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Christopher’s scream of fright draws his attention back to his boy, who is curled up with his blanket, dark eyes wide in terror as he stares up at Eddie, tears slipping down his face.
Eddie curses and draws his monster back into himself, donning his human persona to comfort his son. “Hey, hey buddy. You’re okay, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He apologizes frantically, barely restraining himself from rushing forward to hold his son, knowing that action would probably scare him more.
Instead, he forces himself to his knees, trying to make himself as small and unthreatening as possible, whispering nonstop streams of apologies and reassurances to his terrified son.
After a few minutes, Christopher’s gasping breaths and fat tears die off as the fear is mixed with confusion. “Daddy?” He asks, unable to believe what he’s seeing.
Eddie makes himself smile, though he knows it’s strained. “Yeah, Superman, it’s Daddy.” He promises. “I’m really sorry that I scared you buddy, I never wanted to do that. I heard you scream and thought you were in danger, and I reacted. I’m sorry.” He apologizes again, hoping that Chris can actually understand his words now.
The little boy tilts his head in confusion and studies his dad. “You looked funny. Your eyes were glowing, and your teeth were sharp. Are-are you a monster, daddy?” He asks softly, and Eddie can feel his heart break right in two.
His son is asking if he’s a monster, because Eddie busted in here in the middle of the night in his other form and terrified his son so much that he can actually taste it in the room.
How the fuck is he supposed to handle this situation? He really wishes there was a handbook for this. Explaining that you’re a monster to your loved ones for dummies!
Unfortunately, he’s not that lucky, so he has to wing it.
“Uhm, sort of?” He begins with a wince, eloquent as ever.
Chris just keeps staring at him, so Eddie continues. “Monsters are really bad, and they hurt people, right?” He asks, and Chris nods hesitantly.
“Right. But I don’t want to hurt people. I like helping people, so while I do look kind of like a monster, I’m still the same person that I’ve always been. I just have some extra… abilities.” He says, stumbling over his words as he tries to make this understandable for someone as young as Chris.
The boy looks intrigued now. “What kind of abilities?” He asks curiously, and Eddie wants to laugh.
His son has always loved superheroes, he should have just started with that part.
“Well,” He begins, trying to think of what he can do that would be cool to a kid. “Obviously, I have extra strength and stamina. My senses are heightened, which is how I always know when you lie to me about brushing your teeth,” He teases, heart soaring when it draws a small giggle out of the boy. “I can blend into the shadows, so that’s kind of like turning invisible.” He offers after a moment, and Chris looks really interested now.
“You can turn invisible?!” He demands, the fear in his voice fully gone to make room for the awe, and Eddie has to chuckle.
“Yes, but not when I’m like this. I have to change forms to do that.” He explains, and Chris looks a little bummed about that, so Eddie racks his brain for other cool things.
“Oh! I can also manipulate shadows. Here, watch this.” He concentrates on a spot by the wall that’s brightened by the moonlight, pointing it out to Christopher, who gasps in delighted surprise when shadow puppets of various animals begin to dance along the wall, his little jaw dropping wide, and Eddie has to smile in relief.
“That’s so cool!” Chris breathes, still entranced by the small shadows.
They’re not sentient things, not really, but when Eddie manipulates them, they become an extension of him, so the shadows are just as eager to impress and console his son. It shows in the way they make all his favorite animals, and then start taking on forms that Chris has drawn before. It’s hard to tell without any facial details, but Chris claps in excitement as he recognizes the shadowed forms of his bisabuela, and Pepa, and his mom, and even Buck.
If the shadows are extra wriggly in excitement on that last figure, Eddie is the only one to know.
After a few minutes of that, Chris turns back to his dad. “Can I see your other side again?” He asks, and Eddie hesitates, really not wanting to scare his kid again, but Chris persists. “I don’t want to be scared of you.” He whispers, eyes blinking up wide at him, and Eddie sighs in resignation.
“Okay. Do you want me to turn the light on so you can see better?’ He asks, knowing that, when you’re a kid, things seem way scarier in the dark of the night.
Chris nods, so Eddie stands up and leans over to flip the lights on, and then crosses the room to kneel by his son's bed, who sits up straight expectantly, eager but still a little scared.
Eddie decides to change slowly, hopefully giving his son longer to reconcile the monster that busted into his room as his father will make this a little less scary.
So, he starts with letting his horns out, tilting his head to let Chris poke at them curiously.
Then, he lets his tail grow out of his spine, reaching up to tickle under his son’s chin, greedily taking in the giggle and then the wide-eyed wonder as he plays with the tail.
He kind of dreads the next parts, since they’re probably more scary than exciting, but Chris deserves to not be scared of his dad, so he forces himself to show his teeth, leaving his mouth wide open as Christopher pokes and prods at them, the move so reminiscent of what he did when he was a baby, still figuring out the world around him, that it makes Eddie tear up a little bit.
