A/N: I was hesitant about writing these next vignettes but also eager, because I can picture Darien and Serena's family quite clearly like this. Tell me what you think of the addition to the family. Totally inconceivable? Ha ha, bad pun.
Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon or any other proper noun.
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Their son's birth is the first time they see a bit of the Rini they once knew emerge from their daughter's personality.
"He's fat," she says in an unimpressed, rather suspicious tone, when she peers over the edge of the hospital bed at the little creature with the cap of black hair.
It is one of the first few times since she learned to talk that she has said so few words at once, instead of following them with a rush of chatter. Serena and Darien exchange glances over the top of their children's heads.
Baby Tai has Serena's bright blue eyes, but they are almost buried by his chubby cheeks. Not like Rini's eyes, which peeked out from beneath their lids even as she slept.
"But that just makes him even more adorable, don't you think?" Serena says, cuddling her four-year-old daughter closer against her hospital gown.
She has given Tai to Darien to that she can hold Rini, and Darien realizes, seeing the jealous set of his daughter's face, that this was probably a good idea. He was reluctant at the time, to take his son from Serena, as frightened to hold him as he had been to hold Rini when she was first born.
But their boy feels sturdier in his arms, a nice heavy nine-pound weight that somehow reminds him of the quarter-pound cheeseburgers that Serena has been craving for the past nine months.
Darien holds the infant closer, taking a glance at the door. Getting to hold Tai himself means that when Asanuma and the others burst in – as they will undoubtedly be doing very soon – Darien will be able to keep the baby from getting passed around like a hot potato, the way Rini was after she was born.
He can already feel quite certainly, from the man-to-man bond he can practically sense weaving between himself and his son, that the baby would not approve of being surrendered to the squealing, nap-interrupting, estrogen-filled fate that would surely befall him if Lita and the girls were allowed to hold him. Or of being tossed around by Asanuma.
Darien shudders, remembering how Asanuma almost dropped Rini the day she was born, and how Rini had actually giggled instead of bursting into tears or going wide-eyed with shock like a normal child.
No, he thinks with a decisive nod of his head, he wouldn't let that happen to this little guy.
Rini's voice breaks him out of these thoughts. "Will he always be this fat?"
Again with the tone of disdain, Darien notes with a slight smile.
"Of course not!" says Serena. Then she pauses, tapping her chin. "But if he is, you can be his coach and exercise him into shape! How does that sound?"
Darien's hold on Tai tightens. He raises his eyes to Serena's with disbelief and no little amount of betrayal. Who does she think she is, Coach Etoukou?
Rini's frown deepens, then abruptly clears.
"Okay!" she says happily. There is a glint in her blue eyes that Darien recognizes very well. He realizes that the first time they see a bit of the future Rini in their Rini is the day that he sees an even bigger bit of Serena in Rini.
And, well, all he can think is that the second man of the family came none too soon.
"We've got a long battle ahead of us, kiddo," he mutters in Tai's ear, holding him closer as Serena and Rini grin evilly at them both.