A/N: Thank you so much for all the kind comments and favorites. It means so much!

Since it was time to get back to work, and not just for Stark Industries today, Chris wanted to be ready.

Bucky got up with her for her morning barf. They took a shower together with Bucky doing everything he could to entice her into a round of shower sex, but she gently put him off. She stayed so tired with the pregnancy, even that early, that she knew if she did that, she'd go to bed instead of work.

Steve came back from his run to make her the same breakfast she'd enjoyed the day before and once she finished it, her stomach settled, and she felt better. Steve tried to stick around to make sure she ate all of it and she just knew he was so happy that he'd been able to help her with all the morning sickness business in his own way.

Bucky begged her to return to the apartment after the meeting. There wasn't anything she couldn't do up there, he reasoned. Well, according to Steve, Ross wasn't going to be there so she decided to take her chances.

She was going to be ready.

Chris picked out a pantsuit in dark gray, it made her eyes look darker, and she put herself together as if she were going back to the bureau. Honestly, it did make her feel better. She pulled on low pumps, sedate silver jewelry. Her hair and makeup were professional.

Chris smiled as she grabbed her new laptop and her briefcase and headed for the meeting.

Nat, the only one in the conference room when she arrived, looked up and grinned when she walked in. "You look great," Nat told her. "How are you feeling?"

"Trying not to let morning sickness get the best of me," Chris admitted. "I'm okay."

The beautiful spy watched as she got her laptop started.

"You ready for this?" Nat asked.

The sincerity in the beautiful spy's eyes moved her. The sincerity of her emotions nearly moved her to tears. Not only to have such a woman as a friend but to be part of their family here. Outside of Aunt Jenny, Chris had never been part of a big family. She decided moving forward to spend more time with them and less time hiding.

Someone placed a cup from the food court in front of her. Chris smiled up at Phil.

"Your soda," he told her, knowing she hated coffee right now but needed caffeine.

"Can you have that?" Nat quirked a brow at her.

"Not you too." Chris blew out an exhale as another larger metal hand snatched up her cup.

"What's this?" Bucky asked, gently shaking it to hear the crushed ice in there. "Soda? Can you have that?"

Chris snatched it back while Steve snickered behind him.

"Yes. I. Can." She told them with feeling.

"Great, now that Bob the Builder is here for the meeting," Tony said as he walked down to the head of the table, "let's get the show on the road."

"Bob who?" Steve asked.

Chris shook her head. She'd explain it later.

Sam wandered in, letting his gaze roam over her before he winked playfully. Bucky stared him down the entire time, so Sam succeeded in riling him up.

Yeah, she needed this.

Clint, Bruce, Vision, Wanda, and Maria filtered in slowly and Chris took a deep breath, feeling more confident than she had in while. This was familiar.

This was her arena.

Chris took a seat at the opposite end of the table with Steve and Bucky on either side of her. She started up her laptop and Tony began going over the intel he'd gathered and the ideas he had about HYDRA's attempt to resurrect Project Insight. As usual, the others had ideas, brought up issues with what was being discussed, brought up unaddressed issues. It was a highly constructive meeting.

In the end, she and Tony got into a back and forth about what it would take to track down the algorithm copies, any plans. Her boys were listening so intently to every bit of it even though she knew a lot of it was over their heads. Bucky kept glancing up at her with something like admiration in his steel blue eyes and it had her heart clenching in her chest. To have the admiration of someone like him? Well, that was no small thing.

Steve was a different story. It wasn't that he wasn't proud of her. He looked concerned that she'd make some plan to sacrifice herself but say it in computer nerd terms, so he wouldn't immediately understand it. Steve watched her like a hawk when she was outside of their apartment.

When the meeting adjourned, Tony held up a hand to Chris. "Stay."

Chris nodded.

"Why?" Bucky muttered.

"Another meeting with Fury," Steve explained.

"Everyone isn't needed for this one," Tony told Bucky.

"I'm staying," Bucky said flatly.

"Suit yourself."

Phil came down to Chris as they waited, wanting to go over a couple of notes on the computer files that Tony had sent her. Steve and Bucky quietly talked until Fury showed up, he and Tony joining them at her end of the table.

"I hear congratulation are in order," Fury said to Chris.

"You heard right," she said with a grin. "Thank you."

