Act Two of the Night of Updates! This one was requested by one of my readers who wanted a ficlet about life after marriage for our favorite ship. So here's my take on it, I hope my reader likes it! And I hope that the rest of you like it, too. It's kind of long but it's sweet, with lots of humor and lots of fluff. Have fun!
Disclaimer: I'm not going to bother with the disclaimer right now. They depress me and make me schizophrenic.
I guess we're big and I guess we're small
If you think about it man you know we got it all
Cause we're all we got on this bouncing ball
And I love you free
I love you freely
Here's a riddle for you
Find the Answer
There's a reason for the world
You and I...
-The Riddle, Five for Fighting
Jinx
"Oooh!"
Ahh, shit. Please, not yet…
Careful not to wake my husband of 1 ½ years up, I flip on the light on the nightstand and take a peep under the covers, which are soaking wet. Shit.
I force myself to wriggle away from under Wally's muscular arm and pull myself out of bed, going to the drawer and pulling on his drawstring sweatpants.
As I do so, Wally lets out a combination moan/grunt, having detected my absence.
"Wally. Oy, Wally." I dig around in my drawer for my oldest, most comfortable shirt, and pull it on before slipping on my sandals.
"Eh?" comes Flash's sleepy-sounding voice.
I swear, even as a 24-year-old, he is cute as the first day I met him. Of course, when I first met him, I would have never admitted that he was cute. Saying that would have definitely meant being run out of the supervillain community with torches and pitchforks. Which honestly doesn't sound so bad in hindsight, but whatever.
"Wally, wake up, this is important," I tell him naggingly. I mean, I could get there on my own if I have to, but this entire situation is his fault so he WILL be by my side if he knows what's good for him.
"Jinx, it's 4 in the morning, I can't get up, I'm supposed to be asleep!" he groans as he turns over and holds my pillow in place over his exposed ear.
After making sure that I have everything, I take some very audible steps and open the door dramatically, prepared to walk myself to the car.
"Fine," I tell him in my best whatever-I'll-just-do-it-by-myself voice. "Whatever. Go ahead and sleep. But don't blame me if, years from now, you wish you hadn't missed the birth of your children."
I look at my watch. One…two…three…
"WHAT!"
Just like clockwork, I smile to myself.
Wally West, 24 years old, proud father-to-be, sits up so fast that he rolls right off the bed, dragging the comforter down with him. But the recovery takes mere milliseconds, as he is the fastest man alive, even if he is a bit slow about simple things like…oh, I don't know, maybe realizing that his wife is in labor.
He zips around the room so quickly that all I can only feel gusts of wind. It finally comes to a halt when, to my surprise, I am lifted into the air by a pair of strong, safe arms.
"Wally! Put me down! The chivalry is dead! We are driving to the hospital, for chrissakes!" I tell him as he heaves a sigh of disappointment before setting me back down on the ground. "Now change out of that Flash costume, we're conspicuous enough as it is," I tell him with a small smirk. Another quick gust of wind, and Wally, now dressed as a civilian, reappears by my side.
"I just thought that, you know, maybe running would get us there faster--" he looks at me with an adorably sheepish grin, before lifting my pre-prepared bag of magazines and sketchbooks and water colors (the downside of pregnancy: no oil painting) off of my shoulders and slinging it around his own. "—but geez you're really heavy!"
I smack him upside the head, as is my custom.
"Ow! What was that for?" he asks me, rubbing the spot where I hit him gingerly.
"Maybe I wouldn't be that heavy had you not so willingly infected me with your swimming chromosomes!" I remind him, pulling the door closed behind me as he takes my hand and leads me to the car.
"Hey, don't be like that, every sperm is sacred," he says dramatically, always happy to quote Monty Python. I ignore the reference and instead focus on getting this kid out of my stomach. In a big gesture, Flash opens the door of the passenger seat open and helps me inside before safely shutting it and getting in to the driver's seat.
I shoot him a caustic look as he turns the ignition. "You wouldn't be saying that if you were carrying t-WINS! ARGH!"
Hmm, that didn't come out right. Let me rephrase:
OOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
"What's wrong!" Wally asks me, sounding extremely panicky as he pulls out onto the street from our driveway. "JINX! What's wrong!"
OOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
I fight the pain as best I can as I screw up my face and manage to whisper in a broken voice, "CON-TRAC-TION!"
"AHH!" screams Wally, acting as if he were the one in labor, as we drive along, running straight through a red light. "What should we do!"
"DRIVE BEFORE I HEX SOMEBODY!" I yell as my abdomen explodes. I would not be surprised if, in a few moments, I found my guts showered on the streets.
