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There's a Mandalorian saying: No one cares who your father was, only the father you'll be.
Din takes it to heart.
"You could have a child someday," he says to Grogu, as he fixes a little plate of food just so. "You'll want to make sure he eats right. See?" He points to each item, naming the meemfruit, the crunchy blue daffu leaves, the roasted insects that Din can't face eating but the child seems to love. "It'll be your job to help him grow up strong."
Another time, they're out at noon in a bustling city, not Din's kind of place but he goes where the work is. It's too crowded for the carry-bag here, with people shoving past each other on narrow walkways, so the child's perched in the bend of his arm.
In front of them a little girl stumbles. A man drops to his knee beside her, forcing the traffic to flow to either side, even before she's noticed her skinned knee and begun to cry.
Din pauses to stand behind them, another bulwark against the swift crowd.
"You see?" he says to Grogu, helmet tilting toward the man. "That's what a father does."
The man lifts the little girl into his arms, standing up and speaking to her softly. He nods thanks to Din before he moves on with the crowd.
Din moves on too, continuing his lesson as strangers hurry past. "When you have a child someday, you'll know what to do. You'll protect her, just like that."
Maybe, once, a long time ago, Din thought he'd have a family of his own. A partner and a child who belonged to him, whom he belonged to, too. It never happened.
And the things that did happen made it unlikely that anyone would want to settle down with him, now. That anyone ever could.
"Look," he says to Grogu. The spaceport is all time-stained duracrete and crumbling cinderplast walls, but there is laughter from the landing pad next door. A young Twilek, looking barely old enough to be out on his own, chases his two laughing children around their battered old ship.
I'm getting old, too, Din thinks. They're watching from the ramp of the Razor Crest, and Grogu looks up at Din, questioning why they've stopped there halfway down.
"Look how much fun they're having," Din tells him, solemn, because this is important. "Someday you could have a family, too," he says, "and you'll make sure they know you love them, just like that."
Maybe, once, Din thought he'd be a father, but it didn't work out that way.
Grogu must once have had a father of his own, but there's no one to teach him, now. So Din will stand in as best he can, for whatever time they have, and try his best to give him what he'll need to know.
No one cares who your father was, he thinks each night, as he tucks a soft blanket around tiny shoulders and watches the child's eyes close. Only the father you'll be.