New Sharknado Fic: Hope (Patreon)

I wrote a self-indulgent Bruce/Stormy ficlet during some of my down time. Mostly focuses on how they coped with the arrival of their second child, Finn,  Trigger warning for discussion of potential stillbirth and pregnancy loss. (Also possibly inaccurate medical procedures, pls forgive me). Angst with a happy ending.

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“Wavey, I’m going to have a baby.”

Stormy ends his sentence with a grin, so bright the world seems to dim in comparison. Bruce, however, has his gaze fixed on the small indigo filly before him. He braces for the fallout. He’s ready for anything, from overjoyed fluttering around the house, to a full-blown bawling tantrum.

What he doesn’t expect is for their four-year-old daughter to narrow her baby blue eyes and scrunch up her muzzle in a scowl. “Nuh-uh.”

Stormy’s smile falters, just a little. “Aww, c’mon baby girl, don’t you wanna be a big sister?”

Wave Rider packs a hell of a glower for a creature barely out of preschool. Bruce is almost proud. “No.” 

Bruce glanced down at Stormy’s gut. With all the damned fluff in the way, it was still hard to tell- but Bruce knew if he placed an ear to the swell, he’d feel the kick of impossibly tiny hooves, a new life growing within that made him giddy to think about. Now, however, he frowned, and exchanged a concerned look with Stormy.

Bruce cleared his throat, deciding to give it a try. “Babies are fun, nipper, you’ll see. Why not give it a try before ya knock it, eh? I reckon you’ll make a great big sister. C’mon, what do ya say?” He attempts a reassuring smile, and takes Stormy’s hoof in his own. “Are you ready to have a baby brother?”

Wave Rider promptly lobs her juice box at Bruce’s head, then explodes into a furious fit of tears.

It could’ve gone better, Stormy thinks.

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The doctor’s office smells faintly of citrus. The doctor's voice is tight and controlled as he tells them that their son’s wings are not developing properly in utero, and furthermore, there may be additional complications.

Complications. Bruce turns the word over in his head, trying to make heads or tails of it. But it is Stormy who breaks the silence, his jaw trembling. “S-such as?”

The doctor’s eyes shine with sympathy. Bruce hates it. 

“Your foal may not survive to term.”

Bruce feels as though he’s been gut-punched. He’s only dimly aware of what follows. On the way out, he’s handed a few glossy pamphlets. The words barely register to him. Pregnancy loss. Grieving. Non-viability. 

Stillbirth.

Bruce shoves them in the trash before Stormy can see them. He’s helpless in so many awful, terrifying ways, but at the very least, he can protect his husband from this. That word. The possibility.

But Stormy knows. And Stormy cries.

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Bruce doesn’t like to think about it.

Bruce doesn’t like to think of what might’ve happened. If Stormy had been awake to stop him. If Wave Rider had followed him. 

It had been raining the night he snuck out. The night he found her cottage. His hoof pounds on the thick oak door, and after a few moments, it creaks open. Pandora rubs at her tired eyes with an overgrown paw, already grumbling about being woken up so late. It’s nearly imperceptible, but Bruce can see where her cheeks are fuller, how her body has changed. She’s still nursing, Bruce knows that if he rooted around her home, he’d find a tiny chocolate-colored cub, the most recent bit of chaos the she-witch had inflicted upon Ponyville. Her son. 

It felt like a sick joke, that a monster like her could know happiness, could birth a child that was healthy and alive and whole. It wasn’t fucking fair.

This was all her fault. Her and her damned magic.

Bruce’s vision goes red. He lunges. Pandora isn’t expecting the attack, and she stumbles backward. Bruce lands on her hard, knocking the air out of her lungs. She kicks at him feebly with her hind legs, but she’s weak, always has been, and it’d be so easy now to crush her windpipe, to put Ponyville’s greatest pest out of her misery, to leave that little cub motherless-

Bruce jerks to his senses- at the same time a hoof comes sailing out of the darkness, and he’s kicked clear across the room. He crashes into a bookcase, and lights are switching on, and he hears Pandora struggling to her hooves, coughing. In the other room, the baby awakens and begins to wail, and he feels Cupcake’s hoof come down like steel, pinning his arms behind his back.

