Moth- 17- Chapter 4.3- Illuminati: Feminine Redux
Steve smiled inwardly as he pushed Valeria higher on the swing.
They had started out playing catch, which had gone remarkably better then Steve would have thought. It wasn't that he figured it wouldn't go well… alright it might have been that… but Franklin had surprised him with his hand-eye coordination. Even Valeria had an arm on her.
They had since migrated to the playground.
Steve could see Franklin up by the slide trying to explain the intricacies of gravity versus resistance and lift to a child who was picking his nose.
Steve pushed Valeria again. It took practically nothing to send the little girl air born. Steve paused to look down at his hands.
He was strong. He knew that. He'd never thought of himself in terms of being too strong before.
"Again!" He heard Val squeak.
He bumped his hands in motion with the swing and she giggled with joy.
The sound of her laughter reminded Steve of an emotion he rarely felt unfiltered. He found himself anxious for his own child to be born.
Steve's thoughts fell back to Tony having to sit through hours long investigations once a week to keep their child safe… They were going to have a baby. And it would be a little girl like Valeria, or a little boy like Franklin.
Cap looked over at Franklin who had moved to the monkey bars, now explaining why your face turned red to the two children who were up side down on the metal rods.
Well… maybe not exactly like Franklin…
A boy or a girl.
After he had talked to Sam, Falcon had asked him if he knew the gender. Well, first Redwing had flown screaming from the room and Sam had held his head in his hands taking a few deep breaths, but then he had asked Cap if he knew the gender.
Steve didn't know. And after today he honestly didn't care.
It would be wonderful either way.
Cap looked up at the clear blue sky and smiled.
He hadn't asked for this. In fact, the second he'd told Tony how he felt about him he'd given up on it. The dream of the white picket fence and the family to watch grow up around him. He honestly didn't think that Tony would ever want children. And he'd always been wary about bringing another life into this world himself. It could be so dangerous.
But with the sounds of the park resonating around him, the birds singing and the children laughing, everything was reminding him of how at peace the world could be.
This.
This was what he fought for and it was moments like these that allowed Steve to realize how breathtaking life was. That all of the darkness and hate was just a gritty covering, one that was thinning everyday if he had anything to say about it, and that underneath all of that, the world was beautiful and people were good. This was the place he wanted his child to know.
A woman settling her baby boy into the swing right next to Val's shook Cap from his thoughts.
He nodded at her politely.
"Oh she's adorable!" The woman cooed at Valeria as she secured her own child into the seat.
"Thanks." Cap responded. "I can't take credit though. I'm just the babysitter."
"Really? That's so refreshing." She stated enthusiastically.
"Is it?" Cap lowered his head to smile. "Well my intentions aren't exactly selfless." He admitted.
"Do you have a little one on the way?" She eyed him knowingly.
Steve responded by blushing.
"That's what my husband did around month seven, when the reality of this little guy really set in. He was all in a panic about being in charge of a child. Big strong men." She laughed.
Cap pushed Val's swing again.
"What's his name?" Steve eventually thought to ask, realizing that panic was an emotion he'd never thought to mull over since hearing the news. It didn't seem like that bad of an idea now that he considered it.
"Virgil." She responded as the little blond haired boy reached his arms out to where Valeria was swinging.
"Do you want to go up in the sky Virgie?" The mother asked, her deep brown hair cascading in curls around her face.
"Up, up!" Virgil responded, cooing happily. She pushed him gently.
"You seem to be doing wonderfully at babysitting." The woman offered, since Valeria had yet to stop laughing. "How far along is the lucky lady?"
Cap froze slightly in his actions.
After the initial shock, and the initial afterglow, Cap had wanted to shout from the rooftops that he and Tony were going to have a child. He'd barely been able to contain himself, though he did understand Tony's reservations.
But now that he had the chance to finally talk about it, with a woman he'd never again meet, he found that the words were caught in his throat. Cap didn't want to lie. He didn't want to have to say how far along she was. His baby hadn't been made that way. His baby was in Tony, the person he loved and was going to marry. And that was perfect.
