#𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐦𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐝𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: 𝐬𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟐

[starbuckie]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐦𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐝𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: 𝐬𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟐

pairing: carter baizen x reader

words: 3.7k words

warnings: birthday fun, autumn is spoiled af, bitchy upper east side parents, sweet fluff, y/n is getting frustrated, sad carter, why can’t these bitches get it together

summary: nine months after a new years hookup, little autumn eloise baizen-l/n was born. now, nearly a full year after her birth, nothing has changed except for carter and y/n, co-parents and occasional fuck buddies, planning for their baby’s first birthday. it should be simple, easy, straightforward. anything unlike the feelings they harbor for each other.

a/n: i’m sorry this is coming to y’all so late, but i have the best one queued up soon!! please tell me if you enjoy and i do hope you do :) ALSO WE GET SMUT IN THE NEXT ONE i do love smut <3

main masterlist || sebastian stan characters masterlist || series masterlist

This was a lot more people than both Y/N and Carter had expected.

Especially for a one year old. Who had one hundred and two guests shoved inside a penthouse building for a one year old?

The room was barely enough to fit everyone, even with the three flights of terrace and a balcony outside, but they managed to do it. Little Autumn Eloise was being bounced about on her mother’s hip in her little J. Crew pajamas, looking as cute as a pumpkin with a chubby little grin and shining eyes. Carter had gone off to entertain a few of his father’s friends with the view of Manhattan from the west side of the fresh outside air, but Y/N was stuck inside. With her baby she had a little on the young side. 

Her maroon dress felt far too constricted as she practically suck her organs back into her ribcage. It was one thing to be a mother from an accident (scandalous), but she also had to look put together in front of the other women. She made sure to wear her best brunch dress, a little pencil skirt number that went just two inches above her knee for “modesty”. She’d been called a whore enough just for having sex with Carter. 

The women who surrounded her were the highest of the high. All known women of New York, with their own blossoming riches and of course, snotty outlooks on Y/N and Carter’s barely-getting-by form of parenting. She preferred to stay out of that conversation, and truthfully whenever those women were in attendance of any event she would try and avoid them, but seeing as her mother thought highly of them, she sent them invites in good old rich people fashion. 

Instead of listening to them talk about their own success and other’s flops, she quietly played with her baby, the most well-behaved one at the living room couch. Autumn grabbed at her pale pink acrylics with her tiny fingers, all until the shrill voice of blonde, stupid, judgmental Cheryl reached the baby’s ears. 

“So how are you and Carter getting along?” the older woman asked. Y/N, who was focused on the playful girl in her lap looked up with a quirked brow and a breaking grin. 

“What do you mean by that?”

The older woman glanced around at the other established ladies on the couch, all of them sharing some secret as they giggled under their breaths. “Well, it can’t be easy being a single mother, and with a boy like him I doubt that he’s been helping you out without a little... price.”

Shame filled her cheeks as she suddenly found Ellie ever so interesting. The baby whined softly, sensing her mother’s distress and she wrapped her arms tighter around the little girl. It was questions like these she despised. Not just because they were passive aggressive and rude, but also because she feared and questioned the same thing. Carter did have a reputation. He’d proved to Y/N that he’d changed over the past year, but how long would that last? When she started dating again (not that she was really able to find any viable suitors), would he leave her? When she stopped hooking up with him, because she really needed to stop indulging herself in that, would he find no other reason to stay?

It was a question that she preferred not to answer or even think of due to the stress it brought her alone, but as she began to change the subject, another one of her mom’s invitees opened her big mouth. “Does he still, you know, sleep around too? 

“Cheryl!” A rather loud voice came from the penthouse elevator, and Y/N gasped in relief when she realized who it was. There was only a voice that high and commanding on the Upper East Side, and that came in the form of a small brunette named Blair Waldorf. A small manicured hand landed on her left shoulder and she could’t help but lean into the comfort of it as she spoke. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you! My mother and I were just talking about how miss you so much, thought we understand why you don’t come out as much anymore. It can’t be easy to show your face when the entire city of Manhattan knows that your husband left you after you slept with the chef.”

A few short gasps escaped the mouths of the ladies surrounding them as the diabolical, older blonde turned a deep shade of red. She excused herself quickly and clutched her gaudy fuschia purse to her chest as she scurried off past Blair, who wore snarl on her glossed lips as she looked over the woman. The rest of the couch stared at her in a mix of awe and straight up horror before she yelled at them. 

