Steve continued to stare in utter disbelief at the screen. Bruce steepled his fingers as he thought, examining the image.
"Alright," the doctor finally broke the tense silence, "The way I see it, there are a few possibilities. One: the Ultrasound is malfunctioning. That's highly unlikely, because I ran checks on it three times yesterday…I'll check again though."
Tina choked back a sob.
"Two: something is throwing off interference. The uh, movements, are characteristic of energy waves, but I have no idea what could be causing interference to be so localized on the baby. It's possible, but…" he shrugged to express his doubt. "Three: there is something I can't even begin to imagine happening in there."
A tear slipped out of Tina's eye, and she anxiously brushed it away.
"How do we tell?" she whispered, voice cracking.
"I can take some cell samples. They might be able to give me a better idea of what's going on," Bruce said. "Steve, give us a minute? She'll be out of here the moment I get those samples."
Steve nodded minutely, and finally tore his gaze from the fluttery, wavering image of his child. He gave Tina's hand a brief squeeze without meeting her eyes and strode quickly from the room.
Bruce held up the microscope plates and the small blood sample.
"I'll tell you anything that I find out immediately, okay?" his brow wrinkled in concern for the nervous mother-to-be.
She nodded weakly.
"I'm gonna have Tony run the centrifuge, too. I can bounce some ideas off him…the more the merrier."
Bruce opened the door to call the billionaire over, expecting Steve to be waiting in the doorframe. The hallway was empty.
"Should we go look for him?" he asked worriedly.
"No," Tina responded softly. "Let him have a minute…I know where he'll be."
Bruce nodded and Tony rested his hand on Tina's shoulder for just a moment before he turned and left with Bruce into the lab.
…
Natasha perched on the arm of a chair as she watched Clint play darts with himself (from forty feet away). Although she saw Tina tiptoe through the room, she pretended not to notice. Tony had explained what happened with the scan. Natasha felt worry curl itself like a fist in her stomach. Worry for her best friend, for her teammate. Worry for a tiny little someone she didn't even know yet. Clint hit another bullseye on top of his previous dart.
"How many do you think I can stack like that?" he wondered aloud.
She shrugged and Clint sighed, taking aim again.
Thor and Jane sat together on the couch. She took notes and asked him detailed questions while he attempted to explain how the Tesseract had been used to repair the Bifrost. Thor's brow furrowed while he dug through his memory, trying to recall the tiniest of details, hoping it would please her. Jane wished for the hundredth time that she could do something to help Tina. I know a ton about space, but babies? If only I could come up with a solution.
When Tina tried (unsuccessfully) to sneak by Natasha again, the spy had a harder time not asking questions. After the tiny blonde slipped out of the room, the assassin consulted the person she trusted most.
"Do you think it's going to be okay?" she murmured.
Clint threw the last dart without looking, then started rubbing the spot between Natasha's shoulder blades.
"God, I hope so."
…
Tina crept down to the basement gym where she was certain she'd find Steve beating the crap out of some poor punching bag. Rather than hearing his fists abuse something, however, there was a disconcerting quiet. She tiptoed further into the room, tempted to call his name, but also overcome with an urge to stay silent. Tina turned a corner and started hearing a muffled weeping. Steve was sitting on the floor, crumpled against a large ceiling support pole with his face in his hands. Judging by the dent in the wall and the punching bag split open on the floor, Steve was even more upset than Tina thought he'd be. She sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him, waiting for him to decide he was ready to talk. It took a minute or two, but Tina was all patience, compiling her own thoughts.
"I'm sorry," he eventually croaked. "I didn't think that the serum would hurt the baby…I didn't even consider it, actually. That's just carelessness on my part, and…I'm sorry, Tina."
"Well, I'm not sorry," Tina said stubbornly. "I did consider the possibility that the serum might do some weird things, but I thought it would just make the baby really big. Or really strong. Either could have caused problems, and I knew that."
Steve was silent, but she could feel the self-hatred emanating from him. Tina scooted closer to him, resting her hand on his shoulder, fingertips tracing the unscarred skin where his own shield had cut him once.
"Steve, it's-"
"No," he growled forcefully. "Do not say 'it's alright'. Don't."
"I wasn't going to," Tina said haughtily, "We don't know if it's alright yet. Maybe Bruce will come running down here and tell us that everything's a-ok. Maybe there's a problem. I don't know yet." Her voice softened at the end, revealing her own fear.
It was her vulnerability that made Steve's resolve to stay furious at himself crumble. He couldn't be concerned and livid at the same time. He sat up, pulling Tina into his lap. For a while, they just sat there, out of things to say. They were both terrified, but at least they were terrified together.
Steve put his ear to Tina's belly.
"Hey, champ. It's me. Dad."
Tina inhaled sharply. A little happy tear worked its way down her cheek as he spoke to their child in soft tones.
