Chapter Text
“That was a stupid fucking idea.”
“It’s not,” Chad defends, trying not to pout. “It’s crazy, but it’s not stupid.”
“Baby-trapping your low-commitment, emotionally distant fuckbuddy slash co-worker slash boss was – is – a terrible idea.”
Alice is kind enough to exhale her plume of strawberry scented vapour away from him, considering Chad’s situation. The sonogram sits on the concrete wall of the balcony, weighed down by Chad’s phone that’s open to a text he’s working his way up to sending:
twelve weeks along - doctor’s said it’s twinssss lmao ❤️🔥👶👶
He had called Alice for moral support, but upon getting the Spark Notes of the plan over the phone, she decided to slap some sense into him in person. The only reason why she didn’t was because she saw the sonogram, verified that Chad was actually pregnant, she settled for just yelling at him for an hour.
Now she’s worn herself out, they've retired to the balcony so she can vape her stress away and help Chad communicate with his low-commitment, emotionally distant fuckbuddy that’s been dodging his texts for a fortnight now. Chad has never been so certain that babytrapping was, in fact, the correct thing to do.
“He’ll have to reply to this,” Chad says, looking between the phone and Alice’s unimpressed expression. “Like – he will. He can’t just ignore this.”
Alice shrugs. “He’s been ignoring you for weeks already, so –”
"Ugh. Don't say it like that."
"How should I say it? He is dodging your texts, bae."
He glowers at her. “I’ll fucking kill myself.”
“Damn. Triple homicide.”
“Take this seriously!”
“I am!” She fails to fight a smile. “Okay, well, I’m not, but this is a ridiculous situation. Lowkey, I wouldn’t believe it if someone sent me that text, least of all you.”
“Wha –!” Chad splutters. “Why!”
She holds up a singular manicured finger. “I’ve seen you regularly for weeks now, and you’ve barely got a bump. I'd think you were lying. Two –” She holds up her middle finger – “you are a fundamentally unserious person. I love you, but… C’mon, bae.”
“Fuck you! I own this place and live off the interests of my investments! That’s serious!”
“Alright, you’re like weirdly good with money but if I was old as dirt like you –”
“Excuse me?”
“ – I probably would’ve invested in Uber at the early stage, too. But most importantly –” Alice holds up a third finger – “you’ve been chasing this man around for months now and it’s clear he does not want you!”
Okay. Okay, that one stings a little. Chad tries not to let it show on his face, but his stupid bottom lip starts wobbling against his will. Stupid fucking pregnancy hormones.
Alice reaches for him when she notices. “Aw, no – I didn’t mean it that way –”
“You did,” he sniffs, but he can’t even be mad at her for it. Robert’s avoidance was always kind of sexy because Chad likes a chase. Turns out that Robert playing hard to get was not just the foreplay that led to foreplay, but a genuine personality flaw that made Chad want him more and kind of resent him. His emotional and physical hard on for Robert always won out against his better judgement which led him to maybe, sort of, kind of offer an expired condom to Robert and beg him to stay inside when he finished. Robert seemed happy to do that then – he even went along with the whole ‘breed me’ thing more than Chad expected – but it’s been weeks since their last hook up and outside of work, they don’t talk at all.
If they didn’t work together, Chad might’ve started checking fucking obituaries.
“Fuck,” he sighs, slumping down in his chair and letting his hand rest atop the small swell of his stomach. “This was a stupid idea.”
Alice smiles commiseratingly. “Getting pregnant?”
“Uh, no, bitch,” he scoffs. “I’ve always wanted kids. I’m thirty six and have spent decades on T – I was running out of time.”
“Okay, sure – but. You could’ve had kids any other way.”
Chad heaves a sigh. “Yeah.”
“But you did it this way.”
“I did.” His hand flexes on his lower abdomen. “Not the best way.”
Alice is silent for a moment. She sucks on her vape and exhales in a way that feels contemplative.
