Chapter Thirty-four

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Peggy Rogers opened her eyes and stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling. Oh wonderful - she'd never enjoyed waking up someplace strange. Then she shifted and froze at the unfamiliar aching shape and weight of her body.

Her baby!

She sat up so quickly that her head spun, and she dropped back against the pillow. Then her eyes caught the man in the chair by her bed, and the memory of the night before came back.

Steve hadn't wanted to leave them, so when he couldn't stay awake any longer, he had curled onto the edge of the bed behind her. At some point in the night, when the baby wouldn't stop fussing and Peggy's bleary, half-conscious attempts to soothe him had failed, Steve had got up.

"I'll take him," he'd assured her.

Apparently it had worked. The rocking chair from the nursery had been dragged in, and Steve leaned back in it, fast asleep. Their little boy slept too, cuddled atop the captain's chest, held securely by the two large hands that kept him in place. The captain was unshaven and rumpled, but the image was such a tender one that Peggy knew she would remember it for the rest of her life.

"FRIDAY, take pictures," she ordered, her voice just above a breath.

"Yes, miss," FRIDAY responded in the same tone, and Peggy sank deeper into her pillow, quietly satisfied.

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Natasha came by eventually, bearing breakfast and news. The rest of the tower's inhabitants would move in today - a good portion of their things had come already the evening before.

"And you?" Peggy asked. Natasha shrugged evasively. She was still a wild card in the game, committing neither to stay or to leave.

After eating, Peggy stubbornly insisted on taking a shower, and just as stubbornly refused to have anybody help her.

"You're gonna pass out," Steve worried, unwillingly helping her out of bed at her dictation.

"I'm not," she argued promptly. "I'm not a child. I'll be quite all right."

Steve still helped her to the bathroom door over her protests, only stopping when she shut it decisively in his face. Then he turned back to see Natasha observing him curiously, head tipped to one side.

"What?" he asked a little uneasily. The assassin shook her head.

"Just watching you two lovebirds, that's all. You know you're disgusting?"

He gave her a longsuffering look and she actually smiled at that.

Rogers Junior woke up then, and Natasha's whole posture seemed to relax a little as the captain picked him up again. Then, sauntering over, she peeked at the baby's face with a thoughtful expression.

"Takes after you, Rogers," she finally decided. "He'd never get a face like that from Peggy's side of the family."

Steve pretended to look hurt, but was too intrigued by the way his boy kept trying to burrow into his chest face-first. "What are you doing?" he asked softly. "Light too bright for you?"

"It's called rooting." Natasha had that look again - the one that meant she was laughing on the inside. "Junior wants his breakfast, doesn't he?"

An odd expression crossed Steve's face, and then he gently readjusted his son, sitting down in the rocking chair. "Sorry, kiddo - I got nothing for you. Think you can wait until your mum's out of the shower?"

Ten seconds later, Peggy blacked out.

Steve heard her gasp and go down, and was on his feet in a heartbeat, just taking enough time to install his son in Natasha's surprised arms before he barreled through the bathroom door at top speed. The shower curtain was closed and he tore it half off the rings trying to get it open. "Peggy?"

She sprawled in an inelegant huddle on the shower floor, just conscious enough to raise her head as he pulled her into his arms. Apparently she'd been aware enough to keep from hurting herself when she fell, but the captain still felt his heart beating high in his throat. "You all right?" he demanded, brushing the wet hair out of her eyes.

Peggy rested her head against his chest, neither one caring that he was getting soaked. "Not a word, Captain," she panted at last. "Not one word."

"Do I need to get the nurse?" asked Natasha from the broken door, where she hovered uncertainly, arms full of their baby. Peggy shook her head decidedly, so Steve reached to pull the trailing shower curtain in an attempt to give his wife some dignity.

"We'll be okay," he decided. "Can you look after him for a minute while I give her a hand?"

Calculating eyes rested on each of them for a moment before the assassin nodded and stepped back. Steve weighed his options and then crawled the rest of the way into the shower. He was already drenched - a little more water wouldn't hurt anybody. Peggy curled her fingers into his sopping t-shirt, already beginning to look a little more aware.

"I feel like an imbecile," she finally grumbled into his shoulder. "Ouch."

Steve helped her curl into a more comfortable position on the floor of the shower before reaching for the washcloth she must have dropped. "Don't. You had a big day yesterday. Besides, I probably could do with a wash too."

