jason todd x reader - really just wanted to say he's the type to start feeding you stuff when you're taking too long to finish. it turned into this. 1.5k+ ish.
(warnings: eating dessert (being spoon fed), pet names, gn!reader, lots of teasing, + sex mentioned! edited but will double check in a bit!)
It’s not that Jason Todd is jealous. It’s not.
He’s been jealous before (plenty, he has to admit). He’ll be jealous again (could be as soon as next week, if not as early as tomorrow, if Dick so much as texts you to ask for Jason’s location). He knows this as well as he knows anything—as well as he knows that he’ll keep kissing you before you drift off to sleep every single night he’s lucky enough to go to bed with you. That Roy will keep being, or doing…whatever it is that makes him so specifically Roy. That B will keep disappointing him, even despite the slow and half-ineffective effort he makes by managing to locate whatever burner number Jason is currently using and leaving unnecessary updates on whatever mission Jason has most recently declined being part of.
It’s something else that itches at him. Something that burns with that same fire, creases his brow low over his eyes, and pulls his mouth into a pout you’ll tease him for later. It’s impatience. It’s the fact that it’s forty-five minutes past three PM (pee em), the latest you said you’d be home by, which means you’re a whole hour and fifteen behind schedule… still sat at the same outdoor café table you ordered lunch at with your best friend…four hours ago.
(Jason hadn’t meant to come. Hadn’t actually been invited. But the thought of French toast, egg scrambles with peppers, and looking at you in your cute date clothes was too much for him not to at least ask.
It's not a real excuse, he knows that. But what can he say, really, when he normally works the graveyard shift at Vigilante Incorporated, full time. Which he’s sure is what you were also thinking when you said yes.)
He likes your best friend. Not because he’s inclined to in any specific way (they’re nice in the way most people are nice, pleasant, if not a little boring and unworthy by his refined standards), but because he likes what you like, and especially things that make you happy.
But Jason also likes being home (on floor in front of the couch, shoulders between your legs while you absentmindedly pick at his hair and he cleans his gun, the both of you pretending not to be invested in whatever adult cartoon Roy most recently recommended. In fact, when you’d promised you’d be home by three, it was so that you could have dinner made by six, a shower together (and maybe just a tiny bit of sex) by eight, so he could head out for his scheduled patrol by nine.
(And be home by five am, so he could kiss you at least one more time before you had to leave for work.)
He could go on.
Not to mention, Jason burns; turns red as rust and Manhattan clam chowder when left in the sun too long (a phenomenon that remains unnamed yet oddly frequent among Gotham natives), which is simply just to say, in this little suburb an hour outside the city (when you aren’t going 90 in the carpool lane on a motorcycle), it’s all finally catching up to him. He can feel the pink on his cheeks.
In front of him, your dessert sweats. Fresh mascarpone cream seeping from between the now leaning, three-tier stack of biscuits, layered with the start of summer’s blackberries and drizzled with syrup. Still, you chatter away, the afternoon sun glinting off the spoon near your plate, as if to call attention to the fact that you haven’t even noticed.
“Eat with me!” it calls, and then as if to mock Jason’s poor sense of humor, “this whole thing is mildly irritating and definitely a waste of your time!”
He can’t take it anymore (you’d responded to the text he’d sent from the men’s room an hour ago, promising you’d pack it up as soon as you finished the food, but he knows now was silly of him to assume you’d be able to get anything in your mouth when you were that wrapped up in talking) and his body moves on its own: he picks up the spoon, leans across the table, and cuts through the top layer of your cakes without any care for decorum…or chivalry. The cream oozes, some of the syrup dripping down the side, and still, you don’t react.
“Honey,” he says, flat and low and grumpy, the only warning you get before he’s holding the bite up, inches from your lips. “Don’t let it melt.”
You blink. Your conversation stutters, falters, then dies completely as your eyes find his, and then the spoon.
