Chapter Text
She took in a deep breath, trying to lessen the anxiety that seemed to intensify with every second that she looked at the stick resting on the bathroom counter. Mercifully, a knock at the door distracted her.
“Can I come in?”
The sound of her husband’s voice made her smile a bit in spite of herself. “You could have been in here already, you know.”
“And as I said, you deserve privacy.” He’d grinned, and saw her red hair in her face. She only hid her face in it when she didn’t want him to see something. Gently, he reached out a hand and brushed her hair out of her face to see the anxious expression on her face. “It’s okay if you’re scared. I am too.”
“I know.” She said, and she looked into his warm eyes. “I just don’t want to get disappointed again.”
“I know, honey. I know…” He said softly.
He’d held both of her hands again, and pressed a kiss to her forehead, before he touched his own to hers. “Whatever happens, I’ll be here. Okay?”
She’d taken a shaky breath, and had nodded, before taking her hand from his and picking it up from the counter, flipping it over for the first time.
There, in black letters, was the word that made up her nightmares being blared at her yet again: NEGATIVE.
She was painfully aware of the feeling of her heart breaking in the following seconds, as though the word had been a hammer that had crashed right into her instead of just a collection of pixels on a little screen. Even worse was when she’d made the mistake of glancing at her husband, whose face had remained neutral, but his eyes had betrayed his disappointment. His commitment to looking otherwise unaffected had been an unexpected source of devastation to her, though. Her careful plans to remain resolute in this time of turmoil had seemed to crumble in an instant, just like her unaffected façade as she’d felt the terrible failure twisting her face into an expression of upset in the blink of an eye.
He’d caught it quickly, that rusting of her iron will, and had quickly wrapped his arms around her as the weight of that word on her heart had tried to push her down, and she was only kept upright by him, as his hand had rubbed her back in the soothing way she liked.
“I’m sorry, baby.” It was barely a whisper, as though he thought speaking at a normal level would be enough to shatter her, even as she’d buried her face in his chest and had shook quietly in his embrace. “I’m so sorry…” His voice had broken at the end, and he’d pursed his lips together tightly, to afraid to utter another word lest he shatter alongside her.
Natasha had melted to the floor in his arms, too overwhelmed to pick a fight with gravity for once as it tried to press her downward. She’d felt the vibration of the cabinet door pressed against her arm, a tiny earthquake she could feel before she realized that was the only part of her body that was against it, but her husband was leaning on it. When she’d moved her face into his shoulder, she’d felt his unsteady breathing, and realized that he too was sobbing, but it was entirely silent, and she wondered just how often he’d had to have cried as a child to have mastered the art. It chiseled another piece of her composure away, and she’d brayed a particularly guttural sob into his neck and had held onto him for dear life.
“It’s my fault.” She’d choked out the terrible confession through a wheezing breath, and before she’d even finished the sentence, she could feel him shaking his head.
“No. Honey, it’s not. You didn’t get a choice.” He’d reminded her immediately, but the sentiment failed to comfort her.
“I can’t carry our baby…” The terrible words came out, more bitter tasting than her favorite Vodka.
“I can’t give you one to carry.” The remorse in his voice was a fresh wound, but the words themselves had come out worn, as though he’d been carrying them his entire life like rocks piled upon his back.
“You tried.” She said, unable to bear the self loathing in his voice. “There was no way to know whether the operation-“
“Nat.” He’d said quietly, but she stopped as though he’d shouted, and wound herself back around him, this time for his comfort more than her own. “Don’t…”
“Okay.” She acquiesced, and held onto him.
For a long while, he’d held onto her like a life preserver. Always when it came time for a moment like this, he had proven himself unwaveringly supportive to her. He’d comforted her before and after every major procedure or negative test, and had never complained once when she’d been too paralyzed by her own upset to function the way she’d needed to. But all of the things he piled up on his back had served to pile up, and had blinded him to the fact that he wasn’t immune to being crushed by it. And in some ways, it had blinded her just the same.
“You didn’t ask for this, and neither did I.” She said. It was the one phrase they had both agreed on that could be said in comfort of the other if it was too difficult to take from the other person.
She’d felt Bruce nod against her. “I know. I just…”
“I know.” She said, and pressed a kiss to the crown of his head.
She’d felt the way he’d trembled against her, not with fear or with exhaustion, but with heartbreak beyond measure, and she’d felt her grip on her composure slipping away quickly as he’d finally started sobbing audibly, and it had destroyed the emotional walls she’d tried to sloppily rebuild. Her face had crumbled instantly, and soon enough her own sobbing echoed his.
