Chapter Text
The sound of her own coughing echoes off the walls of rock surrounding her. As she spits dirt from her mouth Nat has just enough presence of mind to notice the earth is tasteless coming off her tongue. She squints against the offending clouds of dust invading her eyes, her chin tucked tight to her chest to minimize the impact, but there is no sting in her tear ducts even as her mind tells her that her arms and legs are all pinned tight and at painful angles. Outside her earthen tomb she can still hear the battle raging on. She can hear Groot roaring as he commands the tree roots to bend to his will, and the thud of his body as Thanos throws him away just like he did the rest of them.
Just like he did her.
Her heart sinks in time with her stomach. There is a cry somewhere, out in the battlefield. Somewhere she can’t see but it is loud as a siren and just as demanding for attention. For her.
Distantly, in the back of her mind, she knows it is the only real thing about any of this. She whirls her head, her eyes blinking and her brow furrowing when she can’t seem to find the edges in the dark. It’s all one big black mass that she can’t find her way out of. Her heart races, her shoulders jerk but she doesn’t think her arms go anywhere. The crying is so much louder now. Insistent, demanding.
She gasps as her eyes flutter open. The darkness of where Thanos trapped her is immediately replaced by the much friendlier darkness of her and Steve’s bedroom.
She blinks and rubs at her eyes as she sit, the very real outlines and shadows of this room quickly calming her racing heart. She sees the edge of the duvet pooling at her waist, and the curve of the bed’s footboard up ahead. She drinks in the shape of Steve standing among all the darkness; already out of bed and bending over one of two bassinets.
Steve flashes her what she thinks is a small smile as he lifts their daughter from her bassinet and begins to rock her. Her tiny hands are balled into fists, and her little lungs that came out of the womb with too much fluid are now wailing as though there was never a problem. Nat smiles to herself as she somehow manages to hear Steve’s hushed voice whispering to the baby that she should be quiet; that she doesn’t want to wake her brother.
It’s already too late for that; the soft whimpers emanating from the second bassinet confirm that it will only be a matter of time before C.J. is fully awake and demanding his second late-night feeding as well.
“Here.” Nat says, her voice raspy from sleep. She pulls her shirt off over her head. She needs to remember at some point during waking hours to order some pajama shirts with buttons. She’d tried last night simply rolling the fabric up over her chest while trying to feed the twins, but it was too much of the fabric either falling or being pulled back down, and with the two of them she doesn’t exactly have a hand to fix it.
So, for tonight, her shirt ends up discarded at the foot of the bed. She pulls an extra pillow into her lap and holds that upright using her knees. By the time Steve reaches her side of the bed she is ready and she happily takes Sammi into her arms. She wipes the last of the sleep from her eyes as she settles her daughter into the pillow, whispering quiet words of comfort to her as she gets her to latch. She hisses ever so slightly as Sammi bites her hard gums onto her nipple and starts to suck. She’s still getting used to that feeling, but, so far it’s been slowly getting more bearable each time.
“Are you sure you’re going to want him too?” Steve asks from beside her, C.J. in his arms and his own tiny shrieks growing louder with each passing second.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” She promises, and she tries to carefully nudge Sammi over to the side to make room on the pillow for her brother, without accidentally knocking her off course. “You might have to bring him here, though.”
Steve does exactly that. He lays C.J. next to Sammi, and thankfully he is quick to latch onto her other breast. Nat keeps one hand at each of their sides to ensure they don’t fall off the pillow, and Steve moves so slow getting back into bed one would think that he is maneuvering around a live bomb.
Newborn twins breastfeeding in the middle of the night, together, she supposes may as well be a bomb.
As Steve slides in next to her he wraps one arm around her shoulders, and his lips drops a soft kiss to her skin. It makes her shiver, and she fights the urge to sag against him and settle with her head on his chest. Not until at least one of the babies is done, she tells herself. One baby she is confident she can move with her and resettle if she needs to, but not two.
“Are you sure you don’t want to give them formula at least at night?” Steve asks, and Nat hums.
“I would love to give them formula at night.” She contradicts him, “Especially this guy. Get his weight up a little more.” She brushes C.J.’s little arm with the tip of her thumb for emphasis.
