Chapter 20
"She can't come in here." Zaria stated coldly as Steve walked up with Peggy in tow.
"But she would like to know too." Steve stated.
"I don't care; she's not coming into my ultrasound."
"But-"
"I said, no." Zaria snapped. "If that's so hard to understand you don't have to come either."
Bruce opened the door to the room that Zaria was standing in front of. "Steve, I'm going to have to ask you and Peggy to leave. Zaria can't handle any stress with this pregnancy and if she says it's not going to happen I would advise you leave it at that. We don't need another incident like before... Sorry..."
Peggy and Zaria stood there just about glaring at each other when Steve turned to Peggy and broke their stares.
"I'm sorry Peggy," he said softly as he caught her attention. "I know you wanted to see, but I can't argue with Zaria, and I wish to be there for this. Can you wait for me here?"
Peggy stared at him with shock written plainly on her face. "You can't just cater to her every whim! She has no right to tell me I can't be in there with you."
"Actually she does." Samantha said coolly as she came up the hall, clipboard in hand. "She has every right to say who is and is not coming into the appointment including the biological father." She walked up to Zaria and held the door open as Bruce had vacated it once Samantha had shown up. "Zaria, if you would go inside and get ready, we'll be doing some tests today along with the ultrasound."
Zaria nodded and turned around to walk into the room.
"Wait!" Steve nearly cried; he turned to Peggy. "I'm sorry Peggy, but this is really important to me. I can't argue with Zaria if that's what she wants but I have to be there for this too. Please, I'm sorry." He didn't wait for Peggy's response, instead he turned and quickly made his way into the room right behind Zaria; Samantha shut the door behind her.
"Please lie down and roll up your shirt over your stomach." Samantha said as she sat down at the ultrasound machine and began preparing it.
Steve sat in the chair next to the bed that Zaria had climbed onto. He sat there with a look on his face that he wanted to say something but didn't know how to start it or if it was even right to say.
"I didn't want her to be here. No, I don't have any other explanation for you; I just didn't want her here. If you have a problem with that then you do not have to be here either. And I am not apologizing, so don't try to ask." Zaria answered before Steve could say anything.
Steve opened his mouth to respond but Samantha turned to them and began speaking.
"So first I'll be doing an ultrasound. The gel is going to be cold, normally we have a way to warm it up but I didn't request that when I was getting the equipment so bear with me." She smeared the gel on Zaria's stomach and proceeded with the ultrasound. "I know we did one recently, so technically we don't need to do one for a few more weeks but I would like to do them more often to monitor the child's growth and make sure that there are no deformations due to the D.N.A. it has."
Silence descended upon the group as Samantha ran the wand attachment over Zaria's stomach as she pursed her lips and studied the images on the screen; Bruce joined her to study them. He leaned over Samantha's head to study one of the images closer as Samantha snapped stills of the ultrasound.
"Alright, you two are kind of freaking me out. Is there something wrong with my baby?" Zaria finally caved after Bruce and Samantha sat there in silence scrutinizing the pictures.
"No, not at all." Samantha answered as she turned away from the ultrasound. "In fact the baby is perfectly normal, I just think Bruce and I were preparing ourselves for something... not normal so it's quite refreshing that we're wrong. You said you wanted to know the sex of your baby right?"
"Yes, that would be great." Zaria responded.
Samantha smiled and turned the screen around so Steve and Zaria could see it; there on the screen was their child. "Well, unfortunately the legs are closed today, but you're having a baby girl. I saw it on the last ultrasound we did a few days ago; Bruce can attest to it as he saw them too."
Bruce nodded as he turned to look at Steve and Zaria. "Congratulations on having a baby girl."
Samantha turned the screen back, snapped a still, and took the wand off of Zaria's stomach. "I would have told you then, but you had said you weren't interested." She wiped up the gel from Zaria's stomach quickly before she went back to the machine and began shutting it down. "We'll need you to stay for a little bit longer for some blood tests but then you're free to go."
"Would you like me to stay here for that?" Steve asked as Zaria pulled her shirt down and sat up.
"You don't need to stay, this isn't anything really related to the baby." Zaria answered.
"Alright," Steve responded as he stood up. "Maybe later we can get together to think about baby names; Peggy would like that."
"Peggy is not helping with naming my child." Zaria snapped.
