The old Mandalorian groaned. "'Just security,' huh?"

"Sorry." Djarin did sound genuinely apologetic, and the absurdity of that might have been enough to make Grix laugh in other circumstances. As it was, they were pinned down and the situation was rapidly deteriorating. Their first week on the job had gone smoothly, but he should've known that wouldn't last.

"Drop your weapons, Mando scum," said the Zabrak at the warehouse entrance. He had two guns pointed at Grix, while his two human colleagues kept their blasters on Din Djarin.

Djarin hesitated for a moment and then slowly lowered his blaster down to the floor. The older man sighed and followed suit.

"What do we do with them?" The shorter, bulker human asked.

The Zabrak shrugged. "Kill 'em, I guess."

"Wait." That was the other human. "We should make 'em take off their helmets first. That's like a thing for Mandos, right?"

"Good idea." The Zabrak motioned toward Ordo with one of his guns. "You first. Helmet off."

"No!" Djarin's modulated voice rang out. "Stop! He's- he's an elder of our tribe and we follow a creed. Just give him an honorable death."

What the—? Grix whipped his head sideways toward the other Mandalorian. Then it clicked. Djarin wanted a distraction. "He's right. I won't do it."

"Oh, you'll do it," the taller human said, stepping toward him. "You'll do it, or I'll do it myself and then I'll remove his helmet too and make you watch as I kill him. Slowly."

Grix stood frozen in place for a moment before letting malice seep into his voice. "Fine." Then he reached up and pulled off his helmet, letting his eyes close as he did so. His aim wasn't what it used to be and neither was his eyesight, but his throwing arm? The helmet flew through the air and hit the wall with a clang that reverberated around them. Yeah, good enough.

It proved to be just enough of a distraction. Djarin activated his flamethrower to throw the Zabrak further off guard and then got him with a blaster bolt to the chest while Ordo grabbed his own gun from the floor and shot the bulky human. He turned around just in time to watch the third man fall. Kriff, but the kid's good with a vibroblade.

Then it was just the two of them. Djarin walked over and picked up the other's helmet from where it had landed. "Seems okay," he said.

"I should hope so. It's beskar, after all," Grix said with a laugh. "Maker knows it's been through worse."

The walk through the city's commercial district after they'd collected their pay was almost leisurely. They'd picked up the baby from the shopkeeper Djarin had been paying to watch him, a kindly baker with two children of his own. "I've learned it's better to find someone trustworthy than to leave him alone in the ship," the younger Mandalorian had said, as if that were some sort of major discovery. Ordo managed to refrain from commenting.

The child seemed more than happy to be reunited with his father, and he giggled cheerfully as his pram bobbed along between them as they walked through the busy streets.

"That was quick thinking back there," he said to the other Mandalorian.

"Thanks. That was a good throw."

"So, I was wondering…" He let his words trail off.

Djarin glanced at him, curious. "Yeah?"

"Did you kill that last guy the way you did— up close and personal, I mean— in order to avenge my honor?" It may've been a quick enough death, but Grix knew it had been far from painless.

Djarin stopped abruptly along with the pram, which was electronically tethered to him through his vambrace. "What? Absolutely not." Ordo stopped as well and shrugged as he turned to face his companion.

"I'm just saying, it kinda seemed that way." He knew he shouldn't tease the younger man, but it was so easy to get a rise out of him.

"That's—" Djarin began and then stopped before trying again. Grix couldn't help but smile at the man's clearly frustrated body language. "I saw you take your helmet off an hour before that so you could drink ale in a cantina."

"Uh huh, a fair point. A fictionalized, traditionalist version of my honor then."

Djarin stared at him for a brief moment and then started walking, quick enough that the pram had to zoom forward to keep pace. "I'm going back to the ship."

"Okay, okay," Grix said, stifling a laugh as he caught up. "Forget I said anything." It took another few minutes or so of walking, but eventually their usual comfortable silence returned.

They were nearly to the spaceport hangars when the child began to whine and stretch out his arms. "He hungry?"

"Probably," Djarin said as he reached out and let the baby grab onto his hand. "Is that it, you little womp rat? Wanna stop and get something to eat?"

"What about there?" The older man pointed to a nearby doorway.

Djarin sighed. "That's a bar."

"It clearly says 'bar and grill.'"

"All right, fine, but we can't stay long. We need to head out."

The older man nodded. "Yeah, yeah. Of course." Despite it being mid-day, there was a sizeable crowd inside. Most of the tables seemed to be taken up by groups of off-worlders heading to or from the port. As they walked through the room to where there were empty tables, Grix scanned the other customers out of habit. One table contained a group of mercenaries, judging by their gear. Three were middle-aged humans and two of them wore beskar'gam and had their helmets sitting alongside them. He stopped and put a hand on Djarin's arm. "On second thought, let's go somewhere else."

"What? No. You wanted to come here and now we're here. That table over there is free." He reluctantly followed the other two and then listened as Djarin ordered savory porridge for the child. He kept his helmet on and just shook his head when the proprietor asked him if he wanted anything. It hoped that would be enough to keep him from being noticed. Djarin, he could tell, was staring at him. "What's gotten into you?"

Of course, it wasn't enough. "I know that armor!" One of the Mandalorian mercs called out as he stood up. The other one, a woman with greying blonde hair, stayed at their table but glared at him all the same. "I heard you were found dead in a gutter somewhere, Ordo. Should've known that was too good to be true."

"Nice to see you too, Detta." The two men stood facing each other and while Djarin remained seating, Grix noticed that he'd activated the pram's cover and had his hand on his blaster pistol.

