Chapter Text
The universe spins on the tip of a finger. It wobbles and tilts, and still never manages to fall. A delicate balance, all you have ever known and all you ever will.
All it takes is one choice. One little moment. And that’s it.
It falls.
*
Palpatine does not die alone, but with a line of green coming out of his chest, the flesh still sizzling. It is not the first time this room, more fit for bodies than a throne, has smelled of burning rot; but, at least, it is the last. Unlike Obi-Wan, he does not vanish. Instead, he rests, half falling out of that throne; skin sinking down to his bones. He would have preferred it if the Emperor vanished, wiped away as if the last few seconds had not happened. He is facing the evidence of it, and he cannot look away.
Luke stares, listening to the old man’s blood pop and simmer, and lets the handle of his saber slip out of his hands. The green light disappears, but the stars are still shining; even as he stumbles away and empties his stomach on the durasteel floor. There is a sour taste in his mouth and everything is swimming. The easy path , Yoda warned, and it was easy.
Anger, that was what it had been. Anger, and imaging them all- Leia and Han and Lando and all those other members, corpses with burn marks on their hearts or dust among comet tails. It had been easy at the moment, but in the aftermath, he felt like he wanted to die.
Luke kept waiting for his father to do something. Maybe crush his windpipe, or crack his ribs; slice off his head, or hurl him through an airlock to choke on space. His breathing is still there, still heavy, and the thunk of his soles adds to the pounding in Luke’s skull. He braces, hands fisted. He does not even try to call his saber to his grasp.
“It’s alright.” The words are mechanical, in the way that all of his are. There’s no stutter in his breath, not hesitation. Luke moves away from his puddle of sickness, all the way over to the other side of the walkway, the railing digging into his back.
“No, it’s not,” he whispers. Will his eyes turn yellow, his skin white like chalk? Will the blade on his saber turn from green to red, as easy as turning on a light?
“He was going to kill your friends,” his father says. Luke feels something, a tentative nudge against his shields. He has only ever felt anger and hate when trying to tune into his father, but this here is something far different. Comfort.
“You still are, aren’t you?” Luke stares at his hand, at the black glove versus tan skin. Listens to the squeak as his finger joints move. He was supposed to kill Vader, according to his teachers, but he’s already disappointed them enough. What’s one more?
“...No.” Luke looks up. Anakin knelt in front of him, those red glasses trained on him. A part of him still raises its hackles in terror. A part of him still expects to die. “I never saw the point of this machine. Too flashy. Too cruel. I can have it dismantled.”
“I…I killed him. In cold blood,” Luke whispers. Palpatine hadn’t attacked him, not yet, but that’s what makes all the difference. The universe will call him a hero, but could he take the title? Accept it without feeling like it wasn’t a fair fight? He imagines Leia; she’d tell him he should have kept stabbing. He imagines Han; he’d tell him that he was just taking the gamble. He imagines Lando; he’d tell him he was dealt the better hand.
“If you hadn’t, I was going to.” Should a father be proud of a son for murder? Luke tries to remind himself of many things: that he’s seen so many horrible things because of Palpatine, that Palpatine needed to die, that Yoda would probably congratulate him. That he is grown now, more than ever, and he shouldn’t feel like crying. But he can look over and see the Emperor’s wide open eyes, mouth in that grotesque smile. He can remember how the saber felt cutting through human flesh, how easy it was, how fast.
Luke can imagine his friends reassuring him, but the only person telling him it’s alright is his father. He moves almost on instinct, wrapping his arms around that bulky suit, his chin clipping on the chestplate and forehead into the end of that helmet.
When his father’s arms wrap around his body, the first tears finally start to fall.
*
It’s a blur, really. Luke remembers the order over a loudspeaker, that they are to give up the new Death Star and evacuate, that he is carried into a Star Destroyer and left alone. He’s somewhat sure that Anakin unclipped his own cape and covered his face, to keep from the prying eyes of staff and personnel. Whosoever quarters these are, he doesn’t care.
He curls into himself, and sleeps.
