Despite being lucky enough to be witnessing one of the most incredible technological advancements of their generation, Bea could hardly focus as the team prepped Scott to go into the machine. Her mind was on the tracker still beeping in her pocket.

Bruce instructed them all to start plugging wires into things and tap numbers into the work bench he had set up in front of him. Even if she could focus any of her attention on this, Bea would have absolutely no idea and stayed back with Brooke.

She bobbed up and down excitedly. Questions sprung from her mouth and it was no longer possible to keep what they were doing from her. The very idea of bringing Bucky back seemed to blow the kids mind and when they began to dress Scott in a special time travel suit, Beatrice's heart almost stopped when Brooke stood up and asked if she could go test it out instead.

"No, no," Bea pulled her backwards and kept her at a safe distance, "leave it to the grown up."

"You're our second pair of eyes," said Natasha, holding five wires at once, "if anything goes wrong you've got to tell us."

"-should she really be in this room whilst you guys are doing this?" Bea asked with doubt, "I don't want her to be sucked into some sort of time portal and end up in the 1940s or something."

"That won't happen."

"It could happen," Bruce shrugged.

"What?"

"He's joking," Natasha rolled her eyes, "You can't say things like that."

"Okay – well, either way, I'm going to take Brooke back to my room and we can-"

Brooke stomped her feet angrily, "I want to see what's going to happen!"

After ten minutes of convincing and promising chocolate cake later, Steve and Bea managed to convince Brooke to go to back to her room. As she left, the test runs were almost ready to begin, but she took Steve by the arm and asked if she could speak to him outside. The urgent pounding in her skull, reminding her of the current threat she needed to deal with.

"I'm taking Brooke to England," She told him as soon as the door was shut, "It's the safest place for her."

"Wait… what?"

She pulled the tracker, still bleeping red, from her pocket. Even holding it felt like she was clutching a bomb, "I'm going to leave this here. On me. If Alex wants to track someone, he can track me – Brooke will be in England, away from all this time travel stuff and Alex won't know any different. The only place I feel safe from Alex is here, but I can't keep her here because what if something goes wrong with this…" She wagged a finger where behind the closed doors literal time travel was happening. It would take her some time to get used to that, "You know what she's like. I won't sleep tonight because she'll try and get up and go investigate it for herself."

He crossed his arms tightly, "This feels very familiar to last time. When you went to England after you just had Bea, because you got scared."

Quickly, she shook her head. This was completely different. Last time she had been running from her problems. This was now her attempt at coming up with a rational solution to her daughter's life-threatening issue. The two were incomparable. "This time I'm coming back. Brooke will stay with my mum."

"Brooke won't be happy with that."

"She won't get a choice," Bea fired back, "I can't let her throwing a temper tantrum get in the way of her safety."

"Has she even met your mom before?"

"Once or twice," She tried to recall. Her mum had come and stayed with her at least once over the past five years but it had been so brief and long ago, she doubted Brooke remembered.

"And you think keeping her with your mom is for the best?" Steve raised an eyebrow doubtfully, "Isn't this the same woman who gave you up to Hydra?"

"That… that's a completely different situation. Anyway, in England she'll have nothing to protect her from. No Alex. No time travel. No Avengers."

"The trackers going to be on you? Still active?"

"If I turn it off, Alex will know and he'll start looking for her again, but if I carry it around he'll think Brooke is just here at the Avenger base and won't be able to do anything."

Steve sucked in a doubtful breath, "So instead you're just going to make yourself a target?"

"Better me than her."

A panicked cry, following by a mystical whirring sounding from the other side of the door and their conversation was shortly interrupted.

"Sounds like they need you?"

"I wouldn't know why…" Steve looked scared to even look inside the room to see what had happened, "I had to ask Bruce about five times to work out where one wire connected too."

"Old man," She mocked, enjoying their teasing and wondering how their dynamic would change once everyone was back. She'd miss this. Perhaps that's why he wanted to bring everyone back, because he was tired of dragging her along with him everywhere, "I want you to know, after I take Brooke to England, I'm coming back to help because Natasha's right. If there's any possible way we can do this, we've got to try because… because… he would if it was me who was snapped."

