Kamala had tried to keep herself busy all day since she had realized. She’d been feeling off for all of that week and there wasn’t exactly a working hospital anymore you could go to and so she turned to the few medical people here she knew and one who had confirmed done family medicine before which was Dr. Lee Thompkins.
A few unconventional tests in lieu of modern medicine later and the doctor had confirmed what Kamala was both hoping for and was absolutely afraid of.
A baby.
Holy shit. She was pregnant.
This was great, because this is what she wanted, what she always thought of for herself when she started getting older and she and Peter started getting more and more serious.
This was also terrible because the state of Vallo was absolutely in shambles, and they were fighting everyday to turn the tide but there was no guaranteed way of knowing anything was working.
“What should I do?” she had asked Lee and the answer she was told was to share the news with him and see the reaction. The him being Peter here of course. But don’t take too long, Lee had also said, stating she’d had cases where someone took the whole nine months to tell someone they were about to pop out a baby and the spouse in question just thought their wife was letting themselves go. Oof.
No, Kamala knew she had to tell Peter as soon as she saw him, but at least that meant they can do the tasks they needed to do around the Outpost in the meantime before they met up again in person to retire for the evening. When she got back to their room, she was the first to return and she breathed a sigh of relief that she would at least have a few seconds to collect herself. And thus she flopped back onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling while figuring out the best way to tell Peter.
Peter was exhausted. It hadn’t been an especially trying day. Not really. He’d woken up early and had gone to look for Wanda before work like he usually did, though he hadn’t spotted her this time around. But the kids had been in a weird mood today, and Peter had had to be on his A-game all day to quell any fights before they could really break out. Callum… had not been much help.
“That,” Peter said, walking into their room, “looks like a great idea.” He hung up his coat, dropped his bag by the door, kicked off his shoes, and then flopped down next to Kamala on the bed. “Man, what a day. James decided to start the day off by dropping a frog down Roshani’s shirt, and the day did not get better from there. Callum was hardly any help either, but, you know, when is he ever? Not that he’s a bad guy, really. I know he’s trying.” Peter stopped. Did he know that Callum was trying?
Well, he was better than when he’d first started working at the school, so that probably counted for something.
“But man, am I ever glad to be back home with you. How was your day?”
He rolled over to his side, and then frowned, actually getting a good look at Kamala. Was she… worried about something? “Is everything okay?”
Kamala listened to him talk and, oh god, her heart was just full. She loved him so much, he was so handsome, so caring, so wonderful, he would make a great parent. She tried her damned hardest to keep up that expression of fondness in her eyes, but you weren’t best friends for eight years without learning each other’s tells and minute changes in facial expression. She knew he would see right through it.
“Yeah,” she started. “I think.” She brought up one hand to his cheek as she gave him a smile. “I was just feeling off for a few days, finally figured out what was going on, so you know. Knowing is better than not. But it’s nothing bad at all. It’s just… the future. Related to the future and all.”
Great, Kamala. What a great start. She had a feeling that wasn’t going to reassure him as much as possibly making him panic.
Kamala was absolutely going to make Peter panic. He pulled himself up onto one elbow and looked at her, eyes wide. “The future? What?” A hundred possibilities ran through his head. Some part of his brain had registered that she’d said it was nothing bad, but the rest of his brain had decided to drop kick that part and was sitting firmly on top of it. What could be making Kamala feel off for days? Cancer? Was it cancer? Was she dying? “Are you okay? Oh shit. Should I bring you to FCG?”
With Peter’s eyes widening, Kamala followed suit, and she pulled herself up too. “Oh, no! No no, oh god, I’m doing this totally wrong.” She then properly sat up, moving back slightly so she could avoid slamming her forehead into Peter’s (because when she got excited, she reacted with her entire body and they weren’t exactly strangers to bumping foreheads before).
“I’m okay, seriously. I’m not sick. I’m okay. Deep breaths, Peter.”
Peter took a deep breath, and then sat up properly as well. He sat cross-legged on the bed in front of Kamala, knee-to-knee. “Alright, I’m good.” Peter said, putting on his serious face. “I’m ready. I promise I won’t react until you finish this time. Hit me, Kamala.”
Okay, here we go, she thought. She took a deep breath and then after a pause, she took both of his hands in his. It would help ground her and maybe help her actually use her words instead of gesturing wildly. “This wasn’t planned. I mean, you obviously know, but for the record, I personally want to keep him. Or her. Or them, if we end up having a non-binary kid but… yeah, it’s that.”
Peter stared.
If you asked, Peter would usually say he had an above average intellect. He was a smart guy. He’d gotten good grades in school, had worked out the chemical composition of his own web-fluid when he was fourteen, solved most of his fighting problems through his brain. He wasn’t an idiot.
But for a long moment, he could not, for the life of him, figure out what Kamala was trying to tell him.
“We’re having a kid?” he asked, stupidly. And then, “Wait, are you pregnant?”
Kamala stared at him right back, and then realized, “Oh. I didn’t actually say the word ‘pregnant’, did I? I thought I did. Yes. Yes, I’m pregnant.”
“That’s…” Peter said, feeling everything at once. But the most overpowering emotion was joy. It shone from his face. “That’s amazing!” he said, and lunged at her to kiss her. “Super great! You’re going to be a great mom, Kamala.”
Kamala didn’t register entirely that he was actually happy about this before he was moving in and in surprise, she lost her balance when he reached her. They both toppled back against the mattress, her head thankfully hitting the soft pillow behind them. He was happy! Of course, he was happy!
“You… you’re going to be a dad too, Peter!” She moved her arms around his neck as she beamed up at him. “We’re going to be parents!”
“Oh, we’re going to be awesome parents.” Peter was sure of that, at least.
He was less sure about raising a child in this world, and that thought made the smile fade from his face. It wasn’t a good world, and while Peter was sure – had to be sure – that it was only temporary, that the world their child would be born into would be a different world than the one they’d grow up in, the idea of taking care of a baby with Interitus out there was hard.
One where Wanda was still on the enemies side, trying to kill him and everything she had once cared about. A world where his child might not get a chance to meet her. At least, not meet her in any way that Peter would want her to.
“We’ll just have to try harder to make this a world where they’ll be safe,” he said, somberly.
Watching him, Kamala could take a good guess on what was going on his mind and she brought up a palm to cup his cheek. “That was the part where I wasn’t sure how you’d really react.” She had wanted things to be better for a long time, and she kept hoping it would go that way but so far, Wanda was still a thrall, and a number of people were still gone, having been sent back to their world.
“I think we can do it. We made it this far, we just have to keep fighting.” Kamala paused and then added. “Well, I think you’ll have to do more of it than I do in a few months.”
Peter smiled down at her and used both hands to smooth her hair from her face, keeping himself propped up over her on his elbows. “Well, you’ll be too busy being the most amazing mother of all time, so I guess I can pick up your slack in the fighting arena,” he said, grinning cheekily at her.
“You mean, we’ll be swapping, thank you very much.” She only pouted briefly because the sheer joy she felt then couldn’t keep a smile off her face. Kamala was not one to see herself ever sitting on the sidelines but she knew herself well enough to know she was going to devote so much of her energy to this child, whether it was protecting them or helping to build a world worthy for them.
She moved her hand away from his cheek and instead, slid her arms around his neck, her grin turning mischievous. “For now we should celebrate, and I have an idea how.”