Chapter Text
Anakin
The Noise pressed in, hot and relentless at the base of Anakin’s skull. A thousand threads of thought and movement vying for space in his mind. Greasy anticipation rose in the crowd’s throats, too loud, too close.
He closed his eyes. Metal burned against his thighs, the frame vibrating with impatience. The Noise spiked anyway. A man fingering his chips two rows up, a woman sloshing her drink, every stray intention in the crowd sliced razor-sharp against his frayed nerves.
The square throbbed with light and motion. Neon strobes stuttered seizure-bright overhead, painting the air in fractured pink and blue. The scent of ozone and exhaust clung to his tongue, acrid, metal, alive. His palms slipped on the handles, the bike twitching under him as the anti-grav shivered to life.
The racers straddled their swoop bikes at the lines, engines rumbling low, exhaust heat curling around their legs. Machines cobbled from scrap and brilliance, each one different: stripped frames patched with multicolor plating, diffusers and winglets, lime-green decals pulsing down fuel lines. Anakin’s bike hummed beneath him, lean and shining sleek-black, the scars along her side catching stray light like teeth.
“Try not to wipe out this time, Anakin,” a rider to his left called, laughter muffled behind his visor.
Anakin smirked under his helmet. “Try not to choke on my exhaust.” He snapped the throttle, revving his engine in punctuation.
The crowd’s roar swelled, hungry and impatient. Sweet-smelling smoke and the sour tint of stimulants rose from stalls as vendors yelled over the bass-thrum of engines. The scaffolds rattled with stamping boots, every pulse of sound pressing against his skull.
He breathed in the haze of exhaust. His bike had never failed him, each wire and metal plate as familiar as his own breath. She wouldn’t fail today.
The signal lights strobed: red, red, red.
Anakin curled his fingers around the grips. His core locked, quads braced around steel, spine draped low over the frame. The Noise clawed at him, the crowd a storm of energy.
Green.
Anakin slammed the accelerator, and the world tore open around him.
The crowd blurred into streaks of violet and gold, neon flashing against his gear. Engines screamed as the pack surged shoulder to shoulder, metal shrieking as bikes jostled for inches. One clipped his flank, shock rattling through his bones. His jaw tensed, and Anakin pushed his bike harder, slipping through the crush like a blade.
The Noise stilled, drowned beneath the clean flood of adrenaline. No splintered thought, no stray desire. Just a current rushing through him, sharp and absolute. For the first time all night, it was quiet.
The first turn hit fast. Anakin skimmed a boot against the track and threw his weight to the side. The world tilted, the leather on his knee skimming against the hot asphalt. His thighs burned, muscles straining to keep him on the bike. Another rider pushed for the inside line, the intent crystalline in his mind. Anakin shifted wide, just a hair. His rival overshot, spinning out and skidding across the track. Sparks exploded red-gold across his vision, debris smacking against his visor.
The crowd roared. He didn’t hear it. There was only the heat, the hum, his bike carrying him forward.
The track unfolded before him, slick with rainwater reflecting in fractured streaks of violet. He cut hard into a tunnel, walls pulsing with strip lights, sound magnified until the engine’s roar filled every inch. Shadows lunged across the walls as another racer drew even, front fairing twitching toward his. Intent burned across Anakin’s nerves like static, the strike-shove-crash.
He dropped his weight low, twisted, and the rival bike glanced harmlessly off his fender. His pulse hammered in his chest. Anakin shot forward, the air cold against his neck.
The tunnel spat him into open air. He dove into the next corner reckless, bike screaming as the fairings kissed stone and spat sparks, heat searing through his leathers. His spine jolted, and his wrists strained at the grips. For a moment, the world tilted weightless, his balance slipping. But then his bike caught, track rushing sharp and clean beneath him.
For now, it was quiet. No Noise, no crowd. Just him and his engine.
The only silence he ever found.
One more lap and the finish lights flared white. He cut the brakes hard, body wrenching forward as momentum whipped against him. His chest heaved, thighs trembling from the strain, every nerve in his body still burning from the thrill. Sweat stung his eyes, salt and grit mixing with the oil-smoke air.
The silence in him cracked. He could feel the gamblers counting losses, racers buzzing with leftover adrenaline, the press of the crowd’s hunger spilling into him like smoke.
