Chapter Text
As he boarded the ramp of the Slave I, Din assumed the slump of his shoulders conveyed the outcome of the meeting.
“That bad, huh?” Fennec commented when she saw him approach.
She and Boba were hunched over a starmap projection. Boba’s helmet tilted up in Din’s direction, zeroing in on him. Din felt judged under the sharp angles of the familiar t-visor, as if it was one of his covert brothers or sisters taking stock of him, somehow knowing every step he’d taken since Morak had strayed further from the Way.
“A hard no?” Boba asked. “I’m surprised.”
Din slid onto a seat at the table and folded his hands in front of him, studying his two-toned gloves. “He made an alternative proposal.”
Something in the flatness of his voice must have made clear the futility of that alternative, because Boba said, “I’d ask what it is, but…”
Din just shook his head in a clipped movement that cut off any more questions.
Boba made a thoughtful, unhappy hum, which resonated long and low through his helmet’s vocoder. Din’s ears perked hearing it. Boba didn’t often wear his helmet when it was just them. Din would never admit he found the modulated tone comforting in its familiarity. It was almost like being back in the covert, surrounded by the grumbling chatter of the other corps members. As his tribe’s primary hunter, he traveled solo so frequently that he’d almost forgotten what it was like to live among other Mandalorians.
Fennec cocked her head. “So how’d the filter work?” she asked, changing the subject to an even worse one.
Din froze, still looking at his gloved hands. “It didn’t.”
“Oh, that’s disappointing,” Fennec murmured. “I was hoping to add the mod to mine, too.”
Din tried to pretend like his companions weren’t staring at him, but he could feel their curious eyes resting on him like a blanket, smothering him. They were obviously eager for more details. He sighed. He may as well tell them. “It might have been working at first. I don’t know. I took off my helmet.”
Thud!
Something clattered to the tabletop, disrupting the starmap projection. It was Boba’s stylus. “You what?”
Din looked up at the green and black helmet, daring Boba to make him repeat himself.
Fennec’s arm came to rest on Boba’s shoulder in a calming gesture—as if Boba was the one who needed calming. “He took it off on Gideon’s cruiser, remember? I told you.”
Fennec had told Boba about that? Of course she had. They were partners, now. And Din would have told him too, if it had come up in conversation.
Boba was still staring at him, hands flat on the table as he leaned almost threateningly forward. He looked angry. At Din? On Din’s behalf? Din wasn’t sure. Either way, it didn’t sit well with him.
“It’s fine,” Din said, hoping to move the conversation ahead. “I’m fine.”
“Right,” Boba said. He sounded dubious.
Boba’s skepticism wasn’t Din’s problem. Boba could doubt Din all he wanted. But…no. No, that wasn’t all there was to it. Din needed Boba’s trust. He needed Boba to know he was okay to lead this mission to recover Mandalore.
The heavy weight of the Darksaber at Din’s belt reminded him that Boba and Fennec were depending on him to make good choices and to be a leader. A leader who lost his way would and should be deposed. But hadn’t Din already lost the Way? Wasn’t that the problem? How was he supposed to lead, when he’d only succeeded in his mission to reunite the child with his people by betraying his creed?
And now, he’d failed again. He failed to secure the mission objective. And not only that…Every time he took off his helmet in front of someone else and put it back on was a failure, too. The reason for it, choice or not choice, didn't matter. Each time was a new heresy. But like trying to land without stabilizers, he didn’t know how to stop. He didn’t know if he should even try to stop. The matter was done. Over. Past. There was no point in quibbling it now. Yet each time it stung like a fresh wound. When would it start to heal over? Din was impatient to move on.
Din hadn’t realized Fennec had departed the main hold, leaving just him and Boba. Boba had taken the seat next to him. Din only noticed when the glint of a knife he was rotating in his hands flashed, pulling him out of his thoughts.
Boba removed his helmet and set it on the table. Din’s eyes were immediately drawn to his face, weathered and scarred, but somehow all the more distinguished for it. It was a powerful visage. He looked like he could move mountains, if he willed it. Din was sure his own face conveyed nothing so confident when the helmet was off.
“How are you really holding up, Din?”
“Huh?” Din hadn’t anticipated the question. It was laced with compassion and concern. Din bristled.
“You’re acting unlike yourself.”
