Twenty-Four Little Hours
Part Four
"I can feel the baby moving, Warren," I say, looking across at my husband from my side of the bed. Guiding his hand gently towards the place where I can feel my child kicking, I can feel his sense of wonder as his hand brushes against my skin. His eyes light up as he feels the tiny feet of my baby pushing against the inside of my belly, and his thoughts reflect his pride and his pleasure at being able to be a part of what's happening right at this moment.
"Energetic little thing, isn't it?" he says in a tone laced with hushed wonder, his blue fingers running gingerly over the slightly distended surface of my stomach (one of the disadvantages of leaving morning sickness behind – along with the rest of my first trimester – is the fact that I am slowly, and inexorably, moving towards having what can kindly be described as a beached-whale figure. I'm not quite there yet, but I don't think it will be too long before that happens…). "If it keeps this up, I think teaching the kid how to play baseball ought to be a lot of fun, don't you?"
I raise my eyebrows and regard Warren with a somewhat amused air. "And what if the baby's a girl, Warren? Or hadn't that notion occurred to you?"
"Hey, if the kid's a girl, I'll teach her to play ball anyway. Equal opportunities all the way, right?" Warren chuckles. "I'm sure I can turn any little girl into a pro ball-player with a few years' practice, after all."
"Touché," I reply, a little taken aback by my husband's attitude. He laughs at my reaction, his blue eyes glistening in the morning's half-light, and then he lies flat against the head-board of our bed, folding his arms behind his head and smiling contentedly.
"I like surprising you, Betsy," he says in triumph. "Proves to me that you and I have a relatively normal relationship, I guess." He shrugs, momentarily, and then smiles again, a little more thoughtfully this time. "Well, what passes for a relatively normal relationship around this place, anyway. At least you and I haven't been replaced by robots or aliens or snake-men from the planet Hallelujah…"
That makes me laugh as a flash of memory sparks in my mind, and ignites a recollection of a past event that still holds a special place in my heart, even today. "Didn't we have this conversation on our first date, Warren?" I ask him, knowing the answer even before the words are fully formed. Warren's expression indicates he knows precisely what I'm referring to, and he gestures towards the window of our room with an extended thumb.
"You want to relive that all the way?" he asks, a large grin swathing his face like a brightly coloured flag. "I'm sure we'll be allowed back into that restaurant after all this time, don't you?" His grin widens, and he winks at me. "Go on, Betsy. Let's make it my treat for tonight." He thumbs towards the dark jacket that he has folded over the chair at his bedside, and says "I'll bet you a hundred bucks my wallet wants some release, after all."
"Now I remember why I married you, you generous hunk of man, you," I tell him, pushing out my lips in a slight pout and running my hands through his hair, before kissing him tenderly on the mouth. "Just don't ask me to drink as much as I did then – I have baby to think about now, after all, and I don't think they'd react well to that much white wine." Falling silent for a second, I glance towards the door of our room and bite my lip, as if I have suddenly had a heavy weight placed on my shoulders. "Which reminds me, Warren – I have to have this week's check-up and ultrasound scan today. Hank asked me last time if I was ready to know what sex the baby was, and I said that I wanted to wait until today, so that you could be here." Pausing, I look back at Warren and slip my hand into his palm, once again forging a physical bond between us – a bond that has been so reassuring to me in the past few months. "That is… unless you'd rather be surprised."
Warren raises his eyebrows and exhales gently before replying in a calm and focused tone. "I don't like surprises," he says firmly. "I'd like to be there – for as long as Hank thinks I'm not getting in the way, anyway." He brings my hand up to his lips and kisses it resolutely. "Should give me five minutes, at least, right?" Sitting up and flipping his side of the covers off his legs, he plants both his feet firmly on the floor of our bedroom and stands to his full height, stretching and easing out some lingering tension in his body. Then, he crosses the carpet to his chest of drawers and picks out a pair of his favourite socks. Turning back to me and waggling them between thumb and forefinger, he says "I think a special occasion like this calls for my Hong Kong Phooey socks, don't you?"
