Chapter Text
Virgil generally likes to think he’s a good parent. He’s not experienced, at all, and he mostly has no idea what he’s doing, but his kids and other dependents seem happy and healthy enough, so he can’t be failing too bad, right?
He doubts himself occasionally, especially early on. After he first ends up with Roman and Remus, and has to learn the quirks of caring for such an unusual and tiny chaotic creature. How do you parent a child (children!) who is not only a shapeshifter with incredible potential but also has the amazing ability to fuse and unfuse with its two halves?
After the third night when the little hydra (he really isn’t sure they count as a hydra, only having the two heads, but that’s what D.C. had called them and D.C. seemed to know these things) had run rampant through the house, splitting and shifting and fusing and refusing to go to bed, he found himself slumped in the dark on his ratty couch, wishing he could be a normal twenty-something on a Friday night, out for drinks with friends, instead of worrying about the safety of a secret city and trying to parent children (a child?) who really didn’t take to being parented.
“Am I making a mistake?” He whispers to the darkness. Nothing replies, of course, because despite the weirdness of his new world the walls don’t actually talk. They listen hard as hell though, and he pours a lot of thoughts out to them. “It was weird enough to start helping the defence team. Why did I think I could look after the twins too?”
Still nothing. There’s only the sound of a car outside on the street, which is comforting in its normality. He groans, stands up, and trudges through his too-small apartment to check on the hydra baby. Roman and Remus are unfused, little harpy bodies (he thinks that’s a harpy, another thing to add to the list of creatures they can shift into) curled together, hands held tightly. They look somewhat angelic, despite the sharp claws and teeth and the pointed faces. Twin little noses, chests rising and falling peacefully, caramel brown curls flopping over each face.
Roman stirs and rolls further into Remus when Virgil bends down to nudge him, tucking the covers back up where a restless wing had pushed them down. It leaves him breathless with a pang of pure love, and he drinks the scene in for a moment.
Maybe he’s not doing too badly after all...