Chapter Text
They sleep in that morning. Well, she does. Daniel, however, is awake the moment the sun graces the morning sky. The sky was awake, so he was awake, so now he could anxiously wait around all day even though it was going to be a hell of a long night. He lays in bed for a while, arm stretched out to the side that has been empty now for four years, three months, and twenty-three days. No, he wasn’t keeping track at all. Oh, he’d tried to fill it with body pillows a few times, but it wasn’t the same. Body pillows don’t curl up against you after a fight and mumble apologies because they don’t believe in going to bed angry. Body pillows don’t stick cold feet on yours when you refuse to get up at a decent hour on a Saturday morning. Body pillows don’t bring you breakfast in bed on your birthday and then fuck you senseless for the rest of the day. No. Body pillows just…sat there, and Daniel had usually ended up just kicking them off the bed in the middle of the night. So, empty bed. Quiet house. Breakfast to make.
Around eleven he finally makes it out of bed, because, despite the empty bed, he’s still got a job to do, and four year olds don’t stay asleep forever. And call him the best dad ever, because just as he’s finishing up the first stack of pancakes when he hears a still sleepy four year old padding her way down the hallway, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and carrying the lion stuffie she’d had since before she was born. “Well, good morning princess. Are you ready for the big day?” he asked, picking her up and zooming her around the kitchen until she had melted into giggles before setting her at her breakfast. And it was a big day. Huge day. Gigantic day! Well, big night. So now he had to find something with which to occupy little Jessie, because otherwise she was going to ask to rehearse all day and he loved that little girl to pieces but if he thought too much about tonight he was going to lose it. Ok, so he needed to occupy himself, too.
So, it was a normal day. They went grocery shopping, Dutch the Lion brought with them because he needed to make sure the vegetables were fresh. That was Dutch’s job. They went to the park, Daniel fending off only one single mom today with a raised left hand and a point to the wedding ring that hadn’t left his ring finger in six years. Granted, the match was hanging on a chain around his neck, not on the corresponding finger, but she didn’t need to know that. And he watched Jessie at the park, insisting to one of the neighborhood kids that her papa was an astronaut, that he was on an important mission and she needed to take this rocket ship (made of plastic and firmly anchored into the ground) up to space to save him from a bull made out of stars. The kid, naturally, played along without ever thinking about whether or not her father was actually an astronaut. Which was, in Daniel’s opinion, even funnier. Because, well–
Max Verstappen was going to be the youngest astronaut to ever work at the International Space Station. He’d told Daniel that the first time they’d met at a slightly dinghy bar in downtown Houston. He’d been slightly drunk, celebrating something, and he’d been magnetic. He’d found out later that it was a celebration of Max being offered a place in the space program, that he wasn’t just blowing smoke or trying to look impressive. Daniel had an ego, had assumed Max was just trying to look impressive, to flirt, and, whether it was true or not, it had worked. Well, that and Max’s sloppy kiss that was more like a tackle than anything else. Sue him, Daniel was weak for his enthusiasm. And they’d ended up spilling into the street, unable to keep their hands off each other, both a little drunk as they stumbled up to Daniel’s apartment, into his bed. It was shocking in the morning, after Max’s clumsy, rough attempts the night before, how gentle his hand was in Daniel’s hair, how intense his blue eyes were. And then a horn sounded from a car outside, and it shocked Max out of whatever spell he’d been under. He’d sworn, apologized, dressed quickly in the clothes he’d let Daniel take off him the night before, and then he’d been gone. All before Daniel could get out of bed or ask for his number.
That could have been it. He could have seen Max’s face on the news the next year on his way to the ISS, the youngest ever crew member, and thought, oh yeah, we fucked one time, guess he wasn’t lying. But the universe had different ideas. Instead, three days later, Daniel was at work, finishing up another tattoo of a skull and rose, lines perfect, color saturated, shadows deep and perfectly shaded. He was explaining the aftercare, how to make sure it stayed perfect, when the door slammed open. There was a bell above the door, usually it gave a jolly little jingle whenever someone came in looking for a new tattoo. Instead, the bell now flew off its hanger, crashing against the wall as a wild eyed looking boy staring straight at Daniel with eyes too intensely blue to be real.