Once he’s done a sufficient check of teeth, Eddie allows his eyes to change, knowing that’s probably going to be the scariest part, with the way they’re fully black, none of his regular brown to speak of.
Chris’s mouth opens wider, somehow, and he leans in closer, accidentally throwing himself off balance, and Eddie has to lift his hands quickly to catch him, chuckling quietly as Chris just continues his perusal of Eddie’s face.
When he’s done there, Eddie lifts one hand in between them and lets his fingertips fade to black as his claws grow out of his nail beds.
Chris takes his hand in between both of his and turns it over a few times, tracing the new colors and the claws. Thankfully, they’re not sharp enough where they’ll hurt him just by touching them, because Eddie’s pretty sure being able to look and touch all these new features is making it all less scary for Christoper.
Eventually, Chris has poked and prodded, turned over and inspected every one of Eddie’s new features, and Eddie rejoices when the tang of fear is finally absent from the room.
“You do look kind of scary, but you're still my dad.” Chris says resolutely, and Eddie can only smile, heart nearly bursting out of his chest with how much he loves this kid.
“I sure am, buddy. And I would never ever hurt you. I love you more than anything. ” He states vehemently.
Chris gets a look of mischief in his eyes as he hums and taps his small finger against his chin in thought, and Eddie can’t wait to hear what’s about to come out of his son’s mouth.
“Do you love me more than… Spots?” He asks, lifting his favorite stuffed animal up, like Eddie could have forgotten who Spots was.
“I love you more than Spots.” Eddie agrees with a fond chuckle.
“Do you love me more than you love grandma?” He continues.
“Yes, I love you more than I love Grandma.” Eddie answers patiently.
“How about Carla?”
“Yup, more than Carla.”
“Mom?”
“Yes Bud, I love you more than I loved your mom.”
“Do you love me more than you love Buck?” Christopher asks doubtfully, leaning forward with squinted eyes, just daring his dad to lie.
Eddie’s heart trips at the casual mention of him loving Buck, but Chris didn’t mean it that way. “Yup.” He answers immediately, and Chris looks surprised, sitting back on his bed fully in thought.
“If it helps, Buck definitely also loves you more than he loves me.” Eddie shares, and Chris just grins.
“I know. I’m his best friend.” He answers knowingly, and Eddie can’t stop the surprised laughter that busts out of his chest.
“Oh right, of course. I can’t believe I forgot that. My apologies, mijo. ” He teases, still laughing when Chris gracefully forgives his slip of the mind.
Then, he starts asking Eddie more obscure measurements, like if he loves Chris more than he loves ice cream, and Buck’s fried chicken. If Eddie loves him more than there are stars in the sky, or the distance to the moon, or to Pluto!
Eddie answers each one with an instant, emphatic yes.
“Buddy, we can sit here all night and name things, and I will love you more than every single one, but you have school in the morning, so you need to go back to sleep.” Eddie finally says, smiling as Chris groans in discontent, but still snuggles back into bed and under the covers, watching with a sleepy smile as Eddie tucks him back in and smoothes the curls off his forehead before placing a loving kiss there.
He moves to leave, but Chris’ voice stops him. “Hey dad?”
He turns back around indulgently. “Yeah, buddy?”
“Can you do anything else cool with the shadows?” The boy asks around a yawn, and Eddie smiles lovingly, an idea suddenly striking him.
“Uhm, I don’t know if you’ll think it’s cool or not, but I can- it’s kind of hard to explain it, but uhm,” He starts, head tilting back and forth as he thinks of the best way to word it.
“Well, I’ve never done this before, but it’s thought that I can gift you a shadow. You won’t turn out like me or anything, but it’s supposed to be like you’re carrying about a little piece of me. It can let us communicate, even when we’re far apart, I think. You can send me your emotions through it, and use it to get my attention, and I can use it to get yours, so I can find you if you get lost, or let you know that I’m thinking about you, or remind you that I love you more than all the stars in the sky and the length to Pluto combined.” Eddie says the last part with a tease in his voice, but Chris looks amazed.
“That’s so cool! Can we do it? Please, please, please, please, please?!” He begs, interlocking his hands in front of his face and busting out the puppy dog eyes to really sell it.
Eddie can only chuckle as he steps back over the kneel at the bed. “Okay, okay, yes, we can do it. Now, this isn’t a permanent thing, so if you ever change your mind, just let me know and we can take it away, okay?” He clarifies.
He’s aware that it sounds cool now, but he can’t imagine that Teenage Christopher would be cool with it.
Of course, that’s probably the version of his kid that he would want it on the most, especially with all the horror stories he’s heard about raising teenagers, but he’s always believed in raising his son with respect and honesty, and he’s not going to change that now.
