Work Text:
1
Viktor stopped dead in his tracks as he entered their lab - their sterile (kind of), meticulously maintained (not really), extremely well-organized (blatant lie) lab. There was a - thing on the floor. Playing with his notes. Crumpling them up with one hand and using his favorite pencil in the other to scribble. All. Over. His. Notes. The thing had short brown hair sticking up in random tufts and stubby grimy fingers and - Was that Jayce’s shirt it was drowning in? “Jayce. Love. What the fuck is that?”
A bang echoed from around the corner, followed closely by what sounded suspiciously like breaking glass, before Jayce stumbled into view, his hands clasped behind his back. “Viktor! My dear, I didn’t know you would be in this morning. I thought you were getting brunch with Sky.” His voice had a panicked air, eyes comically wide with excitement, his grin showing far more teeth than usual.
Viktor arched an eyebrow, “I did get brunch with Ms. Young, we discussed her thesis and I helped her edit her portfolio” he glanced down at his watch, “an hour ago. Now. Why is that thing in our lab? And what in Janna’s name is it doing to my schematics?”
The thing was looking up at him owlishly, tiny mouth open in a slight ‘o’. He scowled down at it, wondering if it would pop like a balloon if he prodded it with his cane, and its mouth split into a wide gaping grin revealing tiny white teeth as it giggled and raised its hand - the one containing said precious schematics - towards him, “Please tell me that is not an actual child, Jayce. It is just a highly realistic animatronic, yes? I didn’t really think about us going in that direction with Hextech, but the practical applications are, in fact, quite interesting… Have you discussed it with Heimerdinger?”
Jayce leaned down and scooped the shirt-swathed creature into his arms, a loopy grin across his mouth, and holy shit if Viktor still had ovaries they would be screaming, “It is not an actual child, it's - er, a baby,” he held him out to Viktor by the undersides of his armpits, “We can call him Viktor Junior!”
2
There was a baby living in their bedroom. A living, breathing, baby. One that he couldn’t do anything about because Jayce had found it in a cardboard box behind the Academy, so how in Janna’s name could he throw it back out on the streets or even to a nice, loving, rich Piltovan family who actually wanted a child? But that was mainly because of Jayce. Stupid, adorable, puppy-eyed Jayce who had held ‘Viktor Junior’ out to him and said, “I couldn’t help you when you were little, but I can help him.”
Now all Viktor saw when he looked at the baby were memories. Playing by himself in Zaun, learning how to show no pain as words were thrown at him for his disability, skulking his way through classes at the Academy to avoid his classmate's jeers. Curse Jayce and his stupid beautiful heart. Curse that baby who was making Viktor feel so much that he didn’t want to remember.
He lifted his head, peering into the crib they had cobbled together out of boxes and plywood. The blanket they had folded in as a makeshift mattress was slightly mussed and the baby was nowhere in-
“I have him. Good morning,” It was breathed into his hair, a hand wrapping around his hips and pulling him back into Jayce’s side. A yawn pressed into his hair and a nose nudged his neck, soft kisses trailing down to his collarbone.
Viktor turned slightly to see Jayce cupping the baby gently against his chest, the fingers of his right hand carding through the small mop of brown curls.
His heart seized in his chest at the sight, Jayce’s eyes still bleary with sleep and his hair sticking up on one side. Viktor didn’t know why it felt like someone had thrust a knife between his ribs, but the pain felt so sweet. He swallowed, “We should take him to the store. He can’t keep wearing your clothes. And we need more baby things, I doubt we can feed him microwave meals,” Viktor pulled himself upright, wincing at the stiffness in his joints, “We will get him proper things.” He turned to look at Jayce, his lovely, beautiful Jayce, who was looking up at him with the softest eyes and the smallest smile.
“Yeah?” that voice was full of far too many things for Viktor to unpack.
“Yes,” he replied somewhat stiffly. He wasn’t good at emotion this early in the morning, his thoughts still hadn’t unwound themselves from the spools they rested on, wrapped up tight and snappish. He shook himself gently and used an arm to hoist himself into an upright position with a small curse of pain, his hand reflexively reaching back to swat Jayce's hovering hand at his lower back, “I’m fine, it's okay.”
He reached to the bedside table, grabbed his medication, and tossed three of the pills back with a wince, “I am going to make some food. Will you see to the menace’s needs? I doubt using a sweater as a diaper worked incredibly well.”
