Author's Note: Okay so… yeah this ended up longer than intended when I started it. The idea was based off of the 'thrill' of traveling with small children. But once I did some research I realized there's no way any sane people would make a flight this long with hyperactive children. Unless… they had a private plane at their disposal. Oh, how handy. Okay so it's kind of cute and amusing and pretty light of a chapter. So enjoy it!
A Trip
The nice thing about using Roman's plane to travel to Brazil was that there were a lot of nice things. For one, they didn't have to pay for tickets; just contribute to fuel costs, landing and hangar fees. For another thing they didn't have to crowd into small seats with dozens of other people, or worry about the kids wandering around the cabin. They didn't have to eat horrible airliner food or pay for their alcohol of choice.
The minor drawback was that because it was Roman's plane… they couldn't exactly protest to him inviting along his own female guest on their trip. So instead they'd agreed to meet up at the local airport in the morning. The flight from LA to Sao Paolo was long, over fourteen hours, so of course they were packed accordingly. As parents with small children quickly learn, distraction is the key.
Seven-year-old Vince was excited by the idea of a trip on a big plane, because he'd never been on one before. His four-year-old cousin had been less than thrilled at the initial prospect. She'd wanted to drive in Papi's fast car instead. She seemed convinced it would get them there faster, no matter how many times her parents told her otherwise.
When the group arrived at the airport, Roman greeted them along with his 'guest', a curvy blonde in a tiny red dress and heels that did not look like advisable clothing for a long flight. Mia and Letty exchanged glances, both dressed in jeans and tank tops under zip-up hoodies and carrying a couple of carry-on items. Dom followed with his daughter in his arms. She was still sleepy, due to the early hour, and wearing her super girl pajamas. She yawned, rubbing a little fist against her eyes and snuggled into her father's arms. Brian was carrying the suitcases with Vince trailing along in front of him, also still in his pajamas – GI Joes. He carried a fluffy blue creature that at second glance was the Cookie Monster.
Tej followed with some more luggage and shook his head. "Damn you guys, I ain't never having kids."
Brian laughed. "It's not so bad. And believe me, it's better to be over-prepared when you have to distract them for fourteen hours."
"That's sooooooo long," Vince whined as he trailed behind his mother.
Mia reached down to take him by the hand and help him board the plane. "It won't be so bad. Maybe you can take a little nap and when you get up we'll have some breakfast and then you can play with your cousin."
Vince looked thoughtful. "Okay," he agreed, then paused at the top of the steps to look at the inside of the plane.
His eyes got as big as saucers. Mia released his hand and he ran off to explore as she opened up her bag to get settled in. The others filed aboard and bags were stowed. Tej set himself up front with a couple of laptops, his headphones in. Letty and Mia settled on the couch where Mia beckoned Vince to stretch out next to her, resting his head on her lap. Brian and Dom took the seats across from them, facing one another. Dom shifted his sleepy daughter to sit in his lap, her head pressed against his stomach. She groaned grumpily and turned her face.
"Just like Letty in the morning," Dom commented to Brian.
"I heard that," his wife said, fishing a magazine out of the bag sitting beside her.
Rome went up front to talk to the pilot, then settled in one of the remaining two chairs across from his flavor of the week, whose name no one had bothered to remember.
Once everyone was settled it didn't take long for the plane to get in the air, and the kids drifted off to sleep quickly enough. Most of the adults even followed suit and the plane coasted quietly through the sky for a good two hours.
Until the youngest member of the family stirred awake. She stretched out, rubbing at her eyes as she sat back in Papi's lap. She yawned and looked around. She could see Uncle Brian asleep across from her and then on the other side Mami and Aunt Mia were leaning against each other with their eyes closed. She looked up at her father, who was slowly blinking awake, gazing down at her with dark, sleepy eyes.
He smiled and smoothed her hair. "Hey baby girl," he murmured.
"I'm hungry, Papi," she replied, pouting up at him.
He chuckled and set her down on her feet. "Let's see what we can find for breakfast."
He got up and walked over to the insulated bag of food that Mia had packed. Roman claimed there was a kitchen on board, but he was sure it was mostly full of champagne and strawberries. Kneeling down he unzipped it and his daughter hung onto him, watching curiously as he pulled out something wrapped in foil.
Mia had labeled it as "Kids' breakfast" with a sharpie so he unwrapped it slowly. The smell of eggs and chorizo hit his nose and his daughter gasped, reaching out with little hands.
"Yummy," she said.
Dom looked at the carefully wrapped breakfast burritos and down at his little girl, looking up at him expectantly. She was probably going to make a mess.
"Sit down right here," he told her and she scooted back on the floor by the couch, holding out her hands.
