Chapter Text
"I'm sorry, what?"
Or at least, that's what you think he would be saying right now if he spoke in full sentences. Instead, the fully outfitted Mandalorian sat as still and silent as a statue across from you just staring, well you assume seeing as you can't actually see his eyes, in your general direction.
"You're being audited." You say, again, as slowly and as clearly as you can.
You know he speaks basic, there was no request for interpretation when Karga requested this meeting. Your grasp on Twi'leki and Binary is passable for niceties and introductions, but thankfully this job comes with a stellar interpretation interface. The Guild at least recognizes the need for clear communication when it comes to counting their coffers. You're not quite sure the Mandalorian does though.
You pass more moments in silence.
You're not a rookie. You've played these games before. You twist the mechano-pen back and forth in your hands, twirling it in circles.
Honestly, staring at his shiny gleaming helmet is much more appealing than staring at the single, milky eye the size of your face that the Abyssin have. Something about their dull countenance and mutton chop sideburns always put you on edge, not that you'd ever tell them that. You're not willing to risk insulting any bounty hunter no matter how unnerving. The Mandalorian's helmet at least lacks the elongated shape of an Abyssin and you don't see any wiry sideburns peaking out underneath.
Still silence.
Your eyes trace the smooth contours of the shiny metal. Yeah, sometimes the unknown is definitely preferable to the known.
Somehow the Mandalorian is as stiff and unyielding in his stance as a poor soul frozen in carbonite while looking as nonchalant and unworried as a loth cat basking in the sun.
Ever so slightly his hip tilts to the side in the booth, making the steel of his blaster squeak against the synthetic leather of the cantina seat. You sit back in your own seat and drop your hand to your thigh. Let's begin.
"I don't have time for this." He finally rasps out across from you. His voice comes out flat from the high pass filter of his helmet.
"I assure you this is standard procedure for every member of the Guild. The sooner we can review this, the sooner you can be on your way".
You weren't particularly concerned about him making a run for it. He had been a regular with the Guild at least for the last few years. While some members came and went whenever they needed cash for their next fix, the Mandalorian made bounty hunting look like a 9-5. You knew the only reason Karga didn't give him even more pucks was because the Guild was mandated to spread them around. Having only one cash cow was bad for business when that cow could very well decide they didn't want to work for you anymore.
"We just need to run through some of these numbers together."
"All of my bounties are processed through Nevarro." ("Yes, yes I know.")
"I follow all Guild protocols on the ethical handling of live captures." ("I'm aware.")
"Any discrepancy in my acquisition count has been squared away with Karga." ("Your numbers are great.")
Goodness, now he wouldn't shut up.
"All my Guild member fees have been paid for this annum."
"Yes!" You punched out slightly louder than you meant to, voice cracking with the change in tone and body coming closer to the table again. "Yes." You continued evenly after taking a deep breath in and then out. "You're an upstanding member of the Guild. A star example of exemplary stewardship and a model citizen for all would-be bounty hunters out there."
"Then what," he said slowly, hand clenching ever so slightly on his thigh as he mirrored your movement and tilted towards the table, "is the problem?"
Finally you were getting somewhere. Considering half your job was talking to people, you'd think you'd have managed to work on your patience.
"The money. It's about the money." It's always about the money.
He doesn't respond. You take that to mean he doesn't follow.
You take a visibly deep breath before placing both of your hands on the table in front of you, letting your shoulders relax and keeping a pleasantly neutral upturn to your mouth. Neutral body language. For as many fellow bounty hunters you'd seen the Mandalorian scuffle with, he had never laid his hands on the Guild support staff which was more than you could say for other members. You've rarely interacted with the Mandalorian, but you've followed the numbers behind his career so closely that you feel like you know something of him. If you're right, this is about to be a very sensitive topic.
"There are some questions about your level of expenditures."
He stares. Well, that's better than a blaster to the face.
"That is to say, the usual flow of effective credits through Nevarro has been deviating from anticipated projections."
Still no blaster in your face. There's a pregnant pause before you take another breath and continue.
"What I am saying is that despite the growth in the Guilds acquisition count, and therefore the amount of credits being dispersed, there has not been growth in the amount of credits being invested into Nevarro…"
It's like talking to a wall.
"... almost as if the highest grossing member of the guild is not spending their hard earned credits."
You stop there. This man is impossible to read. Maybe the Abyssin aren't so bad after all.
The Mandalorian finally deigns to respond. "I wasn't aware that the Guild requires members to invest in local activities beyond the disclosed member fees".
Can you roll your eyes? You roll your eyes.
"Look. I'm going to be straight with you here." You pull out your holopad and start scrolling through lines and lines of chain codes and numbers while staring him right in the helmet. "Most of these members," you gesture to the holopad, "get their credits and spend half of them at the cantina and then the other half at a brothel."
"I sleep on my ship."
"That's not, that's… ugh!" You're almost begging him with your eyes at this point. You don't want to say it. Another deep breath and a quick look around the room, thankfully the Mandalorian is mostly obscured in the corner so all people see is you, support staff, holding a completely uninteresting meeting.
