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You know something’s wrong the moment you wake up.
Well. You don’t know that it’s wrong, exactly. Wrong is a very strong term. You just know it’s not right. You can’t even put your finger on what it is. Nothing with the room or with Bucky sleeping next to you. It’s more about how you feel, the strange spaciness in your head, the way you’re hyper-aware of your body, how the blankets and the body pillow all feel very, very solid around you.
Like you’re made of starlight and gas and ephemeral wishes.
It’s a dumb description and it’d make you laugh if it didn’t fit.
You stay where you are, cataloging the feeling, waiting to see if it passes. It doesn’t. At least, not before Bucky huffs into the pillow behind you as he wakes up.
“G’morning,” he mumbles.
“Morning,” you reply, still trying to decide what, if anything, is not right.
He pulls himself over the pillow to kiss your cheek, but instead of flopping himself back down again, he hovers over you, frowning. “You okay?”
“No,” you say, confusion in your voice. “Something’s weird.”
Weird, that’s it. Not wrong. Not right. Just weird.
“Okay. Want to tell me what?”
“I don’t know.”
Bucky scans you without moving. “Need to get up?”
You think if you stand, you might throw up.
But also, you really, really have to pee.
“Maybe?”
It’s a process, getting you out of bed, but after two weeks of bed rest, you and Bucky have this routine down cold.
The bed shakes and shifts as he gets out of it. You keep your eyes closed and listen to the sounds of him moving, the soft groan/moan as he stretches his arms above his head before standing up. He moves around to your side of the bed, carefully helping you balance as you sit up (your head spins only a little), then ease yourself over the body pillow so you can sit on the edge of the bed.
Your bump isn’t a bump. It’s a beach ball, and you stare at it in wonder, because you do not understand how it’s grown so much in two weeks. You can’t imagine going into the field now. You can’t imagine going to the street now, honestly. How you rode a motorcycle to the next building over and folded yourself into a storage closet on the Quinjet and fit into the Iron Man suit…
Nope. Maybe you dreamt it.
“You okay?” asks Bucky, calm and patient and only a little sleepy still. Your hands rest in his; he rubs his thumbs over the back of them. It’s soothing, and does absolutely nothing to help the way your head feels like it’s full of mothballs.
“Yeah,” you say, still staring at the bump. “Does it look bigger to you?”
“A little?” says Bucky, but he sounds doubtful. “Looks different, can’t put my finger on why.”
You grip his hands and begin to stand, fully expecting the world to spin around you. Sometimes it does, and with your head as spacey as it is, you wouldn’t be surprised.
It doesn’t, though. On your feet, you feel heavy. Much heavier than you normally do, like every one of your muscles is suddenly as heavy as Bucky’s Vibranium arm. Like all of your bones have been reinforced with adamantium. Is this what Logan feels like every day? No wonder the guy grunts at everyone.
“Okay, here we go,” says Bucky, taking a slow step back, to give you space to move forward.
You take a step, and then another.
“So I was thinking, Staten Island ferry today,” says Bucky. “Gonna be too quiet around here with the team away, and the weather’s supposed to be beautiful, we should take advantage of that.”
“Sure,” you say absently, concentrating on your steps. “Then pho for lunch? Or pho first?”
“Dong will want to rub your belly,” Bucky warns you.
“If he brings me spring rolls, he can do whatever he wants with my belly.”
“We’ll see how fast we can get out of here. What about a movie afterwards? That Mockingbird movie?”
“Mockingjay.”
“Well, it’s playing at—”
It happens without warning. First a push, like the baby is stretching out, but somewhat more forceful than you’re used to feeling.
Then a pop. Like you’ve popped a pimple, but it’s inside your stomach.
WHOOSH.
It’s warm, and wet, and you’re soaked from thighs down. It splatters on the floor, just like you’ve spilled a glass of water.
You freeze.
Bucky freezes.
You both look at the mess at your feet, and then at each other, and you have the feeling the surprised panic on Bucky’s face mirrors yours.
“I didn’t pee,” you say automatically.
“I know,” says Bucky, his eyes wide.
