Give Life Meaning...

Congratulations

     The next few days passed in a blur for both Steve and Natasha. Despite finally getting the two in better conditions, feeding them, and getting them clean, the little girl had a fever. Not that it was awful. Bruce said it was due to the serum, but she was miserable. Being that she was miserable, the little boy wouldn't settle, which Bruce mentioned could be some twin bond, or he could sense her illness. In either case, Steve and Natasha hadn't slept very much, and it was beginning to show. As a soldier, Steve was used to sleeping less while doing high-risk missions, but this was something else entirely. 

     "Okay, that's it... You two have been pacing this room for the past two days. Hand them over," Clint told the two, seeing Steve turn his body slightly away from him to protect the girl. Steve had taken it personally that the little girl had chosen to trust him and even Natasha. However, Natasha struggled a little under the sudden weight of having her life wrapped around tiny beings and being unable to be with the rest of them. Tony still hadn't told the two of them, which was at the tip of his tongue, but he wanted Natasha rested. "Cap, I'm not going anywhere. We'll stay in this room, with their bed surrounded by the things I picked up for them. I'll call you two if anything happens." He managed to remove the sick little girl from his arms before going over and seeing a very resistant Natasha. 

     "Nat... Come on, I have kids of my own. I can handle them serum or not. See, I have her. Just let me take the boy, hm?"Reluctantly she let him take the little boy too. Clint could see the exhaustion in her green eyes and nodded towards the door. "There you go. Go on. I'll give you two a few hours. Shower, sleep, and actually eat your food instead of insisting they try every little thing you have." They were parents without realizing they were parents. Clint looked down at the little girl's flushed cheeks, who kept her eyes closed during the switch and took a deep breath. Clint had been hovering the last few days, trying to get the kids accustomed to him while offering them bits and pieces of advice without overwhelming the two adults. He could see the news going two different ways, which worried him. 

     Steve nearly stumbled out of the room less than gracefully without a kid in his arm for the first time in days. "I don't know what I want to do first," he murmured, walking down the long hallway to find his room. 

    "Sleep," Natasha decided before just grabbing his arm and pulling him into his room collapsing on the bed. She felt Steve pick her up and lay her long ways before laying beside her staring up at the ceiling. "This has been the longest mission of our life." It didn't seem to have an ending date. An unspoken uneasy feeling passed between them as if it wouldn't end. She turned her head to look at the soldier who stared at the ceiling, his mind working a thousand miles a minute trying to figure out the puzzle. 

     "I don't know. It beats fighting the chitauri," Steve spoke, trying to find the humor in the situation. There wasn't anything humorous about children missing parents and no answers. Or, there were answers, and they weren't being told. His gut was telling him that everyone was in on the situation but the two laying on the bed. "We better take a nap... I don't want to leave Princess too long.." 

     "You're adorable," Natasha chuckled before rolling over and passing out soon afterward. She vaguely felt Steve cover her with the blanket, and he made the bed dip as he moved to get comfortable. Beyond the bedroom, chaos was brewing; while the spy and super soldier could feel it, they weren't prepared for it. 

     "So Thing one and Thing two share a mother," Tony clarified with Bruce, who nodded anxiously as the files surrounded them in the room. "They don't share a father." On the one hand, that could easily be seen, but it was harder to explain when it came to twins. In rare circumstances, a mother could get pregnant twice by different men in a short time, but that didn't happen very often. As the biological mother didn't even know she had children, it had to be artificial insemination. Tony didn't know if the two different fathers were on purpose or how it turned out.

     "We have to tell them. You've seen the files, and you know who the other father is and what he means to Steve. We can't keep this from them any longer," Bruce was going to push for complete transparency after the results. It would only hurt the group further to keep this from the two. 

     "So what did they do? Just mix it all in a petri dish and pick two random ones. Or... Did they purposely choose who they did? And why did Code 1 and 2 fail?" Tony muttered, looking at the gathered information before pulling up more files. 

     "Tony! That's not the important thing here," Bruce stated, looking at the man with disbelief. "They need to know who the parents are of those kids. We can't keep just letting them take care of them without their knowledge. We have to give them a choice on what happens... We can't sweep this under the rug." He was pretty sure the only reason Clint hadn't told the two was that there wasn't any actual proof of who the fathers were. Now that they knew who it was, there would be no way to convince Barton to hold that information. 

