Archive of Our Own ^beta

“I’m not sorry I did it,” Scott tells the other guys evenly, learned swagger in his stance. Then he smirks. It's a smile he perfected years and years ago, full of mischief and the kind of intelligence that gets you by even when you're an irredeemable fuck-up. "I'm sorry I got caught."

The other guys laugh at that, shove at Scott’s shoulder, say man, you ain’t so bad. At night, Scott stares up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the encroaching emptiness in his chest, and he thinks, hey, this ain’t so bad.

Then the thought of Cassie hits him with a force a punch could never manage, and he covers his mouth with his hand so his cellmate Luís won’t hear him dry-sobbing and gasping in the middle of the night, sick with shame.

He isn’t sorry. He isn’t sorry for stealing from bad guys and helping the people they were stealing from. He isn’t sorry for making them pay. 

But.

The truth is that yeah, he is sorry, in a lot of ways.

He’s sorry that he let that fever pitch of excitement, the kind he hadn’t felt in years, sweep him along. He's sorry that he broke into the big boss’s house when he didn’t have to, sorry that he drove a sinfully expensive car into a sinfully expensive pool and couldn’t stop laughing when he climbed out of the water, even when he found himself surrounded by cops. He's sorry for sneering, “Whatcha gonna do?”

The answer was, of course, arrest him.

Duh.

Scott’s been in San Quentin for two weeks now. His head's always spinning and he doesn’t think he’s breathed properly since last month, but he's been okay enough, still kind of elated; drunk on residual adrenaline and his own stubborn knowledge that he did the right thing, despite the buzzing in the back of his head reminding him that he’s ruined his life.

He got caught.

Scott’s been stealing since he was a little kid and he’s never gotten caught, but maybe some of that was luck, and you run out of that after a while, don’t you? 

He was so fucking hopped up on righteous anger and itching to restart his Robin Hood schtick that he figured he wouldn’t, couldn’t get caught, that his luck would hold, but—

But Scott's coming down (no, no, he wants the mindless exuberance back, he doesn’t want to think, doesn’t want to face reality), and he has to admit that the truth is worse than that.

The truth is that during his off-the-cuff heist, he didn't even care if he got caught.

Now, as he retches over the side of his bunk while Luís, who woke up anyway, fusses over him, he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t understand.

He guesses he belongs here, then. He shouldn’t be on the outside if his too-fast, too-much mind has failed him like this, and, hey…

Prison ain’t so bad.

Scott likes helping, and he likes being needed.

He guesses that those are the things that make him a good superhero, though he’s not very super at all.

There’s a few reasons Scott goes with Clint when he comes calling, and he’s self-aware enough that, honestly? He knows that one of them is that he’s not doing so hot. The kind of “not doing so hot” that he knows shouldn’t get paired up with “making life-changing decisions”. He knows himself well enough to understand when he’s keyed up, especially considering how things have been going. 

Especially considering what happened with Cassie a few weeks ago.

(Every time things get hard, you turn back to crime.) 

So when Scott opens the door to an Avenger, the arrow one whose name he always forgets, he refuses what he's sure he's going to be asked to do upfront, because it's going to mean breaking the law. 

Scott figures this out in a snap, even through the shock of having an entire Avenger right in front of him. 

Scott follows the news, okay, and even if he didn’t, Hank and Hope’s grumbling would tip him off to what's happening in the superhero world. Neither of them think the Accords are legit. Scott, who’s pretty good at telling what’s legit and what isn’t, agrees.  So do a bunch of (other?) enhanced humans, like half of the Avengers, led by Cap, who's clearly trying to save his old battle buddy from what Scott's sure is an Accords-approved shoot-to-kill order.

So Scott's working answer to the question of why the fuck did I open my door to a superhero? comes down to "the fugitive Avengers who are following Cap are gearing up for some kind of battle, probably one with the Avengers that signed the Accords, if they're looking for other enhanced people to join the fight." 

Hence arrow dude.

Hence Scott.

So, on the bright side, Scott’s going to get recruited to work with real, actual superheroes, but on the downside, he’ll become a fugitive, and, like, been there, done that. Besides, Scott knows that he’s too excitable right now to rationally make this decision, he knows he’s too flight-ready for it to be entirely natural, especially considering that he shouldn't wear the suit in a non-lab environment after what the quantum realm and Pym particles have probably done to him. 

He knows that the sparking in his brain and the excitement he feels at being considered by real superheroes and the impulse to do the right thing (but is it the right thing, or is that just what his brain’s saying?) and the jittery feeling of bored, have to move, bored, have to move, scared, have to run, and the fact that he hasn’t slept in 72 hours all mean that any big decision he’ll make now will be a bad one, even if it’s a good one, like the VistaCorp job. 

So, before he can get a pitch, before he can say yes, he gapes for a second and then groans, leans against his doorframe, and says, “No.”

Arrow dude raises his eyebrows. “You don’t even know why I’m here.”

“You need another body for some kind of fight, probably against the Avengers who aren’t actively breaking the law, which is why you're looking for another super body. Blah, blah, blah, it all started with the Sokovia Accords, maybe it’s still about the Sokovia Accords, maybe it’s something about Barnes, I’m not really in on the details here, but basically, I have a very specific skill-set and I’d be helpful and story of my life.”

Arrow guy looks taken aback, and Scott basks in it, smirking and then straight-up grinning. He loves it when he’s smart and people get surprised, because he is smart. Scott’s a fucking genius. These guys’ll be lucky to have him. “I got it, didn’t I?”

“Not entirely, but you got some of it. Who told you that?”

“The news told me that, your presence told me that…I’m good at puzzles, arrow dude.”

“Clint.”

“Sure.”

“We need you.”

“Woah, buy me dinner first.”

“Seriously, Ant-Man—”

“Scott Lang, pleased to meet you.”

“—Scott, we’re seriously understaffed, and we need help. Captain America needs help.”

Scott bites his lip to keep himself from saying, fuck yes, let’s do this, and tries to think of all the reasons he shouldn’t.

Well, he’d become a fugitive again. Maybe he’d go to jail, and, yeah, it's not like he’s never been, but he’d rather not, especially since it hasn’t even been long since he got out and got his life sorta back together. 

Besides, is this even his fight? It’s true that the Accords can come back to bite him if he ever has to seriously put the suit on again, because he’s sure as hell not signing them, but depending on his health, he might never put the suit on again. Most of the reason he's even working with the suit in the lab is so that they can figure out how to keep Hope from suffering the adverse effects of the particles like Scott has.

But then again, it’s the right thing from the beginning—helping Captain America, fighting against unfair shit backed by incompetent politicians and Tony fucking Stark, saving a man’s life because Scott doesn’t believe in the death penalty, no matter what Barnes did, and then Clint explains about the other Winter Soldiers, about how Cap and Barnes have to get to Siberia or the world could be in danger, and--

Yeah, of course this is the right thing to do. His brain screams this at him, tells him he has to, he's gotten the chance to be a hero again and he has to, but—

If he does this, not only might he never see his friends again, he might never see his kid again, and that thought should shut the door in Clint’s face.

It doesn’t.

Because, first of all, there’s the least painful thing about this—they thought of him. There are other people they could’ve called, right? Probably. Definitely. But Scott was chosen, and though the rational part of his brain says it’s because Falcon knows him and doesn’t care about him and thus is willing to shove him into this fight no problem, Scott likes that. He likes being a first choice, likes being good at something, likes being special.

Special ed, some part of his brain sneers at him, but the thought dances away before he can latch onto it, and it's just insecurity rearing its ugly head, ain’t it? It always is, and Scott’s not in any position to feel insecure right now.

Wait, never mind—sure he is. 

About Cassie. Always about Cassie.

In the end, Scott comes to his decision because of Cassie, even if it's not the right decision.

Because if Scott does this, he might never see his kid again, and there’s a traitorous part of himself that says, that would be a good thing, even though he’s done so much to be with her again. It’s just that maybe that was a mistake. Maybe it was just selfishness.

Scott might see Cassie pretty much every day because he’s changed his ways, he’s a goddamn hero, but he still doesn’t have custody. He knows that's because Maggie and Paxton don’t trust him with her, not for an extended period of time, and he doesn’t fight it because the courts wouldn’t trust him with her either. Hell, neither does…

Neither does Scott.

Not after everything. Not after what happened a few days back. 

Fuck, it might not seem like such a big deal, might seem like a mistake anyone can make, (that’s what Luis told him when he wanted to kill himself over it), forgetting his daughter is allergic to strawberries, letting her get strawberry ice cream (when usually he would’ve told her she had to save room for dinner) because, hell, it was a nice day and the sun was shining and so was everything inside of him, but it wasn’t an honest mistake he could make whenever, it was because he was like that—

—thinking back to that day he might as well have been drunk, letting her do whatever she wanted and she knew she could do whatever she wanted and she hadn’t realized how allergic she was to strawberries and she’s eight and he should have known, his memory’s not what it used to be, though he’d rather not think of it and it's not like he consistently remembers how much he doesn't remember, but he should’ve known—

—and then, she’s the one who found her Epi-Pen, she’s the one who stabbed it into her leg because Scott was too scattered to even fully understand what was going on, when he called 911 they thought he was the one in medical trouble because he didn’t even know where they were, and Maggie didn’t even yell at him when he explained what happened, she just looked sad and told him to please breathe because she knows him and he’s better but he’s not better enough—

Anyway.

Cassie still loves him in that unconditional way he will forever maintain he’s not worth, even with the recent forays into heroism, and now, after the incident, he’s been wondering if he should even be the cool dad who visits but doesn’t live with her, if he should be anything at all, all things considered, if he should just stick with being a hero that she can be proud of without being in her life.

When Scott picks Cassie up from school, the other parents side-eye the hell out of him, and Cassie notices, of course she notices, she’s such a smart kid, and she glares at them. Scott wants to tell her you don’t have to protect me, because she’s eight years old.

He doesn’t, because he’s not even sure she knows she’s doing it. She’s just a good kid, and he doesn’t want to quell her protective instincts or anything, but he really wishes she wouldn’t try to protect him. He protects her, that’s how it’s supposed to be. He’d die for her. He almost did. 

He’d never tell her that, though. He doesn’t want to scare her.

Scott’s been jittery and tired and sleepless all at once, smiling, smiling, smiling, aware enough of the highness he’s feeling to know he’ll fall, and there’s a part of him—a big part, even—that’s been waiting for this, for a chance to do something stupid that he can’t refuse. It’s the part that’s terrified he’s going to be in Cassie’s life too long and she’ll realize that he’s a fuck-up to the nth degree. The part that’s dreamed up a worst-case scenario that keeps him up at night: a world where he thinks he’s gotten better and will even have partial custody by the time he screws up again in a way that can’t even be twisted as philanthropic. A world where he breaks her heart irreparably because he’s too fucked in the head to be a parent.

(Scott knows all about cycles.)

(At least this can be a good guy thing.)

The thing that really tortures him is the knowledge that if that worst case scenario ever plays out, she probably won’t even hate him for it. 

He’ll hurt her and she’ll know: he can’t help it, because he can already see Cassie starting to really understand how fucked up he is, like when he was a kid and his mother wouldn’t stop crying even though his cousin was over, before his family stopped coming over. 

He was so embarrassed, wondering why his mama couldn’t control herself, but he made Lizzie dinner and smiled and told her that her auntie was just watching a lot of sad movies. 

And a year later, when he was eleven, he placed himself between his mom and his uncle when his uncle was tearing into her for not taking care of herself or the children she was in charge of and screamed, Shut the fuck up, she can’t help it!

Now he knows that that was the moment that he really, really understood that his mother wasn’t okay, which meant it was his job to be the okay one.

Cassie’s only nine, but Scott’s terrified that, considering how smart she is, not just intellectually but socially, not to mention what Maggie and Paxton might have told her about him (or what she might've overheard), she's already figured it out.

When he tried to apologize to her about the strawberry incident, she apologized to him.

She told him it wasn’t his fault, please don’t feel so bad, because she knew she was allergic to strawberries even if she didn’t know how allergic. She was just curious about how they tasted. She wouldn’t have done it, she said, if she hadn’t known he was distracted, and she shouldn’t have taken advantage of that.

So sweet, so mature.

Scott doesn’t want to be that kind of father.

He doesn’t want to be a burden.

Arrow dude asks, “Are you even listening to me?”

Scott smiles with all his teeth, so bright it burns, hopes the crazy in his eyes isn’t obvious, and says, “I’ll do it.”

Scott gets the chance to run away, and he takes it.

(This way, he can disappear without really going back to crime.

Or killing himself.)

Scott’s a pussy.

He falls asleep in the van, brain finally overloaded, and it’s such a relief.

He doesn’t remember the battle, after. Not really. Flashes of color, a few words, his own upbeat voice, so much giddy excitement. He went giant. 

That was cool, even though—

It hurt, and he knows the Pym particles mess with your brain and that going giant probably just made things worse up there, since his brain’s already messed up enough even without all the Pym particles banging around upstairs. Even without what happened with the quantum realm, which is almost definitely why he's been so heavily affected by this.

About a month after they defeat Darren, Scott can’t sleep. He cleans his and Luís’s apartment from top to bottom, does so many push-ups and sit-ups he loses count, and when he’s done he still. Can’t. Sleep. He’s been up (up, up, and away!) for the past several weeks, but now his elation’s bubbling over into this feeling of restlessness that makes him want to tear his skin off, and he’s pacing around his living room like a caged animal, thoughts scattered so far apart that he can’t reach them, can't force them to cohere.

He’s so lost lately. He thinks it might be the particles, or, more likely, the effects of the quantum realm, because he’s been lost in his head for too long before, he’s even lost time before, but now he’s losing memories completely, losing his memory, forgetting things he learned seconds ago, and that’s not normal. He has a fantastic memory. Had a fantastic memory? Anyway. 

He’s on this topic because he’s in front of Hank’s house—Hope is staying there for a while, since Hank’s still kind of feeling the effects of being shot—and he doesn’t know how he got here. Was he just lost in his head? Shit, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know.

He’s not at his best. He can feel himself vibrating with something like excitement and something like frustration or maybe an ungodly mix of both, because things haven’t been going badly despite his being so wired, but now—

He takes out his phone and texts Hope with shaking fingers.

hey im in front coz ur house dont now how i got here??? out of it not sure whats up

He’s terrible at texting, never mind the whole “mechanical engineer” thing; he still just kind of sucks at it, probably because of the whole writing part, and all the little keys mashed together, and the fact that even though he’s tricked-out his dinosaur of a phone until it’s barely recognizable as a relic, it still doesn’t have autocorrect. There was nothing he could do.

He gets a text back. Scott? What the hell? It’s cold.

He didn’t notice. He’s in jeans and a t-shirt and he doesn’t feel cold at all. Honestly, he feels slightly feverish, but he tries very hard to focus on what the weather’s actually like, and when the wind whips through his uncombed hair, he realizes that it’s fucking freezing.

It’s dark out too.

Lots of stars where Hank and Hope are, away from the smog.

Lots of stars.

He can see constellations, his mama used to take him to the planetarium and he’d point out all the constellations, she could never remember their names—

“Scott?” Hope asks because, at some point, she opened the door, and he tears himself away from the stars. Sometimes heroes became constellations in the old legends. Scott wonders if he’ll ever be a constellation. He doesn’t think so. He’s Ant-Man, so he’d have to be just one star, the smallest star in the sky, not even visible, he likes being invisible, it’s good for breaking and entering, good for hiding that he’s like this. 

He laughs a little, and then looks Hope in the eye. She has pretty eyes. He kisses her just because he feels like it, the bugs-under-his-skin feeling (he wants to tear it out, tear it out) going away for a second and the pure elation coming back.

She only returns the kiss for a second before pushing him away gently. “Thought we’d decided that wasn’t working,” she points out.

“We said the relationship wouldn’t work. Sex isn’t off the cards, is it?” He smiles brightly, suddenly interested in this, happy again.

He met Maggie at a bar while he was up, but only to the point where he was overflowing with not-quite joy. He did manage to literally charm the pants off her, except not really because that night she was wearing a skirt, and they didn’t actually have sex, not during the AIDS crisis. He never went to bars to pick people up, but that day he suddenly felt like it, and he was lucky, because Maggie turned out to be the kind of woman who stayed. He wishes he’d been better to her. Maybe he should go see her, but even now he knows that’s a bad idea, going to Maggie and Paxton’s house while extra wired, especially since Cassie’s there and she’s such a light sleeper.

“What the hell, Scott?” Hope asks sharply. She sounds pissed. Scott understands. He's also angry at himself a lot of the time. “This isn’t like you at all.”

“Oh,” Scott says, smirking, “you’ve never known me like this.”

“Scott,” Hope says warily, “I’m not going to sleep with you. I mean it.”

“Okay,” Scott chirps in response, waving it off, already on something else, whatever it might be. “It was just a thought.”

“I mean it,” Hope says again, and Scott frowns before it hits him and his eyes widen.

He puts his hands up in a don’t worry gesture. “I’m not going to do anything you don’t wanna do, promise. Not gonna push. It’s cool, not interested, I’ll just leave now?”

Hope relaxes a little. “No, it’s okay. Just know that we’re not going to…fuck, especially not right now.”

Scott snorts with laughter. “You said 'fuck'.”

Hope rolls her eyes and replies, “Come in. Are you not wearing a coat? What’s wrong with you?”

“So much, Hope,” Scott says in all seriousness even as he breezes in through the door. “So much.”

Standing in the ornate sitting room, Scott gets the jitters again, bouncing up and down on his heels and humming to himself, rubbing his hands through his hair and then wringing them out like they’re wet.

“How much coffee have you had today?” Hope asks, looking genuinely concerned. 

“None!” Scott says, voice suddenly uptight and edgy.

“Seriously?”

“I mean, I could’ve just forgotten, but I’m pretty sure Luís didn’t let me have coffee this morning. Said I was already way too high.”

“You’re high? On what?”

“No, no! Brain high, Hope! Brain high!” Scott moves his index finger in circles next to his temple in the universal sign for ‘crazy’.

Hope blinks. “Oh,” she says numbly. “Is this…new?”

“You mean, is it the Pym particles? Nope! I’ve been this way for dec-ades. I usually don’t tell people this. I’m usually not this bad. I should’ve just gone on a run.”  

“…I seriously thought you were just drinking way too much coffee lately.”

Scott throws his head back and laughs. “Better than the truth, right?” He pauses. “Even though I’ve been meaning to tell you guys in the lab—the memory loss is getting worse. I mean, I get lost in my head and lose time, but I’m forgetting more and losing time, like…more when I do, y’know?”

Hope’s face says that she does not know. “Memory loss?”

“Yeah, that’s new. I mean, that's not something I've had for decades. And I dunno, maybe the particles are making the existing—” Scott makes a theremin noise here—“worse. But it’s been pret-ty bad before, I’ll tell you that. I mean, you think I’m actually stupid enough to drive a dude’s car into a swimming pool on a whim without being nuts?”

“That’s what happened?”

“Uh, yeah! Boy, I’m gonna regret telling you this later! Gonna shut up now, bye, Hope!” Scott turns to leave, ready to just run through the streets or something until he outruns the restlessness and/or collapses. 

Hope grabs his shoulder. It feels like he’s being electrocuted, and he hisses and pulls away. She steps back. “You’re not leaving,” she says firmly. “It’s cold, you’re not dressed for it, and you’re not…not in your right mind. I don’t…I don’t want you to get hurt, Scott.”

“That’s sweet, Hope,” he coos, “but you really don’t have to worry about me. Not your job.”

“You’re my friend and my colleague.” Hope smiles gently. “Your presence in the lab would be missed.”

Scott laughs. “Well, I can’t really do anything here, and I’m kinda…dying? Not dying, just super—” at this point he makes some vague hand gestures that represent how scattered his brain is right now.

“Okay, yeah, I’m going to give you some Ambien and you’re going to go to sleep. When’s the last time you slept?”

Scott pauses, frowns, and then shrugs. He knows Luís shoved him into his room the other night and told him to sleep, Scotty, but he didn’t, just turned off the light in his room and programmed a little computer game he thinks Cassie’ll like.

“Yeah, thought so. Come on,” Hope says, jerking her head towards the staircase. “I’ll grab the pills.”

Scott’s never been the kind of person who takes pills that aren’t OTC things occasionally only available in Latin America that Luís shoves at him or vitamins that Maggie forces on him, but that’s more because he hates doctors and can’t really afford them than an actual aversion to prescription medication, and he wants to sleep so bad, God. 

He goes to the room he was in last time he slept in this house—he still doesn’t know who changed his clothes, by the way—and sits down on the bed, bouncing up and down and rocking back and forth. This is torture. He’s going to jump out of his skin. He scratches at it until Hope comes upstairs with a couple of pills and a glass of water, slaps his hands away from his arms, and urges him to drink. 

The pills work, at least. He’s pretty sure Hope gave him one too many, but he doubts it’ll kill him, so whatever. 

As he goes to sleep, brain still painfully electric until the bitter end, he feels Hope sitting on the bed next to him, and her hand on his hip, warm and steady. Through the sheets, it doesn’t hurt. 

The last thing he hears is her deep, weary sigh.

Going giant, though.

That was still cool.

Look.

Scott’s serious.

(Incredibly, yes, sometimes he is absolutely, completely serious.)

He really does know all about cycles.

When it gets too hard, you just go back to crime.

The truth is that he was never able to step away from the crime business until he got arrested, even though he’d already promised Maggie that he’d stopped.

And he had, actually, right up until he realized that even in his attempt to stop he’d been aiding and abetting fucking criminals, and not the kind he could live with.

Then, even after he got out of prison, he got pulled back in because of all the things he’s good at, stealing is at the top of the list, and—when it gets too hard, you just go back to crime.

In that situation, it worked out and he became a superhero, but it could just as well have not worked out, (because seriously, how many times is lapsing back into criminal behavior gonna end in that? Not many, is the answer; Scott was lucky, is the answer), and then where would Scott have been?

He leans his head back against the smooth, cool wall of his cell in the Raft and thinks, Right here.

