Chapter Text
Peter woke up to a soft tapping on the skin of his shoulder. He opened his eyes and squinted against the warm light of the sunrise that was beginning to seep through the blinds, illuminating the bedroom in the warm gray of morning instead of the dark gray of night.
His wife was lying next to him, staring at him with a grin on her face.
It was her finger poking his shoulder.
Peter drew in a breath and squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to rid the cobwebs of sleep from his mind. “What time is it?” he asked, his voice groggy. And why are you waking me up? he refrained from asking.
Rose’s grin grew. “A little after 7.”
Peter’s eyes popped open and his heart tripped over itself. “What?” He was wide awake now, the spike of anxiety in his gut enough to jolt him fully from sleep. He started to move to sit up. “Is she–”
Rose’s palm flattened over his bare shoulder and she nudged against it, indicating he should stay lying down. “She’s fine,” she assured him, still smiling. “I already checked. She’s still sleeping.”
Still sleeping? What the hell? In the first two years of her life, he could count on one hand the number of times Emma Sutherland had slept later than 6:30 AM. Rose complained that Emma must have gotten the early riser gene from him, but Peter didn’t mind it. He tended to wake up early anyway, so he usually got up with her and let Rose sleep a little longer. But this morning it was past 7, and their daughter was still asleep? What was happening?
“Amazing, right?” Rose asked him, her smile so wide and beautiful it made Peter’s heart trip over for a different reason.
He relaxed back down onto his pillow and slung an arm around Rose’s waist beneath the covers. “I forgot what it was like to wake up before her, actually,” he murmured.
Rose moved her hand from his shoulder and started tracing her fingertips over the line of his jaw. There was mischief in her dark brown eyes. “Sorry I woke you up. I just didn’t want you to miss this experience.”
The corner of Peter’s lips turned up. “How long have you been awake?”
“10 minutes or so.” Her eyes traced the planes of his face, and her thumb trailed over the corner of his mouth while she tracked the movement with her eyes. Her finger snagged against the hairs of the short beard he had grown over the course of the last week or so - which had started when he skipped shaving two mornings in a row because he was busy and exhausted, and then continued when Rose told him she liked it. Peter figured he could wait a few more days to shave and let her enjoy it a little longer.
Rose’s eyes flickered to his lips. Peter’s body felt warm, and the touch from her attention was sending his mind spinning in a new direction.
It had been a long time since they’d had a lazy morning together. Typically the only alone time they could find was while Emma napped or at the end of the day when they put her to bed. Lying in bed together before Emma woke up hadn’t been in the cards for a long time.
Peter loved lying in bed with Rose, content to just stare at her, let his hands wander her smooth skin, and share a peaceful moment with his wife. He used to do it all the time, but life had been more chaotic since they’d added a baby and a dog to the family. Maybe this morning he’d finally get a few minutes to start his day the way he used to: staring at the most important woman in the world and reveling in the fact that he was lucky enough to share his life with her.
“We might not have long until she wakes up,” Rose whispered, shifting a little closer to him and moving her hand down to his bare chest where his heart was starting to thump a little more quickly.
“Have something in mind to pass the time?” He let his fingers find the hem of her t-shirt - the one she had taken from his side of the closet and never returned - and then trail lightly against the column of her spine.
She shivered at the touch, and then she smiled. In a quick movement, she sat up and shifted sideways so that she was straddling him with one knee on either side of his hips. The t-shirt was too big and the neckline gaped over one of her shoulders, exposing her soft, tanned skin but keeping far too much still covered for Peter’s liking. He had bought her a pair of nice pajamas for Christmas, which was what she asked him to buy her, but somehow she still was sleeping in his clothes. He didn’t mind. He liked seeing her marked as his in every way possible.
She leaned forward so she was almost lying on top of him, gripping both sides of his face with her hands, then pressed her lips to his. Peter kissed her back, and his hands anchored themselves to her waist, connecting with the warm skin beneath her shirt and keeping her secure on his lap.
“You think you can be quick?” she asked him, her lips hitting his as she spoke and her nose brushing his.
“Very romantic of you,” he teased, kissing the corner of her mouth, which turned up in a smile. He didn’t think, he knew he would be quick if she kept her ass where it was against his boxer briefs for much longer. Instead of answering her question, Peter opened his eyes and turned his head to the side.
“Pumpkin,” he stated, voice firm. “Out.”
Rose put her face into the crook of his neck and chuckled as the yellow lab who had been sleeping at the foot of the bed raised her head to stare at the two of them, cocking her head to the side.
When they first got the dog, coincidentally on the same day Emma was born, Peter had been adamant that under no circumstances would the puppy be allowed on their bed.
That had lasted about two days, and then Rose had begged him with tears in her eyes to let the puppy sleep on the bed because she felt “guilty” shutting the little dog in her crate in the hallway while Peter, Rose, and infant Emma slept in the bedroom. Peter suspected he was being taken advantage of, but he was powerless to do anything about it, so here he was two years later with a 60 pound dog sleeping at the bottom of the bed near his wife’s feet every night.
“You heard me,” Peter stated, raising his eyebrows at the dog. “Out.”
Pumpkin blinked at him, then hopped down from the bed and trotted into the hallway. Peter saw her turn right out the door and knew she was going to sit outside Emma’s bedroom door - her second favorite place to sleep.