*
Luke isn’t sure how long it takes for him to crawl out of that cave of metal and glass. He wraps himself up in a blanket, covers his face and his hand, shields himself. The corridors are many, designed to be mazelike, but Luke has a string to follow now. Anakin’s force signature is a constant pulse, reaching out and trying to tangle with his. Luke is used to it being full of rage, and now it is light with hope and sodden with worry.
The bridge of a Star Destroyer is full of people, too many people to shield himself from. Guards look at him, troopers point their blasters. His father waves them away, he abandons his post before hooking a gentle arm around Luke’s shoulders and pulling him away. He swears he hears whispering, all of them referring to Anakin as “Your Excellency.”
“You’re awake.” The worry crashes onto him, weaves along his shoulders. He knew his father was strong, but not like this.
“How long was I…” His mouth is dry, his voice rough from disuse.
“A few days. I didn’t want to wake you.” Luke can still remember his miniature break-down when Palpatine died. A few days, and his father is the new Emperor, and he has no idea if the rebellion even still exists.
“Are my friends safe?” he asks, without hesitation.
“Of course. We abandoned the station, it was destroyed. You’ve been reported dead.” Luke certainly feels like it, with the cotton in his head.
“And?”
“You cannot think I would kill you?”
“You can’t think it didn’t cross my mind?” A noise comes out of Anakin’s mouth, fuzzed by the voice modulator, but Luke can tell it’s a laugh. If not from the sound, from the sprinkling of cheer that peppers itself along his shields.
“I would not, not now, not with Palpatine dead. This rebellion may still be an issue, however,” Anakin says, a small slip into Vader. It takes a moment for Luke to remember that to everyone else, he’s still Vader. Has never been Anakin.
“You could listen to them, you know. I’m not staying if you keep killing them, or innocents.” It’s a half based threat at best. The idea of going back makes his bones feel heavy, makes his head go dead. To vanish, to kill the Emperor, and then go back. What would he say? That he needed a few hugs from Darth Vader to be mentally sound again?
“Now, some deaths need to be-”
“No.” Luke feels that anger, and sees his father stumble for the first time. Expects rage to brush up against his mind or an invisible fist around his throat. Instead, it is pride. “No innocents dead. No rebels dead. Or I leave and you will never see me again.”
“You’ve learned a thing or two, since Bespin.” Paid for with bone and flesh, but both of them know that.
“Well?”
“Fine.”
*
Luke stays dead to the world, both sides of propaganda twirling him into different things. Here a martyr, there a terrorist; here a lost boy, there a monster. He feels the staff's contempt and complacency. Feels those that never even really knew his name squint at the holos in confusion.
He feels a nudge at his brain, a wiggle, a worm.
Leia, so sure he is alive, unwilling to let the experts tell her otherwise. Luke shuts her out, doubles his shields until he can only hear himself. He cannot imagine telling her what happened, can imagine that she would have made a much better hero than he ever did.
She is so strong, but he is so weak; but what he would give to see her smile.
*
Anakin is a terrible teacher.
Compared to Yoda and Obi-wan, he finds it hard to stay on topic. Luke listens to him jump from subject to subject, years of experience that he tries to boil down to a few hours a day; watches him reign in the famous temper that earned him his reputation whenever Luke messes up. It reminds Luke of a frantic womp rat, cornered and hopping through the sands, like if it stops moving it will die without the help of a shot.
He tries to teach Luke things, dark things that make Luke cringe away. Part of his trouble may be because the light techniques are so far in his past that they are too hard to remember. “You could be worse,” he tells Luke.
“I could be better,” Luke counters back.
It is a game of push and pull, of light and dark, until Luke finds himself in a strange mix of gray. He masters the different forms, green flowing in an arc even as he learns how much pressure to apply to a living being to kill it. He meditates even as Anakin scoffs, he flings dummies into the wall hard enough to hear them snap even as he feels a little guilt. Both of them stay away from summoning lightning, too raw, too evil even for Anakin.
“How do you take down an opponent with a blaster?” his father asks.
“Send the blast right back,” Luke counters.
Then his father says, “I think you need someone younger for a sparring partner.”
