Hope was wearing her black Hermès pantsuit paired with her favourite Jimmy Choos heels. Her hair was pulled back in a low bun and her lips were painted red. The woman found herself standing over her kitchen table (inside her apartment), files were sprawled about atop of it with her laptop open next to them. She was hunched over her screen, composing an email.

The elevator chimed, making Hope sigh in annoyance to it. She didn't even care enough to look up to see who was disturbing her.

"One of the electrical panels in the lab keeps giving me grief." She heard her dad grumble as he walked over towards her.

She continued typing her message, not knowing why he was telling her this, as she simply said, "Okay."

"So, I called Scott to come over and take a look at it."

Her jaw tensed in hearing the man's name before she scoffed, "Why?"

"Gee, I don't know," he said with annoyed sarcasm, "maybe because he's an electrical engineer, Hope."

She rolled her eyes before muttering, "Yeah, I know, but is it really that bad?" She didn't look up from her computer.

"It's bad enough that I no longer want to deal with it."

"And you're telling me this, why?"

"Because he won't come over because of you."

She shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm not stopping him."

"He seems to think you are. I mean, you refuse to train with him. And – according to what he told me – you're not answering his phone calls."

"I've been busy."

"Yeah? doing what? I mean, besides biting everyone's head off for so much as looking at you."

She snapped her head up to look at him as she curtly said, "I'm not biting anyone's head off. And you know exactly what I've been doing." She was really getting tired of having to constantly repeat herself in what she was trying to accomplish.

"Hanging up your wings."

"I'm starting Pym Tech back up. I don't have time for The Wasp anymore."

It had been around a fortnight since their Avenger's mission when they saved the world and Maria had gone off to prison. And, in that time, Hope had decided to change her heading in life. She couldn't handle where she had ended up, so she was falling back onto her old life.

"You fought me for so long to wear that suit." He sounded exasperated with her. "All you wanted to do was use the Pym Partial tech to help people. To be a hero."

"Well, maybe I don't want that anymore," she said in a bitter tone.

"Bullshit!"

Hope laughed in ironic anger. "This coming from the person who quit being Ant-Man."

"Hey," he raised his voice as he defended himself, "I lost the love of my life!"

"Yeah." She locked her gaze onto his as she spoke through the pain of her broken heart, "I know the feeling." She broke eye contact with him as she quickly closed her laptop, deciding to send the email later, as she slipped her computer into her briefcase, that was sitting on top of a chair that was next to her. She then slid a stack of files into the bag as well before she started out – walking past her dad. "Tell Scott he can come by to fix your electrical problem," she said through an even tone. "I won't be around anyway, I've got a meeting with potential investors." And with that, she loaded into the elevator to leave.

Hope's meeting had been quite promising, which she should've been ecstatic for, yet she felt completely dead inside. It was quickly seeping into her forethought that back when she was chairman of Pym Tech, she didn't really feel fulfilled then either. It took her until that moment to realise that she'd never really had a true reference point of happiness, but now that she had one, she knew she was now, and had been before, completely miserable during her intrapreneurial days.

Hope's heels clacked up the walkway, leading into her childhood home. Her mother had texted her, wanting to know how the meeting had gone, so Hope decided to stop by and fill her in.

Janet had been somewhat supportive of her desire to start up their family company. Hope wasn't stupid though, she knew that her mother was only helping her because she didn't want to lose her daughter since Hope was isolating herself from everyone else around her. However, despite this fact, Hope was allowing her mother to be a listening ear for her as she talked business, and only business, with her. She was still not ready to open up and share her feelings about Maria and the Avengers.

When she opened the front door, she instantly cocked her head as her ears pinged to the sound of familiar voices, but voices that she had not expected to hear.

Hope made her way through the foyer and into the parlour to find both Natasha and Steve chatting with her mother.

The trio turned to look at her as Natasha smiled. "Hey, so you're just not answer your phone anymore?"

"Hey. Yeah, sorry I—"

"Blocked us? Yeah, we noticed," Natasha said with a smirk.

