Title: Family Portrait
Disclaimer: I don' t own Make it or Break it or the characters in this story. I would like to say I own Ava, but since she's semi-canon I can't exactly take full credit.
One.
"Austin, would you like to meet your sister?"
The three year old groggily looked up at the nurse before nodding and made his way into the hospital room. There were his mother, father, and a baby nestled in between their arms asleep.
His mother, Marie, looked up and smiled tiredly. "Hi big brother." She whispered in a baby voice. "I'm Ava."
Austin approached his mother's beside, his eyes never leaving the newborn. Joe smirked and motioned for him to come closer. He did and attempted to reach out for her.
Marie smiled slowly positioning her into his arms. "Careful, she's heavy. Support her head." She advised.
He held her carefully and continued to stare. "She's little." He said, looking back up at his parents. This made both of them laugh and they nodded. Suddenly, the nurse tried to maneuver Ava back into her mother's arms when he held her closer. "No, she's my sister!" He said instantly, already putting on his protective older brother stance.
Some things never change.
Two.
Austin was just shy of his sixth birthday when he was enrolled into The Little Gym of Boulder. It took a lot to convince his father Joe, who was set on his son becoming a football player, but it was almost inevitable.
From almost the second he learned to crawl, Austin was everywhere. He rarely stayed in a room for more than ten minutes, which meant that the household had to be baby proofed a lot earlier than expected. The moment he could walk, there was absolutely no stopping him. He was a force to be reckoned with.
At four years old, he was involved in fights on the playground almost weekly. He had way too much energy and would No amount of talks or punishments would cease them and the next year when he entered kindergarten the fights increased. Patricia, a fifth grade teacher turned housewife, decided on homeschooling the summer before he entered first grade. He never went back.
Naturally, Ava wanted to do gymnastics as well. She wanted to be just like Austin in every way so when she was old enough, she enrolled and the two of them never looked back.
Three.
Four year old Austin dangled a Cabbage Patch doll by her foot above his head. He peered down at his one year sister, who was finally catching up to him. She had just followed him around the entire playground and her yellow paisley sundress was now covered in various grass stains with her legs and arms covered in sand from the multiple times she fell as she walked.
"Aussie." She said softly, holding her chubby hands out to try and grab her doll. Austin had a height advantage on her though.
He shook his head and tried to hold the doll higher. "No, Little Tuck. Sit." He scolded, pointing his free hand towards the grass. "Sit or no doll." He warned.
Ava plopped onto the ground almost immediately. She stared up at him, waiting for the next instruction. After a couple moments, Austin lowered his hand and held out the doll. Ava grabbed it, a wide smile spreading across her face. She squeezed it towards her chest.
Austin smirked and walked over to her. He patted her on the head. "Good girl." He said proudly.
A couple minutes later the siblings walked back towards the playground area and over to the benches where their mother was. As soon as Marie spotted them and Ava specifically, she started to shake her head. "Austin! Not again." She yelled.
Austin let go of Ava's hand and ran over to her. "Mom, she's getting better! Today we ran around the whole jungle gym and she only fell down three times. Can we come back tomorrow? I wanna see if I can get her to climb up and use the monkey bars."
Marie let out a laugh before setting Ava on the bench seat and pulling out her first aid kit from her purse. She removed a packet of moist towellettes and tried to clean her daughter. "I told you, Ava's not a pet Austin."
"I know, she's better: she's pottytrained." Austin exclaims knowingly.
Four.
The front door to Ava's room swung open as the gymnast stormed in, slipping her duffel bag onto the ground and sitting in her bed. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and stared off, visibly upset.
Two minutes later, there was a knock on the door. "Ava?" The sound of Marie's voice was always soothing and known for stopping arguments in their beginning stages. However, it didn't seem enough tonight.
Ava uncrossed her arms as her mom walked in. She kept her gaze and stance even as she felt Marie sit down on the bed next to her. Finally she turned around and faced her, ready for round two.
"I was at the gym practicing. That's it, I promise." She said, repeating her argument from downstairs when she was interrogated.
Marie nodded, a tad bit sympathetically. "I believe you."
This sentence only seemed to make the teenager more frustrated. "Then why am I grounded for two weeks?"
"You're fourteen years old." Marie reminded. "You know the rules: curfew is ten, especially when you have to be at the gym the next day. Coming home at midnight is unacceptable."
Ava sighed. "I needed to nail this move I've been working on all week. If I left in the middle of it and came home, I wouldn't have gotten any sleep tonight and been a zombie tomorrow."
Marie nodded as if she had heard this all before. She probably had. "I understand, but the decision stands. For two weeks, you'll be home at eight every night." She reiterated.
A silence followed as the youngest Tucker tried to wrap her mind around the fact that she wasn't getting her way tonight. Once it settled, she sighed. "Can't you just talk to him? I have to train or I'm never gonna get a sponsor." The question lingered in the air.
The "him" in question was her father. Joseph's dislike for both of his children joining the rigorous world of gymnastics was nothing but known, as well as his insistence on treating his children like normal teenagers when they weren't. That meant chores had to be done before and after practice, getting "good grades" while being homeschooled for risk of being pulled from gymnastics (although Austin would constantly get by with B minuses and C's to Ava's straight A's), and participating in family activities. All of these requirements were repeatedly enforced and left little room for a social life.
While intense, Joe's actions stemmed from a caring place. He just wanted his children to be successful and have a life beyond gymnastics. That was a fact that Marie continued to remind both of her children when the complaints got to be too much. What neither of them realized was that they were more like their father than they realized.