"Yeah, funny meeting you in a place like this, huh? When the last time I saw you, you were standing behind Gar Saxon, watching him sign away our planet, our future."

Grix didn't need to see Djarin tense up to know that he had. The older man took a step back. It wasn't like Detta was wrong. Besides, he was far too old for bar brawls. "You've made your point. Now leave me alone."

There was a rough grip on his shoulder, pulling him forward. "Oh no, you're not getting out of this that easily. Coward." Detta used the Mando'a word, not the comparatively mild Basic equivalent, and for a second it hung in the air around them, but Grix, who'd been more or less expecting it, found he didn't have it in him to muster up a reaction.

Apparently, that was not the case for Djarin, who leapt up in one single fluid movement and had his blaster trained on Detta's exposed face. "Back off now or I'll drop you." The boy sure can move, Grix thought with strangely misplaced pride.

The mercenary blinked, as if just noticing the other Mandalorian. He's drunk, Grix realized. Detta's eyes landed on the the mudhorn sigil and he frowned. "You're no Ordo."

"No, I'm not," Djarin agreed. "And you won't be anything in a minute if you don't—"

"That's enough!" A voice called out in heavily accented Basic. The three Mandalorians turned to see the bar's Twi'lek owner, an older woman holding a disruptor rifle. "This may be a spaceport tavern, but I'll have none of this nonsense!"

Detta scowled but he backed up and retreated to his table.

Djarin waited a beat and then returned his blaster to its holster.

"It was extremely very calm until you two showed up! Be gone," said the Twi'lek, who had turned her attention to Djarin and Ordo.

Grix nodded, doing his best to avoid looking at the younger man. "All right, we're going," he said, hands raised in a placating gesture.

"Starting such trouble when you have with you a little baby! Mandalorians, sheesh."

To Ordo's relief, Djarin didn't speak as they walked back to the ship. They stopped briefly at a food stall to buy a cup of soup for the child, who proceeded to slurp at it happily, seemingly unaware of the tension that had built up like a wall between the two adults.

It was only once they got to the Razor Crest that Djarin turned to him. "Gar Saxon of Clan Saxon, the Imperial Viceroy," he recited flatly, as if he were a contestant on one of those awful HoloNet quiz shows.

"Yes," Grix admitted, taking his helmet off so the other man could look into his eyes. "I knew him, and I'll admit I supported, for lack of a better word, the Empire's interference on Mandalore in the beginning. I guess I thought it was the best available choice."

"It wasn't." Djarin's voice was as cold as steel.

"No, it wasn't. I realized that a few years later. The Empire was rotten to its core, and I was sure it would take us all down with it. So, I left, and it turns out I was correct. Never have I been sorrier to be proven right."

Djarin cocked his head slightly. A gesture that Grix now understood to mean he was confused. "You left? A few years into Imperial rule?"

"That's right."

"But that's more than many of our people can say. If you left early on to fight the Imps, I don't understand-"

Grix sighed. He might as well tell the kid everything. "I didn't leave to fight the Imps. I left the sector and stayed away. Went to the edge of Wild Space and found work there. By the time I returned, the war was winding down." He decided to continue before Djarin could ask any more questions. "You see, my older daughter had already graduated from the Academy, already had her first posting. She truly believed in the Empire. I couldn't bear to stay and-" His voice broke.

"You told me your children died in the Purge."

He took a moment and then nodded. "They did. Isali was leading a unit fighting to defend the capital. Asta, well, I was told later that her TIE crashed in the desert. Dead on impact, it seems." Grix leaned over and peered into the pram. The child had fallen asleep after finishing his soup and his ears rose and fell the tiniest amount along with his breaths. Becoming a parent changed a person. "So, maybe I am without honor. I just don't think it has anything to do with when I take my helmet off." He waited for Djarin to respond and when he didn't, the old man straightened up. "Well, are you going to let me back on your ship or am I on my own?" At least he had the money from their job, though the thought of spending some of it on passage back to the space station wasn't appealing.

Djarin was quiet for a moment and then he pressed the controls that opened the ship's hatch. "Let's get going."

Grix spent most of the trip back in the hold. Djarin had taken the baby up to the cockpit and the older Mandalorian told himself he just wanted to give them privacy. He could admit it was starting to get a little boring, however. There wasn't even a droid to play cards with. Odd that Din Djarin seemed to be doing all right financially but didn't own a single droid.

"Ordo?" The other man asked as he climbed down the ladder, holding the sleeping baby in one arm. "Oh, you are awake."

Grix's brow creased at that. "Course I'm awake. I'm old, not an invalid."

"Uh, here," Djarin said as he handed him two ration bars. "Thought you might be hungry."

"Thanks."

The younger man turned and stood awkwardly in place for a moment before turning back to face his guest. "Ordo, I—"

"Yeah, what is it?"

Djarin looked down at his child. "I've made some decisions I regret. Some bad decisions that got people hurt and killed. People I should have been able to protect." The words came out rushed and Grix wondered if it was the first time he'd said them aloud.

"Oh kid, I doubt there are many of us left who could say otherwise."

"I just wanted you to know. To know that— that I understand."

What could he say to that? "Thank you."

When they got to the station, Djarin came with him to negotiate with the mechanic and then Grix walked to their ship to see them off. He thought the child whimpered mournfully as he said goodbye, but he might have imagined that. Before leaving, Djarin pressed a commlink into his hand and he took it without comment. Then he stood and watched the ship disappear into space.