This was originally meant to be a oneshot, but it got so long I separated it into two parts. Expect the next part soon!
Ava was seven when her parents were killed. The firemen whisked her off to a hospital, and she never saw their bodies again. She didn't even get to go to the funeral.
After two days of lying in the hospital, barely able to eat without her hands phasing through the utensils, some new people showed up, dressed in fancy suits.
"Hello, Ava," said the man in charge, smiling a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "We are part of an organization called SHIELD, and we are here to take care of you."
She went with them, mostly because she didn't have a choice. What she wanted was to go home, but she couldn't. Her parents were gone, and there was something wrong with her body. Dull pain throbbed through every part of her, and no amount of medicine seemed to help.
They took her into the United States. She had always wanted to visit with her father one day, but now she was visiting with SHIELD agents who seemed to see her as more of an interesting specimen than a frightened, traumatized little girl.
The first two days at the facility they called "The Playground"—though it was anything but—were a whirlwind for her. They drew her blood, hooked her up to various things, and asked her to use her powers in front of people in white coats and clipboards. At the end of the first day she was sent off to a gray, dull room with a tray of tasteless food. She cried herself to sleep that night, feeling helpless and utterly alone.
The next day was a similar whirlwind. More bloodwork and medical tests took up her entire day, and come the evening they left her in that gray room again, but she was glad of the chance to rest. When a knock came at the door, she frowned at the interruption, but she turned around as it opened.
A man entered, his large frame seeming to take up the entire room. She watched him carefully, wondering what tests he would make her do.
"Hello, Ava," he said softly, gently. "My name's Bill. I was a friend of your father's." He knelt down to her level, something no other agent had bothered to do in her time there, and held out a teddy bear to her. "I brought you something."
She wanted the bear more than anything, but she knew it was just a test. Even so, she reached forward to try and take it, but her hands phased right through, and she frowned in disappointment.
"It's alright," he encouraged. "Try again."
She was momentarily taken aback. He wanted her to have it? She focused on solidifying her hands and tried again. This time her fingers entangled in the downy fur of the bear, and she smiled.
"That's it," said Bill, smiling himself.
"Ca—can I keep it?" Ava asked, her voice rough and hoarse from disuse.
"Of course," he replied. "It's yours."
Bill became a support to her in the chaos of her new life. Almost every night he would visit her, ask her about things like what she enjoyed, what her home was like, and so on. It took her a while to open up to him, but once she did, words came tumbling from her like a stream and it was hard to stop.
The pain in her body became worse and worse with each day, and one night it was so bad that Bill found her crumpled on her bed, cradling the teddy bear and weeping silently.
"Ava!" he exclaimed, rushing to her side. "What's the matter?"
"It hurts!" she wailed. "It hurts so bad!"
"Where?"
"Everywhere!"
He had stayed with her that night, holding her and rubbing her back until the pain subsided to a manageable amount and she fell into a blessed sleep.
A few days later, Bill came and got her himself in the morning. She shyly asked if she could take her teddy with her, which the other agents never let her do, and he gave her permission much to her delight.
"Where are we going?" she asked, holding her bear in one hand and clinging to his hand with the other.
"We're going somewhere to help your pain," he replied.
Doctors hooked her up to a machine, and she forced herself to stay solid as they attached leads to her arms, legs, and torso. She glanced nervously at Bill, who gave her an encouraging nod.
They turned the machine on, and warmth pulsed through her, banishing the throbbing ache that forever lingered under her skin. She let out a sigh of relief, feeling more in control of herself than she had in months.
"How do you feel?" Bill asked her.
"Good," she breathed, smiling for the first time in days.
When he first took her to the quantum chamber, she was scared. The structure was intimidating, and she had never seen anything like it before. However, he encouraged her to step in, so she did.
The waves of energy frightened her at first, but as they washed over her, she began to feel better, more whole. Bill was ecstatic that it worked, and she started having weekly sessions in the quantum chamber to abate the pain.
The incessant testing from SHIELD continued, and eventually it was her eighth birthday. She knew it was her birthday, but no one else seemed to care if they knew at all. The day passed uneventfully until the evening, when Bill came to see her. She was rendered speechless as he presented her with a tiny cupcake, sprinkles and all.
"You knew?" she asked him.
"I did," he replied. "Happy birthday, Ava."
