Beginnings and Ends

It starts one Christmas.

They are on the way to Lance's Christmas family gathering, and it's a long drive, so of course they end up quarrelling. It's over something small and trivial, as usual, but it leaves them hot and bothered. They have the amazing (and tiring) ability to turn just about anything into an argument. Lance sometimes wonders if that's a point of pride with her. They school their faces into smiles as they pull up the driveway to his parents' house, but it's not going to fool anyone, it never has.

His cousin Mabel has added to her brood of children again, which already consist of little ducklings at every age between one and five. It isn't just a cute nickname— the children are literally dressed as ducklings, adorable little Christmas-hat-wearing ducklings. Bobbi is slightly horrified at the number of children (even though she's practically a superspy the thought of pushing another human out through a tiny hole frightens her—she can't fathom why anyone would do it so many times over) but Lance just laughs and extends his arms when the newest baby is thrust into his arms as they step over the threshold. The rest of the ducklings crowd around his legs clamouring for his attention with cries of "Uncle Lance! Carry me!"

-o-

Lance eventually actually makes it into the house and settles himself on a couch to cradle the newest duckling. Bobbi follows slowly, a strange maternal feeling starting in the pit of her stomach as she watches him. She escapes and goes around the house Merry-Christmasing everyone, without Lance, because somehow the tiny humans surrounding him intimidate her more than enemy fire ever has. When she returns, the newest duckling is back in the arms of her mother, and there are ducklings sitting on Lance's lap, at his feet, and tugging on the woolly sweater his mum had knitted him. Lance is enjoying the attention; he likes children, and for some reason, children like him back. Unlike my wife, he thinks, and he shoots a glance at her, a half-formed smirk on his face as if to say, see, they like me better than you, but then he sees the expression on her face and forgets about the smirk, because she is staring at the children around him with an oddly tender look on her face that he has definitely never seen before. She feels his gaze and meets his eyes, and for a moment he sees something in her eyes that he can't quite place.

The intensity of the sudden longing for a child takes Bobbi by surprise. She doesn't know how she got from being terrified of children one moment to… wanting one of her own the next? She watches Lance as he pacifies the boisterous boy duckling and tickles him until he leaps off his lap and goes running off elsewhere, and as he smiles at the shy girl duckling and pulls a variety of funny faces to coax her into speaking. He was good with them, really good, and suddenly she's seeing him in a whole new light, and she can't take her eyes off him. She watches as he picks up a toddling boy duckling and hoists him into the air. For a moment, her imagination runs wild and it's their baby in his arms, with his brown hair and brown eyes and wide dimpled smile. The longing twists her gut—she wants this. She blinks, and it's his nephew in his arms again, but she can't shake the longing.

She can't help herself. Later on when most of the children have grown tired of Uncle Lance and wandered off, and Uncle Lance has dozed off in the same spot on the couch, she inches toward the quiet duckling slowly. The duckling is holding her blankie in one hand and sucking the thumb of the other, and watches her approach with large wary eyes. She crouches in front of the toddler and reaches a tentative finger to stroke her soft chubby arm, and the duckling giggles. Bobbi's heart skips and a wide smile spreads over her face. Oh, she wants this.

The mother (Mabel, she remembers) prompts her to pick the duckling up. "She won't bite," she says kindly, "but watch out for Michael, he bites, even though we've been trying to stop him for ages—that's the noisy one absolutely screaming the house down—I'd better keep him quiet before my little angel (she gestures to the sleeping newborn in her arms) wakes up from all that racket!"

Bobbi plucks up her courage and reaches for the little girl, but she shies away and tugs on her mother's skirt. "Mama", she says in a little voice that tugs at Bobbi's heartstrings, "Yum yum."

"Oh dear, my princess is hungry—Aren't you sweetheart?—I should go and make up her bottle. I won't be a moment. Would you be a dear and hold the baby?" And she plonks the newborn in Bobbi's arms before she can protest or even register what's happening, and bustles off toward the kitchen with the quiet duckling in hand.

