Title: Pregnancy Meme: New Baby Bats.
Disclaimer: I don't own Batman Beyond or any characters in relation to it. I make no money from writing this, and the only characters that are mine are the children (which, despite everything, I'm willing to give to anyone who wants them).
Summary: Choose a pairing, get them pregnant, and write a drabble for each suggestion given.
Warnings: This is in a big fat connection to 'Twinning' and 'Red and White'. I couldn't help it! 'Twinning' is taking forever, so this is to get the wheels up and moving again.
Dedication: In and with the utmost respect to Rose Midnight Moonlight Black for writing that gender bender fic as well as the fic with tiny little Dee's and Damian Wayne.
Introduce the couple:
Terry McGinnis and Dana Tan…oh, finally, it's come to this.
How does mommy tell daddy she's up the spout?:
There is a heavy weight that suddenly finds itself upon Terry's chest, but considering this weight is soft and has such nice boobs pressing against his chest and smells of that sweet shampoo he had bought himself only the week before, he doesn't go into hyper defensive mode and push it off immediately. Rather, he blurrily opens one eye and finds himself looking into the eyes of his wife.
And she is not particularly happy looking.
True, she's naked, like she was after they had fallen asleep post-coitus, and leaning in what one could imagine to be a pleasant manner on top of him like a cougar, but Terry has been married to the woman for three years now, dated her for an eternity and just knows when she is unhappy.
Or, fuming. She appears to be fuming. Her jaw is set in just that way…
"Hey, honey," he starts out as pleasantly as possible, trying to not wiggle about under the covers, "Is something wrong?"
Without preamble and not caring that her elbow sort of jabs him when she reaches beside her and brings into view a little white piece of plastic, the frown on her face actually grows one size and he's hoping that the plastic isn't a weapon.
"I finally get a promotion," Dana starts, deadly calm and holding the plastic right in front of Terry's face, "One that I've been waiting for on the upside of six months and now, with my moving into a new office and being thrust into a new realm of possibility—your sperm decides to find my egg."
Blue eyes blink owlishly at his wife and then his calloused hand gently takes the stick from her own small one to find that there is indeed a bright blue plus at the end of the stick.
"We're having a baby?"
How did this blessed miracle come to pass?:
The card that read in cute, calligraphic letters 'Happy Anniversary!' fluttered silently to the floor. After a moment, the words written on paper rather than given by digital screening sat upon the haphazardly tossed aside pants Dana had been wearing right before Terry had picked her up and helped undress her on the way into their bedroom. The roses he had bought her were left out of water and upon the kitchen table, a few petals on the floor and adding to the romance of the candle Terry had lit to lead her in through the apartment—whose electricity had been shut off to make sure Dana could not turn on a switch—in a fit of romance.
The door to their room was shut only because Terry had the unfortunate luck of having partners that allowed them to drop in out of thin air and it would ruin everything he'd worked for that night. Really, he had shown tremendous restraint when he didn't buy that deadbolt he had seen at the store earlier to have it attached to their door.
Is there conflict with keeping the baby/babies, or is the choice to keep it mutual?:
"How can you be so calm?" Terry questioned his short, beautiful wife as she walked around their kitchen, making herbal tea that she was hoping would not do anything bad to her fetus.
Dana smiled sweetly, picking out a small cup from the cupboard, all white and decorated with a red crane along the side of it, "Because I know that we'll handle this. I can work up until my sixth month and I'll just have to ask for my old position back."
Terry just sort of let his jaw open and close for a moment, before an unbidden question came along, "What do you think are family is going to say?"
"Doesn't matter," she answered back, sipping the tea and then, after a spell, adding a squirt of honey into the mix, "We're married and we said we always wanted kids at some point. If they can't accept it, then too bad."
If there is conflict, does it get resolved? If it's mutual choice, what are they going to do for a baby room?:
"O…M…G…"
"I know," Terry groaned, still walking backwards and trying not to run into the giant white and brown stuffed angora rabbits and tigers Dana had been buying since the week before as he and Barry gripped the practically antique crib Dana's mother had foisted upon them.
Finally, they set the thing down, and Terry positioned it far away from the fireplace all of the bedrooms in Wayne manor were supplied with. Seeing as Bruce had basically ordered them to move in after finding out that Dana was pregnant, they had been doing this particular room up to suit the new member of the Batclan's needs. Though, seeing as Dana had been doing the actual decorating, Terry was still a little embarrassed to even be within its confines.
The ginger circled the room, eyeing everything with his mouth gaping open. The walls had been painted a dark red and light pink along the edges, a little black in long lines near the fireplace. The duvet and sofa and bed that had been put in for night when the baby wouldn't sleep alone with kimono prints, also in red, save for the pillows that were like eggs and pink, pink, pink and white.
