Chapter Text
Somewhere in this mountain stronghold was the gleaming presence of his son. It was clouded now, obscured by the fear and bloodlust oozing from the criminals packed around the perimeter of the cavernous hall he strode into. His footsteps rapped sharply over the murmurs of the crowd and the hiss of his respirator ricocheted off the stone walls and ceiling.
Ahead of him, seated on a raised dais like he fancied himself a king of his pathetic band, was the leader of the small crime syndicate that had captured Luke, an aging human male called Mercillo. At first glance he appeared underwhelming, but his eyes were sharp and Vader knew these men would not follow his lead without reason.
“You are holding a Rebel boy here,” Vader said. It was not a question. “I am taking him with me.”
Mercillo leaned forward and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. His voice was harsh, with an accent Vader didn’t recognize. “And what is the Empire willing to pay for this Rebel?”
“His bounty is well known. The credits will be transferred--”
“I find that sum...insufficient.”
Vader was struck dumb for a moment. No one had dared interrupt him in...he couldn’t actually remember. “I am not here to negotiate,” he said. “I am here to collect what is mine.”
Mercillo nodded, his eyes glittering in the dim light. “I wonder,” he said slowly, “what an interested bidder might be willing to pay for both of you.”
Rage roared through Vader’s veins like floodwaters through a canyon, and he lashed it out and around Mercillo’s throat. No one was going to keep him from his son.
Mercillo didn’t flinch, didn’t seem frightened, simply raised one hand into the air. As one, the men around him raised their blasters. Vader turned, Mercillo’s throat still caught in the noose of his rage, and prepared to fight. He would destroy each and every one of these fools and then he would--
Would what? He could hear Luke yelling on Cymoon - you killed my father - his face twisted in rage. It had made him powerful and would serve him well in his training, but the fact of the matter now was that his son hated him.
He did not want Luke to hate him. He wanted to be Luke’s ally, not his enemy.
“Well,” he said calmly. He opened his fist, released his grip on Mercillo’s throat, and raised his hands in surrender. “I know when I am beaten.”
They took his lightsaber (laughable), bound his hands (meaningless), and escorted him under armed guard (absurd) to a cell deep within the rock-hewn base. Luke was inside, blazing like a sun.
Almost his for the taking.
“Boss says to wait here,” a guard said. He wore cannibalized stormtrooper armor with red and black markings painted on, and Vader wondered idly if the wearer had defected or had stolen the armor off a dead trooper.
“I look forward to hearing the terms your leader is able to negotiate for my release,” he said. The guard grunted in response, either not noticing or not responding to the scathing undertones in his voice.
The cell door creaked open and Vader strode forward, eager to see Luke at last, to have time to really look at the boy without lightsabers between them, to finally--
Luke lay in a heap on the floor, bound hands twisted awkwardly beneath him.
Vader whirled back on the guard, who lacked both the good sense and self-preservation instinct necessary to seem concerned. “What happened?”
“Tried to escape,” the man said, far too blithely for Vader’s liking. “Didn’t get too far.”
“How long has he been in here?”
“Long enough for you to come after him, I guess.”
Vader glowered and resolved to kill this one slower than the rest.
The door creaked shut again and gave a slight jolt as ray shields engaged over it. It would seem the facilities here were not entirely prehistoric. No matter; ray shields were no match for him.
Vader tore his binders off and mentally tossed them aside, then knelt carefully next to Luke and rolled him onto his side. The boy was breathing evenly and Vader didn’t see - or sense - any obvious injuries; he was either stunned or sleeping. Either way, everyone within a fifty klick radius should count themselves lucky he wasn’t seriously injured. Vader would have brought the entire mountain down around them otherwise.
He rested a hand on Luke’s forehead, about to wake him, then hesitated. He would allow himself a moment of weakness, just this once. He might never have this chance again.
Slowly, carefully so he didn’t wake the boy, Vader brushed Luke’s hair off of his forehead. Luke’s eyelids fluttered, but he did not wake. Emboldened, Vader ran his fingers through the blond strands once more, then cupped his son’s cheek. He looked so like his mother, so like his father had once looked. Luke was powerful, he was perfect, and he was his.
Vader rested his hand back on Luke’s forehead (with no more hesitation; it was past time to leave this place) and pushed a burst of energy into the boy’s mind. Luke gasped and surged upwards, bound hands grasping clumsily at Vader’s arm before his face. Vader eased him further upright with a hand on his back, noting how his fists clenched and his breath came in ragged gasps. He loosened his death grip on Vader’s arm and clutched at his forehead instead.
