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Luke was clinging to him. That was all he could think about as he led the boy deeper into the Executor; his son was clinging to him.
Luke’s eyes were squeezed shut, face scrunched in some sort of pain, trusting his father to guide him. Vader didn’t dare wonder why in the galaxy he would trust him like this; if it was only because of the boy’s current vulnerability, he didn’t want to know. Much better, instead, to pretend it was because his son had forgiven him.
The hallways cleared the closer to Vader’s quarters they got, until finally the door was hissing open at their approach. Luke did not protest when he was gently pushed onto a couch, only watched with something like jealousy as Vader summoned a blanket to them with the Force. He wrapped it snugly around his son. To his surprise, Luke leaned against him immediately. He had intended to get up, but now he could not. Not when the boy was laying on him.
“Are you alright, my son?” Should he be concerned about how the boy was acting?
Luke shook his head against his arm. “No,” he croaked. “I can’t—I can’t feel anything.”
Alarm ran through him like a shock. He should have asked the bounty hunters more questions, demanded they give a full report on his son’s condition, not just swept the boy away with promise of payment, too entranced with finally having his son in his grasp to question how the boy got there. He knew they’d used Force-suppressants - oh, how he’d panicked when Luke’s light in the corner of his mind dimmed so suddenly - but what else had they given him?
“Anything?”
“In the Force,” Luke clarified, voice muffled in Vader’s cape. “Is this even real right now? Are you actually...here?”
Ah.
It must be distressing, being unable to feel the connections between every living thing...he couldn’t imagine it. Never had he been without the Force; only unaware, until the Jedi trained him. No wonder his son had come so willingly - if the galaxy felt like a dream, why not follow his father?
Vader couldn’t deny that the situation felt dream-like to him, as well. Luke’s signature in the Force was dimmed almost beyond recognition - although not gone. Unable to properly feel his son, it was almost as if the boy was not truly there.
If this was a dream, however, it was one from which Vader knew he would not have to wake.
“Have you always felt the Force, then, my son?”
“No.” Luke seemed to think for a moment. “Well, I did, but I didn’t know it. I know it now, though, so I can tell it’s—gone.” His voice stuttered and cracked on the last word. He shook against Vader, as if unable to contain a silent sob. Luke tugged on his father’s cape, enough to grab a corner of it and start rubbing it between his fingers.
He should feel bad about doing something so horrible to his son. True, it had been the bounty hunters who deprived him of the Force, but it had been on Vader’s orders, funded by Vader’s money. The bounty had been “alive and uninjured”; he supposed he never specified any further than that.
And yet…
He couldn’t regret anything that had happened. It gave him his son, after years of searching, years of believing he was alone in the galaxy. He brushed Luke’s hair back with a delicate hand.
The boy was willingly here with him. What more could he ever ask?
Perhaps he could call the bounty hunters back, and gift them to Luke to punish as the boy saw fit. It would be a good start down the path to the Dark Side, without turning him against his father. Fear of being deprived of such a basic sense, anger against the beings who had done it; yes, that would lend itself to much power for his already-powerful son.
He stared at the boy’s head, his face hidden in his father’s cape.
But could he really bear to see his son’s blue eyes glow yellow? That open, hopeful face turn to hate, even if he still loved his father?
Would he still love his father, as a Sith?
Luke would probably find the idea abhorrent, anyway; he had tried to choose death over joining his father on Bespin. His current cooperation notwithstanding, he probably wasn’t much more willing to become a Sith now.
And Vader had caused his son enough pain. He had cut off the boy’s hand before revealing his parentage - a regrettable mistake, but he’d felt Luke’s shock and betrayal in the Force that day. He was better than Obi-Wan, who cut off his limbs and left him burning on Mustafar, and he was better than slavers who forced him and his mother, and countless other beings, into...difficult situations.
He had seen what his son could accomplish, heard from his spies all the allies and friends Luke had made in the Rebellion with seemingly little effort. Perhaps...perhaps this could be the last time he hurt his son.
He was better than Sidious. He would not cause his son pain to make him stronger.
Luke was plenty strong, and brave, already.
“Father?” Luke asked, lifting his head. “What are you...thinking about?” There was fear in the boy’s voice. That would be fixed, in time.
He brushed the hair out of Luke’s face again. “Nothing, my son. Nothing at all.”