The Tower: Unexpected

Steve

A week passed and I still hadn't seen any of the other men. It was like a ghost town in the common room and while it might have been possible to go track a lot of them down, Natasha had said that Clint had gone into his shut-off defensive mode where he hid in the vents a lot and Tony had given FRIDAY orders to keep me out of the engineering lab and penthouse again.

That hurt. A lot. I didn't know how many more times he could do that to me and I'd be able to forgive him for it.

I kept telling myself, processing time. They just needed to process and figure out exactly what they wanted. It didn't hurt less, but it certainly helped me from not circling the drain. Besides, while Tony did lock himself away from me, he did also go about finding a doctor for me. An expert in obstetrics was put onto staff just to look after me. She was in the process of relocating and I just needed to wait for that before I had my first appointment. So even though Tony had locked me out, he was still participating. I would take that as a good sign.

I can't say that the thought of terminating didn't keep coming back to me. Not that I wanted to but I just thought it would be better if we were going to do this they had the time to decide they wanted it beforehand. Then I pictured what that would do to Natasha and Wanda and I just couldn't. Especially Nat. I think Natasha would shut down if I chose that. It'd be that last little thing to say she didn't get to just be a regular person. I know, I know, it's not my job to give that to her, but I did want this baby. If it was just me, Nat and Wanda so be it. I had gone into this relationship being monogamous with Nat. It would hurt to go back to that, but I'm sure we could be happy.

I mean there was Hulk too. He was still around. Bruce seemed to be just... gone. Hulk was very excited though and spent a lot of time between my room and Bruce's. My bed was big, but not Hulk big and being in Bruce's place just made me miss him.

I had taken to mostly just staying in my apartment. Wanda was sleeping with me every night and it didn't feel as much like a slap to the face. At the end of the week, there was a knock at my door and when I answered it, I was faced with an extremely exhausted-looking Steve.

"Um, hey. You got a minute?" His voice matched the dark circles under his eyes.

"Yeah, come in. Is something wrong?" I said standing back to let him in. I felt a twinge of guilt like this was my fault that he looked like this, but I was mostly just glad to see him. He had been quick to call the baby his when I announced I was pregnant. I didn't think this was an 'I'm out' talk.

"No, I mean. Yes. I mean, no. Maybe." He said coming in. He looked at me helplessly and my heart broke for him a little. I had never seen him so frazzled. "I'm sorry. This isn't helping. I don't know where to start."

I guided him to the couch and got him to sit. "You want some tea, honey?"

He nodded and slouched forward rubbing at the pad of his left thumb. "Yeah. That sounds good."

I went and made him a pot of tea and brought it back on a tray pouring him a cup when I sat down beside him. "So, what is it? What's the matter?" I asked.

He picked up the cup and just held it in his large hands, looking into the reddish brew. "I don't know there's a lot. What day is it? I can't think straight, and I'm sure I'm going to say something wrong."

"It's about the pregnancy, right?" I asked, a pit forming in my stomach. "Do you not want to be a part of it?"

He put the cup down and pulled me into his arms. "No, honey. No." He said, nuzzling against my neck. "Where to start? Where to start?"

I relaxed a little letting him hold me and looked up into the blue of his eyes. "Maybe at the beginning."

"Beginning. Right," He said and took a breath. "So, we've talked about when I was little right?"