I Can Do Most Anything I Have To (But, I Can't Unlove You)
There's no dramatic moment when Bobbi realises she's late, or a movie-cliche moment when she's throwing up in the morning and someone suggests it, she doesn't have any clue or intuition about it at all... It's Skye that figures it out.
They'd been apart for a couple weeks; Hunter on a fact-finding op, Bobbi at Sci-Tech Academy with Simmons as the leading authorities on Inhuman biology, and Skye had been busy leading the Computer Science division in updating S.H.I.E.L.D's cyber security. It's two weeks apart that none of them are happy about, but it's a hazard of the job they've learned to deal with in the three years of their relationship.
By a happenstance of chance Bobbi and Hunter arrive back at the Playground on the same day and Skye doesn't even bother with an excuse to her team of elite computer techs, she just leaves the second she hears they're back and they know better than to try and stop her. Skye lets her vibration powers expand and seek out the familiar thrum of Hunter's heartbeat and she follows the tingle of her mark to where Bobbi is.
When she finds Bobbi she's in their room, tugging her boots off and she can't help but go to her. The blonde leans back against her when Skye climbs onto the and hugs her from behind as she takes off her boots.
"Lance is here." Skye mumbled, not disentangling as the vibrations following Hunter's heartbeat get closer. "You debriefed?" NOt really a debriefing since it hadn't been a mission, more like checking in with May and Coulson.
"Yeah." They both sit in silence, waiting for their third to reach them. Skye lets her vibrations roam, she's learned to do that, let them feel against a person to feel for any abnormalities or injuries. It's how she can track a heartbeat, everything is just a vibration that she can feel, it just took longer to learn that and learn to isolate the vibrations she needed. Lance was okay, not even a scratch on him.
"You okay?" Skye lifted her head off Bobbi's shoulder, frowning as her vibrations skittered over the blonde.
"I'm fine, Rockstar, I was at Sci-Tech." Bobbi rolled her eyes, "nothing ever happens at Sci-Tech.",
"Something feels different." The brunette reached a hand around, touching her fingertips to Bobbi's chest for confirmation. A strong, steady heartbeat. Her hand kept moving, more attentively tracking her vibrations.
"Skye?" Bobbi tilted her head back, but Skye just shushed her. The door opened again and Hunter was there.
"What? You couldn't wait ten minutes for me to finish debriefing before debriefing?" Hunter scoffed at them, Bobbi rolled her eyes, Skye shushed him as well. "What's go-"
"Shut up." Skye huffed, shooting him a glare, she moved from behind Bobbi, to push the blonde onto her back. "Something's different." Bobbi stared in bewilderment as Skye let her hands glide against her skin, settling on her stomach with a frown. "Something is-..." Skye leapt off her, jumping so far back she hit the dresser, staring at her with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.
"Skye?" Hunter got to her first, Bobbi not far behind after getting off the bed. "What's going on, Sweetheart?" Skye just pointed at Bobbi, mouth open and closing as she tried to form the word.
"Sk-"
"Baby." The word finally came out and everyone froze.
"What?" Bobbi was the one to recover first, it had barely been a second.
"There's something in you and it has a heartbeat that's different to yours, faster, and it's right there." Skye let her fingertips touch Bobbi's navel, just above her pubic bone. "It's a baby. There's a baby in there. That's the only thing it could be. A baby."
"You're pregnant?" Hunter yelped, this was definitely not how he imagined his coming home to be.
"No!" Bobbi denied, eyes wide and earnest. "I'm not preg-"
"Yes, you are." Skye cut in, her brow furrowing as she reached her vibrations out again. "You are, I can feel it." She insisted, "are you late? 'Cause we're pretty in sync and I had mine right after you left for the Academy."
"Gag." Hunter stepped away, looking only slightly disgusted. How mature of him. Then again if they were relying on Hunter being the mature one in their relationship they were doomed.
"You are, Bobbi, I swear." Skye was about three seconds from stomping her foot and wouldn't that be mature? Just shy of 30 and stomping her foot like a child. "Do a blood test, that'll tell you, right? You can tell from someone's blood if they're pregnant?"
