Happy Mother's Day! - Kurt Wagner x fem!reader
Summary: a story of love and the growth of a family.
Warnings: fluff!!! pregnancy, love, twins, Kurt (he is the warning himself), childbirth (not described), sex scenes (very brief). Use of Yn
Where It All Began
Genosha wasn't just a place on the map. It was a promise made of concrete and hope, erected in the turbulent waters of the Indian Ocean. For Kurt, the Nightcrawler, the blue demon with golden eyes and a pious soul, that island had been the first home where no one screamed at the sight of him.
He remembered the day Professor Xavier found him. A circus tent in Bavaria, where he was the "main freak," the creature people paid to see and feared at nightfall. Charles Xavier saw beyond the dark blue skin, beyond the barbed tail and the yellow eyes that glowed in the dark. He saw a boy praying in German every night, asking God to make him normal.
Kurt used to say that Charles gave him more than opportunity. He gave Kurt dignity.
Years passed. The X-Men became his family. Jean, Scott, Ororo, Logan, and especially Rogue, who hugged him one day and said, "Welcome to the club of weirdos, brother." But it was in Genosha that Kurt found something that not even Xavier could have given him.
True love.
Two years after Genosha's official establishment as a mutant nation, Kurt had already settled there. The island breathed freedom. Mutants with scales, with claws, with eyes in unexpected places walked the streets without needing disguises. Children played in the central park using their powers openly, and no one called the police.
It was in the capital's botanical garden that Kurt saw her for the first time in fifteen years.
She was crouched among the blue lotus flowers, her enormous wings spread like a cloak of light. When the sunlight hit them, they reflected impossible colors, liquid rainbows that danced over the petals and her light brown hair. Kurt froze.
"Yn?" the word escaped his lips before he could think.
She looked up. The same eyes he remembered from the corridors of the X-Mansion, when they were both frightened teenagers trying to find their place in the world. She stared at him for a long moment, and then her wings closed as if to embrace her.
"Kurt?" Her voice was exactly as he remembered it. Soft as a breeze. "Kurt Wagner?"
He teleported away before he could even answer. He appeared two meters away from her, with his characteristic smell of sulfur and ozone, and then simply stopped. What do you say to someone you've lost contact with for so long?
"You are…" she began.
"Blue as always" he finished, with a wry smile.
"I was going to say more furry" he laughed.
"Are you… flying?"
"As always" she replied.
She laughed. The sound calmed something inside him that he didn't even know was hurting.
"I'm planting flowers, actually. The wings are just for show."
She had been rescued by Xavier a year after Kurt. A girl from the countryside, kicked out of her home when her wings sprouted from her back at age twelve. He remembered her as a silent shadow in the mansion's gardens, someone who understood what it was to be different in a way that even the other mutants didn't fully comprehend.
They were never close in adolescence. Just two wounded birds in the same cage, recognizing each other's pain without having the courage to touch it. She left the X-Mansion a few years later, and Kurt heard that she had traveled the world, using her light manipulation abilities to create art wherever she went.
Now, in Genosha, her wings shimmered in the afternoon sun, and Kurt found himself unable to look away.
"Would you like to help with the flowers?" she asked, tilting her head. His tail moved uncontrollably, like a dog wagging its tail.
"Of course."
He didn't know gardening. But he learned quickly, pushing the soil with his three-jointed fingers while she explained about soil pH and lunar cycles. They talked about everything and nothing. About the X-Men, about Genosha, about lost time. When the sun set, Kurt sat beside her, his white and colorful wings reflecting the last lights of twilight.
"Why did you come to Genosha?" he asked.
She looked at the horizon. The sea shimmered like molten glass.
"For the same reason as you" she turned her face to him. "To finally stop hiding myself."
Kurt felt something stir in his chest. Something he had locked away long ago, convinced it wasn't for him. Love. The possibility of being loved not despite his appearance, but including it.
The wedding was small and perfect. Held in the same garden where they had reunited, under a canopy of light she herself had created: a solid rainbow that floated above their heads like a dream ceiling. Rogue was the maid of honor, crying so copiously that Gambit had to lend her his handkerchief three times. Professor Xavier blessed them via video, unable to travel, but with tears in his eyes. Logan delivered the rings, and don't tell anyone, but he was crying.
"I'm proud, blue" he said, handing over the rings.
The honeymoon was short; Genosha needed them, and they needed Genosha. She became a teacher at the Mutant Academy, teaching art and literature to young people who, like her one day, needed to see beauty in a world that called them monsters. Kurt joined the Security Council, but spent as much time at the school as she did, often appearing upside down in classrooms just to make the children laugh.
The children laughed. They loved him. To them, Kurt wasn't a demon. He was just Mr. Wagner, who had a cool tail and could disappear and reappear anywhere, and who always carried German sweets in his pocket.
