INDY

“It’s here,” I whispered to Bucky the morning of the 12th week. My third prenatal checkup with Christine was today. It also marked the checkpoint of the first trimester.

His smile crinkled his eyes in the corners, fingers lightly brushing hair from my face. “That’s good, right?”

I could hear the muted excitement in his voice. Bruce had told us the 12-week mark would solidify things. The baby was developing pituitary glands and bone marrow for white blood cell reproduction, giving it a better fighting chance during the gestational period. This was the time most women would send out announcements to their loved ones.

I had no such freedom. I was also battling constant fatigue, bloating, my boobs felt like giant nerve endings of their own, and I frequently got dizzy when standing up. My mouth seemed to be overly wet most of the time, which only exacerbated the nausea. Bucky did his best to try to alleviate my discomfort, but it was still the most physically strained I’d felt in my life. And I’d been blown up and attacked multiple times in the last two years.

It was just the idleness of it all. Being stuck on an island with no way of helping in the mole hunt. Being pregnant and emotional and having no way of hurrying time along to the labor and delivery I was still terrified of.

I couldn’t bring myself, even in those moments of peak irritation, to regret anything. Not the baby. Not Bucky. Not this life I had committed to before realizing it. I wanted it all, no matter how scared I was. It may have been a different story if not for Bucky’s firm, steady presence. His unreserved love and support.

“It’s a good thing,” I whispered back, leaning in to kiss the corner of his mouth.

The lab was freezing this morning. As usual. And the jelly Christine slathered across my lower abdomen made goosebumps the size of bullets rise up along my arms. At the previous appointment, we’d listened to the baby’s heartbeat, a faint little pulse of Doppler sound waves. Bucky and I had smiled and squeezed each other’s hands. But they say seeing is believing, and Christine hadn’t been able to get a good angle on my innards to get a clear ultrasound done.

“If the little one wants to work with us today,” Christine said, readying the device she’d be scanning over my belly in seconds. “We should be able to determine the gender.”

My heart picked up speed. Bucky’s fingers tightened around my shoulder. I’d had months to adjust to this. But this was getting very real.

I jolted lightly as Christine rubbed her bar-like device slowly across my upper pelvis. She watched the screen that faced her, squinting and tilting the bar on the surface of my skin, occasionally pushing down on me in order to see around my organs. Not exactly a spa treatment. But then her face brightened, and she tapped a few keys on the computer in front of her. Bruce stepped forward from the wall behind her to bend down and smile slightly at the screen.

I glanced up at Bucky, who looked as anxious as I was. He shifted closer, his arm around my shoulders, and kissed the side of my head, probably hoping to calm me. Or maybe himself.

“Here we go,” Christine announced in her gentle voice, turning the computer’s screen until Bucky and I could see a tiny little alien on the screen. It was curled up a little bit, side profile visible and shockingly… human. I don’t know what else I’d expected. But apparently it wasn’t an adorably rounded nose, or a perfect set of lips, or a slowly wiggling little hand.

“It’s moving,” I whispered, staring wide-eyed at the screen. “I can’t even feel it.”

“That’s normal,” Christine assured me. “The little guy’s still really small. You might not feel it for another month or more.”

I felt Bucky jerk beside me. My ears were ringing, but I forced myself to speak, even though my voice didn’t sound like my own.

“‘Little guy’?”

Christine shared a brief grin with Bruce, then nodded to us both. “It’s a boy.”

The next thing I knew, my face was buried in Bucky’s chest, his arms tight around me, tremulous chuckles vibrating through his body. I felt his lips on my hair, his hand cupping the back of my head.

A boy. It’s a boy. I’m going to have a son. I’m going to be a mother. I am a mother.

“Oh no,” I said in a low, panicked voice. I gave Bucky’s chest a light push and hopped down from the examination table, running past him toward the little bathroom in the corner of Bruce’s lab. I barely had time to smack the light switch upward before vomiting loudly and violently.

BUCKY

“She’s still having pretty bad nausea, huh?” Bruce asked as he opened his refrigerator and withdrew an enormous bowl of yogurt.

“Yeah,” I nodded, looking down at his counter-top beneath my hands. “Some days are better than others. She’s getting those migraines you warned us about, too.”

Bruce frowned lightly, spooning granola around his bowl with thick, green fingers. “She’s taking the meds we gave her?”

