Chapter Text
The flight takes a couple hours, and as far as Scott’s concerned it’s far too long. Twenty four hours has never seemed like such a short space of time, each one of them passing simultaneously in the blink of an eye and an entire age, her pain making time drag, the knowledge of what's coming making it speed up. And Scott wants both to be true. He wants things to go faster so they’ll get to Banner and find this cure, but slower in case they can’t. Because although that’s an unthinkable thought, Scott has to accept that it could be fact.
Hope enters into some kind of state of shock, turning pale and silent and still, breathing shallow, eyes moving slowly. Scott keeps his arm around her shoulders for the entire flight, rubbing circles on her arm, planting kisses into her hair and telling her it will be ok. He’s pretty sure she doesn’t believe him, hell he doesn’t believe him, but he’s got to try.
The plane splutters to the ground on the highway closest to the research centre Hope had helped Carol to map out the day before (worlds away), and zombies surround the plane as soon as it stills. It’s a clunky old cargo plane, and Scott asks the universe why the hell it couldn’t have been a fighter jet left operational and fuelled up in the hangar on the airbase rather than this, slow and bumpy, leaving Scott unsure that the doors will hold against the onslaught of the undead.
He’s never hated them more, the rotting, gruesome, groaning undead. They’ve taken everything away from him, and he’s only just beginning to appreciate what that means. That they’re not going to stop. The zombie apocalypse, it turns out, is not linear. It’s not destruction at the beginning, turning to something calmer as time passes, civilisation eventually rebuilding. It’s just this. It’s just pain and loss and fear, day after day, month after month, year after year.
Scott leaves Hope only to kill the zombies, pushing out of the plane’s roof hatch with Valkyrie and Thor and Gamora, taking the small crowd out with silenced guns and no hesitation, head shots to kill, the undead falling still on the tarmac.
When Scott climbs back in through the hatch, he finds Cassie beside Hope, holding her hand, silent and steady. His two favourite people. In any other circumstance, he would smile and join them. But this is different. And he doesn’t want Hope to die. God , he doesn’t want Hope to die. And he doesn’t want Cassie to have to watch.
“Which way is it?” Valkyrie asks, looking out of the windows.
“It’s not far away,” Carol says, frowning at a map. They’re surrounded by fields, the outlines of buildings visible at the edges.
“Yeah but which direction ?” Scott snaps, pulling Cassie and Hope to their feet.
“Can I see?” MJ approaches, stands next to Carol and runs her finger along the weathered paper. “This the place?”
“Yeah, I just can’t figure out if we’re facing west or east? Give me a second, I’ll work it out,” Carol explains, voice gravelly with tiredness.
“It’s this way. That building there,” MJ taps the paper.
“You’re sure?” Carol asks.
“Yeah. Look,” MJ shuts one eye and points out of the window, finger settling on a building in the distance.
“Oh. Yeah. Yeah, that’s the one,” Carol nods, confident.
“Ok, so can we go?” Scott’s more impatient, itching to leave, Hope leaning heavily against his side. On Hope’s other side, Cassie still has hold of her hand.
“We can go,” Carol confirms, and the group springs into action.
It doesn’t take them long to reach the research centre, an hour at most, after picking through the remains of the highway, killing any zombie in their path without hesitation (they’re beyond that, now), walking across a marshy field and over broken fences.
The centre is quiet when they approach it, a grey brick building inside green metal fencing, a few slow zombies walking circles on the road outside.
“I am Groot,” Groot whispers sadly, echoing everyone’s unease at the silence of the base.
“It’s ok, buddy,” Gamora assures him, ruffling his hair.
“Are you ok?” Scott, trailing behind with Hope and Cassie, asks Hope, as he has been doing every ten minutes for the duration of the walk. He isn’t sure quite how many hours it's been, since the bite, just that it’s been far too many. Hope’s fever is spiking, every step shaky. And he’s never sat and watched this before, never been a part of someone fading into nothingness. Soul replaced by monster. But it’s terrifying to watch.
“I’m fine,” Hope growls, but the way she trips on thin air says otherwise. Scott holds her tighter, fingers against her waist.
“So how do we gain entry?” Thor is asking, squinting at the metal fence as if it might melt under his gaze.
“Uh, maybe the gate?” Peter suggests, pointing at the tall double gate a little way down the fence.
“Smartass,” MJ rolls her eyes at him, but the group move down, Valkyrie hesitantly pressing the intercom button.
“Hello?” She pauses. “Is anyone in there? We’re uh, looking for a Doctor Banner?” There’s no response, just a deafening silence.
“No. No, try again,” Scott insists, stepping forward, pulling Hope with him. “We didn’t come this far for this. She didn’t get bit for this.”
“Hello?” Valkyrie tries again.
“Tell him about me. He knew my father,” Hope suggests, every word a struggle.
“Ok. We can do that,” Scott says softly, before reaching forward and pressing the intercom button himself. “Doctor Banner. Or- or anyone who can hear us. Please let us in. We’re good people, I swear we are, and we need your help. This is Hope Van Dyne,” Scott pulls her gently in front of him, making sure she can be seen by the camera. “She and her father were working on something at another research facility before it got overrun. Hope can help you. But - but only if you can help her first. Hope,” Scott takes a deep breath, wary of mentioning the fact that she’s bitten in case whoever is listening, if there is anyone listening, is afraid to let someone in as they’re turning into a zombie. But this isn’t just someone . This is Hope. And Scott’s pretty sure she’s going to help to save the world. “Hope’s bit. And she’s extremely important. To me, yes, but to the world too. She’s so smart it’s incredible, Banner. She’s so smart she’s going to fix this whole damned world. So if you can hear us, if by some miracle, or freak accident, or fate or-or whatever you want to call it. If you’re still alive in there, you gotta let us in.”
Scott lets the button go, holds onto Hope with both hands. The group waits. The wind picks up. Groot fidgets. Pegasus eats at the grass around his feet, pushing through the cracked sidewalk. Still, they wait. This is their only chance. The only way out of this. If there’s no answer, Hope’s as good as dead, and so is this world. Scott’s going to stand at these gates until someone answers, until he sees a zombified Banner ambling towards them, until lightning strikes him down. One or the other. He’s not leaving. He’s not giving up.
