Chapter Text
The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children.
“The Merchant of Venice,” William Shakespeare
Three months before the end of his senior year, Luke came home from school to find a man he didn’t recognize sitting on his uncle’s couch.
He was handsome in a striking, otherworldly sort of way. His skin was the same naturally tanned shade as Luke’s, highlighting his dark, honey gold curls that fell to his shoulders in loose waves. Twilight blue eyes fixated on him when he stepped over the threshold of the front door, and he found himself momentarily riveted in place, frozen beneath the weight of that steely gaze.
No one had ever looked at him like that.
Especially not anyone as devilishly good-looking as this stranger was. The corners of his mouth quirked up into a haughty smirk, and suddenly Luke was fourteen again, hiding in the poolhouse bathroom at Biggs Darklighter’s summer house, trying to pretend the sight of his best friend in a pair of navy swim trunks wasn’t causing certain humiliating, hormonal reactions his body had previously never been subjected to.
The smile on his mysterious guest’s face didn’t help.
“You must be Luke,” he said, leaning back a little further into the couch. His arms were stretched along the back of it, opened like the great muscular wings of a bird preparing to take flight. He crossed his legs casually, and Luke couldn’t help but notice he was wearing a pair of well-worn combat boots — even though Uncle Obi-Wan expressly forbade wearing shoes indoors. “You’re shorter than I expected.”
Immediately, the spell was broken, the pleasant haze this stranger’s handsome demeanor had caused evaporating with that one, stinging comment. It was always the height. The story of Luke’s entire life. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes and instead crossed his arms, holding himself straighter, face flushing when the stranger’s grin widened. Jerk. “Yeah, I am. Who are you, exactly?”
The smile fell, confusion giving way to cold displeasure as the weight of Luke’s question hung in the silence between them.
“He didn’t tell you.”
Luke blinked, arms falling to his sides.
“Tell me what?”
Before the man could reply, the door to the bathroom down the hall swung open, and his uncle appeared, smoothing copper hair away from his face with a pale hand. He paused when his eyes met Luke’s, then gave a hesitant smile, fiddling with the cuffs of his sleeves. His freckles were darker than they usually were, his face pallid.
“Luke,” he greeted, with a touch more enthusiasm than he normally would. Whether it was for his sake or the stranger’s, Luke didn’t know. “You’re home early.”
Shrugging, Luke toed his shoes off, letting his backpack drop to the floor. Obi-Wan would nag at him to pick it up later, but he was far more curious about the man sitting on their couch than he was worried about being scolded. “Yeah, you said to come straight home. Who’s your friend?”
For some reason, the question made his uncle frown, though Luke couldn’t fathom what he had said wrong.
“Luke, this is — ”
“I’m your father.”
He turned his gaze back to the couch, startling when he saw that the stranger was no longer seated, but standing directly behind him. The man loomed, taller than even Han, who had dwarfed Luke in size since their freshmen year. He resisted the urge to shrink back, refusing to be intimidated, though the bombshell that was just dropped on him left a faint ringing in his ears. His chest was tight, his hands clammy and cold. There wasn’t a single coherent thought in his head. Only white noise.
“What?”
“Luke.” His uncle put his arm around his shoulders. The man — his father’s eyes flicked almost imperceptibly at the sight of it. This close, Luke could see that the right one was impaled by a thin scar, inlaid in the curve of his cheek. It should have hardened his face, made it more severe maybe, but it didn’t. “This is Anakin Skywalker.”
The name was like a splash of cold water down his spine. Anakin. Anakin Skywalker, the name he had kept close to his heart all his life, stowed away like a trinket you didn’t want anyone else to see. He’d known that name since he was a little boy, barely old enough to understand why he lived with his uncle, instead of the parents every other child seemed to have. Obi-Wan had always been reserved in this way, but that was the one thing he had never denied him. The only thing Luke had ever known of his father was his name.
And here he was, eyes a cloudy sea, a little white along the jaw, arms crossed over his chest. Luke couldn’t help but feel like he had disappointed the man already, less than five minutes of knowing each other. As if his father could tell at a glance that Luke couldn’t live up to seventeen years of expectations.
He squared his shoulders, anticipating the rejection before it could come.
Instead, his father turned to his uncle and said, “You didn’t tell him I was coming.”
Obi-Wan’s arm tightened around his shoulders, holding him close. Anakin watched the movement, his eyes like blue welding torches.
“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Obi-Wan said, releasing Luke to gesture toward the living room. “Shall we sit? I thought we might take some time to let you two get to know each other before dinner.”