Her arms shooed them off as she made her way around the couch. “Move, move, do you wanna be next? I can make sure that happens right now and you can be just as scorned as blondie over there.”

They all fled in a hurry. No one dared to mess with the twenty-three year old Upper East Side queen. 

Y/N let her head fall back into the pillows of the couch, holding out her baby into Blair’s expecting arms. Despite having her own child with her husband, the businesswoman much preferred Autumn to Henry, who was still fussy and crying all the time. She told her it would take a while to grow used to the constant screaming and kicking and lack of sleep. 

“Thanks for saving me, B, I don’t know what the hell I would’ve done without you,” she sighed from the couch. She opened her brief-closed eyes and let out a groan. While only a group of pushy older women left, there were stiff at least another ninety three guests to host for two more hours. 

“Don’t thank me, thank Cheryl’s horrible taste of sponsor,” Blair let Ellie gnaw on her finger as she referred to the old bat. “Ugly witch had it coming for her at some point.”

They both shared a brief chuckle. It had been a while since her and her friend had been able to sit down together, without work coming between them or Henry’s incessant neediness. “Where’s Chuck?”

The brunette tilted her perfectly combed head towards the wide windows of the penthouse, where Chuck stood with his arms crossed while talking to Carter. The latter was holding Henry in his arms, the usually rowdy baby finally a  sleeping bundle of serenity. While it had been nearly five years since they had last held a “rivalry”, it was still strange to see them so civil with each other. They cooperated in their business quite often too. Baizen and Bass. An unexpected yet powerful duo. 

A faint grin tugged at Y/N’s glossed lips as she watched Carter laugh at something his friend said. She was catching his disease. She didn’t know whether it was grin, his boyish charm, or his heart, but she was down bad again. She hated that he was always able to hack down the walls of her heart with just the smooth timbre of his voice, but she couldn’t deny that the bittersweet heartache of it all was worth it. 

He peered inside of the building, seeming to look for someone, until he found her eyes. It was like the moment of realization, with Carter smiling even wider, as she waved to him with an under the breath laugh. The man looked down to his arms at the baby and lifted one of his chubby arms to wave at her. She laughed a little louder as she blew kisses to him in a more than dramatic fashion.

A cough ruined the moment. 

When Y/N looked back over at her best friend, she was wearing some sort of knowing smirk, her lips pursed and an brow raised. The iconic Blair Waldorf scheming look. “What are you thinking about, B?”

“How are you and Carter getting along, Y/N?” She asked. Y/N visibly shrunk into herself, her shoulders slumping and her eyes flitting down into her lap.

“Blair-”

“No, we are going to discus this now, L/N!” She insisted. The younger woman groaned under her breath, but glanced back to her friend. “You’ve either gotten stupider by the day or I’ve just never noticed how oblivious you are, but one thing is for sure and it’s the fact that you are blinder than a goddamn mole when it comes to how in love with you that man is!”

“Maybe it’s ‘cause he’s not?” She lowly chuckled. “Besides, even if he did… love me, I mean, it’d be too messy. He’s never lingered for long in the past and the last thing Ellie needs is to be as fucked up as either of us because her parents acted selfishly. We need stability. And Carter can’t provide that.”

“Bullshit.” Blair rolled her eyes. “You know that Carter is a solid man now. A decent one even, but though I’d never tell him that to his face. He already gives you guys the support that you need-”

“Hey,” Y/N cut her off sharply, a near deadly tone in her voice, “I do not need support.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that, Y/N, but there’s something else I mean to say. You are Carter’s person. Before lovers or co-parents, you’ve been there for him because you insist that he’s just your friend. But before Serena, before Beth, before either of you even got to highschool. Every time he screws up he goes to you, Y/N. You’ve always been it for him.” Blair rested a hand on her knee, rubbing her skin in small circles. “You’re the only one he listens to, and it’s because he needs you. With all the shit he’s done in his life you’re the one keeping him afloat.”

Y/N wanted to respond. Say something to put away the stupid fish-like expression she wore at her best friend’s words, but there was nothing. Her throat was empty and she wanted to agree with the hopeful words spilling from Blair’s mouth, but that would be admitting that she needed Carter as well. And what would the use in establishing herself as independent be if she revealed that part of her she thought she’d shoved so carefully in a shoebox behind her heart.

But when her voice came back, she didn’t say that. She didn’t indulge.

