Matthew would like it to be put on record – the babysitting thing wasn't his idea.
It was just that… she was so quiet. The child had been walking around the underground laboratory for the past hour without causing so much as a tiny squeak on the steel floors. She didn't even need that much supervision- she seemed to know which things to touch, which cloth-covered jar she's not allowed to open. She's entertained herself just looking around, reading labels off of shelves. Too quiet.
What do you do with quiet kids? Matthew had never heard of such a thing before. He had grown up with too many cousins and sisters constantly underfoot and even shy Maria had never been this quiet, this patient. She hasn't even asked Doctor Klaus about any of the sorted items. The doctor hasn't looked up from his latest writings, silently flipping pages and scribbling notes as the child continued to roam.
Doctor Klaus, arguably one of the most brilliant and wicked minds in a community full of brilliant wicked minds psychopath, megalomaniac, a snobby intellectual– her father.
At least, Matthew hoped he won't groom her as a test subject. But his time as a black-ops specialist and subsequent employment into the Organization had dismissed the hope as soon as it formed. The world was a cruel place, and men living in it were crueler.
There were horror stories. Doctor Klaus once murdered the previous guard for disobedience. Doctor Klaus kept the skulls of all the enemies the Organization had killed. Doctor Klaus was so evil that he only bonds with Titans after he had severed from their previous seeker and customized them.
Matthew had heard the tales and seen the actual bodies preserved in the tanks in this exact laboratory. It wasn't pretty or legal, but Matthew didn't sign up for such things as pretty or legal.
His employer's reputation as the Organization's Head of Research and consultant for the T&I was well-earned. Doctor Klaus was a monster, and one of the worst of them.
The monster beckoned the child to come sit next to him. The child put back the framed barracuda skeleton on the cupboard and obeyed, feet moving silently across the polished steel floor. Too quiet.
"What is it?"
"You wanted to know why people can't be like butterflies and hide in cocoons before growing up, yes?"
The child nodded, her pigtails bobbing up and down, foot settled into the circle rung of the high chair and hoisted herself up. Matthew tried to hide a smile. Maybe the child is still a child, after all.
"Well," Doctor Klaus continued, pointing at a diagram on the table, "It's because humans go through this lengthy and painful process called puberty. Hormones go through the body at an alarming rate to speed up the growth and maturity of people."
The child frowned, although it wasn't because of the complex jargon as Matthew suspected. "Not that fast. Caterpillars become butterflies in just weeks."
"Caterpillars are small, and they do not have the same structure as humans do. They don't have bones, for one. They certainly don't need to develop strange odors and growth spurts to survive."
The child flipped a page, frowned deeper, then pushed the book away. "It sounds disgusting. Why can't people just have cocoons?"
"Because nature is unjust," Doctor Klaus answered. "And I'm still working on the cocoon."
"Can you make me and Gareon one?" Alarm bells rang in Matthew's mind. She really shouldn't give the doctor any ideas.
"Gareon and I," Doctor Klaus corrected, and closed the book. "You would carry Gareon with you in the cryogenic tank? You'd probably end up having scales."
"Can I become a dragon?" the child asked hopefully.
The doctor paused for a moment, giving the query a serious thought. It took all of Matthew's training to keep him rooted to his spot and not shout, Goddammit kid, stop giving the mad scientist ideas!
Doctor Klaus patted the child's hair. Matthew felt his hair stand on ends at the unnatural show of paternal warmth coming from the aging monster in front of him. "No, you can't bring Gareon with you."
The child pouted. "No thanks. I'd rather go through puberty. Even if it means I'd become a vampire every month."
Klaus sighed. "Bleeding for days on end does not mean you need to consume that much blood to compensate for the loss."
"But how will you get the blood back?"
"The marrow inside your bones replenish it."
The child frowned, her child-like logic unable to imagine the idea of self-refilling blood in the body. "Does that mean that vampires don't have bones? Why else would they drink blood?"
"We have already talked about this, Zhalia. Everything you will ever need to know about vampires are in that book I gave you."
Matthew remembered that book. Or rather, he remembered the frightening walk through the doctor's lab in search of his past notes about operating on blood sucking Titans and animals and spending a miserable afternoon negotiating with the lackeys in Research about transcribing the documents into something more child-appropriate.
Many had said no. Some had laughed rather nervously while doing so. One notable researcher had thrown the clearbook full of notes into the wall, barely missing Matthew's head. The one who agreed to do it skimmed the notes and remarked in the coldest, driest voice he had ever heard that she built her pretentiousness all throughout her academic life and dumbing it down is another process.
"If you ever approach me with this," she snapped the clearbook closed as Matthew winced, "type of request again, I'll personally drain your blood and write your last will and testament on Klaus' wall."
The doctor had placed the human anatomy book on a lower shelf, just about the child's height. Matthew knows from experience that the child will be giving that book a wide berth for as long as she finds the contents uninteresting.
It disturbed some air on the shelf, which blurred into the shape of a small green lizard that slithered into the child's arms. "Then I'm never going through puberty forever," she stated with all surety.
Doctor Klaus shook his head, staring at the child. "You will, it will just take you a longer time. Our family always was full of late bloomers."
"That… wouldn't matter?" the child replied, showing basic knowledge of how genetics work, at least. "I'm adopted."
Matthew jumped a little bit as Klaus slammed his hand on the book on the table. "Who told you that?" he asked, leveling an angry look at the child, who was… giggling? What the fuck?
"Was it you?" The doctor rounded on him, eyes comically wide in an expression that Matthew would have found funny had he not been totally creeped out by it. He was then very grateful for whoever had thought of adding black shades to the company uniform.
What did he ask me again? Matthew forgot what it was in his fear, then chose to err in the side of caution as he slowly shook his head in a very emphatic no.
"Then who told my daughter she was adopted?"
"No one did." The child, it was a relief, seemed to know when her scary scientist of an adoptive father was joking, at least. "Papa, you took me off the streets less than a week ago," she said through giggles.
The doctor sighed. He took off his glasses and methodically wiped the lens with a soft blue cloth produced from his shirt. "See, Zhalia, when a man wants to have children but finds that he does not have the time nor the constit-"
The child– Zhalia– clapped her hands on her ears. "I don't need to hear this again." Matthew vehemently agreed.
"Fine, but you should know that you are my daughter still," Doctor Klaus said matter-of-factly, leaving no room for argument. There was a shadow of something in his face, something loving and hesitant to come out and show itself.
"Yes, Papa." Zhalia rolled her eyes. If Matthew squinted his eyes so that he'd block out the eerie laboratory and leave the girl and her father behind, he'd probably believed that this was all normal.
And if Matthew saw her squeeze the lizard closer to her chest or the sheen of tears threatening to spill from her eyes… well.
Nobody needs to know, he thought, turning away from the scene.