Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A few days after the scan - once the results from the bloodwork had come back and Connie had called Bucky to tell him that everything with the baby looked perfect by the first trimester screen - he found himself lying face-down in bed, trying to orient himself enough to figure out where the annoying buzz of his alarm was coming from.  As was becoming his new usual, rolling over first thing in the morning was a dangerous exercise, causing his stomach to lurch precariously as he finally did so.  Thankfully, he didn’t actually heave, and was able to move cautiously enough that he was finally able to flip the alarm off and nibble on a couple of saltine crackers, trying to will his stomach to calm down enough to put his bed back together and get started with his day.

Thirty minutes later, Bucky was still staring at the old, yellowed water mark on his ceiling, belching miserably as he pulled the thread worn comforter back onto his bed before deciding that having all of the components of his bed set on the mattress would have to count as good enough for the day.

He glanced at his alarm clock, realizing that he really had to start getting ready if he was going to make it to work on time, nauseous or not.

“Please just work with me here?” he muttered toward his midsection, before finally biting the bullet and sitting up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed in the same motion and immediately propelling himself towards the bathroom.

His stomach wasn’t exactly happy with him, but Bucky was able to get the shower turned on and in under the spray without throwing up outright, so he decided to count it as a win.

Once the water was warm enough to be tolerable he stripped out of the boxers and t-shirt he’d been sleeping in and stepped inside, pulling the shower curtain behind him and squeezing shampoo into his hands.  He scrubbed his fingertips through his hair quickly, before reaching for the dollar store brand of scent-blocking soap that he’d bought to keep his pheromones to a minimum, working the bar between his palms to get as thick of a lather as possible.

With his eyes still closed Bucky leaned under the spray again, rinsing the shampoo out of his hair while simultaneously working the lather over the skin of his shoulders, quickly trailing his hands down to his armpits, pecs, and finally over his abdomen, sliding easily over the gentle convexity at the bottom.

He was in the middle of bending down to do the same to his legs when Bucky’s brain caught up to what had happened; his left hand flew back to his lower abdomen, taking in the odd shape of it as Bucky finished rinsing shampoo suds out of his eyes and flung the shower curtain open with his right.  

Looking down at himself properly, in the light of the flickering fluorescent bulb that lit his bathroom, Bucky took in the gentle, subtle outward slope that had formed between his navel and the top of his pubic bone.  His jeans had been feeling increasingly tighter for weeks, to the point that even his best pair cut uncomfortably into his sides, but this was the first time he’d noticed an actual bump.

Even in that moment, staring directly at it, it took Bucky a solid ten seconds to really process the fact that his midsection was bowing outward, and another moment to appreciate the significance that it was because his womb was growing with a fetus inside of it.

A weird rush of heat, followed immediately by cold, shot through his spine to his fingertips, leaving him worried that he might end up getting sick that morning, after all - when Bucky shook his head, trying to clear it of the jumbled mess of confusion and emotions.  After all, he’d known this day would come eventually: twice, he’d seen the proof on an ultrasound screen, as if the morning sickness and exhaustion and odd emotions hadn’t been evidence enough.

With a deep breath, he smoothed his hand over the bump again, forcing his mind to calm down as he took it in objectively.

Once his shock had abated, it was taken over by another sudden, rash thought: that he had to show Steve.

Bucky turned sideways, standing on his toes as he looked into the rust-stained mirror that hung above the sink in the bathroom - it was small and dingy looking, and it would be an odd angle for a picture, but he could crop it down enough to get a decent photo of it, as long as his phone cooperated.

He was halfway through the bathroom door when Bucky realized how terrible of an idea a selfie was: not only because it was still early in the morning, and he was standing in the middle of his apartment, naked and dripping wet on the ratty all-weather carpet, but also because there was no way of showing that tiny bit of roundness without it getting dangerously close to his groin… making the idea of the picture horrifically awkward.

For as comfortable as Bucky felt around Steve, he wasn’t ready to start sending him pictures of his pants open around his bare torso, regardless of the context.

Shaking his head, Bucky moved back into the bathroom, toweling himself off and combing his hair before moving back into the bedroom and retrieving his work outfit from its place on his coat rack.  The cafe’s usual polo shirt was shapeless enough that it went on without an issue, but as soon as he stepped into his jeans, Bucky realized the problem that he hadn’t even started to plan for yet: the clasp that had been getting increasingly uncomfortable by the week had gone from cutting into the skin below his belly button, to flat-out refusing to close.  For one irrational second Bucky tried to suck his stomach in anyway, pulling at the flaps desperately, but it was no use; he let go of the button, exhaling as he probed the bump gently with his fingertips… it firm and unyielding, surprisingly so, although when he considered that it was a muscle (with a human growing inside, his brain unhelpfully reminded him) Bucky figured that it made sense.

It didn’t solve his wardrobe problem, though.

Thankfully he could still get the zipper of his jeans up, and after a moment of hopping around and confirming that they’d stay up he decided that it would have to do for the day.  He was already running late - once he’d made it through the workday he could figure out a way to make his jeans last a few weeks longer.  But leaving his jeans unbuttoned meant that Bucky needed to leave his shirt untucked too, a move that wasn’t explicitly against company policy but that was sloppy-looking enough to make him self-conscious about it, especially with the faceful of scruff that he’d been sporting.  

With a growl of frustration he rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin, before pulling his shirt off over his head and turning on his heel to rush into the bathroom.  The shave was rough and a little sloppy, but within a couple of minutes he was able to scrape the last of the dollar store shave cream off of his face and declare it good enough.

His face looked rounder than Bucky had remembered, but he rinsed and toweled it dry before he could study it any further, flipping the light off and making his way back into the bedroom.

It took him another minute to pull his work shirt on one final time, then to grab the brown bag out of the bottom of his refrigerator, infinitely glad that he’d thought to pack both smoothie ingredients and a lunch the night before - and within seconds he was locking the door to his apartment behind him and jogging out of the building, rushing in a last-ditch effort to make it to work on time.

Bucky wasn’t too embarrassingly winded by the time he finally ran up to the shopfront twenty minutes later, and the early September heat meant that everyone was walking around Brooklyn with a sheen of sweat so it hardly set him apart - plus his jeans had managed to stay up while jogging, so he counted the morning a win.  That was, until he noticed the figure sitting hunched next to the glass door in front of him.  After a split-second of concern Bucky recognized it to be Teddy, and cursed under his breath as he hurried the last few yards to the building.

“Hey Teddy,” Bucky said conversationally, pulling his keychain out of his back pocket and flipping to the large, silver deadbolt key that opened the front door of the shop.

Teddy glanced up from the textbook that was seated in his lap, his scowl morphing into a grateful smile as Bucky started to unlock the door.  “Morning, Bucky,” he said as he stood to his full height, tucking the book under his arm.  “Sorry I didn’t get this opened earlier - I sort of forgot my keys at home.”

“It’s all good,” Bucky insisted, pushing his way inside the door and propping it open for him, then immediately making his way to the back to get to work.  While it would have been nice to have walked in to someone already getting the day set up, they were still plenty early enough to work together and open on time.

They’d worked together enough times that each man started on his usual job without discussion, Bucky getting each of the large drip machines going with the month’s primary roasts and turning the espresso machines on to heat up, while Teddy set up the cash register and took all of the chairs down from the bar around the storefront windows.  They both set up opposite ends of the display cases with the baked goods that had been left in the kitchen by the delivery men even earlier that morning, and still finished with enough time to take a short break before they would have to open the doors to customers.

Bucky grabbed his lunch bag out of the refrigerator, pulling out the bag of berries and kale inside and taking it to the front to drop them all in one of the commercial blenders in the front, dumping in a scoop of ice cubes and a cup of milk then turning the blender on.  He dumped the resultant green sludge into one of the cups that they usually used for iced coffee, taking a sip as he glanced around the shop and tried to determine what they still had left to be done.

Teddy, he noticed, had holed himself up in the breakroom in the back of the shop - Bucky had guessed that he must have had exams approaching, given how intently he was flipping through textbook pages.  He took stock of the milk and cream that they had in the front refrigerator, as well as the spare flavor syrups that they had under the bar as he continued drinking his smoothie - thankfully it seemed to be going down easy, as he didn’t seem to have any nausea returning despite the fact that he was continuing to eat and move around.  The only thing that Bucky could see that they still needed was the tray of danishes that Teddy had apparently forgot, so he grabbed the container that he’d used and took it to the back for proper cleaning, given that he technically wasn’t supposed to be using ingredients from home in any of the prep areas.

Although there was no door between the break room and the kitchen, Teddy didn’t even glance up from his book as Bucky made his way to the sink, and continued glaring down at the thing while Bucky scrubbed out the container and loaded the dishwasher with the pans they’d used so far that morning.

Finally, it got to the point that Bucky couldn’t ignore Teddy’s frustrated sighs anymore.

“Everything alright?” he asked neutrally, rinsing the blender out in the sink and taking a quick sip out of his cup as he walked closer to the refrigerator.

“Huh?  Oh, yeah,” Teddy responded distractedly, closing his book and looking sheepish - as he did, Bucky noticed how familiar the cover was, recognizing it from one of his basic science courses but not close enough to tell which.  “Sorry,” Teddy continued, distracting Bucky before he could figure it out, “I’ll get the danishes out in a minute, I just wanted to try to go through this quick review one last time.”

“It’s fine,” Bucky responded, in as encouraging a tone as he could, “I already have the Sumatran brewing, so I can just take care of them.”

“No, I’ve got it,” Teddy insisted, jumping up from his seat.

Bucky snorted, already setting his cup down and heading into the refrigerator.  “Really, I can handle it - you’ll just be responsible for re-stocking after lunch.”

To his surprise, the kid actually took Bucky up on the offer - when he walked back out with the tray of danishes he’d gone in for, Teddy was leaning over the book again, offering him a vague thanks as he passed.

“No problem,” Bucky said casually, glancing back again - if he strained enough he could make out a couple of equations on the page, piquing his interest even further.  “What’re you working on?” he asked, giving up all attempts at prepping as he paused in the entryway to the front of the shop.

Teddy sighed again, pushing his hair off of his forehead roughly as he frowned down at his book.  “I have a physics midterm on Friday and I’m not remotely ready for it.  I mean - kinetics and Newtonian motion was all easy enough, and they’re letting us make a formula sheet so that’ll be fine, I just - no matter how many practice problems I do, I can’t wrap my head around half of the thermal stuff.”

Bucky did his best not to look too excited as Teddy spoke, but at the same time, he could practically feel it bubbling up inside of him.  “Oh, I loved that course,” he said with glee, hurrying through to the front of the shop and dropping the tray next to the display case.  “Thermal was a lot tougher than kinetics, but once I was able to figure it out it was one of my favorites,” he continued, turning on his heel - they were starting to push it dangerous close to opening time, but he was willing to rush around a bit for something like this.  “If you want, we can go over problems together a little later; I’d be more than happy to help.”

The first thing he noticed when he made his way back to the back was how uncomfortable the younger man looked.  “Uh,” Teddy started, chewing his bottom lip, “I mean - I appreciate the offer Bucky, I really do, but… I mean, it’s just at Kingsborough, but I’m taking the calculus-based course, so I mean,” he trailed off awkwardly, but Bucky hardly needed him to finish the thought to hear what he was really saying.

It was calculus-based physics, so of course an omega wasn’t going to be any help with it.  Just like that, his good mood was trampled, replaced by an ugly, bitter anger that was so intense that it made his eyes water.

“Sure,” Bucky responded tightly, as his heart started racing until he was nauseous with it, “no problem.  I mean, I just tutored that course at NYU and was a TA for the next level up when I was at Columbia, but hey - I’m sure Khan Academy has some great videos that’ll help you out.”

He stormed back into the front of the shop before Teddy could respond, focusing solely on setting up the pastry display while all the while holding back the insane urge to cry.

Bucky was able to reel his emotions in before he unlocked the front door for customers at seven am, if just barely.  He wasn’t choked up or livid anymore, at least, although he still had trouble so much as looking at Teddy without feeling a wave of anger, something that didn’t exactly make for easy working conditions during the morning rush.  

It definitely didn’t help when the obligatory middle-aged alpha in an ill-fitting business suit felt the need to point out that Bucky would look better with a smile on his face.  He was able to force a grimace that looked close enough for the guy to at least drop a dollar in the tip jar when Bucky handed his Americano over, but left him feeling every bit as dirty as such interactions always did.

The lull that followed the rush was even worse, especially once the display case had been replenished and Teddy had bunkered down in the back of the kitchen with his book again, leaving Bucky with nothing to occupy his continually depressing thoughts.  It didn’t take long for him to become tired of the initial anger he’d felt, and move onto a dismal mixture of self-pity and depreciation.  After all, he figured, he probably would have turned down the offer had he been in Teddy’s shoes as well.  

If you really cared about your grades, why the hell would you take a tutoring offer from some nearly-thirty year-old who was barely making ends meet working as a barista?

