Leo Valdez had never pictured this for himself.

Sure, he’d imagined plenty of impossible things before — building a helicopter out of scrap metal, surviving battles against gods, even making it past twenty without getting blown up. But this?

This was different. This was something his brain had never dared to build, not even in his wildest blueprints.

A family.

When you’d told him — that quiet, trembling moment when your hands had pressed his, when the words “I’m pregnant” slipped out like they were afraid of the air — something in him had gone still.

Not shocked. Not panicked. Just still.

Like all the gears in his head had stopped turning at once so he could feel everything at full force.

At first, he laughed. Not because it was funny, but because that was Leo’s thing — laugh before you break. And gods, it was almost too much.

He’d grown up with the kind of empty silence no kid should know. With the echo of a mother’s voice that faded too soon. With a home that never stayed.

The idea of being someone’s dad — of being the place a tiny human called “home” — it was terrifying.

And beautiful.

From that day on, he changed in ways you didn’t even have to ask for. The guy who lived in workshops and smelled like motor oil started cooking dinners that weren’t just reheated takeout. The guy who used to forget what day it was could suddenly tell you exactly how far along you were, how big the baby was that week — “She’s the size of a mango, mija, can you believe it?”

Leo read books — actual books, not blueprints — about newborn care. He asked his friends questions he never thought he’d ask: how to hold a baby, how to stop them from crying, how to not freak out when they inevitably got sick.

He rebuilt the spare room into something warm and bright. Sunlight caught on painted stars across the ceiling, because his daughter deserved to look up and see a whole universe above her crib.

Esperanza.

That was the name he chose the night you fell asleep against him, your hand resting on the small swell of your stomach. He whispered it into the dark like a promise, like he was telling the Fates themselves to take their hands off this one.

“She’s gonna have a better start than I did,” he’d murmured to no one but himself. “She’s gonna know she’s loved.”

Now, months later, with the due date breathing down their necks, Leo was a strange mix of confident and terrified. The workshop smelled less like solder and more like fresh paint. The crib stood ready, tiny clothes folded into drawers, a mobile of spinning gears and flowers hanging overhead — his own invention, naturally.

He wasn’t perfect. He knew he’d mess up.

But for once in his life, Leo Valdez was ready. Not just to be a dad, but to give his little girl everything he’d never had.

And when he saw you now, leaning in the nursery doorway with that tired but happy glow, he grinned and rubbed the back of his neck.

“So… what do you think, amor? Think Esperanza’s gonna like her room?”