Chapter Text
Steve flipped the page of his book, wanting to read what came next. It was a wonderful afternoon in the tower, sun shining through the windows. Bucky leaned against him, toying with a lock of his hair. Peace was something neither of them had felt very often, so they savoured every second of it.
Of course, it didn’t last. Pepper came bursting through the door, looking harried as usual. Bucky sat up quickly, flipping himself over the arm of the couch.
Despite the future being infinitely more accepting than the forties had been, they were still wary of sharing their relationship with the others. Steve wasn’t so eager to start fights when he didn’t have to.
“ Have you seen Tony?” Pepper set down her suitcase and rushed the coffee maker. There was still some left, thankfully.
Steve was about to answer when he realised that he hadn’t seen Tony in a few days. “ No, not since… Thursday, maybe?” He winced. Pepper was not going to be happy about that.
“ Thursday?! That was three days ago!”
Even Bucky winced at her tone. “ Pepper, he’s probably in his lab. I’m sure it’s all right,” Steve assured her.
Pepper side-eyed him. They all knew what Tony was like in his lab.
Thankfully for all of them, Tony came waltzing in, hair askew, heavy bags under his eyes. “ Can we call a team meeting? This is important. And maybe also Pete? I think this concerns all of us. Pepper, it’s wonderful to see you!”
She kissed him, and they got into an argument about the amount of sleep he was getting, leaving Steve to summon the team.
They all came within a few minutes, thankfully. Bruce, Clint, Sam, Nat, Rhodey and Tony’s adopted son, Peter. No one else seemed to know what was going on, which was a huge relief to Steve.
Tony finished his argument with Pepper, and cleared his throat. “ All right, listen up everyone. I wanted you all here because this might be a security threat, but it doesn’t affect anyone but you.” He pointed at Steve. “ There’s no gentle way to say this, so I’ll get right to the point. You have a daughter.”
Everyone gasped, but Steve just felt numb. That was impossible.
“ How?” He croaked.
Tony laughed mirthlessly. “ Keep your pants on, Cap, ‘cause that’s not even the weird part.”
He waved a device, and a picture appeared on the television. It was of a young girl, probably of Arabic origins. Her hair fell in long dark chestnut waves, which matched her eyes. High cheekbones and thick eyebrows.
“ This is her. I found her on a DNA testing website. These last few days, I’ve been checking through every source I could find, but she really is your daughter.”
Part of Steve’s brain absorbed the words, while another was analyzing the photo. She wore a white collared shirt, and her arms were thrown around two boys who looked nothing like her. Their ruddy cheeks and pale hair filled most of the frame.
Tony made the photo disappear. “ Okay, I want everyone to listen closely, because this is important. First, she was born while Cap was frozen, on January first, 2000.”
Nat tilted her head. “ That almost sounds like a fake birthday.”
“ It does. But that’s not even the weirdest part. I can’t find documentation of her anywhere. She’s currently in England, with some folks who adopted her, but before five years ago, nothing.
“ What’s more, she’s inherited all of Cap's strength, and seemingly his cunning mind as well. Her grades are all hundreds, and she hasn’t gotten anything below that in her entire five years of school. Her genes prove it.”
Tony took a breath, and barreled on. “ And finally, she has some strange genes and chromosomes in her genome that I can’t figure out the purpose of. I had JARVIS run some models, but even he can’t figure out what they do. Thoughts?”
Everyone was silent for a minute, trying to absorb Tony’s rant. Steve was still stuck on the fact that he had a daughter.
“ It sounds like a trap,” Nat started. “ I mean, come on. How obvious can it be?”
“ True, but how was she conceived, as our dear Cap was a Capsicle at the time?”
Steve cleared his throat. “ I had my blood drawn at one point so they could try to recreate the serum. Is it possible to create a child out of that?”
Tony slouched on to an armchair. “ With some really advanced technology, yeah. But I doubt it was possible in the 1940s.”
“ I thought you said she was born in 2000?”
“ Yeah…” Tony stared into the distance. “ I can get you in contact with her. Maybe figure out what to do from there?”
“ Sure.”
Tony called her, the one photo he’d seen pulsing on the television. Steve panicked. What was he doing? He didn’t even know her name.
“ Her name is Aimra, if you want to know. It’s Arabic for woman.”
Someone on the other end picked up. “ Hello?” Called a young female voice. His daughter’s voice . “ Who is this?”
Steve sat up straighter and fixed his hair, though he knew she couldn’t see him. “ Hi, I um, got a message from the DNA place-”
“ You’re my biological father?” She cut him off. Despite apparently living in England for five years, she didn’t have a British accent.
He swallowed. “ Yes, that’s right.”
Rustling on the other end. “ Wow, that was fast. I didn’t expect a response for a few more days.”
“ Um, yeah.”
Silence. Then Aimra spoke up. “ So, what was the point of calling? You didn’t know I existed, right?”
“ Err, no. Can you remind me who your mother is?”
Tony and Nat nodded approvingly.
Aimra chuckled, though it sounded more sad than amused. “ Was. She died the day I was born. Besides, I don’t expect you to remember her.”
The words hit him right in the heart, though she said them with no particular inflection. “ I see.” He paused, debating what he was about to say. “ I’d like to meet you, if you’d be okay with that?”
Everyone was staring at him now, their eyes telling that it was a terrible idea to meet her. All but Bucky and Sam. They understood what a daughter meant to him.
“ I’d like to meet you too. Keep in touch?”
“ I will.”