You swallow hard, your breath already speeding up. “Um. I.”
“Are you panicking?”
“I’m… not… not panicking.”
Bucky nods and squeezes your hands. He is the epitome of calm, the king of reassurance. “Do you still need to pee?”
You assess. “…Sort of?”
“Okay.” Bucky lets out a long breath. “You do that, I’ll get some towels down in here.”
You grip his wrists. “I can’t have this baby in a toilet.”
“I don’t think it happens that fast, but if it does, yell.”
“Ha ha.”
It takes about ten minutes—Bucky leaves you on the toilet while he throws a few towels over the mess on the floor and grabs you a clean set of pajamas. You hear him talk to Friday, too, and the calmness in his tone is quietly reassuring. You breathe in tandem with it, and feel the panic start to recede.
It’s gonna be okay.
Even so, you’re exhausted and achy when Bucky finally comes back with a new set of pajamas and your fluffy robe.
“Friday’s contacting the medical team,” he tells you while he helps you get dressed again. “And I talked to Helen; she says she’ll be about an hour, Bruce is here if things start moving faster.”
You nod, a little absent, leaning your head against Bucky’s chest. He’s been trying to dress you, but the moment you snuggle into him, he stops, and just wraps his arms around you, resting his chin on the top of your head.
“Hey,” he whispers.
His heart beats steadily in his chest. Your try to match your breaths to it, and start to feel a little better.
“Hey,” you whisper back.
Neither of you say anything else; there’s nothing more to say, there’s too much, too.
Instead, you stay in the circles of each other’s arms, and breathe in the quiet moment, this tiny bit of time before everything begins to happen. It’s warm and comforting, quiet and close. Everything feels slow like molasses, soft and sweet.
You want to freeze it in amber, enshrine it in glass, engrave it on your heart, so you can remember it later. This one, quiet, perfect minute in time.
Helen is confident that everything’s going to be fine. Bruce is confident that everything is going to be fine. The labor and delivery team are talented, experienced, and confident.
Everything is going to be fine.
You don’t want the moment to end.
“Feel better now?” he says into your hair.
“Yeah.”
“Scared?”
You let out a long breath. “No. Yes. Kinda?”
His arms tighten around you; his breath stutters in his chest. “Darlin’—”
You turn your face up to look at him. His eyes are screwed shut; his lips are so thin. There’s wrinkles on his forehead and his nostrils flare as he breathes unsteadily, shallowly, his heart speeding up in his chest.
Maybe it’s your turn to be the brave one now.
“I’m going to be okay, Bucky.”
It’s a sharp nod, the kind he gives when you’re out in the field. A brisk acknowledgement that he’s accepting what you’re saying only because there’s not really any time to argue about it.
You cup his face in your hands and draw him down for a gentle kiss. The thin, tense lips relax a little. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” he chokes out.
“I trust Helen, and Bruce, and everyone else in there. Whatever happens, it’s going to be okay.”
His eyes fly open. They’re reddened around the brilliant blue. “Darlin’, promise me. If it starts to go wrong—”
“It won’t.”
“No, listen,” he says, gruff, his fingers pressing hard into your skin. “I need you to promise me. You’ll fight to stay with me. With us.”
He slides his hand down to your side, the heel of his hand pressing against the baby. You rest your hand over his, fingers pushing in between to hold him close, but his eyes close and his breath shakes against your cheek.
“Always,” you whisper, a little surprised that he’d even worry enough to ask. “Bucky—always.”
“I just—” he stammers. “Can’t help worry.”
You kiss him, trying to put as much reassurance and love and comfort to counteract the hunger and fear that you taste on his lips. You let him take as much as he wants; maybe then he’ll believe the same thing you do.
It’s going to be okay. You’re scared and you’re achy and the moment you wanted to keep is already in the past faster than you’d like, but you hold tight to the idea that whatever the next moment brings, it’ll be okay. You have to believe in that, if you believe in anything.
Bucky pulls away from the kiss first; you thought he would. He doesn’t shake anymore, when the kiss finally eases. His hand is gentle at your side, his lips soft.
