Fic: Birthday
Jun. 25th, 2012 07:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imasupermuteantTitle: Birthday
Fandom: Written with the Young Justice cartoon in mind, but could easily fit into any DCU verse that has Tim
Pairing: Gen
Wordcount: 2265
Summary: So I've been participating in this mildly shitty Tumblr roleplay as Tim. And it's been lots of fun despite the fact that I don't fit in all that well in this fandom (so many canonships, not enough batcest). Anyway, someone on the RP request a time in which Tim had to deliver a baby. And I'd been meaning to write that fic *forever*. Because if there's anything I'm enthusiastic about it's Childbirth and Robin (not at once, usually). Anyway, be warned that this fic came out a little bit... technical. I use the word "endometrium" at least once. I may had said "placenta" as well.
The situation in this case wasn’t helping. The robbers (definitely Intergang, based on their tech) knew what they were doing, they were organized, they had been ready for Tim when he came crashing through the skylight into the bank an hour ago.
Quick action on the part of the robbers had resulted in them pushing him in with the rest of the hostages. These goons were alert, and had taken the time to separate the hostages into three different areas and rigged the whole place with explosives. Tim wouldn’t be able to free one group of hostages without endangering another.
Not that he was in a position to rescure anyone. Intergang knew who he was, after all, and the minute he had shown up they had separated him from his gear and pushed him in with a group of hostages. There were two men with guns pointed directly at his head, ordering him to keep his hands pressed to the floor.
Tim sighed. It was going to be a long, hopefully boring, wait. Communicators were jammed, and Tim wouldn’t be able to access the emergency beacon in his shoe without altering them to what he was doing. He was out of options.
“Um. Excuse me?”
Tim’s head shot up to see a small but very pregnant woman sitting just a few feet to his left. She was raising her hand, as if they were sitting in a classroom and not on the floor of the Gotham Mutual.
“Excuse me!” She said, quite a bit louder.
“What?!” One goon snapped, spinning to point his semi-automatic directly at her.
“I just… Um.” The woman let out a long, hissing breath, her face curling up, “It would just be really nice if I could move around, please.”
“Look lady,” The goon growled, “This isn’t some kind of picnic we’re holding here.”
“I don’t think you understand.” The woman’s voice was strained, and Tim noticed her hands pressing against the underside of her belly, “I really, really need to move around.”
“I don’t think you—”
“—I’m in labor you stupid waste of space!” The woman hissed, breathing through what was obviously a contraction.
The goon didn’t really seem to comprehend that at first, but soon enough his eyes widened and his gun dipped towards the ground. It was obvious the they had been prepared for police and vigilantes, but there was no way they could have prepared for this.
“Uh. I don’t… Boss?”
The “Boss” looking just about as shocked and frightened as his underling, walked over to peer at the woman.
“Jeez. What should we do?”
“What you should do is let me stand up.” The woman groused. When the goons failed to respond quickly enough she decided for them, pushing her into a standing position. She stood in place, breathing heavily and rocking her hips back and forth. The bank robbers looked more than a little bit distressed, but did nothing to stop her.
Tim could use this.
“Hi. Um. I’m trained to deliver babies if you guys need the help.” He said, making sure not to move an inch from the position they had put him in. The woman was looking at him with an expression of extreme disbelief.
The goons looked at him like he was the second coming of the lord.
Soon enough, Tim found himself ensconced in a nearby office with a pile of coats (graciously “donated” by the other hostages), a purse-sized bottle of hand sanitizer, and his “patient”. She paced around the room, finally free to move the way she obviously had to.
“So…” Tim said as he counted his available material and, almost as a second thought, triggered his emergency signal. His original plan had involved getting away from the robbers in order to line up an attack but it looked as though he really was going to have to deliver the baby. Tim guessed he would just have to hope that Batman got his signal and wait for rescue. ”What’s your name?”
“It’s Melissa.” She hissed out, “Do you actually know what you’re doing here because you look a little young to be an obstetrician. You look a little young to be Robin, to be honest.”
“I am really trained in this,” Tim said, although the training had been part of a large orientation on emergency medicine. They’d spend maybe two days covering the basics of childbirth, and Tim had had the inkling feeling that the tutorial was meant to act as a subtle lesson in never ever having sex. Ever.
After all that Tim had thought he knew enough to help out in an emergency. Now that it was happening, he wasn’t so sure. “Although…” he admitted, “This is my first time actually doing it.”
