WHO: Lila, Diego, and Graciela WHAT: Lila and Diego wanted to know if they're good parents, and Graciela thinks "omg that's cringey!" but assures them anyway. WHEN: After Fight Club, October 22nd WARNINGS: None! STATUS: Complete!
“This is going to sting,” Diego warned, before dabbing a cut above Graciela’s eyebrow with a cotton ball soaked in antiseptic. Following Fight Club, he, Graciela, and Lila had gone back to Lila’s apartment so they could bandage up their bruised daughter. Sure, the club had healers, but Graciela hadn’t been hurt badly enough to need one (so she said, at least, but as Diego was someone who had once attempted to staple his injuries with an actual stapler, he recognized the difference between refusing help and then passing out immediately after and when you just wanted to get out). And besides that, Diego wanted to take care of his kid, it was important to him, even though he’d only known her as a kickass teenager for a few days. It hadn’t mattered. From the very moment he told Lila he was all in, he was all in.
Soon enough, he’d go back to the train and Graciela and Lila would stay here, a fact Diego tried hard not to dwell on. They were all here now, anyway, and he of course wanted them to have their own relationship independent of him. It was just a sense of…missing, maybe. Like he liked their little dagger happy family who swore like sailors and took shit from no one. And seeing as how their kid seemed happy enough to be around them, at the very least they hadn’t fucked it all up in spite of both Diego and Lila’s own terrible examples of parenting.
The antiseptic applied, he put a butterfly bandage to the cut. “You’ve got a pretty fucking killer right hook,” Diego said, approvingly. That also hadn’t mattered, Graciela could have done whatever the fuck she wanted, had hobbies and interests completely different from anything he knew anything about, but it was nice to have an easy touchstone of communication.
“Didn’t give up, either,” he said, before the corner of his mouth tugged up into a smirk. “Which comes only second to kicking Vax’s ass, obviously the most important thing.”
Graciela let out the biggest, most dramatic hiss when Diego applied the antiseptic, but she didn't complain. Let her parents fuss over a cut while she nursed her own bruised ego. She didn't like losing, and yet she kept putting herself up for fight club—here and at home—because it made sense. And it let all of the chaotic pent up energy find an outlet. But she was not just a Hargreeves with a temper who threw down at the drop of a hat. She released that restlessness with dance and music and running and all the other stupid shit she did to pass the time.
At the mention of killer right hook Graciela pointed at Lila, as if to say all her. Her training had started out as self-defense, and turned into something bigger and more involved. And Graciela loved it. A product of her parents to the extreme. Except right now they were like weird, half-dopplegangers of her parents she knew. Younger versions who were doing the most awkward dance. Ugh.
"Yeah, of course I'm not going to give up, because I'm not a quitter. We don't quit in this family," Graciela said, knee bouncing as she crackled each knuckle in her hands. Sitting was making her anxious. "And if I didn't kick Uncle Vax's ass then I would have stared him down in the stands like usual. Win-win—"
Graciela nudged Diego's hand away, not unkindly. "I can clean my own wounds. Mom, tell him I can clean my own wounds. He listens to you."
“He listens to me?” Lila scoffed cheerfully. She’d been in the kitchen, pouring them ice water and maybe rolling around in her too-big thoughts, but now she clunked two tall glasses down on the side table next to her daughter. “I think maybe you have me confused with a mirror, kitten. He is an island unto himself.”
She didn’t actually believe that, but it was easier to tease Diego than it was to do anything with the warmth in her chest watching him patch up their kid and praise her. They looked so much alike that it was a minute by minute danger to her hormonal emotions. It was their fault really that she followed Diego’s lead in the end.
“He’s right, though. About you. That was impressive. You got cocky, but well. You’re ours so…” Lila smirked softly and snuck a glance at Diego as she perched on the arm of the sofa. “…I’m not sure you had much of a choice in that one.”
Diego’s mouth twisted again as he rapidly lost ground in the battle against smiling. “Wow, speak for yourself, I’m not cocky,” he scoffed, in a very put upon, cocky manner…that was intentionally an over the top act. Diego’s humor was drier than the desert after a century long drought but it was certainly there around a select group of people. Stubbornness was a family trait too, so even though Graciela tried to bat him away, it wouldn’t work and instead, he grabbed a bandage that was majorly disproportionately large to the size of another cut. He held it up threateningly. “Don’t make me use this.”
