Chapter Text
Buck is so excited he might pass out. He’s standing at the front door of their house, holding a bouquet of flowers and a little box of chocolates shaped like a heart. He’s been looking forward to this Valentine’s Day date for weeks.
The door swings open and Buck comes face to face with two of his three favorite people in the whole entire world.
“Hi, baby!” Buck says brightly, crouching down and opening his arms. Isabella immediately runs into them and throws her arms around his neck. “You look so beautiful!”
“So do you!” she says, kissing Buck on the cheek. He can feel the sticky remnants of her lipgloss, but he knows that means he’s got pink and glitter on his cheek from his daughter who loves him and thinks he’s beautiful, and Buck kind of wants to call everyone he’s ever met about it. He hopes it stays there forever.
“These are for you.” Buck leans back a little bit and hands her the flowers and the chocolates.
She gasps and gathers the flowers and chocolates into her arms, then turns and runs towards the kitchen, yelling something about “that vase on the top shelf!” as she goes.
“Bella, slow down!” Eddie calls, at the same time Buck says, “Izzy, wait for us!”
Okay, so that’s one of the more insane things they’d decided to do. But it just makes sense for them! Eddie is Dad to Chris and Papá to Isabella, and Buck is, well, Buck to Chris and Dad to Isabella, so why shouldn’t she be Bella to Eddie and Izzy to Buck? Different nicknames fly every which way in the Buckley-Diaz family. No one has to keep track but the four of them, and they don’t have any issues. Besides, Buck had followed the very logical train of thought that Buck comes from Buckley, so Izzy comes from Isabella. Eddie, however, had gone on a long, drawn out, and very cute rant about how Bella sounded more princessy. He’d been very passionate about it. They couldn’t agree on a nickname and had just gone with both.
“We have to put them in water!” Izzy insists, waiting impatiently for them in the kitchen.
“First things first,” Buck says. He turns to Eddie. “Hi, my other baby.”
“Hi!” Eddie kisses him. “It’s only been a couple of hours.”
Buck shrugs. “Missed you anyway.”
Eddie smiles. “Missed you too.”
With that very important task out of the way, Buck proceeds to get the vase down and help Izzy arrange the flowers in it.
“Why don’t I take these very pretty flowers to your bedroom and you two can get going on your date?” Eddie suggests.
Neither Buck nor Izzy are thrilled at the idea of leaving Eddie, and he can’t help but laugh at the absurdity. He didn’t mean to pass down his trait of being so attached to Eddie, but Izzy got it anyway. But it’s so much cuter when a five year old doesn’t want to leave one of her dads behind than when Buck doesn’t want Eddie to get out of bed and go to the bathroom. Well, those things are equally cute to Eddie, but he’s got a skewed point of view.
After several hugs, ‘I love you’s, and a promise that Eddie wouldn’t eat her chocolates, Buck and Izzy are out the door.
Buck stops Izzy on the sidewalk and squats down to her level again.
“You look so pretty,” he says. “I am very excited to take you out on our Valentine’s Day date.”
“Wait, watch this!” Izzy tells him. She takes a few steps back and twirls around. The tulle of her skirt spins out and glitters in the sunlight as her long curls bounce along with the movement.
“Wow! I love the sparkles. And you picked out a dress in my favorite color.”
“I know!” she say brightly. “You like it?”
“Baby, I love it.” Buck kisses her forehead. “And I love you, and you’re the most beautiful girl in the whole world.”
Izzy puts her hands on her hips. “I love you more.”
“Uh, no, I love you more.”
“Daddy, I love you more,” she replies indignantly.
And on and on they go, playing a game they know by heart as Buck gets Izzy buckled into the car. It’s kind of the equivalent of Buck fist bumping Eddie. He and Izzy do it often, it’s their thing, and it always ends the exact same way.
“Agree that we both love each other so much we might explode?” Buck asks, holding his pinky out.
Izzy links her pinky with his. “Into a million billion heart-shaped pieces.”