“You rescue me, I rescue you, remember?” you tell him. “That’s how this works, Barnes.”
“Is it now.”
“Mm-hmm.”
His eyes search your face for a moment, the only part of him that moves.
He’s a sniper, after all: able to remain still and quiet for hours on end, until the time comes for action.
And it’s time.
“Okay, then,” he says quietly, and kisses you again.
Then it’s back to the slow shuffle to the door. It still feels like you’re moving through water.
“I want to get you to the med unit before anything else happens, but I know Laura said if you’re hungry…”
You shake your head. “I’m not hungry.”
“Okay.”
“But maybe after the movie? Can we get ice cream?”
“Of course,” says Bucky immediately. “The stand in the park is closed for the season, but we’ll find something.”
“Can we go to the top of the Empire State Building?”
“Seriously?”
“Believe it or not, I’ve never been.”
“Why didn’t you say? Steve asks you every Christmas and you always refuse.”
“Because it’s Christmas, I don’t want—”
You’re halfway to the door when the contraction hits. It’s short and intense and Bucky has to hold you upright, and there’s sweat on your brow when it’s over, and you gasp for breath.
“You know what,” you say, “I change my mind. Let’s skip the movie and the ferry and the Empire State Building today. Stay in.”
“Yeah, good idea,” says Bucky, his voice shaking. “Probably going to rain anyway.”
“Definitely,” you say, and together, you continue heading to the door, where there’s already a nurse from the med unit waiting with a wheelchair.
By the time Helen arrives, some forty-five minutes later, you’ve been comfortably settled in a bed in the med unit. You’re sucking on ice chips and bitterly regretting refusing breakfast, and you’ve had two more contractions, neither of which were any more intense or lengthy than the first.
“I’m assuming you have accepted the labor this time,” says Helen dryly when she comes in.
“Eh, I’m undecided,” you tell her. “But I set up a Rickroll for Dr. Doom just in case.”
Bucky rolls his eyes, and turns a page of the newspaper he’s reading. Or isn’t reading; that’s the first page he’s turned since he opened it in the first place. He’s more than likely just using the newspaper for cover. Bruce had convinced him that the baby wouldn’t appear imminently, so he’d gone to shower and change into clothes—and he smells deliciously like coffee, because he’s both the best guy in the whole world and also a dirty rotten lying cheater.
(“You had coffee. Without me.”
“Did not,” but he gave you the last sip anyway when Bruce wasn’t looking.)
“You’re looking surprisingly calm,” Helen tells Bucky.
“You say that like he isn’t prepared to kill every person in this Tower with that newspaper of his if something goes wrong,” says Bruce dryly.
“Not every person,” says Bucky. “Just the ones who annoy me.”
Helen and Bruce start talking in medical; you follow along mostly, and the gist of it is that the actual labor-and-delivery team are due to arrive in the next hour or so. They include two nurses and an obstetrician, all three hand-picked and run through so many security checks that the number made you dizzy.
But everyone is very confident that they aren’t HYDRA, and that’s really all you (or Bucky) care about.
“Security lockdown?” asks Helen.
“As soon as the medical team arrives,” confirms Bruce. “There’s an active operation, so not a lot of people moving in or out right now, anyway.”
“Good,” says Helen with a brisk nod, and then the conversation turns to the interesting part.
Because you already know: they’re not going to stop labor this time. Not when the baby is currently estimated to weigh around six pounds. Not when you’re already three centimeters dilated.
And definitely not when your waters broke.
It’s fairly calm, though, and the morning passes quietly and quickly, all things considered. Bucky has the newspaper he’s not reading, because at heart he’s an overprotective old fogey who was told point-blank that he couldn’t bring any of his knives (and had to surrender his favorite earlier so that it could be sanitized in advance of cutting the cord). You have your laptop because Tony left you some coding and it’s a good way to pass the time in between contractions.
Also, you have contractions.
“You could take the day, you know,” says Bucky while he keeps a watchful eye on the obstetrics nurse working on the monitors and lines around you. The nurse is fully aware of Bucky’s scrutiny, and while her mouth is turned up in a tiny, amused smile, she’s clearly not terribly worried about it.