Peggy pretended to sniff and then made a face. He grinned and pressed an affectionate kiss to the top of her head as the water drummed down on them both.

She felt much better after the shower, and Natasha had been thoughtful enough to leave a clean pair of pajamas for Peggy and a dry change of clothes for Steve just inside the broken door. He helped Peggy get dressed before quickly stripping out of his soaked clothes and into dry things. There would be time for a proper shower for him later.

For now, he had to get Peggy settled.

He hovered, but she made it across the room under her own power, with the grim, determined look about her set jaw that Steve had seen during so many battles and tense standoffs. This time, though, the battle was with her own body.

Natasha looked up at their entrance. She was seated somewhat unorthodoxly in the rocking chair, feet tossed up over one of the arms. Baby Rogers snuffled into the hollow of her throat, making the soft little whimpers and grunts of the very newly born child.

"Hey Junior," she said softly into one fragile shell of an ear. "Your breakfast's here."

The glare Peggy sent her way could have set the drapes on fire, even as she awkwardly got into bed. "I have a name," she retorted, "besides 'breakfast.'"

Natasha peered down into the little face again, gently tracing the tiny features with one finger. Even as Steve busily tucked her into bed, Peggy watched with a little kernel of worry niggling at the corners of her mind. Not that the assassin would ever hurt their child - she knew that would never happen. Rather, she worried for the woman who had lost her choice in the matter of children.

She needn't have worried. As soon as Peggy was tucked in, the Russian swung easily to her feet and handed over the baby. There was tenderness in her eyes, and something seemed to have settled in her soul.

"You know where I come from," she told Peggy later, after Steve had to leave. TIme didn't stop just because of a new baby, and the rest of the team was arriving shortly. "You saw what I was created to be."

"I know a little," said Peggy, slightly distracted as she adjusted her son in her arms, carefully supporting his neck. Holding babies wasn't something she had thought would come naturally to her, but it was proving more intuitive than she had expected. "I was only at the facility for a few hours, and Dottie wasn't exactly talkative about anything useful."

Natasha shrugged. She looked younger than ever in that moment as she snuggled down into the rocking chair again. "As far as I know, you're the only western woman to ever see the inside of the Red Room, and one of the few to survive being a direct target. You know what I've done to others - even children."

Peggy looked down at her sweet little boy, who was beginning to root against the front of her dressing gown, searching for his breakfast. Then she looked up at the assassin, who was watching her with an inscrutable expression. "I can guess," she said at last.

"Steve trusts too easily," said Natasha, sinking further into the chair until her posture would have given a chiropractor fits. "But you know - and you still let me sit here and hold your son."

Ah. There was the crux of the matter.

"If you were the person you were made to be," said Peggy after a moment's thought, "I would be doing everything in my power right now to get my son away from you." She didn't break eye contact with the other woman. "But you aren't that person - and the woman I see right now is a woman that I trust."

Something in Natasha's eyes flickered, and for a heartbeat Peggy saw a look of open wonder flash across her face. Then, with catlike grace, she swung her legs around and stood.

"Tell Steve I'll stay," she said, and vanished through the door.

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Even though Tony wasn't moving in as Iron Man, he was waiting with the newly-arrived Avengers when Steve emerged from the medical wing.

"How's my godson?" the billionaire demanded, even though Steve had told him a thousand times that they weren't picking godparents for their baby. There was no way they could pick the entire lineup of the Avengers, and such an event would be sure to get to the press somehow. "Healthy, wealthy and wise, all that?"

"Well, I don't know about wealthy and wise, but he's doing fine and so is Peggy," Steve grinned, shaking the other man's hand. His fingers still hurt from where Peggy had crushed them in her unrelenting grip.

It was good to see the others. Clint wasn't back - his own baby was seven weeks old, and the paternity leave he had claimed seemed to be turning into more of an indefinite leave. Wanda Maximoff was there though, and Sam Wilson seemed to be taking her under his figurative wing - the literal ones were still in Tony's workshop. Rhodey was busy in Washington DC, and wouldn't be out for a day or two more.

"I should like to meet the new member of our valiant band." Thor, who had arrived a few minutes after the rest of the Avengers, set his hammer on the coffee table with a solid thump amid the clutter of still-unpacked boxes. Behind him, Vision hovered an inch or so above the floor. He had apparently abandoned the cape for a more human style of clothing, and Steve grinned at the Dodgers baseball cap the android was wearing. Obviously he had taught Thor well in the ways of baseball teams.

