XXV
News
There was absolute silence between the two of them.
Steve's face was still caught between shock and some other emotion that Sharon couldn't immediately identify. This wasn't how she imagined telling him.
Then again, she hadn't imagined telling him at all, primarily because she was still processing the fact that she was pregnant. Which, considering the aftermath of her first altercation with Hydra all those years ago, shouldn't even be possible. Sanderson had been rather irked that for once, one of his diagnoses had been incorrect. The two of them had run countless tests just to be absolutely sure, and all had come back positive.
Kids aren't in the plan. We're agents and spies for God's sake, when would we have the bloody time?
Steve's silence wasn't exactly reassuring.
His eyes were a darker blue than hers, but still just as expressive. She could see the initial confusion melt into expected shock mixed with anxiety as her concerns crossed his mind. Then there was the (expected) stereotypical fear as most men apparently experienced upon hearing this news. She found herself searching the blue though for the inevitable rejection, but for some odd reason, found something else there instead.
"Sharon," he finally said after an indeterminable silence, "I think we need to talk."
"I'm pregnant."
The two words echoed in his head, creating a haze of momentary confusion until he realized what exactly what it was she was saying, and the full implications of the situation. The fear that dominated her lighter-blue gaze shifted once she too saw the transition.
Although she clicked with her father's side of the family better, she didn't seem to realize how much she took after her mother's side of the family in appearances. Peggy had had dark brown eyes, full of intelligence, but Sharon's were a light blue like her mother's. A light blue that was full of absolute terror, which was masked underneath a thin layer of anxiety.
He didn't blame her.
They both loved their jobs, and as much as she wasn't going to like doing it, he suspected that she would step back from her duty to care for the child. Parenting nowadays seemed full of more challenges than Steve had experienced, albeit challenges of a different kind. He wasn't as quite as familiar with the laws governing parenthood nowadays, but he'd fall back on what was familiar to him while adapting to the modern age. Leaving her was out of the question, they'd been together for three years and he wasn't about to change that. They had their fights, yes, but it had never been enough to permanently split them up.
Besides, if he did leave her to raise the child on her own, she'd always come back somehow and somewhere with the specific purpose of killing him.
Nothing about their current situation would change if he took the other option. Sanderson always let one of them in to see the other anyway, and since Sharon was off the front lines more often than not, Steve knew she'd listed herself as an emergency contact in the chance something happened to him on the battlefield. Every other aspect of their lives had been melded together in a way that made Steve considering taking the next step even months before this happened.
No time like the present, he mused.
"Sharon," he finally said after an indeterminable silence, "I think we need to talk."
A/N: Prompt: Gazing into each other's eyes