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Yelena groaned into her palm, counting the millionth time she'd be an active witness to the loud noises that echoed through layers and movement that shook walls, being the result of you and Bob.
When the team was first formed, what they least expected was the two distanced and quietest members would've shared a fond connection for each other- but you really think they should've picked up on that sooner.
Bob was a sweetheart. A gentleman. All the everlasting good words in the book you could ever search for and you'd be met with the man standing in front of you like a star in the sea of galaxies. The connection was spontaneous, instant.
With a past like his, he claimed to himself that he'd never be able to stumble upon someone like you. The moments where his clothes felt too tightly wrapped around him, debilitating even. The days where getting out of bed was the biggest chore, and he felt like a disappointment not proving that things were getting better.
But they were.
And you always reminded him.
You never looked at him differently, never swore him off as a burden or something else to store in a box under your bed. He was just.. him.
He didn't come with a manual that told you how to fix him, you just cared. You listened. You stayed.
And when he realized that it ran deep through your bones, the domesticity of just choosing him, he let you in.
A click like everything had finally aligned, when his fingertips brushed yours along missions and days spent in safe houses as he guarded you with silent protection and lingered with surveillance at galas that had you pondering why every man had glanced and walked further away instead of coming forward to talk.
Nothing bordered on the edges of solely friendship anymore.
You began to say you were just unapproachable. But he changed that, too, appearing instead confidently by your side no matter what Valentina had to say; she knew better than to pry anyways, and stuck her dirty hands elsewhere than in your business.
So he sucked it up and asked you on an official date. Bouquet in hand, a play-it-cool smile stuck on his lips as he ran his hand through his hair to calm himself down. You had never said yes to anything faster.
The headlines did justice when the time came, whether you wanted them to or not- but what you shared was private. You kept it like a hidden secret, only opened when the two of you engulfed each other. You didn't do it for the audience, hell you didn't even hold hands outside of the tower when the cameras flashed and the people yelled.
It was displayed in the shared mornings and late nights. A chemical reaction of natural tendencies and the act of two people loving each other, damned til the end of time.
And with time, so came the other stuff. The longing. The yearning. The way his touch set you on fire, like a match to a flame whenever he lingered and his breath fanned overwhelmingly over your lips. It was addictive. It was passionate. It was absolutely everything.
It wasn't a plaything. It was pleasure. Connection. The highest form of getting to know one another, be attached, close, merged in ways that spoke of everything words couldn't.
With love came worship. With worship came the nights of countless hours of you beneath him, like a push and pull of bodies. It was easy- like inhaling oxygen. He was your oxygen- he surrounded you, deeply, wholly.
Bob wasn't a fan of anything quick and easy, not when he had you at his very fingertips. It wasn't a lousy hookup of bad decisions when his mind fluttered in ecstasy and temporary pleasure to pass the bad days.
It wasn't something to put off until the time came where he craved some sort of human connection again. This was pure. A tremble in his hand and a shaky exhale kind of pure.
From stolen glances to hands grazing, soon lips crashed, saliva stuck to the corners of mouths and teeth clashed one another like they finally found salvation.
And with that came everlasting trust. And.. the eventual loss of condoms. Birth control was a must. You never had a full conversation, but mutual understanding of stances that came to something further.
Take your time. Don't rush. You had the time. You didn't need to rush this.
When he trailed low and explored you like a map he was carefully putting together, mesmerized by you. Every shape and form, the mold of you together when he gave into the strong seduction of your eyes and the admiration in his turned hungrily into more.
Intently, shamelessly grappling onto you like a lifeform, cradled in your touch, scent, god it was absolutely everything to a man who once had nothing.
Sweat beading down foreheads, sticking to each other while the room began to steam and soon the lingering of sex filled it like a plea, or a promise.
Every night spent in each other's arms was almost routine, giggles and the tangling of limbs when it was over, the pillow talk and gentle succumbing of sleep laced in with the other to their side like a pillow.
The routine was paused when Bob had been selected to go on cross-country missions that required selective effort of his talents. Handpicked, given a chance to shine. You encouraged him to take it. And as he put it, to his unfortunate sake, he did.
Of course he knew it was the right thing, still, he nonetheless missed you.
Bob had left in the early morning, quiet while he sneaked out as the sun raised slowly over the horizon. He was efficient; got most of his stuff packed the night before except for his toothbrush and things like the crewneck he wore plainly, full of tears and how it looked worn from the cuffs becoming less like cuffs and more like loose strands of fabric. It unfurled, showing the beauty and reminding him of all the moments spent with you while wearing it.
