If Clark doesn’t stop hovering soon Hallie is going to fucking shoot him. At eight months pregnant and feeling like she’s going to explode any second her patience is shot to shit, especially with all of Bruce’s bullshit. Mr. Sanctimonious Asshole needs to get off his high horse and see what needs to get done. She gets why Clark is hovering so much, but seriously, she needs some fucking space before she loses it.
He’s hovering so goddamn much she can’t even masturbate and that’s pissing her off.
“Clark,” she says, doing her best to keep her voice calm. “I love you dearly, but if don’t stop fucking hovering in the near future I’m going to shove you through a building.”
“Sorry,” apologizes the Kansas raised Kryptonian even as he continues to hover. “It’s just, you’re almost to term, you’ve had a bunch of complications and the doctor said you may delivery early. And even you’ve admitted you’re worried about potential complications from the baby being only half human.”
“Yeah,” she grumbles, curling up on the couch.
Hallie adores the couches in the observation lounges of the Watchtower. She can curl up on one and watch the Earth below, all the horrors and problems tormenting her homeworld vanishing in the distance. In a weird way, looking Earth from space also made her feel more connected to the universe at large. It didn’t make Earth feel insignificant. If anything, it made it feel more important to her.
And reminded her of the importance of keeping it safe from beings like the Joker, or Mongol, or Henshaw. While Joker was dead, Mongol and Henshaw were both still alive and out there somewhere. Someday she would find both and rip them apart. She would avenge Coast and maybe the ghosts of her family would stop following her.
“If you’re going to keep hovering me, sit on the couch and let me use you as a pillow,” she requests. “Right now the way you radiate heat feels amazing.”
“Alright,” he says, sitting down and both adjusting themselves to be comfortable.
Hallie doesn’t see the way Clark looks at her or her distended belly. She doesn’t see the softness of his gaze, the strange, protective mania. She only sees the stars and world before her.
Clark frowns at the pale purple of the nursery walls, a bit surprised by Hallie’s choice in paint color. He thought she was going to paint the room some shade of green in honor of her Corps. Instead, it was a pretty, soothing, lilac shade with white trim.
“Something wrong?” Hallie asks, ignorant of the splotch of purple paint on her nose.
“No, just still a bit surprised at your choice in color,” Clark admits.
“I don’t want the stereotypical blue or pink, yellow’s out for obvious reasons and I don’t want the baby surrounded by a reminder of work,” Hallie says with a shrug. “So I decided on purple and this shade seemed pretty.”
“It is,” agrees Clark. “Do you want me to put together the crib and changing table while we wait for the walls to dry?”
“Yeah,” Hallie says, sighing slightly. “I don’t think I can get back up when I kneel down to do it,” she admits. “I’m a lot bigger than I thought I’d be. According to the doctor I’m only pregnant with a baby, but I’m a bit bigger than most women normally get when preggo with a baby.”
“Could there be something wrong with the baby?” Clark asks, casually ripping open the box.
“Nope. It’s just the fault of my baby daddy,” Hallie says with a shake of her head.
“Hallie…exactly who is the baby’s father?” Clark delicately asks, inhumanely blue eyes catching suddenly nervous brown. “Because you’ve been refusing to say to, well, anyone.”
“That’s because it’s no one’s business but my own,” Hallie says with a defensive growl.
Her hand is rubbing against her stomach, a tick that Clark had picked up on meaning she was nervous and stressed over something relating to the baby. Diana had made a snide comment at one point that Hallie probably didn’t know who the father was, surprising Clark a little. The Amazon and the Green Lantern normally got along fine, but lately things had soured on Diana’s end of things, for reasons even Hallie didn’t know. He knows, though, that Hallie knows exactly who the father is, but for some reason won’t tell anyone.
Hell, even Barry doesn’t know.
“The father isn’t Barry, right?” Clark queries, looking at the unnecessarily complicated instructions for how to put together the crib.
“God no,” Hallie says, giving Clark an almost appalled look. “I’d never do that to Iris. Besides, what about Barry makes you think he’d knock me up with a weirdly large fetus?”
“Point,” Clark acknowledges. “Who is it? It can’t be that bad.”
“Lets leave it that the Guardians will be even less happy with me after I give birth than they already are over me being pregnant,” Hallie says with a snort.
Clark stares at her, a suspicion filling him. No, it can’t be…
“Hallie, the father isn’t Sinestro by any chance, is it?” Clark asks, watching her face closely.
She stiffens and turns away, curling into herself slightly. That’s enough of an answer for the Kryptonian and he stands up, watching as she shifts herself in an almost defensive manner. It hurts that she would think he’d be a threat to her just because of who the father of her baby is, but he gets it at the same time. How much trouble is she going to be in for with the Guardians?
“Hallie, I’m not going to hurt you,” Clark says soothingly. “You know you and the baby are both two of the people I would never, no matter what, raise my hand to. I will do everything thing in my power to make sure you’re both safe. I don’t care who the father is, I just care about you two.”
