Chapter Text
“Well I wouldn’t say ’fucking’,” Anakin tried to reason but the look on Padmé’s face was crystallized fuel waiting to be ignited.
Half defeated, he slumped back into her office chair and gestured vaguely at his soggy pants, knowing there was no easy way to get himself back for debriefing on time now. But Padmé paid him no mind. Her eyes were locked angrily on the wall behind him.
“Well what would you say then?” she demanded. Somehow, she was mostly unscathed after their little tryst and he was deeply jealous. Especially since, for her, rearranging her clothing was as simple as letting her skirts drop. Other than the flush on her cheeks and the beading of sweat at her hairline she looked completely proper.
He, on the other hand, would have to take at least three minutes to rearrange his clothes to acceptable standards and even then he’d look like he’d either pissed himself or someone had poured warm broth in his lap. Not that she cared about his predicament, or the debriefing he was surely missing now which would, no doubt, lead to being reprimanded later. No, they were having this conversation consequences be damned.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s not like we fuck. I don’t even know what that would look like.”
Padmé’s face scrunched furiously. “Oh so you’re like jack off buddies, right? You go out there with your little Jedi Jerk Off Crystals and jerk off together?!”
A heavy ring on her finger, nearly grazed his nose as she gesticulated in his general direction.
“And I don’t need to know?!” She demanded. “That’s not something you think you need to tell me?! Are you kidding me, Anakin? I even told you I used to call Rush Clovis daddy and you’re just going to casually omit that you’ve been touching your masters cock?! How long, Anakin?!”
This wasn’t a conversation he ever wanted to have. Why she couldn’t just accept this was a bit beyond him. As if she didn’t like the idea. Obviously, she liked the idea, he reminded himself as he began pulling his wet pants together over his own modesty again.
“A while,” he tried.
This time, she actually did hit him, not hard, but her palm glanced the back of his head. “How long?!” she said again through gritted teeth.
Anakin winced, rubbing at the spot she’d made contact like it had hurt more than it honestly had. “Since I was seventeen,” he mumbled.
“Since you were what, Anakin?!” she pressed, “Say it louder!”
“Seventeen,” he repeated.
Padmé threw her head back, mouth open in incredulity, hands splayed in front of her before bending over to brace herself on her knees. “By the Force, Anakin!”
He hid his eyes behind the palm of his prosthetic as she cast blindly around the room for something other than him to look at.
“You’re telling me I’m the other woman?” she demanded.
“It’s not like that,” he told her.
“I’m your wife, Anakin!”
“Pads, please,” he reasoned. “We’re in your office.”
“Oh well that certainly didn’t bother you while I was having a screaming orgasm just now,” she accused.
And what a thing to be held accountable for. “Are you mad at me for that now? You’re mad at me because you came?”
“Because of what I came to, you ass!” This time, the blow landed on the leather padding his shoulder. “You were off fucking him in the Mid Rim?! Are you kidding me?! When did you even have time in the middle of making a six hour flight in under three?!”
“We’d just finished when I called you,” he admitted.
She took a sharp breath, hands clenching and unclenching in the air before her like she was doing her best not to wring his neck. Which, maybe, he did deserve, actually, now that she laid it all out like this but when was he supposed to have told her? On their first date? The second? The first time she’d let him slip it to her? How would that conversation honestly have gone?
“I can’t deal with this right now,” she declared. “I can’t deal with you right now. I have documents I need to be looking over that are actually important, Anakin. Just-” here she stopped, a hand at her temple, “-go home. We can talk when I get back.”
“You want me to leave looking like this?” he asked, incredulous but she just rolled her eyes.
“Walk of shame, Jedi-boy,” she said, clapping her hands in his face to hurry him up, “Get to it.”
But Anakin couldn’t go home. He had a debriefing he’d missed and reprimands to show for, all of which could take most of the night. But she’d be pissed, he knew she’d be pissed, if he wasn’t there when she showed up.
She glared after him as he slunk out the window and along the ledge outside, crouching once he was sure he was out of earshot.
Obi-Wan picked up quickly with a sharp, “Anakin, where have you been?”
“I had some-“ he started, glancing over his shoulder just to be sure she hadn’t craned her head out the window to continue sending him her terrible vibes but she hadn’t, he was alone, “-thing to discuss with Padmé,” he said.
“Well I imagine that went exactly as planned, considering you look like a drowned, harassed rat,” Obi-Wan said.
Anakin shrugged. Some people might have called it a pretty good outcome. She had nearly flooded her own office. Oh, and C3PO would have to clean that up, he realized, smothering a laugh behind one of his gloves.
“Honestly, Anakin, now that you’re quite done being very obvious about the illicit affair you’re having, you might want to get back here. Master Yoda has a few choice words for you.”
