Archive of Our Own

one.

They’ve just defeated Ghost, Hope has just kissed Scott on the docks, and Scott has just been freed from house arrest after two years.

They’re all sitting at a bar uptown, wearing normal clothes and trying not to let on that they’re the superheroes who saved the city an hour ago.

Hope’s parents (parents, plural, she’s still getting used to that) are standing off to the side, talking in soft voices and laughing together. Part of Hope wants to cling to her mother’s side and never let go. However, she knows enough to give her mom some space to come back to herself and spend time with her dad. After all, he lost her too.

Luis and Kurt are sitting at the end of the bar, and Hope watches them. She doesn’t know much about those two. She knows they work with Scott and that Luis really likes Pez, but that’s about it.

Right now, Kurt is trying to throw peanuts in Luis’ mouth and failing miserably, because somehow they’re both already incredibly drunk.

And then there’s Scott.

Hope can’t fight the smile that spreads onto her face when she sees him, dancing like a moron in front of the out-of-place jukebox. He’s all angles and waving around and jumping up and down, flailing his arms out sort of in time to the music. He notices Hope watching him and amps it up for her effect, so he resembles a drunk bird of paradise.

When the song fades, Scott walks over to Hope and sits down next to her at the bar. “You look really pretty tonight,” he tells her. He smiles softly, and it makes Hope want to kiss him all over again.

“Shut up,” she mumbles, feeling her cheeks blush pink as she takes a sip from her beer to cover how flustered she is.

The overly-processed beats of a new song start, and Scott’s eyes light up. His gaze flicks over to Hope, and Hope understands the look in his eyes instantly.

“Nope. No way,” Hope says. “I am not dancing. I don’t dance.”

“We just saved the city! I’d say that that deserves a celebration, huh?”

“I’m doing just fine sitting here, thank you,” Hope replies, putting down her drink and making a point of settling on her chair.

“Hope, please,” Scott says, holding out a hand. “Dance with me?”

He’s doing that smile again, the one where his brown eyes almost melt, and he’s looking at her like she’s the most beautiful person in the world to him.

It’s been a long time since someone has looked at her like that.

So she takes his hand, and then they’re out on the dance floor, which is really just the general area around the jukebox. It’s only when they’re out there that Hope finally realizes what song is playing.

I’ve been all right up till now

It’s the light of day that shows me how

But when the night falls

My lonely heart calls…

“Oh, come on, really?” she complains, as the chorus crashes in and everyone in the bar starts shouting along to the lyrics in varying degrees of accuracy.

“Uh-huh, really. Whitney Houston is one of the greatest artists of all time!” Scott says this in a way that shows that he’s stated it many times.

Hope rolls her eyes and moves from side to side, doing the bare minimum that can be considered dancing. She hadn’t lied to Scott. She really doesn’t dance. It just seems like a waste of time, honestly.

Oh, I wanna dance with somebody

I wanna feel the heat with somebody

Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody

With somebody who loves me

On the last line, Hope looks over at Scott. His eyes are closed tightly, and he’s raising his fists and jumping up and down like he’s trying to punch through the ceiling. His face has an expression of pure joy on it, and Hope can’t help but break into a grin.

She starts moving a little more, and Scott notices and grabs her hands, leading her around the floor in his erratic leaping routine.

Hope’s full-on laughing now, her real laugh, unrestrained and bright and sounding a little like if you threw a hyena down some stairs.

“This is ridiculous,” she gasps, in between spurts of cackling.

“Yeah, but it’s fun, right?”

Maybe it’s the beer, or maybe it’s the fact that she’s out of breath, or maybe it’s just that Scott knew exactly what she needed right now to recover from the overwhelming nature of today, but she kisses him.

Luis whistles somewhere, and she can hear her father grumbling, but she tunes it all out because this is her first kiss with Scott that isn’t cut short by her dad or rushed by relief. This is their first one where they’re both a little unsure and trying to figure it out. This is the beginning of something new entirely, and Hope can feel in her heart that it’s something good.

She’ll end up having ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ stuck in her head for the next two weeks, but she couldn’t care less, because every time she hums it, she remembers that moment after they separated, centimeters apart, and she can feel the unadulterated happiness of it all over again.

And she catches herself dancing, in little moments, like she used to when she was a kid.

Tapping her foot to a beat, ever so slightly adding a little skip to her step as she walks down the sidewalk, twirling to a jazz piece in her apartment.

She finds new music, too. Stuff that makes her want to dance, that makes her want to cry, that makes her feel things.

Her world is so much brighter now, and it’s all because of Scott Lang in a bar, jumping all around and beaming at her while Whitney Houston plays in the background.

two.

“Do you want to go over it one more time?”

“Hope, we’ve talked through the process at least eighteen million times. I think I’m set,” Scott says, trying to use humor to calm her down as he brushes his teeth.

He knows how worried Hope is about tomorrow. They’ll be shrinking him down and putting him through the quantum tunnel, hoping he can collect some samples for Ava and come right back.

“I’m just trying to be sure,” she replies. “I-I can’t- I don’t know what I would do if-”

Scott’s pulling on his pajamas as he listens, so it takes him a few seconds to figure out that she’s crying.

When he looks up, though, he sees Hope clutching a pillow to her chest, eyes rimmed with red and overflowing with tears.

“Oh,” he whispers, and he goes over as quickly as he can and pulls her into a hug, the pillow getting mashed between them. Seeing Hope-the strongest person he knows-just dissolve into tears like that is one of the scariest things he’s ever seen.

“You can’t disappear,” she says quietly, and it’s only then that Scott begins to fully understand the enormity of her situation, realization hitting him like a truck. Her mom had gone molecule-sized when Hope was just a kid and had taken decades to return home. Of course she doesn’t want to go through that again.

“Hey, hey, nothing’s going to happen to me. I promise, all right? It’ll be the most uneventful quantum realm trip ever.”

That draws a laugh out of her, and she punches him lightly on the chest.

“There we go, she’s back.” Scott pulls away from the hug, resting his hands on her shoulders. She’s about his height, so he can see into her eyes, which are still flat with skepticism and worry, and Scott gets an idea.

“Wait right here,” he tells her, and dashes out into the living room. When Hope had started coming over more, she’d brought her record collection with her. Scott personally has never seen the point of records-they’re scratchy, they sound strange, he has a Bluetooth speaker right on the kitchen counter-but Hope loves them and has gotten Cassie interested as well, so they’ve grown on him a little bit.

He shuffles through the box until he finds the one he’s looking for.

Placing the record on the deck, he presses play, and the needle finds its way into the groove.

Hope walks out of their room and leans against the doorframe.

“Reflecting Light,” she says, quietly. “You dug out my old Sam Phillips record?”

“I know she’s your favorite,” Scott says, and shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck.

Hope smiles, just a little bit, enough to brighten her eyes a tiny amount, even though that shadow still lingers.

“You want to dance?” he asks, and Hope doesn’t even argue, just moves over to where he’s standing and slips her arms around him, and they start dancing to the music.

Now that I’ve worn out, I’ve worn out the world

I’m on my knees in fascination

Looking through the night

And the moon’s never seen me before

But I’m reflecting light

Hope’s cheek is resting against Scott’s shoulder, and they move back and forth in the dimly lit living room.

