A/N: First of all, very very sorry about how late this update is lol. Not only did writing my little random After Class story throw off my usual schedule but I've also been quite busy, so I do apologize, but hopefully things are back on track now :) Thank you guys so much for reading & reviewing (though I must say, anon reviews asking when I'm going to update are so vexing, because I want to answer you guys but I can't! Lol :D), and I plan to aim for the next update being around this Wednesday, so keep an eye out for that. I love you all! :D and thank you to midnightwings96 for being very helpful when I was stuck at various points in this chapter, and for being generally and indispensably awesome :D
Laying miserably in bed and barely able to lift her head for how utterly crappy she felt, Summer squinted at the book that her husband was helpfully holding above her face for her to read, then shook her head. "Nah."
"Nothing?" He asked, taking the book back and flipping through a few more pages. "We're already to the M's and so far all you liked was my name."
She stuck a plain saltine cracker in her mouth and unenthusiastically crunched it. "Well, because that's easy. If it's a boy, we name him after you. Like duh. But if it's a girl..." her eyes widened in horror, as if such a fate was truly terrifying. Then she swallowed the mouthful of cracker, gagged, and forced it down with a grimace.
"I liked some of the A names for girls," he said, going back to the start of the enormous baby name book he'd brought home the day before. "And I'm not really sure about the whole... naming a boy after me thing."
She turned her head towards him, just that small motion leaving her nearly exhausted even though she had just woken up half an hour ago. "Why not?"
Bucky glanced at her briefly before fixing his gaze back on the book, shrugging. She sighed and then nudged his leg with her foot. "Come on, just tell me. Don't make me use up all my energy for the whole week kicking you until you talk."
He smiled for just a flash, then shook his head slightly and said quietly, "There's just too much... bad that comes with my name. Doesn't seem fair to put all that on an innocent baby. It's a blank slate, you know? Wouldn't be right."
She frowned, falling silent for a few moments. She understood where he was coming from, but she just didn't feel the same way. "I get that," she said gently, "but, I mean... you didn't even know your name when you were... doing those things. So I don't associate any of that with you or your name. That was all HYDRA."
He looked at her and smiled in both affection and amusement. "I'm glad you see it that way, but the rest of the world wouldn't."
She shrugged, not missing a beat. "The rest of the world wouldn't even know he's your son. If he's a he. They'd just think I was either a big World War II buff or maybe just really into mysterious assassins."
He rolled his eyes and smiled more widely. "Yeah, kinda like how you started giggling when I got to the L's and read Loki."
"Yeah, now see, that would be a questionable name choice. Naming a baby after a crazy alien who tried to literally take over the earth. Like, regardless of beautiful he was, that's being unfair to the poor kid."
Bucky set the book down for a minute and said, "You know, I saw some of the footage from his attack on Manhattan the other day at work, and I just... I don't get it."
"Don't get what?" Summer asked.
"He looked ridiculous," Bucky replied. "The cape and the helmet... thing."
"Well, I'm not talking about the bug hat," Summer gestured as if to say duh. "I'm talking about the face, which was a thing of beauty."
Bucky remained unconvinced. "I don't see it."
"Well, I never said you had to," she shrugged, trying to sit up.
"Forehead was huge," Bucky said, giving her a hand as she struggled to get off of her back. "And greasy hair."
"You know, maybe if you had just a tiny bit of gay in you, then you'd understand, but that's okay," she sighed, finally sitting up and leaning back against the headboard. "Oh man. Just sitting up wore me out. Is it hot in here? Oh my God, it's hot."
"It's... 68 degrees," Bucky replied, having set his room's thermostat specifically to that number for her.
She groaned and kicked the covers off, then started fanning herself with her hands. "It's like a fricking sauna in here."
"I can turn it down more if you really want..."
"Ugh," she groaned, her very ears hot and blazing with the unpleasant heat. "I didn't get like this with David until I was huge. I don't get it." She kept trying to fan herself, but when it didn't do a thing, she finally declared "Oh, fricking screw it," and took off her shirt. It wouldn't have been such a big deal if she'd had a bra on underneath, but as she had just woken up and all of her bras were already suddenly too small, she ended up giving Bucky a show that she was only half aware of.
"Oh, that's better," she sighed, leaning her head back and closing her eyes, still fanning herself with one hand. The back and forth motion of her hand caused a slight bounce to occur, and she was unaware of Bucky's eyes gluing themselves to the sight.
He watched intently, sighing quietly and crossing his arms to keep his hands to himself as she groaned and muttered, "This sucks! I'm so tired and I can barely eat, and yet I've gained seven pounds - which is good, of course, I want to gain weight, but I don't get how I am when I'm throwing up like like five times a day. Everything smells gross, my throat always hurts, I'm never not exhausted, I'm pale as a ghost and I look awful, and I get hot flashes like I'm fricking menopausal!"
Inexplicably, she was on the verge of tears by the time she was done with her rant, and when she opened her eyes to look at Bucky and hopefully get some comfort from him, she found him instead merely staring at her significantly larger breasts like it was causing him physical pain to only look and not touch.
This sent her into an instant fury. "Bucky!"
His eyes snapped up and he asked innocently, "What?"
"Did you hear a word I just said?"
"Yes. I heard every word," he insisted.
"So then why don't you look up here instead of my boobs and actually pay attention to me?" she snapped, voice nearly a whine at this point.
He was at a loss for a moment, both because of how different and extreme she was acting these days thanks to the lovely surge of hormones in her body. Finally he gestured with both hands towards her chest and asked, "Have you seen them lately?"
She groaned and looked down at her oversized breasts in pure despair. "They went up a whole cup size already! It's stupid! I was already huge and now I look like a... like a... stripper or something! All I need are platform heels with strappy things going up to my thighs and a pole and I'm good to go."
"Summer," he chuckled, scooting closer to her, "you're gorgeous. They're amazing."
"No, they look like balloons, and look how dark my nipples are!" she half-exclaimed, and Bucky jumped on the chance to stare again. "They got a little dark with David, but this is just ridiculous. And if anything even barely touches them, it feels like little tiny needles stabbing into me and it hurts."
"I know," he replied softly. That was the very reason why his hands hadn't touched those two particular parts of her in about three weeks, since she had first discovered that she was pregnant. It wasn't easy, but he had been very good in curbing his impulses. "But you said that would go away soon, right?"