“I want to get this done or Tony’s gonna mess with it. And Judith Cohen worked on schematics for NASA right up until two hours before she gave birth.”
“I have no idea who that is.”
“Jack Black’s mother.”
“I still have no idea who that is.”
“She helped save the Apollo 13 astronauts.”
“Are they the ones who landed on the moon, or the ones they made the movie about?”
You glare at him, but he grins back at you like he’s intentionally pulling your leg.
But before you can come up with a witty retort, another contraction rolls through you, and you spend the next minute breathing like a maniac and trying not to crush Bucky’s Vibranium hand.
“Good?” asks Bucky as it eases off.
“No,” you grumble. “What are you getting at Dong’s? I can’t decide between beef pho or lemongrass chicken.”
“Well, I’m going to get the pho, so if you want to get the lemongrass chicken we can share.”
“Deal.”
“You gonna let go of my hand yet?”
“I don’t think I can,” you say miserably, because your fingers appear to be stuck like that. Bucky carefully eases them one by one so that they’re not quite so punishingly tight, though it’s more for your sake than his.
When he’s done, he kisses your forehead and gives you more ice chips, and if he settles on the bed next to you, instead of on the chair… well. It makes the nurse cluck and smile, anyway.
*
Laura Barton has a newborn, an unlimited text-and-data plan, and a husband who is taking to paternity leave far better than she would have anticipated.
The newborn slept for the first four days of his life, and then decided that sleep was overrated and he has no intention of doing it again.
The husband is relentlessly cheerful and happy to do absolutely everything except hold the insomniac newborn, so that Laura can spend her time holding the insomniac newborn.
The unlimited text-and-data plan is Laura’s best friend, saving grace, and the cornerstone of her continued mental health. Laura has become very good at holding the insomniac newborn with one arm and using the other to text everyone she knows about everything she scrolls.
Text from Laura Barton to you:
Can you believe this blowhard?
[Link]
Read the comments for this one, he’s already being eviscerated!
“Hey, honey, we’re leaving,” says Clint, kissing her forehead. “Need me to pick up anything on the way home?”
“Baby melatonin.”
Clint laughs, kisses baby Nate’s baby forehead, and heads downstairs. It’s mild chaos for the next few minutes, but Laura doesn’t have to deal with it so she relishes the sounds of her children bothering someone else for a change. A few minutes later, she hears the truck head down the road to town, kids and husband on their way to civilization.
Laura misses civilization. She hopes it doesn’t go anywhere before she can rejoin it.
Nate yawns, smacks his lips, and demands breakfast. Again.
It’s later that Laura realizes she hasn’t had a message back. Highly unusual considering you’ve been on bedrest for the last two weeks and nearly as bored as Laura herself.
In fact, the only reason Laura knows that would keep you from responding is a total disaster in New York. But the only news out of the New York is the typical sort, nothing disastrous brewing. Not in New York, anyway.
Clint returns from the school run to plunge himself in the myriad of home improvement projects that he uses as stress-relief when the team is in the field without him.
Which means the Tower is empty, more or less.
And if you’re not distracted with visitors and you’re not answering…
Laura smiles, looking down at the now sleeping Nate in her arms.
Honestly, it’s perfect timing, she thinks, and sends one last text.
Good luck, honey. You’re gonna be fine.
*
Pepper Potts has a love-hate relationship with waking up in an empty bed.
On one hand, she loves waking up in an empty bed, because it means she can be lazy and stretch out and hit her snooze alarm twice without having to hear Tony’s opinion about it.
On the other hand, she hates waking up in an empty bed because the first thing that happens, every time, without fail, is the heart-stopping disappointment of waking up and Tony being somewhere else, drawn by stress or injury or his own hubris.
It never lasts long, just long enough for her to remember that he’s on a mission, or he’s doing an SI presentation in California, or he’d warned her that he would be up late working on something.
Today’s a mission day, so the moment is over before it’s even begun.
Pepper doesn’t hit the snooze buttons today, though; she’s up and dressed and had her breakfast, heading down to her office before she checks in with Friday in the elevator.
