Chapter Text
When Mike was thirteen, he saw the prince for the first time.
He’d snuck into his sister's room while she was out with friends to “borrow” some money to go to the arcade. On her dresser was a copy of J-14, and, out of curiosity, he'd opened it. In the middle of the magazine was a picture of a boy.
The boy had golden-brown hair and freckles dusted across his nose and cheeks. What drew him in, though, were the boy's eyes. They were the prettiest kind of hazel Mike had ever seen. As his eyes drifted across the page, he noticed that on the bottom right, in blue letters, it said:
Prince William
He could’ve sat there and stared at the picture for hours, but he knew his sister would be home soon, so he put it back and left without grabbing the money.
Mike would meet a lot of people over the years of varying importance, but he never remembered their names. The one he did remember, though, was the one of a boy on the cover of a magazine, Prince William.
9 years later
Initially, the East and West Bedrooms were one giant state bedroom, but then they were split. Mike has the East, and Nancy has the West.
Mike had painted over the pink in his room with a deep blue and decorated it with things from his bedroom back home. He hadn’t brought everything with him, of course–there were plenty of books and notebooks collecting dust in his room back in Indiana–but most of it. In the corner to the left of the door, there was a bookshelf, stuffed head to toe with everything from classics to contemporary romances. Straight across from the door was his bed, and on either side were his nightstands, which held notebooks and a lamp on each one.
Under the window was his desk, which held even more notebooks, his laptop, and pens scattered everywhere. And, next to the door, is a couch.
Here in his bedroom, he can do whatever he wants. He can play music just a little too loud, and hum along. He can stay up as late as he wants, or yell at whatever stupid TV show he’s watching. It’s great.
Now, Mike sits on his bed trying to finish the short story he needs to write for his creative writing class.
“Michael!” He looks up from his laptop. In his doorway are Dustin and Max, the Second Son and Daughter. Dustin's parents had adopted Max when she was fourteen after her father had died and her grief-stricken mother had been deemed an “unfit parent” by the court. Max had been friends for years beforehand, and she’d practically been living at his house anyways, so it was just easier. Max had decided to keep her last name, as it was the last thing she had left of her father.
“Are you doing schoolwork again?” Max asks, then sits down on his bed, placing her laptop and a huge stack of donuts down in front of her. Dustin drags Mike's desk chair over, and puts his feet up on the bed, dangerously close to the donuts. “Get your feet away from my donuts. And you–” Max takes his laptop and shuts it– “stop writing.”
Mike reaches to grab his laptop, but Max is holding it just far enough away that he can’t grab it, and he doesn’t want to move.
“Anyway,” Dustin says. “What are you guys wearing tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” Mike looks at Dustin, confused.
“The wedding, Mike.”
“Wedding?”
“The royal wedding? How did you forget?”
“Oh, that. It’s this weekend?”
“Dude, we leave in the morning.” Max drops his laptop on the bed, and Mike grabs it before she can do anything else.
“You do have an outfit picked out, right?” Dustin raises an eyebrow at him.
“Of course. I had Robin approve it last month. I just…didn’t realize it was so soon.” Mike says.
“Because you don’t want to see your archnemesis?” Max suggested.
“He’s not my archnemesis. He’s just, a guy I happen to hate, who happens to also hate me. I'm the son of the President of the United States and he’s a figurehead of the British Empire, so it’s not fair to call him my archnemesis.”
“Sure sure–Dustin I told you to get your damn feet away from the donuts!” Max jumps at him, and Dustin starts running around the room. When he trips over one of Mike’s stray shoes and falls face-first onto the floor, Max pins him to the floor.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Dustin says while laughing.
“Good,” Max finally gets off of him, and Dustin stands. “And you’ve lost your donut privileges.”
“Oh come on!”
It’s this that Mike loves most about living at the Residence. Not the private chefs–though they’re pretty great too–but having his best friends live so close to him. Dustin and Max share a two-bedroom apartment not too far away and are at the White House every day they can be.
He gets to spend every day with his best friends.
It’s great.
One thing Mike has never gotten used to, even though his mother has been in office for three years, is the private jets. The magic of it never wears off. He’s flown first class a few times and had flown economy for the first fifteen years of his life, but nothing will ever compare to having an entire jet filled with just him, his sister, Max, Dustin, and various members of his mother's staff.
