Summary: Apparently there are some things, even the Nega-Bands can’t protect you from
Pairing: Bucky Barnes × Rambeau!Reader
Warning: 18+, Angst, Language, Stillbirth
Prompt: #FFF 338 No Happy Endings from @flashfictionfridayofficial
Maybe there was something in the Rambeau bloodline that attracted the Big 3: Androids, Aliens, and Wizards. Maria, Captain Marvel’s best friend, Monica’s contact with the Westview Anomaly, and you, the discoverer of a Nega-Band. With the Nega-band, you gain enhanced strength, agility, durability, force-field creation, and flight capabilities. You were extremely powerful, but not as powerful as users with two Nega-bands. But you were beyond satisfied, until you weren’t.
You’d met Bucky Barnes while working as a Hero for Hire. You’d gotten a job in acting as private security for a slightly paranoid female politician. A few weeks into the job, you realized that she had a stalker. Tall, white, sea blue eyes, and a penchant for wearing gloves even in scorching temperatures.
After two weeks of surveillance, you came for him. He’d been beneath her car, attaching a foreign device to the undercarriage, when he tried to leave. He never made it more than two steps.
A force field snapped into place in front of him. The impact sent him straight onto his back, concrete biting into his shoulders. You were on him immediately, knees planted on his chest, pinning him in place before he could recover.
The garage was nearly empty at this hour. Rows of luxury cars sat untouched, polished and silent. The gated complex was quiet enough that his breathing sounded loud.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you here and now,” you said.
“Because heroes have moral codes,” he answered, already shifting beneath you, testing for weakness.
“Who said I was a hero?” You laughed.
He reached into his coat slowly, careful not to provoke you. “Your business card did. I found it in a lawyer’s office.”
That was when you realized the mistake.
He twisted hard, using your weight against you. The world lurched as he flipped you onto the concrete, knocking the air from your lungs. Before you could recover, you heard it. A metallic whirring rose from his left side.
“What are you?” You asked incredulously.
“I’m a man,” he said with a smirk.
“ Ok smartass, who are you and who are you working for?”
“ I’m Bucky, and I’m an independent contactor of sorts. I’ve been following your employer because she is a member of Hydra, I helped her get into office, and now I’m trying to make sure she is turned over to the authorities to receive justice for her past and current actions.”
“ I see. That’s all very touching, but I still can’t let you harm her. If something happens to her, I don’t get paid. And living in this city is surprisingly expensive for such a high risk of an alien invasion .”
“ Okay, what if I told you I could get you a new job with a much less corrupt employer?”
“ I would say show me the money. Right after, you kneed him in his balls, leaping across the lot,” you said with a grin, watching this cyborg of a man cupping his balls in the fetal position.
“You're an asshole, you know?” He groaned.
“ I could say the same. So what exactly is this job?”
Three years later, you were still employed by Bishop Security( less corrupt after Eleanor Bishop was arrested and her daughter Kate became CEO).
And you may or may not have become Bucky’s wife. Okay, so you totally did, you hated to admit it, but you’d been the most blushy of blushing brides on wedding day. It was the most beautiful and life-changing event of your life until now; you were pregnant.
You’d put an adorable little onesie that said ‘My daddy’s a superhero’ and the pregnancy test in a gift-wrapped box for your husband to find when he came home from work.
“ Hey, Pooh Bear. I got you something today,” you said, biting your lip to hold in any hormonal tears.
“ Ooh, is another one of your sneak previews for what’s gonna happen in the bedroom tonight?” Your husband asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
“ Just open it, you dork,” you said, rolling your eyes.
“ Ok, ok.” Buck ripped open the wrapping with his right hand, and once he got it opened, he froze. Your husband appeared to literally become a statue for close to a minute before tears welled up in his sea blue eyes.
“ Yeah, honey, you’re gonna be dad,” you’d barely gotten your sentence out when your husband grabbed you, spinning you around with a laugh before locking you into a bear hug.
And for seven months, you were happier than you’d ever been. Maternity leave at Bishop Security started when you were six months pregnant. You’d have a gender reveal; you’d found out you were having a little girl after cutting the cake, which you both would proceed to shove in one another’s faces. You’d made your daughter’s nursery with a combination of vintage and modern technology, toys, and decor. And you’d picked out her name, Faith Rebecca Barnes.
Then your water broke early on a Tuesday morning, a bit earlier than you’d thought it would. Especially since your baby girl seemed to have slowed down her superhuman kicks(thank god), but you figured it had to do with you and Bucky having enhanced human physiologies.
“ Bucky,” you whispered, patting him on the back.
“ Honey, I just need like two more minutes. Your strawberries and cottage cheese are already made in the fridge,” Buck said with a yawn before turning over.
“Buck,” you said, slapping him on the back harder. At this point, it became clear he was determined to ignore you, so you had to kick it up a notch.
“ James Buchanan Barnes. You need to get your ass up because your daughter is coming.”
That snapped your husband right up, “ She’s coming, did your water break?”
“ Yeah, a few minutes ago, that's why I was trying to wake you up.”
“Ok, ok,” Bucky saw putting on his clothes and finding you some sweats to put on.
“ Hon, where’s the go bag?” You asked as he helped you slide on your pants.
“ It’s in the car, packed with clothes for you and Faith, diapers, a blanket, hair ties, and your iPad.”
“ And the car seat?” You asked with a wince as you began to feel the contractions.
“ Already in the car and triple secured,” Bucky said proudly.
“ Alright then, Sarge. Let’s go have a baby.”
In the twenty minutes it took to get to the hospital, you’d begin screaming and crying as you started feeling more and more like you were shitting a knife.
When you got there, you found out, as they were putting you in the stirrups, that an epidural wouldn’t work for you. Damn Nega-Band powers. But you were a mother, you told yourself, and you pushed and pushed for three hours before your doctor said, “ Ok, you're close. She’s crowning, just give me one last push.”
“ Aaaah,” you’d screamed, you couldn’t swear the baby had come out, but you didn’t hear the all too familiar cries.
“ Where… how is she?” you groaned. As the room stood still, the nurses, your doctor, and your husband were present.
“ Bucky, where’s our daughter? Why isn’t she crying?” The sob was already starting to make its way through your chest before you even heard it.
“ Sweetheart, Faith… she’s, she’s, um…” Bucky was full on crying, his hand rubbing the back of his neck.”
“ I’m so sorry, Mrs. Barnes. Your daughter has, unfortunately, not breathing, and there’s no heartbeat. It's a stillbirth, maybe caused by you and your husband's current genetic makeup. But I promise you that you did everything right, this isn’t your fault. ”
You could tell how upset and uncomfortable all of the medical professionals in the room were, but that didn’t matter.
Your daughter, your precious Faith, was gone before you’d even gotten to hold her. Your gut-wrenching sob seemed to echo through the room before Bucky rushed over to you to hold you, both of you crying over your baby girl. They said you could hold her, and Bucky did immediately, but it took some coaxing to get you to do the same.
Instead of bringing your daughter home in her newly installed car seat, you would be burying her in the smallest coffin you’d ever seen. Months later, you met with a geneticist who claimed that the stillbirth may have been caused by the changes in your and Bucky’s genetic makeup, post serum and Kree Tech exposure.
You couldn’t believe that with all the power the Nega-Band gave you, you could save everyone else in the world except your daughter, the only person you were truly meant to protect.
They said there’d probably be procedures like IVF that could be done, and Bucky brought up the idea of adoption. No matter what anyone said or how much time had passed, you found yourself constantly imagining what your daughter would’ve looked like, what she would have been wearing. How could you even think about having another kid when you lost her, your Faith?
