Authors note: Rated M for language, violence, eventual sex. This is going to be a slow burn enemies to friends to more later. Like a lot later. Hope you're in the mood for grumpy, salty Din Djarin. This is set primarily during season 2 but will not follow the arc completely Im planning on rearranging a few things from season 1 because I like the characters.
1.
He stared up at the face of the woman strangling the life out of him and tried to understand how everything had gone to shit so quickly. Dying on his back in this filthy alley.
How did he end up here?
Din Djarin knew exactly how he had ended up here. It started with a puck. It always started with a puck. The promise of just enough credits to make it to the next job or until they found a Jedi.
Whichever happened first.
Although he was beginning to seriously doubt the existence of Jedi, whoever or whatever the hell they were. But this was The Way. The Armorer had laid his path before him: he was as a father to the little green child he had rescued and would remain so until he reunited the kid with his own kind, the Jedi. His Tribe had risked their lives to protect him and his new foundling. The Covert's hiding place on Nevarro was blown, the survivors relocated to parts unknown and Din was truly on his own for the first time since he was a newly orphaned child rescued by the Mandalorians.
Greef Karga, the Guild contact on Nevarro and one-time enemy of Din Djarin aka Mando aka the bounty hunter dumb enough to turn in a bounty then steal it back, had taken a real shine to the kid. Especially after the kid used his little magic hands to heal him of a mortal wound. In turn, Karga got Din back in the good graces of the Guild. So at least Din could use his talents and pick up jobs during their search. Most often the bounties paid shit; barely enough to refuel his ship and keep the kid fed which in itself was a struggle since the little monster never seemed to stop eating. But Din had yet to formulate a better plan than follow rumors of Mandalorian sightings in hopes of reconnecting with his people and from there tracking the Jedi. So he and the kid spent the weeks following their escape from Nevarro planet-hopping.
Then a puck had been offered at a dank cantina on the outskirts of Anoat. 50000 credits for the apprehension (preferably alive but dead would pay half) of an ex-employee run afoul of the Balbab Cartel on Corellia. From Anoat, Din found a trail for the bounty in the capital city on Ord Mantell. The job shouldn't have taken more than a few hours once he started the hunt.
When he took the puck he figured the cartel had more money than they knew what to do with. A 50000 credit payout was a mere drop in their coffers if it got their thief caught. Of course, as he reflected on the choices that led him to this untimely demise, he probably should have been more suspicious of the high payout.
He tracked the woman to a towering apartment building in the very heart of the city. The immense structure rose dozens of stories disappearing into the dark fog above. The building's interior was muggy and smelled of damp rot. The walls were coated in greenish slime, blaster holes, and graffiti in various languages. Parts of the floor felt unstable and near collapse under Din's feet as he surveyed the foyer. A crumbling staircase wound up and up along the outer walls and in the center was a grav-lift. He trusted neither and instead flew upwards with the help of his Rising Phoenix. A few seconds later he touched down on the twenty-fourth floor and resumed following the tracking fob. Sounds of arguments echoed from a few rooms as he passed, somewhere below a blaster went off and a high pitched wail followed.
Din stopped outside a dented hatch. The tracker in his hand glowed a steady green letting him know he had found his quarry. He didn't bother knocking before kicking the door in. The thin metal crumpled under his boot and swung inwards. "Zo Mara!" He scanned the room calling out the fugitive's name as he stepped inside with his blaster drawn. A cloaked figure darted from the shadows sprinting towards the one boarded-up window. "Don't!" He yelled as she burst through the window, sending glass and broken boards shattering outwards. He ran forward and saw the dark figure plummet down towards the ground. "Dank farrik, " he cursed. He would have to find a big enough piece of her to prove she was deceased in order to get paid. He followed her out the window and soared down towards the street.
The wind whistled loudly in her ears as she plummeted down. Zo was relieved this part of the city was too congested for air speeders. It had been years since she had attempted a fall of this height. The ground rushed towards her and she reached out feeling for the energy around her and using it to slow herself down. She landed deftly on her feet, startling a street vendor slinging counterfeit durasteel boots. She looked up towards the clouds and saw an orange flash and sensed the man that had broken into her room disrupting her nap. "You saw nothing, " she said, waving her hand at the wide eyed man.
"I saw nothing, " he repeated, turning back to his boots.
Din landed on the deserted street next to a man selling boots. He expected to see a lumpy puddle of blood and gristle but found the area surprisingly free of gore. He scanned the streets, wondering if the wind took her further off course than he thought. He had had other bounties commit suicide rather than be taken alive but it had been quite a while and never so dramatic as jumping out a 24th floor window. He was glad the kid had not seen her fall. "Did you see a woman...or a body fall from above?" he asked the merchant.
