(no subject)

[steelartisan]

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.

Comments

[prydeful]

"Um," she says, which is almost, if not quite, answer enough.

She does not wince.

But one of her hands is gripping his arm, now, and it's gripping it with as much strength as she can muster.

"I'm not sure. I don't know. You didn't answer my question. Are you still mad that I kinda tricked you into coming to Muir for us to basically laser your head? Because I meant to apologize more for that, except you broke Pete's back, and that pissed me off a lot, and then you were in a cell, and we had to keep you there, and I was crying a lot when I wasn't yelling at you. But you weren't supposed to know that so I couldn't let you see that. The whole thing sucked. Why didn't you come back sooner?"

It is an answer that she is talking directly about things they, pretty much, like to Not Talk or Think About At all.

Even she is realizing that as she freezes and looks up at him.

"...Something's different." That is not, Actually, I am starting to panic very badly and don't feel well at all, and I'm going to kill Hank for leaving when he did, and I want a hug but I might break your arm if you tried,, but it is, perhaps, the most direct answer she can manage as her eyes glaze over slightly.

"I don't like this," she forces out, a moment later, and then there are nails digging into his flesh, not just fingers.

"I don't like this," from someone who has had her skeleton ripped out, could be anything from, "Labor is kicking in," to, "I think I'm about to literally split in two, possibly due to someone from another dimension messing with the damned timelines again, and given things, it's probably another me."

Most of it is panic, not pain.

The problem is, well.

Panic tends to increase pain. Rather a lot.

[steelartisan]

Right.

Piotr scoops her up. (Carefully! Very carefully. But when one is six and a half feet of muscle, one can be decisive about this kind of thing.)

Firmly: "I think it is time to go to Milliways."

Because Hank isn't here. And, at Milliways, Simon Tam is.

And the odds are, on the whole, against the interdimensional timeline-warping scenario -- and on the off chance they're not, well, sometimes it just makes sense to skip out of your universe for a while to a more restful one.

[prydeful]

"Meep," she does not say, because that's not actually a word. Or one that Big Girls use, even if it is.

But a general noise that means, really, "Oh, hey, high up now, oooh, not good for stomach," may be made.

"...I think I know why I didn't get morning sickness. It was all waiting to hit at once," she manages, "and I don't want to go to Milliways. Do you realize the ridiculousness of going to Milliways? Ridiculous. Ridiculousness? Ridiculosity? Stupidity. It is a plan that involves going to the end of the universe to a giant bar to give birth. ...How can we know so many people with letters after their names and yet there's no one to deliver this stupid baby in our own timeline and planet?"

Her rant is interrupted by her face twisting.

And then, "...Honey? Bathroom. Now. Run."

[steelartisan]

Even with an armful of girlfriend, Piotr can move very fast.

You're welcome, Katya!





"It will be a much more interesting story than most children have," he points out, a few minutes later.

[prydeful]

"You're not helping," comes a voice from floor-level, one that sounds rather unhappy.

"At all. For the record. Why does Daddy have only one arm, she'll ask me, and I'll answer that it's because I had to rip the other off to beat him senseless with it. And yes, how very interesting a story that will--oh God."

Which may be why there is silence for a few minutes, except for the periodic wince-inducing sound.

And then Kate, after having sat for a moment with cool tile against the back of her neck, blinks.




"Don't contractions normally get closer? And not, well. Stop?"

[steelartisan]

Piotr has long been aware that he's dating someone who regards threats of bodily harm as all-purpose stress relief. (It's kind of endearing, once you get used to it.) So he strokes her hair back gently, free hand rubbing small circles on her stomach, without noticeable worry for his limbs.

At her question, though, he frowns.

"Da. They are supposed to."

"Real ones. Perhaps these are the false contractions?"

This is not a subject Piotr knew in detail once. But no matter how little he's usually inclined to scientific details -- and how terrifying some of the information out there is, when it's not some fetuses and some women but my family -- this is the kind of thing one learns about carefully, under these circumstances.

[prydeful]

"Oh. Joy." Her tone can become more dry, but only slightly so.

She sits for another moment, the fading panic being replaced by boredom.

"Good thing I didn't freak out when they started, then, or we'd have been at Milliways...a longer period of useless time. Don't look at me like that. I didn't deliberately not come get you. This doesn't come with an instruction manual. The whole thing feels weird, how am I to know one weird from another?" Given the fact that their doctor skipped town.

Well. There is another doctor who is totally capable of delivering the baby there. Technically.

Said doctor is even very familiar with Rasputin DNA, which, on the one hand, would make her a great choice.

It's the way she became familiar with Rasputin DNA that means that Kate has never, and will never, suggest this alternative.

She can do it on her own, if it comes to that, thank you very much.