“It’s not mine.” She said with a smile. Between contractions Melissa turned out to have an easy smile and a very relaxed manner. “And I hear that second babies are easier.”
“Well, at least one of us knows what we’re doing.” Tim said as he reached into his belt to retrieve a pair of gloves. “So. Um. I think we might want to do an exam to see how far you’re dilated and what position the baby is in… Um.”
Melissa rolled her eyes and started pulling up her dress, “The next time you do this, don’t mention how inexperienced you are right before diving for a woman’s vagina. Just a tip.”
“Sorry.” Tim muttered.
Melissa rolled her eyes, “I’ve been having contractions for about four hours, in case you were wondering.”
“I was.” Tim said. They had only been trapped in the bank for one, maybe two hours. Tim had to stop himself from demanding what she had been doing going to the bank while in labor.
He swallowed his nerves and Melissa reclined against the couch with her legs wide. “Um. I think this is going to be a lot more uncomfortable for me than it is for you.”
“Just do it, before another contraction starts.”
Tim nodded and resisted the urge to squeeze his eye shut as he reached down. This was not, he reminded himself,the most disturbing thing he had ever done. He had been elbows deep in abdominal wounds. He had set broken limbs by hand. He had his hand on a woman’s cervix and it was not nearly as fun as Dick had implied.
“Okay.” Tim tried to focus on the task (oh god) at hand, “You’re definitely at eight centimeters. Um. It. The baby—”
“It’s a girl.” Melissa hissed. “Hurry up, Boy Wonder, this is very uncomfortable.”
“Okay. Right. She’s in the right position, I think. The back of her head is facing up.”
Melissa exhaled slowly, breathing through her discomfort, “Station.”
“Um.”
“Where is the baby, Robin?”
“Low?” Tim tried to remember the terminology he had learned with Alfred and, after a bit of mental searching came up with something that sounded right, “Zero station? I think…”
“Good enough. Now out. Out out out.”
Tim had his hand out (thank the bat-gods) just in time for Melissa to rolls swiftly back to her feet and start pacing again. She breathed heavily, making a low, almost cow-like noise from her chest as she rocked her hips back and forth. The floor was wet. One part of Tim’s mind informed him that her water had broken, while another portion informed him just how gross he found the whole thing. He grabbed a couple coats to lay down over the liquid. The last thing he wanted was for someone to slip.
“Do you think maybe you should lie down or—”
“—No I don’t think I should lie down.” Melissa hissed, her hands shook just a little as she tugged at the hair on her brow, “I don’t think I should even be here. I’m having a baby and there’s men with guns outside that door and this hurts a lot.”
She was panicking, and Tim knew he had to say something and he was blanking and this was possibly the hardest thing he had ever done. And he had diffused bombs.
“Melissa.” Tim said, making eye contact and keeping it through the lenses of his mask, “You can do this. I know you can do this.”
“I—” She breathed a little easier, her eyes softening—
—and only just managed to turn her head before vomiting all over the floor.
Tim did not flinch. Even as she let out a truly magnificent bellow and leaned forward against the wall. Tim took the moment to get behind her and press against her back in the way Alfred had taught him. Both hands on either side of her hips and pressing hard.
“I can’t do this.” Melissa shouted, “I want my mother. I want my midwife. I want an epidural!”
“You’ve got me.” Tim said, pressing harder as she leaned her head against, “And I am not going to let anything bad happen here. But you cannot give up because there is no other choice.”
“Epiduuuural.” Melissa moaned again. Her legs trembled uncontrollably, but she didn’t seemed inclined to sit down.
“I’m sorry,” Tim said. He rocked with her, continuing to press on either side of her spine. He didn’t have anything else to say.
Long seconds passed and Tim had the most surreal feeling that moment would continue forever. There would never be anything other than the tension in his fingers from pressing on her back and the low sound of her voice and her breathing.
Tim was actually surprised when Melissa stopped and declared that she needed to push.
“Okay.” Tim said, “Do you want to move to the couch or…”
“No.” Melissa snapped, “Pushing now.”
She leaned against the wall and bent her knees while Tim spread his cape on the floor between her legs and grabbed a few of the softest sweat-shirts from the donated pile.
The baby was already crowning after the first push. Tim knew he should be saying something encouraging or comforting, but he didn’t really know what that would be and Melissa seemed utterly focused on what she was doing.
It happened far faster than Tim could have imagined, before he knew it he was holding his hands out to catch a head, and then helping the baby rotate a little as the shoulders emerged with a gush of fluid.
