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It all starts the moment Korg hands him the baby.
No. Wait. Bruce corrects himself: it all started long before that, back when the number of planets Bruce had been on was still at one and he’d shouted himself hoarse as gamma rays engulfed him.
This particular segment of crazy in his life starts the moment Korg hands him the baby.
It’s been ten days since their escape from Sakaar. A week since Hulk had allowed him back out. Apparently, he and Thor had had a heart to heart and it was decided that it was only fair to let Bruce have a turn, considering he had jumped off a spaceship and let Hulk out much earlier than he would have liked to after straight up not existing for two years. Bruce can’t even find it within himself to be annoyed that it took three days for them to settle on this; frankly, he’s just relieved he was able to come back at all.
He doesn’t see too much of Thor after his return, save for the occasional evening where they will meet each other for a meal of carefully rationed space food (some of which Bruce finds dubiously edible) and the odd bottle of liquor that Valkyrie brings along when she joins them. Heimdall and Korg are also usually in attendance to these meetings. Loki less so, although he can be convinced if Thor is in the mood to try dragging him along. These moments are mellow and relaxed, conversation mainly focusing on casual observations of how Thor’s rule is going, how everyone's day has been, what their next destination should be. It’s all very calm.
Which is completely the opposite to how Bruce’s day is going now.
Since waking on the ship, Bruce spent most of his time helping to look after the refugees and Sakaarian people. Today he’d been woken rather abruptly to someone shouting for a healer and he’d rushed to the scene to find two Asgardian healers supporting a heavily pregnant woman between them, her young son hovering nearby. Once determining that his assistance was not needed with the mother (the two healers more than qualified to handle it themselves), Bruce had volunteered to keep her son occupied until it was all over.
Most of their time together had been spent on the main deck, where many of the other children often gathered to play. As one of the ‘Revengers’ (as Thor still insisted on calling them) Bruce was quite popular amongst them. They surround him, all asking to ride on his back (to which he politely refuses - apparently the Hulk had made a habit of being a living climbing frame for them during the first few days but Bruce can barely lift two of them, never mind the dozen that clamour around him when he enters the room). Eventually the children tire and all but a few are left on deck. Bruce keeps his attention on his charge and the boy seems happy enough with his company. When it comes to the point where Bruce would usually recommend the boy get some sleep, he insists on staying up, not wanting to miss his mother’s return.
“Hey, man.”
Bruce looks up from the book they’d been reading together. Or, more accurately: the book that the boy had been reading to himself while Bruce listened, unable to translate the Asgardian text himself.
He hadn’t expected anyone to still be around at this time of night. Not that they had night and day out in space, but most of the ship’s inhabitants lived by a similar circadian rhythm. The boy continues reading by himself, too engrossed to notice that Bruce was no longer paying attention.
“It’s me, Korg!”
As if Bruce could mistake him for anyone else. Aside from being made out of literal stone , Korg had a unique, chirpy energy in his voice that Bruce had yet to hear anyone match.
Gently, he eases the boy off his lap, allowing him to settle himself against the wall. He moves himself and Korg away from him, granting him a little more peace and quiet while he reads. Then he addresses the question that has been on the tip of his tongue ever since he looked up.
“Is that a baby?” It’s more of a rhetorical question than anything. There’s no mistaking the wriggling lump wrapped loosely in a swathe of yellow cloth three times as long as its torso. Korg is holding it with his arms stretched out, each hand cupped underneath its armpits. While the baby isn’t crying yet, it doesn’t look comfortable and Bruce can see its frustration growing as it kicks its legs under the fabric, looking for contact and security but finding none.
“It is indeed.”
There’s a beat of silence wherein Bruce waits for Korg to elaborate.
Which he doesn’t.
Bruce sighs. It’s going to be one of those days, he can tell. (And by ‘those days’ he means nearly every day of his life where he has to get himself into something that he will probably wish he wasn’t into later on).
“... why?”
Korg tilts his head and eyes the baby’s kicking legs thoughtfully as he explains. “Well you see I was wandering around on the floor above around where some of the kids hang out. A lot of them tend to like climbing on my back, you see, especially when your bigger half isn’t around to do it.”
Bruce nods along as Korg goes wildly off tangent about games of rock, paper, scissors and hide and seek - “there’s actually not too many places for a rock man to hide in here. Now if we had been in a mountain range or a, uh, maybe like a very pebbly beach or something…” - and his anxiety increases with every second the baby squirms uncomfortably. Eventually, he caves into his impulses and interrupts Korg.
“Hold on. I’m just gonna…” Reaching out, he gently lifts the baby out of Korg’s hands.
