INDY

The first few days at Bruce’s followed a pattern. The third morning in, morning sickness dug in a little deeper, so I started waking up with the need to bolt toward the bathroom to vomit. Bucky helped me mop my clammy skin back up and Bruce kept us all fed, going over logistics during our lab time. We had a few days to wait out the arrival of my midwife.

One day, when the three of us were waiting on a response from one of Bruce’s correspondents in the science field (whom he’d reached out to under the guise of professional curiosity with questions regarding our situation), I made a throwaway comment about my birth control failing and wound up uncovering a secret about Bucky that neither of us had known.

“Oh, that I actually can clear up for you,” Bruce said brightly, pulling up a chart displaying results from Bucky’s blood sample. “Whatever the serum did to his DNA, it altered his reproductive system as well. Not physically, necessarily, but-”

“Spit it out, Banner,” Bucky sighed, crossing his arms. Bruce had a tendency to go off on scientific tangents that even I had trouble following and being in the lab made Buck testy. I think he fought against claustrophobia down here a lot more than he let me know.

“Well, it would have taken a very specific combination of genetic factors to form a compatible environment for reproduction. Like, one-in-eight-billion specific.”

I blinked in confusion at him. “Wait, I thought intraspecies genetic incompatibility wasn’t something humans were supposed to be capable of.”

Bucky looked at me like I’d grown an extra head.

Bruce shrugged. “Yeah, well, humans aren’t supposed to be big and green either. Frankly, the fact that you two managed to even cross paths with each other is kind of a miracle. Medically, this shouldn’t have been possible for you.” He removed his huge glasses and looked at Bucky with a fair amount of awe. He was a bit of a medical marvel.

That night, after the three of us had a barbecued dinner on the beach and he and I retired to our little room, Bucky held me for a while longer than usual. I straddled his lap, gripping his shoulders and arms appreciatively. His lips hardly left my skin, tracing my jaw, the dips and curves of my shoulders and neck, his hands curled lovingly around me.

“Knew you were meant to be mine,” his voice rumbled possessively against my collarbone.

Since it was still looking like we would be here for a while, we started setting up more permanent accommodations for Bucky and myself. Bruce had a very convenient amount of building materials stored in the shed behind his home. I had to remind myself the whole place had been bankrolled by Tony. Hadn’t most things in my life? Even after his death, he was taking care of me.

Between a Hulk and a Super Soldier, a cozy two-bedroom home at the edge of the beach went up faster than the time on any Manhattan parking meter. I managed to capture a picture on my phone (since I wasn’t allowed to do anything helpful) of myself sitting atop a length of drywall that Bucky held in a metal hand on one end and Bruce held between two fingers on the other.

Stuff to furnish the house with started showing up at Bruce’s place soon after that. Or at least, somewhere on the island. I wasn’t sure exactly where his preferred drop site was, but he clearly didn’t want even random delivery people getting too close to his home and lab. The near-paranoid focus on security was something that earned a huge measure of trust and respect from Bucky.

My super soldier companion’s hair had grown a few inches in the eight months we’d been on the run, and since leaving Texas, his beard had grown in a bit thicker, no longer just perpetual five o’clock shadow. On days he and Bruce were building, he would sit on the floor between my knees while I put his hair up for him. Then he’d lean his head back and smirk and his eyes would sparkle when he murmured, “Gimme a kiss, Doll.”

While he and Bruce put together our little cottage, I admired the way the sunlight bounced off his sweat-defined muscles. With just me and Bruce around, Bucky felt no reason to keep his shirt on (and scars covered) beneath the sweltering sun. I appreciated that. Although, I don’t think Bruce was too enthused about the way he kept catching me drooling over it. What could I say? The man just did things to me.