He handed her one of the burritos.
"Hot sauce, Papi?"
"We don't have any. Just eat it like that."
"Otay."
Dom looked up to see Vince had stirred awake and was rubbing his eyes. He slid off the couch to sit next to his cousin.
"I'm hungry too, Uncle Dom."
He passed over the other burrito to his nephew as Mia got up to head to the kitchen. She brought back some milk for the kids, which they thanked her for as they ate. Dom sat beside her on the couch, stretching out his legs and she smiled, reaching over to pat his arm.
"It will be nice to see Rosa and Nico again," she commented.
"Yeah. Though the kid has gotta be what… 9 years old now?"
"Mmm hmm. He was two when Vince was born." Mia smiled, looking down at the kids.
As expected, there were eggs on the floor. Mia moved to clean them up as the children shoved the last of their food in their mouths.
"Let's play a game," Vince said.
He tossed Cookie Monster onto his father's lap, where he was still sleeping in his seat, then rummaged through his Avenger's backpack. He pulled out a couple of cars, passing her the red one.
"We racing?" she asked, sprawling on her stomach with her butt in the air as she drove the little car in circles.
"Yeah. The starting line is by Uncle Dom's foot," he told her and they moved back to kneel side-by-side in the aisle.
"It's so nice that Roman has this plane and we can all travel on it," Mia commented. "Can you imagine trying to wrangle these kids for 14 hours on a commercial flight?"
"I have nightmares about it," Letty mumbled from her other side, causing Dom to laugh.
"The only reason we considered traveling to Brazil is because of Rome's plane, really," Dom agreed. "Her first trip on a regular airplane is going to be a hell of a lot shorter."
"And she'll be a teenager," Letty added.
Mia laughed too. "That bad?"
They looked up at the sound of a squealing child as the littlest Toretto tackled her cousin in the aisle. The two kids rolled around, bumping into Tej's feet and rousing everyone else with their ruckus. Brian rubbed a hand over his face then stared down at the Cookie Monster in his lap.
"We in Sao Paolo yet?" he asked.
"Wishful thinking," Dom replied. "We're about three hours out of LA."
"Damn…" Brian muttered. "I wanted to sleep longer."
"I was just hoping the kids would," Mia replied, glancing up the aisle to make sure they were behaving.
Vince was still driving his car up and down the aisle but his cousin was standing up, holding her car in her hand as she talked to Roman. Her little hands curled around the arm of his seat and she pressed up on her toes.
"Uncle Roman?" she asked, looking up at him.
"What is it little girl?" he ruffled her dark hair.
"Is that lady a skank?" she asked.
Roman stared at her in shock, the blonde made an indignant sort of sound.
Dom groaned, dropping his head and Mia looked accusingly at Letty.
"Did you teach her that?"
"Not on purpose!" Letty shrugged. "It's a legitimate question…" she muttered more quietly.
"Letty!" Mia hissed.
Dom was already on damage control, walking up to the front to pick up his daughter.
"Hey," he told her. "That's not a nice word. You don't say that to people."
She looked abashed. "Sorry, Uncle Roman."
"Apologize to uh…. Sorry what's your name?" Dom asked the woman.
"It's Maggie," she replied. "And don't worry about it. Kids, you know?"
"You have any?" Dom asked.
"A little girl of my own," she agreed. "She lives with my ex."
"You have a kid?" Roman asked.
Dom quietly slipped away from this new situation, rolling his eyes heavenward briefly. He managed to settle his daughter back on the couch with the lure of watching a movie on the inset TV screen. Vince scurried over to join them and the two kids sprawled on the couch. Dom returned to his seat across from Brian.
"Cute stuffed animal you sleep with," he said.
Brian made a face at him. "You know I'm not cuddling Cookie Monsters when I sleep."
"Hey now, O'Connor. I don't need to know certain things about my sister," Dom warned.
"For god's sake Dom," Letty said from across the aisle. "They have a kid."
"He should know," Mia said. "He was right outside when we conceived him."
"What?" Letty started to laugh. "Wasn't that awkward?"
"I went for a drive," Dom replied, making a face at his sister. "I had a good enough idea of what you two were up to in the kitchen."
"The kitchen?" Letty smirked. "And here I thought you only knew how to do it in a bedroom or a car."
"Just because I don't want to get caught doesn't mean I have a vanilla sex-life," Mia told her.
Vince turned his head to stare at them. "Can you stop talking about weird stuff? We're watching a movie here!"
