Chapter Text
Bucky felt his heart drop into his feet at Walker's words, frozen still in aching fear. Whatever his words implied, it clearly wasn’t good.
“What are you talking about, John?,” Bucky asked, taking a small step forward. “What’s going on?”
“Just…,” John sighed, gesturing for Bucky to follow him. “Come see.”
Bucky slowly followed John, his mind racing with every possible horrible thing that he could be walking towards. There’d been a lot of awful things that had happened to Bucky over the course of his very long life, but none of that would even measure to the pain that anything happening to Sam or their girl would bring him.
Bucky hoped so desperately that whatever he was walking towards wouldn’t have anything to do with that, but knowing his luck–it was likely that fearing the worst was the most logical thing to do.
When Bucky stepped into the common room the team were all crowded around the television, looking at what was playing in shock and horror. Bucky almost didn’t want to look, but he couldn't help himself.
The sight that was pastored on the television was one of Bucky’s greatest nightmares, one that struck him into a catatonic state almost immediately.
‘The Winter Soldier pregnant with Captain America's baby??? Source from Valentina Allegra De Fonte.’
The words were strolling diagonally across the bottom of the screen, sending chills down Bucky’s spine every time he read them. There was a young looking news reporter talking, but Bucky couldn’t hear a single word of what she was saying; at least not until he focused on them.
“–Miss De Fonte’s comment was brief, but she provided clear proof that James Buchanan Barnes, the former Winter Soldier, is somehow pregnant with Captain America's child. We haven’t received comments from either party yet, but Miss De Fonte sent us some alarming evidence that we will play for you now.’
Bucky snapped his gaze away from the television screen the second that, what he assumed was, the security footage of him talking about the baby began playing.
Goddamnit, how the hell had Bucky forgotten about Valentina? She’d promised that she would get her revenge for the team getting her arrested, Lord knows how Bucky had forgotten what she had on him. Her word was bad enough, but the footage was Bucky breaking point.
Bucky pushed past the team and reached from the television control, launching it in the direction of the screen and ignoring the team's annoyed gasps when it shattered–leaving the screen blank with a large, ugly crack in it.
“Was that necessary, Barnes?” Yelena complained, her words being ignored by Bucky who just pushed past her and headed towards the door.
“Wait, Bucky, don’t leave!” Bob shouted, scrambling after Bucky.
“I have to go,” Bucky mumbled, attempting to get into the elevator but being stopped by Bob blocking his way. “I have to find Sam.”
Bob's face softened in response to Bucky’s words, giving him an opportunity to push past him and towards the elevator. Bucky was stopped by a hand on his shoulder, and when he turned around he saw Walker and the rest of the team standing there and gazing at him with empathetic looks on their faces.
“You can’t just leave, Bucky,” Yelena spoke, stepping closer towards Bucky. “That news report was late, the first ones were published hours ago. There are already people with cameras waiting outside the tower for you to come out.”
Bucky’s breath hitched at Yelena's words, but it didn’t make his determination dwindle. Bucky needed to leave, he needed to find Sam before he broke apart into a million pieces in front of the team.
“I have to.” Bucky whispered, raising a shaky hand to brush Walker off of his shoulder.
“Okay, just…,” John started, exhaling. “We’ll find you a way out of here, one where you won’t be seen.”
The team did just that, managing to find and exit out of the tower where Bucky could get to his car without being seen. Bucky didn’t even remember to thank them for it, his mind running wild with so much overwhelming fear and confusion that he raced straight to his car without looking back for a second.
Once he was in the car, breathing so heavily that he was basically hyperventilating, Bucky didn’t call Sam. If Sam knew about what was going on then Bucky would already have several missed calls by now, and Bucky didn’t want to break the news to him. He could barely even think about everything that was going on, let alone say the words out loud. Telling Sam would be an impossible feat, it would just be easier if Bucky let him find out about it himself.
