Chapter Text
Beru used to tell Luke that soulmates were a blessing to be cherished and guarded in equal measure. A sacred gift, and a kind of freedom that sharing a piece of his soul with another person represented. A piece of him a master couldn’t own, and a piece of someone else that was Luke’s to hold safe in his heart. Something for Luke and Luke alone, that couldn’t be stolen, bought, or sold like anything else on Tatooine could be.
Owen Lars had, however hesitantly, agreed. After all, it wasn’t what the Children of the Desert thought about soulmates that bothered him about Luke’s soulmarks. It wasn’t what the words meant to Beru Whitesun, who had grown up steeped in those beliefs and whom Owen’s love for burned like the Dune Sea under the binary suns. It wasn’t the hope and pride that culture gave to Luke, the first freeborn Skywalker, that filled Owen’s veins with ice cold dread. No, it was what those soulmarks actually said that battered every happy moment with his nephew with a sandstorm of coarse, violent knowledge that Luke would grow up to leave Tatooine and their modest moisture farm behind.
And that sweet little brat of a boy Owen cared so dearly for would never be safe and free again.
Growing up, Luke didn’t know what a Jedi was other than that asking about them made uncle Owen jumpy, and that apparently the merest mention of them could be treason against the Emperor if the wrong ears heard. He certainly didn’t know why his soulmate would someday mistake him for… whatever a Jedi is.
Either way the soulmark took enrolling in the Imperial Academy off the table, out the back door, and into the trash compactor. There was a sharp sort of ache in watching all his friends leave him behind without so much as a glance over their shoulders. But Luke could hardly blame them. He didn’t think he’d look back fondly on Tatooine all that much if he could have gotten off that dust ball either. Biggs was the only one Luke could see the hurt in when Luke lied that his aunt and uncle just needed him on the farm too much for him to leave.
Biggs promised to come back for Luke anyway but Luke didn’t believe it, and he knew Biggs could see that too.
Luke hoped that whoever was going to tell Biggs “ You’re better than Skystrike ,” would make him happy. And Luke was hardly even bitter anymore that the universe had predetermined that he wasn’t enough for Biggs to stay for.
Somehow though, Luke’s second soulmark was even worse than all of that.
Boba had always known exactly what a Jedi was, and spent most of his life undecided whether his own soulmark was the funniest or most insulting thing in the galaxy.
Jango never told Boba much about run’miite or to’runise. Boba had to piece it together himself from the bits of Mandalorian lore that would sometimes slip through in the things his father taught him. Soulmarks and soulmates were something to do with the Manda. Maybe. A reflection of the Manda. Connected souls, he was at least half sure.
Sometimes Boba wondered if his father wanted him to be mando’ad or not. It seemed like Jango wanted him to live by the tenants of the resol'nare most of the time, and maybe the fact that Boba knew the resol’nare at all should have been an answer in itself. Or maybe not.
They spoke mando’a at home, Boba learned to care for weapons and armour alongside his father, let his father teach him how to protect himself. Boba learned to survive things that should kill most people because Jango Fett was not most people , so Boba Fett would not be most people . He was told enough about ba’buir Jaster to know what family was supposed to mean to Mandalorians, even if sometimes the first hand experience felt like it was falling short.
And Boba knew what a Jedi was from the hand they’d played in the civil war between the New Mandalorians, Death Watch, and the True Mandalorians. Boba knew his father blamed them for costing him Jaster’s legacy; leaving the remains of Mandalore to be fought over by two different sorts of extremists. And Boba wasn’t stupid, he knew that the people his father was working for wanted to hurt the Jedi. Badly. Jango Fett was the best there was at hurting Jedi.
But Boba had no idea what the current Mand’alor’s name even was, if there even was one at all. And if there was a tribe they were supposed to be providing for, Boba had never seen it. Maybe the millions of vode living with them on Kamino were their tribe. Boba wondered what that meant for what was going to happen to them, but he knew better than to ask.
Still, learning all these things didn’t happen at once.
The writing on the inside of Boba’s wrists had made his father upset, he could tell, but it took a long time for him to understand why. It took him even longer to understand why the one on his left wrist was worse than the other, why the word Jedi made Jango’s hands clench into fists and his eyes dart like he was trying not to glance over his shoulder for some unseen enemy he was just waiting to catch up with him.
The Kaminoans had told Jango his clones wouldn’t have soulmarks but… the Kaminoans also had the entire Republic convinced the clones were nothing more than organic droids. And maybe the Kaminoans had even believed it too.
Property didn’t have a soul. Property didn’t have reproductive rights, or marriage rights, or really any rights at all that were in any way related to soulmates or anything else for that matter.
Most slaves had more liberties than that.
By the time the man called Obi-Wan Kenobi came to claim the clone army, Boba wasn’t sure how much longer his father was going to sit back and pretend everything was fine. He had watched Jango slowly twist apart under the pull of Darth Tyrannus, his own code of honour, the legacy he owed to his own adoptive father, and the bad blood between himself and the Jedi. Maybe it would have gone on forever. Maybe it wouldn’t have lasted one more day.
Boba would never get to know.
At least his second soulmark was only harmless nonsense.
