Chapter Text
Will had never pictured himself as a kindergarten teacher until he was hired as one. He’d wanted to be a doctor, but he couldn’t pay the tuition for so much schooling, and his scholarship only covered four years. He set his mind away from a doctorate and onto a master’s, so then he could teach at a high school level - hopefully biology or some kind of anatomy classes. He found himself gradually wanting to teach younger and younger students, until he was hired at an elementary school, teaching four- and five-year-olds.
He realized after his first day on the job that teaching was so much more fun than he suspected surgery would be - and, by the time he was hired at the elementary school, he still would have had two years of medical school and a residency to complete. Instead, he spent his days reading Dr. Seuss books to his class and teaching them the educational basics through song. And the best part was, none of them could comment on his shitty guitar playing skills like everyone else always did!
He also greatly enjoyed being able to sleep, which he wasn’t sure he would have been able to do if he was in medical school. He was able to leave the school as soon as all of his students were picked up by their parents or guardians, and then he could go home and catch up on his DVR as soon as he got home, then be in bed by ten every night.
Except for on the rare occasion where one of his students was left behind, however.
Lucy di Angelo - one of Will’s favorites, don’t tell the others - was still sitting at her desk after all of the other students had been picked up, her coat and backpack still hanging on her hook along the wall.
Will had half a second to consider his two options: number one, awkwardly ask Lucy where her parent or guardian was, slowly pack up his own things and get ready to leave, then sit around at his down desk at the back of the room and wait in silence. Or option number two, which Will had already decided on before he’d even finished thinking up the first option. He grabbed a few coloring books and the bin of crayons from the shelf under the window and sat down across from Lucy with the supplies.
About half an hour had been passed with mindless coloring - Will working carefully on a single picture while Lucy had already gone through three - when a man burst through the classroom door.
Will was startled by the sudden movement across the room, jumping slightly and locking his eyes on the figure before him. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t have taken his eyes away from the man and his loosened tie and ruffled hair; his pale skin flushed, no doubt from running to the classroom. Will watched as the expression on the man’s face changed in a flash - first flustered and almost angry, then softening once his eyes landed on Lucy, and...something else when he looked to Will.
“Holy shi-- uh, smokes, I’m so sorry,” the man started, leaning against the doorframe while he caught his breath. “Lucy’s babysitter quit on me unexpectedly yesterday, and I haven’t had time to find a replacement, and I got caught up at work, and--” He took a breath, glancing at the expensive-looking watch on his wrist. “Oh, fu ...dge, I’m really late, and really sorry, and it won’t happen again, I promise.”
At some point - and he hoped that it wasn’t an uncomfortable amount of time later - Will jumped out of his seat and said, “Oh, no, it’s okay! We were just coloring, but I figured someone would be here sooner or later. I don’t mind, really, so don’t worry about it.”
Mr. di Angelo frowned. “Are you sure?” he asked, and then shook his head again. “No, you know what? It’s not okay.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, flipping it open and pulling something from one of the pockets. “Do you have a pen?”
“I have, uh, crayons?” Will responded, offering up the bin. He saw the corner of Mr. di Angelo’s lips twitch up in some kind of tiny smile as he accepted a single crayon, and he knelt down to write on the table as he scribbled something on the back of the card in his hand.
“This is my phone number,” Mr. di Angelo told him as he passed over the business card, still kneeling before Will as he did so. “Office and cell. If I’m late again - and I won’t be - call me, and I’ll be here as soon as I can.”
“Um, okay,” Will muttered, hoping that his face wasn’t as red as he thought it might be, and the card was forced into his hand.
Mr. di Angelo turned away from Will, looking toward his daughter who now had her coat and backpack with her. “Ready to go, Luce?”
Lucy nodded before saying, “Can you zip up my coat, Papa?”
“Of course, sweetheart,” her father answered as he zipped up her coat and pressed a kiss to her forehead. He picked up her backpack with one hand and took his daughter’s hand with the other. “See you later, Mr. Solace.”
“Bye, Mr. Solace!” Lucy called and waved with her free hand as they walked through the doorway.
“Bye,” Will replied too late, after they’d already left the room.
