Chapter Text
A glowing line of pure white light soared across the mottled black sky, and Bucky’s footsteps padded gently across the floor.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked, as his reflection loomed over Steve’s shoulders, appearing in the glass the blond leaned against.
Wearily, Steve shook his head. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d made it through a full night’s sleep.
Firm hands spread across Steve’s sides and rose to lift some of his rounded stomach’s weight. Warmth and strength pitched up against his back, and Steve couldn’t help surrendering into his husband’s hold.
“You hurting?” Bucky’s voice stayed low, near a whisper, as if he might disturb something otherwise. His metal hand trailed, a fingertip to the spine, querying. When Steve couldn’t rouse himself to confirm it and respond, Bucky’s questing took his hand to the top of Steve’s bump, where false contractions had rippled on and off for long, restless days. But there was no tension there. Finally, Bucky’s palm floated up and over Steve’s swollen chest.
The flesh there was tender, soreness with the slightest pressure.
Steve grumbled, “Don’t push your luck.”
“I’m just figuring what’samatter. Can’t I worry over my best guy’s wellbein’?” But Bucky let his touch slip towards safer territory all the same.
“I’m fine. Just a lil’ restless,” Steve confessed at last. He tipped his head towards his husband’s own, and released what tension he could with a sigh. Bucky would bear him up. Bucky’s body would be his comfort, as it had been for so many years. “I’d like to get on with this now.”
Bucky’s sympathy expressed itself in a short line of tender kisses across the sensitive skin of Steve’s neck. It would have to do. It wasn’t like words were turfing their baby out of him anytime soon either.
In the glass, Steve saw Bucky’s eyes flick upwards all of a sudden. “Hey! Shooting star.”
“Make a wish,” Steve reminded him.
“I wish… for a September baby. Better at the start of the school year.”
Steve elbowed Bucky sharply, and did not apologize. It was August 19th. He was not being pregnant for another two weeks.
Discomfort lingered in his hips, in his pelvis, and Steve found he had to move. His legs would not permit him to stay still and stargaze anymore.
Of course, Bucky noticed. He followed Steve to the couch, and knelt on the carpet as Steve settled himself best as his body would allow. Nothing worked these days. Nothing felt truly like rest. Any comfort he could scrape together was temporary. And Bucky looked at him with eyes as wide as silver coins, trying to understand what difference he could make to Steve’s unease. Looking for answers Steve didn’t have the drive to give.
Velvety fabric cradled Steve’s cheek, and he closed his eyes against the cushions. His lower body still shifted, legs running over and around each other, and muscles sick with disuse and loosening still reporting their unhappiness.
Though a comforting hand rose to caress against Steve’s knee, the blond found himself struggling to stand the contact.
“You should go to bed,” Steve muttered. It was all so damn futile.
“Yeah. I’m not gonna do that, am I?” The trailing touch of Bucky’s fingernails skimmed across Steve’s closest palm. Against his better judgment, Steve curled his hand around Bucky’s own. Another line of kisses found their home along Steve’s knuckles.
Maybe Bucky wasn’t the worst. Maybe Steve was just tired. Maybe, after years of trying to get pregnant and longer wanting to get pregnant, Steve just wanted to finally move on to the next stage and hold that baby that felt so long-promised and so long-denied.
Maybe that was all Bucky wanted too.
Steve jerked his hand, almost reluctantly, and Bucky obeyed the summons to join him on the couch. There was every chance that Steve could snatch another half hour of sleep against Bucky’s chest, and simply no chance that it would make him feel better. Still, maybe it was something of a win to have Bucky’s fingers trailing through his hair, slow and careful touches against his scalp, as if to coax him towards rest.
They wallowed together in the dark, the minutes of the night passing marked only by Steve’s slightly strained breathing and the silent rise and fall of Bucky’s own. The skylight above their heads revealed hundreds of stars, the sight made possible by the isolation they’d chosen for themselves after they’d left death behind and finally chosen life. The meteor storm continued to spark, and Bucky whispered his wishes at each short-lived flare.
