Chapter Text
“Daddy !!! Daddy !!!”
Sam sits up on the couch. The cries come from Saskia’s room. Maybe he just dreamed about it and maybe she didn’t cry. He slumps again in the couch, looking at the stupid show on TV, that he doesn’t even really watch. A few minutes pass, and he hears nothing. That’s it, he dreamed Saskia’s cries. Sometimes it’s hard for Sam to distinguish if his daughter cries or not. He’s been so used to hear her cry when she didn’t.
“Daddy !!! Daddy !!!”
No doubt this time, Saskia is crying. Sam gets up from the couch and walks into the hallway of his personal floor in the Stark Tower. When he arrives at Saskia’s door, he turns up the unicorn lamp Natasha offered to his daughter for her fifth birthday. Saskia is sitting on her bed, her back against the headboard decorated with unicorns, birds and stars that Tony made for her, her teddy bear clutch to her chest.
“What’s going on my little bird ?”, Sam asks, sitting on the side of the bed.
“There’s a monster daddy”, she whispers, big tears falling down her cheeks, looking around, with her big dark brown eyes that she inherited from her father.
“Where is the monster baby ?”
“I don’t know, but I saw its shadow”, she answers, hiding her face behind her cover. “It was so big, daddy”, she adds, her words muffled by the cover on her face. “It crawls on the wall.”
“Do you want me to watch and chase it from your room ? I’ll take my suit to do it and put Redwing on it too”, he smiles down at Saskia, removing the cover from her face.
“Go fetch Redwing”, she answers, a smile on her face, “I’m sure he can do this alone and be my hero.”
“Oh really, Redwing, I thought I was your hero”, Sam says, pretending to be shocked by what Saskia said, leaning to tickle her little belly.
“No, no stop daddy, you’re my favorite hero”, she giggles, sliding on her mattress.
“Do you want me to check ?”
She just nods, and Sam rises from the bed, looking under every piece of furniture for the said monster. After five minutes, he comes back by Saskia’s bed.
“It must have left”, he says. “Probably went to another room.”
“Maybe it went to uncle Bucky’s room to annoy him”, Saskia giggles again.
Sam laughs loudly, if someone likes to annoy Bucky as much as he does, it’s Saskia. But Sam also knows that Saskia loves Bucky very much, and that he loves her back, as the other members of the Avengers. They all helped a lot after Janna’s death, he was lucky to have them in those sad times.
“Daddy, can you sing me a lullaby ?”, Saskia asks, sitting once again against the headboard.
“Which one baby ?”
“Baby Mine”, she states, laying in her bed, her teddy bear still close to her heart.
Baby Mine, just the mention of the song makes a lot of things coming back to Sam’s mind. It brings him back to the night before Janna’s death, one year and a half ago. She put Saskia to bed, while Sam was cooking dinner. He met her five years before during an Avengers mission. They clicked right away, Janna even made the first move, inviting him. She was so beautiful when he picked up for their first date. She was mestizo, green eyes, blond hair, Sam had to admit a little while later that for him it was love at first sight. The night before was like almost all their nights since Janna moved in and Saskia was born. Since day one, Janna sang the lullaby from Dumbo to Saskia to lull her to sleep. The next day, on her way to work, Janna get caught in an accident, and died instantly. It wasn’t an Avengers matter and when Sam arrived, it was too late. The love of his life died in a banal accident, caused by a drunk man who didn’t even have a license. Steve got him there while Bucky went to school to fetch Saskia. Sam spent the next weeks in a haze and Saskia didn’t understand why her mommy wasn’t coming home. Luckily for them, they have a family to support them.
“I’m not sure I’ll sing this as well as mommy did”, he sheepishly responds to his daughter.
“Please daddy, please”, she pleads.
“Well, if you absolutely want to.”
Sam takes a deep breath, winds up Saskia’s music box, which starts to play the Dumbo lullaby, and Sam starts to sing.
Rest your head close to my heart
Let your eyes sparkle and shine
All those same people who scold you
What they'd give just for the right to hold you
From your hair down to your toes
You're not much, goodness knows
By the end of the song, Saskia has yawn three times and fell asleep her bear still in her arms. She’s softly snoring when Sam gets up from the bed, after watching at her sleep for a few minutes. He kisses Saskia’s forehead before lightning the night-light and turns off the lamp, before heading back to the living room where he slumps for the second time in the couch dozing in front of the television, before lulling himself to sleep with Saskia’s lullaby.