Closed: An Ersatz Guardian

[biteybaby]

Like most people Sunny's age, she tends to wake up bright and early. Unlike most people Sunny's age, Magnu Chase is normally at her house when she wakes up these days. She honestly just expects it at this point. Today Sunny wakes up and her first stop is, of course, the potty. She's very proud of herself for making it all the way through the night without peeing in her diaper! Potty lessons have been going well. She even found some fancy diapers that she can pull up and get on all by herself, so she barely needs any help at all these days. She's a very independent woman, after all.

Far and Apu are still sleeping, so Sunny is very quiet as she picks out an outfit to wear, and she's very quiet as she gets Magnu to help her put on the outfit, and she's very quiet as she spills Lucky Charms all over the place while pouring them into a little baggy to carry with her on the adventures she and Magnu are going to have today.

Eventually Sunny is all ready to go, she even has a sippy cup of watered down apple juice (Magnu took care of that one, after the Lucky Charms mishap), and they are out the door ready to go.

"Plans?" Sunny asks, by which she means, "What are we going to do today?"

Comments

[summerdude]

"Very good." Magnus purses his lips. "Should we ask if he has experience with being, like, a guardian?"

[biteybaby]

"Yeah! Good idea Magnu."

[summerdude]

Magnus taps the corner of his mouth with the crayon. "What do you think are the main features of a good guardian?"

[biteybaby]

Sunny thinks about her daddies. How they always try to make sure she has what she needs, as well as what she wants, and how they make her take baths and make her eat good food, and tell her what she needs to do to stay safe. She thinks about her first set of parents, who made sure she felt so welcome when she first came home from the hospital, even though there were already other children living in the home (this she doesn't remember first hand, but she can remember stories Violet and Klaus told her about the first few months), and how they managed to shield her and her siblings from how terrible their world actually was. She thinks about Uncle Monty, before he died, who wanted to include them in his adventures, and made sure his home was warm and inviting after they'd been made to endure living with Count Olaf. She thinks too, about Aunt Josephine, who may have been scared of everything, and maybe didn't properly anticipate what sort of presents they would like, but she tried, and Sunny thinks that should count for something at the very least.

"Tries," she starts. "Looks out for. Pays attention. Tries to protect."

[summerdude]

Immediately, Magnus winds an arm around Sunny's tiny little shoulders, tugs her closer, and deposits a kiss on the top of her head. "That's a really good list," he says, and sounds, frankly, a little choked up about it.

[biteybaby]

"I expert," she says, which means, "I've had enough guardians by now that I'm an expert in the field."

[summerdude]

"That's a lot like the list I gave Hanguang-jun when I tried to explain why I want him to--" Magnus breaks off and sighs. "You know."

[biteybaby]

Sunny does know, and she wraps an arm around Magnu's back and hugs him tight. "Want me ask him for you?"

[summerdude]

"I think we're in a good place? I don't know if he actually wants to, you know. Be a dad. But he's okay with being family."

[biteybaby]

"Might want," Sunny says. She thinks it's only fair if she asks for Magnu, since he helped her get adopted.

[summerdude]

Magnus is absolutely not telling her that her earlier conversation on his behalf with Hanguang-jun went misunderstood for, like, years. Perhaps he'll let her know before her sixth birthday. That seems like a good and totally arbitrary age to aim for. "If you want to talk to him, you have my blessing," he tells her. "But you don't have to."

[biteybaby]

"I know," Sunny says. "Want to help Magnu though."

[summerdude]

"Okay, then," Magnus says, holding out his hand for a high five to seal the deal.

[biteybaby]

She high fives him with a biiiiig grin.

[summerdude]

Magnus grins back at her. "Thank you for telling Hanguang-jun about the sword practice, by the way. I talked to him about it some more."

[biteybaby]

"Oh! What say?"

[summerdude]

"He had," Magnus thinks about how to phrase it, "a lot of questions."

[biteybaby]

"Bout what?"

[summerdude]

"Like, why I didn't come to him sooner, mostly."

[biteybaby]

"Oh. No in trouble though?"

[summerdude]

"No, not really," says Magnus. "He wasn't mad, but he was... you know, Sunny, I think it's worse sometimes when they're disappointed."

[biteybaby]

She gives him a hug. "Okay now though? Or still dispointid?"

[summerdude]

Magnus considers the question seriously. "I think maybe he's disappointed, but he doesn't want me to know anymore, so he's not, like, expressing it? Does that make sense?"

[biteybaby]

Sunny nods. "Secretly."

[summerdude]

"Yeah. His secret."