing you somewhat and acting more like a coat than anything, you tucked your chin down toward your right shoulder as inconspicuously as possible, and took a deep, measured breath. You smiled, letting it out silently through your nose, lifting your head and staring down the ramp at the world of whites and light blues as it continued to assault the Crest with harsh temperatures. “Cozy,” you agreed. “Thank you.”
The weight of his Ambam Rifle came across your shoulders next, resting neatly under your jetpack.
“For safety,” he reasoned at your slight head tilt in question.
You bobbed your head in acceptance. “Safety.” When the moment hung quiet too long, you did what you always did. “I’ll shoot any suspicious snowflakes on sight.”
To your surprise, Din chuckled in response. “Give ‘em hell.” He gave your shoulder a single pat before withdrawing his hands. “Those are not gifts. I want them back,” he teased, wagging a finger near your face when you turned to look at him over your shoulder.
“You got it,” you nodded.
Xxx
The pirate ships had continued to make pass by’s over the next few days, every few hours. One of their dingy little craft would streak across the sky overhead outside of the cave your little clan had tucked away into with the Crest, their comms chatter peppering over the frequency scanner you had running a sweep discretely in the background to catch whatever you could.
You couldn’t for the life of you figure out why they were so persistent. Of all your contacts, pirates were the least proficient, often wrong and just after a few extra credits.
That’s when it clicked.
“Din,” you posed after day three, eyeing the kid to make sure he didn’t get too close to where the rations were hidden after he’d discovered them five times already. “I know why we’re stuck.” Your eyes flew up to his visor where he stood to your left next to the heater; a fire probably would have been warmer but after that first day you decided it would have given off too much smoke and, thus, your location.
“You mean besides the broken hyperdrive?” Din’s voice was droll.
You rolled your eyes. “I’m working on it!” Pressing up onto your palm a bit to sit slightly straighter, your expression turned somber as you held his beskar gaze. “Us.”
You turned back to look at the heater absently, one knee bending to prop up your arm. “Someone’s put a bounty out on us.”
Xxx
You could hear the chitter of the spiders at night. The tapping of their multiple legs skittering across the ice just out of sight.
Standing at the top of the ramp, staring out into the darkness, you sighed when Din came up beside you.
“Anything?” He asked in amusement.
Pulling your helmet off in aggravation, you groaned. “No. They don’t give off heat so this is useless.” You jiggled the helmet before tucking it under your arm. “Kick on the high beams on the side of the Crest for a minute. I want to see in that offshoot over there.”
“That seems like a bad idea.”
“They don’t fly over this time of night, they won’t see-”
“Not the lights,” he corrected. “Knowing what’s out there in the dark.”
“Then call me stupid-”
“I will.”
You glared up at him through your lashes.
With a chuckle, he stepped forward, his boots a hollow thud on the ramp. “Let’s just try this first.” Din reached up and flipped on the light on the side of his helmet. It was a mere candle in comparison to the beams you’d asked for, barely making it to the foot of the offshoot you’d wanted to see into, but that was enough.
Legs. Hundreds of legs standing in place, aside from the slight shift ever so slightly away from the light, stood just at the edge of the beam's field of view.
“What are they waiting for?” You muttered as a shudder ran down your spine.
A smaller spider about the size of your fist ran out into the snow, sliding to a stop when some of the larger ones closer to your size hissed at it. It made an about face and went back to the group.
“A reason,” Din murmured.
“Do they really need one?” You scoffed incredulously.
His head tilted to the side in thought. “You’re right. They’re probably waiting for something big to happen….” He turned his head to look at you. “And by that I mean someone big to show up.”
You swallowed. “They get bigger?”
A high pitched squeal sounded from deep in the offshoot, a low rumble answering it from further in, and suddenly you understood why the pirates were okay with waiting you out.
“A lot bigger,” Din nodded.
Xxx
A few more days passed and your clan was surviving on an emergency stash of rations Peli must have stowed away knowing something like this would happen. Grogu had pulled one out after your stomach had rumbled for the fifth time on day three of no food, crawling across the floor with a bag as big as he was.
“How goes the hyperdrive?” Din, lowered to his haunches, asked from his perch above where you were dropped down into a hole in the floor of the Crest, banging away at the engine in hopes it would right itself.
