Note on story universe: I mostly use MCU version just because it is familiar to most and easier to describe however I will throw in comic tidbits and personal head-canons as I see fit. Notable differences from MCU is my Hawkeye is deaf and Black Widow is enhanced (though this story radically changes how that came to happen).

The mpreg in this story is not freak or experimental. The story takes place in a universe that both sexes are biologically capable of carrying children but to compensate for the increased birthrates, fertility is halved. So instead of having monthly cycles, it's every two months. If it helps think of it like ridiculously watered-down ABO without the animalistic qualities.

Perfect Illusion
Chapter One
All Falls Down

The moment Natasha stepped into sight Tony knew something had changed. Her face was dead white and her eyes were cold and bank, a mask that both said nothing and everything at the same time to her team. Just as much as putting on the suit made him Iron Man, that expression meant he was currently talking to Black Widow the assassin and not the dependable friend he'd come to know in the last few years.

Natasha was the best of them at not bringing work home, so this, it was a cause for concern.

"What happened?" He demanded immediately, having been sidelined from the latest Avengers mission due to concussion protocol and still tender ribs from where he'd been ambushed outside of his armor the week prior. He'd been wearing one of his watch gauntlets and easily put the upstart in his place after the initial surprise attack, but was still just plain pissed he'd been benched for something so stupid. Even he'd been forced to admit though no matter how much help he got from JARVIS it wasn't a good idea to fly the armor with a lingering concussion, the loads of flashing lights in the helmet were the least of the issues involved.

"You are going to want to sit down." She stated calmly, not something he trusted when she looked like that.

"Look, just tel.." he got no further.

"Sit down!" She commanded, and he was powerless to disobey. He found a workbench only half-full with partially done projects and slumped down onto it.

"Tony, the mission was orchestrated by Hydra." She spoke so matter-of-factly he almost missed the significance of the sentence and the fact she was giving him the news and not someone a little closer to the subject, almost. He was about to break in with a hysterical comment when she held up a single hand palm forward to silence him, and she continued uninterrupted. "Clint and I believe you were deliberately removed from the equation in such a way that wouldn't raise suspicions. They sent an incompetent assailant who was only good for a single strike, not full on incapacitation. If the attack had caused more damage we would have cause to take more notice. It's public knowledge we're currently down Thor and Bruce, Rhodes is battling it out with the State department over our legality, and we're still training Wanda, Pietro and Sam, so Hydra planned a way to get the last veteran heavy hitter out of their way."

"You're skirting the issue," Tony had no problem calling her out, call it a death wish, but he wanted to know damn it.

"They have him Tony." She explained blankly, distancing herself from the words. "They spread us out in a populated area so none of us could get to each other, then taunted him and baited the trap with their Soldier. From what we can piece together from security camera footage and the bodies he left behind, he managed to take out three fourths of their forces before they gassed him. Sam's drone picked up his tracer before it was spotted and disabled when they were loading him, so whatever they want him for, they want him alive."

The teams all had tracers in their uniforms and a microchip implanted under the skin behind their earlobe, serving as both trackers and hopefully proof of life, but Hydra was too good and found both. Having the evil organization growing like a shadow within SHIELD had left them at a disadvantage, any Hydra agent that was previously SHIELD knew about the microchips and just had to guess at their placement. Any chip designed by Tony Stark was not going to be easy to disable and certainly would not be vulnerable to generalized EMP. They were also 'smart' enough to know the difference between their host dying and being dismantled manually, changing the alert it sends out accordingly.

Thinking about that, the technical aspect of everything she just told him, was far easier than facing the reality of the admission. The brave reckless soldier straight out of a world war was in the hands of people who brutalized whole nations no matter whether they were in the shadows or broad daylight. "They have him?" He repeated, like asking would make it different, when he knew damn well the answer would be the same.

She just nodded, "We have one of theirs in return, pretty battered, unlikely to last the night; but is our best shot at finding out anything about where they took him and why."

"I want to see the interrogation," He even surprised himself with that one, ever since Afghanistan Tony didn't like being anywhere near where the team was questioning someone. Since the fall of SHIELD they had to take care of it themselves and it brought back so many nausea inducing memories he'd started dry heaving at the very thought of it, his team mates had begun giving him very specific time consuming tasks to accomplish that were as far away from their interrogation room as they could manage. It was just one more way they all attempted to take care of their battered and broken psyches, there wasn't a single one of them without issues.

Her eyes narrowed at him, "This is not the time to dip your toe back into the water, we are not being gentle."

The Widow was never gentle, but she gave her team what they needed. "I hear exposure therapy is the best for anxiety."

"Not this time Tony." Just as surely as she commanded him to sit, he felt the compulsion to obey, only this time he fought it.

"No," He refuted. "I need to hear this. They have Steve." That was the crux of the issue, it really was.

