Chapter Text
The Stark Industries R & D lab was too bright.
Not the warm amber glow of a workshop where something was being built with hands and instinct, nor the cool strategic blue of an operations room where war was mapped in light and shadow. This was a different kind of brightness, clinical, uncompromising, the sort that erased softness and made everything honest. Glass walls stretched from floor to ceiling. Stainless steel counters gleamed without a single fingerprint. Transparent screens floated midair, scrolling with data in quiet, orderly columns. Even the air felt processed, scrubbed clean of scent and dust and history.
It was not a room that allowed secrets to linger.
Tony Stark stood at the center of it, half-ill at ease in a lab coat he wore like a costume. His hands were shoved into the pockets as though to prevent himself from gesturing too much. Behind him, a holographic projection rotated slowly, magnified strands of DNA twisting around one another in luminous blue and gold, elegant as cathedral arches.
Across from him stood Captain Carter.
Peggy did not look out of place anywhere. Not in a war zone. Not on a stage. Not here, beneath unforgiving light. The navy and crimson of her uniform were immaculate, the Union Jack bold across her chest. Her shield rested against her leg, casual but ready, as if even in a laboratory she anticipated the possibility of impact. Her posture was composed, chin lifted slightly, expression attentive but unreadable.
Beside her stood Natasha Romanoff.
Natasha wore black, not tactical gear, not armor, simply dark fabric that absorbed the room’s brightness rather than reflecting it. She stood very still, hands clasped loosely behind her back, as though observing a briefing rather than participating in it. The light did not soften her. If anything, it made the angles of her face sharper.
Tony cleared his throat.
“So,” he began, forcing levity into a room that resisted it, “before anyone says it — yes. I’m aware how this sounds.”
The hologram shifted at a flick of his fingers. The twisting helix dissolved into a magnified human cell. The nucleus pulsed gently in its center, light flaring in rhythmic, almost heartbeat-like waves.
“What we’ve developed,” he said, voice smoothing into something more formal, “is an advanced refinement of somatic cell nuclear transfer. We extract viable genetic material from a donor somatic cell, transfer that nucleus into an enucleated ovum, stimulate division, and guide early embryonic development through a stabilized growth matrix.”
He paused, searching their faces.
Peggy’s brow had furrowed slightly, not in confusion but in concentration.
Natasha’s expression did not change at all.
Tony swallowed and continued. "Originally, this project was commissioned for catastrophic contingencies. Organ regeneration without immune rejection. Rapid tissue reconstruction after radiation exposure. And, in extreme projections…” He exhaled softly. “Population recovery scenarios. Post-extinction modeling.”
The word hung there, extinction, far larger than the room itself.
The hologram split. Two strands of DNA rotated side by side, then began to interlace.
“This technology was never intended as a fertility treatment,” Tony said carefully. “It still isn’t, technically. But the underlying mechanism allows for genetic contribution from two individuals without requiring male gametes.”
The lab seemed to grow quieter, as though even the ventilation system had decided to listen.
Peggy’s gaze flicked briefly toward Natasha before returning to Tony. “Meaning,” she said evenly, “that a child could carry both of our genetic material.”
“Yes.” Tony nodded once. “Using viable cellular samples from Natasha — which we’ve confirmed exist — and combining them through a modified transfer protocol. The embryo would then require a gestational carrier.”
His eyes lifted to Peggy.
“You,” he said gently.
Silence followed.
Natasha did not blink.
“I was sterilized,” she said at last, her voice calm and flat as polished steel. “That is not reversible.”
Tony inclined his head immediately. “I know. This isn’t reversal. It doesn’t restore fertility. It bypasses it entirely.”
Natasha’s eyes shifted to him then, sharp, assessing.
“You’re suggesting I provide genetic material and let someone else carry,” she said.
“I’m suggesting,” Tony replied carefully, “that there is a biological pathway available that didn’t exist before.”
“And you thought of me.”
It wasn’t a question.
Tony didn’t look away. “I thought of both of you.”
