Unbroken

{Chapter 2}

Three days later...

"Pull yourself together soldier," he chanted as hot beads of water rained over strained muscles that were aggregated from his hard and pressing workout in Clint's hay stacked filled barn had slowly breathed relief against the sensation of heat pelting against his nude form. Steve opened his feverish blue eyes, blinking as splashes of water prickled against his long lashes.

All he saw was half empty shampoo bottles and soap bars on shelves. His thoughts swirled. His mouth hung lamely open, and his lips caught the drops as he tasted water tricking down his raw throat. Frozen. His hand pressed against the wet tiles. His heart swelled as he caught a glimpse of Natasha's body wash. Daring himself, he popped the cap, and held the bottle close to his nose, inhaling the sweet scent of strawberry—vanilla. His senses came alive as he nearly dropped the bottle in the wake of his thudding heart beat.

Steve shifted with a light groan. He was displaced. Everything was piling on his chest. The weight of responsibly and the protection of his growing child.

The fear knotted in his veins of fighting his enemies to spare the baby's life while they dangled it on strings in front of him. He know that his baby would become a weakness—a leverage that HYDRA or AIM would use to break him. He didn't know how to respond to the torrent rush of emotions that pinned him against the wall.

He was bewildered and aware that it came down to protecting the mother of his child—Natasha.

The world slowed around him. A cold and temperate calming brushed over his rigid muscles, he wasn't aware of the tears mixing in the water and steam. He didn't notice the old pain releasing from the battle scars that had raked over his heart from the day he failed to reach for Bucky's wounded hand when his red pounded in his mind and doubt controlled every wiring thought. He felt those burdens of guilt weighing upon his shoulders. He never unveiled them to anyone, because they alone were his to carry. He could hardly think. He knew this was home. Natasha ans his baby. He questioned himself, burying those words that become ingrained in his flesh and bone. "Will I be strong enough?" he said, inhaling the frothing clouds of steam.

Then he remember having a conversation with Clint Barton after surviving the AIM attack in borders of Bucharest Romania. They were sitting in a beaten and cobblestone tavern, sharing a glass of Țuică while trying to ease new battle wounds and the building tension formulating in their victorious bodies.

Natasha was pregnant. Clint was protective. And Steve was still trying to grasp the truth. "You can't freak out about this, Rogers." Clint said in a hushed voice. He pressed his back against the wall and lifted a half emptied glass blatantly to his lips, observant and trying to get a reading on Steve's emotional disposition. His gray eyes looked at the displaced super soldier sitting across from him, arms crossed and sky blue eyes held a firm gaze. Undaunted, the archer continued, "Natasha is good at hiding her emotions and manipulating men to what she wants. I feel sorry for you...Pregnant and a lethal operative. Not a good combination for someone who is out of experience."

Steve leveled a hardened stare, sighing in disbelief. His whole body was sagged and exhausted. He sat was sitting upright, leaning forward attentively, his arms folded on the table; straining the amount of muscle that constricted under his leather jacket. He frowned. "I still can't believe this is happening...I never thought I would be a father. I love kids, but I haven't had much experience with them." he shamefully admitted. His eyebrows creased into uncertain expression and blue eyes looked utterly distant. "I'm still trying to adapt to this new world-How will I raise a son or daughter with no understanding on how everything works without a machine-I-I mean a cordless pocket phone telling you to turn left?"

Clint smirked at that, amusement was clearly etched in his rugged features. "Everything will be fine." He said in low and assuring syllables."As long has you have trust in Nat you're going to make it out alive, Cap."

"Yeah..." Steve grinned a little and lifted his glass up, laying all his attention on his new legacy growing inside Natasha's womb. His chiseled features rearranged into a stoic expression. A ragging breath emerged out of his chest. "I just hope I can be strong enough..." His low voice trailed. He looked into Clint's eyes, looked and tried to see the assurance welled beyond the grayish chasms, he couldn't. Not entirely. His own blue eyes narrowed and heart splintered and trembled that he couldn't feel his pulse for at least a few seconds. Was this a blessing or a reward for his sacrifices? Was it another test that heaven bestowed upon him? Whatever it was, he knew one thing was ascertain. Natasha and him were beginning a new life into this real world of lies and deceptions. Their baby will grow up to become a future Avenger—a protector and shield to new generations.

