three chapters tonight!
khaitosfren: Daw, they are all just so cute!
amy. .9: Thank goodness Tony has Pepper! i think he needs her more than the other way around!The Red Room really did destroy her happiness.
discordchick: who has a jump on all of us? you do! :D My favorite part was Tony's army crawl. Just too perfect!
JRBarton: I shall shatter all the hearts i find and laugh every moment of it!
Guest: BAHAHAHA oh yes, it's all connected, even the names I formulate seemingly from nothing:)
5mairer: Get excited!
Batghost: It really does seem Father of the Bride, doesn't it? Never realized it before!
Fury-Natalia:all your questions on her motherhood will now be answered!
Ms. Hawkeye: DAW! I don't mind half-awake reviews!
Chapter 47
Thor held Mjolnir by its leather strap and absently let the hammer swing front to back like a pendulum. The lights were dark in the room, hoping to allow the form in the bed a few hours of peace and quiet with which to rest. He could never imagine experiencing such a trial himself, but fortunately had attended to Volstagg's wife occasionally during her confinements and labor. Volstagg could never find himself by such a sick bed.
He knew Natasha wished to remain unseen, alone, and greet the newest life without assistance or direct support from those who she counted as family. While there were many things in life that did not affect her sensibility as a woman, this one private thing did. He respected that in her. Natasha asked so very little from them since returning to the Tower. She endured every attempt to assist her, every suggestion to rest rather than fight, and each troublesome effect the difficult pregnancy had on her. If she chose to retain her privacy now, he would not judge her for it. Pepper, on the other hand, progressed well. She had reached the breaking point of Tony's panic early on and for everyone's sanity he'd been banished from the room. Steve Rogers had been guided to a chair. He remained in the same catatonic shock as when the news first hit him like a blow from Mjolnir.
"Who is it?" the form in the bed asked.
Thor stopped swinging. He was standing on the other side of a maroon curtain draped around the bed, he didn't dare cross to the other side, but being in the room was enough for him.
"Thor," he said.
"I don't want to see anyone."
"And you will not," Thor replied. From his side of the curtain he tugged the fabric once to indicate his meaning. "I would not intrude on your privacy, but as they said you needed rest, and I do not find you much comforted sleeping under the gaze of strangers, I came myself to warden over you."
Natasha's small voice asked, "Tony?"
"I would not allow him in. He lies, near death, a door away in his overwhelming excitement. Our captain joins him, no better off, I fear."
Natasha laughed a little. "I guess that's not a surprise."
"Friend Banner stays with our sister. They believe soon she may offer the Stark heir."
Natasha didn't reply at first. He tried not to listen as she experienced a forceful contraction that left her breathless for a few moments. Looking around, he discovered an arm chair and backed away to sit. He placed Mjolnir at the floor between his feet. Rather than wait for her to formulate a response, or to ask him to leave, he decided to speak again.
"I do not believe I ever mentioned the first time I met Clint of Barton. It was summer here, and I had just fought a mighty battle against a man who thought he may prevent me from acquiring Mjolnir. My father had banished me to Earth for my foolishness, a fact I resented him for but now understand the validity of." Thor lifted Mjolnir off the ground, as if to prove to himself he still could, and set it back down. "I was angry, full of hate and worthlessness. The SHIELD men came to take me and I offered no resistance. I suppose one of them begrudged my ability to break his nose and he felt it necessary to repay that. I did not attempt to stop his assault on me, so when he was pulled away, I happened to look up. It rained torrentially. The skies opened with thunder-less clouds as if taunting my inability to wield the lightning. Through the rain and darkness I saw a hand extend to me. Despite all I had obviously done, it was not enough to waylay this warrior from offering his assistance. He did not speak his name then, I only learned later that it was Clint of Barton."
Thor looked up at the curtain between Natasha and himself. He wondered if she'd been able to find sleep again, or if she couldn't listen for fear of her emotions. It was impossible to know until she said more. He decided to continue on.
