Happy Tuesday!

Batghost: sooooo many things could/will/are going to hapen!

khaitosfren: muhahahahaha

Ms. Hawkeye: hmmm...well, maybe... or just not.

tanchik: As for Steve, it is indeed someone we know, but no one you may expect. It came as a shock to me, lemme tell you! And I hope to always leave you in a lurch!

The Spoiled Duchess: oh yes I did!

discordchick: oh the visceral emotions in your review just give me all the warm and fuzzies:)

Fury-Natalia: bahahahahahahaha!

amy. .9 : keep on guessin:)

5mairer: you became one of the hoard!

Chapter 39

"You're going to be a father," Natasha said with a measure of abandon Tony couldn't place the need for. He waited for her to add more or explain herself, but neither occurred.

"That's impossible. Not completely, but I would at least know about it. Pepper might be able to hide some things from me, like her favorite Oreos, but she'd spill that in three minutes." He chuckled at the very idea and took another sip of his drink.

"It's not Pepper's, it's mine." Natasha clarified.

Tony looked at her, glanced downward at her abdomen hidden beneath the edge of the table, and his eyes drifted back up to her face.

"Bull," he said, this time taking a long gulp from the neck of the glass before slamming it down on the table. Apparently, it was well within her reach, for she leaned forward and snatched it away from him. She set it on the bench beside her.

"I'm serious, so sober up and listen to me," she hissed.

Tony sat back, folded his arms, and waited.

"I don't know how, or why, but apparently I'm pregnant."

"That's ridiculous, you can't even have kids." Tony said.

Natasha kicked his knee under the table, and Tony bent forward, grabbing the abused limb with one hand.

"Don't you think we don't know that?!" She withdrew a picture from her pocket and slapped it down on the table. The three-dimensional image was difficult to deny, and even a layman of Tony's caliber could interpret it. After blinking at it for a while in shock, he snatched the picture off the table and glared into it.

"Is this – you're serious!" Tony exclaimed. The once bordering-on drunk genius quickly came to his senses. His heart thudded in his chest like a jack hammer. The implications of what this meant fell down on him one brick at a time.

"It's his...and mine." She added the second part after a moment, as if she'd already detached herself from the life she helped create. To do the things she had to, that must be her life now.

Suddenly, Tony's eyes, ringed by the effects of alcohol, swelled with unshed tears. His knuckles turned white as he held onto the picture. His scientific mind could not help the analytical turns it then took. He calculated times, dates, ran through situations in which Clint and she had been together, alone and in love. Dredging those memories to the forefront of his mind was like raking knives across his flesh. Imagining Clint with that smile . . . surely it was too much for him.

Ever since the day Barton and Stark ended up on the ground in a rough-and-tumble, drop down, drag out fight about how dissimilar their pasts were, they had made a pact. Their past, was their past. From that moment on, they were brothers, and nothing done before mattered. It wasn't discussed unless information was offered, and it was forgotten unless it became important.

Tony had never had a blood brother during his life, having grown up an only child, but Clint had. He knew what it meant to rely on someone so completely, then have that trust ripped away, trampled over as if it was nothing. Tony provided that endless wealth of optimism, but not overtly so. He was pragmatic. They fought, occasionally to very painful degrees. Yet, the overwhelming reality remained that they were family. A strange little bubble of existence surrounded the two of them, and kept any others at a distance. Their relationship was like Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, or Starsky and Hutch. One would, and very often did, sacrifice himself for the other.

With the advent of a piece of the archer back again, Tony nearly broke down for an entirely different reason.

"Natasha. . ." he said, for he had nothing else to say.

"I'm not keeping it." She told him in such a way that Tony could never assume she was joking. He sat, absorbing that second shock of news like a slap from the Hulk himself. He exploded.

"You're not doing that. I don't care if I have to tie you to a bed for the next nine months and feed you through a straw – " In his absolute fury, Tony pressed his hands, palm down, onto the stainless steel tabletop and rose to his feet. He loomed over her, and, for once in their relationship, a streak of cold fear rushed up Natasha's spine as she watched him. "I will NOT let you destroy a piece of him like that! This isn't just about you, it's about him too! Don't be selfish with a life just because it's hard on you!"