"It's…" Barry stuttered, avoiding the curtains of the windows—wavy and red and black—like they were bathed with particles of the plague.
"Like a giant version of a vagina, I know," Terry nodded, bunched in on himself and not touching anything. Not at all.
Labor is in progress, where are the parents during the time?:
"This isn't happening, this isn't happening, this isn't happening—"
"Damian, shut up!"
Completely willing to follow his boyfriend's instruction, Damian clenched his jaws together and sat with his younger brother, holding back Dana's legs as the woman screamed her lungs out. Terry and Damian both held onto one of Dana's legs, holding them wide and back, sure to keep her knees bent for assistance in delivery. Colin and Deidre were directly before Dana's front—Deidre sitting on a stool to catch the newborn and Colin just behind her, administering kind, encouraging words and handing Deidre tools here and there that Terry and Damian both tried not to look at.
They could watch what was happening from the front in the movie that Max and Merina were recording behind the ginger and blonde.
Really, the only reason that Damian was freaking out was because his little brother's wife was bleeding and leaking other such fluids onto his grand, king sized bed. In his and Colin's house, where no sex between a man and woman had been performed, let alone carried into fruition. He was having a panic attack, kinda.
"Sweet Neptune!" Merina squealed, zooming in with the button on her camera, "I see the head!"
"Really?" Terry shouted, not letting go of Dana's leg until Rex finally came out from his corner to help—the Halfling trying to look dignified despite himself. The darker male took Dana's leg and Terry was behind Colin in a second to look at—and in some form, into—his wife.
He almost passed out when Deidre had the baby (a boy, a boy!) in her arms the next second, Dana giving a hard, thrusting push.
His blonde friend was careful as she handed Terry the baby, giving him a quick smile as she turned back to Dana, checking for tears and the wrong type of bleeding and ready to catch the placenta when it was about to come. Colin handed Terry a blue towel that had previously been clean and sterile within his and Damian's cupboard in the bathroom, a grin splitting his face.
Terry, for his part, was even more careful with the newborn, coming up beside Dana and gently wiping her eyes that had become wet with her pushing. The baby gave a set of screams arms flapping about and showing he was healthy.
"He's beautiful," Dana sighed, not taking the baby yet as Deidre started prodding her belly a little, a sudden look crossing the blonde's face and making Dana extremely uneasy. Not that she wasn't already, but the look on their mutual friend was out of place for this very real and supposedly joyous moment.
"What's wrong?" Dana asked down, trying to lean up, but was swiftly rebuked as Damian caught a similar look coming off of Colin and lightly pressed his palm to her shoulder.
"Nothing's wrong, exactly," Deidre responded, sitting back upon the stool, "It just seems that your doctor is an idiot."
"What?" Terry questioned, snapping to attention, but still beside his wife.
Deidre grinned, sheepish, "We're experiencing an encore performance."
"WHAT?"
Baby/babies is/are just one hour old. Is it boy or girl or both and what's their name?:
Snuggling into their mother's chest, two newborn boys made the occasional cooing noise or whimper, but were really quite relaxed considering most babies cried forever after being thrust into the world. Both of them had a slight tuft of black hair, as well as equally brilliant blue eyes, though at the moment they were closed, enjoying the warmth radiating off of Dana.
Terry continued to sit in the chair that Colin had been good enough to bring up from the living room—despite and against the grumbling and ranting of Damian—and just sort of…stared at the sight.
To be a father twice in one day when he hadn't expected to have another child so soon, if ever, Terry looked sort of dazed. His eyes kept flicking from one boy to another, only able to tell them apart by one being a little smaller and one being wrapped in a green linen wrap made from one of Damian's favorite pillow coverings.
"So," Dana finally spoke, tired, but alert as all new mothers were, "What do you suppose we should name them?"
"I…" Terry started, looking embarrassed for some reason or other, "I was hoping to name one Warren, but I thought, maybe, we could name the other Bruce."
Dana smiled beautifully at her husband, "Of course. That's perfect. I was actually thinking the exact same thing."
"Really?"
"Of course."
The children are five, which parent do they look more like?:
The really old, but still basically functioning Light Maker that Aunt Deidre had gotten them for their birthday (a sort of candle holder that was also a music box and spun in a circle, casting shadows of ghosts, witches, demons and—made especially for their family—bats on account of the metal half covering it) played its quiet, simple melody.
"Put it out," Bruce groaned, flopping under the covers like their dad often did in the early morning when their mom woke him up for work. His sleek black hair fluffed up with the little whirl of air the covers made.
