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amulyTitle: Gwil's Guide to Growing Up Torchwood: Year 2, Chapter 10
Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Team + Martha and Mickey
Word Count: 3,000
Rating: PG
Summary: When a seven-year-old boy falls through the Rift, Ianto and Jack decide to adopt him. This is the story of his life at Torchwood.
Chapter Summary: Jack hires some familiar faces to help out at Torchwood.
Warnings: dashes of angst
A/N: While rewatching Reset, it occurred to me how much I want more Ianto + Martha scenes. They are so cute together! Martha is basically what Gwen could have been for Ianto, if Gwen's head wasn't firmly lodged up her ass (oops, is my character-bashing showing?). Plot note: All the major events – Martha visiting for Reset, the whole Daleks-steal-the-Earth thing in Stolen Earth – happened, just no one ever died. Cool?
Previous Chapters:
Prologue | The First Year: | The Second Year:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 1, 1.PWP, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 8, 9
“What is it?” Ianto's face was twisted in disgust as he peered down at the autopsy table.
Next to him, Andy's eyes were wide, hands turned palms-up in supplication. “I don't know.”
“It kind of looks like-”
“Don't say it.” Ianto turned to Jack, scolding. He knew what Jack was thinking, and they were not discussing that particularly memorable alien again. Or its vagina-containing tentacles.
“Alright, so what's the big emergency- holy rat jam in a blender, what is that?”
The three men in the autopsy bay turned to look up at Owen, who was jogging down to meet him. His eyes were wide, mouth hanging open as he stared at the body on his table. Ianto tapped on his PDA, brow furrowed as he flipped through the closest possible matches to the mess lying before them. “It appears it might be related to-”
Owen interrupted Ianto as he snapped on some latex gloves and hovered over the corpse. “This has got to be the most disgusting corpse I've ever seen,” he glanced up at the three men around him, “and I've seen floaters. Alien floaters. With hundreds of creepy-crawly half decomposed larvae still attached.”
Just as Owen appeared ready to get elbow deep in the bizarre alien corpse, the cog door alarms went off, a gust of chill air following it. Ianto frowned, glancing up at the door. Gwen was supposed to be covering the tourist office until the afternoon, and Tosh had the day off.
Sure enough, Gwen's voice was the next to fill the Hub. “Guess who Father Christmas dropped off a few weeks early on our doorstep!”
The next voice to fill the Hub was male, tinted with a heavy London accent. “Ho ho ho! Where's Captain Cheese?”
“Mickey!” Jack was racing up the stairs before Ianto could even take a step, leaping past Gwen to wrap Mickey up in a rib-cracking hug. A moment later he released Mickey, pushing past him to pull Martha into a similarly enthusiastic hug. “And Martha Jones. Or is it Martha Smith, now?”
Martha giggled as Jack released her, slapping at his arm affectionately. “Still Jones, thank you very much. Wouldn't want to confuse anyone.”
Behind the veritably giggling pair, Ianto stepped over, holding his hand out to Mickey. “I believe we've never been formally introduced. I'm Ianto Jones.”
Mickey slapped at Ianto's hand, clasping it between both of his own in almost as warm a greeting as he had given Jack. “I've heard all about you from Martha. Speaking of which,” he leaned in, though his voice didn't seem to decrease in volume any. “Captain Cheese ain't as good in the sack as he acts like, right? Because if he's not all fluff and bluster...”
Ianto's face colored, and he coughed delicately, doing his best to ignore everyone's – and Jack's – eyes on him. “No complaints,” he finally settled with. “Everything's quite... satisfactory.”
“Satisfactory?” Jack was looking at him with eyebrows pushed into his hairline and mouth halfway to a grin.
Ducking his head to hide his increasing blush, Ianto tugged at his jacket. “You're aware of how excellent our sex life is, Jack. I'm sure you don't need to be reminded of the details – or is old age making you senile?”
Mickey's laugh filled the Hub, as he reached out and clasped Ianto on the shoulder. “I like this one, Jack! Looks like you can keep the Captain in his place, yeah?”
Ianto managed a small grin. “I do my best.” Tactfully choosing to change the subject upon seeing both Martha and Mickey's eyes light up at the possibilities of how Ianto might “keep Jack in line”, Ianto inquired: “Do you two need accommodations for however long you'll be here? We can set you up in a hotel on Torchwood's bank account.”
Andy had made his way over by now, shaking Mickey's hand before settling back to watch the conversation.
“Didn't Jack tell you?” Martha pointed a casual finger in Jack's direction. Ianto, Andy and Gwen shook their heads. “We've already moved into a place near here. Jack's hired us. He said you guys were spread too thin, and so he offered me and Mickey a job!”
