Early one morning halfway through the 39th week of her pregnancy, Summer awoke reluctantly and groggily to a loud, sudden rumble of thunder that sounded like it came from directly above her house. After blearily opening her eyes and finding the other side of the bed surprisingly empty, she grabbed her phone from the bedside table to check the time, then put it back before groaning and trying to fall back asleep. But of course, despite the steady and comforting drum of rain on the rooftop above, she was awake now and had no hope of dozing further.
And thus began a very real and very difficult struggle: actually physically getting out of bed.
Weighing in at over eighty pounds heavier than she was at the start of her pregnancy, Summer was a self-proclaimed blimp and quite the sight to behold as she struggled to sit up before literally rolling out of the bed. It wasn't just her belly that was huge, though it was utterly enormous at this point. Everything was bigger, from the roundness of her cheeks all the way down to her ankles that liked to swell up and ache throughout the day. She even legitimately waddled now, and her trip to the bathroom once she managed to get to her feet served as evidence of this.
She sighed after peeing for the fifth time in seven hours, dragging her bedraggled self out of the bathroom and into the hallway in search of her husband. Clad in the baggiest, most shapeless maternity clothes she owned, she put a hand on her belly and glanced down as she walked, wondering when the last time was that she'd been able to actually see her feet. She hadn't seen them in a couple months, and the fact that her legs weren't as hairy as a Sasquatch was all thanks to Bucky and his willingness to shave them for her. She owed him a lot these days, even more so than usual.
Hearing tinkering sounds coming from the nursery room that was officially set up and ready to go as of a week prior, Summer stopped in front of the open door and peeked inside. What she saw brought a smile to her face - Bucky on the floor, shoving little baby-proof covers on all of the unused electrical outlets on the walls. She pushed open the door fully and asked, "Get up early to finish up the baby proofing?"
Glancing over his shoulder at her, Bucky looked wide awake and unfairly photogenic with his half-pulled out bun and pieces of hair framing his face. He smiled at her presence and replied, "Well, I said I'd do it last week, but I didn't get around to it, so... seemed like a good time to get it done."
Summer smiled back and then made a beeline for the super-comfy rocking chair that sat in the corner of the room, next to the changing table and in front of the closet. She was quite proud of the room and how well it had come together, and she had no shame in how disgustingly pink it all was. The walls were a pale, pretty shade, all of the accents a slightly darker one, and of course, most of the clothes in the closest and a great deal of the toys were also pink. If Adelaide came out and decided that she hated pink, they were totally screwed.
"You know," Summer said, rocking the chair slightly, "you could have waited awhile longer to do the outlets. She won't be getting near them anytime soon."
Bucky shrugged, popping in the last few covers. "Well, just in case she's a little... enhanced, and starts crawling early..."
Mindlessly rubbing her belly a little, Summer made a face and said, "I hope not too early. Like can you imagine a four or five month old crawling? It would be super creepy. Or if she's one of those weird kids who talk in complete sentences at one. One of Paul's kids was like that. Gabriel, the boy. He was like eleven months old and would say 'Mama hungry, give me boob-boob'. So weird."
Bucky chuckled quietly, getting up and heading her way. "Weird because of the talking or weird because the kid was asking for it?"
"Oh the talking, definitely not the second thing," Summer replied, leaning up and happily taking his soft kiss when he leaned over her chair to give it to her. After, she asked with sudden curiosity, "Does breastfeeding weird you out? Like as an old man who was born a century ago?"
He shrugged indifferently. "No."
"Was formula even around back then?" she asked, squinting. "Have you ever even seen a baby being nursed? Like maybe your sister?"
"... If I did, I don't remember," he replied. "Why?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I've just been sitting here for the last few months babbling about nursing bras and breast pumps and nipple cream and all this boob-related stuff and I never stopped to think that maybe it was all new to you."
"It is," he replied with his brows slightly raised, now leaning against the changing table. "That pump thing looks scary."
"I hated pumping before," Summer nodded with a smile, agreeing. "It feels super weird."
"Then why did you get one?"
She paused before answering quietly, "Well, it'll help a lot if we ever need someone else to watch her, and then you can also feed her sometimes if you want. I figured you'd like that."
He smiled at that. "Yeah. I would. I've never fed a baby, but..."
"It's easy," she assured him. "Really." Then she reached out and took his hand in hers, metal on her soft flesh. "Thank you for doing this. And for everything else. Like putting the crib together, helping me paint, putting the changing table together, organizing the closest while I sat on the floor and ate ice cream..."
He smiled gently and gave her hand a soft squeeze. "Least I can do. You're the one doing all the work."
She couldn't deny that, and even breathing these days felt like work, considering how little room she had in her own body to actually fill up her lungs with air. But she was damn close to the homestretch, and soon it would all be over and their baby would be in her arms and finally out of her over-stretched uterus.
Her mind drifted to what life would be like when the baby came, her eyes going to the crib along the other side of the room. Bucky noticed the frown suddenly on her face and asked, "Something wrong?"
Their hands still linked, she quickly shrugged and shook her head. "No."
He gave her a look. "Summer."
She rolled her eyes and smiled. "Fine. I was just wondering how to ask you something."
"What?" he nudged her, expression innocent, like she had no reason in the world to hesitate.
"Well... David kinda always slept with me, when he was a baby," she replied. "And I'm not saying that our baby should, since... you know, metal arm, and you still have nightmares sometimes, but... I kinda really want to put her little bassinet in our room, next to our bed. For the first few months, anyway." When he didn't have anything to say to that, she hastily added, "It would be easier than getting up in the middle night and coming all the way here, and it'll give me peace of mind, knowing she's next to us. I don't think I'd be able to sleep without her in the same room."
He stared at her blankly, as if he was still waiting for her question. She blinked at him, and then he said, "Was that it?"
"... Yeah?"
Relief sank in as he smiled and let out an exhaled chuckle. "You were nervous to tell me that?"
"Well," she squirmed a little, irrationally embarrassed, "I don't know. I guess I thought that you're a guy and therefore might not want a baby in our space. Because I would get that if you didn't, but -"
"She's been in our space for the last, what, nine months now," he pointed out with a smile. "I don't want her far away, either."