Luke Skywalker was metaphorically adrift in space without a hyperdrive. Everywhere he want people were calling him Jedi and looking at him with so much hope and the Rebellion was asking him to so much. Luke didn't have the heart to tell them he was just a nobody farm boy from nowhere who didn't have any idea what he was doing. So he hadn't told anyone anything, he just ran away, which, Luke thought with a pang of shame and guilt, was probably worse. He just needed a little guidance. Just a hint. Anything. He could admit, at this point, that he was desperate.
So he's returned to the only place he thought might have some answers.
Luke had expected to have to fight his way through the Tuskens that had taken up residence around Ben’s hut, but the second he lit his lightsaber every one of them ran away screaming which was… not what he was expecting and more than a little foreboding.
The weapon that had once been his father’s hummed in Luke’s hand as he stared down at it. For a moment it looked like the shadows it cast in the fading light were moving - fleeing from him - as well. Luke swore he could hear more Tuskens screaming than were there. Then Luke blinked and the shadows were just shadows, slowly growing longer and less defined as the binary suns dipped behind the horizon.
“If they hadn’t run…” Luke let out a sigh of relief as he watched the Tuskens retreat over the dunes. “I’m glad they ran.”
Artoo whistled low in agreement.
Luke sighed again and ran a hand through his hair as he returned the lightsaber to his belt. “I don’t think all this anger and frustration is the path to becoming a Jedi. Let’s hope Ben left us a few answers, huh Artoo?”
Luke pushed open the door to Ben’s old hut and felt that hope evaporate faster than a snowball on Mustafar.
“Look at this mess!” Luke exclaimed looking over Ben’s clearly ransacked hermitage then sighed again. “I didn’t see the Sand People make off with anything but I guess there wasn’t much here to begin with,” he grumbled as he began shifting through piles of junk and overturned furniture. “Look around Artoo, let me know if you find anything interesting.” Luke turned over a small table that seemed to have only one of it’s legs left intact with a small grunt. “Why do you think Ben lived out here all alone in the middle of nowhere? Leia said he was a famous general. He traveled all over the galaxy. Why Tatooine? Why-”
Artoo suddenly let out a triumphant series of beeps and Luke’s head snapped up to where Artoo was shining his flashlight.
Luke quickly crossed the room, vaulting over obstructions as he went in his enthusiasm. “What did you find, Artoo?”
Luke knelt down and brushed the sand off the box Artoo was so excited about, fingers catching on the aurebesh engraved on it.
“Does- does that say ‘for Luke’?”
Then something metallic bounced across the rough stone floor and the next thing Luke knew he was being thrown across the room in a flash of blinding light.
Luke bit out a curse when his body protested as he pushed himself up from the ground. “Artoo? What was that? I- I can’t see .”
The astromech didn’t answer.
It was shaping up to be one of the easier, if more tedious jobs he’d done in a while. Which was good because Boba was very eager to get all that Empire shit over and done with as quickly as possible.
The scrawny blond groped around the floor calling for a droid that wasn’t going to help him because it was turned over and shorting out. Then the guy reached for his blaster pistol. A good instinct but too little too late. Boba slammed the stock of his blaster rifle into the bounty’s pretty little face and sent him sprawling among the ruined debris of Kenobi’s hut.
“That was the butt of the rifle that’s now pointed at your head,” Boba growled and the bounty immediately froze in place, Boba assumed out of fear. Smart man. Boba shifted the blaster rifle to one hand so he could pull the manacles from his belt, while advising the bounty to, “Stay down, Skywalker,” just in case he got any dumb ideas that would make this get messy because the last thing he wanted was for Darth fucking Vader to get any leverage over his professional career, languishing on this dustball though that career was.
Skywalker did stay down and, in a shaky voice, cracking with a mass of undefinable and barely contained emotion, decided to try playing dumb. “Sky who?”
Oh gods, Boba thought, as the world around him came screeching to a halt and his right wrist started to burn, My soulmate is an idiot. The thought was followed immediately by, Oh gods the bounty is my soulmate. It was, perhaps, the worst possible scenario. The universe just loved to piss in Boba Fett’s tiingilar.
This is a job, Boba reminded himself even as he felt his throat close up and his heart rate spike. I still need to do my job. His grip tightened on his rifle as he bit out through gritted teeth, “I bet you think that’s real cute.”
“I know I’m cute,” Skywalker shot back automatically.
He was cute and Boba hated it.
Skywalker raised a hand, tentatively, from where he lay on the floor towards Boba and stilled when it brushed against the cold armour that covered Boba’s knee.
Luke’s tongue darted out between his chapped lips, but he didn’t pull his hand back, instead gently resting his palm against the plate. “What’s a stormtrooper doing in the Dune Sea?”
The question was almost drowned out by the sound of Boba’s pounding heart. He had no idea how put together he sounded when he answered, “You’d have to ask a stormtrooper.”
Skywalker’s mouth parted slightly. “Bounty hunter?”
Boba nodded slowly before he remembered that Skywalker was blinded. “Yes.”
Skywalker chewed his bottom lip a moment while he took a few steadying breaths. “Empire?”
“On loan from Jabba.”
Skywalker surprised Boba by laughing then, and Boba was struck with the odd instinctive knowledge that the sound wasn’t as bright as it should have been. It made his chest feel uncomfortably tight. Oh, Boba didn’t like this at all .
