Chapter Text
With a soft smile, Hangman stared at the photo of the sonogram on his phone’s lock screen. He knew he should have been getting a move on it. He could see the notification after all that told him today was a very important day in the Benjamin-Mitchell-Kazansky household. However, he couldn’t stop staring at the most beautiful photo in the entire world. This little blob was their unborn child, Rooster’s kid . . . his kid. He couldn’t wait until their screaming little bundle was in their arms. God, he was going to be a dad. He couldn’t believe it.
Fuck . . . He wiped at the stray tear that leaked out. He couldn’t even blame Phoenix that time. Though, he was fairly certain he was experiencing sympathy pregnancy or something.
“Hey, you good?”
He jerked his head upwards in surprise. “Yeah. Just thinking how we’ll be parents before we know it,” he admitted with a quiet laugh. There was still so much to do. Too much. Thankfully, Phoenix was only twenty-nine weeks, so they still had quite a bit to go. She wasn't due until April. That was if everything went according to schedule. However, the ticking of the clock was getting louder with each passing day. It was even more annoying than that bullshit they had to do for preparation for the suicide mission. “It was nice of your parents to let us crash here while we figure things out.”
Rooster snorted. “Yeah, well, it’s not for our benefit, sweetheart,” he replied dryly. “They’re only allowing us here still because we’re having their grandbaby. You know how excited they all are over the whole thing.”
“Especially your dad, yeah, I noticed,” he chuckled, nodding as he thought back to the other day when his father-in-law proudly wore a new custom grandpa shirt that said ‘Some grandpas play bingo. Real grandpas ride a Kawasaki and break rules.’ Hangman still wondered which former Dagger helped Mav order it. Probably Fanboy, he decided after a moment. Sounded up his alley. Or maybe Bob.
“Come on.” His husband lightly smacked his chest with a playful smile. “We need to drop Mel off for her first day of school, remember?”
“Remind me again why we have to do that.”
“Because Mom and Dad are at Jesse’s check-up appointment already.”
Hangman nodded slowly. Made sense, but—
“And Pops scared the shit out of the principal so bad that cops were called unfortunately the last time he was there.”
Ah. There it was. He snickered lightly. “Ah, yes. Now, I remember.” The poor dude looked two seconds away from shitting his pants as Ice easily took control of the meeting and made the guy look like a complete incompetent fool. “He looked terrified.”
“That’s one word for it.” Rooster shook his head. “Though, I’ll give Pops credit here. He could have been much harsher and verbally flayed the man for that remark.” Truth. There was no doubt in Hangman’s mind that if that atrocious victim-blaming remark had been made privately, Amelia’s principal would have earned a much different scathing lecture than the one he got from Ice. “I mean, I’ve seen it happen before. Back in the day, he once made my principal sob with just that steel icy look when the principal called us all in to discuss my misplaced priorities in his mind.”
“I’m sure.” He pushed his hair back with a sigh, making a note to get a trim soon. He probably should shave again as well just so he wouldn’t hear how obvious it was that he was letting himself go now that he was no longer in the Navy.
“What?”
He glanced back before he stepped closer. He should have known his husband would have caught that. Observant fucker. Just like his Pops he was. “I know this is a good thing. That she needs to go back, but I just . . .”
“ . . . am worried it’s too soon?” his husband offered, meeting his gaze. He smiled lightly and nodded in understanding. “Yeah. You’re not alone in that, but she needs this. She needs to get back to a routine. And what’s more normal of a routine than school for a teenager?”
“I suppose.”
“Plus, let’s be honest. It’s not like Ethan’s going to let her out of his sight if he can manage it. He’ll skip all his classes until he’s sure she’ll be okay.”
“True.”
That kid was downright territorial with her some days now. Like a damn guard dog at times. They found themselves on Ethan’s bad side more times than they liked to admit over stupid, insensitive remarks they made offhandedly. It was something they were both glad and downright irritated to see.
“She’ll be fine.”
“And if she’s not—”
“—she’s got Pops to eviscerate whoever it is, Dad to do whatever crazy thing he’ll do, Ethan to shield her, and Slider to help Dad hide the body afterwards.”
He chuckled before his laughter grew quieter in realization that was exactly how it’d go in reality. Rooster and he would naturally of course help with whatever was needed for their ride-or-die family. No questions asked. They’d outright kill for their girl.
What started out as a joke was no longer one anymore. It hadn’t been for a long time, in fact. Amelia helped solidify the idea of him becoming a dad. He’d had that nagging thought not long after spending time around his niece Cassidy while she grew up. And it only grew as the years passed. The moment he heard the ‘your daughter’ comment that day in the hospital shortly after Penny and Maverick’s wedding, he fell hard for the idea, desperate to try his hand at it sometime. Knowing he’d be doing this whole fatherhood thing with his husband was . . . shit, there were no words. It was everything he wanted and more.
