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Edward blinked against the morning sun and curled closer to Oswald, huddling into his warmth. Oswald was always like a furnace under the covers, a sharp contrast to his own cool fingers, fingers which had gotten a bit chilly and were now being slipped beneath Oswald’s sleeping shirt to rest atop his stomach. There was no need to wake, not yet at least. It was the weekend, and that meant it was on Oswald to cook breakfast and pry him out of bed for a change.
A small hand landed on his shoulder, shaking him awake. He forced himself to roll over, finding Martin’s notebook entirely too close to his face. He took hold of it and read it, sighing and directing a smile over it at Martin.
“You’re right, it is aquarium day! How silly of us to still be in bed. What time is it?”
‘Eight,’ Martin signed, ‘Opens at ten.’ They had two hours to get there? He could have at least waited until nine.
“We will be there at ten o’clock on the dot,” Edward promised, “Go get ready, I’ll wake up your father.”
Martin scurried out of the door, and as he did Edward collapsed into bed, his energy fully spent from trying to appear cheerful when he’d just been woken up. He turned over, plastering himself to Oswald’s side. He pressed insistent kisses to the side of his face and whispered into his ear to wake up until Oswald stirred, groaning.
“What time is it?”
“A little after eight.”
“Why—”
“Martin woke me up. It’s aquarium day, and it’s also your turn to make breakfast, so rise and shine.” Oswald huffed and kissed his forehead, then promptly rolled out of bed and out of the door. Edward settled back into the pillow and nabbed a few extra hours of sleep until the smell of food in close proximity roused him.
“I’m glad you didn’t get up yet,” Oswald said, and Edward turned over to see him carrying a tray. “I decided to bring breakfast to you.” Edward sat up and the tray was placed over his lap. Martin followed with a cup of tea.
“I suppose it’s the least you could do, given that I’m in charge five days of the week,” Edward teased over the brim of the teacup, taking it from Martin and having a sip. “You added the honey already! Thank you.” Martin smiled brilliantly and took off, no doubt to prepare for their trip.
“I’m going to take a shower,” Oswald said, “If you finish up quickly enough, perhaps you’ll have time to join me…”
“I think I’ll just drag you back in when I’m ready,” Edward said, raising the tea to his lips again. “You’ll wait.”
“Will I?” Oswald asked, and Edward loved everything about him in the morning. From his soft fringe to the uncovered freckles on his cheeks, right down to his bare feet. It was everything he’d ever pictured growing up, everything he’d ever dreamed. Waking up in the morning with someone he loved, who loved him back just as disastrously much.
“If you want what it is I think you want,” Edward began, dipping his finger into some cream and taking it between his lips. He had Oswald’s full attention as he withdrew it, painfully slow. “You’ll wait.”
***
While they hadn’t exactly been able to take their time, they had enjoyed themselves immensely under the hot water. And, as promised, they had arrived at the front doors of the aquarium at exactly 9:59. Martin was there first, pushing through the doors, and they waited in a short line before being admitted into the aquarium. Martin immediately darted off on his own, Edward calling after him to stay close as Oswald took his hand.
“Let him explore, he can’t get far,” Oswald soothed.
“It’s a big building,” Edward objected.
“And he’ll be just fine as long as he stays inside it,” Oswald said, patting his hand.
“I suppose,” Edward allowed.
“Excellent,” Oswald said, pulling him over to a display, “Now, tell me all about these… Sphere-na… mockaran… things.”
“Sphyrna mokarran is the largest species of hammerhead shark,” Edward recited. “Shark mothers can have litters ranging from a dozen pups to over fifty.”
“Litters?” Oswald asked, face contorting. “Pups?”
“They give birth, Oswald,” Edward explained, “What did you think they did?”
“Lay eggs?” Oswald said.
“Technically, the eggs hatch inside of her,” Edward explained. “It’s actually a very complicated process—”
“Perhaps another time,” Oswald said, desperate to change the subject.
