I wrote another part to Aftermath.
"Here I am." Bruce lolls his head back, smiling at his husband's approach. "How was the Watchtower?"
J'onn shakes his head as he walks over, and bends down to Bruce's level where he is stretched out along the couch. Bruce's gaze moves from sharply analytical of his state upon returning home to softly indulgent, and lifts mouth up for a kiss.
J'onn leans in, then past him with a chuckle, picking up his discarded tablet, displaying an array of CCTV screens. "You know exactly how the Watchtower was."
Bruce snatches the device back, glaring at his husband, and turns his head away when he leans in for that same kiss.
"I'm replacing you with Double Stuff." Bruce blanks his persistent presence by his side, focusing on the ginger cat loafing atop his stomach. "He'd never make fun of me like this."
"My love. I am sorry you cannot come to the Watchtower at the minute, but you know it is not safe. You agreed to this."
"I do not want to hear your reasoning right now."
J'onn makes his way further along the couch, lifting Bruce's legs onto his lap and gazing over at him, which Bruce ignores, scratching under Double Stuff's chin.
A green hand settling on his stomach makes it harder to ignore, but he persists, focusing on the purring engine that is cuter than the man he married anyway.
The J'onn leans in, and Bruce's ability to ignore him evaporates.
"Your father is grumpy again," he stage-whispers, red eyes that Bruce refuses to meet fixed on Bruce's face. "Only two more weeks, then I might actually be allowed near him again. What do you think, little one?"
Bruce's attention flickers away when Double Stuff meows loudly and flips over onto his back, displaying his rotund beneath pointedly, awaiting belly scritches he is helpless but to give, only for J'onn's voice to draw him back in.
His voice is airy, and Bruce cannot bear to ignore him any more, reaching down to settle a hand over J'onn's, cupping the side of his stomach. "Two more weeks."
J'onn leans in, pressing their lips together, and Bruce allows the tension to melt away from his body, sagging into J'onn's hold.
"It is alright," J'onn soothes, kissing him again. "We thought you would be able to work until your maternity leave, we didn't know you would be put on bed rest." His husband takes a brief interlude to cast his eyes pointedly around the living room, not the bedroom, before circling back to join their gazes once more. "You had a plan, and things changed, and we are dealing with it. Like we always do."
"I know." Bruce feels the mortifying heat of tears build in his eyes, and feels the familiar surge of irritation at the incessant emotionality of the last nine months. "But everyone worked so hard to refit the zetas to be safe for the baby, andβ"
"No one is mad at you." J'onn presses their foreheads together, and memories flow down the bond to Bruce, the scenes of all of their friends scattered around the lab, enthralled smiles bouncing between them as they worked out the maths behind altering their technology. "They had a lot of fun, and it means that we can take the baby up if we need to. Or want to. It's perfectly safe, now."
"Alright." Bruce catches J'onn's lips this time, and indulges in that for a minute, before sagging back. "I'm tired, Double, want to go have a nap?"
J'onn chuckles, and Bruce knows better at this point (several arguments, and a few thrown cushions later) than to try and make his way back upstairs on his own, waiting for J'onn's arms to encircle him and Double Stuff, flying them there instead.
"Sleep, my love. Only two more weeks."
"Two more weeks," Bruce yawns agreeably, drawing the blanket over him and Double Stuff, sparing a thought to whether he'll lose the cat's company after the baby is born. He's enjoyed having a little shadow for the last nine months.
J'onn kisses him again, and he feels the same touch on his belly, before the light cuts out, and footsteps pad to the door.
"I love you," Bruce calls, and only a moment later, his husband is curving around his back with a weighty sigh, nuzzling close into the crook of his neck.
Bruce grins to himself, closing his eyes.
J'onn's snores fill the room before he manages to drift off.