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Steve tries to free his legs from the stirrups, but he can't feel anything lower than his navel. The nurses look at him over their masks, one urges him not to fight it. She's speaking in Russian. Steve understands it. Something must be added to his IV because his head feels hard to hold up. He fights it, trying to lift his arms but unable to so he starts screaming for Bucky. He can't move and they're taking his baby.
His eyes pop open and Bucky is standing over him, talking to him in a hushed tone, trying to soothe him. Steve glanced over at the tablet on the bedside table, the screen showing Maggie safe in her crib in her dinosaur pajamas.
"They took her," he reminded his mate quietly, rolling over onto his side to face him. Bucky sat on the edge of the bed and put his real hand on Steve's rounded stomach. Only two weeks to their due date and like with Maggie, Steve was having nightmares again.
"No one is going to take our baby, Stevie," Bucky said confidently.
"I know," Steve responded, sounding like he believed him. He smiled sheepishly. "I really do, but I guess my subconscious hasn't caught on yet."
"Do you want to call Nat?"
Steve's eyes flicked back to the tablet. Zero four hundred. He shook his head. That helped but he didn't want to wake her. "I'll be fine, why were you up?"
Now Bucky looks sheepish. "Just work stuff."
"I'm going to find out eventually." Steve leveled an unimpressed look on Bucky.
"Probably a mission," he admitted then got up walk around to the other side of the bed to get in. He scooted over to spoon Steve, hand going back to rest back on Steve's stomach.
"I won't allow it," Steve said with a yawn, his hand joining Bucky's at his abdomen. Olivia stirred slightly inside him.
"Good thing you're in charge," Bucky mumbled, sounding tired.
-
For the most of the day Steve and Coulson plan the mission, but don't say anything about who will be on the two person team they'll need to complete it. Steve pointedly suggested that they send Sam and Natasha since Sam needed the experience. Phil wished he could send Sam but there are reasons he needed Bucky. Steve just shrugged, knowing that Bucky will refuse.
“You’re leaving?” Steve walked in to see a duffel on the coffee table and Bucky sitting on the couch with Maggie in his lap. “After I asked you not to?”
“Yeah…” Bucky has the decency to look embarrassed about it.
“I’m at thirty-eight weeks. I could go into labor any day.”
“Probably not for another two weeks, Steve.” Bucky bounced his knee so Maggie will giggle, distracting her from her obviously stressed parent. “I’m going to get this done quickly, obviously I have a good bit of motivation.” He gestured at Steve’s middle with his hand.
“I’m calling Coulson,” he responded simply and turned to head into the kitchen to put his things down.
The phone call produced no different results. Bucky and Nat are the only ones that speak the languages needed and they’re the best in a fight. Tony is too high profile and Steve wasn’t much better, not to mention his current condition. He put away his lunch dishes and headed back to the living room. “One week, Bucky. Please.”
“I’ll do my best,” he promised as he got up, carrying Maggie over so he can hand her off to Steve. Bucky kissed him on the cheek then picked up his bag. “I promise you won’t have that baby without me,” he says then headed out the door.
One week later not only is Bucky not home, he has gone dark. Steve had been able to watch some of his and Nat’s progress through the drones but now they’ve gone deep undercover.
At thirty-nine weeks and five days, Steve felt the first contraction in the middle of the Whole Foods produce section after Maggie’s tumbling class. He pressed his lips into a thin line and hurried through his shopping, complaining to Coulson on the phone that he needs to get Bucky home now. Coulson promised that he will get him home soon.
Steve would feel guilty, he knew the mission wasn’t going that great and Bucky must really be needed, but part of him thought he deserved this selfish moment. Neither of them had been in particularly good places when Maggie was born. Now that they’re living together as a family and Bucky had taken so well to the modern alpha lifestyle, Steve knew that being there for the birth was important to him.
Sure, they had bought a seven bedroom house because Steve was anticipating more children after Olivia but he wanted Bucky there for all of them. No hospitals, no fear, just their family.
He made Maggie some chicken and kale for dinner but doesn’t eat anything himself. That’s normal he has learned, to be completely disinterested in food before the baby comes. The contractions are not bad but with every one he is reminded of the absence of his mate.
After Maggie is bathed and in her crib he got in bed and on the phone with Coulson again. An extraction team has been sent to retrieve Bucky and replace him with Clint. When he got off the phone he noticed Maggie peeking around the side of the doorframe, looking worried. Steve put the phone down and motioned for her to come over. One Steve lifter her to the bed she crawled up next to him, tucking herself against him and lightly pulling on his robe. He sighed and brushed some wisps of hair out of her face. “If you try to nurse now you won’t like it. The milk will taste different because Olivia is about to come.”
As if on cue there’s a twinge of pain in his stomach, making him grit his teeth. He breathed deep as her fingers stay curled around the collar of his robe. She looked up at her bearer with pleading eyes. Steve sighed again, because he doesn’t want her to feel replaced but he knows full well that he’s full of colostrum. It weighs different in his chest.
He doesn’t help her but he doesn’t do anything to prevent her from pulling his robe away so she can press her mouth to him and suckle. It only took about three seconds before she’s sputtering and pulling away, going as far as to wipe her tongue on his robe.
Steve has a hard time not laughing, but when she looked a little tearful he brushes her hair behind her ear then moved so he was laying on the bed, fixing his robe as he went. “Pietro and Wanda are coming over to play with you,” he explains, hoping that will cheer her up before she’s too upset.
It does the trick because Maggie grinned and cuddled up next to him. She smiled and put one tiny hand on his stomach. “Where’s papa?”
“Working, baby,” Steve said gently. It had only been twelve hours and with Maggie he’d been in labor for two days. There was still time, he reminded himself.
-
Steve slept on and off, waking up during contractions. He didn't want to get up or move around too much because that would cause his contractions to speed up. To keep Maggie in bed with him he offered to let her watch cartoons in bed. He silently suffered through something called Paw Patrol until he heard the front door being unlocked. A pang of hope was quickly squashed when he heard Pietro's accent.
“Where’s my big girl?” Pietro called out, already heading to the kitchen to make her breakfast. Maggie jumped from the bed and ran down the stairs. She must bump into Wanda on the way down because Steve heard her scold Maggie gently.
“Heya, daddy,” she said with a smile as she entered the bedroom. “How’s Olivia doing?”
Steve smiled sadly and shifted in the bed. “She’s waiting.” He looks down at his stomach and rubs a hand over it. “Any word from the extraction team.”
“Not yet,” she answered as she sits on the edge of the bed, one hand going to Steve’s stomach. She paused and cocked her head as if she was listening to Olivia. “A little distressed. That’s normal.”
“I’m probably not helping,” Steve admitted feebly as he turned off the TV.
“Oh most definitely not,” Wanda teased, smiling as she gripped his hand.
They sat together, watching the phone mostly. Steve texted the midwife to let him know that he was trying to delay until he heard from Bucky. The midwife said he would stop by in a few hours to get check up on him. He tried to sleep but the contractions were only getting closer together.
The second time Steve heard the door he assumed it was the midwife but then he heard Maggie squeal and Bucky's voice. He jumped out of bed and ran down the stairs to be greeted by his mate, getting pulled into a family hug. "Told you I'd get back in time," Bucky whispered into Steve's hair.