#din djarin x lissa ardross

[pcrushinnerd]

A Mandalorian and A Jedi -- Chapter 10

Warning: Tooth rotting fluff? Pregnancy talk? I donno. Nothing too heinous.

A/N: Christ life has taken some...turns lately. I do have much of the rest chapter planned out...just sort of requires me having time to write it. lol And that next chapter should conclude this first part or what I predict will be the first third of this story, but we'll see...

writing masterlist

(I donno if this is the most apt gif (dasnotmine) for this chapter but feels the most fitting for father's day.)

....... “You’re what?” Cara asked on widened eyes, as Karga beside her spat up some of his cocktail.

“I’m retiring,” Mando repeated simply.

“The best bounty hunter in the galaxy!” Karga cried. “Retiring! What for?”

The helmet moved slightly toward Karga. “I think that’s my business.”

“Wouldn’t have anything to do with that pretty blonde you’ve been seen with, hmm?”

Mando remained quiet, but beneath the helmet, he couldn’t stop his mouth dropping open.

“Come now, the second best business for me besides bounties is gossip. And it’s a popular commodity across the galaxy, so business is usually good. I’ve heard things about you being seen with a woman in a few places over these last few months.”

“Settling down?” Cara smiled.

The helmet turned to the former shock trooper. “Maybe.”

Karga rolled his eyes. “Always cagey, this one. See that trait won’t be going into retirement. I, for one, am happy for you, Mando. Where do you plan on settling down?”

Din took a deep breath, but otherwise didn’t respond. His companions shared a chuckle at his continued secrecy. Karga sighed, as he started to drum his fingers on the table between them. He was about to make a crack about knowing where to send a congratulations gift, but Cara broke in.

“What about the little one?”

The helmet dropped just a fraction. “I haven’t been able to find any more of my people, much less his. I figured...it’s time to plan on keeping him as a foundling.”

Mando was met with big smiles. “That is definitely great news. Our friend has accepted his role as a father. Think that calls for more drinks.”

How little did Karga know the truth of his words. But his own flesh and blood offspring would be kept even more of a secret. They would be so much more helpless than the green babe, and he thus felt even more fiercely protective over them.

..........

Lissa sat on the swinging bench on their front porch, reading from another mechanical maintenance book. Din had asked why she would want to keep reading them, but she found the topic too interesting after all this time, and her options as far activities at this point too few.

She ran a hand over her swollen stomach, over the child who was now about seven months along. She felt them stirring for the umpteenth time that day. While it would bring her joy to feel them alive and literally kicking inside her, it also made her nervous, especially the closer to her due date she was and the further away Din may have been at the time.

The happy squeals and coos of their son caught her attention. She watched as he played in the dirt and mud, treating it as beach sand as he worked to build up a little hut or other structure out of the mess with his cup and other tools.

It brought both of them much happiness, to see the little one able to truly be a child. To enjoy a childhood mostly denied them and likely, up to this point, denied their son as well.

The comm on Lissa’ wrist came to life. “Cyar’ika, I will be home shortly.”

She pressed a button. “Can’t wait. Make it home safe.”

“For you, always.”

They had found this place not long after saying their vows.

“We can’t just keep hopping from planet to planet with two little ones in toe,” she had said with tears in her eyes, brought on largely by a rush of hormones coursing through her bloodstream, but also by a bone tiredness present in her before even their child had been.

“You’re right,” he’d agreed, with no protest or comment. “You’re right.”

A few days later, after much research between bounties, they had gone off course a considerable distance, until they were at the greatest edges of the Outer Rim and nowhere near a trade route. A forest planet, smaller, only “recently” (within the last 200 years or so) occupied, and sparsely even then. Populated by little village colonies of simple people who farmed and hunted and foraged for a local berry fruit that was a popular treat on some other planets.

“This is beautiful,” Lissa breathed out, after the side door of the Crest was lowered and all three of their aliit walked out onto crinkling pine needles and crunching leaves. A chill autumnal wind moved easily through the air. She had already gotten into the habit of absent-mindedly running her hand over her stomach at that point, even though she wasn’t really showing at all at that point. If Din would notice and he was nearby, as he was then, he would wrap a beskar-clad arm around her torso.

“It is,” he whispered, but loud enough she could hear him through the modulator. All he was really staring at was her.

A shy smile as Lissa looked down, then up. “Let’s keep looking around.”

They came upon a village. The people were friendly but wary, although both Din and Lissa suspected that had more to do with their generally being strangers than being a fully armored man accompanying an armed woman, herself cradling a young, unknown species of alien. Particularly since several species seemed to call the place home.

They inquired of a particularly friendly shop keeper whether he knew of any property or land for sale nearby. Next thing they knew they were following a worn path into the woods north of the village, and within about two and a half kilometers they had happened upon an abandoned cottage that was maybe one more neglected winter away from really falling apart.

Grogu whined when, after opening the front door and stepping inside, some dust rained down from the ceiling. “Booo-mah,” he mumbled into Lissa’s shirt after smooshing his face into his mother’s chest.

Din was looking around the place, feeling like it was a bit too far gone for him to do much with it before their next child was due to arrive.

“It’s alright baby. It just needs some...love.”

Din turned to Lissa and Grogu, his eyes staying on them for a moment. “Yeah. Yeah, maybe so.”

They almost couldn’t believe the price. There was more than enough to completely redo the ramshackle shack into home, including new furnishings. The larger problem was one of manpower: for Din, there was no way his pregnant wife or toddler son were going to help with anything, despite their protests and Force-enabled displays that they could. But...it was slowing going, at first.

“We could help you,” Loren, their closest neighbor, suggested, as he stood next to his wife, who had brought over some sort of baked treat for them as a housewarming gift. “A few of us could come over and move your furniture there. Help with some of the repairs?”

Din was hesitant. When it was just him, he had the benefit of usually being able to remove his helmet, rather than sweat in the thing as he lifted, hefted, and shoved, hammered, sanded, and painted. He had enjoyed the change of pace, but it had its drawbacks.

“Sure,” he’d sighed, “why not.”

To his relief and surprise, none of the men asked about the helmet, his appearance, his creed and what it was like or meant to be a Mandalorian. Nor did any of the womenfolk who helped Lissa set up the home’s kitchen, organize linens, and start their garden ask anything about her past or why she was with Din. Why their son didn’t seem to take after either of them or didn’t seem to have a specific name.... They simply offered their help and friendship as neighbors, for which both former bounty hunters were immensely grateful.

The familiar roar of the Razor Crest’s engines brought Lissa out of her reveries. A clearing some 30 meters from their house provided a parking spot of sorts, where the Crest was most of the time.

Neither of them had the inclination to do any real farming, and they had too little land to yield much beyond their own needs, anyway. Fortunately, Din had been able to parlay his skills into hunting the local fauna and selling the meat and fur to local merchants.

Lissa watched the forest before her. Within several minutes, she saw the familiar silver glint and smiled.

Din could feel something in him brighten the minute he caught even the slightest glance of the cabin. The permanence and comfort it represented and gave were things he never honestly thought he’d have. The swell he could feel inside his chest when he saw Lissa wave him over to where she was sat on their front porch was still somewhat unfamiliar, but not at all unwelcome.

“Hello mesh’la,” he greeted her, right before slipping off the helmet. They were far enough away from the village or any other homstead that he felt comfortable enough to take it off outside for brief periods.

“Hi you.” She held out a hand, bidding him to come sit down by her, but he took it into his own and brought it up to his full lips. He kissed the back of her hand. “More radiant than when I last saw you.”

That earned an eye roll. “Probably also 50 pounds heavier, with bags under my eyes courtesy of your demon spawn I’m carrying who won’t let me rest for five minutes before they have to knock around one of my vital organs....”

Din smiled. He moved to kneel next to his wife. “Hey,” he spoke gently to their child, as he rubbed a gloved hand over Lissa’s swollen stomach. “Why don’t you give your mother a break, huh?”