"It's supposed to, but I have no idea," she shrugged cluelessly. "Everything about this pregnancy is different from the first time. Which I guess is why I agreed to go get poked and prodded at your super secret 'office' today."
He nodded seriously. "We can still not go. I'd understand if you decided against it."
She blew out a breath and considered that option. They were due at the Avengers facility in two hours, which was where Summer had an an appointment with a very high-clearanced doctor. It was a woman with a staggering amount of degrees and expertise in DNA and genetics, and she had also been the one to test Bucky's fertility several months before. Bucky warned Summer that they would see her as a lab rat and would want to run every test imaginable to find out what sort of consequences there might be to carrying the child of a genetically enhanced super soldier. But Summer had eventually decided to go through with the appointment, just in case there really were side effects or complications that the regular midwife she had a separate appointment with the following week wouldn't - and couldn't - know to look for.
"No," she decided once again. "I still think we should go."
"Okay," he replied. "Whatever you want, sweetheart."
She smiled at him, suddenly feeling bad for how she had snapped his head off only a few moments earlier. "I'm sorry I've been such a jerk."
He shrugged her off. "You're fine."
She shook her head and insisted, "No, I suck. You've been so good to me and so patient and here I am, wailing like an idiot and yelling at you for staring at my boobs. But duh you're gonna stare at them, because we haven't had sex since I found out I was pregnant, which is also horrible!"
"It's fine," he chuckled, placing his hand soothingly on top of hers. "I understand. I can wait."
"But you shouldn't have to," she said, feeling her eyes suddenly get watery. "We're newlyweds and we're supposed to be banging like every night. I'm sorry."
He laughed softly and kissed her cheek. "You have nothing to be sorry for. I just want you to feel better."
"Me too," she groaned, eyes heavy again already, after she had slept ten hours. She yawned and then eyed Bucky as his eyes again dropped to her chest, like he simply just couldn't help himself. "... Am I kind of torturing you?"
He nodded, glancing up at her. "Little bit."
"I'm sorry," she blushed, sudden and irrational guilt overcoming her as she decided to just suffer for his sake. "Go ahead, you can touch them."
He shook his head and backed away by a few inches. "No, no. Not when you say it hurts."
"It's fine, I can deal with it. Go ahead," she repeated, but now he was laughing and still having none of it.
"No," he grinned. "I can wait a few more weeks or however long until they're back to normal."
She huffed impatiently and then literally took matters into her own hands, physically grabbing his and placing it on her breast before he could protest. He just laughed more when she did it, and she laughed too, though it really did hurt and she had to control the urge to immediately throw his hand back off.
"Go on, have your fun while you've got the chance," she smiled, ignoring how unpleasant it was and focusing on the silly grin on Bucky's face instead.
"I... okay, but... I don't want to hurt you," he said, expression full of conflict as his hand began to play very gently and cautiously. She held back a grimace, and he didn't notice as he marveled, "You don't even fit in my hand anymore."
"I know, it's horrible," she muttered, reaching up to brush a few messy hairs off of his forehead as he continued to admire her.
"It's definitely not horrible," he said a little more lowly, giving her the most gentle squeeze of her life. Then he let go, and she let out a breath of relief just before he met her gaze and then kissed her softly.
Kissing was another thing that didn't come easy these days, mostly because the presence of anything on or near her mouth brought her always-underlying nausea to the surface without fail. They stuck to short, tiny kisses for the most part, but she missed how things had been before, so she pulled him back when he tried to draw away and kissed him again.
It was still soft and sweet, mostly close-mouthed and nothing like the sort of kisses she was used to being spoiled with, but it felt perfect for the minute that she lasted before her stomach began to turn. Her fingers went to his chin and gently pushed him away, and he backed off in an instant, nodding and then exhaling heavily before flopping over on his back while she tried not to throw up. She would have cracked a joke about the honeymoon being way over if she hadn't been terrified to open her mouth.
Bucky took it all in stride, used to it by now, smiling at her when the nausea passed and she let out a deep breath. He was even the one to crack a joke. "Barely a month into marriage and I already make my wife sick when I kiss her."
She burst out laughing immediately, because they both knew that was definitely not the case. He laughed too, and she reached over and put a hand on his chest on top of his shirt as she asked, "Are you, uh... okay?"
He shrugged, placing his hand on top of hers. "I'll be all right. I'm gonna go take a shower."
"Okay," she nodded as he tossed the covers away and moved to get up. "Are you, uh... gonna be awhile because... you know... taking care of... things?"
He grinned at her in amusement before pausing in mock contemplation. Standing up from the bed, doing nothing to hide how deeply a few little touches and completely innocent kisses could get to him these days, he said, "Won't take me long. See, I've got these really vivid memories of this incredibly sexy woman dancing on my lap and wearing next to nothing, and you'd be surprised how fast it makes things happen."
Her eyebrows shot up and she smiled as a blush rose up to cover her otherwise pale cheeks. "Oh. Yeah, that uh... makes sense. Glad I could... help?"
"You always help," he nodded with smirk before heading towards the bathroom. She grinned back until he disappeared from her sight, at which point she grabbed the baby name book and started reading girl's names starting at the M's. She was back asleep before she got to Meredith, book open on her lap and head dropped to the side as she snored lightly.
Being newly pregnant, painfully exhausted, constantly nauseous, and entirely abstaining from caffeine while also working full time wasn't easy. Luckily though, this time around, she at least wasn't alone.
Two hours later, Summer found herself back at the new Avengers facility for only the second time since it had come into existence. She was just as nervous as she had been the first time, only for very different reasons this time around.
Still feeling like crap and having thrown up on the way there, Summer held Bucky's hand for support as he walked her into the building through the entrance closest to the medical wing. Being mid-morning, the place was buzzing with employees moving about the halls, papers or electronics in hand and only some of them glancing up their way. Most of the ones who took notice looked at Bucky first, then Summer, and then they quickly looked away before making sure to steer clear of blocking their path.
Summer glanced up once at Bucky, giving him a look that he answered with a small grin. "Well," she said, smiling back, "guess there's perks to being married to a big scary Avenger."
Before he could answer, they arrived at a pair of doors labeled for medical personnel only, and Bucky pushed them open and led Summer through them. The next thing she knew, she was in a sparkling white medical center straight out of the future.