Scott wants to reassure her. He wants to tell her that it’ll all work out, that he’ll be in and out in a few seconds and they can come right back home.

But the truth is, he doesn’t know. He can’t. There’s no predicting if he’s coming out of this alive.

I rode the pain down

Got off and looked up, looked into your eyes

The lost open windows

All around

My dark heart lit up the skies

“I wish I knew what to say,” Scott whispers, because he doesn’t. He can’t think of anything that will make this better. Hope is potentially about to lose the second person in her life to the quantum realm, when she should’ve never had to lose anyone at all.

They’re slowly turning in a circle in the golden-lit space to the music. If, God forbid, it all goes horribly wrong tomorrow, this isn’t such a bad last night.

“I can’t lose you,” Hope finally replies after a while, and it’s so soft that Scott almost doesn’t hear it, but when he does his heart breaks.

“You won’t,” he says fiercely. “I promise you, all right?”

He knows promises are a risky thing, knows he can’t truly promise anything to her. But he kisses her and then touches their foreheads together. “I’m not leaving you,” he says softly.

Hope nods, throat too tight for words, just holds him closer instead.

The song ends, a crackling static replacing the music, but Scott and Hope stay where they are. Neither one of them wants to disrupt this, when the record turning in the background provides a low white noise, when Cassie is sleeping soundly upstairs, when they’re both here and alive and safe, because despite Scott’s promises there's still a sense of apprehension within both of them that something awful is going to happen tomorrow.

The light flickers overhead, and it snaps them both out of the moment.

When they’re laying in bed a while later, Hope reaches for Scott’s hand in the dark. He squeezes it and pulls her closer, kissing the top of her head. Closing his eyes, he makes a quick prayer to the universe that he’ll get out of the quantum realm alive, for Hope’s sake.

In a little over twelve hours, he’ll be screaming Hope’s name hoarsely into his communication system, unaware that she’s dissolved into dust on the rooftop of a building.

But for right now, they’re here, and alive. A bird chirps in the night, the leaves rustle in the trees, Hope sighs softly as she drifts off to sleep in Scott’s arms, and Scott closes his eyes and tries to commit this to memory in case there’s a day when he needs to remember it.

three.

Hope grows to normal size the second she steps out of the portal and scans the battlefield, heart in her throat.

She’s looking for kind eyes and a crooked smile and hair that sticks up all over the place. She’s listening for quips that really don’t belong on a battlefield.

She’s trying to find Scott.

For a split second, she thinks she sees him at his gigantic size, but then he’s gone again, and she’s desperate.

Is she hallucinating? She might be. This battle could be her brain’s final pushback against the hell she’s been stuck in for far too long.

“HOPE! Hope, where are you? Hope?”

The sound of that voice makes her heart stop. For five years, she’s been submerged in complete darkness and isolation, in an empty space between life and death. She’s been slowly losing her mind, and the only thing that’s kept her sane has been the thought of that voice, of this moment, even as the possibility of it happening dwindled.

“I’m here!” she shouts in reply, her own voice hoarse with the beginnings of tears. “I’m over here!”

She’s looking around wildly, gaze flicking from person to alien to god to who knows what, when she sees him.

He’s alive.

His face is tight with fear, and he’s stumbling through the waves of their newly gigantic army, trying to find her.

Hope waves desperately at him, and his eyes catch on the tip of her fingers and travel down to her face. They make eye contact for the first time in five years, and then they run at each other as fast as they can.

She’s crashing past soldiers and capes and weapons, holding her eyeline steady on Scott, just focusing on getting to him.

And then they collide into a hug, in the middle of a battle that will decide the fate of the world.

“You’re here,” she gasps, pulling him as close as she can, clutching at his suit, proving to herself that this is real.

“I’m here,” he whispers back, “and so are you. We made it.”

She stands there, allowing herself just one second to take him in, because she knows they can’t stay right here for long. Her eyes skirt over his messed-up hair, the way he’s favoring his left leg, the worn places in his suit. She memorizes him, just in case-

In case-

Hope doesn’t finish the thought.

So she looks up at him, at his gentle eyes that always understand her, and she nods firmly.

“Not yet, we haven’t,” Hope says in response, realism falling back in. She wants nothing more than to hold him and cry, but they don’t have time for that right now. She’s praying there’ll be time later.

So she steps back and turns on her blasters. “Let’s go turn this ugly purple bastard to dust,” she growls, furious at how much Thanos has taken from her, taken from everyone here.

She doesn’t need to turn around to know that Scott’s beaming, but she does anyway, because she’s been cheated of far too many moments like this.

She smiles softly, and he smiles back.

He nods. “Let’s do this,” he says, engaging his helmet.

Captain America leads them into battle, and immediately everything is overwhelming.

A few minutes later, they’re teaming up and taking down all the soldiers they can, Hope goes to back up Glowy Space Lady for a while (Carol, maybe?), and then when Captain America calls for help (Hope feels stupid calling him Cap, but it’s definitely worth it for the goofy grin it gets from Scott), the two of them get to work hotwiring the van.

They finish in a haze of panic, but when they turn around, Tony has the stones in his suit’s hand and snaps his fingers.

The creatures that had been fighting to get in the van dissolve into nothing, and Scott and Hope watch as Tony Stark takes his final breath.

It’s peaceful, as peaceful as they could’ve hoped for in a horrible battle against an all-powerful superbeing.

Hope turns and looks at Scott, at how he’s illuminated in the dusty setting sun and at the tiny crease between his eyebrows that shows up in moments of tension, and mostly at how he’s alive and breathing and here, and she kisses him. It’s like something dark in the world has cracked open and is letting all the light in for them.

Tony is dead.

But he gave them this moment, and probably many more that are just as good as this one just waiting to be experienced.

He gave them a future.

Scott and Hope watch the smoke clear and take each other’s hands, walking out into the crowds of celebration. He tells her everything about the quantum realm, how he wasn’t dusted and got trapped there, how it felt like five hours instead of five years.

Hope calls her parents from the old van, and the reception is terrible but she gets through to them.

“Jellybean?”

It’s her mom. Alive, and safe, and returned, even though Hope didn’t even know she was gone until a couple hours ago.

“Hi, Mom,” she whispers, as Scott gets out of the van to give her some space. She can see him go across the hard-packed dirt, past the large crowd, to comfort the small group of people mourning Tony Stark.

“Oh, honey, thank god. We came back on top of the building, but you were gone!”

“Dad’s back too?” Hope asks, too scared to assume, choosing not to tell her mother about the fight for the world that she just took part in quite yet.

“‘Course he is. Your dad’s tough, jellybean.”

Scott looks over at her, and Hope realizes she should probably go. “Mom, I have to, um, take care of some things, but I’ll go and see you as soon as I’ve got a chance, all right?”

“Don’t bother,” her father’s gruff voice says, as he’s clearly taken over the phone. “We’ll be fine, Hope, I promise. Now go and have fun. And tell ‘some things’ I said hello and not to fuck up his suit.”

Hope smiles as her mother admonishes her dad in the background of the call. That’s probably the closest her father will come to admitting he cares about Scott, but that’s just how he operates.

“Bye, guys. I love you,” she says, and hangs up after they reply, clambering ungracefully out of the decrepit van.

