Work Text:
August 2039
She’s in the kitchen making another round of coffee when her phone rings on the dining room table.
“It’s Matt,” Chris calls over his shoulder.
“Go ahead and answer it, I’ll be there in a minute.” She scoops the freshly ground coffee into the filter basket.
“It’s video,” he tells her, and she knows it’s not a complaint, he’s just letting her know.
“That’s fine.”
“What’s up, Senator?” She hears almost as soon as she’s finished her sentence.
“Hey love,” she calls, tacking onto her husband’s greeting. She loves the relationship that she and Chris and the kids have formed with Matt and Brandon and their own little ones. She’s always been one for building a chosen family, and until she and Chris started merging their lives, she hadn’t realized how important it was to her to have a partner who feels the same way. And while she never would have guessed that her chosen family would include an ex-boyfriend, his husband, and the couple’s two kids, she’s so glad that it does.
She flips the switch to start the coffee maker and grabs their mugs from earlier off the drying rack by the sink. As she does, she hears Matt’s voice. “I need help.”
Chris responds before she can. “Of course, what’s goin’ on?”
“It’s the twins, we’re in crisis mode over here.”
She stops halfway between the counter and the fridge, where she was heading to grab the half-and-half, and spins on her heel until she’s facing the back of Chris’s head. She calls out, loudly enough to be picked up by the phone’s microphone. “What’s wrong? Is one of them hurt? Are they sick? What can we do?” Aside from Addy and Charlie, and then any other kid with Evans blood, the twins are probably the most beloved children in her life. (That doesn’t include her adopted children from her time in Virginia, but of course, they aren’t kids anymore and haven’t been for a long time.)
“Okay,” Matt says, his voice resigned, “crisis may have been a bit of a strong word. It’s nothing like that.”
“Come on, man,” Chris chides. “What were you thinkin’? She was already halfway to the car. She was gonna drive to Virginia barefoot, I think.”
She rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t contradict him. It may be a slight exaggeration, but it’s honestly not too far off. If Matt had said one of the girls was hurt or sick, and for some reason he needed the Evanses to actually be in Virginia to help, they’d be on their way within the hour, most likely with Addy and Charlie in tow. They all just love the Miller-Vincent family that much. But since that apparently isn’t needed, she goes back to what she was doing while the two men continue the conversation.
“Sorry,” Matt answers, “sorry. Got carried away, I guess. I’m just desperate over here.”
“But no bodily harm?” Chris asks as she pours cream into both of their cups while the coffee maker pours a steady stream of dark, fragrant coffee into the carafe.
“No bodily harm.”
“And no earth-shattering catastrophes?”
“Well,” Matt sighs. “I guess that depends on your definition of catastrophe. And whether you’re an eight-year-old girl.”
“Ahhhhh,” Chris says, and out of the corner of her eye she can see him shaking his head as she places the cream back in the fridge. “Yes, I remember those days well. I’m guessing you don’t want to hear that 15 isn’t much better?” Matt groans and Chris chuckles. “Sorry man. So, what’s the issue?”
“They have their first crush,” Matt answers over the spluttering of the coffee maker as it forces the last bit of water through the filter.
“They both have crushes?” Chris asks, and something in his voice makes her turn her head until she can see him. Even from his profile, she can see that his whole face is scrunched into a pained grimace.
Matt laughs a little sardonically. “Yeah. But it’s even worse than it sounds. Their crushes? On the same boy.”
She hisses as she pours the coffee into the mugs. “Ouch,” she calls loud enough for both men to hear.
“So,” Chris starts, his voice plaintive - almost too much so, she thinks. “You called us first because we have a daughter and a gay son and you just assumed we’ve been through this before?”
Making her way back to her husband, coffee mugs in both hands, She shakes her head. She should have seen something like this coming.
“I - no - that’s not -” Matt sputters, unable to find the right words. “No, I just, your kids are older, and you’ve been through all the firsts that we’re going through already, and you’re just … you’re probably the best parents I know. And I trust you.”
“Matt, honey,” She stops just behind Chris’s chair and leans over him to set both mugs on the table, one just in front of him and one a bit to his left, in front of the empty chair she plans to sit in. She wraps her arms loosely around Chris’s shoulders from behind and bends until her chin rests lightly on top of his head. Chris tilts the phone up a bit until they’re both in the little rectangle at the bottom of the screen. “Read the room.” His eyes seem to dart between her sincere face and Chris’s smirking one a few times before finally he deflates, his eyes falling closed and his shoulders dropping away from his ears.