Another kick, right to where Din’s palm rested.

“I feel you, ad’ika,” Din whispered, as his thumb moved back and forth. “Your buir feels you.”

“They don’t have to be so violent for me to feel them....” Lissa sighed, as she rubbed her stomach.

After a pause: “He or she’s already a warrior.” Din looked up into her eyes. “Just like their mother.”

A gentle smile broke out over Lissa’s face. She tried not to cry. As much as she wanted to blame that on her hormones, she understood the complement and respect behind those words, coming from her Mandalorian, and that inevitably brought so much tenderness inside of her.

“Eh! Eh!”

They looked down to see their green son looking up at them, his arms outstretched for “uppies.”

Din reached down and snatched him up. He already felt guilty at times, when he felt like he may be inadvertently ignoring the boy in favor of their unborn child. He held the green babe close to him and kissed him on the forehead. “And how are you, ad’ika?”

Grogu smiled, but he was quick to point down at Lissa, and to move in Din’s arms so he was facing her, with his arms outstretched again.

“You want your mother?” Din inquired on an uncertain note.

Lissa held out her arms. “Give ‘em to me. He needs his mama’s love too.”

Lissa sat up straighter, as Din moved to sit aside her. He let go of Grogu, who clamored over to his mother’s lap. He leaned his small body forward, nestling into his mother’s stomach, with a large, floppy ear settled against it. He closed his eyes.

“So strange....” Lissa muttered after a few moments.

Din moved forward. “What is?” he asked, the concern obvious in his voice and his eyes.

Lissa shook her head. “No, no. Nothing bad. It’s just...for the first time in days the baby isn’t moving around in there, and I feel so calm.... It may be in my head, but I wonder if he’s doing it....” she moved her chin, indicating Grogu in her arms. The green babe was still cuddled up as close as possible to his mother, to the new life inside her.

Din reached out a hand, but withdrew it. He wanted to express his love, as well as his gratitude, if it was indeed Grogu doing some sort of...Jedi thing...to make Lissa and the baby more comfortable and calm. But he didn’t want to disturb the boy, particularly if it would stop what he was doing.

So he simply sat and stared in awe and appreciation at the sight before him: the entire universe in the form of three people.

.......

“We have great hopes for you.”

The half-weequay, half-human bounty hunter raised his chin. “High hopes. High demands.”

The Imp officer with his steely, cold eyes, and his hands clasped behind his rigid back, didn’t waiver. “It has taken some time for our intelligence to pinpoint even a likely area where they may be hiding. Remember, you are hunting two of your own with this assignment. Some...of the best. It will take some time and effort.”

A scoff. “They’re no better than me.”

“That remains to be seen.” A shift of black fabric drew the hunter’s attention to just behind the officer, to Moff Gideon. “But if and when you do find them, make sure the human man and woman don’t survive. The child must be returned safe, and sound.”

"But if you are able," a corner of the officer's mouth curled upward, fracturing the cool facade, "make sure the woman suffers."

@takemepedropascal @16boyfriends-and-me @bothlovinglyandhatingly @am-i-space @marvelettesassemble @fuckmylifedudee =/- whoever whats le tag or not

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian fan fiction #the mandalorian fan fic #the mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian fanfiction #din djarin #din djarin x ofc #din djarin x oc #lissa ardross #din djarin x lissa ardross

[pcrushinnerd]

A Mandalorian and A Jedi - Chapter 9

Warnings: Some very general allusions to adulty times, but nothing really besides that.

A/N: So....life has only sort of gotten worse lately. Have been working some loooong days, coupled with some other shit going on has really drained me emotionally and otherwise, and not left me a lot of time to work on things. But I managed to complete another chapter in this, which makes me a bit happy.... It's also the longest one yet.

Pairing: Din Djarin x OFC

Timeline: Right now, this takes place between seasons 1 and 2.

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(I can't for the life of me 'member where I got this gif; just message me if it's yours and you want credit. )

They'd found a quiet, hidden place on Navarro. As Din had dropped off his latest batch of bounties and collected a new set of pucks, Karga had made some offhand remark about how Mando had seemed unusually jumpy, his voice unusually light, even through the vocoder.

Was this what love felt like? Cause as as frightening as it was, it also felt right. Felt like home.

Lissa had asked if their marrying would require going or doing or seeing anything.

"No. We simply exchange our vows of fealty to one another."

Lissa had pondered that. "But there should be something more. We should go somewhere nice, or some place important, maybe?"

That left Din for a bit of a loop. Planets like Naboo came to mind, but that didn't quite feel right. Impersonal, in a way.

Even though it was a shell of what it formerly was, even though his brothers and sisters in the Creed were gone and the Covert had only been there for a short few years anyway, Navarro was the last place of any sentimental significance.

Lissa stared out at the sandy dunes of the planet, in the semi-secluded place with a landing spot nestled among the jutting rocks just big enough for the Razor Crest to park snuggly in, waiting for Din's return. She sighed as she clutched a cup of tea tighter in her hands.

The tea was recommended by a doctor she consulted through the holochannels. Supposed to help keep the nausea and vomiting at bay, and so far Lissa had felt better. Good enough to tend to some errands aboard ship while Din was gone. She had to laugh at how in disarray the ship could become even just from their simple, every day activities.

She looked over at the little green bean in the corner, working on his latest drawing with his colored pens. Really, he was the source of much of the mess on the ship, but she could never be mad at the little one. Lissa didn't think it possible, but she felt even more warmly toward him lately. He was her—their—first child. She wondered how he would take to having a human sibling join him.

A flash of something silvery in the periphery of her vision caught Lissa's attention, drawing it back out into the quiet, dusky sands and rocks before her.

Mando spotted her a second after Lissa spotted him. Waiting for his return. He didn't run, but strode more quickly to be by her side again.

That soft, involuntary smile. "Hi."

A deep, but contented, sigh. "Hi."

They embraced, and Din tilted his head down. After a beat, Lissa followed suit.

A keldable kiss, he'd called it one day. Explained what it meant in his culture. As touched as she was, always was, by it, Lissa wanted more. "I want your lips on mine. All over me. I want to see them," she whispered. She the stroked the beskar like it was his skin.

A strained noise just barely audible though the helmet, before Din reached over and slammed his gloved fist against the control panel, causing the Razor Crest's side door to creak and shift up, closing to leave them in near darkness. Lissa was somewhat confused by his wanting to close themselves off from the outside world; anything, even empty space in the middle of nowhere, could be outside a closed Crest. But then it dawned on her that the ship served as a sort of second set of armor-a protective layer, even when the beskar was off. A place so familiar and well-equipped, that he could feel comfortable letting his guard down inside it.

Little coos came from around their feet. The little one had apparently abandoned his artwork to come and greet his papa.

Having acclimated to the dark of the closed-up hull, Lissa bent down and scooped up Grogu into her arms.

Din stroked the child's wrinkly forehead. "He should see it—me—first," he stated.

"Of course." Lissa understood; after all, she had insisted on this.

Din took the child from Lissa and into his embrace. A shaky breath through the vocoder. "You ready Pal?" Lissa wasn't sure if he was saying it to their boy or himself.

"I'll turn around," she offered. "Just let me know when you're ready for me."

A nod of the helmet, before Lissa turned on her heel and sauntered over to the other end of the hull, lowering herself carefully to the cool metal floor and settling her back against a crate. A ghost of dread and a pinch of irritation flared up in her at the thought that soon she wouldn't be able to do such a simple physical thing, even if it would just be for a few months.

"Okay buddy," she just barely heard over her shoulder, before what sounded like a long, shuddering breath. A rustling noise.

Din held the child close to his cuirass-covered chest. The little one's ears flopped as he canted his head up at his father in question. Din knew he was stalling. But he knew he was about to apply a permanence to his relationship with the kid that couldn't be taken back, even if one day the child left and never came back. No living thing had seen him without his helmet since he swore the Creed, so many years ago... The image of a tall droid briefly ghosted through his mind, but he quickly pushed it far away.

