Chapter Text

INDY

I woke up with my fingers tangled in hair and a metal hand on my ass. I turned my head a fraction to peer at Bucky’s alarm clock through a half-closed eye. The team had moved everything the two of us had left back in New York here with them and set them up in separate rooms. They’d had no way of knowing exactly how far things had come between us. I guess, technically, they still didn’t.

After speaking with Fury the night before, I was exhausted. So, rather than take up another chunk of time with moving all of our stuff into one room, Bucky had picked me up and toted me to his bed.

I closed my eye again and sighed, ruffling Bucky’s long hair lightly. His metallic fingers tightened around my butt and he let out a slow breath through his nose.

“Mornin’, Sarge.”

He breathed in deep, lifted his head and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Hey, Doll. How you feelin’?”

Our early-morning conversations, before we’d both woken up all the way, were probably hilarious to hear for anyone else. Our sleepiness drastically exaggerated our respective accents. A Brooklyn boy and a Texan girl just drawling at each other groggily.

“Mm, not bad,” I groaned quietly, stretching in his hold. “That’ll probably change the minute I stand up, though.”

“Stay here a minute,” he said, releasing me and scooting backward off the bed. “I’ll get your pills.”

I was taking both over-the-counter Dramamine and prescription Phenergan. And that was just for the nausea and vomiting. Then there were the prenatal vitamins, blood pressure meds, and high-dosage iron tablets. Bucky dug through my medication case and returned to the bed with a handful of pills before passing me a bottle of water from the nightstand. I made a face as they went down and his lips quirked up despite the sympathetic way he ran his right hand over my forehead as he sat on the edge of the bed near me.

“How much longer are we keeping this a secret?” he asked softly, his fingers raking calmly through my hair.

My eyes drifted lower, to the rumpled sheet between us. I supposed since Fury knew now, there was no real reason not to tell the others. But it still felt daunting.

“Sam is already getting nosy,” he continued in that unbearably gentle tone. “And with your symptoms… I really don’t see how we can keep it under wraps. Especially once he starts getting bigger.”

He reached out and ran a metal knuckle over my stomach, his distant gaze locked on it. Something about the whole thing softened me. I pressed his hand more firmly to my unsteady stomach, trying to forget the perceptions of other people, the awful side-effects, and the potential ramifications so that I could for once just enjoy being his wife. The mother of his growing child. I owed it to both of us to let myself be happy about it for a while.

“We’ll tell them soon. I promise. I just need to… get my bearings. Again.”

He chuckled with me, butting his forehead lightly against mine. “Alright. Good. I don’t know how much more grilling I can take.”

O o 0 o O

My new, temporary office was cramped. But, at least the tech was adequate. There was a lot of clerical organization and cleanup to be done, so I started in on that. Bucky and the others were running drills above sea level on the outskirts of the ranch for most of the day, but Kate dropped in to hang out with me for a little while.

“I knew it!” she announced proudly as she entered my little water closet of an office. “I knew you and Bucky would eventually get together. Ever since that mission in Romania.”

I scoffed a laugh and raised an eyebrow at her. “What? Because I admitted I had a crush on him as a kid?”

She shook her head, short hair whipping slowly behind her. “No, not because of that. When he was hurt, you seemed really… scared for him.”

Odd. Back then, I didn’t even realize I had those feelings for him. “Of course I was. He was impaled . With the force of an explosion. And mostly because he was shielding me.”

Kate was about to answer - with something smug judging by the look on her face - but a yawn from me cut her off. I glanced at the clock on my computer. It was only 2 pm. But I was used to island living, napping periodically throughout the days to cope with the pregnancy.

“Already worn out on work, huh?” Kate asked with a grin. “Can’t say I blame you. I tried helping Sam when he took over for you after you left. But all that coding and formulating and coordinating… blech. I didn’t realize how much you actually did for us before you both left.”

Her bright tone slowly dropped, and she looked up at me earnestly, gripping my hand on top of the desk. “I’m really glad you’re both back. I missed talking to you. Yelena doesn’t get half my jokes.”

