A/N: I've fallen into the Star Wars dumpster... it's been years and then they hit me with the whammy that is TFA? And of course I've also fallen into the Kylo Ren dumpster because Adam Driver is genuinely ruining my life in the best way.
This is a Smuggler Ben Solo AU that I've played around with on tumblr, and it's evolved into a fullblown fic that, while it has plot... is also just a bunch of domestic nonsense about these children having fun.
There's adventure, heartache, friendship, family, horrible disaster and... yes, even romance. Though probably no smut and it won't be the main focus of the story. But there's Stormpilot, Reyva, Han/Leia and Luke/Wedge which like I said will be background. Couple of headcanons that are going to be a big part of the story; Rey is Luke's daughter, Finn is Force Sensitive, and Han and Leia were good parents fight me. Other than that, um, enjoy? And come talk to me on my tumblr!
Chapter One
He couldn't believe this.
He was standing in the hull of the Millennium Falcon, a ship he hadn't stepped foot on in years, and he could only manage a faint sense of disbelief.
"I stole it from Unkar Plutt," The girl continued, voice coming out rushed and breathless. "He stole it from the Irving Boys, who stole it from Ducain."
"Who stole it from us!" He snapped, indignation mixing with the anger in his voice. "Well, you tell that sorry sack of bantha shit that Ben Solo just stole back the Millennium Falcon for good."
Rolling his eyes, Ben whirled on his heel and stalked down the corridor. Each step rose it's ghosts, phantom memories rising from the walls and the floor to fill him with fond nostalgia. This ship had been as much his home as the New Republic had, more so if he were pressed to admit it, and he would be lying if he said it didn't hurt to see so much of it stripped away. Oh, the bare basics of the Falcon were there, beautiful not in aesthetics but more in the fact that they were there. The small things were gone though, the little paint stained hand prints sheltered by much larger ones, the affectations that proved that the ship had been lived in.
"This is the Millennium Falcon?" The girl followed in awe. "You're Ben Solo? The Ben Solo?"
"The son of the Rebellion General?" Her friend queried hesitantly.
"No, the smuggler!" She explained, bringing a slight smile to his lips. "This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs!"
"Twelve." He called back instinctively as his stern features lifted into a genuine smile for the first time. Ben could only imagine how Han Solo would react to seeing him with this old relic.
"BRuugH?" Chewbacca made a questioning sound as he followed behind, one massive furry paw tracing an older history along the walls.
"Everything you remember?" Ben tilted his head as he stepped into the cockpit, eyes drawn to a series of worn in scratches along the frame. Some things remained it seemed, some small things that would remain with the Falcon no matter who held her.
Dark brown eyes shifted from instrument to instrument, drinking in each console and tallying it against a mental checklist. Everything was just as he remembered it, a little disheveled perhaps, a bit worn around the edges, but couldn't the same be said about him?
Everything except... "Hey! Some moof-milker put a compressor on the ignition line!"
"Unkar Plutt did." The girl explained partially ashamed and still vibrating in excitement. "I thought it was a mistake too, puts too much—"
"—stress on the hyperdrive." He squinted at that, unease mixing with a strange sense of familiarity as they finished the thought in unison. There was something about these kids, something about the girl in particular, that he felt like he knew. A sort of kinship, the kind that was big and felt fated, making him wonder just… who was she?
In that moment Ben decided that he wanted absolutely nothing to do with them, or their droid.
"Chewie, throw'm in a pod." He declared. "We'll drop'm on the nearest inhabited planet."
The wookiee made a noise of confused protest—he had gone soft—but it was drowned out by the two of them.
"Wait, no!" The girl yelped. "We need your help."
Ben let out a snort of disbelief at that, turning to face them. "My help? Kid, you don't even know me."
"This droid has to get to the Resistance base as soon as possible!" As if noticing it for the first time, Ben looked down at the droid and froze. He would know that gaudy paint job anywhere; that was Poe Dameron's droid. Come to think of it… a quick glance confirmed, the younger man was wearing Poe's trademark flight jacket. The one that he would never let anyone touch unless…
Kriff.
"It's carrying a map to Luke Skywalker." The younger man finished, dark eyes intent on Ben's face. "You are related to the Han Solo who fought with the Rebellion. You knew Luke Skywalker."
At that moment, under the scrutiny of three sets of eyes and an optical sensor, Ben really wanted to space the stowaways. It didn't take a kriffin' Jedi to know that they were thirteen different kinds of trouble and yet—
"Yeah," He found himself answering honestly. "I knew him."
There was a groaning of metal audible through the entirety of the cargo ship, a loud thunk that acted as a stark reminder of their cargo. "Kriff. Don't tell me a Rathtar's gotten loose—"
Ben took off at a jog out of the Falcon and back onto the cargo ship, shoving his blaster back into it's holster as he went. Chewie followed after him, feet landing almost silently on the grated flooring as the wookiee lengthened his strides. Or maybe it was just that Chewie's footsteps were drowned out by the stomping of the two kids, the clang of metal rolling on metal.