"You're the only one I've seen come from the sky, friend." He replied. Din sighed and retrieved the tracing fob from his belt.
Zo ran down the streets, jostling herself through crowds and intersections blocked with idling speeders. She eventually wound her way through the city to a popular nightclub, the line of people waiting to be granted entrance wound around the building. Two burly Trandoshian bouncers guarded the entrance, checking a datapad of names against those who made it to the front of the line. She strode up to the red velvet rope and tapped one of the bouncers on the shoulder. The huge reptilian turned towards her and hissed, "Back of the line."
She smiled and stepped closer, "I'm on the list." She waved her hand at the reptile and used her most persuasive voice knowing Trandoshian's could be difficult to persuade.
The bouncer glanced down at the list of names, "You're on the list."
"Let me in." She pressed her will into him leaning further over the barrier.
"Come on in, ma'am." The velvet rope dropped and she stepped off the street into the anonymity of the busy club.
Ferroan techno music blared, humanoids and others crowded the dance floors and she sat alone at the bar staring into her drink. Her dirty coppery hair framed a pale, drawn face. Even from across the room Din's scanners picked up the dark circles under her eyes. He had seen the same look a thousand times. The exhausted gaze of someone who knew they were being hunted, someone who hoped crowds offered more protection than solitude. She looked up from her steaming cup of caf and met his eyes, or more accurately his visor. The spinning, multi-colored lights reflected off his silver armor as he surged forward, pushing through the crowd of drunk and stoned revelers. Those sober enough to realize there was a bounty hunter in their midst danced quickly out of his way. One extremely inebriated Devoronian, his horns adorned with glowing beads and glitter, sloshed into the Mandalorian's path. Din bounced off the towering alien's chest and sprawled onto the dance floor. When he sprang back to his feet the woman was gone. "Fuck it all, " Din growled sprinting toward the exit.
The streets outside were packed in spite of the rain that fell in thick, cold sheets. The tracker in his palm blinked as he raced down crowded street after crowded street before turning onto a dark alley. He scanned the ground looking for signs of his running quarry. The footsteps glowed dimly, already being washed out by the cold rain. Lite and fast they disappeared after about a dozen feet into the dark corridor between streets. The tracking fob in his hand insisted that the woman was close by. There was nowhere in the alley for her to hide unless she somehow transformed herself into bags of refuse. Twice she had eluded him and he was starting to get irritated. "Damn it all." He grumbled banging the small tracker against his gloved hand.
He stalked halfway into the alley, growing increasingly frustrated with each step. She couldn't just disappear, there were no sewer grates or storm drains she could have disappeared into. There wasn't a window for her to jump out of and somehow fly a thousand feet safely to the ground. He realized too late he should have looked up. He spun around, his sodden cloak whipping behind him, as she dropped from the darkness above landing silently a few paces in front of him. Her hair, soaked with oily rain was plastered to her face and she eyed him warily. "I have no quarrel with you, " she called out, "just keep walking."
"Zo Mara, I am apprehending you on the authority of the Bounty Hunter Guild." His voice was cold and emotionless through the vocoder of his helmet.
"Leave me in peace and I swear I will not harm you."
Din tilted his helmet-that was a new one. She didn't move, didn't draw a weapon, didn't make any further threat besides her thin warning. "I can take you in warm. Or I can take you in cold." He replied casually resting his hand on the grip of his blaster.
She flipped her wet hair out of her face and smiled, "Nice line. You come up with that all on your own?"
He sighed, "Cold it is then." The blaster was in his hand the next instant, a red laser exploding out of the barrel. The shot was well aimed as all his shots were. And yet it missed anyways. Swatted away like an annoying gnat. Din Djarin had seen many weapons during his years in training and even more in his tenure as a Bounty Hunter. But he had never seen anything like the sword of glowing purple light she held. He could hear the sizzling pop of the rain drops as they evaporated on contact with the humming energy.
He fired the blaster again and again, each shot deflected away by her sword as she ran forward, feet barely skimming over the rain-slicked ground. She jumped over him and he fired more shots awkwardly following her arch as she flipped in the air and landed behind him. She slashed forward, hacking ungracefully with her lasersword pushing him back towards the wall. She spun and dodged and weaved as he fired and finally swung the sword down cutting the barrel off his blaster. He spared one glance at the red-hot melted metal before tossing it away. The sword swung around and down in a deadly arc meaning to slash him across the chest and end the fight. Except when the energy beam of the sword hit his Beskar armor it sparked loudly and she staggered back as it ricocheted toward her. He felt the reverberation of the energy through his chest. She growled in anger as Din raised his Beskar covered arms blocking as she slashed again and again forcing him further back but causing him no damage. He somehow activated the flamethrower on his vambrace and it sparked to life, shooting fire towards her unprotected face.
