Chapter Text
He didn’t hear them approach. Perhaps they had upped their combined stealth game or he’d been too caught up in his own thoughts. Either way the tentative “Scotty?” from Alan made him jump and some guilty impulse caused him to throw the card out of his hands and over the edge of the balcony.
A split second later, another impulse had him hopelessly grabbing for it and allowed a faint whine of distress to escape as it was caught by the swirling sea breeze and drifted towards the pool.
Alan and Gordon appeared at either side and they stood together in silence to watch its descent. Scott absolutely did not let out a sigh of relief as, at the last moment, some heaven-sent zephyr nudged it away from the water and underneath a sun lounger. He did not do that because he was going to burn it anyway and the pool might have saved him a job.
Gordon clearly failed to comprehend how Scott had been completely uninvested in the fate of the card and chuckled as he nudged his shoulder and said “We could have written you another one, Scoots.”
Scott’s grip tightened on the railing “No! You mustn’t! I mean it was sweet… thank you! But you shouldn’t… I didn’t… you can’t think…”
That thing about the words and the brothers again. He could sense them making eye contact behind his neck. Scott bit his tongue to halt the incoherent mess and took a deep breath to try again…
… which was immediately forced out of his lungs by the double envelopment of his rib cage. His intercostal muscles stood no chance against four well-developed arms with a point to make and no further words were possible, well chosen and coherent or otherwise.
“You DID and we CAN.” Gordon declared.
“We do!” Alan chipped in.
“But…” Scott wheezed.
“No buts.” Gordon growled.
“But…”
They squeezed tighter.
“Huuuuuhhhhhh… Need… breathe…”
The squeezing lessened marginally.
“Fine, but only if you don’t argue.”
“I… okok.”
The pressure was reduced enough for him gasp in a decent breath, lift his arms and drop them around their shoulders to apply some crushing affection of his own. Some time passed, he wasn’t sure how much.
“I do love you both, you know that right?”
“Course we do!”
“You never let us doubt it, Scotty.”
“Oh… good. That’s good.”
He closed his eyes and savoured the moment for nearly a whole-moment-and-a-half before the guilt crept back in.
“I’m sorry guys, I…”
“Scott, don’t make me crush you again because I can and I will.”
“I don’t doubt it. Honestly though…” - he powered on through the brown-eyed glare from his left armpit because all of a sudden a little flare of hope had lit in his chest and refused to be quashed by common sense and he needed to know, needed to hear if it could possibly be true - “… you really think… I did ok?”
The Tinies lost their synchronisation then, as Alan yelled “YESSSS!” in Scott’s right ear and Gordon head butted his clavicle with a growled string of very military phrases disparaging his ability to understand the most basic of concepts.
Bruised and half-deafened, Scott allowed himself the smallest smile. He was mildly distracted by a faint clicking sound before Alan caught his attention again.
“The Bestest. That’s what it said, Scotty.”
“Allie, you do know that isn’t a word, right?”
“Meh, it’s word-adjacent. And hey, I’m 18 now, you don’t get to police my language anymore!”
Scott snorted “Try telling that to Grandma.”
There was some chuckling. Then he sighed “But it’s going to be better now he’s back.”
Gordon huffed then pulled back from the hug a little to frown at him.
“Yeah but you do understand that isn’t because it wasn’t good enough with you? Right?”
“But he’s DAD.”
Gordon seemed to be chewing on something so Scott ploughed on.
“Dad! Your actual Dad! Look, when he’s fully fit, you’ll know what I mean. It’s going to be way better, the way it was always supposed to be.”
Alan had gone a little stiff under his arm and was looking over at Gordon who cleared his throat and grabbed Scott’s hand where it still rested on his shoulder.
“Scott, I’m really glad you got your Dad back. And I’m thrilled that we got him back too. He’s amazing and we love him so much. But I think I speak for both of us…?” Gordon paused and looked at Alan who nodded vigorously “when I say it was always you. Even before… all the Guardian business… you were always there, dadding away like you weren’t just supposed to be our big bro. School stuff, swimming stuff, getting me out of trouble stuff…”
“You taught me to ride my bike and read me stories every night.” Alan gazed up at him with the very same eyes that had demanded just one more story, only the gleam in them was wiser and more determined now.
“Yeah, all that… The important stuff. We know he did his best but he was really busy and you were never too busy for us. Never. And we know how hard you tried when we were assholes and we knew you kept loving us and that’s the thing. Right, Al?”
“Yeah that’s the most important thing and you were definitely the bestest at that.”
Scott felt hot and cold and heavy and buoyant all at once. The words had now utterly failed him so he just held both little brothers as tightly as he could and hoped that would communicate what was needed.
“You’re having a hugging-Scott party and didn’t invite us?”
Virgil’s amused rumble from behind him gave barely a second’s warning before his much bigger little brother added his own muscle to the proceedings and pulled the little group back from the railings to allow John to slip in and cover Scott’s front. A beat, and then a slight grunt from the heavy lifter as Kayo leaped onto his back and wrapped her arms around Scott’s forehead.
Entirely smothered by siblings, his head light and his heart little more than a pulsating puddle of goop in his chest, the tiniest giggle escaped Scott. It looked back and beckoned to its little friends who fell over each other on their way to freedom and were eventually steamrollered by a full-throated cackle as pure intoxicating relief poured out of him.
He’d done ok.
💛💙❤️💛💙❤️💛💙❤️💛💙❤️💛💙❤️
Down on the pool deck, in the shadow of the balcony, a man leaned quietly on his cane and drank in the incomparably beautiful sound of his children laughing together.