"You can, but I'm not pregnant." Bobbi nodded, this was insane! If she was pregnant, shouldn't she be the one to know first?
"You are." And with that Skye grabbed both of their hands and started dragging them through the Playground. "You're late, aren't you? You never said you weren't. And I bet if I ask Simmons you'll have more symptoms." Left, right, left, left. The doors to the lab came into view. "Do the test, if you don't believe me."
"I think I'd know if I was pregnant, Skye." Bobbi shook her head, but reached for a syringe anyway. There was no way Skye would drop the subject until she was proven right or wrong. "This is ridiculous." So what if she was late - even though she could count on one hand the amount of times she'd been late - or if she'd been a little tired in the last week, or nauseas, or-holy fuck, she was pregnant!
The three of the waited in silence for the blood test to finish, but Bobbi knew as well as Skye did what the result would. Skye was tapping her foot impatiently, waiting to be proven right, Bobbi was pacing across the lab, biting her lip nervously, Lance was watching them both.
"Before it comes back." Bobbi stopped pacing, her eyes darting from Skye to Hunter nervously. "What if it is positive? What if I am pregnant?" Because the more she thought about it the more she was sure; late, nauseas, more tired than usual, she hated to admit it but she'd been emotional too. And if she put all those symptoms together it equated to a hormone imbalance caused by the early stages of pregnancy. "What do we do?"
Silence.
Skye stopped tapping her foot and stared, Hunter straightened a little. "Well, I don't know about you, but I say we feed it, clothe it, change it, teach it stuff..."
"Raise it?" Skye suggested with a smirk.
"Yeah, that." Hunter nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I mean, we all said before that we wanted kids eventually, right? And why did we wait? Ward is dead, Lash is dead, SHIELD is up and running again... We could-we could do it, get a house in suburbs with a white fence and a yard, raise a litter of little rugrats-"
"Litter? In your dreams." Bobbi scoffed, rolling her eyes. The computer dinged, but none of them turned to look.
"Point is, Love, I'm all in if you are." Lance shrugged, Bobbi let out a breath.
"Sk-"
The brunette cut her off with a bruising kiss to her lips. "You know I'm with you no matter what, Bobbi. We both are." The blonde smiled, feeling unnaturally teary as Skye's fingers splayed across her navel. "I hope he looks like you."
"Hey!" Hunter yelped, taking the four steps to reach them. "I'll have you both know my genes would make any child adorable."
"Maybe a little Lance?" Bobbi grinned to Skye. "Like, twelve percent?"
"Maybe a quarter, he does have the hot accent." Skye countered, Hunter made an indignant sound. "So; a baby?" She could feel nerves bubbling in her gut at the prospect.
"He?" Hunter questioned after a minute. "You think it's a boy? You can tell that from your powers?"
"Yeah, he's got male vibrations-no I can't tell that." Skye rolled her eyes, did he think she was psychic or something? "Between the two of you it's gonna be a Hellraiser though and Hellraisers are always boys."
"Yeah, how does that explain you two?" Hunter demanded, "the Devil and the Hellbeast. Pretty sure I'd have noticed if either of you were male."
"How observant of-"
"Guys." Bobbi had extracted herself from between them to check the results on the computer. "Guys, I'm pregnant." She stared at the screen, Skye and Hunter went quiet. "I'm... Pregnant."
Bobbi could feel her irritation rising with every day that went by.
Having a baby was a wonderful thing, she was growing a human life, an entire person was depending solely on her - thank-you Simmons for the hour-long lecture on the miracles of pregnancy and human life.
Having Lance and Skye constantly fussing over her was significantly less wonderful and miraculous. She'd tried to go do her workout the morning after they found out, only to be stopped by English Disapproval at it's height; Lancelot William Hunter! She'd tried to spar with Mack only to have Skye shoo the man out of the gym and glare at her until she left as well.
It was endearing in an annoying sort of way - or annoying in an endearing sort of way, she hadn't decided yet.
