"Hello, welcome to Taco Bell — are you interested in trying our Nacho Fries BellGrande today?"
"Um, hello! Hi! Nice day, huh? Can we have... crap, I don't even know. How many Avengers are there again, peanut?"
"Dad, I bet Thor could eat fifty tacos."
"No way. Actually, no, you're absolutely — wow, it's a good thing this is on Stark's tab, I can't afford fifty tacos—"
"Sorry, sir, I didn't catch that?"
"Oh, yes! Sorry! I'll take... the menu?"
"The — menu?"
"One of each, please! My dad's ordering for a bunch of super—"
"No, Cassie— shh! Yes, please. The menu. Like, all the things. All the sodas. Whatever you can make in there. Is there an Order All Button?"
"I — sorry, we need to put those in individually, there's no... 'order all' button..."
"Shoot. I'll just list 'em, then; what in the world are Naked Chicken Chips?"
"They're like triangle chicken nuggets. Dad, Bry-Ant wants Cinnabon Bites, don't forget the Cinnabon Bites."
"Bry-Ant can eat plant nectar like a normal over-sized bullet ant."
"Did you say an ant?"
"... a Loaded Potato Griller, one of those 7-Layer burritos... one Cantina Power bowl..."
"Dad, there's people honking behind us."
Scott Lang had a hell of a time, after the snap. Thanks for asking.
And it was even worse thanks to being in the dark for the most part — but then Hope and Hank vanished, and of course Paxton and Maggie had been suddenly just gone with them, leaving Cassie to... Well, it had taken a lot to get her back to her old self, after the things she had to see. He couldn't imagine watching the people you loved dissolving in front of you, and to be alone and wandering helplessly in a world gone frantic—
It's over, that awful shit is over. Everyone's back, and Cassie is smiling and happy again, and that's what matters now. There's hope now, and everyone's eyes are brighter, more alive than they've been in what feels like forever. His kid's gonna turn twelve soon and all of her family and friends will be there, dumping presents in her lap and giving her so much candy and cake she'll turn into a sourpatch kid. It's weird not really playing with tea sets anymore, but he's more than happy to buy her something else; what are the pre-teen kids into these days? He thinks of Brittney Spears and those funky jelly choker necklaces, and feels woefully old.
At any rate, she's feeling sound enough to enjoy a trek across the country with her old man. They've been hitting up all kinds of places. Some awesome, some questionable — the big ball of twine was kind of nifty? They even let them add onto it with a big spindle thingy, which was just their kind of ridiculous. Honestly, it's the best he's felt in a long time, as he pulls up to the Avenger's headquarters (after his ID card failed to beep him in for way too long). This is the life, cruising along in your beat-up car, your back seat smelling suspiciously like a drunk after-party at 2 a.m. when all the other food joints are closed, there's a huge freaky ant clicking away with its head out the window—
"I hope you don't expect me to carry all this in," Happy says when Scott pulls up, as the older man eyes the full back seat. There are too many bags to count. Two-hundred and thirteen dollars and fifteen cents worth of fast food that pretends to be actual Mexican food. Scott's mouth falls open in an attempt to plead for Happy's help, when Tony Stark appears magically behind the man, like a goddamn bearded cherub in amber-yellow shades.
"Oh, cool, lunch is here. Happy, could you bring these in? Thanks."
Scott gives a pleased head-wagging smile in Happy's (unhappy) direction. "Yes, thank you. So much."
"Hey, Mr. Stark!" Cassie hollers from the window; Scott swears there's something a little startled about the glance Tony gives her, but then he's back to looking typical Stark mode, motioning the kid to follow as Happy curses under his breath about how he can't even have fast food anymore on his new diet—
Cassie motions to the back of the car. "Did you meet Bry-Ant? He's my pet."
Tony eyes the giant-sized creature skittering out the window, jumping back a little. "He's absolutely repulsive — which makes him perfect for this place. Bring him in and put him in Rogers' room, ASAP."
The girl laughs excitedly. "Sure! And hey, is Clint here? I wanna show him my chupacabra drawing; we practiced last time he was here."
"Oh, yeah, yeah, just make hawk noises until he answers from wherever he's nesting."
Scott grins as she runs off... though he has to ask: "Does he really nest?"
"No, not, at all, he hates that joke." A pause. "I'm pretty sure Wilson does, though."
The image of Sam in a chicken-like nest flapping his arms startles a laugh out of him. They start walking at a natural pace while Happy fumbles with far too many brown paper bags in the distance, and for once it feels genuinely good to be on Avenger turf; usually there's some world-ending event, or everyone's getting into fisticuffs over something or another. For a group made to defend the world, they sure suck sometimes at cooperating sometimes. But that's then, this is now, and Scott's more than happy to start fresh like he's done before, walking out of San Quentin.
