Chapter Text
“Bobbyyy, please.”
“No.”
“Pleeeease.”
“No.”
They’d been like this for a few minutes now. Luckily for Buck, Bobby loved him enough to put up with his games and demands—he didn’t do that with just anyone.
The problem was that Buck wanted to record a TikTok with Bobby, but Bobby was clearly a captain, a man, and a serious firefighter. He was not made for TikToks or any kind of foolishness, and that was proving very hard for Buck to understand.
“So you’re telling me you want to record me saying tongue twisters?” Bobby said. “Do you hear yourself? Nobody wants to see that. Why would you even upload it to social media?”
“Please, it’ll be fun. You just have to say the tongue twisters I give you, and if you manage to do it, I’ll cook dinner tonight.”
“No, no, no. That’s not enough at all. If I do it right, do I get something? No.”
“Yes, Cap, make him clean the bathrooms or something,” Eddie said from where he was mopping.
“You shut up, we didn’t ask for your opinion,” Buck said, grabbing the first thing he saw—a cushion—and throwing it at Eddie.
“You know what? Just because of that, I shouldn’t even consider recording anything with you,” Bobby said, crossing his arms.
“Please. I’ll clean the bathrooms, just like that idiot said,” Buck pleaded, putting on puppy eyes and clasping his hands together.
Bobby couldn’t keep saying no. It was a well-known secret that Buck was his favorite, and he liked seeing his kid happy—even if he only ever called him that in his own mind.
“Fine.”
Everyone turned to look at him, surprised. They knew the Cap cared a lot about the kid, but they hadn’t thought he’d actually agree.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s not a big deal. I just have to say a few tongue twisters, right?”
“Yes! Thank you, Bobby! Let’s do it right now!”
Seeing Buck like this—excited, practically bouncing just because he’d agreed to record a stupid TikTok—reminded Bobby why he said yes so often.
He followed Buck to the dining area, where Buck propped up his phone, hit the record button, and turned toward him.
“Okay, Pops, I’m going to give you three tongue twisters. If you say at least one correctly, I’ll cook dinner tonight.”
“I know, Buck. You literally just told me,” Bobby said.
This kid—he wasn’t that old. He could remember things said a few minutes ago.
“Yeah, you know, but the people watching the video won’t,” Buck replied.
“Anyway, the first tongue twister is: ‘She sells seashells by the seashore.’”
“I thought it would be harder,” Bobby said confidently.
He tried, but ended up sounding like he was shushing someone—“shhhh.” He let Buck laugh at him for a while, and God, what would his former captains think of him, letting one of his firefighters turn him into a joke?
“Alright, alright. Let me try again.”
“Nope. Only one try. Next one: ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.’”
“There’s no way I’m going to be able to say that.”
“Try anyway.”
“…Okay.”
It was going fine until the end, where instead of “peppers” it came out more like “pepeppers.”
“Come on, that has to count, right?”
“Of course not! Cheater!” Buck said.
Bobby raised an eyebrow, and Buck immediately lowered his head, embarrassed.
“Sorry,” he murmured.
“I mean—that doesn’t count, Captain, because you have to say it perfectly,” Buck corrected himself with a smile, calmer now.
“Very good, Buck. See? You can behave,” Bobby said jokingly.
Still, he ran a hand through Buck’s hair. He knew Buck pretended to hate it, but in reality, he loved every display of affection.
“So,” Bobby continued, “tell me the next one.”
“This one’s short, but you have to say it three times in a row. The last tongue twister is: ‘Red lorry, yellow lorry.’”
“Okay, that sounds easy.”
The first time came out fine, but by the second, he mixed up the R’s and L’s.
“I won!” Buck cheered.
Bobby let him celebrate for a few seconds before doing what he’d already planned.
“Buck, you’re in charge of dinner tonight.”
“What? But I won!”
Now it was Bobby’s turn to laugh.
“Yes—and I’m your captain, and I say you’re in charge of dinner today,” he said, laughing even more when he saw Buck pout.
“That’s how things work, kid.”
He ruffled Buck’s curls one more time before heading to his office.
At the end of the day, when Buck finished cooking dinner, Bobby felt proud of the kid who’d arrived on his first day full of wild adventures. He thought about how Buck was still a kid with wild adventures—but now he was his kid. His son. And he was okay with that, even if Buck didn’t see it that way.
“No, Buck. It’s not happening again.”
“But the first time was fun.”
“The video got millions of views.”
“It was only fifteen thousand, you’re exaggerating.”
“Either way, it’s not happening, Buck.”
Bobby had recorded a video with Buck, saying tongue twisters—but the spoiled brat hadn’t warned him that his TikTok account had a lot of followers, which meant a lot of people were going to see it. He only found out when he saw Athena laughing, and when he went over to laugh with her, he unfortunately saw himself making a complete fool of himself.
“Athena still makes fun of me, Buck. It’s not happening.”
“But you’ll like this one, I promise.”
There was something in Buck’s eyes—like he was telling the truth. This time, he really would like it.
“Fine,” Bobby said. “What do you want to do?”
“Okay, Chim told me it was impossible for me to know all the flags and that he was sure he knew more than I did. So we’re going to compete with a filter that shows us a picture of a flag. If we don’t know which one it is, you have to hit us with a cushion. At first we wanted to throw water on each other, but we didn’t want to get the uniforms wet, so—”
“No. No, let’s do it with water.”
Buck looked at him, surprised.
“Don’t look at me like that. If I get the chance to spray you with a hose, I’m taking it.”
“Thank you, Bobby!” Buck said, giving him a quick hug before running off to prepare everything.
Bobby walked over to where the trucks were. Chim and Buck were sitting next to each other, with a hose ready—not one of the truck hoses, obviously, those had way too much pressure—and Eddie was recording.
“Alright, Cap,” Buck said. “Stand behind us. Eddie will tell you whether you need to soak us or not.”
Bobby did as he was told, ready to relieve some stress.
In the first three rounds, Chim got the answers wrong and Buck didn’t, so unfortunately for Chim, Buck stayed completely dry. But in the fourth round, Buck messed up.
“No way… I’m between Cuba and Puerto Rico,” Buck said.
While Buck was thinking, Hen and Ravi were filling two buckets with water, just in case he got it wrong.
“I think the flag is… Puerto Rico?”
Eddie threw his arms up, celebrating.
“No, idiot, it was Cuba,” Eddie said.
As soon as he finished speaking, Ravi and Hen dumped the buckets over Buck while Bobby sprayed him with the hose.
“This doesn’t seem fair,” Buck said, soaked from head to toe.
“Hey, you wanted this. Deal with it,” Bobby replied.
He put the hose down, walked away for a moment, and came back with a blanket.
“You have to admit it was fun,” he said, wrapping Buck in the blanket.
“Hey,” Chim interrupted. “I’m wet too. You could’ve given me a blanket as well. There’s some serious favoritism going on here.”
He walked away, muttering the last part.
Once again, the video got thousands of views—many more than the first one—but Bobby didn’t care. In fact, he made a TikTok account just to follow Buck.
Of course, he was never going to tell him.