Natasha appeared from nowhere, making Tony jump. "Peggy's resting," she announced to the room in general. Then she stared at Vision, one eyebrow slowly lifting. "Nice hat."

Vision nodded carefully. Steve wasn't entirely sure if he could process sarcasm yet. That was something Thor probably hadn't been able to teach, since he wasn't a master at recognizing it himself.

Well, there would be time to work on that.

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Tony Stark, being Tony Stark, insisted he be allowed to see the new mother and baby until Steve finally gave in.

In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have beat Steve to the door.

Flinging it open, he took one step before Peggy jolted up onto an elbow, bending her body protectively over her child even as she jerked a handgun out from under her pillow and swung it around to point directly at Tony's head. The inventor squawked in alarm and Peggy blinked through her sleepy haze before lowering her gun.

"Good heavens, man - I might have shot you!"

Tony's eyes were a little wider than usual, but then Steve came through the door behind him with a grin. "Pistol packin' mama," he hummed cheerfully, bending to press a kiss against his wife's forehead. "That song always used to make me think of you, you know."

Everyone else crowded in after, and the baby was handed around to those willing. Thor was completely and utterly captivated by the little stranger. He was also extremely careful, changing out of his armor and leaving his hammer at the door in case he hurt the baby. Then, very tenderly, he lifted the child in his huge hands.

"Greetings, young one," he rumbled softly. "You have traveled far."

The baby was just as fascinated, staring up at the alien's face, gurgling. Peggy nudged her husband, and Steve smiled at the sight of the immeasurably ancient alien looking down into the eyes of their brand-new little person.

Once Thor was persuaded to give the baby up, they let Tony have a turn, despite his half-panicked protests. "But I don't know what to do with it," he argued a little helplessly, staring at the child in his arms as though it were made of some kind of particularly interesting and perplexing material.

Vision regarded them both gravely. "Data suggests one must speak in an appealing voice about age-appropriate topics."

Tony looked doubtful, but did his best. "Hello, small-scale human. How's - babyland? Okay, it's dripping on me. Make it stop."

Sam easily swooped in, taking over with the capability that came with much practice handling his own younger relatives, and Tony watched attentively, bouncing a little on his toes.

"I think you two just broke a record or something. You've just had the world's youngest Baby Boomer. You're naming him Tony, right?"

Steve grinned and shook his head. "Sorry, Tony."

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They'd had the conversation many times, long before the baby was born.

"James?" Peggy had suggested, the week after they learned she was expecting.

He wasn't facing her, but she could see her husband's shoulders tense slightly and then relax. "After Bucky?" His voice was soft, and for a moment she thought he was going to say yes, but then he shook his head and turned to face her. "I couldn't call a kid James. It's why we he went by Bucky."

Peggy shrugged. "There are nicknames for James too. How about Jim? Or Jamie?"

Steve's look of horror promptly banished both of those ideas.

"Michael," he suggested instead.

Peggy's heart seized painfully. Even though she'd since learned her brother had survived the war, it didn't take away the pain of losing him every time she heard his name. And while she quite liked the name Michael in and of itself, she knew her husband didn't care for it. As a child of Irish descent in Brooklyn, derisive calls of "hey, Mick" had plagued his growing-up years.

"Let's put a pin in that one," she suggested tactfully, and let it rest.

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They thought a long time about naming him Timothy. They'd even tried it out for a few weeks. Dum Dum Dugan had saved Peggy Carter's life at the expense of his own by giving her his cryoprotectant and shoving her into the Stark Tube, and it seemed a fitting way to honor him. But at the end of two weeks they both had to admit that their baby didn't feel like a Timothy.

"Besides," Peggy pointed out, "it's not as if Dugan was terribly attached to the name. It's why we all called him Dum Dum instead."

So Timothy was out.

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"You could name him after me," Sam had suggested, coming in during one of those conversations and striking a pose in the doorway. "Samuel Rogers. Great name. Biblical too. Sounds almost presidential."

But Samuel wasn't quite right either.

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"I still think we should name him James," Peggy had insisted, two days after Steve got home from Sokovia. She liked the name, and she knew her husband well enough to know that he liked it too - he just had somehow got it into his head that it would be unfair to her to name their child after his best friend.

Sure enough, Steve shook his head doggedly.