Warren stayed upon his position on the floor, legs under him like a little martial artist. He absently lifted a hand and pressed a finger gently against the Light Maker, the metal smooth under his skin. The reflective light hit his light blue eyes like stars and made his hair—a little longer, darker and wavy unlike his brother—shine with the gel that his mother hadn't been able to get out before putting them to bed.
The parents go to the playground/skatepark/what have you and their kid(s) are playing with their best friend(s) and their parents:
"Should we really be snooping around here?"
"It's just the woods, B-Man. The woods around our house that aunty Dei and—"
"Delia."
"Played in when they were little. It's perfectly safe."
With a long exhale through his mouth that pointed upwards and blew his hair out of his eyes, Bruce continued after Iris. She and Irene had managed—somehow, Bruce and Warren still didn't know how exactly, but suspected it was the same way Deidre snuck Dad out of impossible situations—to sneak them away while their families and John's family talked back the way they came in the house, drinking coffee and unaware while the kids just walked out the door.
Now, Bruce walked beside Iris, along the line and slowly flowing water of the little stream they were all following. In a strange act of self-assuredness, Irene was leading the way, dragging Warren and John with her as she pointed out where they would soon find water lilies and cattails, speaking loudly and not at all noticing the slightly weirded out look the other son of the Bat and the probable next heir to Atlantis were giving her. Bruce himself really liked these woods, but seeing as John was the oldest one among them (only ten, in comparison to Bruce and Warren's eight and the girls' seven) and completely out of his water—or better still, air—element, Bruce was a bit perturbed as to how they would get back.
"Don't look so deep in thought," Iris chirped, giving Bruce a light punch in the shoulder, his yellow and red Hawaiian shirt cushioning the blow to make it feel like a pebble hit him rather than sinew and muscle, "In thirty to sixty minutes, your dad is going to wonder where you've gone off to, Mr. Stewart is going to start looking through the hall closets, the basement, under our beds freaking out and our moms—"
"And your aunt," Bruce added, grinning when Warren went to chase Irene like a squirrel up three tree stumps and John leapt into the water before following, much more refreshed.
"Come outside," Iris continued, making to punch him again, but missing when he swerved and gave her stomach a nudge, his fingers giving her the sharp impulse to laugh, which she did for a second before forcing the feeling down. Both of them were so mature, or at least Bruce was, "And follow the fresh tracks we left."
"With Dad and Mr. Stewart scared witless and running all the way."
This time they both laughed. It was funny, because it was true and would happen exactly like that.
The kids are in teenhood and going on their first date(s) ever. What's daddy or mommy feeling?:
"Is this odd?"
Dana looked up from the book she was reading—A Day in the Life of the American Woman—and watched as Terry continued to pace the rooftop of the Wayne-Powers building, some high-tech binoculars (lord only knew where he got them) permanently glued to his hands and his eyes, glaring downwards at the small villa styled restaurant that had on its rooftop, their children.
"Odd that you dragged me out here to spy on our children when we could have spent the night in the manor cuddling, or odd that Bruce asked out Melanie's daughter and Warren asked out Deidre's niece?"
"…The second one," Terry coughed, finally taking the binoculars away from his eyes to sit down next to Dana, one arm wrapping around her to, for one thing, warm her against the slightly nippy night air and for another, to find something to make him feel less guilty.
Dana accepted the arm and spoke again, a knowing smile on her face that Terry had a feeling that only women could possess, "I think it's sweet. They matching girlfriends."
"Dana!"
"Sorry," she continued to smile, setting down her book to stand up with him. She snatched away the binoculars and stood to get a perfect view, the black objects pressing against the rims of her eyes and she looked down onto the roof from the waiter serving the food and then to her children and the blondes they were with. Bruce was blushing at whatever Selina was whispering in his ear—a little too closely for Dana's maternal comfort, but she digressed—and Warren was making Irene blush by kissing her hair, her ear, her cheek, her lips…
Involuntarily, Dana tossed the binoculars off of the building, her hands all stiff and her eyes were nearly as wide as Terry's eyes had been. She could only just hear the specialized, long-sighted object hit the pavement below and no doubt smash to a thousand pieces.
"Okay, it is odd," Dana confirmed, allowing Terry—now even more panicked—to lead her back to the fire escape that had come up on. They could try to get back to the manor, put the idea of their children dating for real out of their heads for the night, and try and do something out. Maybe they should cuddle…
Mommy and daddy are told that their children are getting/have gotten married. Are they happy or not?:
"You're eloping?"
