Qweb: I was trying not to overwhelm with too many family members, but okay...


Sixteen Hours post the Battle of Leipzig/Halle Airport...


White light nearly blinded him as Steve helped him out of the door of the base and out into the snow. Bucky bit his lip against the pain of having to be upright, as well as the pain in his head as he squinted down at the white snow.

"Come on," Steve muttered, his voice a breathless mix of pain and determination. "Not that far to the jet. Then I'll go back in and get Tony."

"Umph," Bucky mumbled back, interrupting him. "I'm not worth all this, Steve. You should have let him-"

"Don't start that again." Suddenly, Steve stopped moving forward, and Bucky had to bite back a yelp in pain at the loss of momentum. He looked up, still squinting against the white glare, to find the guy in the cat suit standing there with his helmet off, his face a wavering stone mask in Bucky's vision. "Uh..."

"Let me take him, Captain," T'Challa in a neutral tone that didn't match the expression on his face. "You look ready to collapse."

Steve simply stared at him, mystified. "Huh?"

"I heard," he said as he nodded to the doorway of the base behind them.

"Oh. Oh..."

Feeling a tremor go through him, Bucky fought to focus on Steve, and blinked in confusion at how pale he was under the helmet. "Steve?"

"I'm fine, Buck, I..." And then his eyes rolled back in his head, and suddenly it was Bucky holding him up, barely able to support his weight, and then they both ended up on the ground.

Bucky groaned and looked up at T'Challa, who was staring down at them with wide eyes.

T'Challa, mindful of Bucky's injuries, bent down and helped him to his knees, and then rolled Steve over so they could both look at him. He glanced speculatively over his shoulder at the SnowCat parked next to the Quinjet, then returned his attention to the two men in front of him to find Bucky shaking Steve's shoulder. "Sergeant?"

"I've seen this before," Bucky explained as he shook Steve's shoulder again and didn't even get a grunt in response. "I... can't put. Pieces. Can't place the why or how, but I have." He shook his head, winced at the pain it induced. "Extra rations? Something about Howard and Colonel Phillips and fuel?"

T'Challa frowned at him and reached out to put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. "Take a deep breath, Sergeant, and let the information come to you."

"You wanted to kill me earlier today," Bucky muttered at him. "Why are you helping me? Us?"

"We'll have that talk after we figure this out. So... extra rations? Fuel? Your Colonel? Howard? The Captain? Something you've seen before?"

Bucky blinked, then nodded, and took a deep breath as he peered down at Steve. "I... In Berlin or on the way in from Bucharest, did you see him eat?"

"No. Why?"

"And I only saw him eat an apple and nothing more. Car. Leipzig." With effort, Bucky turned and looked hard at the doorway of the base before turning his attention back to Steve. "Oh! Metabolism!"

"Sergeant, I'm going to need a little more than that..."

Wincing, Bucky looked up at him. "What they did to make him big? His metabolism burns really fast. And if you didn't see him eat, and I only saw him eat very little when Sam insisted that I eat two sandwiches... crap. And then what happened in there, after what happened at the airport earlier..." He waved his right hand at the entrance.

T'Challa frowned down at Steve. "You mean the Super Soldier Serum."

"Yes!" Bucky took a deep breath and then looked at T'Challa. "There are two of you. Which one is you?" T'Challa shook his left shoulder carefully. "Oh."

"Up with you, now. I'll come back for him."


A glucose emergency gel stick in his hand, T'Challa shook the captain's shoulder hard enough to wake him, then handed it to him. "Eat."

Steve blinked up at him. "'Oh hear me oh lord, blue girdler of the islands...'"

"Captain? Eat."

"'...if I am thine indeed, and thou art father; grant that Odysseus, raider of cities, never sees his home. Laerte's son, I mean, who kept his hall on Ithaca, should destiny inend that he shall see his roof again among his family in his father's land, far be that may, and dark the years between. Let him lose all companions, and return under strange sail to bitter days at home.'"

T'Challa stared at him. Was he really quoting The Odyssey? "Captain?"

"'In a republic, who is the country? Is it the government which is for the moment in the saddle?'" Steve stared at him, then at the Insta-Glucose slurry in his hand. "'Why, the government is merely a temporary servant: it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. It's function is to obey orders, not originate them. Who, then is the country? Is it the newspaper? Is it the pulpit? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it, they have not command, they have only their little share in the command.'" He finally did suck on the glucose stick, and T'Challa breathed a sigh of relief. His eyes didn't clear, but his color improved slightly.