*
Before he ever meets Mara Jade, he is sent a folder with her name on it. What he finds inside it amazes him. Trained from a young age, wild and full of potential, trained by Palpatine in the arm of assassinations. Red hair and green eyes, a lightsaber of crimson and a kill list as long as his forearm. Specifically meant to end all Skywalkers, even Vader, by the old Emperor’s command.
A turncoat in the heart of the nest. There was a reason, when he faced Palpatine, only Vader was in the room. There was a reason none of the guards came in.
Palpatine’s Hand becomes Vader’s Knife, and Luke is as intrigued as he is terrified.
*
Mara Jade looks nothing like the holos in her file. There, she is shown attending galas, dresses glittery and eye-catching, lips as red as her hair. There, she wields a red saber with precision, a catsuit for stealth stuck to her skin, eyes as flinty as any soldier he has ever seen.
When she walks into the training room, she is wearing loose and baggy fabric, hair in a braid, yawning. Luke much prefers this version of her to those in the holos. Her saber isn’t even attached to a belt, but is in a deep pocket, thumping against her thigh with every step.
Anakin presents him as a new recruit, says nothing of their family connection, but Mara can recognize his face. He can see it, not in her face, but in the coils of her Force signature. Curiosity, something that he has felt the more he tries to explore the Star Destroyer.
She fights beautifully. Luke watches with rapt attention as she moves and spins. Unlike the others he has studied, who move with purpose, who move like soldiers- she dances. Mara’s spins look more like pirouettes, her dodges like sashays, her eyes constantly on her target even as her body twists. Yoda was fast, Obi-wan purposeful, Anakin strong, but Mara is graceful.
They fight, and she’s much faster than anyone he’s fought before, because of youth more than anything. They parry and block and aim, until the heat coming off their sabers makes sweat break out on his brow, until Luke can see the line of his saber reflected in her pupils.
Mara catches him on his way back to his room, hood over his head, and pins him to the wall. He’s taller than her by maybe an inch, but her arm still finds his throat easily enough. “Why are you here Skywalker? Planning to run back to your little rebellion?”
“I, I-”
“You are terrible at this spy thing.”
“I’m not!”
“I can’t believe Vader-”
“Vader is my father!” Luke blurts out. “I didn’t want him to be alone.” That last part, he isn’t sure if it’s a lie or not, if it’s something he never thought about or if Mara pulled it out of him. She softens. Pulls away.
She leaves.
*
Mara shows up at his room late at night, in a change of clothes and with a bottle in her hand. Luke can’t even ask what she’s doing here before she pushes her way through, settles on his bed, and pops the cap.
He may not be a fan of alcohol, but even he can tell that it's some kind of booze, one that’s strong enough to burn the air in his lungs. He thinks, distantly, that Han would love it. “Where did you even get that?” he asks, closing the door, watching her take a pull.
“One of the engineers has a distilling system next to the engine coolant,” Mara says, shrugging. Luke really hopes his eyes don’t begin to water.
“Is that…safe?”
“Debatable. You gonna stand there all night or help me with it, Farmboy?” Luke sits across from her, remembers her pinning him to a wall. He’s hesitant to take a sip, not only because of its strength.
“Why are you being nice?”
“You don’t have friends here. I mean, obviously,” Mara continues, before Luke can point out that he’s a known Rebel pilot on an Empire ship, “but I don’t think you know how little. Vader can say you’re with us all he wants, if he ever lets you come back to life, but so many officers would let him strangle them just so they could have the pleasure of killing you. If anyone ever really sees your face, you’re dead.”
“And you won’t kill me?”
“I don’t give a shit about internal politics,” Mara scoffs. “I just know that you need someone to keep you alive, other than your dad.”
“Ah. How…sweet of you.”
“I’m like sugar,” Mara deadpans. Luke finally takes the bottle, even as the smell very nearly makes him gag. He manages one sip before he breaks out into a cough, barely managing not to spit up all over his bedsheets. Mara, beside him, starts to laugh until her cheeks turn pink.
“It’s practically gasoline!”
“Takes some getting used to.”
“Just bring me hot chocolate next time,” he grumbles, wiping his mouth and pushing the bottle back into her hands.