"I've got all the files you want, from Pym's lab — just FYI, he's so bitter about handing anything remotely helpful over to you, I think his exact words were something like 'I would rather get shot again than have to talk to a Stark', so — here you go."
Tony takes the USB, tucking it into his jacket pocket. Kinda weird attire, combined with the cat shirt. "I get that a lot. And thanks."
"How's Morgan doing?"
"Oh, you know. Growing almost as fast as you do in the suit. Carnivorous. Pees on things." There's an easy quiet that falls over them; deeper in the hallways, he can hear the telltale sounds of Clint and Cassie discussing the importance of Big Foot — and how they should all together visit the woods and try to catch him on tape. The others are all hovering around and enjoying the quiet after what must've been a laborous weekend full of politics and things Scott is more than happy to avoid (he did enough, he isn't gonna be guilted into doing any more than saving trillions of people or whatever, he did his time).
There's a kid sitting on one of the couches that Scott's aware is Peter — it's awkward to stare, right? Right. He doesn't stare.
Tony speaks up, breaking him out of his staring that he absolutely wasn't doing. "How's Cassie?"
"Oh! She's good. She's — y'know. She's herself. I'm relieved to say that at this point, after everything that's happened." He doesn't like to go back to that time, when she wouldn't even talk to him; she'd just shut everyone out and sit in silence, disinterested in the things she loved, wondering when her mother and stepfather and so many of her friends and family would come back. There was nothing more devastating than calling out to her with her nickname and seeing her try to force a smile, plastic and fake and empty. Emptiness is so much worse than misery, he'd realized in that moment.
When Scott speaks again, it's lower.
"... Thanks again, by the way. For the help. The therapy, and all of that. It really helped her, like... a lot. You didn't have to do that."
"Of course I did." Tony glances at him, but keeps his voice equally low and — surprisingly — with some measure of sincere empathy in his voice; Scott's not used to it, when he's mostly the recipient of Stark's jokes and dry wit. "We're in the Dad Club, it's mandatory we throw some bones at each other. I give you a counselor, you give me Nacho Supremes."
"You technically bought all that, though."
"It's the thought that counts."
Natasha perks from the counter she's perched on, just behind Clint. Apparently everyone's cool with watching Happy struggle. "Is that Taco Bell?"
Stark splays his hand in a gesture in front of him. "For some reason, you're the last person I expected to be excited about fake Mexican food around here."
"Maybe I just enjoy the taste of sawdust and cardboard."
"Taco Bell?" Thor perks, from around the corner. (When'd he get back?) "I've had these tacos you're speaking of in ice-cream form. Is there another?"
"This is the most ridiculous cluster of people I've had to deal with," Clint adds from the table, where Cassie and he have been devising a proper folklore monster trap; they're apparently going to hit the road and become Winchesters, or something. Saving people, hunting things, the Avengers business. "I call dibs on anything chulupa-shaped."
The table is covered in bell-themed bags and mountains of different sauces (one packet says "Of all the hot sauces, why me, why now?" and he kind of feels bad opening it), and Scott is able to say with a definite fact that Thor really could put away fifty tacos if he wanted. Watching him destroy half the table was almost as engaging as a football game for the others in the room. Once the damage is wrought, Scott inevitably ends up chatting away with Bruce about something Pym-related — Banner has a real fangirl thing for Hank, which is just a tragedy, because that old man is obviously uncool — and it takes Scott a moment to realize Cassie's disappeared from the table.
He kind of almost panics, but then he realizes that's absolutely ridiculous, because she's almost twelve and is more than capable of wandering off to the bathroom or literally anywhere else besides mortal danger. So he does a logical thing: he doesn't freak out and turns around first. And there she is not a few paces away, sitting with her back against the bottom of a couch and chatting at —
Oh, at Peter Parker.
He knows the story there (everyone does, it spreads like wildfire; he heard from Sam), but he knows Cassie sure doesn't know why this boy is silently watching a wall as a pastime. Wincing, he wanders over, nearly bumping into May in the process. Stupid, stupid.
"Oh, shoot, I'm sorry."
"It's okay," the woman says, pushing long brown locks from her face as she smiles a little. She looks a little tired, and Scott can't help but feel a pang of concern for the adoptive mother. Because god, he knows what it's like, when your kid isn't their self anymore, and the life is practically sucked from their eyes, and they seem like they're just moving on wires. Cassie was fixable, and while Scott's not a pessimistic asshole by any means, he isn't sure if anything will bring this kid back to himself. May smiles a little at his worried brow-line. "I was just about to take Peter here for his own feeding."