And then words started falling forth again, and T'Challa could only listen and wonder... "'In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country: In a republic it is the common voice of the people each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. It is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catchphrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have your duty by yourself and by your country. Hold up your head. You have nothing to be ashamed of.'"

"Can you stand, Captain? Time to go." T'Challa couldn't place that one, but it felt familiar...

Steve stared at him blankly. "'The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail...'"

"I'm sure it does," T'Challa replied as he helped him up. "Come on."

"'Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment...'"


Bucky was buckled into a seat into T'Challa's jet, resting with his eyes closed and doing his best to ignore the zinging of his left shoulder, when someone or something was plopped into the seat next to him. He cracked an eye open to find T'Challa buckling Steve into his seat, and Steve himself sucking on something that had white and red packaging. "Steve?"

Steve blinked, frowned... "'To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles..."

"That's Hamlet," T'Challa muttered as he pulled the now-empty Insta-Glucose stick out of Steve's hands, gave him another, and then handed Bucky three more. "Make sure he eats those, Sergeant."

"'Fair is foul and foul is fair, hover through the fog and filthy air,'" Steve interjected suddenly. "'When the hurly-burly's done, when the battle's lost and won.'"

Bucky looked at T'Challa. "He said something about going back in there, for Stark, before, and we can't just leave him. And-"

"I've got Stark, Sergeant. One thing, though..." T'Challa handed him a map. "Am I reading this right, that there's a settlement not too far away? I'd ask the Colonel, but don't want to remove his gag. He's done and said enough."

"'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known,'" Steve mumbled, and Bucky looked at him funny before taking the map from T'Challa and attempting to focus on it. The lines and the symbols kept blurring on him.

Bucky frowned up at T'Challa as he gave the paper back to him. "I think so? And that sounded familiar."

"'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way...'"

T'Challa frowned at Steve again. "It sounds familiar because it's Tale of Two Cities." At Bucky's blank expression, he shrugged. "I'll be back. Get him to eat those, Sergeant. It's going to be a long flight." He took the map back, watched Steve for another moment, then shook his head in wonder as he headed back out of the plane.

Later, Bucky wasn't sure if he'd imagined hearing an engine start up while listening to Steve quote Romeo and Juliet under Zemo's glare or not...


Now...


Towards the end of The Voyage Home, Steve found he liked the quirkiness and the problem solving, even if it felt like they'd dropped him into the middle of the story. And it was about world saving, so it wasn't all that bad. "Interesting."

"Good interesting or bad interesting?" Pepper asked.

"Good." He glanced down at Bucky, still out from the Ativan sedation. "And this would be good to show him, I think."

"That's the idea," Jill said as she got up to change out the disks. Then she paused. "And this next one is based in something you might recall. 1925 Diphtheria outbreak in Nome, Alaska."

Steve smiled. "That statue is one of the things that hasn't changed about Central Park, Jill."

She changed out the DVD's with a grin. "Right. And after watching this, you'll start to be able to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon." She turned and saw the kids, Laura, and Clint in the doorway. "Come on in! Pull up some floor! We've got talking dogs!"

Cooper peered at Bucky, still asleep on the couch. "You weren't kidding about the nap attack."

"I never kid about naps like this, Cooper," Jill said as she returned to her seat. "Steve, really... Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is a degrees of separation game, using Kevin Bacon, who plays the voice of Balto in this movie, as an example."

Clint nodded as he sat down on the floor next to Pepper's chair, Laura joining him, and Nathaniel climbing off of Steve's lap and running to the two of them. "It's a 90's thing. Actually gets really funny when the connections are made."

Bucky, who had by now rolled back off of his metal left shoulder, mumbled in his sleep. "Want plums. Plums..."

Steve frowned down at him, then shrugged and looked at Clint. "Thank you for that bit of trivia."

"Any time. How out is he?"

Steve grinned. "Nathaniel? Who is this?" He pointed down at Bucky.

"Bug!" Nathaniel yelled, and Bucky blinked his eyes open.

"Steve?" Bucky asked, yawning.

"Hmmm?"

"Elevator shaft." And then he was snoring again.

Pepper looked up from inspecting her finger nails, frowned at Bucky. "Elevator shaft?"

