"To say one waits a lifetime for his soulmate to come around is a paradox. People eventually get sick of waiting, take a chance on someone, and by the art of commitment become soulmates, which takes a lifetime to perfect." – Criss Jami, Venus in Arms.
It should have been a normal day, a normal day of Steve coming home and them having a night in or something. But it wasn't.
Something about the last mission—or maybe Fury showing him Project Insight—had made Steve conflicted about his job and role in S.H.I.E.L.D, and he had left to seek the counsel of Peggy.
Nate understood.
Steve had joined S.H.I.E.L.D to protect people, to protect his country, and was simply to honest and good for the shady dealings the S.H.I.E.L.D did. To Steve, saving the people were the most important thing when in S.H.I.E.L.D, people could be sacrificed for information.
It had been hard enough for him to work with people that could be Hydra agents, but he had reasoned he could still do some good for the world in S.H.I.E.L.D and be in the perfect place to strike against Hydra when they were ready.
Steve had very strong morals; it was something that Tony had hated, something Bruce had admired, something Clint and Tasha scoffed at, and well Nate was in two minds. She admired his morals and his strong will—loved him telling stories of him pre-serum when he stood up against the bullies because he hated them and how he defended the weak (despite being weak himself at the time)—but she also knew strong morals could and would get him killed.
Growing up, no one had thought to instil morals into to Nate. Nanny had been a robot and didn't really have morals, and Tony had to have loose morals to make all the weapons he had in his life as well as being a successful business man.
It was at school when she first heard about morals, and her brilliant mind questioned every moral.
Nate didn't have very strong morals, she would do anything to keep those she loved safe and alive.
Steve could be the same yes, but he would never do it with the same ruthlessness she would as she destroyed everyone and anyone that dared to raise a hand against her family.
Still, even with her questionable and loose morals, she had questioned the wisdom of Project Insight and had privately thought it seemed something Hydra would use.
Nate shook her head to clear it from the thoughts before she checked the chocolate buns she had placed in the oven—chocolate was something the baby loved almost as much as she had as a child so she had learnt to bake chocolate cake and buns (Steve had playfully complained that he was going to get fat from eating all the buns, he had immediately looked guilty when Nate burst-out in tears at the word fat).
A sudden knock at the door made her stand up, alertness tensing her limbs. She removed one of Steve's guns from the kitchen draw before she began to walk—more like waddle now that she was in her eighth almost ninth month—slowly to the door.
Peering through the eyehole made her see as sight that caused her to curse before she unbolted the door and opened it.
"Nick…?"
Fury looked like he had just fought a war and had been losing.
She pressed the gun into his hand—knowing that despite the fact he was injured, he would still have a better aim then her—before helping into the apartment and to the living room. She helped him fall into the one armchair they owned before making a move to get a first-aid kit when a strong bloody dark hand wrapped around her wrist.
Nate looked at him in both confusion and concern before Fury put a single finger to his lips before handing her a necklace—a necklace that she knew hid a USB.
She took it and slipped it around her head as Fury pulled his phone out.
Hydra is making its move.
She swallowed deeply as she stared at the text.
Oh god.
Feeling her knees go weak, she moved to sit on the couch and reached out to pat Howie to help her calm down.
Hydra was making its move. Fury had been severely hurt—almost killed—by them already. Steve was going to fight against them. She couldn't be by his side, she was pregnant. She was a liability, a glaring weakness to Steve. Her baby was in danger.
They won't let you leave DC. Fury's message promised her as she stared fearfully at him.
"Your buns are burning." Fury drily told her, making her go and rescue them from the oven.
My baby. Steve. My baby. Steve. Baby. My Steve. My baby. My Steve. My Baby. My Steve. Her thoughts rambled as she dumped the ruined buns in the bin and breathed deeply through her nose.
She let out the breath shakily before steeling herself and returning to Fury's side.