"Oh, absolutely," I agree, trying to stifle a giggle. "I don't think anything else will do." Pushing my side of the covers away, I stand as well, feeling my child protest a little at being moved so abruptly (even at this stage in its life, it seems my baby has developed a keen sense of what it does and doesn't like. I can occasionally sense its thoughts expressing fuzzy, unfocused distaste at overly-fast movement, or contentment when the two of us are at rest), my nightshirt pulling slightly more taut over my stomach than I'd like it to. Stretching, I feel the warmth of the early morning sun, as it flows through our room's curtains like liquid gold. I close my eyes and bask in its refreshing glow, turning a slow circle on the spot, my arms outstretched and my head tipped back, my hair cascading down my back in waves. It feels so needlessly extravagant to do such a thing, but at this moment in time, I couldn't care less. A laugh – a happy, carefree laugh, something that's a lot rarer than I'd like it to be – erupts from my throat, and I raise my hands to my head, sweeping my fingers through my blonde locks to ease out the night's disarray. A patina of sleep still clings insistently to the inside of my head, and I rub my eyes a little to dislodge it, feeling energy flowing slowly into my limbs and my brain. As I do so, my hair falls down around my face, framing my eyes in two lengthy blonde curtains – which makes Warren stop in his tracks, just as he is picking his shower robe off its hook.
"If I had a camera," he says in a mock-reverent tone, "I'd take a picture of you right now." He reinforces that idea by forming a square with the thumb and forefinger of each hand and framing my face inside it. "I wouldn't want anybody else to miss something this cute, after all."
"I'm sure you wouldn't, Warren," I reply, a little self-consciously, my cheeks flushing crimson at the very thought, "but however would you get the film developed with your hands tied to your wing-muscles?"
Warren rolls the notion around in his head for a second or two, flashes of perceived excruciating pain pattering against the surface of my mind, and then he shrugs. "Okay, honey – have it your way. This time." Then he points a cocked index finger at me as if it is the barrel of a gun. "The next time I want to take a picture like that, I just won't tell you."
I shake my head, a slow smile creeping across my lips, and then I slide myself into Warren's arms, my hands folding themselves around his waist as far as they will go and my swollen belly pushing against his muscular stomach. "I hate you," I whisper in his ear, before trailing kisses down his cheek and across his lips.
"I know. I hate you too," Warren laughs, and returns my kisses before he shrugs himself into his robe, his wings slipping through the special slits over his shoulder blades, and the soft towelling of the robe falling down to his ankles. "I'm going to go for a shower now," he says quietly, thumbing towards the door with his left hand. "I'll try not to use up all the hot water before you can get in; I don't want our kid freezing to death in there, after all."
"Your concern for the two of us is touching," I say, raising an eyebrow. "What about your wife? I don't really want to end up with icicles hanging off my earlobes either, but do I get a whisper of concern from you? I don't think so." Standing with my hands on my hips, I affect an air of indignation and annoyance for a moment or two, my chin pushed out and my eyes twin chunks of cold diamond. Then my expression softens and I continue "Thank you, Warren. Could you stay near the shower until I'm finished? I don't really want to slip and fall – not with baby this developed, anyway."
Warren nods. "Sure, Betsy; I know the drill. You just holler when you're done, and we'll see what I can do."
"You're a star, darling. That makes both of us feel a lot more secure," I tell him as I pat my abdomen with one hand, in an almost whimsical fashion. "Come on – we'd better get that bathroom claimed between the two of us, before Remy or Bobby decides to set up home in there for the next half an hour…"
"There you go, sweetheart. No slip-ups," Warren says, slipping a bare arm around my waist as I step out of the shower, so as to make sure that I don't lose my footing on the tiled floor of the bathroom. "Satisfaction guaranteed."
"I suppose I had better take what I can get," I tell him, finding my robe with one hand and then slipping it around my shoulders, tying the cord around my bump with a slight amount of difficulty (at this point, it's getting hard to find enough spare cord to tie knots with. I dread to think what it'll be like when I'm nearing full-term…). "I don't get much satisfaction anywhere else, after all."