Each time they watched Amelia for Penny and Mav over the past year, he found yet another reason to care more for the teen. Was she a downright mouthy brat who got on his nerves occasionally? Yeah, but they all did eventually with one another. She fit in perfectly in ways he could not explain.
And nearly losing her . . .
God, he understood the pain Maverick felt when they desperately searched for her, fought for her, remained by her side for months hoping and praying she’d wake. He felt it himself in his gut. That heaviness like an elephant sitting there, crushing all the air out of his lungs in absolute terror. It was the same worry he felt whenever he was around Cassidy. That fear nagging back there in his mind that at any moment it could be their last moments together. That he could lose another family member he loved—just like he lost his brother. Tomorrow was never guaranteed.
“Hey,” his husband quietly murmured, gently placing a hand on his forearm. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
He let out a quiet, forced laugh and nodded. Always the worrier his husband was. “Yeah, I’m good.” Because everything was good again. There was no denying that. Everything was back the way it should have been.
Rooster and he were married with a baby on the way. Miracle whatever. Amelia was being a typical moody teenager mostly, which was a goddamn wonder considering. His father-in-law had his wingman he had loved in secret for so long back from the dead. Not to mention, Captain Mitchell was married to that beautiful angel of his and had their own miracle baby boy. There also was the fact the Daggers weren’t being sent off on another goddamn suicide mission where no one but Captain Mitchell gave a damn about them. They all made it home alive, safe and sound. Cassidy and Jessa were happy as well, living their best still in Texas. He couldn’t even recall the last time he and his dad had been this close, this father and son like with one another.
Things were good. Really good.
Too good.
If history was anything to go by, the bottom was soon to drop out.
“I’ll go see if our Songbird is awake yet,” he commented quietly, rubbing Rooster’s arm lovingly before he headed towards Amelia’s bedroom.
Her door was partly closed. A compromise, he knew, she made for her parents’ benefit as they were worried about her isolating herself from all of them these days.
He lightly knocked against the door, making no movement to open it quite yet.
“You decent in there by chance?” he teased, waiting for the sarcastic reply. His smile slowly fell when only silence greeted him. “Amelia?” he called out quietly but firmly. His brows knit together. “Say something, will you? Otherwise, I’ll resort to busting open this door.”
His frown deepened at the continued startling silence. Half a second later, he pushed the door fully open, finding her room entirely empty. His heart dropped instantly before he whirled around.
Oh, shit.
Not again.
“Amelia?”
He waved off his husband peeking a head out of their room from down the hallway. There was no need for Rooster to start panicking yet.
“Amelia Mary Benjamin!” he called out louder than before. He would most assuredly use her full name in this instance. It was deserved.
He knew she was still somewhere in the house. Her phone was still on her desk charging. No teen ever went that far from their phone in his experience. So, where the hell was she?
He didn’t hear her in any of the nearby rooms, but he checked them regardless. It was when he walked past the porch that he saw her. He opened the door immediately and felt the warm California winter sun on his face with the salty air wafting around him.
Amelia had her back to him sitting in one of the wicker chairs out front, staring out at the sea a ways from them. She was dressed in one of her dad’s hoodies again like usual. Her security blanket these days. Sitting beside her in the other chair was retired Admiral Kazansky, who managed to twist slightly in his chair to meet Hangman’s gaze the second the door squeaked open.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he apologized to the two, blinking back his earlier unease, “but time for school, young lady.”
“Ugh. Do I have to?” Amelia groaned loudly, tilting her head back slightly to glance at him.
He smiled sympathetically and nodded. “Afraid so, Songbird.” He then gently patted her shoulder twice. “Go get your stuff, will you? We leave in five.”
“Fine,” she grumbled, carefully pushing herself up to her feet.
He watched her carefully, ready to step in the moment she seemed off balance or struggling. However, she seemed all right thankfully.
God, how far this kid came in such a short amount of time was so inspiring. He was so damn proud of her for all the work she put into getting here considering all the obstacles against her. The end of December she could hardly hold herself up. Mid-January she was able to walk short distances, learning to steady herself with a cane. Now, she was mostly cane-less except when she had to stand. He watched her gingerly limp back into the house, closing the door behind her.
“So, how is our girl today anyway, sir?” he asked a few moments after they were alone.
“Resilient,” replied Kazansky neutrally. “And nervous about all this.”
“I’m sure.” She was basically repeating first day at Coronado High School all over again. Only this time everyone practically knew her because of what happened. “She’ll be all right, though. Ethan will stay on her six I’m sure.”
Kazansky chuckled with a careful nod before he glanced back out at the waves crashing against the shoreline off in the distance. According to the others, namely the flyboy uncles that Hangman could talk to for hours if they'd stay over that long these days, that was a recent habit Ice developed since his time in captivity. “Yes. Most likely,” he finally said a few moments later.
