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Miggs Ortega is not a morning person. At all. Bother him any time before eleven AM and you'd be verbally and/or physically torn to shreds. Even when approaching with coffee, his one true love, you'd be met with a sharp glare for the mere existence of linear time. But when Miggs wakes up at three AM to breathy sniffles and tiny hands patting at his chest, he's awake instantly.
"Marina?" he asks, squinting in the low light as he grapples for the lamp cord. A pull of the beaded cord reveals that it is indeed Marina Orso-Ortega, his five year old daughter, standing on her tiptoes to reach over the mattress, her face red from crying.
"Hey, baby girl. What's the matter?" he asks as he gently picks her up and places her on his chest, where she latches like a desperate octopus, her tiny arms barely reaching around his shoulders. She hasn't said a word, instead just sniffles and cuddles close.
Miggs sighs, gently playing with her hair, a curly mess just like his, trying to get her to calm down. It was a nightmare, probably, and he was terrible at nightmare aftermath, so he decides to enlist help.
"Shh, it's going to be ok, Marina. You're safe. Papa's got you." he says soothingly, tracing little circles into her back as he reaches over and lightly shakes his husband, who's well and truly instantly awake, unable to sleep deep and always poised for danger, a trait left over from his agent days, even after years of retirement.
Peter looks around with apprehension and fear for about two seconds before he sees the little girl on Miggs' chest.
"What happened?" he signs, and though Miggs is still shit at ASL, he'd managed to learn the basics.
"Nightmare, I think." he mouths as Peter puts in his aides and shoves his distinctly round glasses onto his face.
Peter nods with understanding, picking up his notebook and pen from the side table. Marina was still too young for any complex ASL, though she was much better than Miggs already, and Miggs often found himself the translator from his husband to their daughter.
Miggs laughs a little when he sees the first scrawled message, tilting up her chin so she could see Peter's inevitable pantomiming.
"Daddy's asking who he has to beat up now." he says, Peter smashing a first into his palm theatrically, but Marina doesn't so much as smile, just lowers her head again and sobs.
Peter looks hopeless and baffled, this line had almost always worked before, certainly hasn't made it worse. Miggs kisses him gently, hating how uncertainty looks on him.
He's going to have to be the nightmare fixer tonight.
"Niña, we can't help you if you don't tell us what's wrong. We just want to make things better. We love you." Miggs says, not even stuttering it for once.
"Wha' happens when you stop?" she says finally, voice still watery, and both men feel their hearts freeze in their chests.
"What do you mean?" Peter frantically signs, and Miggs is quick to repeat.
"You guys fight." she says, and it's not a question. "A lot. Sometimes so much that Daddy leaves. What if he doesn't come back? What happens to you guys? W-What happens to me? I don't wanna lose you!" she wails, holding tight onto Miggs' chest.
The two men look at each other, unsure what to say. They'd never really thought that much about how their relationship worked. There has always been some leftover animosity from their nemesis-ship, something beyond sexual or romantic tension, and sure, sometimes it flared up over something stupid, like the dishes or what show to watch, but it was never anything bad. Never something that hurt too much to be repaired the next day with kisses and panda shaped pancakes.
But Marina didn't know that. All Marina knew was that sometimes, her dads got mad at each other for no reason, and she couldn't fix it. No wonder she was scared. God knows they were terrified when their parents left, either for a black hole that would destroy the universe or being collateral damage in the wake of evil.
Were they really no better at this than their parents?
"You're right." Miggs finally says, biting his lip. "We do fight a lot, and sometimes not for very good reasons. I'm sorry that we scared you. But even if we did get into a fight so big we couldn't fix it, we would never stop caring about you. You're our little girl. You're not going to lose us." Peter nods along to every word, and manages a few misshapen ones of his own.
"Who woul' remind meh I'm bein' a silly head?" he says, even though the words are clunky and he hates the sound of his voice, he wants Marina hear him say it.
She looks up at them with wide-eyed innocence, big baby blues the only real sign that she's Peter's kid too, with a trust they can't have deserved. "Promise?" she says, holding out a pinky.
Miggs smiles and curls his own around the tiny digit. "Promise." Peter's own curls around them both, and the size difference makes her giggle.
Peter picks her up and holds her overhead, making little chittering noises, and Marina happily cries out 'Airplane! Airplane! Whee!'
For her, the subject has passed, and the two fathers also tuck it away for later. Because if they've managed to make it far enough to get Marina in their lives, they're doing ok.