He could see the moment she relented, her body tensing and relaxing, expression shifting a bit, fully aware that each tiny movement was only observed because she allowed it. Then she nodded, almost more to herself then to him, "Fine. He is currently in with Clint and Sam."

Tony stood on numb legs and followed her, noticing people missing from her report, "The kids okay?"

"Wanda and Pietro brought him down, took quite a bit out of them, they've been checked over and have been sent to rest but will be fine." She reported, shimmer of pride in her voice. Wanda was her protégé, while Clint worked with Pietro. Their other newbie Sam had been working with Steve, though that was more team building than anything since the guy was well trained military like Rhodey. Tony had a lead on some new talent of his own, but well, that all might be brought to a screeching halt depending on exactly what happened here tonight.

His first good look at the guy had him seeing red, literally, the guy's eyebrows were split open over blooming black eyes and head wounds bled profusely, obscuring the man's features momentarily until Tony mentally cleared away the thick substance, stomach turning at the memories of why exactly he had the ability to do that.

Tony physically recoiled, because the man looked like someone had taken a flatiron to his face; repeatedly. The flesh was thickly scarred over, twisted and ugly with a sneer to match, the wounds older than this encounter with the Avengers. Tony found himself mentioning to Natasha, who hadn't left his side, "This guy must be good at pissing people off."

"Brock Rumlow, Hydra, he fought Cap and Falcon in DC and ended up with a nice new face. So, I'd say your answer is a resounding yes." Her lip quirked up into a little smirk, he knew it was in full view of their prisoner and meant for intimidation. None of them were going to show that any of this fazed them in the slightest, that was the other point of keeping Tony as far away from interrogations as possible since he couldn't be sure he wouldn't break persona. He knew that logically it was the best strategy. This was a whole different game though. His point made clearer when she continued speaking in a low monotone that he knew would be impossible for their captive to overhear, having developed it with Steve as the guinea pig with his enhanced hearing. "He had a bomb, Scarlett Witch contained the blast until Quicksilver could run it out of population range. It's what drained them so bad. Scarlett's still practicing holding two targets at once and Silver almost didn't get clear. We we're all trying to fight our way to them when Cap was taken." It didn't matter that this part was damn near impossible to overhear, or that this man likely knew who they all really were, even that it was unlikely he'd survive this night; it was ingrained in them that if they were on mission it was callsigns only.

Tony caught what she didn't say, this was Hydra's little ring leader on this operation. He was good; divide them up, make the youngest of them vulnerable, then go in for the kill. "He knows us." Not a question, so he was slightly surprised to get an answer.

"Which means we know him." That same low tone turned deadly and Tony felt his bones chill.

Tony forced himself to actually look up and watch what he came to see. Now for obvious reasons he had never seen Clint do this and never even entertained thoughts about Sam being involved so he looked with the kind of detached fascination he used to observe Loki's magic or Thor's hammer, something he knew logically existed because it was right in front of his eyes, but every bit of his hard-won knowledge battled against the very notion of it.

Sam was strong and long and lean, standing behind the bound Rumlow who'd been forced to the concrete onto his knees, arms bent and trapped behind him. Sam had planted his feet firmly and put a hand on each shoulder of their prisoner, holding him in place for Clint who stood in front.

Clint's sharp eyes were focused and dark, blank of emotion like Natasha's had been. The back of his hands were red and streaked with drying blood, none of it Clint's, the archer too careful of his hands to compromise them. Too good at causing pain to need to. He knew soft spots, pressure points, could bring grown men toppling to the ground in tears as a child. The Widow was not the only one trained to make it hurt. His training different, one of self-preservation and desperation, but he learned his trade efficiently.

Tony watched him work the bound man over and tried to find an objection, make himself hate it the way he always did, find the nausea inside himself; the distaste. Except he couldn't. This was for Steve. His Steve. Tony did not have a normal moral code, he built his first firearm when he was seven for crying out loud. When it came to the people he loved he would forget everything, right or wrong, burn the world to ashes or build it up brick by brick, so long as it made them safe and happy.

Tony found himself not looking at Rumlow, focusing at the pull and release of Clint's muscles. His uniform was always sleeveless, giving him range of motion to shoot, and watching biceps almost as thick as his own calf lunge forward was another trick Tony used to distance himself. Seeing Sam planting himself like an oaken guardian behind the tableau was another eye draw, reminding him of his Rhodey, thinking the two would get along. Good men, capable and skilled, but willing to toe the line of ethics and morality if it meant pulling a friend out of the line of fire.

Wait.

And then he knew. What he had to do, and what this bastard was waiting for. "It has to be me." He spoke softly first, finding the words, then more firmly to get Natasha's attention. "Rumlow will talk to me, that's what he's waiting for."

