Work Text:
A couple of months ago...
"Tough day at the office?" Phil asked the moment Natasha and Clint finally made it back to their apartment. He wore a wry grin, so chances were he'd spent the past hour trying to minimize the PR damage from the footage that had been shown on the evening news. Somehow, no matter how often the Avengers saved New York, the TV crews always managed to get the most embarrassing shots of the fight or the aftermath. Even before they'd climbed into the quinjet pictures of their latest PR disaster had gone viral.
"Tough? You could say that," Clint said, reaching for Phil and trying to pull him into a hug between them. But instead of sliding into his usual spot, Phil ducked away with an apologetic grimace.
"No offense to Tony's state-of-the-art decontamination showers, but you guys still really, really stink."
"Seriously?" Clint asked, tired enough to feel irrationally insulted by their soulmate's avoidance. "We still smell like goop monster?"
Phil laughed at his phrasing but took another step back regardless. "Sorry, lover. Tony's inventions might be the best on the planet, but you both still reek."
"Fine." Natasha casually reached for Clint's hand. "We're going to go scrub each other's backs," she said with a wickedly sexy smile. "Don't wait up."
Phil laughed happily and shooed them away.
~*~
Present day...
"Don't forget the charity event tonight," Tony called, dutifully repeating the words their PR manager had very likely drummed into him every hour for the past three days.
"We won't," Clint called over his shoulder, not wanting to be distracted from his current, extremely important mission—getting Nat and Phil out of the building so the three of them could enjoy lunch in the park. It had been weeks since they'd been able to simply spend a few carefree hours in the sun all three of them together and Clint felt immeasurably sad for the loss.
They should have been able to schedule more downtime for themselves, but with the Fantastic Four creating twice as many problems as they stopped—thanks to that asshole Reed Richards—and the X-men spending most of their time training the younger generation, it almost always fell to the Avengers to be the first line of defense. The only upside was that most attacks seemed to center on New York, so most days they had a really short commute.
But it was damned frustrating, especially when Clint wanted more time to spend with his soulmates. It didn't help his peace of mind at all that Natasha had shown an uncharacteristic inability to recover emotionally from their last mission several months ago. Going undercover to disrupt a human trafficking ring was actually something they'd done more than once in their time with SHIELD, but this one had involved very young children and desperate would-be parents who'd believed they were adopting orphans, not children stolen from various places all over the country.
Clint and Phil both knew Natasha was unable to have their children, but he'd never realized how much their soulmate considered that her personal failure. It broke his heart to realize she somehow believed that she should have stopped the people who'd raised her from sterilizing her before she was old enough to even understand what that truly meant.
She'd quietly admitted to Bruce—who'd mentioned it to Clint not realizing he didn't already know—that it was not so much the assignment that had left her feeling off-center but the realization that if her soulmates had been anyone other than Clint and Phil that she could be facing the same type of impossible situation trying to adopt a child.
"Is it just me or is the pollution thicker than usual?" Natasha asked in an annoyed tone as they stepped out of the building and onto the sidewalk. Phil wrinkled his nose and nodded in agreement.
"The air will be cleaner once we get there," Clint said, wrapping an arm around each of his lovers and turning them toward Central Park. He could understand Phil's sensitive nose. He'd been so swamped with paperwork and administration duties that he hadn't actually stepped out of the air-conditioned environment of Stark Tower in several weeks. Phil was bound to notice the difference.
But Clint wasn't quite sure about Natasha's reason for making the observation. The pollution was no worse than it had been yesterday when they'd been fighting doombots on the Lower East Side. In fact without the charred and smoking ruins of downed Doombots it might even be a little better. For Natasha to mention it right now seemed important, but if it was Natasha's less than subtle way of getting them to abandon the idea of going out in public she was going to be disappointed. Clint was determined enough to carry them both the entire way if he had to.
They were having a picnic, as a family, and all three of them were going to damn well enjoy it!
And yeah, okay, he'd check that attitude at the gate.