Steve let out a chuckle. She wasn't sure what she said that was so funny but Steve seemed to find the humour in it, "I've been thinking about that. He would have been a pain in the arse to deal with if it had been you that had been snapped… but you're right. He wouldn't have given up."

She tried to imagine a world that she wasn't in but instead Bucky had survived. There was no question about it, he'd be in the room behind them now, willingly putting himself up for testing time travel even though he knew nothing about it.

The door opened and Natasha poked her head out. The distress was evident on her face, "Steve, could really use some help in here."

"I'll be there in a minute, just-" he turned back to Bea, "Are you sure it's a good idea to take her to England?"

"Honestly, no idea," the longer she was a parent, the more she realised being sure of yourself was a rare gift, "Maybe I should place my own tracker on her. Just in case," She cringed, doubtfully, "Is that being a terrible parent? I don't know, they don't write handbooks for mothers with kids who are being stalked and have literal superheroes as their god parents." Maybe she should write her own book. She doubted she'd have a very large audience, "at least with her out of the country I don't have to worry about Alex for a while and I can focus on this time heist… or whatever Scott called it earlier."

"I'm at least glad you want to help us now."

"Believe me, I still think you're all bat shit crazy for attempting this but it's worth a shot."

Steve quickly suggested taking the quinjet over to England. It would be quicker and Bea would have her own personal pilot. Plus, there was the issue of the fact she wasn't technically supposed to leave New York and buying an aeroplane ticket might look a tad suspicious on her bank statement.

In an attempt to avoid an explosion of temper from her daughter, she didn't think there was any need in telling her that Brooke would be left alone in England. The very thought felt as if she was choking her own throat. Never had she been so far from Brooke. It's for the best – She reminded herself for the a thousandth time that day.

But Brooke sudden excitement at getting the chance to go on an even longer 'road trip', broke Beatrice's heart knowing she'd have to crush her hopes in a few hours' time. Brooke raced around, grabbing the small amount of clothes they had stashed for her at the base for emergency's and when she finally peered her head around the bedroom door with curious eyes and asked, "Why are we goin' mummy? I thought we were making a time machine."

"I thought you might like to see grandma Alice."

"Okay!" Brooke sung and skipped away.

When the five-year-old left to close her suitcase, Bea took the tracker from her pocket and delicately placed it in her old bedside table. There was no need to take it with her to England, but as soon as she was back, it would stay constantly in her pocket. With any luck, Alex would follow the tracker and instead of finding Brooke, find Bea. Then she'd put a bullet in his head.

Finally, after four years, Steve had given her a gun with only a mild warning. She wouldn't need the gun in England but there were never any guarantees. After considering putting it in the draw next to the tracker, she finally decided to stuff it in her belt pocket. As if a sudden shield of safety bubbled around her, she felt protected.

With everything packed, she took Brooke's hand and led her to a quinjet already waiting for them.

On her way out, she thought she saw a glimpse of Tony Stark outside with Steve but thought nothing of it. She'd be back in a few hours to help with whatever had happened with said time heist anyway.

It was Natasha that bid them farewell.

"This is a good idea," Natasha nodded confidently. Bea was glad someone was agreeing with this course of action as she was starting to doubt it herself, "you've got to get her as far away from Alex as possible."

"Even if it means leaving her?"

Not missing a beat, Natasha said, "He won't stop. With us here we can hunt him down."

"This is all my fault. I was the one who brought him into her life."

"How could you have known?"

"I just should have."

There was no excuse for putting Brooke in danger. No amount of personal emotion should have gotten in the way of her safety. There was no words Natasha could say that would fade away the guilt that she could have lost her.

Luckily, Natasha seemed to understand this.

She grabbed her arm, "I didn't realise how serious it was. You should have said, I would have found him sooner."

"I thought he was out of our life. He was no longer turning up for work and you said you saw him on CCTV across the city. I just assumed he'd moved on with his life and had gone to a different state because he was too ashamed."

"Some people don't feel shame for their actions," Natasha frowned, "Your greatest weakness is you fail to see the bad in people."

Five years ago, she wouldn't have understood how that could possibly be a weakness, but now after almost losing Brooke and working with the Avengers, she understood where Natasha's words were coming from. Then again, if it wasn't for her 'weakness' she would never had met Bucky.

