Screw Angels, This Bell's Ringing in Wings for Me - Part Seven

[jae_w]

Pete wakes up in the dark. For a second he’s fucking sure that he’s somewhere else. He has a burst of panic that he pushed Clarence too far and now he’s in some fucked up new universe that doesn’t just suck but is an actual nightmare, and he’s dead or underground or something. And then he sees a hint of light from under a curtain and, well, he’s still not sure he’s not in the wrong place but at least he hasn’t arrived in a horror film.

Pete pulls the curtain back and blinks in the light. He’s on a bus which tells him very little. He could have done a Sliders and arrived in yet another Pete’s life.

But now that he can see, he’s lying in a bunk that has the very beginnings of tour mess beginning to accumulate. There’s an empty Skittles wrapper in the crease by the wall and his cell phone by his hand. But on the ceiling there’s a picture of Mikey and Bronx at a water park that Pete took himself with a waterproof disposable camera the last time they were on a summer tour. He snatches it off and is stopped by the sight of his wedding ring back on his hand, where it belongs.

He scrambles for his phone because he hasn’t been on the road long. They can’t be too far right? He hits number one on the speed dial and holds his breath. It rings forever with no answer but Mikey’s voice mail message.

He tries ten more times before he gives up and rolls out of the bunk. He needs to see someone, anyone, familiar. Right now, he might as well still be back in that other life.

But the bus is empty and parked. Pete stumbles out into a venue he vaguely recognizes and wanders inside. He runs into Patrick backstage and clings to him.

It doesn’t even slow Patrick down. “Hey. I was coming to get you. We’ve got sound check.”

“Sound check.”

“Yes. Sound check. Come on.”

Pete’s figured out that he’s in San Diego by the time they’re done with sound check. But he can’t get a hold of Mikey and no one has any idea why. He even has Patrick try calling from his phone, but when Mikey does pick up all Patrick gets is that Mikey doesn’t really want to talk to Pete after last night though Patrick says Mikey didn’t elaborate on what happened. He has to fake it through the show and at the end of it all, he still doesn’t feel like he’s home.

He needs to get back to Jersey. He needs to get home to Mikey and Bronx. He did not come through the walls of fucking reality just to get stuck three thousand miles away, goddamnit.

Of course Andy’s lack of respect for his personal space gets him ratted out before he can finish buying his ticket. Then it’s a fucking powwow with the whole band, and Brian on speakerphone. Pete hasn’t been back long enough to have any idea what the fuck is going on beyond the fact that these people, who he loves and missed, are getting in the way of him seeing his family.

“I just need a day,” Pete says, fisting his hands in his hair and tugging. “One fucking day. This could be my marriage.”

“There’s not time,” Brian says, ever the business brain and tiny over the phone. “The Grammys are in 3 days.”

“Okay, so I’ll miss what, Anaheim and San Jose?”

“Oakland,” Joe says. “We’re not doing San Jose this time.”

“And four radio interviews, Kimmel and Conan,” Patrick says. “You can’t leave us alone for that.”

“Fuck, I don’t know. I’ll call in or something. But you can get someone to fill in for the next two shows and I will be back for the Grammys, all right? One night, two days if you count travel time. Guys. Please.” He’s begging but he lost his pride ages ago.

“If I got you on The View in the morning would you be willing to go?”Brian asks. Pete laughs, because really, he’ll play at a county fair in the livestock exhibit if they’ll just drive his ass to the airport already.

“Don’t ever fucking change, Schechter. Seriously.”

Pete doesn’t pack. He steals back the laptop from Andy and books the earliest flight out of San Diego to LaGuardia, which leaves at four in the morning. He grabs his phone, keys, wallet, and the picture out of the bunk when he goes.

The wait at the airport is two hours and the flight is another seven, and Pete spends the whole time coming out of his skin. He tries not to think too much. If he lets himself, he can imagine a hundred different ways the Empty Pete could have ruined his life.

He doesn’t realize he doesn’t have a car until he gets to New York. And his go-to New Yorkers are all out west. Well, there’s Brian, but Brian’s trying to do damage control and Pete doesn’t want to push him.

He’s weighing the train over or grabbing a cab when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He wants it to be Mikey, but he’s relieved when he see’s Gerard’s name.