“I know,” Anakin groaned, “and I wish I could,” -that was a lie actually- “but I can’t. Um...” here he paused, not really sure what to say or how to explain the situation, “we still have a lot to talk about.”
“You’re shameless,” Obi-Wan accused.
“Actually, she has some choice words for me, as well, Master,” Anakin said.
“Oh dear,” Obi-Wan said. “You didn’t actually suggest to her that-“
“Oh, I did,” Anakin assured him.
There was an awkward pause. Obi-Wan’s eyebrows jerked up toward his hairline and he rolled his lips together. “Did I mention you’re shameless?”
“Yes, master,” Anakin agreed.
“I cannot imagine how you thought that was going to go well,” Obi-Wan said.
Again, Anakin cast another look over his shoulder toward Padmé’s office window. “Would you believe me if I told you it kind of did?” he asked.
“No,” Obi-Wan said soundly.
“Well, she’s into it-“
“Now that’s something I find truly preposterous.”
“-but that’s not stopping her being mad I didn’t tell her before that we-“
“You told her-“
“Well it came up.”
“Anakin!” Obi-Wan reprimanded.
“We haven’t broken the code!” Anakin argued.
“But you shouldn’t just-“
“I had to tell her at some point!”
“-go around telling everyone- Oh, like she’s going to understand! Anakin, she’ll get the wrong idea,” Obi-Wan reasoned. “I should have gotten you a muzzle the second you started-“
“A Muzzle, Master-“
“-talking such nonsense. I can’t believe you told your wife what we do in private. Now she’ll think we’re-“
“She doesn’t think anything!”
“-some sort of item. Anakin!” Obi-Wan snapped. “Please, listen and stop interrupting me.”
“Yes, Master.”
“You have to correct her assumptions,” Obi-Wan told him. “I’ll cover for you here, but you’ll still have to report in in the morning for that reprimanding. Oh, and Anakin,” he added as Anakin reached to shut off the transmission, “don’t let her get any strange notions. I don’t want her saying anything to anyone.” By anyone it was obvious Obi-Wan meant Satine.
“Yes, Master,” Anakin agreed with a sigh.
“Don’t let her kill you either,” Obi-Wan said.
“Thanks, that makes me feel so much better,” Anakin griped.
“Goodbye, my Padawan. Try not to die,” Obi-Wan bid him and then the transmission cut off, leaving Anakin crouched precariously on a ledge to mull over the two tongue lashings he was surely looking forward to.
He practiced arguments in his head as he tried to slink, undetected back to Padmé’s apartment. A hard task on busy Coruscanti streets with every droid and unknown civilian watching to see what next hot bit of gossip they could spin around their little scuttlebutt mill.
Yoda would tell him what an irresponsible person he was and remind him that he’d been a charity case when the Council acquiesced to take him on and Padmé would tell him he was untrustworthy and disappointed her.
At least Padmé would probably put out afterward.
At some point even if she was too pissed at him for make up sex tonight. And it would be awesome, he assured himself stopping to nab a speeder parked by the seedy diner across the street from their building so he could get himself up on the balcony.
“Just borrowing,” he assured it as he programmed it with instructions to take itself back once he was done. “Just can’t let the door man see me like this.” Or ever, he thought. Padmé might refer to her apartment as if it were his home too but it wasn’t. He very much did not live there and they kept it that way. As such, it was more his get away from the temple. The only indicators of his presence in the place at all were a few sets of neatly folded robes under a panel in the floor of her dressing room and an extra datapad hidden deep in the couch cushions.
Naturally, he elected to head for the robes first, stripping his sodden ones off the second he was inside and leaving them strewn across the floor. Let 3PO clean it up. He’d already have cleaned up the rest of it by the time he got home. With Padmé, Anakin realized suddenly, slinking back along the trail of damp clothing and collecting each item once more. No reason to make her any more mad at him than she had to be.
He deposited his would-be mess in the hamper just inside the bathroom door with every intent of changing quickly so he could waste the time left until she got home trying not to stress out about how she would chew him out but the shower looked inviting and he felt truly grimy after limping, wet through Coruscant’s filthy underbelly on foot for two kilometers.
He’d finished washing off and was just standing appreciatively under the hot stream of water when he heard the bathroom door open. Padmé was standing with her back against the wall when he looked up.
“This isn’t really where I expected to find you,” she said, staring at herself in the mirror rather than looking at him.
“I did just get back from a very important mission, Padmé,” he told her.
She frowned, a hand shooting up to cup the back of her own neck nervously. “I know that,” she said.
“Which I did very well on, not that you asked,” he added.
