The next morning, Steve awoke to an empty bed, the sounds of Natasha vomiting again in the bathroom across the landing. Oh no, he thought concernedly, as he lifted the muted quilt off him and climbed out of the bed, groggily making his way over towards their shared bathroom. Softly, he knocked on the door, wiping the sleep from his eyes as he yawned. "'Tasha, do you need me to come in there?"
"I'm ok- "She responded, before violently throwing up again. Steve's hand instantly reached towards the door handle, and tried, finding the door unlocked. He opened the door, finding his teammate kneeling beside the toilet, her head over the open bowl. Each step on the hard, tile floor froze his bare feet, until he knelt down beside her, wearing nothing except his boxers and a shirt. Tenderly, he pulled her hair out of her face, and began to softly rub her back in circular motions.
"Sshhh." He hushed, as she shivered against his touch. "There you go, get it all out of you." He whispered faintly into her ear, as his hand drew circles at a steady rhythm. "Are you sure you still want to leave today, or...?"
"Yes, I'll be fine, Rogers." She muttered absentmindedly, avoiding breathing through her mouth as the stench of bile and stomach acid that coated her mouth would surely choke her. How could she be feeling so ill? The amount of numerous serums coursing through her veins normally prevented her from catching anything, even a cold, plus the exposure to various foreign diseases from her time in the Red Room would've built up her immune system from such an early age.
"We'll need to go out and grab some food for the trip, and the new safehouse; plus we'll want to go somewhere further afield... Are you sure you're gonna be up for that?" Steve contemplated, his voice lowering in volume as he listed what they needed to do, but rising again as he asked her the question. Natasha just merely scrunched up her face in annoyance and sighed.
"Rogers, I don't need you to baby me." She finally snapped; feeling his worriesome gaze on the back of her neck paired with the way her normally reliable and trusted body was turning on her just infuriated her further. Whipping around to face him, she instantly regretted very word as the expression of hurt painted over his face in invisible ink hit her like a ton of bricks. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way." She apologised, changing the tone of her voice to something far less aggressive and defensive. "What I meant to say is I'll be fine if we just packed up and left today, no matter what we have to do in preparation for it." Her friend stood up and moved towards the sink, and turned on the tap. The sound of running water only aggravated her relentless headache, although thankfully, it stopped almost immediately. Steve soon returned with a damp cloth in his hand, and knelt beside her again, dabbing soothingly at her forehead, and erasing the beads of sweat that stood there as he did so.
"You don't...have to do that." Natasha brushed aside, purposefully avoiding his eyes.
"Doesn't mean I don't want to." Steve countered, as he finished up. Standing back up again, he reached for her hand. Smiling wearily, she took it, hoisting herself from the ground. Their hands remained entwined as he lead her downstairs towards the kitchen. Dropping his hand from her grasp, Nat dropped down into one of the wooden, kitchen chairs, but Steve continued over to the kitchen countertops. He didn't even have to reach to pull out a glass from the cupboards above, moving it under the silver faucet, and filled it most of the way before stopping the flow of water. "Here." He said, placing it down in front of her as he took the seat opposite her at the table. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Talk about what?" She replied, lifting the glass and shuddering as the cool water washed bile down her throat.
"What's going on with you." Natasha just shook her head again as she lowered the glass back onto the table, created a ring of moisture underneath its base.
"There's nothing to talk about." She shut down, looking at the floor to her left. Just a lie to try and convince herself that all of what was happening to her was just inside her aching head, or that she was amplifying it to a level which it was nowhere near.
"I think there is, Natasha. You don't need to hide anything from me, ever." Steve calmly countered, placing his calloused hand on top of her scarred one. She looked up at him, sage eyes meeting blue.
"There's nothing to talk about, because I don't know the answers. I don't know why my body is acting like this." She explained, unable to hide the traces of fear that lingered on her tongue, dancing along with each word. Natasha hoped that he wouldn't be able to detect it, but the world didn't appear to be on her side at the moment.
Steve sat there, contemplating what to say as Natasha nursed her headache, but a realisation occured that maybe it would be better if he just dropped it. He didn't want to make her feel any worse than she already was, and he had a feeling that if they continued these conversation, it wasn't going to help the situation. They had no idea what was going on, even before Nat grew ill, and so they didn't need to add another complication to the mix.
"We're gonna want to head out in about half an hour to go and grab what we need from the shop in town." He sighed, retracting his hand from hers slowly. Nat nodded, closing her eyes as she took another sip of water.