Fury nodded. Then they continued the conversation about the online onslaught involved in their plan, the parts that Tony and Chris would play in tracking down Project Insight.

"What I need to know is when the search will begin," Fury said slowly.

"After this meeting," Tony told him. "I'll help Chris with it but as Ross pointed out, I'm not as experienced with this arena."

Steve and Bucky wore nearly matching scowls.

"And will they be able to trace it back to you?" Steve was direct.

"Not if I do it right," Chris told him confidently, willing them to believe her, to have faith in her. "And keep in mind, the targets and programs? They won't be online for the taking. Most of the copies I find will be on remote servers in even more remote places. It's going to take time. It might even take weeks."

"Ross isn't going to give us that," Fury let her know. "So you'd best move quickly."

"And carefully," Steve added.

Chris nodded. As if she needed to be told that. It went without saying that she'd be careful.

"What about the plans to track down their production?" Chris asked.

Fury nodded, laying a folder on the table in front of them. There were maps, pictures of what looked like an abandoned factory. Chris noticed the recognition on Bucky's face before she ever felt his emotions take a leap.

"I know that place," he told them. "I think I was there for a time."

"Really?" Steve asked. "Do remember the layout of the building?"

Bucky really concentrated and after a couple of moments, he slowly nodded. "Some. I seem to remember a lot about the lowest layer. It's deep. There's only one floor above the ground, I think, but many below it."

Placing a hand on his shoulder, Chris smiled. "I'll see if I can dig up any blueprints or architecture drafts on it and we can go over it."

Bucky nodded. "Yeah, that would be good."

Fury nodded, seeming pleased with that as was Steve.

"Ideally, the targets and plans should be eliminated before we move against their production site, but something tells me Ross isn't going to give us that time," Fury explained. "Chris, do your best to find any of it as quickly as you can. I'll try to hold him off as long as I can."

Chris nodded her agreement.

"See if you can find plans for that and review it with Barnes. Any intel would be useful."

"Absolutely," Chris told him.

"Have you seen Dr. Cho yet?" Fury asked her.

"This afternoon," Chris told him.

Fury nodded. "The fewer people who know about your pregnancy, the better for obvious reasons. Outside of the group from Thanksgiving, does anyone else know?"

Again, the stupid tears came on and Chris was blinking them back. "The only family I have is my Aunt Jenny and I haven't gotten to talk to her in over a year."

Chris hated the way her voice shook, hated the way they were all looking at her with sympathy. Including Fury, damn him.

"Who am I going to tell?" she wanted to know.

Chris closed her laptop and gathered her things as quickly as she could with shaking hands.

"Is that all?" she asked.

"That's all, Danforth," Fury said quietly.

Chris scrambled out the door heading for her office, hoping she could keep from bursting into tears before she reached it.

"What the hell was that?" Steve demanded, rising to his full height and stepping towards Fury.

Fury stood his ground, holding Steve's gaze with his good eye. "I needed to stress to Danforth and the rest of you that it's in everyone's best interest for as few people as possible to know about her pregnancy."

"That was not the appropriate way to go about it," Steve shot back. "Not in this meeting. Not in front of any of us. She's a member of this team. She deserved more respect than that."

Bucky's glare at Fury told they were in agreement on the issue. Fury dropped his head. "I see your point. I'll apologize… later. I can see how that could be taken as offensive though it wasn't my intent."

Steve nodded, accepting that. But he was still pissed off. It was bad enough Fury said what he had with the smaller audience from the second meeting. He knew his girl well enough to know how proud she was, how hard she'd worked to get where she'd gotten.

It was another matter to remind her that she was trapped in the compound and couldn't communicate with her aunt. That had probably not crossed Fury's mind.

"That being said," Fury went on, "you know I'm right. What would some people out there give to get their hands on the child of Captain America? Or the Winter Soldier? Did it ever occur to you that they've been trying to break Erskine's code for decades and if they got their hands on her or that baby, they might succeed?"

Steve had thought of that. And the safety of their girl and their child was far more important than anything else.

But her happiness mattered too.

"Stark, you'll keep me up to date on any progress made on locating and destroying the plans and the targets," Fury said. "We'll continue to develop plans for the move against the production site and I'll try to hold Ross back as long as I can."

With that Fury, quietly left the room and Phil followed him out, leaving Steve, Tony, and Bucky.

