Chapter Text
Wrath wasn't a word strong enough to describe Jean's sentiment.
First, he had just discovered he was a dad.
Good, amazing!
Jean wanted to be a father. Not particularly in that moment. Not particularly for the next five to ten years. But, well, it had happened. Jokes on him, he should've checked about the no-heat-equals-no-baby-thing. A fair mistake, nobody ever cared to tell him otherwise! If anything, Eren — a doctor's son — should have mentioned it.
Well, it was done. His son already existed. Had it not been for the unavoidable global war and the hatred the rest of the world held against Paradis and the fact that his parents would have his hide once they found out their only son sired a child out of wedlock, Jean would be jumping with ecstasy.
Thankfully, the baby was deadly adorable.
Couldn't be any different. Eren Jaeger had many faults — being a suicidal maniac, being a homicidal maniac, worst of all, being a Shiganshinian maniac, amongst other misdeeds — but being ugly was not one of them. Eren had this face that made everyone forget all good sense, those long doe eyelashes that gave an angelic touch to his face that was immediately countered by the intense demonic stare. Jean was not bad either. The baby was bound to be cute — though he did inherit Eren's creepy stare, but that was a concern for years in advance.
Second: it would have been fantastic to know he was having a baby before the baby was born. For one, he would never have let his son get anywhere near a place like Liberio.
For the first months of his life, the baby had been in constant danger in a place crowded with Marleyans who turned Subjects of Ymir into titans to fight their wars, and Eldians who considered the people of Paradis the scum of the earth, and Eren’s crazy brother, and, the worst of all, Reiner “I'm gonna marry Eren someday” Braun. Jean had been a “sorry for destroying your home, Eren, let me embrace you in my inhumanely thick arms” away from becoming a footnote in his own son's life. Dammit!
Not exactly the place Jean would've picked for his kid's early life.
Then, that. The name. It was already bad enough the baby didn't have one. How could Eren even think of something so foul, so cruel, so…
Jean crumpled the paper and threw it away and jabbed his finger at Eren, who protested when the list hit the floor.
Jean grit his teeth. “You nasty… despicable…!”
“Watch your mouth!” Zeke and Levi said in unison.
“He did it on purpose!” Jean accused.
Eren’s mouth fell open in an indignant expression, his head tilted to the side. The baby copied his mom's expression. “Sorry for trying to include you?”
“You did not include me! You did exactly the contrary! Now I have a nameless baby I wasn’t prepared for and you're making be the laughing stock of my own suffering!”
“C’mon Jean, it can’t be that bad,” Hange interceded, picking the list and smoothing out the paper. They skimmed through the list, and their eyebrows almost fused with their hairline. “Pony?!”
After a second of due perplexity, Connie and Sasha burst into thunderous laughter. Armin shook his head in sheer disappointment. Levi facepalmed. Mikasa looked the other way, but Jean noticed the faint curve of a smile in her lips.
“See?!” Jean cried out. “He is vile!”
“It’s cute,” Mikasa shot Eren a supportive look.
“It is!” Eren nodded happily.
Jean wailed in disbelief. “You’re a fucking—”
Zeke, Yelena, Eren and Levi gasped, “Language!”
“You just levelled a city and the first thing you do afterwards is mocking our son and I?”
“What? No!” Eren shook his head. “I’m serious. Ponies are cute. He’s cute. He is my little Pony.”
“This is ridiculous— I— You!”
“Jean,” Hange said, “it’s a long list. Let’s go through it before we storm at each other again, okay? I’ll read through it.”
“Fine.” What could possibly be worse than Pony?
Hange took a deep breath and parted their lips. Then closed it. Then opened again. Then frowned. Then smiled softly, then looked at Eren, “Pup, these are not exactly names”
“I wanted to be original.”
“Sure…” Donkey, that’s the one thing that’s worse than Pony. Hange started to read again, “Ocean.”
