Alarms were already blaring when the first contraction hit.

Slade knew the difference between pain and distraction. He cataloged both automatically. The way she stiffened. The microsecond pause before she adjusted her stance and kept firing like nothing had changed.

He glanced at her once.

She didn’t need to say it.

“Timing’s terrible,” he muttered, downing another guard with mechanical precision. “Of course it is.”

Another contraction. Stronger. She braced against a crate, breath controlled, refusing to fold. Slade’s jaw tightened—not in doubt. In calculation.

“Objective first,” he decided calmly. “Then we improvise.”

He shifted formation without breaking rhythm, covering angles tighter, shortening distance, eliminating threats faster than usual. The mission clock mattered.

So did she.

Minutes stretched sharp and thin. Gunfire. Footsteps. Controlled chaos.

And then—

Silence.

Target secured.

Extraction called.

Slade was already at her side, hands steady, voice lower now. “You picked a hell of a moment,” he said, something almost like pride cutting through the tension.

It wasn’t recklessness.

It was resolve.

She hadn’t stopped.

Neither had he.

And as he coordinated a very different kind of operation on the fly, Slade allowed himself exactly one thought:

Their child was already proving impeccable timing—

And terrible respect for scheduling.