"I… he--"
"Cats!" Valeria shouted suddenly. "Cats, stop!"
"Cap." Steve corrected her halfheartedly. He slowed the swing quickly but gently and looked down at his charge.
"What is it Valeria?" He asked sweetly.
"Bathroom." She exclaimed.
"You need to go to the bathroom?" He asked her, lifting her from the seat.
"No I wented already." She said quietly, pulling at his blue t-shirt.
"Oh… ok." Cap looked to the woman gently pushing her child. "If you'll excuse me."
She smiled. "Of course! The bathroom's over there." She pointed to her far left, near the parking lot.
"Thanks." Steve held Valeria slightly out in front of him and picked up the bag he'd left at his feet. His eyes once again searched for Franklin.
He was at the water fountain.
"Hey Franklin buddy, come with me."
Steve started heading toward the bathrooms as Franklin trotted behind him.
Cap sighed softly and smiled.
"What is your mother doing?" Steve asked Valeria, who responded by covering her eyes.
Steve laughed.
That's right, today she's invisible.
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Jan ran through the events again in her mind.
It wasn't that she was having difficulty understanding the concept; it was more that she had no idea where to go from here.
Hank's reactions to her finding out had been almost synonymous with the desire to jump out in front of a bus. It was then that Jan decided that for Hank to keep everything out in the open like that in his lab, he must have gotten used to the fact that no one ever came to visit him. She wasn't sure if she had wanted to hug him or hit him when she realized that so she settled for promising not to tell a soul instead.
They had avoided each other after that for days.
Then finally, at the date they already had planned, Jan had tried to get him to be ok with her at least admitting to Steve and Tony that she knew.
That had gone over like a lead balloon.
Hank had started talking about how this was too big of a thing and that he always messed up. She couldn't let on that she knew and that Steve and Tony would tell everyone soon enough, couldn't she just wait?
But it seemed like Steve and Tony were waiting forever to tell anyone and Jan couldn't figure it out. Her mind kept going to places darker than she intended.
This just wasn't something she could keep inside! She felt, if not responsible for this then definitely a large contributing factor. Ultron had changed Tony to match how she looked. It was something that she had joked with him about, Tony had joked too, but how had that really affected him? Steve's death, the Skrull invasion, and then Ultron taking control of his body... Jan sometimes wondered how Tony was still standing.
And now this. How did things like this happen?
Hank was quietly panicking. To bring the topic up more with him would just be counterproductive. And then there was this horrible voice in the back of Jan's mind that wouldn't let her forget about how effective Ultron was at mind control.
She needed to talk to someone about this…
And so, here she sat.
Jan had organized this lunch with the best of intentions. She had honestly just wanted to get together with some friends after the world of Skrull had settled down and her party had gone off without a hitch.
The guest list had substantially shortened after what she had discovered, and the people she surrounded herself with now all seemed to be key components in a very interesting puzzle.
Jan was convinced that if Hank knew, Reed Richards and Henry McCoy did as well.
If anyone else knew, and would actually share that fact with her, it would be one of the three people here now.
"Sorry I'm late." Sue Richards apologized, as she took a seat next to Carol Danvers.
"We've hardly been waiting a bit dear." Emma Frost cooed. "They haven't even brought us water." The platinum blonde stated, biting her lip at the waiter closest to them.
Jan already regretted letting Emma know this luncheon existed in the first place, let alone not calling her to say it had been postponed, as she had done to so many of her friends.
Her fears concerning Ultron had gotten the better of her though and she'd wanted to know if the X-Men's resident psychic had heard any interesting thoughts from Beast as of late.
She smiled at her guests, the breeze from the location they had chosen right outside the restaurant a much needed respite from how humid the day had been.
Drinks came and food was ordered.
Their conversations ranged from the mundane to the miraculous.
