So a long time ago, I got a prompt on Tales of the Assassin and the Crook asking for Jax babysitting Captain Canary's daughter. It took a while to cook up, but I finally got it done. And now I'm posting it over to here.
On the list of things Jefferson Jackson never expected to do, babysitting the daughter of the White Canary and Captain Cold was up near the top.
He was not normally the babysitter for the crook and the assassin's daughter. That duty fell to to Mick, who happened to be on a mission with Rip, Nate, and a few new recruits. Leonard's sister was out of town with Cisco, so she was also out of the running. Barry, Iris, and the twins were on vacation. So Jax found that he was next on the list of people trusted to watch Monica.
"Thank you for doing this," Sara told him when he arrived. "And sorry about this being short notice. Lisa and Cisco were supposed to be back today, but their flight got delayed."
"No problem," Jax shrugged as Leonard entered the scene.
"Jax," he nodded in greeting before he looked at Sara. "Ready to go?"
"Yeah," she replied, smiling at her husband. "Where's Monica?"
At the sound of her name, a small child with blonde hair came barreling out of the next room and latched herself to her father's leg. She looked up at her parents with a wide grin. Leonard smiled and shook his head in amusement as Sara bent down beside her.
"Mommy and Daddy are going out now for a while," she told her daughter. "Jax is going to be babysitting you until we get back, okay?"
"What about Uncle Mick?" Monica asked as she let go of her father's leg.
"He's out of town," Leonard explained. "But while we're gone, you need to be a good girl for Jax. Can you do that?"
She nodded vigorously. From where he leaned against the wall, Jax watched as the goodbyes were exchanged. He smiled a bit when he saw the former crook kiss his daughter's head as she hugged him. Sara and Leonard falling in love had been another thing he hadn't expected to be witness to. But he knew what both had come from and gone through, and somehow, they were perfect for each other. They loved each other, and they deserved the happiness they had and more.
"Don't let her stay up past eight," Leonard told Jax on the way out. "She's already had her supper. All she needs is to get in her pajamas and brush her teeth before bed."
"Go it," he nodded. "Everything'll be fine. Go and enjoy your anniversary."
"Thanks, Jax."Sara smirked over at Leonard. "And we will."
Jax stared at the two of them as they left. When they shut the door, Monica looked over at him. She looked quiet and unassuming, but Jax had heard that she could be quite the prankster even though she was only four.
"So what do you want to do?" he asked.
"So what's this?"
Monica looked up from the newest piece of paper she had grabbed. She had wanted to just color and draw, which was fine with Jax. He had helped her pull out some paper before going to stop her from pulling out every single marker and crayon in the house. Thankfully, he'd sold her on the idea that the container of crayons would be fine enough. She'd been satisfied, and proceeded to put the other things she'd taken out away, one of which was a bottle of glue. Jax wasn't sure what exactly she had wanted to do with that one.
Coloring hadn't been too bad. Monica kept drawing various pictures on the papers. Jax stuck with one sheet that he doodled small scribbles on. He watched what Monica was doing most of the time. She had drawn at least two pictures of her with her parents, and then one of her extended family with all her various aunts and uncles, not all of whom were related to her but were still family. The paper she had slid his way had two people standing on a green surface Jax guessed was supposed to be grass. The figures were standing by a brown thing with lots of other colors.
"That's me," Monica said, pointing to the shorter person with yellow hair before moving her finger over to the other person with brown skin. "And that's you. We're coloring."
Jax had been able to figure out that it was him and Monica, but now he saw they were supposed to be coloring at a table like they were at the moment. "I like it."
Monica beamed at him. When he tried to set in the pile of her other drawings, figuring she wanted to keep it, the little girl shook her head.
"That's for you," she said in a voice that was probably supposed to be stern.
"Really?"
"Yeah."
Jax smiled. "Thanks."
He looked at his watch as Monica slid her current picture into the pile (this one seemed to be of her, Sara Diggle, Evan Queen, and the Allen twins). The time was 7:50.
"Hey, maybe you can draw some more tomorrow," he suggested. "You have to get ready for bed now."
She sighed dramatically. "But I'm not tired."
"Your parents said eight though," Jax told her. "I don't want to get into trouble with them."
"You won't get into trouble," Monica replied stubbornly. "I will."
He probably wouldn't get into as much trouble as she would, that was probably true. But Jax wasn't going to risk getting on the bad side of Sara and Leonard. Mick told them that he had been irked at him for a while after the incident where her vocabulary received a spot of color way too early. As concerning as that was to them in the event she decided to take a liking to that word and repeat it often, Sara and Leonard had managed to get her to forget about it after she had said it to Rip's face (No matter what anyone said, the Time Master's expression had been pretty damn priceless). Then again, swearing was a lot worse than letting Monica stay up late.
