Nobody Said It Was Going To Be Easy
Chapter 1
"Oh my god Steve, what if-" Bucky starts again, but Steve, is, unsuccessfully trying to calm him down.
"It'll be fine, Irene is a strong woman." Steve says, in what he hopes is a reassuring tone. But Bucky's still hyperventilating.
Bucky, who was about to become a father, was absolutely terrified. Imagine that. The Winter Soldier. Terrified. Of course, rifts had been healed since then, and Bucky had met a wonderful lady, and, 3 years later, then had been married. 4 months later. This.
"Bucky, stop. I know your nervous, but it's only been-3 minutes. Only 3."
"I know, but for 3 minutes I haven't been with my wife, and Steve- I'm terrified. More then I have been ever in my long life. Please... just..." Bucky says, burying his face in his hands.
"Mr. Barnes?" A voice speaks out, and Bucky turns to see that's it a nurse. Nurses generally mean good news- right? Right...
"Mr. Barnes? May I speak with you?" The nurse asks again, this time a little bit more urgent. Bucky shakes himself out of the daze he's in, and walks forward.
"Uhm, yes?" He asks.
"Your wife did not survive the birthing process due to complications that arose. We're still getting the babies stable." The nurse says. Maybe this is her first time, but no, it can't be, hadn't Steve just said...?
Bucky stops short, and blinks, really hard.
"Your wife did not survive the birthing process due to complications that arose." The nurse says again, quietly, clearly not used to this type of work. And the world went black to Bucky.
"Bucky! Bucky! Bucky!" Steve says, shaking him. "You've been out for a few hours. Just about 2 and a half hours. You sort of got the news and fainted. Not that I blame you-" Steve says quickly, but Bucky interrupts.
"The kid? Is it okay? Boy or girl?" He asks, suddenly remembering what the nurse had said about 'babies'. Oh god...PLURAL. PLURAL. MORE THAN ONE. AGGHHHH!
"Well, actually... There ended up being twins, a second one no-one knew about. But she had a heart condition. She was in surgery for a while, but she's getting better." Steve explains.
Bucky started to sob. He was trained not to sob, he had been trained not to sob, but no, this couldn't be happening. He looked around again, at his surroundings. He was in a room, a shock room, it seemed to him, meant for somebody who had something along the lines of this happen to them. He gathers his courage before asking, very quickly:
"But...what do I do now?"
Bucky exclaimed, clearly thrown off by this new predicament.
"Well, the doctor said later that Irene had left a list of names for the twins, for you to name them. It's in my pocket, if you want to see it." Steve said quietly, knowing that his friend had taken a very hard hit in the past few hours.
"Al-al-alright," Bucky stammered, still quite nervous. He was a single parent who had no idea how to care for children, and now he had another one that he hadn't even been aware of! How was that possible? Nonetheless, he decided to keep going with what he was about to say.
"Can I see the twins?" He asked
"Yeah, but there's another thing I need to warn you about. The second one, the one that wasn't known about...She had some issues… I guess… Her heart didn't really work the way it was supposed to, so she's recovering from surgery. I don't know what else to say, Bucky. Just know I'm gonna be here, okay? Because I know you're scared, and I really want to help… and, yeah." Steve said quietly.
Irene had been his friend, too, he too was scared of this whole situation. He just wanted to run, and hide. But he couldn't. There were two very important little babies in his life that he now needed to help his friend take care of. The problem was… Well, Steve had no idea how to be a parent, either. Oh boy, this was gonna be a very, very, very long road.