Captain America hated Sundays.

Likely or not, it seemed that unless he and his team had been deployed for a mission, and sometimes even then, crime, aliens, and even HYDRA took the Sabbath, and God's admonishment to rest, seriously.

Steve Rogers, the man behind the red, white, and blue spandex outfit and shiny shield, had, as Falcon put it, 'no chill', and so Sundays at loose ends with nowhere to go and be the hero, an empty apartment, and co-workers who were at best nominally friendly and at worst sometimes actively hostile, were terribly, frightfully lonely.

He could sketch and did, for a while, until he caught himself searching for his colored pencils to shade in long, wavy hair in particular hues of red and brown. He could watch movies or television, things he knew he liked or things he had yet to see, and did, for a while, until he found himself watching an old black and white movie, the independent female lead sharp-tongued and flirty, the unflappable male lead smitten. He could read or take a walk or clean or a thousand other things that normal, everyday people did on their lazy Sundays but by lunchtime he was standing at his window high above the city, staring morosely down as people drifted or hurried or paused below him, dogs and traffic and the endless rush of New York, of a Brooklyn that had only a handful of things in common with the one of his adolescence, and wondered where she was, what she was doing, if Sundays were as terrible for her as they were for him.

His phone jangled in his pocket, a tinny version of Tony's theme song, or what he claimed was his theme song, some '70s rock anthem about the suit, and he was just desperate enough that he answered it. "Rogers."

"Gramps, you should get in here. There's been a thing."

And just like that, Steve felt like he was back on solid ground. Even retired, Tony had the damndest habit of leaving out every pertinent detail in his quest to remind Steve that he had missed a large part of the twentieth (and some of the twenty-first) century. It was, in its own horrifying way, comforting, and Steve obliged Tony by blowing out a slow, careful breath before asking in a calm, patient voice, "Get in where and what sort of thing?"

There was a silence unlike Tony, so unlike Tony that the hairs on the back of Steve's neck stood on end, unease crawling up to prod at what Peter called his Spidey-sense and Steve just called old-fashioned gut instinct. Finally, Tony said, "He's going to London. Moira…" There was another, longer pause, and then Tony said, so softly Steve wasn't sure he could have heard him if it hadn't been for super-soldier serum, "Your kid is missing."

He wouldn't remember the taxi ride to the airport, would barely register Tony's oblique look and Pepper's concerned hug, and the ride on a Stark jet was a flash of too-long time that left him shaking and sick. As he stepped out onto the tarmac, he was not surprised to find his boss waiting for him, arms crossed, face set in dark, forbidding lines. "This doesn't concern you, Captain."

All day he had managed to keep himself from the brink of imagining the child he'd fathered and then abandoned, the child he'd made with the woman he loved, of the baby that somewhere might be walking, talking, laughing, and calling someone else, someone that wasn't broken, damaged, regretful, heroic Steve Rogers, 'Daddy'.

All day he'd managed it until now, now as Nicholas Fury's words screamed through him like acid, burning away the grief until there was nothing but rage, cold and deadly, and Steve's voice was clipped and short as he brushed past Fury to step into the waiting car, "It does now."

OoO

Moira took the time to straighten her crumpled clothes, to splash away some of the vestiges of her tears with the sting of cold water, to smooth the braid of her hair into the semblance of order. There wasn't anything she could do for the fact she was an ugly crier, her nose raw, her eyes bloodshot and swollen and surrounded by clumped, shining lashes, her rounded cheeks streaked porcelain white and scarlet, and if Fury had been any other man, she would have hoped to play on his sympathies.

But Fury was one of the many reasons it was just Moira and Berry, one of the many reasons Moira had been banished at the end of her first trimester, banished from the facility, banished from her job, banished from her friends and her home and her country and the man she loved, the man she'd trusted, twelve weeks pregnant and exhausted with it and so furious that one man (the fate of the entire world) had that much control over her life.

