Before the snap

Eva felt her phone buzzing in the back pocket of her pants as she rung up the customer's order and handed it over to him. "I'm taking a break," she told her co-worker, and before they had time to protest she bolted into the back room and pulled her phone out of her pocket.

"Who is this?" she asked.

"Eva! It's me."

"It's who?"

"Me! Scott!"

"Scott who?"

"Scott Lang who?"

"Ant-Man!"

"Ohh. What do you want?" she asked, taking a seat on a shelf filled with Arabica beans.

"You're still a gardener, right? Can I hire you? I wanna hire you. I've got this house now in San Francisco and I'm under house arrest so I can't leave it or anything to buy pot plants and I wondered if you wanted to do up the yard so that Cassie and me have somewhere nice to play when she comes over –"

"Wait," she said. "You're under house arrest? I thought Rogers busted y'all out."

"Yeah, well… I just wanted to stay outta trouble, y'know?"

"So you're not Ant-Man anymore?"

"No. Hope's not talking to me any more either."

"Gee," Eva said under her breath, "I wonder why."

"Huh?"

"Nothing. Can you even afford a landscaper on whatever dole they give you for house arrest now?"

"I started a company. I do have some transferrable skills," Scott reminded her. "I don't just change sizes, y'know. I can also fix a plug."

"That's two on me. I can take a week off the coffee shop at the end of this month and fly over to sort stuff out, if you feel like paying for plane tickets as well as materials and a commission fee."

"Do you have a friends and family discount?"

"You're not my friend, Scott."

"Fine. Send me the invoice whenever you're ready, then."

"Great. Bye."

"Love you too," Eva heard him say as she hung up, and rolled her eyes. There was a small smile creeping across her face, though. Nobody would have noticed it, but it was there.

%

San Francisco

"Wheeeee!" said Cassie, gripping onto the sides of the trolley as Eva rounded the corner of the aisle. The gardening center was vast and echoing and smelled like petrichor; places like this made Eva feel very happy, very safe. "Go faster!"

"Can't," Eva panted. "You're actually… really heavy…"

"Hey!" Cassie twisted round on her seat made of bags of soil to glare at Eva. "That's not me! That's the plants!"

"Good point," Eva nodded. There were, indeed, a lot of plants. She had gone in with the intention just to grab a few window boxes and vegetable seeds so that Scott and his daughter would have some kind of project to do together, but had got a little bit carried away. It wasn't her paying for it, after all. In fact, she was getting paid for it. Wow. She really had to make this a full-time job.

They had one trolley filled with outdoor sproutlings and gardenware, and another two waiting for them at the checkouts that was filled with house plants. When Eva had expressed concern that Scott wouldn't be able to look after so many, Cassie had reassured her that he had nothing better to do with his time.

The kid's stepdad was coming to pick them and their purchases up in a hired van to drive them over to Scott's new house. He came over and shook Eva's hand before picking up a large cheeseplant. "How d'you know Scott, anyway?"

"Friend of my ex," Eva replied, which was technically true. "How's he dealing with house arrest?"

"He's… keeping himself busy," said the man. "We were worried at first about leaving him to his own devices, but –"

"Now all he does is play video games and take bubble baths," Cassie finished, placing a small aloe vera in the back of the van.

"Sounds like a great life."

Eva sat on the front bench of the van by the window, and did her best not to let the other occupants of the vehicle notice how tightly she was gripping the seatbelt, how her foot was drumming nervously on the floor. Trying to distract herself, she watched the San Francisco skyline roll past. She had never been to the city before. It was like a smaller, looser, hillier New York with the sea glittering in the background. Back in Austin, Eva had grown up without ever seeing the ocean. Having moved to NYC, it had taken her months to get used to the light taste of salt on the air.

They pulled up outside a big, lonely-looking house with a fence running high all around the perimeter. Cassie leapt out of the van almost as soon as they pulled up and ran to the gate, reaching up to undo the latch and yanking it open to reveal Scott, dressed in sweatpants and a Disney t-shirt, bouncing up and down in the doorway with his arms outstretched.

"Peanut!" As soon as Cassie was past the threshold he picked her up and hugged her. Eva and the stepdad followed behind at a slower pace, grabbing some pots out of the back of the van first. "Hey, guys. Thanks so much for this. It's so awesome. This place is gonna look so cool when we're done."

"You wanna give us a hand?" Eva asked, setting the heavy pots down with a soft oof.

Scott grimaced. "Can't," he said. "Sorry." He lifted up the leg of his pants to reveal a heavy tracking band secured to his ankle.

"Hmph," said Eva, "very convenient."

The stepdad left once everything was unpacked, promising to come and pick Cassie up in the morning before class. Eva didn't hesitate in allocating tasks – Scott could carry all the heavy stuff into the back yard, Cassie would start filling the pots with soil (she seemed delighted with the very dirty task) and Eva would sort the plants into which would go outside and which would remain within the house.

It was a long, sweaty day of moving and shouting and Eva quietly fixing the other two's mistakes when their backs were turned, but eventually it was all finished. Scott's yard was filled with vegetable plants and wildflower boxes that were hardy and easy to look after, while indoors almost every available surface was covered with lush, hanging greenery. There had only been two mud fights which, going by Eva's experience with the rooftop garden back home, was a raging success.

Scott put Cassie in the bath with the strict instruction to not come out until she was scrubbed clean – "even behind your ears, that's the grossest part" – and permission to use his luxury bubble bath.

"Hey," he said, coming back downstairs once his daughter had been sorted out. "Thanks for that."

Eva shrugged. "Payment is thanks enough, man."

"Yeah, but you made it fun for Cassie, too. Not just today – this gives me something fun to have with her. I kinda worry that she might get bored coming to see me here all the time."

"Scott," said Eva. "She thinks the sun shines out of your ass. The kid never shuts up about her cool superhero dad – which is annoying for me, but great for you."

"Yeah," said Scott, "but I'm not a superhero. Not anymore. I'm just some civilian now."

"Not in her eyes, you're not. You don't have to be the best, most powerful guy in the world to be the best dad. You just have to…" she gritted her teeth, hating being so sincere. "… Be yourself."

Scott beamed. "Hey," he said, opening his arms.

"No. Stay away from me! Get off!" Eva shrieked, wriggling out of the cuddle. "This is gross! This is so gross! Ew! Ew!"

"You're the best, Eva," he said, still with that stupid grin.

"No, I'm not. Now let go before I kick your security tag and set off all the alarms."

"That's mean."

"I know. That's why I said it."

A/N hello, gang! It's been a while. Work got really busy and then I moved back to uni, which is always really intense for the first couple weeks. Things have settled down now, though, so hopefully I can update more. I'm also being very cautious with this fic because I know little to nothing about Avengers 4, and don't want to write something that will later turn out not to be canon. I think, therefore, that there might be another flashback chapter or two. Which is great, because nothing will be sad yet. If you have any suggestions for characters I haven't done a chapter for yet, please let me know!