Chapter Text
It’s almost like his body predicted it, because not thirty seconds later, Buck heard the tell-tale signs that Marina was about to wake up from another nightmare. Right now she’s crying softly, but Buck knows that in a few moments it’ll escalate.
This is her sixth night with him, and her sixth night with a nightmare.
“Shh, it’s okay,” he whispers softly as he pulls her into his arms. “I’m here, I’ve got you.”
Thankfully, he must have woken her before the dream got too bad, because she’s just whimpering quietly, leaning against him. Every night when she wakes up in a panic, she gets a tight grip on Buck’s shirt, almost as if she’s afraid he’s going to leave. He would never.
These nightmares are really starting to worry him. The first couple of nights he just assumed it was because she was in an unfamiliar place, but now he’s thinking there’s more to it. However, since he’s not all that educated in children’s sleep habits, he doesn’t really know. Or what to do about it.
“Another bad dream?” Buck asks, voice hardly above a whisper. She nods against his chest. “You wanna tell me what happens in your dreams?”
He’s been asking her that each night after the first, wanting to see if there’s something he can do to help stop them from happening. Each night she shakes her head no. This night is no different. Though, maybe she just wants to be held in the moment, not discuss it.
Every morning she seems just fine, like nothing happened at night, but each night the nightmares still come. When morning arrives, Buck decides that he’s going to look into what he can do to help.
Maybe some sort of child psychologist could help. It might also be good to help her with some of the other stuff she’s going through too, like losing her mom and moving in with him. Plus, Buck still hasn’t really gotten her to start talking much more than she did on the second day, and he just wants to make sure there’s nothing more to it than her needing time to adjust.
For now though, he’s just going to focus on holding her and reassuring her that she’s okay.
“Do you want me to tell you a story?” Buck asks, knowing that a story usually is a quick way to distract her enough to calm her down. She nods, so he tells her about the time Maddie and him found a lost dog and tried to convince their parents to let them keep it. They didn’t but Maddie ended up finding the owner, and they were able to reunite the dog with its family.
She seems to like hearing about his family, and Buck wonders if it just has something to do with how happy he is to tell her about them.
“You feeling better?” He asks, giving her forehead a soft kiss. She nods. “Want to go back to sleep now?” There’s a moment where she seems hesitant, so Buck adds, “I’ll be right. I’m not going anywhere.” That gets a nod from her, and Buck sees her slip her eyes shut.
—
This is the first morning where he actually managed to wake up before Marina. She’s quite the morning person. Buck envies her ability to be wide awake at such an early hour. He’s not even that bad at waking up, given that he has trained his body to be able to get into firefighter mode at all times of the day and night. However, he still feels a little drained a couple hours later any time he wakes earlier than he wanted to.
Figuring she must just need the extra sleep, Buck leaves her be, using this time to shower and get ready for the day. It’s refreshing being able to start the day with a shower, because with Marina he just has to find the time when she’s napping usually. He’s just afraid to leave her out of his sight for too long, but he knows she is safe in his bed when she’s sleeping.
By the time he gets out he sees Marina awake and playing with her shark.
“Good morning, sweetie,” he greets, walking over to sit next to her on the bed. She passes him her shark, and he uses it to pretend the shark is going to attack her, which ends in him tickling her until she’s in a fit of giggles.
As much as he wants to just play with her all day, he has a meeting with his lawyer today, so he has to get her fed and ready before they have to head out. With that in mind, he gets her out of bed, taking her to the bathroom to go pee and brush her teeth.
Then he brings her downstairs to start getting breakfast ready. He’s learned to wait to get her dressed until after she eats, because she’s an incredibly messy eater. If they had a pet dog, they’d probably hover around her seat for treats during mealtimes. And they’d be well fed that’s for sure.
Of course before Marina lets him start making her breakfast she’s staring at him, waiting for him to do their daily morning dance together. Not wanting to make her wait for more than a few seconds, Buck picks out a song, then presses play on the music.