Except right now it was more annoying. Coulson had called the three of them into his office for a mission briefing... Where Lance and Skye were currently tag-teaming on reasons why she couldn't go on the mission with actually saying she was pregnant. Bobbi had no doubt in her mind that if it were Skye that was pregnant she'd be doing the same thing, but that didn't make her any happier about it. She also had no doubt that if Skye were pregnant May and Coulson would probably be talking about vitamins and baby names - Lance called them Mama May and Daddy Coulson for a reason.
"Hunter, Morse, Skye." Coulson shot them a look, silencing the two that had been speaking. "One of you tell me what is going on; preferably Morse because this seems to be about you." The request hung in the air, she could feel Skye fidgeting, and she knew Lance wanted to tell. They'd known for three weeks now and had managed to keep it a secret - a miraculous feat in a secret spy base. "Anyone? Unless one of you can give me a valid reason otherwise Morse will be-"
"Bobbi's pregnant." Lance and Skye blurted at the same time, Bobbi sighed and went to sit down.
"Pregnant?" Coulson eyed all three of them. "If this is like last time, Hunter..."
"It's not, there's an actual baby this time." The Englishman insisted.
"Morse?"
"Yeah, I'm pregnant." She felt the same as she had as a child when she'd gone for Summer with her grandparents and she had rainbow hair; a mix of defiance, nerves, and the feeling of being in trouble. "A month and a half, I figure, maybe two months."
"I see." Coulson reached for his phone, pressing a button and brining it to his ear. "Agent Carter will be going with Hunter and Skye. Are you taking vitamins? Never mind, I'll handle it. I take it you've done the blood test to confirm, you should have an ultrasound as well. You're off field duty for the foreseeable future and-" who ever was on the other end of the phone must have answered because Coulson started talking to them instead. Bobbi stared at Lance and Skye in shock. She'd been expecting that was how Coulson and May would react to Skye being pregnant, not her. She wasn't nearly as close to either of them as Skye was, Skye was practically their daughter.
Skye dropped next her on the couch in the Director's office. "What just happened?"
"I think Daddy Coulson just went into Grandpa Coulson mode." Lance shuddered a little as he sat on Bobbi's other side. "Bloody scary."
May came into the office ten minutes later when Coulson was on his third phone call. The woman took one look at the Director, then to the three on the couch. "Pregnant?" Bobbi raised her hand as the other two looked at her pointedly. "Congratulations." One of May's rare I'm-so-proud-and-happy smiles crossed her lips. "Who knows?"
"Everyone in this room and whoever Director Coulson is talking to." May nodded once.
"Melinda is still a good name for a girl..."
For the second time in four years Bobbi found herself stuck in the lab. It wasn't that she hated the lab - she had a Doctorate in Biochemistry after all - but she didn't like being confined to working in the lab - she was also a field Agent/Specialist for a reason - so she quickly found herself bored and increasingly agitated with her new assignment.
Lance and Skye were over-protective enough after finding out she was pregnant. May and Coulson were worse. Because they could actually give her orders. Coulson ordered lab duty, he ordered no vigorous work, no heavy lifting, no anything. May would stand over her and make sure she took her vitamins and other baby-drugs, they'd even restricted her access to the gym and Skye had refused to override the system.
"So productive." Bobbi was snapped out of her thoughts by a voice in the doorway. She stopped her chair from spinning and turned to see Skye smirking at her.
"Well, I could be doing something productive, but I'm not allowed." Bobbi huffed, shooting her a half glare. "You do know I'm not going to break, right?"
"I know." The brunette managed to squeeze herself onto the chair as well and keep any pressure off her stomach. "Doesn't mean someone won't try and break you and our little baby bird. It's dangerous out there."
"You know I can handle it." A gentle kiss to Skye's temple. "And anyway, it's not like anyone would get close to me with you and Lance watching my back."
"I know that in here-" a finger tapped Skye's forehead as a frown formed on her lips. "-but here is having trouble believing." Bobbi could feel the thrumming of Skye's heart under her fingertips when she brought her hand up to feel. "When I was a kid, every time I started to be happy and feel like everything was going good, it'd all disappear, and now I have more than everything I wanted and I'm afraid you'll all just-..."