Applying logic helped Bucky get over his anger at Teddy, at least, which made the remainder of the morning shift considerably smoother, but it didn’t entirely help with his mood.  Instead of anger at the younger alpha, Bucky just felt disappointment in himself, wallowing away in it over the entire damned situation.  He was so busy pitying himself, that he barely noticed that Teddy had moved back to the front of the store, still holding his textbook but now looking at Bucky with a contrite look on his face.

“I’m sorry I blew you off earlier, I’m just - I’m kind of freaking out about this stupid class,” Teddy started, talking mostly to his converse shoes as he hugged his textbook to his chest, reminding Bucky just how young he actually was.

“It’s alright, I get it,” Bucky insisted, as if he hadn’t been letting the rejection eat him up all morning.

Teddy shook his head, looking up and making eye contact with Bucky, “No, it was a pretty shitty thing to do, especially to blow an opportunity like that.  So uh, I mean, if you have time, and if you’re still interested.  I’d really like to take you up on that offer to help.”

“Sure,” Bucky said, fighting off the urge to smile, “of course it’s still an offer - what’s giving you trouble?”

For the rest of their shift, the pair used all of their available free time for Bucky to explain the equations that Teddy was struggling with and why they applied to each physics concept that he was trying to understand.  By the end of their shift they’d covered six different subjects off of Teddy’s study guide - an impressive feat, given how many customers and other distractions they’d had.

As if on cue, Bucky’s text alert chimed, and Teddy closed his textbook with a smirk.  “To be totally honest, I think I’m starting to reach my point of maximum retention.  And,” he nodded towards the phone in Bucky’s hand, “you should probably get around to answering some of those.”

“I already told you - ” Bucky muttered, feeling himself flush slightly as he recognized that the vast majority of the texts had, indeed, been from Steve.

“I know, I know - not a boyfriend,” Teddy interrupted with a knowing grin.  “I’m still gonna let you get back to your not- boyfriend.”

In fairness, Bucky figured, Teddy might have had a point.  Texting back and forth with Steve had become second nature, to the point that Bucky was entirely used to seeing a message from the alpha whenever he checked his phone on breaks.  Their chat thread was nearly as busy as the one between Bucky and Nat, with the exception of the days that Clint when on emoji sprees.  Even better than the frequency, though, was how easy it was becoming to talk to Steve over text - they were regularly updating one another on the mundanities of their day, on annoyances with clients and customers at work, and with amusing memes that they’d stumbled upon and figured that the other would appreciate.

In addition to the increasing texts, the two of them had found a way to meet up to run twice over the week that followed - first on one of Bucky’s rare Saturday mornings off, then again when Steve had called him out of the blue to say that he’d had a meeting cut short in Dumbo and to invite Bucky out for an impromptu afternoon run, provided he was free.

Thankfully, Bucky was able to talk America into taking the last two hours of his shift, so that he could make himself free.

They met up at the riverside park at Pier one, with a plan to take a leisurely jog down the trail that wound through the old docks-made-green spaces.  Bucky already felt like he was melting by the time he found Steve waiting in the shade of the bridge, but forced a smile on his face as he jogged up all the same - he was almost positive that he wasn’t going to actually overheat, and he was so looking forward to another run together that he didn’t want to cancel because of the weather.

Steve, of course, was somehow able to read his concerns, bringing up the heat even as he returned Bucky’s grin.  “So I mapped it out, and if we stick to the perimeter of each of the piers then the trail down to the end of the park is one and a half miles; which means we can make it a five kilometer loop and call it good enough, considering it’s hotter than hell out here.”

“Works for me,” Bucky agreed easily, “just… don’t expect much as far as pacing goes.  My goal for this one is just gonna be to stay upright.”

For a brief second there was a flash of worry across Steve’s face, and Bucky thought he might have said too much - that the alpha might take it as a reason to call the whole plan off, under the guise of looking out for Bucky’s safety.  Instead he shrugged, the look passing almost as quickly as it had appeared, before saying, “That’s really no issue for me, given how hard I’ve usually gotta work to keep up with your stork-legs.”

Bucky laughed the comment off, and after a few minutes of limbering up they both started out, keeping a leisurely pace as they worked their way down the riverfront.  The breeze coming off of the water helped a bit with the heat, at least, although Bucky still felt like he was sweating bullets in the midday sun, and made a point at stopping to drink at every other water fountain that they passed in the park.  Steve didn’t often follow suit, but he made a point of jogging in place while waiting for Bucky and never once made a comment about it, something that Bucky found himself oddly grateful for.

They were also able to keep comfortably mindless smalltalk going, even as they made their turn at the end of Pier six, giving each other updates on their weeks - as if they hadn’t been texting every day about a lot of the broader details.

“I’ve gotta work Saturday this weekend,” Steve huffed, dropping behind Bucky to let a team of bikers pass them and then coming back into step before he continued further.  “I mean, it’s a gala opening thing, so it’s more of a party than work, but - that’s most of the weekend shot.”

Bucky kept his eyes ahead on the trail, quashing the weird twist of disappointment that he felt in his chest; a ridiculous feeling, given the fact that most of his weekend would be taken up with work, as well.  “Will it be a fun group of people to be around, at least?”  He asked, for the sake of keeping the conversation going.

“Mmhmm, a lot of friends, so there’s worse ways to spend a Saturday,” Steve hummed, keeping up stride as he wiped the sweat off of his forehead with his armband.  “So there’s that, and then I’ve gotta start baby-proofing my living room.”

“Wait,” Bucky panted, slowing down as he frowned at the alpha, “baby-proofing?  Already?  Isn’t it… really early for that?”

Steve chuckled as he shook his head, apparently unbothered by Bucky’s outburst.  “I mean, I guess, if you just focus on the fact that Peanut won’t really be moving around for another year and a half, but there’s more to it than you’d think.  I wanna get it done now, while I don’t have to be focused on anything else.”  Steve continued to stride along, his face an odd mixture mild bashfulness and a dreamy look that Bucky couldn’t quite look away from, before he spoke up again.  “That, and my godson is starting to get scary-fast at toddling, so it’s as much for him as it is for the baby.”

“Do they, uh, visit often?” Bucky asked, before his brain could tell his mouth to shut up - as if it were any of his business.

Steve waited until they’d turned the upcoming corner in the trail to answer, still as pleasant as ever.  “They haven’t as much since Tommy was born, but now that he’s pretty well weaned, I think I’m gonna start trying my hand at babysitting.”  The grin he turned at Bucky was blinding as he added, “Y’know, for practice.”

The idea that Steve felt the need to be ‘practicing’ already was mildly terrifying, given the fact that it felt to Bucky like they’d barely even started the pregnancy, but he wasn’t about to say as much out loud.  Considering that it was going to be Steve who had to actually take the baby home once everything was said and done, he figured that he hardly had room to judge how much prep work the guy figured he needed to put in to getting ready for it.  All the same, the idea that Steve was already getting his house ready for a baby in it stuck in the back of his mind like a parasite, worming its way through his mind as they finished their run and parted, and continuing to bother him all the way to Natasha’s place and through the brief weight circuit routine that they went through together.

“Something bothering you?” Natasha finally asked as they were on the elevator down to her apartment, watching him shrewdly all the way.

“Nah,” Bucky lied, peeling the collar of his sweat-soaked t-shirt away from his neck and dreaming of how wonderful the post workout shower would be, “I’m just ready to be out of these clothes.”

“You’re distracted,” Natasha pushed, raising an eyebrow as if challenging him.

It was a look that Bucky knew all too well, one that meant that he was probably trapped until he caved and told her the truth, but he held on for one last attempt at distracting her.  “Probably just low blood sugar, from the run and all.”

Natasha had been entirely neutral when Bucky had called her earlier in the week, asking to change their usual workout plans so that he could go running with Steve first.  He half-expected her to reprimand him for having worked too hard, or to push further into what it was that was really on his mind, but to Bucky’s shock, she dropped it, shrugging as they made their way out of the elevator and leading the way down the hall to her apartment.

Once inside Bucky asked to use the guest shower, not wanting to be so rude as to ask to clean up first but also well-past needing to get out of his disgusting workout clothes.  Natasha made a show of getting him a glass of orange juice out of the kitchen first, but agreed easily, especially given the fact that it was just the two of them in the apartment.  “I hardly want you sweating on the furniture while you’re waiting,” she teased, calling out that there were fresh towels in the linen closet as Bucky playfully flipped her off over his shoulder.

He dug his clothes out of his gym bag and left them on the closed toilet lid, then adjusted the shower until it was slightly cooler than he usually preferred, before finally stepping in and standing under the spray.  Even in Nat’s second bathroom the water pressure was perfect, and he couldn’t help but appreciate how nice it was to stand at his full-height in a shower that he could actually turn around in.  He took his sweet time soaping up and washing his hair, then rinsed everything off for longer than was probably entirely necessary - but by the time that he finally stepped out of the shower he felt like he was finally done sweating.  He toweled off thoroughly - getting dressed was enough of a chore lately, given how his body was changing relative to his clothes, so fighting with tight jeans on wet skin was something that he definitely wanted to avoid.

Bucky finally pulled on a clean pair of underwear and stepped into his jeans, leaving the flaps open around the bump of his lower abs and took the towel to his hair a second time, drying it as thoroughly as he could before combing it out.  He didn’t bother with a shirt as he did so, especially since it was becoming so ridiculously thick that as soon as he’d fought through the worst of the tangles, he had to dry both his hair and his shoulders off again. 

His head was still under the towel when the door of the bathroom swung open behind him.  

“I’ve got that teriyaki chicken you like marinating - do you want pasta or rice to go with it?” Nat asked as she poked her head into the bathroom.

Bucky dropped the towel and scrambled for his t-shirt, pulling it on over his head in such a rush that it left his hair a mess and his collar soaked, then turned back to the sink to comb his hair out again, looking at Natasha in the mirror as he responded, “It doesn’t matter to me - whatever’s easiest.”

Given who she was, there was no doubt that Natasha had noticed how mortified Bucky felt, as well as the piece of string that was still attached to the buttonhole of his jeans, and Bucky cursed himself for not having just brought another pair of gym shorts to wear.  Thankfully, she was at least kind enough to not say anything about either his embarrassment or his poorly-fitting clothes: instead Nat shrugged, muttered something along the lines of “rice it is,” then disappeared and closed the door behind her as if nothing had ever happened.  

Bucky spent the rest of the evening waiting for the other shoe to drop - for her to tease him about it, or insist that they plan a shopping trip for clothes that fit, but the topic failed to come up during dinner and the campy horror movie that followed. He couldn’t be sure whether that was because she was sparing him the embarrassment of Clint overhearing, given the fact that the beta had dropped in for dinner and joined them both on the couch for the rest of the evening, but when it still hadn’t come up in their private text thread over the following day, he figured that he was actually in the clear.

It was a pleasant surprise, if Bucky was being honest.  For as much as he loved Natasha, she had a tendency of mothering him from time to time, whether he wanted it or not.

Otherwise, his life actually seemed to reach a semblance of normalcy as the days went on.  He still regularly woke up nauseous, but it was minor enough that he could use the time waiting for it to pass to catch up on emails and news updates, rather than just lying still in bed and praying he didn’t vomit.  Bucky still received email alerts for job posting on the websites he’d used during his year of unemployment, and still averaged about five applications a week in his search for a job that he felt more suited for, but he hadn’t been able to land an actual interview since starting at Ultimate’s.  While the radio silence was disappointing, he was grateful for the coffee shop for at least keeping him busy.  And given the fact that Teddy had significantly pulled his physics grades around after Bucky’s study session, he at least had their unofficial tutoring sessions to look forward to a couple of days a week at work.

“You could do this as a job, y’know,” Teddy murmured, smiling absently as he continued scratching notes in his notebook.  

Bucky frowned in confusion, pausing with his sandwich halfway to his mouth.  “No,” he finally said with a laugh, shaking his head for emphasis, “no, I did the teaching thing as a TA, I hated actually leading classes.”

“You’re an awesome tutor, though,” Teddy countered, shaking his pencil at Bucky with a smile.  “Seriously, people would pay stupid money for your help. Hell, I would pay stupid money, if I had it.”

Bucky went in for a bite at that, trying to hide his embarrassment as he felt the color rising on his cheeks: while the compliment was nice, and he was genuinely glad that he could help the kid out, he still stood by his argument - he’d rather do than teach. Plus, given how hesitant the kid had been to take his help in the past, and the fact that Bucky didn’t exactly have anything other than a couple of seemingly worthless degrees to show for his expertise, he sincerely doubted that students with money would be lining up to ask for his help; god knew that the majority of them he’d studied with as a peer hadn’t wanted anything to do with him.

To add insult to injury, Bucky totally misjudged how big of a bite he was taking, accidentally squeezing an anchovy out of the bread so that it landed with a sad plop on the tabletop.

For the first time Teddy actually grimaced, handing a napkin over between questions. “I still don’t understand how you eat that… stuff,” he trailed off awkwardly, clearly wanting to add more colorful descriptors to the food.

