I know it's been a while. I'm super busy with class and such. But my friend who own Gabi and I were writing this one earlier and we finished it, so here you go.
Disclaimer: My characters are mine. My friend owns her character. Marvel owns the rest.
Warnings: Feels
Steve's POV
"Mommy! Daddy! Wake up!" Our three, almost four, year old son, James, has somehow managed to find his way into our room.
"Steve, honey, your son is awake," Gabrielle says.
"So now he's my son. What time is it anyways?" I ask, sitting up.
"It's Christmas!" James exclaims, not quite pronouncing it correctly, "Uppy!"
"Oh, James, honey, it's 6 in the morning," Gabrielle says, "It's not quite time to celebrate."
"Why?" He gives us his sad puppy eyes that I'm sure his namesake taught him just to give us a hard time.
"How about this, you help mommy with that little surprise and then we can have breakfast before presents."
"Okay!" James exclaims.
"Surprise?" I look at my wife and raise an eyebrow.
"You will see," she smiles, kissing my cheek before getting up and taking our son out of the room. I stand up and pull on a shirt, puzzled. What is this big surprise? And how come James knows about it? He's usually really bad at keeping secrets, especially ones that I tell him not to tell Gabi.
"Stevie!" Gabi calls from the kitchen, "where did you put the big mixing bowl?"
"Top shelf," I say, walking into the kitchen and picking up James.
"Really? You know I cannot reach that self."
"Maybe I'm not the best person to be putting the dishes away, but I don't think we can teach James to do that just yet," I say, reaching up with my free arm and grabbing the bowl, before setting it onto the countertop.
She laughs a little shaking her head as she begins making breakfast.
"What shape do you want the pancakes James?" Gabi asks.
"Triangles!" James says immediately.
"Alright." She smiles and uses her powers to make the shapes that James wants.
"Don't forget Jess and Bucky are coming over later with their kids," I say.
"I know, so we better have breakfast and then let James have his presents."
"Do you need me to do anything?" I ask, "Or should I just keep James busy while you make our triangular pancakes?"
"Just keep our little boy busy, I will be done soon."
"Alright," I take James back into his room, "So, what do you think Santa brought you?"
"Toys!" James exclaims.
"What kind of toys?" I ask, chuckling a little. The three year old is adorable. He's got blue eyes like me, but other than that, he mostly looks like his mother.
"Superhero toys!"
"Is Daddy your favorite Superhero?"
"Daddy and Mommy!"
"Because we have cool powers, right?" I smile, "But so do your aunts and uncles."
"But Mommy and Daddy always help people. Daddy best hero! Daddy fought in war!"
"So did Uncle Bucky. He helped Daddy a lot in the war," I say, then change the subject, "Why triangle pancakes?"
"Cause I like triangles!"
"Why?" I ask, "What about squares or rectangles? Or Christmas trees?"
"Steve! James! Breakfast is ready!" Gabi calls.
"Let's go eat pancakes," I carry James downstairs and set him in his seat.
"Here you are, baby," Gabi smiles, placing the plate in front of James.
"Thank you, Mommy," he smiles and then starts eating his pancakes.
"And here you are, Stevie," Gabi says, handing me my plate with a little bit extra on it
"Thank you, Mommy," I echo my son's words, teasing her, "Stevie likes pancakes."
Gabi giggle before going back to the kitchen.
"Where are you going?" I ask her, pouring syrup on my pancakes.
"I will be right out, I'm just going to clean a little."
"I'll clean up afterwards. Come eat breakfast with us," I say
"Alright," Gabi walks back out and sits down. We all eat our breakfast together quietly. It's early, so I'm still pretty tired especially after a late night.
"Presents!" James says after we finish.
"After Daddy cleans up the kitchen," I say, standing up and collecting the plates from the table and carrying them to the kitchen.
"Come on James," Gabi says lifting James, "Let's wait for daddy in the living room."
"Okay," James says, but he doesn't sound very excited about having to wait longer. I quickly wash the dishes and put them in the dish strainer or put them into the dishwasher. I dry my hands off and head into the living room.
"Alright, time for presents," Gabi smiles, setting down James.
"Yay!" James smiles, walking over to the tree. I follow behind him and sit down on the floor, close to the tree.
We let James open all his toy and start playing with some of them before the two of us exchange gifts.
"Here," Gabi hands me a large bag, "I know you will love them." Curious, I stick my hand into the bag, pushing aside the tissue paper, searching for the item inside. It doesn't take me long before I pull something out. I look to see a little pink doll she made, just like the blue one she made three years ago.
"This looks like James's d-" I put two and two together, "Are you pregnant?"
"Yes, we're having another baby."
"That's the best Christmas present ever," I smile, pulling her in and hugging her.
"I'm glad you like it, we will soon have a little girl," Gabi smiles, hugging me back.
"Did you tell James before you told me?" I ask her, wondering if that's what the surprise was.
"He happened to enter our room after I took the test. I had no choice but to tell him."
"How'd you get him to keep it to himself?" I ask, "That's the real trick."
"Oh he was more than happy to keep it to himself. I didn't have to do much."
"Huh," I say, before pulling away from her and grabbing a wrapped box from underneath the tree and handing it to her.
Gabi smiles and unwraps the gift. Inside is a white rectangular box. I watch her open it. Inside is a charm bracelet what already has a few charms on it. One with a G, a Christmas stocking, a heart, and another heart with a handprint and a blue stone.
"I know that you said that you liked Jess's so, I figured I get you one. I guess I'll have to get another charm for the new baby when she's born."
"Oh Steve, I love it!"
"I'm glad," I smile, putting it around her wrist and fastening it.
"Merry Christmas Steve," Gabi smiles, hugging me.