There’s a creaking sound coming from behind the gate, and the group all look up in unison, expecting it to be the wind or a zombie or a rat. What they don’t expect is to see the side door of the grey building opening up, and a man with wild hair and an unshaven face to step out, wearing Hawaiian shorts and fur lined boots, holding a gun in each hand and looking completely lost.
“Is that him? Hope? Is that him?” Scott prompts her, making sure she can see him. Scott’s doubtful, wondering how the hell this man can be one of the world’s most scientifically advanced minds. Wondering how he’s going to trust this guy to save Hope.
“Definitely him. Definitely,” Hope says, and then she’s stepping forward and throwing up blood all over her shoes.
Things move in a blur after that, and Scott’s not sure he could confidently lay the hour’s events out in chronological order if he were to retell them. There’s shouting, and metal clinking, and Hope stops throwing up but passes out cold instead, Scott scooping her up and carrying her through the gap in the gate held open by crazy-hair. Or rather, Doctor Banner. Hope confirmed it was him, and that’s all Scott needs, as far as he’s concerned. He follows Banner back into the side door, vaguely registering him telling them that under no circumstances should they use the main door, and then they’re walking down trashed hallways, up a flight of stairs, passing a sealed room with a zombie pressing its face against the glass of the window. Scott blocks it all out, puts one foot in front of the other, prays that Hope is still breathing, that Banner can stop this or at least stop her pain.
“In here,” Banner kicks open a door, pushing through a stack of empty glass bottles and Doritos packets, into a large lab with the blinds pulled down. There’s just enough light to colour the room grey. “You can put her here. Just...can you just give me a minute. I was not expecting company,” he closes his eyes, rubbing his temples. Scott sets Hope down carefully on a lab table. He worries she looks uncomfortable, pulls a spare jacket from his backpack to put beneath her head.
“Are you drunk ?” May is asking, hands on hips, standing protectively over Hope.
“I told you I wasn’t expecting company! Like, anytime. Ever again!” Banner defends himself.
“Can you fix her?” Gamora asks. “Can you save Hope?”
“Can I fix her?” Banner spits. “I...give me a minute. ”
They all pause for a second. Hope is far too still underneath Scott’s hands. And she doesn’t deserve this, not a single second of this pain. She’s never been anything but good to him and Cassie, never been anything but helpful to the rest of the group. She was willing to walk damned near halfway across the country on the off chance that there might be a cure, or the possibility of helping to make one. Not for herself, but everyone else. She knew the risks, and though Scott wishes he could take her place, he knows that this is something she was prepared to face. Hope Van Dyne deserves better. She deserves better than to die on a lab table in a trash filled room. She deserves better than a drunk scientist who has clearly been alone for far too long. She deserves better than this whole damned zombie apocalypse. Scott’s going to do everything in his power to help her get it.
“Peter, MJ, Cassie. Find Mr Banner some coffee,” Scott tells them, voice low, verging on threatening.
“Where are we supposed to find that ?” Peter asks, not noticing MJ’s side eye telling him to be quiet.
“You’re good at finding things, kid. You’ll find some,” Scott insists, and MJ is pulling the two other teens from the room.
“Mr Banner,” Scott cracks his knuckles once they’re gone, kicking at the trash on the ground until he finds what he’s looking for. It’s a water bottle, half full. “I’m sure you’re a nice enough guy. But right now, Hope needs you. And she doesn’t have time for you to have a minute .” Scott unscrews the bottle as he speaks, striding to Banner in one large step and depositing the contents of the bottle onto his head.
“ Ow , what are you doing ?” Banner protests, tipping his head forwards to rid his hair of water. Thor is sniggering behind Scott.
“Help her. Help Hope. I’ll beg if I have to,” he takes Banner’s shoulders, starts to shake them. “I’ll do whatever it takes, man. I’ll waterboard you if I have to. Just help her. God knows she deserves it.” There are tears in Scott’s eyes now. They haven’t come this far for this to be the ending to Hope’s story.
Scott releases the scientist, searches his bloodshot eyes for a hint of empathy or stroke of genius.
“Nothing?” Carol steps forward this time, arms folded. “What have you been doing all this time, anyway? Did you just give up?”
“No. I didn’t just give up ,” Banner insists, starting to stand up a little straighter.
“We found this!” Cassie is back in the room, MJ and Peter in tow, carrying a large electric blue can. “I think it’s some kind of energy drink,” she hands it to Scott. It looks like something the college kids Scott would walk past on his way to work used to drink. Not coffee, but good enough, so he hands it off to Banner.
“Thank you,” Banner opens the Can with a pop and drinks the whole can down in a collection of long gulps. Scott’s half impressed, half disgusted.
“You were saying?” Valkyrie prompts, once he’s done drinking.
“I was saying,” Banner pauses, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “That I needed a minute.” He scrunches up the can in one hand.
“You’ve had more than a minute,” Thor points out.
“Oh, I know. I know,” Banner’s half laughing. “But I can’t cure her. I don’t have a cure to the virus. Yet. Quite.”
Scott’s heart sinks, shatters, implodes.
“What does that mean?” Carol picks up on the words Banner uses.
“I have something. I can’t cure her but,” he pauses, turning and walking to an icebox in the corner of the room. “I can slow the spread of the virus. I can buy her some time, probably.”
“Probably?” Scott questions. There’s a glimmer of hope. He doesn’t want it to be for nothing. Can’t stand it being taken away again.
“I’ve tried it on three rats. And a raccoon. The maximum survival rate was one week.”
“ One week ?” Scott splutters. It sounds like nothing. He’d fooled himself into thinking Banner would have a forever cure.
“It’s a hell of a lot better than twenty-four hours,” Banner points out, extracting a syringe from the ice box, half filled with a thick red liquid.
“Why does it look like blood?” Is Scott’s instinctual first question as Banner shakes the vial a little.