"You liar – I don't think you've ever been more satisfied than when you've been with me," Warren laughs, giving me a knowing look through his gorgeous, half-lidded azure eyes. He nuzzles my neck, finding the pulse of life at my throat with his mouth, and runs his fingers through my wet hair, almost effortlessly soothing out most of the tangles and knots that still linger there. "What else do you want me to do, lay a carpet of feathers for you?"
"That would be nice," I say. "Thank you, Warren. Shall I pluck your wings, or will you do it yourself?"
"Oh, go pluck yourself," Warren retorts, a large grin spreading across his face before he flushes in embarrassment as I give him my best disdainful expression, and says "Hey, it was the best I could come up with at short notice – I'm not Bobby, you know."
"And we're all very grateful for that. Having two Bobbies around would be unbearable." Finding a comb at the side of the basin, I start to give more of a sense of order to my hair, teasing out a couple of left-over knots and rinsing the comb of some remaining drops of conditioner. "I don't think we'd ever get any peace."
"I hear that," Warren agrees, tying a towel around his waist and draping his towel around his neck, before taking the comb from my hand and adjusting his damp hair, so that it no longer looks like a wet thatch of broken straw, and instead has the sense of order that Warren demands of everything in his life, including himself (and me, sometimes… but I've forgiven him for that. Mostly). He wipes the comb dry and then puts it back in its sculpted holder beside the basin, the grinning visage of Mickey Mouse emblazoned on the cup's side doing nothing to acknowledge him as he does so. Then, he moves ahead of me so that he can hold the door open, allowing me to pass through into the corridor. Downstairs, I can hear the clamour of the others as they all pile into the kitchen to get their breakfasts over and done with (before they can fight all over again for the right to use the bathroom before anybody else, naturally), and I can hear the clatter of dishes and plates being moved at high speed from the sink and the cupboards where the cutlery is usually kept. Warren smiles as he hears it as well, and sighs. "Just another day in paradise…" he muses cheerfully, before walking across the landing towards the door of our room and holding it open for me.
"Isn't it wonderful?" I say, revelling in the positive emotions that I can sense from downstairs. The carpet feels warm beneath my feet as I walk at a leisurely pace across it, the bright shafts of sunlight coming in from the skylight set into the roof heating the fabric to a pleasant temperature – one that almost makes me reluctant to stray too far from where I'm standing, in fact. To my left, I can hear a commotion from below as Bobby and Emma run frantically towards the stairs, eager to get into the bathroom before anybody else, their thoughts betraying their intentions. "The hot water's almost used up. You'll have to take turns," I call to them without turning my head, instantly feeling a feeling of crushing disappointment from Bobby and a sense of seething indignation from Emma.
Yes, I know it was mean, but I'm feeling particularly naughty this morning…
When Warren and I have closed the door of our bedroom behind us, I untie the cords of my robe, hanging it back on the leftmost of the hooks that have been screwed onto the door's inner surface, and quickly find a bra and some panties – as well as some more appropriate clothing – after towelling myself off a little more. The added pressures of my bump have meant that I can't wear certain items of clothing for the moment, so I've taken to wearing trousers with elastic waistbands and tops that can also stretch accordingly. I don't particularly want to start wearing tent-like maternity dresses, since I remember thinking (when I was about seven or eight, and just starting to realise where babies came from) that nobody would ever get me into one of those – not for love nor money – and I intend to keep that promise to myself, no matter what the others may think.
Rummaging around in my chest of drawers with both hands, I manage to find an acceptable pair of trousers and a large t-shirt that can easily accommodate my expanding figure. Emblazoned on the front of it is a picture of Garfield slumped motionless on his belly, with the caption "I'm tired of being bored. I think I'll make a lateral move to self-pity" traced below his pudgy orange and black bulk in thin black letters. Slipping it over my head, I slide both arms into the t-shirt's sleeves and admire myself in the mirror for a moment or so, before tying my hair back with a brightly tiger-striped purple-and-black hairband. Then, I pull the loose trousers up around my waist, feeling the elastic in the waistband pinch a little as it settles around my bump, before both it and I adjust. Sitting down on our bed, I put on a pair of my low-heeled trainers and tie the laces tightly, wriggling my toes inside the shoes to help get my feet comfortable. When I'm satisfied that I will be able to walk properly, I stand and test them out with a few experimental steps, feeling the soles give slightly under my weight, and then pace towards the door. Turning back towards Warren, who has dressed himself in a loose red shirt and some designer jeans, along with some pristine boots, I nod towards the door.