Neither of them knew how long they’d held together on that cold tile floor, but it had seemed to stretch into an eternity. At some point, the sobbing had died off between them, and their breathing had evened out again, going from gasps to slow and steady. When they’d finally looked one another in the face again, their eyes were red, but they didn’t break again. He’d taken his hand and brushed her hair out of her eyes- an apology left unsaid for his part in the pain she’d been trying to hide in them that he’d felt responsible for, even though their was no fault to be had on either of their parts for it.
When she’d shivered, he braced himself on the counter to stand in order to help her up, unceremoniously sweeping her into his arms in a princess carry upon seeing the beginning of a large bruise on her leg mere moments later- to her startled squeak of surprise. However, when her mouth had begun to form a protest, she’d looked into his eyes that were pained and unabashedly desperate.
“I don’t want you to hurt yourself again.” His voice had come out tremulously, but he hadn’t broken again. The protest that had been forming on her lips died at those words, and she’d nodded instead, slightly ashamed that she’d gotten upset with a gesture of sincere concern for her in such a moment, but even more so that she had forgotten it had happened so easily. When he’d stepped through the bathroom door again, she’d looked at the clock on the nightstand. It had been a mere twenty seven minutes when it had felt that they were there for hours. The small reminder of life going on even in the midst of tragedy had put a chink into her armor, and she’d taken a deep breath, sniffing.
A tissue appeared in her line of vision in the next instant, and she’d taken it from his hand, wiping her nose and thanking him quietly. He’d laid her down onto the bed with such gentleness that she realized how how fragile she must have looked for him to treat her like she was about to break. She hated that glaring reminder of her own weakness, but she couldn’t be angry at the affection she was too overwhelmed to realize she’d needed. Because in spite of the pain of that singular instant, Bruce had managed to do what she’d once thought impossible and made her believe in the goodness of men.
After spending years with contracts to end some of the worst lives imaginable, it had been easy to reject the existence of someone like him, until she’d gone on her mission to India to convince him to help with the team, and she’d begun to believe in him. Bruce had shown remorse and contrition for what he perceived to be The Hulk’s sins. He’d dedicated himself to helping others, and trying to cure himself as well as prevent this from happening to anyone else. And he’d loved her- in spite of her past, her flaws, and her fears. He’d loved her so much that he’d managed to control himself to help her in spite of his own feelings of grief that had dug themselves so deeply into her that she couldn’t get the echoes of his sobs to stop ringing in her ears. In spite of the tragedy that had hurt them, it was more than enough evidence to tell her that she’d finally done something right by loving him- and there was cashmere comfort in that.
As he’d pulled a blanket over her, he’d pressed a weightless kiss to her forehead. “Get some rest, honey.”
“Okay.” She’d said, too tired to argue it when sleep sounded like a good idea at the moment.
“I’ll be in the lab for the next hour if you wake up.”
“Are you sure you’ll be okay to go in?” She’d asked, sounding only slightly worried.
“Of course. I won’t be working with any equipment today. Just going to do some research.” He promised, and it had eased her mind enough that she’d relaxed some, barely managing to lift her head to give him a kiss on the lips before it fell right back down to the pillow, with her eyelids getting heavier by the second.
“I love you.” She’d muttered, eyes fluttering shut.
“I love you too.” He’d said softly, turning off their bedroom lamp for her before making his way back down the hall. He’d stumbled to a grinding halt when he’d seen the blue test, still on the counter.
Without a second thought, he’d grabbed it and carried it into the kitchen where his wife wouldn’t hear, throwing it violently inside of the trash can as he’d let the clanging of it in the trash can satisfy the hulk’s need for anger and allowed him to refocus himself as he’d needed to, as he’d made his way to the elevator bank, still shaking slightly as he’d pushed the button for the lab floor.
In the short time of his descent, he’d been forced to see his reflection of the silver siding of the elevator, and saw himself age a full ten years in the past half hour upon spying his twin in it’s refractive surface. He’d looked worn out and exhausted. That simply wouldn’t do. He had to take a deep breath, and then he’d tried to relax himself as best he could, before the doors had yawned open and his workplace greeted him with the open arms he’d sorely needed, as he’d gone into his office, pulling up the office chair to his desk as he’d taken his reading glasses kept there from their holder and slid them on before turning on the computer and beginning to try and find articles online that could help him understand what had happened, as he’d tried to dive in deep on topics he wished he hadn’t had to, like false positives, chemical pregnancies, and missed miscarriages.
The desperation for answers had driven him to try and identify the truth of the situation. Or, rather, to identify what could have caused this. There was just no way that something wasn’t going on. Ever since she’d asked him to do an ultrasound on her to check on the baby last week, and they’d come up with a screen of static. The horror of that moment had seared itself into his brain, and had refused to leave, replaying itself on a seemingly endless loop that he couldn’t stop in spite of his will and desire to do so.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” She’d been unnerved by his silence, and the lack of baby on the screen.
