Chapter Text
The undercity of Coruscant felt quieter than usual. The air was so raw, you had to breathe twice just to feel like it counted.
To your left, a petite Zeltron woman was pressed against a wall by a man far too drunk to make a comprehensible sentence. His green hands were painfully gripping against her breasts. You looked once. Heart panicking, not used to seeing such desire on display. You looked away. ‘None of your business y/n.’ You thought to yourself over and over as you pace.
Your business tonight was the target and the information promised after.
Normally, you wouldn’t take jobs this small, this dirty, but they were offering something worth more than any currency left in the galaxy. An encrypted holodisk with coordinates that could unravel years of searching.
A small comm clicked in your ear.
“Target should be in place. You got eyes?”
“What do you mean, I have eyes?”
“I’m asking if you see the fucking target.”
“Yes, sir.”
As if the embarrassment of your stupidity couldn’t get any worse, you heard an exaggerated sigh before they cut the line. Red in the face, you resumed your poker face and followed the target from a safe distance.
Three levels down from the Senate sector, a glittering club called Cavity throbbed with rich kid diplomats, off duty guards, and arms dealers pretending to be poets. It was built into the skeleton of an abandoned speeder factory. Rust, oil, broken promises.
A constant rumble came from the club music. To your surprise, it was a song you would normally listen to in your leisure time. Unfortunately you had to hold back with all of your might from vocalising the chorus. Maybe you wouldn’t stand out as much if you joined in, but you only had a small window to execute this plan.
The drinks were blue and lit from the inside. You could smell the lust in the air.
And the target?
Sitting at a back booth with a man in a red robe — Republic traitor.
You were here for the traitor. A clean extraction. Alive if possible, dead if not. You’d been promised information about your brother’s whereabouts once you delivered on this mission. The stakes were.. everything to you. A little hesitation crept in when the thought of your brother crossed your mind.
The target was slick. He had managed to corner himself.
You had him. You were on him. Swiftly, you yanked the weapon he reached for out of his hand, forcing him to point it at himself. You had him by the balls and he knew it. Without a second thought, you kneed between his legs until he dropped to the floor.
“At least leave his balls intact.”
The voice cut through the bass, calm, almost amused.
Silence answered him.
“Step away from him.”
The voice cut like cold steel unlike his lighthearted joke before.
You turned.
His figure stood at the entrance of the club, framed by smoke and shifting cheap neon lights. Lightsaber in hand. What a fucking entrance.
Cloaked. Tall. Jaw sharp as a blade. Hair a storm-tousled mess like he’d been born in war. You didn’t recognize him immediately. And the look in his eyes wasn’t anger. It was boredom.
“Jedi business,” he said, walking closer. “You can leave now.”
You stood firmly,
“The hell I can.”
“You’re interfering with a Republic operation.”
“That’s funny,” you snapped. “Because you’re interfering with mine.”
His eyes moved to your armour, scarred and sand-burnished, marked only with faint scarring over the breastplate.
His expression barely shifted.
“Mandalorian?”
He asked as if it weren’t a rhetorical question.
You exhaled slowly. Figures.
“Look,” you said. “I'm not trying to start anything. I’m just doing my job and I'll take him and go.” Your thumb pointed towards the door.
“Too bad.”
Your heart missed a beat. That was the only warning you got.
He moved in a way that felt wrong, like gravity simply didn’t apply to him.
You caught the first strike of his saber on your forearm guard. There was no doubt in your mind that would leave a MASSIVE blue mark later. Sparks screamed off the beskar, the metal whining under the heat but holding.
Lightsaber.
Jedi.
Well. Shit.
You disengaged by slamming a flash pellet into the ground and rolled into the shadows as white light exploded across the room. Panicked shouts from patrons blended into the chaos. You didn’t try to win.
You ducked behind a wall of dancers, kicked over a table, then sprinted through the haze and lasers. Bottles shattered. A bartender screamed as you vaulted the counter and crashed into a side hallway full of broken neon and sticky floors. Anakin followed with his saber slicing sparks off metal as he moved.
You pushed through the back exit, straight into the under street. Lower Strip. The pressure. The pursuit.
He was chasing.
“Fucking stop!” he ordered, his voice low enough to make your stomach drop.
You almost did. Then you heard him behind you, and kept running.