Not long after that, they started training her. They fitted her with a suit that was supposed to help her harness her powers, but Ava didn't like it. It felt clunky and it made her move slowly and awkwardly. They began to teach her how to fight, introducing her to various martial arts and integrating it with her powers. Most days they ran her ragged, and she could sense Bill's displeasure when she nearly nodded off into her dinner. He reassured her that his irritation was not directed at her; it was directed at the higher-ups at the facility, who apparently had nothing better to do than train a child to fight.
She began to learn more about her powers, and she was excited when she figured out she could turn completely invisible. That very night, she turned invisible and lurked in the corner of her room, waiting. When Bill entered, she took delight in the confused look on his face when he saw she wasn't there.
"Ava? Are you in here?"
She jumped at him then, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He yelped in surprise, only to let out a sigh of relief when he twisted around and saw it was her.
"Where were you hiding?"
She giggled. "I can turn invisible."
He smiled. "So you can."
One day, she was paid a visit by a new agent, a man she had never seen before. Phil Coulson, he said his name was, and he was kindly, reminding her of Bill.
"Are they treating you well here, Miss Starr?" he asked her. "It's not very often that SHIELD deals with children."
No, she wanted to say. They make me train to fight until I'm exhausted and they experiment on me. I want to go home to Argentina, and can Mr. Foster come too, please?
But out of fear of retribution from the agents, she didn't say that.
"They treat me fine, Agent," she replied quietly.
Coulson smiled. "Good. I wish you all the best, Miss Starr."
When she was nine, she accidentally let her true thoughts free.
Bill came to get her in the morning, which was something he had never done before.
"Get your shoes on," he told her.
"Where are we going?"
"Outside."
She whirled to face him, her eyes wide. "Outside? You mean outside outside?"
He laughed. "Yes, outside. No one should spend all their time in some facility. You need to get some fresh air for once."
She jumped up and down, the prospect of feeling the sun on her face and breathing fresh air for the first time in months exciting her beyond belief. "Thank you so much dad—" The word slipped out before she could stop herself, and she slapped a hand over her mouth, mortified. For a moment neither of them said anything, both in equal states of shock.
"I'm sorry," she finally whispered. "I shouldn't have said that. I don't—"
"Ava," Bill said softly, "it's alright."
"No, it's not," she replied. "I know you're not…" She trailed off, at a loss for words.
He knelt in front of her. "Is that how you think of me?"
She bowed her head and nodded.
"Would you like to call me your father?"
She peeked at him through her hair, and found no malice in his face. In fact, there seemed to be a look of hope. Again, she nodded, more confident.
"Then I would be more than happy to call you my daughter," he said. "I know I can never replace your real father, but I can do my best to fill the gap."
Ava leapt at him, wrapping her arms around his neck as tears welled in her eyes. "Thank you."
He brought her things, bits and pieces of the outside world she was otherwise isolated from. He brought her books to read and pencil and paper to draw on. He took her outside whenever possible, though she was always hyper aware of the security agents watching their every move. It wasn't fair to her. All she wanted to do was feel the grass between her toes.
She continued to grow in her fighting skills as the SHIELD agents trained her, no matter how vehemently Bill voiced his disapproval. They started calling her the Ghost, and she wished she was a real ghost, because ghosts didn't feel pain. Her skills in fighting grew, but so did the agony in her body. The weekly sessions in the quantum chamber gradually did less and less to abate the pain, so Bill had her go in twice a week, then three, then four, then five.
When she was twelve, she started sleeping in the quantum chamber.
Bill did his best to make it comfortable for her, knowing she did not like the idea. He spent the first night with her, sleeping on the hard lab floor just to show her that no harm would come to her. After that, her confidence was raised significantly and she slept by herself.
When she was thirteen, she did her first mission for SHIELD.
It was only a small task, they insisted, just retrieving some sensitive data from some people who shouldn't have it. She didn't want to, and Bill came to her aid.
"These people will be armed with guns," he argued to the head agent. "She's a child!"
"A gifted child," the head agent replied, "and we have made the Ghost suit bulletproof, just in case a bullet finds its way through her phasing abilities. I'm afraid you're in no position to argue with me, Mr. Foster."
Bill returned to her, sober and grim, and she knew the verdict on convincing the head agent otherwise would not be good.
"They're going to make me do it, aren't they?" she asked.
"Yes," he said with a heavy sigh. His hair was beginning to turn gray, and it was not hard for Ava to guess why.
"Will they kill me?"
"No," he reassured her. "The suit will keep you safe. I'd go on that mission myself if it would keep you from getting hurt."
