The Batboys in: “I’m late.” Take one.
A/n: Y’all ready for some cliches? No? Well too fucking bad because that’s what you’re getting lmao. This time around I’ve only got fills for Jaybird and Timmy-boy, but fear not--Dick and Older!Dami’s will be up sometime this week. For right now except these humble offerings, crafted in the thick of my sleep derivation... [This has since edited to match the AO3 version--my apologies to all who read that first, hella rough draft. Also! Part 2 is done now!]
Taglist [if you want in on some of this sweet, sweet tagging action just hit me up in an ask]: @aspiratinganxiety
Prompt: “I’m late.”
Presented For your consideration/entertainment:
Say the Word (Practice Makes Perfect) [Jason Todd x Reader]
Just because you weren’t ready didn’t mean that you didn’t want it...
You and Me Both, Babe [Tim Drake x Reader]
When you see an opportunity you take it. That’s one of the things he loves about you the most.
Say the Word (Practice Makes Perfect) [Jason Todd x Reader]
As you stare down at the single pink line on the tiny display your feelings are mixed.
On the one hand you’re hardly ready to raise a child, not when you still feel like a kid yourself most days, and that’s saying nothing of Jay’s chosen profession. Vigilantism is hardly conducive to home and hearth, after all. But despite knowing all of this you still feel… oddly crushed?
In the hours since your shaky murmur of “I’m late” was breathed into the crook of his neck, visions of little girls with inky ringlets and toddling boys with irises the color of a Caribbean tide had embedded themselves in your mind’s eye. With each minute that passed you allowed yourself to dream up a whole new life with Jason, one full of tiny giggles and toothless smiles and scabby knees. You saw your son seated aloft his broad shoulders, content and happy; your daughter on his knee as he read her his favorite Doctor Seuss book; you saw a future filled to bursting with things you’d never knew you wanted, knew you needed until that moment.
Hours to build up that new life in your head, and only two minutes to see it collapse around you.
“Is it weird that I’m a little disappointed?”
You finally tear your eyes away from the line, but you still can’t bring yourself to face the man that hovers behind you. “No,” you start after a few long seconds. “But it’s for the best… Right?”
You don’t know what Jay sees in your eyes when you finally meet his in the bathroom’s mirror, but you do know what you see in his—that same future that had shone so brief, but brilliant.
There’s a gentleness in his gaze, a fragility that leaves you choking on a sob. Before the first tears even fully form you’re being spun around and gathered up into his arms. Jason’s hands trail the length of your spine in long, lulling strokes even as you dig your nails into the muscles of his back and pull yourself flush against him. Your grip is firm bordering on bruising, but if it hurts him he doesn’t show it. He whispers words of comfort that echo in his chest, and reverberate through you. The feeling registers more than his voice, and while it’s calming in a way it still not enough.
“This is so stupid. Why am I crying? I’m not pregnant so I can’t even blame my hormones!” The sentences come between heaving breaths and gasping sobs.
“It’s not stupid,” he assures you, hands still working at soothing your quaking frame. “If you want a family with me honey, you say the word and I’ll give you one. But it’ll be on our terms, and not the result of a bad batch of birth control or a faulty Trojan.”
You laugh a bit at that, sniff loudly, then look up at him. You know you must be a sight—eyes and nose red and wet, face splotchy and puffy—but he still looks at you like you’re the most beautiful thing in the world. Your answering smile is a small thing that trembles a bit with the last dregs of your breakdown, but it’s there and it’s real and it’s hopeful. You don’t know when the pair of you will be ready for a family, if ever, but just knowing that the option is there enough for now.
Jay returns your smile as he wipes away the wetness on you cheeks with soft motions and gentle hands. In the face of such tenderness and care there’s only one thing to be said—“I love you.”
“I know,” he says, and there’s no cockiness behind the words, only confidence in what the two of you share. “And I love you too.”
“That’s good to hear, especially after what I just did to your shirt.”
“What? You mean the scratching? Don’t get me wrong, you’ve got a hell of a grip babe, but it’s not nearly enough to do any real damage.”
“No, not that—but also sorry for that.”
“No harm, no foul, doll. Hey, that rhymed! Aww, come on now! Don’t roll your eyes baby—respect my flow.”
