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The waiting room was horrible. At least in Tony’s eyes, it was. That was probably only because Tony hated the place. If he wasn’t in the situation that he was, he might have not been so bothered by the crack in the wall and the mismatched blinds.
The room was empty and white with cheap plastic chairs that squeaked on the bleached floor. There were posters covering every available wall, stuck up with cheap tape. Some had probably been bright once upon a time, but were now faded from the sun streaming through open windows. Others were ripped and curling up at the edges, hiding whatever words were printed on the bottom inch.
The only saving grace was that he was alone. Blissfully and peacefully alone. There were no screaming children, no woman in the corner shouting into her phone or man sounding as though he were coughing up a lung like there had been when he’d been in a few days before. Tony had had his blood taken and had peed in a cup then, and spent the next few days sat anxiously awaiting a phone call that had summoned him to go in to be given the results. Not that he had needed them.
He’d known what was going on with him from the start. Though he’d always been careful, that clearly wasn’t a guarantee that nothing would happen because Tony had spent the last two weeks hunched over a toilet. He’d thrown up all of the weirdest combinations of foods he’d been craving, things like peanut butter and pickles, or fried egg and grated chocolate. Add that to the mood swings, the sore areas of his body, and a definite rounding of his stomach, and Tony knew he had grounds to panic.
“Tony Stark?”
Tony startled and his thoughts cut off as he looked up to see a nurse in the doorway of an examination room.
“Mr. Stark?”
“Yes,” Tony rubbed his hands on his thighs and stood up. “Yes, that’s me.”
His stuttering earned him a soft smile from the woman in scrubs and Tony felt something loosen ever so slightly in his chest. There was no judgment, no dark look of disappointment. He didn’t know why that’s what he’d been expecting, but to not be on the receiving end of it was a whole new feeling of relief that could have knocked him off his feet.
“Come on through, love. Let’s get you checked out.”
Following her blindly, Tony was pleased to note that the examination room was nicer than the waiting room. He felt less like the was waiting for the gallows with the brighter colours and a colourful curtain around a surprisingly comfortable-looking bed.
“Right then, Mr. Stark,” the nurse said, taking a seat at her desk and gesturing for Tony to hop onto the bed. “I’m Nurse Rogers.”
Tony couldn’t help the humourless laugh that passed his lips. “Ironic,” he muttered and the nurse’s brow furrowed.
“I’m sorry?”
“Nothing,” Tony hastened to say, waving his hand through the air. It was just a name, after all. “Just seems to be a common name these days.”
“Well,” Nurse Rogers said, “I like it, at least. So, what can I do for you today?”
As stupid as the question was, Tony found that he couldn’t roll his eyes. Nurse Rogers was just too nice. Her eyes were kind and, dare Tony say, motherly as she smiled ever so gently.
“I’m pregnant.”
The smile on Nurse Rogers’ face didn’t dip at all. “Okay, my lovely. Pregnant for sure, or just a hunch?”
Tony bit back a curse. “For sure,” he said. “I’ve taken the tests, but I knew. Even without coming here.” He looked down at his lap, picking at the skin around his nails. “You just know, you know?”
The nurse’s smile was impossibly gentle when she answered with a soft; “yeah. I know.”
There was a brief moment of silence before Nurse Rogers clapped her hands and reached over for a clipboard on her desk. She turned a page or two before she turned it round, not that Tony knew what he was reading.
“Well, lovely, I can confirm for you that you are indeed pregnant. Congratulations.”
Tony let his head fall back and he blinked a few times, swallowing as he did so. Pregnant. Really, genuinely pregnant. He’d known, of course, just like he had said. But there was something about having somebody else say it out loud that made it that much more real, having the words printed out on an official-looking document held in the hands of a nurse.
Pregnant. Having-a-baby sort of pregnant. Not that there was any other way to be pregnant, but still. It was real. Definitely and a thousand percent real.
He lost himself in his thoughts for a moment, only realise that he’d been silent for so long when he heard his nurse speak again.
“Not good news?”
A sniff and a laugh. “For me, it is,” Tony said truthfully, warmth flooding his chest. He looked back at his nurse and mustered up a smile. “For me.”