“Boba Fett,” Skywalker breathed the name out like it was pulled from his lungs, half in wonder and half something close to pain. “All this time you were a speeder trip away.”
“Not all the time,” Boba allowed, his mind still running out of control.
Skywalker moved to push himself up off the ground and Boba raised his blaster by reflex. “Don’t move.”
Skywalker froze where he was, expression shifting rapidly from confusion, to shock, to anguish, then all the way to bitter resignation in the span of an instant. “You’re still going to try to take me in, aren’t you?”
Boba felt like he was in freefall and distantly hoped his jetpack would be able to catch him before he hit the ground. He grunted something he thought probably sounded close to affirmative. Boba’s father would have been ashamed of him if he had let something like feelings and would-be destiny get mixed up in his work. Bounty hunting had a code, it had steps, rules, it was easy . This - whatever this was - was far from easy. It was something new, and complicated, and dangerous , and it had been a long time since Boba had felt anything close to fear but fuck it if he wasn’t absolutely terrified of the defenseless little wanna-be rebel at his mercy right then.
So Boba stuck with what he knew was easy and safe . “A job’s a job.”
Skywalker’s face twisted into something Boba couldn’t place, his fingers scraped through the dust as they curled into fists where they supported him. Then he started to get up.
“I said don’t move ,” Boba growled, sounding a lot more firm than he felt.
Skywalker scoffed, apparently having no idea what kind of danger he was in. “Put the blaster down already. If you were gonna kill me we wouldn’t be talking.”
Boba followed the rules and kicked Skywalker in that cute mouth of his, and immediately felt his stomach churn. “You could have walked, but I can just as easily carry you to my ship.”
“You’re supposed to buy me dinner before inviting me back to your place,” Skywalker said as he wiped the blood and spit that was dripping from his mouth with the back of his hand and started to stand up again. “So I’ll have to say no.”
Boba had targets try a hand at flirting before, and disingenuous or not he’d never batted an eye at them before. He was a damn professional. None of the other targets ever found any success in it. None of the other targets felt like every word out of their mouth had Boba by the throat.
For a moment, and completely involuntarily, Boba imagined the exchange happening under any other circumstances, because if he had seen that scrappy little dumbass in a cantina, with Boba’s words bared on his wrist for the world to see and snarking through the blood between his teeth, Boba would have-
Boba immediately locked that shit down and did his damndest to throw away the key.
As scrappy as he was though, Skywalker couldn’t actually brawl worth half a Jawa, if the sorry excuse for a fighting stance he dropped into the second he hauled himself to his feet was anything to go by.
Then Boba watched in horror as the hovel was cast in pale blue light and suddenly neither of Boba’s soulmarks were very funny anymore. In fact, Sky who? was several orders of magnitude worse than Are you a Jedi? and Boba really hoped his father wasn’t watching him from beyond the grave right then because this was hands down the worst possible scenario .
“Put the lightsaber away,” Boba snapped, and something flickered briefly across Skywalker’s face faster than Boba could catch it, and he didn’t want to try. “You can’t fight me blind. You couldn’t fight me even if you could see.”
Skywalker defiantly tightened his grip on the weapon and did his best to glare in Boba’s direction with unseeing eyes. “A Jedi doesn’t need to see.”
Boba nearly laughed in Skywalker’s face at that. “Maybe. But you’re no Jedi.”
“No. I’m not. But this home belonged to one once. You shouldn’t have come here.”
On that, at least, they could agree.
Boba fired a blaster shot intentionally wide and Skywalker flinched and tried to block, swinging the saber after it in a sad imitation of the Shien style that he’d probably never even actually seen up close.
Boba fired his whipcord into the opening created by Skywalker’s flailing - and by some miracle Skywalker actually managed to swing the lightsaber back in time to slice straight through it.
Skywalker pressed forward, swinging again in the direction the whipchord came from. It was a good enough approximation of where Boba was that he had to lean out of the way. It had been a long time since Jango Fett’s old armour had been tested against a lightsaber blade, and the last time hadn’t ended well. Boba would have rathered not to find out how well it had held up over the years.
Skywalker’s head tilted in Boba’s direction as Boba dodged, and the downward arc of the blade turned with him mid-strike.
Boba stumbled to avoid the unexpected course-correction, and fell backwards over the astromech still overturned and sparking on the floor.
Skywalker flashed a cocky grin that Boba itched to kiss- punch - he wanted to punch it off the brat’s face.
“Your armour’s noisy,” Skywalker triumphantly announced instead of stopping Boba from picking himself up out of the dirt. As if that , and not that he was painfully obviously Force-sensitive, explained how Skywalker had just done that.
“So’s your mouth,” Boba snapped. With a flick of his wrist a ridge of serrated blade popped out of his vambrace and if Skywalker could see it Boba might have hoped it would have looked menacing enough to finally make him stand down. As it stood, Boba held no such hopes.
True to form, Skywalker just smirked and shot back, “It’s cute you think I’m being loud right now.”
The fact that the mischievous glint in Skywalker’s unfocused eyes and the suggestive quirk of his lips were aimed soundly off target on the wall behind Boba did absolutely nothing to stop the thoughts that flooded Boba’s mind again unbidden. Images formed behind his eyes of Skywalker laid bare, beneath him. The sounds he would make, what it would take to make him scream, and what it would take to make him silent-
Boba would have very much liked to convince himself that his mind wasn’t his own at that moment, but it didn’t feel that way and that was somehow worse.
