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“Father, you promised!”
Crossing his arms above the control panel that covered his armored chest, Darth Vader stood silently as he watched his son pout, an array of colourful balloons held neatly in his arms.
It was Luke’s birthday – two days after Empire Day, he confirmed from the dossier his spies had written for him – and Vader desired to celebrate it together. He knew nearly everything about Luke’s life, but until this point, he was not aware that his son was so…festive.
“You and I are far too old for this,” Vader countered, hoping to dissuade Luke from any further embarrassing gestures.
But Luke’s face grew mischievous, and before Vader knew it, the boy had released the helium-filled latex blobs from his grip with a shout of pure joy. They both watched as they floated, like feathers in reverse, all the way up to the ceiling of the abandoned warehouse that they’d turned into their secret training facility.
“See them?” the boy asked, pointing up at the jiggling display above their heads. “They’ll be up there for awhile. Now, whenever we’re here, we can remember how much fun this day was!”
Vader sighed as the boy turned around and fished something out of the messenger bag he had brought with him. “I am…having fun with you,” he admitted. “I just do not understand the need for all this.”
Luke shrugged, pulling out what looked like a pipe with green and white stripes on it. Vader looked on curiously as he brought the contraption to his lips. His son didn’t smoke. So just what was it?
Bleat!
Vader was speechless as Luke blew through the whistle-like opening and the end of the tube unfurled like a snake. The boy was positively jubilant, but Vader had never heard a more annoying sound in his life.
“What in the blazing Mustafar circles of hell is that?” he demanded.
The boy rolled his eyes playfully. “It’s a noisemaker! I bought one just for you. C’mon, you try!” Luke said, tossing the infernal gadget to him.
He stared at the thing in his gloved palm. Vader was already wearing a large, yellow party hat on top of his obsidian helmet and the thin string cupped underneath his chin felt dangerously close to snapping. Due to Luke’s wide-eyed pleading, Vader had conceded that much. But a noisemaker? That was out of the question.
“I am afraid I have no use for this, my son.”
“But it’s my birthday! I’m 23 today…do you know what means? I’ve officially entered my mid 20s! And you were already married at my age. So yeah, it’s a serious occasion,” Luke said solemnly, though his eyes sparkled with amusement and he could barely hide the grin on his face.
“Son…”
“What? You wanted to celebrate with me!”
The boy had a point there. Vader wanted to honour his son’s naming day and was delighted when Luke accepted his offer without hesitation. Their relationship had improved drastically in the months following the fiasco at Bespin; although Vader didn’t regret their battle, nor the revelation that followed, he had gone out of his way to appeal to the boy’s compassionate side.
That meant releasing the smuggler from the confines of Jabba’s Palace and presenting him with the schematics for the second Death Star that the emperor stubbornly insisted on building. In return, Luke trained with him as often as he could and shared details of his life freely.
Vader liked to believe they both needed one another. That Luke chose to spend this important day with him instead of his rebel friends seemed to prove that.
“I suppose I did. But I do not have much experience with birthdays, young one.”
His son frowned at that, coming closer so he could place his hands atop his armored shoulders. “We’ll have to change that! When is your birthday, anyway?”
“I do not know.” Vader snorted as a memory of Obi-Wan asking him the very same question nearly 30 years ago suddenly floated into his mind.
“Well,” Luke said thoughtfully, his nose crinkling. “What if we celebrated our birthdays on the same day?”
Vader looked down at the boy, still holding on to him, and took in the features that reminded him so much of a woman he used to (and still) loved.
“That is satisfactory.”
The boy’s eyes became rounder, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards in glee. He excitedly bounced on his feet a few times and even Vader couldn’t help but smile slightly behind the mask.
“Yay!” Luke hollered, before his expression turned serious. Vader titled his mask in confusion, hoping he hadn’t upset the boy.
But Luke just flushed shyly and returned to his bag, pulling out a small holocamera. He weighed the item in his hands nervously. “I was hoping we could take a picture together. A little keepsake to remember today by?”
After taking a quick glance at the noisemaker in his fist, he lifted his helmet to regard the boy who seemed uncertain all of a sudden. Vader imagined him as an excited little boy on Tatooine, opening his gift-wrapped presents and eating a slice of cake with his guardians.
He had missed out on so much of his son’s life and vowed that he wouldn’t miss another moment. Throughout his childhood, the boy had longed for his father; on several conversations, Luke had candidly revealed how he looked to the stars and wondered where he was.
To see Luke standing there sheepishly made Vader’s insides churn uncomfortably. He knew he would do anything to ensure his son never looked like that again. Even if it meant taking a photo and tolerating a headache-inducing racket once a year from a noisemaker.
“Very well.”
Luke immediately puffed out a breath in relief, and bounded over to Vader’s side with a wide grin. Slinging an arm around his neck, Luke fussed with the holocamera using his free hand as Vader crouched down so they were at roughly the same height.
“I’m not that short,” Luke grumbled, but it was good-natured.
“You are. Take the picture, son.”
He made a face, but lit up as the countdown started. Luke angled the device so that a few of the balloons and their party hats were visible in the shot and Vader resisted the urge to shake his head.
“Smile!”
The flash was too bright, but Luke didn’t seem to notice or care as he viewed the holo on the camera’s screen and then flipped it over so Vader could see it as well.
“Look at us! We look great!”
“I hate it,” Vader deadpanned.
Luke smirked, turning his head around to look up at his father, now standing at his full, intimidating height.
“No, you don’t.”
He put the holocamera back in his bag as he pointed at the noisemaker, still unused in Vader’s hand. As if he could ever forget.
“So does this mean you don’t want me to send you a copy of the holo?” Luke asked innocently.
“You will absolutely send it to me,” commanded Vader, and Luke threw his head back and laughed.
*****
Later that week, after Vader returned to Imperial City and Luke made it back to whatever outer rim planet housed the rebel base, he received an encrypted message on his datapad.
HB!
He hastily opened the attachment to find the holo that Luke captured only a few days before. His son's face took up most of the frame, which Vader didn’t mind, as he never tired of looking at it. As he saved the snapshot to a private folder, he thought deception was afoot when he noticed a pair of sky-blue eyes – not belonging to his son – staring back at him from behind the red lenses of his helmet.
Perhaps he would reflect on that concerning development later. For now, he was already pondering what to plan for their joint birthdays next year.