"We're not going anywhere, Skye." The brunette didn't say anything, just held on tighter - and how the Hell did they both fit on the chair without falling off? - and nuzzled against her neck. "I promise; me, Lance, baby bird, Coulson, May, Fitz, I could list everyone on base, but I think you get the point. None of us leaving you." She felt lips quirk against her neck. "But-" she let out a heavy sigh. The things she did for love. "-if it makes you feel better I'll stay in the lab."
"Really?" Hopeful brown eyes peeked up at her and Bobbi had the distinct feeling she'd just been played.
"Really. But, you have to at least let me work out." She compromised, "nothing dangerous, no sparring with Mack, just pregnancy approved work outs. Deal?"
"Deal."
After they'd finally made the pregnancy public knowledge - around the 14 week mark when Bobbi noticed she had a tiny bump forming - the ultrasound room had become increasingly crowded. Bobbi - because she was the one getting the ultrasound so she had to be there - Lance and Skye - of course they were going to be their, it was as much their kid as it was Bobbi's - Simmons was doing the procedure... May, Coulson, Fitz, Lincoln, Mack, Andrew, no less than three Caterpillar's, Sharon Carter, and for some reason the janitor... Why was the janitor there? Bobbi didn't even know the janitor's name!
"If we're lucky I might be able to tell the sex." Simmons hummed as she powered up the machine. "Do you want to know the sex?" The question was an afterthought to the Englishwoman who clearly did want to know the sex.
"Girl." Hunter spoke at the same time as Skye announced; "Boy."
"Just tell us or they won't stop bickering about it." Bobbi rolled her eyes. Honestly, she hoped they matured by the time the baby was born or she'd be stuck with three children. She loved them, she really did, and they could be the height of maturity when the situation needed it. The situation didn't need it often according to them.
Everyone waited with baited breath as Simmons moved the ultrasound wand across Bobbi's growing bump - a small bump, barely the size of an apple, she could have just eaten a big lunch. Another minute or so passed before Simmons' eyes lit up and she flipped a switch on the machine. A collective sigh of awe sounded through the room as it was filled with the erratic, fast heartbeat of the unborn Hunter/Morse/Johnson.
Simmons moved the wand again and pointed at the screen. "There's the head, and the body, arms and legs."
"Awe, Hunter, she's got your big head." Bobbi teased.
"He." Skye insisted.
"Nope, majority rules, it's a girl." Hunter grinned, still staring in awe at the tiny human forming. "Right, Simmons?" Three - more than three - heads turned to the woman. Her head cocked to one side as she concentrated on the screen, then the other side as she moved the wand.
"It seems..." Simmons hummed, "yes, there it is-" a finger tapped a spot on the screen. "-congratulations, you're having a boy."
Her first excursion off-base after finding out she was pregnant was to visit her parents. They'd told Hunter's mother over Skype that she was going to be a grandmother again, Mrs May - May's mother - had turned up on base one day a week after they found out it was a boy with a little blue knitted onesie. Her parents didn't have a phone though, so telling them they were going to be grandparents would have to be in person.
Not that Bobbi didn't love to see her parents, but it was her first time off the base in five months!
The little tiny bump that she'd had before had also gotten bigger. On a good day before she could pass it off as a big lunch, now it was noticably large. More people look at her stomach - touch her stomach without permission as if it's their right to touch her because she's pregnant - than at her face and it's long past being annoying.
It's not annoying though, when Lance whispers to the baby when he thinks she's asleep, or when Skye insists on sending Morse Code messages to the baby with her vibrations - because hello, Bobbi's name is Morse so the baby has to know Morse Code already - and the baby kicks back as if he really does understand.
After they've told her parents - or more, the second her parents saw her and her nearly 6-months-pregnant stomach - the three of them are sitting in a hammock, rocking in the gentle breeze and Bobbi could really get used to it. No worries, no dangers, just her little family and a house with a yard and a white picket fence. She nearly left S.H.I.E.L.D for it once - so many years ago when she divorced Lance and thought she was pregnant - but now it's real and it could be a real possibility.