You wouldn’t have known from the weather that it was nearly the holidays again when Bucky and I hauled our few bags out of Bruce’s place and into ours. He lifted me in his arms like he had almost a year ago, when I’d been drunk and emotional over an unfulfilling Thanksgiving with my mother. I ignored the second-nature worry over whether I was really cut out for taking on motherhood and tried to focus on the moment. Bucky was finally getting something semi-normal. Something traditional, like him.

He stepped over the threshold and pressed his lips to my forehead, carrying me through a wide, comfortably furnished living room, past an open doorway through which I could see a cute little kitchen done in pastel blue. A short hallway led to a few separate rooms. One was an office for me. Bucky had a training room made for one man out back. Another room was mine and Bucky’s. And the last was the nursery. We’d purposefully left it a completely blank, empty canvas for now.

We weren’t sure how… viable this pregnancy really was. I felt like I was holding my breath until we reached the 12 week mark, when Bruce assured me the baby’s survival chances would drastically increase.

Bucky carried me into our new bedroom. The bed was — thank god — king sized. I missed sleeping beside my super soldier bodyguard. Falling asleep in his arms and waking up with only a limp hand just wasn’t it.

Bucky kicked the door closed despite the fact that the only other person on this island was 60 yards down the beach in his own home and settled me gently onto the edge of the bed. He bent down with his hands on either side of my hips, his blue eyes boring into mine.

“Indy,” he breathed, leaning closer and letting his gaze slip down toward my mouth. “I’ve missed you.”

I tried to downplay the way his words stirred my heart by smiling at him, skimming my palms up his arms. “We’ve hardly been apart.”

His smirk turned devilish. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

I smiled widely at him and nodded, pushing his shoulders back away from me.

He looked confused, almost hurt, for a moment. Until I started unzipping his pants.

Neither of us had felt entirely comfortable with the idea of having sex beneath the same roof as the Hulk (who we were pretty sure had some kind of enhanced hearing), and before that, we’d been on the road. It had been a horribly long two weeks since I’d been naked beneath him, since I’d had his panting breath in my ear and his body pressed against mine. I’d missed him, too.

And I made that apparent, taking him into my mouth so slowly and purposefully that his head tipped back, filling our brand new bedroom with a throaty groan. His fingers twisted into my hair as my tongue swirled and dragged against him.

“Fuck,” he hissed sharply, hips moving seemingly without his input, the muscles just above his pelvis rippling in a way that would have had my mouth watering if it hadn’t been full.

When a light sheen of sweat had built up on his forehead and the ache in my jaw couldn’t be ignored any longer, I pulled away from him, smiling up at him with a mixture of saliva and precum wetting my lips. He looked down at me with ravenous intent, backing me further up the bed until he could settle himself on top of me, thick member slotted against the outside of my cotton shorts.

His lips glided across my chest, teeth nipping lightly at my skin at the edge of my tanktop’s collar. Metal fingers drifted beneath the top, over my belly, around my ribs, to the clasp of my bra. He’d had a little trouble adjusting to modern bra clasps; apparently, they’d been slightly different back in the day. By now, he had enough experience to snap his fingers together and pop it open with just two vibranium digits.

He slid the bra and top off of me gently, like I was as breakable as he seemed to fear sometimes. His dog tags fell back onto my chest with a soft clink. He smiled down at them, lowering his nose to the crook of my neck as his hands slid smoothly up my body. My breathing grew shallow, tender breasts rising and falling against his bare chest. His hands continued traveling, pushing my arms up above my head and weaving his fingers between mine.

“Pretty girl.” His whispered voice, so close to my ear, sent shivers through my whole body that made me wiggle up closer to him. “Tell me what you want.”

I swallowed through the tightness in my throat and spoke in an unsteady voice, pressing kisses into his scarred shoulder, my lips slipping against the metal ridge of his arm. “You, James. You’ve been working so hard. Making us safe again. Building this house. Now all I want is you.”

He let out a noise that might have been a growl if it had been louder. Instead, it was more like a deep purr, rumbling across my neck where his lips were pressed. My legs tightened on his waist.