Vader realized belatedly that his method of awakening Luke had likely been somewhat painful. No matter. The boy would recover quickly, and being gentle would have wasted more time.
“Enough,” he rumbled. Luke’s head snapped up to stare at him, his eyes huge and panicked. He tried to scramble back, but lost his footing with his hands bound and fell. Vader rose to stand, grabbing Luke by the arm and hauling him upright as well. The boy swayed on his feet, then shoved himself away from Vader and into the wall behind him.
“What’s happening? What did you do to me?” Luke was clearly agitated. Vader would have to put him at ease quickly, otherwise they would be in here for far longer than he cared to be.
“Nothing serious. The pain will subside in time.”
“It sure feels serious,” Luke groused. “What are you doing here?”
Vader rolled his eyes. Were all twenty-year-olds this dramatic? Had he been this dramatic at that age? “I came to collect you from these criminals--”
“To buy me, you mean.”
Offence arced up Vader’s spine. How dare he even suggest-- “A bounty is entirely different--”
“You’re paying money for me and taking away my freedom,” Luke shot back. “It’s not different at all."
Vader’s hand snapped out and caught Luke around the jaw, effectively cutting off any further outbursts. The boy’s eyes widened, fear finally beginning to bleed through the anger that had been radiating off of him until now. Fear was good. Fear would, eventually, turn into respect. And respect could one day turn into loyalty. Not love, certainly, but something close to it.
And in return, he would give his child the galaxy.
“You make too many assumptions,” he said. “I will lead you to a destiny greater than you have ever imagined.”
Something shifted in Luke’s eyes at that, as his fear was replaced by defiance. “Whatever you’re offering,” he ground out through the pressure of Vader’s grip on his jaw, “I’m not interested.”
Vader leaned forward, looming over the boy as he shrank further back towards the wall. “We shall see.” Satisfied that he had made his point, he dropped Luke’s face and stepped back. “Now, we must find a way out of this place.”
Luke looked up at him as he rubbed his jaw. “Have you thought about the door?”
“The door is locked and ray shielded, Skywalker.”
“Plus at least a few guards outside,” Luke added, then frowned as he put the pieces together. “Wait--are you locked in here too?”
Vader nodded. Here, at last, Luke would see the wisdom of working with him instead of against him. “Mercillo wishes to extract a higher bounty from the Empire for both of us, a mistake he will soon regret.”
He expected to see Luke’s jaw set in determination, his eyes brighten in anticipation of the challenge ahead. Instead, the boy dropped his face into his hands and laughed.
“Is something funny?” he asked tersely.
Luke glanced back at him. “These guys aren’t exactly running a professional operation here. You expect me to believe they captured Darth Vader?”
“They captured you.”
Luke shrugged. “Yeah, probably because I tried to talk my way out when they found me and I don’t really have the reputation you do.”
“Perhaps my reputation is the problem,” Vader said mildly. “I underestimated their skill and overestimated my own.”
Luke eyed him skeptically. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Believe what you will, Skywalker,” Vader snapped. His patience was, once again, wearing thin. The only reason he hadn’t thrown Luke over his shoulder and stormed out of this place already was the memory of the hatred in the boy’s eyes. “I plan on leaving without further delay, and require your assistance.”
Luke laughed again, but this time there was no humor in it. A trace of the hatred and anger that Vader had seen at their first meeting crept into his eyes and the set of his jaw. “You can’t be serious. You called me pathetic on Cymoon. You said I wasn’t worth the time it would take to kill me.”
Ah, so his words had left a wound. Good. Wounds could be exacerbated, but they could also be healed. “I dismissed you too quickly on Cymoon. Once trained, your power will be unmatched.”
Even through red-tinted lenses, he didn’t miss the faint color that touched Luke’s cheeks. “Ok, well…” He flexed his hands in their bindings, as if he wanted to fidget but could not. “I’m glad you know that. Because I’m going to avenge my father someday. I swear it.”
Anger coiled around Vader, his own and Luke’s blending together. The mixture was potent and he let it drift towards the boy, whose shoulders stiffened as the darkness enveloped him as well. “If you seek to punish those who wronged Anakin Skywalker,” he said tightly, “I am not your target.”
“You don’t think killing him counts as a wrong?”
“I think you have been lied to, Skywalker. We both have.”
Luke took a step back as if he’d been struck. “What--what are you talking about?”
Vader whirled away, his cape snapping about his ankles, and strode over to examine the shielded door. Let the boy wonder - just for now. “We do not have time for this. There are few creatures who would dare pay a bounty for my capture, but they are not men to be trifled with.”
“But--”
“You will live longer with me than with any of them, Skywalker, I assure you.”
