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Athena had never known a time before Buck was confident in his body. That’s why it takes her so long to realize that despite how self-assured he’s always seemed when it comes to existing in his own skin—she’s never seen him shirtless.
She’s never wondered why before—it’s never even crossed her mind to wonder. At least not until she walks into the kitchen and catches Bobby trying to convince Buck to take his shirt off so they can check his over his wounds acquired on a recent call. Convincing Buck to stay with them after his injury was difficult enough, especially since they had to fight Eddie tooth and nail for it. She thinks he and Bobby were both a little surprised when Buck picked them. Eddie was more than a little grumpy about it.
In a lot of ways, Athena knows that she and Bobby are both paternal figures for Buck. He’s even slipped up and called her mom a handful of times, too many for Athena not to know exactly how Buck perceives their relationship. It started as a joke and evolved into words with a whisper of truth behind them. Athena couldn’t lie—through trial, tribulation, and time, she found the line blurring between friendship and something more familial years ago herself.
Besides, Evan Buckley was by all rights the son Bobby had brought into their relationship, the same way she'd brought May and Harry. He accepted her family and loved them, just as Athena had with Buck—and both of her kids have independently accepted Buck's brotherly kinship through the years without question.
If Buck wanted to call her mom—that was fine with Athena, just so long as he was willing to put up with her motherly badgering. Which there has been a lot of since the accident a week prior.
Still, it struck her odd at the time, when Buck had agreed to stay with them rather than Eddie. After all, Buck and Eddie had their strange friendship that constantly toed the line between platonic and romantic. Regardless of how the 118 felt about their complicated relationship, it was a deeply intimate and very layered thing that no one else had the capabilities to penetrate or could begin to understand. They were all mostly happy to leave it to them.
Athena hadn’t expected to win the argument, despite going to bat for him. She’d felt a little thrill of victory when Buck made up his mind, after it was clear he wouldn’t be returning to his own apartment any time soon if anyone in the 118 had anything to say about it. But now Athena is kicking herself about why she never questioned his decision any further. Because now that it’s time for Buck to actually let them take care of him, he’s resisting in a surprisingly extreme manner.
Buck is weird and fidgety in a way she’s never seen him act before—and sure, he’s not exactly gracious when it comes to his injuries generally. But she also wasn’t prepared for this behavior. This is the first time that it’s struck her that maybe the reason she’s never seen Buck without a shirt is because there’s something he thinks he needs to hide.
The argument with Bobby happens in stages: the first stage is subtle irritation.
“Can we do this later, Bobby?” Buck asks. The irritability is thinly veiled. In the past two days, he’s been nothing but a perfect guest, albeit a little too polite for someone who should feel like this place is a second home.
“I’ve let you put this off for a few hours, Buck. The point of you coming here was so we could help you. I’m sure that you’re dressing everything the best you can, but we had strict instructions from the doctor, and I intend to follow them.”
Athena can see Buck visibly thinking about it. Uncertainty washes over his face, and he bites the inside of his bottom lip. It is a nasty habit, and he often chewed it until it bled. She’d noticed it more and more recently.
The second stage is embarrassment.
He rubs his thumbs against the hem of his shirt like he’s genuinely thinking about complying, then his expression shifts into something unreadable and protective.
“I’m fine, Bobby. I can handle taking care of this myself. Although I’m grateful you and Athena want to take care of me, it really isn’t necessary, just like I told you when everyone was fighting over who was going to take care of me.”
“And the wounds on your back?” Athena cuts in. Her voice seems to startle the pair, who hadn’t been aware she was even present.
The third unreadable stage is followed by stage four: anger.
Athena’s stomach swoops uncomfortably because there’s something in her gut that’s warning her that something is desperately wrong—more than whatever injury he’s accrued on the job.
"Bobby, will you drop it? My sister—who was a nurse, may I remind you—already looked at them. They’re perfectly fine and dressed properly. She made sure of it. Everything is okay. I’m okay. They’re barely surface level.” He shoves Bobby away, tone vicious.