“Because most of it is,” he answers, matter-of-fact.
“What?” Scott recoils. “And you claim this can delay the zombie virus?”
“Do you want to let me try or not?” And Scott wants to say no, wants to take Hope out of this place and get her back to the airbase, pray that by some kind of miracle she’s the first human to ever be immune to the virus.
But the evidence is clear. There’s the blood on her shoes and lips, the paleness of her skin, the heat of her forehead under the back of Scott’s hand. Hope’s going to die. There’s no getting around that. Everyone is watching him, waiting for his say so, Banner poised with the injection. Scott knows he doesn’t have a choice in this. He has to do what’s right for her. He nods once, holds his breath as Banner pushes the glinting silver point into Hope’s arm.
Hope wakes up slowly, light filtering in through her eyelashes and making her head spike with pain. She feels a little like she’s been hit with a freight train, body aching, veins themselves feeling heavy and poisonous. At first, she’s blissfully oblivious, taking the time to catalogue her symptoms and make sure all of her limbs are intact, wiggling her toes and feeling something soft against her fingertips. For a few minutes, she’s nobody and nothing, existing in a bubble away from her past.
Then, slowly, the memories come back to her. The apocalypse, her parents, Scott and Cassie, the airbase, the journey to find Banner, the plane, the zombies, the...the bite. With an agonising sinking feeling, Hope remembers the bite. She remembers throwing up blood all over her shoes. She remembers the white hot pain.
Panic takes over her as she wonders how long it’s been, how many seconds are left to tick away. If her life was an hourglass, how much sand is left to filter through to the bottom?
The panic increases as she realises it feels like it’s been a very, very long time, her gut telling her more time has passed than she would like. She wonders, fleetingly, whether she’s one of them now. Whether she’s a snarling, rotting monster. Whether inside the horrifying shells, the human being still inhabits them. Becomes the back seat driver in a very real kind of hell.
Hope wrenches her eyes open, blinking against the faint artificial light, checking her hands and arms. She can still move them at will, still has dominion over her own body. They don’t look like they’re rotting away. When she coughs, she still sounds like herself. Sure, it makes her chest feel like fire, but she’s pretty sure she’s still whole and definitive and human . Hope breathes a scratchy sigh of relief.
Next, to figure out where she is. Hope has some fuzzy memory of seeing Doctor Banner at the research centre, guesses they’re inside a room in the lab. It’s small, with off white walls, a closed blue door, a window to the left, curtains pulled closed across it. Hope’s in a hospital-type bed, scratchy blue blanket pulled up to her shoulders. There’s an IV of clear fluid snaking into her arm. And, much to her surprise, Scott, sound asleep, a mess of limbs on an uncomfortable looking green chair to her left. His hair is a mess and there’s dirt on his face, and he looks worried, even in sleep. Hope wants to wake him up and tell him it’s all ok, despite the fact that that isn’t actually the case. Anything to make him smile. This brave, kind-hearted man who has waited for her. Who has brought her into his family until she slotted into it like a puzzle piece. Until it became hers , something clicking into place in her soul.
Hope doesn’t mean to wake him, but there’s a surge of pain in her veins, something she’s never felt before the bite, like someone is replacing her blood with gasoline, sending it up with a match. She winces, a whimper of pain escaping her lips before she can stop it.
“Hope?” Scott’s scrambling out of the chair in an instant, almost falling onto the ground, catching his footing at the last second.
“I’m ok. I’m ok,” her words are hissed through gritted teeth. She doubts they sound very believable, but the pain is ebbing away as quickly as it came on.
“Hope.” It’s not a question this time, her name holding more weight, uttered like a promise or a prayer. “You’re...you’re still…”
“Still me,” Hope finishes his sentence, her throat scratchy and raw like she’s been screaming for hours. “How… how long has it been?” She's terrified to ask. Terrified to know the truth. Either she’s within the twenty-four hours and still going to turn, or Banner, by some ridiculous miracle, has found a cure. Either the world’s going to change or it isn’t.
Scott senses this, cups her hand tightly between both of his own. “Not quite twenty-four.”
“Oh.” Hope’s heart sinks. She had been so hopeful. She feels better now than she did early. How is that possible?
“But,” Scott kisses her hand. “Banner came through for us. Kind of. It looks like.”
“What? What does that mean?” Hope pauses, squeezing Scott’s hand.
“He didn’t have a cure as such, but he’s been working on this, this serum. It pauses the virus. You’re the first human trial, so, uh, I guess I should be congratulating you,” Scott tells her, studying her face intently like he’s expecting something. A reaction or a transformation. All Hope feels is lost.
“I...What?”
“He has this serum. It’s made mostly of blood actually, it’s pretty gross, but he’s tried it on rats and a raccoon, and it...it’s kind of effective at delaying the transformation.”
“Kind of effective?”
“Its had, um...mixed results,” Scott gulps. “But look, honey, he’s working on other options. There are other ways to stop this,” Scott drops one of his hands from hers, runs it through his hair.
“So...so what does this mean? That I might turn at any second?”
“Not- it doesn’t work like that. But you might...you might just keep getting sicker. Just more slowly. But you’ll still...Banner thinks you’ll still turn.”
Hope blinks the remnants of sleep from her eyes, takes a deep breath, processes it all. She isn’t sure whether to be happy or sad, whether to let go and allow tears to spill from her eyes or laughter to bubble from her throat. Because she’s still here. She’s still alive, and conscious, bearing the twenty-four hour mark. And that’s what the zombie apocalypse is about, how you find a reason to keep going on. You live for the now. This very instant.
But on the other hand, this is just prolonging the inevitable. The agonising death that’s been waiting for her all these years. The all consuming terror and loneliness she feels when she thinks of slipping into the blackness. Of leaving them all behind.
But time is time, no matter how you colour it. It’ll pass at the same rate. Some people can do more in twenty four hours than others can do in a month. All is not lost.
“I need to speak to Banner,” Hope declares.