“Oh, I know!” Edward exclaimed, tugging him in another direction. “Let’s go see the sea turtles next.”
“Turtles definitely all lay eggs, right?” Oswald asked, linking their fingers together.
“Yes, Oswald. As far as I know, all turtles lay eggs. As for other reptiles—”
“Let’s stick to marine life,” Oswald strongly suggested, having heard quite enough about eggs in the past few minutes. He’d had eggs for breakfast, and it just so happened that they were no longer sitting as well as they had been before.
“Well, this certainly is the place for it,” Edward replied, winking as he lead them to the sea turtle’s tank. A massive specimen began to glide past them along the tank’s edge, stunning them both into silent awe. Oswald squeezed Edward’s hand and smiled at his slack-jawed expression of wonder. Half the fun of coming here was Edward’s pure, childlike wonder. It made Oswald feel like they weren’t so rotten at their core after all.
***
They find Martin crying at the penguin exhibit, which is the last place the adoptive son of the infamous Penguin himself should be crying. The two felt extremely guilty upon making the discovery; they’d been having a wonderful time thus far and hadn’t anticipated anything bad happening in a location that Martin knew so well.
“Martin,” Oswald called softly, alerting Martin to their presence. They’d seen him crying softly a ways down the hall, tear tracks obvious on his face in the icy blue glow of the exhibit. “What’s going on?”
‘I’ll never really be your son,’ Martin said, wiping away his tears. Edward’s heart dropped into the vicinity of his stomach.
“Why do you think that?” Edward asked, kneeling in front of him as Oswald sat by his side.
‘The zookeeper said that those two penguins stole the egg they have, and that it isn’t really theirs,’ Martin explained, scrawling messily onto his pad.
“Well it’s theirs now!” Oswald said. “I’ve stolen plenty of things that are mine.”
‘But not really,’ he wrote, dotting the paper with teardrops.
“You don’t think that maybe they were always supposed to be together?” Edward asked.
‘How would they know that?’ Martin asked, curling the question mark in a very familiar way. Edward smiled.
“You just know,” Oswald answered, hugging Martin to his chest. Edward could tell he was unconvinced. Martin was surprisingly rational for his age, and fanciful explanation with no real backing just wouldn’t cut it.
“There’s this very old story from a supposedly wise man,” Edward began, shifting on his knees. “The Birds and the Beasts were going to war with one another. The armies prepared to battle, but the Penguin wasn’t sure which side to join. The Birds flew by and asked it to come with them, but the Penguin couldn’t fly and told them, ‘I am a Beast.’ Then later the Beasts passed and asked the Penguin to follow them, but it was so different from them and said, ‘I am a Bird.’ Luckily, the war never happened, and there was peace. The Penguin went the Birds to celebrate, but they all turned against it, and it had to swim away. It went to the Beasts, and left even more quickly, or else they would have torn it to pieces.”
Edward paused and tapped Martin’s notebook. “What do you think it learned, after that?”
‘To pick a side?’ Martin asked.
“Very perceptive,” Edward asked. “The original story ends when the Penguin realizes that someone who isn’t one thing or the other has no friends.”
‘But the Penguin couldn’t fly with the birds,” Martin scrawled.
“A penguin is still a bird, though,” Oswald explained, raising an eyebrow at Edward as if to ask, ‘Where are you going with this?’
“I think that in this situation, the Penguin was right,” Edward explained. “It chose its own side. Penguins aren’t alone, after all. There are so many other Penguins in the world. They don’t have to be birds or beasts, they can just be Penguins. They can stick together if they choose to.”
“And I chose you,” Oswald said, picking up on Edward’s explanation at last.
“And that means you belong with us, because we decided to be a family together,” Edward said, sitting up and putting a hand on Martin’s shoulder. “Maybe you didn’t belong to any other family before, but you belong to this one now because we’ve made our own family. Does that make sense?”
‘But it’s just made up,’ Martin said, ‘You’re not my real family.’ He’d underlined ‘real’ several times for emphasis.
