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Boba Fett had one simple rule for himself when he took over Tatooine, metaphorically and literally filling the chair that once held a beast much larger than he—don’t be a piece of shit.
It was a simple rule, likely too simple, but hells, after everything he had been through, if he was done with complicated and messy. There had been far too many pieces of shit running the galaxy—not just the Hutts or the Empire—and he had been a willing participant, far beyond any plausible deniability. It was not something he cared about until recently, but then again, he’d had a lot of time to ponder on this in the Sarlacc pit. That, along with other meaningless and useless soliloquies about mortality and the how the galaxy will keep spinning on after they all die and become nothing more than the dust that coats every surface and corner of Tatooine. Lighthearted musings of a dying man.
But fate—or the force, but Boba staunchly refused to acknowledge the existence of the Jedi’s mystical whatever on grounds of principle and spite—had other plans for him. Whatever it was out there, higher power or just plain luck, had given him a second chance at life. He had never understood why, he was not a good person, nor did he have much deep-seated desire to be better.
Even the people in his life who he helped recently in this second chance of his seem to understand this. Fennec Shand was in the same boat as him—rescued off the brink of death by what could only be sheer luck. Cobb Vanth, while a better person than either of them put together, was more than willing to blur morals and ethics to do what needed to be done, perfectly content to exist in the grey to join the endlessly obnoxious do-gooders of the New Republic.
They were pull-the-trigger-first-ask-questions-later type people, and, despite the differences in the journey that brought them there, it was a common ground they stood on together, back-to-back and shoulder-to-shoulder. They took decisive action where it was needed, doing what needed to get done to right the corruption that had festered under the old Republic and had grown out of control under the Empire’s watch. The three of them co-habited in this space, existing on perpetual movement of the next mission and a little too much spotchka. In his own way, they were a part of Boba, like another limb. He couldn’t imagine life without either Fennec or Cobb anymore, and he supposed that counted as love.
His father had existed in that space once, a bounty hunter and catalyst of what would be the Empire’s most successful and most deadly weapon to date, eclipsing even the Death Star in long-scale devastation. The clones had wiped the Jedi almost completely off the map, creating the vacuum of which Palpatine’s accension to power took root. Jango Fett had not been the best man, not objectively anyways, but Boba had adored and admired him anyways in the way a boy did to his father, seeing him as eternal and all-powerful. When he died, the cut of his grief had torn down to his soul, festering in foul rot over the years. To Boba, the loss of his father was a wound that he intended to inflict on everyone around him, and he had, creating a wake of destruction in his path. To the point where, when he had the chance to do right, to be right, he still struggled as the wound had never truly healed. But that was before he met the Mand’alor. Before everything changed.
Din Djarin had been different, as much as the snot-nosed kid they called the Mand’alor now liked to pretend he existed in the same grey morality as them as a (former) bounty hunter, Boba knew the stuff that made up his soul and his heart was different than them. Din Djarin was a good man, and that was why the Mandalorians followed him. Boba was all too happy to let him be the protagonist in his holy quest to reclaim the dead cold rock they once called their homeland. To exist on the periphery of his story and tell himself that it was fate that kept him alive to propel Djarin’s story further. To do his part to save Mandalore by saving the one who would save them.
Or whatever.
Still, that couldn’t be all what Boba Fett did with his second chance, and he tried to redeem himself by taking the jobs with ethical dilemmas that the New Republic hemmed and hawed over, already swamped in the bureaucracy that had been the undoing of the Republic before them. Boba wouldn’t lie, it was thrilling to put a blaster to Imperial officers’ heads and pull the trigger. The part of him that hadn’t healed from watching his father be decapitated, that thirsted for bloodshed until it could drown that child inside of him that screamed, it enjoyed those jobs. It enjoyed taking out that anger, that sense of wrongness for everything that happened to Boba and righting the galaxy to pre-Empire. There was a cold sense of justice that felt right. Felt good. And when he looked at either side of him, see the predatory gleam in Fennec’s eyes, and the triumphant smirk of victory on Cobb’s face, he knew he had chosen the right people to team up with.
They received intel from a variety of sources—it was the only thing bountiful in Tatooine—and took the jobs that Boba knew would give all of them that same thrill they had been downright ravenous for since the war ended, and they certainly didn’t think twice when they received intel of the Imperial remnant group holding children with intents of shipping them off elsewhere.
The First Order, the remnant group had started to call themselves. A pain in my ass, Boba called them. They had been popping up more and more in the peripheries, in ungovernable spaces occupied by chaos left in the Empire’s sudden collapse or whatever criminal willing to be bought for their silence. For a moment, Boba considered turning a blind eye to them out of spite and frustration—they were disorganized and small in numbers, made up of whomever had been unimportant or cowardly enough to survive the collapse of the Empire, and the New Republic didn’t take them as seriously as Boba thought they should. Why would they when so many of the Core Worlds had been more than happy to bend over and present for Palpatine?