~*~
Some days Natasha hated the enhanced sense of smell that had come with everything else super-soldier serum related. Her version of the serum was nowhere near the sort of perfection that Steve Rogers had received, but it certainly gave her an edge when it came to combat. And she was never going to complain about the ability to heal faster than the average human.
But the vehicle emissions had been difficult to ignore as they walked through the traffic, yet the scent of the seasonal flowers growing along the edge of the park's entrance was even worse. Hell, she didn't even know what they were called, but she had the very real urge destroy every single one of them.
Fuck, that was awful. Who the hell had the idea to put such a strong scent where everyone would smell it?
"Okay," Clint said cheerfully as they headed toward a hot-dog cart, "how many this time, Nat?"
The vendor's eyes lit up with excitement when he saw them walking toward him. Last time they'd bought everything he'd had—Clint might not be enhanced but he still had the appetite and calorie needs of an Avenger—and the vendor had been very grateful for the unexpected chance to go home early.
Weirdly, the moment the smell of the hot dogs reached her nose Natasha was ravenously hungry. These days she was pretty used to the way her metabolism worked, but judging by the way her stomach was growling, she hadn't had nearly enough to eat for breakfast. "Just tell the guy to keep serving until I call 'uncle.'"
Clint laughed, smoothed his hand over her shoulder and down her arm, and then reached for his wallet. Phil moved to cuddle Natasha in his arms as they waited for Clint to get their food organized. Wearing a huge grin the vendor quickly served up a half dozen hot dogs to get them started.
A few moments later Natasha had one in her hand and was lifting it to her lips when the nausea hit her. She turned quickly, retching violently as her empty stomach contracted over and over. The heaving seemed to go on and on, her entire body starting to shake as exhaustion stole through her. She didn't even realize Clint was holding her up until her knees gave way and she didn't actually collapse into a boneless heap on the grass.
She could hear Phil talking urgently to someone on the phone before the familiar whine of the Iron Man suit's thrusters reached her ears over the sounds of her own gagging.
"Okay, Widow," Tony said through the suit's speakers, "looks like you won yourself a free flight home, princess style."
Natasha wasn't sure what Tony meant by "princess style" but she could probably guess. She just didn't have the energy to protest.
~*~
Phil barely managed to stay upright as Iron Man lifted his unresisting soulmate into his arms and cradled her close to his chest as if she were a small child. He locked his knees against the panic rioting through him and turned to Clint. He looked as worried a Phil felt.
"Time to run," Clint growled, reaching for Phil's hand as they sprinted toward the exit of the park.
He tightened his grip on Clint's hand, and silently prayed that Natasha would be okay.
~*~
"Speculation is growing over an unusual incident today in Central Park. The woman you can see in this amateur footage has been identified as Natasha Romanov, also known as The Black Widow. The Avengers have yet to release a statement..."
Natasha scowled at the TV. The attention probably wouldn't be so bad except for the rather embarrassing fact that five minutes after that video had been recorded she'd felt quite well. She had very literally gone from ravenously hungry, to gagging and retching violently, back to ravenously hungry in the space of less than ten minutes.
"The PR guys are handling it," Phil said, easily identifying the reason for her annoyance. He was on the bed beside her, cuddling her the same way she'd cuddled him when he'd been ill with the flu a few months ago.
"JARVIS," Bruce said, tilting his head toward the ceiling as if the AI had a physical presence, "before I try to do a blood test"—Natasha was all for avoiding that since extracting blood from the vein of a super soldier was a whole lot harder than it sounded—"are you picking up anything unusual with Natasha's vitals."
"Agent Romanov's heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing have all returned to normal, though I do detect some sort of echo that I haven't quite been able to identify."
"Echo?" Tony asked sarcastically. "Could you maybe, you know, vague it up a little, J?"
"Apologies," JARVIS said in a tone that didn't sound apologetic at all, "but I'm having trouble narrowing down the source of the sound. If it weren't for Agent Romanov's super serum I would suspect she had a heart murmur."
