She was going to KILL him.

Hope Van Dyne pressed play and listened to the message again, lips curling into a snarl when the familiar voice rolled through the empty living room.

"Hey, hi Hope! It's Scott. Ah. Listen. I know we had dinner plans tonight, and are supposed to help your dad with the Wasp suit and the Quantum tests and all that tomorrow, but...uh. Something's come up. Nothing bad! Just....hey, remember that guy I met at the Stark warehouse? The one that wasn't really a warehouse? It was the new Avenger Compound, and I met Falcon! I told you about Falcon, right? Called me Tic Tac? Yeah, he's cool. And he needs my help! Something about Stark being a dick, which according to your dad isn't surprising, am I right? Anyway. Falcon needs me to help Captain America! Captain America, Hope, I mean. Wow. It's Cap. And he wants ME to help him, can you believe it? Something about national security, and yeah. Captain America.

So, ah. I'm really sorry, but I gotta miss dinner. And probably lab time tomorrow. But I should be back after that! We can catch up and have dinner then? Oh, and maybe I can get Cap to sign an autograph or something for you! Man, that'd be cool. Unless it's weird. Do you think it's weir—-"

The message cut off. Hope let out a curse and threw the phone at the muted television. It bounced off the TV with a satisfying thunk, hitting the reporter directly on the face, and fell to the floor. The captions scrolling across the bottom of the TV announced that several Avengers had been arrested at the Leipzig airport, including one Scott Lang.

She was going to kill him.

The front door behind her opened and her father, Hank, stepped in. "Hey honey," he said absently, moving toward the kitchen. "Is Scott still meeting us tomorrow? I have a few adjustments to the suit I need to make and thought I'd test them out while he's around."

He didn't glance at the TV once. Hope slid her eyes at it in time to see Scott's face fill the screen, making her gnash her teeth together in a silent scream.

"Hope? Did you hear me at all?" Her father stepped back into the living room with a coffee mug in his hand. "Are you napping with your eyes open, what——"

He cut off, eyes narrowing on the TV. "That's Scott."

"Yes, it is." Hope said between clenched teeth.

"Why is Scott on the—-" he stopped again when footage of Scott being handcuffed in the Ant Man suit flickered onto the screen. Hysteria bubbled up in Hope's throat. Her boyfriend, wearing her fathers tech, was being arrested by Tony Stark.

Surely she was stuck in a nightmare.

They had to leave. Immediately. It wouldn't take long for them to figure out who made the Ant Man suit, for them to know that Hank Pym and Pym Technology was responsible. She didn't have time to tolerate questions or give some stupid Secretary of State her allegiance to the ridiculous Accords.

The Quantum Realm, and her mother's life, was on the line.

For a moment, neither Hank nor Hope spoke. Then Hank slammed his coffee mug onto an end table and snarled, "I'm gonna kill him!"

"Hope? Hi. Um. I'm guessing you saw the news by now...and you know what happened. I'm sorry. Hope, I'm so sorry, I never would have left and helped out if I had known how it all would have ended...well, maybe I would have helped Cap, but I swear I wouldn't have done anything else and I definitely wouldn't have gotten arrested wearing the Ant-Man suit---"

"No response for my calls or texts, huh? I guess that's to be expected. Have I mentioned that I'm sorry? I am. I'm so sorry, Hope. I've got a trial coming up to see if I can get a pardon, maybe get out and get on house arrest. Gosh, I miss you and Cassie. Have I told you how sorr——"

"Hope? I just found out you and Hank are on the run. No wonder you haven't answered. I didn't realize how badly this would affect you. They want me to tell them where you are, but I—-I won't do that. Never mind that I don't actually KNOW, but...I wouldn't. I wouldn't do that. I miss you. I'm sorry."

"That was a great attempt, sweetie, but you might want to try actually getting into the air this time."

Hope shoved herself off of the floor, snarling her father's direction. "I'm trying. Flying isn't easy."

"Oh, I don't know, I never found it that hard." He checked over the wings on the Wasp suit, then stepped back to tilt his head at her.

Hope fought back the urge to scream like an irritated toddler. "You flew on the back of an ant, dad. It's not the same."

"Hmm." He walked back to the lab table, picked up old blueprints. "Your mother made it look simple."

"Mom was amazing at a lot of things." Hope pushed her hair out of her face. "Lets go again. I'll get the hang of it."

"I'm not traveling in that."

Hope pinched the bridge of her nose. Maybe if she thought calm thoughts, she wouldn't sound annoyed at her father. Eight months they'd been on the run. Eight months of non-stop working, of constantly looking over their shoulder. And the FBI had finally caught up with them.

Hope imagined the beach and margaritas. Pictured lounging in a lawn chair while her mother laughed and sipped a margarita next to her.

Letting out a deep breath, she tried to explain the plan to her father. Again.