Bucky gripped the steering wheel with shaky hands, letting out an anxious sigh. He couldn’t let himself get overwhelmed with stress, not now–especially since he was nearing the end of his pregnancy and that much stress could cause harm to the baby, something that Bucky would never be able to forgive himself for.
The drive back to Brooklyn felt like five minutes and five hours all at once. Bucky didn’t even know how long it actually was, his mind everywhere except for there and now. Before he realised it, Bucky was pulling up in front of the apartment building–dragging himself out of the car and upstairs to the entrance to his and Sam’s place.
Bucky could hear someone talking from behind the door, that someone being Sam. Bucky almost didn’t want to go inside, the distress in Sam’s voice as he was talking to someone over the phone signalling to Bucky that he already knew.
He couldn’t stay outside for long though, Sam would notice his lingering presence and invite him in anyway–so with a heavy exhale, Bucky pushed the door open.
Sam immediately stopped talking, spinning around to face Bucky with wild, fearful eyes. He hung up the phone instantly, throwing it down onto the couch and rushing towards Bucky.
The second Sam’s hands touched his face, Bucky broke down. The tears he’d been holding back ever since he’d seen the news report immediately spilling from his eyes like a monsoon–ugly, choked off sobs following them instantly; the noise so horrendously awful that Bucky didn’t even register that it was coming from him.
“It’s okay,” Sam whispered, soothing a hand down Bucky’s back and slowly lowering them down to the floor so Bucky wouldn’t collapse in his arms. “It’s gonna be okay, Baby. Just calm down, we’re gonna be okay.”
Something about the way that Sam was talking made it sound like he didn’t believe his own words. Bucky didn’t blame him, no doubt that everything wasn’t going to be ‘okay’.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Bucky sobbed, burying his face in Sam’s neck. “No one was supposed to know.”
Sam whispered more soothing words into Bucky’s ear that sounded like nothing but white noise to him, too focused on keeping his breathing steady to pay attention to anything else. Bucky tried to work through all of the advice that Dr. Zamve had given him to deal with panic attacks, but nothing was working–and when one thing failed it just made Bucky too upset to try another.
Eventually, Sam managed to calm Bucky down enough for his breathing to be relatively normal again–softly stroking his hair in a comforting manner.
“I’m so sorry, Sam,” Bucky sniffled, tightening his arms around Sam’s waist. “This is all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault, Buck.” Sam reassured, massaging Bucky’s shoulder blade mindlessly.
“It is,” Bucky insisted, pushing away from Sam and turning his gaze down towards the floor. “The only reason Valentina knows any of this is because I was stupid enough to run my mouth about you and the baby around the most fucking security ridden place in the world!
Sam pressed a hand to Bucky's metal shoulder, squeezing it gently. “That’s an invitation of privacy, Buck. That’s not your fault.”
“She told me–,” Bucky started, chewing on his lip anxiously when he realised that this wasn’t something he’d told Sam before. “The day we had her arrested, she told me that she knew about…about the baby. I didn’t think anything of it at the time because she was going to jail, but I guess she wasn’t lying when she said she ‘had her ways’.”
Bucky chuckled wetly after saying the last part, if only to keep him from breaking down in tears again. When he glanced up at Sam he had a saddened and perplexed look on his face that immediately caused Bucky to burst out in sobs again.
“Whoa, hey, Buck,” The reattached sobs continued to fall from Bucky’s mouth. “It’s okay, it’s not your fault. Just…why didn’t you tell me? Did you think I wouldn’t understand?”
“No. God, no,” Bucky breathed out through tears. “I was going to tell you, I swear. There was just so much going on a–and I didn’t get a chance.”
Bucky's ramblings were silenced by Sam placing a hand on his cheek, caressing it gently. Even though he didn’t speak any words, the gesture calmed Bucky down almost instantly.
Just Sam’s presence was always enough to make Bucky’s sadness dwindle. The situation they were in with everyone in the world now knowing that they were not only together but expecting a baby; a fully natural child that shared both of their DNA that Bucky was almost nine months pregnant with.