"I see the way you two are. Saw it when I first joined you," Lissa had told him. "You clearly care for him deeply. He looks up to you-figuratively and literally," she'd laughed. A crystal clear, light laugh. That sound, that memory, he let dwell in his brain. The words repeated over and over, because he knew they were ultimately true.

"Bah," the child cooed, raising a hand to grasp at the material of his cape where it tucked into his cuirass.

Another steadying breath. "Here we go." His gloved fingers went to the edge of his helmet, where they slowly lifted it up, up, inch by inch, until a 40-something man with patchy stubble, deep, brown eyes, and matted hair came into view.

Wide, brown eyes stared back at him. Scanned the features of the man before him.

"Hi Buddy," Din whispered, almost as if he were afraid any greater sound would cause the green bean to jump out of his arms and skitter away from him. But the big, brown orbs continued to simply study him.

Din's eyes were just as searching, seeing his son for the first time without the screen of the visor, which colored everything in a dull, dark green, with the exception of the occasional yellow, oranges, and reds of its heat sensor.

A small, clawed hand rose up and came to his face. Din's eyes fell shut at feeling his son's gentle touch, and he let out a sigh.

"Boo-booeh," Grogu cooed. Din opened his eyes and smiled widely down at him. Lissa, gods bless her, had coaxed the Mando'a word for 'parent' out of Din one day, and from then on had repeated it multiple times to Grogu, who would occasionally echo some part of it back to her, usually just "boo."

"Has he ever really talked before? Any Basic, I mean?"

A back and forth of the helmet. "No, not that I ever heard. Just some incoherent sounds I've heard repeated a few times, maybe his species' native tongue."

Din tried to conjure up an image of what the little one's real parents would look like, particularly his real father. What would that being be doing currently to raise this little one? What lessons unique to their kind would he be passing down to his son? If Din had been introduced to this being, would he be met with approval or scorn?

"Boooo...boo bah!" Grogu chirped up at him.

Din ruffled the downy, sparse hair on his son's wrinkly head. "Boobah, huh? No buir? Or papa?"

Grogu simply canted his head to the side. Din laughed, before holding his boy close. "How about I go marry your mom, hmm?" That earned a happy squeal from the green bean, which in turn brought a wide smile to Dins face. Which the helmet subsequently covered up as he slipped it over his face. Their vows had to come first.

Lissa had fallen into a gentle lull where she sat, with her head resting on her hands, folded over her bent knees. Hearing Din interact with the baby made her smile outside and in; the feeling of being part an aliit, as Din called it in Mando'a recently.

A gloved hand came into view. Lissa looked up to see Mando standing before her. She took his hand and help in standing up.

He was quick to wrap his arms around her. "Are you ready?"

"Are you?"

"More than ever." He looked down, then up. "If you'll have me."

Lissa lifted a hand up to rest over his cuirass, over his heart. After a beat: "Just in the time we've been together, you've treated me like a queen-better than anyone else has in a long time, maybe ever. I'll always have you. Commitment, concrete things, aren't very common in my life...but I'd like, want to change that."

A nod. Din's thoughts towards the woman before him mirrored the thoughts he had toward the child earlier: He tried to extrapolate an image of her parents from Lissa's looks and mannerisms. He wondered if he would garner their approval, and whether that would even mean anything to his intended if they did or didn't.

"Did they treat you well, your parents? Each other?"

Lissa pondered that. "They died when I was still so young, I don't think I really have the most accurate memory of whether they did or didn't... I just remember them working in that shop, until..." Her lips so slightly trembled before she bit her upper lip.

Din pulled her close, enveloped her in a beskar-clad bear hug. "Sorry. I just...feels like I don't entirely know what I'm doing. Maybe for similar reasons. I don't...remember a lot. But I'll try. Always."

Lissa pulled back and looked gently upon the Mandalorian helm that covered him, symbolized and represented who and what he was to the world. "What do I say?"

Din understood. "Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde."

A small, nervous laugh. "You're gonna have to go a bit slower for me. Also, what does that all mean?"

A deep breath drawn. "We are one when together, we are one when parted, we will share all, we will raise warriors."

A ghost of doubt flitted across Lissa's face at hearing that meaning. Didn't leave much room for individuality, for the idea of two people with their own wills and goals. But she knew that marriage meant compromise, that some individuality was always lost, but ideally in exchange for love and support, which she had no reason to suspect she wouldn't receive here. And for damn sure, their child would know how to fight.

"Okay?" His fingers brushed over her cheek, tucked away a lock of her hair.

Lissa nodded. "Yes."

"Repeat after me mesh'la: Mhi solus tome," Din intoned.

"Mhi solus tome," Lissa repeated.

"Mhi solus dar'tome," Din continued with a nod.

"Mhi solus dar'tome."

"Mhi me'dinui an."

"Mhi me'dinui an," she repeated a bit slower.

"Mhi ba'juri verde."

"Mhi ba'juri verde," she repeated firmly, surely.

Din caressed her cheek. "Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde," he repeated for himself, in the confident, easy manner of some one who knew the language well, and someone sure of and committed to the words' meaning.

Briefly, her teeth ran over her upper lip. "Is that it?" Lissa asked.

Slowly, gently, Din grasped Lissa's hands, and brought them up to his helmet. He nodded at her questioning look.

It was such a simple thing-to simply lift up the helmet and look at him face to face, eye to eye, but everything about their life and Din's commitment to his Creed gave it all a heavy weight.

Each of them took a deep breath, as Lissa grasped the edges of the helmet, before slowly moving it up, up, and off her new husband's head. Her eyes followed the helmet, as she brought it up and close to her, holding it to her chest, before turning to the side and setting it carefully down on a nearby crate.

A swallow. "Look at me, cyar'ika."

Lissa glanced up, and was met with the most handsome face she had ever seen. Defined features; a roguish smile; deep, brown eyes; that mustache she had felt from his kisses shrouded by darkness; ruffled, brown hair.

And similar to the child, Lissa brought up a hand to gently caress Din's face, to feel the stubble there and the defined jaw. He smiled at her touch, at her hazel eyes roaming every inch of his face also as the child had done earlier.

Hazel. Her eyes were hazel. He thought so, but couldn't be entirely sure through all the times he had only been looking at her through that damn visor, through the same dull, dark green he had only ever known the child through, most everything through.

"What are you thinking mesh'la?" Din's insecurity let slip out after so many quiet moments of simply staring at each other. He couldn't quite read the expression on her face.

"I'm..." Lissa straightened. "Angry, but I also feel...guilty."

Din frowned, which Lissa thought also looked handsome on him. "Why?"

"I'm not...angry angry, just mad that this beautiful face has had to be hidden from the world for all this time."

That brought his smile back, and along with it a little blush to his cheeks. "Why guilty cyar?"

Din felt a tiny ping of panic-had she actually stolen a glance or accidentally seen his face before this and not disclosed it to him? They had been so, so careful when it came to keeping his face hidden. She never wanted to wear any blindfold, so they tried to keep everything as dark as possible when it came off.

"Are you awake, mesh'la?" He would ask on so many mornings when the natural sunlight of whatever planet they were on would filter into the Crest's hull through an open, uncovered window.

And Lissa would invariably groan. "I was, Djarin, until you woke me up." She would grab the pillow beneath her head and jam it over or in front of her face. "You're safe," she'd mumble. Din would laugh somewhat guiltily, but he was just trying to be careful. It was second nature by this time in his life to keep hidden, and he had never exactly had the experience of someone else living and sleeping with him. The green babe he could tuck away into his pram or just generally controlled more easily; a grown woman was a different matter.

Lissa' mouth curled into a smirk. "I uh...feel bad for feeling so...relieved, I guess, and a little lucky, at how handsome you turned out to be."

Oh. Oh.

