NOTES: The denouement. With the conclusion to follow.
And Baby Makes Eight
- Part VI -
"You want to do a Keyser Soze?"
"Modified. Tag and clip only, no deaths. I want a warning, not a blood-feud."
"That's taking some very specialised skills."
"Have Monica do it."
"You know how she feels about S.H.I.E.L.D."
"This isn't S.H.I.E.L.D. business. Besides she owes me."
"Is there anyone who doesn't owe you?"
"Plenty of people."
"And you can't call in the favour yourself because...?"
"I want her in a good mood. Talking to me isn't going to get her there."
"I cannot owe you this much, Maria"
"Get Monica to do the job and we're even."
"If you say." There's a pause on the other end of the line. "I never thought to see Captain America take a level in Dark Side."
It's not a question. Maria's not obligated to give an answer. But she knows what Xi'an is saying beneath the statement. The woman may not be S.H.I.E.L.D., but she – as much as any of her kind – knows the danger of a man gone to the dark with the fervour of belief in his own absolute rightness.
Steve Rogers gone to the dark would be far more dangerous than Erik Lensherr ever managed to be. Not just the symbol of a hero, but the soul and spirit of a good man with the strength of character and will and not just of body. People believe that he's does what's right – and he does, or tries to.
But he's not perfect. None of them are.
We all cast shadows, the memory of Phil murmurs. We're human, after all.
Maria looks over to where her daughter is sitting, curled up in Steve's lap. His arms are wrapped around her protectively, his face downturned to her drowsing head, guilt etching lines about his eyes.
It's the guilt that makes the difference in Steve.
"It's under control," she tells Xi'an.
And it is.
Yes, Steve Rogers casts shadows, but Maria doesn't fear them.
–
Steve sits in the dry cold of the safehouse's air-conditioned chill and doesn't shiver.
He still remembers the feel of the man's throat in his hand, the incandescent rush of rage that took him when he saw Maria cradling a bloody little body in her arms. At that moment, he'd wanted the man's death – but not a clean one.
There was pleasure in that moment – a satisfaction in the way the man flopped, in the terror in the kidnapper's face. For those few seconds—minutes? – Steve would have hit him again and again, beyond thought or reason, beyond fairness or necessity.
Yes, the man had to be dealt with. But not like that.
The beserker rage? That's not him. Thor and Henry and T'Challa, yes. Carol, occasionally. Bruce, certainly. The others tend to go brutally cold – Natasha, Tony, and Clint in particular, although Heather has her moments - but not Steve.
He's good at being a soldier - at carrying out missions, at killing. He regrets the need for it, but he does it anyway. He wants a mission completed, and sometimes that requires death. He doesn't take pleasure in death, or even satisfaction in the kill.
He did tonight.
Shooting the kidnappers wasn't enough. Once in close quarters he used his fists and his anger. Flesh under his fingers, an Adam's apple bobbling beneath his palm, and the fear shining bright in the blue eyes as the man understood just how helpless he was.
It makes Steve sick to think of it now, after the rush is gone, after the adrenaline has faded.
God, what did he become tonight?
"Steve?" In the bed, Pippa is watching him, her big eyes oddly owlish. They gave her painkillers, and she should be asleep, but she's been fighting it for the last hour. "Why are your hands shaking? Are you cold?"
Steve pulls a smile together and closes the hands he was staring at. "I am a bit cold, yes. No, don't—" But she's already wriggling out from under the sheets. "Pippa—"
"Cuddle?" She lifts her arms – well, arm – and looks winsome. And scared.
He feels like he shouldn't touch her, shouldn't soil her with his hands. But the ache in his chest demands satisfaction, and the knowledge that his time with Pippa is limited presses hard.
"Okay. But you stay in bed and I'll sit with you."
Sitting with him is not what she has in mind – and she has a very determined little mind. Pippa climbs into his lap and curls up against his chest, forcing him to put his arms around her and ease himself up so he's sitting back on the pillows of the bed.
The hollow in his belly eases back a little as he holds her. But the future looms large and empty before him, devoid of her and Maria both.
He looks over at Maria, who's leaning against the frame of the open door, arms folded, her profile turned away into the corridor so they can't hear her conversation. Pippa didn't want her mom out of her sight, so the compromise was that Maria wouldn't leave the room.