I nodded again. “Religiously.”

Bruce was quiet for a moment, pondering, or maybe just… chewing. “We’ll keep an eye on them.”

It was all that could be done at the moment. Managing Indy’s symptoms and hoping for the best.

I could feel Christine and Bruce’s investment in our predicament almost as tangibly as my own. I felt a depth of gratitude toward them both that I would never be able to repay or even express fully. Aside from both of them being obviously fond of Indy (then again, who wasn’t?), there was the fact that this baby was the first of a new breed. I’m sure there was a fair level of professional and scientific curiosity about them.

That type of fascination with anything to do with me and my genetics was still something that left me feeling itchy beneath my skin. But Indy’s wellbeing — our child’s life — were quantities I didn’t have the fortitude to risk over my own discomfort. Indy, selfless wonder that she was, seemed attuned to that discomfort. Her eyes would find mine almost before my tension registered to me, and she’d give me a small, brave smile. And I’d fall all over again, heart thumping like a rabbit’s foot in my chest.

“Think they’re done down there?” I asked, restless.

Bruce shrugged. “Probably. I think it was mostly medical questionnaire stuff after the ultrasound.”

I headed back toward the entrance to his lab, only pausing at the foot of the stairs once I heard Christine’s amused voice.

“I have a very hard time picturing that.”

“No, really,” Indy chuckled. “He’s actually very… sweet. More so than you’d expect.”

“Well, he certainly seems protective of you. I thought he might lunge at me when I mentioned needles during labor.”

They were talking about me, weren’t they?

They laughed together for a moment, then Indy said, “He’s…” and finished with a sigh. I didn’t know what it was supposed to mean, but it sounded positive.

“You know,” Christine started in a slow, sly tone. “Some people say when everyone was blipped away that soul mates were formed.”

Indy snorted. “What do you mean? Soul mates? During the blip?”

“Well, everyone was supposedly just sucked up into the soul stone, right? Is it really that much of a stretch? Souls finding comfort with each other in an uncomfortable situation?”

No more of a stretch than a girl like Indy having any interest in a guy like me.

Soul mates were such a hokey, fabricated idea. One I’d never put any stock in. But what Christine was saying made a strange kind of sense. A hideously tempting amount of sense. I’d fought nazis, aliens, and super people. I could handle the idea of predestined love. Especially when the person on the other end meshed so easily and naturally into my complicated life.

I’d eavesdropped on too many of Indy’s private conversations to be comfortable with standing there much longer. But when I returned silently to the top of the stairs and the ground floor of Bruce’s place, it was with a smile.

7 Years Ago

INSIDE THE SOUL STONE

Most of the soul stone’s interior was cold. And dark. Not that the souls contained within had any concept of either of those things. Here and there, a warm, red-hued pulse signaled a soul and its energy fluctuating.

Most every soul was aimless. Scared. Alone. Simply in limbo, deaf and blind to the horror that had befallen them. A unique form of existential dread permeated their spirits, a senseless kind of fear. That of a child lost in the woods. Of a man lost at sea. Of a soul lost in the void.

Some of those souls gathered near similar energies. Like gravitating toward like.

Two such souls floated on the fringe of things, pushed outward by more densely-packed clusters of souls they didn’t quite match with. These two souls pulsed with a glow that fought to shine in the vibrance of the newly-populated soul stone. Both lights faltered, dragged down and muted by a loneliness that echoed against each other, pinging like satellite signals.

Those two souls drifted slowly, steadily closer. And as they did, each grew brighter, as though drawing strength from each other.

The two souls had only a brief time, floating contentedly beside each other, blindly embraced in each other’s aura. Then a man tied to both of them did the unthinkable. He Snapped. And every lost and lonely soul rushed from the stone, some ripped from each other as they reemerged.

Those two souls struggled, clinging to each other as destiny tugged them forward. They pulled desperately together until the two were almost one… and then they forgot.

O o 0 o O

2 Years Ago

There was no one in sight, but a thud and the desk rattling gave away whoever was beneath it.

“Ow, shit,” a female voice groaned. She stood from behind the desk, face scrunched in pain as she rubbed a hand over the back of her head.

“Sorry,” I said quickly, pointing behind me. “I was just- looking for… wait, who are you?”

