NOTES: What? A return to the Nadiaverse? It's true!
And, yes, while the Rogers family doesn't appear in this one, Olly's arrival and the McCoy family will have a long-lasting effect on Steve, Natasha, and Nadia.
There are two more one-shots to go in Nadiaverse before the next multi-chapter story, First Duty, starts. The first will be posted two weeks from today, and the second two weeks after that. Fourteen more days, and then we're back with the Rogers family. I've missed them as much as you have. Trust me.
"Mommy! Mommy! Come see my new brother!"
Kate bit her tongue so as not to swear at her daughter. Not that it would be the first time Zelda would be exposed to foul language, but Kate was dealing with jetlag, a delayed flight, and having to be an extrovert at an international conference for the last four days. And, oh yes, there was the fact that her husband had decided all on his own that they needed to acquire a baby. Again.
"Where's your father?"
Zelda's little fists went to her hips as she shot her mother a dark look. "You're using your mean voice."
"My mean voice is warranted." Kate ignored the crinkle that came over her daughter's face, a common reaction she had to words she didn't recognize . "Now, where is your father?"
"He's upstairs with my new brother ," she answered excitedly.
"He's not your brother." Zelda ignored the correction and instead grabbed Kate's hand and pulled her toward the stairs.
It was Saturday, which meant the twins they were fostering were at their therapy session for another thirty minutes, leaving only people with the last name of McCoy in the Brooklyn brownstone . Well, the three of them and a baby.
Zelda switched to walking on exaggerated tip toes once they reached the second floor landing. They were halfway to the lone spare bedroom when Hank slowly moved out into the hallway, quietly closing the door behind his large frame. He turned to see them, and his face became a mixture of guilt and resolution.
"Zelda," he rumbled, "go play in your room. Your mother wants to talk to me."
The girl looked back and forth between her parents. "Are you going to fight?"
"No," Hank answered before Kate could say anything, which caused her to roll her eyes . "Go play, Beloved," he repeated.
Zelda heaved a sigh that moved her entire body but obeyed and went to her room. Hank nodded toward the stairs, and Kate followed him back down to the first floor and into the kitchen. They both stared each other down a moment before their words began to overlap, their opinions a steady crescendo in volume.
"You just go ahead—"
"I tried to call—"
"Did you wait for me to be out of the country?"
"He was abandoned—"
"We don't have any more room—"
"It will just be for a—"
"No. We are not doing this again."
Kate's statement caused a silence to fall in the kitchen. She slumped into a seat at the small table usually reserved for homework and extra cooking space with a weary sigh. The exhaustion of her trip slammed into her, as well as the weight of a sleeping baby upstairs.
Hank quietly reached up into the liquor cabinet to grab a bottle of the brand of vodka they both drank frequently from when Zelda was a baby. Kate was not pleased with the implications, but was grateful for the buzz that quickly settled in the pit of her stomach before spreading heat outward.
"Do I at least get the chance to tell you what happened?" Hank asked . Kate sighed and made a get on with it hand motion. "He was left at the gate at Xavier's. One of the groundskeepers found him early in the morning, and no one was really quite sure how long he'd been left there in his car seat."
"What about the security cameras?" Kate asked, her brain going into legal mode and possible pieces of evidence.
Hank shook his head. "Somehow, whoever left him there avoided them completely."
"Another mutant?"
He shrugged. "That was Logan's thought. But then comes the disturbing question of why would a mutant abandon their own mutant child?"
"Because not everyone is as good of a parent, or as open-minded and brave as you," Kate answered, surprising them both. Hank's eyes went soft, and she took another sip of her drink. "Keep going."
"He was left with a slip of paper—first name of Oliver, birthdate, and a brief description of his mutation."
"Which is?"
"Vocal-centered," Hank explained. "He can mimic any voice he hears. Since he's still too young to be verbal, he can't fully imitate others. Yet."
Kate noted the tics in Hank's motions—rotating the tumbler on the table surface, avoiding eye contact, gazing far off—and pursed her lips. "Why does that make you nervous?"
"With biometrics becoming more and more common for security, voice imprints are part of that."
She nodded, seeing where Hank was going with his reasoning. "And you're worried that he could be used to hack into people's systems?"
"Among other things."
"Hank, he's a baby."
"He won't be forever."
Kate sighed. "Surely there will be other responsible people who will keep him from a life of crime. People who actually like babies ."
Her husband rose from the table without saying a word, and Kate felt guilt settle on her shoulders and she hated it . A few minutes later, the twins came busting through the door. From her spot in the kitchen, she listened to Hank talking to them about how their therapy session had gone and if they had any ideas for dinner.
Despite their argument, they still acted as functional parental units while fixing dinner—grilled chicken, salad, and rolls—for the kids. Hank took care of all the baby duties, and Kate tried to ignore how quickly the other three children had bonded with the new addition.
Not an addition , she reminded herself. A visitor.
Once Zelda was put to bed, Kate broke the silence between her and Hank just long enough to ask if he had things under control so she could go to bed early for some much-needed sleep. He wished her a good night, and Kate was dead to the world as soon as she hit the mattress.
Five hours later, though, she woke from a dream about dragons chasing her through Central Park to crying. The small portion of her brain that was coherent pointed out that these were not the sounds of a nine-month-old crying; they were of an adult woman sobbing . She threw sheets back and went room to room to find the source, and was surprised to end up in the hastily thrown together nursery. Kate flipped on the light to make sure there wasn't another adult in the room, but the only other person was a red-faced baby screaming with a voice not his own.
"It's okay," Kate soothed as she picked him up out of Zelda's old crib that Hank stored in the attic just in case.
But it was apparently not okay. Hers was not the voice the baby—Oliver—wanted to hear. It took five minutes of rocking him in the chair before he fell into quiet sniffles. By that time, Hank's large frame filled the door, his eyes looking heartbreakingly sad.
"You said he mimics," Kate said quietly. "Whose voice was that?"
He shook his head. "We don't know for sure, but logic points to his mother. For the first day he was abandoned, that was the only voice with which he tried to communicate."
Kate closed her eyes and tried to imagine that level of desperation, of not being able to communicate except to cry out in the most basic way for a person who'd left you behind.
"Fine," she sighed. "We can keep him."
Hank raised an eyebrow, but made no other movement. "Are you certain? I do not want you blaming me in the future for manipulations involving sleep deprivation or crying—"
She waved him silent. "I think Zelda will murder me in her sleep if I take away her brother."
"She's four," Hank argued.
"Still wouldn't put it past her." She paused to nuzzle her nose against the baby's dark brown hair. "And if we have to give him up, he might start crying to strangers in your voice, and nobody needs that."
"We can discuss it more in the morning," Hank offered.
"I'm serious. I mean, Jasper is going to give me nine kinds of hell over this, I refuse to deal with explosive diapers, and the first time he mimics my voice, I'm going to need an entire case of beer, but we can make this work, right?"
Hank ambled into the room with a shrug. "He's old enough to immediately be put into daycare, so I won't have to take a leave from work. But if the scales on our daughter terrified the caretakers, imagine what his mutation will do."
"We're already known as the insane parents. Why break tradition?"
He crouched down in front of the rocking chair. "Are you quite sure?"
Kate thought about it and was surprised to find as few doubts as she did. Oh, there were certainly some still there, but it felt right. "I am. But—" she added, extending an index finger to halt any form of celebration from Hank, "this is the last baby. I mean it this time. If we're going to adopt a third, and I cannot fully express the enormous size of that if, I do the picking. It's only fair."
"Whatever you say," Hank promised with a smile.