“Good morning, Ms Potts,” says Friday cheerfully. “Three messages from the Boss. The second message was to delete the first message and the third message is an apology for the second message.”
Pepper smiles. “Anything else?”
“There is currently a lockdown on the medical level, please direct all medical emergencies to an alternate location.”
Pepper looks up from her pad sharply. “Did the team return?”
“No, ma’am. The team is still in active mode, no injuries requiring evac reported, and the best estimate for mission completion is in twenty-seven hours.”
“Then why—oh!”
Pepper doesn’t finish. She starts to smile.
Twenty-seven hours—and that’s before the team, including Tony and Steve, start heading back home.
Pepper knows one other reason that would prompt a medical lockdown.
“Oh, that smart, smart girl,” she says softly.
“Yes, ma’am,” says Friday.
Pepper smiles for the rest of the day. It sends every intern scurrying, scares at least two rival companies’ CEOs, and causes SI stock to rise $160 before noon.
*
It’s not the same sort of magic, really, and it reacts in different ways, but the concept is the same.
Respect the power, and the power will respond in kind.
Wanda wishes she believed it. The power she’s seen—political, military, monetary—doesn’t respect anything but itself. The power between her fingertips would burn her alive, if she didn’t control it.
She can control it, or she can let it control her. Maybe it’s the same concept.
“You’re thinking. The exercise is to stop thinking.” There’s an edge to the Sorcerer Supreme’s voice that grates on Wanda, and she doesn’t know why.
“I’m sure you’re very good at not thinking,” says Wanda dryly, pleased to hear Wong cough to cover the smile.
“If you’re thinking, you’re concentrating within,” says Dr Strange. “Stop thinking. Let your mind be as air.”
It is a level of idiocy that Wanda wishes she could ignore.
But.
(“They can help us,” Pietro whispered.
“Tony Stark already ‘helped’ us,” Wanda hissed. “Don’t tell me you want his help again?”
“Not his,” said Pietro, and points to the television screen, still showing the footage from some fancy ball, every Avenger dressed to the nines, beautiful and powerful. “Theirs.”)
Respect the power, and the power will respond in kind.
Wanda releases a breath, and lets the memory go. She imagines it drifting on the wind, floating on the breeze as easily as a dandelion seed, dancing down the streets of New York, swirling over the pocket parks and the food trucks and the crowded humanity that is too brash and new to ever feel as comfortable as home.
She imagines the seed climbing up the Tower, through a closed window, into the sterile and active halls of the medical suite. There’s noise and life and laughter, there’s talk and the quick brisk beeps of monitors, and something under all of that, a deep-seated tension that’s less worry than anticipation, breath that comes in huffs and grunts, the salt of sweat and the tang of blood.
It’s busy, busier and more alert than normal, and curious, Wanda slips down the halls to see why.
“That’s it, you’re doing fine.”
“Almost there, just one more push!”
“You’ve got this, darlin’. I love you, I’m right here.”
And then a sharp, piercing cry.
Life, brand-new.
Wanda slams back into her body with a gasp, a wide-eyed stare at Strange and Wong. Strange, who looks as constipated and ornery as he always does; Wong, with the raised eyebrows that bely his power.
“Thinking,” scoffs Strange.
“No,” says Wanda, and smiling, remembering, joyful, she closes her eyes again.
*
You’re still catching your breath when Bucky cups the back of your head with his left hand and kisses you on your forehead, your cheek, your mouth.
“You did it, you’re fine, you’re both fine,” he’s saying with each press of his lips, his voice shaking with relief and exhaustion and gratitude. You barely hear him; your eyes are tracking the doctor and nurses on the other side of the bed.
Or rather, you’re tracking who they carry.
You’re shaking, you’re shivering, with the same exhaustion and relief and maybe you’re cold, you aren’t sure. Everything’s felt off all day, you don’t even know how to describe it except that it feels like part of you is on the other side of the room, and you want it back.
The nurse walks up to you, carrying the tiny bundle, and she sets him down right on top of your chest.
