Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Aren’t you going to thank me? Is that not something people do in the military? Do I need to reteach you basic etiquette?” Words that would have sounded snobbish from anyone else always sounded almost playful from her, though she wasn’t a joking type of person. Simmons always wished he had her charisma stats. Instead, according to his mom, he took more after his numbers-minded father.

“No, Mom. Sorry— and thank you. It’s just been so long since I’ve seen you. Still processing the moment.” He laughed uncomfortably.

He never expected his parents to reach out to him again. He hadn’t heard from them since he left home and enlisted.

Well, he did get a generic invite to an event they were hosting, after they saved Chorus, but he hadn’t been in the mood for what was likely a publicity stunt. They could’ve reached out personally if they really wanted to see him again.

And now they had. Or at least, his mom did. He was at his childhood home for the first time in years. His stomach was in knots.

“Honestly, after all I did for you, you threw it all away, and then— after I go through all this effort to make things right, to give you another chance with your father, you have to be prompted to thank me for it.”

Simmons had forgotten how anal she was about that sort of thing. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Don’t apologize so much. It sounds pathetic. And you, young man, are not pathetic.” She smiled proudly, and Simmons’ heart swelled. It had been so long. Maybe he was worrying too much, like always. She was making an effort. She hadn’t even commented on his robotic parts, which he had been worried she’d freak out about. This could be really great. “So, are we expected to entertain your friends, or can we just send them on their way now?”

“I— Uh, I can tell them to come back later. I was only planning on visiting for a few hours. Maybe we could all have dinner together? Well, you, me, and my… friends. I know dear old dad will be too busy.” Bitter words.

“Oh, Dickie, you don’t know that. I’m sure I can convince him to spare an hour for you. It’s been so long since you last saw each other! It is fairly last minute, so I make no promises, but I’ll try.”

“Yeah, of course. Thank you.”

——

Simmons told her about the guys— red team especially— and their adventures (minus the “gods” and time travel), and his mom did her best to catch him up on several years worth of gossip about people he hardly remembered.

“And now she’s working at some ghetto fast food place because her parents refuse to support her dream.”

“Yeah, I know what that’s like.”

Her eyes narrowed, daring him. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, not like I had parents who didn’t support me.” His sarcasm was too obvious. He braced himself for an earful.

“When you wanted to reject the family tradition of athleticism, I supported you so you could pursue STEM subjects. A much more worthwhile pursuit in my opinion anyways, don’t tell your father. When you declared you weren’t a girl, I allowed you to get those puberty blockers.”

Simmons leaned back into the couch. She was really going there? Did she want him to thank her again for not being transphobic? Wasn’t that a bare minimum for being a decent person? He knew now how fucking low that bar was. Like, thank you for letting me get all my vaccines, or thank you for not beating me as a child.

“When you said you were definitely a boy, I signed off on those therapy appointments, I signed off on the hormones, I signed off on your surgery. And then you had the nerve to still complain about your life.”

“You were making my transition a publicity thing.”

“Your father is a very important figure. Everything we do is ‘a publicity thing.’ Whether we want it to be or not.”

“You could’ve kept it quiet. You didn’t need to feed into it.”

“I thought we were trying to start fresh. Why are you bringing this up?”

“Pretty sure you started it with the whole ‘I’m your mother, I brought you into the world, you owe me’ card.”

“I won’t play the birth card. That means nothing. Yes, pregnancy and childbirth were a bitch, but what really matters is what comes after. I put in the effort. I gave you so many opportunities, many of which you wasted. You could’ve risen in the computer science field so quickly, but no, into the military! You had a successful life perfectly within reach, but nope, off the rails you went!”

Yeah, yeah, she had his life all planned out and he ruined it. Part of him was shriveling up, but more of him was just irritated. “Did you guys love me though?”

She snorted and covered her mouth, giggling, “Dickie, don’t make me laugh, you know I hate my laugh! What kind of stupid question is that? Of course we loved you. Have you seen our family albums? We went on so many family trips. Your father didn’t have to take time off of work, but he did. For us.”

Simmons shook his head. “Our family was so dysfunctional.”

Her mouth pressed taught. “No. No it’s not. Rach— Richard, I would not let our family be dysfunctional. We hit a bit of a bump in the road, but I’m fixing it right now. You’re here again, everything it as it should be!”

“It’s been more than a decade, and you almost called me by the wrong name.”

“Well, your father does still talk about you with your old name, but you haven’t been around. He’ll warm up to it. He just needs time.”

