"Steve is pregnant."
Hearing it for the second time was no less strange than the first, and Steve had to hide the gasp that had made its way out last time Bruce had said this. He waited in silence for the teams reaction, idly rubbing his stomach. Obviously there was no bump yet, but Steve could still somehow feel the baby growing inside of him.
"Bruce," Tony, the father of Steve's child, spoke up. "This has to be the first time you've played a prank, and it's the worst one I've ever seen. And I live with Clint."
"Whoa," Clint pouted and crossed his arms. Natasha smacked his arm and motioned at Bruce.
"When would Bruce Banner ever do a prank?" Natasha said lowly, eyeing Steve's stomach.
Steve shifted in his seat, an uncomfortable bed that somewhat resembled a hospital gurney, for whatever reason they had this, and tried to stop himself form blushing. He himself had laughed and assumed Bruce's funny side was showing, but then he had been shown the ultrasound, and there was no denying that Steve had a little human manifesting in his abdomen.
"Bruce?" Tony actually looked uncertain. His eyes scanned the room and he nervously noticed the stern faces of Bruce and Steve.
"Tony, everyone I guess, I preformed an ultrasound on Steve after he had complaints of abdominal pain in the lower region. After a few silent minutes and multiple tests, I am for certain there is a baby in that stomach," Bruce pointed towards Steve's belly. Steve ducked his head and toyed with a loose piece of fabric form his shirt to distract himself. He could feel all eyes on him.
"Let me see," Tony huffed and shuffled over to the machine, fiddling other buttons and turning knobs, the large screen projecting many images to their eyes. After what felt like forever to Steve, Tony emerged from behind the machine with a white face.
"Holy shit," was all he muttered. Clint's head turned widely from Steve to the image on the machine that Bruce had just pulled up. A small black picture with a tiny form similar to a baby was in the middle.
"I'd say he's about four weeks," Bruce said, pointing to various parts of the developing limbs.
"Okay," Natasha said slowly, but not in a weirded-out tone, like Steve expected she would. "So, how, exactly, did this happen?"
"Well," Bruce sighed and ran his hand through his tangled hair. "I don't know yet. By all accounts this should be impossible, so it might have something to do with a toxin Steve was exposed to on a mission last month."
Steve had fought his way through a Hydra base five weeks ago, and on the way, had been sprayed with more toxic waste then he cared to ever think about. But could a toxin really create a baby? And if so, wouldn't that mean the baby would be deformed or die in the- whatever Steve had? When he had asked Bruce about this before calling the others in, Bruce had no answers for him.
"Okay, okay," Clint rushed, "so this isn't a joke? Cap is pregnant?"
"A sentance I'd thought I'd never hear in my lifetime," Tony muttered.
"There's one more thing," Bruce added, cautiously looking at Steve. Steve nodded. The team knew he and Tony had been together for two years, and it was going well, besides the fights far and between, but he wasn't sure how Tony was going to take the fact that his male boyfriend was having his baby by accident.
"Tony," Bruce jerked his thumb toward the man, who was staring at Bruce silently. "Is the father."
~
To say Tony had taken it well would be an overstatement. In fact, Tony had freaked out, smashing a few things on his way out the lab door, and was heard screaming in frustration all the way down the hall.
Steve didn't blame him, not one bit, but it hurt to think that Tony didn't want this baby. Sure, he was a man, and this wasn't normal, but he couldn't help but think about how nice it would be to have a family with Tony.
It had taken twelve days for Bruce to convince Tony that this wasn't a cruel trick, and after another week of self-thinking and a shit ton of coffee, Tony decided he was being stupid.
Tony had burst into Steve's room and declared that he was going to the best father ever approximately three days and seven and a half hours ago.
And it wasn't that Steve didn't appreciate Tony's efforts, but hearing his boyfriend talk about baby cribs and bibs and high chairs and toys made Steve want to smack him. And maybe it was the hormones, if he was actually getting those, but he just needed one day without Tony fussing about the baby or him.
Whenever a door was in a five feet radius of Steve, Tony was there to open it for him. Whenever he was hungry, Tony fetched whatever he wanted to eat, and whenever his feet hurt, Tony rubbed them.
And this was only three days in. And Steve wasn't complaining about how much Tony did, it was how much Steve didn't do.
Steve was used to practically running the place, and now he couldn't do missioms, or cook because the smells made him vomit, or clean for the same reason, or run too much or his back hurt. And he was just barely scraping to two months.