“Oh yeah, good idea!” Korg smiles as he hands it over. “I don’t think she was very comfortable with me. I didn’t really want to hold her too tightly because, as you know, I’m made out of rocks.”
“Yep. Got it.” Bruce says, putting more of his attention on rocking the baby in his arms as he holds her against his chest. Already she seems much more content. “You were saying?”
“Right,” Korg continues. “So. I was sat in the corner with my hands over my eyes pretending to be a lumpy space boulder when one of the kids comes over and taps me on the head. But instead of saying found you she takes me to where this baby has been left lying by one of the windows in the empty room by the cargo bay. And I thought, I can’t just take this baby from here ! So I sat there and waited for its mum to come back. But she didn’t. So I thought, I can’t just leave this baby here! And then I brought her here to you.”
The story finishes so abruptly that Bruce doesn’t process that Korg has stopped talking.
“Oh. Right…”
Before he can think of a way to respond (other than with complete bafflement) Korg waves at him and says, “Anyway. Thanks, man. I’ll leave her to you.” And with that he turns to leave.
“What? Wait! Stop.” He follows Korg to the door. “You’re leaving her with me?”
Korg turns. “That’s exactly what I said! Listen…” He places a hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “I can’t take her.” He shrugs, spreading his other hand. “Rock men don’t make good babysitters… unless, of course, the baby is also made out of rocks.”
“But-- eh...” Bruce droops his head, tilting it concedingly, shoulders hunching in defeat. As reluctantly as he may be, he can’t deny how inclined he is to agree with everything Korg is saying right now.
Obviously taking this as a sign that all business has finished, Korg smiles brightly and taps him on the shoulder. “See you later, man.” Then he disappears out the door, whistling a familiar (most likely Sakaarian) tune as he goes.
As the whistles fade into silence, Bruce remains in that same spot, trying to process what just happened.
He looks down at the baby.
She squirms and buries her face in his shirt, bunching the material in her tiny fists.
He looks at the boy sat on the other side of the room. It would seem that he’d stopped reading a while ago and instead watches Bruce. When they make eye contact he shrugs in what Bruce can only interpret as sympathy. As if he’s saying sorry, man, but this is how it’s got to be. And then he lowers his head, leaving Bruce to his own problems and becoming engrossed in his book once more.
…
Several hours later, one of the Asgardian healers returns to collect the boy and take him to his mother and apparently newborn brother. On the way out Bruce catches her arm.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where I can find any baby food around here?” She had started getting restless again just half an hour after Korg left and Bruce is hoping that food will settle her down again.
Rooting through their food store turns out to be more difficult than he had anticipated. One of the main problems is that everything is labelled with alien runes. Bruce picks up two identical jars, both with different (but indecipherable) labels. The contents are also identical; a white, mushy paste, much like the one the healer had described to him. But only one of them is edible. The other, apparently, medicinal. And Bruce has no idea which. He shifts the baby’s weight to hold her in one arm and uses his teeth to remove the lid of one of the jars.
It’s just as he sticks his nose in to smell it that a dark figure emerges from behind a stack of boxes.
With a yelp, Bruce drops the jar, both hands clutching the baby tightly to his chest. Quick as a flash a pale hand plucks it out of the air, mid-fall, and hands it back to Bruce.
“It’s this one,” Loki says as he edges past.
Bruce furrows his brow, confused. “What are you doing here?”
“Nothing.” Loki calls as he rushes away around the corner.
Shaking his head, Bruce decides to save pondering on what Loki may be up to for another time and get the baby the food it needs.
…
“And you’re sure you haven’t heard anyone asking about a lost baby?”
The space equivalent of morning came quickly enough and Bruce spent several hours of it weaving through the crowds that had gathered across the entire expanse of the ship, hoping to find any indication of where he could find the baby’s parents.
So far the only information he had gotten was from a group of the older children who had lost their own parents during Hela’s attack. Apparently the baby had been found in the cargo bay over a week ago. The children had been feeding it and looking after it from then but, with their limited experience, had eventually decided it would be better to turn her over to Korg. This doesn’t bode well in Bruce’s mind but he won’t give up until he knows for sure. It’s still possible that they had simply been separated during the rush to escape Asgard. Perhaps someone else had brought her on board for them to find.
“No. Sorry.” The two-headed gladiator in front of him gives him an apologetic look while he crouches down, tickling the baby under the chin and cooing.
The lack of information on how he could go about finding her parents is growing increasingly more frustrating.
The second head pipes up. “I might know how you could find out who it belongs to… if that helps?”
Bruce blinks, baffled. “If that… of course it helps. I --” He takes a deep breath in, running a hand over his face, wearily. “Sorry. I haven’t slept in 24 hours. What do you know?”
