Get a grip. Get a grip. Get a grip. 

A vain laugh nearly crawls its way up my throat. Those words used to be such a comfort before cases or during any stressful time. Now they do nothing for me.

Nothing to calm the rapid beating of my own heart, as I listen to the thrum of the second one inside me. The little person growing there is three months old. In six, they'll be here in my arms. Only my arms.

My private and well-paid doctor gently removes the headphones. I slowly sit up, for fear of hurting it. Impossible at normal movement at this stage of course...but I feel more fragile than ever.

"I have good news for you," Doctor Thompson says, looking over the tablet in her hand. "Due to your...oddly perfect fitness, your BMI is quite close to where it should be. This means, depending on your child's size, you won't have to much of a bump."

I glance down at my abdomen, "Hide-able?"

Thompson nods as she packs up her gear.

"Very much so. As you want to hide I think it's quite the lucky outcome."

Instead of a nasty comeback about how luck is nowhere near me, I simply smile and give a short nod. I watch as she closes everything up in a big suitcase.

"I'll be back this day and time in two weeks, DA Meadow. Will you be available?" She says, looking at me curtly.

She's a bit scary, honestly.

"Yes, I'll be here. Thank you, Doctor Thompson."

With that, she hands me a folded piece of paper before walking into the elevator and leaving. Suddenly my new apartment is completely silent again.

It emphasises how lonely I am. Ginger had to go back to Lightway. She was transferred, but she's working on getting transferred back to Gotham so she can be with me.

All I have is Kalie. I can't really confide in anyone else without explaining the entire situation.

And though Kalie doesn't know everything, there is an understanding that I have a secret and it has to do with Jason being who he is.

The Waynes have made no effort of contact. If Bruce was interested in having an heir for the next, next generation, he makes no implication of it.

Which in itself is a worry, because that means I really have fucked up.

So I find myself sitting on my sofa, staring at the blank screen of the tv, hand automatically brush my own abdomen.

This is really happening.

I'm really doing this on my own.

~

"Her first trimester ended today."

"Fuck off."

Dick rolls his eyes behind his mask as he brings his eskrima stick down on one of Toy Maker's robotic henchmen. The weapon crashes through the cheap metal.

Behind him, at the same time, Jason fires his guns several times, destroying three different units and bringing the warehouse to silence.

Batman bursts out of the control room with a restrained and unconscious Toymaker.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't discus private matters in the presence of the enemy," he says roughly, not even glancing at them as he moves towards the exit.

Jason frowns at the floor. Things are different now. He feels like a child. Everything has contributed to confusing his feelings.

Getting closer to the Batfamily again, a baby...her. 

He thinks about her a lot. He knows her and that's she's strong. But strong enough to handle this new challenge? That, he doesn't want to think about.

Because guilt can be crippling.

Sometimes on his way home from patrol he'll go a few streets over to peak in through her lounge room window.

Usually she's at the desk in there, doing work with Big Bang Theory playing in the background. Sometimes she's curled up in the couch with a Russian book in her hands.

Once, he found her crying on the floor. He didn't wander past the rest of that week.

"You coming?" Nightwing asks. Jason looks up, realising he's just standing in the middle of the warehouse like an idiot.

There are sirens in the distance. He decides he better move before the cops show up and assume he's working side-by-side with Batman.

He's on his bike and about to speed off when he feels a hand grab his arm.

"Jay."

Red Hood winces, hearing her voice say the nickname instead.

"What? I've gotta go," he snaps. If he's late, he won't catch a glimpse of her before she goes to bed.

Dick reaches into his weapons bag and pulls out what looks like a tiny envelope. Jason notes that he looks nervous, as he hands it over.

"What's this?" Jason snaps, taking it from him with gentler care than his words had.

"Just...open it when you get home, okay?" Dick says, before backing off and turning to his own bike. Jason moves to shove the envolope in his holster beside his gun, where it's likely to bend and dirty.

After a moment of thought, remembering how his brother had held it, he slips it into an empty pocket instead. Better judgement.

Jason leaves before Bruce and Dick, swinging out onto the road and racing down through the forest back towards Gotham's inner city.

He could probably take some time to comb through the streets, but he'll leave that to Damian and Cass. He has places to be.

The nest he has close to her new apartment is cold and smells damp when he gets there; it's the non-existant basement between another indulgent apartment complex.

There his bike stays as he takes the internal exit, ending up in the camera-less lobby of the twenty story building. As he has done every night in the past month, he takes his grappling gun in hand and races up the stairs, disregarding the elevator.

Stamp stamp stamp, his combat boots hitting the cold concrete must be annoying to residents, but he couldn't care less.

Once out on the roof, he lets himself breathe, slowly walking towards the edge. In his helmet, he zones in on her window; she's nowhere near it, meaning he can zip over there without getting caught.

Aiming at a different spot (because the one he had been using was so worn out) he fires his grapple, allowing it to settle for one moment before he's launching himself off of the roof, swinging at least 150 meters above traffic towards her apartment.

He plants his boots on the bricks beside the window, leaning away from the glass to avoid being noticed.

Slowly, discreetly, he pulls on the grapple and manages to peak over the sill and look in.

She's not there.

Strange, because this is the exact time she watches the late night news, to see if she missed anything whilst at the office.

There are other windows, but usually the blinds are shut. However, there's always the chance she left them open before bed.

As if he were abseiling, Jason walks along the wall of the building, trying to keep the rope from catching anything. He makes it to the other side where her bedroom is.

Not only do the blinds seem open but the window is too. Jason winces when he spots her leaning on her elbows, overlooking the city with the wind in her hair.

His heart is hammering like a drum and he tries to still himself and his breathing so that she doesn't look up for any reason.

For a few seconds it's just them; her, arms folded against the sill, leaning out into the night air. Him, channeling his foster father by hanging on the building.

There's no doubt; she's going to catch him and he'll look like even more of an asshole. Through her years of training, she'll sense him and he'll be done.

But it's okay. He's going to stay here. He's going to stay here and watch her because he had almost forgotten how beautiful she looked at night.

At all.

She's wearing her favourite red top with thick straps on her shoulders and a golden bracelet on one dainty wrist. It's everything and it's driving him insane.

When she moves he's on high alert again, only to realise she is wiping her face with the inside of her arm. His frazzled brain manages to scramble together the words she's crying.

He wishes he had not come.

Just when he start to step backwards, towards, the roof, he's close enough to hear her speak.

"I'm so sorry, little one."

He feels the shiver down his spine and the clench of his stomach. She's apologising to her child...their child for the world it is going to be born into.

As he creeps backwards, she draws in, shutting the window and closing the blinds.

When he reaches the roof of the building he collapses falling onto his back and panting in a desperate attempt to calm down and suppress the emotions rising.

I hate her. 

It's growled in his own head with honesty and contempt. Because it's true. He hates her. He hates her. He hates her.

Without knowing why he feels obliged to check the image Dick handed to him. He slips the envelope out and holds it up in the moonlight. It's small- dainty in his hands.

He takes one glove off so that opening it is easier. It's blank, but the closer he gets to peeling back the seal the more he realises he can probably guess what it is.

Gently, he slides the image out of the envelope.

And in his hands he holds the 12 week ultrasound of his first child.