"Heart murmur?" Clint asked worriedly. They all knew the version of the serum Natasha had been given wasn't anywhere near as good as the one Erskine had developed for Steve Rogers, but there had never been any suggestion that Natasha's body wasn't working at maximum efficiency. And right now she felt perfectly normal. Hungry, but okay.
"Clint," Bruce said, patting his arm reassuringly, "a sound like that is more likely a calibration problem with the equipment."
Tony looked pissed that someone might blame his technology, but he ordered JARVIS to run a diagnostic and then re-evaluate Natasha's results without commenting.
"I'm afraid the results are coming up the same," JARVIS said, this time actually sounding apologetic.
"Can you isolate and play the echo please, JARVIS?"
"Certainly Doctor Banner," JARVIS said politely a moment before a loud, repetitive whoomping sound filled the room. Bruce looked startled.
"Bruce?" Clint asked worriedly.
Bruce twisted his hands together the way he always did when he was stressed or had been asked a question he didn't particularly want to answer. "Maybe," he said, turning away to open a drawer, "it's time to try some old fashioned medicine."
He grabbed a stethoscope, put the plugs in his ears, and moved toward the bed. He started high up on Natasha's chest, checking her lungs, her heartbeat, and probably a few other things Natasha knew very little about other than optimal entry points for incapacitating an opponent. But it was when Bruce pressed the stethoscope low to Natasha's belly that she really started to worry.
~*~
"Okay," Tony said, gleefully keeping up with Clint and Phil as they flanked Natasha protectively. She'd insisted on walking down to the medical diagnostics area. "We have a pool going," They all knew Natasha had zero chance of being pregnant, so no one had mentioned anything of the sort out loud. The betting pool was very likely Tony's attempt to distract Natasha from a very abnormal situation by making her angry enough to want to stab him. "But since there are really only two possibilities—"
"There are more than two, Tony," Bruce said tiredly.
Tony completely ignored him. "—alien parasite or mutated terrestrial parasite—we're taking bets on size and length instead."
"Tony," Clint growled impatiently. "No betting. Just let Natasha get an ultrasound done so we can figure out exactly what it is and how to treat it."
"Fine," Tony said, acquiescing far too quickly for Phil's peace of mind. "I'll just go make sure the other Avengers are apprised of the situation."
"Yeah, we can't see through that lie at all," Phil mumbled as the genius walked away.
"Let him go," Natasha said, tightening her grip on Phil's hand. "I feel fine, so whatever it is we'll deal with it.
~*~
A few hours later...
"A baby?" Clint asked. "A baby parasite?"
"No. A baby baby," the technician repeated, swallowing anxiously. "A normal, healthy, eight-week-old human fetus."
"Inside a woman with no uterus?" Natasha asked. She sounded as bewildered as Clint felt.
The technician glanced at Bruce, waited for his nod of encouragement, and then turned his nervous attention back to Phil and Clint.
"Agent Romanov's ultrasound results are almost exactly what I would expect from a healthy, twenty-something woman in the first trimester of pregnancy."
"Almost?" Phil asked, keeping his voice flat and calm.
"The baby is not… There's no uterus so the baby is just sort of… Well, um," the technician said, his voice cracking on the tiny words, "that's the... that's the part...we um... can't explain."
Bruce nodded and then tilted his head. The technician sighed in relief and then pretty much bolted out the door.
"I'm working on some theories," Bruce said, flicking through the notes on the tablet in front of him. "If the serum was going to regrow your reproductive organs it would have happened years ago, so I'm fairly certain you didn't conceive the conventional way. I think maybe something else happened."
Bruce flicked through his notes again, obviously not wanting to voice his theories out loud just yet. Natasha narrowed her eyes at him and Bruce started to babble the way he always did when faced with her wrath.
"Um… Eight weeks ago we fought Doombots twice, dragged a couple of giant mutated crabs back into the ocean, and destroyed that foul-smelling goop monster that Clint somehow exploded with a non-explosive arrow."
