Chapter Text
Captain America Doesn’t Smile
D Day:
There are many things that can be said about S.H.I.E.L.D as an organisation – secretive, paramilitary, money sink; the weeping despair of appropriation committees throughout the world. And these are all true. What’s also true? It is terrifyingly efficient. So much so that, fifteen minutes after Darcy first said “Ow”, even with the combined attentions of a panicking playboy philanthropist billionaire and his three hyperactive robots, Darcy was ensconced in a delivery suite with a patient gown, an intravenous drip with… interesting drugs in it, and a scrubbed up birthing partner. Unfortunately for everybody else, this left them with a panicking playboy billionaire to somehow entertain.
“What are we doing here? We should be boiling water. Do they still boil water?” Stark pinged around the waiting room. “No, no, of course not, they use autoclaves now.” He speed dialled his home computer – “JARVIS? Have the new Stark 3000 autoclave airlifted to this hospital. Can it get here in time? Who cares about airspace restrictions. This is taking too long. We should get Lewis a better doctor… ”
Natasha glared at her partner, with the icy impenetrable stare usually reserved for Russian mobsters and Hydra agents. “Barton. Make him stop.”
Coulson said, without looking up from his laptop, “Mr Stark, babies come in their own time – it will be a few hours. Or maybe more. It isn’t like plugging a battery into a robot.” Tony settled back a little, quailed.
Just then, Banner came out of the delivery room where he’d been consulting with the midwife. Coulson looked up, just a little too alertly, speaking just a little too fast. “How is she doing? What’s her dilation? Is her blood pressure holding steady? What about pain relief?”
“Bruce,” Tony said in an appalled voice, “you’re upsetting Agent Coulson.” His tone implied that people who set fire to orphanages were more forgivable.
“Hey, she’s fine,” Bruce said, holding up his hands defensively. “It’ll be a while yet, though. So if you can all just… think happy thoughts, that would be great…?”
“Do I look like I’m not thinking happy thoughts to you?” Tony said, with sweat on his brow. “And you!” He turned on the erstwhile secondary parent. “Why aren’t you pacing?! That’s your firstborn child in there. About to be in there. Why aren’t you worried about Darcy?”
Sitwell’s phone beeped and he checked the messages. “She’s had a routine pregnancy and all her stats are normal. She’s fine, Mr Stark.”
“You’re not even in the delivery room. That’s cold, man, cold.”
“I asked if she wanted me in there,” Sitwell said, peering at his phone again, “she said she wanted something more important.”
“Like what?”
Sitwell looked up, a beaming smile on his face. “Mrs Lewis! How are you? How was your flight? Here, let me take you over to the cafeteria and get you some coffee. Have I ever introduced you to Tony Stark? Yes, he’s coming, too…”
***
Darcy had had a good long time to think about who she wanted holding her hand while she was in labour. Her besty, Jane, had obviously held a place in her consideration but… yeah, besty Jane wasn’t the best at calm and considered in a crisis. Plus, Darcy was seriously worried about breaking the bones in her hand during a contraction or something. Agent Romanov she’d thought about – the lady sure knew about pain management, yeah? But no, it just didn’t seem right. Dr Banner would have made a good doula, but she’d already recruited him onto Team Midwife, so he was out. And there was Agent Coulson who, it had recently turned out, had daughters from a former secret civilian life – but that just didn’t seem right, either. It might put a strain on their Mentor/Minion relationship. Jasper Sitwell, the actual father of her child had offered… but she had a far graver task for that one. Which left…
“Come on, Darcy, you’re doing really well.”
Which left the friend with superheated hands, a knack for hugs and backrubs, and a proven ability to be unfazed by Women’s Business. Who doesn’t want to hug Captain America? Oh yeah.
Darcy squeezed Steve’s huge hand more tightly and made a noise from deep inside herself as her abdomen contorted. Bruce looked up from where he sat at her feet and smiled. “It won’t be long now, Darcy,” he said. And then she pushed and pushed again, and Steve Rogers wrapped his arms around her shoulders and whispered comforting things while Bruce and Mary Chan, her other midwife, did unspeakable things to her nether regions and a small slimy baby was introduced into the world. Nine months (ish), and it was all over. Or only just beginning. Oh, God.