Scott walks over to her and pulls her into a tight hug.

“What’s this for?” she asks, hugging him back just as close.

“Just needed to check,” he says softly.

The sorcerers open portals for everyone to go back home. It’s a surreal feeling, to have come back from the end of the world, and when they’re standing on Scott’s street Hope tries to take in absolutely everything.

“Let’s go home,” Scott tells her, and squeezes her hand. “You’ve gotta see Cassie, she’s so tall now!”

That’s another thing, Hope thinks. The planet didn’t pause for those who got dusted. The world just kept on living, and people were born and people died and people changed.

She steels herself for Cassie to be a surly teenager who doesn’t even recognize her, surprised by just how much it breaks her heart to picture that.

The screen door bangs open, and Cassie sees Scott and throws her arms around him. “You came back,” she sobs, and Hope smiles because billions of people around the world are getting this same moment with returned loved ones.

Cassie pulls out of the hug, and her smile drops. “Dad, did you- where’s-”

Scott steps aside, and then Cassie’s running at Hope and burying her face in her shoulder.

“Hi, Cassie,” Hope whispers, which is about as loud as she can manage without bursting into tears.

“I thought you were gone,” Cassie says, voice still tight with tears. “I thought all of you were gone.”

“We’re here,” Hope reassures her, realizing she’s reassuring herself as well. “We’re here and we’re okay and we’re not going anywhere.”

Cassie nods shakily. “You… you guys should clean up. You kind of look like crap.”

“Hey!” Scott protests, ruffling Cassie’s hair. “Why don’t you try fighting a huge grape-flavored space giant and see how you turn out?”

Cassie laughs. “Maybe I will! I could probably have defeated him in five seconds.”

“What do you think, Scott?” Hope asks him. “Should we let Cassie have our jobs?”

Scott grins, pretending to mull it over. “Well, I personally would love a break… We can give her my incredibly smelly suit to use. Does that sound like a plan, Cass?”

Cassie has a mock-offended look on her face, and she smirks back at her dad. “Yeah, I’m good, actually. No thanks.”

When they all walk in the house, Hope has to stop in the doorway for a minute. It feels like another planet, almost, and yet it’s so achingly familiar she wants to break down and cry.

Scott goes in the bathroom to clean off, but Hope goes upstairs. When she sees their bedroom it all hits her full in the face.

It’s clearly been untouched for the five years they’ve been gone. The pajamas Hope was wearing the night before the dusting are tossed in the corner where she left them, Scott’s toothpaste is still open on the bathroom counter, now dried and chalky, and the Sam Phillips record is still on the dresser.

They all seem like artifacts from a museum, something separate and untouchable. Her favorite book sits dog-eared and wrinkled on the side table, and her hand hovers over it. She feels like she can’t touch anything. Like she’ll pass right through if she tries.

The room feels smaller, too small, and the air here is stale and thick with dust and memories, and all of a sudden Hope is having a hard time breathing.

Scott walks through the open door, and he pauses too, rooted to the spot, but then he sits down next to her and takes her hand.

“We’re okay. We made it, we’re okay, we’re alive.”

He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself as much as he’s convincing her. His leg is bouncing up and down, and it’s betraying the anxiety below the surface.

Hope keeps up the chant in her head, even after Scott stops, because her overactive brain needs something to latch on to.

I made it, I’m okay, I’m alive.

I made it, I’m okay, I’m alive.

I’m okay.

“Do you remember that morning?” Scott asks quietly. “Before… everything?”

Hope thinks that’s how their life is classified now- Before Everything and After Everything. She’s read about it, of course, the way trauma cuts your whole life in half. She’s even experienced it, with her mother’s disappearance. There was a Before and After then, too.

But she’s never gone through anything like this.

She finally nods in answer to Scott’s question, not trusting herself to speak without crying, out of fear or sadness or some third, combined emotion that’s difficult to place.

“I remember how gray it was outside. You thought it was going to rain, remember? And Cassie-” his voice catches. Scott’s lost five whole years of his daughter’s life. He can never get that back. “Cassie-” he tries to start again.

“Cassie was worried her soccer game would get canceled,” Hope continues softly, finding the bravery to keep talking because Scott can’t right now, and she’s going to be there for him.

(There’s something real there, a stronger promise than finishing his sentences for him, something raw and beautiful and something along the lines of being there for him for the rest of their lives, but Hope can’t think about that right now.)

“I woke up earlier than you did. And you threw a pillow at my head,” Hope says, remembering how she’d laughed at how grumpy Scott was with his bedhead hair and growly voice.

“A rational response,” Scott replies in an indignant tone, even as his voice shakes.

“And then we had breakfast with Cassie, right?” Hope asks. She wants to believe they did, hopes they gave her some good memories before they both disappeared.

“Yeah. Bagels and orange juice,” Scott confirms, and Hope remembers that now, remembers how she’d gotten cream cheese on her face and Cassie had smeared some on her face in solidarity. She remembers how Scott pretended to wear the bagels like goggles before he toasted them. Mostly, she remembers laughing, her anxiety easing, feeling like it was going to be a good day.

“And then we drove to the building.” Hope knows she doesn’t have to elaborate. She knows that the building is seared into Scott’s memory as much as it is in hers.

The building with the roof where she never finished a countdown, and she and her parents dissolved into nothing.

“And then you were gone,” Scott whispers, and Hope doesn’t have a response to that one. Her body stiffens, remembering watching her hands disappear and having no time to do anything but think No.

They’re silent, each reliving their own trauma. They will be for days to come. The pain will never truly go away, but one day it’ll get easier.

For right now, though, that day seems impossibly far away.

“Okay,” she barely hears Scott say, clapping his hands together and standing up. “Let’s do something. Anything. I can’t sit here and talk about death anymore, it’s incredibly depressing.”

Despite herself, Hope laughs, shrugging. “What should we do, then?”

Scott raises his eyebrows at her and grins, which means he already has an idea.

He roots around for his phone and pulls it from a pocket in his ant suit (Hope’s fairly sure her father didn’t put one in there, but she decides not to ask) and swipes around a few times before a song starts playing.

She recognized the opening easily, and her mouth quirked up into a smile after the first few lyrics.

I’ll stop the world and melt with you

You’ve seen the difference, and it’s getting better all the time

There’s nothing you and I won’t do

I’ll stop the world and melt with you

“Come on, Hope, dance with me!”

Scott’s face has lost the gray, sad pallor it had only a minute ago, replaced with relief and something close to joy.

So Hope doesn’t hesitate this time, throws her heart and soul into her awful dance moves. She lets go of the pain and terror of the past few hours and just dances, jumping around and shouting the lyrics to the terrible old music Scott has on his playlists.

Cassie joins them after a while, doing partner dance moves with her dad that the two of them have clearly practiced. Scott tries to teach Hope, but she’s fairly hopeless (Ha. See, Scott? She can do wordplay too) at it. However, she manages to look a little less uncoordinated by just doing fight moves, which she’s far more comfortable with, in time to the music.

“There you go, you’re getting it!” Scott cheers, twirling her on the beat, and Hope wants to kiss him so badly right then, like those terrible girls in the movies whose singular goal is to kiss every man onscreen.