He can recline his seat back as far as he wants because there’s no one behind him. And the bathroom has a shower. A shower! Who is showering while flying over the ocean?
Opposite of where Mike is sitting, is Secret Service agent Dmitri, who is bent over a copy of the crossword book he’s been trying to finish for weeks. Next to him, Max is working on the same puzzle, no doubt trying to beat him at a race he didn’t know he was participating in. Across the aisle from him is his mother's personal favorite Secret Service agent, a former Navy Seal named Kali, who may or may not have killed several men. (No one will answer his question on that, which he thinks is completely unfair. But oh well.) She’s sketching something that looks like butterflies in a green notebook.
Beside her is Dustin, who’s also sketching, but his looks like blueprints for a robot, not butterflies. Which leaves his sister, Nancy, next to him. She’s reading a trashy gossip magazine that has their faces on the front cover, which is something he’ll never really get used to. He looks over her shoulder to see what she’s reading about, only to be disappointed by it.
“‘Royal Wedding Madness’? Really?”
“What? I want to be prepared. Did you know they spent $75,000 on the cake?” Nancy turns the page toward him, and apparently, there’s an entire paragraph about it.
“The cake has eight layers, and the details are immaculate! Certainly not like any other royal wedding cake we’ve ever seen…” Blah blah blah. Nobody could care about a cake this much.
“First of all, you did go to prom, right? It’s probably going to be that but with, like, annoying stuck-ups. Second of all, seventy-five grand for a cake is completely ridiculous. Please never let me spend that much on a cake. Ever. not even if I’ve somehow managed to marry royalty–which will not happen.”
“Duly noted.”
Mike looks down at his laptop where the blinks cursor seems to be taunting him. He’s written half of the assignment so far, but he appears to be stuck. The prompt isn’t something he’s ever been very good at, but he’s trying. He scrolls up to the top of the paper to reread it to see if it’ll spark any new inspiration. He reads the words over and over again, but nothing comes to mind.
Forbidden Love
Bullshit.
There are a few things new members of the staff are told regarding Mike, Max, Nancy, and Dustin. The first is that Mike and Max frequently get into stupid fights that end in them having some sort of competition and they are not to stop them, even if it starts going too far as it keeps them from tearing each other's heads off.
The second is that Dustin has a long-distance girlfriend named Susie who lives in Utah and she’s the only person who sends letters to Dustin directly. None of the letters go to Dustin's apartment, because it’s almost impossible to monitor who sees them, and for the safety of both Dustin and Max, nobody outside of a small group of people knows where they live.
The third is Nancy and Mike’s tendency to ask for coffee in the middle of the night, and the fact that they will go remake it themselves if it’s not made right. (Cream, no sugar for Nancy and Cream, two sugars for Mike.)
The fourth is Mike’s long-standing grudge against the youngest member of the British royal family.
(Though he’s not entirely sure if Will is the youngest, as he has a twin sister, and not even the royal family is crazy enough to release birth times.)
(That doesn’t matter, though.)
Mike has hated Will for years, and might just hate him for the rest of his life. He’s never really told anyone why, and, truth be told, it’s a really stupid reason.
A few years ago, before his mother had been elected president, he’d met Will at the Rio Olympics. Mike had walked up to him and introduced himself, then asked a stupid question he beat himself up for for the next several weeks, which was, simply: “Who are you?”
Will had given him a look, then turned to his handler, and said, “Can you get rid of him?”
Mike had hated him since.
London was a spectacle.
Every surface seemed to be covered with the faces of Prince Jonathan and his fiance. (Mike is pretty sure he saw a pair of underwear with their faces on it. Who is buying that?) Overall it just seems like way too much, but he hopes America will be at least half this excited if he gets married.
Buckingham Palace, however, is a bit more formal. Less underwear and more crystal chandeliers.
Once inside, they’re sat at a round table with a fancy white tablecloth. On a small piece of paper, written in swirly writing, is his name.
Mike Wheeler
“Is that lace?” Max says, grabbing the trim of the tablecloth.
“Yes, and it’s everywhere,” Mike picks at the placemat–which is also white and trimmed with lace.
“That’s a bit ridiculous. Like, there’s lace on my dress, because it's a dress! It really doesn't need to be on everything.” Nancy grumbles.
Mike gets that it might be a bit ridiculous to complain about lace, especially as the children of the president and vice president, but some things about growing up middle class never leave you, like a hatred for over-the-top displays of–whatever lace-trimmed tablecloths are an over-the-top display of.