That's why he knew he had to be quiet. Although you always told him he wouldn't be a burden if he did wake you, you even asked him to shake you til your eyes eventually fluttered open before he left at times, he still couldn't find himself poking the part of him to purposefully drift you away from your cozied form without the guilt.
Your legs curled into where he used to lay beside you, twitching underneath the blankets like they were hoping they'd eventually find him again, missing the natural warmth of his body. The rest of you was peaceful. Hands on his waist replaced with a cheeky pillow, face delicately displayed as though you had no worries- and in sleep, you didn't, comfortably beside your boyfriend.
Since sleeping together, you found yourself having the sweetest of dreams- whether it be cute dates or wet dreams, they always travelled back to him. No more fights. No more blood. Curling of fists and the raised voices of men unfamiliar and dangerous. Just Bob flying around every inch of your mind that put an unconscious smile on your face that made him smitten in return.
The little moments like these were the ones that made Bob even more desperate to come home, or to not even leave at all. He'd rather pull the blanket back and slide right in against you like he had never moved, cancel this four-day wreck of info and poorly planned mission put together.
He sighed out into the quiet of the room, capturing you with his eyes one more time to ingrain it in his memory before sourly walking out to join Walker and Ava on the quinjet.
He left you a note like always, one that was rushed but always thoroughly detailed like it didn't matter if he would've been late because of it. In all honestly, he would've taken a lecture for his untimely departure because this was much more important than any sort of data and fighting. It spoke of how he missed you dearly, affirmations and cute reminders that he signed off on with a doodle that made you giggle- he swore he could hear it across the span you two were apart.
A day had passed since his departure, leaving you alone on somewhat of a vacation that came of weirdly timed sickness and tiredness that almost truly made Bob drop the mission entirely, but your begging made him reconsider, just this once- he felt something wrong, but he'd never say that.
For the fact that it would freak you out, and he didn't want to put more stress on top of the distance and your groans from the past couple of days. He wanted you easily relaxed even though he couldn't be there, only thinking of him arriving back. Was it selfish? Maybe. But did he want the love of his life focusing on anything but herself? No. Especially not when something was creeping beneath the surface yet to be revealed.
The bed sheets weren't in knots like they usually were. Instead left cold, hands reaching for someone who wasn't there while moaning into the balled fists of your hands at the realization of absence.
"Bob" you croaked out, like he'd suddenly appear at the flick of your fingers if he heard your voice. Which, frankly, he would've if he had known.
With resentment you rose, muscles slow and weirdly aching in a way that should've been familiar when sore, yet no reason to feel such a way when you hadn't entered the gym in a good week.
You groaned when the shower curtain creaked open, the door weirdly annoying as you entered, immediately softened by the warm sprinkles of water drenching you. The room steamed easily, humming in the way you felt like everything from aches and sudden exhaustion left your body temporarily, only to be met with the contrast of the cold room outside of it and the symptoms coming back all the same.
Finally, you got dressed, opting for one of Bob's larger hoodies and your comfiest pair of sweatpants known to man you wore on days they deemed fit.
You made your way to the kitchen, seeing Yelena had already made breakfast consisting of toast slobbered in handfuls of butter and scrambled eggs with sausages to the side arranged for pick-up.
You scoop them onto a plate, hitting her with a thank you before plopping down into the seat beside her.
"You look pale" she comments with a perked brow. You ease your fork away from your mouth at the sudden conversation starter that definitely everyone started with at seven in the morning.
"pale?" You ask, now looking back at her with a confused face.
"Up by the bathroom sink all night and clinging to your bed while drenched in sweat pale- a little too pale..."
She stares, examining your form and taking in your seated stance. You straighten yourself up at that.
"Like a.. sick kind of pale- but not bad sick, just.. weird."
You only gaze at her as you chomp down on your food, wondering what else to say as she narrows her eyes down on you, like she's trying to catch you in a lie or you're her next target. Both are scary options.
The second the taste lands on your tongue, it's fine... at first.
Then the aftertaste.
It's absolutely revolting- and suddenly, you're rushing for the sink to empty your stomach of the one bite and whatever you ate the night before.
You're so dizzy you don't notice Yelena's already holding your hair away from your face, urging a cup of water for you to get the sickly taste out of your mouth and breathe a couple of times before insisting you're okay.
"You're definitely not okay." She rubs your back as more spills out of you, but the relief that comes quickly after is met with a pleasant sigh as you lean into the hands gripping onto the edge of the sink.
You can already tell a headache will be there later, but you're too busy trying to think just what could've elicited your stomach to be so upset with you over a breakfast you love routinely.