“Can’t wait,” he grunted to himself, pulling the fabric of my shorts aside, then my underwear. I was very much in agreement. “Need you now.”

He dipped himself into me like he was either teasing me or testing himself, both of our mouths dropping open as my walls wrapped around the head of his cock. His forehead fell to rest on mine, his blue eyes watching my face for every reaction as he drove forward. His arms, one hard metal and the other muscled to hell, wrapped around my waist, beneath my back, bracing me himself as he bottomed out. I think my eyes rolled backward, because I couldn’t see straight for a few seconds. Then Bucky’s face was there again, eyes hooded, lips barely a centimeter from mine.

“Welcome home, soldier,” I panted, smiling up at him. If Bruce’s research hadn’t proven it, the feeling I got when we were so deeply entwined in each other, as lost in each other as we could be, would have told me exactly what I should have known from the start. We were perfect together.

All the days of antagonistic head-butting, the nights of uncertain tenderness, had led up to this. How different would life have been if Bucky had turned down the offer to be on the team? How empty? How could I ever have looked at this man and not felt deep within my bones that we should be together?

“Home,” he murmured, moving his hips slowly against me. “I have a home.”

I nodded, pressing my forehead affectionately to his cheek as our eyes slipped closed, both lost in the sensation of my body taking in his. “We both do.”

“You’re my home.” His words were nearly inaudible, but I heard comfort in them.

“Yes, Bucky,” I said, struggling not to moan the words as he began to pick up speed. “Always.”

He wound himself up to a pace only a super soldier could have achieved without cramping. I melted into a puddle of writhing, clawing, whining madness. And then his arms were a cage around me, forcing me down onto him as his heat spread through my insides.

“I fucking love you,” he gritted out roughly into my hair, breathing heavily as spurt after spurt rocked through him and into me.

Bucky was never particularly prudish about cursing, but I had noticed that he had a habit of holding back when he thought about it around women. Not tonight. Tonight was about need and honesty and love. None of those things involved filtering our thoughts.

“I love you too, Sarge,” I whispered, turning my head to kiss him fully on his bearded mouth.

He started to move off of me, but let out a sigh and looked at me with sleepy, adoring eyes. “Can I stay here?” he whispered, pulling my hip closer to his to clear up his meaning.

I grinned and nodded, letting him pull me tightly against his body and roll so that he was laying on his back and I was draped over the top of him, his dick still buried deep within me. I didn’t care that there was a mess of sweat and cum between us. We’d clean it up in the morning. For now, we both just needed to feel each other. Safe. Close. Alive and unbuffered, as close as we could get and as natural as we could be.

BUCKY

The first night in our cottage on the beach was… perfect. More perfect than anything I could have deluded myself into believing I’d earned. I loved her. So much. That much was no longer a secret. I know Bruce saw the rings she wore on her finger now. He hadn’t asked outright about it, but he had dropped a not-so-subtle hint about how easy it was to be ordained nowadays.

Indy and I talked vaguely during the nights about getting married. Mostly, they were fantasy scenarios in which our friends and family were all actually able to be there. Rather than being married on a remote Mexican island by the Hulk with only sea turtles and our unborn child as witnesses.

We were working under less-than-ideal circumstances, which was nothing new for either of us. But there were nights like tonight when I held her as she slept, and was hit with those familiar, stale waves of unworthiness. I’d done nothing for this girl. I’d brought danger to her life again and again and again. And now she was giving up so much — all because I asked her to.

We tried not to speculate too much about the baby yet. But we did talk. About how we each felt about things like pediatric healthcare and the educational system and various parenting caveats. I was already feeling out of my depth. In my day, these had all been things that were thought of and taken care of solely by the woman of the house. I knew this was a new day and age, and I actually wanted to be involved. But I couldn’t lie to myself and pretend that I was doing anything more than coasting along with whatever Indy wanted.

