Chapter Text
The building slowly collapsed, eclipsed by dozens of ships escaping the bombing. Luke hated watching the collapse, even if he knew there were no people inside, but a part of him stung at how violent some the missions were. The fact that the Executor was hovering near the system they were in didn't help at all.
He took his gloves off and rubbed his fingers to ease the tension that came with sending the fatal shot. “Prepare to jump to hyperspace. The job's done guys.” he said melancholically. He wanted to get out of there as fast as possible, and he simply refused to watch the work of millions of slaves get destroyed by his own hand.
It was for a cause, he repeated to himself, the Empire was not any better. He watched as twenty X-Wings disappeared and introduced the coordinates to jump to hyperspace with shaky hands. He looked at them, and then saw that his legs were equally shaking. Something inside him was screaming to get out of there, now.
“We need to leave!” he shouted.
A pilot spoke. “Yeah, what’s wr–”
The voice was interrupted by an explosion and Luke's heart skipped a few beats. No matter how many times he had experienced this same image, it still brought him pain. He turned the ship around and saw dozens of TIE fighters approaching his small fleet, and he panicked.
“Get out of here!” he shouted, “The second you’re out of sight, jump into hyperspace and inform High Command of the attack.”
“But–”
Another explosion. “Go! Now!”
Luke flew right past the barricade of TIEs that were approaching the planet with inhuman agility, and for a moment he thought that his father might be watching him from the Executor. But he wasn't, he couldn’t be, because his father would rather chop off his own head than see Luke in any danger.
Luke felt a shiver run down his spine, because without his most proficient bodyguard, not even infiltrated in the Empire because his father was the Empire, Luke was panicking.
They had to get out of there.
He avoided getting shot as he flew straight to the Executor, flying below it. The canons fired at him, and he barely managed to avoid the blasts. He only had to fly past the Executor and deep into space; the battle was behind him, not ahead, then he would jump to hyperspace and pray that Vader hadn’t noticed him.
“The path under the Executor is clear. Follow me.”
When he was about to put distance between the Executor and him, he heard a loud mechanical noise. The engines had stopped working and he was being dragged upwards. In the few minutes that the dragging lasted, he saw several X-Wings fall into the same trap.
Closing his eyes, Luke sent a prayer to the Force that his Father was indeed on board, and not away terrorizing civilians.
TWO DAYS LATER
Darth Vader was, against all expectations, covered in oil.
He was head deep in an old scrambled ship that looked like it was pieced together with glue. Staring at the stars had become pointless to him and his schedule was empty for the next four days.
He decided to fix a ship and told Admiral Piett that he was only to be contacted if the Emperor died, but the man just blinked at the poor attempt of banter and left Vader to his own devices.
Vader's commlink beeped on the other side of the room and he groaned loudly, the noise echoing across the hangar. Without changing his position, half of his body deep inside the ship, he used the Force to pull the commlink to him.
“What is it?”
Piett shivered. “Lord Vader, there has been a bombing.”
Vader dropped a screwdriver. A bombing? His hangar wasn't sound proof, so he would have heard the bombing, or at least he would have noticed a disturbance in the Force. “Location?”
“The imperial weapons factory of the Phaeda system, my Lord. We left hyperspace fifteen minutes ago. I am staring at the remains.”
Vader blinked, trying to remember the last rebel activity he was engaged in. To his dismay, he realised that the Rebellion was targeting very specific systems lately.
“The personnel had been evacuated beforehand. This was not a terror attack but an attempt to destabilize the Empire's main weaponry provider.” explained Vader, and Piett knew better than to question Vader's mystical knowledge.
“If you say so, my Lord. I am informing you that a small part of the fleet has been captured before we could fully engage. The Commander of the operation is currently awaiting interrogation. Do you wish to speak to him?”
Vader blinked. They had rebel interrogations every week, he didn’t see how this one was any different. “There will be no need for that,” he said icily, conveying his irritation at being interrupted, “but I want every extracted intel sent to me. The Emperor will not be pleased if any information were to be leaked.”
“Very well, my Lord.”
Vader threw the commlink to the other side of the hangar. They had bombings and attacks every few weeks, Piett shouldn't have contacted him for this. He called a power source to his hand and buried himself deeper into the ship.
After three days of peace and solitude, Vader had to leave his hangar because his commlink was beeping every five minutes. Those incompetents couldn't even organize themselves for a few rotations without him.
He was talking to an officer he wasn’t paying attention to, something about Palpatine's plans to engage negotiations on the Outer Rim, which translated as invasion in Palpatine’s language. Vader didn't care about any of it, he had stopped caring six years ago after he discovered there was more for him in the galaxy than blindly following Palpatine's orders.
He crossed his arms and started tapping his boot on the floor, signalling the officer to end his briefing soon. The officer talked about operations in the Inner Rim and in the Colonies which had nothing to do with him. Despite what his son thought, he wasn't the entire Empire.
It was then that Vader felt a sharp tug through the Force like a punch in the stomach. The Force was screaming at him to look the other way.