So many stupid, ignorant, hateful people already thought Sam wasn’t fit to be Captain America just because of the colour of his skin, no doubt him being with a man wouldn’t help with that. Though Sam said he didn’t care what those people thought, Bucky could tell that some of the cruel things that they said hurt him; they’d hurt anyone, no matter how thick their exterior.
“What are we going to do, Sam?,” Bucky whispered, looking at Sam with glistening eyes. “The public weren’t supposed to know about her, and even if they did–they weren’t supposed to know that I was the one carrying her. If Hydra’s still out there, they’ll try and take her away from us.”
Bucky paused, his breath becoming erratic again. “Sammy, I don’t know what I’d do if they took her away. I couldn’t–I couldn’t live with it.”
“No one’s gonna take her away, Buck,” Sam reassured, holding Bucky tightly in his arms to calm him down. “We won’t let them. We’ll destroy every remaining slither of Hydra if we have to, anything to keep our girl safe.”
Bucky nodded, his face buried in Sam’s neck. Bucky wanted to believe Sam’s words, but he knew that if Hydra wanted their daughter–they’d get her. Bucky's greatest fear was that she’d be born with the serum; knowing that if she was, not only Hydra but whatever other sick bastards that wanted their hands on it would do anything in their power to get it.
There was no way to keep her safe from things like that, even if she was raised in the most secure place in the world someone would manage to override the security system to get to her. Bucky would spend every waking moment by her side if that was how he could keep her with them–Lord knows that he’d break the neck of any stranger who even got even an inch too close to her.
It wasn’t just the worry that someone would hurt his daughter that was overwhelming Bucky with stress, the fact that the entire world now knew that he was a freak of nature as well as a murderer didn’t help with his nerves. Of course, there was an explanation for it–but Bucky didn’t exactly want to have to explain that he was intersex to the public just for it to be twisted and slapped onto clickbait articles headlines.
Regardless of how he explained how he was pregnant people would call him a freak anyways. Bucky didn’t want to deal with all of that–his body was his own business and no one else’s; just because people knew that he was pregnant didn’t mean they deserved an explanation for it.
“I can see you thinking, Buck,” Sam spoke, squeezing Bucky’s metal forearm gently. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, just…,” Bucky exhaled, tapping his fingers against his thigh. “Can you distract me?”
Sam paused for a moment, seemingly thinking to himself before thinking. “With what?”
“Anything,” Bucky murmured, pulling back to face Sam. “Just talk to me.”
“Alright,” Sam sighed, pushing himself up off the floor–taking Bucky up with him–and leading the over to the couch. “You wanna talk about those names you've been thinking of?”
Bucky shrugged, carefully lowering himself down onto the couch with a grunt. “There’s not much, I can’t really think of anything good.”
“Well,” Sam smirked, curling up against Bucky on the couch. “Samantha is always on the table.”
“Samantha was never on the table,” Bucky groaned, the corner of his lips curling up slightly at Sam’s laughter. “We are not naming the baby after you.”
“What about someone else then?” Sam questioned. “Like one of your sisters?”
Bucky had internally debated with himself whether he should name the baby after one of his sisters, but he’d come to the conclusion that it wasn’t a good idea. If he named her after just one of them, he’d feel guilty about picking favourites–plus, all of the names were fairly old and he didn’t want to risk his girl being made fun of for anything.
Bucky shook his head, sighing. “I don’t really wanna name her after someone else. She wouldn’t feel like her own person, y'know? Just always trying to live up to another person’s legacy.”
Sam nodded in agreement, seemingly understanding Bucky’s words. “That’s fair. What type of names do you like?”
“I like the ones that mean something, that feel important,” Bucky explained. “But nothing I’ve seen has clicked for me.”
“I’m sure something will come to you, Sugar,” Sam soothed, pressing a gentle kiss to Bucky’s cheek. “Hey, you wanna take some more of those photos?”