On the drive, Buck plays ‘Izzy and Daddy’s Super Cool Amazing Driving Playlist’, a carefully curated list of songs that the two of them like to sing in the car together. It’s about five hours long and contains everything from Disney to country to pop to classic rock. The more they (Izzy) likes a song, the more times it’s added to the playlist. Relatedly, “Pink Pony Club” and “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!” are going to be Buck’s most played songs for the year.
Santa Monica Pier is, thankfully, not too crowded. One of Buck’s traits that Izzy has picked up is wandering off when she sees something interesting. And she should be free to follow her whims! But, like, in Buck’s line of sight. Please. He’s begging. One time he lost Izzy in the supermarket for thirty seconds and he felt like he was going to die. Never mind that she’d been right behind him the whole time.
“Oh. My. God.” Izzy bounces on the balls of her feet when Buck lifts her out of the car and puts her on the ground. “I want to do everything!”
Buck is afflicted with this incurable illness where Izzy does quite literally anything, and he wants to fall to his knees and cry about it. He doesn’t even care how dramatic that sounds. It’s just the way Buck parents. He got the same overwhelming rush of affection when Chris made Dean’s List in his first semester at college. There is a bottomless well of love in Buck’s heart specifically for his kids.
“We can do anything you want!” Buck says, reaching out for her hand. “But I thought we’d start by getting something to eat.”
Izzy’s head shot up towards Buck and she squeezed his hand. “Dessert first?” she asks, looking up at him with big, pleading brown eyes. Definitely her father’s daughter.
“Oh yeah, we have to get dessert! It would be rude to the funnel cake if we ate lunch first.”
So, hand in hand, Buck and Izzy walk to the pier in search of funnel cake. They find it almost immediately. Of course, because of the aforementioned being her father’s daughter, they also end up getting ice cream and some chocolate covered fruit. The fruit is a compromise—Buck is trying to get some nutrients into his kid while still giving her whatever she wants. The damage could’ve been worse! Buck negotiates Izzy down to one of each item, claiming he’s not very hungry and can’t possibly eat his own in hopes that Izzy offers to share. Which she does, because she takes after her brother when it comes to being the sweetest kid in the world.
“What’s this white stuff?” Izzy asks, shoving a piece of funnel cake into her mouth.
“Powdered sugar.” Buck smiles as he tucks a napkin into the front of her dress.
“Oh. How do they get the sugar to be powder?”
“That is a fantastic question! Should we find out?”
Izzy switches to the ice cream as she nods vehemently. For a little kid with a little kid attention span, Izzy loves doing Wikipedia deep dives with Buck. She always listens attentively to everything he has to say, nods along, and asks what Buck thinks are pretty intelligent questions for a five-year-old. There’s a note in Buck’s phone titled ‘Things To Research’ in which he jots down topics he doesn’t have time to look up the moment they occur to him. There are two lists in the note: For Eddie and For Izzy. That way he never runs out of topics to share with either of them.
“Is corn starch powdered corn?”
Buck hums. “In a way, I guess.”
“So if you mix sugar and powdered corn in our blender, it makes powdered sugar?”
“Yup!”
“Daddy,” Izzy says seriously. “You have to make this at home and then we can put it on everything.”
“I don’t think we need sugar on everything,” Buck chuckles, stealing a bite of her ice cream.
“Please?” She flashes those big, brown eyes again. “Everything is better when you make it, me and Papá both think so.”
Buck is strong-willed. He takes his parenting seriously. Just because he’s an expert at dealing with tummy aches doesn’t mean he needs to cause them by stuffing his child full of sugar. He says no to Eddie’s big doe eyes and he can say no to Izzy’s too.
“We can’t eat powdered sugar on everything, but how about I make it special on Waffle Day?” Buck offers. He doesn’t bother bringing up that they can buy powdered sugar at the grocery store.
“And… Funnel Cake Day?”
“When’s Funnel Cake Day?”
Izzy scrunches her face up. “What’s tomorrow?”
“Wednesday.”
“Funnel Cake Day is Wednesday!”
He can say no. He is not going to make funnel cake tomorrow. There is no chance Buck is adding another food to their weekly rotation unless it’s a vegetable.
Buck grabs a napkin and wipes the chocolate ice cream from Izzy’s, uh, everywhere. Whole face. Kids are incredible. “If Papa says it’s okay, we can have funnel cake tomorrow,” he says. There. Now it’s Eddie’s problem.