Summer smiled and then, after taking a relaxing breath as best she could, tugged him closer until he was leaning over her chair again. Her arms went around his neck and she said, "I swear, you just get better and better. It's almost disgusting."
"Sorry," he grinned before kissing her softly, one of his hands going to her belly and the other ending up in her unbrushed, pulled back hair. He pulled away and she asked him a question as he turned his eyes to her belly, his hand gently rubbing the top of it.
"You work today, right?"
He nodded, looking up to meet her eyes. "I go in a few hours."
She nodded, brushing his loose strands of hair behind his ears with her fingers. "Think you could, um... try to help me start some... contractions... before you leave?"
He didn't hesitate to give her a slightly devious little grin, but he did point out, "You know I will. That never seems to work, though."
"But it's fun trying anyway, right?" she grinned back. "Sex is supposed to be really good for getting contractions going. Plus your sperm helps get my cervix soft so it'll dilate."
Bucky nodded, smiling and furrowing his brows at the same time as he replied, "We really need to work on your dirty talk."
"Sorry," she giggled softly. "But first can we eat? I'm starving and my back hurts and I kinda want to lay down in bed and eat."
He sighed, pretending the requests were a heavy burden as he helped pull her to her feet. "Breakfast in bed, then sex afterwards. Anything else, Princess?"
"Actually yes," she smiled, now standing in front of him. "When you come home, can you stop at that candy store that David likes and get me one of those big candy apples with the M&Ms all over it? Two, actually, and then a bag of candy corn for him. Please?"
"So breakfast first, which... what do you want?" he asked, leading her back into their bedroom.
"Uh... just give me like... four of the pancakes I made yesterday. With whipped cream. And syrup. And a giant thing of orange juice. Like just bring the whole jug."
He nodded, opening their door and taking her inside. "Okay. Pancakes, orange juice, then sex, and later, two of those gross candy apples and a bag of candy corn for David."
"Yup," she said cheerfully, climbing into bed and smiling at him brightly. "Thank you so much. I know I'm being lazy, but..."
He shook his head, giving her one last chaste kiss before he pulled away a few inches and said, "You've earned it, sweetheart. Just relax. I'll be right back."
She smiled and then watched him start to draw away, but then he stopped and turned back to her, brows furrowed and expression inquisitive. "Why does sex help start contractions, anyway?"
"Oh, well, it's the... not the actual, you know, mechanics of it, but the... the um..." She blushed like an idiot and then used her hands to mime something like a bomb going off. "The... boom."
His eyes widened in amusement. "The boom."
She nodded, face on fire. "Yup."
"You're publishing a book with three sex scenes that you wrote, and you can't even say 'orgasm'?"
"Oh God no," she shook her head, cringing. "I don't think I've ever said that word in my life, and you know it's not in the book. I used much more flowery terms like... I don't know, just other things."
"Yeah... well start thinking of how many of those you want before I leave," he said, giving her a look before heading on his way, towards the door. "'Cause I don't mind being late to work, but you should see the looks I get when I am. Everybody knows."
She smiled, laughing a little when he smiled back at her before disappearing around the corner. Over the next several hours, she ate her breakfast to her heart's content, cuddled with her husband who didn't mind one ounce of the extra weight on her frame, and then was left dazed and highly satisfied by the time he got dressed and left for work. His efforts did get some contractions started, but they weren't the real kind, just the 'practice' ones, so Summer eventually just sighed and finally got up for the day once David woke up and demanded her presence.
She was just ready to hurry up and have the darn kid, but said kid seemed to be rather comfy where she was.
Later on that day at work, which he had not been late to after all, Bucky began to get the feeling that Steve was hiding something from him. Not something particularly major, necessarily, but something that was important enough for Steve to keep giving him odd looks and changing the subject before disappearing towards the facility's holding wing.
He finally got a straight answer outside of the wing's doors from Natasha, who had been leaving when Steve was going in.
"We're transferring Rumlow to D.C. tomorrow," she said, a slight roll of her eye giving away how silly she thought it was for Steve to keep it from him. "We haven't gotten much useful information from him since we first captured him a year ago. He's got very expensive lawyers and he's technically under the FBI's protection while the prosecutor builds the case against him."
Brows furrowing, Bucky wasn't sure what to ask first. "Why are we just now handing him over?"
"Believe it or not, the Feds consider our facility more secure than their own," Natasha said with a hint of a smirk. "And they didn't mind letting us try to gleam more info while we could. Which we didn't, though not for lack of trying."
Bucky sighed and glanced at the doors. He had honestly thought that Rumlow had been transferred months ago. "So what's the big deal about today?"
"Steve's giving it one last shot," Natasha explained. "He's in the interrogation room while Wanda's on the other side, basically reading Rumlow's mind."
That made Bucky pause and stare at Nat in sudden concern. "Whose idea was that?"
"Wanda's," Natasha replied. "Why?"
Bucky didn't answer. Instead, he turned and let the retinal scan next to the door identify him and let him through the doors. At least that was the plan - as it turned out, he didn't have clearance for that part of the facility.
He turned and glared at Natasha, who merely shrugged and said, "That was Fury's call. Don't look at me."
"Let me in there," he said simply.
"Why? What are you gonna do?"
Rather than answer, he shot her a question of his own. "Who worked with him on the side he really believed in?"
"Maybe that's why you should stay out here," Natasha replied.
"And if it was someone from your past, from the Red Room?" Bucky asked. Natasha paused then, exhaling lightly, and he knew he had won.
Just then, Clint walked past them in the hallway, glancing at them and saying in a slightly high-pitched voice, "We're ex-Russian assassins and we like to stand around and speak in the mother tongue so all these uncultured Americans can't understand us. We're so cool!"
Natasha snickered and Bucky watched Clint walk away, slightly confused until he realized that he'd done it again and hadn't even realized he'd been speaking another language with Natasha. It had happened before, quite a few times, and each time he hadn't noticed until afterwards. Oh well.
He looked at Natasha again, and she gave him a look before stepping up to the retinal scan herself. The doors opened a moment later, and she walked inside first as he followed her from behind.
"Just don't kill the bastard, okay?" she said, leading him down the hallway.
"Take all my fun," Bucky muttered under his breath.