He slid into the pit, fingers shaking as he killed the engine. Every movement was raw, clumsy, too human after the heady thrill of the race. A cut burned across his forearm, torn through the leather. Sweat mixed with blood he hadn’t felt until now.
Someone shoved a pouch of chips into his hand, his winnings. He tugged off his helmet, curls plastered damp to his forehead, and he grinned despite himself. His bike bore a new scar gouged into her side, but she’d held. She always held.
“Nice run, Anakin!” one of the others shouted, clapping his shoulder hard enough to shake him. “Reckless as all hell, though.”
“Reckless wins,” Anakin shot back, grinning.
The pit filled with smoke and laughter, racers whooping, shoving, voices sharp in the electric haze. Someone thrust a drink into his hand, cheap alcohol burning down his throat. He laughed with them, head buzzing, still vibrating with speed.
He shoved past the crowd, out of the pit, boots sliding on the grease-black stone of the alley. The roar dulled behind him, muffled by steel and distance, until only the rasp of his breath and the pounding in his ears were left.
Out of the way of foot traffic, he coasted the bike as far as the alleys would let him, killing the thrusters to haul his bike over grated metal catwalks and rickety platforms. The frame leaned heavy against his side, every squeal of the stabilizers scraping his ears.
The crooked sign buzzed overhead, throwing red light across the alley. He dragged the door shut behind him, and silence dropped heavy, broken only by the faint tick of the cooling engine.
The air was thick with gasoline and scorched alloy. Anakin leaned his forehead against the door, letting the metal cool his skin. He dragged his bike to a workbench, dragging a hand along her scarred side, humming low under his breath.
Already, his mind spun. The thruster coils were running hot, stabilizers whining off-balance. His hands shook, too unsteady to reach for his tools.
He poured a drink and swallowed hard. The burn calmed him, but not enough. The city still pressed into the back of his mind, garish and loud.
Obi-Wan
The blockade loomed ahead, and white-hot plasma beams lit the void from every direction.
Alarms blared, the cabin flashing a disorienting red. Bolts tore past his canopy, too close, bursting white against his shields. Obi-Wan yanked the stick hard, the Starfighter shuddering as the starboard engine coughed smoke. Warnings screamed across the console – pressure loss, stabilizers failing, fuel bleeding faster than the pumps could catch. He cut power to non-essential systems, rerouting what he could, flying blind through the chaos.
A frigate’s beam split the dark ahead, a scythe of light so bright it burned his vision. He squinted, dropping the ship under it, alarms shrieking. The hull rattled like it was peeling apart. The Force thrummed at his fingertips, sharp and steady despite the chaos. He held it close, shields wrapped tight around his mind. He couldn’t afford distraction. Couldn’t afford fear.
He approached the blockade, narrowly avoiding shot after shot. His Starfighter was just small enough. If he could just get close enough, he might fit through a gap in the daunting line of ships.
One more jolt, one more burst from the thrusters, and he was through. His port wing scraped against a Destroyer as he squeezed his way through. Way too close.
His breath shook in his chest. The ship groaned, limping, but it held.
For now.
His one saving grace was that the Empire wouldn’t bother chasing a lone, unaffiliated ship. Especially not with Rebels testing the line every hour.
He coaxed his ship through the system in sublight, conserving what little fuel remained, praying to long-dead gods that the hull patches would last a few hours to the nearest planet.
When Nar Shaddaa, hazy and gray, swelled in the viewport, some of the tension finally bled from his chest. The autopilot was shot, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway; he needed to compensate for the shuddering starboard engine.
The atmosphere caught him in a fist. Heat bled across the hull, the whole cabin shuddering, emergency lights flashing in a manic rhythm. He grit his teeth, riding it down.
Light fractured across the glass, sunlight breaking and fading as the city rose to meet him. Towers swallowed the sky, their shadows stretching long through the smog as he maneuvered deeper into the levels. The glow thinned to a sickly dusk, and then to the hard wash of fluorescents, color bleeding sharp through the gray.
The ship rattled as he dipped lower, steel and smoke pressing in tight. Every vibration in the cabin shook his bones, but his hands stayed steady on the controls.
At least the landing struts held.
He’d made it. Barely.
He killed the engines and sat in the dark cabin for a long moment, the smell of scorched metal thick in his lungs.
The shipyard was nearly empty. Oil shone in silvery runs atop the rainwater pooling over the cracked concrete, rainbow sheens breaking under the weight of his boots. The Starfighter ticked as it cooled, sitting slightly unevenly where one strut failed to fully extend.