After another moment, she shrugs, and looks up at Piotr. (Well, Up and up, a bit. Stupid tall Russians.) "Bored now. Hand me my toothbrush? My mouth tastes like Bobby's cooking."

[steelartisan]

Yeah.

There's a reason Piotr hasn't suggested Dr. Kativa Rao, either. She is competent, to be sure, but --

But no. Not Katya. Not their child. Never. No matter how brilliant she is or how sorry she feels, not when there are any safe alternatives at all, Piotr will not see them helpless in her hands.

He brushes his palm over her hair one more time, and bends to press a light kiss to her forehead. "Of course, my Katya."

Toothbrush; toothpaste; glass of water, and then he settles down next to her again.

"Do you want to go to Milliways anyway?"

He's not insisting, of course. But the time difference works in their favor here, and it -- might be a good idea, he thinks.

"Then we will be closer. For when it is real."

Just in case.

(Piotr frets very quietly. Not always subtly, but quietly.

He's maybe been fretting some.)

[prydeful]

"Mmph," she answers unhappily, and finishes eliminating the sour taste before she sighs and rests her head on the very comfortable boyfriend shoulder next to her.

"...Not really. Except this kid is such a Rasputin, I'm sure she's going to decide she's ready to be born when we least expect it." She relaxes for the moment anyway, shifting slightly and closing her eyes. "Mm. You're going to hover, aren't you, no matter what I say?" It is, probably, a question she knows the answer to, as she asks, a little more softly, "Will it make you feel better?" in Russian, one hand reaching over to squeeze one of his.

(The problem she is not going to say: Simon's experience with mutants, anyway, is limited to...mostly the two of them, and with mutants birth to nil. And the baby's DNA is still, well, off, in some way. Not wrong. Never wrong, come what may.

But. Something is different. They know that.)

[steelartisan]

Piotr's hand curls gently around hers, thumb stroking once along the side of her hand.

"...I will hover," he admits, warm and a little amused. (But not repentent.) "You are doomed to that."

For the other -- well, the answer is yes.

It won't stop him fretting, not until the baby is born and safe and healthy, and so is Kate, whereupon there will be a whole new set of things to fret about, because they will have a newborn baby, and their daughter will be a mutant child in this world.

But he thinks for a moment before he admits, in the same language, "A little. Yes."

"But not if it'll make you less comfortable. If you'd rather stay here, Katya, I do not mind. We can go quickly enough whenever the time comes."

[prydeful]

She snorts, a bit, at that.

She also smiles, though, a bit more, and enjoys his comfort for a moment before murmuring, "Why do you put up with me? I've got to drive you crazy. And I am far from the hottest X-Lady about. Or the sanest. Most people don't threaten to break bones to say I love you. And there was the whole age gap deal where I tried to regularly molest you. And yet, you're still here next to me. Even when we weren't us, we were us. And you were there."

Except, well. When he wasn't.

"I can trace it, you know. One decision leads from another, all the way back. And without you, there'd be no me. Not like this. Not at all. You're too wrapped up in too much of it. Stupid jerk."

Which, like as you wish, may sometimes mean, I love you, and sometimes rambling isn't really rambling. It's sharing thoughts as they come, because until you share them with someone--or at least a particular someone--they're just that, thoughts. They don't have any meaning to you until they're shared with that some one else, too.

"...Tell me something, first, da? If your mother were here, would she be happy? Or would she be upset we weren't married or something?"

[steelartisan]

"None of the others are you, Katya," he says simply, with half a smile, and holds her close, and listens.

Thinking of his mother is a nostalgic sort of wistfulness, these days. His parents are years dead, and his home hasn't really been one in longer, but the grief is old; old enough to have faded into remembrance of a happy childhood, and the gift that that was. "She would be happy," he says, and means it.

"She would scold me, yes, that I have not made you an honest wife." There's humor in his voice, and warmth for Alexandra Vasilyevna Rasputina long dead and for Kate now. "But she would be happy. She liked you. And you make me happy -- Mama would have loved you for that alone. She would have been delighted by grandchildren."

[prydeful]

She's smiling, a little, and moves her head for a moment to whisper, "Your mama once told me she worried for my hips as Rasputins can have big heads. Your mama either knew very much how things were ending up, or assumed we were already sleeping together. Just to make your head hurt. It made mine. I'll spare you how old I was when she made that comment. But if my father had overheard," and there is wistfulness, there, because that death is not so old, yet, and Genosha seems to keep a grip on mutants and call them back every so often, "you'd have been running very, very fast. Not even Quicksilver could've kept up."

She is so very kind.

She also had to deal with the embarrassment at the time, so it may come out some day yet.

And she is silent, for a moment more, before murmuring, "Get me my cedar box from under the bed, da?"

She may feel some better, but she doesn't want to get up yet.

[steelartisan]

...