Just then, a server–who looks like his name would be Benedict or Bartholomew–comes up to the table.
“Miss Mayfield,” Benedict-Bartholomew says. “His Royal Highness Prince William is wondering if you’d be interested in a dance.”
“I–” Max starts.
“She’d love to,” Dustin butts in. “She’s been hoping he’d ask all evening.”
“Wonderful,” Benedict-Bartholomew signals to Will, who was standing awkwardly across the room, holding a champagne glass.
He saunters over, looking all princely, sets his glass down on the table, and holds out his hand for Max to take. “Do you know how to waltz?” He asks.
“I’m sure I can figure it out,” Max responds, taking his hand. He leads her over to the center of the room as the next song starts. His back is facing their table, and Max sends a glare over his shoulder toward Dustin.
Mike laughs so hard that champagne almost comes out of his nose.
“Do you think he likes her?” Dustin questions.
“Nope,” Nancy points across the room at a group of reporters and cameras, all taking pictures of Max and Will dancing. “Publicity stunt, likely set up by the Queen herself.”
“Have to make sure he’s not overshadowed by his brother's wedding,” Mike adds.
“And now Max is going to be harassed by some thirteen-year-old whose biggest dream was marrying a prince.” Dustin takes a sip of his drink.
Sometimes, when Mike is drunk, his mind wanders back to things he thought he'd forgotten. Like hazel eyes and honey-brown hair that looked so soft, he swore he could feel it. A magazine page made to be removed by long nails and gentle hands, then taped to a locker or a mirror and looked at every day.
Mike had neither long nails nor gentle hands, then or now, and as much as he would've liked to, couldn't pry the staples up and take the page out. So every time his sister left the house, he'd sneak into her room and dig up the old magazine from under her bed, and stare at the boy until his eyes got tired and his sister was almost back.
He’d dreamed that maybe one day he'd get to meet him, see his face in person, and maybe find out if his hair was as soft as it looked. As his mother rose in political rank, his dream became very close to reality, but when he finally met the boy, he turned out to be a rude, stuck-up prince, and all of his dreams were crushed.
No matter how bad that first meeting was, the boy was just as beautiful as the picture—more, even. But he was never able to find out if his hair was as soft as it looked.
About an hour later, Mike is absolutely pissed.
He passes by the bar and grabs a drink from the bartender that was not for him, and then slumps on a couch in the corner of the room. Will and Max had stopped dancing a while ago, and now he was bored of all the small talk he was making with nobles and ambassadors.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Will standing by the cake, talking to someone.
He stands from the couch, glass in hand, and makes his way over.
“William! What's up?” Mike says, smacking his shoulder just enough to make him almost spill his drink.
Will gives him an annoyed smile, before turning back to the man he was talking to.
“You’ll have to excuse me, sir.”
The man nods and walks away to start another boring conversation with another boring person.
Will turns to Mike. “What do you want?”
“We haven't talked all night, you must be so bored,” Mike says sarcastically.
“I was hoping we wouldn't talk at all.”
“Rude. Anyways, you guys only have one champagne fountain, did you know? When you have one of these, there should be two, it seems fancier.” Mike rests his arm on Will’s shoulder.
Mike is just a bit taller than him, about two or three inches, which means that he doesn't have to struggle much to get his arm up there, but he knows it'll get tired quickly.
“Is that why you came over here? To talk about champagne fountains?” Will shrubs his shoulder, knocking Mike's arms off.
“Of course not. I also came to talk about the seventy-five-thousand-dollar cake. Which is ridiculous, by the way. That much for a cake? Do you people know they helped fund that thing? And who is going to eat it, like, there's a lot of people here, but not enough to finish a nine-tier cake. And—”
“Shut up, will you?” Will knocks Mike back with his elbow, and he stumbles right into the table behind him, but not without grabbing the other's wrist and dragging him down too.
As they fall, the cake starts leaning, and the next thing he knows he's on the ground, covered in cake and buttercream.
“Bloody hell,” Will mutters, and Mike realizes it's the first he's ever heard the prince swear.
He looks over at him and notices a gash on his cheek that's just started bleeding. His hand is also still holding onto Will’s wrist, and he drops it before anyone else sees it.
“Do you think they noticed?” Mike whispers, and Will gives him a look.
Then he sees the first camera flash.