Furious that even now the man's reach was long, his shadow deep, and furious because there was every possibility that she was going to have to bend to the point of breaking just to get him to help her.

The constable was waiting for her when she finally emerged from the bathroom, his avuncular air not even in the least soothing as he took her elbow and steered her toward a door down the hall, his knock overly loud in the near lunchtime hush of the end of the station where mostly clerical and administrators worked, cleaner walls and shinier tiled floors, softer lighting, conference rooms where there were projectors and comfortable rolling chairs and big, expansive tables.

It was in a room just like this one, the door swinging wide to reveal Fury sitting at the head of the table, almost smirking as she was led in, he sitting in the exact same position wearing the exact same expression, where she'd agreed that yes, of course she understood, of course this was bigger than one couple and one potential person, barely bigger than a lime inside of her, of course.

She thanked the constable quietly even as she wanted to reach across the table and rake her nails down Fury's smug face, even as she wanted to scream and demand and beg, even as she felt rather than saw someone near Fury's elbow half-rise from his seat and reach out a hand toward her, an abortive movement as she rounded on him, tall, handsome, imposing, impossible Steve Rogers, his naturally golden skin ashen, his eyes, Berry's eyes, pure and blue and devastated.

"What?" was the only word she could manage, jagged and brittle, as Steve avoided her penetrating stare after that one quick glance, busying himself by pulling out a chair for her across from Fury, careful not to touch her as she sank down automatically, ever the gentleman who didn't sit until she was settled. She was tempted, almost beyond endurance, to touch him just to make sure he was real. Instead, she clenched her hands together in her lap and tried to ignore that he was here. "I know very little," she warned, eyes firmly on Fury. "The authorities were involved before I was able to do more than recognize that she and her caregiver were missing."

Her. He had a daughter.

Steve blinked, slowly, carefully, and continued to do his best to be invisible. Inside his old, worn boots, his toes had gone numb.

"I know substantially more." Fury slid a Starkpad across to Moira that she accepted and immediately began tapping through, her face tipped down but still visible, the pointed chin, the high forehead, the small nose, the scar under her right eye from the HYDRA revolution she'd weathered with Sharon and a handful of others, the heart-shape not quite but almost ruined by the slash of cheekbones and slender but lovely bow of her mouth. She looked not thinner but sharper, as if the roundness of her cheeks had been hollowed out. He wondered if having their baby (they had a daughter) had changed her so much.

"So much for Tony's fancy alarm system," Moira said finally, breaking the silence and causing Steve to shift awkwardly in his chair, hyper-aware of the chewed state of her nails and the raggedness of her cuticles, habits she'd never quite kicked even as an adult, as she slid the slim black tablet back, angling it slightly toward him. He tapped the table with his forefinger near but not on it, an old signal from years ago that he performed without thinking.

She dipped her chin in acknowledgement: he was here on sufferance and need to know. The tablet had not been offered to him.

"The TK-421 is still in production. How did you get one?" Steve had to stifle a very inappropriate chuckle in the back of his throat at Fury's half-accusatory, half-admiring tone. Moira, he noted, didn't answer, instead making a restless movement with her hands.

"Nothing here tells me who might have my daughter." She hesitated, her eyes flicking to Steve and away. "Or why."

"You know why someone would be interested in her, Ms. Mackney," Fury rejoined severely and Moira flinched, this time her eyes searing across Steve's skin before falling back to her hands, and a terrible, terrible premonition filled Steve's throat. Oh, no. No, no, no.

"Because she might be like Steve," she muttered and before he could think better of it, before he could curb the impulse to know, he blurted, his voice choked,

"Like me?" Which drew both Moira and Fury's stares, Fury's assessing and narrow, Moira's hot and frustrated, and Steve's hunch hardened into painful, depressing certainty. A sharp, tingling sensation shot up his lower legs and into his knees.

