After the Quantum Realm
It was like Hope had known there was never any real risk of them being trapped there. Scott really didn't know how she did it, how she always faced things so calmly. When the portal appeared behind them she didn't even blink.
Maybe she was in shock, he thought vaguely to himself as they limped back home. Huh. Thinking of it, maybe he was in shock, because all of a sudden Cassie was there and hugging him and crying and somehow he'd opened his mouth and there were words coming out - vague, gentle platitudes.
"Shhh, it's okay. We're safe. We're home."
A hand clapped his shoulder and he looked over to see Hank, beaming at him big and wide.
"Don't suppose there's any chance your suit came out of all that in one piece, is there?"
Scott laughed and all the tension drained from him. Which, of course, was when the edges of his vision went black and he suddenly found himself flat on the floor with a babble of panicked voices overlapping all around him.
"'M okay," he managed to mumble, reaching a hand blindly out for Cassie's. He got her elbow, but did his best to give it a reassuring squeeze all the same. "Love you Peanut..."
Then everything drifted away and he felt as though he was falling, falling, falling back through the Quantum Realm, Kang's voice echoing all around him...
He didn't stay asleep for long, but instead drifted in and out of consciousness in painful, fitful bursts. Every time he came to brief awareness he would suddenly jolt upright, gasping at the pain in his head, nose, ribs - well, everywhere really - but ignoring it all in favour of frantically looking around to make certain his little family were safe. Once he had seen them all - Hank, Janet, Hope and Cassie, oh thank God Cassie - he would drift off again.
The fifth or sixth time this happened, he could only see Hank and Janet, standing a little way away down the long hospital corridor - wait, when did they get to a hospital?
Scott forced himself up, pushing away the gloved hands of various medical personnel, and started to yell. "Cassie? Hope? CASSIE!"
Hank's head turned toward the commotion and he swore. Scott was rising from the gurney onto unsteady feet.
"Scott, Scott, hey!" Hank jogged up to his (as-good-as) son-in-law's side, Janet not far behind. "They're fine, they're just grabbing some food from the cafeteria."
Scott was not pacified, his calls growing harsher as the pain in his ribs became steadily more apparent. "Cassie! HOPE!"
He staggered determinedly forward and Hank wondered just how many broken bones and who knew what else the Ant-Man suit - which the doctors had not yet had a chance to remove - was holding together.
"Go find them," he said quietly to Janet, who nodded and darted off to do just that, moving much quicker than Scott could hope to in his current condition. "C'mon Scott, at least lean on me or something? You're making an old man feel useless here."
"Cassie... Kang's got-"
"You saved her," Hank interrupted gently. "You saved all of us."
At last, Scott slowed to a halt. He looked at Hank. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. See for yourself."
"Dad!"
Cassie, back in a normal jeans and t-shirt, came barrelling down the corridor, narrowly dodging disgruntled on-call doctors. Hope followed, at a pace only slightly more dignified.
Seeing them both, Scott breathed a ragged sigh of relief and his legs finally gave out. Hank, prepared for this, yanked one of Scott's arms around his shoulders before he had the chance to fall.
"There ya go big guy." He nodded his thanks to one of the doctors who helped manoeuvre Scott back onto the gurney. "Get comfy, okay?"
Scott smiled beatifically up at Hank, a certain distant quality to his eyes making the older man wonder if he had a concussion. "Cassie's the big guy. It was like... hugging... a Godzilla Hank!"
"Uh..."
But Scott was already out again. Hope took one of his hands gently in her own, careful to avoid the scrapes and bruises on his knuckles from the fight with Kang.
"Go to sleep Scott," she murmured, hoping it might filter through somehow. "We've got you."
When he next woke, it was in a warm bed and a dark room. His suit had been removed - and what a fun job that must have been for some poor nurse - and replaced with a hospital gown. The only light was from the harsh glow of the bedside monitors which tracked his vitals with quiet beeps.
"Scott?" A hushed voice, Hope's, broke through the quiet. A second later she was at his bedside. "You awake for real this time?"
"For real?"
She smiled knowingly. "Never mind. How do you feel?"
"Uh..." he considered for a moment. "Kind of... high? They must have me on the good stuff."
"Yeah, I'd hope so. You had two broken ribs, fractured collarbone, a sprained wrist, a dislocated knee and a concussion," she listed off. "Oh, and a broken nose too."
"What!" he sat up a little straighter in bed at that. "Well damn, so much for being on the Avengers lunch box..."
She huffed a quiet laugh. "Somehow I don't think that was ever really on the cards."
"No, it was. And, speaking of cards, they were interested in putting me on the Earth's Mightiest Heroes limited edition playing card deck too. I was gonna be the ace, you know, because I can go really big or really small..." He trailed off, and cleared his throat awkwardly. "Hey, uh, thank you. For coming back for me."
"I'll always come back for you, Scott." She gestured behind her. "We all will."
He squinted through the dim room and made out the outline of four fold-out camping beds, three of which were still occupied.
"You didn't have to stay..."
"We wanted to." She perched on the edge of his bed. "Move up a little?"
He wriggled over and she laid down carefully beside him.
"We're all here," she whispered, her face just a couple of inches from his own. "We're safe. We did it, Scott."
He knew it was true, but still stole a glance at where Hank, Janet and Cassie slept soundly - just to make absolutely sure. He looked uncertainly back at Hope.
She lay a hand over his abdomen, careful of his broken ribs. "I promise, Scott. I'm not letting go."
Reassured at last, he let his eyes slip closed and fell into dreamless, uninterrupted sleep.
Author's Note:
My first and possibly only Marvel fanfiction - just wanted some more h/c for Scott at the end of the film!