Chapter Text
Newborn
Steve double checks the diaper bag: diapers, diaper wipes, a changing mat, change of clothes for him and the baby, bottles, formula, a rattle thing (though so far the baby hasn’t cared at all about the rattle thing, but what if she starts while they’re out today?), and five pacifiers (which is maybe excessive, but he doesn’t know how he feels about putting one in her mouth after it’s fallen on the floor).
At home, he just puts it in his own mouth and licks it before popping it back into Rose’s mouth. But he feels like that might get him weird looks out on the sidewalks of Brooklyn. Five is enough, right?
Plus hand sanitizer, inhaler and a water bottle for him. He throws in another little outfit for the baby. What if she barfs twice in the forty or so minutes he’s out? Or barfs and has a diaper blowout within forty minutes? Both scenarios have happened in the last two weeks that he has been a parent. Maybe he should pack her a third outfit. No. That’s excessive.
Okay, he thinks. Okay. He’s going outside. Alone. With his two-week-old daughter. No backup. He has this.
He may not have it. But he can’t stay inside his apartment for another minute.
“Steve, go outside before you get scurvy from lack of Vitamin D,” his mom says from the couch. “You and Rosie-lass will be fine. If you need me, just call.”
“Scurvy is from lack of Vitamin C, mom,” Steve says, annoyed.
His mother rolls her eyes and calls out, “You’ve packed that massive bag of stuff; don’t forget the baby!”
Steve doesn’t snap at his mother, because it’s not her fault he decided to be a single parent. In fact, she has been absolutely heroic these last few weeks. To be honest, if he wasn’t reeling from new parenthood and a weeks-long roller coaster of hormones and sleep deprivation while having his insides dramatically restructured, that comment probably would have made him laugh instead of bristle.
In conclusion, he should not yell at his mom. He definitely needs to leave the house.
Steve heads out, baby in the carrier, because he did NOT forget the baby in the flurry of packing all the baby-related things.
He walks to his favorite coffee shop. He sits in the sunshine and has a chai latte on the little patio in the back of the coffee shop. He’s surrounded by healthy, beautiful plants and happy people. Almost everyone who passes by coos over how sweet and precious his baby is.
Baby Rose stays asleep through all the adoration.
If asked, Steve would share his firm opinion that all babies are created equal, but also, secretly, he’s pretty sure Rose is the best baby. He’s so in love with her little nose and her soft eyelashes on her tender cheeks, with the purse of her lips slightly parted in sleep, the pale brown of her tiny hands, the impossibly tiny perfection of her fingernails, the rise and fall of her chest, the delicate pink of her ears. And her head smells good. He wasn’t prepared for how incredible it would feel to sniff his baby’s tender dark curls shining in the morning sun.
God, it makes him want to fucking punch a wall. How could something so small be so exquisitely perfect? And he gets to hold her. She’s his.
Steve is about to cry at the fucking coffee shop. Fucking hormones. He takes deep breaths and blinks quickly.
Anyway, of course everyone at the coffee shop adores Rose. She’s the best baby in the world.
Also, the chai latte is delicious.
She wakes up after a bit, and he gives her a bottle in a shady spot on the little patio. He eats a piece of cake that the server brings him for free to say congrats, and he only drops a few bites of cake onto Rose’s head. He wants to cry at how accomplished he feels. He has a kid; he made a fucking actual kid, and he can still leave his house and do things and see people. And he has free cake.
He’s gonna be fine.
So, it’s very good, and normal, and he chose this coffee shop specifically because he knew the gender-neutral bathroom had a changing table, so he changes Rose’s diaper on a public changing table for the first time, and it’s not a messy one at all, probably he could have gotten away without changing it, but now he has practice with an easy diaper in public, so it will be less intense when he has to do a messy one. Right? Right.
She cries a little, but he gives her a pacifier and she soothes, because she is, really, actually, the best baby.
After an hour, he packs up to head home, checking several times that he did not accidentally leave Rose behind. She’s right there in the carrier, strapped to his chest, her delicate fresh baby-ness contrasting strangely with his same old floral blackwork tattooed arms and worn clothes. He didn’t leave her curled up in a potted plant or anything. After that thought, he finds he absolutely needs to check all of the potted plants for errant babies, just in case, because fucking hormones.
Parenthood is weird.
He gets a to-go cup of coffee, because he wants to buy something else to show his appreciation for the lovely time he had on the patio, and also he really needs the caffeine.
As he nears his building, he sees Hot Neighbor far down on the other end of the block, walking his way.
Hot Neighbor and his Hot Wife(?) have been expecting a baby, as Steve has gleaned from seeing the two of them walking together, dreamily holding hands and staring adoringly into each other’s eyes while tenderly cradling the slowly growing midsection of Hot Neighbor’s Hot Wife(?).
Which is fine. That’s a perfectly fine way to do things. It’s very heteronormative and instagrammy, but those are valid ways to live your life. Just because it’s not Steve’s thing doesn’t mean it’s not a perfectly fine thing.
His friend from work, Wanda, just had her twins, and they bonded a lot over how they did not glow while gestating. They lumbered around feeling like farm animals. But he didn’t decide to have a kid for the aesthetics. And he doesn’t have a spouse, because, well, whatever, he isn’t totally sure who the other dad is, though he has some guess now that the baby is exterior to his body.
