Nurture

Following Steve into the main Avengers common room, Bucky finds himself growing even more nervous by the second. They've agreed to finally tell the others everything that has happened over the past five years, and he's afraid.

Afraid of facing them, and afraid of their rejection. He's not interacted with very many of them, mostly only Sam and Wanda, but he just knows that the others won't be very welcoming. Though he's heard from Steve that Peter Parker - the only other omega here - has offered his help when he needs it. Which he's very grateful for.

But he thinks it may only be because Peter is an omega like himself. And omegas usually stick together.

Holding Francis close to him, Bucky follows Steve over to the couch and sits down. Thankfully only Sam, Wanda and Vision are in the room so far, everyone else must still be on their way up. Truthfully Bucky hopes they take as long as possible to get here. The more time put off to face them, the better.

"You okay?" Steve asks, getting Bucky's attention.

Bucky sighs, shaking his head. "I will be once this is all over."

Steve sighs, nodding as he wraps an arm around him. He knows that Bucky doesn't really want to do this, but it has to be done. And the sooner they do it, the better. They can't put it off much longer than they already have.

It doesn't take much longer for the others to all make their way into the room not long after and take their seats around the room. Tony is the last to arrive with who Bucky is assuming his mate Pepper Potts and their daughter Morgan.

Bucky's not sure why they've brought Morgan with them, but as soon as Francis spots her, he's climbing off Steve's lap and rushing over to her, before they're going off together to the side of the room away from all the adults to play with whatever toys are laying out for them to occupy themselves with while the adults talk.

And Bucky can't help but notice the way Tony looks over at his son, and appears to go to keep Morgan away from him, but Pepper stops him, telling him something that Bucky can't quite hear. But whatever she had told him, it seems to have stopped him from going to move Morgan away from Francis.

As he shifts closer to Steve on the couch, he watches as Tony and Pepper take their seats on the opposite side of the room from them. Which Bucky finds himself glad of. He's not sure he wants Tony sitting very close to him, not after Tony's made it very clear that he doesn't like him.

"Alright, Rogers." Tony starts. "What do you and Barnes need to talk about?"

"About what has happened over the past five years and where we've been." Steve says, glancing over at Bucky. "We think you all deserve to know."

"Go on then." Tony says, looking bored and like he doesn't want to be here.

Steve chooses to ignore Tony's obvious disinterest in being here. He had expected that from him anyway, so it doesn't come as a surprise to him at all.

"Well, after what happened in the Hydra facility in Siberia after we...." He stops, unsure of how to word it, so he just doesn't say it.

He's sure that Tony has already told the others what had happened in that Hydra facility anyway. Probably making himself and Bucky out to be the bad guys in that situation, but whatever. What happened, happened. They can't change what happened back then.

"Bucky and I had gone with T'Challa to Wakanda - which I'm sure you already guessed." He continues. "While we were there, Bucky had made the decision to go back into cryo freeze while Shuri and her team of Wakandan scientists worked on a way to remove all of Hydra's programming."

He looks over at Bucky, finding him barely paying attention to what is being said as he tares down at the carpet and rubs a hand around his stomach. Which is fine, Bucky zones out often, and they had agreed that he'd do all or most of all the talking anyway.

"It took at the most, a year until everything was removed." Steve carries on. "And once Bucky was out of cryo, T'Challa offered us a place to stay in Wakanda, which we accepted, and we stayed there raising a bunch of goats."

"Wait..." Clint starts. "You and Barnes... raising goats?"

Steve nods. "Yeah, as weird as that may sound, we raised goats together in Wakanda for four years." He says. "We didn't want anything to do with fighting anymore. We've done enough fighting for one lifetime."

"So how'd the kid come into the equation?" Natasha asks.

"Well, we never planned on having kids." Steve admits. "And we weren't sure if Bucky was capable of having anymore kids after all that Hydra did to him."

He looks over at Bucky, unsure if he's comfortable with the others knowing about what Hydra had put him through. It took him awhile to tell him about it after all, and Bucky might not want them knowing yet or at all.

Which is understandable. Hydra put him through hell, and it's not easy for him to talk about it.

"Wait..." Tony starts. "Anymore? How many kids do you have?" He asks. "And what did they do?"

Bucky finally looks up at Tony. "What do you think Hydra did to me?" He asks. "Torture, brainwashing, injecting me with all sorts of crap, sexual assault, rape. You name it, and they probably did it to me." He says. "And they had an omega in their grasps. One that their version of the super soldier serum worked on. They wanted to use me as their breeding machine along with all the shit they made me do as the Winter Soldier."