The mother of two shook her head. "No, it's done." Those words seemed to finally do the trick as Ava appeared to be coming around. "Hey, it's just two weeks. It'll fly by." She said, trying to lighten the mood.
"…it's just, Austin gets to go out and do whatever he wants and no one says anything." It's a rare moment when Ava is willing her throw her older brother under the bus in order to prove a point, which Marie took note of.
Marie sighed and shook her head. "Ava, Austin came home early from training because he wasn't feeling well. He's been asleep in his room this whole time."
Ava let out a breath, seeming to ignore her mother's rebuttal. "But two weeks? Isn't that a little much? I wasn't out drinking or anything. How about one week?" She said, trying to negotiate.
Marie let out an airy laugh and stood up from the bed. "How about two weeks and you quit while your ahead before it's three."
"But-"
"Two weeks Ava."
Suddenly, the sound of a thud hit the side of the house where Ava's window was. The mother and daughter looked over as the thud repeated and accompanied by a consistent crunching noise. The thudding got louder after a couple moments and then an arm reached up and tried to push up the window. Slowly, the window pushed up and Austin crawled in and fell down into the room. As he fell, he pushed some of Ava's medals off her dresser and onto the floor with him. The duo just watched as he did all of this.
He laid there for a moment and then started to get up. That's when he noticed the two of them. His face twisted in confusion, eyes barely able to open as he got to his feet. "What are you guys doing in my room?" He finally asked, his voice slurring.
Ava blinked. "This is my room, loser."
Austin let out a laugh as he finally looked around the room. "I knew we didn't add in vine by my room since breakfast." He looked over at Marie and looked down instead. "Mom." He said curtly before walking out of the room, although it was more of a stumble.
Once the door to his room closed, the twosome finally broke away from the door and looked back at each other. They had just been in awe of what had just happened.
"One week." Marie said simply before turning to leave the room.
"Deal."
…
The next afternoon, Austin walked downstairs and entered the kitchen. He had slept all morning and was visibly hungover as he poured himself a cup of coffee. Eventually, he noticed his father sitting at the table just staring at him.
He jumped slightly. "Sh…oot. You almost scared me."
Joe remained silent and simply held up a tabloid article. On it was a picture of a drunken Austin wearing the clothes he had on last night with a brunette kissing his neck as he appeared to be screaming. "Austin Tucker: Gymnastics' Very Own Bad Boy" is in all caps under the picture and is followed by the actual article.
Austin stared at the magazine for a couple seconds before turning back to his coffee. "That's garbage." He states as he brings the mug up to his lips and takes a sip.
"Austin. You're seventeen years old and you came in last night through your sister's window drunk off your ass and now you're in a newspaper!" There was no stopping Joe when he was prepared to lecture. "I told you that this to stop or I'm pulling you out."
That raised a reaction out of the teenager. Austin turned to face his father. The standoff had begun. "You can't do that."
"Oh yeah? Keep it up and we'll see." He slammed the magazine onto the table and left the room.
Austin set his coffee down and stared at the counter for exactly one minute before kicking into the bottom drawer. He ran a hand through his hair.
Five.
After the whirlwind of Ava's confession about her eating disorder and the scheduling to send her to rehab, Austin felt like he hadn't gotten any time to see his sister one on one. He walked up to her door and knocked.
He heard her sigh through the crack of the door. "I'm almost done. Jeez, I'm not gonna go purge before we leave." She mumbled. He opened the door wider and stepped in.
"It's just me."
She looked over at him and her expression softened as she folded an oversized blouse into her suitcase. Now that everything was out in the air, he couldn't understand how never noticed. It all seemed so obvious. "I thought you were –"
"I know." He said before sitting on her bed. He watched her pack for a couple moments before looking up at her. "Are you ready?" He asked simply, trying to read her expression.
The way her face remained fixed on the clothes made him think that she didn't hear him, but then she answered him. "Not at all." She said, before sighing. She sighed again and lowered the shirt in her hands. Her bony fingers played with the bottom of the shirt as she looked down. Soon enough the sound of her tears filled the room.
Austin instantly got up and walked over to her, enveloping her into a hug. She didn't hug him back, but didn't pull away. He could practically feel her spine through her shirt as he rubbed her back, but he tried to stay strong.
"I'm proud of you." He whispered once she had calmed down and was just sniffling. He felt her move out of his hold and he let her.
She stared up at him with her tear stained eyes and shook her head. "Don't be. I'm stupid. Look at me, I could've killed myself." The last part escapes slowly from her mouth as if she hasn't completely processed the idea but is still in the beginning stages of acceptance. Hopefully rehab would help confirm her emotions.
"But you didn't." He started. Her face showed that she still didn't believe him, so he continued. "You're stronger than this Ava. That's why you're still here and that's why you're going to beat this thing. You're a Tucker."
She made a face. "What does that have to do with anything?"
He matched her face. "That has to do with everything. I know it hasn't exactly been enjoyable here lately, but we're still a family and we're gonna survive this. I mean it." He gave her another hug and then picked up the shirt she had been in the process of folding.
Her lips formed a half smile, but it quickly disappears when the door opens and Joe steps into the room. "We have to get on the road in 10 minutes."
Austin looked over at Ava and the both of them seemed to share a telepathic message in a way that siblings could only do. He then nodded simply and turned to face their dad. "She's ready."
A/N: So I've been talking about this for thirty years and it is far from what it originated as. It went from a backstory on the Tucker family to a ton of unrelated, random drabbles. I don't know, but I just needed it done and out of my face.
I know it sucks, but review please? Is there anything in here that was promising?