“We are a real family,” Oswald told him, incredulous. “It’s real if you act like it, and if you believe it.”
‘Believing in something doesn’t make it real,’ Martin wrote. ‘I’m not a baby.’
“I’m not really a Cobblepot, I wasn’t born one.” Edward said, “But I chose to be one, and you’re a Cobblepot too.”
“Technically, I’m the first Cobblepot in our entire family line,” Oswald said. “It used to be ‘Kapelput’, until I changed it.”
“You’re not the first person to become a Cobblepot,” Edward told him. He laid a hand on Oswald’s shoulder, then said, “You’re not even the second.”
‘It’s just a name,’ Martin said. ‘People can have a lot of names.’
“But people don’t always get to choose their names,” Oswald said. “I didn’t choose to be called ‘Penguin’.”
“Do you want to know what I think?” Edward asked, addressing Martin. He nodded. “You know I don’t believe in things I can’t see, things I can’t prove, but I’ve always believed that fate brought Oswald into my life. And because of him, I was able to meet you too. From the first time I met you I knew you were something special, and I know Oswald feels the same way about you.”
Oswald nodded, “It’s true, I could feel a connection between us. Even if I was afraid of it at first.”
“You can’t prove a feeling,” Edward said, feeling his eyes begin to mist up. In a moment he’d let the floodgate open, but not yet. “But I’ve always felt that meeting you both was fated. I feel like we were always meant to be together, all of us. Even though we didn’t start off that way.”
“And if we had started off that way,” Oswald said, “We never would have experienced the joy of finding each other.”
“We never would have experienced the loneliness that makes a family seem so extraordinary,” Edward added, blinking back tears. “Martin, I’m so lucky to have you in my life. Maybe some people won’t think our family is real enough, but it’s real to me. Maybe you haven’t always been our son, but you certainly are now.”
“I love you so much,” Oswald told him, “and that’s real. Some families don’t love each other at all. They fight and they hurt each other, and when they fall they don’t help each other back up. But Edward and I will always be here for you; we’ll be here to pick you up and dust you off. We’ll always love you.”
“No matter what,” Edward said, gently squeezing Martin’s shoulder.
“And that’s a family,” Oswald concluded. “Do you understand now?”
Martin merely signed, ‘thank you’ before promptly pulling them both into a hug. Oswald’s comments had hit Edward harder than he should have allowed them to, and he found himself sniffling into Martin’s curls before redirecting his face into the crook of Oswald’s neck. Crying on his husband’s shoulder was preferable to crying on his son. Eventually he pulled away, scrawling on his pad, ‘Sorry I ruined aquarium day.’
“You didn’t ruin it!” Oswald gasped.
“This has been the best aquarium day,” Edward told him, wiping a palm across his face, “Because now we know you understand how much your father and I love you.”
“We got to make wonderful memories,” Oswald said. “And now this place is special for our family.”
‘I love you,’ Martin signed, making sure to face both of them.
“Do you want to go home?” Edward asked, “We don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”
‘I want to stay,’ Martin wrote.
“Well, how about we go the the cafeteria for a snack break?” Oswald proposed.
“I’m parched,” Edward agreed, glad Oswald had given him the opening. Crying had taken a lot out of him, and he was in desperate need of a cool drink. He was grateful the aquarium was so slow today, no one had been lingering after the penguin feeding ended, therefore no one had seen them in their little huddle.
‘Can I get ice cream?’ Martin asked. Oswald was not oblivious to how Edward perked up at the mention. He smiled, forever grateful that his two favourite people in the world shared the same path to their hearts: frozen dairy.
“I think we all deserve some ice cream,” he decided, feeling rather accomplished as he was met with two tentatively happy smiles.
“I think they have a family discount,” Edward offered. Martin furiously scribbled on his pad.
‘WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR!!!! >:(.’ Oswald had barely finished reading when Martin seized his hand and Edward’s, then began dragging them off in the direction of the cafeteria. The pair exchanged a soft smile behind him, gladly following.
Where else would they go?