Steve stared at the table in front of him, curling his toes up in his shoes with nerves. The deafening silence in the room was broken only by steady footsteps pacing leisurely back and forth. The captain could feel a bead of sweat beginning to form on the back of his neck and his palms were starting to feel clammy. Say something! He wanted to yell.

"So," Fury finally said, "this is an interesting, not altogether unexpected development. Not surprising, but very interesting."

Steve looked up, waiting for the director to elaborate on his statement.

"I'm guessing you're going to need some time off then?"

"Thank you sir," Steve grinned, "Yes, I do."

Fury nodded, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

"Talk to Maria on the way out, will you?"

The captain stood and shook Fury's hand, still smiling broadly.

"Thanks again."

"And Steve? Congrats. Tell Christina congratulations, too. Maybe I can make up a little lost ground with her."

"If she's due mid-February…hmm…Okay, I'm thinking we keep you on regular duty until October," Agent Hill said, tapping a pencil against her cheek as she stared at the computer screen. "After then, you can do part-time control booth stuff until…say May?"

"Sounds great to me," Steve agreed amiably, thinking fondly of the off time he was going to get with his wife and new baby.

"Agreed then. By the way, we're seeing flare ups from all of our spies in what remains of HYDRA. You should be ready to ship out in the next few days."

"I will. Bye, Maria!"

Steve whistled and called Tina to tell her the news.

…

Tina sat on a yoga mat next to Natasha, who apparently had taken enough courses in child delivery to count as an instructor.

"Hey Nat?" she asked.

"You're supposed to be breathing, dopey," the spy responded calmly.

"Why did you ever bother learning about this stuff?"

Natasha pulled her hands down from prayer position and let them rest on her folded legs.

"If you hadn't noticed, I am a wildly paranoid person. I wanted to be prepared for any possible situation, so I learned what to do if I went into labor by myself…it was before I knew-"

Her brown eyes snapped shut again.

"Practice the deep breath again, let it fill your lungs comple-"

"Knew what?" Tina couldn't help asking.

Natasha deigned to not respond.

"Can you not have kids, Nat?" the artist asked softly.

"No," the redhead responded at last. "In the Red Room, they…well. We were trained as weapons, as spies, mercenaries, assassins. As women, we would be underestimated and could use our bodies to achieve goals that men could not. But being a woman is also a liability sometimes…they eliminate liabilities…so…"

Tina scooted over and wrapped her arms around her friend.

"I'm sorry Nat. It sucks to have people take your options away."

Natasha was still under Tina's embrace, but after a moment she softened a little, awkwardly putting her arms around the little blonde.

"I probably shouldn't have had children anyway," she said gruffly, "I'd be a horrible mother."

"Nah," Tina said, "I think you'd be great at anything you choose to do."

The Black Widow took a small, controlled breath and Tina realized that her friend had reached her emotional limit for the day.

"What kind of breath do I do again?"

Natasha smiled gratefully and was about to answer when she was interrupted by "Yankee Doodle Dandy" playing shrilly.

"Oops!" Tina said, getting up, "That's my phone."

She picked it up and put it to her ear.

"Hey Steve! Oh that's great! I'm sure it wasn't that bad. No it wasn't. I had to do it twice, so did you, fair's fair. You big baby. Wow, that's awesome that you got so much time! Uh-huh. Mm-hm. Aw, yeah I'd forgotten about that. Well…I guess that's the point of being a superhero. Okay. Yeah. Love you! Bye."

"You're telling me," Tony began as he slouched into the room, "that the woman who constantly rails on me about calling Steve 'Spangles' has his contact ringtone set to "Yankee Doodle"? Talk about hypocrisy!"

Tina giggled.

"Sh! Don't tell him! You'll spoil the fun!"

"Do I have a contact ringtone?" the billionaire asked curiously.

"Now that's egocentric," Tina laughed.

…

"I am officially starting my second trimester today," Tina announced as Steve got out ingredients to make dinner.

"Twelve weeks went by quick, huh?"

"Yeah. And I'm fat."

Tina looked gloomily down at her abdomen, which was past the maybe-she's-just-chubby phase and fully into the wow-that-is-one-pregnant-chick phase. Steve's wardrobe had basically been kidnapped by his wife, who cowered at the idea of allowing Pepper to take her on a shopping spree.

"Stop that," Steve commanded, "You're expecting, not fat. You look like a mother-to-be, not like you overdid it on cookies, so knock it off."

"No, really, I think I'm abnormally giant."

Steve glowered and she hastened to elaborate.

"For twelve weeks, I think I'm really big, that's what I mean."

"I'll check the book later."

He rubbed her belly and she sighed with mild annoyance.

"You and your beloved book."

Tina leaned against the counter and her husband only just managed to not roll his eyes.

"Are you gonna cut the carrots or stare at 'em?"

"Aye-aye Captain!" Tina saluted and started making the salad.

"Knock it," he grumbled, not quite succeeding in holding back his smile.

"Yessir, right away, sir," Tina giggled.

…

Tony set his fork down on the table.

"You know," he began, "I think I might need to revise your nickname, Tina."

"Which one? Blondie? Shorty?" she rolled her eyes and helped herself to more chicken soup.

"No those can stay. It's 'Tiny Tina' I'm worried about. I think I'll just switch that over to 'Tubby Tina' for the time being."

Tina rolled her eyes, but Steve stiffened in his chair.

"Hey," he growled. Steve's eyes flashed in warning, and even Tony seemed to realize he had trodden into unsafe territory.

"Although I agree," Tina said neutrally, "that was pretty rude."

Steve's glare continued to burn a hole in the side of Tony's head.

"And," she continued, "you're very lucky my hormones are sort of under control right now. Because if they weren't, Lord knows what I would have done."

"Really," Natasha added, "I taught her some self-defense. But she might have totally gone nuts and stabbed you while you were sleeping."

"Or sobbed a river that flows like the Hudson," Thor piped in.

"Or fired up Steve until he punched your light out," Clint said, pointing to the arc reactor for emphasis.

"Whoah, whoah," Tony held up his hands defensively, "She's preggo, I thought it'd be funny!"

"Seriously, Tony," Pepper said as she primly set her napkin onto her plate, "You knew that was an incredibly insensitive thing to say."

Steve held up a menacing finger.

"One word from her and I pound you into next week. One."

Tina sighed again.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen. While it's flattering that you're having this little testosterone-fueled argument over me," she cleared her plate and Natasha's with a flourish, "Knock it."

Tony slumped in his chair muttering something that sounded suspiciously like 'sheesh' while Steve almost smirk as his wife borrowed his words.

"And don't make fat jokes," Tina added in a slightly more serious and vulnerable tone, "I already feel self-conscious enough."

The kitchen was silent for a while.

"Well," Thor said, scratching his beard, "this should be interesting as you get further along."

Bruce laughed once, quickly.

"I know what we should do," Natasha said suddenly, "We just need some fabric, a sewing machine, and maybe a llama. Or an alpaca."

Without another word, she dragged four extremely confused men from the room after her, leaving Steve, Pepper and Tina to stare at each other in bewilderment.

Oh boy...Natasha's up to something! Next chapter is full of new developments as Tina gets a new wardrobe and the surprise of her life!

Review please, thanks so much!