Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I just like to toy around with them in my imagination before putting it to paper.
A/N: Another family fic featuring Wally! It's been a while that I've written. I've had one hell of year, but no excuses. I honestly just couldn't find it in me to keep writing. This one has been sitting unfinished for a while, because I couldn't decide how I wanted to finish it. I finally figured it out. Let me know what you think and I hope you enjoy!
"You guys had the coitus?!" Wally gasped, clapping his little hands over his mouth in shock. Penny and Sheldon had just broken the news to their son that they were expecting a second child. Their four-year-old son was a prodigy just like his father and often-spent hours just reading when he went on his library trips with his parents. Sheldon, of course, made sure the son had access to all the knowledge that he could possibly want but he seemed to favor the sciences just like his father.
"Oh god, not with that word. Sheldon!? What did you tell him?" Penny shrieked slightly in mild shock and outrage. She had left it up to her husband to explain the birds and bees to their son when he accidentally caught them en flagrante over a year ago. She had warned him to keep the conversation very mild and watered down, just enough to satiate his curiosity. Of course, she had underestimated her son's fierce curiosity and her husband's need to indulge their son's mind.
"Nothing graphic! I just explained to him the basics. When he asked what the appropriate term was I told him that people call it 'coitus'." Sheldon explained, not understanding why Penny was so upset. Penny, of course, wasn't surprised. She had stopped being surprised by Wally's intelligence when she caught him reading a book on elementary quantum physics and declared he was bored with it. He was a little sponge to information and quite frequently got bored.
"Alright… It's okay. Do you have any questions, Sweetie? Mommy and Daddy are very excited to have another baby and hope you are as well." Penny told their son, picking him up from his seat on the couch to sit him on her lap. Wally immediately sank down into his mother's hold; he loved her cuddles the most in the entire world. Despite being a little braniac and Sheldon's miniature in most ways, he had gotten his mother's penchant for loving hugs.
"Not really. Is the baby going to be a boy or a girl? I don't think I want a brother. Can it be a girl, please?" He asked, purposely pretending that he didn't know that his parents couldn't actually pick his sibling's gender.
"It's a possibility, Wally… You see the probability of us having a girl after we already had a boy if we factor in our family's genetics and such is quite fair. On both sides of our family there is…" Wally stared up at his father enraptured as Sheldon went on a tangent about the likelihood of them having a girl versus them having a boy and the science of it. Penny just gave them a tender smile, listening, and watching her husband and son interact.
PSPSPSPSPSPS
Around the fifth month of Penny's pregnancy, with the announcement that she was having fraternal boy and girl twins, the four-year-old's ability to reason and use logic was overpowered by the fact that he was still four. He may already be a burgeoning member of Mensa, but he was in fact just a child.
He had gotten sick of watching everybody fawn over the babies that weren't yet here. He wasn't used to not being the center of attention. The straw that broke the camel's back was his daddy reading his favorite science book to Penny's baby belly as if the babies would actually listen. It was the book that he made Sheldon read to him on a weekly basis. It had become something of a father-son routine that not even Penny was included in on so to witness this was just too much for the little boy.
"That's my book!" Wally screamed as he snatched the book from his father's hands with both hands and held it tight to his chest in order to protect it. "Not theirs!" His little face was flushed a deep shade of red as his shockingly blue eyes watered. Tears were streaming down his face and he let the book go with one hand so that he could wipe at his eyes, feeling embarrassed by his outbreak of emotions.
Meanwhile, Penny and Sheldon were watching their son in shock. It was extremely rare for Wally to have a tantrum and he'd been doing so well about the impending arrival of the twins that they hadn't expected this. Sheldon, whose paternal instinct had fiercely appeared when Penny was first pregnant with Wally and had turned out to be an ideal father, immediately made to pick up Wally. Instead, Wally backed away all the while glaring at his father. "Come on, Wally. Come join mommy and I? We can discuss this matter calmly, because evidently something is upsetting you." He said in a soothing tone. At first, Wally seemed hesitant, but finally let Sheldon pick him up. He sat in his father's lap on the couch. Sheldon had procured his handkerchief from the pocket of his robe and was gently wiping at the little boy's face.
"Now, tell us what's wrong sweetie…" Penny gently prodded their son who had yet to make a move to speak to them. Wally still clutched his book like it was his lifeline. "Everybody's forgetting about me and all you guys care about are the dumb babies. It's not fair. I was here first. Mommy can't cuddle me the same no more, because of the stupid babies being in her tummy and mommy can't play with me the same and it's just not fair! I don't want the babies to be here, because it means everything's going to change!" He answered in a rush, fresh tears making their way down his face.
Much like his father, Wally rejected change. He held fast to his routines and panicked when unscheduled things occurred. Penny and Sheldon had been aware of the fact that their son would find it startling to have not one, but two new additions to their family that would shake the foundation of what he knew. It was Penny who took charge now.
"Oh, sweetie… We could never, ever forget about you. Even if daddy didn't have an eidetic memory and even if I manage to forget other things, you are far too important to ever slip from our minds. Sure, things will change, but they will be even better than they are now. Just think, Wally. You'll get to teach the babies everything you already know. And won't that be so much fun? You can read to them when they get here if you'd like and I bet they'll just love listening to you…" Wally had listened to his mother intently and while he still sniffled, his tears had slowed as Sheldon took a tissue from the nightstand and began to clean his face for him.
Once Wally had settled enough, their son considered what he had been told. He was still upset and frightened about the impending changes, but couldn't resist the desire to show off his brain. "Can I read to them now?" He asked, his voice a little unsure and a little hoarse from crying. Penny flashed their son one of her radiant smiles that he always associated with his favorite things in the world and she nodded to him.
Crisis averted, Wally leaned back against his father's chest and opened their favorite book to read together. He started to slowly speak, no longer needing help with pronunciations (not since he was about two and a half). Wally could easily recite the book from memory, but he liked to hold the physical copy in his hands. Penny rested her head against her husband's shoulder as they listened to their son regale them with scientific knowledge about physics and the universe. While they knew that all things would be well and that there were sure to obstacles, they would have never guessed that in that moment they had created a new family tradition and when the twins, Henry (named after the second Flash's middle name) and Ana (loosely named after Wonder Woman), arrived that they would take to all five of them listening to Wally read his favorite book to his two younger siblings. Sheldon and Penny Cooper found that their life together was going even better than the two of them could have ever imagined all thanks to Wally, Henry, and Ana.