Among all the dessert, Buck does get Izzy to eat a strawberry and two pieces of banana. Never mind that they were covered in chocolate. That’s still fresh fruit, which is still a win. Small parent victories.
After dessert, their next stop is the carousel. On Izzy’s first visit to the pier, the entire family had been there. Chris had taken her on the ride, and she became obsessed. Big, pretty, colorful horses fit for a princess and her knight in shining armor? She was in heaven. Eddie had made himself dizzy walking around in circles with the carousel while trying to take photos.
“Can I get a real horse for my birthday?” Izzy asks him, loving petting the bright purple mane of the ceramic horse she’s riding.
Buck adjusts his hold on her so she doesn’t fall. “We don’t have another bedroom, where would the horse sleep?”
“He wouldn’t need a bed, Daddy,” Izzy informs him with a giggle. “He would live in the backyard. I would take such good care of him!”
“I know you would, sweetheart!” Buck drops a quick kiss to the top of her head. “But I don’t think a horse would be happy at our house, the backyard is too small for him.”
Izzy juts out her bottom lip and tilts her head down, and Buck’s heart shatters into those million billion pieces.
“But!” he hurriedly continues. “Maybe we can spend some time with real horses for your birthday.”
“Really?!” Izzy perks up instantly. “Can my friends come? Can I ride the horse?”
“We’ll invite your friends and your cousins and your brother, and we’ll make Papa wear his cowboy hat.”
The gasp that Izzy lets out is so genuine, so full of wonderment, that Buck can’t help but laugh. The one and only time they’d taken Izzy to El Paso, she’d witnessed Buck lovingly neg Eddie into dressing like a Texan. For the bit. And because it made him look unreasonably handsome. But Izzy had only been about two and a half and started informing everyone that Eddie was a cowboy. She did eventually learn that both her fathers were firefighters, but never lost that adoration for Eddie in a Stetson. Another thing she and Buck share.
With her sixth birthday planned, they hop off the carousel. It starts to drizzle, so Buck steers them towards the arcade. They play a few different classic games, Buck teaches her how to play air hockey, and they spend a fair amount of time playing skeeball.
Not that Buck will ever complain about such a thing—if Buck could spend twenty-four hours a day hugging his daughter, he would—but Izzy gets very clingy when Buck’s attention is split. Even when that split is ninety-nine to one. The one percent in this case being skeeball. When it’s Buck’s turn to roll, Izzy holds tight to his left hand, but when it’s her turn to roll, she makes Buck step around and hold her left hand. It’s a good thing Chris is far too old to want to hold Buck’s hand, because he’s only got two and they are both occupied more often than not.
By the time they’re ready to move on to something else, Izzy is magically no longer able to walk on her own.
“You tired already?” Buck asks, picking her up.
Izzy shakes her head.
“Is anything wrong?”
She shakes her head again.
“Do you just need a hug?”
That is the correct answer, Buck knows because Izzy throws her arm around his neck and holds on tightly. He squeezes her and presses a gentle kiss to her temple.
“I love you so much,” he says softly.
“I love you, too.”
“What do you say we go get on the ferris wheel? I think the rain stopped.”
Izzy leans back a little bit to look at him with wide eyes. “Do you think we’ll see a rainbow?”
“Only one way to find out.”
The wait in line is about fifteen minutes long, during which Buck gets to hear all about what Izzy got up to yesterday while she was out with Aunt Maddie, Jee, and Nash. They went to the mall and ran into one of Jee’s friends, and the older girls were so nice to her and complimented her outfit, and they saw a dog that was sooooo cute, and Daddy, maybe we should get a puppy, and she was polite and well-behaved for Aunt Maddie and at all her carrots at dinner! Buck has to text Maddie and ask how that came about, because Buck and Eddie have been told, in no uncertain terms, that Izzy hates carrots.
The view from the ferris wheel is gorgeous. Buck is thankful that Izzy doesn’t like to be separated from him and is insistent on holding his hand, because she’s moving all around the carriage to take everything in. But Buck’s got long arms and fast reflexes, and all that firefighter training comes in handy when you have kids.
