NOTES: I wrote this not quite a year ago, which means it was penned before Wishes and Nightmares was even close to finished. I'm not sure why exactly this is the story I needed to write that day, but it was and I've been sitting on it ever since.
the_wordbutler deserves thanks as always for not only cleaning up my words but pushing me to write more in this lovely Nadiaverse.
And two more things:
1) The next multi-chapter fic in the Nadiaverse series will start in two weeks. It's called What We Become, and we'll be going back to Natasha as the narrator.
2) Since I have the day off tomorrow (hooray for Presidents), I'm fielding questions about my writing. Feel free to ask me anything, but if it's too spoilerly, I won't answer. At least not with great detail. For more information, check out this post on my tumblr.
She walks into their quarters late at night. Steve's smile lets her know he's happy to have her home from her mission, but his eyes immediately go to the bandage and patch of white gauze on the inside of her right arm and worry crosses his face.
"What's wrong?"
"I have the flu."
"You don't get blood drawn to find that out. What happened?"
Natasha sets her bag down and puts her hands in her hips. "I thought I was pregnant," she admits quietly. She doesn't look at him, can't look at him, when she says it. She's felt foolish enough in the last few days, halfway convincing herself that her nausea was something other than a virus Nadia passed on from the four days she was in daycare last week. Her daughter only attends the S.H.I.E.L.D. childcare facility when Darcy and all the uncles are too busy to babysit, and Nadia never fails to get sick when she does.
Even though Natasha isn't looking at Steve, she can sense his sudden stillness.
"But I'm not," she continues, "so nothing to worry about." She hates herself for not being able to say it convincingly, hates herself more for letting it bother her so. She already has more than she should ever desire; she doesn't have the right to ask for more.
He rises from the couch and wraps in his arms. She's still not used to the open display of affection even after being together for three years, but pushes the uncomfortableness down and nestles against his chest, breathing in his familiar scent. She then remembers why she's in this mess at all and tries to push away, but he only holds her tighter. "Don't—flu, remember?"
"Nadia puked five times while you were gone, twice directly on me. If I haven't gotten sick yet, I'm not going to."
At the reminder of her daughter's illness, she does shove him away. He doesn't stop her as she briskly walks to their daughter's room and cracks the door open. The not-quite three-year-old is sprawled across her tiny bed, limbs in every direction and sheets tangled around her. Even though she is wholly Natasha's, she sleeps like Steve when he has a bed to himself.
She hears Steve walk up behind her and leans into his touch when he pulls her against him with an arm around her waist. His chin rests on the top of her head as he whispers, "She hasn't had a fever in twelve hours. Hasn't gotten sick in almost a day."
"Good," Natasha breathes. "Thank you for taking care of her."
"It's fine. It's better now that she can talk instead of having to play the guessing game of what was hurting like before. That daycare is a breeding ground for infections. I hate when we have to put her in there." She pats the arm wrapped around her waist. It eats at him more than her whenever Nadia is sick, which is impressive. But she knows it's his fears of somehow passing on a childhood plagued with weakness and disease that irrationally scares him.
"At least this time it wasn't a double ear infection," Natasha says.
"Well, if she gets one now, I'm blaming you. And then blaming the daycare." He presses a kiss to the top of her head. "I'll give you a minute," he tells her before untangling from her and moving out of the bedroom. It's their routine when she gets in late at night: Steve waits up, she gives him a mini-debrief of how things went, then he lets her check in on Nadia by herself before the two of them fall into bed together.
Natasha takes a few more steps into the room before sitting down on the floor. She still smells like gunpowder and smoke, and that's not what she wants Nadia to wake up to, even though her arms ache to hold her daughter. She sits for ten minutes watching the child breathe and twitch in her sleep. She wonders what dreams she's having—the morning Natasha left, Nadia spent breakfast talking about playing with big, pink ducks. Natasha was halfway to Asia before she realized her daughter meant the flamingos she'd seen at the zoo the week before.
Feeling only marginally more at peace, Natasha stands up. She stops herself from placing a gentle kiss in on her daughter's curly head for fear of reinfecting her. Medical said the virus should've already run its course, but Natasha doesn't want to run the risk of getting puked on.