“You’re in New York? Why are you in New York? I’m like ten minutes from the airport. Brian called me.”

“He’s fucking magic.”

“It’s scary. Just sit tight, all right?” Gerard pulls up five minutes later and Pete climbs in. He kind of forgot how much he missed his stupid face. Gerard is frowning at him, though, as best he can while driving.

“Just ask.” Pete says, sinking into the familiarity of Gerard’s car. “I can see it in your face.”

“Did you not learn the songs or something?” Gerard asks. “I know you were having trouble with learning the stuff of New London Hearts but you were getting pretty good at faking it.”

“Faking it.”

“Yeah.”

“Mikey’s not talking to me.”

“Well, you have to give him some time to get used to the whole-“ Gerard lets go of the steering wheel with both hands to make a wave hand gesture like Wayne and Garth calling forth a flashback. “Alternate reality thing.”

The idea that Mikey knows, hell that Gerard does, and that they both bought it makes him a little dizzy. “Gerard, hey.” Pete reaches out and grabs his shoulder. “Pull over.”

“We’re on the highway, I can’t. Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to wreck trying to find proof that I’m back.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“No, damnit, Gee, it’s me. It’s Pete. Come on, man. You’re my fucking brother. If you don’t believe me, who’s going to?”

Gerard yanks the car across three lanes of traffic and onto the shoulder. Pete’s gripping the inner door handle with white knuckles when Gerard comes to a rubber-burning halt. He hits his hazard lights and shifts in his seat. He studies Pete’s face for the full length of the song that’s playing on the car stereo, then his eyes get big and desperately hopeful. “Pete?”

Pete laughs. He hopes to fuck that Mikey’s this easy. “I missed you, Gee. I really fucking did.”

“I- Yeah. Yeah.” Gerard takes a few deep breaths, then turns of his hazards off. Pete watches as Gerard looks resolutely at the road, ignoring the way tears are threatening. “I saved your Christmas present for you.”

Pete doesn’t say anything to that. He just squeezes the shoulder he’s still resting his hand on. They drive back to Jersey in a fragile quiet that is the most normal thing Pete’s experienced since Christmas Eve.

“Is he even there?” Pete asks, afraid of the answer.

But Gerard nods. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t be. It’s not like Bronx-“

“He won’t be out of school for another two hours,” Pete nods. “It’s just, he hasn’t been answering the phone. And maybe you told him I was coming.”

“I didn’t say anything. This is your - his - mess. Mikey didn’t ask. I didn’t tell. He’s been keeping to himself mostly since he found out, anyway.”

“But he’s there?”

“As far as I know. But it’ll be okay. He used to talk to for fucking hours before it all came out, wondering what was wrong with him. He missed you even when he didn’t know you were gone.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Well, yeah.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Does it help that it’s because he loves you?”

“A little, yeah. Thanks. For pretty much everything.”

Gerard blinks at him. Then he makes an “oh yeah” face, like he just figured something out. He gives Pete a lopsided hug. “Thanks for coming back.”

“Yeah, well, I’m just fucking glad to be back.” That’s pretty much the thought Pete hangs onto as he steps out of Gerard’s car and onto his driveway. He missed this house and the yard and the front door with its welcome mat and the paint peeling on the corner of the door that he’s going to fix when it gets warmer.

He takes a deep breath when he opens the door. “Mikey?” he calls, needing Mikey to answer. He can’t go through the sensation of discovering an empty house again. “Mikey, are you here?”

There’s a pause where Pete’s sure that Gerard and the cars in the driveway were all wrong before he hears footsteps on the stairs from the second floor. Mikey’s pulling earbuds out of his ears as he approaches. His hair is sticking up everywhere and he’s wearing a pair of Pete’s jeans and one of his old Journey t-shirts, Piglet and Hemmy on his heels. He looks so good that Pete could fucking cry.

“Pete?” Mikey’s loose stance disappears at the sight of him. His whole body stiffens and he pulls back, visibly. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in California.”

“I’m back.”

Mikey frowns, his arms folded over his chest in classic defensive posture. “Yeah, I can see that. Just tonight?”

