#of course I made a Valentine's fic about angsty single-Tucker

[shinobicyrus]

“No Reservations”

So like. 

Tucker got it. There was no good time to break up with somebody, but that didn’t mean that it still didn’t need to happen. Sometimes it was mutual: a lack of chemistry, incompatible lives. LaTonya had been sharp enough to realize that Tucker had been hiding something and wasn’t being one-hundred percent honest with her which, yeah, he couldn’t blame her for that. It wasn’t like he could explain that he was covering for his half-ghost best friend who moonlighted as a superhero. He lied to Danny about that one- dude didn’t deserve feeling guilty about it.

A few times it had been totally his fault. Tucker was man enough to admit it. He could be selfish and insensitive at the worst times. The hearts of nice, awesome girls that didn’t deserve it had gotten broken, and he didn’t tell Sam or Danny about it because even years later he was still ashamed with himself. 

Once and a while it just had to happen, no if ands or buts. Jackilyn had it in her head that Sam of all people was trying to “steal” Tuck away from her and demanded he end their friendship. Maybe it was a little rude to laugh in her face about Sam trying to steal him, nevermind cheat on Danny, but yeah hahahahaha good one Jacki don’t let the door hit you on the way out. 

Or there was Anita, who up and asked his best friend’s clone-sis to stop “making her uncomfortable” by just snuggling with her girlfriend and Tucker honestly never expected to get hugged by Valerie of all people after throwing his very recent Ex out of the apartment in front of everybody. 

Penny, though? Penny he hadn’t seen coming.

He got it, he really did. If things weren’t working out, you had to strike a balance between doing it delicately but also not dragging it out. With Valentine’s was less than a month away, Penny had done the right thing and ripped that band-aid right off. 

It just really, really sucked to be the band-aid.

By this point Danny and him had themselves a post-breakup tradition (always Tucker’s break-ups, of course) of stocking up on snacks and booze, then holing up in the apartment so they could spend the night getting drunk and talking about feelings while playing video games. Then Tucker rode out the emotional hangover that was the rest of January binging on pirated Stargate Atlantis episodes on his hard-drive because Netflix betrayed him. Netflix was a lot like his love life. There was a ‘chill’ joke somewhere in there that he honestly didn’t have the energy to come up with.

Whatever, he could deal. Not like it was the first time he’d been dumped. Definitely won’t be the last; Tucker liked to talk a good game but deep down he knew the score. 

God, couldn’t Penny had pulled the rug out from under him before he’d gotten those reservations a month in advance? He’d scored a nice table at like, the third snazziest restaurant in town for Valentines. Sure, maybe it was a tad overcompensating because he sensed there was some distance growing between them- talk about seeing the warning signs too late. 

He gave the table to Danny and Sam. No sense in a nice romantic dinner to go to waste -even if Sam could probably make two phone calls and get a table at the fanciest gourmet place in the state, if she wanted. 

Most of Tucker’s relationships, even the serious ones, never managed to last more than a few months, and the timing meant that Tucker had a lot more experience spending Valentine’s Day single than with a date. He totally had this covered. 

“What do you mean you can’t make the raid either?” Tucker paced around his room while he talked on his phone. “Come on man, there’s no way just nine of us can tackle the Temple of Amaat- we’ll get trounced! We need our epic tank-mage-rogue trio to-” He stopped pacing. “Seriously? You’re spending Valentine’s with Dee and Pocket? In real life? At the same time? And they’re...okay with that? Huh. Dee’s idea? Yeah that sounds like them. Well okay, dude, can’t really argue with that: Baes Before Raids.” He listened to Sherry’s reply. “I’ll hold you to that, dude. Next week then, have fun. Yeah, you too.” 

He hung up and sighed. Great. Not only were his plans shot, but now he owed Sam a Level 63 Infernal Battleaxe. One of these days he’s gonna learn to stop betting on relationships- he always got it wrong. 

As if having your Legends of Destinyscape Valentine’s plans fall through wasn’t evidence enough. Tucker didn’t know how bad he should feel that so many people in his clan had to cancel because of date plans. Just goes to show that even MMORPG nerds find happiness. 

Down the hallway he heard a knock on the apartment door. “Yo Daaannny! Door!” Waited for a response- only heard more knocking. Tucker snorted. Probably too busy getting ready for his big romantic night out. “Fiiiine, I’ll get it!” He made his way down the hall, grumbling on his way to the door. Danny was probably fussing over his outfit for dinner with-

“...Sam?” Tucker blinked. He’d been under the impression that Danny would be flying off to meet Sam at the restaurant, not her showing up at their door dressed in torn jeans and a Widowmaker tee-shirt. 

