Work Text:
He was ten when he ran alongside his father on that white hospital's tile, he doesn't understand what is going on, but he knows by the way his father trembled eyes it was something important.
He watched his father worriedly asking a man with a white coat, a doctor, he noted. He doesn't really understand what they were talking about, but he noticed one thing.
They were here for his Mom.
The next thing he knew, he's sitting outside of a room with his father sitting alongside him with his head on his hands. Mechabot is currently trying to help his father by comforting him, a rare side of that Robot that he see.He can hear the mumbling prayers that came out from his mouth.
He was about to finally say something, he wanted to help his father too, but the sudden sound of the door opened caught his father's attention first.
"How are they, doc?"
"Your wife, despite the unfortunate, manages to deliver all of them safely. But..."
The little boy didn't hear much of what the doctor said when he noticed he could see the operation room through the small gap, the familiar figure getting covered by a piece of cloth. His mom is getting covered by a cloth.
Then he hears his dad cry.
Then ringing in his ears.
He doesn't remember anything after that.
---
He stared at the seven bundles of cloth laid out on his father’s mattress, each a different color.
Yellow, Indigo, Brown, Red, Blue, Green, and White.
His dark brown eyes lingered on the red bundle. It twitched. A strange sound followed a soft whimper, then a cry, rising in pitch, growing louder.
It? No, not it.
The cry pierced through the stillness, and then one after another, the other bundles stirred. A chain reaction. First Blue, then Indigo, then Green. Wails overlapping, rising in unison, filling the room, filling his ears, filling his chest.
His breath hitched. His body tensed. The realization settled into his bones.
Oh.
Oh.
His fingers trembled as they reached for the red bundle. Carefully, so carefully, he lifted it into his arms. Small. Warm. Fragile. A life entrusted to him.
He cradled the baby against his chest. Not it. Him.
A shushing sound escaped his lips, barely above a whisper. "It's okay."
How could he forget?
His hold tightened just slightly, as if trying to anchor himself to this moment. To them.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, pressing his cheek against the soft fabric. "Forgive your big brother."
A shuddering breath.
How could he? How could he have let grief blind him to them? The last gift his mother had left behind.
"It hurts, doesn’t it?" he whispered, rocking gently.
He was only ten. Losing her had felt like losing everything.
But these tiny lives, his brothers, they had lost her too.
He swallowed hard, pressing a kiss to the bundle in his arms.
"Mom may not be here anymore… but it'll be okay."
Because now, they had him.
"Your big brother are here now"