He was gaining to the point his presence burned at your back, the force squeezing around your ribs like he was trying to drag you back. Your boots slammed against the metal grate. You turned too fast and clipped your shoulder on a column, pain cutting quick enough to steal your breath. You kept moving.
The Strip tightened around you. Broken neon flickered over dirty puddles and oil covered concrete. Trash piled against the walls with strange shadows gathered in every corner.
You hated how familiar it felt.
You had been chased before, but never hunted down like this. You reached for the wristband and felt the cartridge still there. It felt like ten seconds or maybe less as he followed you down the side passage with the screech of his saber behind you, close enough to taste.
Another turn.
Dead end.
Shit.
You spun to retreat, but it was too late. He was already there.
He crashed into you like a wave. No warning. No hesitation. You hit the wall so hard your head cracked against the rusted steel. The air punched from your lungs. Your vision blurred, not from pain, but from the way his body pressed against yours. The weight of him kept you pinned there while your mind spun.
His hand closed around your arm and twisted you around before you could breathe. He had you against the wall in seconds. You barely felt the movement, only the duracrete digging into your back as he slammed you into it. Your wrists were caught above your head in one of his hands.
One fucking hand?
His chest heaved against yours, warmth radiating through his uniform like a furnace. His stare was sharp, focused, and weirdly hungry. It shook you harder than it should have. He looked nothing like the man who had stood across the club a few minutes ago.
“Last chance.”
He spoke low and dangerous inhuman tone.
Your heart beat so fast you thought it might bruise itself against your ribs. He was too strong. Too fast. You couldn’t match him like this, but you refused to stop trying. He shifted behind you and reached for his cuffs, his mouth coming close to your ear.
“Keep making those noises and I might do something the Council would strip my rank over.”
You used the moment to slam your heel down on his foot. He flinched, not much, but enough. His grip tightened around one wrist, and your other hand slipped free.
The jetpack roared to life between your shoulder blades. For a second, neither of you had control. You fought upward while he fought to drag you back down, the rooftop of your safehouse coming closer with every violent pull.
Then his saber cut through the jetpack.
Heat burst behind you. Something inside the jetpack melted and malfunctioned. There was a glowing gap in the metal now. You are basically cooked.
If you kept fighting him like this, he might not turn you in alive.
The only difference was that now he was in your domain.
You broke for the balcony and slid into the room through the open window. When you looked back, he was still behind you, relentless, fast and swallowing the space between both of you.
You counted the rhythm of his steps. Your breath. The timing. One more turn. Two more seconds.
Then.
SLAM.
Metal screamed shut behind him. And in front of him.
He skidded to a stop.
The corridor sealed tight. A trap sprung clean. Heavy containment doors. Durasteel bars wrapped in ion shielding. He didn’t hesitate. He threw himself at the barrier, teeth bared, saber blazing to life in a furious growl of blue.
But when the blade struck the bars, it flickered. Sparks spat from the edge. Then it died.
The shielding ate the plasma alive. Your design, custom, expensive and worth every credit. Forged in the black markets of Nar Shaddaa.
He struck again, harder this time.
Nothing.
His saber couldn’t cut through it. Wouldn’t even touch it.
“Don’t like cages, do you?” you asked.
Your tone came out cooler than you felt. You couldn’t help the small smile tugging at your mouth. The power shift was sudden enough to make you dizzy.
Gas leaked from the wall seams, thin and colourless. He noticed too late. His attention snapped to the vents. Then to you.
You stepped closer, adjusting your gas mask as the filter clicked into place. “I didn’t want to do this,” you said softly.
“But you kept chasing.”
He glared.
“You think this will hold me?”
“Not forever. Just long enough.”
He paced once. He didn’t look away.
His mouth curled into something between a threat and a promise.
“Let me out. Now.”
“And ruin the fun?”
He stepped closer to the bars, near enough for you to feel the heat coming off him.
You could count the veins in his wrist.
“You’re playing a game you don’t understand.”
“You’re so cute,” you whispered. “When you’re this helpless.”
His hand slammed against the bar.
You flinched. Just enough.
He saw it.
“Let me out,” he said again, lower this time. “And maybe I won’t kill you.”
“Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about it,” you murmured, stepping closer. “Don’t pretend you haven’t wanted to.”