Immediately, Marina starts swaying along with the sounds. Buck takes a second to just watch fondly, then when she looks up at him, he reaches out to grab her hand to make her spin. She’s giggling and babbling fake words to the song she clearly doesn’t know, but to Buck she’s his little superstar. He’d pay a million dollars to watch her perform if he had to, but instead he’s lucky enough to get this for free every morning.
When the song is over, Buck brings her to the living room area, and puts on a TV show for her to watch as he makes her some waffles. She’s still mumbling something that he thinks is supposed to match the tune of the song they were just listening to. Though pretty much as soon as the show caught her attention, she stopped to stare at it like she needed to take in absolutely everything going on in the show, no detail missed. Buck finds how into things she gets amusing.
Maybe she got that from him, because when he’s interested in something, he easily lets it take his entire attention.
It doesn’t take him long to get enough waffles made for the two of them, thankfully, because when he checks the time, he’s running a bit behind schedule. That is, if he wants to have time to give her a bath after she inevitably gets syrup all over herself again. Which he does.
Sitting Marina on her seat, Buck cuts up her waffle before adding some fruit and syrup. She digs in with her fork, and as predicted, she immediately gets syrup and raspberries on her shirt. He should probably buy her a bib for the days he makes messier foods.
Although, every food is sort of messy for Marina.
“Is it yummy?” Buck asks, and she nods happily, taking another bite with a mumbled mhm .
Buck finishes his food quickly, then cleans up his plate, the dishes, and utensils he used to make the waffles. Afterwards, he starts the bath so it’s ready right away for when Marina pushes her plate away to tell him she’s full.
Picking her up, he carries her to the bathroom.
“Sorry, but it has to be a quick bath today. We have to go somewhere,” Buck apologises.
Marina pouts at that but still agrees. “Otay.”
Though, when the time came for her to actually get out, she tried to convince him to let her stay anyways. Unfortunately, Buck really couldn’t. He needed to get her dressed and out the door within ten minutes in order to not be late for his meeting with the lawyer.
To speed up the process, he made sure to give her a shirt with a shark print on it so she wouldn’t protest. It helped. However, they still managed to leave late. Plus, LA’s never ending traffic that’s worse than usual today made them almost twenty minutes late for the meeting.
His lawyer was not happy about that. Nor was he happy that Buck brought Marina along with him.
“Sorry,” Buck apologises after hearing Mackey’s complaint about not being able to have a proper discussion with a kid in the room. “Just– Y’know, with the lawsuit, I don’t really have anyone to leave her with.”
“Then consider a babysitter,” Mackey suggests slightly rudely, and Buck isn’t so fond of the way he clearly couldn’t care less about Marina, or his situation in general. Not everyone has deep pockets to just pay their way through their problems.
Besides, Marina has been through a ton. He won’t consider leaving her with someone that’s a complete stranger to both of them if he can help it.
Still, he understands where Mackey is coming from in regards to not being able to get through this meeting very sufficiently. Marina is wandering around the room and constantly getting her fingerprints on the glass, along with pushing around one of the squeaky wheely chairs.
It’s distracting, and Buck can see Mackey getting increasingly annoyed. That, plus how he’s hesitant to talk about certain topics with her so close by, thinking she shouldn’t be hearing some of it.
After another vaguely answered question as Buck picks up Marina to stop her from biting into a pen she found on the ground, Mackey calls an end to the meeting.
“This isn’t working. How about we reschedule for tomorrow, and you make sure she’s dropped off somewhere beforehand,” he suggests, though Buck can tell it’s more of a demand. He can read between the lines. Do that, or I drop you as a client.
“Uh, yeah. That– I can…” Buck agrees. “Sorry, again.”
Then he picks Marina up, and Chase Mackey holds the door open for them before heading in a different direction than the two of them.
It’s as the two of them get onto the empty elevator that Buck sighs. “What am I supposed to do, huh?” He asks, though not expecting any sort of response. “I guess you might be meeting Aunt Maddie tomorrow.”
Marina perks up at that. She’s heard several stories about Maddie over the last few days, and Buck thinks she’s excited to meet her. However, that might have something to do with Buck saying that she’s probably going to be very spoiled by Maddie and get lots of things.
