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What Luke doesn’t know is this:
One evening, when the suns were slipping below the horizon and the four of them had neatly put away three bottles of the pale blue liquor Cody had charmed off a vendor down at the market, Ben had turned, mostly laughing, mostly not, to Beru and Owen (because Cody has already heard this, once, maybe twice, maybe thrice).
He’d gestured between the four of them, smilingly serious, and said,“I know we have been working hard to keep a good balance with this parenting situation we’ve found ourselves in.”
Beru and Owen had nodded, bemused and amused by turns, while Cody had reached out, fond, to press a kiss against his husband’s pulse point on his left wrist.
“But, I just want to stake my—“ he had paused, looked at Cody for confirmation, who nodded, “—our claim on the negotiations for Luke’s betrothal. Once—and if—the time comes that is.” Luke was currently eleven and thought that sharing a bag of candy was the height of romance, so there was no rush. But still Ben had wanted, needed, to get out in front of this.
“Done,” Owen had said, quickly. Too quickly, really. But he remembered sitting, sweating, squirming as he and Clieg had met with Beru’s doting mamas: he was in no rush to return to the betrothal negotiating table. If Ben wanted to throw himself on this particular sword then far be it for him to get in his way.
Beru was more slow to agree, but agreed nonetheless, she saw the hopeful light in Ben’s eye, knew that this was one of the few things he had asked for, knew that if the time came and she felt like he wasn’t doing their boy justice she could always find a way in and refocus them.
Which is why, then, when flushed, shyly pleased and finally ready to commit to a romance he had been cultivating quietly, Luke had come in to his beloved uncles to say, “I… I think I’d like to get engaged,” he isn’t prepared for the way that Cody and Ben pause, look to each other and start moving as one.
Ben towards the kitchen — likely to make a pot of tea if Luke’s years living with them half the year was any guide, Cody to get what looks alarmingly like an old wartime ammo box.
“Uh — Uncle—,” Luke pauses, doing a familiar bit of calculation as he looks between them both and weighs up who he will have better luck with. Deciding, “—Cody. What’s going on?”
Cody grins, catching the avuncular indecision as he carries the box back into the living room, seemingly unconcerned by the metal heft. The Clone Wars were many years ago but he still has a soldier’s strength, if softened and shaped by years spent between temples, palaces and moisture farms, “We’ve been preparing for this.”
Luke frowns, “Preparing for—?”
“Marriage negotiations,” Ben says, coming back into the room, bringing the cups they’ll be drinking from, “of course. What else?”
Luke doesn’t know.
He didn’t think—
“Now,” Ben says softly, tea ready, sitting down and pouring them each a cup, “Did you have someone specific in mind or—“
“How could I not have someone specific in mind?” Luke asks faintly, baffled and frustrated in a way that is more reminiscent of his childhood that he would care to admit. He sinks back into his chair. He’s not Leia, he’s not the princess of Alderaan, heir to the throne, who needed to marry well, even if her parents wanted her to find love. He is a Jedi, a farm boy, a fine pilot but born to one of the most infamous traitors in galactic history and subject to what must be one of the strangest custody arrangements in the galaxy, why would he need a marriage arranged?
“Well, we weren’t going to get caught unawares,” Cody says, too mild by half. Luke looks at him incredulous.
“Unawares? What? Uncle Ben?!”
“Listen to your Uncle Cody, Luke,” Ben says, unhelpfully. “He’s one of the smartest men I know.”
Luke makes a sound of mortified, indignant frustration. “Stop trying to distract me!” He’s close to laughing though, looking at their earnest faces and the files they were pulling out of the lockbox, “What did you mean by asking if I had someone specific in mind?”
“Well,” Ben says, hedging his bets, always the equivocator of the pair.
Cody, as is his wont, cut through to the heart of the matter, laying out the files, “We wanted to make sure we were ready for any marriage negotiations that came down the pipe. So, we took the liberty to prepare some initial research on the most likely candidates.”
“The most likely candidates?” Luke asks with a swallow, looking down at the eight files that Cody had arranged on the table. “How did you—“
“We're your uncles, Luke. Of course we've been paying attention. Now, we could tell you our selection process, if you want, dear boy.” Ben offers, smiling, over his cup of tea. “Or we can tell you who we had down, and you can tell us if we managed to get your intended in our preparation.”
Luke looks at the files, queasy, feeling seen. He is unsure if he wanted his uncles to have not known about his fumbling for romance, or if he would be hurt if they hadn't known who has his heart.
Still, the curiosity was too much for him to bear. So, burying his face in his hands he asks, “Who did you have?”
Unseen by their nephew, Ben and Cody smirked at each other.
“What you need to know is that we started this process when you were fifteen—“
“Fifteen?!” Luke demands, nearly wailing. A galaxy away, Leia sends his a pulse of “okay?” in the Force and he has to send back a reassurance and then an explanation that has her cackling down their bond in undisguised delight.
“Well, we started this process when you were eleven, but we made the first file when you were fifteen.”
Luke winces, lowering his hands to look at his suspiciously circumspect uncles.
Cody passes him the first folder, saying: “Biggs Darklighter, seemed to make quite the impression back then, so we thought it best to get our proverbial ducks in a row.”