"I'm sorry, I just think this is really funny," Summer snorted, sitting on the floor of her living room with her back to the couch behind her. "The first wedding I'm officially doing the design on, and the bride wants a winter wonderland theme."
Flanking her were Esteban and Nicolo, the former of which pointed out as she searched for decorations on her laptop, "Yes, I know. That's one of the reasons why I thought of you. Your entire life is a winter wonderland, so who better to put it all together?"
"More like her bed is a winter wonderland," Nicolo said quietly before Summer made him
laugh by gently smacking his arm.
"Hey, simmer down, there. Besides, it hasn't been a wonderland since like... forty pounds ago," she said, squaring her shoulders as she started scrolling through packages of fake snow. "How many guests are invited to the wedding?"
"125," Esteban replied. "And what? Don't tell me there's fizzle in the sizzle."
Summer paused and had to stare at him a moment before his meaning sunk in. "Oh! Oh no, no. We're good there. I'm just saying, we've been stuck using the same position for like two months now, and ever since the baby dropped, oh my God it feels weird when he's... ya know..."
"In there?" Esteban guessed, and Summer nodded.
"Yeah. So not really a wonderland so much as... lovely but repetitive and sometimes really uncomfortable... land," she shrugged.
"You poor thing," Esteban replied half-sarcastically. "I have so much sympathy for you. Nicolo, aren't you just full of sympathy too?"
"So full I can barely stand it," he nodded.
"Incidentally," Esteban told Summer with a wave of his hand, "he said the same thing last light, under much different circumstances."
It went right over Summer's head until she stopped and suddenly exclaimed, "Oh my God!" Esteban cackled with laughter while she said, "Well, thanks for putting an image in my head that I'll never get out."
"You are very welcome, sweetie," Esteban smiled. "So, when are you evicting this kid?"
Summer sighed and leaned back against the foot of the couch, ignoring the computer for now. "I don't know. I hope soon. I've been trying everything to get contractions started - taking walks, exercising as much as I can which isn't much, other things."
"Sex?" Nicolo guessed. "I had to hear all about this when my sister was close to having her baby. Talk about images you'll never get out of your head."
As Nicolo grimaced, Summer shrugged and replied, "Well, it does work. We did it today before he went to work, but it only started the fake contractions."
"Fake?" Esteban repeated confusedly.
"Braxton-Hicks contractions," she clarified. "They're like practice ones. Not the real thing."
"Are you sure?" Nicolo asked. "Are they still coming?"
"Yeah," she shrugged again. "But they don't hurt. They just make my belly feel really hard. Trust me, I remember what real labor feels like." She widened her eyes and shuddered at the memory.
"Well, my sister said the same thing, believe it or not," Nicolo replied, "and she ended up having her baby in my parents' kitchen."
Summer stared at him and quickly replied, "That is not happening. I'm not that delirious. And I am not having this baby anywhere but the birthing center I'm shelling out five grand for."
Esteban inhaled sharply. "Five grand?"
"It's a really great place," she replied. "I love the midwife. The room I reserved has a jacuzzi tub and lots of room, and most importantly, they respect our privacy and have no idea my husband's a super wanted fugitive."
"That's always good," Esteban nodded. "Now you need to hurry up and have the baby, because I can so see this -" he gestured to the three of them huddled together, "becoming a thing."
"A thing? What kind of thing?" she grinned.
"Just imagine it," Esteban said, looking ahead into the distance - which was just the living room wall - and dramatically holding out his hand as if to show them a new world. "The three of us together, a wedding dream team. Event planning and design plus photography. All any bride needs to make her big day beautiful, and take away the stress of having to deal with angry caterers and bitter cake-bakers herself."
Staring at the wall as well, Summer tilted her head. "You know... that's actually... a good idea."
"Isn't it?" Esteban said with glee.
"I cannot count the times I've heard a bride say she wished that I offered more than just photography," Nicolo nodded. "It would be a great opportunity."
"Yes! And you would do most of your work from home," Esteban pointed out to Summer. "And then on the wedding days, you could just leave the baby with Winter Wonderland or strap her to your back and go."
"... But are you sure?" she squinted. "I mean, I'm barely even starting the work on this wedding. I might suck."
Esteban paused and gave her a hard look. "You have been Stark Industries' event planner for how long now? Hmm? Designing parties and even balls for the rich and famous? Organizing benefits? Schmoozing with the Mayor of New York City and the Governor and even Bill Clinton that one time -"
"Okay, okay," she sighed. "I get it. And by the way, I did not schmooze with Bill. I just kind of lurked and eavesdropped while he told Tony all about his recent trip to Belize without Hillary."
"That scoundrel," Esteban grinned. "But see, exactly my point. Weddings for you will be a piece of cake. Just consider it a little extra income that you can spend on... I don't know... what do you spend money on?"
"Food, mostly," Summer admitted. "Bucky eats like a horse and so do I lately. Then there's rent and the car payment and David's school and other bills and clothes and baby stuff and furniture and insurance and -"
"See, so a little extra money never hurts," Esteban pointed out.
"Yes, and the best part is seeing the bride's face on the big day," Nicolo smiled. "There really is nothing like knowing that you helped make someone happy on one of the most important days of their life."
Summer smiled back and then glanced back and forth between both men. "Are you sure you guys shouldn't be in sales? Because I'm pretty sure I'm sold."
Esteban clapped happily with glee. "Yay! Now let's get back to work before you go into labor."
Summer laughed and scoffed at the same time, placing her hand on her belly and feeling it harden up with another "practice" contraction. It got really hard at the peak of the contraction, but she still didn't think anything of it. She got back to work, expecting to be pregnant forever and not letting herself get her hopes up that anything would be happening soon.
When Bucky caught up to the interrogation room, both he and Natasha fell silent upon walking inside and finding Wanda on their side of the two-way mirror. She was standing completely still, eyes closed and brows knit tightly in concentration, and Bucky glanced into the glass to find Steve talking and Rumlow, not surprisingly, staring at him and saying nothing.
A woman who could literally read a person's mind was obviously someone that any interrogation team would covet greatly, but it was a skill that Wanda used sparingly for good reason. Bucky wasn't sure that he liked this, her getting inside the mind of a madman and trying to look around it for the sort of useful information that he had thus far refused to give up. She was young and still getting used to her powers and testing their limits, while Rumlow was much older and arguably HYDRA's most fervent believer. He wasn't in it for the money or for revenge or any other personal reason. He was in it because he truly believed in it and wanted to change the world, and his mind wasn't one to be lightly entered into.