3
A screech cracked through the haze of Viktor’s drowsiness and he shot up, hands flying to the side of the bed where Jayce rested. But he wasn’t there. The dip where his large frame typically laid was bare and cool to the touch. Fuck. He scrabbled for the switch on the lamp, pulling at the string as his eyes flipped frantically over the room, breath catching and-
Jayce stood over the crib, his eyes were shut and the child was in his arms and he was… He was just. Swaying. Humming gently and swaying as the baby's sobs wracked his arms. The menace’s fists were clenched around the fabric of the bright green sleep suit Jayce had insisted they buy - “Vik c’mon it has hammers on it, we have to get it.” - and tears were streaming over his rounded cheeks.
A pang struck low in Viktor's chest and he leaned back against the headrest. Jayce didn’t notice him. Jayce didn’t appear to be noticing anything. His shoulders were bowed so that the baby was enveloped by him on almost all sides and his eyebrows were scrunched in and- There was that pang again. Viktor pressed a fist to his heart, trying to shoulder it back into the cradle of his ribs.
But then Jayce looked at him, just the barest of glances. And he smiled. Viktor felt his heart rip out of his chest, pulling itself as close to Jayce as possible.
4
The walls of the doctor's office were plastered with posters, pictures of baby animals, balloons, and bright colors. It had an unsettlingly warm quality to it, Viktor thought. His arms were crossed tight across his chest as he watched Jayce speak to the nurse behind the check-in counter. The baby was wrapped in a sling across his chest, one of Jayce's hands supporting his neck while the other one scribbled on the papers in front of him.
“All right have a seat, a doctor will be with you shortly,” the nurse said as she pulled the papers back across the counter, she nodded to a smaller room behind them “The waiting area is just over there.”
“Thank you,” Jayce smiled, turning back to Viktor, “C'mon let's sit.”
They ended up on a couch that was a horrific shade of neon purple, with flower-covered throw pillows at each end, Viktor arched an eyebrow at the color, “They sure know how to decorate here.”
Jayce chuckled softly, twisting to undo the sling slowly. The baby slid down onto his lap with a coo, “Hello Vicky,” Jayce poked his nose.
“We are not naming him Viktor Junior.”
“Awe, but it's so cute.”
“No, that menace is not befitting of a name as grand as mine”
“He is not a menace, Vik, he's cute.”
Viktor opened his mouth to reply when-
“Mr. and Mr. Talis?” An older man stood at the doorway, his long white hair pulled back into a knot at the bottom of his neck, “I’m Dr. Kron, I believe I’m here to see that little one?”
He smiled down at the baby, who was currently pulling Jayce’s collar, “What’s his name?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Viktor saw Jayce opening his mouth with a smirk and he quickly interjected, “Henry. It’s Henry,” He could feel Jayce’s side eye burning into his cheek but he kept his gaze fixed on the doctor.
“Well hello Henry, let's get you back to a room, how bout that,” Dr. Kron has squatted down so he was looking right into the menace’s eyes, who just blinked back with wide eyes. The doctor stood back up, “Follow me, we’re going to be in room 9.”
The room was less visually noisy than the rest of the office, Viktor noticed, the wallpaper was splashed with baby elephants and there was a small pink lamp in one corner, but that was the extent of the flair it seemed.
“You can sit in the chairs over there,” Dr. Kron made his way to a small desk against the far wall, sitting to face them, “Now, tell me about Henry.”
“I found him behind the science building at the academy three days ago. I called the enforcers, but he isn’t ID’d at all in the system, they did a background check on me and said I could keep him as long as I went to process the adoption papers within the next couple of weeks. I talked to my mother and she says she thinks he is around a year old or so, he can sit up on his own and his teeth are coming in.”
“Alright, and I am assuming you don’t know if he has had any vaccines?”
Viktor loved to watch Jayce talk, but he especially loved to watch Jayce talk about their menace. The way Jayce's eyes held the focus he only found during the crest of their experiments in the lab, the way one of his hands was cupping the baby to his chest, the other one clasped in Viktor’s own, Jayce’s thumb twitching gently back and forth across his palm. So he just watched. He didn’t know how long he was just staring at his husband before he felt the hand in his tighten.
“You want to draw blood?” He could feel the tension in Jayce’s voice.
“Well, yes, I don’t have any idea what ailments he has been vaccinated against, and I don’t want to give him shots willy-nilly, so I would like to test his blood.”
“Is that… Is that safe for him?”
“Yes I assure you Mr. Talis, he will be quite alright, it is just a little poke in his hand, and then a poke in his heel to make sure we get enough.”
“Okay. Okay if you’re sure we need to then yes fine,” Jayce seemed a bit harried, and Viktor watched him clutch Henry closer to his chest. He gave Jayce's hand a slight squeeze and felt him lean into him in response.