Marveling to herself that the place looked like a hospital from Star Trek or something, with all new shiny monitors and a few techs pushing equipment up and down the hall that looked like stuff out of Tony Stark's lab, Summer stared while a young woman in almost disturbingly bright white scrubs strolled out from behind a desk near the entrance and greeted them with a friendly smile. The nurse - assuming that was what she was - led them to a small exam room down the hall and through another set of doors, and Summer was exhausted by the time that she was sitting down on the predictably uncomfortable exam chair.
The room was small and bland and as sterile as the rest of the entire wing. Bucky sat in a small chair next to Summer and watched with hawk-like eyes as the nurse took Summer's vitals and weighed her, taking care of the usual basics for a pregnant woman's initial visit. Summer smiled and answered all of the questions the lady threw at her, none of them out of the ordinary or concerning. Using a pregnancy calculator on a computer in the room, the date of conception was confirmed as being the day of the wedding, which made Summer stifle a giggle and Bucky roll his eyes.
All was well and Summer was incredibly excited to see their baby for the first time, quickly getting halfway undressed and ready and then fidgeting until the nice nurse left and the doctor herself entered the room less than five minutes later.
Tall, dressed smartly in business clothes under a white lab coat, and sporting a short white-gray pixie cut, the relatively older woman breezed into the room with an air of authority that made Summer suddenly remember that she was in the superhero equivalent of the CIA and not an actual doctor's office.
"Agent," the doctor smiled to Bucky first, and Summer still found herself instantly giggly at hearing him addressed as such. Bucky barely acknowledged the doctor, then watched carefully as she approached Summer and smiled again, "You must be Mrs. Barnes."
Summer grinned like the newlywed that she was and shook the doctor's hand when offered. "That would be me."
"I'm Dr. Zaal," she said, grabbing a stool and gracefully sliding it close to Summer's exam chair. "I'm happy to see that you made it in today. How are you feeling?"
"... Not great," Summer shrugged. "But you know... just normal, I guess."
She nodded, glancing down at her chart and reading her vitals. Bucky watched her closely, and Summer got the feeling that he didn't particularly trust the woman. "Yes, quite normal. It says here that you're about eight weeks along?"
Summer nodded. "Yup."
The doctor then scribbled some notes on the paper, underneath things like her heart rate and blood pressure, and she was quiet for so long that Summer began to get concerned. Finally, Dr. Zaal smiled again and looked up with a smile. "Right, so first things first. I'll be giving you an ultrasound today to confirm the date of conception, and getting some blood drawn for a few tests."
"Okay," Summer replied happily, focusing mainly on the word ultrasound and then getting even more excited when the door opened and the nice nurse wheeled in the most high tech ultrasound machine she'd ever seen.
Bucky scooted closer to her and held her hand as she was prepped, lying back in the seat and not even thinking twice about the routine of first-trimester ultrasounds since she had already experienced them once before. But she forgot that Bucky would have no idea to expect a rather long, intimidating looking instrument to be inserted in herrather than simply placed outwardly on her belly, and when he realized what was about to happen, Summer glanced at him and found horrified confusion on his face.
"Oh, this is totally normal," she assured him, reaching out and taking his hand. "It's too early to see anything the normal way, so..."
"Oh," he muttered, giving the wand one last wary look before it disappeared under the blanket draped over her knees.
"Ah, I love first time fathers," the doctor chuckled to herself as she clicked a few buttons and brought the monitor to life, ignoring the glare that Bucky shot her.
A few uncomfortable but bearable moments later, everything was in place and Summer smiled excitedly at Bucky as the black and white picture on the screen popped up. He smiled back just as excitedly but much more nervously, and then they turned their eyes to the screen as the doctor began looking for the baby.
She found it faster than Summer had expected. In less than a minute, there was a tiny little shrimp-like shape clear on the screen, with a rapidly fluttering little flash near its middle that Summer recognized right away. Tears immediately sprang to her eyes and her heart filled up with the sort of love and joy that could really only come with seeing one's baby for the first time, just before the sound of its thumping heartbeat filled the room.
"There it is," the doctor said, holding the wand in place and measuring the image as she pointed it out to them. "Very strong heartbeat."
Summer laughed in a way that sounded like a bit of a sob, her free hand covering her mouth as she stared at the image and didn't even try to hold back the instant tears sliding their way down her cheeks. There was simply nothing like seeing and hearing the baby like that, right before her eyes and so close despite how early the pregnancy was, and she wished that she could just stare at the screen forever and not miss a minute of its slow but steady growth over the next eight months.
Then she turned her head and looked at Bucky, intending to gush to him about what they were seeing but falling silent when she saw the quiet, utterly awed look on his face as he stared at the little being that they had created together.
She was suddenly crying even more, and though it seemed impossible, falling in love with him even more deeply than she had been before.
He hadn't been expecting much. A grainy image that barely resembled anything human maybe, and perhaps not even a heartbeat, since Summer had told him not to be worried if they couldn't find one on this visit. It was early, after all, so his expectations had been low.
But what he was looking at not only resembled a real baby, albeit an unbelievably tiny one, but the sound of its quick little heartbeat was bouncing off the walls of the room and searing itself into his memory. Suddenly, the baby was no longer just an idea, something that was there but really only in theory since he couldn't see it with his own eyes. Now it was real. It was half him and half Summer, and it was the first thing he had ever had a hand in making that he knew was good beyond a shadow of a doubt.
And for those few long, incredible moments, he wasn't terrified or nervous or worried for how all of this was going to turn out or how inept he might be with a helpless infant. Instead, he was stunned and blown away and deeply happy that this new little person was alive and thriving in the womb of its mother.
He looked up at Summer when he felt her staring at him, and the soft, incredibly sweet and teary way that she was looking at him nearly made his eyes watery as well. He squeezed her hand, and the moment couldn't have been more perfect.
Which was why he could have killed Dr. Zaal later for ruining it only moments later with her rather poor bedside manner.
"So, everything looks great," the doctor said as she finished the scan following an exhaustive measuring and examination of the images. She pulled the wand out, which Bucky ignored in order to keep from cringing on Summer's behalf, and then prattled on, "Heartbeat is obviously perfect and it's measuring right on for eight weeks. I see nothing concerning at all."
Bucky watched Summer smile in relief. "Oh yay. So there's nothing weird, or... I don't know, just odd?"
"Nothing that I can see through the ultrasound," the doctor replied, moving the machine out of the way and getting up to change her gloves and clean up. "But that's only the first piece of the puzzle. I need the full picture to give you a more accurate answer."
