Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jason was tired as death, his left arm was slowly going numb and he had never been happier in his life.

He had been a dad for all of two months now—seven weeks, three days and approximately ten hours, to be precise—and he loved every second of it. 

Sofía was perfect. She had a head full of soft curls and impossibly tiny little hands and the world’s best smile. Jason could have spent all day just looking at her.

He reasonably knew that humans and demigods came in sizes this small. He’d seen it with Percy and Annabeth’s kids, and he’d seen it with Em. But it felt different when it was his daughter. She’d grown so much in the past two months, and yet she still seemed so impossibly tiny and fragile to him. Sometimes it was hard to believe she’d been even smaller not too long ago.

She had yet to find anything that even remotely resembled a reasonable sleep schedule, but Jason and Leo had quickly discovered that, while getting her to sleep during the night was damn-near impossible, she slept pretty okay during the daytime. 

It wasn’t too bad. Leo had never had anything close to resembling a normal sleep schedule—he was always most awake at night—and Jason had never quite gotten out of the habit of waking up at sunrise that had been drilled into him from early childhood. They were both used to functioning on relatively little sleep. That relatively little sleep just involved more fussy baby than it had before, which was entirely worth it.

The thing about Sofía and sleep was that it never happened all at once. A lot of the time, she’d start to doze off, then startle back awake and start crying again. Jason liked walking around with her when that happened—for some reason, him hovering slightly above ground soothed her to a degree that nothing else could—until she eventually stopped and started to doze off again. Then, the second he placed her down to try and get her to sleep, she was wide awake again. Rinse and repeat.

Jason didn’t mind. He was glad to know his daughter had a strong set of lungs. Her complete lack of fear when it came to voicing her displeasure was something Jason could only have dreamed of for most of his childhood. 

And he understood that she didn’t like to be placed down and left alone after she’d been abandoned on their doorstep. 

She always slept best knowing someone was there. 

Which was why Jason had spent the past hour and a half serving as an adjustable human pillow while his husband was busy tinkering with a commission and making lunch.

There had been a lot of tiny baby noises, and a lot of movement that looked like crawling attempts but that Leo jokingly referred to as her being a flight risk on a regular basis—an assessment which wasn’t entirely unfair, considering she’d worked herself from the middle of Jason’s chest where she’d started all the way to his left arm before finally dozing off, despite multiple attempts on his part to lift her back to her original starting point. 

This was slightly inconvenient in that Jason now couldn’t move her without waking her up, so his arm had been growing heavier and heavier over the past hour.

He didn’t care that much, though. His daughter slept peacefully, her little chest rising and falling slowly, and if his arm would be sore as hell by the end of her nap, that would be completely worth it.

One of his hands was perpetually resting at the back of her head, supporting it to make sure it didn’t drop backwards. It was a necessary safety exercise. It also meant he got to run his hands through her curls over and over.

It felt a little absurd just how at ease and in the moment he felt, just laying on the couch and looking at his daughter. If he hadn’t been so focused on watching her and concerned about the potential of her waking up and making another sideways escape attempt, he might have fallen asleep right then and there.

Jason quietly chuckled to himself. The concept of an afternoon nap never would have occurred to him as a teenager. 

It had been a slow process of getting here—years of much more passive involvement in what was going on in the demigod world, with less and less time spent fighting monsters. Being a child of Jupiter, his presence still sent out a signal flare of ‘free lunch!’ to all monsters in the surrounding area, but he was too powerful now and had too much of a reputation for them to try their luck in most cases. 

Some habits he’d probably never shake. But he was at a point that his teenage self couldn’t even have dreamed of.

“I love you,” he said quietly to his daughter, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. “I’m never gonna let anything bad happen to you.”

He wondered, sometimes, if he’d ever slept in his own mother’s arms like this. From all that he knew about her, Jason’s best guess was that the answer was no. Considering everything he knew about his mom, she hadn’t exactly been the quiet and patient kind. He didn’t know how wiggly of a baby he’d been, but he was pretty sure that if he’d slowly worked himself off his mom’s chest at that age, she wouldn’t have noticed until he’d dropped sideways off the couch. Actually, she very possibly wouldn’t have noticed that, either.

Thalia never would have risked that.

He didn’t understand how anyone could look at a human being that small and do anything other than love them.

“Hey cielo, lunch is-” Leo started when he stepped into the room, then promptly paused to look at the two of them with impossibly soft eyes. “Ah, I see you’re busy being drooled on. Sorry. We can postpone lunch.”

Jason chuckled. “Yeah, pup’s properly asleep now. Has been for a little over an hour. I don’t really want to move if it means risking waking her up.”

“I can’t believe you’re really doing the whole lobita thing. It’s supreme dork behavior,” Leo said, leaning down to gently boop his daughter’s nose. “You hear that, cariño? Your dad is being a dork.” She made a little noise in her sleep, but didn’t otherwise react. “See? Sofía’s agreeing with me.”