"Right!" Wally replies, equally panicked. "Drive! We'll be there in no time," he reassures me excitedly, as he always is.
Well, as much as I love my husband, I think that sometimes he forgets when he has to be Wally West as opposed to the Flash. We can't get there in "no time" because the next 4 blocks are closed off due to construction on some freaking water pipes!
"Uh-oh," he whispers, clutching the wheel and looking for an alternate route.
I fix him with my best death glare before croaking, "'Uh-oh,' WHAT? I'M GOING INTO LABOR! THERE ARE NO 'UH-OH's!'"
And, just as quickly as it started, the contraction ends and the pressure relieves itself.
I look over at Wally, who is staring at me as if sincerely frightened that I might murder him.
"Sorry," I tell him, clutching my sore stomach. "But that was really painful and I have no idea what I'm doing, so I think I deserve some credit here," I inform him. He nods cautiously before allowing himself to regain his composure.
"Oh! Wait! I know what you should do!" he tells me. The look on his face is priceless, as if he just had an epiphany. He takes a right turn as he begins talking and I smack my hand to my forehead. We are now driving away from the hospital instead of to it. He realizes this when he sees the expression on my face, then does a couple of weird maneuvers and sets it right.
"Really? What should I do?" I ask him as calmly as I can, seeing as the current situation is making me kind of…shifty...
I realize that I can't hide the sarcasm in my voice. But Wally ignores it (he's used to it by now) and instead says, "Keep your legs together!"
"What?" I ask him incredulously, still holding onto my stomach in hopes of preventing another contraction (which, by the way, I can't).
"I saw it in a movie! If you keep your legs together, or put a pillow between them, then the kids have to stay up there until we're ready!"
"Wally, I am NOT sticking a pillow up there!" I tell him, ignoring the many red lights we've rolled through.
"Well, then keep your legs clamped shut!" he responds, driving like a madman.
"Yeah, 'cause that's going to do a whole lot of good if they decide to come out right now! 'Hey, look, door's closed today. Let's just try again later.' Closing my legs will not prevent kids from popping out of the cubby hole!"
"It will too!" Flash laughs, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
I notice that he doesn't seem to be too squeamish about my semi-graphic descriptions. Then again, I shouldn't be surprised, he's read more maternity books than I have. He was so incredibly excited when I first told him about this pregnancy; the first thing he did after kissing me and rubbing my stomach was to hand-make two baby-sized Kid Flash uniforms identical to the one he used to wear (did I mention that he learned how to sew? because apparently I cannot be trusted around needles, and "someone had to do it," as he claims) and baby-proof the house. It was extremely cute to see him so excited about it, although I must admit that I was slightly peeved when I learned that I was not allowed to have coffee.
"Fine! I'll close my legs! Are you happy now?" I ask him somewhat-jokingly as he rounds a corner, allowing the hospital to come into view in the distance. I clamp my legs shut, just to make him happy.
"You'll thank me for this one day," he says importantly, as if he knew anything about childbirth and the homicidal impulse the pain inspires in mothers.
"And I'll thank you now to drive a little faaaASTER!"
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
"Right! Right! Driving faster!" Wally says as he leans as far away from me as he can while slamming the gas, charging full speed ahead into the hospital's parking lot right outside the door.
I grip the armrest for support. "AAARGH!" I can see my knuckles turning white. Wally hits the brakes and rushes out at super-speed to help me out of the car. As soon as he opens my door and reaches for my hand, the kids decide to that now is a convenient time to have a wrestling match inside my stomach.
"Jinx? Uhm, Jinx, baby, are you okay? Your eyes are kind of…crossing…" Wally says nervously as he attempts to pull me out of the car. When the pain finally subsides, I allow him to help me out.
"Sorry," I apologize again. He smiles at me in that confident, reassuring way and I know instantly that he doesn't mind.
"C'mon, let's get you checked in," he says, super-speeding into the hospital and reemerging moments later with a collapsible wheel chair. He opens it up and I set myself down; I don't think I could walk if my life depended on it.
As soon as we reach the front desk of the maternity ward, the young nurse in unicorn-emblazoned scrubs hands Wally a clipboard, without even looking up. Turning to face me after making sure no one is in sight, he scribbles all of the information at super-speed and winks at me before handing the clipboard back.
"How did you—do that so fast…?" she asks incredulously as she looks up to face Wally, who simply says, "Already filled those out at home."
She shakes her head, as if reassuring herself that she's not going crazy at the sight of Wally's amazing speed, and says, "Here, let me page your doctor…he'll be right up in a minute, and he can take you to your room…"
I thank the girl and Wally and I wait patiently at the desk until a dark-haired man about 30 years old introduces himself as Doctor Montgomery and shakes both our hands.
