How did Spencer react to Waverly telling him that her father was the one who was pregnant with her, not her mother? What age did he find out at? And how curious did he get after knowing?
A very good question, Beatz! They were both 13 when Waverly told him:
“I’m Gonna Give All My Secrets Away”
read the full story of how she told him below the cut:
I’m Gonna Give All My Secrets Away
The Roller Jungle was by far the most popular hangout for middle schoolers in this part of Zootopia to skate, chill, listen to hit music, and maybe witness a fight outside. But that’s not where our characters were. Waverly and Spencer were instead at the second most popular hangout for middle schoolers in their part of Zootopia and that was Z-Smoothies.
Z-Smoothies was more their speed. Calmer, hip, and no birthday parties with kits running all over the place. The smoothie joint had more culture than the roller rink and Waverly’s parents were less likely to show up and arrest someone there.
Spencer, the bat-eared fox, had just finished his candy from the snack bar and Waverly, the fox/rabbit hybrid, was enjoying a small smoothie.
It was a moment of silence after their previous conversation had ended. Waverly gazed out to nowhere in particular and blinked a couple times. Her tail swayed steadily like a metronome as the chit chat of other patrons phased out and she was left tuned into her own internal contemplation. She licked a drop of the beverage from her lip and twisted the straw around…. she took a deep breath. Her glimpse turned to Spencer and she eyed him cautiously. At the same time Spencer glanced back at her and the two friends sent each other a smile.
Waverly put on a casual demeanor, “Hey Spencer, what’s your biggest secret?”
“My… biggest… ..secret…?”
Waverly almost wanted to take back her question when she saw how uncomfortable Spencer was getting. She noticed how he closed into himself a bit, how his entire body stiffened, and how the only sign of life he seemed to have left was the sunset glow in his eyes. Mesmerized on hers.
Spencer curled his tail around his legs. For the record, he was NOT about to confess his love for Waverly which just so happened to be his biggest secret, but he couldn’t find it in himself to come up with some other deep secret to tell her instead. Her eyes were too… glimmering. Her smile….
“… N-no, not bad… just..”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t feel like it.”
Spencer dropped the tension from his shoulders and looked down, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, just kinda wanted to break the ice,” Waverly put her drink aside, “so… you and I have known each other for over a year now,”
“I want to tell you my biggest secret. I trust you.”
Spencer smiled and leaned closer to Waverly, honing in on the seriousness of the matter, “I won’t tell anybody.”
“And you won’t freak out, right.”
“We’re.. kinda in public… but I wouldn’t freak out anyway. I can keep a secret.”
“Okay… you know I’m a hybrid,”
Waverly lowered her voice, “Do you know where hybrids come from?”
He shrugged, “I can’t say for sure.”
“I’m going to tell you how I came to be. It’s a really significant part of my life, but it’s also kind of something only my family knows. I want you to know it because you’re my best friend.”
“You’re my best friend, too. I’m ready to listen whenever.”
“And afterwards you won’t see me less than you do now?”
“I like you for who you are now. I don’t think anything from your past could change that. Honestly, I’d really like to learn more about what your childhood was like, and I never really asked you about hybrid stuff, so anything you want to tell me can help me understand you better than I do already.”
A pleasant, beaming smile grew on Waverly’s muzzle, “You’re the best, Spencer.”
“Okay… I guess… it begins with my parents’ wish, back in 2018. They took this chance and wished to have a kit of their own.”
“So you came from their wish?”
“Yes, but it’s, it gets more complicated than that ..um.. so they didn’t know if the wish worked or not. Sometime afterwards, my mom was called in to respond to a hostage crisis - some scientist was holding up predators in a laboratory on the far side of Zootopia,”
“Mm m, Happytown. My dad couldn’t join her because he’d gotten sick and couldn’t go to work.”
“So… she had to go in alone? Help with backing up a really dangerous situation, and they couldn’t even do it together?”
“Yeah, my dad had to go to his doctor’s appointment without her too.”
“That had to be scary for them, not being able to be with each other.”
“That’s the kind of life we live in.”
Oh. Right. It’s probably still that way sometimes, isn’t it? And Waverly can’t ever be there when her parents take on dangerous cases. Like how Spencer can’t ever be there with his dad.
