In Which Steve Rogers Learns He's Pregnant

Chapter One

The pregnancy tests had been a joke.

Steve's been moody as hell for about a week, snapping at the team for minor offenses one minute, snorting in laughter with something someone said the next.

Darcy even walked in on him crying over a Disney movie once.

He'd been sitting in the commons, drawing something that was supposed to be sold in a charity auction, minding his own business when Tony threw them at him. He smiles, though, when he speaks.

"Saw those and thought of you. Been hormonal as hell, Rogers." He winks at him.

Steve gets offended, for a total of fifteen seconds. Then he remembers Bucky knotted him without protection something like two and a half months prior.

He suddenly feels very nauseous.

Before anyone can smell the distress on him, Steve is up and in the elevator, pressing the button to his floor.

His heart picks up, and he feels himself start to panic before he forces himself to calm down.

There's no need to panic. Nothing's for sure.

Twenty minutes later, he's at the nearest convenience store buying one of each kind of pregnancy test.

The girl behind the counter- a Beta- can't be older than seventeen.

Apparently the cap and glasses aren't as effective a disguise as they were at one point.

She squints at him as she takes his money, glances up at him as he counted.

"Hey- aren't you-"

"Captain America?"

She nods a little. Steve forces a laugh, rolls baby blues.

"Nah. I get that a lot, though."

"If you say so." She bags the tests- paper, per his request, slides the bag across the counter. "Should I say good luck?"

"I dunno."

And then he's gone, taking another drink of water from the bottle he's clutching between strong fingers.

Not long after that, Steve is biting his bottom lip, sitting on the edge of the bathtub, ten positive pregnancy tests staring up at him from the lid of the toilet.

Oh, God.

Oh, Christ.

That's ten for ten.

This is real. This is happening. Bucky's still on the run, still taking care of whatever it is he's doing. For all Steve knows, that could've been a break in the storm and he was still the Winter Soldier.

He notices the bouncing of his knee and the hand on his lower abdomen at the same. He moves the hand, puts it against his knee to still the vibrating. Nervous habit that's lasted the years.

Steve's always wanted kids. Wanted to give Bucky a whole baseball team of pups if that's what his Alpha wanted.

Nature had different plans though, giving him a body that was too weak and frail to even get through a good Heat, let alone carry a baby.

They'd tried so hard for so long. Bucky would take a couple days off work to help him with his Heat, knot him as often as he begged. And every time, his next Heat would come back to bite him in the ass.

Bucky told him he didn't mind. Even if they never ended up giving the Dodgers their new team, they'd adopt a dog or two and they'd be happy. They'd be together.

Steve saw the upset when he smelled an oncoming Heat instead of pups, though.

Erskine told him he had no clue if it would effect is fertility. He had asked about it, the night before, over their drinks. Steve has been thoroughly embarrassed as he struggled to get the words out, but the old Beta just smiled sadly.  The only other test subject- Schmidt- had been an Alpha. It wasn't like he would have stuck around for testing anyway. He told him to keep the faith, though. They'd do some discreet tests.

After he died, Steve forgot about it.

When he found Bucky again, he was on so many suppressants he barely smelled Omega.

When Bucky fell, Steve resigned himself to being 'Uncle Steve' to Bucky's sister's kids.

And when he was putting down that plane, he realized he wouldn't even be getting that.

But now it's 2016, and Steve Rogers is crying into the collar of his shirt.

It's broken, cracking sobs that tear into his throat and leave him hiccuping. There's snot flowing freely from his nose, and he reaches for toilet paper to wipe it away.

He's pregnant.

He's been putting his life in danger, and there's a whole little life growing inside him.

Being Captain America is gonna be put on the back burner for a while, he supposes.