Luke feels that familiar swoop of the nerves of his first proper crush at the name, and begins to flip through the folder, finding a number of startlingly good sketched likenesses of Biggs, from ages fifteen, twenty and twenty-five (based solely on Luke’s estimation of the state of Bigg’s facial hair), a list of familial ties and assets, a fully-up-to date biography and some musings on how to approach a betrothal. It is horrifyingly comprehensive and organised in a way that spoke of Uncle Cody’s exacting standards.
“I suppose it was too much to hope that crush slipped your radars,” Luke groused, rubbing his thumb against Bigg’s name, actually embossed on the file.
Uncle Cody grins, smugly satisfied and Luke finds his eye drifting to the photo of them from the Clone Wars that hangs on the eastern wall, beaming, triumphant and surrounded by the uniformed men of the 212th. They were his uncles. With Beru and Owen they had raised him his whole life, shown him the galaxy and what it meant to be a good man as well as a Jedi, yet it was rare they he was reminded of who they had been as younger men. The confidence they wore to wage a war and wage it well.
“We also have two names that we are now certain are not contenders, but there were moments where they looked like possibilities,” Ben adds, as he rearranges the pair of them where they sat and leans a cheek against Cody’s shoulder.
“Ah yes, our discard pile,” Cody said with a rueful smile, he fetched then laid down two much thinner folders, tapping them each once with the back of his knuckle: “Camie Marstrap, and, uh, Han Solo.”
Luke decides to ignore the fact that his uncles had somehow also picked up on his brief ill-advised crush on Camie to instead indignantly yelp, “You thought Han?!”
“We thought no such thing!” Ben insisted, almost offended, as if he and his husband weren’t the ones to make the kriffing folder.
“We got the sense that he had an interest in either you or Leia and wanted to cover our bases,” Cody said, as always a beacon of calm. “It was the same with the Antilles boy, but we were more confident of putting him in your column.” Never mind, Luke was back to mortification, he was disavowing any avuncular relations, it was him, Beru and Breha against the galaxy, (Luke had no proof of his Uncles Bail and Owen’s involvement in this nonsense, but he was certain they were somehow to blame as well.)
“Which speaking of,” Ben adds, “best hand him Wedge’s file too, dear.” Cody does so, and Luke has another hefty file in hand.
“I—I’m not sure I can look at these one at a time,” Luke says, glancing between the still closed file in hand and the remaining pile in front of his uncles.
“Efficiency,” Cody says approvingly. “Right then, we have: Wedge Antilles as discussed, Mara Jade, Lando Calrissian, Din Djarin, and Bodhi Rook.”
Luke took the folders as Cody said each name, trying not to blush at the confirmation that his uncles had in fact already prepared for his impending betrothal.
Still, he wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction of admitting that. “There are political leaders on this list,” Luke says instead. “Surely you can’t think they’ll be good matches?”
“No accounting for taste,” Uncle Ben sniffs, leaning more heavily against his husband. And Luke takes a moment—amid his mortification to be so grateful to have had his family, all three sets of parents, as a model for love. Bail and Breha, Owen and Beru, Cody and Ben, they all showed him everyday what it meant to love and devote yourself to another, while never losing sight of your duties and the wider galaxy.
That gratitude stays even as Ben haughtily continues, “You can’t help that you’ve had yourself deceived by Bail and Breha being the only decent politicians around.”
Cody snorts, and Ben pokes him in the ribs even as he concludes, “But I suppose if it’s love we’ll find a way to accept even a politician at our dinner table.”
“And what if their family decide I’m no good as a match?” Luke can’t help but ask, mostly to see the furious indignation thunder across Cody’s face, although it is fast chased away by Ben stealing his wrist and dropping a fond kiss on the pulse point.
“If any family is so short-sighted as to turn down a suit from a fine Jedi and pilot such as yourself,” Ben says, striking a tone somewhere between imperious and wry. “Then we’ve also prepared ourselves an accounting of your assets and connections.” Cody doesn’t pass it over but he fetches and then rests his hand on the thickest folder yet.
“You really have been preparing for this,” Luke says wonderingly, looking at them both.
Ben huffs, hiding a smile against Cody’s shoulder while Cody beams openly, “Only the best for our boy.”
Later, when Luke has paged through the assembled files, stayed for dinner and eaten his fill, he absents himself from the home. Letting Cody and Ben do their normal after dinner tea and teacakes in peace. He'd go back in later, crash in his room rather than making the short journey to his other room at Owen and Beru's.
Checking the clock, Luke realises that his impending visitor should be coming into transmission range, so he fires up his communicator and waits for the ping of a connection made.
“Luke?” a wonderfully familiar voice says at last.
“Hi,” Luke says, finally able to breathe deeply again.
“Hello,” he gets back, the line is crackly but strong enough. “I’m close, I should be there tomorrow or the day after.”
“Wonderful,” Luke says, looking up at the setting twin suns that have watched over him most his life, “I miss you.”
“I miss you too, I can’t wait to meet your uncles and your aunt.”
Luke can’t help his laugh, thinking of the pages of carefully prepared and honed research, “They are very keen to meet you, they readied quite the welcome.”
“I know that voice, should I be worried?”
“You should be fine. I just hope you brought a sufficient betrothal gift,” Luke teases, “I know you’re good for it now.”