"Listen. Even the less shady members still buy food and fuel. They'll get their ship maintained in the docks or buy scrap and do it themselves. The problem here is that you aren't spending anything near what you're taking out. You're a black hole in the ledgers.
The Guild runs on investor support. Investors who decide what sorts of bounties get accepted to the Guild. In order to attract more bounty hunters and stay competitive with other," you pause, "organizations… we only garnish 5% of your cut to cover support costs. The rest of the costs are covered by investors. And these investors, they're going to start noticing these things."
Oh joy. Silence. Your favorite. Time to bring out the big guns. You mentally cross your fingers and any semblance of a polite smile slips off your face in favor of solemnity.
"It's almost as if our highest grossing bounty hunter is going out of his way to leave as little physical trace between him and Nevarro as possible. Almost as if he had something to hide."
If you thought the Mandalorian was stiff before, he was now inanimate.
"We're done here." He ground out.
And then faster and with more finesse than you could even perceive considering how much armor he wore, he was out of the booth and headed out the side door. The noise of the cantina came rushing back into your ears. Sweat pooled between your bare legs and the squeaky fake leather booth. You just now realized how fast your heart was beating.
You'd said your piece and that was that. You still had your head on your shoulders. That was… good, right? But were you done? That didn't feel done. Maybe it was your fluttery heart playing tricks with your mind but you felt most certainly not done with that conversation. He needed to understand what you noticed, you needed him to know. It was now or never. This job was such a rollercoaster that you promised yourself that any time you might actually be able to help someone who…
And you were out the door. The heavy side door slammed shut behind you as you unceremoniously burst into the alley. The heat of the day immediately seeps into your body and your head whips side to side for any trace of that shiny helmet. There! You turn right to head deeper into the alley, the bustle of the street falling away as you navigate around large pallets of liquor. You squint harder in the shade of the alleyway for where the Mandalorian could have-
Something hard and unforgiving slams you roughly into the stucco wall of the alley.
"You shouldn't have followed me." A low and menacing filtered voice says close to your ear. The Mandalorian has one arm firmly across your chest as he leans in, pinning you between him and the wall. You look down to see his other hand on his holstered blaster and his hip kicked out, slightly contreposta.
Dank ferrik. If you thought your heart was beating fast before it's now actively trying to escape your chest.
"What do you know." He's pressing hard enough on your chest that your lungs struggle to fill with air. Okay, so blindly following the Mandalorian into a dark and secluded alleyway after practically threatening him wasn't your best decision. In your defense, it didn't feel like a decision. You just reacted.
You're a problem. Don't be a problem, be a solution. Be a solution! Every ounce of planning leaves your body as words vomit out of your mouth.
"I don't- I don't know anything. I just followed the numbers. But if I did then that means someone else can too. I don't know what you're doing or why you're doing this, but something tells me you aren't running a spice ring or a rhydonium mining operation with your excess earnings. It's going somewhere and maybe, just maybe I'm hoping its going to people who need it. People who are just trying to scrape a living out of this world between the feet of people like the investors." Silence, but he loosens his grip slightly, still boxing you in. "I know your numbers. I know who you bring in warm. I know who you bring in cold. You brought in that piece of shit Twi'leck bandit with a predilection for kids cold even though his reward was higher for a live capture. You can't… you can't be just a common piece of bantha crap."
His hand stays on his blaster. "You don't know me."
"Right. Ye- right."
Back to silence. Is it your imagination that it feels less oppressive this time? How can it feel less oppressive when he still has you pinned to a wall? You take a deep, chest puffing deep breathe and his arm moves with you. Don't be a problem, be a solution.
"All I am saying is that you can stop there from being a problem by spending money here. Fuel up whenever you drop off bounties. Buy your rations here. Spend enough money that you're no longer a black hole."
His arm goes lax against you and you stumble, catching yourself with your left hand hitting duristeel. The duristeel of his chest plate. Your hand right above where his heart would be. For some reason your brain focuses on the flaking brown paint under your fingers. It seems so fragile.
The Mandalorian just grunts at you through his helmet. The vibrations reverberating from his chest through your hand knocks you out of your trance and your hand quickly drops to your side.
You both stand there. Him because you guess he's being his usual stoic self and you from just sheer surprise. Slowly he tilts his helmet towards you slightly before taking a step back. Then another step.
Ever so slowly the Mandalorian fades into the blinding sunlight at the end of the alleyway.
You're not dead, so maybe you didn't just make a massive mistake.
*~*~*~*
Din can't believe he didn't think of that. That a complete lack of something was just as much if not more suspicious than a trail. He knew this, it was the same with tracking a quarry. Always check the trees when the footprints disappear.
He made a mistake. One that could have cost him dearly. He wasn't a money man. He didn't give a damn about credits or what they could get him. The price of a johan fruit on Loyalty or Coruscant? It didn't matter to him because he wasn't buying fruit. He fueled up at the planets he trusted regardless of the cost.
Being a member of the Guild meant he claimed the pucks, found the quarry, delivered the goods, collected the credits, and deposited them into the hands of his covert. It was rote and predictable and precisely the reason he gave up his rowdier bounty hunting endeavors.
But he'd made a mistake blinded by devotion to the covert, one that would have been disastrous…
if it weren't for you.