Work Text:
When the villa on the island had first been built, a full-service, completely automated kitchen module had been installed, custom designed, commissioned from an old friend and contact of his. Probably a different sort of man would have taught his boys to cook, made sure they all knew how to make an omelette or rustle up a decent sandwich, or grill a nice rare steak. But Jeff Tracy was a man of innovative thinking, and his boys did enough work already.
So it exists for when Virgil and Gordon came barreling home after a successful rescue, stumbling in the door at the crack of dawn after a long, exhausting night. The pair of them always high on adrenaline and shouting for pancakes and syrup and whipped cream and cherries on top, and while the order is taken Jeff can shout along with them, getting Gordon in a headlock and ruffling Virgil’s hair, and telling them both just how proud he was and always would be.
When Alan sat at the kitchen table, bent over his homework and frustrated by how he was never going to be as clever as John or as focused as Virgil, Jeff could sit down and cheer his youngest on, and summon up a plate of chocolate chip cookies, without ever having to leave Alan’s side.
Or when John could be coaxed out of orbit, tempted down with the promise of pizza; a highly specific New-England variant which John had had the misfortune to get hooked on during his time at MIT. The first time Jeff’s second son had seen it recreated there’d nearly been tears.
Or when Scott came to him with his problems over a late night cup of coffee and donuts, still warm from the fryer and stickily glazed with honey. Scott inevitably just wanted to talk his way through a mission, all the particulars of everything he wished could have gone better, even when Jeff himself couldn’t find room for criticism. Scott’s standards were almost impossibly high, and sometimes he needed his father for a final word of a approval. Jeff was always too glad to give it.
Or just by himself, on those rare, quiet mornings when his boys got to sleep in. With a cup of coffee–black, two sugars, sometimes a dash of cinnamon to remind him of Lucille–and the latest news up on a holoscreen, quietly grateful for the wealth in his life. Not the material, but the true measure of wealth, the joy and pride he took in his family, how fortunate he was to be able to pay them back for everything they did. Luxuries and comforts, every one of them earned and deserved. Sometimes with no one else around to lift a glass to, Jeff would sometimes lift his battered old mug and tilt his head in the direction of the kitchen. “Here’s mud in your automated eye.”