On the other hand, she didn't seem to want Pippa or Steve hearing whatever she was doing.
He's not sure if that's because she doesn't trust him, or simply her instinctive secretiveness regarding any S.H.I.E.L.D. business that's rather more greyscale than whitehat.
"Steve?" Pippa tilts her head back to look up at him, and now there's a drowsy solemnity beneath the white bandage.
"Yes?"
"Why didn't you come sooner? I waited for you."
"We did. We tried." Her hair is so soft and fine under his fingers, dark with a curl that's a bit too vigourous to have come from Maria – a trace of her unknown father. "But the people who took you away – we didn't know where they were or how to find you. So we had to find you first before we could come and get you."
Pippa snuggles closer. "It was cold. I cried lots. And my arm hurt all the time." She sniffles a little bit. "I wish you'd come sooner."
"Your mom and I wish we'd come sooner, too."
Those little blue eyes look up at him again. "Your hair is dark now."
"I dyed it."
"Why?"
"Because everyone around here has dark hair and I wanted to fit in."
"Oh." She lifts her head to contemplate him for a moment. Then she settles back down on his chest, her cheek resting over his heart. "It looks like mine now."
It chokes him up a little, and he lowers his lips to her hair. "Yeah. It is."
She's silent for a few seconds, then her voice drifts up, soft and sleepy. "I'm glad you came."
Steve has nothing to say to that – nothing that won't tear him apart. He just keeps holding her carefully, as though she's fragile. And she is. So small and trusting, and not his to hold anymore – not that she ever was.
He's not sure it won't break him to let go.
I don't need you endangering my daughter any more than you already have!
And in losing Pippa, he'll lose Maria, too.
Oh, he'll see Maria at work with S.H.I.E.L.D., with the Avengers, a commander and liaison. But she'll withdraw from their lives at best, becoming nothing more than a stranger he once loved, and Pippa will grow up never remembering that she played with gods and heroes as a child, and loved them because she never knew to worship or fear them.
The murmur of Maria's voice stops, and he looks up as she finishes the call, and comes into the room, closing the door behind her. Quiet as she tries to be, though, Pippa still rouses, sharp and anxious. "Mommy?"
"I'm here, baby." She stands beside the bed and bends over to kiss the soft cheek and brush back the wispy curls. And Steve feels the emptiness dig its claws a little deeper amidst the heavy weight of guilt and despair.
They're not his and they never were.
He thought he'd made his peace with that.
"There's a Quinjet twenty minutes out," she tells him, straightening, but not moving away. Standing close enough that her hand can rest on Pippa's leg, reassurance that she's still here. Close enough for him to want to reach for her hand, to tuck her in on his other side and have her warm against his back, with her chin resting on his shoulder.
He can't.
I don't love you. She'd been in the middle of saying that before the alarm was triggered.
Steve tucks the pain away now, puts it somewhere else to be cradled later, and focuses on what she's just said. If a Quinjet is coming then maybe… "Natasha?"
"No." She frowns down at Pippa, her expression troubled by the mention of the Avengers. And Steve suddenly wants the Quinjet to get lost, to go missing, to leave them here just a little bit longer, stolen time before reality and the world intrudes. "Steve-"
"I know," he says before she can remind him. "We have to keep our distance after this."
Maria tilts her head a little. "I was going to say, 'Thank you.'"
"For what? Losing it? Going beserk while interrogating a source of information?" He doesn't mean to say that, certainly not as bitter as it comes out.
And she's watching him, a troubled look on his face. "For helping save my daughter. For helping with my daughter." She hesitates. "For being you."
He doesn't know how to answer her gratitude. "I saw the blood and I thought—I went a little…crazy in there."
"Yes."
He looks at her and thinks that only Maria could say that so calmly – as though he hasn't failed her or the shield or what he's meant to be.
"What I did— It's not— That's not—" Steve takes a deep breath. "That's not what Captain America should be."
Maria looks at him for a long, silent moment. "No," she says gently. "Maybe not. But it's what her father would do."