It’s true though, Maddie will for sure spoil her niece endlessly.
He’ll have to make sure she’s available to watch Marina, and that Chimney won’t be around, because he’s not quite ready for anyone at the 118 to find out about her right now. Not when Marina won’t get to be celebrated and loved by them like she deserves.
For now though… “How does ice cream sound?”
“I like ice c’eam!” Marina cheers.
So, that’s how the two of them find themselves sitting on a bench outside a small ice cream shop eating ice cream. Marina wanted bubble gum, which Buck can see is colouring her mouth blue. Thankfully her shirt is already blue, so he can hardly tell there’s a mess on it. Buck, on the other hand, went with classic chocolate.
By the time Marina’s cone is finished, she’s full of energy and running along the sidewalk as Buck watches her. He’s pretty sure that this means she will have too much energy to nap at her regular time. He just hopes that it doesn’t mean that she stays up too late tonight.
When Buck decides it’s time for them to go home, he picks her up so that he can put her in her car seat. Although he can feel the stickiness from ice cream, and he doesn’t want that in his jeep. So, he makes a detour to the bathroom to help clean her up the best he can. It’s not perfect, he can still feel the stickiness on her shirt, but he deems it good enough afterwards. That’s when he finally puts her in his vehicle.
Turns out, she was still right on track with her nap, despite her previous energy. Not even three minutes into the drive, Buck takes a quick glance at her, and sees her fast asleep in her seat.
Since she’s still sleeping when they arrive, Buck carefully gets her out of her car seat and holds her in his arms. Using his elbow, he shuts the door, and locks the jeep before carrying her up to their apartment.
She doesn’t wake up, but she does snuggle into him and grab ahold of his shirt with her fist, which made it more difficult to get her down without waking her. Thankfully, when he replaced his shirt with one of her stuffies, she took hold of that instead, and Buck was able to put her down for her nap without a problem.
Deciding to use this free time to be productive, Buck uses this time to figure out what he’s going to do with Marina tomorrow for his re-do appointment with his lawyer. The most ideal scenario would be to leave her with Maddie, so he’s hoping that she doesn’t have a shift during that time.
The first thing he does is check the schedule for the 118 A-shift. He might not have access to the website they use to provide the schedule right now, but he happens to know Eddie’s login information. That’s because one time Eddie couldn’t figure out his password, and Buck helped him come up with one he’d remember.
So, using that, he finds that they are on shift tomorrow, which is helpful because it means that he doesn’t need to worry about Chimney being with Maddie. Though he’s sure he could have found a work around if necessary in that scenario.
Now finding out if Maddie has a shift tomorrow without asking would be more difficult. However, he doesn’t want to ask, because she’d want to know why. And, yeah, he should probably give her a heads up, but he’d honestly rather just show up and say here’s my daughter, can you watch her for a few hours? Great! Then leave before she can ask any questions.
Is that a bad plan? Of course. Is that what he’s probably going to do? Yes.
Of course he knows that when he goes to pick Marina up, he’s going to have to face the line of interrogation that he knows will be coming. It’s just that delaying the conversation as much as possible sounds great to him. Maybe he can find a way to get out of it after too? Tell her that they have somewhere to be?
Yeah, that won’t work. Maddie would drag him into her house at that point and not let him leave until he gave her an explanation.
It’s not that he doesn’t want to tell Maddie, he does. It’s just that– Why did his daughter have to come into his life at the most complicated part? A time when he’s in some weird limbo where he’s sort of isolated with no job, not nearly enough money saved to raise a kid for more than a few weeks, and dealing with a lawsuit.
Maddie will love Marina, he knows she will. She’d support Buck too, but he doesn’t want her to think he doesn’t have it together enough to raise this child on his own. Because he swears he does. He’ll make it work.
And of course he’ll have help. He knows that from watching how the rest of the 118 provide for each other and their children. He’s looking forward to having that network for his daughter too. However, right now he doesn’t, and he doesn’t know how long it’ll be until he does. That of which is terrifying.
But, he’ll make it work. At least that’s what he keeps telling himself.