“One of these days I’m going to stop falling for your shit, Evans,” he says.
“No you won’t,” Chris answers with a laugh.
Matt rolls his eyes. “Okay, fine, I probably won’t. But dude, I know I can say like, whatever, when it comes to you and your work, stuff like that. You’re just chill like that. But your family? God, I pity anyone who insults them, even unintentionally.”
“Well yeah,” Chris scoffs. “But did you forget that you’re married to a man yourself? Why on earth would I think that you were being shitty about Charlie’s sexuality?”
“I can’t help that you’re so fucking intimidating that my default when you start to act all pissed off or offended is to just be terrified!”
“Riiiight,” Chris drawls, and She unwinds her arms from his shoulders, squeezing them a little with both hands as she goes, and moves to drop into the chair next to him. Still holding the phone steady in one hand, he reaches under the table with the other and curls it around the outside of her thigh, tugging until she turns toward him and drapes her legs over his lap. “I’m the intimidating one, says the senator who used to date my wife, pretty seriously, I might add, and who now talks to her on, oh, I don’t know, a weekly basis. At least.”
“Uh huh, yep, that’s all true. And now, as you so astutely pointed out, I’m married to a man, and you’re Chris Evans. I could not be farther from being a threat to you.”
“Are you two done yet?”
Both men laugh, and Chris lifts his hand from her lap to wrap his arm around her shoulders and pull her a little closer. After he kisses the side of her head, she goes on. “Okay, so, explain the situation please. We need context.”
Matt heaves a sigh and seems to sink into whatever piece of furniture he’s sitting on. “Okay, so. There’s a boy in their class. He’s been in Natalie’s reading group for a while, but then last week he and Charlotte got paired together for some project in music class. I never knew either of them liked this kid until I heard them arguing about it this morning while they were watching tv and we were fixing breakfast. I don’t know who had the crush first, and if we’re being totally honest here, I wasn’t even ready for them to start having crushes yet. I thought I had a couple more years, at least.” She and Chris scoff almost in unison. Charlie’d had his first crush on a boy at almost the exact age that Natalie and Charlotte are now, and Addy, well, maybe Addy had her first crush in pre-school and maybe she just has her dad’s flirts with everyone she looks at, whether she means to or not personality, they’ve never really been sure. “Great,” Matt says, seeming to realize what they were amused by. “Coulda given me a heads-up, guys. Just saying. Anyway, now I not only have to deal with my baby girls liking boys, I have to deal with them screaming at each other about the same boy. Help. Please.”
Chris turns to look at her, eyebrows raised. “Oh, you’re gonna dump this one on me, huh?” she asks. Then she pokes him in the side with her forefinger for good measure.
“I mean … I never exactly had any romantic competition in my house, seeing as I was the only one who liked girls. Like, yeah, Scott dated girls, technically, but it’s not like he was ever going to fight me over one. Wasn’t worth the hassle, considering he didn’t actually like them that way. So I kinda feel like I’m useless here. At least you’ve been an eight-year-old girl.”
She rolls her eyes, just to make sure both guys know she’s put out, but there’s no actual heat behind it. Chris winks, and Matt looks pleadingly back at her through the phone. “Okay, so basically, Natalie thinks she has dibs because she was ‘there first’,” she puts air quotes around the words, “and Charlotte’s trying to steal her favorite toy, and Charlotte thinks Natalie gets everything she wants because she’s, quote-unquote, the oldest.” Technically speaking, Natalie is the oldest, by about 17 minutes. She does not, however, get everything she wants. Well, not any more than Charlotte does, anyway, being surrogate-borne twin girls of a gay and bisexual man. (Yeah, they’re spoiled. But not in a bad way. Not in an entitled the world owes us something and we have no consequences for our actions way. Just in the way that most parents who have struggled and fought to have children spoil their kids.) Still, the age gap comes up almost every time there’s an argument between the girls, with Natalie liking to remind Charlotte of their places in the hierarchy. It’s typical sibling stuff, never malicious, but it drives Charlotte crazy. “Does that sound plausible?”
Matt’s eyes are wide. “I mean … yeah. That sounds … just like them. You’re surprisingly good at the twin thing.”
“Eh, it’s more of a girl thing than a twin thing, but I have taught quite a few sets of twins in my life. Maybe something stuck.”
“Great. So can you help me? I love that you figured out the problem so quickly, but I kinda need help solving it.”
Chris turns to look at her, one eyebrow raised, like a challenge. She narrows her own eyes back at him and he smirks. She turns back to the phone then and says, “Playdate. Preferably at your house.”
