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"I spy with my little eye something that starts with... C."
From their respective cells, Sam and Clint groan at Scott.
"Come on," he says, "Who knows how long they're gonna have us in here. We've gotta keep ourselves entertained."
"We really don't," Sam counters.
"Trust me--I've been in prison before. Have any of you been in prison before?"
"No," Sam says, sounding slightly offended that Scott would even have asked. At the same time, Clint says, "Yeah."
(Wanda says nothing. Wanda hasn't been very talkative.)
"What, really?" Scott is taken aback. "You, Hawkeye, the Avenger, you've been--"
Clint cuts him off. "I can't talk about it."
"Can't, or don't want to?"
Clint grunts what sounds like a threat, and Scott doesn't press it any further. Still, after a few minutes, he can't help but add, "Ceiling, guys. It was the ceiling. Starts with C. Ceiling."
*
"I spy with my little eye something that starts with... A."
"Asshole," Clint offers darkly. He doesn't look up from what he's doing, which appears to be attempting to take apart the cell's provided furniture.
"Hey now, there's no need to be rude."
"It's you," Clint clarifies, "You're the asshole."
"Lang, why are you like this?" Sam asks. He sounds exasperated.
(Wanda says nothing. Wanda still hasn't said anything.)
"Well, you see--have you ever met Hank Pym? Really, I wouldn't recommend it, he can be kind of a jerk and he's made some terrible life choices, not least of which was giving me his Ant-Man suit instead of letting his far more capable daughter have it. But he did give me my start as a superhero, and--"
"Why are you like this--unable to shut up."
Scott slumps back against the wall and sighs. "It's been a while since I was in prison. Guess I'm out of practice."
*
"I spy with my little eye something that starts with... S."
"It's a stool," Sam says. The annoyance is gone from his voice, replaced with a flat resignation that matches his posture, laid across the cell's small bed.
"Of course it's a stool," Clint says. He still sounds annoyed. "Look around. What else could it be?"
"Could've been Sam," Scott says. "I can see Sam."
"Is it Sam, though? Is it?"
"No," Scott admits. "He's right. It was a stool."
Clint lets out a long sigh, then scrubs a hand over his face. "Wouldn't this time be better spent trying to figure out a way out of here?"
Scott takes a deep breath, lets it out again. He'd been trying his hardest not to think about this. "I don't need to spend time on it, because I paid attention when they brought us in here. These are super high-tech cells, with safeguards built into the uniforms. Plus, even if we could get out of the cells, there are approximately three thousand armed guards between us and the door, and that door is underwater and in the middle of nowhere. It might be doable if we had outside help, but let's be real here--Captain America's not coming back for us. Captain America's got his own stuff going on." Scott pauses for a moment, takes another deep breath. "So no, my time wouldn't be better spent trying to figure out a way to escape. It's impossible."
"Nowhere's impossible to get out of," Clint says. Scott doesn't even have to look over to tell that the set of his jaw is heroic.
Scott snorts. "Spoken like a man who's spent a long time working for a powerful government organization."
Clint huffs a laugh. "Didn't you hear? I'm retired."
"Steve won't leave us here," Sam interjects. His voice is low, hard and sure. "He'll come back for us." Scott wishes he could be that confident.
*
"What do you guys have waiting for you outside?" Scott asks.
"What, no dumb letter for us to guess?"
"No, Clint, I was going to try making conversation like a 'normal person'." Scott makes overlarge air-quotes and drags the words out exaggeratedly. "I can pick a letter if you want."
Clint is quick to respond: "No, no, that's... not necessary. I've got a farm, a wife, three kids--more of a life than I probably ought to have run away from to play hero. It's hard to say no to saving the world, though."
"Cap needs your help, no better reason to get back in," Sam agrees. It sounds melancholy, and a little bit like he's referencing something that none of the rest of them get. He's been pacing restlessly, and the conversation doesn't make him stop.
"What about you?" Clint asks Scott. "All I know about you is that Cap asked me to pick you up."
"Oh, same, same," Scott says, nodding knowingly, "Except only one kid and the wife is an ex-wife. You know. Oh, and no farm. More of an apartment."
"So... not really the same."
"No," Scott agrees, "Not really. Still--superheroes with kids. I didn't think there were a lot of us." Scott thinks about Cassie, thinks about getting out of here, thinks about maybe never seeing her again. (He thinks about his ex-wife, and how she is not going to be amused when she finds out that he's in prison again. He tries not to think about that.) Too cheerfully, he asks, "How about you, Sam? What's waiting for you outside? You got family?"