"You're pretty young, eh?" he asks us in general, his face contorted into a big grin. I want to ask him if he's Canadian, but I guess Wally can tell what I'm thinking; he squeezes my shoulder as he continues driving me along to the room.
"Yeah, I'm 23 and he's 24," I answer, clutching my stomach still.
"And when did your water break?" Doc Montgomery asks me, his tone a little more serious, and Wally answers this time.
"About 40 minutes ago."
"And contractions…?"
"About 13 minutes apart," Wally supplies, and I applaud him mockingly.
"Well, you really know your stuff, don't you?" Montgomery says, smiling still, and Wally's cheeks turn as bright as his hair as he mumbles something about "I read the books."
"This is your first child, right? Or, should I say, first set of twins?" he asks me.
"Yeah."
"What do the contractions feel like?"
"Like I am simultaneously ripping out my eyeballs and gnawing off my own arm," I tell him, "There is nothing I would love more than to be drugged until next Christmas." Wally laughs at me, and I smile a little crazily back at him. Does he think I'm joking…?
Montgomery laughs. "Heheh," he laughs, still sounding extremely Canadian. "Yeah, that's the norm. I need to check in to make sure that the delivery room is prepped. You can change and leave your things here. If your contractions begin to hurt even more, don't panic. If, however, they begin to hurt less, you may panic and find the nurse at the front desk and she will find me."
"So, if I start to feel relaxed and normal, I panic."
"Precisely."
"Sounds like a very convenient plan," Wally says, rolling his eyes. The doctor shuts the door behind him as he leaves, and Wally helps me out of my chair before unpacking my bag.
I have some difficulty pulling the thin papery garment over the mountain that is my stomach, but with some careful maneuvering it goes on. When I'm done, I turn to find that Wally is seated quietly on my bed. He smiles at me and I come join him, taking a seat next to him.
"Jinx, we're having twins," he tells me, entranced. I smile at him and I can feel myself softening.
"I know," I whisper back, resting my head in the crook of his neck. "You and me. We're going to be parents!"
"I know we would be one day," he says mysteriously, smiling to himself.
"What do you mean?" I ask, wondering.
"I mean, I always knew that we were going to be parents together. I knew you were different the moment I met you. You were trying to steal that lucky necklace, do you remember?"
"Of course," I reply as he drapes his arm around my shoulders. As if I could ever forget.
"I could tell you were different right then and there. Any other villain would have been happy to pull off a robbery from a maximum-security museum by themselves. Except you. You didn't look…satisfied. And we started talking, and I left you roses…that's when I knew that we would be parents someday."
I can only stare at him in awe. "Are you kidding?"
He grins and says, "Yeah. It was more like when we I proposed. Sometime around there."
I slap his arm jokingly, and he uses the opportunity to kiss me. I begin to melt, but apparently the others can't stand a little kissing, as I can feel them trying to get my attention again.
"ERRRRR!" I scream, digging my fingernails into Wally's arm. He looks up at me worriedly as I bend over and try to master the pain.
"Jinx! Contraction?"
"WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?" I snap between groans.
He brushes it off and continues, apparently trying to keep himself distracted from the pain I am doing to his arm. "Does it feel light and/or tingly and/or pleasant?" he asks me seriously, meanwhile flexing his arm as if in hopes that shifting his muscles will put an end to the pain my fingernails are causing.
The kids lurch around inside me, and the pain gets even worse.
"ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!" I yell in reply.
He takes this as his answer and says, "Good. No need to panic, then."
I turn my head up to glare at him, but when I open my eyes momentarily, I can only see everything through a curtain of hazy, electric pink.
…Sorry, Wally.
"AAAAAAAHHH!" Wally yelps, miraculously still allowing me to hold onto his arm as he jumps back from the shock I gave him.
Almost instantly the kids quiet down a little, as if they had sensed that they were slowly killing their father and have decided that they like him more than me.
When the contraction ends, I start apologizing profusely. "I'm so sorry," I tell him, watching as the fingernail marks in Wally's skin instantly heal themselves, good as new.
"Jinx. It's no problem. Really," he reassures me. He kisses me, and I momentarily forget the pain. When we break apart, there's a pause. "Are you scared?"
I pause. Then nod. "Yeah. A little." He looks at me kindly, questioningly. "Ok, fine. I'm scared out of my mind. I've…got a past. What if they find out? Do what I did? I didn't exactly set a good example."