At once, his father’s cold expression seemed to vanish, the return of that haughty smirk taking its place.
“And I assume you’re planning to cook tonight, Obi-Wan?”
His uncle straightened his back, hands resting on his hips. “I was, yes.”
“Makes sense,” his eyes scanned Luke up and down, smile darkening a little, “seventeen years of eating your cooking would stunt anyone’s growth.”
Luke bristled, blushing to his hairline, Obi-Wan’s laughter like salt in the wound. “I’m not that short,” he grumbled.
“We shouldn’t tease him, it’s a sensitive subject,” his uncle said, not unkindly. “Though it shouldn’t be. He should be proud — as I’ve often told him, he takes after his mother.”
“Yes.” His father’s voice softened, low and solemn, like whispering a eulogy. “He does.”
The look on his face soothed a wound Luke hadn’t realized he’d been dealt, erasing all doubt, all fears of rejection and filial disappointment. He might not have been what Anakin was expecting, the reverse was certainly true, but that didn’t mean their relationship couldn’t be all he’d hoped it would be. It didn’t change the fact that they were father and son.
“Come,” Obi-Wan said, steering them toward the couch again. His tone returned to normal, all traces of forced enthusiasm gone. “Let’s sit.”
Dinner went by without much fuss, apart from his father teasing Uncle Obi-Wan for his lack of culinary skill.
Luke struggled with what to ask him, after a lifetime of tiptoeing around the subject. Avoiding that familiar, faraway look his uncle would get at the mention of his incarceration was ingrained in him, as much an unspoken household rule as the seats they chose at the dining table, which rack they hung their towels from, how they said goodbye to each other in the mornings.
Obi-Wan carried the conversation, for the most part, doing his best to recount their entire life story over a single meal. Anakin would interrupt occasionally, that storm-at-sea gaze flicking to Luke to ask about school or his hobbies or his friends, but both of them seemed content to let Obi-Wan decide what they would discuss, if only to allow him the courtesy of shepherding them away from the topic of his father’s arrest.
Afterward, he and Anakin stood side by side at the kitchen sink, washing the evening’s dishes while Obi-Wan made up the pullout sofa. The living room wasn’t exactly an ideal guest room, but neither his father nor his uncle seemed to care, so Luke wasn’t about to make a fuss. So what if their apartment was a little cramped? Luke would rather sleep in the living room himself than have his father leave now, after only a few hours of getting to know him. They hadn’t even had a chance to talk for real, yet. Just the two of them.
He'd been waiting his entire life for this chance.
“So,” Anakin said, handing him another plate to rinse, playfully smearing his hand with soap bubbles. “Got your license?”
Luke grinned. “I do, but Uncle Obi-Wan would rather take the bus than ever let me drive his car.”
“That’s because you drive like a menace,” his uncle said from across the room, unfolding a floral-patterned comforter. He draped it across the pullout mattress, fluffed the pillow, the red shams. “Just like your father.”
“That’s my boy,” his father said, knocking their shoulders together. Laughing, Luke bumped him right back, the words soothing his burning face, his heart. My boy. He felt restored, to have earned his father’s approval in this way, just as he’d always hoped he would. “Apple doesn’t fall very far, does it?”
Obi-Wan didn’t immediately reply, and when Luke turned to glance at him, a familiar discomfort stole the breath from his lungs. That look had crossed his uncle’s face, eyebrows drawn together, his mouth a tight, severe frown.
Swallowing, he turned back to the sink, hands burning beneath the spray of scalding water.
“You should have seen his face when I told him I wanted to buy a bike,” he said, hoping to lighten the mood. “I thought he was going to faint. He looked like he’d just seen a ghost.”
His father reached for the tap, cutting the hot water with a blast of cold, relieving the stinging pain in his hands, now lobster red. “He probably did,” he said, grabbing another towel to help dry the last of the dishes. “The ghost of remembering me say the exact same thing when I was your age.”
His uncle huffed; thunderous expression gone. “I did. And I steadfastly refused both of you.”
“So no bike?”
“No,” Luke said, shrugging. “He said I should save for college instead. But I was thinking of doing some traveling after graduation. Leia — my best friend — we’re talking about a road trip, maybe taking a gap year and going coast to coast. Or I might just start working. I haven’t really decided.”
“He would rather pump gas at a parking lot garage than risk sitting through one of my lectures,” his uncle groused, faux irritation laced into his voice. “He’s even less interested in philosophy than you were, Anakin.”
