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the-ace-with-spades · 3 months

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(an unfinished post I found as I scrolled through my drafts on the train to glasgow. putting it out there as i feel... something rn)

Whenever I think of Mav and Ice as Bradley's parents/parental figures, no matter what the scenario is, I always imagine that Ice is the softer one and Mav is the stricter one.

No matter whether the child acquisition happens when Bradley is in elementary school or when he's a teenager, I think Mav would already be more used to parenting Bradley, even if he'd never call it that, simply because I can't imagine him not helping Carole throughout the years. I imagine he's seen Bradley's first tantrums and was the one Carole called whenever Bradley was acting out, or whenever she felt like Bradley needed a 'man's hand' regarding issues with boys at school or was about to hit the big milestones like learning to ride a bike or start school or outgrow the car seat or anything that she felt she would be too emotional about to keep Bradley's confidence up. They'd always come to pick Mav up from deployment and would be at all of Mav's ceremonies and big events and it all worked in both ways --- Mav was a parent and Carole and Bradley were his family. He'd never call himself a dad, not even when Bradley started sometimes calling him that whenever explaining to the other kids that he's 'kinda like his dad' and Carole said it was okay, but he was a parent.

For a while after Bradley moves in with them, Ice is stuck in the fun uncle mode because that's who he was before. Carole called Mav whenever she needed help with parenting issues, and Ice was there when no one was available --- to watch Bradley when Mav and Carole were at PTA, or take him to the beach with Slider when Carole and Mav were at work on a Saturday, or to buy Bradley way too many birthday presents despite their protests. He's not here for discipline or to manage the tantrums or to guide Bradley from a toddler to a kid to a teenager to a young adult --- he's here to spoil him in ways Mav or Carole can't.

Even when Carole falls ill and he takes more responsibilities around Bradley, he's still managing them in the 'fun uncle' mode. He picks up Bradley from school and takes him out to eat junk food or out for ice cream, or takes him to baseball practice and ends up buying him a whole new set of equipment on the way, lets him stay up late and lets him eat too much sugar and then takes him out to the playground despite misbehaving and unfinished homework so Bradley can get rid of the energy.

When Carole passes away, it gets to the point where Mav has to have a talk with him.

When it became clear Carole wasn't going to make it, Mav and Carole sorted out her will, including Bradley's care. Mav had a whole breakdown about it, far away from Bradley's eyes, and when he told Ice he didn't know how he was going to do it all alone, Ice promised he wouldn't have to, that they would do it together.

But Carole passes away and Bradley starts acting out, like most grieving kids, and Ice is still stuck in the 'fun uncle' mode. He doesn't know what to do when Bradley sulks after school, or refuses to go to school in the morning, or refuses to eat what they made for dinner, or when he doesn't want to sleep alone, or 'forgets' to pack his backpack. He just---stands there and observes as Bradley gets chewed up by Mav. Or Bradley gets sent to his room to go and finally do his homework after the third time he comes back with a warning from his teacher and Ice can't get his sad face out of his mind and sneaks into his room and maybe helps him a bit too much with said homework. When Bradley doesn't want to eat the dinner he's cooked, even though he asked him three times what he'd want before he started cooking, he caves in and orders takeouts despite spending nearly two hours in the kitchen.

Mav is tired. He doesn't like being the bad guy all the time, he can't do everything either, and Ice disregarding any sort of discipline or change he tries to implement is not helping at all.

"You can't be the fun uncle anymore," is what Mav tells him. "I need you to be his parent, with me. I can't have you both working against me."