He kisses me on the forehead before saying, "Jinx, you set a great example. You overcame all that. You'll be a great mom, and I'll be an even better dad." I slap him playfully on the arm. Then I sigh.
"What if they find us?" I can barely whisper it. The thought scares me.
"Who, the Brotherhood? The HIVE?" I nod, not meeting his gaze. "You know we put them away years ago. Nothing will happen. Those will be two of the best-protected kids in the world."
"…So there's always a backup. Always someone to count on."
"All the time."
"Do you swear?"
"I swear."
"That's all I needed to hear," I tell him, repeating our own, special words. We still remember them well, even 7 years after he handed me control of my life, after he stopped me from making the biggest mistake I could ever make.
He kisses me again, and this time we hold it as long as I can, so that, of course, is when Montgomery decides to come back in.
"Your room is all ready," he informs us and Wally and I reluctantly break apart. "You ready?"
I look at Wally, and he smiles. Then I turn back to him and nod. He and Wally combine forces to help me into the wheelchair and push me into the delivery room, and they help me onto the bed.
"Now, there're a couple of drugs that can numb the pain of the contractions. You'll still feel it, but everyone responds to it differently. Do you want to try it?"
I'm about to say yes when I catch the look in Wally's eye that quite clearly says, Your powers combined with those drugs? Not a good idea.
And as much as it (literally) pains me to say it, I turn it down as another contraction comes along, and I immediately wish I hadn't refused the meds.
Fourteen Hours Later
"You're doing great now, Jinny, just give it another push!" Wally, dressed in surgical scrubs, echoes Montgomery as I tighten the death grip I have on his arm.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGH!" I scream as those kids try to wrench their way out of my vajajay. I can feel my back arching up off the bed in response to the pain and I feel like I need to kill someone.
"Come on, Jinny, you're going to have to give me another good push when the next contraction comes along!" Montgomery shouts over my yelling. "Your cervix is at a full 10 centimeters. It's time to deliver these babies!" The pain subsides only momentarily before it starts up again, stronger than ever.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" I squeeze my eyes shut and Wally frantically wipes the hair out of my face with his free hand. Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod! Although I can't see the blinds on the windows come crashing to the ground in response to a burst of pink hex energy severing the chords, I can hear the noise it makes as it falls noisily to the ground.
"Jinny, you can do it!" yells Wally above the excitement of the room, although I can hear that his voice is a little panicked. Neither of us knew that I would lose control of my powers at a time like this. "Push!"
"I AM PUSHING!" I scream back, trying to bite down the pain this is causing me. "AAHH!" I gather all of my strength and give a massive push. It doesn't feel like anything's happening. Then as quickly as it started, the contraction ends again.
Wally wipes my brow with a wet cloth and I ignore the kind gesture. "Wally," I tell him in a dangerously low whisper. He leans down to hear what I have to say. "You are never touching me again.." He doesn't realize that I mean, so he smiles and says, "Whatever you say."
And then another contraction comes along and suddenly I can't feel my body anymore. Now it's out of my hands. The pain blinds me, and it sounds as if someone has turned down the volume of my life.The shouts of Wally and the doctors crowded around me seem to be muffled out, and then, a blinding flash of pink and pain and--
Wally screams excitedly.
Someone cuts the cord and the doctor hands a writhing little person to a nearby nurse, who immediately puts the child on a table and wraps it in a blanket. A baby. My baby.
I can hear its cries echoing in the room, and I can tell that the doctor is smiling beneath his mask. "Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. West," he tells us as Wally kisses my sweaty cheek. "You've just delivered a healthy baby boy."
"A boy!" Wally yelps and I smile. I'm too tired to do anything but smile, but I do it anyway, to the best of my ability. "Do you hear that, Jinx! We're parents!"
"We're going to give you a few minutes to rest, and then we're going to deliver your other baby. Rest now," he says, and he joins the nurses as they fuss over the crying boy lying 10 feet away from me. He gives them some inaudible orders and they carry the bundle out of the room.
"Where—where are they taking him?" I ask no one in particular.
"To get him cleaned up so he'll look his best for us," Wally supplies, and he kisses my forehead again. "You've done it, Jinx," he adds in a whisper, the most gentile, loving voice I've ever heard. "But we've got one more to go. Are you ready?"
I reposition myself on my bed and grab his hand. "One more. Alright. Let's get this sucker out," I say, knowing that I must be crazy but not really caring. I'm a mom, about to be a mom for the second time. I can deal with one more.
"Alright, Jinny, when the next contraction comes, you'll have to start pushing again. Ok? Do you understand?" Montgomery asks, and Wally and I nod together, even though he was talking to me. "Ok then. Here we go."
