Chapter Text
His son is terrible at using a lightsaber.
His son is also terrible at using the Force. It's not just that the boy isn't subtle; he didn't learn subtlety until not learning it hadn't been an option anymore, and so he knows that is a correctable flaw. Nor is it that he's shaky, because he seems to have the rock-solid underlying faith in the Force that's a prerequisite to proper use. It's more that he doesn't seem to understand that the Force isn't made of glass, won't shatter the moment he asks it for more than a moment of insight. Enough to make an impossible shot, perhaps, but not enough to do much more than survive anybody who actually knows what it can do.
He's angry about this, but also very confused. Obi-wan wouldn't have neglected to teach this even to his worst enemy. (He knows this to be strictly and literally true). Logically, it means that Obi-wan hadn't taught him at all. And, okay, being honest, those stances are Shii-cho and Ataru, pure Yoda, which is going to be a headache all its own later. He's also terrible at them, and a twenty-three year old should be better than half-assed stances no matter what the form. Worse, these stances are half-assed not because the boy isn't trying, but because he doesn't know them. Ergo, Yoda hadn't taught him for long.
They'd had him for twenty-three years.
"You destiny lies with me, Skywalker," he says, imagining the hours of future training it would take to get his son up to anything other than terrible. Hours and hours. "Obi-wan knew this to be true."
His son is going to deny it. He can see the word forming, but then his eyes slide off to the side. Without moving his saber at all, he pivots so he can see the new threat.
"Yes," says his personal hell, tiredly pinching the bridge of his semitransparent blue nose.
"What, really?" says the boy. "And you couldn't have told me this earlier?"
He blinks in shock, although of course neither of them can see that.
"I was really hoping to avoid a direct confrontation until la - "
"You can see him?" he demands.
The boy turns to focus on him again, which is a travesty. You do not take your attention off of your opponent in a lightsaber duel. At least, not if you expect to survive. "Yeah?" he says, mildly. "I mean. Why wouldn't I?"
"He thinks I'm a hallucination," says Obi-wan, in the background. "I keep telling him I'm not, but does he listen?"
"To be fair," says the boy, while around him the last four years rearrange themselves to start looking very different, even if only in hindsight, "so did I."
Obi-wan raises an expressive eyebrow.
"Mostly," amends the boy.
He is sure he's missing something, and it is possibly something important. He'll have to ask, later. "See, Skywalker? He admits it! Come to me, and fulfil your destiny."
Obi-wan rolls his eyes. "Seriously, who talks like that? Not even Palpatine talks like that." His son stifles a laugh, but not enough. "Luke, you're free to do whatever you damned well please, just like you always do. Destiny can get fucked."
Luke - his son's name is Luke, which is the name he and Padmé had picked out for a boy - looks at him, then Obi-wan, then him again. The silence stretches. "I have a question."
"Ask," he intones.
"You kill Jedi. You're famous for killing Jedi. But you're . . . trying to recruit me?"
It is Obi-wan's turn to fail to stifle a laugh. He glares at the Jedi, which would probably be more effective if Obi-wan could see more than a blank mask. Obi-wan picks up on it enough, because he makes shoeing hands. In their own private language, which apparently still works even though one of the two of them is actually dead, this means, 'Yes fine I'll explain later,' and also 'Go on, Luke deserves an answer.'
He's pretty sure that just telling his son isn't going to work. It took him weeks to get over it, and they don't have weeks. Also, Luke has to be at least as stubborn as Yoda if he got the old troll to actually teach him, which means if he decides not to believe something . . .
Obi-wan is still standing over by the carbonite pit, no longer even trying to hide how hard he's laughing.
"Darth Vader is not the name I was born with," is how he starts. "I had another, once."
"O-kay," says Luke.
"Part of that name was Skywalker," he says.
Luke's jaw falls open, and he immediately looks over to Obi-wan for confirmation.
Obi-wan rolls his eyes and says, "You're his damned son. Biologically. And he's always thought that blood means something."
"Blood is important!" protests Luke, but the look he's giving Obi-wan is basically the same as his own, under the mask.
"Oh, Force, now they do it in stereo," says Obi-wan, as in the background an evacuation alert starts up. Obi-wan flickers for a moment and adds, "That was Calrissian turning off the lower candle; if you want to get off this city before it hits the turbulent layer of the atmosphere, you should do it now."
"He did what?" he asks in horror, shutting off his 'saber. "Luke, come on. We have a sinking city to escape."
" . . . no," says Luke.
"What?"
"No. I'm not going with you."