"Oh, right," Summer replied a bit more soberly. But her smile was stubborn, and she gave Bucky another excited grin as he helped her sit upright again. She opened her mouth to start undoubtedly freaking out about the baby, but then the doctor came back with a tray full of so many empty blood test tubes that it made them both pause and stare.
"Next step is to get some blood," the doctor said, taking the stool once more and setting the tray aside nonchalantly. Summer extended her arm towards Dr. Zaal while staring wide-eyed at the tubes.
"I thought you said you needed a little blood," Summer muttered as the doctor began cleaning and prepping her arm.
"Well, considering the nature of the pregnancy and the unknown factors," Dr. Zaal replied with a slight shrug, "I need more blood than I normally would from a patient."
"Right," Summer replied quietly. "So... exactly what all are you going to test me for?"
"The standard things, of course," she replied, and Bucky watched carefully as she slid the tip of a needle into Summer's vein in her forearm. "And a bit extra. These are only preliminary tests that we're doing today. I'm also going to run a genetic panel that we use to look for certain markers that might indicate disorders like Down's syndrome."
"Oh. I don't necessarily... want that done," Summer replied quietly, and Bucky's eyes shifted from the doctor drawing blood to Summer's face. "I know those aren't always accurate, and it wouldn't make a difference to me anyway if the baby did have a problem."
Dr. Zaal chuckled, and Bucky's eyes narrowed upon her. "That's a lovely sentiment, dear, but this is the child of a man whose DNA was changed with an experimental serum from over seventy years ago. We don't know what effects it might have on a developing fetus. It might be fine. I certainly hope that it will be. But it only takes one chromosomal defect to end a pregnancy, and even less to cause a lifelong genetic disorder."
Bucky and Summer then shared a wordless look, and he ran his thumb over the back of her hand comfortingly as the happy spell was rather quickly broken. But he watched something flicker in Summer's eyes, and he quickly realized what it was when she finally replied to the doctor.
"I get all that," she said, tone quiet but confident. "but it still doesn't make a difference. I have an autistic son - we have an autistic son - and we'll love the baby the same no matter what."
The doctor then looked up and smiled at Summer like she thought she was cute, and Bucky's murderous glare returned. Dr. Zaal continued to ignore him. "I'm sure you will. But it would be wise for you to approach this situation realistically as well. These tests are as much for your safety as they are for anything else. Pregnancy can be very dangerous in normal circumstances, so we want to make sure that you're not in danger at any point."
Summer furrowed her brows as the doctor continued filling vial after vial. "Okay, but the serum's designed to put someone at peak health, right? So even with the DNA mutation crap or whatever, wouldn't it be more likely that I'll just have a really strong kid who basically never gets sick?"
"That's what we're hoping for," Dr. Zaal replied.
"Who's we?" Summer asked, taking the question right out of Bucky's mouth.
The doctor sighed. "Look, I understand that this must all be very alarming to hear. But to be quite honest, Mrs. Barnes, this is the first pregnancy of its kind. You must have known when you came here that we would want to do extensive testing and studying of the possible side effects of the serum."
"But it's not even the same serum that Steve got," Summer replied. "And you keep saying it like its something creepy and not a serum that literally made my husband stronger and immune to diseases, and able to survive being frozen over and over."
Bucky still wasn't used to hearing her call him that - her husband - but he didn't have time to dwell on it as the doctor replied, "It was an experiment nonetheless. And given how long ago it occurred and how much further science has advanced since then..."
Bucky opened his mouth, prepared to give the woman a piece of his mind and tell her to stop giving his wife more reasons to worry for their baby than she needed, but he stopped when he felt Summer squeeze his hand softly. He looked at her, and she shook her head at him in a way that told him that she had this under control, and he didn't need to ride in to rescue her. He didn't hesitate to trust her and keep his mouth shut.
"Okay, so tell me what all you want to do," she asked the doctor. "Tell me every test I can expect from now until I have the baby."
Dr. Zaal only paused for a moment before launching into such a long answer that it made Bucky stare with an-ever dropping jaw. Apparently she had already thrown together a schedule consisting entirely of tests, many of which had long names that Bucky didn't understand, but Summer seemed to understand just fine. By the point where the doctor was casually mentioning tests she wanted to run on the baby once it had been born, she was finished drawing blood and Summer looked furious.
Holding pressure on her arm where she'd been pricked, Summer took a breath and then said with a determined look in her eyes, "Okay, well... go ahead and run these tests since you've already got my blood, but that's it. I'm not gonna come back for more after this."
Dr. Zaal paused and eyed her in alarm. "But Mrs. Barnes..."
Summer shook her head. "No, you can't talk me into it. I'm not a lab rat, and my baby is definitely not a lab rat. You're not sticking a giant needle in my belly and you're definitely not coming anywhere near my baby when it's born."
Dr. Zaal pursed her lips. "Why don't you just take a minute and think this through? If something were to come back in the tests, you would be able to prepare and consider your options, and -"
Summer sat up straighter, eyebrows shooting up her forehead. Bucky hadn't ever seen her like this with a stranger before. "My options? Are you kidding me? No, you know what," she scooted closer to the edge of the chair, "you're exactly what Bucky said you'd be. You don't actually care. You just want to poke and prod the crap out of me and my baby and treat us like a weird experiment. But I'm not stupid and I know those how invasive those tests are that you were talking about, and I'm not risking early labor or losing the baby just so you can fill up your little chart with 'data' on the world's first... super-baby."
The doctor sighed and crossed her arms as Summer got to her feet and grabbed her purse, gesturing to Bucky that they were done. He grinned and followed her lead, quite admiring this display of her fiercely protective side, but the doctor wasn't quite done yet. As Summer got redressed in a hurry and Bucky helped her, the doctor said, "A regular doctor won't be able to monitor you like we can."
"Yeah, well, I'm not seeing a doctor. I've got an appointment with a midwife next week," Summer muttered as she fixed her clothes. Then she cleared her throat and looked at the doctor one more time before glancing at the ultrasound machine and asking, "Can I please have my pictures?"
Dr. Zaal glanced at Bucky, her eyes both amused and annoyed as she grabbed the little roll of ultrasound pictures and handed them over. As Summer took them, she told her, "We'll be in touch with your test results."