Owen chose that minute to join them, bounding up the autopsy bay stairs as he snapped off his gloves. He stuck his free hand out, greeting Mickey and Martha rather politely, for him. His smile turned a little easier as he faced Martha. “Looking lovely as always, Ms. Jones.”
Martha grinned and tapped a finger against Owen's chest. “Hey, careful now! I'm a married woman.”
She nodded at Mickey, who was now eyeing Owen with more than just casual politeness. Mickey edged over, wrapping an arm around Martha's waist. “This Owen?”
“Stop it,” Martha chided Mickey.
Owen's mood was visibly deflated as he turned away from Martha and Mickey. “So they're joining the team? Permanently?”
Jack nodded. “Look a little happier, Owen. With them around, you'll get more regularly scheduled days off. Especially now that we've got two doctors.”
Tossing his soiled gloves into a dustbin – Ianto made a note to have the bin incinerated later – Owen turned to stomp off. “Great. Yet another couple on the team. We've got too many couples around here, if you ask me.”
“Hey!” Jack's voice was sharp enough to make Ianto turn to him in surprise. “What's that supposed to mean?”
Owen turned back, sporting a nasty little grin as he faced off against Jack. Ianto unconsciously took a half step forward, ready to intervene. “Just what it says on the tin, Harkness. You've got you and Ianto playing happy families in Torchwood, now Martha and Mickey. What's next: Rhys going to join us? Harwood going to be our new cover?”
“You're out of line,” Jack growled.
“Pretty soon Tosh'll settle down with another alien or freezer-boy, and me an' Andy'll be the only two single blokes left in this sewer. Right?”
Andy's eyes widened as he took a step back from Owen. It was obvious he wasn't about to side with the doctor.
“Why don't you go cool off.” Jack's words were an order, not a suggestion. “Get lunch. Take a walk.”
Owen snorted as he turned his back on the group. “Just saying it's going to be a pain in the arse to have two 'Mrs. Jones' running around, if you take my meaning.”
“Owen!” Jack's shout echoed off the walls of the Hub. Ianto's eyes flickered back and forth between the two men, body tensed on the balls of his feet as he waited for the next sharp word or snide remark to turn to blows. “Out. Now.”
The Hub was eerily silent as Owen stormed out through the cog doors, blaring klaxons loud in the sudden stillness. Ianto positioned himself at Jack's back, ready to stop the other man if he dashed off, or guide the conversation back to Martha and Mickey, or anything else Jack might need.
“So!” Martha's voice was tinged with nervousness as she clapped her hands together, smile forced as she looked at Jack. “What's this new house you've been going on about? And the little one!” She turned to Ianto, smile growing a bit more natural with every word. “Jack's sent us pictures. It's amazing he fell through the Rift: he's just the spit of you! If I hadn't known any better, I'd say he was yours.”
Ianto took a step back, holding his hand out as he turned his body to gesture to the stairs to their home. “It's just this way. I can give you the grand tour.”
As Martha and Mickey started forward, Jack turned away, face set in his “brooding” expression: all tight jaw and dark eyes. Ianto reached out and touched his wrist lightly, causing the other man to stop and glance at him. “What?”
“Stay where I can find you,” Ianto murmured. “Tosh is predicting a spike this afternoon, and I want to be able to check on Gwil-”
“Yeah.” Jack's eyes unclouded just a little as he traced a finger back along Ianto's wrist. “I'll just be in the lower levels. You know where.”
Ianto nodded and released Jack, who disappeared in a swirl of wool and stomping boots. Turning back to Martha and Mickey, Ianto forced the smile back on his face. “I'll give you the grand tour, shall I?” The three of them started off toward Jack and Ianto's house, Gwen and Andy waving their farewell's as they returned to whatever tasks needed working on. “Gwil's at school, so you won't be able to meet him just yet.”
Martha cooed as Ianto led her and Mickey down the stairs into their atrium. “Jack's been keeping me updated with pictures and stories. Like his first temperature!”
Ianto rolled his eyes. “I assure you, I was not nearly as worked up as Jack claims I was. And he wasn't exactly all poise and level-headedness, either.” Ianto led them to the kitchen, rolling on the balls of his feet as he nodded at the room. “Kitchen. Obviously.”
Martha smacked his arm, moving past him and in the direction of Gwil's room. “Not what I came here to see! Where's the little one's room?” Abruptly Martha came to a halt, eyes on the hallway wall. “Wait! What's this?”
Ianto smiled, striding forward to stand alongside of her. Mickey managed to elbow his way in as well as he tried to get a look at what had caught Martha's eye. It was a framed scrap of paper: a list with each item crossed through, written in Ianto's neat hand.
