The next contraction ripped through her, even more violent than the last. Felicity nearly blacked out from the force of it, her hands tightening into claws around Exile’s fingers. Voss counted her through the pain, his voice anchored and relentless.
"Breathe for me. In count of four. Out count of four. That’s it, little fox. You’re not alone. We’re all here."
For a moment, the world shrank to the pressure of Exile’s grip, the solid weight of Ivan’s hand at her skull, the steadiness of Dimitri’s palm pressed against her heart, and then there was only the deep, cold focus of Voss’s gaze, holding her at the center of the storm.
The contraction passed, and Felicity lay gasping, sweat and tears mixing on her cheeks as her chest heaved. She let her head fall back onto Ivan’s shoulder, too wrung out to even tremble.
"What... what now?" she managed, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper.
Voss didn’t answer straightaway. He finished his assessment, then drew a breath and looked up, scanning the room like a man about to brief his unit on a mission that was equal parts suicide and salvation.
"I patched up more bodies than I put down in those years," he said at last, his tone stripped of any self-pity. "Half the time it was the only way to keep my unit alive. Never had a real medic, so I became the next best thing. Sometimes that meant digging bullets out of muscle. Sometimes it meant keeping men alive long enough to say goodbye and sometimes..." He looked at her, and there was a rawness in his expression she’d rarely been allowed to see. "Sometimes it meant bringing a new life into the world when every law of the universe swore it shouldn’t survive."
Nobody moved. The truth of it the blood and bone and loneliness of a world that could do this to a man hung heavy in the air, settling into the fabric of the room like smoke.
Voss rolled his sleeve up another notch, baring a run of jagged, half-healed scars from wrist to elbow. "I’m no doctor," he murmured, and she knew the words were meant for her and no one else. "But I know how to put things back together when they break. And you’re not going to break, Fel. Not with us here."
She reached up with her free hand and pressed her fingertips to the scars, tracing the ruined skin. "Then I picked a good day to fall apart," she whispered, and felt her mouth curve despite everything.
The ghost of a smile touched his lips. He turned his hand over and let her hold it a beat, his thumb brushing her knuckles, before he returned his focus to her body. He pressed a fresh towel to the inside of her thigh, mopping sweat and blood with a gentleness that made a liar of his size and his reputation. He smelled of gun oil and pine and clean cotton, and she clung to it like an anchor.
"Break every bone in my hand if you need to," Exile said, his fingers quaking around hers. He lifted her knuckles and pressed his mouth to them, his lips cool against her skin. "I’d give you the rest of my skeleton too, but I might still need the ribs to hold you later."
A wet laugh punched out of her, half sob, half delight. "Noted. I’ll leave you the ribs." He returned his focus to her body, his hands gentle as he pressed a fresh towel to the inside of her thigh, mopping away the sweat and blood with a tenderness that belied his size and his reputation.
Felicity’s ears pinned back, and she looked up at Voss with a stubborn, terrified defiance. "Okay. I’m ready. Tell me what to do, Doctor Voss."
"Next contraction, you push. I’ll tell you when." His attention never lost its razor-edged edge, but there was heat threaded through it now, a devotion he wielded like a scalpel. "Ivan, keep her upright. Dimitri, cool cloth to her face. Exile..." He cut a glance at the anaconda, who nodded, grim. "Don’t let her drift."
They all gathered around her, their arms and bodies forming an impenetrable fortress against the terror and the pain. For the first time since the agony began, Felicity didn’t feel like she was dying. She felt like she was home.
The next contraction hit, and Voss was ready for it, guiding the others with a calm stream of commands that left no space for panic. Felicity screamed, and even as her vision fractured into a thousand white-hot shards, she felt the pressure shifting, something moving inside her. She bore down, pushed with all the strength she had, and for a second it felt like the world went silent.
They gathered around her, arms and bodies forming a fortress no terror could breach. For the first time since the agony began, she didn’t feel like she was dying. She felt like she was home, surrounded by men who would rewrite the laws of the universe with their bare hands before they let one of those laws touch her.
The next contraction slammed into her, and Voss was ready, guiding the others with a calm stream of commands that left no room for panic. Dimitri pressed the cool towel to her temple and bent close, his breath at her ear. "You’re the bravest thing I’ve ever seen, Bug. Don’t tell the others I said so. I have a reputation."
Then, there it was, the first, thin, reedy cry of a newborn kit, the sound so impossibly small and miraculous that the entire room stopped breathing for a moment.
Voss caught the tiny, blood-slicked bundle with a precision that spoke of decades of training and a thousand memories of loss. He wrapped the infant in one of the pristine towels, cleaning its face and clearing its airway with a gentle flick of his thumb, then looked up at Felicity with a kind of reverence usually reserved for miracles or saints.
"It’s a boy," he said, his voice cracking for the first time.
The silence shattered as Ivan.
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