"He can't eat with us?" Cassie asks innocently enough, not remotely bothered by Peter's state and sitting leg-to-leg with him.
May just smiles patiently, warmed by her good nature.
"Oh no, he has to eat through a little button on his stomach; it's a tube that food goes through, because he doesn't really eat very well."
"Does he not even drink stuff? Not even pink lemonade?" She looks at Peter and talks at him, probably not quite getting the direness of the situation; Scott mentally kicks himself for not giving her a heads-up. She continues excitedly, "I love lemonade. Mom makes it for me when I'm stressed out."
May looks at the scene with some measure of melancholy. "Unfortunately not... but I'm hoping he will soon, though. When he's better."
"I'm sure he will be! I was a lot like him sometimes, too. I was like—" She makes a cuckoo circle at her head, and that's gonna be a whole 'nother conversation to have with her (oh my god Cassie). But the girl seems to be a little more subdued when she says, "But then I talked to people a little more... He probably just needs to talk it out, and he'll feel way better. And he'll be more like himself in no time."
"He can't really talk, kiddo," Clint says, having wandered over — or hovered, more like, like the moon being drawn to the earth.
(He freaks out when kids vanish, too. He looks and panics and worries it's all gonna happen again—)
Cassie's head jerks back a little, a skeptical look in her eyes as she turns to Clint. "Of course he can talk. Just not very much."
An uncomfortable silence falls over them. Cassie seems more than a little confounded by the heaviness in the air.
"... What do you mean, sweetheart?" May asks.
"I was... talking to him about how nice honey and lemon tea is, and he said he was thirsty."
"Peanut, that's — " Scott starts, and looks at May, "I'm sorry, she's got an active imagination, s-so."
"I'm not making it up, Dad! God, I'm not seven. He said he was thirsty, and I asked if maybe he could have some tea, and he said yes!"
"What's going on?" Tony mumbles to Clint from where he'd wandered into the thick air of bated breaths.
Cassie looks at Peter and continues confidently, "He told me he had a friend named Gamora would like some tea, too."
When Scott and Cassie go to their room for the night, it's after much fanfare around the shocking news — Peter Parker spoke. And of course, the only person who had gotten to hear it was his kid, someone who had a habit of running wild with her mind a little. He felt a little guilty, assuming it had been one of her backsliding predicaments, where she'd shave a few years off her age and start playing pretend. Those episodes are few and far between now, and there was little doubt by the time they'd all went to bed: Cassie had no way of knowing who Gamora was. It sparked happy tears from May and excited chattering from the facility at large, lit a sort of fire under Stark's ass, and left Bruce constantly monitoring the teenager's brain waves. Someone contacts the Guardians from their position a couple of light years away, and Quill's face apparently blanches many shades, like he's turning into Casper the friendly ghost.
Peter Parker had been this way for nearly two weeks now, Scott had come to learn.
Two weeks of nothing, and then, suddenly, like lightning to a tree:
Proof of life.
As Scott and his daughter listen to eager voices bounce around outside their room, Cassie on his twin bed and him in a pallet on the floor—
("Please don't leave me alone, dad, I'm not good at staying alone."
"You never have to worry about being alone, peanut, I'm here.")
— Cassie's reserved and concerned voice drifts through the air:
"Did I do something I shouldn't have?"
"No, no, noooo, you didn't. Everyone was just really shocked, because he hasn't really spoken or moved on his own in a long time."
"I wanted to help," she whispers, and he turns his head to observe her troubled expression.
"... You did help. You did something amazing today, kiddo. Hero-status amazing." He looks at the ceiling and thinks of the last two years, and how utterly devastating everything had been. It was like a mountain: first a terrible, painful trek against gravity, and then a slow but blissfully light journey down its slope. He smiles a little, breathing softly. "... Now they've got hope, and that's something you can't go without. Y'know?"
"Yeah..." She quiets for a moment. "When you talked to me before, it helped me a lot. Even when you thought it didn't... I promise it did."
Scott has to find his voice for a moment. He swallows hard, feeling his eyes burn.
"... I'm glad it did, because I don't know what I would've done without my best sidekick."
She turns her head and looks up at him. He turns his and looks down at her.
"Peter's gonna be okay," she says with confidence.
"Y-yeah, I think he will be."
She smiles, all teeth. "I'll be okay, too."
It's the best thing he's ever heard in his entire life.
"Y-yeah. Everyone's gonna be okay."