This fic is inspired by the exchange Dom and Letty have in Fast 9.

"Brian and Mia got out of the game when they had kids."
"We aren't them."

Dominic Toretto knew that Letty loved him more than anything. He'd always known it, perhaps. It was why he felt secure enough to test her loyalty time and again. Leaving her in Mexico, leaving her again, in the DR, only weeks after their marriage.

Pulling that job for Cipher without a word in order to rescue his son.

He always knew that she'd be there. He'd always trusted it, even as he knew that his actions had made her unhappy.

He wasn't stupid. People might accuse him of that, but Dom knew that the shit he pulled wasn't cool. He knew that plenty of relationships would have crashed and burned for only one of the many moves he'd pulled on his woman.

But Letty was his Ride or Die. She would go to the wall for him. She would let him hurt her, again and again, and still be there.

He didn't really know why sometimes. She was strong, smart, beautiful, capable as hell. She didn't need him. Not the way he needed her. And he needed her like air.

When he'd thought Letty dead his world had crumbled. At first only revenge kept him going. Then it was Mia and her baby.

He'd put on a show for his little sister, feigning happiness with Elena for a while.

Sometimes he'd even convinced himself. And when that didn't work, the drink usually had. He told himself Elena knew how he really felt, or understood. Maybe she had. Maybe she hadn't. Truthfully he hadn't given the Brazilian woman another thought once he'd found Letty again. Not until Cipher.

And his relationship with Elena had thrown another little complication into their lives. An unexpected one in little Brian Marcos.

He knew that when he and Letty had talked about a family back in Cuba this was not what she'd had in mind. Another thing some women might have found too much to deal with.

It's not like he'd cheated, exactly. He'd thought his wife was dead. Letty never blamed him. Never blamed Elena, as much as he knew she didn't really like the whole thing. When they'd been younger she'd been notoriously jealous and possessive. Maybe it was the memory loss, or the fact that they'd both grown up, but she wasn't mad about Elena.

She wasn't even mad about Brian. She was… thrown, perhaps. Becoming parents overnight had been a challenge.

And Dom had become paranoid about their safety.

He'd just watched Elena be shot to death in front of him and their infant son.

He'd seen Letty at the end of a gun twice in the span of weeks. And he knew Cipher would not hesitate to hurt his family to get to him again.

So he'd run. He'd taken them and fled to a quiet, off the grid location in Mexico. Somewhere where no one could track them with anything, not even the God's Eye.

The house was self-sufficient. They made their own power, pumped water from a well, and had a generator out back if they needed. He knew from the first day they moved in that Letty hated it. There was nothing to do but fix things that were constantly breaking down and tinker with the vehicles kept in the huge barn out back.

She'd given Dom a look of derision about training Brian how to hide from the minute he'd been old enough to understand. They'd had more than one argument about it, in whispers in their bedroom while the baby slept, or full-on shouting matches in the garage where she asked him who the hell he even was anymore.

She accused him of changing.

He claimed he'd grown up.

Still, she hadn't left him. She'd stuck it out, perhaps hoping that he might change his mind. Or maybe she just couldn't bring herself to leave him and Brian. She loved that little boy, and even though they were both sure to tell him about Elena, Letty was the only mother the kid knew.

At night, when Letty pressed her body into his in the quiet of their bedroom he was reminded about how desperately she did love him too, and how much he needed her, like air. He'd press kisses along the back of her neck and murmur sweet words until she clutched him close. They'd make love in the silence of the Mexican countryside with the moon bright outside their window. He loved it, but he knew they both missed the sounds of home in LA, the adrenaline rush of coming home after a street race and barely making it through the front door, fucking on the couch like teenagers.

She slid her hand down his back and held him close, told him she missed it all.

He couldn't bring himself to answer, even if he did too. He was too afraid to lose what he had.

Three years they spent like that, fighting against the growing distance between them and doing their best to raise Brian.

"He should have friends," Letty told him. "What about when he starts school?"

Dom didn't have an answer. He wanted those things for his son, but he was still afraid.

Mia and Brian would visit with Jack and Sarah. Letty came alive those visits. The others came with them a time or two, and when they all left the house felt so isolated and empty he could understand his wife's frustration.

The wake of their visits would lead to more arguments too, and even though they always made up, Dom could tell Letty grew more unhappy as the days went by. But he didn't want to think about it, because he was still afraid to change things.

When Brian Marcos was just on the far side of three years old, when their old friends had shown up unannounced out of the blue with the message from Mr. Nobody, his wife finally chose something other than him.

For the first time, Dom wasn't sure if she would come back.

He caught her outside at her bike. She met his gaze, her own determined. He knew he wouldn't change her mind, but he tried anyway.

"Brian and Mia got out of the game when they became parents," he told her.

"We're not them," she said simply, slipping her helmet on.

He watched her go as he mulled over those simple words. It was true. Even in all his fantasies of starting a family with Letty, Dom had never really imagined becoming like Brian and Mia. Not really.

He and Letty always lived for the thrill of danger. Maybe he wouldn't always be jumping cars from airplanes or even jacking tanker trucks.

But did he really want to spend the rest of his life hiding here in the Mexican countryside? Did he want to grow old on a farm, talking about his glory days to no one but the wildlife?

He'd known Letty was unhappy. Hell, he'd been unhappy.

But he had been too scared to admit it. And that was not like him.

Cipher had made him afraid, and he hated her for it. He hated himself for letting her do it. When little Brian got old enough to understand why he hid in the garage trap door, he'd be scared too.

Did he really want his child to grow up like that?

These were questions his wife had asked him before, but he'd been too stubborn to listen to her. And when he'd admitted that all he could see was Cipher doing to her what he did to Elena, or getting his hands on Brian again, Letty hadn't pushed.

Maybe she knew he'd needed time. Because in the past, when she'd told him they could handle everything that came their way, as they always did, he hadn't listened.

She'd given up trying to argue with Dominic Toretto's fear.

Maybe it had always been his fear that had ruled him. It had been his fear that had sent them running to Mexico, then sent him running again, alone, to the DR.

It had been his fear that had sent him away in the middle of the night when she was sleeping.

His fear that had sent him to Cipher to be her dog.

His fear that brought them here.

Wasn't he tired of being ruled by that? What happened to the young man who hadn't been afraid of anything? Who'd told Brian he wasn't running away when he was trying to protect his family from the mess he'd gotten them into?

Maybe Letty was right to ask him who he was. Because he didn't even recognize himself anymore.

He wasn't the man he wanted his son to see as his father.

He knew he was a good dad, he'd had a good example in his own. But he did want more for his son. He wanted a happy home, without his parents arguing all the time. He wanted him to have friends and go to school. He wanted to be able to take him to the park, show him the racing circuit where his grandpa had driven, the old garage and all his other childhood haunts.

Out here they had safety. But that was all.

Dom went into the garage to look over the footage the others had brought again. He knew his mind was almost made up. It was time, perhaps, to stop hiding and start fighting. It was time to listen to his wife. It was time to be the man he'd lost somewhere along the way pulling jobs for Cipher.

And when he saw the cross in the blown up footage, when he knew his little brother was suddenly back in the picture, it only cemented that thought. He couldn't let his family face this threat alone.

He picked up the burner phone he kept stashed in a drawer and dialed.

"Brian," he said. "I need a favor…"