But the intel of children being involved? Of whisperings of kids and teenagers vanishing from their beds in the night, disappearing all over in the Outer Rim to be molded into soldiers? Boba couldn’t turn away from that. He wouldn’t. Even if he had never planned on having children of his own, he was still a Mandalorian. Which is how he found himself where he was right then—with what felt like fate giving him a big fat middle finger right in his face and unresolved issues with his father—sitting in the cockpit of Slave 1 and wondering what the hell he and Cobb would tell Fennec later, the rest of the ship packed with kids of all ages they had plucked out of the secret First Order base before turning the base into a crispy crater roughly a mile wide.
It was only until Boba set the coordinates for Corellia—let soft hearted Skywalker and his silver-tongued sister figure this out—when he let himself glance over at the figures in the passenger seat next to him. Cobb had a small bundle wrapped up in his jacket, held tightly in his arms. A boy, no older than three or four years old snoozed in Cobb’s lap, one hand gripping tightly onto Cobb’s shirt, his cheek, still round with baby fat, squished tightly to his chest. As if he was petrified that Cobb would disappear if the boy didn’t grip onto him with the strength of a bantha’s weight. Boba mentally pushed down the surfacing memories of being small and gripping onto a father that he was scared of losing. That he had lost anyways.
“Cobb, we can’t keep him,” Boba tried reasoning, but he knew it was already a lost cause the moment the boy—FN-2187, he had introduced himself as, or Finn, as Cobb started calling him by—had attached himself to Cobb, as if he knew Vanth would throw himself on a lightsaber to save the kid. Boba was starting to realize that he just might too.
“And what? Leave his fate to the New Republic? Hell no,” Cobb snorted, his thumb lightly brushing through Finn’s short and tight curls in a soothing motion.
“And what do you think will happen to the other kids?” Boba asked, but he knew the answer before it left his mouth. Some of the other kids were older, pre-teens and teenagers. They remembered where they came from, what they had once called home and what their names had once been before the First Order tried to mold them into something else. There were several like Finn, with no such memories, only remembering cold steel and unfeeling military drills. He was untethered to anything except the First Order, and the implication of what he meant, of the long game the First Order intended to play, made Boba nauseous. The rest were in the back, less trusting and attached to their rescuers, unsurprisingly, but Finn had latched onto them the moment he met them.
“They’ll be fine. Your Jedi friend will figure it out,” Cobb replied simply.
“Skywalker’s not my friend.” Boba was glad he was still wearing his helmet, and that Cobb couldn’t see the childish scowl on his face, like he was discussing some childhood nemesis, but he knew Cobb could hear it in his voice. Boba wasn’t able to hide much from Cobb these days.
“Fine. Your Mandalorian friend’s friend,” Cobb huffed, rolling his eyes at Boba’s pettiness, as he always did whenever Boba was acting particularly spiteful. Though, he would argue he had a reason when it came to Luke Skywalker in particular. “But I promised Finn that I’d give him a home.”
“He’s not a pet,” Boba argued half-heartedly, and, knowing full well it was a dumb argument, he added, “And Tatooine is no place for a child.”
“I survived,” Cobb said firmly, and Boba heaved a sigh in defeat, because Cobb had a way of getting exactly what he wanted from Boba. Typically, in ways that Boba ended up enjoying, often without clothes, not adding the immense burden of responsibility that came with adopting a child. Cobb hadn’t expressed any desire for fatherhood before, at least not to Boba’s face, but both Cobb and Fennec knew his own hang-ups around fatherhood. Hells, they practically knew his whole soul, turned inside out and laid bare in their hands, but Boba didn’t know who else he’d rather know the chinks in his beskar. There was no one in the galaxy that he trusted more than Cobb and Fennec—Djarin included.
He reached over and gently pushed down the coat collar slightly to gaze on the child’s face. Finn snuffled softly in his sleep, pushing his face more against Cobb almost in protest. He was cute, and he had been incredibly brave for his age, trusting Boba and Cobb even though he had been shaking like a leaf, as if he somehow knew from the first time that his wide eyes laid gaze on them that they were safe. That they’d be better than where he was and where he’d be going if he stayed. He had led the other children his age to follow Boba and Cobb, and the success of the rescue came from the trust that the kids had placed in Finn.
I can feel you, you’re good, Finn had declared firmly in a soft voice with more weight than Boba thought a child that small could. For a brief moment, Boba was reminded of a long-dead Jedi who had been able to command such a room without raising his voice, who had once been renowned for his negotiating prowess.