He’s tiny and he’s spindly and he’s covered in mucous and he’s got a shock of dark hair on his head and he’s blinking and cross-eyed and he’s the exact size of Bucky’s right hand, which Bucky rests, shaking, on his back.
Bucky can’t talk. He swallows and his mouth opens and closes, and he swallows again and he presses his lips to you again, somewhere near your ear, and you hear his voice, broken and soft and so, so quiet. You don’t think the words are for you, exactly, so it’s okay that you’re not sure if he says Thank you or Thank God.
You can’t take your eyes off the baby. He blinks, squints, lets out a peeping cry, and you laugh with Bucky.
“Hi, James,” you whisper. The whole world is new. “Hell of a day, huh?”
*
Epilogue the First:
He’s swinging through the Bronx on his way back to Queens, still riding the high of having stopped a bank robbery in its tracks and wondering if he should try Mr. Stark again, because he really wants to go on that European school field trip except what if the German government knows he was at the airport, is he gonna get arrested the minute he lands in Frankfurt, because that would just traumatize Mr. Harrington, not to mention put a wrench in the field trip for everyone else. Peter can already hear Flash complaining about it.
There’s a hot dog stand on the corner, though, and he’s starving, so maybe he’ll get a hot dog before he decides.
“Ayyyy, Spiderman!” yells the vendor, making himself heard over the music blasting from his radio. “You wanna dog, bro?”
“Oh, yes, please,” says Peter, reaching for the wallet in his back pocket…
In his jeans. Which he left in the alley by Aunt May’s apartment. Shit.
“Uh, never mind, I don’t have any—”
“Nah, man, it’s on the house, you saved my abuela last month from those cabróns? You get dogs for life, man, Abuela can’t shut up about how nice you were.”
“Oh wow, man, thanks!” says Peter, eyes wide as the vendor fishes a dog out from the steaming water. “This is so nice of you, I really appreciate it, I promise not to abuse that.”
The vendor laughs and hands him the dog. “You want ketchup, it’s on the other side.”
“Thanks, man, seriously,” says Peter, and goes to do up his dog.
He’s almost done when the music switches to the DJ, and Peter knows enough Spanish to make sense of the Spanglish the DJ is using.
Plus, no one in New York, regardless of their first language, bothers to translate “Avengers” anyway.
“Holy shit!” yells Peter the minute he clues in. “She had the baby!”
“Yeah, man, where you been?” yells the vendor from the other side of the cart. “That was last week.”
But Peter’s already gone, swinging from one arm while holding his hot dog in the other.
“Hey, man!” the vendor yells after him. “Tell ‘er congratulations, yeah? Her dog’s on me!”
“You got it!” Peter yells back, right before he swings down the block.
*
Epilogue, the Second:
It was never going to be a secret forever, after all, especially since the birth still needed to be registered with the city. A birth certificate issued, a social security number assigned. Too many people and too much official paperwork to make bribery or coercion for silence a possibility.
How the news gets out, no one really knows. Someone at the hospital where the birth was registered the next morning. Someone at Social Security, who saw the parents’ names.
A visitor at Arnie’s nursing home, because Arnie sings for a full day after getting the news, and won’t stop telling everyone he runs into. “Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles…”
But the press is good as their word, or maybe they know better than to cross the people who help them sell newspapers. They don’t print the baby’s birthdate, or name, or anything else. Only that he exists, and is healthy, and that the little family is fine.
However, the details kept from the public still reach Latveria.
“Sir?” says the envoy, calm and collected as he always is, because he’s known his employer as long as anyone, and has long since lost any sort of fear for what the man might do to him.
“We should send a present.”
“I agree, sir. However, it’s likely she won’t be in the field to receive it for at least a few months.”
“Not her!” he scoffs, and taps his fingers together thoughtfully. “Not yet anyway, we’ll think of something appropriate when she returns to work. No. I rather think we should send something to the baby.”
The envoy nods, but he’s slightly more cautious now. There’s an unspoken rule that the children of their adversaries—being children—should never become targets themselves. It’s not a rule his employer has ever broken. “Sir…”
“Yes. Yes, this is good. I think this could be very good for Latveria.”
And then Victor von Doom smiles.