It took nearly four days to go through all the evidence found in the warehouse. Steve wondered if things would've moved faster if there'd been more to find. May was kind enough to let her team stay and help go through and analyze things. There'd been some debate about whether they should collect everything they could and take it to a S.H.I. . base or study objects on site. After too many discussions for Steve's liking, they were given permission to keep whatever they found where they were and analyze in the warehouse.
Tony and Skye delved through technology to gather what files they could. Bruce and Simmons studied the cryo chamber and the large piece of machinery that looked like the dentist chair from hell. Fitz used his drones to carefully inspect the remainder of the warehouse to verify that it was as empty as it looked. Clint, Trip, Mack, and other agents kept lookout. Someone had led them to this location, and they could very well end up being sitting ducks. May and Phil—huddled in whispered conversations in the corner—wanted to make sure they weren't making themselves easy targets.
Two days after they'd set up shop, Natasha flew in. Steve watched her as she studied the surroundings. "Been here before?" he asked.
"The machinery looks familiar, but not the location," she answered. "If I've been here before, I don't remember it."
Steve knew Natasha's memory was nearly as crisp and reliable as his. Sure, she could've been blindfolded during transport or even a young girl at the time, but if she said she didn't remember it, then he believed her. He looked around to see if anyone was watching. "What about this?" he asked while pulling Bucky's dog tags out of his pocket just long enough for her to register what the object in his hand was.
She shook her head slightly. "He never wore those," she said quietly. "We weren't allowed anything that held meaning to who we were before we were pulled into the program. Do they know you have that?"
"No," Steve said. "I know I need to have them catalog it and see if there's any clues on it, but it's the first piece of him—Bucky, not this Winter Soldier—I've held in a long time."
Natasha stared at him for a moment before nodding in either sympathy or understanding. "Where did you find it?" she asked.
Steve looked over at the cryo chamber. "The floor of that."
He heard Natasha let out a little puff of anger. "He hated that thing, but that chair was the worst for all of us."
"What does it do?" Steve questioned.
"Wipes your memories. Gives you new ones. I was taken too young to remember anything about what life was like before the Red Room. Or at least, I hope that's true. They could've just as easily erased my childhood from my mind." Natasha didn't pause at the declaration. To anyone else, Steve knew that the statement was heart-breaking. It was to him. But to Natasha, it was life. "For me, and the other Black Widow agents, they also used it to give us false memories. We'd wake up as ballerinas or graduate students or whoever they needed us to be for a new mission. New identity and one hell of a headache."
"And Bucky?"
"It was different for him," Natasha replied. "Nearly all of his missions were covert; he didn't require a cover identity. When he was put in the chair, it was because he was starting to remember things, and that wasn't acceptable."
Steve swallowed as he turned towards the apparatus. "What's it like? The procedure?"
"Telling you won't help anyone," Natasha said. "Phil probably wants me to help out." Natasha ran her hand along his arm as she walked past him. He double checked to make sure she hadn't grifted the dog tags off his person, but they were still secure in his pocket. She hadn't explained the nature of the cryo chamber, but Bruce and Simmons had figured that out quickly enough. Their theory was that it was a cold storage unit that would freeze Bucky and prevent him from aging until he was needed for a mission was confirmed by a number of written logs Tony and Skye had uncovered.
The series of computer servers were enormous and ancient. It was apparently delicate work to collect and decode what scant files were kept there. The text files had been relatively easy, according to the tech gurus. The most time-consuming part was cracking the encryption being used. Once that was done, the files were copied to Tony's private server—recently redesigned and fortified after it was hacked by whomever was leaving breadcrumbs. After that, Phil and May did their best to verify the files' authenticity. So far, everything seemed to be checking out. Phil was limiting exactly what and how much Steve was allowed to read. Apparently the handler didn't want to reenact when Steve had run out of the diner in D.C.
At the end of the third day, they all wearily stood around a cramped conference table aboard May's plane. "What do we know?" Phil asked.
Skye swiped at the air above the table, and an inventory filled the space. "Number of logs, most of which we're still going through. Nothing new so far."
"Probably on purpose," Natasha commented. "Whoever is doing this doesn't seem keen on leaving behind obvious clues."
"Do we know who is doing it? And why?" Trip asked.
Phil shook his head. "We have a list of suspects, some of whom have been reportedly dead for years, but who knows if that's actually true. As for motive, your guess is as good as ours. What else did you and Tony find?" he asked Skye.
