"Do you want to go on a road trip?"
With a long trip ahead of them, they arranged to meet back at the Avengers base in two hours. It wasn't a conversation they could just have over the phone with Tony. Steve offered to drive and would have to deal with Brooke kicking the back of his chair for the entire journey, Beatrice's worrying silence as she pondered whether or not this was a good idea, Scott's constant questions about what had changed in the world and Natasha in charge of directions. She instructed he take all the back roads to Tony's new house as it was quicker.
Beatrice kept reminding herself that even if they made a decision to continue with this time travel plan, it would still take months to perfect.
Time travel. Ha! she really was part of the wild crazy Avenger life now.
"Brooke, stop kicking Steve," Bea finally told her daughter who began to wriggle in her seat and tried to distract her with the toy plane Brooke had brought along for the journey but the five-year-old ignored her. She wasn't used to long journeys. The only time she'd ever left New York was to go on trips with Steve. She'd had half a thought to leave her behind and find a babysitter to look after her, but with the fearful prospect of time travel on her mind, she didn't want her ever out of her sight, scared she'd fade away into ash like her father did, "he's driving. You know how important it is to not distract the driver."
"Where we goin!"
"Hey," Scott nudged her shoulder softly, "on long road trips like this my daughter used to love playing eye spy. Have you ever played that before?"
Brooke nodded enthusiastically as her and Scott began looking out of the window and playing. Beatrice watched on enviously. Scott had only known Brook for a few hours and seemed to know how to calm her down within seconds. Then again, Scott said he had a daughter of his own but even Steve had a magic way with her.
Was she a bad mother?
The thought tapped in her mind. Like a drip. It felt no matter what she did, the sinking feeling that she was failing her daughter in some way constantly followed her.
Was she a bad mother for bringing Brooke along to see Tony? She didn't see any danger in it. She wiggled her feet and felt the empty space where her state arrest strap usually sat. Currently it was cut off and waiting at the Avengers base. Still in New York. If she was found to have taken it off, who knew what the Government would do with her…
Would Brooke be taken away?
Resisting the urge to tell Steve to turn around and drive back, she focused on Brooke playing eye spy, her eyes lingered on the item she was thinking off but Scott humoured her to continue the game on longer.
Perhaps she was too hard on Brooke. Too authoritative. Told her off too much. She even worked in an orphanage constantly surrounded by children and still didn't know how to parent her own daughter. Books on parenting only went so far in teaching you the knowledge.
God she was useless.
At the next gas station, Bea hopped out and pretended she needed the toilet but spent the whole break lighting up a well needed cigarrete.
Arriving at Tony's house couldn't come soon enough, yet she dreaded it all the same.
A few hours later they pulled up onto a grassy driveway. Beatrice peered out of the window. The light blinding. A cabin rested by a long glistening river made it seem like the perfect holiday resort. This was Tony Stark's life now, a forever ongoing holiday. Beatrice could only dream of giving Brooke the same life.
The man himself was outside too, no longer wearing his flashy suits and iron helmet but a cardigan and a little girl clutched tightly in his arms, who Beatrice knew to be only a year younger than Brooke.
Helping her daughter out of the car, they greeted him midway up the drive.
"Long time no see…" an awkwardness hung in the air between Steve and Tony.
"is dat Tony Stark?" Brooke whispered in her mothers' ear, or at least tried too but the five-year-old's attempt at whispering needed more work to it. Tony heard her and looked up.
"Brooke, right?" He asked.
Tentatively, Brooke raised her head from Beatrice's shoulders and nodded.
"Morgoona," he tapped his daughters' leg, "Hey kiddo, you've got a playmate. Try and not disintegrate her with your iron man impression. That'd be one hell of a law suit," It didn't take much convincing for the girls to run off with each other but Tony quickly diverted them into the house, "play in the house or she'll be teaching her how to make mud pies. It's her favourite recipe."
"Do you like rockets?" Bea chattered away to the girl.
Morgan nodded shyly, "Dadda made one for me. Let me show you."
"It's not an actual rocket!" Tony shouted after her, "Geez… I don't need NASA at my gates next."
When the girls were out of ear shot, Tony crossed his arms and looked the group up and down.
"What news have you got to ruin my day with? What… me paying for the Avengers still to run isn't enough… Is the world ending?"
"Not yet," Natasha said.
Tony directed them to some chairs outside but Bea was too anxious to sit. If she rested, she felt she might throw up.
"We might have a way to bring everyone back."
Tony blinked, "Right and how are you going to manage that?"
"Time travel," Scott piped up, "Via the quantum realm."
Tony blinked again, this time at Scott, "Sorry – weren't you dead?"
"I – I was trapped," Scott explained, "In the quantum realm. Apparently five years has passed which is crazy because now my daughters 14… and it's only been five hours for me so imagine my shock when I turned up at her house and saw she's now midway through high school and is completely differently… well not completely-"
"-Scott."