She quickly added: "Not that I would have felt any differently if you were like...a gungan mutt or something-"

Din chuckled. "It's alright cyar'ika. I understand."

She smiled up at him, and it wasn't lost on him how her eyes landed on and stayed on his lips. How her tongue briefly slipped out between her own, full lips.

He moved closer, bent down, and touched his lips to hers.

He meant it to be a pure, loving gesture, but Lissa reciprocated more powerfully, and he joined her in deepening it even more, until he was backing her up to their makeshift bed on the floor of the hull.

It felt silly to think of it as consummating anything, since they had already been joined countless times before this and were already expecting a child because of it. But this was different. The way Lissa carefully helped Din remove each remaining piece of beskar, then his flak vest and flight suit, before he helped her out of her own clothes. The way they held each other, and so many lingering kisses, everywhere each of them could reach. The slow, steady way they moved with each other. How each reached their peak at the practically the same exact moment. But mostly, how their eyes never left each other through every minute of it.

"So, does this technically make me a Mandalorian now?" She leaned back into his touch, sighed contentedly as her new riduur, as he called himself, moved a brush though her hair. A distraction, he hoped, from the episode of nausea she was having later that night.

"No. Separate set of vows. Would you...want to become one?"

Lissa shrugged. "Maybe. I'm not really sure-"

"Close your eyes cyar'ika."

She turned around and gave him an incredulous look. "Why? What for?"

That smile-that devastating, boyish smile of his. She would never get enough of it. "Trust me."

She smiled back before shutting her eyes.

Next thing she knew, Lissa felt something hard over her head, and realizing what it was-he was putting his helmet on her head.

Once it was situated and locked into place, Din drew his hands away. "How does that feel?"

Silence and stillness at first.

"Cyar-"

"Take it off."

"What?"

"Take it off!" Lissa started to claw at the sides of the helmet, seemingly to try and disengage the locking system. But all that came about in the midst of her panic was nails against beskar.

"It's okay! It's okay-here." Din set his hands firmly on either side of his helmet and disengaged the locks, before pulling it off Lissa's head.

Lissa took several large gulps of air, as she held her arms to her chest.

Din let her have a moment, before gently bringing his hands over her shoulders, rubbing them comfortingly, then moving her back against his chest. "What was wrong, cyar'ika? Could you not breathe?"

Lissa shook her head. "No, I..." She tried not to cry. "Ever since I was a kid, when...sometimes for punishment, they would lock us into this cabinet..." She shook away the image, the memory. "I can't stand small spaces. To feel enclosed, trapped. MY ship was small, relatively speaking, but I got used to it... made adjustments so it wouldn't be so bad. But I can't..."

Din nodded. He kissed her hair. "It's okay, cyar. It's okay." He hugged her even tighter. Cursed himself for his impulsive act, for not asking first before trying the helmet on her head. Made another silent oath that he was going to find out who it was who ran the orphanage and "raised" Lissa; if they were not the same person as the other dark figure lurking in her memories, then were now number two on a very specific list in his mind.

@takemepedropascal @16boyfriends-and-me @bothlovinglyandhatingly @am-i-space @marvelettesassemble

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian fan fic #the mandalorian fan fiction #din djarin #din djarin x oc #din djarin x ofc #din djarin x lissa ardross

[pcrushinnerd]

A Mandalorian and A Jedi - Chapter 5

Warnings: We gettin’ into the horny weeds with this one...but nothing too risque (yet). A/N: Gif makers are a blessing and I’m not one of them....

||| masterlist |||

Zarkan truly was a scughole. Lissa said as much to Din, who just laughed.

 “Good we won’t be here long, then,” he said, as he steered the Razor Crest into port. After paying for the hangar space, laying the child down for a nap and securing him in his pram, and instituting the ground protocols on the ship, the bounty hunters set off for the main municipality of Kas.

 Lissa tried to shrug off the feeling of discomfort. This place was nowhere near the size of Coruscant, but it was still too...urban, industrial, for her liking. Too familiar for her tastes. She hoped Din was right, and they wouldn’t be here long.

 A human bounty by the name of Rex Calder was hiding out on this planet. Wanted for theft, embezzlement, assault, murder...he was a wily, ugly bastard. And all too aware that he was being hunted, so they had to be careful.

 Din and Lissa studied the bounty fob. “He’s nearby, moving, seemingly on foot.”

 Lissa nodded. “Go. I’ll have my eyes on you.”

 And she did, up until she didn’t.

 A bustle of shoppers were suddenly in front of her, and Din was nowhere to be seen. Lissa took a deep breath. If she could dart into an emptier side alley, she could rush to catch up to him.

 She stepped around a gaggle of mothers with their children before finding a side alleyway with only the occasional passerby.

 Lissa hurried. Din should only be a few meters ahead of her on the street--

 A man in a dark brown cloak stepped in front of her, blocking her path. It took her a second, but she realized it was the bounty they were hunting--Calder.

 “Looking for me, I suppose?”

 Lissa raised her blaster. “Maybe.”

 To her confusion, he just laughed, as he leaned against a building post. He threw back his hood.

 “Damn,” he eyed her up and down. “You look like a ghost, all the color bleached out of ya, but damned if it isn��t you...Lissa Ardoss,” he hissed.

Lissa’s blood ran cold, as it slowly dawned on her. The big ears, the wide mouth. The lavender eyes that were too beautiful for the rest of his face, which was ugly even before someone had lashed or clawed it several times, leaving deep scars.

 She internally scolded herself--how did she not recognize him? Granted, it had been years ago, and he had been one of her first bounties, when she was still struggling to learn all the ropes and get her bearings. He had almost slipped from her grasp twice, but she had managed to bring him in.

 “Chiv. Chiv Sen.”

 “In the flesh,” he confirmed, before stepping up to her. He looked her up and down. “It’s been a while, but you still look good, even after all this time....”

 She edged back, but otherwise had no clue what to do. One of their bounties had recognized her. Normally, Lissa would just laugh in this man’s face, before shooting him in an appendage, or in said face, but she found herself unable to move now.

 “What’s wrong, my dear, lovely girl?” Sen inched closer, and while it wasn’t lost on Lissa that he was starting to pull out a knife, she felt frozen still, unable to fully process what was happening, to formulate an appropriate response.

 It wasn’t just the fact that his recognition could prove costly, if not deadly, to her, but his presence brought her back to a time when she wasn’t as strong, nowhere near as honed and confident in her skills, in herself.

 It was also so...strange, to hear her own name. It dawned on her in that moment that she couldn’t recall a moment when Din had referred to her by her given name. “Ardross,” he would gruff, early in their relationship. He would never dare to refer to her by name out in public, calling out to her--if he had to--by some word in his Mando’a tongue--dala. The same term he would use to catch her attention in those rare moments he would need to when it was just the two of them and the child. Recently, he had also starting to use another term...mesh’la. She never asked what these words meant; she wasn’t entirely sure they were anything flattering.

 Sen took a large step toward her, rocking her from her reverie. “I’ll enjoy this, I think,” he mused, as he fully unsheathed a vibroblade, but before he could bring it up, he suddenly grunted out loud as a look of shock and pain overcame his face, at the same time a blaster shot rang out in the alley.

 Chiv Sen crumpled to the ground in front of her. Behind him, Din stood a few paces away, holstering his blaster before he rushed up to her.

 “You okay?”

 Lissa couldn’t look away from Sen, who was now clearly dead.

 “Hey,” she could hear Din say, as she felt a gloved hand grab her arm and shake it a bit.

 “I just...uh....” She couldn’t bring herself to look away from Sen, to look up at Din.

 “What? What is it cyare?”

 “He’s dead,” she stated flatly.

 Din looked down at at their bounty, then up at her. “He was threatening you.”

 Lissa finally raised her eyes up to her partner, but she said nothing.

 Din straightened. “The commission said dead or alive.”

 She swallowed, but remained silent, her eyes falling back to the dead body in front of her.

