WHAT. Nobody expects an Aeorian Hunter in the baby store but these two manage to turn it into romance WHERE. a baby store WHEN. Backdated to November 19th WARNINGS. the hunter eyeball is its own warning STATUS. complete
Baby stores were like another planet as far as Lila was concerned. But maybe that was a Vallo thing. It wasn't like she'd ever stepped foot inside one before. Everything had ruffles. She'd counted twenty-five stuffed ducklings since they'd entered the store. There was soft music coming from somewhere and she was horrified to realize that it was soothing her nerves.
She shouldn't even have nerves. So they were shopping for a crib, so what? It was just a little bed with walls. It wasn't like it changed anything.
And yet it felt like something had changed. Just the slightest shift as she walked next to Diego, peering at cribs and dressers and wondering what Graciela would like.
"What do you think she'd pick? It's not like there's anything with knives on it." Lila toyed with an elephant in a tutu lamp. More ruffles. "We should've asked her."
"Asked her what her baby self would have wanted for decorations?" Diego asked, his mouth pulling up at the corners even as his tone sounded skeptical. He got it though, got the wanting to do everything right even though of course there was no such thing as a perfect parent, blah blah blah, they were both so concerned with being good parents. And seeing their daughter, so bright, so strong, so confident in herself and straight up saying 'you guys are morons, we have a good family' truly had done a lot to quell his anxieties. But he and Lila still had to get there, and that meant doing things like choosing cribs and changing tables.
Which was, weirdly, a lot of fucking pressure.
"Did you know babies can't see color until like, four months?" He asked absently, sending a mobile of stars and moons (which only made him think of Luther, albeit with less bitterness and more fond annoyance) spinning with a nudge of his finger. "And they see red first. Weird, right? I read that in the least annoying of those baby books." Never did Diego think he'd have an opinion on what the least annoying baby book was, but here they were. Spewing facts like he was a goddamn baby doctor kept him from saying that Lila should just move in with him, that obviously it made more sense on all levels.
"I don't know what we had," he mused. "Probably something scientifically proven to improve intelligence or some bullshit." That seemed like a Reginald Hargreeves thing to do, at least.
"Asked her about her favorite animals, you prat." Lila poked him in the side. Her insult was unbearably affectionate but that's what he got for smirking at her and talking about baby book facts. "And whether she despises ruffles. Anyway, I think that might be the same book I didn't hate because that fact sounds familiar."
There was a dark wood crib nearby, a little old-fashioned but charming. She grabbed his hand and pulled him closer to it.
"Your childhood was a war crime but mine wasn't much better. Mum did pretend we were just the most normal of time assassin families by the time I was six or so though." She traced the carving on the crib with a gentle hand, clearly obsessed already. She hadn't let go of Diego's hand yet. "What do you think of this one?"
“It’s good,” Diego agreed, quickly. Not because he didn’t care–although his sense of design probably left something to be desired–but because it was the one Lila wanted and like fuck he was going to tell her no. With his free hand (the other still holding Lila’s with an odd sense of having done it many times before and yet somehow it feeling all new) he gave the crib an experimental shake to test its durability. Since they were going to be raising their baby in Vallo, where absolutely anything could happen at any given moment, it stood to reason that anything responsible for sheltering her was going to have to be pretty fucking strong. Already he was concocting tests he could run with the Chaos Crew to pick a stroller.
But no, a second glance at the crib cemented the decision. He liked the idea of having a crib too, not only for the obvious practicality of it, but because it meant their daughter would have a home. Not that she wouldn’t but–ugh, whatever, emotions, blah blah blah. “You got good instincts, see?” He told Lila, bumping her shoulder with his. “If it were up to me, I’d do the whole thing in black. Babies need sleep, right?” He was kidding, of course. But the part about babies seeing in black and white was true!
He cleared his throat, glancing over at Lila, back at the crib, over at Lila, over to a wallpaper display of an octopus holding hands with an elephant (maybe it was metaphorical???). “Hey, so, okay, this is not the best time, but fuck it, fine, I was thinking that maybe–” and then whatever he was about to say was completely interrupted by a scream at the front of the store. Frowning, Diego unleashed two knives, because like fuck he wasn’t going to be armed. “Stay. Here,” he said, firmly, before taking off in the direction of the action.
"Look, black's good too. We could get this remade in black if you wanted." Lila liked the idea, if for nothing more than it being a piece of both of them. But she stood frozen as he kept speaking, her eyebrows beginning to climb. It sounded like he had something real to say. Not that he didn't always have something real to say but sometimes it was just really ridiculous. That was his defensive mechanism and she not-so-secretly loved that about him. But this, this could be real.
Naturally, something had to shatter the moment. More so his stay here command than the scream, really.
"Fuck off. You stay here," she snapped, trailing after him with a slight waddle. Six months pregnant was no joke, but she still had abilities. There were people with powers within reach and she automatically pulled on one to form a murder-cicle out of ice in one of her hands. "Oh, yes, you'll do nicely."