The gladiator removes his finger from under the baby’s chin to poke at the corner of the blanket. “There’s an insignia here that my old mate Arvi used to wear back in the colosseum on Sakaar. Said it was his family crest. I bet she belongs to them.”
“Okay… could you tell me where I can find them?”
…
Bruce walks away from the gladiator, baby in one arm and palm up as he squints at the name of the planet scrawled across his palm. It’s not one he’s ever heard of before. Although that is to be expected. All of this travel through space has really put into perspective how much of the universe humans have yet to discover.
So deep in thought about this is he, that he doesn’t notice the raising voices growing louder until a large, bug-like alien stands in front of him, shouting over his head. It’s a language he doesn’t recognise (as is often the case in space it seems - what he wouldn’t give for Thor’s allspeak) but he can tell by the tone that they’re angry. Suddenly, with barely enough time to react, it throws a punch. Most likely they were aiming for whoever owns the angry voice coming from behind him. But Bruce finds himself in its path and it’s only thanks to his quick reflexes that he’s able to duck under it and allow it to find it’s mark.
There’s not much time to recover before another punch is thrown, and he holds the baby tightly to his chest as he ducks yet again.
Unfortunately, he’s not so lucky when a kick lands to the back of his leg. Pain shoots through him and he drops down on one knee, temporarily unable to support his own weight. Hunching over, he tries to provide as much protection as he can to the bundle in his arms for as long as he can, until a familiar voice puts a stop to the fight.
“Oi!”
A hand hooks under his arm, pulling him to his feet and holding him there while he tests his legs’ ability to hold his weight.
“You okay, Bruce?” Korg asks. The hand not holding onto Bruce grips the gladiator that kicked him by the hair, holding him at an arm's length. Bruce nods gratefully. His leg is throbbing fiercely but it’s not something Korg can help with.
“You’d best get out of here, mate. I’ll sort these guys out.”
Taking no time to hang around, Bruce gives a slightly pained smile and hobbles away. As he goes, he checks the baby in his arms. She seems unharmed, which is a relief. Hopefully no more incidents will occur in the time between now and getting her home.
…
An hour after the fight, Bruce sits on his bed, left leg under him while the other is stretched out on a pillow. A bandage covers his right leg around his knee and upper thigh. In his hand some kind of hologram projector (given to him by Valkyrie) displays a seemingly endless list of planets. He scrolls carefully down it, searching for directions to the one the gladiator had told him about.
Opposite him, separated by the holographic light, sits the baby. The blanket pools around her like a nest and she seems rather capable when it comes to sitting up by herself. Clenched tightly in one fist are Bruce’s (okay, technically Tony’s) glasses. Pausing in his search, he watches her out of the corner of his eye as she waves them about.
“Please, don’t break those. They’re the only pair I’ve got,” he murmurs to her out loud. Her response is to shove the corner of one of the lenses into her mouth, a trail of drool dripping down the side of it. Nose scrunching up with distaste, he places the projector to one side and leans forward, stretching an arm out to reach for them. “I could probably read these a lot better if I could… just..” But no matter how hand he tries, the baby’s grip is like iron and he’s unable to retrieve them from her.
“Fine.” He throws up his hands, leaning back against the wall again. “But don’t blame me if we have to sit here for three more hours while I try to guess which planets have ‘w’s in them and which ones use consecutive ‘v’s.”
It’s probably another half an hour in that the next problem of the day arises.
A lamp in the corner of the room suddenly lights up, pulsing as it casts the room in a crimson red. Some kind of alarm?
Indeed it’s only seconds later that he hears shouts and he pokes his head out the door just in time to Thor, Loki and Valkyrie rush past.
“Hey. Hey!” he shouts to get their attention. Thor stops in his tracks, turns back to him and jogs over to grip him firmly by the shoulders as he catches his breath.
“We’ve ran into… some rogue ravagers… space pirates,” he explains between breaths. “Stay down here. Keep people calm. We’ll deal with them.” And with that he takes off again, sprinting to catch up with the others.
Immediately, Bruce turns on his heel, rushing back inside. The glasses have dropped from the baby’s mouth and her face is scrunched up in a pout, no doubt a reaction to the beeping noise that has started up along with the alarm light. He plucks the glasses back up first, wiping them on the hem of his shirt and placing them back on his face. Next, he scoops up the baby, bouncing her a little in hopes of calming her down. As he feels her weight in his arms a thought occurs to him that he might need his hands free for this situation.
