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“Will!” Leo shouts through a rainbow, scaring the shit out of the blond as he preps dinner
“Jesus fuuuu-freaking Christ man what do you want ?” Will saves just in time, still getting used to having impressionable ears around 24/7
“Pumpkin patch!”
“Pumpkin patch?”
“We need to go to a pumpkin patch”
“Aren't you supposed to be wedding prepping?”
“No shut up, I just learned Jason’s never gone”
There is a muffled call of “I've been to a patch of pumpkins before” from somewhere on the other side of the rainbow.
“Babe a garden doesn't count!” Leo yells back before returning to Will “Also it would be fun to take Katie she needs a pumpkin”
The eight-year-old perks up at the sound of her name, having been too busy in her own world of coloring to pay attention to grown-ups. Today the drawing is of Festus, a welcome break from her usual repertoire of what they're pretty sure is her bio dad being brutally ripped apart and eaten by Cyclops.
Nico is sitting right next to their foundling at the table, a research text in one hand and his sketchbook in the other as he picks his way through the spellwork of his current case. But Will can tell his husband is listening by how he’s no longer taking detailed notes.
“ Anyways ,” Leo continues on, his gestures getting bigger in his excitement “I found this place that-“
Leo’s arm goes right through the rainbow, disconnecting the call. Will takes the opportunity to go sit at the dining table with his family before Leo calls back so they can all be in the frame.
“We can go in the middle of the week,” Leo says without greeting as the rainbow reconnects “It's not like Katie is in school or anything right now”
It's true, she's not. She legally barely exists at the moment, just enough for Will and his husband to be her foster parents, making it so the truancy office is none the wiser. Right now they are focused on her mental and physical health, getting her into doctors and helping with her episodes. She obviously has some PTSD from her time in the swamp, and she's still underweight as well. They only just got an order in for braces for her weird backward knees, but it's still a week out until they are ready.
Therapy on the other hand they were able to find through The Program. Dr. Block isn't a demigod nor does he have the sight, but his sister is a child of Dionysus making him in the loop on the magical world. They have more mortals with halfling families joining these days, their family members living to adulthood opening doors on both sides.
It's probably the best that she's not in school at the moment, she's only been officially theirs for a little over a month since they brought her home from camp. The kid is still a little unsure about getting left again, and still very unsure of the outside world in general. The only places she truly relaxes are the di Solace apartment and the Way Station.
“Also there will be fewer people then” Leo presses on “easier on Chiquita and spotting monsters”
“Neeks?” Will checks
“I don’t have anything time-sensitive,” Nico says with a shrug before turning to the eight-year-old “You wanna go on an adventure Mostriciattola?”
Katie looks taken aback by being asked her opinion on the planning, so it takes a second for her to pause before thinking it over and then nodding with a smile.
“Perfect!” Leo exclaims “You have some days off next week right -”
So next Wednesday the five of them pile into Will’s little four door and drive out of town to the pumpkin patch.
They were able to find Katie a pair of green heavy-duty rain boots in her size from the Way Station’s collection, and she has her new favorite pair of embroidered overalls stuffed into them. It had been fun getting ready this morning, their little apartment bustling with the addition of Leo and Jason. Leo helps Nico get the kid ready by putting her hair in a pair of french-braids, and Jason helping Will pack the cooler. They have gone on double-date outings like this before, but the addition of Katie is making it extra joyful.
Leo drives because Will is sleep-deprived and Jason shouldn't and Nico hates it and if Leo doesn't he gets car sick. Something about being able to feel the machine working while the world moves around him, but when he drives he can just be the machine and it's fine. Whatever, Will passes out fifteen minutes in anyway.
Katie wakes him when they get there, climbing over Will in her rush to get out. Then she's doing that excited stim she does, a little stomping dance from foot to foot, before giving a spin so she can shake Will's arm.
“I'm up I'm up” he laughs, Katie gives him a huge grin and then speeds off to see what Nico and Leo doing in the trunk.
“Okay,” Jason admits as he steps out of the shotgun passenger door “This is not a patch of pumpkins”
It is very much not a single patch of pumpkins. The place was at one point a family farm, most of the original buildings have been repurposed into things like gift shops and cafes. There is a large corn maze off in the distance, hand-painted wooden signs showing the way to the pick-your-own orchards and caramel apples. There is a playground made of hay bales and a paddock of animals to pet and feed.
With the leaves just changing color and the air slightly crisp the whole place feels cozy and autumnal. Both Katie and Jason are looking around in amazement, Will wonders if their kid has ever been to something like this before
Fortunately, the place isn't crowded. There are what looks like a handful of families and one group of preschoolers on a field trip. This is good, because they all figured out fast that Katie struggles with large crowds, becoming quickly overwhelmed. They haven't figured out if it's her PTSD or obvious neurodivergence yet, but Will suspects it's a combination of the two.