“Prince Charming and the screamer, twelve o’clock,” Y/N murmured into her glass. The woman opposite of her seemed thrown off by her response and squinted at her. “Your husband and screaming child, twelve o’clock, B.” Blair looked over her head, searching for her husband and the woman rolled her eyes. “Other twelve o’clock, B.”

The brunette huffed. “I knew that.” She plastered a smile on her face and turned around, watching her husband return to her with their baby back in his arms. 

“Hello, my dove,” Chuck dropped a kiss to his wife’s bare shoulder and reached over her to place Henry in her arms. “Y/N, you look as beautiful as ever.”

The woman graciously smiled as a pair of warm hands heated up the chill of her spine. “Thank you, Chuck. It’s always a pleasure to have you here.”

“Quit the niceties, sweetheart,” Carter rubbed your tired muscles, “Bass is a menace and he always finishes up your Morocco burgundy.”

“It was made to be drunk, Baizen,” she leaned her head back on the couch rest to find his bright blue eyes already staring down at her, “‘sides, you’re not one to talk when you constantly down my supplies for strawberry daquiris straight from the bottles, you bastard.” 

The couple sitting opposite of them laughed at Carter’s expense as the offended man pinched the skin of Y/N’s shoulder. She squealed, leaning to get away from him and she realized how big she was smiling compared to just minutes before. He really did lighten up the room just by entering it. 

Blair and Chuck’s chuckles died down, but the first glared expectantly between the two “we’re happy as we are” co-parents. “Y/N, doesn’t it say on the itinerary that we were going to have cake at one-thirty?”

The woman in question glanced down at the delicate watch that laid across her wrist, encrusted with small pearl orbs that Carter got custom made for her when she first got accepted into Harvard. Oops. Perhaps she had lost track of the time.

She pushed herself off of the inviting cushions with a quiet but still heard groan, and arched back to get all the kinks out of her bones. “Well, now we’re gonna eat cake at two. I don’t think anybody noticed, it’s fine, right?” She placed Ellie into Blair’s awaiting arm, letting her closest friend coddle both of the children at the same time. “Carter, darling, could you possibly gather-”

“I’ll have them around here in three minutes, time me.” He grasped her face with his hands and placed a sloppy kiss to her cheek. She grimaced. “You taste good.”

The couple behind them groaned with disgust (even though they were in no place to do so after the Anna Karenina incident), and he grabbed her ass as he went to go grab the elderly guests who wandered about the elegant penthouse. Right before she left, she caught the two’s eyes and Y/N knew that somehow Blair had telepathically given Chuck all the information he needed to know about where she stood in her feelings for Carter. Or maybe she was just the drop-dread obvious. Neither of the scheming couple would never tell her. 

“Shut your traps, you’ll catch flies.” The heels of her beige Louboutins clicked across marble floors as she stomped away from them with an exhausted put on her face. A quiet mumble of a song, a French one she’d learned in elementary school when she was young, passed through her lips as she sashayed and shimmied her way across the emptying kitchen to the fridge where she opened the door to be met with a cool hit of air. 

With two delicate, steady hands, she grabbed the carefully wrapped box that sat front and center of the middle rack and bumped the door shut with her hip. A matchbox and candle laid ready on the cutting board on the island and she made sure to grab those too before heading out to face the crowds. 

As sure as Carter’s word, every single guest, all ninety-five of them remaining, had been gathered around Ellie’s father who sat holding her on the seat where she had been before. However, even with the near hundred people laying in her living room, not a single one made a peep of a sound as she entered with a graceful gait, laying the intriuging box onto the table with poise.

A small huff of air left her lungs when she stood back up, done with having to A. hold her breath to not drop the cake and to B. force herself to smile while nearly a hundred guests had their eyes directly on her. From there, the spotlight was lifted from her, and rather to her daughter, her short arms desperately grasping for her as she tried to grab her attention.

“Ma-” Sweet, young Autumn tried to sound out the vowels to call out her mom, something she’d only started doing a few days before. It was a trivial thing, the firsts weren’t all too impressed with the baby for saying her first and only word, but to her parents, it was everything.

“Good job, pumpkin!” Carter cooed excitedly. His nose nuzzled the smooth skin of her chubby cheek as she grinned a toothless little grin. “You’re the smartest baby I know, aren’t you? My bright little girl.” He bounced her on one knee as they both watched the cake box being opened intriguingly to reveal a gorgeous, layered cake.