“Yeah, because he’s not an old man,” Anakin said, his grin sharp and not at all apologetic. Obi-Wan glared at him, and Luke laughed, smiling until his face hurt. “He’s on the cusp of manhood. The perfect age to blow all your lifesavings on something fun and impulsive, like your first bike.”
“Anakin, so help me, if I catch you even thinking about it — ”
His father batted his eyelashes, the picture of innocence. “Obi-Wan, please. I wouldn’t dream of doing something so reckless. I’m a reformed man, you know.”
Just like that, the humor was gone, siphoned from the room like fuel from a tank. Obi-Wan’s smile flared and died, as quickly as a scrap of paper, catching fire and burning up in an instant.
“Yes. Well, I think we’ll leave you to begin winding down for the evening, Anakin. It’s a school night, after all.”
“Aw,” Luke said, before he could think better of it, before he could snuff the complaint out. “But it’s still early!”
“It is, but we’ve all had quite a bit of excitement tonight. It’s time for bed,” his uncle said, decisive, like God separating the light from the darkness. “Say goodnight to your father, Luke.”
Fighting the urge to pout like a child, Luke gave his father a weak, unconvincing smile, lifting one arm to open it for a hug, before dropping it, second-guessing himself. He didn’t know if they were there, yet. Better to play it safe. “Right. Um, good night. I hope you sleep well.”
If Anakin felt as awkward as Luke did, he didn’t show it. His steely gaze flickered to Obi-Wan, then back to Luke, lips pulled so tightly into a straight line, they’d begun to pale.
“Good night, Luke,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
That soothed the abrupt dismissal a small bit, a more genuine smile stretching across his face as he left the kitchen, down the hall, to begin to ready himself for bed.
His father was right.
They had tomorrow, and maybe every day after that.
Sleep didn’t come easily to him.
Even after the two men went quiet, their hushed conversation fading to silence, he found it impossible to drift off, tossing and turning until he’d tangled his sheets. He watched the hours go by, staring at the rocket ship alarm clock he’d been given for his eleventh birthday ticktocking away on his nightstand, wondering if Anakin was still awake. If he was looking forward to tomorrow as much as Luke was, like a kid on Christmas Eve.
There were so many things he wanted to ask him. Things he’d been waiting seventeen years to ask him. Waiting one more day shouldn’t have been such a hardship, but Luke hadn’t known how thin his patience had been worn down, until he realized it was his dad sitting on their couch, more real than he had ever felt before. He didn’t want to wait another day, when he’d been waiting for thousands. He was done.
But he knew what having him here meant for his uncle, even if he knew he didn’t have the full story. Obi-Wan had only ever given him the ‘bedtime’ version of what happened, but he wasn’t blind; he could see how hard it’d been for his guardian, how deeply he had loved his father.
Luke wasn’t the only one who had been waiting for him all these years.
The thought of waiting even just one more day stung like an open wound, but he would do it, for the man who had raised him, who had loved and cared for him like his own son. This, Luke knew, was the very least that he could give Obi-Wan in return. So he rolled over, blanket pulled tight past his chin, eyes closed to welcome sleep, curled into himself in a little ball.
And then the door to his room creaked open.
Luke blinked his eyes open, wondering if maybe he imagined the noise, before a large hand settled on his shoulder. He bolted upright, startled, to find his father leaning over his bed, finger pressed to his lips to signal him to be quiet.
“Easy,” he said, voice barely above a murmur.
“What are you doing?” Luke whispered.
“Obi-Wan cut our night a little short. I know he means well, but I don’t think he really… gets it. He and I have known each other most of our lives, but you and I… with us, it’s different. He doesn’t understand.”
He cupped Luke’s shoulder, palm big enough to swallow the bone. “What I’m trying to say is, I feel bad that we barely got a chance to talk. So, what do you say we sneak out?”
“Sneak out?” he repeated, eyes wide as saucers. Uncle Obi-Wan would kill them. “We, we shouldn’t. Obi-Wan would be furious. What if he catches us?”
“He’s fast asleep. I already checked.” His father picked up a jacket from the back of his desk chair, inspected it, then tossed it onto Luke’s lap. “Get dressed. And dress warm, it’ll be chilly out there.”
Too stupefied to do anything else, Luke threw his covers off, scrambling to his feet. It was slightly awkward, pulling a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt over nothing but his boxers in front of his estranged father, but the man didn’t seem to mind, so Luke refused to, either.