There is an almost worrying pause before Sam responds. "Got a day job at the VA, but I've mostly been an Avenger lately. Got a mom, a dad, a sister, whole mess of aunties and uncles, probably all worried about me. Got an idiot with a shield I've followed into a bunch of trouble, he's somewhere."
"I've got one of those," Clint says with a laugh. "Redhead, with electric cuffs and a bunch of guns. I keep half-expecting her to show up here, honestly."
Sam nods, still doesn't stop pacing. "Wouldn't surprise me."
"What about you, Wanda?" Scott asks. She's still quiet, has been ever since they arrived. He's not expecting an answer, but he doesn't want to not include her.
"She has also been an Avenger lately, and her brother died in Sokovia," Clint answers for her. He doesn't say it, but Scott hears the I don't know what she has now hanging there.
"Sounds like we've all got it together exceedingly well," Scott says.
"Yeah, that's not really how throwing in with Captain America seems to work," Sam says. "Probably should have warned you about that up front. Sorry about that."
"Wouldn't change a thing," Scott reassures him, and he means it.
*
Tony Stark comes striding in like he owns the place, and Clint loses it a little bit. Scott really can't blame him; they had all known that siding with Captain America could have consequences, but it doesn't seem like any of them had expected anything quite like this.
"I spy with my little eye something that starts with A," Scott says quietly, as Stark engages with Sam.
"Is it an asshole?" Wanda asks, just as quietly. It's the first thing she's said since they got here, and Scott manages to hold his laughter in until Stark leaves.
*
"Why did you let Tony leave without us?" Clint asks. There's a hard edge to his voice as he addresses Sam, and he is leaned as best as he can up against the door of his cell, as close to Sam as he can get. "If you've got information, you've got leverage. You can get out."
"You think I can barter my way out of a place like this?" Sam gestures at the walls of his cell. "That's not how the law works."
Clint, unsurprisingly, starts shouting. "Oh, you think this place is under the law? Whose law? What law? Whose jurisdiction do you think we're being held under? We're in superhero Gitmo, Wilson. You don't get out of this kind of place by following the rules."
"He couldn't take us with him, Clint. You know that. He's a busy guy, with a lot of important places to be." Sam does his best to make this sound meaningful without giving anything away.
"He could have made it work," Clint says. He lets out a long sigh and collapses backwards onto the cell's bed. "We were just so close."
"I had to do it, man. You know that. Wouldn't be a superhero if I didn't."
Wanda, who has been closely watching their conversation, looks away.
It's uncomfortable, and Scott doesn't like it, so he says loudly, "I spy--"
"Not the time, Lang," Sam says, at the same time as Clint lets out a loud, frustrated groan. They exchange a look of mutual frustration, and Scott thinks that there has to have been an easier way to get these dummies to stop fighting. Then again, that's just been the theme of the last few days, hasn't it? At least this time he didn't have to pull apart any airplanes.
*
"I spy with my little eye something that starts with... S."
"Is it the stool again?" Sam asks. He has an arm draped across his eyes and doesn't bother looking up.
"No, it's Sam this time."
"Lucky me."
"Is it a little eye because you are the Ant-Man? Is that why you spy with a little eye?" Wanda asks, startling everyone.
"No," Scott says, making a thoughtful noise, "But it really seems like it ought to be, doesn't it?"
*
"You think Captain America is doing okay?" Scott asks. What he really wants to ask is do you think that Iron Man got to him in time, but if Stark was telling the truth, the people monitoring them don't know that they've sent Stark his way.
"He always is," Sam says, and Scott doesn't miss the way his hands ball up into fists.
"We did the best we could," Wanda says. "Now we can only hope."
*
"I spy with my Ant-Man eye something that starts with... S. Nope, C. S is too casual. Yeah, no, definitely C." Scott is aware that he is babbling a little bit, but it happened last time too. He is too excited to wait for any of them to guess, and also everybody can see the door the same as he can, so there's no harm in announcing: "Guys, Captain America is here! Captain America! Starts with a C!"
Sam is already on his feet, smiling. Clint nods acknowledgment at Captain America, then jerks a thumb at Scott. "Any chance we could leave him here?"
"Hey! I'll have you know that I have been great for morale!"
The look Captain America gives him can only be described as 'teasing'. Well, or 'skeptical'. Or 'handsome', definitely handsome. "Is that so?"
"I did my best," Scott says. He just barely stops himself from saluting.
"That's all we can ask for," Captain America says. The door to his cell slides open, and Scott steps out into freedom again.