“Chad?”
“Yeah?”
“What if he’s a deadbeat?”
Chad grimaces. He hadn’t… thought about that. When Alice catches his expression, she looks at him like she knows.
“Oh my fucking god.”
“I didn’t think –”
“No shit!”
“I just –”
“You don’t have a dad! You should’ve calculated for this!”
“I do have a dad! Juan is really –”
“He’s your step-dad. He’s the dad who had to step in because Faizan decided to go and start a second family in Miami and a third in Kuwait! Who he then abandoned so he could live la vida loca in Central America!”
Chad winces. He makes a point to not interact with his dad, but every now and then he’ll get an urge and he and his sister, Elaha, will scroll through his “hidden” Instagram. The last time they checked, he was in Hermosillo holding a woman with arm and a child who looked a lot like him in the other.
“Yeah. Fuck.”
“You’ve been exposed to deadbeats,” Alice says, pointing her finger in his face. “How the fuck did you not think about this!”
“I wasn’t thinking!” Chad sinks deeper into his seat and lets out a low, groaning, “Fuuuuuck. Fuck! Why did I think this was a good idea!”
“Exactly!”
“Especially considering we know how bad Robert’s daddy issues are!”
“We watched him almost kill a guy over it.”
“I’m so fucking stupid.” He scrubs a hand over his face, looking at his barely there bump. A surge of affection swells in him, but alongside that, a sickening anxiety that only comes in the face of experience a consequence of a plan that was the result of poor planning. “I should literally be banned from having ideas when I’m ovulating. I should actually maybe never ovulate again.”
Alice huffs in exasperation, but lays a commiserating hand on his shoulder anyway. “I’ve been saying that, boo.”
Chad leans into the touch, wrapping his arms around her. He’s grateful to have her, at least. Untitled Chadli Mohammedzai Project 1 and Untitled Chadli Mohammedzai Project 2 will have an excellent godmother in Alice. And Elaha, who he has yet to tell.
God, he’s going to be screamed at so badly. Perhaps the stress of judgement from his two favourite women will kill him, and then all his problems (himself) will go away.
But no. He looks at the sonogram, and remembers how he almost sobbed in the doctor’s office as he saw the two little heartbeats fluttering on the screen. Robert might not give a fuck, but Chad certainly does. His kids will be so loved, even if they only have one parent. Fuck the nuclear family model, it reeks of western chauvinism and cisheteropatriarchal standards anyway.
“If Robert turns out to be a deadbeat," Chad says, "blind him.”
“Was planning to anyway,” Alice says, and kisses his temple.
Chad pulls back from the embrace with a sigh and looks back at the sonogram. “I think – I should text Elaha first instead of Robert. She’ll probably know how to break the news better than me.”
Alice hums. “I love Elaha. She’s definitely gonna yell at you, but think about all the baby stuff you’ll get from her for free!”
“I can afford to get my babies new things, Alice.”
She clicks her tongue at him. “I love a bargain, Bae, and I want you to love one too.”
She reaches for Chad’s phone, moving to hand it to him, but her vape slips out of her hand.
“Shit!”
It bounces off his phone screen and as she goes to grab it and the sonograms, a mess of fingers press different surfaces and from how rigidly she holds herself once all items are secure in her grip, Chad already knows what has happened.
He swallows. “Did you…”
Alice glances at his phone and then back at Chad.
“Y-yeah.”
She squeals when it buzzes in her hand. Then it buzzes again, and then again. Chad feels his soul leave his body.
“Is that…?”
Wordlessly, she hands him his phone. Robert has texted him more in the last two minutes than in the last two months combined.
🤖🍆 (don’t text when drunk)
Fuck
Chad are you serious?
Fuck
Okay
We should definitely talk about this
Are you busy right now? We should meet up
Or call?
I’ll call
Twins?
Holy shit okay
Calling now
Please pick up
Chad can only stare at Alice when his phone starts ringing in his hand.
