Work Text:
*Ring Ring!*
Damian groaned, somehow knowing exactly who was calling. “What is it this time, Anya?”
“The baby and I are hungry!” Anya’s demanding voice chirped through the phone line, sounding more like a five year old in that moment instead of an expecting grown woman in her twenties.
“So? We have plenty of food at home. Go grab something out of the fridge.”
“Our baby wants peanuts!”
You mean you want peanuts? Damian sighed, his palm resting against his face. “I’m sure we have peanuts somewhere. Go check the cupboards in the multiple kitchens we have in the mansion.”
“I did! We’re all out of peanuts!”
Damian blinked, genuinely surprised by that particular nugget of context. You mean to tell me, of all the food I made sure to keep stocked in the house while my wife was on maternity leave…I somehow managed to not restock her favorite food?!
The situation would have been comical if it had been someone else’s wife. The fact that he had to deal with a hungry Anya who was refusing to eat anything except peanuts only made it frustrating. One glance at his day planner already told him he didn’t have time to deal with Anya’s whims.
“Anya, I’m working, and my schedule is packed. Go eat something else. I’m sure you can wait until I go shopping again to have peanuts.” He froze at the sniffle over the phone line. Oh no, not the tears! Not now!
“You’re really okay with starving your wife and baby? All we want are peanuts, and you can’t even get us that…”
Damian gritted his teeth as an ear-shattering wail threatened the stability of his eardrums. No, no crying! I can’t handle hearing her cry! How do I get her to stop?!
Damian suddenly recalled a story his father-in-law told him about the day he adopted Anya as a child. His story about how he struggled to handle Anya in those first days and how desperate he was to keep her calm resonated with the former scion.
“I’ll get you some peanuts if you stop crying!”
Frustration bled much more obviously into his voice than Loid’s did all those years ago. Thankfully, the end result was the same; Anya’s wailing instantly ceased.
“I like peanuts!”
Damian breathed a sigh of relief, glad that he had managed to avert the crisis. Deciding that placating his pregnant wife took priority over a proper goodbye, he put the phone back on the receiver and called over his secretary. His voice carried a sense of world-ending urgency.
“Cancel all my meetings!”
Anya giggled, hanging up the phone on her end. “Works every time…”
Taking a deep breath, she looked down at her belly, fingers stroking her plump abdomen. The promise of peanuts thankfully made her hunger pangs easier to ignore in favor of fawning over the baby growing within her.
“Just a little longer, baby. Papa will bring you lots of peanuts soon. We really have to apologize to him for interrupting his work…”
A guilty smile crossed Anya’s face. Though part of her enjoyed being able to twist his arm into doing whatever she wanted, part of her did feel bad about disrupting his entire day just to get her peanuts.
“Your Papa really loves us both…we’re really lucky to have him, aren’t we…?”
Anya’s musings were cut off by a rather loud humming in her ears. Blinking in curiosity, she stood up and awkwardly waddled towards the window. Her eyes widened at the sight outside. A fleet of helicopters, each one carrying an entire crate of peanuts as large as their garage, flew from the horizon towards their mansion.
“Waku Waku! So cool!”
Her eyes glittering with glee as her lips pulled into an excited smile. Her hands cradling her belly, she hurriedly walked out of the room, eager to meet the present Damian had promised to deliver for her.
Damian stood precariously atop the lid of the crate, hand gripped tightly around the metal chain connecting it to the helicopter. As the fleet approached closer and closer to the ground, his eyes locked on his wife, waving her arms at the helicopters. He could practically feel her excited grin as the crate at last touched the ground mere feet away from her.
“Wow! That’s a lot of peanuts! Are those all for me and the baby?”
Nodding, Damian unhooked the latch with his foot and leaped in front of her. The front of the crate fell, allowing an avalanche of peanuts to spill onto the ground. He crossed his arms over his chest, his old Imperial Scholar’s cape flapping in the wind.
“Well? What are you waiting for? Eat it. You said you were hungry, weren't you?” Don’t…don’t ever go hungry…
“Da-Damian…”
Tears of joy trickled down her cheeks before she somehow leaped at him, tackling him into the pool of peanuts. Damian yelped, caught off guard by Anya’s emotional hug as they tumbled into the peanuts, rolling around in them as if they were leaves.
“Anya, what’s the…”
Damian trailed off, seeing the loving smile on Anya’s face as she snuggled up against him. Her pregnant belly rubbed up against him as she nuzzled his shoulder with his nose.
“…Sorry I took you away from your work, Damian. I really appreciate everything you do for me…and the baby…”
Feeling his exasperation evaporate, Damian’s lips pulled into a smile as he wrapped an arm around her back, the other resting against her round belly where their child rested. Tomorrow, he’d surely have to do a lot of damage control explaining why he had to cancel a day’s worth of meetings at the last minute. He also wasn’t looking forward to justifying to his Finance Department the ludicrous expense of hiring a helicopter rescue fleet to deliver enough peanuts to feed an army.
For now, though, he filed those problems away in the back of his mind. At that moment, he was simply content to lay with his wife in a pile of peanuts, picking one out and feeding it to her one-by-one.