Chapter 4
Chapter 4
(Five years later)
Approaching their room, Steve Rogers eyed his girlfriend with a frown for a moment before stepping past the threshold. “Move over,” he said softly, intending to join her.
Without opening her eyes, she scooted her body to one side of the bed. After he settled down, he stretched an arm out for her settle against. “Hmmm.” She felt him curl his arm around her and grab her hand before he laced their fingers together. “Good workout?”
“Would have been better if you were my sparring partner,” he said with a teasing lilt to his tone. “I heard Mack complaining about feeling like a walking-bruise.”
It had been five years since Thanos used the powers of the infinity stones to wipe out half of the Universe. It had been five years since the Avengers reached out to SHIELD for help. It had been four years since time travel became more than just a theory, though they still hadn’t managed a successful experiment. And it had been four years since Daisy and Steve crossed the threshold from friends to lovers, with neither looking back.
Exhaling sigh, she pouted. “I’ve been so tired lately. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” No, that wasn’t exactly true. She had her suspicions, but she wasn’t ready to voice it yet. Tilting her head back, she opened them for the first time since he’d joined her. “I promise, when I’m back to normal, you can spar with me all you want.”
He nodded in response to her words before the pair fell into silence.
Breathing in his comforting scent, she sighed. “Tell me something that no one else knows.”
Tilting his head, he eyed his girlfriend. “What?”
“Tell me something that no one else knows,” she repeated. Other than the occasions where he spent time at Stark Tower, Steve was usually at the Lighthouse with her. And even though they’d been together for four years and kept such close quarters before they ‘moved in’ together, she knew she couldn’t possibly know everything there was to know about the man.
He took a few moments to consider her question before finally answering. “After our defeat in Wakanda, I didn’t think I’d ever be happy again.” It had been a dark time for everyone, but they’d carried on. There was no conscious decision to move on, but like Geoffrey Chaucer said, ‘time waits for no man.’ There had been nothing to do but move on and attempt to find a solution.
“I think we all felt that way in one capacity or another,” she replied. She knew because once upon a time, she couldn’t fathom living in a world where Phil Coulson didn’t exist.
He nodded. “I know, but after Vision’s death, Bucky’s disappearance and finding out that Sam suffered the same fate…” He paused to consider his words. “I was about ready to give up and then you welcomed us into the Lighthouse without so much as a grumble. Everyone was lost, and I had to step up and I figured I’d just be in a state of existing, but then you came into my life. You called me out on things, brought me back to life. You made me happier than I thought I could be.”
Opening her eyes, she turned her head and placed a kiss on his neck. Even after four years of being together, he still said things that managed to surprise, flatter and embarrass her. “You make me happy too.”
He squeezed their joined hands. “Okay…your turn.”
She hesitated momentarily. “My turn?”
He nodded. “I told you my secret, now you have to tell me one.” Surely, she didn’t think that she’d be able to ask such a thing without it being turn on her…
“Something that no one else knows…” She trailed off, thinking over his request. “I never wanted to be a mom,” she admitted quietly, forcing herself not to turn to Steve.
He honestly hadn’t expected her to say something like that. His thumb began caressing the back of her hand. “What?” But he’d watched her interact with various children and she was always so good with them. “But I’ve watched you with Ace, Robin, Clint’s kids…Elias. You’re great with them.”
She focused on the hair on his forearm, choosing not to respond to his observation. “I think it was after the fourth time of being sent back to the orphanage that I decided I didn’t want to bring a child into this world in the off chance that something happened to me and they would be placed in that situation.”
He couldn’t imagine not wanting to be a parent. Maybe it was because of his situation, but we wanted children. “Even after you learned that SHIELD was behind all of that, you didn’t change your mind?”
There may have been one thought, but seeing as she’d been single and young, she had no reason to even entertain the thought. “Having grown up without a steady parent or guardian, I guess I felt like I couldn’t possibly know anything about raising a child, though the thought was fleeting,” she tacked on. “I was single and nowhere close to finding myself in that situation so why think on it?”
She wondered if she was disappointing him. Despite the fact that they’d been together for four years, neither one ever broached the idea of marriage, let alone children. However, given everything that Steve had been through in his life, she was sure that he fell on the opposite end of the spectrum when it came to children.
