Chapter Text
Cyrus stood on a chair at the counter, wearing an apron, whisking together ingredients in a bowl. Mick placed a measuring cup onto the counter filled with chocolate chips.
“You can add that in too whenever you’re ready, boss.”
Cyrus took the measuring cup and dumped the contents into the bowl before continuing whisking.
“Can we make dinner next time?” Cyrus asked.
Mick grunted. “Focus on this time, munch.”
“I am,” Cyrus said, “but I want to make dinner next time.”
“We’ll see,” Mick said, and Cyrus grinned.
They heard the door open then, quickly followed by a loud, “Honey, I’m home!”
“Auntie Lisa!” Cyrus said. Lucas and Leah came running into the house, both of them scrambling to get up the stairs.
“What, you just gonna ignore your favorite uncle?” Mick shouted after them.
“Hi Uncle Mick!” they both yelled, neither of them stopping as they raced upstairs.
“We’re making cookies!” Cyrus said as Lisa walked into the kitchen.
“What kind of cookies?” Lisa asked, smiling as Cyrus pointed to the picture on the page they had printed out from online.
“Double chocolate chip!”
“That sounds excellent, Cy,” Lisa said, “I hope you’re making enough.”
“Double batch,” Mick said, dropping a couple of metal cookie sheets onto the counter where they were working. “It says that once it’s dough, you can –”
“I can read it!” Cyrus said, snatching the paper up from Mick in a second. “Once it’s dow-g-h –”
“Dough,” Mick supplied.
“Dough,” Cyrus said, “shape in-to two-inch balls and pla-place them-on ungree-ace-ed, ungree-ace, ungrace-ed – ungrace – ungreased – ungreased cookie sheet!”
“Very good,” Lisa said, smiling as Cyrus grinned.
“But we’re greasing it anyway,” Mick said, pulling out a bottle before spraying the cookie sheets.
“But it says not to!” Cyrus said.
“It’s better this way,” Mick said, “makes them not stick.”
Cyrus’s brow furrowed. “Oh.”
“Start placing ‘em,” Mick said, nodding at the bowl of cookie dough.
So Cyrus used a spoon to scoop out globs of dough before carefully rolling each one into a ball and placing them onto the cookie sheet, carefully apart.
“You know, they’re going to melt down once we get ‘em in the oven,” Mick said, watching as Cyrus rolled another glob into a small round ball.
“I know,” Cyrus said.
“You could just stick ‘em on there,” Mick said. “They don’t have t’be perfect.”
“I want to do it,” Cyrus said, and he kept rolling them into identical small balls.
Mick just sighed.
“Can I lick the spoon?” Wentworth yelled from the living room.
“No!” Cyrus yelled back.
“Please, Uncle Mick,” Wentworth said.
“Is your math done?” Mick asked.
“Well, no, but I’m doing it!” Wentworth said.
“It’s my spoon,” Cyrus said, “I’m making it so I get to lick it.”
“It’s not your spoon, dummie,” Wentworth said, “you don’t own the spoons.”
“Wentworth called me a name,” Cyrus said, pointing as he looked at Mick.
“I don’t want to hear anything else from you until that math is finished,” Mick growled. “And you just focus on the cookies, munch. We’re gonna be here all night at this rate.”
“But math is boring!” Wentworth groaned.
“Math is math,” Mick supplied. “Finish your homework and then we can go outside.”
“But you promised to help me with the cookies!” Cyrus said, his eyes going wide. “you have to finish it with me!”
“I’m gonna, boss, calm down,” Mick said, ruffling Cyrus’s hair for a second. “Finish up with that cookie dough so we can get it in the oven.”
“Did you pre-heat it?” Cyrus asked.
“Yep,” Mick said, “it’s all set an waitin’ for you, munch.”
“Did you bring the stuff?” Wentworth asked, his voice dropping into a conspiracy-like whisper-yell so as to still be heard across the room into the kitchen.
Mick gave him a look. “Is that math done?”
“No –”
“I thought I said I didn’t want to hear anything else from you until that math was done,” Mick said.
“But I just want to know –”
“Math,” Mick said.
Wentworth let out a dramatic sigh.
“You didn’t bring more fireworks, did you?” Lisa said, an unimpressed look on her face.