     "Okay, okay, we'll tell them," Tony glanced towards the Doctor and back down at the files. "JARVIS! Call for a meeting in an hour." 

     An hour later, Steve and Natasha stumbled into the living area bleary-eyed but showered. Steve reached out and took the little girl, who began to fuss at the sight of him, and rubbed her back while Natasha took the little boy. Both of them stood off to the side, seeing that Bruce and Tony faced them. Clint seemed to recognize what was going on and tensed up. "Tony, why were we called in for the meeting?" He glanced down at the little girl before looking over at Natasha feeling the unease rise up and threaten to swallow him. 

    "We know who the parents are of these two," Tony said, taking a deep breath as he prepared to upend the two lives in front of him. "The mother is one Natasha Romanoff." Steve looked over at Natasha to see her grow still. She had turned into a statue, his eyes taking in the lack of color, and was fully prepared to catch her should the Black Widow have the urge to collapse. 

     "The father? Do we have any information on him?" The specifics were obscure to Steve, he wasn't sure how this could be Natasha's children, but he needed to get as much information as possible before going into the gritty details. His gaze settled back on Tony, who looked over at Bruce and back at Steve. "Tony?" There was a warning tone, not appreciating the prolonged silence. 

     "Congratulations, Cap," the response was physical as Steve jerked back while holding the little girl. "Well... To one. That little girl is yours. You're not the father to that one." He pointed over at the boy that Natasha still held to her frozen frame, her green eyes unreadable.

     "How? How is that possible?" Steve demanded as he looked over at Natasha and back at Tony, his voice rising just a bit. When Clint moved forward to remove the girl from his arms, he moved away to keep her with him. "Whose, the father for him?" His mind was dizzy with the implications and trying to figure out how it all worked. 

     "His father is James Buchanan Barnes," Bruce answered, keeping his tone soft afraid to startle the man further with the child in his arms. 

    "That's impossible! Bucky is dead. He has been! I saw him fall off the train in forty-five! How is any of this possible!?" The little girl began to whimper in his arms, causing him to hunch forward a bit, feeling his heart beat painfully against his ribcage. 

    "It's relatively new... Even with Hydras abilities, before they put Natasha through the graduation ceremony, they must have taken some of her eggs," Bruce fumbled to explain and looked over at Natasha and back at the super soldier. "We theorize that as they thawed you, someone must have taken your... Sperm and that Hydra got ahold of it. Someone carried the children, obviously, but according to the file, it was another Hydra agent. The little girl is definitely yours, and the other is Sergeant Barnes. Their names are Code three and four." The only sound besides the heavy breathing between the shocked adults was Clint moving to Natasha's side. Even he was shocked by the findings, Bruce had known about Natasha and suspected Rogers, but having a baby Barnes blew him away. 

     "They took my eggs? They've created," Natasha cut off as she choked on the words trying to verbalize the violation she felt. The Red Room had forced her into sterilization only to take apart of her to use later. They took her ability to choose and create something new; worse, they tried to use Captain America's DNA to create a different soldier. One to raise from birth.  

     "Buckys, son?" Steve turned wet eyes to the quiet boy taking in the tense atmosphere. It hurt to know that these two never stood a chance against the pain inflicted on them. "Bucky has a son, and I have a daughter." He gazed down at his daughter, who felt the weight of it and raised her green eyes to meet his. 

     "I think the best thing for everyone is if we let Barton take them," Tony said so casually he missed the action of Steve handing Clint his daughter and grabbing the front of his shirt. "Hey! Calm down, Capsicle..." He grunted as Steve jerked him forward. 

     "You tell me I have a daughter, and you expect me to hand her over?" Steve ground out, blue eyes icy, as he withheld from punching the man in the face. A sharp cry drew his attention. 

     "Cap! Your daughter needs you," Clint cut through the haze of rage with that sentence as he handed over the little girl and frowned at the supposed genius. He watched Steve cuddle the little girl as Natasha still hadn't really said anything besides that one sentence. 

     "What? Do you two think you can be parents? Look at the two of you. Look at where you are," Tony gestured to the living area before looking at them with a shake of his head. "What do you know about raising babies?" When Steve faltered, words failing him, he felt his heart twinge painfully. Clint stepped forward. 

     "No one knows a thing about raising babies until they're in that situation," Clint defended, looking between his devastated best friend and the man that shared a daughter with her. "That's why I'm here. That's why as their family, we step up and help."