“When I realized what the feeling of being unwanted was, I started reaching out to the kids in the orphanage that were younger than me. I wanted to make sure that they didn’t have to experience the same sensation, or if they did, I wanted them to know they weren’t alone and that someday it would get better.” After being raised in an orphanage she supposed it was only natural that she learned how to deal with younger children, but that hadn’t meant she wanted her own.
“And since we’ve been together?” He asked. It never crossed her mind? Not even once? It had certainly crossed his.
“I don’t know,” she licked her lips. “I guess I…I don’t let my mind go there,” she confessed after a moment.
Pulling his arm out from under her, Steve turned on his side so that he was facing her. He didn’t say anything, but he could only assume that his facial features said enough by the way she responded to him.
She smiled sadly at him. “We started our relationship after tragic circumstances, and since then we’ve all been working on a way to go back and change things,” Daisy reminded him softly. “What if what is changed is us?” She asked. “If you guys do actually go back in time and prevent Thanos’ destruction, you and I won’t get together.” Before he could say anything, she spoke again. “Where are the questions coming from?”
“I don’t think it would be a surprise to you to find out that I always wanted a family, at least two children.” He’d grown up an only child, and it was lonely. He watched her giggle and he smiled back at her. “After joining SHIELD and the Avengers, I knew children wouldn’t be a possibility at the time. And then I stepped away from the Avengers and things slowed down for a while, until Thanos, anyway. And during that time, I realized that it was something I wanted.” He wanted a wife, children, a house…he wanted it all…someday. “It feels like most of us have put the last four years on hold and I don’t want to do that anymore. I will still do what I can to find a solution, but I don’t want to live half a life anymore.”
“So…you’re what? Feeling me out?”
He frowned. Is that what he was doing? “I guess?”
She arched her eyebrows at him.
“You’ve made me happier than I ever thought I could be after what Thanos did, but I want more. One day, I would like to get married and have children.” Between their combined super soldier genes, any children they had would be amazing. If he closed his eyes long enough, he could see a little girl with hair just a shade darker than his and her mother’s eyes.
“And if I never change my mind on children?”
“You said that since we’ve been together, you’ve never really allowed your mind to go there,” he recalled. “Do you think you could do that? Imagine a life with me by your side with at least one child?” Though he wanted more, he would compromise if it meant she would be by his side.
“Is this your way of telling me you plan to marry me?” She asked with a teasing lilt to her voice. However, it was in effort to cover up her nervousness. The conversation had taken on a serious tone and she’d been completely unprepared to have it.
“Well, I don’t plan on proposing tomorrow or anything. But it would be nice to know that we’re on the same page. Can you promise me that you will at least think about it?”
“I can do that,” she told him softly.
“Good.” He kissed her temple. “Now stop being lazy and join the rest of us.”
“But I don’t want to,” she whined dramatically, curling into his side. “Let’s just stay like this for the rest of the day.”
“As nice as that sounds, I need to work off some energy.”
“Then by all means, work it off with me.”
A chuckle rumbled through his chest. “Come on, sweet girl. Out of bed.” However, if the offer was still on that table later that night…
Knowing there was no arguing with him, Daisy sat up, grumbling as she did so. Making her way to the restroom to freshen up, she closed the door behind her. Placing a hand on her flat stomach, she exhaled as she tried to fight back the nausea she felt. She didn’t know anything for certain, but she suspected that the reason why she was so tired all of the time was because she was pregnant. She’d thought about having Jemma perform a test, but she didn’t want to chance anything getting out before she was ready. Maybe taking a trip to town would be best?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It wasn’t until the following day that she felt enough energy to leave the base. What turned into a quick trip to a pharmacy changed when Natasha opted to join her and pick up ‘a few things’ from the local grocer.
As soon as they parted ways in the grocery store, Daisy immediately made her way to the pharmacy. Of all the times she’d been in the store, she’d never had to visit that particular department. Ever since Chicago, she hadn’t had even so much as had a cold so there had been no need for her to visit the pharmacy. When she stopped in front of the section of pregnancy tests, she nearly blanched. Why were there so many options? Didn’t they all do the same exact thing? Picking up one test, she read the back of it before setting it down and grabbing another one before repeating the action multiple times. It wasn’t until after she’d read every single test that she made a decision on one.