But the kiss on the battlefield was fueled by relief and adrenaline and circumstances. What if Scott’s just humoring her? What if he lost whatever feelings he had for her years ago?

She almost opens her mouth to ask him, because she’s trying not to run from emotions anymore, but before she gets the chance Scott kisses her.

“I love you,” he says softly after pulling away. “I’m sorry if that’s too much too soon for you, I get it, I just couldn’t wait any-”

And then it’s Hope’s turn to surprise Scott with a kiss.

“I love you too.”

They made it, they’re okay, they’re alive.

four.

A year and five months after the battle, they get married in a field full of flowers in early September, when the best wildflowers are in season.

The weather is perfect.

There’s a light breeze, and it ruffles Scott’s hair so he looks more like himself.

Hank walks Hope down the aisle, uncharacteristically beaming, and Scott will swear for the rest of his life that his heart stopped when he saw Hope.

She looks beautiful.

Her dress is lacy and white, and she’s wearing flowers in her hair.

I love you, Scott mouths, because he honestly doesn’t think he can wait any longer to say it.

I love you too. Hope grins after she mouths it back to him, her eyes crinkling at the edges like they do when she’s truly happy.

Cassie, sitting in the front row, had helped Hope with the dress, and Scott sees her shoot Cassie a wink once she’s up there.

The officiator goes through the opening, and then nods at Scott to say his vows.

“Um. I love you,” Scott blurts, and all the rows of people grin at his outburst.

“I love you,” he starts again, “and I think I always will. You make me happier than I think anybody has been in the history of the world, which sounds crazy, but I’m pretty sure it’s true. I don’t think anyone could be happier than I am right now.”

Hope has that small smile on her face that’s just for him, and it makes him feel like he can do absolutely anything.

“You saved me, Hope,” he says, giving her a soft smile of his own. “Out of the blue, you came into my life when I was in a really, really dark spot, and you made it sunny again. I could see Cassie again because of you. I could be myself again because of you.”

He swallows the tears that are threatening to fall and already choking up his voice.

“You’re my hero, Hope.”

He slides the ring onto her finger, and that’s when it becomes real.

Even when he’d proposed, it had all felt like an incredible dream made up by his mind.

Scott proposed on a star-filled night on the sidewalk outside their house.

The golden light from the porch spilled out into the street, illuminating Hope from behind, and something in his heart when she turned back and smiled at him possessed him to kneel down and pull out the ring he’d had in his pocket for the better part of a month.

Hope’s mouth fell slightly ajar. “Scott, you-”

She was interrupted by Scott dropping the ring, and by the time he picked it back up he was beet red.

“Hi, Hope,” he had said awkwardly, his smile trembling a little around the edges. “I… I love you. A lot. I watched a lot of TV to prepare me for this, and when people do it in movies, they always say that they knew it was meant to be from the moment they saw them, but I don’t think that’s true in our case. I mean, you hated me for a while, like, genuinely despised me. But then, somehow, you started to smile at me, and that was one of the greatest feelings in the world. Honestly. You smile at me, and it’s like everything that’s ever gone wrong fades into the background, and all I can see is you. You’re… amazing, Hope. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

He’d shifted then, finding stronger posture so he could hold the ring properly.

“Hope van Dyne, will you marry me?”

She had smiled softly and kissed him, gentle and light in the golden glow of the windows.

“Yes,” she’d said, and Scott didn’t need a big speech in return. The way she squeezed his hand as they walked inside to tell Cassie was more than enough.

He crash-lands back into reality as Hope starts saying her vows. The ghost of a smirk flickers on her face before she starts talking, and Scott knows that she can tell he was spacing out.

“Scott,” she starts, and he thinks that he’ll never get tired of hearing her say his name. She makes it sound better, more interesting than just plain old Scott. He had always hated his name until she started saying it, in passing, in annoyance, in between breaths while she laughs.

“When I was little, I danced all the time. While I waited for the bus, while I cleaned my room, any spare second I got, I was dancing. I was terrible at it, but it was something I loved to do. And then I was forced to grow up faster than any child should have to, and… I stopped. I didn’t dance anymore, even though it was still something I loved. I worked and I moved forward and I kept my focus on what was right ahead of me. And then you just kinda- you showed up in my life.”

The group laughs at that, and Hank nods and sighs at the same time.

“You were this random guy out of nowhere, and you immediately pissed me off. You took nothing seriously. I honestly think your seven-year-old daughter was more capable than you at the time.”

Cassie grins and gives them a thumbs-up.

“But then I noticed something one day. I came in early, and you were already there, training and kicking your own ass to try and get better. And I was genuinely impressed. But then you began to dance along to whatever song was playing, and for just a second, I wanted to dance with you. I didn’t, I started to train with you and kick the snot out of you, but there was a split second where the burden of everything was lifted off my shoulders. And that was because of you. When I finally did dance, it was at a seedy bar with crappy old eighties music, but the only reason I considered it at all was because of that day in training, with you.”

She’s smiling at him when she says, “I love you. I feel like I don’t say it enough. I feel like I could never say it enough for you to understand just how much I care about you. I know that I’m not the most emotionally available person in the world, but you never give up on me. You’ve always got my back, and I’ll be eternally grateful for that.”

Scott’s crying. He knew he would be, he warned Hope last night that he was going to be a mess the whole day, but he didn’t know he was going to be this bad.

“Thank you for everything, Scott. You helped me to dance again. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

She puts the ring on his finger, they say ‘I do’, and then they’re married.

They’re married.

When Scott got married to Maggie, it had been in a rush of giggles and stumbling and tossing bouquets to bridesmaids.

This time, though, instead of time speeding up, it slows down for a moment as Scott tries to remember every tiny detail.

The sun is catching Hope’s hair in the light, and she’s beaming as they walk down the aisle. They’re surrounded by clouds of pink and white as people are throwing flower petals into the air. Cassie’s cheering and jumping up and down, Luis maybe more so, and Maggie gives him a happy smile.

The reception is in a big bright tent at the end of the field, and after taking photos, everybody heads over there.

After dinner, Thor’s remained relatively sober, so Scott has a nice conversation with him before going over to talk to Carol, the maid of honor, and Valkyrie, who she brought as her date. (Thor apparently acted as wingman, a fact that Scott probably should be surprised by but honestly isn’t.)

Maggie and Paxton are next to them, both more than a little confused by the extraterrestrial guests, but they take it all in stride.

While they’re talking, Scott glances around to find Hope and Cassie. That’s one of the scars from the snap, that he constantly checks where they are when they’re all somewhere together. He can’t lose them again.

He sees them sitting up at the main table, Hope laughing at something Cassie’s telling her, head thrown back and eyes bright.

“You look a little distracted there, Lang,” Carol says, grinning, and Scott fumbles over an apology for a few seconds before Carol lets him off the hook.

“She’s your wife, dude, it’s cool. Go.”

So Scott heads over to where they’re sitting and allows himself a smile at what Carol said.

She’s your wife.

“Scott, why are you looking at me like that?” Hope asks, raising an eyebrow.

Christ, two times in one day. Scott was going to ask Natasha for help on maybe not being SO obvious whenever he looked at Hope.

“I’m gonna… go find Peter… or something. Bye!” Cassie leaps out of her seat and takes off at a run to where Peter and MJ are standing with May.