Bobbi freezes, not daring to move, her arms unused to the warm, soft bundle—what if she hurt the baby? Newborns were such delicate things—but she breathes a little easier as the minutes tick by and slowly navigates her way to a chair, careful not to trip over the toys strewn all over the carpet. She settles the baby gently in the crook of her arm, a warm, soft weight against her chest. The baby shifts in her swaddle, a tiny fisted hand coming up to rub her face, and the longing takes Bobbi's breath away. She traces a finger over the soft downy hair and across the small, smooth cheek, and the baby opens her eyes sleepily. Bobbi stills—what was she supposed to do now? Was the baby about to cry? What was she supposed to do if she cried?!—but the littlest duckling just snuggles closer to her and blinks slowly.

"Oh!" Bobbi exclaims softly, wondering at the large brown eyes staring up at her. They are the same shade as Lance's, she thinks, the longing intensifying. "Hello there," she coos quietly.

She is too engrossed in the baby to realise that Lance is awake and watching her with surprised eyes. She is afraid of babies, he knows, and he wonders what changed. The baby yawns, and he watches the surprise and delight spread over Bobbi's features like a sunrise as she brushes the back of her fingers against the infant's cheek. He has never seen that look on her face before. It doesn't take much of a stretch of his admittedly vivid imagination to think of her holding their own child, and he wonders with growing excitement if she would want to have their own baby. He hadn't known he had wanted children so much, but as he gazes across at her, the certainty settles deep in his gut.

-o-

Mabel comes back to collect the baby soon after, and Bobbi returns her somewhat reluctantly, feeling the loss of warmth acutely. Someone in the house yells about dinner being ready, and Mabel goes off to round up her brood. Bobbi walks over to Lance slowly, deep in thought, and they stare at their entwined fingers for a long moment.

"Let's have a baby," they say unanimously.

The moment the words are out of their mouths, they look at each other, surprised.

"I didn't know you wanted a baby," they say at the same time, and laugh at their synchrony, eyes shining, feeling in tune and somehow closer to one another than they have in a while.

Their reality sinks in after a few seconds—his job as a mercenary and her own as a SHIELD agent doesn't leave much time for parenting—but it's their relationship that worries them.

"We're always arguing, it can't be healthy to bring a child up like that", Bobbi murmurs softly, and Lance squeezes her hand, making her meet his eyes.

"We'll make it work, love", he promises, and the light returns to her eyes. They know it's a long shot and it'll be tough, but this is the first thing they have agreed on in a long time, and their unanimity makes them feel hopeful, like it would be a step in repairing their marriage.

It's as if the decision triggered something in them, because they can't seem to stop touching and reaching for each other, and it has made them hypersensitive—Bobbi is hyper-conscious of the heat of his hand in the small of her back as he pulls out the chair for her at the dinner table (which he's never done before) and it does strange things to her insides; Lance notices how she gives his hand a small squeeze in thanks (which she never does—she normally just snaps that she is perfectly capable of doing things on her own, thank you very much) and how beautiful she looks as her gaze follows him around the table. They make eyes and smile secret smiles (or so they think) across the table, totally oblivious to the amused glances of the other relatives, and this comes to a head when Lance passes Bobbi the pepper and their fingers linger across the table with the pepper shaker caught between them while they share a look.

"Oh come on!" groans a large aunt, rosy and hiccupping from the mulled wine. "Get a room already!"

They drop the pepper simultaneously, startled and embarrassed, while the rest of the table erupts in laughter. A red flush creeps up Lance's neck and Bobbi tries to look as calm and collected as she always does but really looks like she would like nothing better than to sink into the ground.

"You're pretty good at footsie too Lancey-boy," smirks the uncle seated next to Bobbi, and Lance's jaw drops in horror as Bobbi bursts out laughing and the cousins howl and hoot at him.

He drops his fork (they were done eating anyway), face flaming red, and yanks Bobbi out back, catcalls following them all the way out.