“Yeah but that’s not what meant, Mikey. Babe.” Pete swallows around the burning sensation in his throat. Maybe he’s crying a little. “I’m back.”

Mikey doesn’t move. He doesn’t blink and as far as Pete can tell, he doesn’t even breathe. Pete crosses the space between them and takes Mikey’s face in his hands, tears threatening to push free at the first feel of his skin.

Pete doesn’t think. He just kisses him, because it’s the longest he’s gone without kissing him ever, and he needs that streak to end now. He strokes his thumb over the spot under Mikey’s ear that will unlock him when nothing else will, and Mikey sinks into it.

A strangled whimpering noise claws its way into the kiss and they break for air. Pete doesn’t let him go far, not now. Not ever fucking again, if he has any say. “Mikey, God, Mikey, love you,” Pete breathes, nuzzling against the side of his face.

Mikey leans into it for all of half a minute before he pushes Pete away, head shaking. Pete watches as he hugs himself, Mikey Self Defense 101, and swallows hard. “Take off your shirt.”

Okay, that’s weird, but seriously what the fuck ever. If it gets Mikey to untangle himself and come back, he’ll do anything. He shrugs out of his coat and yanks his shirt over his head and drops it to the floor.

Mikey’s eyes take him in, darting across his chest. Then Mikey pounces, practically crawling up him and his back hits the nearest wall with a thud. Pete isn’t really prepared for the impact, but fuck it. Mikey’s hands are in his hair and his mouth is kissing every piece of skin he can reach, so Pete just braces himself against the wall as best he can and tries to hold them both up.

But he’s not a kid anymore and his knees only have so much to give after years of soccer. And even if he were a champion weightlifter, Mikey’s mumbling something over and over that Pete can’t make out and he sounds fucking broken about it, and Pete needs to figure out what he’s saying.

They stand together, leaning against the wall. Mikey has his feet firmly on the floor and is bent forward, mouthing along Pete’s neck, his hands clinging to skin murmuring that over and over. “Mikey, hey, what?”

“I’m sorry,” Mikey chokes out. “I thought he was you and I- I didn’t know Pete. I didn’t know until after and I’m so fucking sorry.”

Pete strokes the back of Mikey’s neck and puts two and two together to discover he doesn’t give a flying fuck. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not. I just - I was trying to fix things and he was you. He was you but wrong, and I didn’t know. I love you. I wouldn’t have fucked up if I knew.” He sounds miserable and guilty. It isn’t really wasn’t the reunion Pete fantasized about, alone in that big house for months.

“You thought he was me.”

“Yeah. It’s not- I’m just so fucking sorry.”

“No, I mean, you thought he was me, so it’s okay. It’s not like you called up your high school ex and fucked her or something. It doesn’t matter, okay, so kiss me again, all right? I missed you so fucking much, Mikey, you don’t even know.”

And because Mikey is the best husband a person can ask for, he obliges Pete, kissing him and tugging him back off the wall. They manage to get all the way upstairs to their bedroom without tripping over the dogs before the rest of their clothes come off and Pete loses himself in fucking his Mikey in his bed. It’s fast and messy and desperate and Mikey fixates on the tattoo on his chest, tracing it with his fingers and scraping over it with his teeth.

Pete barely has the energy to get under covers afterwards, but he does anyway because he misses being in bed with Mikey. They curl around each other and Pete tries to remember if this was always this good or if it somehow got better while he was gone. He’s going to go with both.

Mikey’s head is on his shoulder and he keeps tracing the Ws on Pete’s chest over and over. Pete drifts until Mikey stops and lifts his head to look at the clock. “Fuck,” he sighs, dropping his head a little bit too hard back onto Pete’s shoulder. “It’s almost two.”

“I’ll go get him,” Pete says, sitting up. “Stay. Just stay here like this.”

“Yeah, no,” Mikey says. Pete knows that tone, and that’s the end of it.

The normalcy of going to the elementary school to get Bronx is almost surreal. Of course Mikey taking his hand and refusing to let go is less than standard. So is the way they keep looking at each other, like they’re afraid that if they don’t, the other will disappear.