He sensed the sigh before he heard it. “Fine.” Luke approached the door to stand near - but not too near - him. “How can I help?”
“You tried to escape once already. Tell me how.”
Luke nodded. “I made it all the way to the lift, but it’s shielded too. I didn’t realize - ended up flat on my back.”
Vader glanced down at him. “You did not sense danger before touching the lift door?”
“I did, but it…” Luke’s brow furrowed and his eyes grew distant. “There was danger coming from the door, and behind the door, and beyond…” He shook his head slightly as he came back to himself. “It was everywhere.” He looked up at Vader then, fixing him with a glare. “Maybe that was when you came in upstairs.”
The corner of Vader’s mouth quirked up, almost into a smile. Petulant - but clever. “And how did you get through the cell door?”
Luke gestured at a barred cutout towards the top of the door, ostensibly for passing rations through. “The control panel for the door is right outside. My arm can just squeeze through the gap in those bars, so with a little twisting I was able to get the panel open and hotwire the lock.”
“Impressive,” Vader had to admit. “You hotwired by feel?”
“A little bit of feel, a little bit of luck.” “The Force,” Vader corrected. “Not luck.” Luke’s cheeks colored again, but he nodded. Truly, the boy had no idea how powerful he would be once trained - how powerful he already was. “And the ray shields on the cell door?”
“They didn’t turn those on until you showed up.”
There was a layer of sullenness in Luke’s voice - affront that he alone had not been taken seriously enough to warrant better security. The child’s offense warmed something in Vader in a way he couldn’t quite understand.
“No matter,” he said brusquely. Warmth would not unlock the doors. “We will do the same.”
“Wait, hold on,” Luke protested. “I can’t get my arm through the bars with my hands bound, there are guards outside this time, not to mention the shields!”
“None of that concerns me,” Vader said, and to emphasize the point he sent Luke’s binders clattering to the floor with the barest manipulation of the Force. Luke looked impressed for a moment, then suspicious again.
“If you can do that so easily, why not unlock the door yourself?”
In truth, he could have escaped the entire mountain with Luke in tow in the time it had taken to have this conversation. Still, best to let Luke feel useful.
“I will use the Force to dispense with the guards and disrupt the shields. You must then reach through the bars and unlock the door. You have done it once; it will be fastest for you to do it again.”
Luke nodded, but still looked suspicious. “What are you going to do about the guards?”
Vader reached out beyond the walls of the cells. Four guards - two at the cell door, two at the lift down the corridor - plus other, simpler life forms beyond and above them. Ones he hadn’t sensed before.
Curious.
But not worth investigating now. Now…
He flicked his fingers and four necks snapped. Luke sucked in a breath and his face went ashen.
“What did you do?” His voice was shaking.
“I dispensed with the guards.”
“Did you have to kill them?”
“Killing them is the only way to be sure they will not interfere with our escape. An enemy left alive is a loose end, Skywalker.”
Luke raised his chin and glared. “So how long do I get to stay alive before I’m a loose end?”
“You--” Vader growled and took a step forward, then stopped. Luke stood his ground and maintained his glare, but his presence was trembling like a leaf in the wind.
He was wildly brave and maddeningly foolish, and Vader was suddenly deeply, intensely proud of this boy he had created.
Luke was still glaring, although his trembling presence had stilled somewhat - no doubt sensing the softening of Vader’s own, and reacting with confusion and wariness. “You are not, and will never be a loose end,” he said at last. “Despite what you have been told, we are not enemies.”
“I’m a Rebel and a Jedi -- sort-of-Jedi, at least. How are we anything other than enemies?”
Because you do not yet understand, Vader thought. Perhaps Luke heard, because his brow furrowed and his eyes darted from side to side. But they had no time now for him to help Luke understand, so he played his role and said “Rebel and sort-of-Jedi are both things that can be changed in time.”
Luke’s eyes grew wide. “You’re crazy,” he breathed. “What do you want?”
The answer to that question was too big, too much to answer in the time they had now - even though it could be distilled to one word:
You.
But first, he wanted Luke to stop looking at him with such suspicion and borderline hostility, and for that, he needed--
“I want us to leave this cell, now.” He turned back to the door and placed his hand on the rock wall beside it, stretching out to locate the components of the shield generator. “I will--”
“Why do you keep doing that?” Luke snapped.
Vader turned back, genuinely perplexed. “Doing what?”
“Dropping some cryptic hint about things I don’t know - which I assume have to do with you killing my father - and then changing the subject when I ask questions!”