<><><><>
Pulling into an empty parking spot, Steve turned off the dull humming of the engine in their truck. Glancing over at Natasha briefly, he opened his door and clambered out, Nat doing the same on her side, a mild spring breeze dancing in the air around them. "You ok?" He checked, as they walked towards the entrance to the small convenience store, two pairs of boots treading on a cigarette-sprinkled tarmac pavement. She nodded, although he could see she was trying to hide the nausea that never left her. Natasha pulled the hood of her striped hoodie up over her scarlet hair and adjusted Steve's cap as he bent down to grab a basket. The fluorescent lights from above didn't help with her still pounding head. Faint, trending music lilted around the store as they slipped in and out of the aisles, pulling food into the metal case.
"Might be a good idea to restock on first aid gear." Nat suggested, nodding her head towards the pharmacy section. One of the lights over above the aisle flickered ominously. He nodded, and so they headed over, piling what they needed into their basket. The lambent lighting above made Natasha's world spin sickeningly, and without even realising, she gripped Steve's arm to steady herself as her eyes closed suddenly.
"Are you alright?" His eyes widened as his eyebrows knitted together flusteringly. Natasha just nodded, her grip slipping slightly, but remaining firm on his bicep. Swiping at some boxes of paracetamol and placing them in the basket and under a box of ginger biscuits, he felt Nat completely let go of his arm. Bile was creeping up the back of her throat threateningly.
"I'm fine." She muttered, more to herself than to Steve, although she wanted him to receive the same message she was sending to herself, swallowing the bile back down as she whispered. "I'm fine." Steve glanced at her, unsure, but then shifted his gaze unwillingly over to the checkouts.
"Come on, let's go and pay for this and then we'll head back." He finally voiced, stepping forwards and away from his teammate. Steve hadn't even noticed Natasha slink away to grab a small feminine product that she couldn't even believe she was thinking about. There was no way. They had prevented this from happening to her almost half her life ago. So why did she grab the nauseatingly vibrant, pink box? She hadn't had her period for a while, but thanks to the trauma done to her reproductive system from her involuntary sterilisation in the red room, her cycle was extremely irregular. It was the one thing that wasn't as reliable as the rest of her body, the body that they had designed from what was already there, the body that they had contorted into the weapon it was today.
She hurried steathily over to him, sliding the unlikely answering kit underneath the tiny mountain they were about to purchase, a stone-like lump forming painfully in her gullet. Swallowing it down dry, Nat adjusted her hood once again, concealing most of her startlingly bright hair within it. Steve placed the basket down, the cashier eyeing them suspiciously as she scanned each item. Natasha prayed that Steve wouldn't notice the package hidden amongst the lot, and for once the world appeared to be on her side. "That'll be $35.97." The cashier drearily recited from her machine, chewing gum in an obnoxious fashion. Steve handed over the necessary payment in notes, as Nat piled everything into a carrier bag they had taken from their temporary safehouse.
"Keep the change." He muttered, avoiding her eyes as he ushered Nat out of the store, his hand at the centre of her back. As they approached their darkened truck, Nat opened the back door and slung the bag lazily onto the back seat, slamming it shut again. The engine was already purring as she climbed into her seat beside Steve, who sat behind the wheel, one hand on the gearstick, the other at the three o'clock position. Placing his hand on the back of her headrest and turning around in his seat, Steve began to reverse them out of their parking space, the kind of thing that caused a butterfly or two to swarm around Nat's already troubled stomach. Soon, however, Steve got them out of the store's cramped carpark and back onto the road towards their fugitive home. With each bump in the pothole infested road, Nat tried to stifle a groan as bile curdled in her digestive system, poking at her relentless nausea. Each time it was compelled to erupt from her mouth, she swallowed it back down with a gag. Steve tried his best to make the journey back as smooth as possible, but that was a challenge. Her head pounded, as though a little being was knocking at her skull, waiting to enter her brain and infiltrate it with thoughts and fears she had buried deep within herself.
<><><><>
Although the journey back took about half an hour, it had felt like half a lifetime. As Steve put the brakes on the vehicle, it jerked forwards, and Nat almost lost what little lunch she had eaten, as she had bluntly refused to eat anything for breakfast, her hand slapping at her mouth as a type of barricade. "Natasha- " Steve started, but she shut him off with a wave of her free hand. She gulped it back down, almost retching at the aftertaste.
