breaking chaos

chapter 9 - mother I'm here

The footage wasn't great. Some sort of grime covered half the camera. The woman has sat heart pounding sitting at the edge of her seat. Leaning forward, in the way of the man also watching, he said nothing about it.

Woman and children filtered out of the steel crate, running away like it was on fire. Into the arms of the awaiting police. Bodies were littered around, bloody. A young girl, dark brown hair that faded into an odd red comes out. Walking.

The woman leans back, "Zoom in on her" the picture was pixels. "Clear it" the picture reveals that which she couldn't believe.

It can't be. It is but it can't be.

If she's here she wasn't blipped. And she should look older. Almost twenty. Not looking sixteen all over again.

It was her. No denying it.

"She's alive Nat."

Steve put his hand on her shoulder.

"South America. She'll go to Brazil, and come here from Brazil. She doesn't know we're not in the tower anymore, "Natasha explains, voice breaking.

"Go to the tower, meet her there."

"Steve."

"What?"

"She doesn't know about Bucky."

He went very quiet. Pale even. Swallowing hard. An unrecognisable emotion crosses his face, when ever are you in a situation we're you have to tell a kid her dad's just......gone.

An alarm rings in the building. Lights flashing red for a moment.

"That can't be her?"

CCTV footage of the front gate starts playing, "it's Scott Lang!"

An awkward pause.

"Ant man!?"

__________

A day to Brazil, a day to new York.

Brooklyn knew whoever was alive knew she was too. Anxious didn't begin to cover it.

For a minute she wished she was cold again. The dampness in her lung, the nagging man telling her to eat. Jokes on him she hadn't for two days.

The hot spells and cold flashes werent something she expected.

Simon had warned her.

Anger is a trigger.

So is panic, anxiety, grief.

With her emotions running wild keeping herself in check was running faster. Laboured.

Breathe.

Please be alive and breathe.

Just breathe.

It's a horrible feeling. Arriving home and it's empty. There's stuff. Neatly folded clothes, tooth brushes and pictures. But it's not alive. They was the mornings were when Natasha was ordering then around. Or when Bucky decides to cook dinner and everything is everywhere.

Her stomach dropped. She wished for cluelessness and sokovia.

What do you mean half the universe is dead?

Where's my mom?

Where's my dad?

Please.

Breathe.

The lights flickered. Tears threatening to spill.

Where's my dad?

"Romanoffs been seen alive."
She couldn't trust Simon anymore. How dare he keep her from this.
How dare he keep this from her.

A phone ring cuts through the awful dead silence.

A phone?

Brooklyn walks back into her parents room.

What?

Looking under the bed, feeling under the bedside. A phone vibrates against the wood.

Brooklyn takes it, awnsering the call.
She says nothing, all she can hear is breathing, distant talking and glass hitting glass.

"Brooklyn?" She'd never heard her mother's voice so small.

"Mom?" That's the first time she called Natasha that, to Natasha. She never denied it.

The woman's breathing for heavily, laboured, Brooklyn was holding her breath. She didn't want to cry right now.

Relief. Grief. Sadness. Joy. It's confusing to be alive.

Brooklyn sits in the ground, leaning against the bed side.

Natasha grips the small plush.

Only hours between them now.

2 hours and 27 minutes by car.

The closest they've been in 4 years.

4 years, 4 months and 12 days. Natasha had been counting.

"Where are you?" Brooklyn broke the silence.

"The compound, me and Steve. Steve doesn't live here, just never leaves." She tried to chuckle. It just sounded sad.

Silent tears rolled down Brooklyns face. Natasha sounded tired.

"Is he- is my dad-?"

"That's not a conversation I want to have over the phone. I need you to come here. To me."

"Mhm" she didn't trust herself not to crack.

"I'm so sorry I wasn't there when you came home, I'm so sorry-"

"No. No. No."

"I need you- I need you to come straight here."

"I'm on my way. I'll see you in a minute."

A/n I appoligise for the short chapter but I want to write the reunited mother and daughter on their own chapter. So this is like a fillet for it.