Chapter Text
This wasn’t the first mission Kylo had been sent on to investigate Force-sensitives. Most were only vaguely aware of their powers, barely able to wiggle a small object and just empathic enough to read someone slightly better than a Force-null. They were found and monitored, in case any of them became too powerful and refused to join the Order. Fortunately, it hadn’t come to that, yet.
He could sense someone nearby on the planet and they were much more powerful than any of the others that Kylo had sought out. Their raw power was impressive, enough to begin training if they wanted it, and enough to cause some trouble if they were hostile.
It didn’t take long for Kylo to figure he was close enough. He landed, and he could sense the being coming closer. It was then he noticed that there wasn’t one, but two. One weaker and one stronger. He reached out to them with the Force and rather than retreating, their energy greeted his with relief and excitement. They were happy he was here. They wanted to leave with him.
Kylo was taken aback by how eagerly they responded to him. They seemed to be expecting him, longing for him, and Kylo had never felt anything like it before. His own mother had never let her energy greet him with such overwhelming need for him.
Were they in trouble? Kylo felt they must be, eagerly awaiting their rescuer. He left the command shuttle behind and went to look for the two, knowing they were nearby, but wanting to see who they were and confirm that they were alright. He obviously didn’t have to fear an attack. The two were unabashedly eager to see him, calling and reaching out to him with their thoughts and feelings.
He caught sight of them as one of them came running over the hill up ahead. It was a boy, wearing a bundle across his front and came towards Kylo as fast as he could. He looked up, relieved and excited all at once to see him because…
Kylo caught his thoughts. They were audacious, ridiculous, surely not to be believed, but he could sense that it was the truth. More than that, the boy’s face was proof of his unspoken claim. The boy panted, suddenly stopping as fear of rejection and disbelief gripped him. He stopped a few feet from Kylo, his dark brown curls tossed and disheveled and his green eyes shining with tears of exhaustion and relief. When he stopped moving, the bundle stirred. Kylo heard an infant beginning to whimper and knew he’d found the second.
The boy looked up at him, his mouth opening and closing before hanging open uselessly, unable to begin explaining what had happened to him.
Kylo held out a hand, “You don’t need to explain. Come with me, I’ll take you home.”
***
They kept secrets from each other, Hux knew that, but this was something entirely unexpected.
Ren returned from his latest mission, investigating the sudden appearance of a powerful Force-sensitive being, and he wasn’t alone. He’d found the being and brought it with him, and it wasn’t what Hux had been expecting at all. A child. Two children, upon further inspection. The older of the two appeared to be about eleven or twelve, and was… there was no getting around it, he looked almost exactly like Kylo. His face was flecked with moles and his dark, wavy hair threatened to reach his shoulders. His eyes were slightly different, green instead of brown, but the rest of his features were like a copy of the knight of Ren. Large lips, a long, slightly crooked nose and big ears gave Hux a sinking feeling in his stomach.
A sling hung from the boy’s shoulder, and inside was another child, just a baby from the look of it. So Ren had two children. They were obviously his. There was no way a Force-sensitive child who looked so much like Kylo could have been fathered by anyone else, and it was only logical to assume that the baby was the boy’s sibling.
Hux gritted his teeth behind his lips as Kylo approached, trailing behind the boy. They had never discussed their former lovers, or current ones as the case seemed to be, opting to only disclose that they were both free from sexually transmitted diseases. They weren’t at the age where it was common to have their firsts, and Hux wasn’t naïve enough to think Kylo didn’t have any previous partners. However, since Ren had never mentioned anyone Hux had assumed that he was the only one who the knight was intimate with at that time.
Obviously he hadn’t been. Kylo had someone on the side. Someone he’d started a family with…
Not bothering with his mask was something Hux wished the knight hadn’t done. He hated how he could see just how impartial Kylo seemed to the whole thing. Hux supposed that what they did together was meant to be a meaningless diversion, but this bothered him. He couldn’t figure out why; this just stung, a lot.
“Hux, this is my son,” said Kylo, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“I can see that,” said Hux, unlocking his jaw long enough to speak and trying not to sound invested in the conversation. “I ought to have known that you had an illegitimate child somewhere.”
“He’s your son too,” added Kylo.