“Fine, but he’s your problem,” Boba relented, and Cobb grinned at him smugly, and if there wasn’t a small child asleep in his lap, Boba would’ve been tempted to toss him out the airlock. “And you’re telling Fennec.”
Cobb snorted softly, seemingly not at all worried about what Fennec’s reaction to the addition of Finn would be. She’d likely laugh, now that Boba thought of it, because only Cobb Vanth would come home after a violent mission with a brand-new child to call their own without any prior indication or warning. Only he would be dumb enough to be willing to take on that responsibility—though what did that say about Boba for willingly going along with it? He just wasn’t sure how much he was going to inevitably regret this. Because, as he reluctantly yanked his gaze away from Cobb murmuring comfortingly to the sleeping child, he was definitely going to regret this.
--
A Few Months Later
“I think this is the most peaceful transfer of power Tatooine has ever experienced,” Cobb remarked, watching Finn play with the small stuffed ewok that Boba had (reluctantly—or so he told himself) purchased for him on the throne, his tiny form almost comically dwarfed by the enormous chair. His little feet, far from the ground, kicked happily in the air. The throne room, which had once been filled with shadowy figures and a leering darkness, seemed a little brighter in Finn’s presence. Like a piece of the twins suns was caught underneath his skin, casting warmth and light onto everything Finn touched. Even the air seemed lighter, less oppressive, with him around.
“It’s just a chair,” Boba grumbled, and Cobb laughed. Boba could, very easily, walk over and pluck Finn up from off the chair, but the dangers that lurked there were long gone. Anyhow, Finn seemed to enjoy playing on it, and Boba hated spoiling his fun, especially when Finn had only recently perked up to the point where he was at the same level of kids his own age. There had been several long nights of nightmares and Cobb pacing the entire length of the palace with a whimpering Finn held tightly in his arms as he tried to comfort the small and scared child back to sleep. Fennec and Boba had their fair share of comforting Finn, but the boy gravitated towards Cobb the most, and Boba couldn’t help but be endeared every time Finn scrambled into Cobb’s lap or pressed his face into Cobb’s shoulder to push out the images of white armor and severe black uniforms.
They were all adjusting still to the newness of everything, but Boba found that he could no longer able to see a future without Finn in it. Still, they had Luke Skywalker looking into Finn’s background, as he was for all the children that got rescued, since he must have a family still looking for him, even after all these years. It was the right thing to do, even if the thought of Finn no longer being with them was too painful for any of them to discuss for very long.
“Did Finnie finally pull off his coup?” Fennec sidled up next to other two. “Boba, I’m so disappointed, I didn’t expect you to be such a pushover.”
Boba grumbled grumpily under his breath, tugging lightly on Fennec’s braid, but that only seemed to spur her on to continue to tease him relentlessly.
She had been shocked, for obvious reasons, when Cobb brought Finn home the first time, but she had adjusted faster than Boba expected her to, and Finn adored her, even when she made him fetch things she was too lazy to grab for herself. She had been the first one to make Finn laugh, and it had thrown them all for a loop the first time they had heard the bright and happy sound after weeks of shy and quiet smiles. The surprise had only lasted for a half-second until Fennec was trying to get him to laugh more, until Finn was squealing with glee. Cobb had looked like he was about to burst into tears at the sound, and Boba put a warm and grounding hand on his arm, understanding exactly how he felt.
“They grow up so fast,” Cobb teased, making Fennec snort. Finn then noticed the three of them watching him and brightened up considerably, sliding off the chair and bolting towards them. He crashed into Boba’s legs, who was now used to Finn’s attempts to knock him over, grabbing onto them, and grinned his gap-toothed smile up at Boba.
“I was in your chair!” he crowed up to Boba, who leaned down to swing Finn up into his arms. Boba hadn’t realized how underweight Finn had been when they found him, but he had filled out since, the baby fat healthily filling out his arms and legs again, his eyes not as big and hollow-looking in his face, his skin no longer having a grey tinge to it. Boba smiled at the boy—their boy—his forearm supporting the weight of Finn’s body, despite him getting heavier. He knew there would be a time when Finn would no longer want to be carried, would be too big for it, but he wasn’t just yet, and for that Boba was grateful. Let Finn be little for just a while longer. While they still had him.
“You were,” Boba replied, squeezing Finn’s knee between his forefinger and thumb, making the small child giggle. “Do you like it?”
“’t’s big,” Finn said, very matter-of-factly, his words whistling slightly from the loss of the front baby tooth. “Big like you.”
Boba pointedly ignored Fennec and Cobb’s snickers. Assholes. “I gotta fill in it, ad’ika. One day, you’ll be big too, you know.”