"I've been thinking." Skye is the one to talk first.
"Dangerous territory." Lance can't help but mutter, earning a lazy swat to the chest from Bobbi.
"What about white picket fences and dance recitals?" Skye must have been on the same train of thought as Bobbi, the blonde realised. "I mean, we're already halfway there, we've got Baby Bird waiting to hatch..."
"Football, Sweetheart." Lance corrected, "he's gonna be an Arsenal fan."
"Soccer." Bobbi and Skye shot back in sync.
"A house with a yard and a fence, football games, bedtime stories, whatever else you do with babies..." Bobbi rolled her eyes at that.
"I've been looking at houses online if you two want to check them out when we get back to base." Bobbi offered, she could feel eyes on her - two pairs of eyes staring at her because she'd never said anything about looking at houses - and a sharp kick to her spleen. "I just-" a slow breath out through her nose as she tried to articulate her thoughts. "I don't want to leave SHIELD. Not completely. And I'm not saying I won't eventually go back into the field, but... Some distance would be okay. We could be less of a work team, more of a family."
"Family." Skye echoed wistfully.
"I swear to God, Lance Hunter, if you ever knock me up again I will rip your balls off and shove them down your throat." Bobbi hissed, the Englishman in question flinched back and whimpered. The blonde had enough to glare at him before the need to vomit overcame her and she had to return her head to the toilet.
"Looks like you're having the next one then, Sweetheat." Lance muttered to Skye who had taken over holding Bobbi's hair back once the threats had started.
Skye didn't argue.
By the time Bobbi reached eight months they had managed to agree on a house and put an offer in to buy it, but the OBGYN - that Coulson and May had managed to find, brief and put through Orientation - had put Bobbi on bed rest before they could even think about moving, insisting that her diminished lung capacity was a high risk factor.
Bobbi Morse on bed rest was a recipe for disaster!
There had been threats, yelling, pleading, some tears... And that was from Lance! In the end though, all it took was four words from the OBGYN; For the baby's safety, and Bobbi had grumbled her way into bed, she'd complained, but she hadn't argued since that.
"If you aren't back for the birth of your son I will murder you."
Bobbi went into labour when Skye was on a mission with the Caterpillar's half the world away, two weeks before her due date. The message had been left on Skye's cell phone and had been accompanied by May and Mrs May on a Quinn-jet to pick her up.
Wrangling the Caterpillar's onto the plane had been a lot harder than it usually was once they found out Bobbi was in labour. Lincoln assured her that first labour's were usually long and with the speed of the Quinn-jet and May's flying they might actually make it on time.
Except they didn't go straight from Istanbul to the Playground which infuriated and frustrated Skye to no end. Did May not understand that her son - effectively May's own grandson - was about to be born? Mrs May just humphed and knitted the entire flight to England.
Skye didn't know Mrs May was the knitting type, but it looked to be another little blue onesie for the baby so she didn't say anything.
"Nervous?" Mrs Hunter guessed as she watched Skye pace through the small plane. Skye didn't answer, just kept moving, because if she was moving, wouldn't it get her to Bobbi and Lance and their little baby bird sooner? "I was nervous too; before I had Lucy I cleaned the whole house and roasted a chicken to keep my mind off it." Skye paused and cracked half a smile.
"My Mom cleaned too." It felt weird to talk about her mother as if she weren't a genocidal psychopath. "And my Dad, Cal, he didn't speak Chinese and it was the middle of the night when he went to try and borrow the only car in the village from a neighbour. He says he got the message through, but I'm pretty sure he stole the car."
"Melinda was impatient." Mrs May came to the back of the plane from the cockpit, still knitting - it was starting to get unnerving. "Two weeks early, just like this one." Skye forced herself to sit and listen. "I was doing mission reports and William insisted I go to the hospital instead of finishing them."