Brain working fast, he considers his options and settles on an idea. Placing her back down, he untangles the oversized blanket from around her and holds it up between his hands. Hesitating just for a moment - if the texture is anything to go by, this could be a very expensive blanket - he pulls and rips the blanket into strips. Soon he has the baby settled against his chest again, facing outwards, this time held snugly by his makeshift baby-carrier. The crest from the corner he rips off separately, pocketing it for later.
Back out in the hallway, the lights still pulse steadily as he makes his way towards the main living quarters for the rest of the ship’s inhabitants, ready to go and help deal with any potential panic that may be occuring.
But before he can make it to the next hallway, he hears voices. Harsh, loud voices. Not wanting to get into conflict, he ducks through the closest doorway and begins a hasty power-walk down the corridor.
It’s just his luck that more voices appear in the direction he’s now heading. This time he doesn’t manage to find another route before three pirates round the corner, stopping when they spot him.
There’s a few seconds where neither Bruce nor the pirates move. Then, like someone hit play on the world, they spring into action.
Bruce’s diversion had led him to the edge of the ship and the corridor he now finds himself in is lined with rows of escape pods. Jumping to the side and into one of these pods, he barely manages to slam the ‘close’ button on the door before the blasts from their guns hit right where he had stood.
All three step up to inspect the door, looking for a way to open it. Bruce can do nothing but watch as the one on the right shoots another blast at it.
This rebounds, hitting him through the head, killing him instantly.
The other two watch their companion drop to the floor with a mild curiosity. The one in the centre - now on right if Bruce only counts the remaining two - steps up to the control panel on the side of the door. A malicious grin spreads across his face. Deliberately slow, he holds a finger over one of the buttons.
“Wait!” Bruce cries out, but the pirate only wiggles his fingers in a mocking wave and presses the button.
The force of the pod’s ejection throws Bruce back into the wall and he becomes weightless as he leaves the range of the ships artificial gravity. In his arms there’s a wall and he grits his teeth through the pain in his back as he tries to make soothing noises to her.
Slowly, the ship shrinks further and further away and Bruce’s heart sinks with every second they drift. Looking around the small space, he finds what appears to be a steering device. But the moment he touches it the pod flips upside down and picks up speed again.
Spinning out of control, Bruce tries to correct himself with little success. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a mass growing larger and when he twists himself to turn to it fully he sees a green and orange planet growing outside the window.
They hit the atmosphere maybe fifteen minutes later and, while Bruce has managed to stop the spinning, he’s yet to figure out a way to decrease the speed or change the direction.
Why do alien spaceships never come with instructions?
Numbers race through Bruce’s mind as the planets surface grows ever closer. He’s running out of time.
Desperately, he begins pressing every button on the control panel. There’s no time for working things out. He either gets lucky or they crash.
For once, its the former.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Bruce waits as the pod slowly descends. It lands with a gentle bump, the impact churning up dust that engulfs the clear pod for a moment before it disperses.
There’s another whine of distress from the baby.
“Hey. It’s okay,” he whispers, gently wiping a few tears from the corner of her eyes with the pad of his thumb. “I knew I could land us. I have seven PhDs.”
Somehow this works, although Bruce highly doubts the baby cares about how many PhDs he has. She wouldn’t be the first, he thinks smiling wryly to himself.
Now comes the big decision: Should he stay here or go outside?
It’s one he’s made many a time, although never with such life-threatening potential resting on it.
Time decides for him. With no sign of a rescue and no supplies in the pod, he decides that his only choice is to scope out the area, possibly find the baby some more food. Or a way to signal to Thor. That would be pretty good too.
Unfortunately, civilisation doesn’t seem to be anywhere nearby.
The planet is a jungle. Literally. Never before had he seen trees that stretch so high, some almost too high to tell where the top is. Thick trunks are covered in miles and miles of twisted vines. It’s all green but in a brighter, sicklier shade than he’s used to seeing on foliage. It’s like someone had taken a paintbrush and coated everything in luminous paint. The ground beneath his feet is dusty and bright orange, already clinging to his shoes and caking them in an extra layer.
He tries to be careful where he puts his feet, choosing the least treacherous paths he can find. It’s one thing being stranded on an uninhabited alien planet with a baby. It’s another thing being stranded on an uninhabited alien planet with a baby and then choosing to attempt to scale the several feet of orange rock that juts out at a 75 degree angle in front of him. He has a responsibility right now to stay as far out of danger as he can.
One hand stays tucked beneath her in the hope of keeping any jolts, when he has no choice but to jump over a few minor crevices in the ground, to a minimum.
One upside for a long trek through the jungle is that the baby seems to be amused by it. Cooing and gurgling noises are a constant for the next half hour and Bruce can’t help the little smile that crosses his face each time she excitedly flaps her arms at every jump he pulls off.
