The Fixer

Seeing a ghost

I'm having a baby.

I'm having a baby.

I'm having a baby.

I'm having a baby with Steve.

The words repeat inside her head on a loop over and over and over again as she stares out the large wall of windows of Tony's workshop. Staring blindly out at the busy cityscape Joanna rubs her hand absently over her lower stomach that has begun to get firm as she thinks about the crazy that is her life right now. She was going to be a mother on top of having some kind of serum similar to the ones Steve and Buck had, but it was like it was on steroids. Jo had all of the benefits of being at her peak self physically and mentally just like the two of them. Although unlike the men, she now had telekinesis as well as her body’s near indestructibility. All of that was something Jo had come to grips with. She’d had months of working on being able to gain iron control over them with help from Loki. Without him she would never have been able to have gotten through this with her sanity unscathed. With Joanna’s powers triggered by her emotions, the combined spike in her hormones from the baby and how she felt about Steve things have gotten even more complicated. This impossible thing was happening to her and while she felt okay with the fact she also felt a little numb.

In the same breath telling her this life altering news after she almost died, she'd found out she'd lost a baby. The medical term was vanishing twin syndrome. It didn't encompass the depth of the loss she was finally allowing herself to feel in the days since it happened. It made it sound like she just simply misplaced one of her babies. As if they'd never been. During the course of several more tests Dr Thompson had explained to her that it happened sometimes in the early stages of a pregnancy with multiples. That they didn't know why it happened, it just did. Though coupled with the stress of her blooming powers and all of the fighting with Steve it hadn't helped any. Not that she really blamed him anymore.

In this time away from the others in getting to know the real Steve Rogers over these last couple of weeks, Joanna had let go of a lot of anger and resentment that she held towards him. In their own little bubble in either of their apartments things were easyish. Joanna still had to practice her breathing techniques and constantly reminding herself to remain calm when her feelings for him got too overwhelming. The rising desire for Steve with every night snuggled up on the couch as they got to know each other, made plans for the baby and a thousand other little things that showed her the softer, kinder side of him that she’d heard so much about from Bucky and the others. The side of him that she’d seen the night they met at the bar that had her deciding to trust him enough to take him home. It’s what made her so excited to see him become a father to their child.

However, outside of their rooms, that’s when it became hard. Even outside these walls of the Tower where people’s expectations of him and her made it so that it wasn’t just the two of them. The very people they helped so that they lived in a safer world felt like they had a claim on who they were and what they felt like they should know of their private lives. It’s why all of Joanna’s doctors appointments would be taken care of in-house instead of seeking an outside OB/GYN’s office who’s staff could be tempted to sell their most secret moments. It’s also when her doubts about everything crept in. Where to live. New York or Washington or even possibly Rome. Whether or not she wanted to retire or continue to be an Avenger once the baby was born. If she did there was the question of who would take care of the little one when she and Steve were both inevitably called out at the same time. Did they hire a nanny? They couldn’t rely on or expect that the others would always be willing or be able to be their child care.

Then there was the fact of these romantic feelings that were re-blooming for her towards Steve. It wasn’t just Joanna anymore. With her came the baby and with how badly things could get between them it would affect the baby in the long run. Look how things had gone in the few short months she’d come to meet and know Steve. All of the back and forth fighting, the mixed signals that lead to frustrated and hurt feelings for the both of them. Would it be better to just learn to be friends and co-parent rather than become involved and have it sour? She didn’t want to go back to hating Steve if things went south romantically. Not after all of this ground they made up.