Baby Captain Widow REWRITE

Chapter 4.1: A familiar face

After spending a week in the dingy little bunker, Natasha and Steve found themselves feeling the effects of cabin fever. Having barely left the tin shack, except to get food and supplies, it was inevitable. Although that fact didn't lighten their moods at all. Tempers had shortened, and Steve found himself walking through the forest most nights, until the sky had turned inky black and the stars twinkled, returning to find Natasha drifting off into light slumber, her sleek, scarred hand clasped around her wrist.

He couldn't stand it in there, seeing his teammate suffer so in such conditions: freezing nights despite the warm and humid tempertures during the day, grime and dirt in every corner, the sounds of restless nature every evening. It's not like they hadn't endured it before, but this time the circumstances were different. This time it wasn't just them.

One morning, however, Natasha just couldn't take it anymore. She knew Steve wasn't to blame, but the guilt he was feeling and the fact that he was so unwilling to verbally share it with her, hurt her more than any knife wound, any gun-shot. "Steve," She began, standing so close to the hole in the ceiling the sunlight creeping in set her hair aglow. "We need to move on to somewhere else." Steve looked up at her, sitting on the bottom bunk, having previously been staring at the rotting floor for the past five minutes in awkward silence.

He blinked for a moment, relief flooding into him at her words. "Where would we go?" He finally asked, as she reached for the pack of ginger biscuits hanging out of their shared rucksack.

"Talk to Clint. See if we could stay for a bit. Or a while. I- We need to talk to them about what we're gonna do about..." She motioned to her stomach, still unnoticable, but time would tell the world sooner or later. Their little secret would be out.

And there would be no turning back after that.

As she took a bite out of the ginger biscuit, Steve took in all of the variables, and almost did a double take as he realised how shit she looked. Her skin looked almost like snow, and dark bags were hanging from underneath her bloodshot eyes after almost sleepless nights. How he hadn't noticed, he was astounded.

"There's not any service." He pointed out, rubbing his stubbled face with a calloused hand. God, he hand't even realised how tired he really was until now either. Was he even as good a captain as people made him out to be? Well, now that rank didn't seem to matter anymore. He had effectively been dismissed thanks to his recklessness, and questionable decisions from a year ago.

"Then we'll find some." There was a desperation lurching at him from behind those emerald eyes that seemed to overpower any counter-arguement he could've come up with. But they both knew and understood the risks that stood against them, so if she was willing to overcome them, then so would he.

"Okay." He sighed, standing up from the bed, and picked up their discarded clothes from the top bunk. "Do you think you'll manage the drive back to the main road?" She took them off him, shoving them lazily into the rucksack before zipping it shut.

"I'm not going to spend the entire journey to Clint's in a truck that smells of vomit, so, I'm gonna walk." Her stomach squirmed in agreement at the thought of that road. "Morning sickness is a bitch."

"Language." Steve muttered, taking the bag, and a pointed look, from her as they left the shack for the final time, their footsteps crunching on the forest floor. "It's a mile or two away, mind you."

"Rogers, I may be pregnant, but I'm not an invalid." She sniped, reaching into the back of the truck for Yelena's vest and slung it on over the top of her black shirt. Steve tossed the bag onto the seat where the vest had just vacated, shutting the door after them, the noise the only one in the woods, echoing through the trees.