A/N: Allot of feels come with this one; I've been meaning to write it for a while, so I hope you all like it; Hero's Cuties pairing, though not really the main focus of this piece, or maybe it is; pretty much fiddling with my own headcanons here.

Oh, and not my first attempt at WIR fanfiction, but my first published attempt. Eeyup.

The Fix-it Legacy

Walking through the Niceland forest one evening (well, she assumed it was getting to the evening; it'd been a while since she'd seen the game screen), Tamora grumbled about the vague directions Mary and Deanna.

They had seemed quite pleased to tell her where Felix may be, as unhelpful as their answer was. Somewhere deep in the forest – she had assumed he was doing something with Ralph, but when she'd passed through East Niceland Q*Bert had told her Ralph was in Sugar Rush, and nobody had seen Felix for the whole Sunday since he'd walked off into the forest that morning.

Admittedly, the blocky 8-bit trees (some strewn with fairy lights here and there) were a nice earthly change to the candy cane trees of Sugar Rush, seemingly come out of a child's saccharine-soaked fantasy, or the desolate extra-terrestrial landscape of Hero's Duty, where no vegetation prospered.

When she could no longer see the Niceland apartment building in the distance, she wondered just how big the forest in this low-resolution game was, and how deep into the foliage Fix-it must have gone to stop anyone finding him. When she found him, she'd be sure to give him a clip around those comically large ears for not showing up when she came in on the tram and making her walk all this way.

Hearing an unmistakeable Southern voice, she jumped silently onto the high branch of a tree a few feet away from the clearing where she could see Felix stooped down. In that position, he could only be talking to someone as short as a Nicelander or a Sugar Rushian, but his back was to her so she couldn't see who he was talking to. He seemed distressed, and as she hopped onto the next branch to get a side-angle of her man and the unknown third person, she nearly fell from the shock.

'Niceland has a graveyard…?'

Were it not for the two crude, moss-covered gravestones in front of her husband, he might as well have been talking to a patch of dirt, but even if she couldn't see the names, she instantly knew who these people were.

"Hi dad… mom." he removed his hat, getting up from his half-kneel, "…I figure I haven't visited in a while, and that ain't right, but I've been busy lately," he gave a weak grin, though it didn't reach his eyes, "I made some new friends, and… got married. To the most dynamite gal!" he paused, "Not sure whether you'd have approved. Not sure about anything concerning you guys, really. She's from the new first-person shooter near my game, and she's so beautiful. I'd honestly doubted all this new-fangled high-definition graphics before we met," replacing his hat, he sighed, "She gives me the honeyglows somethin' awful!"

Beginning to pace in a line in front of the graves, he continued, "It was all because my game's bad guy decided to jump ship to try to be a good guy; well, and the Nicelanders were being awfully mean to him, so you can't really blame him. Ralph has a good heart, and we just… I just missed it for 30 years. And he met a nine year old girl he'd give his life for, and he kinda nearly did. You were probably around at the same time as Turbo and know how he got two games uplugged; turns out he'd been hiding in the girl's game for 15 years and pretending to be royalty," he chuckled, "That guy always was a huge popularity nut, but a bit before my time so I never got acquainted to him."

Stooping down again, he groaned, "…I didn't really come to talk about my month. Can't really talk to two people I've never even met."

Calhoun unconsciously gasped, sneaking onto a closer branch. Felix had never met his parents?

"…I'll always remember the day my game replaced yours, and I supposed these graves are the best indication I'll ever get that there was an original Mr and Mrs Fix-it; I'd hope that me and Tammy would live up to those expectations, but dad… I don't absolutely, unequivocally do not wanna be like you. Because that's what I've always followed, the same expectations for 30 years." Standing abruptly, he said, "I wanna be able to make my own future, as well as my own mistakes, and to not be constantly dogged by the shadow of a man I barely remember. A few people still see me walkin' in Game Central and say, 'Oh, him? That's Fix-it's boy'."

"I spent 30 years cooped up in my game became I knew you weren't waiting for me outside, and then I realized I didn't have to conform to your legacy. I'm not my dad. And for that, I'm sorry."

"You're apologizing to a couple of rocks now?" Calhoun yelled, jumping down from her perch and into the clearing before he noticed, "What'd you do, disrupt the soil?"

"Tammy!" he exclaimed, turning to look from her to the graves, then back to her, "How late am I?"

"Oh, I think a few beers in Tapper's should about cover it."

Seemingly unaware that she had just been eavesdropping, Felix moved to walk out of clearing when Tamora put a hand on his shoulder, "Tammy."

Grabbing her husband in a fierce hug, she whispered, "You don't ever have to apologize for being you; and certainly not for being the man I fell in love with."

"I just don't want our child to ever think they have to follow in my footsteps." he murmured back.

Laughing, she started walking out of the clearing with Felix still in her arms, "Who says it'll take after you? In a decade or so they could even pass for one of my soldiers."

Felix went slack against his wife, emotionally exhausted for the day. He made no protest as she cradled him on their way back to Niceland, but she knew something had changed in their relationship – and their future little one - in that one conversation, all for the better.

A/N: So glad I finally wrote this! Would've posted this last night as soon as I was finished (10:10pm), but my internet connection had died 40 minutes earlier so I was just listening to Disney songs and finishing this the whole time. An evening well spent, methinks. So glad to finally get back into writing fanfiction, and Hero's Cuties is just an added bonus.

Dear god, I just noticed this is a fic set on a Sunday and I'm posting this on a Sunday. Party at Litwak's! (No, not really, I still have to bake 18 cupcakes for a real party at college.)