She just quirked an eyebrow, waiting, knowing he would explain. "He knows us, all of us, enough to get this deep into it with Hawkeye and not say a word or crunch down some cyanide. They targeted Cap out there and actually managed to catch the stubborn bastard, so there is something else he wants here, and I'm the only one at the compound that wasn't in the field. So, by process of elimination, it's me he wants."

"Unless he wants Scarlett and Silver for capturing him," She pointed out.

Tony turned it over in his mind, "Unlikely, he's bound and pretty beaten up by now. Not the best time for the revenge speech. These guys are all drama queens. No, he's here for a reason. Think, why was the leader of the operation the decoy? Smacks of the Loki on the Helicarrier incident. Let me try something, and if it doesn't work, Hawkeye can flex some more."

"Subterfuge is not your strong suite." She observed bluntly.

"Good thing I'm not going in subtle then, right?" He put on all his charm, lighting up with a teasing grin before sauntering over to the trio in the middle of the room, wishing he had a scotch or something to fiddle with in his hands; made great props when he was improving.

Iron Man was larger than life, came on strong and never stopped, Tony Stark wasn't much different most days. He came up to Clint and patted his shoulder, the one attached to the arm and hand he was currently using to jab a thumb into Rumlow's much abused and likely broken eye orbit. "Round's up, I'm tapping in." He snarked, shouldering Clint away with a shove and giving Sam a flippant salute that earned him rolled eyes and scoff for Rumlow's benefit, but there was a knowing gleam to the dark eyes that gave Tony some back-up in this plan.

One look and he knew Rumlow couldn't see anymore, eyes swollen shot and blood running down his face obscured any chance of that, his scarred cheeks and lips had been torn and gashed, the flesh not healed enough to withstand Clint's ministrations. His nose was broken and dripping sluggishly.

Despite it all, Rumlow was smiling, "Tony Stark." It didn't matter that his teeth were red stained, and there was the distinct rattle-rasp of breathing with broken ribs, Rumlow's voice was triumphant and Tony knew he was right and his heart turned to stone.

"It seems you have something of ours." No need to beat around the bush.

That red grin was chilling in a way completely different from Natasha's, "Oh no, I think you mean I have something of yours Tony Stark. A certain Captain Rogers with more nobility then sense."

Tony's knees nearly went out but he locked them and refused to give in, Stark men were made of Iron. "Mine, ours, when you fuck with the Avengers, it's kind of the same thing. Ask Loki for details."

"All for one huh? Didn't know the Captain was such a good little bitch, should have made an offer when he was my Strike commander." From one heart beat to the next all Tony was aware of was the ringing in his ears and Rumlow's broken breathing, then the pain in his hand made itself known. He looked down to find his fist clenched so hard his knuckles were white, or they would be, if they weren't coated in blood from Rumlow's nose. The solid crunch and pop of a successful hit on already separated cartilage only registering after the fact.

"You tell me right now what you've done with our Captain, and I'll just have you killed. You wait any longer and I'll have the little red trump card in our pocket called up, how does spending the rest of your miserable life stuck in your worst nightmare sound?" Tony threatened, knowing full well this guy was waiting for the perfect opportunity to sing like a canary, and terrified to think about why.

The grin was back, and like a heat seeking missile, Rumlow's face turned in the direction of Natasha. "Sister, is that you?" He was practically cackling now, no matter how much laughing had to be hurting him, he was only getting more flamboyant.

Tony looked into the face of Natasha and saw only imminent death. Her words were bitten off chunks of ice, "You are nothing like me Creature." Of course, absolutely no one in the room missed the lack of a denial.

"Now, is that any way to speak to family?" Rumlow was crowing now, but there was a burst of rapid movement, the man letting out a stunned howl of pain having not braced for the assault; and Tony realized Sam had driven his knee into Rumlow's kidney with wicked force and brutal accuracy.

"She can speak any damn way she pleases, you took our family." Sam spat at Rumlow, digging his knee in sharply for good measure before settling back into his steady guarding stance.

Tony liked Sam, he was a good guy.

"I know what they are going to do with him." Natasha said quietly, looking at the still grinning visage of Rumlow, swallowing her own urge to throttle him. It wasn't time yet, he might still have something useful for them.

"Are you going to share with the class?" Tony had already broken character in a hundred little ways, he needed to regain some swagger or he'd blow it completely.

"They are attempting to upgrade their assets." She replied with a wry grin, that made the bottom drop out of Tony's stomach.

"And why exactly do they need Cap?" Clint was in the least danger of getting his hand bitten off for getting too close to the Widow right now, so he took the lead.

She looked at Rumlow with a sneer marring her beautiful features, "Because the best they could train up with the current status quo is this pathetic mongrel. They want a purebred."

Tony felt Sam's eyes on him, then flit back and forth from Natasha and Clint, then back to Tony, "This making sense to anyone else?"