“You really are a farmboy,” she teases, and yet, she is smiling.
*
When Luke’s birthday rolls around, he realizes that his father does not know. It feels more awkward than it should be, talking to that black and red mask, just to ask if Anakin was around for his birth. Anakin sends him happiness, for sharing the fact, but also an underlayer of sadness. Something bone deep, something that Luke cannot even begin to fathom.
“Your mother died in childbirth,” he says. Luke had never thought of it that way, had always been told that his father was a spice runner and his mother kind but too busy for a child; he’d never considered what the new truth may mean. Never considered that his birthday may be an anniversary for something darker.
“Tell me about her?” he asks, and this is the one present Anakin can really give him.
It takes a while, with his difficulty breathing, but he gets there. Luke does not urge him to hurry, does not interrupt. Instead, he listens. Luke learns about Padme Amidala, a queen and then a senator, as beautiful as she was fierce. That she fought for freedom until the very end, that she and Luke are alike in the way they treated him, that she always knew he could be better. There are funny stories, like his father’s awful attempt at courtship, or that time he was locked in the Senate building without his lightsaber. There are sadder stories, about how the Clone Wars put a strain on their relationship, or how secrets made up more of their interactions than affection. There is his mother fighting on Naboo, there is a wedding with only droids, there is the turn that ruined them all.
Luke thinks of his mother, and he thinks of Leia and how she said she only remembered a bright light and warmth and safety.
He hasn’t felt that wiggle into his brain in some time, hasn’t felt her try to reach him.
Luke thinks of Anakin, and Padme, and Leia, and wonders: Has she given up?
*
“You’re quiet tonight,” Mara says. Usually they try to have fun at night, discussing gossip and training ideas, but Luke can’t do it. His mind is still flooded with the stories of his family, of his sister. He’s sure Mara just jokingly made fun of him, something about how he still preferred other drinks to the booze she brought, and he hasn’t ribbed back at her.
“I’m thinking of my sister,” Luke admits. He doesn't really tell Mara anything, no names or places, because he’s not an idiot despite what the Empire wants its people to believe. Mara is a friend perhaps, but still.
“She’s still with the rebellion, isn’t she?”
“We both are,” Luke says, but the heat isn’t in it. Mara stays silent, but the questions float before his eyes. Why haven’t you left? Why are you still here? Would a rebel really spend this much time on a Star Destroyer?
“You should contact her.”
“What?” Not even Anakin had suggested such a thing, they hadn’t talked about Leia the whole time he’d been here.
“Look,” Mara starts, “I was taken from my parents when I was a kid. I barely remember them. You still have a family, and she probably thinks you’re dead. If I was you and I had a sister…I dunno. I’d be going to her.”
“You were right Mara,” Luke finally says, and Mara raises an eyebrow.
“About…?”
“You are as sweet as sugar.” He can barely get the words out before laughing, and Mara chucks a pillow at his face.
“Shut up, Skywalker!”
*
That night, before he sleeps, he peels back layer after layer of his shields. At the end of it Luke feels raw, open, like his mind is the innards of a fruit. He thinks of Leia as he drifts, thinks of the first time he saw her as a hologram on Tatooine, then in the prison, then how she took his blasters from his hands and fired at will.
The space he’s in is like nothing he’s seen before. It is shades of gray, white ripples spreading out with every step. He sees her, just barely, a figure in white with brown hair streaming down her back. Luke runs, and he feels a bit too weightless, and there is no feel to Leia as he hugs her, but the room lights with yellows and pinks of joy as she recognizes him.
“You’re alive. I knew! I knew it! There was no way you'd have been at the station when it blew!” The swirling colors should make his eyes hurt, but they don’t, they focus on Leia. On the extra lines in her forehead, at the fullness of her cheeks. “Where are you? Do you have a prison number?”
“I’m not at a prison,” Luke clarifies. “I’m on dad’s ship.” Specks of disgust color the air around Leia, the stormy gray of concern.
“Oh, Force, I’m sorry Luke. What has he done to you, for you to not reach out in so long?” Her fingers are like barely there wind, brushing his hair out of his eyes.
