It's a Boy!

As Kate looked into the microscope, she saw right away the mutation. The cells divided at a very fast rate and they were oddly shaped and dense. A likely reason the boy’s skin was nearly impenetrable. There were similarities as well to the cells. As if she had seen them before.

As Steve held the baby the boy and he just looked at one another. Then Steve began to smile and make funny sounds and faces at him like he had seen people do with babies in the past. The baby grinned at him and shook his arms up and down. Steve began making popping noises with his mouth and the baby would blink and then giggle as if the surprise of the pop was amusing to him. Kate and Tony both grinned at one another as they looked at Steve and baby. Logan only looked...annoyed. But to any other man it was as good as amusement for him.

Tony activated another part of the diagnostic machine that displayed DNA sequences. The baby's DNA was quite complex. As if there were 2 distinct sequences spliced to make his DNA. One was in an orange color and the other was a blue with different highs and lows to make the chain. Tony’s eyebrows rose when he saw that then he activated the DNA comparator which displays another DNA sequence above the one they were looking at. He began to plug in various stored sequences. Mainly everyone from the team. Once he got to Kate’s hers showed up as blue. Virtually identical to the blue portion of the baby's DNA. “Uh, Kate, do you see what I’m seeing?” Tony asked.

Kate wasn't surprised by the mutation that she saw in the boy's cells. It was obvious he had some kind of mutation, although it was strange to see a mutation in one so young...not impossible though. She suddenly heard Steve making funny noises and she looked up and smiled when she saw Steve and the baby interacting. It was a pleasant scene to witness.

She then watched as Tony activated a machine that displayed DNA sequences. Now Kate was not a geneticist, but looking at the boys DNA sequences she could see that something was different about it. As she was beginning to suspect this boy had been created artificially, much like Natalya had been. As Tony began to compare the sequences to members of the Avengers team Kate didn't think much about it. She wasn't expecting there to be any matches. However, when her DNA was compared she was shocked by what she saw. Her's was nearly identical to the blue portion of the baby's DNA. Her eyes widened and she blinked

"Uh...yeah...am I...interpreting this correctly?"

Tony nodded and then began pressing buttons. “Bare with me I’ve never seen this before,” he said and then nodded. “Ah ok, he said and then used a Tony joystick on the front panel to set the top dna into the bottom one. The blue portion was an exact match. He cleared the top one then continued to go through stored DNA patterns until the Orange came up. “And well, I’m pretty certain you two have never conceived before,” he said in a matter of fact tone. He used the joystick and dropped the orange pattern down. It was an exact match.

“Somehow Hydra was able to get ahold of both your DNA. Then they experimented and produced jr. here,” he said as he looked up at Steve. Steve was bouncing the baby but his frown spoke volumes. Logan to seemed disconcerted.

“How’d they get enough to get 2 complete strings? I’m no expert but that needs to come from what, bone marrow?” He asked and Tony looked impressed. “What, I read,” Logan said defensively.

“Mine I can understand but Kate’s...how?” Steve asked.

Kate was in complete shock. She and Steve were the parents of this child! How could this have happened? She needed to sit down so she sat down in one of the chairs and just let her mind try to process everything. How could they have gotten a hold of her DNA? At first, she couldn't think of any way they could have gotten a hold of it...until...

"Oh my God...SHIELD has some of my blood and bone marrow. Because of my mutation they wanted to have blood that was only my own on hand in case I ever needed a transfusion. Hydra must have found out and someone must have taken some of it."

“Valentina Fontaine,” Logan said plainly and with more than a little bit of disgust. “Natalya should have killed that bitch!” He growled.

Steve turned the baby away from Logan and quite nearly scowled at him. “That does make a lot of sense. We encountered her in the same place,” Steve said. “How the SSB got a hold of the serum is making more sense now,” Tony said. “I am disturbed though about how sophisticated their gene and DNA splicing technology is,” he said as he looked at the baby. Steve looked at the baby to and held his right hand in his hand. The baby wasn’t fussy rohhtbrhen and just looked up into his face.

"I need to make a phone call," Kate said before standing up and walking away from the rest of the group towards the opposite end of Tony's lab. She pulled out her cell phone and called Nick Fury. The phone rang a few times before he picked up. Steve, Tony, and Logan would be able to hear bits of their conversation due to the fact that Kate's voice began to increase in volume the deeper into the conversation they went.

"How long had you known that it was missing?"

"And you never thought that perhaps you needed to tell me this?"

"No, I'm not going to reveal to you how I knew that it was missing."

As the guys watched her they might suddenly notice that a few objects in the room began to levitate. Whenever Kate got angry, she had less control over her telekinetic abilities.

Steve shifted back a little when random crates, containers and tools began to lift up into the air. Tony had to duck to avoid being jostled by one of the containers. “Kate!” Steve said forcefully in hopes that she heard him. If she stopped doing what she was doing…

Kate heard Steve’s voice and she looked over and saw what she was doing. She carefully lowered everything to the ground and hung up with Nick. She walked over to Steve and the baby and gently touched his cheek. “So what do we do now?”

“We do the responsible thing. We take care of him. He is not a normal human and we have the experience necessary to raise him,” Steve said confidently. He sounded much more confident than he felt though but he would not trust anyone else with his and Kate’s offspring. Still holding the baby he nodded for Kate to talk to him. As she came over he looked briefly at the others. “It doesn’t mean I don’t want us to have a child...you know. The ‘normal’ way,” he whispered. “Not at all. I just…” he began than looked down at the boy as he grinned up at them. He had drool on his chin and Steve wiped it away with his thumb and Kate would know that the decision had been made in Steve’s mind.

Steve leaned into Kate and kissed her full on the lips. In front of others! “I just think we can do this Kate, will you? Will you do this with me?” He asked her hopefully. Tony and Logan just stared at Steve in uttar amazement. Logan’s mouth even gaped.

Kate was astonished by what Steve was suggesting. This was a huge responsibility and they would have to adjust their lives but, like Steve, she didn’t want anyone else raising their child. She believed now that they were destined to find him...to save him. Their lives would be changed forever, but in the best way possible.

She smiled happily at Steve as she held their baby. “Yes, I will do this with you.”