A/N: Thank you so much for your feedback! I know I say this every time, but I still don't feel like I say it enough.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Chapter 13: By Your Side
Natasha POV
How was I going to do this? I can't do this. Not now.
My nerves were getting to me as I splashed cool water on my face, trying to calm down, and keep from hyperventilating.
It's alright, I'm okay. Bruce will love me either way.
"Natasha? I knocked this journal off your desk, I… oh my God, are these your vows?"
Shit.
I forgot Jane was here.
I bolted out of the bathroom, and found the astrophysicist sitting on the edge of the bed, reading my crappy, screwed up, attempts at writing my own wedding vows.
I'm an assassin, not an English major, so I already know that they sucked, but the last thing I wanted was for Jane to think I'm an idiot who can't compose some simple vows.
Jane looked like she was going to cry.
"Jesus Christ, I knew I was bad…I didn't know they were that-"
"These are perfect."
I stared at her dubiously.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Your vows are perfect!"
I rolled my eyes, and snatched the vows away.
"Pfft, as if."
"Natasha?"
"Hmm?"
"The test results?"
"Oh."
Jane looked at me, eyes wide.
"Well? What are you?"
I sat down on the floor, and put my head in my hands.
"I'm pregnant again."
"Aw, Congratulations! So how will you let Bruce know?"
I picked my head up, and got up off the floor, putting on my plush bathrobe and bunny slippers, I said,
"Fuck it. I'm marching right into that lab, and telling him!"
I put the test strip in a plastic baggie and walked out the door.
"Please, please, please don't faint this time!"
Bruce POV
"Tony? According to these algorithms and equations, your chemicals will spontaneously combust."
Tony looked up at me, and glanced over at said chemicals with a cautious look on his face.
"I suppose I should spontaneously dispose of them then.", He said, putting on his Iron Man suit, and taking the chemicals to the disposal area.
I went back to my work; I had given up on finding a 'cure' for the Hulk, and now I was working on writing wedding vows. I was a physicist, not a poet, so this was extremely difficult for me to do. I just wanted Natasha to look back on our wedding day, and recall the words I had spoken to her.
I jumped as I felt a pair of slender arms wrap around my waist unexpectedly, and I slammed my journal shut as Natasha hugged me. I didn't want to show her my failed attempts at writing vows. I turned around, and asked sternly, slipping into my doctor mode again,
"Natasha? What are you doing out of bed? I thought you would know better than to go walking about while you're sick."
She gave me the 'puppy dog eyes', and I melted as she said,
"I had to see you. I have to tell you a few things."
I held both of her hands as she sat down on a lab stool.
"What's going on, sweetheart?"
"Well…", She looked at me with a face that showed her excitement about something, "I wanted to tell you that I love you, and that you fully deserve all the best things in the world."
I nodded as she reached into her bathrobe pocket, and pulled out a plastic baggie with a strip inside.
"I just hope that this can come pretty close."
She said, smiling, as she handed me the bag. I noticed there was a small plus sign on the strip. It was a pregnancy test strip. A positive one too.
My pulse raced as I sat down in the desk chair behind me. My mind went blank, and I pulled my glasses off and tossed them aside.
"Bruce, I think I'm pregnant again!", She exclaimed.
The wave of emotion hit me like a ton of bricks. I didn't faint, or feel sorry for myself this time. I wanted this as much as she did. The Hulk said, "BABY MINE, HULK PROTECT BABY AND NATASHA," it was good to finally agree on something with the Hulk. I felt tears of joy welling behind my eyes as I laughed, and stood. I grabbed Natasha around her waist, picked her up, and spun her around as I exclaimed,
"I'm gonna be a father!"
I set her on her feet, and pulled her into a hug as my tears of joy started to flow freely.
Mom? Grace? Wherever you are, I hope you can see how happy I am.
"Bruce?"
I looked at her as she gently brushed away my tears with her thumb.
"I'll have to go see Dr. H. soon, to make sure everything is going well. I swear that this baby will be alright."
I pulled Natasha close again, and stroked her silky red hair. It had grown since the battle of New York, and was past her shoulders now. I hoped our baby would be as beautiful as her, and as smart as I was.