“He hasn’t done anything. He’s changed Leia. I swear it.” Luke felt Leia tense in his arms before slowly backing up. The air around her was swirling, so many colors, emotions flashing.
“If you can get me off the Death Star, I can get you off the Imperial Flagship. Just hang in there, okay?”
“Yes, come! Please, we need to talk to each other, all three of us.” It was war along the air, of joy and anger, bright colors and dull.
“You’ve been there too long.”
“What? No, father never said I couldn’t leave-”
“Then why haven’t you?” Leia demanded. Luke let his mouth close, his teeth clicking together. Green light, and the blood bubbles, it smells like burning flesh. She would understand, wouldn’t she?
“I killed the Emperor,” he whispers, cringed at the yellow and pink that comes from her, the joy, “and I hated it.” He cannot meet her eyes. “I nearly broke after I did it, Leia.”
“Then why didn’t you come back?”
“Because dad was what was holding me together. Because how could I go to the rebellion and tell them I hated killing a tyrant?” Luke knows he cannot cry here, but deep blues and purples are bleeding from him. “How could I be called a hero?”
“Luke…”
“Please, Leia. He’s better, I swear, can we just all talk?” How many times can the cracks inside him be reopened. The walls turn back to lifeless gray around Leia, even as his turn the darkest blue. She looks away.
“Come back when you remember what he is.” She says, and she’s gone, and he is alone in the silence and the blue.
*
“I talked to Leia the other day,” Luke says. Anakin tilts his head towards him, the sign that he is listening, though he does not turn fully. Leia is a sore spot with him, and Luke resists the urge to push.
“About?”
“I…tried to convince her to come here and talk to us. See how you’ve changed.” It’s hard to tell when Anakin’s shoulders slump, but Luke is getting better.
“I take it, it didn’t go well.”
“No,” Luke sighed. “I just…I wish she could give me a chance, and listen.” His shields are layered even more than before, and he doesn’t need to check to know hers are to. “But I can’t find her.” Anakin is silent, except for that breathing, as steady as a heartbeat.
“I have ways we can find her.”
“Not Boba Fett,” Luke snaps. Before he remembers, of course, Boba Fett is dead. He was there for it.
“A new recommendation came in from the guild. A bounty hunter of extreme skill, and very good at following orders. A Mandalorian.”
“No name?”
“Not important enough,” Anakin says. “You can give him his orders when he flies in.” Luke isn’t sure he can give orders to a man with no name, but this is important enough for him to try.
*
The Razor Crest makes Luke long for his X-wing. Not only that, but the Falcon, or any rebellion ship. The battered hulls held together with tape, and hope, and a little bit of that pilot’s luck.
The man that comes out of it looks held together in the same way, armor dinged and full of scoring. He doesn’t so much as walk into the bridge, but stride. Luke cannot help comparing him to Fett, finding that he likes this mystery hunter more. He doesn’t try to intimidate, doesn’t question why the bridge is empty except for the two of them. “What’s the job?” Is all he asks, voice clipped.
“I need you to find someone and bring her here,” Luke says. “Unharmed. No violence.” The hunter concedes with a tilt of the head. “Leia Organa.”
The hunter actually laughs, he’s so surprised, shakes his head even as he straightens. “They said Vader had insane jobs, but not that crazy. You’d need a team, not one person.”
“We can pay you.”
“Not enough.”
“You sure?” Luke hefts the case passed to him by his father, opens it to reveal rows and metal plates. Uniform and pristine, stamped with the imperial logo. When he was first shown it, Luke thought it had been silver, and was confused as to why Mandos would deal in semi-precious metals. Beskar, his father had explained, something more precious to Mandalorians than anything else.
“How much is there?”
“Hundred. And a hundred more when you complete the job.” Luke swears the hunter’s eyes are narrowing under that helmet, sizing him up, wondering if he can take him hostage without getting his hands dirty. In the end, the hunter shrugs, and holds out a black gloved hand.
“Deal.”
*
Days pass without word from the hunter. Then weeks, then a month. Luke frets, worried that Mando took the hundred plates of beskar and ran. Anakin just says they can find another, Mara shakes her head. “I’ve heard of him,” she says, “he’s good on his word.”