He and Natasha watched quietly for awhile, saying nothing and watching everything carefully. The first twitch of Wanda's finger on one of her crossed arms didn't escape either of their notices. Next her breathing started to become a little more labored, heavier as her eyes clenched more tightly shut, and Bucky's instinct to move forward and make her stop was instant. Natasha's hand shooting out and stopping him made him pause, but only for a moment.
Wanda's eyes opened, glowing red - the deepest scarlet he'd ever seen in her otherwise light green eyes - and she began backing away from the glass with a sort of daze about her, like she wasn't seeing what was in front of her but rather whatever was transpiring in her own head. Maybe it was simply a result of how much she felt like family ever since David had decided that she was the best thing in the world, or it could have been due to how much Bucky despised the very idea of the mind of someone he cared about being compromised, but he ignored Natasha's latest warning and headed straight for Wanda.
He said her name and reached out his right hand to her arm, and that one touch triggered her self-defense instincts. With one swift, reflexive wave of the same arm he'd touched, she blasted him into the interrogation window, powerful enough to shatter the bulletproof glass and shocking her out of the trance while he hit the floor along with a thousand tiny shards of glass. He'd had worse, of course, and though it hurt like hell, he got up as quickly as he could to help Wanda as she stared at what she'd done and blinked in deep confusion.
On his way to her, Bucky got one look into the holding room as Rumlow and Steve stared back at him before Natasha hit a button that closed up the window with a reinforced steel panel. Apparently, they had a very efficient backup plan for if the glass shattered like it just had. As the window closed, Bucky felt the familiar stir of rage inside at his former handler's face, but he shoved it down to deal with it later.
Gently, he grabbed Wanda's arms and got her to look at him rather than the pile of glass on the floor. "What happened?" he asked, seeing the lingering but slowly fading red color in her eyes as she blinked and breathed heavily still, just barely out of the throes of whatever had happened to her. "Wanda, what happened?"
"I... I was in his head, I was... looking for something we could use. But..."
"But what?" he urged her, Natasha watching closely from just behind him.
"I don't know. It was horrible, I can still feel it... feel him and... I wasn't just seeing his mind, I was in it and I could feel it and..."
"Try to calm down," he said as comfortingly as he could. "It's over." Then he glanced over his shoulder at Natasha and said. "You never should have let her do this."
"She volunteered," Natasha replied.
"She volunteered for HYDRA too," Bucky pointed out. "Doesn't mean she should have."
"No, she's right," Wanda said, pulling away from him. She was still trembling but her eyes were mostly free of red now. "I didn't give them a choice. I wanted to do this. I was fine until I... looked deeper and... I felt his rage, his hatred, and... there was so much death and killing. He likes it..."
Unsure of what else to do, Bucky hugged her the way that he'd hug David after a particularly bad nightmare. He gave Natasha a still-disapproving look as he did, and then Steve walked out of the holding room with a look of great concern on his face.
"What happened?"
"She got a little too deep into Rumlow's head," Natasha replied. "Wasn't pretty."
"I'm sorry," Steve told Wanda as Bucky let go of her. "I never should have let you -"
"None of you let me do anything," Wanda replied, clearly sick of the hand-wringing following the incident. "This was my choice. None of you control me."
"Of course not," Steve said, eyes flickering to Bucky as Wanda briefly calmed at his sincere tone. "I understand. Did you find anything useful?"
She looked down and shook her head. "No. But I can tell you that he will never tell any of us anything. He believes in HYDRA too much. He will die for his cause before he gives up one name."
Steve sighed. "Figures. Thank you for trying. It was very brave of you, Wanda."
Wanda nodded, furrowing her brows before glancing at all three people in the room and saying, "He hates all of you because he... likes you."
"What?" Natasha asked you.
"He didn't want to be your enemy," she clarified. "He liked working with you and Steve. He thought he could somehow convince you both to join his side."
"Well then, he's obviously as delusional as we thought," Steve remarked.
"And you," she said, looking at Bucky. "He admired you. He thought you were underused and... the closest thing I can say to describe what he felt is that he wanted to be partners. Lead HYDRA together, once they won."
Bucky stared at her, his anger making another appearance deep inside. But Steve was the one who felt rage at her words, and the proof was the murderous look in his eye as he stared a hole into the wall that Rumlow was sitting behind.
"Come on," Natasha said, gesturing for Wanda to follow her out of the room. "You've risked enough for one day. Let's go get something to eat."
Wanda nodded, looking up at Bucky and giving him a look that he understood as one of quiet gratitude. Then she followed Natasha out of the room, leaving Steve and Bucky alone as the door clicked shut behind him. The slight glare that Steve instantly got from Bucky came as no surprise.
"Look, before you start yelling at me..."
"Would you want to get inside of his head?" Bucky asked simply. "She's already been through hell and she -"
"I didn't want her to do it either," Steve interrupted. "She's not exactly the type of woman to let anyone tell her what to do."
Bucky sighed, deciding to just let that one go for now. If only the people he cared about weren't so stubborn and oblivious to their own well being...
"Let me talk to him," Bucky said after a moment of silence.
Steve looked at him in mild incredulity. "You heard her - he's not gonna give us anything. There's no use."
"Yes there is," Bucky replied. "Let me talk to him."
Steve seemed uncertain, both of Bucky's motives and if he should give in to his request. Bucky didn't feel hurt at all by this, since even he wasn't totally sure what would happen once he walked into that room. But what he did know was that he wanted one last word with the man before he was thrown inside a federal prison for the rest of his life.
"You're not really giving me a choice here, are you?" Steve asked.
Bucky shook his head. "But I'd do the same for you."
Steve's expression softened then, just before he sighed and headed towards the door to where Rumlow sat in chains. Bucky followed him there, and just as the door opened, Steve told him quietly, "Be careful."
Bucky nodded before walking inside. Steve shut the door behind him, and Bucky's gaze immediately went to Rumlow, who was sitting on a steel bench behind a steel table, shackled to the floor and looking distinctly unsurprised to see him.
