Work Text:
Every trainer looked forward to the day that they were able to pick out their starter Pokemon and begin the adventure that they will remember for the rest of their lives. Some trainers went on to challenge the eight gyms of the region and try their hand at becoming the strongest trainer in the land by facing, and hopefully defeating, the Elite Four, followed close behind the Champion themselves.
However, one future trainer didn’t care about any of that. She didn’t even know about the adventure that awaited her whenever she took her first steps out of her house on that memorable day. The only things that she cared about were the three dolls sitting before her. The three dolls and the two men sitting on the floor behind them.
“This is a stupid idea, Archie,” the redheaded man said to the other.
“Maxie, this is a brilliant idea. I have no idea what you’re talkin’ about,” the bearded man replied. The smile on his scarred face was impossible to remove. “You’re just upset that you’re totally gonna lose this.”
“I’m not upset,” Maxie scoffed. “I just think that a ten-month-old isn’t going to magically start walking just because she sees a cute Pokemon in front of her, let alone pick out her lifelong partner when she just figured out that her dads don’t mysteriously disappear whenever a hand covers our face.”
“Carvanha’s cuter than Numel and you’re afraid May’s gonna take after her Papa instead of Daddy. That’s what this all boils down to. See? I know you way to well, Max.” Archie tapped his temple, indicating that he had the brains in the relationship, at least for the time being. Maxie would disagree.
As the duo in front of her continued to bicker as normal, May looked over the objects that started it all. Before her were three dolls. On the far right side was a red and blue, raggedly soft Carvahna. Since it didn’t have feet or a stable body to stand on, the poor fish was flopped over on its side. She liked to imagine it was flopping around on the ground, trying to bounce high enough to land in a puddle of water or a pair of loving arms to cuddle it. In the middle was a dopey looking Numel, but that was redundant since all Numels were at least somewhat dopey looking. Unlike the Carvahna plush, the stitches of the Numel were not hidden. Dark brown stitch lines of the seams contrasted against the light tan of the fur. On the far left side, instead of the traditional grass type Pokemon, a Dark type Poochyena was used as the placeholder. The Poochyena was all kinds of wonky. Its snout was too short and practically smashed into its skull, the eyes were too big and resulted in them being a little lopsided, and it suffered from having permanently wet fur since this was a toy that probably came straight from the Mightyenas’ toy basket. Actually wait. This was a toy that came straight from the Mightyenas’ toy basket. Archie could only hope that she didn’t pick that one. If she did, then he supposed he would have to look into getting her a new partner to carry around.
All three of the dolls made the little girl smile and giggle in their own ways. Carvanha looked like it needed a hug, Numel looked like it needed a nap, and Poochyena looked so stupid it was hilarious. Every time her attention changed, her dads seemed to take notice.
“You are completely wrong, Archie! Look at that twinkle in her eye every time she looks at Numel. I’m not saying she’s going to get up and walk to it since she loves it so much, but she clearly likes it the most!” Maxie claimed and readied his camera to capture that moment glorious moment when she moves toward the Numel and chooses it as her “starter.”
“Taking a brief look at something is not the same as falling in love with it,” Archie countered and readied his own camera to save the moment she chose Carvanha.
“Obviously it can happen. If not, I would not be sitting next to your dumbass right now.”
“Now’s not the time to get all sentimental on me, babe. But aww.”
With the attention back on her, May moved her gaze from the dolls to her parents. She smiled brightly and flapped one of her palms open and close as her way of waving. Without missing a beat, the two men imitated the action. The baby girl suffered from an untreatable giggle fit due to that. Although she may not be choosing her starter right now, the lights of the cameras still flashed.
“I truly don’t think this is going to work,” Maxie stated as he put the camera down. His words may have been serious, but there was no hiding the goofy grin on his face as he watched his little girl flail around in pure joy. She loved being the center of attention, after all. “She has absolutely no idea what’s going on but she’s loving it. She’s probably just gonna be cute and sit in that exact same spot all day.”
“No, no. I guarantee you that she’s going to get over it and pick out her starter before she goes into another giggle fit,” Archie countered, oh so desperate to prove Maxie wrong. He lowered himself onto his stomach and picked up the Carvanha plush. May’s attention was instantly on the fish now that Archie was moving it around in the air.
Maxie let out a ferocious huff. He honestly should have seen this coming, but still! It was a cheap move. “Oh, absolutely not!” He scooted closer to the plush toys and grabbed the Numel. “You want to play dirty like this? Fine. Two can play at this game.”
“You’re unbelievable, Max.”
“You started it!”
The attention was now completely off of May as the two locked challenging eyes with one another. Smiles were still forced on their faces, but their eyes were filled with strife. They were merely one wrong word away from tossing the plush toys in their hands and settling this with a real Pokemon battle in the backyard.