But soon enough he put the ‘weapon’ away, choosing instead to take one of Graciela’s hands in his own and flex her fingers back and forth. It was probably extraneous considering she had been just cracking her knuckles, but what if. Did his future self do this, he wondered? Did he feel this weird combination of pride in their daughter because of her tenacity, her fierceness, but also this deep fear that she would hurt herself? Diego snuck his own sideways glance at Lila. He wanted to tell her something that would inevitably end up sounding ridiculous, something like ‘look at our daughter, look at how amazing and kickass she is, and somehow we did this, it’s going to be okay.’
But again, that would sound ridiculous.
Diego cleared his throat. “So, okay, what do we do normally after these, huh? Don’t try and sell me on some bullshit either, your mom can smell lies.”
They were the image of domesticity—the only way her parents knew in their tough, brusque, loving manner. She didn't complain (much) after the bandaid threat, simply scowled aggressively at the thought of any wound she had would be made into a bigger deal than it was. She was not breakable, at least, that's what she liked to believe.
"I wasn't cocky," Graciela said, whining really, at Lila. "I just know my worth and my worth is not losing to people my age. Or temporarily my age. They're all old as dirt in the future." Which was weird to say, and Graciela only realized the weirdness as she observed her parents dance around each other, fuss over her, take her hand and work out the tightness in her fingers without complaint. They were young too, younger than she could ever remember them being.
For a moment, she was stunned into silence, staring too long, watching them too hard. Her attention drifted down to Lila and her—who was probably the size of a grapefruit or an eggplant or a football. She didn't know.
"Normally," Graciela started to say, sitting up straighter, attempting to go for truth when she was blatantly about to lie. "Me and mom eat celebratory mushy peas while you rub her feet and I clean my teleporting knife."
Lila laughed, not at them but because of them. Because Diego's mood was addictive and Graciela was a spitfire. It was hard to believe any of this was real but she didn't know what else to do. Her belly was making it hard to perch on the sofa arm comfortably, so she scooted in and plopped down next to Gracie.
"Did you hear that, Diego? Mushy peas and you rub my feet in the future. I wonder if you lost a bet." She wanted to hope it was because of other reasons. She was determined to make it be for other reasons. She reached out with a foot and gently kicked his knee. "You apparently lost out on that knife you're always going on about too. Will you be able to live with that knowledge or should I worry about you?"
“Someone’s got jokes,” Diego drawled, letting go of Graciela’s hand to fake a swipe at her head and instead, poked her in the ribs. “Just remember that it hasn’t happened yet so for all you fucking know, it could be my teleporting knife by the time you get old enough.” Yet another thing that twisted his not soft self into fucking knots was the knowledge that not only were they a little family, somehow, but also that Graciela had been raised with other adults who cared for her. That was important too, Diego thought. Every kid needed people outside their parents who they could rely on. And he knew it’d be that way for himself too, that when his friends, his found family had their own families, they’d have a safe place with him.
“Someone else has jokes,” he said with a pointed glance at Lila and scrunch of his face that was…meant to be teasing, even if it came off a little bit more like he was fighting off a sneeze. He grabbed her foot and repeatedly poked at the bottom of it with one finger. “Like that, huh? Is that right?” Diego could see it again, this normalcy that could be their future. He thought of his own mom, cleaning up their injuries in the most effective way she could because of her programming, but also doing it with as much love as she could give. He could only imagine what the Handler had been like, either syrupy and over the top in her affections or withholding and manipulative.
And so it was that thought, and the way Lila had been watching Graciela from the first moment they’d found her, that drove him to ask. “Hey are we–and this one I’m actually serious about so give me a sec.” God, where were the antacids when he needed them? “Are we good parents? Like, are you happy and shit? You have friends, you don’t want to kill us, you had a pretty normal childhood minus the shit that happens here anyway?”
This was more Graciela's speed. Watching her mom rib her dad, while they all sat around being fond of one another. The smile on her face was growing so wide, getting bigger by the minute—God, Graciela was preening underneath her bandage and above her bruised ego from fight club—until Diego said serious. Serious conversations came with things like being responsible, and being safe, and not doing drugs or something else incredibly trite.