There was a lot that Bucky wanted to say and do to the man, who had been not only his handler and a recurring face in some of his worst memories, but also the man who had blown up Summer's house and nearly killed both her and David. He didn't deserve to live, but Bucky had spared him the last time they'd met, and he wasn't there to kill him now. But he knew he'd want to the minute Rumlow opened his mouth.
He wasn't wrong.
"Hey, pal."
Bucky tightened his jaw and held back the instant wave of anger in his veins. Rumlow wasn't worth it, and to remind himself of this, he looked at the wedding ring on his right hand finger as he walked towards the table. He sat on the other side as he looked up at the former HYDRA agent, saying quietly but evenly, "I know you're not gonna give me a damn thing, so I'm not gonna interrogate you."
"Then what are you gonna do?" Rumlow asked, tone light and curious. "You gonna kill me before I get to check out my fancy new cell in D.C.?" Bucky shook his head, so Rumlow then said, "Ah. So you must want answers, then."
"What do you think I want answers to?" Bucky asked.
"What don't you want answers to?" Rumlow chuckled, the scars around his eyes crinkling as he smiled. "You wanted answers back when you couldn't even remember the questions."
Bucky's frown became a scowl at those words, and a question then came to him. "Fine, you want a question? How could you sit there and watch what they did to me when you supposedly 'admired' me? How does a human being watch something like that and do nothing?"
Rumlow didn't flinch. "Because you were important. You were serving your purpose, and your purpose was way beyond mine back then. To be honest, I envied you."
Bucky stared at him in disbelief.
"Yeah, they treated you like shit, treated you like a weapon instead of a person. That was your fault."
"My fault?" Bucky repeated quietly, almost flabbergasted by the mere suggestion.
"If you hadn't fought HYDRA every chance you got, you would have been leading the whole damn thing. They wanted you to be a lot more than what you were. But every time they'd take you out of cryo, you'd only last so long before they'd have to wipe you and start over. They tried to have you train new recruits back in the 80s, but it didn't work out so well."
Bucky glared at the other man hard enough to inspire great fear in anyone else, but Rumlow seemed incapable of fear in his current state.
"Have you remembered that one yet?" Rumlow asked, leaning forward slightly. "I wasn't there, of course, but I heard about it. Pierce had just gotten you from the Soviets. He was a lot younger back then. He thought you had potential that was being wasted and that the Russians just hadn't known how to use you properly. So he started out small, with training exercises with some of his new agents. You killed two of them before he made you stop. Wanna know how he did that?"
The answer was no, but Bucky couldn't say a word.
"Think about it," Rumlow teased. "Who did Pierce look like back then? Young guy, clean cut, blonde hair, blue eyes, former military. Ring a bell?"
Bucky was now quite literally shaking with rage, but he was doing his very best to hide it.
"It's true," Rumlow shrugged, leaning back. "But after that, he put you back on ice and only brought you out to do his dirty work. My thing always was, if I could just get Cap on our side, then you wouldn't need to keep getting wiped over and over. He'd be all the motivation you needed to do the job. And the two of you would be unstoppable."
Despite his anger, Bucky laughed. "You thought you could get Steve to work for HYDRA?"
"Well, he kind of already was, wasn't he?" Rumlow grinned. "But no, you're right. It was a stupid idea. Shame, though. You guys could have changed the world together."
"We already did that once," Bucky replied. "Nothing stopping us from doing it again."
Rumlow eyed him for a moment. "You know what I think is funny? You think you're free, right? That you're not a weapon anymore, that you're your own person. But look at you. You're still a weapon. You just switched sides to the losing team."
"You're the one in shackles, not me," Bucky replied.
He laughed. "Yeah. But I'm not the whole of HYDRA. Neither was Strucker. There's always more of us. And we're always watching and waiting. We're patient." His eyes flickered to Bucky's fist on the table. "Nice ring, by the way. How was the big day?"
That was the point at which Bucky's rage threatened to turn blinding. "One fucking word about her and I swear..."
"My men always wanted the job of tracking your girl," Rumlow said conversationally, like he wasn't digging his own grave deeper with each word. "Some of them were pretty rough. You should be thanking me for only assigning the ones I knew would keep their distance. If I hadn't, poor thing might not be in one piece."
Just the barest insinuation of what Rumlow was implying had Bucky seeing red and all but jumping to his feet, grabbing Rumlow by the throat and trying to toss him against the wall. When the shackles prevented this, Bucky tore them out of the floor with his metal arm and then slammed Rumlow to the wall.
"You answer me or I'll rip your fucking head off," Bucky growled as the other hand struggled in his metal chokehold. "You said HYDRA's still around and always watching. Are they watching her?"
"How would I know," he choked and sputtered. "I've been locked up here for months."
Bucky yanked him forward and then slammed him back into the wall, causing a resounding cracking sound of his skull hitting the steel. "Who's in charge with you and Strucker gone?"
"You know I'm not gonna tell you anything," Rumlow replied, still struggling. "You're wasting your time."
Bucky did indeed know that, but he didn't care.
"And you're not gonna kill me," Rumlow added. "You didn't do it before and you won't do it now."
"We'll see about that," Bucky said before picking him up by the throat and throwing him into the corner. He knew he only had a certain amount of time to do this before Steve came in and stopped him, so as pointless as it may have been, he had to finish it quickly.
Rumlow merely laughed like the crazy bastard that he was, all but welcoming the pummeling that was coming his way.
Work all but forgotten for the time being, Summer was losing a round of Mario Kart to her seven year old son and two very competitive friends when her lingering contractions started to gain more and more of her attention. They still didn't hurt, but they were coming often enough that she began to secretly time them on her phone in between playing.
It turned out that they were quite regular and only five minutes apart. After the end of one race, Esteban glanced over at her phone and asked, "Are you timing what I think you're timing?"
"Yeah, but I still don't think they're real," she said, shrugging a little. "They'll stop in a little while."
"Whatever you say, crazy lady," Esteban said. "I don't want to end up delivering your baby here on the floor, using my nice expensive shoelaces to tie off the cord."
She scoffed. "You won't. Hey, help me up so can go pee."
Esteban quickly obliged and so did Nicolo, each taking her hand and helping her get up to her feet. She was exhausted by the time that she was finally standing, but then she felt a distinct and very memorable popping sensation deep within her abdomen, and one considerably large gush of water later, Summer froze utterly still and went pale.
