Chapter Text
Nolan never saw himself as a father. Not truly. Only once in his lifetime before Earth.
They were his duty to breed with them, and the women of his people were nothing more than vessels bred for strength to continue the growth of the Empire. In truth, though he respected their purpose, they all bored him. They were Viltrumite, cut from the same cloth, all arrogance and violence and cold dominion. They mirrored his own traits, it was true, but their lack of variation felt monotonous, one-dimensional - maddening even. Viltrumite women were not easy prey, only searching for the strong and daring to mate with them. Many women had tried to court him over the last two millennia of his existence.
And there was only one he desired. One he envisioned a life with before their future was ripped away from them.
Then came Debbie.
A human, of all things. Fragile. Mortal. A being whose entire lifespan would barely register as a blink in his own existence. She should have been nothing to him, a footnote in his mission, another face in the sea of primitives he was meant to subjugate.
And yet she captivated him.
He had saved her life after a car nearly crushed her from above the sky. Back when he still learning how to be a hero on this backward planet. The memory remained vivid even now, decades later.
She had been walking across a busy intersection in downtown Chicago when the crane collapsed. Metal screamed against metal, and a sedan tumbled from the construction site above, plummeting toward the crowded street. Nolan had been flying overhead, scanning for threats as he always did during those early patrols, when he spotted the falling vehicle.
In a flash of movement, he caught the car mere feet above her head, the metal groaning in his grip as she tripped on her own two feet, her purse still in hand.
She looked up at him with those dark brown eyes, wide with shock but not terror. Not the simpering gratitude he had grown accustomed to from the humans he saved.
Something shifted in his chest that day. Something he did not recognize and could not name.
He wasn’t supposed to love her. He had no right to. His mission, his responsibility was to Viltrum first and foremost, but somehow, against all odds, Debbie had crept into his heart.
The revelation was gradual, slow. At first, he had seen her as an amusement, her softness and tenderness a curiosity to be explored and exploited.
But the more she tried to teach him of the ways of humanity, the more she tried to share with him the simple joys of her existence, the more he found himself drawn to her warmth.
She showed him how to cook, laughing at his fumbling attempts to crack eggs without crushing them in his palm. She dragged him to museums and parks, pointing out beauty in things he would have dismissed as irrelevant. She held his hand during quiet evenings, her thumb tracing circles on his skin as if he were something precious rather than a weapon forged for conquest.
Debbie loved without reservation, without calculation. It was foreign to him, this unconditional affection. Viltrumites did not love. They respected strength, they honored duty, they forged alliances through mutual benefit.
But love? Love was weakness. Vulnerability.
And love was everything Debbie embodied.
Now they were married. He told her of his kind, not the entire truth, of course, but even bits and pieces of where he comes from, and in return, she gave him a child. And when she told him she was pregnant, Nolan felt the ground shift beneath his feet in a way no enemy had ever managed to achieve.
“Alright, Mr. and Mrs. Grayson. Say hello to your baby girl and baby boy,” the ultrasound technician announced, her voice bright with professional cheer as she pointed to the grainy image on the monitor.
Twins.
Nolan stared at the screen, at the two small shapes nestled within Debbie’s womb, and felt something crack open inside him. His hand tightened around Debbie’s, though he was careful not to crush her delicate fingers.
“Twins,” Debbie breathed, tears already streaming down her cheeks. “Nolan, we’re having twins.”
He managed a smile, the expression feeling foreign on his face. “Yes. We are.”
The technician continued her cheerful commentary, pointing out limbs and strong heartbeats, but Nolan heard none of it. His mind had already retreated to darker places, to memories he had buried deep beneath centuries of conquest and duty.
Twins. The first for his people in almost a thousand years. He tried to enjoy that fact alone, at least. Tried to be there for Debbie throughout the months as she happily picked out names from baby books, debated color schemes for the nursery, and folded tiny onesies with such reverent care that one might think they were handling sacred relics.
But at night, when Debbie slept peacefully beside him, Nolan lay awake and remembered.
His mission. His reason for being here.
Earth was merely a waypoint, a planet ripe for conquest, to repopulate and reshape in Viltrum’s image. His children, if they inherited his abilities, would be assets to the Empire. Soldiers. Conquerors. They would be tested, evaluated, and if found wanting, discarded like so many half-breeds before them.
The thought made Nolan’s stomach turn in a way that surprised him.