“I am not changing the subject,” Vader snapped back. His patience balanced on a knife’s edge, and hearing Luke again refer to the poison he had been fed about Anakin Skywalker’s death made it that much more difficult to maintain his fragile control.
“Yes you are,” Luke retorted, “because…” His eyes narrowed slightly and Vader felt, for an instant, unmoored. “Because something is bothering you right now, and it’s not just getting through the door.”
Vader slammed his shields up and Luke staggered back as if a physical wall had arisen between them. “You have no idea what you’re speaking of,” he growled.
“I would if you would just--”
“Enough.” He didn’t raise his voice - couldn’t chance being overheard by any security monitoring - but dropped his shields again and let every ounce of his rage and impatience pour into that one word and into the air around them. “I will answer all of your questions once we are away from here. Until then, do not test me.”
Luke was shivering by now, his breath crystalizing in the air, but there was still a fair amount of defiance in his voice when he said, “fine, but I won’t forget this. And when I escape, I’m still going to expect those answers someday.”
“You will not escape,” Vader swore. Nor will you want to followed unspoken.
Luke smiled cheekily. “Watch me.”
“I would prefer to watch you unlock this door.”
Luke’s smile turned into a smirk. “I can’t do that until you take care of the shields.”
Vader was left dumbstruck. Did this reckless child have no fear for his own safety? Or could he already sense, on some level, that Vader would not harm him?
With a grumble that was more for show than truly felt, Vader returned to the wall and stretched into the components of the shield generator. Gentle nudges from the Force here and there, and…
The door seemed to flicker for a moment as the shield generator malfunctioned, then the humming noise ceased. “At your convenience, Skywalker.”
Luke huffed a small laugh, reached up for the barred window, then stopped. His face fell and his dismay filled the room.
“What is it?”
“They took the rock I was standing on. There were some loose stones in here that I piled up against the door. I can’t--” He stopped, color staining his cheeks, and shoved his hands into the pocket of his jacket. “I can’t reach without them,” he muttered.
The only thing that stopped Vader from laughing was the fact that he had not done so in twenty years. But to see his son dance around admitting that he was too short…
It reminded him of Padme, so small but so strong, and thinking of her hurt. But for once, the hurt was accompanied by something that was almost tender instead of angry. This moment was very nearly a good moment, rather than one steeped in despair.
And it was all because of his son.
If you could only see him, Padme. You would be amazed.
Slowly, he dropped to one knee in front of the door. “Stand on my leg.”
“What? No,” Luke protested. “I’m heavier than I look; I don’t want to hurt you.”
“And I am stronger than I look, child. Stop wasting time and climb.”
“You already look pretty strong,” Luke muttered as he grabbed the bars above his head.
“Precisely.”
Luke put a foot onto Vader’s thigh, swung himself upwards using the bars set into the door, then rested his other foot onto Vader’s thigh and shifted until he found his balance. Truth be told, it did hurt; despite that the boy was certainly not heavier than he looked, his weight put pressure on the substandard connection between his thigh and his prosthetic. Still, he relished the fact that Luke was willingly standing this close to him without fear, and when the boy nearly lost his balance it was simple enough to reach up and steady him with a hand on his back. Luke froze for a moment - even untrained, he had to feel the way the Force shivered around them at the moment of contact - then ducked his head and began to wriggle his arm through a narrow opening in the bars. He worked in silence for a few moments, shoulder twisted in a way that had to be painful and eyes squeezed shut in concentration.
“Gotcha,” Luke finally whispered and there was an audible click as the door unlocked. He hopped down from Vader’s leg and stretched his shoulder while Vader rose stiffly to his feet.
“Well done,” he said, and Luke actually smiled.
“Thanks for the boost.”
The door creaked open in response to Vader’s Force push, revealing two dead guards and an otherwise empty corridor. Luke looked at their bodies with a grimace.
“I still don’t think--”
“Your objection is noted, Skywalker,” Vader snapped and swept past him.
“You’re avoiding the conversation again,” Luke huffed from behind him.
Vader whirled back, one finger waving sternly at Luke’s face. “You are impertinent.”
“And you’re stubborn,” Luke retorted, then his eyes widened as if he couldn’t believe his own nerve.
Vader was once again struck by the wave of pride and good humor prompted by Luke’s impulsive, reckless bravery, despite the fear and unease he could still sense coiled inside the boy. He lowered his finger. “Perhaps I am.”
Luke blinked in surprise.
“Now, come,” Vader ordered, but put a hand on Luke’s shoulder to guide him away from the guard’s bodies.
“Ok, but you’re still doing it,” Luke muttered.
Under his mask, despite how it pulled at his scars, Vader smiled.