Chapter Text
The light of the early morning sun glared through the window, shining right into Jack's eyes. With a subconscious grunt, he rolled over to face the other direction. He began to go back into his peaceful slumber... that is, until the electronic ringing coming from the bedside table told him otherwise.
Groaning lazily, he turns back over and slams his hand down on the snooze button.
'Why did I set the alarm again?' he tried to remember. Being half-asleep made it hard to remember anything but the usual.
He was able to pick up on the rustling of the sheets next to him, and then the feeling of a hand running over the back of his head.
"Good morning, schätzelein." he heard his wife, Angela, say tiredly as she pulled herself up against his back.
"Good morning." He said with a yawn, turning over to face Angela. God, he could never get over how beautiful his wife was.
"Well, we better get up soon. I need to get ready for work, and you," she said, lightly poking Jack on the nose at the last word, "need to go get your children ready for their first day back to school."
'Oh, right. That's why I set the alarm.'
"Yeah, guess I should. But first..." Jack cups Angela's cheek as he leans in and presses his lips against her own. It's nothing much, just a short and sweet kiss to start off their morning. Breaking away from the kiss, the two climb out from under the sheets. Angela grabs her clothes and takes them with her into the bathroom, while Jack puts his clothes on before setting off to rally up the kids.
However, none of their children were biologically their own. Early on in their marriage, the couple had learned of Angela's inability to conceive children. So, they turned to adoption. And as it turned out, they adopted four children from just one orphanage, all on the same day. They were Lúcio, who was 7 years old at the time, Mei, 6 years old, Lena, who was 5 years old, and Hana, 3 years old. Since they were all adopted on the same day, the couple decided to make all four of their birthdays on that fateful day, November 13th.
'Alright, first off, Lúcio.'
Lúcio, now 16, was the oldest of the four children, and the only boy. Ever since they had met him, he had been a complete sweetheart. Not that all of the children hadn't been, but Lúcio especially had been very kind and helpful to everyone in the family. Even after being in the household for only a little more than a week, he was always volunteering to help his adoptive parents with household work, a behavior that hasn't gone away since. It should also be noted that Lúcio loved music. Heck, there probably wasn't a kind of music he didn't like, even though his favorite genre was electronica. He had even been starting to try and make his own, and he was pretty good at it.
Jack came up to Lúcio's room, knocking on the door before opening up. Sure enough, Lúcio was fast asleep in his bed, his thick dreadlocks spread out over the pillow. Jack couldn't help but smile at little before walking over to the bedside and lightly shaking Lúcio's shoulder.
"Hey, rise and shine."
Lúcio mumbled something, and groggily opened his eyes.
"Huh.. oh, morning dad." he said tiredly.
"Morning. Now hurry up and get ready, first day of school remember?"
"Oh.. oh yeah." Lúcio sat up in bed, yawning and stretching as he got up.
"I'm gonna go wake up your sisters, you can go ahead downstairs once you're ready. Once everyone's up I'll start making breakfast."
'Okay, now Lena & Mei.'
Lena, 14 years old, was a very energetic and outgoing girl. Jack fondly remembers that on the day they brought them to their new home, Lena was running all over the house, zipping and zooming all over, looking at every little thing in the large house. It was strange, that girl never seemed to run out of energy. She was also quite the daredevil, always willing to try out new things no matter what, oftentimes not quite paying attention to any potential risks involved.
Mei, on the other hand, was much more reserved. She had a... difficult, childhood before the orphanage to say the least. Unfortunately, this had a negative effect on her self-esteem. For the first month or so, Mei had been pretty shy around her family members. But with patience and care, Jack and Angela were able to get Mei to come out of her shell to her family, at least. Now at the age of 15, she still had some social issues, mostly just being too shy to talk to many people. But, her siblings were always there for her when Jack and Angela couldn't, so she had been doing a lot better lately.
"Girls, time to get up." He said in a mock sing-song voice as he opened up the door to their bedroom. Lena woke up pretty quickly, as usual, while Mei kind of yawned and rubbed her eyes, while sluggishly looking over at her dad.
"It's a big day, you two. It's your first day back to school-"
"And my first day of high school!" Lena bounced up from her bedsheets on the top bunk, almost hitting her head on the ceiling.
"Yep, now you two need to get ready to go. I still need to go get Hana up, and once everyone's downstairs I'll get breakfast ready."
Tracer excitedly slid down the ladder and ran to the closet as Jack walked out, while Mei was just getting off the bed.
'Alright, now let's get Hana.'
