Captain's Hart: Deleted Scenes

Chapter 12 Birth

*A/N What happened during the birth of Philip James Rogers. Warning: some mild swearing.

12 August 2016

"God dammit, Steve, I'm going to kill you!"

Steve just nodded along, watching her worriedly as he kept his hands wrapped around Arianna's, letting her clutch at it almost painfully. In fact, he was certain that if it weren't for the super-soldier serum, she probably would've broken his bones by now.

Arianna screamed again, and Steve glanced at the doctor and nurses working at the end of the bed before looking back at Arianna as he begged: "It'll be okay, Ria. It's almost over."

"'Okay' my ass!" She screamed at him, before her hand clenched even tighter around his as another contraction hit and she squealed in pain.

"You're doing wonderfully, Mrs. Rogers." The doctor soothed as she checked Arianna's progress. "Just a little more."

"See, babe?" Steve tried to calm his wife as Arianna sagged a little, sobbing from the latest contraction. "Just a little-"

"If you say 'a little longer' one more time, I'm going to slit your throat." She hissed furiously, before she cried again as another contraction began.

Steve just held Arianna's hand helplessly, glancing back at the doctor beseechingly. It had already been at least three hours since they'd entered the ward, though to him it felt much longer. Due to their need to keep low profiles, they'd avoided coming to the hospital T'Challa had offered for as long as possible, i.e. when Arianna started going into active labor.

The unfortunate consequence of this was that Arianna was almost into the birthing period by the time they'd arrived at the ward. She'd held up fairly well until that point, but started screaming just before they'd entered, leaving Wanda and Sam looking faint while Clint looked grim as they were forced to wait outside.

Steve had been allowed in as the husband, but at points he wasn't sure if that was lucky or not. Watching Arianna scream while shaking from the contractions was definitely not high on his wish list, and it killed a part of him to watch her in so much pain. It didn't help that she'd proceeded to start screaming at him about an hour ago.

The doctor didn't notice, focused on her work as she called: "All right, we've got enough dilation to give birth."

The nurses all crowded around while Steve's hands tightened on Arianna's as she clutched his wildly.

"Now, Mrs. Rogers, I'm going to need you to push." The doctor instructed. "Take a deep breath."

"Come on, Ria." Steve encouraged as Arianna took a shaky breath. "Breathe."

She glared murderously at him as she took a deep breath before pushing as she'd been instructed to.

"That's it, you're doing great." The doctor encouraged while Steve rubbed circles on Arianna's hand with his thumb.

He'd rarely felt this helpless, and he wasn't sure what to do to help. The only thing that seemed to work so far was to let Arianna curse at him. Like now.

"Steve, you asshole! I'm going to castrate you myself for putting me through this!" Arianna screamed as she slumped back down on the bed.

"Mrs. Rogers, another push." The doctor instructed, and Arianna tensed.

"You can do this, Ria." Steve encouraged, ignoring her insults at him as he just let her hang onto his hand like a lifeline. "And then you can do whatever you want."

"Oh, God." Arianna moaned, and the doctor instructed: "Breathe, Mrs. Rogers."

"Oh, God." She just repeated, and Steve urged worriedly: "Breathe, Ria."