“'Things That Could Happen to Gwil'?” Martha read.
“It was for his first day of school,” explained Ianto. “I was a bit nervous. Not,” he hurried on, seeing Martha and Mickey share a knowing grin, “nearly as nervous as I'm sure Jack made out. But Jack made me write the list, and cross off an item each day nothing happened to Gwil.”
Martha's eyes went all googly as she smiled. “That is so sweet! And then you got it framed?”
“Jack's idea,” Ianto admitted. “Though, in my defense, Jack was almost as nervous as I was. Did he tell you about him and the jack russell?”
Martha gave Ianto a sympathetic look, patting his arm comfortingly. “It's alright to be nervous: perfectly natural.”
“Hold up,” Mickey nudged his way forward, looking eagerly at Ianto. “What's this about the Captain and a jack russell?”
Ianto told Mickey about the incident as he led them down the hall to Gwil's room, to which Mickey laughed uproariously and clasped him on the shoulder. “I am loving you, Ianto! You and me stick together and we can keep the Captain from getting too big a head! Everyone else,” Mickey threw a thumb over his shoulder at Martha, who slapped at it teasingly, “just fawns all over him.”
“Well,” Ianto conceded as he swung open the door to Gwil's room and gestured inside, letting Mickey and Martha go in before him, “I will admit I might have a slight tendency to give in to some of his whims. He is my...” Ianto stopped, wincing as Martha and Mickey watched him struggle with his word choice. “Well,” he finally settled with “you know.”
Covering the awkward moment, Martha cast about the room for something to comment on. Her eyes landed on the bed, which she immediately went over to, palming the airplane-covered bedsheets. “Jack's idea, I take it?”
Ianto smiled, before nodding at the various and sundry dinosaur and Toy Story toys neatly placed on Gwil's dresser and toy chest. “The team reckons, between the two of us, we'll turn him into a dinosaur-fighting astronaut.” The unsaid or Torchwood hung in the air, even Mickey seeming to have enough tact not to mention Gwil's future career opportunities.
After Martha had cooed and loved over everything in Gwil's room, Ianto led them to the playroom. Mickey's first reaction was upon seeing the Wii, running over to the telly and pointing at it. “You're going to spoil that kid rotten! A Wii?!” Mickey frowned and glared over at Martha. “She won't let me get one.”
Ianto smiled. “Well, you can come down and play with Owen and Gwil anytime you're not working. And for the record, I do try my best not to spoil him: it was Owen who got him the Wii.”
A heavy sort of silence fell over the room at the mention of Owen. Martha and Mickey glanced not all that surreptitiously at each other, before Mickey turned to Ianto and practically shouted “Bathroom?”
Ianto led Mickey to the bathroom, before continuing the tour with Martha to his and Jack's bedroom. Martha gave the room a cursory glance, before turning to Ianto and crossing her arms. “Okay. So what's the deal with Owen?”
Ianto shrugged, going over to his and Jack's vanity and placing Jack's cologne bottle back where it belonged. “I don't know what you mean.”
“Oh come on,” Martha said, moving over to Ianto and leaning with her bum against the vanity. “It's obvious he's bent out of shape over something, and Jack doesn't seem to be handling Owen's comments any better. What's going on?”
Avoiding eye contact as strictly as possible, Ianto moved on to adjusting the clock on his nightstand. “Nothing. Owen just likes to see if he can't get Jack bothered.”
“Yeah, but by saying what, exactly?” Martha laughed, eyes following Ianto as he moved around the room. “He was just complaining about all the couples who work here. Nothing in what he said seemed like it should be all that insulting.”
Ianto adjusted a picture of Jack and Gwil at the park on his wall. Jack was mock-frowning, ice cream smeared all across his face as Gwil laughed and laughed. “Owen lumped Jack and I in with you and Mickey.”
“So what? The two of you are practically married.”
Flinching, Ianto finally turned back to Martha, leaning against the wall and putting his hands in his pockets. His head hung down dejectedly as he examined their bedroom carpet. “Please don't say that to Jack.”
“What?” Martha started forward, frowning. “Say what?”
“Anything about our... us... together. Couple or married or...” Ianto stopped himself, eyes drifting up the wall past Martha's shoulder as he tried to figure out what to say. “Jack's not the commitment type,” he finally settled on.
“What?” Martha laughed. “Ianto, have you seen the room you're in?” Striding over, Martha spun Ianto around and gestured at their wall, which was slowly getting covered with framed pictures of him, Jack, and Gwil. “Judging just from one wall alone, Jack seems to be the committing type.”
Ianto continued to avoid Martha's eyes, even as she ducked her head and tried to look in them. Martha's eyes went wide as she brought a hand to her mouth, the other still holding onto Ianto's elbow.