It occurred to Tim, suddenly and with sharp clarity, that he was helping to deliver a baby. The thought was far more shocking than it could have been.
Before he knew it, Tim was helping Melissa to sit and lay back on a cushion of coats, leaning her against the wall and helping the baby (a baby!) onto her chest to nurse. He didn’t bother to wipe the baby down (everything was covered in endometrium anyway) and Melissa shooed him impatiently away from the umbilical cord.
“Oh my god.” Melissa seemed completely unconcerned with the fact that she was naked in front of a teenaged vigilante. Her attention was focused, her eyes locked with those of a brand-new baby girl.
“Oh my god.” She said again, “It’s my baby. Hello, baby.”
And then she smiled. And it was the most genuine smile that Tim had ever seen in his life. It was the smile of someone who had fallen in love.
The forefront of Tim’s mind went over the post-birth checklist he had practiced. Noticing that the baby seemed to have a good color, and had being screaming her lungs out until she had started nursing. But in the back of his mind was a sort of swirling wonder that he would most certainly have to examine when everything was finally over.
Tim quickly spread the sweatshirts over the two of them, making sure mother and child were warm enough, before turning to the door.
There were armed men outside, he had forgotten. Tim was exhausted and drenched in various bodily fluids, but there were still criminals to take down and he would do it even though he just wanted to curl up in a corner and think about how he had just helped a whole person start their life. Nothing seemed real, but that couldn’t stop him from doing his job.
He had his hand on the handle of the door when it opened of its own accord. Tim fell back into a fighting stance, ready to take on whatever Intergang goon was on the other side, only to see his mentor.
The look in Batman’s eyes as he took in the scene was almost comical, Tim thought as he relaxed, stepping away. A quick peak into the hallway revealed the entire gang of robbers neatly rendered unconscious and tied together neatly.
Tim heaved a sigh of relief.
“I see that you’ve been busy.” Batman said, and Tim just knew that he was raising an eyebrow underneath the cowl.
“Yes. Well.” Tim couldn’t really think of what to say so he said nothing.
“Good work.” Bruce said, “I’m proud of you.”
Something warm bloomed in Tim’s chest. Behind him, the newborn made a tiny mewling noise.
This was, Tim thought, possibly the best thing about being Robin.
Fandom: Written with the Young Justice cartoon in mind, but could easily fit into any DCU verse that has Tim
Pairing: Gen
Wordcount: 2265
Summary: So I've been participating in this mildly shitty Tumblr roleplay as Tim. And it's been lots of fun despite the fact that I don't fit in all that well in this fandom (so many canonships, not enough batcest). Anyway, someone on the RP request a time in which Tim had to deliver a baby. And I'd been meaning to write that fic *forever*. Because if there's anything I'm enthusiastic about it's Childbirth and Robin (not at once, usually). Anyway, be warned that this fic came out a little bit... technical. I use the word "endometrium" at least once. I may had said "placenta" as well.
The situation in this case wasn’t helping. The robbers (definitely Intergang, based on their tech) knew what they were doing, they were organized, they had been ready for Tim when he came crashing through the skylight into the bank an hour ago.
Quick action on the part of the robbers had resulted in them pushing him in with the rest of the hostages. These goons were alert, and had taken the time to separate the hostages into three different areas and rigged the whole place with explosives. Tim wouldn’t be able to free one group of hostages without endangering another.
Not that he was in a position to rescure anyone. Intergang knew who he was, after all, and the minute he had shown up they had separated him from his gear and pushed him in with a group of hostages. There were two men with guns pointed directly at his head, ordering him to keep his hands pressed to the floor.
Tim sighed. It was going to be a long, hopefully boring, wait. Communicators were jammed, and Tim wouldn’t be able to access the emergency beacon in his shoe without altering them to what he was doing. He was out of options.
“Um. Excuse me?”
Tim’s head shot up to see a small but very pregnant woman sitting just a few feet to his left. She was raising her hand, as if they were sitting in a classroom and not on the floor of the Gotham Mutual.
“Excuse me!” She said, quite a bit louder.
“What?!” One goon snapped, spinning to point his semi-automatic directly at her.
“I just… Um.” The woman let out a long, hissing breath, her face curling up, “It would just be really nice if I could move around, please.”
“Look lady,” The goon growled, “This isn’t some kind of picnic we’re holding here.”
“I don’t think you understand.” The woman’s voice was strained, and Tim noticed her hands pressing against the underside of her belly, “I really, really need to move around.”