"Miss Wagner? May I speak with you for a minute?" Oliver, just eleven years old, with his large, gray eyes and a worried expression, interrupted the class on a cloudy afternoon. She knew that when Oliver had that expression, it was because he had seen something.
Not in the literal sense; Oliver was born blind, but with the beautiful ability to see what would happen in the future.
"Of course, dear." She closed the book she was teaching and leaned over her desk. Her wings gently closed behind her, an automatic gesture in tight spaces. "What is it?"
Oliver bit his lower lip, a habit he had when he was nervous.
"This morning, I had a vision. A very strong one. I usually don't tell because things can change, but…" he hesitated. "This one was different. It was very clear."
She sat up straighter, worried. Clear visions of Oliver usually meant something important was about to happen.
"What did you see?"
"I saw you… and Mr. Wagner. You were… " he blushed slightly "in a room with babies. Two babies. And you were happy. Very happy."
She blinked. Then laughed, loudly and genuinely.
"Oliver, darling, you're very creative, but that's not a vision. It could have been a dream… Like those with dinosaurs you had."
The boy shook his head firmly.
"It wasn't a dream. It was a vision. And come here…" - he vaguely pointed to her belly. "The babies are there. Now."
Her smile froze. She looked at her own belly, under her clothes. Impossible. She and Kurt were careful.
Not that they didn't want children, they talked about it sometimes, with that timid hope that couples have when the subject seems too distant to be real. But now? Already?
"Oliver, I appreciate your concern, but…"
"I know what I saw, Miss." The boy was already walking away, his expression determined. "Congratulations"
And he left, leaving her alone with her heart beating faster than normal.
She tried to forget the conversation.
She really tried. But during dinner, a stew that Kurt had learned to make with Rogue, served with crusty bread and red wine (which, because of Oliver's words, she couldn't drink).
"Kurt?" she said, playing with the food on her plate.
"Meine Liebe?" he raised his golden eyes, his tail moving curiously behind him. Kurt always knew when something was wrong.
"Oliver came to talk to me today…"
Kurt's eyebrows rose. He already knew Oliver; his premonitions were either always accurate or childish imagination.
"What did he say?" he asked with a slightly worried tone.
"That I'm pregnant. " she said, after putting her fork down.
Silence.
The most absolute silence she had ever experienced in her entire life. The wind whistled outside, and in their apartment, nothing moved. Kurt remained completely still, his yellow eyes fixed on her.
"What?" the word came out in a whisper.
"He said he saw us in a vision. Where we were in a baby's room AND…" she hesitated, feeling ridiculous. "The baby is in my belly now."
Kurt didn't answer with words.
He simply disappeared in a cloud of sulphurous smoke, leaving her alone with a plate of stew and a sudden, overwhelming feeling of panic.
"Kurt? Kurt!"
There was no answer. The apartment was empty.
Thirty seconds later, the longest time of her life, Kurt reappeared in the middle of the dining room, panting, carrying three enormous plastic bags. They overflowed with boxes of all colors and brands.
"Kurt Wagner, where did you go?!"
"To three pharmacies," he said, throwing the bags on the table. His hands were visibly trembling. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "I brought all the ones I could find… We need to be sure."
"Kurt…" she didn't know what to say, she just picked up the bags and went to the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later, the bathroom was lined with empty boxes. Seven pregnancy tests in total, three different brands: two digital, two strip tests, three plastic ones, and one that Kurt had mistakenly picked up in the vitamin section and which was actually for testing the pH of water.
The first test showed two lines.
They held their breath.
The second showed a plus sign.
The third, digital, flashed "PREGNANT" in capital letters.
When the seventh test confirmed what the other eight had already said, she felt her knees buckle. Kurt caught her before she fell, his strong, furry arms enveloping her completely. He pulled her close, his face buried in her hair, and she felt his heart pounding like a bird's against her chest.
"We're going to have a baby…" he murmured, his voice choked. "We, liebe. You and me. A baby."
She laughed, but the laughter was wet, accompanied by tears streaming down her face.
"Kurt…"
He pulled back enough to look her in the eyes, and she saw that he was crying too. The blue demon, the Nightcrawler, the man who had faced apocalypses and armies alone, had tear-filled eyes.
"I never thought this would be possible…" he whispered. "Not for me. Not with someone like me."
"Someone like you?" She touched his face, her fingers tracing the contour of his unusual jawline. "Kurt Wagner, you're the most beautiful person I've ever met. Inside and out."
He kissed her. It was a deep, lingering kiss, full of years of insecurity finally dissolving like salt in water.
And then she remembered.
"Kurt."
"Hmm?" He was still kissing her forehead, her cheeks, the tip of her nose.
"There's one more thing."
He stopped.
"What?"
She swallowed hard.
"When Oliver said I was pregnant… He said 'babies.' Plural."