Sometimes weaknesses were a good thing.

"Don't change," Natasha told her suddenly, "no matter how dark the world gets. Stay believing that there's good in it."

"It might be too late for that. I'm a glass half empty kind of girl now."

She was about to board the jet when Natasha held onto her arm tighter, "When all this is over I've got to talk to you about Alex."

"What about him?"

"After we found the tracker, I did some research into him – I should have done it before – but, there's no point worrying about it now. Let's focus on one mission at a time, we'll discuss it when this whole time travel business is finished."

"You're kind of worrying me, Natasha."

"Don't." they pulled apart, "You're getting Brooke away from all of this and that's what matters. She'll be safe."

Together they stepped on the quinjet. Natasha spoke to the pilot whilst Beatrice went over to check Brooke had tightened her own seatbelt correctly – which of course she hadn't, as it was strapped around her waist and under her arm pit, leaving one of her arms floating awkwardly in the air. Instead of Alex's plane she'd been carrying around for the last few weeks, she now clutched her 'Bucka' bear. Worn around the edges, Bea couldn't count the amount of times she'd had to stitch the bear back up together, but it still remained her favourite toy.

"You ready Brook-ey Cookie?"

Brooke gave a confident nod and lifted her Bucky bear up in the air as if he was flying. Suddenly she flopped it onto her lap and gave a defeated sigh, "Is it dangerous to fly?"

"I thought you loved planes. Surly with all those documentaries you watch, you'd know if they were dangerous?"

"I've never flown before. They're just p-wetty to look at." She had no needs for necklaces or jewellery. Not Brooke. Only Bucky's daughter would find a plane 'pretty' to look at instead.

She crouched down, "Well anything can be dangerous if you're not safe on it. For instance, if mummy drives in her car, I need to wear a seatbelt… I'm making it very dangerous otherwise."

"So, if you follow rules den it's safe."

"Mostly… yes."

Brooke scrunched her nose up, "I don't like to follow rules. Rules can be wrong."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Like you sayin' I can only have one chocolate b-wonie in d' evenin' if I'm good, or…. Or d' rule sayin my daddy can't come home."

"We're going to try and fix that one."

At some point in the last five years, Bea's brain had started questioning everything she did. Like a constant machine was ticking inside her skull, reeling off new fears and insecurities she didn't particularly want to think about but couldn't help it. She supposed at some point, the machine needed to be turned off but she had no idea how too, and now with the sudden panic that Alex had been watching her daughter, she couldn't help but listen in deeply to the questions on her own parenting skills.

"Did you not tell me about Alex because you felt like you couldn't talk to me?" Bea fearfully asked.

"No," Brooke shook her head in the same overly enthusiastic way she always did. It was a wonder how her brain didn't rattle inside her with how quickly she shook it side to side, "you're eeeasssy to talk to, mumma."

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

"He said he wanted to say sorry to you and I 'fought if he said sorry you might not be sad anymore," she pressed her fingers to the edge of Bea's lips and pushed upwards, making it curve ever so slightly into a smile, "You pretty when you smile."

She didn't need to push on her lips as a smile was already forming, "Am I?"

"You don't smile 'dat much though."

She leaned down to kiss the top of her head, "you make me smile more than anyone else in the world."

Brooke giggled, "dat's cause I'm funny."

"You sure are."

A/N

NeoMulder: You're right on it! Won't be seeing Alex now for until after endgame, I can forget all about him for a bit. It's great. lol. Thank you so much for your review again!

Bucky's reaction: I actually haven't written that far ahead yet. Not sure how I'm going to get him to react. It's going to be so overwhelming for him though.

LunaEvanna Longbottom: haha, you're review made me smile because there's something I haven't revealed about Alex yet that might make you sway your 'I hope he gets a happy ending'. Thank you for reviewing! it made my dad.

4: aw thank you so so so much. I love this review, I read it multiple times because it made me smile. As you can see, I'm taking Brooke out of the picture here in this chapter to get her out of the avengers base... can't have baby Brooke in the middle of an explosion. lol. Thank you so much again! Hope you enjoy this fanfiction.Jan 11 c70