"We don't have much choice." Nope, the calm thoughts hadn't worked. She sounded like she felt: exasperated and grumpy. "We need to leave the city, and they won't expect us in a vehicle like this."

Her dad gave one last disgusted look at the car. "It looks like something out of those Fast and Crazy movies. Can't we shrink the van and leave the city that way?"

"It's Fast and Furious, Dad, and do you really want to spend 20 hours driving ten miles?"

"We could fly."

Calm thoughts. Calm, soothing thoughts. "We can't fly. I still haven't gotten the hang of carrying things in the Wasp suit yet. Which means I can't carry you and the lab across the entire city of Chicago."

He sighed. "Pity. I'm gonna feel like an idiot driving across the city in that flashy car."

You won't be the only one, Hope thought, but got in the car without another word.

Her floor of the lab building was riddled with blueprints, notes her father made in the 80s, and clothes Hope hadn't had a chance to wash. Picking up a blueprint, Hope stared at the most recent version of the tunnel to the Quantum Realm. To her mother.

They were close. So, so close to being able to turn it on. Only a few more necessary items, and then Hope could take a pod and go after her mother.

She was alive. Hope knew she was. She could practically hear her mother laugh, "Come and find me, Jelly Bean!" Like they were playing a game of hide and seek.

And really, that's all it was. A massive, expansive game of hide and seek.

Hope took a sip of her wine, stared out the window. Only a little longer. She had a meeting with an associate of Sonny's, one he didn't know she knew about. She would get that item, then meet with Sonny one last time.

Then she would get her mother.

But for now, she sat with her wine, watching the sun set. And tried not to think about the past, and how it was the birthdate of an adorable goofball that left her to go play superhero with the Avengers.

"He's not gonna give us the components we need," her father's voice said in her ear. "And we don't currently have the funds for it. Walk away, Hope. We'll have to try another angle."

Hope smiled politely at the man sitting across from her, and ignored every word her father said. "I'm going to need that transmitter," she told the man.

"Hope!" Her father snapped in her ear piece the same time the man across from her waved the transmitter in the air and stated, "You're gonna have to pry it from my cold, dead, hands, sweetheart."

It was too perfect. "That can be arranged," Hope said sweetly.

She flipped the table up, into the man's face. Before his henchmen could react, Hope snatched the transmitter, and launched herself over the booth, rushing for the door.

Gunshots firing behind her had Hope cursing, then ducking around the corner. Gripping the transmitter tightly, Hope grabbed her belt, and shrank down to miniature size.

And rose into the air.

Finally. Getting the hang of flying and maneuvering around had taken far too long, but once Hope had figured it out, it was like a part of her she hadn't known was missing settled into place. Hope zipped up and away from the henchmen, loving her wings, loving her suit, loving the way the weight that always seemed to be on her shoulders these days vanished when she took to the air and flew.

"Hope, you know I don't mind when you kick a moron's ass, but we didn't need that transmitter that bad, could you come back here so we can get back to the lab..."

Hope reached up and flipped her communicator off.

Three men charged after her, and feeling ornery, she grew to her regular size, and punched one in the face. She shrank the next second, avoiding a harsh hit to her head, and zoomed around Henchmen Number Two.

Growing again, she lashed out with a roundhouse kick and knocked down Henchmen Three. But the first one had already recovered, and slammed his fists into Hope's shoulders with enough force to slam her back, onto the ground. She landed on her wings, the breath whooshing out of her in a harsh gust.

Before he could stomp on her face, Hope shrank again, zipped away. Shooting up, she yanked his ear and flipped him around and back to the ground. Before any of them could recover, she was out the door and hovering on the street.

Then took a few lazy loops around the block, enjoying the wind on her face.

They'd done it.

They'd turned the machine on, they'd gotten it to work! The damn thing had overloaded, but that didn't matter! They had done it once, they could do it again, and get her mother...

"Hope." Her father held out his phone, face from. "You need to listen to this."

That couldn't be anything good. Reaching out, Hope accepted the phone, held it up to her ear, balancing on the stool she always used when trying to figure out a problem.

"Hey Hank. It's been a while." Hope closed her eyes and fought back the flood of emotions that swamped through her at Scott's voice.

"Um. I don't even know if this is your number anymore. Uh. I'm probably the last person you want to hear from. But—-I just had a really weird dream. And I know that that doesn't sound like an emergency or anything, but it just felt...very real. I was back in the Quantum Realm, and...I think I saw your wife. And then I WAS your wife. I mean, not in a weird way...

You know, hearing this out loud, I'm thinking...it's not an emergency. Sorry to bother you. I'm sorry for a lot of things."

She lowered the phone, whirling around to face her father. "He had a dream. We turned the tunnel on, and he had a dream."

"We need to confirm it, speak to Scott, find out what it means."

Hope stood slowly, images of her mother running through her mind, tangling with memories of Scott smiling at her.

"It means she's alive," Hope breathed. "And Scott can help us find her."