He made the snap decision that soulmates were bantha shit. Everything happening right then was all bantha shit.
After the show Skywalker had just put on, Boba wondered for just a second if maybe he underestimated his quarry this time.
Then Skywalker swung again, clumsy and purposeless, like a child trying to swat a sandfly. Boba almost pitied him.
Boba stepped easily out of the way and cut a shallow gash into the meat of Skywalker’s shoulder.
Skywalker yelped and swung back in Boba’s direction, but Boba was already moving again, slicing open the rebel’s side, his back, his thigh, along his jaw. Each time he silently hoped Skywalker would do the smart thing and stop . And each time Skywalker stubbornly chased the cuts with the blade of his secondhand lightsaber.
Boba stepped back out of striking range and made one last attempt at negotiating. “You’re running out of options - and blood. Put. The lightsaber. Down.” It sounded like a threat. Boba’s heart pounded like it was a plea.
“No,” Skywalker panted, starting to look a bit unsteady on his feet, and Boba grit his teeth in frustration. “Ben would… Ben-”
“Kenobi’s dead,” Boba snapped, “Along with all the other Jedi. They can’t help you now.”
“They already have.”
That didn’t even make any damn sense. Boba drew his sidearm and shot Skywalker in the shoulder. The bounty let out a pained shout and stumbled to his knees.
“You were right,” Boba said, as Skywalker shakily rose to his feet. “I do have to bring you in alive. That doesn’t mean you have to be in one piece.” In this one case, though, Boba would have really liked to not have it come to that.
Luke took a centering breath and closed his useless eyes. “A Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him,” he murmured to himself, like some kind of mantra he’d made of something someone had once told him.
“Feel this,” Boba snarled, and shot again.
By some incredible miracle, the blaster bolt bounced off the lightsaber back at him.
Well shit, Boba thought in the space between the bolt glancing harmlessly off his shoulder and the moment he activated his jetpack, No wonder Vader wants him alive.
The jetpack propelled Boba right into Skywalker’s center of mass and knocked him to the ground. The lightsaber fizzled out as it flew from his hand and Skywalker was already squirming to get out from where he was pinned under Boba to reach for the weapon.
They scuffled on the floor for a few good moments before Skywalker finally got his hands around the hilt, and rolled onto his back as he ignited it.
Boba’s hands followed quickly enough to cover Skywalker’s and stop the lightsaber in its path.
The all too small space between them was cast in bright blue, and Skywalker’s eyes practically glowed with it. His face was mere inches from Boba’s, and were it not for the helmet and the deadly weapon between them they might have felt each other’s warm, heavy breaths on each others’ faces.
Boba felt unmoored, staring into his soulmate’s face, close enough to count his eyelashes, and barely doing enough to hold the lightsaber where it is. Boba probably could have gotten the upper hand if he wanted. If he felt like he was able to do anything.
Boba was maybe, potentially, unprecedentedly, foolishly, dangerously close to giving in.
Boba didn’t see the box with the words For Luke etched into the lid fly across the room as if on it’s own and hit Boba hard in the back of the helmet, but he certainly felt it right before he blacked out.
It wasn’t how Luke imagined having his soulmate on top of him for the first time would happen. None of it was exactly how Luke imagined, if he was honest. Well actually, it was pretty close to how he had imagined it, ever since he was old enough to fully understand the implications of That was the butt of the rifle that’s now pointed at your head , which, Tatooine being Tatooine, was not very old at all.
He just had never thought his imagination would need to include Boba Fett.
Luke lay pinned under the unconscious body of his soulmate and struggled to draw a full breath under the weight that felt heavier every second as the adrenaline high slowly faded. He tried not to think about how much further out of his depth he felt than an hour ago, when he came there hoping to feel the exact opposite. Because his soulmate was the Boba fucking Fett and Luke was a moisture farmer who found his dead father’s weapon and tried to pretend that made him anything other than an unsupervised child clumsily playing at revenge. He tried not to think about what it meant that he came to Ben’s old home to learn how to be more of a Jedi, to make himself more , and found more of himself instead. He tried really very hard not to think about how having the man slumped on top of him was making his body react with a wholly different sort of heat than Tatooine was known for.
He was very glad Fett was unconscious.
“Hey Artoo?” Luke called into the dark. “Are you there? Any idea what just happened?”
No answer.
With a deep groan from the strain on his muscles that were starting to ache and wounds that were starting to sing with pain, and quite frankly no small amount of exhaustion, Luke finally worked himself up to roll Fett off.
Luke didn’t think he’d be able to find every weapon of Fett’s person if he had full use of his eyes and several dedicated hours, but he settled for tossing the rifle and holdout blaster across the room, hoping they didn’t (or maybe that they did) hold any sort of sentimental value, and securing the cuffs that were meant for him on Fett’s wrists, moving along by feel alone.
One problem temporarily taken care of, Luke fumbled around on the ground until his hands finally searched out the familiar metal cylinder of Artoo’s chassis.
