Chapter Text
Logan had never wanted a phone, regardless of what his daughter - who regularly woke up to see him playing snake in the night - would tell anyone who asked. It was a small phone, covered in buttons and scratched slightly from a moment he would never admit had happened, that may or may not have included a slingshot and a rabbit. Still, he did use it for things other than playing snake. That was why, when Jubilee’s longest pants began to hang around her ankles, he made a call.
Looking at Logan one would not assume he knew Asajj Ventress, legacy politician and daughter of the infamous congressman “Count” Yan Dooku. One likely would not have known that Logan, in all of his rugged and rustic glory, had for a few brief months been intimately familiar with Dooku. That had ended as suddenly as it had started and in the aftermath Dooku had gone to great lengths to ensure not a word was spoken of it on the internet.
Asajj picked up quickly. She always did when it was Logan, ever since she was a little kid who he had promised he would still be there for, the night he had left her father’s house. He had shown up in a tree for her high school graduation, and shown up when he was called whenever she felt sick. Dooku had accepted it at a certain point.
“Hey Logan,” Asajj said. “How have you been?”
“All good here bub,” Logan said, “Me and the kid have been doing a bit of exploring. She can identify most birds by sound alone.”
“Bright kid.”
“Definitely,” Logan agreed, staring down at Jubilee where she slept. “We’re not far from your dad’s place. I was wondering if he has kept any of your old clothes from when you were a kid. The kid’s shooting up like a tree.”
“I’m home at the moment actually,” Asajj said. “We’re having a bit of a family thing. You should stop by. I’m sure I can find something in storage.”
Logan looked up at the stars, running a few calculations before he replied. “We should be there in about a day or two then. It’ll be good to see you.”
“I look forward to it.”
****
“Count” Yan Dooku’s house had once been described as “extravagant to a degree no one could rationally justify,” by an interviewer who he had let into his home. Dooku personally held the position that there was no point in having the amount of money he did if he didn’t intend to spend it.
That was why he had completely ignored what he had been told when it came to purchasing presents for his grandchildren. While he knew there could be logistical issues when it came to getting them home, those were issues he and his money could manage. He didn’t care that presents weren’t an important part of the holiday. They were important to him.
He had gotten his daughter, his pride and joy, an intricate sword, perfectly crafted for her height and wingspan. His daughter’s spouse, Quinlan Vos, tickets to a play he had heard them talking about. He had found an original copy of a book Obi Wan loved. A princess tiara for his great granddaughter Leia with real diamonds. He loved that kid, despite the opinions he had held of her late father. It was little secret that Dooku hoped she would take after her mother.
When Anakin and Padme had died Dooku had wanted to take the kids, not that he had ever told them that. He knew he was old, but he had the money for nannies that could keep up with them, and could have retired soon to make the time two babies would have needed. He would have fought their godparents for them if it hadn’t been for the fact that Obi Wan had been in the car with their parents when it crashed.
Dooku had been on the scene almost as soon as the ambulances, breaking traffic laws liberally to reach his late son’s son. The poor thing had been a wreck, holding the cooling hand of Padme Amidala, two crying babies being swaddled by nearby paramedics. Anakin had been scattered across the highway. Later reports revealed that he had been unbuckled, bent between the front seats to pass something to his wife when the second car hit them.
Dooku had worried that the guilt of it all, so soon after Qui Gon’s death, would break Obi Wan. He wanted the twins, the next generation of the family he had built, but someone had to make sure Obi Wan was ok. He knew that no one else would.
So, he had allowed calls to be made to Padme’s friend Bail to take the girl, and Anakin’s cousin Owen to pick up the boy. The children were loved and Dooku made sure they were in the best schools money could pay for. It worked, in its strange way, but Dooku was committed to making it work.
That was why, for at least one holiday out of the year, he insisted that the entirety of the family make its way to his home.They did. Every single one of them, making their way up the long driveway, lined with perfectly manicured plants. Marble statues of men, the one concession he gave himself to his desires.
Dooku watched as Luke squealed in excitement at the tractor in the front yard, and pointedly ignored the annoyed look Owen gave him over the boy’s head. Owen’s husband Piotr Rasputin lifted the tractor over his head to check something Dooku was too rich to care about underneath.
Beru Whitesun laughed slightly at her boys and led her inlaws, Nikolai and Alexandra Rasputin, the rest of the way up the driveway. She greeted him kindly and Dooku led her into his home, leaving his grandson to play in the yard with his fathers. They were good to him, not that Dooku completely understood the situation.
He had never asked directly, not when he couldn’t directly inquire into their seemingly queer business without either being perceived as a remnant of an older time, or accidentally revealing more of himself than he wished them to know. He had tried to ask Asajj and Obi Wan but they both knew little about the two men, having graduated the same year they arrived at college.
