Chapter 70

Seeing the Hulk now fully transformed, wasn't a complete shock for Bea as she'd seen the slow and gradual change over the past five years into the Hulk. Brooke just thought he was a funny looking alien, but the novelty had worn off as she sipped her milkshake next to him fully relaxed. Scott on the other hand, was acting like the overgrown child and his eyes transfixed onto him.

"Come on!" Professor Hulk said whilst chewing on his food, "I feel like I'm the only one eating."

"-I'm eating," Brooke bared her teeth in a smile, showing half the mushed-up contents in her mouth.

"That's cause you're the only smart one here. Eat some more… you want some more? I'll get you some more," Hulk raised his hand to call over a waitress over but Bea could already see where this was going and pulled his arm down. She didn't need to encourage her daughters bad eating habits anymore than she already did.

The gang were stuffed inside a boxed cubicle at a café in New York. Elbows rubbed together and with Brooke expanding herself across the chair with all the food piled up in front of her, it was a wonder there was any room to breathe.

"I'm so confused," Scott gestured up and down him.

"I know! It's crazy – I'm wearing shirts now."

"You must think you're in some crazy different dimension," Bea laughed as Scott continued to gape, "A lot can change in five years."

"But… Why? how?"

"Five years ago, we got our asses beat. Except it was worse for me. Because I lost twice. First, Hulk lost. Then Banner lost. Then, we all lost."

"No one blamed you, Bruce."

"I did. For years I've been treating the Hulk like he's some kind of disease, something to get rid of. But then I started looking at him as the cure. Eighteen months in a gamma lab. I put the brains and the brawn together. And now look at me! Best of both worlds."

Everyone had gone through their own way of grieving and everyone had some how blamed themselves. For a dark period, Bea had even blamed the Avengers. It took five years to realise the real hatred she felt should be pointed at Thanos. Healing and moving on wasn't easy, Hulk had found a way to do it though.

As some kids came over and asked for a picture with Hulk, Brooke tapped her on the shoulder.

"Yes, baby?"

"Can I pwease get another shake shake?"

They'd only been there for five minutes and Brooke had already emptied a whole glass of milkshake and was licking out the rest around the edges. A great big moustache of foam smothered around her mouth.

"Fine," Bea whined, fishing for change in her pocket, "only if you be a big girl and order it yourself."

It was something her and Steve were now encouraging her to do, so that she didn't get social anxiety and get scared to talk in front of strangers. Not that she doubted Brooke ever could, her natural talkative nature that made her speak every word that entered her mind made it impossible for Brooke to ever get scared of talking to someone.

Brooke didn't hesitate and snatched the money in her tiny hands. Bea watched her scuttle off to buy another one.

"Anyway-" Hulk heaved, "The whole-time travel do-over. It's outside my area of expertise."

Bea turned back, her hopes dashed, "You can't do it?"

"Well, you pulled this off," Natasha quirked an eyebrow in his direction, "I remember a time when that seemed pretty impossible, too."

Bea felt herself sliding down her chair. So, no one could do it. Angry that she'd even dared to get hopeful, the food in front of her suddenly didn't look very appetising and she pushed it away.

"I guess I could try," Hulk shrugged looking at Natasha with a softness she never expected to see on big green's face.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Do it the old-fashioned way with experimentation. It'll be fun."

Don't you dare get hopeful again – her heart thumped a double beat thinking of Bucky once more.

Brooke waddled back a moment later with her milkshake in her hand. When she sat back down, she slid Bea her money back over.

"Did you – did you steal the milkshake?" She took the change curiously, "I know you're small and new to money but it was meant to pay for it..."

Brooke sipped on her drink happily, "Alex paid for it-"

"Uh – sorry. What?"

Whipping her head to Steve. He looked just as alarmed.

"Brooke… what do you mean?"

Running an eye down the ordering area, she didn't see any gelled back blonde hair she recognised.

She asked more urgently, "Brooke. What do you mean?"

She shrugged, "He was at the till and said not to tell you he was there otherwise you might get mad so I told you anyway."

"How did he know we were here?" Natasha asked, scanning outside.

"but he brought you a drink?"

"Yep."

"Don't drink that." She swiped it away, almost spilling the content completely down Scott, "Where did he go? Are you sure it was him?"

Brooke didn't care to answer her questions, reaching up for her milkshake and standing up on the chair.