The adults laughed. Brian logged onto the tablet Tej had hooked him up with and showed Dom the new upgrades he was making to his car. Mia read her horoscope to Letty who rolled her eyes and said it was a pile of vague BS. She read her own magazine about cars while Mia interrupted her to ask her opinion on nail polish colors and fabric selections for the kitchen curtains.
When the movie stopped the kids looked expectantly towards their parents.
"We're bored," Vince announced.
"Yeah," his cousin echoed.
"Do you want to watch another movie?" Mia asked.
"No," her niece groaned in reply. "I want to play outside."
"You can't play outside," Letty told her. "We're flying."
The four-year-old frowned and clambered up into her father's lap, sliding open the window shutter and pressing her face against the glass. She gasped.
"Papi is that the ground?" she squeaked, pointing.
"It's way down there," he told her.
"That's too high," she complained. "I want to be in the car…"
"The car is back home."
She groaned. "This plane goes too slow."
Dom laughed. "It goes faster than the car."
"No," she shook her head. "Look it's slow." She pointed out at the sky.
"But we're high up so we can move faster." He set her down on his lap gently. "If we took the car it would take us more than a week to drive to Brazil."
Her eyes went wide. "Papi I want to stay at home!"
"You're going to have fun in Brazil. You'll get to meet Rosa and play with Nico."
"How long?" she asked, peering up at him.
"Uh…" he reconsidered the truth. "A little while yet. Why don't you play with Vince for now?"
"Will you play too, Papi?"
"What do you want to play?" he asked.
"Hide n' seek."
Dom looked around the cabin of the plane dubiously. There weren't many hiding places. "Fine. You two hide then."
The little girl scooted off his lap, grabbing Vince by the hand with a giggle. Dom pressed a hand over his eyes and started to count loudly. When he reached twenty he dropped his hand and looked over to see Brian with an amused look on his face. There was giggling from behind his seat.
"You're never going to find them," Mia commented from across the aisle.
Dom managed to take 15 minutes to locate them behind his chair, acting quite surprised when he finally found them. Then Brian took a turn counting while the kids hid.
After hide n' seek Brian got out of the chair brandishing the dreaded tickle-monster and chased the kids around the cabin while Tej turned up the audio on his computer game and Roman complained about the noise. Mia and Letty talked, tuning out the ruckus with skill borne of motherhood.
After the kids were a bit worn out and breathless from laughter, they settled down to have lunch, cold sandwiches which they ate while sprawling in the aisle with their feet up on the couch. Mia heated up an apple-filled empanada in the kitchen which they split, then they cuddled together on the couch for a nap, though Vince spent most of the hour listening to a book on tape with his headphones.
While the kids were quiet the adults ate their own lunch, popping open a bottle of Roman's champagne. Tej raised his glass to toast.
"Here's to hoping we all survive the rest of this trip."
After nap time the kids watched another movie and then Tej summoned them over to see a simple racing game they could play together on their tablets. That entertained them for over an hour, before the littlest one got antsy and ran over to scramble into her mother's lap.
"Mami I want to play on my trike."
"It's not here mija, you have to play inside games," Letty said, putting her arms around her.
"But it's boring," she complained.
"Vince is having fun," Letty told her, motioning to where her nephew was sitting in Tej's lap with his tablet, playing some sort of space battle game and laughing.
"Vince is boring," her daughter informed her.
Mia laughed softly and Letty shook her head. "Well you can't ride your tricycle what else do you want to do?"
"Go to the park."
"We can't go to the park baby we're on a plane."
"Go swimmin'."
Letty eyed the child with a raised brow. "Indoor games. Do you want to play with your action figures?"
"No," the child shook her head.
"Do you want to play with your cars?"
"Nuh uh."
"Do you want to color?"
She frowned a little, then looked thoughtful. "Will you color with me, Mami?"
"Of course." Letty reached down to get the crayons out of the bag at her side.
"Cars coloring book, Mami."
Letty smirked slightly. "Right. Definitely the Cars one."
She got it out then sat on the floor with the little girl to color. After a while Vince came to join them. Then Mia got out a book to read to them.
When the four-year-old got bored of reading she climbed into her father's lap where he was watching Top Gear on his computer. He hooked up another pair of headphones and she watched with him until dinner time.
Dinner was rice and chicken in spicy red sauce that she ate sitting in Papi's lap while she and Vince watched another movie on the TV. She fell asleep before it was over and slept all the way through to landing.
When they reached Sao Paolo it was after dark but they had cars waiting. They carried the sleeping children out to them and loaded the baggage up. When Dom got into the car and Letty was settled beside him they both let out a collective sigh.
"You know," she said softly, looking at him. "I really wish we didn't have to do that again in a couple weeks when we head home."
He laughed softly. "Well… we ain't moving to Brazil."