“Well now you’re just being an asshole.” She crossed her arms as she said this, glaring at the feet of a particularly unlucky settee.
“I don’t mean to,” he amended, shutting the water off, “I’m just tired.”
“I know,” she told him again, tone more resigned than defensive now. “But, look, Anakin,” here she finally met his eyes, “I’m not being unreasonable. I really wish you’d told me.”
He hadn’t been ready to. Sure, she’d needed to find out someday but- He set his jaw and reached for one of the towels hanging against the wall. There was always something he screwed up by nothing but the fact of his own limitations.
“I never said it was unreasonable,” he muttered. The towel was downy on his face as he wiped the water out of his eyes. “I just don’t know how I would have told you. Or when,” he added, wrapping the fabric over his own shoulders to keep out the cold slowly seeping into his skin.
“Well can you explain it now?” she asked.
Anakin shrugged. He was having almost as much of a hard time looking at her as she was looking at him.
“Can you give me a hand?” he asked her, pointing to the counter where he’d placed his prosthetic.
A small smile threatened to twist her lips as she obliged him.
It was comfortable to slide the thing back on. He always felt vulnerable without it in whatever short moments he allowed himself to be parted from it and having it back now made him feel a little less awkward during whatever this confrontation was. He’d expected her to come in yelling at him, not try to reason it out. Always the politician, his Padmé.
“He’s mad I told you,” Anakin confessed, “It concerns me.”
Sympathy pressed itself into the edges of the forced indifference on her face.
“He says I need to quell any strange notions you might have about our relationship.”
“Well what does that mean?” Padmé asked.
Anakin shrugged again. “He doesn’t want you to think it’s strange, or that we’re an item. It’s not like that,” he insisted.
Padmé frowned. He could feel something like concern curling in around the edges of her being now and that worried him even further. Maybe Obi-Wan had been right and telling her had been a mistake.
“Is that why you didn’t tell me?” She asked.
“No,” it wasn’t, not really, “Well it’s part of it but-“ he trailed off, tongue feeling fat and dry in his mouth.
“Ani,” she goaded.
“Well it wouldn’t be acceptable. Not on Tatooine or in the Order. It’s not something we’re supposed to do,” he reasoned.
“Why would it not be acceptable on Tatooine?” she asked.
Speaking was getting difficult and he frowned at the floor as he fumbled for words.
“Take your time,” she said, grabbing the light robe he’d pulled out of his little stockpile and offering it to him. “We can go sit on the couch and I’ll have 3PO make us some tea.”
That sounded nice. He took the robe, overly aware of the whirring from his prosthetic without the barrier of his gloves to dampen it, and followed her out to the living room where she sat him on the couch to stew in potential conversation options. None of which seemed to even graze being fully formed as she disappeared to dictate her instructions to 3PO.
She’d changed her clothes, he finally realized when she came back and sunk down next to him, leaning reassuringly into his arm. Probably something she’d done at the office before even coming home.
“I’m trying to understand,” she assured him. “I don’t want to be angry with you.”
“I know,” he said this time. She was kind. That was something he truly valued about her. The time and effort she took to try and see all sides of an issue. Not just in her work but also in her daily life.
Her hand folded into the crux of his elbow and he laid his own over it, reveling in the softness of her skin like he always did when she was close enough to touch.
“It’s just not something that’s done,” he began as though no time had passed between her asking of the question and his answering it.
“What?” she asked.
“That,” he said with a vague gesture toward the temple behind him. Toward where he knew Obi-Wan was, where he could feel his master breathing through nearly five kilometers of steel infrastructure. “We’re both men. It just wouldn’t have been acceptable.”
“Why?” she asked.
Anakin shrugged. “I guess you’re supposed to have a family,” he reasoned.
“Ani, you’re married,” she explained. “To a woman. We’ve even talked about kids.”
“I know,” he repeated.
She shrugged a single shoulder, lips pulling down at the edges and eyebrows jerking up toward her hairline. “So would anyone really have a problem with it?”
“I guess it’s more than that,” he admitted.
“But we’re not on Tatooine,” Padmé reasoned.
“It’s still not acceptable though,” Anakin argued.
“Were you worried I’d be angry with you?” she asked.
He didn’t know what to say so he defaulted to a silent nod.
“Oh, Ani,” she said, running a hand through his hair to tuck it back out of his eyes. “I wouldn’t have been mad if you’d just been upfront about it.”
“I don’t know that,” he said.
“‘But I do. So trust me when I say worrying about it so hard made it come true.”
“Mm,” he agreed. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around when the appropriate time for this conversation would have been. Why couldn’t now be fine? Now, when he was ready. When the idea had seemed suddenly not so daunting. Why did she have to get angry when he was finally ready to talk about it instead of just listening?
