This is a fan made story. I don't own the rights to Captain America, any of its characters or any characters within the MCU… Much to my disappointment. This will have some violent content and possible triggers. Steve/Bucky slow build relationship. Constructive criticism is welcome but if you don't like it simply because you don't like the line of thinking, please don't attack me for it.
Warning: This chapter includes non-descript mention of sexual assault
Chapter 10: The Darkest of Truths Reveled
It was a full two days before Bucky was seen by anyone besides Steve. Steve had also essentially disappeared for those days as well, watching over his friend and caring for him. Bucky had two more seizures the day after the first and Eir had said that it was to be expected given the circumstances. Daisy, Talbot and Coulson had all but vanished as well, sequestering themselves in Talbot and Coulson's suite and reading through the files that were finally fully translated. None of the three could bring themselves to watch to footage that came with it just yet though.
On the third day it was finally Daisy who reemerged from their seclusion and her expression spoke for itself. She had appeared in the lab were most of the Avengers, sans Bucky and Steve, were gathered as Tony and the other engineers displayed the finished arm, "Hey, I hate to interrupt but there is something that we found in the files that we need to discuss. It is pretty important. Coulson is getting Barnes and Rogers right now. You need to all come with me."
With these vague words the team immediately lost all excitement and took on a rather grim expression for themselves. They all quietly followed Daisy back to the suite and inside they found Bucky and Steve already sitting on the couch in the living space facing the large T.V. screen mounted on the wall. Daisy had hooked up a HDMI cable to the screen and her laptop so everyone took whatever seats in view of the screen available.
"Before we show you what we found, you should know that it will probably be upsetting to some, or even most of you," Daisy stated before looking around and seeing that they all seemed as prepared as they could be she put up the first two pages of the file she had discovered the night before while they were reading through all of them, flagging the most important files for a closer review. After she found this file, Coulson, Talbot and Daisy had all discarded the option of sleep in favor of locating all files related to it and reviewing them with growing concern.
After 15 minutes, everyone present had had enough time to read through the two pages and Daisy switch them to pages 3 and 4 of the file. This went on for another hour before Natasha stood and started pacing around the room before turning to Daisy and looking at the girl seriously, "Are you sure there is no miss translation?"
"I thought the same thing but I ran the original file through the translation program again once I read the original. None of the other files have shown any signs of mistranslations either. If you want I can give you the original copy to read through," Daisy offered before moving over to hand the paper file that was in Russian to the native Russian in the room.
Natasha slowly took the file before sitting away from the others. A half hour of silence followed before Natasha stood and handed the file to Bucky who was also fluent in Russian so he could read it and turned back to Daisy, "Is this the full extent of it? They… they violated him and used his sperm for a breeding program labeled… 'The Black Widow Program'?" Natasha, a woman who had never faltered in anything in her life, had actually stumbled over her speech due to the extent of her emotions. Daisy handed her a second file, connected to the first before turning to put the translated version up on the screen.
This second was only three pages long. The first two pages was mainly a list of female names, names of the mothers, birth dates and the words 'failure' or 'success'. The words failure exceeded the words success. The last page was an accounting of males born from the project, the dates of births, and the names of the mothers. On all the pages the mothers were listed as terminated as well. Natalia Romanov was listed near the bottom as 'success' and her birth date was listed as November 22, 1984. Natasha and Bucky were both visible shaking for different reasons. Steve and Clint both looked like they were ready to murder every person even remotely involved in the program the files had detailed. The rest looked sick to their stomach at the idea of something so horrific.
Eventually Daisy spoke again, "This is just a list of names that came directly from the… breeding program. There is another listing of baby girls that were taken from political prisoners. There are also files on all the 'success' cases. Thankfully they only date to the 80s so we can hope that no more children were… conceived after that. Natasha was among the last of them." Natasha had remained frozen staring at the file in her hands while Bucky did the same with the screen on the wall.
"So how many total? I know I could count but I can't bring myself to right now. How many kids did they use me to father?" Bucky finally snapped out of his shock but his voice was devoid of all emotion.
Daisy hesitated to speak so Talbot answered for her, "There was a total of 97 live births, 12 still births and 19 miscarriages." Talbot's voice was barely loud enough for everyone to hear but hear they did and more than a few of them shuddered or gagged at the knowledge.
