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"She knows I'm not going to let her down," Bucky says. No matter how exhausted he is, seeing her face perks him right up and he hopes soon they can go home and all just be a family together. Bucky is currently trying to hold his daughter with one arm and hold Natasha's hand with his free hand; it's multi-tasking at its best.

"Can I have her just a few more minutes? I keep hoping Nat might wake up while she's here and get a chance to see her. I wouldn't want her to miss seeing her daughter," Bucky says softly. "I think it would help."

Nurse Lindie relented and handed the baby back, although she did say in gentle warning, "Not for too long, White Wolf. She needs the incubator for a good while yet, to help her breathe easier and to keep her from getting too chilled. But you hold her a little longer, I'll be right back."

Snug in her blanket and her father's arm, little Rebecca yawned, gurgled, then rested her oh-so-tiny hand atop Bucky's thumb, her small perfect fingers opening and closing, opening and closing. She blinked still-dark eyes up at her father, stared at him for a long moment, then her tiny mouth opened in a brief smile as she hiccuped, then yawned once more.

Her mother's heartbeat was still perfectly regular, her vitals holding steady within their norms. Shuri's stasis coma had shut her body down to the bare minimum, to give it time to heal without trying to over-function. They had taken Natasha off the respirator earlier, and she was now breathing on her own, a good sign, Shuri had assured Bucky.

The Princess herself came in after the nurse returned, asking the former soldier sitting at the redhead's bedside, "When was the last time you slept? I know you haven't left the room since we brought her in."

"I don't need a lot of sleep," Bucky says, waving that off. He can keep going longer than any normal man of his height and weight and he'd been a particularly stubborn man before the serum had got ahold of him. He's pretty sure he'd still be sitting here keeping watch without the biological advantage.

He's still holding Rebecca close, cherishing every little noise and squirm of her body. He doesn't want to give her back even if she needs it and he'll be happy when he can bring his whole family back home with him even if he's grateful for T'Challa's generosity.

"If she wakes up and I'm not here, Shuri, what is she going to think? She's going to think I abandoned her."

"Of course she won't," the Princess lightly scolded. "Natasha knows you would walk through fire for her, how can you believe she would think such a thing?" She made 'give over' motions for little Rebecca. "Come, give her to me. Then you get up, get a shower, and shave your face, Sergeant Barnes." Shuri took the baby from Bucky and passed her over to Nurse Lindie. "I think Natasha would much rather see you sitting here not looking like something the cheetah dragged in, don't you?"

Another tech brought clean clothes, a razor, and soap, and Shuri more or less browbeat Bucky into the nearby washroom, promising that she would stay right by Natasha's bedside until he returned, and if anything happened, she'd come drag him right out of the shower. "And you need to eat, White Wolf," she insisted in exasperation. "I know how many calories your metabolism burns on the daily. You are good to no one if you faint from hunger."

Bucky knows he needs to eat. He might have super-solider stamina but that came with a metabolism that meant he'd be burning away his muscles quicker than the average man if he didn't eat and fast. As much as he hates to leave Natasha and give Rebecca back, ultimately Shuri is right.

He goes and gets a shower and shaves, looking less like a wild animal. He has hollows under his eyes still, yeah, but a clean face and pulled back hair makes him look almost respectable. He goes to get food, protein and carb loading, and when he comes back to Natasha's bedside, he feels almost human again.

"Any change?"

Shuri put away her digital recorder and stood up from Bucky's chair as he reemerged into the room. "Nothing yet," she informed him gently, then gave him a small smile. "But you look a thousand percent more human, White Wolf. And there is food for you, so eat it."

She gestured to the small cabinet against the wall, it now laden with trays filled with snacks, sandwiches, and other plentiful dishes. "Lindie will bring the little one back to you in a few hours, so catch a nap while you can."

The Princess stepped aside and moved to the end of Natasha's bed. "You can even lie down with her, as long as you do not jostle her too much."

"I probably will. I need to eat first, though, and then I'll try to sleep. It's hard to do when I'm worried and I'm hard wired to be a soldier - I've got stamina meant to keep me on my feet much longer than a normal man. I feel so useless. There's nothing I can do to fix this. I can't fight it. I can't rescue it. All I can do is sit and wait and I hate it."

Still, he eats mechanically, knowing he needs to keep his strength up so his body doesn't start shutting down on him when he needs it the most. He needs to be strong enough for everyone.

When he's finished and Shuri's left the room, he crawls into the bed alongside Natasha, taking care not to shift her against his chest or slide an arm around her waist. "I love you, kotyonok. Pull out of this already."

