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luveline · 5 months

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i love the kbd universe so so much! could you please do one where sweet little bethie (☹️) has been getting a hard time from other kids at school/nursery for being ‘weird’/‘different’ and how steve and reader would handle it?? sorry if that’s too specific my lovely! hope you’re having a good day!! 🫶

thank you!! kbd au —steve employs your help when your daughter needs a pep talk. 1.5k

“Why’s my girl so sad?”

“I’m not sad.”

Steve raises his brows at Beth. She looks especially like you when she’s down. It’s sort of sad, thinking about it, how her lips turn like yours would, how she won’t meet his gaze or hold his hand when he tries to intertwine their fingers.

“Aw, honey, don’t tell me tall tales,” he says, no actual scolding in his tone. He sees the shimmer of tears aligned on her bottom lashes and can’t abide her fibs anymore, scooping her off of the couch and into his arms. “Bethieeeee,” he whines, “tell me what’s wrong! You know I hate not knowing everything about you.”

“Dad,” she says, letting her head loll in the curve of his neck, “nothing is wrong.”

Liar, he thinks. From the kitchen he can hear you and Dove and baby Wren singing. Avery potters around in the downstairs bathroom, humming. Steve knows Beth is sad, because Beth is quiet, but she still has as much energy as the rest of her sisters when she’s home. She isn’t introverted when she’s with him, or her mother, and especially not the best big sister in the world.

“Okay,” he says. He should poke and prod. Instead, he lifts her up as high as he can, which, not to brag, is quite high. “Hi up there. How’s the weather?”

She jabs him in the chest with her foot. “It’s windy.”

Steve laughs like an idiot and brings her down for some adoring kisses. “Super windy. Babe, you get funnier and funnier everyday.”

She wraps her arms behind his head. “Thank you.”

“Ooh, you’re welcome. Should we go and sing some songs with mommy?”

Beth shakes her head. “No.”

“No?”

“No.” She sounds like a baby.

Steve sits down with an arm behind her back. He’d quite like a bit of peace and quiet. He doesn’t mind if she needs some too. “Then let’s stay right here, bub, jus’ me and you.”

Dustin once said that Steve was about as much use as a paper cup in a hurricane when it came to comforting people, but that was nearly a decade ago, and it was before he met you. You rushed into Steve’s life (by accident on both sides) and showed him how it felt to be properly looked after for the first time ever. He can’t forget how that felt. Robin loves him but she couldn’t love him like that, couldn’t kiss a bruise and fix it whole, couldn’t ease a migraine with her fingers in his hair. You touch Steve’s arm and he can lift a ten tonner.

He’s more equipped than ever to comfort someone now. He had a good teacher.

“You have a long day today, huh?” he asks.

“Not much.”

He smiles. “Not much long?” he asks.

“Dad,” she grumbles. “You know what I mean.”

“I do… so you didn’t find it too long?”

“I guess.” Beth touches under his chin. “You have sharpies.”

“My stubble? Should I shave tonight?”

“Yes,” she says emphatically. “Don’t like scratchy kisses.”

“Oh, so you wanted more kisses?” he asks. “Would that help you feel better? How about we meet in the middle and get mom to kiss you? She’s not so sharp.”

She sighs, her nose shoved into his collar. “Dad, can you rub my back?”

Steve rubs her back immediately. She makes no other request, lips firmly shut and secret upset sealed away, feeling at his stubble with gentle fingers. She loves foreign sensations like this. It’s why she likes having her back rubbed, Steve theories; the pressure of his hand on her spine is dragging, and grounding.

He shifts against the grain of a cushion behind his back.

“I want to tell you,” Bethie says finally.

“I always want to listen,” he promises.

She doesn’t sound teary, more uncomfortable as she finally forces it out, “Nobody at school likes me.”

“Babe, that’s not true at all.”

“It is true. They all think I’m weird.”

“I bet they don’t, babe.”

“Dad, they all say it.”

Steve bites his cheek as his mouth snaps shut. “Well,” he says quietly, cupping the side of her face, encouraging her head back to meet her eyes. They’re big in her little face, pupils like pearls, “that’s not very nice.”

“It’s true.”

“Not true.”

“It is true,” she says angrily.

