What? Midweek update? Must be something special...
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DBZFAN45: Enjoy the epilogues!
The night Maggie and Bucky returned home from their visit to Sam's place, they fell into bed nearly straight away. Maggie shifted restlessly a few times, frowning. She felt like she'd missed something. Forgotten something. And she hated the feeling. But then Bucky draped his arm over her and the radiating warmth of him sent her off to sleep.
Maggie sat up bolt upright in bed at 4am, in a cold sweat. She looked around in the darkness, fumbled for her prosthetic leg, then jumped out of bed and hurried downstairs.
Bucky woke some time later, alerted by the absence of Meg's body beside him. He rolled and tapped his phone.
"Mph. F.R.I.D.A.Y."
"Yes, Sergeant Barnes?" came the A.I.'s accented voice, at a considerately low volume.
He squinted at the time. 4:30AM. "Where's Meg?" he mumbled, rubbing his face with his metal hand. Sometimes the cooler temperature woke him up a bit quicker.
"Ms Stark is in her workshop."
Ah. She'd set up a very basic workshop in their garage; nothing more than a place to do a bit of light tinkering, because she had a more professional one in New York that she could visit.
Bucky turned off the phone screen. It wasn't strange for Meg to work odd hours, but something nagged at him. He rolled over, and saw from the empty laundry hamper that she hadn't even gotten changed out of her pajamas.
Groaning, Bucky rolled out of bed, pushing his hair behind his ears and stretching out his scarred shoulder. Artemis was still asleep at the foot of the bed, a dark lump on the duvet. Bucky padded downstairs, passing the photos of their friends and family on the walls, and then the only mementoes of his and Meg's years on the run - two singed photobooth strips of the two of them, and postcards from all over the world. He walked to the back door, past the photo of Maggie and Tony grinning together, and the hand-drawing of Natasha that Steve had done. He slipped out the back door and walked uncomfortably bare-footed over the gravel and into their garage, where the artificial white light inside threatened to blind him.
Grimacing and shading his eyes, Bucky looked in through the doorway.
Meg stood at a workbench with her back to him, nearly motionless in front of a squat, dusty white machine with a blue screen that was scanning through pages of white text and numbers, and a few colorful graphs. Bucky spotted a vial of dark red liquid inserted into the machine, and frowned when he spotted the white cotton ball taped to the crook of Meg's elbow. The machine beeped in a low tone.
"Doll?" Bucky said, his voice still rough with sleep and his eyes still squinted against the artificial lights. He took a few steps inside. "What's the matter?" He suddenly wished he'd got dressed - put a shirt on, at least.
Meg looked slowly over her shoulder at him, as if in a dream. Her pupils were huge, and her face was expressionless.
Bucky strode forward, his heart pounding. "Meg?" he put a hand on her shoulder, and she blinked. He realised her fingers were shaking. "Doll, talk to me. What's wrong?" He glanced at the machine again, but he couldn't make sense of the numbers there.
When he looked back at Meg, she was looking into his eyes. Her mouth opened.
"I'm pregnant."
He froze. "What?"
After a millisecond of incomprehension, the enormity of what she'd said hit him. He lost his grip on her shoulder and abruptly sat down on the workshop floor. A little startled at the sudden loss of strength in his legs, Bucky looked up at Meg.
He didn't know it was because he'd dropped to the floor, or if she was suddenly comprehending herself what she'd said, but the edge of her mouth was quirking into a smile. "I… I'm pregnant," she repeated.
Bucky put a hand to his head, as if checking his own temperature. He certainly felt very hot, and his heart was racing, and he felt as if something inside his chest was expanding so rapidly it might break his ribs. "Doll, I-" he searched for the words, because Meg was still standing there staring at him with a half-smile playing at her lips. But he could not think of what to say to express this - this… this sudden overwhelming rush of joy.
But Meg beat him to it. "I know," she said, a real smile breaking out on her face now, and she dropped to her knees - clang, went her prosthetic leg - and took his face in her hands and kissed him. Bucky scooped her toward him and she was laughing then, trying to kiss him as her fingers shook against his jaw but laughing, and he held her so tight, this impossible woman, and found he was laughing too.
For a long few moments they held each other like that, awkwardly arranged on the concrete floor of their garage with a beeping lab machine on the workbench above them, laughing and kissing and - and Meg had to wipe away a few of his tears as well.