You stopped, peering up at him as you wiped your brow and grease from the engine smeared across your forehead, your eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why?”
“We’ve had a few…. Visitors.”
“With eight legs or two?” You shuddered, thinking of the ice spiders who got closer with every day. Setting the spanner against the engine, you cranked it against the screw to tighten it. “Two I can handle.”
Din chuckled. “Two. But-” He stood abruptly, peering down the open ramp.
“What? What is it?” You released the spanner, leaving it stuck halfway up mid-crank.
Suddenly, Din raised his Amban Rifle and shot, the sound echoing off the ice walls of the cavern, and causing a small avalanche of ice and snow to rain down on the top of the ship.
Lowering your voice accusingly, your hands went to your hips. “What did you do?”
Resting the rifle back along his spine, he looked down at you. “Work faster. We’ve got company.”
As you turned back to the spanner, you grumbled over the ratcheting sound, “If we could just have a droid, I could be helping you.”
“This again?” Din sighed, raising his blaster to aim down the ramp again as you began beating on the stubbornly stuck screw.
“Oh, yes. This. Again.” With a final decidedly hard whack, the screw let loose and oil of some kind began to shoot out from behind it, coating your pristine white armor in purple goo. “Kriff! Dank farrik!” Shielding your face with your hands, you looked up toward Din. “Help me!”
He let off another shot down the ramp, quickly followed by two more, his blaster smoking as he held his aim. “I am helping.”
The growl you let out in frustration had him rolling his head sarcastically. “Kid. Hey, kid.” He jerked his head toward you as he looked across the cargo hold at Grogu who once again had his head stuck in a ration pack. “Put that down and toss her that thing that’s on the crate.”
“Your cape?!” You asked hopefully, applying pressure to the leak with your hand, which only helped to keep it out of your face, liquid shooting out around your fingers.
Din snorted. “You wish.” He shot again. “It’s that coat thing you bought at the market last week. What’s it called?”
“My sweater?” You felt the downturn of your face pull it into something sour.
“That’s it!” Din slapped his thigh with his free hand. “Your sweater.”
Your features turned from downtrodden to menacing in no time flat. “Din Djarin, give me one of your capes right now-”
The sweater floated over the hole you were in by an unseen force, and fell onto your face unceremoniously.
“Too late,” you heard the other Mandalorian say, his voice muffled through the fabric. “Thanks, kid.” His footsteps started down the ramp before you could rip the material off. Once you had, though, he was already halfway down the ramp, and nearly out of your line of sight, only the tops of his shoulders and up could be seen. “Now get fixing,” he called back up to you, his voice carrying well in the quiet cave, a slight echo tingeing his words the further outside the ship he went. “We’re about to have a full house, and I’m not liking the idea of sharing the last ration pack with a bunch of low life’s and spiders.”
Grogu squawked in protest, not liking the sound of sharing his precious food.
The leak now managed to something closer to a trickle, you grumbled as you worked on bypassing that chamber altogether. “When we get back to Tatooine, we’re getting a droid, I don’t care what you say, Djarin.”
Din groaned, stepping to the side before taking another shot, his head tilting in annoyance. “We can talk about it.”
“We are talking about it. I’m saying we’re getting one. End of discussion.” The engine charged as you flipped to a separate breaker, whirring as it began to come back to life. “There. We need about fifteen minutes for it to fully come back online. In the meantime,” you pushed yourself back up onto the main deck, climbing out and onto your feet. Sliding your helmet on, blasters already in hand, you looked to Din, then down the ramp. “Tell me where to shoot.”
An errant blaster bolt from the mouth of the cave ricocheted off the top of the ship, setting loud alarms blaring from a nearby panel. “What now?!” You moaned, trudging over to the panel to read the latest report. “They took out our long range comms.”
“Well climb up there and fix it! I’ll cover you!”
Shifting your weight from side to side, you could just begin to hear the pirates gathering outside the cave. “Surely the spiders got them by now. I sent a few men ahead to scout the area, make sure it was clear. They should be meeting us here at the mouth of the cave soon. We only need proof they are dead to collect the bounty. You go in there and…. No, I’m not going. I outrank you. You go. No…. No! I said-”
As the pirates continued to bicker, Din looked at you curiously. “What’s wrong? Go fix the comms.”