Nonplussed, Din croaked, “How would you know?” He swallowed the crack in his voice.
Boba pursed his lips and didn’t change his quiet tone. “I know enough. I can piece together the rest.”
“You can’t just...” Din wasn’t sure how to finish his thought. Maybe he meant that since he’d learned there was more than one way to be a Mandalorian, Boba couldn’t make assumptions about him. Everyone made assumptions about Din based on his armor. Surely Boba wouldn’t though, having a complicated relationship with his own armor?
“Can’t I?” Boba said. “Isn’t that the point of the Way you told me about? That there’s only one? You have been following a rigid creed. I’m familiar enough with its tenets to know you're going through something. So, more than once now, the helmet came off, which isn’t supposed to come off. Now what?”
And wasn’t that the question that had been plaguing Din since Morak. Now what, indeed. “It’s not about the helmet coming off,” Din clarified. He wasn’t sure why he felt compelled to explain anything to Boba, but he found himself wanting to explain anyway. “It’s about putting it back on. That’s…not allowed.”
“And yet you did so.”
“And yet I did so,” Din echoed. He tried not to let any inflection color his voice, but he probably failed at that too. He added quickly, “You didn’t swear the creed, but you’re Mando’ad.”
Boba flipped the small blade in his hands, turning it in different grips. “That’s not what you thought at first when I told you of my non-allegiance. You knew I wasn’t one of you. You made it clear.”
“I…” Din paused, thinking of everything that had happened recently, and everyone with whom he’d crossed paths, including Kryze and her Nite Owls. He thought about Grogu and his lost Jedi heritage. Din didn’t think Grogu was any less of a Jedi just because he’d gotten lost somewhere along the way between his last glimpse of the temple on Coruscant and where Din found him on Arvala-7. So why was it different for Din? Maybe it wasn’t. He believed Boba was a true Mandalorian, and not just because of his armor’s chaincode. “I’ve changed my mind.”
The lines of Boba’s forehead scrunched, raising nonexistent eyebrows. He put the knife down and leaned back, assessing Din.
If he was waiting for Din to elaborate, he was going to be waiting a long time.
Enough time passed that Din was about to ask about their next move, when Boba stood up. He stretched and nodded towards the cockpit ladder. “I’ll take us out, then.”
After Boba left, Din followed him and strapped in for the launch near Fennec. She’d already set a course. But once they were out into the black, he retreated to the ‘fresher, suddenly overcome with the need to wash his face. He felt better by the time he was smoothing his cheeks and hairline down with a damp towel, although part of him itched to take a full sonic. He tried to blank his mind and not think about anything in particular. He’d offered to do navigation calculations for hyperspace, but Boba had waved him off. Din knew it was because Boba preferred to do it himself, not because he didn’t want Din’s help. Still, in the ‘fresher, he mentally plotted a course to the Mandalore sector, thinking about parsecs and hyperspace lanes. The distraction was helpful.
Din decided not to put his helmet back on when he exited the ‘fresher.
Once in it, the only way out of an asteroid field was through.
Only Din hadn’t counted on running directly into Boba the moment the door whooshed open.
“Sorry!” Boba said, averting his eyes.
“It’s fine,” Din said, aiming for nonchalance. He added dryly, “You’re not even the first person to see my face today.” He held Boba’s elbow, keeping him close. “But if you want to touch, at this rate I might have to start charging.“
Boba frowned, mouth slanting into a hard line. “What are you talking about?
“Only that I had forgotten that the beskar isn’t the only thing people want once the helmet’s off.”
Boba’s eyes, which had been slowly cataloging Din’s face, narrowed shrewdly. “That bastard mynock. You said the filter didn’t work. I hope he didn’t get what he wanted.”
Din swallowed his guilt. “Why?” he demanded, more pointedly than he’d intended. “What would it matter? You heard Fennec. It’s a done thing. And the cruiser wasn’t the first time either.”
A flurry of emotions crossed Boba’s face. He ventured, “Morak?”
Din blanched at that and let his arm fall from Boba’s elbow. Boba saw too much. He saw Din too much. He could even see through Din, it seemed. When he stepped back, he expected Boba to follow, or to grab him in return. Only Boba didn’t. He just watched him.
Boba began slowly, “You’re talking about this as if, wait, as if….Din, you realize that just because you took off your helmet you’re not…like…ruined or something, right?”