“They’re healthy and they’re cheap,” Bucky explained after he’d chewed and swallowed, before carefully picking up the tiny filet and sticking it back where it belonged. Truthfully, he’d been a little disgusted by the thought as well, but every blog he’d looked into had said that the tiny fish were a great source of healthy fats while being low in mercury, and after the crab shack debacle Bucky’s stomach had decided that it didn’t entirely hate seafood, after all.

Teddy continued to stare at him incredulously.  “Seriously,” Bucky continued, “they’ve got a ton of vitamins and minerals, and as long as you buy them in water and rinse them off -”

“I’ll take your word on it,” Teddy interrupted, turning his nose up as he went back to work. “But I don’t think anything could make me wanna eat healthy enough to make a sardine sandwich.”

“They’re anchovies,” Bucky corrected flippantly, “and when you get to be an old man like me, you’ll understand.”

Teddy snorted as he flipped the page of his textbook, and a few seconds later was changing the subject back to scalar wave integrals. Bucky tried to ignore the weird feeling that he’d dodged a bullet, happily launching into his tips for Hooke’s law, as if there wasn’t a much bigger, more obvious reason for all of his weird diet decisions.

If any of his other coworkers thought it odd that Bucky was regularly wearing his work polo untucked, or that he tied his apron awkwardly loose whenever he worked, so as to avoid drawing attention to the bump at his middle, none of them gave any indication of it.

Natasha’s silence only lasted until the next time that they hung out together.

They’d pushed each other through a brutal arm and back workout, one that Bucky knew was going to leave him wonderfully sore the next day, then got in a solid half hour of cardio before heading upstairs to Nat’s apartment for their usual post-workout dinner.  Clint wasn’t there when they got in, so Bucky got the shower first while Natasha was in charge of dinner.  He’d washed and dried himself off as quickly as possible, and got into his clothes immediately afterwards, not wanting a repeat of the last time he’d cleaned up in her bathroom.  Luckily, he was able to make it out without any interruptions, but as soon as he walked back into the living room to announce that the shower was free, Nat tossed something in his direction.

Bucky caught the thing easily, though he had to drop his gym duffel to do so.  Truthfully, the assault by plastic shopping bag was less shocking than the gaudy pink color of it, and the loopy white script proclaiming the name of the store it must have come from.

“I got you a present,” Nat explained, folding her arms and leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen.

“Uh - okay?”  Bucky replied, still frowning in confusion at the entire situation.  When Natasha didn’t bother to provide any further explanation he opened the bag, taking it as his cue to get on with it.  Inside was a single piece of nude-colored elastic material, one that looked to be nearly a foot wide and sewn into a large band. 

Taking it out of the bag, Bucky noticed the tag on the thing, proclaiming it a ‘Belly Band’ and showing diagrams of ways that it could be used to convert regular jeans and trousers into gestational pants.

“No offense,” Natasha said breezily, moving across the room as she did, “but I figured it would be a little more comfortable than the MacGyver situation you had going on with your pants the other day.”

Despite the fact that Bucky knew she wasn’t saying it to tease him, he still felt his cheeks heat up as Natasha spoke.  “None taken,” he lied, trying to decide how much he really wanted to talk about the belly situation.  “This’ll be pretty handy, actually.  Given that I’ve, uh, gained nine pounds already.”

If Natasha was surprised by the admission, she did a hell of a job of hiding it.  “Wasn’t that expected?”

“I guess,” Bucky conceded, shrugging as he did so, “I mean, Doctor Foster told me she was hoping that I’d gain about forty pounds by the time everything was said and done, I just didn’t expect it to creep up this fast at the beginning.  Especially considering I haven’t been able to eat a real breakfast in weeks.  So... I didn’t really budget for the clothes issue.”  He pulled tension on the band for a moment, watching how far it stretched while still feeling like it would give a fair amount of support - at least enough to keep his pants up without worry.

“Thanks,” he added after a moment, “this is really a lifesaver.”  He ducked back into the bathroom, digging his wallet out of his gym bag, “How much do I owe you for it?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Nat insisted, crossing into the living room and physically pushing Bucky’s hand away from his wallet before he could actually open it.  “Seriously, the thing was like, ten dollars.  Just get me a coffee and pastry the next time we’re out and we can call it even.”

Bucky opened his mouth to argue further, but was immediately shot down by Natasha’s glare, killing his argument before it had a chance to start.  With a sigh, he nodded and tossed the wallet back into the open bag, before turning his attention back to the strip of tan fabric in his hands.  “And this is supposed to just – work with any pair of pants?”

“Apparently, as long as you can get them on, it’s supposed to keep them up,” Nat answered, looking pleased with herself.  “And they have a bunch of other colors at Bump and Co, if you wanted to go get more to match with your outfit.”

She added the last bit teasingly, but Bucky didn’t miss the hint.  He made a mental note to check them out, smirking as he realized that the alpha had left him open to take his own jab at her.

“You mean to tell me you actually went to a gestational store?  On your own?” he asked, his smile growing as he asked it.  “Named Bump and Co?”

Natasha grunted, giving her hair a toss that Bucky would have assumed was a sign of annoyance, had he not known her as well as he did.  “I did,” she confirmed, looking like she was pondering the admission for a moment, “and on that note, I think you owe me two coffee pastry dates.”

Bucky laughed and agreed to as much - it was a simple enough request, especially given the fact that Nat didn’t mind if he cheated and just brought comps home from the coffeeshop for her after work, and otherwise the rest of the evening passed as usual, with the two of them sharing dinner and shooting the shit while binge-watching the first series that Netflix had recommended for them.  Bucky never actually mentioned how well the band worked that night, or how much more comfortable the thing was than some of his previous attempts at fastening his jeans had been, but the smug look that Natasha gave him when he stood and stretched at the end of the night told him that he probably didn’t have to.

Instead, he dropped by her office a couple of days later and left a last day of the work week box of donuts as a proper thank you.

It was an odd weekend where he actually had both Friday and Saturday off, and Steve had mentioned over text that he was in the same boat as far as lack of obligations went, so they agreed to meet up for Saturday brunch after Steve had brought up a diner he’d been meaning to get back to in Brooklyn.

Bucky’s alarm went off obnoxiously early the next morning - it was a shame to give up his one remaining day of sleeping in, but he figured that it was a necessary evil, if he was going to be able to sit through Steve’s fancy breakfast joint without getting sick all over the place.  All the same, he groaned as he rolled over to silence his phone, waiting a full twenty seconds before finally opening his eyes and facing the day.

It took him a moment to realize what was so off, as he stayed in the same place, frowning in confusion, when suddenly it hit him: the complete absence of nausea.  Hesitantly, he pushed himself out of bed, perching on the side of his creaky twin mattress and waiting for reality to sink in - but for a change, it never came.  When his stomach finally did make itself known, it was to growl in hunger… a feeling that was so foreign for six o’clock in the morning that he actually started laughing about it.

His incredulous chuckle continued as Bucky made his way to the bathroom, stepping into the shower and going about his usual morning routine.  By the time he was cleaned up and shaved he still had well over an hour to spare.  He started it by looking through his Monster account, tagging a couple of new job listings for further research when he got home, then flipping idly through the Bump app, reading up on the milestones for the week to come.  

The header for week twelve was a plum, indicating the size of the fetus as the first trimester came to an end - a fact that was crazy, given that it had felt like he’d only been showing for a couple of days, but which seemed legitimate when he looked down at the convexity protruding below his navel.  The write up for the week also went into the fact that it was common for carriers to be noticeably showing by now; he scoffed at the sentence, as if anyone in his position would need the reminder.  Part of Bucky wished he’d read ahead, though, as he came to the bit about the way that his hormones would be changing during the transition to the second trimester, and the fact that both the exhaustion and morning sickness that had been plaguing him was apparently due to be finished for most people within the next week or so.

It also mentioned that many omegas experienced headaches and dizzy spells in their place, but he decided to ignore it and focus on the positive of the morning: if he really was starting to turn the corner from the morning sickness business, his life would be improving immensely.  

So too, a nasty little voice in the back of his head chimed in, would the size of his waistline, if he was going to be able to start keeping more substantial food down.  He shook the thought off immediately, forcing it out of mind.  It wasn’t necessarily that Bucky was bothered by the idea of putting more weight on - he’d known what he was signing up for when he’d agreed to the pregnancy, after all - but having such a drastic change to his body wasn’t exactly something that he was excited about, either.

Inexplicably, the thought had him turning back to the bathroom, determined to make himself at least moderately more put-together before he went out in public.

After twenty minutes Bucky finally gave up on his hair, conceding defeat to both the curls and the cowlick in the front that was only going to go back to its usual place if he smothered it in hair gel; considering he had no idea how old the bottle of LA Looks that he found in the back of the cabinet under the bathroom sink was, Bucky figured that it wasn’t a battle worth fighting.  Instead he tousled his hair with a tiny bit of mousse, hoping that the messy, careless look was still in, then stepped back from the mirror to give himself one final look-over.

He had to pull down his t-shirt to hide the tan strip of the belly band, but as long as he paid attention to it, Bucky figured he’d be able to keep it hidden easily enough.  The look was a little on the sloppy side, with the slightly stretched t-shirt compulsively pulled down and untucked, but at least he could comfortably fit into pants for a change.  Speaking of - he adjusted his jeans one final time, reassuring himself that they wouldn’t fall down or something equally mortifying while he was walking around Brooklyn, then smoothed his hand down over his abdomen, turning sideways to judge one last time just how noticeable the bump was in the outfit.

The second that he realized what he was doing, Bucky turned away from the mirror, flipping the light to the bathroom off and stalking back into the apartment to grab his wallet, phone and keys: if he wasted anymore time he’d be pushing it to make it by the time that they’d agreed on, and the whole routine had been a waste of time, anyway.

It wasn’t as if he was going to impress anyone, he reminded himself sarcastically as he pulled the door to his apartment shut behind him and locked it securely.

The Bushwick diner that Steve had recommended was a relatively easy mile and a half walk from Bucky’s apartment, but he cursed as he stepped out into the early morning heat, knowing that there was no way he was jogging that far in his jeans if he didn’t want to be a complete sweatbomb.  Of course, he’d lost track of time while fighting with his stupid hair, so he had to hustle if he was going to make it to the spot by the appropriate time.

He huffed it through the seeder parts of his own neighborhood, waiting until he was north of Bushwick to pull his phone out and text Steve that he might be late, but by that point he found that he was close enough to schedule that it wasn’t worth sending an update.

Besides, Steve would probably be on the train and miss it, anyway.

He paused for a moment when he was a block up from the diner, stopping to fix his hair again in a dark real estate office window and wiping the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand, before finally walking the last streets up and over to Monty’s Diner.

The good news was that Bucky was actually getting there five minutes earlier than Steve had asked him to.  The bad news was that there was already a line-up of people out the door of the place, which looked to extend at least a block around the side of the building.  Bucky slowed his walk as he looked it over, grimacing as his head immediately started trying to calculate how long they’d likely be waiting to get into the tiny restaurant, and his stomach gave an angry rumble at the results.

“Hey, good morning!” a familiar voice chirped from a few paces behind him, startling Bucky out of his thoughts as he turned to face it.  Steve’s eyes widened noticeably as he faced him, and seemed to zero in directly on his midsection, much to Bucky’s dismay.

“Morning,” Bucky answered after what felt like an eternity, trying not to feel too self-conscious as Steve practically tripped over his feet and dragged his gaze back up to Bucky’s face.  “How’s it going?” he added as pleasantly as possible, trying anything to cut the awkwardness that he felt being piled on the both of them.

“Sorry,” Steve murmured, shaking his head briefly before focusing on Bucky in earnest.  “I mean, it’s good – the ride over wasn’t too bad.  Did you have any trouble getting over?”

“Nope,” Bucky answered, shaking his head as well, “it’s a nice morning for a walk, at least.”

“Yeah, sure,” Steve agreed, “could do without the humidity, though.”

“That’s the end of summer in New York for ya, or so I’ve been told,” Bucky snarked back, slightly put off by the fact that they were talking about the weather, of all things.

“It is,” Steve chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck as his eyes drifted away from Bucky’s face, back to his midsection.  “You, uh,” he stuttered, after a beat of horrifically uncomfortable silence, “you look really good.  Er, you look well.”

“You mean I finally look knocked up,” Bucky retorted with a snort.  He waived off Steve’s panicked flail, not wanting to give him the wrong impression.  “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.  The Bump has been saying for the past couple of weeks that this was coming eventually - apparently everything’s grown enough that it’s up over the rim of the pelvis, it’s just a matter of how much give the carrier’s abs have in determining when the pregnancy is actually visible.”

He skimmed his palm along his abdomen, simultaneously pulling his t-shirt a bit lower again before turning and giving Steve a better angle to see it from, “And Peanut’s officially winning now, I guess.”

“Guess so,” Steve murmured, his fingers twitching oddly as he stared at Bucky for a moment longer before blinking and re-focusing on Bucky’s face.  “Anyway,” he continued, a touch too loudly to be entirely natural, “we should probably get heading in – I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

“I could definitely eat,” Bucky agreed, wincing internally when he considered how it sounded, especially after Steve’s reaction to his physique.