“Oh, wait, over two decades." He came out to them in elementary school and picked his name then, even if he wasn't allowed to publically transition until a few years later. It's been a long fucking time. "And you’ve been around. I bet you haven’t been correcting him.”

“So now you’re blaming me again? You left us.”

“He disowned me.”

“Only because you made a scene.”

“And where was your ‘support’ then?”

She rubbed her temples. “Jesus Christ, I forgot what an argumentative little bitch you could be. You’re giving me a headache with all this crap. Go contact your friends, let them know they’re expected for dinner in two hours. And before you say anything— It is a completely private event, so you can stop it with the accusations of ulterior motives.”

Chapter Text

Simmons spent the next couple hours wandering while his mom ran off to talk to his father and get ready for dinner. It was almost exactly how he remembered. A new lamp here, different wallpaper there, but the layout hadn't changed. His room was even the way he'd left it. Dust-free though, so it hadn't gone unvisited. He didn't go through his drawers or shelves, as much as he wanted to. The anxiety was stronger than the curiosity and nostalgia, so he didn't linger in there. There was plenty more of the house to revisit anyways.

The time went by quickly.

He stopped at a particular end table. He bent down and examined the familiar cloth draped over it. No barely perceptible Mickey Mouse shaped stain hidden on the underside. Heeled footsteps clicked down the wooden hallway.

“We had it replaced.” His mom said from behind him. “It was supposedly lost in the laundry, but I think a new hire thought the stain was new and hid the evidence.” She mumbled, almost apologetically. “We had to. We couldn’t find it.”

He turned. He recognized the burgundy shirt she was wearing. She’d worn it to his high school graduation. She called the diamond pattern on it “Dickie chic”. It was the pattern on many of his sweater vests back in his teen days. It had to be intentional. She kept it?

She followed his gaze to her shirt. She gave a casual half shrug, but her reddening face gave her away. It wasn’t often his mom got embarrassed. “I figured, it’s a casual event. I’ll change if you don’t want me wearing this. It’s dated, but I believe I look young enough to pull it off as retro.”

“No, it’s fine. You look great, Mom.”

She smiled, “You do, too.” She cleared her throat and clapped her hands, “Your friends should almost be at the door by now. I saw them at the front gate a minute ago.”

——

Simmons shooed the butler away. He wanted to let his team in. He was feeling anxious being away from them so long. He opened the door.

“Welcome to casa de Simmons, sir!”

“Huh… Snazzy!” Sarge marched ahead, immediately admiring the red accents in the room. Lopez followed after him. And Grif— a genuine smile flickered onto Simmons’ face— Grif sauntered in at his usual slow, couldn’t-care-less pace.

“How’s it going?”

“It’s… it’s going. You ready to meet the great James Simmons?” Simmons asked wryly.

“Hey man, I’m just here for the food.”

“Good, ‘cause he’s probably not gonna show.”

Grif put a hand on Simmons’ arm, squeezing it— he guessed it was meant to be comfortingly? That was new. He didn’t hate it, though. It felt—

Sarge turned back and Grif’s arm dropped faster than Simmons thought Grif was capable of moving (methshrooms excluded).

“Is this one of those fancy hoo-hahs with more than one fork?”

Simmons considered, “I think there’ll be two forks tonight.”

Grif nodded sagely, “One for each hand. My kind of people.”

Simmons laughed. “Don’t worry about which one to use. If my parents have an issue with how you use the silverware they can suck it.”

“Alright, best behavior, men. Tonight is about Simmons and his parents. Our presence is ornamental. I’m the tree topper, Lopez is the lights, and Grif is the little rug all the needles fall on and get stuck in. Then you bring it outside and beat it to hell and there’s still needles stuck on there real stubborn, so you just end up throwing it out and buying a new rug for next year. Hopefully one that’s actually red, and not an ugly orange.”

“¿Por qué está la Navidad?”

“Good catch, Lopez! You gotta shoot it a few times before you toss it out!”

“Suspiro.”

“Heheh! Hilarious.”

Grif stopped reacting to Sarge’s violent analogies years ago, so Simmons wasn’t sure if he had even heard it. He was staring at a wax bowl of fruit in contemplation.

“It’s wax,” Simmons said as he walked ahead to the dining room.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Grif swipe a pear from the bowl. He rolled his eyes and opened the dining room door. They were a little early.