Was this a set up? Were they cornering her to get tips? Of course they had been good parents, great parents, the best. And yes, goddamnit, she was biased. They breezed through every problem that came up like practiced adults, who didn't have to worry about being decent at raising a kid. They weren't perfect by any means, but what family was?
Her eyes narrowed, and she inched back in her seat to look at Lila, then Diego several times. "You set me up," Graciela said, holding up a finger and waggling it between the two of them. "Did you plan this? Are you taking the piss? You two, please." She stood, waving them off as she paced away.
"Do you really think you were, are, are going to be shitty parents?" Graciela asked, then gestured erratically at her mom, pregnant with her. "Baby me is going to be here in like four fucking months, you cannot be this worried."
Lila nearly kicked Diego when he tickled her foot but her grin was as bright as her laugh. She was clearly having fun. Until she was clearly caught off guard by the switch to serious.
"Damn it, Diego," she muttered softly. It wasn't anger, just a nervous anxiety that made her rub a hand over her belly and wish he was sitting closer as Graciela stood up. Lila frowned up at her and had no issues raising her voice right back. "Look, we're bloody new to this and it's not like we had good examples of parenting in our lives. And anyway, I'm going to be pushing a watermelon out of my vagina in a few months so I'm allowed to worry about all kinds of things!"
Like whether her daughter would love her. Trust her. And whether the Diego that chose her would ever look back at her from this Diego's face or if watching him love their kid was as close as she'd ever get. It was more than she'd thought she was going to get at the start, to be fair. And she wanted that for them both too much to think of it as anything but a good thing.
"It's a good question, honestly," Lila added in a petulant mumble.
“We are fucking terrified,” Diego blurted out, and when he said it he realized just how true it was. Ask Diego and he’d list off the many, many things he was good at, amazing at, even, but it was his relationships with the people he loved most that he always worried about. And he’d come a long way from first coming into Vallo and realizing that his worth wasn’t what he could do, that he didn’t constantly need to prove himself to be cared for, but he also never took any of that for granted. Not his friends who were like family, not Lila even if he wasn’t the Diego she wanted, not their child.
He found himself shifting to sit by Lila and wrapping an arm around her shoulders because it felt right and important. “We had shit parents, which isn’t an excuse, okay? That’s not an excuse to be shit parents in return, don’t think it is. But you,” he pointed at Graciela to underscore it. “You, nena, are the most important person to us, already, and you’re not even here yet. We want to give you the best life we can, where you don’t question for a fucking second that we love you.”
Oh, God, he was going to puke.
“And don’t roll your eyes at me,” Diego added. “I mean, you can, just do it internally.”
"You two are so bad at this," Graciela said, her whole face twisting up as if she smelled something terrible. She should have expected her mom to be blunt about her watermelon-shaped self getting pushed out while her dad was two seconds away from hurling. Neither seemed to be related to one another. "Not not the parent thing, before you get all you about it. I meant asking questions to your future kid, zero tact, really needy. God I'm going to hold this over you when I go back."
She rolled her eyes, not internally, despite Diego saying not to, and grabbed one of the fancy decorative bowls off the table to hand to him. "In case you really are going to hurl. I thought it would be mom, but she seems to have it together better than you. Which, honestly, tracks."
Graciela started popping her knuckles again as she paced because this was a serious conversation, and this was absolutely painful and heartbreaking to know her parents thought they'd be crap. How did her teenage self explain to them without giving them a complex? Holy shit, she was going to get a complex.
"Look," Graciela started to stay, coming to an abrupt halt. "Just go with me on this for a second, okay? You two, both of you, are great parents. Full stop. Don't—" She held up a finger to say no interrupting with dumb questions. "I learned to fight from the both of you, because I asked because I thought it was cool, not a fucked up necessity by my dead grandparents. I have mom's weird food tastes, and dad's charm. Yeah, charm. I play the drums in a band—I'll get us together to play, don't ask—because I want to be like you." Graciela pointed at Lila, then she pointed at Diego. "And like you. Present tense."
With a huff, she sat back down in her previous spot, next her mom and in front of her dad. "You asked if I was happy, and yeah, no shit, I am. But I control my happiness. That's not on you. But if you're asking if my childhood with you two made me find that happiness over and over? Then, yeah. Fuck yeah. You're not as shit as you think you are. You're your own worst critic or whatever."