Damian frowned, glanced at Jill as Lila picked up the blocks from in front of the couch and took them over to where her parents and Cooper were sitting with Nathaniel. "You said he was having flashbacks?" She nodded. "Then maybe part of this is that he had a traumatic flashback and passed out when he hit peak."

"That makes sense. Would have happened at the same time." She watched as Steve stroked his hair again, frowning deeply. "Steve..."

"Like I said before," Steve mused. "I didn't want to give him nightmares. Not of that. And that's how out he is, Clint. He can't seem to stay awake, even if he wants to. Though he is putting words together now, so... improvement, thy name is elevator shaft." He frowned, glanced over at Jill. "And I've been wondering this since the 4th of July: what is a Chuck E. Cheese?"

Damian frowned at him. "Sort of an arcade slash restaurant slash theater for kids. There's one on Flatbush Avenue that we took the kids to a couple times for birthday parties. Why?"

Steve shrugged. "Something Commander Johnson said, about my continuing catch-up of popular culture. She seemed really offended that I'd not been dragged to one yet."

Sam laughed. "You mean the people who consulted with Khamisi on Barnes and then left us wondering about purple aliens?" At Steve's nod, he laughed again. "You could have asked at the time, you know."

"No, because the medical team brought Bucky out of cryofreeze after that and it didn't seem important. Can't go there right now, anyway."

Jill smiled at him, looked at Pepper. "Mason did say we'd have pizza when Damian and I got home. What's the chances that this'll get fixed in such a way that it's possible?"

"We'll discuss that later," Pepper answered. "And... is he off bland foods yet?"

Jill nodded. "Aside from the pancakes setting off a flashback? Yes. Why?"

"I have an idea," Pepper said as she got out of her chair and snagged her tablet from the end table. "Have to go discuss it with Fujo."


In the hallway, Fujo was still reading her book when Pepper tapped her shoulder. "Yes, Miss Potts?"

"Need your help with something." Pepper showed her tablet to her. "Is this possible?"

Fujo turned her attention to the tablet, frowned at the picture of pizza. "I don't see why not. Why?"

"Because... a taste of home, and James probably hasn't had pizza in a really long time, and Jill got his attention this morning by mentioning it. She said he was off the bland diet now, so..."

Fujo smiled. "You're right." Shuri passed by right then with a yawn, and Fujo caught her arm. "How tired are you?"

Shuri blinked at her. "Why?"

"Miss Potts has an idea. Involves Pizza."

Shuri frowned and accepted the tablet from Pepper, studied the picture. "Hmmm... we've got a chef that studied cuisine in Italy, too. She'll love this. Lunch or dinner?"

"Dinner," Pepper said. "Sergeant Barnes is still out from sedation right now. So it's possible?"

Shuri nodded. "Very. Tell Laura she doesn't have to cook tonight, that we will handle it." At Pepper's frown, Shuri smiled. "They've been doing their own cooking on alternating nights. It's Laura's night to cook."

"Oh!"


Pepper re-entered the common room to see that Steve was looking through a small notebook and frowning at it. She retook her seat and Lila climbed up to join her at Clint's urging. "Laura, you don't have to cook tonight. And... Steve?"

"Commander Johnson put Balto down in here." He glanced up at her. "And what is Miracle?"

Jill grinned. "Oh, we have that one! Cooper, do you like hockey?" Cooper nodded. "Then we'll be watching that after lunch, and Steve will get his answer. You'll love it, Steve."

"I will?"

"Let me put it this way: it's one of those awesome unification stories that just happens to be true."

Pepper frowned suddenly. "Where's Wanda?"

"She's got tutoring," Clint explained. "T'Challa's demand while he's teaching her physics is that she gets a proper well-rounded education."

"Oh. And are you okay with dogs?"

Laura nodded. "We had to leave Lucky with a friend." She glanced up at Lila with a fond smile. "And you miss him, right?"

"Miss him a lot," Lila said with a nod.

Pepper glanced at Bucky again, frowning. "It didn't strike me as odd until now, but... where'd the wacky pajama pants come from? Didn't he arrive here with basically the clothes on his back?"

"Cooper's idea," Jill said with a smile. "Go on, Cooper. Explain."

Cooper shrugged. "All I said was that he needed something fun, like those t-shirts that Mom sometimes wears with the cats and the dogs on them."

Steve nodded. "And it was a very good idea, Cooper. And Pepper? We got him some Penguins."