Pete has to restrain himself from running out of the car when the bell rings and Bronx’s teacher appears with a line of kindergartners behind her like ducklings. He gets out like a sane human being and not a crazy ball of fail, and he’s rewarded when Bronx spots him. His son’s voice yelling, “Daddy!” is possibly the best thing Pete has ever heard.

He comes at Pete at a run, like Bronx is the one who’s been alone for two months. Pete catches him and picks him up, and Bronx fucking laughs. He laughs and his face is red from the cold under the knit hat he’s wearing, and Pete finally feels all the way home.

“Careful,” Mikey chuckles, coming up beside him. He leans over and reaches out a hand behind Bronx’s back just in case, his chest flush against Pete’s side.

“He can fly. Can’t you, baby boy?”

“Yep,” Bronx says, giggling against Pete’s cheek. “I’m Superman.”

Mikey smiles, big like usually only happens in flashes, but this time it lingers. “Dad’s only here for one night, so we should go home. That cool with you, Kal-El?”

Bronx nods, but Pete has to shift him in his arms so he can kiss Mikey, right there on the pick-up lane of Bronx’s school. He can’t help it. He’s home. It doesn’t even matter that he has to leave again tomorrow. He’s finally, finally home.

~*~*~

Pete throws himself into work now that he’s back, the more musically inclined side of it in particular, mostly so he won’t spend all his time badgering Allison. The other Pete left him all the paperwork from foster parenting classes completed and forms filled, so all that’s left is permission and that’s down to Allison’s legal Jedi powers.

She’s annoyed, but then she always is. Three weeks into what’s become his ritual of calling her right around dinner time to try and make her understand this time why it sucks that there’s all this delay, she cuts off his ramble about half way through and tells him she’ll call him back later with news. Later, in Allison, is usually less than one business day, and she calls back at ass o’clock in the morning. Which is somewhere between seven and eight am.

“Judge Mallory wasn’t happy to hear from me.”

Fuck. Shit. Damn. “He wasn’t?”

“No. He’s not fan of pushy celebrities with entitlement issues.” She pauses and Pete feels like his heart’s going to stop beating or explode or something. But then she sighs, loudly in his ears. “But he was also a product of the foster care system himself, so you lucked out.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, the correct answer is ‘Thank you Allison, you’re a goddess and I’ll be sending you a blank check for your birthday.’ “

“You are. I am.” He has to make his hand relax on the phone so he doesn’t break it or slip it out of his hand. “Allison, are you serious?”

“They’re releasing him to your custody Friday. Then it’s six months provisional period where you have to check in with a social worker, but then you can officially adopt. You can send me that check via courier.”

Things go quickly from there. He internet shops like a madman and calls Rihanna a half a dozen times in a near panic. He manages to get pretty much everything he can think of that Bronx could need and still isn’t ready for it when Friday afternoon rolls around.

Bronx stands with his Superman backpack over one shoulder and a tired, smaller version of the bear Pete remembers from that other life clutched in one hand, and looks up at him with wide eyes. He looks a little scared, a little happy and a lot unsure. “Does this make you my dad now?”

He’s glad he dragged Patrick and Rihanna with him, because that is a lot to deal with. He glances over his shoulder at them, just long enough to be reminded himself that he’s done a couple things right in his life before leveling his gaze with Bronx’s.

He’s nervous, too, that he’s making a mistake and that he can’t do this. But he also knows that he loves this kid like almost no one else can and definitely no one else is going to. “If you want me to be, then absolutely.”

“Yeah. I’ve never had one before,” Bronx says, nodding the whole time. “Do I get to go home finally?”

Pete can’t answer that. If he opens his mouth his voice is going to break like cheap plastic in front of Bronx and Lilly and his best friends. He nods instead and holds out his hand to Bronx.

Bronx holds out his bear, and Pete tucks it under his arm so that he can take Bronx’s hand. It’s like the first time he got on stage, in that, for the first time in a long time, Pete knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s doing what he meant to.

Of course it only takes three days for things to explode. They don’t even have time for Bronx to pick out what kind of wallpaper he wants on the walls of his bedroom (formerly the guestroom/office/storage for Pete’s DVDs) before the news breaks on TMZ. His hurt and outraged mother is the least of the problem.

