75 Godiva Street, Sunday afternoon

[vdistinctive]

If Eliot had had any doubts about who Riley's father was -- and honestly, it made enough sense that he was planning to call Tara later and make sure that she wasn't keeping a daughter a secret from him, so he hadn't -- the fact that she'd stolen his guitar and was now parked in the living room playing it would have gotten rid of them. Especially when he noticed that despite its upbeat tempo, the song was pretty damn depressing.

"Not bad," he said when she'd finished. "You know you get that from me."

"Really." Riley smirked up at him. "I didn't realize guitar playing was a heritable trait."

[ooc: open to whoever!]

Comments

[my2dads.livejournal.com]

"That's what I was thinking," Ada said, nodding. "Like, the fun of doing it with Aunt Parker, versus showing her I could do it on my own, like for Auntie-Ada Day."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"What's Auntie-Ada Day?" Wait. "Ohhh. Like, you and me day, just us?"

It occurred to Parker, as her brain was processing the other stuff about her mom, and Emmy, that she was Ada's not-a-mom and she turned out okay. That she was here, talking to Parker, and trying to help.

Squishy feelings. Damnit.

[my2dads.livejournal.com]

"Yup!" Ada said brightly. "Calling it Not-Mother's Day got weird, so we decided Auntie-Ada day was more fun. And you don't have to share it, unlike Dad and Pops on Father's Day."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Parker scooted a little closer to Ada, without dislodging the dog, and said, "Do we have it every year? At the same time? What do we do?" She considered. "We eat chocolate and hang out on riggings, right?"

Did Emmy's mom hang out with her own mother? Emmy seemed pretty happy with her version of Parker, and she couldn't ... hate someone, who had taught her baby dragon cool songs.

[my2dads.livejournal.com]

"Every year, in the summer so I don't have to go to school," Ada confirmed. "And you're absolutely not allowed to take jobs around then, unless there's another dirty bomb or something. And sometimes we hang out on riggings and sometimes we go to museums and pick apart their security and one time we went to Manila and have a scavenger hunt where we stole stuff--though you made us put it all back when we were done." Ada pouted for a moment; some of the stuff they'd stolen had been really pretty. But then she perked up, because the rest of the story was really cool. "See, it was even harder by then, because most of the thefts had been discovered, so we had to be all sneaky and subtle about putting it back!"

And then they'd eaten on an open terrace nearby one of the museums they'd hit up and enjoyed the chaos.

"It was an Auntie-Ada day when you first brought me to one of your secret- secret warehouses. Not just as a safety drill or to have me play lasers, but just to show me. Dad and Pops still don't know about it."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

And there was a real smile, and a shoulder-bump from Parker against Ada's side, light so as not to knock her over.

"I have good ideas. I let you pick sometimes though, right?" She contemplated that and said, a little softer, "I'm a good auntie, aren't I?"

She blinked her eyes hard. Dust. You saw nothing. "I mean if I was terrible, you wouldn't be so awesome." Patently true. So yeah.

[my2dads.livejournal.com]

"You're the best," Ada said, utterly sincere. "And...in the future...you're not afraid to be a mom when you have to be. It's not your favorite thing, but there have been times when I needed a mom, not an aunt. And you were there to be exactly what I needed."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Parker closed her eyes, and just breathed. So, that meant... Okay.

She opened her eyes. "You get your smarts from both your dads. Like, your talking smarts and your feeling smarts." It sure wasn't from Parker, or being around Parker. "Thank you," she said sincerely. She smiled again, and said, "We should have that tomorrow, for at least part of the day. Just you and me. Get Spike to babysit, Emmy already thinks he's made out of math."

[my2dads.livejournal.com]

"Emmy's already gotten me trying to dredge up new French vocabulary I haven't thought about since taking it in school!" Ada said. "And that'll give Riley some time to spend with the dads."

Since she was just going to have to get used to them as a package deal anyway.And Ada thought Riley could do with some of Pops' patented Care Bearing.

"We could maybe get ice cream then jump off of something really high?"

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. That sounds like a plan." Joey had gotten to do that last time, because she'd been older. Now Ada was, so that was completely fair. An auntie-Ada thing to do.

Steadier now, Parker considered what Emmy had told her again, with a little more emotional distance. And realized she was pretty sure of the answer to the question she was going to ask Ada; but she just wanted to hear it said out loud.

"Ada, you... haven't ever had a Grandma Sylvia, have you?"

[my2dads.livejournal.com]

Ada shook her head. "Just a Nana," she said. "Who loved me enough for three grandmas."

Hopefully Parker wouldn't notice that past tense?

"Everything Emmy said about her life is really weird," Ada said. "And maybe it's selfish, but I wouldn't trade hers for mine ever." She bumped Parker back and smiled. "She's half FBI."

ADA, FBI WASN'T AN INHERITABLE TRAIT.

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what she'd expected. She was glad Ada had known Nana though, and hadn't felt like she was missing out on the grandmother experience. And-- seriously, after all this time, more than twenty years, she couldn't see herself in a life where she and Sylvia could go bungee-jumping together anyway.

Parker snickered at Ada's expression, then. "She's a tiny dragon made out of Froot Loops. Which, so weird. Did you know Agent McSweetin's dad was FBI too?"

ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT, NARRATIVE? REALLY? REALLY SURE?

"...she's still pretty adorable, I just... am so not her mom." Her Mom's sorta-evil twin, maybe.

[my2dads.livejournal.com]

"See?" Ada said with a dramatic shudder. "Who wants that? I bet when her parents have friends over, it's just like a whole room full of Sterlings!"

And wasn't that a horrible thought.

"You're not her mom. But she's got a mom and it seems like her mom's a really good one. But you don't have to be a mom to have a great family and anyone who tries to say otherwise is going to get a Spike to the face."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Well now I'm not going to sleep," Parker said, deadpan. "A room full of Sterlings. Eliot would break his knuckles that way."

What she'd been trying to think about had finally sorted itself out, to wit: pretty much exactly what Ada had just said. If she'd had her mom in her life, maybe she'd have an Emmy; but she hadn't, so she had an Archie, a Nate, a Sophie... an Ada, a Spike, and maybe some other kids in the future... and Hardison and Eliot right now.

Yeah. Not swapping.

Another shoulder-bump, and leeeean into this girl who was such a mastermind. "Yeah. And an Ada Grace, only with more sneaky." She smirked. "Ice cream?"

[my2dads.livejournal.com]

"I wait till they're paying attention to Spike and then tase them," Ada said smugly. "Cause my really awesome Aunt got me a taser of my very own for my tenth birthday."

Which hadn't exactly gone over well with anybody but Ada, but whatever. She had a taser!

"Ice cream, definitely. Maybe they're have tiramisu flavor!" Chocolate, coffee, and rum! Just what they both needed!