Robert’s entire body is trembling when he gets off the phone. The conversation with Chad has clarified a lot and, now he has information, he’s calmed down. A little. He’s not about to throw up anymore, which is definitely a good thing.
Twins. Twins.
He’s being punished. Some god or another power has made this happen to punish Robert for having and exploiting a kink he knows he can’t realistically afford the consequences of, and for coveting Chad so greedily to the point where he maybe (definitely) noticed the years past expiration date on the condom and used it anyway.
He’s been pretty good at rationing his passion for Chad. He keeps it lowkey. Chill. He doesn’t bother him or pester him. He does not yearn (often) nor does he lust (openly). He maintains a professional atmosphere at work, because it works. Chad is a good hero, and Robert knows how to work with him.
Robert also knows how to make him moan and whine and make this tiny pleading sound from the back of his throat that makes something ancient and primal swell deep in Robert’s loins, and he loses his mind every time he fucks Chad until he’s drooling.
It was that fucking Christmas party – where Chad wore that stupid Santa hat and a candycane striped thong. They shared a couple drinks, and then some pointed looks and before long, Robert had three of his fingers in Chad’s pussy, mouth on Chad’s clit and an erection hard enough to hammer tungsten into steel. One Uber ride and three and a half rounds of deeply athletic sex later, Robert had emptied the contents of his balls into Chad’s cervix because God knows those condoms weren’t catching anything.
That level of feral indulgence had Robert rationalising that they should put a moratorium on their sexual relationship. He had let himself get too comfortable and showed a little bit too much of his desire; neither of these things fit within the parameters of the ‘chill’ and ‘uncomplicated’ situation that they’d both agreed to be the nature of their situation.
And now Robert was going to have twins with him.
“I can do this,” he says to himself. “It’s fine. It’s okay. It’s –”
His stomach lurches and he trips over himself in haste to get to the kitchen sink. He only just manages not to throw up over himself or Beef, who looks up at him with bright, unknowingly happy eyes.
Robert wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sinks to the floor. Beef promptly climbs into his lap, pressing his paws against Robert’s still spasming stomach.
“You’re going to be a – brother. Uncle?” He sighs. “I’m having kids. With Flambae.”
Beef yips and pants happily. Sweet, precious little idiot. Doesn’t he know that this is a disaster?
There’s the whole HR angle which will be… excruciating to navigated. Telling people, too – Jesus Christ, Chase is going to beat the shit out of him. The team will be delighted, which will be awful for Robert. Beyond that, though, there are logistics of Chad going through a high risk pregnancy and the help he’d need to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible . Living together. Chad and Robert. Robert and Chad. Cohabitating and coparenting. And then there’s the lifetime that follows – raising the kids, putting them through school, navigating the highs and lows of life in general whilst trying to keep them safe, mentally well and happy, trying to provide a decent life for them in one of the most expensive cities in the world –
Still – something within Robert blooms with excitement. It’s tempered with anxiety, caution, fear – of course – but there, between his heart and stomach, exists a kernel of warmth.
He had never really imagined himself to be a parent. He was always a little too suicidal to feel stable enough to be a parent, but then he got a job, put Shroud behind bars again, made some peace with his father’s death and the nightmarish legacy of MechaMan and started talking to one of the therapists in SDN’s network. He’s definitely doing better. The thought of having kids is terrifying, but he’s not thinking of existential dread about what it means to provide for children financially or emotionally the way he might’ve thought he would. Knowing him, it’ll come in about a week or so.
But when he looks at the sonogram and sees two greyish smudges, all he can think about is the possibility. Who will they favour? Will they have powers? Robert will love them regardless, of course, but snorts at the idea of burping a little one and feeling a tongue of fire scorch his back. God, he’d get so scarred up from them, but what’s a couple dozen more? Running around after two superpowered (or regularly clumsy) little ones is far preferable to the way he used to get injured.
Twins.
Holy shit.