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“Come on, bicho, you can do it! Walk to papi so I can give you lots of love and kisses!” Lance crooned in a voice that he recognized was far higher in pitch than necessary but couldn’t seem to stop regardless.
On the floor a few feet away from him, his daughter blinked at Lance with the curious wide eyes of a one-year old from in between Coran’s crouched legs, where he was gently helping her stand by holding her tiny hands in his. Lance waved his own hands beckoningly, shuffling forward a few inches where he was sitting on the floor himself to try to convince her to step forward away from Coran and into his arms.
She tilted her head a bit, wobbled unsteadily on her little bare feet, and then made no other moves whatsoever. “Perhaps she needs a bit more motivation?” Coran offered helpfully.
Lance could quite resist the urge to flail dramatically. “I’m her DAD! What more motivation could she need than the embrace of my loving arms?!”
Coran looked down at her, distracted for a moment by the wiggling of tiny fingers against his palm. “Well yes, but she does already see you every day. You need to create the WILL to come to you! She can’t miss you when you’re already around, eh?”
Lance narrowed his eyes, considering that for a moment. Rubbed at his chin. Noticed that he’d grown a nearly a full beard again and needed to shave soon. The will to come to him, eh…. He nodded to himself, a plan having formulated in his mind, because he was a brilliant genius and always got an idea eventually. And then proceeded to break out into a fit of stiff coughs, clutching dramatically at his chest and crying out, “Oh god, no! The pain!”
Coran looked briefly concerned, but more that he might have gone out of his mind than anything from the look on his face. That didn’t matter though, because Lance could see through one cracked-open eye that his daughter had stiffened in alarm. Perfect.
He flung himself backwards to land on his side, secretly pleased at the little concerned whine he heard chirp from her throat. Flailing around a little more to make sure her eyes were still on him as he despaired, “I’m dying! My soul is departing my body! If only I could see my daughter one last time, hold mi solete in my arms on more TIME!”
Lance could see her concerned little face, watched her teeter unstably on her footing as she pried her hands free from Coran’s loose grasp to lean forward towards him. “Oho!” Coran oohed in delighted surprise. “Looks like you got her!”
It took all the power in Lance’s body not to bolt upright, but he didn’t want to break whatever spell he’d managed and stayed prostrate on the floor as he watched her take her first hesitant step forward away from Coran. His heart pounded louder than the sound of her feet, and LAnce had never been so excited about anything in his LIFE except like, maybe her birth or when they’d found out they were pregnant or the wedding, but this was still pretty good!! Like, WAY up there!
When she saw that her foot had accepted her body weight his daughter’s face changed, another brief cooing sound escaping as she set her mouth into a tiny determined line that she had definitely and absolutely inherited from Keith, instantly recognizable even when she’d gotten Lance’s eyes. And then her other foot stepped forward and then her left again, and then she was - well she was just taking OFF, actually. HA! What a prodigy! His daughter wasn’t just walking, she was practically running to him!
Except that actually, she was going like, REALLY fast, really absurdly fast, and in fact tottering… straight past Lance?! He sat up quickly, only able to twist around in confusion as she scuttled towards the open doorway behind Lance a few more feet before her baby legs gave out under her chubbiness and she fell flat into the floor.
Lance and Coran both jolted, instinctively about to dive for her so make sure she was okay when they realized it wasn’t crying they could hear but for some reason laughter, the spill apparently proving so amusing to the girl that she couldn’t contain her giggles long enough to sit back upright off her face. And just as Lance was crawling over to get to her, the doorway revealed the source of the confusion when Keith’s shapely thicc legs strutted into view.
Oh, Lance realized as he watched Keith bend down to scoop their daughter off the floor and into his arms with an amused smile. She had not been running to him, she had been running to her mom. That… was fair, he guessed, flopping to sit with one elbow propped up on his knee in a manner that was not sulky at all.
Coran poured salt in the wound with a cheerful chirp of his own, slapping his thigh and declaring, “Well, isn’t she a wild little tribble! Skipped straight over walking and into a run, didn’t you, cutie?”
“Of course she did,” Keith laughed, and okay maybe it was fine that she had way more interest in running to Keith than walking to Lance, because his husband was currently slinging their baby daughter over his hip casually to look her in the face with that perfect warm smile that made Lance melt into a puddle of pathetic lovesick goo. “‘Cause you got things to do and places to be, don’t you, monster?”
“She is a little monster,” Lance agreed as he stood up, unable to keep a smile from his own face because his husband and baby were smiling at each other and that was literally the best thing Lance could ever hope to see in his entire existence. “Kids aren’t supposed to do that, you know. There’s an actual idiom stating that you need to walk before you can run.”
“Well that’s just ridiculous,” Keith dismissed loftily. “How are you supposed to get any momentum going that way?”
A laugh erupted from Lance. “That’s what the walking’s supposed to be for, stupid!”
Keith didn’t acknowledge the insult, still looking at the baby supported easily in his one arm, who, now satisfied with her place in her mother’s loving arms, flopped around to search out Lance, reaching out with one stubby arm towards him with a grabby motion of her tiny purple-spotted fingers when her eyes found him. God, she was just so cute ! Lance was gonna die. He was gonna die and his grave would say ‘Lived An Awesome Life’, (subnote ‘Universe's Best Father, Space Hero, Married to Hot Alien Babe’ in smaller lettering underneath to prove the above statement was true.)
And then, something happened. A miracle, maybe? A gift to Lance for all the sacrifices he’s made to raise a family to perfect awesomeness in times of this cruel and heartless war. Out of his baby daughter’s mouth, small and squeaky and barely recognizable as speech as his precious little bolita beseeched, “Pa pa!”
It was a sound akin to the cry of angels… his daughter’s voice, the very first words out of her mouth, and they were for him !
“Uh, Lance?” Keith asked worriedly, one thick black eyebrow raised in polite concern. “Are you… crying?”
“I just -” Lance sobbed, wiping at his face with his forearm to swipe any tears Keith was totally wrong about away. “ I’m just so happy! ”
Keith’s expression softened into one of his famous ‘You’re weird but I love you anyway’ smiles, and nothing in the universe could ruin this moment.
Not even later on that night when Hunk told him that her first word had actually been two days ago, and it had been ‘up’ in an apparent request for Shiro not to put her down in her crib, because whatever screw you Shiro Lance was still taking this.
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AN: that was another accidental fic because I got a prompt at 3am WHOOPS HAHA anyway it'll be a long-ass time til we actually get to Baby in Soft as Pink so.... yeah
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