Chapter Text
A week later Bobby calls him into his office at the end of the day, when his bag’s already slung over his shoulder and Eddie’s trying to rope him into movie night with Chris.
Buck huffs to himself. As if he ever really had to ask.
He turns to see Bobby on the second floor, looking big and authoritative before he retreats and Buck knows he’s not in trouble, has been trying really hard after the factory to keep himself in check and following orders to a T, but there’s still this underline of dread in his belly that isn’t going away despite how easy it should be to reassure himself that nothing’s wrong.
He’s talked about it a lot with Doctor Copperland, too. About how knowing he’s done everything right doesn’t stop him from thinking he’s failed somehow. How the panic attacks that come out to get him convince him he’s fucked something up and became a nuisance for everyone who had to deal with him that day.
I’m nothing but spare parts. Faulty ones, at that.
But he’s working on it, he is. It seems that’s his go-to answer for everything, that he’s a work in progress and his therapist insists that’s better than many people do. She also tells him he doesn’t have to work on being okay with situations that make him feel uncomfortable, he shouldn’t have to force himself to bear it just so his completely understandable reactions aren’t seen as inconveniences to others.
Like he said, working on it.
Eddie’s hand is on his shoulder and he asks him if he wants him to wait, but Buck shakes his head and assures him it probably won’t take long, he’ll be a couple of minutes behind him in his jeep. Eddie frowns, they were planning on driving back together and having him stay the night so he didn’t have to worry about his car, but nods and squeezes once, lingering, before letting go.
Buck tries not to walk the steps into Bobby’s office like a child being sent to the principal’s even though he feels like one. He makes sure to square his shoulders and lift his head before knocking once, waiting until Bobby speaks up to let himself in.
“All good, Cap?”
“Hey, I won’t keep you for long,” the older man assures him, taking off his reading glasses on top of the file he was working on and crossing to the other side of his desk before sitting on it, signaling Buck to follow on one of the nearby chairs. “I just wanted to check in. You’ve been doing a real good job these last few days, and I know the factory call might’ve been rough on you.”
“I’m,” he begins, before he cuts himself off and unconsciously turns his head towards the common area, remembering his conversation with Hen and how looser he’d felt after it. The warmth of that freedom, he’s afraid he’ll like it so much he’ll chase it until he becomes too addicted, but he can’t bear lying to Bobby right now. “Still figuring some stuff out.”
“You know everybody could’ve gotten lost inside that maze,” Bobby frowns, all captain-like and earnest. “That’s what the team’s for, we found you just in time and got the last worker out. It was as good as we could hope for most calls to go.”
“I know, I know,” he says, because he does. Hen’s words had an impact on him and most doubts of his team coming to his aid were done and settled, at least for the next few days. Anxiety is funny like that, it attacks whenever it wants to despite how okay your life might feel like at the moment. “I mean, I had a hard time in there but I know all things considered it all went okay. It’s just…”
Buck cuts himself off when he uses that last word. Doctor Copperland had told him there’s nothing minimal, nothing just about his traumas and feelings. Considering Buck’s been told he usually blows things out of proportion since before he learned how to speak, it’s like the word’s been tattooed into his brain, embedded in his vocabulary by force until he used it without flinching.
He scowls to himself after a few moments of not being able to get his head straight, but when he looks at Bobby and expects impatience he sees open and welcoming curiosity and concern. That tightening in his belly softens somewhat, enough to give him the courage to continue.
“It’s been… tough with Chimney around,” Bobby seems to try to connect the dots all by himself, to which Buck hurries to keep talking. “Not, not fighting bad, or I-can’t-work-with-you-around bad, just. A little awkward, maybe? I, we talked about the whole secret thing after the factory, but it’s… I still don’t feel like I can pretend things are fine, you know?”
“You shouldn’t have to,” Bobby assures. “I know you worked things out with Maddie and your parents pretty quickly after you found out about your brother. It’s okay if you need a little more time to process things.”
“I’m- I promise it’s not affecting my work. Or my relationship with Chim,” Buck isn’t sure how much of the latter is true but at least it’s honest in the way that he hopes it won’t fracture permanently his friendship with his sister’s boyfriend, his niece’s dad. “I guess I… I’m not as okay with everything as I want to be.”
“And that’s normal,” Bobby says thoughtfully, then goes to sit beside him on another chair so he isn’t looking down at him from the desk.
Buck didn’t think that was bothering him until he’s eye to eye with his Captain, feeling like he’s the equal Bobby’s always trying to convince him he is when they talk personal like this. “I’m glad you’re coming to me about this, Buck. I know sometimes you think keeping things to yourself until you get over them is the better choice-”
Buck would laugh if it weren’t so true. He really is more transparent than he tries to be.
“-but after the things you said the other day about yourself…” Bobby hesitates and Buck fights a shudder.