Clint put his glass down, and spoke the truth. "Steve, listen to me, your entering her world. A world that is dangerous and unpredictable. She will always have enemies hunting her down. You need to keep her safe. Don't let her run or hide. Keep her out of the dark." He paused and felt his heart pinch. "If she does run, Nat always goes where she first started to face her fears." He slipped a piece of paper across the table. "She always goes back to Russia...A dance school owned by the late Andrei Shostakov. It is the only home the Black Widow runs to..."

Steve's stomach churned. He tried to display inward strength. He felt his heart twisting. Andrei Shostakov was a devil in disguise. He was held accountable of butchering young women if they showed compliance to his orders. Ballet was a foil of deception into training young girls to become operatives. Peggy Carter wrote the information down in the notes she kept in storage for him. He knew the extent of the horrors created in the Red Room. He never dared to open Natasha's KBG file.

After taking a gulp of the drink, and allowing it to burn down his throat, Steve gave Clint a short nod as he took the paper and stuffed it into a pocket.

"Understood, Agent Barton." he affirmed, he used the voice of Captain America, defiant, confident and resilient.

"Good," Clint said, easing his stiff muscles against the chair. Everything was tightening into knots. The only ease that would decrease the aches was a hot shower. Settling his glass down, and shifted his eyes to the bar while he rose from the booth."Now, I'm going to tell the bartender to put everything on Stark's tab."

He paused in mid step, feeling the need to help his friends experience a safe and wonderful nine months. His wife Laura gave him instructions to ask Steve if he would move into their overly large farmhouse. It was a safe haven to raise a family. Clearing his throat, he took a moment to regather his words and looked at the soldier with brotherly gaze. "Listen, in case you need a place to stay. A secured and well protected off the radar kind of place...My farmhouse has lots of room minus my rowdy and spoiled kids," He offered with a gruff chuckle. "What I'm trying to say, Steve, is that my family would be more than happy to welcome you and Nat into our home," he insisted, refusing to allow Natasha to sleep in a cluttered unprotected apartment in Brooklyn. "If that's what you want?"

Composed to answer the archer, Steve gave him a light humble smile, the soldier inside of him agreed. He needed to keep Natasha and his child safe."I think it's better that Natasha is out of the city during her pregnancy. "Yes, I will accept your offer." he inhaled deeply as he words fell silent. He narrowed his eyes to his hand and traced a finger a vein. It was a all daunting for him to understand, that the same surge of enhanced strength, speed and agility—the life blood of Captain America was now merging with his baby. He couldn't pretend to hide his concerns of the future and the dangers that his child would face under the shadows of the Avengers, but he had to stay positive and enjoy this new chapter of his life. He was going to be a father. That's all that mattered. "Thank you, Clint for allowing us to share your home with your family."

Clint nodded in return, "Don't mention it, Steve." he smiled. "Natasha is already an aunt to my kids. They adore her." He placed his hand on super-soldier's shoulder. "When we arrive on American soil, I'll have Laura rearrange the guest bedroom, and then ask Stark to start designing the nursery in the Avenger's Tower. We're one big family on this new mission, Cap. You're not alone."

Steve opened his mouth to protest, but then clamped it shut before he said anything. He'd allowed his instincts to trust Clint and then put all of focus on Natasha and the baby. He turned his blue eyes on her— his Natasha— she was leaning against the bar dressed in leather stealth uniform, glowing and still while sipping a glass of ice tea. Her scarlet hair looked disheveled and ivory features smudged from the battle. Her green eyes held a dangerous allure as he fell into her trance, and walked closer to the bar. A smiled bloomed across her obscured face when she looked at the beads of sweat forming on his forehead, and she never broke eye contact.

"You didn't have to risk your neck out there for me," she whispered, placing the glass down. She felt her bladder twinging. "I know how to protect myself, Steve."

His blue eyes became glassy with building moisture, and his gaze softened. There was resistance in his baritone. "You're the mother of my child. I am obliged to risk everything to keep you safe."