“No,” Mick said. He turned away from her, towards the stove. “Might ‘ave got some sparklers though,” he muttered.
Lisa sighed and Cyrus perked up. “Spark’ers?”
“Finish the dough,” Mick said. “God, you’re worse than I was – all of you, can’t focus for three seconds.”
Cyrus went back to scooping dough for the cookies. He looked up again a few minutes later.
“When’s Da gonna be home?” Cyrus asked.
“Late tonight, after you go to bed,” Lisa said.
Cyrus frowned. “But it’s Tuesday,” he said, his voice whining, taking on a despairing note.
“What’s on Tuesday?” Lisa asked.
“Bedtime story,” Cyrus said, “he promised.”
“I’m sure he’ll make up for it tomorrow night, munch,” Mick said.
“B-but he promised to-tonight,” Cyrus said. His voice started to stutter like it did when he was angry or upset.
“Tell you what, Cy, I’ll read you a story tonight,” Lisa said, “and Da will make up for it tomorrow night – two bedtime stories that way!”
“I want Da,” Cyrus said, “Can I stay up until he gets home?”
“He’s not getting home until very late,” Lisa said, “you can’t stay up tonight, you have school tomorrow.”
“But he promised,” Cyrus said.
“Something unexpected came up,” Lisa said. “I’ll read you one tonight, Cy.”
“Will you do the voices?” Cyrus asked.
Lisa sighed. “Yes, Cy, I’ll do the voices.”
Cyrus still frowned. “Fine,” he said. “What about Dad? Daddy’s coming home tonight, right?”
“No, sorry, Cy – Dad’s still stuck at Star, helping Uncle Cisco and Aunt Caitlin.”
Cyrus’s frown came right back, pout in place full force, “But Daddy wasn’t home yesterday either.”
“Dad’s helping get the bad guys right now,” Mick put in.
“But I want to see Daddy,” Cy said.
“He wants to see you too,” Lisa said, “but Uncle Cisco and Aunt Caitlin need his help right now.”
“Can you call him?” Cyrus asked.
Lisa hesitated. “He’s busy right now,” she said, “I’ll see if maybe he can talk later.”
“OK,” Cyrus said, leaving it alone for now. Lisa and Mick exchanged a glance.
He finished scooping out the dough (finally) and Mick put the cookie sheets in the oven.
They beeped about ten minutes later, and Mick took the cookie sheets out again and helped Cyrus use a spatula to put them out on paper towels on the counter. Within two minutes of the cookies coming out of the oven Mick turned around to find that there were suddenly five children in the kitchen instead of one.
“They’re for after dinner,” Cyrus said, glaring at his siblings.
“Can we have just one,” Leah said, “Uncle Mick, please.”
Mick shrugged. “They’re not my cookies,” he said. He looked at Cyrus.
Cyrus’s eyes went wide, and then he narrowed his eyes. “One,” he said, finally.
Four hands shot out and when Lucas tried to take another Cyrus smacked his arm. “One,” he said.
“But I’m a speedster,” Lucas said, “come on, Cyrus, pleeeaasee?”
“No,” Cyrus said, moving to block him from taking another.
“You heard the chef,” Mick said, when Lucas looked to him.
Lucas sighed and grumbled and walked off again.
“I finished the math,” Wentworth yelled about ten minutes later. He was practically jumping up and down.
“Alright, you wanna go outside?”
Wentworth nodded and ran out. Mick followed behind him, and Cyrus ran outside too. Mick spent the next hour throwing a football and kicking around a soccer ball with Wentworth. Cyrus joined in at first, then got distracted by a toad he found, which he then named Todd, dug a house for in the sandbox, and tried to feed ants to.
Wentworth had endless energy, and Len and Barry spent a lot of time trying to find ways for him to burn it off. He had trouble concentrating, and wouldn’t sleep at night if he wasn’t active enough during the day. They suspected he had ADHD, but never got him diagnosed. Caitlin said medication would most likely work with him, since he wasn’t a speedster (although there was traces of the speed force in his system), but they didn’t want to do that with him, at least not yet. So far they were managing by helping him with his homework and making sure he had plenty of opportunities to be active.