He imagines it sometimes. The day the ships arrive. The sky darkening with Viltrumite warcraft, the signal broadcasting across every frequency, and Nolan standing before the people of Earth to deliver their ultimatum. He imagines Debbie’s face in that moment, the way her dark eyes would widen, not with the shock of a stranger saved from a falling car, but with the dawning horror of betrayal.
He pushes the image away. Buries it. Returns to the present, where Debbie is snoring softly beside him with one hand draped protectively over her growing belly.
He couldn't allow himself to forget where his true allegiances lay, and yet, here he was, with a family on this far-flung planet.
His breath came out shaky as his pregnant wife slumbered beside him; his rough fingers smoothed across the gentle swell of her abdomen, and he made a quiet promise.
“This doesn’t change anything…”
Even then, the words tasted bitter, for Nolan himself didn’t even know if he believed in them anymore.
The twins came early, as the doctors warned him and Debbie they tended to.
He wasn’t there when she gave birth, unfortunately, having to take on a kaiju that had risen out of the Pacific Ocean. He'd been in the thick of battle when a frantic call from her had come through, a desperate plea laced with pain:
“Nolan… they’re coming early…”
The thought of her alone in the delivery room, struggling through the agony of childbirth while he battled a colossal monster thousands of miles away, was like a punch to the gut.
He had flown faster than he ever had before; smashing through the leviathan's hide, tearing it apart in his rush to get to Debbie. His only thought was for her and their unborn children.
When he finally arrived at the hospital, sweaty and still in costume, the twins were already born. Tiny and fragile, just like their mother. Debbie was lying exhausted in her hospital bed, two small bundles swaddled in a diaper as the nurses laid them on their mother’s chest.
“It’s best to have skin to skin contact right after birth ,” one of the nurses explained with a gentle smile. “It helps regulate their body temperature and heartbeat. Good for bonding as well.”
“But they’re okay, right? Healthy?” Debbie asked, her voice hoarse but her eyes sharp with maternal concern.
“Perfectly healthy,” the nurse assured her. “A little small, but that’s normal for twins. They’ve got strong lungs on them, that’s for sure.”
Nolan stood frozen in the doorway, his cape still dripping with kaiju ichor, his chest heaving from exertion. The sight before him was so achingly domestic, so utterly human, that for a moment he forgot how to breathe.
Debbie looked up and saw him there, and despite her exhaustion, despite the hours of labor she had endured alone, she smiled. That warm, radiant smile that had first captured his attention all those years ago.
“You made it.”
He moved forward on legs that felt unsteady for the first time in centuries. The nurses gave him a wide berth, their eyes flickering nervously to the blood and viscera staining his uniform, but Debbie paid it no mind. She simply shifted slightly, making room for him at her bedside.
“I, um, I’m sorry I was—”
“Already you’re hungry little monsters,” Debbie breathed as the infants rooted instinctively against her chest. Her hospital gown was open, each breast occupied by a tiny mouth.
He knelt beside the bed, his massive frame suddenly feeling awkward and unwieldy in this sterile room filled with beeping monitors and soft bright lights. The smell of antiseptic mingled with something else, something primal and new. Life. His children.
“Was it…painful?” Nolan winced as soon as the question left his mouth. Of course it was painful. She had pushed two entire humans out of her body while he was off fighting a giant lizard.
But Debbie just laughed, a tired, breathy sound that made something warm bloom in his chest. “Nolan, I just squeezed two watermelons through a garden hose. What do you think?”
He had no response to that. For perhaps the first time in his long existence, Nolan Grayson was utterly speechless.
“Come here,” Debbie said softly, reaching out with the hand not cradling one of the infants. “Meet your children.”
Nolan leaned closer, peering down at the two tiny faces pressed against their mother’s skin. They were impossibly small, their features scrunched and red, wisps of dark hair plastered to their delicate skulls. The girl had already finished nursing and lay content against Debbie’s chest, her minuscule fingers curled into loose fists. The boy was still latched on, making soft suckling sounds that seemed far too loud in the quiet room.
“The boy came first,” Debbie murmured. “Loud and quite the little fighter. Wouldn’t stop crying until they put him on my chest.”
“And the girl?”
“Quiet as a mouse. The nurses almost worried until she started nursing.” Debbie’s eyes softened as she gazed down at her daughter. “She just... observed everything. Like she was taking it all in.”
Nolan studied them both, searching their tiny faces for any sign of his heritage. Their skin was pink and mottled, as human infants’ skin should be. No unusual resilience, no hint of the strength that coursed through his own veins. They looked entirely, devastatingly mortal.