“I know you’re not fucking moving,” Digeo hissed over his shoulder, even though it was very evident that was in fact what Lila was doing. Was he expecting otherwise? Not really. Lila was about as stubborn as he was, which was quite a fucking feat, but he was going to dig his feet in too. In this case, digging his feet in meant speeding up until he came around the corner and caught sight of what was causing the panic–an Aeorian hunter, not that Diego really had the word for it. All he knew was that it was a giant panther looking thing with massive paws and claws.
Gross.
He turned around and walked into Lila, hands on her shoulders to push her into an aisle.“No, shut up, listen, that thing has a fucking eyeball on its tail, do not make me zip tie you to this–” he looked around quickly for something solid to complete the threat. “Baby…thing, whatever.” Or he could just toss Lila over his shoulder, take her outside, and then go back and finish the thing off, that would work too. But it was decision time, considering the monster prowling around close enough for the paws to rattle a few nearby ceramic pieces that sure were pretty but also completely impractical for a baby’s room. Diego whipped out two more knives, thought about it for all of a second, and then pulled out two more before darting out. Oh fuck, he was going to have to explode that eye, wasn’t he??
When Diego sped up, so did Lila. As fast as her swollen feet would allow anyway. That didn't help her dodge being pulled aside like an errant child. She didn't exactly mind being manhandled by him though. Her face went through a complicated series of emotions because holy fuck, deja vu.
"You can't do this to me again, Diego," she hissed. "I let you get away with it when you loved me back. Hell I even loved you more for it because you're such a self-sacrificing idiot and no one's ever tried to protect me ever in my life, but this…I…" She was not going to bloody cry in this baby shop with a monster nearby. "I can protect Graciela too. And you, you big lump."
Spurred on by hormones and danger - there were crashing sounds as the hunter moved closer - Lila hooked a hand around the back of Diego's neck and pulled him down to her mouth. Was now the time? No. But Lila had never let time stand in her way.
Diego blinked in surprise, once, and then before Lila could interpret it as a sign of anything, he took her face in his hands and kissed her, that same sense of new and home and being settled flooding him. He’d kissed Lila before, in memories, but this was different. It felt like they were choosing each other, here and now.
He was notoriously terrible with words, and words that were filled with emotion or in emotional moments, forget it. Add to that the fact that there was an actual monster lurking around nearby and, well, again, probably not the right time, but he did not give a shit. “Listen, okay?” He said, as a display of boxes of baby wipes crashed down somewhere. “I love you.” Those words had never been easy for Diego, who had believed that love came with conditions, but he had learned and was still learning. But even if he didn’t say it out loud that often, he knew what it was to love dangerous people, and he knew what it was to be loved back and it never meant anything less than everything to him. Lila, here and now, fierce and independent and ready to kick his ass and then some monster’s and then buy a crib? Come the fuck on, he stood no chance.
“And yeah, I’m terrified about being a parent, but I’m also ridiculously excited about Graciela and I want to raise her and be a family and do the stupid family shit that you and I never got to do. But if it were only you here, that would be enough.” With another crash, Diego glanced over his shoulder and, lightning fast, threw two daggers out and around three corners before turning back to Lila. “Okay? You’re enough. And I am always, fucking always going to protect you and our baby.”
Oh. That was more than she'd expected by a longshot. Lila lit up, all the weight of the last couple of months sliding off her shoulders. She liked it here, but it would always have felt like a punishment with Diego just out of arm's reach and still burrowed in her heart like a splinter she didn't want to dig out. Like she'd gotten too close to the sun and life had punted her back down somewhere more reasonable.
There was nothing reasonable about the way Diego Hargreeves made her feel.
"Damn you, I didn't want to cry," she sputtered, watching him throw daggers out of sight. The monster still wasn't on top of them so she had time. She'd make time. "I love you too. I was stupid over you before Graciela had anything to do with it, Diego. I would've risked everything, I did risk everything…and I know I made some bad choices, but you were never one of them."
The hunter flailed around the corner, knives protruding from its body. Lila launched two icicles towards its eyeball tail without barely looking its way.
"You're enough too, you ox." The hunter roared and the next crash was much closer. "You're my favorite person, every stubborn inch of you." She hurriedly planted a kiss on him for luck and turned, more icicles forming in her hands. "Let's shut this thing up now, yeah?"
In spite of, well, a fucking monster running around, Diego couldn’t help but smile crookedly, Because it was like something settling into place for him, something that had been unmoored for awhile, maybe always had been since he’d first remembered Lila. He had built a life in Vallo, one he was proud of, had a home that felt more like a home than his actual home ever had. But that short time with Lila and Graciela had felt so solid and secure, a missing piece that he hadn’t even really known was missing. They were what he wanted. “Yeah,” he agreed, already having replaced the missing daggers with, somehow, more daggers. “We could fuck some shit up.”
Lila could absolutely take care of herself and keep the baby safe while fighting off five monsters at once. But. But. That was absolutely not going to stop Diego from doing literally everything he could to act as an idiotic human shield, powers or not, he had meant it when he said he was always going to protect them. And it meant more than he could say right now that she intended to protect him.
He was obviously never going to let that happen and was contemplating how fast he could construct a barricade out of giant stuffed bears and the fucking diaper genies.
Diego had daggers raised, poised to throw them with deadly grace and accuracy before a thought occurred to him. “We have to stop that thing before it breaks the rockers, my ass wants a good chair for midnight feedings.”