“You say ‘no fucking comment’ and you walk the fuck on,” Shauna orders. “If you have to comment, you say you and your son are currently in a period of adjustment and that you don’t want to answer any questions. We’ll give it a week, and you can talk with Barbara. She likes you for some reason.”

And Pete goes with her edicts because Bronx is happy. And fuck it, Pete is happy. He’s crawling towards normal for the first time in his life, and he’s damned if he’s not going to make one for Bronx. Besides the people who matter - his real friends like Patrick and Rihanna and Gabe and Brendon and Joe and Andy and anyone who actually knows him- all understand, or at least try to.

Even with the Barbara Walters interview (and it’s mostly a positive response interview), the buzz doesn’t go away. He can barely move without cameras going off in his face. They make it about two months before he gets an email link to TMZ from his sister, which contains a picture of Bronx on the jungle gym at his school during recess.

The whole thing’s made Pete’s panic function a little less dramatic than it used to be. That’s how he manages to finish the meeting he’s in with that lyricist he met on Christmas Eve, Noelle. He gets all the way into the safety of his office in the Decaydance building with the door closed before he freaks out and punches his desk.

His immediate reaction is to run, and a text to Shauna confirms that getting the fuck out isn’t the worst idea. Stay with a friend you trust and lay low for awhile, is her suggestion. The problem, besides the issues involved in pulling a kid out of school (which is less of a shocking thing for a rock star parent to do than it should be), is that all of his best friends are just as famous as he is.

Calling Gerard isn’t a real thought. It’s more something he just does. Gerard seems a little confused but cheerful when he answers the number that Pete was really just hoping would work.

“Uh, hello?”

“Hey. It’s Pete. Wentz? How you doing man?”

“Oh. It’s good.” He can actually hear Gerard’s nervous smile over the line. “How’ve you been, Pete?”

“I’m mostly amazing, actually. But um, look, this is going to sound crazy, but I have kind of a huge favor to ask.”

Gerard makes a curious noise. Pete was kind of counting on his inability to walk away from crazy.

“Do you think my son and I could crash with you for a little while?

“What? Wait, what?”

“I know it’s a lot and I haven’t seen you in ages, but I couldn’t think of anyone else.” Well, that’s not true. Mikey was his first thought, but that’s so common he’s almost stopped counting it. “There are guys with cameras at his school and they’re pretty much stalking us. He’s five.”

There’s a long pause then Gerard sighs. “That’s fucked up.”

“It really is.”

“When are you gonna be here?”

“I don’t know. As soon as we can.”

“No bothering Mikey if you do this, though. I mean, I know you still, uh.” Gerard stalls out and Pete can’t blame him. The Mikey situation is an emotional limbo. Pete can’t fully embrace it or stop poking at it, and he can only image what it looks like from the other side.

“It’s not about that.” Pete sighs and rubs his aching hand. “I mean, fuck, it’s not ideal but I just don’t want Bronx to have to adjust to being part of a real family for the first time under a microscope.”

Gerard makes a wounded noise in the back of his throat. “God, yeah, no. Just let me know when you get here, okay? Give me your email address and I’ll send you directions from Newark.”

The fact that address is the same as the one in the glimpse makes Pete buzz, but he doesn’t let it bleed out too much. And if he weren’t sure this were the right thing to do, the fact that Patrick offers to look after Hemmy for him instead of trying to talk him out of it seals it.

It takes Pete less time than he was expecting to pack up his stuff and Bronx’s and hightail it to Jersey. Being able to charter a jet and a private car helps with that, too. Bronx is in heaven because he’s never been in a plane before, let alone one where the pilot actually lets him come see how he flies the plane.

Less surprising than how good he’s gotten at managing his own life and Bronx’s is the way he just hugs Gerard when he arrives on Gerard and Frank’s front doorstep. He picks up the conversation where it left off because, well, he never turned off the "trust Gerard implicitly” switch that got flipped in his brain during the glimpse. Gerard stares at him for a long moment, then just rolls with it.

He does not mention how much he missed this house and Gerard and Frank. He also somehow (mostly all the self-restraint he’s learned in the past few months) manages to not ask if Mikey lives nearby. In the house four doors down, maybe?

“You’re sure it’s okay for us to take over your guest rooms? I mean, I’m pretty sure I can find a hotel after tonight.”