She hears Steve puttering around with dishes as she moves from Nadia's bedroom to their own. Once inside, she kicks off her boots and peels out of her jeans, t-shirt, and underwear. She waits till she's in the bathroom to unwind the bandage holding the piece of gauze in place against the inside of her elbow. By that time, Steve's joined her. He reaches out and gently takes her by the arm. Turning her around, he places a soft kiss against the spot where they drew blood.
She pulls her arm away. "I need to shower."
"How are you feeling?"
All she has to do is see the way his eyes have shifted from their normal bright blue to a deep, near-navy to know why he's asking. She nods her answer and turns on water as he strips. She's barely under the spray with shampoo in her hands before his fingers join hers. She lets him take over lathering her hair, closing her eyes at the touch. Her hands fall to his hips to steady herself a moment before she douses a washcloth in liquid soap and wipes away the grime of her mission. He steps back and lets her rinse off before pulling her in and pressing himself against her.
His kiss says all the things elusive words can't: his peace at having her safely home, his longing for going without her for the last five days, his strength promising to beat whatever fears and disappointments she has. The last year hasn't been easy on them. Their world went from the chaos of building a team to building a family, and now that the dust is mostly settled, it's left them both kind of taken aback at what their lives have become. The last eight months saw a lot of fights and a lot of moments of strained silence, but they feel mostly whole now. She hopes this peace that's been building between them for the last couple of months lasts.
She loses herself in the contact for a bit before reaching behind to shut off the water and step out of the shower. He lets her make it as far as the counter before grabbing her by the waist and hoisting her up onto the cool, white marble.
A part of her mind still finds a way to make comparisons to Clint. But unlike her relationship with the archer, she knows this act isn't a distraction. This isn't a replacement for a needed discussion that goes ignored until they almost lose everything. This is a preamble for the discussion to come. Both she and Steve do better with actions than words. And they use this physical opportunity to alleviate some of the frustrations with the topic that needs discussing. She closes her eyes and gives into the sensations, letting them wash away everything from the last few days.
Once they finish and tumble their way into bed, she finds that despite what's just transpired, she still needs contact. She curls herself against the side of his solid body, head on his shoulder and hand on his chest. He places a hand over hers and wraps his other arm around her, holding her tight against him.
"Should we make an appointment with Doctor McClellan?" he asks.
"Why?"
She feels him shrug under her. "Maybe this was something instinctual. Maybe something's changed and your body is trying to tell you that."
She doesn't tell him that she's already had the thought, wondering if somehow exposing her to the serum in his body could undo her infertility. "We've been through this before."
"I know, I know," he sighs, "but... What if something's changed?"
She rolls slightly to rest her chin on his shoulder. "Then even if it has, you're still going to be afraid that if you father a child you'll either pass on a fragile immune system or the serum itself. One option making for a lot of visits to medical and late nights worrying, the other making a child a target."
He nods. "Like they wouldn't be a target either way." His fingers delve into her damp curls and she tries not to think about the rat's nest she'll wake up with in the morning if he keeps this up. "There's always adoption," he suggests. "We both know what's like to not have parents around."
"You worry that because of our names we'll receive preferential treatment. I worry that it's only matter of time before whoever it is becomes parentless again."
He looks at her. "And you worry that I won't ever be happy unless I have a kid that shares my genes, even though I've told you a million times I don't care. Nadia is mine, and it doesn't matter what her DNA says. And I'd feel the same way if we adopted someone else."
"What about surrogacy?"
He chews on the thought. "It's hard enough finding a babysitter when the rest of the team is busy. Can imagine the process of finding someone to do that?"
"Be even harder finding an egg donor."
Steve shakes his head. "No, I'd want it to be you. You or nothing at all."
"I'm not sure that's physically possible." Natasha shifts back to her head resting on his shoulder. "What if I can't love another one? I didn't think I'd love her as much as I do, didn't think I was capable. What if I can't love another one?"
He places a kiss on the top of her head. "I know exactly what you mean."