“That’s on top of the ship, right?”
Din stood up straight, his head tilted in amusement. “Aw, is my head of strategy and tactics afraid of heights?”
“No,” you insisted, standing up straighter yourself before parroting his words from a few days prior about the spiders back at him. “But I don’t particularly like them.”
“We jump to hyperspace without comms and something goes wrong, we are in deep-”
“Fine!” You barked, holstering your blasters with unneeded force. “But they touch one inch of my beskar with their blaster bolts-”
Din shook his head. “They won’t even see me coming.”
Xxx
It all happened so quickly.
You were atop the Crest, lowered to your haunches using the torch in your vambrace to reattach the antenna, grumbling about getting the next astromech you saw for sale, when blaster bolts whizzed by your head from behind, sending you falling to your seat.
Without thinking, you drew one of your blasters, turned, and shot, watching three pirates drop, one after each shot.
Rolling over onto your hands and knees, you crawled to the edge of the ship, and looked down to find Din looking up at you.
Both of you spoke at the same time, your “I thought you were covering me?!” overlapping his, “Why are you shooting when you’re supposed to be working?!”
A moment of silence passed before you both spoke over the other again, his “I was covering you, they missed, didn’t they?” overlapping your, “I am working, but this would go a lot faster if you would toss me up a blowtorch, Mand’alor!”
Din sighed. “Fine.” He stepped into the ship for a moment, leaving you to watch for any trespassers. He finally reemerged and tossed the tool up to you. “Keep working.”
You huffed. “Yeah, yeah.” Shimmying back toward the broken comm tower, you called back to him over your shoulder, “Keep shooting.” After pulling out the proper wires to fuse, you turned back to him again. “And next time, read the fine print!”
“The what?”
“On your list! Read everything! Even the fine print! That way we can avoid situations like these.”
Silence, then, “Are you really blaming me for us being shot at by your informants?”
“I’m-”
Skittering across the hull of the ship in front of you made you stop everything you were doing, frozen mid movement, blowtorch inches away from frying a wire beyond fixing. From your seated position, you lifted your eyes only to peer through your visor and spotted eight long slender legs cresting over the top of the ship, coming closer and closer toward you. A body soon followed, smaller than you, but bigger than any bug had a right to be.
Din kept calling your name, his voice raising in volume each time when you didn’t answer, but you ignored it in favor of making sure the bug was dead.
In seconds you’d flipped the switch on the blowtorch back to simply the initial release of fuel before a spark, brought your other arm over behind it, and ignited your flamethrower to send a wall of fire at the menace.
Its squeal of agony was swallowed up in the angry growl of the flames as it went up in smoke, falling off the ship in a twitching mess of limbs.
You turned off your vambrace, but left the blowtorch on for good measure. Its reassuring hiss as it continued to release fuel music to your ears. Should any of its hellish friends come to visit, you were ready.
“The hell?!” Din’s voice called from below. “You’re supposed to be fixing the ship, not blowing it up!” When you still didn’t answer he went on. “What happened?”
Turning off the tool’s supply of fuel, you kept your eyes peeled for any more legs before finally mumbling, “Sweet, sweet justice.”
“Do I even want to kn-”
Another spider dropped down onto the ship behind you, between you and Din, with a thunk. A thin silvery string of web shining like ice from the ceiling still attached to its back as it started to skitter towards you pulled your gaze away for only a second.
Without another thought, you switched the blowtorch back on and lit the bug up with your vambrace, sending it screeching over the edge of the ship, landing at Din’s feet with a satisfying thud.
Turning both the torch and your vambrace off, you walked to the edge of the ship and peered down to see Din staring at the smoking spider.
The pirates at the mouth of the cave muttered quiet curses, one even swearing a soft, “They have fire?!” and ducked behind large ice drifts in the ensuing silence, their fear palpable as they took in the dead arachnid at the feet of the Mandalorian by the hands of the other Mandalorian.
You smirked. Hopefully this made them think twice before poking someone in beskar ever again. And maybe they would even spread the word to their sleazeball friends.
Watching the tendrils of smoke rise into the air from the corpse at Din’s feet, you kept your voice even. “No. I don’t think you want to know.”
