Natasha doesn’t know what it is until it’s too late. And by too late she means after the whole Sokovia/Ultron/Bruce Leaving mess. She’s at the Avengers new training centre when the nausea hits and she doesn’t think much of it, Steve and Sam were out looking for the Winter Soldier again, Scott had taken the weekend to go take his daughter to see LA, Rhodey was back at the base and Vision was off with Tony Stark somewhere. That just left her and Wanda at the academy.
The girl was undeniably sweet once she realised Natasha was sick bringing her warm tea and slices of red velvet cake that she was baking and offering to try and use her powers to soothe Natasha’s sickness when it got really bad. She brought Natasha a blanket and put the entire box set of Grey’s Anatomy which for some bizarre reason seemed to calm the nausea when she saw all the images of people being cut open.
Then going through her diary to figure out whether or not she needed to plan any mission she saw the single letter P going back three weeks now with no bleeding, so she looks back and there it is. Two months without bleeding. Right after that night in Clint’s house. That night with…Bruce…
Two months no bleeding, nausea, tenderness to stomach and breasts when training, she cannot stomach any type of fish or brown bread or even bacon. The symptoms all lead to one thing, but it’s the one thing that doesn’t make sense. At least not for her.
She knows that the possibility of a pregnancy was impossible for her, she knows that was taken care of a long time ago and she knows that as far as Bruce was concerned it couldn’t happen. Before and after they had fallen into bed together determined to act on their feelings and then promptly ignore them. They both had known they couldn’t have children.
She didn’t want to take the pregnancy test. Natasha didn’t need the false hope only to have it dashed as soon as what solid fact told her would happen. Surely the Red Room wasn’t as incompetent in that retrospect? Surely they had made sure that the one thing Natasha all those years ago would have thrown away a mission for had been taken away from her? God knows that they had assured her of that fact over and over.
But still she took the test determined to prove herself wrong. She was that much of a pessimist, she liked the idea of hurting herself just a little bit more.
And then the test came back positive.
It took her several hours staring before she could move.
Because she Natasha Romanov was pregnant with Bruce Banner’s baby.
She waited a full three days before she stole the mini ultrasound they had lying around and managed to get a look at what was in there. She was floored when she saw what looked like a small peanut in her belly.
She was pregnant.
It was small but viable with a heartbeat that was strong and healthy, she recorded it on her phone listening to it until she fell asleep.
A week after she realised she was pregnant she realised that something had to be done. Something had to change. She was pregnant she couldn’t be the Black Widow for nine months there was a chance she was putting her child into extreme danger.
And well…it’s not like Bruce was able to come back and check out the sight for himself was it? Until he came home it was her responsibility to look after this baby.
So she did what the Black Widow was famous for. She ran.
She ended up in Paris in an apartment overlooking a nice view and near a Starbucks. Granted she couldn’t order coffee (she’s read online that that was bad for the baby) and she was now living on tea but she was comfortable. Even before the Alexander Peirce shit she had a couple of alias that had stayed of SHIELD’s radar because well…she was Natasha Romanoff. She had cash-enough of it where she could happily send her baby off to college without their being an issue and she began to adjust to the idea of becoming a mother.
By adjust she meant going completely off the grid. She grew her red hair longer and took to straightening it so that nobody could recognised her through the long strands. She took to staying indoors until she was forced out via necessity.
The…well…the baby grew inside of her steadily, it continued to grow until it was kicking, it was a flutter really but then it developed into something stronger. With the exception of the weight gain (which could have been due to the intense amount of ravioli she was eating) that seemed to be the only thing that made her believe that she was really pregnant.
And then came…the…well…the strange things…there had been a news report on the development of something to do with stem cells and suddenly before Natasha could change the channel there was a storm of kicking. Almost as if the baby could feel her boredom and wanted to let her know that she didn’t agree with what his or her mother was doing.
Then came the debate on abortion that the baby apparently wanted to listen to and then when Natasha realised what the baby was listening to she finally got the Grey’s Anatomy box set spending the entire night watching surgical DVDs until she was satisfied that the baby had finally given up and fallen asleep. Natasha would have rolled her eyes and laughed other than the fact that she wanted to cry everytime.
She began researching things in the Science Academic world. Finding research papers where she could read to the baby getting him or her to quieten whenever she reached an interesting paragraph…almost as if the baby was listening and paying attention.
