Bloodline

Chapter 7: Like father, like son

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The sound of a heartbeat woke her up. It took her several minutes to also recognize voices and even longer to finally open her eyes. Blurry was her memory but she did remember that it had something to do with James and…. - the baby! At first she only saw vague figures standing around her, then she understood what they were talking.

"Her vitals are very good and the baby's growing healthily so far, no abnormalities. " Some doctor said, looking through the chart he was holding. His eyes glanced at a monitor. "Her heart rate's going up. I think she's awake now."

"Oh, she's a little fighter. No wonder, with all they did to her in the Red Room." Someone said.

"I think it's time we start with the next step of phase one." Another man announced, a syringe in his hand.

Natasha wanted to protest but only a groan left her mouth while she fought against the bonds holding her strapped to the table.

"Well, well, Natalia. Don't stress yourself. That's not good for the baby." Someone said and Natasha remembered the voice from a long gone time.

"What are you doing to her?" James! That was James.

Natasha tried to look around, everything was still blurry, but she found him quickly, his form tall and dark. A pitiful cry for help escaped her lips and she hated herself for it.

"Injecting her with this serum here. It will strengthen the child while it's growing inside of her. The unborn is already blessed with your genes and hers, but we want it to be even more. We are going to breed the perfect soldier." The old man told him.

"And it will also speed up the pregnancy. She will give birth within the month." A young scientist explained, his voice filled with excitement while he checked the syringe filled with a blue liquid. "Shall we, then?"

Natasha's eyes widened in shock as he pointed the needle right at her stomach. She started to fight desperately against her bonds, her breathing fast and erratic. "No… please, don't."

"Hold her down, or she might hurt the child with all that struggling." The director ordered, clearly annoyed by her behavior. "You should know when you've lost a battle, Natalia."

The woman groaned out loud, fighting even more frantically. "You will not experiment on my child. Our child!" She shouted at James angrily.

The Winter Soldier closed his eyes for a moment but when he opened them again there was no mercy. He stepped forward and held her hips in place with a vice-like grip. "Do it quickly."

Natasha couldn't believe it, didn't want to. She had been a lab rat before, but this was worse. She didn't even have enough time to embrace and process the fact that she was pregnant, but she already loved her child dearly. It was so innocent, and these men were about to change its fate into a bloodshed.

With a sinister grin the man pierced the skin of her belly with the syringe, pushing inside until he was sure the injection would be at the right place, in the tissue around her womb. Meanwhile Natasha cried tears of desperation, her struggles futile while she saw the blue liquid being pumped into her system. It stung slightly at first, just as she had expected but what followed then made her whole body rise up in pain. "Hold her!" The doctor said before he finally finished emptying the syringe and pulling it out. Meanwhile she had started to seize, her heartbeat reaching critical limits, the equipment attached to her beeping in alarm. The world around her started to grow hazy.

"It was too much?" It was partly a statement, partly a question.

"Oh no. I don't think so. She's strong. She can stand it." The doctor assured him.

Natasha let out one last helpless moan as her body collapsed on the sheets. The moment she lost conscious her vitals started to normalize again.

"Good work, doctor. Let's have a look then."

At his command the scientists stepped back from her, so did the Winter Soldier, curious of what would happen now. The sight of Natasha's suffering didn't bother him at all. She had just been another job, although an unusual one, and now he would see the fruit of his efforts.

The doctor adjusted some instruments and pointed an object right at Natasha's stomach.

The Winter Soldier watched this closely, while a part of his attention still remained upon Natasha. She was barely awake and would surely appear unconscious for all who didn't know her as well as he did. Her eyes almost closed, only vague figures visible for her while she struggled to remain watchful.

Natasha felt her vision clearing while she tried to fix her eyes on the glass screen now showing movements of the being inside of her. After the doctor adjusted something the image became three dimensional and more tangible. Tears started to flow down her cheeks while she saw the little hands and feet moving as if the unborn wanted to squirm away from all this.

"Now." Someone said and pointed at the screen. With the steady pulse of her heart the liquid was finally entering the baby's tiny body. It flinched violently before starting to kick with a force unnatural for a human fetus.