If Steve thought anything of it, he hid it well – leading the way across the sidewalk and rapidly approaching the doors of the diner.  Bucky frowned in confusion as they walked in the opposite direction of the line, skirting the glass front of the building and making their way into the adjacent alley.  Steve glanced over his shoulder, as if he could sense Bucky’s bafflement, shrugging as they approached an unmarked door.  “So, I realize how shady this looks, but they don’t exactly take reservations here, and I promised the owner I wouldn’t make a show of it when I got them.”

“Got what?” Bucky asked, feeling more than a little unnerved.

“A reserved brunch table,” Steve chuckled, knocking briefly on the door and giving him a tiny, though obviously satisfied smile as it swung open.

The kitchen staff that had answered the door looked confused for a moment, as she looked back and forth between Bucky and Steve, but before she could ask where there delivery was a middle-aged, balding man with a bottle brush moustache and a blinding grin stepped into the doorway beside her.

 “Steve Rogers!” he boomed, holding a hand out and shaking Steve’s vigorously when it was offered.  “Punctual as always,” he added with a laugh, pulling Steve into a one armed hug before turning to Bucky, “and this is?”

“Bucky Barnes,” Bucky answered for himself, holding his own hand out (and praying that the stranger took the hint).  To his relief, that was the case - his handshake was firm and polite, but thankfully came without any additional contact.  

“Bucky, this is Bill Ripley,” Steve supplied, “he’s an old friend, and owns the place.”

“The diner’s been in the family for generations,” Bill added with a proud smile, “I took it over from my pop in the nineties, but we’ve been in business continuously since 1931.”

“Wow,” Bucky said, raising his eyebrows in honest surprise, “that’s pretty impressive, considering the neighborhood.”

“Yeah,” Bill nodded, “we had a rough go of it for a while in the early 2000s - the neighborhood had fell into some disrepair and the coffee houses in Williamsburg pulled away a lot of our business, but we were able to make a comeback with all the build up goin’ on around the area.  And then this guy made sure to put us back on the map.”

Steve blushed spectacularly as Bucky turned his attention towards him, shaking his head as he looked down a his shoes.  “Please,” he scoffed, “I had a couple paintings put up and re-designed the menu for you guys, but it’s the food that keeps people comin’ in.”

Bill shook his head fondly, prodding Bucky gently with his elbow, “Always so modest, but the fact was this guy’s paintings taking off in popularity brought attention to the whole neighborhood, so when the art reviewers came out to see originals they stopped in the restaurants, and word got out fast.

“Of course, now we’re so busy that we can’t possibly take reservations, even on weekdays,” Bill said with pride, gesturing to the packed diner around them, with the line to get in still visible around the corner windows.  “But after everything, I’m willing to make an exception for Steve here, especially when he brings his… special friends.”

Bucky didn’t miss the pause in Bill’s sentence, or the sharp look that Steve had given him that had seemed to prompt it, but he let it go.  The guy seemed friendly enough, and honestly Bucky was beginning to get so hungry - with food being so close - that it wasn’t worth letting it bother him.

Thankfully the restauranter took the hint, and left them to peruse their menus with a wish for a good meal.  Bucky looked over the laminated pages in silence for a couple of awkward moments, all the while itching to ask Steve what the hell that introduction had been about - as well as if he’d really designed the adorable little cartoon pancakes that he was looking at on the bottom of page four, or if any of his original artwork was still in the diner, or just how many ‘special friends’ he was bringing in for brunch.

He shook the last thought off, instead asking “So what’s good here?” as casually as he could, as if he hadn’t already told himself that he was going to settle for something with eggs and vegetables and fruit, no matter how appetizing the rest of the less-healthy options looked.

“Honestly, everything,” Steve replied enthusiastically, setting his open menu on the table in front of him, “but I usually go with the cinnamon-raisin bread french toast, since it’s pretty impossible to beat.”

That had definitely caught his eye, as well as the chocolate chip pancakes, and the pecan praline cinnamon rolls - but Bucky continually reminded himself that what he (and the baby) needed was protein and vitamins, not sugar and more sugar.  So when their waitress came around to take their order a couple of minutes later, he asked for the veggie frittata and fruit cup, swallowing down his jealousy when Steve ordered the french toast and a side of bacon.  

“Actually,” he interjected as the waitress was starting to make her leave, “could I get one of the cheddar biscuits, please?”  It wasn’t that much of a splurge, he told himself, and given the fact that neither she nor Steve batted an eye at the request, Bucky refused to let himself feel embarrassed by it.

Once they were alone again Bucky let his gaze wander around the restaurant, taking in the ambiance and really appreciating it for the first time.  While it was small and cramped an obviously an old building, it was also clean and obviously well-cared for, in a way that made it almost feel homey, if not for all of the people packed into it.  There were framed photographs and newspaper clippings all over the walls, interspersed with old signs that Bucky had to guess related to the neighborhood and a number of paintings as well.

His eyes caught on a gorgeous watercolor rendition of the Brooklyn Bridge, and Bucky couldn’t hold his question back any longer.  “So,” he asked conversationally, glancing at Steve out of the corner of his eye, “which of the pieces in here are Rogers originals?”

“Oh God,” Steve snorted, scrubbing his face with both hands as Bucky watched his ears turn red with only a little bit of glee.  “Firstly, Bill exaggerates.  Alot,” he sighed after a minute, glancing around the diner with a shy, tiny smile, “but I did kind of get my break by selling paintings out of a little coffee shop over by Pratt, so… I’ve tried to give pieces to different businesses around the area, just as a thank you, y’know?”

Bucky nodded politely, unable to help being amused by Steve’s modesty but also starting to piece together something that he’d completely missed about the alpha - that he must be relatively well-known, if he really did have business owners around Brooklyn clamouring for his artwork.

“And the ones here are?” he prompted, smiling in hope that Steve knew that it was all in fun, and that Bucky was less interested in making him squirm as he was in trying to get to know him better.

After a brief pause Steve actually pointed across the room, first to the watercolor that Bucky had originally been looking at and then to a fall scene on the opposite wall.  “Those two,” he said nonchalantly, “the bridge and then Prospect Park with the leaves changing.  Usually I’m more into impressionist stuff or portraits, but - early on I felt like landscapes were good practice, and they make for good kitsch in these local spots, so.”

“They’re gorgeous,” Bucky breathed, barely fighting off the urge to get up and look at the park painting even closer.  “And definitely not kitsch,” he added after a moment, chuckling as he shot Steve an incredulous look.

Their food came a short while later, so they both dug in with gusto, transitioning to small talk as they fixed their plates the way that each liked.  Somehow talking about the awkward introductions had cleared the air between the two of them; that, or the ridiculous amount of incredible looking breakfast food that had come to share their attention. 

Bucky talked about how his tutoring sessions with Teddy had been going, as well as the hypothetical idea of tutoring for a while as Steve dressed and cut his first piece of french toast, then started trying his own food as Steve mentioned a few of his ongoing projects at work.  It seemed like he was training his staff to take on most of the company’s projects as Steve transitioned himself into more of a supervisory role, but Bucky was admittedly so caught up in how fresh his fruit was and how perfectly his eggs had been baked that he may have missed a few details.

He nodded along, taking a bite into the biscuit as Steve continued rambling about the terrible client that had nearly made his assistant cry that week; while he was interested in what the alpha had to say, the pastry was too inviting to continue ignoring.  And at first bite, it was absolutely perfect – flaky and buttery, with just a hint of cheddar and salt, enough that Bucky probably would have made some ridiculously embarrassing noise of contentment over it had he not immediately gotten a jolt from the overwhelming aftertaste.

DISH SOAP , his mind practically wailed, as the taste completely overwhelmed his senses, nearly gagging him with its power.  There was no time for subtlety - Bucky yanked the napkin from his lap, bringing it to his mouth and spitting the bite into it as quickly as he could, then wadding it all into a ball as he desperately reached for his orange juice in an attempt to wash the taste out of his mouth.

It worked, thankfully, but of course hadn’t gone without notice - across the table Steve had gone completely silent, gaping awkwardly as Bucky set the glass back down on the table and muttered a bashful “Sorry about that.”

Steve frowned in obvious concern, but before he could say anything another voice spoke up from over Bucky’s shoulder.

“Everything alright here?” their waitress asked pleasantly, making Bucky wish that he could melt into the floor – or at least hide under the table in embarrassment.

He had to settle for trying to wad his entire napkin up in his hand, hoping that she wouldn’t notice the odd behavior as he did so.  Of course, Bucky’d never had any luck.  “Mine’s great,” Steve started, giving a half-hearted smile then continuing to look across the table with big, concerned eyes.

The waitress followed his gaze across the table, took a glimpse at Bucky’s plate, then clucked softly as she reached over and scooped the biscuit off of his plate.  “Oh no, I’m sorry, Hon – I should’ve warned you about the oregano.”

“The… wha?” Bucky asked stupidly, somehow managing to feel even more confused.

“This is your first, isn’t it?”  She asked kindly, dropping the offending biscuit into a passing buss boy’s bin before continuing without Bucky’s answer, “I had the same issue when I was pregnant with my first two, swore that my mate wasn’t rinsing the dishes well-enough because every time he made marinara I tasted Dawn in it, only to realize that it was the hormones making oregano taste awful.  Apparently it’s pretty common, but don’t worry, it’ll probably go away before the third trimester.”

Bucky gaped at her like an idiot, too confused by the entire conversation to even be surprised that she’d put together that he was pregnant.

“I can grab you a blueberry scone to replace it, if you’d like, or some toast - just let me know what I can grab for you,” she added hastily.

“I’m -” Bucky started, head still spinning with the absurdity of it all.  “Toast is fine, thanks.  Wheat, if you have it.”

“No problem, I’ll get that right out for you,” the waitress promised, finally disappearing into the kitchen, much to Bucky’s relief.

They spent a solid minute eating in awkward silence, with Bucky cautiously taking bites of his eggs, feeling immeasurably grateful that they continued to taste deliciously normal, while Steve focused so closely on his french toast that he might as well have stuck his face in it.  They both remained so engrossed in their food that Bucky nearly missed it when Steve finally spoke up again.

“Has that been happening to you a lot?” the alpha asked softly, gesturing towards Bucky’s plate with his fork when Bucky gave him little more than a confused look.  “I mean, the taste thing.  I know you said you were having trouble with smells for a while, but…”

“No, that was the first time,” Bucky answered, “thank God.  Although I am kinda bummed out - I was looking forward to that stupid thing.”

The joke was apparently the right thing to say, because it had Steve chuckling immediately.  “You can have some of this, if you want,” he added, turning his plate so that the untouched half-piece of french toast on his plate was facing Bucky, “I’m never able to finish all of it, not unless I wanna go home and nap for the rest of the day.”

Bucky meant to turn the offer down, but after some friendly back-and-forth he did finally try a bite off of Steve’s plate, as well as a piece of bacon, and ultimately decided to abandon what was left of his own food for Steve’s offer.

They sat around chatting companionably once they’d both had considerably more than their fill, until they noticed that a couple of hours had passed and the line for a table was still out he door and around the corner, so Steve finally got the bill and paid (after much hemming and hawing with Bill, who had drastically under-charged them).  

“I know it’s hot as hell out,” Steve conceded as they finally made their way out the door, tucking his wallet into his back pocket, “but um - if you still wanted to hang out, maybe walk around for a bit, I find it usually makes me feel a little bit less terrible after a heavy meal.”

Bucky bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from grinning like an idiot - it was definitely hot enough out that he probably should have said no, but Steve had a point, and he definitely didn’t want their morning to end just yet.  “Sounds perfect,” he agreed, letting Steve lead the way out the door towards Bushwick Avenue.

Work, and life, both continued on as usual for Bucky, at least until the lunch rush a few days later.

Bucky had just finished reloading the lemon pound cake in the pastry window (consciously breathing through his mouth all the while, so as to avoid getting nauseous from the overly-sweet scent of citrus), when he felt it - a sharp, stabbing pain that lanced through the right side of his lower belly.  It was gone as fast as it had come on, so that he felt totally normal by the time he was standing next to the counter, but it didn’t stop the wave of panic that set in almost immediately.  

Thankfully, he was able to hide it from his customers - if anyone noticed that something was off with their barista, they kept it to themselves, instead shuffling through the line without comment as he put up one overly-extravagant drink after the other.  Teddy had given him a couple of odd looks, but Bucky ignored him, instead focusing on the work as much as he could, constantly ignoring the voice in the back of his head whining at him that something was very wrong.

The second that the line was empty Bucky excused himself to the bathroom, was nearly sick with relief when he didn’t find his boxer briefs stained with blood - not that it totally quelled the fear that something terrible was happening to him.  For a moment he considered calling Doctor Foster, or even just taking the afternoon off and going to the nearest hospital, but ultimately he decided against it.  The pain had barely lasted for a second, and nothing else was happening.  In all likelihood, he was just overreacting over something minor, something that absolutely wasn’t worth dumping the afternoon rush on Teddy and risking losing his job over.