“I don’t think you—”
“—I’m in labor you stupid waste of space!” The woman hissed, breathing through what was obviously a contraction.
The goon didn’t really seem to comprehend that at first, but soon enough his eyes widened and his gun dipped towards the ground. It was obvious the they had been prepared for police and vigilantes, but there was no way they could have prepared for this.
“Uh. I don’t… Boss?”
The “Boss” looking just about as shocked and frightened as his underling, walked over to peer at the woman.
“Jeez. What should we do?”
“What you should do is let me stand up.” The woman groused. When the goons failed to respond quickly enough she decided for them, pushing her into a standing position. She stood in place, breathing heavily and rocking her hips back and forth. The bank robbers looked more than a little bit distressed, but did nothing to stop her.
Tim could use this.
“Hi. Um. I’m trained to deliver babies if you guys need the help.” He said, making sure not to move an inch from the position they had put him in. The woman was looking at him with an expression of extreme disbelief.
The goons looked at him like he was the second coming of the lord.
Soon enough, Tim found himself ensconced in a nearby office with a pile of coats (graciously “donated” by the other hostages), a purse-sized bottle of hand sanitizer, and his “patient”. She paced around the room, finally free to move the way she obviously had to.
“So…” Tim said as he counted his available material and, almost as a second thought, triggered his emergency signal. His original plan had involved getting away from the robbers in order to line up an attack but it looked as though he really was going to have to deliver the baby. Tim guessed he would just have to hope that Batman got his signal and wait for rescue. ”What’s your name?”
“It’s Melissa.” She hissed out, “Do you actually know what you’re doing here because you look a little young to be an obstetrician. You look a little young to be Robin, to be honest.”
“I am really trained in this,” Tim said, although the training had been part of a large orientation on emergency medicine. They’d spend maybe two days covering the basics of childbirth, and Tim had had the inkling feeling that the tutorial was meant to act as a subtle lesson in never ever having sex. Ever.
After all that Tim had thought he knew enough to help out in an emergency. Now that it was happening, he wasn’t so sure. “Although…” he admitted, “This is my first time actually doing it.”
“It’s not mine.” She said with a smile. Between contractions Melissa turned out to have an easy smile and a very relaxed manner. “And I hear that second babies are easier.”
“Well, at least one of us knows what we’re doing.” Tim said as he reached into his belt to retrieve a pair of gloves. “So. Um. I think we might want to do an exam to see how far you’re dilated and what position the baby is in… Um.”
Melissa rolled her eyes and started pulling up her dress, “The next time you do this, don’t mention how inexperienced you are right before diving for a woman’s vagina. Just a tip.”
“Sorry.” Tim muttered.
Melissa rolled her eyes, “I’ve been having contractions for about four hours, in case you were wondering.”
“I was.” Tim said. They had only been trapped in the bank for one, maybe two hours. Tim had to stop himself from demanding what she had been doing going to the bank while in labor.
He swallowed his nerves and Melissa reclined against the couch with her legs wide. “Um. I think this is going to be a lot more uncomfortable for me than it is for you.”
“Just do it, before another contraction starts.”
Tim nodded and resisted the urge to squeeze his eye shut as he reached down. This was not, he reminded himself,the most disturbing thing he had ever done. He had been elbows deep in abdominal wounds. He had set broken limbs by hand. He had his hand on a woman’s cervix and it was not nearly as fun as Dick had implied.
“Okay.” Tim tried to focus on the task (oh god) at hand, “You’re definitely at eight centimeters. Um. It. The baby—”
“It’s a girl.” Melissa hissed. “Hurry up, Boy Wonder, this is very uncomfortable.”
“Okay. Right. She’s in the right position, I think. The back of her head is facing up.”
Melissa exhaled slowly, breathing through her discomfort, “Station.”
“Um.”
“Where is the baby, Robin?”
“Low?” Tim tried to remember the terminology he had learned with Alfred and, after a bit of mental searching came up with something that sounded right, “Zero station? I think…”
“Good enough. Now out. Out out out.”
Tim had his hand out (thank the bat-gods) just in time for Melissa to rolls swiftly back to her feet and start pacing again. She breathed heavily, making a low, almost cow-like noise from her chest as she rocked her hips back and forth. The floor was wet. One part of Tim’s mind informed him that her water had broken, while another portion informed him just how gross he found the whole thing. He grabbed a couple coats to lay down over the liquid. The last thing he wanted was for someone to slip.