In the Raft, Scott feels himself finally die. Emotionally, not physically. He’s not a zombie, thank God. At least he has that, right?

But he’s empty. He’s back where he started, though he’s not entirely sure what he really means by 'where he started', because, technically, he started when he was born, but when he thinks of the beginning of his life, or at least his life now, he thinks, San Quentin.

As if when he went to prison, he was actually born.

Or maybe that’s when he started to die. Not passively die, like everyone is doing all the time, but actively die.

In Scott’s life, there is a before and an after.

Getting sent to a maximum security prison was the after.

And sometimes he can barely remember the before.

(His memory’s shot, his memory’s shot, it wasn’t like this before, he doesn’t really talk about it because saying it makes it true, but his brain scans came back and—

He doesn’t like thinking about it.)

He remembers being eighteen and pulling off his first heist and paying off his mama’s hospital bills, twenty-five and meeting Maggie for the first time, thirty and bright and bushy-tailed and so excited to be the first person in his family to have graduated college, thirty-eight and proud of his MEng and elated to marry his first love, still thirty-eight and pretty much shrieking in excitement at having gotten the job at VistaCorp, promising Maggie that this time he’d quit crime for good, man, they were set for life, thirty-nine and enchanted by his baby girl—

He remembers the thrill of stealing, and the thing is, Scott’s been stealing since he was a little kid, ever since his mama’s boyfriend Greg (and Greg was Scott’s favorite; look, yeah, he was a cokehead but he was a fundamentally nice guy) taught him that if you’re smart, you take the stuff rich people don’t need. So Scott did.

But he remembers prison best, as if his brain is too full with the after and blueprints and facts and figures and the knowledge that’s always gotten him by and the fucking Pym particles to spend time on the before, even though the after hasn’t even been a decade, he doesn’t think.

(Time and space. It’s all about time and space, and how Scott’s never exactly been great at understanding it, but now, now…)

Three years wasn’t too long, especially since it wasn’t even the full sentence, considering his getting out early for good behavior.

(Good dog, heel.)

It still changed everything.

Why wouldn’t it?

Scott wonders how long he’ll be in the Raft (on the Raft? Grammar’s never been his strong suit). It’s boring. He talks to the others, sings to himself, drums on the tiny metal table, sleeps…

The couple of weeks they’re all there on the Raft are spent being as chipper as he can be, falling back into old habits and putting his front up higher than he has in years, even as he feels his soul getting sucked out with every exhale; throwing himself into everyone else’s emotional worlds so that he can leave behind his own. He just wants to keep everyone’s minds off of how much this sucks, especially Wanda’s, because he knows the poor kid’s stuck in a straitjacket and fucking shock collar, and honestly? He’s pretty used to this, he used to end up in solitary all the time when he wasn’t doing great, he can take it.

It’s actually kind of freaky how used to this he is.

He’s locked up, la-di-da.

Oh fucking well.

It’s where he belongs.

He’s actually pretty caught off-guard when Captain America, Black Widow, and the fucking King of Wakanda bust them out, but he pretends that he expected this from the very beginning, doesn’t even let on to the fact that he’d already been pondering exactly how he could kill himself in this place for when he finally got sick of it, for when he finally couldn’t keep up the the I’m-as-okay-as-I-can-be-under-the-circumstances-maybe-even-more-okay-than-expected masquerade he’s been perfecting for most of his life.

Scott’s chill, Scott goes with the flow…

Once he’s on the jet with the others, he carefully removes Wanda’s shock collar—it’s child’s play, honestly—and straitjacket. It makes him an exhausted kind of angry to see the abuse heaped on her because of her powers, pain she didn’t and doesn’t deserve, but he keeps his words light as he states the obvious, because God knows how obvious anything is to Wanda right now. “Hey, we’re on a jet, flying off to Wakanda. Guess it’ll be an adventure, right? We’ll have a lot of space.”

A tear trails its way down Wanda’s cheek. Scott doesn’t wipe it away, but he does carefully pull her hair back so it’s not stuck to her face anymore. “You have pretty hair, Wanda,” he murmurs, and a-ha, there’s a flicker of life in her eyes, if not a smile on her face. “You know, there’s this song my mama used to sing to me when I was a kid, all the time, and there’s this part—in the Big Rock Candy Mountain, all the jails are made of tin, and you can walk right out again as soon as you get in…” Scott chuckles. “Perfect world, right?”

The others are looking at him now, he can feel their eyes on his oversensitive skin, but he focuses on Wanda, and it pays off when she whispers, “Is there more?”

It’s the first time he can remember hearing her voice, though he must’ve before, right?

“Oh, yeah. Wanna hear it? I know my dulcet tones are always welcome.” It’s not untrue, actually. The kids in the neighborhood always used to ask him to sing, even though he knows he’s not that good, he just knew songs everyone liked, crowd pleasers, he’s always been a crowd pleaser.

Wanda does nothing for a long moment while Scott waits patiently because he knows what it’s like to have a brain so sluggish that it takes forever to do anything at all, even register words, and then she nods.

“Hold onto your hat, kiddo, ‘cause…one evening as the sun went down, and the jungle fire was burning, on the track came a hobo walking and he said ‘boys I’m not turning’, I’m headed for a land that’s far away, beside the crystal fountains, so come with me, let’s go and see, the Big Rock Candy Mountain…”

Wanda listens to it the whole way through, even smiling a little—or maybe that’s just wishful thinking, because the smile’s more in the eyes than anything—when he gets to the last verse, the one he'd sampled from earlier. “In the Big Rock Candy Mountain, all the jails are made of tin, and you can walk right out again as soon as you get in. There ain’t no short-handled shovels, no axes, saws, or picks, oh, I’m bound to stay where they sleep all day, where they hung the jerk that invented work, in the Big Rock Candy Mountain…”

When he’s done, she asks to hear it again, and he obliges her. She falls asleep on his shoulder just as he sings, “I’ll see y’all this coming fall, in the Big Rock Candy Mountain…”

He leans his head against hers, feels her hair greasy under his cheek, and hopes the look on his face isn’t as broken and empty as his heart.

Sam says, “I’d never heard that song the whole way through.”

Scott grins because he should. “It’s a good song.”

“Yeah,” Sam murmurs, looking at him with shining dark eyes so gently calculating that Scott has to look away. “Yeah, it is.”

Everyone’s so tired, so sad, and it’s natural for Scott to take it upon himself to pretend he’s not. Someone has to be the not-a-mess person, and Scott’s already used to being that person or at least trying to be, even when his life’s a mess. He’s always had to be that person, despite being soft.

He’s dealing pretty well. He’s always dealing pretty well. He can put on a brave face, a happy face, whichever face is right for the situation, even if it’s not what he feels, even if it’s not organic.

He’s been told by a lot of people, mostly the people he grew up with and the people he’s worked with, that he’s a pussy, too soft on everything and everyone, too sensitive, too easy to walk all over, but honestly? That doesn’t matter. It’s worked out fine for him, sort of. He puts on a brave face and survives, as good a man as he can be. He uses his softness to his advantage, wraps it around everyone else and leaves himself cold, because he feels feverish most of the time anyway.

Wakanda’s beautiful. Paradise. Mountains so high they brush the dazzlingly clear sky, lush greenery, gorgeous wildlife. They’re not around any cities, more in the middle of nowhere than anything, surrounded by secrets and a really impressive panther statue, but Scott knows the buildings in most populated areas must be like the facility they’re housed in, sleek and strong and graceful; not to mention the incredible scientific accomplishments hanging out pretty much everywhere. Even in the condo where they’re kept, there are a million and one fascinating things.

Or things that should be fascinating to a person with a graduate degree in electrical engineering, but the truth is that Scott’s not in the mood to be particularly fascinated by anything. He’s tired and he feels little-to-nothing about their surroundings or their situation. He wishes he could be as high as the mountains again, but he’s flatlined instead, and he’s pretty sure he’s not going to be able to snap out of this one. Not after the Pym particles, after the quantum realm, after fucking up his entire life in less than a week. He’s gone overboard this time, and his mind can’t take it. He knows this.

He feels like a ghost, left behind, floating along and phoning in his entire existence.

He pretends to be excited, of course, bounces around the condo they’ve been set up in (their new prison, because it might be house arrest but Scott knows how trapped feels) and chatters on and on about the advanced tech, even mourns that there’s nothing broken so that he can fix it (that, he actually does kind of mourn, because he thinks maybe if there was something to do, something to keep his hands busy, something simple to occupy his mind and use his motor memory, he’d be able to feel a spark of interest, be able to want to do something other than the basics, something other than wrapping himself around everybody else like friendly fog and trying to make them feel something, trying to give them the feelings he wishes he could have), babbles brightly about movies they should see (hey, they can stream just about anything here, and the TV’s so huge Scott feels guilty just looking at it, can’t help feeling like he stole it, I’d never be able to afford that), tells jokes that make the others groan and sometimes even laugh, helps Wanda wash her hair and start up her bath and babbles at her about how beautiful things are here, how they’ll get even better once they’re all settled in, she’ll see.

It’s not so hard. Honestly, it’s almost second nature, being helpful and cheerful enough to not inspire any scrutiny about who he actually is and how he’s really doing, smiling through the pain, everything he says the product of the kind of automated voice that pleasantly chirps please hold while you try not to throw the phone at the wall.

Still, it’s so painfully obvious in the first few days that he doesn’t really know these people, that they don’t really know him, when he sees them interact with each other. Wanda may have formed an attachment to him, but that’s mostly because he’s always made himself easy to latch onto and she needs support, especially now, traumatized and timid and angry, and he’s right here. Clint is the one she’s actually attached to, the real ‘dad’, no matter how Scott’s latched onto her right back, missing his daughter, missing taking care of people, not able to let a young woman suffer when he can help.

(He’s always had a habit of being a dad at people, probably because he spent all his time taking care of the younger kids in the neighborhood--the older kids would make fun of him for being the neighborhood’s go-to babysitter because that was a girl’s job, but he was never a normal boy, and he was always too busy to try to be--and because…because he doesn’t see his kid enough.)

And there’s other combinations, other relationships he can only witness from the outside, Sam and Cap smiling at each other or talking quietly, heads bent closely, everything they do shining with all the things they’ve been through together, because all four of the Avengers, fugitive but still superheroes, in the end, have been through a lot together, and they’re so clearly people who’ve known each other for longer than maybe a month, in more than understandably shallow and disturbingly intimate ways.

(They so clearly don’t need him, but he tries to be something anyway.)

They mean something to him, of course, even most things. He puts all of his dwindling energy into them, these half-strangers, into their happiness, their continued existence, because you start caring, when you fight next to someone, when you go to jail with someone, when you’re broken out of jail by someone.

But they have each other, so he doesn’t have to be important to them.

And he has nobody, so they have to be everything to him, or he’ll die for real.

Sometimes Scott sees the others and feels something like vertigo and something like awe, especially when he looks at Captain America and thinks, I idolized you as a kid. I still kind of do, even if you’re all mopey and technically way younger than me. I mean, your involvement is at least part of why I did this. Probably.

But at least that’s something he’s getting over real fast, because they’re not that special.

Scott gets less and less starstruck every moment he spends with the others until he’s almost comfortable around them, until he starts actually spending time with them, actually getting to know them and starting to realize that maybe he does have friends here, that maybe he’s even becoming part of the family, though that’s a thought that makes him too uncomfortable to dwell on.

They’re just people. Hope always said that, so she’s right again, as usual.

Superheroes aren’t that special. You’re one, aren’t you?

Hope.

Scott had called Hope from the van, half-asleep and excited in a scattered kind of way. The conversation is a blur in his mind, like most things from that short, electric period in time, but he knows the basics: he explained what was going on and that he might not be able to talk to her again but he’d try and he really cares about her and thanks for everything you’ve done for me, you’re the most kick-ass person I’ve ever met, and, and, and, tell Luís that I’m sorry for not saying goodbye but I’m going on an adventure and I hope he gets to go on a million more and he’s a hero too, he’s always been a hero to me, he’s saved my life more times than he probably knows, and please tell Cassie that I love her more than anything and that she’s the most important thing in my whole world but I don’t think I should be in hers and that I hope she can remember me as an okay guy because I know I’m doing the right thing. Hope, I love you, not like that, y’know, but I do, I do.

On Hope’s part, Scott mostly remembers her saying that he was being an idiot, that none of it was worth it, right thing or not, and that Cassie wanted him in her world; but in the end she’d just let out a shaky sigh and said, Fine, I know you’re going to do it, so do it, but you should know you don’t have to be anyone’s drone anymore. I…damn it! I’ll miss you, Scott. I…love you too.

He’s not sure who hung up first, or if they ever even said goodbye, but it doesn’t matter, because what he can remember of that conversation (and his memory used to be so good, he’s always thinking about that, dwelling on it, he should stop dwelling on the past but his memory was prodigious, and he still has some of that, this perfect recall of blueprints and circuit boards and numbers and equations and things he’s been told, totally on-point motor memory that keeps him going when he’s far away, but he still feels a difference…) can more than occupy his mind.

He wonders how Hope’s doing.

Maybe he’ll be able to call her sometime. Maybe they can talk.

Other than Luís (and the thought of him and the guys burns—God, Scott wishes he’d said goodbye; he already misses Luís’s exuberance and rambling stories), she’s his best friend, and they might not be in love, but when she would lie next to him she was warm in a way he welcomed, and she kisses like she’s coming home from war.

He hasn’t really thought about her much, about anyone but Cassie or the people he’s living in close quarters with because he doesn’t have the energy, but now he thinks about her. Her and Hank and Luís. Hank is probably fine with all of this, even proud, and Scott can’t think about Luís right now, that just hurts too much, but Scott wonders if Hope really will miss him.

Just like she was—is—one of his best friends, he knows he was one of hers, and now that he thinks of the way Hope said I love you too, words he remembers with pitch-perfect clarity, he thinks: I was one of her only friends.

That realization comes very suddenly, and the first time it does, the thought makes him sick. Literally—he ends up having to excuse himself from the table where he’s been braiding Wanda’s hair and stumble to the bathroom attached to the room he’s set aside for himself to retch violently into the hilariously technologically advanced toilet. Thankfully, he does has the presence of mind to turn the shower on before he starts vomiting. His stomach turns itself inside out until he’s dry heaving, and then his dry heaving becomes dry sobbing, or something like a panic attack.

Okay, it’s a panic attack. He might as well admit it, even just to himself. He’s admitting a lot to himself, these days. It's not like he hadn’t before, but now, now he’s dwelling on it all, analyzing it, digging through his memories because he can feel them going, sometimes.

He ends up prone on the floor of the bathroom, shower still running, but he can’t get up the energy to turn it off. He doesn’t want to anyway, since he’s being loud, so he just tries his best to slow down his breathing and quit his painful gasping. His eyes water from the effort, but he doesn’t cry. Scott never cries.

He doesn’t think he knows how to anymore.

When he was a kid, Scott was a crier until everyone started telling him not to be a pussy and, more importantly, his mama’s constant weeping made his own crying jags feel redundant. He started holding back tears until he ended up unable to actually let them spill, until they dried up completely. It doesn’t matter whether he’s up or down, he just doesn’t cry. Of course, that’s not completely accurate. He has cried--actually, honestly cried, real sobs with real tears--three times in the past forty-three years, always alone, always surprised and angry at himself for—

For acting like a little kid, the tiny boy with the wild curls who used to squeeze himself into the closet that held all the cleaning supplies in the apartment and cry until he was a mess of snot and tears, hiding his face and trying to muffle his loud sobbing so his mama and/or whichever friend or relative or boyfriend was over couldn’t hear him because that was before everyone else gave up on them, Scott and Harriet the freaks.

That little kid was pathetic, only just learning how to smile without meaning it, how to be who he was meant to be and not break down over it.

Crying feels awful anyway, even if it’s admittedly more cleansing than what he’s doing right now, dragging in desert-dry gasps and heaving out tortured sounds like some kind of landed fish, flat on his back with his feet planted on the ground, knees bent, arms across his abdomen pushing down, putting pressure on his body to try and make it all feel real.

Or at least to make it feel better.

So actually, to make it less real, then.

If he wants to be what he’s supposed to be, if he wants to feel okay, if he wants to function at all, it’s best to ignore reality, or at least keep it separate from action, and his brain is helping him with that these days, disconnecting him from what’s actually going on.

When he’s finally done freaking out, spent and catching his breath, thoughts too sluggish and scattered to give him something to be upset about, Scott is able to crawl over to the shower and turn it off. After that herculean effort, he ends up lying down again, his burning body welcoming the floor’s cool temperature. He feels like his brain’s seeping out of his ears and as he stares forlornly at the wall he vaguely registers that the position he’s in is seriously hurting his shoulder, so he should at least readjust himself to make the pain stop.

Instead, he must end up asleep—and sleep is the best thing he has lately, God, he wishes he could just sleep forever—because he wakes up to someone shaking his shoulder and hissing, “Yo, Tic Tac, wake up.”

“Whuh?” he mumbles, blinking to focus his eyes and finding himself looking up at Sam’s face.

“Man, what the hell you doing here?”

Scott laughs quietly, emptily, struggling to get himself to a seated position, feeling rubbery and bleary but surprisingly present, squinting against the harsh bathroom lights. He welcomes Sam’s voice. It’s one of his favorite voices, after all.

It reminds him of espresso, because it’s rich and warm and makes him feel awake.

Sam.

Of course it’s Sam who finds him like this.

The truth is that Sam’s the only one of his sorta-teammates that Scott ever wishes could be with him when he’s hurting.

He’s too proud to admit that he’d ever want anyone around him when his defenses are down, though, and it’s not like whatever half-delirious wishes Scott has for another human being who really knows him and who might even help him will ever come true, at least not here, and that human being certainly wouldn’t be Sam. Real Sam wouldn’t want to, what? Comfort him?

Please.

That’s just the fantasy Sam in his head, the one who admittedly acts just like the one he knows but has to be at least a little bit of a fantasy because Scott knows that any brief, halfhearted thought that Sam may even slightly reciprocate his stupid little crush must just be in his head. They’re normal friends. They watch TV together sometimes. That’s all. They’re nothing special to each other. It’s only been a month or two anyway, right? (Right?)

A few weeks isn’t enough to make that serious a connection when Sam already has people he actually cares about here.

Scott’s just delusional.

It’s early on in their stay in Wakanda, on a rare day (though Scott’s not sure whether there’s enough of a sample size of days here to figure out what’s rare and what isn’t) when they’re all in the same room just by coincidence, when Scott, finally a little bit braver about trying to fit in as opposed to hovering on the periphery of everyone else’s world, actively insists that they check out the TV, because it’s huge and has Wakandan Netflix and cable.

No one seems particularly interested. Wanda just shrugs listlessly, which is understandable. She spends most of her time sleeping, with Clint, or—when she wants someone a little less “gruff” than Clint (Steve’s delicate words, not Scott’s)—with Scott, but she doesn’t seem to be a TV kind of person. Steve makes a face, probably not interested in cutting into his brooding time. Clint, for his part, says he straight-up isn’t a fan of TV in general.

“Oh, come on,” Scott says, scoffing. “Live a little.”

“Why don’t you just read a book?” Clint asks pointedly.

Scott shrugs and pastes on a blithe smile, and Sam saves him from having to respond when he says, “Hell yeah, Tic Tac, let’s do this!”

Scott doesn’t know why he’s caught off guard by Sam’s eagerness, but it’s almost pleasurable, actually being surprised by someone in any way, since these days he accepts pretty much any behavior with the mental equivalent of Wanda’s favorite listless shrug.

Scott shoots him a brief, helpless smile. “Great!”

When it becomes clear that Scott can get Sam all to himself, he immediately stops bugging the others to join them, because the idea of being with Sam, just the two of them, makes him feel a pang of dizzy excitement. He immediately starts trying to convince himself that it’s actually just relief that he won’t have to interact with that many people, but he gives it up pretty quick because he’s old enough to know he has an adolescent crush, and he’s good enough at ignoring his feelings to let it go.

Of course, it’s easier to let these things go when you’re not regularly spending time with the object of your affections, who definitely isn’t doing anything to make you feel less affectionate, because Scott and Sam hang out a lot after the day they decide to watch some TV together and end up wasting hours in front of it, playing with the remote that Sam finds incomprehensible and Scott magnanimously explains to him, discovering a million different channels, and shooting the shit.

Look, being with Sam is fun, at least the most fun Scott ever has, and Sam isn’t intimidating after his and Scott’s admittedly inauspicious first meeting that gets funnier and funnier as time goes on.

Sam might be grumpy and sarcastic most of the time, sometimes even outright mean, and, yeah, he might have a a bit of a dramatic streak, all loud sighs and rolling eyes and petty anger, but Scott honestly finds all of that charming. Besides, Sam’s just a fundamentally good guy, one of the best Scott’s ever met, because Sam cares so much. He’ll always remind people to eat and sleep because “you’re not dying on my watch after I’ve spent so much time saving your asses”, and his helpful streak is a mile wide.

Even with all the way he’s fucked up—though, and Scott wants to be very clear on this, Sam is not a fuck-up—Sam is vital and determined and loyal and brave and he feels, he’s alive, and he’s got this wicked sense of humor too, but despite this he always laughs at Scott’s jokes, even the dad jokes that not even Scott thinks are funny, guffaws in this way that makes the memory of a real smile flit over Scott’s lips.

Anyway, Sam and Scott make a habit of watching TV together, chatting and analyzing and ridiculing and debating their way through classic films and awful made for TV movies, flipping through Wakandan cable to watch Wakandan cartoons and English-language sitcoms and dramas on the American and UK channels. They always start off on different sides of the couch, but it doesn’t take long to end up close together. Sometimes Scott puts his feet in Sam’s lap and watches him more than the TV, his heart beating a little harder when Sam smiles or, better, throws his head back and laughs, the long, elegant line of his neck making Scott’s breath catch for half a second, Sam’s fingers tracing along his ankle leaving little trails of heat on his skin.