Kurt's face went through a complete cycle of expressions in three seconds: shock, disbelief, shock again, a spark of joy, shock a third time.
"Plural?"
"Plural."
Kurt fell to his knees.
Literally fell, as if his legs had turned to water. She looked down and saw him kneeling before her, his hands outstretched as if in adoration, his eyes wide. His tail curled lovingly around her calves, squeezing like an extra hug.
"Babies," he repeated, as if testing the word. His whiskers trembled. "Multiple babies. Two children. Maybe three. Maybe "—Let's pray it's just two," she laughed, running her hand through his dark hair. "Please. I can barely carry my own wings anymore."
Kurt lifted his face to her, and his smile, that beautiful, wide smile that lit up his whole face, was the most radiant thing she had ever seen.
"Two babies," he agreed. "For now. But if it's three, I'll build a bigger room myself. If it's four, I'll build a new house. If it's five"
"Kurt!"
"I'm shutting up."
He wasn't shutting up. He was kissing her belly through her dress, quick, eager kisses that moved up and down as if he needed to bless every inch. She counted fifteen kisses before losing count. His tail was so tightly pressed against her legs that she almost lost her balance.
"Kurt, love, I'm going to fall."
He jumped up, held her by the waist with one hand, and placed the other on her belly. His palm was warm. His fingers were long.
"Babies," he whispered to her navel. "Hello, babies. I'm your daddy. Please don't kick Mommy too much. She's sensitive."
"I'm not that sensitive!"
"You cried over the margarine commercial yesterday!"
"Now we know why!" she retorted.
"That doesn't invalidate my argument," he said quietly, but loud enough for her to hear.
She laughed, and the sound filled the entire apartment, and outside the lights of Genosha shone like small stars in the night.
The First Month
Confirmation came two weeks later, in a small doctor's office. Dr. Varma was a mutant with the ability to see through solid matter; ultrasounds were almost anticlimactic for her, but she insisted on using the machine so the parents could see.
"Ready?" the doctor asked, spreading the cold gel over Yn's belly.
Kurt was sitting in a chair next to her, so close that his knees touched the examination table. He held his wife's hand as if she would collapse without support.
"Ready," she said, with more confidence than she felt.
The image appeared on the screen in black and white, grainy and mysterious. She had never had an ultrasound before, so it all seemed like meaningless blurs. But Dr. Varma smiled.
"Well…" she said, moving the transducer. "Let's see. Gestational sac number one. Heartbeat. Good and strong."
They exhaled in relief. A heart. A beating heart. Real.
"And gestational sac number two," the doctor continued, and she felt Kurt's hand squeeze hers with almost painful force. "Heartbeat present. Both embryos are healthy and within the expected range for four weeks."
"Two," Kurt whispered. His voice sounded strange, as if he were speaking through water. "There are two."
"They look like dichorionic twins," explained Dr. Varma, pointing to different areas on the screen. "Each with its own sac and placenta. That's great, it reduces the risk of complications."
She couldn't stop looking at the screen. Those two tiny dots, each pulsing with a life of its own. They were there. Inside her. Growing.
"Kurt" she called, because he was strangely silent.
When she turned her face, she saw that his eyes were closed and his lips were moving silently. He was praying. In German, from the words she could make out.
"—und segne diese Kinder, die mein Fleisch und mein Blut sind…"
And bless these children, who are my flesh and my blood.
She waited. Dr. Varma waited. Kurt finished his prayer, opened his eyes, and then did something that made her laugh loudly and wetly: he jumped from the chair, did a somersault in the air, and landed on his knees beside the stretcher, hugging her entire torso.
"Two" he repeated, now smiling. "Exactly two. I don't need to build a new house."
"I told you to pray."
"I prayed for two. " He lifted his face and kissed the tip of her nose. "God heard me. Or maybe it's just genetics. Regardless, I'm happy."
Dr. Varma printed the ultrasound images, and Kurt kept one in his left coat pocket, another in his right, and a third he stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet as soon as they got home.
That night, Yn found Kurt sitting on the bed, with the ultrasound photo in his lap and an open notebook beside him.
"What are you doing?" she asked, sitting beside him with her wings partially extended for balance.
"I'm making a list." He showed her the notebook. There was a scribbled line at the top, written in Kurt's neat handwriting, and several lines below still blank. "Of everything I need to learn before they're born."
"Like what?"
"Changing diapers. Making baby food. Singing lullabies that aren't just the German ones my adoptive mother taught me… although I'll sing those too, for sure. Putting bandages on scraped knees. Tying shoelaces." Brushing the teeth of children who might have teeth like mine.
She looked at the list.
"There are over two hundred blank lines there, honey."
"I know," Kurt smiled, his golden eyes gleaming. "I'll fill each one in."
The Second Month
Sleep came like a relentless tide.