"He has retained such a wondrous might and legend among my people. Clint of Barton, Archer of Midgard, Brother of Asgard, Wielder of Sleiphner's Bow and Mjolnir, Friend of Odin, Pytr Heidir the Howling Hawk, Rellya . . ." Thor knew all of the titles because in the ceremony he presided over in Asgard he spoke every single one of them. He closed his eyes, a heavy burden settling against him again. "His son shall have every title bestowed upon his father. He is as welcome to my realm as Clint of Barton always was."
To that Natasha still had nothing to say. Thor consider continuing on, perhaps speaking about the second time he met Clint when she suddenly spoke. "Thor, what if I decide . . ." her voice trailed, quiet and contemplative.
He imagined he knew what it was she failed to say. "Your decision is your own. Whether you plan to mother a child, or not. I will have you know, that by my strength you shall never be far from the life coming when this interment ends. If running is your object, you will not succeed."
She laughed, adjusted herself in the bed, and decided to change the subject. "Tell me about the Frost Giant War."
Thor smiled. "Which one? The first, where my grandfather, Bor, fought the ancestor of Loki? The second, where my father, Odin, was saved by the now deceased King Rinon from the spear of a Frost Giant?"
"The one when Clint and you went off together. Before the rest of us got there. What did he do? Where did he go?"
The Asgardian leaned back in the chair and crossed one knee over the other. He laid his head on the seat back and recalled the events from years past. "That is the third great war, though I think all of us will agree it lasted for a considerably shorter amount of time than the others. What occurs now between Muspelheim and that frozen realm will surely be considered the fourth. The Frost Giants were once a mighty race. Ever challenging the authority of my father. During those days, after the death of Laufey by my brother, their ranks fell into disarray and war. They were influence by the ministrations of a woman known as Amora the Enchantress. . ."
As Thor's voice continued on, the day began to turn into night. It had been five hours since Natasha's initial admittance and though considerable progress has been made, it wasn't enough to reassure Dr. Castillo of her success in delivering naturally. The baby was still breach, and every effort to get him to turn failed. They were getting close to her needing to push and the surgical team remained on standby should the worst be decided. In general the attempt to deliver a breech baby naturally was almost heresy.
Down the hall, in the more bustling end of the hospital, Pepper had progressed as her initial glee at being in the final stages of labor to the knock-down, drag-out rage at the "man who dared put his woman in this situation", to quote her opinion. No one reminded her that she'd accomplished this feat by IVF.
Tony dragged himself out of his unresponsive disbelief long enough to stand at her side, allow his fingers to be crushed, and watch in abject terror as the child he fathered made its way into the world. Bruce flanked Pepper's right in the only real support of a birth coach. Though his heart rate threatened to produce a Hulk-out at any moment, he somehow maintained his composure enough to complete this monumental task with her.
Dr. Castillo stood to the side in her scrubs and gown, watching like the department head she was as her close colleague, and Pepper's midwife called all the delivery shots. It wouldn't be much longer before little Benjamin Stark went screaming into the fluorescent lighting. Castillo hadn't been present for the first Avengers' birth, Clint's first daughter with his wife Marie, but she'd heard the story often enough to know what to expect. Tony would snatch that baby up before anyone else and if they were lucky he'd let Pepper hold him for a few minutes out of the day.
A nurse came up behind her and whispered, "We need you. There's a problem."
Castillo didn't wait for the impending birth before running out. She covered the distance between Pepper's room and Natasha's in record time. The door was already waiting open for her. Thor stood to the side, not speaking but clearly full of concern. She dove through the curtain to see Natasha and instantly her mask of calm came up to guard her professional fears.
"So, how are things on this end?" she asked conversationally. She checked every monitor, removed her stethoscope, adjusted the fetal heart rate volume.
"Something's wrong. Something doesn't sound right," Natasha said quickly. Trying to push herself up.
"All right, let's just take a look at things. How far along is she now?" Castillo asked over her shoulder.
"Fully dilated just now," the orderly reported.
Natasha tensed, unable to hold back the uncustomary yelp from the full force of the contraction bearing down on her. Her mind was racing. Not right. Something had changed. The heart beat had sounded one distinct way the entire time. She'd asked them to leave the volume on, she didn't exactly know why, but she wanted desperately to hear it like the smooth tone of Thor's calm voice. Very suddenly it changed. The tempo altered, slowed, and began to drop just as the contractions hit her like never before.
