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It’s said that it’s a mother’s instinct, to know when there’s something wrong with their children. That no matter what time of day or night it is, no matter where the child is, mama will know. When Darcy Lewis wakes up in the wee hours of the morning, it’s not so much the feeling that something is wrong that settles in her bones, but that something is...off. That something in this cozy little house of theirs where they’ve set up shop for the past decade or so isn’t quite what it used to be. Moonlight streams in past the trees and through the windows, bathing the room in a whitish blue that unsettles her even further.
She rolls over in bed, sees her husband sound asleep next to her face half buried in his pillow as he breathes deeply and calmly. All normal there, Darcy knows, brushing her knuckles against the beard that Steve’s been sporting for a long while now. Marriage, the whole family life, that was something that she hadn’t seen coming, not after the whole shitstorm with those damned Accords and Bucky that caused Steve to turn in his shield. When they’d first met, he’d mentioned that he wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for out of life. She’s certain that this life of theirs is probably the last thing he had envisioned back then, but neither one of them is complaining about it. Not at all.
The next thing Darcy does is to look over at the baby’s crib in the corner of the room. At seven months it’s probably the time to move Ben into his own room, but she likes keeping her surprise baby close to her when she can. Okay, all of her babies were surprises, to be fair, but Ben definitely came out of nowhere. The crib is still, and she can’t see any rustling of blankets or a restless baby getting grouchy and wound up for a midnight howl.
‘Maybe I’m just overreacting,’ Darcy thinks, pushing herself up on her elbows to look around the room once more. Maybe it is just the moonlight and the way it peeks through the bare trees outside and casts odd shadows around the room, but she can’t shake that twitchy, uncertain feeling.
There’s a tiny whimpering snuffle, one of those noises that Ben often makes in his sleep, that reaches her ears. But something’s off about the placement of it, like it’s coming...Darcy’s eyes slowly raise up towards the ceiling, and she’s certain her jaw is dropping now. She reaches out and taps Steve on the back, probably with more force than necessary, but she knows he’ll understand in a second. “Steve,” she hisses, like if she speaks any louder it’ll break the spell that’s settled over the room.
“Whazzit?” Steve mumbles into the pillow, eyes barely flickering open before falling shut again.
Darcy just rolls her eyes. For someone who supposedly had it trained into him in the military and as Captain America to be awake at a moment’s notice, in later years she’s seen him sleep a lot more heavily than she thought he ever could. “Sweetie, wake up,” she says again, a little louder, with a firmer shake.
“What’s going on?” Steve asks, more clearly than before, though his eyes are still closed.
“Steve, why is the baby floating?”
Steve’s eyes snap open at that, and he shoots upright in bed, looking over at Darcy with puzzlement written all across his face. She waves a hand at the crib, staying silent as Steve looks over there. Then his eyes slide slowly upwards, towards the ceiling. “Why is Ben floating six feet above his crib?”
“I don’t know, but get him down from there!”
Quietly, softly, Steve gets up and moves around to the other side of the bed. He approaches Ben, who’s still bobbing in the air a little bit above Steve’s head, his tiny hands hanging down as he snoozes peacefully, without a care in the world. Steve reaches up, placing his hands under Ben’s neck and legs, and slowly brings him down until he’s able to tuck the baby against his chest. He turns wide, incredulous eyes to Darcy, who just shrugs helplessly back.
They’ve both had to deal with some weird stuff in their pasts, but neither of them had ever imagined that the weirdness would come rushing back into their lives quite like this.
Steve crawls back into bed and sits back against the headboard, Ben still securely held in his arms. Darcy leans over to run her hand over the fine blond hairs on her baby’s head, feels him breathe deeply and calmly with every soft movement of his back. “What the hell was that?” she asks, and she’s not sure if she’s talking to the baby or Steve.
**********
The next morning is a rough one; neither Darcy nor Steve has gotten any more sleep after Ben’s little stunt, and being a Saturday means that all the kids would be home and have to be entertained...and no way for the parents to sneak a nap in. “Coffee, you are my favorite of all,” Darcy mumbles as she watches the liquid of life drip into the pot in front of her.