She had never been a napper. In fact, she always prided herself on her energy; her wings required considerable physical strength to keep open, and years of flying had left her in exceptional shape. But in the eighth week of gestation, something changed in her metabolism, and suddenly the whole world became a potential bed.
She fell asleep in the middle of grading papers, her face on the table, a red pen still in her hand, her wings spread like a makeshift blanket. Kurt found her like this when he returned from the board meeting.
"Liebling," he whispered, touching her shoulder. "Get up. Let's go to bed."
"Five minutes," she murmured, without opening her eyes.
Two minutes later, she was snoring softly.
The next day, she fell asleep on the sofa during a movie. Kurt covered her with a blanket and sat beside her, finishing the film alone with his tail curled around her ankle, just to feel her presence.
On Wednesday, she fell asleep while brushing her wings.
That was a particularly poignant moment. Kurt found her sitting on the terrace stool, a wide-bristled brush still clinging to the iridescent feathers, her head tilted to the side, her breathing deep and steady. The brush was halfway to a primary feather, caught at the wrong angle.
"Liebling," he said softly, kneeling behind her. "Do you want me to finish?"
She made a vague sound that Kurt interpreted as a yes.
He spent the next hour untangling her wings with infinite care. His hands, despite their unusual fingers, were surprisingly delicate. He separated each feather with the patience of a goldsmith, wiping away the dust and dirt of the day, smoothing out any splinters that had become misaligned. Under the twilight light, the feathers reflected fragments of rainbows on the apartment walls.
She slept the whole time.
"You need to stop doing that," he murmured, more to himself than to her. "Sleeping in dangerous places."
She didn't answer.
On the fifth day, Kurt brought up the subject more directly.
"I know you're tired," he said during breakfast. "But you slept on top of the washing machine yesterday."
"It's warm."
"It's dangerous. And last week you slept on the windowsill."
"I was sunbathing."
"You were meters off the ground, liebe."
She shrugged, with a sleepy smile.
"I have wings."
"Closed wings! You had your wings closed! If you fell, you wouldn't have time to open them."
She kissed him on the cheek to end the conversation and went to sleep on the sofa. Kurt put socks on her cold feet and carried her to bed.
And that's how it became Kurt's new hobby: finding his wife in absurd places and transporting her to suitable sleeping locations. She slept on the dining table (he carried her to the bedroom), slept on the living room rug (he put her on the sofa with a pillow), slept standing up against the refrigerator (he sat her in a chair, then decided it wasn't comfortable and carried her to bed).
"You're treating me like a baby," she complained one afternoon when she woke up in the bedroom without knowing how she got there.
"You're carrying two babies," he replied, handing her chamomile tea and a biscuit. "Until they're born, you're my number one priority. And two. And three…"
She feigned irritation, but drank the tea and ate the biscuit, and when he sat down beside her and began to automatically stroke her wings, she was already asleep again before the bottom of the cup.
The Third Month
The third month brought with it a new phenomenon: Kurt talking to her belly.
Not just talking, conversing. Singing. Telling stories.
The first time happened on a rainy night. She was lying on the sofa, one hand on her belly which was beginning to show a small bulge, when Kurt knelt beside her and rested his face against her stomach.
"What are you doing?" she asked, not really caring.
"Introducing myself," he replied, seriously. "They need to know my voice."
She watched, fascinated, as he spoke softly to her two little points of life.
"Hello, my little ones," he said, and his voice was so low and soft that she felt chills. "I'm your father. My name is Kurt. I have a tail, and fur, and I'm blue. You'll probably be blue too, or maybe not. It doesn't matter. You'll be beautiful either way." Kurt's hands slid over her belly, massaging it with gentle, circular motions. "I want you to know that this world can be scary. People might look at you and not understand. But Mom and I will always be here. Always. Even when you grow up and decide you're too old for hugs."
"They'll never think they're too old for hugs," she interrupted, stroking his hair.
"Maybe not." Kurt smiled against her belly. "But if they do, I'll hug them anyway."
He began to sing. The song was in German, an old lullaby his adoptive mother had taught him. The melody was simple and a little sad, like many German songs, but Kurt's voice was warm like hot chocolate.
"Der Mond ist aufgegangen, die goldnen Sternlein prangen…"
The moon has risen, the golden stars are shining.
She closed her eyes. Kurt's hands continued massaging her belly, and his tail curled loosely around her leg. The sound of the rain outside blended with the lullaby.
She didn't know if babies could really hear. Books said that hearing began to develop around this time, but it was all so vague, so uncertain. Maybe it was all in Kurt's imagination.
Or maybe not.
Because when he sang the last note, she swore she felt a tiny movement inside her. Something minuscule, like a butterfly fluttering its wings.
"Kurt," she whispered. "They moved."
Kurt lifted his face so quickly he almost bumped his forehead against her belly.
"What?"
"I think I felt it. It might just be gas, but…"
He placed both hands on her belly, his eyes wide, his tail still. They waited. They waited.