With his meltdown (largely) at bay, Bucky finally washed his hands and made his way out of the bathroom, going back to the front and taking over for drink making as the afternoon rush started up enough to require four hands again.

Luckily, they got busy enough that Bucky was able to completely focus on drink orders, making sure that he was getting the right ratios of milk to cream to espresso and keeping himself from burning his fingers on the machinery to think about his earlier episode.  He might have forgotten about it completely, had he not felt the same exact searing pain cutting through his lower belly as he turned with another completed order.

He leaned against the counter as he handed the last pair of lattes across the bar, forcing a smile and hoping that his growing panic wasn’t entirely obvious.  For a moment, Bucky thought he’d succeeded - the customers offered vague thanks, looking up from their phones for just long enough to be less-than-rude, before making their way out the door.  Bucky sagged where he stood, breathing deeply through his nose, reminding himself that the pain was probably nothing, if it passed so quickly.

When he finally got the nerve to stand on his own again, he caught Teddy watching him, concerned frown in place as he wiped down the counters.

“You okay, man?”  He asked in an undertone, as if they weren’t the only two people in the store.

“Yeah, fine,” Bucky lied, moving away from the counter to check the levels on each of the drip coffee carafes that they had displayed, doing his best to look busy while simultaneously waiting to see if the pain came on again.

“You’re sure?” Teddy asked, pushing the point, “Cuz I mean - you look a little pale, and I thought you winced for a second there.  If you need to take this last hour off or something, I can handle things until America gets in.”

Bucky shook his head emphatically, refusing to let the pain become a bigger deal than it was.  “No, really, I’m fine,” he insisted.  “It was just a cramp, not like they’re gonna get any worse or better if I’m here versus if I’m home.”

“I mean, it’s not… is it a uterus thing?”  To his credit, Teddy kept an entirely straight face, even as his ears began turning bright red.  “Cuz I mean, if you need some Midol or something, I’m pretty sure I’ve got a packet of it in my bookbag.  I can run back and get it, if you want.”

“I don’t think - no, I’m good without it,” Bucky answered, confused as hell by the offer.  He wasn’t even sure if he could take Midol while pregnant, but that was besides the point… he had been ninety-nine percent sure that Teddy was an alpha from the beginning, and as his own sense of smell had progressed over the weeks he’d become even more certain of his coworker’s sex.  So unless he was wearing some crazy scent modifiers - and where did a kid his age even get the money and access to something like that?

“Why do you even have Midol?”  He asked incredulously, unable to stop himself.  “I mean - I appreciate the offer, but I really didn’t think you were an omega.”

Teddy shrugged awkwardly, “I mean - I’m clearly not, but Billy is.  And, I dunno… something like half the population of the whole world has ‘em, right?”  Bucky stared at him blankly, watching as color rose on Teddy’s cheeks.  “I mean, uteruses that is.  Uteri?  Anyway, I figure I’m around omegas often enough, and it’s not like all of you can always have supplies on you, and my mom always said it was polite to have supplies like that handy around the gym and classes, so… yeah.  I’ve got Midol and ibuprofen and stuff in my backpack.  If you need it.”

Teddy looked terribly embarrassed as he finished talking, but Bucky was too busy being shocked by the kindness of the younger alpha.  He’d seemed like a decent guy in the amount of time that Bucky had gotten to know him, but this might have been the most thoughtful thing he’d ever heard anyone do - most alphas weren’t even willing to buy their mates hygiene products at a drugstore, much less randomly carry supplies for omega strangers.

“That’s - that’s really sweet of you,” Bucky finally forced himself to say, trying his best to ease the kid’s misery.  “But really, I’m good.  Let’s just - knock this last hour out and head home, okay?”

Their remaining time on the clock passed painfully slowly, with far too few customers and far too many awkward silences between the pair, but Bucky was grateful at least that the pain never came back.  When Kate finally made her way through the door to clock in, Bucky excused himself to go to the bathroom, fleeing back to the employees area and once again checking to make sure that nothing was wrong.  

There still was no blood, to his relief, but after two terrifying experiences in a single afternoon Bucky figured that he had to check-in with someone , just in case.  He peed and readjusted his pants and the belly band, then washed his hands quickly.  After a moment’s debate, Bucky dug his cell phone out of his back pocket, purposely avoiding looking at himself in the mirror as he dialed the number for the Conceive Solutions clinic.  

After briefly explaining his situation to one of the receptionists he was put on hold for a nurse, realized with a start that he’d started trembling as his nerves continued building, and spent the following minute trying to calm the hell down.  It was only his hands that were shaking once Connie’s voice finally came through on the other end of the phone to ask what was wrong.

“I, ah… I don’t even know if it’s something I should be worrying about,” Bucky started apologetically, clearing his throat before continuing, “but I had a couple of seconds of really sharp pain in my lower right side today, while I was at work.  And it happened twice.”

“Alright,” Connie acknowledged calmly, “and you said they both just came and went?  You aren’t having any pain now?”

“Yeah,” Bucky responded, “I mean, yeah, I’m not hurting now.  Both times were just like a quick stab of pain, then went away.”

The conversation continued much the same way, with Connie asking clarifying questions and Bucky answering them all as well as he could, all the while growing increasingly more panicked as he had to continue talking about it, more certain that whatever it was that he’d felt was even more of a problem than he’d initially feared.

“And have you had any spotting?”  Connie asked, in that same soothing voice, as if she could tell that Bucky was slowly devolving even though she couldn’t see him.

“No,” he said immediately, “no, I’ve checked a couple of times, there hasn’t been any blood at all.”

“Okay,” Connie responded with a sigh, pausing for a breath before continuing.  “So I don’t want you to panic, because none of this is sounding like a major problem, but I am glad that you called.”  Another pause, and Bucky thought that he could hear a keyboard typing on the other end of the line before Connie spoke up again, “That being said, is there any way that you could come in and get checked out today?  Since it’s your first time having symptoms -“

It would be a bear trying to get back out to Brooklyn from Manhattan in rush hour, which meant that he’d probably miss his gym date with Natasha later that night, but Bucky wasn’t about to say as much, or to let it stand in the way of having peace of mind.  “I can totally come in,” he interrupted, “no problem, I’m just finishing up at work, I can catch the next train…”

“Doctor Foster isn’t in the office today,” Connie continued, cutting in on her own, “she’s had a couple of deliveries today so I doubt she’ll be back to the clinic before tomorrow.  But if you can go to the emergency room at Lenox Hill Hospital, I’ll call ahead and make sure that they know you’re on your way and need to be seen by her team.”

Bucky swallowed thickly, feeling bile rise in his chest – it was irrational, he knew, considering that getting checked out at the hospital would be no different than what would have been done in the office, but again; somehow going to an emergency room made the entire ordeal seem that much more hopeless.  “That – yeah, I can do that, too,” he said weakly, realizing that he’d been quiet for too long.

“We have a great staff that we work with there,” Connie promised gently, “they’ll take great care of you, I promise, James.  And if you have your clinic insurance card on you…”

“Yeah, I do,” Bucky answered roughly, recognizing a lead when he heard one.

“Great,” Connie continued, “then if you just use that for registration, you won’t have any fees for the visit, and if you need any medications for anything it’ll go on the card as well.”

“Okay, sure.  Thank you, I’ll - I’ll head there right away.”

Bucky exhaled deeply as he finally closed his phone app, tucking the phone into his back pocket before leaning on the sink as he did his best to regain his composure.  He knew that he didn’t have the time to get a hold of himself, not really, if he was going to make it to the hospital in a timely fashion - but he still wanted to pause and try to get his emotions under enough control to be seen in public.  

After a couple of minutes of meditative breathing Bucky finally stood again, taking just enough time to splash cold water on his face and untie his work apron before finally abandoning the employee restroom.  From there he made his way into the breakroom to hang his hat and apron, wincing internally when he found Teddy still hanging around at the break table.

“Hey man,” Teddy said good-naturedly, obviously missing Bucky’s rush to get out the door without further interaction, “doing better?  Sure you don’t want something for the road?”

Bucky forced a smile, trying his damndest to act natural.  “No, I’m good - thanks again though.  I’ll just… I’ll see you tomorrow.  Bring that assignment along, if you want to work it over after close.”

He added the last bit as an afterthought, smiling sincerely at the appreciative grin he got from the kid, all the while trying to convince himself that it really was going to be that simple: that he’d get a clean bill of health from Doctor Foster, laugh off the overreaction, and be back to life as usual before his next shift started.

If he was entirely honest with himself, Bucky wasn’t sure that he’d be able to handle anything less.

He waved a distracted goodbye to America as he made his way out the door of Ultimate Coffee, immediately turning and walking towards the nearest subway stop.  He’d barely made it to the end of the block before he stopped, realizing the problems with his plan: while he definitely wasn’t familiar with Lenox Hill by any stretch of the imagination, he knew the neighborhood’s reputation - and given how high the property values were around the area, he could guess that the walk from the nearest train station to the hospital would be at least a few blocks.  Worse still, was how long the trip was likely to be - even if he could figure out a closer drop-off, he was likely to need a minimum of two trains: first to get from Prospect Park into Manhattan, then to switch to midtown and finally to the hospital.  The idea of being stuck in a crowded train or station, of getting jostled around by the other commuters going into the city, of having another episode like the ones he’d already had…

Bucky shook his head as someone barked at him to move out of the way, snapping out of his panic long enough to step off to the side of the sidewalk.  It was only when he dug his phone out of his pocket to check the train schedules that he realized that his right hand had made its way to the bump, seemingly trying to protect it on its own volition.

With a sigh, Bucky pocketed his phone again, making up his mind before the MTA app could even load completely.  While he usually wouldn’t even think to go the route he was about to, the enormity of the entire situation was properly crashing down on him, as was the sudden need to get to the hospital as fast as possible.  He stepped to the opposite side of the sidewalk, throwing his arm in the air as he did to hail one of the passing yellow cabs.

To his surprise, one’s FARE light popped on immediately, and a second later it was slowing to a stop in front of him.  “Thanks,” Bucky said awkwardly, dropping into the rear seat of the cab and pulling the door shut behind him.  

After a couple of seconds of odd silence, the driver glanced at him in the rear-view mirror, “Where we going?”

“Oh, uh, Lenox Hill?”  Bucky answered, unsure of how specific he was supposed to be up front - it had been years since he'd actually been in a cab on his own, and usually that just involved falling into the backseat with whichever friend he was with at the time and letting them handle the interactions.

The driver frowned spectacularly, shaking his head and turning in the front seat, “Oh no, sorry kid, but I don’t drive into Manhattan in the afternoon, and I sure as hell ain’t going that far North.  If you want a ride to one of the stations…”

“Please,” Bucky interrupted, surprising even himself by how desperate his voice sounded.  Sure, he could just get out of the damned cab and get another, but if they all acted the same way - he didn’t feel like he had the time to wait for someone willing to make the drive.  “Please, I’ve gotta get to the hospital.  You know how bad the train is gonna be at this hour, and it’s not something that’s bad enough to tie up an ambulance, but… it’s just really important that I get to Lenox Hill Hospital.  Please.”

The cabbie’s brow didn’t exactly unfurrow, but something in his eyes softened as Bucky continued to plead, and he sighed heavily as Bucky trailed off, blinking back tears.  “You’re not gonna get sick in the back of my car?”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” Bucky promised, wiping at the wetness on his cheeks with the back of his hand, “but I do need to get to my doctor.”

“Okay, fine - I’ll make an exception just this once.  But next time if you need a ride into Manhattan, you’ve gotta call a cab ahead of time; we ain’t all gonna be so nice.”

Bucky barely contained his sigh of relief as they finally pulled away from the curb, and instead settled back into the seat, pulling the seat belt over his shoulder and fastening it across his lap.  As they moved into traffic, he pulled his cellphone back out of his pocket, considering the blank screen: on one hand, he knew that he should probably shoot Natasha a text, to at least let her know where he was going, especially in the event that something actually went wrong and she was called as his emergency contact.  At the same time, telling her meant that he would actually have to either say or type the words out loud… and Bucky wasn’t sure that he was ready for that.  Talking to Connie had been terrifying enough.

With that thought in mind, he opened his phone decisively; only instead of thumbing through to his contacts list, Bucky shut the thing off entirely, a move that was good for keeping him from sending any texts he would regret, but bad for keeping his mind otherwise occupied.

He stared out the window as the streets rolled by, his eyes barely registering the street signs as they passed or the prime people-watching on the sidewalk as he instead replayed the afternoon in its entirety, trying to remember exactly what had been happening prior to each episode of pain, to try to pin down exactly what might have caused them.  Of course, beyond lifting and twisting he couldn’t determine what exactly had set it off, and before long was remembering everything else he’d done in the forty-eight hours prior, from the run around Prospect Park each day to the box squats he’d done at the gym with Nat.

Doctor Foster had told him that staying active was good for the both of them, but of course she hadn’t specified which exercises were okay.  If he’d overdone it with lifting, and somehow taxed himself to the point that working had pushed his body over the edge, had caused him to...