“You look really nice,” Scott says quietly, feeling for all the world like he’s back in middle school and talking to his crush.

“So do you,” Hope replies, and she opens her mouth to say more but then Luis stands up and holds a microphone aloft like he’s a WWE announcer.

Scott cries like a baby at his speech, and cries even more at Carol’s maid of honor speech for Hope, where she pushes past her cocky façade and actually somewhat opens up (it scares him a little bit).

Rocket gleefully calls him a big baby from his perch on a folding chair two tables away, and Scott doesn’t even argue. He figures being a blubbering idiot on your wedding day is sort of par for the course.

“Come on, ya lovebirds, it’s time for the first dance!”

Cassie is the one who found the DJ online, Stanley something, an old man with a scruffy mustache and raspy, Brooklyn-accented voice who Scott had insisted on when Cassie showed them the picture as a joke.

“Shall we dance?” Scott asks Hope, adopting a British accent and then pretty much immediately regretting it.

Luckily, she laughs, and Scott can feel his face go all sappy again, but it’s not his fault because he’s pretty sure Hope’s laugh is the best sound in the world.

“Let’s hear it for the lovely couple!” Stanley or whatever his name is calls out in his rough voice.

He puts the record on, and Scott night start crying again.

Hey, baby

Don’t you cry

Hey, baby, don’t you pass me by

Remember the boy who used to sing this song

When the summer nights were long

“Hey, I know this one,” Hope says, smiling.

“Do you want to hear how I picked it?” Scott asks, kissing the top of her head as she leans into him and nods. “I was racking my brain to try and find the song for our first dance a few weeks ago, just hitting wall after wall and not getting anywhere. My ideas were all cliché or way too weird or a giant joke. I was sitting at the table, scrunching up what must’ve been my eighteenth attempt into a ball, when you walked in humming.”

I love you, truly do

Love you for your hair of brown

And the way you walk when you go downtown

I love you, truly do

Scott looks down at her as they gently sway on the dance floor. “And you know what? I could picture us, right here, right now, dancing to it. So I called the DJ and requested the song.”

Hey, lady, it’s been a long, long time

Have that song on my mind

Traveled halfway around the world

Never found a prettier girl

“It’s pretty perfect,” Hope whispers. “Thank you.”

“Eh, it was nothing,” Scott responds, brushing it off. “Just promised my soul in allegiance to some secret organization for all eternity. Nothing big,” he jokes.

“Seriously, Scott,” Hope tells him, cupping his face in her hand. “Thank you. This is amazing.”

“You’re amazing,” he says in reply, not caring that it’s probably the cheesiest thing he’s ever said, because it’s true. She is amazing. She’s probably the most amazing person he’s ever met.

And he can’t wait to spend the rest of his life with her.

five.

The clock next to the bed reads some ungodly hour when Hope opens her eyes groggily.

“Geez, kid, what’re you up to in there?” she yawns, still half-asleep, her hand sliding over the slight curve of her stomach.

The baby kicks again by way of an answer.

“All right, all right, I hear you, hold on,” Hope says, swinging her legs out of bed.

Scott mumbles something in his sleep and turns over, tangling the sheets and smushing his face into the headboard.

He looks absolutely ridiculous, and Hope takes a stealthy picture with her phone before heading downstairs, grinning to herself.

She makes tea, putting on the speaker softly like she always does when the baby wakes her up, and heads outside on the front porch.

It reminds her of watching the fireworks the night after the dusted were returned, lighting up the entire sky in red and blue and yellow.

The Blip, as they’re calling it now, flipped the world on its head.

It wasn’t all good, because nothing is. People reappeared in homes that weren’t theirs anymore, or in the middle of a highway, or came back to find family members had died without any chance to say goodbye.

And that’s all Hope had seen, for a while. Only the bad, how old friends were separated by five years, how people’s businesses had fallen apart, how some people just couldn’t reacclimate back into their lives.

Scott, though, Scott sees all of the good things. The way the rainforests have had time to grow back, the way there’s less air pollution, the reunions people got to have with their loved ones they thought were dead.

And slowly, Hope started to see those things, too.

She places a hand on her stomach, feeling the flutter of her child moving. Her thumb absentmindedly rubs back and forth over the fabric of her pajama shirt as she watches the stars.

Hope’s jolted out of her reverie by the panicked steps of someone running down the stairs inside.

Scott bursts out the front door, hair sticking up and eyes wild, posture visibly relaxing when he sees her.

“Hey, you,” Hope greets him, turning to face him so he can see that she’s fine, knowing he’s terrified something’s going to take her away from him again, even years later. The events of the battle have traumatized him more deeply than he lets on, she knows.

“Hey yourself,” Scott replies. His voice is still a little shaky, and he swallows to try and mask it. “How’s the baby?”

“Not the biggest fan of sleep right now, apparently.”

“Cassie was the same way,” Scott says softly, smiling. “She always woke Maggie up right before her alarm went off. It was kind of helpful, really, I think that was the only time I was consistently on time for work.”

Hope laughs. “The only time? Really? How were you not fired within the first month?”

“My dazzling smile and charismatic personality?”

“I was going to guess their desperation.”

“Hey!”

Hope pokes him in the arm. “Just kidding. You do have a pretty spectacular smile, so maybe it was that.”

He grins at her, and Hope can feel the baby start kicking again, although less sharp than it was last time.

“Well, thank you,” he says. “It’s a Lang family trait, we all-”

“Sh. C’mere,” she says quickly, cutting short his joke, taking his hand and placing it over her stomach.

As if on cue, the baby jabs right where the center of Scott’s palm is, and his face transforms. All joking’s gone, his eyes are bright with joy and responsibility and a few other emotions too raw and deep to name.

“Hey, kid,” he whispers. “You’ve got quite the kick there.”

Hope watches him, committing every single thing about this to memory, engraving this moment behind her eyelids.

She wants to remember how the streetlight from the end of the road makes Scott’s face faintly golden, how the stars make up for the lack of moon by crowding the sky with soft blue light, how the grass crackles in the low wind, and Scott, beaming up at her as their child moves.

“Hey, maybe they’ll be the next Avenger, and then Cassie can get her own suit and be awesome, and we’ll be the legendary heroic parents who passed down the mantle, and we’ll have a super cool comic-book family, and all of us will have action figures-”

Hope bites her lip, holding back tears, but they’re happy tears, ones that she’s grateful to feel welling up in her eyes, because how in the world did she get this lucky?

She has a partner who loves her, a stepdaughter who hugs her tightly and laughs at her jokes, parents who love her and each other, and a new baby coming in just four months now. Sometimes, she can’t even believe how lucky she is.

“I know that look. Whatcha thinking about?” Scott asks, standing up and leaning against the porch railing.

“Nothing,” Hope says, shaking her head and smiling, choosing not to ruin the moment by saying everything aloud. “Quantum physics.”

“I’ve actually been doing some reading on quantum physics, if you can believe it.”

“What for?” Hope asks, tilting her head as if to study Scott better. She knows him, and knows that he doesn’t like the thorny equations she and her father work through occasionally. She knows that some of this stuff is hard for her to understand, and she had help. Learning it on your own must be akin to fighting a dragon with a toothpick.