Nothing.
"Maybe next time," Kurt said, but his smile didn't waver. He kissed her belly again, once, twice, three times. "You're going to kick for Daddy one day, aren't you? Yes, you will. You're going to kick so hard that Mommy will complain."
"Mommy is already complaining about everything," she laughed, pulling him up. "Your children are sucking my life energy."
"Our children," he corrected, snuggling up next to her on the sofa. His tail made a lazy movement and curled around her waist. "And they're going to suck a lot more before they're done."
"You don't need to remind me."
She fell asleep on the sofa again, but this time Kurt slept there too, curled up against her like a giant blue cat, his tail serving as an extra blanket.
The Fourth Month
"I can't believe this."
"Maybe they're shy," the doctor said with a laugh, completely understanding the indignation of the woman on the stretcher.
"Shy?" Dr. Varma raised an eyebrow, moving the transducer over yn's now visibly rounded belly "They're not being shy. They're being purposeful."
On the screen, two babies, now more clearly formed, with heads, arms, legs, and spines, were positioned in perfect synchronization. Both with their legs crossed. Both with their backs to the transducer.
No possible angle revealed what was between their legs.
"This is the first time this has happened to me," Dr. Varma admitted, sounding almost impressed. "Usually at least one of them cooperates."
"My children," Kurt said, with a barely disguised smile of pride, "are strategic geniuses. They've been coordinating since the womb."
"Either they're two stubborn boys…" she sighed, leaning back on the examination table. "Or two stubborn girls."
"Or one of each stubborn one," the doctor added.
They tried for another twenty minutes. Kurt made faces, sang, even teleported to the other side of the room and back, hoping the noise would make the babies move. Nothing. The two remained motionless, legs stubbornly crossed, as if on strike.
"Alright…" Dr. Varma turned off the equipment. "We'll try again next month. Sometimes they turn around when they get bigger."
On the way home, Kurt was strangely excited.
"That's good!" he said, as they walked along Genosha beach. The white sand shimmered in the sun. "Now we have a whole month to think of names."
"We've already been thinking of names for three months."
"But now it's serious. Now we have a deadline."
She stopped on the sand, feeling the salty wind on her wings. She had stopped flying in the second month, her center of gravity had shifted unexpectedly, and even keeping her wings open for long periods had become tiring. But she liked letting them soak up the sun, the feathers reflecting colors against the blue sky.
"And what are your suggestions, Mr. Wagner?"
Kurt assumed an expression of deep concentration. Her fur trembled in the wind.
"Margot? For a girl?" he suggested. "Or Greta?"
"Greta is beautiful," she tried the name on her tongue. "Greta Wagner. It sounds strong. And for a boy?"
Kurt scratched the back of his neck, a nervous gesture she found irresistible.
"I thought of James. Because of Logan…"
"James Wagner… It's perfect." There was a brief silence. "And if it's two girls?" he asked.
"Greta and…" Kurt thought. "Anna? Because of Marie?"
"She'll cry when she finds out…" she smiled, imagining Rogue's reaction when she discovered it.
"She will." Kurt smiled too. "And if it's two boys?"
"James and…" she frowned. "Remy? To balance the tributes?"
"Remy Wagner?" Kurt made a face of amusement. "He'll never shut up about it again."
"Exactly."
They laughed together, sitting on the sand, with the sea stretching endlessly before them. She rested her head on Kurt's shoulder, her wings blending with the sunset.
The Fifth Month
"Kurt?"
No answer.
"Kurt, love, where are you?"
The apartment was silent, which was already strange, because Kurt made noise even when trying to be quiet. His tail would bump against things, or he would murmur to himself, or simply his presence seemed to fill the room with a low hum of energy.
But now, nothing.
She dropped the shopping bag in the kitchen and began to search. Empty living room. Empty bedroom. Bathroom, she cautiously opened the door, but only found the cold shower.
"Kurt?"
A sound coming from the back room. The room that would be the babies' room.
She walked there, her belly now round like a beach ball, and opened the door.
She froze.
Kurt was hanging upside down from the chandelier.
Literally hanging. His tail was wrapped around the metal frame of the old chandelier they'd promised to replace months ago, and he was suspended in mid-air, his head dangerously high off the ground, his hands occupied holding two things: an instruction manual and a loose piece of the crib he was trying to assemble.
"Kurt Wagner," she said, placing her hands on her hips. "What are you doing?"
He looked up at her, his golden eyes tilted. His expression lost some of its dignity.
"Assembling the crib."
"Upside down?"
"My balance is better this way." He waved the manual. "Besides, this manual is in Swedish. Or Danish. Or maybe it's just a very creative way of writing English. I can't understand anything."
She approached, her wings closing to pass through the door.
"Honey, get down from there. You're going to fall and break your neck."