“Does Dad know that you like coffee more than him?” Darcy turns around to see her eldest child, twelve year old Joseph (known as Joey by, well, everyone) slump over on a stool at the breakfast bar, still seemingly half asleep. His light brown hair is plastered down to his head in some places, and standing upright in others. If the hair and the half closed eyes aren’t enough of a clue, then the pajamas certainly prove that he’s only just rolled out of bed.
“Dad is well aware of my longstanding love affair with coffee and that it is vital to my well being,” Darcy says, leaning back against the counter. “You look like the walking dead,” she says. “Why don’t you go back to sleep?”
Joey shrugs and grimaces. “Aiden wants to play hockey this morning on that stupid rink he and his dad were building in his backyard.”
Darcy frowns and looks out the window. It’s mid-December in Massachusetts out there, and while it’s cold enough for them to wake up and find frost dusting the grass and the Christmas lights strung around the front porch of their creaky old house in the woods, it’s not quite freezing just yet. “It’s a little warm for ice hockey.”
“Duh. Which is why it’s a stupid idea. It’s still a slush puddle.” Joey hunches over the counter, shoulders up around his ears, looking distinctly disgruntled and miserable. Darcy resists the urge to comment that this melodramatic pre-teen side of him definitely came from his father, because while she knew she could be spirited this level of dramatics was all Steve.
“You want me to make up an excuse for you, get you out of it?”
Before Joey can answer, Steve comes into the kitchen, Ben still held securely in his arms and their seven-year-old, Sophie, riding piggy-back and hanging on to him like a limpet. “All right, last stop,” he says, coming around the table and plopping Ben down in his high chair. Sophie giggles loudly and slides off of his back, making Steve grasp desperately at the waistband of his pajama pants before she accidentally pulls them off.
Darcy bites back her own giggle at that one. Sometimes she envies just how well Steve’s taken to fatherhood, like it’s something that comes as naturally to him as a morning jog. She knows, though, that so much of his life hasn’t been easy, secrets shared in late night whispered conversations under the covers hidden away from nosy little ears. That even now, in this near-idyllic little life that they’ve built for themselves, that there’s the constant worry that their collective pasts could come back to haunt them and it could be taken away from them at any moment.
But...she hadn’t known Steve personally during his Captain America days, only by association and through Thor’s tales, however after a decade and a half of being together, Darcy is certain that the only reason that Cap was so great was because of Steve. And that if anyone or anything tries to come after them, the poor schmucks won’t know what hit them.
“Daddy, can we have pancakes?” Sophie asks, scrambling up on the stool next to Joey.
“Mmmm, I don’t know,” Steve says. He heads over to the coffee maker, one hand wrapping around Darcy’s hip as he pours himself a cup with the other. “Why don’t you ask your mother?” He moves in close behind Darcy, arm going fully around her waist. She sags against him slightly, enjoying the warmth of his body in the drafty kitchen.
Sophie’s blue eyes go wide, and her lower lip pushes out into a near perfect rosebud pout. “Mommy? Please?”
“Pancakes could be good,” Joey chimes in, straightening up and finally looking a little more clear headed than he’s been all morning.
Darcy tilts her head back to rest on Steve’s shoulder, giving him her own wide-eyed, pleading look. “Blueberry pancakes do sound really good right about now.” Besides, after the sleepless night they had they could use the treat. And also the coffee, she thinks as she steals Steve’s mug and helps herself to a large drink.
Then, as it usually is when the kids are involved, everything seems to happen all at once.
There’s a little giggle behind them, coming from the direction of the table. Darcy looks over, recognizing Ben’s voice. The coffee mug slips from her suddenly loose fingers when she realizes that Ben is happily floating near the ceiling once more, looking as content as anything. “Oh, shit!” she blurts out, the hot coffee splashing her fingers, just as Steve catches the mug before it hits the floor. Sophie and Joey spin around on their stools to see the sight behind them.
