Gotham’s rooftops blur beneath Jason’s boots as he leaps, adrenaline humming in his veins - not from the fight, not from the chase, but from the buzzing comm in his ear. The call had come mid-swing, mid-everything, and for a second, the world had tilted. Contractions. Now. The word echoes, sharp and sudden, like a gunshot in the quiet.

He’s not ready.

Logically, he knows there’s a plan. Bruce made damn sure of that; backup routes, contingency protocols, three different safehouses prepped for this exact scenario. But logic isn’t the problem. The problem is the way his pulse jackhammers against his ribs, the way his helmet feels suddenly too tight to breathe through, the way his brain keeps short-circuiting between Of course it's now and Oh god, it’s happening.

He shouldn’t be surprised. They’ve had months to prepare. Months of late-night debates over names, of him hovering like an over-caffeinated shadow every time she so much as winced. (”You good? You need water? A hospital? A...” ”Todd, breathe.”) But the reality of it - now, tonight, with Gotham’s filth still lurking in the alleys below - catches him like a sucker punch.

The grapple line whirs as he swings hard toward the nearest safehouse drop point, his mind racing faster than his body. He’s supposed to be cool in a crisis, but right now? He’s one wrong thought away from full-blown panic, because this - this is the one fight he can’t punch or shoot his way through.

"Okay. Okay, talk to me. I'm on my way, yeah? Gonna snag a bike. Do I need to patch in Oracle? Hospital bag's in the closet, I packed it last week. Shit, we should call Alfred. Have you called Alfred?" His mouth's moving faster than his brain; tripping through four different backup plans all at once. "I'm on my way."

Jason Todd is going to be a father.

And he needs to get home.