-o-

They sit on the stoop of his back porch in silence and listen to the crickets chirp. The lights and laughter and clinking of glasses in the house feels far away, and it feels like they're in their own world. The stars are out, the night being a clear one, and it's dark enough to spot constellations. Lance spots Gemini, and nudges Bobbi gently.

"Do you see that? It's Gemini."

Bobbi can hear the smile in his voice and follows his gaze. "You want twins now? Getting greedy, Hunter," she teases.

"Well…" he hums, tearing his gaze from the sky, "I could think of worse things than a little you and a little me running around." He smiles and turns to her, his face growing serious as he notices her expression.

"We're really doing this aren't we," she whispers, a hundred questions in her eyes.

He takes her hand and squeezes, never dropping her gaze. "Yes," he says steadily, a promise—a promise to work on their marriage, to do better, to be better. They would make it work.

She smiles at the determination in his eyes, grateful for the reassurance even though she doesn't share his conviction entirely—it's something she needs right now.

Lance pulls her in to rest on his shoulder, but the height difference makes it a little awkward, and she chuckles when he gives up trying to get them comfortable and pulls her to her feet in a frustrated huff. He presses her against the beam.

"So much for trying to be romantic," he mutters, breath hot against the side of her neck. She shivers almost imperceptibly, and Lance grins. She feels his smile against her neck and knows what he's about to do and manages to gasp out a Lance, no, not here— before he nips and licks and teases the sensitive spot on her neck and her mind goes blissfully blank.

They are brought back to reality when a child's innocent voice rings out clearly in the night. "Mama? What are Uncle Lance and Aunt Bobbi doing?"

They pull apart to sniggers from their audience, their clothes and hair dishevelled, lips red and swollen, eyes half-hooded. They quickly realise that, one, that the entire family (ducklings and all) just caught them going at it like horny teenagers; two, the boner Lance was sporting was going to be impossible to hide; and three, that Bobbi was bent over the porch railing with her head thrown back and breasts pressed against Lance and it looked like a scene straight out of a porno and there were children watching.

Bobbi pushes him away, mortified, and tries to straighten her clothes the best she can whilst keeping a straight face, while Lance cowers behind her in an attempt to hide his erection. But even in his state of extreme embarrassment, he can't help but grin when he steals a glance at her—he's never seen Bobbi turn that particular shade of red before. It looks rather fetching on her.

-o-

They make love slowly, tenderly, that night, and it feels like getting to know a whole new person, because with them, it's usually fast and furious (sometimes literally) and all limbs and lips and teeth. But that night they feel different—the air feels different: it's as if the mere idea of a child together has shifted something in their relationship, like it is filling in the cracks in their marriage with liquid gold. And for the first time in a long time, they are hopeful.

Bobbi comes home one evening to Lance in an apron. She has something to tell him, something important, but he goes "Almost done, sweetheart!" and it's half an hour more of impatient foot-tapping at the table before he places a plate of slightly charred, mushy-looking grey and yellow goo in front of her. The smell wafts up to her nose and her stomach turns, and before he can finish proudly saying "It's sea bass and cheese, I invented it", she throws up all over it.

Lance's jaw drops in dismay at the ruined dinner. "Well, that was unnecessary," he sputters. "Even if you didn't like it—"

"The baby doesn't seem to like fish and cheese," Bobbi smiles weakly, pushing the plate away.

"The what now?" Lance stares at her blankly with growing confusion until Bobbi heaves an irritated sigh and says, "I'm pregnant." Really, she thinks, she's going to have to raise a baby with a man-child.

"We're going to have a baby?" His eyes are filled with wonderment. "We're going to have a baby!"

He smiles so widely that Bobbi can't help but smile with him, and he drops to his knees and lifts her shirt and stares at her still-flat tummy before kissing the soft skin reverently.

"Are you crying Hunter?"

But she's tearing too (Stupid hormones, she thinks), and she pulls him up for a slow kiss, and wonders if maybe there's still hope for them yet.

-o-

They manage a few weeks of marital bliss with mostly playful banter and no major arguments, until Bobbi comes home at two in the morning one day to an anxious Lance pacing a path in their living room.