“Well at least one of us is enjoying this,” he says dryly into the air. Then he tucks his chin in, looking down at her to address her directly. “Next time, you can be the one to carry me.” This silences her for a minute as she looks up at him with wide, brown eyes, fingers still in her mouth. For a moment, Bruce allows himself to pretend that she actually understood what he said. But the illusion is ruined with a giggling fit and more excited arm-waving at his next jump. Unfortunately, he miscalculates and lands with his weight coming fully onto his still sore leg. It buckles beneath him and yelps in pain. Scrabbling at the nearby vines slows his fall, somewhat, but his back still hurts from hitting it inside the escape pod and landing on it this time isn’t any less painful.
Dust puffs up around them yet again. He quickly cups both hands over her face as a coughing fit comes upon him, hoping to prevent her from inhaling any of it. Who knows what this planet is made of?
When it settles, there’s silence.
The baby gurgles happily.
Not bothering to sit up, Bruce slides her out of the carrier and turns her over so that she lies on his chest, facing him.
“So, you think this is funny?” he asks her, raising his eyebrows in mock seriousness. Apparently, the answer is yes because a pink, gummy smile (speckled with the lumps of a few potentially growing teeth) stretches across her face. Eyes scrunch closed with infectious laughter yet again. Bruce can’t help but feel better about this entire messed up predicament as he watches her.
Chuckling, Bruce heaves himself up into a sitting position, crossing his legs and moving her to his lap. Her eyes stay fixed on his face, still smiling brightly. There must be something funny on him, he determines. Indeed a hand to the back of his head comes away bright orange and when he cranes his neck to look at his back he sees it is also caked in the orange dust.
He turns back to her. “This isn’t usually my colour. I’m more of a green or purple kind of guy.” Scooping her up in both arms, he stands. More dust rains down from him as he does so and he makes a disgusted noise. “I think we know what this planet is made of...” He holds her up to his face, so that their noses are mere inches apart. “Cheetos.”
Perhaps, he thinks, as she burst into giggles yet again … Perhaps it’s the tone that she finds so amusing.
Crack!
Bruce jumps at the sudden noise. Head snapping to the right, he squints into the brush.
The creaking and cracking only gets louder. A few branches fall.
Something is approaching, there’s no doubt about it.
Something big.
Hastily pulling himself to his feet, he re-secures her back in the carrier and sets off at a fast walk. The slight limp he has developed delays him more than he would have liked but somehow he manages to get to a clearing where the cracking sounds are no longer following him. Slowing to a halt, he gives himself a moment to lean against a tree and rub at his aching back.
“Sure feeling my age right now,” he says woefully. The baby stays silent, as she has been ever since they first began moving again. Whatever had been following them had clearly spooked her just as much as it had Bruce. “Don’t worry,” he tells her. “It’s gone now.” He turns around, trying to determine the best way to go.
Two enormous, glowing red eyes stare back at him.
Bruce freezes instantly, eyes wide and heart pounding so violently that it hurts. There’s a rumbling in the back of his mind, like a roaring fire that is dulled by the distance. It gets louder with each second but he wills it back, desperately trying to get across to Hulk that he can’t come out, not with a baby still strapped to his chest. This seems to do the trick and the roaring subsides.
Neither Bruce nor the gigantic beast in front of him make a move, each eyeing the other over, assessing. The eyes alone are the size of Bruce’s torso. The rest of its body is covered in green, feathery spikes and scales, with a bulky muscle mass and two rows of sharpened teeth, each one the size of his arm.
Very carefully, he turns his head a fraction and glances around, checking for an escape route. This statelmate can’t last forever. As he scans the clearing, a realisation dawns on him. The area they stand in is almost a perfect circle, comprised of fallen trees and rocks that he is 90 percent sure didn’t get there naturally.
He puts up his hand in what he hopes is a calming gesture and takes one step back from the beast. A twig snaps loudly under his foot.
It’s a nest. One that he has unwittingly wandered into.
“My bad,” he says, gritting his teeth at the sound of the twig snapping echoing through his mind. The creature in front of him growls, crouching and baring its teeth.
A split-second decision is made and Bruce leaps to the side just as a large claw swipes out to where he had stood. Taking off at a sprint, he forgets all about his aching back and throbbing leg as the adrenaline kicks in.
The creature bounds after him. Fortunately its bulk prevents it from going through some of the gaps in the trees, but another swipe of its claws removes any obstacles and it more often than not makes up the distance again in a few short leaps.