Hana was the youngest of the four, at 12 years old. Probably her most noticeable trait was that she was completely obsessed with the world of video games. Sure, pretty much all kids liked to, but Hana loved to. She was a bit antisocial, but more because of the fact that she was focusing more on her gaming life than she was on her social life. It wasn't very healthy for someone her age, though. Luckily, over the course of the summer Jack and Angela had managed to get Hana off her electronics and participate in more family outings, so there was still hope that she would be able to make more friends this school year.
He peeked inside the door to Hana's room. Looking inside, he saw Hana fast asleep in bed, her tablet laying against her. Jack just chuckled and shook his head before going over to wake her up.
"Hana," he said softly as he gently shook her shoulder "time to get up."
Hana grumbled a little bit, her eyes slowly opening as they adjusted to the bright light.
"Morning daddy." She said groggily as she looked up at Jack.
"Good morning. So, how late were up playing on your tablet?"
"Um... kinda past my bedtime?" she said, pulling the covers up over her face.
Jack chuckled slightly before pulling the covers back.
"Hey, I'm not mad at you or anything. Just, be sure you don't do this again, especially not on a school night okay?"
"Okay, I won't"
"Good," Jack said as he ruffled Hana's hair, "now hurry up and get ready, daddy's going to go start breakfast up while you're all getting ready."
* * *
"Alright kids, dig in!" Jack said as he placed a large plate of blueberry pancakes in the center of the table and a smaller plate of bacon next to it. Lúcio had already grabbed a fruit bowl and the syrup beforehand, being the helpful young soul he was. As the kids and Jack all sat down and begun to take their share of food, Angela came out into the dining room, sitting down to join them as they all greeted her.
"Well honey, I must say these are great." Angela said.
"Seriously dad, how did you get so good at cooking?" Lena piped up, her cheeks stuffed with pancake.
"First off, don't talk while you eat, you'll choke on your food. Secondly, I guess it's really just in my blood."
Suddenly, Jack felt something brush up against him under the table.
"Oh right! Sorry Bastion, almost forgot to give you your breakfast too pal." He said as he got up and headed over to the cupboard to grab the bag of dog food, the grey Pit Bull following him the whole way from the cupboard and back to the dining room, where he chowed down on his breakfast as Jack poured it in the bowl.
As they were all finishing up their breakfast, Angela's watch started beeping, signaling that she had to leave.
"Oh, looks like I have to fly. Have fun at school today!" Angela said cheerfully, going around and giving all four of her kids a kiss on the head, and giving her husband a quick kiss on the lips before heading off to the hospital.
"Okay kids, once you get finished eating we're gonna do a bit of a roll call."
* * *
"-and last but not least, you all have your packed lunches?"
"Yes sir." All four of them said at practically the same time.
"Alright, and that seems to be everything. So, make sure you don't leave anything behind and we'll be off."
One by one, all of the kids got into the white minivan, while Jack got into the driver's seat.
"Alright, everyone have their seatbelts on?"
The kids all buckled up and nodded.
"Alright, let's get going then team!" He said as he backed up out of the driveway and headed off towards the school.
"Oh my gosh, I'm officially a high schooler!" Lena nearly squeeled in excitement.
"Oh yeah, that reminds me. Lúcio and Mei, you two need to help out Lena while she's getting used to the school. I don't want to hear that she was getting lost, alright?"
"Yeah. Don't worry sis, Mei and I have got your back." Lúcio said.
"Oo! Oo! I wonder if we'll be in any classes together??"
"Sorry Lena, but all the classes are separated by grade." Mei said.
"Aww, really? Why wasn't it like that in middle school?"
"I heard it was some new rule they came up with over the summer." Jack said.
"Oh... aw man! You're all gonna be in the same school and I'm gonna be on my own." Hana pouted.
"What about Alejandra and Timmy? They're your friends, right?" Mei asked Hana.
"Well yeah, but it's gonna suck not being with one of you..."
"Aww, you're gonna make me sad." Lena whined.
"And for the record, I'm going to miss you too, lil' sis. It was fun being in the same school as you."
"Alrighty kids, we're here!" Jack said, parking the car on the curb before turning back to look at his children.
"So, all of you be on your best behavior, have fun, I'll be out here to pick you all up afterschool, and I love you all."
Everyone said some variation of "Bye, I love you too." and got out of the car, the three older kids heading towards the high school building while Hana caught up with one of her friends before they walked off towards the conjoining middle school campus.
Jack watched them until they were out of sight, and then began his journey back home.
Now, there was only one issue on his mind... how was he going to pass the time until he went to pick up the kids?
"Maybe I can invite Ana and Torbjörn over for lunch and cards or something..."