 “C’mon,” Din said, pulling gently on her arm. “We gotta haul him back to the ship.”

 .....

 Din had been keeping an eye on Lissa, ever since they returned to the Razor Crest. She had helped him physically drag the body in a tarp back to the ship, but since then, but she ignored it and him once they were safely ensconced in the ship. She instead tended to the child, retrieving him from his pram and giving him a snack to quell his small cries. She had said nothing the whole time, other than some quiet, soothing words to the child.

 There was a question hanging in the air, ironically even more pronounced after Rex Calder or Chiv Sen or whatever he called himself had been disposed of.

 “He recognized me.”

 “I heard.”

 She looked over at him, directly, for the first time since he had killed Sen. Din shifted uncomfortably on top of the crate he was sitting on, where he planned out their return route and some other logistics on his data pad.

 “Did you....” she looked down again. “Did you have to kill him?”

 Din looked up this time. He measured his words carefully before answering. “He was threatening you, about to attack you, and the commission—“

 Lissa rose swiftly, coming to stand before Din. “But you could have just tackled him or....”

 A heavy sigh.

 “I did what I had to.”

 She hesitated for just a beat. “For me?”

 They—more or less—locked eyes this time.

 “Yes.” Din didn’t move. “For you.”

 It was so silent on the ship, Lissa could hear her own heartbeat. Din’s was even louder inside his beskar-encased head. No internal monologue sounded inside either of their minds to direct them what to do next. But there was something building around them, something strong and pulling. Undeniable.

 Lissa raised a hand, then another--shaking enough that he had to notice, because she did, and she hated it--and they eventually came to rest on his shoulders. She heard his sharp but deep intake of breath through the modulator.

 Gradually, her hands inched inward, toward the helmet, sliding up the collar of the flak vest, until her fingers curled around the edge of his helmet.

 Din, on a surge of fear and on habit, raised his hands up to come around hers, to stop her. “I...I can’t.”

 She had made a crack, maybe just a few days into their new arrangement, about him never taking off his helmet. “It’s part of my creed. I can’t remove my helmet in front of another living thing, ever since I swore my oath. No Mandalorian can, except for their rid--spouses, and children.”

 Lissa did feel a bit awkward at that moment. She looked down at the shirt she was mending. “Guess I’m cramping your style now, huh, by always being around, so you can never take it off?”

 Mando looked over at the child, who was playing with some stuffed toys. “Not really.”

 Lissa followed his line of vision. She tilted her head. “You’ve never taken it off in front of your kid?”

 Din had no answer for that.

 They had managed a compromise by plunging the ship into darkness during an agreed-upon nighttime cycle, so he could remove his helmet and not be seen by her or the kid. Lissa had never really brought the issue up again, other than to ask whether he was stewing under the helmet when they were hunting a bounty on a particularly humid jungle planet. She had a hard time believing it could be at all comfortable most of the time, but she respected that it was part of his his beliefs. It wasn’t really any of her concern.

 But now, even though her opinions hadn’t changed and she still understood, being stopped from removing it still felt strangely like a rejection.

 “Oh.”

 Her hands were about to drop away, but Din squeezed them against his shoulders.

 Lissa gave him a questioning look.

 “Could you...close your eyes?”

 Doubt clouded her features.

 “It’s okay. Trust me.”

 Briefly, she sucked in her lower lip and sunk her teeth into it, before giving a small nod. A little nervous tic he had noticed in their time together--the lip biting. But something about seeing her do it only gave him further impetus to do what he was about to do.

 Lissa took a deep breath, before closing her eyes. She felt Din’s right hand move her left down to his chest, before moving away entirely. She heard a click and some sort of whooshing sound, before he moved her right hand off his shoulder and suddenly she felt....

 A kiss, slow and gentle, to the top of her hand. Then her fingers. Then he turned her hand around and those same warm, chapped lips were caressing her palm.

 Gods, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. No coherent thoughts, other than damn, she wanted this. Had for a while, admittedly, and she didn’t want it to stop.

 Maybe that’s why the first noise she made was a little peep of disappointment when he suddenly stopped. She was confused, as she heard another whoosh and click, until she suddenly heard cooing and babbling to her left.

 “You can open your eyes....”

 Lissa opened them, but she was quick to look to the side, to the source of the cute noises, which of course was the child.

 “Hey little guy!” she said sweetly to the green bean, with his big, brown eyes staring innocently at the two bounty hunters before him. Lissa swiftly moved toward Grogu and scooped him up, before tickling his little stomach and toes, which elicited a lot of giggles. “How about we get dinner started in earnest, hmm? Still got some bantha stew saved in cold storage....”

 Din suddenly felt like the odd man out in the room--which feeling, while not foreign to him, was still not welcome. He rose from the crate he was sitting on and moved toward the cockpit.

 .....

 Intimacy was not something Din was all that practiced at. Like most men, he liked to think it was a skill that flowed naturally from him, something that would click into place automatically when needed. Even though that need hardly ever arose in his four or five decades of existence; any “intimacy” he had a chance at in the past was swift and cold and usually paid for.

 It bothered him that he couldn’t read anything from the lack of response he had received from the woman he had been hunting and living in close quarters with for the past several months. While he had picked up on the little mewl of disappointment she made when he stopped, it had put him off how quickly she sort of forgot about him in favor of the child.

 Which was stupid, a part of him rationalized. They had basically been caught in the act by the kid; of course she was probably embarrassed.

 Gods, one of the things he loved about her was the fact that she was so like him, interpersonally. Besides the occasional wisecrack, she was mostly quiet and kept to herself. Was impassive. But he knew all too well how hard such a personality was to read, to gauge. He used those traits to his own advantage, when he needed to intimidate a lead or someone else he was trying to do business with. Now they seemed like a double-edged sword.

 Din’s thoughts were interrupted when he heard the woman in question ascending the stairs and entering the cock pit, where he was currently sitting at the helm despite not really needing to be, as the Crest zoomed silently through hyperspace on autopilot.

 He heard her sit behind him, in the seat to the left. She said nothing for some long moments.

 Strange, how a person’s presence could put him on edge and at ease at the same time.

 “Can I ask you something?” she finally said.

 The helmet turned slightly to the left. A beat. “Sure.”

 “Your face is always covered, in front of others, but what about...other parts of you?”

 That piqued his interest. He turned the pilot’s seat towards her.

 “What I mean is,” she was quick to add, “Do you always have to wear the gloves, for example?”

 The whole time she had been reheating dinner for her and Grogu, she had been wracking her brain about when she had ever seen his hands. She could recall times when he had removed the gloves for some utilitarian purpose, but she could never think of a time when he just...had them off. When his hands, or any appreciable part of his body, was just exposed for her or anyone else to really look at.

 “No,” he answered. He looked down at his hands, his fingers tapping nervously on the beskar that covered his thighs, betraying what he felt beneath everything.

 One of his hands moved to the other, but Lissa was quicker, taking his left hand into hers, and turning it over so his palm was facing upward. She gently plucked at the orange-tipped leather glove, one finger at a time, before a few more tugs had it off his hand completely.

 Din was barely breathing, as she stared down at his exposed hand, studying what she saw, before her own fingers started to gently move over the tanned skin, the short but smooth nails, the scars from previous battles fought and won.

 He had semi-expected her to mirror his earlier actions, to bring his hands up to those lush lips of hers and to make contact, but instead, her touches deepened, and she was messaging the muscles in his hand. Easing away tension, pain. Making him feel and think ungodly things.

 He wanted desperately to act on those thoughts and feelings, but another damn interruption came in the form of a beeping.

 His comm system. He looked over his shoulder to see an incoming call from Karga. Before he could even look back, Lissa was out of her seat and exiting the cockpit so he could take the call without her being seen.

 Din swore under his breath, before turning his seat and toggling on the answer switch in the control panel. “What?”