"I'm not going to fall. I'm an acrobat." He made a movement and the chandelier creaked menacingly. "I had that ability long before I developed teleportation."
"Kurt."
"Yes, darling?"
"Get down. Now."
With a dramatic sigh, Kurt unwound the chandelier's tail and fell, but instead of hitting the floor, he teleported mid-fall, appearing gracefully seated in the crib box.
"You're going to give me a heart attack," Yn said, sitting heavily in the only chair in the empty room. "And it's not good for babies."
Kurt immediately abandoned the pose and went to her, kneeling before the chair, his hands going straight to her belly.
"Sorry, liebe. I didn't mean to scare you."
"You always scare me. It's your gift."
He chuckled, a low, warm sound, and rested his head in her lap.
"The room is looking beautiful," she said, looking around. The walls were a soft blue, almost gray, which matched the sky on a rainy day. There were two large crib boxes, a changing table box, and three huge bags of baby clothes that Rogue had sent as a gift.
"I still don't know which crib goes on which side," Kurt murmured against her stomach. "And I can't decide on the color of the sheets. And there's a spider in the corner that I promised to remove three days ago, but it's built a very pretty web and I feel bad."
"Well… We can put the spider in the pots on the balcony… And… I'll help you with the assembly," she said.
They spent the next three hours assembling crib number one. Kurt read the manual (which wasn't in Swedish, just a very poor translation from Chinese), she separated the pieces and screwed in the screws. At one point, Kurt got distracted trying to balance a wooden plank on his nose, and she laughed so hard the babies kicked.
She felt it. Real kicks, strong, unmistakable.
"Kurt!" she gasped, grabbing his hand. "Feel."
Her hand covered the exact spot where one of the babies had kicked. They waited. One second. Two.
A beat. Small, but definite.
Kurt gasped as if he'd been punched.
"They're there," he whispered. Real. They're really there.
"I've been saying that for five months."
"I know, but now I felt it." He laughed, a marveling laugh, and placed both hands on her belly, his tail curling around her waist. "Hello, babies. It's me again. Daddy."
Another kick.
"They're laughing at you…" she said.
"I don't mind." He kissed her belly with an exaggerated noise. - You can laugh at Dad all you want. Just keep kicking.
The Sixth Month
The knock on the door came at two in the afternoon, when she was taking her daily nap on the sofa (a nap she now openly admitted was necessary instead of fighting against it). Kurt answered, already smiling when he saw who it was through the night vision his eyes gave him.
"Remy! Anna!"
"We came to visit!" Gambit said with his Louisiana accent, entering unceremoniously. "And we brought presents!!! " he showed two bottles of wine.
"You brought wine…" Kurt observed, closing the door. " Yn can't drink. You know, right?"
"The wine is for us, mon ami. To survive the visit."
Anna slapped her husband's arm.
"Don't give him any attention, Kurt. Where's my favorite sister-in-law?"
"Sleeping on the sofa." Kurt guided them through the small living room. "But she wakes up with any noise."
"We always make a lot of noise," Gambit replied cheerfully.
Yn was already seated when they entered, blinking sleepily, her wings disheveled to one side. When she saw Rogue, her face lit up.
"Anna!"
"Yn!" Rogue crossed the room in three long strides and hugged her carefully, because Yn's belly was now impossible to ignore. "My God, look at you! You're huge!"
"Thank you for the compliment."
"It was a compliment. I swear."
They sat together on the sofa, and Gambit settled into the armchair, already opening one of the bottles of wine. Kurt went to get glasses.
"So," Rogue said, her eyes glued to her belly, "how come you didn't tell me this before? I had to find out from Xavier, who found out from Cerebro. Are you kidding me?"
"We wanted to wait until the first trimester," Kurt explained, returning with the glasses. "And then we forgot."
"You forgot?" Gambit raised an eyebrow. "How could you forget to mention that you're having babies?"
"There's a lot going on." she defended herself, though she knew it wasn't a good excuse. "Genosha, classes, exams…"
'The exams that show there are twins' Kurt finished, in a tone that tried to be casual.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Rogue put down the wine glass she hadn't even filled yet.
"Twins?"
"Twins," Yn confirmed, a nervous smile on her face.
"Twins," Gambit repeated, putting down the bottle. "Two blue babies?"
"Or purple," Kurt said. "Or pink. We don't know. Genetics is complicated."
Rogue began to cry.
It wasn't a discreet cry, with silent tears streaming down her face. It was a loud, wet sob, accompanied by a repeated "Oh my God." She grabbed yn's hands.
"You're going to be a mother. Of twins." Tears streamed down her pale face. "I'm going to be an aunt. Of two children."
"Aunt Anna…" Yn said, pulling her into a hug. "It sounds good."
"The best sound." Rogue hugged her tightly, then pulled away with a sudden expression of horror. "Wait. We're not giving presents. We didn't bring presents."