“I just…” Scott starts to say, his ears flushing red and signaling embarrassment. “When I was in there for those five hours, all I could think about was getting back to you. I had no idea what had happened or if you were even alive, and I was just trapped in this completely terrifying place that I had no idea how to navigate. I never… I never want to feel that helpless again.”

”Scott,” Hope whispers, running a thumb over the scar on his cheek from where he’d gotten slashed in the battle against Thanos. She’s lost for words. She had faded away, but Scott had gotten stuck in some kind of unfamiliar hell.

“I know that. Logically, practically, all those other adjectives that you like so much, I know that, I know that you can fend for yourself against pretty much anything. But then my thoughts start coming at me so rapid-fire that I don’t have any rationality left, and all I can think about is the possibility that I’m wrong, that maybe we didn’t defeat Thanos after all, that you’re-” He pauses, biting his lip. “That you’re going to disappear again.”

Hope wishes she could keep reassuring him, that she could make promises to him that she’ll be all right, that she could tell him she’ll never leave him, but she can’t.

She doesn’t know what the future holds. Their jobs are dangerous, and as terrifying and awful as the idea of dying and leaving Scott alone is, the thought of a world without him is worse. She knows that if it came down to it, she’d sacrifice herself if it meant Scott would live.

But she doesn’t want to tell him that. So she settles for taking his hand and squeezing it lightly.

“I’ll be okay,” she says, because that’s not a lie. She will be okay, no matter what happens, because she has her family.

“Let’s get inside, huh? It’s getting pretty cold out. Has our hyperactive kid calmed down yet?” Scott asks, trying to shift the conversation as he wipes his eyes.

“Yeah, they’re all good,” Hope responds, picking up her empty mug.

When she walks back inside the house, there’s music playing from somewhere, and she realizes that she forgot to turn off the music she’d played while she was getting her tea.

It’s a slow, acoustic version of Hugging You, by Tom Rosenthal, one of Hope’s favorite songs. She knows it’s one of Scott’s, too.

You took all the lonely days and you made them sing

You turned off the alarms so they don’t ring

I don’t know where we are in the grand scheme of things

But I just wanna be hugging you tonight

“Life did throw everything it could throw,” Hope murmurs along to the music. “Your face in the morning, it just glowed…” She trails off, but then Scott hums the rest of the lyrics. “...let’s get in this car, let’s face the sky and go… I just want to be counting stars with you.”

He doesn’t need to ask her to dance, at least not out loud.

His eyes say it all.

Hope crosses the kitchen to where he’s standing, and slips her arms around him.

They fall into an easy, soft sway, barely even moving. This is more of a hug than a dance, but Hope doesn’t care. She feels safer than she has in weeks.

“Are you scared?” Scott asks quietly.

“About what?”

“Everything.”

“Of course I am,” Hope replies honestly. “It’s only been two years since the Blip, or whatever they’re calling it now, and I’m still nowhere near recovered. I don’t think anyone is, really.”

“Do you think we ever will be?”

“I think humans are resilient,” Hope murmurs. “Somehow, we got through the battle for the universe alive. We’re rebuilding. Slowly, sure, but we are. There’s that new mural downtown, and those charities for people who need places to live after what happened, and whole organizations founded to reunite families. There’s hope, Scott.”

She feels more than sees him laugh, and he pulls a little out of the hug to grin at her.

“Of course there’s Hope,” he jokes. “You’re standing right here.”

“Dork.”

“That’s me,” he says proudly, his goofiest smile back in full effect.

The song changes. Hope doesn’t recognize this one, but it takes her out of her comfortable fog.

“It’s almost one,” Hope realizes, grimacing. She has a meeting tomorrow. After the Blip, she and her father had been pardoned in light of the revelation that they’d played a large role in saving the universe. As a result, Pym Industries had begun to resurface with her back as CEO, but showing up to a meeting on less than six hours of sleep while being five months pregnant would probably be rather detrimental to their success.

“Hm. Yeah, we should probably get to bed,” Scott remarks, but makes no move to go upstairs, still holding her in the light of the kitchen window and the microwave clock.

“Scott, I have work tomorrow, remember? And so do you, if memory serves.”

“Work’s lame,” Scott yawns.

Hope raises an eyebrow and shakes her head. “Come on, you. Bed.”

He sighs and heads up to their bedroom while Hope turns off the speaker.

She skips the creaky stair on the way up, looking forward to getting into her warm bed, but she pauses in the hallway for a moment.

The nursery, about halfway painted with a few pieces of furniture strewn about, is silver with moonlight, and for just a second Hope has a flash of seeing herself standing there at the window, holding the baby and singing a lullaby.

It’s startling, how real it feels, and the baby starts kicking in response to her sped-up heartbeat, effectively snapping her out of the weird vision.

“Sh, sh, sh,” she whispers, placing a hand over her stomach. “It’s okay, I’m right here.”

Hope runs a hand over the doorframe and keeps walking, tiptoeing into the bedroom so she doesn’t wake Scott up, who is somehow already asleep.

“Good night,” she whispers, to her husband, to her stepdaughter, to the baby, and to the far-away stars.

one (again).

Their new house has a back porch that faces the beach.

Cassie and Evie are standing on a shore that’s made a shadowy blue by the starlight, pitching rocks into the ocean. Cassie’s getting some good skips on the ones she throws, and Evie is just having fun heaving them into the water and giggling at the splash.

Hope and Scott are sitting on the beach a few yards behind them, the wind blowing their hair back from their faces while they have a conversation.

“So, did you text Carol?” Scott asks, sculpting a mound of sand next to him as he talks.

“Yeah. She said she’s up for it, as long as we catsit Goose next week. She was laughing when she asked, though, so I don’t know what that’s about.”

“Aw, I love Goose! She’s so cute. We should get a pet, Hope,” Scott says eagerly.

“Scott, I have to remind you to brush your teeth more often than I have to remind Evie.”

“Hey, I can be very responsible. Cassie turned out all right, didn’t she? Only swallowed a few Legos in her childhood.” (Scott decides not to tell Hope the exact number he constitutes as a ’few’.)

Hope laughs at that and shakes her head. “Well, I stand corrected then. What were you thinking in terms of a pet? Did you want a dog? A cat, like Goose?”

“A Pegasus.”

“Oh, dear god,” Hope groans. “Have you been talking to Valkyrie again?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Scott replies coyly.

After another few minutes of arguing about what an “inside pet” is versus an “outside pet”, they fall quiet, watching their daughters throw rocks into the sea.

Cassie’s teaching Evie how to skip pebbles, pulling back her arm gently to show the motion that gives the best results.

Evie’s first seven throws go all over the place, once smacking a low-flying seagull directly on the bill, but on her eighth attempt it skips three times before sinking.

“Whoa! Daddy! Mama! Did you see that?”

Evie sprints back towards them, her face open and brilliant with joy. “I skipped a ROCK! On the WATER!”

“That’s incredible, Evie-bug!” Hope exclaims, getting to her feet and swinging the little girl around. “Did Cassie show you how?”

Evie nods vigorously, then squirms out of Hope’s arms and over to Scott. “Daddy, Cassie said that you’re super good at it! Can you do it for me, please please please please?”

“Of course I can,” Scott says. “You wanna come with us, peanut?” he asks Cassie, grinning.