"And biologically Miss Romanoff is my daughter?" Bucky seemed to need to confirm this information, his voice still neutral but his expression was pained. Steve finally snapped out of his rage and was looking toward Bucky with a matching pain in his eyes.
"Yes, she was among the last of the children from the… breeding portion of the program. Only three other girls were successfully born after her. The rest were all mostly kidnapped babies. Still horrible in its own right," Talbot answered, his face truly grim.
"Do you know if any others lived?" Tony was the first person to think of this and more than a few others looked surprised at the question.
"As far as we can tell, no. Those that did survive the training and were listed as 'successes' were all before Natasha and when we looked through their files they were all listed as deceased. Unless there was a situation where a pregnant woman carrying one of the children escaped there isn't even a possibility. Natasha, you told me about the training, there was no survivors from those who failed," Coulson answered carefully.
"No, there wouldn't be any others. When they terminated the program they tried to off us by sending us on compromised missions. They would leak the details of missions and let the local authorities do their dirty work. It was how I got brought into SHIELD. Clint was supposed to take me out and decided to confront me about how the intel got out instead. If he hadn't done that, I would be just as dead as the rest," Natasha answered the unspoken question before handing the file back to Daisy and carefully schooling her expression. "I'm sorry, I need to absorb this information."
Natasha's exit was deliberate in her attempt to control emotions she had never realized she was capable of feeling until this moment. Steve and Clint had both returned to their expressions of murderous rage and Clint stated simply that he would be in the gym and not to disturb him unless it was an Avenger's level emergency or they figured out that one of the bastards who had been involved was still alive. Steve opted to focusing on Bucky and once they were back in their suite Bucky took to pacing while Steve dropped to the floor and started doing push-ups to work off the pent up energy.
Tony and Scott decided that the best way of dealing with their horror was to work on designs for different projects they had been considering and thus buried themselves in pointless work. Wanda and Pietro disappeared into the nearby jungle, presumably to deal with their conflicted emotions in their own ways. They had a further secret they hadn't shared and needed to discuss it fully before deciding where they would go with it. Vision found himself, for the first time ever, understanding a slight amount of what drove Ultron to his path of extreme destruction. After assessing his feelings on the matter he reaffirmed his belief that while there was a great deal of evil and darkness in the world that it was greatly outweighed by those who were truly good and beautiful at heart. Sam felt rather detached from the situation, unlike most of the others he had never experienced being tortured or experimentation or mind control. He did understand combat and he simply couldn't fathom what would drive some insane scientist to try creating some twisted all female army of assassins with enhanced strength and healing. It also explained why Natasha looked younger than she was. He thought once again, not for the first time that he was probably the most normal person among them all. He had a fairly average childhood and his first experience with anything weird was as a pararescueman in the army and the Falcon program that got him his wings.
At length Wanda and Pietro returned to the facility and called for another meeting, Natasha and Clint both kept to the back. Bucky was pacing off to the side and everyone was curious to what was to be the next big revelation. Once Daisy, Talbot and Coulson joined them, as Wanda and Pietro insisted they would need to know this as well, Wanda looked at Pietro who nodded and she began, "We haven't been entirely truthful about the full extent of our family history. When we were ten, a few months before our parents died, they told us a story. Our father told us that when he met our mother he was working for the soviet government as a guard at a holding facility with a few of political prisoner females, all of whom were in various stages of pregnancy. He told us how he was guard to one of them and had fallen in love with her so he decided to help her escape. She was only a few months pregnant at the time and he managed to smuggle her out by drugging his fellow duty guards one night." Wanda was visibly crying at this point.
Pietro continued the story, "Our father said it had been a miracle that he managed to get our mother out that night. He managed to get us, well our mother who was carrying us, far away from the facility and over the border into Sokovia. That is where we were born six months later." Pietro's words had left everyone silent.
"Are you telling us that your mother may have been the hypothetical one female we were talking about earlier?" Talbot finally asked.
"You would probably want to do a DNA test to confirm it. It is possible that is why they survived the experimentation that Hydra did on them while others didn't. They were naturally more durable. I wouldn't be surprised if they were the last ones born from the program, even if they were born outside of the control of the Red Room," Tony was standing and pacing. His mind now in hyper drive. "Anyone else have a dirty little secret to share? Any other possible Barnes children?"
