Chapter Text
LONDON - EARTH - THE MILKY WAY GALAXY
“You want us to go where?”
Marc gapes up at Khonshu incredulously, the god’s impassive skeletal face giving nothing away as the former mercenary splutters in disbelief. “You’re fucking with me. Right? You are. You’re fucking with me.”
I am not, Khonshu says, fucking with you, as you say it.
“You sure?” Marc asks, and in the back of his mind he’s distantly disappointed that neither Steven nor Jake is awake at the moment, because they’d have some shit to say to Khonshu’s ridiculousness. “You’re absolutely sure? Because I’ve heard some fuckery in my life before, let me tell you that, and this tops the fucking chart.”
I am being serious, Marc.
“You can’t be.”
I am.
“I don’t know how much you know about humans, big guy,” Marc sighs, “but there are some very important things to note. First of all, we kinda need oxygen to survive. And—and bear with me here, because the science can get a bit complicated—if we don’t have oxygen, we die.”
Khonshu continues to stare at Marc. Marc feels distinctly judged.
“Secondly—” Marc cuts himself off. “Fuck. Why do I try? You’re an Egyptian god. You’re gonna start zoning out the moment I mention atmospheric pressure.”
I started zoning out far before that, Khonshu admits, but continue.
“My point is, no fucking way.”
You still wear my armor, Marc Spector. You are still my Avatar.
“And you make me regret it every fucking day.”
You will do as I command.
“We are not going into space!”
Khonshu remains unimpressed. You are if I want you to.
“We are not. Going. Into. Space.”
Yes, you are.
“We are not—”
“So,” Marc says that night in front of the bathroom mirror, “good news and bad news, which one do you want first?”
“Good news,” Steven immediately says, at the same time Jake says “Bad”. Marc rolls his eyes and wonders why he thought this would go differently.
“Bad news first,” Jake defends, in the same tone one would use to discuss battle strategy, “so we can use it to judge how we should take the good news.”
“On the contrary,” Steven says, in the same tone one would use to argue with an inanimate object, “good news first, because good things are always good.”
“Is that your grand statement of the day?” Jake asks, scoffing. “Good things are always good?”
“Yeah. Yeah, maybe it is, so what?”
“So, good news!” Marc interrupts, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. He pauses, furrowing his brows, thinking about how to word his announcement. “We’re going on a trip.”
“We’re always going on trips,” Jake points out. “Occupational hazard.”
“Where’re we going?” Steven asks, curious.
“So…” Marc purses his lips. “That’s the thing.”
“Dios, don’t say Jamaica,” Jake gripes. “I’ve fuckin’ had it up to here with Jamaica.”
Steven scoffs. “Serious? What’d Jamaica ever do to you, mate?”
“Everything,” Jake says darkly.
Marc clears his throat. “We’re going into space.”
If it weren’t for the reflections, Marc would’ve thought Jake and Steven vacated the headspace entirely. Be that as it may, their faces range from shocked (Jake) to confused (Steven), and Marc decides to explain more before they come for his throat.
“Okay, so, moon god, right?” he blurts. “Turns out, moon god, moon ore, Khonshu wants moon ore, we’re doing his dirty work. Any questions?”
A pause.
“No, actually, that really cleared it all up for us,” Steven says.
So it’s going to be like that.
I have power over your Earth’s moon, Khonshu says, a few days later, when he and Moon Knight are perched on the top of Steven’s building. But it doesn’t stop there. I am the god of all moons, including those scattered throughout the galaxy.
“Uh huh.” Marc breathes in a breath of Earth air and wonders if it’ll be one of his last for a while. “No, sure. Go on.”
As such, I have the power to teleport between moons. I also have the power to teleport you to distant moons.
Okay.
Hang on a fucking second.
“You could’ve sent me to the Moon?” A surge of almost childlike excitement rushes through Marc at the thought of it. Back when he was a kid, when he wasn’t… well, going through a lot, there was a time when he wanted to be an astronaut.
