Closed to [aliit_be_tad]

[make_it_hurt]

 "Mando!" Greef Karga's voice rang through the bar even before his presence could be noticed. The head of the Bounty Hunter's Guild was sitting in his usual place, the other side of the round booth empty. 

Bucky didn't look around as he stepped inside. Voices around him hushed, and suddenly he could hear the clink of his armor pieces touching as he stepped down into the main area. As he strode across the room, the chatter slowly started back up, and it was almost to full volume when he finally slid into the seat across from Karga. 

Out came his two tracking fobs - they had been rather hefty bounties, which was a welcome change from the usual trickle - and he slapped them down with his left hand, keeping them caged in with his fingers. 

Greef Karga sat back in his seat. "Have more work for you, Mando. If you'll indulge me by staying put for a bit, there's one more party we're waiting for. Then I don't have to explain twice." 

Reaching into his jacket, he freed a small handful of credits. Imperial. 

Behind his helmet, Bucky's lip curled with disgust. Outwardly, he reached for them. He couldn't afford to be picky. Not with hungry children at the covert. He traded the fobs for the credits, tucking them away. 

"What kind of job?" 

"One that pays twice what I just paid you." 

"I don't work with others." Meaning, they normally got in the way. He was more efficient solo. 

"I think you'll want to work with this person. In fact, I'm surprised you haven't met." Karga leaned to look past him and Bucky reluctantly turned as, surprise of all surprises, another Mandalorian stepped into the bar. 

Comments

[aliit_be_tad]

Din Djarin almost didn't show up.

He had returned to the guild that morning, his latest bounties in tow, to be faced with a prospect that was far less than tempting. The pay was good, the odds looked fair, but the conditions... he was far from excited.

A two-man job.

He'd already had his time running with a crew, and he wasn't eager to give the experience another try. But, like Greef had pointed out to him, jobs were beginning to be tight to come by. He didn't have the luxury to be picky about his jobs, especially with the paltry few that Greef had to offer as alternative. Not that he trusted that the guild master wasn't purposefully holding back on him to try to corral him into taking this job.

Sure, he could test Greef's patience and refuse the gig-- but the fact was that he needed the credits. The last few jobs he'd taken had barely covered expenses. It was almost shameful how little he had brought back to the covert, even after cutting as many corners on his end as he could. He couldn't afford to pass up a job that paid three times as much as his last lot of bounties for just his share alone.

Din could grit his teeth and work alongside someone else for one job. He wasn’t naive enough to think this would be the last time he had to do it, but hopefully Greef wouldn't make a habit of this.

Whatever scumsucker he was bracing to deal with, however, couldn't prepare him for the visceral shock of stepping into the bar and seeing another Mandalorian at the table with Greef.

His mind instantly started spinning, taking in the armor and desperately trying to search his memory to see if this was a member of his covert-- what were they doing above ground? He didn't recognize the beskar plating on the man's arm, but that didn't mean anything. These last few years he had barely been home enough for long enough for a bite of food, a scrap of sleep, and to repair damage to his armor before he was off again. For a brief moment agitation and panic threatened to break the surface.

And then he spotted the clan insignia on the Mandalorian's armor. It wasn't one he had seen before-- someone from a different covert. Some of the tension eased in his chest, but only just barely.

All new alarm bells began sounidng in his mind. What was another Mandalorian doing on Nevarro?

Din glanced around the suddenly quiet bar, then hardened his resolve and started towards Greef Karga. He kept his movements loose, fixing his visor’s gaze on the guild master. It wasn't the first Mandalorian he had encountered outside of his covert, but the first that was so close to home.

He stopped just short of the table, leveling what he hoped was a clear glare at Greef's pleased, smiling face.

"You didn't tell me there was another Mandalorian in the guild."

"I didn’t realize I needed to report all guild members to you personally. Don't tell me you're getting jealous on me." Despite the smile on Greef’s face, there was an edge to his voice. You didn’t keep alive in this business by rolling over or playing pacifist, and Greef Karga had been in it long enough to not be either.

Din stared evenly at Greef, letting the silence drag out. Then he sighed and finally looked at the Mandalorian. It wasn't an accident that he hadn't so much as looked the man's way since he started to approach. It was clear what he was trying to say:

I'm not happy you're here, and I'm not going to make this any easier than I have to.