“Alright, Mr. Stark. I’m glad to hear that. Now, I’m going to–”
“Tony,” he interrupted quickly. “Please call me Tony.”
“Of course, darling,” Nurse Rogers continued smoothly, as though nothing had happened out of the ordinary. She seemed like the sort of person that could never be fazed by anything, and Tony already admired her.
“So, I’m going to need you up on the bed please. Shuffle up so that your shoulders reach the top – yes, just like that, thank you – and shirt up around your chest. There will be a few questions I need to go over with you, but let’s see if we can find ourselves a baby, shall we?”
Tony let out a sigh full of nerves. He wriggled a little, reminding himself over and over again that he was doing it all for the little hitchhiker in his stomach. It would all be worth it in the end – though he hoped and prayed that the external examination would be able to find the baby and that the rest of his clothes could stay on.
“Alright, Tony. Bladder full?”
After his college days, it took a lot to embarrass Tony so he just winked and nodded with no flush on his cheeks.
Nurse Rogers smiled widely, shaking her head a little. “Then let us get a baby.”
The gel was just as cold on his stomach as Tony had always heard it would be. He winced involuntarily at the chill and Nurse Rogers looked up with a rue smile.
“Yes, we’re sorry about that. It’s all to do with masking waves, which is why it has to be cold, but why no one has invented a way to make it work at room temperature, I’ll never know.”
Despite the rising taste of bile in his throat, Tony managed some sort of smile. “I’ll work on it.”
Nurse Rogers matched his smile. “Thanks. Now, it will take a while to form this picture,” she said, starting to move the wand across Tony’s stomach. “Is there anything you’d like to talk about while we wait?”
Tony huffed. “Are you a therapist as well as an OBGYN now?”
Nurse Rogers laughed lightly and Tony couldn’t be mad. “No, darling. Just couldn’t help but see the look on your face.”
Tony knew what she was talking about. He knew the same look, had seen it in the mirror every morning for the past few weeks. Probably even longer than that, if he was being honest with himself. It was a sad sort of cross between resignation and sorrow. He’d brought it all on himself, but he still couldn’t keep the pain away.
With his shirt up around his chest and back lying flat against the bed, it was clear to see that there was already a bump forming over his stomach. It was one that Tony knew wouldn’t be able to be blamed on takeaway and cheap beer, despite Tony’s best efforts. There was also a horrible feeling that Tony shouldn’t be there on his own.
He was already failing at being a parent and he was barely months in.
“Bet you don’t get many people in here alone, do you?” Tony asked, his gaze moving from his stomach over to settle on the wall, eyes straining to read the hygiene posters above the sink in the corner.
“More than you’d think, actually,” Nurse Rogers said lightly. “And I did most of mine alone.”
Tony’s eyes shot back to his nurse, only to find her looking at the screen as she moved the wand a little more.
“My Grant was such a wonderful man and a loving father, but he was stationed away for much of my pregnancy.”
Tony suddenly felt exposed. Though it was his shirt lying up round his shoulders and his swollen stomach on display, it felt like his whole chest had been cut open. Even knowing there was no way she could, Tony had the strangest feeling that his nurse could see right inside of him.
“You had someone, though,” Tony said, turning away again to read – but not absorb – a poster about the important of washing one’s hands after an injection. “You weren’t alone.”
There was that damned smile again, turned on Tony. He could feel it against the side of his head. “Well, there must be someone. You can’t have done this to yourself.”
Tony scoffed. “Yeah. There was someone.” He sighed, the bitterness falling from his voice. “There was a wonderful someone.”
Nurse Rogers turned her gaze back to the computer at her side and Tony breathed a little easier. “And they’re not here?”
The way she said it was so careful, asking without being invasive and giving Tony the freedom to answer with as much or as little as he wanted.
“No,” Tony said. That was all he was going to share, he told himself. He didn’t know this woman and she didn’t know him. There was no need to say anything more. “He doesn’t know. That I’m here, I mean. Or that there’s a reason for me to be here in the first place.”
Silence. Tony swallowed. “Is that bad?”
“No, Tony.” With a soft smile, Nurse Rogers turned back to him and Tony felt his shoulders relax. “You have to do what’s right for you and your baby first off. I’d think about the other father, but I’m not going to tell you that you have to tell them.”