He loved planets and outer space—he even had a few posters in his childhood bedroom. Marc used to be infatuated with the idea of there being a world out there that’s so infinitely big, he felt meaningless and tiny in comparison.
I can send you to any moon, Khonshu corrects, drawing Marc out of his daze.
“That’s actually kind of cool,” Jake admits in the safety of their headspace.
“Cool?” Steven shakes his head. “That’s bloody wicked, that’s what it is.”
“Okay,” Marc says, and pretends like he isn’t losing his shit over everything the god is saying right now. “Run the mission by me one last time.”
Your target is a smuggler specializing in precious artifacts.
Marc has all of one second to go through the ‘Oh fuck right there’s actually life in space I forgot about that part’ acceptance process before Khonshu continues, They stole a Uru artifact from one of my temples, decades ago. I want it back.
“Good for them, honestly,” Steven mutters.
“What does the artifact look like?” Marc asks.
It used to be a blade, much like the ones you wield. Marc looks down at the crescent darts strapped to his chest. But it could have been melted down and remade.
“What does the smuggler look like?”
Decades have passed. I cannot say.
“Great. So, just to recap—you’re sending us into the innermost corners of the galaxy, with only a vague idea of what we’re trying to get, and no idea of who we’re trying to catch.”
I am sending you to the outer part of the galaxy.
“Oh, thanks. Much better.”
You are welcome.
“This is so fucked up,” Steven whispers, but there’s a touch of excitement and awe in his voice so Marc figures he’ll get over it eventually.
The armor functions, in all necessary ways, much like a spacesuit. You will be able to breathe and feel pressure similar to that of Earth’s. Khonshu may be puffing out his chest with pride. Just slightly. In the Outer Rim, I will not be able to contact you as easily, as my power remains in Egypt. But you will be able to return home whenever you want.
The Outer Rim, Marc thinks dizzily. There are proper names for parts of the galaxy.
“Do we fly from planet to planet?” he asks out loud, doing some quick math in his head. Hey, never let it be said his childhood fascination was for naught. “Even with the armor’s speed, that’s… inefficient.”
I have prepared a ship for you.
He’s prepared a what?
Before Marc can wrap his mind around the idea of flying an actual good-to-honest fucking spacecraft, Khonshu does as close an approximation to clearing his throat as he can get. If you are ready, I will send you over.
“Just like that?” Marc says in disbelief.
Just like that.
“Are you ready for me to launch you blindly into the outer bits of the bloody galaxy?” Steven mocks. “Are you joking?”
“Let’s face it,” Jake begins to say, then cuts himself off. “No, never mind. I think this is the stupidest thing we’ve done.”
Vote of confidence, Marc thinks. Thanks.
“Well,” Steven sighs, pausing and coming to a conclusion. “Why not? Screw it all. Let’s do it.”
“Fuck it,” Jake agrees.
“Just as long as the record states that Khonshu is a massive git,” Steven adds, “and he should stop sending us to do all his dirty work.”
“Duly noted,” Marc says out loud, and returns his gaze to Khonshu’s empty eyes. “Steven sends his regards.”
Khonshu possibly smirks as he lifts up one bony hand and lays it on Marc’s shoulder. A pulse of godly, nigh-incomprehensible power starts thrumming through the air around them, as Khonshu rallies the strength required to send his Avatars through what, in a galaxy not so far away, would be called hyperspace. Duly noted.
And the night explodes into something brightbrightbright, and Marc feels himself becoming weightless in the middle of all that blinding light, and everything feels so suddenly cold, and distantly he can register Steven and Jake yelling obscenities in the headspace, and—
And—everything goes black.
And the rooftop of Steven’s building is empty, as if no one had ever been there.
And, light-years away, far beyond Vormir and Sakaar and any other planet previously touched by Avengers and Guardians and Eternals alike—a brief blip appears on the radar of a New Republic X-wing.
THE BOUNTY GUILD - NEVARRO - THE OUTER RIM TERRITORIES
Many things have happened since Din Djarin was a bounty hunter rifling through Greef Karga’s bounty pucks, barely scraping together enough credits to get by.