"Don't. I'm fine. I told you earlier." She insisted, opening her door, and clambering out. Her head swayed violently as she stood up fully, so much so that she gripped the edge of the door until her knuckles showed up bone white. Steve said nothing, although his gut was screaming to do the opposite, to make her accept that she wasn't 'fine' so that he could help her get passed it. He didn't understand why she felt like she needed to be independant, they were a team after all, weren't they? As she reached into the back seat for their perculier groceries, Steve bluntly refused, dangling the bag from his calloused hand. Natasha raised an eyebrow at him, but didn't say anything, too tired for an arguement. "Keys?" She asked, as she ascended the front porch steps, turning to face him. Instead of tossing them to her, Steve just held them in his spare hand as he walked towards her. "C'mon Rogers, I can unlock the door." He just smiled silently, inserting the jagged piece of metal into the lock, turning it until they heard a subtle click. Nat's hand was already on the handle before he could even try, and she pushed it open with a smirk, knowing she had won this round.
Dumping the plastic bag on the kitchen table, Steve turned around, hunting around for one of their rucksacks. Seizing the opportunity, Nat rummaged through the huge bag, until her fingers brushed against the box she had snuck into the basket before checkout. Bingo. She pulled it out, before thrusting it into the pocket of her hoodie as Steve turned back around, rucksack in hand. Turning away from him, she walked towards the stairs. As her hand rested on the banister, Steve's eyes fell on her. "Are you ok?" He asked for the thousandth time. Nat's shoulders dropped as a sigh left her lips.
"Yeah, I'm just gonna go run myself a bath. See if that'll help." She lied, offering him a small smile before continuing to climb the wooden steps up to the upper floor. The product in her pocket weighed a ton, burning a hole in the fabric of her hoodie. Her boots padded across the wooden floor towards the bathroom door, which already stood ajar. She pushed it open further, allowing her to enter, before swiftly shutting it, locking the door with that familiar click. Unwillingly pulling the bubblegum pink box from the confinements of her hoodie, all she could do was wonder why she was doing this.
There was no way that she could be...
"Fuck it." She muttered, tearing the box open with her fingernails. A little plastic-wrapped package slipped out, but it was caught before it could hit the hard, shiny tiles that decorated the floor. She must've been out of her mind. But nothing was adding up. Taking a deep breath, she discarded the box in the bin beside the sink, and ripped the plastic packaging from the pregnancy stick that now lay in her open palm. It's just a precaution, she thought to herself, just for some reassurance. Uncapping it, she moved reluctantly over towards the toilet, and did what was needed to be done to it. She flushed the loo, placing the cap back on the soiled, protruding part of the stick with a snap, and placed it down on top of the laundry hamper. Although having never done this before, she knew the drill. 3 minutes. That was all she had to wait for her results. The results she already knew, seeing as it was impossible for them to come up as positive. It was physically impossible.
Pacing the bathroom, her palms grew ridiculously sweaty. Wiping them on her trousers, she moved towards the door. She needed her sister's army surplus vest. She needed the comfort of it wrapped against her body as if it were her sister embracing her again. Although she never admitted it to anyone except Clint since she had escaped her imprisonment at the red room, she desperately missed her little sister. She couldn't even listen to American Pie without tearing up. The chorus played itself through her mind, playing over the top of her thoughts as she unlocked the door, and crossed the landing to their shared room, picking it up off the armchair she usually draped it over, stroking the fabric before putting it on.
A minute gone.
Re-entering the bathroom, she locked the door again, and moved towards the sink. Her heart had never raced this much in years, and it made her even dizzier than before. Bile rose dangerously in her throat as her mouth dried, nausea swirling like a storm in her gut. She was going to be sick. Her hands gripped the sink so hard her knuckles showed up ghost white against her naturally pale skin in an attempt to drive this wave of sickness back down inside her.
Another minute gone.
She'd had enough, but there was still a minute left before she could find out if she was... but there was no way she could be... Those thoughts rolled through her spinning, aching head in a neverending cycle.
Pulling out her burner phone and glancing at it, Nat noticed that three minutes had finally gone past, though it had felt like three years. Shoving her phone into her back pocket, she tried not to race over to the pregnancy test sticking out like a sore thumb on top of the hamper. Slowly lifting it with trembling, scarred hands, she studied the little window that would give her the answer.
Two pink lines stared back at her.