“Baby comes first,” Tony repeated softly, his gaze dropping down to where his nurse’s hand was still dragging the wand around.
“And speaking of,” she said, “the picture is formed. Are you ready to see your baby?”
No. Of course Tony wasn’t ready. Was anybody ever meant to be ready to see their child for the first time? All he could think about was how much could go wrong, how badly he could mess up, how–
Wow. Tony’s mind went blank when his eyes moved involuntarily and focused in on where Nurse Rogers was pointing something out on the computer screen.
It was nothing, really. It was a blob roughly the size of a jelly bean. The picture wasn’t even clear. It was black and white and so ridiculously grainy that Tony couldn’t see clearly.
Oh. Actually, the reason he couldn’t see clearly was because of the tears in his eyes.
“Wow,” he said, voice breaking on the short words. “That’s…”
“Your baby. Right here.”
Tony fell silent again, just taking it all in. That was his baby. His child. A whole little person living inside of him, ready to grow and stretch and make his body do all kinds of weird things. Nine months of his baby inside of him and then eighteen years of them living in Tony’s house.
Somehow, it already didn’t seem like long enough.
Seeing it on a screen wasn’t enough either. Tony wanted to reach out, to trace the tiny image with his fingers and try and feel what little extra he couldn’t inside of him.
After a long moment, he licked his lips. Shit. He was having a baby.
“Steve would love this,” he breathed out.
Tony jolted out of his awe when Nurse Rogers jumped and the wand on Tony’s stomach slipped violently, gel reaching further down than Tony had prepared for and making him shout.
“Oh, goodness me. Sorry, darling,” she said quickly, shaking her head as she grabbed a tissue from behind her to wipe away the gel that had gotten onto Tony’s jeans at the movement.
Tony blinked a few times, hands clenched into fists at his sides. Suspicion coloured his voice when he spoke again. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Sorry, Tony. I don’t know what – well. Let’s find baby again, shall we? Oh, here we go.”
Tony settled back down onto the examination table, eyes still on his nurse for a moment before they wandered back to his baby.
They felt silent again as Tony let his eyes rake over every single cell of his baby’s form. He wanted to memorise everything, so that he would be able to work out all of the changes he could spot at the next scan.
All too soon, it was over and Tony’s nurse started to move again, breaking the spell.
“Steve?” Nurse Rogers said, her voice light as she took the wand away from Tony’s stomach and turned back to her station.
“Hm.” Tony untucked the paper towels that had been stuffed under his jeans for protection and started to wipe down his stomach. “That’s my – well. The other dad.”
“Oh.”
That was all Nurse Rogers said. There was no need for Tony to spill his guts, no need to keep the conversation going at all. He could have left it and gone home.
“Hm. His name was Rogers, too, ironically enough.” Tony let out a tiny laugh as he balled up the paper towels in his hand. “Think his mom was a nurse, but I’m pretty sure she lived in Massachusetts, not here. And she didn’t do babies, thank God.”
Nurse Rogers laughed too, and Tony didn’t pay enough attention to the sound to hear the strain there.
“We were together.” One day Tony would listen to the voices in his head that told him to stop talking. “We were a thing for a few months. I don’t know how serious it was for him, but I never did anything with anyone else. He was lovely. He was everything.”
Tony set the paper towels down on the edge of the bed and wriggled to do up the button of his jeans. It was already a bit of a struggle and he dreaded having to go shopping for new clothes.
“He’s a firefighter.” Tony wished he could stop talking, but he couldn’t. He hadn’t spoken about Steve for a while and it appeared that it had been building up inside of him. “It’s a dangerous job and it used to make me a bit crazy. Still does. We haven’t spoken for about four weeks, but I can’t stop listening to the scanners. He used to tell me not to do that when we were together, you know? I’d lie in his bed when he went out, or I’d be at home and hear something and I’d text him. Probably a bit too frantically, but I.” Tony coughed and flicked away a stray drop of gel from his jeans. “Didn’t want him hurt.”
There was a freckle right in the middle of Tony’s belly. He focused in on it, wondering if it was going to stretch with his bump. “Still don’t. Now, I keep wondering if they’d put something out if something were to happen. Would I ever know?”