Bucky groaned, suppressing an eye roll. Now that Bucky was practically in his final month of pregnancy–looking like he was about to burst any second–Sam had taken to snapping pictures of him at any moment he could. Bucky just ignored it at first, but once Sam began getting him to pose for the photos he asked him what the deal was.
‘You’ve told me about a thousand times that this is never happening again,’ Sam had said. ‘So I might as well snap physical reminders of it at any chance I get.’
Sam wasn’t exaggerating when he said that Bucky had told him that this, this being pregnancy, was never happening again. It wasn’t that Bucky hated being pregnant, but between the morning sickness, mood swings and the drastic physical changes to his body–he’d rather not go through it again.
Sam joked about having more than one child a lot, but something about the way that Sam would say it made Bucky suspicious that he wasn’t joking. They’d both grown up with multiple siblings in tight knit families so it made sense why Sam would want to have multiple kids–but Bucky didn’t think he could handle it.
Maybe, at some point in the distant future, they could have another baby–but even then Bucky feared that he’d find it too overwhelming. They should just focus on getting their daughter into the world first before thinking about having any more children.
“Do we really have to do the pictures? You know I hate them.” Sam chuckled at Bucky’s whining, standing up off the couch to go and rummage around for the camera.
“Come on, Buck. We both know you secretly enjoy it.” Sam smirked, setting the camera down on the coffee table.
The moment after Bucky scoffed in response to Sam’s words, Sam’s phone began ringing. “Shit,” he murmured, glancing at the contact on the screen. “It’s the PR manager, I’ve gotta take this. Sorry, Baby, I’ll be back soon.”
Bucky craned his head around to glance over the back of the couch, watching as Sam walked down the hallway into their bedroom whilst arguing with the person on the phone. Bucky sighed sadly at the lack of Sam’s presence, sinking down against the couch.
Alpine and Figaro were sleeping on the floor, curled up against each other like they always did. The sight made Bucky smile for the first time that day since the news report.
Some morbidly curious side of Bucky wanted to pull out his phone and spend the next week or so scrolling through all of the things that people were saying about him. It was a bad idea, obviously–but Bucky couldn’t help himself from wanting to do it.
If he could see what people were saying–it might make him feel better; some of them could be good things, and even if the majority were bad just a few kind words would be enough to calm Bucky’s stress levels. He wouldn’t do it though, not without Sam’s permission at least. It wouldn’t be fair for Bucky to see all of the stuff online without at least consulting Sam at first, especially considering that Sam would have to be the one to comfort him if the things people were saying were too much.
The majority of the rest of the day was spent with Sam cooped up in their shared bedroom on the phone with about a hundred different people and Bucky relaxing on the couch watching nature documentaries in an attempt to distract himself. It was actually a pretty good idea, with Sir David Attenborough’s soothing voice over the top of beautiful landscapes with adorable animals roaming around them soothing Bucky enough for him to fall asleep for a whole two hours; a feat that was practically impossible lately.
Nothing else eventful happened until Bucky was resting in bed at around nine PM, waiting for Sam to be finished in the shower so he could be cuddled to sleep. He was sat up with his back against the plush headboard, a semi circle pillow wrapped around his back to support him and a copy of Frank Herbert’s Dune that Sam bought for him in his hands. It was a strange book, one that Bucky didn’t really understand–but it was science fiction, so he loved it regardless.
Bucky was fairly content with himself at the moment, having calmed down significantly since he first arrived in the apartment hours ago. He was so relaxed in fact that he almost jumped out of his skin when his phone began ringing on the bedside table. Bucky glanced over at the device, immediately picking it up and answering when he saw the contact name was ‘Dr. Zamve’.
“James,” Dr. Zamve greeted once Bucky answered the phone. “I saw the news, how are you feeling?”
“Better now than I was before, Doc,” Bucky confessed. “It’s a lot to handle, but me and Sam are working through it.”
“I’m glad,” She said. “If you need anyone to talk to, you know I’m always here, James. I just wanted to make sure you were feeling okay.”