I hadn’t lived the life I’d thought I would when I was a kid. I’d never — at any phase of life — thought I would have to consider any of these things, so I’d never put any thought into it. Especially after Hydra, it just seemed like salting the wound. And then I’d met Indy and, sure, my thoughts had spun down a much more inappropriate path with her than I’d meant for them to… but I’d never once stopped to consider kids.

I didn’t know a single thing about the educational system these days. Not like Indy, who’d been a graduate of it only a decade ago. The most I knew about modern medicine was what I’d come in contact with through my very niche needs as the recovering Winter Soldier. And parenting techniques? If my knowledge of modern American infrastructure was shoddy, my knowledge of acceptable parenting was nonexistent.

Why did I think I could do this? Why am I dooming Indy to a life stuck with me, raising my kid? I’m useless with things like this. All I’ll do is make her unhappy. Her and the kid.

The old, dusty urge to push her away for her own good tried to rear its head. But it was way too late for that. I wouldn’t abandon her now that I’d put her in this position. I couldn’t leave her if I wanted to — not even if the baby wasn’t a factor. The sense of dread that crept up when I even considered it had me involuntarily constricting my arms around her.

She stirred in her sleep, rubbing her cheek against my chest, but I gathered her closer to me and pressed my lips to her forehead.

“Shh,” I breathed. The worry eased off of my heart when she relaxed at my voice, my touch, even in sleep. I’d thought I would only ever be a source of stress and grief for her. But she seemed to take comfort in my presence, the way I did hers. And if that wasn’t enough for me to stick around for, nothing ever would be.

O o 0 o O

“Buckyyyy,” a soft voice murmured, fingers combing slowly through my hair.

I grunted, squeezing my arms around the soft figure within them.

“Buck,” she groaned quietly. “Don’t squeeze. Have to pee.”

“Shit, sorry.” My voice was groggy, eyes stinging from how late I’d been up worrying and thinking. I unwound my arms, blinking heavily to watch her blurry form head through the doorway toward the bathroom.

As I thought might happen, a few minutes later, I heard retching. Six weeks in and the symptoms were really beginning to manifest. Luckily, today was the day Indy’s doctor was scheduled to arrive for her first real checkup and set of exams.

I pulled on boxers and pants and slung a T-shirt over my shoulder, leaning into the bathroom doorway. Indy was already standing at the sink, brushing her teeth, her beautifully wild hair tumbling in earthy waves around her pale face. She had apparently grabbed one of my shirts from the closet before running to the bathroom and it covered her down to mid-thigh.

I slid my arm around her midsection, leaning down to kiss the side of her neck. “You okay, sweetheart?”

She smiled, leaning into my embrace with her toothbrush sticking out of her mouth. Her cheeks gained a little color when she looked in the mirror at the two of us. She bent to spit into the sink and rinse her mouth, then reclined back against me, fingers twisting together with mine over her stomach.

“I’m fine, Buck. Just a little morning sickness. Could be worse.”

I hummed in response and towed her with me to the shower. We took turns scrubbing each other’s hair with coconut shampoo, and spent a little while just holding each other, kissing beneath the warm water while soap bubbles dripped from us. She stepped out of the shower first, brushing through her wet hair in her towel dress. I finished rinsing myself off and followed suit, pausing only to grin when I realized Indy was watching me. Intently.

I tilted my head back and to the side, smirking at her. “What are you lookin’ at?”

She started to go all shy on me, but seemed to realize how pointless it was after everything. I was the father of her child. There was no reason to be bashful with me. So she stepped toward me, tracing one rectangular abdominal muscle with her forefinger. Her smile was inviting, all traces of nausea apparently forgotten as she grinned slyly.

“My favorite treat.”

I groaned in approval as her palm flattened against my stomach, then I untucked the towel she had around her, already leaning down to link my mouth with hers. We ended up needing another shower and were almost late for her appointment.