And then one day in the library in Paris she came across a paper written and edited by Dr Robert Bruce Banner on Gamma Radiation. She swallows harshly but takes the paper home, makes herself a cup of tea and reads the paper while sat in bed counting the baby’s kicks again and again and again.
Its then that she realises that she might need to let Bruce know about the baby. She’s taken all the pre-natal vitamins and she read up on all the signs but she doesn’t want to know the sex-and that’s even if she can see the baby and even if she can see the baby without something terrible happens…she’s Natasha Romanov and therefore she doesn’t believe in good things happening especially to herself. But while reading medical and science journals to the baby she realises how dangerous she’s left herself open.
Even if the baby happens to come out like a baby Hulk she damn well owes Bruce the decision of knowing his own child.
There’s just that slight issue.
Natasha hasn’t a clue where he is.
She ends up ringing Clint who seems stressed, though whether or not it’s because he has three kids now or because of what’s happening in DC she doesn’t know. He manages to tell her that Bruce showed up in New York a few weeks ago and that as far as he knows he’s still living with Stark.
Natasha takes her first sonogram picture and mails it before she changes her mind. She writes down Bruce’s private mail address at the tower and hopes with whatever’s left of her hear that she hasn’t given to her baby, that Tony Stark doesn’t get a hold of the picture. She writes next to it the address and then she writes underneath the picture a few simple sentences.
“I Miss you…And Yes it’s yours”
“Please bring copies of your published papers…it’s soothes the baby”
And then carefully she waits.
She spends the rest of her days in bed watching the leaves fall and the temperature get colder and colder and frost showing on the windows. She watches and she waits.
Natasha is asleep when it happens. There’s a knock at the door followed by the pressing of a buzzer and continually happens until she staggers out of bed pulling her jumper down over her belly and padding down the hallway.
She peers through the peephole before she swallows the bile rising in her throat before she reminds herself that she is an Ex-Soviet Assassin and a damn fine one at that and that she was trained by some of the most brutal and the best and therefore didn’t have the excuse of being afraid.
Until now.
She opens the door just a crack, her eight month pregnant belly making it damn difficult for her to do anything more than stick her head around the door so that she could stare at the man behind it.
Bruce.
He still looked as old and as rugged. He still looked as tired and as scared and as handsome as before and she still couldn’t help the fluttering in her heart when she saw him.
He smiled at her. “Please tell me that I didn’t miss it?” he asks holding up his bag “I did bring everything I published”
Natasha smiled unable to stop herself. “No” she said stepping back and unlocking the door so that he could see her baby bump and all “No you didn’t miss it”
Once Bruce had gotten unpacked and comfortable he slipped down onto the big double bed watching her with those same brown eyes that had stared at her that time where they had been looming over her at Clint’s house.
“Do you know when your due?” he asked carefully his hand hovering until Natasha placed it over hers and brought it down just in enough time to see the awed look on his face whenever the baby kicked strongly.
“Did you bring the research?” she asked carefully “For some reason the baby seems to like science”
His face lit up at that, at that totally adorable thing before he pulled out a little booklet. “This was one of my unpublished papers that I wrote after New York” he said carefully before settling down on one elbow and flipping open the first page.
Once the baby finally settled Natasha looked at him through her eyelashes. “I do adore you” she says finally looking at him frankly “I don’t except you to do anything but…in a month” she gestures to her belly. “You’re going to have a son or a daughter and…” she looks down feeling suddenly shy.
Bruce looks at her before his hand finds her chin lifting it up so that her eyes find his and his hand tightens on her belly. “I love you” he says simply before eyeing her critically “Now get some sleep-you look like you need it and the baby defiantly needs rest”
Natasha sticks her tongue at him and feels the baby give a good solid kick that she hopes is an agreement.
When the baby does come it’s short and quick-and literally Natasha wakes up nearly two weeks later and two weeks early and it’s time.
She simply kicks Bruce awake.
Bruce doesn’t even drive her to the nearest hospital. He insists on checking out what’s happening himself before he tells her that he can see the baby’s head.
It really would be her luck wouldn’t it?
Three hours later Bruce is lifting a tiny crying (and looking utterly irritated) baby with a shock of red hair into his arms. He wraps the baby in a blanket before passing it to her and happily telling her it’s a girl.
“No Hulk gene” she tells him before realising Bruce’s face is wet and he looks…there are no words for how happy he looks. “She’s perfect” is all he says and Natasha cannot help but wholeheartedly agree.
It doesn’t matter what happens tomorrow. Right now the Black Widow has everything she wants.