The sudden noise startles Ben out of his happy bubble, and the smile slips off of his face. The little boy’s body then begins to drop towards the floor, and while Steve’s beginning to run over there to catch him, there’s every chance that he won’t make it in time. Darcy wants to scream again, because that’s her baby there, but instead she clasps her hands over her mouth firmly, not wanting to make any more noises. Before Steve can reach Ben, however, one of the kitchen chair cushions shoots upwards. The cushion wraps securely around Ben’s back and supports him in mid-air, keeping him still until Steve can get there.
Darcy looks over at her other children, sees her daughter there with arms held out and a slight tremor going through her outstretched hands. Her teeth are sunk hard into her lower lip, and she’s focused intently on where Ben is hovering above them. “Soph, is that you?” Darcy asks, running over to her daughter. She reaches out her own hands to hug Sophie, but then she hesitates, unsure if she should break her concentration while Ben’s still up in the air.
Steve pulls Ben out of the air for the second time that day, and cradles the baby to his chest. Ben’s face goes all scrunchy and he makes those grouchy little fussing noises as he buries his face against Steve. Then, Steve’s eyes dart over to Sophie, who sags back against the counter like her strings have been cut.
“You can touch her now,” Joey says, quietly.
Darcy doesn’t even hesitate, just wraps Sophie in her arms and pulls her as close as possible. “You all right, baby girl?” she asks quietly. Sophie nods, her sharp chin poking Darcy in the ribs as she does. “That was impressive,” she murmurs into Sophie’s dark hair, making her giggle weakly. Darcy picks up her head and looks over at Steve, coming over to them so that they can all huddle together.
‘What the hell just happened?’ she thinks, hoping that Steve can read it in her eyes. One kid’s floating, the other one’s...making things float, and their parents are more confused than they’ve been in a long time. Parents who have both had to deal with some very strange and unusual things in their days, even though they’ve been sure not to talk about it in front of the kids. Between Steve’s lost years in the ice, everything with Bucky, and both of their mutual up close and personal experiences with aliens and mad robots, and Darcy’s first hand encounters with Asgardians...well, there’s a lot of weirdness that they’ve been able to commiserate over. The last decade or so has been delightfully quiet, however. ‘Too quiet, and now we’re paying for it,’ Darcy thinks, sure to bite back the grimace that threatens to cross her face.
“Did you know about this?” Steve asks calmly, looking over at Joey. Joey slumps over a bit, staring hard down at the floor. “Joey?”
Joey nods, still not meeting their eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Darcy says, untangling one arm from Sophie so she can grasp Joey’s shoulder. The need to have all her babies close is coursing through her, even though she’s certain Steve won’t be putting Ben down anytime soon.
He’s silent for a few moments, then looks up at Darcy with eyes identical to her own. “Because there’re a lot of people out there who don’t like people who can do weird stuff.” And isn’t that just the truth, especially in this world of theirs populated by assholes who would register and crucify people with extraordinary abilities with one hand while attempting to recreate super soldiers with the other.
The next question trips off of her tongue, like an inevitability. “Can you do anything?”
Steve moves closer to Joey, trying to give him something to lean against as he shrinks into himself even further. “Hey,” he says, rubbing Joey’s back until he looks up at them. “No matter what you can do, I promise you that we won’t love you any less for it.”
Joey nods again, then straightens up on his stool. He takes a deep breath, and it’s like everything in the house is standing still, waiting for him to start moving. He blinks once, hard.
Then the burners on the gas stove flare into life, the blue flames shooting up towards the hood as Darcy and Steve’s heads whip around towards it. On the kitchen table, the decorative clusters of glittery red and green and gold candles that Darcy’s stuck there in a fit of holiday festivity pop and fizzle as vibrant orange embers glow brighter and brighter until they begin to flicker with little licking tongues of fire. “Oh, boy,” Darcy mumbles as she looks at the table.
Life just got a hell of a lot more interesting.