After all that had happened, Hope had gone home. Well, at least what she had come to somewhat call that over the past two years, what with the perpetual hum of machines and the scamperings of its insectoid workers. She made up for lost time alongside her father, spending all of her waking hours getting her mother back up to speed (not that she needed it, since Hope had to get her adaptability from somewhere ) and discovering what she had missed during an age of absentee fathers and private schooling. Janet would sit with her at night, braiding her long hair into a beautiful, laurel-like crown. Afterwards, they had played cat's cradle and chattered. It was the simple things that sparked a warmth within her that had grown so, so distant and unfamiliar throughout the years.

Despite all of this, Hope still worried. They had effectively been on quarantine, still hiding from the public eye. It was fair, given the circumstances. Car chases, boat hold-ups, the like. No need to further stir the pot and give the hounds over at the FBI a lead. All ties to the outside world were severed minus one .

That one had been quiet ever since the quest to save the first Wasp.

Hope meandered into her own room, lavishly decorated by a simple, rudimentary cot bolted into the floor. Pulling out bobby pin after bobby pin, she combed her fingers through her hair, letting dark waves cascade down her shoulders as she changed into her pajamas. A sigh slipped past her lips as she pulled out her phone. The clock briefly flashed 12:56 AM as she unlocked it and the screen slid up.

Without much conscious thought, she had texted Scott: ' Are you alright?'

Astonishingly, she received a reply within minutes. 'Yeah i just zlept for lik fivd days straight bu t i feel gre a t.' He wasn't always the most coherent when it came to texting, preferring to type fast and send fast, leaving things to the divine will of autocorrect (when it actually worked, which, it didn't).

'Can I come over?' The joy of involuntary actions and Scott's poor impulse control was rubbing off on her. Hope already began to traverse the homemade maze of technology, snatching the Hot Wheels case from its vigilant post (a random countertop that had somehow become its sacred roost).

A series of dings! sounded and she checked to see a series of texts. Each were strictly one sentence at a time. 'Oh! I'm out riyht now but thrte's a key under the may.' 'I'll br back home soon.'

'I'll be there,' she responded as she set the miniaturized Acura down. Hope smirked momentarily as she fastened her seatbelt, adrenaline surging like a teenage girl sneaking out to spend the night with her boyfriend. Making up for lost time, and all that.

---

The apartment was a fair bit messier than before. Papers were scattered all about, rolled-up blueprints stamped with 'X-CON' perching atop every available surface. Charmingly, decks of playing cards were all over the place, some Imperial, some Aviators, one unmarked. There was no reason to suspect that Scott hadn't been running wild and quote unquote "painting the town red" since that bracelet came off (-icially). Well, aside from the immense pile of blankets and pillows, well, everywhere. Literally all over the place. A celebratory business sleepover would have been her first guess had Scott not revealed himself to be a Pym Particle-fueled hypersomniac.

Hope gathered up the veritable menagerie of blankets, folding them and stacking them in some miscellaneous chair. The pillows were set in another unused chair. She nudged the papers into a neat pile and stacked them at the center of the kitchen table, next to the previously buried laptop. All of the blueprints found a new home in their designated plastic tubes by the table.

A whole collection of boxed card decks had found its way into her arms by the time Scott returned with a slurpee from 7 Eleven in hand. The clock would read 2:18 AM if Hope'd checked it. She set them down on the nearest surface and trotted over to him, unwittingly throwing her arms up and around his shoulders despite his protests of "hey, I might drop this—!"

"Sorry about dragging you on our mad mission to save my mom," Hope murmured into his shoulder, "but thank you—not for nearly dying, multiple times—but... thank you."

Scott, ever vigilant to what he often called 'soft' moments, drew away, "it's nothing. Hey, one sec." He popped open off the lid of his slurpee cup and fished out two entire Snickers bars. "I got us some candy bars!"

She couldn't help but snort with laughter, shoving him away. "You're actually ridiculous."