And well, as they say, the rest was history. Max, determined and headstrong and always too ready for a fight, had slotted himself into Daniel’s life without a second thought, and Daniel never really thought to question it. Turns out Max had started looking for Daniel because he thought Daniel had swiped his NASA ID. He’d found it, but by the time he did, he was already looking at every tattoo shop in the city (Daniel had mentioned he’d moved to the States specifically to work in a tattoo shop), and was too determined to give up. Turns out Max really was going to be an astronaut. And it turns out that Max had decided he wanted exactly one thing as much as he wanted to be an astronaut. Daniel. He wanted Daniel.
They’d moved in together after three months. Which was more like Max had taken what precious few things he’d brought with him from the Netherlands (which, yeah, that made sense because Max had a really nice accent and sometimes in the morning or late at night or when Daniel made him feel just right, he was absolutely not speaking English), and found places to put them in Daniel’s apartment. And it made more sense for them to live together because Max was technically still in his training period and Daniel hadn’t become a famous tattoo artist yet. And yeah, Max had weird taste in breakfast foods when he got homesick and made Daniel try bread with just butter and sprinkles. And Daniel tried to tell him that this was a food for children’s birthday parties and Max insisted it was breakfast. And yeah, Max stuck his cold feet on Daniel all the time. And yeah, Max had days when he was so focused he forgot everything, including Daniel, and food, and probably air, existed, but Daniel also noticed that on those days, he would set a sandwich next to his boyfriend, and when he wandered back in there would only be crumbs on the plate and Max would lean into him slightly when Daniel squeezed his shoulder.
It wasn’t perfect. They argued and they both had a wicked temper and there was more than one time that a door was slammed and one of them got into bed alone. But Max would always end up curled up at Daniel’s back, mumbling apologies until Daniel would turn over and put his arms around Max and kiss the top of his sandy blonde hair. They didn’t go to sleep angry, and in the morning they sat down at the little table that was evened out by half a phonebook and they would sip their coffee as they talked about whatever argument had robbed them of a peaceful night. Boyfriends became fiances, and Max finished his training and officially became NASA’s newest and youngest ever astronaut.
They were married in a small ceremony with a few of their close friends and co-workers. Daniel’s family flew out from Australia. Max’s mom and sister came from Belgium. Daniel had never met Max’s father, and, from the impression he’d gotten over the years, he didn’t want to. He had learned that it was Max’s father that originally put the fire of space into Max, and, though he couldn’t imagine Max without that wild drive, it was the days when Max nearly made himself sick with worry over that dream that made Daniel hate his new father-in-law.
And they’d talked about a family. They both wanted one. But before they knew it, Max was on the roster for an expedition to the ISS, and talk of a family was shelved. Six months of work ups, of planning and training and preparing. Six months of watching Max walking on air, so close to achieving his dream, of looking every day as if sunlight was spilling out of him. Then the crash. The mission was scrapped, budget concerns and a different project that needed funding and friction with international partners. It didn’t matter the reason. It only mattered that Max didn’t get out of bed for a week. Wouldn’t eat. Would barely even talk to Daniel. He was hollowed out, cracked and Daniel didn’t know how to patch the holes. He didn’t know how to make this better. He couldn’t do anything but lay beside his husband, bring him food he didn’t eat, and try not to fall apart at just how still Max was in his arms.
It went on like that for two months, Max staring out the window and picking at his food. Then, Daniel had had enough. He made Max take a shower, put him in fresh clothes, and dragged him out the door. They went to the zoo, and there was a breakthrough! Laughter! Light in those blue eyes again! Max eventually stopped at the lion enclosure, and, for a moment, Daniel feared he was going to slip again, that the progress they’d made would get wiped from the board. And then Max had turned to him, grabbed two fistfuls of Daniel’s shirt, and dragged him down for a kiss. It was rough, quick and imperfect and so fucking perfect. And then Max allowed it to be over, his lips were still close enough to touch as he growled, “I am the youngest damn astronaut NASA has ever had.” And just like that, the stormcloud passed. Before they left the zoo, Daniel bought Max a stuffed lion from the giftshop, and tried not to smile too wide when his husband wrapped both arms around the small stuffie like he would never let it go.
Sure, there were still bad days, days when a voice that sounded like Max’s father would say that he would never make it to space, but those days became fewer and fewer. The idea of a family was taken off the shelf, and, with no foreseeable trip to space in the future, but with business good at the shop and Max now being paid like a real astronaut, well…They spent a lot of time thinking about it. Moving into an apartment that had three bedrooms and Max softly remarking that one of the bedrooms had good light for a nursery. They talked about adoption, but finally settled on a surrogate. She was a nice woman, perpetually happy. Her name was Nina, and, if Daniel didn’t know just how much Max wasn’t interested in women, he might have been jealous. It didn’t take long, and they didn’t actually know which of them had contributed the other half of the DNA that created the bean, the kiwi, the grapefruit, the watermelon, the baby. Their baby.
