"Damn it all." Cara hissed under her breath as she sat at her desk and started to furiously clean her bow, taking her frustration out on the weapon. "A week." She repeated, having gotten angry after the worry had passed.
Oh, she was still worried, but angry took precedence at the moment.
Soon, her angry scrubbing wavered and Cara felt something bubble in her chest, feeling like everything was starting to fall apart. She let out a mournful moan and started sobbing, but refused to let the tears fall. She'd kept her emotions back for so long that they would choose now to rebel since her hormones were starting to be thrown out of whack.
The blonde felt so pathetic right now, but at least there was no one watching her, because then she would feel even more pathetic than she did at the moment. She kept working on her bow, pushing through the sobs as she didn't let it stop her from continuing her work.
She had to try and keep calm through this week, because she knew too much stress on herself could kill the baby, and while the thought of her being a parent had and still kind of did scare her, she had more or less started to accept it. She sighed to herself as she felt her stomach grumble and rose from her seat, placing her bow down before turning toward the door, only to freeze as her hand brushed against her stomach.
Cara glanced down at the still flat surface, but she felt along her stomach and knew soon enough there'd be an almost unnoticeable bump there. Unnoticeable at least, until it became noticeable. She shook her head as she made her way to the door and down the steps toward the kitchen and though she longed for the coffee, she instead grabbed a cup and poured some ginger ale into it and got herself an apple to snack on.
Her eyes wandered over to the coffee maker before averting them. For now she had bigger things to worry about, like coming to terms with telling everyone.
"Wow, you look like crap."
Cara held her head as she glared up at Stark from her seat at the table. She didn't have time to anything other than get up and rush to the bathroom. She was so going to be glad when the sickness part passed. As it were though, she knew she looked like a mess, her hair spiking out from not being able to brush it and she was still in her baggy night clothes.
"Gee, thanks." She hissed as she held her temples to try and focus on something other than her queasy stomach.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Steve asked knowingly and the blonde woman felt the urge to glare at him.
"Yes, I'm-" Cara cut herself off as she rushed from the table and out of the room.
"You'd better not puke on my floors!" Stark shouted after her. "Man, she really must have some wicked hangover." He snorted. "Some people are such lightweights."
"I don't know about that, I didn't see her drinking last night." Steve said as while he promised Cara he wouldn't say anything, he didn't say anything about hinting at it.
He still believed she should tell the others before something else came up, Agent Barton was quite capable of taking care of herself he knew and saw it first hand on their missions, but in this type of state she was still rather fragile.
He just didn't like seeing his team getting hurt, and with Agent Barton's pregnancy and her refusal to talk about it left her with a lot of things to get hurt with.
Cara stared traitorously at the calendar as the deadline approached. She was on day 5 now and had been dodging Steve for the first half of the week like the plague, and during meal times when she saw him he kept dropping hints about her pregnancy. Damn it, he was sneakier than he looked she'd give him that.
But it also kind of made her hate him for it too. 'Cause yeah, yeah, for her own good and all that stuff, but did he have to keep on with it? She got it; she was right there. The woman got up from her seat at the table and put on her jacket. It was time for another doctor's appointment.
She made her way into the lobby and when she reached her motorcycle outside she put on the helmet. "What do you think you're doing?" she heard someone ask and glanced over at the blond she'd tried to avoid.
"Going to an appointment." Cara tersely as she kick-started the bike, but Steve grabbed her hand when it reached for the handle. She glared at him. "Hey, hands off."
"This is too dangerous, Agent Barton." The blond replied. "What if you were in an accident?"
"Don't get all righteous on me; it's not like you don't get on a motorcycle without knowing the danger either." Cara hissed. "Yes, but I'm not the one who's pregnant." Steve replied patiently.
Cara gritted her teeth, feeling more than justified if she punched him in the face. But then again she'd probably end up hurting herself more than him if she did that. She knew he was just trying to be a good leader and think about the safety of one of his 'subordinates,' but she had problems with authority. Male authority. Hell, it'd take her a lot longer to trust Fury or…or Phil longer than it had for her to trust or work with Natasha.
The woman felt her other hand grip the handle bar and the brief thought of just driving off came to mind, but again, she'd harm herself if she tried that. Letting out a defeated sigh, Cara cut the engine. "Fine, I'll take a cab, happy now?" she asked snidely and kept her eyes averted in case Steve gave her that kicked puppy look.
"Just making sure you stay safe." The other blond said softly as he pulled his hand off Cara's.
It's for your own good she could hear him thinking and that just made her angrier, but Cara kept herself from expressing it as this stress really wasn't good.
The woman got off the bike and took the helmet off before walking over to the sidewalk and hailed a cab. She saw Steve from the corner of her eye and resisted rolling them. "Let me guess, you want to come along with me?" she asked rhetorically. "Are you sure you won't get missed?"
"I can spare a little time." Steve answered cordially and Cara shrugged nonchalantly.
"Suit yourself." She said as the cab stopped and they both got in.
The ride was awkward and uncomfortably, neither really willing to talk since the only thing to talk about would be how much longer she was going to wait to tell everyone else.
And really, the woman would take awkward silence over that for now.
But sometime during the car ride Steve must have gathered some resolve before speaking. "You…you shouldn't be ashamed of yourself about what…happened."
Oh right, Cara remembered that there was something else to 'talk' about, that particular thing being something else she wasn't too keen on talking about, but it seems like she wouldn't be able to avoid it. "I'm not." She said quietly. "I wasn't in control of myself. I didn't mean to kill those agents." She could at least try to pretend she had no idea what he was really trying to talk about. Steve sighed. "That's not what I'm talking about."
"Well I don't want to talk about it." Cara replied tersely, trying not to feel like she was spitting in the face of America itself with each nasty word she said to Steve. But like she said, she has issues with the male gender. She'd been hurt too many times by them in her life as it was.