“I’m sorry, you want me to bring this boy into our home? Did you miss the part where there was screaming over Saturday morning cartoons? They’ll turn my living room into a war zone.”
“Yeah, babe, I don’t know about that one.”
“Oh really?” She asks her husband. “Now you decide to chime in?”
Chris’s free hand flies up off her shoulder in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry man, you’re on your own,” he tells Matt.
Matt nods. “Understood,” he says solemnly. His eyes shift, presumably so he’s looking at Her. “Please, continue, wise one.”
“Well. Since you’re asking so nicely.” Both men chuckle and She settles herself a little more comfortably into her chair, leaning her body into Chris’s as his hand drifts over her leg, moving almost lazily between her knee and her hip. “Here’s the thing, they may both like this boy from their class, but they adore you. That’s one big thing they and Addy have in common - Daddies’ girls all around.” Chris squeezes her thigh. “So, you bring this boy over, you’re nice, and accommodating, and really show an interest in him. Nothing over the top, just a respectful interest in your daughters’ friend. Bonus if Brandon is there too. Between them realizing that they don’t want to share you with some silly boy, and then them also realizing that at the end of the day, they actually like each other more than they like him, especially once he has to play on their turf, at least one of them, but probably both, will lose interest. Plus,” she shrugs, “outside the controlled environment of the classroom, where maybe he’s a good reader, or does funny voices for different characters, or has some musical talent, they’ll realize that eight-year-old boys are just kind of … ew.”
Chris laughs, and Matt just blinks at them. “You think that’ll work?”
She turns to Chris for his assessment. Finally he wrinkles his nose and quirks up one side of his mouth and nods, “Yeah, actually, that sounds like a pretty solid plan. I mean, we never fought over girls, but just in general, any time you were to add anyone into the mix with Scott and me, the moment things went sideways, we closed ranks. It was him and me against the world. Always.”
“And you don’t think that’s manipulative?”
She and Chris both laugh, almost as if it was scripted. “Oh sweetie,” she says, shaking her head slowly. “That’s what parenting is.”
“And that’s only going to become more and more true as they get older,” Chris adds.
And yeah, maybe they’re exaggerating a little, playing things up for fun. It’s not like they sit around trying to think up ways to manipulate Addy and Charlie for their own amusement. But a big part of parenting is trying to convince someone to do something they don’t want to do - whether that’s for the sake of their safety, or their future, or just your own sanity - and sometimes they have to get creative. They’re not encouraging Matt to lie to his girls, just to create a situation where they realize something they would have eventually realized anyway. He’s just a catalyst - speeding up the process.
“Great,” Matt scoffs. “People already assume I’m untrustworthy because I’m a politician, now I can add ‘manipulative father’ to the resume.” She and Chris laugh again as Matt shakes his head, then he sighs and adds, “Okay, well, I’ll give it a try. I’ll talk to Brandon and we’ll get a playdate set up soon.”
“Let us know how it goes,” Chris says.
Matt nods. “Will do. You guys still coming down this way next weekend?” Maybe she imagines it, but she’s pretty sure she sees Matt’s eyes flick over to her meaningfully at the question. She holds her breath for just a second, but Chris doesn’t seem to notice anything out of place, simply nodding his affirmation to Matt’s question.
“Oh yeah,” She drawls, agreeing with her husband and ignoring the fleeting moment that she might well have imagined. “All of our lives have revolved around nothing but soccer for the past month.” Addy’s summer all-star league has a tournament that they’re all traveling to northern Virginia for in six days. It’s the culmination of the team’s season, includes teams from all over the eastern U.S., and, essentially, is a really big deal, okay? Even Charlie, who basically worships the ground his sister walks on, dropped his forehead to the table in a pantomime of a sudden death last night during dinner when Addy brought up the day’s practice. They’re all so, so proud of her and her team, but any of the three of them - Her, Chris, Charlie - would openly tell anyone except Addy that they are more than ready for the season to be over. “Are you all still going to be able to make it?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
She lets out just the smallest sigh of relief. (Man, she really would be the worst spy; she’s terrible at this whole ‘talking in codes’ thing.)
Matt goes on. “Well, I’ll have to miss part of it, for a few different meetings, but I’ll be there when I can. And Brandon and the girls will be there the whole time. Brandon’s dying for some teacher talk and the girls can’t wait to hang out with Charlie. They don’t seem to realize that hanging out with a couple of eight-year-olds isn’t most 14-year-old boys’ idea of a good time.” Matt rolls his eyes then. “Why couldn’t their crush be on him? That would make my life so much easier.”