“I wish for that baby of yours to hurry up and come.”
“I wish I could help you have a good night’s sleep for once.”
“I wish for the baby to have your gorgeous blue eyes.”
After “I wish for our baby to have the best health,” the appeals to the stars increased in nonsense.
“I wish I had a pie - you know the pies we had down from Stark’s place, the one that closed? That’d really hit the spot right now.”
“I wish we’d gone with the green tiles in the downstairs bathroom, the ones with the little dragon eyes.”
“I wish Mr Walton would wash his hands more often before making his deliveries.”
With his eyes half-closed half the time, Steve wasn’t sure how many meteors Bucky was straight up inventing to be ridiculous about. The hold was close, the air con was cool against Steve’s over-warm skin, and his mind was drifting.
Then with all the suddenness of the lights in the sky, pain grasped at his belly. It came on bright and grasping, seizing his stomach in a rictus, and - unprepared - he couldn’t help but moan.
“Stevie,” came the worried whisper.
Steve was too busy concentrating on the contraction to respond. It was so much more intense than the practice pains. It demanded so much more of his attention to pant his way through.
“Ohh baby, okay. I gotcha,” Steve gasped down at the hard, heavy mass of his abdomen. His hands covered what they could of the swell he couldn’t help but curl around as the pain clutched straight back, collapsing his spine. “Ohh - ohh Buck, holy hell-”
“I’m here,” came Bucky’s promise from a million miles away. On the other side of the curtain pain drew down between them, its lining stifling awareness of anything other than the cinching, tightening, belt of cramping across Steve’s entire lower body. Still, muffled, Bucky insisted, “Talk to me. Steve. What’s happening?”
A whine hissed from between Steve’s clenched teeth, as he fought to take control of the blinding, blindsiding cramp. A summit he had to ascend, with all the breathlessness of high altitude air. Sudden bullets of sweat pearled across his skin as if his body was undertaking precisely that bold a level of exertion. He was going to be ill, maybe he was already -
And just as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. Steve melted helplessly back into Bucky’s body.
Hesitant hands rose to steady him. “Sweetheart-”
“That felt pretty real,” Steve whispered back, still a little nauseous from the onslaught.
“You think that was a contraction?” and there was a slightly hysterical laugh in Bucky’s voice. “I thought something was really wrong.”
Steve twisted far enough to glare. “Well it didn’t exactly feel great.” It took Steve to the end of the sentence to realize that Bucky looked afraid. A little mollified, Steve said, “it’s over now.”
From a paler face than Steve had acknowledged, eyes still wide and staring, Bucky explained, “I thought - you know - placental abduction -"
"Placental abruption."
"Yeah, or something.” Abruptly panicked, Bucky asked, “Are you bleeding?”
“I’m not.”
“Have you checked?”
“Bucky! I’m not bleeding. You’d know if I was bleeding as well as I.”
Slowly, Bucky was turning Steve back around, drawing him back against his chest. Steve wasn’t even sure if he knew he was doing it. Trying to create comfort for them both after the frisson of alarm. “Aren’t these contractions meant to, y’know, build up?” Bucky asked, more lightly now.
It wasn’t a million miles from what Steve had been wondering, and trying very hard not to. “Since when has my body done what it’s told?”
Outrageously, Bucky replied, “When was the last time any of you did?” But he was conciliatory and caressing Steve gently and asked, “Can I get you anything? Water, or-”
“No. No, I’m fine.” Steve laced his fingers through Bucky’s, locking him into place. It might just be a one off. The lone wolf of labor pains. This might not be going anywhere. Better for Bucky just to stay.
His reticence was proven wise just 60 seconds later, when the cramp came welling up again. Steve bit his teeth against it. Tightening and fire and tension like screws up his back all at once, the screws twisting and contorting his flesh all at once. Fighting against it, the only way he knew how, the torsion shifting through his body, making him clutch at Bucky’s hands so tight he could hear bones scraping, making Steve try to force it out of his chest in a long, grating groan.