He wasn’t sure if that relieved him or terrified him.
“Do you want to hold one?” Debbie asked.
“No,” he winced again at how quickly he answered. “No, I…just watching you is enough.”
Debbie didn’t push. She never did. That was one of the things he loved about her, the way she seemed to understand the boundaries he couldn’t articulate, the walls he had built around himself over millennia of warfare and conquest.
“Have you thought about names?” he asked instead, desperate to redirect the conversation away from the terror coiling in his chest at the thought of holding something so breakable.
Debbie, exhausted but with eyes still gleaming with love, nodded and indicated with her chin at the babe suckling on her. “This cheeky one is Markus,” she said softly, adoration dripping from every syllable. She then turned her gaze on the infant sleeping drowsily on her chest.
Markus. Marcella. Their children. His legacy.
The pull of his homeworld, proof that part of his mission was complete.
“Keep in mind I’ve been in labor all day, so that’s their names, and you’ll like it,” Debbie retorted when he didn't respond immediately. Her tone was teasing, but her tired gaze held a hint of challenge, daring him to argue.
Nolan found himself chuckling, a sound that felt foreign in his own throat. “I wouldn’t dream of arguing with you.”
“Smart man.” Debbie’s eyes fluttered, exhaustion finally catching up with her. “The nurses said they’ll take them to the nursery soon so I can rest. Will you stay?”
“Always,” he said, and the word slipped out before he could stop it. Before he could measure it against his mission parameters or weigh it against his duty to the Empire.
They were perfect. His family was perfect.
Nolan could only stare in wonderment at her. At them. He couldn't believe this moment was real. That he could be a part of something so profoundly touching and heartwarming. Even if he wanted to, he knew that he could not turn his back on this part of his life now. Not when it made him feel more alive than he had ever been.
The corners of Nolan's mouth twitched upwards into a grin. "Markus and Marcella Grayson," he repeated, with newfound certainty, "Sounds just fine to me…”
Marcella lets out a small belch that has both of them chuckling. Nolan finds himself chuckling as well, the sound odd in his ears. It’s been a while since he’s found genuine humor in anything.
The future of his people was born. Healthy. Safe. Strong, both of them.
So, this is what it feels like.
But, this doesn’t change anything.
It can’t…
Time has passed, and life only got stranger for Nolan.
As he said, Nolan has never imagined himself as a father, never imagined himself spending sleepless nights soothing a crying baby, or playing superhero with a mischievous toddler; there was no room for such trivialities in his life of missions and battles. His commitments were to Viltrum's ruthless doctrines, not to the petty desires and attachments of an ordinary family man. He had lived for centuries, seen countless worlds and beings fall, and experienced wars and victories. Yet none of these compared to the feeling of holding his newborn son and daughter in his arms.
His feelings were a heady mix of fear, awe, trepidation, and joy; all rolled into one. The most disturbing part was the fear. Fear of the future he had planned, the harsh reality he would have to reveal to them when they were old enough to understand. Being a Viltrumite, an alien species far superior in strength and intelligence from humans would have its implications. He would have to teach them about their powers, their duty towards Viltrum, and the harsh responsibilities that came with their birthright. But for now, they were just his babies: small, fragile, and innocent. Their wide eyes were untainted by the harsh realities of the universe, their tiny hands devoid of any bloodshed.
But the problem in that was there had been no signs of either of their powers manifesting yet. However, it still was too early to tell, Nolan knew. Viltrumite powers could take years, even decades to surface. Nevertheless, Nolan was impatient, always observing their every movement with a hawk-eyed vigilance that never wavered.
As the days turned into weeks and then months, Nolan watched his children grow with a fierce intensity. Every laugh, every cry, every tiny movement was a potential sign of their powers awakening. He found himself holding his breath when Markus tried to walk for the first time, and when Marcella attempted to climb out of her crib. But each time, there was nothing out of the ordinary except for the usual childlike clumsiness.
Debbie, of course, went about her daily life blissfully unaware of her husband's anxious vigilance. She reveled in motherhood, relishing each moment spent with Mark and Marcella. To her, it was the simple joys of life - the first words, the toothless smiles, the inane babbling that filled her days with happiness. It was a stark contrast to Nolan's silent brooding, his eyes constantly searching for the extraordinary in their ordinary lives.