“Rainbow!” Izzy shouts, pointing towards the horizon. “There’s a rainbow, we have to show Papá!”
Izzy loves rainbows and she associates them with Eddie. Buck isn’t sure Izzy realizes why she makes that connection, but it’s sweet regardless. When she was around two, Izzy didn’t like the rain. It would make her upset, sometimes she’d cry, which was distressing for both Buck and Eddie because the weather was one of the few things they couldn’t control. When the rain let up, Eddie would take her out to find rainbows. In the sky, in puddles, reflected off mirrors—anywhere he could find them to show Izzy that rain isn’t so bad, that they make something so beautiful! Now, Izzy loves rain.
“We can call him, but you have to come stand by me, okay?” Buck says, gently tugging her hand.
She walks between Buck’s legs and flops dramatically against his body with a loud sigh, making him chuckle.
That level of drama is all Diaz. “I’m sorry safety is such an inconvenience to you, your highness.”
“It’s fine, I guess,” she says, turning herself around and hugging Buck.
All Diaz.
He pulls his phone out of his pocket and calls Eddie on FaceTime, then hands Izzy his phone. She’s practically vibrating with excitement.
“Hi, angel!” Eddie says when the call connects.
“Look, look, look!” Izzy turns the camera around and holds it up. The angle isn’t quite right, so Buck picks her up and sits her on his leg. “It rained and now there’s a rainbow!”
“I see it, it’s beautiful!”
“It’s the biggest rainbow ever!”
“I think you’re right,” Eddie agrees.
“I’m going to take a hundred pictures to show you when we get home.”
“That sounds like a plan, I can’t wait to hear all about your date with Daddy.”
“Daddy is going to make funnel cake!” she announces, flipping the camera towards herself again. “He said tomorrow is Funnel Cake Day.”
Eddie raises his eyebrows, clearly amused. “Did he?”
“No!” Buck gently takes the phone from Izzy. “Our daughter said tomorrow was Funnel Cake Day. I said we had to ask you if it was okay.”
“Passing the hard questions along to me, Buckley?” Eddie tsks and shakes his head.
“It’s not fair,” Buck complains. “She’s got those big, pleading eyes and she weaponizes them! Which she learned from you!”
Certainly just to prove Buck’s point, Eddie pouts and bats his eyes. “I like funnel cake.”
Resigned to his fate, Buck mumbles, “Yes, honey,” as he hands the phone back to Izzy. He watches as his husband and his daughter cheer together over their mutual victory.
Life really is perfect.
Izzy shows Eddie the rainbow one more time, just to make sure he gets a really good look at it, then they tell Eddie they love him and say goodbye.
When they get off the ferris wheel, Buck and Izzy stroll through the carnival games and food stands. Izzy insists she’s hungry for real food, but only ends up eating half a taco before deciding she’s full again. No one tells you how many of your meals as a parent are whatever your kids order then don’t want. Luckily, Izzy isn’t too much of a picky eater, so Buck gets a little variety.
“Look at that!” she exclaims, twisting in Buck’s arms and pointing at a wall of stuffed bears dressed as firefighters. “How do we get them?”
When Buck planned this Valentine’s Day date, he had every intention of winning Izzy a prize at one of the games. But the firefighter bear is at the basketball stand, and that’s more of an Eddie thing. Not that Buck won’t embarrass himself for his kid, but there’s no prize for that.
He looks around for a moment and, thankfully, sees the bears at a different stand.
“I’ll win you one,” Buck promises. “Let’s try the balloon game instead, though.”
“Two,” Izzy corrects.
“Hmm?”
“You have to win two,” she says, like that information alone clarifies anything. “Daddy, Papá.” Izzy points back and forth between two bears hung side by side. “If we only have one, he’ll be lonely because he loves the other bear.”
Buck is going to spend whatever absurd amount of money it takes to win her two bears. She’s right, Teddy Bear Buck would be sad and lonely without Teddy Bear Eddie! Because they’re in love! And how beautiful is it that human Buck and Eddie have created a home with so much love that their kid can’t even fathom a world where the stuffed animal versions of them aren’t in love? He isn’t going to cry about that now, but he might later in bed.
