January, 1951

In which two become three.

"Steve, wake up."

"Mm," Steve grunted, blinking his eyes open as fingertips patted urgently at the side of his face. "Peggy? Y'alright?" he yawned.

"I think this is it," she said, and it was too dark to see her face, but she sounded awake.

"S'what?" he asked, reaching for the lamp and trying to convince his brain to wake the rest of the way up.

"I think the baby's coming," she said.

Steve's eyes snapped open. Well, that was one way to wake him up. "Really?"

She nodded. "I'm pretty sure these are contractions. They're several minutes apart, but they're coming fairly regularly."

Steve sat up, pushing the blankets aside and maneuvering his broken leg off the bed. "Why didn't you wake me up earlier?"

"I didn't know that's what it was at first," she said. "I thought he was just kicking really hard. But the more it happened, the more it started to feel different." She stopped speaking and shut her eyes, breathing sharply. Steve realized she was having one now, and he wasn't sure what to do, but he leaned back across the bed and held onto her shoulder as she breathed through it. "I'm fairly certain now they're contractions," she said with a little smile.

"Okay," Steve said. There was a hurricane of emotion picking up speed inside his brain right now, and if he looked at it, he would probably shut down and panic, so he wasn't going to do that. He was going to focus on Peggy, and Peggy needed to go to the hospital. "Let's go have a baby," he said with a smile.

They both had a lot of trouble getting out of bed these days, but once he had his leg off the bed, he was able to lever himself to his feet and grab his crutch, then he rounded the bed and helped Peggy get up. Steve threw on something a little more presentable than his pajamas while Peggy pulled on her bathrobe and headed downstairs. Steve hobbled down the stairs after her and very apologetically called Edwin Jarvis—he couldn't drive with his bad leg, and Peggy no longer fit behind the steering wheel. It was three in the morning, but once the phone picked up, Jarvis agreed to his request for a ride cheerfully, assuring him it was no trouble at all.

"Okay, Jarvis is coming," Steve said. "Will you be…" He trailed off as he looked into the kitchen. "What are you doing?"

"Making a cup of tea," Peggy said calmly.

"Now?"

"He's not going to get here for at least twenty minutes," she said. "And I highly doubt I'm going to get any breakfast once this really gets going, so, yes, I'm making tea and toast." The toaster dinged and she grabbed two slices of bread out of it and popped two more in. "I'm making some for you as well. Will you get the jam?"

Steve got the strawberry jelly out of the fridge and handed it to her, and she handed him a cup of tea. "You're awfully calm about this," he remarked.

She smiled. "If I just stand here and fret for the next twenty minutes, I'll just be cross and hungry by the time we arrive at the hospital."

Steve chuckled. "Well, we wouldn't want that."

She smiled and took a bite of her toast. "Was Mr. Jarvis alright about being rung up at this hour?"

Steve nodded. "I sometimes get the feeling the man lives for driving people around," he said with a smile. He'd known the Jarvises long enough now to consider them both good friends, just like Peggy did, but he'd never met anyone with Edwin Jarvis's enthusiasm for chauffeuring, whether he was employed by his passengers or not.

"He does seem to have rather a passion for it," Peggy agreed. She winced and set her tea down on the counter, putting a hand to the side of her belly and drawing in sharp, quick breaths through her nose. Steve moved over and stood behind her, putting his weight on his good leg and using both hands to hold on to her arms.

"You okay?" he asked when she sighed and relaxed back against his chest.

She nodded and he kissed her cheek. "They're not coming any quicker yet, but they are getting stronger."

"You want to sit down?"

She shook her head and leaned forward to pick up her tea cup. "No. I'm starting to feel a bit jittery, and I need to be able to move." He let go of her arms, and she started pacing up and down along the counter. "And if I sat down, we'd be having this baby in the living room, because I don't think I'd be able to get up again."

Steve chuckled at that, then handed her her toast so she could munch on it as she walked back and forth. The toaster dinged again and he pulled out the two slices she'd popped in for him, spreading butter across them while the bread was still hot enough to melt it. He leaned back against the counter and took a bite, smiling as he watched her.

She noticed him watching and color rose in her cheeks. "I suppose I look a bit daft, don't I, walking in circles in the kitchen eating toast?"

Steve smiled even wider. "I was thinking you look ridiculously calm compared to what I've got going on in here right now," he said, gesturing at the side of his head. "So, if you need to walk in circles, walk in circles."