“Do you think maybe you should lie down or—”
“—No I don’t think I should lie down.” Melissa hissed, her hands shook just a little as she tugged at the hair on her brow, “I don’t think I should even be here. I’m having a baby and there’s men with guns outside that door and this hurts a lot.”
She was panicking, and Tim knew he had to say something and he was blanking and this was possibly the hardest thing he had ever done. And he had diffused bombs.
“Melissa.” Tim said, making eye contact and keeping it through the lenses of his mask, “You can do this. I know you can do this.”
“I—” She breathed a little easier, her eyes softening—
—and only just managed to turn her head before vomiting all over the floor.
Tim did not flinch. Even as she let out a truly magnificent bellow and leaned forward against the wall. Tim took the moment to get behind her and press against her back in the way Alfred had taught him. Both hands on either side of her hips and pressing hard.
“I can’t do this.” Melissa shouted, “I want my mother. I want my midwife. I want an epidural!”
“You’ve got me.” Tim said, pressing harder as she leaned her head against, “And I am not going to let anything bad happen here. But you cannot give up because there is no other choice.”
“Epiduuuural.” Melissa moaned again. Her legs trembled uncontrollably, but she didn’t seemed inclined to sit down.
“I’m sorry,” Tim said. He rocked with her, continuing to press on either side of her spine. He didn’t have anything else to say.
Long seconds passed and Tim had the most surreal feeling that moment would continue forever. There would never be anything other than the tension in his fingers from pressing on her back and the low sound of her voice and her breathing.
Tim was actually surprised when Melissa stopped and declared that she needed to push.
“Okay.” Tim said, “Do you want to move to the couch or…”
“No.” Melissa snapped, “Pushing now.”
She leaned against the wall and bent her knees while Tim spread his cape on the floor between her legs and grabbed a few of the softest sweat-shirts from the donated pile.
The baby was already crowning after the first push. Tim knew he should be saying something encouraging or comforting, but he didn’t really know what that would be and Melissa seemed utterly focused on what she was doing.
It happened far faster than Tim could have imagined, before he knew it he was holding his hands out to catch a head, and then helping the baby rotate a little as the shoulders emerged with a gush of fluid.
It occurred to Tim, suddenly and with sharp clarity, that he was helping to deliver a baby. The thought was far more shocking than it could have been.
Before he knew it, Tim was helping Melissa to sit and lay back on a cushion of coats, leaning her against the wall and helping the baby (a baby!) onto her chest to nurse. He didn’t bother to wipe the baby down (everything was covered in endometrium anyway) and Melissa shooed him impatiently away from the umbilical cord.
“Oh my god.” Melissa seemed completely unconcerned with the fact that she was naked in front of a teenaged vigilante. Her attention was focused, her eyes locked with those of a brand-new baby girl.
“Oh my god.” She said again, “It’s my baby. Hello, baby.”
And then she smiled. And it was the most genuine smile that Tim had ever seen in his life. It was the smile of someone who had fallen in love.
The forefront of Tim’s mind went over the post-birth checklist he had practiced. Noticing that the baby seemed to have a good color, and had being screaming her lungs out until she had started nursing. But in the back of his mind was a sort of swirling wonder that he would most certainly have to examine when everything was finally over.
Tim quickly spread the sweatshirts over the two of them, making sure mother and child were warm enough, before turning to the door.
There were armed men outside, he had forgotten. Tim was exhausted and drenched in various bodily fluids, but there were still criminals to take down and he would do it even though he just wanted to curl up in a corner and think about how he had just helped a whole person start their life. Nothing seemed real, but that couldn’t stop him from doing his job.
He had his hand on the handle of the door when it opened of its own accord. Tim fell back into a fighting stance, ready to take on whatever Intergang goon was on the other side, only to see his mentor.
The look in Batman’s eyes as he took in the scene was almost comical, Tim thought as he relaxed, stepping away. A quick peak into the hallway revealed the entire gang of robbers neatly rendered unconscious and tied together neatly.
Tim heaved a sigh of relief.
“I see that you’ve been busy.” Batman said, and Tim just knew that he was raising an eyebrow underneath the cowl.
“Yes. Well.” Tim couldn’t really think of what to say so he said nothing.
“Good work.” Bruce said, “I’m proud of you.”
Something warm bloomed in Tim’s chest. Behind him, the newborn made a tiny mewling noise.
This was, Tim thought, possibly the best thing about being Robin.
no subject
on 2012-06-29 03:38 am (UTC)I loved this and I thank you so much for sharing this with us.
J'aivette L. Cook, RN BSN