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The Iceman was much more than a nickname, it was almost a title. Cold as ice; it was how most people described him as a person beyond just his flying ability. Cold, calm, collected. Rarely shaken and never showed it.
Tom was, however, terrified beyond all belief when his sweet Bradley began to sob.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” He said, kneeling down to the little boy in his jammies, tucked into his race-car bed. Try as he did, Pete hadn’t found a plane bed in any catalog, so instead a red racing car was purchased to put in the room.
“U-Uncle Ice,” the boy sobbed, furiously wiping at his eyes. “I has to tell you something, but you might be m-mad at me.”
His little hiccups stabbed right through Tom’s heart and he scooped the boy into a tight hug.
“Hey,” he reassured him. “You never have to worry about that, Bradley. You can tell me anything.”
It took a few moments for Bradley to calm himself down to finally speak.
“I saw Uncle Mav today,” he cried. “Doing something bad.”
Tom’s heart clenched. Had Mav picked up smoking again? Or maybe rode his bike without the helmet he always swore to wear. Either were things that Bradley knew were dangerous.
“What was he doing, Bradley?”
He thought the kid was being very brave, all things considered. Most kids wouldn’t tattle on their favorite person, but his baby Goose was a good kid. Carol had done a sweet job with him.
More tears welled up in his eyes and he hugged his stuffed frog close.
“I saw’ed him kissing Santa Claus.”
Tom came up short.
“What baby?”
The sobs came back at full force.
“He was!” he sobbed, near hysterical. “I ran to the bathroom to go and I looked down the stairs to says goodnight and he was k-kissing Santa! By the tree!”
“Bradley,” He began, trying not to cry himself. Except, his was out of laughter.
“I didn’ wanna tell but he shouldn’t be kissing Santa!”
Ice was going to lose it, but at least his kid was loyal.
How was going to go about this? On one hand, he could explain that Pete hadn’t been kissing another man (an old one at that) but that would mean explaining that Santa wasn’t entirely real. Ice didn’t think Bradley could take more heartbreak at the moment and wasn’t keen on finding out. Or, he would have to look his kid in the eye and lie about an affair that involved, you guessed it, himself.
Oh God. Parenting books hadn’t prepared him for this.
“No, he shouldn’t be kissing Santa Claus,” Tom sighed, miserably failing at keeping a straight face. “I’ll go talk to him, baby, don’t worry.”
Bradley threw himself at him, throwing his arms around Tom’s neck.
“You not mad?”
“I could never be mad at you, Baby Goose.”
Ten minutes, he was in his bedroom, laughing hysterically as Pete smacked his chest.
“This isn’t funny, Tom!” His boyfriend hissed, looking ridiculous in his matching pajamas with their kid. “Bradley thinks I’m cheating on you!”
Objectively, it was a bad look, one that could place a rift in Pete and Bradley’s relationship.
But Tom couldn’t stop laughing.
“I know!” He wheezed. “But come on, love, you have to admit--”
He doubled over before he could even finish his sentence.
“You asshole,” Pete glowered, flopping down on their bed. “God, what are we going to do. We can’t tell him it was you in that Santa suit; he’ll be crushed.”
Tom calmed enough to be able to nod.
“We can’t just let him believe I would cheat on you,” Pete sighed, and the mood turned somber. “I… I don’t want him to think I’m capable of doing that to you.”
Laying down next to him, Tom clasped at his hand.
“I don’t want that either baby,” he said, pressing a kiss to the tip of his nose. “I think I have a solution, though. It may not be the most ethical but… it might work.”
What else could those two idiots have done other than gaslight their child to hell and back into believing it had been all a bad dream the next morning, brought on by ice cream too close to bedtime.
“You motherfuckers!” Bradley yelled some two decades later, almost dropping his mug of hot cocoa as he looked at his dads. Tom was in a Santa Suit to surprise his grandchildren via the Dagger squadron, and now that they had all been ushered off to bed, kissing his husband next to their Christmas tree seemed a perfectly acceptable way to end the night.
To everyone except Bradley.
“You did kiss Santa all those years ago, didn’t you?!”
It was an odd reenactment of history, with Tom doubling over in laughter and Pete smacking him upside the head.
“Tom, shut up, ” Pete hissed, turning back to Bradley with a sheepish grin. “Kid, what else were we supposed to tell you? That your Uncle Ice was actually Santa? You were seven. ”
“You told me it was a nightmare!” Bradley sputtered, looking genuinely upset at being lied to as a child. “You basically scared me away from ice cream for the rest of my childhood!”
Tom’s ribs ached, he was laughing so hard.
“Rooster, there was no way I made a convincing Santa,” he smiled. “I couldn’t have been thirty!”
“I was a kid ,” he rebuked, and God he had the same look of betrayal in his eyes as he had twenty some years ago. “How was I supposed to know? Better yet, what else did you two lie to me about?”
“Oh, boy,” Tom said, wiping a tear from his eyes. “What didn’t we lie about? It was the eighties! Lying to your kid was all the rage.”
Bradley didn’t look pleased. “Did Mr. Bunny really get adopted by Mrs. Lynn next door?”
Tom coughed. “Pete accidentally let him loose in the yard and lost him.”
“Dad!” Bradley yelled, and Pete whirled to look at him so quickly his reindeer antlers flew off his head.
“ Your Pop,” Pete seethed, pointing an accusatory finger. “Threw away your lucky jersey!”
Bradley actually gasped.
“Okay,” Tom defended, placing his hands up. “You didn’t know the concept of deodorant and there were only so many practices we could take.”
“I need a drink,” Bradley announced, turning to march into the kitchen. Looking over his shoulder, he pointedly yelled, “This isn’t how I’m raising my kids!”
In the end, Tom got in one more good laugh when the phone rang on Christmas Eve some years later.
“We fucked up,” Bradley groaned on the other line. “Clara saw Jake kissing Santa Claus.”