Her voice is a low, dangerous snarl in his ear. “You’d better have a damned good reason for this, Carcharodon.”

….Does he?

Helpless, with his arms painfully twisted behind him, his cheek flush against the carpet, Bruce breaks. His anger still burns iron hot within him, but it’s being drowned now by the fear, so much fear. 

Bruce is crying and he hates that he is. He’d held strong for so long. For Stormy’s sake. But now he’s sobbing like a lost foal, in front of Cupcake and Pandora, of all ponies, and it’s humiliating, but he can’t stop. He’s weak like his father always said he was, it’s his fault, it’s all his fault.

“My son- h-he might not-”

The fury in Cupcake’s eyes is extinguished in an instant. She releases his arms, and then she crushes Bruce to her chest, her hooves winding around him like twin anacondas. Bruce can’t breathe, and for an instant he fears this is an attack- retribution for his own assault- but then he realizes that Cupcake, his enemy, is hugging him. 

She understands.

Pandora too coils around him, resting her chin over his shoulders, the way she had when they were young. It’s familiar, comforting- and hatred finally releases its hold on Bruce’s heart. 

“It’s okay to be afraid.” 

With a snap of her talons, Pandora summons their baby into her arms. Bruce has never seen Oddball up close, and can’t help but stare. He appears to only be a few weeks old, the size of a kitten, his eyes still sealed shut. Calmed by the warmth and scent of his mother, his cries fade into quiet whimpers. Pandora kisses his tiny nose, and Bruce feels something in his chest clench.

Cupcake’s gaze is different from the doctor’s, her eyes hold no cloying pity. In its place is something stronger. “Bruce.” She places her hoof on his shoulder, steadying him. Bruce ducks his head, ashamed of himself, of his violence- but Cupcake lifts his chin, forcing him to meet her eyes.

“Have hope.”

Bruce decides to.

They let him leave without further questions. Pandora presses something into his hooves- a satchel of pink potions, glowing with magic. Strength spells, she whispers. For Stormy. An hour ago, Bruce might’ve shattered them against the wall, but now he takes them with a stiff nod.

Moreover, she and Cupcake never tell Stormy about that night. Bruce can never find the right words to thank them, but he hopes they understand.

Have hope.

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Days become weeks, and weeks become months. Bruce releases a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Stormy begins eating again, and slowly remembers how to smile. At night, they lie with hooves clasped together over Stormy’s belly, feeling the baby move. Wave Rider goes through it all unaffected, demanding pancakes and games of tag, and complaining thoroughly when Stormy can’t chase her for long without getting winded. As he stops to rest, Wavey clambers up his back to bite his ear, and their laughter, as always, puts a song in Bruce’s heart. It seems that everything may turn out alright. 

One month later, Stormy is singing a silly song and dancing with Wavey- when he abruptly grips his stomach and tells Bruce something is very wrong.

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It was funny, Bruce had always pictured Stormy giving birth in a field of flowers.

They’d talked about it at length. Stormy had suggested a natural water birth, Bruce had groused about his husband listening to too much of Rosemary’s lectures on the “magic” of childbearing. Bruce knew from experience that it was an agonizing and messy affair, and if Stormy knew what was good for him, he’d choose the bliss of hospital drugs. Stormy responded that he wanted to experience their child entering the world, wanted to see it all, drugs be damned. Between Bruce’s badly masked worries and Stormy’s pregnancy hormones, it’d escalated into an argument, and they’d never really resolved the matter. Bruce, at that moment quite surly, figured they’d have more time to discuss it. Eleven months was more than enough time to come to a compromise.

Stormy gave birth in a hospital. The day had been a rush of vivid colors, muffled voices, the sharp, coppery scent of blood. Bruce was nearly sick with worry, unable to do more than clutch Stormy’s hoof and wipe at his husband’s brow. Stormy’s mane lay plastered to his sweaty face, and his fevered moans rose into sobbing screams. But Stormy, damn him, refused the allure of numbing drugs, the promise of peaceful sleep. I need to see him, Brucie, Stormy insisted. If I see him, everything will be okay.

Stormy let out a final shout, his body trembling with exertion. In a splash of amniotic fluid, something finally gave. Then there was a surge of movement, doctors and nurses bustling and pushing past one another. Bruce’s ears pricked, listening desperately for a baby’s cry…..but there was nothing.