From first impressions, Din was confident that the man could hold his own. He was a Mandalorian, Din had to assume that meant he had the training and skill to back it up. He'd rather trust another Mando at his back than an aruetii-- but that didn't mean he was happy about the situation.

"So, do you want to hear about the job or not, Mando?" Greef said, in that infuriatingly smug way that meant he already knew the answer. He didn't even specify which Mando he was talking to. Not that it mattered.

"This is a one-time deal. I'm not looking for a crew or a partner." Din said, partly to Greef while looking at the Mandalorian. "Ni vercopaanir naasad ashi Mando’ade bat ner me’suum."

I don't want any other Mandalorians on my planet.

A passing Mandalorian on a busy planet was one thing. Any other planet, with any other covert, the man might have even been welcomed, offered food and shelter until he moved on. On Nevarro, where even one Mandalorian above around was danger enough to the covert?

The sooner the other man got off this rock the better.

[make_it_hurt]

In Bucky's defense, he didn't want to be on this planet either. He could see the marks painted on the walls, the marks that quietly declared a covert nearby. He had no right to be impinging on another covert's territory, risking them and theirs just with his presence. Near as he could figure, they were somewhere under the city, and just sighting him above ground could risk them.

But there were few jobs for a beroya, even this far out from the core worlds. There was no more war - at least, none that were hiring Mandalorians to fight it - so it was private security work, or bounty hunting. And there were few legitimate guilds, that paid well enough to make the trips back and forth across the galaxy even worth it, as a one-man operation.

The other Mandalorian had probably also made the same calculations for his clan.

Bucky watched the Mando carefully as he approached, one ear on Greef Karga, and both eyes on the other. He placed both hands on top of the table - most would take it as him showing he wasn't intending to cause harm, but few knew that he was more dangerous without his blaster than he was with it. If the other Mandalorian wanted to start something, Bucky would be sure to finish it.

He was expecting the man to turn around and walk away - from the set of his shoulders, it was clear he was more pissed about this than anything else, and probably he would have walked away, except for the relatively tiny pile of credits Karga traded for the fobs.

He was not expecting to be told that this was that Mandalorian's planet. Did that mean he was beroya for the covert below? That would make sense with his hostility.

Still, he didn't exactly like the tone. He would work with this Mandalorian, but that didn't mean he had to tolerate being told he wasn't allowed to be on a planet, like he had been too stupid to notice previously there was no covert here. "Udesii, cyar'ika." The told the other Mandalorian flatly. Maybe telling him to 'Calm down, child' wouldn't win him any points, though, so he followed it up with, "Sha'kajir, sha'kajir," and scooted in, giving the other Mandalorian the more advantageous position on the outside of the booth's seat.

Then he looked to Greef Karga, "You better have a hell of a job, to need two Mandalorians. Where's the puck."

[aliit_be_tad]

The hairs on the back of Din's neck stood on end, practically bristling as he stood there and was called a child. His hand flexed, itching for a vibro knife to show the stranger just how much of a child he was. Already he was sizing the Mandalorian up, trying to decide on weak spots, picking apart that beskar-clad arm. But then the man called for truce in his next breathe, going as far as to shift into a less defensible position.

Every nerve in Din was screaming ready for a fight, but now wasn't the time. Not here, not now. Din breathed out a slow, controlled breath, stowing away the quick-heated anger.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Greef relax a little, able to recognize a de-escalation when he saw one.

"Sha'kajir." Din reluctantly agreed, though it was evident how begrudging he was by his tone.

"Good. Now, with whatever that was out of the way--" Greef reached inside his coat to pull out a bounty puck and toss on the table. "The mark you're after is a man called Barik Kaard. Former Imperial, joined the New Republic's amnesty program a couple years ago. I'm sure no one was surprised to hear it didn't exactly stick. A few years worth of dirty dealings, stepping on the wrong toes without the Empire to smooth things out for him-- and Kaard skipped out on the program and made a run for it, along with enough money to hire a small army to watch his back. Which is where you two come in."

Din stood by the table, listening and filing away every bit of information. When he was younger he might have insisted he could take those odds alone, but he'd had enough experiences and close calls to know when the odds were probably against him.

"So who's gunning for him? Imps or Republic?" Din asked after a moment.

"Neither. Kaard crossed the wrong people this time. The Pyke Syndicate's looking to make quick work on this by outsourcing the job. They want it taken care of quickly and quietly, before either side gets their hands on Kaard."