My Baby. My Steve. My Baby. My Steve. Danger. Hydra. My Baby. My Steve. My Baby. Danger. Danger. My Baby. My Steve. My Baby. My Steve. Her thought continued to scream in the back of her mind and her head throbbed in pain as she rubbed her temples.
She couldn't afford to break-down. Not now, not when Hydra was making its move.
The sound of one of his old records made Steve pause outside the door of his apartment. Nate didn't really listen to them without him—she had grown up on Tony's loud metal-music and preferred punk/pop music herself.
He strained his senses, trying to hear the slightest sound that meant Nate was in trouble and needed him, but it was abnormally quiet under the sound of the music. He breathed in deeply through his nose and caught the scent of burned chocolate buns—Nate hadn't let any of them burn since her first batch.
Nate.
Alarm bells were ringing in his head, something was very wrong.
Nate.
He tested the door handle, tensing as it clicked softly open, and cautiously stepped into his hallway with the sense of wrongness growing. Nate never left the door unlocked.
Nate.
He glanced to the side to see his shield exactly where he left it and silently grabbed it and held it ready as he crept down the hallway towards the light of the living room.
Nate.
He peered around the corner and met two pairs of dark eyes—one pair belonged to Howie and the other to Nate—and almost sagged in relief at the sight of her.
The relief was short-lived when he realised how pale her face was and how wide her dark eyes were as she stared in horrified silence at him.
"About time you got home, Captain." Fury's voice made him step fully into the living room, shield still on his arm, and wary as he moved to stand protectively over where his wife was sitting.
"What happened?" Steve asked tensely as he took in the sight of the bloody and damaged director.
"My wife kicked me out." Fury smirked before revealing the screen of his phone.
The place is bugged.
"I didn't know you had a wife." Nate commented as her hand reached for his, he squeezed it in an attempt to reassure her. He knew it wouldn't work, but ached to reassure her though he didn't know what was happening.
"Not many do." Fury told them.
SHIELD has been compromised. Trust no one.
"I trust you." Fury got up and moved achingly slow.
Nate squeezed his hand strongly three times quickly—their silent code for Hydra—and Steve wanted to close his eyes.
He wanted to close his eyes to the world and deny it. Deny what Fury just told him, deny what Nate had warned him silently, deny that Hydra was making their move and deny the fact that his very pregnant wife was in danger because of them and because of him.
They were going to have a baby soon, and Hydra decided now was the perfect time to act? Nate wouldn't be able to defend herself against them, Steve had to protect her and their child—but part of him rebelled at the thought of not fighting against Hydra, not putting down the threat to his wife and child, not kill those that hailed from the division that had helped kill Bucky, not destroying the infection that had corrupted the division his friends had built together and not defending the world against the poison that was Hydra.
How could he chose between his wife and child—HIS FAMILY! IT WAS HIS FAMILY GOD DAMN IT! WHY?—and the world?
Shots piercing through the silence and through Fury broke him from his thoughts and he automatically moved to protect his scared wife who let out a single shocked screamed before Steve hulled her up and against him while he placed his back against the wall, his hand joining hers on her expanded stomach.
The door crashed opened and their neighbour was suddenly there with a gun in hand.
"I'm agent thirteen." She informed him when she saw him raise his shield. "I was sent by Fury to watch over you and your wife."
Carefully the agent crouched down beside the fallen director as Steve caught sight of the assassin through the broken window.
He looked at his wife with conflicted blue eyes while she looked back in understanding.
"Go." She told him and both of them understand what she was really telling him.
Save the world, Captain. I'll be fine.
And though everything in him screamed not to leave her, he did as Nate ordered and went chasing off after the assassin—not knowing that soon he wouldn't be seeing her for three long and dangerous days, not truly knowing the danger she would be in, not knowing that his past was about to give him a sucker punch in the form of a ghost, and not knowing that his wife could and would give birth in those three days.
"You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it." - Albus Dumbledore, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.