“Oh,” you say, a little surprised, a little soft. Then, you smile, and Jason curses himself for ever being annoyed in the first place. “Thanks, baby.”
You take the bite graciously, tugging the spoon from his hands gently to finish off the bite. You wipe the corners of your lips, then lean in to give him the briefest of pecks, one that leaves his mouth sticky and warm with melting sugar. It’s almost enough to distract him from the fact he’s trying to lure you home… but you’re pulling away before he even has the time to fully close his eyes and enjoy it (as much as he’s eager to) and the spoon is set down in it’s original spot.
“Sorry,” you giggle to your friend, though your embarrassment is only half genuine, much to his relief.
He has to resist the urge to groan. And to make a sour face. And to express his frustration by scooping up a wad of whip cream and swiping it across your cheek (which is what he’d do if you were in private, not that he even needs the excuse to lick sweetness right off your face).
He gives it two minutes before he’s pressing another bite your way. Again, there’s no warning, no teasing, no words before there’s a heaping spoon of blackberries and cream mere centimeters from your mouth and his deep, blue eyes are narrowed in that particular, Jason Todd way, telling you: either you eat this, or… you eat this.
He thinks, at the very least, you’re finally picking up on the hint, as when you accept the bite, you roll your eyes and give him a playful glare. Jason doesn’t let you escape with the spoon however, this time pulling it from your mouth to let it rest between his forefingers as a clear reminder: you are going to finish this dessert, say goodbye, and go home… even if he has to be by his hand that it happens.
If you were a much more cruel partner than the one that you are, you’d offer back something biting, tease Jason, make a show of savoring the treat, and maybe even share a taste by exchanging tongue with him (as you sometimes do when you’re alone and eating something sweet)… instead, however, you offer him your hand under the table, fingers brushing the topside of his knuckles in a quiet, deliberate, and (most importantly) sweet way he will never admit makes him tender immediately.
Interlinked, your thumb starts to smooth over the scars that wrap around his skin, soothing any raw scabs in a wordless apology and a promise all at once. You don’t need to say anything, even though you still can’t, not really, not unless you want risk offending your friend. He knows you’ll apologize to him later, the way you always save the more intimate and vulnerable parts of your relationship, the parts you’re both still learning how to navigate, for when you’re alone together.
Jason exhales, something caught between relief and satisfied resignation. He’s happy to wait now that he knows he won’t really have to, so long as you let him keep this up.
You finish dessert slowly but obediently, taking the bites when he offers them, unabashedly disregarding the awkwardness that begins to fester without even needing to end your conversation. Though polite enough not to comment (as you’ve probably already mentioned to them Jason’s tendencies as a partner on the days he’s not desperate enough to tag along), your friend seems to pick up on the shift too, wrapping up the conversation with a glance at their phone and money for their portion and a tip passed your way. They excuse themselves with a hug and a cheerful goodbye that Jason barely manages to acknowledge in kind (though he does, again, for your sake).
Once they’re gone, the sudden silence is filled by the scraping of the fork against the soggy crumbs of your plate. Jason feeds you the spoon of syrup and mush one last time, and you can help but to giggle, a hand over your mouth as you chew, finally acknowledging the impatience that led to this whole scheme.
“Somewhere you trying to go, handsome?”
He scoffs lightly, trying but failing to seem unbothered when he begins roughly stacking your plates, “we have plans, might I remind you?”
“Oh?” you peer at him, failing to hide the sarcasm in your voice, “I had no idea. Really.”
“You said we’d be home,” he emphasizes with his dark eyebrows raised, “by three. Guess what? It’s four.”
(Jason is more of a homebody than he likes to admit, or at least, a stickler for getting his own way, which right now, includes taking both of your bodies home.)
You smile at him for real this time—genuinely, warmly, in a way that reaches something sore and soft behind his ribs.
“Yeah,” you peer at him, “But snuggling doesn’t exactly prompt rushing, does it?”