So she went on the mission, slinking into the building in the dead of night while SHIELD agents waited in a van a block away. As expected, she came upon the heavily armed night watchmen on her way to retrieve the information. There were two of them, both burly and well muscled. She came up behind one of them, invisible, and put him in a chokehold like she had been taught, forcing herself to stay solid despite her raging fear. The man gasped and gagged, thrashing but not able to strike what he could not see. The other turned, confused and afraid to see his companion gasping for air against nothing. He raised his automatic rifle, looking for the culprit, but not able to see.
Ava swallowed hard as the man finally went limp in her grasp. She let him go, and he slumped to the floor. The next thing she knew, an ear-shattering noise exploded near her, and something bounced off the stomach of her suit. She looked up and saw the man staring at her, his gun pointed directly at her, and she realized she must have become visible, if not for a second. Not knowing what else to do, she ran at him and waylaid him rather quickly, though he did manage to get a couple more shots at her before she smashed the gun out of his hand.
She retrieved the necessary information from the computers in the building and returned to the van as quickly as possible. She told the agents what they needed to know and remained silent after that, staring at the wall until they returned to the facility.
She did not expect Bill to be there at 3 AM, but he was, waiting for her. It wasn't until she saw him that she realized her whole body was shaking, and she practically fell into his arms.
"Are you alright?" he asked her urgently. "Are you hurt?"
"No," she said, unable to keep the tremor from her voice. "But they shot at me, and I was scared. I don't want to do that again."
"I know," he said sadly as he held her tightly to him. "I don't want you to either."
Of course, SHIELD didn't care what either of them wanted. No matter how much Bill tried, they would not stop sending her on missions. It gradually became easier for her, the fear of being shot at fading away when she realized her suit was impenetrable, all inhibitions consumed in an ever-worsening pain.
When she was sixteen, she killed a man for the first time.
Up until the day before the mission, she thought it was going to be the same as always, until the head agent called her into his office. She shuffled in, knowing well that nothing good would come of the meeting.
When she was told she would be eliminating a potential threat, she wanted nothing more than to back out, but she couldn't. Worse yet, she did not see Bill before she went out on the mission to tell him, which was most likely the head agent's doing do keep him from interfering.
She went on the mission, unable to keep from trembling the whole ride to the target's residence. She phased through the wall of the house, and found the man lounging on the couch watching TV. At her sudden entrance, he leapt up, and obviously used to dealing with dangerous people before, grabbed a loaded pistol from an accent table.
The bullets didn't stop her. She wished they did as she strode towards him. When she got too close, he swung at her, but his fist went right through her body, and she grabbed his head in her hands.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice distorted by the mask.
She snapped his neck and his body crumpled to the floor. For a small eternity all she could do was stare, blood pounding in her head. Then she turned and ran with a loud cry, phasing back out into the night. For an instant, she thought about running away, but she couldn't. SHIELD would find her, likely kill her, if she did.
When she got back to the facility, she retreated to the quantum chamber as quickly as possible, huddling on the bed and letting the energy wash away the physical pain. But in that moment the pain that tore at her body every second was nothing compared to the anguish in her mind.
When Bill entered, she hardly heard him. His voice seemed distant and unreal.
"How did it go?"
She did not move, did not speak. She couldn't bear to look him in the eye. What would he, her father, think of her knowing she took the life of another? It was almost too much to consider.
"What's wrong?"
She swallowed, every muscle in her body atremble as panic swelled like a great balloon in her stomach.
"Ava?"
A sob burst from her lips. She couldn't stop it, no matter how hard she tried.
"Ava!" The door hissed open and he was there in front of her, his hands on her shoulders, trying to look her in the eyes. "What happened?"
"They made me kill him!" she exploded, her words coming out in a wail. "They made me! I didn't want to but they made me!" She dissolved into helpless sobs as Bill looked on in shock.
"They made you kill someone?"
She didn't answer him, she couldn't through the sobs that shook her whole body. He sat down beside her then, doing his best to hold her even though her emotions made her form vary in density.
She didn't remember falling asleep, but she awoke the next day with her blankets over her and her bear beside her. The horror was still fresh in her mind, and not having Bill there almost made her panic again, but she made it through the day with the hope of seeing him that evening.
Only he did not come.
She stayed up long into the night, but he didn't come and she eventually fell asleep. She reasoned to herself that it had happened before, that sometimes he got caught up in something that took up time, but he always came back the next day.
But he did not come the next night either.
Her worry grew. Had what she had done driven him away? Was he so disgusted with her that he had given up? With each passing moment her worry grew, until she learned the truth.