"I'm going to the kitchen. Check on the stew I've got brewing," Janet said, clearly making up an excuse to leave. "It was nice to see you both again." She smiled at the two Avengers.

"Likewise." Steve bowed his head at her before she slipped into the next room, where the kitchen was, as Hope was sure that she had every intention of eavesdropping onto their conversation.

"Ah," Hope awkwardly asked, "so, what brings you two by?"

Steve took a deep breath before he dove right into it, "Fury's alive."

"What?"

"Apparently, after he was shot," Steve elaborated, "he fell into the ocean where Maria had a rescue team standing by to scoop him up, hide him, and provide him with medical attention."

"She did?" Hope whispered with a small smile, proud of Maria for her resourcefulness and constant diligence in protecting those who she could.

"Yeah." Natasha smirked with a nod. "Like I said, never trust a Fury death. Especially when Maria's involved."

"Why didn't she say she had this backup plan though?" Hope asked. "Why did she make us think she killed him?"

Steve started, "Always operate under the worst-case scenario—"

"Then you'll never be surprised by an outcome," Natasha finished. Hope looked back and forth between the two in confusion. "You've never heard Maria say that?" Natasha shook her head. "It's like her number one philosophy in life."

"She wouldn't have known if Fury survived her attack or not," Steve said, not giving Hope an opportunity to answer the woman's questions. "So she would've operated under the assumption that he was dead."

"Believing herself to be his executioner," Natasha interjected.

"So." Hope quickly connected the dots. "That means they can't hold her for murder then."

"Right." Steve nodded. "I mean, they did try to change the charge to attempted murder, but Fury made them drop it. He's also insisting she get a trial for her treason charges."

"A trial?" She suddenly had a glimmer of hope peeking through her storm clouds of a psyche.

"Yeah. The tribunal granted it too." Steve said as if he still couldn't quite believe it.

"So, she has a chance of getting out?" Hope felt like she was about to burst with joy, but it was soon squelched when the two remained silent, sharing a serious look between them. "What is it?"

Natasha bit her lip before she informed her, "She's refusing the trial"

"She's what?" Hope snapped in angered surprise. "Why? Why would she do that?"

She felt personally attacked like Maria didn't care about her while choosing to stay away from her.

"Because she's Maria," Steve sighed in visible aggravation as he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger before he carried on. "Knowing her, she's carrying every single one of those deaths like an unbearable weight, ready to let it crush her to death."

"Her annoying righteousness is surely making her believe that she belongs in there." Natasha shook her head like she too was exasperated.

"She doesn't though," Hope stated.

"Of course she doesn't, but you know that's what she's thinking." The woman crossed her arms over her chest.

Hope refused to give up, they were so close to a solution that would get Maria out. "Can't someone convince her to accept the trial?"

"Fury's been trying to talk to her, but the Raft has tightened up security," Natasha said. "They don't allow any communication with their prisoners. Not even for the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., evidently."

"That's not constitutional!" Hope cried.

Steve said, "The Raft operates outside of U.S. law."

"Does she at least know Fury's alive?"

"Apparently, she was told, yes." He nodded.

"So what can be done?" Hope was praying that they had a plan, she was ready to do anything.

"I don't know if there's anything that can be done," Steve said defeatedly. "We just felt you deserved to know about Fury." He locked his apologetic gaze onto her as she could see that he too was in pain. "We also wanted to check in on you," he said softly.

"I'm fine." She tore her eyes away. "But I really have a lot of work to do here." She lifted her briefcase up. "Gotta send a bunch of emails, make some phone calls." She exaggerated the urgency of it all as she started back towards the foyer, wanting to escape into her childhood bedroom upstairs, desperately trying to avoid a conversation about how she was feeling.

"Are you quitting the Avengers?" Steve asked the back of her head as she was at the threshold of the foyer.

"I ah." She dropped her head as she forced herself to look back. "Yes," she simply said.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" Steve asked with a supportive tone.

"I…" She looked away again as she shook her head. "I really have to go."

She then speedily walked away, climbing the stairs, only to shut herself away once again.