So Mick kicked around a soccer ball, and threw around a football, before later Wentworth dragged him over to the front yard to show him the bike ramp they got, and how he could do a jump off it. The pizza arrived while they were outside. Lisa must have ordered it, and that’s when they went inside.
Mick paid for it with the money Len had left out for them, and set it out on the table while Cyrus grabbed plates. When he walked in he found Lisa sitting with Lucas and Leah, showing them videos of figure skaters.
“That looks cool,” Leah said.
“You know, you could do that someday,” Lisa said.
Mick rolled his eyes. It was a lost cause.
“Mmm,” Leah said, “that’s OK.”
“Wouldn’t you like to be able to do spins like that, though,” Lisa said, “and jumps? It’s so much fun, Leah, you’d love it.”
“I like hockey better,” she said.
Lisa sighed, and turned to Lucas. “What about you, Luke?”
Lucas made a face at her. “Figure skating’s for girls,” he said.
“No it’s not,” Lisa said, “not just for girls. There are plenty of boys who do figure skating too. See – I just showed you one with a boy.”
Lucas did not look convinced. “I don’t want to figure skate,” he said.
“Look at the pretty dresses they get to wear, though, Leah,” Lisa said, “you could wear that.”
“I can wear pretty dresses anyway,” Leah said, and then she grinned. “Maybe I’ll wear a dress when I play hockey.”
“You can’t wear dresses to play hockey,” Lucas said, “you have to have a helmet and all the pads an’ stuff.”
“I’ll have Uncle Cisco make me a hockey dress,” Leah said, still grinning.
Lisa sighed.
When the kids scrambled up to get pizza Mick walked back over to Lisa. “Leah will be a figure skater when I get Lucas to be a quarterback,” he said.
Lisa shot a glare at him. “At least you have Wen,” she said, “I don’t know how Lenny managed to get them all obsessed with hockey, but none of them will even try figure skating.”
Mick shrugged. Lisa had been trying to get Leah to try figure skating since she had first gone on the ice, and after that garnered no success she had moved on to pretty much all of them. So far no luck. Mick had at least managed to get Wentworth interested in football, even if he mostly just ran around in circles when Mick threw it to him. For some reason they all loved soccer, which Mick still hadn’t really figured out. Sure, Barry was mildly interested in the sport, but Len didn’t care about it. Michael only played baseball now, but he still liked to watch soccer, and the rest of them played it.
They sat down around the table while they ate. Cyrus was upset because he had to let Todd go (Lisa wouldn’t let him bring the toad inside) but he got over it quickly.
Mick watched as the kids clambered over each other to get to the pizza, and dropped his voice.
“You talk to Len?”
Lisa grimaced, and Mick cringed in response. That couldn’t mean anything good.
“He’s off the ventilator,” Lisa said, “x-rays came back good, so they at least won’t have to re-break any of the bones.”
“What about the leg?”
“It needs surgery,” she said, “when I talked to Len they hadn’t decided if they were going to do it right away or wait yet.”
Mick grimaced then too. That wasn’t going to be fun, not for anybody involved.
They watched a movie when everyone was done eating, and Mick lit up the sparklers outside, one for each of them. Wentworth nearly set his sister’s hair on fire, but by the time they burned out it was time for Cyrus and Wentworth to go to bed. Lisa read Cyrus a bedtime story, and when he was ready to go to bed, already in pajamas, teeth brushed, under the covers, he insisted on having her call Len.
“Hello?”
Lisa sighed. Her brother already sounded exhausted. “Hey, Len. I’ve got a little chef here who wants to say good night.”
Cyrus reached out for the phone, clenching his hands for it, face lit up. Lisa handed it over.
“Hi, Da,” Cyrus said. Lisa listened to him chatter about baking cookies and how he had promised to read a bed time story and he missed him and when was he going to be home because he loved him and he wanted him to tuck him into bed, and couldn’t he stay up until he got home, please?
And then Wentworth was coming into the room, Mick behind him, having just finished brushing his teeth, and then he was on Cyrus’s bed, asking for the phone too. He spoke for a little longer, and then said goodnight, and Lisa and Mick left the room, flicking the light switch off. Lucas and Leah went to bed an hour later, and Michael a half hour after that. Mick went home after that, and Lisa slept in the master bedroom.