An audible sniff came from the corner, Armin’s face softened and his hands trembled in front of his lips, hiding a moved smile. His eyes had filled with tears, “Oh, Eren—!”
“That’s not a name,” Captain Levi interjected.
“It’s cute. The ocean is vast, nearly endless, and—”
“Still not a name, Arlet,” insisted Captain Levi. “Whatever you're going to say, Eren, no. You ain’t naming the kid Ocean.”
“Oh, I like it,” Sasha said, with a humming of agreement from Connie.
Ocean. Ocean Kirstein. Ugh, even mentally it sounded like a fishmonger. “I agree with Captain Levi, it doesn’t sound like a name.”
Eren pouted, murmuring something about shortsightedness.
Hange went on, “Okay, not Ocean then. We have a few in this style. Nature inspired, I mean. If anything, we must appreciate Eren's consistency! Ocean, Sea, Wave, Sky, Cloud. I like Cloud, and Sky.”
“No.” Jean decided.
“But—”
“No!”
Hange kept reading, “Tornado, Blizzard, Thunder, Hurricane… Okay, maybe we have a few too many based off earthly phenomena. I didn't know you were that interested in meteorology.”
“Eren, do you want to name your child after… natural disasters?” Mikasa asked calmly.
“Powerful natural disasters, beyond human control!”
“They sound like horse names,” Jean heard Connie whisper to Sasha, who choked on a laugh. He decided, for his own sanity, to ignore the commentary.
“Hange, skip those.”
“I think we should consider Hurricane,” Eren said.
“When hell freezes over,” Jean hissed.
“His nickname could be Harry,” Eren suggested.
“His name could be Harry!”
“No, that’s too common.”
Jean clicked his tongue. “Then it won’t be Hurricane either. Hange, continue.”
“Fine, fine. No to natural disasters…” Hange scratched their head. “There goes two thirds of the list.” They folded the paper in the middle, and read whatever was written in the other half during a second of silence. Their face didn’t inspire hopeful thoughts. “Uh, riiiight. Eren, maybe you should reconsider those?”
Levi groaned. “What bullshit he came up with now?”
Sighing, Hange revealed, “Fight.”
Multiple groans were heard. Except from Floch and Mikasa, both wearing expressions Jean had only seen in priests.
“It’s a bit too much, little brother.”
“Nobody asked your opinion!” Jean shrieked. Last thing he needed now was Zeke Jaeger’s opinion on baby naming, even if Jean agreed with the commentary — he still had some pride to spare himself from all that humiliation. “What if he doesn’t like fighting, huh? What about it then, Eren?”
“Everyone has to fight, that’s the only way to survive,” Eren didn’t seem open to discussion. Mikasa nodded solemnly.
“Yeah, but I won’t name him ‘Fight’, the other kids will pick on him and drag him into fights because of it.”
Eren's eyes widened. “Do you think so?”
“Yeah! It would be like… Like naming someone ‘Punch’! It'd be like inviting people to punch that person,” Jean meant it as an example, but from the quick exchange of glances between Hange and Eren, he realised Punch had been an option all along. Walls… What did I do to deserve that?
“Hm, Hange, you can skip ‘Blade’, ‘Spear’, ‘Pain’, ‘Riot’ and ‘Heist’, too…” Eren murmured.
“Pain was an option?” Both Armin and Jean squeaked.
“What else? ‘Attack’? Oh, maybe ‘Vengeance?’” Levi jested, but Eren became suddenly smaller, “Oh, for fuck’s sake! Is Titan on the list, too?”
“No…”
“Never mind Titan! You wanted to name our baby ‘Pain’!?’”
“I was feeling petty, okay?” Eren shouted at him, “His teeth are like needles! It wasn’t a serious option! I just forgot to cross it out!”
“Oh, of course, a mere mistake. Well! I’m sorry I don’t like how you compared our kid to suffering!”
“Let him chew on your nipples and we'll be having a different conversation!”
“You heal!”
“It still hurts!”