.... Taggity tag tags: @takemepedropascal​ @16boyfriends-and-me​

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian fan fic #the mandalorian fan fiction #the mandalorian fanfiction #din djarin #din djarin x oc #din djarin x lissa ardross #slow burn...finally getting spicy? #ish #star wars #star wars fanfic #star wars fan fic

[pcrushinnerd]

A Mandalorian and A Jedi - Chapter 4

Warnings: Someone(s) get minorly injured, childhood trauma talk. Nothing horrendous.

A/N: Here I am, back on my bs.... with some maybe uncharacteristic character exposition, but oh well. (Gif not mine, oh yea yea yeah....) ||| writing masterlist |||

Lissa sat at the edge of the ship’s floor, where it joined the ramp which was currently down, it’s far edge digging into the soil and grass.

 She sat with her legs out before her, crossed at the ankle, with the child in her lap. He sat back comfortably against her midsection, staring up and occasionally raising a little clawed hand to try and catch one of the flies that would buzz up to and around them.

 It was near dusk on the sixth day since Mando had gone. The current bounty was a former bounty of Lissa’s. The zabrak Maldo Gries had broken free from the New Republic prison she had helped lock him into before, and she wasn’t overly surprised when Mando showed her his puck.

 “He’s a crack shot. Has a thing for knives, and throwing them.” She’d smirked. “This should be a fun challenge; I’m sure he hates my guts.”

 “Maybe you should sit this one out,” Mando avoided glancing in her direction, as he walked past her, toward his armory.

 “What do you mean?”

 She had been his silent shadow for...four, maybe five months now. Gathering information on quarries; trailing him when either of them thought it possible that a quarry was aware Mando was hot on their trail; hiding out in some secreted place, a refile trained on a quarry, just in case something went wrong.

 Greef was impressed at how Mando’s capture times had improved notably, but Din gave him no hint of how or why that was. “Bout of luck, I guess.”

 As far as most of the galaxy knew, Lissa Ardross was dead or as good as dead. To somewhat disguise her appearance, Din offered to take her to a hairdresser not long after accepting the position as his right-hand woman. She took him up on it, and had her hair bleached and cut into something not entirely to her liking--more shoulder length, with short, curled bangs across her forehead,--but it was unfamiliar enough that it did the job. With some of her first earnings, she bought a few more garments--pale-colored tunics and nondescript gray trousers--that were a lot more subdued than the black and occasional deep blues or purples she normally wore.

 Discretion had been key to their success so far; perhaps he had a point.

 Still, she felt a bit...pointless, not actually helping with a bounty. Not doing the very thing she had been hired to do.

 Lissa had found other ways to help the Mandalorian and earn her keep. She had gleaned enough from trying to keep her own little freighter afloat to help repair parts of the Razor Crest; with some of her other earnings, she had bought books on ship maintenance, so she could learn how to help with the rest.

 She had even tried to help with smaller things: keeping the ship tidy and cleaning up little messes, here and there; trying to put her long-dormant cooking skills to use to make them some actual meals; even offering to pilot the ship for a few hours so Mando could get some rest, though it took him a while to take her up on that last offer. She argued to him that she needed to develop all these other skills, so she could more easily pick up some other profession when she finally left, and he had to admit the sense in that.

 “Okay. But...if you need help, you’ll comm me, right?”

 The helmet finally turned to face her, as he was packing away a few last explosive charges and extra ammunition packs. He didn’t say anything for a beat. “I think I’ll be fine; just might take a bit longer without you, that’s all.”

 “Still.”

 The Razor Crest had felt especially cramped the first weeks she was there. Obviously, because Din Djarin was a man long used to being on his own who now not only had a child to tend to, but also a woman sharing his space. Each did their best to keep to themselves, to not infringe on boundaries, physical and otherwise, but there was always a modicum of tension present.

 “Ow, fuck!” Lissa hissed once, after stubbing her toe on a storage crate in the near-dark of the Crest’s hull one night. Djarin just had to live in the shadows...made it easier if he stumbled from his sleep randomly to go use the privy or tend to any unusual noise but he forgot to don his helmet.

 “You okay?” she heard emanate from the sleeping compartment, unmodulated, as she tried to rub the pain from her appendage.

 An aggravated sigh. “I’m fine Mando. Go back to bed.”

 On the one hand, Lissa felt at a disadvantage. Besides being in such an unfamiliar space that she could never fully utilize, she felt like she had no room to complain or comment on anything. She was grateful he had come to get her, had literally saved her life. That he subsequently gave her a safe place to recuperate--physically and financially--when he probably should have kicked her out the door as soon as possible.

 She was acutely aware how much she didn’t fit into his life. Anytime he would care for the child, or just go about his business on his ship, and wouldn’t say anything to her, include her or really acknowledge her presence. She picked up early that he was a still waters run deep type, but she felt she had no right to try and dip into those waters.

 For Din’s part, he still felt great guilt. She hadn’t said anything about them, even when tortured. He wondered if the Empire remnant even knew for sure that his little clan had been on Mygeeto; no sign came after to indicate they had been. Nothing relayed via the back channels hinted that they had connected the dots.

 Lissa’s physical wounds had healed, but he wondered about the mental ones. He wondered why she hadn’t just turned them over when she had the perfect opportunity, but he didn’t ask. The look on her face when he was comforting Grogu in that bar still sort of bothered him at times, especially when he would see flashes of a similar expression any time he would tend to the child and she was near.

 Despite all this, they had grown to admire each other through their work. Lissa, for her cunning and resourcefulness. Din, for his calm under pressure and stamina. They made a good team.

 “I will,” he’d promised.

 So far, her comm had been silent.

 The baby cooed in her lap. His ears perked up, and he rose from his sitting position as he scoched from sitting back against her to trying to stand; she had to wrap her arms around him to keep the little green creature from hopping off her lap. “Hey now, little guy, what’s up?” Lissa couldn’t tell at first what had suddenly piqued his interest, until she realized she could hear the distant croaking of a frog, probably from the nearby bog. She ignored the flash of disappointment she felt realizing it wasn’t something else.

 “You like those things, huh?” Grogu smiled up at her with his big, brown eyes. She started to gently stroke his downy, wrinkly forehead. “I wonder how good a hunter you’d be, if you were let loose out there. How long you think it would take you to catch one, or...all the frogs!” She started to tickle his sides, which earned a few peels of laughter.

 The child, despite being what sounded to her initially like some sort of errand or chore for the Mandalorian, was incredibly important to him, she observed quickly. He explained further one night in clipped words that his creed deemed them like father and son, until he reunited the youngling with his own kind. It was his job to protect him, and he indeed watched over him like a hawk. But it was...more than that. She was all too familiar with what guardianship without love looked like, and this was not that.

 Grogu was the last thing he trusted her with. He would sleep with the child in a tiny, makeshift hammock above his cot, have the pram near when he was piloting the ship or even when he was in the fresher or just eating. He would check constantly that the little one was still in his pram or in the sack he had slung over his shoulder. The child would often look at her intently and curiously, even reached out to her a few times, but if Mando would notice, he would quickly snatch the child up into his arms or close the pram.

 It wouldn’t be until they were visiting a market on the forest planet of Dakua. Some commotion, probably staged, ahead of them caused the Mandalorian to be distracted, but he did know straightaway when she slipped the blaster from his holster. He was whip quick, his hand almost at once gripping her shoulder, but he turned to see that she had his blaster pointed at someone behind them--a smaller trandoshan who was frozen in place.

 “They were trying to steal it from you,” she explained, no hint of waver in her voice. Mando moved quickly again, to reposition and cover the sack the child was sitting in, as he turned around full.

 “Should I shoot them anyway? Just as a lesson?” The trandoshan’s eyes grew big at that.

 Din said nothing at first, then there was a tell-tale tilt of the helmet. “Maybe just a nice foot wound.”

 The trandoshan quickly ran off.