Not that Bruce is paying too much attention, other than panicking each time its breath gets close enough to blow some of the orange dust off his back. Instead he focuses on his feet, evading holes and rocks that might snag him. He tries to keep the bumping to a minimum and occasionally places one hand on the baby too keep her steady when he reaches a particularly tricky jump.
It’s only a matter of time before he runs out of ground. Indeed, a deep ravine greets him at his next turn. Shouting in frustration (and yes, there's some fear in it… not for him but for the other precious life that has become tied to his survival), he turns to look behind him. The creature is currently busy eradicating a particularly thick trunk as it blocks its path. He calculates that he probably has less than a minute before it reaches him.
Taking a deep breath, he leans over to stare down into the ravine. There is no visible bottom. A fall like that… well it’s possible not even the Hulk could survive, let alone Bruce. But there’s no other choice.
Testing the sheer rock face beneath him with one foot, he finds a secure foothold and begins a precarious descent.
“Don’t look down,” he mutters to himself. But that immediately clears from his mind when there’s a distressed wail from the baby. “It’s okay,” he says to her. He wishes he could get a hand free to give her some physical reassurance. But he doesn’t dare let go of the handholds he has. “It’s -- whoa…” He really should have taken his own advice about looking down. Somehow, the ravine looks even deeper now that he’s in it.
There’s a screech above him and the creature passes over his head, crossing the ravine in one swift jump, before carrying on into the thick of the jungle. Little chunks of rock rain down from where it had taken off and Bruce does his best to shield the baby with his body. When it all settles, he breathes a sigh of relief.
Then begins the shaking climb back up.
…
“I’m sorry you got stuck with me,” he says to her as they walk along. After several hours of trekking, the jungle had finally given way to some clearer valleys, which is much easier on his injuries. “I’m kind of a bad luck magnet. Although at least you’ve seen the worst it can get.” He puffs out an exhausted breath. It’s been a while since he was forced to walk so far. But this is survival and he knows he can go much further before he truly needs rest. “I doubt we’ll come across anything more dangerous than that.”
Reaching the top of a grassy hill, he stops. Pushing his (now cracked) glasses up onto his head, he surveys the landscape. On one side there is more of the jungle. In fact, the jungle covers three sides. The last side presents him with a mountain path. Cupping a hand over his eyes, he squints at the peak. It’d probably be a good place to get a look at the area. Perhaps from up there he might spy a village or a city.
He looks down at the baby, hands on his hips. “What do you say? Do you want to climb that mountain?”
The baby snores softly, head lolling to the side. She had fallen asleep around an hour ago.
Bruce finds he misses her constant cooing and giggling already.
“Yeah, me neither.”
…
Climbing the mountain proves to be a little easier than the ravine, but not by much. Carrier now strapped to his back, Bruce keeps his stomach flush with the mountainside as he reaches for another handhold.
Turning his head, he looks back over his shoulder at the baby. “You doing okay back there?”
There’s a yawn. Obviously her nap hadn’t quite replenished her energy enough for her to start making conscious noises again.
Finally, he reaches a flat ridge sticking out of the mountainside, just wide enough to hold him without anything dangling off the edge. Collapsing onto his hands and knees, he takes a moment as he gets his breath back. Then he looks up.
“Oh, come on, please don’t...”
The stray rocks and pebbles on the ground before him are vibrating. The ground under his palms shifts, trembling growing stronger and stronger with each second. Avalanche.
Probably accompanied by an earthquake too.
Bruce hates his luck.
Arms pull out of the straps of the makeshift carrier and the baby is pulled to his chest as he backs against the wall and curls around her, head down and keeping as far away from the now crumbling edge as possible.
This isn’t fair.
Not that anything usually is for Bruce but he’s really feeling the injustice right now. If it had been just himself upon this mountain he’d probably be fine. The Hulk could take a fall, could take being smashed by several tons of rock. And if he couldn’t… well that’d just be the way it goes. But it’s not just him. The child in his arms isn’t indestructible like him. She didn’t get a say when she was put with Bruce, the eternal bad luck magnet.
The baby whimpers, the disturbance waking her from her sleep. He hushes her with soft reassurances, but he can feel his heart sinking in his chest and it almost brings tears of frustration to his eyes to know that all of them are false.
There’s an ear-splitting crack beneath him and the chunk of rock he’s been sitting on jolts, splitting away from the wall and joining the avalanche in sliding back down the mountainside. Large chunks of rock jolt them as they go, getting bigger by the second.
Perhaps he’ll Hulk-out before they’re hit by one. Perhaps he can save her.
Betty’s face flashes in his mind, broken and unconscious. Hulk, for all that he tries to be as a protector, is destructive by nature.
There’s little hope.
Suddenly, a shadow falls over him. It is closely followed by Valkyrie dropping out of the sky.