"Is this normal?" she breathed between the force of them. A cold sweat broke out on her forehead. She felt as if every muscle in her body had been ripped out of her control. Castillo's face was as stony as Natasha's had once been. In the wake of Clint's child being in danger, a strange ferocity and terror welled up him her.
"Biehl?" Castillo said the name like an order in itself. "We're taking her."
Nurse Biehl disappeared instantly.
Like a dam breaking, a powerful, new kind of pain slammed into the Avenger. Beside the now unrelenting contraction, something else like her insides being torn in half, drew a scream.
Castillo turned back to Natasha while hooking the stethoscope back around her neck. She spoke hurriedly and loudly to be understood above the agony. "Now, when we discussed that if things don't look perfect, we were not going to try and deliver this baby naturally? Well that is happening. Natasha, the baby's heart rate is beginning to drop. That means he is in distress. We need to get you to the operating room right away. I am going to be in there with you, but right now I have to scrub in and get ready. This is going to happen very fast, I'm sorry if it's a lot to process."
Natasha's own heart rate spiked in time with her escalating fear. For a moment the pain left her. She forced out, "Is everything going to be ok?"
"We're going to do everything we have to," Castillo said, squeezing her arm. The nurse fit an oxygen mask over her face.
Natasha's terrified eyes caught hers. "Is my baby going to be ok?"
Without missing a beat, Castillo repeated her assurances. She didn't pause when Natasha said the word "my" or stutter when the gravity of what the one little syllable meant. It was the first time Natasha ever took a possessive stance on the child she carried. In the past it had always been Clint's, as if Natasha was somehow carrying his clone which had nothing to do with her own genetic makeup.
A surgical team flooded the room and all at once the preparations started. Castillo kept them in small numbers, nothing too overwhelming to frighten the Avenger. Only familiar faces, ones she had grown maybe not to trust but to expect. The anesthetist, a man who spent ten years working right beside Castillo on specifically super-human cases never missed a beat. He glided right over, started hanging bags, and didn't even forget to share a friendly chat about passing gas with the panicking mother in the bed.
"Thor?" Natasha called out ahead of another scream. The Asgardian approached the edge of the curtain but didn't look in.
"Get Tony. Get Bruce. I want both of them, and I want them right now!"
"I will see it done," Thor said, and rushed away. He wasted no time. He might not understand the full significance of what occurred, but he keenly felt that something dire had happened. If Natasha was in danger, Clint's heir was in danger also. That would never do. He'd sworn himself to be a guardian over that boy for the rest of his days and longer. If he must claw himself through the chains of death in order to defend the Barton heir, he would do just that.
Thor didn't knock as he burst into Tony and Pepper's room. The world had declined from the screaming, pushing, growling, guttural sounds that once consumed it and fell into an almost resounding peace. He could feel it in the air, a familiar sort of calm that always followed new life. For a moment, very briefly, he completely forgot why he had come.
Pepper sat up in the bed, a mop of freckles and strawberry hair tousled about the sweaty pillow. Tony had climbed in beside her as his arms circled her back and cradled the new child birthed into their world. A swell of sheer pride beat into Thor's chest as he strode forward and looked down into the perfectly angelic face. Bruce leaned in beside them. He grinned like a father himself.
"Benjamin Stark, meet Uncle Thor Odinson." Pepper whispered, gently tilting the scrunched and perfect face toward the Asgardian.
"Benjamin." Thor said.
"I still wanted to call him Leonard Skinner, but Pepper shot me down." Tony joked.
Pepper nudged him with an elbow.
As quickly as Thor's memory failed it came galloping back, he pulled away and hurriedly said, "Dr. Banner, Stark, you are needed at once. Something has occurred, and you've been asked for."
Bruce shot up. "What happened? Is Natasha all right?"
"I do not know, they wheel her away. She wishes you to be at her side."
Pepper slipped her hands under her new baby and gently pulled him away from his father. "Tony, go. She needs you, go."
"Is the baby all right?" Tony asked.
"I know nothing more. The heart beat seemed to be failing. They have taken her—"
Bruce rushed to a cabinet and grabbed a cap and mask down for himself and Tony. He passed them over. "C-section. I bet they're in the surgical room. Get that on your face, those on your feet, and hurry up after me. Thor—"
The Asgardian raised his hand. "I will remain here by your heir's side."
