Chapter Text
They were at the dinner table, casually munching on some meatloaf Steve had prepared with a side of mashed potatoes. The kids were pretty obsessed with Steve’s cooking, despite the fact that he barely knew how to cook before they started adopting. Billy and Wayne were arguing about some cartoon episode they watched earlier while the rest of the family seemed to just be letting them air it out. That was until Joan turned to Eddie, “Can I join the wrestling team?”
Eddie’s eyebrows shot up, Steve started choking on his water. “The wrestling team? Do you know how to wrestle?” Eddie wasn’t opposed to it at all, just more curious as to why she wanted to be involved.
Joan was a small girl, she was short for her age but still scrawny, she wasn’t exactly the stereotypical ideal of a wrestler. “It looks fun! They finally made a girl team, so why not?”
Eddie shrugged, looking over at Steve for his opinion. Steve was not only the cook but the jock of the family, being captain of the swimming team allowed him to see a lot of different athletics, but he never heard particularly good things about wrestling. I mean, the kids are kind of just fighting each other, but with rules. The overly protective side of Steve was yelling at him to say no, what if his baby girl gets absolutely pummeled by some devil child? But it wouldn’t be fair, Michelle was playing softball, and Tiffany had become heavily invested in chess, which at their public school was technically considered a sport. Steve had to concede, he gave a slow nod to Joan.
“Alright, if that’s what you want. When are practices?”
The smile Joan gave him was enough to wash all of his concerns about the sport away, “Wednesday, after school until 5!” Steve and Eddie made a mental note before the conversation carried on talks about arcade games.
It was the first match of the season, Steve and Eddie threatened to murder their bosses if they didn’t let them off of work to watch their baby girl beat the shit out of other little girls. Luckily, Eddie was still a scary-looking guy, so the entire family was in the stands, screaming at nothing to hype their girl up.
The energy in the room was crazy, the parents of the other athletes were screaming right along with them, which rarely happened at Michelle’s softball events. The family was used to getting weird stares and being somewhat isolated from the group, but no one here spared them a second glance. The only thing that caught their eye was the sheer amount of kids the men had.
Steve was quick to befriend a woman named Selena, whose daughter was also on the team. “Which one’s yours?” She asked him, to which he proudly pointed to Joan who was busy doing cartwheels as a showy warmup for the tournament.
“How about you?” Selena gestured to a girl not far from Joan, who seemed to be playing paddy cake with the floor. “Awww, she’s adorable.”
The two continued to banter, Eddie eventually joining Steve’s side with a bag of chips he got from the concession stand. “Did I miss anything?”
“Still warming up. Eddie, this is Selena. Selena this is…” Steve paused for a moment, trying to eye the woman in some kind of homophobic vibe check. “My partner.” He eventually finished, it was the truth, but it was also vague enough that if she started throwing slurs he could say he meant business partner or some other lame excuse.
Selena just shook Eddie’s hand, much to the relief of the two men and even Michelle, who was sitting nearby and watching the interaction, she reached the age where she was well aware of the fact that her having two dads was not most people’s norm.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” The announcer abrupt across the gymnasium. He called out a weight class and Eddie watched as a bunch of girls scurried to their location, hastily snapping on their headgear. He felt his palms get sweaty, he had no idea how this sport worked and he had an irrational fear that some dad was going to start quizzing him on sports during a match.
This fear turned out to not be completely irrational, as someone’s dad approached Eddie. The guy was bald with a strong beard game and neck tattoos. Eddie of course had tattoos of his own, but only had a bit of scruff and his hair was still long and swept into a bun. This dude must’ve thought Eddie was still the most hardcore-looking guy there, as the other dads were pretty normal with their polo shirts and khaki pants.
“What up, man?” The bald guy asked Eddie, sitting down on the row of seats in front.
“Not much, you?” Eddie tried for banter. He wished his kids would stop playing with each other and find a reason to pull him out of talking to this dad.
“Same here, I can’t believe they’re just letting girls play this game now.” The guy shook his head, already assuming Eddie agreed with him.
It was the metalhead's first instinct to immediately start debating this man and calling him out for being an old-fashioned, sexist bootlicker or whatever other insults his mouth would spit, but if he caused a scene he wouldn’t be able to watch Joan’s matches, which was the exact opposite of what he wanted, even if it meant having to let this dude yap on about how much he hated women.
“Oh, really?” Eddie settled on.
“Yeah, guys like us know what real wrestling is. These little girls, I mean come on. What are they gonna do? Pull a ponytail? Catfight?” The man laughed to himself. “It’s pussy shit.”
“Why are you even here, dude?” Eddie’s mouth seemed to have a mind of its own, he tried to grind his teeth instead of letting another snark escape him.