"If we're in this together, Rogers. There needs to be some rules set between us. Obviously trust is no longer the issue, but personal space is something that needs to become addressed. I know you want to keep me and our baby safe...I know how to fight for my life, Steve. I've been doing it all of my life."

Natasha brushed her palm over his chiseled jaw. A faint stubble scraped over her fingers, but his skin was soft and smooth. When she drew her fingers into his blonde hair, a wave of intense nausea struck her. Wincing, she tore herself away, and nestled her arms over her womb, but she refused to show weakness in front of him.

"This is all new to me, Steve. Having a baby...A baby that will become just like you. Strong and fearless." Dread formed a lump in her throat. She needed to hear the security in his voice."I want you to be at my side...Not as Captain America, but as Steven Grant Rogers."

Steve gripped her shoulder. He tried to regain his clarity. In such a distant past, he'd already seen death and turmoil that became ingrained in his flesh and bone.

He had dreams of engaging battles with Howling Commando's facing HYDRA in the snow topped forest of Eastern Europe— some that had a strange recollection when he dared to venture into the memories of James Barnes—the blue flames of the Winter Soldier fried his heart each time he looked back to the moment when the graphite mask clanged on the cement and the ghostly figure turned and looked at him with dead and cold eyes. Almost a electronic gaze of a programmed machine. Something beyond the chrome and metal wiring was his best friend. He avowed to find him again—he also had a baby coming into the world—a future where nothing was certain just surviving and living with the woman he loved. "I'll be right where you need me to be, Nat," he said, holding that promise in his voice. ...with you."

Her green eyes sparkled, despite her morning sickness, briefly containing the availing pain within her body. She wanted to melt into his broad arms. "How are we going to survive? Everyone that has a vendetta against us will want our baby, Steve?" she whispered as her lips curled into a frown, and she nuzzled into his the firm planes of his chest. Her muscles tightened as his mouth brushed heat against her jaw. "We need to keep this in the dark. Only a smile circle can know about this big secret."

"Affirmative," he responded as he voice dropped deep and low against her skin. "I want you to relax." He caressed his lips along the curve of her jaw. "I'll handle everything."

She smirked darkly, lifting her head up to meet his clear trusting gaze. "I think I might get used to this..."

He faintly smiled, and enveloped a warm kiss over her lips. They pressed together, not moving just feeling the other's heart beating. "I can tell you're looking forward to ordering me around," he said against her skin. His hands threaded gently through her ringlets, and his warmth filled her. "Just breathe, Natasha."

She closed her eyes, and breathed out her fears.

Steve rested his forehead against hers. Their noses mashed with gentle pressure. He dropped his hand down, and massaged soothing heat over her tender womb. She stared into his piercing blue eyes.

"I love you, Natasha." he said, with no hesitation. Just pure truth.

"I love you too, Steve." she echoed. He tilted her head back just slightly and crushed a wet kiss of pure compromising heat over her lips. The world around them faded and they both closed their eyes on that moment when their damaged and guarded hearts became whole with love, trust and hope.

Cold water gushed over his skin, awakening his senses at a rapid rate, Steve snapped his eyes open and instantly reached for the handle. He shivered. His muscles seized and heart clenched as memories of suffocating under the black of dark ice invaded his mind. He trembled against feverish waves of panic which erupted within, breathed faltered and eyes sealed closed as he dropped to his knees and hugged his body.

Steve panted, each raspy breath brought a trickling brush of ice up his throat. "No," he wheezed, hot pained filled eyes slopped down his razor-edged cheeks. "Wake up, Rogers..." A frail whisper managed to escape through gritted teeth.

"Steve!" Natasha yelled, racing into the bathroom, she opened the glass door, and felt the coldness penetrated through her bones.

"I can't get out!" he roared, slamming his fists with shattering force against the tiled wall. "Too much-ice- ice!"

A star carved into the black ice above him, red expanded of the engraved shape. Blood. Dark and flowing through the cracks. It split over his shield.

Natasha crouched to his level, wrapping her arms over his bare and wet muscles "Hold on to me, Steve," she whispered, squeezing his shoulders like a vice, unyielding. Her lips pressed over the side of his and she took his speeding pulse.