“Hey Tuck,” Sam shouldered past, arms full of reusable shopping bags. “Sorry if I scuffed your door with my boots, couldn’t get my hands free.”

“Uh...it’s fine.” He shut the door as she set her bags down in the kitchenette. “Are you...going out in that?”

“Nope.”

“Hey Sam,” Danny appeared in the hallway. 

Tucker threw up his arms. Oh, now he shows up....also dressed in jeans and his laziest lazy-weekend NASA shirt. “Is seven years like the point in the relationship where the romance fades and you stop caring about dressing up?”

“What are you talking about?” Sam gleefully accepted a peck from Danny and slapped his butt. “I love these jeans.”

“It’s nearly seven!” Tucker checked his phone. “I know Danny can fly you, but between getting dressed aren’t you cutting it a little close?”

Sam turned around and started pulling out snacks out of her bags and arranging them on the counter. “Oh, we decided not to go out.”

“What? But it’s Valentine’s Day!”

“Riiight,” she looked over her shoulder to roll his eyes at him. “Because I’m so into manufactured corporate holidays that enforce narrow, traditional relationships.” 

“We gave the table you gave us to Val and Danielle,” Danny explained. 

“Danielle’s going to be eating at the third fanciest gourmet restaurant in the state. Danielle.”

Danny grinned. “We told them to send us Snaps.”

“But what about your guys’ night?” Tucker demanded. 

Sam turned around holding a bottle of expensive wine and a huge bag of chex mix. “We found better plans.”

Tucker sort of...stared at her numbly. His head churned, dissecting, rearranging, and sorting through those four simple words but it kept not making sense. He looked to Danny for some kind of explanation, but his roommate was pulling out a ridiculous amount of candy from Sam’s bag, including some of Tucker’s favorite sour candies that most stores didn’t carry. 

Wait. Did. Was she saying. 

“You guys want to spend your Valentine’s Day...with me?”

“Took him a second,” Danny said. 

“With me.”

Sam shrugged, mouth curving slyly. “Well...I might have had some forewarning that your raid plans would fall through, so I acted accordingly.”

“Kurt told you.”

“You owe me an Cleaver of Khaos, btw. Don’t think I forgot.”

Tucker watched Danny cart the junk food haul over to the coffee-table in front of the TV. “This is...really okay?”

“Tuck,” Sam put down the wine and put a hand on his shoulder. “What do you think we’d rather do more? Eat out at some stuffy restaurant where everyone would look at us funny, or here with you ruining expensive wine with cheap ass candy?”

“I...” His throat felt raw and tight, like he was trying to swallow something thick and painful. “I don’t know what to say,” He managed to croak. 

“Say you wanna stay up with us all night having a Marvel movie marathon.”

He chuckled, trying not the sniffle. “Are you gonna spend the whole time complaining about Black Widow not getting her own movie?”

“You know you’d prefer it over Scarlett’s Ghost in the Shell movie.”

“...yeah okay that’s legit.” Tucker said. “I’m...I’m gonna run to my room and grab my portable hard drive.” And totally not cry a little where no one can see. 

“Okay, we’ll set up out here.”

It was like they were stupid kids again, all crowded on the same couch with no sense of propriety, not caring about the horrible mess of crumbs and wrappers littered around them. That was tomorrow’s problem. Well...later in the day. Somewhere lost in the chronology between Iron Man 2 and Winter Soldier it had stopped being Valentine’s, but here Tucker was, his best friend dozing on his shoulder and his other best friend sprawled across both of their laps.

“Tuck?” She asked, a little drowsily. The second bottle of wine was mostly empty and was probably somewhere on the floor with the first.

“Yeah?”

“You know you’re a great guy, right?”

Shrugging would have thrown Danny’s head off him, so he didn’t do it. “Sometimes.”

“Sometimes you’re great or sometimes you know?”

“Yes.”

She adjusted her position so her face was pillowed on his lap. Jacki would have flipped her shit at the sight of it. “I actually liked Penny.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“She wasn’t as cute as LaTonya.”

Tucker snorted a laugh. “She noticed. Said you kept staring at her chest.”

“I wasn’t staring. I wasn’t wearing my boots and she was tall, okay?”

The both of them snickered at that, careful to keep their volume low enough to not wake Danny.

“I know it always sounds stupid and hypocritical coming from me or Danny, but you know you don’t have to rush, right? It’s okay to be single for a while, too.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tucker said tiredly. The soft light from the TV played shadows over the creases of the blanket covering them. “It just...it just gets a little lonely sometimes, y’know?”

“Yeah.” Sam said. “But you’re not lonely right now, are  you?”

“Nah,” Tucker burrowed a little deeper into the blanket, pressing closer to them. “I think I’m pretty good right now.”