Instead, Bruce caught fragments of conversation. 

Premature. Underweight. Intensive care.

Stormy lay panting, nearly delirious with fatigue. His eyes shuttered open and closed, struggling to stay conscious. 

I just….I have to see him….

Bruce pushed Stormy back against his pillow, halting his meek struggles. “Not yet, Blue.” Bruce glanced over his shoulder, watching the nurse cart their baby away. “.....Maybe later.”

“Promise?” Stormy croaked, his eyes pleading.

“....Yeah.” Bruce swallowed, then leaned down to press a kiss to his husband’s forehead. But Stormy had already succumbed to exhaustion, his breathing slow and even. 

I promise.

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The birth had been unkind to Stormy, and the physicians insisted on bed rest. Stormy protested every step of the way, demanding to see his foal. He attempted several escapes, hauling his intravenous equipment behind him and alarming the nurses. Finally, Bruce could bear it no longer, and snuck him out.

They walked together, steps falling in line. Stormy draped a wing over Bruce’s back for support. His gait was slow and staggering, but he pressed on, leaning on Bruce every so often to catch his breath. And finally, they made it.

Stormy raised a shaking hoof to the maternity ward window, and looked inside.

Their son looked impossibly tiny in his bedding, a small blot of turquoise against white. He lay like an insect being dissected, with countless wires and diodes plastered to him. A plastic breathing apparatus nearly swallowed his head, pushing air into his lungs, forcing his chest to rise and fall. He’d stopped breathing shortly after being born. The machines might’ve been the only thing keeping him alive.

Stormy made a horrible noise in his throat, then crumpled to the floor.

Bruce wrapped an arm around Stormy’s shaking shoulders. In the window, he could see their reflections- two tired, haggard ponies he barely even recognized. 

This was not them, Bruce thought. He did not look so old and exhausted, dark eye bags and patchy stubble painfully reminiscent of his father. The sobbing mare in the reflection was not Stormy. This was not them.

Wavey had only just started warming up to the idea of a little brother. Listening raptly at Stormy’s belly, bouncing on her hooves, making terrible, bombastic name suggestions. What would they tell her now? That a baby wasn’t coming after all? That they’d made a mistake?

No.

Bruce shook his head, clearing the stinging heat from his eyes. He clutched at Stormy’s face, dragging him up to look at him. Stormy’s eyes are rimmed red and sick with grief, hot tears spilling over and dripping onto Bruce’s coat.

“Listen to me, Blue.” Bruce says firmly, ignoring his own tears. “He’s not dead yet, do you understand?”

Stormy slumps in despair, and Bruce can see the light leaving his eyes. “....He’s as good as.” He says quietly. “I’m not…..I’m not stupid, Bruce. I know the prognosis-”

“Don’t.” Bruce growls, shaking him a little. “Don’t give up hope. Not yet. Don’t you dare. He needs us, Blue.”

“I can’t.” Stormy’s breath hitches, and he began to cry again. “....I’ve been hoping since the beginning. Look at him, Bruce. He’s going to die. I c-can’t…..”

“Shh.” Bruce pulls his husband to his chest and lets him cry. He rests his chin over Stormy’s shoulder, and strokes a rough hoof through his mane. “I’ll hope, then. Enough for both of us. You rest.”

Stormy stills at that, just a little. “....Thank you.”

Together, they listen to the blip of their baby’s heart monitor. Together, they watch the little chest rise. Fall. 

Rise.

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Hours turn into days, and days turn into weeks. Wave Rider grows grumpy in the care of Auntie Rosie and Maggie, and sends Bruce many surly phone calls.

Finally, the care coordinator clears Finnie to leave the incubator.

He’s still too small. His wings are nothing more than feathery bumps on his back. But when he’s placed into Stormy’s arms, the pegasus’ smile is magic.

Bruce curls up with Stormy in the cramped hospital bed, and they watch their baby sleep. His fur is a bright, even turquoise, the color of sea glass. The top of his head has a tiny tuft of blonde hair growing in, the same shade as Stormy’s rainbow mane. But more pressing are the baby’s teeny, outrageous eyebrows, as thick and unruly as Bruce’s own. When Stormy points them out, Bruce laughs for the first time in what feels like millenia. Finn is his fathers’ son. 100% Carcharodon-Dash.