"Thank you," Tony told him, and hurried out after Bruce.
:(:):(:):
The surgical room was white and stainless steel. Three overhead lights, shrouded in sterile plastic covers highlighted the object of everyone's interest in the direct center of the room. A tall, blue drape separated Natasha's face from the lower half of her body. How desperately she wanted to see what was being done to her. She wanted to jump from the table, run from the room, hide in some dark corner and pretend that the last nine months of her life had been nothing but a dream, that she hadn't been sharing her body with another human being all this time. But the reality lay before her, ready to be filleted beneath half a dozen eyes.
"Tasha? It's Bruce. I have Tony and we're coming in."
Natasha tried to turn, to watch as they came closer, but the man sitting by her hand, feeding a constant drip of something into her catheters prevented it.
"Bruce?" she called.
Banner was hovering over her like a flash. Ignoring the man already in his way, Tony squeezed up by her opposite side and grabbed her hand in his.
"We're right here." Tony said to her, finding a swell of bravery since holding his child in his arms.
"And we aren't going," Bruce said. "Thor got us. Pepper's doing fine. You have a little nephew wailing in her arms right now, and real soon we're about to meet his new brother. Everything is going to be ok. Do you trust me?"
Natasha wasn't sure what to think when in a fit of panic she reached out to let them back in, now she realized what she had been missing. This. Bruce's steady resolve. Tony's undying loyalty. Thor's calm strength. Steve . . .
"Where's Steve?" she asked.
"Catatonic. He hasn't moved in five hours. I mean even I got up to let Pepper break my finger. But I've got two hands, and if you want to break one too, then I'm ok with that. Not really. So please don't," Tony replied with a smile.
Bruce straightened up to catch eyes with Dr. Castillo. If he had to jump in on Natasha's surgery, he was more than prepared to do just that. "What's happening, Doc?"
Castillo moved behind the surgical team and gave them room to finished their prep. Within the next five minutes, little Henry Barton was going to take his first breath. Castillo whispered behind the cover of her scrub mask to prevent alarming Natasha and Tony.
"Fetal heart rate dropped, and hers went tachycardic. Respiration is up, blood pressure is down. Constant contractions and mass pain we're managing with a CRI. I'm worried about a bleed," Castillo said.
"Placental abruption?" Bruce asked, filtering the condition down from the archives of his mind. It could be a serious condition. The placenta ruptured early, causing an external, in this case an internal, hemorrhage. The baby would lack oxygen, nutrients, and everything else that kept it alive. Not to mention Natasha risked a potential fatal bleed. He glanced around and noted the copious blood supply wheeled into the room. Castillo hadn't taken any chances. He admired her for that, it was one of the reasons he hand-picked her.
"When did you become an expert in obstetrics?" the primary surgeon, Lindsey, asked playfully, casting a friendly look over his shoulder at Banner.
"I live in a house with two pregnant women. I'm sure Tony could do a c-section in his sleep if he set his mind to it, Dr. Lindsey." Bruce replied. He liked Lindsey. The man was a no-nonsense, House sort of personality and he was darn good at what he did. Though Banner hadn't been in a delivery ward since his OBGYN rotation in medical school, he'd taken the time the last few months of working under Lindsey's guidance to become an expert at one more thing, should the need ever arise.
"I'm glad to have you on this case," Bruce told him sincerely.
"Hey, man, I just wanted a chance to get my hands all up in the Black Widow's hot bod," Lindsey replied. Gloves ready, drapes laid, and scalpel in hand, the doctor leaned over the shade separating Natasha from her lower half. "All right. We're getting started and everything is going to be just fine."
Natasha nodded. She didn't have to pretend to believe him. The anesthetist crossed over Tony's immovable arms and fit an oxygen mask over Natasha's mouth and nose. He worked out a few calculations, perhaps for the fortieth time, and adjusted the pump on an IV infuser. He gave the nod to Lindsey.
