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These are some things that May learns about Bobby that take her by surprise and are not as obvious as his love for their Mom and his dedication to cooking and firefighting.
1. He likes to sleep in when he is not on shift and when they do not have to go to school and he has to get up to make them breakfast.
2. He is a really good gardener with a knack for growing herbs - something that escalates during Covid but from which they all profit.
3. His sourdough starter, that he started the day he arrived in Los Angeles, is named Andhrímnir and his favourite pot is called Eldhrímnir. Andhrímnir is the Norse Chef of the Gods and Eldhríminir is the cauldron in which Andhrímnir cooks.
4. He is actually a big fan of Norse mythology in general and would love to go to Norway at some point.
(Hers and Harry’s plan is to go there with him and Mom once they both earn enough money. Little does she know that by the time they both do and they all find the time, their romantic idea of a snowy and very cold family holiday spent in the very Northern part of Europe to see the Northern Lights will be made a tad more difficult by the fact that Bobby is in a wheelchair by then and May has Benni and Grace (and Kai of course) as additional albeit very wriggly and overly excited ‘luggage’. They still make do, though, and it is a wonderful holiday.)
5. His favourite Marvel- films are The Marvels and Eternals, though Thor: Ragnarok is a close third.
6. While he is still a fantastic figure skater, drawing heads and admiring glances from people, especially women, when he is on the rink with her and Harry, he kind of sucks at ice hockey. He can play, yes, but he is just not that good when he has to hold a hockey stick in his hand.
7. He loves Lego.
It was one of his favourite things to do with Brooke, who also loved it, and it is a firm bonding moment for him and them when he starts dating Mom.
During rehab, do get his fingers’ dexterity working properly again, his therapist makes him do Lego sets whose level of difficulty increases with his improving health. By the time he gets to go home, he has a collection of ten sets to pack into the car and five more waiting at home for him. Some sets, like the solar system and a couple of the flower bouquets, he displays while others do not meet Mom’s approval and are taken apart and put back into their boxes once he is done with them. (It is also one of his biggest joys that Benedict and Grace love Duplo and Lego just as much and the three of them will never run out of thing to build. Everything is Awesome is on his work- out playlist and has been ever since the song first came out.)
8. He loves Christmas carols and songs.
He also absolutely has no singing voice, is very much aware of it and absolutely shameless about using it to his family’s disadvantage when he is at home and the mood is merry enough. (May also cannot sing and her and Bobby, later Papa, delight in torturing their loved ones with horrid renditions of Winter Song, Someday at Christmas, All I Want For Christmas is You and Underneath the Tree. The others will never forget when they did Destiny’s Child 8 Days of Christmas - May is fairly sure that Kai is very close to ending things with her right then and there had it not been for Mom clutching their arm in tears from laughter and howls of despair).
9. He is so very Very VERY peculiar about doing the grocery shopping but May loves it.
While Mom and Dad are also very organized, Papa Bear is another level organized. He has the aisles all laid out, the items needed are listed in order of how they appear on the shelves (bearing in mind the direction from which you enter the aisle) and when it comes to going to the Farmers Market, the focal point is The Cheesiest Cheeses to Ever Cheese and the shopping is then just spread out from there in a circle.
(That Bobby has a case of OCD is displayed not only in the way that the shelves in the kitchen are organized or how his books are sorted but also on the day their favourite supermarket changes its layout - May can see how much is bothers him by the way he keeps checking the grocery list and wringing his hands and how he is chattering away, making inane comments and dad jokes which he is only prone to when thrown for a loop.)
10. He likes to wear brightly coloured and/or patterned socks when he is not on duty.
That is something that throws May for a massive loop the first time she recognizes it. The first time it happens, she just thinks that he is just wearing the socks because Buck gave them to him and he is coming over for dinner. But then she sees him wear the socks when they go to the park or into town or to the movies, the beach or even when they are at home and so she just asks him. Turns out that Marcy would gift them to him on special occasions and that this is the one thing that does not hurt him to the bones because his grandma used to knit him such socks when he was a kid and he has only positive memories relating to his former life for once.
For their first Christmas as a family, on the first of Advent, Bobby presents her, Harry and Mom sets of matching socks, revealing a fourth pair for him and thus a new tradition is born. Every Advent, they wear matching socks and take photographs of them which then become their annual Christmas card. It is sillyl and whimsical and just the perfect antidote to the heaviness their lives often carry and May loves it. Even when Harry is not there, he still gets the socks in the mail and takes a single photo which May then photoshops into their picture.
The pictures also show the passage of time: there is the first one that they ever took that has a special place on the mantle in May’s house, but there is also the first one with Bobby post- lab where the rims of the wheelchair are clearly visible, or the one where her baby bump is nearly towering over her feet in the picture and the lastest one where the tiny feet of Benedict and Grace are joining them now, sitting on Bobby’s lap. This one may be May’s favourite of all Christmas pictures ever taken.