“You can’t think like that.” Nurse Rogers finally turned around and took Tony’s discarded paper towels in her hand, her head ducked to try and catch Tony’s gaze. “Trust me, Tony. I’ve been there. It’ll eat you up.”
“That’s what Steve used to say.” Tony picked at the hem of his t-shirt once it was back down and covering him, hiding that tiny freckle. “But all I can think is what if something does happen? I wouldn’t know – who would think to tell me? And he’d never know about…”
Tony licked his lips and flattened his hand over his bellybutton, fingers splayed. “About his child.”
“Well,” Nurse Rogers said after a moment, “if that’s something that is really, deeply bothering you, doesn’t it tell you something?”
And damn it, but she made a good point.
“Would he be angry?”
Tony laughed as he swung his legs around until he was sitting on the edge of the table instead of lying back on it. “I don’t think Steve is capable of ever getting angry,” he said. “He’s far too kind for that. Especially not about this sort of thing.”
“Then why the hesitation?” Christ. Nurse Rogers really could have been a therapist.
“I left him.” Tony hated the words that left his mouth, however true they were. “I don’t even know why, but I did. Things were serious and I loved him. I wasn’t sure how he felt about me, I don’t think. That might have been it.”
“Did you panic?”
Tony huffed a self-depreciating laugh. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’m very good at that.”
Nurse Rogers smiled and reached out to cup Tony’s hand for a brief moment. “There’ll be a lot of panicking in your future, lovely. It might be easier to have someone to share it with.”
“Yeah?” Tony stroked his thumb over his stomach. “Steve was always good at talking me down. I’d work myself up into these states and wouldn’t sleep until I’d finished whatever I was working on and he was always ready to come and drag me back to bed. My job’s pretty crazy, sometimes. Long hours. He would come and find me, or bring me coffee if he knew I couldn’t leave. Always thought he was too good for me. He disagreed, but he was.”
Tony sniffed and looked over to the wall again, re-reading the poster of child CPR. He was only a few months pregnant and he could feel the changes in his emotions and his willingness to share already. It was going to be a long road ahead. Tony wasn’t sure he was ready for that side of things.
“Well,” Nurse Rogers said, shuffling back to her work station and shifting the atmosphere in the room. Her voice sounded a little choked up, but Tony was sure that he was projecting. “He sounds like a lovely young man.”
“He was.” Steve was the best man that Tony had ever known, and he was the biggest fool in the world for walking away.
“You’re going to need a picture for him, aren’t you?”
“Right.” Tony nodded and took his hand away from his stomach, folding them in his lap instead. “Two copies then, please.”
“Only two?” Nurse Rogers asked as she typed something into her computer.
“Yes,” Tony said and then thought. “Well, no. Three, if I can, actually. There’s only me and Rhodes, now. My best friend. He’s stationed away, but I can send it in the mail, couldn’t I?”
Nurse Rogers smiled at Tony over her shoulder. “I think that would be lovely, Tony. Three copies coming up.”
Tony thanked her when they were printed off and with him, but he couldn’t take his eyes from the photo in his hands. Of course he’d known he was pregnant, but actually seeing the proof in his hands was something else entirely. There was something growing inside of him.
A child. There was a whole little person inside of him, half of Tony and half of Steve Rogers.
No matter how many times he repeated it, it seemed as though it wasn’t quite sinking in. It didn’t seem real, didn’t feel like Tony was allowed it.
“It’s too early to see too much,” Nurse Rogers teased, a smile in her voice as Tony was pulled back to reality. “Just a bit of a blob.”
Tony laughed, though it was a little forced. “Just trying to picture it. Never imagined having kids when I was younger, but now it’s time to think about it, I guess. Reckon it’ll be blonde or brunette? I can never remember if hair colours are dominant genes or not – biology sucked at school. I always wanted to blow things up instead.”
“Pot-luck,” Nurse Rogers said softly, clearly picking up on Tony’s hesitance. “You could probably work out the eye colour, though.”
“Blue,” Tony answered immediately. He didn’t need to think about that, not for a second. It was all he’d imagined since the first time he’d hunched over the toilet and thrown up his breakfast. A tiny bundle with bright blue eyes, that’s what he wanted. “Steve’s were blue. That’s the dominant one, right? God, I hope so.”