I was almost certain she hadn’t been a regular installment the last time I ran in this particular circle. She seemed young, probably mid-twenties. Her hair seemed almost straight, but it sat rumpled around her face like she habitually ran her hand through it. Her square face was youthful, with freckles and all. But her eyes were intelligent, an amber mix of green and brown.

With a few heavy blinks, she refocused her gaze on me, standing before her desk in my usual leather jacket and jeans.

“Oh,” she said in a bright voice, holding out a hand with a friendly smile. “Hi. You’re the guy with the metal arm, right?”

I blinked at her in confusion, shaking her hand bemusedly. I was careful to use my right hand. “Yeah. Do I know you?”

Of course, I do.

INDY

Later that night, after Christine had left the island, and Bucky and I had meandered back to our house, we sat together on the couch and Bucky rubbed his hands gently over my back. I sighed against his chest, fiddling with his dogtags, still dangling down the front of my shirt.

“A boy,” Bucky murmured, a bit of a smile in his voice. “Have you thought about names at all?”

In honesty, I hadn’t. I was a coward. This whole ordeal was terrifying and the only things holding me together were the arms I returned to every night. I couldn’t bear to let Bucky know how scared I was. Of being a mother. Of having an infant that completely depends on me. What if he got the wrong idea? He already seemed to be watching me for any sign of regret.

“How about…” I searched frantically in my mind for a name — any name. “George?”

Immediately after the name was out of my mouth, I rolled my eyes and had to bite back a groan.

I could feel his eyes on the top of my head. “Are you feeling alright? You didn’t try to name our kid something horribly inappropriate, like Fuxin Rusty Barnes.”

The shock of it was enough to have laughter bursting out of me.

Both of our heads whipped up, laughter forgotten, as booming thuds sounded against our front door. Like a well-oiled machine we jumped into motion. I hopped over the back of the couch, ripping a gun from beneath the dining table as Bucky stood tensely by the door. I crouched at the end of the entryway, gun trained on the door, before Bucky pulled it open, his left hand’s panels already whirring in anticipation. The drills we’d been running in the expectation of another attack were paying off; the entire maneuver only took about four seconds.

Our caution was unnecessary this time, however; it was only Bruce. I quickly lowered my gun and stood.

“Good to see you’re prepared,” he rumbled in amusement as I set the gun down on the table top and Bucky leaned back against the doorway.

“What’s going on, Bruce?” I asked through heavy breaths, wiping my palms on my pant leg. Panic had flooded me the second I heard the knock on our door, and was slow to leave now that I knew there was no danger.

He held up a folded piece of paper between two thick green digits. “A message for you.”

I jogged down the entryway to take the note from him, meeting Bucky’s uncertain gaze for a moment before unfolding it. My eyes misted up as I read, hope unfurling like a flower within my chest.

“It’s from Sam,” I said quietly, holding the note out to Bucky.

He simply pulled me into his side and read with his fingers steadying the other half of the page.

‘The streetlights are coming on.’

Based off idle conversations Sam and I had had in the past about growing up in the south, I could guess it was a coded way of saying it was almost time to come back to New York.

‘We know who it was.’

That one didn’t take a lot of brainpower. They’d identified the mole.

‘ - Your winged friend.’

“It won’t be long now,” Bucky muttered, excitement deep in his voice that probably only I knew enough to notice.

“It better not be,” I grumbled half-heartedly. “No offense, Bruce, but I miss landlocked coffee.”

Bruce frowned, but didn’t comment on the coffee dig. “You guys will be leaving soon?”

Was Bruce… sad that we were leaving? He had been out here on this island alone for so long, with only intermittent activity in our affairs stateside. I wondered if he was feeling lonely. He and Bucky had certainly hit off better than expected. In the beginning, they were a little gruff with each other, but given the fact that they were the only two men around to speak of, they were basically drinking buddies now.

“Bruce, why don’t you come back with us?” I asked on impulse.

Both men looked around at me in surprise.

Bruce cleared his throat after a moment and cast his eyes down at the ground. “No. No, that’s alright. I’ll miss the company, but… erm,” he cleared his throat again, turning away from the door. “I should get back.”

Bucky and I stared at his huge back retreating down the sandy beach for a minute before looking back at the message, at each other.

“We’re going home,” I whispered as intelligibly as I could manage through my wide smile.

Bucky smiled in return and squeezed me closer.