"Some video files, most of them corrupted, but there are one or two that still work."
"What do they show?" Steve asked.
The young woman's mouth opened and closed as she paused to find a way to state things. "From what we can tell, they were test runs of the equipment."
Steve turned to Phil. "I want to see them."
Phil grimaced. "It's not going to help anything."
"It can't be worse than my imagination," Steve replied.
"You don't know that for sure," Natasha warned quietly.
Phil stared him down a moment before sighing. "I'll forward you the video files when we're on our way back home. Fitz, did you find anything?"
"Nothing," the engineer answered. "The rest of the warehouse is suspiciously clean."
May shook her head. "It doesn't feel right. With all these breadcrumbs we've been chasing, it feels like they should've left something behind."
Steve felt the weight of the dog tags in his pocket. It was more than likely selfish of him to hide it away for himself, but he'd felt like he'd earned that. But if it meant finding out who was doing this or getting more information about his best friend…
The dog tags fell to the table with a clank. The occupants of the conference room stared at the object for a moment, trying to put together the puzzle pieces. Tony spoke first. "What the hell is that?"
"Exactly what it looks like," Steve responded.
"And when were you going to tell us about it?"
"When it was necessary," Steve answered.
Tony's nostrils flared. "When did you find 'em?"
"On our first pass through the warehouse. I pocketed them."
"Are you shitting me?" Tony yelled. "We've been busting our asses for the last few days trying to help you out, and you—"
"Watch it, Tony," Bruce warned. Tony clamped his jaw shut, spun around and stormed out of the room. Bruce gave a meek, apologetic half-smile. "I'll go take care of that," he said as he hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
Steve looked around the table to see if anyone else wanted to question his actions. Deep down, he knew they had every right to and should do so, but he was too raw about all of this to acknowledge logic.
Phil slowly reached out for the dog tags and passed them over to Simmons. "See if there's anything you and Fitz can get off of them that might tell us what we're supposed to do next."
"Yes, sir," she replied before she and her lab partner left with the dog tags.
"The rest of you make yourselves comfortable. The Quinjet will remained latched to the Bus and May will fly us all back home," Phil ordered. "Get some rest."
Steve stalked off toward the Quinjet attached to the plane's upper hull. He wished there was a punching bag on board, but that would have to wait until they returned to New York in a few hours. He headed to his ready room and accessed the computer console there, waiting for Phil to keep true to his word about forwarding the video files that had been found.
"You sure you want to watch that?" Natasha asked from the doorway. He hadn't heard her follow him, but he wasn't surprised that she'd done so.
"Why does everyone keep asking me that?"
"Because the rest of us can see James for what he became, and you're still trying to find signs of your best friend," she answered. "You won't find them on those videos. That's just more nightmare fuel."
Steve hung his head. "Tasha, I have to know what happened to him. It's my fault he fell from the train. I literally dropped him into this mess."
Natasha entered the room and ran her fingernails along his scalp. "Watching him being tortured decades ago isn't going to do anything to help him. He's gone, Steve. Let him be at peace."
Steve knew she was right, maybe not about the videos being worse than his nightmares. Those could get pretty awful. But watching the videos wouldn't do anything to help him or Bucky. It would just make things worse. He sighed and leaned into Natasha's body, rested his head against her stomach. He forced himself to think about the positive things—Nadia, their unborn child, the relationship they'd built. Reminded himself that the steps he'd walked after Bucky fell from the train weren't a punishment to make him feel alone forever, but rather the path the put him in a pretty amazing place.
Steve woke to Natasha poking him in the shoulder. "Let you sleep as long as I could, but we're running late," she said. "Get up."
"Hmm?" he groaned into his pillow, sleep still fogging his mind. "Late for what?"
"Meeting with Bruce and McClellan," Natasha answered. "Remember?"
Steve sat up and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Double date?"
Natasha snorted. "No. Results from the tests."
"What are you talking about?" Steve questioned.
Natasha sighed. "I thought super soldiers were supposed to be more coherent. Go get a shower, then we'll talk."
"Fine," Steve mumbled before climbing out of the cocoon of bedding. Under the hot spray of the shower, memories snapped into place and his synapses began firing.