"You think if we find you the plans you could layout that place?" Tony asked Bucky.

Bucky nodded slowly. "I think so."

"I don't have to tell you guys this but take care of Chris," Tony bid them. "She's one of the best in the world at what she does but she gets full-blown obsessed with it… just like I do. Pepper's looked after me for the last few years but… You know what to do."

Steve and Bucky followed him out. Yes, they did know.

They worked on training with Peter and Wanda before going through the armory and figuring out what they needed as far as ammunition and weapon repairs. Everything had to be right on this mission and Steve was going to do his best to ensure that every "I" was dotted.

When it came to lunchtime, they headed for the food court to get lunch for their girl. Steve wasn't sure just plain mashed potatoes and bread rolls were the best lunch, but he didn't argue when Bucky ordered it. When they reached her office, they found her focused on the laptop before her. So much so that she didn't seem to notice when they came in. She jumped when Bucky gently placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Sorry, doll," he whispered by her ear. "We brought lunch. Want to take a break and eat with us?"

Steve watched as her mind slowed down and she took in his question. Finally, she nodded and smiled.

Steve wasn't happy with the situation. She'd slept well. But already her suit coat had been discarded, her hair was coming down from the way she'd worn it earlier. She was the picture of stress and it couldn't be good for her or the baby.

They got her talking about training with Peter and Wanda, the preparations they were making. Bucky actually had her laughing about the bet he made with Sam about asking out Jeri at the front desk of the compound.

"When are we meeting with Dr. Cho?" Steve wanted to know.

"You want to go?" Chris smiled at each of them. "In… in about an hour. I'm a little nervous."

Bucky placed a hand on hers. "Don't worry. Helen is going to take very good care of you."

"I know she will," Chris told him. "It's just… I've never done this before and here we are with a really high-stress situation and… yeah…"

"We're going to be here with you through the entire thing, Sweetheart," Steve assured her. "Buck's already made me agree that one of us is going to be here at all times as soon as you hit six months."

Chris's smile had his heart squeezing in his chest. "Really? You'd do that for me?"

"It's for us too, doll," Bucky told her. "I'm hoping we'll both be here for the birth, but I want to guarantee at least one of us will."

"And that's more likely to be you?" Chris teased.

"Sucks to be Cap," Bucky said with a laugh.

"Can you really do that?" she asked Steve.

"It's not a matter of can I," Steve told her calmly. "I'm going to."

Steve didn't often play the Captain card unless the situation warranted it. And this one did. The relief on her face made him happy, made it worth it.

"Thank you," she told them, meaning it.

"Anything for you." Bucky kept flirting with her through lunch and Steve just tried to stay out of his head and in his heart.

There he sat with his two loves just having lunch. Getting there had been a long road and hard fought. It wasn't hard to remember a time when he yearned for Bucky from afar when he was consumed by jealousy the first week Chris was at the compound and Bucky had pretty much lived in her bed.

He was going to try not to worry so much about all the things that could go wrong and try to be there in the now, to enjoy it.

They killed some time back in the armory before heading down to medical to meet their girl for her appointment with Dr. Cho.

Chris was already in the exam room with the doctor when they arrived and to Steve, Chris looked so small sitting up on Helen's table as they talked quietly.

"Here they are," Helen said with a smile. "Come in."

Bucky followed him in, both of them kissing Chris before taking a seat.

"I'm not an obstetrician," Dr. Cho started with, "but I will be monitoring the entire pregnancy and I'm here to help in any way I'm needed. There's a doctor coming who is an OBGYN, Dr. Meadows, who will deal with the normal pregnancy visits and who will supervise the birth. She's got excellent credentials and I've got a copy of those for you, Chris."

Chris nodded. She looked nervous.

"So, I have to ask," Helen went on, "we're all one hundred percent sure that we're moving forward with the pregnancy?"

The smile that split Bucky's face when he nodded had him and Chris doing the same. There wasn't a lot Steve liked better than seeing him smile, seeing him happy like that. Steve was so grateful they both were going to have this experience, having a baby, and with someone as wonderful as Chris.

"On the issue of the father," Helen said more carefully. "Have you given that any thought? I know this situation is a little different."