"Thanks," Summer muttered before heading out the door first, dragging Bucky behind her. Before he left, he glanced at the doctor and couldn't help but gloat a little and throw a purposefully obnoxious grin her way. It wasn't the first time he'd dealt with her, and he really did despise her.
Once they were back out in the hallway, they didn't stop walking until they'd left the medical wing entirely and were back in the main part of the building. At that point, Summer sighed and slowed her footsteps, closing her eyes and muttering, "What a bitch."
Knowing she must really mean it to actually curse rather than use some weird substitute for the word, Bucky turned and looked at her in a way that was nothing short of utterly admiring and awestruck. "You were amazing in there."
Forcing herself to keep walking, she shrugged and nodded, "Yeah, I've been known to tell doctors off before. You should have seen me the time one told me to just ignore David until he leaned how to verbally ask for what he wanted."
Bucky smiled at her, and she smiled back before holding up the pictures in her hand so that they could both look at them again as they walked. He still couldn't believe that it was real, that such a tiny little creature was hiding in Summer's still-small belly, and after seeing with his own eyes how perfect and strong the baby was, he didn't doubt Summer's decision to walk out of Dr. Zaal's office one bit.
"Can you believe this?" she asked him happily, eyes glued to the clearest picture of the baby. "I mean, just look at it! It's a little peanut and it kinda looks a little like an alien but it's just... absolutely perfect."
He laughed quietly, unable to say it any better himself. "It feels real now."
She looked up at him and smiled wider. "Yeah?"
He nodded. "Yeah." He took the pictures from her then, looking at them a bit more closely before smiling, "We made this."
"Oh man, you're gonna make me cry again," she replied in a happy but suddenly shaky voice. Then after they turned a corner, she hurriedly added, "Actually - aw man, never mind. I'm gonna puke."
Looking away from the pictures for now, Bucky looked at her in sudden alarm and then quickly scanned their surroundings. There was no bathroom nearby, but there was a break room two doors up that he quickly steered them to. It was better than nothing.
As she groaned and held her hand over her mouth, he quickly threw the unoccupied room's door open and she took about two steps in before heaving into a trash can by the door. Heaving was all it was, since she didn't have anything in her to actually throw up at that point, and it was as she gagged noisily and groaned miserably that a very important person just happened to come strolling their way down the hall.
Bucky rubbed Summer's back as Nick Fury approached them, clad in his usual intimidating black attire and eyepatch, and he raised a single eyebrow as he greeted cooly, "Barnes."
"Sir," Bucky nodded. Summer then finished her dry heaving fit and straightened up, pushing her hair back and breathing heavily for a few seconds before stepping back into the hallway and immediately freezing in place when she saw who was standing there.
"Oh, uh... hi," she said, voice a bit hoarse and eyes wide. "I was not just puking in your trash can, sir."
Fury raised a single brow over his one good eye, and Bucky smiled before saying, "And this is my wife, Summer."
And oh how proud he was to be able to say that, more and more so every day.
Of all the potential circumstances in which Summer could have met her husband's one time target turned boss, this was one of the least ideal that she could have imagined.
Shaking to death and feeling woozy and on the verge of another bout of dry heaving, Summer forced a smile on her face as Fury's eye examined her like she was a bug under a microscope. The man was terrifying and exactly what she had imagined him to be after hearing others' stories of him, but she managed to hold it together until, to her surprise, he cracked what was almost a very small grin.
"So this is the woman who let a deadly assassin crash with her and her kid in the middle of nowhere, Virginia," the former SHIELD director observed, and his tone managed to sound both light and judgmental at the same time. "Nice to finally meet you."
"... You too?" she replied, not having meant it to come out sounding like a question.
Fury then glanced at Bucky and asked, "Is there a reason why she's here or is it bring your spouse to work day and nobody told me?"
"We had an appointment with Dr. Zaal," Bucky answered. "Didn't go so well."
"Least surprising thing I've heard all day," Fury replied sarcastically. "What'd you expect?"
Bucky shrugged, and Summer glanced back and forth between the two men before a random idea popped into her head. Suddenly the urge to show off her baby to every living human on the planet took over, and she was shoving the ultrasound pictures at Fury and half-exclaiming, "But we got to see our baby!"
First, Fury stared at her as if she had just shoved a live chicken in his face, but then he turned his eye on the pictures and took them from her anyway. Bucky watched in surprise as the other man carefully looked over the images, then handed them back to Summer with a small grin. "Keep it safe."
"We will," Summer said, taking the pictures back. She expected them to go their separate ways now, but then she saw a familiar face heading their way from the hallway behind Fury, and she smacked Bucky's shoulder as her face split into a huge grin. "Hey, there's Clint!"
She hadn't seen Clint since the wedding, so when he approached them, she sprang forward and thrust the ultrasound pictures in his face before he could get out so much as half a greeting. "Look at our baby!"
"Oh my God," Clint said, widening his eyes and unable to see a thing for how close she was holding the pictures to his face. He backed up a step and then took the pictures from her, first looking at Bucky first and then her. "You look..."
"Like a rat that got run over by a car on the side of the road," she shrugged. "I know."
"I was going to say you're glowing, but..."
"It's okay, you don't have to lie," Summer chuckled. Then she waved at the pictures impatiently and said, "Go on, look!"
Clint examined the first picture, furrowing his brows as he did and then muttering, "I'm not really seeing a baby."
"You're holding it upside down," Fury pointed out with a roll of his eye.
Clint flipped the picture. "Oh. Oh. Now I see it. Kind of."
"See you kids later," Fury said drily, sweeping past Summer and Bucky as Clint tried to make sense of what he was looking at. After he was out of earshot, Summer turned to Bucky and asked him something that was suddenly confusing her.
"When he said nice to finally meet you... what did that mean?" she asked.
Bucky shrugged. "You might be a little more famous than you think."
She blinked. "Famous?"
Clint squinted. "Is this the head or the butt?"
"Yeah," Bucky replied, both of them ignoring Clint. "That really shouldn't be surprising. You're a pretty regular part of the whole team's lives. And you have been for two years now."
"Yeah, but... I just figured everybody talked about other things, like... the crapload of actually interesting people and things around here," she shrugged.
"Seriously, what am I looking at?" Clint asked, looking at them both to no avail.
"Well, you're about to get even more famous, so you may as well get used to it," Bucky told Summer with a small smile.