Their daughter.
Time moved so slow. It moved so fast. Soon, that bedroom with the good lighting was painted a soft pastel yellow, a crib was built, presents were brought by friends and family. And then there was only the waiting. Three more months and they would meet their little girl. They would be a family.
And then NASA called. That mission that had contributed to the scrapping of the ISS mission? Well, it had gotten the green light. A four year mission into deep space, utilizing cutting edge technology that would allow the astronauts to slip into periods of near cryo sleep, allowing them to conserve resources and go further into space than ever before. A moment in history, the chance that would never come again. And it needed a pilot. The mission needed Max. And even before Daniel knew what the conversation on the phone was about, even when he just knew it was Checo calling and it was something about work, he had seen the look on Max’s face. He had seen the yearning and the conflict. Because Max had only ever wanted one thing more than being an astronaut, and that was Daniel. Daniel wasn’t going anywhere, but now there was a little black and white image held with a magnet to their fridge, the first picture they had of their daughter, along with multi colored letter magnets that spelled JESSIE.
Daniel wanted to curse NASA, to go throw eggs at mission control and teepee the lawn because what else could he do? Max would stay. If Daniel asked, he would stay. And yet there would always be that between them. That part of Max had wanted to go, to take this chance to swim through the stars, and he hadn’t gone. In the end, they’d talked to Checo. He worked in mission control, had a better idea of what would happen. They would be able to send transmissions, e-mails and video attachments and pictures, but a live feed wouldn’t be possible due to the delay. Four years without actually being able to talk to each other. And Max would have to leave in two months. Max would leave in two months.
They went to the tattoo shop that night. It was quiet, dark, intimate. Max had slipped off his wedding ring, slipped it onto the silver chain that would hang around Daniel’s neck until Max was once again Earthbound. And Daniel had prepped the tattoo gun, delicate needles thin enough for tight spaces. They hadn’t spoken, hadn’t reached for each other beyond Max’s hand resting ever so lightly on Daniel’s thigh. He didn’t even flinch. It hardly took any time at all, much less time than it had taken to get the silver ring onto Max’s finger, and then there was a black band there, a wedding ring to be taken to space, one as permanent as they were.
Daniel and Nina had stood together on the observation deck, listening to the conversation between Mission Control and the Taurus Expedition crew. He heard Max’s voice, clear and crisp, giving readouts and acknowledging instruction. And when lift off finally happened, he barely saw it. His eyes were too blurry. When he arrived home to their empty apartment and shuffled into the nursery, he cried again, seeing that little stuffed lion from the zoo sitting in the crib, a bow tied around its neck and a tag that said -FOR JESSIE. PAPA LOVES YOU. I’LL BE HOME SOON.
The first video attachment Max got was Daniel and Jessie, the newborn asleep on her new father who was asleep in a hospital chair. The baby girl’s tiny fist was clenched, white knuckles, around the mane of a stuffed lion with a bow around its neck.
They went to the zoo, and Jessie pointed at the display of stuffed lions that looked nearly identical to Dutch, the King of Fresh Produce. Except, as Jessie claimed, Dutch was better, because he could chase away the monsters in the closet. She looked absolutely insulted when Daniel suggested they get Dutch a friend. She held the stuffie tight, both arms crossed over the lion that was certainly looking much more beat up than when Max had held it the exact same way years earlier. It wasn’t a mystery anymore, which one of her fathers had contributed the DNA. She had Max’s intense blue eyes, the same focus as her papa when she was determined to complete a task. She knew Max, had watched every video file Max had sent through the stardust back to them. Several times. Some of them, like the one he’d sent for her third birthday, she knew by heart, and Daniel had, more than once, caught her watching that particular video, clutching Dutch tight and mouthing the words as Max sang her happy birthday in Dutch. Daniel had made sure she learned the language, and had learned it with her, a surprise for when Max came home. And his heart broke for her, for this little girl who didn’t fully know what she was missing with Max so far away. And in the middle of the night, his heart broke for himself, who did know what he was missing.