Stormy brushes aside the tuft of blonde hair, and presses a kiss to Finnie’s forehead. “I love him so much.” He chuckles quietly, a tired, easy sound. “He’s Wavey all over again.”

“Nah, mate. Wavey was decent enough to wait til she was outta diapers to start worryin’ us to death.” Bruce scoffed, stroking their baby’s cheek. “This little wombat’s gonna be a trouble-maker, I can feel it. Between him and Ridah, my mane’ll be goddamned gray before I’m forty, I’m sure of it.”

“Language, honey.” Stormy chided playfully, batting Bruce with his wing. He turned his attention back to the baby, and didn’t speak for a long moment. “.....I’ve never been that afraid before, Bruce.”

Bruce nuzzled Stormy’s cheek, breathing in his scent. “....I know, love.”

“He could still…..” Stormy’s hoof curled protectively around Finnie, his ears folding back. “I mean….w-we’re not out of the woods yet. He came out so early. I don’t….I don’t know what’ll happen....”

Bruce rested his hoof atop Stormy’s, supporting their baby. “That’s okay, sweetie.” He said softly. “It’s okay to be afraid.”

“....I almost gave up hope.” Stormy smiled sadly. “.....But you never did, did you, Brucie?”

“.....I did.” Bruce admitted, looking away in shame. “A few times. I wanted to believe so badly, but…..”

Stormy surprised Bruce with a kiss. It was slow and tender, igniting a warmth in Bruce’s core that he hadn’t felt in far too long. If not for their delicate baby, and the creaky hospital bed, Bruce might’ve shoved Stormy down and snogged the air out of him.

Stormy broke away, panting a little, and let his forehead rest against his husband’s. “I guess what matters is that we have hope now.”

“Yeah.” Bruce smiled, sappy and stupid, helpless as always against his husband’s affection. He glanced down at their foal, rubbing the spot between his wing bumps. “....Hear that, little mate? Yer old man ain’t givin’ up on ya just yet. Ya wee little bastard.”

“Brucie, language!”

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It isn’t easy. Finnie needs nearly round-the-clock care, and Wave Rider quickly grows jealous of the baby sucking up so much of her parents attention. There’s diapers to be changed, bottles to be heated, crying to soothe in the middle of the night.

Stormy’s never been happier.

One day, Bruce reports to him that Wavey had nearly been on the edge of tears, feeling abandoned in the chaos of a new baby. Stormy trips over himself to right this hideous wrong, storming into Wavey’s room and scooping up the startled filly. He gives her kisses til she squeals for mercy, and blubbers apologies into her mane. She turns pink at the attention, and bites his ear in revenge.

Twenty minutes later, they’re chasing each other round the house, while Bruce sits on the couch, bottle-feeding their son. Bruce scoffs at their antics and gives encouragement to Wavey, all while Finnie watches with bright, alert eyes.

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A year goes by faster than Bruce can blink. Finnie grows quickly, fueled by his bottomless appetite (god, he’s a bloody Stormy Junior), and before they know it, he’s taking his first clumsy steps, babbling his first words, and giving sticky baby kisses to his dads’ faces (and his indignant big sister too).

With two young children and growing careers, Bruce and Stormy’s lives are often rife with chaos. Yet sometimes, there are the briefest flickers of peace.

They’d taken the kids out for a long day at the park. Now, with their nearly endless energy drives depleted, and their tummies full of sandwiches, both Wavey and Finnie had collapsed into their dads’ waiting hooves. Bruce and Stormy lay beneath the park’s old oak tree, feeling the long grass whisper against their bodies. The children lay nearly comatose against them, with Wavey’s face hidden in the crook of Bruce’s neck, and Finnie sprawled out against Stormy’s chest.

Bruce curled closer against Stormy’s side, and felt his husband sleepily loop an arm around his hip, and mumble something sweet, too sweet. Goddamned hippie.

Bruce listened to Stormy’s soft snores, and felt Wavey beginning to drool against him. He watched Finnie wiggle and twitch in his sleep, then rub a sleepy hoof across his eyes. He fixed Bruce with a crooked smile, and reached out to him with pudgy hooves. 

“Dada.” 

And with that, Bruce wonders how he ever doubted a thing.