Bucky felt a smile form on his face at Dr. Zamve’s words. Over the course of their many sessions together, Bucky had grown close with Dr. Zamve–feeling much better than he had before now that he had someone to talk to about his problems that wasn’t Sam.
There was no way in hell that Bucky would’ve made it through his pregnancy without Dr. Zamve’s support, having been so overwhelmed with stress that he wasn’t sure if he’d had even made it past the first trimester without breaking down.
“Thank you, Doc,” Bucky spoke. “I appreciate it.”
They continued talking for a short while after that, just so Dr. Zamve could make sure that Bucky was telling the truth about being okay. Just after they said their goodbyes, Sam strolled into the room clad in nothing but tight black boxers.
Bucky felt a smirk worm onto his face, looking Sam up and down with a sultry gaze. “Lookin’ good, Sweetheart.”
Sam chuckled, trailing over to the bed and sitting down on it beside Bucky–leaning forward so that their faces were mere inches apart. “You tryin to start somethin’, Barnes?”
“You know I would if I could,” Bucky groaned, shuffling on the bed in an awkward attempt to lay down. “I can barely move around without throwing my back out, I’d probably break something if you fucked me–or the other way around.”
Sam laughed, helped Bucky down onto the mattress so that he was lying on his side facing the window with Sam’s arms wrapped around his waist. “Guess we’ll have to wait until after our girl arrives. When was that again?”
“February second,” Bucky murmured, relaxing in Sam’s grip. “Or it should be. Knowing her Daddy she’ll be at least a few days early.”
“As it should be,” Sam chuckled against Bucky’s neck. “We both know that we’d rather see her sooner than later.”
Bucky couldn’t argue with that, especially since he’d been counting down the days to his due date ever since he hit eight months. All of Bucky’s past nerves about feeling less of a connection to his daughter once she was born have vanished once he entered his third trimester. Now, he couldn’t wait to meet her–spending every night dreaming of the first moment that he’d get to hold her in his arms.
Bucky truly couldn’t imagine a world where he wouldn’t be able to hold his daughter, not wanting to think about it too long so as to not overwhelm himself with devastation.
“Hey,” Sam murmured against the back of Bucky’s neck, drawing him out of his thoughts. “You know how you said you were pregnant twice before?” Bucky nodded. “You wanna tell me about the first time?”
“God, I’m not sure I’ll be able to remember it.” Bucky laughed, shaking his head.
“Try?” Sam asked.
Bucky paused for a moment, racking his mind in an attempt to recall the men he’d slept with in nineteen–thirty–nine. “I think…there was this guy, from Harlem. He hung around the same underground clubs I did, the ones that were made for queer folk. We were together a few times, and he was the only guy other than Steve I let fuck me without a rubber–so it’s pretty easy to put two and two together.”
“Wow,” Sam laughed, his eyes widening in disbelief. “You were partying with men from Harlem in gay clubs in 1939? That’s a hell of a feat, Buck.”
“Maybe so,” Bucky smirked. “Come to think of it, the guy kinda looked like you. I guess I have a type.”
“Are you only saying that because he was another attractive black guy?” Sam questioned, suspicious of Bucky’s words.
“No,” Bucky argued. “He did look like you. I think his name was Thomas.”
“You’re kidding me,” Sam said, sitting up on the bed to look into Bucky's eyes. “A guy from the 40s called Thomas living in Harlem? That sounds a lot like my grandfather, Bucky.”
“Huh,” Bucky spoke, shrugging his shoulders. “Small world I guess.”
Sam scoffed, collapsed down onto the mattress, groaning. Bucky laughed at his dramatic gesture, shuffling backwards into Sam and forcing him to wrap his arms back around his body.
They didn’t speak after that, both too exhausted from the day to continue the conversation. Even though the day had been a rollercoaster of emotions, Bucky was relieved that he got to go to bed happy.
The world might now know of their daughter’s existence, and Bucky’s strange, confusing body–but as long as she came into the world safe and healthy, Bucky would be able to sleep soundly at night; wrapped up in Sam’s arms, right where he belonged.