"Where the bloody hell have you been!" He rushes toward her and stops dead when he sees her soiled clothes and fresh bruises.

"No." He shakes his head in angry disbelief. "No. You did not."

Bobbi closes her eyes and slowly removes the harness with her staves. "I'm not going to apologise for doing my job, Hunter," she says wearily. "Can we not do this right now? I'm exhausted." She was—it had been a double mission and she had beat up a dozen men, and while once that wouldn't even have fazed her, now she was so tired she could fall asleep on the spot. She didn't think she would get tired so easily even before beginning to show, and she was both hungry and nauseous and the combination just made her want to cry.

Lance softens, but the frustration that she seemed to have so little regard for her safety pushes him on. "I can't believe you're still on active duty! You're pregnant Bobbi, as in you're growing a baby, there's a baby inside you—you can't go around running and kicking and punching—what if you get hurt, what if something happens to the baby—"

"Are you saying I can't take care of myself? Because I'm pregnant?" she pinches the bridge of her nose, annoyance building.

"That is not what I said! I'm concerned Bob, and I'm worried, and I don't think pregnant women are supposed to be putting themselves in situations where they can jolly well get killed!" He takes a breath, about to lead on with how that was completely selfish and irresponsible of her and she was disregarding the safety of their child, when Bobbi's face crumples and she chokes back a sob.

"I'm a bad mother," she hiccups, and much to her chagrin (and to Lance's shock), she begins to cry.

Lance stares, mouth agape—he has never seen her cry—but closes the distance between them after a moment. He leads her to the couch and pulls her into his arms, stroking her hair and murmuring comfortingly as she sobs about being a bad mother.

Later that night, after she has cleaned herself up and has both had dinner and vomited it back up, he makes her promise not to take on any more missions, and really, how could Coulson still send her on missions in her condition?! He makes a mental note to have strong words with Coulson the next day—no matter how important a mission was, it wasn't important enough to jeopardise the safety of his wife and child, dammit, and he didn't care if it was of national security or if it concerned all mankind, he could damned well find someone else to do the job—when Bobbi covers his hand with hers and meekly says that she hasn't told anyone at work yet.

Lance tenses and resists the urge to verbalise his frustration on account of her crying earlier (it still bewilders the hell out of him), and settles for asking her to "tell them tomorrow, alright love? And no more missions, please."

The worry must have shown in his voice, because she agrees.

It isn't technically a lie, she reasons to herself as Lance snores (okay, breathes deeply) beside her. She wouldn't take on any new missions—she just neglected to tell him that she was already on an ongoing mission. She would tell Coulson after this, she promises herself. One last mission, she thinks, and her suit was starting to get a little tight anyway, but she is slightly wistful and already dreading the long months ahead without active combat. Still, the pang of guilt at feeding Lance yet another half-truth doesn't go away.

-o-

She tries to be as careful as possible: she takes all hits on her shoulders and back, and doesn't make any extravagant moves. No one is covering her and everyone is busy fighting their own battles, because she's one of the best, after all; most of the time she's the one covering other people. And since no one knows about her pregnancy, no one takes particular care to shield her from blows. Eventually one particular bright spark realises that she is taking all their blows on her back and aims a kick at her abdomen instead. She gasps and chokes down a cry of pain—to do so would alert the rest to her weak spot—and knocks the men out with a brutal swiftness fuelled by fear and panic, before collapsing to the ground, clutching her stomach and curling up in foetal position, as if that would save her child. Blood pools hot and thick around her thighs.

When Lance receives the call, he's shopping for a cot. His heart is in his throat as he croaks Is she alive? and the relief at the yes almost makes his knees buckle. And then he learns that Bobbi had "eliminated the threat", as if that was something to be thankful for, and a white hot rage comes over him—"She lied to me" warring with grief at the realisation that they have probably lost their child.

He doesn't remember how he got to the hospital, but he storms toward her room bursting with rage and anguish and fear. Some part of him holds out hope that their child is safe, that he can just yell at her for being irresponsible and selfish and they can argue and shout and go home together and things would be alright again.

