#diela

A/N: I wrote this a long time ago and then put off posting it because I felt like it was too short and self-indulgent. I was having a discussion with one of my wonderful mutuals and they mentioned that they wanted more parent Viktor stuff, so I'm basically just posting this for them! @lovely-number-7 , I hope that you enjoy it lol. Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

Picking up Chrysanthemum from her daycare class was one of Diego’s favorite things to do. It didn’t matter how hard he had been working that day or how exhausted he was, he loved getting to see her little shining face looking up at him from the other side of the half-door that blocked him from the rest of the class.

Diego’s daughter had been born right as his life finished settling out in the new universe that he had been dumped in. He still felt guilty for leaving his siblings standing in that park in the middle of unfamiliar territory, especially after everything that they had done, but he didn’t regret it. Not when he got to see his beautiful girlfriend every day when they both returned home from work and got to hold Chrys in his arms. Lila and Chrys meant more to him than anything ever had before and he would never regret his decision to make sure that they were safe and well cared for.

He pulled up to the outside of the daycare, closing the door behind him. He tried to keep his gruff exterior, the one that kept the single parents away from him, plastered onto his face but it was incredibly hard when when was thinking about his little girl.

The foyer of the daycare center was a plain white room with four staircases, half going up and half going down on the wall opposite the door into the building. The two bottom ones were for the older kids (5-7 and 7+) and the top two were for the younger (1-3 and 3-5). To the left was the office where the parents could check their kids in and out and to the right was the kitchen where the meals were made.

Diego turned to go to the office so that he could check Chrys out and then go and collect her from her room. The check out process was quick because the secretary immediately recognized him and so was able to hand him the sheet where he signed to prove that it was him.

He walked as quickly as he thought appropriate so that he was standing on the landing on top of the right staircase that led to the toddler room. He stuck his head through the open top half of the door and then scanned around for his daughter. He always showed up right after naptime, so she was either groggy from just waking up or bouncing around because she had renewed energy. 

The teacher was stacking the purple foam pads in the corner so that the kids could have the floor to play again. She caught sight of him and then smiled softly, “Chrys? Your dad’s here to pick you up!”

Immediately upon hearing those words, the aforementioned toddler’s head appeared from behind the low bookshelves. He knew that she had been playing with the Mega Bloks that the school kept. They were her favorite thing since she could make whatever she wanted without repercussion and she loved the bright colors. 

“Daddy!” the little girl squealed. She raced around the bookshelf towards the half door as fast as her little legs would carry her.

As soon as she was in arm’s reach, Diego reached past the wooden barrier and scooped her up. She let out a shriek of excitement as she was whirled through the air and then down into her father’s arms. He securely tucked on of his arms underneath her thighs so that she wouldn’t fall if she were to lean too far back. “Hey flor pequeña,” he chuckled as he kissed her chubby cheeks.

Chrys let out a series of long winded giggles as she used her little hands to push his face away from her. “Daddy! Your beard is scratchy!”

He chuckled as he pulled away from her so that she was no longer under the barrage of kisses. He took the backpack that Chrys was sent to school with every day from the day care worker and slung it around his other shoulder. “Thank you,” he said politely. He turned around and began to carefully walk down the stairs while he asked his daughter, “How was class today?”

“Good! I got to play dollhouse with Luna,” she chirped, clapping her hands together to demonstrate how excited she was. 

Diego got her out to the car and then fastened her seatbelt securely over her body so that she was tightly strapped into her carseat. He gave her another kiss on the top of her head to make sure that she knew she was loved before he got into the driver’s seat. He glanced back at her to continue the conversation while they started backing out of the parking lot. “I’m glad you got to play in the dollhouse, bebita.” He genuinely was happy for his daughter, he knew how desperately she had wanted to play with the huge dollhouse that the daycare center had set up.

“I got to play with Luna, Daddy! She’s my favorite” the four-year-old explained happily. Diego was grateful every day that his daughter didn’t have to suffer with the same speech impediment that he still struggled with to that day. He would have loved her just as fiercely if she had, but he wanted her to have an easy childhood, free of stress and worry.

“Yeah? Is Luna your best friend?” he asked, glancing back at her with the rearview mirror once more before he turned his attention back to the heavy post-school traffic.

“Mhm! Bestest bestest friend,” the little girl giggled. She reached over and grabbed the bag that her mother had helped her pack before daycare that morning. She removed the stuffy that she had brought with her today and grasped her tight. It was something that she always did when she wanted a hug but wasn’t in the right situation to get one. Diego and Lila had thought it up when they realized just how many long trips were going to be required from them for her job.