“It’s a room with a door, Wentz,” Frank calls from whatever room he’s hanging out torturing his dogs in. “That’s more than enough to make do with.”

That’s a point none of them can argue with. Bronx is too busy exploring the crazy paintings Gerard’s done on the walls to care about much of anything. At least until he discovers Frank (whom Bronx is convinced is the actual tooth fairy) and the dogs, at which point Pete knows he’s lost him for a few hours.

Pete talks to Gerard for a long time about the whole Bronx situation while Frank keeps Bronx entertained with the dogs. He spills shit about faith and belief and fucking epiphanies that definitely didn’t make it into the Barbara Walters interview. Gerard doesn’t say much, just nods and makes little noises to encourage him to continue until Pete doesn’t have anything else to say.

“It’s like Anne of Green Gables, only with less Canada,” Gerard finally says. His complete seriousness makes Pete laugh and it’s like a pressure releases in his brain.

“Dude, really?”

Gerard ducks his head a little and sighs. “Screw you, it’s a great book. You should read it to him. Or I can. Whatever. You both can stay as long as you need.”

“I shouldn’t need to,” Pete mutters. Down the hall there’s a sharp bark and then the sound of Bronx’s laughter. Pete leans forward a little and has to remind himself that it’s okay, that he doesn’t have to run and check, just in case. “I should be able to take care of him.”

“Don’t judge yourself by anyone else’s standards, man. Trust me, that way lies madness. Besides, you seem like you’re taking amazing care of him to me. I mean,” Gerard waves a dismissive hand in his partner’s general direction. “Frank’s going to try and steal him, but that’s not an indicator.”

“I’m sure it’s a good thing if I remember Frank at all. We’ll be out of your hair by the weekend.”

“No, Pete, I’m serious. Stay, alright? It’s kind of weird, but it’s fine. Don’t move him again.”

Pete can’t argue with that. The last thing he wants to do is yank Bronx out of anywhere else. So he doesn’t fight it and works from his laptop and acts like he’s in witness protection when he goes out in public - cash only, sunglasses, hats, incog-fucking-nito.

Normal’s easier to find in the Iero-Way household that Pete was expecting. After about two weeks without getting spotted or having any real issues with Gerard or Frank, Pete starts to feel comfortable. They adjust to him and Bronx being there like they’re two new crew members on a tour. Pete actually manages to keep Bronx on a bed time and he’s going to be able finish out the school year for him with a tutor, which Bronx likes better than school because he doesn’t have to get up so early.

Pete actually feels at home when Bronx wakes him up on a warm Saturday morning with a DVD boxset of the Gummi Bears he found in Frank’s DVD collection behind something with a melted face on it. They spend most of the day watching it, and they’re lying side by side on their stomachs on Gerard’s living room floor watching it when the front door opens. Gerard and Frank are both upstairs. Pete’s body tightens until he hears the visitor’s voice. “Hey, Gee, you can’t keep hiding man. I haven’t seen you in forever and there’s this thing called the sun-“

Mikey stops dead in the living room doorway. He blinks a few times, and Pete is blindsided by how good he looks. He’s not wearing glasses and his hair is kind of slicked back and it works on him. It’s like a new advent of hot. It’s also not how he meant to tell Mikey he was in town.

The texts they’ve exchanged haven’t broached this. Pete’s tried dozens of times - to call, or email or something - and failed. He’s better at improvising, anyway.

“Hey, Mikey.” Pete takes a deep breath and gives him a smile. “You look good.”

“Pete. You’re in my brother’s house. You’re on the floor.”

“We’re watching Gummi Bears,” Bronx says, as if picking up on the thread of things Pete is currently doing. “You wanna watch with us?”

Mikey does a double take and visibly softens a little. He shakes his head. “Maybe later? But, uh, Pete? When you get to a stopping place you think you and I could talk maybe? In the kitchen? Since you’re here. In Gerard’s house. In your pajamas.”

“Yeah sure.” Mikey’s a living room fighter but the kitchen is the next best place. Pete has no idea why, but he waits until the episode finishes and Bronx is started on a new one before he joins him.

Pete has about half a second after the kitchen door closes behind him before Mikey’s off. “What are you doing here? Have you been here the whole time Gerard’s been all missing in action?”