All he can do is gape as she wastes no time pulling him to his feet and wrapping her arms around his torso. A small smile tells him she’s just as relieved to see him as he is to see her (okay, he’s probably winning on that account) but it doesn’t last long before she musters her energy and leaps all three of them high into the air, back into the pod she had arrived in, which hovers directly above them.
They somehow land on their feet but the moment she lets go of him, Bruce collapses to his knees, breathing heavily as his emotions catch up with the sudden change of fate. When it finally levels out he looks up at her and smiles weakly.
“Thanks.”
“Who’s that?” She gestures to the baby still cradled close to his chest.
Bruce loosens his hold, turning her a little so that she can get a look at their saviour. “Brunnhilde, this is… Baby. Baby, Brunnhilde.”
Baby, for her part, makes an indistinct babble, expression neutral. It could be worse, especially after the ordeal they’ve been through. Bruce supposes alien babies must be made of sterner stuff than human infants.
Valkyrie looks down at him, eyebrows drawn together with bafflement. As if this is the most surprising revelation Bruce has even presented her with. “And… she’s not yours, right?”
For some reason, Bruce hesitates.
He shouldn’t. But he does.
“No,” he finally says, “No, Korg found her on the ship…”
And thus begins his lengthy retelling of the past day or so, which lasts them throughout the journey back to the ship, up until the last few minutes before they join with it.
“So you still haven’t found her parents,” she clarifies when he finishes, eyes remaining fixed on the window as she steers them back to the pod bay.
“No.” It still irks him just as much as it did in the beginning. “Although, I do have this.” He pulls out the little scrap of cloth from his pocket, which had somehow survived their adventure. “Apparently, this points to some planet where her family might live.”
Valkyrie inspects the emblem, nodding.
“Tell me the name.”
…
“Are you ready?”
Bruce, now in a fresh change of clothes (but still sporting the yellow cloth baby-carrier), nods at Heimdall.
“Is Baby ready?” Thor asks, striding over to stand behind Bruce’s shoulder and tickle under her chin. Ever since returning to the ship, ‘the baby’ had changed to just ‘Baby’, as his introduction for her was taken literally by Valkyrie and she had relayed it to the rest of them in a similar manner. Bruce is almost sure she did it to mess with him, but he lets it go. It’s not like he has anything else to call her.
Baby, for her part, makes an adorable gurgling sound and reaches over Bruce’s shoulder to grab at Thor’s eyepatch with her pudgy hands. Thor leans out of the way immediately, slightly alarmed, and steps back out of the way so Valkyrie can take his place. It had been decided that she would be the only one to accompany, what with Thor being here needed to lead the people and Heimdall unable to both transport them and come with them.
Back into the carrier Baby goes, leaving Bruce’s hand free to grip Valkyrie’s as they prepare. It seems she notices his slight apprehension, and she gives his hand a reassuring squeeze. Despite only knowing and befriending Hulk for several years, she seems to have become just as attached and in tune with Bruce. Bruce has speculated that it may have something to do with Hulk’s emotions bleeding into his. But he doesn’t have time to ponder it now.
Heimdall mutters something indistinct and light engulfs them. Bruce shields Baby’s eyes with one hand and scrunches his own closed as the light becomes blinding.
When he feels Valkyrie let go of him and hears her step away, he opens them.
This planet, while still full of vegetation and greenery, is vastly different to the last one. Everything seems smaller. There’s a village, perhaps even a small city nearby, comprised of oddly shaped oval buildings and winding roads.
There lies their destination, according to the directions Valkyrie had somehow procured from the ship’s database. Its previous owner had kept a surprisingly good log of all the connections of anyone who found their way to his planet.
He follows her, walking a few paces slower when he feels Baby’s hands tickling under his chin. When he looks down they connect with his face, snatching the glasses right off of his nose.
“Hey!” He doesn’t bother attempting to remove them, knowing that it won’t go any better than the last time. “You know, it’s a good thing we have someone else to read all these signposts.” Hearing him, Valkyrie turns her head and shoots him an amused look, both at his words and at his obvious inability to retrieve his glasses. Hopefully, Bruce will be able to convince her to get them back for him.
All too soon they reach the door they want. It’s simple.
Plain. Nondescript.
It sends Bruce’s anxiety through the roof.
“Are you ready?” The question is asked again.
Sighing, he pulls Baby out of the carrier, pulling their faces close so that he can look her in the eye. “As crazy as the last 24 hours have been for me… I think I’m gonna miss you, you know.” He chuckles. “It’s been nice to have someone around who listens instead of speaks.” His lighthearted words accompany his heavy heart.
