Chapter Text
To say that Ezra had been in worse situations before would be a lie. Sure, there was that one time his old land speeder broke down in the middle of the Tatooine desert when the suns were at their highest, or that other time he got mugged on the way home from the local cantina and was left with nothing but his underwear, but this? This was far worse by comparison. His heart was in his throat as he bolted down the Coruscant streets, his lungs were already burning and his legs growing tired. He cast a glance over his shoulder, and to his horror, his pursuer was still chasing after him, seemingly not even breaking a sweat.
The man was taller than Ezra, and by the looks of it, stronger too. He’d been chased by bounty hunters before, he’d gotten used to the nights spent awake and paranoid, and the days moving in the shadows, but something about this one unnerved him. Maybe it was the helmet obscuring his whole face, or maybe the calculated precision in each of his movements – but the main contender for why he didn’t like the look of this guy was most likely to do with the fact that he had his blaster drawn, and that Ezra’s bounty had very clearly stated he was wanted dead or alive.
Ezra turned a sharp corner, down into a bustling alleyway. He could lose him in the crowd, hide in plain sight - he knew these streets well. One might initially believe that a highly populated planet would be the single worst place for a wanted man to lay low, but by Ezra’s logic, in a place like this there was more spaces to hide, more opportunities to shake off whoever wanted to drag you in for some extra credits. If he could just get to the city centre, if he could just get away from this bounty hunter, he’d be able to get back to his hide out. Maybe go down to the nearest cantina after. Ezra made another sharp turn, weaving through the streets, through neon lights and clusters of people. It was well into night, it was dark, he’d be able to hide and wait until the bounty hunter was gone, he could-
Ezra felt someone grab the back of his shirt, yanking him back full force. The air left his lungs as he was slammed into a wall, looking up only to see his reflection in the metal of his pursuer’s helmet. Damn Mandalorians. Ezra fought in vain against the bounty hunter, but the muzzle of the blaster being pressed into his abdomen quickly encouraged him to give up. His heart thundered as he was handcuffed and promptly dragged back through the streets, earning many looks of both concern and curiosity from the citizens milling about. He struggled feebly, but quickly concluded with a growing dread that he wasn’t going to miraculously break out of the handcuffs. Ezra didn’t know much about Mandalorians and their customs, but what he did know was that they were a people of warriors, and most certainly not to be taken lightly – and Ezra was quite frankly not in the mood to be killed by one of the countless weapons this particular Mandalorian no doubt had concealed.
Eventually, long after Ezra had tired of fighting fate and had been dragged halfway across Coruscant, he was unceremoniously dumped on the floor of the bounty hunter’s ship. The Mandalorian, having anticipated that Ezra would make a mad dash for freedom, began to drag him across the hull. Ezra twisted to look over his shoulder, his heart dropping to his stomach at the sight of the carbon freezing unit set into the ship.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Ezra hurriedly pleaded with him, “I’ll be cooperative! I swear! I won’t run off or- or try to kill you or-,” The bounty hunter sighed heavily, standing still. There was a long pause before he let go of him. “As long as you’re quiet.” Ezra nodded enthusiastically, unable to suppress the nervous grin that spread across his face, “Yes! Silent! Dead quiet! Well, not dead, you know- Just normal quiet! Not-,” The bounty hunter shot him, what he could only assume, was a look, “-Not a.. sound.”
That was how Ezra ended up in the cockpit of the bounty hunter’s ship, sat in one of the two passenger seats and hand cuffed with nothing to do but contemplate what was waiting for him at their destination with growing misery. He had asked the Mandalorian his name, after giving him his own, but wasn’t given any response. All of his other questions had been met with equal silence, and so he resigned to his own thoughts. Ezra had always known, deep down, that he couldn’t avoid it forever. What he’d done would catch up to him, eventually. Ezra had never set out to kill a man. He just wasn’t the type, yet it still happened. An accident, a horrible one, but an accident nonetheless. Ezra had always held out the hope that in the end everything would all come alright, and that he’d be able to go home to his family without any trouble and the whole debacle would be forgotten about. That was, of course, wishful thinking, and Ezra knew deep down that nothing was ever going to be the same again.
Now, because of that damned accident, he was stuck on a ship with an icy Mandalorian and certain doom ahead of him.
He needed some sort of plan, and quick.