Once he was finally able to unfreeze himself, the first thing he did was pry the case off of his phone and tuck the business card between his phone and its case - the one place he was certain that he wouldn't lose that card. He hurriedly packed up his things and left the building, only pausing once he got into his car. He let his head fall back against the headrest as he fished his phone out of his pocket, scrolled through his contacts, and hit the dial button on Lou Ellen’s contact.
“Hey, loser, what’s up?” Lou answered, sounding like she was eating a bag of chips.
“I got a pretty boy’s phone number,” Will said, his voice sounding much whinier than he had intended it to.
“Nice! How’d you manage that?”
“He wrote it on the back of his business card when he picked his daughter up just now, and told me to call him if he was ever late for pickup again.”
“Well shit, you can’t use that.”
“I know!” Will cried, dropping his head forward until it hit the center of his steering wheel and sounded the horn.
About a month after Nico’s first meeting with his daughter’s teacher - sidenote: he couldn’t wait until parent-teacher conferences so that he had an excuse to stare at that beautiful man, though he was still trying to think up some explanation for when he inevitably got caught trying to count Mr. Solace's freckles - he had to take a half-day off work to take Lucy to a doctor’s appointment.
He stopped in the front office when he got inside, letting the secretary know what he was there for so that she could call down to Mr. Solace’s classroom.
The secretary hung up the phone after a few moments. “I’m sorry, there was no answer.”
Nico frowned, tapping his fingers lightly on the counter. “Would it be alright if I went down to the classroom myself? Lucy has a doctor’s appointment, and I’m already kind of pushing the time right now.”
“I suppose that would be alright,” the secretary answered. “You know which room it is?”
“Yes, thank you,” he said, and stepped out of the room.
Nico could tell why Mr. Solace’s phone hadn’t been answered before he even got to the classroom. From the other end of the hall, Nico could hear loud music and singing coming from the last classroom in the hallway, and it only got louder once Nico opened the door (he didn’t knock because why bother when he knew that nobody would hear him anyway?).
Mr. Solace was sitting criss-cross on the floor at the front of the room, playing the guitar that was sitting in his lap and singing some song that he might have made up himself. Around him, a handful of students - including Lucy - were playing tambourines and triangles and little cymbals to some off-beat of the song. The rest of the class made up the audience, singing along noisily as Mr. Solace led them through the song.
Mr. Solace glanced down at the frets for a few moments, and met Nico’s eyes when he finally looked up again. His fingers caught on the strings and he stuttered over the words until the song halted altogether, his face growing a soft pink as he stared up at Nico like a deer caught in the headlights.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt,” Nico said, “but Lucy has a doctor’s appointment and you weren’t answering the classroom phone.”
“Oh,” Mr. Solace said, seeming frozen for a moment before startling himself out of his daze. “Uh, Lucy, hand off your tambourine to someone. Raise your hand if you haven’t had a turn in the band yet today.” A few kids raised their hands and Lucy passed off her instrument before collecting her coat and backpack. “Everyone said bye to Lucy and Mr. di Angelo!”
They left in a chorus of ‘bye’s and rushed out of the building, hopping into Nico’s car which he’d parked in the fire lane right outside the school. Nico helped Lucy buckle into her carseat before jumping into the driver’s seat and starting the car.
“Did you have fun at school today, Luce?” Nico asked as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“Yeah! Mr. Solace taught us a new song today, and we had chicken nuggets for lunch!” she exclaimed.
“That’s awesome,” Nico replied. “Does Mr. Solace teach you a lot of songs?”
“Yeah, there’s the shape song, and the alphabet song, and the backwards alphabet song, and the animal song, and all sorts of songs. Mr. Solace said he wrote all of them all on his own.”
“That’s super cool! Did he ever talk about playing these songs at home for his own kids? Or maybe he said that his wife or girlfriend or someone helped him write them?”
Lucy pouted, either in confusion or in irritation at Nico’s continuing questions, and said, “I dunno, Papa. Can we get McDonald’s after we go to the doctor’s?”
Nico sighed, trying to hide his disappointment in the lack of answers. “Of course, sweetheart.” He could never turn down a Happy Meal, anyway.
It was a while before Will saw Lucy’s dad again. Either he would show up on time and get lost in the mix of every other parent picking up their child, or someone else would arrive, introducing themself as Lucy’s aunt or uncle.