She switched tracks. "All right, then let's name him after one of the other Commandos."

Steve considered the matter, opened his mouth - and then shut it and gave her a dirty look as she started laughing. It had been a well-worn joke among the Howlies that all but three - Steve, Gabe, and Timothy - were named some variant of the name James.

"I assume you're not suggesting we name him Gabriel," he said at last, and his flat tone set her off into another laugh.

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Before he left to introduce Vision to humanity, they'd asked Thor for an opinion. He'd got the look on his face that generally meant he realized there was a cultural gap ahead. "On Asgard we have naming patterns," he hedged. "The choice of a name is not one generally considered. What is your father's name?"

"Joseph," Steve volunteered,

Thor looked pleased. "Joseph Stevenson," he declared proudly. "A very good name."

"Joe…" Steve tried the name out and then shook his head. "Joe DiMaggio played for the Yankees."

Even Thor knew enough about Steve's love for the Brooklyn Dodgers to know that it would never work.

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Three weeks before the baby's birth, Steve sat bolt upright in the middle of the night. "Phillip!" he suggested triumphantly. Chester Phillips had been a mentor to both him and Peggy.

Peggy groaned and put her head under her pillow. "Coulson would be ecstatic," she grumbled, voice muffled.

Steve thought about it a minute longer and then lay back down. "Okay, never mind."

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"Thor had a good idea," Peggy declared thoughtfully. "You were named after your grandfather, weren't you? Let's name him after my grandfather."

Steve aimed a doubtful eye at her. "Please don't tell me his name was something like Habakkuk," he begged. "Or Tony."

Peggy's grin was wolfish. "It was James."

Her husband threw his hands up and left the room.

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"You really like the name James?" he finally asked. "You're not just saying it because we're caught up in looking for him?"

It was the Fourth of July, and they had both had their fill of loud, bright fireworks; instead taking refuge deep in the tower where the unexpected explosions wouldn't set them on edge. The couch they had settled on was deep and soft, and Peggy was fairly sure she wouldn't be able to get out of it again. She nodded, rubbing her palm across her large, rounded stomach, feeling her son's strong kick.

"I do like it," she confessed. "Not just because of Bucky. It's a good name and I've known so many good men who wore it." Her grandfather, Jim Morita, James Montgomery Falsworth, Jacques Dernier, James Rhodes - the list went on and on.

Steve scowled thoughtfully, but she read her victory in his expression. "But what would we call him? I still don't like Jimmy."

"Mmm," Peggy reached over to take her husband's hand. "I've got a thought about that. See, darling, you weren't the only one with friends that meant a good deal to you."

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In the end, they did name him James.

"James Edwin Rogers," Steve told Tony. "He'll go by Eddie."

In the background, Colonel Rhodes punched a fist into the air, and Sam groaned, handing a victorious Natasha a twenty-dollar bill. Tony didn't react for a minute, and then his face visibly softened.

"Edwin, huh?" He looked again at the little child in Steve's arms. With one finger, he touched the curled hand that was sticking out of the blanket. "You've got a lot of growing to live up to that name, kid," he said softly, and then blinked hard and turned on his heel, ducking his head to hide the touched smile on his face and the slight mist in his eyes.

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Thank you all for your lovely reviews, and for the truly excellent selection of baby names! I believe I was able to incorporate at least one name from each of your suggestions into the discussion, but please know that I read and loved them all. I surely do appreciate your participation!

Okay, quick notes: Pistol Packin' Mama is a 1943 song written by Al Dexter and made popular by Bing Crosby and the Andrews sisters. It's been my song of choice for Peggy for a while, and I was charmed that they included it in season 2 of Agent Carter.

I borrowed the Asgardian naming pattern Thor refers to from the traditional Swedish naming pattern. It's not been strictly utilized since the mid-1800's, but it involves a patronymic surname, with the first name coming from a specific sequence of the baby's relatives. (Yes, I know it doesn't really follow what we know of Asgard, but humor me and indulge my Nordic nerdiness, okay? Okay. Thanks.)

Finally, thank you for your delightful reviews. They are the only reason you're getting this chapter at this insane hour. Y'all are wonderful and I love you, and will respond to your reviews once I finish getting this story up. Good luck to those seeing Endgame tomorrow! I hope you survive long enough to read the epilogue. :)

Ryn: Thank you! I love you too, especially for being kind enough to read and leave me that very kind review. You have a wonderful day!