When she finally drifted into consciousness, the first thing Natasha was aware of was the pain. Which, granted, wasn't anything new, considering her past and history, but she hated feeling so weak. Yet, there didn't seem to be any danger; she was warm, at least, and her muscles only protested when she tried to move, so she simply lay still for a bit to let herself come fully awake, lashes fluttering and vision blurry right at first.

Cream colored walls met her hazy eyes; the room was unfamiliar, which triggered an instinctive moment of panic, but then she heard a very familiar noise - the soft gentle snores of a certain super-soldier, feathered over her neck, and when she managed to shift her head enough, she spied her husband lying beside her, his beloved blue eyes closed and apparently lost in his own slumber.

Habit and training had her making a mental sweep of her surroundings, and Natasha finally realized she was lying in some sort of hospital bed, with Bucky asleep beside her, and there was an IV in her arm and a monitor beeping very softly on the other side of the bed. A hesitant exploration revealed a new surgical scar, this one marring her abdomen, and a surge of fear bolted through her, but she managed not to flail, as that would take more effort than she could muster presently.

She did, however, manage to slap Bucky's arm with the back of her hand, coughing when she tried to speak. "--J-James!"

Bucky had been sleeping far deeper than he normally does, the deep sleep of the exhausted, but Natasha crying out had him snapping awake and quickly taking a mental inventory of both his body and surroundings. Judging himself to be in no danger, he remembers that he'd fallen asleep alongside his ill wife and had been hoping for her to wake up.

"Natasha," he says, trying to calm her. "Natasha, please. Don't move. You had to have a c-section and you could tear stitches or god knows what. You need to rest and heal."

He takes her hand and holds it in his own, squeezing it tightly. "You're going to be all right. Rebecca's all right."

It took her a minute or so to process this information, but her free hand hovered over her stomach, it no longer round and stretched as it had been before the pains had begun. But Bucky had assured her that their baby was okay, and Natasha knew that he wouldn't be lying here beside her otherwise; he'd be taking the world apart to save their child if need be. So she exhaled a deep breath, and slowly eased back into the pillows, tilting her head to rest it against her husband's shoulder.

She still hurt, but at least now she knew why, although she did manage to squeeze Bucky's hand back, just a little. It took her a moment to speak - her throat was so scratchy - but she finally managed to whisper, "...where is she?" She wanted her baby. The precious miracle she'd risked her life to have, the one gift she'd desperately wanted to give the man lying beside her.

"NICU. She had some trouble breathing so Shuri has her in the incubator as a precaution. It looks bad, I'll warn you, but I've had her out and held her a couple times and she's a fighter," Bucky assures her. "I think she's going to be fine once her lungs develop a little more and she has her mom."

He strokes his fingers idly through Natasha's hair, just thankful she's awake and seemingly herself. He's been running on pure adrenaline the past few days and now with both of his girls accounted for, he thinks he can rest a bit without guilt.

"She's beautiful, you know. Just like her mother."

Hearing that her baby was in the intensive care unit initially froze Natasha's heart, but it only made since, since Rebecca had been born very nearly three months early. But Bucky's reassurances went a long way towards thawing that fear, and Natasha let herself relax against him again, tilting her head into his stroking hand with a sigh.

Letting her eyes close, Natasha shifted slightly, getting a bit more comfortable, and had to huff a small smile at Bucky's commentary. "And her dad, too," she reminded him with a light, gentle nuzzle. "I bet she looks just like you, doesn't she?" Opening her eyes slightly, she gazed up at her husband.

"When will I be able to see her?"

"There's a lot of me in her, yeah. She might end up looking more like you as she gets older but right now, she definitely has my coloring. Maybe she'll have your personality and we'll have to lock her in a tower until she's thirty," Bucky jokes.

"She's a little fighter and she's got one hell of a scream when she's not happy. Her hair is dark, like mine, and she has blue eyes and perfect little eyelashes. There's nothing more beautiful I've seen in my entire life. Present company excluded, of course."

Bucky strokes his hand through his wife's hair, trying to soak up her love for his sake as much as hers.

"I'll fight with Shuri and get her down here so you can hold her, all right?"

As it turned out, "fighting" with Shuri wasn't really necessary, as Steve checked in about a half hour later, and promised to sit with Natasha while Bucky hustled out to find the Wakandan princess. Natasha sent her husband off with a fond smile, a soft kiss, and a fervent promise to stay right here, chuckling under her breath as the once-most feared assassin in all the world hurried out and galloped down the hall.

"Glad to see you awake, Red," Steve said after the door closed behind his best friend, leaning back in the chair with a warm smile at the redhead.