It turns out Buck isn’t bad at popping balloons. It takes more money than he cares to admit but not so much that he feels like he needs to give his husband a heads up. Definitely more than it would’ve cost to just buy her two bears. He manages it with just the cash in his pocket. Small mercies.
“I love them!” Izzy squeals, hugging a bear in each arm with so much strength that Buck anticipates having to reinforce the stitching on their limbs. “Thank you so much, you’re the best dad in the whole world!” She motions for Buck to bend down, which he does, then kisses him on the cheek.
Buck scoops Izzy up and kisses her whole face until she’s laughing.
The last thing they do on the pier is find a photobooth to get a strip of photos to put on the fridge. The Buckley-Diaz refrigerator is covered with photos. Hazardously so. Buck isn’t even sure what color it is anymore. Who cares anyway because it’s adorned with more memories than he can count.
Each photostrip comes with four photos, so Buck and Izzy strategize. They’ll smile for the first one. For the second, they’ll make a heart with their hands. In the third photo, they’re going to show off how strong they are and flex their biceps.
“And in the last one,” Izzy says, holding up her bears, “they’ll kiss.”
“Sounds perfect.”
Unbeknownst to Buck, the photobooth prints out two copies of the photos when they finish. It’s a welcome surprise, because Buck wants to keep this set of photos in his wallet. He’s the dad that pulls out pictures of his kids even if no one asks because he loves them so much and he’s so proud of everything they do.
They walk down to the beach, and Buck is put in charge of babysitting the bears while Izzy runs around and practices her cartwheels. That’s very in right now, everyone knows how to cartwheel, so Izzy has to get really good. Buck thinks she’s the best cartwheeler but his opinion apparently doesn’t count for much when it comes down to skill.
About thirty minutes of “Daddy, watch this!” pass—during which Buck pays close attention while taking pictures and videos—and Buck can see her starting to fade. He manages to convince her it’s time to go home by saying Eddie probably misses them so much, and suddenly she’s racing towards the car.
Fifteen minutes into the drive home, Izzy falls asleep. Buck looks at her in the rearview at every red light, just to get a glimpse of that angelic, sleepy face as she hugs her bears.
“We’re home, baby,” Buck says softly, unbuckling Izzy from her booster seat. She groans in response, visibly unhappy that Buck is disturbing her nap. “C’mon, I’ll carry you inside.”
That offer seems to appease Izzy, and she reaches her arms out.
“Okay,” Buck chuckles, picking her up. “That’s my girl.” He makes sure to grab the firefighter bears too before closing the door with his hip.
He has to knock on the front door with his foot because he hasn’t got any hands left.
“It’s barely five o’clock,” Eddie says quietly, amusement playing across his face. “What’d you do to her?”
“Ice cream, funnel cake, chocolate covered fruit, and a cartwheel lesson on the beach.”
“Busy afternoon.” Eddie runs his fingers through Izzy’s hair and presses a kiss to her head. “We’ll wake her up for dinner.”
Buck nods in agreement and goes to put Izzy in her bed. He tucks her in with a bear on each side and kisses her on the forehead before rejoining Eddie in the living room.
He flops down on the couch with a big oof! and slumps into Eddie’s side.
Eddie laughs and puts his arm around Buck’s shoulders. “She tire you out?”
“Never. Best date I’ve ever had.”
“Yeah.” Eddie smiles. “She really is.”
“Hey,” Buck says, putting a hand on Eddie’s cheek and kissing him. “You’re the second best date I’ve ever had.”
“I’ve never been so flattered to be second place,” Eddie replies, kissing Buck through soft laughter.
They find themselves horizontal on the couch, Buck on top of Eddie, kissing lazily while Eddie talks about how he almost died from kiss deprivation. On Valentine’s Day of all days.
“I’ll make it up to you,” Buck promises. “Our Valentine’s Day is tomorrow.”
Eddie hums happily. “I love you.”
“I love you more.”
“Don’t start with me.”
Buck rolls his eyes. “Fine. I love you too.”
Satisfied, Eddie pulls Buck down and kisses him again.