Bobby gapes at Buck, eyebrows raised high—startled and shocked by the rather unwarranted anger.
"Look, Buck, I’m not trying to overstep your boundaries, but I’m just worried. And your sister did message me and ask me to check them over since she’s out of town with Chimney the next few days. I get being a little self conscious. But it's fine. I just need to look everything over. Clinical, just like you’re any other patient.”
“I’m not self-conscious, Bobby. Just drop it.” Buck snaps.
“Am I going to have to call Eddie?” Bobby threatens when it’s obvious his current method isn’t working. Athena watches Buck deflate. She can see him mentally weighing his options.
“Don’t.” Buck pleads finally. “Just like—make sure the kids aren’t going to walk in or anything.” He glances at Athena before dropping his eyes. His cheeks are flushed—whether it was with embarrassment or shame, she’s not really sure.
“Okay,” Bobby says, his shoulder relaxing, but he’s alert. Clearly he was experiencing the same odd sense of dread that’s settled in Athena's stomach. Buck still hesitates a few moments longer before eventually reaching for the hem of his t-shirt.
“Just like, don’t make a big deal of this, okay?” With that, Buck finally pulls his shirt off in one smooth movement, though he winces with pain from his injuries.
Bobby makes a tiny wounded noise in the back of his throat. “Buck.”
“We’re not making a big deal of this or calling Eddie,” Buck reminds him, looking anywhere but at Bobby’s face. “We’re just taking care of the wounds that need to be taken care of and not talking about it.”
Athena takes a few steps closer. Her fingers feel numb with shock. Buck’s body tells the story of a life far rougher than he’s ever indicated. His cheeks are still pink, and his eyes are glassy with the threat of tears. And so many little pieces of the boy in front of her snap sharply into focus—the details fall together in a cohesive unit, forming the full picture of who Evan “Buck” Buckley really was. The picture before her is so painful, her chest threatens to crack in half. She’s grieving and horrified on behalf of the man in front of her, who was once a child that no adult had obviously ever protected.
The puzzle looks like this:
First, Athena remembers the hunger when they first met when he was a probie. Brash, with a false front of ego to cover up all that vulnerability and lack of self-confidence. Back then he all but begged and pleaded for attention upon arrival at the 118—now she sees that was because he knew how to do nothing else—no matter how many toes he stepped on in the process or egos he bruised in return.
Second, she sees the boy who had reacted so drastically when he thought he might lose the little family he created for himself within the walls of the fire station after the bombing. Willing to risk everything just to have them back. Buck has always been every inch desperation. From the moment she met him, he was starving. For success, for approval, for love, for comfort—
Finally, she sees the softness that was underneath all the jagged edges once his defenses fell. Once he understood that he belonged—once he was settled. Buck transformed through the handful of years she’s known him—self-imposed software updates aside. He’d become softer and no longer hungry. He was confident, brave, and happy. He was calm and cheerful. All because he felt safe. He felt loved.
And if that doesn’t just destroy her.
She’s known so many iterations of Buck—she’d always despised his parents based off general stories from the Buckley siblings, but this was a new level of hatred. They had tossed him into the world as a rabid, injured mutt on a path of self destruction.
The 118 had been a soft place to land, almost a rehabilitation center. Some of the firefighters around the station referred to him as a golden retriever, and the thought always made her laugh, at least until now.
Athena pulls herself together. Because right now Buck looks like he might break himself. He’s wearing his hard exterior, but Athena can tell he’s so fragile underneath. The barest off glance might cause him to shatter.
+++
Buck looks away from Bobby and Athena. They’re both frozen in place. He desperately wishes Maddie hadn’t had to go back to Pennsylvania to deal with some unfinished business regarding Doug. Their faces both say too much and nothing at all.
He knows exactly what they’re looking at: the road map of a painful childhood.