"Ready to enter the lion's den?" I ask him nonchalantly.
"As I'll ever be," Warren says with not a little amount of trepidation.
Downstairs, the kitchen is a picture of perfectly-refined chaos. Hank is flipping pieces of buttered toast up into the air and catching them in his fanged jaws as they fall, muttering to himself about how to get a piece to land butter-side-up, Rogue is shouting at Bobby for "accidentally" icing up her cereal (ignoring Jenny's efforts to play peacemaker, naturally), Joseph is curiously testing the tensile limits of several pieces of metal cutlery which he has levitated from their drawer (creating bent and twisted lumps of metal and plastic that hang forlornly in the air until he sees fit to return them to their original shape), and Remy is trying, evidently without much success, to scrape out the remains of an omelette from the pan he was apparently cooking with a few moments before.
However, all of that stops as Warren and I walk into the kitchen, and all eyes focus on me. I must admit, for a girl who was always the centre of whatever she involved herself in, whether it was as a child, a model, or a special agent of STRIKE, all this attention makes me a little bemused, but also a little flattered – I don't consider all of the people living under this roof my friends (not in the same way that I consider Logan and Warren my friends, anyway), but they are all still fascinated by the baby growing within me. In a way, my unborn child has served as a way to unify this house regardless of petty differences and disagreements, and somehow, I find that gratifying.
"Betsy!" Hank exclaims. "How are you feeling this felicitous morn?"
"Good enough, I suppose," I say, finding myself a bowl and pouring myself a healthy amount of corn flakes, before dousing them in milk and taking a mouthful. "Didn't sleep very well, but that's to be expected."
"I suppose it is," Hank ponders. "You will show up hale and hearty for your check-up this morning, I trust?"
"Wouldn't miss it for the world, Doc," Warren answers for me, while I'm taking another decidedly un-ladylike slurp from my spoon. Hank draws his lips back over his teeth in a satisfied grin, and picks up his edition of the New York Times.
"Good," he says, while he is perusing the story on the front page. "I'll see you at eleven o'clock, then." Pushing his glasses up his nose with a clawed forefinger, he quickly becomes absorbed in the prose of the report, and his thoughts show that he is completely oblivious to everything except the perceived misdeeds of the President. I decide to leave him to it, and dip my spoon back into my bowl to capture another load of milk and cornflakes.
As I do so, Joseph lets all the spoons he was playing with float back into the cutlery drawer, their shape returned to normal, and then he crosses the kitchen to sit next to Warren and me. Apprehensively, he says "I know… I have not spoken to you about this before, Elisabeth, but… I'm curious. What does it feel like to be a parent?" He intercepts my reply with a raised hand, as if he knows precisely what I'm going to say. "Yes, I know I'm supposed to have two children of my own, but I am around the same age as Pietro and Wanda are now, and I have no memory of either of them as children. Tell me what it feels like to know you have created a life." He turns his ice-blue eyes away from me and plays awkwardly with a lock of long white hair that has fallen down around his face, before folding his hands across the top of the table, knots clearly visible in the knuckles and along the backs of his palms. "Please. I just… want to know how it feels. I know so little about what and who I am, that anything is preferable to that ignorance."
Looking towards Warren for a moment (who, by the looks of things, is just as dumbstruck as I am), I have to take a few deep breaths before I can say anything. When I do, I try to make sure that my words are well-chosen. "Well, Joseph… I can't speak for every parent, but… when I found out I was pregnant, I was scared – I was so scared that I wouldn't make a good mother, that I wouldn't be able to look after this baby as well as it deserved. But after a little while, I felt… I felt grateful. I felt that whatever else I was, I was blessed for being able to have this baby – and I felt that this baby was a gift; a precious gift."