“Ocean is a perfectly adorable—”
“Armin,” Jean stomped his feet, “name your own kid that if you like it so much! Hange, next options, please let it be normal.”
“Some are… hm… food related.”
At the sound of Hange’s words, Sasha’s eyes glittered. “Yes! Perfect! Let me think… Bread! Is Bread on the list, Commander?”
“Uh, no. But Cake is.”
Jean made a loud crying sound. Connie patted his back, “At least it is Cake and not Poison.”
“He’ll be bullied for the rest of his life…”
“Cake, Cinnamon, Sugar, Honey… Eren, are you sure this isn’t a recipe?”
“Most of those were my cravings. From when I was expecting. Wanted to eat everything in front of me.”
“Oh, I loved these! Any will be perfect!” Sasha cheerfully supported, receiving in exchange a small, if sad, smile from Eren.
It caught Jean by surprise. One thing was to know Eren had been pregnant at some point — another was acknowledging it. Cravings, dizziness, all the vomiting, those things pregnant people go through. He did it all alone. Made Jean feel like the worst piece of shit on the planet. Damn… He didn’t know, but he should have. No one should go through it alone… And to think his… Well, that Eren, his kid’s omega parent did go through it. Horrible, absolutely shameful.
“What other cravings made the list?” Jean caught himself asking, then, face flushed, corrected himself, “I mean, names.”
“Salt. Paprika. Gnocchi, aw, this is actually cute.”
“Gnocchi it is!”
“Sasha, I’m not naming my kid—”
“C’mon, Jean! Little potato dumplings!” Sasha cried out. “They’re cute, like him. Soft, like him. Smell amazing, like him.”
“We haven't eaten in hours. Hide your kid before she gets ideas,” Connie whispered to Jean.
“Yeah, Gnocchi is one of my favourites from the list,” Eren admitted, bringing the baby’s face close to his and rubbing their noses together gently. “Do you like it? Gnocchi?” Jean never, not even in his wildest dreams, ever thought he’d see Eren Jaeger talking with a baby voice. Given the dead silence in the airship, it seemed nobody else expected that either. “Who is mama’s little potato dumpling? Who loves cheese? You love cheese, Gnocchi, you do!”
“Stop calling him that!” Jean intervened. “He’ll think it’s his name!”
“Then let’s make it official! All in favour of Gnocchi?” Sasha, Hange, Eren himself, surprisingly Mikasa and Yelena, alongside several other soldiers held their hands up in the air, “Motion carried!”
“Vetoed!” Jean screeched. “One hundred percent won’t be Gnocchi!”
“Spoilsport!” Sasha grumbled.
“Fine… Not Gnocchi. Next,” Hange was about to keep reading, when her eyes darted open and filled with pure pride and happiness. “Oh! These— Eren! Oh, these are so inspired! Such spirit, such craftiness! I love them! Any of them! Please, please, everyone, let’s pick one of these.”
Eren was beaming under Hange’s praise, and the baby seemed to understand what a compliment was, for he started to clap his tiny hands together with positive energy. Jean felt the strange urge to smooch his chubby face.
His son was perfect. He deserved a name worthy of him.
“This is not a democracy! I’m the father, I have the final say. Spit it out.” Jean was finally hopeful. Hange’s reaction must’ve meant those were perfectly normal names, right?
No, it didn’t.
“Okay, these two are not my particular favourite, but I get why Eren would pick them,” Hange said, and then brightly announced, “Grisharla and Carlisha!”
Jean contemplated the structure of the airship — if he repeatedly banged his head against the wall, which one would crack first?
But it was Zeke who manifested his indignation first. “No-no-no-no-no-no! Not that man’s name! Think of your son, Eren!”
Eren rolled his eyes. “Zeke, chill.”
“No! This is a crime against my poor, sweet nephew who has already been cursed with life! Spare him from any more suffering! Name him… Zieck! Yes, after me and my sweet Pieck!”