Then his phone rings. Checking the caller ID, he sees Maddie’s contact covering his screen. Funny how thinking about, or talking about someone can sometimes just summon them.
“Hey, Mads,” Buck greets into the call after answering.
“ Can you do me a huge favor? ” She asks, and Buck, of course, knows he’s going to agree to whatever she asks.
He tells her as much. “Anything. What is it?”
“I was in charge of bringing cupcakes in for one of my coworkers birthday today, and I totally forgot about it because we discussed it so long ago. So, could you maybe pop by the store and pick some up and bring them to dispatch for me?” She requests, and Buck thinks he can do one better.
“How quickly do you need them?”
“She doesn’t start for another couple hours, but I’d like them here before she starts,” Maddie tells him.
“Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Buck agrees, already pulling out some ingredients to make some homemade cupcakes instead, because homemade is far better than store bought. Plus, he loves any opportunity to improve his baking or cooking skills. Which is something that he never thought he’d care about until he joined the 118 and grew to love their family meals.
“Thanks so much, Buck!” Maddie appreciates. “You’re a lifesaver. I owe you one.”
Good, because he’s going to need to call in that favor tomorrow. Which reminds him…
“Honestly, not sure why, but I thought you were off today. Maybe I’m just misremembering what you told me the other day,” he says.
Maddie never actually said anything about her schedule to him, but he doesn’t think she’ll remember that detail. It’s not like either of them keep track of everything they say to one another. This is a good way to figure out if he needs a backup plan for tomorrow though.
It seems to work, because she just explains, “No. I’m off tomorrow, not today.”
Perfect. For once things are lining up for him.
“Right! Today is Wednesday, not Thursday. This whole not having a schedule thing is messing with my head,” he lies with a chuckle. “Anyways, gotta go so I can get you your cupcakes.”
He hangs up the call and immediately gets to work. He decides to do a double batch so that he can keep a few for him and Marina as well. Thankfully, he has enough cupcake trays to slide them all into the oven at the same time.
There was some extra batter once he was done pouring them all, but he didn’t want it to go to waste, so he just added a little extra to a few of the cupcakes. He’s regretting it now that he’s watching them bake, and he sees those ones overflowing, clearly making a mess in his oven.
That’s something he’s going to have to leave to clean for later.
For now, he’s busy making some simple icing recipe now that the cupcakes are out of the oven while he waits for them to cool off enough for the icing to not melt. Once that’s done, he goes upstairs to check up on Marina. When he sees that she’s still sleeping, he does the icing process before getting them all into a container.
There’s four that don’t fit with the rest, the ones that are a complete mess due to the extra batter incident, so he puts those on a plate for him and Marina to enjoy later. Then he makes his way upstairs to wake up his daughter, so that they can head towards dispatch to drop the cupcakes off.
“Hey, sleepy head,” Buck softly says as Marina blinks open her eyes and rubs them with the back of her hands. “I’ve got to go drop something off for my sister, then we can go get some lunch, okay?”
“Can we has chicken nuggies?” She asks, giving Buck a hopeful look.
Ruffling her already messy hair, Buck agrees. “‘Course, little one.” She giggles and tries patting down her hair. Buck then gets up and grabs a brush to properly fix it. Though, with her curls, it makes her hair look a little frizzy after he brushes it, so he puts it up in pigtails.
—
Not wanting Maddie to meet his daughter for the first time in the middle of her shift, and not wanting to leave Marina in his car, Buck decided to just leave the cupcakes with the security guard on the main level. He then shoots her a text to let her know before Marina and him make their way to a restaurant to get Marina her chicken nuggets.
Buck chose a cheap restaurant that lets kids under three eat for free to save him some money. Marina doesn’t know the difference though, so she’s happy as ever as they sit down at the table and starts doodling on the paper the hostess gave them along with some crayons.
He orders the children’s menu chicken fingers for Marina, and a chicken sandwich for himself with a side of fries. Marina wanted Chocolate milk too, which she downed almost immediately, and Buck is pretty sure that’s going to spoil her appetite for her actual meal.
“Are you okay with being left with your Auntie Maddie tomorrow?” Buck asks. “I promise she’ll take great care of you.”