Dank farrik. Honestly, he wasn't sure if either of the other two options would have been any better-- but regardless of who the client was, he wouldn't say no to hunting down any Imp, amnesty program or no amnesty program.

He looked at the other Mandalorian and tilted his head in an unspoken gesture of 'well?'

[make_it_hurt]

Bucky watched the other Mandalorian's hand flex - the man might as well be screaming that he wanted to reach for his knife - but then Greef Karga was talking. Bucky listened, still with most of his attention on the other Mandalorian, in case he really did go for his knife.

"Alive or dead?" He asked, finally turning to take the puck off the table, pressing on it briefly to show their target before he tucked it into his belt. He wasn't waiting for an answer to start getting up, though, and moved out of the booth smoothly, standing up quickly.

The movement put himself and the other Mando almost chest to chest. They were a similar height and build, but Bucky couldn't help looking at his armor, standing this close. It was a mash of different styles, probably cobbled together leftovers from other Mandalorians who had died. His helmet was well-forged, though. Probably a pure or nearly pure beskar alloy, and in a rather distinctive style. It was almost Death Watch. But they had been fractured and decimated years ago. Maybe his covert was one of those fractions. It would explain his near-instant hostility.

Bucky stood for a moment, helmet to helmet, then turned to Karga again. "You have the fob?"

He could handle a mission with a hostile Death Watch member for a partner, and he could handle having the Pyke Syndicate for a client, but when he got home, he was staying for a few days. This would bring in enough money that he could afford a couple days to recover with his riduur and his clan before he had to leave again.

It was going to be a trying few days, though.

[aliit_be_tad]

Din stood his ground when the Mando slid out of the booth, holding steady even when they were very nearly chest to chest, beskar to beskar. It was almost as though he was daring the man to make a move, to give him an excuse to grab for his vibro-knife-- this close he could practically feel the man breathe. Even as he held himself loose and ready, Din felt tight as a spring, ready to just go.

The seconds that dragged out raked through Din’s nerves. He could see every glint of light catching on the beskar plates covering the Mando’s arm, every move making the interlocking metal shift and move perfectly in unison. Between one heartbeat and the next, transfixed on the flawless craftsmanship on that armor-- it suddenly hit him all at once that it wasn’t armor. It wasn’t sheets of metal covering the man’s arm.

It was an arm crafted entirely out of beskar.

Din had never even heard of something like that, of that type of skill-- much less the materials to create such a thing. Every scrap of armor that Din had earned over the years had been passed through countless hands before ending up on him, with the exception of his helmet. Half of it wasn’t even close to pure, mostly comprising of beskar alloys. But there was no doubt that that arm was pure.

It was possibly the most beautiful thing Din was sure he would ever see.


He would absolutely be fucked if he got in a fight with that arm.


Din suddenly realized there was talking going on, and turned just in time for Greef to toss a fob out onto the table. Din snatched it up quickly without thinking, before it hardly had time to touch the table.

“Alive, preferably. But they’re willing to take him cold, for a lesser price. Still better than your last jobs, but not as sweet as a deal if he’s still able to talk.” Greef said, leaning back to make himself look more comfortable.

“Then we’ll bring him alive,” Din said, taking a step back from the Mandalorian and tucking the fob somewhere safe before the other had a chance to protest.

There was still something bristling just under his skin, the adrenaline from being a breath away from taking on another Mandalorian, but some of that tightly coiled hostility had ebbed away. He was still wary, he was still on the offensive over another Mandalorian being on Nevarro-- but some of the heat had leeched out of his stance.

[make_it_hurt]

Bucky let the other Mando take the fob. "Get the Imp, take him to the people that make the drug that ruins hundreds of lives every day, don't let him die. Got it." He would just as happily kill the Imp and the Pyke Syndicate, but then he wouldn't get paid.

He looked back at the other Mandalorian, who had stepped away a little. His shoulders had finally relaxed a little, and his hand wasn't hovering quite so closely to his knife hilt. "I'll wait for you at the airfield," he told the Mando, then stepped around him. The bar watched him go, voices hushing as he went by.

Then, he was outside. Nevarro was hot. It was a volvanic planet, with active lava flows at basically all times. The ambient heat rising from the ground, combined with the hot air turned all his black painted beskar into an oven. Sweat was trickling down the side of his neck. How a covert survived on this planet underground, he didn't want to consider.