"Doll…" he pulled back a little, brushing her tangled hair back from her face and looking into her wide, dark, glinting eyes. Her cheeks had gone pink from smiling. "How do you know?"
She shook her head, as if she couldn't explain it, but then said: "I've been feeling… odd, for a few days. I haven't felt sick, just kind of… uncomfortable, and a bit different. Things smell different, taste different. I've felt hungrier than normal, even super-soldier normal. Things feel intense. And I didn't really think about it all until just now, and I knew Bruce had left this hematology analyzer last time he visited," she looked up at the beeping machine. "Come here." She stood up and pulled him easily to his feet, though his knees still felt like jelly. The world seemed to wheel around him, like he was drunk.
Meg pointed to the white-on-blue display on the machine, scrolling through pages. "See here? I tested for hCG levels in my blood - that's the Human Chorionic Gonadotropin hormone. It's produced by cells in a growing placenta, so it indicates pregnancy. See this number?"
Bucky leaned closer to read it properly. "98 mIU/ml. Is that a lot?"
"Well, if I tested you, you'd probably have like, 1. If I'd tested myself a couple months ago, I'd have less than 5."
Bucky's heartbeat thundered again. "So that is a lot."
Meg gave him another dazed look. "I'm no doctor - officially - but… yeah. That is a lot. About four-weeks-along a lot, if I had to estimate."
"Holy shit," Bucky said, giving her a dazed look of his own.
"Madripoor, I think," she said, arriving at the same realization he just had. She shot him a smile that was an echo to the one she'd given him that night, in that dress.
"We should - we should get you to a real doctor, Meg - not that I don't trust your science," he said quickly, and she smiled, "but… you know. It seems like going to a doctor is an appropriate thing to do, in this kind of situation?" he could feel his voice getting higher.
Meg looked down at her stomach and lifted up her pajama shirt, as if she might see anything other than bare skin. "This kind of situation," she echoed. "Yeah," she said faintly. She looked back up at him. "Bucky, you can't freak out about this, I'm freaking out about this and we can't both do that."
"I don't see why not," he said, though he pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her anyway. He pressed a kiss to the side of her head. He could feel her heart pounding just as fast as his. "You okay, doll?" he rubbed her back, feeling the ridges of her wing moorings on either side of her spine.
With a sharp intake of breath, she jerked her head back to look into his eyes with an alarmed expression. "Can we be parents?"
He laughed, feeling suddenly hysterical. "What do you mean?"
She ran her hands through her hair. "I mean… we haven't exactly led conventional lifestyles, Bucky, what if I…" she swallowed, hard. Then said in a quieter voice: "I don't know how to be a mom."
He stilled and took her hands in his, but she'd gone all dazed again. "Doll. Meg. Margaret Stark." That got her to look into his eyes. "You are the kindest person with the biggest heart I have ever met. You care so much that you've fixed governments and planets in order to make the world a better place. You've saved lives and given people hope. We've been through the utter worst the world can offer, and you're stronger for it. You've made me stronger." Her eyes softened. "You've fought monsters and built time machines and learned to become a person." He squeezed her hands. "I can't think of anyone better qualified to be a mom."
She smiled, eyes gleaming with tears, and kissed him again. "And… and you want to be a father?" she asked, searching his eyes.
"I've wanted to be a dad since the 1930s," he said easily. "I've wanted to be a parent with you since…" he blew out a breath. "Since I ever thought of it as a possibility. One day, like we always said."
She grinned. "When you first brought it up, when we were Kimoyo bead messaging, it kind of sent me into a tailspin. I had never imagined myself as someone who could have children, let alone parent them, and it freaked me out. Mostly…" a shadow passed over her face. "The risk. To the child. Because of who we are."
Bucky's smile dimmed, and he held her tighter.
"But," she continued, "then I realized that a kid couldn't find a safer or more loving home than with us. Because I've never been safer or more loved than with you."
Tears properly spilled down his cheeks again. "Think we might have a new mission, doll."
Then she was crying too, and she looked so beautiful, so he kissed her.
When they pulled apart, Meg stared, somewhat dazed, at her blood results again. She drew in a long, slow breath.
"What are you thinking?" he asked softly.
"I'm thinking… that I have so much research to do."
He laughed.