She smiled at that and kept walking. "Can't imagine what there is for you to be nervous about—you're not the one going into labor," she said, and her tone told him she was teasing.

"You're right," Steve agreed. "Don't know what I was thinking. Never mind, I'm fine. I'll just go back to bed and you can call me when it's over."

Peggy laughed and threw one of her crusts at his face. "Cheeky monkey." He grinned and she held out a hand. "Give me that crust back. I want to eat that." Steve bit off the end of the crust before he handed it back, and she narrowed her eyes at him. "Thin ice, Captain."

She walked a little more before another contraction hit—she was down at the other end of the kitchen, and she held out a hand and Steve hopped over and took it. "Is it bad?" Steve asked when it was over and she was breathing normally again. He'd read through all the pregnancy literature the doctor had given her, wanting to know what was going to happen and how he could help at every stage, but it had all been clinically vague about how painful contractions could be. Obviously, it was a painful process, but how much and how soon, he wasn't sure.

"Manageable," she said. "But…yes." She hadn't let go of his hand yet, and she squeezed it a little tighter and looked up at him. For the first time, her confident expression faltered. "You're…" she started, her voice sounding smaller and more nervous than she probably meant for it to. "You're going to stay with me, right?"

The prospect of Peggy being in pain, no matter how wonderful the end result might be, twisted a sick knot in his stomach, and it only intensified at the thought of all the things that could go wrong. Steve was terrified. But Peggy was scared too, and if she was scared, then Steve could be brave. He smiled at her warmly and cupped a hand to the side of her face. "Of course, I am." They'd talked about this before—Steve knew at this point in history, it was customary for the expectant fathers to wait outside, but he intended to be there for every step of the way. "Time itself couldn't keep me away from you. I'd like to see a bunch of doctors try."

She smiled at that, and some of that confidence came back into her eye. "Thank you," she said softly. She slid a hand around the back of his head and pulled him forward to kiss him.

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back, then jumped back abruptly at what felt like a small but forceful punch in the gut where the swell of Peggy's belly pressed up against him.

"Ow," she complained, rubbing a hand across her stomach. "I know you're ready to come out, love, but calm down a bit." She smiled up at Steve. "Think of the mess your father is going to have to clean up if you insist on being born in the kitchen."

Steve laughed and reached out a hand to pat her belly. "Hang in there, buddy," he said. "I'm excited to meet you too."

There was a sharp rap at the door, and Peggy moved to let Jarvis in while Steve swallowed down the last of his tea and grabbed his crutch, snatching up the overnight bag that had been sitting on the end of the couch for the past week. Jarvis was already escorting Peggy to the car, then coming back up the walk to take the bag from Steve. In the light from the porch, Steve could see that the normally immaculate butler was in his pajamas and bathrobe, hair mussed and wearing slippers that didn't match. Steve appreciated his hurry in getting here, but it was such a jarring visual, it was like he was looking at a stranger.

The ride to the hospital was quick, and for the most part, quiet. Peggy had two more contractions along the way, and they seemed to be getting closer together. She had another one just as Jarvis pulled up to the curb in front of the hospital doors. Steve had already started to get out of the car, so he came around to her side quickly and crouched down as best he could in front of her open door, taking her hands in his. Her eyes were watering when the contraction passed and she opened them again.

"Aw, Peggy," he whispered, reaching up and cupping a hand to her face, stroking her cheek with his thumb.

She shook her head, though not enough to dislodge his hand. "It's not because it hurts," she said softly, blinking the tears away. "Well," she amended. "It is a bit, because it really hurts, but that's not really it."

"What is it?" he asked gently.

"I don't know, I'm just so…I'm feeling so many things right now. I'm so, so happy, but I'm also really scared, and I'm sad because this part, him being a part of me like this, it's over, but I'm also just so excited to be able to hold him and see him, and I just…" She sniffed and smiled at Steve, wonder sparkling in the hazel depths of her eyes even she blinked away the moisture that had sprung back into them. "This is really it, Steve."

Steve smiled back and kissed her gently. "It really is," he said. "We're about to be parents."

"Dear Lord, we're going to be parents," she said with a watery laugh. She looked back at him, that look she gave him that always sent joyful little shivers running up his spine. "I think we can do this," she said.