Realizing what her words implied, Natasha also stood and closed in on him. She spoke very calmly and quietly, hoping that her words would penetrate his alcohol-swollen brain cells. "Tony, I am not getting an abortion. That's not what I meant. What I meant was that I am an unfit person to be called a mother. Pepper, Marie, even Bobbi Morse was better suited at it than I am. I can't raise Clint's child. You can."

Tony retreated back to his side of the table. The surprises never ceased. "What?"

"You have Pepper. You're, somewhat, stable. She's a good woman, and I know for a fact that you are still healthy, alive, and you've said that she has a talent with children. I've considered all the possible people I could trust Clint's child too, and I think you could give him the best life that Hawkeye could hope for. You control his assets. Use that to raise the baby."

Tony shook his head. "Wait, what?"

"I haven't told anyone else. Only Bruce knows. The minute this baby is born, you and Pepper are going to adopt him, and you are going to raise him the way Clint would have wanted. Anything Clint gave to me, give to his son. I don't want any of it."

Tony sat still, "Natasha, do you realize what you're saying? How much he has stashed away? Clint wanted to take care of you, he loved – "

Natasha turned to go. "I can take care of myself."

The door opened, she slipped out, and the door shut. Tony remained in a state of feral shock, alone. He didn't know when he began to breathe again, or what restarted his heart. His eyes dropped to the golden picture of Clint's unborn child, and he completely broke down.

This wasn't just about him. Pepper had to be told. She needed to know it, get ready for how great a change this was going to be for them. His hands shook as he keyed up the Earth communications and directed the signal homeward. Pepper had tried to get in touch since the funeral on Alfheimr, but he didn't have the strength to face her. He didn't want to see anyone.

As he suspected, Pepper answered almost instantly. Her face hovered before his. Tony swallowed, and didn't attempt to hide the tears stinging in the corners of his eyes.

"Tony? Tony, is it really you?" she asked.

He had to pull himself together. Sitting up a little straighter, he said, "Hi, Pep," in a small, boyish voice.

"I tried calling. They said you were – " She didn't want to say the truth: that he'd been sedated for over a week. "Are you ok?"

"No," he admitted softly.

Her expression smoothed, her eyes gentling in that beautiful, kind way she had. "Oh, Tony."

He dropped his head into his hands, working up the courage to tell her the news Natasha had dropped literally in his lap.

"I have something exciting to tell you," Pepper said, smiling.

Tony didn't lift his head. "Yeah?" he asked. He sent her ahead to work on the Tower. Years of neglect and abandonment made it worse for wear. Apparently, she'd already hired a team to rebuild it with the first human colonists one year ago. She wore the pants in the family for a reason.

"I wanted to wait until you got here. It'll take how much longer? Another week?"

"At least," Tony whispered.

"Well, I – OK, it happened before we realized Galactus came. Earth settled down, and we were colonizing again, and I thought we lost you, Tony, you were gone for over five years."

Finally, Tony lifted his head. His mouth dropped open slightly. "Pepper, what did you do?"

Her lips pressed together. She held up her index finger, indicating he should wait, and she disappeared from the screen for a moment. When she returned, Pepper held up a small, 5 inch, black and grey photograph.

"Do you remember telling me about those genetic data banks? The ones we kept with the world history on them? You told me they weren't very important, that the biggest contribution you made to them was – "

Tony slid to his knees to be level with the screen, and squinted at the small monitor. He couldn't believe it. An ultrasound. The outline of a small child-like blip. He looked down at the ultrasound in his hands and lifted his eyes to Pepper again. She had continued on about how much she loved him, missed him, and thought Tony was gone from her forever. She made the difficult decision to do something she'd always wanted, even if it meant being a single mother.

In Vitro. Worked on the first try.

"Tony Stark, you are going to be a dad." Pepper smiled, tears filling her eyes.

"Get ready, Pep," Tony said, shaking his head in utter disbelief. "Because apparently we're having twins."

if you thought the surprises were over, THEN YOU DON"T KNOW ME!

this is only the beginning. so much more is yet to be in store! How will Tony adjust to potential parenthood? What are the Avengers going to do without their Archer? will they drift apart like they have in the past, or will they band together again? What will Thor do as the new king of Asgard? Stay tuned.