Simmons grew up not paying much attention to the servants— something he now cringed inwardly at— but now he felt hyper-aware of their presences, bringing the food to the dining room. He was unsurprised his parents hadn’t replaced them with robots. Once a roomba went rogue— Simmons insisted he most definitely did not reprogram it in an attempt to make it do jumps and tricks— and his mom had been wary around bots ever since. Whether she was afraid of property damage or a robot uprising, he wasn’t sure, but she was not a fan.

One servant hesitated, seeing Lopez, unsure whether to set a place for him. Simmons couldn’t help but snigger as they made confused eye contact with another servant, who shrugged, equally uncertain what to do. They ended up setting the place anyways.

His teammates looked a bit awestruck by the room. This wasn’t even the big dining hall, this was mainly for family meals. Six seats despite being a family of three (when he still lived there), and his father rarely joining them.

His mom entered from the other door, she nodded with a smile, “Gentlemen,” her smile flinched, seeing Lopez, “and robot.”

“Nice to meet you, ma’am. I’m Sarge, that’s Lopez, and that sack of poor posture is Grif.”

“Nice to meet you too. You can call me Imogen. My friends call me Jen, but we’re not quite there, so no nicknames please. I’m aware your brown friend doesn’t speak English, so we’ll just have to make enough conversation to make up for that!”

“Todavía yo te entiendo, perra.”

Grif snorted.

Well this should be an interesting dinner.

Chapter Text

“Yes, Richard was a bright little boy. He was on track for a great many opportunities. But, he decided he’d rather forge his own path.”

“That’s not the whole truth.”

“Well, if you want to admit you were impulsive and took on a bet with your father, go ahead.”

“It was the only way. You know that.”

“He would’ve taken you back once you reached success, if you had just followed my plan, things would have resolved themselves.”

“I—“

“So, Grif, was it? Where’s your family from? What does your family do?”

“Uh, I’m from Hawaii. My mom, um,” he chose his words carefully, “works in the entertainment industry.”

“Oh, does she work management or is she a performer herself?”

“Performer.”

“Singer? Comedian? Dancer?”

“She does a few different things.” Grif wiggled his spoon, eager to get back to stuffing his face.

“What about you? Now that your, from what I’ve heard, exhausting and neverending fight-after-fight is over, what do you plan on doing? Settling down? Any significant other in your life?”

“No?” He glanced over at Simmons. What? Did he want him to stop his mom’s interrogation?

“Well, I suppose that’s a good thing. It’s never wise to rush into having children. Jim and I may have been better off waiting a bit longer.”

Ow. “If you’re so upset with how I turned out, why didn’t you have another kid?”

For once, she didn’t respond immediately.

Simmons fiddled with the tablecloth. He traced the familiar floral pattern with his finger. He remembered hiding under the table, trying to get out of going to school. Private schools were big on gender segregation and he always got put in the wrong group back then. Being around girls made him anxious.

“We’d never replace you, Dickie. Simmons don’t throw away what we work for.” She gave a pained, pointed look at Simmons, “Most of us, anyways. We fix and improve upon what we have.”

“Why do you wish you’d waited then?” He stabbed a chunk of food.

“Do you have any idea how expensive raising a child is? Especially with medical costs like yours. Obviously they were necessary, I’d hate to have deprived you of something so important, but still, expensive.”

Simmons pushed at the gnawing guilt as best he could, “Right, like money was ever an issue.”

“Do you have any children, Sarge?”

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” Sarge stared off into the distance, “hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, nope. Definitely not. I would never abandon my child that I do not have. I’ve got Lopez. I’m basically his mother.”

“Oh, you built it? That’s fairly impressive.”

“Assembled with love by my own two hands.”

“And you saved Dickie’s life with that ingenuity, I heard.”

“Yes.” Simmons said quickly. “I was very injured.” Simmons wasn’t sure how to communicate ‘this woman will find a way to ruin your life if she finds out you replaced my arm, ass, and guts with machinery for no fucking reason other than you thought it would be cool’ through discreet facial expressions, but he did his best.

“What? Somethin’ on my face?” Sarge rubbed his napkin from one cheek to the other. “Did I get it?”

“Yeah.” Simmons said flatly. “You got it, sir.”

“If any of you would be interested in attending an event or two, I could make some arrangements. Of course, they’d be public events so there is a chance the press may show—“

“Mom, stop it.”

“Richard, you’ve had a sour attitude all day. I wanted to see you, and you’ve been making it really difficult to enjoy your visit. Why did you even come if you don’t want to be here?”