Back before their little girl had been born, Diego had considered going back to the Police Academy, but after what he had gone through when he was living in Dallas in the sixties he knew that he couldn’t. So instead, he went back to college and worked on becoming a swim coach and teacher. Lila already had a degree from when she was living with her mother, which had transferred into the new universe, so was putting it to good use as a specialist detective working for the government. That was the real reason that they had to travel around so often, because her job brought them all over the country so that she could examine crime scenes and pieces of evidence up close. They kept their roots down in The City, though.

He felt a small smile slip over his face as he thought about his daughter getting to have the childhood that Lila and Diego had desperately wanted for her. Neither of them got to have a normal childhood, with the exception of Lila before she was four, so they wanted Chrysanthemum to have it. She was already connecting with more children than either of them could have ever been allowed to and her interpersonal skills were flourishing. It had been a huge achievement for them both to get their daughter this far in life without giving her any massive trauma and seeing her develop well.

She was kind, compassionate, and the sweetest little girl that either of them had ever had the joy of meeting. Both of them were overflowing with pride for their daughter and felt so lucky that they got to call her theirs.

The entire time that they were driving through the crowded streets back to their apartment, Diego thought felt his heart swelling with pride and joy. He could hear Chrys singing to herself in the backseat whenever a song came on the radio that she enjoyed. It reminded him of Allison when they were younger, before that childhood innocence had been stamped out of her. It was normal, according to their pediatrician, for children to have some amount of echolalia because that was how they began to pick up on language. Seeing the trait that had been stamped out of his sister in his daughter made Diego miss Allison more than he had in the nearly five years since he had seen her.

That was the one thing that he wished he could change about his life. He and Lila had disappeared into the city so that they could start their family and create a steady life for Chrys before she was born. He had meant to try and reach out to his family so that his daughter could know her aunt and uncles, but then he just never had. He was happy with his family, even if he wished that it could have been bigger for the sake of his daughter if nothing else.

They pulled into the parking garage of the apartment where Diego and Lila lived. He found his reserved spot and then began to get Chrys out of her carseat. She was winding down from the excitement of daycare and was beginning to look a little sleepy like she did everyday when she came home from school. She had just been weaned off of having multiple naps a day but still went to bed fairly early in the evening. 

“What do you want for dinner, bebita?” he asked as he shouldered the backpack a little easier and began to walk her towards the house.

“Can Mommy make chops?” she asked as she scrubbed at her eye with one of her little fists.

“I can ask her. I think she just finished one of her cases so she might be really tired when she comes home. Daddy can make you something else, though,” he offered.

She considered it for a moment before she gave him a half-shrug of agreement. “Can I have cheese and crackers for my snack?”

“Did you not get a snack from daycare?” Diego asked, brows furrowing together with worry. That had only happened once before, when the kitchen had an issue so they weren’t able to get any food up to the kids, but it had still upset him. Reginald withheld food from the kids several times when they were younger and he determined that they hadn’t done a good enough job in their training to earn the right of a snack or even a meal if they had been bad enough. The idea of his daughter going at all hungry made him furious.

“I did, but I’m still hungry,” she whined, leaning further against him. Her hand was still clenched tightly around the purple unicorn that she had pulled out of her backpack in the car.

Diego chuckled and kissed the top of her head. It was only when they had gotten into the elevator of the parking garage that would lead them up to the apartment building that he realized what was wrong about what he had just seen. “Where did you get this, bebita?” he asked as he reached down and touched the stuffy in her hand.

“Luna! We traded, which is why I brought one of the stuffies that’s not my favorite,” she explained, flushing slightly.

Diego resisted the urge to laugh at that. He knew that his daughter was deeply ashamed that she couldn’t love all of her toys exactly the same amount since she was worried that some of them would get sad when they realized that they weren’t her favorite. He thought that it was adorable and he was so proud of her for already having this much compassion and kindness when she was only four years old.

“I wish that you had told us that you were going to do that, sweetheart,” he reprimanded gently as he tucked some of her brown-black hair behind her ear. “Mommy and I need to know when you do things like that so that we don’t think anything’s lost.”

She listened to him and then nodded. “Sorry, Daddy. I’ll tell you next time, okay?”