Nar Shaddaa towered around him unrepentant. He hadn’t set foot here in years, but the towers still clawed at the sky, the durasteel peaks swallowed by the smog. Neon bled into the rain, seeping down facades until the alleys glowed pink and sickly green. Rust, rain, and chemicals tangled in the air. Stormtroopers patrolled the narrow avenues now, but it was a farce. The city still throbbed with corruption, rife with crime. It was an easy place for a mercenary to slip through the cracks.
Dirk’s Garage was a short, winding walk across grated steel catwalks and slightly more stable platforms from the shipyard. Rain from the surface dripped down the buildings, slicking the catwalks and dampening the air. His breath puffed in front of his face, the wet chill creeping through his layers.
The garage looked the same from the outside. Rusting shutters and the same old sign hanging stubbornly against the durasteel wall, buzzing and flickering. Obi-Wan hadn’t seen it in years, but he remembered the owner. A grizzled old man with grease-black fists the size of meat cleavers. He was good with engines, good at keeping his mouth shut. Force-willing, he was still around.
The door creaked open to a sprawling hangar stinking of engine fuel and hot metal. Shadows swallowed most of the space, but one corner blazed sun-bright with shop lights.
A young man, certainly not Dirk, was bent over a battered swoop bike, coveralls tied low around narrow hips, gilded curls falling damp against his forehead. Sweat slicked his skin, and engine grease streaked across his chest and the bared line of his throat. The shop lights gleamed golden against the light bronze of his skin.
His arms flexed with each turn of the wrench, lean and quick, impatience in every movement. The boy couldn’t have been much older than twenty. Too young to be alone in a place like this, too young to be tearing apart a combustion engine with such practiced efficiency.
But it was the Force that stopped Obi-Wan cold.
It rolled off the mechanic in waves, wild and uncontained. It sparked off him, and the air felt charged, as if lightning were coiled just above the rafters waiting to strike. The mechanic’s Force signature burned brighter than anything Obi-Wan had ever felt. No one, not even Yoda, carried this much raw power.
The Jedi carried the Force as a responsibility to uphold. They had taught him to shape it with intention, a carefully honed blade. But this was different. This was raw, hungry, and alive, bleeding into every corner of the shop without restraint.
He had no discipline, no training, no shields. Power bled from him, raw and unchecked, everything the Order once taught him to fear. Ruin waiting to happen. And if the Empire were to get ahold of him…Obi-wan didn’t want to think about the outcome.
Obi-Wan let his shoulders ease, a trick of posture, while his shields locked hard and impenetrable around his mind. Wariness bristled at the edge of his thoughts, but he found himself staring, curiosity burning stronger.
Anakin
Anakin tightened the wrench one last time, metal biting against metal. He didn’t bother looking up. “Shop’s closed. You need something fixed, or are you planning on staring all night?”
“Apologies. I was expecting Dirk.”
The man’s voice was smooth, with rounded vowels and carefully clipped consonants. A Core accent. He didn’t hear it much on backwater planets like this.
That made Anakin look up, pulling out a grease-stained rag to wipe his hands.
The man standing in the doorway was all wrong for Nar Shaddaa. Too neat. Too…pretty. Sandy auburn hair combed back just so, beard trimmed close. His boots were scuffed but still carried the shine of Core leather. Even the blaster at his hip gleamed, the kind of upkeep most mercs never bothered with.
Anakin scowled, tossing the rag vaguely toward his workbench. “Dirk’s retired.” His voice echoed sharp off the machinery. “I took over for him a couple years back.” He thrust out a hand, grease-stained and unapologetic, daring him to take it. “The name’s Anakin.”
The man hesitated a fraction before taking it. His grip was firm, callused, but the smile he flashed was Core-smooth and practiced, white in the shop lights. “Obi-Wan,” he said.
A hint of cologne hit his nose, and his frown dropped further. Cologne. On Nar Shaddaa. Anakin didn’t bother smiling back. “So, Obi-Wan. You got a problem?”
Obi-Wan’s gaze slid around the shop. Tools stacked haphazard, wires draped like vines, an engine block still half-gutted on the bench. The corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t comment.
“Right,” he said at last. “My ship took some damage on my last job. I was hoping Dirk could fix it, but seeing as he’s retired, do you think you could do the job?”