Piotr would be facepalming if he had a hand free to do so with; he is laughing a little. (And, not so very long ago, he would have been blushing too. He might be a tiny bit anyway. This is a curse of fair skin and no poker face.)

Even years later: MOOOOOOOOOM.

"She liked you," he says again, much more ruefully, and his general facepalming sentiment is probably audible.

"Da," he murmurs back, but he takes another moment or two of sitting with her before he gets up.

[prydeful]

"Well," Kate says calmly. "That or she was resigned to being a young grandmother. Wise woman, your mama. See, you should have given in to my seductions then. I'm sure my father would have understood."

She does have a poker face--but even she's grinning by the end of it. "I liked your mama," she adds, quietly, looking down at her hands. She still is, when he comes back, and she adds, just as softly, "Daddy absolutely hated you. Sorry, but. Can't blame him. Because he knew exactly how much I loved you. But the last time I saw him in Genosha--"

She had come back, and cut her hair, and the kisses they'd shared, she and Piotr, before she left, had not been talked about. And again, they'd waited.

And she swallows, once, before saying softly, "He asked me when I was going to stop being so afraid of you. Or you and me, I guess. It was part of why we argued so much. He was...different. Genosha was good to him. For him. " She breathes, and looks over at Piotr, taking the box from his hands. "I have footage. I hacked it from the cameras," she adds, looking through the box slowly and taking things--keepsakes--carefully out. "He was looking in one, while trying to shelter some children. And he just said, over and over, 'I love you, Kitty. Make me proud.'' She's silent, taking out some old drawings--from a very young girl named Rasputin, that she drew while she was sick, and sighs as she finally spots what she was looking for, begins to unwrap the silk around it. "I think Daddy would be proud. I think...I think he wouldn't have asked what he did if he still loathed you." And her lip twitches, as she pulls out some dried flowers and a garter, her raised eyebrow saying, Recognize these? when she glances over at him. "At least, not as much."

And she looks at him still, biting her lip. "I would not want your mama to scold you, Piotr."

[steelartisan]

Part of Piotr recognizes that his girlfriend picks very strange times to get sentimental. Like now, sitting exhausted and pregnant on a bathroom floor, sorting through old keepsakes in front of the toilet.

Of course, Piotr tends to feel that any time is a time to be sentimental, so he has no room to talk here.

His mouth quirks, as he settles down again. "Brian and Meggan's wedding. I did not know you still had those."

That was an awkward wedding, at certain points. (Like the garter in question.) And a joyful one, all through.

He could say things here -- he could say, your father would have been proud, and mean it. He could say, mama would not have scolded much, and she liked things to fuss over. He could say, They would truly only care that we were happy, my Katya, and we are.

(He could look at those old drawings, from little Illyana when she was once again small and innocent, and trusted in her big brother and his friends to save her from the sickness that killed her.)

But Kate's hinting --

He's not certain, but neither is he completely oblivious, and he doesn't want to deflect too much from what she's leading up to. She'll find her own topic change if she wants one.

[prydeful]

She sighs after a moment, mildly exasperated.

And gently, almost idly, pulls the garter back on one finger and flings it, so it lands in his lap.

And just fiddles with dried flowers.

"Well. Knowing I kept it might have implied...things. That I wasn't sure you wanted implied."

Yes. That's totally it. And also coherent. And complete. Yes.

[steelartisan]

Totally.

Piotr shifts a little closer, and slips an arm around her as he bends to press a half-smiling kiss to her hair. With the other hand, carefully, he picks up the garter.

It's fabric and elastic. A little more crumpled than it was on that day, years ago, but not like the dried bouquet; it might almost be new.

"I am very sure your father would be proud of you," he murmurs into her hair.

He didn't know her dad all that well. But some things are easy to guess.

"You are strong in yourself, my Katya. You have always been."

[prydeful]

She's trying.

It's harder than anything else, though, is the thing. Give her the Skrull anyday.

This? This is scary.

"Yeah, but. See. Sometimes...I don't want to have to be," she manages, and is looking at her nails again.




"Are you going to make me have to be again, Piotr?" You killed yourself. I scattered your ashes. Once was more than enough.

[steelartisan]

"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.

[prydeful]

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."

[steelartisan]

"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.)

[prydeful]

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

"Then?"

[steelartisan]

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."

[prydeful]

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?"

[steelartisan]

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."

[prydeful]

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?"

[steelartisan]

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?"

[prydeful]

"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."

[steelartisan]

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.

[prydeful]

"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."

[steelartisan]

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.

[prydeful]

"...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.

[steelartisan]

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.)

[prydeful]

(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.

[steelartisan]

"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.)

[prydeful]

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.)

[steelartisan]

Piotr blinks.



"Do you want to?"

[prydeful]

"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.

[steelartisan]

"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.

[prydeful]

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.

[steelartisan]

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.

[prydeful]

"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.