Admittedly, Nolan loved this about his wife - her ability to see joy in the mundane, to find pleasure in the simplicity of life. She loved their children with a warmth Nolan could not help but admire. Her love was unconditional and untainted; it wasn't complicated by concerns of duty or heritage. Debbie loved Mark and Marcella for being her children and nothing more.
He wished he could be the same, to cast aside his anticipations of their inherited powers, to simply see them as his children and nothing more. He knew he couldn’t. Yet every time he watched his wife with their children ; when she held Mark's tiny hands while he took unsteady steps or gently rocked Marcella to sleep—he felt a pang of longing. That was the love he wished he could give them without reservation or expectation, a love not tempered by the looming future.
It didn’t help that the twins were so attached at the hip.
Whether it was a result of being womb mates or their similar temperaments, Nolan couldn't tell. But Mark and Marcella were inseparable. If Marcella cried, Mark would wail in sympathy. If Mark reached for a toy, Marcella’s chubby fingers would follow suit.
“I think it’s sweet,” Debbie scolded Nolan one evening when he remarked on their attachment. They were in the nursery, their twins babbling in their cribs with gummy smiles.
“If this continues, they’ll never learn to be independent,” Nolan had said, watching with his arms crossed over his chest as Mark tried to share his teddy bear with Marcella through the bars of their cribs.
Debbie scoffed, planting a hand on her hip. "And what's so wrong with them relying on each other? It’s not like they won’t have to face the world alone someday," she told him pointedly, her tone carrying a hint of reproach.
Nolan sighed, knowing that this was another one of those many Earthling parental philosophies that he struggled to grasp fully.
"Relying upon one's own strength is a crucial part of survival,” he tried to explain. “On Viltrum—"
“Nolan,” she chided gently, "They’re babies. Let them be babies."
"I just want them to be ready," he admitted, his tone carrying a deep-seated apprehension that Debbie wouldn't understand.
As much as he agonized over their powers, or the lack thereof, Nolan found himself…caring about them. Even the little things such as Mark's first mispronounced words or Marcella's attempts at crawling started to feel significant to him. This sentimentality felt odd, foreign even, for a man hardened by centuries of war and conquest. He was Omni-man, one of the greatest warriors of the Viltrumite Empire, yet here he was, reduced to a nervous wreck by his human-half breed children.
In the quiet of night, when the rest of their world slept, Nolan often found himself sneaking into the nursery. He'd watch them sleep, their tiny chests rising and falling in sync. Ever so often, Mark would twitch a tiny foot, or Marcella would clench her minuscule fists. In these moments, he’d hold his breath, quietly hoping to witness the manifestation of their powers.
More time passes by. The days merged into weeks, the weeks into months, and soon a year had passed with no sign of their Viltrumite abilities. Nolan found his patience thinning, the uncertainty gnawing at his insides like a relentless parasite. Each day that passed felt like a loss, an added burden to the heavy weight of responsibility hanging over him.
Nolan would disappear for hours on end, patrolling the city under the guise of his superhero alter ego, while Debbie remained at home with the twins. The contrast in their lives was as stark as night and day.
Oftentimes, Nolan would return home bone-weary and mentally exhausted. There was no respite to be found in his supposed ‘ordinary’ life either. He often made it home just in time to put them to bed. It was the least he could do, Debbie told him. As irritative as the routine could be, he complied. It was, perhaps, the only semblance of normalcy in his otherwise extraordinary life.
Putting the twins to bed became his nightly ritual. Of course, they hardly complied whenever he tried to tuck them in. Debbie made it look so easy, her lullabies soothing and her soft tickles eliciting giggles before sleep claimed their tiny bodies. It had gotten to the point where Debbie just gave up and did it herself, often squeezing their squirming bodies in between sips of lukewarm coffee. But Nolan insisted on doing it himself. It was a human tradition he found fascinating, and he refused to let it be another area where his Viltrumite heritage won over.
Each attempt ended in disaster, but Nolan remained stubborn. There was no Viltrumite handbook on how to make a child sleep, no special technique that could instill obedience with a mere look. No, making his children sleep was something Nolan had to learn entirely as a human father. Each night was a new adventure, a new challenge he had to overcome. Would it be a pillow fight tonight, or a stubborn refusal to sleep? But despite the trials and tribulations, he found solace in their giggles, their tiny hands clutching onto his fingers, and their soft breaths as sleep eventually claimed them.