She felt the world tilt underneath her. She never experience life trapped in a impasse of choice and emotion. Many of times when she reached a point of uncertainty, she relied on the instincts that the demons of the Red Room ingrained into her.

The world around her had changed in only a short period of time, and she had become absent from the halcyon awareness and the night terrors of being strapped onto a medical table, a gloved hand encompassed over her mouth and medical instruments piecing through compromised flesh.

Her eyes stilted opened, and she stared at the harsh light beaming over her feverish skin. Feeling trapped in a muzzily half darkened world. The place between a dream and subconscious, when where she could feel a sharp puncture invade her arm and a gush of liquid surging in her veins. Heart pounded in her ears, and everything grew distance. She felt everything—pulses of jagged energy and coldness. A terminal brush of fear against her rigid bones.

She trembled and fluttered, resigning in the thralls of pain, an staring a phantasms of bloodied figures looming in front of her with gloves clutching tools— she couldn't move. Colds hands applied pressure over her shoulders and a scream wrapped around her vocals. When a woman's hand encompassed a cloth over her chilled lips she drifted into a red glow, and felt pain enter the lower part of her strained abdomen. They had stolen something from her—a piece of her humanity.

She had been scarred, deep and mortified by those operations and forms of inhumane terror that butchered her womb and took away every piece of her humanity -dissecting and removing her soul and reshaping the matter into a form of perfection.

Everything had been a mess in her lithe form for a long time. Layers of her were now slowly threading back together as she felt security, warmth and contentment. Her lower body ached, readjusting to the growing clump of merging cells solidifying in her womb. A new was nestled inside of her—a tiny soul that shared half of Steve's DNA and hers. It was their baby. A son or daughter.

"I can't explain it Miss Romanova and I know its hard for you to understand. I have analyzed the blood and urine tests and the results are positive." Natasha felt her vision dim into swirling tunnel as she listened to the doctor words echo in her dulled ears. It was a routine physical. What did he mean by positive? Did she come in contact with an airborne toxin during her last recon mission in Spain? Or was it something far worse?

Violation.

Natasha tapped her polished nails against the sheet of paper crinkling underneath her. "What do you mean positive?" she asked with a bit in her voice.

She blankly stared at the silver haired doctor sitting on the wheeled stool, reading over her chart."When we checked the results of your blood levels we have discovered that the super-solider serum in Captain Steven Roger's blood has merged with your cells. Whatever scarred tissue your body sustained all these years after being harmed back in Russia. It has healed."

Natasha felt her senses come alive and bile in her stomach churned. Blood ran in torrents through her body. She felt immobilized, unable to think or speak in those few moments she heard the doctor reveal the truth. The air filled with a combination of tension and sweat. "I understand that you had an operation done that caused you to be barren...Unable to conceive?"

She nodded wordlessly, heart felt it dropped three levels from her chest. "It was a necessary in order for me to survive." She focused her gaze back on the chart.

"The test results display a positive reading." He narrowed his dark eyes to the chart, and then held his lips into a gentle smile as he looked directly into her owlish green eyes,"Congratulations, Miss Romanova, you and Captain Rogers are having a baby. As of today, your six weeks into the first trimester."

Natasha kept her toned arms enclosed over her ample breasts, protective and resistant. Splotches of red invaded her vision as the queasy feeling of bile riding up her throat prevent her from reacting to the shocking news. "How can this be even possible?"

The doctor flipped through the documents, she didn't look convinced. "Captain Rogers' body can undergo rapid cellular regeneration. Any injury he sustains can heal faster than the avenge human. You now carry that seem form of prime conditioning of the healing factor is inside you, Miss Romanova. In theory, whatever internal scarring the chemical enhancements had done to your biology the cells have been restored and damage tissue no longer exists. In nine months you will be giving birth to healthy baby with the same abilities as Captain America."

The Russian spy took a breath. Her body tensed. Tears filled her eyes as she crumpled with straying tears flowing over her ivory polished cheeks. She didn't know how to respond, but her heart beat halted to stop as she dared a glance at her trim stomach and tentatively caressed a slow and calm touch over her womb. It was no longer emptied or seared with disjointed tissue. It was restored. Steve gave her a wonderful gift. A blessing that proved his love and unbreakable devolution towards her. The soldier soldier serum penetrated deep within her, healed all marred wounds and made her whole again.