But he still wasn't going to risk it.
"I bet your parents will let you draw tomorrow," he said hopefully. "But you gotta get to bed. You don't want to get in trouble with them."
Monica huffed a little and set down her crayon. "Okay."
They picked up the crayons and paper together, and then Monica ran upstairs to put on her pajamas. However, it took another half hour for Jax to get Monica to bed. She was as stubborn as both her parents when it came to settling down for the night. He remembered that he had made a remark when Sara announced she was pregnant that they would be having one dangerous kid. There had been no consideration given to how clever and sneaky she was as well. During one of her escape attempts, she left the bathroom sink running with the drain plugged, requiring Jax to stop it from overflowing before running after her.
At long last though, he got her to bed after promising to tell her a bedtime story. That had managed to win the girl over enough to stop running once she was under the covers. Jax ended up telling her a story about one of the time travel adventures he had gone on with her parents and the rest of the team (with certain details redacted that were not exactly best for small ears). Once that was over, he left her room and went downstairs to wait for Sara and Leonard to come back. It was half an hour past the time she was supposed to be in bed, but at least he got her in bed.
Settling down on the sofa, Jax realized he was a lot more tired from running after Monica than he thought. The kid had way too much energy, or he was getting older (a thought that made him shudder). Whatever the case, he soon found himself nodding off despite trying to keep himself awake.
Monica Snart was in no way tired. That was one thing she was certain of. She still wanted to draw and color and play. Besides, Mommy and Daddy weren't home yet. Monica was determined to stay awake to see them come home so she could give them the picture she had drawn of their family. It was quite pretty, and she wanted to give her parents a present.
Crawling out of bed, the little girl padded across the floor and eased the door open. She crept down the stairs as quietly as she could and made her way to the art supplies. The markers were there, but she couldn't find the paper. Maybe Jax had it?
She snuck into the living room. Jax was on the couch, fast asleep. His mouth hung open as he snored a little, and his arm was draped off the edge. Monica could see the tattoo on it. It looked cool, but it would be much better if it was a star. Or a cloud. Or a bird.
An idea came to her. Smiling, Monica sat down by her slumbering babysitter and uncapped a marker.
"You know, I'm glad we got to go out tonight," Sara said to her husband as they got out of the car and made their way up to the front steps.
"I am too," he agreed. "Although, you know, we can still celebrate upstairs too."
Sara turned and smirked at him. "I like the way you think. But we should probably get Jax out of here first."
"Think Monica gave him a run for his money?" Leonard chuckled as he opened the door.
Sara stepped inside and flicked on the lights. "We'll have to ask him."
But the house seemed oddly quiet. The thought of something happening while they were away crossed both of their minds, but the house didn't look like it had been broken into. The couple walked toward the living room, wondering if he had decided to wait there.
When they rounded the corner, Leonard flicked on the light. Sure enough, Jax was on the sofa, but he was fast asleep. Monica was curled up on the floor beside him, her blonde locks spread out messily on the floor. A red washable marker was in her hand, and others were scattered around her. Sara covered her mouth with her hand as Leonard grinned when they got a better look at Jax. His arm and a good majority of his face were covered in marker doodles of various colors.
"Guess it didn't go too bad," Leonard quipped.
"She probably wore him out," Sara shook her head with a laugh before she took out her phone to take a picture. Leonard noticed and grabbed the camera from one of the cabinets to take another photo. They could put it in the little album they'd started for their daughter after she had been born.
Once proper blackmail had been documented, Sara went over to Jax to shake him awake. Leonard gathered Monica up in his arms to take her up to bed. She didn't stir too much when he picked her up, so he figured she must have worn herself out.
"Hey, guys," Jax's drowsy voice mumbled as he sat up and yawned. "Sorry. Kind of nodded off there."
"She wear you out?" Leonard asked.
Jax nodded. "She did not want to go to bed."
He brought a hand up to his face to rub the sleep out of his eyes. Monica had drawn a pair of glasses around his eyes amid some stars and birds and hearts. Leonard tried hard not to smile. When Jax lowered his hand, he took notice of the similar decorations on his arm and frowned. "What theā¦"
"You might want to find a mirror," Sara sniggered, trying not to laugh overly hard as not to wake Monica.
Still frowning, Jax pulled out his phone and opened the camera app. When he flipped it toward him, his eyes widened.
"Tell me this is washable?" he groaned as he stood up.
"Don't worry, it is," Sara reassured him, as she passed him the money, plus an extra ten for the incident with the markers. "Although we have photographic evidence."
"I told you that kid was going to be dangerous," Jax muttered, shaking his head.
Leonard smirked. "If we ever ask you to watch her again, we'll hide the markers first."
The "You won't get into trouble. I will" was actually a line that a kid I was babysitting once said to me. Luckily, the marker thing never happened to me.
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