When they start off towards the buildings Katie quickly falls behind, even with everyone walking slowly. It is hard for people over six feet to compensate for a little girl with a disability, so Jason gleefully crouched down to ask if he can carry her. Then the big softy has the kid perched on the crook of his arm bent close to his body. Katie's smile is blinding, one arm holding onto Jason's shoulder the other free to stim on the floral embroidery of her overalls or to point when she spots something interesting.
“Fuck that's cute” Leo murmurs to himself before catching up with his fiancee and taking his free hand in his own
Katie directs the group with her gestures, for a kid who still won't really talk she communicates very clearly. The four of them are perfectly happy to go where she wants, a lot of it is peering at plants and decorations until they find the menagerie of animals behind a wire paddock. They scrounge some quarters between them to get pellets from the coin-operated machine, totally worth it for the little giggle the cows get out of Katie when they eat from her hand.
Nico is audibly surprised so many of the barn animals aren't running screaming from him, that is until they figure out that the cows are obsessed with Jason.
“I hate this” Jason gripes, but he's not moving away because Katie is half leaning out of his arms to pet the cows and get all slobbered on. The ones not getting loved on by the kid are inching closer staring at Jason like he has something they want, a few of them attempting to mouth at what they can reach of his sweater sleeves.
“I think they have peacocks in the next pen” Nico points with a shit-eating grin.
True to his word, the next paddock is full of birds, and the two peacocks and single peahen are staring down the son of Jupiter like they want to eat him. Jason lets out a little puppy whine of distress.
That gets the girl's attention, turning back to the blond with a concerned face and papping at his cheek with a bovine-slobber-covered hand.
“It's okay, I'm okay” Jason tries to reassure her, but Will can tell the expression doesn't reach his eyes by the way she frowns.
They have found that Katie does this thing, where she will study your face for a long moment until she finds what she is looking for. It's a little unnerving, big dark round eyes boring into your own with such intensity many people become taken aback. Will finds it reminds him of Nico as he tries to parse some dead something out of your aura, or when an Aphrodite kid is looking into your love lines. Taking a peek into parts of you that only someone touched by the divine can do
They have no clue what she can see in people when she does that, but it feels like she's looking deep into your heart and separating out your true intentions.
Also, the longer Jason has worked on his own mental health the shittier his poker face has become, so for Katie he's not a hard egg to crack. She wipes cow spit off on his sweater and points to the hand sanitizer dispenser.
“Ready to clean up” he asks, trying his best to keep the relief out of his voice, Katie nods yes and points again.
Katie directs them to pumpkins next. It's a small hay ride to the patch, lame compared to the ones back in Texas though Jason looks a little spooked by the rattling of the cart, past an apple orchard heavy with dark fruit. The kid has no interest in the trees, she's off following the hand-painted signage to the pumpkin patch before they are all of the tractor bed. Nico is quick to follow her, and they are in the waist-high grass before anyone can stop them, though Leo hangs back for a moment to squint at the tractor.
Will immediately starts to fret watching his husband and kid toddle about into the tall grass “What if there's ticks”
“Can't you like, psychically remove ticks?” Leo asks.
“I can check for lyme disease and stop spirochetes, it's not the same”
“I think it's too cold for ticks now” Leo tries to reassure.
“I can zap the ticks off” Jason supplies plainly like it will help anything.
Leo gives his fiancee one of his patented ‘babe that's ferial wolf shit’ looks “You are not zapping ticks off the kiddo” he tells him.
“It's always been fine before, I just get staticy and they fall right off”
“Anyways” Leo breaks in, “I think it will be fine”
Will's worry spiral is interrupted by Katie’s little ‘whoop’ of success, holding a pumpkin bigger than her torso above her head. The three of them clap and cheer as Nico tries to help steady her on the uneven muddy ground, but she is not deterred. She's carrying the gourd through the dead cattails and goldenrod back to the group and looking very pleased with herself.
Katie plants her big orange prize at Will’s feet and is then dragging Jason into the grass and vines by the hand, determined to get him a pumpkin too. Leo and Nico switch places as the small child guardian, Will’s husband with his own much smaller pumpkin on his hip.
“There are no ticks,” Nico tells him, sliding his free hand into one of Will’s back jean pockets, knowing his worries as always “I can tell they sprayed”
“Okay,” he relents a little, leaning into his husband's shoulder.
“Do you want to go get a pumpkin?”
