(Daddy/Ben. October. two months after Kitten discovers she's pregnant)
I paused at the edge of the bedlam and smiled, thinking of just how much my life had changed since the first time I came to New York Comic-Con just a few years ago. Then I was lonely, only just climbing out of a cycle of depression with no guarantees I would make it.
Now? Now a slim hand gripped mine, shaking me out of my thoughts.
"You've come a long way, Daddy," she said. Unlike previous years when she had much more extravagant costumes, she didn't have time to put together one of her more elaborate ones this year. Fortunately, my wife has some talents, so some quick shopping got her a black belly shirt, cargo pants, gloves, boots and a funky belt with accessories. Ta-da...one Kim Possible cosplay.
"Psychic powers come with the pregnancy, Kitten?" I asked.
"Nah, but the kid's probably a mutant, so I'm getting her vibes and she's letting me know what you're thinking," she said. "Or I could just be your wife and know you pretty well at this point."
"Fair enough," I said as we walked past the enormous signs advertising this year's hot TV shows, video games, movies, comics and entered the main floor of the show. Kitten started referring to the baby as a girl almost as soon as she told me she was pregnant. She was barely two months along, so I have no idea how she knew. It would be months before an ultrasound would be able to say what she was carrying.
I'd insisted she not tell people, which she reluctantly agreed to. But I'm half convinced she went with Kim Possible because the outfit showed off her belly. She insisted that she was beginning to show. I was skeptical but smart enough not to say anything. The one thing that I could say for sure was that her breasts were a bit larger. And, delightfully, more sensitive.
We hadn't planned to go to comic con this year. With Kitten's new pregnancy, I was fighting the urge to cover her in bubble wrap and not let her leave the house for the next nine months. But events slowly conspired against us.
First was Susan. Kitten had been working with her production and design company since shortly after we got back from our honeymoon. They were working on costuming for some fantasy show on one of the streaming services. Unlike Kitten's first two jobs, she didn't need to go on set...at least not right away. She could stay home, design costumes on her computer and even make some of the outfits herself when digital images just wouldn't do.
It was a good set-up, and Susan's a good boss. However, the producers and the showrunner were coming to New York for a progress report. That meant Kitten had to go to be there and help with the presentation.
It was the week leading up to the Comic-Con, so it was tempting to tag along, but it seemed cruel to go running around a Con while Kitten was working. She'd say it was fine, but I also knew she'd be very pouty about it later. Plus, I was trying to give her some space. She might be my little girl, but she was also a young woman trying to make a go of it in a competitive field.
That's when weird thing number two happened. I got an email from one of the con organizers, asking if they could give me a call. After replying "sure," I got a phone call minutes later. She introduced herself as Carol Jesmin and was responsible for lining up guests for some of the panels at the con.
"Well, that's great," I said. "But unless you're doing a panel on Canadian infrastructure policy, I'm not sure how I can help."
"Well, you can, actually," she said. "We're doing a panel called 'Love at the Con' about people who met and fell in love at the event. We've done speed dating here before, and it was fun. But we thought it might be nice to show that it can happen; you can meet and fall in love at a con.
"And, well, we all knew about your proposal video a couple of years ago, but a little birdie tells me you got married this summer."
I would bet serious money she was friends with Susan. Loads of money. Vast sums of it.
"And we think it would be fun. We have a few other couples lined up; you just talk a bit about yourselves, your geeks, etc. It'll be very casual and a lot of fun, I promise. What do you say?"
If I mentioned it to Kit I knew she'd be all over it, even if I wasn't thrilled with the idea.
"We hadn't planned on attending this year. She's busy with work..."
"Oh, but she's already in New York, um, so I hear," she said. Hopefully, the CIA wasn't recruiting her for spy work anytime soon. "I'm sure she'd be able to squeeze away for a few hours. Plus it's on a Saturday so she won't be busy. I promise, it'll be a lot of fun," she said.
I was doomed. If Kitten didn't already know, she soon would. All that was left now was to negotiate the terms of surrender.
This is why we're back at the Con, with one-day VIP passes around our necks and being able to skip the insane line to get into the con. Small blessings for possible future humiliations. I was still slightly annoyed over that bloody video.
Trying to see everything at a Comic-Con of this size over four days is a sizable task. Trying to do it in one day is madness. And if that one day is Saturday - the single busiest day of the con - well, there aren't words in the English language to describe how much of a fool's quest that would be.
