#when you come get your half-dead husband despite your overwhelming fear and agony

[marvelandimagine]

Love Remains

Pairing: Steve x reader

Anon prompt: Imagine Steve having to take care of your daughter after you died giving birth.            

CW: maternal death

Word count: 1,628

*wrote this while dealing with writer’s block for my Jewish Bucky fic hope it’s decent!!*

How could this have happened?

This wasn’t fucking 1930, it was 2016. People had phones that doubled as computers, could talk to anyone in the world within seconds. The technological evolution extended into medicine as well, providing doctors and nurses with access to new equipment and remedies and knowledge that people in the 30s would only have dreamed of.

And yet, in the most advanced nation on the globe, you still died brutally and suddenly in childbirth; the C-section that successfully gave your daughter life claiming yours in the process.

Steve watches in horror as doctors swarm your broken body, finding himself being restrained by nurses as he attempts to rush forward as well.

Within minutes, it’s all over.

You’re gone and you’re never coming back.

“We did everything we could.”

Bullshit. There must’ve been something, anything, more that could’ve been done to keep you alive. The doctors failed to keep you alive.

But he can’t put the blame on just them. He, your husband, Captain fucking America, the supposed protector of all, failed to keep you alive.

He barely registers Bucky’s hands on his shoulders as he sinks to his knees, his grief and rage overcoming him and coming out in an unearthly howl that will haunt Bucky’s dreams for months.

This is not Captain America. This is a man whose heart is shattered and lying back there with your dead body.

A man who spent months and months kissing your belly and picking out baby clothes and basking in the excitement and anxiety about raising a child with you.

Through his tears and shallow breathing, guilt and terror overtake him – how is he possibly going to be able to take care of your child? To always know that the tiny life in front of him cost you your own. How is he supposed to look at your child, to love it knowing that you were ripped away from him because of its existence? How can he take care of another living thing when he feels gutted to his core?

He hears low murmurs of Bucky talking to a nurse, and he feels himself being lifted to his feet.

“Do you want to see her? Your daughter?”

Daughter. You had a baby girl. You two didn’t know the sex beforehand, preferring to wait and see. But where there should be a zing of thrill in Steve is just mechanical acknowledgment.

Bucky’s voice is neutral, there is no judgment there and Steve knows it, but it doesn’t stop the ache in his chest when he shakes his head no.

“I can’t - not now, not yet, I-” he breaks into another fresh wave of tears and Bucky wraps him into a tight embrace, letting Steve let out his pain.

“It’s ok. You’ll stay at my place tonight. I’ll come with you when you’re ready tomorrow.”

-

It’s nearly 2 in the afternoon before Bucky manages to convince Steve to go to the hospital, noting that he won’t have to take his daughter back right away, but the doctors and nurses just agree that it’d be good for her (and Steve) to see each other. And Bucky thinks so too.

“You know Y/N’s looking down and waiting to see you guys together.” He gives a soft, sad half smile to his best friend, and Steve notices that Bucky’s eyes look swollen. In his own agony over the past night, he hasn’t even processed the effect that losing you would have on others too – you weren’t just his wife, you were like family to the team.

Steve doesn’t know how he manages to get dressed and walk down to Bucky’s car without collapsing, but he does. The thought of you watching down on him and your newborn child seems to strengthen him, if only giving him the ability to move without lying down on the floor and giving in to the stabbing ache in his chest cavity.

He zones out the entire ride to the hospital, letting Bucky speak for him to the nurses once he shuffles in under the fluorescent lights. 24 hours ago you were still here, alive and in labor, but still smiling as you held Steve’s hand. His mind flashes to your dead body and how cold that hand must be by now, and it takes all his has to not throw up on the floor.

Bucky’s quiet voice drags him out of his head and down the hall, and he notices the sympathetic glances of nurses who give him encouraging smiles. Gentleman as he is, he tries to return at least one, but his face feels frozen. Like his muscle memory forgot how he’s supposed to show happiness.

His bleary eyes come to rest on the transparent class that now lies to his right, a room full of newborns – some restless, some sleeping peacefully, all with pink-tinged and wrinkly skin signifying their recent arrival into the world.

He didn’t even notice the nurse who followed them until she gently taps his arm.

“Dad, you ready to meet your daughter?”

Steve stares into the sea of tiny, swaddled bodies, wondering which one is his baby girl. They all look so fragile, so vulnerable – in need of love and protection.

With you gone, could he still have the strength to give his child that?

He takes a deep breath and glances at Bucky, who nods with the same soft smile he gave earlier, except this time, there’s light in his blue eyes.

Steve thinks of you and how excited you were to be a mom, to pour so much affection and energy into raising the human being you created together through your love.

It hits him in an oddly clearing way as the sound of your laugh and the image of your last smile before you went unconscious flash through his head: you would live on in your daughter. She was half of you and half of Steve, and while parenting alone was going to require a new level of untapped courage, Steve knew he could do it, would have to do it. And not just for your daughter’s sake, but for your own.

Steve nods at the nurse, who opens the door and leads him into the room while Bucky watches from outside the glass.

Steve’s heart is hammering as the nurse winds her way around fellow nurses and crying babies, a new kind of fear gripping him as he hears the babies crying around him. What if his little girl didn’t like him? What if she cried out of instinct for a maternal solace that he just couldn’t give?

All these fears, though, wash away the second the nurse scoops his daughter into her arms and Steve sees the her face for the first time.

As the nurse guides her into Steve’s muscled arms, once again, it takes everything in him not to collapse. But this time, it’s not from sorrow, it’s from bittersweet happiness at seeing this wonderful little human that he created with you.

Her small eyes are mostly open, fixed on her dad’s face, and Steve can see the warm brown in them that always mesmerized him in your own. She stares at him with an innocent curiosity, her arms tucked neatly inside her blanket, but Steve sees her struggling to free herself.

His fingers shaking slightly, he lifts the blanket just so, letting five tiny, five perfect fingers slip out and latch onto his thumb.

She is so strong already, so bright and healthy and beautiful. And the tears are coming again, She’s a little you. His daughter bears the same light and warmth that always kept Steve going, and he's almost shocked by how much he can he feel you radiating out of her small form.

When he finally speaks to her, there’s finally a small smile on his face as he thinks of you and the love you would have given to this miracle he’s holding is his hands. Now, it’s up to him, but somehow, looking down at his daughter, that doesn’t seem so scary anymore.

"Hi, sweetheart," he whispers to his baby girl, his voice constricted with emotion.

He remembers the hours you two spent together pouring over baby names, and now that it’s up to him to decide, he uses the one you loved most, one that seems so fitting for the softness and sweetness of your child.

"Hi, Lily.” He laughs slightly as your chubby fingers slap gently on his own, your eyes still wide and curious as you take in this new figure.

He starts rocking you in his arms and melts as the corner of your lip tugs up, your eyes locking on his before they become heavy with sleep. His voice is as quiet as ever, not wanting to disturb you and still struggling to keep his voice even:

“Your mom loved you so much. I'm so sorry you'll never meet her, but I know she’s watching over both of us, so I can take care of you. I love you both, always, Lily."

He sees you’re fighting to stay awake despite the obvious sleep that threatens to overwhelm you, and he looks up now to see a genuinely smiling Bucky through the glass and smiles back.

He blinks back more tears and gestures with his head toward the door for his best friend to come inside to meet the most shining example of your love he would ever have.

Because of your little Lily, he knew you’d always be by his side.

He looks down at you once more before Bucky enters the room, his grief ebbing away and replaced by a thrill unlike any other that he felt the first time he heard you were pregnant:

“I’m finally a dad.”