“Really?” she asks, gazing up at him with huge eyes and worrying her bottom lip. “You’ll protect us? Even with who the father is?”
“I swear I will,” says Clark, gently hugging Hallie and being careful of her stomach. “I will always protect both of you, no matter what happens.”
Clark presses a kiss against the crown of her head and does his best to not think about the way Hallie smells like starlight and summer skies. About the way she relaxes into him when assured that he’ll keep her safe. About the warmth in her smile. About how nice she feels in his arms.
He tries very hard not to think about how much he’d like to keep holding her.
“Ollie’s dead,” Clark says bluntly, staring at a grimacing Hallie.
“That’s nice,” she says distractedly, “I’m in labor, please get me to the hospital.”
“Now?!” he yelps, blue eyes going wide and drawn slightly out of the rage that had overwhelmed him when dealing with Oliver. “You’re giving birth now?!?!”
“Yes now!” Hallie snaps. “So hospital please!”
“Got it!” Clark says, speeding over and scooping her up.
Within seconds they’re at the hospital, startling yelps out of over tired nurses and stressed doctors. Hallie just sighs in relief as the staff immediately responds, spying the familiar figure her godmother, Dr. Esther Storm, an obstetrician. She’d called the woman an hour earlier when she started to feel contractions and she’s grateful the older woman was waiting for them at Coast General.
“We have a room already set up,” Dr. Storm says bluntly, guiding them both down a series of hallways. “The only doctors and nurses are ones I have hand chosen, since I suspect Hallie doesn’t want anything specific about her birth getting out.”
“You know about the father,” Clark says softly, gently putting Hallie down on the bed Dr. Storm gestures to.
“Yes. Hallie knew better than to keep an important bit of information like that from me,” Dr. Storm says, grabbing at a medical file. “Hallie, do you want him here while you’re giving birth?”
“Please?” she asks, giving both of them hopeful looks and even if Clark wanted to, he would never step out of the room now.
“Certainly. Just scrub up and put on what the nurses hand you,” Dr. Storm orders Clark. “And you, strip down and put on this,” she adds, handing Hallie a medical dress.
Six extremely painful hours later Hallie holds her son in her arms. Magenta lids cover little gold eyes and messy black hair sticks up at odd angles. Clark is sitting silently beside her, just studying both of them and Aunt Esther had stepped out. Hallie thinks she’s calling Uncle Tyler and a few other people to let them know Hallie’s labor had gone well.
“Hey Marty,” she murmurs, dropping a kiss to his forehead. “Being born is exhausting, right? But Mama’s so happy you’re here right now.”
“He’s beautiful Hallie,” Clark says, and the expression on the Kryptonian’s face is one she can’t quite place.
It’s one part longing, one part sadness and one part something indescribable.
She knows the sadness is because he should have been doing this Lois. That he should be sitting at Lois’s hospital bedside, both cooing over their new baby and probably playfully bickering about what to name them. That Hallie should be sitting by herself, maybe Uncle Tyler, or Marc and Tanja or Tatiana (she loves Barry and Ollie and Dinah, but she knows how they’d respond to Marty) here at best. The longing’s coming from the same place.
“Do you want to hold him?” Hallie offers, feeling her eyelids droop.
“Please?” Clark asks, eyes hopeful.
“You can,” Hallie says, letting the Kryptonian hero delicately lift up Marty. “Just make sure to support his head and,” she yawns, “give him to Dr. Storm when she comes back in, she’ll bring him over to the nursery. She has the bracelet to hide Marty’s real appearance.”
“Okay,” Clark murmurs, carefully cradling Marty.
Hallie closes her eyes. A short nap’ll make her feel better.
**********************
“Hey Marty,” Clark whispers, making sure to keep his voice quiet so both Hallie and Marty can sleep. “I’m Clark. I’m not you Daddy, but I love you anyway. I love your Mama too, but shush, I don’t think she’s figured that out yet.”
And he did. Love Hallie that is. Oh, it wasn’t romantic, at least not really (or at least he doesn’t think it’s romantic). Lois was the only woman he’d ever really felt romantic love for. Even what he felt for Lana when he was younger was nothing compared to what he felt for Lois (and he clamps down on the thought ‘what he feels for Hallie’ because he’s not going there, he can’t).
“I’m gonna keep you both safe,” Clark murmurs gently, sleeping mother and child both unaware of the mania in his eyes. “Keep you both safe from everything.”
Sinestro taps a finger against the latest intelligence reports, studying the most recent pictures of Hallie. They’re on a small screen that’s easy for him to glance at. He’d created a slideshow of sorts so he could watch the way her body had changed in pregnancy from start to nearly finished. She looks like she’ll give birth any second; maybe she already has in the time it took for this report to reach him, Sinestro muses. Maybe she’s already had their baby.
The more than satisfying information the other reports have is enough to almost make him smile. Between what he’s learned and the bundle of joy that Hallie has unknowingly waiting for him.
“Akrillo, prepare the Corps.”