“Shut up, weirdo! Nobody asked your opinion, again!” Then, Jean turned to Eren. “I’m not naming my kid after your maniac father and I’m not letting you name him an ugly mash-up! If you want to honour your mother, fine! We can call him Carl.”
Disgust flared on Eren's face. “I’m not naming my kid Carl!” In his arms, the baby copied Eren's expression, with the addition of a small pout. “I’m starting to regret letting you in on the naming.”
“So what?! I’m making sure my kid doesn't resent us for giving him a stupid name!” Jean pinched the bridge of his nose. “Hange, next.”
“Very well, these sound more traditional,” and everyone, except Sasha who still defended Gnocchi under her breath, widened their eyes with expectancy. “Minkasa and Mikarmin¹. I think Mikarmin is charming.”
“Hey!” Connie crossed his arms, “where’s Consha or Sannie?”
Sasha threw her hands up. “Who cares about Consha when Gnocchi is right there! Oh, I’ll ask Niccolo for some gnocchi when we’re back.”
Mikasa, for one, sounded absolutely delighted, if conflicted, a soft shade of pink touching her cheeks. She brought her hand to the scarf, caressing it and closing her eyes. “Oh, Eren… I’m so honored that you would think of me when naming your kid. I don’t think anything could be sweeter, but—”
“It’s just that,” Armin gulped, trying to find the kinder words, “in the absence of a better adjective, these names are a bit—”
“Ugly.” Levi completed, harshly.
“They’re not ugly!” Hange defended. “They’re captivating! The creativity! I always knew you had it in you, puppy!” Eren beamed again. “Okay, now, I might be biased but the following ones are my absolute favourites. Oh, Eren…”
“Cut it, just tell us what atrocities the brat came up with in the breaks from planning a massacre,” Levi rolled his eyes.
“Brace yourselves!” Jean did brace himself. For the worst. At that point, Hange’s excitement made Jean consider kidnapping his own kid and naming him Marco. Yeah, Marco was a perfectly good name. The kidnapping part would be tricky, considering the walls were very small and the rest of the world hated his people. He didn’t really have any place to run to.
Then, the blow came. “Lerwin! Levange! Hanvi! Oh, and my absolute favourite,” they cleared their throat, “Harwinvi!”
If there were crickets in the airship, they’d be the only things making any noise.
“… let’s stick with Gnocchi, at least everyone can pronounce that,” Connie gave up.
“Yay! Gnocchi it is!” Sasha clapped her hands.
Jean stomped his feet. “His name is not Gnocchi!”
“Maybe… Mikarmin does have a ring to it?” Armin suggested, “It’s very neutral, and…” the pause was clearly to come up with more good things to say, but not even Armin’s brilliant brain could come up with anything positive to say other than, “well, the feeling is certainly there.”
“Brat, if you want to name the kid after Hange, Erwin, or me, just pick one!”
“Eren is doing his best, Levi!” Hange cried out, and quickly added, “besides, Harwinvi sounds lyrical.”
Captain Levi had the expression of someone who drank spoiled milk, but Hange started to list all the reasons why a made-up name was a fantastical and original choice for an infant. Hange, clearly, had never been bullied as a kid. Or simply was too dense to notice. Oh, Jean could already hear it, the other kids making fun of his poor son.
If that creepy grin and intense stare the baby had inherited from his mom was any indication, Jean could already see how it'd turn out. His son was about to become a little delinquent. However, if Jean did allow him to be named Harwinvi, his son would have all the reasons in the world for it.
“Eren, think of the kid,” Armin turned to Eren, calmer than Jean could ever sound under those blood-boiling circumstances. “He’ll spend the rest of his life spelling his name to people. Like Bertholdt.”
“Ugh, you’re right…”
Oh! Jean would kiss Armin's big brain if he could!