“Alrighty,” Dr. Kron pulled a pair of gloves on before reaching below his desk and pulling out a small blade and a vial, “Hold his hand out for me, will you Jayce?”
The menace let out a small burble as Jayce extended his little hand outwards. Dr. Kron rolled over in his chair and held Henry's hand lightly on the wrist, Jayce wrapped both his arms around the baby’s little tummy, burying his face in the soft fuzz of his hair.
Dr. Kron slid the blade gently into the tip of Henry’s finger, and he let out a screech. Viktor leaned closer, pressing a hand to Henry’s leg in comfort, and Jayce felt like a brick next to him. Tears streamed from the menace's face and Viktor tried to shush him soothingly but, “Just one more,” said Dr. Kron, and Henry erupted again.
The doctor pulled back and Viktor fought the urge to glare at him, which. Was odd. Because he was just doing his job, “Since he seems healthy, we will do a proper check-up when we get the blood results back, should only be a couple of days.”
Viktor nodded numbly, one hand gripping Henry’s tiny leg, the other running up and down Jayce’s back.
“You can check out right where you checked in, okay?” Dr. Kron had a soft smile on his face as he walked to the door, “See you folks soon.”
As soon as he left Viktor pushed his hand into Jayce's hair, rubbing gently, “Jayce, look up love.”
There were twin tracks of tears streaming down Jayce's face, his expression rumpled as he pulled Henry up closer into his chest, and Viktor felt his entire chest seize.
“He’s okay Jayce, he’s safe.”
“He’s not okay he’s crying”
Viktor didn’t know who had replaced all of his good sense with mush or why Jayce crying over Henry’s pain was the most attractive thing he had ever seen, but he just leaned forward, placing a kiss on Jayce’s forehead and wrapping his arms around his shoulders, “Let’s get him home and give him some sweetmilk, that will make everything better.”
5
Viktor pulled his head up from his book when the banging in the other room began. His head cocked to the side, “Jayce? Everything okay?”
The banging paused, “Yeah V, just building something for the kid.”
“Do you want help?”
“No, I got it, just make sure Henry doesn’t light himself on fire or anything.”
Viktor cast a glance to where the baby lay, playing with a wrench on the other side of the couch, “Alright love, What are you building?”
“Nothing, nothing I’ll be done within the hour.”
With a smile on his face, Viktor turned back to his book, eyes flicking toward Henry every few minutes.
---
The sun was setting by the time Jayce opened the workroom door, sleeves pushed up past his elbows, lugging something into the living room, “Look, Vik, now he has an actual crib! I picked up a mattress yesterday when we were out and I was talking to my mom he can’t have blankets because they are dangerous, and so we just have to keep the house warm enough for him, okay? Oh, and I’m thinking about painting it red I’m going to go get paint tomorrow,” he looked like a puppy, presenting a squirrel to its owner, and Viktor couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his face.
“That sounds great, Jayce.”
“Do you think he’ll like the color red? Or should we buy a bunch of paint samples, lay them out in front of him, and let him pick? Maybe we should let him pick,” he strowed over to Henry, swinging him up in his arms, “Do you want a red bed buddy? Or a purple one?”
“I think he’ll like the red just fine, love, he doesn’t even know the names of colors yet,” There was a bubble in Viktor's chest, ballooning around his heart, pressing all his other organs out of the way, “He will like the red just fine.”
+1
Jayce winced as he stretched his neck, a yawn gaping his mouth. It had been his turn to go work in the lab, and he hadn’t accounted for falling asleep propped against the chalkboard. He woke up sliding down the wall to the ground, half his hair was matted with white powder from the piece of chalk he had apparently been using as a pillow, and an awful twinge in his back. He had also left Viktor with Henry for 5 hours longer than they had agreed to.
His fingers wrestled the key into the lock and he twisted it, popping the door open and dragging himself inside. Which is when he saw them, and promptly felt his heart swell to the size of a small planet.
Viktor was sitting on a cushion in front of their couch, Henry arranged so he was sitting up between Vik’s legs, a mess of diagrams in front of them.
But that wasn’t all. Jayce watched in adoration as Viktor took one of Henry’s tiny hands and pointed it toward a part of the drawing, “And this here is the carbon-reactor, that’s how we're going to make sure the runes don’t overheat, yeah?” Viktor turned towards him with a slight smile, “Jayce, love, your mother stopped by a couple of hours ago with some dinner for us. Henry and I were just making a few updates to our newest Hextech designs.”
And then Jayce saw the colored pencils at their feet and the squiggles across the diagrams and he had never felt so full in his life. A grin split his face, and he squatted down next to them, Henry tugging on his shirt sleeve, “Let me see what you two added.”