No one bothers them when they’re watching TV together, even though they usually commandeer the living room for hours. It’s a time reserved just for them. Scott doesn’t really know why, but he doesn’t question it either.

Other than that, Sam’s mostly with Steve, and Scott’s ghosting along, sometimes with Wanda and sometimes vaguely interacting with the others, just a little bit of sunshine, but mostly alone in his room sleeping or kinda-sleeping.

It’s true, though, that one time Scott wanders into the living room late at night when he’s usually asleep, and finds Sam sitting alone on the couch in the dark, with the TV playing Wakandan infomercials, eyes bloodshot and this heartbreaking look of despair on his face that he never has when he’s with other people.

Despite his urge to do something to make it better, Scott just says, “Oh, man, I’m sorry, I’ll just, um, I’ll leave you to it,” because occasionally he knows it’s necessary to just let people be sad, but Sam says:

“No, stay.”

Scott stays, sitting next to Sam and watching infomercials until Sam falls asleep pressed against him and Scott finds himself staring at the TV as everything blurs away, even the weight of Sam’s head on his shoulder not enough to keep him tethered to the world he’s supposed to be living in.

“Hey!” Sam says, snapping his fingers in front of Scott’s face. Scott blinks dreamily, feeling the cold tiles of the bathroom, now smudged with sweat, under his hands as he meanders his way back into the present.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“God, you’re easily fucking distracted,” Sam murmurs. Scott obviously doesn’t say you don’t know the half of it, just lets Sam explain, “You’ve been AWOL for over a day. Everyone else was starting to think you died.”

“Everyone else, huh?” Scott asks lightly. “Not you?”

Sam cracks a smile and Scott feels a flutter of elation somewhere in his gut. “Nah, I know you’re tougher than that. Figured you were sleeping. You looked like you needed it.” Sam raises his eyebrows as Scott finally gets into a seated position leaning against the bathtub, legs sprawled out inelegantly in front of him. “Didn’t expect you to be sleeping on the bathroom floor, though. Thought you’d gotten knocked out for a second.”

“Oh, were you worried?” Scott asks, pasting on a smirk, hoping Sam will roll his eyes and head out now that he knows that Scott’s not actually dead.

“Yeah, I was,” Sam responds, and Scott can feel his smile fall and his face go slack with surprise, because he’s not used to people being genuinely worried about him, especially people like Sam who have better things to think about.

Scott’s brain immediately sends out warning bells—you don’t look like the you he knows—and his lips pull themselves up into a grin, his brain’s rusty gears whirring to try and figure out something to say. “I’m touched,” he says, voice teasing, like he’s not actually telling the truth. “But you don’t have to worry about me, man, seriously, I was just really tired.”

“So tired you couldn’t make it to bed? You sure you didn’t pass out?”

Scott gives a flippant wave of his hand and tries to think up some bullshit excuse through his brain fog. “It’s nothing. I can sleep anywhere and I was honest-to-goodness dead tired, so I guess I just found anywhere and called it my bed.” Scott lets out a bemused chuckle. “Hey, it’s a nice bathroom.”

“Were you sick? You’ve lost weight.”

Scott gasps in fake delight, hand on his heart. “Why, thank you for noticing, kind sir.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Can you be serious for five seconds?”

“I guess it’s not in my nature,” Scott says with his best cheeky grin.

Sam grudgingly smiles back at him and Scott feels a brief, weak internal cheer before he’s just drained again. He keeps his expression pleasantly neutral. He’s been manipulating his face like silly putty for years and by now he can feel which of his faces he’s making and change them without any significant effort. Sometimes his face moves and his mouth speaks, but it’s like he’s not even there, like he’s on autopilot.

Scott’s at the dinner table with the others—huh, it’s not exactly a common occurrence, all of them being together, eating dinner like some kind of family—grinning and chatting about something, mechanically eating a meal he can’t taste.

He has no idea how he got here.

It’s been a while.

Since he got to Wakanda, that is.

Probably not a long while, but a while. A few months.

Scott thought he was dead inside before, but at least he had enough undeadness to be high-functioning.

It’s not like that anymore.

Scott’s never been this bad before, not for this long, and he should be terrified. Instead, he’s only vaguely concerned, when he can get up the energy to be vaguely concerned for himself instead of the others.

Now he’s dead inside. His body’s left, and the bare bones of feelings, but really there’s not much of anything anymore, even less than there was at the beginning of this. At least then his memory loss wasn’t as bad. He wasn’t seriously contemplating suicide, wasn’t having panic attacks every other day like clockwork and sleeping twelve hours. His past didn’t keep slithering into his head so often.

There’s nothing but the occasional distraction to make him do or feel anything at all, to pull him to the present.

He can’t bring himself to even try to like much of anything these days, except maybe spending time with the others. And sleeping. He guesses he likes sleeping.

Sam still brings something out in him that isn’t usually there, but it’s heavier than it was before, and it tastes bitter. He does still manage to have fun with him, though, in a way he doesn’t with the others. Scott’s walked in on Sam at night a few more times now that his sleep schedule is so fucked, and it’s become a thing, falling asleep on each other as Scott tries to offer Sam silent support.

With Sam there used to be comfortable silences even when they weren’t watching TV. There aren’t anymore. There aren’t comfortable silences with anyone because every time it’s silent, Scott feels alone, and it makes his breath hitch, because even when he’s empty, if he’s got others he can at least fill something in himself with their interactions with him.

Scott doesn’t stop chattering now, even with Sam. When he does stop, he goes away into his head. Sometimes he prefers this, which always leads to him contemplating just going away forever, but there’s still a part of him that screams no!, that wants him to stay here, at least for the others, at least for Cassie.

He thinks about Cassie all the time.

Cassie and everyone and everything he’s left behind over the course of his life, but especially Cassie, and he writes her letter after misspelled letter trying to explain that this is better for her, that he’s so afraid of hurting her, that he’s so sorry for hurting her, God, Cassie, I love you more than I could love anyone in the world, even now that I can’t feel anymore. I can’t be the father you deserve. Your mom and Paxton will be there for you, I’m glad to know you’re in good hands, it’s one of the only things that makes me think this might have been the right thing to do, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I hope you’ll remember me as someone good.

Sometimes, though, thinking like that and writing those things just makes Scott want to embrace the silence even more. He’s always fought against silence, against being alone, but then he’s also always had moments where he’s wanted the noise of the world to stop, where he’s wanted the cacophony in his head to go away. Now those moments come all the time, and he can’t stop talking, humming, singing, urging the others to speak, doing anything to fill the silence.

But it’s not like it’s all bad. The others are doing pretty well, actually, as far as Scott can tell, and he and Sam are just getting closer and closer. Even Steve’s spending less time brooding and more time hanging out with everyone, and Wanda—

Wanda seems better every day.

Wanda is, along with Sam, the first of the fugitive Avengers that Scott thinks of when he wonders if it’d just be best to die, because she’s become somebody special to him, more than just a friend but in an entirely different way than what Sam’s become. (No, than what Sam hasn’t become. He hasn’t. Scott will go even crazier if he starts thinking he has a shadow of a chance with Sam. They’re friends; Scott’s so lucky to be Sam Wilson’s friend.)

Cassie’s irreplaceable, but Wanda’s not a replacement. Scott knows he latched onto her because she was a kid and she needed help, but she’s special, and she really is getting better. 

She consistently has life in her eyes these days, and she talks more. She and Scott have whole long conversations now, about Sokovia, San Francisco, his family, her family, always skirting around the pain that lives in every one of those topics. They tell each other stories, fairytales and folk tales and things they’ve completely made up, neither of them especially fond of reading but television not really being her thing, and she likes it when he sings, even though there’s only a few songs he can actually sing well and knows all the words to.

“Big Rock Candy Mountain” is still her favorite.

They take walks together through the beautiful Wakandan flora and fauna, and Scott tells her awful jokes because the bad ones are the ones that make her laugh the most and he likes hearing her laugh. Wanda’s happiness is something soft and warm in his heart, bubbling up and draining away.

(These days, the only emotions he has aren’t even his. He’s always been empathetic to a ridiculous extreme, but he’s never felt so much like he’s leeching off of other people’s feelings before. It’s absurd.)

And Scott takes care of her when she needs it, though he knows she’s an adult who can do her own thing most of the time.

When she can’t, though, when she tells Scott, “I cannot move with the straitjacket on,” he’s the one who helps her, braids her hair and tries to take her mind off of things with stories he made up for Cassie a long time ago.

She and Scott don’t talk about the problems that lead to Wanda’s bad days, her bad moments. That’s for Clint, who handles the actual talking about serious issues, who helps her through her panic attacks (because her panic makes Scott panic and Clint knows how to manage Wanda’s powers better anyway), who trains her and supports her in a different way, who knows the dark sides of the sweet stories she shares with Scott.

But she and Scott keep it light, even though they both know more than they say.

By now they have a quiet agreement to not mention the things that are wrong with them. With everything. Mention it once, it never has to come up again.

Scott walks in on Wanda sitting at the dinner table in the near-dark as silent tears run down her face. She’s trying to paint her nails black with badly shaking hands, irises flickering red.

When he sits down next to her and sees the defeat in her eyes, he smiles sympathetically. She’s just a kid who wants things to be normal. He remembers what that was like.

“Want me to do it?” Scott asks. “I know how, and they always look better when someone else does it.”

Wanda looks up at him and tries to smile, but Scott knows all about smiles by now, and he knows when they’re not real. At some point, Wanda started making an effort to smile just for him, as if she thinks he needs smiles. He does, but he’s not sure where she got that idea. It concerns him a little, when the thought flickers through his mind, but the concern fades as quickly as everything else he feels, dissolves as fast as Wanda’s brave smile.

She pushes the nail polish towards him, and he dips the little brush into the black liquid and starts coating her thumbnail with it. She hasn’t painted her nails in as long as he’s known her, but she must have before. He hums “Ruby Tuesday” while he works.

“I like that one,” she murmurs.

“Don’t ask her why she needs to be so free…” he sings out of tune before clearing his throat and continuing, “she’ll tell you it’s the only way to be…”

Wanda smiles a little and sings, “Dying all the time, lose your dreams and you will lose your mind…”

Scott looks over at her in surprise. She’s never sung with him before. He grins, a genuine joy rising and falling in his chest. “You’ve got a pretty voice, Wanda.”

“And you have a lovely smile, Scott,” she responds, lips quirking up a little sadly. “Especially when it is real.”

He feels that smile drop like cement, and he knows there’s shock on his face, maybe even some panic.

He doesn’t know how to respond to this.

The brush falls from his fingers and stains the table, a small black streak. “Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, trying to rub it away and smudging it in instead. “Fuck!” he says again, taking in a short, sharp breath.

Wanda covers his hand with her own and says, “I'm sorry. I will not mention it again.”

Scott’s autopilot brightens his face with a fake grin, not very different from the real one, because where else could a fake smile come from? It hurts that she knows the difference.

“Mention what?”

Wanda laughs a little, but her eyes are still sad. Scott’s stomach twists. He never meant to make her sad, God, he hates making people sad.

“You do not make me sad,” Wanda says.

Scott can’t believe he forgot she was a telepath.

He wonders how much she knows.

“This power is not so strong,” Wanda says. “I do not know much at all, but your mind is…it is sometimes easy to perceive, sometimes not. Busy or blank or…or both.”

“Don’t tell me more,” Scott says, lips in a calm half smile even as his voice comes out strangled. “Please, Wanda. I don’t want to know.”

“I’m sorry.”

Scott dips the brush back into the vial of nail polish and says, “Let’s do the other hand.”

Scott isn’t sure how to ask how long they’ve actually been here or what day it is or what the date is without making the others suspicious or even worrying them, now that he learned at some point that they do worry for him.

Scott doesn’t trust his perception of time at all anymore, now that he’s just been straight-up losing time either by going completely dark and then reappearing later and later, or wandering around his brain trying to clear away the cobwebs and getting stuck in them instead.

He’s losing track of everything, really, his thoughts so incredibly scattered that the only things he can honestly focus on are immediate, like when he’s with people, talking and existing and being what’s left of himself, or the himself he’s created.

Now that’s it’s been…a while—months, he thinks it’s months, when he thinks very hard he’ll go with five months, it’s not like he knows the date or what time it is or what day it is, but he’s got a basic idea of the months, he’s got to—he feels less like a total outsider among everyone else, even if he’s still the odd one out.

He and Clint spar together sometimes, even though Scott always loses miserably. They talk about their kids every once in a while, brag about them like they’re actually around, like Clint doesn’t only get one video call a week and Scott doesn’t get anything at all, skirting around the fact that Scott’s broken parole and will probably never see Cassie again, probably never even speak to her for fear of giving something away to the government that’s almost definitely spying on their families. Clint sometimes makes breakfast for him, tells him he’s gotten too skinny, just like Sam keeps telling him. He has been having a hard time keeping food down. He thinks that Clint, spy that he is, knows, which is why he keeps pushing crackers and dry toast on him.

Scott eats them with a roll of his eyes, a smile and a laugh, like Clint is worrying for nothing, like he’s just unloading dad impulses on a guy who’s literally older than him.

(Only by two years, but it’s true. Scott’s the oldest out of everyone here.

He sure feels old.)

Scott’s vague concern occasionally extends to the idea that the others might be figuring something out, might be worrying about him—what a ridiculous thought, no one should worry about him, nope, he can handle himself.

(He thinks he’s been obsessing about that for a while, the worrying thing. He’s not sure exactly why. He thinks it’s changed. He thinks lots of things have changed, but his mind is both scattered and slurred. It’s always changing, except for how it’s the same, really, because everything’s empty. He’s not sure if that’s his mind or his heart’s problem, though.)

But it’s clear that Scott’s mask is crumbling, and it feels so wrong. It hasn’t done that since his first time in jail, and now it’s not only Luís that’s going to find out who he is, and completely, it’s his new team. Four people he cares about whose respect he’d like to keep.

Other than Clint, everyone else keeps showing their concern too, even though to Scott it feels more like suspicion, like he’s a puzzle to solve, they don’t actually care, he’s nothing to them, he’s wrong in thinking he’s anything close to a part of the family, they’re just spies, he’s just interesting to them, but that might be his paranoia talking. He’s been having delusions too, spending hours convinced that he’s rotting from the inside out and that there are maggots under his skin, and then coming to with blood under his fingernails from where he tried to claw them out.

He usually doesn’t get paranoid or psychotic in any way when he’s depressed. He’s gotten psychotic while manic, but even then…

(And yeah, Scott knows what this is, what he has, even though he’s never liked thinking of it with specific terminology, even though he has a million and one euphemisms to soften the blow of the various words that all come back to clinically crazy.

He just doesn’t have the energy to obfuscate now, not in his own head, and he doesn’t care enough to feel sad or angry or ashamed when he faces the fact that he’s manic depressive.

He’s had decades to get used to it, after all.)

In short, Scott’s not okay, the others are starting to notice, and he’s not doing such a good job of reassuring them of his total and complete sanity anymore.

Scott suspects it’s Natasha’s fault, because she only comes over every once in a while, but last time she was here she looked at Scott like she was dissecting him, and it was when she’d left that there’d been a noticeable shift in the way the others treated him. He thinks she told them something, though he has no idea what it could have been.

Now Steve’s always giving him these wary puppy dog looks and he asks him how he’s doing every day, looking like he wants to feel his forehead for fever while knowing he doesn’t actually have a fever. He never looks comforted when Scott smiles gently and says he’s just fine, Steve, thanks for asking, and it makes Scott feel sick, the idea that he could conceivably being upsetting Captain fucking America. No, not Captain America, Steve. It’s the idea that he could be upsetting Steve that makes him want to die just a little, because Steve’s been through so much and he deserves better than what he’s gotten from life. All of them do, maybe even Scott.

Sam keeps watching him and asking if he’s okay, more insistent about it than Steve, and Scott doesn’t know what he’s saying because he keeps checking out when he’s trying to appease Sam, completely letting his autopilot take over because his autopilot seems to know Sam by now. Sam’s touching him more, too, brushing his fingers over the back of his hand, throwing an arm around his shoulder, sitting closer to him. Scott almost feels like a human when he does. Real.

Wanda doesn’t ask if he’s okay, because she’s entirely aware that he’s really fucking not and hasn’t been for a long time, even if he’s not sure how much she really knows. They still don’t talk about it. She just hovers around him and they try to act exactly the same as they always do. It’s not easy. Scott’s not as good at being there for her as he used to be. She’s gotten stronger. He’s just gotten weaker and weaker.

Scott doesn’t know what to do anymore. He tries to do what he’s always done, smile and laugh and joke his way through it all, but he can feel his autopilot smiles start to not just be fake, but look fake.

He keeps having panic attacks, and sometimes it’s like the only time he feels anything is when he has panic attacks.

He wants to give up.

He wants some peace and quiet.

He wants to go away.

Even if he doesn’t know where he’ll end up.

Scott is standing at his window, looking out at a pale, cold sun. It must be early. Breakfast time, even. Breakfast is the most important meal of day.

He hates that that’s actually true, but it is, so he should eat.

Maybe breakfast will make his stomach stop burning.

Personally, he thinks he’ll just throw it up again, but he still leaves his room and heads over to the kitchen. There, a couple of the others (blond, who are the blond ones again? Steve and Clint, right?) are milling around. When Scott steps into the huge, shiny kitchen (everything here's huge and shiny, isn't it nice?), they go quiet. He smiles with effort and tries to add some life to his voice when he says, “Good morning! How’re—"

Scott's sitting at a table. He knows this table, he thinks. He’s sat here before, surrounded, quietly relieved at everyone’s presence, doing a headcount over and over again, one two three four and then, oh, right, him. Five.

It's dark.

Last time he checked (last time he noticed), it wasn't.

Maybe he should move instead of just sitting here. Go to the bathroom. Brush his teeth. Sleep.

Sleep sounds nice, but he's too tired.

He looks down at his toast. That was...did Sam make that for him this morning? Or Clint? It was Clint, he thinks. He doesn't remember, but he's still pretty sure it was Clint, because Clint’s the one who does that.

Where are the others, anyway? Are they gone? It's dark. It's dark, and maybe they're not coming back. In the dark people don't come back.

Scott feels a quiet horror settle in his chest, curling around his heart like a black cat. If they're gone, Sam and Wanda and Clint and Steve, he's got no one left.

To be fair, he probably already doesn't have anyone left.

He left everyone else who mattered behind for people he didn’t even know, who don't know him.

He knows he's become close to them, some more than others, knows, in some vague way, that they care, that they’re his family now, but in this moment—

Scott wants the fierce sureness and the firework nerves that made him shrug off the reality of making himself a wanted man. He wants the mania.

Scott can leave this place, but he can never go back to where he's from, so now he’s here in everyone else's story. He doesn't think he has a story. He's not very interesting at all. He's in the ensemble, but that’s fine. Just stay out of the spotlight and you can hold on to the person you’ve built yourself into over the years. You can be okay. One, two, three, four—

Five.

Scott finally, finally goes to the bathroom. He knows this only because the pressure on his bladder has disappeared, and because he’s holding a razor blade.

He frowns. In prison Luís held a handkerchief to Scott's wrist instead of calling a doctor because "they'll take you to psych and psych fucks people up, no way you're going there, homie, it's just a little blood—Jesúcristo, idiota" and it turned out that he didn't make himself bleed too bad anyway.

Scott slips the razor into the pocket of his loosening jeans, and thinks, I probably won't do that.

Can't. The others still need someone to watch their backs.

Oh, come on. They have each other. Not you. Do you really have them at all?

(Wanda who smiles sometimes and lights up like a pale cold sun, who tries to smile just for him, Sam's laughter and the warmth of his arm slung across Scott’s shoulders, Steve's faraway gaze and the way he eats anything Scott makes and says thank you like he means it, so polite, Clint who made him breakfast...)

Whatever.

Scott's eyes feel like doors flung open, like he can't blink. Blinking is too much energy. Everything is. He feels anger (at himself, at the world, at the way that he is) flare up in his chest and die with a sad sputter. His stomach growls and claws at his insides and he thinks, Oh, shut it.

Scott registers the kitchen light turning on a few seconds after it happens, and he has to use what's left of his energy reserves to tune in Sam's voice, “…Hey, Tic Tac, whatcha doing in the dark?"

“Ow,” he wants to say, “The light hurts my eyes, because apparently I’m a vampire now.”

He doesn’t say any of that, though the light does hurt his eyes. Looking at anything hurts his eyes.

He wants to make his face smile, wants to make his vocal cords vibrate with reassuring words. I was just thinking and I forgot to turn the light on, forgot my notes back in my room a couple minutes ago, oh, yeah, there were definitely notes. You know I’m easily distracted…

…I was just thinking…

Can he even do that anymore?

Scott does nothing.

He’s been running on empty for too long, and now he's finally broken down.

"What the hell are you doing? Scott, come on, you’re tired, time to get to bed,” Clint says.

"What's going on? Is he sick?"

"I don't know, Steve, maybe,” Sam says. “You think he's been messed with? A spell or something?"

Scott snorts a little at that hypothesis, at the hope in Sam’s voice, and everyone shuts up. Please stop acting worried, you don't have to, worrying's my job, I'm a dad, it's my natural state—

A deadbeat dad, just like his.

(Not fair. Years after his mother died, Scott finally got up the courage to look up exactly who his father was, since his mother had been so reticent about him, and it turned out that Edward Sonnenschein committed suicide just a couple months after Scott was conceived. There’s a pretty good chance that he never knew that Scott existed at all.)

He wishes he were just under some kind of spell, and they could break it and he'd be just fine.

Sam tentatively comes closer, taking Scott’s wrist to check his pulse. His fingers feel cold against Scott’s skin, callused and gentle. Scott looks at Sam’s face, the way it’s engineered, the contours and bold lines, the smooth skin.

And his lips. Scott finds his eyes drawn to Sam's lips, because, even empty like this, Scott wants to know, in some distant, painfully young way, what it would be like to kiss them.

“A little slow,” Sam murmurs. “Not uncommon for someone with your level of activity.”