“You love when I’m being a dork,” Jason said contently, grinning up at his husband. “Besides, Piper is the one who kept making wolf jokes. And Sofía is most active at night. It just fits her.”

Leo sighed. “You’re right. Tragically, I am doomed to be attracted to you even and especially when you’re being a dork.” He leaned down to kiss him. Like always, his lips were warm. Unlike always, they also tasted a little like chili.

“I love you,” Jason said, pressing his forehead to Leo’s. 

“You’d better. I don’t think your godly step-mom would like it very much if we didn’t take the whole marriage thing seriously,” his husband told him, the look in his eyes utterly soft despite the joking tone. “You know, minus the whole ‘till death do us part-thing. Been there, done that, you’re never getting rid of me.”

Jason laughed and kissed him again.

“Wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Leo’s eyes trailed back down to their daughter.

“Has she been sleeping on your arm the whole time?” he, raising an eyebrow. “I mean, weight lifting looks good on you and all, but that seems like overkill for a workout routine.”

“I don’t mind.” Jason smiled down at their daughter. “I spent so much time training and fighting things when I was younger. I like getting to put that strength to use for something nicer.”

“You still can’t help playing the hero, can you?” Leo asked with a fond roll of his eyes. “I can take her for a bit. You should eat something and maybe shake out your arm before it falls off.”

“I’m just worried moving her will wake her up,” Jason said softly. “She’s been even more antsy about sleep than usual. I don’t think she likes the New Moon very much. She had trouble sleeping around that time last month too.”

“You’ve been tracking our daughter’s sleep schedule in relation to the moon phases?” Leo shook his head in amusement. “That’s… honestly, if her sleep patterns are actually related to that, that’s very good to know, but you’re also officially never beating the wolf boy allegations.”

“Hey, if it helps.” Jason shrugged one shoulder, since Sofía’s head was currently resting on the other and he didn’t want to disturb her. “The more information we have, the better, right?”

“Oh, definitely. Still gonna tease you about it, though.” Leo grinned at him. “Are you planning on ever getting up again or are you just permanently stuck like this?”

“I mean, if she’s going to get the minimum of six hours of consecutive sleep she’s supposed to be getting at that age, I’ll be stuck here for another four and a half hours, give or take.”

“Yeah, we’re not doing that. You’re not having lunch for dinner. Just let me-” Leo started, but he was promptly interrupted by their daughter blinking herself awake and promptly working herself into a crying fit. “Aaand someone’s grumpy she wasn’t included in our lunch discussion. Sorry, mija. C’mere.”

He reached out and lifted her off Jason’s arm so he could let her rest against his shoulder. As much as Jason immediately missed holding her, he loved watching Leo with their daughter—the way he bounced her and whispered excitedly to her like he was sharing some great secret only a two month old child could understand made Jason fall in love with his husband all over again every time.

Besides, he really did like the thought that he’d get some feeling into his arm again eventually. Ouch.

He ran through some basic stretches that had definitely hurt less when he’d still been an active member of the legion and had had fewer temporary death experiences under his belt, then started his own round of pacing since his legs had started to fall asleep on him, too.

“Can I help?” he asked, looking over to where Leo was still bouncing their daughter.

“Could you go make some formula? It sounds like she wants to have some lunch of her own.”

“Yeah, I thought it might be that.” That was one of the things that had surprised Jason—the way they’d both grown more able to distinguish the things she was trying to communicate via different cries. How the ones that were a little higher-pitched usually meant she was tired, and the ones that sounded a little more rhythmic and got louder over time meant hungry. “I’ll be right back.”

There were many food-related things Jason couldn’t be trusted to handle—most commonly because he tried to follow the recipe to a T when for some godsforsaken reason, recipes apparently weren’t intended to be followed to the letter—but he had enough practice with formula to be able to handle that just fine.

Lunch was still on the stove where Leo had left it, but that wasn’t too much of an issue, considering the newest model of oven Leo had built just auto-deactivated itself when lunch was done and made sure the food wouldn’t get burnt on its own. (Jason had, of course, still managed to burn food on said oven, which his husband had been thoroughly impressed by before reiterating that he please refrain from further cooking attempts for the foreseeable future.)

They had family lunch the way they did most often these days—with one of them holding baby Sofía, who was happily emptying her bottle, and then trading baby duties so the other person could eat their semi-cold lunch after the first one was finished.

By the end of lunch, Sofía had fallen back asleep, this time with her head drooping against Leo’s shoulder.

“Guess it’s my turn with the baby workout, huh?” Leo joked, adjusting his hold on her slightly. 

“Mandatory cuddle break from work and chores,” Jason agreed, collecting both of their plates and Sofía’s bottle from the table. “I’ll handle the dishes.”

“You pretty much have to. I’m the one who’s stuck now. In a stupid dining room chair, no less,” Leo said with a chuckle. “Man, I really ought to know better by now.”

“We’re having lunch on the couch next time.”