A/N: This is the last of my backup of tumblr drabbles, so updates from now on will probably become more infrequent. If you have a prompt for me, just leave it in a review or PM it to me. It can be anything from a complete scenario to a single word. My sincere appreciation to anyone who does give me a prompt!
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A tired Carolina smiled up at York as he cradled their sleeping newborn son, the infant dwarfed by his calloused hands. The baby was pink and wrinkled and bald and absolutely perfect. "Hey there, squirt," he cooed, and his son squirmed in response, nestling into his palms. "How're you doing?"
"You know he can't understand you, right?" Carolina flicked a strand of hair from her face.
He grinned briefly at her. "He looks like a smart kid."
"He looks like he was born a few hours ago," she corrected, failing to hide her own grin. "Which he was."
"But you can understand me, can't you, Daniel?" He gently bobbed his fingers, causing Daniel's head to nod. "See? Smart kid."
"He's asleep."
Daniel gurgled suddenly, eyes slowly opening for the first time.
"Not anymore." York beamed at the newborn. "Look, 'Lina, he's got your eyes."
He's got his grandfather's eyes. The thought came unbidden, and York pushed it away quickly. He was not going to go there. Personality traits are not hereditary, even if looks are, he reminded himself. Get a grip.
Carolina didn't notice the momentary dimming of York's smile, being too busy getting a closer look at their son. "Well, there you go. Hopefully he won't get my hair, too. I think one hot-head is enough for this family," she joked.
"You know that statistically, red-headed people don't have a higher level of anger issues than people with other hair colours?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Did that come from Delta?"
"Yep." York grinned wryly. "He's been plying me with stuff about periods of gestation and proper conduct for handling newborns and all this genetics stuff. By the way, it's really unlikely that he'll be red-headed," he added, passing Daniel back to his mother. "All my family has had either black or brown hair for generations, on both sides." The Director had black hair, and black hair is a dominant gene trait, his brain supplied unhelpfully. York squashed the errant notion.
The concern never really went away, despite York doing his best to quell it. That wasn't to say he didn't love Daniel - the love was just tinged with worry, with the idea that if York and Carolina didn't raise him right, he'd turn into the sort of person the Director had been. Of course, it didn't help that at seven months of age, Daniel started to grow a wispy head of black hair.
I'm going to raise my son to be the best he can be, York decided. Carolina and I can teach him right and wrong. We're not going to let him turn into that man, no matter the shared genetics.
So, when Daniel started going to school and took a shine to mathematics and science rather than sports, York encouraged him to do what he enjoyed, disregarding his own misgivings. But the final straw was when Carolina, watching Daniel doing his physics homework and noticing how much he was squinting in order to read the questions from his textbook, told York that Daniel needed glasses.
York sort of froze for a moment.
"...Maybe we just get him some contacts."
