xxxiii. MAKING BABIES

"How do you keep another human being alive?" Chase stares. His blue eyes glance with discomfort at the baby in Ace's arms. Chase had a point—literally we are barely qualified to take care of ourselves.

"Food and water. I'm going to take a nap. I'm sure you guys have this mission down," Skye yawns.

"I'm going to teach it how to shoot a gun," Xavier states while reaching for the baby.

Ace glares and swats his hand away. "Absolutely not."

"Nice maternal instincts Ms. Blackwell," Chase smirks.

"I think it's called common sense," Ace spits back.

Annoyed, I take the baby from Ace's arms. The tiny creature is a baby boy with adorable brown eyes. When the baby realizes that I'm holding him instead of Ace, he begins to cry.

The audacity.

Everyone starts to laugh at my undignified plight and doesn't even make an attempt to hide it. Seriously? Do babies hate me that much?

Tears of laughter started to prick at Ace's eyes. Swiftly, he picks the crying child from my arms and takes the baby back into his. The baby stops crying immediately. Instead, he starts to giggle once he's in Ace's arms.

I glare at the baby. Yes, it was extremely petty to be upset at a child, though I'm a petty person. So yes baby—I'm mad at you now. Children are now on the "Octavia hate list" right after people who don't follow you back on instagram and right before people who wear aviators at night.

In fact, the baby started to cry every single time he was out of Ace's arms. "Whelp. I guess for the next eight hours, you've gotta hold the baby, mama bird," I smile to Ace.

"We're going to need more formula and diapers," he instructs while glaring at me. "Let's head to the store."

"Can't we get it a little tipsy to lull it to sleep?" Chase suggests.

"This is a fucking baby, not an adult!" I exclaim.

"No swearing Rookie," Xavier grins. "Looks like you've gotta change the diapers."

He and Ace high five. Real mature.

Skye pinches the bridge of her nose in annoyance. We make eye contact through her hijab mid-eye roll, sharing the common sense of comradeship against these gorilla hands. "Alright, alright, let's go to the store before this baby starts crying for food...and before I murder one of you via dagger to the epithelial lining."

"Descriptive Skye, but we all know you'd never hurt a fly," Chase smiles.

I grin as Skye narrowed her eyes to scan us. "Keep testing me and see," Skye states.

~

The Girl from Ipanema plays softly over the intercoms as Chase pushes the shopping cart into the baby items section. Ace was holding the baby in his arms while comparing formula ingredients. I couldn't help but let out a little chuckle as he scrutinized the two formulas with intensity. In his leather jacket and intimidating frame, the baby seemed out of place.

"What are you laughing at, Cupcake?" Ace says.

"Nothing," I grin. "Just never thought you'd be good with children."

"Don't girls find that a turn on or something?"

"You can't make dirt shine no matter how hard you scrub," I wink.

"Goddamn," Xavier rolls his eyes. He holds up a onesie with the words "I Only Eat Kale" printed on it. "This is some white-people shit."

Skye bursts out laughing. She throws the onesie into the shopping cart.

Ace narrows his eyes. "Stop swearing in front of the baby."

"Can't you just pick a formula?" Chase sighs impatiently. "We've been in this aisle for at least five minutes."

Ace stares daggers in Chase's direction. "No, Kingsley, we can't just pick a formula. One of these has higher omega fats and a lower vegetable oil concentration whereas the other has a lighter concentration. Unless you want this baby to die, I suggest you be patient."

"Alright Mama Bird," I let out in a low tone.

"Stop calling me Mama Bird," Ace deadpans. "If anything, I'm mama hawk."

"While you two fight like an old married couple, I'm going to pick up some hot pockets," Chase states. "Auf Wiedersehen Kermit and Miss Piggy."

"Thanks for calling Ace Miss Piggy," I smirk.

"Let's be real, you two are both Oscar the Grouch... absolute trash," Skye smiles.