He gets the comm on a secure line, a small blue holo of the Mando’s face, the T line of his visor hiding his eyes. “Coming in,” he says, and they start moving. The bridge is cleared, and Luke moves, trying to track down Mara before anything. He finds her in the office of a Palpatine loyalist, all in black and her hair in a secure bun.
“I’m working,” she mumbles, fingers skimming over a hacked data pad.
“Leia’s here.” She looks up, hesitates. Luke remembers Han tell him that he knew how to use his eyes too well, like a lost puppy.
“I don’t really work on welcome committees,” she says, hesitant, hands hovering.
“Mara. Please.” He doesn’t know why, but he needs this. Needs Leia to see him with someone that isn’t Anakin, like that will make her believe him somehow. Distantly, he always thought her and Leia would get along.
“Fine. Blackmail can be collected later, I guess.” She taps a few buttons and the desk goes quiet; a few readjustions of the chair and it’s like she was never there. The two of them move down the hall easily, Luke with his face hidden and Mara undoing her hairpins.
The hangar is empty except for his father and the Crest, one hulking silver and the other black. Luke resists the urge to start bouncing on his toes as the ramp comes down, and then there they are.
Leia makes the ship look even worse, the way she walks out in white. It’s not close to how she looked when they first met, it’s a jumpsuit and not a dress, her hair is pinned behind her head in one swirl instead of two by her ears. She walks carefully, her face a mask, beside the bounty hunter instead of in front of him. Her hands are laying on her stomach. That’s good, Luke reminds himself, because it means she didn’t put up a fight.
“It’s good to see you, Luke,” she says, and he’s amazed to see the light in her eyes, the slight upturn of her mouth.
“You actually wanted to talk?” She’s so stubborn, it’s amazing she’s actually here.
“I considered what you said.” Leia looks between him and Mara, an unknown variable, before walking carefully over to Anakin. He towers over her, but she still tries to look him in the eyes. “Father.”
She moves so fast, Luke doesn’t do anything.
One moment she is there pristine, and calm, and the next she’s pulling something out of her sleeve and aiming it at their father’s chest plate. Mara and the hunter are faster, or maybe they expected this. There’s a flash of red as Mara’s saber clashes against the weapon, but doesn’t cut through, sparks in the air. The hunter pinches Leia’s wrist, and the weapon drops, her arms suddenly behind her back and secured. “I said no handcuffs as long as you didn’t do anything stupid,” he says. “Stealing from my ship and attempting an assassination is pretty stupid.”
Luke’s mouth is still dry, and Mara’s saber is still out. Leia’s face has turned from calm and collected to gnashing fury, lip curled and teeth barred.
“Please remove your weapon, Ms. Jade.” Mara hesitates.
“Sir-”
“ Now.” Mara moves fast, saber gone and on her belt. Leia tries to lunge, but the grip of the hunter holds her back.
“I don’t know what you did to him, what sort of fucked up thing you put in Luke’s head-”
“Leia-” He feels spurned forward, this is all a misunderstanding, he needs to make her understand.
“-but I will make sure he’s alright. I’ll fix whatever you did!”
“I did nothing,” Anakin says, but that voice, it sounds horrid even as he says it, sounds like a lie even though it isn’t. “Jade, help escort our…guest to a room, will you?” Mara reaches over, squeezes his hand just barely before she follows his father out, Leia in handcuffs between them.
Luke just looks at the floor, wishes it would swallow him up. Until he realizes the hunter is still standing there. He hesitates, wonders how that could have happened, why he is; until his foot bumps into the case of beskar. Anakin told him not to show any sign of his identity, but the hunter is an idiot if he didn’t realize after Leia’s yelling.
Luke floats the case to him, watches Mando move backwards a bit, startled, before taking it in his grasp. He pauses, stuck in stride back to his ship, because he reaches out.
Clasps Luke’s hand, fingers on his pulse point, half on skin and half on glove. He gets the feeling Mando is watching him, and will not take his eyes off him.
“Pleasure working with you,” he says, and Luke can hear the real voice under the modulator.