“I still love you,” she promised.
“Mm,” he repeated. “I just wasn’t ready,” he said.
“Well if you have any other secrets, you should probably sort them out as soon as you can,” she advised him. "The longer you hold a secret, the bigger it gets and the more angry people are when the truth eventually comes out- and it always comes out, Anakin,” she insisted as he opened his mouth to protest. “Eight years is a long time to keep a secret.”
It hadn’t seemed like a long time. It hadn’t even seemed like a secret so much as something that wasn’t anyone’s business. It was a personal thing. It was private. Between just them. He understood why Obi-Wan was upset with him for letting the gorg out of the bag. But it was Padmé. It wasn’t like he’d told just anyone.
“I told you because I decided I wanted you to know,” he said.
“Is that why you’re suggesting all this?” she asked.
“No,” he told her soundly. This was more for his own personal amusement. The thought itself had never been to tell Padmé by showing her, he’d just got caught up in the moment and- well his intention in feeding her that memory had been to share it. Genuinely. Let her have a taste of what it was like. How he felt. Who Obi-Wan really was to him.
Obi-Wan was just his master though, he reminded himself. Not really anything more.
Annoyance gnawed at the tips of his fingers as C3PO emerged from behind the curtains that separated off the hallway carrying a tea tray laden with refreshments.
“Thank you, 3PO,” Padmé said as he set them down on the sitting table in front of them.
“Oh, delighted, Lady Padmé, as always. We have shuura tea paired with Bantha cream scones. A wonderful flavor combination. The sweetness of the tea and the the tartness if the cream are lovely together and that’s not even to mention the way the rich, gold of this traditional drink goes against such a vivid, blue pastry,” the droid babbled happily.
“It’s wonderful, 3PO,” she assured him. “Do you think we could get a little privacy?”
“Of course, my lady,” 3PO assured her before whirring his way back out of the room.
Anakin wasn’t sure what conversation to make in the droid’s absence. He wanted to change the subject but got the feeling Padmé wouldn’t be fond of it if he tried. Honestly, he wasn’t entirely sure what had prompted him to push for this now of all times but it didn’t seem like a bad idea. Talking about the baby, there were so many questions they needed to answer in order to plan everything properly. Who would be better to help them with that than his own Master? His best friend? Wouldn’t everyone feel safer with another pair of hands around to protect whatever little person came into the world. Was that not better?
Wordlessly, he offered the concept to her. No matter what Obi-Wan would be there to help, but wasn’t it better all laid bare? Wouldn’t he only be more immeshed with their lives if they allowed him in properly. As it was Obi-Wan tended to try and defer to Padmé’s claim to Anakin as though his was any lesser. He tried to talk it all down, refuse labels to it, insist it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Secretly, though, Anakin knew different. Maybe the connection he had to his Master wasn’t the same as the connection he had to his wife but that didn’t make it lesser by any stretch. In a balanced world, they would all be equals.
Confessing this, he realized, no matter how impulsive it had been, it was about equality.
Silently, Padmé offered him a gentle squeeze on the arm before pulling away to pour the tea, a look of thoughtful concentration on her face as she tried her best to parse this information. It wasn’t nearly so natural for her to rely on this form of communication as it was for Obi-Wan, something that could make telling her things difficult, but she tried to listen even if she struggled to keep up.
“This is way more serious than just jerking off together, isn’t it?” she asked the wall.
Anakin didn’t know how to answer that. Here he was, supposed to be clearing up any notions she might have but instead he was playing into them, cementing them. He was an idiot. That much was clear. And Padmé was going to be upset again.
But she wasn’t. Beside him, she tried to stifle a laugh behind her hand. “Drink your tea,” she told him, shoving his cup under his nose so he was forced to take it before sipping at her own. She heaved a deep sigh as she leaned back against the couch so far she was half lying across the cushions.
“You’re a dork,” she said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.
“Well, it’s every married woman’s nightmare to find out her husband is cheating on her,” she said and a pit of shame gnawed on his insides like a sarlacc. “But you’ve managed to do it in the dorkiest way possible.”
“What’s dorky about it?”
“Everything?” She suggested, still giggling against the rim of her tea cup.
“I guess that’s fair,” he muttered.
“Don’t be sullen,” she teased. “You’re going to get what you want.”
And she was telling the truth because the make-up sex was awesome. The kind of thing not even C3PO could ruin when he came around wondering if the tea service had been to their liking.
“I’ll take that as an affirmative,” the droid bit when neither of them offered a proper answer and Anakin smothered a laugh against Padmé’s neck as he heard a stiff, “Rude,” filter in passed the hallway curtains after the last flash of gold plating had disappeared from sight.