Chapter Text
Nacho is the first to welcome her as she arrives, waving from atop his baby pink toddler bed.
“Home, sweet home,” Katie sighs as she enters Nacho’s room, ecstatic to be back with all her loved ones and unscathed but a little tired from the long day.
Multi’s face immediately sours as he side-eyes her, “I think Nacho decide what he want to do because uh...”
“It’s okay, I agree, actually!” She replies as she leans down to Nacho’s eye level, “I know it might be hard to trust Mommy right now and that’s okay.”
As they both turn their attention toward the little egg, he is quick to curl in on himself, hiding in the corner of his bed. “I’m sorry,” Nacho whispers to them.
Multi cuts in before she can respond. “You don’t have to say sorry, Nacho. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Your dad’s right, buddy. It’s never your fault when Mama makes does something bad,” she assures him.
Nacho begins to unfurl a little. “Are they still after me?” the little egg worries.
“I don’t think so. I don’t think so, Nacho.” Multi answers.
“Do you still want the powers?” He asks.
Katie is quick to deny the accusation, “It’s not about the powers. It was never about the powers, Nacho. He wanted me to do some tasks for them but I knew I was never going to get the powers.”
Multi’s nostrils flared as he stammered out the beginnings of an argument, "But- but but but but but-” then he exhaled and patted the side of Nacho’s shell. “Nacho, can you change forms?”
Obediently, the egg jumped to stand up on the bed and with a poof, took the form of a human toddler of about two or three.
“Go put your headphones on and play on your tablet while Dada talks with-” Multi gave her a loaded stare, furious but relenting in front of Nacho, “with your Mama.”
As the toddler climbed down his bed, Multi fished out the boy’s headphones from a drawer and let him put them on while he pulled up “La Feria de Cepillin” on the tablet.
Multi smiled affectionately as he oversaw his son, "Here, Nacho. Your favorite.”
The boy matched his father’s smile as he ran over as fast as his little legs could carry him, taking the tablet with a laugh and plopping down onto the pink carpet of his bedroom floor.
Immediately after pressing play, Multi’s smile drops and he is onto her like a hound dog. “You played with Nacho’s life today! They could have killed him. And what? What would we do then?”
Katie’s complicated sigh and struggle to retort only riled the man up further.
“What then, huh? What then!? If it doesn’t work out, what then?” After failing to get her to respond, he bulldozed over the chance, pushing past her towards the bed frame while he continues to pile on, “And! It was the day after I let Nacho do this list.”
Already aware of what he was referring to, already guilted by the knowledge, she was slow to turn around but-
“Look, Katie. Look here! Look at this list,” he insisted on punishing her.
Turning around in place brought her face-to-face with an all too familiar sight, brought even closer as Multi seemed to have pulled the image off Nacho’s wall to make her see it if she didn’t turn herself.
Because in his hands was a piece of pink construction paper with a short list of four names underneath the list’s title, “NICE LIST.” At the top, the names Multi and Katie were tied for first, barely legible in the messy font that was Nacho’s crayon based handwriting.
“Okay, I know! And I know it was risky but I just felt if I stayed close, they weren’t going to hurt my baby if I’m working for them-”
“So you see then! Where I find the problem is that- yes, it was risky, but it was so much more risky for Nacho then yourself! Like- even if you go and it doesn’t work out, then okay, you don’t get the powers but they could kill Nacho-”
The sound of thunder erupting overhead interrupted the conversation as the two came to realize what it preluded.
“Oh fuck,” Multi grumbled as Katie asked, “What the fuck? Do you hear that?!”
Multi shook his head in denial, “What? What!?”
“Dark Cucurucho said something. It just told me to come to the office now,” Katie explained.
At that, Multi snapped to attention, “Katie, do they know that you were helping us?
Katie panicked as she tried to recall, “No, nononono. They didn’t see us together. What should I do? What should I tell them.”
“I-I don’t know! I think you should go, you need to go, Katie! We cannot risk that they will come here. Maybe they know your location,” he fretted.
She jumped with an idea, “Okay. Okay! I’ll just say that ‘I guess I just suck at working.’ No wait! That they said to play tag and next thing I know they were leaving!”
“Yes yes, now go!” He pushed.
“Alright! I’m going! I love you, Tomate! Love you, Nacho! Uh, love you platonically, Multi! And if I die and never see you again, uhhh…goodbye!” She proclaimed as she disappeared in a flurry of purple particles.
At her grim farewell, the three left behind were less than impressed by her cheery attitude at her potential demise, even if not all of them were willing to admit.
(But the three did react with similar levels of relief later in the night when the reactor’s siren sounded and the banging knocking on the reactor’s doors alerted them to Katie’s return)