steelartisan | (no subject)

(no subject)

It's not just with Milliways -- and interdimensional portals, and time manipulators, and the astral plane, and alien technology, and so forth -- that time does strange things. Eight and a half months ago, they learned that Kate was pregnant.

Nine months, now, give or take a few days. Nine months, and -- as far as they can tell, as far as any scans have shown, they hope, they hope -- a healthy baby to be born any day now.

Katya is, as she has been for a few weeks (and, to be honest, for nine months), excited and happy and stressed and, above all, impatient. Increasingly so.

Also, at the moment, frowning at the floor with a hand on her belly. Piotr pauses in the doorway, studying her.

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"No," he says, softly. "I will not."

This is not the time for our lives have no guarantees. Even if it's true.

Because it's also true that their lives do have the guarantee of not if I can avoid it, not if I can spare you that, I will fight with everything I can.

It's what there is. And he did kill himself once (and maybe twice, depending on how you count); any honest guarantee is worth saying.

The kiss is deep and long and slow.

When it breaks, she just rests her forehead against his and murmurs, "You didn't have a ring."

"I did not, then," he agrees just as softly.

And Kate's never told him to, but all the same. Enough hints have been dropped -- enough hope -- that in his room at Milliways, in the back of a drawer, there's a small velvet box.

(Milliways is less convenient than here, but it's also exponentially less likely to be destroyed by supervillains, alien invasion, demonic invasion, robots from the future, etc, during any given week.)

Her eyes are very serious as they scan his face, like she'll find something important hidden there.

"Then?"

Piotr's smile crooks, small and lopsided and maybe a little shy.

"I, ah -- I thought that it would be a good thing to get. To have, for someday."

The symbols still matter to him. Piotr is an old-fashioned man, in many ways. But marriage (in name or not) is a partnership. He would like someday to be today, or tomorrow, but there are many things Piotr would like in life, and he already has more of them than he once expected to. More than he can sometimes quite believe he has.

"When you wanted it."

Her smile is slow to come, and wide when it's there.

And her mouth is soft, and loving.

When she pulls away, it's to rest her forehead against his, to smile and stare in his eyes. "Don't suppose you have it on you?"

Piotr really wishes the answer was yes. It would make a lovely moment; a lovely gesture. And he doesn't want to get up, to let go of Kate for even one instant.

The answer, however, is not yes.

And this probably shows on his face, because Piotr's poker face is mediocre at the best of times.

"I thought," he offers helplessly, after an instant, "that Milliways was a safer place for something I did not want blown up."

She sighs and does the only thing she can.

See icon.

"Well." Wryly, after a moment, as she starts to collect the various items and put them back in her box. "That's...good planning. I guess."

Wryly, and a little amusedly.

"--Are we thinking about the same bar, though?"

IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME.

The time was one when he did not have Kate smiling at him like that and kissing him like that. (It wouldn't really have been practical to carry it around all the time in any case, but.)

Just as wryly, "Can you think of a better place in our world?"

"Touche." She sighs and shifts, uncomfortably, her stomach seeming to somehow always be in the way.

"I guess it's good to...know. That it's there, I mean. Just in case." Something like that, sure.

Her hand finds his after a moment, squeezes.

"If you'll feel better with us in Milliways, we can go. But we're packing first this time."

Piotr laughs softly, and wraps his hand around hers.

"Da. That is sensible."

Leisure to pack is one of those things that becomes kind of a luxury, after enough ~~Marvel plots~~ time as an X-Man.

"Utopia is...not really a nursery," she says softly. "I thought--maybe we'd stay there. Until she is strong. I will not--I won't phase," away, "until she is strong, anyway."

Piotr nods, slowly.

And presses a soft kiss to her hair. It seems the thing to do.

"A few days, at the least. Da. Until you are both well. We can warn people, if it seems like it will be longer."

"Though," he adds wryly, a second later, "the real trouble will be when she is walking."

Childproofing this place is... problematic. And large-scale.

"...She's our daughter. And," and that's a little quieter, "we still don't know what that flux in her DNA means. I'm not sure the trouble will wait that long, hon."