A faint, humorless smile ghosted across Natasha’s mouth. “Of course you did.”
Peggy stepped slightly closer to her, not touching, not crowding, simply adjusting her position so they stood aligned rather than separate. It was a subtle thing, but deliberate.
“This isn’t pity,” Peggy said quietly.
Natasha didn’t turn to her.
“It’s an attempt to fix something broken,” Natasha replied.
Tony’s voice lost its polished cadence. “Nat, there is nothing broken about you.”
The words lingered in the too-bright air.
Natasha’s gaze drifted back to the hologram, to the glowing nucleus, dividing in perfect symmetry.
“I was cut open at fifteen,” she said evenly. “No consultation. No consent. No explanation. They decided what my body would be useful for and removed everything else.”
The lab did not flinch, but the space between them seemed to constrict.
“And now,” she continued, her eyes sliding back to Tony, “you stand in another laboratory. Offering another procedure. Assuring me it’s for a greater good.”
Tony raised both hands slightly, palms open. “You walk out of here, this ends. I won’t pursue it. I won’t reference it. I didn’t even want to bring it to you until the data cleared preliminary viability thresholds.”
Her gaze flicked, just slightly.
“I didn’t want you reading about it in a journal ten years from now,” he added. “And realizing you were never given the option.”
That word, option, shifted something in the air.
Peggy studied the hologram now, her expression thoughtful rather than dazzled. “Genetically,” she asked, “it would be ours?”
“Yes.”
“And the risks?”
Tony exhaled slowly. “It’s pioneering. Early models are promising. Human application carries unknown variables. I won’t pretend otherwise.”
Peggy nodded once, absorbing that.
Natasha turned fully toward her now, something fierce and fragile flickering behind her composure. “You don’t have to entertain this,” she said.
“I’m not entertaining it,” Peggy replied gently. “I’m listening.”
“To a fantasy?”
“To an option.”
Natasha’s jaw tightened. “We don’t need options.”
Peggy’s eyes softened, not with pity, never that, but with quiet understanding. “No,” she agreed. “We don’t.”
That was the difference.
They stood there, soldier and spy, icon and weapon, both shaped by institutions that had claimed their bodies for war. The holographic DNA continued its perfect, indifferent rotation.
Natasha stepped back first.
“This is experimental,” she said.
“Yes,” Tony replied.
“It was not designed for this.”
“No.”
“And if it fails?”
Tony met her gaze without deflection. “Then it fails.”
The simplicity of the answer seemed to settle something, not acceptance, but clarity.
Natasha inclined her head once, as if concluding a mission briefing. “I’m done here.”
She did not slam doors or raise her voice. She simply turned and walked toward the exit, her footsteps measured and controlled.
Peggy hesitated only a moment before following.
At the threshold, Natasha paused without turning around.
“This is not something I need,” she said, her tone carefully neutral. “Don’t bring it to me again.”
The doors sealed behind her with a quiet hydraulic sigh.
The lab felt larder in her absence. Emptier.
Tony released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Well,” he muttered softly, “that could have gone worse.”
Peggy remained where she was, eyes fixed on the fading hologram.
“Do you believe in it?” she asked.
Tony glanced at her. “In the science?”
“In the outcome.”
He shut down the projection entirely. The bright helices dissolved into nothing, leaving only sterile white light.
“I believe,” he said slowly, “that it has a strong probability of success. I believe the data supports a viable gestation pathway. And I believe that if anyone were going to make it work… it would be you two.”
“That wasn’t quite the question.”
He studied her for a moment, all humor gone.
“Yes,” he said finally. “I believe in it.”
Peggy nodded once, thoughtful.
She turned toward the exit, then stopped, something unresolved holding her in place. The lab hummed softly around them, indifferent witness to decisions that would ripple far beyond its glass walls.
Without looking at him, she asked quietly,
“If this were anyone else…”
Her voice was steady. Not desperate. Not impulsive.
“…would you recommend it?”
And under the unyielding brightness of Stark Industries, the question lingered, heavier than any hologram.