There’s road rash permanently etched into his left side. A patch of burns from boiling grease on his right shoulder. A littering of scars below his heart where his mother had weaponized a vase he’d accidentally broken against him. Most of the wounds that were inflicted by his parents no longer linger—they had faded along with the bruises, but the memories still scar him in their own little way. He’s got a cross hatch of self-inflicted knife wounds along his right side that, until now, only Maddie knew existed. There is another set of tiny raised white scars, milky and pale, on his left upper thigh.
There’s the normal scars too, of course. The ones that litter his body from a rough childhood— Evan Buckley has never been gentle on himself a day in his life. They were all familiar with his gravel speckled forearms and knees. Bobby looks visibly upset, but per Buck’s request, he does not mention the numerous healed lacerations of a million and two stories gone wrong. The acceptance of his boundaries allows Buck to finally relax under their scrutiny.
Bobby and Athena are an efficient team. They clean his wounds and patch him back up in under 20 minutes. Just as Buck is pulling his shirt back on, the timer blares on the oven behind them, and all three of them startle badly.
“Looks like dinner is ready. Buck, why don’t you set the table?” Athena commands, she’s turned away from him, and Buck breathes a sudden sigh of relief. He nods almost eagerly, fetching plates from the cabinets to set the table while Bobby pulls their meal out and gets everything ready to serve. From the living room, Athena calls the kids. He relaxes further until the only telltale sign of his distress earlier is a low hum of anxiety that buzzes in his chest and ears.
Two hours later, Buck cradles a bottle of ice cold whiskey on his lap. He glances over at Athena and Bobby, his stomach swimming with nerves. Part of him never wants to talk about those years before he left home. The other half of him wants to spit out the truth, which only Maddie knows. The room felt strangely heavy between them since the reveal. He wants to clear the air. He wants to feel free. So finally, after mulling his words over, he finally speaks, shattering the quiet of the room.
Athena’s curled in her armchair, and Bobby is on the couch beside him. Buck’s socked toes are only inches away from Bobby’s thigh from where Buck’s feet are resting on the couch. He stretches his legs out over Bobby’s lap. Bobby barely seems to notice since they’ve sat like this a million times.
He never knew just how important these two would one day become to him. Sometimes he wishes he could travel back in time and tell little Evan that someday he would have parents who loved him.
He would be okay.
He would have a best friend whom he might have fallen in complicated, unrequited love with, a brother-in-law who matched his goofy energy, and another two more big sisters who gave him just as much grief as Maddie.
“I never thought I would live to be 20. I spent most of junior high and high school wanting or trying to die.” He breathes out slowly. A motorcycle through a guardrail, a bottle of pills, over-consumption of every party drug, and every drop of alcohol he could put in his body. “And now, I’m closer to 30 than I am to 20. And when I was 20, I never thought I’d live to see 30, much less 20. And back then, I hoped I wouldn’t. But you guys—you’re the ones that changed that narrative for me.” Bobby sets a hand on Buck’s shin, honed in on him attentively. Buck feels breathless under his x-ray eyes. He knows Bobby was also all too familiar with suicidal ideation for comfort, so he hopes these words aren’t ripping open any scabs.
“Buck…” Bobby’s voice is so gentle and so tender it physically hurts Buck how much he loves him.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you. You kept me in line when I was a stupid kid—with kindness and care. And I know, especially back then, I wasn’t easy to work with or deal with, but you put in the work anyway. You could have just fired me or transferred me, but… you’re the reason I’m alive. Neither of you had to give me a second chance, much less fifty second chances, but you changed my life.”
“If the Buckley’s mysteriously disappear when they come into town again at any point, I have nothing to do with it.” Athena claims, trying to bring some levity, there’s a curl to the edge of her mouth, torn between repulsion for his parents and amusement toward herself.
“You’re safe here.” Bobby says. “You will always be.”
“I know,” Buck agrees, and he means it.