Hangman shifted his weight then, feeling like a first-class idiot in front of a crush. He wasn’t usually this off kilter in front of admirals. Growing up, his dad usually always made it a point to introduce his late older brother Justin and Jake to every admiral they crossed paths with at the time. But this was Iceman Kazansky. He had this gorgeous man’s photo of his time at Top Gun pinned up on his bedroom wall during his teen years. Tried to model his career after the seemingly perfect man even. So, yeah, there might have been a little hero worshiping there.
“So, any idea what we might be looking at here, sir?” He figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask since Kazansky did help raise three kids, two of those biologically his. “Taking her into school today, I mean?” He forced a small, nervous smile when the bluish gray eyes darted back to him. “Just want to prepare for everything, you know?”
“For her or you?” Ice’s tone was impassive, which unsettled Hangman more.
“Both, I guess.”
Kazansky seemed to consider this for a moment. “They’ll likely ask what accommodations she’ll need,” he replied after a moment. “Go over their expectations since she’s missed three months already.”
So far it all made sense and seemed fairly normal.
“Did Penny leave a list for this, do you know?”
“Uh, no, I don’t think so.” At least none that he could recall her pointing out before she and Maverick took off earlier.
“Ah.”
Rooster and he would make it work somehow, though. They always did. They were great at the whole making it up as they went along thing. They were regular Dean Winchesters in some regards. Possibly.
“Find out what the school is offering for accommodations, then,” suggested Kazansky. “Get it all in writing, then tell them you’ll need to discuss it with her parents, and they’ll get an answer tomorrow morning. Today and tomorrow is more about reorienting her than anything else so nothing needs to be decided today. And if they push, as they no doubt will, push back harder and state it is Penny and Maverick’s decision, not yours. You are just helping them out.”
He nodded slowly, making a mental note to remember it later. It was damn good advice. He couldn’t wait to use it and make sure Amelia was taken care of where her education was concerned at least. He’d do anything for that girl of theirs. Anything.
“You ready?” Rooster asked as he and Amelia walked up behind them a few moments later.
His mint green eyes took note of her the way her arms were hugging her torso tightly over her dad’s Dagger Squad hoodie. She looked seconds away from bolting. However, she was dressed for school and looked semi-presentable. It was all they could ask from her at this point, knowing how difficult this would be for her.
To walk back in the lions’ den after months away . . . she definitely had her mom's strength and her dad's confidence . . . and her father's tenacity.
“Yep. Good to go.” He tipped his head towards Kazansky respectfully, startling in surprise when Amelia bent down and gave Ice a brief hug. Uh . . . okay? That was new. He didn’t catch exactly what she said to Kazansky, but he could tell from Ice’s reaction it was one of their private moments again that was just for them alone. They had a lot of those lately. He watched her straighten a few seconds later and head off towards the robin’s egg blue Bronco. “See ya later, Pops,” he drawled, giving Iceman one of his trademark cocky grins before he followed his husband and Amelia. Here went nothing.
A few hours later, his head swam with all the information they were overloaded with in that ridiculous farce of a meeting. It was clearly not a meeting Rooster or he were prepared for in the slightest, but they made do where they could. Rooster made sure to jot down meticulous notes for when they’d have to relay it all back to Penny and Mav later, and Hangman tried to navigate with what little info they learned to ask questions he figured Penny and Mav would have if they had been there.
“She’s going to be okay, right?” Rooster asked the moment they made it back to the Bronco. His big brown eyes nervously glanced back at his former Alma mater. “Like, you don’t think we should take her back home or anything?”
“You heard her. She said she had it.”
They had to trust her judgment in this instance. Trust she’d call them for help if she needed it. She had shown them last October that she could do that. They had to trust she’d do it again if she got herself in too deep again.
“I just feel like we’re leaving her to the sharks.”
He offered his husband a kind, gentle smile. Oh, Roo. “We’re not. We’re giving her more freedom back, letting her make her way—”
“Did you see the way the others looked at her, though?” interrupted Rooster. “They all acted like she was a leper or something. Like she was the one who did something wrong.”
“We knew it wouldn’t be easy,” he reminded gently. He too noticed the looks between Amelia’s classmates and the hushed murmurs as they passed through the crowded halls before class. Ethan warned them all about this beforehand, though. How half the school refused to believe Colby could have done anything wrong, much less anything like drug-facilitated attempted sexual assault. How all the idiots refused to believe that monster confessed, claiming the confession was forced by the police who were helping out their fellow military buddies.
