Author's note: Thank you to ZabuzasGirl, Cloudcity'sBookworm, Bamboooozled, Jinxofthe2ndLaw, NotMarge, NicoleR85, SA Jedi DC of Marvel, DonJuan'73, PlaceOfDreamsAndNightmares, partygirl98, Shelllee24, anonymouscsifan, Rasha007, kmj1989, Guest(s), musicjunkie1996, and Torchwhovian for the reviews! You guys are so awesome! Phew! All of you are so excited for these babies, I really hope I don't let you guys down.
Little disclaimer: I've never been pregnant, and I've never even been in a birthing room as moral support or whatever. Like, I think I've been to one baby shower in my entire adult life. I did my best to research though, specifically how things were back then. Did you know that it wasn't until the mid-1970's that fathers were even allowed in the delivery room? Hard to imagine nowadays.
I finished What Could Be, if anyone wants to check that out. Thank you to NotMarge, Rasha007, and kmj1989 for the reviews on that! I've also started work on the Zoey POV chapters! It won't be a fluid story like this, though. It'll be a series of one-shots from certain pivotal scenes- scenes like when Hank tells her about his feral side for the first time, or when he shows her Beast and asks her to marry him. That sort of thing. I hope some of you will take the time to read those, too!
Only two more chapters after this one- one set in 1974 still, and the next an epilogue set in 1981. I'm so sad, dear readers... But first, here it is: baby time. I hope it doesn't disappoint!
Perfect
I stumbled to Zoey's side, unable to take my eyes off her pale, clammy face. It looked like she'd just gone through a contraction.
There was a small bowl of water with a sponge in it at her bedside, so I immediately grabbed it and started dabbing at her forehead.
"How're you feeling?" I asked anxiously. "How far apart are your contractions? How dilated are you? Have they checked the heartbeats?"
Yeah, I did the new daddy homework.
"Zoey, I'm so sorry!"
I turned to the nurse, who was now surrounded by the paperwork on the floor and watching me with no small amount of bewilderment.
I suppose I couldn't blame her- a big blue monster covered in blood had just burst into the room and started to hover over her patient like a gigantic furry butterfly.
"Sorry about frightening you, ma'am," I said, "but how-?"
"Hank, darling, I'm fine. Everything's fine," Zoey interjected, pulling my attention back to her. "Are you ok? I was so afraid- I saw you get shot-"
"I'm fine," I promised, brushing my hand across her cheek. "I'm healing right up. It'll take more than that to get rid of me, my love."
She let out a deep, shuddering sigh of relief and pulled me closer by the collar to cover my face with kisses.
"Don't you ever do that to me again!" she scolded, shaking me slightly. "You scared me to death!"
The rebuke was softened by another kiss.
"Yes, ma'am," I demurred. "I'm so sorry, Zoey. I feel awful for-"
"Before you beat yourself up too much, apparently I was already in labor when you left this morning. Remember how much my back hurt?" Zoey reminded me. "Seeing that just... sped up the process, really."
"What-?"
Just then she let out a small cry. Her face screwed up with pain as a contraction wracked through her body.
My question completely flew out of my head.
What do I do? What do I do?
The only thing I could think of was to grab Zoey's hand and let her try to squeeze the life out of mine as she rode out the pain, her breath coming in gasps.
"It's time to push," the nurse announced crisply, going for the call button.
It's time already? Oh, my stars and garters.
It did not escape me that my view of "already" was actually several painful hours in on this process for Zoey. It made me feel terrible about my eleventh hour arrival.
"That's some impeccable timing you have, Dr. McCoy," Zoey joked weakly as the nurse began to bustle around, echoing my thoughts. "Where's Marcy?"
"In the waiting room," I replied. "Do you want me to-?"
She grasped my hand tightly and looked slightly panicked. "No! Don't leave!"
"Ok, ok," I assured her, squeezing gently. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Would you like a chair, Dr. McCoy?" the middle-aged nurse- Nurse Jackson, according to her name tag- asked politely.
Until she mentioned it I hadn't even realized I'd actually been kneeling next to Zoey's hospital bed this entire time.
"Yes, please," I accepted sheepishly, clambering to my feet.
Nurse Jackson gave me an amused smile as she slid a chair over.
Now that she'd gotten over the shock of me barging in unannounced she seemed to find my frazzled demeanor to be rather funny. It made me wonder how often fathers made panicked runs into the birthing room nowadays. Did it happen on a regular basis?
Wait. Focus.
"Thank you," I told her gratefully, sitting down.
Another contraction hit Zoey then.
She squeezed my hand and looked at me with pain-filled eyes as I hovered uselessly at her side, desperately trying to think of words of comfort and encouragement while I sponged at her face with my free hand.
What could I even say to her? "Just breathe?"
I wouldn't blame Zoey at all for smacking me upside the head for such a trite, unhelpful comment.
"Just breathe?"
Right, like she was holding her breath until I got around to reminding her.
Twenty-nine years of life and a Ph.D. and that's all you can think of? Try harder, McCoy.
"You can do this, sweetheart. You're so brave and beautiful," I babbled, kissing the fingers clenched around mine. "You're strong, Zoey. You can do anything. Don't fight it, love, just ride it out-"
I kept prattling on while more nurses entered the room and set everything up, barely noticing the askance glances I was getting. I just concentrated on Zoey, who in turn focused on me.