He takes a closer look at Scott’s face, at his eyes. “Follow my finger, Scott,” he says quietly, and Scott does, because it’s not too hard. At least he doesn’t have to talk. Or smile.

Sam presses the back of his hand to Scott’s forehead, feels his neck. Scott would shiver if his body could manage it. Sam shakes his head a little. “I’ll check with a thermometer later, but I don't think you have a fever, and your lymph nodes don't feel swollen. Any aches or pains?”

Scott honestly doesn’t know anymore. He shrugs.

“Nausea, vomiting?”

Scott feels his face soften. Sam’s such a good guy. Scott would rather not move at all, but for Sam, he’ll make an effort, so he manages to nod.

“A lot?”

Scott nods again.

“Just today, or for a while? Blink once for the former, twice for the latter.”

Scott blinks twice. His eyes are so dry blinking makes them water.

“Do you induce? I mean, do you—”

Scott knows what it means. He shakes his head. He’s only able to muster up a tiny movement, but it still makes him dizzy.

Sam’s lips thin, and Scott finally, finally manages to whisper his explanation, the words taking so much work that he feels faint after. “I’m just tired.”

Sam’s shoulders slump. “Yeah. I thought that might be it."

"Have you been here all day?" Clint asks, sounding vaguely disturbed.

Scott shrugs. He has no idea.

Sam's been crouching in front of him, but now he straightens up so everyone's standing except Scott.

He feels—ha, he feels small.

Then there's this soft redness, someone at his level again, aw, Wanda, sweet kid, stand-up kid.

"Then it is time to go to sleep," Wanda murmurs.

"Too tired," Scott mostly mouths, throat desert-dry. When’s the last time he drank water?

"I will help you."

He's not sure how it happens, but he's standing with his arm slung over Wanda's shoulders. She walks with him to his room, and it's so easy to move that he wonders if she's using her powers to help them along.

He's sitting on a bed, staring at the floor. What a soft, clean carpet. Huh. He’s not all that used to soft, clean carpets.

Where the fuck is he?

"Go," Wanda says, and then, more firmly, "Go."

Scott feels his head twitch a little as he tries to follow the instruction, before he realizes Wanda must be talking to the others.

He lets himself fade again.

Everything feels like shadows here, barely real.

He has never been this bad.

Wanda puts a hand on his arm, a steadying touch.

Scott can’t keep his head up anymore, so instead he lets it hang like he’s a puppet and the string holding his neck up has been loosened. He wishes that last time he fell asleep, he hadn’t woken up.

He doesn’t even remember putting on shoes, but he must have, because Wanda’s untying them and slipping them off his feet.

He moves his heavy body enough that he’s lying on the covers of the bed.

The bed he sleeps in, in the room he sleeps in.

He’s in Wakanda.

He closes his eyes and drifts out of consciousness to a familiar tune sung in accented English, so softly that it’s almost imperceptible, or maybe it's just that his hearing’s gone as muffled as the rest of him—

One evening as the sun went down…

Scott doesn’t feel better when he wakes up, but at least it only takes him a few minutes to figure out where he is, why he’s here, and that he’s royally fucked, because he actually remembers the events of yesterday evening, and though he can’t really manage to care, he’s aware that he doesn’t want the others to know he’s like this, and, more importantly, that he doesn’t want to be like this. This is a special kind of miserable. His brain and body have completely malfunctioned, and there’s nothing left for him to do but stay here in bed and ponder whether he should just go back to sleep.

He doesn’t think he’s ever so completely accepted the fact that even if he tries—and he won’t, because ‘trying’ may have been the last of his skills to go, but it’s still gone—he won’t be able to keep up his happy-go-lucky act.

He definitely never thought he’d even consider the idea that he’s probably never going to be able or willing to perform to the best of his ability ever again, let alone accept it, but he still does, because he already knew he could only hold on to it for so long; and hey, thirty plus years with only a few malfunctions isn’t so bad. Forty plus years of being alive inside and outside, that wasn’t bad either. His mom only made it to forty five before she died, anyway, and Scott thinks the light inside of her was snuffed out long before she took her last breath.

Scott’s standing next to the kitchen island, debating whether to get food or leave his mother to her crying.

A week ago, she cleaned the whole house, singing the whole time, that song she says her dad loved, the hobo one, and the kitchen has been shining and meticulously organized since, just like the rest of the house. She even bought groceries, except it was a bunch of weird stuff like fancy cheeses and imported coffee and she got him a little teddy bear that looks and feels expensive, though he’s twelve and didn’t even own stuffed animals when he was little.

When Scott looked at the receipt he could’ve cried it was all so expensive, but he doesn’t know how to return stuff to the grocery store, so he’s been trying to figure out how to ration a week’s worth of groceries into the month’s worth that his mother spent on them, and he put the teddy bear on his bed and named it Buddy.

None of that matters at this exact moment, though, because now she’s crying, and Scott’s very used to this, but he doesn’t know what to do. Sometimes he gets tired of taking care of his mother, even though that’s a very bad thing to think, and of always pretending everything is just fine at home. The only people who know it’s not mostly stay away from them now. His mother makes them tired too. Even he makes them tired. His mother says it’s because his brain’s so fast that other people can’t keep up, though that’s not entirely true. He knows how embarrassingly slow he can be.

It’s a little lonely, having all these thoughts he can’t share, always a little too scattered for other people, either confused or confusing, his world too big for them. He’s very smart too, even with the whole reading and writing thing, and that, his mother says, intimidates people.

Scott isn’t sure that that is a legitimate theory, especially since the little kids in the neighborhood think he’s the bomb, but he doesn’t have many theories about that at all. He’s preoccupied with other people most of the time. He’s comfortable like that. He doesn’t like thinking about himself.

His mother lets out a wrenching sob, and Scott’s heart twists. He can’t leave her like this.

“Mama?” he says quietly. “Mama, it’s okay. We’re okay.”

She just keeps crying, and he sighs, walking over to where she’s standing stranded in the middle of their tiny kitchen and wrapping his arms around her. She hugs back too tightly, resting her sharp chin on his mop of dark hair.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” Scott says. “It’ll be better tomorrow.”

He says it like he believes it.

He doesn’t.

“Scott?” Someone asks tentatively. Wanda. She must know he’s awake.

He manages to open his eyes. He’s curled up on his side, thankfully facing her. He doesn’t think he’d be able to muster up the energy to turn onto his other side if she wasn’t facing him, and he doesn’t want to let on. Maybe she already knows, though, with the telepathy and all. He wonders, idly, if she can fix him, but immediately discounts the thought when he sees a troubled look flash through her eyes, and knows that that’s just too tall an order. You can’t change someone’s neurology without changing them fundamentally, and Scott doesn’t want to be like he is right now, but he’d rather be Scott than anyone else, considering that the last decades haven’t been a total wash.

Wanda’s eyes are sad, but she makes an effort to fake a reassuring smile for him. He’s always been a bad influence.

“How do you feel?”

Scott doesn’t feel anything, and he doesn’t know how to respond either, too stuck in himself to speak. He doesn’t want to be like this. This is the worst, and somewhere, in some part of himself, he knows he’s terrified, because he can’t even move. Is this who he is, in the end?

Is this the end?

Wanda reaches out and smooths back his greasy hair, which has fallen into his eyes. He hasn’t showered in a while, but the idea of showering or bathing or even just washing his hair in the sink and his body with a wet cloth seems laughable. He’s a master at getting in and out of a shower in under five minutes, but he’s pretty sure he won’t be able to do that anymore.

“Scott?” Wanda asks in a tremulous whisper. Her eyes are bright. She’s sad. Of course she’s sad. Scott’s pathetic. She was a little like this when she got back, but she had a reason to be, and seeing Scott be this way just because must be some flavor of mortifying.

“You do not embarrass me,” Wanda says, sounding vaguely offended. “You are not well. Not everyone is well all the time.”

Scott feels what’s left of himself drain away.

Can’t be okay all the time. He’s said this to Luís, and Luís says it too. They just throw it back and forth, each trying to tell the other that they can have real, actual feelings, that not everything has to be just fine, that God, Luís, you don’t have to be cheerful when you’re not.

He’s so empty inside. He misses Luís and the guys.

And Cassie, Cassie, Cassie. At least she doesn’t have to see him like this, dead inside.

His stubble is enough to bother him by now. He’s been trying his best to shave, though he’s never been a clean-shaven kind of guy when he’s down, but he’s always tried to at least keep his stubble from getting bristly and uncomfortable.

He very carefully pushes the thought of the razor in his jeans to the back of his mind. He still isn’t sure how much Wanda knows. Not much, she said, and as far as he can tell, that’s true. Any telepath would be aware by now that he’s dead inside. Anyone would be aware by now.

Actually, they probably are aware. No, wait, they definitely all are, since they were all there. Right?

Right?

“Yes,” Wanda responds. “They are…worried. They thought maybe this would happen, but…well. Perhaps not this…”

Not this bad, Scott knows she wants to say.

They’re worried. This sucks. They’re worried and he might be the center of attention right now, which, ew.

He tries to take a deep breath so that he can say something, anything. His breath just catches and stays shallow.

It’s weird, feeling empty and heavy at the same time. Wakanda is very humid, as evidenced by how frizzy his hair has gotten, but it generally isn’t inside of their home, so he’s probably just imagining how much the air has thickened.

“You should eat,” Wanda says softly. “Something you can keep down.”

Scott can’t keep anything down, and he doesn’t want to eat. He tries to communicate this through making some kind of disgusted face, and he feels some kind of twitch.

“You have to,” Wanda says again. “Do you think you can get out of bed?”

Her voice is hopeful, but Scott closes his eyes and burrows his head deeper into his pillow in response. No.

He opens his eyes again and sees her disappointment before she stands up and says with a smile, “Alright. I will bring you something. Toast with butter, I think.”

She hovers for a second until Scott realizes she wants his approval for some reason, and he finally manages to say, “sure”, except his throat is so dry that his voice mostly comes out in a rasp.

Wanda winces. “Some water too. Colder water. There is some on the nightstand.”

Scott’s eyes flicker over to said nightstand, and he mouths, “Okay”.

When Wanda leaves, he manages to struggle to an almost seated position, propping himself up a little with the mountain of pillows on his bed.

With more than a little effort, he reaches for the water, but his hand is shaking so hard that his grasp is weak, and the glass slips right through his fingers and shatters on the rug next to his bed. Scott watches the water stain grow with a numb feeling as someone rushes into the room.

“Oh,” someone says in relief. “Just water.”

Sam.

“Hey,” Scott manages to say, because it’s Sam.

“Hey, Scott,” Sam replies easily. “How you doing?”

“I dropped the water,” Scott informs him.

“Yeah, I can see that. No big deal. Wanda said she was bringing you food?”

Scott shrugs, still staring at the stain and the broken glass fanned out around it. He tucks his hands under his arms to try and stop them from shaking.

“Here, I’ll clean it up,” Sam says, and then he’s in Scott’s line of sight. At some point, he acquired one of those tiny broom and dustbin deals, and now he kneels on the rug and starts carefully sweeping up the glass. He is very beautiful, Scott notes mechanically, with his calm expression and his dark eyes and his well-kept facial hair. Scott isn’t usually into dudes with facial hair, but Sam works it. Seeing Sam kneeling on the very nice Wakandan rug, Scott feels his stomach ache.

He pushes his hair out of his face again, noting that there are a couple very large, matted knots in there, and it really has gotten too long, especially for how thick it is. His mother’s hair was dark red, but it had the same texture as his own. Everyone said he looked a lot like her, except for his eyes and his mouth. He got those from his dad, whoever he really was.

At his mother’s funeral, he remembers overhearing some lady say, “Her boy looks just like her, don’t he?”

Another one agreed. “It’s like looking at a ghost.”

At the end of her life, looking at his mother was like looking at a ghost. He wonders if he looks like one now.

Sam pauses in his sweeping and sits back on his heels. He doesn’t look at Scott when he asks, “What happened?”

Scott’s not sure what exactly he’s referring to, but he figures it’s the whole “totally lost it” thing he’s rocking right now. “Been this way for a long time,” he murmurs. “Manic depressive. Worse now, after the Raft. Think I’m just…dead inside.”

“Have you been feeling this way since the Raft?”

“Mhm. Pulled a fast one on you for a while, didn’t I?”

Sam huffs out a broken laugh. “You really did.” He pauses. “You diagnosed?”

Scott shrugs. “Prison, but I’ve known since it happened. Mama was too.”

“Ever tried medication, therapy?”

“Fuck off, Sam,” Scott says, suddenly very tired. He’s not angry. He just doesn’t feel like talking about it. He barely feels like talking at all.

Sam shakes his head. “You’re right. It’s not the time.” He lets out a dismayed gust of breath. “I can’t believe you’ve been in a depressive episode this bad since the Raft and we only noticed anything serious was up, like…two weeks ago.”

Scott almost feels like smiling. “I’ll take my Oscar now.”

Sam grins, fleeting but there, and shakes his head again. “Yeah. I mean, I thought you were down and trying to hide it by being upbeat, y’know, humor as a coping mechanism, blah, blah, blah, but I thought you were doing kinda okay, I didn’t imagine…”

“Not your job.”

Sam nods. “Not my job.”

“Not your fault.”

Sam does not respond, and Scott insists, “Not your fault.”

Sam nods again and says, obviously just to appease Scott, “Not my fault.” He pauses. “I’m still sorry.”

“It’s not you.”

“I know, I’m just sorry that you’re feeling this bad. That it got this bad.”

“I’m not feeling anything.”

For just a second, Sam looks gutted before he swallows and manages to get his face to do something less broken. He sweeps up the rest of the glass and sits on the edge of Scott’s bed. Scott’s pulled his knees to his chest, and Sam reaches out to tentatively rest a hand on the left one. It’s a pleasant feeling, grounding. Scott’s not actually that big on being touched, but since it’s Sam, now he slowly moves one of his shaking hands to cover Sam’s stronger, steadier one.

Sam scoots closer, takes a deep breath. Scott tries to follow suit, but he still can’t quite manage it, and it ends up a sad rasp.

Sam slowly weaves his fingers between Scott’s, and then squeezes his hand tight, leaning forward until their foreheads are nearly touching. It really doesn’t change anything, but maybe Scott feels just a little calmer with the company, with Sam. He doesn’t even completely remember what led to this, to these feelings so much stronger than some adolescent crush, because what have he and Sam have done together other than TV and walks and sitting together and just talking—

Huh.

Maybe that was enough.

They sit there for what seems like a long time, until Scott’s emptiness feels almost comfortable and the hand Sam’s holding is going numb. He’s pretty sure his circulation got cut off a while ago. He really can’t bring himself to mind.

Sam is the one to untangle their hands, which makes sense because Scott would’ve just sat there forever, mostly because he doesn’t have the ability to do things, and why would he try to do something to break this moment anyway, miserable as he is?

He doesn’t feel disappointed when Sam leaves, doesn’t have it in him, especially since Sam isn’t gone for long anyway. Instead, he just grabs the trays that at some point appeared just outside the open door.

There’s two, and one of them’s obviously for Sam. In another life, Scott might’ve been embarrassed that someone clearly saw them together and didn’t want to disturb them. Here, he just shrugs it off. Sam’s cheeks darken a little, though. It’s cute.

Sam shakes off any embarrassment he might be feeling and brings over the food, waiting for Scott to struggle into a slightly better position where he can balance the plate on his legs.

Like Wanda promises, it’s just butter on toast, plus crackers and a cup of yogurt.

Sam has pasta with some kind of red sauce, and just looking at it makes Scott’s (empty) stomach churn. He swallows thickly and looks down at his own food. Two pieces of toast. Exactly nine crackers. Plain yogurt.

Breakfast is the—wait.

Scott struggles to say literally anything, but is eventually able to choke out, “Time?”

Sam looks out the window, and Scott follows suit. The Wakandan sunset is beautiful, all purples and reds and pink-tinted clouds.

“Jeez,” Scott murmurs.

“You slept for a while,” Sam says.

“How long have I…how…been awake?” Scott’s disjointed words just make him feel tired, but somewhere he must also be embarrassed, because his face heats up.

Sam doesn’t say anything. He must knows this is different from Scott’s usually sometimes-confused speech, which he’s fine with Sam teasing him about. This is so painful Scott can barely stand it. He’s always been eloquent enough, or at least able to speak, despite his flying thoughts, and this hasn’t ever happened before. Maybe it’s the particles again, eroding his verbal skills now that he’s so out of it. Of course, he’s never lost it this bad, so. This is familiar in an unfamiliar way. Familiar misery and anxiety and general crazy, but turned up to eleven.

(This Is Spinal Tap came out when Scott was fifteen, and he watched it in theaters four times. Three of those times, he snuck in.)

What’s wrong with me?

He can’t stop thinking about how it’s never been this bad. His brain has never been this much of a mystery—or maybe it’s not a mystery at all. Nervous breakdown, the end, there you go. Scott thinks it’s unfair that people can have a nervous breakdown when they’re already pretty much broken. Icing on the cake.

Maybe it really will be better tomorrow. He’ll wait a bit, he’s always been patient, but the truth is he’s not counting on anything even close to getting better any time soon. At this point he’s just looking for the right time to tap out.

“Hey, you with me, Tic Tac?”

“Hm?”

“I was answering your question, but you looked kinda out of it. I didn’t know if you’d caught it. Apparently my instincts were right.”

“Yeah,” Scott agrees, wondering what it was he asked.

Sam frowns. “Do you…remember?”

Scott doesn’t want to respond to that, because the idea of explaining his memory loss sans words isn’t appetizing, so he just widens his eyes innocently.

Sam’s smile is strained when he says, “I’m pretty sure you asked how long you’ve been awake.”

“Right,” Scott says, inserting his useful ‘ah, yes, of course’ tone into his voice, or trying to. It comes out in a monotone instead.

“Three hours. You went to sleep at eleven, maybe. Woke up at eight.”

“Oh.”

“Eat, Scott.”

“Yeah,” Scott says, and he manages an entire piece of toast before he pushes away the plate, not even willing to eat for Sam.

Sam looks like he wants to say something, but doesn’t. He just sits there, forcing down his own food, until Scott goes back to sleep.

Out of everyone, Scott’s spent the least time with Steve, but they’re definitely not strangers—Steve’s the kind of guy who cares about his “team”, and they live in close quarters anyway—so Scott’s not surprised when he wakes up to Steve leaning back in the chair that’s appeared next to Scott’s bed, a sketchpad balanced on one knee, charcoal scratching gently against paper.

When Scott was a kid, he loved comics. They were way easier to read than books, even when he was a little kid, didn’t cost much at all, and were full of life and color and action and heroes, the kind of stuff that was nice to read about and look at when he fell asleep to gunshots some nights and saw nothing but depressing shit on the news.

It was nice to see the good guys win, and to have the good guys so clearly delineated when in real life, Scott knew it wasn’t like that, considering how many of those gunshots he heard were from a cop’s firearm.

But even if Scott knew that the real world could be more than a little disappointing, he still delighted in reading the adventures of heroes like Captain America.

Captain America was his favorite because Steve Rogers had been real. A guy that good and that cool had actually existed, he was a little Irish Catholic kid who’d grown up poor and without a dad too, and he’d made it through and become not just an icon, but a real, actual superhero.

And sure, Scott was Irish Jewish, but that was close enough, so Cap was Scott’s hero.

That’s why it’s so weird to be around him all the time, now, to be living with the comic panels of his youth made flesh and blood, so human that Scott almost finds it absurd. He still doesn’t know how to separate Steve from the Captain America persona, and he knows he’s awkward as hell when they’re around each other, even though his attraction to him has evaporated. Steve’s like—what, biologically twenty-nine?

Whatever he is, he’s too-young-for-Scott-years-old, especially when he factors in maturity, because Steve’s not just young, he’s young at heart. He’s lived through a lot, too much, but he’s still hot-headed and wild and he wants to save the world and Scott’s not sure if he knows he can’t.

Scott knows that there’s a Steve in there, not just a Captain America, but he doesn’t actually know Steve yet other than what he’s gleaned from his ability to read people.

Every time he sees Cap in the flesh, he feels like he’s a little kid again, buying Captain America comics from Rodrigo and Eva’s corner store, dropping quarters and dimes into Rodrigo’s big hand, grinning in thanks when Rodrigo slipped him a candy bar with a wink, slipping a five or ten that he’d nicked from some businessman’s wallet into the tip jar as soon as Rodrigo’s back was turned and then running out the door, finding some curb to sit on next to a pickup game of basketball (which he sucked at, he was always too small to play) or soccer (he sucked at that too), and letting himself get lost in the adventures of Cap and the Howling Commandos until some of the other kids noticed him and swarmed him, looking at the pictures over his shoulder as he regaled them with this week’s story, though his storytelling was only as accurate as his reading comprehension.

So Scott guesses that, despite everything, he’s just kind of shy around Steve, despite what Hope’s said about superheroes not being special, despite Sam’s stories about all the stupid shit Steve’s done and his insistence that he’s just a normal guy.

That mostly ends one night when Scott’s in the kitchen making scrambled eggs.

He’s unclear on why he’s in the kitchen making scrambled eggs, because he’s not remotely interested in eating them, and it’s—what, three in the morning?

He thinks back on what led him here, and manages to actually drudge up the memories.

Just another nightmare about getting smaller and smaller until he was nothing, Cassie’s screaming ringing in his ears.

Right.

And then, not willing to stay in his too-soft bed any longer, his body had apparently decided to make eggs.

So.

Now he’s in the kitchen, which he thinks would actually make a decent-sized living room, egg yolk on his fingers, blinking down at the yellow mess sizzling in a pan. He usually has his eggs sunny-side up, but just about everyone else here prefers them scrambled, so he guesses his body on autopilot has gotten used to making them that way.

The burst of energy that led Scott to the kitchen has mostly evaporated, so he’s just standing here. He manages to poke at the eggs with a spatula, and the idea of actually putting them on a plate or something, anything, makes him want to go back to sleep.