“It’s not true, Beth, you’re not weird, and if you are weird then I’m weird, and that’s not a bad thing after all. Is it?”

Internally, it breaks his heart. Beth has been different than the other kids for a long time and in lots of ways. She’s picky, peculiar. She eats things in her own fashion, and has interests outside of her peers. Steve didn’t know she was ‘abnormal’ until people started telling him —she’s his second baby. He didn’t think they were all the same, and so didn’t question her differences, and still doesn’t care to beyond wondering what he can do to make her happy. Who cares if Beth eats two bites of sandwich for every celery stick?

The other kids. Some parents.

“I don’t want to be weird,” she says, hanging her head.

You arrive like a well-timed miracle, shimmying past the half open door with a smile. “Hi, guys. I want you to come and do karaoke, what do you think? I’m making everybody mocktails! We’re having pineapple juice and–” You lean back, hand on your hip, a slip of your stomach peaking out of your tank top, total picture of a cool mom as you cross your naked arms over your stomach. “Oh, no. What’s wrong?” you ask teasingly.

Steve squeezes Beth to his neck. “Hey, none of your business!”

“No, tell me,” you say, crossing the room to sit beside them on the couch.

“You wanna tell her?” Steve asks.

Beth shakes her head. “Didn’t want to tell you, dad.”

“You did, lovely,” he says, all sympathy as you cuddle up to Steve’s side and wrap an arm around them both. “You said you wanted to tell me. It’s okay if you don’t want to tell us again, though. Mommy just wants to make you feel better, right?”

“Right,” you say. When you smile at her, it’s with all the love in the world.

She’s quicker to cry in her mother’s lap. She wiggles closer to your shoulder, her voice fraught as she confesses, “Everybody at school says I’m weird,” and erupts into breathless sobbing, like she’s terrified of the idea.

Your eyes wrinkle as you close them tight, frowning into the top of her head. “Oh, my poor girl. My baby. Please don’t cry, because that’s not true. You’re not weird.”

“Everybody says I am!”

“I’m sorry,” you say, pushing Steve away accidentally as you wrap her into a proper hug. “Who says that?”

“Mom, it’s everyone. Even my friends.”

Kids can be so mean, when they aren’t trying and when they are. You mumble sweet placatives, fingers running up and down the length of Beth’s shuddering back. She cries like she’s hurting. Steve’s reminded of the time she fell down the stairs and hit her face on the baby gate, she was shocked but more urgently in pain, and she couldn’t work out why she’d fallen.

“That’s not nice, Beth,” you’re saying, “I’m so sorry they’re saying mean things about you, but you’re not weird, I don’t know why they’d say something like that. They’re just not as nice as my girl.”

“I’m different,“ she says.

“That’s not a bad thing, Beth. You’re perfect. I wouldn’t want you any other way, and neither would your dad.”

Steve jumps in. “Right! We like you like this, babe. I don’t want you to change, I don’t care what all the meanies at school say, me and mom think you’re awesome. Avery and Dove and Wren all think you’re the best sister and best friend ever. Avery’s your best friend. Has she ever called you weird?”

The baby talk is sinking in. If you used your bubbly voices on Avery it might not work anymore, but Beth is just about young enough for it to take. “No… You really think I’m not weird?” Beth asks sadly.

No kid wants to think they’re weird, even if they are, and even if that’s okay.

You sink down into your seat, taking Beth with you. Steve has to fight to cuddle you both. “I know you’re not,” you say.

For a good five minutes, you just hug her. Steve ends up laying his cheek against your temple, hand on Beth’s back so she knows he’s there. When the baby starts babbling loudly for you to come back, Steve takes the short straw and leaves you both for cuddling.

“What’s up, dad?” Avery asks, standing on a chair by the baby’s high chair, feeding her youngest sister cut up strawberries on a spoon. Dove eats her own strawberries with sliced bananas and peanut butter, the evidence of the latter staining her blue t-shirt.

Steve pats the top of Avery’s head. “Nothing much, baby. I’ve come to make you your mocktail.”

“Oh, yes! With sugar? Bethie loves the sugar.”

She doesn’t know how glad he is that she’s Beth’s big sister. “With the sugar.”

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