Sue began a conversation about the Fantastic Four having to deal with Darkouth and the Otherplace, to which Carol had responded, "The guy with the ankle wings and the purple skin?" Sue nodded and admitted that she had no idea how Doom had thought that was saying anything good about bio-engineering.
Emma changed the subject to if anyone had seen the latest episode of Project Runway.
After that, it was easy for Jan to find an opening in the conversation to get at what she was dying to know.
"Jan that reminds me! How did your party go?" Sue solicited, before taking another sip of her drink.
"Oh. It went marvelously. I couldn't have asked for a better outcome. Work was never so fun. I spent half the time dancing the night away with Tony Stark." She beamed, inwardly feeling her heart against her chest.
"Tony." Sue hesitated for a moment. "You know he and Steve both went to see Reed at work today."
Jan's expression stayed bright. "Really what for?"
"Oh I have no idea." Sue replied dismissively. "I'm sure it will revolutionize modern science though, as it always does. As long as it isn't for SHIELD... Reed won't say anything, he knows how important his innovations with Skrull are, but it's driving him crazy. I really think that he wants to put all of that behind us." She ended, referring to the Skrull.
Jan's face fell, as did everyone's at the table, albeit for different reasons.
Finally Emma Frost broke the silence. She brushed the hair from her face. "Tony's been busy. He's made a few visits to the Mansion lately as well. Though whatever he and Beast were doing in the med labs definitely wasn't for SHIELD." She stole a look at Jan as her locks fell back in front of her eyes.
Jan looked at her hesitantly.
"Both Henry and Reed came over to see Tony at the Tower a while back. When Tony wasn't doing so well. I wonder what it's all about." Carol chimed in. Jan looked down at her food.
"Tony wasn't doing well?" Sue asked politely, out of curiosity.
"It was a while ago. He certainly wasn't himself." Carol twirled her straw around in her drink. "I wanted to talk with everyone about Tony anyway. It's healthier then walking on eggshells. This is as good a start as any." Carol continued. "He pretty much admitted to me that he'd fallen off the wagon. He's better now I think but I don't know the details. He's been... withdrawn lately if it isn't anything to do with Cap." She spoke quickly but with a calm forcefulness, the edges of her cheekbones deepening in color. She turned to face Jan. "I appreciate that you wanted to get him out of the Tower but I'm not sure going to your party was the best idea. I wasn't sure if I should say anything but since you invited me here I wanted to be honest."
"Oh." Jan said, a little taken aback. Carol really didn't know. "I had no idea." She stated, for lack of a better thing to say.
"What else could it be? They fixed Extremis." Carol's face was filled with determination. She wasn't taking any other possibilities to heart. It was evident to Jan that she'd thought of worse options as to what could be going wrong with Tony and had decided that it wouldn't be any of them. Not if she had anything to do with it.
She wanted something she felt she could actually do something about.
Jan felt horrible. She hadn't thought of saying anything unless it was evident they already knew but how could she not tell Carol what was going on with Tony?
Not that 'No Carol, Extremis isn't eating Tony's brain, he's just being taken over by Ultron from the inside out.' was any sort of improvement.
But maybe she should just...
Jan looked pensively around the table. She opened her mouth to speak.
"I have to go to the bathroom." Carol voiced before Jan had a chance to say anything. The blond wore a puzzled expression, as though the notion had occurred to her suddenly.
"Me too!" Sue piped in, sounding almost as equally surprised. "I'll go with you."
The two women quickly excused themselves from the table and Jan looked at her salad incredulously. That was awfully abrupt. Not finding any answers in her food she lifted her head to the other woman still seated at the table.
Emma Frost smiled at her darkly through MAC moonflower eye shadow, slowly stiring the ice in her drink.
"Are you certain you want to say such things?"
Jan sat straight in her chair, offended.
Well… it was obvious Emma knew.
Jan couldn't think of a response. She felt her pulse quicken as her mouth opened to utter nothing at all.
"You're all twitery and fearful. I can understand. But do you really think that you should tell them the big news? What gives you the right to do that?"