Simmons really had wanted to see his parents again. He just couldn’t stop feeling on edge. Had he been overreacting all day? Wouldn’t be the first time. Still, he couldn’t keep the irritation out of his voice. “I wanted to give you guys— to give our family— another chance, but it’s really hard when nothing’s changed.”

“And I wonder who it is that’s actively starting arguments, not allowing change to occur.”

She could at least compromise the blame. She wasn’t making it easy either. “Yeah, I wonder.”

“Must be someone’s time of month.”

Simmons stood, slamming his metal palm on the table— it echoed louder than he intended. “Don’t.”

She looked up at him with calmly raised eyebrows, head cocked to the side, “It’s just—“

“Don’t do that ‘it was a figure of speech’ or ‘it was an accident’ bullshit. You say that shit on purpose, because you know it hurts.”

“And here we go! Making a scene over nothing. We’re all adults here, drop the rebellious teenager act. I really thought you would’ve grown up by now. Honestly. Throwing a tantrum like that.”

Simmons’ face heated. He’d gotten so caught up in the moment. He couldn’t look at the guys.

“Let’s just drop it and enjoy the rest of dinner alright? I won’t use that expression again.”

“Yes. Sorry. Thank you.” He stared down at his plate. Nothing had changed.

Sarge cleared his throat. “Ma’am, we appreciate you letting us in to your fancy dinner party, and your decor is obviously in very good red taste, but—“

The door opened.

In walked a tall, lanky man in business wear. His hair was starting to grey and he had more lines on his face than he remembered, but it was him. Dear old dad.

He looked over at Simmons. “So, you came.”

“Sir.” He sank back into his chair, too heavy to stand. He tensed instinctively.

“Well, you did it. You joined the army, you survived, somehow you became some sort of hero.” He paused, begrudgingly, “I guess you are ‘a man’ now.”

Simmons felt… nothing. Those words were all he wanted to hear when he enlisted, but now, he realized, his father was a stranger. He always had been. Why did he ever give a shit?

“Yeah. I am.”

“He always was.” Sarge spoke up. Simmons’ chest warmed. Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry.

His father’s eyes flickered to Sarge and around to the others. He pushed up his glasses. “I’ll be getting back to it now.” He nodded to no one in particular. The man who once seemed larger than life and unreachable, was shuffling out of the room, uncomfortable by the prospect of social interaction. Maybe that was the part of his father that his mom had once seen in him. A loser so focused on his work he didn’t know how to navigate outside of it. Fuck that life.

The door came to a close.

“What was I saying?” Sarge squinted, “Oh, right. I’m gonna head out too. I’ve been staring at the silverware for the past twenty minutes and came up with a new invention. Half spoon, half-fork… half-knife! At first I was trying to figure out how you would use it without cutting yourself when you hold it. No stealing my idea, missy.”

“Why would I—“

“But then I realized that’s the beauty of it! I call it: bloodware. I’m workshopping the name. I might go with kniforkoon instead. The “ork” is silent. And if you buy the accessory toaster, you’ve got yourself an electrocution device. So many uses!”

Lopez had his head in his hand. Honestly, if Simmons didn’t know Lopez was a robot, he would’ve never guessed. He picked up such human mannerisms from all of them over the years. He really seemed like a person these days.

“You don’t have to stick around here if you don’t want to, Simmons. But, it’s your choice. We’ll be waiting in the ship when you’re ready to leave.” Sarge gave a smile and nod, and walked out of the room.

Lopez looked from Sarge to them, then, staring directly at Simmons’ mom, pushed the chair out, making an awful, squeaking-grinding noise. He followed Sarge out of the room. As the door swung shut, he could hear, “Llámame él o ella. No soy una cosa. Puta.”

Chapter Text

“Well, they were pleasant.” Simmons’ mom said dryly. Her knuckles were white and her mouth was pressed firm. She was really angry. She had been irritated all day. This wasn’t how things used to be. Something had changed.

Simmons had changed. Years ago, he would’ve shrank down and agreed, apologized and apologized for apologizing, thanked his mom without question for the most mundane shit as if she was some great benevolent deity. Now he could retaliate easily. He spent years with the most abrasive individuals he knew, constantly putting him down, and he learned to return the favor. Yeah it was tough love, but at least there was some love buried deep down in there. He wasn’t sure he could say the same about his mom.

“My friends are more family than you’ve ever been to me.”

