stykera | MHA #8, Saturday morning

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MHA #8, Saturday morning

Aside from getting a bucket of ice water dumped on him at prom, the night had gone well for Stark. Honestly the ice had only led to a hasty retreat to the apartment building to remove wet clothing ~~so frell you, Anakin~~. Three nights in a row had gone very well indeed for Stark.

Eventually he'd fallen asleep, though not before tossing water on a pair of amorous and very noisy raccoons on the balcony because he had to admit the water was a good way to momentarily redirect energy.

Between the pollen, finally finding some outlets for the affects of the pollen, and having been away from the island for so long before last summer, Stark had forgotten that mysterious children tended to appear after prom. Waking up with his head clear after a week of it being very much not hadn't led to remembering. Waking up with his head clear had just led to a few moments of mild panic wondering what the repercussions of the past 3 nights might be.

But there wasn't going to be time for Stark to get thoroughly awkward just yet. After showering he was making his way to the kitchen when he stopped. Who could possibly be knocking on his door this early? And why did it sound like someone was giggling in the hallway?

[Ooooopen, for some impossible children, any neighbors that might stop by as a result of impossible children, or one neighbor who could have stayed the night if she wanted but I'm not going to presume]

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"I can hear you in there," came a voice Stark recognized but hadn't heard in years from the other side of the door. "Are you going to open the door soon? I'm hungry."

"Oooh, I'm hungry too!" The second voice was totally unfamiliar to Stark but still just as obviously a child. "Open up!"

If nothing else, children appearing would serve as a distraction for Stark for the weekend. The impending awkwardness could be put off for a few days!

"I'll open the door," he said faintly. After a quick glance around to be sure that the apartment was suitable for children to inhabit he did so, and found himself facing two children. One blue and familiar and another that was neither.

"Hi Dad!" The smaller, unfamiliar, and not-blue child said cheerfully, smiling up at Stark. "Breakfast?"

Dad always made sure there were sweet breakfast things. That was an excellent thing about this Dad.

"I could make breakfast," Stark said uncertainly. He glanced back towards the bedroom involuntarily. "Or I could take you to breakfast? There isn't much food, today."

He'd been a bit preoccupied and he'd made a very deliberate choice not to visit the bakery this past week.

"You ought to tell me your name first. We haven't met yet, here."

"Réaltín," the new child informed him. "I'm your kid. You should know me!"

"He knows me," Ziya said with a hint of smugness.

"We hadn't met yet," Stark said to Réaltín. "I couldn't know you. Now I do. Or I will."

"Ziya," he added, smiling fondly at her because he did know her from before and because she was Zhaan's, "Ziya has visited before."

"Now you met me. You're my Dad. My Dad with the mask. And you're her Dad too?" Réaltín asked.

"He's my Papa," Ziya confirmed. "The one who lives here but not with me and Mama because he's not the same Papa but he's my Papa if things went differently."

"This island does strange things," Stark said. "I could be your Dad and her Papa, even if there's another me who usually is. But while you're here..."

"Where's my other Dad?" Réaltín asked. "I don't see him."

"Who," Stark asked with no small amount of trepidation, "is your other Dad?"

"You should know!" Réaltín sighed. Usually Dad knew things!

"But I don't," Stark protested. "Not yet. But if you tell me I'll know!"

"My other Dad is Liam!"

"Liam," Stark echoed, looking out the door and into the hallway as if to summon the other man to have to witness and deal with this as well.

That was an unexpected complication. And confusing.

"Why do I hear kids?" Faye asked in a tone that suggested one might be able to replace 'kids' with 'bombs' or 'rabid dogs,' given how she was acting about it. Part of that could be blamed on the hour, but not all of it.

She had, fortunately for everyone, put on clothes.

"I have...visitors," Stark said, looking and sounding a bit panicked at the idea of last night colliding with this morning. "Small visitors. Children. Mine. My children. Or another me's children but that's close enough."

Even if he'd never met the one before. Ziya certainly belonged to a version of himself and there was no reason to believe the new child didn't as well.

"What? How? Why?" Faye asked, clearly horrified by all of this.

Yes, sex pollen, she had known about and planned for and anticipated like Christmas. But no one had warned her about the kids.

"You didn't have kids yesterday." A weird accusation to make, Faye, yet nonetheless accurate.

"I don't usually have them," Stark said. "They just appear. Sometimes. It's the island."

Sometimes the island makes you incredibly horny for a week and then sometimes the island gives you children that may or may not be possible.

"It's fine," he said, both to Faye and the children. "They're fine. Just surprising."

"Oh." Faye was just going to keep looking at the kids like she needed to escape from them. And maybe she could! Maybe she could just, like, insinuate herself out the door without either of them touching her or even really looking at her --

Except for how a new, dark-haired little girl was just letting herself in, like you did with a stranger's apartment. Or at least, like you did when you were this child.