But then he flings the door open, and that hope evaporates when he sees her stricken face. His heart sinks, a leaden weight in his stomach, and he feels the anguish grow. He would scream, and rage, but he has no words for the depth of this pain, and Bobbi—oh, Bobbi— looks pale and drawn and sunken into herself—where was the woman he had seen just this morning?—and despite himself, he can feel his anger dissipate and leave behind only the anguish. He moves toward her slowly. Her eyes are hollow, her lips chapped, and her hands are fisted around the sheets so tightly that her knuckles are white. Her eyes flicker toward him, tearless, as if the pain is too deep, too much for tears to be enough.

He has never seen her in this much pain, not even when she came home from a mission once, battered and bruised with broken bones and fractured ribs. He sits by her pillow as she clutches his shirt like a lifeline, like an apology. She had always been strong—some would argue she was the stronger one of them two—but in that moment in his arms she feels as fragile and delicate and broken as the hollow bones of a little bird. He strokes her hair, his throat tight with unshed tears, as she chokes on the sobs that spring from deep within her and buries her face in his chest. He has never seen her so vulnerable—she has never let him—and some tiny, stupid part of him is triumphant that he's finally seen past her icy exterior, but he wishes he didn't, because maybe then it would mean their child was still alive.

They stay like this for a long, long time, until she has cried herself out, loss mingled with apology mingled with regret mingled with broken 'I am so sorry Lance's, until she has fallen asleep on his chest, tears still wet on her sunken cheeks, hands still fisted in his shirt.

It takes Bobbi a long time to recover.

He learns, after that day, that she had nearly died from the loss of blood, and the anger at her lie—all her lies—and the pain that he had nearly lost her, too, is only slightly mitigated by the relief that she is still here.

He stays with her from morning to night every day that week until she's finally discharged from the hospital, and in that week she does not utter a single word. Her movements are slow and jerky, and she can't bring herself to meet his eyes. The guilt from losing their baby, from lying to him, makes her shy away from his touch, and after a while, he stops trying. She doesn't know which is worse.

He is careful to get rid of all reminders they had been expecting a baby before she returns home, but they had gotten so many things in those few short blissful weeks that he misses out some items, and so one day he comes home from buying groceries to find her kneeling in what was to be the nursery, clutching a tiny sock, body wracked with sobs.

He wishes he knew what to do—wishes he could cry too, as he holds her until the tears subside. But he has to be the strong one, because she can't, and frankly he doesn't know how to react or what to do with a vulnerable Bobbi—practically an oxymoron in itself, he thinks. When she falls asleep, he takes the sock and hides it away in the corner of the closet—he can't bear to throw it away.

The first time they argue, after, he's actually glad, because he hasn't seen that spark in her in a long time. This was better than the zombie with mechanical movements, whose muted sobs could be heard through the walls when she thought he wasn't listening. He didn't think he would ever think so, but it had actually been strange not to quarrel, achingly painful to see her so withdrawn and quiet, so he actively baits her until there is colour in her cheeks and her eyes are flashing with anger.

-o-

He never speaks of the miscarriage; never blames her outright or calls her out on that lie—because he knows she's hurting as much as he is, that she wanted the baby as much as he did. But it hangs over them like a shroud, colouring their interactions, an invisible knife that at once ties them together and cuts them both.

When she goes back to work—"Of course you would, work is so damned important to you isn't it, more important than—" – the lies start up again, and whenever he finds out about them—and he always does, eventually— there is an unspoken dimension to their arguments. Something in their marriage has changed, they both know that, and they don't know if there is any going back.

Sometimes, when he's had enough to drink, Lance thinks the baby changed their marriage all right—just not in the way they had hoped. And—oh God, why—he wishes to God it could have been different.

A/n: this was originally based on (separate) pictures posted by huntingbirb on Twitter (hat tip!), of Nick Blood and Adrianne Palicki (who play Hunter and Bobbi, respectively) holding babies. I don't know how it morphed into this :(

Will post shorts on those few weeks of marital bliss when I finally get down to writing the ideas floating around in my head!