He stops, looking down, his voice beginning to shake as he continues. It's not easy for him to talk about any of this, and it's something that he wishes that he could forget.

"From... from what I can remember, they... they got me pregnant twenty times in the span of seventy years." He says. "I only carried four of them to term, but I don't know what happened to them after I gave birth to them. The rest of them ended in either miscarriages, or were killed while I was sent out on missions while pregnant."

He lets the tears fall, not caring in the slightest that the others can see them. He doesn't care about looking weak in front of them. That's the least of his worries.

Steve wraps an arm around Bucky's shoulders, pulling him close. He's still mad about what Hydra had put him through, and he'd gladly destroy every Hydra personnel who had harmed and violated Bucky in any way. No one deserves to go through what Bucky had gone through.

Wanda - who's sitting next to Bucky - takes a hold of his hand, squeezing it gently as she shifts a little closer to him, trying to comfort him just as Steve is. And Bucky smiles gratefully at her. He's super glad that he's got her as a friend. Without her, Steve, and Sam, he's not sure what he'd do.

"I thought for sure that after all that Hydra had done to my body that I'd never be able to have kids again. And I had resigned myself to the fact that I'd never have them again." Bucky continues. "So when Shuri gave me the news that I was pregnant with Francis, I thought she was lying. I didn't fully believe it until I had given birth to him."

He casts a glance over at Tony, and he could've sworn he saw what appeared to be a look of sympathy on his face. Though as soon as he saw it, it was gone, so he's not entirely sure if he did see it for not. The most likely case is that he just imagined Tony looking sorry for him.

Why would Tony suddenly care about him anyway? He's made it pretty clear that he doesn't give a damn about him.

"We weren't expecting me to get pregnant again with Reese." Bucky says, looking down at his stomach, wincing a little as the baby starts kicking rather rough. "And he sure does kick rather hard when he wants to."

The others are silent, none of them knowing what to say after hearing what they did. And Bucky finds the silence unnerving, and finds himself afraid of what they'll say about it.

"You ever think of tracking down those other kids of yours?" Rhodes asks.

Bucky shakes his head. "I uh... we've talked about it, but..." He trails off, looking over at Steve. "I'm not sure."

They've talked about finding them, but if they were to find them, they're not sure what they'd do. Though, if they're still alive, then they wouldn't know who they are and what they look like. Nor would they know that Bucky is their mother.

So maybe it would be best to not go looking for them. There's a chance they could be long dead anyway. And if that's the case, then maybe that's for the best? If they're still alive, then Hydra would've twisted them into their own image after all, and they may not be able to bring them out of Hydra's grasp.

"Okay." Tony starts. "Nice talk... kind of..." He trails off as Pepper elbows him in the side. "Now, are you going to explain more of why you chose to return to the States?" He asks. "Cause it seems to me that you were perfectly content in Wakanda."

"Like I told you on the phone, Tony, we've come back here for Bucky's trial." Steve says. "Which will we in around six months time. And we needed somewhere to stay until we've found our own place." He explains. "And we didn't really want to stay in Wakanda forever, despite how welcoming everyone was to us."

Bucky looks over at Steve. He would've preferred to stay in Wakanda forever and raise their kids there, but he knew they couldn't stay there forever, despite the fact that T'Challa had offered them a forever home there.

They both felt as though they had overstayed their welcome in Wakanda, and as much as they had made a home for themselves in Wakanda, it's not completely home, and they knew that they had to leave eventually.

Their home will forever be their little crappy apartment they shared back in the '30s. Though they can never get that back. Especially not when their family is growing.

And since their family is growing, Bucky just wants to go and live a simple life off the grid on some farm in the countryside and raise their kids there along with a bunch of goats. It's all he wants now. All he wants is to live in peace and quiet.

He did get that in Wakanda, since T'Challa had given him and Steve a home in a more secluded area away from everyone else. But it wasn't exactly as quiet as he would've liked.

Though, he did however like that very much, but everything else was just a little too futuristic for him to handle. Which he would've thought that he'd like, considering he's a big fan of sci-fi books - and more recently sci-fi movies and TV shows - but as it turns out, it's just a little too much for him, and he's found that all he wants is to live a simple quiet life out in the countryside.

"Okay, well... please hurry with your house hunting." Tony says, which earns him another elbow to the side from Pepper.

"We've been looking, Tony, and trying to find something." Steve says. "But, it's not as easy as you'd think."