It was nearly a week since Natasha and Steve had dropped by to see Hope, as the anger that she'd been previously holding, had doubled. She was no longer just mad at the system that had locked Maria away, she was now also mad at Maria herself for not fighting to get out.

Hope had poured even more of her time and energy into Pym Tech, like she was on autopilot, not being able to stop even though she hated every second of it. She refused to take any fraction of a moment to herself, scared of her own thoughts.

She was in her apartment, in casual clothing, as she was perusing through commercial real estate websites, searching for potential buildings for the company. It was then when she was interrupted by a text message from her mother, asking her if she'd meet her downstairs in the lab for a moment.

Hope didn't bother to ask why for that she welcomed the opportunity to get up and take a break to stretch out her legs.

She took the stairs down, but when she arrived in the lab, she was taken by surprise. Scott was there along with both of her parents, all standing in front of their large panel monitor that was suspended underneath the balcony of the small lab that was located just above it.

"What's this?" She gestured at the trio and the screen that had a few horizontal lines that sat statically across it. "What's going on?"

Her dad simply said, "Back in my S.H.I.E.L.D. days I worked with the man, who would eventually move on to design The Raft." He flicked his finger over the scroller of the mouse that he had in hand, in turn, zooming out of the image on the screen. "Let's say he owed me a favour."

Hope studied the monitor for a moment as she gawked, "Dad, are those the blueprints?"

"Yes." He stepped over to the screen, pointing at a particular location on it. "This outside access here should lead you right into the duct system." He turned to her. "I'm just waiting on some intel to let us know which cell Hill's in."

"Wait, what?" Hope asked in shock.

"Well you're gonna need to know where she is," he said simply. "We're not gonna have much time before our presence is detected. And I'm assuming you're gonna want to use as much of it to convince her to accept her trial."

Hope was dumbfounded as she stared at the blueprints, then at her dad. "You made a plan for me to go see Maria?" she muttered in disbelief. She knew her dad had never liked the woman and had seemed rather pleased that she was out of Hope's life when he'd first learned of what happened to her those few weeks back.

"Don't act so shocked," he grumbled awkwardly, "I'm doing this for all our benefits. I don't know how much longer we can take of your miserable attitude, and bizarre need to restart a company that you never really liked all that much in the first place."

"Dad." Hope could feel her eyes welling up as she stepped towards him, throwing her arms around him in a hug. The man reciprocated the gesture, enveloping her back while holding her tightly. "I thought you hated her," Hope mumbled into his shoulder.

"Well, she did shoot Fury and betray S.H.I.E.L.D., so that gives her a few favourable points in my books."

Hope burst out into laughter. For the first time, she felt accepted and loved by her father for who she truly was. "Thank you." Hope tightened her grasp around him as he did the same, driving the point home that he was there for her.

Hope then heard the sound of the elevator ping. She lifted her head off from her dad's shoulder to see someone getting off of the lift. Hope immediately stepped away from Hank, focus glued onto the woman who was now approaching them.

"Block C, cell nine. The Raft will be resurfacing tomorrow at zero-twelve-hundred for a prisoner-transport," the newest arrival said flatly.

"Agent Johnson?" Hope said in confusion, now familiar with who she was.

"Yeah," she acknowledged Hope, "so, your dad wasn't exactly discreet when he was poking around for this information. You guys are lucky I was the one to notice him before somebody else did."

This was now the second time Hope had been surprised to see someone helping, that she'd assumed wouldn't. "I thought Maria belonged in the Raft, according to you?"

The agent sighed, "Yeah, well, maybe she doesn't." She tossed a file onto the table that was near them.

Hope nodded, realising that the girl still seemed very conflicted inside. "I really am sorry about your friend," she said with the utmost sincerity.

Daisy nodded like she believed her before she turned and left as abruptly as she had entered while calling out, "I was never here!"

Scott then picked up the file that she'd dropped off, opening it to skim it. He was then quick to gasp, "Holy crap, the prisoner they're transporting is Patsy!"

"Who?" Hope asked.

