Author's Note
Life, for me, is finally starting to get back to some semblance of normal. I'm hoping it'll mean I'll have more time to write. Keep your fingers crossed. And your toes for that matter.
Also, I realized I made a mistake last chapter. I mentioned her control cuff that's not actually introduced until this chapter. The pitfalls of writing chapters out of order. I've gone back and fixed it.
Alright, go onward and enjoy!
Admit It
Mahin walks with a spring in her step through the dusty streets of the town they've stopped at. She doesn't remember its name. She's tried to remember the names of the cities and planets Mando has taken her to over the past six weeks, but names were never really her thing. Oh, he tells her every single one as he lands the Razor Crest, but they tend to go in one ear and out the other. Never sticking in her mind well enough to later recall, especially since they never stay for any great length of time.
Bad memory aside, it could also be a remnant of the stretches of time she went actively on the run from the Empire. Names and places didn't matter. Just how fast her feet could run and what supplies she could get to keep herself going.
The important thing to know now is that the three suns hanging overhead blaze away most vegetation on the planet to leave vast expanses of desert, the town they visit was built around one of the only oases, and Mando has a bounty hiding out here somewhere.
It's also the first time Mando has let her off the ship with the kid without an escort.
They exit the ramp of the ship together shortly after landing, splitting up so he can start his hunt and she can go to the market to freshen up on supplies. He gave her strict orders to only go to the market and back, and to keep the child with her in the pram at all times. She agrees to the terms readily, trying not to laugh as Mando fusses with the child in the pram like a father dropping his child off for the first day of school. She knows he trusts in her ability to take care of the child by now, so she doesn't take offense.
Especially since it's so kriffing adorable.
She doesn't say that out loud, of course. Calling a Mandalorian adorable is just asking to get her head chopped off. Idly, she wonders if adorable is better or worse than calling a Mandalorian cute. They take cute as one of the utmost insults.
Best not find out.
Mahin fiddles with the new metal cuff she wears on her left wrist, pressing a button to draw the child's floating pram closer to her as they approach the market. She fabricated it over the past few days. Hyperspace can get boring. It helps to have a project, something to work on with her hands, and she's always picking up odd scraps tech for dirt cheap on random planets. The cuff gives her a control for the pram of her own so she doesn't have to rely on Mando's vambrace. She'll never forget the look on Mando's face when she showed him.
Well, without the look and the face part. But the tilt of his head screamed shock that she couldn't help but chuckle at.
It's early in the planet's day yet. Only two of the suns reaching over the horizon. The third lags behind at a trailing pace. The people aren't much better. Many still sleep all cozy in their homes with market vendors just beginning to open their stalls. Mahin takes her time, roving from stall to stall examining the wares. Not looking too hard. Just enjoying the feeling of being out and about.
She uses her share of the money Mando gave her to buy some more fresh food, along with a couple new skeins of yarn she plans to make into a new cloak for the baby. One vendor sells homemade pastries with some kind of fruit filling. Deciding to splurge a little, she buys one for herself and the baby, handing the child his and laying out a napkin in his pram to hopefully minimize the mess.
Mahin pulls hers apart with her fingers, the child watching intently as she takes her first bite. Her eyes light up. A little moan escapes as the sweet, fruity juices explode on her tongue. "It's good," she mumbles around another mouthful of pastry, nodding at the kid in encouragement. He takes his first tentative bite, munching for a few seconds before proceeding to devour his pastry with gusto.
Mahin laughs, licking excess juice off her thumb. "Slow down, ad'ika. Eat the food, don't inhale it."
The child babbles around the last of his food, orange crumbs and juice covering half the green of his face. Mahin laughs again as she squats down in front of the pram, wiping at the baby's face with a napkin. "What, am I going to have to teach you table manners, too?"
He burps happily in response.
Mahin goes to say something else when someone behind her screams. Loud. Terrified.
Mahin shoots to her feet, hand dropping to the blaster strapped to her thigh as she spins around with the child kept safely behind her. The crowd of the market pulses with alarm, bodies shifting back and forth as they try to see the commotion coming from further in. They completely block Mahin's view. She pushes up on her tiptoes, trying to see, but she's too short.
And then all of a sudden, a gap between two people's shoulders opens up, and Mahin spots someone running down the street. He curves an arm around his body awkwardly to blindly fire behind him, face a picture of pure panic and desperation.
And a face Mahin recognizes. That's Mando's bounty. Mando showed her the puck when she asked to see out of curiosity. Her eyes shift over the quarry's shoulder and, yep, there's Mando running after him, blaster drawn but not willing to shoot with so many people around.
Unlike this little kriff. He has no problem shooting randomly with the thin hope of hitting Mando.
The Force tugs at her. Soft. Insistent. Wanting her to see. It seems harder and harder to ignore these days. Her instincts fighting against her desire to push that side of herself down. Even now, she can't really help it, eyes drifting of their own accord to an alley between buildings a few feet away.
The Force telling her to go. Go that way.
The child coos, eyes big and just as insistent. Pleading.
He feels it, too. He wants to go.
She wonders for a moment if the kid doesn't have something to do with her waning desire to ignore the Force. Is he doing something? Some mind trick? Or is it simply the presence of another Force user that make it harder to push away?