"I'm pregnant..." Her lips broke a part in a sharp and disquiet filled gasp; feeling everything surge within her. Emotions overcame the olden phantoms of pain. She felt the stirrings of everything that new mother would feel when news of carrying a new life brushed against their heart. There was fear, doubt, worry...but also joy and anew hope that she had a chance for redemption to erase her past sins with a new purpose. She tried to cram everything into the bubble of contentment all at once. "I'm having Captain America's baby..."

"Our baby," Increasing hope consumed her, Natasha spoke in a gentle tone against his ear, and reached for his hand. She guided his shaking fingers to over her thinned black sweater. "Feel our baby's strength, Steve." she said with a heaving breath, and then placed her hand on his jaw, turning his head towards her face.

Distress ran livid across his, placid slacked features, but she wouldn't give up. Natasha pulled him closer to her body. He thrashed miserably, bones grinding against muscle as he fought to push himself out of the delirium—out of the icy abyss. He was drifting further away from her, body convulsed and fingers twined into the material of her sweater. He was trembling with anguish and trepidation.

"I've got to put her in the water!" He yelled incoherently, words echoed against the glass walls of the stall. A cold blew through him, chilling his bones, rustling its way into his blood and slowly entering his heart. "Peggy..."

"Steve..." Natasha grabbed his hand and squeezed it. His pulse was spiking against her clutch. She'd had live through fear-hardened herself from attachment and human connection. Steve was her life. She wouldn't let him become stolen from her. "Come on, Rogers wake up," she said, her voice broken an filled with unease. She knew that breaching his space, infiltrating the barrier of his distress would become dangerous for her and the baby. Instead, Natasha contented herself to watch his lips move and listen to the sputtering words of inward pain rip out of his vocals.

"Bucky..." His voice sounded so raw and frantic against her ears."Take my hand. Don't let go...Bucky!"

It almost seemed like he was trapped inside a nightmare. Poisoned by regret and so much agony of losing everything in those seconds when the plane sunk into the arctic waters. Fury had warned her that Steve would endure relapse of memory if something triggered his thoughts to deflate. The Winter Soldier—Bucky was that trigger of his uncontrolled stresses. No soldier, no matter how strong or weak could ever escape that torment of staring at a degraded form of a man restricted to never feel or fight for his stolen humanity.

Steve had lost Barnes to HYDRA—he blamed himself for allowing the hands of evil to transform Bucky into a flesh and chrome weapon.

Natasha had to pull him out of that collapsing pit.

Feeling a dull throb in her stomach, the sensation of new life —redemption, Natasha stroked her lips over his chilled and drenched skin, holding a shaky kiss there for a few moments as she implored with heat warming over his frigid lips. She felt him was coming back to her. Soft and desperate. "Feel me..." she urged, breathlessly.

Steve flashed his eyes open. Awareness crawled back into him The ice melted. Natasha's arms wrapped around him.

"Natasha..." He moaned sluggishly and quiet. After several pants of breath, he managed to say. "It was all so real. The plane crash and the ice." He blinked the watery coating out of his unfocused blue eyes, and gulped down, his face creased with sickening discomfort. The hollow space in his chest throbbed."When I was being pulled under..." Another gulp of air. "I heard your voice, Nat."

She reached for his hand, fingers weaved together and closed into a tight, unbreakable clasp of trust. Then, she placed his hand over her belly, and looked down for a moment. Just a tiny moment. "It wasn't just me calling out for you, Steve."

Steve narrowed his dampened eyes, "I know," he choked out and dipped his hand down. He closed his eyes, and pressed his shaky lips onto her stomach. "I know."

"How do you feel now, Rogers?" she asked gently, threading her hands over his drenched ruffled blonde hair.

There was no more ice encasing over his bones. Just thermal heat coming from...Her body.

"You're warm," he said, mustering up the strength to smile through his anguish. Tracks of water ran down his face. He wrapped her into his embracing arms, and then clutched her like a shield against the hails of torment. He was recovering...His inner battles were growing intense and pain not ceased to seep into his bones. It was one thing the serum couldn't take away...Maybe she could.