He smelled ozone and he could hear sparking as Artoo tried to come back online, and Luke grimaced preemptively for the Binary tongue lashing he was going to be on the receiving end of the second the droid was capable of dispensing it. Not for the first time Luke silently thanked whoever it was that, at some point, had decided it was worthwhile to EMP-harden the astromech’s memory core; the little guy probably just needed a proper power cycle to right himself enough to get back to the x-wing. It was getting that done blind that was going to be a problem.
Luke had always said he could fix anything with his eyes closed. He guessed now was the time to prove it.
It only took a minute to get Artoo cycled and through all his checks, and by then Luke had some light sensitivity and could make out the vague shapes of some things. He really hoped he wasn’t going to have any permanent retinal damage.
As predicted, the little astromech was whistling curses and demanding satisfaction from whoever disabled him as soon as he was powered up. Luke nearly had to physically restrain the vengeful droid from charging at Fett’s unconscious body with his shock arm extended and ready.
“Stop, Artoo, stop!” Luke exclaimed, throwing himself in Artoo’s murderous path.
Artoo just made a dismissive beep and moved to drive around.
“He’s…” Luke struggled a moment before inspiration struck. “He’s my Threepio.”
Luke could practically hear Artoo’s servos kick into overdrive as he processed and cross-referenced the new data. Then the droid let out an excited whistle, rocked back and forth on his feet, spun in a circle, and finally gave Luke an aggressively congratulatory bump on the shins.
If droids could have soulmates, Artoo and Threepio were it, so it seemed like the gist of the idea had gotten across. Luke took a moment to pity himself for his droids having a considerably more functional relationship that he was probably going to have.
The thought didn’t actually do much to dampen the giddy excitement bubbling up in his chest. Luke’s specialty was fixing moisture vaporators with bits of scrap and wishful thinking.
Functional was relative.
Boba groaned as he drifted back to alertness. What a fucking disaster this had become. A simple errand run had turned into quite possibly the second worst day of his life. The only real consolation was that at least he could honestly tell Vader that “Red Five” had gotten lucky in his escape and Boba really hadn’t let him go. The Sith could smell lies like blood in the water and Boba wasn’t interested in being on the menu.
Now he could go back to his job, and keep pretending that was enough. It was done. Skywalker would be long gone by then, and Boba could go back to his job and to pretending that it was all fine . Or, at least that’s what he thought would happen.
“Your armour’s really heavy, you know that?” Skywalker’s voice cut through the haze of his mind like a knife.
Boba, apparently, had thought wrong. The nightmare wasn’t over yet.
Boba sat up suddenly, ignoring how his muscles screamed in protest, his head snapped up to where Skywalker was sitting on an overturned table, poking appraisingly at the blood spotted holes in his torn up tunic. “The fuck are you still doing here?”
Skywalker’s droid beeped something as it shuffled around the hovel, back at work turning over and inspecting the detritus. Skywalker ignored it and scoffed. “I’m not stupid enough to wander through the Jundland Wastes in the middle of the night, half blind, after you handed me my ass on a platter with a side of womp rat stew.”
Boba glanced down at his manacled wrists, then back up at Skywalker. “You’re fucking joking, right?”
Skywalker didn’t even have the good grace to look embarrassed by how absolutely divinely moronic that excuse was, and just shrugged. “I also thought I’d give us a chance to talk like adults.”
“You’re not making a good case for your lack of stupidity if you expect talking to accomplish anything.”
“Well, I guess there are other things we could try.” Boba suddenly found himself struggling to hold the reins of his imagination at the insinuation. “But I doubt old Ben would appreciate us doing that in his old house.”
Boba cursed in every language he could think of and Skywalker snickered when he got to Huttese. He honest to gods near giggled at the filthiest Huttese oaths Boba had ever uttered. Boba was trying very hard to hate that stupid, stubborn cheerfullness that accompanied the stupid, stubborn rest of Skywalker. He was trying really, really very hard.
“Di’kut,” Boba finished, not sure if he was talking to Skywalker or himself anymore. “What exactly do you think is going to happen when I get out of these cuffs?”
It was when, not if. And if Skywalker was still here when that happened Boba would have to try to capture him again. Boba’s stomach lurched unpleasantly at the thought and Boba pointedly refused to examine why that was.
“Ideally?” Skywalker mused. “I convince you not to sell me to the Empire, kill Vader, win the war, then you carry me off into the stars to live happily ever after. Realistically? I’ll settle for convincing you not to sell me. I’m the first freeborn Skywalker, you know. I’d like to keep it that way.”
The first freeborn Skywalker and the only freeborn clone. There was some kind of tasteless joke in there somewhere.
“Di’kut,” Boba said again, and this time he was quite sure he was referring to Skywalker, but still unclear if he was including himself in the sentiment. “If you had a brain in that pretty head of yours you’d know you stood a better chance in the dunes.”
Skywalker flashed a cocky grin. “You think I’m pretty?”
Boba was starting to feel the trap closing around him, and he got just an edge desperate. “What fucking part of this aren’t you understanding? This isn’t some coreworld song and dance where things sort themselves out because of some banthashit writing on your wrist. Figure that out and move on before it gets you killed. By me. ”
That finally got some reaction out of the blond, but Skywalker decided to take entirely the wrong message. “We’re- you’re my soulmate . I’m not going to just leave .”
Boba grit his teeth together. How damn naive could this guy get? “Would you have stayed if I wasn’t?”