Mahin breathes out a short sigh through her nose, narrowing her eyes at the kid. "I better not regret this. You hear me?"
The kid's ears perk up in eager anticipation. Mahin sighs again and walks down the alley with the kid's pram following closely behind.
The Force guides her around a couple of twisting corners, the path wandering, almost seeming pointless. What could be at the end of this? Minutes pass, the noise from the market fading away, and still she doesn't run into anything more noteworthy than rotting garbage and crumbling bricks. Maybe her instincts are getting fuzzy since it's been so long? Maybe she's not following anything at all and is just going to get herself and the kid lost.
Just as she thinks to turn back, the alley opens up to another road of the market, just a few blocks east from where she was before.
The Force pushes at her. To move. To act.
Instinct completely takes over. Mahin swiftly shifts her hand with the control cuff to push the pram back as she steps out of the alley.
She crouches in the road, the people around her giving her funny looks. She extends one foot out while bracing against the ground with her hands, lowering her center of gravity. As soon as her leg fully extends, the bounty pushes his way through the crowd and stumbles hard into her calf, tumbling to the ground with a grunt of pain and a spray of dust like a mini sandstorm.
Several people gasp, the crowd around them quickly backing away. They don't go far though. Too curious. Eyes morbidly locked on the spectacle.
Mahin fluidly rises to her feet just as Mando shoulders his way through the crowd in pursuit. He doesn't even break stride as he takes in the scene. The bounty lays sprawled in the dirt, struggling to his knees with a blaster still clutched in his hand.
Mando presses the barrel of his own blaster to the back of the guy's head. The bounty freezes at the press of cold metal.
"I can bring you in warm or I can bring you in cold," Mando informs him.
The line sends a shiver down Mahin's spine. The cold ferocity spoken with a practiced ease from dozens, if not hundreds, of successful hunts that all ended just like this. With Mando on top with his quarry on their knees.
The bounty tosses his gun aside, holding his hands up in surrender. Probably the smartest thing he's done all day.
Mando grabs the guy's arm in a brutal grip, switching out his blaster for handcuffs. His helmet tips in Mahin's direction as he cuffs the bounty's hands behind his back.
She can practically feel the disapproving glare, hotter than the suns beating down on them.
"What?" she says with a shrug and innocent smirk. "We didn't leave the market."
"It was still dangerous." Using his grip on the bounty's bound wrists, Mando hoists the guy roughly to his feet. He makes manhandling a two-hundred-pound man look as effortless as lifting a leaf. Though maybe that's just because of the helmet. "Too dangerous. You should have stayed back."
Mahin rolls her eyes, following behind Mando as he shoves the bounty through the crowd ahead of him. The people instantly part for them like they have the plague. Though the vitriol spewing out of the bounty's mouth as he levels every insult he knows at the Mandalorian is certainly vile enough.
"Come on, Mando, we were fine." She waves a hand back at the pram following behind her, making sure to stay between the kid and the bounty at all times. And to keep Mando between herself and the bounty for good measure. "We're both perfectly fine."
"He could have shot you."
"Oh, please, I tripped him. And you showed up before the guy even saw us." She skips forward to peek around his stiff shoulder, trying to catch his eye out of the corner of his visor as she teases him, "You just don't want to admit that I helped."
He huffs, head swaying to the side in a way that she thinks means he's rolling his eyes at her. "I had it."
Her lips curl up into a grin. Oh, that is definitely some petulance she hears in his voice. The modulator can't hide that. "I stopped him for you."
"I would have caught him just fine on my own."
"I slowed him down at least." She bumps her shoulder with his. "Come on, Mando, admit it."
"Nope. Not happening."
"The tiny mechanic girl helped the big, bad bounty hunter."
"Don't you need to go buy an engine part or something?"
"Oh, no, we finished shopping already." She pats the bag slung across her chest that he sometimes uses to carry the child, now filled with fresh provisions. "Besides, this is way more important."
"Why did I let you on my ship?" he grouses but with an underlying lightness that means he's smiling. She's never actually seen his smile, of course, and he'd never admit to it, but she can tell all the same. "I'm starting to miss the peace and quiet."
"Liar. I bet your life was boring before I came along."
"I wouldn't exactly call my life boring since the kid got here."
Mahin chuckles. "Guess we both knew you needed a little more excitement."
"My life was plenty exciting, thanks."
"Blaster fights don't count as exciting."
His helmet finally turns to look at her. "Sure, they do."
"Is this some kind of weird Mandalorian flirting?" the bounty mumbles.
"Shut up," Mahin and Mando both tell him at the same time—Mando on bored reflex and Mahin with an indignant squawk. The baby starts to fuss and she gratefully turns to lift him out of the pram, hair falling to hopefully hid the blush creeping across her face.
Like Mando would actually flirt with someone like her. He's probably more into the warrior princess type.
And it's not like she was flirting with him. Really.
He's just really fun to tease.
Author's Note
Lol he really is fun to tease. It was almost too difficult to stop.
I'm hoping to gradually have Mahin start opening up to and using the Force again more and more. It'll be hard for her, considering her past and everything she runs from, but we're working towards her accepting that part of herself again.
And to Mando finding out. But let's not ruin any surprises.
Next chapter we get some Mando/Mahin fluff. :)
Hope you enjoyed, PLEASE REVIEW, and see you all next time!