 Later that night, they sat in companionable enough silence on the floor of the hull of the Crest--Lissa reading from one of her books, Din cleaning his rifle. The child wouldn’t stop making noises from his pram, so Din reached over, scooped him up and placed him gently on the floor. “C’mon, little one. Get some exercise.”

 But instead of running around the floor of the hull aimlessly, as younglings including this one were wont to do, Grogu walked up to Lissa and quickly wrapped his small arms around her arm, and he uttered a long coo of appreciation as he looked up at her.

 Damn, if her heart didn’t melt into a puddle right there.

 For Din, staring at this, one final gear clicked into place in his mind.

 “You can pick him up, if you want.”

 From then on, it was a growing mutual love between another bounty hunter and the small, precocious green child.

 The crackle of the comm shook Lissa from her memories. “I’ve got him. I’m about 500 meters away.” The comm cut out before she could respond, but she understood. Lissa quickly scooped up Grogu and made for the Crest’s cockpit, where she shut the doors and waited patiently for Mando’s arrival.

 Indeed, several minutes later she heard Gries’ yells and curses, faint at first through the steel of the ship, then louder and louder, before she heard the clanking, clunking and thudding as she assumed Mando was hauling the zabrak into the hull of the ship and into one of the carbonite slots, before she heard the familiar whoosh and then whir of the mobile freezing unit.

 A beat, before Lissa placed Grogu into his pram and opened the doors of the cockpit.

 Mando was standing there, slinging his amban rifle back into place.

 “You okay?”

 Lissa cocked her head. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Her eyes wandered over to the carbonite slabs, to the familiar features frozen into rocky relief into the latest one. “That’s definitely Gries. Horny bastard.” She gave a small kick to the slab her former quarry now sat in.

 “I--” Lissa turned back to Mando, who she noticed had a spot of blood on his side. “Oh, you’re bleeding.” She reached up a tentative hand to the tear in the mesh battle suit he wore beneath the beskar, right around his ribs. She opened it just enough to see a nice gash and some possible bruising, before he waived her hand away.

 “I’m fine.”

 She gave him a doubting look, before giving a slight smack to his side.

 “Ow, hey!”

 Lissa rolled her eyes, before she retrieved the ship’s first aid kit. “Into the cockpit, tin can.”

 Din sighed. “Fine.”

 He sat in the pilot’s chair and swiveled around to face Lissa, sitting in the passenger seat to the right. She rummaged through the kit for alcohol and some cloth to clean away the blood. She had no face to read, but she could hear little noises of pain and discomfort through the helmet.

 “I know we don’t have too much left, but if you’re in enough pain maybe I should apply a bacta patch or--”

 “I’m fine. Need to save it in case you or the child....” He fell quiet.

 Lissa didn’t say anything, just continued to tend to the wound, as she cleared away the last of the blood and started rummaging around for wound dressings.

 It was not lost on her, even as she worked and even through the helmet, that she was being watched.

 After a few moments of silence: “Where are you from? Your home world, I mean.”

 Her eyes flitted up the helmet briefly. He thought she might not answer for a second, before a grimace came over her face. “Coruscant.”

 That genuinely surprised him at the same time it didn’t. “Upper or lower levels?” he inquired further, already suspecting the answer.

 Lissa didn’t say anything for a moment, before: “I don’t think I ever truly saw the sun until I was nine years old.”

 Din nodded, understood. For some reason, he felt the need to press further: “What happened to your parents?”

 “Killed, when I was seven. An orphanage took me in, along with a lot of other strays who wandered the nearby endless streets.”

 “Do you remember anything about them? Your parents?”

 She finished up his wound dressings, and started to pack everything away in the medikit. She gave a small shrug. “Some things, here and there, but...not much. I’m not even entirely sure which of them I take after, if I do at all.

 “They were shop keepers,” Lissa added, unprompted. “Had this little pawn shop. One of a million on Corucsant, but I do remember thinking they had this knack for finding the most random things, salvaging lost items from wherever and fixing them up into something beautiful.” She looked away. “They were shot by someone trying to rob the store.” She shut the medikit and stood up.

 “I can sew up that tear, whenever you feel like peeling the suit off and taking a shower.”

 “What were their names?” he asked, before she could step away.

 She studied the black visor for a moment, noticing that even the overhead light in the cockpit failed to reveal the eyes behind it. “Rick Ardross and Amila Daraay.”

 Din nodded.

 Lissa crossed her shoulders. “What about you, Mandalorian? Your parents?” She had studied up enough about him to know to know he wasn’t born a Mandalorian or belonged to any notable clans. He was a loner, and--she suspected--had an upbringing not far from her own.

 He--seemingly--stared back up at her for a long time before answering. “Denon and Paila, of Aq Vetina. They were farmers, I think. At least...I have faint memories of my father, tilling fields and tending to animals. My mother at a loom....” He looked over at the child. “I can see their faces, every time I close my eyes, every time I remember how they hid me away in some storage bunker, right before they...before they were killed, before a Separatist droid found me, almost.... Before I was rescued by a Mandalorian, Kol Djarin.” Din fell quiet. Lissa didn’t ask for more; this was probably way more than he had ever given anyone else.

 She wasn’t sure. Didn’t really know if it would be appropriate, but in that moment, it felt more inappropriate not to do something.

 Lissa lifted her right hand rested it on Din’s right shoulder and gave the lightest squeeze. He looked down at her arm, but said nothing. Didn’t move her away.

 “I’ll go get us some dinner started.”

.....

Tag you’re it: @takemepedropascal​ @16boyfriends-and-me​

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian fan fic #mandalorian fanfic #mandalorian fan fic #din djarin #din djarin x oc #lissa ardross #slow burn baby #oh yeah #star wars #star wars fan fic #star wars fanfic #grogu #baby yoda #mel writes i guess

[pcrushinnerd]

A Mandalorian and A Jedi - Chapter 1

Warnings: Minor injuries, alcohol use, a sick babeh Grogu Pairings: Din Djarin x OC

Star Wars Disclaimer: So while I try to do my research, and I have been a fan of this franchise all my life, there will probably some be some canon things I get wrong or miss or whatever. My apologies in advance. lol A/N: This is sort of a weird time to be starting an oc multi-chapter, right after the finale and everything that happened in it.... But this will basically be starting in between seasons 1 and 2, and will eventually get into season 2. I use the baby’s name for ease of reference, but no character will actually refer to him as that in dialogue until Ahsoka reveals his name later. 

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Gif not mine obviously lol

He felt a strange mix of dread, concern, anticipation, and...even hope, at hearing her cries. The last was the strangest feeling of all. Foreign to a bounty hunter used to calculation and pure instinct. In his personal life, where it existed, was what could be called nihilism on a bad day, indifference on a good day. Not even with the child had he allowed himself the same sort of feeling, even when he felt the unfamiliar stirring of other positive emotions towards the green babe. 

When he’d met this same woman, she had spoken so quietly, evenly, “Turn around, please.” He did as asked, and faced a blaster pointed right at his face.

Lissa Ardross. He knew of her, vaguely. A rouge bounty hunter who frequently played both sides, typically coming to favor whoever paid her more. Could be unblinkingly ruthless at times.  

Din was a man largely sure of himself when it came to battle, to self-defense. And part of that included not underestimating women like Ardross.  

“What do you want?” He had asked her, knowing damn well the creature in his arms was what she wanted. 

“What do you think?” She’d asked, confirming his fears.  

“Please, he’s sick...” The whole reason he had visited such a forsaken place like Mygeeto was to seek out care for little Grogu, whose temperature had been unusually high and usual expressiveness heart-sinkingly low. There was rumor that a former kyber crystal miner--though not a Jedi himself--has been taught Jedi healing practices and was loyal to Force users. The place was also close by and seemed like the safest bet.... Din had ditched half his armor for a pile of robes and linens, as well as a wide enough visor piece, that served to disguise and guard him and the child against the semi-urban planet’s frigid climate. 

“Well, I’ll make sure he’s healthy enough when delivered to my client.” 