Steve is caught between stabbing pain and aching loss. She's never spoken of Pippa's father before – not willingly. To speak of it here, now—
He doesn't want to hear why she doesn't love him, why she can't. He doesn't want to hear about a man who'll never cradle his daughter the way Steve does, but who holds Maria's heart the way Steve never will. He can't do this now, face this now. Not tonight. Not like this.
And yet...amidst the clutching grief, he wants to know more about the man she respected enough to let into her bed, liked enough to keep his child, and cared about enough to go back to his memorial every year.
She's never spoken of him before to anyone – not that Steve knows about – but she wants to tell him now.
It's not love, but it's a trust she's never given anyone else – this part of her and Pippa's past. And Steve wants to be worthy of that, even if he can't have more. She doesn't want him, and he won't push that; but he loves her, so he'll take whatever she can give.
So he takes a long breath and lets it out, and wishes his throat didn't feel so raw. "What was he like?" When Maria looks blankly at him, he qualifies, "Pippa's father? I mean. You never talk about him."
Maria continues staring at him, a faint flush crawling across her cheeks. "I—Steve—I wasn't talking about him now."
It takes him a moment to realise what she's giving him – forgiveness, of a sort. Kind understanding. An acknowledgement of what Pippa's been to him, what her daughter has meant to him. The reassurance that he's not a monster.
"Thank you," he says, and wishes his voice wasn't so hoarse. "I—That means—" He doesn't have the words for it, doesn't have the speech. He just looks down at Pippa, curled warmly against his heart.
When he looks up, Maria's watching him, a pensive expression in her eyes.
He has nothing to lose anymore, and she needs to hear it again.
"What I said before—about being in love with you—I meant it."
"Steve—"
"It's not about Pippa. I know you don't believe that." Her disbelief is in her eyes, in the way she opened her mouth to tell him he's wrong or mistaken. "It's still true. You don't have to love me back. I know you can't—" He stops himself before he starts babbling. And from the look in her eyes she wants to say something and he should shut up and let her say it.
Even if it's that she never wants him to touch her or her daughter again.
"I don't—" She looks down at Pippa. "I couldn't handle it if—if she became collateral damage."
Steve reaches out.
Her hand is cold when he takes it, but she doesn't pull away when he kisses the knuckles, nor when she flattens her palm against his cheek and turns his face into her hand. She doesn't pull away when he tugs her in so his arm can slip around her waist and his forehead rests against her shoulder.
He can't see her face. That's deliberate. But Steve can hear her heartbeat, can feel the way she shudders as she doesn't cry – not Maria. And if he could he'd fight her pain and the fear she hides away, but he can't and the truth is she wouldn't let him anyway.
He's going to miss her. He's going to miss Pippa. But he can have this now, and maybe on the way home, if she lets him hold her – not enough, not as much as he wants, but as much as she can give. As much as she can afford with Pippa's life in the balance.
It's not what he wants, but he understands.
Her hand strokes over his head once, fingers curling at his nape. And Steve lets himself believe it means something, even if it's just for the moment, just here, just now. He can have this moment and if it won't be enough, then he'll still live without it because he has to, because they need him to.
It's a good moment, however temporary.
They stay like that until the call comes from the Quinjet that it's on the approach to the airfield.
Then they gather up a sleepy little Pippa and go home.
–
Sitting on the kitchenette countertop – hardly used since Maria's not much of a cook – Clint watches the argument but stays well out of it. Natasha leans back against the counter, her hands curled around the edge. She seems calm on the surface, but the flex of her hands betrays her tension.
Clint's feeling the same edginess. There's enough temper running through this room for things to get nasty. Only the fact that Maria's trying to get Pippa to sleep is stopping war from breaking out among the Avengers.
He's only said this once to Natasha, and once to Maria, both times long ago, back in the earliest days. The Council weren't wrong about us. The miracle isn't that we defeated Loki; the miracle is that we worked together long enough to make it happen.
Right now, it's come down to Stark and Bruce as the respective leaders of the factions – although really it comes down to Stark and everyone else.
"No," Tony is saying, stubborn to the last, "I don't see the need—"
"Tony—"
"I'm not going to walk away from her, Bruce. I won't do it."
"Not even for Pippa's safety?"
"And how is walking away from her going to make things any safer? Really?" Tony looks around the room at them all. "No, I'm serious. How is it going to make a difference?"