“Hope, that’s not...he’s not going to be able to speak to you right now,” Scott says, anger bubbling to the peaks of his words.
“What? Why the hell not?”
“Let’s just say he’s not in a fit state for company,” Scott rubs his forehead with his free hand. “I gave him two hours to sort himself out. That was an hour ago. Man’s got work to do.”
Hope’s nervous. An hour feels too long, too risky. She wonders if she’ll know when she’s about to turn or whether it’s just going to happen. Will it feel like fading away, or will it be a sudden snap? Will she have a chance to end things herself? Will the people around her even be safe ?
“Scott,” she trains her eyes on him. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“What? Why would I be anywhere else?”
“I could turn. I could- it could happen suddenly. I could hurt you, Scott, I could kill you.” And that’s far worse than death itself. The knowledge that she could hurt any one of them.
He watches her for a beat. “Nah. You won’t do that. You’re ok. You’re ok, Hope.”
“You can’t say that, you can’t know that! You can’t-”
“I can’t leave you.” Scott’s definitive. Absolute. “I can’t. Can’t do that. Hope, I’ve seen some terrifying shit during this apocalypse but this past day...seeing you like that...I can’t. I can’t leave you. This is where I need to be.” Scott pulls his hand from hers, cups her face with both of his. “I love you, Hope. You’re stuck with me now.”
And against all odds, logic, science and reason, Hope’s stomach does backflips like she’s fifteen years old and the cute boy in her class is kissing her underneath the bleachers. Her body is still human enough to feel this. Despite the fact that it is withering and dying, her life coming to a close, it is still capable of love.
“Oh.” There are tears in her eyes now, for more reasons than she cares to sift through. There’s only one that’s important, right now. “I love you too.”
Scott smiles a half smile, his eyes lost in hers, and their lips crash together, hers poison, his laced with salt water. They are lost in each other for a minute, and then Scott crawls into the thin bed next to her, holds her against his body, counts her breaths. And just for a while, in the liminal space between sleep and wake, they are elsewhere. They could be back in the tiny bedroom on the airbase. They could be in a truck on their journey cross country. They could be in a bed in a world with no zombies, waking up on a sleepy Sunday to make pancakes.
When they wake up, a couple hours later, tangled together, Hope asks Scott if he can get Banner again. This time, he obliges, finding the scientist in the lab with Valkyrie and Carol.
“Scott,” Carol pushes her chair away as soon as she sees him, getting to her feet like she’s been kicked. “Is she… is she alright?” Scott knows what she’s asking. She wants to know if Hope is a rabid monster, a demon possessed shell. Or if there’s still some kind of chance.
“She’s hanging in there,” Scott confirms. Valkyrie and Carol visibly relax a little, shoulders slackening, looks of relief on their faces. “She wants to see you,” he points at Banner.
Banner nods, getting to his feet. “Ok. I can do that. Whatever she needs.” Scott’s a little surprised. This isn’t the same guy who greeted them hours ago. “Look, I’m...i'm sorry. About before. It’s the end of the world,” he shrugs, eyes sad. Scott can’t help but sympathise.
Hope’s sitting up in the bed when they get back to her room, sweat beading on her forehead, skin tinged grey. She’s slightly out of breath too, all signs pointing to her sitting up having been a very difficult task.
“Hope,” Scott moves to her side in quick strides, checking she’s ok, hands on her face and arms and shoulders, smoothing back her hair.
“I’m ok, Scott,” Hope tells him, trying to slow her breathing down. “Doctor Banner,” she looks up, looking Banner dead in the eye. “I guess I have you to thank.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he says sadly.
“We’ve travelled a really long way to find you.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“So,” Hope shuffles up the bed a little more, grimacing through each movement. “I might not have long left. But you’ve bought me, bought us some time.” She pauses, squeezing her eyes shut for a beat. “I think it’s time we got to work.”
“Hope, no ,” Scott protests. He’s certain there’s no way she can work like this. What she needs is rest. Banner, who Scott’s been informed has no less than seven PhDs, can solve this. Scott’s sure he can if he applies himself, stays away from the large glass bottles in the cupboard in his lab.
“ Scott ,” Hope looks at him, determination in her gaze. “This is why I’m here. This is why we spent weeks hiking across the country. I know what I’m doing here. And you...you just have to trust me.” Scott has never heard her sound quite so quietly confident, eyes blazing. And he does trust her, more than he trusts just about anyone else, aside from Cassie. He trusts that Hope believes she can do this, believes she’s strong enough to fix this damned broken world.
It’s not a feeling Scott can explain, but against all logic, he’s letting himself believe that she can too. It’s that gut feeling again, the one that’s saved his life before, the one that’s kept him and Cassie alive, dragged through ditches and beaten down and frayed around the edges, but alive . In a world filled with things once deemed impossible, it’s hard to know who to trust,which of the voices inside your own head is telling the truth. So gut instinct, instead of logic, has steered Scott this far. He’s praying it will be right this time too, never needed it so much.
“You think you can do this?” He checks with Hope one last time.
“I know I can.”
“You get too tired, you stop, ok? Please, Hope. I can’t… I can’t lose you.” And he knows, looking at her through the weak lamplight, darkness and zombies raging on outside, that she understands. Understands acutely what it means to care so much about someone in a world where almost everyone else you have ever cared about is gone.
“It’s ok,” she whispers, just for him, smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. “I’ve got this.” She’s sure. She’s sure, so Scott is too.
Scott watches Banner and Hope work in awe, amazed at the connections Hope’s brain makes, the way she can leap from one thing to another, twist the science to a different angle until solutions sit in the light to be tested and pulled apart at the seams. Hope’s got knowledge stored inside her mind from each of the scientists at the research centre she was at before it fell. Theories from her parents and their colleagues, science picked up from the people who sat with her on the floor of her father’s lab where she cut her baby teeth, learned what it meant to be a scientist. She’s got her own theories too, equations blooming in her head to the thump of their boots on the ground in Oregon.