She learned from the whispers between agents that he had gone to the head agent and had punched him in the face as many times as he could before he was dragged away.
"You make a child kill for you?" he had yelled as he laid into the head agent. "She's innocent! She's done nothing to deserve what you've put her through!"
Ava was proud of him.
A week later, he finally returned to her.
She lay on her bed, reading as the pain of the day was washed away. The door to the room opened, and she looked up to see Bill enter in.
"Dad," she breathed, phasing through the plexiglass to get to him. In her whirlwind of emotions her arms phased right through his, but he managed to catch her around the middle.
"I'm sorry," he murmured into her hair. "I'm so sorry."
"I heard what you did," she mumbled into his shirt, hot tears stinging her eyes.
"I shouldn't have. I was angry and I—"
"No," she interrupted, looking up at him as the tears streamed freely down her face. "I'm glad you did."
Bill swallowed hard and smiled.
"Why can't we leave?" she wondered aloud to him later on that same evening. "Why do I have to stay here?"
"That's what I was doing these past few days," Bill said. "I was preparing get you out of here."
Her heart rose. "Really?"
"Yes, but…"
Her heart sank back down again. She wouldn't be so fortunate.
Bill looked just as disheartened as she felt. "They promised me that if you stay here, they will find a cure for your pain."
No more pain. A tantalizing thought to Ava, to be rid of the hurt that plagued her. But without a doubt, it would come with a price.
"Will they make me kill again?"
Bill did not answer, and that was all the answer she needed.
They did make her kill again, and to Ava's horror, it got easier. All the terror and trauma she felt was slowly chipped away by the thrumming agony in her body, and the desperation for the cure that was promised to her.
When she was twenty, SHIELD fell.
She was doing her usual training when the familiar sound of gunfire reached her ears. Confused and fearful, she phased partially through the wall to see what was going on. Agents were turning on each other, pulling guns and shooting each other. People ran and yelled, and the word "HYDRA" reached her ears.
She ran, not knowing what else to do. She phased through walls, people, and dead bodies. She made it to the quantum chamber and huddled there, invisible. Why everyone had suddenly turned on each other she did not know, but she was afraid. She could only hope that Bill was nowhere in the facility.
She sat there for what seemed like hours, the sounds of chaos raging around her. When the door swung open, she prepared herself for the worst, only to see Bill stumbling in, bleeding from a cut on his head. She was up and beside him, holding onto him to keep him upright.
"What's happening?" she asked. "What's going on?"
"SHIELD has fallen," Bill said, reaching up to touch the blood on his face. "Something happened at the Triskelion…I don't know what, but we need to get out of here."
"We're leaving?" she breathed. "For good?"
"For good."
A storm of emotions grew inside her, but there was no time to dwell on it then. They had to get out.
Bill pulled a strange metal disk out of his pocket, and before she could ask him what it was, he threw it at her quantum chamber. The next thing she knew, the chamber was the size of small box.
"What…?"
"Questions later," he said, picking up the mini chamber. "We have to go."
Ava, equipped with the Ghost suit, went first while Bill did his best to hunker his large frame down behind her. By that point, the fighting had died down. Alarms rang throughout the building, filling the halls with the eerie wails. They passed many dead agents on the floor, and they hoped they would not end up like them…until Ava rounded a corner and found herself staring down the barrel of a gun.
A satisfied smirk appeared on the face of the Playground's head agent. "I was hoping I might find you. Just my luck."
Ava glowered at him, but did not answer.
"HYRDA may be done for in D.C., but I can still use you. You're coming with me."
"I'll go nowhere with you," she hissed. "I'm done with SHIELD, HYDRA, whatever this was."
The head agent moved the gun slightly, pointing it directly at Bill's head. "Unless you want to see him die, you'll come with me."
"I will kill you if you touch him."
"I thought you had a vendetta against killing."
"Not for scum like you." Her hands shot out, one phasing through the gun and breaking it, the other wrapping around his neck. "Your days of using me are over." She squeezed, her fingers phasing through his skin and crushing his windpipe. His lifeless body crumpled to the floor, and that was the only time she killed without remorse.
They made it to Bill's car and sped away from the facility. Ava sat as they drove, having only seen what lay beyond the borders on missions.
"Where are we going?" she asked at last.
"To my house," Bill said, "and then…somewhere. I haven't decided yet." When she gave him a questioning look he continued. "The remaining agents might come for you. They know where I live, and they know you'll be with me. I have to relocate."