She released my hand, and we giggled for a minute before she asked for every detail of the wedding. She smiled brightly through my description of the beach, Bucky’s integrated wedding ring, my dress. I’d forgotten how infectious her excitement could be. By the time I was telling her about our little cottage on Bruce’s island, Bucky, Sam, and Yelena were walking into the office as well, quickly crowding the space.

“Break time, Doll,” Bucky said on entering, holding a hand out to me.

I glanced down at my computer monitor in alarm. I hadn’t even finished organizing what little data was still pertinent. “But I-”

“No buts,” he said, rounding the desk and grabbing me by the hand to pull me from my seat. “It’s lunchtime and you need food.”

His eyes focused meaningfully on mine. I didn’t just need food. The baby needed food. The more I thought about it, the more it felt like an open pit was growing inside my stomach, ready to grumble about its emptiness. How sporadically this nausea came and went…

I sighed and linked our fingers. “Alright. Lunch.”

Sam rounded the desk as well, slinging an arm around my shoulders and giving Bucky a look. “Don’t hog the girl, we just got her back.”

As the five of us left the room, Bucky huffed and rolled his eyes. “You got me back, too, y’know? Where’s my affection?”

“Oh, I think Indy’s got that covered,” Yelena monotoned with a smirk.

SAM

Having the team (mostly) back together was like a double-edged sword. On one hand, it was a relief to have Bucky and Indy back in the fray with us. But on the other, all of us were feeling a looming sense of urgency. One that Buck and Indy operated under with more fire than expected.

They were a pair of the worst workaholics I knew, but their single-minded focus on tracking down and snuffing out our enemy was alarming. 6 months, Bucky had said on the jet ride back into the US. 6 months until what, exactly? I’d tried wheedling more info out of him, but Bucky was maintaining whatever secret they were keeping from us.

Considering what was going on in our lives right now, that should have been suspicious, set me on edge. But I knew those two. Indy especially wouldn’t withhold information if she knew it was likely to leave any of us vulnerable. She had too big a heart.

There were, however, other things that had been kept from us. Things that were null and void now that John had brought the fight to us.

“Can’t the government pull some strings? Local law enforcement? Someone has to have seen something !” Kate exclaimed over dinner one night as we sat discussing our hopeless lack of direction. Fury and Indy were overextending themselves with their own remote recon work, and with little result. There had been no sightings of John or any of our previously-known implicated targets since he’d shown his colors.

Indy blew out a breath and shoved her second plate of the night away from herself, frowning. “Unfortunately, no. The government is obligated, by nature, to pursue the potential threat of terrorists, which Hydra - and now, by extension, John - qualifies as. But they won’t be sharing any of their resources with the likes of us. Our organization was never granted full rights as… whatever we were. Anyone ever notice we had no official name?”

The four of us remaining field operatives shared guileless looks. We were spies and superheroes and… well, quite frankly, we were badasses . Two of us had fought to save the world. But no, none of us had ever stopped to think about just how in the clear for our actions we were. And Indy had known. She glanced up apologetically at us.

“They gave us leeway — and amnesty, in some cases,” Indy said with a quick look at Bucky’s expression of realization beside her. “But only as long as we churned out consistent results. They just kept pulling the finish line for legitimacy further and further away. Now that we’ve informally disbanded due to insecurity in the ranks… we’re more or less not their problem anymore.”

“That’s…” Yelena droned slowly, mouth twisting as she thought for the right word.

“It’s bullshit! They’re not going to help us help them?” Kate spluttered loudly, waving her hands wildly.

“That’s the government, for you,” Indy grumbled, leaning sideways as Bucky’s arm wrapped around her back. He glanced up at me, eyes tight with worry. Curiosity pricked at me. We’d been in worse situations before and he’d hardly shown a shred of doubt. Surely being with Indy hadn’t made him that prone to debilitating anxiety. It was a big obstacle we faced, but…

“I know one thing,” I said, smirking. “I’ve seen all of you do the impossible. Every damn day. I’ve tried to fill some of your shoes here and there and… I don’t think anyone can do the things we all can do — the way we do them. With or without help, I know we’ve got this.”