"Merry Christmas, Gabi," I wrap my arms around her. I love Christmas especially because I have my own family now. I used to have Christmas with Bucky after my parents died. But now I have my beautiful wife and my son and next Christmas, I'll have a little girl too, "Did you tell Jess yet?"
"No, not yet."
"We can tell her and Bucky when they come over, then," I say, "If you want. Or we can wait to tell them and the others. We should tell your brother, too."
"Oh, did I forget to tell you that Tony invited us to a party later tonight?"
"Yeah, but that's fine. Who's gonna watch James?"
"Lady Frigga and Odin said they would. I'm not sure why they're here, but they will watch him with the other children."
"Alright. I'm sure they'll do a good job. Although, that's a handful of kids."
"Especially with the baby Stark."
"Yeah, well, even though she's still little, I'm sure she'll cause trouble. She's almost one now, I think."
"According to Pepper, she already has gotten into her father's tools."
"I didn't hear that. Poor Pepper. Too bad Phoebe didn't take after her mother," I say.
"She might, She has also gotten in the habit of going after her mother's things."
"Like what?"
"Her paperwork, makeup, clothing and such."
"Well, I guess it's a toss up," I say, glancing at the clock and standing up, "I'm gonna go take a shower and get dressed."
"Alright, come James, time to get ready," Gabi says lifting James.
"I wanna play!" James whines.
"You can play once you're dressed." I walk upstairs and take a quick shower before getting dressed. It's still early, but Jess and Bucky will be here in an hour and a half, so we need to get ready for them. Gabi spends most of her time cleaning up from the mess James made with the wrapping paper, she vacuums and cleans everything.
When I get downstairs, the living room is clean and James's new toys that he's not currently using are neatly stacked.
"Steve, can you watch James while I clean up and get dressed?" Gabi asks.
"Yeah, of course," I say, settling on the couch with a mug of coffee. I watch over my son as he pays with his new toys. Of course he went straight for the Superhero toys first and was currently playing with a figure of me as well as ones of the other Avengers.
After a few minutes, Gabi comes down in a new winter dress and sits down next to me.
"You look beautiful," I say, "I like the dress."
"Thank you, it was a gift from my adopted parents."
"That was nice of them," I smile. We mostly watch James play until the doorbell rings at the exact time it's supposed to ring.
"Right on time, like always," Gabi smiles, going to answer the door.I follow behind her. Jess and Bucky are standing in the doorway with Toby and they each have a baby carrier, containing their three month old twins.
"Merry Christmas," Jess smiles.
"Merry Christmas," Gabi and I smile. We let our best friends in and shut the door behind them. Toby quickly goes over to play with James after discarding his coat. Jess sets down the carrier she has and pulls her coat off and sets it with Toby's as Bucky does the same.
"How early did he get you up?" Jess asks, glancing over at the boys playing Superhero.
"6 am," Gabi answers.
"Toby always did that too," Jess says, lifting her daughter into her arms, "As for thing one and thing two, they woke up at four this morning."
"Oh my, I hope we won't get that."
"They go back to bed pretty quickly. Angel is the one that actually needed something. But she woke Gabriel up," Jess says, then processes what Gabi had said, "Oh, congratulations, then."
"Guess I don't need the spell anymore," Gabi chuckles letting her growing bump show.
"Around three months, I take it?" Jess says.
"Congratulations," Bucky smiles and hits me lightly on the arm, drawing me from the girls' conversation.
"Thanks, Buck," I say. He lifts up Gabriel from the other baby carrier.
"Still remember your baby skills?" he asks. I remember how happy he had been when he found out he was going to be a dad again, and he actually got to be around the whole time this time. He's changed a lot in the 6 years since he became Bucky again.
"Of course I do." Without another word, he deposits Gabriel, who was named after my wife, into my arms. I smile down at the bundle as he stares up at me and deems me acceptable, then looks around.
"I think he remembers you," Bucky says, watching his son.
"I'm glad he does," I smile, "my next child is going to a girl, I hope she will be well behaved."
"Well, Angel is a little troublemaker, but somehow I don't think your kid will be. She's got good genes."
I chuckle at that, I guess he has a point since James was pretty well behaved.
"Your son might be a troublemaker, though. You shouldn't have named him after me," Bucky smiles, "I love being a dad. Even when I get up every three hours at night."
"It's not that bad getting up, remember being in the war? That was worse."
"I know, but sometimes I think war is easier. At least that makes some sense and you can figure out what's going on," Bucky says, "Jess is better with the kids."
"I think Jess and Gabi have more practice with kids. But come on Buck, this life is great."
"I'm not arguing with that," he glances at his wife, "I don't know what I did to deserve her. After all the bad things I've done, all the flashbacks, all the nightmares, she never leaves. It just makes her care more."
"Because she loves you Buck."
"Which is why I'm the luckiest guy," he says.
"We both are, we got such amazing gals."
"Are you gonna name your daughter after me too?" He teases.
"No, Gabrielle promised she would name her Natasha."
"Why after Nat?" Bucky asks.
"Not sure, Gabrielle is the one who promised.
"Natasha's gonna spoil that girl," Bucky says, "Her daughter isn't a baby anymore. I get the feeling that she'd like another kid, but it's not exactly possible. I'm glad they didn't sterilize me."
"Natasha will spoil any child."
Later at the party, Gabi and I told the other former Avengers our big news.
"We have an announcement," I say, getting everyone's attention.
"What is it, Spangles?" Tony asks, taking a sip from his drink.
"Do you want to tell them?" I ask, looking over at my wife, who is one of the few people not drinking alcohol.
"Alright," Gabi smiles, taking my hand, "everyone, we are having another baby."
"Congratulations," Clint smiles and hugs his sister, "You're a great mother."
"Thank you Clint." The group all congratulate the couple, and are excited that their family is about the expand even more.