"If we do not mark her as a target, then there will be little reason for people to go after her," Thor says, standing in the shadows over by the windows. He's been – as Stark says – a dark little thundercloud since he got back from Asgard.
Natasha related what Maria said. In anger, yes, but with the sting of truth.
Clint knows the guidelines of involvement for S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. They're not rules per se, because the organisation recognises there's no one-size-fits-all solution to the problem of interpersonal relationships. Still, he and Natasha walked that line for years before Loki, New York, and the Avengers. They thought it best, safest.
Being Avengers rather than S.H.I.E.L.D. gave them that opportunity – that immunity – yet Clint never let it matter that doing the same with Pippa might entail a price – not enough to step away.
Red in our ledger.
They're just lucky that one of those entries isn't written in Pippa's blood.
"Look," says Tony with his trademark forcefulness, "We're not going to stop caring about what happens to Pippa just because Maria says we walk out of this room tonight and never come back. She's a target because she means something to us, not because she's in our proximity. Being in our proximity is probably the main reason she's never been targeted before! And, without us, who does she have to protect her or keep an eye on her?"
"We should be targeting the people who targeted her," Hank Pym mutters, his hand a fist on the table. He turns to Steve. "You didn't get anything from the attack?"
"No." Steve has been quiet ever since Maria took Pippa away for bed. Now he's staring at the coffee table as though it holds all the answers to their predicament. Other than one intervention with Tony – about as successful as any of them, he's been subdued – even for Cap. "Maria and Xi'an dealt with the leader."
"While you stood by and wrung your hands?"
Tony has a faintly savage note in his voice, but Steve doesn't react. The silence is uncharacteristic. Out of all of them, Clint would have expected Steve to side with Tony – to fight not to lose Pippa. Then again, maybe seeing what nearly became of her has changed his perspective.
Cap does what's right, even when it hurts – that's what makes him Cap.
"No." It's a quiet negative, heavy with the weight of something that goes beyond anger. "They dealt with him while I held Pippa to keep her from seeing what a man looks like after I've broken his neck in rage."
Somehow it's worse that he says it so quietly.
It's not that Cap's never killed before, or lost his temper, or bloodied his hands. They're Avengers, not saints. And there's no doubt the leader of the kidnappers deserved what was coming to him. But 'broken his neck in rage' is a very different beast to 'shot him in a fight'.
"Steve—" Bruce begins.
"I only saw the blood and her body – Maria was holding her – and—"
Steve takes a deep breath and looks up at Tony. And maybe it's the hair that makes the difference, or maybe it's the look in his eyes which says this man is not feeling 'nice' or 'good' or 'conciliatory' right now, and he will go through anyone and anything to do what he thinks needs to be done – as he broke a man's neck.
"If Maria wants us to walk away from Pippa, then we will walk away. What you leave to her is your own business, Tony, but if Maria says to leave Pippa alone, then we do so. All of us." He looks around the room, meeting gazes one by one. "Are we understood?"
"No." Tony's not going to let this go, and Clint wants to wince, because what he's seeing is not two team-mates disagreeing, but two men about to get into a bloody, bruising verbal fight that will leave aching, painful scars. "No, we are not understood. I will not back away. I will not give her up! And you can take that and your precious boy-scout guilt and shove it—"
"Tony," Bruce interrupts, jerking his head at the entryway to Maria and Pippa's personal quarters, where Maria has just stepped through.
"Well," she says giving the room a crisp, sweeping glance as she puts her hands on her hips. "I see we're in the middle of a 'spirited discussion'."
"You aren't going to take Pippa away from us," Tony says, and beneath the belligerence, Clint can hear the note of deperation that terror has wrung from the usually inimitable technocrat. "I won't let you."
Wrong words to say; wrong way to say it. Clint winces. Pushing Maria is usually a bad idea; she tends to react unpredictably.
Witness her prompt trip to Asgard to recruit Heimdall to find Pippa.
"Would that be like not letting anyone hurt Pippa?" Maria inquires, and this time Clint's not the only one to wince. "Like not letting any harm come to her? Because you – all of you – did a great job of that. And so did I."
