Never | Steve Rogers x OC

Chapter Thirty Seven

While Steve, Natasha, and Scott went to find Bruce, Brianna chose to remain at the compound. For some reason she wanted to be alone. She supposed it had something to do with the fact that she had not once been alone in the past seven years. She was a social person. She always had been, but the realization that they could possibly bring everyone back was starting to sink in. She needed to be emotionally prepared for it.

She had not stepped foot in Wanda or Sam's room since before the whole ordeal with Bucky. She didn't even know if their rooms were kept the same. She went inside Wanda's room first and was pleasantly surprised to see it was the same. She felt overwhelmed as memories hit her of the two of them laying on her bed, watching rom-coms and talking about Vision and Steve for hours. She swallowed back the emotion forming.

She closed the door quietly and went to Sam's room. Like Wanda's, it remained unchanged. She walked around the room slowly, staring at the pictures on his wall. There had been a few times where she asked about the people in the pictures. She stopped at the one of his sister, Sarah, and wondered how she was doing. She didn't even know if she had survived the snap or not. She almost felt guilt for not reaching out to the woman.

The final room she wanted to see was the one that belong to Steve and her before they left. Like the rest, it was the exact same. Two pictures sat on her side table; one of her dad's family, one of her mom's. A pang hit her chest. She hadn't seen her mom in six years. She made the initiative to at least see her brothers and step dad, but it still wasn't the same. Just as she was about to leave the room, a familiar object caught her eye lying on Steve's side table.

It was the sketch pad she had given him for their first Christmas together. She picked it up curiously and began to flip through the contents. There were a few drawings of the compound, of random buildings around the city, but she stopped when a familiar woman's eyes seemingly looked at her from the page. Peggy. She swallowed dryly and flipped to the next page. Again, a drawing of Peggy. She kept flipping even though she knew she shouldn't.

Page after page was filled with drawings of the woman. The drawings were from almost seven years ago. They meant nothing. If Steve didn't love Brianna, he wouldn't still be with her. These were all lies she told herself. A distanced beeping came from outside the door. She quickly placed the sketch pad down in it's original spot and walked out of the room. She knew the beeping meant someone was arriving and she figured it was everyone returning.

Brianna was actually thrilled to see Bruce. The last time she saw him was years ago, after Thanos wrecked havoc on their world. She waited patiently in the living room. 

"Brianna! It's so good to see you." Bruce said. It wasn't his unusual, calm voice that freaked Brianna out. It was the fact that he looked like his Hulk form, but spoke like Bruce. She froze in place, eyes wide as her brain tried to compute what was happening.

She glanced around him, gaping at Steve, Scott and Natasha. "Am I being punk'd?"

Bruce chuckled. "I know. It's different, but I found a way for the Hulk and I to live cohesively. Now, how about we get started."

"Started?" Brianna asked.

"We're going to test Scott's theory." Steve told her.

She tried to hide the hurt from discovering the sketch pad from Steve. Instead, she just nodded understandingly and followed the group into the lab where Scott's van was. Brianna was nervous. In fact, everyone seemed nervous. They didn't want anything to go wrong or for something to happen to Scott. They also didn't want their hope diminished.

"Okay. Here we go. Time travel test number one. Scott fire up the, uh, van thing." Bruce told Scott as the rest of them stood behind the control panel. She watched the van doors open revealing a rectangular, glowing realm. That was their key.