"Ok, Natasha," Castillo said. "You might feel a little drowsy. We aren't putting you under, but we are giving you some heavy, steady, sedation. Tony and Bruce are going to stay right next to you and the minute the baby comes, I'll be taking care of him… We're through the skin now. You are going to feel some tugging. If you're in pain, let us know."
Natasha inhaled sharply. The anesthetist jumped and made another adjustment. Everyone stopped, waited, and once she seemed settled enough, the work continued to Castillo's steady narration.
"The first incision is done. We're pulling some things back now. Dr. Lindsey is incising into the uterus. I see a foot! And another! He's coming out backwards if he comes out at all. Your baby is out. We've clamped the umbilical cord." Castillo's voice stopped abruptly and like a shot she disappeared across the room with the baby in her arms. Natasha felt the swoon of unfamiliar drugs in her veins fighting for dominance over her soldier serum. Disappointment sailed through that cloud. Wasn't she supposed to see him? Why had the voice stopped? Where was her baby?"
"Why isn't he crying?" Tony asked. His eyes were wide and wild. He squeezed Natasha's hand a little tighter, but stood to look around for Clint's son.
"Sh—" Lindsey cursed. Something metallic hit the floor with a clang and Bruce vaulted into action at once.
"What's happening?" Bruce demanded.
"Bleed. She's bleeding. Hang those bags! Clamp! Another clamp! Someone get me suction I can't see."
"Gown! Gloves!" Bruce demanded. The divider forgotten, Bruce pressed in on Lindsey's left to get a better look at the problem. His assumption was right. The placenta had started to tear away. Natasha's belly filled in a torrent of blood. One pair of hands wouldn't be enough to help her. One of the nurses tore open a pack for him. He slipped into the surgical gown and shoved his hands into two pairs of gloves before running back to stand opposite of Lindsey.
"You aren't scrubbed in." Lindsey told him, struggling against the limited visual to try and control the rampant bleeding.
"She's a super soldier, she doesn't get infections. She can bleed to death. Hand me that! Clamp! Lap sponges! Get the rest of that blood hanging and pump her full if you've got to! She's losing it as quick as we put it in."
"Bruce?" Tony asked, looking down at the paling, quiet, and listless Natasha. Her grip had slackened on his hand. Now only he was holding onto her.
"Tony, get out of here," Bruce told him. When Stark didn't move, Bruce looked up, the front of his gown splattered in blood. "I'm trying to save her life right now, I can't do that with you in here. Get out. Get to Pepper. I'll be out when we know something."
Tony began to back away, wondering how in the world this happy, though frantic moment had suddenly boiled down to a life a death struggle. His eyes cut across the room to find Clint's baby. He could see at once the color wasn't right. It was too blue, too grey. Like a dying or dead creature. There was a tube down the baby's throat and someone pressed occasional, small breaths into the tiny lungs. Someone else thumped down on the baby's chest impossibly fast. Not breathing. No heartbeat. As he backed away, he was passed by the nurses and Dr. Castillo rushing off with Clint's child on a gurney.
It was a girl.
As quickly as she came, she was gone again, being rushed off to some part of the hospital he couldn't hope to follow them to. He exited the doors behind the cluster of nurses. When he collapsed this time, it wasn't out of excitement, it was pure fear. The look of that baby's eyes, rolled back toward the ceiling like massive blue saucers outlined in purplish grey skin. Limp, unconscious, dead.
Tony felt weak. He buried his face in his hands and waited outside those doors while Bruce and Lindsey worked feverishly to get Natasha stolen off the brink of her own precipice. After everything they suffered through, would this one day of joy tragically boil down into their mutual death? Countless flashbacks ran through his mind. The death of Clint's first child, his wife, they were fresh, raw wounds that now dragged to the surface.
He wasn't sure how long he sat on that floor wearing the borrowed pair of scrubs, a cloth surgical cap, and two, torn blue booties. Tears poured down his face unashamedly. He'd lost the only thing he wanted. The last piece of Clint was gone. It was like reliving Barton's death all over again.
The doors creaked by his feet as Bruce entered the hall. Tony couldn't see him. He never looked up from where he sobbed into his hands. Bruce dropped down beside him and leaned on Tony's shoulder. Neither of them had the words to speak.
OMG! What will happen?!
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