“Whatever,” you say around a laugh as you push away from him. “Go get some real bars and change your shirt.”
“Pssh. Please woman, my bars and my shirt are both tight as hell.” He pulls at the compression material then and releases it; how he manages to avoid pinching himself in the process is a mystery, but the audible pop of it snapping back in place leaves you with the impression that the action has the potential to be just as painful.
“Tight or not, I’m pretty sure that the Absorbent Tip TM was pressing into your back for a while there sooo... yeah. You might want to take care of that.”
It takes a second for him to realize what that means, but once he does…The look of mild disgust that flashes across his face leaves you snickering even as you apologize.
“You could at least pretend to feel bad about this, you know,” he says with a shake of his head. “But hell babe, if you wanted me to lose the shirt all you had to do was ask.”
The laughter dies on your lips as he reaches behind himself to grab a handful of the black tee; a tug and what has to be an unnecessary amount of flexing sees the clingy scrap of material removed and tossed away. Your eyes narrow as you take in your stupid, sexy, smirking, cocky cock of a boyfriend, but there’s no denying the wicked gleam in his gaze or the way it affects you.
You might not be ready to make a baby right at this very moment, but there’s nothing wrong with a little practice…
You and Me Both, Babe [Tim Drake x Reader]
Your home smells amazing right now.
The warm, hardy scent of fresh baked bread is cut through by the tang of herbs simmering in a tomato-based sauce. The meatballs—recipe compliments of Alfred—adds a richness to it all, while the lemon rinds that’re left over from the vinaigrette you’d whipped up earlier adds a nice, citrus-y note that, while not readily identifiable, does help to lighten the dense canopy of the more cloying aromas.
Though it smells divine, the spread is far from elaborate. Spaghetti and meatballs, breadsticks, and salad—hardly the meal one would expect the wife of the heir to the Wayne Enterprises throne to prepare for dinner, but then again one would hardly expect you to cook for yourself at all.
Driven by paranoia and practicality in mostly equal measure, both you and Tim decided against hiring someone to help around the house. Paranoia because, even if the dangers of his night job could be ignored, there's still a certain amount of caution to be exercised just from bearing the family name; practicality because, despite the square footage, your high rise apartment's easily maintained by the two of you. Keeping yourselves fed is a bit trickier given your schedules, but between Alfred occasionally dropping off pre-made meals (with heating instructions simple enough that even your husband in his base, half-sleep state can follow) and honing the magical skill that is meal prepping (this too is a gift imparted by the aging man, bless him) you have a solid, home-cooked meal at least four days out of the week.
Your phone chirps an alarm that tells you it’s time to pull the pasta from the heat; after a quick drain it’s tossed with the red sauce and meatballs before being transferred to a serving dish. The whole of the meal is then moved to the dining table and then you’re hurrying off to the other end of the flat to change (because while eau de marinara might work for spaghetti it does very little for you).
As with the meal, there’s nothing fancy to be found in your chosen attire. The sweater you slip on was actually Tim’s once upon a time—though after finding you puttering around his kitchen in nothing but the over-sized garment he had decided that it looked much better on you…
“Keep it.”
You’d grown used to his ability to move about in virtual silence, but knowing what Tim was capable of didn’t leave you any better equipped to deal with it. Breathing in sharply, you whipped your head towards the man hard and fast enough that whiplash was a legitimate concern. You had fully intended to threaten him with a bell collar yet again, but the smile he gave you was so dopey, so damn lovesick that all the fight bled right out of you. Suddenly shy in the face his unabashed adoration, you quickly turned your attention back to the omelet you’d been assembling. A few seconds passed before you remembered the words that had startled you in the first place.
“Keep what?”
“The sweater,” he said, voice sounding from far nearer as he made his way towards you. A few long strides saw strong arms wrapping around your middle and lips at your ear. “Looks good on you.” The sentence was little more than a whisper, a breath of a thing that would’ve went unheard had he not been so close. His nose followed the curve of your ear upwards until he was able to press a lingering kiss to your temple.
Your breath caught and the rose dust that stained you cheeks deepened. The sweater. You’d honestly forgotten that you were wearing it.