It still scares her, even though they’re home and C.J. didn’t need more than a few hours of close monitoring in the NICU for his tiny size. She can’t help it. Eight months of fear isn’t going to go away in a week. He was this teeny, tiny, six-week-embryo that she didn’t even know existed when Bruce snapped his fingers and the nine-week-embryo she very much knew existed came back. To spend eight months knowing what Sammi’s return meant for C.J. – that he would be born pre-term – is not an easy thing to shake. Especially since it still matters. Looking at him side-by-side with his sister, he is so incredibly smaller than her.
“Right now I just want what works.” Nat tiredly finishes her thought. “Ask me again in a month.”
Steve nods, and for a while the only sound in the room is that of the babies occasional grunting’s as they eat. It’s still dark in the room, and hard to see much more than the shadowy outlines of their tiny bodies. They don’t ever seem to notice each other all that much when they’re eating together. Every once in a while one will accidentally hit the other in the face, or deliver a kick in the side. But the target of the blow flinches and leaves it at that. Nat would guess it’s all par for the course for them; they’ve spent eight months squished together, surely they’re both used to the occasional poke or prod from the other.
When they’re done eating is when Steve is finally able to help. He takes Sammi, and holds her up on his shoulder, rubbing her back until she burps. Nat is still trying to get C.J. to do the same as Steve is easing his way off the bed with Sammi and putting her back in her bassinet. He stays looming over her for a moment, watching her, lulling her back to sleep with a gentle touch.
C.J. finally gives this tiny little sound against her ear that sounds more like a hiccup than a burp. But, she’ll take what she can get. Eventually Steve comes for him too, and as Nat hands him over he gives this squawking little cry. He squirms in Steve’s grasp and keeps on whimpering protests that he does not want to go back to bed yet. When Nat leans for the foot of the bed to get her shirt she peers into Sammi’s bassinet, and sees her daughter lying wide-eyed and awake, her head craned as though she is trying to find her little brother and whatever has him so distraught.
Nat pulls her shirt over her head, then keeps crawling to the end of the bed. She sits herself there, ready to reach down and grab Sammi if she starts to get worked up too. But, for now, she seems content enough.
C.J., on the other hand, does not.
One minute turns into two, and then three, and then five. He keeps on crying. Nat watches Steve check his diaper but they both know that’s dry; not even his tiny body goes through food that fast. Each time Steve tries to put him down it only gets worse, and when she sees Sammi’s little face starting to scrunch with the start of tears, she knows enough is enough.
“Just come back to bed Steve.” She finally says, getting up on her knees and scooping Sammi into her arms before she can properly work herself up. “Come on, bring him with you.”
Steve looks hesitant, she can see that even in the dark. She doesn’t blame him. They haven’t ventured into the territory before of just sitting in bed with either of the babies, not at night anyway. She’s sat here with one or both of them after a feeding during the afternoon or early morning, but Steve is always not far and not without coffee. Personally, she doesn’t think she’s going to fall back asleep anytime soon, just given how awake she is now. But she won’t speak for Steve, and she knows he won’t speak for her.
It's a good sign, though, that he doesn’t try and talk her out of it as she cradles Sammi against her chest or she settles back, and by the time she is back leaning against her pillows Sammi has stopped fussing altogether and is returning to looking curiously about for her brother and the source of his problem.
She hears Steve sigh, and she chuckles when he flicks on the desk lamp on his nightstand. More taking what she can get, she supposes. Even if the light invades her vision and makes her squint uncomfortably, and Sammi make this dissatisfied little grunting sound. If he feels better about all this with a dim light allowing him to see, then she isn’t going to deny him.
He carefully sits down next to her with C.J. held against his chest like a wailing football. His face is red by now from how worked up he is, though as Steve settles back against the headboard he finally starts to quiet, as though he is coming to trust that he won’t be put down.
“You’re not a fan of sleeping alone, are you buddy?” Nat softly teases him as his cries quickly turn to whimpers. “You prefer a bunkmate?”
Steve chuckles, rubbing his thumb in easy strokes over C.J., peering down to try and see his face as though he can’t believe he is actually calming down.
“Speaking of not wanting to sleep,” Steve says, looking to her with a wary gleam in his eyes. “Were you having a nightmare before?”
She blinks, mostly because Steve has mentioned to her before that she doesn’t have very many tells as to the nature of her dreams as they are happening. She’s never been one to thrash or cry out. She’s never been one to wake up panting in a cold sweat with the sheets clutched to her chest. She’s always slept like a rock no matter what horrific scenarios her mind cooks up to pass the time with.