Our teammates disperse into different sections of the grocery store. Xavier heads to the bakery (presumably to find a cheesecake), Chase goes to the frozen aisle section (probably hot pockets), and Skye dives straight to the kitchen section (probably for cutting knives).

Note to self: don't mess with Skye Antar. She won't ever kill anyone without a reason, but she will hurt you very very bad. But you can, however, mess with Xavier and Chase since they're giant teddy bears.

My fingers drum against the diapers in boredom at the lack of action that was happening. Ace was doing nothing except analyzing the components of the different formula combinations. Our shopping cart was already almost full with enough baby materials to take care of a preschool.

I let out a frustrated breath of air. "Damnit Mama Bird! Let's just get both!"

"Stop cursing in front of the baby," Ace scowls. "I wouldn't want my baby growing up swearing 1% of what you do on a daily basis."

"Well I wouldn't want a child with your genetics either," I snap back.

"Objectively speaking, I'm pretty close to perfection."

"Quite the contrary, my dear Watson. Your face is the best argument for abortion."

"It's cute when you try to deny it," Ace gives me a mischievous look. "Besides, the process of making babies would be pretty fun."

My face scrunches. "Let me know when your head implodes from the mass of its own ego; I'll alert the scientific community."

"What's even more spectacular is the way light bends around your dense-ass brain," Ace retorts with a smirk.

"Aw... did you get that insult from the sixth grade?"

"As a matter of fact I did. I thought it would stump you since you have the intellect of a fifth-grade dropout."

I give him a blank stare. "That makes no sense. You literally kidnapped me from college."

"You weren't doing much learning there though, were you?"

"You're not exactly Einstein, Tesla, nor Lovelace," I retort drly.

"I can speak four languages, my brain is an encyclopedia of weapons, and I've been ready since in utero."

"Barba tenus sapientes," I scoff. "You might claim to be smarter yet may I remind you: I hacked into the pentagon's firewall that you designed."

"Quid quo pro," he retaliates. "You got lucky."

I roll my eyes so hard I get a headache. Finally, after ten minutes of deliberation, Ace decides on one. I look at the mountain of baby supplies piled up in our cart. All this for an afternoon?

Remind me to never raise a child with Banana Bread.

Ace then goes to on to deliberate between two diaper options. I groan and decide to leave. I find Skye in the fruit aisle picking up a giant ass watermelon and putting it into the cart.

"Hey Octavia," Skye greets. She picks up two giant ass watermelons. "Which one looks better?"

"Watermelon on the right," I state. We go on to pick out a small farmer's market worth of fruits.

"Can I ask you something?" Skye suddenly stops. The tone she suddenly undertook slightly scared me with its seriousness.

"Yeah, of course."

"What's going on with you and Ace?"

I'm taken aback. "What—what do you mean?"

Skye raises an eyebrow at me. "Don't be coy; your flirting makes me want to throw up."

I scoff. "It's not flirting as much as it is being annoying."

Skye smirks at me. "Sure... But I still ship you two harder than Lusitania during WWII."

"With all that's going on, there's no time for any relationships," I justify.

She starts laughing, but her demeanor suddenly changes. Her dark eyes suddenly narrow on something behind me. I turn around, fixating on what she saw; there were two men who were pacing around the baby aisle where Ace was. The nimrod was probably too focused on diaper brands to notice the aggressors.

A small gun peeked out from under the men's coats. "Shit," Skye whispers. Swiftly, she slowly unsheathes a dagger from her belt.

My eyes go wide. Mentally I high-five myself. "I knew it! You do have daggers on you at all times!"

"Follow my lead," Skye warns, "unless you want Ace to die."

"Wow don't tempt me."

Skye chuckles dryly. "I'll tell him you said that if he lives."

A weird thought entered my mind; I've never had to save Ace before.

Xavier: "The author is holding my cheesecake capitive away from me. Every vote is one more bite of cheesecake she'll let me eat. #HelpXavierEatHisCheesecake #VotesForBites #GodfuckingdamnitWomanGiveMeMyCheesecake."