"I love you, Natasha."
"I love you too."
The door to the lab opened.
"Hello Natasha, glad to see you up, and about so soon," said Tony, walking in in his suit with Pepper on his arm.
He noticed us embracing and asked,
"Are we interrupting something?"
I looked down at Natasha and she nodded as if to say, "Tell them."
"Well, Natasha has just told me that she's pregnant again."
Pepper squealed, and ran over to give us a hug, but remembered how Natasha was sick, and stopped in her tracks, celebrating from a safe distance. Tony put his suit away, and congratulated us. Natasha started coughing violently, and I walked her out of the lab and into the elevator.
While we were in the elevator, I couldn't hide my smile. Natasha's stomach growled, and she giggled,
"I guess our little one has an appetite already."
I looked at her as she patted her abdomen, and murmured at the tiny being growing inside her,
"You're a fighter, just like me. I know it. You will survive no matter what odds are set against you. You'll be smart just like your daddy, and just as kind as him too.", She looked up at me and smiled,
"I'm so happy right now, how about you?"
I nodded,
"I never even thought that I could have children, or even have the opportunity to try because of the Hulk. It's good to be proven wrong though."
Another fit of coughing overcame her, and we got off the elevator,
"Bruce, can you bring me some chicken noodle soup and Gatorade?", Natasha asked me as she settled back under the covers in the bed.
I nodded to her as I brought her some cough syrup. She wrinkled her nose up at it but knocked it back, and shuddered. I kissed her forehead as she turned on the TV, and began watching 'Pirates of the Caribbean' . I went to leave, and she called from the bed,
"Bruce?"
I turned.
"Hmm?"
She smiled, and patted her abdomen.
"Nothing. I'm just excited, and a little scared."
I nodded, and left to get her food.
I was heating up some soup on the stove when Loki walked in, and poured himself a cup of coffee. I was starting to get accustomed to Loki being on the team, he really wasn't all that terrible of a person once you sat down, and understood why he was so jealous of Thor. I was no psychiatrist, but Loki seemed to have problems with an inferiority complex of some kind. I could understand why he was driven to destroy Thor like that though, his entire life had been a lie and Odin had basically used him as a bargaining piece. Loki had seen the error of his ways, and was trying to right the wrong.
"Good morning Dr. Banner, I trust you had a pleasant night's rest?"
I nodded,
"Yeah, I had to sleep on the sofa, Natasha has the flu."
Loki patted me on the shoulder.
"Tell her that I send her my best in the hopes that she recovers quickly."
The demigod turned to leave, and added, almost as an afterthought,
"And, Dr. Banner," he turned around and faced me, "Congratulations."
I spun around.
"How did you know?"
"Pepper told Jane, she told Thor, who told Steve and Beth, who then told Darcy, who told me."
"So Clint, Serena, Maria, Phil, and Fury are the only ones who don't know?"
The demigod shrugged.
"I suppose so."
I pulled a tray out of a cupboard, and placed Natasha's food on it, carrying it out of the kitchen, and down to the room. As I came in the door, Natasha saw the food and said,
"Oh my gosh, thank you so, so much. I swear, you are heaven-sent Bruce!"
She began to wolf down her food, not that I blamed her, being sick takes a lot out of a person.
"Honey?"
"Hmm?"
"Can you grab me my hoodie out of my closet?"
I got up off the bed, and walked over to her closet. I walked in, and was met with wall to wall racks of dresses, pants, shirts, skirts, and what seemed to be over a hundred pairs of shoes. How the hell was I supposed to find a hoodie in this jungle?
"Natasha? Uh…could I get some more accurate directions here?"
"You see the set of drawers at the very back of the closet? It's in the second drawer from the bottom."
I quickly found the drawer, opened it up, and saw a bunch of my clothes that I've let Natasha 'borrow'. I noticed my purple dress shirt, my old lab coat, a few of my t-shirts, and my gray hoodie. I also saw a photo album, and I opened the book silently. I cried silently when I saw the photos inside.
