darcy/steve, pre-serum
Darcy blinked awake, sleepy and confused. The other side of the bed was empty, and the clock said “3:23,” but she hadn’t heard the alarm, so it wasn’t an emergency. She sighed and climbed out of bed, a little slower than even a few weeks ago. She rubbed her still-expanding belly as the baby sensed her distress and kicked out. “Shhh, go back to sleep. Because Mommy’s going to be pissed if you start dancing on her bladder in twenty minutes.”
She shuffled into the main room of the apartment, where Steve was hunched over the dining room table. He didn’t look up as she stood behind him, but when she rested her hands on his shoulders, he melted into her touch. “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked softly.
He shook his head. “Thinking too much.”
She leaned in and kissed his mussed hair. “What’s got you worried this time, Cap?”
Steve pulled a familiar photo out of the manila folder lying on the table. It was slightly faded and the edges were torn, but the image was still clear as the day it had been taken. “Bruce says it might not... That my DNA might not have been fully altered,” he said, voice soft and strained. “That our baby might be sickly, like I was.”
Darcy sighed and pressed her forehead to the top of his head. “Steve, I don’t care if our baby has to walk around in a bubble for the rest of her life. It won’t change how I feel about you or about her.”
He swallowed, then turned in his chair and wrapped his arms around her waist, laying his cheek against her belly. “I love you,” he murmured, and she didn’t know if he was talking to her or to the baby. She supposed, in the end, it didn’t matter. They were family.