The others shared looks with each other, slow hopeful ones. And for a moment, I thought I’d done the impossible and managed to inspire them. That proved to be false when, a second later, they all turned on me with unimpressed expressions. Kate threw a cherry tomato at me. Yelena cupped her hands around her mouth and “Booo!”ed me. Bucky sat silently with a dry, disapproving air. Indy shook her head and said, “What Hallmark movie did you get that from?”

But I saw them all crack and begin laughing with each other and felt accomplished, anyway. This didn’t need to be a governmentally sanctioned organization with the world at our disposal. What I’d said with the air of a teen sports pep talk, I’d meant. This was family. And we’d all fight to the bone to protect it.

Wait a minute.

I sat up straighter in my chair, my chattering companions too absorbed in roasting me to notice the way my eyes scoured every minutiae of Bucky and Indy’s body language. Nothing abnormal. His arm was still behind her, hand settled on her opposite hip. She leaned against him, a hand under the table on his leg (hopefully) as they talked with Kate and Yelena. I tossed around the amount of time they’d been gone in my head.

“You’ve only got 6 months until-”

Indy had cut him off then. And both of them had carefully dodged any of my subtle hints and a few pointed questions. But she consistently took medications now, where she didn’t before. And I was pretty sure I’d seen her checking her blood pressure just the other day. I hadn’t thought much of it past how stressed she’d probably been having to be on the run for so long.

But what if she was more than stressed? What if she was-

I felt my eyes widen, equal parts horror and affection. If there was a baby… A dangerous, imperiled, innocent, guilty-by-parentage baby… Half super soldier. It’d be wanted by scores of people impossible to predict — most notably, Hydra.

Their laser-focus on bringing down the dregs of Hydra and their new nemesis (John) suddenly took on a new, deeper meaning. They weren’t just fulfilling some civic duty or indulging an old grudge… they were pro-actively protecting their family. I hadn’t ever figured Bucky for the family man. I hadn’t foreseen Indy’s impact on him either, though, so I guess my presumptions were pretty much useless at this point.

Rather than ambush them with my epiphany right away, I decided to wait until they caved in and told us.

How much fun can I have with this in the meantime? I wondered, hiding a smirk behind my hand as the others continued their conversation.

INDY

Once I’d finally sorted through and analyzed all of our important data, I decided I deserved a treat. So I took the enormous water bottle Bucky insisted I keep on my person and a sleeve of crackers to the hangar we’d parked the jet in. Slamming my fingers into my keyboard was getting stale pretty quickly. I figured I could use some time fiddling with contraptions instead. It wasn’t exactly unproductive, but it wasn’t necessarily helpful currently, either. A perfect thing to do as a break from work.

I settled down on a rolling stool in the back, near the workbench kept for auto maintenance. I started with a piece of scrap metal, just a bit bigger than my palm and roughly circular in shape. With no particular design or function in mind, I just toyed with it, mulling over my situation for the millionth time.

Hydra didn’t know where we were. But we didn’t know where they were, either, and that was worrisome; there’s a reason they say to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. They could pop back up anywhere, at any moment. The team was running drills all through the day, gathering with me for strategy talks during the evenings. The tension was mounting beneath our thin covering of earth.

We’d done missions like these dozens of times. Maybe in the hundreds at this point. So why did this one feel like The Big One? Was it because I had so much to lose now? I’d gone up half a shoe size thanks to the swelling, and even though it still wasn’t visible yet, my lower stomach was growing tighter as well. I’d finally retired my belly button ring officially.

The team was back together. And with new life growing in me, I felt more… protective of them. I’d always considered them to be like a family to me. But now I felt the itchy desire to shield that Bucky must feel constantly about those closest to him. All of his reckless decision-making in the past suddenly made perfect sense to me.

I twisted the hunk of metal in my hands over, staring at it. It reminded me of Tony’s arc reactor. What was it he used to say? “A suit of armor around the world” ?

I’d worked on his suits in the past more times than I could count. I knew them inside and out. Did I know them well enough to build one from the ground up? To put a suit of armor around my world? What would Tony think?

Tony would understand. Tony, of all people, would encourage it.

My fingers tightened around the metal, new motivation swelling within me.