“I’m good. I’ll just stay here with Hope. You two go ahead,” Cassie said, sitting down in the sand next to Hope and giving her dad a smile.

Evie took off for the water, and Scott wasn’t far behind her.

“Do you think I’ll ever be too old for him to call me peanut?” Cassie asks.

Hope looks over at her, no longer a little girl, a young woman who’s visiting from her first year at college. College.

Because she met Cassie when she was ten, she’s sure she’s feeling nowhere near the existential crisis that Scott must be having. But it’s still hard to look at this woman and reconcile that it’s the same kid who would wake her up in the night to look for fairies.

“I don’t think so,” Hope replies, smiling. “I don’t think it’s possible to grow out of a Scott Lang nickname.”

Cassie probably thinks Hope can’t see her smile of relief at that, but she can, and it sends a soft feeling of happiness through her chest. Scott lost five entire years with Cassie, but luckily for the two of them they’ve managed to deal with their new dynamic fairly well.

Sometimes, Hope’ll catch Scott looking at Cassie like he half-expects her to turn back into a ten-year-old. Or Evie will say something, and he’ll do a double-take, making sure it isn’t Cassie.

They all went through the same terrifying event, but each of them in a different way. Evie is old enough to realize there’s something they’re all not telling her, but not old enough to care yet.

Someday, they’ll tell her.

They’ll sit her down and talk to her about how Cassie is five years older than half of the kids she went to elementary school with, about how Hope needs to close her eyes tightly and open them every few hours to make sure she’s not disappearing, and about Scott’s wariness around brown vans.

Mostly, they’ll have to explain why all three of them still gasp awake in nightmares, even four years after the victims were returned.

Hope runs her fingers over the loosely packed sand, trying to ground herself. Cassie notices and gives her a sympathetic glance, squeezing her free hand.

Scott comes running back to the two of them, Evie giggling maniacally on his shoulders. She clambers down and makes a beeline for Hope, tackling her in a hug.

“Hi, mama!” she chirps, beaming. “When’s the surprise gonna be here?”

“Not much longer,” Hope laughs, sitting up and shaking the sand out from her hair while Evie adjusts herself so she’s sitting on Hope’s lap. “Are you getting tired, Evie-bug?”

“No,” Evie replies steadfastly, although the way her eyelids flutter is a telltale sign that she’s lying.

Hope’s fingers trail through her daughter’s short curls, and she plants a kiss on her forehead.

Scott’s holding popcorn when he sits down next to them a little later.

“Almost time for the surprise, guys,” he says, grinning at Hope. Cassie rolls her eyes, but he knows she’s as curious as Evie.

“Did you put M&M’s in it, Daddy?” Evie asks, clumsily grabbing a handful and stuffing it in her mouth.

“Pfft. Who do you think I am? Of course, you silly goose.”

Evie giggles. “Cassie, do you want popcorn?” she asks her sister politely.

“Sure,” Cassie responds, taking some and ruffling Evie’s hair so her curls are askew and adorable.

“What ‘bout you, mama?” Evie offers, holding the bowl that Scott brought out.

“I’d love some, sweetheart, thank you,” Hope says, and before she can reach for some, a handful of buttery popcorn is shoved into her mouth by her daughter’s small hands.

Scott, through his hysterical laughter, is trying to reprimand Evie, and Cassie can’t even talk because she’s cackling so hard.

Hope pulls a kernel out of her nose and swallows the full mouthful with some difficulty as Evie, unaware of the chaos she just caused, isolates the M&M’s from the popcorn and starts eating just the candy.

“Are we late?” a gruff voice asks behind them, and Evie leaps off of Hope’s lap while shouting “Grandpa!”

Hope’s mom and dad and are standing behind them, her dad holding a pie and a briefcase, her mom carrying three of what look like high-tech vacuums.

“Hey, kiddo,” Hank says, his voice uncharacteristically soft. He hands the pie to Scott so Evie can jump in his arms like she always does when Hope’s parents come to visit.

“And look at that hair!” Janet laughs, mussing the curls in question. “You know, Hope, you had hair just like this when you were this age.”

“Oh, I am seeing those pictures,” Scott promises, pointing at Hope with a teasing grin on his face.

“By the way,” her dad says quietly, after Scott goes inside the house to grab a pie cutter, “I have some new tech for the suits in the briefcase. Cloaking devices, this time. Should be helpful next mission.”

Hope nods and takes the case from her father, slipping it behind the porch stairs.

Cassie is talking to Janet animatedly, pulling up schematics from school on her phone to show her. When Cassie said she wanted to be an engineer, Hope thought nobody would be happier than her and Scott and Maggie and Paxton, but her mom and dad had been beyond thrilled, inviting her over to their house to mess with some of their less dangerous technology.

“We brought these for you,” Janet pretends to whisper conspiratorially as she holds out the vacuum-looking things, even though Hope can hear every word. “Should be fun to mess around with.”

“Thanks, Grandma,” Cassie says, an awed look in her eyes. “My lab partners are gonna be so jealous. Your stuff always works way better than the crap the faculty members give us, those things are practically Tinkertoys.”

Janet laughs, and the two of them fall into a discussion about particles and engines working together, talking quickly and gesturing with their hands.

“So, we didn’t miss it, then?” Hank asks, aware of the surprise, but just like the kids not knowing what it actually is.

“Nope, you’re just in time,” Scott confirms while Cassie continues to gush over the vacuums. He grabs an extra picnic blanket from the house and spreads it out, and then they’re all sitting in the dark, waiting.

The first streak across the sky looks normal enough. A stray shooting star, maybe, or a jet.

But then the streak takes on loops and swirls and illuminates a line of gold against the pinpricks of blue, smaller explosions branching off from the main course.

“Carol?!” Cassie exclaims, grinning. “I thought she wasn’t going to be on Earth for another four years!”

“Well, we called in some favors,” Hope says. “And we’re catsitting Goose next week.”

“Plus, it’s not just Carol,” Scott states, with all the glee of finally being able to reveal a surprise.

On cue, spaceship after spaceship emerges into the sky, lights and explosions of all colors accompanying them.

“This is better than fireworks, mama,” Evie breathes in a hushed whisper.

“I’m glad you like it, Evie-bug,” Hope replies.

“Aren’t we going to get in trouble?” Cassie asks worriedly. “Last I checked, spaceships weren’t exactly common fare in San Francisco.”

“Happy helped us out,” Scott responds, leaning over and slicing himself some pie. “The man’s got connections.”

“And, apparently, an ability to make up some kind of fake festival to cover this up,” Hope adds.

Cassie shrugs and returns to watching the explosions, a content look returning to her face.

After about fifteen minutes, the spaceships disappear and the golden streak rockets down towards them, making a landing in the sand about ten feet in front of them.

“Hi, Carol!” Evie shouts, waving her little arm like crazy.

“Hey, guys,” Carol says after her helmet retracts, cool as a cucumber even after definitely breaking the sound barrier more than a few times.

“That was amazing,” Cassie thanks her. “How did you get all of them to come?”

“Pulled some strings, asked around, threatened ‘em with Goose.”

“Why were they scared of Goosey? She’s just a kitty,” Evie questions, and Carol gets that funny look on her face again.

“Uh, no reason.”