Steve usually laid in bed and slept, or ate, or drank copious amounts of water, or moaned at the ache that was always hitting his spine.
And to say that he felt useless and lazy, was an understatement.
~
Steve was four months in, and he was out of control, he'd admit that. He'd just finished bawling after finding out there was no watermelon in the Tower. For an hour.
Of course, Tony suited up and broke threw a wall of the supermarket to get that watermelon, but Steve still felt sad, even after munching on the watermelon for thirty minutes.
He'd gotten weird cravings; peanut butter on pickles, cheese mixed with ketchup, and even lemonade with chocolate sauce in it, but obsessing over something as simple as a watermelon made Steve feel stupid, which made him cry more, which just made him want more watermelon.
~
Six months in, and he was mostly past the cravings, his hormones were better but nowhere near gone, but now, his whole body felt like it had been smashed with a cinder block.
After finding out Loki was behind everything, accidently, Thor had tracked him down and demanded he help with Steve's pain.
"It is the least you can do, brother, for it is your fault he bears a child," Thor's voice boomed.
"It wasn't on purpose," Loki had drawled, but one murderous look from a worried Tony, and Loki was casting a spell to ease the sharp pricks running up Steve's back.
That didn't stop Tony from rubbing Steve's shoulders and feet, though. And, if Steve was honest, he didn't mind that.
~
Steve was a month away from birth, if everything went correctly, and Tony was insane with worry.
Steve had counted two hundred and seven toys for the baby, and had watched in mild humour and major annoyance as Tony hired multiple painters to paint and repaint the baby's room. Finally, he had decided on a pastel blue and yellow after Bruce confirmed Steve was having a boy.
Tony had spent hours at stores, searching the Internet, and had even built a few cribs for Peter, the name they had decided for their little gift.
And as for clothes, Clint was on overdrive. After the shock had worn off of him he had been buying baby clothes with Tony's money since Steve's third month. Steve had three closets full of mostly gender neutral clothes that would be perfect until Clint decided Peter needed new ones.
Tony was constantly checking in on Steve, popping in at the randomest of places. Steve knew from the bags under his eyes that he was tried and worn, and Steve tried his hardest not be a bother, but Tony was determined to be beside him when the baby decided to come.
As far as Steve knew, he was getting a type of C-Section from some top doctors Tony had tired. He wasn't scared, not at all, actually, but he was scared his baby wouldn't survive the procedure. He brushed it off as typical motherly instinct and kept on with his days. Bruce had detected nothing wrong with Peter during many ultrasounds, so Steve felt he had nothing to worry about.
But he could detect that his clothes had stopped fitting two months ago. His bump was huge, taint against his stomach, and he was always rubbing it gently, whispering to Peter all the things they would do together when he came out. But his shirts were limply hanging from his bump, his lower half in full view, and he was on a strict sweatpants-only thing right now.
Tony had bought him some new clothes, stretchy fabrics, and Steve had been avoiding them as long as possible.
Steve tugged at his shirt, his belly button in view when he looked down, and sighed heavily. He turned around from the kitchen and made his way to get his new stretchy shirt.
~
It hurt, to say the least. The contractions, mostly, when he had doubled over in pain, but the C-Section hurt more. They couldn't put him to sleep, because this baby wasn't normal, and he didn't have the normal parts of a woman needed to make a baby, and a bunch of other stuff Bruce had told him.
Steve was more focused on not passing out. He couldn't help watching the knife cut into him, and he screamed a little, but Tony was there beside him, squeezing his hand, and Steve somehow, but the gods of heaven, survived the pain.
Peter was tiny and scrawny, with a bush of brown hair on his soft head. He had the brightest eyes Steve had ever seen, and Steve was in love.
Tony hugged Steve and gushed and cried over his new son, babbling on about how much he was going to teach Peter, and how he was the luckiest man in the world, and Steve figured all that suffering was worth it.
~
And no, Steve did not expect Peter to have super strength, and speed, and be able to climb walls and shoot webs from his wrists and he really wasn't sure how Peter had hid Spider-Man from him for a whole year, but he didn't like it.
But teenagers are teenagers, and Steve never could say no to Pete, so he was stuck watching, worrying, as Peter swung from buildings and kicked the weird man with six robotic arms.
But then Tony and Steve and Pete would all be cuddling on the couch, and the team would be leaning against their legs, watching some movie Clint had picked, and Steve really wasn't sure what else to feel but happy.
And Fury just stared and muttered to himself about magic and insanity.