She nodded, falling into silence once again until a new question came to mind. "What about the cure? What will I do now that we've left them?"
Bill's jaw clenched visibly before he answered. "There…there was no cure. Years ago I found out they weren't researching for one at all, so I started doing my own."
Ava felt as if she had been punched in the stomach. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't want to put you through more torment than what you were already going through," he said. "I know it seems like a bad thing to do on my part, but I thought it was for the best."
"And…and what if you can't find a cure?" she whispered. "What then?"
He was silent for far too long before answering. "You will die." His voice wavered on the last word. "But I will do anything and everything I can to cure you, I promise."
"I stole for them, lied for them," she hissed. "I killed for them, and they would let me shrivel and die."
"I'm just as angry as you," said he. "Even more so, perhaps. I couldn't stop them from mistreating you no matter how hard I tried, because it would mean more pain for us both."
"I know," she assured him. "I know."
They stopped at Bill's house briefly, a small dwelling fit for a man living alone. Ava didn't even get to see the inside, as Bill hurried to load research and other miscellaneous things into the back of the car, charging her with keeping watch for any rogue agents that might be coming for them. Within half an hour they were off again, to parts unknown.
The next couple of weeks were spent bouncing from hotel to hotel while a Bill did his best to sort out a new location for the both of them. Fortunately, SHIELD paid well enough that they had a nice cushion to fall back on to keep them going. Even though they were far away from the Playground, Ava still found herself looking over her shoulder all the time, knowing the ferocity and determination of agents trying to get what they wanted.
During that time, they also learned of what had happened to SHIELD. A man named Steve Rogers of the notorious Avengers had learned of the rampant corruption within the organization and brought it to the ground. That very day in all facilities all over the world, true SHIELD members had gone against those outed as corrupt, to deadly ends.
"The head agent was HYDRA," Ava said upon learning these things. "I have no doubt about it."
"Neither do I," Bill said.
"One day I'd like to meet him."
"Who?"
"Captain America," she replied. "We owe him our freedom."
Eventually Bill found a nice house and a job at U.C. Berkeley. The thought of living in a big city was jointly exhilarating and terrifying for Ava, as she knew she could never show her powers in public lest they be discovered by agents.
They arrived at the house at night. It was small and the architecture was old, and she loved it. She had never seen a more beautiful house, and she would live in it.
"Where will we sleep?" she asked Bill as they unloaded their meager possessions.
"The house came with furniture," he said. "There's no need to worry about that."
She could've cried. He thought of everything.
The interior, though likely far from extravagant by ordinary means, was like a palace to her. After thirteen years spent in a sterile, gray facility, the colors and complexity were astonishing and wonderful.
As Bill made to check the rest of the house, she stepped into the living room. The floor was adorned with carpet that her feet sank into, and she couldn't remember a sensation so wonderful as that. She knelt down, tearing off a glove of her suit, and touched the carpet with her fingers, reveling in its softness. Bill found her like that, crouched over the carpet with a hand in it and tears on her face.
"What's the matter?" Bill asked, concern evident in his voice as he approached. "Is there something wrong?"
"It's nothing," Ava sniffed. "It's just…I haven't felt carpet since my parents died."
The next week was an adjustment period for the both of them as they adapted to living in a new area. The house had two bedrooms and two bathrooms, so they each had their own space. Ava had nothing to personalize her room with, save for a teddy bear and a quantum chamber. Bill brought her things; paintings, a vase of flowers, curtains to make it more her own, and she was happy. At SHIELD, they never let her personalize her room.
On Sunday, Bill told her he was starting work the next day.
"You'll leave me alone here?" Ava asked, panic welling in her chest. "What if something happens? What if the agents come?"
"I'm confident nothing will happen," Bill said. "Even if something did, I'm ten minutes away, and I'm sure you are more than capable of taking care of whoever might try to attack us."
She wasn't happy, but she had no choice but to go along with it. She watched him leave on the first day and spent the rest of the day patrolling the house, phone clutched tightly in her hands. But that evening he returned safely to her relief. Eventually she adapted to him being gone during the day, and entertained herself by watching TV or reading when she was taking a break from researching the quantum realm.
They lived for the next year in relative comfort, though there was no progress made on the research for Ava's cure.
When she was twenty-one, a man named Scott Lang went to the quantum realm and returned alive.
She had no idea about it until a few days after it happened. Bill returned from work excited and told her what had happened. She then went on to learn of the fate of Janet van Dyne, the wife of a former colleague.