"Right sorry but yeah… a time heist."
"Now, we know what that sounds like… but, after everything you've seen is anything really impossible," said Steve.
Seeing the look of doubt on Tony's face as if they were children trying to understand rocket science, Beatrice stepped in. All she wanted to know was whether the flicker of hope in her chest getting louder and louder with each second was worth it, "is it even possible? Just answer that."
He shook his head, "Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck scale, which then triggers the Deutsch proposition. Can we agree on that?" All of them stared at him unaware of any words that just came out his mouth, "In Layman's terms, it means you're not coming home."
"- I did," Scott said.
"- No. You accidentally survived. It's a- It's a billion-to-one cosmic fluke. And now you wanna pull a...What do you call it?
"- A time heist?"
"- Yeah. Time heist. Of course. Why didn't we think of this before?" Tony pressed on, "Oh! Because it's laughable? Because it's a pipedream?"
So that was it then. The candle flickering like a flame in her chest slowly burnt out.
There was no way she was going to get him back.
"The stones are in the past. We can go back and we can get them," Steve tried to convince Tony, "We can snap our own fingers. We can bring everybody back."
Steve was so convinced it would work, when the genius in the room was telling them it wouldn't. It was all for nothing.
"Or screw it up worse than he already has, right?"
"I don't believe we would."
"Gotta say this. Sometimes, I miss that giddy optimism," he rolled his eyes, "However, high hopes won't help if there's no logical, tangible, way for me to safely execute said time heist. I believe the most likely outcome will be our collective demise."
"Why?" Beatrice asked desperately. It was like her body was fighting to kill the hopeful flame inside of her, "If we change the past, will everything that happened in the past five years be erased?"
"no – maybe, I don't know! Truthfully never actually gone back in time – no one has because it's horseshit. It's not possible," said Tony, as he shifted in his chair and met Beatrice's eye, "it's unpredictable. I can't – I can't roll the dice on that."
Without saying it, she knew he was asking her. They both became parents in the last five years and understood the risk going back in time He couldn't risk losing what he found. He was asking her; can you?
It wasn't just the possible fear that Brooke would somehow end up hurt, there was also the fact that Bea… or Steve, or Natasha… might die trying to bring everyone back. She couldn't run the risk of Brooke losing someone she loved like that and it all to be for nothing.
Steve interrupted, "Tony... We have to take a stand."
"We did stand. And yet, here we are."
"I know you got a lot on the line. You got a wife, a daughter-" so did she, "But I lost someone very important to me. A lot of people did. And now, now, we have a chance to bring her back. To bring everyone back. And you're telling me that you won't even..."
"That's right, Scott. I won't… I got a kid."
At that moment two girls came zooming out of the house. Brooke launched into Steve's arms unannounced. He caught her without a second thought. Morgan, however, chewed the end of her hair and squeezed in between the crowd surrounding her dad and crawled onto his lap.
"Mommy told me to come and save you," She whispered just loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Good job. I'm saved," he said softly, "Did you have fun playing with your new friend?"
She nodded and over her dads' shoulder, reserved a smile just for Brooke.
"I wish you'd come here to ask me something else. Anything else," said Tony, as he stood, "I missed you guys – the table's set for six. If you don't talk shop you can stay for lunch."
"This is our second chance," Steve continued with quite determination.
"I got my second chance right here, Cap."
They left shortly after, huddling back into the car. Beatrice liked the fact she was squished between the door and Brooke's booster seat where she could disappear as if she was part of the car interior itself. Feeling worse than ever about this whole situation, she kept a hand on Brooke's booster seat to remind her it was all okay.
Perhaps Tony was right, and it was too much of a dangerous attempt. What if something happened and Brooke was left without either of her parents or god parents?
Fidgeting in her seat, she watched Tony's house disappear as they drove away.
"He's scared," Steve justified.
"He's set up a life here. You can't expect him to just give it all up."
"What about everything we'll gain back though once this works?"
"If this works," She mumbled.
Scott looked between them all, "Are we gonna stop?"
"No," Steve was watching Bea through his mirror, "we're going to do this right and safe, without causing any more damage. We've just got to find someone with a bigger brain."
"Bigger than his?"
"Hulk!" Cheered Brooke from her seat, no one noticed her paying attention to the conversation as she bounced her toy plane in the air, "Hulky is clever."
"That's… actually a brilliant idea," Steve smiled, "Someone give him a call."
Natasha didn't seem too happy with the one being delegated the job of phoning him but since she was the only one with his number, she had no other choice.
After the phone call was finished and they agreed to meet at a café for lunch, Natasha continued to give directions to Steve. To anyone else she would seem completely normal but to Beatrice she noticed the small changes as Natasha's shoulders became stiffer and voice more forced. She finally concluded, after Natasha had looked at her phone for the hundredth time since the phone call was made, that she was worried about seeing Bruce again.
