Bruce and Hulk had no idea just how long they had been sitting here, staring at their new born daughter, one eye brown and one eye green, the two men in perfect sync. She was just so beautiful. Her tiny nose, her tiny mouth, her ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes. They couldn't stop looking at her! Every now and then they reached down at her tiny clenched fist and uncurled her impossibly small fingers, watching them slowly curl back into a fist.
They smiled at her, and spoke softly telling her all about life, her mother, her brother, Science, any and everything. The baby girl was staring at him with her wide green eyes. Bruce knew when newborns made eye contact it meant they wanted attention, they wanted to bond. While Lara researched everything about preparing to raise a baby online Bruce had preferred to buy actual baby books. He wanted to touch them, he wanted to hold the physical book in his hands, somehow it made the experience all the more real for him.
Eventually she had began to cry, a woman approached him gently.
"My apologises." She held her arms out. "She needs to nurse." The woman was being very gentle with Bruce, she had seen Bruce's break down earlier. "We have a wet nurse prepared."
A deep frown creased itself into Bruce's forehead. Neither he nor Hulk liked the idea of another woman feeding their daughter, but Bruce knew that, that was a silly over dramatic hind brain thought, Hulk just didn't want her in the arms of a woman that wasn't Lara. He had to have an internal battle with himself before he gave his tiny bundle of joy to the woman.
In the end Hulk took a begrudging defeat as they handed her over to the woman. He couldn't let her go hungry.
"What's your name?" Bruce asked as he reluctantly handed his baby girl over the the woman.
"Gudrun." She smiled at Bruce brightly.
"Thank you Gudrun." Bruce probably butchered the pronunciation of her name. "Thank you for taking care of her."
"Of course." Gudrun said as she curtsied slightly before starting to leave. Hulk urged Bruce onward to follow her out, keeping sight of his child when another woman approached him.
"Would you like to see your wife?"
"Bruce's head snapped backward in the direction of the new woman.
"Lara's okay?"
"She's recovering nicely."
l-l
"Jason, buddy it's okay you need to calm down." Tony said softly with his hands raised in a defensive position.
"TWO O'CLOCK!" Jason's screamed as he picked up the leg of another chair and threw it, the chair smashed into pieces against the wall.
"Tony you can't tell an a stressed out toddler to calm down!" Clint whispered angrily.
"What else am I suppose to do?!" Tony whispered back. So far a table and 3 chairs have been broken, there were holes in the walls and dents in the tiled ground.
"TWO O'CLOCK! TWWWWOOO!" Jason screamed as he cried, his face was bright red and he was wailing loudly.
It wasn't Jason's fault entirely that he was throwing a tantrum. Jason was at the age were routine was everything. Break the routine and he became upset and stressed. Jason also, like any other toddler, didn't handle long term separation from his parents well.
Bruce and Lara had promised Jason that they would be home at 2pm, it was now 8:45pm well past his bed time and well past the time his parents promised they would be home. Jason had no choice but to have a complete and utter meltdown. Every time Tony tried to settle him in his arms he would wiggle his way out, run away from Tony and break something else.
The worst part is they couldn't give him any information. They had no idea what happened. Thor rushed to their location being the fastest, and when everyone else arrived, barring Tony, who stayed behind with Jason arrived, Thor, Bruce or Lara were no where to be seen. All that was there was the corpse of Brian Banner, a pool of what they later discovered to be Lara's blood and the residue pattern engraved into the ground of a portal to Asgard.
The only conclusion, Thor took them both to Asgard, it was easy to assume Lara was hurt... None of the Avengers wanted to think about the possibility that she or her unborn child was dead but...
They couldn't do anything but wait, and no body felt comfortable telling Jason the potential status of his mother. What if they told him she was okay but she had died...? No body blamed the child for the colossal Hulk sized tantrum he was throwing but they did need to calm him down somehow.
l-l
"Lara?!" It took everything Bruce and Hulk had in them to NOT push their poor guide aside and burst into the room.
They saw her, laying in bed and quickly rushed to her side, immediately picking up her hand. "Lara?" His voice was softer this time. "Honey please..." There was a tinge of desperation in his tone.
Lara opened her eyes, blinking a few times to adjust to the light. She turned to the source of sound beside her and smiled, seeing Bruce's duel coloured eyes, indicating that both Hulk and Bruce were piloting his body together.
She raised her hand and placed it on his cheek. "My boys..." She smiled, somewhat goofishly. "You're so pretty."
Bruce laughed in relief, tears starting to pinprick in the corners of his eyes.
"How are you feeling?" He tried to look at her stomach but she was well covered up.
"They have these crystals." Lara said as she was twirling a stand of Bruce's hair in her index finger. "I feel like when I was 19 and my sisters boyfriends brother got us weed brownies hehehehehahahahaha." She giggled as she smiled at Bruce.
Bruce couldn't help but laugh with her, she was high, this was the last thing he was ever expecting, still seeing her smile filled him with so much relief.
"Brruuce, Brulk, Hulce, Hulk." She giggled again. "Have you SEEN our baby?!"
"Yeah, yeah I have."
Lara gasped. "Isn't she beeeaaautiful?"
Bruce almost felt his cheeks splitting at how utterly gorgeous Lara was right now. Hulk was beaming underneath Bruce's skin, he had never seen Lara like this and to see her now after... He was bursting with happiness.
"Yeah sweetheart, yeah she is. She's perfect."
"What's her name?"
Bruce blinked in surprise.
"Wha-what do you mean?"
"I named Jason, I want you to name our daughter."
There were only so many times Bruce could say he had never felt this happy before it started to lose meaning.
"Are you sure?"
Lara nodded, her eyes were closed, she was starting to get sleepy again. "Mmm hmm."
"Grace..." Bruce said, that's what he had been calling her in his head. Grace, his beautiful saving saving grace.