“You alright back there?”

The voice cut through Bucky’s thoughts like a knife, bringing him back to himself in a rush.  He blinked in surprise, vaguely recognizing the fact that he was hyperventilating.  After drawing a deep breathing and holding it, Bucky glanced up to find the cab driver watching him in the mirror again, his eyebrows drawn together tightly in concern.  Bucky could just imagine how bad he looked, given the fact that he could practically feel the panic rolling off of himself in waves, like the cold sweat that was pooling at the small of his back.

“I’m - I will be,” he answered, licking his lips and willing himself to believe it.

If nothing else, it got the driver to go a little faster.  

Time still felt like it was dragging on impossibly slowly, but they finally made it to Lenox Hill, with the driver stopping just underneath the red awning that read EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT on the hospital’s north side.  Of course, the trip wound up costing all of Bucky’s tip money from the day, as well as the last twenty he’d had stored away in his wallet.

He did his best to keep his face neutral as he handed it over, making a mental note to bring up potential travel reimbursements to the receptionists at Conceive Solutions, assuming he made it out of the afternoon without the worst-case news.

“Good luck,” the driver said gruffly as Bucky eased his way out of the back of the cab, clenching his jaw tightly as he did so and fighting down the wave of panicked nausea that washed over him as he looked across the sidewalk at the door - the door he knew he had to go through, that he wanted to go through, but that scared the hell out of him all the same.

Bucky carried himself into the emergency department on shaky legs, checking in first with the security guard at the door and then making his way to the reception desk, where he handed over his ID and insurance card in return for a thick stack of paper on a clipboard.  He wasn’t sure if it was the fact that Connie had called ahead for him, the fact that Conceive Solutions was stamped all over the insurance, or his being a pregnant omega in obvious distress, but Bucky’d barely had time to finish filling out the first two pages on the registration forms before he was called back to the triage area, bypassing the crowds of other patients seated around the waiting room.

From there it was a blur of vital signs and answering nurses questions, largely repeating everything he had already told Connie earlier in the day, along with basic information about his health history and what had gone on in the pregnancy so far.  Bucky was grateful for the no-nonsense way the matronly nurse went about asking question after question, as it kept his mind occupied enough that he couldn’t begin to panic again over what might actually be happening to either him or the fetus.

As soon as the intake forms were completed and the triage nurse had entered all of her information she slapped a hospital band on Bucky’s left wrist, then he was moved back to a gurney and handed a hospital gown, with instructions to change out of his clothing and wait for Doctor Foster to come by to see him.  As soon as the privacy curtain was closed around him he did as told, pulling his work polo off over his head and quickly sliding a hospital gown on in its place, then stepping out of his jeans and the belly band before folding them all carefully and tucking them into the personal belongings bag that was sitting on the foot of the bed.  After a moment’s hesitation he stepped out of his underwear as well, before pulling the back of the gown shut and gingerly taking a seat in the middle of the bed, all the while trying to keep himself as calm as possible.

Without a phone to distract himself with or a clock to tell the time, he wasn’t able to succeed entirely - but he was able to avoid another panic attack, at least.

Bucky exhaled in relief when the privacy curtain was finally pulled back, only to shrink back in the bed instinctively when he saw the person making their way towards him.  Instead of Doctor Foster, it was an enormous blond man in tight blue scrubs.  Although his smile was kind, Bucky couldn’t help frowning as he tried to read the guy’s name badge.

“Good afternoon,” he said charmingly, pulling the curtain shut behind him as he sidled up to Bucky’s gurney, “my name is Thor Odinson, and I work for the obstetrics team here at the hospital.  I hear that you were having some abdominal pain earlier today?”

Bucky nodded affirmatively, noting that his badge seemed legitimate, but feeling unnerved all the same.  “I, yeah, I did, but - I called one of the nurses at Conceive Solutions, and they said that Doctor Foster would be seeing me?”

If he was at all bothered by the implication, Thor didn’t show it.  “Ah, yes; I work with Doctor Foster as one of her physician’s assistants.  She has a couple of active deliveries going on right now, so she asked me to come down and get a look at you.”  He paused for a moment, tilting his head slightly as his smile faded, “that is, if you’re comfortable with my examining you.  If you’d prefer to wait for Doctor Foster, then I’ll just take a history for her then step out.”

“No,” Bucky responded automatically, swallowing down his discomfort and forcing a smile of his own - while he’d prefer to have the more familiar (and frankly, less alpha) doctor examining him, he also didn’t want to have to wait forever to get a diagnosis for what had brought him to the ER in the first place, and especially didn’t want to delay treatment if there was actually something wrong with the baby.  “No, that’s fine, as long as she’ll know what’s going on, too.  I’m okay with it if you all are.”

The bright, friendly grin returned to Thor’s face immediately.  “Excellent - and not to worry, everything will be run by Doctor Foster before we send you anywhere, and if you don’t mind the wait, she’ll probably stop by to see you before everything is said and done, anyway.”

“Alright,” Bucky agreed, leaning back into the pillow on his bed and waiting as Thor booted up the computer next to them, obviously signing in to the hospital’s record system.

“Now then,” Thor started conversationally, “I’ve heard a bit about you from Doctor Foster, but could you tell me what brought you in today?  You’re about three months along, right?”

“Yeah,” Bucky answered with a nod, “twelve weeks and three days, to be exact.  And uh, I was at work this afternoon and had a couple of instances of really sharp lower abdominal pain, so I called the office to tell them about it and the nurse recommended I come get examined.”

Thor nodded along as well, typing all the while, “Can you point to where the pain was?”

Bucky flattened his gown around his midsection, before running the fingers of his right hand along the junction between his hip bone and the gentle swell of the bump, “It was right along here - just a quick, stabbing pain that came and went within a second, right in the same place.”

“Okay,” Thor murmured, watching Bucky carefully before he went back to typing, “and was this the first time that’s happened?”

“Yeah,” Bucky answered, “that’s why it scared me so badly.”

“I can imagine,” Thor responded kindly.  “Did you have any other symptoms, any bleeding or spotting?”

“No, neither,” Bucky answered immediately.

“And what were you doing when each of these pains happened?”

Bucky rubbed the back of his neck, feeling inexplicably guilty as he answered.  “The first time I was loading stuff into a low display shelf, so I was squatting down with a pretty heavy tray.  Then the second time I was turning to give something to a customer.”

If Thor judged Bucky for his answer, he made no sign of it at all, just typing away between occasional, friendly glances.  “And any changes to your routine over the past couple of days?  Anything that might have caused you to strain your abs or something in your groin?”

Bucky grimaced, truly overcome with guilt now as he recounted his workouts from the couple of days prior, hastily adding at the end, “but I really didn’t go any harder on anything than I usually do, and it wasn’t like I had any pain during the lifting sessions or right away after.”

“Okay, good,” Thor responded gently, before turning away from the computer and giving Bucky his full attention, “and just so you know, that wasn’t me looking to get you in trouble.  It’s great to hear about carriers who are keeping their fitness up during their pregnancy - if you weren’t overdoing it above your normal or experiencing problems during the workout, it’s not very likely that anything you did caused the fetus any harm.”

Bucky barely swallowed down a sudden and inexplicable urge to cry as Thor finished speaking, his relief so great that all he could really do was nod and pick at his hospital gown.  Logically, he’d known that he was probably fine - but hearing the words from an expert, especially one acknowledging that even if there was something wrong, Bucky wasn’t at fault for it.  

He didn’t even notice that Thor was stalling until he looked up again to find the man watching him with an empathetic smile.  “You ready to keep going?” he asked gently.

Bucky scrubbed briefly at his eyes with the heel of his palm, taking a deep breath to get himself together before nodding gratefully, truly thankful of how patient the alpha was being - he could just imagine how difficult the entire process would have been if he’d been stuck with someone in a rush.  “Yeah, thanks.  I’m good.”

The rest of Thor’s questions were considerably easier and more generalized, revolving around Bucky’s medical history, his background, and his reproductive health history - they flew through all of the questions with ease, until Thor came to the last bit.

“And when was the last time you had sex?”

“Way too long ago for it to have been relevant,” Bucky answered incredulously.  Thor glanced up from the computer and raised his eyebrows slightly, making it painfully apparent that Bucky’s issue wasn’t an adequate one.  

His face felt like it was going to spontaneously combust as Bucky answered, “a little over a year ago.”

“Alright, thanks,” Thor responded mildly, showing no real reaction to Bucky’s answer as he made a dozen more keystrokes then looked up from the screen again.  “Anything else we should add?”

“Uh,” Bucky said stupidly, “not that I can think of.”

“Me neither,” Thor said with a short laugh, logging off of the computer and folding it back into its space by the wall.  “Okay, that being the case, I’m gonna go get your nurse so we can start the physical.”

“My nurse?”  Bucky asked confusedly - he’d not seen anyone other than Thor since the triage staff had brought him back.

“Yes, your triage came through quickly enough that I was able to just come down here and take care of all of the rest of your intake myself, but in order to do any kind of pelvic exam on you I’ll need a chaperone here.  We’ll just bring in one of the omega nurses to help me, it’ll only take a minute for me to grab one and get everything that we need around.”

Thor disappeared outside of the curtain before Bucky could ask any further questions, so instead he leaned back against his pillow, trying again to wrap his head around everything that had happened that afternoon.  On one hand, he was a little offended that Thor had just assumed that he needed a chaperone for an exam, of all things.  But on the other hand - Bucky would have to be lying to himself if he said that he hadn't kind of appreciated the idea of another omega in the room, if he was going to be so vulnerable with an alpha, whether he was a medical professional or not.  

Bucky did open his phone in the minutes of privacy that followed, shooting Natasha a quick text that he might be late for their workout that night and that he’d call and explain later before setting the phone to silent and tucking it back into his belongings bag.  A few more minutes passed before the curtain opened again, this time revealing another man in scrubs.  

He was tall, although nowhere near as large as Thor had been, with dark blond hair and kind-looking hazel eyes that set Bucky at ease immediately.  Although he seemed to be wearing scent blockers, his build was such that Bucky could tell that he’d probably had a baby in the relatively recent past, given how wide his hips seemed and the way that his scrub top fit across his chest, so when Bucky noticed the RN label on his name badge he had to give Thor credit… he knew how to pick someone that Bucky could relate to, it seemed.

“Hey, my name’s Riley,” he introduced himself, his voice calm with just a hint of twang that told Bucky that he must have lived in the south at some point during his life, “sorry I didn’t get in here to see you sooner, but we’ve been getting slammed this afternoon - I understand that Thor was already in to talk to you, and that we’re gonna be doing a couple of exams to check up on how the pregnancy’s going?”

“Basically,” Bucky agreed.  “I uh - had a little scare earlier today, so I just wanted to check and make sure that everything was alright.”

Riley nodded along sympathetically as he moved to one of the tiny cabinets on the wall, digging out a bucket of tubes and needles before turning his attention back to Bucky.  “That was the gist of what I got from Thor - now he just wants to run a couple of basic blood tests on you for completeness sake, then once I’ve got those sent off I’ll go and grab the rest of the supplies for the exam, okay?”

“Sure,” Bucky agreed, passing his arm over the side of the gurney to give the nurse better access.  Truthfully, between all of his CS visits he was getting to the point where he figured he’d have felt weird being seen by a doctor and not having been asked for a blood and urine sample.  

“Usually we’d have you in one of the obstetrics rooms down here, because the exam table in there has actual stirrups and a light,” Riley explained as he stuck Bucky, quickly filling the tubes he needed then taking them out as he’d said he would.  

Bucky barely had time to pick at the bandage he’d stuck in the crook of his elbow before the curtain opened again, with both Thor and Riley returning together.  Thor started arranging a small bin of instruments on a metal tray, calmly explaining the exams to Bucky (as if he needed to be reminded what a pelvic exam was like), while Riley slipped a pillow cover over the large foam triangle he’d brought in with him.  

“We’re gonna have to make due with the ramp here, since we don’t have the proper exam table like I mentioned,” he said with an apologetic grimace once Thor had finished talking, then helped slide the pad underneath Bucky’s bottom as Thor stepped out of the room to wash his hands.

“He’s good,” Riley murmured once the alpha had left, still moving around the tiny space enclosed by the curtain, covering Bucky’s legs in a separate sheet and setting up the floor lamp that he’d brought in with him.  “I mean, I know these suck, but Thor’s been with Doctor Foster for a long time and he knows his stuff - you’re in good hands.”

“Thanks,” Bucky replied weakly, forcing a smile before the curtain opened again.  

He put his whole focus into studying the ceiling tiles as Thor pulled on his gloves and leaned over the bed, slowly and calmly helping Bucky get his legs into position while Riley stood by with the instruments.  He’d been right, at least - Bucky doubted that a speculum would ever feel comfortable, but he was grateful at least that it hadn’t been painful like exams that he’d gotten over the years at some of the free omega clinics in the city.  And even better, it was all blessedly short - before he knew it the speculum was gone, with Thor announcing that his cervix looked absolutely fine.  He gave Bucky a brief warning regarding the bimanual exam, but just as quickly it seemed his fingers were there, his voice calmly reassuring Bucky that his uterus was the right size and that it didn’t feel like anything was wrong.  When Bucky confirmed that he wasn’t in any pain with the manipulation, Thor’s hands were gone.

