Two weeks later and everyone was home at the compound, and life was moving forward. Six more weeks later, you and Steve had finally found your groove with your three, and the team was back to business as usual. You held Steve to his agreement that the two of you would take a break, and had worked out a deal with Nick and Tony that you would start with three months off and then go from there, barring any all-out global catastrophe, of course. The team had continued with business as usual while you and Steve stayed behind in domesticity, though you knew that he was talking shop with the guys when they were alone; you didn't say anything because it would be unheard of for him to be completely out of the loop, and he was still abiding by the agreement. He didn't go on missions, but he was always there to meet the team when they came back; he was Captain America, after all, and deep down, you both knew that he would always be this.

"So, how did it go?"

"How did what go?" Steve asked coyly, grabbing Grant from the playpen with a smile and spinning the little one in the air over his head with their laughs filling the room around you. He was trying to distract you with cuteness, but you held firm.

"The mission. Everyone get back okay?"

Steve cleared his throat a few times, his eyes fixed on his boy, but finding it harder to maintain his smile through the guilt of covering up where he had been. "Wouldn't know."

"I'm always honest," you coughed into your hand, keeping your attention on the other two babies to avoid his eyes, but you felt him finally look your way and couldn't not return the favor. "What? I didn't say anything."

"Oh, so now who's the honest one?"

"Steve," you sighed, "why do you feel like you have to hide it from me? I know that you're going to talk to them about work and that you still feel like you need to keep up on what the team does. I know you better than you're giving me credit for." You picked up Anthony and held him up in front of your chest, facing his dad as you mimicked his tiny voice, "daddy forgets that mommy knows everything."

"Yes, daddy does," he quickly agreed, "but mommy forgets that she's scary when he screws up."

"I am not!"

"You are!"

"Name once."

"You really want to go there?"

You opened your mouth to challenge him with an accusatory finger pointed his way, but Bruce interrupted your verbal spar with a poke of his head through the door. "(Y/N), sorry to interrupt, but Tony's looking for you."

"Okay, so why didn't he just have Friday find me for him?"

"I think he wants to find you, but he doesn't...if you catch my meaning."

"Great, now what?" you groaned, summoning the doctor in only to thrust Anthony forward and into his arms. Bruce grinned and took the boy willingly, eliciting a tiny laugh with a tickle under his chubby chin. "I'll be right back. Brooklyn," you whispered to her as she chewed on her own foot, "you're in charge of the boys. No funny business while I'm gone. Friday, where's Tony?"

"Mr. Stark is in the screening room, miss."

~~~

When you arrived at the compound's theater and opened the door, only a haze of light shone under it, and there were sounds of something playing on the screen. Stepping in and closing the door gently behind you, you recognized the voices on the playback and took the few steps further to round the corner and to bring the screen into view; he was playing an old home movie. You saw a younger version of himself with you, pushing you on a swing as you laughed and begged him to take you higher despite his warnings that you could fall. He actually looked a little nervous standing behind you, but your face was filled with exhilaration and unabashed glee.

"Hey, what are you watching?"

"Oh, hey sweetheart," he replied with a start, hiding a small sniffle with a quick wipe of his sleeve across his nose as he turned towards you. "I uh, forgot that I had these so I thought that they were worth another viewing. Sit by me?"

With a slight trepidation, you moved into the short row of seats that held him and took the one to his left, settling in but maintaining a cautious posture as you looked his way. He was staring straight ahead again, watching the girl of approximately six years swaying in the air, laughing when he got a face full of your hair when the swing nearly knocked him over. You heard a faint laugh from him now at the sight and reminiscence, but you also heard a sadness that tore at your heart.

"Dad, talk to me."

"I uh...I got a letter today..." he stopped, wringing his hands in his lap, though still not turning to look at you. "It was from your mother."

"Oh," you replied as flatly as you could, "what did she want?"

"Not much," he smiled, though it had no emotion other than pain behind it, "apologizing, talking about regrets, explanation for her actions, that sort of thing. Oh, yeah...one big thing, now that I think about it."

You sat expectantly and waited, finally reaching out to give him a small shake of his arm to bring him back to attention. "And?"

"I found out that I'm your dad."