Another contraction comes along, and Wally's screaming voice is drowned out. It seems as if the world is rooting for me, for this kid.
Then, all of a sudden, again I am lifted from my body to a giant pink nothingness, where I am numb and the only thing I can hear is Wally's voice, encouraging me. Then the pink grows brighter, and when feeling returns, I can hear the cries of a child pierce the room, jolting me out of my trance. There's a moment of silence, and then--
"It's a girl!" the doctor announces, and the room bursts into cheers. Wally jumps up and down and kisses me on the forehead again, and I smile at him. Montgomery lets Wally cut the cord, and she too is delivered to wherever it is they take her that will make her look all nice and presentable.
"You did it, baby," Wally tells me, taking my hand in his and clutching it, keeping it warm and safe. "You did it."
"I know," I tell him, feeling my eyes droop from the exhaustion. "Isn't it cool?"
I've never seen a grin as wide as his that day. It was only matched when they brought back our twins, our children, and I got to hold them for the first time. When the doctors leave us alone for a moment, Wally crawls into the bed with me and puts his arm around my shoulders, pulling me and my children closer to him. Our children. Wally's and my children.
He lets me rest my head against his chest and we watch in wonderment as the babies sleep contentedly in my arms.
"He looks just like you," I tell Wally, looking at our boy. "And so does she."
And sure enough, both of them have little crops of fiery red hair. Wally presses a kiss to the tops of both of their heads and then to mine again. "And they resemble you, too," he says. We watch them some more, and then we remember. "We're going to have to give them names," he says, and I bite my lip.
We've been thinking about it, talking about it, but no name was ever good enough, was ever quite right.
"We could name her Virginia and him Wallace," he suggests, somewhat jokingly, and I smile.
"Nah. He would have no self-esteem if we named him 'Wallace,'" I laugh, and Wally sighs in mock-hurt. "How about Mickey and Minnie?" I suggest, only half-seriously.
"Peter and Kitty," he says, recalling his old X-Men comic books.
"Alex and Alex," I try.
"I thought we agreed that we wouldn't give them unisex, one-size-fits-all names," he jokes as he holds our baby girl's hand with his finger. I giggle. "I know! Linus and Lucy!"
"Joe and Marilyn."
"James and Natalie."
"Ron and Ginny."
"King and Kong."
I blanch. "King and Kong? That's petty, even as a joke," I tell him, sticking out my tongue. And then brilliance strikes. "I know," I tell him. He looks at me directly with those blue eyes of his, "Jay, and Iris."
Then Wally smiles again, bigger and brighter than ever. "Jay and Iris," he says, testing it out. "I like it."
"I thought you would," I smile, and when he leans down to kiss my cheek I instead turn up my head and catch his lips in mine.
"I love you," he whispers. I've never felt such a joy in my life as when he says that.
"I love you too, idiot," I smile, remembering our early relationship, and what it grew into. And with Jay and Iris West in my arms and me in Wally's, we fall asleep in each other's embrace .
When I wake up a moment later, I find myself lying in my room in Wally's apartment in Jump City. No hospital bed; no IVs; no babies in my arms. I feel my stomach, and it is as flat as ever. I sit up and allow myself to really wake up, to register where I am and what year it is. And then I realize that it was a dream. One incredible, wonderful dream.
And with that thought in mind, I push away my covers and tiptoe to Wally's room. I creak the door open as quietly as I can and walk to his bed.
Careful not to wake him up, I pull up the covers and crawl in, making myself at home under his plaid comforter, in the bed he sleeps in every night. And just before I drift off again, Wally, still asleep, noiselessly turns over and I can feel the warmth of his body pressing against mine. And, still incredibly asleep, his arm comes to a rest around my waist, subconsciously pulling me closer towards him.
And it's then and there, in the safety of his arms, that I allow myself to slip back into the realm of sleep and relive a dream that I know will come true in time. .
So? Did you like it? I wrote a lot of different versions of this one and I finally decided, to hell with it, I'm posting what I've got. It's kind of corny, pretty fluffySo this is the most recent incarnation. I hope you enjoyed it. :-D
And because I liked writing this so much for this reader, I figured, why not do it again? So if you have any one-shot ideas that you don't want to write yourself, contact/review/message me with your idea and maybe we can collaborate and add it to this fic? What do you think? Any takers? I'm just throwing it up there in case you're interested, I love getting everyone involved. :-D
And now review! And tell me what you did/didn't like about it, what I can improve on, all the good stuff. And who knows? I might add to the Night of Updates. Thanks!
XOXO
theSuperDuperHulaHooper