Gold foil and yellow fondant shaped leaves spread out across the pristine vanilla buttercream. Tired layers, shaped in obscure triangles, sat one on top of each other. And, of course, Milk Bar had naturally gathered the finest floral arrangement to surround the base of the cake. Small, delicate chrysanthemums lined the sharp angles, adding a warming touch and also drawing the baby’s attention as she attempted to reach forward and grab them.

Carter securely adjusted his daughter so she wouldn’t fall to the floor and gently drew her arms back. “Mama’s gonna light the candle for you, baby, we don’t want you to get burned.” His eyes flickered up to Y/N, bent over the cake and placing the gold candle in the center. It nearly looked as is the gold dropped from it, into small reflecting pools of leaves onto the cake. So it was far, far to elegant for the baby herself (truthfully, the small girl would’ve preferred a nice cinnamon apple mush to a pumpkin cake), but the guests were more than impressed, clapping when her mother finally set fire to the candle.

She dusted off her hands on the dress and sat up, looking around with a grin. “If you guys wanna take it away…”

High voices lifted the room in spirit, and Y/N finally found some peace for the day.

“C’mon, mama, come sit over here.” The mischievous blue-eyed man fixed Y/N with his signature smirk to where she stood. He glanced down to his lap and she had to roll her eyes. People around them had started to sing for the baby and she figured that she just had to give in. She gently scooted her way past the table to the couch and looked down at him.

“Mm,” she hummed, glancing towards Blair, who was grinning viciously at her, and then back to the cocky menace. “Thanks for the seat, Baizen.”

She lifted up Autumn from his arms and squealed when he then suddenly grabbed her around the waist. Her body landed right on top of his thighs, with a giggling Autumn cuddled tightly in her arms. He head naturally came back to crash against his shoulder and she had to hide her huge smile in the expanse of skin that was revealed from his collared shirt.

“Happy birthday, dear Autumn,” her parents sang to her, each with a miniature hand wrapped around their larger fingers, “Happy birthday to you.”

“Do you wanna blow the candle out, honey?” Y/N gasped excitedly. A feeling of a fireplace warmth seeped into her skin as Carter’s arms wound tighter around her waist as she supported their baby. “You’re such a big girl now, Ellie, you can do it.”

“Hey,” she whispered breathily.

“Hey, yourself,” he grinned back. His eyes were clear. That she could see now. And she knew it was dangerous, to tiptoes across their fine drawn line, the one that separated them from being co-parents and friends with benefits to …partners- but he was right there. He was right there in front of her, all hers for the taking, if she could just push herself to say some three words that would change everything for them.

“Carter, I…” Her eyes flickered behind her, right to where she saw Cheryl. So the bitch had returned, and at the perfect time as well. The old woman was just the reminder she needed as to why they couldn’t be together.

Everyone was staring at them and she felt closed in. The eyes of the best of the best, those that would construct their futures with words and rumors were watching her about to make one of the biggest decisions of her life.

She was never a decision maker before, why would she be now?

And Carter stared into her eyes, and she could see him. He was pleading, and for a second she let herself believe that he loved her too. He did.

But then Autumn squealed loudly, startling both of them alike. Her train of thought fell off the track.

The baby just stared at the small, flickering light with wide, curious eyes. Y/N scurried out of his lap and Carter cleared his throat, looking away like she’d just spit molten lava at him, which she had, though she’d never known.

And the woman looked ashamed. She’d nearly just ruined her child’s future, she’d nearly professed her love for Carter in front of the elite society she was supposed to grow up in. But they were too messy. It just couldn’t be.

With a small pat to her round tummy, Y/N shifted Ellie a comfortable distance from the candle. “Go on, darling, make a wish.”

Her small lips puckered up and with a deep exhale, she attempted to extinguish the melting gold candle shaped in the letter one, but to no avail. Guests exchanged small laughs all around the couch and coffee table, grinning at the newest high society baby. 

If any of the prissy old ladies or judgemental men of the Upper East Side had been able to make that wish for Autumn, they all wished for her to be as wealthy and successful as her parents, as beautiful as the mother who had raised her and as intelligent and quick-minded as her father. They would’ve asked for her to be a true socialite- a pure woman of heart, of mind, a girl who was raised in academics and pushed by her parents to be someone in the world. They wished for her to bring her family honor- to be greater than any of them. They wished for the biggest things of such a small, fragile creature.

But when the little girl finally managed to blow the candles out, Autumn Eloise’s parents only wished for her to never have to feel the pain of not being able to have the one person she loved, just as they did.