The complaint gets a laugh out of Her and Chris, which then prompts a pained groan out of Matt, and Chris tells him, “You got this, man. Trust us. Every parent thinks they don’t know what they’re doing, especially the first time around, but you and Brandon are killin’ it.”
“Thank you. Truly. Okay, I’m gonna let you guys get back to your lives, I’m gonna get back to work, and I’ll see you next weekend.” He waves at the screen with his free hand.
“See ya man.”
“Bye!”
As he puts the phone down on the table, Chris shakes his head and laughs under his breath. “Man,” he says eventually, “I do not envy them.” He pulls her closer with the arm still draped over her shoulders and she drops her head to his shoulder.
“Right? Twins. Twin girls. God, when they’re 13 …” she shudders.
“You know,” Chris says, and his tone is plaintive, thoughtful, “I was giving him a hard time about the whole ‘daughter and gay son’ thing, but honestly? I’m surprised this hasn’t happened to us before. The way Charlie idolizes Addy and her friends, how has that not turned into him having a crush on one of her guy friends or a guy she likes?”
She scoffs, the sound turning into a snort at the end. “Oh, it has.”
Chris’s head jerks back like he’s been slapped. “What?” He practically glares down at her as she blinks up at him from her spot on his shoulder. After a second she squirms, sitting up straight in her chair to look over at him.
“Yeah. Her first boyfriend, a couple years ago.”
“Michael?” She nods. “Charlie liked him?” She hums and nods again. Chris feels his features furrowing into a frown, his forehead creasing, his brows drawing down and together, his jaw clenching. He’s not bothered that Charlie had a crush; there have been others since and there will surely be plenty more. He’s bothered that something this big was going on - big enough, at least in Charlie’s mind, that he needed to talk to Her about it - and he didn’t know.
Did he miss something, some sign? Did Charlie not want him to know? Have they been drifting apart without him realizing it? Sure, Charlie’s always been drawn to his mother, first and foremost, and Chris gets that. He respects it, appreciates it, even. For as much as society emphasizes the importance of strong male role models for young men, he thinks it’s just as important that they have strong female role models. And they don’t come any stronger than Her, as far as he’s concerned. But even while Charlie is a momma’s boy, in every positive sense of the word, he and Chris have always been close; Chris didn’t think Charlie kept big things from him. So why this? Why now (or really, why then )? He’d always told Chris before when he’d had crushes, so he didn’t think it was anything to do with Charlie’s sexuality. Was it because of Addy? Was he worried that Chris would automatically take Addy’s side, or tell him that he was doing something wrong by liking his sister’s boyfriend? Because yeah, Addy is just as much of a daddy’s girl as Charlie is a momma’s boy, but he thought Charlie knew that he truly does love both of them with every ounce of his heart and soul, no more and no less for either of them, or their mother. He wouldn’t arbitrarily take Addy’s side on something just because. But what if Charlie thinks -
“Hey.” She reaches up to cup his chin in her palm and forces him to look at her, the way she did to the kids when they were little and being petulant and headstrong. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“That.” She slides her hand off his chin then lifts it to his cheek, smoothing her thumb between his eyes and over his forehead as his eyelashes flutter. “The worrying. Stop it.”
“I’m not -”
“Don’t you lie to me, Christopher Robert Evans.” His eyes open slowly as he pushes a heavy exhale through his nose. She holds his gaze for a second then shifts a little closer to him, scooting her butt across her chair until her knees hook fully over the outside of his opposite thigh and resting her hands on his sides, just above his hip bones. Chris lets one arm fall across her legs while the other hangs from the back of her chair. “You’re worrying about why Charlie didn’t tell you, wondering if you messed up somehow, or pushed him away, or alienated him.” He can only stare at her, eyes wide (though let’s be honest, it really shouldn’t surprise him at this point that she can basically read his mind). “That could never be true, and we both know it. That boy thinks you hung the moon, and he couldn’t love you more if you actually did. And he knows you feel the same way about him.”
All Chris says is, “Why didn’t I know?”
“I wasn’t supposed to know,” She says. “In fact, I’m pretty sure he still doesn’t know that I do.”
“Okay, well that just brings up so many more questions.”
“Alright, you remember Ezra?”
He has to think for a second, then it clicks. “Oh yeah. Whatever happened to him? I haven’t seen him around in a while.” For a couple years there, Charlie and Ezra were absolutely inseparable, but now that they’re talking about him, Chris realizes that he hadn’t noticed, but somewhere along the way, the boy stopped coming over and Charlie stopped talking about him. Shit. Maybe he does have reason to be worried.
