Tensions Fall (Teen Dad!Oscar AU)
(part 2 to Tensions rise, also apart of this AU although these two fics can be read separately)
A/N: 7 weeks since the once happy couple have actually talked. 7 weeks since they shared a bed, but with their two toddlers starting camp for the first time, maybe they can try and mend their problems.
Warnings: Parental separation, a super mean mom like the ones I have to deal with at work, angst WITH A HAPPY ENDING
May 28, 2024
It had been 7 weeks since the fight in Suzuka that effectively ended Oscar and Honey’s relationship. It had been 7 weeks since Oscar had taken a leave of absence from racing in order to try and make amends with his family. He still trained everyday, he still worked with McLaren and did Sim Racing, he just never attended any of the Grand Prixs.
It had also been 7 weeks since Honey and Oscar had shared a bed.
Since that night she left their room, she had stayed in her kids’ hotel room till they got home. She then packed her things and moved into the guest bedroom. Things had been far from amicable between the two parents. In the beginning, Oscar had done all he could to try and make up with Honey but when she continued to give him the cold shoulder, he had given up and reciprocated her attitude. The children, about to turn 4 years old, didn’t know the full extent of what was happening at home. They knew that when they would go to their parents’ room in the morning, only Dad would be there, but this was easily explained away when Honey told them that Oscar snored too loudly and it kept her up at night.
They had of course also noticed how different their parents had acted towards each other, and how often their father was home now, but they just didn’t question it because at the end of the day, they were too young to begin to understand, and they still had two parents who loved them as much as they could.
Since the fight though, it was clear Oscar was making much more of an effort to take his kids out to do activities. At first it was nice, Honey got some time alone, something she rarely got anymore, but the more Oscar took over planning activities, the more she began to hate being alone. After three, almost four, years of being around her kids almost 24/7, the silence started to eat away at her. And in turn, her kids started to miss their mom more.
Finally though, Honey had put her foot down, after a long conversation, ending in a fight, Oscar had agreed to more full family activities, even if it meant having to pretend with Honey that they were still the happy and perfect family.
While their kids loved going to the park as a family, any parent around could see that the two parents watching their twins on the bench were fighting but trying so hard to conceal their whispered harsh words behind smiles.
With the twins' fourth birthday coming up on June 8th, Oscar and Honey had been stressing on how they were going to plan their birthday while they couldn’t get through a conversation without being at each other's throats. They also had the kids’ first day of camp coming up May 29, a day that may seem insignificant to most parents, but as the kids had never been to preschool, nor a daycare, camp was their first introduction into that whole system. It was a big step for everyone.
Honey had been trying to prepare the kids the best she could for their first day at camp. She knew they didn't fully grasp the concept and she was nervous about leaving them alone, scared they would feel abandoned as child-care with non-familial adults wasn’t something they had experienced with their mother being a stay at home mom, only ever enlisting help from grandparents, cousins, and even ‘honorary uncles’ such as Logan and Lando. She had to keep telling herself that in the end, they will at least have each other.
Oscar and Honey decided to make a day of it. Camp wasn’t until 9, so the pair took the very excited Hudson and Frances out to breakfast where the 3 year olds managed to cover themselves head to toe in maple syrup and chocolate from their pancakes, causing them to have to rush home to change, thus leading the family to a late arrival to the preschool building that the camp was held in.
“We are so sorry, oh my goodness!” Honey said to one of the two teachers who were clearly waiting for them outside the door to the classroom.
“We decided to take these two to breakfast and they got more food on their clothes than they did in their mouths. Which reminds me, I added two extra changes of clothes to their bag in case they need it.” Oscar added, causing Honey to shoot him a glare that was luckily not seen by the younger of the teachers, as the younger teacher was too busy ogling at Oscar to notice. It was her that added the clothes to their bag, it was also her idea, he was being petty by taking credit.
After a few moments of silence as they waited for the woman’s reply, she managed to snap herself out of whatever daydream she was concocting only minutes after meeting the young father in front of her to reply with a quick, “No problem! We know how these kids can be.”
The older woman next to her clearly could sense her coworker was a little two focused on one of the parents and pointedly urged her to take their bags to their cubbies while she sorted the family out, which Honey was grateful for. She may have not been with Oscar anymore but that lady didn’t know it and had no right to eye fuck him in front of her and her children of all people.
“Why don’t you all say goodbye out here, we are just about to start morning meeting with the other kids.” The older woman said as she stepped to the side to give the family privacy, thought she was close enough to hear all they would say.
Oscar and Honey both felt tears begin to form as they squatted down in front of their kids.
“Alright, Mommy and Daddy have to go now, but you both are going to stay here and make some new friends. I know this is new and might be a little scary but if you guys get through today, we can all go get ice cream later. How does that sound?” Honey asked, nervous one of her kids was going to break down in tears at any moment.
“Okay! Bye Mommy, bye Daddy!” Frances yelled as she ran through the open door to the classroom, clearly ready to get started.