It takes them two days to talk everything out. Hope does not turn. She insists they stay in her room, door bolted shut, no one but Scott and Banner allowed in. Banner sits beside a loaded gun, bullet with her name on it. She does not hand one to Scott. It’s kinder that way.
They draw up diagrams on Banner’s whiteboard, spend hours with vials of chemicals. Hypothesise and scrap ideas at the drop of a hat.
Between it all, Hope sleeps, and drinks the bottles of water Scott brings, forces down just enough food to stay sharp. She refuses strong pain medication, citing the mind numbing brain fog it brings on, takes low doses only, talks through the agony.
By the end of day two, Hope is getting worse, and quickly. Banner takes notes periodically, jotting down Hope’s symptoms and body temperature in a neat red book. She’s the first human test subject, and they’re going to be using the virus blocker as a basis for an honest to God vaccine. Which, Scott thinks, is definitely one of the things high up on the list of ‘too good to be true.’ A vaccine would finally mean that this nightmare is coming to an end. That humans can claw their way back from the edge, start to rebuild some semblance of society. It feels like asking for too much. Scott just wants some place quiet, a healthy and happy family in the form of Hope and Cassie. A peaceful corner in a ruined world. But one can’t exist without the other. No vaccine without Hope. She donates her mind and her blood for Banner to study. She’s an important puzzle piece in the story of the end of the world.
No vaccine without Hope, and no Hope without the vaccine. If she doesn’t get it soon, Scott knows she isn’t going to be Hope anymore.
Scott wakes up on their fourth day after arrival, terrified that it’s the day. The day he loses her. He’s sure there’s no way she can live much longer than the test rats did, no way that the human body has found ways to adapt beyond the laws of nature. Scott’s trying to split his time between Hope and Cassie, checking that Cassie’s ok, safe, that she’s had enough to eat. She’s quiet and scared-looking every time he checks in on her, but she insists she’s ok, that he spend his time with Hope. He’s juggling guilt along with all of the other emotions that come with losing someone at the end of the world, feeling like a terrible father for the millionth time this apocalypse, but Cassie’s started calling the three of them a family, and Scott knows she’s right. And families take care of one another. So, he spends most of his time in Hope’s room.
He wakes up on the fourth day with her forehead pressed into his shoulder, so warm it feels like it’s burning him, the shaking back more violently than ever. And this, he thinks, has to be close to the end.
“Hope?” He whispers, shaking her shoulder gently. She stirs with a groan, blinking rapidly over bloodshot eyes. “You ok?” Stupid question, he knows. But he doesn’t know how else to phrase it.
“I don’t know,” is her response, after a pause, and Scott’s even more terrified after that. For the past few days, Hope’s been so sure, so adamant that she was ok, that she’s been fighting this. Hope, Scott thinks, is the strong one. Unshakeable. This is all new.
He’s not even sure what to say back to that. What to do. Should he get Banner? Should he ask her to check off a list of symptoms? No one's told him what to do in this scenario, like most other things in the apocalypse.
“Is there anything I can do?” Is what he settles for, fights the urge to run for help or try to fix this himself. It’s not something he can fix. He’s helpless, a bystander in this catastrophe.
“Is it light out?” Hope asks, as Scott finds her hand and tangles their fingers together.
“It’s getting there.”
“Sunrise?”
“Yeah.”
Hope pauses again, takes a breath. “I want to see it.”
“The sunrise?”
“Yeah. In case...in case it’s my last one.”
And Scott wants to tell her not to be dumb, that of course this won’t be her last sunrise. That she’ll watch them for years to come, thousands upon thousands of mornings of the sun drenching the earth in pink and gold. At five a.m on the hottest day of the year and eight on the darkest, coldest winter morning. A light show, just for her.
But he doesn’t. He doesn’t tell her anything. They’ve talked for hours, told each other everything they have to say. Scott knows what he means to her, and knows he’s made it clear what Hope means to him. There are no words left, no words Scott knows for this day that he has not already said.
So instead, he moves Hope’s bed so she can see clearly out of the little window, sits behind her and holds her against his chest, feels the movements in her back with each breath, savours them. The sunshine tinges her orange, warms their faces, promises a new beginning they’re never going to get. She’ll turn soon, he knows. He can’t explain how, but he can feel it, like her soul is losing its battle against evil and fading out of the room. And he can’t stop it, no matter how much he wants to. So he’ll just hold her, here in this moment, help her watch the sunrise over her last day on earth, until she’s gone from him.
Banner interrupts their silence, once the sunrise has become diluted and pale, Scott’s heart stopping between each of Hope’s breaths as he waits for the next. The low creaking of the door makes Scott jump and turn quickly, over a year in the zombie apocalypse has him trained to react to the slightest sound in the distance. But it’s not one of the gruesome monsters he’s watching Hope become, it’s Banner, dishevelled around the edges, a stack of paper in hand.
“Is she…?” He nods at Hope, and Scott hates how that’s the first thing everyone, including himself, is asking these days. It’s something of a greeting now, two words of an unfinished sentence.
“She’s alright,” Scott says, half truth.
“Listen, I’ve found something. I’ve-I think I’ve figured it out.” Just like he doesn’t have to finish the sentence asking about Hope, Banner doesn’t have to explain what it is he’s figured out. It’s the only thing on everyone’s minds. But Scott’s unsure why Banner doesn’t sound happy about it.
“What? That’s great! Right?” Scott doesn’t let himself celebrate, pushes away the relief trying to ebb into his muscles. Not yet. He can’t face having that taken away from him.
“There’s something I need to complete the vaccine,” Banner says, walking into the room until he’s standing beside the bed. Hope’s eyes are squeezed shut, and Scott wonders whether she’s awake enough to be listening.
“Something easy to obtain?” Scott asks hopefully.
“I mean, it’s in the building,” Banner runs a hand through his messy hair.
“So? What’s the problem?”
“You remember all those doors with the x’s on ‘em?”
It’s impossible for Scott to forget. He’s pretty sure he’s unlikely to fart any key piece of information as integral to his survival as this. The doors marked with X’s to signify the undead linger behind them. The doors none of them is supposed to go through. That none of them would ever be dumb enough to go through.