For one, he stumbled into fatherhood. He also stumbled into the far less welcome mantle of Manda’lor, though he’s been trying to repress that thought for a while. He lost the Crest. He broke his Creed. He met wizards. All in all, he’s quite a far cry from the man he used to be.
But some things, Din decides as he steps into the Nevarro cantina, just don’t change. And at the moment, it’s the way the entire cantina falls silent when his figure appears in the doorway.
Sure, it’s not unwelcome. Din knows full well what a reputation can get you, and his precedes him massively. But still—it gets tiring, sometimes. The notoriety.
Din strides into the cantina, the afternoon sun reflecting off his beskar and bouncing off in sparks of light. He ignores the eyes casting side-glances at him and his armor and heads straight for the bar, where a Twi’lek bartender mans the counter deftly.
He slides into an empty seat, and waits.
The bartender knows better than to offer Din a drink. Instead, she finishes wiping the counter with a rag and plops a chunk of ice into a mold to set, and turns around to face him. “Haven’t seen you around in a while.”
“Haven’t been around in a while.”
In between Moff Gideon’s cruiser and his stint with Boba Fett on Tatooine, Din hasn’t had much cause to drop by Nevarro as often as he used to. Besides, he does catch up with Cara and Greef over holo-calls occasionally. Despite popular belief, Din keeps his friends close. He just keeps Grogu closer.
Speaking of Grogu, Din slants his gaze towards the cantina’s entrance, barely glimpsing his N-1 starfighter parked some distance away. Through his visor’s enhanced vision, he spots Cara against a wall with Grogu cradled in one muscular arm, zealously guarding him from any prying eyes, and some part of him eases.
“You looking for Greef?” The bartender asks, grabbing an empty tumbler. She removes the ice from the mold, in the shape of a perfect sphere, and gently sets it into the glass. “Thought you quit the Guild.”
Technically, no. Din’s still as much as a full-fledged member of the Bounty Hunters’ Guild as ever. Honestly, he’s probably top-ranked.
But he doesn’t bother to correct her. “I’m not here for bounty.”
A bottle of clear liquid is uncorked and poured into the glass. “Well, Greef’s indisposed at the moment.”
“I’m not here for Greef Karga, either.”
She snorts. “Then you gonna tell me what you’re here for, or is this a process of elimination?”
See. Now, that’s a good question.
Because Din isn’t too sure what he’s looking for, either.
“Mandalore’s glassed,” Bo-Katan had said, a couple dozen cycles prior, as her miniature hologram blinked in and out of focus in Din’s cockpit. “There’s a good supply of beskar beneath the ruins, in the old mines, but we can’t reach it. But to rebuild—”
“We need beskar,” Din had finished wearily. “I can’t help with that. Even in our covert, beskar was of short supply.”
“You seem to have a good amount of it.”
Din had stiffened. Despite an uneasy alliance with Bo-Katan, he still didn’t trust her. Even though she’s agreed to be his political consultant—and has been invaluable in these few months—he couldn’t shake the unease that came with being around her. “It’s a long story.”
She’d sniffed. “Well, whatever the case, we need beskar.”
“I don’t see how you telling me this is going to fix any problems,” Din had told her, and had received a stony glare back for his trouble.
“There might be a way to get more beskar.” A pause. “Without Imperial interference, this time.”
Din had leaned back, mind already whirling. “I’m listening.”
In the present, Din leans forward—though in the noise of the cantina, he hardly needs the subtlety. “I need information.”
The bartender’s face doesn’t change. It’s likely a line she’s heard before, anyway. “What makes you think I have it?”
“I’m looking for a person. Nevarro is their scene. And you’re the only cantina in town.”
“Mhm.” Some juice is poured from a vial into the slowly-forming cocktail. Other than that, nothing.
Unfazed, Din reaches into a pouch on his belt and takes a handful of credits. He sets them on the table, a veritable small fortune. (There was a time when that amount of money would’ve sent him halfway across the galaxy for hunting. But he’s been well-off ever since Moff Gideon’s capture—turns out, New Republic bounties pay quite well.)