He gives you his flattest look, unamused, and even you have to admit, justified.
“My poor baby,” you laugh, standing and brushing crumbs from your clothes before reaching to gently brush Jason’s bangs out of his eyes. “I’m teasing. Let’s go snuggle.”
He ignores the sappy jab (really, the truth) and stands, too. He throws down a fat wad on cash on the check and reaches for your bag before you can, slinging it over his shoulder. You pull on the strap (see: attempt to make him relinquish the needless favor), but he’s already stomping back to his bike before you can even start another silly spat.
It’s not that Jason is jealous. It’s not.
He just wants you home—even if it means he has to feed you cake to get you there.
jason todd x reader - as a guy who also just happens to be a parent?
(warnings: parenting!au, you're not gendered i think but you got a UTI lol. it's not mentioned where this baby came from tho except that she's from jason)
Jason Todd is the dad who puts too much bubblebath in the bath tub because he doesn’t read the instructions.
I mean, it’s a few (large, very large) spoonfuls of kiddie soap (given he just rips the cap off and pours for a good five seconds), it can’t be worse than the time in his 20s when he forgot to buy body soap for one of his safe houses and was forced to wash with the minuscule amount of dish soap he scrounged up from under the sink. Wouldn’t have been such a problem, ‘cept for the fact you had sex afterward and he didn’t feel like fessing up when, a few days later, you developed a UTI.
Anyway—
You find him in the bathroom trying to downplay the fact the tub is overflowing with shiny, opalescent bubbles and your daughter is squealing with excitement. His big, vigilante ass is slipping around the bathroom in wet socks, trying to make dissipate the rainbow-sheened foam as she flaps her hands in pleasure and ruins his progress by making them fly.
“Oh my god, she’s gonna choke on them, Todd,” you scurry to the side of the tub, pulling her soaking wet and naked body from the water. She kicks her feet against you, clearly displeased by the sudden transition from warm and cozy (and covered with soap) to… dripping water against dry cloth.
She whines, reaching for Jason, who’s still puzzling over the mess that has seeped onto the floor surrounding the tub. He points half a glare at you, faking annoyance at being caught in such a silly mishap.
(In his mind, there are much more dangerous things to worry about than a bath full of bubbles. He didn't even have a bathtub as a kid. Besides, drowning in bubbles sounds like the best way to go, in his opinion. Not that he wants his daughter to die, god forbid, he'd kill before he let that happen, and he’s cursing himself for even letting the thought fester so.)
“I was just about to fix it,” he huffs, pulling down the shower hose. Before he even reaches for the tap, however, you’re nudging him out of the bathroom with your hip and a cold and fussy child.
“Spraying water around will just make it worse!"
-
Takes JT a bit to manage the… washing a toddler’s hair thing, too. The amount of times your daughter has ended up with water in her eyes because he forgot to cup his hand over her forehead when he was pouring the clean water over her head… is just, lmao.
He’s good at giving your tykes showers, speedy at it, in and out when there’s not enough time in the evening to have them at the park for two hours and splash around in the tub (Todd children need the exercise, otherwise they’re up all night long, kicking around in your bed sheets—which is funny because Jason is more bothered by it than you, especially when they pinch his nose to get him to stop snoring. It always ends up with them scruffed by the necks as he drags them back to their own beds, giggling).
But baths are a whole other story. They’re part of your routine, and the kids prefer it that way, cuz you know which toys need to float on which side of the tub, and which rag belongs to who, and how to successfully tilt the kids’ heads back so that you can rinse their hair without the soap running into their eyes.
Jason, on the other hand, forgets. Or doesn’t forget, but makes bath time so splashy and fun that he forget that rinse time isn’t just about pouring water over their little heads to make them laugh.