Before there could be any other discussion or action, a large blast over their heads had both bounty hunters seeking shelter in an abandoned bar. Fragments of the Empire striking out at the New Republic, or vice versa, most likely. It didn’t really matter much to Din or Lissa.  

When the fighting seemed to die down or at least had moved elsewhere, and the dust had settled, Din surged towards what was just moments ago the entrance to the bar, but which was now a mass of rubble. 

He heard a laugh behind him--a harsh, cynical laughter. “Well, aren’t we in a fine mess now?” 

He turned back to see Ardross on the floor, clutching her right ankle, a nice film of dust coating most of her person.  

Din sauntered over to her, to see blood squeezing out from between her fingers, tightly wrapped around that injured ankle. He felt some relief that the ruthless woman was now somewhat incapacitated. Not that she couldn’t still try something, but at least she was nowhere near as dangerous.  

“Are you okay?” 

Ardoss’ head snapped up, a genuine look of surprise on her face, which within seconds soured into a scowl. “What do you care? I was trying to take your kid a few minutes ago.” 

His only reply was to sigh tiredly. Din took the chance to really study the child, who still seemed largely unresponsive. He slipped off one of his gloves and felt the youngling’s forehead--it was burning hot.  

Ardross watched as the Mandalorian looked around frantically. He stepped up to the bar and studied the mostly empty liquor rack behind it. During his training, even when young, alcohol had been supplied to him when hurt or ill when out on a hunt, or there was simply nothing else available. But he had no idea how Grogu’s constitution would react to it.  

There had to be a better option.  

Looking around again, Din noticed a spot of light on the floor. He stepped up to it. Followed the beam of light, which illuminated small, white specks floating through the air, all the way up to the bar’s ceiling. There was a small hole there, and when Din moved his hand through the light, it felt cool to the touch.  

“What are you doing?” Ardross asked, a beat before the Mandalorian took out his amban phase-pulse blaster and vaporized enough of the roof, so--thank the Gods--a whole pile of snow fell through onto the floor.  

Din found a glass from a bar shelf and proceeded to collect some of the snow. He then moved to the bar and set down the child on it’s worn surface. He lay a cloth over the Grogu’s head and carefully placed a layer of the snow there, hoping to reduce the poor youngling’s temperature. After a few moments, the child let out a little cry of perceived relief, and opened his eyes a little wider.

Din’s observation of Grogu was interrupted by Adross’ curses from across the bar. He looked up to see her ripping up her scarf to shreds and cursing under her breath.  

Satisfied that the child would be alright for the time being, Din approached. “Do you need help?” 

That cold laugh again. “I’m fine Mando. Go back to tending to your youngling.” 

Din bent down before Ardross, who froze. They locked eyes--as much as was possible for Lissa through the black visor piece he was wearing to hide the upper portion of his face--before the Mandalorian reached out and grasped her ankle. He pulled out her leg so it was laying straight on the ground, ignoring his fellow bounty hunter’s hiss of pain.  

He examined the damage. It wasn’t as bad as he thought originally. Several cuts on one side, which were bleeding more than they should have, but which weren’t deep. Judging by what smelled like alcohol on Ardross’ breath, he concluded that was likely the reason. No, mostly from the swollen state of her ankle it appeared as if she simply had a bad strain.  

“We need to make you a splint. Wait here.” Ardross looked on suspiciously yet silently as the Mandalorian looked around for and found two sticks of wood. He returned and lined them up to Ardross’ outstretched ankle, and proceeded to wrap up the tatters of her scarf tightly around everything.  

“One more thing.” He got up and returned to the little pile of snow he had caused to fall through the roof, which though he had pilfered part of it before, had grown up a bit more as the snow continued to fall. He palmed up two handfuls of the frozen substance and returned to apply that to Lissa’s injury. Like the child, she also hissed audibly upon its application.  T

he two bounty hunters sat in silence for a few moments.  

“Thank you,” Lissa muttered, before looking away. Her gaze landed on the bar across from them, where the child was.  

Din said nothing. He rose from a crouched position to stand tall before the wounded woman. “Ardross. Make no mistake; despite my kindness, I will kill you if you try to hurt or take the child.” 

Her eyes snapped back to him. “Understood,” she tilted her head and set her jaw. She sat back, watching the Mandalorian stride across the room to his youngling, who was starting to make gurgling noises.  

Din proceeded to look around, to try and find some means of escaping from their current predicament. There was a back entrance that seemingly lead to some sort of receiving area, cut straight through the rocky cliff side this and the neighboring buildings were carved out of. But that passage had seemingly caved in from the blast.  

It was quiet all around them; whatever skirmish that placed them into this predicament had seemed to have either stopped, or moved far enough way that it no longer posed a danger. It was a just a matter of getting out. 

Din took a moment to think; he returned to Grogu, whom he gathered up in his arms. He felt that the youngling’s temperature had lowered somewhat, but still seemed way too high. One of the green babe’s little hands reached out and grasped one of Din’s fingers, squeezing with all the might his little, ill body could muster in that moment. Din’s heart sank in his chest.  

The Mandalorian had to remind himself to glance up at Ardoss occasionally, to make sure she wasn’t trying something. She was also watching him, but the look on her face was not what he would have expected: it was not harsh, or indifferent, but if he had to place a name on it, perhaps...sad, forlorn? He wasn’t sure why. He didn’t want to reflect on it. 

He returned to considering their options, instead. It seemed it would either have to be blowing a way clear through the debris of what was once the front entrance, or perhaps further opening up the hole in the roof and finding some way to scramble up through it. The latter seemed more appealing, given that he had not brought any of his charges, though it was not lost on him that the latter option was the less friendly one to the wounded Ardross in that moment.   

“Do you think you can walk? Climb?” he gruffed from across the bar. “If it meant we could get out of here?”  

Her shoulders slumped. “I donno. Toss me one of those bottles behind you and I probably can.”  

Din had his doubts that that would actually help--it would maybe even make her current state even worse, and he would have two beings he’d have to haul up out of this mess--but he obliged the woman, finding a half full bottle of spotchka and handing it to her. 

“Thanks,” she said, quickly taking the bottle and unscrewing it, before taking a few swigs of the blue stuff that made her face scrunch. She just as quickly recapped the bottle and tossed it aside, before firmly planting both hands on either side of her and trying to heft herself up. Din was about to offer his assistance, when she managed to push up off the floor entirely.  

Neither moved a muscle after a second mortar blast struck way too close to their current position in the fragile structure of the former bar. Both bounty hunters remained frozen for a moment. Injured or not, impossible or not, escape now seemed an imperative.  

“C’mon,” the Mandalorian said, rushing toward Ardross. “You can take my grappling line first--” 

Blaster fire and cries from outside made the bounty hunters fall silent. Both hunters listened intently for any other noise.  

“Three lifeforms,” was mumbled somewhere beyond the rubble of the front facade of the building. Din gripped Lissa’s shoulder.  

A bland voice modulated through a cheap Stormtrooper helmet sounded through the fresh cracks, “Who’s in there? Identify yourself!” 

“It appears to be the people who hired me,” Ardoss commented calmly. She turned slowly to Din. “I would run, if I was you.” 

Confused, his death grip on her arm dropped away and Din started to walk back. “But, what--” 

“Go!” she whisper-hissed. “Or I will kill you and whisk away the child myself!” 

Din didn’t hesitate any further. He used his grappling line to haul himself out of the building through the hole in the roof, and soon as found solid purchase on the sleet and snow covered roof, he ran. Taggity tag tags: @takemepedropascal​, @16boyfriends-and-me​

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian fan fic #the mandalorian fan fiction #the mandalorian fanfiction #din djarin #din djarin x oc #yeah this is basically Mara Jade in disguise #cause WTF why hasn't she appeared in live action yet #ughhhhhh #I hope she and Luke are taking care of Grogu maybe hopefully #star wars #star wars fanfic #star wars fan fiction #star wars fanfiction