You hadn’t felt like wresting yourself back into the restricting clothing you’d worn the night before, but walking around completely naked wasn’t an option you were willing to entertain either. Silly, given that he’d already seen you in naught but your skin, but still—‘leave something to the imagination’ and all that jazz. The thing was big and warm, almost too warm in the heated apartment, and still smelled like him. The V of the neckline and the sleeves both hung down far lower than what was necessary for your purposes; there was nothing to be done about the former, but the latter was quickly remedied with several cuffing rolls. Over the course of you washing, chopping, and whisking the various ingredients those cuffs had slowly loosened—more so on your dominate arm; annoying but expected—and the collar had drifted off to the left leaving the shoulder there on display. Having to constantly shrug the thing back into some semblance of order was annoying, but when a pair of warm lips pressed against the once again exposed skin.
Well.
Tim might’ve thought the sweater looked better on you, but you both agreed that it was at its best left in a careless heap on the floor.
The memory is an old one, but it’s just as warm and vivid now as it was when you made it. It was the first time you had spent the night at his place, and though neither of you actively acknowledged it then, that was the day that you both knew you’d found the ever elusive one. Moments like that could never fall prey to the dulling touch of time.
The sleeves, so used to being cuffed after years of the action, roll into place effortlessly. Joggers are exchanged for a pair of jeans and then you’re swapping out your fuzzy socks for ones not covered in rogue marinara drips. You don’t bother with makeup though you do spare a few minutes to sort out your hair from the messy style you’d thrown it into before cooking. Satisfied with your appearance, you go to your purse and pull out the paper that confirmed what you already knew.
An absentee period combined with the three EPTs you’d taken yesterday was enough to convince you that your body did indeed have a new tenant, but much like your husband you liked redundancy so off to the clinic you went. Two samples later and Doctor Thomas was sending you on your way with a promise to put a rush on the blood analysis, and she’d kept her word. An hour after Tim had left this morning you were getting a fax full of medical jargon about hormone levels and percentages.
You still can’t make heads or tails of most of it, but the gist is clear—you’re going to be a mother. And Tim—your sweet, precious, adoring husband—is going to be a father.
Any trepidation you may have felt over the matter is instantly quelled by just the thought of him alone. Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne is the most loving, caring, reliable man you’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, and cliché though it might be, you know that there’s nothing that you can’t face so long as you’re together.
You fold the paper over and tuck it into your back pocket, all the while smiling so hard that your cheeks actually begin to ache. A mom. I’m going to be a mom. The thought leaves you full of a joy that can’t be contained. It manifests itself in the bounce of your walk and the childlike swing of your arms as you head back to the dining room to ready the plates.
You want Tim as relaxed as possible when you give him the big news, not out of fear, but rather so he’ll have the mental clarity to properly process it. Though he does his best to shake it off during his commute, work has a tendency to follow him home; sometimes in the form of actual tasks that still need to be seen to, while others its complaints about the Board and their “–total lack of insight as to how the world actually works.” You have no problem with letting him blow off some steam, welcome it even, as it’s better than him falling back on his old habit of bottling everything up. You’re his sounding board, his anchor, a tether that will always pull him back to calmer waters. To this end you have many methods at your disposal, and at least several of them involve food.
Feeling kind of fancy, you decide to try to plate the pasta using that neat little trick that Alfred had showed you with the tongs and the spoon; it takes a few tries, but eventually you end up with two perfect mounds of spaghetti. Unfortunately this leaves no place for the meatballs except for around said mounds. You place them as artistically as you can, but it still ends up looking like something that could potentially summon the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Eh well, I married a nerd; if anyone can appreciate it, it’d be him. The musing pulls a giggle from already smiling lips.
The salad takes a lot less effort, though you do make a mental note to thank Jay again for linking you to those vinaigrette recipes. Habit has you reaching for wine glasses and a nice vintage, but then you remember the little bean growing inside of you and stop. You’ve heard it said that one glass of wine a day is actually acceptable, but you’re not so sure.
Better safe than sorry, you reason as you fill them with water instead. Though it is something to look up. A fair bit of research is definitely in your future—well, Tim’s more so than yours. The man never braves any new territory without first arming himself to the teeth with every scrap of intel available to him, and you know that your pregnancy will be no different.