“Oh, Ianto, you can't think...” Ianto really should refinish their ceiling. That popcorn look was just too messy. “Jack loves you, you big idiot!”
Ianto's stomach churned and heart clenched as his eyes flicked to Martha's, then away. “Please don't let him hear you saying that.”
“Listen, I know he flirts-” Ianto snorted, muttering “understatement” under his breath, but Martha just plowed on, “but he really, obviously, completely loves you! I've only ever seen his face go the way it does when he looks at you a handful of times. Not even: maybe twice. And for all the flirting and carrying on, when Jack falls in love, he falls. He throws heart, body, and soul into that other person, and right now, that other person is you, Ianto.” When Ianto refused to reply, Martha moved her hand to his neck, eyes gone all soft and sweet. “Listen, Ianto: for a minute, I just want you to forget everything you know about Jack. The immortality, the flirting, the Doctor, everything. Then look around. Just from the evidence in this one room, doesn't it look like he's committed? That he loves you and Gwil, that he plans on spending the rest of... your lives with you?”
It was just the slightest hesitation, but Ianto heard it. He smiled and nodded at Martha, but his stomach didn't stop churning, and his heart didn't unclench. The reason Martha hesitated over “the rest of your lives” was The Reason Jack could never love him and Gwil “heart, body, and soul”, as Martha put it: he could never promise to be with them for the rest of his life.
The door banged open as Mickey stepped in, glancing around the bedroom. “So this is where the magic happens, is it?” He narrowed his eyes. “Looks suspiciously normal. Where's the good stuff?”
Turning away from Martha – and ignoring the promise in her eyes to bring up this topic again and again, until Ianto came around – Ianto smirked at Mickey and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, we keep our toy box at the back of the closet. Wouldn't want Gwil stumbling upon it.”
For the rest of the tour and subsequent process of registering Mickey and Martha as official Torchwood employees, Ianto carefully avoided any unnecessary eye contact with Martha. Every time he would glance up, he was just reminded too much of what he and Jack didn't have.
Continue on to Chapter 11.
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Date: 2011-03-14 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-14 09:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-14 08:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-14 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-14 09:05 pm (UTC)That was amazing, right there. Absolutely fabulous. I loved this entire chapter! Mickey and Martha onboard is going to be so much fun! And Martha pointed out a valid point, Jack is WAY over-reacting. I sense a blow-out. Possibly including guns.
And when Martha said the thing about Gwil being Ianto's, I got this idea of future Ianto being taken by the rift back in time, and having Gwil with some woman, then sending him forward in time because it happened to him when he was younger.....yeah.....
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Date: 2011-03-14 09:10 pm (UTC)As for little Gwil looking so much like Ianto: I kind of have this idea in my head that Gwil's a distant uncle of Ianto, kind of like how Gwen was descended from herself in Doctor Who. I dunno if it's ever going to actually come up in the story, though - Doctor visit, perhaps? Who knows. It'd be much later, if I ever do bring it up.
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Date: 2011-03-14 09:24 pm (UTC)I wonder why Owen really got upset? I mean yea he seems fine with Jack and Ianto having Gwil, but not that they seem couple-y. So the past two or three chapters of a slow building hatred is kind of odd.
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Date: 2011-03-14 09:31 pm (UTC)ha
Date: 2011-03-15 02:12 am (UTC)Re: ha
Date: 2011-03-15 02:47 am (UTC)And "S" word... "Satisfactory"?
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Date: 2011-03-15 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 03:25 am (UTC)Glad you managed to find a little bit of time to relax/catch up on fic, and glad you enjoyed what's going on with this one ^.^
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Date: 2011-03-15 04:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 04:44 am (UTC)Ahem. ANYWAY... ~.^
Glad you're enjoying it!
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Date: 2011-03-15 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 09:29 am (UTC)It was good to see Mickey and Martha becoming a part of Torchwood and Martha pointing out to Ianto the subtle things that say that Jack cares. Again, I feel that Ianto just needs to hear it from Jack already. And if Owen, and his snarky actions, can help accomplish this, then so be it.
Again, thank you for this story.
Elbria :)
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Date: 2011-03-15 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-03-15 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 09:26 pm (UTC)I want to punch Owen in the face... he's just jealous =P
Not to be a butt... "heavy London accept". Accent?"
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Date: 2011-03-15 09:48 pm (UTC)And blergk! You're not being a "butt" for pointing out my typos :P Fixing now...
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Date: 2011-04-03 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 04:11 am (UTC)But YES, Mickey and Martha! I enjoy writing Mickey waaaaaay too much. Maybe even more than I enjoy writing Owen! *gasp*