"Fucking hell, " she screamed darting away from the flames. He activated the whipcord in his other vambrace and flung it towards her. This shot didn't miss, the cord wrapped itself tightly around the hilt of her blade and he yanked it away from her. Din pushed away from the wall, fists curled and ready to finally have the upper hand. She dodged his punches and kicks just as easily as she had his blaster. She ducked under his swinging arm and popped back up with a punch of her own. Her fist connected with the jaw of his helmet, the force of the punch sending him staggering to the side and again he was thankful for the armor he was never without. He heard the crunch of her bones as they shattered on impact with his helmet and the scream of pure agony as her whole body folded over her now broken hand. He pushed forward again and she skipped back, sucking in ragged, pain-filled breaths. The next few moments went exceptionally well for Din Djarin, he landed a kick in her abdomen sending her flying on to her back where she struggled for several long seconds unable to get her limbs to cooperate as she gasped in pain and tried to not vomit up her caf. He pounced on her, yanking both of her hands up in one of his as he grabbed a pair of cuffs off his belt with the other. She should have been in cuffs in the next instant but instead Din was on his back, feeling like he'd been hit in the chest by a land speeder.
He blinked rapidly trying to clear his vision. Something in his visor had been knocked loose when he crashed into the ground. Her features were distorted. Her face was awash in red and orange thermals except two purple-black spots of cold where her eyes should be. He gasped feebly, a thin stream of air trickled into his lungs making him desperate for more.
There was no way she should have been strong enough to kill him with only one good hand. How did he get here? He had been winning, he knew that much. She had been down, he was getting his cuffs out then...he was flying backwards. The wind knocked out of him as he slammed into a wall and slid down dazed.
He could feel her hands, both of them, wrapped around his throat. He felt something inside start to crumple and constrict as if her fingers were sinking below his skin and muscles and tightening on his windpipe directly. She shouldn't have even been heavy enough to pin him down. But here he was, unable to twitch a muscle as she pressed him into the ground.
He tried to pull in another breath, his lungs were burning, he felt warm tears spill out of the corners of his eyes and as he lay dying he thought of the kid. The damn big-eared fifty-year old baby that had wedged itself between his layers of Beskar and made him feel…something for the first time in a long time. He dropped the kid off at a secured childcare center that all the big, busy cities seemed to have. He only paid for the day, he promised he would be back, told the kid to go play and be good and don't steal anyone's snacks…If he wasn't back by dawn what would happen to him? Would they call the Marshalls? Would they sell him off to some slaver? Worse? Fuck. Fuck! How could he fuck things up this badly?
The murderous harpy straddling his chest shifted a fraction. He felt the pressure asphyxiating him from all sides relax just enough to let him suck in a tight, pained breath. The air rushed under his helmet and into his lungs in a high pitched whistle. He saw black spots as oxygen rushed back to his brain; black spots and the kid and his ship and how the fuck did he get here? His brain kick started, confused jumbled thoughts bounced around as his dying neurons tingled back to life. She released his throat and he sucked in another greedy breath.
Adrenaline coursed through her making her shiver now that she had a moment to think. She looked up letting her head fall back with a tired sign and he slowly realized it had stopped raining sometime during their fight. The lights of the never sleeping city reflected off the stormy clouds overhead. "You broke my fucking hand, asshole." She muttered cradling the swollen, discolored, agonizing lump of muscle and bent digits that used to be her hand.
"You shouldn't have hit me, " he wheezed. He tried to sit up, to shake her off but he still couldn't move.
"You shouldn't've chased me." She retorted, biting her bottom lip as she grabbed one of her crooked fingers and snapped it back into place. She choked back a scream, bending double on top of him but couldn't stop the tears that sprang forward. "Fuck, fuck, fuck…gods be damned that hurts," she whispered in a tight hiss. She sniffed away tears, using the back of her good hand to wipe away the sweat and dirty rain water off her face.
"It's my job…" Din muttered. She was playing with him and he hated it. He never toyed with his bounties; there was nothing personal about any of them. But she was making this personal.
"Your job, huh?" She adjusted herself again, thighs straddling him and pressed against his gun belt. If they were in a bed and not in the middle of a trash strewn alley it might look like the Mandalorian was about to get lucky. As it stood now he didn't feel very fucking lucky.
"You're a thief, " he replied.
"What exactly did I steal?" she asked, plucking the blinking tracker off his belt. "This little thing tell you what I stole? I didn't like my job anymore so I fucking quit. You could do the same, look into a new line of work? Maybe apiculture?" She tossed the tracker into the darkness over her shoulder.