Jan felt her anxiety transform into heat. She tried to push her own thoughts into the recesses of her brain.
"What gives you the right to read my mind?" Jan asked indignantly, her face tight.
Emma smiled at her words and crossed her legs. "Evolution."
Wasp chewed at the inside of her lip.
"The people you should be confronting are Steve and Tony."
I promised I wouldn't, the voice in Jan reasoned.
"So you're going to spill the beans to their nearest and dearest? How admirable Janet! I approve."
"If you think that--"
"Let's you and I have a little chat about secrets." Emma interrupted her. "Now I've always had a problem with them, because I sometimes find out things that no wants me to know."
Jan folded her hands neatly in her lap, squeezing tightly, deciding to hear the other woman out.
"I've struggled all my life to find balance in keeping those secrets. I never asked for them, but there they are. Those precious little things." She said flippantly. "I know words, events, feelings, that would hurt if they were to ever be set free. They pour off of people, and sometimes I'm weak." Emma fingered the rim of her iced-tea glass. "There was a time when I would have held such things over other's heads; a time when I had to." Emma straightened in her chair. "But there are other kinds of secrets too. The kinds that people hold to keep things safe." Emma smiled.
"You feel responsible for this because it was something you helped to create, however inadvertently. Now instead of asking how do we deal with this, all melodramatically, perhaps you should be asking if this makes them happy? You don't tell secrets if in doing so you bring about more bad then good." She flicked her fingers absently. "And of course good and bad is all subjective and other boring things, but in all honesty," Emma leaned forward against the table. "If a secret is one that is guarded with the very life of a person, then you shouldn't tell it. Now don't you think that Steve and Tony would guard their child with their lives?"
Jan's gaze fell to the floor.
With how apprehensive Hank was about everything Jan had felt nothing but panic over the news.
But a baby...
Jan hadn't thought of it from that point of view. She'd been stuck on how this was going to affect her friends, and hadn't progressed to what the end result would be.
Tony was going to have a baby. And he was taking it to term. He wanted this child and he was taking every precaution he could to make sure it was safe.
Tony and Steve wanted this.
And she was going to take away their joy in telling it to the Avengers because she was... well, whatever she was.
"And I know you're thinking mind control, but don't worry. It's not that." Emma stated, almost gently.
Jan eyed her for a second.
Emma's features softened. "Again with the, you just don't know who to trust. After the Skrull it's difficult to turn that switch off and be able to depend on everyone again. Trust him again."
Jan's eyes widened a bit, but she said nothing. If Jan really wanted to be honest with herself, that was why she had run to Emma, and Carol, and Sue in the first place. She had promised not to talk to Steve and Tony but... she hadn't wanted to talk to Beast or Reed either becasue they had worked with him. Jan shook her head, fighting the tears she knew might come. Hank. Her Hank. He was back and she hadn't even known he'd been gone. Hadn't known that Skrull had--
"Such tortuous thoughts." She heard Emma say.
Jan all but rolled her eyes, but before she could tell Emma what she thought of her for reading her mind again, Sue and Carol returned.
As they came within hearing distance and took their seats at the table, Emma's posture changed and with a fake air of concern she stated, "Goodness Janet dear, I just don't know what we're going to do with this mystery about Tony Stark!"
Jan's eyes widened. "I… I don't know. I think the best idea for this would be to ask him. Or let him tell us himself." She stuttered. Then she turned to Carol. "I'm sure he's fine. He was Tony at my party."
Carol looked between Jan and Emma. Then her eyes softened. "Yeah. You're right. I… I'm sure you're right. But just… in the meantime, no alcohol in the Tower. I mean it."
Jan nodded in affirmation as Emma stated, "I don't think that alcohol around children is a good idea anyway."
Jan's head whipped around to face Emma like it was on a spring. The only thing that kept Jan from clawing her fingernails into the other woman's face was the soft voice of Susan Storm.