She sighs, then, and makes a face. "Help me up, and help me pack?" She glances at him slightly sideways. "And once we're in the bar, you might want to keep that ring on you. It's much safer that way."

Right.

Piotr has been attempting to prepare for that issue while also not thinking about it. It's worked about as well as such attempts usually do.

"It never does," he says ruefully, and it's a little tired. A little more tired than he means to sound, because it's true; their lives never give them a rest.

And if anyone should have a rest, if anyone should have an easy life instead of an X-Man's, it's an innocent little child, but -- well.

But he half-smiles after, because he will almost always have a smile for Kate.

Especially after her second sentence. "I will," he promises her solemnly, and shifts to help her up.

(He might not completely let go of her after she's standing, either.)

(Kate is shocked by this.)

"I'm going to have to get used to walking more," she says dryly, "with her around. I'm betting you're going to want to carry her, and I'm sure she's going to want you to do so."

The kick to her stomach makes her laugh, as the timing may be random, but it's still funny.

"All right, I'll get clothes, you get the other stuff. Including my laptop and the bag I packed for labor?" Amusements, in a way; a zen water painting board; a miniature sand garden; music; throwing knives and a target board.

...Well, it is still Kate.

"Da," Piotr says peaceably, and kisses her lightly before he sets her down.

She can pick out his clothes too. For this purpose, they basically boil down to 'things that fit, paint spatters optional'; Piotr is not, under most circumstances, all that picky.

(Having a tendency to burst the seams of your clothing any time you're startled or attacked does help you not get attached to any one article of clothing, too, it must be said.)

This is easy to do, and, it must be said, requires less moving around; the bag can stay next to the bureau while she opens and closes drawers.

She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror when she straightens from zipping the case shut, though, and pauses, staring intently at the woman there.

"Do you think I should get my tattoo removed?" she asks Piotr when she's caught his eye, though she's frowning at the mirror again after that.

She's many piercings, but she rarely wears anything but one, maybe two pairs of earrings; that's more common sense, now that she's back with the X-Men, than anything else, though. And since they started trying to have a baby, a maternity navel ring was required, and she barely gives it thought.

But she's never once thought about her tattoo, never even told Piotr what it means or why she got it, because it's so much a part of her now--and suddenly she's realized she's going to have a baby, and wonders if it's weird. (And doesn't admit to herself that it comes down to what she thinks her own mother would think of it. Not even in her own mind.)

Piotr blinks.

"Do you want to?"

"I don't know." It's a little sheepish, and she looks over at him with a shrug. "It--is it weird? Suddenly it feels weird. I think I'm having another attack of, 'oh my God I'm going to be a MOM,' except this time I'm..." She stops, and tires to find the words, frowning.

"...You're...better, I think, or going to be better...at all of this, or--or the way people think of doing this as normal--than I am. And I just...I guess I saw it and tried to picture my mother having one, and I...felt like I was one more step from--from something. Mom-like." She makes a face at the words as they come out of her mouth, because it's not really what she means, but--she doesn't have the words for what she does mean.

And it's closer than she wants to admit, anyway.

"You will be the mom of our daughter," Piotr points out, fondly.

And a little drily.

"She will grow up with many stranger things than a very pretty tattoo. And you will be a very good mother to her."

He says this like fact, because that's how he sees it.

She relaxes at that and goes to wrap her arm around him best she can, head resting on his chest.

"You're biased as hell. And I love you," she murmurs, smiling. And admits, closing her eyes, "I got it because of you. Because I missed you. So it's good to know that you at least think it's pretty. Though I am sure you could have designed a better one," she adds, wryly.

Piotr's arms go around her in turn, and squeeze a little tighter as she continues.

(He is biased as hell. But he thinks that that doesn't mean he's wrong.)

"It is."

Then, smiling a little, "If you want another tattoo sometime, I will try to fit a design to it."

And he'll still think she's an excellent mother! So there, Katya's insecurities.

"Mmm, now that idea I might get used to." She grins. "Do I get to design one for you?"

If Piotr fears, well, Kate's...not the artist, to be fair, out of the two of them.

You don't need to be, with many tattoos--and yet.

"And if you ever figure out why I got this for you, I'll give you a prize," she adds, gesturing at her arm.

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