Grace Period ▹ Steve Rogers [3]

8 | winter soldier

8 | WINTER SOLDIER

The car zoomed down the highway and Amelia couldn't help but feel a little carsick. "HYDRA doesn't like leaks!" Sitwell exclaimed, warning the group of four that they were headed down a dark road.

"Then why don't you try sticking a cork in it?" Sam causally brushed Sitwell's comment off.

"INSIGHT's launching in 16 hours... We're running in a little close here." Natasha mentioned, poking her head around Steve's chair. Amelia could feel a headache easing onto her brain, her body was just too exhausted— the past 48 hours haven't exactly been easy for a pregnant woman.

"I know, we'll use him to bypass the DNA scans and access the helicarriers directly." Steve said.

"What?! Are you crazy? That is a terrible, terrible idea!" Sitwell shouted, causing Amelia's headache to pulse a bit harder than it already had been.

"Wait? What about Amelia? She can't be out there, pregnant and all." Natasha worried. Amelia's headache had grown even stronger, she could feel the aching pain from the sides of her temples all the way down to the base of her jaw.

"Shut up!" Amelia shouted, quieting the car. She was really needing a moment of peace. She was able to enjoy stewing in her moment of silence for only one second, because immediately after the bustle— a loud bang erupted from the hood of the car.

"Oh my fu—" She began, groaning.

The window Jasper Sitwell was sitting nearest was shattered, and with a quick swoop, Sitwell was evicted out of the car. Whomever that was on the hood began shooting down into the car, Steve instinctively pulled Amelia from the back seat and into his lap and Natasha rapidly climbed into Sam's.

Sam quickly changed gears and the other three watched as the man, that was stationed on the hood, flew off in front of the car in the busy highway. With a trained tumble, the man flipped and used his one metal arm to stopped from skidding any further down the road. His metal fingers slowly unhinged themselves from the concrete and he daringly stood up. His entire body was concealed behind black armor, with the exception of his head— his hair flew freely against the breeze.

They four were too distracted by the man in front of the car, that they didn't see the large SUV behind them, ramming into the back of their car. Amelia's head was butted forward and she maternally wrapped herself in her own arms.

The car was behind forced forward and Sam struggled to find in force left within the car to push against the SUV. The man with the distracting metal arm, ran towards their car and hopped on top of it again, latching himself on the hood once again. The man with the metal arm shattered the front window this time and snatched the steering wheel, violently removing it from the car.

Amelia reached for her gun and shot, blindly, upwards, and unfortunately made no impact on the man on the hood. He had escaped and hopped onto the car ramming behind theirs before Amelia could hit him with a bullet.

The car the four was in lost complete control and would ram to one side of the highway and the other. "Get the door!" Amelia shouted to Steve over the noise of screeching cars and honking horns. His eyes were widened with fright and his mind was cold from the idea of losing his possibly only ever conceived child.

Steve ripped the door from its place and used it as a shield, as everyone held onto one another, so they group wouldn't impact the ground. Another man from the car behind theirs emerged alongside the metal armed one. Amelia assumed the metal armed one was the Winter Soldier, Natasha had mentioned days before.

"Run." Steve commanded Amelia. She nodded and jumped over cars and obstacles as she escaped from the chaos. All she could hear was gunshots behind her, but she could do nothing about it. She was responsible for another being now, and that was her child, she couldn't risk lingering around a battlefield.

Amelia used a gadget Natasha had given to her a while ago to create a zip line from the elevated road down to the ground. She effectively zipped down, ready to keep running, but then, she caught sight of the father of her child being flung off the highway and into a bus near her. Amelia cringed at the pain he must have had endured, and let it distract her, as she suddenly had the urge to go see if he was okay.

"I swear on Howard Stark if this man is not alive..." She growled lowly. What could she say? She was hormonal.

Amelia made her way over to the flipped bus and pryed open the doors to the bus. She crawled over the people in the bus, apologizing as she went. Her heart thumped hard against her chest, as if it was trying to escape a cage it had been imprisoned in. Her eyes veered over the face of her love, lying there... still and unmoving. She began to sob uncontrollably. She scrambled over to the top of him and couldn't help the water filling her eyes. A lump was forming in her throat, and she felt as if she couldn't speak.

"Wake up!" She laughed hysterically and felt hot tears roll down her cheeks. The lump in her throat moved up to the base of her tongue. Amelia grabbed a handful of fabric from his clothes and shook him until she heard a faint grunt.

Amelia released a sigh of relief, the weight on her chest was lifted. "Thank God." She hugged him tightly.

"What are you still doing here?" Steve said in a patronizing tone.

Amelia gritted her teeth. "Huh?! Well, forgive me for making sure the father of my child is not dead!" She said in between sobs. She pushed him lightly, her boiling blood made her twitch from anger, yet she contained all of her emotions. Amelia stomped out of the bus, leaving Steve to recoup for the fight on his own.

* * *

Amelia leaned against the wall in her apartment, still sobbing from the rush of emotions she had enduring not even an hour ago. Everything in her apartment was trashed, yet she still found clarity to think there. She had been contemplating over something since she saw Steve in the bus and decided to go after it. With everything that went down in the past couple of days, she needed to know that the trauma of her everyday lifestyle wasn't going to affect her nor her child's health. So, she called a doctor.

She pulled out her phone and quickly dialed a number she had memorized. She impatiently waited as the number rang, and when the other side of the line answered she immediately began:

"I want to make an appointment, I'm pregnant." Amelia spoke coarsely into the phone, though her harshness was concealed underneath her continuous hysterical sobs.

The lady calmly spoke back into the phone asking for her name and the father's name. "Amelia Stinson, and Steve Rogers." She attempted to hide her crying by gritting her teeth, yet she continued to sob.

The calm lady on the other side of the line was dead silent. "Ahem... excuse me, could you please repeat your names?" The lady asked. Amelia didn't realize how well known her and Steve's names were until now.

"Amelia Joanne Stinson. Steven Grant Rogers. Better known as: Chronos and Captain America. Just please... make the appointment." Amelia pleaded.

"Of course, right away, Ms. Stinson." And with that, Amelia had made her first step as a mother and not a villain-battling superhero.