That’s not a thing and it won’t be a thing, and also most importantly, he wanted a kid and he doesn’t want a spouse right now, which is a perfectly fine and valid choice, thank you very much, judgy prenatal nurse who he got put on probation because no one who misgenders their patient and makes side comments about their lifestyle should be allow to practice medicine, and yeah that was four months ago and yeah he’s still mad about it.
Anyway. The point is, it’s a beautiful fucking day, and he has the best fucking baby in the world. And he has his mom. And Wanda. And this cup of coffee. And intrusive thoughts, but that’s nothing new.
He’s got this.
Hot Neighbor, he realizes as they get closer to each other, has a baby in a carrier strapped to his chest. Which means…Hot Neighbor and Hot Wife(?) had a Hot Baby!
Yeah, no. That’s weird. He won’t be calling it Hot Baby.
Steve does not have any particular feelings about Hot Neighbor. He does not need to impress him, or make Hot Neighbor laugh at his jokes, or any such thing.
Except, well, Steve is a person who has daydreams just like anyone else.
He has this thought that if he opens the door for Hot Neighbor and Neighbor Baby, he could make a little joke about how they both have tiny babies.
It would be so nice to have a Dad Friend in the building. They could go to the lovely coffee shop with the dreamy patio together and eat cake. And then maybe come home and kiss a little bit.
Just kidding, haha. Hot Neighbor is (probably?) married anyway. He doesn’t want to kiss Steve. Steve doesn’t even want to kiss Hot Neighbor all that much, except for the way that, well, probably everyone in the building wants to make out with Hot Neighbor. He’s really hot, with his pouty lips, beautiful cheekbones, the prowling way he walks, the excellent lines of his figure in the suits he often wears.
Yeah. Okay. Steve’s definitely being weird, but only on the inside. Hot Neighbor can’t hear his internal monologue, thank god. Right? No. No way. Probably.
God, he’s so fucking sleep deprived.
Steve speeds up so they reach the door at the exact same time and then Steve can make a cute comment and become best friends with Hot Neighbor.
Steve smiles in a friendly way and goes to hold the door open exactly according to his plan, but he forgets he’s holding the coffee, and Hot Neighbor’s hand goes for the door at the exact same time, and when their hands collide, Steve spills the coffee all over Hot Neighbor’s arm and a bunch of it lands on the baby carrier that has Neighbor Baby in it.
“Fuck me,” Steve says in horror.
Hot Neighbor jumps back in terror and says, “Jesus Christ, get that fucking coffee away from my fucking kid!” in absolute outrage.
“I’m so sorry, I’m just, fuck, I’m so fucking sleep deprived,” Steve gestures to his own baby in his baby carrier. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, is she okay? He? Sorry. Shit.”
Steve starts frantically trying to wipe coffee off Hot Neighbor’s baby carrier on his chest. Hot Neighbor backs up even further and Steve snaps his hands back.
“It’s okay, sorry, fuck, sorry, I’m just,” Hot Neighbor pulls his baby out of the carrier. The baby blinks sleepily. Their white pajamas have tiny blue flowers on them and look coffee-free. He sets the baby so its little head is resting on his shoulder, his hand broad across its tiny back. “I overreacted. She’s fine. Ruby. Her name. Is Ruby.”
“I’m Steve and this is Rose,” Steve says. “I’m really, just, so fucking sorry.”
“It’s fine. Accidents happen,” Hot Neighbor says stiffly. Though he doesn’t seem to really mean it, Steve appreciates the effort.
“I think if someone spilled coffee on Rose I would murder them, so,” Steve says. “I’m really sorry.”
Hot Neighbor looks at Steve for a second and then says, “Umm, do you live here, or are you just visiting?”
Steve has seen and admired Hot Neighbor approximately 100,000 times in random coming and goings through the building over the past few years, making note of when Hot Redhead showed up with greater and greater frequency till she became Hot Girlfriend(?) and eventually Hot Wife(?) in his head.
They aren’t the only people in his building he has names for, there’s Weird Gym Guy and Nice Gym Guy, and Mean Old Lady and Maybe-Mean Old Lady and Cookies Lady, who gave him cookies once, and Business Guy and Exercise Grandpa. There’s also Gay Artist Guy and Tattooed Probably-Artist Probably-Queer Guy, neither of whom are Steve, though Steve is also technically a Gay Artist Guy with Tattoos. Then there’s the former Cute Tween Sisters who are slowly becoming the Jaded Teenage Sisters, and Chinmayi and Adira and their kids, whose names he actually knows because he bought most of his baby gear from them.
With all the random people that live in this building, there is no reason to be utterly crushed by the fact that he has never registered on Hot Neighbor’s radar.
And yet. Womp womp.
“I live in the building,” Steve says cheerfully, but not too cheerfully, lest it seem like he’s happy he nearly dumped hot coffee on a fucking baby. God, he could die.
“Well, cool. Nice to meet you, Steve. I’m James. I’m going to go get a change of clothes now,” James says with a stiff smile.
“Yep!” Steve says, “Bye. And I’m so sorry. And congrats! Well, gotta go!”
Then, so he doesn’t have to ride the elevator with James, because that might kill him from embarrassment, Steve lets go of the apartment door and takes an extra walk around the block.
Rose has an absolutely disastrous diaper blowout right as he gets to the farthest point of his walk.
Awesome.