Warnings: Miscarriage, angst, flashback to fluff, i talk about beavers too much
~~~~
"Alright, so if it's a boy? What's your pick?" Bucky asked.
"I really like Alex," you responded, reaching over to grab a napkin from the opposing side of the table.
"Okay, 'Alex'," he muttered to himself, trying to see if he liked it or not. He stuffed his sandwich into his mouth and chewed while he thought.
"Yeah, I like Alex," he said, more confidently, "And if it's a girl?"
"Alex," you said without missing a beat.
"Oh, so you want a gender-neutral name, I see," he laughed. You looked at him with fake hurt in your eyes.
"I'm kidding! I'm kidding, baby." he quickly recovered. Your hormones were going crazy, and he never knew when you were serious or not.
"I'm just messin' with you," you giggled, "I mean, yeah I'd like a neutral name, but I really just like the name, and it happens to work with both," you explained, trying not to make him feel worse by laughing, which you were struggling not to do.
You felt like you couldn't move. You wanted to yell and scream. You wanted to cry while pushing your face as far into your husband's neck as possible. You wanted this to be a dream.
You woke up with a warm feeling around your legs, and a small pain in your stomach. Assuming you had wet the bed again for the third time in your pregnancy, you got ready to get up to wash the sheets, laughing at the thought of Bucky realizing it happened again. But, when you pushed the comforter back to inspect the damage, you were only met with red stains and your face dropping.
You didn't know what to do first. Do you cry? Do you wake Bucky up?
After a few moments of consideration, you picked the latter, not feeling any emotion. You quickly took your hand and hit his back as hard as you could, nearly knocking him off the bed even though you knew he was a light sleeper.
"Bucky... Bucky!"
"What?" he asked, "did you wet the bed again? You know i-"
"Bucky," you cut him off, "I'm bleeding."
"Babe!'" Bucky shouted from upstairs. You set down the book you were reading and stood up from your comfy position on the couch.
"Babe, come 'ere!" Bucky shouted again, impatient. He was obviously excited about something.
"I'm coming!" you yelled, making your way up the stairs to your childish husband.
You made it to the tops of the steps and start looking for him, unsure of where he was. He wasn't in the bedroom or bathroom, so he must've been in either the guest bedroom or the linen closet, and you were hoping for the former.
You walked in to see Bucky standing in the middle of the room surrounded by boxes, buckets of paint, and other tools.
"What are you doing?" you asked curiously, "And how did you get all of this in here without me noticing, you would've had to pass the couch?"
"Doll, you know you're married to an ex-assassin, right? And you seemed to be so engrossed in your book, I probably coulda brought in a giraffe and you wouldn't have noticed." He explained, that last part makes you laugh and his eyes lit up when you did. He's said before, it was even in his vows, that his goal was to make you laugh, and boy did he fulfill his promise.
"Then what are you doing with all this stuff?" you asked, not really putting two and two together.
"Ummm," Bucky said, looking around the room and then back at you, "Building a nursery?" as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, which it kind of was. You gave him a funny look.
"Hon, you know the baby's not gonna be here for another 6 months, right?" You questioned. "Why don't we wait it out for a bit? We could invite Steve over this weekend! I'm sure he'd be happy to help you so you're not doing all of this by yourself." You were also planning on inviting Sam, as he'd be a huge help, but Bucky didn't need to know that.
"Well, I'm just too excited and ya know how I sometimes get ahead of myself, just," he said, looking defeated, "humor me?"
He gave you those big puppy dog eyes and knew you had to give in. How could you say no to that face?
"Fine, but grab me a paintbrush, I'm helping," you said, turning around to go put on some clothes you were willing to lose to paint stains.
You were in the passenger seat of the car with a blank expression on your face, while Bucky was on your left, sitting uncomfortably in front of the steering wheel as if at any moment he'll go into a rampage and crash the car. As that was the last thing he wanted to do and he didn't even want to be driving at that moment, he knew he had no choice.
Both of you have barely said a word since you said the words that made both of your hearts drop, besides Bucky calling the midwife only for her to inform him to take you to the hospital for a scan.
You felt bad because of the situation, obviously, you did, who wouldn't? But you felt even worse because of your reaction. You should be crying right now. Begging gods that you didn't even believe in to let your baby be okay. Let this turn out to be a big misunderstanding... or a dream! Yes, please, a dream would be much better.
Part of you felt it was because of that small chance that it was one of those crazy pregnancy symptoms that nobody ever tells you about. That there was a scientific reasoning behind it that no matter how much the doctor tried to explain it to you, and how much you smiled and nodded your head, you would never understand.
You were terrified more than anything. You thought this was crazy. Just a few hours ago you were laughing and eating dinner with your husband, happy as can be. And now you were in the car on the way to the hospital, just waiting to break down at any given moment.
You felt like you were a dam. Not one of those big mechanical ones that they build for strong wide rivers. No no. You felt like a dam that Beavers built out of sticks at the very top of the water, the waves from the stream threatening to tear down and destroy what they just spent so much time creating.
And you couldn't imagine what was running through Bucky's mind. He was deprived of happiness for so long, and just when he finally had it in his grip, it starts to slip.
You woke to a grumbling in your stomach, forcing its presence to be known. You looked over at the clock on your nightstand to see the red flashing numbers read the time: 3:24. For the past few nights, you've been waking up at around the same time for the same reason.