"You brought wine," Gambit offered.
"Wine isn't a gift for a pregnant woman, Remy!"
"It's a pre-pregnancy gift. To celebrate the past pregnancy."
"You're so useless."
Kurt laughed, sitting on the arm of the sofa next to his wife. His tail descended and curled gently around her shoulder.
"You don't need gifts. Just being here is… " he hesitated, searching for the word -"is family. That's enough."
Gambit raised his newly filled wine glass.
"To the babies " he toasted. "May they come with lots of health and patience, because they'll need to put up with this proud father."
Rogue wiped away her tears and took her glass.
"To the babies." She looked at yn, and her smile was so big it seemed to light up the room. " And to the bravest mother I know."
The Seventh Month
Her pregnancy cravings started reasonably well.
At the beginning of the seventh month, she woke up with an overwhelming craving for pickles. Pickles with honey. Pickles with honey and peanut butter.
"It's disgusting," she admitted herself, while Kurt prepared the dish in the kitchen. "It looks disgusting. But I need it."
Kurt didn't question it. He simply made it. He sliced the pickles, spread honey, spread peanut butter, and served with a smile.
"If you'll allow me, I'd like to try some."
"Don't try it. It will ruin your gastronomic experience forever."
He tried it. He grimaced. He apologized for the grimace. He ate another piece just to make her smile.
The next day, it was bread with Nutella and black olives.
On the third day, it was mashed potatoes with raisins.
On the fourth day, Kurt returned from the kitchen with a tray and a tired smile.
"I couldn't find pickle ice cream, so I made a mixture of vanilla ice cream with chopped pickles and salted caramel. Is it remotely similar?"
She ate three bowls.
"You're the best husband in the world," she declared, her mouth full.
"I'm the only husband you have," he replied, sitting down beside her on the sofa. His hand found its automatic way to her belly, where it rested as if it belonged there. "But I appreciate the compliment."
It was during the third bowl that it happened.
A kick. Not the gentle kick, the butterfly kick they had felt before. A strong kick. An impact. Kurt felt it against the palm of his hand.
"Wow!" he said, his eyes wide.
Another kick. Then another. Then a series of movements that looked like a frenetic dance.
"They're awake," she laughed, her laughter punctuated by the kicks. "And they're angry about the ice cream."
"Or they're grateful." Kurt knelt on the floor, placing his face sideways against her belly. "Hello, little ones. Did you enjoy Mommy's snack? Daddy made it."
A direct kick to his cheek.
"I'll take that as approval."
He stayed there, kneeling, his hands cupped over her belly, feeling every movement. The babies were more active than ever, and each kick brought a new smile to Kurt's face. He sang softly in German, the usual lullaby, and the kicks gradually subsided until they became gentle movements.
"They like your voice…" she said, running her fingers through his hair.
"Maybe it's the German. It has a good cadence for lullabies."
"Or maybe it's just you."
He lifted his face and smiled. That smile that made his golden eyes shine like little suns.
"Or maybe it's just me."
That night, they ate dinner in the living room because she didn't have the energy to move to the table. Kurt prepared spaghetti and meatballs (a reasonable order, for the first time in days) and ate it sitting on the floor next to the sofa, one hand always on her belly.
"Aren't you going to eat with both hands?" she asked, watching him balance the plate on one leg.
"I am eating." He took a demonstrative bite. "My right hand is free."
"Your right hand is on my belly."
"Exactly. Free to be there."
She didn't argue. She liked his hand there. She liked the warmth of his palm, the way his long fingers moved in gentle circles, the way he sometimes talked to the babies between bites.
"Eat plenty, my little ones," he would say. "Mommy is eating for three now."
The Eighth Month
Her belly in the eighth month was a force of nature.
She could no longer see her own feet. She couldn't see her legs. She definitely couldn't see her vulva, a fact that became painfully obvious one Friday afternoon when she got out of the shower and stared at her own reflection in the fogged mirror.
“Kurt,” she called, her voice coming out in a tone he’d already learned to identify as “non-life-or-death-but-approximately” emergency.
He appeared in the bathroom doorway in less than three seconds, his tail bristling with concern.
“What is it? Are you having contractions? The babies?”
“The babies are fine.” She pointed down. “I can’t see anything.”
Kurt blinked.
“…nothing?”
“Nothing, Kurt. I can’t see my feet, my legs, and I definitely can’t see… down there.” She gestured vaguely toward her pelvic area. “And it’s all… growing. Wildly.”
Kurt understood before she finished the sentence.
“You want me to…”
“I’m not asking,” she interrupted, blushing. “I’m just… informing you of the situation.”
“I understand.” He tilted his head, his golden eyes soft. “What if I volunteered?”
Silence stretched out. She looked like a red flower from head to toe.
"You don't need to."