At the next service station, Steve got out to pay for the petrol but she encouraged Scott to get out with Brooke to go get her some sweets. When her and Natasha was alone in the car, she leaned forward prepared for a heart to heart.
"Alright, what's going on?"
"What?" Natasha frowned at the suggestion that something was wrong, "Is something supposed to be going on?"
"With Bruce?"
"Oh – nothing… just haven't seen him in a while."
"You see him all the time," Bea rolled her eyes, "sometimes he comes to those monthly meetings."
"Yes, but that's around everyone else."
"You'll be around him with us now," Bea concluded, "What's wrong with being around him just the two of you anyway?"
"It's strange…" Natasha sighed as if the weight of what she'd been feeling for the last hour since the phone call drifted from her, "we've never really spoken much about what happened between us all those years ago and I miss him… I miss all of them."
The Avengers. They'd been her life and still was in a way, but it appeared she was the only one left.
"I'm sorry," Bea muttered, "They all just sort of left you, didn't they? I did too…"
Tony was miles away from the Avengers, and although he still paid for the funding of the Avengers, he purposefully disassociating himself from the team for his family's sake. Thor was nowhere to be seen, the last Bea heard was there was a group of Asgardian's in Norway as their new home. Then there was Hawkeye who was MIA and Bruce was off doing his own thing, only showing up once a month or so. Beatrice hadn't even seen Fifteen since the fire. She'd escaped back to Wakanda and her missions with the Avengers were finished for now. Bea considered it an early retirement for Fifteen away from any ex-Hydra agents and new missions.
Even Steve rarely went on Avenger missions now.
Natasha was truly the last Avenger.
"They've all got lives of their own…. And families," Natasha smiled, the happiness died from her eyes, "I can't blame them."
"You've got a family too," Beatrice reminded her, hating to see sadness radiating from her friend, "you know Brooke adores you and you've directed me to so many kids who needed help getting into new homes. Everyone else has moved on and you've stayed focused on helping everyone as much as you can. That's a true Avenger."
She had her back facing her, but she could have sworn she saw the glisten of a tear from her eyes in the reflection of the car mirror.
"Don't talk about me like I'm some sort of hero," her voice strained sounding as if she was almost pleading with Bea, "You don't know the full extent of the things I've done and need to make up for."
To keep her privacy as much intact as possible, Bea had never read the reports that had surfaced across the internet when Natasha had uploaded all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s information online. But she'd heard things and none of it was good.
"You really think I would judge?" said Bea, "Me? Who let the Winter Soldier live with me after the news was calling him a mad killer. I don't judge people on their worst and neither do you, maybe you should stop judging yourself."
"That's why I've got to do this. Maybe… I'll be able to forgive myself if I can save everyone and bring everyone back." Bea was suddenly reminded of why they were even sitting in the car as they prepared to save the literal universe. Natasha turned in her chair, "I know you don't really want to do this and I understand why but I have to do this. No matter what it takes. I hope you can forgive me for not thinking of the consequences."
Bea hurried to shake her head, "I hope you succeed – God I really hope this works and it's scaring me shitless that I'm actually hopeful. I haven't felt this hopeful in years and it terrifies me… I just don't want my hope to put Brooke in danger."
"It won't," Natasha confirmed, resting her head on the back of her seat with an exhausted sigh, "I hope you choose to help us. We should be doing this all together – Tony, Thor… Clint. The team. Like we were before it all went down."
"Before the Sokovia accords?"
Natasha chuckled darkly, "I never thought I'd say that they were simpler times but here we are."
Just then the door opened and Brooke came back with an armful of sweets and a radiating smile that told Bea she was already preparing for a sugar rush outburst. At least it would be better than the temper tantrum she was having on the journey there, but she expected they'd at least have to listen to her babble on about everything and anything on the way back if the sugar started pumping through her veins.
A/N:
Thank you for all your enthusiasm about finally getting onto endgame. Please let me know what you thought about this chapter.
LunaEvanna Longbottom: I'm so glad we got here too - Ngl, I was getting bored myself of the previous chapters, I have no idea how or why people managed to get through them. It's really lovely to see that people did actually read them though. Even if it wasn't my favourite chapters. Hope you enjoyed the Morgan and Brooke interaction this chapter. Thanks for reading and happy new year!
elljayde: aw thank you so much for catching up with this story! I honestly can't believe people are still sticking with it. There's certain things I'll be changing about Endgame but maybe not what you might think - about your question about Fifteen, when I added her storyline about the Hydra, it was very last minute because I felt like in the 'five years' I was making Bea out to be incapable and kept putting her in situation she was screwing up in (Even though that was sort of the point I was trying to push about her inner feelings of herself), so I decided to add a storyline where she actually saves Fifteen and is the hero but because it was so last minute and rushed i didn't really have time to think about the outcome of the plot and I really wanted to get onto writing Endgame. So yeah... I'm a basically admitting to being a shitty writer who doesn't finish storyline. haha lol. But Fifteen is safe and alive in Wakanda at the moment.