Will pulls his lips thin, watching Leo struggling to keep Katie from eating a frankly ginormous grasshopper as Jason snacks on a rogue pumpkin flower.
“I promise there's no ticks”
“Promise?”
“Promise” Nico squeezes his butt with the hand in his pocket “Also I don't think Leo can keep both of them from eating bugs at the same time”
“Fair enough” Will relents with a snort of laughter, and wades into the grass to join the commotion.
After paying they drop the pumpkins off at the car, no use hulling them around. It also gives them a chance to get drinks from the cooler and remove the bits of dead plants off Katie. She doesn't look to mind all of the fussing over her, everyone picking bits of foliage and seeds out of her hair and clothes as they spot them, she's perfectly happy to sit on the ledge of the trunk with the gourds, drink her juice-box, and kick her boots against the bumper.
“Not sure where we should go next,” Nico asks as he studies the map Will nabbed when they got there “What else is there to do now that we have pumpkins?”
Jason tilts his head to the side like a confused dog “I thought you said you have been to one of these places before”
“Yeah but that was for like, a zombie outbreak” Nico confesses with a shrug “This is the first time I've gotten to explore without the undead”
“I mean, you could add the undead” Leo teases, Katie perks up excited at the idea.
“No” Jason and Will monotone together, both Leo and Katie huff and complain good naturally and then grin at each other like the little goblins they are.
“We can just wander around” Will supplies, peering at the paper over his husband's shoulder “There's like food stalls and stuff”
“Sound like a plan?” Nico asks Katie, she smiles around the last of her juice box and nods.
They pick their way back across the gravel parking lot to the main buildings. Leo is squinting at the pick-your-own tractor that is currently loading the preschool group as they pass “There's something off with the tractor”
“Leave the tractor alone,” Jason tells him.
“But-”
“Leave the tractor alone,” Nico and Jason say together, Leo sighs deeply and dramatically.
They get caramel apples at the cute little stand, mostly because Jason has never heard of them and the way Katie’s eyes get big and excited at the colorful display of toppings. Will insists on making sure they are cut (because choking hazards and the feral idiots chewing on the sticks), but that doesn't stop his kid from forgoing her fork to excitedly scarf down her treat and becoming incredibly sticky, it's very cute.
“Do not lick her” Leo warns his fiancee with a threatening plastic fork, clocking something in Jason’s posture and clueing Will in that it's time to clean her up.
“ But ” Jason starts, looking conflicted “but puppy -”
“Don't lick my kid” Nico reinforces, Jason gives a huff sigh of defeat and pitifully watches Will clean Katie off with a wet-wipe.
Katie acts like he's trying to waterboard her, squirming and trying to suck the excess charmel off her fingers. The wet-wipes quickly get abandoned so Will can take her over to the hand washing station situated by the port-a-potties. The eight-year-old is fine washing her hands on her own, so Will gets one of the bandannas out of his bag to sneakily wet under the spigot.
“Ah-ha!” he laughs at his kid as he wipes her down, her face scrunching against being cleaned “Got you.” She gives him a stink face when he's done and then drys herself off on his sweater sleeve, he guesses that makes them even.
They wander for a while after that, either letting Katie lead the way or encouraging her game of musical adults that consists of getting passed from one pair of arms to another at her insistence. There are gardens and decoration displays to look at, lots of things to climb and explore, and photo ops at every turn. It feels like someone is always taking a picture, and no one is being sneaky about it, Will even catches his husband setting his lock screen to a photo of Will holding their kid among a huge patch of mums and marigolds and smiling to himself.
Eventually, they make it to the back of the property where the corn maze is. The thing is huge and intricate, the map on the plack showing that it has shapes of stars and moons and a smiling jack-o-lantern in the design.
“Do we wanna race?” Will asks, hand in his pockets.
The normal double date plan when they do something like this is a competition, either splitting up as couples or one pair against the other to see who can get through faster.
Jason is not a competitive person, not like Will can be, and neither tends to be Nico. At least until Leo Valdez is in the picture, whatever it is about that man brings out this sibling-like competitiveness in Will’s husband. Something about their part goblin part I-have-known-this-person- way -too-long-and-lived-through- way -too-much-of-each-others-bullshit esk relationship just makes them egg each other on in the right circumstance.
This time they have Katie though, making the teams uneven.
Leo has that covered “You wanna see if we can beat your dads at the maze” he asks the girl.
And that's pretty awesome, to be called Katie’s dad, Will is still getting used to it. She hasn't called them ‘dad’ yet, at least not out loud (but that's not much of a surprise, she doesn't say much) but she's acknowledged them as such in other ways. Mostly in how she reacts when others call them her dads, pointing or agreeing when they do.