Anger and fear bubbled and brewed inside of her, and without even realising it, she slammed a clenched fist into the bathroom mirror, shattering the glass and splitting open her knuckles. The pain didn't even appear to register with her, as tiny shards dripped down the drain like solid drops of water. It still didn't register as she lost all of the strength in her legs and collapsed onto the cold hard floor, shins first. "Nat! Is everything alright up there?" Steve yelled from the kitchen below, jolted by the huge thud she had created through the ceiling. She couldn't answer, her voice had vanished from her distressed body. "Natasha! Please answer me?!" He yelled again, his voice pleading in desperation as he pounded up the stairs three at a time. He knocked frantically on the door, but all Nat could do was lean over to unlock it again. Steve burst in as she leant against the bathtub, the cool enamel soothing the back of her perspirating neck. He paled at the sight of Nat's blood oozing down her knuckles, and rushed to grab some toilet paper as it began to drip onto the white tile her hand was rested on. As he turned back around, his eyes lifted to the smashed mirror, before dropping into a crouch beside her. "Nat, what's happened? What's going on?" He whispered, lifting up her bleeding hand and applying pressure on her split skin with the toilet paper. Looking at her, he followed her gaze to the test in her undamaged hand. His eyes snapped back up to her. "Nat?" He choked, and a tear slipped down her cheek.
"I...I'm pregnant." She stammered, unable to tear her eyes away from the test that lay in her hand, burning it like acid. Steve sat there, speechless, and it took all of his focus to breathe properly.
"Um...ok, ok, just breathe Nat. Everything's going to be ok." He managed to make out after a while, gently holding onto her shoulder with his free hand so that she knew she wasn't alone. That he wasn't going to ditch her because of this new turn of events. They were a team, and he was going to be with her until the end of the line.
"Steve, I'm absolutely loving your optimism," Nat began, finally able to look him in his baby blue orbs, fear scribbled all over her face in permanent marker. "But how the fuck is it going to be ok?!" Tears began to slip down her cheeks, leaving little silver streaks along her pale, flushed face. Steve tenderly wiped them away with his thumb, returning his hand back to its previous position on her shoulder.
"Nat, honestly...I do not know. All that I do know, however, is that we will make it ok." He replied steadily, giving her a tiny reassuring smile.
"But how?" Nat choked, beginning to hyperventilate as reality appeared to crumble all around them. "This couldn't have happened at a worse time." Steve pulled her towards him, rubbing circles on her back and making hushing noises as he tried to calm her down. Her breathing remained elevated for a little while, but soon enough, as she inhaled his lemon and oak wood scent, Natasha began to calm down and match his breathing pattern with her own.
"What we need to know right now," Steve softly spoke, rocking her gently from side to side, her bleeding hand still in his. "Is how far along are you? When did we last, uh...fondue?" Nat stayed silent for a moment, concentrating on her breathing, thinking about his question.
"When we were in that dingy, little motel in Chicago." She answered into his chest, her tears creating a damp spot in the fabric of his shirt.
"Blimey, that was six weeks ago!" Steve exclaimed, counting back the weeks since then. Natasha just swore into his chest, her eyes closing in a wince. Interlacing his fingers with hers, Steve slowly pulled away from their comforting embrace. "Come on. It's not comfortable to stay here on the bathroom floor. Why don't we go over to the bedroom and we can continue talking about it there?" He suggested, not able to take his eyes away from hers. She nodded, and Steve helped her get back on her feet, supporting her as her legs hadn't appeared to have woken up properly from the shock. "You know, if we keep it, then I'm gonna have to help you walk around like this in about nine months time." Steve joked, getting a raised eyebrow from his teammate.
"If we keep it?" Natasha questioned, as Steve lifted the quilt for them to climb under.
"What I mean is that I know that we have options available." He explained, as she wriggled over to her side of the bed, leaving room for him to join her.
"I know, but honestly, I thought you knew me, Rogers." She purred as he wrapped an arm around her, and let go of the quilt, covering them both up from the torso down. She turned the test over in her fingers, before throwing it down in the space between them on top of the muted quilt, wanting to give her hand a rest from the emotionally heavy item. "But I don't even know if I can be a mom," Her voice transformed into a whisper, as tears rolled down her cheeks, Steve delicately catching one with his thumb and wiped it away. "My first mom handed me over to the red room, and even though she may not have had the choice, another the thing the red room liked to take, she still did it. I only had Melina for three years, and although those three years were some of the best years of my life...she had to hand me back over as well. The rest of my childhood was spent in that hellhole assassin school, so I don't even know if I have what it takes to be a mom." Deep in thought, Steve picked up the discarded test, turning it over in his hands. Natasha was never really open about anything, let alone her dark and bloodied past, and so he had no idea what to really say in response.