But it wasn’t the middle of the night yet. The sun had just set, and Daniel rolled the car to a stop at Mission Control’s first security checkpoint. He greeted Nick, the security guard who was still fairly new but still seasoned enough not to need to see Daniel’s visitor pass to know who he was, to wave to Jessie AND Dutch as they passed through the gate. He liked Nick. Nick was good people. Jessie hummed her song in the back seat, performing for Dutch one last time before the real deal, and she skipped, holding Daniel’s hand as they got out of the car. Of course Checo met them, because Checo was the best damn man there was at Mission Control and Daniel owed him a lot more than a free tattoo for setting this up.
“We’ve got about twenty minutes. Wakeup sequence just started.” Checo told him, always down to business because he knew that sometimes Daniel got nervous, sometimes the emotions were too much. But Jessie’s eyes snapped up at the sound of his voice and her face lit up and she let go of Daniel’s hand to hug Checo’s leg. Because, of all the uncles she had at NASA, Checo was obviously her favorite.
The halls of Mission Control were empty, just a few of the night shift shuffling around to get coffee or stretch their legs. No one paid attention to them. They all had their own things to worry about. Reentry mostly. What they were going to do when this mission was over. The next big adventure. When this mission was over. Because it was going to be over. It was going to be over soon.
They finally reached mission control, and Checo shooed everyone else out. Nothing was happening worth packing the room. They’d gotten so good at waking up the astronauts in the four year span of the mission, so good at reminding them where they were, sometimes who they were, what they were doing. Checo had once admitted to Daniel that Max? Max never needed reminding. Max would look down at that tattooed band on his ring finger and his first question was always about Daniel and Jessie. Every time. Tonight, though, there was no gentle teasing, no shared information, just quiet anticipation.
It was broken by a sharp beep, followed by a soft groan. A groan Daniel recognized, a groan that made his heart seize and knock the air from his lungs. Because he knew that groan. He knew it and he hadn’t heard it in four years because it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that made it into the video reel when sitting down to record a message to be sent thousands of miles away. It was the same groan Max made every morning when he was first waking up. Jessie set on Daniel’s lap, delighted when he began shaking his leg nervously, bobbing her up and down like a small pony ride. There was no video from Mission Control yet, but Daniel could see the clinical white interior of the Taurus Expedition rocket, still except for the elbow that briefly flashed into view.
“Verstappen-Ricciardo. Hailing Verstappen-Ricciardo. Status check.” Checo’s voice was clinical, professional, and didn’t give away the game. Silence. One beat. Two. Three. Daniel tossed a worried glance to Checo, but the man just shrugged. “Max, I need you to hit the button when you respond, and move to the camera, please.”
Daniel could hear Max swear in Dutch, and then he was there, pulling a white t-shirt over his head and then– oh. His hair was messy. Which was simple, it was easy. It was, again, something that didn’t make it into the video logs so Daniel hadn’t seen his husband with messy hair and sleepy blue eyes in so long. “Alright, alright. I’m here. Fuck, Perez, you couldn’t give me like five minutes to wake up?” And Daniel felt like he was going to float right out of the room. Because that was Max. That was Max that had walked up to him in a bar and kissed him, hard and sloppy, after declaring he would be the youngest astronaut in history. That was the Max that didn’t make it into the video logs because technically they were still NASA property and it would be awkward to tell your boss how much you wanted to fuck them when the message was actually for your husband. Max rubbed at his eyes, just the same way Jessie did, and looked confused for a second. “Mission Control, I’m not getting a feed from you. Are we having technical trouble? I can get Seb.”
“Negative, Max.” Checo’s voice was still calm and collected. Nothing to worry about, and it spoke to the rapport of the two men that Max instantly relaxed. “Wouldn’t want to you to see me with my bed head. Just got done taking a nap.” And there was humor there. Friendship.
Max paused for a moment, the delay it took to send video into space, and then burst into laughter. It was the best sound in the world, and lasted for a good three chuckles before Max composed himself again. “Well, fine, asshole.” Another pause, a moment of quiet, and then a sigh that betrayed bone deep exhaustion. Daniel had seen that kind of exhaustion before, when Max had refused to eat or see sunlight, and fear gripped him. Max had a shadow over his eyes now, a darkness he never let Daniel see over the video logs. “How are they doing, Checo?” And then, as if Checo wouldn’t know who he was talking about, he added, “Daniel and Jessie.”