Bucky walked back through the town, keeping pressed to the darker corners and paths, avoiding the way marked on the walls he could see in his HUD, so as not to dark risk leading a tail to the covert. The same way he had been coming and going since he realized there was a covert here. He wouldn't tolerate another Mandalorian risking his clan through inattentiveness, so he wouldn't allow the same in himself.

Once out at the lava flats, though, he stopped. There, parked on opposite sides of the lava flat that made up Nevarro's airfield, were two different Razor Crests. One was his, and the other wasn't. The one that wasn't his had been modified, but it was still, undeniably, a Razor Crest.

It seemed the other Mandalorian also had a good head for ships.

[aliit_be_tad]

Din resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably at the way the Mando described their objective. The man wasn’t wrong, but not thinking too hard about whatever pucks he took on was typically the best way to get through job to job, as far as he was concerned. There was rarely a job he refused to take on, but hunting someone down for the Pyke Syndicate was hardly the worst thing he’d done. He doubted it was the worst this other beroya had done, either. Not if he’d been in the game long enough.

But he kept his mouth shut. The Mando hadn’t argued about the fob, so he figured biting his tongue was a decent trade-off.

He didn’t bother nodding in agreement when the other said they’d meet at the airfield, choosing to just silently watch him leave the bar. Then, he turned and leveled his gaze on Greef.

“What? I thought you two would get along. Seemed like you have one or two things in common. Like that sunny disposition you’re so well known for.” Greef said with a feigned look of innocence.

Din sighed heavily.


It was nearing three hours later when Din finally reached the airfield. There was a sack of supplies over his shoulder, and his pockets lighter of their credits. He had taken his meager earnings to the covert, as well as the news of another Mandalorian on world. The Armorer had taken the news better than he had-- but then again, it was always difficult to read the stoic woman. She had given him words of caution as well as words of encouragement. Reminding him that other Mandalorians were not his enemies.

It left a bitter taste in his mouth, bit he knew better than to entirely disregard her words. That didnt mean he had to like the other beroya.


He slowed as he reached the lava flats, noticing the other Razor Crest for the first time. It must have landed after he had that morning. Without even a doubt he knew the other Razor Crest belonged to the other Mando. He begrudgingly acknowledged that atleast the man had decent taste in ships-- but didn’t bother thinking anything beyond that. The sooner they get this over with, the better.

Din headed to the other Razor Crest and stood there for a moment, taking in the ship, the parts were it differed from his. He was looking for any and every excuse he could give to insist they take his ship. By the look of the fob, just the trip out to the mark was going to take a day or two on its own, not even counting how long it took to track the guy down and secure him. He didn’t want to be stuck in an unfamiliar ship for that long if he had to-- or to leave his own ship unguarded on Nevarro for that long.

After a moment, he sighed, shifting the weight of the bag on his shoulder before calling out to the Mandalorian, “Su cuy'gar?”

Should have been a friendly greeting, but the questioning and -- let’s face it, borderline aggressive tone made it something a little more… rough. He winced under his helmet, knowing no one could see the expression.

Kriff, he was going to turn into Paz at this rate. What was it that the Armorer had said, again…? Other Mandalorians weren’t his enemy..? Well, the message wasn’t having an easy time sinking in through his thick helmet, it looked like.

[make_it_hurt]

Bucky had spent the time waiting for the other Mandalorian packing a bag and preparing his ship to be left on Nevarro. The other Mando's ship had been heavily modified, and would serve them better if it came down to a firefight.

He had also extensively studied the information on the puck, learning all he could about their target.

He had expected the other Mandalorian to take time on the surface. His covert was here, he would need to take them the credits and supplies and see his family.

Idly, Bucky considered if the Mandalorian had a spouse or child. It wasn't exactly common for beroya to be thoroughly attached, since they could die at any time, and it would be hard on those that stayed behind, but Bucky knew that many clans, like his, had no other choice.

He reached up, brushing gloved fingers over the mark painted on the inside of his left wrist. The other Mandalorian had probably not noticed yet, but as they went on this mission, it was impossible it would go unnoticed forever.

It was then, lost in thought about Steve and their foundling, that the other Mando called out to him.

He sounded distinctly aggressive, for some reason. Well, maybe one reason: if he was Death Watch. "I'm here. Are you ready to go?" He stood and turned. The Mando had gained a bag slung over his shoulder - no doubt traded for the credits his jobs had earned him.