With those words, Summer smiled back and then froze in sudden horror and panic. "Oh God! My meeting with the editor! Frick! I'm gonna be late!"
She then snatched the photos back from Clint and smiled brightly at him before grabbing Bucky's hand and dashing away. "Bye Clint! You should come by for dinner later at the tower!"
Bucky grinned at Clint's bewildered expression and shrugged before letting Summer drag him away. "Yeah, okay. Sure thing. Still don't know what I was looking at, but congrats anyway."
Summer barely heard him, riding on a renewed but short lived burst of energy as she hurried out of the facility as fast as she could. Between the bun in the oven and the book she'd written getting closer seeing print, she had a lot going on and not even close to enough energy to keep up with half of it, but by some miracle, she managed to get through the day and show up on time for her meeting. Even with stopping for a hamburger, eating it, and then throwing it up ten minutes later.
By six in the evening, Summer was utterly beat and ready to crawl into bed. However, this wasn't possible due to her need to do some serious thinking and also be social with the as-always high number of people around her, including one face she hadn't seen since she had first broken the pregnancy news three weeks before.
Laid out on the couch and staring at her laptop screen in deep thought, Summer reached out and swatted the back of her brother's head as she whined, "You said you would help, but you're not helping me!"
Sitting with David against the couch on the floor and embroiled deep in a Super Smash Brothers war, Paul glanced at her over his shoulder and said, "Yes I am! You asked me if Derp McMoron was a bad pen name, and I said it was."
"Ugh," she groaned, rolling her eyes. "I spent an hour today listening to my editor telling me how important it was to pick a good pen name and then start promoting myself, but I can't do anything until I have a stupid name."
"So just pick something," Paul shrugged, eyes fixed on the TV. "Who picks books based on the author's name?"
"You're missing the point," she muttered. "It needs to be totally different from my name, but at the same time I kinda want it to mean something."
When Paul didn't seem to have much to say to that, Summer asked the third person involved in the video game war for their opinion. "Okay, Wanda, if you were writing a book, what criteria would you use to figure out a fake name for yourself?"
Sitting on David's other side on the floor - the three of them really were a sight - Wanda looked her way for a moment and paused in contemplation. "Well... maybe... something with meaning. Maybe to honor my brother or my parents."
"That's exactly what I'm thinking," Summer replied. "But the question is what."
"Make a list of the names in the family," Paul suggested. "Then go from there."
"Now you're being helpful," Summer chided him, pulling up a new document and immediately getting to work. "Okay. Let's see if I can figure something out."
As she typed away, Paul piped up again and asked, "So what kind of promoting does the book people want you to do?"
"Well, they gave me a few ideas, but I think I'm gonna go with doing a blog," Summer replied, pausing for a moment to try to remember all of her grandparents' full names. "I've been thinking about it all day. I can make it a fun one, like not just ooh, I'm a new author, go buy my book, but like... something where I can talk about my life and stuff without giving away too many details."
"Well, you do have plenty to talk about," Paul agreed.
"Oh yeah. Like I can put stuff about pregnancy and document that. People eat up 'mommy blogs'. And I can talk about David and all his stuff. Bucky too, but I'll have to give everyone code names and use only very vague details. And then talk about writing and funny stuff in the middle of all of that."
"That's the kind of blog that Sarah would love," Paul said. "She follows a bunch just like that. Go for it."
"I will as soon as I figure out a name," she said, reading over the list of family names that she had compiled. "Which might take me all night."
It didn't take her quite all night, but Bucky did bring her dinner - cooked by Sam, who actually quite enjoyed cooking for enormous amounts of people - and she managed to eat three fourths of it before she settled on at least a partial idea for a name. By then Sam had gotten dragged into the game wars and Bucky was sitting with Summer's feet on his lap at the other end of the couch.
"Okay, so how about the initial thing? Like two initials and a last name?" she asked anyone who would listen.
"Definitely low key," Paul remarked. Then when his character got beat up and killed for the third time in a row by Wanda, he exclaimed, "Oh, come on! How are you this good at this game?!"
She shrugged and grinned before gesturing to the happy little boy sitting between them. "I have been taught by a master."
David giggled in delight while his mother started scrutinizing all of the initials available to her, muttering different combinations out loud. "S. S... oh God, no, Nazis. Never mind. Um... S. B. B.S. Ha! B.S.."
"Those are all God awful," Paul opined, and Summer smacked his head again.
"I know that! I'm not a total idiot. Okay, so what if I use one of my initials for one? Not S because that's too obvious, so I guess E."
"Yeah, Evelyn," Paul teased. That time, Summer flicked his ear rather hard, and he squeaked with pain and almost dropped his controller.
"Okay, so E what. E. R... oh my God."
"Another stellar choice," Paul grinned, ducking her hand when it tried to smack him again.
At that point, Natasha walked by the couch behind Summer and asked with genuine curiosity, "What's all the debate about?"
"A decent pen name," Summer replied, turning the laptop so Nat could see the screen. "So far I have exactly one letter."
"Hmm..." Natasha hummed, reading over the list carefully. Summer waited, hoping for something, anything, that was helpful, and as usual, Nat wasn't one to disappoint. "You should go with one of the simpler surnames. The longer ones are fine, but you want people to know how to pronounce it."
"Good point," Summer said, scanning over the shorter ones. "So maybe... Carey? That was my dad's mom's last name."
"I think it would be fine," Natasha nodded.
"As long as you don't pick Mariah for a first name," Sam interjected.
Summer chuckled. "Yeah, wasn't planning on it. Thanks, Nat, that actually helps a lot."
"Always happy to help," Natasha smiled before sauntering off, and after that, Summer found it surprisingly easy to string the rest of her pen name together.
She had a piece of her long-departed family with her last name, and a piece of herself with the initial E. It was as she read over David and Bucky's full names that she realized for the first time how incredibly well and completely unintentionally they paralleled each other. David's middle name was Benjamin, making his initials D.B.B. while his adopted father's were J.B.B.. Summer realized then with a small smile that she could have a piece of them both in her pen name without anyone outside of her circle knowing a thing.
She typed the full name first to see how it looked, and when she decided that it looked good, she peeked up at Bucky over the computer and said, "How's E.B. Carey sound?"
He looked at her curiously and matched the sudden grin on her face. "E.B.?"
"Evelyn Bucky?" Paul guessed, giving her a look over his shoulder.