With the table now fully set there’s nothing left to do but wait, and so you grab your phone and slump down in your seat. A quick time check tells you that Tim should be home any minute, but you’re too restless to sit idle. Needing something, anything, to save you from yourself you pull up a game on your phone and start swiping. The first few levels you tackle are defeated easily enough thanks to the power-ups you’ve been hording like some techno-centric millennial dragon, but once you run out you essentially hit a wall. A courtesy hour of unlimited lives means you get lost to the menial task, so much so that you don’t even realize Tim’s home until he shuffles into the room.
“Hey sweets,” he says as he leans down to press a kiss against your forehead. “I’m late, I know, I’m sorry.”
“Ten minutes is hardly ‘late’, love.”
“Yeah, but still…”
The exchange is as familiar as anything else in your relationship. Early on in your platonic days you had learned that Tim offering up his time to you was among the most significant displays of affection in his arsenal. Hardly surprising given that between the day job that is his necessity and the night gig that is his passion, there’s not much of it to be had that isn’t already accounted for. Free time was more often than not a concept for the man, not a reality, but he had made it more than clear that what little he had was yours if you’d have it.
The moment his forehead leans heavy against yours you know you’re going to have to abandon your initial plan; he’s clearly world-weary and in need of some good news ASAP. Besides, you’ll never be able to forgive yourself if you allow a setup as prime as the one he just handed you to pass by. When you retell this story to your future child years from now—hell when you tell it to your family and friends over the next few days—this one-liner will be a distinct a point of quipping pride.
Really, you owe it to you all.
Your lips curl upwards in anticipation of the sentence that will leave people both within and without the Wayne clan face-palming for years to come—
“It’s okay, babe—I’m late too.”
For his part Tim just blinks a few times in confusion, clearly ignorant of the excellence he’d just bore witness to. With his brows draw inwards and a slight pout on his lips he’s pretty much the human equivalent of a puppy; the curiosity that tints the sapphires that search your face for clarity does nothing to dissuade the image. The wide smile you give him is returned in kind, though the arching of a brow is a silent call for an explanation; when all the reply he gets is the folded sheet the second rises to join the first. He gives you an expectant look then, but you just grin and a nod towards the paper in his hand. His gaze is probing as he pulls the thing back to size without breaking eye contact, but there’s nothing of substance to be found in the mirth that dances in your eyes.
“Okay then,” he says on a laughter laced sigh. “I guess I’ll actually have to read this—wait. What is all this? Lab workups… Results…” His mumbles become near silent as he works his way down the page. “Human chorionic gonadotropin levels—hCG, hCG… That’s the pregnancy hormone. And at 7,480 units per milliliter…”
He looks up at you, eyes suddenly glassy as he breathes out your name. “Baby, sweetheart—are you– I mean you have to be… Right?”
You nod hard, not trusting your voice not to crack under the weight of your emotions. Faster than you can process the motion you’re being gathered up and squeezed tight. A flurry of Oh my god’s and declarations of love pour out of him as readily as his tears and your replies ring out in kind. You stay wrapped around each other for several long minutes before Tim finally pulls away enough to look at you. That same dopey, lovesick smile that had brought you to this place in your lives is back as he leans his forehead against yours again.
“We’re going to be parents.” His voice is awestruck in that way that says he can’t believe he’s managed to land on the right side of luck yet again.
“Correction: we’re going awesome parents. Way better than all those scrubs that let their kids run around terrorizing the general populace.”
He laughs even as he shudders. “That’s for damn sure. God, there’s so much to do. How many weeks along are you? For that matter how long have you known? Are you feeling okay? I’m pretty sure you haven’t been experiencing morning sickness, unless you’ve been hiding it from me—you haven’t right? We’re in this together, sweetheart, so–”
You pull him in for a proper kiss then, knowing it’s the only way to stop the deluge of worries and words. He’s resistant at first, still trying to speak even with your lips smushed together, but kneading fingers at his nape sees that nonsense meeting a quick end. It takes a few long moments, but under your expert touch the tension has no choice but to drain away.
“We got this babe. Yeah?” It comes out as a question, but your expression says that you won’t accept any answer other than a solid yes.
“Yeah. We do,” he agrees, nod resolute and voice steady. “So Missus Wayne, what now?”
“Now, we eat, Mister Wayne. Spaghetti Monster summoning charms wait for no man, or expecting mother for that matter.”
