Father's Intuition

Summary: Teenage Dotty and Papa Toretto…because after all, Mr T had to have a say in this…

A/N: This is born out of all the re-reads I've been doing of fics written on the couple pre TFatF that portray Letty as love sick and Dom as the older aggressor…

"Sup? Your dad said you could use a hand in the garage. It looks like you have this under control." Letty realized, looking around the space of the garage after hours.

There was one car and he was currently working on it and the notion that his dad was butting in irritated him.

Ever since Letty had turned 16, their dynamic had changed.

At least on his end.

He'd known she'd idolized him since she was a kid. He was tough and into cars and got everyone's respect because he was Tony Toretto's kid. She wasn't afraid to get in his face or curse at him, and where other women were jittery and annoying, she was calm and disinterested.

It seemed that 4 months ago, when she'd put on clothes that didn't look like she'd stole them out of his closet, he noticed her.

How had he not realized Letty was a girl, no, a woman until that moment?

He realized that she had breasts, although hidden.

Puckered lips, often sneered.

Intense eyes, usually cutting into him.

He berated himself for failing to see this coming.

He sighed when he realized she was looking at him in deep thought.

"What are you thinking?" She asked, crossing her arms over her chest and pushing her breast into her/his wife beater.

"Nothing. I don't know what Pop was thinking. I'm almost done here. Maybe he thought I'd have more work than I do. Did you walk?" He asked, looking at her as she hunched her shoulders.

"My ma has my car."

"Wait around. I'll be done in a second. I'll drive you home." He instructed, watching as her eyebrow arched in defiance.

"I'll walk." She asserted, spinning on her heal and walking towards the door.

"Why you making this difficult?" He sighed, his body taking on an expression of pure exhaustion.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Don't play games with me, Letty."

"Games? I'm outta here." She sneered, flipping him off as she spun to walk into the night. He cursed into the space before throwing his tool into the box and jogging after her.

"Fuck Letty, you kissed me back." Dom growled, grabbing her arm and spinning her to face him.
"So? You want some sort of prize for that?" She insulted, jerking her arm away from him.

"No, I want you to stop pretending it didn't mean something to me." He leveled, pulling her back into the shop.

"Look, lips and tongue doesn't make me swoon for you, or start dreaming of you scooping me into your arms and wanting to be yours. I'm not like the skanks you deal with. I'm not in your fan club. I don't think you kissing me means you're going to want to be with me and it doesn't make me want to be with you." She asserted, looking him in his eyes so he was clear on her position.

"I know you felt it, Letty."

"Yea I felt it; your tongue was down my throat. Again, kissing you isn't going to change anything, Dominic." She said, her words blunt, but trying to point him in a different direction.

"I don't even know why I'm wasting my time on a fuckin 16 year old kid. Fuck this. Forget it."

"Forgotten!" She growled, turning to walk out of the bay.

"Got damnit!" He hollered, taking a few strides after her and grabbing her again. "I didn't mean that, Letty."

"Can you just leave me alone? I need to go home. Now."

"Don't lie and try to hide from me."

"Hide? You're still thinking of me like those girls. You don't make me nervous or make me flustered. I say what I mean and what I feel to you. I don't need to make it pretty or tie it with a bow. Ask me a question if you want to know something, and be straight with me. Don't try to make me admit something to you because you're scared of what I'll say if you go first. I'm not those girls, Dom."

"I like you. I don't know what happened, but you're all I think about." He admitted, her words making his truth rush forward.

"Nice to be on an even playing field. It took you long enough." She said evenly.

"What to admit it?"

"No, to fall for me. Look, I need to get to my homework. If you don't mind, I have to go."

"That's it? I just said I'm feeling you and you have homework?"

"Yea. See ya around, Dom." She said, pulling away from him.

"You don't feel anything for me?" He asked meekly, exasperated and deflated at her reaction.

She stopped with her back to him and turned to faced him and Dom felt like she was looking into his soul.

"I feel everything for you." She breathed. "See you around, Dom."

"Why you being so difficult?" He asked, stepping forward.

"You made it difficult for me. Maybe I want you to fight for it." She said as she walked out, a stroke of arrogance in her voice.

Weeks Later

Tony Toretto couldn't stop smiling. For the past few weeks Dom and Letty had been almost glued at the hip in the garage, speaking softly to one another and ducking into the stock room more times than not.

He shook his head knowingly when he caught Dom's fingers grasping her chin as she laughed, pulling away from him before going back to work on a car.

"Dominic? Come here son." He called as he walked into his office, gesturing for him to close the door.

"Yea Pop?"

"You and Letty? Everything ok?" He checked, looking at Dom as the younger Toretto locked eyes with him.

"Yea. She's a tough lock to break, but she's coming around."

"Don't fool yourself into thinking you are in control Dom. She's loved you since she met you."

"I don't understand."

"You will. Everything you're feeling, all the butterflies when she walks by or the lust when she brushed up against you? She's long past that. You're new to this, she's not."

"New to what, dad?"

"Love. You may think the old man is crazy, but I promise you, you're in love with her, you just don't know it yet." Tony chuckled, the look on Dom's face priceless.

"I'm only 18. I think you're jumping the gun, Dad."

"No back pedaling now, Dominic. You pressed play on this when you told her you felt something. She's been biding her time waiting for you to see her for who she is."