"But-"
"Absolutely not. When she has a kid she can name that one, but this child is mine and I will not have her picking names for my kid."
Steve opened his mouth to argue but Samantha began speaking first.
"Though it is not my place to get involved with this, but I would have to agree with Zaria. This is her child and from what I know of women they prefer to name to child themselves with the help of the father, not another person. Also, I would suggest at this time that it would be best if you take your leave as this is beginning to cause stress for Zaria."
Steve looked as if he wanted to argue or at least say something but decided against it and took his leave. Samantha shut the door behind him as Bruce busied himself in the back with vials for drawing blood.
"I know that this must be difficult for you but I suggest that you try not to get so stressed about this whole thing, it would not do to have you go through another ordeal like the one you went through when you first arrived here." Samantha commented as she turned back around and made her way to the back table.
"Baby hormones." Zaria snapped.
Samantha laughed. "I doubt it's just baby hormones but that is a good one to play all this off on."
Bruce cleared his throat as he made his way over to Zaria with a rolling cart. "I'm just going to draw some blood and you'll be on your way. If you could sit in the chair that Steve vacated that would be better than the bed."
Zaria sighed and moved herself into the chair and held her left arm out for him. "Is there any particular reason for the blood tests?"
"Standard mostly, but also I would like to test something, but since I'm not sure if it would even work I think I'll wait before explaining it in full." Bruce's hands for soft against her skin causing butterflies to alight in her stomach before she quickly stomped them out; she would not be falling in love with another person. Ever.
"Well, that's all I need for now." Bruce said as he put a wad of cotton over the needle as he pulled it out and wrapped it with surgical tape. "You're good to go."
"Thanks." Zaria muttered as she pulled her arm away as quickly as she could without it feeling like she didn't want to be touched.
"It shouldn't take me too long to find out if I'll be able to do what I'm planning on doing and by then I'll let you know what I am doing."
Zaria nodded as she got up and made her way out of the room only to run right into a very unhappy looked Peggy.
"I'm not talking to you." Zaria snapped before she turned to go down the hall the opposite direction of Peggy.
"Well you're going to have to get over yourself and deal with it because we're going to talk." Peggy responded as she snatched Zaria's arm.
Zaria glared at Peggy's hand. "You will release me this instant or I will break your hand."
"I'm not going to treat you like a little princess like everyone else is doing so you can drop the spoiled act with me."
"If you want your hand in one piece you will release me. Right now. Or I'm going to break every single bone in your hand." Zaria repeated in near silence.
"No. You can make everyone else walk on eggshells around you, but I'm not going to. You can suck it up and deal with it. You're not the only one who has had a tough life so get over it."
"Tough life?" Zaria echoed as she shot Peggy a look of cold death. "You know nothing of my life so stop pretending that you're better than me."
"Oh I know all about you from your files that Fury had me read." Peggy retorted haughtily.
Zaria laughed darkly. "You think those files know anything about me? You are beyond ridiculous. Now, if we're done here I would appreciate you releasing my arm before I decide you're better off without your arm altogether."
"You need to stop treating Steve as if he is something that you wouldn't even take the energy to step on. It is not his fault that you're acting like a brat. You made your decision and you need to live with it. If he wants me involved then you can just de-" Peggy never finished her sentence as Zaria slapped her hard across the face.
"You have no right to talk about Steve or I or anything that has to do with Steve and I. We were perfectly fine before you showed up to ruin everything. You have no right to speak. You had your time with him and that ended in 1945."
The look on Peggy's face was a cross between shock, horror, and anger. "You don't have any right to speak about Steve or me either. You have no idea what I went through when he- when I thought he died."
"And you have no idea how it feels to have his former dead lover show up and act as if everything should be perfectly fine if they just pick up right where they left off. You should have been dead by now; you had no right to do what you did. You didn't even think that maybe, just maybe, he might have finally been able to move on with his life and that you would be ruining something that he had right now just so you could have something you had back then. Do not tell me that I have no right to act hurt or demand that you are not involved in any of this because you have no idea how I feel. You all but ruined my life."
"You made the decision to leave."
"YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!" Zaria cried.
Peggy stood there dumbfounded, her hand slipping off of Zaria's arm. "You went too far."
"You took the only man I ever truly loved away from me. Now who went too far?"