The entirety of the exam had been painfully awkward - but overall good, as far as exams went.

“Alright,” he said brightly, peeling the glove off of his left hand and using it to gently move the blanket down so that it was covering Bucky’s legs and turning as he removed the right one as well, “I’ll just give you a second to get situated…”

Even as he spoke, Riley was already moving as well, taking the ramp out from under Bucky’s ass carefully and - thankfully - giving him a moment to rearrange his legs and his gown himself.  Once he was comfortable enough he glanced back up at Thor, forcing himself to make eye contact with the alpha despite how awkward he felt.

“So based on what you’ve told me and the physical, I’m almost certain that what you were feeling this afternoon were just growing pains,” Thor started, cutting straight to the point with such certainty that Bucky actually felt himself sag back into his pillow in relief.  “But, that being said, I’d like to get one more study - just a couple of ultrasound views - to make sure that we aren’t missing anything.”

“Sure, that’s no problem,” Bucky responded immediately, grateful that his voice didn’t come out anywhere near as shaky as he felt.

Thor nodded as he reached outside of the curtain, pumping the hand sanitizer unit in the walkway and stepping back in as he rubbed the alcohol over his hands.  “Great.  I’m going to order an external one to confirm that everything still looks good with the baby, then an internal one to evaluate your cervix and ovaries.”

“Alright,” Bucky said, situating himself on the bed in a vain attempt to get more comfortable while not squirming over the idea of the internal ultrasound probe, “are they just going to come in here with it?”

“Oh no,” Riley cut in, smiling as he folded down the spotlight that Thor had used during the exam, “we’ll have you go down to one of the dedicated ultrasonography rooms, they have the better machines down there.”

Thor tilted his head in Riley’s direction, “Exactly - and this time of day we should be able to squeeze you in with one of the obstetrics techs, so we can be sure we’ll get exactly the shots that Doctor Foster needs to confirm that everything is alright.”

“And they’ll come up to get you,” Riley added, as Thor folded down the computer again and began typing away, presumably putting orders in for the test, “so for now you can just hang out and relax.”  

The nurse frowned lightly, glancing over Thor’s shoulder for a second and around the tiny, curtained-off space as if he was missing something, before speaking up again.  “Um, is there anything else I can help you out with?  Making any phone calls or something, if you want someone to know you’re here.”

“No,” Bucky answered, shaking his head for emphasis; although it was nice to have relatively good news so far, he didn’t want to contact anyone until he knew he was really out of the woods: the idea of calling and scaring the hell out of Nat, or of telling Steve that everything was fine only to find out that it wasn’t the case… “I’ve still got power on my phone,” he continued as casually as possible, “I’ll shoot them a text once we know some more.

“But, uh - I’d love some water, or something,” Bucky added as an afterthought, licking parched, sore lips that he hadn’t even noticed he’d been chewing on.

Riley winced as he glanced at Thor, who had looked away from his computer with a regretful sigh, “I’m afraid I can’t clear you for anything to eat or drink just yet, not until we have the ultrasound and confirm that you aren’t going to need any urgent interventions.”

“Okay,” Bucky sighed, leaning back into his pillow and licking his lips again, even though he was too dry for it to help.  Thor finished collecting the last of the supplies and ducked away behind the curtain again with a friendly wave, but Riley seemed to hesitate for a moment as he looked around the space again.

“Do you,” he started, somewhat awkwardly, “just, with you being here alone - do you want me to come down with you for the ultrasound?  I’ve got a couple of hours left on my shift and we’re slow enough right now that someone else could look after my other patients…”

The offer touched Bucky, but he could hardly ask for special treatment just because he was too stubborn to call any of his actual emergency contacts.  “No, I’ll be alright,” he said instead, giving Riley a sincere smile, “but thanks so much for the offer.”

“Of course,” Riley responded.  “Your call button is on the wall, by the way, in case you need anything.  Otherwise transport should be up for you soon, and I’ll be back in to check on you later.”

Thankfully, it was barely half an hour before an orderly was pulling open the curtain again, checking Bucky’s wristband and moving him into a wheelchair before pushing him through the emergency room, down a couple of halls and finally to the radiology department, where a friendly young tech in alarmingly pink scrubs was already waiting outside of a darkroom.

She introduced herself as Darcy as Bucky was wheeled into the room and finally allowed to move up onto the ultrasound table without assistance.  “My understanding is we’re gonna get a look at your little one and then make sure your ovaries and cervix look okay, is that right?”

“Er - yeah,” Bucky answered, momentarily put off by the implication that the fetus was his .  But then, it was his uterus that they were looking at, and it wasn’t exactly as if he was in the position to be arguing semantics with a tech that was just trying to be friendly.

“Alright great, and about how far along are you now?”  Darcy asked as she started typing his information in on the ultrasound’s keyboard.

“Twelve weeks and three days, we had it confirmed by ultrasound a few weeks ago,” he answered, watching as she nodded along and finished up whatever it was that she was entering for data.

“Great, and when’s the last time you emptied your bladder?”

Bucky blinked, suddenly remembering the protocol he’d had to go for the scans at CS and the fact that he was on water restrictions until the damned test was over.  “Uh, I went a while before I came in, but that was at least a couple of hours ago.”  As he sat and actually thought about it, his bladder chimed in, glad to be finally getting attention over his anxiety and building thirst.  “I could probably go again though, honestly.”

Darcy winced sympathetically, “Let’s just wait until after I get the external ultrasound done, it’ll make it a little easier.”  She paused, draping his lap in a sheet and then lifting his gown up to his nipple line, so that the bump was exposed entirely.  “You’re at the point right now where we could probably get a decent look at baby without it,” she explained as she squirted a line of warm jelly just above his pubic bone and followed it with the probe, “but having the bladder a little distended will make it even easier and quicker.”

A moment later the familiar gray blob appeared on the screen, prompting a broad smile from Darcy.  “So,” she started, moving the probe around slightly to change her view of the fetus and tapping the screen to save certain shots, “technically I can’t tell you anything diagnostic during this because that job is up to the docs, but - there’s baby, and you can see it’s moving,” as she said it a tiny limb that even Bucky could recognize as an arm moved towards what looked like the head, “and we can see that the heart is beating,” she added, before hitting another button and filling the room with the sound of the heartbeat, still every bit as strong and fast as Bucky’d remembered hearing it before.

He didn’t bother trying to choke back the sob of relief that escaped him as he listened, and Darcy was kind enough to give him a minute to listen before saying anything or moving on.  Once Bucky was better composed, she got a couple more angles, before removing the probe and carefully wiping his belly off with a washcloth.

“Okay,” she said cheerily, “now if you want you can run to the bathroom before we do the internal bit.”

“How long do you think that’ll last?” Bucky croaked - while he did have to go, he was ready to know whether or not something was wrong and have the entire nightmare over with.

“Ten minutes, max,” Darcy answered as she put a plastic bag over what looked like a long, thin wand of a probe.

“Let’s just get it done,” Bucky sighed, leaning back into the table.

As he said it, the table shifted slightly, before a squeaking noise preceded Darcy moving a pair of stirrups into view.  “Alright then,” she said once they were in place, “I’ll just have you put your heels up here and slide your bottom down to the edge of the bed.”

Bucky grimaced as he followed instructions - two pelvic exams in the same afternoon was decidedly not how he’d been looking forward to spending his day - then waited for further instructions.

“The probe here is actually a little smaller than your standard speculum,” Darcy explained calmly, as if she’d been reading his mind, “and it’s not that terrible cold metal, so there’s another plus.  I’m just going to use it to check and make sure that you don’t have any free fluid around your uterus or ovaries, to make sure your ovaries have good blood flow to them, and then to make sure that your cervix is appropriately closed.  Just let me know if you need me to stop or have any questions.”

Bucky nodded tightly, unable to think of any, so Darcy went ahead with the exam - and Bucky immediately regretted his decision about the bathroom.  It wasn’t so much that he worried that he was actually going to wet himself, or even that it hurt, so much that the lube-covered probe felt completely bizarre as it slid into him.

He didn’t pay as close of attention to the screen this time around, instead just staring at the ceiling and trying to focus on anything other than what was happening beneath the sheet over his legs, but Darcy went about explaining everything all the same - pointing out where there was blood flowing in and out of each ovary on the doppler before wrapping up and taking the probe out.

“That should be it, then,” she said as she stripped her gloves off, “bathroom is just through that door if you still wanted to use it, but before you go, do you want any printouts from the external scan?”

“I - yeah,” Bucky responded, pausing as he pushed himself off of the exam table, “actually, if you could give me a couple of the best ones, that’d be great.”

“No problem,” Darcy replied, tapping the screen to scroll back through the pictures.  Bucky took it as his cue to head to the bathroom, so he made his way across the tiny room and through the door that she had indicated, then spent the few seconds that he needed to empty his bladder and clean off as much of the gel as he could reach to convince himself that the whole point of the print outs were to have something to give to Steve, to reassure him that the entire visit had just been one big false alarm.

After all, what else would he want them for?

His wheelchair and transport were already waiting outside the open door to the ultrasound suite when he walked back into the room, so he accepted the printouts from Darcy and her good luck wishes with a smile, then sat back as he was pushed back through the same route that had brought him down from the emergency department in the first place.  It was difficult not to feel a little humiliated that they wouldn't just let him walk the distance on his own, but Bucky did his best to ignore the feeling.

He had barely gotten himself situated on the bed again, and was just taking a second to properly study the ultrasound printout that Darcy had given him, when the curtain to his area flung open again.  He blinked in surprise, automatically tucking the glossy black-and-white print under his covers and hoping that his cheeks weren’t burning as obviously as they felt as Thor made his way back to the bedside.

“Good news,” the alpha boomed, grinning in a way that said if he had noticed Bucky’s inexplicable guilt over the stupid printout, then he didn’t think anything of it, “by my look everything seems perfect, with the fetus and with you, so I’m just going to run upstairs and run everything by Doctor Foster, then we can probably get you on your way.  Do you have any questions or concerns before I go up?”

“Um,” Bucky started, shifting uncomfortably on the gurney, “if it wasn’t a problem with the pregnancy or anything else in the area, what was I feeling today?”

“More than likely growing pains, specifically round ligament pain,” Thor stated matter-of-factly, setting his feet slightly as he started to explain.  “You see, there are a couple of ligaments that attach the uterus to the pelvis, and they have the ability to stretch like any other ligaments in the body, but can sometimes get irritated.  In the case of the round ligament, it can be particularly bothersome during someone’s first pregnancy, because it’s the first time your uterus has really grown large enough to stretch it.”

“So it’ll happen again,” Bucky asked in the pause that followed, feeling considerably less than pleased with the news.

“Potentially,” Thor said with a shrug, “some people never experience it at all, others struggle with it from time to time through the entire second trimester and beyond.”  He rubbed at the back of his neck, looking just apologetic enough that Bucky was able to ignore the way his biceps bulged comically in his scrub top - almost.  “We haven’t done a ton of research into it,” he continued, cutting off Bucky’s train of thought, “but anecdotally I feel like it’s a little more common in male omegas, at least in early pregnancy, cuz you don’t have quite as much ligamentous laxity as females tend to with their estrogen levels… but it tends to even out.  Plus,” he added hopefully, “now that you’ve felt it a couple of times, you’ll be able to recognize it from anything scarier in the future.”

“Here’s hoping,” Bucky agreed skeptically, biting his lip as he racked his brain for any other questions he should be asking.  He came up with nothing, and wound up telling Thor as much.

“Alright, then,” Thor responded, “like I said before, I’ll just go up and check in with Doctor Foster, let her look over your images as well, and as long as she agrees that we’re good to go, I’ll get you set for your discharge.”

“Sounds great,” Bucky nodded, watching as Thor turned to leave before adding, “oh, and um… is she going to be down to see me?”

“Most likely yes, as long as you don’t mind waiting until she’s free to drop by,” Thor answered, “I’m not sure where she’ll be as far as deliveries go…”

“I’m in no rush,” Bucky interrupted.  He meant no offense to Thor, who had seemed more than competent throughout the entire visit - but he’d feel better hearing it from Doctor Foster, all the same.

“I’ll send her down, then,” Thor promised with a nod, before disappearing behind the curtain completely.

It seemed like no time had passed at all before the curtain opened again, only this time it was Riley, walking in with a clear plastic cup full of ice cubes.  “We don’t have the official word yet, so I’m gonna need you to go easy on these,” he said with a conspiratory grin as he handed the cup over.  Bucky was so grateful that he could have kissed him, if it wouldn’t have been so wildly inappropriate.

He carefully tipped the cup to his mouth so that only a couple of ice chips fell into it, and had barely finished chewing on the first ice chip, when he heard raised, obviously angry voices coming from the direction of the triage area, immediately setting him on edge.  While there were no other sounds indicating that it was a danger, per say, it was unnerving to hear in a hospital - and his nerves had already been stretched to their limits.

