Two months later, Bruce and I walked into the rec room to find it all decked out in pink streamers, pink-and white balloons, just about everything you'd expect for a baby shower. Everyone was there, eagerly awaiting our arrival.
"Wendy!" Pete said when he saw us. He ran up to me, eyes beaming. "Do you like it?"
"It's very… pink." I said, trying to find something positive to say about it. I could see Bruce trying to hide his laughter. "I love it." I said.
"Um… can I…?" Pete said cautiously. I smiled.
"Go ahead." Pete smiled, and put his hands over my belly, which had grown immensely over the past few months. His smile grew wider, and he looked up, delighted. "I felt her kick!" We had gone to the doctor's not too long ago, and found out they were both girls.
"Whoa!" Tony said from the couch. "You're huge!"
"Wonderful observation." I said with my hands on my hips.
"Hey!" Clint said. "The woman of honor is here, we can finally get started!" As with all parties involving the Avengers, it was a great time. Of course, I was promptly swarmed by everyone, with offerings of congratulations. Not on the twins; on the proposal.
"Let us see it!" Rose demanded eagerly.
"See what?"
"The ring, silly!" I smiled, and held up my hand for everyone to see.
"Wow… it's beautiful!"
"But… what is it?" Steve asked. I was about to answer, when Pepper piped up.
"Oh, that's what Bruce and Tony have been working on, isn't it?" I nodded. "If I remember right it's supposed to be like a… a conductor?"
"More like a charger, but you get the idea."
"That means then, that I won't have to strike you every time you begin to run low?" Thor asked.
"Yup, that's the gist of it."
"Ooh, I can't wait for the wedding!" Rose said. We had set the date for April fourth. Long after the twins would be born, but two months isn't really enough time to plan a wedding. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bruce sitting and talking with Loki. No doubt gathering advice about child-rearing. "Have you chosen bridesmaids yet?" Rose asked.
"Well, I don't really know that many women in the first place. I was thinking of making Pete wear a dress for the ceremony, but I don't think he'd go for that." Rose giggled.
"I wouldn't what?" We heard Pete from the corner of the room.
"Nothing, Pete. Nothing important." He let the matter be, and I turned back to Rose.
"Of course, there'll be you and Pepper." Her face lit up.
"Really?" Pepper said. "Nothing would make me happier, Wendy!"
"And…" I rubbed the back of my head. Where was Natasha, anyway? Ah ha; there she was. Standing in the corner, trying her best to avoid socializing. I walked purposefully up to her. She looked up.
"Wendy?" I'd noticed she had started calling me Wendy, instead of Trescott. I took it as a compliment.
"Natasha, would you be my maid of honor?" If I didn't know better, I would have thought it was a look of shock on her face. "Hey… you okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine." A smile twitched at the corners of her lips. "I'd be honored."
"Oh, yeah." Clint said from beside her. "Heard he popped the question. Congratulations!" He turned to Natasha. "Maid of honor, huh? Does that mean I'm gonna get to see you in a dress?"
"Stop it, Clint."
"But you'd look so beautiful!" I smiled. To be honest, I still didn't like the guy that much. But… he made Natasha happy. Which made him okay in my book.
"Wendy!" I heard Phil from behind me.
"Hey, Phil!" I pulled him into a hug. He had been on a mission the past few days along with agent Hill, and I hadn't seen him in too long.
"Congratulations, Wendy!" He said.
"Oi; eyes are up here." To be fair, he wasn't staring at my chest; he was staring at my ginormous twin-tummy. I had already had to take out the stud in my belly-button because I was afraid it was gonna pop out and fly across the room.
"Sorry, it's just… twins, huh?"
"Yeah. Both girls."
"Do you have names picked out yet?"
"Yes, yes we do."
"What are they?" I smiled and held a finger to my lips.
"Not telling! Bruce wants to keep them a secret."