Thank God Bertholdt's parents hated him enough to give him that name. Eren would surely remember how he used to call Bertholdt things like Beetroot, Ballhold, Burntoast, Brotherhood, Beltholder, Birth Control, Backshots, oh, Bronchitis! This was a good one! Bloodclot, a classic, Barricade, Backpack, Bacteria, there was also Barbecue and… Oh… Jean did come up with half of these… The worst half. Oh, no… Was it… Was the universe punishing him?
That's very bitchy of the universe! The guy broke Wall Maria and killed thousands of people, but Jean called him Butthole a few times and suddenly Jean was the bad guy?
Okay, then! Jean could play nice!
“Look, Eren,” Jean said softly, engulfed by the sudden need to please Eren (like when they were cadets, though they always ended up fighting most of the times Jean had tried to be nice saying things like: don’t kill yourself, you’re too hot to die), “if you want to honour the Captain, or Commander Erwin, or Hange. I’m fine with it. But… Pick just one, okay? No more mixing names.”
Eren’s shoulders slumped. “But I don’t want to honour just one of them,” he refused to look at Jean’s face — or anyone else’s. “I want his name to feel unique, like something people won’t forget. I want him to know there was a meaning behind it.”
“I know, Eren…” Jean licked his lips and sighed, “it’s just that it’s also important that the kid can read and write his own name, you know? So, I’m sorry, but it’s a big no for all of those. Especially Harwinvi.”
This time, it was Hange’s time to call them shortsighted.
Yet Hange’s disappointment was supplanted by revulsion the next second. They stopped breathing and blinking, mumbling things under their breath. Then, stopped. The hand that held the list fell beside their body and the other covered their mouth in absolute shock.
Oh, great. What could it be now?
Whatever it was, Hange couldn’t say it out loud.
So Armin picked the list from their hand. His reaction was the same, if not worse. He hurriedly sought his brown paper bag again.
Jean was not ready for whatever was written on that paper, but he went for it either way. He brought it close to his face. Eren was calmly scenting their son when Jean’s voice echoed through the airship.
“RUMBLE?!”
“You want your kid named after the act of global annihilation?!” Connie jumped.
“Oh, it’s brilliant!” Floch wept a single, proud tear.
“I refuse to acknowledge it!” Captain Levi had become the shade of a flaming pepper.
“It’s cute,” Eren rolled his eyes.
“Are you freaking serious right now? Because I’m telling you, Eren, it does feel like you’re mocking me!”
“I promise I'm not! I really liked each of these names when I wrote them. Besides, family and friend could call him Rumbly!”
Jean threw his hands up in an exasperated motion. “Yeah? Rumble! ‘Coooourse! What a lovely name. What about we give Rumbly a sister, huh? Genny. Short for Genocide!”
Eren blinked a few times, and then turned his face away. Jean was not prepared to watch his face assume an intense shade of red, leaving Jean a babbling mess.
Connie put his hand on Jean’s shoulder. “Dude, I know you waited for it for a looooong time. Like, we get it! You really wanted it. We’re all happy for you…”
“I’m not,” Levi interjected.
“…but this isn’t the time to plan for baby two, ‘kay?”
“Especially when he didn't even ask mine or Hange's blessing for the first one.”
“Or me,” Mikasa said, darkly. Clearly the I-want-you-dead-for-knocking-up-my-little-brother/pup topic hadn’t died yet.
“Once again,” Sasha sang, “Gnocchi!”
“ENOUGH!” Jean finally lost it. Pony. Fight. Gnocchi. Harwinvi. Rumble. It all came down to it. “Where are the fucking normal names?”
“Language!”
“Like Marco? Or… or Jonas? Jean Jr, if you can’t think of anything else! How the fuck did you think god damned Harwinvi—”
“Jean, stop cursing in front of him!”
“Half of these fucking shitty names should be considered curses! Or threats! Or—”
“f—uuc…”
“Oh, shit.”
“…jit…”
There was a loud crack. It was Eren's neck snapping up, the look on his face promised pain. Now that was the person who levelled a city.