"You know, 'That's our Patsy'." He swung his fist in a scooping motion like he was referencing something. "The Patsy show?" He looked about the room, throwing his hands up in disbelief as they all seemed to be looking at him with confusion. "Little redheaded girl, not to be confused with Orphan Annie, or Anne of Green Gables." The man looked frazzled. "Okay, did you guys even have a T.V. in your home?"

"No," the Pyms said dryly and all in unison.

"So anyway." Hank tore his judgmental stare off of Scott to direct his attention back to the screen. "We're gonna land the miniaturised chopper here, and you can get in through here."

"We have a pilot?" Hope asked.

Scott then jumped in, "Luis's cousin knows a guy who's sister-in-law's roommate's best friend's brother is a pilot. And he said he'd fly us there, no questions, no problem."

Hope shook her head with a smirk, always so equally impressed and terrifying by Luis's odd connections, and how he seemed to have the ability to track down anything and anybody.

"Here." Janet walked up to Hope, handing her an envelope.

"What's this?" She looked at it before taking it.

"When you get in there, please give it to Maria for me." Hope looked to her mom, a smile finding its way onto her face, realising that she'd written her a message. "I hope it'll help her."

"I'll make sure she gets it." Hope wrapped her arms around her mother as Janet hugged her back. "Thank you."

"We love you and we're here to get you through this." she rubbed her daughter's back.

"Yeah, we got you," Scott added.

Hope grinned as she reached over, tugging her partner over. "Get in here, Scott."

"Yay, I love hugs," he cheered as he was quick to wrap his arms around the two women.

Hope sighed, taking in the moment to bask in the love that surrounded her, for that after that embrace, it would be noses to the grindstone with their undivided attention set on their new mission.

Maria was curled into a ball laying on her bed in her solitary prison cell. The room had three blank walls with the fourth one being almost completely glass. It felt more like a small zoo habitat than a jail cell. The employees there had often stood just watching her, for no other reason than hoping that she'd expose herself in front of them. Those weeks that she'd been there she'd basically stayed in that one spot on her bed where she could ignore anyone who tried to invade her privacy from outside of her cell.

Maria stretched out her leg as she was quick to retract it, wincing in pain. That morning during her shower time one of the guards had left her with a good swift kick to her ribs. She'd gotten smacked around quite often by a certain few individuals. They'd known she was a traitor and responsible for a lot of death's within S.H.I.E.L.D. so they felt justified in their actions, which Maria allowed to happen, never putting up a fight. She agreed with them. She deserved it. A bruised rib cage was nothing compared to what she'd caused. She often thought on Jemma, the sweet young agent that had died because of her. She didn't deserve that, none of them deserved what had happened to them. So Maria always remained on the ground and allowed the attacks to continue.

Suddenly, something caught the corner of Maria's eye. She lifted her head off of her pillow as she saw a line of black ants crawling along the wall of her cell from the air vent. Maria pushed her sore body into a sitting position as she tracked their movements towards the camera in her room as they completely covered it, stacking their bodies one on top of the other.

Before she realised what was happening, she felt the air displaced inside the room. Suddenly, she wasn't alone in her cell anymore.

Deactivating her helmet, a harsh voice practically yelled at her, "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Hope?" Maria jumped up to her feet in total shock. She looked at the woman's beautiful, yet angry face as she stuttered out, "I— I didn't know how else to infiltrate A.I.M." She assumed Hope was furious with her about her traitorous actions.

"No, not that. I'm not mad about that," Hope snapped at her. "What I'm mad about is you refusing a trial. What the hell is wrong with you?" she repeated with the same amount of vigor as before.

"I'm a traitor of S.H.I.E.L.D.," she cried out, "I betrayed Fury, I put the planet at risk by temporarily neutralising its best line of defence and – worst of all – I got my own men killed." Maria huffed, her eyes welling up. "I don't need a trial to tell me I belong here because – trust me – I already know."

"Switching the track was the right choice," Hope said matter-of-factly.

"What?"

"Sacrificing the few to save the many, it was the right choice," Hope explained. "And we had knives to cut ourselves free too, remember? And not only did we have the opportunity to get out of harm's way, but we chose to be there in the first place."