Then, she remembers the sound of her own breathing, quiet and sharp, as her eyes opened all of twenty minutes ago and the nightmare of Thanos and The Snap was chased away.
“Yeah.” She answers lamely, her finger chasing Sammi’s hand as her daughter stretches herself in her hold, and then curls her little grip around said finger. “It was when Thanos trapped me, only this time I couldn’t move an inch.”
She furrows her brow, trying to remember the nightmare that she’d nearly forgotten already.
“When it really happened, I could move a little. And I could see. I was trying to work my way out when he snapped. This time… It was like I couldn’t even try, and I knew exactly what was coming.”
It’s worse, she realizes. In the dream, it was like she was going to lose both babies. Then the crying started and reality started to bleed in. Maybe she thought they were out in the forest, alive, and Steve would have to watch as they faded into dust. Or maybe Thanos would have gotten to them first, and picked the two of them up in one massive fist and flung them through the trees like he did the rest of them.
She sets her thumb over Sammi’s little hand, and ducks her head to nuzzle her nose against her whisps of blonde hair. She would rather not think of all the “what ifs” that could have transpired in her nightmare had the babies not woken her.
“I know you’ve always had nightmares.” Steve says, further interrupting her thoughts. “But, was this, I don’t know, worse than usual?”
She scrunches her face, looking up quick from Sammi.
“No.” She says, almost offended, because she has always had nightmares. “Why?”
“You made a sound when you woke up.”
She clicks her tongue, thinking, meanwhile Sammi starts rubbing her face into her chest; either tired or thinking about getting a little more food so long as she is up.
“I’ve always slept light.” She muses, “I don’t know, maybe waking up every two hours with them… I’m definitely not getting deep sleep. But, I’m ok.”
He nods, slowly, and then Sammi is definitely rooting around for more food so Nat takes a minute to roll her shirt up and adjust her hold so that Sammi can latch back on.
Steve watches her a minute, and then he sighs, and Nat chuckles when C.J. blinks his eyes open as though he’s offended his father has had the audacity to breathe so deeply while he is trying to snuggle on his chest.
“Just tell me if it gets bad, ok?” Steve asks of her, and she nods, putting aside for now how much she hates that it feels like she is trying to convince him.
“Ok.” She agrees, and she means it.
She said “ok”; she would tell Steve if the nightmares start to get too bad. Really, if anything starts to get too bad. And she did mean it.
Steve, however, doesn’t seem to believe that.
He’s trying to help. She keeps telling herself that he is trying to help, and really, there is so little right now which he can actually do for help. Yes, he can do the dishes and the laundry, the grocery shopping and other general housekeeping. He is doing all those things, which is amazing, because she sure has hell doesn’t have the time or the energy to do it. But when it comes to actually helping with the babies he really is limited to diaper and outfit changes.
“Which means he has plenty of time to worry about me.” She huffs, rolling her eyes while she sits on the couch and nurses C.J., meanwhile Melina is sitting beside her with Sammi dozing in her arms.
“Remember when you didn’t want him out of your sight?” Melina chuckles, and Nat hums, unamused.
“It’s not that I don’t want him around.” She says, “And I get it; I’m the one who can feed them, and I’m the one they’ve been inside of for nine months. I’m the one they know, and I’m the one who pushed two little humans out of my body. I get that he just wants to make sure I recover from that.”
It’s the first time she’s spoken the words aloud, but she recites them like she is reciting a script. In truth, it’s the mantra she reminds herself of every time Steve starts to hover and ask too many times how she is doing, how she is feeling, if she is ok, or if there is anything he isn’t helping with that he could be. She hates to admit it, but Melina is right. It was only a week ago she didn’t want Steve out of her sight, and now he has been out of the house for one hour and it feels like the first time she’s been able to breathe properly.
“You are not used to having people worry about you.” Melina reminds her, “I feel like I should apologize for that.”
“Let’s not and say you did.” Nat huffs, readjusting her shirt with one hand as so to keep it from falling in C.J.’s face. “You and Alexei have apologized enough.”
Melina hums, and smiles this soft little smile that only turns brighter when she looks back down to Sammi still in her arms.