"Moooom," she announced, making a beeline for Faye, who was just sort of standing there in shock. "I got bored waiting for you."

"...You've got one too," Stark said, very unnecessarily.

Ziya took that opportunity to ask in an exaggerated whisper "Papa, who is your friend?"
Because Ziya was old enough to know exactly what was going on here and to be curious about it and to want to have something to report to Aunt Chiana when she returned home.

"I do not," Faye protested, as though denial would help, "and your dad's friend is just leaving." Right now. Without the kid who was acting like Faye was her mother, if she could help it.

"You're blue," Lucia helpfully informed Réaltín, like perhaps this was new information, before seizing onto Faye's hand. "Are we doing a heist?"

Okay, now Faye could maybe believe this one was hers. Maybe.

"My Mama is a Delvian," Ziya told Lucia. "Of course I'm blue! Do you usually do heists?" She'd been raised on a ship full of escaped criminals. Heists weren't entirely unfamiliar territory. She'd heard so many stories!

"You don't have to leave," Stark said to Faye, though this was not exactly how he'd pictured the morning going last night.

"Oh, but I do," Faye insisted, shuffling doorwards, still. "I don't do kids."

"Dad usually ignores her when she gets like this. Says she's doing it for attention," Lucia contributed helpfully, turning her attention back to the much more interesting blue child and keeping a firm grip on her mother's hand. "I'm not supposed to go on heists, but one time Ein and I helped fly the getaway ship, anyway."

"You're Papa's friend," Ziya said. "You can stay!" Someone had maybe spent too much time with Aunt Chiana lately and Aunt Chiana was going to love hearing about this!

"And you can tell me about flying the ship," she added to Lucia. "I've never flown any ships."

"Ein did most of the flying," Lucia shared modestly. "He's a dog we know."

Great, since that was clearly fascinating Faye was just going to try to pry this little monster's fingers off of her wrist, and -- "Wait a second, you know Ein?"

Oh, shit. No. No.

"Don't be dumb," Lucia replied, rolling her eyes. "Uncle Jet says you pretend to be dumber than you are a lot, Mom."

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

"You have a dog?" Somehow that was briefly more exciting than flying a ship. "We don't have any pets. But Uncle John told me about dogs. He's from Earth," Ziya added. "Not like the rest of us. I only come here to visit."

Stark was just looking back and forth between Faye and the children.

This morning was going so strangely.

"We're not from Earth, either. Earth mostly blew up," Lucia shared helpfully, calmly maintaining her death grip on her mother even while Faye looked like she was on the verge of a panic attack. "And Ein's not our pet, really? But he is a dog."

This was the worst weekend, following the best week, and Faye was vaguely wondering if the child-punishment here was somehow meant to be proportional to the amount of sex she'd had this week. Because this was the worst thing that could have ever happened to her, easily.

Stark, for his part, was still trying to process the idea that the child he'd seen before, the one his other self had with the love of his life, was enjoying the idea that he'd spent the night with someone other than her mother.

He was also still trying to process the idea that this other child had somehow been fathered by both himself and Liam.

And the fact that Faye was apparently desperately trying to get as far away as possible.

There was a lot going on this morning. Too much.

"Can I pet the dog?" Réaltín asked.

"He's not here," Lucia scoffed, shaking her head. "But he does like pets, even if he's not a pet, 'cause Dad says he's smarter than Mom."

Which honestly was probably true, even accepting the fact that Faye acted like an idiot on purpose most of the time.

"You have to stop saying 'Dad' and 'Mom,'" Faye pleaded, drawing her free hand up to her temple to try to stave off a headache.

"That's your name."

"What's yours?" Faye countered, because she might as well know.

"Lucia Valentine-Spiegel."

Yep. Don't mind the look of open disgust that Faye was now sporting. Lucia was, at least, used to it.

"Hi Lucia! I'm Ziya," Ziya piped up. "And that's Réaltín." Réaltín waved, still a little disappointed there wasn't going to be a dog to pet. "And," she patted Stark's arm gently, "our father, Stark."

"Hello," Lucia said solemnly, addressing all three of them. "My mom's name is Faye and my dad isn't here. He's with the dog."

Just while everyone was explaining things.

"I don't think they were expecting us," she added in something like a whisper.

"You were a surprise," Stark confirmed. "All three of you."

He thought it was a pleasant surprise, though the timing could have been improved slightly.

"You say that a lot," Réaltín informed him. "That I was a surprise."

"Sometimes kids are surprises." Faye found her voice and could at least offer something of an explanation to the little girl. It wasn't especially patient or helpful, but it was something besides standing there in shock. "Sometimes more surprising than others."

Like when they appeared as fully-formed elementary schoolers, for example. Or when they were biologically impossible for one reason or another.