“There you are, I was wondering where you went off to,” Natasha said, as she pulled the cart to a stop.
The brunette immediately tensed. Uh oh, busted… How long had she been reading the back of these boxes?
“Okay, so regular or barbeque?” The redhead held both bags of chips out to her companion, but as she looked at both bags, she shrugged. “Never mind. We’ll get both.” She looked at Daisy wondering why her friend was so quiet. “Is that a pregnancy test in your hand?” Her eyes trailed down the brunette’s body with a critical eye. “You’re pregnant?”
Daisy closed her eyes and breathed out through her nose. “Possibly,” she said. Not possibly. The point of the test was to confirm her suspicions. “Probably.”
“Oh!” Natasha gasped, thrilled for her friends. “Does Steve know?”
Daisy shook her head in negative. “I don’t want to say anything until I know for sure.”
“Why not just have Simmons do the test?”
“Because I didn’t want to chance this getting out before I was ready.”
Natasha grabbed Daisy’s hand and began marching her towards the checkout lanes.
“What are you doing?” Daisy asked, attempting to keep up.
“Paying for this so you can take the test.”
“But what about the rest of the stuff?” They weren’t even finished shopping.
Natasha waved away the question. “It’ll be there when we get done.”
Daisy frowned at her companion. “Has anyone ever told you how pushy you are?”
Nat could only scoff. Of course, she was pushy. When she joined SHIELD, most operatives were men. She’d had to work twice as hard just to prove herself, and she didn’t get to the top by being a pushover. “Oh, so you want to spend the entire time shopping, wondering if you’re pregnant or not?”
While Daisy paid for the test, letting the checkout clerk know she would be taking the test as soon as she could, Nat returned for the cart and parked it outside the restroom. After giving Daisy what she assumed was adequate time to pee on the stick, she pushed her way in.
“I can’t believe this is happening to me,” Daisy said. “I never wanted to have kids.”
“It could be worse, Daisy.” Though it wasn’t conventional in the way that Steve would have preferred, he would be thrilled with the idea of being a father. He would take care of Daisy and that kid without any reservations what-so-ever. “It could be a lot worse.”
“What do I know about being a mother? I never even had a real guardian.” Her own mother tried to kill her. “I can’t possibly raise a child. I mean I live at a SHIELD base.”
“Fitzsimmons made it work,” Natasha replied quietly.
“Oh, well, yeah. Fitzsimmons…” She trailed off.
Instead of the little girl Fitzsimmons expected, that they all expected, a little prince had been born. Elias Phillip Fitz.
As soon as Fitz announced the baby’s sex to the expectant group, multiple eyes turned on Deke Shaw, whom held his hands up. “Don’t look at me, I’m just as confused as the rest of you.”
The sound of her alarm pulled Daisy from her thoughts. She turned it off, but otherwise refused to move.
“Well?” Natasha prompted. “Are you going to look?”
Daisy shook her head. “I…I can’t.”
Natasha instantly grabbed the stick. “It’s negative.”
Upon hearing the words, Daisy’s head shot up. “Oh,” she breathed, not expecting that. “I guess I’ve been worried over nothing.” But if she wasn’t pregnant, then why was she so tired all of the time? She wasn’t pregnant? There wasn’t a baby growing inside her?
“You okay?” Natasha asked, frowning. Given Daisy’s questions and doubts, shouldn’t she be jumping for joy?
“Oh, I’m fine,” Daisy waived away. She wasn’t pregnant. That was good, it wasn’t like she needed a son or daughter with her hair and Steve’s eyes. “I’m fine.”
“You sure? Your voice is off-kilter.”
“No, I just…I mean this good news.” Why did she feel so bad?
Natasha raised her eyebrows. “Is it? Because it doesn’t sound like it.”
“I don’t know why I’m reacting like this,” Daisy said, shaking her head. “I mean I know next to nothing about raising babies.” It had been a week since her suspicions started. Had she slowly started changing her mind on the subject without even realizing it?