“What if they don’t let her have her phone? What if they corner her, and Ethan can’t—”
“Darlin’, breathe. It’ll be okay.” He lovingly squeezed his husband’s bicep. “Amelia’s got this. And if she doesn’t, she’s shown she’ll ask for help. We have to let her try this, though. We can’t hover over her. Not about this. She needs this.” It was another step in her recovery that she had to take.
“I know. I know, but . . . I just have a bad feeling about this.”
“It’ll be all right, Bradshaw. Your little sister is a force to be reckoned with.” In fact, she reminded him at times of a very young Beth Dutton from Yellowstone. “Mark my words. She’ll kick this in the ass like she’s done everything else so far.” He could tell Rooster wasn’t listening, though. “Sometimes you have to let the baby bird fly, darlin’, even when you’re scared of them falling and getting hurt again.”
Rooster nodded absentmindedly, clearly still worrying.
“She’ll be okay. She’s got Ethan there with her. And you know as well as I do how the second anyone starts any kind of shit and he hears it, he’ll step in and protect her. That boy’s got it bad for her.”
“He loves her,” Rooster stated.
“Yep. And you know there’s nothing more dangerous than a person in love.” They were proof of it. A person in love would ignore all natural inclinations to save the person they loved. They would stop at nothing to achieve this goal. He had after all. So had Rooster.
“Maybe we should—”
“—don’t you even finish that sentence,” he warned, shaking his head. “She’ll be fine. So, please for the love of God, quit worrying, will ya?”
“All it takes is one thing,” argued Rooster. “Just one, sweetheart, and it all falls down again.”
“Are you honestly going to be this worried when our daughter is Amelia’s age?”
Those beautiful brown eyes he loved so much blinked in instant confusion, which was fair considering the topic. “What makes you so sure we’re having a daughter?”
It was a valid question since they asked the doctor not to inform them about the baby’s sex during Phoenix’s last baby appointment. They wanted the whole thing to be a surprise and didn’t want to put too much onto the whole thing either. Though, they offered Phoenix the option to find out if she wanted, which she declined and called them both idiots over for making such a production out of the whole silly thing.
They concluded that was just Auntie Phoenix displaying her fierce love for them again.
“Because that would be our luck. A daughter for us to fret over and be overprotective and shit for the next eighteen years.”
He’d be gray by the time he was forty at this rate.
“But our kid is going to be a boy.”
“Pretty sure that’s not happening, Bradshaw.”
Here came that age old argument Maverick warned them about. Them starting to argue about stupid shit because of how close they were to the due date with everything starting to overwhelm the couple subconsciously. Granted, the baby still had a couple of months to go. However, if little Jesse Thomas Mitchell taught them anything, it was that babies came when they wanted and nothing was going to stop them when it was time.
“It is.”
“Nope. We’re having a girl. Might as well make peace with it now.”
He himself was still working on it. He’d love their child no matter what gender the kid ended up being because it was their kid. Though, a daughter did seem the most likely. It was a known fact that studies had been done surrounding the whole matter before about naval aviators and the likelihood of having daughters. Something about the amount of Gs messing with the X and Y chromosomes if he recalled correctly.
Not to mention, he wasn’t sure the world could survive their firstborn being a boy with the way they were. If the kid inherited Rooster’s temper and Hangman’s cockiness, it’d be another Maverick Mitchell in the making.
“You’re insane.”
“You’ll see,” he sighed, letting the argument drop momentarily. “We’re having our very own little princ—” His face instantly soured after catching himself, recalling Amelia’s violent reaction to that word shortly after waking from her two-month comatose state. He amended a moment later with a quiet, “our very own little girl.” He caught the somber look directed his way and exhaled forcefully, knowing exactly what his husband was thinking in that moment. God, Rooster was such an open book, letting his heart hang out there for everyone to see. Just like his dad did. “Look. It’s fine. I don’t have to use that specific term of endearment. I’ve got plenty to choose from,” he drawled. “I mean, did you forget, sexy sugarloaf of mine, how amazingly awesome I am at coming up with these?”
His husband snorted, his posture relaxing slightly. “It’s been a while since you started on your bullshit, Seresin.”
He wasn’t even going to attempt to argue because it was true. He hadn’t played around like that since they nearly lost Amelia last October. He hadn’t felt like it to be completely honest. Everything after that night was focused on their family, on making sure his husband was going to be okay after it, on Maverick and Penny knowing they were all there to help out with whatever they could.
There were little moments of normalcy during that strange ass family Christmas of theirs that peeked through a few weeks ago, but not enough to make a difference really in his mind unfortunately.
It was finally starting to feel good again.
Like it had before.
Like the clouds parted for the sun and rainbow to arrive.
But he couldn’t help that feeling that the bottom was going to drop out soon on them all.
“You like it, and you know it.”
“You wish.” His husband playfully shoved him back with a chuckle.
“Whatever you say, Sir Sexy the Second.”