"I don't care which of us it is for my part," Bucky stated, cutting his gaze at Steve. "We may want to know for medical reasons. Steve had really bad asthma as a kid, some other health issues. I don't know if that will be a factor here…"

Helen picked up a clipboard that had a thick pile of papers pinned to it, scanning the pages quickly. Steve's heart raced.

"Hmmm, looking at the records Tony pulled on Steve, I don't think there's going to be an issue there. The serum enhanced everything and that would include your DNA. It would be highly unlikely for any of those ailments you had before the serum to have slipped through to pass on to a child."

Steve released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Bucky winked at him and Chris reached out for his hand. And Steve took hers. It was small and cold, trembling in his hand.

Helen gazed at each of them in turn. "That, however, comes with a different set of concerns. Both fathers are enhanced, and that DNA was passed to the child. The baby should be marvelously healthy and that's a good thing."

There was always more.

"We're going to want to keep an eye out for Chris, however," Helen explained. "A half-enhanced baby is likely to be larger than the norm and Chris isn't very big to begin with. I'm going to recommend higher nutritional requirements for you, Chrtheso they baby doesn't start leeching your resources. I'm going to look into prenatal vitamins with Dr. Meadows and see what we want to do there."

"If the baby is too big for her?" Steve wanted to know everything he could.

"We'll have to see how it goes," Helen told him. "Normally, nature doesn't give a mother a baby bigger than she can handle but this is a different situation. The pregnancy can continue as long as she isn't endangered in any way. There's bed rest which is often what happens with mothers of multiple births. Should the baby's size be an issue, we'll hold off as long as we can, but we can always take him or her early if we have to."

Chris's other hand rested on the flat of her tummy. "What if there are more than one in there?"

That got Helen's attention. "You're what? Five weeks?"

"Six," Chris told her.

"We won't be able to determine twins until somewhere between ten and thirteen weeks. So around that time, if you'd like, we can do a transvaginal ultrasound and take a look."

Chris nodded. "I'd like that. Yes."

"How are you feeling?"

"Sick," Chris told her. "Morning sickness for a good two hours each day. At first, I thought it was a psychosomatic thing because I was so wound up about it but I guess not… Isn't it early for morning sickness?"

Helen shrugged. "Not necessarily. It could be that the child is advanced and it brought an early onset of it. So it does go away?"

Chris tipped her head at Steve. "The last two days he's made me this ridiculously large breakfast sandwich thing that you wouldn't think I could ever possibly eat but I have, and it has helped."

Bucky smirked, shaking his head.

"What?" Chris wanted to know.

"I'm the one who got up with you and took care of you when you were sick," he teased, "and punk here gets all the credit for making a sandwich?"

"I'm sorry," Chris meant it. "You know I love you."

Bucky seemed pleased at that.

"So you feel better after eating and it's a large portion." Helen furiously scribbled notes. "Anything else out of the ordinary?"

Chris shook her head. "Not so far."

Helen offered cards to Steve and Bucky. "So you all can reach me at any time, okay?"

They arranged a time for her to meet Dr. Meadows the next week, Helen was going to send them some nutritional guidelines for Chris, Dr. Meadows' information, and then the three of them headed back up the hall. Back to finish out the day.

Bucky ran up to their apartment to shower and order dinner. Steve stopped by Chris's office so he could walk her to the apartment. Fury stopped them as she locked her office door.

Fury held out an old flip phone to Chris and she warily took it.

"Sorry about earlier," Fury grumbled. "When you have a few minutes, dial 9."

And with that Fury walked the other way.

Chris shook her head. They got back to the apartment and she immediately changed into a fuzzy pair of purple pajamas she'd ordered. Their dinner was delivered, and they enjoyed that, Steve encouraging them to eat at the table for at least meal each day.

Afterwards, Chris stood in the living room contemplating the phone Fury gave her. With a steadying breath, Steve watched her open it and dial 9.

Chris nearly burst into tears when someone answered it. "Jenny? It's my aunt. Oh, my God. Hi! Oh, Jenny, I've missed you so much."

Bucky smiled at him as she dashed into her cave to talk, crying happy tears all the while.

"That was decent of him." Bucky flipped through channels to catch the news. "She's probably going to be in there a while. What are you doing, handsome?"

Steve took a seat next to him on the couch and placed a hand on one of his heavy thighs.

"You. I hope."

Bucky's grin was absolutely wicked.