"The goop monster," Natasha said in a low growl. "That thing grabbed me, Bucky, and Steve before Clint exploded it. Could that have something to do with—" She waved a hand over her belly, not really wanting to think of the thing inside her as an actual baby. Even if she was technically pregnant, they already knew she didn't have the right hormones or equipment to maintain a pregnancy.
"We were completely coated by its guts," Clint said. "Stunk even after three runs through the decontamination showers."
"But before it exploded," Natasha said, trying to remember every moment of that very disturbing experience, "the tentacle-like things that latched onto us had seemed to be sucking, almost as if it was trying to feed."
Phil's arm tightened around Natasha, but he didn't comment.
Clint nodded. "They were all left with red sucker marks on their skin. Steve and Bucky healed quickly, but Nat had the marks for a couple of days."
"Are you sure?" Bruce asked, his curiosity obviously piqued. "If it was extracting DNA it's possible that the process was forcibly reversed when the creature exploded."
"Meaning what exactly?" Clint asked, tightening the grip he had on Natasha's hand. She'd been conditioned as a child to use pain to control her emotions, and she had no doubt Clint was squeezing her fingers so hard for that very reason.
"Meaning that..." Bruce wrung his hands together, perhaps realizing that enthusiastic medical curiosity was sort of misplaced right now. "The theories—and they're only theories until we can prove otherwise—are kind of endless at this stage."
"Spit it out, Bruce," Phil said, clearly annoyed at whatever it was Bruce was trying not to tell them.
"If there was a type of 'backwash' then it's possible the fetus is exclusively Natasha's DNA or a mixture of..." He glanced sideways at Clint. "Or a...um...mixture of others, or... or even partially the goop monster itself."
"So you're telling me I got knocked up by a goop monster?" Natasha asked, trying to control the hysteria rising in her voice.
"It's possible," Bruce said with a small nod, "It's growing and developing at the correct rate for a healthy human pregnancy but that doesn't go close to explaining how this happened."
"So the baby could be a combination of Steve's, Bucky's, and Natasha's DNA?" Clint asked, keeping his voice devoid of emotion. "Is that what you're saying?"
Natasha knew her soulmate well enough to know he would accept a child even if it wasn't his in a biological sense. They'd never talked about it, but she'd seen the way Clint interacted with kids and had always known he'd have been a good father if he hadn't been lumped with her for a soulmate.
"It's possible that Steve's and Bucky's DNA is involved," Bruce said, avoiding looking at Phil and Clint. "We won't really have any more specific answers unless we take it out and do a DNA test."
"No," Natasha said quickly. "Let's just...wait and see. Okay?"
"Nat," Bruce said, his gaze only rising to meet hers briefly before skittering away. "This isn't a real pregnancy. We don't know how you became pregnant or how the fetus is surviving in your body without a uterus. At eight weeks we can't even confirm that the fetus is human." He breathed out softly and finally lifted his gaze to hers. Natasha was a little bit surprised to realize her friend was blinking back tears. "Nat, this could kill you."
"I know it's a risk," Natasha said, sliding a hand protectively over her belly, "but if there is any chance that I'll carry a baby to full term I want to try."
Bruce seemed a little bit startled, but Phil and Clint both nodded in agreement even though she could see their worry.
"I won't leave the tower," Natasha said, trying to reassure the people in her life that she wouldn't take unnecessary risks. "JARVIS can monitor me around the clock, and at the first sign of a problem we'll reassess."
Phil nodded, his emotions clearly held in check, but Clint was more genuine in his reaction.
"Okay," Clint said, leaning over to press a kiss to Natasha's lips. "We'll just take things one day at a time." And then because Clint was Clint his lips twitched into a smile and he added, "So who's going to tell Steve and Bucky that a goop monster might have made them both pregnant as well? I mean… it's possible right?"
As horrifying as the thought was, it was also kind of hilarious. Natasha could almost imagine the chaos of having three Avengers—two of them men—knocked up at the same time. She couldn't help smiling at the way Bruce and Phil tried not to laugh at the idea. Clint of course, snorted with glee.