“Lang?” someone asks from out of his line of sight, and usually Scott would jump out of his skin, but right now he can’t really do much of anything with his whole body and brain numb and aimless.

He takes a deep breath, shakes his head like a dog, and makes a concentrated effort to turn off the stove and scoop the eggs onto a plate. Thankfully, his hands cooperate, and in no time at all he’s set the plate on the kitchen table and is smiling brightly at Captain America.

“Scott,” he says. “Call me Scott. Lang sounds ridiculously uncool.”

Steve huffs out a laugh and says, “Sure, Scott. Only if you stop calling me Cap.”

Guilt churns in Scott’s stomach for a second before it drains away and he says, “No problem, Steve. Want some eggs?”

Steve blinks down at the eggs like he just saw them, and frowns. “It’s still late, right?”

“More early than late, really. Probably somewhere around three in the morning?”

Scott’s concept of time has been getting worse since getting to Wakanda, but it’s not completely shot yet, so he’s pretty sure he’s on track.

“What are you doing eating scrambled eggs?”

“Making scrambled eggs,” Scott corrects, “because I’m going to tell you a secret, Steve, which is that I really don’t like scrambled eggs.”

Steve smiles, wrinkling his nose. “Sorry, what were you doing making scrambled eggs at three in the morning?”

“Some things are secrets,” Scott says grandly, and Steve laughs a little.

Scott takes a good look at Steve, at the dark circles under his haunted eyes and the slump in his stance and the paint-stained pajamas. “Or maybe it was fate,” he hypothesizes, “because you look like you could use something to eat, and possibly someone to talk to. Nightmare?”

Steve makes a face. “How’d you know?”

Scott forces a laugh—which is very natural-sounding, thank you, he’ll be here all night—and shrugs. “Don’t we all have ‘em?”

“…Did you have a nightmare? Is that why you’re awake?”

Scott disregards the concern in Steve’s eyes and breezes past the question, instead answering with, “The eggs are getting cold, and I’d rather they go to someone who enjoys them as opposed to…well, me. I mean, I’d never waste food, but I know you like them, and I…” Scott trails off.

“Sure, I’ll take one for the team,” Steve says, sitting at the table and pulling the plate of eggs towards him as Scott turns away and lets his smile fall as he cleans the eggshells off of the counter and sticks the pan in the dishwasher.

The idea of interacting with another person is painful, but Scott reminds himself that he likes other people, and being with someone other than himself might make him feel better. Better as he can feel these days.

He grabs a cookie from the honest-to-God panther-shaped cookie jar (that’s got to be a joke) and slides into the chair across from Steve’s. “Do you mind?” he asks easily, even as he’s hit with his familiar holy-shit-Captain-America vertigo, mild as it is by now.

“Nope,” Steve responds with his mouth full, and there he is—Steve Rogers.

Steve Rogers, in paint-stained pajamas, hair a mess, eating scrambled eggs at three in the morning after having a nightmare, answering a question with his mouth full, a person.

He doesn’t look fictional anymore, and Scott finds himself relieved. He takes a bite of the cookie. It’s oatmeal raisin. Who the fuck even eats oatmeal raisin cookies?

He keeps eating it because all food tastes the same anyway, and he threw up his dinner and should probably replenish a few of those calories.

“Seriously, how you doing?” he finally asks Steve, because listening to someone else’s problems beats living with his own, other people’s pain hurts too much to ignore, and the best feelings he has, brief as they are, aren’t usually his, so making people feel better is something he desperately searches for. Besides, he needs to do something.

Do things, and you can ignore your own pain, or lack of it.

Steve looks uncomfortable. “Oh, you don’t have to…”

“Seriously, man, I’ve been an agony aunt since I could talk, I can take it.” Scott smiles gently. “I won’t tell.”

Steve is quiet for a long moment before he says, “I just can’t sleep. All my dreams are covered in snow, and I just…can’t sleep.”

Scott nods sympathetically.

“Bucky is there a lot,” Steve admits. “I miss him, and I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m kinda angry at him for going back into cryo when there really are things he can do out here—deprogramming, and Wanda can help him, and…I feel like he just ran away.”

Scott’s stomach twists. He knows all about running away. “Sometimes people go back to what they’re used to, and there are people who fold instead of facing their problems. Helping yourself, it takes a lot of work, and when there’s an easier option, well…some people just take it.”

Steve sits in a thoughtful silence for a while. “Yeah, you’re right. I just wish Bucky didn’t have to take the easy option.”

“It’s not over, Steve. He’s gonna wake up, right?”

“Yeah, we made plans, but he could’ve made so much progress in these three months, I just wish…”

“I get it, but it could be worse. He could be gone forever. He took an easy way out, sure, but he didn’t take the easy way out. He didn’t do the Dutch. As it were.”

Steve gives him a questioning look.

“Sorry. It’s prison slang for committing suicide.”

Steve flinches.

“I bet he just needs some time,” Scott says gently, “and when he’s finally outta that tube, he’ll be in a more stable environment than he would’ve been if he’d settled in with all of us from the start.”

Steve nods. “You’re right.”

“Just remember he’s coming back.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees softly. “He’s coming back.”

Steve’s eyes flicker up to Scott’s face, and he pauses suddenly in his drawing when he sees that Scott’s eyes are open. “Hey,” he says with a soft smile, eyes sad. “How’re you?”

Scott lets out a little gust of air that could maybe be some distant cousin of a laugh, though he’s not even trying to smile. “Been better.”

“Yeah,” Steve replies. “I…”

He trails off. Scott’s usually the one who keeps the conversation going, but that’s obviously not happening now. Maybe it’ll never happen again.

Steve doesn’t seem to know what to do about it. Scott sympathizes.

Steve deflates a little. “I don’t know what to say.”

“It’s okay,” Scott whispers. “Me neither.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, voice choked. “I should’ve—”

“Don’t. You shouldn’t’ve anything.” Scott understands useless guilt, and there’s no place for it here. “Can’t fix everything,” he whispers, because Steve wants to save the world, but he can’t. He never can. Scott knows this too well, even though Steve’s the kind of person who fights to fix what’s broken, and Scott’s the kind of person who’ll do just about anything to keep it from breaking in the first place.

Steve lets out a sigh. “I don’t know what to do, Scott.”

“Me neither,” Scott responds, voice hoarse and quiet. It’s not completely true.

Find some point in time to tap out.

“What can I do?” Steve asks, voice desperate.

“You’re enough,” Scott says, hoping Steve understands what he means: just be here.

Steve’s eyes are still sad. “Okay.”

He slowly goes back to his drawing, and Scott watches him, taking in every line of his face and the shocking blue of the eyes that keep looking up at him and then away. Scott thinks he’s been very lucky to have Steve Rogers as a friend.

When Scott wakes up, he's alone, and he's almost relieved. It's not that he likes being alone—he has never, never liked being alone—but he knows that the others will feel better if they're not stuck with him. 

When he left with Clint, he brought a backpack with him; stuffed everything he found that was important into it in about five minutes. He was manic, so obviously not everything he put in it was actually important, and he’s only looked in it once or twice.

From what he can see, there's a few CDs (why?), a shirt that's about thirteen years old (seriously, why?), the survival kit he could never train himself out of keeping under his bed, and like three notebooks with distracted scribbles all over them. He hadn't really looked closer once he found the genuinely important things that he thankfully didn't forget: photo albums he's always kept up to date, even after the advent of smartphones, though the new smartphone Hope gave him does hold a bunch of pictures too, but he just chooses his favorites to print out. 

He only brought three of his albums along, the first ones he could find. One of them’s beat-up and blue, and that one has pictures from when he was young, the purple one is from the pre-jail years, and the red one is from the  pre-jail and post-jail years. 

He tossed the backpack under his bed, but put the albums in the drawer of his nightstand, where they sit like a Bible at a motel. He looks at them all the time. Why wouldn't he? They're memories.

God knows he needs them.

He wonders why he didn't take any pictures here, and wishes he had. 

With a lot of effort—he would go so far as to call it 'herculean’, which is one of his favorite words—he flops himself over to the nightstand and digs out the red photo album. The one with the most pictures of Cassie.

He sits with his back to the headboard of his ridiculously large bed and carefully opens it to somewhere near the beginning. 

Cassie at one, grinning at the camera. When she was born, she was as blonde as Maggie. As she grew up her hair darkened, but then it was still fair. 

(Scott's own hair was a red the same color as his mother’s, when he was born.) 

She was such a happy kid. Is such a happy kid. Scott hopes he hasn't changed that. Jim's a good dad. Better than Scott will ever be. He might be a cop, but he's one of the good ones. 

Scott wonders if he would've had this nervous breakdown had he stayed behind, had he not been involved in what the media's called the "Clash of the Avengers" (ha! He was never an Avenger, he'll bet anything that that kid in the red and blue suit wasn't either, and he's pretty sure Barnes doesn't count).

He thinks that he probably wouldn't have, at least not this soon. Not without the Raft. He wouldn't be dead like this. 

He wouldn't be planning to kill himself, probably.

Then again, maybe he would.

He wasn't doing so hot, after all, but over there he had a support system, sort of, one that at least knew more about the mess that was his mind than anyone here did, just because they'd been around longer. Maggie, Luís. Paxton, kind of. Scott at least assumes that Paxton knows something about his brain, just because as a fucking cop he has access to Scott's file and the diagnosis there, and he's Maggie’s—husband, now, Scott guesses. 

Well, now Scott has a support system that’s up to speed on what’s really going on, and he’s sure they’ll try to help. It's not going to work, but it's the thought that counts. 

Scott flips to another random page in the album.

Cassie, a few months ago when they were horsing around in Maggie and Paxton’s backyard, just before—

She’s on his shoulders and her chin is resting on the crown of his head and he's grinning and they look so happy, smiling for the camera. Scott doesn't get happy like that anymore. 

An old thought, one he's had ever since Maggie told him she was pregnant, wanders into his mind: what if Cassie ends up like me? What if she gets my shitty genes?

Well, he hopes not, but his mother admitted to him once when he asked—he was fifteen, then, and worried about his own mental health—that mental illness and especially manic depression (and that was the first time he ever heard those words out of his mother's mouth) have run in her family forever. Reluctantly, he’d asked if his dad himself had had something wrong with him, because this was years before he saw the details of his father’s suicide in black and white.

His mother told him that his dad had heard voices, that he’d seen things that weren't there. Said he also went up and down. Said that as far as she knew, there was a history of that in his family, too. Scott hadn't asked again. 

He'd promised himself that as much as he'd wanted them since he was a little boy, he'd never have kids, biological or adopted. He didn't want to make a child suffer. 

When Maggie told him she was pregnant, he stopped giving a shit about that, and he promised Cassie that mad or not, she'd have a great life, not just for a mentally ill person, like his, but for a person. He was afraid for her sanity, is still afraid for her sanity, especially knowing that she inherited his ADHD, but he never regretted having her, and he knows Maggie is scared too, but she doesn't regret having Cassie either, even with the anxiety and depression that skips a generation in her family, and she won't when—if—Cassie manifests some kind of mental illness.

Scott just wishes he could've lived long enough to give Cassie advice on how not to end up like him, because his mother never did, but he spent enough time with her to know, and Cassie—Cassie never will. 

He still doesn't know if he actually regrets that. He doesn't want to make a child suffer with a parent like him, a parent that she has to worry about and even take care of. 

(He loved his mother, and loves his mother, and he knows he turned out better with her. She did her best, and her best was enough.

At least leaving was never a mistake she made.) 

He'll find a way to tell her.

Scott looks at Cassie and he can feel her little body wrapped in his arms, can hear her voice saying "daddy!" with an excitement that he will never deserve. She never visited him in San Quentin, of course, but Maggie would enclose photos of her in her letters, and after a while Cassie started writing him letters even though she was only four or so, because if there’s one thing she didn’t inherit from him, it was his reading skills.

He still has every single one of her letters.

He wishes he could still get letters from her, could still send them. Send them to Luís too, because Luís loves writing letters—he finds it much more romantic than texting or e-mail. Luís didn't get to write many letters in prison, but once Scott realized how much he liked to, he'd let him add post-scripts to Scott's letters to Cassie, and sometimes even just write Scott’s letters as he dictated.

(Cassie loves Luís. She calls him tío. Maggie lets it be, mostly because Luís is a fundamentally good guy, he went legit after the Ant-Man thing, he's amazing with Cassie, and he's the reason Cassie's nearly fluent in Spanish. Besides, Luís's sentence—two years, three months—was some bullshit. First offense, trying to steal some smoothie machines, a gun that wasn't even loaded tucked into the waistband of his jeans? Please. If a white guy like Scott had been caught doing that, he wouldn't even have gotten a year. Maggie's smart enough to know that, and Jim definitely is. 

Luís comes to dinner sometimes, and he and Jim bitch at each other in rapid-fire Spanish. Scott's pretty sure they have fun. He hopes Cassie's seeing Luís, probably in some kind of controlled situation, but still.

Luís would be a good dad, but, as he says, "the gun shoots blanks, you know what I mean?"

It’s a real shame.) 

Fuck, Scott misses Luís so much. He made prison bearable, not just because he was always a great friend who managed to keep Scott out of the psych unit, but because he was the one who gave Scott an in with the circle of guys he hung out with, the ones Scott was eventually able to kind of form friendships with, and definitely formed alliances with.

Yeah, there were a few fights at first, partially because they wanted to see if Scott would actually stand up for himself (he did), partially because they were understandably leery of letting some white fish into their circle, and a little because Peachy held the keys to their particular car and liked stirring shit up every once in a while, even though he was a programmer who generally kept out of serious trouble despite being a lifer.

Eventually Scott managed to charm them, even when the more perceptive ones figured out that he was kind of…offbeat.

(It’s yard time and Scott overhears Peachy talking to a new guy in their circle—people mostly call them sucker duckers, which Scott thinks could be worse, and is definitely better than race traitors—who’s clearly confused about how the hell an amiable white dude like Scott managed to slip into Peachy’s car.

“Yeah, well, Lang’s a good guy, and dude’s smart, he knows everything. And man, he is a good thief. He’s stolen so much shit for us. He’s good to have on our side, even if he’s kinda a J-cat, y’know?”

The other guy looks confused—Scott can empathize, because he might’ve learned how to understand prison slang in record time, but there was still a point where he felt like everyone was speaking a different language—and Peachy rolls his eyes. “A crazy,” he says. “But he ain’t dangerous or nothing. We all like having him around.”)

Scott’s definitely not a charmer anymore, he thinks with something that might be termed bitterness.

He traces the edges of the photo of him and Cassie. His baby.

“Hey,” someone says, and Scott doesn’t look up from the album or respond other than a nearly silent mumble.

The someone comes and sits on the edge of Scott’s bed and peers over at the photo album. “She’s beautiful,” Clint says.

“I know,” Scott murmurs.

“She’s nine now, right?”

“Mhm.”

“So’s Lila. Cooper’s already eleven. Nate Pietro’s only two, but I can’t believe they’re getting so big. Can’t believe I’m missing so much. I mean, I video call them, but…”

Scott would nod in understanding, but he doesn’t.

“You know, heeding the call was the right thing to do, but sometimes I regret leaving my family,” Clint says with a heavy sigh.

Scott says, “Me too.”

“Yeah,” Clint says softly. “Yeah.”

They sit in silence for a while before Clint says, “You smell ripe, man. Can’t stew in your own juices forever, you have to get out of bed, shower, and change your damn clothes.”

Scott isn’t surprised that he smells bad—God knows the last time he showered—but the idea of doing all of those things makes him give Clint a blank look.

It feels like he’s telling him to go hike a mountain, and he’s just not up for it. He can barely even remember how to fucking breathe, he can’t do those things. Not on his own.

“I’ll help you,” Clint says in a blasé but no-nonsense kind of way, and intellectually, Scott definitely doesn’t want his friend to help him shower and change clothes, but he also really doesn’t care.

He can’t remember how to do anything, though. His fingers just trace the photograph.

“Come on,” Clint says, “do you need help closing that and getting up?”

Scott doesn’t need anything. He shrugs.

“Okay,” Clint replies easily, carefully taking the album from Scott’s lap, closing it, and placing it in one of Scott’s nightstand drawers.

Then, with little fanfare, he says, “Heads up, I’m gonna touch you,” and the second Scott nods, pretty much bodily pulls him out of bed.

Scott’s feet are on the rug, and the rush of dizziness he gets makes Clint have to grab at him so he won’t collapse.

“Steady,” Clint says as he half-drags Scott to the bathroom.

Scott knows that this is pathetic, knows it as he looks at the shower without any idea of what the fuck to do, as he thinks about taking off his dirty clothes and putting on the new ones that Clint apparently brought into the bathroom and set on the counter. It feels like he’s being asked to read the goddamn Rosetta stone.

It must be obvious that he’s totally unsure of what’s going on, because Clint turns on the shower and, businesslike as a nurse, helps Scott get undressed down to his underwear.

Though Scott knows he should be humiliated, that he’s a man and a man shouldn’t be this way, he just feels heavy.

“I’ll be outside when you need me,” Clint says gently, and Scott manages to get under the water and even kind of wash his hair.

When he’s out of there, he dries himself off and struggles into the sweatpants that he’s pretty sure aren’t his, mostly because they’re way too big, and then looks at the flannel shirt that he’s sure is Clint’s and manages to shrug it on, but once it gets to buttoning it, his fingers are just too clumsy.

Clint knocks. “I don’t hear anything, so I’m coming in.”

When he comes in, he walks over to Scott and helps him button up the shirt. “Probably wasn’t a good idea to get you one of these,” Clint mutters. “Motor skills and depression don’t go well together.”

Scott silently agrees.

When he’s back in his bed, Clint says, “Wanda’s gonna be here soon, okay?”

Hearing that, Scott finally says the words that have been on his mind, words that at least Clint will understand: “I wish my daughter didn’t have to see me this way.”

Clint’s quiet for a long time, and then he sighs and says, “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

It’s been an unspecified number of days since That Thing with Scott totally losing it happened when Wanda comes into his room and says, “You should leave.”

Scott’s sluggish brain wonders what the hell she’s talking about, because he’s left a lot of things, and he can’t think of another one except, well, life, but he shoves that into the back of his brain as quickly as he can, covering it up with a mental record of "Bird on the Wire".

“Your room,” Wanda explains. “You should leave your room. At least eat something in the kitchen with everyone else, and…” she pauses, looking troubled. “There’s someone you have to meet.”

Again, Scott wonders what the hell she’s talking about, but before Wanda can open her mouth to explain, it hits him—there is someone left to meet. He never thought he would. “How long has he been out of cryo?” he asks in a halting monotone.

Wanda actually looks surprised, either at the full sentence or the fact that Scott figured out the Bucky thing even with his brain running on a backup generator. Possibly both. Scott wonders if he should be insulted, because come on, he’s not stupid. Of course, in the end, he’s not insulted, because literally who cares.

Wanda says, “…Three days.”

Scott frowns, trying to think of any point where somebody actually told him about that, because the whole Bucky coming out of cryo thing seems important, and now the last few days make more sense—the way that people have been in and out of his room less, always looking preoccupied when they do visit, plus Sam’s stormy, sulky mood. Maybe he just forgot. He forgets important things sometimes.

“Nobody told you,” Wanda says in a small voice, dashing that idea. “We didn’t…we just did not have the…we did not want to cause you stress.”

Scott blinks at her. He doesn’t know if he can feel stress other than the constant feeling of doom he has hanging over him. He thinks it’s a little weird that they didn’t at least mention it, but he doesn’t care one way or the other, so. He tries to shrug, but his body doesn’t move, so instead he just stares at Wanda and says, “Okay.”

He curls up a little more, trying to communicate that actually he’d rather not with the leaving his room and meeting Bucky fucking Barnes thing.

Wanda crosses her arms and sets her jaw, clearly catching onto his wishes, but not willing to respect them. Her whole posture says I’m not leaving until you do what I say, sorry not sorry.

Scott is pretty sure she learned that from Clint. She looks exactly like him right now. It’s uncanny.

(At least she’ll have Clint, after. He’s better than Scott anyway.)

Scott’s not going down without a fight, though, if a fight means doing absolutely nothing because he doesn’t want to.

“Come on, you need to leave your room at some time. It is not good to stay locked up.”

“No kidding,” Scott whispers, and Wanda winces a little at her choice of words, but powers through.

“Bucky is good. I have helped him, and psychologists are going to keep him well. He is nice.”

Sure. The Winter Soldier is nice.

“Please,” Wanda says, starting to droop a little. “Scott, I…we…you cannot simply stay here. It will not help you.”

Scott doesn’t say he’s beyond help, but Wanda clearly picks up on the thought, either through telepathy (and Scott’s still damn proud of himself, sort of, for apparently being so good at hiding even now that Wanda apparently hasn’t caught on to his suicidal thoughts, or maybe just hasn’t caught on to the fact that he’s going to kill himself, not just thinking about it) or just normal, average people-reading.

“You are not beyond help. No one ever is.”

Well, that’s true for most people.

Scott still can’t imagine doing something as painful as getting out of bed, let alone going to the kitchen and actually interacting with a new person who’s going to, fuck, know him as this from the beginning.

“Does he know?” Scott asks softly.

“That you are not…well?”

“Mhm.”

Wanda looks troubled. “A little? We told him you were…sick. Depressed. We have not been able to figure out much else to say.”

It’s easier if they just meet, he guesses. Easier for everyone else to just show how pathetic Scott’s gotten.

“You cannot stay in here forever,” Wanda says gently, and then, “please.”

She says it so earnestly that Scott actually responds, “Okay.”

Wanda smiles and helpfully uses her telekinesis to remove the covers Scott was sleeping under, come on, Wanda. He struggles out of bed and feels dizzy when he stands up, but Wanda links an arm through his, and he’s pretty sure by now that she is using her powers to help him move.