The bartender eyes the credits. With a swift movement of her hand, they vanish off the counter, clinking safely in the pocket of her robes. “What do you want to know, Mandalorian?”
Din sits back. “What do you know of an artifact smuggler?”
“Lots of folks around these parts,” the bartender replies, taking a cocktail shaker and working it as she talks. “Spice runners, cargo smugglers, criminal middlemen. Narrow it down.”
“Deals other things on the side,” Din says, emphasis lingering. He thinks back to what Skywalker told him through a holo-message, the night Din had what could be considered a nervous breakdown and wrote to the only person he trusted enough with his crisis. “It’s rumored they raided the Crystal Caves of Ilum for kyber.”
A flicker of recognition shines in the bartender’s eyes. “Ah.”
“You know this person?”
“I might.” The bartender uncaps the shaker. She pours shimmering beverage into the tumbler and takes up an orange fruit, carving a strip of skin from it with a pocketknife. “I’ve heard stories of a thief who steals revered metals and gems, turning a profit on them from underground auctions.”
This sounds right. It’s the biggest lead Din’s gotten in a while. He leans forward, unable to hide his anticipation. “Have you seen them?”
“No.” The bartender circles the rim of the glass with the fruit skin as Din prepares to slump in disappointment. “But the cantina’s loud. I hear things.”
Din perks up. “And?”
As a finishing touch, the bartender plops a long bendy straw into the glass. “And I know where they’re going to be.”
She sets the finished drink on the counter, pushing it over to Din. He furrows his brows. “I don’t…”
“You feel like you need a drink.” She gestures to the straw. “Helmet-friendly.”
“Hm.” Honestly, yeah. Yeah, Din needs a fucking drink. So he slides the glass closer to him, scans it for suspicious heat signals (though with Cara right outside, he’s not too worried about being poisoned), and slips the straw under his helmet.
It tastes good. Fruity, light, with just the right amount of alcohol to be relaxing, but not enough that he can’t fly his ship a few minutes after. “This is… good.”
The bartender huffs a laugh and nods. Without prompting, she says, “Coruscant, on the next full moon of Centax-1.”
A place. A time. Praise the fucking Maker.
Din lifts his glass and inclines his head. “Thank you.”
She waves a hand dismissively. “You just paid my rent for the next three months. Come back soon.”
“Got what you needed?” Cara asks as Din walks up to her with marginally less credits and a marginally looser tongue. His eyes immediately go to Grogu, who’s slowly blinking his eyes awake from a short nap, his ears perking up as he sees Din.
“Yeah,” Din says, reaching his hands out as Cara passes Grogu back to him. The kid settles into his arms, cooing happily. “And then some.”
“Good.” Cara gives Grogu one last tap on his forehead—to which he responds with a wriggle in Din’s arms—and looks back up at her friend. “Remember, if you need anything…”
Din nods. “I’ll call.”
“You better, Mando.” Cara gives his helmet a brief rap, hard enough to have him blinking inside of it, and it’s just about as much physical affection they know how to give each other. “It gets boring on this side of the law.”
“Careful what you wish for,” Din says, as he makes to turn to his ship. “Just in case the New Republic falls or something.”
“Pssh,” Cara scoffs. “Yeah, right.”
“Bah,” Grogu burbles as Din powers up his starfighter. “Aah?”
“You’re right,” Din mutters. He’s grown accustomed to keeping one-sided conversations between him and the kid. Sure, sometimes he gets glimpses and peeks at Grogu’s thoughts and emotions—often when the kid projects them at him—but other than that, it’s up to guesswork and context. “Centax-1 doesn’t reach its full moon for a fortnight. If we get there now, it’s too early. Word could spread of a Mandalorian. Our target could be scared off.”
“Hrble,” Grogu agrees. “Neha?”