"What this man did could be the key to curing you," he said. "If we can figure out a way to get into the quantum realm and find van Dyne, the energy she has could make you stable."
"But will we be able to do it?" she asked. "It sounds complicated."
"I worked with Pym for years, and I was always better than him."
She learned more about the man named Hank Pym over time. She learned of how he had betrayed her father, both her real one and her adoptive one. Had it not been for him, perhaps her real father would be alive and she would not have suffered all she did, and a burning resentment for the man she had never even met settled deep in her heart.
Bill knew what to do, but advanced technology was expensive, and without SHIELD to helm funding, they were left dead in the water despite their best efforts.
When she was twenty-three, she learned of her swiftly approaching fate.
The pain had reached a point where the quantum chamber did the barest minimum to stop it, allowing her just enough relief to sleep. Some days the pain was manageable, some does it left her unable to move in agony.
One day as she lay immobile on her bed, Bill crouched next to her, she said, "I feel like I'm dying."
She got an unexpected reaction from Bill. His eyes went wide and he grabbed her hand. "No, you can't be. You're fine, you've got to be…"
Ava frowned, momentarily forgetting her pain. "I'm not dying really…I think."
Bill let out a shaky sigh and sat back, covering his face with his hands.
Using all the strength she had, she propped herself up on one arm. "What is it?"
He let his hands fall limply into his lap, but he would not meet her gaze. "Your condition is deteriorating. Your body cannot handle the quantum disequilibrium forever. Eventually it will give out and…"
"…I'll die," she finished in a whisper. "How long do I have?"
"At this rate, maybe a year," he murmured. "But I'll do anything to save you, even if it means breaking the law."
She had known in her heart than one day all the pain would come to something, but she had ignored it for as long as she could. Now her death was a reality, but she was not ready to die. "Then let's break it. I'm a trained thief, and I'll do anything. Where do we start?"
Bill looked at her. "We steal the technology from Hank Pym."
"I want to kill him," she said. "I want him to pay for all this pain."
"If you do that, you're no better than him," Bill said. "You can't."
She didn't agree at first, but eventually she went along with it.
What they did not know was that Hank and his daughter had gone into hiding after an apparent clash of the Avengers, his technology in violation of the Sokovia Accords, and finding a man who could shrink to the size of an ant was nearly impossible. They spent the next nine months searching fruitlessly. They came close more than once, but he was always out of their reach.
Ava was growing more desperate by the day. She didn't want to die, and she could see how much everything strained Bill. She was willing to do anything at that point, even kill.
One Saturday night, when the pain was bearable, she slunk out of the house. There was a church a block away, and she found herself asking forgiveness for the things she had done and would do, just in case.
When she was twenty-four, she was healed.
She had a month left when they found Sonny Burch. He was as slimy as they came, but he was their only hope. He had somehow acquired pieces for a quantum tunnel from the remnants of SHIELD, and was selling them on the black market. Bill set up a meeting with him, and she went to it, only to found out that a woman named "Susan" had made a higher bid on the parts than them. She tracked her down only to find out that "Susan" was none other than Hope van Dyne. Upon watching the Pyms, she learned of their own need for the quantum tunnel, and Scott Lang's apparent entanglement with Janet.
She finally managed to steal the lab, but the very same day she accomplished it, Bill called her, saying that the Pyms were coming to him for help getting it back.
"You're going to lead them here?" Ava hissed into the phone.
"Yes," Bill replied calmly. "And then we'll have both the lab and Scott Lang."
She went along with it, finally obtaining a chance to unleash her vitriol upon Hank Pym, but of course things went wrong. The lab was taken from them, and she cried in frustration.
She was furious when Bill wouldn't let her use Lang's daughter as a bargaining chip, and when they managed to get the lab a second time, he started having doubt for her safety, and for Janet's. She was sure he was getting ready to give up on her and let her die, and her anger grew against him. She threw him to the ground when he tried to stop her from extracting Janet, an action she later deeply regretted.
When Janet came out of the quantum realm, she thought it was all over, that she would fade away and die. But Janet, seeing her pain, healed her for the time being. She could have cried, the pain leaving her for the first time in seventeen long years.
Yet still all was not well. Her actions would surely land her in prison at the very least. She begged Bill to leave her, to find peace somewhere now that she was healed.
"I'm not leaving you," he said.
She stared at him and saw nothing but determination in his gaze. There was no arguing with him, and she hugged him with all her might.
The next part will cover what happens to them after, along with the events of IW, but don't worry, happy endings for all!