He brings a small shadow up to the palm of one hand, cupping the other over it to create a cradle.
He’s never done this before, but supposedly, you just have to think of the person you’re gifting the shadow to, picture their face and think about everything you love about them, replay the best memories and focus on your intent for the shadow.
He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but after a few long minutes, he feels a change in the shadow. It doesn’t just feel like an extension of him anymore, it feels like Christoper too, all child-like joy and curious wonder.
When he opens his palm, the small shadow zips around his hand, and then races to Chris, winding up around one arm, across his shoulders and down the other, leaving the boy in wondrous giggles.
“It kind of tickles?” He says aloud, uncertain if that’s the right word, but since that’s the best word Eddie’s been able to find, he just nods in agreement.
“Yeah, it's kind of funny. Shadows don’t normally feel like anything, but these do.”
Chris giggles again, watching as the shadow runs all over his small body. “It feels happy.” He marvels, looking up to Eddie with a wide grin on his face.
Eddie feels an answering smile pulling at his. “It sure does. That’s how I feel every single time I see you.” He replies honestly.
The relief and joy that he feels every time he sets his eyes back on Chris, no matter how long they were apart, is reflected perfectly back in the little shadow that’s currently resting on the boy’s collarbone.
“It’ll probably move around, since nobody can see it. It’s a secret, so it won’t stay anywhere visible.” Eddie informs him, again reaching out to run his fingertips along his son’s sweet, cherub face, grinning as his forehead scrunches in thought.
“It’s a secret?”
Eddie sighs. “Yeah, it is. Do you remember how scared you were earlier, when you didn’t know it was me?” He asks, only continuing after Chris nods. “Well, some people wouldn’t be able to get past that fear like you did. They just see a scary monster and would probably think they had to protect other people from me.”
“But you’re a firefighter! You don’t hurt people, you save them!” Chris cries in outrage at the insinuation, and Eddie is once again reminded that he has the best kid in the whole world.
“That’s true, but even that wouldn’t be enough for some. Remember how we talked about how some people treat others badly just because they’re different?”
“Yeah, like with my CP, or the color of your skin.” Chris replies easily. That was not a fun conversation to have, telling his young son that some people would only look at him and see his disability, and not believe that he was anything else, thanks to their own prejudices. Eddie’s kind of glad that the boy mostly took Shannon’s coloring, hoping that he wouldn’t have to put up with blatant racism along with the expected ableism as well.
“Exactly. It’s like that, so we keep it a secret. The only people that know about me are you, grandma, Abuelo, and Abuela, so we have to keep it a secret from everyone but them, for our safety.” Eddie explains seriously, hating the idea of forcing his son into this secret, but knowing that it has to be done anyway.
Chris nods, bottom lip pushed out in a small pout. “I can’t tell Buck?” He asks, and for some reason, Eddie wasn’t expecting that question, even though he definitely should have been.
He sighs again, resting his head on one of his hands. “No, Buck doesn’t know, so we have to keep it a secret from him, too.” He answers regretfully.
He can’t lie and say that he’s never thought about telling Buck, that he never imagined his best friend's reaction upon learning this secret, because he has.
A lot, actually.
In his perfect fantasy, Buck would be totally cool about it, accepting it as just another fact about Eddie, like his disdain for technology and his secret love of drama, that it wouldn’t change anything between them.
Realistically speaking, Eddie knows that’s probably not what would happen.
There’s a reason Chris asked if he was a monster earlier, and he can’t imagine Buck’s initial reaction being anything less than that, and Eddie will keep this part of himself tucked away forever if it means not losing the best friendship he’s ever had.
(Of course, if we’re talking about Eddie’s fantasies, there is another outcome, but Eddie tries very hard not to think about that particular outcome for too long, knowing full well that it is way too good to be true.)
Chris hums as he slides further into bed, laying on his side facing Eddie, face squished against the pillow, shadow curling up like a sleepy puppy on his face. “You should tell him.” He mumbles as his eyes flutter shut. “Buck loves us. You wouldn’t scare him.”
He says it so resolutely, like there’s no possible way that Buck wouldn’t be okay with it, because he loves them.
Eddie is not ashamed to admit that his son is braver than he’s ever been. “Well, I’ll let you know if I ever do. Now, it’s way, way past your bedtime. Get some more sleep. I love you.” He says, redirecting the conversation, and sending an extra bump of love to the shadow on his son's face, delighting when Chris’ eyes fly open.
“I felt that.” He whispers in awe, then screws his eyes shut in concentration, before there’s a cacophony of love being sent back Eddie’s way, and he’s left fighting tears again that night.
“Looks like you figured it out, too. Great job, bud.” He praises affectionately.
“Good night, dad.” Chris whispers drowsily, face relaxing into a small smile as sleep pulls him back under.
Eddie stands there for a long while before making his way back to his own bed.