"What? Are you okay?" Nicolo asked, both men immediately noticing that something was off. David turned around and looked too, eyes widening and expression becoming very obviously disgusted as his gaze travelled down to the tiny puddle on the floor at her feet.
"Um... I either just completely uncontrollably peed all over myself, or my water broke."
Both men gasped. David made a face and took a step back, lest his cool light-up shoes fall victim to the alien, clearly gross, liquid.
"Is there a way to... check?" Esteban asked, eyes the size of saucers.
"Well, considering I felt a pop before it happened and I'm not incontinent, I'm like 100% sure it was my water breaking."
Esteban cursed a colorful, long sentence in Spanish, and Summer's voice got progressively higher pitched and more panicked as she then said, "Um, okay, first of all, I'm gonna need someone to call Bucky. Then I'm gonna need someone to call my midwife. Then I'm gonna need my hospital bag from my room, some towels to sit on in the car, and oh holy fricking crap now the contractions hurt!"
The men lowered her down to the couch as Summer clutched her giant belly and grimaced in pain now that the cushion of the amniotic fluid was all but gone. Breathing more heavily now as pain shot across her belly and all the way into her lower back, David came closer to her and stared in concern as Esteban and Nicolo began scrambling for their phones.
This was happening. Despite how convinced she'd been that she would be pregnant for at least another two weeks, apparently she was going to be giving birth within the next 24 hours, as was the medical protocol when the water was broken. When the contraction passed, she looked up at David and smiled. "Your sister's coming, kid. This isn't a drill, it's happening. Mama's having a baby. Oh boy, I'm having a baby."
David's eyes grew bigger, and then Esteban yelled from across the room, "Bucky's not answering!"
She groaned and then screeched, "Then call Steve!"
"I don't have his number!"
"My phones on the table, get it and call him!" she said, turning her eyes back to David. "You know my pink bag that I keep in my room?" He nodded, and she added, "Go get that for me and bring it here. I need to double check that I packed everything I need."
David quickly ran off to get the bag, and Summer's mind began to race with questions that she couldn't even begin to answer. Would the contractions keep coming or would she need medicine to have Adelaide within 24 hours? Would it go smoothly? Would there be complications? What if she had the baby super fast and she just popped out before Bucky even got to her? What if he missed the entire birth?!
David came back with her bag in hand as Nicolo got her midwife on the phone. He handed the phone off to her as she began looking through the bag, rattling off the latest developments to the midwife while also checking off everything she needed to take with her.
Baby's first outfit, check. Clothes for her, a hairbrush and various toiletries, extra chargers, some cash, diapers, blankets, little pink hats - all checked off the list. And perhaps most importantly, a little vial of potion from Thor's wedding gift to her.
"Okay, I'm coming right now," she said, still holding the potion. "Thanks. Bye."
She ended the call as Esteban noticed the weird little tube in her hand and asked, "What's that?"
"Asgardian pain relief potion... stuff," she replied, like that was a totally normal thing to have in one's hospital bag. "Instead of an epidural. Has anyone answered yet?" When Esteban shook his head, she half-yelled, "Then call Natasha! I'm gonna fricking kill those old men!"
As she wailed and then braced herself for another contraction that she felt coming on, David stood by her side and didn't leave, knowing that responsibility for her well-being fell on his shoulders in his father's absence. He took this very seriously, and even though he was still grossed out and not entirely sure where babies came out of, he didn't budge and he even held Summer's hand through the pain.
She couldn't have asked for a better son. But if Bucky didn't pick up his damn phone soon, her husband would be going straight on her everlasting poop list.
Natasha was the first to answer her phone. She quickly made her way to Steve, who gaped at her and then quickly called Summer back on his phone that had been on silent in his pocket. Then he burst into the interrogation room, where Bucky was quite preoccupied at that moment.
He was punching Rumlow in the face, repeatedly, bloodying every inch that his metal fist came into contact with, while he yelled the same question and threat at him over and over.
"Tell me if someone's watching us or I swear to God I'll -"
"Bucky!"
Steve's voice was the one thing that could have made Bucky pause what he was doing and look behind him. Steve stood there, holding his cell in his hand, looking wide-eyed and breathless as he said, "There's an emergency. Let him go."
The word emergency immediately made Bucky think of the worst - an accident, an attack, something bad happening to Summer or either one of his kids, so he dropped the rather useless Rumlow to the floor and quickly marched up to Steve and snatched the phone.
"Hello?"
"I'm going to kill you for not answering your phone, you jerk!" Summer's voice screeched in his ear.
"What? What's going on?" he asked quietly, furrowing his brows and trying to decipher the odd look on Steve's face.
"I'm in labor and I'm in the car on my way to the midwife now!" she exclaimed.
His eyes widened and his heart suddenly dropped and started beating wildly all at once. "What?"
"My water broke in the living room, I was sitting on the floor and then I stood up and just bam. And by the way, the whole, uh, thing this morning totally started contractions after all."
He blinked rapidly, mind racing as excitement and happiness replaced the anger and hatred that had been there before. "Okay. I'm leaving now. Who's with you?"
"David, Esteban, and Nicolo," she replied, and he breathed a sigh of relief. She was in good hands.
"All right. I'm coming. I'll call you back."
He then hung up and shoved the phone back into Steve's hand. Without a word, he turned around, walked over to where Rumlow was slumped on the floor half-propped against the wall, and promptly knocked him out by literally stomping on his head. Having gotten that out of the way, Bucky turned back around and began storming out of the interrogation room.
"You okay?" Steve asked, every bit as wild-eyed as Bucky felt inside but was hiding under his pure determination. "Is she okay?"
"She's fine," he said without turning around. "I'll call you from the... baby place."
He didn't stop until Steve grabbed his arm and made him stop walking for a moment. He turned and then watched as Steve smiled at him and patted his arm. "Bucky... you're about to have a baby."
Despite the fact that only moments ago he'd been beating a scumbag from his past to a pulp and getting no answers for it, none of it mattered as Bucky smiled back and felt nervous little jitters fluttering within. "Yeah."
"Go," Steve grinned, patting his arm one more time. "Keep me updated."