Like now, with Katie nodding and confirming. She does an excited little hop before turning to Will and Nico and sticking out her tongue.
“Rules?” Jason asks, knowing his fiancee.
“No powers, no inventions, no weapons, no explosions, no flying, no talking to the dead” Will ticks off on his fingers.
“And no talking to birds!” Leo adds.
“I can not control what the birds have to say to me” Jason defends
“To the middle or the end?” Nico breaks in before they get into another spiral of how far passive powers can go before it's cheating.
“Uuuuuuh”
They all look at the laminated map of the maze stapled to the plack to decide, Katie points at a tower structure towards the center.
“To the tower?” Will asks
Katie smiles and nods yes.
“To the tower it is!”
“Couples or blonds vs brunets” Leo asks the child.
Katie thinks for a second, grins, and then tugs Nico over to Leo.
“Then it's settled!”
Per camp rules, the youngest gets to count down the start of the race. Katie does so with her fingers, the second she gets to zero Leo scoops her up under his arm like a sack of potatoes and sprints off down the tunnel to the right, Nico hot on his heels. Will can hear his kid’s giggle through the dried plants as she’s sped off.
“Oh we're totally losing this aren't we,” Jason asks.
“Yep” Will confirms, and they both set off to the left.
“I gotta ask” Jason starts as they wander through the half-dead corn “How are you three doing?”
“Good, I mean” They take a turn to the right past a quaint little scarecrow, Will putting his hands in his hoodie pockets against the breeze punching through the leaves “You’re probably hearing it all from Nico”
“Yeah but I wanna hear it from you”
“It’s pretty awesome,” Will can’t help but smile remembering the little patter of bare feet inbound for a hug every time he unlocks the door at the end of the day “I wish I was home more, but we knew that was going to be a thing from the beginning. I can’t deny that coming home to a full house doesn’t make my day”
Jason grins at that “She has a way of lighting up the room doesn’t she”
“She really does” Will agrees “and she’s already doing loads better. I’m really proud of how well she’s done today”
“Yeah Leo did good finding this place”
“He totally did. We just want to wait a little longer until we take the next steps, I want her a little more back on her feet before she makes a big decision”
“Hm?”
“We want to ask her if she wants to be adopted,” Will says “It's really her choice, she might still have other family out there”
“But you want to adopt her?”
“Gods yes,” Will says tipping his head back “More than anything, we should have done it from the jump”
“You should have” Jason agrees matter a fact, but he's already bitten Nico’s head off about this “But she's here now”
“She is” Will looks both ways at a fork as Jason sniffs the air, both deciding left at the same time “She always felt so right”
“What are you gonna do if she still has family out there”
“I mean we're looking” because they are, because it matters “Nico has feelers out on the dead end, but it's been no luck so far. She deserves that opportunity”
“And if you find her family?”
“Then we take it from there” Will shrugs. He doesn't want to give Katie up, but everything he's been reading about adoption says that kids do best with their family of origin, or even just keeping bio family in their life. Will and his husband are ready to do whatever they need to do for their kid.
They lose the race, getting to the tower finish line a bit after the other half of their group. Nico is holding Katie in a front carry, looking like an adorable mix of tickled pink and hating life. Leo on the other hand is laughing so hard he's bent at the waist with a hand braised on the wooden structure to keep himself upright as he wracked with mirth.
“What happened?” Will asks
“Katie called me ‘dad’-” Nico starts.
“No!” Leo interjects as he catches his breath “ Chiquita what did you call him?!”
“Papi!” the kid declares, a quiet chirp and so so proud of herself, turning to look at Will in his husband's arms with a big smile.
Nico groans but doesn't correct their kid, pointing his face to the sky in a proud ‘why me?’. Will can't help but melt at the sight.
“Aw,” he coos “is Nico your dad?”
Katie frowns at Will like he's stupid and shakes her head no. “Papi” she insists, quiet but firm. Then the whole world changes as she points to Will next and declares “Dad”
Will points to himself “I'm Dad?” Katie nods yes enthusiastically, he can feel the smile that's splitting his face as he chokes out “I can be Dad”
Katie smiles impossibly wider and reaches for him, and who is Will but to take his kid out of his husband's arms and hug her close.
“Are you crying” Leo bullies
“No” Will sniffles wetly, then sneezes because of the lie. Katie startles at the sneeze, looks at Will like he's gross (fair), and squirms to get put down.
“I think your adoption talk is going to go well,” Jason tells him as his kid toddles off to torment Leo, clapping him on the shoulder.
Will grins and wipes at his eyes “I think so too”