Skywalker’s teeth clacked as his jaw snapped shut, and Boba felt a bitter satisfaction at the sound.
“That’s what people do . They leave . They look out for themselves . If you think being- being-” Boba’s throat closed around the words, refusing to give them a voice, to make them real. “If you think this makes any difference you’re an idiot. Leave , Skywalker. While you can.”
Skywalker stood up, and Boba’s helmet angled subtly away, stubbornly refusing to watch him leave.
But he didn’t leave. Instead he shuffled closer, kneeling down in front of Boba. “No.”
“ No ?”
“No,” Skywalker confirmed, entirely too cheerfully, with the kind of deliberate stubbornness that was about to properly get on Boba’s nerves. “I don’t think I will leave. I think I’ll stay right here.”
“Di’kut,” Boba spat for a third time and he was now very sure he meant both of them because the spark of relief that Skywalker wasn’t walking away was about the dumbest thing Boba had ever felt about the dumbest thing he’d ever seen someone do.
And he’d worked with Han Solo.
Skywalker raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean? You keep saying it.”
“Idiot.”
Skywalker seemed completely unsurprised. “Yeah that sounds about right. I’ll get you to like me eventually.”
Too late, Boba thought, followed promptly by, Fuck. Bantha fucking shit.
If Luke had thought Han had abandonment issues Boba Fett was something else entirely. Fett was so repressed he couldn’t even say the word soulmate, for crying out loud. It was embarrassing.
But Han hadn’t left in the end, for all his posturing. And even though he and Leia were still stubbornly dancing around it, Luke could see where they were heading, as clear as - well, not as clear as anything at the moment, but that wasn’t the point. So Luke could work with that. Force, he hoped he could work with that.
There were a few more hours until the suns rose, and Luke would be out of excuses not to head straight back to his x-wing. He hoped by that time he’d have his vision back more-or-less entirely. And that his soulmate wouldn’t be trying to beat the shit out of him. That would be nice.
“So…” Luke started, wracking his brain to think up small talk. “Is it against the rules to ask how many other bounty hunters are coming after me?”
Great , Luke thought, immediately wincing at himself, Real casual. Great start.
The blurry outline of Boba just shrugged. “You’re not easy to track down. I killed the only man that could so much as tell me your name. As far as anyone outside the Rebellion is concerned, you don’t exist beyond your callsign. No one else is going to come after you. Not from this angle anyway.”
Luke was surprised by how easily forthcoming that answer was. “Well that’s reassuring... I guess.”
“He said people called you ‘Wormie’.”
Luke groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “I’ve changed my mind, you can give me to the Empire now.”
Boba snorted and Luke’s head snapped up at the sound. That was progress.
“So…” Luke scooted a little closer to Boba’s side. “Bounty hunting sounds exciting?”
“No.”
Well, that hadn’t gone as well. Still, Luke tried to press. “Are you telling me being the most infamous bounty hunter in the outer rim is boring?”
“Yes.”
More monosyllables. Raincheck on the progress front. It may have been time to try a different line of questioning. “Got any hobbies? I used to collect model ships. I had a really nice-”
“You talk too much.”
Luke’s eyes narrowed in challenge. “Give me something else to do with my mouth.”
“How about I feed you my fist?”
Luke bit down on his lower lip in a vain attempt to suppress his shit-eating grin. “Sounds great but I don’t see what that’s supposed to do for my mouth .”
Let it never be said that Luke Skywalker had class. This was probably why Leia didn’t let him talk on the diplomatic missions.
Luke wasn’t sure how Fett managed to look unimpressed with that helmet on, but he pulled it off with aplomb.
Luke opened his mouth again to make room for his other foot, but before he could say anything Artoo beeped loudly that he’d found something.
Luke stood up and carefully made his way across the room where Artoo had uncovered a concealed trap door. Luke lifted the door and Artoo beeped that it looked like a tiny workshop.
Luke slung his legs over the edge and hooked his feet into the ladder, turning back to Fett to ask, “I can see shapes and colours now, you think I’m good to go down there?”
Boba replied with an immediate, flat, “No.”
“You’re probably right,” Luke agreed. Then he started to climb down anyway. Luke’s head popped back up briefly to ask, “You fine up here for a bit?”
Boba’s head tilted in a way Luke hoped was amused, but was probably annoyed. “A bottle of spotchka would be nice.”
“Ugh. Would it ever,” Luke agreed, and ducked back down into the hidden basement.
With Artoo providing light and directions from above, Luke managed to gather some things and toss them up to the main level with only minimal bruising from walking into solid objects, mostly to his ego.
“What’s that pile of junk?” Boba asked, as Luke followed his haul up out of the cellar.
“No clue,” Luke answered. “but Artoo thinks it’s worth something.”
Luke held some of the pieces up to the barely-there light of not-quite dawn and frowned. Then he drew his lightsaber from his belt and held it up next to a particular piece of scrap that had caught his eye and squinted very, very hard. He tilted the pieces, tilted his head the other way, and stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth. Maybe...
Luke felt the back of his neck prickle a bit like he was being watched a little too closely. He glanced over at where Boba was sitting and found the bounty hunter’s visor locked on him and finally felt like he was being hunted.
Luke expected it to feel more frightening.