It was just as strong a surge, maybe even stronger than the last, and something in Steve’s guts fell away. It wasn’t meant to start like this. He didn’t feel prepared. What if something really was wrong?
In his ear, Bucky was shushing him. Murmurs that he was okay, it was going to ease. That he was strong, that he’d get through it. That Bucky was there.
Steve had used his own wishes. But for so many years, his only wish had been for Bucky to be there. And now Steve was in Bucky’s arms, and Steve was having Bucky’s baby. Right about now.
Oh, this was happening. The reality of labor was bright and vivid and undeniable. Steve groaned and groaned again, because it felt just a fraction better to loose this animal roaring feeling inside of him. He couldn’t care about frightening Bucky, he couldn’t care that his body was frightening himself. Just had to hold on and get through.
When the pain unraveled, Steve unraveled himself. He brought Bucky’s hand up to cover his pounding heart.
“Any chance that restlessness you were feeling earlier was labor coming on?” Bucky asked.
“Maybe. I dunno.” This wasn’t a battlefield Steve could plan his way through. Not a mission he could strategize. This was not the brief he’d been given, not how the labors he’d read about and been taught about were meant to go.
The mathematician in Bucky clearly couldn’t resist reminding him, “Takes three points to make a line.”
There wasn’t much that Steve could do but hum his agreement. He’d hardly moved since sagging out of the contraction’s discomfort. He’d argue he was conserving his strength if asked. Denying that he was torn between not wanting to frighten his labor into stopping and not wanting to scare it into darting up a gear.
It left him curled in the direction of the sofa back. Blocking out the rest of the world but for Bucky’s bulk, and the softness of those things they’d chosen to surround themselves in. All he needed.
When the next hammerblow of a contraction came, Steve hardly moved. Just grunted in warning and laid himself out for Bucky’s care - a warming hand upon his back, and promises they’d get through this like they had everything else. Together.
-
“I think it’s safe to say this baby’s comin’,” Bucky concluded as Steve huffed his way through his sixth contraction in half an hour.
Too fast. Neither of them said it. Still, they both knew labor wasn't meant to start like this. It was meant to be a gradual escalation, not a sudden assault.
What if something was wrong? Could this just be Steve’s supermuscles doing their thing to torment his own supernerves?
As a bead of sweat ran from Steve’s scalp, down the back of a contorted neck, Bucky took the control that his husband needed him to. “I’m gonna call the hospital. Let ‘em know we’re on our way.”
Steve’s hand merely tightened on Bucky’s knee. He loosed a new guttural groan into the sofa cushions as he rode out the pain.
“Once this one’s through,” Bucky swiftly corrected himself. He tucked Steve’s body in a little tighter against his own. “I’ve got you, Steve. The collected hordes of all our enemies couldn’t tear me away.”
“I’m fine,” Steve lied, just as the pressure faded.
All the warmth Bucky felt towards the man he’d loved since childhood stirred through his voice, as he replied, “Yes you are darlin’. You and that little one are both gonna be just fine.”
Still strained despite the contraction’s end, Steve replied, “Hospital said they had to be regular for at least an hour before we came.”
“And it’ll take us an hour to get there.” Bucky extracted himself from the embrace as if handling porcelain rather than a mass of superhero who’d put on quite the additional bulk over the past half year. “If you stall out before we reach the hospital, then you get some kip on the road while I get a nice drive through sunrise.”
“Okay,” Steve conceded with forced neutrality.
Bucky held on a moment longer. The tip of his nose nudged against sweat-damp, too-warm skin. The miracle that was his lover’s form. The sheer protectiveness - the intensity of it stronger than any other compulsion Bucky had known. It was all about to change. There might never be another moment like this.
But wasn’t that where the joy was?
More lightly than he felt, Bucky planted a kiss against that precious skin. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“Oh sure. Thought I’d go for a run. Maybe get a marathon in before dawn,” grumbled Steve. As Bucky extracted himself, he moved only so far as to crunch a little further around his abdomen. Steve was still muttering something about circuits and bleep tests when Bucky picked up the phone.