#sonogram

Jason didn't argue, which shows how panicked he really was. Nothing about his situation was going in his favor. He's not particularly fond of hospitals anyway, but the idea of someone he loved being at the mercy at one was another story. On the other hand, today's the day he gets to see his baby or the first time.

It felt like an eternity ago that she handed him the tests. Some part of his brain couldn't process what he was looking at. Jason considers himself a considerably intelligent person, but the sight of those positive tests turned his brain into goo.

"What the hell am I looking at, babe?"

She couldn't help laughing at that, obviously still in shock and disbelief for herself. "Jay, I've bought 5 of these things and they all show a positive result. You're going to be a father."

Five tests sat ominously on the bathroom counter, each clearly showing a positive, yet Jason still didn't believe it. There had to be some kind of mistake. How the hell can just such a small plastic stick make his chest feel this heavy? Each red line made the nausea worse because it made it feel like the walls of their shared bathroom were closing in. After that moment, all he remembered was kissing her before throwing himself into patrol so deeply that the next few days become a blur.

A few days later, she goes to the doctor to confirm what she already knew: she's indeed pregnant. The nurses gave her a hearty congratulations and scheduled a sonogram. Once she had gotten that confirmation, a sudden calm had come over his wife. Jason, however, felt like the rug had come out from under him. Now he was sitting in a pastel room, judging the water-stained magazine and bouncing his leg fast enough to power downtown Gotham.

"Jay?" she asked, pulling him from his thoughts.

"Yeah?"

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Fine," he said too quickly before adding, "just hate hospitals."

She gave him a sympathetic smile. "I know, baby. Do you want to leave? I'll get you a printout - "

"No."

"It's fine, Jay. Seriously, it's basically just a check-up."

"I'm staying. I told you I'd be here and I'm staying."

That earned him a genuine smile, one that still made him feel both proud and wrecked at the same time. He thought she must have been the one who hung the moon, even now when his stomach was churning from the nerves. Sometimes he still wondered if he even deserved her.

Now there's a baby on the way.

It felt like they'd been there for the entire day when a nurse finally called her name. A look of hesitance flashed briefly over her face when she stood, which Jason noticed instantly, and he placed a large hand on the small of her back as they followed a kind lady behind the door.

The nurse led them down a narrow hallway before stopping off a room full of strange looking equipment. Jason looked ready to fly right through the ceiling, but instead he quietly followed his wife inside and sat in one of the chairs near the exam table. Once they were settled, the nurse says the tech will be in shortly and excuses herself from the room.

Jason looked around the room like he was waiting to jump out and attack him. He wasn't naive. He knew what each device for and knew what the purpose today was. That didn't make this any easier because he's here to check on something that was absolutely going to turn his entire world upside down.

"Does any of this shit...hurt you?"

His wife giggled at that a little. "No baby. The worst part is the lubricant because it's cold. Otherwise? It tickles."

"Good," he said quickly.

The nervousness he felt was palpable in the room before an older lady slipped her way into the room and flashed them both a smile. "Hello, it's nice to meet you both. Are you ready to see your little one?"

"Yeah," Jason's wife answered excitedly.

It would be a lie if he didn't admit that did something to him. He chose someone who was excited to be a mother. A mother to his child, no less. For all the wrong he'd ever done, he did at least find someone who hadn't let Gotham harden them against being the parent a child deserves.

Jason observed from the far corner of the darkened room as the tech instructed his wife to lay back on the bed before she squirted a liquid onto her stomach. She then placed the wand carefully onto her stomach and an image popped up on the screen. Meanwhile, the lady pointed out what they were looking at. Finally, after a few minutes, the technician excitedly pointed and said, "and that little speck there? That's your baby!"

"Aw. Jay, look!"

"I see it, baby," he said absentmindedly. The truth is he thought his heart was about to hammer out of his chest. He knew it was real, but this cemented it for him.

"Would you like to hear the heartbeat?" the doctor asked.

That brought a huge smile to his wife's face. "Yeah! Do you want to hear it, too, Jay?"

"Yeah, sweetheart," he states, flashing her a quick smile despite the nerves welling up inside himself.

With that, the tech turned switch and the room filled the sound of a drumming heartbeat that somehow managed to be faster than Jason's. It seemed almost too fast for something so small.

"The heartbeat seems fast. Is that normal?" he asked, directly addressing the tech directly for the first time.

"Yes sir. As a matter of fact, everything with the baby and mama looks fine," she assured him.

Jason gave a small sigh of relief. He didn't want to say it to her, but this entire process was scaring the hell out of him. What if something happened to the baby? What if something happened to her? He couldn't handle that. He won't.

He stood and wrapped one large hand around his wife's. She looked up at him with misty eyes. "That's ours."

"Yeah, sweetheart, that's ours."

The tech busied herself with cleaning the cleaning the goo from his wife's stomach, obviously trying to let the new parents have their moment in some relative peace before speaking again. "Would you like your own copy of the sonogram?"

"Of course," his wife said happily, wiping the moisture from her eyes.

When the tech eventually left the room, Jason tightened his grip on her hands and looked deeply into her eyes. "This baby is never going to experience a childhood like I did. I will protect you both with everything I have."