~~~

Just a few minutes after you had left them alone, Clint walked into the common room to join Bruce and Steve with the kids, the five of them now on the floor and surrounded by toys with a movie playing loudly in the background. He immediately joined them, grabbing Brooklyn as he rolled onto his back and held her high above him.

"These kids are just the cutest ever, I swear. I just want to eat 'em."

"Please don't," Steve chuckled, "(Y/N) would kill me. Not to mention...just don't." He set Grant into a seat and put a few random toys on his lap and turned to his friend, keeping his eyes on the little girl that was swinging a bit too precariously for his liking over the man. "So, you and Nat ready for the big day? Less than 24 hours to go as a single man."

"Yep. It's easy to be ready when you don't do all of that fancy wedding stuff that you and (Y/N) did. Tony has his judge friend showing up at noon, and we've only invited you guys," he nodded. "Get hitched, have a few drinks, and then off to the honeymoon for two weeks. Simple."

"We should have done that," Steve agreed. "Might have been able to avoid that whole explosion and abduction the first time. Not our best day."

"Yeah, but you had a second chance," Bruce added quietly, holding a sleeping Anthony in his lap as he slowly rocked the chair back and forth, "after all of that, here you are. Not one of us were about to let anything stop you guys, you know that."

"Oh man, Tony was the worst," Clint agreed emphatically, "remember? I don't know how (Y/N) has put up with him for so many years. He loves that girl, but come on. No matter what you do with these three, Cap, you'll never be able to compete with that guy."

Steve smiled, thinking of all of the therapists that Tony had brought in to help him with his memory after the Hydra abduction, working with him day after day until things finally started to work. Then the excited planning of your second wedding, when he wouldn't let anyone lift a finger or spend a dollar, eager to make the day go off without a single problem for his girl. When he stopped to think of everything that he had been witness to over the years together, Steve realized something; Tony was the kind of father that he wanted to be for his own children.

"She's lucky though, to have been left with Tony. They're a good match, and I can't imagine one without the other."

~~~

"You're gonna have to give me a little more than that, Tony," you whispered, barely audible over your childhood laughter on the screen. "I don't follow."

"Okay," he began shakily, his voice faltering and uncertain, "the man that I was told was your father was a Hydra operative, watching over your mother, but he wasn't really your father. When you were born, she was supposed to hand you over, but she bargained with them to keep you under her guardianship until you turned five, since babies aren't really Hydra's talent, as you might imagine."

"I would suppose not."

"When the time came for them to take you, she ran. That's how you ended up with me. She didn't abandon you; she was giving you up to the one person that she knew could protect you from them. She watched you from a distance, on the run but always making sure that you were okay, though she could never risk coming back for you because she believed that you were safer with me. Look," he paused, pointing up at the screen to a light shadow in the far corner, "that's her back there."

You squinted at the hazy and amorphous shadow, barely able to even consider the shape as a person, but when she moved, you saw a hint of her hair shining in the sunlight. "Why didn't she tell me? When she was here. Why didn't she just stay and tell me now that it's been so long?"

"She left me a voicemail that night saying that she left because she knew that she would let you down," he continued, "that she didn't know how to be a mother, but really, she couldn't put her new grandchildren in the same risk as she had with you, so she ran again."

"Oh my god," you murmured under your breath, "I can't believe this." You felt your anxiety building and your heart racing again in that tell-tale sign of a panic attack, and you struggled to keep a steady breathing rhythm as the words he had said rolled through your mind. "But you said that you're my dad..."

"They used my stolen DNA, and she agreed to carry you as a surrogate for Hydra. But once you were born, she didn't have the heart to follow through with their plans. So, yeah...I haven't fully processed that tidbit just yet."

"Tony...we have to get her back," you exclaimed urgently, "we have to get her back here so we can tell her it's okay and that we can protect her. This changes so much. She didn't know what else to do, but we can help, right?"

"Sweetheart..."

"Do you know where she is? Is there any way to track the letter? If she was worried about putting the babies at risk, Hydra must still be after her."

"(Y/N), listen to me," he broke in, finally turning and taking your hands in his. "She can't come back, baby. She's gone."

"What do you mean?"

"When they found out that she was here...and that she had known where you were all along..." he stopped, casting his gaze to the floor, "they took her. She was executed last night."