"Wait, wait a second." The kid called, only to be ignored as Ben stepped onto the service deck and made a direct path to the nearest control panel. "Hold up, because I need to be sure what you just said. A what's gotten loose?"
"Rathtar." Ben answered bluntly.
"Nope." The kid shook his head disbelievingly. "You're not hauling Rathtars."
"I'm hauling Rathtars." Ben answered in stride, eyes flicking back and forth across each monitor. "Aw, great, it's the Guavian Death Gang. They must have tracked us from Nantoon."
Chewie let out a series of gloating moans, checking his bowcaster as his long strides kept him at pace with Ben.
"Not the time, furrball." The raven grunted.
This looked… bad. This looked very, very bad. Well. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, Ben thought, if he could talk his way out of it. See, he needed the Rathtars to deliver to King Prana and in order to get the Rathtars he'd needed some additional funding. Funding that he'd found in the form of Bala-Tik and the Guavian Death Gang. No doubt they wanted their money back, money which he happened to have spent in acquiring the Rathtars. Which, he had, and was on his way to deliver to the King, so technically he could convince Bala-Tik that he was going to get his money...
"I've got three of 'em going to King Prana." He interjected once the kid stopped blathering to the girl about the Trillia Massacre.
"THREE?" He shouted. "How did you get them on board?"
"Well, I could tell you that Chewie and I got a bunch of their favorite food, tied it to a stick and led them to the holding bay. But I think we all know that would be a lie." Ben shrugged, still moving fast. "Used to have a bigger crew."
His mother was going to kill him when she found out about this. He had to do something about these kids though; if that droid had a map to Luke Skywalker then he needed to get it back to the safety of the Resistance. Chaos, this was some really bad kriffin' timing.
Think, Solo. Think.
"Get below and stay there." He told them, jerking to a stop to punch at a hidden panel. "Don't move around; this boat's big enough to get lost in and… well, one wrong turn could introduce you to some cargo that would be very happy to see you."
Ben narrowed a sharp look at the girl. "Don't even think about trying to steal the Falcon."
"What about BB-8?" She shot back in challenge, halfway lowered into the hidden compartment.
"The droid stays with me, until I get rid of the gang. Then you can have it back and be on your merry ways." And he could drop off the Rathtars and be on his.
"What are you going to do?" She asked skeptically.
Ben rolled his shoulder at that, fingers brushing at his holstered blaster. "Same thing I always do; talk my way out of it."
Chewbacca let out a grumble of amusement, grunts and moans that were both short and sharp.
"That is so unfair! Yes I do!" He snapped, jabbing a finger at the wookie. "Every time."
"This is not how I thought this day was gonna go." Ben sighed, flipping the switches on the Falcon's navicomputer. "Angle the shields and hang on back there."
"Got it." The girl called back, bringing instruments to life and working the controls like she'd been doing this her whole life.
Kriffin' Guavians, kriffin' Kanjiklub, kriffin' stowaway fugitives with their kriffin' droids running from the First kriffin' Order. He had thought he'd lucked out, finding the Millennium Falcon after all these years but now Chewie was injured and his cargo was trying to eat him.
"C'mon old girl, don't let me down." He reached out to pull on the main hyperdrive control, waiting for… nothing. He tried again, engaging the thrusters and—why wasn't anything working? Now was not the time for this bucket of bolts to kick out on him!
"What?" He hissed, skin crawling at the way the girl was watching him.
"Compressor." She offered, reaching over to hit the last switch, one that wouldn't even be on the navicomputer if Unkar Plutt wasn't a complete moron.
"I hate Unkar Plutt." Ben muttered, hitting the switch once more. "I don't even know him but I hate him."
The Falcon launched into hyperdrive, blasting the remaining gang members back and leaving bits and pieces of the latched on Rathtar smeared across several systems and the viewport. Finally, they were in the clear and everything was starting to look up for him…
Which was, of course, when all hell broke loose because really, what else could go wrong today?
Ben pushed out of his seat as the alarm sounded, shrill and piercing, and went to the problem panel. It seemed that Unkar kriffin' Plutt had only deemed minimum maintenance necessary for the Falcon and now, between that and the ship spending who knew how long on a desert planet exposed to the elements, she was showing the lack of attention.
At least the alarms were working though.
"Power overload!" He called, indicators going to red as he tried readjusting the relevant parameters.
"I can fix that!" The girl offered hurriedly, fingers flying over the controls frantically. "Have you tried transferring the…"
"Auxiliary?" He shouted, "I'm on it!"
That tremor of familiarity was back, but this time he pushed it to the side as he took off running after the deafening roar from the vicinity of the lounge, pausing long enough to yell "You've got the con!"
He stopped on his way past the med-bay, poking his head in to level a dark glare at the kid. "Hey. You hurt Chewie and you answer to me, got it?"
"Hurt him?" The kid continued struggling with the bandaging, offense coloring his words. "He's almost killed me six times!"
Ben hesitated, eyeing his injured co-pilot worriedly. He wouldn't have made it this far without Chewie, and he hated to see the Wookiee in pain but they had slightly more pressing matters to worry about.