"I think we can," Steve agreed.

She kissed him again, and then Jarvis, who had tactfully been waiting down by the trunk, appeared to help maneuver Steve back to his feet and offer his arm to help Peggy from the car.

"Shall I fetch a wheelchair for you, Agent Carter?" he asked.

"Thank you, Mr. Jarvis," she replied. "But I think I would prefer to walk."

"Of course. I shall park the car and bring your bag in at once."

"Thanks, Jarvis," Steve said with a smile. He took Peggy's arm in his free one and started walking toward the door.

They made it to the front desk before the next contraction hit, and a nurse appeared out of nowhere with a wheelchair, which Peggy did not argue about accepting this time. She squeezed Steve's hand and breathed her way through it, looking alarmed when she opened her eyes.

"Peggy, what's wrong?" Steve asked, dropping his crutch and crouching down in front of her again.

"That one was different," she said. "Something happened; I don't—"

"That was just your water breaking, honey," the nurse who had brought her the wheelchair said, patting her on the shoulder. "Totally normal."

Steve smiled reassuringly and squeezed her hand. "Don't worry," he told her. "You're not bleeding. Just getting amniotic fluid all over the place."

That got a smile out of her, as he'd known it would. They'd been doing all their researching and reading about pregnancy together—knowing she wasn't bleeding when she shouldn't be and knowing what step she was entering would calm her down—and while she'd appreciated Steve's involvement in the process, she'd been amused by his insistence on learning the proper medical terms for everything.

"Well, if that's all," she said, squeezing his hand back.

Steve smiled wider and leaned forward to kiss her. "Why don't you go on in and get settled, and I'll be there as soon as I get the paperwork done?"

Peggy nodded and squeezed his hand one more time. "Don't take too long."

The nurse wheeled her away, and Steve struggled a little bit getting to his feet, but then Jarvis was there to take his arm. "I'm not sure crouching is particularly advisable in your current condition, sir," he said.

"Yeah," Steve agreed, accepting the crutch Jarvis picked up for him. "I just keep forgetting that until I'm already down. Thanks." It had been about six weeks with his leg like this, and he still wasn't used to not having his full range of motion. It had been a bad enough break, the docs had originally been projecting four months and some extended physical therapy, but the serum was doing its job and healing him ahead of schedule. At his last checkup, his doc had figured the cast could come off in another couple of weeks, and Steve was more than ready.

He collected the clipboard of paperwork from the desk and sat down with Jarvis in the nearest set of chairs. It seemed to take forever, and his thoughts kept drifting off to Peggy and hoping she was alright, and he knew that was making him take longer. Once he had it done, he got up to turn it in, then told Jarvis he was welcome to go home and go back to bed.

"Nonsense, Mr. Carter," Jarvis said, looking mildly affronted. "I shall remain here in case you need anything." A small, slightly embarrassed smile tugged up one corner of his mouth. "And though I am aware that I am not family, I must confess myself rather invested in the whole affair. I should very much like to wait and meet the new addition."

Steve smiled, feeling touched. "Alright. I'll keep you posted." He took a few steps in the direction of the double doors Peggy had disappeared through, then stopped and turned around. "And don't kid yourself that you're not family," he added. He smiled wider. "Little guy's going to need an uncle when he comes out."

Jarvis beamed and blushed and sputtered a little bit, and Steve chuckled and headed back to find Peggy.

He met some opposition once he made it through the doors. The nurse at the desk had told him what room Peggy was in, but the doctor who exited the door just as Steve reached it was very unhappy about his desire to go inside.

"You're one of them, hmm?" the doctor said, one side of his mouth curling up in distaste. "You look a little old to be a Beatnik, son."

"Are you going to let me in?" Steve sighed.

"I don't hold with these modern notions," the doctor continued, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Why don't you just go and wait out in the front like everybody else?"

"And I don't hold with people who try to keep me from seeing my wife," Steve snapped back, drawing himself up a little straighter.

"Humanity has survived just fine up until now without all you new fathers trying to get in touch with your feminine side, or whatever the hell it is you think you're doing when you go back there," the doctor protested.

"Humanity has survived, but you may not if you don't let me in," Steve growled. Steve was significantly taller than the doctor, so if he kept refusing, Steve could just shove past him, but he was just the tiniest bit tempted to give the obstinate man a good whack with his crutch.