Warren nods, and folds his hand over mine. "Yeah. Thing is, Joe, you never really expect these things to happen, but when they do… man, do they ever hit you right between the eyes. All you can really do is promise yourself that you'll do your best." He pauses, to clear his throat slightly, and then opens his mouth to speak again. "But you know, once you get used to the idea, it's the greatest feeling in the world." His white teeth flash against his blue lips briefly, as if he has just remembered something fantastic, and he snaps his fingers, adding "If you want a better explanation, I think your son might be able to help you out better than we can – at least he's lived with a kid for longer than we have. Besides, your grand-daughter Luna probably misses her grandpa, too – so you've got no excuses."
Joseph's normally impassive, innocent features contort for a moment or so, confusion and indecision flowing across them, and then he smiles resignedly. "I was afraid you might say that. Pietro will be furious, won't he?"
"Oh, I think you're being paranoid, Joseph," I tell him. "I'm sure Luna will be pleased to see you. Children are very forgiving."
"I'll have to take your word for that," Joseph says, sounding slightly unconvinced – but a little more cheerful than before, which I count as a success.
I think my point about my child becoming a way of bringing people together seems to have been borne out once again, and that makes me pleased, in an odd kind of way.
*
Eleven o'clock arrives more quickly than I'd expected, and before long I am lying on the long bed in the med-lab, my t-shirt pulled up over my bump and Hank poised over me with a tub of jelly, which he is smearing on my belly with three fingers. Alongside the bed are Warren, Brian and Meggan (the latter two having managed to rouse themselves from a fitful slumber, after a night of "interpretative theatre" in the Village). The cold jelly makes me shiver slightly, despite my being used to it at this point (without it, the hand-held ultrasound unit would not be able to move so fluidly across my belly, in order to get a decent, smooth picture feed).
"You know, Elisabeth, we could always use the Shi'Ar scanner if you wanted," Hank suggests, somewhat redundantly.
"No," I say, determination heavy in my voice. "I want this to be as normal as possible. If you want to use the scanner after we do this, then that's fine, but… just let me have this for now, please, Hank?"
"Very well," Hank relents. "What my favourite patient wants, my favourite patient gets, I suppose. We can forge ahead with the scanner once this is finished; that will give us a more detailed read-out of what the baby is doing in there – it will even, I would wager, give us a fairly accurate impression of which book the baby is reading at the moment."
"If the baby's anything like Warren, it'll be reading a comic book," I murmur, feeling the ultrasound unit slip over the swollen curves of my stomach, the cold gel easily facilitating its movement. "Or the Wall Street Journal."
"Nice save," Warren says wryly, his hand firmly ensconced in my palm. "If you'd said anything else, I'd have divorced you right there."
Before I can say anything in response, Brian points to the image of my child on the ultrasound's display and says "What's that?"
"That, good Captain, is the baby's spine and its lower chest," Hank replies calmly, still swirling the ultrasound unit around on my stomach so that I can get a full picture of what my baby will look like. "And if you look here –" and he points to the image of the lower half of the baby's body "– you can see what sex the child will be." Glancing at Warren and me, he says "Would you like to know now? I'll understand if you've changed your mind."
"Anybody object to knowing?" Warren asks out loud.
After a few moments, Hank nods, and says "Very well. Betsy, you and Warren will soon be parents, and Brian and Meggan the uncle and aunt, of a happy, healthy baby boy."
"A… boy?" Warren says, sounding slightly shell-shocked. "We're having a boy?"
"Undoubtedly," Hank tells him, adjusting a few of the controls on the ultrasound's console. "Better start thinking of those masculine names, old buddy."
Warren turns away from Hank, and his eyes rise to meet my gaze. Inside them I can see such an intense gratitude and relief that it seems impossible to fathom, before he hugs me to him and kisses me ecstatically on the cheek. "We have a son," he whispers to me, his voice small and full of wonder. "We have a son."
It's at that point that I feel my brother and sister-in-law begin to quietly move towards the door of the med-lab, as if they want to give Warren and me some space. Reaching out with both of my hands, I call out to them "Stay. Please stay." For a moment or so, I can feel their indecision, but in a moment or so they return to their seats, each of them taking one of my hands and squeezing gently.
With my family together like this, even for only an instant, the world suddenly seems a smaller place, and for once I'm grateful for that.