"Have you seen this?" He motioned his head to a cork board on the wall, covered in… of course; baby pictures. "That's me." He pointed to one of the pictures. It was a shot of one-year old Phil, in nothing but a diaper, running around with applesauce all over his face. In the background a pair of legs with a skirt around them, (probably his ma) ran toward him with arms outstretched, trying to catch him and, inevitably, bathe him. The whole scene was absolutely adorable. I scanned the board. Pete had really outdone himself. There were pictures of Clint running around with other kids in the orphanage he grew up in. Of little Tony making impossibly complex structures with tinkertoys. Rose jumping off couches with a red cape (AKA bath towel) tied around her neck. There were pictures of Steve, all dressed up and saluting for the camera in black and white, looking like the happiest little patriot in the world. Portraits of Loki and Thor, trying (and failing) to sit nicely for the artist. There weren't any of Natasha, for obvious reasons. I found some of Bruce playing with a junior chemistry set, and in the very middle of the board? Me. Pictures of me, at around two, three years old, running around the old yard. I smiled at a picture of little, half-naked me trying my best to catch a squirrel I'd set my sights on. Believe it or not, I remembered that day. I remembered being so disappointed I couldn't catch the squirrel that pa went out and caught one for me. That night we had stew, with the teeniest bits of meat I'd ever come across.
"No!" I heard a young, high-pitched voice from behind me. Looks like Loki and Rose had brought the triplets, and Rose was trying her best to get Madison to eat something - anything – even remotely healthy.
"Come on, it's good for you!" Rose said, as she tried her best to get Madison to open her mouth for a carrot. I watched as Bruce asked if he could try. He put Madison in his lap, took the carrot, and started waving it around theatrically in the air.
"Here comes the horsie!" He said. Heh; a little Asgardian twist on "here comes the airplane", eh? "Open the stables!" Madison grinned, and happily opened her mouth to chomp down on the carrot.
"Good, right?" Bruce prompted. She nodded, her mouth full of carrot. I was pretty sure my heart was about to explode on the spot from how adorable the whole scene was. I had definitely picked the right guy to have kids with, even if it wasn't strictly on purpose. That's when I heard a crash coming from the snack table; Eric, god knows how, had climbed his way up there and was – I kid you not – bathing in the sour cream. I rushed over and picked him out.
"Oh, Eric!" Loki came over to take him out of my hands. He looked him scoldingly in the eye as he held the kid, dripping in sour-cream, from under the arms. "Silly young thing. Let's get you cleaned up." I half-expected him to excuse himself and Eric to the bathroom, but instead he just snapped his fingers and Eric was clean.
"They're a handful, huh?" I remarked, as Eric did his best to bite his father's ears off.
"Oh, yes. And just you wait; soon you'll be in the same boat as Rose and I. Looking forward to dealing with giant, green, electrically charged toddlers?" I gulped. He wasn't exactly making it sound easy. Hadn't he been one of my biggest supporters?
"Lay off, reindeer games." I said, smirking. "It's not like they'd be born green, anyhow." But would they? We didn't even know what they'd turn out like, given the, ahem, interesting gene pool. Loki must have seen the panic in my eyes, because his expression softened.
"You'll be fine. After all, our children are all magically endowed frost-giants, and we haven't screwed anything up too royally yet." I grinned. Out of the corner of my eye, though, I happened to catch something; Bruce was leaving. "Where's your fiancé going?" Loki asked. I didn't answer, just pushed past him and toward the door, leaving it open as I walked out into the hall. He was still there, leaning against the wall with his hand running through his hair.
"Hey." I said, approaching him. "Are you alright?" He didn't answer. "Is it the crowd, is it stressing you out? Did you eat something bad?" He chuckled.
"No, it's not that." He took a deep breath. "I'm scared." Scared?
"Scared of what?" He looked me in the eye.
"Of the kids. Our kids. What if I can't do it? What if I feed them something they're not supposed to have, or drop one on her head, or forget about them and leave them alone? Wendy, I know nothing about raising children!"
"Bruce, you'll be a great dad! I saw you in there with Maddie." He sighed.
"That's just it. When I was sitting with her, she just looked so fragile. Like I'd break her if I made one wrong move. And it was terrifying." I was… I don't know what I was. And, more importantly, I didn't know what to do. Should I try to comfort him? Prove him wrong? And how? I didn't have to think about it for much longer, though. Madison came toddling out the door and wrapped her arms around Bruce's leg, smiling up at him with her adorably terrifying Jotun-teeth.
