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Scott sighed. "Look, Mr. Pym, I appreciate this, really. Especially the whole not pressing charges against me for robbing your house thing. But I risked my job enough as it is just to do that-"
"You mean your little ice-cream gig?" Pym drawled. "You have a Master's degree in electrical engineering with a background in some of the most advanced computer and robotics systems to date, and you're desperate to hold on to that?"
"Not many people lining up to hire a convicted felon whose last employer turned out to be a terrorist organization. So yeah, I'm desperate to hold on to that," Scott said. He pushed his chair back and stood up. "So with all due respect, thanks, but no thanks."
He didn't wait for a response, instead turning and making a beeline for the door.
"They're using your daughter."
Scott stopped.
"Even after I did my absolute best to pull everything away from SHIELD, Howard Stark never let it go," Pym continued. "Luckily, he never got far...but he still got somewhere."
Scott continued to stand where he was, staring at the door. Pym continued to talk.
"HYDRA was desperate to understand my work, because it would change the entire nature of warfare if they could mass-produce it." A creaking sound echoed from behind Scott — probably Pym shifting in his chair. "They never even managed to recreate it. But they were studying what I'd had to leave behind when I left SHIELD — or rather, what Stark managed to hide from me when I left SHIELD. They were down to the last batch when HYDRA revealed themselves inside SHIELD. It was this last batch Cassandra was hit by."
Staring at the door, Scott tried not to think about the day he lost her.
He'd gone into work with Cassie in tow. It was supposed to be a light day, just fix some minor server malfunctions and clock-out. They'd been planning on snagging some lunch and a movie, afterward.
Instead, all hell had broken loose just as he was about to finish. Half his co-workers transformed into terrorists in the blink of an eye.
He'd sent Cassie with the scientists and researchers who looked as freaked out as he felt. He'd prayed to any higher power that would listen that they would keep her safe while he and a handful of others tried to hold of HYDRA.
HYDRA hadn't been pushed back until evening. After some legitimate, real SHIELD agents came through, Scott was finally able to make his way to the lab the group had run towards.
The researchers and scientists were all distorted, dead bodies in the lab they'd barricaded themselves into — and Cassie was just gone.
He didn't see her again until nine months later, in Stark Tower.
"Cross probably doesn't know who Stature is," Pym said. "But there's no way he doesn't know that the missing links and new data he got came from HYDRA — and from her."
Scott shut his eyes and clenched his fists.
"All her pain, her terror...your grief, her step-father and mother's grief, when you all thought she was dead..." Pym said, voice low and slow, like he was talking to a spooked animal. Scott sure felt like one, right now. "And Cross is going to line his wallets with it."
Opening his eyes, Scott's eyes landed on the closed door.
Cassie still flinched when a door closed on a room she was in.
All her life, she'd slept with the door closed because she was scared of the dark. Now, she couldn't sleep unless the door was open because she was scared of what lay beyond the dark.
Out of the shadows, into the light. That had been projected and spoken everywhere on the day HYDRA had tried to take over SHIELD, and had taken his baby girl.
Turning on his heel, Scott sat back down in front of Pym.
"What do you need me to do?"