"No," she rolled her eyes, still smiling. "But since he and David both have the same middle initial... it's kind of perfect."
"It works," Paul nodded, giving his seal of approval. Summer could tell by the little smile that Bucky gave her that he liked it, too.
"Awesome," she said, raising her fist a few inches in triumph. "Okay. Now that I've got that squared away, I can start figuring out how to get a blog going. But first I need to get up and pee."
"Thanks for the announcement," Paul said as Bucky helped Summer get to her feet. This time, she kicked him rather than smacked him, then headed towards the hallway with Bucky following behind her.
Her mood vastly improved by the feat that she had just accomplished, Summer had a cheerful smile on her face as she walked past the kitchen. But that smile faded as soon as the smell of something utterly amazing but forbidden hit her nose, and she stopped in her tracks to find out who the culprit was. It ended up being Steve, who was talking to Tony about something as he poured himself a cup of warm, delicious, very caffeinated coffee, and Summer closed her eyes to inhale the scent before whimpering and asking somewhat pitifully, "Couldn't you have waited until I was out of the room to make that?"
Steve turned around then, his drink halfway to his lips when he met her dismayed gaze and froze. His eyes flickered to Bucky and then back to her, slight panic evident on his face as he replied, "Uh... oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I guess I forgot."
"How could you forget?" she asked in disbelief. Tony leaned against the counter and watched with great amusement as she went on, "I have been complaining around you every day for three weeks about how I can't have coffee anymore. And it's like 6:30, we all just had dinner. Why are you even drinking it now?"
"I... it... sounded good," he replied weakly.
Summer wandered over towards Steve, Bucky following and shrugging cluelessly at him as Summer took a big sniff of the coffee mug and then turned away with a groan. "This is like drinking in front of an alcoholic."
"I'm sorry," Steve repeated helplessly. "I wasn't thinking, but... I can make you some decaf if you want?"
"Decaf still has caffeine in it!" she exclaimed as if he should know better than to even offer such a thing. "I haven't had a drop of caffeine since I found out I was pregnant!"
"Okay," Steve said, setting the mug aside and holding up his hands defensively. "Okay. It won't happen again."
"Yeah right," she muttered, genuinely crying now, to Steve's utter horror. She turned away and half-wailed, "No, go ahead and keep making your stupid coffee and drinking it with your stupid metabolism. Might as well rub it in my face and laugh at me while you're at it."
Tony snickered under his breath while Steve watched her walk away with his mouth hanging open. "But..."
"I don't wanna hear it!" she called out with a teary voice, not bothering to look back as she continued stomping away. "You should think about other people and not just yourself!"
She disappeared around the corner, and a moment later, Steve jumped a little at the sound of a door slamming shut. He then looked at Bucky, both of them equally wide-eyed and bewildered and not just because she had just told one of the world's most self-sacrificing people to stop being self-centered.
"If the next eight or nine months are like that," Tony said gleefully, "I'm going to need to stock up on popcorn."
"... Should I do something?" Steve asked Bucky, still looking completely helpless. "Should I go apologize again?"
Bucky shook his head, though he didn't look totally sure. "No... maybe just... get the smell of coffee out of here."
Steve nodded seriously and then got started looking through the tower for a can of air freshener or a candle or literally anything. Meanwhile, Tony eyed Bucky and asked, "She been biting your head off too?"
He shook his head again. "Not even a little."
"Huh. Interesting," Tony mused. Then he wondered aloud, "I wonder how much an entire shipment of theater popcorn would cost me."
Bucky gave the other man a weary look and then joined Steve in the hunt for something to drown out the scent of coffee. They ended up finding a giant apple pie scented candle and got it lit before Summer re-emerged, but it backfired when she walked out and sniffed the air, then went pale before heading right back to the bathroom holding her hand to her mouth. Steve then quickly blew out the candle and started cursing while Tony cackled and pointed at him, as Bucky sighed and headed to the bathroom to check on his poor pregnant wife.
Following the great coffee debacle of the day, Summer lost some but not all of her dinner and then decided that she'd had enough of the day in general. She went to bed in Bucky's room and curled up under the covers with her laptop and a cup of stomach-calming tea that Natasha had been thoughtful enough to bring her. She researched blogs and the best ways to get one started until her eyes started getting heavy, which was about the point where her boys arrived to spend the rest of her time awake with her.
She sipped her tea and watched happily as Bucky and David played a duet on the piano in the bedroom, something she never tired of seeing and hearing. They had both improved greatly since they started with the instrument, but David had already surpassed what Bucky was able to teach him, and finding him a good piano teacher was high on Summer's to do list. But for now, she was content to marvel at how well the two of them meshed through the music. The pleasant sounds of the notes coupled with David's occasional cute laughs easily lulled her to sleep, but she awoke with a start when David suddenly jumped on the bed next to her.
"Whoa," she blinked, barely managing to get her eyes to open as the little boy smiled at her and then signed for her to show him the pictures of his new brother or sister again. "Again? Gosh, kid, I've showed you like 20 times already."
"He's excited," Bucky smiled, sitting down on the bed on her other side. He handed her the pictures from where she'd left them on her bedside table, and then she smiled up at him before handing the pictures to David.
He giggled quietly when he saw the tiny baby's image, just as he had each time she had showed it to him. Then he looked up at her and signed boy, which made Summer grin. "Think so? What if it's a girl, though?"
He made a face, and Bucky asked in great amusement, "What's wrong with a girl? She's a girl," he nodded towards Summer. "Wanda's a girl and she's pretty much your favorite. Kylie's also a girl."
"Kylie," Summer repeated with a grin when David instantly shrunk back and smiled in embarrassment. Kylie was the little deaf girl that he had once protected with a toy shield when the tower had been under attack, and now she was his classmate at his school for kids with special needs. They were inseparable, and David was prone to heavy giggles when teased about it. Trying to play it off, he signed boy again and followed it up with brother.
"Well, we'll find out in a few months," Summer shrugged sleepily, hugging the boy close to her with what little energy she had left. "And you'll be there with us when we do."
He smiled up at her and then looked at them both hopefully before asking them for his usual bedtime story. Summer was prepared to get up and trudge to his room to oblige, but Bucky came to the rescue and shook his head before gently telling the boy, "It's just me tonight. Mama had a long day and needs to sleep."
David frowned, but a quick glance at Summer proved Bucky right. David then sighed and dramatically dragged himself out of bed and walked with his head down all the way out the door.
