#absent parent guilt hitting a little hard isn’t it Bruce??

[arkangelo-7]

You know Bruce signed that check so fucking fast

[lightning-kachow]

Just Me Against the Sky | Self Para

Date: October 2023 Featuring: Lightning, Dusty Warnings: Lightning McQueen's midlife crisis, bad parenting

Lightning takes a small step. And then another

Eventually, Lightning did call Dusty back. It wasn’t as glamorous or triumphant as it would have been in a sports movie. Lightning didn’t slam the phone down and announce “I quit!” as a Bruce Springsteen song hit its crescendo in the background and the sun rose over the trees. He just told Dusty that maybe he was right— maybe it was time to take a temporary step back from the circuit, to focus on his personal life.

Dusty said he understood. He sounded, maybe, a little annoyed that it had taken Lightning so long to get back to him— but the fact that he hadn’t dogged Lightning for a callback over the past few weeks signaled to the athlete that this had never been that serious for Dusty. At least, it wasn’t anymore.

When he got off the call, Lightning once again expected everything to be very cinematic. He expected the headlines to roll in: MCQUEEN QUITS! “TEMPORARY STEP BACK” = THE KISS OF DEATH? WHAT HAPPENED TO LIGHTNING MCQUEEN’S CAREER: A RETROSPECTIVE. But instead it was just Lightning, and his blank-screened phone, and his empty apartment. 

And now that nobody had reacted, Lightning realized he didn’t have anyone to tell if he wanted to. Mack, Harv, the rest of the team— they’d have too many questions. What did it mean for their jobs, what did it mean for his career, did this mean he was really giving up? And Lightning didn’t know the answers yet. He’d answer their questions when this came up at the team meeting.

He could tell Agustin, but he felt that he’d bothered Agustin with his problems enough lately. He couldn’t tell Cass who was practically a stranger, or even Gen, who was worlds away from being a parent. He definitely couldn’t tell Cruz, who wasn’t speaking to him. Maybe he could tell Doc… Lightning really considered that one. But instead he got stuck on that sobering realization: he really didn’t have many people in his life.

For someone who’d been so scared of being all alone, he’d really done it to himself anyway, hadn’t he? What a depressing paradox. You try so hard to be everyone’s hero that you wind up a total loser.

Well, the whole point of this was supposed to be changing that. Starting with setting things right with Dusty. Lightning had thought that doing so would make everything else fall into place, but now that Lightning had done it, he still felt pretty lost.

He wandered over to his kitchen and absently started making a smoothie. Berries, greens, that collagen mix Lightning used to tell Cruz about— he thought of her again as he shook some into the blender. Everything seemed to remind him of her these days, and Lightning was starting to realize that was the pain of caring about someone. You still cared about them, even when you were far away (even if not physically so). 

That was it, wasn’t it? His next step. He had to get through to Cruz. And he couldn’t force it, just as Agustin had advised him not to. He had to listen to her. And he had to back off if she told him to. 

You can’t force her to forgive you. And hounding her, begging her, that’s guilt tripping and isn’t right. But apologize, sincerely. Let her decide what to do with it and accept her decision.

Apologize. Sincerely.

Lightning had never been sincere a day in his life. Or maybe he had, he’d just been so scared of it, he hadn’t let himself really feel it. But maybe it wasn’t too late to start. This was important. And sometimes important things were hard. 

…Maybe he could build up to it, though. Prove himself in other ways first. That way, when he asked for Cruz’s forgiveness, maybe he’d finally feel like he had earned it.

He put down his phone and pressed “blend,” and his eyes wandered to a Magick Grand Prix magazine he’d left open on the countertop. There was an article about youth programs needing more support, not just coaches and manpower, but monetary support, equipment, the kind of stuff that you just couldn’t get unless you had funding, and funding could be scarce.

He thought about how hard Cruz worked to try and get her program funding. And he had the beginning of an idea.

It wouldn’t solve everything. But maybe it could be the beginning. 

He just hoped it wasn’t too late.