“That’s what I’m asking myself. The wife said, ‘oh, but it’s good she has an outlet for this kinda stuff,” he gave a whiny impression of his wife that Eddie automatically assumed was not at all accurate. “An outlet for what? God, women, amirite?”
Munson let out what almost sounded like a bark of a laugh. “Wouldn’t know, man.” He wrapped an arm around Steve’s shoulders, the other man still conversing with Selena about their kids. “This one’s mine.”
Steve looked over to Eddie, “What was that, baby?” He didn’t seem to take note of the bald man in front of them, who was now red in a mix of rage and embarrassment.
“Didn’t know I was talking to a bunch of fairies.” He slammed his hand down on the bleachers and stalked off to find another family to fuck with.
Steve gave Eddie a shocked look, “Did I do something?”
Eddie just shook his head, “You were perfect, beautiful.” Eddie patted Steve’s shoulder, letting him go to resume his rambles with Selena.
It was Joan’s time to shine. She was up to her first match, though she be small she be quick. Eddie and Steve were confident their little girls as going to beat the shit out of her opponent, yelling this from the bleachers.
“FUCK HER UP, JOAN!” Steve screamed, Eddie put a hand on his shoulder as a way of telling him to tone it down. Steve nodded and rephrased his statement, “FUDGE HER UP, JOAN!” Steve glanced at Eddie for approval, who just gave him a thumbs up.
They waited for the wrestlers to strap on their color-coded ankle straps, each adjusting their gear and pumping themselves up. Joan’s siblings were all screaming their cheers, the five of them combined plus the parents caused quite an uproar, it definitely drowned out whoever was there for the other girl. Soon enough, the ref blew the whistle, and Joan immediately lunged for the girl's legs.
“OHHHHHHH!” Steve screamed from the stands, at first he was shocked by the violence, but the shock quickly faded, and instead he became pumped for his daughter. “YEAHHHHHHHHH, GET THAT BITCH!”
“Stevie!” Eddie scolded but joined in on the screaming. When the other girl landed on the floor, she spun to her stomach and Joan immediately pounced on her back. The other girl was not having it, getting on all fours and throwing Joan off her as she stood up. Joan flew back, knocked to the ground, but got back up before the girl could get to her. Eddie leaned into Steve, “Do you know how this works?”
“You didn’t read the rules?”
“There were rules?” Eddie looked at Steve incredulously, his husband seemed to have exhausted an extensive knowledge of every sport and he especially invested his time in learning the rules of wrestling when Joan joined the art. “You didn’t share it with me?”
“Look, it’s simple,” Steve started gesturing as he tried to explain the rules of the game. “You get points for takedowns and how long they’re on the ground, but whoever gets pinned basically automatically loses. The points are just if no one gets pinned in the three minutes. Oh yeah, there are three rounds and each round is three minutes. It stops once someone gets pinned though.” Eddie nodded along, this must be how Steve feels whenever he goes on his dungeons and dragon tangents. Just a bunch of nonsense and made-up rules for entertainment. Wow, this was a lot like D&D.
When Eddie focused back in on the match, Joan had her head slammed face down into the mat. Neither of the fathers was prepared for seeing their kid in pain like that, especially not Steve. Who clung onto the railing of the breachers for dear life, knowing it’d be inappropriate to run onto the mat and pepper spray the girl just playing the game.
“OH MY GOD, EDDIE, SHE’S GONNA DIE!” Steve’s voice was hoarse, his face red as he watched his daughter struggle to not get kneed in the face. Eddie ran over to his husband, gripping Steve’s shoulders and throttling him back to reality.
“SHE’S. NOT. GONNA. DIE.” With each word, Eddie jerked Steve back and forth, until the man was in a haze and couldn’t focus enough on the state his daughter was in. “She’s been training for this, she knows how to play safely. Right?” Eddie glanced back at the match, Joan was nearly on her back which Eddie had a feeling meant she was about to lose. He covered Steve’s eyes as the kids swarmed around them, wondering why their dads were screaming in fear instead of ferocity.
The ref blew the whistle, leading Steve to throw Eddie’s hand off his face to see what was happening. Joan was pinned to the ground, the other wrestler helped her up. The ref grabbed the opponent’s hand, signifying that she had won instead of Joan.
“Son of a BITCH!” Steve screamed, he didn’t use that phrase much before he met Eddie, but it definitely rubbed off on him. “That chick is on steroids, I swear to God.” Steve was going on rambles about how Joan should have won, the kids weren’t really sure of what was happening but they sensed the vibe was outrage so they started groaning and throwing their fidgets on the ground.