When you finally get up, Yelena's biting her cheek with a look that makes you nervous all the same, wondering what conclusion she's drawn up in her head.
"I- I think I know what it might be.." she states quietly. Almost regretful.
You find yourself sitting on the lid of your toilet not even ten minutes later, setting a timer, hands fidgety and leg bouncing as you await the pregnancy test that both of you have got your eyes on, though you look away from time to time.
The seconds passed sourly, every tick tempting and a tease to whatever results were under the stick.
Your mind is running rampant. Pregnant. The word echoes, good or bad you can't tell. Both scares you now. Every little thing that comes with it. The details. The bump. The care. A human life in your arms with Bob. Three and a half years towards a relationship- he wouldn't regret this... right?
"Yelena- oh fuck, I can't do it"
"Me?-"
"Please. I beg you."
She gulped, hand reaching towards the stick and clasping it with slightly shaky hands like the weight of it affected her, too.
"oh my god" she turned it over as you muttered anxiously, breath stuttering as you took in her facial expressions.
The drop in her half-smile half-fake reassurance to keep you both intact. The slack of her jaw. The stillness to her bouncy stature.
Clear red lines staring back at her wide eyes, drawing back to you then to the test again like she was making sure it was real.
"It's-
"I know," you whispered. "I know.."
Each individual finger on your hand trembled, and whether the ache in the pit of your stomach was concern or something else entirely, you couldn't differentiate.
You should've known. Period.. your period last month- you had it, then it just never came. It was late. Accidentally going off on Bob for folding a shirt a clumsy way, or putting his feet up on the coffee table, which had never even stumbled into your head before.
Since finding out the truth, you had been stuck in limbo. Between the constant shock and the conscious opening in your brain that you were sharing a life with Bob- growing a mini you, right now, in some way.
Would he be mad? Grateful? Disappointed?
You knew Bob like the back of your hand. You knew he wouldn't be anything but worried for you, yet you couldn't stop telling yourself the opposite.
The day ahead wasn't very kind either. Your mind was racing with possibilities, and still Yelena was the only one to know the truth about your delicate secret.
You began days off-settled when you stumbled into the bathroom counter loosely, lousy, like a punishment to yourself of how hopeless you had become in just a few hours.
You wanted to call- say something, anything, a hint or a clue. But you didn't. Not yet.
Everything was steady. Was.
His powers had finally been on track to become greater than what he used to stress himself to bed about, freely taking the reign and advantage of the Sentry side of his serum effects. Days spent training made him gain muscle in places that didn't have the sturdy outline til now.
Regardless of what he was doing to his body, you kissed it all the same. Skinny? You shamelessly stared him down, letting him witness how bad you truly wanted him. Lean? His freckles still littered his body all the same, looking back at you teasingly, anticipating your next move. Now a little built, not exactly muscular, but enough to see the strain against shirts just in the slightest? You praised him, again, and again, and again.
Because Bob was Bob. And he was finally in the place he wanted to be in when you had first met the shy, timid man who had snuck from the capsule that kept him in that damned one-of-a-kind furnace contraption.
When everything was going good, there came an obstacle. An anomaly in progress. You held your stomach like it was foreign.
He came back abruptly that night. Something about finishing early and great teamwork. You greeted him, hugged him all the same. Those sweet words uttered out into his ears, the relief of him being safely escorted back to your side.
Yet, everything felt different. Like while he was away, a piece had snapped off the once completed puzzle and now there was a hole.
He trusted you- that's why he knew it wasn't a someone, but a something. You both didn't have time to be doting onto random strangers, especially since he knew your homebody tendencies. That made him snort to himself.
Though the distance you had accidentally formed between the two of you didn't help. You were slipping, and fast. When the tears poked at your eyes and you turned the bathroom light on, flicking the fan as a decoy. He could sense the stutter of your soul.
He tried not to, he really did. But he couldn't help himself in taking a peak inside of you.
His eyes rimmed with the brightness of gold, unintentional abilities coming to life in the literal blink of an eye to hear your elevated heartbeat and the harsh breathing patterns that occupied you, sending rapid shivers down your spine. Sore, soft and weirdly gentle, everything within you sent warning signs blaring towards him.
He nearly barreled himself toward you, resisting plowing into the door in an attempt to rescue what he was missing, but ended up knocking anyways to preserve the last of your privacy he left for you to voice to him.
"Everything alright, baby?" He held back a stutter, a habit grown on him when exceedingly nervous. He wanted to seem strong. Able to help. Because he didn't know what the problem was- only that maybe this would be able to fix it.