The doctor sighed and shook his head, but stepped out of the way. "Fine," he huffed. "But when the nurses and I are working, you stay out of the way or I'll have security remove you."

Steve gave him an exaggeratedly polite nod of thanks and hobbled into the room.

"Steve!" Peggy said, visibly relaxing as he stepped into the room. She was currently alone in the room, propped up against several pillows and fiddling nervously with the blanket in her lap. "What took you so long?"

"Lots of paperwork," he said, crossing the room to sit in the chair next to the bed. "Then I had to have a few words with your doctor before he'd let me in."

"Is that what all that noise was?" she asked.

"The man would not appear to be a fan of us touchy-feely fathers with our newfangled Beatnik ideas."

Peggy chuckled. "He called you a Beatnik?"

Steve nodded, smiling. "He also called me 'son'."

"Well, you do look quite young for one hundred and seven," she said.

"I thought we agreed I was forty?"

"If it makes you feel better," Peggy said with a cheeky smirk.

Steve grinned and leaned over to give her a quick kiss. "Are you doing okay?"

She nodded. "The doctor said it would still be a few hours—the contractions are holding steady, but I've got a bit more dilating to do."

"Okay," Steve said. "Do you need anything?"

"Not right now. Just—ah!" Another contraction started, and Steve hoisted himself up to sit next to her on the mattress and looped his arm over her shoulders. She grimaced and shifted uncomfortably when it was over, and Steve recognized the movement and slid his hand down between her back and the pillow she was leaning on. He started kneading his fingers into the small of her back, and she sighed and shifted just a little to give his hand some more room. Despite the shift to flat shoes before the baby had gotten big enough to add any extra weight, and his urging her to sit or lie down as often as possible, Peggy had been plagued by backaches for most of her pregnancy, particularly toward the end. He imagined the labor was not doing anything to help with that.

"Oh," she sighed happily, turning a little more so he could use both hands. "I don't know if it's the strength in those super-soldier fingers of yours or what, but you are so very good at that." She sighed again. "You're good enough that I am willing to forgive the fact that it is your fault I am in this situation in the first place."

"What's that, now?" Steve asked.

She pointed a finger at her swollen belly and tilted her head to look back at him, arching an eyebrow. "You did this to me," she pointed out.

Steve chuckled and paused in his massaging long enough to lean in and kiss the side of her face. "Takes two to tango, sweetheart," he said in her ear, nipping playfully at her earlobe before sitting up and continuing his massage.

"I suppose it does, at that," she said with a laugh.

"And," he went on. "If I recall the night in question, you sure seemed to enjoy it."

She laughed again. "I certainly can't deny that. Very well. I shall accept…twenty percent of the blame."

"That's very gracious of you," Steve said.

"I know," she agreed.

With the exception of the contractions, the next several hours passed relatively uneventfully. The nurse or the doctor would come in every twenty minutes or so to check on Peggy, and Steve got up a few times to refill her cup of ice chips and check in with Jarvis. Her legs got restless once or twice, and Steve helped her over the side of the bed and they walked in circles around the room.

Peggy slumped back against the pillow after another contraction, sweat plastering her hair to her forehead. "How are you doing?" Steve asked, brushing her hair to the side.

She sighed. "Everything hurts," she said. "Not bad like the contractions, but just this…aching pressure that's just squeezing all of me, and I don't know how much more of it I can take. I don't understand how it hasn't just pushed him out yet either." She groaned miserably. "Why doesn't he want to come out, Steve?"

Steve started massaging her back again, wishing there was more he could do. "I don't know," he said. "The nurse did say it usually takes longer for first-time mothers, but that you were still dilating and everything on schedule."

"I know what she said. I'm pregnant, I'm not deaf," she snapped. "Sorry," she added a few seconds later. "I didn't mean to—"

"Don't worry about it," Steve said. "You're in labor. You're allowed to be cranky." He planted a quick kiss on her cheek. "I wasn't taking it personally."

She blushed a little, but she smiled. "Thanks. I'm hungry too," she added. "That probably isn't helping things."

Steve smiled and kissed her cheek again. The doctor had ordered no food—nothing but ice chips—in case the need for surgery came up during delivery, and it had been eleven hours since toast in the kitchen. Steve was hungry too, but he wasn't about to go down to the cafeteria and get something for himself when she wasn't allowed to eat. "I don't know how much you want to think about food right now since you can't have any," he said. "But after the baby gets here, you think up whatever you like and I'll get it for you."

