When Tony had been called into his daughter's boyfriend's hospital room and said daughter wasn't in said room, he knew something was up. There had to be, Samantha had barely left Steve's side since he was brought out of the Operating Room and now she wasn't in the room? Something was up and Tony Stark was bound and determined to discover what it was. So, he did it in typical Tony Stark fashion: Bluntly and sarcastically, just like a teenager "The King has summoned and I am here. Now, why am I here?" he asked, noting that Steve did have a fair bit more colour back in his cheeks than he had the last time that Tony had seen him, mind you, that had been whilst the super-soldier was comatose.

To Tony, Steve seemed nervous: he was doing that weird finger-tapping thing he did that nobody mentioned but everyone knew about. Why was he nervous? Was there a reason for him to be nervous? What had Steve done? "I'm… I'm not sure how to ask this…" the Super-soldier asked and Tony was still confused.

"Capsicle what did you do?" the genius asked, his tone both serious and suspicious – S.H.I.E.L.D. really had turned him into a suspicious asshole, actually check that, change it and place all blame on Obadiah Stane.

"Nothing… well, nothing yet anyway. I… I want to ask Samantha to marry me and I figured I should run it by you first," Steve said and Tony smirked.

"I can't say I'm surprised," Tony said running his hand through his hair, somehow the idea of Samantha getting married stressed him out; maybe it was the fact that his eldest daughter was leaving the nest or some psycho-babble he knew Pepper could spout off the top of her head or maybe it was the idea that Samantha wasn't the not-so innocent teenager who had shown up on his doorstep those four short years before. "I'm not going to say no, even if I did you and I both know that Samantha would just go ahead and do whatever the hell she wanted anyway but I am going to say this: If you hurt her in any way, I swear to God and Odin I will come after you with every weaponised suit I have in my arsenal," he said, his eyes narrowed in a glare that Steve had only seen in Samantha, it was one she couldn't hold long with him and he wondered how long Tony would manage to hold it.

"I understand," Steve replied not betraying any element of the glee he felt at the fact that Tony was okay with all of it. Not that he needed Tony Stark's permission for anything but his blessing on this particular thing was a nice thing to have.

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Meanwhile, Samantha was in Fury's office dealing with a new proposal S.H.I.E.L.D. was putting forward regarding her job "You cannot seriously expect me to just sit at a desk while everyone else is out there in the field! What did I do to deserve to be stuck on base ops?" she all but yelled at her boss. She was infuriated, base ops was basically a death sentence for a field agent and she knew it.

"You hit a man's head against a metal desk multiple times Stark!"

"And? I got the info we needed to be able to save the life of one of our assets, tell me that's not a good outcome!"

"I'm concerned about you Samantha," Fury told her, his voice softening compared to its louder predecessor.

Samantha rolled her eyes, seeming like a petulant teenager "Is it you who is concerned or is it my father?" her voice was low with some form of anger. God why were her emotions all over the place of late? For the moment, she was going to put it off as coffee withdrawal.

"You know that your father doesn't control me or my thoughts," Fury replied. That wasn't what she had meant and he knew it but she couldn't be bothered correcting him for the moment.

"Put me in the field and I'll prove that I'm fine,"

"Fine, take until the agreed upon suspension is up, after that all of your privileges will be reinstated on a trial basis. If I find a single reason why you shouldn't be in the field I will pull you out," he told her and she smirked in thanks.

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Upon returning to Steve's hospital room, Samantha was surprised to see her father leaving the room, one of the biggest smiles she'd ever seen plastered his face. If that wasn't odd, she didn't know what was. She walked into the hospital room and decided to ask Steve what was going on. "Nothing," he informed her, clearly lying. He was doing the finger tapping thing which meant one of two things: He was either lying or nervous, possibly both.

"You're lying," she stated and he got the feeling that he was about to be interrogated over it all. Instead, she decided to leave it alone, somehow figuring out one potential reason why her moods may have been so temperamental lately. She tried to do the math in her head, 1 week, that wasn't enough to cause panic surely? Who was to say she even was? The Red Room had mad it pretty damn impossible for that to happen. Still, she knew what she needed to do. She would wait until Steve was asleep again, he did that a lot these days; she could basically guarantee that he'd be asleep for a few hours around 2 o'clock in the afternoon. That would give her enough time to head out to a nearby general store and buying a test, taking it and hoping that it would be the only one she would ever fail in her life.

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She stood in the bathroom of the general store, waiting. Waiting for the results of the test. Maybe she could be a mother, particularly if Steve were to support her. It wouldn't be like what it would have been like with Matthew. She and Steve would be good parents. If the baby were a girl, they'd name her Peggy and if it were a boy they'd name him James. Whatever gender the baby was, it would be loved, they would both make sure of that. It'd have Steve's eyes and mouth and her hair.

It took a while for her to look down at the test, feeling completely conflicted over it all: Did she want a child? Eventually, yes but at the age of 20? Well, she just didn't know. She looked down and saw the words 'Not Pregnant' written across the screen and felt relief wash over her and at the same time… guilt. She couldn't quite put her finger on why either. Was it because she hadn't told Steve about her suspicions? Or because she knew that if she had been pregnant, she would have made a terrible mother? Either way, she had to get back to Steve so that he wouldn't realise that she had even been gone.

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Samantha would be lying if she said that she wasn't surprised to see Sharon Carter in Steve's hospital room when she got back. Pigs would be flying – something she knew that Fitz-Simmons were working on – if she were to say that she had guessed the announcement that came next: Sharon was pregnant… with Steve's child.

Samantha knew exactly what that meant: It meant that she would be pushed to the side and, when she wasn't being pushed to the side, she would feel automatically guilty. So, for once in her life, she decided to put herself first, to take the easy way out: She decided to break up with Steve. Politely, she asked Sharon to exit the room before telling Steve "I think we should break up," She knew it was mean but still, she did it. In a sense, it was the right thing to do.

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She made her way to the set of offices that had become the task force's hub. She didn't know why either, but, upon seeing her father there, she knew that she had made the right decision "You okay kiddo?" he asked concernedly, his demeanour completely changing as though he had noticed that something was up. Not that she had really attempted to hide it though.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine," she repeated, unsure as to whom she was repeating it for: her father or herself? Either way, it didn't matter, the words 'I'm fine' were about to become her mantra.

He looked at her suspiciously "You're repeating yourself, your mom used to do that that means you're not fine," he said and she rolled her eyes before giving him her expertly perfected puppy dog eyes.

"I want to go home," she said, her eyes wide with sadness as the realisation of what she had done hit her.

"Sure," he said, barely appearing to give it a second thought.