"If this hyperdrive blows there's going to be pieces of us in three different systems." He explained regretfully, turning back to the cockpit.
That was when everything went eerily, abruptly silent.
The girl dropped back into the co-pilot's seat, radiating smug satisfaction. "I bypassed the compressor."
"I—huh." That was smart, actually. Impressive. "Nice work kid. Keep monitoring system readouts and holler if it looks like anything's about to explode."
Immediate danger now passed, Ben pushed back up out of his seat to go check on his companion. The droid bumped into his shin, prompting the raven to glance down. "Move, ball."
Chewie moaned from his position on the bench, sitting up slightly at Ben's approach. The wookie reached out with his uninjured arm worriedly, pulling him half onto the bench as he attempted to inspect the human with the same care that was currently being shown his own wound.
"I'm fine." He huffed out a laugh, carefully checking the bandage. "Nah, Chewie, don't say that you did great. Just rest."
Chewie ruffled a hand through his hair in a comforting gesture before falling back, earning a genuine smile from Ben. The smuggler let his gaze linger on his partner for a few more seconds before turning to where the kid was sitting at the holochess table, fiddling with the controls. He looked exhausted, adrenaline wearing off to reveal a bone deep sort of weariness that made Ben think he'd been through too much too soon.
"Hey, thanks kid." The words stuck awkwardly in his craw, but they had to be said. And they were utterly sincere. "You did a good job on Chewie."
"You're welcome." He replied easily, frowning in confusion as the holochess set activated and the pieces started immediately fighting one another. As though bothered by the lack of instruction and control the kid immediately started fiddling with the console to turn it back off. It struck Ben as odd, how he'd kept his cool during their fight on the freighter, but it also struck him as being none of his business.
"So, fugitives, huh?" He asked lightly, arms crossing over his chest as he leaned back.
"The First Order wants the map," The girl nodded as she abandoned the controls. "The systems are stable. They're with the Resistance though… and I was with them. I guess that means I am too as far as the Order is concerned."
Right. She might believe that, but there was more to the two of them than met the eye. He raked Finn with a skeptical once-over, noting the way he dropped his face to study his hands. Yeah, that was the look of someone who had something to hide, but had no idea how to hide it. He had handled himself well under pressure, it was obvious he was a soldier of some sort but...
"Let's see what you've got." BB-8 swivelled its head before dutifully rolling forward into a suitable position. The droid brightened a lens, a split second warning before the lounge was filled with an enormous star map.
Ben stepped amongst the nebulae, solo stars, and translucent splashes of dark matter, sucking his lower lip between his teeth. It was awe-inspiring almost; for the girl it was and Finn looked impressed, but Ben was frowning. He had been all over the galaxy, made a habit of going to new places on a regular basis, and he could trace familiar positions and paths. His fingers lifted up as though to brush a particularly familiar cluster, depicted with startling clarity and only half there.
"It's not complete." He turned to the others. "It's really just a piece—which is just like him—I can tell from what's familiar and where the breaks are. Makes sense though, ever since Luke Skywalker disappeared, people have been looking for him."
The girl let her mouth open slightly, drinking in the details of the chart. "Why did he leave, anyway?"
"Luke was raising a new generation of Jedi. An academy where anyone with Force-sensitivity was welcome to learn, and even those without it." His eyes drifted shut, brows knitting together as he remembered. "It was all going so well. Until it wasn't. Nobody's sure what really happened, but the rumor is that one of the boys turned against him. An apprentice that destroyed it all and killed everyone that was there. Everything Luke had worked for was just suddenly gone and, blaming himself, he walked away."
"Do you know what happened to him? Does anyone?" Finn asked, respectful as though he sensed how painful a subject this was for Ben.
He hadn't been at the Academy, was grateful that he hadn't because that could have been him. But he had lost so much that day. More than his uncle, he had lost one of his best friends. Had lost… her. A huge chunk of the Skywalker family had disappeared that day.
"There've been rumors, stories and speculation of course. The ones who knew him best think he went in search of the first Jedi Temple." He turned to them when the girl spoke, breaking her contemplative silence.
"The Jedi were real?"
Ben let out a huff of almost laughter, the small smile on his face as much his own as it was for them. "Yeah, it's real. This magical power holding together good and evil, light and dark. All of it's true. So is this; the First Order will kill us all for that map."
The Order would kill him on principal alone if they ever found him.
"You said 'the ones who knew him best,'" Finn was watching him carefully, dark eyes guarded. "That include you?"
"Yeah." Ben turned at the sound of another alarm, this one different in that it lacked the urgency. "Including me. He was—is—my uncle."
Chewie started to rise at the sound of the alarm, holding as Ben lifted a restraining hand. "You stay here; don't wanna risk all of the work our friend put into treating your injury. This is our stop anyway; you wanted my help and now you've got it. We're going to see an old friend of mine… a couple of old friends, maybe. Either way, we'll get you on a clean ship to the Resistance."
Chewie moaned tiredly at that, inquisitive.
"Yeah, her." Ben sighed in response. "I'll call in that favor if I have to."
He went back to the cockpit, completely missing the confused look that the two younger individuals shared.