Chapter Text
In his almost seventeen years as a bounty hunter, Cad Bane had yet to meet an employer who fully understood the meaning of freelance.
Oh sure, most of them knew his loyalty was to the credits, knew that he'd only ever be on the side of the highest bidder; and those that were a little slow on the uptake either figured it out soon enough, or were too stupid to be worth his time.
Hell, a couple of his more clever patrons even managed the daunting task of getting it through their thick, pompous skulls that they were far from Cad's only option for employment. He wasn't some desperate grub who had to spend every day kissing the boots of low-level gangsters for a handful of credits (unlike the other asshole slouching around his ship, but that was neither here nor there). Cad Bane was the premier bounty hunter of the galaxy, with a list of vying clientele long enough to stretch from Coruscant to Nal Hutta; he had no reason to bow his head coyly or take any shit from his various bosses, because he was the best they would ever get, and everyone knew it. The sharp bosses, the ones who wanted to keep him on their good side, learned to bite their tongues and treat him with forceful respect just long enough to get the job done so they could all go home and curse the showy pricks they worked with. It suited Cad just fine.
So yes, a select few of his brightest employers, though that was not a very high bar, got close enough to understanding nature of 'freelance'. But there was one tiny, glaring implication that always seemed to slip their minds.
Cad could quit.
Now, don't get him wrong, Cad wouldn't dream of up and leaving in the middle of a job. He was never one to leave business unfinished, and reputation did a whole lot of heavy lifting in his profession. However, his reliability seemed to make people think they were owed his services in the future, that Cad being on next week's payroll was a given.
Needless to say, it was not.
There were plenty of reasons for that: a rotation of clientele helped to spread his reputation, working for one boss could make people mistake him for something of a kept man, a variety of jobs was more interesting than just the one, he had Jango's grub to teach, and so on and so fourth. But there was one simple reason that made all of the other explanations void:
He was Cad Bane, and he could do whatever he damn well pleased.
It didn't matter what credits or praise was thrown his way, what reason he had for walking away, if Cad didn't want to work for a boss again, he would not be working for them again.
Dooku, for all his posturing, was not one of Cad's brightest employers, so he couldn't say he was surprised when the count failed to get these concepts through his geriatric head.
The first time Dooku tried to comm him for another job after the whole Hardeen fiasco, Cad had laughed in his face and told him exactly where he could stick his damn contracts. The sheer audacity of that old windbag to try and get him in on a job after leaving him out to dry on the last one not even a month before should have been shocking, but Cad dealt with his kind plenty.
He wasn't sure what it was about their little powers that made them feel so entitled to the galaxy at large, but every single Force-sensitive he had ever met was, without fail, a privileged asshat. That dusty old stick of a Count, that wrinkled sock freak of nature calling himself 'Sidious', all of those damn Jedi, that angsty Zabrak client, and that immature brat Ventress; Sith or Jedi or whatever the hell else they want to call themselves, all those Force-users liked to walk around like they owned the galaxy.
None of Dooku's thoughtless ego-shows could really surprise Cad anymore, they sure could still piss him off though. There was a certain unspoken exchange between a bounty hunter and his employer, that the hunter wouldn't kill his boss, and the boss wouldn't screw over the hunter, and Dooku had thrown that basic workplace decency out the window when he left Cad to the Jedi's deceit. After escaping prison (again, this time with a hissing idiot-lizard and a moody preteen in tow), he wanted nothing more to do with that crusty wannabe-Sith. If Dooku wanted Cad for another job, he better be prepared to get down on his creaky, ancient knees and beg him.
Naturally, Dooku hadn't gotten the memo, and so ensued weeks of Cad ducking the Count's persistent comms. Dooku seemed to think that he simply had to wear Cad down until he agreed, like some degenerate in a consent PSA (Jango had made him sit in and watch one of those holovids during that part of Boba's education, because apparently the infamous and nonchalant top bounty hunter was too embarrassed to be alone when teaching his kid about fucking. It was mortifying for all parties involved).
Of course, Dooku was wrong. Cad wasn't a man who could be whittled down with mean words and pestering, and he was hardly short enough on potential employers to go crawling back to the head Sep after the stunt he pulled. Admittedly, the war had made his pool of clients shrink a bit, if only because everyone was picking between two sides and trying to limit him to the same criteria. But, unfortunately for that coffin-warmer Dooku, there were still plenty of senators that needed assassinating and supplies that needed smuggling and a good chunk of potential employers that couldn't care less about the Clone Wars.
So no, Cad wasn't strapped for credits, and there was no way in hell he would be coming to heel for Dooku. The sooner the Count got that through his head and left Cad alone, the better.
Apparently, today was not the day that would be happening.
"Bane, Someone's trying to get through on the comm systems!" Boba shouted from the Justifier's cockpit.
"Answer it! And if it's Dooku again, tell him to go fuck himself!" He called back. Cad would like to be at least a little drunk before he jumped back into that pile of Bantha shit.
"I'm not your secretary, old man! Answer your own comms!"
This punk ass kid…Every day Cad lived with this back-talking, free-loading kid was another day he spent wondering how Lazlo wasn't popping him in the mouth more when he was Boba's age.
Cad grumbled to himself as he stalked into the cockpit, shooing Boba from his chair with a flick to the head, and clicked the comm line open.
"Cad Bane, at your service."
"The Shadow Collective requests an audience with you on Mandalore, regarding a potential job opportunity."