“We could stay here,” Din admits, “but…”
But what? But he wouldn’t be welcome? That’s far from the truth. Greef Karga would be thrilled to have Din, and he’s made it abundantly clear. Cara certainly wouldn’t object to his presence.
And Din wants to stay. He does. He wanted to stay when Greef offered when they thought the moff was dead. He wanted to stay when Fett asked him to after the battle on Tatooine.
But something in him stirs with unrest whenever the idea of settling starts poking around in his head. Because he can’t, not yet, not with the weight of the Darksaber on his belt, not with the unwanted title of Manda’lor hanging over his head.
He doesn’t want the fucking title. He doesn’t.
But Din’s made a life out of doing things he doesn’t want to do, and he isn’t about to shirk critical responsibilities just because he doesn’t feel like it, so he’s going to suck it up, and keep sucking it up until someone bests him in combat, and he is not going to complain about it.
“Pah,” Grogu scoffs, sensing his thoughts, and Din sighs.
Fine.
He is going to complain about it marginally.
“I can’t just sit here,” he tells Grogu, finally. “I have to do something.”
“Hrmph,” the kid mutters. Din ignores his judgment, and instead focuses on his own restlessness.
If this mission works out, Din might actually recover enough beskar to make a difference. Enough to have people returning to Mandalore, spurred by the incentive of not having to live in hiding anymore, by the hope of securing their children a proper future.
A thought clicks in his head. A sentence, really, echoing back with a familiar cadence. Bo-Katan's voice. Mandalore’s glassed.
See—Din doesn’t know if that’s true. Yes, it’s all anyone can say about Mandalore—the accursed planet that saw the brutal destruction of a whole people. But is it the truth?
Of course, it’s been easier to assume its desolation than to harbor hope that Mandalore could ever be rebuilt—after all, the very idea of rebuilding is a daunting prospect. And perhaps Mandalore has been reduced to glass—after all, isn’t that what Boba Fett had said?
Din’s never been to Mandalore. He hasn’t even been to Concordia. He knows, from Bo-Katan, that the Children of the Watch used to operate on Mandalore’s moon. But Din’s only home, after Aq Vetina, has been the Tribe on Nevarro.
It’s another layer to add to the ridiculousness of him being Manda’lor, when he thinks about it. A Mandalorian foundling holding the throne? Who barely knows anything about his own people? Ridiculous. Boba fucking Fett would probably make a better candidate.
But Mandalore’s Outer Rim, too. It’d take them less than a day to get there, especially with the borderline outrageously modified starfighter.
And Din has time.
So, even as he sighs and mutters and laments wasting time on this whim, Din inputs the coordinates to Mandalore into his ship’s computer. As estimated, they’ll get there within ten hours. Doing a bit more mental math, Din puts the travel time from Mandalore to Coruscant at around twenty hours—giving him about a week of leeway before he has to go scout out the mission.
A week. That’s more than enough time.
Everything checks out. He still can’t shake the dread from his gut.
A foreign presence taps him gently in the back of his mind, and Din turns back to look at Grogu. The kid stares back with wide, black eyes, tilting his head curiously—very observant, for such a little creature. Din tilts his head back. “Alright, kid. Tell me I’m not going to regret this.”
Grogu considers it. “Patoo.”
“Close enough.”
With that, Din fires up his engines, pulls back on the controls, and leans back as his ship lifts up out of Nevarro’s atmosphere. The sky darkens, and the two passengers watch as the stars coalesce with the jump into hyperspace.
The kid makes a happy gurgle behind Din as the starfighter lurches forward with the speed—and if Din smiles at the sound under his helmet, well. No one needs to know that.
Din’s half-expecting to find a ruined planet and fully anticipating an abandoned one. That, combined with the knowledge that the Children of the Watch had relocated to Nevarro, Din’s justified in thinking both planet and moon utterly devoid of people.
And he’s almost correct.
He would be completely correct, if it weren’t for the fact that by the time he arrives at his destination, someone will have inadvertently beaten him to Concordia. Several someones, in fact. None of whom are particularly comforted by their situation.