“Thank you,” he kissed the edge of her forehead. They walked through the halls of the apartment building and then he set her down. Chrys immediately ran off so that she could unpack her bag. Diego set his own bag down on the dining room table and then removed his shoes so that they were resting beside the door. He got out a plastic plate from the cupboard and then set out some crackers and cheese slices for Chrys when she was finished unpacking her bag.

He turned on the television to the PBS kids channel that The City got as an initiative to have more widely available entertainment for lower income families. For the four years before Diego had graduated that’s what they had been since they were only getting income from Lila’s job in the government, and she wasn’t able to take as many jobs when Chrys was younger and needed to be minded more often.

He was sitting on the couch while grading some of his student’s papers, he was currently working as a health teacher for the sixth grade class of the local middle school, when Chrys suddenly turned to him. “Daddy, do you think that me and Luna could have a playdate?”

“Sure, but I’d have to talk to Luna’s parent or guardian about it first,” he nodded. 

Chrysanthemum grinned. “She’s gonna talk about it with her dad tonight! Can I have a piece of paper with your phone number so that you guys can talk? It’s how Abby and Derek had their playdate since their parents are always super duper busy.”

“Okay, I’ll have Mommy send you with one tomorrow when she packs your morning backpack,” he smiled and ruffled her hair.

The child turned back to her snack and show, happy as a clam that she might get to spend time with her best friend outside of the daycare environment.

---

The next morning, Diego woke up at the normal time that his alarm clock went off. He went about his routine just like he always did without thinking that something might be off or strange about the day. He went on his mile long run (having toned it down from five miles when he had a screaming newborn in the house to exhaust him for about a year straight) and then took a shower. He was just about ready to make himself his normal breakfast when Lila burst out of their closet looking rumpled and upset.

“Is everything okay, mi corazón?” he asked, brows knitting together with worry.

She looked stressed for a moment before she answered, “I got called on another job. I know that I need to take Chrys to school because you have swim club today and need to grade your papers since you can’t do it in the afternoon but I really have to take this. We could get a loan for a house after this, Diego.”

He reached out and took her hands, bringing her out of the closet doorway so that she was against him. He brushed her hair, still styled like it had been when they first fell in love, away from her face. “I can take her to school today. The kids can wait to have their papers graded for another day. You know that they want to put off finding out their grades for as long as possible,” he chuckled.

The worry lines that had been creased around her face softened and she smiled back at him. “I just don’t want to be a shit mum.”

“You are anything but a shit mother, Lila,” he murmured as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. Worrying about whether or not they were going to be good parents was mostly what had destroyed their sleep schedule after Chrys was born since she was a fairly quiet and very sleepy newborn.

He gently kissed her on the lips and then said, “Pack up and get going so that you make your flight on time. When you’re settled down wherever they’re sending you this time, call us.”

“You’re the best husband that I could have asked for,” she grinned. She fisted his shirt and then pulled him down the few inches that he towered above her so that she could press a longer kiss to his lips. 

The two then split apart and went their separate ways. Diego went to wake up their daughter and get her dressed for the day while Lila focused on packing her bag for the trip that she was going to have to make for work. Soon she was headed out the door, giving a kiss to both her husband and her daughter.

The rest of the morning was generally pleasant. Chrys always woke up kind of groggy but in a relatively good mood, having inherited Diego’s morning person attribute. She was overly excited once she actually woke up because she knew that today she was going to be at least one step closer to getting the playdate that she wanted with her best friend. She could barley sit still the entire time that Diego was trying to do her hair and help her get dressed.

Her bag was almost forgotten in her hurry to get out the door and to the daycare center. Diego still managed to remember it and included his number tucked into the frontmost pocket where nothing else was so that she wouldn’t forget it.

Lila was normally the one that dropped Chrys off at daycare since she worked later into the afternoon so wanted to spend more time with their daughter when and where she could. Diego had done it a couple of times before, in situations like this when Lila had been on trips. It still felt like his heart was breaking into a million pieces when his little girl wrapped her arms as tightly around his legs as she could for only a moment and then rushed off to climb the stairs all on her own to her daycare room.

It didn’t happen that day though, because the person that she was most excited to see that day was still standing in the foyer getting checked in by her parent. “Luna!” Chrysanthemum called as soon as the door opened far enough for her to see the other four-year-old.

The aforementioned little girl whirled around and met her friend with a big hug. “I missed you!”

“I missed you too! Did you ask your dad?” Chrys asked.

