He had felt out of his depth for years. Leaving a life of smuggling for the Alliance — no matter how temporary he claimed the detour was — had left him more often than not struggling to fill shoes he knew were far too big for him. He was a fraud; that he had known for most of his life. Handsome and charming enough to get by without trying too hard, smart enough both on the streets and off to keep up with what was going on around him, skilled in the area of flying, sure. All of those things were true. But he had still felt not-quite-good-enough for the Alliance and the expectations that seemed to come with it, and certainly not good enough for the woman who had finally admitted her feelings for him.
He was out of his depth with the Alliance, but not here, not on Bespin. Here, he had connections. Here, he could work that charm and intelligence to his advantage. Here, he could maybe help Leia relax a little.
She had been wound up since they had landed, and Han was intentionally ignoring his own internal alarms, which had been blaring ever since Lando had hugged him instead of punching him. He didn't trust Lando, but he was sort of out of options. Besides, he hadn't really trusted Leia or Luke or the whole Alliance operation a few years back, and they had all proven him wrong; maybe if he gave Lando a chance, he'd prove Han wrong, too.
It didn't help that he knew Leia could read people in ways that barely seemed possible, picking up on others' motivations and fears as if they were written on their faces; and he could read Leia well enough to know she had been uneasy since they had arrived in Cloud City. She didn't like Lando, didn't trust Lando, and Han was sure it had nothing to do with prejudice based on Lando's past. Leia looked at hearts more than station, which Han knew better than anyone.
She sat snuggled close to him on one of the opulent couches in the apartment they had been provided, head tucked under his chin, slender fingers tracing lines up and down his arm. To her credit, Han knew she had been trying to trust, that she did trust him, even if trusting Lando was off the table.
"This place feels wrong," she murmured, fingertips brushing up his bicep to his shoulder and down to his elbow again and again.
Han didn't know what she expected him to do at this point. He had gotten them all there in one piece. He had managed to smooth things over well enough to get help. Lando's people were nearly done with the Falcon, and once that was finished, he, Leia, and Chewie would leave (and Threepio; he kept forgetting about Threepio, and he needed to remember to not leave the damn droid wherever he'd wandered off to, or Leia would probably refuse to speak to him for the entire trip back). He had already assured her of that once, but that discussion devolved into talking about his leaving to take care of his debt with Jabba, something they couldn't seem to have a constructive conversation about.
He decided to try to understand what, exactly, had her so on-edge. He pressed his lips to her temple and tightened the arm he had draped around her body in what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. "Wrong how?"
She pressed her fingers into his shoulder for a second before running them down his arm again. "Like the Death Star," she whispered, and something in her voice sent chills down Han's spine.
Leia didn't make those sorts of comparisons lightly, but he couldn't think of a place less like the Death Star than Cloud City. On the Death Star, every move he'd made had been improvised, and his usual calm, charming, careless facade had been quickly dropped. Here, he was using that facade to their advantage, keeping things light and friendly so he could stay on Lando's good side long enough to get Leia and Chewie (and, kriff, Threepio, who he would not forget) somewhere safer.
"Ain't the Death Star," he soothed the same way he had the few times he'd woken her from a nightmare. "Can't be like the Death Star. Pretty sure you wanted to murder me on the Death Star."
The edges of Leia's lips turned up ever-so-slightly, the first hint of a smile he'd seen from her in close to an hour. "Who says I don't want to murder you now?" she asked before kissing him tenderly.
Han was certainly out of his depth with her, just like with the Alliance, just like with nearly everything he'd spent his time on for the past three years. The best he could do for now was keep things light and calm, keep Leia smiling, and hope that, given the chance, Lando would prove them both wrong.