Somehow Luke was certain their eyes met. Something sparked in the air between them and for just a second Luke thought maybe something was going to happen that would make old Ben’s ghost blush.
Then Boba tore his gaze away with a sharp turn of his helmet and the spell was broken.
Well, the suns were rising, and things were only mostly blurry, so Luke fought down the blush that was definitely dusting his cheeks and bundled up his new treasures with the For Luke box for the walk back to his x-wing.
Then he - extremely awkwardly, and with a little bit of pity for how defeated he seemed - helped Fett to his feet and gave Artoo the go ahead to lead them back to the ship.
“Do you have a ship nearby?” Luke asked, conversationally.
Boba answered tersely, “Took a speeder from Mos Eisley.”
The short walk was… awkward. Luke tried to lighten the mood by whistling something aunt Beru used to sing, but that didn’t exactly raise any spirits. It was a relief when they reached the ship, honestly.
Luke quickly scurried up onto the x-wing and sent the Falcon their coordinates. Seconds later his com was buzzing like an angry Gamorrean thunder wasp. Luke promptly opened the channel and was not at all surprised to be greeted by a borderline manic sounding Han Solo.
“Luke! What happened? Why did you suddenly call for a pickup on Tatooine ?”
“Oh it’s a great story,” Luke replied cheerfully. “Adventure, mystery, romance. We’re all going to have a good laugh about it someday, I promise.”
Leia’s chastising voice came through next and Luke could vividly imagine her shoving Han out of the way to speak. “Luke, what did you do ?”
“Why do you always assume I did something?” Luke pouted.
“ Luke .”
“Okay,” Luke relented. “I might have a plus one with me. A guest of honor, even.”
“Kid, tell me you’re not getting suckered by some sob story from-”
Luke cut Han off with a breezy, “I can guarantee with absolute certainty that that’s not it. This time.”
“It better not be.”
“It’s not . What did I ever do to be considered so untrustworthy?”
“Would you like a list?”
“I’ll have you know I have never done anything objectionable in my whole life.”
“The death of my smuggling career says otherwise.”
“You took that job fair and square.”
“It was a con and you know it.”
“Was not. ”
“As productive as this is,” Leia cut in, “How about we wrap this up? We’ll be there soon, Luke.”
“Try not to get yourself into more trouble before we get there, kid.”
The com cut before Luke could defend himself against the parting jab.
“Lived here almost twenty years,” Luke muttered. “What exactly does he think…”
Boba watched Skywalker screw around in the cockpit of his x-wing - without even bothering to climb all the way in so he was giving Boba a fantastic view of his ass - and wondered what exactly he did to deserve this.
What was he even doing, letting a Rebel lunatic with the self preservation instincts of a porg in a shyrack cave lead him around the Jundland Wastes like a massiff on a leash. This was moronic. Boba still didn’t do anything to stop it.
The Millennium Falcon landed in the sand next to Luke’s x-wing and shortly after Chewbacca came down the loading ramp as it lowered.
The Wookie took one look at the pair of them and let out a roar that sounded like he was trying to decide between being concerned and amused.
“Boba Fett?” Han shouted, stomping down the ramp behind his copilot and drawing his blaster. “Where?!”
“Solo,” Boba grumbled to himself. “This day just keeps getting better.”
“And it’s not even noon,” Luke grinned with a uncomfortably companionable elbow to Boba’s side.
“Don’t get friendly, Skywalker, it’s bad for your health.”
Whatever smartass remark Luke was going to make in response was cut off by Han shouting, “Kid, do I want to know how you managed to get Boba Fett in cuffs?”
Luke turned a cheerful smile to his friends and answered, “You know, I was completely blind at the time so I’m not actually sure.”
Of all the people Boba expected to come storming out of the Millennium Falcon behind Han Solo, Princess Leia Organa, formerly of Aalderan, was not the last person on the list, but she was pretty damn close.
The petite woman stomped down the loading ramp, pushing past Han and Chewbacca like they were the help, and immediately started letting Skywalker have it. “Luke, you’ve got some explaining to do after running off after that last mission for - whatever this is.” She jabbed a finger in Boba’s direction.
Skywalker just continued grinning. “It’s good to see you again too, Leia.”
The princess ignored the greeting. “This is our ‘guest of honour’ then, I take it? Give me one good reason I should let this two-credit bounty hunter in my presence.”
Luke whined, “Oh come on, you travel with Han .”
“Hey!” Han shouted at the same time the princess narrowed her eyes and said, “ Luke -”
“And we’re kind of soulmates,” Luke added so quickly it was almost unintelligible. He finally seemed to have gained the good sense to look at least mildly embarrassed at the admission.
The looks on Han and Organa’s faces almost made up for the rest of Boba's fucked up day.
“Can we kidnap him? Please Leia?” Luke begged in the stunned silence that followed, and that seemed to jolt everyone back to reality.
“Not a chance,” Han snapped.
Luke shot back, “I wasn’t asking you .”
“ It’s my ship !” Han protested.
“And Leia owns you , so mnyeh.” Luke stuck out his tongue like a petulant child.
Was that endearing or just annoying? Boba was on the fence. Then he realized what an absolutely ridiculous thing that was to be thinking about and stopped.
Or he tried to.
Maybe it was a little endearing.
Boba decided he might as well interject, “Anyone give a shit what I think about this?”
“No,” everyone else said at once.