"This was never supposed to happen." Nat continued, shaking her weary head, her eyes unblinking. "The graduation ceremony.. it should've prevented this from happening..."
"Graduation ceremony?" Steve questioned, unsure of what she was talking about. She took a deep breath, still able to feel the ghost pains from the traumatic experience. Her hand moved subconsciously over to where they had operated, to where new life was growing within her.
"At the red room, they have a graduation ceremony," Natasha stumbled on her words, trying to explain this horror to him without letting it leech on her mind. "Where they sterilise you. Preventing something that would be more important than a mission. Making everything easier, even killing."
"Oh, Natasha." Steve spoke disheartenedly, his eyes brimming with tears as he pulled her closer to him, his empty hand holding the back of her head, the other containing the test stroking up and down the middle of her back. "I know you're going to be a great mom, and do you know why? Because you have fought back against what has happened to you, and you have prevented it from happening to anymore little girls. You help those in need, and the way you've looked after Wanda since the events of Sokovia..."
"But that was different. Wanda may be a kid, but she isn't a child." Nat argued, looking back up at him, before leaning back against his chest. Steve pondered this, resting his head lightly on top of hers.
"True, although you have helped teach her how to stay undercover, you have mentored her, and you have helped her come out of her shell and truly helped her embrace her powers." Natasha couldn't help but smile through her tears.
"I know what it's like to be given tools I never wanted to begin with. To be a test subject for a terrorist organisation. I didn't want her to feel alone." She explained, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her emerald eyes.
"Exactly. You are strong, brave, compassionate, and most importantly," Steve continued, smiling along with her. "You are Natasha Romanoff, no longer afraid of doing what is right. Since I have known you, Nat, I have become even more proud of who you have become." She sobbed into his chest, dampening his shirt with tears of unspoken love, wriggling her arms out of his embrace and wrapping them around him.
"So," He spoke, changing the subject onto one of urgency. "First of all, are we going? And second of all, if we are, then where are we going?"
"Well, we kinda have to go, seeing as we have no idea when our generous hosts are going to return." Natasha contemplated, as they leant back against the headboard of the bed. "Um...what about your old training barracks, in New Jersey?"
"I don't think it's habitable to say the lest, especially since our last visit, when SHIELD was corrupted by HYDRA and was hunting us down." Steve responded, his frown of concentration creating little lines that danced across his forehead in a melancholly fashion.
"Ok...what about the secret SHIELD bunker we stayed in after Bucky blasted a bullet through my shoulder?" Her hand lifted to the ghostly scar embedded in her shoulder, rubbing it automatically as she remembered the events of the fight in D.C. Steve thought for a moment, the only sound coming from him was his breathing, deep and soothing, relaxing the woman sitting beside him.
"We could potentially lay low there. Though Stark may go looking there." Steve's voice drifted away, until they both sat there, basking in silence, leaning into one another, trying to find an answer to their problem.
"I doubt it, Steve, seeing as Tony most likely doesn't know about it." She reasoned, silence consuming the room again as she fiddled with one of the zippers on Yelena's vest. Suddenly, Steve jolted, and Nat looked at him with wide eyes, an eyebrow lifted.
"I've just remembered this old bunker Sam and I stayed in when we were in a mission over in Missouri. I'm pretty sure only Sam and I know of it...maybe Fury too... It's quite far away, but it's small and undetectable, so we should be safe there for as long as we need to be." Natasha yawned, her nose scrunching up. God, she's adorable, Steve couldn't help but think, as she nestled further into his chest.
"That'll be fine. I do want to go and stay with Clint though; it would make this," She gestured to her queasy stomach, and the test still lying in Steve's partially closed hand as he stroked it with his thumb. "A bit easier to deal with."
"Yeah, I completely understand." Steve agreed, nodding along. "Right, we both need some rest, you especially. I've packed everything up, so we'll have to wear these clothes again tomorrow, and then leave as soon as we can. We'll grab some food and eat on the way."
"Ok..."Nat tried to stifle another yawn, and failed miserably, her head rising and falling with each breath they took as she rested it on his chest like a pillow. Reaching over, he gently placed the test on the table next to him, and wrapped his huge arms around Natasha. He held her close to him throughout the night, embracing her as they slept with the comfort she so desperately needed. Butterflies danced and patted the walls of his stomach as he drifted off, the smile that adorned his face refusing to leave.