"I will," Bucky assured him with another smile before turning and heading back towards the hallway, his long and quick strides matching the determined voice in his head telling him to get to his woman as quickly as possible.
Halfway through his march across the facility, he passed Clint chatting with Rhodey as they headed the way that he was coming from. As they passed one another, Clint asked, "Where're you going in such a hurry?"
"Summer's in labor," Bucky replied without breaking his stride.
Turning to watch him go, Rhodey tossed him a thumbs up and a good luck before Clint half-shouted, "Be careful, man! And I call dibs on holding that kid before Nat does! I'm serious!"
Bucky glanced back and gave Clint a look that said yeah right, then turned forward again and didn't stop walking until he'd reached his bike in the garage. Moments later, he was speeding down the road and calling Summer on his hands-free device.
She answered halfway through the first ring. "Are you on your way yet?"
"Just got on the road," he replied, zipping down the mostly empty highway and preparing to drive like an utter maniac to get to her faster. "How you holding up?"
"I'm okay," she replied, though she sounded incredibly nervous. "We just got to the birthing center and I'm checking into my room now. You remember how to get here, right?"
"Yeah, I do," he assured her. "Sorry I didn't answer my phone. I was in the middle of something and I just... I wasn't paying attention. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," she sighed. "Just hurry up and get here. But don't go so fast that you get pulled over."
"Don't worry about me," he replied. "I'll be there. How's David?"
"Perfect. He hasn't left my side and he holds my hand every time I get a contraction."
Bucky smiled a little to himself. "Good. Knew I could count on him."
"Yeah, but I need you here," she said, voice wobbling a little bit. "I really do. I'm nervous and I wasn't expecting this and I just..."
"Everything's gonna be okay," he assured her. "Just try to stay as calm as you can. You've got that pain stuff, right?"
"Yeah," she replied. "I'm actually holding it right now, just to make sure it doesn't get broken somehow."
"Okay. Just hang on and I'll be there in..." He checked his watch and then added, "Twenty minutes."
"Twenty minutes," she repeated with a sigh. "Okay. I'll see you then."
"I love you," he said, meaning it with every fiber of his being and then some.
"I love you too. Ignore the three angry voicemails I left you when you weren't picking up."
He chuckled, changing lanes and merging on to the slightly busier highway that would take him to the birthing center. "Oh, I'm definitely listening to those later."
"Jerk," she sighed. "Oh, gotta go, I'm going back now."
"All right, see you there," he said before the call ended and he sped up to pass the three other vehicles in front of him. A driver he cut off in the process honked angrily at him, but he couldn't have cared less. He had a mission to see through to the end, and it was among the most important ones he'd ever faced in his life. Soon, in only a matter of hours, he'd officially be a father of not one but two, and he and Summer would be holding a little girl who had already forever changed their lives.
He drove a little faster, desperate to get there as soon as he possibly could. Aside from his wedding day, he'd never been so simultaneously happy and terrified in his life.
After she had hung up, Summer had been escorted by a nurse to the room that she would be giving birth in. Being a birthing center rather than a hospital, the room was both sterile and home-y, and she got to climb into a perfectly comfy bed rather than a tiny hospital one before the nurse helped her get changed. Happy to be out of her clothes that her water had broken all over, she changed into a comfortable but hideous little gown that the center provided, then waited for the midwife to come back and examine her.
Everyone else got to come back first, so that meant that Summer was surrounded by one little boy and two grown men when the midwife showed up. All three male pairs of eyes pointedly shifted away from her and stayed away as the midwife, an energetic lady in her 30s named Claire that Summer adored, wasted no time in getting in there and seeing what was up. Summer held still and grimaced, despising these exams as much as she'd had when she was in labor with David, but good news came of it.
"Wow," Claire marveled. "You're totally effaced, and I'm gonna say... five centimeters dilated already."
Summer's eyes popped open wide. "What? How?"
"How long have you been having contractions? Did you say since this morning?"
Summer nodded. "Yeah, but they were the stupid ones."
Claire laughed and sat back, letting her close her legs and thus allowing the men to stop staring determinedly at the walls. "Obviously not. You're moving right along. Where's the hubby? Is he on his way?"
"Yeah, he should be, but he might still be maybe five or ten minutes from -"
Just then, the door opened and the only thing missing from the slightly dramatic moment was a love song suddenly blaring as Summer's eyes met those of her husband, who had finally arrived and looked almost as frazzled as she felt. That fast, she instantly felt better. Her anxiety calmed down a bit and her mind stopped racing at last, now that she had him near and knew that he wouldn't be going anywhere.
"I'm sorry, I got here as fast as I could," he said, nodding quickly to Esteban and Nicolo before heading straight for Summer. He spared David a heartfelt smile before giving Summer a quick but sweet hug and kiss, then taking his seat in a small chair next to Summer's bed and asking, "What did I miss?"
"Well, she's definitely in labor," Claire smiled brightly. "She's going great. If she follows the average timetable for dilation, we're looking at about five or six hours until it's time to push."
"That's it?" Bucky asked, looking at Summer with wide eyes. His hand gently holding hers, she gave it a squeeze and smiled happily at him just before her belly started tightening with a new contraction. His brows furrowed slightly and he frowned as she looked away, closing her eyes to focus on breathing through the pain.
Once the contraction passed and Summer was catching her breath, Claire asked, "What did we decide on for pain management again?"
"An, um... herbal mixture," Summer replied, since "magical, FDA-non-approved Asgardian stuff" wouldn't exactly have gained the midwife's approval. "And I want to use the tub for sure. And get up and walk around as much as I can."
"Good, good," Claire smiled. "And you can have as many people in here as you want, but just so non-family members know," she smiled at Esteban and Nicolo, "we have a waiting area just outside. I'll be back to check on you in a bit, okay?"
Summer nodded, thanking the lady before she left and closed the door behind her. She took a deep breath, and all was quiet for a moment as she and Bucky stared at each other, a thousand unspoken words passing between them and leaving Summer feeling like she could do this now. She had Bucky, she had her family, and Natasha had texted ten minutes before that she was on her way as well.
She had this. She was already half the way there, in terms of how ready her body was, and she even had Asgardian magic on standby. This was going to be easy.
She hoped so, at least.