The kids always have fun when dad gives them a bath…until water is getting in someone’s eyes or up someone’s nose (and then returning the gesture before Jason can wrangle the chaos it all causes and stop water from going up the walls) and you have to pop in and give all of them (Jason included, given his clothes are already soaking wet from the splashing) a rough scrub just to finish the job.
-
Jason Todd also struggles with getting his children to wear jackets. Function over fashion is his motto, as he tries to make your daughter put a large puffer over the shiny princess dress she chose to wear, much to her tiny, toddler-version of chagrin. She’s a wiggly one, just like him, making him do the labor of stuffing her in the jacket arm by arm.
“’M not cold, daddy.”
He’s just got her other arm through the sleeve of the coat when he realizes she shook the first one free.
Jason sighs, on his knees in the foyer, sounding like he sounds when he’s arguing with his brothers; half-humorous, more defeated. “You’re gonna be, sweetheart.”
She looks just like him with her cute lips curled downward. “No, ‘m not.”
“Yes,” he manages to wrap both of her little hands in his grip so that she can’t weasel her way out of his next attempts to get her back in the jacket. He gives her his most serious eyes, and the two of them glare identically at one another as he pulls the zipper up to her throat. “You are.”
Worst is when he manages to get a little hat on her, too, right on top the dark braid you so carefully weaved over her shoulder. She stomps, pulling away from him and swatting when he reaches back out to try and settle it over her forehead.
“Dada, my hair, it’ll muss.”
And Jason Peter is sighing and sticking one big hand on the crown of her head. “It stays on until the park. Then we’ll fix the muss.”
(Of course, the second you show up at the park, she’s ripping everything but the dress off and running in her little plastic heels into the sandbox. All of his struggle, for nothing.)
jason todd x reader - roy's got a not-so-wild hair up his ass about some changes that have been made to jason's apartment...and he's determined to get him to spill the beans. 1.8k ish?
(warnings: fem!reader w/ she/her, this is pretty explicitly gendered: you are mentioned wearing a pink thong, cooking, etc., some cussing, mild possessiveness / lewd talk abt women, boys being dudes...............more focused on roy and jason, sorry!!)
It starts with a pair of panties.
Pink ones. Soft ones. Thin ones–with a crotch so tiny it has Roy genuinely worried for someone’s asscrack for all of two seconds–left bunched up, in the open, on the top of Jason Todd’s laundry basket in the small half-bathroom of his most permanent residence.
He spots them when he’s taking a piss, then grabs them on his way out, whistling–
“Nice one, man! Pink? We love a pink girly over here, don’t we?”
But Jason doesn’t laugh. Not that he’s all that much of a fan of Roy’s shitty humor to begin with (or even is that funny of a guy, if Roy were honest, God love him though), but they’ve always shared excitement and little perverted chuckles over whatever woman one of them has managed to charm into their bed for a night or two.
This time, however, Jason is stomping out of the hallway and grabbing the cotton right out of his hands, face twisting in something oddly scary, something usually saved for debriefs about infiltration tactics or mishaps in the field (or… arguments with B).
“Don’t touch my laundry, Harper.”
“Oh, my laundry,” Roy parrots with a grin. “You wearing panties now? Or did you have a girl over–”
“No!” Jason spits, then, as he’s trying to push his way around the redhead. “I mean, yes. And this is my prize or whatever. Big deal.”
Roy whistles low and triumphantly. “Damn. And she left you her thong in full view? Sounds fun.”
Jason says nothing, just crumples the wrinkled cotton in his fist and shoves them deep into his pocket, as if that’ll somehow make the whole thing less suspicious. Jason is not the type to keep random panties in his possession longer than it takes for his dick to go soft and for him to wake up in the morning (not that he isn’t a gentleman about it, but he’s been up for hours and Roy would know if he somehow had a panty collection hidden away somewhere in his apartment.)
He leans against the door frame, arms crossed, eyes narrowed in amused suspicion. “So, tell me about it?”
Jason doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t even smirk. Again, unusual for a man who’d normally at least give Roy a bra size or a landing strip to fantasize about.