“Can you stay?” Cassie’s face is bright with anticipation.

“I mean, yeah, if Hope and Scott are cool with it then I’ve got a few hours to kill. Also, Val’s in the area, you mind if she comes over?”

“Valkyrie!” Evie cheers, miming using a sword, complete with sound effects.

“Of course not, we’d love to see her,” Scott assures Carol, scraping the bottom of the popcorn bowl for stray kernels. “New Asgard was in the news a while ago, did you see that? It’s an up-and-coming brewery town now.”

Carol snorts. “Not surprised. Whenever I’m down there, Val always makes me try her new creations, even if it tastes like shit- um, crap.”

She looks around to see who heard her slip-up, but Evie is thankfully disengaged from the conversation, choosing to swordfight with her sister instead.

Scott finds the speaker and plays some classic songs that Hank makes fun of him for liking, Hope grabs beers for the adults (not including Cassie yet), and the night wears on.

Valkyrie shows up with her Pegasus after half an hour or so and gangs up with Scott to convince Hope to buy one, which sadly doesn’t seem to impact her very strong ‘no’ that she keeps repeating.

They all head inside once it gets too cold, sitting in the living room and telling stories about different battles and missions, Cassie listening with a rapt look on her face and Evie building quietly with Legos while not paying attention in the slightest.

“There was one time when Scott shrunk down and a dog almost swallowed him,” Hope says, laughing at Scott’s offended face. “Don’t tell Evie, but that’s the reason we aren’t ever getting a dog,” she confides in the group, lowering her voice to a whisper.

“Mama, I’m sleepy,” Evie whines, coming up and tugging on Hope’s sleeve.

“All right, honey. Daddy or I’ll take you to bed in five minutes, okay? Can you do that?”

Evie slowly nods and clambers up next to Hope, wedging herself between Hope and the arm of the couch.

“I’ve actually gotten swallowed by three aliens, which I would say is worse than getting swallowed by a dog,” Carol boasts. “It’s just as gross as it sounds.”

“I don’t think any of us thought it was less gross, baby,” Valkyrie teases her. “Your alien stories are always absolutely awful. You do know that stories are generally supposed to keep people engaged, not disgust them so much they don’t want to open their mouth for fear of barfing, right?”

“That was oddly specific,” Janet tells her. “Do you have an engaging story to go with that?”

Valkyrie smirks at Carol and sits up, rubbing her hands together.

“Let me set the scene. We’d been dating for six mon-”

“Seven,” Carol interrupts, but it’s not to tease. She’s smiling softly at Valkyrie with something quiet and beautiful shining in her eyes, clearly thinking about how lucky she is.

“Okay, fine, seven months, and then one day, out of the blue, Carol just shows up covered in alien guts…”

Hope’s half-listening to the story, smiling and nodding at all the right moments. She’s mostly looking down at Evie, who’s curled into her side, sucking her thumb and clinging to Hope’s shirt with her fists.

“I’m gonna put her to bed,” Hope whispers to Scott, leaning down and picking up Evie while trying not to wake her up.

“Okay. Night-night, Evie-bug!” Scott says quietly, lightly poking her nose, and Evie gives him a sleepy grin.

Hope carries Evie upstairs, her little head tucked into the crook of Hope’s neck.

When she tucks her in, Evie’s face scrunches up like she’s about to cry, but then it relaxes and she starts to breathe slow and easy, clearly asleep.

Hope feels a gentle happiness overtake her as she watches her daughter sleep, and she leans against the wall, watching her.

Evie is kind of a perfect mix of her and Scott. She’s got Hope’s eyes, a strange gray-hazel hybrid, Scott’s beaming smile, and a mix of Scott’s cowlicky hair and Hope’s curls from when she was a toddler.

The genetics go beyond just physical, though, with the way Evie loves any terrible old song, or how she always watches her big sister do science experiments, or even how she tries to raise her eyebrows when she’s skeptical about something.

She’s wild and she’s happy and she loves them and she’s their daughter.

Hope smiles to herself and looks out the window at the beach, thinking. She’d never seen this coming. Hadn’t really seen herself ever wanting kids, let alone two.

But whenever Cassie cheers about finally figuring out an equation and hugs her, or Evie snuggles up with her and Scott on movie nights, Hope can’t picture herself anywhere else.

Downstairs, she hears the scratch of the record player starting up, so she kisses Evie’s forehead lightly and heads downstairs.

The music isn’t instantly recognizable, some old dancing song that Carol’s trying to teach Valkyrie the choreography to.

Cassie knows the song too, and after a while joins in with Carol on teaching the steps, because while Valkyrie is a fiercely formidable warrior, dancing is apparently not her strong suit.

Eventually, after Carol accidentally gets kicked in the face and Valkyrie almost breaks her leg, she commandeers the lesson and begins teaching the group an Asgardian reel instead, yanking the needle off the record.

Scott and Hope are both fairly terrible at dancing, and reeling turns out to be dancing to the 1,000th power or something, so they get confused early. Janet and Hank are both amazing at it, because of course they are, and Cassie is just filming the whole thing with a grin on her face.

“Okay, okay, I’m calling it,” Scott pants after another ten minutes of trying and failing to stay on rhythm while tripping over his own feet. “No more reeling, please.”

“Now you know how I feel!” Valkyrie says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Dancing’s pointless,” she grumbles.

“Aw, c’mon,” Carol pleads, pouting at her girlfriend. “Let’s dance, darling, I promise I can change your mind.”

Hope looks at Scott when Carol says that, and immediately the rest of their conversation fades into the background because Scott’s looking at her too.

For just a moment, Hope’s back in that bar from years ago, and Whitney Houston is playing on the jukebox, and Scott’s holding out his hand to her, eyes bright just like Carol’s are now.

A different song starts, and they crash back into reality.

Janet’s put a different record on, and this one Hope knows immediately. She’s heard this song since she was a little girl, when her parents would dance to it around the living room, and years later she’d listen to it to remind her of her lost mother.

Cassie turns the overhead lights off, so the room is lit only by the moon and the string lights that they tacked up a few months ago.

How sweet it is to be loved by you

Yes, baby

Ooh, how sweet it is to be loved by you

Carol and Valkyrie are the ones start dancing to the music, Carol leading Valkyrie through the simple swaying motion and whispering things to her.

Hope’s parents join in a little later, easily falling back into their old swing routine, and after Cassie heads up to bed it’s just Scott and Hope who aren’t dancing, standing at the edge of the room.

I needed the shelter of someone’s arms

And there you were

I needed someone to understand my ups and downs

And there you were

“Carol and Valkyrie are really cute,” Scott says quietly, watching as Carol kisses the tip of Valkyrie’s nose to make her laugh.

“Carol told me she’s going to propose soon,” Hope replies, even softer.

“Wow.”

They stand there together for a second, and then Hope decides something.

“Scott?”

“Yeah?”

Hope swallows. She’s nervous for some reason, so her throat is dry when she asks the question she’s been wanting to ask Scott for almost as long as she’s known him.

“Do you want to dance with me?”

The world falls away.

It always does, when she’s with him.

“Hope,” he says, and he’s beaming, that quiet smile that’s always only for her. “Of course I’ll dance with you.”

How sweet it is to be loved by you...