James Buchanan Barnes is in the kitchen, and Scott stops cold. He met him once, sort of, while they were in battle, but he looks different now, softer, his body almost relaxed and his hair in a messy ponytail, wearing a white undershirt and jeans. He’s talking to Steve, who looks genuinely happy in a way Scott’s never seen him, and Clint is there too, grinning. Sam is sitting on the counter, drinking orange juice from the bottle and glowering, but Scott bets that he and Bucky will start getting along soon. Sam’s good at getting along with people, and he’s probably just a little jealous right now.

Clint goes silent when he sees Scott and Wanda hovering awkwardly, and Bucky and Steve follow suit, turning to look at them. Steve tries for a smile, but it comes out anxious. Bucky just looks kind of calculating.

Scott’s still in one of Steve’s shirts and pajama pants, and his hair is a mess. Well, at least the pajamas are clean, and yesterday he actually showered for the second time since That Night, though all of it was with Clint’s help.

Scott has no idea what to do or how to deal with this. Maybe another version of him would, but this one has no goddamn clue. His breathing gets shaky and shallow, and he’s pretty sure the tremor that’s always running through his body lately is visible by now. Bucky looks wary and confused and even a little worried, and that’s what makes Scott wrench his arm out of Wanda’s grip, turn around, and go back to his room, because he’s done being this burden, done living this way, being this thing that only inspires pity when what he’s always done is try to help.

No one even calls after him, and Scott flops back down onto his bed and curls up.

Later, Sam comes in with food and doesn’t even comment when Scott doesn’t finish it, just pulls Scott’s covers up and over his shoulders because Scott hasn’t been able to, and sits with him until Scott falls asleep.

Scott is so, so sorry that he’s leaving Sam with this mess, but he’s mostly relieved, because, well, it’s not like he’s the person Sam knew, not anymore, and Steve and Clint were smiling, and Bucky’s presence will definitely confuse things enough for Scott to be able to do what he has to do.

Just have to find time to tap out.                                                                                                                                                               

One, two, three, four, five.

Six is a crowd.

Scott is alone when he wakes up, and with an energy he didn’t think he had anymore, an energy that probably comes from the knowledge that he’s never going to need to have energy ever again, he grabs one of the notebooks he stuffed into his backpack and writes and writes and writes, because there are some things he has to say to Cassie, and he has to get them all down now.

He still has the razor from That Night, safely tucked into the oldest of the photo albums.

When he’s done with the letter, he tears out the notebook pages he’s scribbled on and folds them as neatly as he can. He tucks the letter under his pillow, and looks out the window.

The sun is setting.

No one’s come in yet today.

He wonders if something’s happened with Bucky.

Then he catches a glimpse of an old copy of some book on the chair next to his bed and a plate of food on his nightstand and is almost comforted by the fact that someone was here. He knows he should be selfless enough to wish he’s been forgotten, but in the end, he doesn’t want to be.

Scott waits a few minutes, listening closely to his surroundings to make sure that nobody’s coming, and knows that he can do this, knows it with a numb certainty. His energy is precious, but he still has things to do, and he manages to power through them because he has to.

He takes out his photo albums, and turns the blue one to the page he’s tucked the razor blade into. It’s right there, bookmarking the place between two pictures of him and his mom. He slips the pictures out of their plastic pocket and sets them on his pillow, side by side.

In the first picture, he’s around six, and his mom is hugging him from behind. They’re beaming.

In the second one, he’s maybe fifteen, and they’re sitting in a stairwell. She’s started going gray, his own hair is dyed cherry red, and his arm is thrown around her shoulders. Their smiles are a little more tired than they were in the last photograph, but they’re real.

He closes the blue album and lets it fall to the floor, and then takes out the purple album, opens it to a random page, and chooses the photograph he likes the most to put next to the ones of him and his mother. It’s one that Maggie must have taken. He’s maybe twenty-seven and he’s sitting at their old kitchen table surrounded by blueprints, leaning back with his arms outstretched, beaming at the camera.

Finally, he takes out the red album, opens it to the right page without even trying, and sets the photo down carefully below the others. It’s the last photo taken of him and Cassie before he left, and he’s hugging her from behind, just like in the photo with his mom.

He carefully sets his letter atop the photographs, and then pushes the two albums to the floor.

He’s done.

He holds the razor blade up, and it catches the fading Wakandan light. It’s pretty.

Scott doesn't want to do this.

Wait, that's not accurate. He does want to do this. He just doesn't want to do it to the others, but it's like every other time he's seriously contemplated this: he wants to be selfish (for once, thinks a viciously over-stressed part of his mind, but when hasn't he been selfish, always trying to keep everything nice and easy because he can't handle other people's pain?), and this time he's so goddamn broken, nothing left but a black hole in his chest sucking in everything he feels before he can really feel it, that he doesn't even want to try to stop himself, especially considering how it won't be a surprise anyway, will it? 

He's gone and everyone must know it by now. They know who he is, that he's not a stable, calming presence, just a fake who couldn't handle what was inside anymore and let it spill out.

Everyone knows he's not who he pretended to be.

Even when he hasn't been empty like this or fired up like he used to get, has actually been something like the person he pretends to be (yesterday don't matter if it's gone), there's always been something to lie about. No one can be happy all the time, no one can always be okay.

Scott's always been as okay as he can be under the circumstances, or even better than he should be under the circumstances, and most of the time that's been him putting it on (I'm headed for a land that's far away) because the truth is that he doesn't handle things as well as he knows he should be able to.

He can put on a happy face, but he can't fix what's broken inside.

(You'll find that life will be worthwhile, if you just smile...)

There's always been parts of him that are secret, that only a few people ever knew about, and even then because he couldn't hide it anymore (just like now), because he spent too much time around them and the secrets came out.

Even when his smiles have been real, Scott's always lied.

(Maggie said she couldn't handle being married to someone like him, sobbing on the other side of a bulletproof divide. Said she didn't know what was true and what wasn't. Said she thought she knew, but she couldn't really, and that was just too hard to take, especially if he didn’t mean to break the promises he broke.)

Scott's always hidden.

He's always tried to be better than he is.

He’s been lying about his abilities since childhood. 

He's been manic depressive since he was seventeen. 

He's been a deadbeat dad for as long as he's been a dad.

He's been a fuck-up for as long as he can remember. 

Scott's been playing dirty for his whole life, and these days it all feels like one long con.

You can never really stop being a criminal or a liar.

He is so tired. He is so useless.

His mother used to lie in bed and turn her head away from Scott and say, I'm tired, I'm so tired.

But you sleep so much, he'd respond, not understanding. 

He understands now.

He knows the others want to help and that they’ll think he didn’t give them enough of a chance to help, but they're screwed up enough, and as much as he wants to get better, he knows it never lasts, and he knows it's just a disappointment when things get bad again. This time it's even worse, because these people are dumbass, self-sacrificing superheroes, and they'll feel guilty when they can't help him get better at all this time, because this time is a special case as much as they might say it’s not, this time he's done.

He's done. 

Sure, they'll feel guilty when he's dead, but at least they won't have to deal with him while he's not, and they're five people, they can handle it. He's just an extra, or maybe a guest star. They’ll miss him, because he's their friend by now (he can't let himself think of them as family anymore, that makes him too sick and he doesn't want to spend the end of his life vomiting) and they care, but it still wouldn't be like losing one of the others. There won't be some kind of gap in their team, there just won't be Scott. 

He's not going to say his death will actively benefit them, because it won't, and he can't bring himself to care. (That's when he knows, at the time or looking back, that he's far gone: when he can't bring himself to care about other people.) This isn't about them anymore. It's about him, and how he can't do this, and how he is tired, and how he is done. (Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried, in my way…to be free…)

He'd go to the bathroom and fill the tub with water and bleed out in there if he could, but he can’t, he just has the energy to do this one last thing, and he’s pretty sure that if he tried to do anything else, he’d get too tired to even follow through on this.

He puts the razor to his arm and his fingers don't shake as he slices a long, deep slit up his wrist, from his elbow to the palm of his hand, breathing harshly through the pain and watching the blood pour down his arm.

He's ready to start on the other arm when the door is ripped off its hinges, wrapped in a familiar red energy.

Scott feels the blood-slick razor drop from his fingers.

He feels dizzy, and there's a commotion and—

"Jesus fuck!"

"press the panic button" 

“Steve, tell T'Challa's doctors..." 

“go the fuck away, Barnes!”

“Scott!”

"Wanda, don't look!”

—the world slips in and out of focus as someone presses some kind of cloth to his wound. Scott would be upset that his suicide's clearly been foiled, and maybe ten minutes ago he really would’ve been, but he doesn’t care again. Life could go either way, it's not as if he's actually living it. 

"Scott, look at me, stay with me," Sam says, voice tight. 

Scott looks into Sam's desperate, gleaming, beautiful eyes, lifts up his right hand, the one not attached to the arm that's bleeding heavily, and strokes his fingers along Sam's jaw. "Woah," he says with a helpless smile as a tear burns down his cheek. "Buy me dinner first."

There are more people in the room now, and Scott suddenly starts giggling half-hysterically, or probably full-hysterically, considering that he's kinda dying right now, and he can’t breathe, and he has been on this blessed fucking green earth for too long.

Sam stepped back at some point (Scott misses him, here's another true thing: he'll miss him, he'll miss all of them, however far away, I will always love you) and says, words dancing through Scott's brain without meaning anything, but Sam’s saying them, so he at least hears, "47-year-old male with a self-inflicted laceration from a razor blade on his right arm from wrist to elbow. Pretty sure he severed his cephalic vein, but I'm not sure. He needs medical attention now."

"Nah," Scott slurs out, giggling deliriously. He hasn't laughed this much in a long time. “I’m okay.” 

Then he passes out.

One evening as the sun went down,

and the jungle fire was burning

down the track came a hobo walking

and he said, boys, I’m not turning,

I’m headed for a land that’s far away,

Behind the crystal fountains,

So come with me, let’s go and see…

Scott’s world is bathed in sunshine.

He is not where he was, or anywhere that he usually is. Instead, he is standing in the middle of a trail made of light pink rocks glittering under the golden sunlight that is just the right kind of warm on his skin.

Scott looks around and, after catching a glimpse of a huge, shining crystal fountain running with cold, clean water, he sees that he is surrounded by mountains that rise up, up, up around him in various colors and shades: bubblegum pink, dark purple, yellow-gold, clear light blue, apple green…

When Scott takes a deep breath, the air tastes sweet on his tongue as his lungs open and welcome the oxygen they have been aching for. Scott touches a wall of gleaming light purple rocks, the texture of the science project his first grade class once did rough against his fingers, wet with what he finds, when he puts them to his mouth, is gin.

Scott smiles.

The Big Rock Candy Mountain.

He wanders along the path with sure steps, shoes gritty with sugar, running his fingers over glistening cherry red boulders, looking up at the mangos and apples and peaches and pears and low-hanging cigarettes growing from trees with shockingly green leaves, spotting the little red barns in the distance, catching sight of the proudly shining copper-colored railroads that don’t entirely obey the laws of physics, the big, empty tin cans with a perfectly rectangular opening cut out of them but no door, all of the tin prisons emblazoned with the word JAIL written in those button-shaped candies that Scott used to eat in the eighties…

Scott pauses in his journey when he reaches the gently flowing lemonade springs and sees a familiar woman sitting on what seems like sand, but is, at a closer look, the powder in Pop Rocks packets.

She is looking up at the blue, blue sky, and then she turns to Scott, pushing thick copper red hair out of her face. She looks young and peaceful and just like she used to when she was at her best. Her smile is brighter than San Francisco at night, and Scott walks toward her with steps that still do not falter, unsurprised by her presence, because he did not realize this, but they were expecting each other.

He sits next to her and she leans her head on the crown of his. “You’ve grown up so much,” she murmurs.

“Mama,” he breathes out as he takes one of her hands. “Mama, it’s beautiful.”

“Oh, Scotty,” Harriet Cassandra Lang whispers, “So is what you’re going back to.”

“I don’t want to,” Scott says, voice choked. “Can’t I just stay with you?”

“No, baby, you’ve got so much living left to do.”

Scott closes his eyes and turns his face to the sun as his mother begins to sing, and when he falls asleep it’s to the whistle of a train dancing through the air and his mama’s voice.

…I’ll see y’all this coming fall…

                                                                                                    …in the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Scott’s eyes open to a world of white and silver. His head pounds, he’s still empty, and the very first thing he thinks is, I wish I’d died.

There are doctors around him and they swarm him with questions he can’t answer and probing touches. He does nothing until they leave him be, and it’s then that he notices Wanda sitting next to him. He turns his face so that he can see her, and tries to say her name, even though it comes out a pathetic rasp.

Wanda’s eyes are puffy and red and when he says her name, she starts to cry, not the silent tears he’s used to, but outright sobbing. Scott reaches out for her with his good arm. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

She clutches at his hand so hard it hurts. Her eyes are red, and not just with tears. “I know it is selfish,” she says, her accent much stronger than usual, “but do not…Scott, do not leave me, please, do not leave me, please,” she manages to choke out before dissolving into tears. “Cannot lose you too,” she mumbles in between her sobs.

“Wanda, I’m so sorry, I just wasn’t…”

I wasn’t thinking straight.

I get confused sometimes.

He tries to direct the thoughts at her, still not sure how exactly her telepathy works, but she seems to understand, because she nods. “I know, I know, Scott, I know.”

She starts sobbing again, one hand over her mouth and one hand over her heart, and Scott does his best to sit up and open his arms to her, despite the pain that shoots through his bad arm.

She hesitantly—she doesn’t want to hurt him, Scott hates that—leans forward and wraps her arms around him, crying into his chest. He rests his chin on the crown of her head and says again, uselessly, “I’m so sorry.”

He feels hollow, but he knows he loves her, that Wanda will always have a special place in his heart. “I didn’t want to leave you, I don’t want to leave you. I just couldn’t…”

“I know,” Wanda whispers. “I know.”

He’s not sure when exactly he drifts away, but he does.

Scott is lying on his hospital bed, eyes closed, body limp and heavy, spent after what happened with Wanda. He’s not sure how long he’s been here. He’s sure some doctor or nurse has told him, but they’re just blurs of scrubs and white coats.

He's not asleep. He was asleep, but he woke to low voices speaking words that he still can't make out. He recognizes Steve's voice right away, and then it only takes a second to register who the other voice belongs to. He doesn’t hear it much, but it’s distinctive.

He wonders, idly, what the hell King T'Challa is doing here, and why Steve's here. Well, Steve is his friend, and T'Challa and Steve are friends. At least, Scott thinks they are. T'Challa is friends with Sam too. And Natasha. Clint? Not sure. Definitely not Wanda. Wanda is afraid of T'Challa after what happened in Nigeria. Scott wonders if Bucky and T'Challa are friends too, because he knows almost nothing about Bucky, just facts and his face and his voice. He's barely spoken to Bucky. Probably. God, he just can't remember. He didn't know Bucky for that long, before he decided to cut out early. Hell, Bucky was one of the reasons Scott decided to cut out early—or, more accurately, one of the excuses. Obviously, that's just another secret Scott will never tell. 

Steve's words amble into clarity as he says, "I shouldn't'a sprung Bucky on him like that, not with how he was doing. It just...I dunno, it feels like it was a mistake to just...God, I should know better than to not tell people shit because I think it'll be better for them. I didn't know how to break the news to either of them—I mean, hey, Scott, Bucky's outta cryo, thought you oughta know! He's better, don't worry, he probably won't hurt you! Hey, Bucky, remember the tiny slash huge guy from the airport mess? Yeah, he's here but you gotta be careful with him, because he's straight-up lost it." 

Huh. Maybe it's not a secret after all. 

"Perhaps it was a clumsy introduction," T'Challa concedes, "but you cannot blame yourself for it all. Scott made a choice. It is simply a blessing that his attempt was not successful." 

"I just wish I'd noticed. I was so caught up in Bucky, everyone got so caught up in Bucky, Scott got lost in it. He was just so quiet."

"Steve, as far as I can tell, Scott is the kind of man who has made an art out of getting lost in the confusion." 

Scott's impressed. He guesses kinghood must involve some people-reading abilities. 

Steve lets out a shaky sigh. “Fuck.”

T’Challa responds, “Wakanda has excellent doctors. Psychologists. He can get help. He can get better. It is never the end.”

“I just want everything to be okay,” Steve says hollowly.

He’s so young.

The next time Scott wakes up, it’s to someone loudly collapsing into one of the chairs next to his bed.

"Dumbass motherfucker," Sam says uncharitably, and in a better world, Scott would feel like laughing, if a little hysterically, but instead he's still curled up on his side, his back blessedly to Sam, because God, he doesn’t want Sam to see his face.

Scott drags open his eyes just because he feels he should do something to acknowledge Sam’s presence, even if Sam can’t see it. His gaze is unfocused and his eyes burn. All the white and shiny silver just blurs together.

Sam doesn't say anything after his tiny outburst, but Scott can imagine him at this moment with only a little effort. He figures Sam looks like he does when he gets bad at night, hunched over, expression troubled, eyes bright. Maybe his face in his hands, but that’s only when he cries. Scott hopes he’s not crying.

With sitcom-esque timing, just as that thought finishes meandering through Scott's head, he hears Sam start to sob with a violence that makes Scott’s breath catch and his heart ache.

Scott wants to turn around. He wants to look at Sam, see if the image in his head is as accurate as he thinks it is. He wants to hold him, wants to tell him that he was one of the reasons Scott considered sticking around at all, that he's one of the reasons Scott's considering just staying this time, not even putting the effort into trying for a successful suicide, since no one will let him anyway. He wants to wipe Sam's tears away and tell him that even if Scott's been fucked in the head really bad for most of the time Sam's been around him, knowing him has still been one of the bright spots in his life, even compared to when he's been well. He wants to beg Sam not to cry for him.

He doesn't do any of these things.

Instead, Scott just keeps staring at the wall until he closes his dry eyes.

He falls asleep to Sam's miserable weeping without having moved an inch, or said a single solitary word. 

Sam and Steve are both there when Scott wakes up, sitting on either side of him. It’s an operation, but Scott turns himself so that he’s lying on his back, and clumsily finds the button that raises the bed so that he can sit up. It’s comfortable, for a hospital bed.

Steve gives Scott a brave smile, and Scott wishes he could give a brave smile back, but his face is nothing but blank. He doesn’t know what to do.

He looks over at Sam and opens his mouth, but his throat burns and he doesn’t know what to say to Sam’s quiet heartbreak, so instead he reaches out a hand.

Sam looks surprised for a second before his face softens. He takes Scott’s hand, gently rubbing his thumb over Scott’s knuckles.

The last thing Scott can remember honestly wanting is to die. The second to last thing he can remember wanting is Sam.

Steve nudges Scott’s shoulder, and Scott turns his head to look at him. Steve’s holding out a cup of water, and Scott shakily takes it with his bad arm.

It spills everywhere.

Steve winces. “Sorry,” he says, as though it’s his fault that his pants are now spattered with water.

“Sorry,” Scott parrots, and he is. For the water, for everything. He wanted to die, still wants to die, but he is sorry.

If he’d died, he thinks with halfhearted bitterness, he wouldn’t have to be sorry.

Sam lets go of his hand—Scott misses his touch—and hands Scott a cup of water so he’s holding it in both hands. “Careful,” he murmurs.

Scott drinks. The water is coppery on his tongue.

There’s silence for a while before Sam says, “Your doctor’s talked to you, right?”

Scott didn’t know he had a specific doctor. His blank look must tell Sam enough, because he says, “The lowdown is that you did manage to cut your cephalic vein, but Wakanda’s got some pretty state-of-the-art medical tech and there won’t be any lasting damage other than some scarring.”

Scott doesn’t care, but he still nods.

“Your doctor wants to talk to you, though, so I’m gonna tell her you’re awake and then Steve and I are gonna go for a minute while she talks to you, but we’ll be back when she says you’re done.”

Scott nods again and then leans his head back against his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

Sam and Steve only leave when the doctor comes in. Small, short hair, dark skin, white coat. Your basic, average doctor.

Scott only turns his head in her general direction when she says, “Hello, Mr. Lang.”

Scott lets out some kind of affirmative noise that definitely isn’t hello, or even close enough.

“Do you remember my name?” she asks.

Scott shakes his head.

“I am Dr. Masuku. When I have talked to you, I do not think you’ve been especially lucid. Sam informed me that he had told you about the state of your arm. Is that correct?”

Scott nods.

“Very well. You should know that you are also dehydrated and underweight. I’m told that you have stomach upset and vomit often?”

Scott nods. He’s getting very tired of nodding.

“It is possible that that is a psychological symptom, but we will do some tests to check if there’s a physical issue behind the vomiting.”

Scott doesn’t really have any useful response to that, so he does nothing.

The doctor says, after some silence, “Your physical health is delicate, but I do not believe it is the main issue.”

No fucking kidding.

“I suggest consulting with a psychologist and psychiatrist. We have some very good ones on staff. They are also going to help Mr. Barnes.”

Scott does nothing, again. It’s not that he’s completely against psychologists or psychiatrists or medication, it’s just that he’s never really had a chance to see any except for a couple of the prison psychologists who were always well-meaning but overworked and, Scott suspected, usually inexperienced and out of their depth; and he was told that going to psych was a goddamn nightmare. Maggie had sometimes suggested he see someone, but he’d always shrugged it off. There were just always better things to do with that money, and maybe he was just stubborn. Maybe he’s just stubborn.

And, no, he doesn’t trust doctors, he just doesn’t. Most of the ones he went to were in understaffed clinics, and they didn’t really give a shit anymore. They did their job, but it was all just too much, and he knows they dragged people off to psych hold. Institutions fuck people up.

Scott would know. He’s been to prison.

(Scott would know. His mother was institutionalized once. He doesn’t remember how he learned it, but he does remember that she was terrified of being held down, and she would wake up screaming, and she said that she’d never take lithium again because all it did was sedate her until she was a woman she didn’t recognize.)

Scott knows psychologists and psychiatrists can just hurt people worse than they’ve already been hurt, even if these are doctors employed by the King of Wakanda, even if they’re the best of the best.

Besides, he’s not really one to talk about his problems. To heal. He’s always managed to get better by himself, deal with his ups and downs, shove the most difficult parts of his life, of himself, into the back of his mind, accept them without coming to terms with them.