They do want to find their own home as soon as possible, but it's certainly not easy. They just hope that they can find something within a year, so they don't have to stay at the Avengers compound longer than necessary. Ideally they don't want to stay here for longer than a year at the most.

Tony seems to look a little frustrated at that, but doesn't say anything more on the matter.

They talk with the others for a little while longer until they've said all that they can, and everyone gets up to go back off to their floors or to some other area of the compound.

And as he watches as Tony makes his way out of the room while Pepper goes off to get Morgan, Bucky finds himself making his way over to Tony.

He wants to apologize to him about what happened five years ago in Siberia, and for what happened to his parents. He doubts Tony will want to listen to a word of it, but he's all of a sudden picked up the courage to at least attempt to apologize to him, so he's going to at least try.

"Tony." He says, walking over to him, having to pick up speed as Tony begins to walk faster out of the room, clearly not wanting to talk to him at all. "Tony, please stop."

He stands back a little as Tony stops, spinning around to face him. "What?"

"I uh... I want to ap-" He doesn't get to finish his sentence as Tony abruptly cuts him off.

"No." Tony says, shaking his head. "I don't want to hear it. I've heard enough from you today."

And with that, Tony is turning back around and walking out of the room, leaving Bucky standing there staring after him.

He sighs, looking down at the floor. Just as he had expected. Tony doesn't want to listen. Of course he doesn't.

He goes to make his way over to where Steve is talking with Bruce, but stops, jumping a little in fright as he sees Pepper standing next to him with Morgan by her side.

"Hey, it's okay." She says, reaching out to comfort him, but stops halfway. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Bucky sighs, shaking his head. "It's alright." He says, huffing out a laugh. "I just wasn't expecting you to be standing there." He says. "Uh, you're Pepper, right?"

She nods. "Yes." She says, before looking off down the hall where Tony had walked off moments before. "Don't worry about Tony." She says. "Just give him time, and he'll come around eventually."

Sighing, Bucky nods. Though he seriously doubts that Tony will ever come around and actually be civil towards him.

All he wants is for Tony to be civil towards him. Becoming friends with the guy might be asking for a little too much, but if Tony would just act civil towards him and not so hostile, then he thinks he'll be alright.

"If you ever need anything, just let me know, okay?" Pepper says, catching Bucky by surprise.

"Th-thanks." He says, not expecting for Pepper Potts - Tony Stark's mate - to be willing to help him with anything if he ever needs it.

He had really expected for her to not like him just like Tony, but it may seem as though he was wrong. And he's glad that she's willing to help him with anything.

She smiles at him kindly, before she's leaving the room with Morgan.

Bucky watches on after her, before he's making his way over to Steve - who's still talking with Bruce - and he stands as close as he possibly can next to him, wrapping his arms around him and resting his head on his shoulder.

Steve momentarily stops talking to Bruce to wrap his arms around Bucky. "You okay?" He asks, rubbing a hand around Bucky's back.

"I'm fine." Bucky sighs, closing his eyes, barely paying any attention as Steve continues talking with Bruce.

He's vaguely aware of what Steve and Bruce are talking about. Something about being able to do some tests on Francis tomorrow to determine whether or not he has any side effects due to both versions of the super soldier serum.

Bucky finds himself hoping that Francis doesn't have anything. Except for the obvious super human strength which he's already been displayed as having (he'd already assumed that any kids he and Steve have would have some level of super human strength), and the fact that his mental development is a bit more, he guesses, advanced for a normal two year old. Which is one form of side effect from both his and Steve's serums that he can deal with, and is fine with. Because this he had rather expected, well, he had expected the slight inhuman strength, the higher mental development for a child his age was a bit of a surprise, though, but something he can very much deal with.

But if his son has some other form of ability due to the serums? Some mutant ability? Bucky isn't sure what he feels about that, because all he wants, is for his son to be normal. Or, as normal a he possibly can be.

He doesn't linger on the subject for much longer, though, as he stands there wrapped up in Steve's warm arms, never wanting to move away.

Unfortunately though, he has to move out of Steve's warm hold and sit down as his feet begin to ache from standing too long. But as soon as he takes a seat on the couch, Francis makes his way over from where he sat on the floor with Wanda and Sam, and climbs onto his lap.

And Bucky's instantly wrapping his arms around his son and holding him close as best as he can without disrupting his stomach.

"Mommy?" Francis asks.

"Hmm?" Bucky hums, looking down at his son. "What is it, buddy?"

"I love you." Francis says, moving up to kiss Bucky on the cheek.

Bucky smiles, holding his son closer to him, and kisses his forehead. "I love you too, buddy."