In an abrupt, if effortless, movement, Eren deposited the baby into Sasha's arms without even looking at her. Like a little menacing crow, the baby kept murmuring foul words while Yelena and Zeke tried to make him mimic a monkey again — it failed, it seemed the baby liked the new words much more than a meaningless onomatopoeia. Yelena, Zeke, Levi and Mikasa all shot Jean their nastiest, most resented stares.
Even then, Eren was scarier.
“Look what you’ve done!”
“I’m sorry!”
“f—uuc!”
Jean had his kid for fifteen minutes, and the kid was already rebelling against him. He sucked as a parent. The kid had Jaeger blood. Inside the airship there were two perfect examples of what daddy issues did to Jaegers. So far, the future didn't seem bright.
It seemed it could get darker.
“You know what? You’re right!” Jean had longed to hear those glorious words coming out of Eren’s pretty lips for so long, but it was a mocking version of his dreams. “Forget Harwinvi. Forget Ocean. Forget Fight! I’m naming him Zeke!”
A unified cry of “Noooooooooooo!” erupted from almost everyone present.
“Awnnnn,” Zeke’s eyes filled with tears.
“A solid choice, Eren,” Yelena cheered, “the young man will be set for greatness!”
“He will follow his ancestors’ path,” Floch echoed, satisfied.
“Better yet!” Eren got even closer, to Jean. Again, not like in Jean's fantasies. “I’ll name him Reiner!”
“NO—” Zeke let out a cry full of pain. “Zeke! Zeke Jr is perfect! Zieck! My perfect little nephew! Please, pleaseeeeee—”
“Somebody get him out of my sight!” Captain Levi ordered, and Yelena picked Zeke up bridal-style and carried him into the other cabin. Zeke kept wailing all the way.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Jean held Eren by his collar and pulled him even closer.
“Well, it’s a common enough name. Isn’t it what you want? You’re sooooooo full of opinions about the names I picked, I thought you’d like this one.”
“Because your name ideas fucking suck!”
The baby parroted Jean's curse. Mikasa untied her scarf and tried to cover the baby's ears with it — she was stopped by Levi, who started to lecture her about hygiene.
“They do not! They’re cute!” Oh, Jean had forgotten how attractive Eren looked when he was mad at Jean, specifically. Well, one good thing from that outburst. “I picked Pony thinking of you! Why can’t you appreciate the things I do for you, horsey?!”
“Like what? Not telling me you were having my kid?”
“It was a strategic move!”
“Guys, let’s chill, okay?” Sasha tried to get between them, still holding the baby, “Gnocchi here is getting upset.” By upset, she meant he was pulling her hair with the might of a bear cub.
“His name is not Gnoc—!” Jean was interrupted mid-shout.
He had been shoved to the ground by Eren. For a moment, he wondered if Eren was really willing to turn that into a physical fight. Jean saw the blood before his brain processed the sound of the gunshot.
The stomach was an awful place to get shot, hard to heal, hard to survive. Jean himself had never been shot in the stomach, but he remembered the instructors back in the cadet corps explaining that a soldier shot in the stomach was as good as dead. Blood spilled all over the ground, and in a swift movement both Mikasa and Levi were restraining the aggressor — a small girl with a yellow armband, a candidate.
“That fucking hurts…”
“f—uc!”
If Eren hadn't shoved him out of the way, that would've been him. If Eren hadn't gotten in the way, it would've been Sasha, who had hugged the baby in a protective stance. It seemed to take Sasha a while, too, to realise the blow hadn't hit her.
“Eren Jaeger! I will kill— is that a baby?” It was the girl. The warrior girl. Jean had seen her before, during the fight. Levi had removed the gun from her hands, and the Marleyan girl wasn't strong enough to release herself from Mikasa's hold.
“…take the baby out of here…” Eren mumbled, a hand against his stomach, “this shit hurts more than cutting off my own leg…”
“jit jit mamamamama…”
“Why's there a baby here?!” The girl demanded, but nobody answered.
