Long Live the King

"So this is mommy's idea of fun, huh, princess?" Grant muttered more to himself than to the toddler in the stroller in front of him, looking around with a small frown on his face.

They had just moved to the D.C. suburbs last month, and while he agreed that their house was rather… sparse at the moment (it was near impossible juggling taking care of a one-year-old, working on the restoration of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s old glory and decorating), but attending a goddamned garage sale on their first real day off in three weeks seemed like bit of a stretch to him. It wasn't like they needed to shop at places like this because of the prices – he had more than enough money saved from his pre-Coulson days as an agent to cover all of their possible expenses. And to put Haylie through Harvard.

So coming here made very little sense to him (no matter what Skye said about items found in places like this having character) – and, looking around, his gaze settling on an old, ugly, faded armchair that might have already been around at the time of the Moon landing, it was making even less sense as the minutes ticked by. There was no way he was having that monstrosity in his living room.

"Mommy!" Haylie giggled, clapping her tiny hands together, apparently having the time of her life amidst all this old, strange stuff.

"Yes, mommy's a little absurd sometimes," he answered, looking around for Skye, spotting her about twenty feet from them, browsing through a crate of tattered paperbacks. Grant let out a small, relieved sigh – there were things he was better off if she didn't hear.

Grimacing at a lamp that's creator must have been high on acid (sometime around the sixties, he guessed), he pushed the stroller forward, hoping to find something he could negotiate with if Skye ended up absolutely determined that they should leave with something. So far, he had no luck. Then, as he leaned down to observe a sideboard that was only half terrible (meaning it would be acceptable once painted in a less offensive color), Haylie suddenly shrieked with delight, "Kitty!"

Grant turned to his little girl instantly.

"Where is the kitty, princess?" he asked with a smile on his face, squatting down in front of the stroller. Haylie's been kind of obsessed with cats lately, the word "kitty" being an integral part of her vocabulary – that counted about a total of a dozen words –, and it absolutely amazed him. His fifteen-month-old was turning out to be a little chatterbox, and he loved every minute of it.

"Kitty!" Haylie repeated a little louder this time, pointing at something behind his back. Grant turned around, expecting to see a stuffed cat, or maybe a china one, or possibly a living one, or, in worst case scenario, a once living, now stuffed cat, but instead he found himself facing a painting that made him groan out loud.

It was the most hideous painting he had ever seen: in the center of it there was a black and white cat, sitting calmly – cute enough, too –, but everything else… Everything else made him question whether the painter was sane. Next to the cat there were three tiny, fat, nude angels flying around – one of them showing his ridiculously round bottom to observer –, one placing a crown on the top of cat's head, while the other two secured it's red, ceremonial cape. He had no idea which art period it belonged to, but he was sure as hell he didn't want to do anything with that era.

"Kitty!" Haylie called again, reaching for the picture with her tiny arms, completely enamored by it.

Grant turned his eyes from to painting to Haylie, then back to the picture.

"Oh, no. No, no, no," he chanted. "No way."

Haylie pouted, her lips trembling.

"Kitty! Want!" Grant was sure if she wasn't sitting in the stroller, she would have been stomping (who was that idiot who said two-year-olds were hard to handle? Haylie was handful enough sometimes already).

"Sweetheart, be reasonable," he started in a completely serious tone, glancing at the painting once again, and grimacing. "This is horrible."

"Kitty!" Haylie said, making her point clear: she didn't think that the painting was horrible.

This was the point when Grant realized that it was a battle he wasn't going to win. So he just sighed, and grabbed the frame of the picture as he stood up.

"Okay," he said, defeated. "We are getting the kitty." Haylie clapped and giggled. "But it's going to be in your room. And you have to convince your mother that it is not as creepy as I think it is."

"Kitty! Mommy!" she repeated.

Grant sighed again, shaking his head, but smiling; on the upside, now he had an item to negotiate with.

(It turned out, of course, that Skye loved the picture. She thought it was hilarious and creative, and he was half-afraid for a moment that she'll want to put it on the living room wall. In the end she didn't, but… like mother, like daughter, right?)

(Still, quirks aside, he was so blessed to have them.)