Dressed and ready to go, the pair tiptoed down the hall, careful not to let the front door groan as they eased it open. It wasn’t until his father pulled it closed behind them and quietly locked it that Luke realized this was really happening. He was sneaking out in the middle of the night, the pinnacle of teenage rebellion, and if his uncle caught him he’d be livid, but his father was with him — the father he’d been dying to meet his entire life — so it couldn’t really be that bad, right? It wasn’t like they were going to do anything illegal.
Even a goody-two-shoes like him had to act out once in a blue moon. Obi-Wan would forgive him.
“So,” he said, quietly, once they had reached the elevator. “What are we doing?”
Anakin twirled Obi-Wan’s set of keys around his finger, whistling a jovial tune.
“You’ll see.”
That answer was perhaps more ominous than his father meant for it to sound, but Luke brushed it aside, nervousness giving way to excitement the further they got from their apartment building. They were actually doing this, it was real! He assumed Anakin didn’t have anywhere outrageous in mind; a 24-hour café, maybe a nearby park bench where they could sit and chat, hell, maybe he just wanted to hop the nearest bus and ride the entire loop, sitting in the far back, so lost in getting to know each other, the hours would feel like minutes.
Maybe he just wanted to walk in silence, feeling the night air on his skin. It had been almost two decades since he’d had the chance to do that, after all. Luke felt a twinge of embarrassment for his onslaught of childish fantasies, at that thought. His father had been locked in a jail cell for seventeen years. It was wrong of him, he realized, to only be thinking about himself and what he wanted, with no concern for what his father might be feeling right now.
The night was chilly, as Anakin had warned, but Luke’s shame was colder.
Resigning himself to simply keeping his father company, silent and open to changing that if the man wanted, Luke trailed behind him on their cold journey, another ten minutes of walking and two buses ridden without exchanging a word.
There was always tomorrow.
His father didn’t pause once to check his phone, if he even had one, or a map of any kind to confirm where they were going, so Luke assumed they really were wandering without direction, sneaking out to go sightseeing. It seemed odd to him, but then again, he hadn’t spent almost twenty years in prison — not a real one, anyway. Whatever his father needed from him tonight, he decided, smiling to himself, was okay.
When they reached their destination, that resolution wavered, ever so slightly.
“Uh,” he said, intelligibly, balking at the bright red KEEP OUT sign staring him in the face, “where are we?”
“The junkyard,” his father said, retrieving a heavy set of keys from his pockets that were definitely not Obi-Wan’s. Where the hell did they come from? “Don’t worry, we aren’t trespassing. A friend of mine owns this place.”
“Oh. And they… gave you the keys? What for?”
The smile his father gave him was wicked and sharp, all teeth. “To rescue an old friend.”
Without elaborating on whatever the hell that meant, he unlocked the front gate, pushing the towering chain-link door open with both hands. Luke scurried in after him, eyeing the miles of scrap and debris that greeted them, looming mountains of jagged metal as far as the eye could see.
They walked for a short while, eventually reaching a dilapidated shack that he assumed was the yard’s office building. It was the only standing structure they had come across, at any rate. Anakin flipped through a dozen keys or so, trying the odd one here and there, eventually unlocking the rickety wood door, revealing its dingy interior.
It was about exactly what Luke expected. A desk, a computer that had to be older than he was, a filthy bathroom in the corner, stacks of unfiled paperwork, an old, yellowed rotary phone.
The one thing he didn’t expect, however, was the silver and black motorcycle at the back of the room, leaning against the lopsided bookshelf.
“Whoa,” he said, recognizing the model instantly. “Is that a TIE Advanced?”
“The one and only,” his father said, stroking over the handlebars like a beloved pet. “Luke, I’d like you to meet The Lady.”
Luke chuckled, holding the door open so the other man could walk the bike outside, easing it over the threshold. “She’s beautiful.”
“Oh yeah. Fast, too.” He ran his hand over the tank, fingers toying with the triple clamp. “Maybe a little too much kick for your first, but I’m not worried.”
He blinked, all gears grinding to a halt. “For my first what?”
Anakin glanced at him, one eyebrow raised. “Ride, of course.”
He stood, kicked the tires, testing the air pressure, adjusting the mirrors. “It’s not the same as riding your own, but you’ll have to wait for that. This will give you a decent taste of what you’ve been missing out on in the meantime.”
He separated a copper key from the rest of the ring, tossing it at Luke, who caught it with fumbling hands.
“What do you say, son?” he asked, grinning, the endearment soothing a lifelong ache in his heart. “Wanna take a ride?”
Obi-Wan would kill them, and despite his earlier self-assurances, this was absolutely illegal.
But his father’s smile was contagious, and Luke found himself nodding, his fears forgotten.
“Where to?”