Oscar and Honey weren’t necessarily shocked at what their very clearly extroverted daughter had just done, but they still had expected a little bit of pushback from her. They could see the older woman by the door laughing softly to herself at that interaction.
Their son, Hudson, was less enthusiastic. He didn’t cry, which they had fully expected him to, but he gave them crushingly tight hugs, or as crushing as he could manage, and a quick kiss on the cheek before following after his sister.
Wiping away tears, they both stood up and laughed once they looked at each other's faces, realizing they were both far more of a mess than their kids.
“Wow, maybe we should have been giving ourselves pep talks for weeks instead of them” Oscar joked. Honey laughed, it was the first normal interaction they had had in what felt like forever.
The older woman, still by the door, quickly joined in, “Oh don’t worry, we find parents are usually the ones with the most trouble at dropoff, but that moment they find you both after a day of camp or school, you will feel just how much they missed and love you. Plus you two are young, you’ve got plenty of more time to make more of those babies. You have grown yourself a real sweet family by the looks of it. Relax for a few hours! Enjoy the time off, maybe even add to your family.” The woman said, laughing, as she closed the door.
“Did she really just suggest we go make more babies?” Honey asked in disbelief.
“I think she did, yeah.” Oscar answered, just as confused as she was.
The air felt light as they both walked to their car, relishing in how nice it was that they weren’t arguing, realizing how miserable they had been.
But that didn’t last long.
“Come on, Oscar, you can’t be that dense! She was so clearly eye fucking you!” Honey argued. The conversation in the car had been light for a few minutes until Honey made a comment about the younger teacher and unintentionally started an argument.
“She was not! And if she was, who cares? We aren’t together anymore, you can’t get jealous over something as trivial as someone who thinks I am attractive. Sometime in the future I will get a partner so you better learn to stop being jealous.” Oscar yelled. He didn’t mean it of course, he knew even if he and Honey never got back together, he would remain single. She was the only one for him.
But what he had said, wording it in a way that made Honey fully think about their situation really tore her apart. Yes, they were separated, but she never felt like they were fully broken up. And from what he said, it sounded like he planned on moving on much faster than she ever would.
With tears rolling down her cheeks, she decided to not dignify his comments with a response. Once exiting the car, she swiftly went to the guest room she had been staying in since the separation and slammed the door.
After a few minutes in the car, Oscar had mustered up the courage to apologize, knowing what he did was uncouth. Hearing her cries as he walked up to her door made him stop just short of knocking, deciding maybe it was better to give her a bit of time for now and come up with a way to make it up later.
After two hours of contemplation, Oscar had decided to get a lunch reservation at her favorite restaurant that always had a live band playing. It was impossible to get a day of reservations but with a bit of bribing, he had managed to pull it off. What was also nice about the band was that they could sit and eat silently without any awkward silence. If they were going to fight, they didn’t need to speak.
She wasn’t crying when he knocked on her door, having managed to seemingly get all her emotions out in the two hours by herself, then clean up to look presentable for pick up. But now she felt empty, like a shell of a person in a house with a man who once loved her to pieces but now seemed to despise her, and no kids because they were away at camp.
“Come in.” Was all she said.
“I um, I got us a reservation to your favorite place. I understand if you aren’t up for going- or if you’d like to go alone, but I did kind of bribe them so one of us at least has to go, I fear.” Oscar muttered out fast, clearly sensing the awkward energy between them, not knowing whether they were going to ignore the fight or not.
But Honey’s heart burst at the idea of him trying so hard to get into her favorite place. She always urged him to use his name to get into places, like Lando loved to do, but he was always too humble to do it, so it meant even more that he had this time.
“That… sounds wonderful. Thank you, Oscar.” Was all she said as she started to tear up again but quickly turned so he wouldn’t see. “Let me get my stuff and I can meet you in the car.”
The energy in the car wasn’t light like it was before, but it also wasn’t heavy. A comfortable silence stayed between the two until it got too much for Honey and she burst out into tears, seemingly unprompted.
“Darling, what's wrong? Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Oscar asked, openly concerned for her well being for the first time in what felt like years.
“I c-can’t take it, Oscar! We used to have so much love for each other, god, you used to look at me like I hung the stars in the sky, now you can’t seem to look at me for more than a second without realizing how much you hate me now. Then after saying you are going to move on to someone else- you do this really sweet thing and I am- I am so confused and hurt and don’t know what to think or do!” Honey rambled, everything truly coming to the surface. Everything she thought, everything she felt, everything she had tried too hard to push down and pretend wasn’t there.
“Honey, I have never hated you for even a second,” was all Oscar was able to reply as he registered everything she had just said.
“What?”
“I don’t think I am capable of it. Truly. I have tried so hard to be the best I could be for you after the fight. I stopped racing, I planned more activities with the kids, but I couldn’t do anything right. I let rumors continue about you making me stop racing, which I wanted to stop but was told to leave alone. I took the kids to do activities and left you out too much. When you continued giving me the cold shoulder, I gave up when I should have kept fighting. I then tried to love you less, to make it hurt less, but I couldn’t, even if I acted like a dickhead to you. I am so sorry, Honey, and I would never in a million years be with someone else, even if you had an entire other family and were happily married. You are it for me, always have been, always will be.”