“Yes,” Nurse Rogers said, voice impossibly gentle. “Just like mine.”
Tony looked up again and smiled. “Oh, yeah. So they are. What a beautiful colour.”
Nurse Rogers threw her head back in a laugh when Tony shot her a wink. “Oh, you charmer. Go on, get out of here. You need to get yourself out to a coffeeshop. Treat yourself to something sweet and chocolatey.”
“Is that the pregnancy version of Dutch courage?”
“Exactly.” Nurse Rogers smiled, blue eyes shining. She clapped her hands together then and turned to grab a thick envelope, which she thrust towards Tony. “Right, my love, I’m sure you can read, but I just need to reiterate what the pamphlets say. No smoking, no drinking. Don’t paint your own nursery and stay away from strong fumes. You’re allowed 200mg of caffeine a day from now on – it’s up to you how you take it. No raw foods, please, and no hot tubs. There are more details in the pack, but I think those are the main things.”
Tony nodded, head swimming a little. He knew all of the basics, of course, but the pack in his hands was thicker than he ever thought possible. Rules had never exactly been his forte. It seemed as though there were going to be some pretty big changes in his future; more than he’d ever imagined. And a check list or two, as well.
“Hey,” Nurse Rogers said and Tony looked up at her. “We trust you, okay? It’s ultimately up to you what you do throughout your pregnancy. Only you know what your baby needs. As long as you follow the broad rules and listen to your doctor, then we’re going to have ourselves a wonderfully easy pregnancy and a perfectly healthy little one.”
There was a lump in Tony’s throat, but he did his best to swallow around it. He could do it. This was only the beginning, after all. He had an extremely long way to go until the end of the pregnancy, and then of course there was the whole problem of actually having a child.
It wasn’t going to be as easy as Nurse Rogers seemed to think it would, Tony knew that without any doubt, but he also knew that he could do it. He had to. Alone, if that’s what it was going to come to.
“See you back here in four weeks. Go out to reception and there’ll make your next appointment. Any questions?”
“Thank you.” There were more questions running through Tony’s brain than he’d ever had before. If he tried to go through them all, they’d probably be there until he went into labour. Or the kid would have already had their first birthday, celebrating it in a doctor’s office with Tony still running through his questions about the damn pregnancy. “I’m sure I’ll think of something. All the leaflets are in this pack?”
“Yes. That should cover everything in much more detail. And then anything else you want answers to, you can discuss at your next appointment.”
“Then I’m fine,” Tony said. He wasn’t, not by a long shot, but he would be. He was sure of it. One day. “Thank you again.”
Tony hopped off the examination table, wobbling a little as he straightened out, and clutched the pack of leaflets to his chest. He felt quite queasy and was definitely going to seek out a café for something decidedly – and disappointingly, disgustingly, sickeningly – non-caffeine infused.
“You take care, Tony,” Nurse Rogers said and Tony’s heart thumped in his chest. God, it had been so long since he’d had someone actually seem to care about him, especially someone so wonderfully motherly. “I’ll be thinking about you.”
//
Sarah watched the young man walk out of her examination room, his hands tightly clutching a stack of pamphlets to his chest as though they were a lifeline. He’d been a lovely man. Clearly scared, but also determined to do things right.
He’d looked almost familiar, as well, as soon as he’d walked in. Everything he had said had seemed to strike a chord somewhere inside of her and she felt as though she knew him.
It wasn’t until he’d said her son’s name that she realised.
She didn’t know how long she must have sat there, but she didn’t move until the door was pushed open again and her friend popped her head around the door.
“Sarah?” Peggy looked concerned, her brow furrowed and her cherry-red lips downturned. “You okay, love? You didn’t come back out after the exam. Everything go alright?”
“Yes,” Sarah said, a little belatedly as she blinked up at Peggy. She stood up and brushed down her scrubs. “Of course. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, darling. Are you sure you’re alright?”
Sarah nodded, though she knew it wasn’t convincing in the slightest. “That man, Pegs. That man is carrying my grandson.”
The look on Peggy’s face was almost comical. “What? Sarah, what do you mean?”
“I can’t say his name,” Sarah said, reaching out behind her to guide herself down to the chair. Her legs weren’t strong enough to stand just yet. “But he’s, he must have been with my Steve.”
