By some small miracle, Ingo agreed to use another day’s sick leave the following morning. Granted, he wouldn’t be staying home that entire time, but it paid to be proactive and he’d been feeling poorly enough as of late that seeing a doctor was warranted.

So when word reached Emmet that he’d showed up late that afternoon, Emmet… panicked a little. It wasn’t just that Ingo had arrived unscheduled when he was supposed to be resting, but the information that came secondary to that news: he hadn’t spoken aloud, his only communication with Ramses a terse, signed greeting before marching to their shared office. Ramses recognized the warning signs that something was amiss, but didn’t have the full context-- he didn’t know that the timing indicated Ingo had come directly from a medical appointment.

He couldn’t vocalize and he’d come to Gear Station instead of going home, where he’d be alone.

Something was actively wrong.

For the first time in living memory, Emmet was glad that a challenger stumbled before the goalpost he represented; it meant he wouldn’t disappoint them with a subpar battle and he could depart from the train without delay. Though he tried not to get ahead of himself, he couldn’t help but craft a worst case scenario as he passed through the staff-restricted halls.

In the office, just as promised, he found his twin, legs drawn up beneath him to lean on the leftmost side of the couch, Chandelure cuddled into his lap. Though his eyes were trained on the flickering fire within her globe, his gaze was distant and unfocused, elsewhere entirely.

Softly, as though too loud a noise might break something, Emmet shut the door and called out to him.

Immediately, Ingo’s head snapped up; perplexed, he looked from Emmet to the clock, and then back again, but seemed to dismiss the question entirely. Instead, he waved him over and toyed with his own hands, transparently unsure where to start.

“You are sick.” Emmet said for him, both to break the tension and give himself this brief outlet, “How sick?”

“I’m not sick,” He signed back with a surprising weight behind it.

“You got up to vomit twice last night. I heard your door. If you are not ill, there is something worse going on.”

He paused at that, lips pulled into a small scowl. He was actually considering it. Before Emmet had a chance to parse that behavior, Ingo added, “The doctor I saw agreed.”

Privately, Emmet had to question the validity of that assessment; it had been a glorified walk-in appointment, not one with his primary care provider. Who was to say the doctor in question knew what they were doing?

“What, then?”

A long reluctance filled the gap between the first and second halves of the answer, but eventually Ingo forced his hands to form a response.

“I’m-- pregnant.”

Okay, that answered it. The doctor was just inept, and his brother-- by no fault of his own-- was letting anxiety take over for common sense.

“That’s impossible.” Emmet said, aiming for reassuring, but falling flat as usual, “Whatever test they conducted was incorrect.”

“Blood tests are more reliable than home tests,” Ingo signed back, shifting Chandelure off to the side in order to share his latest Xtransceiver query on that exact topic.

Emmet squinted at it for several seconds, skimming the article. “It’s impossible.” He repeated, and felt the dull impact of his twin’s head landing against his shoulder.

Because it was. It was impossible. Not because they’d been on testosterone for years, but because neither of them had a sex partner or even any interest to begin with. They’d decided years ago that it didn’t matter how strange people on the outside thought their relationship looked, they were each other’s life partner. And while a change of heart wasn’t entirely out of the question…

“You would tell me if you had been seeing someone.”

Without so much as raising his head, Ingo signed an affirmative.

“It’s still gross. But I wouldn’t be upset with you.”

“I know, Emmet.”

“Okay. Good.” Slowly, for the both of them, he took a deep breath and blew it out. “I do not even know where you would find the time for that.”

There was a soundless puff of air against his shoulder, and he felt Ingo grab onto one of his hands.

“I don’t understand.” He said, answered silently by a commiserating shake of the head. With one free hand remaining, he shifted to curve that arm around Ingo’s back.

He still wasn’t convinced that there hadn’t been an error somewhere along the line-- the article had pointed out that, while rare, blood tests could still turn a false positive or negative-- but if it wasn’t a mistake…? How? Why? What now? None of those questions would find their answers here, but Emmet wasn’t about to leave and search for them, not when his twin was trembling so violently against him.

Tilting his head to create one more point of contact between them, he drew him closer. The closeness would help, he told himself. The pressure would be grounding. He didn’t know how to address the overarching issue, just yet, but he could do this much.

He forced himself not to think too hard about it yet, to make use of the soothing touch himself and not spiral into an ever-deepening pit of what ifs. There was no point, he reminded himself, he didn’t know enough yet. It was like taking a chance on attacking a Bronzong, unaware of whether it had Levitate or Heat Proof; it might pay off to act immediately, to try to nullify it with Earthquake, but it was just as likely to land as it was to fizzle out. Better to have used the time to set up a guaranteed super effective hit, or strike twice with a move that was certain to land.

There simply wasn’t enough information to comfortably use Earthquake right now. He would bide his time.

...actually, a battle would be good for both of them; a distraction for a couple of hours, to vent some of this turbulence in a productive way. He kept himself quiet as he voiced the suggestion, keeping an eye out for any cue that it wasn’t welcome, but all Ingo did was hesitate long enough to think it over and then nod.

The uniform wouldn’t be perfect, but his coat and hat were still here, and they had plenty of spare gloves around. Nobody would question a too-dark shirt or missing tie when a make up circuit of multi battles was on the table.

Ingo began to pull away, no doubt to cobble together this slightly-nonstandard uniform, but Emmet caught him before he could flee the couch entirely.

Pressing their heads together, he said, “We will get to the bottom of this. I promise.”