With all finally being said, the two went to lunch happier than they had been in weeks, ready to work on their relationship. It was surely not going to be easy, but how they had been these past two months had broken them enough that they were certainly willing to try.
Near the end of the meal though, things once again got tense. These two couldn’t catch a break it seemed.
Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren, called Oscsar out of the blue and as the phone rang, Honey’s heart sank, awaiting Oscar’s reaction.
“Shit, I should get thi-”
“It's okay. I promise.” Honey said, already feeling doubt beginning to creep in.
She couldn’t hear much of the conversation as Oscar quickly walked out the door to talk to Zak. He was also turned away from her so any chances of learning information by reading his facial expressions went out the window.
Finally, he returned to Honey biting her nails waiting for what he would say to her. She already started to panic thinking he could have to go to work, race again, and this vicious cycle would never end, that nothing would ever be right between them.
“What did he want?” She asked.
“Asked when I would be ready to come back to race. I said I didn’t have a date in mind. He told me to come in next week for a meeting on it, but I said I wouldn’t make a decision without talking to my family. I am not going to lose you all over this.” He reassured her.
Honey smiled, doubt leaving as quickly as it had come. Until she herself got a phone call, this time from the camp her kids were at. Stressing that they had missed pick up, she realized after checking the clock that they still had an hour and a half. Confused once more, she answered the call.
Being told on your kids' first day away from you that there was an issue you needed to go deal with immediately, that you needed to fill out both incident and accident report forms wasn’t something that the young parents had envisioned for themselves.
Rushing to the classroom, Oscar and Honey saw both of their kids crying in the hallway with the older teacher when they arrived, accompanied by another mother and her upset son. Concern laced their features as they took in both their kids, looking for any hints of injury on the two, but they seemed fine, apart from the crying.
“God, don’t tell me these two kids are the parents, no wonder this happened.” The other mother muttered under her breath. Before Oscar could question her, the older teacher spoke up.
“It seems there was a problem between the kids today.” She began, clearly trying to mediate the situation before it got ugly between the parents. “Mattias here stole a toy Hudson was playing with and pushed him over when he tried to get it back. In turn, Fraces bit the Mattias. It didn’t even leave a mark so I know it wasn’t hard, and both kids got a talking to as well as exchanged apologies, but it seems that they might need to go home early for the day to recuperate. We will certainly work on sharing and using our words tomorrow.”
Both Honey and Oscar were shocked. While Hudson was quiet and they had been worried it would make him a target in the future, and they knew their daughter was fiercely protective of her twin, they didn’t think she would result to biting.
“Wow, alright. You two, let's discuss this in the car, yeah?” Oscar said, ready to leave the place as he felt the wrath of the other parent glaring at him.
“Really? You are just going to walk away without so much as an apology to me and my son? Unbelievable.” The mother scoffed. “This is why young people shouldn’t be parents. Clearly you two need to grow up just as much. I pray your already terrible daughter grows out of this and doesn't end up like you, spreading her legs too young and becoming up a teen mom because of it.”
Both Honey and Oscar were stunned. They had faced backlash before, sure, but never to their face, and never from someone so clearly in the wrong.
“Excuse me?” Honey asked.
“Oh, you heard me.” The mother replied.
“No, I don’t think I did, because what it sounded like was you were asking for an apology for something your kid started, because I am sure as hell my kids do not have sharing problems. Then when my three year old daughter retaliates to seeing her sweet and vulnerable brother being so blatantly bullied, even though she apologized, you believe you and your snot nosed brat deserve anything else. Guess what, we don’t owe you shit. And while you are so worried about how our kids will end up, why don’t you worry about your own child, who clearly takes after his bully of a mother. Grow up, asshole.” Honey retaliated. She shouldn’t have sworn in front of the kids but damn was it wonderful to see the look on that lady’s face.
Oscar had never been more turned on by Honey in his life.
After the fight, the family of four got out of there as soon as they could, stopping for ice cream on the way home. They hardly scolded Frances more than a “If someone does something mean, you can’t bite them, use your words” to which she replied “Like Momma did with that lady?”
The kids were playing quietly in their room once Oscar got alone time with Honey.
“That was the sexiest thing I have ever seen.” He said, arms circling her waist.
“When I went full bitch mode on that lady?” She asked, laughing at the desire so evident in his eyes.
“When you stood up for your family, and cursed that dickhead out.” He replied as he started kissing her neck.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it, I liked it too but in a different way than you did.” She laughed.
Laying on the bed, cuddling as they basked in the love they still had for each other. Oscar managed to ask the question that had been plaguing him for weeks.
“Honey, will you please move back in here and be with me again? I miss you too much.” Oscar pleaded.
“Fine, but you need to work on another proposal. It is only fair since this all kind of started because of you.”
“Deal, this time I will knock your socks off with my proposal, but first I intend on showing you just how much I missed you.” He said as he began to kiss her deeper and more passionately.
Life was starting to get much better.
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