Which is off. Way off. Jason may not be the most open and willing of men… but he’s not exactly shy with those he’s close to, and now he’s avoiding eye contact altogether. And his jaw is tight. All because of some chick’s panties.
Jason slips on his own tongue, trying to play it off, but the words come out a mess. “No way. It wasn’t. It’s not…just don’t go digging through my shit, okay?”
Roy straightens, brows raised. “Dude. What’s the problem? It’s a pair of undies.”
But Jason is shooting him a glare, jaw clenched like he’s holding back something that is undeniably ready to come out.
“Drop it, Roy,” he spits, flat, final, and almost too fast. Which tells Roy (expert marksman, certified flirt) everything he needs to know–they’re not just some undies.
-
Then, it’s a butter dish that catches Roy’s attention next.
Yes, a butter dish. Innocuous in many ways, but… in a home like the one it currently occupies, of a man who refuses to buy milk because of the risk it might go bad before he finishes it… it’s strange. One might not normally be so alarmed by the sight, but in Jason Todd’s kitchen? It's suspicious. Borderline shocking, enough to stop Roy’s rummaging through the fridge, and causing him to squint at the thing perched so neatly on the top shelf.
It’s not so much alarming as it is simply… conspicuous. Because Roy, perhaps more than anyone (least, he knows, that’s how he comes off), is more than uncomfortably (and lamely) familiar with what it means to be a bachelor. He knows what being a man without a woman looks like, and how that translates to owning exactly three forks, storing leftovers in old salsa jars, and wiping sticks of butter directly on hot pans when you need it, not cutting off little “pats.”
So yes. A butter dish. One with a matching lid and everything. That’s not something a man just has… it’s something someone brings into the space.
Roy, not that he ever does, doesn’t even try to play it cool.
“A butter dish?” he says, smirking like he’s caught the tail end of Gotham’s most juicy gossip. He practically has. “You think I wouldn’t notice a butter dish after you practically lit me up for pointing out the panties that were hangin’ over the sink in your bathroom like they wanted to be found.?”
Jason, busy futzing over a takeout menu, is clearly doing a terrible job of trying not to prickle from where he leans over the nearest counter. The words cause him to tense, and by the way his eyes narrow, he looks about ready to run over and hit Roy over the head with a soured, mostly-empty soy sauce bottle for getting in his business.
“They were in the laundry,” he corrects stiffly instead, blatantly ignoring the new discovery even if he is correcting Roy’s initial observation.
Despite being friends for so long, there are still parts of his life that Jason shies away from sharing. It’s something Roy has grown used to, even if it still causes his ass to itch when Jason is sitting on something extremely interesting and personal he refuses to divulge. Not that he isn’t open about the majority of his more personal affairs, but real, genuine relationships have always been…different. Maybe because he considers Roy a grade-a playboy and doesn’t feel like being nagged at to shave his nuts, maybe because he doesn’t want to fuck anything up. That knowledge, however, doesn’t stop Roy’s onslaught.
“You’ve got a girl, don’t you?”
Jason barks out the fakest laugh Roy’s heard since he tried stand-up comedy that one time.
“You think I’m getting ass on the regular because I have a butter dish?”
“Um, obviously,” Roy scoffs, like a prosecutor with good enough findings to prove a point in court. “Since when has any man who lives alone ever owned a butter dish?”
(Which is true, for the most part. Sure, B might own a butter dish, maybe even a butterbell, the fancy asshole, but it’s only because he was raised by Alfred, the same grandpa who basically raised Jason. Still, Jason’s never exactly been one for presentation…his only towel is covered in bloodstains and who knows what other fluids, and he still calls it clean.)
It’s not just the dish, though, that enlightened Roy to the realization. It’s the opened bag of spinach on the bottom shelf. It’s the little red and purple row of flavored sparkling waters sitting next to the six-pack of beers, and the fucking package of prosciutto and provolone. The dish is just the flare, practically waving its little glass ass for all to see, and Jason being tight-lipped about… pretty much everything never stopped Roy from prying into his business (especially when it came to girls).