She looked hurt. Good. He’d been feeling hurt all fucking day. “What are you babbling about now? You’re still so melodramatic. You’d think you would’ve grown out of that.”

“Hey, lady.”

Simmons and his mother looked over at Grif in surprise. They’d forgotten he was there.

“Yeah, you’re right that Simmons is a whiny little bitch sometimes. He can be needy as fuck, and super self-destructive.”

“Grif—“

“But I’m pretty sure you’re the reason he’s like that.”

Simmons stopped.

“The only reason I didn’t say anything is because the food is delicious and I didn’t want to get kicked out before I finished. But food’s done and so am I.” He paused, hesitating, “This was everything right? There’s no secret second dessert?”

One of the servants gave a nod of confirmation.

“The food’s done and so am I.” He repeated.

“Are you asking to be escorted out, because that was practically an invitation.”

“Gimme a sec. Gotta say my cool thing before storming out with your son. You, lady, are so wrapped up in your perfect image bullshit that you treat Simmons like shit. You do your whole gaslight routine to make him insecure enough to latch on to any little bits of affection you give him. My mom didn’t have the money and time you did but I think she did a hell of a job all things considered, because unlike Simmons, my sister and I never doubted our mom loved us. And if you do love your son, you’ve got a really fucked up way of showing it.”

“Those are some big claims for someone who doesn’t even know us.”

“Well, I know Simmons. And based on tonight, and his life, I don’t really want to get to know you. If you actually want to fix your family, you should figure out what’s actually broken. Because Simmons not being there was just the consequence.” Grif walked over and held out his hand. “C’mon Simmons. Let’s go home.”

——

“Thank you.” Simmons was next to Grif in bed. After dinner, he needed a drink, and one thing led to another…

“Is this going to be a thing? Do I have to de-brainwash whatever the fuck spending the day with your mom did to you? You don’t have to thank me for having sex with you.”

Simmons felt his face flush. He turned away so Grif couldn’t tease him for it. Jesus, a decade and he still blushed about it. “No, not that.” He paused. Now that he mentioned it… “But... we’ve been doing this for a long time now. At this point it’s hard to just call it a mistake or an accident or whatever.” His heart raced. He was saying it. “At least, I don’t think it ever really was for me. I wanted to kiss you and have sex with with you—“

Grif’s hand connected with Simmons’ face. Not hard, but enough to startle him.

“Ow, what the fuck?” Simmons sat up, turning to glare at him.

“Making sure you’re real and this isn’t a weird dream. If some sentient pizza shows up and starts talking, I’m out.” Grif looked uncomfortable. He was probably weirding him out with all this, but Simmons needed to say it.

“Yeah, ok, so I wanted to, ok? I wanted to feel wanted. I think… I don’t know why you’ve been doing it, but what you said at dinner was right. I’m needy and insecure. I’m self-destructive.” He had issues. He always knew he did, but he just made excuses for himself. “I shouldn’t be doing this. We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why? I’ve been doing this because I’m constantly craving validation.”

“I’m the one who said it, you think that’s new information to me?”

“And you don’t care? I’ve basically been using you to validate my self-worth.” Simmons couldn’t look at him. He clutched the sheets. He and Grif had talked about a lot over the years. About the mysteries of the universe, about stupid hypotheticals, about their childhoods… but never about this. About them and what they did in secret. Or why.

Simmons’ why was so pathetic. He wanted affection so badly he latched onto a guy he was stationed with. Now they were friends, but he wasn’t sure if that made the situation better or worse. Grif was his best friend. He didn’t want to risk losing that, but staying quiet would be so fucking selfish of him.

He was done lying to himself that he didn’t want to be doing this. He did. He liked the kissing and the sex, hell, he craved any physical contact with him. How pathetic was that? He was really that broken.

Now he’d admitted it. If Grif hated him, was disgusted, so be it.

“I love you, man. I like being with you.”

Simmons froze. He had expected Grif to get mad at him or wave off what he was saying, not… that. He knew Simmons, all the bad parts, and he didn’t hate him?

Grif was looking at him expectantly, nervously. He was probably worried Simmons would take it the wrong way. Now wasn’t the time for gay jokes. He’d answer earnestly.

“Thanks.” Simmons smiled. “I feel the same way about you, buddy.”

Turning to lie back down, he didn’t see Grif look away in disappointment.

He didn’t realize the meaning behind Grif’s sigh.

But he did feel warm. This felt like home.