Hope Van Dyne arrives to Scott Lang's house to find him underneath Cassie's bathroom sink in his boxer shorts, a puddle of water on the ground, and a Snickers bar on the counter.

"If only Cap could see you now," she teases, trying not to laugh when he startles and knocks his head.

"Ha ha," he grumbles, tossing a dirty rag in her general direction from under the sink and missing entirely. "The sink leaked so I fixed it."

"But did you actually fix it?" She lets her skepticism pour into the question.

"Oh, ye of little faith," he says, pretending to be wounded.

Scott darts out at her suddenly and hugs her with his slightly soggy t-shirt and bare legs.

It's gross, but she lets him.

Hank asks what she sees in Scott, and it's pretty simple when she breaks it down into its elements: he doesn't push her to make her talk, or to show affection when she feels prickly. He reads her without making her feel like she's some kind of puzzle to be solved, which is what she appreciates the most. He never acts like she should come with a set of instructions.

They have easily fallen into all of the old routines from before Germany, working together, training together, other stuff-ing together. It's good.

**

It's hard to ignore the news lately, because it's full of Avengers sightings and strange space phenomenon in New York. Scott is anxious and needs something to do, so they rebuild a portal to the Quantum Realm in Luis's old brown van.

Noticing his anxiety about not being able to join in with the other superheroes, Janet tells Scott that she wants to cook for the first time since she disappeared. The next day, Scott flies over for their scheduled workout on ANToni, bringing groceries.

Hope tilts back a Corona from one of the bags and watches Scott and Janet cook, overwhelmed with the unwelcome sentiment of fondness.

Hank breaks into her thoughts. "You look like a starstruck groupie," he grumbles.

"I do not," Hope insists, startled.

"You do," he declares. "You've gone to mush. A brilliant mind brought low. I'm going to forbid you from training in the basement later. Lord knows what you do down there."

"I'm thirty-eight!"

"Still my kid, still my house."

Same argument as before Scott's adventure, but Scott explains to Hank that he had to help Captain America keep people's names from being in a government registry because historically it didn't work out in anybody's favor. His Pap Pap went to fight the Nazis in WWII and he'd be damned if he put Hope's name on a list without a fight.

And just like that, Hank ignores the other stuff in the basement.

She needs to move out. Once the Quantum Realm portal is up and running, Hope decides she'll inform Scott she's moving in with him.

**

Later, during a break from training, Scott tells her that he binge watched all of the new Queer Eye for cooking tips to share with Janet.

When she sounds puzzled as to why he feels he needs simplistic cooking tips for clueless bachelors, Scott explains that he had to prevent Janet from feeding all of them frozen fish sticks and Kraft Mac n Cheese.

"Eighties food," he laments, shaking his head. "Blech."

He's stupidly adorable, playing with her fingers while he talks. Refusing to give into distraction and end their training session, she clears her throat. "Did you learn anything from the guys?"

Scott rolls his eyes theatrically and flops on the mat, flat on his back.

"I learned that Bobby builds entire houses, the whole houses! Meanwhile, Antoni puts Greek yogurt in guacamole and peas in macaroni. If those are supposed to be cooking tips, I'll take my chances with Kraft dinner."

"I should have specified that I wanted to know if you learned anything of use."

"I can show you what a French tuck is," he offers, lifting his head and wagging his eyebrows.

"Hmm, sounds dirty," she jokes, "maybe we should wait until later for that."

There's a beat of silence.

"Quite frankly, Hope, I'm appalled," Scott deadpans, "that was very lowbrow for you."

"You're a bad influence," she goads, and then they're kissing.

"Get a room," Hank yells from upstairs.

Scott looks up. "How does he know every single time?"

**

The sky opens up over Edinburgh and aliens pour out, but she's sitting in Scott's ex Maggie's backyard at a barbecue, watching Scott and Cassie kick a soccer ball into a small net. Every time Cassie sinks a goal, which is fairly often because Scott is letting her take absolute pot shots against him, Scott bellows "goooooool" like a Telemundo announcer at the World Cup and circles the backyard, arms wide. Cassie follows him, laughing.

Hope drinks a beer, ears pink, as Maggie side eyes her.

"What are your intentions towards Scott?"

Hope chokes on her beer. "Nothing! No intentions," she insists.

"There better be intentions," Maggie warns. "There's a child's heart at stake."

"I would never hurt Cassie," Hope starts, indignant, red with embarrassment.

Maggie cuts her off. "Not Cassie, I'm talking about Scott," she says, smirking.

Hope smiles wanly back at her. "I'll try not to hurt him either."

"Good."

They clink beers while Paxton dodges soccer balls.

**

The news footage from Edinburgh looks awful, and the appearance of Captain America in the live feed after Germany is alarming. Wakanda is worse. Hope and Scott are in bed at Scott's place, her back against his front, his chin on her head.

"It looks bad," she says, pointing out the obvious.

"Real bad," he agrees, kissing her hair. "I feel like we should be doing something."

He gets up, pries open the moulding on the wall by the floorboards, and pulls out a burner phone. She arches an eyebrow.

"I have some numbers," he admits.

"Cap's number?"

He narrows his eyes at her because no, he doesn't have Cap's number and she knows it, but then he gets very serious. "If they want our help, would you want to come with me to Wakanda?"

Hope tackles him to the ground, smiling at how much he's learned.

Of course, they never make it to Wakanda.