They'd arrived home around noon the day before. They'd picked up Nadia from the McCoys and let the four-year-old decide how'd they'd spend the rest of their Sunday. Nadia had voted for a pillow fort and watching movies. Steve had tried his best to focus on the adventures of Merida and Ariel, but it was a challenge since he'd seen the movies a thousand times and the events and implications of what they'd found in the warehouse weighed on him.
"Is Mama sad?" Nadia'd asked while Natasha left the safety of the sheets, pillows, and Disney to fix some daughter requested pancakes for dinner.
"Why do you think she's sad, Bug?" Steve asked, suddenly curious if he was so wrapped in his own thoughts that he'd missed how much this was affecting Natasha.
"She keeps playing with my hair," Nadia answered. "She does that when I'm sad, but right now, I'm not sad. Is she?"
"She just missed you. We both did." The smile felt as forced as his answer. There was some truth underneath it, sure, but it was a patented placating statement parents gave their kids.
After dinner, they'd read Nadia to sleep before moving back to their own bedroom. "You okay?" Steve'd asked.
"Fine," Natasha'd answered while changing out of her clothes.
"Nat—" He hadn't known what else to say. Just moved into her space and wrapped her up in his arms.
"Is it going to be one of those nights?" she'd asked, her eyes looking dark and glinting with something wild and unfocused.
He'd felt his pulse quicken. "You up for that?"
"Second trimester hormones are going to work in your favor tonight."
Steve turned in the shower and let the water beat the shampoo off his scalp. Part of Steve felt like he should be ashamed that it took exhausting himself with sex to shut the thoughts in his brain off long enough to fall asleep, but thankfully, Natasha seemed to be wired the same way.
Quickly, he dried off and dressed. Since it was only a meeting with Bruce and McClellan—two people who had seen both Steve and Natasha at their worst—he didn't mind walking out of the bedroom slightly disheveled. Besides, since they'd just come back from a mission, Phil had cleared their schedule for the rest of the day.
Steve and Natasha took the elevator down to the medical floor in Stark Tower. "You know, you never answered my question if you're okay," Steve pointed out. "Nadia was worried about you since you were playing with her hair but she wasn't the sad one."
"Let me get through this appointment, and I'll let you know," Natasha answered.
"Should I be worried?" Steve asked.
"We're having a kid with our weird medical anomaly bodies. And the the only way we're able to do that is because of a magic pill from an alien queen. No, Steve, what could go wrong?"
The worries Steve had been fighting for years, ever since he and Natasha had considered having a child of their own, settled back on his shoulders. He didn't know what to wish for: a child without their bioenhancements who could inherit Steve's penchant for every illness under the sun, or an enhanced child. One who aged too slowly and buried too many friends and family. One who would become a target because there was finally another Super Soldier in the world. At least after today, Steve would only have one scenario to worry about.
"As you know, Natasha had the procedure done a week ago where we collected a genetic sample from the fetus while you all left for something above my clearance level," Doctor McClellan greeted. "I had to wait for Doctor Banner to return in order to confirm the results."
Steve noticed Bruce cringed at how the obstetrician had used the formal title for his name, but now wasn't the time to delve into the history of their relationship. "First," Bruce said, "if you want to know gender…"
Steve and Natasha looked at each other, and she nodded. "The eternal contentment of a four-year-old rests on that. Better find out now," Natasha said.
Bruce smiled. "No need to worry—it's a boy."
Steve squeezed Natasha's hand, smiling at the news. She shared his happiness for a second before turning back to the scientists. "What else can you tell us?"
Bruce hit a few keys in the embedded controls of the table, and an image began to float in the air. Steve immediately flashed back to when Natasha was pregnant with Nadia. Back then, this genetic test had been performed to determine paternity.
"We'll be blunt," Bruce said. "We see markers associated with both of your genetic enhancements."
"He'll be a Super Soldier?" Natasha asked. She tried to sound neutral, but Steve heard the fear in her tone.
"Only if he wants to be," McClellan answered, as always a voice of reason. "But, yes, physically, he'll be capable of that."
"Who's getting a report of this?" Natasha asked.
"Why?" Bruce asked.
"We want to keep this quiet," Steve said. "We don't want him to become a target. At least, not any more than he already will be because he's our kid."
"We have to report it to Phil," Bruce answered. "That's protocol. But I'm sure he can find some way to ramp up the security level on the report and then bury it in a hole no one will ever find."
