Love's New Hope

Reasons

Natasha opened her eyes and found herself strapped to a hospital bed.

"So you finally decide to wake up." A familiar sneer comes into focus.

"Galensky." Natasha spat. Her old tormenter's face was a familiar, though unwelcome, sight.

Galensky just smirked and traced a finger down Natasha's rather large stomach. "It appears everything is going according to plan..." he murmured.

"According to plan?" Natasha asked, shocked. "The Red Room tried to avoid this! You guys tried to sterilize me! How could this be your plan?" She felt sick. Something didn't add up.

Galensky laughed, a horrible rattly sound. "Oh, Natasha. You always were naive. We've wanted this since you came under our control. The child world's two greatest assassins? How powerful do you think this child will be, with his parents strengths passed down to him? We can train this child to be unstoppable."

"But the ceremony..."

Galensky waved her question aside like an annoying fly. "Simple. Both you and the Soldier possess super soldier serum in your veins. We simply made it so that you could only have children when these two serums met. Has to do something with the healing component of it." He shrugged. "I never quite understood that part. But either way..."

Natasha struggled against her bonds, but she didn't have the strength to break them. "How did you know that James and I would hook up?"

"Tsk tsk, Natasha, do you honestly think that we don't know the history between you two? When Barnes finally broke, HYDRA managed to retrieve memories of his. You were in there quite a bit. So it was only a small matter to grab you on that last mission and the rest, as they say, is history."

Natasha bit back a scream. How much of this had they planned? Obviously they hadn't planned to keep Bucky as the Winter Soldier forever, instead using him and her to ... breed a generation of super soldier assassins.

"What about me?" Natasha finally whispered, though she knew the answer.

Galensky smiled. "Well you have one of three options. One: we kill you and no one ever knows what happened. Two: you're wiped and used as an assassin again."

"And three?" Natasha asked quietly.

"Three: we torture you until your body is barely recognized as human and when you finally die, we send your body to the Avengers, and tell them that they truly failed this mission."
*
Bucky grimaced as the video ended. They'd been home for a few days by now and Natasha was currently sleeping upstairs. The rest of the Avengers, it seemed, had already seen the video and wanted Bucky to see it.

"Where did you find this?" Bucky asked quietly.

Wanda shrugged. "We downloaded all of their files, even the encrypted ones. This was among them."

Bucky sighed and ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. "What kind of torture do you think they put her through."

Steve put a comforting hand on Bucky's shoulder. "Not too much. They needed her in good condition to comfortably carry the baby, and they wouldn't risk damage to the kid."

Bucky nodded miserably. "I just wish we'd found her sooner."

"At least we found her." Clint said firmly. He, Laura, and the kids had moved to the Tower until after Natasha gave birth. Partly for moral support and partly so that Clint and Laura could take a turn watching Natasha so that Bucky didn't drive her crazy.

Bucky sighed. "Yeah, I guess." With Natasha nearing the eight month mark, everyone was noticeably more on edge. "Where is everyone?" Bucky asked with a slight frown.

"Loki and Darcy are planning some 'prank to end all pranks." Steve said tiredly. Loki and Darcy had gotten ridiculously competitive about their pranks and had recently teamed up against Tony and Bruce, who claimed to be the best pranksters ever. Well, Tony did. Bruce just went along with it because he didn't have a choice.

"Vision went to Wakanda for some reason." Wanda added.

"Rhodey and Sam are at some military thing." Clint put in.

"Tony and Pepper went to the doctor because Pepper isn't feeling well." Steve rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Thor is visiting his people, Bruce is doing science-y stuff, and Tessa found Tony's scotch."

Bucky sniggered. "Tony's gonna love that."

Clint chuckled. "That girl does have a nose for alcohol."

Bucky smirked. Tessa and Tony seemed to be in a competition of which one could consume the most alcohol, though Tony had calmed down on it when Pepper told him to.

"You doing anything this afternoon, Buck?" Steve asked.

Bucky shook his head. "Jus keeping an eye on Tasha if she doesn't get into a mood and try to shoot me."

Clint grinned. "Laura used to do that."

"How bout we head down to Central Park for a while?" Steve said nonchalantly. Bucky, however, heard the hope in his friend's voice. They really hadn't done much together since Natasha came up pregnant.

"Well if Clint doesn't mind keeping an eye on things here..." Bucky trailed off, looking hopefully at the blond man.

Clint chuckled. "Yeah, get outta here. There's too much forties stuff here with all three of you here at once."

The two friends grinned and headed out.

Wanda watched them go. "Do you really think it's wise to let them go alone? You know how much trouble they can get into."

Clint grinned and propped his feet up on the coffee table. "Sure. But that's not my problem. It's Fury's. After all, that's how we got the Accords revoked was if he'd keep a seeing eye on us. So if they get into a lot of trouble, we play dumb and Fury gets the rap."

Wanda snickered. "How did that reasoning work for you when you were an agent?"

Clint smirked. "Oddly, but usually ok."

Wanda rolled her eyes and settled down in a chair. "We're going to chill here and watch tv, right?"

"Absolutely! And it's gonna be a musical."

"How loud are we gonna sing with it?"

"As loud as we can." Clint responded grinning.
*
Twenty minutes later, Loki walked into Bruce's lab, covering his ears. "What is that?" He hollered at the scientist over the caterwauling.

Bruce glanced over at him. "Clint and Wanda are watching a musical and they got FRIDAY to project their voices throughout the entire tower!" He shouted back.

"How do we get it to stop?" Loki called, wincing as they began screaming out lyrics.

"MOTHER KNOWS BEST LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER ITS A SCARY WORLD OUT THERE!!!!" Clint's voice came through the speakers, singing along with Mother Gothel in Tangled. Normally, Clint had a pretty good voice. But today, he just didn't care.

Suddenly another voice joined in. "MOTHER KNOWS BEST ONE WAY OR ANOTHER SOMETHING WILL GO WRONG I SWEAR!!!!" Natasha's voice joined in, though she was actually singing. She and Clint found harmony with each other's voices and Bruce and Loki breathed sighs of relief.

"I thought my ears were bleeding." Loki admitted.

Bruce gave him a sympathetic look and handed him a pair of ear muffs. "Just in case."