Peggy gasped loudly and walked into the room, closing the door behind her and leaning her whole body weight against it. “Tony? That was him?”
Sarah looked over and nodded, reaching up to brush a few wayward hairs from her face. “Yes. He told you?”
“Never shut up about him,” Peggy said softly. “Every time I saw him it was ‘Tony this’ or ‘Tony that’. He doesn’t know?”
“No.” Sarah sniffed loudly and spun to face her desk. “I don’t know if he ever will, either. Tony wasn’t sure.”
“Oh, Sarah.”
Sarah felt Peggy hurry across the room and then her warm embrace was wrapped around her. Leaning back into the hold, Sarah reached up and held Peggy’s wrist.
“Thank you,” she whispered, voice thick with tears. She could feel them gathering in her eyes and she blinked rapidly, trying in vain to stop them from spilling down her cheeks. It wasn’t her problem to cry about, she tried to tell herself, wasn’t her place to even know what was happening to that poor man.
“It will all be okay, love. Tony will tell him.”
There was a long moment of silence before Sarah pressed her lips together, knuckles going white as she held Peggy closer. “He’d be such a wonderful dad,” Sarah said quietly. “Can’t you just imagine him, Pegs?”
Peggy’s arms tightened around Sarah’s shoulder and a kiss was dropped to her hair. “You’re not going to tell–”
It wasn’t even phrased as a question, but Sarah started to shake her head before Peggy had even gotten halfway through her statement.
“It’s not my place.”
“Oh, darling.” Peggy squeezed Sarah even harder, as though trying to mould their bodies together. “Is he coming back?”
“Yes.” Sarah sniffed and ran a delicate finger under her eye. “He should have his next appointment with Ange.”
“Not with you?”
“I can’t, Peg. I’ll change it when I go out there if it’s been put through with me already, but I… no. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
As much as Sarah wanted to rush out to the reception and search the computer for the details of Tony’s next appointment, she forced herself to lean further into her friend instead. There was no way that her moral compass would let her invade a patient’s privacy in such a way. In fact, she’d have left Tony’s appointment as soon as she’d put the pieces together, had that not alerted Tony to the fact that she knew and would have only made him more paranoid.
“You can watch him grow,” Peggy said in her gentle and soothing lilt. “That’s more than nothing, Sarah.”
“I know.” Sarah wiped her eyes again with the sides of her hands, rubbing the tears away on her scrubs. “That’s enough. And I trust him.”
“Yeah?” Peggy let go of Sarah and walked around her chair until she was standing in front of her. Resting back against the desk, Peggy met Sarah’s gaze. “Steve did a good job of describing him?”
Sarah smiled sadly and took Peggy’s hand in hers. “My boy chose well,” she said.
And he had. Though Tony had only been on her table for a short time, she’d been able to see what a wonderful man he was. Steve had clearly chosen someone perfect for him; kind, funny, caring, and so unbearably in love with him. After the break-up, Steve had closed himself off a little and refused to talk about what had happened between them. Sarah hadn’t been able to prise any details out of Steve, though she had watched for months as his smile dimmed and his shoulders grew steadily more slumped.
It hadn’t been either of their faults. She knew that much, could see that much in Steve’s expression. There was still love there. Nothing but love.
“Then he’ll do what’s best for him, won’t he?” Peggy twisted their fingers together and grinned.
“And that’s my boy,” Sarah said, “my love. That’s what’s he needs. Tony’ll see that Steve is right for him and their,” her voice broke and Peggy squeezed her hand tightly, “for their baby.”
“Of course it is. We need to let Tony see that for himself.”
Peggy smiled at her, nose scrunched up, and Sarah laughed a little as she returned the expression.
Gathering herself, Sarah looked to the ceiling. She let go of Peggy’s hand and returned to reality, letting her nurse-persona settle back over her like a familiar coat.
Even if Tony chose to go it alone, Sarah had not one single doubt that he would do the very best that he could for his child. It was her secret. If Tony chose not to tell it, then she would take it to the grave. It would kill her, but something told her that she didn’t need to worry about that.
“So,” Peggy asked, stepping back to let Sarah stand. “Did you see the sonogram?”
Sarah chuckled and straightened her scrubs. “I did. Looked just like my Steve.”