Pepper chuckled. "Well, good! She's here in spirit, if not in person!"

"Huh?" Cooper wondered.

"Becca has a Skiing Penguins scrub top," Steve explained with a grin. He frowned as Pepper stood up again, Lila staying in the chair. "Now where are you going?"

She smiled. "That one might be asleep, but the rest of you aren't, and Jill already got hers, so..."


Pepper entered the kitchen and found the King studying a pictures in a photo album at the kitchen island where she'd left the box. "See anything interesting?"

T'Challa nodded absently. "The Captain was very... small. And I've yet to see Barnes that happy and carefree. It's... odd."

"Days gone by?" Pepper suggested as she rooted in the box and pulled out a bag with his name on it. "Ah-hah! I did remember right, there's one here for you." She handed it to him and he frowned at her. "It was last minute, but well-meant."

He frowned at her for a moment before opening the bag and pulling out two cards in orange and green envelopes. He opened the green one first and could only stare at the sympathy card, signed by a bunch of people whose names and signatures he didn't recognize, then looked at Pepper. "I don't understand."

"The Barnes Family, specifically James's sister Rebecca, organized cards for everyone. That," she plucked it out of his hand and studied the signatures, then handed it back to him. "Those are the nurses on MedSurg at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn."

"And you know that how, Miss Potts?"

"I've met a few of them," Pepper answered with a shrug. "Also, the card on the back says it's from the hospital gift shop."

T'Challa looked at the card again, read the inscription it had come with, and smiled. "Oh."

"I'm wondering how she explained it, though. 'Hi, can you sign a card for the King of Wakanda? Yes, I'm serious!'"

"You're trying to make me laugh."

"Is it working?"

He smiled and opened the other one, only to stare again. This one was another sympathy card, only... "Miss Potts?" He handed it to her, and she read the signatures, and Rebecca's note to him, re: his loss of his father.

Pepper smiled. "She did that for Tony, too." T'Challa frowned at her. "If there's something Rebecca understands, it's losing people. And the others who signed this? All family." She handed it back to him and he looked at it again.

"Thank you," T'Challa told her after a long, silent moment.

She nodded and then pulled four bags out, only to stare at the fourth. "Your Highness?" He glanced at her and she held out the bag. "Give this to Wanda for me? Clint said she had tutoring, so you'll probably see her first." T'Challa nodded and accepted it.


When Pepper returned again to the common room, Jill had finally set her laptop aside and was absently playing with Damian's hair while they watched the movie. Pepper smiled at that, and then handed a bag first to Steve, another to Sam, and the last to Clint who looked up at her funny while she lifted Lila up and sat down again. "Never underestimate a grandmother, Clint. She'll badger anyone she pleases if she wants to. And she must have really, really wanted to."

Clint smiled as he looked into the bag, then showed Laura. "No, I just wasn't expecting... all this."

Laura reached in and pulled out a card. "Can I open it?" At his nod, she did, and found a birthday card, a humorous one with a cat playing an accordion on the front. "Accordion To The Calendar, it's your birthday?" She opened it and they all jumped at the accordion music that issued forth. The inside said "squeeze all the fun out of it!" and was signed by... "Who is Mason?"

"Want!" Nathaniel yelled and grabbed at it, and Laura held it up so he couldn't take it out of her hands. "Mama! Want!"

"No, Sweetie. This was for Daddy."

Clint frowned and looked up at it, open, and read the signatures, as well as the note... "Mason is Rebecca's grand-nephew. The rest who signed that must be the detail team."

"Is that an accordion?" Bucky wondered, staring straight at them.

"Sure is!" She opened it again, and grinned at his bemused expression. "Awake now?"

"Bug!" Nathaniel said happily, and Laura quickly handed the card to Clint and caught her son before he could start running anywhere.

Bucky yawned, looked up at Steve, who had pulled a card of his own at random from his own bag and opened it. "The future is weird, Steve."

Steve chuckled. "You're the one who wanted to go, Buck. And... there's a disk in here labeled '4th of July In Absentia Birthday Party, Recorded for Steve, Fran, and Nicole.' And now this. Buck, you awake?"

"That, or I'm dreaming about accordions..." He frowned when Steve showed him a blurry picture of something hard to make out. "That's a weird-looking picture, Steve."