But fortunately for everyone's sanity, two quick ultrasounds later confirmed that neither Bucky nor Steve was pregnant.
~*~
Eight weeks later...
"Speculation continues regarding the unexpected absence of The Black Widow from The Avengers skirmish with Doombots again today. A couple of months ago Agent Romanov had what The Avengers press release referred to as a 'minor medical episode,' but with her recent nonappearances in The Avengers line up, concerns have once again been raised around the Black Widow's health."
Darcy rubbed a hand over her friend's softly rounded belly and couldn't help but laugh at the TV. "I doubt they'd believe the truth."
"I'm not sure I believe the truth," Natasha admitted softly. Everyone with access to the Internet knew what had been done to her when she was a child. Natasha had once confessed that she'd wished she'd had more time to sort through the SHIELD files she'd dumped on the Internet—some personal details didn't need to be known by the world—but since the press had already discounted pregnancy as a reason for her absence, none of the Avengers planned to correct them.
There were too many evil people in the world willing to abduct and experiment on a child born from the super-soldier serum. Natasha's child would be safer if no one outside of the Avengers ever knew his or her true parentage.
Natasha was now in the second trimester of her pregnancy and according to Bruce and Dr. Cho everything was progressing on schedule. Nothing was guaranteed of course, and Natasha would need to deliver by cesarean before her due date since the fetus was still growing without a uterus, but both Bruce and Dr. Cho had assured them all that it seemed to be possible—not guaranteed, but definitely possible—for Natasha to carry the baby to term. Her body was adapting quite well to the demands of pregnancy thanks to the super-soldier serum and the baby's own possibly enhanced DNA.
"Are you sure you're okay with me keeping the baby?" Natasha asked Darcy softly. They still weren't sure of the child's actual parentage, but it seemed more and more likely that the baby was Steve's or Bucky's or the combination of them both.
"Of course I am," Darcy said, wondering how on Earth to explain that she wasn't the least little bit upset.
She'd been shocked at first, of course. When she and Steve and Bucky talked about starting a family, she'd kind of assumed she'd be...well...heavily involved, but it had been Natasha's heartbreaking reaction to the news that she was actually going to have a baby that had magnified Darcy's already rock-solid resolve to support her friends and soulmates in any way she could.
Darcy had been as surprised as the rest of them. They'd all known that Natasha had been forcibly sterilized by the Red Room when she'd been just a child, so having a baby now was even a bigger miracle than Darcy could imagine. It had been very clear that Steve and Bucky had wanted to be a part of their kid's life, but they'd offered to stay out of the way. Darcy and Natasha had made them promise the opposite. Natasha had declared that, no matter whose DNA was involved in the baby's creation, that the child belonged to them all.
And considering the child might very well be enhanced it was likely to take the whole of the Avengers working together to raise the child anyway. Even Bruce seemed excited by the idea now that he was reasonably assured that Natasha wasn't foolishly risking her life to have this baby.
"Darcy," Natasha said, snuggling closer to make room on the sofa for Phil. "Thank you for being so amazing."
Phil laughed softly and reached over to pat Darcy on the head. "Amazing?" he asked. "If she's the amazing one, then how do we classify you, Nat?"
"The Avengers incredible baby-mama?" Darcy teased.
Phil laughed. "Or how about," he added, "our astonishing, unbelievable, totally wonderful pregnant miracle."
Darcy laughed happily. "I like it," she said, lowering her hand to Natasha's belly to join Phil's. "And Clint is going to love it."
Phil nodded enthusiastically, pressed a kiss to Natasha's lips, and then settled back to watch the rest of the day's news on TV. Darcy and Natasha did the same.
Yeah, not knowing the child's actual parentage made things a little weird, but that pretty much summed up life with The Avengers.
Somehow Natasha had been fortunate enough to conceive and so far carry a strong, healthy child. The circumstances didn't matter. DNA didn't matter. The only thing that really mattered was the love and respect the Avengers felt for each other, their friends, and the child they would raise together.
THE END