Natasha gave him a measuring look, ignoring the grinning and bleeding captive kneeling in front of him, and decided to trust him with a few tidbits. Testing the waters for the future. "You did hear him earlier, right?"

"I don't believe anything retrieved under interrogation until confirmed," Sam admitted with a slight shrug, raising a few opinions of him, but he didn't need to know that.

"He wasn't wrong entirely, just drastically over-qualifying himself." She brushed off Rumlow as lower than an ant. "We share half our genetics, but not the same way, and he's nothing but a mongrel raised to be Pierce's attack dog."

Rumlow's grin dimmed a bit while Sam's brows drew together in thought, trying to understand. "This guy a victim?"

Her harsh laughter sounded through the room, "He had his crossroad's moment and chose to walk the path he's on. Unlike myself and Soldat, he never had trigger words implanted in his brain, he's the one who puts them there, and he likes doing it." Her edges softened, just enough to give Sam what he needed and nothing more. "There will always be people who enjoy causing pain and destruction, this man is one of them. Do not blame it on his blood or his past, there is something in his head, the way he thinks. It is just as broken as his bones."

"Ah, question," And just for dramatic effect Tony raised his hand. "How the fuck do you know this bastard's telling the truth? You got more siblings running around we don't know about?"

"I wasn't sure he was one," Natasha explained. "The files didn't name the children, but he called me sister and everything else fits from what I was able to dig out of the info dump."

"Who's children?" Tony felt like he knew, but at the same time, he was not letting this go unsaid.

"The Winter Soldier's." She responded evenly.

The only one who wasn't feeling any kind of shock was Clint since he had already known about this, but Rumlow was grinning again and opened his mouth to mock her, "Our father looks so pathetic when he's screaming in that chair, I almost hate to admit it."

Before anyone could blink Natasha was on him, her hand clamped around his throat, not so tight he couldn't breathe at all, but tight enough to make him feel he was slowly strangling. "I warned you." There was no change in volume or tone, her voice was the same no matter that she was steadily choking the life out of him. "I am nothing like you. Soldat may be father to you, but he was mother to me." There was emphasis there, and the grip she had on his throat got tighter. "Now, do you know where our dear Captain is?" The false sweetness dripped from her voice and he flinched away from it, but her hand came with it, the bruising force not shifting.

He shook his head sharply, that hand not leaving any breath for words, and her lips turns up at the ends. Her whole expression was sharp and deadly. "Thought so. You wouldn't let yourself get taken and have possession of that kind of information. This has been planned far too carefully." Then with two sharp movements Natasha moved fluidly from strangling the breath from his lungs to shoving the heel of her palm against the ruins of her nose in a maneuver that forced bone and cartilage up and back into his head. Rumlow fell limp onto the ground, Sam leaping back refusing to hold up a corpse.

After taking several steadying breaths, Tony demanded, "Alright, anyone want to tell me in plain fucking English what the hell happened to Steve?"

It was Clint who answered, filling in blanks and answering things others might not know, while knowing where boundaries were at. "Steve was taken captive while we were out on mission today. This bastard Rumlow was the ringleader and the kids managed to wrangle him long enough for Nat, Sam, and I to get him on the Quinjet back here. Kinda looks like that was part of the plan though since this interrogation didn't go like usual. He was focused in on you Tony before he heard Nat, safe to say he knew what you and Steve were to each other. This guy liked to go for the mindfuck approach, it's how he bagged Steve. Had his team distract Steve with information on Bucky so he wouldn't notice he was surrounded. Probably why he kept picking at the blood link with Nat. He's not the brightest tool in the Hydra shed for that one." Here he paused, giving them all a good long look. "Nat remembers her mother, last they interacted, Bucky did not seem to. Though because she was carried by him it made her stronger, faster, and a better healer. The serum in his system passed to her while she grew. Gives her an advantage over the ones he did not carry himself."

Nat put a hand on his wrist to signal him, "Clint, tangent."

"Sorry," He apologized, before continuing. "If Nat and I are following the same train of thought then it's probably something along the lines of this. We know Bucky has been used for breeding before, for lack of a better term, and we know the children are stronger when he's been the mother not the father. Best guess is they are going to try and breed him to Cap, the original Supersoldier, and see what they get from that."

Tony's knees wobbled and this time he let them give, settling himself down as his vision blurred. "We may have a problem." His eyes were wet, he brushed them, and found his thumb wet with tears. "Last week, when I got hurt. He was worried about me, I was worked up about the attack, and we weren't careful like we should be. Wasn't worried, if it happened it happened, you know." His voice choked off as he felt hands on him, two pairs, Sam and Clint he was pretty sure just judging on size.

The touch sent him into near hysterical laughter as words bubbled up, "Steve might already be pregnant."