Darcy gingerly took custody of her daughter and traced the curve of the baby’s cheek. She was going to have to think up a name for the Offspring real soon now. Arggh. Right now her daughter didn’t look like anything except a grommet. She looked up and blinked in surprise. “Steve. You’re smiling. Captain America doesn’t smile.”
“I smile sometimes,” he said in protest, and reached out a careful hand to cup the baby’s head.
“No, but you see – good old Cap does that halfway smirky thing, or maybe a big cheesy Buy War Bonds grin. He doesn’t smile. Steve… you’re smiling. I didn’t even realise you had teeth.”
***
In the hospital cafeteria, Tony paced. With intent.
At the table, Jane Foster and Mrs Lewis were immersed in Girl Talk. He scooped up some more coffee and went over to peer at the pictures they were chatting over.
“Of course, with my first, I was just up on the table thinking ‘y’know, I really want to let one rip’ and then they were all like ‘Congratulations, Mrs Lewis, you have a girl’, that was my older daughter Lindsay, dear – but our Darcy, she always was a big girl, so they went in through the side door as it were – here, I’ll show you...”
Tony recoiled. Love women as he did, there were some parts he really didn’t want to see – an opened out abdomen full of black stitches and intestines was right up there.
“And then, of course, after my third, that’s Gordon, the doctor just went on ahead and did a hysterectomy – here I’ve got the pictures of that, too…”
Jane nodded with interest and shared some comments about her mother’s and aunts’ surgical misadventures. Tony looked with pleading eyes at Sitwell, who was just getting off a phone call. “Make them stop,” he begged. “Actually, don’t,” he added. “You keep them company, and I’ll go check on Darcy, it’s been far too long-”
Sitwell went on smoothly: “I have to say, Mrs Lewis, I really admire your scarf. Such a beautiful colour. Wherever did you get it?”
The middle aged woman preened. “Why, Tony Stark gave it to me of course. He said,” and she fumbled for a letter in her bag, “that it was a thank you for the wonderful service my Darcy had given him at the bank. Oh, Mr Stark, I showed it to all my friends…”
Stark looked over Mrs Lewis’ head at Agent Sitwell and mouthed: “I hate you.”
Sitwell’s phone went off again, and he brightened. “Mrs Lewis, I think it’s time to see your Darcy now,” and he offered his arm to the woman.
***
The official relatives having had their five minutes of alone time, Tony (fucking) Stark burst through the delivery room door, dragging a Teddy Bear Of Unusual Size. Darcy sighed inwardly, it was too much to expect that Sitwell would be able to keep the billionaire, and the billionaire’s enthusiasm, out of her face for too much longer.
“Make way! Make way!” Stark announced, “I have doting to do!”
As he neared her bedside, though, the inventor slowed down. “She has a pointy head,” Tony said dubiously.
“And she’s perfect!” Darcy said.
“Huh. Well, just. Huh.” He reached out a greedy hand, then snatched it away as if burned. “Can I… can I hold her? Just for a moment – I wouldn’t want to tire the kid out or anything…”
Darcy opened the envelope attached to the Teddy Bear Of Unusual Size. The envelope, too, was of an unusual size for a gift card – more the kind that legal documents went in. She pulled the contents out, read them for a couple of minutes. “Tony fucking Stark!” she yelled.
“I can’t hear you!” he waved her off as he left the room.
“You can’t give my kid a trust fund!”
“La lala. Is someone playing the radio? It’s so noisy in here.” And he was gone.
Epilogue:
Sometime in the wee small hours of the night, Darcy blinked herself out of her happy happy drug and endorphin haze to check the crib beside her. It was empty, and she sat up with a wince and the beginnings of panic. In the low light of the bedside lamp, her one time one night stand was seated holding a small life on his lap, his suit rumpled and his glasses discarded.
“Agent Sitwell,” she asked, “are you crying?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny, Agent Lewis,” Sitwell said, with the faintest hint of a dimple on his cheek. He leant over and kissed her on the forehead. “Go back to sleep, Darcy, I’ve got you covered.”