“So what you’re saying is that there’s a vital component of Hope’s cure behind a zombie door,” Scott summarises.
“I wouldn’t have said it quite like that, but...yeah,” Banner shrugs. “What I need is in a lab off B corridor.”
“B corridor?”
“That’s...pretty much the worst one. It used to be where most of the centre staff were based. So when the virus hits…” Banner shakes his head. Another sentence that doesn’t need finishing. The apocalypse is full of them.
“Ok. Ok, so we need some kind of strategy. We can use duct tape again, and - oh do you have any helmets? Like a football helmet would be ideal but I realise that’s unlikely-”
“Scott.” Banner stops him. “Whoever goes in there…it’s unlikely they’re coming out.”
“All due respect, but we’re pretty seasoned zombie navigators at this point.”
“They’re hungry . And there’s basically a whole hoarde of ‘em. In a bunch of the labs along that corridor. They’re not just in one area, they can’t just be dealt with with firepower.”
“Yeah. That’s why I said we need a strategy, ” Scott says, trying to pretend his voice isn’t an octave or ten higher than it usually is.
Banner looks at him for a while, expression unreadable. “I’d go down there myself. But I’m the only one who knows how to make this vaccine. Maybe there’s a way I can, I-”
“No.” Scott stops him. “If you die then the world dies, Bruce. I’ll go. I can do it. It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s very much a big deal. Look, I think we need to talk to the rest of the group about this first. If we just had more time to plan our approach…”
“What are you saying? We don’t have time . And if you’re suggesting what you think you are then you can forget about it. We’re doing this. Today.”
“Scott, I’m sorry. I wasn’t...I just…”
“It’s ok,” Scott sighs. “You’re right, we should talk to the others about this. But then I’m going to get whatever it is you need.”
They round everyone up from various safe rooms into the lab, Scott finding Cassie at the end of a hallway in a windowsill, flipping through the pages of a book in the early morning light.
“Peanut,” he greets her, kissing the top of her head. “We’re having a meeting in the lab. C’mon.”
“What’s it about?” Cassie asks, unmoving from her spot.
“You’ll see.”
“Is it Hope?”
“Yes and no.”
“But she’s still alive?” Cassie finishes her sentences.
“Yeah. Yeah, she’s still alive.” It goes unsaid that she won’t be for much longer. Not unless they can get what Banner needs. Cassie nods, hops down from the windowsill and follows Scott to the lab.
“What is this about?” Gamora pounces on Scott as soon he walks in, Cassie and Banner trailing behind. “Is H-”
“Hope’s still alive. Let me just get that out of the way now,” Scott tells them all, loud and clear. There’s an audible sigh of relief around the room.
“So it’s about the cure, then,” Valkyrie guesses, from her spot at the front of the room, on a bench beside Carol, sides pressed together.
It’s been a few days since they were all together like this, and though there’s a giant hole in the room where Hope should be, Scott realises he’s missed this. He guesses that you don’t spend weeks stuck in an airbase with a group of people at the end of the world without forming some kind of attachment.
“It’s a preventative, rather than a cure,” Banner points out. Valkyrie rolls her eyes in response.
“Ok. So it’s about the preventative then?”
“Yes. It is,” Scott says, as Banner fiddles with a computer monitor at the front of the lab.
“So, what of it?” Thor wants to know.
“Bruce here, with a lot of help from Hope, has finished the recipe for a cu- sorry, preventative ,” Scott tells them, talking fast. Every second that they’re here is a second that Hope could be changing into a monster.
There’s a brief chorus from the group of what and are you serious? And what does this mean ? Scott stops them from celebrating with a shake of his head.
“There's some more ingredients we need to make this work. Now, the good news is that they’re in this very building. The bad news is that they’re behind the doors with the X’s on. Some place called B corridor,” Scott continues.
“B corridor is a bad, bad place,” Banner supplies. He hits the monitor firmly on it's side and a crackly black and white video feed appears. A couple of mouse clicks later and there’s a split screen image, half of a hallway, half of a lab. Both are swarming with the undead. Scott shudders a little at the thought of being in an enclosed space with that many of the undead. But still. He’s planning on going in there. He’d risk it unarmed.
“So that’s not looking great,” Carol says what they’re all thinking. “What is it we need from there?” We . Like they’re a team, unconditionally and without doubt. This is their problem to solve. Scott smiles around at them all for a second before turning his attention back to Banner, who is drawing things on his whiteboard. The names of chemicals and pictures of the symbols on the bottles. There are two chemicals needed. Without them, Banner is certain there can be no vaccine. With them, there’s a chance.
“So,” Carol claps her hands together when Banner is done explaining. “Who’s going to go get the chemicals?”
“Well, me, obviously,” Scott says, impatient.
“Why obviously?” Gamora asks.
“Hope’s my...she's my...I need to do this, for her.” No word Scott could pick to describe what Hope means to him seems to fit.
There’s a thumping sound behind them, and Cassie has dropped the hardback book she had been holding on the ground.
“Peanut?” Scott’s concerned.
“You can’t go.” Her voice is tiny, like she’s ten years younger and lost. “If you die, there’s no vaccine. And Hope’ll die. And you’ll both be gone.”
“Oh, Cassie .” Scott wants to walk over to her and engulf her in a hug, but he’s rooted to the spot. Stuck with indecision. Because Cassie’s right, and going in there may very well mean leaving her all alone. And that’s a thought too terrible to stand. But so, equally, is the idea of losing Hope.
“Let me help you!” Cassie offers. “I can come. I can do it. I’m fast, I can crawl through the vents. The z’s won’t even know I’m there.”
“No. No way. No way in hell ,” Scott tells her, because worse than both of those thoughts is the idea of Cassie being torn apart by zombies. No time for a vaccine for her. Because that’s what will happen to anyone in there who gets caught. They’ll be eaten alive.
“Dad!”
“No.”
“Your dad’s right,” Peter tells her, reaching to touch her arm. Cassie flinches away, steps backwards and towards the lab door.