"Tony, please. This really isn't the time for joking. Your right though. We should do a DNA test to confirm or disprove their theory," Natasha looked at the twins in a new light. She was still coming to terms with the knowledge that she had personally killed at least several of her own half-sisters. The knowledge that she may actual have a half-sister and half-brother was both dangerous emotionally but also made her feel a swell of excitement that matched the one from earlier when she learnt that not only did she have a father who wasn't a complete monster, as she had believed her entire life, but one that was also still alive.
With this, she led the group as they all relocated to the labs. Once there, Tony took cheek swabs from Wanda, Pietro, Bucky and, just to make sure, Natasha. He handed the swabs to a nearby technician who began the process of running the test. Turning back to Bucky he smiled, "Well, while we are waiting to learn if you guys all make up the most dysfunctional Maury Show ever, Barnes, do you want to hook up your new arm? Give you something to be happy about. Not that learning you're a father isn't happy but this way you can actually embrace the kids if they really are all yours."
Steve and Natasha both glared at Tony's lack of seriousness but Bucky climbed up onto the nearby medical bed and lay back in answer to his question. Tony smiled and started talking about all the upgrades and features they had made to the new model as he examined the inset cavity on the shoulder. T'Challa's people had long removed the damaged portion of the old arm and now all that remained was the connection point. Scott had gone to collect the arm while Tony looked at the connection point and had returned with it.
"Ok, this will hurt a bit since it is literally connecting your nerves to the arm," Tony said and quickly inserting the arm into the connectors before Bucky could react to his comment. Bucky swore up a storm in not only English and Russian but also German and French. Steve didn't look surprised by any of the languages coming out of Bucky's mouth though Natasha, Wanda and Pietro all smirked at some of the Russian he spewed forth. Eventually the man calmed and the three exchanged knowing looks.
"Well, if he is your biological father, then we know where you got your propensity towards Russian profanities Nat," Clint joked, also being fluent in Russian.
"Yes, I believe he called Tony the product of a pig and an iguana mating at one point. He is very inventive when in pain. He very well could be our father," Wanda spoke pragmatically and Pietro nodded his agreement happily.
Just then, the lab technician that had taken the DNA samples handed a sheet with the results to Tony and walked away to return to his own work. Tony looked down and smirked, "Well, I may have been fathered by an iguana but at least my family is much less dysfunctional then yours." With this Tony handed the results to Natasha who sighed and handed it to Wanda who then passed it to Pietro before he finally handed it to Bucky.
Bucky noticed that none of them actually bothered to examine the paper further than the three positives under paternity connected to his. Bucky handed Steve who read it and nodded before handing it Daisy who was apparently in charge of everything to do with Bucky's pardons and the like, "Does this change anything?" Was the question he finally asked her.
Bucky got up from the bed. The pain from the arm now abating and he noticed it had taken on the appearance of skin. Flexing the arm and hand he realized it really was far superior to the previous arm he had. Daisy looked hard at the paper before handing it to Talbot who also took the contents seriously. Finally, she spoke, "In terms of his pardon? No. According to the files you were sedated every time they… well took what they wanted. If anything it would garner sympathy if you want it known. If you don't then we can restrict access to the information to the Accords Committee. I am sure that given the circumstances no one would deny you all deserve to have your private family life stay private." Daisy was firm in her words and they could all see she meant it.
"For now, I say we keep this in house. Best case someone would try to use the family connection to control or manipulate us in battle. Worst case we all get kidnapped for some new insane scientist to experiment on," Natasha answered for them and the rest nodded their agreement. "In the meantime, Barnes, I'm not calling your dad or daddy. I am also not taking your last name. I know you had no choice in the whole family thing and I am not going to put any pressure on you for some sort of ties."
"I'll call you daddy!" Tony inserted making a few people laugh before he received a glare from Steve. "What? It is funny! And true!"
"While I am also not going to call you daddy, or papa, I would like to get to know you better. As Nat said, you didn't have any choice in the matter but I would like you to know me and learn to understand you better," Wanda told Bucky more reasonably. Pietro was quick to second the sentiment and the matter seemed settled when Bucky smiled at them weakly, still not sure how to handle the entire situation.
Author's Note: Yes, this is a big plot twist. Yes, I know the real history of Natasha and the Maximoff twins in the comics. I have an entire encyclopedia of all the Marvel characters (except Peggy, for some reason she doesn't have her own entry). That being said this is a fan based story. I am taking artistic license with the story. I did say that I would only keep cannon up through Civil War.