“Well, if he is looking to be useful, maybe now is a good time that I ask him for help on a project. I need a sample of his blood.”
Nat raises an eyebrow, clicking her tongue and not breathing as she tries to block out the alarm bells ringing in her head.
It isn’t that she doesn’t trust Melina these days. It’s that she doesn’t trust her boss. That, and she won’t ever forget the pig named Alexei and how he stopped breathing simply because Melina commanded he do so. That’s something else which haunts her nightmares, and thinking about it now she can’t help but to flit her eyes to her daughter sleeping soundly in Melina’s arms.
She squeezes her hand firm on C.J., assuring herself that she has ahold of him safely with only one arm.
“Why do you need with Steve’s blood?” She asks, her voice just teetering the edge of deadly.
Melina sees it, and hears it, Nat knows she does. Still, her expression is unbothered. She even gets up and lays Sammi into Nathaniel’s old bassinet which Laura gave them to use in the living room so they won’t have to walk up and down the stairs each time one baby falls asleep but not the other.
“It’s for a side project of mine.” Melina assures her once Sammi is down. “I could do with a sample of yours too, in fact, to see how you’ve changed now that you’re post-partum.”
For a moment, bile rises in Nat’s throat as she remembers when she went to Melina while she was pregnant and asked her to draw her blood. She’d needed some clarity as to the twins’ chances of inheriting the serum and what that might look like. She didn’t think, at the time, to worry about Melina using that sample for other purposes.
C.J. let’s go of her just then, milk dribbling down is chin as he suddenly turns fussy. Maybe he’s picked up on her spiked anxiety and decided he needs to know right now what is going on.
She would like to know that too.
She lifts him up and lays him on her shoulder, and starts rubbing his back to try and get him to burp, all while never once breaking eye contact with Melina.
“What are you doing?”
Melina frowns, like she is about to chide her like she is child getting all worked up over a toy. It’s a very smart decision, in Nat’s opinion, that she instead remains quiet as she comes and drops back down into her previous seat on the couch.
“The serum in Steve’s DNA is what regenerated your uterus, correct?” She asks, “When the two of you… you know? When he-”
Her stammering comes complete with some flailing hand gestures, as though she is trying to conjure up an image, and when she goes so far as to jerk her hips in a pantomime of what it is she is trying to say, Nat almost buries her face in her one hand.
“Oh, Mom!”
“Well is that not what happened?”
“It’s the theory.” Nat all but growls as she brings C.J. back down, because he is not burping. In fact he is fussing and crying like he’s still hungry, so she’s thinking it was definitely the sudden shift in her that grabbed his attention before. “You’re the scientist, who has apparently been studying my blood samples.”
“And I think your theory is correct.” Melina says, while Nat brings C.J. back to her breast and he happily latches back on; apparently his interest in the conversation has reached its end.
Nat’s, however, has not.
“I was able to recover the records I had in my lab from when you were a child.” Melina continues, “Both from before and after you were injected with any serum; both before Steve.”
“So you want my “after” to complete the set?” She asks, well aware there is more to this. “Why? And what do you need Steve’s blood for?”
The way Melina’s face grows serious and she holds her eyes, it’s clear to see that she has been planning this conversation for a while.
“The serum contained in Steve’s DNA was the agent of change when introduced into your body.” She explains, “I want to understand how it changed you, and why. And, most important, can I replicate it?”
“Replicate it?”
Melina nods, “The serum designed by the KGB was almost perfect. Mother Russia didn’t need poster girls. They didn’t need us to be able to lift an army tank with our bare hands, or go toe-to-toe with an entire militia. What they needed from us was more discrete. More feminine, in their words.”
“And we needed to be able to survive it.” Nat murmurs, “They needed us durable.”
Melina nods, her eyes distant. “We’ve always healed.” She says, so quietly it’s almost as if she is speaking to herself. Then, she flits her eyes to meet Nat’s gaze. “But not like you did. Not from them.”
She pauses to scoot in a little closer, sighing deep as she does so, her eyes now lingering on C.J. as he nurses.
“My hypothesis is that when you and Steve… you know,” she says, complete with more hand gestures of her fists knocking together. “That the RNA which codes his healing abilities was stronger than yours, and it either took over or acted as a booster. I want to isolate that. I want to see if I can create a cure, for Yelena, and for all the other girls who the Red Room destroyed.”