“Cassie! Where are you going?” Scott calls.
“To the bathroom. I need a second,” she spits back. Scott isn’t sure he believes her.
“Cassie, just wait a minute-”
“I’ll be quick. I just need to- to be by myself for a second, ok?”
Scott’s torn, wanting her to stay in sight, or to ask someone to go with her, but she’s pausing in the doorway, her eyes earnest, and he knows he has to trust her. “Three minutes. Or I’m coming to find you.” Cassie nods and rounds the corner, out of sight.
Banner goes back to the monitor, pointing out various features, the number of rooms on each side of the hallway. They argue about who’s going to go into the hallway, Gamora reasoning that it should be her because she owes Hope her life twenty times over and is good with a sword, Carol reasoning that she should do it because of her military experience. Valkyrie and Thor want to go in together as a team. May wants to go because she’s quick on her feet. Peter wants to go because he’s quicker. MJ reasons that she could figure out a way to outsmart the zombies. Scott’s certain his reasoning is the most solid, and that he should be the one to go in. And all the while, Scott is painfully aware that they’re wasting time. That they don’t have the luxury of this debate, of fighting over who gets the rights to die. The vaccine is going to save the world. It’s going to save Hope . Scott figures it’s worth his best shot.
Something changes on the monitors, Scott catching it out of the corner of his eye, the zombies freezing in place where previously they had been lumbering around each other. They stop, like they’re listening, and at the exact second that Scott realises Cassie has been gone longer than the three minutes she was given, the zombies all look up. And his blood runs icy.
“No. No , no, no ,” Scott grabs the monitor with both hands, looking closer. It can’t be...she wouldn’t be so stupid ...he trusted her to come back.
“Scott?” May is concerned.
But Carol gets in instantly. “I’m going in after her. This is my territory dammit I know what I’m doing,” she gets to her feet as everyone seems to catch on with what’s going on.
“Oh!” May claps both hands to her mouth.
“I’m coming with you. She’s my kid. She’s fifteen , why did she think this was a good idea?” Scott splutters, approaching the door, but Carol puts a hand on his chest as he nears it.
“That’s precisely the reason you can’t come, Scott. You’re too close. You’ll make a dumb mistake. Let me go, I’ve got a clear head. I’m Cassie’s best bet at survival. You might get us all killed.”
“Carol, no ,” Scott protests, but even as he speaks, he knows she’s right. He wants to run to the vents in corridor B and drag Cassie back here, no matter what’s standing in his way. That isn’t logical thinking.
“I’ll bring her back. I’ll get her back, I promise you,” Carol tells him, and then she’s pushing him back with her full force until he collides with the lab table behind him, and without a word, stepping from the room.
A second later, and Gamora is pressing a kiss to Groot’s cheek. “I need to go too. I can help.” And she’s gone before anyone can register what she’s saying.
Scott’s numb. He woke up this morning thinking he was going to lose Hope. Banner sparked some kind of belief that she might live with the news of the vaccine, and then Scott more or less accepted his own death as a means of keeping Hope and the rest of the world alive. If he could only have gotten in there, taken the chemicals some place more accessible before being caught by the zombies. It would have worked. He’s sure of it. And now he’s going to lose them both. He’s going to lose Hope and Cassie. The two most important people in his life. And he feels numb.
The rest of them crowd around the monitor in deathly silence, watching as Carol and Gamora traverse B corridor. And Scott doesn’t want to be watching, but he can’t look away. He’s failed Cassie. He’s failed her by not keeping her safe in this world, his main job as her father.
So, he watches, standing behind Thor and MJ, staring with unblinking eyes, terrified to watch, terrified to look away. He watches as Gamora and Carol enter the hallway, slashing through the zombies in their path. They work with their backs pressed against the wall, closing each lab door they come to. There’s a close call when a zombie grabs Gamora’s arm at the edge of a supply closet, pulling her closer to it, stalled only by Carol’s silenced gun, pulled from her waistband and pressed against the zombie’s head. There’s no time for recovery, as a fresh wave of them pour out of another open door.
On the other half of the screen is the lab at the end of the hallway, the one with a giant refrigerator filled with vials of chemicals. It’s still, a small group of zombies moving slowly around the room. Scott’s hoping with everything in him that Cassie stays in the vents, or else turns around and comes back out when she realises just how many zombies are in there, that she doesn’t drop down into one of the nightmare rooms below. He’s pretty sure she’s not going to make an appearance, but then something drops from the ceiling in the lab, and it’s the vent cover, smashing to the ground. There’s no sound from the video feed but Scott guesses it must be pretty loud, alerting all of the zombies in the room and drawing in a couple from outside too. Everyone watching on the monitor freezes, collectively holds their breath, expecting Cassie to fall into the room and become overrun.
But she surprises them. There’s a tiny movement at the very back of the lab, beside the refrigerator, and Cassie’s shimmying down into the room and dropping gently onto a countertop, checking around her as she gets lower. She dropped the first vent cover to distract them, Scott realises, feeling a rush of pride for her, despite everything.
He watches as she jumps down from the countertop, crouching behind it to avoid being seen, the zombies still puzzled by the vent cover having fallen, and Cassie’s rifling through the storage refrigerator, quickly but quietly leafing through the drawers.
“That’s one of the chemicals. That drawer there,” Banner taps the second drawer down as Cassie opens it, and they watch as she feels around in the drawer, about to close it before going back for a second look. And she pulls out a handful of vials as Banner nods encouragingly, as if Cassie can see him.
She continues down the drawers, stuffing the first vials into the pocket of her jacket, closing the zip around them safely, but then Scott’s heart is in his mouth as Cassie pulls one of the drawers open too harshly, sending a vial from it clattering to the ground. The zombies look up from the vent cover, listening, a couple drifting over to the counter Cassie is behind.
“No, no, no, Cassie. Get up, get up ,” Scott growls, but Cassie doesn’t move. She just starts to peel through the drawers faster and faster. And she knows they’re coming towards her, Scott realises. Can probably hear their footsteps and their groaning, but she’s staying here until she finds what she needs.