Obviously he’s not very good at doing any of that anymore, but still. Maybe some of this is just pride.

Pride isn’t a good reason to do anything, and Scott knows, intellectually at least, that it’s time to face himself and try to get better in a more permanent way instead of teetering on the edge of sanity, fully aware of his lack of balance control.

No one’s going to let Scott die. This is a pretty harsh fact, but a true one. He knows that the people with him are going to fight for his life, because they’re kind of idiots (though that’s uncharitable), and he hates being a bother, so maybe he should fight for his life too.

(But those thoughts steal into his head and then dance right back out, not solid enough to grasp, not present enough to process.)

Heal.

He thinks that if he ever starts feeling again, the first thing he’ll feel is afraid.

I shall not fear.

Scott hasn’t prayed in a long time, but now lumps and waves of words hit him and he remembers lighting Hanukkah candles some years but not others and stumbling over the Mourner’s Kaddish at his mother’s funeral and going to shul once or twice when his mother was manic and promising herself she’d start going again—

He’s forced out of his thoughts by the doctor saying, with a volume that betrays the fact that she’s probably been trying to get through to him for a while, “Mr. Lang!”

He twitches his head to almost face her again, which she seems to correctly take as a sign he’s listening. “Do you think you will get help from a psychologist and psychiatrist? Or either of them at all?”

His mother said, You’ve got so much living left to do.

He doesn’t believe her, but he guesses she was technically right, since no one’s going to let him die. He says, “Maybe.”

Then he pointedly says nothing until the doctor gets the hint and Sam and Steve are back in the room.

I shall not fear.

Sam says, “You’ll probably be out of here tomorrow. It’s, uh, it’s been a few days. We’ll figure it all out.”

Scott just closes his eyes and thinks: God, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you…

Scott is discharged from medical the next day, just like Sam said he would be.

It takes him about a day more to decide that suicide watch is bullshit.

Okay, it’s not bullshit, and he understands why it’s happening, but it’s certainly not his favorite thing ever. He’s still mostly in his room, but now there’s always someone with him, and it wouldn’t be so bad if Scott didn’t know that they’re literally doing shifts so that he’s never alone. If Scott didn’t know he was a burden.

He can’t care too much, though, not when he’s still pretty much living in his own universe where he sometimes doesn’t even recognize the others.

Sam and Wanda are the ones he always knows, since they spend the most time with him. Wanda tells him stories that he doesn’t register other than the lilting of her voice, and Sam—

Sam is the one who spends every night next to his bed, sleeping on the floor. Scott feels a deep ache in his stomach when he sees him do that, but doesn’t want to tell him to stop either. He doesn’t want to tell Sam to go to his own bed, that he doesn’t have to do this every night, come on, because Sam’s presence doesn’t make him feel less empty, but it makes something easier.

The days blur by, and Wanda starts giving Scott the updates on general existence that he used to give her—the date, the place, the time. He should really bring up the memory loss at some point. Maybe he already has.

Scott doesn’t leave his room except to go to the bathroom. He still needs help from Clint to shower and change, and it’s still awful, but he knows he wouldn’t do it on his own. Everyone does.

Sometimes Scott thinks of ways to die even while on suicide watch, just to pass the time, but he knows that it’ll never work, considering his company and faculties. He used up all of his committing-suicide ability on his attempt anyway, so now he’ll just live this long ending. Oh, well. At least he has his friends. The comforting thought shouldn’t feel as empty as it does.

(He misses Luís, Hope, even Maggie.

And of course, of course, of course he misses Cassie, his daughter, his baby, his world.

In his head, he composes letters to her.)

Sam says, one day, “Are you going to go to the psychologist and psychiatrist? I think they could really help you. Even just one of them.”

Scott would generally have to try to not roll his eyes, but thankfully his body’s inability to do anything means that he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t answer. He said maybe. The answer is still maybe. Everyone wants him to heal, but he’d kind of rather waste away. He knows that that shouldn’t be the truth, but it is. He wants to not be here.

The end.

“Scott, therapy really helped me. Actually, straight-up just accepting help helped me. From anyone, not just professionals. I mean…I don’t think I’ve ever been how you are right now, but after I came home, I was bad. I wouldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I scared my sister’s kids because I was so pissed all the time when I wasn’t just numb. It’s like it was this mix of horrible emotions and pretty much nothing, and when I felt nothing, sometimes I thought that maybe it was okay, y’know?”

Scott’s head turns to look at Sam. It’s not on purpose.

Something rises in his chest. It might be empathy. Scott reaches out a hand, and Sam takes it, his head lowered. “But it sucked. I wanted to have a life, but I kept forgetting that because my brain didn’t want it. I was always thinking, if Riley didn’t live, why should I? If all the people I couldn’t save didn’t live, why should I? My sister kept begging me to go to the VA, but I just wouldn’t. I was too proud to get help, but really that’s just the tragic flaw I gave myself so that I didn’t have to admit that I was just scared. Getting better is harder than being sick sometimes, and I was afraid I wouldn’t get better anyway.”

Scott squeezes Sam’s hand, and Sam looks up. His eyes are glossy and piercing. “I always say you don’t have to hit rock bottom to start healing, but I did.”

Scott offers, “So did I.”

Sam lets out a huff of laughter. “I nearly ate my gun one night.”

Scott’s stomach twists and he wants to ask, Why? You had so much left, why?

But he knows the answer.

“But I didn’t. Obviously. I wish I could say it’s because I had some kind of epiphany and realized my life had meaning and that it wasn’t worth it to die, but it’s actually because at some point, my brother took all the bullets in my apartment.” Sam snorts with laughter. “There wasn’t anything to load the motherfucking guns with!”

Scott feels the corners of his lips twitch upwards at Sam’s good humor, and he thinks that maybe at some point in these past few days, he did start getting better, or at least closer to alive, because he’s still scraping the bottom of some pretty sharp rocks, but right now, interacting with a guy the person he used to be is pretty much in love with, he doesn’t feel quite so heavy.

Maybe he does have a chance. Sam did.

Sam continues, “I called my brother and fucking tore into him, man, but it was pretty stupid, ‘cause it made it obvious that I’d wanted to kill myself. He came over to my apartment and we kinda talked it out, and it helped. I finally let someone talk to me, and with me, and I listened, and it…did something. Did enough that I actually went to the VA, and…well, I’m not dead. And…I’m happy about that, even with the shit that’s gone down.”

Scott gives Sam a searching look. His expression is open and gentle and hopeful.

Scott doesn’t have any hope anymore, but the people around him do. Maybe he can take some of that, if they don’t mind. Just for a little while.

“I was a PJ,” Sam says, suddenly. “Pararescue.”

“I know.”

“Yeah, I know you do, Tic Tac, I was just mentioning for the story. So, I was a PJ, and I saved people. Couldn’t save everyone, but I saved people. It was my job. We rescued. These things we do, that others may live.” Sam’s voice cracks and he tries to blink away tears, but one runs down his cheek.

Scott lets his hand slip from Sam’s so that he can wipe the tear away. “It’s okay,” he whispers.

Sam lets out a wet chuckle. “Jesus, man, you’re a goddamn trip, you know that?”

Scott’s not sure what Sam’s getting at, so he just shrugs.

Sam clears his throat and continues. “We rescued. Angels of mercy. So really what I did when I went to the VA, when I decided to get help even though I was scared and didn’t think I deserved it and sometimes I didn’t even want it—I thought about me as someone I was saving. Would I save me, if I wasn’t me? I know that sounds convoluted as fuck, but it’s the moral of the story that counts. Anyway, I thought, yeah, I would. I’d do everything I could to save Sam Wilson. Hell, I thought I’d like to know Sam Wilson, or who he was before…you know, and who he could be after. So I decided that, yeah, Sam Wilson was still important even when I was Sam Wilson. And I decided to save myself. Have mercy on myself. I decided to live. I decided to try to be more than I was right at that moment.” Sam looks at Scott, and Scott’s actually taken aback, because there’s something desperate and determined in Sam’s eyes, and there’s still that hope. “You should have mercy on yourself too, Scott. You should save yourself too. You care about people. You wouldn’t want someone to kill themselves. So—if you think about yourself, if you think about a person like you, would you try to save them?”

A jailbird, an absent father (with a daughter who loves him), a manic depressive (but that doesn’t mean a life’s not worth living), a superhero, a shitty friend, a 47-year-old (47 isn’t even old), a criminal, a human being with a life and maybe, maybe living left to do, with friends who love him, with friends he loves—

Scott would try.

“Yeah,” he whispers.

Sam grins. “You’re a superhero, Scott. Save yourself.”

Scott looks at Sam and, in that moment, decides to be alive.

It’s a turnaround, an epiphany, because Scott's too exhausted to have anything but epiphanies. In a movie, it’d be more satisfying, but in reality he doesn’t feel that much better, and he wouldn’t want to die, but he does. He just also wants to not want that, and he decides to get to that point. He thinks of the Golden Rule everyone gets taught when they’re kids: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Well, it works when it’s turned around too, right? Do unto you as you would do unto others.

Help yourself, I guess.

Scott says, with a boldness he wouldn’t have if he weren’t a weird android version of himself, “You shouldn’t sleep on the floor tonight. The bed’s really big.”

Sam smiles.

That night, Sam bodily shoves him over and collapses next to him, throws an arm over Scott’s stomach, smushes his face into Scott’s shoulder, and starts snoring softly in the space of about five seconds.

Scott stares at the ceiling, utterly confused, and then goes to sleep.

Sam hogs the covers, but, in some vague way, sleeping is more peaceful with him in Scott’s bed, and with him there it’s easier for Scott to remember exactly why he’s decided to try to live.

Scott’s psychiatrist is an unassuming man in a suit who Sam assures him has been vetted and proved to be fantastic at what he does, and Scott sees him before the psychologist, because apparently it’s been decided that stabilizing him via medication is necessary before going into the slower-acting therapy.

Scott’s apparently informed that he’s going to be visiting the psychiatrist days in advance, but he doesn’t remember until Clint comes in and literally, bodily drags him out of bed. Scott doesn’t resist, because it’s actually easier.

“You have to change into real clothes,” Clint says.

At least Scott showered yesterday. “Fuck,” he says blankly.

“Yep,” Clint says. “You have the psychiatrist today.”

Scott would quite literally rather die than go, but the psychiatrist does seem less daunting than the psychologist. Psychiatrists just throw meds at people. Psychologists talk to them.

Besides, the medication might work. There’s a part of Scott that thinks it won’t, and has accepted that with the same brush-off he gives to everything now, but he still lets himself insist it might, it might, it might, it probably will, it will, it’ll work, try it.

Scott’s in sweatpants and a t-shirt, which is basically pajamas, but whatever, and he’s not sure how it happened.

He looks into the mirror for a long time, searching his empty eyes for a spark of life, before Clint says, “Brush your teeth.”

Because it’s a legitimate suggestion, Scott does. He nearly throws up and he feels like he’s going to collapse after, but he does.

After that, he just stands there until Clint takes his shoulder and steers him out of the bathroom gently. Scott really doesn’t know where to go. He’s a wind-up doll more than anything, he guesses.

Clint sits him down in an armchair that he didn’t notice was in the corner of his room, and Scott does nothing, staring over at the wall.

“The psychiatrist is coming to your room,” Clint explains.

“Thanks,” Scott mumbles. He’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to leave after doing all that, even if he wanted to.

“No problem,” Clint says, sighing. “He should be here in a few minutes.”

Scott’s mind wanders to nowhere until a deep voice says, “Mr. Lang, do you hear me?”

Unfortunately, Scott does. He wants to stay unresponsive, but he thinks of a thirteen year old boy asking incessant questions to bait his silent mother into at least looking at him, determined to remind her that not everything was lost, and nods.

“My name is Dr. Zuma. I’ve been briefed about your situation.” Dr. Zuma’s voice is warm and low, and when Scott does nothing, he carries on. “I have also gotten access to your psychological evaluation from your trial. I assume you remember that you consented to this through a signature?”

Scott vaguely remembers Sam walking him through a bunch of forms, probably assuming that Scott’s total inability to read them was purely because of his mental state at the moment. “Sure,” he mumbles.

“I’ve noticed that despite your diagnosis, you never went to any professionals.”

“Money,” Scott says in exhausted explanation.

“Ah, I see. Do you think you can answer some questions about how your bipolar disorder manifests?”

“It’s classic bipolar I,” Scott whispers through the marbles in his mouth. “Months of up, months of down, months of subclinical.”

He’d already had that one locked and loaded.

“And I see that you also have diagnoses of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and ADHD?”

Scott hums an affirmative. He knows he also has dyslexia, but that’s all self-diagnosis, and he really doesn’t feel like hashing it out with this guy when he can barely speak.

“I have panic attacks,” Scott offers, partially to get this over with and partially because he did try Xanax a couple times in college and it worked pretty well.

“That’s good to know. How long do you believe you have had these illnesses?”

“GAD since I can remember, manic depression since I was seventeen.”

“Manic depression?”

Scott shrugs. “What my mama called it.”

It sounds more evocative, he thinks.

“Was your mother bipolar?”

“Mhm,” Scott hums.

“That’s also good to know. Has she passed?”

“When I was nineteen,” Scott says, words almost impossible to get out, but he trudges along. “My manic depression got real bad after. Wasn’t so bad at first.”

“I see,” the doctor says. Scott genuinely doesn’t know how he’s even understanding Scott’s slurred, murmuring. “And I’ve been told by your friend Ms. Van Dyne that very high exposure to Pym particles can have severe neurological effects on people, and that your experience in the…quantum realm, she called it, has had marked effects on your brain.”

Scott blinks, something jumping in his chest, and actually looks at the doctor. “You talked to Hope?”

Dr. Zuma looks both surprised and concerned. “Yes, I was told you cleared that?”

Scott doesn’t have the energy to not trust his friends, so he assumes that he did clear it, and just forgot. “Oh.”

He doesn’t ask what she knows. It’s probably too much.

“Memory loss,” he mutters.

“Yes, I was told about that. We are going to work on the psychological issues, but I will suggest that you consult with other medical professionals.” The doctor pauses. “I was told that your acute episode and suicide attempt happened six months into your time here, but that you had also admitted that you were very depressed even before.”

“Dead,” Scott murmurs.

“What was that?”

“I’m dead inside. Have been since the Raft. Couldn’t do it anymore.”

“I see. Scott, I believe that, considering how you at least used to function without medication or therapy, medication would be very beneficial to you, though the effects of the particles and quantum realm are confounding factors. I think your statement that you have a classic manifestation of bipolar I is correct, but your mental health was simply unable to handle the stress of being imprisoned and the loss of your family and friends, especially coupled with your anxiety disorder and the neurological consequences of Pym particles.”

Scott already knew all of this, but he sits through it patiently. He assumes the doctor will be getting onto the medication part eventually.

“I believe that what I am first going to do is attempt to treat this depressive episode by putting you on an olanzapine-fluoxetine combination, which is often effective in treating acute depression. After this episode has become less severe, I believe that we will change the medications.”

“Sure,” Scott says, and then there’s just awkward silence.

“Well, I’m going to write you a prescription, and then I was told that one of your friends will pick it up. It’s still morning, so I would like you to take the medication for the first time tonight. Start on 6 mg olanzapine and 25 mg fluoxetine, and then, depending on how you feel, you can keep upping the dosage until it reaches 12 mg olanzapine and 50 mg fluoxetine.”

None of that means anything, so Scott says nothing.

“…I’ll write it down and tell your friends what’s going on. If that’s alright?”

Scott nods. Sure.

It’s fine.

He does get the medication by that evening, a little yellow-colored capsule that Sam hands to him with a glass of water after nudging him awake.

Scott stares at it. It doesn’t look very useful.

Sam nudges his shoulder. “Hey, worth a shot, right?”

(Sam takes Zoloft.)

Scott swallows the pill, and goes back to sleep.

The pill is, in a word, okay. Scott’s still trying to get used to it, but he has started sometimes having actual feelings in the place of extremely vague almost-feelings and the knowledge that he would be having a particular feeling if he weren’t so empty, and he’s almost sure that that’s the medication. So that’s not bad.

Also, he’s gained three pounds without really doing anything, which isn’t bad either.

Things are mostly the same, though, because it’s only been a couple of weeks, but he’s upped the dosage to the highest it can go and it really has made things kind of better, so he has to admit that this medication thing hasn’t been a total wash.

Unfortunately, a lot of those emotions he hasn’t been feeling have been variations on frustration, so now, when he doesn’t feel what’s become normal to him, he kind of feels like an angsty, severely depressed teenager. It hasn’t gotten obvious to other people, as far as he can tell, but he’s definitely noticed it.

He has his first appointment with the psychologist in two days, and for whichever reason, his mood has plummeted from ‘almost a little extant’ to ‘not that’. It’s probably because he’s dreading it, in some vague way. He’s going to have to get out of bed. He’s going to have to not wear pajamas. He’s going to talk to someone, ostensibly about his feelings.

Scott really wants to die instead. It’s anxiety, he guesses, which seems unfair. He can feel barely anything—except anxiety. What a fucking win.

Wanda’s with him right now, apparently practicing with her powers if the red energy around her hands is anything to go by. He still wonders, sometimes, if she could fix him, but he knows she can’t, and knows he won’t ask it of her. Wanda’s incredibly powerful, but he knows she can’t fix someone’s neurology. She can read people’s minds and manipulate them, insert visions, induce a couple of feelings, maybe, like fear or calm. She can help deprogram Bucky, but she can’t fix him or Scott, can’t take it all away.

Can’t fix everything.

It’s not that easy. It’s never that easy.

If she tried to take away his manic depression, she’d probably pretty much lobotomize him, and it honestly wouldn’t be that different from now, so what’s the point?

Scott watches scarlet slip through Wanda’s fingers, mesmerized. Blood on her hands.

It’s been over a month since his attempt. He knows this because Wanda told him. It doesn’t feel like that long. It doesn’t feel like anything. Still, time is kind of becoming something he can grasp again, so he’s at least less out of it.

His eyes drift away after a while because he’s never had much of an attention span, and land on his nightstand. At that moment, he remembers his backpack, the photo albums, the journals he hasn’t opened but that he knows are full of equations and precise sketches of machinery and misspelled ramblings. He wonders what else he put in that backpack while he tore through his apartment stuffing anything he thought was necessary in there. He must’ve at least sort of looked through it, since he got the photo albums. He tries to remember what he saw, and thinks it wasn’t everything.

He wants to see it all. 

Scott doesn’t get curious anymore, but that’s not exactly true. The person who gets curious, the real him, he’s there, waiting to be saved.

The backpack is stuffed under his bed. Scott wants to get up and rummage around under there and pull that old, beat-up thing out. He was wearing it during the Ant-Man job.

Memories. It’s a bag full of memories.

Scott counts uno, dos, tres, levantate, just like Luís always says, but he can only manage a vague twitch. That used to work. Not every time, but enough.

He stays in bed.

Wanda frowns at him. Maybe she got something from his mind even though she wasn’t focusing on him. He hopes her telepathy isn’t getting stronger. “Do you want something, Scott?”

Scott does his best to shrug while lying down. It’s just as ineffective as all the other times he’s done it.

Wanda smiles at him. Her eyes are still sad. Lately that’s the default look in everyone’s eyes when they’re around Scott. That or concern. “Alright. If there is anything, just tell me.”

Scott doesn’t respond, just closes his eyes and lets himself drift away to a place somewhere between sleeping and awake. Faintly, he hears Wanda’s phone buzz, and he gets a sick feeling that whatever message she got contained something he’s not going to like.

He’s right.

“Bucky made food, so we are all eating together today. And…and maybe then we can watch TV?”

“Have fun,” Scott mumbles, slowly opening his eyes to slits.

“No, you have to come out too.”

She doesn’t include the end of that sentence, which is ‘because you tried to kill yourself and now we don’t think you should be alone’.

(Scott doesn’t have to resist the urge to formulate some kind of joke about the ‘coming out’ thing, but he knows that at some point he would’ve.)

“I’m not fun,” he points out, trying to communicate that he’s pretty sure that at this point he has a raincloud hanging over his head, and no one wants to eat around that.

Of course, everyone clearly wants to eat together, so if Scott stays in his room without even trying to get up, it would probably be some flavor of dick move, because he ‘can’t be alone’ and all, so someone would have to miss the…family dinner.

Fuck.

He used to be fun. He used to be super fun.

His soul’s been sucked out. Less fun.

Wanda fondly rolls her eyes. “We will deal with it. You have to eat. Bucky is a…surprisingly good cook. Take a deep breath and then try and get up. You can do it, I know you can.”

Scott’s terrible at saying no, and Wanda’s sudden sureness reminds him of Cassie’s insistence on her way.

He tries to take a deep breath and chokes on it, but then he mutters, “uno, dos, tres, levantate,” and he’s actually on his feet. He sways a little and has to put a hand on Wanda’s shoulder to keep his knees from buckling, but he’s in an actual upright position, and he didn’t have any help.

Wanda’s face is lit up with so much joy that Scott wants to gently remind her that all that happened was that he managed to self-motivate enough to stand up by himself.

He just pats her on the shoulder instead, and she links her arm around his and helps him to the kitchen again.

He’s pretty sure he hasn’t been in the kitchen since he first saw Bucky. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t been out of his room or its adjoining bathroom since his attempt.

Everyone’s sitting around the table, and they look shocked to see him. Apparently this is some kind of step forward, even though it feels like absolutely nothing and he very much wants to go back to bed and never interact with five other people at once ever again.

Clint grins and says, “Hey! You joined us!”

“Don’t sound so surprised, Barton,” Sam says, swiping the saltshaker just as Bucky goes for it and staring at him as he puts salt on what appears to be roast beef.

(Scott has never seen anyone season more smugly.

Bucky glares, but waits for Sam to finish.)

Wanda half-pushes Scott into the seat next to Sam, sitting on his other side.

“Bucky,” Scott says breezily. “I heard we were gonna be therapy buddies.”