Peggy's smile widened. "I knew I married you for a reason." They were quiet for a few minutes, Steve rubbing her neck and shoulders, then she turned her head a little to look at him. "Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you stop doing that for a minute? Come around in front of me so I can look at you."

Wondering what was going through her mind, Steve let go of her and shifted down the mattress so he could face her. "What's up?" he asked.

She picked up both of his hands and smiled warmly at him. "I just wanted to tell you something. After I started at the S.S.R., there was a long time where I never wanted to have children. It would have meant giving up everything I'd worked so hard for, and I, well, I never met anyone who made it seem like that sacrifice would be worth it." Her eyes sparkled as she smiled at him. "But then I met you. And you were the one man who I would give everything up for in a heartbeat if you asked me to, and you're the one man who never would. And for the first time, I could see myself having both worlds, being an agent and a wife, and maybe one day a mother, and not losing any of it, because of you." A tear slipped down her cheek. "You understood me, and you respected me, and…" She squeezed his hands. "And now we're here. And this, everything we have, I couldn't even begin to imagine having this life with anyone but you. Thank you. I love you, darling. With every beat of my heart."

Steve couldn't come up with any words over the warmth swelling up in his chest, and he took her face gently in his hands and kissed her, long and slow and deep. "I love you too, Peggy," he breathed. "More than I have words to tell you." He kissed her again, hoping that would tell her everything he couldn't.

They broke apart just as another contraction hit her, and Steve held onto her hands as she panted through it. He returned to the head of the bed and his massaging, then another one hit, and another one after that before she barely had time to catch her breath. Steve didn't want to leave her to get the nurse, but she waved him toward the door, so he snatched up his crutch and left as quickly as he could.

She was in the middle of another contraction when they came back, and Steve sat down beside her and held her shoulders while the nurse performed a quick exam.

"I think you're ready, honey," she said, smiling up from the foot of the bed.

"I am?" Peggy gasped, still trying to catch her breath.

The nurse nodded. "Ten centimeters. You ready to have a baby?"

Peggy smiled and looked up at Steve, and he squeezed her shoulders and smiled back down at her happily. This was it.

The nurse went out into the hall and shouted, and more nurses came into the room. They detached Peggy's bed from where it was anchored to the wall, as well as all the monitoring equipment, and started wheeling her toward the door. Steve hurried along behind them to the delivery room, stopping briefly outside as a nurse helped him put on a pair of scrubs over his clothes and sterilize his hands.

Steve moved for the door, then paused just shy of pushing it open.

"You okay, honey?" the nurse asked him.

Steve nodded, swallowing hard. He'd been so focused on making sure everything was alright for Peggy, he hadn't really had time to think about himself. "Uh huh," he breathed. He didn't realize he was shivering until the nurse had her hands on his arms to steady him, and she was awfully strong for such a small woman. "I'm just…" He swallowed again. "I'm about to be a dad."

"Yes, you are," she agreed warmly. She patted his shoulder. "And after all you said to Dr. Thomas this morning, you don't want to miss it, do you?"

Steve shook his head and pulled himself up a little straighter. "No. No, I don't. Okay. I'm ready."

The nurse smiled wider and patted his shoulder again. "You got this, honey. Come on." She ushered him inside, and though Dr. Thomas glared at him as he came in, he said nothing as the nurse directed Steve to a spot up by Peggy's shoulders that seemed to be the designated 'dad' spot. She looked down at his crutch, then walked over to a corner and brought over a stool for him. Steve gave her a grateful nod.

"You're gonna do great," he told Peggy, leaning in and stroking his fingers across her forehead. She had that tight look on her face that most people interpreted as her being irritated, but Steve knew meant she was nervous and trying not to show it.

"Everything's going to be okay, right?" she asked softly. "I mean, this is the part where…"

This was the part where things were most likely to go wrong, but Steve just smiled reassuringly. "Everything's going to be fine," he said. He picked up her hand and kissed her fingers. "You've got this." He kissed her fingers again. "And I'm not going anywhere."

Peggy's contractions were lasting longer now, and though he knew from all the reading they'd done that that was what was supposed to happen, seeing her in this much pain and knowing there was nothing he could do but hold her hand felt like someone had ripped open his chest and punched him in the heart. For the next thirty minutes, she breathed and panted and groaned, the contractions lasting longer than the precious moments she had to rest between them.