“Well, I suspect that you have about six and a half to seven months to do all the reading that you can about the subject.”
Daisy nearly choked. “What?”
“I lied,” Natasha said flatly. “You’re going to have a baby.”
“I’m…?” She was pregnant? Her hands moved to her stomach. She looked at the redhead. Why would she do something like that? “Why would you do something like that?”
“Because you were so sure that you didn’t want kids, but your reaction suggested otherwise.”
“That was mean,” Daisy said as tears welled in her eyes. “I’m going to be a mother. That’s a scary thought.”
Natasha smiled. “Steve’s going to be thrilled.” She could already see him as the doting father, doing everything in his power to make sure that the child was given the best opportunity. Fitzsimmons’ son was spoiled by everyone. But the unborn child in Daisy’s stomach was going to be the first Avenger baby in years and she knew he or she would be spoiled rotten, especially once Pepper found out.
Daisy nodded. He would make an excellent father; a much better parent than she was sure she would be.
After disposing the test, the pair returned to their shopping cart, though the last thing Daisy wanted to do was shop. A tiny person was growing inside her body. The idea was such a foreign concept that she still couldn’t believe it. Could she really be a mom? As much time as she spent around Elias, Robin and Clint’s kids, it was easy enough since she knew she could return them to their parents…or guardian in Robin’s case. But she’d be in charge of raising a little person and raising him or her to be a functioning member of society. She may not have been as against children as she thought she was, but the idea of being a parent still scared the hell out of her.
“You have a preference?”
The question pulled her from her thoughts and Daisy looked at her friend. “Hmmm?”
“What do you want? A boy or a girl?” Natasha clarified.
She knew that most women wanted girls, but not her. She wanted a little boy, and she wanted to name him after Coulson. Since Jemma already gave her son ‘Phillip’ as a middle name, Daisy could work with ‘Coulson.’ Firstname Coulson Johnson… No, firstname Coulson Rogers. That sounded better. “A boy,” she said, smiling for the first time since taking the test.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“There you are,” Melinda May said as she ran into Daisy in the halls of the Lighthouse. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Oh?”
“Today was the third day that you’ve blown off morning training,” the other woman reminded her former rookie. “That isn’t like you, what’s going on?”
“I haven’t been feeling the best lately.”
Though she didn’t say anything, May immediately felt alarmed as her gaze turned critical. “You haven’t been feeling well? You don’t get sick.”
“I know,” Daisy mumbled.
May frowned in response. “What? You pregnant or something?”
She couldn’t help it when her eyes widened in response. Was she so obvious?
Reading into Daisy’s reaction, May’s own eyes widened. “You’re pregnant?” She asked in a whispered explanation.
“The pregnancy test I took said I was.”
“Did Jemma give it to you?”
Daisy bit her bottom lip and shook her head in negative.
“Have you even talked to her?”
“I’ve been trying to work up the nerve,” Daisy admitted sheepishly. “I know the test said I was and considering how I’ve been feeling, I feel like it. But talking to Jemma in a medical capacity makes it more real,” she said, trying to explain her thoughts. When she received May’s trade mark, a single arched eyebrow, she felt her cheeks heat in embarrassment. “I didn’t say it made sense,” she mumbled.
She hadn’t seen Daisy so unsure of herself since she first received her powers. Taking pity on her, she uncrossed her arms. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“To talk to Simmons.” It didn’t matter that Jemma married Fitz twice over, she would always be affectionately called by her maiden name.
“There’s no arguing with you on this, is there?”
“Nope,” the older woman responded as she guided Daisy to the medical center. Even though there was a doctor that was on the base part time, Jemma still stepped in whenever necessary.
“Daisy, May,” Jemma greeted as the pair stopped in front of her. “Is something wrong?” She asked as both women sought her out. She looked closely at the pair. Ever since Daisy had returned from grocery shopping, she’d been off. Not only had Daisy been quiet, but her face had been an extra shade of white; so pale that even Mack had commented on it as Daisy and Nat put the food away. The English woman frowned. “Steve mentioned that you’ve been feeling tired lately.” Was the serum losing its effectiveness?
Though they were the only three in the medical ward, Daisy still did a double take around the area to make sure no one else happened upon them since she’d approached her best friend. “I’m pregnant.”