Natasha blew out a breath, rolling her eyes a little wryly. "You and me both," she quipped, taking his offered hand in a fond embrace. "Gotta say, I was having serious second thoughts about this whole 'motherhood' business, if this is how it's gonna go." She shifted, winced, and settled back, grumbling lightly under her breath.

Steve made to help her, but she waved him off, and he sat back on the edge of the chair, lightly admonishing. "Hey, you're a trooper, the strongest person I've ever known, you'll bounce right back, Nat, promise." She made a face at him, earning his low chuckle. "Stuff it, Rogers," Natasha retorted grumpily. "Your sanctimoniousness makes my teeth ache sometimes."

Steve just laughed again, and by the time Bucky and Shuri came back into the room, both old friends were sharing their odd mirth back and forth.

"I have someone who hasn't met you yet," Bucky says, a tiny pink bundle in his arms. Is it cliche to dress his daughter all in pink? Absolutely and he'd been given a tongue lashing for it from Shuri but he didn't care. It's how things are now, traditionally, and he and Steve had always grown up in hand-me-downs. His daughter is going to have nothing but brand new clothes and more of them than she could ever possibly wear before growing out of them.

He gets close enough to sit on the edge of the bed and gently eases Rebecca into Natasha's arms, careful not to inadvertently press against her where she's still healing from surgery, and he hopes Rebecca is in a good mood and cooperates for this visit.

"She's got the prettiest blue eyes I've ever seen," Bucky says, more proud of this than anything he's done in his entire life. "Your nose, which is probably a good thing, my hair, not sure about the height..." he rambles, unable to get everything out that he cares about and loves about this kid.

Natasha abruptly broke off with Steve as the door opened, and Bucky stepped in with a small pink-blanketed package cradled in his arms, and her throat suddenly closed, eyes widening. Her daughter. Their daughter. Then Bucky was sitting down beside her and leaning near to give her the bundle, and Natasha's eyes suddenly filled with tears as she, for the first time, cradled a child of her own in her trembling arms.

"...James..." she absently hear herself whisper, fighting back the strong urge to just sob into his arms as she gazed down at the tiny girl, instantly memorizing her small, perfect features. Rebecca yawned, gurgled, and reached a little hand upwards, and Natasha leaned her cheek into that feather-light touch, feeling her gut clench for an altogether different reason, this time.

She cradled Rebecca against her, murmuring softly in her mother tongue, "Hi, my sweet darling. I'm your mommy, and this big, silly giant here is your dad. We're going to take care of you, pretty girl, because you're the most precious thing either of us could ever have." Natasha looked up from her daughter to her husband, crystal glistening on her cheeks. Pulling him close with one hand, she whispered, "I love you," in Slavic, followed by, "She's so beautiful, James. Thank you."

Seeing Natasha hold their daughter affects Bucky more than he thought it would and his words are caught in his throat for a moment. When he's finally able to say something, though, it comes out in Russian instead of English and he presses a kiss against Natasha's temple as he says the words.

There's nothing more beautiful than seeing you get to hold her, he says, his own throat choking up on him. I was hoping you would pull through and I worried I'd never get to see this. I was afraid I'd never have this.

It's something he'd written off for himself and he'd tried to satisfy himself with living here in Wakanda and mentoring children. He's still going to do that, no question, but a child of his own blood is something so special that he doesn't know if he'll ever cease to be awed by it.

Steve, watching his two best friends and their small family, smiled around his own tears, and gave Shuri a gentle nudge with one elbow. The Princess flashed him a grin, no less happy. "It is remarkable," she said in a low voice, gazing at her three patients. "The little one was born three months early, and in less than seventy-two hours, is already almost strong enough to not be needing the incubator anymore."

The former Captain grinned. "Yeah, but look at her parents, Shuri. Both of them are the strongest people I've ever met." Shuri acquiesced the point, shrugging one shoulder. "That is true, yes. I've analyzed the baby's DNA, as well, and it's very similar to the Sergeant's. More complex. Resilient." She quirked an eyebrow up at the tall soldier. "Apparently the serum you both were given passes itself along in the hereditary chain. Might want to remember that if you ever consider having kids, Captain."

Steve chuckled a little wryly and shook his head, crossing his arms. "Ohho, no worries there, Princess. I'm a long way off from settling down and becoming a family man." But his eyes softened as he looked back at Bucky and Natasha. "But I'm glad they can, though. They've more than earned it."

Bucky overhears Shuri but it doesn't process, not just yet. Right now he's too focused on his family. One of the things he's most fascinated about is the fact that Rebecca's hands are so tiny that he can barely even see her fingernails; how can one little girl be so small?

"I don't know how to contain all the feelings I have for the two of you. I spent a long time locked away from my feelings," he explains. "I wasn't allowed to have them and when I was, they recalibrated me. I didn't know I still had this much capacity to feel."

