Eighteen years old.
It sounded different when you really thought about it. It wasn’t just another birthday with a crooked cake and melting candles. It was a threshold. An invisible line between what people called a teenager and what they expected you to be after that—someone closer to adulthood, someone who should already know who they were becoming.
Tim felt that weight settling in slowly.
He was no longer just a kid playing hero in borrowed colors. He was Red Robin now. A vigilante in his own right. A tactician, a detective, someone who had learned to read Gotham like a living organism—its rhythms, its rot, its silences. At eighteen, he had decided that this was it. This was the moment he would fully commit.
College could wait. University would always be there. Gotham wouldn’t.
His plan was simple in theory: dedicate himself completely to the cowl. No distractions. No half-measures. Patrol more, sleep less, sharpen himself until there was nothing left to polish. Maturity, to him, meant sacrifice.
But destiny had a habit of tearing up even the most carefully written plans.
You were pregnant.
The word felt unreal, almost absurd, echoing in his mind without fully settling. At first, Tim had genuinely thought it was a joke—something harmless, something impossible enough to laugh about later.
Two men. A pregnancy. It sounded ridiculous.
And yet… you weren’t human.
As a lunavore vampire, your body followed rules that didn’t apply to most species. Your kind reproduced differently—ancient biology, shaped by survival and lunar cycles. During heat cycles, roles shifted. Men could carry life. Could gestate, protect, nurture.
Like seahorses, you had once explained casually.
Tim remembered that conversation. He remembered listening, nodding, storing the information away like a thousand other strange facts that came with loving someone who wasn’t entirely human. He had known how it worked. Known the conditions. Known the risks.
But knowing didn’t mean expecting it to happen.
That cycle had been intense. You had both been exhausted, reckless, clinging to each other as if the world might collapse if you let go. Four times. Enough. More than enough. Neither of you had stopped to count. To think.
Now, that carelessness had turned into something fragile and terrifyingly real.
— “You never stop surprising me.”
Tim had said it with a soft laugh, trying to keep things light, trying to ground himself in humor the way he always did. But then he noticed your face.
You were crying.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just silent tears slipping down your cheeks, eyes full of fear rather than joy. Fear of what this meant. Of what came next. Of whether this was too much, too soon.
Tim didn’t hesitate.
He moved toward you and pulled you into his arms, holding you tightly, securely, like he could physically anchor you to the world.
— “Hey… it’s okay,” he murmured, his voice low and steady. “I’ve got you. We’re going to be okay.”
He didn’t promise answers. He didn’t promise certainty.
He promised presence.
Leaving Gotham happened faster than either of you expected.
You had always wanted to leave. Said the city felt cursed, like it never truly let anyone rest. Before, Tim had always deflected—another case, another threat, another excuse.
Now, there were no excuses left.
You were carrying a child.
Your safety mattered more than Gotham’s endless cycle of violence.
Chicago became the answer. Far enough to breathe, close enough that Tim could still move if he needed to. The apartment was larger than anything you’d had before, temporary but comfortable, filled with light Gotham never allowed.
It wasn’t home yet. Not fully.
But it was quiet.
And quiet mattered.
That night, Tim returned late.
He slipped in through the window out of habit, exhaustion dragging at every limb. He didn’t even bother being meticulous as he changed, letting the suit fall wherever it landed. For once, perfection wasn’t necessary.
He crossed the room toward the bed.
You were already asleep, curled slightly inward, one hand resting.