“It’s… Gone.” He’d whispered, sounding absolutely stupefied. “The baby it… It’s gone.”
“What are you talking about?” Her voice had broken on the last word, and it had made him look at her.
He saw it dawning in her expression, that absolute terror induced confusion and desperation. “Where’s my baby…?” It had been a squeaky whisper, so unnatural to her that it almost made him sick. It was only surpassed by the sour taste of his own reply to her.
“I-I don’t know…” He stammered. “I… don’t know…”
His mind short circuited for a moment at that bitter truth before he regained his senses and realized there was more than one way to test for pregnancy, and got a blood sample from her arm, rushing it to the centrifuge, starting up the machine before he’d gone back to her as she’d looked at him, her eyes glazed over with a sheen of shock.
“What’s happening?”
”I don’t know. I have to look at your blood test. The machine could be faulty.”
”How long is it going to take?”
”Two hours.”
”What?!”
”Blood tests take longer but they are the most accurate. I’ll run your blood sample and we’ll see what’s happening.” He promised, but it hadn’t stopped her face from falling, as she’d put her face in her hands.
“How could this happen…?”
”I don’t know…” His arms wrapped around her in a feeble attempt to comfort her.
And not knowing was unacceptable. The only good thing he could do now was give her some sort of closure, some chance at healing, just to reassure her, to reassure himself too, that they weren’t broken. There was some sort of answer to what happened that meant they weren’t alone. He had to find an answer to what happened, if only to give her a moment’s peace, as he’d jotted down research studies of papers written on the subject, and decided that it was a good time to get into the library, before he’d headed down the hall to where most of the research papers were kept, grabbing them accordingly before he’d gone toward the lounge that Tony put on every floor with good seating and room for conversation, and had parked himself by the fireplace that was still crackling with the sweet and smoky scent of maple wood, and had sat himself in one of the armchairs, throwing a stack of papers on the small cherrywood table next to it, before he’d pulled the first at the top of the stack, and started reading.
For a long while, he’d lost himself in those papers, until his thirst had overwhelmed him and he’d used the coffee maker in the nearby small kitchen to brew himself a cup. Two sugars and a splash of cream. He’d set his coffee cup on the coaster behind the papers and had begun going through the second file in the stack when he’d heard the odd sound of footsteps coming down the hall, echoing through the corridor. He’d looked through the square archway of the lounge entrance and saw Tony walking down the hall, eating the last bite of a strawberry and tossing it in the nearby trash can before they’d made eye contact, and Tony had seemed surprised to see him.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed by now?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
Tony went down the two steps into the lounge, amused. “Hosting a party upstairs. All the bathrooms were occupied and I figured it’d be pretty empty. Don’t tell me you’re pulling an all nighter working?”
“Nothing like that… Just some research.” His words barely masked the gratitude he had that his voice had seemed to recover in the time he’d been silent, without giving himself away.
“Need any help?”
“No thanks. I’ve got it.” He said, even managing a smile that was reassuring enough to fool his friend momentarily, until the moment Tony got a good look at him, and he recalled the face that had stared back at him in the elevator.
“Everything okay?”
There it was. That dreaded question that had made him burst into a fit of hysterical laughter, because if he hadn’t he would have started to cry. “Not really.” He’d said, painfully aware of the CEO of Stark Industries looking at him as though he’d grown a third eye.
“Anything I can do?”
“No.” He said, shaking his head. “Thanks.”
“Sure. Just don’t stay out here all night unless you’re going to the party, alright?”
“Alright.” Bruce had promised, and gave a parting wave to his friend, who went on his way unsettled, and went to the bathroom as he’d initially planned. When he’d come out, however, he hadn’t gone back to the party right away, sneaking into the stairwell until he reached the deck two floors down that was currently unoccupied to quietly give orders.
“JARVIS?”
“Yes, Mr. Stark?”
“What is on top of the table Bruce is sitting by in the lounge?”
“A file entitled “Symptoms and hereditary involvement in Chemical Pregnancies” Sir.”
At the title, Tony gaped for a long instant, pieces clicking together in odd places. “JARVIS?”
“Sir?”
“Call Hawkeye, Captain America, and Thor here tomorrow morning for an emergency meeting.”
“Yes, Sir.”
He’d been suspicious for the better part of a week that something was amiss under his roof, but had been unable to pinpoint what was wrong, but the name of that file had raised a red flag in his mind that couldn’t be ignored, and he’d begun to suspect something more significant was at play. But to find out what it was would have to wait until the morning, as he’d slipped back inside the elevator and had reluctantly returned to his party.