"Nicolo?" she said quietly, looking his way as he immediately looked up and smiled when he heard his name. "Do you think that maybe... you could stay and take some pictures?"
"I don't see why not," he smiled without hesitation. "My camera's in my car."
"Thank you," she said sincerely, smile growing wider. "It would mean a lot to me to have some pictures of the baby being born. Not the blood and gore, of course, but the... you know, the pretty stuff."
"Of course," he chuckled. "I've done this before. I would be happy to do it."
Esteban sighed. "I guess I can take care of David then, so I feel a little useful."
Summer chuckled, then looked back at Bucky as he rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. Another contraction hit, stronger than before, and Summer sat up straighter to get some of the pressure off of her back. Soon it would be time to give the Asgardian potion a swig, but she wanted to progress a little further, just in case it acted like an epidural and slowed labor down.
Once it was over, she let out a long breath and opened her eyes. "Ouch. Okay, Bucky, help me up. I want to walk around."
He was at her side in an instant, helping her to her feet and holding her hand as she began to walk or, rather, penguin-waddle around the room. As she began the real part of her labor, the part that required work, patience, and strength, the others slowly dispersed. First Nicolo left to fetch his camera, and then Esteban took David out to find some food for them both to eat. Once they were alone, walking around the room in aimless but purposeful circles, Summer found it easier to be honest with Bucky and say something she had been trying to keep inside.
"I'm scared," she said as her footsteps came to a stop in front of one of the room's several windows. Outside was a field full of flowers and greenness, a calming visual for women who were looking for a focal point during labor, but the thing that calmed Summer the most was looking up at Bucky and seeing his eyes focused wholly on her.
"Why?" he asked quietly, comfortingly tucking away the only piece of her hair not secured in one of Esteban's impressively tight braids.
"Because everything's about to change," she said, still staring up into his eyes. "You know that, right?"
He nodded. "Yeah, I know."
"We're never gonna sleep," she said. "Or have time to ourselves. Working's gonna get harder. I only have two months maternity leave, and that's good for this country. And I..." She trailed off, closing her eyes and grabbing his shoulders as a contraction took hold. They were turning into doozies now, and she had to fight not to hold her breath through the all-encompassing pain. It made her belly feel so hard and tight that it felt like it might just burst, and she broke into a nauseating sweat at the peak of the contraction. But Bucky was there to talk her down from it, and his voice in her ear and hands on top of hers were everything she needed to make it through.
Once she was breathing again, he said, "I know everything's gonna be different. I know some things are gonna be hard and it won't be all... pink bunnies and rainbows," he smiled. "But that's okay. I know she's worth it. And worth a whole lot more."
She smiled warmly at him, his words soothing her nerves a bit. "Who do you think she'll look like?"
"Well... seeing as we have the same eye color and almost the same hair color, probably both of us."
Summer chuckled and shook her head. "Yeah, but like... whose nose will she have? That kind of thing."
"Hopefully she comes out looking exactly like you and nothing like me," he quipped, smiling. "Although then if she did, I'm gonna have to start killing a lot of teenage boys about sixteen years from now..."
"I hate to break it to you," she pointed out with an amused little smile, "but if she came out looking exactly like you... she'd still be super hot one day. Arguably hotter, actually."
Bucky rolled his eyes but didn't argue. "Dammit."
She nodded in agreement. "She's doomed to being hot."
"Now I'm scared."
Summer laughed, just a few minutes alone with him enough to put her back at ease when the worries had begun to creep up on her. He leaned down and placed a soft, short kiss on her lips and then told her sincerely as he cradled her face, "You're going to do amazing. You're already doing amazing. Soon this is gonna be over and she's gonna be here." He paused and then repeated as if he couldn't believe it, "She's gonna be here."
She smiled and nodded, reaching up to wipe away a sudden tear that had come out of nowhere. "I can't wait to see her and hold her. I'm gonna cry just thinking about it."
And she did, but it was okay, because Bucky was there to wipe away the tear and then kiss her forehead, and Nicolo had reappeared just in time to capture the moment on camera. She smiled and then took Bucky's hand in hers to start walking again, determined to stay on her feet for as long as she could. She was still scared and she could tell that he was too, but it was the good kind of fear that they felt, not the destructive kind that they had both faced many times before.
And besides, they were in this together. She knew they'd make it through, and the reward at the end would be utterly priceless.
"And just think," he told her after they'd paused in their walk to let another contraction pass. "Once this is over, you get to have coffee again."
She groaned at the mere thought and decided then that Bucky was actually the best labor partner that a girl could ask for. Now she just had to get through it.
A/N: I hate to leave you guys on a note like that and make you wait another week for the baby to come, but... well, I'm a jerk and that's just how it turned out this week :D Also, sorry for the late update, but I had a weirdly difficult time with this chapter. I thought I was going to have to skip a week but then I managed to finally get it all out lol. I hope you guys like it! :D thank you all so much for reading and reviewing and sticking around with this gigantic story :D
Also, errrr, one more note before I go :) A few days ago I got an Ao3 account, just as kind of a companion/backup account to this one, a place where I can post certain things that wouldn't fit in here, or maybe longer versions of chapters with more details of things, idk yet lol. But I have it now, and my user name is the same but just without the space, so TeamDamon, and later on today I'm going to be cleaning up and putting the final touches on a... thing... that I'm going to be posting there lol, and before anyone gets excited, it's completely unrelated to anything I have posted here. It's my first crack at a reader style fic, and let's just say that it's also my first crack at real-person fiction that I've ever had the guts to actually post somewhere lol. So basically, if any of you lovely readers would be interested in reading a Chris Evans/reader story that uhhh doesn't have a lot of plot in it (heh heh), then go ahead and, later today, look for it on Ao3. I'll just be here, hiding behind my couch forever, because I can't believe I'm actually posting it for others to see. Lol. But it's nice. Or at least I think so. I'll leave that for those of you willing to go and read it to decide lol.
And if THAT isn't your cup of tea, no worries! Just stick around for next week, where we all get to finally meet Adelaide :D I myself can't wait for that one. Feels like it's taken the little brat forever to fictionally get here :D Anyway, my thanks to all of you again and to midnightwings96 as well for always ALWAYS having my back, and I will see you all next week! :D