"Oh I agree. After an incident with Franklin, I've found making Johnny and Ben keep any of their personal stuff in their respective rooms and making sure the wine rack is locked in the cupboard is for the best."
Carol shocked, turned to Sue. "Wait. Franklin was drinking!?"
"Of course not!" Sue assured. "He had just read the ingredients label and deduced he could try to use it as fuel for his rocket since 'Dad' wasn't there and he knows he can't go into the lab to make any without him." Sue shook her head before continuing, "The burn marks on the walls were worse than that time Johnny's powers were on the fritz. At least Franklin was fine."
Jan nodded to Sue's story like it was a happy little cave she could crawl into. "Dealing with geniuses is a full time job!" She exclaimed, the volume of her voice a bit above the rest of her compatriots. Sue laughed in agreement.
Unfortunately Carol wasn't so easily distracted.
"What do you mean about children in the Tower Emma?" She asked the blonde calmly, taking a bite of her meal.
Emma smiled. "Well,--"
"Danielle!" Jan interrupted, flashing a bright smile Carol's way.
Carol raised an eyebrow in response.
"Why yes Janet, that was what I was about to say." Emma fussed. "Tony was telling me all about the sweet pea just last week when he came to visit Henry."
Jan stared apprehensively at the other woman.
"You really should try to stop by more often Janet, the mansion is always open. To all of you." Emma added, addressing the table at large.
Bitch, was the only thought Jan could form in her mind.
Emma smiled.
"It's always a pleasure spending time with you."
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"You'd think you'd get better cell phone reception in a government installation." Tony stated in an aggravated tone.
He and Reed were walking back to the front of the building. Cap had just called Tony to tell him that they had returned and it had been only about twenty minutes after Reed had finished analyzing the readouts.
Good timing all around.
As Tony found himself back in the main lobby he heard the high pitched squeak of a little girl. "Daddy!"
Valeria stretched her arms out as far as they would go once she saw Reed Richards enter her field of vision. Reed smiled faintly in response and walked toward her as he stretched his arms out long to close the space between them.
She was still in Steve's arms. As the blond handed his young ward over to her father Tony and Cap's eyes met.
Steve smiled and Tony fought the urge to run up and embrace him. He wasn't sure why the feeling was so strong, but he could tell Steve was thinking the same thing.
Tony bit his cheek and instead turned back to Reed.
"Alright you'll fill Steve in on everything?" Tony reaffirmed as he tried to figure out what might make Valeria smile. Maybe if he made a face at her?
"Of course. And thanks again for taking the kids to get something to eat." Reed replied.
"What?" Steve countered, moving up behind Tony and hanging his arm over Tony's shoulder and across his chest.
"Well you didn't get a chance to feed them did you?" Tony asked, clasping onto Steve's arm, trying not to show how comforted he was by the man's presence.
"No but, story time doesn't take that long and we can all go together after."
Tony shook his head. "Don't call it story time. Beast calls it story time. Reed is going to explain to you boring scientific things on those machines of his that little kids won't care about. Plus I can only sit in one place for so long..." Tony twisted his neck to look at Steve. "And I'm really hungry."
Cap looked crestfallen. "And when you're done you guys can join us." Tony added smiling.
Steve tried to smile. "Yeah that sounds good, there are lots of places right by the park." He suggested.
"Good." Tony knew it was for the best. It was the first time Cap had agreed to let Tony out of his sight, or the sight of Hank, Reed, or Beast outside of the time he spent on differing floors of the Tower. This was good for both of them.
Tony made himself let go of Steve's embrace and maneuvered out from under the man's arm. He collected Valeria from Reed and turned to Franklin.
"Hungry?" He asked. They both nodded in unison.
Tony turned to say good-bye to Steve. The blond was being pulled past security as Reed had started back to the lab already. He smiled.
This was good. Getting to spend time with children was good. He could totally do this. And without Steve. He hadn't wanted it to be without Steve but he had to prove this to himself.
And honestly…
What's the worst that could happen?
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