Wings of Fire: Natasha Trace

.1.

"Dad?"

"Yes sweetheart?"

"What did you fuck up?"

Both Mav and Ice's heads shot up at their daughter's sudden question. Not only was this not appropriate dinner-table talk (at least in Ice's mind) but it was certainly not appropriate talk for their seven-year-old daughter.

"Pardon me?" Mav finally managed. Ice was shocked speechless.

"I heard you and Dad talking in his office and you said 'I didn't fuck up!' and Dad said 'Yes you did!'" She finished off with a shrug, as if that did it, that was enough.

"I didn't fuck up," Mav persisted, earing a scowl from Ice, about the fact that yes, he in fact really had fucked up and quite badly, to say the least, and the fact that he was teaching their daughter more bad language. Now Mav had started to chuckle.

"Pete, it's not funny," Ice insisted.

"Aw, come on, Ice, it's kinda funny..."

"What's funny?" asked Nikki.

"Nothing, Honey." Pete flashed a grin. Ice was still unimpressed.

Five years later, the dinner dishes were being cleared when the phone rang. Nikki was closest so she answered. "Hello? Oh, hi Admiral - yeah my dad's-"

Mav started waving his arms and shaking his head before diving behind the couch. Nikki snorted with laughter into the phone. "No, he's not home right now, sorry-"

Rolling his eyes at their whole charade, Ice took the phone. "Evening Admiral, sorry about that. You're looking for Pete? Can I help?" He listened for a moment before heaving a sigh. "Is that so?"

Nikki joined her father where he was still crouched behind the couch while Ice finished up the call. After hanging up, he heaved a heavy sigh and crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head at his husband. "Pete, you're such a child."

"Am not!"

"You don't own up to your actions! You're reckless, you don't think, and, to be perfectly frank, you're a real pain in the ass."

Mav flashed a grin. "But you still love me."

"Yes. Even though I'm either going to spend my entire career getting your ass out of whatever situation you've managed to get yourself into, or lose my career entirely!"

"Aw Babe, they'll never give up their best pilot."

The most difficult conversation came when she was seventeen, before her last year of high school.

"Dad? Dad?"

"Yes, Sweetheart?"

She took a deep breath. "I don't want to be in the navy. I don't want to be a pilot, I don't want to be a RIO - I don't really want to do anything like that... It's just not me..."

There was a beat of silence as her fathers exchanged a glance before looking back at her. "Okay."

"Okay?" she repeated. "That's it?"

"Yeah, that saves us a lot of stress and worry. I already have enough of that." Ice nodded to Mav. "Were you worried we'd be upset?"

"A little..."

"Well we're not."

Now she was smiling. "Penny says I can waitress at the bar once I'm old enough, and she said I could be a dishwasher till then. And I'm thinking of applying at the sailing club too."

"Sounds like you've got a plan," Ice smiled. "And that's what makes us happy."

"And don't worry," joked Mav. "You'll still make us proud."

"Pete!"

"It was a joke, Ice!"

In her early twenties, the worst happened: her father was diagnosed with throat cancer.

They sat together in the doctor's office, Ice in the middle, holding Mav's hand on one side and Nikki's in the other, listening to the information the doctor was providing of how to proceed forward.

They returned home all in a daze, no one saying too much, which, especially for Mav and Nikki, that said a lot. Ice went to lie down, needed some time to himself, understandably. They got him settled before Mav said he was heading to the hangar. 

After checking on Ice, Nikki followed her other dad to the hangar where he kept his planes and had his workspace. Upon arriving this time she didn't hear the usual sound of tools clinking against the plane - this time she heard soft sobbing.

Coming around the corner she found him.  Her dad sat at his workbench, head in his hands, crying softly. Her heart broke. 

He seemed to sense her presence, know exactly who it was there with him.  "He deserves so much better."

She nodded.  "We'll get through this. The doctor says at this stage there's still treatments. We'll get through this, Dad."

"I don't know how."

She put her arms around him.  "As we always do: together. Team Kazansky-Mitchell. Now come on, Dad needs us, and we need him."

(Well, I didn't mean to end on such a sad note... :(

I'm a huge IceMav shipper so I'm glad I could incorporate that here! They love each other so much, my heart!

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!)