(What Will didn’t know was that every time this happened, Mr. di Angelo would come home to Lucy’s Aunt Reyna or Uncle Jason telling him that that teacher of hers was very attractive and Nico should jump on that - “I did not say jump him, I meant ask him out!”)
There did come another time, however, that Mr. di Angelo was late for pickup time and no aunts or uncles arrived in his place. Will couldn’t help but feel excited every time that Lucy had to hang around for a little while longer, always getting his hopes up that her very pretty father would show up.
This day in particular had been one where Will had brought his guitar to school, so when ten minutes had passed where Lucy was the only student remaining in the classroom, she asked him, “Can you teach me how to play your guitar?” And how could Will say no to her?
They were found almost a half an hour later sitting on the floor, the guitar nearly consuming Lucy and her tiny frame as she struggled to reach the desired frets while also strumming. Will was giving his full attention to helping Lucy learn, so he didn’t notice the classroom’s door opening, nor did he see Mr. di Angelo crossing the room and stopping near the wall. He did, however, see a flash of light from somewhere in front of him, and looked up to see Mr. di Angelo leaning against the back wall, his phone in his hand.
“Oh, shhh--sugar, uh, Lucy, grab your stuff,” Will said, taking the guitar out of her lap and rising up to set it in the case on the table next to him. “Sorry, Mr. di Angelo, um, I didn’t notice you walk in, and--”
“Don’t worry about it, it was cute,” Mr. di Angelo said, crossing the room until he was standing directly in front of Will.
“Cute?” Will nearly squeaked, feeling his face growing red.
“And please don’t call me Mr. di Angelo, we’re like, the same age,” he continued, a small smile breaking out on his lips. “You can call me Nico. And you could also maybe go out to dinner with me sometime, if you’re interested.”
“Yes!” Will exclaimed immediately before the words had fully processed in his mind. He saw the smile on Nico’s face brighten exponentially, before he had to ruin it and say, “Wait, no--”
“Oh,” Nico said with a pout, taking a step back before Will reached out and grabbed his hands in his own.
“No, no, wait,” Will tried again, realizing that he wasn’t making anything clearer. “I don’t know if I can. I’m Lucy’s teacher and you’re Lucy’s dad, and I don’t know if that’s going to be weird for her, and I think the school might have some kind of rule against it?”
Nico pouted up at Will for a moment before he turned toward Lucy who was bouncing around on a hopscotch rug in the corner. “Hey Luce, how do you feel about having Mr. Solace come over for dinner sometime?”
“Yeah!” Lucy cried, which Nico took to mean that she was okay with it.
He turned back to Will and said, “So, Mr. Solace--”
“Oh, God, please call me Will.”
Nico ducked his head as he laughed softly. “Will, would you like to come over for dinner sometime? You could pretend that it’s some kind of thank-you for teaching my daughter, but when I kiss you at the end of the night, I’d like you to know ahead of time that it doesn’t have anything to do with your teaching abilities.”
Will knocked his forehead against Nico’s with a soft whine. “I really, really want to, but--”
“When’s the last day of school?” Nico asked suddenly. “June eighth?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“June ninth, seven o’clock,” Nico told him. “You will officially no longer be Lucy’s teacher, so you’re coming over for dinner. I’ll cook something special for you, just say yes.”
“Yeah, yes,” Will said. “That sounds...amazing.”
“Good,” Nico said. “You should text me sometime between now and then. Preferably sooner than later, and hopefully frequently.”
“I’m finally gonna be able to use that phone number you gave me,” Will said in an awestruck voice.
“Yeah, please do,” Nico replied. “Now, we gotta run, but I’m sure I’ll be hearing from you soon.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Will’s cheek before pulling away and leading Lucy out of the classroom.
Will was in a daze from when they left until he got into his car, where he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Lou Ellen’s number.
“What’s up, loser?”
“I have a date in one month and seventeen days,” Will told her, smiling so wide that his cheeks were starting to hurt.
Lou sighed, and he could practically hear her rolling her eyes through the phone. “Well, that’s better than nothing, I guess.”
“You don’t even know,” Will agreed.