"What? No, you didn't." She shook her head before she pointed to herself. "I put you there."

Hope crossed her arms, leaning her weight on her back foot. "You made us all enlist? You forced our hands to join the Avengers?" she harshly asked her.

"No, but—"

"Ah-uh, no buts," she cut her off. "We chose to fight, the rest of the world didn't. You put us exactly where we should have been. In direct path of the danger so the innocent wouldn't be."

"Hope—"

"No." She threw her hands down in frustration. "You have to take your trial."

"I can't." Maria was doing everything to not start crying. "I don't deserve one."

"Yes, you do." Hope stared her down.

Maria dropped her head, not being able to handle Hope's intensity. "No," she muttered.

"Fine!" Hope's tone cut like a knife, making Maria look back to her as Hope crossed her arms once again. "You don't think you deserve one, I get it, I don't agree, but okay, fine." She took a step closer to Maria as she pointed to herself. "But do you not think that I deserve one?"

"You?" Maria asked in complete confusion.

"Yeah. Do you not think I deserve to see you again? Or am I forever destined to suffer along with you and your ridiculous self righteous punishment?"

"I…" Maria was totally caught off guard. That whole time she had thought that Hope would have never wanted to see her again after what she'd done. "I— ah..."

"You what?" Hope angrily snapped at her with visible tears in her eyes. "You thought that I'd just accept you leaving me forever? That I'd just shrug you off and move on? Because if that was your intent" – she aggressively slashed the air in front of her – "you royally fucked it up when you made it impossible for me not to fall in love with you."

Maria felt a pain in her chest like her heart was trying to punch her from the inside out as all she wanted to do was confess her love for her and kiss her like everything was going to be alright. Though, before Maria had time to react, they heard Hank's voice over the communicator in The Wasp suit.

"Hope, you have to get out now, there's a guard practically on top of you."

Hope huffed before she quickly pulled something out of her suit, throwing it on top of the bed before looking to Maria. "I guess I'm not worth fighting for then." She then shrunk down.

"Hope!" Maria called but it was too late, the woman had already flown through the vent.

"Hey!" A guard banged on her window. "What the hell is going on in there?"

"Fuck off, Jefferson!" Maria snapped at the man, tears running down her face.

"What the fuck did you just say to me, traitor?"

"You heard me."

"Do you want me to come in there and show you what's up?" He pulled out his baton.

"Sure." Maria opened her arms, taunting him on. "But today I feel like fighting back."

She saw the fear in the man's eyes as he said, "Take this as a warning and pipe the fuck down." He then wandered off, making it clear that Hope had gotten out without notice.

Maria then brought her hands to her head, trying to calm herself by taking a few deep breaths which was doing next to nothing for her.

She then turned to sit on her bed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand as she then realised that Hope had thrown a letter on her mattress. Maria looked at the, now uncovered, camera on the wall, moving her body to block the item from its view as she picked it up.

She slowly opened the envelope, retrieving a piece of paper that had a handwritten message on it from within it. She began to read:

My dearest Maria,

I know this may be the hardest thing to hear right now, but it must be said – I am so damn proud of you. I know that you're holding onto the guilt of what you had to sacrifice, but you're going to have to look beyond it and realise that you deserve a happy and fulfilling life and not this doomed one behind bars. None of us are giving up on you, especially not me. I may have only known you for a short while, but ever since I met you that day in the Avengers Tower, I could see it, clear as day, that you were an extension of Hope, and Hope has always been an extension of me. You are a part of us. You are my daughter, so you better get your butt back here to your family.

With all the love,

Your, possibly presumptuous, mother, Janet .

By the end of the letter, Maria was weeping. Never would she have imagined that she'd have this loving family who was fighting for her. Who hadn't just abandoned her when things had gotten messy, but who showed up in the middle of the mess to drag her out of it.

Maria wiped her eyes and stood up as she proceeded to go to her window and pound on the glass. "Hey, Jefferson!" she shouted.

It didn't take long for the man to reappear. "I thought I told you to pipe down?" He growled.

Maria, ignoring his question, demanded with the utmost conviction, "Tell the warden I want my trial."