"I know I don't need to." He went into the bathroom, took the razor and shaving cream from the shelf. "I want to help."
"It's… intimate."
"Liebe, you know how you got pregnant, don't you?" He guided her to the bed, where she lay down and he knelt on the plush rug before her. "Nothing is too intimate after all this."
"Are you really going to do this?"
"And maybe… something more." Before she could ask, she felt his tongue lick her from the inside of her right thigh to her clitoris.
"Oh…" was all she needed to say before his tail wrapped around her leg, Kurt's hands embraced her hip, and his face buried in her sex. His mouth devoured his wife as if she were his favorite meal, and if she dared to move, Kurt would let out a sound very similar to a growl, as if trying to take the favorite food from a skinned cat.
There she remembered exactly how she got pregnant.
The Ninth Month
The contractions began at three in the morning on a Sunday.
She woke up with a pain that tightened like an iron belt, gasping, her hands gripping the sheet. Kurt woke up beside her instantly; he hadn't slept soundly since the beginning of the seventh month.
"Liebe?" His voice was hoarse with sleep, but his eyes were already fully awake.
"I think…" she breathed deeply as the contraction passed. "I think it's time."
Kurt didn't ask if she was sure. He didn't ask her to wait. He simply acted: he grabbed the birthing bag that had been packed since the sixth month, helped her to her feet (a process that now took several minutes), and wrapped her in his robe.
"I can teleport you to the hospital," he offered. "But it might be disorienting for the babies, so—"
"Let's go by car," she leaned on him. "Nature wants to do things slowly."
The Genosha hospital had an entire wing dedicated to mutant births. The nurses were mutants, the doctors were mutants, and the equipment was adapted for every possible anatomy. No one gave Kurt's tail or her wings a second glance.
The labor lasted four hours.
Kurt didn't leave her side for a single second. He held her hand when she squeezed hard enough to break bones (they didn't break, but he felt the snap). He wiped her forehead with damp cloths. He sang in German, in English, in French, exhausted his repertoire and started making up songs in between.
"You can't sing…" he whispered during a pause between contractions.
"It was never about knowing how to sing. It was about distracting."
"You're not distracting me!!! I'm being ripped in half here!!!!"
"Sorry." He kissed her hand. "Do you want me to stop?"
"Don't you dare!" She closed her eyes. "SING THAT ONE ABOUT THE STAR!!!!"
And he sang.
At seven past two in the morning, the first baby was born.
She was blue.
Not blue like Kurt, lighter, like the sky at the beginning of the night, or like the darkest feathers of yn's wings. She had a tail. Small, thin, curled like a fern fetus. And wings. Tiny wings folded on her back, covered in iridescent down that shimmered in shades of blue and pink when the room light hit them.
"It's a girl," the nurse announced, and the baby's cry filled the room.
Yn cried. Kurt did too.
"Our little Anna…" she whispered, receiving the little blue bundle in her arms.
"Anna Wagner," Kurt finished, his voice faltering. He touched his daughter's face with a finger, the tip of his enormous finger against her tiny cheek. She grasped his finger.
"Kurt…" Yn called, and her voice had a different tone. "There's another one."
The second birth came five minutes later.
The baby was also blue, a darker shade than her sister, closer to Kurt's blue. He had no tail. But he had pointed ears, long, jointed fingers, and a pair of delicate, still-wet wings that trembled in the cold air of the room.
"It's a boy," the nurse announced, and the second cry joined the first.
"James," she said, exhausted, radiant. "James Xavier."
Kurt held the boy in hands that trembled like leaves. The baby was so small. So fragile. His tiny wings looked like flower petals, and his eyes, gray like all babies', gazed at the world with a bewildered expression.
"Hello, my son," Kurt whispered. "Hello, my little James…"
The nurse placed Anna back in her mother's arms, and for the first time, the four were together.
Kurt sat on the edge of the hospital bed, his son in his left arm, his wife beside him with their daughter. His tail moved slowly, curling around the two babies like an extra blanket. She spread her wings, exhausted, aching, but still beautiful, and wrapped them around them all.
Blue. Rainbow. Feathers. Fur. Tails. Wings.
A family.
"Happy Mother's Day, love," Kurt said, his voice so full of tears and love that the words barely came out.
She looked at him. At the babies. At the future that stretched before them, uncertain and frightening and wonderful.
She kissed Anna's forehead. He kissed James's forehead. Then they kissed, over their children's heads, while the white wings and blue tail enveloped them like the embrace none of them had as children.
In Genosha, the sun set over a nation of free mutants.
In a small apartment, awaited a room painted soft blue, two cribs, and a spider still living in the corner, because Kurt hadn't had the courage to undo the web.
And in the near future, two babies would learn to spread their wings, to use their tails, to walk on two feet (or three, depending on their balance), and to know, above all, that they were loved.
Not despite who they were.
Because they were exactly who they were meant to be.