"Maria—"
She holds up a hand to halt Bruce's interjection. "We're going to have this out, Banner. You made her a target – all of you. I said that, and I meant that, and it's no less true just because you don't like it."
"Well, tell us what you really think, Lieutenant," Bruce says, and Clint watches the bitter lines about his mouth dig a little deeper and wonders just how close they are to having the Hulk in the building.
Well, they already have the Hulk in the building. He's just under control right now.
Will he still be under control after Maria lays down the law?
If Maria's considered this, she's not showing it as she surveys them all. "What I really think is that Pippa would have been safer not knowing any of you – being considered nothing more than the daughter of another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent."
"But she's not just any agent's daughter," Steve says quietly, his eyes hungry on Maria's face. This will be hard on all of them, but Clint knows Natasha's worried about Steve. Tony will find his outlets – although it might be a case of God help the Earth – but Steve is something else. "She's your daughter."
"And I, as her mother, have the right and responsibility to keep her safe."
"Safety is an illusion, Maria," Natasha points out, gently, and the child who became the assassin speaks through the woman's voice. "You can't protect her from everything."
"No," Maria agrees. "I can't. But we like to keep our fictions as long as they'll hold, and sometimes way past their use-by date." She looks around, meeting everyone's gaze. " We've had five years to pretend that your interest in my daughter wasn't going to come back and cost us – and we're just lucky that it wasn't her life."
"You keep using that word, 'we'," Tony snaps. "You do know that it doesn't mean what you think it means?"
"I'm taking my share of blame for this," is the reply. "I could have run harder—"
"You could have tried."
"I could have drawn hard lines and stuck to them. I didn't. I've paid for that. And so have you." Maria looks around at them. "So has Pippa."
"You want us to keep our distance," Clint says for all of them. He shouldn't push the point, but why prolong the agony? And something's not quite right, like a sighting that's slightly off. Maria doesn't do explanations; she gives orders and expects them to be followed.
"I want you to keep your distance." Her gaze meets Clint's, slides over to Natasha, and then across Thor over by the windows before dropping down to Steve. "Unfortunately, it's a little late for that. She's already a target and she's not going to stop being one anytime soon. As much as I'd like to bundle her up in cotton wool and run," and she gives a little grimace, "I'm not going to."
Clint isn't sure he's heard right at first. Neither, it seems are the others. Tony's glass comes down on the bar top with a thump, and Maria continues.
"The truth is that I can't protect Pippa from everything, and given the world we live in at S.H.I.E.L.D., I'm not sure I should. However," and her voice goes hard again, "I've taken measures to keep her safe – in so far as she can be kept 'safe'. If you want to continue as a presence in my daughter's life, I expect you to do the same." She looks at Tony. "Do you understand that, Stark?"
Tony doesn't answer immediately. Instead, he takes a drink, as though he doesn't have all eyes in the room on him. Then he sets the glass down. "And do you plan to hold the threat of taking Pippa away over our heads every time we misbehave, Lieutenant?"
"Tony—" Thor protests.
"I think it's a valid question. She's got the upper hand when it comes to Pippa, after all. We can pour whatever we want of ourselves into that little girl, but Maria holds all the cards as Pippa's mother."
"That is different—"
"Is it?" Stark doesn't look away from Maria.
Maria smiles suddenly – a faint curve of her lips. "You know, I always figured you for a dilettante when it came to my daughter, Stark. So long as she was young and adorable, she'd be another person whose life you could dabble in before you lost interest and forgot her. Another female victim of Tony Stark – used, left behind, forgotten. What's the harm and who cares anyway?"
"Maria—"
"No," Stark holds up a hand. "It's fair. Wrong, but fair. What changed?"
"Nothing." Maria doesn't mince words. "I'm still not entirely convinced that someday you won't decide that she's more effort than the great and powerful Tony Stark can be bothered to expend. However." And here she sighs. "My daughter believes you're her family – all of you, God help me. So my question is whether you're going to be the family Pippa believes you are and step up to the plate, or whether you're going to run and hide now that she needs you to protect her?"
–
No sooner have the elevator doors closed than Tony pipes up. "Does anyone else feel like singing, 'We Got Annie'?"
Deep in his core, Bruce feels the Hulk roar with laughter.
tbc