Dirty Little Secret - Bonus (Patreon)

I was commissioned to write a bit of material for Ilya and Echo, based on that recent picture I did. So, it seemed a good way to give Patrons some bonus content too.

———

“When’s the last time you took the collar off?” Echo asked, washing her hands in the hotel room sink as Ilya brushed ‘her’ teeth.

“Before we left,” Ilya replied.

Probably. It was a bit tricky to tell around the toothbrush.

Finishing washing and starting to dry her hands, Echo raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you want to be your normal self?”

Ilya spat some toothpaste out and then did a rincing scrub for a few moments.

“No,” ‘she’ finally said, “not really. People always stare at me, even if they don’t realise who I am. I like being small and able to disappear into the crowd.”

“Alright, I suppose that’s fair,” Echo said, leaning against the doorframe. “Still, you could take it off when we’re alone in the room.”

“The, uh… the beds are too short,” Ilya replied, blushing adorably. “My feet hang over and it’s awkward. It’s tricky to find beds that fit me.”

Echo nodded, though didn’t move from where she was leaning, blocking the door out to the rest of their suit.

“Is something wrong?” Ilya asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, it’s just… I’ve taken my collar off, when you said there were some things you missed in the bedroom,” she replied. “Maybe I’m missing the same things from you.”

That made Ilya blush again, a slightly deeper hue of red, due to the more scandalous reason for the blush. “Oh—I… of course. Just let me—”

With that, ‘she’ reached up, to deactivate the collar. Only to get an alarm chime.

“What was that?” Echo asked.

“It was… oh. Oh,” Ilya said, reaching a hand up to ‘her’ mouth. “Oh my.”

There was a slight pause, Echo silently waiting for more details as Ilya went through something of a journey of emotional expressions. After the wait became slightly too long for Echo’s liking, she cleared her throat. The small redhead jumped slightly, before looking up at her with an adorably nervous expression that led to a wave of guilt crashing over her. How could she have been impatient with someone that cute?

“I’m, um… I’m probably pregnant,” Ilya said. “The collars are designed to detect that and won’t deactivate until something is done about it… there’s apparently health risks involved with changing while pregnant.”

There was more after that, but Echo found herself no longer able to focus. Her mind had registered ‘pregnant’, then that it was Ilya, with her being responsible. And that, well… that slightly broke her brain.

Sure, she’d vaguely thought about the risk before. Back before she’d realised she was a woman. But… well, since realising she was a woman, she’d expected to be the one to carry any child they had together. That had seemed a pretty straightforward assumption in her opinion.

“Are you ok? Echo?” Ilya’s soft voice asked, bringing her back to earth.

“Yes. Yes. Sorry. I’m just… surprised,” she replied, trying to offer a small smile.

It seemed it hadn’t worked, as Ilya’s eyes filled with worry.

“This… I’m sorry. I’m taking this from you, aren’t I? I didn’t mean to… it just—it just happened. But I can—”

Echo stepped forward and pulled Ilya into a hug. ‘Her’ frame seemed so delicate and small in Echo’s arms. Any feelings of envy or betrayal were washed away by the realisation that it was probably just as big of a shock to Ilya as it was to her. They were both in it together, and the child was going to be theirs, regardless of who carried it.

Ilya, however, lacked telepathy as an ability and so was slightly confused by Echo’s actions. A small and confused squeak from ‘her’ reminded Echo to use words to express her emotions.

“I have some slightly confused feelings and I do hope that I’ll be the one to carry the next kid we might have, but… if you want to go through with this I’ll do whatever I can for you. And for the baby,” she said, offering a soft smile.

Ilya’s eyes lit up before the petite redhead pulled her into a tight hug. A slightly pained ‘gack’ served to remind Ilya not to squeeze so tightly, as Echo remembered that Ilya was somewhat less fragile than ‘she’ looked.

-

Sitting in Dr. Medic’s clinic in the Keep, Echo held Ilya’s hand as they waited for their test results. It had only been a few days since they'd found out Ilya was pregnant, so they weren’t certain what Dr. Medic might be able to find just yet, but they were pretty sure it was best not to ignore access to a super-doctor during a pregnancy. (They’d barely agreed to not cutting their vacation short to get a check in with him immediately.)

Finally, after what felt like a small eternity, but was more like fifteen minutes, Doctor Medic returned, carrying a tablet with various readouts on it.

“Well,” he said, running a hand along his short trimmed curls, “I think everything looks fine for this early in a pregnancy. Unfortunately, data for pregnancy in collar girls, regardless of gender identity, is still a bit lacking… but, it’s probably a safe bet to use a standard pregnancy as reference. Which means everything looks fine.”

Both of them gave enthusiastic nods in reply. It was what they wanted to hear.

“It will be a while yet before we can tell if the child will have any powers, but, with two supers as parents, that is probable,” Medic continued. “So, we’ll keep an eye on that, though Ilya is probably pretty safe to handle most options… my main concern is for the child’s development, considering Ilya’s… origins.”

Medic scrolled along his tablet for a moment, obviously taking a moment to compose his thoughts. “Everything should be fine with regular monitoring, especially since Ilya won’t be performing his regular duties, but please tell me if anything odd happens, alright?”

Echo nodding, accepting all of that… only to realise Ilya had a somewhat confused expression on ‘her’ face.

“I… right. I… I can’t fight,” the small redhead mumbled. “I didn’t even think about that… what if I’m needed, though?”

“Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto aren’t that far away. We can call in help if we really need it,” Doctor Medic replied. “You need to look after yourself and the baby… maybe this will be a good lesson in worrying about yourself more in general.”

“You do have a bit of a bad habit with running yourself ragged trying to help everyone,” Echo replied.

“I—but…” Ilya began to protest, before getting compassionately forceful looks from the others. “Ok. I’ll probably go stir crazy, but I’ll try.”

“You had best. One punch from Unstoppable or being hit by a train when you try to stop it could have serious negative consequences,” Doctor Medic replied, his tone serious. “The baby is almost certainly not as durable as you are.”

-

When she found out, the Queen of Swords let out a squee of joy that did not fit her regularly cool and aloof demeanor.

“A baby? Do you know if it will be a boy or a girl?” she asked, holding the hands of a rather surprised Ilya.

“Um, not—not yet. Maddock was going to do some blood tests to find out in a few weeks,” Ilya replied.

“Or, at least, to make a guess,” Echo said, standing a short distance away.

“A good guess at what?” Shifter asked, as she walked into the room.

“Ilya is having a baby, and Maddock will be running tests to try to see if it will be a girl or a boy,” Queen of Swords said, continuing to wear an uncharacteristic smile. “I bet it will be a girl and she’ll be just as cute as he is when wearing his collar.”

“Il—Ilya is the one who’s pregnant?” Shifter said, glancing over to Echo, a slightly worried look in her eyes.

“Variety in the bedroom is nice,” Echo replied. “We didn’t plan it, but I can carry the next one.”

Shifter gave a small nod and blushed, processing that. Queen, meanwhile, was busy announcing the various supplies they ‘needed’ to buy for Ilya. The other two women both exchanged whispers of surprise at discovering a new facet to Queen of Swords. Ilya looked rather overwhelmed, though clearly happy to be getting so much positive attention.

“Maybe this will help the whole team act like more of a family, rather than awkwardly distant coworkers,” Shifter said in a quiet voice, so that only Echo heard her.

-

Echo handed Ilya some tums as the small redhead recovered from another bout of morning sickness. Their apartment bathroom was a bit smaller than the one in the hotel had been, but it was still large enough for two people to spend time in. The view out over the city also didn’t lead to many complaints. Northford looked sharply modern before them, a sea of glassy office towers and condos crowding onto the main island.

Not that Ilya was paying the view much attention as ‘she’ tried to let her stomach settle.

“I’ve been thinking about names,” ‘she’ said, after a moment.

“Names?” Echo asked.

“Mhm… I get a little bored while you’re at work,” ‘she’ said, looking so cutely pouty it made Echo half want to quit her job to never leave her girlfriend alone again. “And it seemed like it was good to plan ahead.”

“Oh! For the baby,” Echo replied.

It had been too early in the morning for her to put everything together as quickly as she’d normally like.

Ilya nodded. “I thought we could follow the Greek mythology pattern you started? And Tyche does seem like a cute name for a girl. And, may Lykos for a boy? It means ‘wolf’, which is pretty cool?”

“I… that’s very sweet of you, but, also, I have toworry about kids bullying them if they have too unusual of a name. We’ve already got a rather complicated family,” Echo replied. “I could go for a nerdy sort of name since I picked it out as an adult.”

“Well… I suppose,” Ilya replied. “Though the children of supers usually do get homeschooled? For safety reasons.”

Memories of her own childhood made Echo grimace for a moment, but she pushed past it. She was good at pushing past things. “I suppose. We’ll still want them to have friends, though.”

“Well, yes,” Ilya said softly. “Did… did you have any name ideas?”

“It felt very early for that to me, but… I have the day off. I can try looking some up,” Echo replied.

-

“How about something Russian?” Echo asked, after staring at her computer and being reminded just how many names there were in the world.

As well as how many sketchy ‘baby name’ websites existed. She was glad she had a good antivirus, because she was rather certain a few of them had tried to steal her identity in the five seconds she’d spent on them.

“Russian?” Ilya asked, pausing ‘her’ stretches.

Echo tried not to get distracted by how good Ilya looked in yoga wear… in both forms, even if only one was in front of her right now. She really had pulled the jackpot as a bisexual.

“Well, since you’re Russian,” she explained.

“Barely,” the redhead mumbled. “Mum’s Scottish-American, and Maddock says the rest of my DNA is a grab bag from across the former USSR. And I mostly grew up in Central Asia.”

“Right… our kid is going to have the weirdest family tree,” Echo mumbled.

Her side of the family tree would be less confusing, though just as questionable with her biological ‘mother’ being a supervillain and all that. She could ignore that for now, though, and just switch the website she was on from Russian to Scottish given names.

“There’s… there’s really a lot of these names,” she mumbled after a few minutes of scrolling. “Hmm… Finley is cute, though. And unisex.”

“I…” Ilya started to say, before taking a moment to shift ‘her’ collar and scratch under it. Then the small redhead paused, before nodding. “Right. Unisex is probably best. Since, between you and my wearing this collar… and mum… yeah. Unisex.”

Turning her office chair, Echo shifted her legs to let Ilya sit on her lap, still not quite able to shake the feeling that she needed to protect the petite ‘woman’. Ilya really was dangerously adorable in this form. Hopefully the small size wouldn’t make the pregnancy too difficult…

It probably wouldn’t, considering the whole ‘super strength’ and ‘indestructibility’ thing, but it was easy to forget those when looking at the adorable redhead.