(The Black Widow would like to note that any part of this report that features her crying or whining is absolutely, one hundred percent fictitious and a result of a powerful hallucinogenic toxin released in Stark Tower at the time of her pregnancy.)

(Anthony E. Stark would like to note that the Black Widow frequently lies.)

(The Black Widow would like to note that Anthony E. Stark will soon be losing several essential items in the near future.)

(Director Nicolas Fury would like Stark and Romanova to stop interfering with his goddamn reports.)

Two Weeks

It's sitting on the coffee table after she leaves for a mission. Darcy has just sent him back to have a shower and put on a clean shirt when he sees it, a little white stick with a little pink plus sign on it. He doesn't go back to the lab until she returns four days later. He just sits on the couch with the stick in one hand and a tumbler full of whiskey in the other, staring at that little symbol.

It's strange, he thinks, that something so small could change everything.

She enters quietly on his fourth day of vigil and wordlessly sits down next to him.

'You're pregnant.'

'Yes.' She's apprehensive about it, he can tell, even if nobody else could.

'We're going to have a baby.' He sounds terrified, yet resolved.

'Yes.'

'On a scale of on to ten, how much therapy is this kid going to need?'

'Eleven.' He smiles slightly.

'Though so. So what do you want to do?' It's not leading, simply an enquiry into how she wants to handle this particular development.

'I think I might want to keep it. You?'

'Yeah, I think I do too.' She rests her head on his shoulder and he wraps his arm around her shoulders.

Four Weeks, Two Days

They're sitting in Medical in those hard plastic chairs that you can only find in hospitals. Due to the Other Guy and Natasha's general distrust of anything she can't control their only option for an OB/GYN was the one SHIELD had on staff. Bruce had been rather uncomfortable entrusting his child, unborn or not, to the government. However, Natasha was equally adamant that she would not under any circumstances be putting her offspring in the clutches of some civilian who could be a Red Room agent or a psycho general with a vendetta or some such, especially with their luck. It's Natasha that's going to be squeezing the Unholy Spawn (as Natasha and Bruce have taken to calling it after the first round of morning sickness) out of her vagina so Natasha gets to choose where she's going to do it.

There's a couple of agents getting treated for broken ribs and the like when they come in, nothing major. Nobody's tried to take over the world with some pathetically poorly thought out yet highly destructive plot and for that Natasha is grateful.

Bruce has his eyes closed and is doing a few deep breathing exercises and looks just about ready to Hulk-out. She knows Clint's in the vents with a pack of Hulk tranquilizers on hand in case her husband looses control. Not that she thinks he will, and it irritates her that SHIELD still has so little faith even after everything he's done. But she still understands, everybody knows Bruce hates going to Medical, even if nobody knows why they're there. Nick Fury didn't get where he is today by underestimating people.

'The Doctor will see you now Agent Romanoff, Dr Banner.' A starchy looking nurse looks rather excited to be able to tell the water cooler that The Hulk and The Black Widow went to see the OB/GYN looking incredibly stressed out. Natasha shoots the nurse a chilly glare and suddenly the woman's paperwork is very interesting.

Natasha dislikes Doctor Carrow the moment she meets her. Dr Carrow's an embittered old hag with no sense of humour who keeps glaring at Bruce like he'd murdered her firstborn. They were getting the first ultrasound done when the dislike turns to pure hatred.

'The baby appears to be fine.' The woman was pinched and unpleasant, what Natasha thinks Tony would describe as 'A humourless old crone who spent her evenings listening to her cervix cobweb over'.

'So it might not be part Hulk?' Bruce's voice is hopeful. Natasha knows he wants kids but is completely afraid that the baby's going to have his or her own 'Other Guy'.

'For now it seems fine.' Natasha feels the tense muscles in her shoulders relax, 'Why you're having children with this man I'll never know.' The woman adds under her breath. Bruce is too busy perusing the ultrasound to notice anything

'Excuse me?' Natasha's hands tightly clench the arms of her chair.

'Nothing.' Dr Carrow is nowhere near as frightened as she should be.

'No, you said something. I'd like to hear it.'

'I-' I loud clattering sound from the vents interrupts her and Clint drops down from the ceiling.

'The Banners are done here, right lady?' Not waiting for a response Clint and Bruce led her out of the examining room. Natasha will be eternally grateful that her beloved partner and adored husband keep her from ripping the woman's throat out. That of course doesn't mean the bitch will get away with implying her husband is a monster. It just means Natasha has to be more subtle about it.

'Do I even want to know what that was about?' Bruce has a slightly exasperated look on his face and Natasha just smiles grimly.

'Don't worry lyubovnik, it's all going to be taken care of.'

'Just don't get caught.' Natasha kisses Bruce, then turns and, grabbing Clint by the arm, leads him away to plan.

'You're pregnant?'

'Yep.'

'Can I be the godfather?'

'We'll see.'

And if, three days later, Dr Carrow's home in burned to ash and no other house touched, or that, two days after the fire, the good doctor is frogmarched out with a cardboard box of what are now all her earthly possessions, Natasha wouldn't know anything about it and would smile mysteriously and say that Dr Carrow had 'Sown the wind and now she must reap the whirlwind'.