It seems the USSR and HYDRA couldn't take that from him after all. He's felt deeply for others, yes, but this is like a dam has loosed.

Natasha too was lost in her fascinated contemplation of her daughter, leaning against her husband as she held the small girl close. She rested her temple against his cheek as he spoke, turning her head to softly kiss the corner of his mouth. "I love you," she said simply in their shared language, "and so does she." She watched, enraptured, as little Rebecca's hand slowly closed around Bucky's left thumb, and gurgled happily. "Look," Natasha smiled, "she knows you already."

The baby opened her eyes, looked at both of her parents, and her tiny mouth parted in a huge grin, and she cooed happily, wiggling back and forth. "She's perfect," Natasha mused, brushing Rebecca's tiny cheek with one finger. "And God, she looks just like you, it's almost scary."

"Probably going to wish she looked more like her Mom when she gets older," Bucky jokes. They're probably only getting this one chance at a biological child and he hopes that as Rebecca gets older, more of Natasha shows in her. Right now, though, she's Barnes through and through.

Feeling her hand close around his thumb makes his heart stop a bit and when he looks at Natasha, his eyes are soft and shining a bit with unshed tears. All the emotion he'd kept locked in while Natasha was ill and Rebecca was in the incubator seems to be coming out now and he's glad he's alone with his family for the moment.

"I never get emotional like this," Bucky admits. "But this is too much for me, I think. I don't think I've ever felt this many things at once - fear, joy, panic, love. It's all crashing around in my brain and I don't know what to do with it all."

Natasha laughed softly, not even looking up when both Steve and Shuri drifted out, the door closing quietly behind them. "You're entitled to be emotional, James," she told him with a fond smile, cradling the tiny girl's head to her to kiss her small forehead. "She's your daughter. Come here, lie down with me."

She inched over to give Bucky more room, carefully situating the baby between them, cushioned on one of their arms each. Natasha settled against Bucky's chest, watching with her own small yawn as Rebecca yawned just then, and gurgled quietly to herself, tiny hands and small socked feet waving back and forth.

"I think it's normal to feel all of that right now," the redhead mused, admitting, "I'm sort of feeling the exact same way, so at least you're not alone, da?"

"No, not alone, though there was a little while there that I thought I was going to be a single dad and I didn't know how that was going to pan out. I'm pretty terrified I'm going to be a bad father but at least with you to help, I'm a little less scared. If it was just me alone? I'd be helpless."

The light weight of Rebecca against him is a tangible reminder that he is a father and they have a miracle on their hands. He gives Natasha the kind of smile that should only be seen behind closed doors and he hopes no one else is around to catch him looking like this.

"You did pretty good, Nat. I couldn't imagine a better gift than this baby girl and I know you're going to be a damn good mother. You couldn't be anything but because you're tough as nails but you're all soft underneath."

Natasha rolled her eyes in amusement; Bucky always tended to babble whenever he felt out of his depth, or off balance. A defense mechanism, she supposed, from the days when he wasn't allowed to express anything at all. But it was endearingly cute, most of the time, but this time, she placed a finger over his lips with a glance down at their child, who was yawning again and settling down in her blanket and her father's strong arm for a nap.

"I'm not going anywhere, soldier," she assured him, placing a gentle kiss to his clean-shaven cheek. "So just hold us while we nap, da?" She nestled down closer, craving his warmth and closeness. "'cause I'm tired all of a sudden..."

Natasha kissed her daughter's smooth cheek and rested her head against Bucky's chest, closing her eyes. For the moment, all was well in the world; her husband held her and her child, they were safe, and more importantly, together. She could rest, and rest easy.

"Fine, fine. I guess I could use the sleep too," Bucky says good-naturedly. He'd had a decent amount of sleep the night before but the pull of Natasha and Rebecca's warmth lulls him to sleep soon enough. There's a contentment there that Bucky doesn't think he's felt in a long time and possibly ever.

When he wakes up, it's because Rebecca's starting to fuss a little. She's squirming against his chest and there's little noises that sound like they're going to segue into a full-blown cry any time now. He eases himself out of bed with Rebecca in his arms and carries her a bit, bouncing her in his arms to try and soothe her.

He sticks his head out the door to find a nurse and tells her that he thinks Rebecca's hungry. "I don't know if Natasha can breast feed or if she wants to but my kid's hungry...I think, anyway...and I want to do something about it before she wakes Nat up." The nurse checks the chart and indicates that because of her weight, Rebecca's on a supplemental formula and that they can bring him a bottle to feed her.

"Here that baby girl? Daddy's going to take care of it, all right? Don't you worry."

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