Lila let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding when Diego admitted he was terrified too and sat down next to her. Her emotions were already ramping up so it didn't surprise her that she took the offered comfort with every ounce of her brusque neediness. Not even Graciela's snark about that could keep it at bay. Lila clamped a hand down on Diego's thigh and leaned into his side, closing her eyes for a moment.
"You're both…Christ, you're murder on my hormones right now, you two." She was definitely getting weepy. Damn it all to hell. Lila used her free hand to wipe her arm across her eyes. "I just wanted to know that we did right by you. That you felt loved and not like some kind of, of…pawn. Now you have me thinking about family meals and you in a bloody band and, and--" She looked up at Diego and bit back the rest. But it was there in her face. Hope.
"I told your father once that a person who never really had a family was in no position to ask for one, but that I was doing it anyway, because that's what I wanted." She smiled, a little watery but real. "I'm glad we gave that to you. Even if it's really rude to call us needy!" she added with a point of her finger in Gracie's direction.
Diego knew it was probably a lot to put on their time displaced kid, hey, reassure us that we’re not crap parents, and a part of him did regret it. But it was also no small relief to know that no, their kid didn’t hate them, that she had her own talents and hobbies and interests and more importantly, that she could be so blunt and straightforward with them without any kind of fear because that was how they communicated. She wasn’t walking on eggshells afraid of being gaslighted for her feelings, or worried about competing for affection in a winless game. No, Graciela was confident enough in herself and in her relationship with them that she could speak her mind. That was the kind of relationship they had cultivated with her.
And their daughter had a fierce, fighting spirit that he hoped never got quashed. But he also hoped she knew that she would always, always have a safe place to land with them–because her parents also had fierce, fighting spirits that would throw down for her, no questions asked. Diego glanced over at Lila, as he often did now, as a check in of sorts for both of them, and the hope in her face was mirrored in his.
“Really fucking rude,” Diego agreed after a moment, throwing in his own finger point for good measure, although, he couldn’t help it, he took Graciela’s face in his hands and kissed the top of her head. “What do we do with all of this sass, huh?”
"Ugh, see, I'm not rude, you both are needy," Graciela said, trying—albeit unsuccessfully—to peel herself away from Diego when he kissed her forehead. This was not new; her parents doted on her and spoiled her with affection every moment they got. And so Graciela never, not once, felt unloved or used for something other than being a daughter in a family of tightly wound, sarcastic assholes.
"Can we just agree that the both of you are supremely emotional saps, and this conversation will be recounted as everyone here being really tough and calm and not on the verge of crying?" Graciela asked, absolutely on the verge of crying. Dumb, crying was dumb. But everytime she had cried, from her birth until this very moment, Graciela had done the one thing that always made her feel better: go to her parents.
Okay, sometimes she ran to her friends, because people might get murdered by said parents if she mentioned it to them, but most of the time, Lila and Diego were her safe space.
She dipped down to embrace her mother who looked like she was having a rough go of it, and she not-so-nonchalantly kicked her foot out to nudge her father to come join in this hug. "Get in here."
Oh no. Graciela on the verge of crying meant Lila was absolutely crying. "Bollocks," she grumped childishly as her eyes welled up. "I mean obviously. No one needs to know a damned thing but us!"
She clung to her daughter with one hand and Diego's rugged face with the other. He was getting reeled into this hug with force and she made sure to give him a look over Gracie's head that was part pleading and part try me, tough guy. While she'd never admit it out loud, she needed this. The next few months were infinitely less terrifying at the moment.
"You heard her, handsome." She tugged Diego closer. "We won't tell on you."
Diego’s hugs may have been uncommon things, but it turned out he didn’t need all that much coaxing to fall into one with Graciela and Lila. All too natural, all too easy, like they all belonged. The idea of belonging had been a tough one for him to grapple with for very obvious reasons that all started and ended with Reginald Hargreeves, but he had made some progress here. The friends he belonged to, who belonged to him, and what that all meant.
He thought he could belong here too. Wanted to, even. And although nothing was as terrifying as the thought of becoming parents in a handful of months (alright, maybe terrifying wasn’t exactly the word now that they had some reassurances but it was still really fucking scary, babies were tiny and fragile and couldn’t tell you what they needed), the deeply rooted want of what this all could be? Was pretty scary in and of itself.
Still. Still.
“Eh, even if you did,” he said, after a moment of clearing his throat for the tenth time that night so far. “I don’t give a shit this one time.”