Sasha, breathing heavily, removed herself from the warrior girl’s sight. Armin put himself in front of Sasha, just like Eren did before, as if he too expected a second shot. While Connie checked on Sasha, Hange checked on the baby — if anything, Sasha looked more startled by the attack than the infant, who kept babbling profanities.
“You killed everyone!” The warrior girl roared, once she noticed nobody paid attention to her question about the baby, “I’m going to kill you!”
“Should’ve aimed for the neck,” Eren rolled his eyes, then looked at his stomach. It was steaming. Good… Good! Yeah, healing. Shifter thing. He’d be fine. Jean approached Eren either way, he didn’t have anything to stop the bleeding, but it felt like the right thing to do.
Once Jean was close enough, Eren leaned against him. There was a small exhale. Jean put his arm around the omega’s waist.
Those had been intense two minutes before the second kid came in.
“What are they feeding these Marleyan brats?” Captain Levi inquired before pulling a blonde boy from the door into the airship.
“Gabi!” The boy cried out. Another candidate, given the yellow band. Eren stared intensely at that one. In a… not murderous way.
The kid looked like Reiner’s secret love child — though, considering Jean was the one with an actual love child, he shouldn’t hold that against the kid.
“Don’t!” Eren’s voice spoke through indignant screams from a mob led by Floch. They were nearly jumping on the kids. “He’s harmless and a good kid. She’s…” Eren spent a shamefully long minute trying to find a redemptive trait, “his friend.”
“She just shot you!” Floch pointed out.
“I noticed,” Eren showed his own bloody hands, “just… tie them up or something.”
“You don’t give orders—”
But Captain Levi was silenced by a louder voice.
“NO!” Screamed Gabi, still hopelessly struggling against an unmoving Mikasa. “You soulless cunt! You killed my friends! You killed innocent people! I will fucking kill you! I will—”
“GABI,” the boy cried out again, “there's a baby here!”
“Exactly!” Eren sighed, then glared at Jean, but did not attempt to build any distance between them, “Take the baby out of here, Sasha, he has had enough colourful vocabulary for a day.”
Sasha, eyes wide, simply nodded. But when she tried to move away from the commotion, the baby squirmed. His little arms were reaching out toward someone. Not toward Eren. Not toward Jean. Toward…
“Faco! Faco!” When Sasha moved even further, the baby started to emulate what was about to become a wail, “Facoooo!”
The boy — Faco? — looked at Eren, then at the baby, then started fidgeting his hands, then at Eren again — as if asking for permission.
“You know what, no need to tie him up,” Eren decided. “C’mere,” he was talking to the boy, who pressed his lips together before walking timidly toward Eren.
“What are you doing?” Shrieked Gabi.
“Do you mind taking care of him, just until I clean the blood off myself,” Eren murmured.
The boy's face lit up, then darkened.
“I— Yeah… Course, Mr. Krueger—Jaeger, I mean,” the boy’s eyes were unfocused, he trembled under the gaze of Eren, but he turned to the baby and smiled gently. The baby nearly threw himself from Sasha's into the boy’s arms.
“You— You were working with the enemy?” The Marleyan girl, now tied up, was about to cry.
Falco paled. “What?! No!”
“He’s my babysitter,” Eren supplied in an oddly defensive tone, “he didn’t know I was, well, me. Give him a break.”
Gabi’s eyes, wet with tears, widened. “You kidnapped a baby too!?”
“No, I— You know what? Yeah, I did! It’s a Tybur’s baby!”
The boy gasped, clutching the baby closer, “is he?”
“Of course not!” Eren groaned, “why does nobody get my jokes? Well, anyway. You both kinda got yourselves kidnapped, so… I guess you’ll babysit for a little longer, Falco.”
“Wait,” Jean found his voice again, “you had a Marleyan babysitter? And he never questioned the fact the baby didn’t have a name?”