Din huffed, not hiding his eyeroll. And Boba didn’t even know the half of it. He didn’t know how recklessly Din had let himself be used, crypto-mined and scraped through.
“You're not broken,” Boba continued, voice still careful and sonorous, like he was talking down a skittish bantha. “You’re entitled to bodily autonomy and,” he waved, “all that…And whatever happened down there, you realize wasn’t on you, right? He’s a pheromone-infested witch. And you don't have to barter your face or any other part of you. You’re beroya. I’ve seen your skills. That’s more than enough to barter with.”
“I know that,” Din snapped, then regretted it. He changed tactics, clutching his helmet to his chest. “I mean, why not though? If someone is willing to trade for me to get what I want, why shouldn’t I?” It had occurred to Din that he should have marched back in through those ominous doors and put more of himself on the table to see if it would have salvaged the deal after all. He just…didn’t care. He didn’t karking care about… that . He cared about the mission. There was always another mission, even if it was one he’d taken on voluntarily and hadn’t been quested with by his Armorer. He’d decided she’d want him to wield the Darksaber and try to claim Mandalore. Better their tribe than another. “I know I’m not…broken, but my creed is. What I do now doesn't matter. Might as well get something out of it.”
“Not that, you shouldn’t,” Boba said, voice darkening at the edges.
Din didn’t know if it was because Boba was judging him for un-warrior-like behavior, pitying him like one of the wraiths who slunked about Jabba’s palace, or was haunted by his own strange relationship with his face, shared by so many and for so long treated as some kind of property, especially by Core and Mid-Rim dwellers with long memories of the Clone Wars. But at the moment, Din couldn't bring himself to care.
“Why not?” Din asked hotly.
“For one thing, you plainly can’t handle it.” Boba gestured vaguely, where Din’s hands were clenched around his helmet, revved up for a fight that hadn’t and wouldn’t happen. “It’s obvious you haven’t processed what happened to you, and you’re lashing out and making, frankly, stupid decisions as if you have no inherent worth without that bucket. But you’re wrong. You have value. You owe it to yourself to exercise a modicum of self-protection.”
“You think I’m, what, debasing myself?”
“Yeah, I do,” Boba said bluntly. “And it’s unnecessary. There are a million other ways to go about this.”
“Name one,” Din challenged.
“Taking jobs. Allying with the New Reps. Comming Kryze or your new pal, Skywalker. Or--”
Kriff. Give Boba a massif bone and he took a parsec. “Okay. Stop. I’m not…better than other people. You seem to be holding me up on some kind of pedestal, as if I haven’t already fallen. But I did, and I’m just trying to work with that, to use it to my advantage as another resource. I always use every resource at my disposal. Don’t you?”
Boba planted himself firmly. “I have my limits. You need to set yours, now that you aren’t using the creed to set them for you.”
Din’s mouth opened, but he had nothing to say to that. So he clamped his mouth shut and spun around, trying to keep his stride even as he retreated.
“Think about what I said, Din!’ Boba called out behind him.
Setting his own limits without the creed to guide him…
Din had no idea how to go about that. It seemed easier to just blindly hurl himself at every obstacle.
But Boba wasn’t wrong, kriff him. Din wasn’t handling it. He was just avoiding it—all of it. He needed to slow down and think. He needed to figure out a way to channel his rash energy into a more stable system, like rerouting power to shields. Who was he when he didn’t have someone other than himself to protect? Boba said he needed to protect himself. That was certainly a place to start.
Din started to put on his helmet, but paused midway. Was hiding behind his helmet a good kind of protectionism or bad? Din didn’t know. If he truly believed in his creed, he should never put it back on. But his lifelong adherence to the creed was the same reason he couldn’t bear to have it off. All Din knew was that if he didn’t put it on, he felt too exposed.
Maybe he was just…rushing things. Maybe he needed time. It was too much new stimuli too soon. When Din had struggled with his early lessons in the fighting corps, the Armorer had said that not every goal could be accomplished in a single day, nor a week, nor a year. Overwatering couldn’t make grass grow faster. Wishing couldn’t hasten a planet’s rotation around the sun. Skill on the field could only come with practice.
Maybe skill in navigating the galaxy without his helmet or his tribe could come with practice, too.
Din tucked his helmet under his arm, breathed, and went to find Fennec and Boba in the cockpit.