"Carras!" She said. I could only assume she meant carrots. A smile grew across Bruce's face.
"See?" I said. "You're great with kids. Even the kids agree!" He leaned down to pick her up.
"You want some more carrots?" He asked. She just pointed at him, and repeated the phrase. I snorted.
"She thinks your name's carrots!"
"Ah, I've been called worse."
"Come on." I took him by the elbow. "I think Rose'll be looking for her kid." As I led him back in, and Rose took Madison back into her arms, I could still see the doubt in his eyes. Well then, I thought; I'll have to do something about that, won't I?
"Hey, is it present time already?" Wade said impatiently.
"Wait, what?" I asked.
"Pete made us stash all the gifts in the mess hall so you could open them all at the same time."
"I guess we could open them now." Pete said. "Wendy?" Well, why not? So we all migrated to the mess hall. I spent the next fifteen-or-so minutes opening gifts. Wade and Pete gave us a set of baby silverware. From the look on Wade's face, it wasn't his first choice. From the look on Pete's face, it had taken a good bit of discipline to get him to agree. Steve gifted a little quilt with a rabbit design on the front. Natasha and Clint gave us one of those bouncy baby-swing things you hang from doorways. In Clint's own words?
"I remember seeing one of these things in a catalogue a while ago and thinking; they should make that in adult size." I have to admit, I shared his opinion. Thor gave us two little wooden pull toys shaped like bears. He said he had carved them himself, and I could tell he had put his whole heart into them. Jane gave us two teddy bears, one honey-colored and one more of a cocoa. She said they used to be hers when she was little. Coulson gave us a big (and I mean big) pile of picture books. Rose gave us a music box. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, just a little wooden box. But when you opened it, a little fairy started dancing, and it played a beautiful, tinkling melody I knew I'd heard somewhere before but couldn't quite place.
"I found it in a little shop a long time ago. I thought the girls might like it." She said. I put it aside before reaching for Loki's gift. Opening the box, I found inside two rag-dolls. They were sort of waldorf-style dolls, adorably chubby with almost no mouths. They both wore dresses with flower prints, one green and one pink. The one with the pink dress had long, brown, yarn hair, and the one with the green dress had long red hair. I was entranced by them. I'd never really been one for dolls, but they were beautiful.
"To be their companions." Loki said. "Their friends."
"Where did you get them?" I asked.
"I made them, of course." He scoffed. Oh, right; magic. It was probably easy for him to just conjure them up.
"Thank you, Loki. They're beautiful." Pepper had something more practical in mind.
"A baby gate?" I said, holding up the box.
"Trust me." She said. "If they're your daughters? You'll need it." The last gift, though, really took the cake. Tony and Pepper brought out a big box wrapped carefully in lavender paper. Bruce and I unwrapped it together, and on the inside was a mobile. The mobile was large, with metal arms, and hanging from it were little, painted, wooden chibi-figures of all of our friends. Me, Bruce, Pete, Wade, Tony, Pepper, Rose, Loki, Thor, Jane, Natasha, Clint, Steve, Fury, Phil, and even agent Hill. All of us.
"I know you've got two kids, but I figure you can hang it in the middle of the nursery."
"This is amazing, Tony!"
"He made it himself, too." Pepper "Wouldn't let me help at all." Tony beamed with pride at the praise.
"Well, you know, If I was making it it had to turn out pretty kickass." That's when the PA crackled on.
"Boys and girls, I hope you're ready for a mission." Fury's voice rang through the halls. "Sorry to interrupt the festivities, but Doctor Dredd's wreaking havoc in Jersey right now. We could really use the Avengers down there." Everyone stood, and ran out with urgency.
"Sorry, Wendy." Coulson said as I tried to stand up and join them. "Given your condition, I don't think you should be a part of this." My face fell. Oh, yeah. Pregnancy kinda sucks. Bruce was leaving too, but he hesitated as he heard this.
"Go on." I said. "Do your hero thing!" He gave me a kiss, and a hug, and left out the door. Coulson went too, most likely to help Fury manage the fight from the office. "Well then," I said. "It's just you and me, Jarvis."