“Since,” Jason mutters, throwing down the menu with an agitated sigh, “I got tired of greasy fingers every time I make toast. Good lord.”
Roy grins, letting go easy, if only because Jason is his best friend.
Not that easy, though.
“Toast? Or toast for two, Jay?”
Jason doesn’t answer, but then he’s stalking over and trying to shut the fridge door on Roy’s orange head, and Roy knows.
-
Finally, it’s a pile of brownies. Not a tray of brownies, haphazardly sliced, with the knife still sitting under the cellophane waiting for whoever gets there next. No. It’s a neat pile of brownies on a plate that’s ceramic, ceramic! Not even paper or plastic, each neatly trimmed into a perfect square, like something off the front of a Betty-Crocker box mix package.
Roy eats two before the accusation, while Jason is hunched over the dining room table, glowering at a glowing laptop screen. He’s fussing with some police precinct map he hacked into for a lead that’s probably confidential in at least three surrounding counties.
Roy stands just off to the side, chewing slow, arms crossed; highly aware he might be lighting the fuse on Jason’s temper, but not particularly caring.
“So…” he starts, calm and casual as if normalcy ever made anything easy with Jason. “Who made the brownies, Todd?”
Jason doesn’t even glance up. His fingers clack out some command like he's not in the middle of fucking around in something that likely dictates happenings throughout the whole city.
“I did.”
Roy raises an eyebrow, pointedly looks down at the plated brownies again, then back at his so-called best friend.
“Bullshit.” There’s a long pause, too long of a pause, really, then, “The brownies are on a plate. Sliced.”
“Fine,” he purses his lips, pressing another button. “I picked them up at B’s. They’re Alfred’s.”
Roy squints. Jason finally closes the laptop to stare him down.
It could be the truth. But Alfred’s desserts are almost always served on china, and while these are plated, they’re on Jason’s regular chipped dinnerware. If Jason weren’t already guilty of the panties and the butter dish (and the three-ply toilet paper as opposed to the two-ply from the bodega, the cut up fruit cubes in the fridge, and the women’s deodorant), it might be a little easier to let slide…
(Which… sure, a man could wear the scent, Vanilla Cashmere Coconut by a brand called… Sexy Midnight Island, or whatever the hell it was. But not any man who sweats like Jason Todd sweats.
Listen, when being a dead eye is the only thing you’re good at, you learn to pick up on the little things.)
But since Jason is guilty? This won't slide.
“I said, who made the—”
“I heard you. And I said Alfred.”
The silence festers again, tension blooming into something that seems to heat up the room with nerves.
“We both know you’re lying, Todd.”
The men glare at each other, Roy’s look sturdy, incredulous, and waiting. Todd’s defensive, annoyed, and recognizably avoidant.
But Roy isn’t here to argue. He’s here for the truth.
“I’m your best bud, man. Who is she?”
The pause is longer than either man would like, and only the fan of Jason’s overworked laptop can be heard heaving in the interim. Jason shifts from where he’s planted himself, looks away, looks back, and runs a hand through his hair…and he still can’t bring himself to say your name.
He must know it’s see-through, must know that Roy sees it all anyway, otherwise, what kind of friend would he be? What kind of friendship would they have? They aren’t the same young, reckless and lonely men they were when they first started hanging out together, as outlaws, as allies.
Jason covers his mouth with his hand, looks to the ceiling, and sighs. Then he says your name.
“Been official three months. She thinks I eat like crap and live like a fratboy.”
Even if there’s still more prying to do (about the fact “official” doesn’t exactly translate to how long you’ve known each other… and also maybe bra size, your landing strip) Roy can’t help but smile at his friend, trotting over to slap him excitedly on the back.