“Chris,” she scolds. “He moved, last year. Dad’s in the Air Force? We went to the going away party?” She rolls her eyes. “You’d just gotten home from Singapore.”
Oh, right. Okay, so he’s not a shitty dad. He just has a shitty memory. And jet lag. “Right. Now I’m tracking.” And the reason they haven’t really talked about him much since is because Charlie’s sensitive and emotional (he takes after both of his parents in that way) and the few times they tried to ask about Ezra once he left, it clearly made Charlie sad, so they stopped asking. Though, maybe now is a good time to bring him up again. It’s been a little while, so chances are it would hurt Charlie less to talk about. And if the boys still talk at all, maybe they could arrange some kind of a reunion. They keep asking Charlie if there’s anywhere in particular he wants to go on a short vacation, to sort of balance out Addy’s soccer trip, but he always just shrugs them off. Chris makes a mental note to ask Charlie later about maybe planning a trip to see Ezra.
“There you go. Anyway, Ezra was over, like always, and they were hanging out in the family room, watching tv or something. I don’t remember. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but I was in the next room, cleaning, or folding laundry, just general house stuff, and those boys were loud when they were together.” Chris’s eyes widen and he nods. They really were. “Ezra brought up Michael, and it was clear that he’d known for a while that Charlie liked him, and Ezra asked if Charlie was ever going to say anything to Addy or Michael about his feelings.”
“What did Charlie say?”
“He said he knew Michael was straight and that the only thing that would change if he told them would be that it would get really awkward. He also said that even if he did think there was a chance that Michael was interested in guys, it wasn’t worth it to upset his sister because, and I think I’m quoting here, We all know that middle school relationships only last like a month anyway. ”
Chris huffs out a short laugh. “He has a point there.”
She nods in agreement. “Anyway, he obviously didn’t want any of us to know, so I figured it was best if I just not say anything. I mean, let’s face it, if I’d told you, there was like an 87% chance that one of us would slip up and say something in front of him, or Addy, or both. As long as I didn’t tell anyone, even you, especially you, it was easier for me to remember that it was supposed to be a secret.”
Leaning to press a kiss to her temple, Chris says, “You’re a good mom. A lying, secret-keeping wife, but a good mom.”
“Hey!” She shrieks, smacking his stomach. He only laughs and captures her hand in his. She can’t deny that the teasing accusation strikes a chord.
“No, I get it. We don’t always need to know every single thing about our kids. It’s good to let them have their boundaries.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
“Of course. I trust you, that means trusting your judgment. If I need to know something, you’ll tell me, I know that.” His eyes drift to her mouth, where he can see that she’s started chewing on the inside of her lip. When he looks back up, she won’t make eye contact. “What?”
“Well now I feel guilty.”
“About what?”
“About the other secret I’m keeping.” Chris’s eyes narrow. “I’ve arranged with Matt and Brandon for the kids to go stay with them for a few days after Addy’s tournament and I rented a cabin in the Blue Ridge mountains - amazing view, walking distance of a brewery and a winery, hot tub, complete privacy, the whole nine yards. Then we’ll swing through Richmond, spend a night there with the Miller-Vincents and get the kids, and head back up all together.”
Chris’s eyebrows shoot up toward his hairline. “Seriously?”
“Mm-hmm. It’s been a while since we’ve had any extended time, just the two of us, and we’ve got the time, and the opportunity, and the kids love Matt and Brandon and the girls. I just thought I’d take advantage of all that.”
“God, sweetheart.” He cups her face in his hand and pulls her in for a slow kiss. “That sounds amazing. I’m sorry you felt like you had to ruin the surprise.”
“Nah,” she shakes her head. “I got an email from your manager this morning. I’d told her that I was planning something and asked her to keep those dates clear if at all possible, and she was double-checking the dates because she’s been getting some calls from people wanting to book you to talk about the NASA project. I figured I should tell you before any wires got crossed, or you somehow heard that people were trying to get through to you and she wasn’t passing along the info, or something like that.” None of the calls were urgent, and she would have dropped the whole ruse even sooner if they had been. She wouldn’t consider standing in the way of his work, but still, it had made her a little antsy.
“Ahh. And in the process, you thought it would be fun to fuck with me a little.”
“Well,” she wiggles her eyebrows, “the fucking is kind of the whole point of the trip.”
He groans. “God, you’re trouble,” he says, just before pulling her in again and pressing his tongue smoothly into her mouth to slide over hers.
The best kind of trouble.