When asked Asajj had shrugged, and suggested he stalk their social media, with the air of someone who didn’t think that was within his abilities. He still followed Piotr’s art Instagram. Despite the optics of a man in his position following a known communist, the art was beautiful. Painterly adaptations of the Russian countryside, more often than not, decorated the account’s posts, along with the occasional sketchbook spread of cities and people going about their daily lives. Owen only posted chickens which was even less useful to deciphering their situation. It was clear that Piotr must have named the chickens due to their clear connection to famous artists: Renoir and Vincent - two roosters who often appeared, alongside hens Frida, Natalia, Artemisia, and Georgia. Then again Owen may have been into that sort of thing. Dooku knew that art was gay, or at least artists were, his father had insisted on it.
The most confusing factor had been Beru, who clearly loved both men, but who he had only seen be physically affectionate with Owen. Her social media was mostly informative videos about farming, and politics radical enough that he would have been laughed out of congress by his nearest allies and pressured into a psychological evaluation by the press if he had dared to agree with any of them.
When he had asked Obi Wan to elaborate on the situation, he had smiled at his grandfather in that sad way he had done since he was a young man, and Dooku had gotten a little too tipsy and admitted that he understood. Obi Wan had explained to his grandfather, sitting congressman that he was, that Owen had married Piotr for the green card it gave them, and was an entirely heterosexual man in a seemingly heterosexual relationship with Beru. Beru was bisexual though which apparently made it not heterosexual according to Obi Wan, but Dooku had decided not to look for clarification on that particular point.
Dooku didn’t understand how a man like Owen could marry another man, and shoulder all the baggage and the stares that came with it. He didn’t understand how Beru could set aside marriage for the life they had built together. He didn’t understand how Piotr could be loved in that way by the two of them, enough to rewrite every rule for what they had been taught their futures should look like into something new and their own. A part of him wished he did.
Obi Wan pulled up at the same time as his longtime ex-girlfriend, and Dooku’s fellow congress member Satine Kryze. Yes, of those Kryze’s. While she was not a member of the family exactly, her son, created through a donation on Obi Wan’s part, was. Dooku had made all of his children and grandchildren sign that fact in order to remain in his will.
While Satine’s politics did not align with Dooku's, occasionally they were able to meet in the middle for the sake of specific minor adjustments to things their respective parties needed to pass. Korkie Kryze, at six years old, was a bright child who spent the vast majority of his time constructing elaborate cities on Minecraft that he insisted his grandfather watch his youtube videos of. Despite his confusion Dooku had watched every single one and made sure to comment relevant thoughts.
Obi Wan passed his grandfather a bottle of wine when he reached him, pulling the older man into a tight hug. They hadn’t been close when Obi Wan was young, not from a lack of interest on Dooku’s part but a lack of common topics of discussion. That had changed as Obi Wan had grown. In school the younger man had begun to stumble into the kind of literature Dooku had enjoyed reading and had asked the occasional question about them. They had truly gotten close in the time after Anakin. Dooku knew that was the only way Obi Wan would ever measure his life, before his brother and after.
Dooku had taken a year, all but vanishing from the public eye in every way that mattered to watch the broken man. He had been worried something would happen to him, to lose a brother so soon after a father was hard. Dooku still felt the hole where Qui Gon should be when their family gathered. Even Anakin’s obnoxious laugh’s absence was noted from time to time. Shimi, whatever she had been to Qui Gon, would have made an incredible grandmother to the twins.
Dooku had taken Obi Wan on drive after drive, until the young man could sit in the passenger driver's seat again. He had found them old cabins on quiet roads far from prying eyes. He had spent late nights trying everything he could to calm the boy when he heard him wake up screaming. Now when Obi Wan hugged him, Dooku let himself hold his grandson close.
By the time the sun began to settle and the dark began to set in, Dooku's home was filled with family and the warmth that came with it. His granddaughter, Leia Organa, sat with her brother’s grandparents, doing her best to practice the Russian that she had begun to learn. Quinlan and Ventress were squeezed side by side in a chair, Ventress catching up with Obi Wan who she continued to refer to as her “dear nephew.” The phrase had long ago become a joke between them. Breha, Beru, Piotr, Bail and Owen spoke of their children, comparing notes on things they had told them about their parents and the stages of life the twins had simultaneously reached. Luke and Korkie lay on the floor together, shoving toy cars on the rug between them. Satine sat in the corner with a cup of tea, stress of the outside world beginning to leave her shoulders.
Dooku watched it all from one corner of the room. Everyone was where they were supposed to be. The world was as perfect as it ever would be. He had eyes on all that he loved. There was no one else alive he wanted in the room.
The doorbell rang, the loud ding disrupting the pleasant chatter.
“Are we expecting someone?” Obi Wan asked, from where he sat at his grandfather’s side.
Dooku had no time to answer as Ventress opened the door, half jumping into the arms of Logan James Howlett.
He hadn’t aged much in the time since Dooku had last seen him, out of the corner of his eyes in the bushes of a college graduation. He was just as handsome as he had been when he had found his way to Dooku’s bed. He was still rugged, arms rippling as he picked Ventress off of the floor. There was a child by his side, standing in too small clothing and peering into the house.
“Did you know he was coming?” Obi Wan whispered in his grandfather’s ear.
Dooku couldn’t form a response. All he could do was shake his head as Ventress led the man into Dooku’s home.