Instead, we settled into an easy ramble throughout the con, patiently moving with the flow instead of rushing against it. We moved from Artist Alley to the main show floor, to where cosplayers were hanging out. We'd stop here and there if something caught our eye, but we were content just to take things as they happened. It was a relaxing way to enjoy the con for a change. I didn't need to rush to get the next thing I wanted because everything I needed was holding my hand.
I got in late the night before, and by the time I got to the hotel, and Kitten got there after work, we had about enough time to get something to eat and then pass out. That meant as we were wandering through the Con, Kitten spent most of the time getting me up to speed on how her week was going, even though she'd told me plenty of it during calls and texts. But inevitably there was some new detail to expand on. After the minor disaster in Prague during the summer, she'd had a great week in New York and was bubbling over. I was glad. She deserved it.
Still, I was off a bit. It had been around the edges since I got to the Con. At first, I thought it was just nerves about the panel, but it was something else. Kitten was giving me time, but when we paused to eat some overpriced Con food, she pressed me on it.
"Daddy, is the panel bothering you that much? I think it'll be fun, but we can cancel," she said.
"No, I think.... It's nothing. It's silly," I said.
Kitten took my hand and gave me a look that let me know that answer wasn't going to fly. I collected my thoughts and tried again.
"It's the geek in me, but I've always loved alternate universe stories. One small different decision and you get a whole new world. I'm not sure I believe in God, but I think there could be a multiverse," I said.
"Of course you do," she said, but it was with a smile. Then she clicked in. "You're thinking about the day we met. If something had gone differently and we'd never met."
I nodded.
"I am so unbelievably lucky and happy we found each other. But it was by the slimmest of margins. And maybe somewhere there's a version of me that never found you, and I feel sorry for him, as weird as that is," I said, shaking my head. "I promise I don't obsess about this the rest of the time. But being here, and remembering how we met....maybe I ought to believe in God."
I glanced over at Kitten and recognized the smile. It was the 'Daddy, you're nuts' smile, but it wasn't unkind.
"Well, there's probably a version of me as Ashley out there that's completely off-the-rails, Daddy. I know you kinda get lost in your head sometimes thinking about these things, but maybe instead of worrying about how the Earth-6139 version of you is doing, just be happy that on Earth-DK everything is going great."
"Earth-DK?" I asked.
"Duh. Earth Daddy-Kitten."
I laughed loud enough that others sitting nearby glanced over to see what was so funny. I took that moment to lean over and kiss her. By our standards, it was modest, but when I glanced around, I saw a few scandalized looks. I blew it off, although a small part of me wondered if it wasn't a harbinger of things to come.
As it got closer to 3 pm, we made our way to the panel room. Mercifully, it wasn't the main ballroom; doing this in front of thousands of people instead of a hundred or so would have had me heading to the hills. Carol met us at the door. She was a black woman in her late 20s with significant and impressive hair layered on her head. She also wore a "Shuri is my Queen" t-shirt.
"I'm so glad you came, '' she said, hugging Kitten and complimenting her cosplay. She smiled and shook my hand. "We have about a half dozen couples upfront with you and it's a nice mix. The moderator is an old pro at these kinds of things. She'll keep things from getting out of hand."
After seeing another of the panel's participants, she excused herself and we went inside. I honestly didn't know who would attend this kind of thing, but the room was pretty packed. I'd guess over 100 people were attending. Manageable. I looked at the other panelists. An older couple was doing a Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter cosplay. A young lesbian couple dressed as Amy Pond and a gender-swapped 11th Doctor. Another couple was doing some Anime I didn't know.
Except for me, they were all in cosplay. Ooops.
"Should have let me dress you up, Daddy," Kitten said mischievously, dragging me upfront.
"Maybe. Or perhaps you shouldn't have cosplayed as a high school student when on a panel with your much older husband," I replied.
She looked at me, tilted her head for a second, then nodded. "Yeah, that's fair. Oh well, we're here now." Then she went to compliment the young women on their Doctor Who cosplay.
The panel itself started fine. The moderator introduced each couple and they described their meet-cute story. They all had to do with meeting at Comic-Con, so it wasn't just Kitten and I. When it was our turn, I let Kitten do a complete babble about how she knocked me down and then waited outside in the freezing cold in a Scarlet Witch cosplay to apologize and things just kept happening after that.
"And Ben, you proposed to Kit here at the con?" the moderator asked. I knew what was coming.
"Yesss," I said. And then they played the video of the proposal. Kitten grabbed my hand under the table. I looked at her and smiled. Really, what's a little embarrassment compared to the reward?
"And you got married this summer?"