Spencer put his hand on Waverly’s arm, “I get that… so how’d it go?”
“Eventually, the scientist wanted my parents to enter the building and lead the hostages out before he negotiated further. He didn’t know my dad wasn’t there. His plan was when he saw them enter a testing room, my dad would be infected with the substance of a toxic flower and go after my mom, then the rest of the predators would be infected and released. It would’ve been a massive chaotic stunt. Only my dad wasn’t there. Before he could poison all the predators, the scientist was apprehended and everyone got out alive, and the chief let my mom go home early.”
“Gosh, that was intense.”
“If my dad were there, it would have been worse. Him being sick seemed to work out.”
“And he recovered okay? It was just a common cold with lucky timing?”
“It’s.. not that simple.. he didn’t have a cold, he felt sick in his stomach.”
“When my mom came home, dad had already been back from his appointment. He’d also seen the news and heard about the hostage crisis. They were both pretty worked up that day so after calming down a bit, she told him some more about what happened and how much different everything could have been.”
“It’s good they finally had each other again, and they still have each other now… but, I’m a little confused, what does this story have to do with you?”
“The thing is, had the wish made my mom pregnant with me-”
“-the ZPD wouldn’t have let her on the hostage scene, and she wouldn’t have apprehended the criminal?”
“So that’s why their wish wasn’t granted?”
Waverly finished her smoothie with one last sip and set the cup down, “I didn’t say that.”
Spencer tilted his head and blinked curiously. Waverly continued with her story, “So my mom asked how my dad’s appointment went …and…”
Waverly took a deep breath, “it was kinda difficult for him to say, but, my mom says he hugged her, really hard, telling her the wish worked. And she asked what did he mean?” -sigh- “get this, my dad was pregnant with me… that’s why he felt sick, that’s why he couldn’t go to work, that’s where I came from,” Waverly propped her head on her hand, staring at her other hand tracing circles on the tabletop.
She peeked a glance at Spencer, “what do you think of that?”
Spencer’s gaze dropped to the table too, his eyebrows furrowing just a bit. He opened his mouth to say something then bit his lip. After a second he tried again, “That’s… so.. special,”
Waverly’s eyes perked up and she blinked.
“I knew you and your dad were close, but, that kind of bond is so much more.. remarkable. Kinda makes me jealous, I wish me and my dad were half that close. I mean, we are, we’re.. great… anyway… I think that’s sweet.”
“I know wishes work in mysterious ways. It doesn’t matter how your parents had you, I’m just happy they were able to have you.”
Waverly smiled, her cheeks faintly tinting pink through her gray fur.
"You’re dad’s okay with you telling me this? It seems a lot like his business.”
“I asked and he said it was okay for me to tell you. Lotus too… wow, they made me do the hard work here.”
“Ahaha, all right. Hey Waverly?”
“Thank you for telling me. I know it meant a lot to you.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
Spencer smiled back to her, then a thought came to mind, he reached under his scarf and revealed tags hanging around his neck on a chain - the kind mammals in the military wear.
“These were extras that my dad had and he gave them to me,” Waverly noted Logan D. Vampine’s id info engraved into the tags, “I don’t ever take them off but no one ever really notices them of course… I miss my dad so much and these mean a lot to me. I just… since we’re sharing secrets here I figured I’d show you.”
Waverly noticed how Spencer’s voice choked when he talked about his dad. She knew he was supposed to come home again near the end of the school year, but waiting was the worst. She understood.
“I like how you keep him close to you all the time, I can tell you love him a lot.”
“Mhm.” Spencer nodded and put away the tags.
“What do you say we head home now? I don’t want the owner to come back and make us buy some hipster food off a stick again.”
Spencer snickered, his mood lifting again, “Hold on, your home or my home?”
“Oh… mine I guess. And you can ask me more ‘hybrid questions’ when we get there, if you’re curious.”
“Okay,” Spencer and Waverly hopped out of their chairs at the same time, “just let me hit the snack bar right quick.”
Waverly threw away her empty cup and waited for Spencer to catch up with her at the door. When he did, he handed her a yogurt that he bought.
“Surprise! Now let’s go home.”