For a moment, her face remains in its slackened, slightly curious expression. Then a gummy smile breaks forth and she rocks excitedly in his arms. He smiles back fondly and knocks on the door.
A tall, elderly woman answers it. And when he says tall, he means taller than Thor, tall enough that he has to crane his neck to look her in the eye. If this is Baby’s family, he can now see where she gets her strength, despite being tiny right now.
“Who the fuck are you people?” she asks him.
“It’s… a long story, ma’am.” Bruce begins calmly.
After some convincing, they enter the building. Inside they are joined by several other family members, varying in all ages.
Recounting the story for the second time that day is significantly more draining than the last time, especially with the required addition of Asgard’s destruction and Sakaar’s revolution. But he gets through it with the occasional input from Valkyrie and when he finishes, he feels himself holding his breath for what is to come next.
The woman bends over a little to get a look at Baby.
“Yeah, I remember. This is my granddaughter.”
So this is the place.
He holds Baby out to her. She’s not his to hold onto anymore.
But the woman makes no move. In fact, she steps back away from them, standing besides her equally as stony-faced family.
Another member speaks up, a man who looks to be around Bruce’s own age. “Thanks for letting us know what happened. You can go now.”
There’s a pause. Bruce stays frozen to the spot, mouth open. “You… aren’t you going to take her?”
“She’s not our problem,” he says. “Didn’t even know she existed and don’t really care to. Her parents are dead and we don’t need the reminder.”
As what he’s saying filters through Bruce’s brain, he feels an anger swell within him. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s just been through a hell of a day combined with the fact that he hasn’t slept in even longer is putting him on edge.
But no. This is outrageous to Bruce, who has just crossed half of the universe to bring this baby home. Bruce, who spent his entire childhood growing under adults who didn’t care. Bruce, who has spent the last twenty or so years of his life imagining the future that he could have had if he had just held back his own ego and not gone through with the experiment that had ripped it all away.
“Bruce.” Valkyrie grips his arm, a warning tone in her voice. But he can see in her eyes that she’s just as angry as he is.
“Fine,” he snarls at them, drawing Baby back to him and backing away from them. “Do you know what I -- what billions and trillions of people would give…” His words won’t come out right, getting caught in his throat as his emotions come through.
Valkyrie pulls his outside before anything can happen. Once the door closes behind them, she maneuvers him so that he can lean against the wall, grip on his arm loosening. They don’t talk for a moment, Bruce focusing on breathing exercises to keep himself in control, Valkyrie well aware of the roaring in his head that had started the moment the man had told them to leave.
Finally, he calms a little and she breaks the silence. “I’m sorry.”
Lips draw into a thin line and a hand runs through his hair. He sighs.
“Let’s go home.”
…
“So she’s yours now?”
Bruce frowns, unsure of how to answer. As much as he refuses to try to force her back into a family that he knows won’t take care of her and as much as he knows that this is something he’s wanted for a long time, he’s not a father. Not even an uncle. It’s always been a fear for him: he’s so afraid that he will become the father he knew as a child.
“Ours. For now at least,” he settles on. Thor nods and rests his chin on his hands, thinking.
They currently sit around a circular table, Heimdall opposite Bruce, Thor opposite Valkyrie and Loki opposite to Korg. Baby sits in the middle of the table, oblivious to the discussion going on around her as she plays with some toy that Loki had procured for her from somewhere when their meeting had begun.
“Good,” Valkyrie says from where she sits, reclining casually with her feet upon the table. “Those pricks didn’t deserve her anyway,” she adds and takes a long draught to finish the bottle she was nursing.
In the back of his mind, Bruce hears Hulk agree.
“I’ve been thinking,” Bruce says, ignoring Hulk for the time being. “So far I’ve just been calling her Baby, thinking that her family will name her. But since they obviously aren’t…” There’s an edge of bitterness in his tone at the last word.
“Ooh.” Korg sits up a little straighter. “We’ve got to pick something meaningful. Something you love.” There are nods of agreement all around. “Great! I’m going for Miek, then. Are we in agreement?”
“What?” Loki scoffs, speaking up for the first time since they began. Bruce really doesn’t know what he’s here for but at this point he feels like it would be pointless to ask.
“We’re not calling her Miek.” Thor says firmly.
“Well we’re not calling her ‘Flying Hammer’ either.” Korg shoots back.
Valkyrie groans and stands up. “I’m going to get another bottle.”
As she goes, Bruce looks to Baby. She seems content. Not a care in the universe, for her own name or otherwise. Unlike Bruce. There are several names running through his head that mean much to him.
Some of them perhaps too much.
“Get two,” he speaks up. “It’s going to be a long night.”