“Wait here,” Riley said sternly, squeezing Bucky’s left shoulder before turning towards the curtain, “if the commotion starts to escalate, duck down behind the gurney.”

Bucky nodded to acknowledge Riley’s command, as if he had much else of a choice, then leaned back in the bed and tried to calm his increasingly rapid heartbeat.  As the conversation moved closer to his cubicle, Bucky was able to start to make out the words that the group was actually saying - and started to recognize at least one of the voices.

“Sir, I have to ask you again, you can’t come back here unless you’ve been invited,”  An unfamiliar masculine voice pleaded.

“And I’m tellin’ you, our doctor’s office called me, and said to meet him here,” the second voice was more familiar, and although the words were relatively calm and even, they were decidedly louder than necessary, with a hint of a growl that indicated the man was barely keeping himself in control.

“All the same, we have to go through the check-in process…”

“James Barnes,” the voice asked again, and now Bucky had no doubt that it was Steve… he fell back against the bed, feeling like the world’s biggest asshole for not having called him when the whole mess had started, before pushing himself back up into a seated position, swinging his legs off of the bed in preparation to just go out and get him.

“We’ll tell you if he’s here, after we’ve confirmed your ID and that you have access to his medical infor…”

“That’s MY baby that you’re talking about!” Steve shouted, sounding like he had finally lost his cool.  “That’s what I’ve been telling you, I’M the adoptive father, the agency called ME, and I have to know if they’re okay!”  

“Steve,” a third voice entered the fray, and Bucky paused in making his way to the curtain when he recognized it as Riley.

“Riley,” Steve said, his voice calming considerably, “it’s about Bucky - the surrogate - the nurse at CS called and said he’s here and he was having pain…”

It sounded like their voices were trailing off, and Bucky had to guess that Riley had moved them away, to a more private location where Bucky could only barely make out their voices.  Thankfully, they seemed considerably calmer sounding as the conversation continued, although Bucky really couldn’t make out anything that was being said, until they seemed to stop talking altogether.

A moment later Riley’s head peeked in around Bucky’s curtain, his mouth and eyebrows both drawn tight with worry.  “So...  I’m guessing you heard that,” he started awkwardly.

“It’s fine,” Bucky insisted, settling himself back onto the bed as the nurse looked on with worry.  “It’s Steve, right?  Rogers?”

“Yeah,” Riley answered quietly, taking another step closer to Bucky’s gurney.  “He wanted to come in and see you and get an update, but really, this  - it’s entirely up to you.  Even with the contract, if you want privacy until Doctor Foster comes down…”

“No, send him in,” Bucky interrupted, although the swell of gratitude he felt for Riley was so overwhelming that his throat tightened with it.  “It’s alright, really - he’s - he’s a friend.  And, he probably should be here.”

Something passed over Riley’s face, something that looked like an odd mixture of both relief and understanding, before he nodded shortly and turned back out into the hallway, calling out softly, “Alright, he’s in here.”

The words had barely left Riley’s mouth before a small force of nature plowed through the curtain, his wide, panicked blue eyes immediately zeroing in on Bucky.  Steve looked terrible, he noted with a pang of guilt, like he was barely a second from either breaking down and crying or actually fighting whatever security staff must have been escorting him back, or maybe both.  Bucky was actually taken aback momentarily - while he’d admired the scrappy strength that Steve had emanated in the past, he’d never actually thought he could be intimidated by the alpha until that moment, and his instincts had no idea what to do with it.

“Bucky,” Steve breathed, still looking like he was wound tight enough to snap as he moved closer to the bed, “Jesus - the clinic called me an hour ago but I missed the first one cuz I was in a meeting, and then when I got through to the nurses they told me you’d been sent here, and I came as fast as I could but they won’t tell me anything else out front… are you?  And I mean, is the baby okay?”

“I’m fine,” Bucky swore, as calmly as he could - although he was sure that the fact that he was still laying on a hospital gurney and swamped in a gown didn’t exactly help his cause.  “Seriously, they’ve done scans, they checked the fetal heart rate, they’ve done like - twenty tests.  Everything’s come back normal, I’m just waiting on the PA to go over everything with Doctor Foster so she can come in and let me go.”

Riley was still standing at the curtain, looking supremely conflicted as he glanced between the two of them, so Bucky gave him a quick nod indicating that he’d be fine alone with Steve.  The alpha caught the motion and turned his attention back to the nurse as well, and Bucky felt like he could see the last vestiges of anger actually seep out of him as they made eye contact.  “Thanks so much Ril - er, Nurse Wilson.  I really can’t say how much I appreciate your help.”

“No problem, Mr. Rogers ,” he replied in a tone that Bucky thought might be teasing, although he suddenly felt so emotionally drained that he had no idea how to read the interaction.  “James, same deal with the call light as before,” Riley continued, turning his attention back to Bucky and his demeanor back to being all business, “just give me a holler if you need anything, otherwise I’ll send Doctor Foster back to you guys as soon as she comes down.”

Once they were alone Steve pulled a small plastic chair away from the wall, dropping into it so that he was nearly eye-level with Bucky. “What happened?”  He asked quietly after a couple of seconds.

Bucky very briefly explained the afternoon’s happening, how he’d called CS after the second pain and come in for safety’s sake after being instructed to, and again said how all of the tests they’d run so far seemed like they’d been normal.  As he finished talking Bucky remembered the ultrasound printouts, and handed both of the pictures over to Steve.  “The heart rate still sounded good, and they gave me a couple of screenshots, if you wanted to compare how much its grown since the last one…”

Steve took the pictures from Bucky like they were the most precious treasure on earth.

“I’m - uh,” Bucky started, finally looking away from the anguish on Steve’s face to focus on the tiny snag he’d felt in the weave of his blanket, and taking a moment to pick at it before he succumbed to the wave of guilt he felt, “I’m sorry I didn’t call you, first.  I should’ve let you know what was going on…”

“No,” Steve interrupted thickly, shaking his head but keeping his eyes glued to the grainy black-and-white photo in his hands, “no, it’s alright Buck.  I mean,” he coughed, taking a moment to rub his eyes awkwardly with the back of his right hand before finally looking at Bucky again.  “I’d rather you got in here and got yourself and - and the baby - taken care of, rather than wasting time on callin’ me.

“And I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier,” he added as an afterthought, “you shouldn’t’ve been here alone.”

“It’s been alright,” Bucky said with a shrug, hoping he could sell the lie.  “I mean, everyone here’s been really nice, and it’s not like it was that long a wait.”

“Still,” Steve started, shaking his head.  

Whatever he was about to say was cut off by the curtain opening again, this time bringing Doctor Foster into the room.  “Hey guys,” she started, giving them both a soft smile, “Steve, I’m glad to see we were able to get a hold of you, and James - I’m sorry to be seeing you here. ”  

While she seemed every bit as professional as she had been during each of Bucky’s office visits, she was a lot more personable in her light green scrubs - for some reason, that and her demeanor helped to set Bucky at ease.

“I’ll get right to the point,” she continued, “I’ve looked over everything that Thor documented and the scans we got downstairs, and between that and your lab work I see no reason to think that there’s anything wrong with the baby, or with you, James.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky saw Steve’s entire body sag with relief - all he could do was nod and try his best to hold himself together.

“My best guess is that you’re experiencing some round ligament pain, like Thor said.  There’s a small chance that it could have had to do with your workouts last night, but I wouldn’t say that they were causative at all.  It’s something that a lot of our pregnant patients experience, our pregnant males, especially, so it’s really not anything I want you to worry about.”

“Should I take it easier at the gym?”  Bucky asked, his voice sounding surprisingly scratchy to his own ears.  

“Not necessarily,” Doctor Foster responded immediately, “if you’re going to be deadlifting or squatting or doing any other lifting that really involves your core, you should probably limit yourself to under fifty pounds from here on out.  Otherwise, like we said before - just keep exercising within your usual limits.  And today we’ll add, if it hurts, quit doing it.”

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” Bucky chuckled ruefully.

Doctor Foster looked between the two of them again, before continuing on, “Alright, we’ll get your discharge papers around, and I’m going to have Thor add in them a brief list on our usual exercise recommendations for omegas in their second trimesters - if you want any more specific information, don’t hesitate to give the office a call and one of the nurses will email you more resources.  Otherwise, since we were able to get everything else done today I don’t think I need to see you in the office again until we hit sixteen weeks.  I can have our schedulers give you a call tomorrow to get whatever follow-up you had changed?”

“That’d be perfect,” Steve answered, finally speaking up.  “Call Buck - er, James - and set it up as works for him, I’ll move my schedule to accommodate whatever you guys decide.”

“Will do,” Doctor Foster agreed.  She gave Bucky a few more instructions, as well as symptoms to watch out for and ones that should have him coming back to the hospital, then left when they had no further questions, telling Bucky that he was free to change back into his clothes and that Riley would be bringing him his final paperwork.

The two of them sat in awkward silence for a solid minute after she left, both still so overcome with relief that they didn’t seem to know what to do with it.

“So, uh,” Steve finally spoke up, clearing his voice when it came out hoarse and watery before continuing, “I’ll just step out and let you get dressed in peace.  I’ve gotta go apologize to the folks at the security and registration desk for losing my cool, anyway.”

“Sure,” Bucky responded, even though neither of them actually moved. “Although - given the circumstances, I’m sure you’re fine.  They’ve gotta know it’s an emotional situation, and if they’d been really worried about you, someone would’ve physically stopped you from getting back here.”

“Yeah, still,” Steve said, huffing a watery laugh as he ran his fingers through his wrecked hair.  “I’m just… I’m really glad this ended the way it did.”

His voice trailed off as he talked, and Bucky hardly needed to be an expert at reading emotions to tell that Steve was pretty close to tears again.  He watched as the alphas fingers on his free hand twitched, the others gripping tightly to the ultrasound printout like it was a lifeline.  Bucky continued to watch as the other man struggled, getting an idea that might help calm him down and pushing his own discomfort out of mind as he reached out and took Steve’s hand, squeezing his wrist gently before moving it to the swell of his abdomen.

“Steve,” he insisted softly, “we’re okay, alright?”

Bucky had never actually watched a dam break, but as Steve’s face crumpled, he had to imagine that it would look pretty similar to watching the alpha start crying.  Bucky looked away, feeling like he should probably give the man some privacy but not wanting to interrupt his moment of relief, given the fact that his hand remained exactly where Bucky had left it, long, slender fingers trembling as they cradled his unborn child.  

He had no idea how long they sat like that, but thankfully no one interrupted them - Bucky had no idea if it was because of a delay in getting the actual discharge paperwork around if whoever was tasked with sending him out had been able to hear what was going on inside of the curtain.  Finally, Steve seemed to pull himself together - his crying had stopped after a couple of deep, jagged breaths and he’d sat up straight again, giving Bucky’s abdomen one final, awkward pat before he moved his hand and wiped his face with his forearm.

“Sorry, I’m just - when I got the call I started thinking the worst, you know, and… I don’t really have a good track record with getting calls about family from the hospital, so I kinda panicked.”  

Bucky nodded along as Steve rambled, knowing the feeling better than he’d like to admit but not being able to say as much.  “And thank you, for everything,” Steve added emphatically.  “I haven’t actually said that yet.”

It was on the tip of Bucky’s tongue to reply that it was no problem, but given the fact that he was lying in a hospital bed he caught the absurdity of it before he said it, instead saying “you’re welcome,” in a surprisingly calm voice.

There must have been something in the response that convinced Steve that things really were okay, because as soon as he’d said it the alpha nodded and pushed himself out of the chair.  “For real though, I’ll let you change,” he promised, pausing at the curtain before he walked out.  “And - oh - do you you need a ride anywhere?  We’re pretty much in the middle of rush hour.”

Bucky groaned as he sat up on the bed, realizing that he was going to have to call Nat and tell her that he’d be even later than he’d initially thought.  “I’m good, I was actually just gonna go hang out with Natasha tonight.  Even with the tests coming back normal, I’d feel better if someone was around this evening, you know?”

Judging by the way that Steve’s face lit up with the news, Bucky could tell that the feeling was mutual.  “Yeah, yeah that’s a great plan,” he said with a nod, “I really am gonna go talk to the people out front, then I’ll get you a car to get you back there, since it’ll be a bitch getting a cab in that direction at this hour.”

“Sure,” Bucky replied, figuring it wasn’t worth arguing Steve’s point, “I’ll just change and get the paperwork, then be right out.”  

As soon as the curtain had closed behind him Bucky grabbed his bag of belongings and quickly changed back into his clothes.  It was pretty well inevitable that Natasha would be righteously angry with him when she found out that he’d spent the afternoon in the emergency room without calling her, but he hoped that after she’d finished chewing him out she’d at least still let him pile on the couch with her and Clint.  He waited until he was fully dressed and comfortable again, before throwing the curtain open and grabbing his phone, reminding himself again that everything was going to be perfectly fine as he hit Natasha’s contact and listened to it start ringing.