These are the Hands of Fate - Steve Rogers x OC

Nine: Forever is the Sweetest Con

October 31, 2020

When she was nine years old, Maggie decided that she didn't ever want to be a mother. Sitting at the dinner table with her parents, the precocious child gently sat down her knife and fork on the napkin to the side of her plate and clasped her hands before clearing her throat, waiting for her parents' undivided attention. At that age, she hadn't registered the amused smiles the adults suppressed when she explained that she'd read something 'very interesting' in the encyclopedia that afternoon and that she had absolutely no interest in pursuing it when she grew up.

As her father's shoulders shook with laughter—she was far too well read at that age; he made a note to hide some of the more mature books on his office shelf—Maggie's mother appeased her as she explained that she always had control of what she wanted to do in her life, whether that be to grow up and get married and have children or shave her head and join the circus or something in between.

"Mom, I don't like clowns." Maggie's nose had wrinkled at the unpleasant idea as she'd returned to her dinner, taking a bite of the roasted carrots that remained on her plate.

When she was fourteen, their next-door neighbors had brought home their newborn baby from the hospital. Returning from a day at the Natural History Museum with her parents, the elevator door opened, and she was hardly able to disguise her horror as she heard the infant screaming from down the hall, bouncing off the walls and echoing around the floor. That was the second time she'd decided that maybe having children just wasn't for her.

The last time that she'd decided against the societal obligation of procreation was when she was twenty-two. In Ukraine, they'd just finished their work on one of the orphanages that they'd been instructed to construct. The building wasn't due to open for another two days when Maggie opened the double doors to go back outside and saw a small bundle of blankets that had been left at the base of the steps on that cool autumn day.

She'd dropped the mug of coffee that she'd been holding before she had bolted down the stairs. As she knelt to the ground, hands shaking as she carefully lifted it into her arms, she silently prayed that it was unharmed from its abandonment. Nose red and runny, cheeks wet with tears that had fallen from sky blue eyes, was a baby boy that had a very powerful set of lungs as he wordlessly cried out for his mother that wouldn't return.

Pinned to the blanket was a note with the day he was born and an unsigned plea for them to help give him a better life than she ever could. As Maggie held him, afraid to even blink while waiting for a doctor to arrive for a wellness check, she'd quietly named him Artem. It wasn't fair that he had nothing, not even a name, so if she couldn't do anything else, she could at least remedy that. After the doctor had come and gone, Artem had become the home's very first resident. Twice a week for the following year, she'd returned, keeping a watchful eye on the little boy who had no one else in the world. She'd observed as he'd grown into a happy, albeit lonely, child trying to find his place in the world.

If she'd been older, if her life hadn't been in shambles, if she'd already settled down and finished her graduate studies, she knew that, without a doubt, she would have brought him home to the states when she returned. Instead, she'd cried silently as she left him in the care of the more than capable workers she'd come to know when she finally had to return home. Leaving the country on a small plane, far older and wiser than her nine- and fourteen-year-old selves, she'd decided for the last time that she didn't want to have her own children.

The idea of bringing something so small and fragile into the already frightening world was paralyzing. So many people assumed that she was a monster, that she didn't like children, but that couldn't have been further from the truth. Her favorite part of her job was visiting with the children she'd help find homes for; she loved them and the drawings they made her and the jokes they told. She loved their wide-eyed wonder and endless energy.