One evening, as the city fell into the deep slumber of the night, Nolan returned home after another long day of fighting off threats to humanity. The house was quiet, too quiet. He noticed Debbie had fallen asleep on the couch, the TV droning on in the background. The twins were on her chest, their little bodies rising and falling rhythmically with her gentle breaths. They huddled close to their mother in sleep, their tiny hands clutching at her shirt as if afraid she'd disappear.
Quietly, he turned off the TV, plunging the living room into semi-darkness. And with unsurprising ease, he lifts all three of them into his arms, scooping up his wife and children with the gentleness of a man handling glass. Debbie stirs slightly, her eyes fluttering open for just a moment as Nolan’s feet left the ground.
“Nolan?” she murmurs, her voice thick with sleep.
“Shh,” he whispers, adjusting his grip so that she settles more comfortably against his chest. “Go back to sleep.”
“The…babies? Are they…” she groggily looks down to see them still in her arms, nestled safely against her chest. “Oh…”
“They’re fine,” Nolan assures her, floating them gently up the stairs. “Everyone’s fine.”
Debbie’s eyes drift closed again, a small smile playing on her lips as she nestles deeper into his embrace. “My hero,” she mumbles, the words slurring together as sleep reclaims her.
The twins don’t wake, their small bodies warm and trusting against their mother. Mark’s thumb has found its way into his mouth, a habit Debbie keeps trying to break, while Marcella’s face is pressed into the crook of her mother’s neck.
Nolan deposits Debbie onto their bed first, carefully extracting her from his arms without jostling the children. She curls into the pillow immediately, a soft sigh escaping her lips. Then comes the delicate task of transferring the twins to their cribs without waking them.
But the moment Nolan tried to move one of them, Debbie instinctively pulled them closer, her maternal instincts kicking in even in sleep. Her arms tightened around the twins protectively, and both Mark and Marcella let out small whimpers of protest at being disturbed.
Nolan pauses, hovering beside the bed with his hands still outstretched. He watches as Debbie unconsciously soothes them, her hands rubbing small circles on their backs until their whimpers fade back into peaceful breathing.
For a long moment, he simply stands there, taking in the sight before him. His wife, exhausted from a day of caring for two demanding toddlers, still reaches for them even in sleep. His children, so small and fragile, seeking comfort in the warmth of their mother’s embrace.
Something twists in his chest. Something that feels suspiciously like longing.
And with a sigh, he just pulls back the blankets and slides himself into the bed beside them, careful not to jostle the mattress too much. The bed creaks softly under his weight, but none of them stir.
He lies there in the darkness, listening to the symphony of breathing around him. Debbie’s slow, even breaths. The twins’ softer, quicker ones. The house settling around them, groaning and sighing like a living thing.
This is not how Viltrumite warriors spend their nights. They do not curl around their mates and offspring like protective shells. They do not lie awake counting breaths, cataloging the small sounds of peaceful slumber. They do not feel their hearts clench at the sight of tiny fingers wrapped around their mother’s shirt.
And yet here he is.
Mark shifts in his sleep, his small body rolling until he’s pressed against Nolan’s side. The contact is warm, startlingly so, and Nolan freezes. He waits for the boy to wake, to cry, to demand something he doesn’t know how to give. But Mark simply sighs, his thumb falling from his mouth as he settles deeper into sleep.
Slowly, hesitantly, Nolan lifts his arm and drapes it over all three of them. His family. The word still feels foreign in his mind, a concept that belongs to weaker species, to those who need bonds to survive.
But his arm settles around them anyway, and he doesn’t pull away.
Marcella makes a small sound in her sleep, her tiny body wriggling until she’s sandwiched between her mother and brother. Her hand finds Mark’s, their fingers intertwining with the unconscious ease of two beings who have never known separation.
Nolan watches them in the dim light filtering through the curtains. The moon casts silver shadows across their faces, illuminating the soft curves of cheeks still round with baby fat, the flutter of eyelashes against skin, the peaceful slack of mouths that spend their waking hours babbling and laughing.
They look nothing like warriors. Nothing like conquerors.
They look like children.
His children.
The thought should terrify him. It should remind him of his duty, of the ships that will one day darken Earth’s skies, of the reckoning that awaits this unsuspecting planet. Instead, it fills him with something warm and terrifying and utterly human.
“This doesn’t change anything,” he murmurs quietly to himself, his gaze flickering from the twins to Debbie's slumbering figure. His confession hovers in the quiet room; an admission of affection and vulnerability, but also a resolute reminder of his duty.
Because it doesn’t.
It can’t…