The thing is, Ice's never expected to be a parent. He realized he's gay since he was about fifteen and knew that if he ever married, it'd be a levander marriage, with a wife he'd never touch and probably divorce fast enough that the lack of kids would be understandable. He hasn't been around many kids either, mostly isolated throughout most of his childhood, certainly not enough to see healthy parenting in place. As a kid himself, he was mostly self-sufficient, with his mom dead and his father absent or disapproving most of the time. It's the only thing that got stuck with him when he's around Bradley --- he never wants the kid to feel alone or like he's doing something wrong just because the adults are not appropriative of it. He sees himself in Bradley whenever he looks upset when they tell him what to do or when they punish him for misbehaviour or when he simply doesn't know how to make it better for him. Spoiling Bradley is so much easier than denying him anything or even negotiating a compromise for him.

Mav might have been like Bradley in a lot of ways, but his mom never had a family friend that could take on a parental role for him --- he had to fill the void his dad left in their family from a very young age. When he entered foster care when she passed, he didn't have many options. It was either misbehaving and ruining his life before it started with a suspended sentence or an accident or pulling himself together. In some foster families it was misbehaving and not eating or walking around with a black eye or behaving and staying above the water line until they would relocate him again. He knew what discipline was and he met many many parental figures he could learn from, both bad and good stuff. He's met kids that were older than him and then became them and met kids younger than him. Learned tricks and things that work for certain development stages, learned parenting can't just be soft if he wanted to keep the kid alive and healthy.

So Ice starts to learn, slowly. Saying no is still really hard, but he starts negotiating and asking for things. Starts telling Bradley to do things he doesn't like. Sometimes he helps him do those things, but doesn't do them for him anymore, not from start to finish anyway. He tells Bradley Mav is right and he should listen to him, explains why he's right whenever Bradley talks back when Mav chews him out. He starts getting a grip on the things parents are supposed to be there to make sure that are happening --- homework, food, cleaning Bradley's room, making sure the kid is showering and sleeping, wearing clean clothes, managing tantrums and outbursts in a way that is different than caving in and leaving Bradley to deal with them alone. They become a team again, Ice as Mav's wingman in the whole parenting gig.

Mav starts to breathe again.

Eventually, Bradley grows out of the grieving phase. He's still a teenager, but Ice likes to think they did an alright job sorting him out. He's a sensitive kid, still, and Ice likes to think Bradley knows it's okay, that they love him no matter what. He likes to remind himself that the instances when Bradley makes puppy eyes at them to ask for a new guitar or for extra money for a theater or when he just crawled between them on the couch or the moments when he rumbles on about some asshole from his class freely as he peels potatoes for Ice --- he reminds himself Bradley feels loved enough to not feel like those moments are a burden on them. Reminds himself he's not only alive and healthy, but also happy and they made sure of that.

When Bradley calls Mav dad for the first time and Mav is mortified, Ice finds himself jealous. For the first time in his life, he realizes he wants to be a dad. Then he realizes he wants to be Bradley's dad and he feels equally mortified as Mav. Neither of them was ever supposed to be Bradley's dad.

Ice is still a bit softer. It's not that Mav can't be fun --- he can tease the kid, play around with him, take him on outings and places that Bradley enjoys more than anything. He is the one who takes him flying for the first time and the one that screams at his matches, and the one who teases Bradley relentlessly as he helps him prepare for his first date. But Ice gives in a bit more easily, let's Bradley make the choices a bit more freely as he grows up.

They both hover but in different ways --- Mav is always, always kind of around, trying to protect Bradley from anything he can, especially as the years go on and he realises how much shit teenagers get into. Ice likes to think Bradley is sensible and that even if something happened, he knows he can count on them and would let them help him if need be.

Mav watches like a hawk as if Bradley could ruin his life with one wrong move and tried to predict if it will happen at any given moment. Ice isn't stupid, he knows Bradley is going to fuck up time and again, everyone does. But unlike Mav, he doesn't want him to have a perfect, unproblematic life. He wants him to feel safe and loved enough that no problem would seem too big or irreversible.

#icemav #mavdad #tgm #pete maverick mitchell #tom iceman kazansky #bradley rooster bradshaw #idk im feeling sentinental aboyt parenting lately #idk in general #enjoy my mid-uk road trip brain breakdances #op

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