Well, that was fine then. Boba sat back and watched the rest of the show.
“Luke,” Organa said with steady, forced diplomacy, “he works for the Empire. ”
“He works for Jabba,” Luke firmly corrected.
The princess was clearly struggling to maintain an impassive facade. “And that’s better how ?”
Luke rolled his eyes. “ Everyone on Tatooine works for Jabba. Han works for Jabba.”
“That,” Organa replied through gritted teeth, “is not better.”
Boba snorted and didn’t care who heard.
“We are not doing this out here in the sand. Inside, all of you,” Organa ordered, then strode right up to Boba so her face was right at his chin and snarled, “If you make one wrong move so help me I’ll make you wish you were never born, do you understand?” Then she spun around and marched back up into the ship without waiting for an answer.
Boba found himself surprised that he believed her.
“I don’t like this,” Han repeated for about the hundredth time as he paced around the common area of the Falcon.
“Feeling’s mutual,” Boba grumbled back.
“ I’m having a great time,” Luke chirped with a grin, resting his head in his hands over the dejarik table.
Chewie roared an agreeable laugh at that, and Han whirled on the wookie. “Whose side are you on, fuzzball?”
“Might earn some loyalty if you ever paid him,” Boba suggested dryly.
Chewie roared something else and Boba suddenly stood a little straighter.
“The Rebels gave you how much in reward for the princess?”
Chewie made an affirmative growl and barked another laugh.
“What the hell are you still doing hanging around here ?” Boba demanded, wheeling back on Solo.
Han looked like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and that told Boba all he needed to know.
After a moment of gaping that he was very glad no one could see under his helmet, Boba snorted. “Never thought I’d see the day when Han Solo took up a cause that isn’t lining his own pockets and running.”
“Shut the hell up,” Han snapped. “You’re here too.”
“Not by choice.”
“Yeah, well,” Han grumbled, “Neither am I.”
Boba caught the surreptitious glances the smuggler was sending the princess’ way but he also didn’t believe for a second that Han’s poorly hidden soft heart hadn’t completely gotten the better of him.
Not that Boba was in a much better situation.
“If you’ve been loaded this whole time, why haven’t you paid your debt to Jabba?”
Han froze. “ Oh fuck .”
“You forgot .” Boba said incredulously. “Hey Princess, my condolences on the soulmate.”
“It could be worse,” Organa fixed Boba with an icy glare that cut far deeper than it should have coming from petite pampered royalty. “He could be you. ”
“ Rude , Leia!” Luke pouted.
“He’s a liability, Luke," Organa said. "We’re not taking him with us.”
“Then I’ll go with him, he’s got a ship in Mos Eisley.”
“No,” absolutely everyone said at once.
“Well I don’t see any other way this is going to go,” Luke announced indignantly, and sat back in his seat with his arms crossed.
“You’re not going with him,” Organa and Han said at the same time Boba said, “You’re not coming with me.”
“Great, then he comes with us,” Luke said like it was already decided.
Everyone spoke at once again.
“Look,” Luke interrupted the din, focusing those too-knowing blue eyes on Boba. “Either you’re coming with us or I’m going with you.”
“No,” Boba said again. It sounded a lot firmer than he was expecting.
“I’m sorry, ‘no’ is not an option at this time.” There was that annoying, unflinching stubbornness again. “Pick one.”
“I’m not going anywhere in this pile of scrap Solo calls a ship.”
“Excellent choice,” Luke exclaimed, practically beaming as he jumped to his feet. “I'll get my things.”
“That is not -”
Luke was already gone, with the princess running after him. Fuck.
In the absence of material witnesses, Han stopped his pacing and wheeled on Boba. “Listen up, Boba. You and I both know you could have gotten out of those cuffs whenever you wanted. I don’t know what kind of con you think you’re going to pull on that kid but-”
“That ‘kid’ has the highest bounty in known space, Solo ,” Boba interrupted coolly.
“He- wha-” Han sputtered. “Wait, how much higher is it than mine? No, never mind. So you’re planning to cash in, is that it?”
Boba clenched his teeth so hard they might have cracked. “Yes.”
It wasn’t a very good lie. It certainly didn’t fool even Han’s terrible nose for deceit, judging by the smarmy grin on his face.
That bounty was supposed to be Jabba’s ‘gift’ to Vader. And even if it wasn’t, Boba wouldn’t be able to collect it himself. He’d need to set up a proxy, real or fabricated, and that took time, resources, and a reliable partner.
Never ask for help, Jango’s stern voice in the back of Boba’s head reminded him.
No, turning Skywalker in himself wasn’t a real option even if he wanted to. And that was the main, and most disturbing problem; Boba didn’t want to.
With the things Boba had seen Luke do with however little training he’d gotten, Boba knew what that bounty was really for. And he knew that Vader would break Luke in a way that Boba would never be able to fully understand. Boba shouldn’t have cared about that. Normally he wouldn’t have. Normally he did his job, didn’t ask questions, got paid, and didn’t think about what happened to other people along the way. Just the way his father taught him to.
Jango also taught him not to give away things that belonged to him.
Boba decided that the smartest thing to do would be to drop Skywalker off at the first planet they passed. There were a million reasons why he should have done that.
And just one reason he shouldn’t, branded under his right vambrace.