The vials are in the bottom drawer, larger than the first ones, and Cassie pinches two of them in her fingers and stuffs them into her pocket, spinning around as zombie feet appear around the edge of the counter. Scott’s seconds from all our sobbing, but Cassie’s standing up, pulling one of Hope’s glinting knives from her waistband, sinking it into the zombie’s skull. It drops, taking the zombie behind it down too, but there’s one coming from the other side of the counter too, more zombies walking as fast as they can over to her, groaning and reaching for her with dead fingers, mouths agape. And Cassie’s stabbing at them, getting a little desperate, scrambling up onto the countertop, reaching for the vent entrance. She’s not going to make it, hands wrapping around her ankles and her knees, leaning in, teeth sharp and yellow and dead, and this is how it’s all going to end, Scott watching his little girl getting murdered on a live feed, he’s paralysed in place, pretty sure his heart has stopped. Unsure if it will ever start again.
And then...and then the zombies are dropping. And Gamora and Carol aren’t visible on the left hand side of the screen anymore, but they’re bursting their way onto the right hand side. The zombies around Cassie are dealt with quickly, by all three of them, but there are more crowding in, pressing closer. And then the lights die, feed blinking off.
“What happened? Banner, what happened ?” Scott demands to know.
“Did the generator die?” Peter guesses.
“I- I guess it must have overloaded?” Bruce suggests, both hands knotted in his hair.
“Can we get it back?” Valkyrie asks, voice panicked. Scott had forgotten that he wasn’t in this alone. Someone Valkyrie loves just as much as Scott loves Hope is in that room. May not make it back.
“I don’t know. The switch probably needs resetting, it’s outside,” Bruce says. And Scott had thought that watching it all on the monitors was bad, but being blind to it is so, so much worse.
“Can we get to it?” MJ asks.
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s in a cupboard near the side door we came in on.”
“Let’s go do that,” MJ suggests, nodding at Peter.
“We’ll be right back. We’ll fix this,” Peter promises, taking off with MJ, Thor joining them.
Scott paces. The thought of keeping still now is too much to take. He isn’t sure how he ever did it before.
“Do you think they’ve made it out?” Valkyrie asks, a little shaky.
“I don’t know,” Scott snaps.
They wait in silence.
A door slams further down the hallway, footsteps coming into earshot. It’s not zombies, the rhythm too steady, but Scott’s sure it’s MJ, Peter, and Thor, having been unable to fix the generator, is about to get annoyed and go out there to fix it himself. But as he turns to the door, it’s not them he finds.
It’s blonde hair, a little stuck to its owners forehead with sweat. Carol. Valkyrie’s running at her before Scott can really register than she’s there, throwing her arms around her, and Scott thinks the absolute worst until suddenly, Gamora’s in the doorway too, and standing behind her, completely out of breath, a bruise blossoming on her cheekbone already, is Cassie.
Scott walks to her in two large steps, wraps her in his arms, and breaks down in sobs. In her pocket, the vials jangle together. By some kind of miracle, the universe is on their side today.
A little over one year later
Rebuilding the world is a full time job, overseen by Cassie Lang’s rag tag sort-of family from an airforce base in Idaho. Cassie kicks off her seventeenth birthday, give or take a day - timekeeping is hard in the apocalypse - by opening the gates to a new group of survivors with her step-mom, welcoming them in and offering them fresh fruit from Carol’s little orchard, plants gathered from orchards and fields and gardens along the way on their trip home from the research centre where they cooked the vaccine.
It’s been a strange year, Cassie thinks, closing the gates up again. There’s no more zombies out there right now, no need to rush the gate closed. They’re dying off, fewer new ones being born, fewer food sources around. People who have received the vaccine feeling braver and stronger now that they know a bite won’t kill them, reclaiming the country, inch by inch.
Her dad and Hope are married now, kind of, a strange apocalypse version of marriage, ceremony performed by Thor with daisies laced into his hair. Cassie guesses Hope being hours from death made her want to cling to life all the more, and they got married the day after they all got back to the base. And a week after that they spread out, sending Thor, Carol, Valkyrie, Gamora, her dad and Hope out with vials of the vaccine, an anxious few months as they came and went on messy schedules.
But things are more settled now, the word being spread far and wide about the vaccine, people travelling from all over the country to get a dose of it. Bruce lives with them now, has taken over a back room in the base to synthesise as much vaccine as they need, his equipment brought back cross country on the back of Pegasus.
Cassie isn’t stupid. She knows that the world will never go back to the way it did, that three years ago the life she lives now would still have terrified most of the people in the world, living their lives on a tight schedule and counting down the minutes to the weekend. But now, in this time, she thinks she’s got a pretty sweet set up.
“Hey. How many was that?” Her dad asks her, approaching from the side of the base where he’d been fixing their new water system. There’s a large scale sprinkler system in operation all across the base land now, crops growing taller by the day.
“Nine in that group,” Hope says. Cassie’s dad steps in between them, one arm around each of their shoulders as Hope presses a kiss to his cheek.
“Nine fewer zombie fodder,” Scott comments, and Cassie kicks at him. “Hey! Peanut! You’re not helping your case. You know you’re still grounded from that stunt you pulled at the research centre.”
“Oh you mean saving the world?” Cassie raises her eyebrows. “I guess that means I won’t be able to go to the movies with my friends,” she shrugs, and her dad pokes her in the side.
“I think it was me who saved the world actually,” Hope chips in, raising her eyebrows right back. Scott and Cassie are forced to agree. “Hey, Cassie?” Hope leans around Scott to see her, a minute later. “Happy birthday.”
“Happy birthday, Peanut,” Scott adds, and the little family still by the door to the main building, Cassie moving to wrap an arm around both of them, resting her chin on Hope’s shoulder. The sun’s out, warming up their hair, bringing the petals out in the sunflowers lining the pathway.
And none of them know what tomorrow’s going to bring, but they’re pretty sure it won’t be worse than where they’ve been. And even if it is, they can face it together.