Warren, despite being slightly better at fighting and defending himself than Bruce, still had the unfortunate problem of shrinking under his mother's echoing, angry voice. And he did so, thoroughly. The deep black tuxedo he was wearing would have wrinkles from how far he shirked downward under the angry, dark eyed glare of the woman who had not only raised him, but also stood two feet shorter than he did.
"It's not like we weren't going to get married eventually, anyway," he tried to defend, praying to God that Irene would take her time getting back from the floral shop, hoping that the dress she was wearing would slow her down.
Dana crossed her arms over her chest, right foot tapping like a rabbit. Oh God, she wanted him to explain…
"I mean…We've been dating for three years now," he said, wringing his hands, "And we're in Vegas. And we're old enough."
"Gee, honey," Dana ground out, "You could have at least gone through an engagement period."
"Mom," he whined, head shaking, and then nodding and then she bopped him on the forehead and he stopped, "It's just that…. Bruce married Selina last year. Iris married John the year before. I'd been trying to ask her to marry me since a year after we started dating and last night…"
Dana waved her hand in front of her, "And last night?"
Warren's mouth worked into this really embarrassed smile, fondness radiating, "Last night after we and the League went up against Blight and Inque, me and Irene went out and got stuck in the rain. We finally made it to the door of the hotel and it turned out the door was locked and… I asked her to marry me, at the same time she asked me to marry her."
At the end of that little epic explanation, Dana felt a little bit of her annoyance melt away into something gooey and weird that nestled into the pit of her gut. But, it didn't show on her face.
"Still doesn't explain why you're eloping."
Warren twiddled his fingers, "Well, we did call our families and the League. Does that really count as eloping?"
Dana opened her mouth to respond, but was swiftly shot down by the sound of the door to the small chapel they were in opening. She turned about face and was met with the sight of a lovely young woman stepping in with Deidre, Iris, Selina, Merina, Barda and a couple other League ladies. It was Irene, dressed in a simplistic white evening dress that reached her ankles and carrying yellow roses.
Swiftly, Dana slapped a hand over Warren's eyes, blocking his view of his soon-to-be wife, "Warren, go inside the chapel and talk to your father. It's bad luck to see the bride before the wedding!"
"Yes, ma'am."
Daddy and mommy talk to their child's lover's parents/guardian after the wedding:
Seeing as their newly married kids had already flown off in the League jet to some deserted island, uninhabited by humans that Merina had suggested, Terry, Dana and Deidre sat on the roof of the Vegas hotel they were to stay in for the next day until Terry's business with Lexcorp was over, as well as Dana's political conference and Deidre's small meeting with some detectives for information to give to the GCPD. Dana was leaning against Terry's shoulder, completely asleep on account of the wedding champagne, and she continually squeezed his arm in REM.
Deidre took a long swig of the glass bottled root beer she had gotten from the minibar, blue eyes focused on the lights and sights the city of Vegas presented for the eyes to enjoy and take in, only giving Terry a light smile when he wasn't looking.
Terry took a swig from his own drink; a mixture of lemon spritz and cherry flavoring, "Are kids are married. How weird is that?"
"Eh, not so weird," Deidre chuckled as a limo passed twenty story floors down and rang out a blaring horn, "Warren did help her stop being afraid of the dark when she was four, after all."
"…Yeah, I guess you're right about that."
"And I believe you owe me twenty buck."
"For what?"
"Remember? When they were babies, we bet whether they would date or get married."
Terry allowed a thoughtful look to grace his face, before he set down his drink and slapped his own forehead, leaving behind a large, bright red mark. Deidre grinned like that famous cat from the Wonderland books and suppressed a laugh. Neither of them wanted to wake up Dana and let her in on the fact that they had gambled on their kids.
One last drabble for mommy and daddy!:
The washing machine hummed merrily as it spun out the dirty clothes loaded into it by Dana, who stood in front of it, folding the clothes that had finished drying. She set the folded ones atop the dryer as the washer had a habit to kick the clothes off.
A smooth, quiet shadow passed over her and before she could react or turn, a set of arms she had grown to love for their smooth feeling a light traces of dark hair, wrapped around her ribs and a pair of lips touched her ear.
"Wanna cuddle a little before the washer finishes?"
"Terry," she laughed, dropping the silk pink T-shirt she was folding back into the basket at her feet to run her fingers through Terry's gorgeous ebony hair. One of his hands snuck up under the ruffled, but tiny black shirt she had snatched up from their bed that morning that Terry had been wearing last night, his middle and pointer finger tracing the inside of her bellybutton.
His other hand tucked under Dana's petite butt and without preamble, set her atop the machine.
"I'll take that as a yes."