With a nod, Marina says, “It’s otay.” Then she goes back to colouring. Buck isn’t quite sure what the image is supposed to be, but he’s already excited to hang it on his fridge.
When their food comes out, Buck learns that his assumption about Marina’s appetite being ruined by the chocolate milk was correct. She didn’t take more than three bites of her chicken tenders and eat a handful of fries before she was pushing her plate away.
“Are you full?” Buck questions in between mouthfuls of food. Marina nods, then once again goes back to working on her drawing. “I’ll get a box so you can have the leftovers for dinner, how does that sound?” Briefly, she looks up at him and smiles, which is enough to tell Buck she likes that idea.
Buck doesn’t bother rushing to eat his meal, because his daughter seems more than content to just sit there and scribble colours onto the paper she has. So, he takes his time eating, watching Marina with amusement.
At some point the waitress comes by, giving Marina a new sheet of paper. “I noticed we had quite the artist over here, and thought you’d maybe like some more paper,” the waitress says, earning a nod and smile from Marina.
After a few moments, Marina pauses and looks up at Buck. “Can I go potty?”
Buck nods, already moving to stand up. He gets her off of her chair, and guides her to the bathroom. When he arrives, he pauses for a second. Am I supposed to take her into the girls bathroom because she’s a girl? She is the one actually using the bathroom after all. Or do I take her into the men's bathroom because I am a man?
Suddenly, he’s come to understand the importance of family washrooms. Actually, why doesn’t this place have one? Buck thinks to himself. It is a family restaurant after all.
Marina looks up at him, confused, like she’s wondering why they stopped. Then he quickly makes a decision. If someone else was to come into the washroom, they’d probably be less weirded out by a two year old girl in the mens room, than a grown ass adult male in the women's room.
After helping her go to the bathroom, and thoroughly washing her hands, Buck brings them back to the table with a bunch of thoughts on his mind.
Honestly, Buck has always wanted kids, he knew he did. He wanted to be able to love a child in the way he never got to feel from his parents. He wanted to prove that it wasn’t a difficult thing to do.
Then the desire to have children morphed a little. It wasn’t just something to prove his parents wrong, but rather to have a little piece of him to watch grow up into someone he knew he’d be endlessly proud of. He wanted to see their every milestone, to take care of them when they are sick, and show up to their events, whether that be a sports game, dance recital, or marching band. He didn’t care what, he just wanted to experience it all.
And he isn’t sure why, but he has always imagined raising a little girl. So it’s funny how life is really turning out, like he just knew. However, he never imagined that he wouldn’t have that child’s mom in the picture.
The images he’d conjure up in his mind when he’d get lost in thought thinking about the future would always include him having a partner by his side. A mom to help their little girl with all the things about girls he just didn’t know.
It’s just that the bathroom incident made him realise for the first time that he’s really going to have to figure out how to raise a girl all alone. He’s going to need to learn how to do her hair, because so far all he has mastered is slightly lopsided pigtails. He’s going to have to teach her things that, quite frankly, he doesn’t even know that he doesn’t know.
He does have a sister, yeah. So you’d think he’d have some semblance of a clue about things. She’s older though, and she practically raised him. Which means Buck never really watched her try to learn how to be a girl, or what that meant, because she already knew everything. Or at least to Buck, that’s what it seemed like.
There’s another promise being made in his mind right now. He wants to never make his little girl feel like she’s missing out by not having a mom. He will be educated on whatever she might need to know, and he will never rush her into growing up like their parents did with Maddie, or dismiss her existence like they did with him.
“Sharky!” Marina cheers, pointing at her drawing.
Taking a glance at the masterpiece in front of his daughter, Buck can make out some semblance of a shark on her page. Kind of.
“Wow! That’s so good, Marina!” he praises proudly, and she seems to absolutely beam at that. “That’s going on the fridge for sure!”
And it did as soon as they made it back home.
—
There’s a nervous energy thrumming through Buck right now as he drives to Maddie’s place to drop his daughter off. He still hasn’t given his sister any sort of heads up, and at this current moment, he’s regretting that.