And being nice now just meant opening herself up to more hurt.
The 'conversation' died at that point as the rest of the ride was continued in silence.
'Hawkeye and Captain America-Together?' Was what the Bugle headline screamed in big letters.
Cara narrowed her eyes at the picture someone took of her and Steve coming out of the clinic, luckily no one saw what the place was called to avoid people thinking if she was having his baby. The woman slowly tore the magazine up as she didn't look over at Steve. "Did any of the others see this?"
"They're going to find out about this." He pointed out as he watched Cara tossed the shreds of the magazine into the garbage can. "And I don't think I need to remind you of the deadline."
The blonde gritted her teeth as she thought over her current options. Tell now, or don't? If she told now her plans might be compromised, if she didn't, they'd grow even more suspicious of her than they probably already were. She let out a deep sigh as she came to a final choice. "JARVIS, tell everyone to go to the living room, I'm going to tell them," she said finally, "but don't tell them the reason why I'm calling this."
"Right away, Agent Barton."
"Agent Barton, don't you think you're being a bit…controlling about this?" Steve questioned.
Cara frowned at him. "Captain, I may be one of your Avengers, but this is mysecret, and if it weren't for the fact you took the wrong book that day, you wouldn't even know this."
"You were never going to tell us, were you?" The blond asked suspiciously.
The woman looked him right in the eye as she answered. "No, I wasn't. How this happened isn't exactly something I'm proud of you know."
"Agent Barton, everyone is assembled like you requested."
"Thank you JARVIS." Cara replied and moved around Steve to get through the door to the living room, the blond following her as he knew he still had to be there.
When they arrived, Stark was the first one to speak, looking annoyed to be taken out of his lab. "Alright Barton, what's going on?"
Cara didn't immediately reply as she looked around at the other two sitting on the couch. Banner looked like he'd rather be back in the lab as well, but not being vocal about it like Stark, and Natasha just looked disinterested. Cara was glad Thor was back in Asgard or this would have been a million more times awkward.
In the end she just decided to be blunt with it and get it over with. "I'm pregnant." It was supposed to be like ripping off a band aid right? Then why did the words hurt so much?
Stark snapped his mouth shut in surprise as the same look crossed over Banner's and Natasha's faces as well. He recovered quickly though and had an annoying smirk on his face as he glanced between Cara and Steve. "Oh, you two huh? Didn't see that coming."
Cara glanced up at the blond man and glared over at Stark, obviously none of them had seen the magazine from the Bugle. Good. "Take your mind out of the gutter for this conversation, Stark. The Captain and I have never done anything, he just found out before all of you." 'Way, before all of you' she added silently.
"So who is the father?" Banner questioned.
Cara hesitated for the briefest second and took a moment to control herself as her mind flashed to the unwanted touches and she felt Steve place a hand on her shoulder, though unlike before she didn't shake it off or freak out and instead used it to tell herself that she was in the now instead of the past. "It's Loki."
And damn it if they didn't look surprised, but only Natasha seemed to realize what this meant. "It happened when you were under his control didn't it?"
Cara saw the redhead's fist clench and nodded. "Yes."
"But didn't you say that you couldn't remember what happened?" Stark questioned after recovering from momentary shock and his tone had turned suspicious.
"That's right, I couldn't…but then after he left, I started to remember everything that happened before the invasion." Cara explained and only when she was sure of herself that she wasn't going to start freaking out did she shrug off Steve's hand. "I tried not to think about it, but ever since I found out I was pregnant it's been hard to do."
Cara could feel their stares, and while she wasn't a shy person, she also wasn't used to feeling so out of her depth. This was just like with Darcy at the doctor's office, but only this time she couldn't make them promise not to say anything, because now that she really let the cat out of the bag, it was going to get out even more.
It was best to start packing now and run while she still had the chance.
"Wait, where are you going?" Steve asked suddenly as Cara turned on her heel and made her way to the hall.
"Going to pack." The woman replied bluntly.
"Why?" Natasha questioned and Cara stopped in her tracks before turning around.
"Natasha, think about it; I can't stay here, this place is already like a big red target." She replied.
"Not true, my Tower has a state of the art defence system, and I should know as I designed it myself." Stark said with an infuriating smirk on his face. "You and your little terror will be perfectly fine here."
Oh no, her second plan was being torn down piece by piece.
"But it won't be fine; I'll just be in the way if I stay here." Cara explained and while she didn't like demeaning herself, it was true. She was just trying to be practical about this, and what Stark was saying is just…impractical.
"Are you kidding? This place is huge; you'll hardly take up more space when you gain some weight." Stark said dismissively.
"You're really okay with this?" Cara questioned looking at each of them.
"Like I said, you'll hardly take up space." Stark said shrugging.
Banner smiled sardonically. "It should really be me asking if you'll be okay with being around me while you're pregnant."
"I have no problem with it." Cara replied and glanced over at Natasha, who was silent. "'Tasha?"
"You are my friend, Cara," she said after a moment, "and I'm with you on this."
Cara glanced over at Steve uneasily, as he came from a different time period where this wasn't exactly the norm and she hadn't exactly been the nicest person to him this past almost-week, but he just smiled at her encouragingly like he always did and she started to feel something rise in her this time around that wasn't there before.
They were all aware now of the situation and didn't react like she expected and feared they'd do. But then the thought of telling SHEILD arose and a whole new set of anxiety also rose.
…Wait, it wasn't anxiety rising inside her, it was-
"Blarrgh!"
"Yuck." Stark said eyeing the stain on the floor disdainfully. "JARVIS take care of this will you?"
"Right away, sir."
Cara felt another heat flush her face, one from embarrassment. Way to ruin a moment, huh?