*
Mara is waiting for him in his room when he gets back. He tried to see Leia, had to listen to her talk about him like he had been brainwashed; it felt like every word he said had knocked against her and fallen to the ground to die like bugs. Luke is breathing heavily, and Mara’s eyes are squinted in worry.
“I think I did something bad,” he whispers. Two fingers over his pulse point, Leia with that snarl, green light parting flesh. “Am I…Mara, am I a bad person?” Mara hovers, close and too far, until she settles in front of him.
“There are worse things to be,” she says. Her hair is in her loose braid, feet bare on the carpet; there are freckles along her cheeks and she smells like cinnamon and ozone. That is all it takes, that reassurance, because sometimes you do not need to hear it’s alright but it could be worse .
When he kisses her it feels like a rush. Her lips are chapped, and she’s warm, and it’s the hesitation that kills him. Luke jumps back, it's more of a peck than a kiss, and wonders if he’s ruined this. The easy way they speak to each other, the shared drinks, the tired laughter in the hours of the night. Then Mara smiles, hesitant, and steps closer.
“No,” she says to him, “don’t stop.”
*
The ping surprises him. Luke sits up, groggily, the sheet slipping from his shoulder and pooling around Mara’s. His comm is going off, and he stumbles over, fumbling from sleep. The comm, maybe from his father, intrigues him, until he sees the call sign.
It’s the secure line he used with the bounty hunter, the one that was never going to be touched after Leia arrived. Luke is more curious than anything, hits the accept button only to be met with a dim screen of blue.
“I told you, I don’t know anything about your princess.” It is the automated voice of the bounty hunter, gruffer than usual.
“Oh, please. Leia doesn’t do anything without a plan. We literally have her callsign coming from your ship.” Luke feels himself lean forward. That was Han’s voice.
“I just gave her a ride. That’s all.”
“These are stamped with the Imperial mark”
“ Everything is stamped with the Imperial mark !”
“He’s lyin too easily,” says a second voice. That one, that’s Lando, and it has the same coldness that it did whenever they talked about Han. All four of them- him, Leia, Chewie, and Lando, cramped in the Falcon conconting hairbrained schemes. “If you take his helmet off, you’ll be able to see his tells.”
“Don’t you dare.” That’s the voice of a hunter, what Luke expected, pure violence lacing every single word. “Don’t fucking touch me!”
There is the sound of scrambling, yelling, and then the holo cracks out. Luke is once again left in the dark, Mara stirring behind him.
“What’s going on?” she mumbles, and Luke feels guilt sweep over him. That hunter wouldn’t be in this mess if not for him, if he hadn’t asked his father for a way to get to Leia. Breaking into a rebel base, kidnapping a prisoner. That, Luke thinks, would be a very bad thing to do .
“We need to start packing.”
There are worse things to be.
*
There are a lot of things he ignores.
The rebels that look at him in shock, with that green light at his side that used to be a symbol of hope. Han looked at him and said “kid,” in the most broken voice Luke had ever heard, before he slammed him into the wall so hard he passed out. Mara reaches for him, brushes up against his mind, and tells him “it’s okay.” And Luke remembers, I could be doing worse. I could be killing, instead.
Ignores the fact that the Mando is in a fine room, with a tray of food on the table and the door unlocked. Luke can’t ignore his face, because for once the man’s face is finally free, his profile is in stark relief against the wall. Mused brown hair, soft eyes, strong nose. There are bags under them. He double takes when he sees Luke. “What…?”
“It’s me, Luke. I’m here to rescue you.” The line feels like it doesn’t have as much impact when he’s basically in a vacation home.
“Hm. You know the man, in the vest?” The hunter stands, the rest of his armor still on.
“He’s unconscious.”
“Good.”
“Your helmet?” Luke asks, because he can’t see it anywhere. The hunter scoffs, and then leans against the doorframe. Somehow, he’s managed to box Luke in, the words he says next quiet.
“It’s the creed. Now that they’ve seen my face, I can never put my helmet back on. I can never go home.” Luke remembers the panicked voice on the comm. They had been asking questions, thinking Leia had been kidnapped.