“Do you promise to be good for your auntie?” Buck asks, looking at Marina through the rearview mirror in his Jeep. Before he brings his eyes back to the road, he catches a nod from her.
“I p’omise,” Marina says, and Buck thinks he can hear excitement in her voice.
He’s really been trying to hype up her going to Maddie’s because he’s been worried that she’d be scared to be left with someone she doesn’t know again. It seems to be working though. He’s glad about that, especially because it’s the first time he’s leaving her since she came to live with him.
“Okay, good. If you need me, tell Maddie, and she can call me, okay?” Buck explains, and once again he sees a nod in the mirror.
When they arrive, Buck has to stop to take a deep breath before getting out of the car. Then once he has Marina standing beside him, and a bag of anything he thinks Maddie might need, he slowly makes the walk all the way to her door.
After another deep breath, Buck knocks, waiting with a rapidly beating heart.
Buck watches Maddie’s expression shift from curiosity, probably wondering who was at the door, to a smile when she sees Buck. Then it morphs again when she sees Marina into clear confusion.
“I’m cashing in that favor you owe me,” Buck says with a nervous chuckle. “Can you watch her for a couple hours?”
“Buck–”
“ Please ,” he pleads. “I’ve really got to go. I can explain later, I just–” He looks at the time, seeing that, yup, he is in fact running late again. His lawyer is truly going to hate him. “Here’s a bag of her stuff.” He passes Maddie the bag in his hands.
“Okay,” Maddie agrees, voice making her confusion more noticeable, and she’s got a look on her face that tells Buck she wants to ask a million questions.
“Thank you, so much,” Buck appreciates. “Okay, so she will only watch something if it has some sort of aquatic creature in it,” he informs. “And she hates cucumbers, so if you make anything don’t put any. If–”
Maddie cuts him off. “Hey, Buck, stop stressing. I know how to take care of a toddler for a couple hours, she’ll be fine.” Buck looks at her with hesitance, not because he doesn’t trust her, but because he’s realising that he’s more stressed about being separated from her than he is worried about his daughter being with Maddie. “You’ll be fine too.” Because of course Maddie could read him. “Just go.”
“Thanks again,” Buck says, then crouches down next to Marina. “I love you, Marina. I’ll see you in a bit okay.” He then leaves a kiss on her forehead before standing up. Maddie gives him a smile and gestures for him to go after he checks the time with a grimace. “Call me if–”
“Buck, we’re fine. Go,” Maddie scolds. Buck nods, and finally turns around after waving goodbye to his daughter.
He practically runs to his car to make up for him running behind. It doesn’t make much difference in the grand scheme of things though, considering he immediately gets stuck in traffic. He has half a mind to just cancel and go back to his daughter.
Then he remembers what he’s doing this for, and he pushes through. He needs this job to provide for her. He needs this job to show her that her dad does something he’s proud of, and loves. He needs this job so his daughter and him can have their 118 family.
When he finally walks into the office he’s meeting his lawyer in, the first words out of his mouth are, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Mackey brushes off, though there’s a clear annoyed expression on his face. “Let’s get started then, shall we?” He gestures towards a chair for Buck to sit in.
As Buck takes a seat, he asks, “So, I’m assuming you, uh, want to go over what we tried to discuss yesterday?”
“Yes. Like I said, I’ve been looking into your coworkers and boss, and trying to see if there’s any discrepancies in regards to how he treats you versus them,” Mackey explains.
“And did you find anything?”
“I believe so, but I want to hear your perspective on each of these instances,” Mackey says. Then he proceeds to mention a few examples of when other members of the 118 were allowed back to work shortly after, such as Chimney after the rebar incident.
As the conversation continues, Buck proceeds to answer each of his lawyers' questions about each situation, and provides his own context. When Mackey explains that this is all very helpful and will aid in helping Buck win this lawsuit, Buck decides to provide some more scenarios himself.
All in all, Buck thinks this meeting was very successful. His lawyer seems very confident that they’ve got a good case, and a high chance of winning this thing. So, when Buck walks out, he’s feeling confident and actually pretty great.
Soon enough he can get back to his family.