"Which is?"

"Made for you. Everyone can see it except you. Mia, her mom, the customers that come in here. Everyone can see that she belongs to you. We've just been waiting for the light bulb to go off in your head."

"Maybe we should talk about this later? You're making me feel crazy." Dom admitted, rubbing his hands over his head.

"Later? Now? Doesn't matter. I just want to make sure things are ok. I love you both. I don't want tears in her eyes or the need to bail either of you out of jail. Don't put either of you in the position to have your tempers get the best of you."

"Aight Pop. Can I ask you a question?" Dom asked suddenly, looking up from his hands nervously.

"Sure son."

"When you met mom, what was it like?"

Tony sat back with a grin, his eyes gleaming in memory.

"It was like free falling. She was so gentle and soft and so damn catastrophic at the same time. I remember being in her presence would…"

"Shake you. Like you were off center and couldn't catch your balance?" Dom finished, looking up at his father pensively.

"Seems like you've been there." Tony smiled coyly, chuckling softly at his oldest.

"She's driving me crazy." He admitted, running his hands over his head.

"That's how it starts. Wait until you do something wrong and you need her to forgive you. She'll make you want to sell your soul to be in her good graces. I will tell you this, Dominic: You be good to Letty and she'll show you a bond you won't believe. She knows how to love you. Listen to me when I say this Dom. You'll only get one chance to get this right. Don't screw it up. If you never listen to me on anything else, listen to this."

"Why you so serious about me and Letty?" Dom wondered all of a sudden, curious about his father's thinking.

"Two reasons: 1) With Letty, I know I won't have to worry about you becoming a man, she'll make you one and 2) It would break your old man's heart to not see you happy. It would ruin you to see her with another man. And she'd kill you if you end up with another woman."

"This is crazy. You get all this just looking at me and Letty all these years?"

"Yea. I've been in this world long enough to see it coming. Mark my words. Loving her is going to be like nothing you could imagine. Don't blow it."

Dom stood outside his father's office and watched Letty as she stuck her fingers into a dirty oil filter, pulling goo out and made a face. He smiled to himself at the way her lips curled and her eyebrows knit together as she moved a stray hair out of her sweaty face.

He couldn't tare his eyes off her as she remained oblivious to his gaze, watching as she moved to replace the filter and finish the oil change.

She was cute

He couldn't stop the thought from pulling his lips up into a smile as he let his eyes drift to the 'not-so-cute' parts of her.

Yea, he was fucked, royally!

Taking a sigh, he kicked himself into gear and walked over to the car he'd been working on, finishing up his work with his father's words echoing in his mind.

Letty milled around the shop in concentration moving in robotic rhythm as she tried her best to concentrate on the task at hand. She was disconnected through the routine oil change and instead, thinking of last night with Dom and all the ways he'd touched her body.

They hadn't done anything to compromise her innocence, but they had come damn close.

She was flushed with desire and the need he was building within her was welcomed.

She was happy that her patience was proving a virtue and that she felt good in the progression of their courtship.

It was important to her that in this stage, he wasn't in control, because she knew there was a fine line to be walked concerning her emotions and the power he could have over her.

She needed to make sure when she let herself go completely, he was hooked.

Still, the tingling in her toes she got being in the same room with him was beginning to become natural and she savored the connection.

Last night, they'd gotten hot and heavy in the Toretto backyard, and it had been the first time Dom had allowed her to take charge in their intimacy.

She loved kissing him and she especially loved when he pulled back just barely so that he could whisper indulgences into her lips.

She was enamored with the way his hands felt on her and she hungered for the intimacy that they were creating. There was something to be said about the way he showed her his vulnerability when he was holding her and how powerful his hands felt cradling her face.

In the backyard last night she'd ended up straddling him with her chest pressed against his with her hands in his pants before she realized how brazen she had become.

Dom had gasped into her mouth at the feel of her hot hands on him and deepened the kiss as her hands caressed him inside of his basketball shorts.

They made out hot and heavy before he'd pulled away and stopped her hands, clenching his jaw to stave off the yearning.

"Not like this." He panted, closing his eyes before reopening them and gazing into her desire-drunk obs.

She leaned into him as he pulled her hands away, linking their fingers as she kissed him slowly leaning into him until she could lay her head on his shoulder. He'd wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly as they both relaxed, taking panting breaths to try to calm their hormones.

"Stay like this." He sighed, rubbing her back as she calmed in his lap.

She was pulled from her thoughts when she watched Vince and Dom walk out of the garage and across the street to the Toretto Store laughing and joking.

"Hey Letty?" She heard from behind as she tore her eyes away from Dom's retreating figure.

"Yea Mr T?" She asked, smiling at him brightly as he smiled a few feet away.

"You hanging in there?" He asked, eyeing her knowingly as she bowed her head shyly.

"Yea." She replied.

"Okay, just checking. You know you're like a daughter to me, right?" He asked, watching as her eyes shot up, locking with his. She nodded her head, letting him know she was aware.

"You gonna stick by my son?" He ventured, watching as her eyebrow shot up, a mischievous smile playing across her lips as she nodded again.

"Our little secret?" She posed and he hunched his shoulders and then chuckled.

"Secret's safe with me, Letty. Get back to work, kid."

Fin