“Mr. Krueger… Jaeger was living in a psychiatric hospital… So I thought… Well, I didn’t want to be rude,” the boy slumped his shoulders, “but the baby is a good baby… most times.”
“Suuuure…” Jean let out a long sigh, wondering what life would’ve been if titans had been, like once they believed, just a breed of flesh-eating titans who nearly extinguished humanity and Jean had simply joined the MPs to live a quiet, peaceful life. Oh, to be pathetic again…
“Wait…” Eren started to grin in a very cute way, looking up at Jean. “Falco!”
The boy stiffened, “Yes, sir?”
“Falco!”
“I’m… right here?”
“Falco, Jean! Falco! Perfect!”
Falco, the warrior boy, became the colour of a beet. “Oh, thank you, sir! But that’s an exaggeration. I’m average, at best. Gabi there is the prodigy of—”
“Do you like Falco, Jean?”
Jean frowned. “Our kid’s kidnapped babysitter, who clearly has self-esteem problems, who I’ve just met after his friend shot you?”
“He’s working on his self-esteem,” Eren hissed, “and talking about it so bluntly won’t help him improve! The name, you idiot!”
Oh! The name!
Jean spread his lips in a large smile, “Falco!”
“I'm starting to think,” the boy started, “I’m not actually included in this talk…”
“It’s unique…”
“…but also down to earth…”
“…and it has presence…”
“…but not in a weird, nearly war declaration way!”
“It’s also a type of bird!”
“So it honours the Scouts and fulfil your eccentricities but in a way he won't get bullied in school!”
“It’s perfect!”
“Faco! Faco!”
“He loves it!” Eren had tears in his eyes, “If I wasn’t covered in blood, I’d kiss him!”
“If you weren’t covered in blood, I’d kiss you!”
“I will… find a seat somewhere else…” Falco, the Marley, not the baby, walked away. Falco, the baby, was playing with his hair — by pulling it and ripping a few strands out.
“My own, son…”
Eren smiled softly. “Our son…”
In the most otherworldly way, it sounded like all pieces of a puzzle fell into places…
“Falco Kirstein.”
…and then someone kicked the puzzle.
“—Jaeger. What?!”
“What?! I’m the father, he’s getting my surname!”
Eren untangled himself from Jean's embrace.
“The hell he is! I’m the mother!” Eren pointed his finger at himself. “I made him from scratch! You contributed with one night and that was it, and you get to give him the surname?”
Jean’s face burned. “I would’ve contributed more if you had mentioned you were pregnant in the first place!”
“It was a strategic move!”
“It was a jackass move!”
“Only Armin gets to call me jackass, jackass!”
“You owe me that surname! You’re in debt with me! For all the problems you caused! For keeping my son a secret from me! So it’s Falco Kirstein and it’s not up to discussion!”
“Over my dead body!”
Sasha smiled. Jean had forgotten she was still there by their side.
“It’s good to have you back, Eren,” and, for a second, Eren stopped shouting and just stared at Sasha, his eyes gleaming with something Jean could not grasp. “But, for the record, if we’re gonna have two Falcos around, we need nicknames. Yours is Gnocchi.”
Jean opened his mouth to protest, but Eren was faster. “You can call him whatever you want, for the rest of your very long and happy life…”
“Oh, hm, thanks?”
Jean grit his teeth, “Okay, Falco “Gnocchi” Kirstein!”
“Jaeger!”
“You can use a hyphen,” suggested Armin, approaching them with caution.
Jean nodded. “Yeah, that can be. Kirstein-Jaeger.”
“Why does your surname come first? Jaeger-Kirstein sounds much better!”
“I’m being nice for even considering hyphens!” Jean howled. “You’re a war criminal now, you forfeit surname rights!”
“Zekeeee! Jean is bullying me!”
Then, from the pilot’s cabin, Onyankopon, who had missed the entire baby-revelation naming-session, spoke, “Am I supposed to turn the airship or not?”