Chapter Text
Stan Pines had always believed that he would have kids one day. He had always thought that, some day, he would settle down with a wife, raise a munchkin or two, maybe three, after he and Ford had struck it rich treasure hunting or course. Stan knew that he was the ‘wild’ twin, and that most people weren’t expecting something so…domestic for him, but honestly, Stan thought it sounded nice. For all his talk of babes, there was always something appealing about finding ‘The One’, and just being happy together.
He had never expected that something like this would happen. Stan had been ecstatic to hear that his nephew and his wife were expecting. Barely nineteen and still in college, Stan felt a surge of protective worry thinking about them, barely older than babies themselves, raising a child and trying to make it through college as well as everything life could throw at them? As Stan drove to California, he pushed the thoughts down. They’ll be fine. They’ve got each other, and their parents to help ‘em out. Everything is gonna be alright for those kids.
But of course, things are never that easy. Instead of the joyful occasion Stan had expected, there was heartbreak in the hospital that night. While two beautiful babies napped in the nursery, exhausted by their own birth, a young man, barely nineteen, wept. His children were strong, but his wife was gone from this world. His father sat stoic, trying to comfort his only child through a pain that was all too familiar to him, still sharp though faded with time. That was how Stan found them. And that was when Stan’s heart, which he thought was hardened into stone, started to crack.
His nephew didn’t know what to do. He knew he couldn’t raise a child on his own in college, let alone two. His mom was gone and his dad had been living in an old folks home since her death. His wife had grown up in foster care; no parents were there for her. And her stories from her childhood made it impossible for the nineteen year old father and widower to leave his children to the system. He was stuck.
Until Stan opened his mouth. In a whirl it seemed, he was back in Gravity Falls. Small toys littered the floor, a crib was set up in the corner of his room, and he was currently trying to soothe two fussy infants late into the night. Or, rather, one fussy infant, and one sleeping infant. Stan had learned early on that if he picked up one baby, he had to pick up the other, or else both children would scream until they were reunited. These last few months had given Stan an appreciation for his mother he never thought he would have had.
Stan was tired. His back and arms were sore from bouncing the two babies for over two hours. Drool was soaked into his undershirt and chest hair and shoulder hair. His hearing aid was down low, but not low enough that he couldn’t hear Mason softly whimpering. The soles of his feet were sore from tripping over wooden blocks in the dark on his way up from the basement. And part of his soul ached, telling him he should be downstairs, working on the Portal, bringing his own twin home.
And yet, despite his protesting body, and the hole that had been aching inside of him for nigh on thirty years, he felt more content than he had in a long time. He held the two small kids, his kids, closer to him, Mason finally starting to calm down and snuggle closer into his chest, yawning as his eyes drifted close. Stan smiled softly, and, instead of setting the kids back in their crib, he lies down on his own bed, gently nesting the kids in pillows and blankets and curling himself around them.
It may not have been how he had imagined it, all those years ago. But it was good. And it was his. And that was enough.