He remembers them all too clearly, having repeated them to himself like a mantra all his way home from Maddie’s apartment after they talked about Daniel, before he told his friends the next day. He still isn’t sure where he’d found the courage to speak them out loud. Maybe he’d been too blinded by his anger to watch his mouth.
“I know,” he stops Bobby by putting up his hand. The older man nods and listens. “I know what I said and how it sounds and… I’m not gonna lie to you and say I didn’t mean it. After Maddie told me that the only purpose of me being born was to save a life of someone I didn’t even know and then failed… It kinda put into perspective all I thought I knew about myself.”
“Y’know, I left Philly because I was convinced my parents thought I wasn’t any good at anything,” if it didn’t involve college then it wasn’t worthy of their attention, even after his provisionary year with the Fire Department was over and he was officially a firefighter. “And I remember telling Maddie that I knew there was something in the world I was meant to do, I just hadn’t found it, yet.”
“Being a firefighter is the only thing that I’ve ever done in my life that has felt right,” he accentuates his point by hitting his hand on the table while Bobby watches, attentive. “Losing it made me scared enough to sue the department and realizing I was born to do one thing, and I couldn’t even do it right…”
“It makes you question everything,” Bobby says softly when Buck doesn’t know how to continue, the lump in his throat taking up too much space for him to speak over it. Bobby’s hand raises to his shoulder where Eddie’s was a couple of minutes earlier, and the tenderness on both their touches makes Buck’s bottom lip quiver.
“Yeah,” his answer is soft, almost a whisper. Any louder and his voice will crack.
“I know it might not help as much as I mean for it to,” Bobby begins after a few moments of easy silence, ducking his head so their eyes meet as he speaks in a firm, soothing voice with no room for arguments. “But I’ll say it if you need to hear it from someone other than yourself or Maddie.”
A few months back Buck would’ve panicked at more than a few seconds without someone saying something, would feel the need to fill the silence by being loud and stupid so people would laugh. If they were laughing at him then at least they weren’t judging him, watching him as if he were nothing more than the useless boy his parents still made him feel well into adulthood.
“You are more than spare parts,” Bobby shakes him a little, out of his stupor and with a smile so soft and caring Buck feels like weeping. “Even when you don’t know yourself, Evan Buckley, I know exactly who you are.”
“You’re caring and brave and intelligent, almost to the point of disaster, sometimes,” Bobby’s smile widens somewhat, and Buck barely has time to laugh before he’s continuing. “But that’s what makes you so good, such a good friend, a perfect fit for this family. You might think you were only born to be your brother’s keeper but you grew up to become something exceptional.”
Bobby stands and Buck follows suit out of habit, finding himself being held upright only by his friend’s hands on him, knees buckling as he takes in his every word.
“I am so proud of who you are, Buck,” he says. “Despite everything that could’ve prevented you from thriving, you're here. You found your way home to us, to Maddie, to where you belong. I couldn’t ask anything more of a firefighter, a friend.”
“A son,” it leaves Buck dizzy with love and he collapses into the hug Bobby pulls him into.
It’s not a secret that he first came into this station with so many flaws that his Captain would have fired him for and never look back. But the fact that Bobby took the time and effort and refused to give up on him even when everyone else already had was enough for Buck to idolize Bobby in a whole new light. A way that left him yearning for more than a Captain might have for his employer, and it had never been said, had lived in silence and in secret until right now.
His hands shake as they go to grip Bobby’s shirt, grip white-knuckled and tight. Bobby doesn’t pull away, doesn’t try to keep talking over Buck’s crying and just lets him weep, lets him soak in the words of admiration no one had given him while he was growing up, words no one thought he needed because he was always loud and bright and everything everyone expected of him before they got to meet him.
He won’t make it in time for the movie at Eddie’s but it’s difficult to picture being anywhere else but here, in Bobby’s arms. The safest man Buck’s ever known and with more caring for him in his pinky finger than his parents ever had in their entire home.
God, his parents.
They’ve talked it over, sure, but there’s still a part of him that needs to feel something other than indifference. He needs to be angry and to mourn the brother he didn’t know he had, the unconditional love he thought he had from his parents, the trust he thought he had with Maddie. Even though there’s still love there, still trust, something’s different. Cracks in the foundation he can’t just pretend aren’t there no matter how hard he tries to, can’t keep an even footing in uneven ground.
“Bobby,” he tries, words caught up in his throat despite how determined he feels to get them out. “Bobby, you’re- Bobby, you gotta know-”
Amid all chaos there’s Bobby, his voice grounding Buck in moments of panic for him to think with a clear head. Bobby, gathering in his arms and pressing him to his side on the ambulance after getting out of the factory last week, looking down at him with so much relief, so much paternal affection Buck only then felt like he’d managed to escape the fire unscathed. He needs to say it.
He can’t say it, but Bobby knows, somehow. He grips him tighter, cradling one of his hands through his hair and the other one securely around his shoulders.
Yeah. Bobby always knows.