If Natasha had not been strapped to the table she would have doubled over in pain. Her mind didn't want to believe what her eyes saw while her lower abdomen shifted around, bulging and stretching. Meanwhile the screen showed clearly that it was the baby creating this horrific scene.

"Magnificent," the doctor said and leaned forward, not caring about Natasha's moans of agony. "Look at that, you can almost see the child growing."

"Is this bad for her?" Barnes asked, careful not to show a trace of regret in his voice.

"Who cares about her?" the doctor said angrily. "This is what she was made for. Not in the first place, of course, but after she failed our expectations, this was a good option." He turned towards an assistant. "Give her enough nutrition. We want the baby ready soon and we don't want her to collapse before it's time. Change from ten to forty, for now. Tomorrow we'll set it for sixty after the next dose."

"Like father, like son", one of the younger scientists said with a smile.

The Winter Soldier looked at him curiously.

"This there," the man pointed out, "is definitely his cock."

"You're sure?" A boy? Memories of Steve and him during their children flooded his mind, as did the imagination of how he would teach the child to fight.

"Yes, unmistakably."

Natasha felt her heart aching. She didn't know why. For her it didn't matter at all what sex this baby had, she just wanted it to live and be oh so far away from all that was happening right now. But now it felt all the more real while she watched the little boy moving around.

"15th week now. In around ten hours it'll be just another week. In around five to eight days, it'll be ready." Someone said from behind her.

"Give her something to make the womb relax, it needs to work with us. If it doesn't, give her everything all over our chemistry chart, magnesium, whatever you have. We need her to carry it as long as we can. The longer he stays inside the motherly environment the better." The main scientist unpacked a couple of glasses with blue colored fluid inside them. "And, as far as her body can stand it, we need to give her as much of the super-soldier serum as we have. Stay as close to the limit as possible."

"Yes, sir."

A week? Natasha's mind was asking. How wrong could it get...? At this point she didn't care about herself anymore. The baby needed to be safe, far away from the hands of these people who think they could play god. The Black Widow tried to focus her eyes on the Winter Soldier, who still stood there, unblinking, his eyes fixed on the screen. There was this dark wonder inside of him, something that meant harm, pain and death...

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Barton checked his phone for the tenth time in just as many minutes before he tried to concentrate on his paper work again. Natasha should have met Bruce by now and she had promised to inform him as soon as she had the results. He shook his head and continued to fill the blank page with words that described his last mission with Natasha. It was difficult, for there had been many odds. For one was her disappearance for almost an hour and then the destroyed clothes. There had been similar troubles with the reports he had written the last month. He knew something was wrong, but he couldn't figure out what yet. This was just so out of character for Natasha that it made no sense. Hopefully Bruce had answers. As the phone vibrated he picked it up even before looking at the screen. "Nat?"

"Clint, have you seen Natasha today?" Banner asked, his voice full of concern.

"I'm not at Shield today. I thought she wanted to meet you in the morning." Hawkeye looked up from the report he was just writing. "You have the results? Anything we should worry about?"

"Well, it is something private. But it's urgent. She hasn't answered her phone. Can you somehow check on her?"

Clint couldn't move at first, shock written plainly over his face. "Yes, of course. Her apartment at Shield housing isn't far. Give me five minutes and I'll call you back." He didn't even wait for Banner's answer, closing the mobile and quickly grabbing the spare keys to Natasha's apartment she had given him before he left his home and ran down the hallway, all the bad possibilities turning around in his mind. Natasha couldn't get sick, the serum didn't allow it. But something was definitely wrong.

Three minutes later he stood before her door and knocked while he tried to catch his breath. "Tasha, you're in there? It's me, Clint. You okay?" When no one answered he used the keys and already regretted not bringing his bow and arrows with him. The rooms seemed normal, with no sight of her. He checked the bedroom, the covers untouched. He was just about to call Banner again as he saw something on the floor next to her bathroom. Hawkeye picked up the small plastic device and stared at it for over a minute before he hit the redial on his phone.

"You found her?" Banner asked him. When Clint didn't answer he grew worried. "Is everything alright?"

After breathing in deeply, Hawkeye could muster speech again. "Do your results explain how Natasha can be pregnant?"

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I changed this a little bit because I didn't want it to look exactly like in Fringe, although I want to add that the reason why I loved that episode so much was because it was almost exactly how I would have wanted it XD