Diego was so focused on his daughter interacting with her best friend that he didn’t even notice the adult that was checking her in until he spoke up. “She did. If your parents said that it was okay and I can talk with them then we can get you guys on the road to having a playdate.” His voice was eerily familiar, but Diego couldn’t quite put his finger on it until he looked up and saw who it was.

He felt like all of the air had been stolen from his lungs. His brother looked very different than he had the last time the two of them had seen each other, but it had been about half a decade so he wasn’t surprised. “Viktor?” Diego breathed.

The man turned towards him, giving Diego a much better view of him. Viktor’s face shape had changed so that his cheekbones and jaw were a lot sharper. His muscle mass had shifted so that it was broader through the shoulders and less heavy on the hips. His chest was entirely flat instead of the small bump that had come with his binder back when they were Hotel Oblivion. The hair on his face had obviously been shaved off that morning, but Diego could still see the traces of stubble along his neck. The veins in his hands and arms were also a lot more prominent.

“Diego,” Viktor blinked. “I, uh, didn’t realize that you were still in The City.”

“There wasn’t really anywhere else for us to go what with,” he gestured down to where Chrys was pulling the note from the front of her backpack pocket to show Luna. He then turned his attention back up to Viktor as he spotted the baby sling over his chest and stomach. “You’ve got two kids?”

“Kind of a long story,” he nodded. “This is Nikolai, and then you’ve met my eldest.”

It was surreal to see that. Logically, he knew that something like this could happen. Before all three of the apocalypses that they had to fend off, Viktor had a life and a career that he obviously adored. It made sense that he would have jumped back into that when given the chance and even settled down to have a family.

“Listen, I have to go to work but do you want to catch up sometime? Maybe you can come over the first time that Luna and Chrys have a playdate,” Diego suggested.

“Yeah,” Viktor nodded. “We can do that.”

He then finished signing in his daughter and walked both of the little girls up to the room where they would stay for the rest of the day. Diego had signed Chrys in and then gone back to his car by the time that Viktor came back down.

---

The two brothers talked and not three days later, when the weekend had finally come, they were both sitting in Diego’s living room. Chrysanthemum and Luna were down the hall in her bedroom, playing with the myriad of toys that she had been vibrating with excitement at the idea of getting to show off. Viktor had Nikolai out of the carrier that he had brought him up in and was currently patting his back as he tried to soothe his cries.

Diego held his hands out to offer some help. Viktor seemed grateful for this, passing the three-month-old baby over to his brother. “Was Luna this fussy?” he asked as he shifted the baby around and began to bounce him. He had gotten very good at doing that while half asleep when his own daughter was this young.

“I wouldn’t know,” Viktor half shrugged. “I became Luna’s dad when she was eighteen months old.”

Diego knew that it was prying, but he couldn’t help himself. He hadn’t quite realized how starved he was for familial affection like he had gotten when they were all trying to stop the end of the world. He was desperate to become a part of Viktor’s life again and to know what had happened in his absence. “Oh? Did you adopt?” 

“Sort of,” he sighed. “You know how I have the absolute worst luck when it come to romantic partners?”

Diego nodded and waited for him to continue. “Well after the whole reset of the universe I found out that all of my old stuff was there, minus what I blew up with my powers. It was like everything had stayed from before Harold showed up. So I just kind of picked up where I left off but I was standing up for myself and able to actually be a person instead of the husk that the medication made me be. I met someone who called themself Light. We got along great because we were both trans, and they had already had Luna. We ended up moving in together and becoming co-parents and we were kind of trying to take romance slow but then they got pregnant again with Nikolai. I was going to stick around and continue to help with the whole parenting thing but, um, they didn’t make it through the delivery. So now I’m a dad and I don’t have my partner.”

There were so many missing details that Diego was desperate to know, but Nikolai was only a couple of months old so the loss of this partner still had to be a fresh wound on Viktor’s heart. He chose to drop it instead of pushing forward. “You’re a good dad. Chrys is enamored with Luna, I think that they’re going to stay best friends forever or grow to resent each other.”

Viktor laughed at that, running a hand through the short locks on the front of his head. “I worry. I didn’t have anyone good to base my parenting off of from my life. I mean, Sissy and Light were both amazing parents but I hadn’t been around them for all that long. And I was learning alongside Light because they had aged out of the foster system so they didn’t have anyone to base their parenting off of either.”

“Lila and I worry too. It was really hard, the beginning couple of months. But eventually you kind of feel like you get some footing and you begin to gain confidence,” he reassured.