And that was apparently the cue, the signal, because Checo was pressing a few buttons and had a sort of devilish grin twisting his lips up. Yeah, Checo got free tattoos for life. “Well, why don’t you see for yourself?” And then it was go time because a red light sprang to life on the camera Daniel and Jessie were sitting in front of, and a little picture of their feed could be seen in the corner of the big screen that held Max’s face. Max looked surprised for a second, a little shocked, and then he softened. He had a look of genuine adoration on his face, of longing. Checo piped in one last time, saying, “I’m gonna grab a coffee. Enjoy your screen time.”
“Thanks, Checo,” Max sighed, relaxing and putting his arms crossed on the desk in front of him, resting his head there. He didn’t say anything, just watched for a moment, just looked at them.
Well, Jessie, couldn’t hold back anymore. She, with the balance that came natural only to four year olds, stood on Daniel’s still shaking legs, holding out Dutch toward the camera. “Hi Papa!” And for a girl who had technically never met the man on the other side of the screen, there was no hesitation, no shyness. “I brought Dutch cause daddy thought you might miss him, too. And-and-and-and dad and I wrote you a song! Do you want to hear?”
There was a delay, because Jessie was waiting for a reply and it took a few seconds to get to Max, but eventually Max nodded his head, said softly, “Yeah. Yeah, I want to hear it.” And Daniel didn’t miss the misting of tears in his eyes. He also didn’t miss the way Max seemed to perceive the delay, to realize that the pause between question and following action had taken a bit too long. Jessie wasn’t known for her patience.
As soon as she got the affirmation, though, she was off, singing a surprisingly in tune rendition of the chorus of Elton John’s Rocket Man, the lyrics slightly altered. “And I don’t think it's gonna be a long, long time, ‘til touchdown brings you 'round again to find, my papa’s not the man they think he is at all! Oh, no, no, no, he’s a rocket man! Rocket man, burning out his fuse up there alone!” She hummed more after that, and then did one more rendition of the chorus before striking a triumphant pose and then sitting back on Daniel’s lap. “Daddy says I have to ask you what you thought of it now.”
It was quiet, the hum of electronics taking up all the space in the spacious room. Max didn’t respond, not after the delay, not as tears began to well in his eyes. He didn’t respond, still thinking this was a recording, that they wouldn’t hear what he thought until he composed himself, until he sat down and made a log of his own and sent it back to earth. After a moment, Jessie got nervous, looking up at Daniel. “Max?” and he waited, waited for the delay, waited to see the gears turning in his husband’s mind. Because they did. They turned and turned and turned, and he saw Max look away for a moment, toward a window Daniel only knew was there because one of the first video logs he’d gotten was a tour of the living quarters and an introduction to the crew. But the delay ended, and Max yanked his face back toward the camera at the sound of Daniel’s voice. “What did you think?”
And Daniel saw the moment it hit, the moment the realization came that this was live. Or, well, as live as they could get with the delay. He saw the smile crack through Max’s tired expression, through the tears and the longing. He saw Max get up, grab the camera as if he couldn’t bear to leave them behind, and finally go to the window, pointing the camera out to see that, beneath all that space, there was earth turning like a blue and green marble in the stars. It was Jessie that yelled, “I can see our house from here!” because she had watched the videos Max had sent before the shuttle was too far away to see earth.
And Max did start crying then, a happy gurgle of a sound that turned into a laugh as he wiped at the corners of his eyes with the sleeves of his white t-shirt. Jessie was pleased, and after a moment, Max finally said, “You set this up with Checo?” It wasn’t really a question. Max knew that Checo had somewhat adopted Daniel and Jessie, invited them to family barbeques and outings. Jessie’s best friends were Checo’s kids. And the why was hanging in the air, though Max was too happy to really care why now. So many of the higher ups of Mission Control had tossed around the idea of complete radio silence from their families for the last few weeks of the mission, and all of the astronauts had practically gone on strike over it, threatening to toss out valuable samples that had cost millions of dollars to even reach.
“He thought you might want the news from family,” Daniel shrugged, adjusting Jessie on his lap. He didn’t miss the way that, after the delay, Max’s eyes fastened on the gold ring on Daniel’s finger that had flashed in the light. But his husband waited patiently, something Max was actually good at. Hm, maybe Jessie didn’t get all her traits from Max. Max would wait there forever if Daniel didn’t tell him, would just enjoy looking at the two of them for as long as he could. Well, Daniel could have mercy on him. “We’ll see you on the ground in two weeks, Maxy.”
And the time would go by so slow, and it would go by so fast.