Steve had shifted up off of his stool and onto the edge of the mattress so he could hold onto her better, and as the last contraction passed, she dropped back against his chest, her breath coming in stuttering gasps. "I can't do this, Steve," she panted, tears glimmering in her eyes. "I can't, I—aaah!" she yelled as another contraction hit early.

"Yes, you can," Steve assured her, rubbing her shoulders. "You're almost there; you can do this."

"I need you to push," the doctor said.

"What the hell do you think I've been doing for the last bloody half hour?!" she yelled at him, but she gritted her teeth and squeezed Steve's hand so hard he lost all feeling in his fingers and pushed for all she was worth.

"The head is coming—push!" the doctor ordered again, and Peggy did, letting out a gut-wrenching scream as she did so, and Steve closed his eyes and just held onto her. His eyes snapped open again as the doctor declared, "Okay, the head is out; here come the shoulders."

Peggy was straining forward to see what was happening as she continued to push, and Steve hated to let go of her to move forward and look, but he leaned forward just enough to see the top of a little head of dark hair.

"We've got the arms now, and…It's a boy," the doctor said.

Steve grinned, squeezing Peggy's shoulder. "You were right," he breathed, and she managed a watery laugh.

Then just like that, it was over, and the doctor was holding up a tiny baby who squinted his little eyes shut against the bright room and slowly began flailing his tiny little arms.

"Oh," Peggy breathed.

Steve found himself incapable of sound, just staring at the baby in the doctor's hands. He was red and wrinkly and covered in slimy, bloody…stuff, and he was the most amazing thing Steve had ever seen.

"Oh, he's perfect," Peggy whispered. "No, no, wait, where's he going?" she asked, reaching out a hand as the doctor cut the cord and turned away with the baby in his arms.

"They're just cleaning him up and making sure his little heart and lungs are working the way they're supposed to," the nurse assured her. "You'll have him back in just a minute."

Peggy nodded. "Okay, well, just…just be careful; he's so small."

"We will," the nurse said with a kind smile.

"You did it, Peggy," Steve said, finding the breath to speak again.

She turned to look up at him, happy tears sparkling in her exhausted eyes. "He's really here," she said. They stared into each other's eyes, amazed that they had made this little person and brought him into the world.

The knot of the doctor and nurses on the other side of the room moved, and then one of the nurses was stepping forward, a little bundle in a blanket in her arms. "Here he is," she announced, settling him down gently into Peggy's waiting arms.

"Oh," Peggy breathed, holding him close against her chest. "He's so beautiful." She tugged at the blanket with one finger, loosening the folds encircling his face. "Hello, love."

She kissed his forehead softly and he blinked his little eyes open. Steve's breath caught in his throat at the bright hazel that greeted him, blinking up skeptically at the world. "He's got your eyes," he said softly.

Peggy kissed his little face again then looked up, beaming, shifting her arms to offer him to Steve. Steve moved to take him then froze, suddenly very aware of how incredibly strong he was and how very tiny his son (dear Lord, he had a son!) was. Peggy rolled her eyes and chuckled softly. "You're not going to break him, Steve."

Very carefully, Steve scooped the baby up into his arms, cradling the little head gently. "Hey, buddy," he said softly. He stroked one finger along the tiny cheek—his skin was so soft—and the little eyes blinked open again. They stared straight at him, like they were really looking at him, like they knew him, and Steve couldn't believe just how much he could love someone he met three minutes ago.

Peggy rested her head on Steve's shoulder, one hand reaching up to stroke the baby's dark hair. Steve leaned his head over to rest on Peggy's, keeping his eyes on the little boy in his arms, and he had never thought it was even possible to be as happy as he felt right now.

"Do we have a name for the little man yet?" the nurse asked. Steve had forgotten she was there, forgotten that there was anyone but just the three of them.

"Yeah," Steve said, moving the baby back down into Peggy's arms and leaning down to kiss the tip of his tiny nose. They'd discussed baby names for a while, and they'd both agreed there had really only been one choice if Peggy had been right and it was a boy. Steve looked up at her, and she smiled and nodded.

"Yeah," Steve said again, looking back down and tracing a finger along the edge of the tiny face. "This is James Buchanan Carter."