Xxx
Once the shock had worn off for the pirates, the firefight had opened up again, more fast and furious than before.
You laid out on the top of the ship on your belly picking off stragglers who tried to cross the open space between ice drifts, Din laying down cover fire from his perch on the ramp to keep them pinned down. The errant spider here and there kept pulling your attention away, the fuel in both your vambrace and the blowtorch running low.
“Din, if I don’t finish this comm tower soon, we’re just kriff outta luck.”
“The hyperdrive should be charged by now, we could just make the jump.”
“Yeah but like you said, something goes wrong, as a friend of mine used to say, thatsa big pudu.”
“Did you just….”
“I’ll never say it again, I’m sorry. He was Gungan-”
“No, no…. You had a friend?”
Looking down at him over the edge of the Crest, you bent your wrist and let your whistling birds fly, taking out a wave of the pirates to give both of you a slight reprieve. As Din took a deep breath, it was cut short when something hit his helmet with a ting before landing at his feet and disappearing in the snow.
He looked up to you slowly. “Did you just…. Throw…. A….” Din looked down at the ground just to be sure. “Vibroblade at my head?” Bending down to his haunches, quickly, he scooped up the item, then rose to his feet as he stared at it. Din gave no other reaction as he stared at the item for a long moment in silence, until finally, he turned to hold your gaze with a dubious shake of his head.
“Yes,” you confirmed. “I knew what I was doing,” you defended. “You weren’t in any danger.”
He hesitated. “Except from the knife flying at my face!”
You rolled your eyes. “You’re wearing beskar. Don’t insult me next time, then.” You shrugged. “Simple solution, Djarin.”
Din took a step toward the hull of the Crest, his neck craning further back to keep looking up at you. “I’m the Mand’alor. That was attempted murder.”
You scoffed. “You’re still alive, aren’t you?”
His weight shifted to one side in annoyance. “Did you miss the word attempted?”
You pulled yourself on your belly further over the edge, and effectively closer to him, tilting your head to the right as you looked down at him wordlessly. Finally, after a long moment, your voice lowered to something both playful and menacing, causing Din to take a small step back, “If I wanted you dead, you would be.”
Several spiders dropped down between the ship and the pirates who were scrambling to reassemble into any kind of fighting order. After a moment of decision, they began to move toward the Crest.
Before either of you could start to shoot, Grogu stepped off the ramp and toward the bugs, holding one hand out.
“Kid!” Din cried, taking a step forward.
“Mando!” You tried, pulling him to a stop with just your voice. He glanced up at you quickly, and you shook your head before bobbing it toward the kid. “Look.”
When he turned back, Din saw that the spiders had stopped moving, deciding instead to gather round and stare at the tiny green creature.
His eyes were closed in concentration, his face screwed up in focus, until after a moment he blinked them open and gave a slight wave of his hand away as if to shoo a smell.
The spiders rocked side to side for a moment just slightly before they turned and surveyed the pirates.
The thieves who had been smiling at the exchange as if they’d won immediately melted into faces of worry and began backing away.
For each step back the spiders gained several forward until each group was running, one from the other, one to the first.
Din wasted no time, turned to you and said, “Finish it.”
“But I wanna see how it ends….” You groused, sighing at his head tilt in admonishment. “Fine.” Turning, you went back to the antenna, scuffing your foot on the hull of the ship. “Tell me who wins.”
With one last zap the comms were fixed, and the three of you were climbing into the ship, firing up the engines.
“Punch it!” You called, climbing up the ladder into the cockpit.
“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Din mumbled, maneuvering the ship out of the cave.
As he slowly twisted and turned to move the hulking ship out of the ice, you nudged his shoulder while climbing into your seat beside him, flipping over to your controls. “You don’t fly right.”
“Well, somebody had to save our skins.”
Both of you looked at Grogu as you entered the upper atmosphere of the planet, finding him munching on spider eggs he somehow had stashed away in the cockpit for a rainy day.
You smiled. “Yeah. We both know who saved us back there.”
The two of you said at the same time, “Me.”
Looking at each other, you both spoke in unison once again, “What do you mean you?!”
Grogu sighed before he giggled softly, mumbling a tired but good natured, “Patu!”
Xxx
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