He’s building up righteous anger, and Pete sighs. “I needed to get away.”

“Pete, this isn’t all right. The emails and texts were okay you know? It’s like… it’s one thing. But this is like stalking. You’ve got my family in on it now?”

“I’m not stalking anyone. The global media’ve got that shit handled stalking my kid. They staked out his school and the park, and we can’t even go fucking grocery shopping back in LA. Gerard’s letting us lay low here awhile,” Pete snaps. He’s not prepared for the ache in knowing that Mikey can look at Bronx and not have a siren of mineminemine go off in his head. Its absence is making him prickly.

“Fuck. Sorry.”

The wind goes out of Mikey’s sails and he visibly deflates. His arms go around himself and oh, God, Pete really missed him so fucking much. He’s been able to fill the holes with Bronx and putting his life in order, but now that Mikey’s in front of him the gaping empty space is sucking at him.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s really not. It’s just the last few months.” Mikey rakes a hand through his hair and Pete wonders if that’s a tick he picked up after he stopped wearing his glasses. “Can you blame me for thinking it?” he asks, really asks, waiting for an answer.

“No. This isn’t about you, Mikey, it’s about Bronx. But-“ Pete stops and licks his lips. “But the stuff that is about you? That hasn’t magically gone away. If you think that we could maybe go grab a cup of coffee or something while I’m here, that’d be fucking amazing because I’m still completely in love with you.”

“Sorry?”

“I don’t know. I just keep thinking - somewhere out there there’s this universe where I wasn’t stupid and I didn’t let you go after Warped. And I know that’s not this one, but I thought I should probably say or do something so that I can fix this one. Because, Mikey, I think that one might be better. I think I could be better. With you.”

Mikey’s face is impassive as the silence hangs thick and heavy between them. Pete meets his gaze until he just can’t make himself anymore. Then he shrugs and smiles at him, thin and strained but sincere.

“Honestly, though, I’m really good with just coffee and a conversation.”

There’s another long pause where Pete is fairly sure that he’s fucking shot himself in the foot, but Mikey is nodding. He nods and says, “I could do coffee,” and Pete has to fight to keep from punching the air.

“You free tomorrow?”

“I, uh, yeah. I am.”

Pete’s about to say something. It’s going to be something winning and charming and on the same path when Bronx’s voice cuts through the moment.

“Daddy! Daddy, Duke Igthorn’s trying to get in Gummi Glen!” He yells it with the same level of distress him might over an actual fire or a hurt puppy. Pete sighs and shrugs at Mikey.

“I’ve gotta get out there. You can watch with us if you want. Or, uh, Gerard and Frank are upstairs. I think Frank’s helping him with a new project or something.”

“No, it sounds cool. I wanna meet him. It’s Brooklyn right?”

“Bronx.” Pete pushes open the door so that Mikey won’t see him wince. “I think you’ll like him. He’s kind of amazing. Possibly the best kid ever.”

They join Bronx on the floor, Pete on his right and Mikey sitting cross-legged on his left looking slightly awkward. Bronx catches them up in a babble that takes almost as long as the remainder of the episode. But when he’s done, he realizes that Mikey is a new person. “Who’re you?”

“Bronx, come on. You’ve got better manners than that ,don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Bronx sighs, a little annoyed. “Nice to meet you. Who’re you?” It’s not actually better, but Bronx holds out his hand with it and Mikey chuckles. It’s sticky from the vegan candy Frank’s been sneaking him (which Pete totally doesn’t believe is actually sugar free if Bronx likes it that much), but Mikey shakes it anyway.

“I’m Mikey. I’m Gerard’s little brother.”

“You don’t look little.”

“Neither do you.”

Bronx tilts his head and Pete bites back a smile. “You like Superman?”

“Dude, Superman’s the best.”

Bronx then turns to Pete and nods. “Kay. Mikey can stay. But you have to be quiet we’re watching the Gummies.” He presses his finger to his lips to emphasize the point and Mikey chokes on a laugh.

Pete watches them both sit in the glow of the TV. There’s this feeling in his chest that makes it hard for him to do much of anything but look at them and be a little amazed. He’s pretty sure it’s hope.