Her eyes bored into mine, even as the contractions began to come in waves.
"-You know, sometimes I feel like any moment I'm going to wake up and discover all of this has been a dream," I told her. "You still feel too good to be true, like you're my own personal miracle. You're the most incredibly amazing person I've ever met, but you've loved me and now you're the mother of my children and- thank you, for everything. I love you so much, Zoey. I know you can-"
"I'm here, I'm here. I got distracted out there," Marceline's voice suddenly said. "I'm so sorry, ma petite."
I glanced up and saw Zoey's godmother come bustling in, ducking around the nurses with an agility that belied her age. She took up her post on my wife's other side while the nurses placed Zoey's legs in a better position and adjusted her gown.
"Mrs. Xavier was saying the metal man and the blue woman who shot Hank were arrested!"
"No one got a shot off on Mystique?" Zoey muttered sardonically. "There went my good vibe."
I snorted. Even with the amount of pain she was in, my wife definitely still had her sense of humor.
Dr. Stevenson breezed into the room then, and suddenly the idea that we were about to greet our twins for the first time started to feel very, very real.
I really should've gone to the bathroom before this.
"Alright, Dr. McCoy, it's time to have some babies," Dr. Stevenson said brightly, ducking between my wife's legs. "Now I need you to really push when you feel the next contraction, ok?"
Zoey's nod was cut off by another contraction.
"Push!"
Her eyes squeezed shut as she pushed with all her might. Zoey gritted her teeth and let out a strangled cry as her hands clenched mine and Marceline's.
"Scream if you want to, ma petite," Marceline said encouragingly. "Anything that helps."
She's a screamer all right. I mean, that's kinda how we got here...
Ok, maybe that's not the best thought to have right now.
"You can do it, darling," I told her. "Just keep going-"
"Again!"
And so it went, on and on until I started to wonder if Zoey, with her narrow hips and petite frame, was going to be able to deliver the way she wanted to. The longer we didn't progress, the more likely she or the twins could be hurt. That was a risk I simply couldn't tolerate.
I was just about to suggest a cesarean in desperation when the doctor announced, "I see the head! One more good push, Dr. McCoy, come on-"
Zoey did scream this time as the baby crowned and she gave one great big push.
And then-
"Well done, well done," the doctor told her. "It's a boy. That's one down-"
An infantile cry filled the room, causing my heart to leap into my throat.
We have a son. Oh, Zoey, we have a son!
And our son was a very healthy baby boy, if the volume of his screams was anything to go by. Suddenly I had hopes that the premature birth wouldn't have any negative effects on Zoey or the twins.
Please, let all three of them make it through this.
I glanced away from Zoey's face just in time to catch a flash of blue- blue, the same color as my fur- as a nurse whisked our newborn son over to an incubator to thoroughly check him over.
No, bring him back! We want to see him!
It was severely tempting to go see my child right then, but I knew we weren't done quite yet. We still had another baby to deliver.
"You're doing so well, sweetheart. Now you're halfway there," I said bracingly. "One more time, Zoey, you can do it-"
It took another agonizing ten minutes before the second baby crowned.
"Alright, give me one more big push, come on," Dr. Stevenson encouraged. "The head's right- there we go!"
And a second cry joined the first.
"Another boy! Congratulations to you both."
My wife, trembling from her efforts, fell back against her hospital bed like all of her bones had suddenly gone on vacation.
"You did it, cher," Marceline cheered triumphantly. "Oh, Zoey, I'm so proud of you!"
Zoey gave her a wan smile in reply before turning her head towards me. She was exhausted, pale, sweaty- and absolutely beautiful in my eyes.
I brushed a limp curl back from her precious face and leaned in to give her an ardent kiss.
"You're amazing," I whispered fervently. "I love you so much, Zoey."
"I love you, Hank," she replied, smiling. Her eyes glowed at me and wrapped me in her warmth, even through her fatigue. "Could you-?"
She gestured weakly towards the incubators where the nurses were still hovering over our sons.
"Please?"
I nodded (trying not to seem too eager to leave her side) and kissed the back of her hand before I stood and started to loiter unhelpfully behind the nurses, trying to peer over their heads.
Nurse Jackson caught onto my curiosity almost immediately.
"Congratulations, Dr. McCoy," she said warmly.
I grinned stupidly. "Thank you. Are they-?"
"So far, so good. Here-"
She shooed another nurse out of the way, giving me my first good look at our Beast-spawn sea monkey babies.
Our sons.
I'm a father. I'm a father!
My heart melted- suddenly I found myself falling in love all over again.
"Zoey," I said. "Oh, sweetheart- they're perfect."
Perfect.
Not "normal," by any means, but our twins were perfect all the same.
For all my fears of passing on my mutation to my children, the moment I saw my sons laying there I knew that I wouldn't have them any other way but exactly what they were.
A piece of Zoey and myself, our love personified.
Both of them had full heads of bright blue hair. The color contrasted almost comically against the presently purplish-pink of their bare skin, still discolored from the womb. Each baby had adorably chubby cheeks and dimpled little hands, currently flailing about as they voiced their displeasure with their current circumstances in screams that could raise the dead.
They were identical. Both tiny, but otherwise healthy.
And both had a full complement of ten monkey-toes.