Peter turned his attention back to Rose, who sat up a little higher now so she could look at him. Her long, dark hair fell forward over her shoulders like a curtain around her face, and her eyes were bright in the warm gray of the room.
She was so beautiful it sometimes hurt to look at her.
Peter leaned up to capture her lips with his again.
“Hey, wait,” she whispered against his lips, hers curving into a smile as she patted his chest to get him to lie back down. Peter did as he was asked, regarding her curiously. Her smile was small, almost tentative. “Since we have a minute, I need to ask you something.”
“Ok,” he replied, wondering why she couldn’t wait until after he was no longer distracted by the heat of her body smashed against his.
She bit her lip, but the smile was still there. Her fingers started scraping idly through the short hairs on his chest. “How would you, uh…” She connected her eyes to his and held his gaze. “What would you think about having another baby?”
Every cell in Peter’s body froze. He stared at his wife, both hands bracing her hips, while she stared back at him as if waiting for a reaction.
But Peter didn’t know how to react. He just blinked, dumbfounded and caught off guard. What did he think about having another baby? He thought he loved the baby sleeping in the room next door more than anything in the world, he was sure of that. But he was less sure about where the time and energy for another one would come from. Did Rose want another baby? They hadn’t even discussed the first one - she had kind of just happened - and a conversation about a second hadn’t been brought up either.
Until now.
Was there a reason she was asking him this?
Oh shit.
“Rose,” he asked, his voice coming out a little strangled. “Are you pregnant?”
Her mouth worked to the side and she looked down at her finger where it started tapping nervously against his chest. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “My period’s only two days late. It might be nothing.” When she raised her eyes to meet his again, Peter felt it like a jump start to his frozen, shocked heart.
“Ok,” he said, blowing out a breath. He reached up and tucked some of her hair behind her ear so he could see her face better. “Ok, we can pick up a test when we’re out today,” he told her, trying to keep his voice steady. Even. Confident.
But inside his mind was racing.
Her small smile returned, and she nodded. “Yeah. That works.” She reached forward and smoothed a hand over his eyebrow, studying him. “What are you thinking?”
Peter had no fucking clue what he was thinking. But his biggest, loudest thought was: was it really possible that he had knocked up his wife by accident twice? The odds had to be astronomical.
Focusing on the how was easier than tackling the question of whether or not he felt happy about the idea of adding another baby to the family. He didn’t feel unhappy, he knew that, but did the idea make him happy? He couldn’t tell beneath the bubbling questions and anxiety about how another baby would fit into their already busy lives.
“Peter?” she asked again, this time taking his jaw in her hand and forcing him to meet her eyes while she searched his.
He smoothed one of his hands down over the curve of her hip, past the elastic of her underwear, and down her thigh. He cleared his throat. He didn’t lie to Rose, but he also didn’t want to say something that would upset her if he could help it. If she wanted another baby and he expressed his doubts, he’d crush her. Plus if she was already pregnant anyway, telling her he didn’t know if he wanted any more kids would only make her feel guilty or stressed, neither of which would be good for her. There was not much he hated more than being the reason she was sad.
He needed to figure out how he felt about this idea, and be sure about it, before voicing his feelings to her.
“I’m, uh…still processing,” he admitted. Her face softened and she nodded with a small smile. “What are you thinking?” he asked her, smoothing his hand up and down her thigh. “This wasn’t exactly planned. Again.”
Rose laughed.
“I’m–”
She was interrupted by a loud, high pitched whimper sounding through the iPad set up on the side table. They both looked to the side at the same time, and Peter sighed when he saw his baby girl standing up in her crib, her tiny fists wrapped around the wooden slats.
So much for a lazy morning with Rose.
Rose looked at him with a smirk, her face mirroring his thoughts. “I’ll get her,” she told him softly before kissing the corner of his mouth and then gingerly sliding off his lap. Peter sat up against the headboard and kept his hand on her waist to keep her steady as she stepped off the bed and into her slippers.
“I’m going to take a quick shower,” he grumbled. She glanced over her shoulder and snickered, probably correctly predicting he was planning to take a cold shower. As she slipped out of the room, Peter scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Good morning, Sweet Pea,” he heard Rose cooing through the digital monitor app on the iPad beside him. He glanced at the screen and saw Emma start bouncing excitedly when her mother entered the room followed by the dog. Her tiny hands started reaching out of the crib, and her tiny voice started chanting “Mama!”
Peter felt like someone had wrapped a fist around his heart.
He could see every person he loved in one place on that little screen. His entire world. Was there room in it for someone new? His heart swelled a little in his chest at the thought. Another little girl with Rose’s button nose, or maybe a little boy with his freckles that got darker in the sunshine.
He’d have a million variations of children with Rose; like Pokémon cards, he’d be fascinated to collect them all and find out which parts of each of them had combined to create each new tiny person. And he knew if they had another baby, he’d love that child just as much as he loved Emma. How could he not?
The question wasn’t if he would love another baby. The question was if he really wanted to upset the balance and routine of their lives by adding another child to it. Things were good now. Busy, but good. If Peter had a choice in the matter, would he want to do anything to change it? He wasn’t usually one to try to mess with a good thing.
On the screen, he saw Rose lift Emma from her crib and cradle her in a tight hug. She carried their daughter off the screen and out of the room, Pumpkin on her heels.
Peter rubbed his hand over his face again, then tossed the blankets off his legs and headed for the shower.