l-lol, basically b and i’s lovechild «; uhh, don’t take this really seriously, it’s just something cute and random that we invented in chat one day… because, well, barnaby and kotetsu’s theoretical children would be so pretty ;; no, this isn’t mpreg. in case you missed it, here’s a picture of the little brat that b drew!

i was going to do more, but i couldn’t decide on what her NEXT powers would be, sooo i just stuck with pre-birth and bitty kid drabbles for now! perhaps i will ramble about more nonsense if b draws her as a teenager and older… haha.

~~

There’s something to be said about planning.

They’ve done that, that much is certain. They’ve waited, until Kaede is nearly 18 and moving out on her own, a hero in her own right after years in the academy. They’ve waited until science has progressed to a point that it isn’t just one of their genes being stuffed into some donor egg - no, it’s both of them in this child, and Barnaby spends month after month wondering what she’ll look like.

He’s sure he’s tormented their surrogate to the ends of the earth, but she’s a sweet woman in her early twenties, unfazed by his coddling and his constant calls and his constant inquiries - was she eating right? Exercising? She has to be entirely healthy for this, for the birth, for their child. Nothing can go wrong. If something goes wrong - 

Well, everyone is expecting - wanting this to go right, after all. There was some trepidation in initially telling Kaede, but she simply laughed, told both of them to go and be happy and if another child satisfied that? By all means. Every hero they used to work with - nothing but encouraging words, even if Kotetsu gets the occasional tease about being ‘grey around the edges’, so what does he need with another kid?

“Another month,” Kotetsu announces suddenly one night, grinning ear to ear and looking every bit the proud parent that he both is and isn’t yet. “That’s it, Bunny.”

“Another month, and we don’t even have the nursery ready - we need to make sure Dr. Phillips is on call that night and - “

“Bunny.” There are calm hands in his hair, smoothing his curls, and Kotetsu leans down, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. His loosened tie drapes over Barnaby’s shoulder, and the blond wryly smiles, reaching up to wind his fingers around it. “Everything will be fine.”

It’s probably an empty confidence, because there’s no doubt that Kotetsu is just as worried, even if he’s gone through this once before. Still. Still. It feels good to hear those words, and Barnaby exhales slowly, tilts his head up, lets Kotetsu kiss him again, lets him gently teeth his lower lip and allows himself to groan in the back of his throat at the warmth of Kotetsu’s mouth against his own.

“Are you trying to distract me?” Barnaby murmurs, and Kotetsu laughs, kisses him again, nuzzles his cheek against Barnaby’s and all he can think of is how much Kotetsu acts like a cat sometimes. 

“Yeah. And I was thinking - “

“If you’re suggesting we pretend like we’re making our child all over again - “

“I wasn’t gonna say that!”

And yet they make it to the bed anyway, all grabbing, grasping hands, hot, ragged breaths and easy, slow kisses in spite of their urgency to be close to one another. Warmth - yes, that’s what Barnaby has always found in Kotetsu, and it is no less delivered now when the man is sliding into him, making him gasp and arch his back, rake his nails down his spine and groan and purr when Kotetsu mouths and bites his neck. 

It’s a long night, but a well-needed one for distractions. Barnaby’s sure he looks a mess the morning after, hair tousled and his neck bitten up to the nth degree - not that Kotetsu looks any better put together when the doctor calls, confirming his schedule a month ahead: just as planned, something that Barnaby knows Kotetsu breathes a heavy sigh of relief about just as much as he. 

That relief culminates into one highly stressful night during the first week of May. It had been raining all week - still is raining when their surrogate (a lovely woman by the name of Erica, mind, though at the moment, Barnaby can hardly think of her name) finds her way into the hospital, finally thinks to call them once she’s in labor proper, and this is not going exactly as planned.

Kotetsu reassures him as he paces, no matter how he’s jittery, too - but he’s done this before. Barnaby hasn’t, never thought he would, and this is far too nervewracking and this never needed to happen again because he can only stand it once, no matter how much he wants it, and oh, does he want it. He’s had a family for years now - a real one again after so long, not destroyed by tragedy of any sort, and this will only add to it, make it stronger and broader and wider and he needs that, more than anything in this moment. 

He needs to hold their child - his child, his daughter of flesh and blood. 

It’s tense hour after tense hour, and really, there’s so much he can handle after a certain point. Thankfully, gratefully, whatever merciful being there is in the universe takes pity on him, and it’s all a blur when his daughter is finally set into his arms, a crying, wailing bundle with Kotetsu steadying him to make sure his knees don’t crumple out from underneath him and happily exclaiming that, well, the kid’s certainly got Bunny’s lungs! 

Barnaby’s pretty sure he’s crying, and it’s the first time in a long while that they’re happy tears. 

It’s still raining outside, but not really, as far as he’s concerned. 

~

Ivy’s an interesting child.

Barnaby supposes he was rather like that at times when he was a child. Interesting. There’s not a better word for it - eccentric, perhaps? Because she’s certainly that, if nothing else.

Four years old, and she’s into everything. That was inherited from Kotetsu, without a doubt, though the stubbornness - well, perhaps that was both of them, Barnaby wryly thinks as he watches the girl flop bellyfirst onto the couch, deep brown curls bouncing, feet kicked up and the sharpness of a startlingly similar green gaze pinning him from across the room. 

“Whatcha doing, Daddy?”

She wants to run over and help him disassemble something. The girl always wants to have her hands in something - computers, tools, anything that involves taking things apart. Definitely not the ‘usual’ definition of a girl, and Barnaby sort of likes her that way: well, at least until she complains that her given name is too girly, and that she wishes she had a boy’s name. 

… Admittedly, even the nurses had raised eyebrows at Primrose Ivy Emily on the day of her birth. 

Well, their loss in taste, as far as he was concerned. 

“Building a server.”

“Why?”

“Because your father and I have too many files - well, mostly too many photos and need a better place to put them.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re too cute, and we can’t stop taking pictures of you.”

She wrinkles her nose at that, rolls off the couch into a heap with a long-suffering sigh, and Barnaby rather wishes he had his camera on hand to take one right then and there. 

There’s definitely something to be said about planning, and as far as Barnaby is concerned, this - this perfect little girl that leaps to her feet as soon as her sister arrives and scoops her up and swings her around, that laughs and clings to Kotetsu’s leg and tells him that he’s cool - 

Yes. This was a perfectly laid out plan, no matter any bumps along the way.