Steve knew that Phil would certainly try, but he also knew that if someone wanted to find something badly enough, they could. Or they could just take the baby without knowing for sure. He ran a hand over his face in an attempt to ignore his worries.
"With his genetic profile, we can estimate what he'll look like," Bruce offered. "If you're interested."
Steve shook his head. "Let's save some surprises."
With that, Bruce left Natasha and Steve a data chip with the baby's genome and genetic analysis on it and stepped out. "Let's do an ultrasound, shall we?" McClellan asked.
For the next forty minutes, the doctor scanned and imaged the baby from all angles. She started at his head and worked her way down his little body. Steve silently marveled at the view. There were few things left in the world that surprised his old mind and body, but this was one of them. Or maybe it was just the awe of seeing his child for the first time. Or rather, the first time when he looked like a baby and not a blob of light.
"He's an active little fella," McClellan commented. "You feel him moving yet?" Natasha shook her head. "You'll feel it sooner this time since you know what to expect. And you might want to be grateful you can't just yet. This little bugger doesn't want to stay still."
The doctor gave Natasha clean bill of health and scheduled her for her next appointment in four weeks.
"Want me to go get Nadia?" Natasha asked.
"After we eat lunch," Steve suggested.
They walked to a hole in the wall ramen place a few blocks away from the Tower. Settling themselves into the back booth, they did their best to hide away from nosy lunch eaters. Thankfully, the restaurant employees were too busy—and honestly couldn't care less—to make a fuss over the famous super heroes dining at the establishment.
"We haven't really talked about all of this," Steve started. "Just enough to get us through the day or until we got bounced around to the next clue."
Natasha studied the Asian décor for a moment before responding. "Just when I think I can finally bury that part of my life, it comes back to try and ruin me again."
"Do you have any idea who's doing this or why?" Steve asked.
She shook her head. "There are official lists of who's dead or incapacitated, but those could always be a lie. Anyone in your past? Someone tied to James?"
"I don't know," Steve answered. "HYDRA's long gone. There may have been a plant in the SSR or the army tied to someone else or another organization who had it out for me. Maybe they've somehow passed that vendetta down a couple generations to now."
"Dare we open the Pandora's box of what files Skye and Tony found?" Natasha questioned.
"I don't know," Steve said with a shrug. "I want to know what happened to Bucky and who's dragging us through this, but I also want to bury it in a hole and hope it implodes on itself."
"So what do we do?" she asked.
He sighed. "Leave it. If they want to keep grabbing our attention, I'm sure they'll find a way to do it."
"And Congress?" Natasha pushed. "What if they decide to try and drag James through the mud?"
"That's one fight I'm more than willing to take on."
An hour later, they walked back into their apartment, Nadia in tow. The girl ran into their home and immediately began to dart around, starting to leave a wave of destruction in her path. "What are you looking for, Bug?" Steve asked.
"Tomorrow is show-and-tell day, and I forgot," she exclaimed, her arms flapping around in frustration, a trait Steve blamed on her beloved Uncle Tony.
"Daddy and I got something today that might work," Natasha said while reaching into her bag.
"A new toy?" the girl asked excitedly.
"Better," Steve said.
Natasha pulled out one of the images McClellan had printed off during the appointment. "The doctor took pictures of the baby today," she said. "And guess what?"
"What?" Nadia asked, half-distracted while she studied the black and white picture.
Natasha looked expectantly at Steve and nodded. With her permission, he announced, "It's a boy. You're going to have a little brother."
The girl gasped excitedly. "That's what I wanted!" She ran to hug Natasha's legs. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mama."
"In order to have a boy, you need to thank your Daddy," Natasha said.
The girl flew towards Steve, and he caught her in his arms just in time to hold her up against his broad chest. "Thank you, Daddy. But why are you the only one who can make boys?"
Steve shot an ungrateful look over Nadia's shoulder at his smirking wife. "Just the way things happen."
"What's his name?" Nadia asked.
"That's up to Daddy," Natasha answered. "I named you Nadezhda; it's his turn to name the next baby. We made that deal years ago."
"Back when we thought we didn't think we'd have another kid," Steve pointed out.
Natasha shrugged a shoulder. "Still your turn."
"You should name him Olly," Nadia suggested.
"But won't that be confusing if you and your best friend have brothers with the same name?" Steve asked.
"Nope," Nadia answered.
"I'll think about it," Steve said.