There were photos of us from when she was pregnant the first time, I was kneeling down, and kissing her baby bump, in Hawaii when we got off the plane, laying on the beach, going wakeboarding, walking through central park, a photo of her engagement ring; all those happy memories. Jarvis must've taken most of the photos around the tower, and then she probably had Tony or Clint take photos in Hawaii or Central Park. She had pressed a single, dried, lavender rose between wax paper, and saved it in one of the pages.
"Bruce? Did you find the hoodie?"
Natasha's voice pulled me out of my thoughts. I closed the photo album, and wiped away a stray tear before replying.
"The gray hoodie?"
"Yeah!"
I grabbed the hoodie, and gave it to her. Natasha put it on and looked up at me,
"Your eyes… they're red. What happened? Did the glade air freshener go off in your face?"
I shook my head 'no', and sat down on the mattress. Natasha took my hand, and rubbed her thumb over the back of my hands.
"What happened?", she asked.
"I saw your album."
A look of surprise crossed her face as she stopped stroking my hand abruptly.
"You what?"
I sensed her embarrassment, and instantly felt guilty for rummaging through her personal belongings.
"Natasha, I'm sorry. That was rude of me, I shouldn't have -"
"Bruce. I'm fine. I was going to use those photos in a slideshow for our wedding. I wanted them to be a surprise. But I can always take more when you least expect it.", she said with a wink.
I leaned over, and kissed her forehead.
"Are you feeling any better?"
She tousled her red waves, and yawned.
"I think I'll have a nap, and then see how I feel. You don't have to stay by me if you don't want to."
I shifted as she rebuilt her nest of blankets, and pillows around herself. I remembered my book of failed attempts at vow composition, and decided to work on that in the lab.
"Actually, I have some things to take care of in the lab, so I'll just take care of that."
I draped the comforter over her shoulders, and kissed her as she nodded off.
"Sleep well, Natasha."
In the lab…
"Bruce? Whatcha doing?"
I was hunched over my journal, and my case was turning into a hopeless because as I kept writing, and scratching out what I had composed, deeming it as a failure.
"Wedding vows."
"Ah. Pepper and I are going by the book. I may be an atheist, but Pepper was raised catholic and her family would flip out if we didn't have a Catholic wedding. I don't want to get off on the wrong foot with my in-laws."
"I see."
"So Bruce, what have you written so far?"
I shrugged,
"Nothing much. I'm not good at this sort of thing. I never was."
Tony came over, holding out his hand to take my journal.
"Let me take a look, I'll be the judge of whether or not what you're writing is truly a failure."
I reluctantly handed him my journal, and he opened it up to the first page, looking over what I had written, his eyes growing wider with every word he read.
"Bruce…"
I looked away. I was so humiliated that I actually thought those vows sounded okay. Who was I kidding…
"These vows are incredible!", Tony exclaimed.
I spun around.
"What?"
The billionaire gestured wildly to my book and said,
"These vows are incredible! I couldn't have done better myself!"
"Really? I thought they sucked."
Tony threw up his hands in exasperation.
"Bruce! You are such a gifted writer! I swear to you that if Natasha heard these, she would immediately fall in love with you all over again."
"Really?"
"Really."
I rushed upstairs to share my wedding vow ideas with Natasha, just as she was on her way to tell me hers.
We ended up sitting down and deciding to combine our ideas.
The result was nothing short of beautiful.
~The Vows~
Natasha's:
In the presence of God,
I, Natasha,
Will have you Bruce,
The love of my life,
To be the husband of my days,
The friend of my life,
My partner to share whatever life may bring us,
Whether it be trouble or sorrow,
Goodness or joyfulness,
We shall face it together as one.
With these words, and all the words of my heart,
I marry you and join my life to yours.
Bruce's:
In the presence of God,
I, Bruce,
Will have you Natasha,
The love of my life,
To be the wife of my days,
The friend of my life,
My partner to share whatever life may bring us,
Whether it be trouble or sorrow,
Goodness or joyfulness,
We shall face it together as one.
With these words, and all the words of my heart,
I marry you and join my life to yours.
A/N: So there's chapter 13! Reviews make me update…without them, I get demotivated.