Jemma shrieked and instantly embraced her friend. “How wonderful!”
Daisy returned the hug, unable to not smile over her friend’s reaction.
“Wait,” Jemma pulled away. “How do you know?”
“I took a test when we were out today. I’ve been so tired lately and I haven’t felt that way since before taking the serum. And then when my period didn’t come… You know that it has never regular, but then I started thinking…and yeah.”
“No morning sickness?”
Daisy shrugged. “There’s been a bit of nausea, but I haven’t thrown up or anything.
Lucky bitch. Jemma couldn’t help but remember how bad hers had been. Only it hadn’t only be morning sickness, it was noon and night sickness as well. She’d lost so much weight the first three months of her pregnancy, Fitz had been truly scared for her and sworn off ever getting her pregnant…which of course put Deke in a tizzy. “If you have the time, I can hook up the ultrasound…”
“Yeah,” Daisy said after some consideration. “I can do that.” She cast a glance at May. “Can May stay?”
“If you’d like,” Jemma replied. “As this has turned into a medical visit, it’s your choice.”
Without saying anything, Daisy turned to her former SO with an expectant expression on her face. When the seasoned SHIELD agent nodded once, Jemma smiled. She showed Daisy to a private room and prepared for the ultrasound.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“And that right there, is your baby,” Jemma said, pointing to the screen as she ran the wand over Daisy’s belly.
Squinting her eyes, Daisy tried to make out a shape, any shape, but her untrained eyes could only make out shadows.
“According to the size and the information you gave me, I’d say you are about seven weeks along,” Jemma smiled gently before she announced Daisy’s due date. She moved the machine back in place, she reached for the pictures she’d taken before turning back around.
“And everything is going to be okay?” Daisy asked, worrying her lip as she adjusted her clothes. “I mean the serum on both of our sides…”
“I’ll keep a close eye on things,” Jemma offered, “but I suspect everything is going to be fine.” Daisy didn’t suffer from the same debilitating nausea she had and the tiredness she spoke up was essentially nothing compared to what some women dealt with their first trimester. No, she suspected that Daisy’s pregnancy would go more smoothly because of the serum.
“Jemma, do you think you could keep this out of my file?” Daisy asked. “It’s just, I feel bad enough that May and Nat knew before Steve. And I know you wouldn’t tell anyone else-
“I can’t tell anyone else,” Jemma reminded her friend gently.
“I know. But if it’s in the file, anyone who had access to this office would be able to find out.”
Jemma nodded. “I’ll keep it out for now,” she said. “However, I’m going to need something to refer back to when it comes to measurements,” the scientist tacked on. “I suggest you tell him sooner rather than later.”
May nodded along with the advice. Between training and sparring, Daisy wouldn’t be able to keep it secret for long. If she continued to find excuses to get out of sparring, someone would catch on.
“I will, but I don’t know how. I mean this is Steve Rogers, you know?” Daisy asked rhetorically. “Even though some of his ideals have changed in the last several years, I know that he’ll feel bad for this happening out of order.”
“Out of order or not, he’s going to be so excited,” May reminded the younger woman.
“So, have you thought about how you’re going to tell him?” When she told Fitz, she’d ordered a specially made coffee cup so that when he finished his tea, the bottom of the mug told him he was going to be a father. Of course, he’d instantly dropped it upon registering the words, but it had been funny all the same.
Daisy shook her head in negative. “What am I supposed to do? Give him a card that says ‘you + me = 3?’”
Jemma shrugged. “Why not?”
“Jemma!”
The sound of Fitz’s voice ringing through the medical ward broke the moment and all three women adjusted themselves to look more casual
“Jemma! We did it!” He came rushing into the room, stopping short upon seeing the three of them. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Just girl talk,” Jemma excused. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Fitz swept her into his arms and spun around in circles.
“We did it. It works.”
“What?”
“The time machine works!” He exclaimed. He went on to explain how the experiments worked and the help that Shuri had provided them.
Daisy stared dumbly at the embracing couple.
Just a few days earlier her biggest concern was potentially being pregnant. How much time had she stressed over it when in the end…it apparently didn’t really matter?