“I…thank you. For not telling them.” Mando smirks, his teeth white in his mouth, cainie's gleaming.
“You give me too much credit, jetii . I told them everything when they tried to take it off.” He huffed a laugh, his breath warm. Luke noticed that his eyes seemed a little crazed, a little broken. “Your friends took it off anyway. The one who’s girlfriend you had me steal.”
“I’m sorry!” Luke blurted out. He felt power rise in him, curl around his heart. Part of him wanted to push the hunter to the opposite side of the room. “I came because, because it was my fault they took you. It’s my fault Han…I never meant…” The hunter looked him over, and then ran a hand over his face, eyes shielded by his palm.
“Maybe. Maybe not. Part of it is my fault, for not thinking Leia Organa had a reason for coming to a bounty hunter willingly. How did you know? To come?”
“You called me?”
“I…no. I didn’t.”
“While you were being interrogated? It cut off when they…well,” Luke paused, gesturing to the man’s face. Obviously, it had been an accidental call. He used every ounce of his training, dark and light, to stop the red from rising to his cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell them as soon as they got you?”
“Maybe I didn’t want to piss off the Imperials. You give the best jobs, you know,” he muttered.
“I am not-”
“Or maybe,” he whispered, leaning closer, so close that Luke knocked the back of his head against the door frame, “I didn’t want to imagine your pretty face so disappointed.” The hunter moved on, leaving Luke with wide eyes and Mara nudging at his shields.
“Can I finally have your name?” He hurried to keep up, stepsiding the unconscious bodies of the Rebel Alliance.
“Doesn’t matter now. Djarin. Din Djarin.”
“Skywalker. My last name, I mean, you already know my first name, obviously, but…yeah,” Luke cursed himself. He could already hear Mara laughing.
*
The conversation with his father, about why a suddenly disgraced Mandalorian should stay with them, was tense. Anakin argued that they should have spent their time talking to Leia, who had lapsed into a stony silence, only spitting at Anakin’s feet and staring at Luke with hollowed eyes. He may have made his father promise not to hurt an innocent, but that did not mean Anakin was now full of compassion.
They had yelled at each other, Luke could only recall them ever doing that on Bespin, and their power had clashed enough to cause harm. His father retreated to his own rooms, and Luke had used his sleeve to staunch a bloody nose.
Din wasn’t particularly easing into it. He’d left, after they’d freed him, only to drop off the case of beskar he had been paid with. When he had commed again, face lost, Luke had sent the order for the hanger to be opened. Mara, despite saying she hated being on the welcoming party, had taken to him. “I know bounty hunters,” she had confided to Luke, “more than most people on this ship.” It was normal to see them talking, heads bowed together, red against chestnut.
Anakin agreed, in the end. Luke couldn’t tell if it was because he regretted the fight, or because he thought that it wasn’t worth picking at. That Din wasn’t worth it.
Luke found that this was one thing he could not talk to his father about.
*
“One day, I will die,” Anakin says. Luke pauses, looking out at the stars. The bridge is nearly empty, nothing but them in the span of stars. Maybe his father is sick, but it’s impossible to tell if there is anything wrong under the forced breathing. “There will need to be a new Emperor.” Luke has given up trying to convince his father that there does not need to be an Empire or a Rebellion. Then he remembers Leia down in her room, the door constantly locked. Han’s face when he stormed into the base. Din’s shattered look, never to be covered again.
Maybe there needs to be a constant back and forth, and tug and pull, for everyone to keep going.
“Do you have a plan?”
“You, of course.” Luke laughs at that. “You can not imagine it?” Luke ponders for a moment, the words. He already wears black, has let his face out on the Star Destroyer enough for some staff to recognize him. He imagines himself having to tell them not to bow, to refer to him as Luke or at least Skywalker. Mara on his left arm, collar zipped to her chin, hair almost shining more red than her blade. Din on his right, armor newly painted red and black, face still a little too expressive, but he is still learning. The two of them know more about the greater galaxy than him, second only to Leia.
“I think I might be a bad Emperor,” he admits.
Then again, there are worse things to be.