Five Weeks, Three Days

'Agent Romanoff, there's a man in Bucharest who's been giving us a bit of trouble. Got his hands on some warheads, and is pointing them rather uncomfortably near the American Embassy.' Fury stands on his little screen-surrounded pedestal, looking expectantly at the conference table where Natasha and Clint sit with Agent Sitwell.

'Sure-' Natasha starts but is cut off by her partner.

'I'll do it, Tasha can't though.'

'I'll be fine. It's just a kiss, kiss, bang, bag mission, no real skill required.' Her attitude is blasé, though this doesn't really tell Fury anything about her supposed 'condition'.

'Then let me do it. Stay at home, drink a cup of tea, get a massage, pick out paint colours.' Nick Fury smirks internally. The day he sees the Black Widow doing any of the aforementioned things he'll get Sitwell to check for airborne swine.

'Why, pray tell, would Agent Romanoff be unable to complete this mission?'

'Tash, you gotta tell them.'

'I'll be fine.'

'Agent Romanoff, if there's something that may jeopardize you and any partners I send you on a mission with you have to tell me now.'

'It'll be fine.'

'She's pregnant.'

'Clint, you are meat,' Her tone is perfectly serious, 'And I'm getting Stark to be godfather.'

'You are having a child? With Banner?' Sitwell's tone is, rather alarmingly, almost what one could call afraid.

'Who else would I procreate with?'

'I was worried you'd say you were going to have some world-destroying child with Loki or Stark.'

'No, I'm just having a half-Hulk baby with my husband.' Natasha smirks and everyone within earshot blanches.

'The doctor said that thus far the baby is healthy.' Bruce interrupts plaintively.

'The doctor is also an incompetent fool.'

'Yes, well, I'll have to draw up a couple of contingency plans for that.' Fury interjects, 'You'll be put on reserve until you finish your maternity leave. I assume you want to break the news to the team yourself?' Natasha smirked and nodded.

Six Weeks, Four Days

'Natasha?' Pepper poked her tentatively in the arm, 'You just spattered the leader of AIM with vomit.'

'Yep.'

'What's going on?'

'When a woman and a man love each other very much-'

'You're pregnant?! Fantastic!'

'Yep.'

'Should you be fighting? It could hurt the baby.'

'The doctor says as long as I wear extra protection, stay out of the more unstable situations and just generally use some common sense we both should be fine. Just don't tell anyone else, I want to see how long it takes them to figure it out themselves.'

'I can't wait to see Tony's face.' Pepper snickered conspiratorially.

Seven Weeks, Five Days

'Chert vozʹmi, I need to pee.' Natasha and Tony were sitting at the conference table in the Helicarrier, waiting for Fury to sign off on something-or-other that Tony wanted to blow up.

'Really, Natashalie? You just went eight minutes and fifteen seconds ago. I haven't seen someone need to pee this often since Pepper was preggers with the twins.'

'You're timing my bowel functions Stark? If that's not creepy I don' know what is. And I doubt your loving and long-suffering wife would be pleased to hear you refer to her benevolent act of bringing your spawn into the world as 'Preggers'.'

'Yes, well, what Pepper doesn't know won't hurt her. Or more importantly, me.'

'You keep telling yourself that.'

'I will.' Tony suddenly jumped up and started waving his arms around, drawing a few alarmed stares from the SHEILD agents. 'You,'

'Me. Na-tash-a.'

'You are incredibly clever but not smart enough to outwit me with your mind games and machinations!'

'Yeah, right, you, outsmart me? In your dreams, Stark.'

'And again, you digress, hoping to draw me away from the matter at hand.' Natasha raised an unimpressed eyebrow in response. 'You have to pee all the time, you've started taking naps, you puked on that AIM dude -That was totally awesome, by the way-, you've stopped drinking the crude oil you call coffee and your patriotic lifeblood, vodka, you started crying during Four Weddings and a Funeral, something which nobody on the face of this planet has ever done before, you weren't eating Steve's omelettes yesterday and looked like you were going to puke.'

'First of all, Four Weddings and a Funeral is a very emotional movie. Secondly, what's your point besides the fact that you might just beat Clint and I in the 'Creeper of the Year' awards?'

'I, Anthony Edward Stark, hereby wager my entire fortune on the fact that you, my dear Natashalie, are pregnant.'

'Okay.'

'Okay?'

'Okay.'

'Okay what? 'Okay, you're so obviously a genius Tony. Why yes of course me and my hubby have a little somethin'-somethin' cooking in my bio-oven, I don't even know why we try to hide these things from your stunning intellect anymore' or 'Okay, Tony you're a complete mastermind who is totally wrong but that doesn't change the fact I'm hiding something'?'

'Okay.'

'Is it Bruce's?… Ow, owowowow owie, owie, owie. Ouchie! My fingers! Okay, I get it, I'm sorry!'

'Stark, you are forgetting something.' Natasha sing-singed.

'Congratulations Natasha.'

Seven Weeks, Six Days

'Bruce, move, it's my turn.'

'My head…'

'It's your own fault, you shouldn't have gone out for celebratory drinks with Stark, Clint, and Thor-' She was cut off by a stream of what appeared to be last night's stroganoff making a reappearance.

'You're right moy malenʹkiy pauk, and now I must reap the consequences.' Bruce rubbed soothing circles on her back with one hand and held back her hair with the other. 'Ugh, my head…'