A/N: I had a couple of ideas for this prompt. How I settled on this one, I'm not quite sure.

Day 12 | Taro/Judy, mentions of little Max | Rated: K

Cupcake

Taro glanced at the clock for the tenth time in as many minutes and sighed. Of all the nights for his wife to be late coming home, she had to choose the one night Max would be waiting up for her. The poor kid had fallen asleep at the table drooling onto his place mat. Taro had only just tucked him into bed.

He was disappointed, but not surprised.

For as long as he'd known Judy, she'd put her education and budding career first. Once upon a time that hadn't bothered him one bit. After all, two of the things he found most attractive about her from the get-go were her intelligence and her ambition. She knew exactly the path she wanted to take in life and was so confident in it; it was impossible not to love her.

Things started changing when Max came along. He was the best mistake and they loved him fiercely, even if Judy hadn't penciled children into her life plan for another ten years.

People always said that having kids put things into perspective. Max wasn't the exception; raising him made Taro realize that there were downsides to Judy's drive. With her priorities as they were, she was missing moments with their son that she couldn't get back. And he was getting to be the age where he noticed her absence.

Taro sighed and abandoned the dish he was washing to the sudsy water in favor of a good stretch. He'd been at it for so long that his back was beginning to ache, but it was a necessary evil given the fact that their dishwasher had broken earlier in the week. He planned to tinker with it on a less-special day. Maybe while Max was down for a nap.

The thought of his son made him smile as he resumed his task.

It wasn't until he'd moved on to drying the dishes that he heard the front door open. From where he was standing he could see Judy enter the dining room and set her book bag down on a chair. Then she leaned over the table to smell the bouquet of flowers in the middle and read the accompanying card.

The small smile on her lips widened when she looked up and saw him watching.

"Hey, you," she said, keeping her voice low. Every once in a while Max would secretly stay up waiting and come running down the stairs to greet her. She didn't know that this wasn't one of those nights.

"Happy birthday," he said as she closed the distance between them and kissed him hello.

"Thank you," she hummed, kissing him once more for good measure. When they pulled apart, she snaked her arms around his waist and looked up at him with sparkling blue eyes. "And thanks for the for the lilies – they're my favorite."

He knew. He and Max had made a special trip out for them that afternoon. They'd stopped off at the grocery store, too, so Judy could have her favorite dinner and Max had even chosen and decorated something special for her for dessert. She would have known all of that if she was home on time.

Instead of saying any of that, he smiled back and said, "Max helped me pick them out."

Something in his expression must have fallen flat, because Judy looked at him in concern.

"He didn't give you any trouble today, did he?" she asked. Her hand came to rest in the center of his chest, eyebrows knitting together. She could always tell when there was something bothering him.

He shook his head.

"He just kept asking when you'd be home."

"Oh, Max," Judy sighed. There was a fond look on her face that he'd grown to associate with their son.

"You are late." Taro couldn't stop himself from saying it any longer. The last thing he wanted to do was argue on her birthday, but she hadn't been the one nodding sadly to each of Max's pleas to wait up 'five more minutes'. "You said you'd be home in time for dinner."

"Is that what's bothering you?" she asked, raising her eyebrows and stepping back. She seemed shocked that he'd bring it up for reasons he couldn't fathom. "I told you I was going to the library after class. I have a group project and a test coming up. A bunch of us went."

"That was five hours ago," Taro pointed out and scrubbed both hands over his face. Suddenly he felt exhausted. "Were you studying that whole time?"

Judy bristled. She never liked being called out.

"They were all hungry after class–"

"So you went to dinner with your friends while Max and I watched your plate get cold?"

"Don't put words in my mouth, Taro," she snapped and put her hands on her hips. "They wanted to treat me for my birthday, so I ordered something small to hold me over. Then we worked on our project. I'm sorry we lost track of time, but I can't do anything about that now."

She spun on her heel to leave, clearly eager to end the discussion. She knew he wouldn't follow her for the sake of a fight. She didn't make it far before she stopped in her tracks with her eyes locked on the dining room table.

In front of where Max had sat waiting and tucked behind her flowers, there was a hand drawn card and a cupcake with one candle in it. Their son had put in a lot of effort – and had some help from Taro – piping an 'M' for Mommy on top of the existing frosting.

"He fell asleep waiting to surprise you," Taro explained, taking a step towards her. He wanted to tell her how Max had refrained from tasting the icing so she could try it first and how excited he was for her to see his handy work, but any of that would just escalate the argument. He stayed quiet.

Judy stood very still. If he knew her at all, she was putting the pieces together in her mind by herself. He could tell everything clicked when her shoulders fell.

"I – I'm going to go make sure he isn't awake." Her voice sounded more nasally than normal to his ears.

As she climbed the steps to look in on Max, Taro realized that was as much of an apology as he was going to get.

A/N: I have a lot of headcanons about Max's parents' relationship. At least, more than most people probably do? They always confused me as a couple, so I tried filling the gaps in my mind. This is just a little part of that.

Thanks for reading!