"The serum altered your DNA. The child has your DNA. You do the math," Fury confirmed and trying to be rational even as his heart boomed in his chest, Steve looked from Moira to Fury and back again, his brow creased.

"You've never had her tested?"

The silence was long and tense, Moira's lips white, her jaw clenched. Fury leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers under his chin. "We have been denied access to the child. We could, of course, have taken measures to ensure cooperation but felt that the child, in time, would reveal if she had talents without our interference." Moira remained silent despite Fury's indulgent, paternal tone, despite the way Steve dropped his eyes, his foot under the table nudging her ankle, despite the acid churning in her stomach, the patience that had worn paper thin and was shredding fast. "We were prepared to be patient. Unfortunately, others are obviously not so accommodating."

Steve flinched as Moira drew in a sharp breath through her teeth and pushed back from the table, her chair wobbling and nearly falling as she stood in a rush, palms slapping down on the table. "The child? Patient? Accommodating? What a load of shit." She leaned across toward Fury, her voice even and clearly enunciated, her cheeks blazing with color. "Let's cut to the chase, Director. I agree to let her be tested, you agree to help me find her." Steve couldn't stop the noise of protest that they wanted anything in return for finding a lost little girl (his lost little girl) but was silenced by Fury's quick, almost eager acquiescence.

"Yes, tested and, if those tests are positive, you allow us some access for training and supervision. Within reason and with your permission, of course," Fury added and Steve's stomach cramped as Moira's nose wrinkled, her mouth puckered, and she dismissed him and Fury with one eloquent hand movement as she straightened.

"Of course," she mimicked sourly, shaking her head as she turned to go. Unwilling, or perhaps unable, to let Steve so easily off the hook, she paused at the door to look over her shoulder at him where he sat, the perfect solder, straight and unbent, looking perplexed rather than absolutely furious that someone, anyone, wanted to barter quid pro quo for his daughter's life. "Tell the truth and shame the devil, Director. The only reason you've stayed away from us all this time is because you hoped if you pretended to forget she existed, your golden boy, your star-spangled puppet, would forget, too. Forget that somewhere out in the world, there is a little girl who might have his nose or his chin or his smile, his laugh or his incredible gift for self-sacrifice." Her laugh was rusty and burned her throat, her heart trying to rise with her gorge, breath short and unstable as Steve's beautiful mouth opened, no sound emerging, apology in his eyes. "Joke's on you, though. He doesn't even care enough to ask her name."

She managed to close the door gently behind her, managed to make it to the bathroom before she was terribly, violently sick, what little she'd eaten, a stale cereal bar and overlarge latte sometime the day before around 2 am, swirling down the sink. When she was finished, she dropped to the floor and leaned her cheek against the cool porcelain of the basin, closing her eyes even as her knees protested the unforgiving nature of the government-issued tile. "Damn you both to hell," she whispered.

Behind her, in the room where Steve had dropped his head into his hands and Fury had stood to walk to the window, they could hear Moira retching. Over the sounds of her disgust, Fury admitted conversationally, "She's not wrong."

Steve, aching as if he'd gone ten rounds with the Hulk, filled with self-loathing and a growling frustration that he deserved her scorn, made no answer, simply lifted his head to stare at the man he'd allowed to smash his life to bits, the man he had bled and fought and given up everything that mattered for. He wouldn't ask. He'd given up that right long before Moira's child had made her appearance in this world.

Fury scratched at the patch over his eye, readjusted it. His words fell into the space between Steve's ribs where his heart should be, fast, sharp pangs. "Her name is Sarah Anne. She was named for her grandmothers but was born with such an amazing head of red fuzzy hair that the nurses called her Strawberry. It stuck." Fury's mouth relaxed. "Everyone calls her Berry."

Captain America, he, had a daughter. She had red hair. She'd been named for his mother. She might have his abilities or his chin or his smile. And she was missing, taken by people who knew more about her than her own father.

"Berry," he murmured, testing out the name.

It tasted like ashes on his tongue.