May was extremely displeased that all of the attention had been taken away from her. She didn’t even understand what was going on other than her dads were getting really passionate about their toys. Since she wasn’t the center of attention anymore, she didn’t give her dads the time of day either. She looked around the room for anything else that would grab her interest. Finding nothing, she crawled away from the scene just in time to miss Carvanha lunge directly toward Numel and Maxie yelling in protest.
There wasn’t an ounce of the floor that May hasn’t crawled on. As soon as she figured out that she could push her body forward by moving her palms and her knees in a certain fashion, there was nothing that could stop her. She was a baby in motion. Truly an unstoppable force. Her tiny palms smacked down on the hardwood floors as her eyes wandered from wall to wall, peering inside any and every open door. Admittedly, there weren’t many of them, but it was more than what May could count.
At the very end of the hall was a door leading into the best room in the entire house; her room. The walls were painted a light blue, but in order to keep the peace in the house, her baby furniture was either light red or looked like it came straight out of an antic shop. It was a tacky set up, but seeing how May could only utter a few words, and that was only when she was thinking really hard about them too, Archie and Maxie weren’t expecting to hear any complaints from the set up.
As soon as she crossed the doorway into her room, the hardwood stopped and the soft carpeted floor began. Her crawling only stopped when she looked up and spied her beloved Torchic doll hanging out from the edge of the dresser. Torchic was very battered and worn, but May still loved it nonetheless. Torchic slept in her crib every night when she was packed in a room filled with other babies. She was never afraid to smack one of the other babies or one of the staff members when they tried to take Torchic away from her. She even cried her eyes out when two strange men came in and took her away before she could grab her best friend. They went back for it, but it was only after all three of them had shed their fair share of tears.
For a moment, she was confused as to why Torchic was in that position to begin with. Normally it was either in her crib or on the floor or on the couch or quite literally anywhere but her dresser drawer. How did the silly thing get up there? Oh yeah. A certain someone had forgotten that he set it in there when he was trying to find something for May to wear today. That certain someone was the man who could make no mistake whatsoever, Daddy Maxie.
Torchic needed to get down from there! There was no way that it could be comfortable in that position, with its head lolled over the side of the drawer and the rest of its body being squished against the somewhat closed drawer. Torchic has saved her through so many scary nights. May was going to save Torchic from its predicament even if it killed her! Well, maybe not to that extent, but she was going to try!
With a huff, she tried to reach out for the plush toy, but her tiny arms were too small and she just figured out how depth perception works. She was going to have to try something different if she wanted to save Torchic. Her tiny palms gripped onto the bottom drawer and steadily, she pulled herself up to her feet. Standing up on her tippy toes, she reached out and managed to grab one of Torchic’s yellow plushy feathers. All it took was a little tug and she managed to pull her friend out of the drawer.
May squealed in delight and squeezed her friend in a hug. The squeal must have alerted the adults that she wasn’t in the room anymore.
“May?” she heard Maxie call out. “May, where did you wander off too?”
“How do you lose a kid, Max?”
“You lost her too, smartass.”
Footsteps were hastily coming down the hallway. May grinned brightly. This was the perfect opportunity to show her dads that she saved her friend! Excitement coursed through her body. She took a few wobbly steps forward. Her unseen first steps.
Her little legs couldn’t handle taking more than a few steps without anything to lean on. She tried to take another step, but her body became unbalanced and she flopped down on her tush right when her dads came into view from the doorway.
“May, there you are,” Maxie said. Although she showed no signs of being hurt, he still went over and scooped her up. Laughter came from the doorway and both of them looked over to watch Archie. May got all giggly just watching him.
“What are you going on about, Archie?”
Still chuckling, Archie walked over to the two, flicking Torchic’s plush head feathers. “Looks like the lil’ lass already chose her starter.”
“Huh. I suppose she did.” Maxie smiled and bounced her in his arms, causing May to giggle even more. “See? I told you your plan was stupid.”
“It was a good effort though.” Archie shrugged. “I guess that she’ll take her first steps some other time.”
“Eventually.” Maxie softened up a little bit and leaned over to give Archie a kiss on the cheek. “I’m sure she’ll do it during one of your other hair brained schemes. I also know that you’re going to drag me into said hair brained schemes, so we’ll both be ready for when that day comes.
"I guess so,” Archie laughed. Gently, he took May from Maxie’s arms and tossed her in the air, then promptly caught her. “At least we know her starter.”
“Yes. A fire type. See, she was obviously going to go for Numel before you oh so rudely interrupted her decision making.”
“Or maybe she just thinks that Torchic is cute, kinda like how Carvanha’s cute since she was obviously going for Carvanha.”
The three of them left the room as the two men continued their bickering. Holding Torchic tightly in her arms, May snuggled up to Archie. She still wasn’t entirely for sure what the two of them were bickering about, but she could only hope that she could see the plush toys they had earlier again. Torchic needed to be introduced to them.