Hux looked down with the boy. He seemed to be wanting to say something with the way his mouth hung open and he backed up against his father. He wasn’t denying his father’s ridiculous story. Armitage Hux had no children. None of his previous partners were women, and he was certain he would have notice if someone had stolen his DNA to experiment on. If this was Kylo’s way of saying that his girlfriend had dumped his children on him and now expected Hux to help raise them, it wasn’t going to end well.
“Why don’t we speak about this plainly, in private,” said Hux, trying not to glare down on the children. It wasn’t their fault that their father had them out of wedlock and then gallivanted off to space. If the boy was about eleven or twelve that would have meant that Kylo conceived him when he himself was in his teens. It seemed all the stories about degenerate New Republican youths were shaping up to be true.
“If you like,” conceded Kylo, and patting the boy on the shoulder whispered, “Come on Archie.”
Walking through the halls it was everything Hux could do not to lose his temper. He tried to remind himself that the children weren’t at fault for their father. If he was going to be angry with Kylo than he would do it while he had the man alone. One thing was certain, he wasn’t raising Ren’s children for him. If the knight wanted someone else to raise them so badly, they could be raised alongside the rest of the Order’s children.
Upon reaching his quarters, Hux ushered them inside. The children had been seen the moment they stepped off the shuttle, there was no sense hiding them or pretending they weren’t related to Kylo. Hux watched as the boy, Archie, made a beeline for his ice blue couch, as if it were familiar to him, and settled down, carefully removing the sling and settling his younger sibling in his lap. Finally getting a good look at the infant, Hux could see she had wisps of golden hair growing in.
Turning his attention back to Kylo he declared, “I’m not raising your children for you.”
“Hux-” Kylo began.
“If you wanted me to be involved with them then you ought to have mentioned them before. I don’t have the time or energy to devote to them,” said Hux firmly.
“Hux, they’re yours,” Kylo countered.
“No, they’re yours. Spending the odd night together doesn’t mean anything,” argued Hux. He leaned in and added with a growl, “And if you wanted it to mean something, this is the worst way to broach the topic.”
“You aren’t listening. They’re. Yours.”
Hux crossed his arms and glared up at Kylo, “Are they now?”
Kylo looked at the boy, “Archie, tell him what you told me, it’s alright.”
The boy looked over the back of the couch towards them. He floundered for a moment, looking for somewhere to put his brother or sister. Eventually he decided to carry his younger sibling with him, jogging over to Kylo’s side. Hux didn’t like the way the boy looked at him. He seemed… pitying. He was upset, but upset for Hux, rather than with him.
The boy took a breath and said, “I’m not from your timeline.”
Hux glared at Kylo, “Did you tell him to say that?”
“Hux, he’s telling the truth. I can sense whether or not someone is lying and he’s being honest with us,” argued Kylo, “He’s ours.”
Hux crossed his arms and looked down at the boy, “Alright, then explain how you traveled through time to me.”
He seemed to catch the boy in his lie as Archie replied, “I… I can’t. I didn’t do it, Mebh did.”
“The infant?” Hux guessed.
Archie shrank back again, “She used so much of her power that we… it all happened so fast. We changed.”
Kylo let the boy hide behind him, but crouched to take the baby from him. Hux kept his arms crossed, glaring at Kylo. Not only had the knight kept an illegitimate family hidden, he was forcing a child to lie for him.
“Did you have to bring them here? This ship isn’t a playground,” said Hux. He kept his eyes fixed on Kylo, “I want the truth. So who is the unfortunate mother?”
“I suspect you are,” Kylo countered.
“That isn’t funny!” snapped Hux.
“I agree,” said Kylo, pulling the sling away from the baby’s face, “But this one thinks otherwise.”
Hux felt as if he might faint. He had seen pictures of himself as a child and this infant looked… she looked exactly like him! Not just the red-gold colour of her hair, but her freckles, the shape of her nose, and the arch of her brow. The only feature that didn’t mirror his own were her eyes. Those were a dark brown, just like Ren’s.
She looked at him and smiled, recognizing him immediately. Hux felt himself freeze as she let out a soft, gurgling, “Ma!”
For once, Hux found himself too shocked to speak.