ZADR teen pregnancy storyline:
Dib is eighteen and about to graduate hi skool when a confrontation with Zim leads to spontaneous hate-sex. Dib leaves right after and goes home anxious about the emotional fallout of fucking his worst enemy. He avoids Zim at skool because he's too afraid to talk about it and it seems like the feeling is mutual. They can't look each other in the eye and make excuses to keep as far apart as possible. Then one day Zim shows up at his house to tell him he's pregnant.
Dib asks what Zim plans to do about it, and Zim says he hasn't decided yet, he just thought Dib ought to know. Zim leaves and Dib goes up to his room to stare at the ceiling internally freaking out. He's too young to be a dad. How's he going to go to college or pursue his dreams of being a paranormal investigator while trying to co-parent an alien hybrid baby with his arch nemesis? What if he can't give the kid enough attention and it ends up feeling neglected and resentful of him? What if he has to give up all his dreams just to make sure the kid doesn't ever have to feel the same pain he went through growing up?
But maybe he's getting ahead of himself. He would only need to worry about any of that stuff if Zim were planning to keep the baby. And there's no way he would, right? Zim? A parent? Ridiculous! Wouldn't having a baby get in the way of his aspirations too? Unless he just doesn't care about the baby's needs and whether or not it feels neglected... But why would he have the baby if he wasn't going to care for it? Even if he did, is it even Dib's problem? Who says Zim wants him involved in the baby's life? Why would he want to co-parent with Dib and be bound to him for the next couple of decades or however long it takes for their offspring to mature? But even if Zim doesn't want him in the child's life, it's still his kid too. Doesn't he have a responsibility to be there for it? To make sure it's being cared for and loved and not raised to be evil?
Whatever happens, Dib knows it's not his choice to make. He doesn't want to pressure Zim, so he just avoids talking about it at all, as well as avoiding Zim altogether as a way of "giving him space" to decide on his own.
Zim eventually tells him he's going to be flying out to space for a doctor's appointment. Dib makes an effort to inquire about the nature of the appointment without sounding too hopeful about what it might be. Zim says the appointment is only to confirm that the "foreign entity" growing inside him detected by his base's security system actually is a pregnancy and not something else. Which it could very well be. Irkens aren't supposed to be able to get pregnant at all, let alone by an entirely different alien species. And there's no sense scheduling any pregnancy-related medical procedures if they don't even know for sure that he is pregnant.
Dib offers to accompany Zim for the appointment. He doesn't know why, it just seems like something he should do. Zim allows it.
So they go to the appointment together and the doctor confirms that Zim is indeed pregnant, somehow. It's truly a remarkable scientific miracle. The pregnancy itself is something worthy of study, but the resulting child would also be an entirely unique creature, the first of its kind. So much could be learned from studying the child as it develops. As scientists, it almost feels like Zim and Dib have an obligation to keep the child to see the miracle through. But they can't have a baby together purely in the name of science. It's not a baking soda volcano, it's something that will eventually turn into a person with feelings who might grow up to murder them both with a hatchet if they don't give it a good childhood.
They return to earth together and days go by without Dib speaking to Zim. He doesn't want to ask if he's made any decisions or scheduled anymore appointments yet. He doesn't want to come across like he's badgering Zim to decide something. But when they finally do talk about it, it seems like Zim is still indecisive.
They both seem to agree that it's not a good time for either of them to have a baby. The idea is only invoking feelings of dread and zero excitement. It's too overwhelming to try to imagine how they could make it work with skool and their careers and violent opposition toward each other.
So why won't Zim just come out and say he's having an abortion? Why is he so reluctant to just rip off the adhesive medical strip that'll finally relieve them both of all the tension that's been building up over the past few weeks?
Finally, Zim admits to Dib that while he doesn't want to have a baby with him now, he's been reluctant to commit to terminating the pregnancy because he isn't sure if a chance like this will ever come along again. He doesn't want to trap Dib in a relationship if it's not something he wants, but he's wanted to be more than frenemies for a while and hoped their one night stand meant something to him. But Dib was so reluctant to talk about either the sex or the resulting pregnancy that Zim got the impression he just wanted the whole thing to go away so he could pretend it never happened. But Zim does want to be a parent someday. He likes the idea of having something he made from his own body that he can mold and shape into the greatest lifeform in the galaxy. He could always have a clone, but it just wouldn't be the same as their one-in-a-shmillion scientific miracle cross-species hybrid baby. And even if it weren't so miraculous, it'd just be nice to be able to see parts of someone who means so much to Zim in their child. But he doesn't want to do it if Dib doesn't want it.
Dib is shocked to learn that Zim actually had feelings for him all along and his reluctance to be vulnerable and talk about his own feelings was making him feel rejected. It's hard for him to believe that anyone, especially Zim of all people, would want him to be the father of their child. But now that he knows how Zim really feels, it changes everything. They don't have to have a baby now. They can take things slow and try again when their ready, if things work out between them. They could even have the embryo extracted and frozen if Zim's concerned about not being able to get pregnant again. It doesn't have to be now or never.