“Big ‘nough to fill it?” Finn asked with wide eyes. Boba quickly squashed down any conflicting emotions that question brought up. Ruling Tatooine and the Hutt space was no place for Finn, no place for anyone as good and kind as he was. Boba didn’t know where Finn would end up in the future, when he was fully grown, but he already knew that Finn was destined to do great things for the galaxy. Maybe even be Chancellor.
“Maybe,” he murmured, running a hand through Finn’s tight curls that had started to grow into an adorable cloud around his head. Finn didn’t hear the hesitation in his voice and just smiled brightly at Boba before squirming to be put down. Boba watched wearily as Finn took off like a rocket the moment his feet were on the ground, suddenly feeling withered and ancient. How the kid how so much energy, he would never know.
“Heard from Skywalker today,” Cobb murmured, and Boba felt his stomach drop to his feet with a resounding, nausea-inducing, weight. Still, he forced himself to breathe, since it wasn’t the first time Cobb had spoken with Luke Skywalker regarding his search for Finn’s parents. Luke passed his updates through Cobb after Boba’s icy reception to him the last time they saw each other face to face, an interaction that had been somewhat mutual, despite Luke’s calm and Jedi-esque demeanor. He had sold Luke’s friend off to the Hutts like a shipment of spice cargo. Cobb paused, his face belaying nothing, and he continued, “He thinks he found where Finn came from.”
Boba suddenly felt sick, and he could see Fennec’s face shutter, turning into a stony mask. “So, he found Finn’s parents.”
Cobb sighed, “Yes and no. Yes, in that he thinks he found the village, but no in that they’re all dead. It’s all just a graveyard now, likely wiped out when the First Order swept on through.”
Boba hates how the news sends a cooling rush of relief through his body because he knows the devastation that must’ve been, how terrifying it was for everyone involved to watch their loved ones needlessly slaughtered without a second thought. How horrible for Finn to be completely uprooted from his family and everyone who knew and loved him. But fuck—he was so relieved anyways. Finn could stay. Finn could stay.
“Then this is his home now,” Fennec said simply, seemingly unbothered, but Boba saw the droop in her shoulders, released from the burden of anxiety of potentially losing Finn. Cobb nodded, a small smile on his face, and Boba could kiss him.
“Luke asked me if I wanted him to send over the New Republic adoption forms,” Cobb added with an amused snort, and Boba immediately shook his head.
“I want to do this the Mandalorian way,” he insisted, and Cobb nodded in agreement. Even if neither Cobb nor Fennec were Mandalorian, they trusted the way of the Mand’alor a hell of a lot more than any way of the New Republic.
“That’s what I told him. He seemed to understand,” Cobb replied. Fennec looked thoughtful for a moment, and Boba knew where her train of thought was going.
“Finn Vanth has a nice ring to it,” she said, and Boba bit back a grin at Cobb’s double take.
“It does,” he agreed, and Cobb held up his hands, looking flustered and red.
“Now wait just a moment—he’s all of our kid, not just mine,” he protested, though he seemed more flustered by the idea that they wanted him to be Finn’s primary parent, rather than the idea of adoption itself. No, in all ways except formally, Finn was Cobb’s son.
“Yeah, but Finn Fett-Shand-Vanth is a mouthful, and he likes you best,” Boba shrugged, and Fennec shot him a look.
“I think Finn Shand-Fett-Vanth sounds better—”
“It’s alphabetical.”
“I’ll alphabetical your ass—”
“Y’all!” Cobb cut in before they actually started arguing. “I’m not arguing against it—hell, he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but don’t—”
“Boba and I already decided this a while ago,” Fennec interrupted him with a half-grin. “He’s still our kid, but you were the one he latched onto first.”
“And there’s been more than enough Fetts to last the whole galaxy,” Boba said with a snort, then softened his gaze. “I saw the way he first looked at you, Cobb, and how he looks at you now. It’s your name he should carry.”
They watched as Boba’s words sunk in, how Cobb’s eyes filled with tears at the realization of what it meant, and what it meant to him. He coughed a little awkwardly to hide his sudden overflow of emotion but was unable to keep the smile off of his face, “Yeah, yeah, I’d love for him to—shit, Finn Vanth. Helluva name.”
“He’s a helluva kid,” Boba replied as Cobb pulled them both into a tight hug. Fennec chuckled softly into his chest at the somewhat cheesy display of emotion, though she seemed perfectly happy to reciprocate. Cobb pressed his face into Boba’s shoulder, finally letting the tears fall unseen into the rough fabric of his flight suit. Boba rubbed his back gently, not saying anything to call attention to it, feeling Fennec’s grip on both of them tighten. A family, after all this time, Boba finally had a family to call his own, that he wanted to call his own. Silently, he added a second rule to his mental list—
- Don’t be a piece of shit
- Be a good father for Finn
Maybe his rules were too simple, but with how complicated the galaxy felt sometimes, simple might be exactly what they needed.