"I'll buy you a new one. Just tell me what happened," She urged, making her sit down. She wanted to shut down the whole street if it meant finding him, and was talking so quickly that she felt her mouth sucking dry, "This is important, baby. Remember that he was a very mean person."

Not able to reach, Brooke sunk down in her chair in a strop, "He left after he b'wought it. I didn't see where."

Steve was up in an instance, bringing Natasha with him.

"Have I missed something?" said Scott.

Now with Steve and Natasha on the case of hunting him down, she felt calmer and pulled Brooke into a bone crushing hug.

"I shouldn't have taken my eye off of you," she cursed herself, "I'm sorry – I'll never never do it again. But if you ever see him again, you come and find me immediately."

"It's not the first time I've seen him."

Springing apart, she held her at arm's length, "Sorry… what?"

"He comes to pwe-school sometimes and laughs with de teachers. They call him my daddy," she scrunched her nose up at that one, "but I don't think he's my daddy. You said Bucka is my daddy."

"Is that what he's told the pre-school, that you're his daddy?"

Brooke nodded.

What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. She'd gotten distracted for one moment because of her stupid hopefulness and it could have resulted in losing her daughter. It would have been perfectly simple to have coaxed the five-year-old out of the café with him. Even with the Avengers about… she had literal Captain America and the Hulk with her and somehow Alex had still slipped all of their attention. She was truly never taking her eyes off of her again.

"Why have you never told me?"

"He said he was coming to school to apolo-wise to you in person and I 'fought he should cause he was weally mean to you and he said dat that I shouldn't tell 'du cause 'den his sorry wouldn't mean as much if 'du knew it was comin'".

"You shouldn't listen to him," Brooke teared up. She was an awful mother. How had she not taught Brooke the basic principles of safety. "You've got to tell me next time you see him – bloody hell, how did he even know we were here?"

How could this have happened? It had been months since she'd seen Alex. After their fight, he never showed up to work again. With no resignation or anything. The police told her they found no sight of him and she assumed he'd been too ashamed and ran away. Even Natasha tried looking for him and other than the few bits of CCTV footage she found of him across the other side of the city (a safe distance away) Bea thought they were done with him – How could she have missed this?

How long had he been watching Brooke?

"Hey, whatever it is Captain… Mr. Rogers will sort it," Scott offered kindly, "I'm sure of it."

She ignored him gruffly, more questions pounding into her mind, "did he say anything else to you?"

"Ummmm… he got me a toy plane for my birthday."

Her birthday had been right after she kicked him out.

Brooke leaned down and pulled a plastic plane model from her bag proudly, "Dis one. It's got all my favourite colours on it."

A sudden terrifying thought sprung to mind. Without a second thought, she snatched it and stamped it down on the table.

"Whoa!" Scott tried to stop her but she bashed it as hard as she could. Brooke gave a small yelp as her favourite toy was demolished before her eyes but as the small sprays of plastic scattered across the table and into their food something small, black and box like cluttered out. In her hands was an unmistakable tracker. A red blinking light bleeped on and off to show it was still active.

"I'm going to fucking kill him," grating between her teeth. Her fingers curled around the device but was careful not to crush it.

"Mumma… you b'woke it… my plane."

"Is… is that a tracker?"

The café door screeched open and Steve came back. Suddenly fuming red in the face.

"I couldn't find him anywhere," He said stalking towards them, "I let him get away with what he did before but not this – Natasha's in the car on her laptop now, she's going to find him."

She held up the tracker to him, waiting for the bigger explosion that was sure to follow when he saw it, "This is how he found us."

Steve blinked momentarily at the device. All of a sudden, his fists smashed down on the table, "God damn it!"

"-Hey, hey, hey…" Hulk looked around as they attracted the attention of everyone there and struggled to stand with his huge form, placing a hand on his Steve's arm, "Let's all get back to the base and we'll figure this out from there. Whatever this is."

"I want a gun again," said Bea determinedly. She was already picturing shooting him between his eyes. How good that would feel.

In his rage, Steve didn't even bother to argue with her this time, "Fine."

A/N Alex is still there. So sorry. :)

NeoMulder: this review really cheered me up! so thank you for reviewing and I'm so glad you like Bea's character, I never wanted to fall into the trap of making her a mary-sue. THANK YOU!