Anakin’s jaw tensed at his tone. “I can fix anything,” he said, his tone edged with confidence, daring the stranger to doubt him. “Let’s see her.”
He followed Obi-Wan down to the hangar, the man’s boots clicking against the metal grating, too clean for this place. The ship waiting there caught the light in long lines and sharp angles. Elegant, even under charred plating and a cracked hull.
Anakin stopped dead. “Is that a Kom’rk Mark 2?” he demanded.
Obi-Wan leaned against the doorway, hands sliding into pockets, posture too casual for the near legend hulking in front of them. “So you’ve heard of her.”
Anakin snorted, circling the hull. “Heard of her?” Anakin stepped closer, cataloguing the visible damage. “Where the hell did you get a Mandalorian starfighter? I’ve never seen one in person.”
Obi-Wan’s smile was slow, cunning, his blue eyes glinting. “What can I say? I get around.”
Anakin’s gaze snapped back to him, sharp. “You’re either lying or you’re stupid rich.” Heat prickled at the back of his neck, sweat slicking where grease clung to his skin.
“Neither,” Obi-Wan said easily. “Just lucky. And good with my hands.” He lifted his palms, letting the light catch on the pinkish scars on his knuckles. “Though maybe not as good as you.”
Anakin let out a sharp breath, ready to snap back – then froze.
The Noise was…not gone, but quiet. He still felt the faint hum of nightlife stumbling nearby, the bar a few levels above, but Obi-Wan was silent.
The ever-present static clawing at the back of his skull, intentions, hungers, restless sparks bleeding from every person on this gods-damned planet, was absent. No flicker of thought. No restless static. Obi-Wan could’ve been durasteel for as much energy as he could feel from him.
It should’ve bothered him. It should have set his teeth on edge, not knowing if the man was lying through those Core-smooth vowels. But there was no sense of danger in the air, and he found himself leaning in, curious despite himself.
Anakin prodded at the space where Obi-Wan’s presence should’ve been. Still nothing, but Obi-Wan’s brow twitched, almost like he could feel Anakin’s mental poking.
He ran a hand along the starfighter’s scorched hull, his mouth twisting. “How’d you let her get this banged up? They don’t just build ships like this anymore, you know.”
Obi-Wan’s smile softened, faintly rueful. “Blockade, last run. Got through mostly intact.”
Anakin turned on him, brows lifting. “You ran a blockade in this?” His laugh was sharp, incredulous. “And you’re alive?”
“Barely,” Obi-Wan admitted, his brow creasing in the middle. His voice was softer now, like he wasn’t used to talking so much with strangers. “Empire on one side, Rebels on the other. It was…not something I fancy doing again.”
Anakin shook his head, almost offended. “You butchered her.” He crouched under one of the wings, tracing plasma-carved grooves in the metal. “She deserves better than you.”
Obi-Wan chuckled low. “Good thing she’s in your hands now.”
Anakin looked up, his mouth twitching up into a crooked smile against his will.
He looked back down at the battered hull. “You work for the Rebellion, then?”
Obi-Wan’s smile tightened, but he didn’t look away. “I go where I’m needed.”
Tension crawled through the room, thick and sharp as oil smoke. He shrugged, trying to loosen some of the unease.
“I need to see the diagnostics. Then I’ll know how bad you screwed her up.”
Anakin crouched under the console, flicking open the cracked panel. He plugged in a data stick, and values stuttered red across the screen, half the systems screaming failure. He hissed under his breath and shut it hard.
“She’ll run again,” he said, wiping his palms down his coveralls, “but it’ll cost you. Lucky for you, you look like you can pay.”
Obi-Wan smirked and slipped a hand to the inside of his jacket. Anakin scowled. He couldn’t get a read on the man.
Anakin leaned back against the hull, restless energy sparking through him. “Parts’ll take a couple weeks. In the meantime, there’s a circuit tomorrow. You should come see how real pilots fly.” His grin flared, sharp as broken glass.
Obi-Wan’s brow lifted. For the first time, his composure bent, and just for a heartbeat, curiosity flickered through.
“I suppose I’ll see you there?” His voice lilted low, teasing.
“See me?” Anakin scoffed, heat sparking through him. “You’re looking at the best racer on Nar Shaddaa. Don’t blink. You’ll miss it.” He grinned, all teeth.