That stopped him. Just for a second.
Then he did something you weren’t expecting.
He reached for you with the force. It wrapped around your waist and pulled, slow and sharp, as if a leash had snapped tight. Your boots scraped across the floor until you were against the bars, inches from him.
Fury came off him in waves. The need to control. The need to burn.
“Get in here,” he growled, “and I’ll show you what I want.”
His voice came through the bars, hot and rough.
In one quick move, you flicked a syringe from your sleeve and drove it into the inside of his wrist.
His face changed as he tried to pull away, but it was already done.
He stumbled back, breath catching, focus flickering. “What. What the fuck did you...”
“Sedative. Quick acting.”
“You bitch.”
He dropped to one knee, still trying to stay upright. Still reaching for the saber at his hip.
Still fighting.
Then he collapsed.
Hard.
You watched him for a long, quiet second. He wasn’t unconscious yet. Not fully. His eyes stayed open, barely, giving you the strangest lost puppy look you had ever seen.
“I don’t normally do this,” you murmured, crouching beside him. “God. Why am I...”
The words died in your throat.
He blinked.
Your smile came slowly. Wicked. Like you had won more than the fight.
“You’re Anakin, right?”
Still no answer.
“Puppy lost his words?”
You turned your back and let his uneven breathing fill the room while he fought to stay awake on the floor.
Then you were gone.
All he had left was your voice in his head and the taste of failure burning behind his teeth.
⸻
Dread burns through your veins. Not because you trapped him, but because your heart is screaming.
‘What if he wakes up? What if the sedative wasn’t enough..?’
You can still feel the ghost of his forcegrip, a phantom handprint burning at your waist, promising that if he ever gets his real hands on you, the next thing you’ll feel is the wall at your back and his breath in your ear, saying you did this to yourself.
The air’s thin now with the temperature dropping. Every drip in the pipes sounds like a countdown. Somewhere behind the wall, machinery groans. Or is that just his breathing? You’re not sure. The door’s unlocked. You haven’t left yet. Outside, rain hammers the skylight like it’s trying to get in, or like it’s trying to drown what you’re about to do.
The only warmth left in the room comes from his chest, a thin strip of skin bare where the robe has slipped. Your fingers part the heavy fabric wider, slow, each inch of exposed skin a confession you’re too far gone to take back. Muscle meets the dim, bruised light of your quarters. You watch goosebumps ripple across his sternum, down his abs, each ridge catching the low amber glow from the wall sconce.
The room is spartan. A narrow, combat issue cot bolted to the bulkhead, thin firm mattress over a polymer frame, no give, no luxury, just enough to keep a soldier off the deck. A single threadbare thermal blanket is shoved to one side.
He shifts. Just a twitch. A low, drugged murmur slips out. Not words. Just sound. Something soft and wounded enough to scrape against your conscience. It cracks something in your chest, and you jerk back half an inch, heart kicking hard because he’s still in there. Still fighting the drug. Still human.
Your hand hovers, trembling. One half of your brain screams ‘tie his wrists tighter, gag him’, run, while the other half already leans closer, dragged in by the warmth of him and the stupid, terrible pull of curiosity.
Desire hits you at full speed, no brakes, until your pulse drums in your throat and your thighs clench so hard they tremble. You swallow. The rain overhead beats harder, almost matching you.
His lips part again. A single syllable muffled by the sedative. It’s enough.
You press two fingers to the pulse under his jaw just to feel it jump. Just to remind yourself he’s alive. Just to remind yourself you’re the one who made him helpless.
Dread and want get mixed up until you can’t tell which one is making your hands shake.
You move closer before you can talk yourself out of it.
His eyelids flutter, thin slits of furious blue locking on you. Not pleading. Not yet. Just pure, molten rage behind the haze. His wrists strain against the cuffs, metal biting skin, a thin line of blood blooming where the durasteel kisses bone.
The door drags open behind you.
“Anakin!”
Obi-Wan’s voice reaches you from afar and then his footsteps get louder, closer, right behind you.
You freeze, hand still too close, his pulse hammering beneath your fingers.
Obi-Wan’s shadow stretches across the cot (one more step and he’ll see everything).
Anakin’s eyes never leave yours.
‘I hate you.’ They burn.