“Thought so, jackass.”
And even Jason begins to grin.
-
(Roy is on his fifth and what is unfortunately his final brownie on his way out the door, when Jason is giving him those scary blue eyes one last time.
“Just for the record, Harper?” he warns, fingers wrapped around the hard edge of the door. “If you ever touch my girl’s panties again, I’ll string you up with the lace.”
But Roy only laughs.
“So long as she picks out Lian’s next birthday gift, you’ve got yourself a deal.”)
Enjin finding a tattoo on you that you never told him about getting. Part of me thinks this is one of those first hookup things, where he’s just surprised to find you … tatted up beneath your unrevealing clothing.
But then also… Enjin who you’ve been with for a while, and maybe you have tattoos already or maybe you don’t, but he shucks off your clothes one night (when it’s not fully dark or you’re too wrapped up in one another) and finds a new one hiding somewhere he’s never seen one before.
And he’s genuinely going a little silent, ceasing the speed of his kisses up your bare body to inspect the new ink, run his fingers over it, even.
And part of you gets nervous during this pause because maybe he’ll hate what he sees and regress back into a more… distant version of himself, one who tells you less and leaves you more. Or maybe he’ll think it’s too much, and be scared off entirely... So you lay there heaving, tethered to time it takes for him to decide how he feels, just waiting for his reaction…
Except it’s exactly the opposite; one of his signature grins splitting across his face, eyes going tender, and lips dipping to touch your (newly) inked skin softly. If anything, he's made even more excited by it, diving back in to the adoration of your body tenfold, as if to say, I love it. You're beautiful.
Can't wear flavored lip product around Togame because he's absolutely going to eat it right off your face.
(It’s not enough that he already practically demands a lipstick stain somewhere on his face whenever you do your makeup in general—he’s also gotten used to the flavored glosses and balms you sometimes coat his lips with...wanting to let the flavor, sweet and fruity, linger in his mouth until he pops the marble of his next soda.
It’s practically every day you can catch him with dewy lips, half of the time even stained a flushed and rosy hue which matches your complexion, a little bit of tongue sticking out to keep the taste of you on his tongue for hours.)
I always think it's a little surprising, irritating, endearing, something when big, tough men find solace in being gentle with their daughters.
There's reason to do tough things with them, too, to make sure they grow up strong and independent, but I think of a man like Simon "Ghost" Riley, who spent a huge percentage of his life being beaten down consistently by almost all the men who were around him.
And sure, he trusts the men in his task force with his life now, no question about it, but... I think the sudden calm he experiences when he starts to raise a daughter is beyond strange for him, but also weirdly... healing, too. Enjoyable.
That's not to say he doesn't, and hasn't, enjoyed the boyish things in life, the watching sports, the playing in the dirt, the pretending to hold guns part of growing up... but he finds himself sitting through your daughter's ballet class, overwhelmed by the calm that surrounds him, actually able to focus on the intensity of her pliers, her releves, the way her pink skirt ripples when she leaps into a sauter.
It's a new realization, a new kind of war (between him and learning how to be a parent), but it's one that doesn't revolve around the consistent anxiety that warps his stomach when he watches boys, little or not, teeter the line between roughhousing and fighting, picking on one another for shedding accidental tears that, really, cause no harm.
With your daughter, he's set in charge of watching her play with her friends and finds there is no lump in his stomach when she giggles with them, no dark possibility drifting in the back of his mind that she'll reach out and get her arm broken by someone she trusts--the fights she fights with her peers all between the characters they play and not between their fists, their games of laughter and drama and screaming but not of raging violence.
There's people who ask him, people who joke, wouldn't a man like him prefer a son? He must've been so disappointed... Yet, Simon still has yet to think of the best way to tell them that he honestly enjoys having a daughter a little bit more, that she runs to him and not for a second is he afraid she's hiding a snake up her sleeve, because she's only ever greeted him with flowers.