"Aw," Summer groaned, immediately feeling horribly guilty once he was out of sight. "Help me up. I can go put him to bed with you."
She tried to sit up but Bucky stopped her, shaking his head and gently pushing her back down. "I've got it, Summer. Just sleep. You've been going all day."
"I know, but... I don't want him to think that now there's this new baby coming and he doesn't matter anymore," she said, tears stinging her eyes suddenly at the mere thought. Tears came entirely too easy these days, and she didn't remember the hormones being this strong the first time around.
"He won't think that," Bucky assured her. "There's two of us now, right? This is the kind of thing I'm here for. So just let me help you and... relax. Sleep for twelve hours."
She smiled, and he smiled back before leaning down and pressing a kiss to her forehead. His hand slipped beneath her blanket and came to rest on top of her belly, and the gesture warmed her from the inside out. Her hand went to his face as he smiled down at her, and she said quietly, "Thank you so much. For everything. I'm sorry I'm such a drag."
He shook his head and then replied, "You're not a drag. You work full time, you're publishing a book. You're an amazing wife and mother and you're carrying my baby. And you do it all in between puking at least three times a day and taking naps literally anywhere. That makes you amazing, not a drag."
She made a face. "I don't feel amazing. I feel like roadkill. Worse than roadkill, actually. I feel like the gunk leftover on the road after the highway guys clean up the roadkill. I'm that."
He smiled and shook his head. "And you're funny, too. Wrong, but funny."
She blew out a breath, out of reasons and the will to argue, focusing instead on his hair as she pushed it off of his forehead. "You need a haircut."
He shook his head. "Don't worry about me. Or my hair."
She sighed. "Well dang it, Bucky. You've gotta give me something to do so that I feel useful to you still. I can barely even kiss you and I definitely can't do the other stuff right now. I tried to make you a sandwich the other day and almost passed out because of how gross it smelled. But I can still cut your hair, at least."
"No," he insisted.
"But -"
"Sh," he hushed her gently, placing a feather-soft kiss on her lips. "You are useful. Don't ever think you're not the most important thing in my life, or that you have to do things to stay that way. You don't."
"I just..." She trailed off, feeling more tears coming from out of nowhere. "I don't want you to get bored, or... I mean, we just got married and we're supposed to be having fun, and I see how the girls you work with look at you, and -"
He blinked. "Wait. What?"
"The tech girls," she replied, recalling the faces she had seen in the hallways of the Avengers facility earlier but hadn't paid much mind to until that very moment. "I don't know. Agent... girls. Whatever they are. Even with me standing there next to you, they look at you like you're this... mysterious, dangerous, fascinating specimen, which is totally what you are and I don't blame them, but..."
He blinked a few more times, as if she was speaking some kind of gibberish and thought she was insane. "... Summer, I don't think anyone looks at me like that."
"Oh yes they do," Summer replied wide-eyed.
"Even if they did, I don't understand why it matters, or..."
"It matters because..." She paused and shut her mouth briefly before deciding to just go ahead and unleash the sudden wave of crazy that she couldn't hold back anymore. "It matters because the whole time we've been together it's been one thing after another with me, like the car hitting me and now this, and I'm afraid that one day this is all gonna get to be too much or too boring and you're gonna be miserable and sick of me and..."
She knew she wasn't making any sense, and now she was crying profusely like an utter moron while Bucky stared at her like she had lost her mind. And maybe she had, because next she blurted out, "I'm not like any of those girls. I'm not Natasha. I know nothing about what you do, not really. I mean, I can shoot a gun okay but I can't fight worth a damn and I can barely figure out how to update iTunes, let alone hack into the CIA database or something. And I'm a sick piece of crap and can't even kiss you for more than five seconds without almost barfing on you."
Face red and eyes quite shiny with those annoying tears, Summer covered her face with her hand while Bucky stared at her and tried to figure out how to answer her. After a moment that she spent trying to get herself together, Bucky reached to pull her hand down and then guided her to look him in the eyes.
"You're right that you're not like the girls at work," he said quietly. "Or Natasha. You're right. But that's one of the reasons why I love you. You're different. You're... not normal, that's not the right word, but... real. You're like real life in the middle of a bunch of stuff I can still barely understand." He brushed her hair behind her ear and quietly added, "Leaving it all there at work or on the street and then coming home to you... trust me, Summer, I wouldn't change a thing about you."
Tears still glistening in her eyes, though this time for happier reasons, she asked quietly, "You really mean all that?"
He nodded. "And the kissing thing... I'm patient. You know that."
"But... on the honeymoon, we did so much, like nonstop, and..."
"That was a honeymoon," he chuckled.
She smiled back weakly. "I just want to keep you happy."
"You do," he assured her. "I just wish you'd stop being so hard on yourself."
She shrugged. "It's what I do." Then she looked down at his hand, still resting on her belly, and she placed hers on top of it before asking in a small voice, "Think it'll be okay? Our baby?"
"I hope so," he replied, his eyes on her belly as well. "Do you?"
She chewed her lip, replaying that chilly doctor's words in her head. "I think that if it's half as strong as you are, it'll be perfect."
His eyes flickered up to hers and he smiled, just enough to make her heart swell. "It sure looked perfect."
"It did," she smiled back. Then her smile faltered as she asked, "You wouldn't care, right? If there was something wrong? If the baby came out... different?"
He didn't hesitate to shake his head. "Normal's the last thing I care about. You know that."
She nodded. "Me too."
Bucky then settled in closer to her, kissing her temple and holding her close as she closed her eyes and tried to turn off her brain. She was exhausted and worried and emotional and all over the place, but if there was anything that could center her, it was his arms around her and the now-comforting, familiar sounds of his left arm clicking and shifting quietly with each breath that he took and movement that he made.
He told her that he loved her just as she fell asleep, and she replied in such a sleepy, almost dopey way that it made him grin incredibly widely to himself. He stayed with her until he knew that she was out, and then he quietly tore himself away from her to put their son to bed next.
A little over a week later, Summer was in her office working when she got a call from Dr. Zaal telling her that all of the tests had come back completely normally, with no markers or indicators of a single abnormal or concerning thing anywhere. The baby was perfectly, beautifully healthy, and though Summer would have loved the child the same regardless, she cried with relief after hanging up the phone.
They were all right. Everyone was all right. And most importantly, her little peanut was, so far, perfect.