"Papa was very surprised the first time he met me," Ziya confirmed. "He said impossible so many times."

Stark opened his mouth to protest but then just shrugged. She was right, but she was impossible in this reality.

"I surprised him too!" Réaltín crowed. "When I told him who my other Dad is!"

"Other dad?" Lucia asked, looking very intrigued by this.

"You're impossible, too," Faye added, which was a normal thing to just informatively tell a child, nice. "Like, never happening."

Lucia responded by blowing a raspberry in a way that really, honestly, just made her seem more like Faye.

"I have two Dads," Réaltín said proudly. Because it was cool! Two glowy Dads! "Haven't seen my other one yet today but he must be here somewhere. His name is Liam."

Stark was just going to not look at anyone right now. At least the pollen had passed and he could stop himself from vividly imagining how that might have occurred, anyway.

"Oh, I know your dad." Sexy Short-Date Sheriff, yes. Faye was really good at remembering law enforcement-adjacent faces. "Your other dad."

Obviously she knew this one. Obviously.

"I only have one dad but I have a uncle," Lucia offered carefully, trying to find a similarity here. "He has a metal arm."

Which had nothing to do with anything except that it was pretty cool.

"I know them too," Réaltín informed Faye seriously. Obviously. "But I don't know you!" Aside from how they'd just been introduced.

"I have uncles on Moya," Ziya said. It was a whole weird Technicolor alien family up there. "No metal arms."

"Metal arms sound cool," Réaltín said.

"I want a Moya," Lucia decided plaintively. "...what's a Moya?"

She still wanted it, but this would be good information to have as well.

"Moya is home," Ziya explained. "She's a Leviathan. A big living ship. Is your ship alive?"

"The Bebop isn't alive," Lucia said, sounding very sure about that but still looking up to Faye for confirmation.

"No. Neither is the Red Tail." She better damn well still have her own ship in this timeline. "Or the Swordfish." Ugh, the less she thought about that, the better.

Faye glanced over at Stark. "This is so weird," she said, a little helplessly. At least she'd stopped being openly miserable, so that was nice.

"We live in a very strange place," Stark said. "Though I like this weirdness better than some other varieties. It was very surprising the first time."

"Yes, it is," Faye agreed, since that was her life right now. "I don't even talk to her father anymore."

Nor would she ever -- in a million years -- do anything with him that might produce a child. Please. He wished.

"That doesn't seem to matter, here. Ziya's mother..." Stark reached out a hand to the impossible blue girl, who snuggled into his side because she knew he got sad and that would help. "Her mother died. But not there. And as for Réaltín...Liam and I. We've never. And we're both...I don't know..."

Liam was his friend and Liam was married and neither one of them seemed built for producing children, but she did look a bit like both of them and he had no idea what was happening there.

"So it's just...idea children. Imaginary children. Hypothetical."

The child swinging on her arm hard enough that Faye felt like her arm might rip out of its socket certainly didn't feel hypothetical.

"Different timelines, different realities," Ziya corrected her. "Not imaginary!"

"They're real," Stark said. "Just not from this reality."

"I'm real real," Réaltín said, a little indignantly.

"You're right," Faye said, actually feeling a little bad about that. "You're both very real, I'm sorry."

Lucia gave her arm another hard yank, and Faye yelped. "Fine, you are too." Somewhere. "You're all kinda cute, at least."

You know, for children.

"They are," Stark agreed. "All three of them. Very cute. Very real."

"Very hungry" Réaltín grumbled.

"Mom, we should find food," Lucia agreed, looking up at her plaintively. "And then we can find a heist to do!"

Though again, the option for this to become a heist was on the table, everyone. Lucia was super down.

"Papa can make food," Ziya volunteered. "Or maybe he has cupcakes!"

"Haven't got any cupcakes," Stark said.

Both his children gave him very offended looks at that but he'd been a bit preoccupied the past few days and avoiding the bakery on purpose.

"Been a bit busy to get cupcakes, I bet," Faye supplied, smiling over at Stark like a person who just wanted to make children ask uncomfortable questions, apparently. "But Lucia, you know what, I bet we can combine those plans."

That's right, Faye was gonna take her six year-old out for some light food-related theft.

Stark was not going to respond to that, Faye, except by looking intently at the floor for a moment.

"Are you gonna bring back cupcakes?" Réaltín asked innocently.

"Yes," Lucia decided at precisely the same moment her mother said a firm, "Nope."

Faye sighed, looking down at Lucia, who was gazing up at her with The Saddest Eyes Ever. "Don't look at me like that. I invented that look. I gave you that face." But it was still working, and she added, "But fine, yes, we'll bring you cupcakes later."

Both children beamed at Faye (but not in a glowy way, at the moment) after that promise.

"Thank you!"

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MHA #8, Saturday morning

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