Maria Hill arrived at the Playground with Bobbi's parents at the same time that the May's the Caterpillar's and Skye got back, demanding to know why she had received a desperate call from Coulson to pick up a pair of hippies and bring them to the base. Skye had just raced by in her eagerness to get to the medical wing.
"Finally!" Lance looked wide-eyed and pale when Skye finally made it. And they all thought if anyone was going to miss the birth it would have been him! "Took you long enough, Doctor Lady-Parts says it's almost time to push." At that Skye had to hold onto Lance to keep herself upright as they made their way to Bobbi's bed.
Birth was messy!
And painful!
And exhausting!
And if Lance and Skye thought she was going to be doing it again any time soon they were sorely mistake, Bobbi decided between pushes. She also told them that. Loudly. With gratuitous amounts of swearing thrown in just to get her point across.
And so very much worth it.
A tiny, screaming, bloody, red thing was placed gently in her arms and she stared in wonder at it. A hush descended and the little red thing quieted for a moment as if realising he was the center of attention.
"Hi." Bobbi marvelled at the little thing in her arms before it was taken away for cleaning and weighing and measuring - and couldn't they see that she just wanted her little screaming, red thing back?
The afterbirth was messy too.
"Hey, Baby Bird." Bobbi was exhausted, but she couldn't take her eyes of the little baby in her arms - she just went through fourteen hours of labour, she got holding rights for the rest of his life was her argument. "This is Mommy." The baby blinked lazily as he was tilted to face Skye who reached out to stroke his tiny cheek with her finger. "I'm your Mama, and this is Daddy." Lance looked close to tears - again - as the three of them cooed over the baby.
They were alone for now, but it would be long until people were knocking on the door, demanding to see the baby.
"We should name him." Skye realised when the baby had fallen asleep - being born was tiring apparently.
"Calvin." Bobbi murmured, chancing a glance up from the baby to look at Skye's face. "I was thinking of Calvin Antoine." Skye's breath caught and this time she looked close to tears.
"Morse, Hunter or Johnson?" Lance hummed, a finger gliding over tiny baby knuckles.
"Morse-Hunter, hyphenated." Skye shook her head. Not Johnson because she wasn't a Johnson - she technically still didn't have a last name - but this little blue blanket full of adorable would be a Morse and Hunter and he already had part of her in his name - her father and her Trip. "Calvin Antoine Morse-Hunter." The baby snuffled in his sleep in response and it made all three of them coo.
"Such a big name for such a little guy." Bobbi smiled, bringing the baby up to kiss and God if the scent of new-born baby wasn't the best thing in the world she didn't know what was. "Isn't that right, Calvin?"
Lance was the second one to hold Calvin - claiming that he got second dibs because he did half the work in creating him. Bobbi would have hit him for that, but he was holding the baby.
Skye is holding him when they give the Doctor okay to let the others in. It's meant to be small visits of ones and twos, but everyone seems to flood in at once.
For so many people in the small room they make almost no sound as they crowd around Skye and the baby and coo as if they aren't a room of spies in a super secret spy base.
May is the one to hold the baby first, smiling down at him with softest expression any of them had seen in years, she mutters something about 'too young to be a grandmother'. Mrs May doesn't hold the baby, but Skye swears she sees the older woman smile at little Calvin. Mr. May does hold the baby and it takes Skye a moment to realise it's the first time she's actually seen May's Dad - her hour-old baby met May's father before she did!
Coulson looks like he might cry, Simmons is crying, Lincoln holds the baby whilst the rest of Caterpillar's huddle around him and fawn over him, Mack congratulates the three parents still in/by the bed. Mrs Hunter holds her fourth grandchild, Bobbi's parents say he has a strong aura.
Sharon tears up when they ask her to be Godmother.
Fitz is holding Calvin nervously and her sniffs a little - allergies, he insisted - when they ask him to be Godfather.
The end of an era, the final installment of Like A Stain (who would have thought all this would come from listening to Ashley Tisdale and reading Soulmate fics?
Hope you guys enjoyed it (even with all the pauses and delays and the disjointed writing).
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