"That was a not a question - "
"But if you want, I think you can come with me."
He looks over again, because Kenobi deserves to die on a lightsaber for this, only Kenobi is looking at him with the exact same expression. "Oh, no," he says. "You do not get to blame this on me. This is one hundred percent Skywalker drama."
Luke is tinkering with the door. Without someone menacing him with a lightsaber, it takes him about twelve seconds to hotwire it to open.
"Luke - "
Luke looks over his shoulder at him. "The thing is, I'm pretty sure, the emperor does not actually approve of you making an exception for your son."
"Oh, he doesn't even know Vader has," says Obi-wan, the complete opposite of helpfully. "But given the track record, no, it doesn't seem likely."
"Obi-wan - "
"I'm not special," says Luke, rocking back onto his feet. "I don't deserve to be an exception, when you went ahead and killed all those other people's daughters and sons. So. Either you go back to your emperor, and when we meet again we're nothing to each other at all, or you don't go back to the usurper, and we both get to have some family again."
He folds his arms. "And when I just knock you out and take you - "
"You can't. I mean, you're strong, but you aren't stronger than me, and you're not going to hurt me by blunt trauma."
He's not wrong.
"So are you coming with me, or not?"
"Will you please shut up?" he snaps at Obi-wan, who still is laughing his ass off.
"Oh, just go with him already," says Obi-wan. "If you weren't going to, you'd have just killed him instead of this whole - " he waves an arm to indicate the carbon-freezing room, the city, and the entire planet of Bespin - "production."
He, also, is not wrong.
"Fine!" he bites out.
He feels a brief bloom of surprise from Luke, quickly captured. Luke nods, just the once, and sets off across the city.
It's . . . interesting. He's never met anyone else who can navigate the same way he does, by just opening up and listening to the echoes of the world. Just about no one is paying attention to them: the civilians are evacuating in a surprisingly orderly way, and that has apparently convinced his men that this is not a drill, because they're also evacuating. A few of them look to him when he walks by, but a quick nod of confirmation is all it takes for them to go back to what they were doing.
They don't encounter many of those anyway. Luke is heading for the docking platforms, but avoiding imperial troops as much as possible. He's just following along, bemused, except for when he says things like, "No, we can't go that way, there's no gravitational support," and Luke nods and reroutes them.
The get to the docking platform not too much later. Solo's ship, a YT-1300 light freighter, is still sitting exactly where it'd been when he landed. Calrissian and Organa were on board, and the wookie. As far as he can tell, it is ready to take off and hasn't done so only because someone of board is waiting for Luke. The boarding ramp drops as they approach.
"What the hell," says Leia Organa, leveling a blaster, one of the good solid ones, the kind that can do very bad things to his suit, "is he doing here?"
"Would you rather he be going to playing personal murderer for the emperor?" asks Luke, ignoring the blaster and walking up the ramp so they could close the hatch. "Also hi, good to see you again. Where's Han?"
"Ask him," she spits at him.
"On the Slave II, as far as I'm aware," he answers. "That was Fett's price in helping track you down: he gets Solo. Relax. It's not like Jabba is going to do anything with him."
Luke looks between the two of them, and says, "Right, we'll talk about that, and what we're going to do about it, aft - "
Which is as far as his son gets before a droid comes screaming down the hallway. He dodges by taking a step sideways, and it crashes into the wall. It's an astromech, he can see now. It ricochets, then turns and continues swearing. He stares. That's R2-D2, all right. No other droid has ever managed to figure out biologics' insults enough to properly use the word 'fuck.'
"Wow," says Luke.
"So are we lifting?" asks Calrissian, through a comm someplace.
"Yes," says Luke.
"Er, with - "
"Yes," says Luke again.
"Are we going to get an explanation?" asks Leia.
"Sure," says Luke, over R2's continued swearing. "Later. I need a shower and then about fifty naps."
"Luke!"
"Leia. I damned near blew out my motivator getting here in time, and that was with all of Han's shortcuts. Then I got to have the galaxy's most terrible lightsaber battle ever. I am exhausted. We can start on the disaster that is my life later. It's not like there's anywhere that isn't days away. I'm going to sleep. Please don't kill Vader in the meantime."
Leia studies him, looking for the lie. She can't find it because it isn't there. Once she is assured of this, and he is busy wondering to the Force how he ever missed the fact that she's Force-sensitive, she lowers the blaster. Then, unexpectedly, she leans in and hugs Luke. "It had better be a good story," she said. "I'm glad you're alright, flyboy."