"Y-yeah" muffled, he heard the jitter in the facade.
And before he could say anything else, he felt it.
Something sickening in the air, sweet? Soothing? Whatever it was, It wasn't you. Whatever he sensed was off, and it was in that bathroom alongside you.
"I'm coming in" he'd decided, just this once it was needed.
Sentry didn't come with an off-switch. Every sense of his was suddenly very enhanced. Sensitive, almost shiveringly delicate like it was hitting his nerves and setting off alarm systems.
A faint, terribly dull sound of a second pulse. It wasn't yours-
Wasn't his.
And while sobs racked your body with the same realization, you handed him the stick with the clear red lines plastered on the front.
Pregnant.
Real.
The proof was right in front of him. He went still, for a solid second. Frozen, every muscle attempting to pull him out of the shock. And he fought, too, alongside you when he fell to the floor to hoist you into his chest, rubbing the expanse of your back while gently shushing you and helping you calm your erratic nerves down.
He looks at you. To your hands. The lines. Rubs some more.
"Let's get you somewhere more comfortable, please?" He begs, helping to lift your heaving self back into the dimmed room.
He lays you down on the bed gently, like a delicacy awaiting to be unwrapped. But you're not just a present, something to be eye candy. No, never, he's running his hand down your body with a look in his eyes. Like now that he's aware, he's had more urgency. He wants to solve you and your problems, be with you through all of it.
You'd say they're darkened, but with the shining of gold still present, they're anything but. You can't see inside his head, but if you could, you'd find the abundance of a picture laid out on a platter. You, Him, and the coos from a child in your shared arms. It flipped a switch in him. More so Sentry than Bob. The urge to protect. The urge to do every single thing for you so that you'd have the easiest time nurturing what was made in a night of passion.
That if anyone made you uncomfortable, or touched you wrongly, he'd have their head in no time.
"My little star. My own in a sea of galaxies. All because of you." He looks up at you while mumbling it, now soothing circles over a hardly-there bump.
"You've brought me.. something I never thought would set me aflame so vividly-" and suddenly, a tear was sliding down his cheek and his eyes dulled into Bob's soft, cozied look.
He was ecstatic. He wasn't showing it at the moment, but the way his breathing stilled and he felt you up, you could almost see into his head.
"Are.. are you mad?" Almost a whisper, but he's catching it immediately.
"No- god no, baby, are you crazy?" he reassures, but you glare back unknowingly.
"I- ...I'm shocked, yes. But no way in hell would I ever be mad- are you okay? Sick?"
"A little" it comes out weak, and a little pitiful. He doesn't care.
"Are you okay with all this?"
"I don't know if I'm ready-"
"neither do I- not to, um, not to discourage from you.. but when I say I really don't know what we're getting into, I mean it" you giggle lightly at that, and it makes his heart pick up like it's the first time he's looked at a pretty girl and now has butterflies.
"I just.. wanted to be good. For them. Want them to know their loved."
He grabs your hand, interlocking yours with his. "We'll do everything we possibly can. I promise" before giving you a pause to reply, he goes on,
"Would you.. would you be mad if they grew up to be like me?" It was shy, almost embarrassingly admitted to you in the shadow that loomed above him.
"Bob.."
"The good days, the bad- if they were like me-"
"I'd love them all the same." His ears perked, and a rosy tint landed on his cheeks. The warmth of it all encapsulated the two of you, stuck in the precious offering of a moment.
"There's nothing in this universe that could ever, ever pull me away from you, or the child- powers, no powers. You're it for me Bob. And they're going to be ours."
"Our little creation.." he huffed with a laugh and a soft sob, cracking under both relief and the thought of what was to come.
"Do you think I'll be a good father?" He said it innocently, like the words would crack and crumble beneath him all the same. Like he was looking back at himself in those footsteps.
"I know I can't say the words and everything will magically turn out okay- but I know this, for sure, that you are not anything like the people who raised you. You are love, and joy, and excruciatingly kinder than anyone else I've had the pleasure of placing my love on to."
You heard another sniffle, more pronounced, eyelashes starting to wet from the fresh tears stumbling down his cheeks.
"Thank you," he muttered, cupping your cheeks with his calloused hands and pressing your forehead to his.
"God I love you- what would I do without you. And now.. now I have them too. I'm the luckiest man alive" he laughed, sniffing before more beaded down, now cascading onto yours from the proximity.
"Yeah?" You nodded, echoing the same wide grin spanning across the juncture of his face.
"Yeah."