He still couldn't move. He tried flexing his fingers, raising his hand so he could punch that sarcastic smile off her face. She must have paralyzed him. Nothing felt broken...maybe she poisoned him with something.
"I didn't poison you. You kriffing idiot."
"Did I say that out loud?" He thought. "Must have a concussion and be paralyzed...the kid. I can't protect the kid-"
She sighed again. "Damn it! I told you I didn't want to hurt you. You gotta kriffing kid? A kid! And you're out here hunting me?" She slapped her good hand against his chrome chest plate and immediately regretted it, hissing in pain. "Ow! What the shit is this stuff?"
"Bes..Beskar, " he grunted. He hadn't actually wanted to answer her because fuck her and her stupid questions but the word burst forth anyways.
"Beskar...so you're the real deal, huh? A Mandalorian…" she shifted on his chest again tapping her fingers across the armor as she thought. He heard people laughing as they walked by on the streets flanking the alley. "Bounty Hunter, do you know what they do to unaccompanied minors in the middlerim?" She asked.
"Nothing...nothing good." He replied, still gasping for breath.
A wry laugh escaped her lips, "That is a very accurate assessment." She peered down into his visor and he had the strange sensation she could see through the layers of steel and glass. "Listen to me, Mandalorian, " Her voice was firm and so quiet he strained to hear her. He wanted to lift his head towards her to catch every syllable falling from her lips. Instead she bent her head low, her nose almost pressing against the glass of his T-shaped visor. "You are going to leave this alley, get your kid and get as far fucking away from this mid-rim shithole as you can. You never saw me and you will NEVER work for the Balbab cartel again. Do you understand?"
He wanted to nod his head earnestly. Stars yes, he understood. Her voice made his brain itch and the only way to scratch that impossible itch was to listen to her voice, follow her instructions. Since he couldn't nod he repeated after her, "I'm going to leave this alley, get the kid and get the fuck away from this shithole-" The itch in his brain was instantly better.
"You never saw me. And fuck the Balbab cartel, " she repeated sternly.
"Never saw you. Fuck the cartel."
She nodded but didn't move. "Please don't make me regret this. I'm tired of hurting people." She sat back and held her good hand up. A second later her weapon flew back into it. Flew, he was sure of it. She gave the hilt a once over, checking the dark intricately carved metal for obvious damage before clipping it back on her belt. "Leave now, Bounty Hunter." She stood up and the pressure holding him down disappeared.
He sat up, blinking under his helmet and wondered again how the hell he got there. He needed to get the kid. He needed fuel and food. "Fuck, " he grumbled. "Can't get food or fuel without credits, dikulta." Din took an unsteady step forward. His throat hurt. His everything hurt. What the hell happened?
A small blinking green light crunched under his foot and he bent down to pick up the broken tracking fob. Why was he leaving without his bounty? The thought bubbled up and he paused. Footsteps echoed behind him and he turned around watching as a figure limped away towards the street on the opposite end of the alley. "What the hell?," Din growled. The Rising Phoenix on his back crackled to life and he flew forward. The woman spun to face him, eyes wide in surprise as he barreled towards her. The rocket on his back cut off as he caught her around the middle and slammed her again into the ground. It was her turn to be breathless as he jumped back on top of her.
"No! No! I'm not going back!" She screamed at him, her unbroken hand again going for his throat. Din didn't let her fingers sink into his still throbbing flesh this time. His helmet slammed forward connecting with her forehead. She instantly stilled, the crack of her skull against his Beskar echoed through his audio input. It wasn't the cleanest way to kill someone but it got the job done. She blinked up at him a few times, a thin trickle of blood ran from her nostril and down her lips. Her fingers twitched as he fastened the cuffs around her wrists. She gasped like a dying fish, each breath more irregular than the last as her eyes finally fluttered closed. She would be dead before they jumped back into hyper-space.
He tore the weapon off her hip and clasped it onto his own belt before rolling her on her side to check her for a rocket pack or a pair of wings to explain her unexplainable thousand foot drop. Then he picked her up and slung her over his shoulders like a bag of dirty laundry. No, there was no way she should have been strong enough to pin him down. Or nearly knock him off his feet with a well placed, if not unfortunate for her, jab to his helmet. He was almost getting used to experiencing the strange things the universe had kept hidden from him until he met the kid. Almost.
He glanced down at the insignia on his pauldron, the Mudhorn, the sigil for his clan of two. The giant, ferocious beast that had nearly killed him until the kid used his magic and stopped the beast in its tracks. Din sighed to himself, adjusting her dead weight on his shoulder, the fight had been stranger than most but he wasn't a Mudhorn and she wasn't magic.