You looked down at your barely protruding belly and the cool metal hand that lays on top of it. You were lying on your side with Bucky right behind you, his arm wrapped around your waist, loose enough so he wasn't constricting you, but tight enough to know you were still there and safe from harm. You were only just reaching your second trimester, but he was already protective enough of you when you weren't pregnant, so you were honestly just interested in seeing how far he would go with this.
After managing to turn around in his grasp to face him without waking him up, surprisingly enough as he is the lightest sleeper you've ever known, you took a moment to admire him. He looked so cute laying there, with his hair tied back into the low bun you put it in before bed (he knew how to do it by himself, but he'd rather you do it since he always did it too loose so it always fell out by the time he woke up). His lips were slightly parted to make way for the quiet snores leaving his mouth, his chest rising and falling with every deep breath he took. He looked so peaceful laying there, and it almost made you regret waking him up. Almost.
You pushed yourself closer to him to give a few pecks along his forehead. He slightly stirred, recognizing your touch, but his eyes were still closed, implying that he was still asleep. You stopped for a second, getting a feeling of confusion as that always worked, but you weren't going to be defeated now. You leaned closer and started peppering kisses on his forehead again, but this time you made your way down his face, going along his nose, cheeks, and finally ended at his lips. You put your hand on his chest and just slightly shook him awake.
"Buuucccckkk," you dragged out his name in a whisper, not wanting to startle him awake. Finally, he took in a deep breath and slowly opened his eyes, blinking a few times to clear his vision up, then gave you a look with furrowed eyebrows.
"Are you okay?" he asked worriedly, quickly pulling himself up to lean on his right elbow, using his left to inspect you for injuries, "What's wrong? Are you okay? Is the baby okay?"
"Baby, no I'm fine, nothing's wrong," you giggled. Bucky gave you a look of relief when you laughed, confirmation that you really were okay. He thumped back down on the bed to lay next to you, wrapping his arm back around you.
"Then why did you wake me up?" he asked, almost groaning, shutting his eyes to hopefully relieve some of the tension he had in them.
"I'm hungry," you said softly, hiding your face in his neck. You waited for his response. After a couple of seconds, you heard him sigh audibly. He rolled over onto his back and put his hands over his face, rubbing his eyes.
"What do you want?" you heard the muffled voice ask you.
"Potato chips and chocolate, please," you answered sweetly, smiling greatly at him. He slowly pushed himself up and out of the bed, and made his way to the kitchen.
You sat up and leaned over to turn on the lamp at your bedside, and fluffed up your pillow. You patiently sat and waited for Bucky to return with your odd craving. It didn't seem to make sense to him, but it made perfect sense for you. Potato chips are good. Chocolate is good. So you figured they'd be good together. In other people's eyes, you may have seemed psychotic, but in yours, you were a genius.
After a few minutes, the love of your life came through the door with Bucky carrying it. He put the plate down on your lap and you started chowing down. How the saltiness of the chips blended with the sweetness of the chocolate just created the perfect flavor.
Bucky lied down on his side of the bed and watched you tear it apart. When you ate the last crunchy chip you bent over to put the clean plate on the opposite side of your nightstand so you could throw it out in the morning, and got up to brush your teeth quickly. The one downside to these early-morning cravings you were having was it meant you had to brush your teeth immediately after, as you felt as if your teeth were gonna rot if you didn't.
You walked back to the bed, and quickly put yourself under the covers and snuggled into Bucky's chest, with both a full belly and a happy baby.
You felt the car come to a stop and looked up to see you were in the parking lot of the hospital. Bucky turned the key to turn off the car and stopped for a moment, wanting to take in what was happening and what was at stake. He stepped out and trudged over to the passenger door to help you out the car and walk you into the tall building, not looking forward to the next few hours.
Next thing you know, you're in a small room getting an ultrasound. Dr. Boren gave you warm smiles when she walked in, and as much as you wanted to return it, you just didn't have it in you. Bucky gave her a small grin, but it didn't reach his eyes.
She calmly talked you through what she was doing, and now, all you were waiting on was whether your suspicions were true, if everything was fine, or, what you were most hoping for, for the nightmare to end before she said anything.
You and Bucky were staring at the screen with your baby on it, hoping and praying, that he or she was okay. You weren't even at the point where you could tell the gender yet, but you both decided that you would wait until they were born, as neither of you cared about the gender. All you were hoping for was a happy, healthy baby. Now you might not even get that.
There was an eery silence for way too long for your liking, but finally, the doctor looked at you and Bucky with a regretful expression on her face and an apology.
That's when you broke. The waves finally busted through the barrier made of sticks and logs, leaving the beavers to do nothing but watch.
As you were sitting there with your husband's arms wrapped around you, all you could think about was "What now?". You and Bucky have been trying for kids for years now. You had begun to think you were unable to conceive due to the serum running through Bucky's veins. That is until you got pregnant.
You were ecstatic. He immediately called Steve in the car on the way home from your doctor's appointment after you two received the news. You had already started on the nursery, picked names, you were already planning their tenth birthday. You got too ahead of yourselves.
And then you started thinking, "What about the beavers? What would they do after the destruction of their home?".
They try again.