Rejection.

Lifting her hand up to knock on the door in front of her, Stevie readied herself for what she was about to do. She took a deep breath to compose herself and wrapped her knuckles against the wood. There were a few muffled voices and then an echo of footsteps getting louder and louder as they hurried towards her.

Stevie had spent the entirety of her evening and the night previous in her father's lab, looking through file after file to figure out how she could recreate the Quantum Machine that the Avengers had used to retrieve the infinity stones in 2023. By the early hours of the morning, she'd figured out that she could build a quantum tunnel by herself. The only thing that she was missing, however, was a way to get through it. 

The front door swung open and a boy appeared. He stood over Stevie – maybe an inch or so taller – with chestnut brown curls falling over his forehead and piercing greenish, hazel eyes. He looked about her age. "Um, hey." He scratched the back of his neck nervously, clearly taken aback by how pretty the stranger in front of him was.

"I'm here to see a... Scott Lang?"

The teenage boy nodded his head courtly and disappeared behind the doorframe momentarily. There were more muffled voices and the scuffing of feet as the door revealed an older man dressed in a brown shirt and dirty jeans, looking as confused as ever. "Hi, can I help?" He leant against the doorframe, squinting his eyes to block the intense morning sunlight.

"Depends whose asking... Scott Lang?"

"Speaking." The man raised his hand as though he were a child in a classroom, but shortly after, he realised that he looked stupid and lowered it again. "Are you here about the cable? You look a bit young to be an engineer, but you never know these days." He laughed breathily. 

"No." Stevie quirked her left brow upwards. "I'm Stevie Stark." At the mention of her name alone, Scott straitened his stance and smoothed out his shirt. 

"Little Stevie?" His voice went high, "My god! You're so... big!" He threw his arms around her, pulling her into an embrace. Stevie didn't remember meeting Scott, but apparently she must have when she was much younger. "What is it that you've come for? Oh, come inside, come inside!" He beckoned her in, stepping aside so that she could make it through the doorway easily. "That was my son that you spoke with. Sorry if he was... awkward. He's not really a people person. He's more into books."

"Aren't we all?" Stevie muttered before raising her voice so that she could be heard, "no, he was very polite." The house was cluttered with decorations in a homely way; the walls were lined with family photos and a child's artwork. "Did your son draw these?" Stevie pointed to a messily scribbled portrait of Captain America. Scott coughed awkwardly, nodding his head as quickly as possible.

"Yeah. For sure. It definitely wasn't me... or anything." Scott ushered her further down the hallway so that no further comments about his crappy artwork could be made. "Would you like anything to drink?" Stevie shook her head. "Okay, then um, have a seat. What's up?"

The couch that Stevie sat on was dotted with stains and pen marks as if it had been found in a junk yard. She ignored this, however, and let her eyes lock onto Scott's. "Well, Mr. Lang." She started – this earned an interruption from Scott, who told her to call him 'Scott' – "right, Scott. I know that you are, or were, the Ant-Man. And that you also had contact with Hank Pym."

Scott nodded as she continued, "Quick question of the rhetorical variety, you entered the quantum realm, right? And you came out alive, which is how you collected the infinity stones in 2023, so-" She was interrupted swiftly. 

"Woah, woah, woah. You've come to see me about time travel?"

"What else would I have come to see you about? The weather?" She furrowed her brows and kept her eyes trained on Scott, who looked as though he'd seen a ghost. "Hey, piss ant." She nudged his arm and he snapped back into reality, resting his forefinger and thumb on his forehead tiredly.

"Look, kid, I don't think that going back in time to see your... dead father... is the best of ideas." He stood up, leading her towards the front door in a rush. "Janet Van Dyne nearly died in there. What we did, that was to save the world. I'm sorry, but I can't help you."

With that, the door swung shut and Stevie Stark was left standing on the doorstep with her mouth hung open in shock and her father's notebook still wide open in her hands. She was about to knock again when the door abruptly opened again and Scott appeared. "Oh my God, I just slammed the door on Tony Stark's daughter, I am so sorry for this!"

It slammed closed again.

She made her way off of the porch glumly, ready to slide into the back seat of Happy's limo (that she'd stolen and put into auto-pilot in order to get to Scott's house in) and cry. But before she could make it there, a loud shout earned her attention. 

"Hey!" Stevie tilted her head upwards, meeting the eyes of Scott's son (whose head was hanging out of his bedroom window and whose name she had yet to learn). "You're Stevie, right?" She nodded. "I can help you."

"With what?" She called back.

"Time travel!"