Steve smiled. "It's an ultrasound. Becca explained this, year before last, to me as sort of taking a picture with sound waves. Do you see them? There's two." Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Jill was staring at him, her hand still in Damian's hair. Damian himself was frowning.

"Two?" Bucky wondered, yawning again. Clint closed and opened the card, setting the goofy accordion sound off again, and Bucky focused on the images. "Oh. I see them... sort of. But... now I'm confused."

Steve continued to smile. "You see... James wanted you to be the first to know, aside from his parents, his wife Nicole's parents, Miriam, Jane, and Andrea. They haven't told Becca yet, and according to James, who is your great-grand nephew, by the way, Nicole stayed home from the party on the forth so they wouldn't have to spill the beans to Becca, and also to rest and stay out of the heat." He raised his head to look at Jill. "Is twenty-two weeks the second trimester?"

"Yes," Jill answered. "And she'd very definitely be showing, with twins."

"I have a grand-nephew named James... who is having twins?" Bucky frowned tiredly. "And wanted to tell me before Becca? What for? Why me?"

"Why not you?" Steve asked, and Bucky stared up at him blankly. "You're going to ask this later, when you're not so tired, and I'll say the same thing: you're loved. You may have missed a whole heck of a lot, but... this?" He held up the photo again. "Inclusion. Family, Buck. Yours." He watched at Bucky yawned again and fell off to sleep once more. "He took that rather well." He passed the ultrasound photo over to Sam, with a motion to give it to Jill. Sam squinted at it, smiled, then passed it to Damian, who passed it to his wife without actually looking at it.

"I could make the card play again," Clint suggested humorously. "That's the most coherent he's been."

"No," Jill said with a laugh as she studied the photo before passing it back to Damian. "Let him sleep. And... someone needs to tell James he can tell his grandmother now. Honestly." She blinked when Damian handed the laptop back up to her. "Oh, right. I'll do that."


To: StonyERDuo
From: PsychologyMom
CC: EngineerStudent, WeatherKid
Subject: uh-huh...

I'll make this short and sweet: He knows. Now tell Rebecca she's going to be a grandmother again. (Also... three weeks?! Andi!)
And to Nicole from another mother who had multiples... I understand completely. Been there, done that.


To: PsychologyMom
From: StonyERDuo
CC: EngineerStudent, WeatherKid
Subject: re: Uh-huh...

He does? Awesome! Can't today. Fran's due any day (other reason they held off), and calling all the Hockey parents she knows today when I checked on her an hour ago, looking for a Missionary for some reason she couldn't explain, for her mom. (Hopefully, Aunt Jane will explain that at some point...)
And... duly noted. Sorry!
I love you, Mom. We never tell you that enough, do we?

To: StonyERDuo
From: WeatherKid
CC: EngineerStudent, PsychologyMom
Subject: re: Uh-huh...

Okay... what is going on, and why are you CCing me? And... um. Right. Love you, mom! (Who knows what?)
Weather down here at the bottom of the world... I miss NY in Summer. That's something I never thought I'd say...
Fran's looking for a... Hockey Missionary? And... if I'm reading this right... babies! Yay!
-Thomas, from McMurdo Research Base, land of snow and ice.


To: WeatherKid
From: EngineerStudent
CC: StonyERDuo, PsychologyMom
Subject: re: Uh-huh...

At least you're not having to read Mom's textbooks, Bro. And you're not missing much, weather-wise here. (And for all the complaining I do about the reading... I love you, Mom!)


To: StonyERDuo
From: PsychologyMom
CC: WeatherKid, EngineerStudent
Subject: re: Uh-huh...

I love you three, too.
Martin? Knowledge is your friend. But then... you know that.
Thomas... it's winter in Antarctica. Of course it's snowy and icy! (Yes... babies! Very yay!) Right now... I sort of miss NY weather, too. We can't tell you who knows what, or why it was important.
Andi: Fran's doing what when she's nesting? No, I read it, I'm just not sure I believe it. Our love to Fran and Henry and the kids!


Damian glanced back at her as Jill set the laptop down again. "You were laughing. About?"

"Hockey missionaries, Thomas wants out of McMurdo, and Martin's still complaining about the reading, but he loves me."

"Ah."

"And Fran might be in labor." He stared at her. "You asked. Steve?"

"Yes?"