"I'm sorry if you're hurting," Steve continued, "But I promise, I didn't mean to for anything bad to happen to you. I'm really hoping you're just doing the Charleston in there and nothing bad is going on. Your mommy and I love you very, very much. And we really can't wait to meet you. So you've gotta make sure you stay healthy in there, okay? Promise me you'll be a fighter. I know that your mom's gonna fight for you. And I'm gonna fight for her. Fight for us, champ."
Tina let out a small sob. Steve straightened up and held her close.
"Isn't 'champ' kind of a boy nickname?" she choked out.
Steve smiled and wiped her tears with his thumb.
"Nah. It could be a champion ballerina we're talking about here."
Tina chuckled wetly, then abruptly stopped, overcome with fear for her baby. She buried her face in his chest and held onto him. Steve curled his body around hers, and they stayed there for quite some time, holding onto each other for strength
…
The centrifuge whirred in the laboratory while Bruce and Tony waited. Bruce tapped his fingers on the lab table while Tony paced.
"Since he can't hear us," the billionaire began, "It's got to be Steve's fault, right? What else could possibly be doing that to the scan?"
Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.
"It can't be just him, though!" he growled, "SHIELD has done a million tests on him! I've looked through most of them myself! His cells don't…transform that way. They heal, they enhance. If anything, the baby might be a little too big because of that. Not rippling!"
"Think about it, Bruce. We have one variable here: the super-soldier serum. We have no idea what's in it, or even how it works. We definitely don't know how it could affect a developing baby."
Bruce took a few calming breaths, feeling conscious of the growing anger in his chest.
"I know…I hate all the unknown."
A machine beeped and Bruce hustled over to it.
"Plates are done," he said gruffly, pressing his eyes to the viewers.
The cells were still.
"Tony," he called. "Tony, come look."
Iron Man strode across the lab to peek.
"They're not moving."
"No."
"So it isn't the baby moving like that?"
Bruce smiled.
"No."
They both breathed a momentary sigh of relief.
"Then what is causing that?" Tony asked.
Bruce's shoulders slumped.
"I'm going to check the DNA, make sure everything's good while I'm at it. Shame I didn't get cells from the fetus."
"Huh?" Tony asked as he checked the centrifuge, "I thought the whole point of this was that you got cells from the baby."
"No, I took them from the placenta. I mean, the whole thing is tiny, I'm lucky to have been able to get anything. At this stage in the pregnancy they're basically one and the same. Point is, the movement includes both equally. The whole thing was moving around like that. I only know I didn't get cells from the fetus because there aren't chromosomal markers on these. I was hoping there would be, so I could at least tell Steve the baby's gender…cheer him up a little."
Tony nodded absentmindedly and replayed the video of the Ultrasound.
"It looks almost like an energy signature," Tony noted.
"Yeah…"
Bruce stared at the spinning tube in the centrifuge. A thought hit him like a bolt of lightning. What if…what if I've been right all along? What if my accident was closer to the truth than I'd thought? What if all my years of research haven't been wasted? He scampered suddenly across the lab.
"Recalibrate it! Recalibrate it!" he commanded urgently, pushing Tony out of the way and pushing buttons furiously on the machine that held the plates.
"Wha-? Bruce, what're you-" Tony shouted as he stared in complete bewilderment at his suddenly-crazed friend.
Bruce finished inputting code into the machine and spun around, a wild gleam in his eyes.
"Tony," he said, maniacal expression frozen in place, "What if I was right? All along? My research about the serum?"
"Bruce?" Tony asked, totally confused.
"The interference. What if it is coming from the baby?"
Tony shook his head, still lost.
"Gamma," Bruce whispered, "What if the key to the serum is gamma radiation? The serum's in Steve's DNA, so it has to be in the baby's. Has Steve ever had an Ultrasound?"
The inventor frowned for a moment, then redirected the question to his AI.
"JARVIS?"
"No, sir. Captain Rogers has no Ultrasounds on record."
The look on Bruce's face intensified. Tony considered what the scientist was saying for a moment.
"Get him up here, right now. If the serum's key is gamma, it'll show up in Steve and affect the scan the same way," Tony commanded JARVIS.
"Yes, sir."
Steve burst into the lab, his wife in tow. His right hand lay under the Ultrasound machine, his other was being slowly shredded by Tina's nails. Bruce watched the loading screen with beads of perspiration forming on his forehead.
"It's ready," he said monotonously.
The couple held their breath. Bruce closed his eyes and pressed the button to reveal the scan.
Another cliffie! Sorry 'bout that, but it's soooo hard not to sometimes...
Ahem...um, sorry for all the pseudoscience. I know, I know. That's not how Ultrasounds work. But goddangit, I'm allowed a little creative license.
Thanks for all the reviews! They make me inspired to write faster ;)