Fa–
Vader flinched and instinctively used the Force to push the officer in front of him to the floor. He didn't notice how he stood up and ran from him. In fact, he wasn't paying any attention to anything but the voice inside his head.
Father–
Luke? His Force-presence was dim and barely alive, and Vader's heart accelerated. He reached out into the Force but couldn't locate him, but if they could communicate through their bond that meant Luke had to be in the system.
Where are you? asked Vader, eyes darting over the crowded bridge, as if his son could appear any moment with a frown and say that he should stop terrorizing officers.
Here–
Son, where is here? he sent, exasperated.
The Execut–
Vader fled the bridge, clinging to the small light coming from his son. He didn't understand why Luke was on his flagship and why he wasn't aware that there was a rebel Commander aboard. He should know this, he was first in command to–
Oh.
The remaining Lieutenants ran the other way as soon as they heard his breathing. Unaware of anything else than Luke's presence, Vader clenched his fists with enough strength to break his prosthetics. He had to concentrate, but the guilt that he couldn't keep Luke safe even in his own ship was eating him alive.
Luke's presence in the Force was a small flickering thing. He reached a corridor where Luke's presence was and froze when he saw a body lying on the floor at the end of it. His thoughts became clouded with anger and fear, but none of them mattered because as he sprinted to the body he felt his peripheral vision darkening from the lack of oxygen. From his position he saw that the body was wearing an issued imperial uniform, but prisoners sometimes were given one if their clothes had been destroyed by electr–
The lights above him snapped.
It wasn't Luke.
Vader looked around, unsure where to go next, because Luke was supposed to be here, unless Sidious had discovered that Luke was his son, had captured him and had done something and Luke was–
Vader was shaking.
He saw an open cell and ignited his lightsaber instinctively, walking in, ready for attack.
The room was dark and stunk from odours Vader couldn't place. He reached out into the Force again, careful with his shielding now that he suspected Sidious could be involved, but he bumped into something.
Luke's presence was right in front of him, beating slowly but steadily.
Vader touched it carefully as if it was made of glass, as if his own presence could shatter his son's life to pieces, but Luke didn't answer. With a flick of the wrist Vader commanded the wires to turn on the lights, but nothing happened.
The room was in complete darkness that even his night vision couldn't see through. He frowned and tried again, but someone got ahead of him.
Once his dizziness at the brightness of the lights had faded, he saw another body by his feet. It was an officer he didn't recognise, who was laying awkwardly in a fetal position, his head turned around in an unnatural way. Vader recognised this type of death: someone had snapped his neck! Vader started thinking that perhaps Luke wasn't here at all, that some prisoner escaped and managed to leave a trail of bodies behind, but then, where was he?
“Hmh.”
Vader turned around at the mumbled sound and saw his son sitting on the floor, back against the wall, gaze lost on the ceiling. He looked beaten up, his lips torn and face bruised. His hair stuck to his face and his white jumpsuit was now brown from dirt and dried patches of blood. If their bond hadn't sprung to life once his eyes landed on him, Vader wouldn't have recognised him. He should send for a medical droid immediately, but something was off. His son looked physically injured, but that didn't excuse his near non-existent presence in the Force. Was he–
Force, was he shielding?
Vader deactivated his lightsaber and kneeled in front of Luke. He looked like he was half-asleep, his eyes slowly following the patterns of the squared walls. When he sensed movement in front of him, his eyes retreated to trace the pattern of Vader's mask.
“Luke?” whispered Vader. He caressed his son's cheek, wiping away the dirt and putting the longest strands of hair behind his ear. He looked so small.
Luke swallowed. “Took you long enough...” he whispered, his voice monotone and in trance.
“Can you move?” asked Vader urgently.
Luke shook his head slowly. Vader clenched his fists, he would kill whoever was responsible for th–
“They're dead,” whispered Luke, “Over ther-”
Oh. Vader didn’t know whether to feel proud or concerned at how easily Luke had killed in his current state. Force, he didn't even know for long he's been there. “I'm taking you to my personal medbay. You are injured.”
Luke's gaze was still fixed on the wall behind Vader. He picked him up carefully, and Luke clung to his father's shoulder, gaze fixed on the ground. “How are you going to explain to your sup–,” he hiccuped, “superiors that you rescued a rebel prisoner, hm?” he asked tiredly.
Vader snorted. “I have no superiors son,” he said, “Now, how are you going to explain that I am carrying you around like a child?”
Luke's eyes widened. “No no no, no one sees me...” he mumbled and clumsily pointed a finger at Vader's chest, “You make sure of it, but please don't kill anyb-”
“I will not. Now, rest.”
Luke's eyes closed and his head fell back, and Vader held it carefully with his free hand. These were not the conditions he had hoped to see Luke in when they met again.
His son looked like he had been attacked by a bantha, then swallowed by a sarlacc and then put in prison. Prison!
The thought of Luke laying beneath an IT-O unit boiled his own blood to evaporation. He would keep him safe, even if that meant tearing his commlink apart and disappearing forever.
Piett could manage.