She nodded to Bucky, now mumbling in his sleep about dancing. "If you didn't know before... Fran is due any day. Maybe even today." He stared at her. "What? I just report these things, I lost track of time, and I've been out of regular contact since May. Jane doesn't regularly email me with updates, Fran's not in my email list for whatever reason, I've not logged into Facebook because it's hard to do from here, and it doesn't come up that often."

"Oh." Steve looked down at Bucky. "So we get to tell him that, too. When it happens. Probably today."

Pepper frowned. "Which one is Fran? I know a lot of them, but..."

Damian smiled. "Fran is Jane's oldest, Jane is and was Abiah's youngest, Abby was Hazel's second born. I think I have that right, anyway. Took forever to understand it, and Kristy explained the family about six different times before I did. With a chart."

Steve winced suddenly. "Yes, you've got it right. And... I have to tell him about Abiah."

"We have to tell him about a lot of things, Steve," Jill said with a yawn. "And it's good that James included him... boy, is that going to be confusing. As it is, we have to clarify which Robert we're talking about if both are present! Rob and Bob!"

Damian glanced back at her, noticed she was yawning again, and smiled when she leaned back and started snoring. "Finally. Only took two movies, some venting, chart notes, and the kids saying I love you."

Steve stared at her. "That's the first time I've seen her do that."

"You've never seen the Doctor Nap Attack before?"

"No. Nurse Cat Naps, sure, but... Sam, what's so funny?"

Sam grinned. "Just remembering something I saw before, related to doctors falling asleep while doing chart notes."

Damian opened up Jill's laptop with a grin while also noticing that it needed to be plugged in...


To: StonyERDuo
From: WesternStories
CC: WeatherKid, EngineerStudent
Subject: Well...

Well done, the three of you! She finally relaxed enough to take a nap! (She needed it, trust me.)
And this is an odd question, but... Andi: Is Fran in labor? (And speaking of that: what's her email address? Jill doesn't have it in her address book on her laptop...)


To: WesternStories
From: StonyERDuo
CC: WeatherKid, EngineerStudent, WisdomsPower
Subject: Re: Well...

She might be, or she's just really, really stir-crazy from being cooped up due to repeated pre-term labor. And something about giving permission to Aunt Jane to go three hours away today for an interview... which has yet to make sense, out of context, but if this entire situation made sense, I'd be rich.
Mom took a nap! Mom took a nap! Yay!
Fixing the "Mom not having Fran's email on her laptop" thing! Fran! Talk to Dad! (For some reason, he's using her computer. This day is weird.)


To: WesternStories
From: WisdomsPower
CC: WeatherKid, EngineerStudent, StonyERDuo
Subject: Re: Well...

Henry's not letting me out of bed, the kids are at the rink for bonus ice time, and I'm tired of looking at these same walls day after day. What more do you want me to say? Yes, I'm grumpy. Grr.
And we can't put it in context over email, Andi. I want to, but it's Mom's story to tell and very hush-hush. And... must make another phone call. Hmmm... **picks one at random from address book**
Also, Damian? What are you doing with Jill's laptop when you've got your own?


To: WisdomsPower
From: WesternStories
CC: WeatherKid, EngineerStudent, StonyERDuo
Subject: Re: Well...

Ah, so the calling of Hockey Parents has a context related to Jane and is hush-hush over email. Gotcha. (That still makes no sense, Fran.)
As for why I'm using Jill's laptop... she took a nap and left it on. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
Can someone thank Kristy for sending Last of the Dogmen? Thank you.
And be as grumpy as you want, Fran. Bedrest is full of tedium. How did you end up on bed rest, anyway?


To: WesternStories
From: WisdomsPower
CC: WeatherKid, EngineerStudent, StonyERDuo
Subject: Re: Well...

In May, I was at Aunt Miriam's house for dinner when I went into pre-term labor, which they were able to stop because Aunt Becca recognized it for what it was and got me to care immediately, thank goodness. Having this baby at 28 or 29 weeks would have been bad. Gave Aunt Becca something else to focus on, too. And it gave Henry and I an idea. What was the idea? Aunt Becca is going to be the first to hear it, aside from Mom and Dad, who both loved it.
Thank Kristy? Will do.


Damian looked up from the laptop screen with a frown and glanced at the man sleeping on the couch, and Steve next to him. How many had been affected by Zemo's actions that had not been in the immediate circle? He was starting to lose count.


A/N: In order: Steve was quoting the Cyclops from The Odyssey, Mark Twain, Polonius and Hamlet, the witches from MacBeth, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.