Then he pauses, blank again.

Everyone stares at him. If it were possible, Scott would be staring at himself. He’s pretty sure he just made a quip. A bad, boring one, but a quip.

Then Bucky genuinely laughs, and Scott feels something soften in himself that’s probably some kind of precursor to pride.

“Yep,” Bucky says in response. “I’ve been going for a couple weeks now. I fucking hate it.”

“Bucky!” Steve hisses, exasperated, but Scott just nods.

“Yep,” he says, and then he goes silent again, utterly exhausted. He feels like he’s run a marathon, and when he looks down at the unseasoned roast beef that he’s supposed to eat and hopefully not throw up, he feels like crying.

He blinks stupidly down at the food and then, with more effort than he used to stand up, grasps his fork. Good thing he’s right-handed. His left arm is still bandaged, but Sam says the stitches should be out soon.

It’s going to leave a scar. Scott’s not sure why—Wakanda’s medical science is so advanced, he would think it would be able to just wipe it away. Someone probably explained why to him, but he doesn’t remember, if they did. Really, it’s probably just that he cut too deep, and sometimes there’s no way to keep a wound like that from becoming a scar.

He’s holding his knife too, and then he realizes that he’s going to have to cut this and eat it while everybody else watches him anxiously to make sure he actually eats as opposed to going nuts and, he doesn’t know, trying to mutilate himself with a steak knife, which, good idea, but he takes a third option instead and lets the knife and fork clatter to the plate. Then he pushes it away and hides his face in his arms.

He realizes, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he’s acting like a five year old. Actually, he’s pretty sure that he saw Cassie do this exact same thing when she didn’t want to eat her beets (which Scott understands, because what the hell, Maggie, beets are disgusting), and that was actually when she was three.

Even so, he can’t manage to care about that, because he doesn’t want to eat, he’s too fucking tired and food is, at this point, universally awful.

“Should I be offended, pal?” Bucky asks, trying to make a joke but sounding freaked out. Scott wonders if it’s nice to only be the second most mentally unstable person at the table for once.

He shouldn’t be, but Scott isn’t going to respond. He’s not going to respond to anything. He’s frustrated. He’s tired. Eating feels like the most impossible thing in the world. He can barely breathe.

Speaking of that, he might be having a panic attack.

It’s only been something like a month. Things don’t get better in a month. Things don’t really ever get better.

Scott’s heart races and his stomach contracts and he can’t breathe, fuck, this has been happening since he was a kid and it still sucks. It’s weird, having a panic attack while this depressed—almost purely physical, but this time, possibly due to the addition of medication to the clusterfuck that is his brain, he’s more scared than he’s been in...a while.

He’s making awful gasping and gagging noises, and usually he’d maneuver himself into a position that didn’t involve so much choking, but even if he could get the energy up, he’s petrified.

“Scott, I’m gonna touch you,” Steve warns, voice very Captain America, and Scott doesn’t particularly mind, because he’s dying.

Steve bodily moves him to a position where his head is between his legs. Scott dry heaves. He’s shaking.

This trip out of his room, he thinks vaguely as Wanda finally steps in and cups the back of his head, sending a wave of calm over him, was not a success.

When Scott wakes up, empty again, he’s back in his bed.

Go figure.

The psychologist, like the psychiatrist, comes to him, and Scott’s present enough to know that he’s not present enough to be the best patient in the world.

The psychologist’s name is Dr. Mohamed, and she’s nice. She has compassionate eyes, and when she asks questions, she waits for Scott to talk for what seems like eons. He recites the things he told the psychiatrist, the things that he already had set up in his head, and when she asks him how he’s feeling lately, she pushes just a little when he shrugs. “Can you put that into words? It is alright if you can’t, I am just interested.”

He remembers what it was like to be interested in things, so he says, “I…I’m not…okay? I don’t think. It’s better.”

“You don’t think you’ve gotten better?”

“No. No, it’s better. I’m not okay. It’s better.”

“It’s still better.”

“Mhm.”

“I see. That’s good. Do you think the medication is aiding in that?”

“Maybe. But time, really. Always time.”

“Things do get better with time.”

“And…the others. I’m sorry about what…I did…I wasn’t. When I did it. I wasn’t sorry. Not really. Not enough to stay.”

“Now do you think you’re sorry enough to stay?”

“No, I’m just…staying. I think maybe I…it’s the right thing. For me. Not for all of us, me too.”

“That is honestly impressive to me. You were actively suicidal, but now you think it is right to live.”

“I don’t really want to. Live. Not exactly. I don’t want. I just…I should. I think it’s better. If it gets better, I’ll be here. Maybe I want. I want to survive. I want to want to. I don’t…it’s just…Sam, I talked to him, and he told me that to get better I have to…save myself. Want Scott Lang to live, even if I don’t want to. And he…I think he had…a point? I’d save my own life. If I wasn’t me. So I’ll do it when I’m me.”

“That is a very interesting way of looking at it.”

“I’m not usually like this. I want…I want to be what I’m usually like.”

“I thought you did not want things anymore.”

“I guess maybe…I do? Big things. Big ideas. It’s all big ideas, in here.” Scott taps the side of his head in explanation. “Changing, or not…not there…”

“Do you ever want small things, Scott?”

Scott frowns, and almost turns to look at Dr. Mohamed instead of the wall. He sticks with the wall, though, in the end. “I forget,” he says. “Maybe?”

“Well, I think that if you do want something small, something you can do in the moment, you should try your best to do it. If you feel even a spark of want, grasp it. Just do it. Anything, even something small. If you want to do something that isn’t detrimental to your continued existence, if you think you can make a decision for yourself, go for it. You must not be controlled by apathy.”

“Easy for you to say,” Scott whispers with great difficulty. He’s tired. He wants this to end, now.

“It is. But I am still right. Maybe you will be able to take even part of my advice. You do not have to be miserable. I want to help you be less miserable.”

Scott hums. “Sure.” He pauses. He thinks he really has been better than this lately. “This is a bad day,” he admits.

(They’re all bad days.

But maybe the fact that some are worse than others means something.)

There may be more to the session, but he doesn’t remember the rest.

A couple of days after therapy, Scott’s able to leave his room and not have a panic attack almost immediately. He doesn’t think that’s thanks to the therapy, though. He’s still holding out judgment on that. It’s probably just because food isn’t involved, because Wanda drags him out to watch TV with everyone, not eat.

(He and Sam still watch TV, obviously. They just watch on Sam’s laptop now, sprawled on Scott’s bed. Scott barely registers whatever’s on the screen and it’s not like it used to be, but he still melts into the feeling of Sam’s arm around his shoulders, takes comfort in Sam’s body right next to his, and thinks: Maybe I can deserve this. If it was someone else, I’d tell them to go for it. For this. With him.

Then he tells himself it’s not time yet.

He doesn’t know if it’ll ever be, even if sometimes he catches Sam looking at him like he wants something that may or may not be Scott.

Scott tells himself he’s imagining it, but then he lets himself think, halfheartedly, that maybe he’s not.)

The therapist’s words do come into his head for a second, though, just as he leaves the room. “I think that if you feel even a spark of want, you should grasp it. You should do it.”

Save yourself.

Scott can’t act on any big wants, not right now, but he knows he’s been thinking of something, and as minuscule as it seems, nothing is really minuscule anymore; so Scott stumbles over to his bed and drops to his knees, sure that his backpack is there, and for once he’s right. After he pulls it out, he manages to stand up again. Wanda looks vaguely alarmed, like she thought he’d figured out some creative new way to kill himself, but then she looks at the backpack and seems to understand.

“Go through it in the living room,” she suggests, and he nods, a little dizzy.

He really doesn’t eat enough, but Wanda’s support, as usual, lets him walk without much of a problem.

When he walks into the living room, the others seem less happy about him being out of his room than last time, and more anxious. He shakes his head and promises, “No freaking out this time.”

He nearly smiles, too.

He’s feeling nothing but a flatline, so he thinks it’ll be fine.

He really should know by now that nothing’s ever fine.

He’s sitting on the floor, carefully taking out nonsense like CDs and a survival kit and three bandages, when he feels, at the very bottom of the backpack, something soft.

Something familiar, in an old kind of way. Scott gets a hold of the soft thing, and then he’s holding Buddy the teddy bear who’s just a little bigger than the palm of his hand. One of Buddy’s eyes is gone, some of his stuffing is coming out, and the alpaca wool that covers him has thinned.

Somehow, he’s still here. Scott figured he lost that bear a million years ago, but he—

Didn’t.

He wonders if it was there in his backpack before he went with Clint.

A little relic from his past, sitting there for a long, long time.

It’s absurd, but Scott feels suddenly, viscerally awful for leaving Buddy all alone.

He runs his fingers gently over the bear’s still-soft fur, and pushes his stuffing in a little bit.

“Scott?” Wanda asks tentatively. “What is that?”

“A teddy bear,” Scott says, stating the obvious in his now-customary monotone, but then he keeps talking. “My mama got it for me when I was twelve. She was manic. Bought all these weird, fancy groceries. I dunno where she even found…” Scott pauses for what he knows is a long time, and though he can feel the eyes of the others on him, he can’t tear his own away from Buddy’s stitched-on smile.

“Hey,” Sam says gently. “Maybe we can fix it.”

Can’t fix everything.

Of course, Buddy’s not everything. He’s just a bear.

Maybe we can fix it.

Scott says, “I never even had stuffed animals, but I loved him because my mama remembered me. Even when she was crazy.”

There’s another beat of silence, and Scott’s shaking hands drop the bear.

Then, to his surprise and probably everyone else’s, he covers his face with his hands and bursts into tears.

It’s sudden in a way that leaves him reeling and lightheaded, sobs shaking his body with a force that he thinks might break him and tears making his hands slick with salt.

This doesn’t happen to him, but it’s like his body is trying to expel all the pain that his mind has pushed into it, and he’s a little kid again, wanting to call for his mama but never actually following through. Grief shreds his heart in a way it hasn’t in years, because it’s been so long, it’s been so long since she was around and he’s tried so hard to just put her to rest, but after seeing and hearing her and holding torn-up memories of her in his hands, he knows he never did.

He wishes things had been different for her, more fixable, wishes she could’ve lived to see her granddaughter, wishes he could’ve been enough for her.

When Scott named Buddy, he was twelve and he wasn’t like this, he was just a kid, a nervous soul, a little eccentric but, in the end, sane. He didn’t know what it was like to be his mother yet, and the worry that someday he might wouldn’t cross his mind for another year. Scott’s tried to let his childhood go, but he knows he never did, never could. The little kid crying in the closet is still part of him, and here he is, making this horrible keening sound, barely breathing.

Someone puts a tentative hand on his shoulder. He smells cinnamon and mint and sweat. Sam.

Walls thoroughly smashed, Scott throws his arms around Sam in a hug so tight that it must be be constricting his breathing, and then sobs into the crook of Sam’s neck for what seems like hours, his pain and fear and frustrated love wet on his face and bitter in his mouth.

As faulty as his memory can be these days, Scott will still swear up and down that before Wakanda, he’d only cried three times in the last thirtysomething years. Once when he was suffering from what Maggie half-heartedly joked was postpartum depression (it was funny because it was true), once during a bad breakdown in prison (he only barely escaped psych that time), and once when he was manic, psychotic, and freaking out about what had happened with Cross.

But Scott’s cried so little that he can easily say that he doesn’t cry. Or, rather, he could easily say that, but not anymore.

This is because, in the grand Lang tradition, Scott’s started having crying jags.

“After I got back, I spent pretty much fifty percent of my time crying,” Sam admits, throwing an arm around Scott’s shoulders while Scott weeps miserably into a napkin for no particular reason, though it could also possibly be because one of the commercials on TV reminded him of Cassie.

“You were really fucked up,” Scott chokes out before dissolving into tears again.

Sam pillows his cheek on Scott’s hair, and Scott can feel him chuckle. “I really was. Haven’t cried in years now, though. I mean, not really.”

Scott doesn’t mention the breakdown Sam had next to his hospital bed.

He knows he never will.

The crying just happens. Any tiny thing can push Scott over the edge, up to and including being conscious.

It feels ridiculous in so many ways, but when he thinks about it, he has to admit that he prefers ridiculous to numb, and he’s pretty sure (though he can’t be one hundred percent certain, since he’s only just getting used to having real feelings again and it’s hard to be be sure of anything with his memory loss) that he’s less numb these days. Of course, as he will always and forever note on the grounds that it’s not fair, most of the things he really, fully feels are negative. Anger, visceral fear, humiliation, sadness…

And there’s always the crying.

The others are patient about it, and don’t tell him not to cry like he used to tell his mother when he was little, before he realized that sometimes it was better to just let it run its course.

It still freaks them out, though; Scott can sense it.

In relevant news, Scott is currently sobbing at the dinner table, partially because he spilled a glass of water and how can a human being actually be this useless, not even able to drink water right? and partially because this is his life now, crying over spilled water, ruining dinner again when the only reason he even gets up to eat with the others is because they don’t want to leave him alone, and he’s humiliated because of course that’s a feeling his stupid fucking brain has decided to have this time when the rest of the day has been a basic, average flatline.

It was easier when he was lying inertly in bed, barely alive and empty, as opposed to barely alive and not empty anymore.

“Aw, Scott,” Clint says, clapping him on the shoulder. “It’s fine, we’ll clean it up. Hey, Wanda, can you get him some more water?”

“I don’t want water,” Scott hiccups out, utterly exhausted. “I just want to go to sleep. I wanna leave. I don’t wanna…be here…I’m so tired of this, it never gets better.”

“You know that’s not true,” Sam murmurs, and his voice makes Scott calm down just a little, his convulsive shuddering dialing down to more manageable trembling. “It gets worse in better ways.”

“That’s not very comforting,” Steve says dubiously.

“No, it’s better than saying it’s…better. Gets worse in better ways, just…because you start feeling again, so it feels worse, but it’s better ‘cause…you’re feeling…and, and then it’s supposed to…it’s, y’know…get better in good ways…” Scott tries to explain.

“He’s got it,” Sam says.

“I don’t want to be here,” Scott says again.

“At the table?” Wanda asks.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Wanda,” Scott snaps, and then there’s silence. He blinks and then the sobs start up again, so violent that he can’t speak until he manages a, “sorry, I shouldn’t…take it out…on you…”

“I haven’t really seen you angry before,” Wanda says quietly.

“Sorry,” Scott says again.

“No, it’s…that’s better too, isn’t it?”

“I’m tired,” Scott insists again. “I’m tired, I don’t…I’m tired…still…”

Sam covers Scott’s hand with his own, and Scott twines their fingers together.

“I just want to leave,” Scott whispers. “Give up…”

“Me too,” Bucky says suddenly, and the words are so loud and earnest and unexpected that Scott actually looks up, eyes wide and chest heaving. “A lot of the time. I want to give up, run away. This whole recovery deal, it’s hard. That’s why I went back into cryo. I was tired of struggling. It was all too hard, and I saw a chance to run again. So I went into cryo.”

Scott tries for a watery smile, but he knows it doesn’t work. His face has softened, though, and his sobs have abated, mostly, because it’s been a long time since someone confided in him, and he missed it, he thinks. “I tried to kill myself,” he offers.

Bucky huffs out a laugh. “Yeah. But I’m not running away anymore. I wish I could, sometimes.”

“Me too,” Scott whispers. “We shouldn’t, but it just…I don’t want to die anymore, but I also do.”

“I get it,” Bucky admits. “I wanna be out here, but I don’t. I wanna be here, but normal. Not like this. And I’m getting more normal, better, but it’s still…”

“A process,” Scott finishes.

“Exactly. And you might be kinda earlier in it than me, I dunno, or maybe we’re just different, but it’s better to be here and living and doing stuff with the people we care about than not, right?”

It takes a second for Scott to realize it’s not a rhetorical question, though he knew the answer even before he figured out that Bucky actually wanted him to share it.

He’s saving himself. He wants to. He hates it when people suffer.

He’s people too. So’s Bucky.

“Yeah,” he croaks out, tears still running down his face, but at least they’re slowing down. “It is. But…it’s not as bad as it was. And…and eventually it’ll not be as bad as it was again.”

“I don’t try to kill people anymore. I mean, almost never,” Bucky says.

“I can get out of bed.”

Bucky’s smile is strained with hope and fear, and his voice is earnest when he says, “It’s something, isn’t it? I’ve gotten too far. It’s not worth running away anymore.”

“So don’t.”

“I’ll make ya a deal,” Bucky says, and then he sticks his hand out. “No running away anymore.”

Scott takes his hand and shakes it once, twice. Not too long.

It’s only when they let go of each other that Scott remembers that they’re surrounded by people. Apparently, so does Bucky, because he rolls his eyes and knocks his shoulder against Steve’s. “Don’t get all sappy on me, punk,” he says, and that’s the moment that Scott realizes that Steve is crying.

Scott laughs, feeling a little lighter than he was.

Before, depression was like this. He could be happy. It was miserable, but it was bearable. “Nah, crying’s not so bad. It’s cleansing. At least, it cleans your face. I’m pretty sure my skin’s never looked better.”

Steve’s laughter is surprised and a little hysterical. It’s more than a little contagious. Wanda covers her mouth and nearly doubles over in giggles, and Sam leans his head against Scott’s shoulder, shaking with silent chuckles.

They laugh way too long in response to such a bad joke, but it’s the best Scott’s felt in so, so long.

He doesn’t even realize he’s laughing too until he stops.

His face hurts, but that’s probably because he’s been smiling, and when you don’t use muscles for a long time, it hurts to exercise them.

He wonders if he actually does feel better right now or if it’s his mood swings kicking in again, sudden as ever, giving him minutes of euphoria and months of the opposite. He desperately hopes that this is real, because it’s the first strong positive emotion he’s felt since his nervous breakdown, and feeling it makes him think that maybe it’s time to finally accept that he’s getting better.

Of course, by the time he’s ready to go to sleep, which is about two hours after that, he’s already been through the moment when his emotions dropped like an anchor, but he still stubbornly holds onto the memory of that genuine, full hearted joy.

Scott will be the first to say that there are no real turning points, certainly no magical fix, but he’ll also admit that reality doesn’t actually suck as much as depression says it does, and no, there’s no magical fix, but the turning points that sometimes feel like they’re close enough to being magic, those do happen. They happen all the time.

(…Especially when you’re manic depressive, and God, Scott resents the constant worry that his happiness isn’t really happiness, just mania or hypomania, just pathology.

Rise and fall, rinse and repeat.)

After (what turns out to be) the Big Turning Point, Scott spends a few days feeling relatively okay, but he must seem better, because the others keep looking at him with barely-concealed hope.

He only cries once or twice, and mostly he just does what he’s used to by now—watches TV with Sam, sits with Wanda, eats dinner with everyone, sleeps, and wants.

There are a lot of things he wants.

Scott wakes up sluggish, heavy, and nauseous, as usual.

Sam’s head pillowed on his chest isn’t exactly helping him breathe, but he likes the extra weight. Also, notably, Scott’s awake before Sam, which isn’t exactly typical, to say the least, since Sam wakes up like a soldier, at exactly 0600. Maybe it’s Saturday or Sunday. Sam sleeps in until nine on weekends. Scott looks over at the nightstand, where a somewhat oversized digital clock rests, and reads: 0800.

Holy shit. Scott sleeps like a rock when he’s down, and generally wakes up at noon at the earliest, even though Sam and the others apparently try to wake him up at regular intervals and Sam does at some point get him conscious enough to feed him his meds, none of which Scott ever remembers.

But today it’s Sam sleeping, and Scott’s almost completely sure that this is the first time he’s ever woken up earlier than Sam.

Scott drinks in his tiny victory, tilting his head awkwardly on his pillow to get a good look at the Sam, who’s curled up on his side, cheek on Scott’s chest, right on his heart, one hand on Scott’s shoulder and the other fisted in Scott’s shirt.

Asleep under the pale, bright early morning Wakandan sunlight, every contour of Sam’s face is outlined with soft light, and he looks like an angel.

Scott smiles gently, just a quirk of his lips, and lets it happen without wondering at his suddenly being able to smile again.

Under his breath, he starts to hum absentmindedly, barely even registering that he’s humming at all.

He hasn’t sung in a while, but the humming becomes words, lyrics. His singing is barely passable, almost too soft to hear, voice breathy and high because he’s lying down with a fair amount of Sam Wilson on top of him, but he still sings. “Been beaten up and battered ‘round…been set up, but I’m being shut down…you’re the best thing that I’ve ever found…handle me with care…reputations, changeable…situations, tolerable…”

He’s surprised when another voice, rough with sleep and completely out of tune, joins in on the next line, vibrating through Scott’s own chest as Sam mumbles, “But baby, you’re adorable…handle me with care…”

Scott lets out an amused huff of air. “You know that song?”

“Mhm, you used to sing it, I looked it up.”

Scott doesn’t remember that, but he takes for granted that it’s true. “Oh,” he says, not sure how to respond.

“How you up ‘fore me, babe?” Sam mumbles, still half-asleep.

“I don’t know, I just am. Go back to sleep, it’s not time for you to wake up yet.”

Sam hums in agreement and curls up a little more tightly around Scott before his gentle sleep-breathing starts up again.

Scott figures that he’ll keep the fact that Sam called him “babe” to himself. It would just be cruel to hold that over him when the poor guy was half-asleep.

Scott wonders if he should read into it, and then, as he turns his head to the side to look at the familiar wall, forgets it ever happened.

“Scott,” Sam’s saying, shaking his shoulder. “Yo, Scott.”

Scott comes back to himself, blinking at Sam, who’s sitting on the bed, leaning over Scott. “You’re awake.”

“Mhm,” Scott agrees.

Sam grins. “We should try to go on a walk or something; Wakanda’s beautiful in the morning.”

“Wakanda’s beautiful all day.”

“Okay, yeah, but it’s been awhile since you were out in the mornings, right?”

“Yeah. I used to…used to go out with Wanda, but that was…afternoons?”

“Yep. By the way, I bet she’d be really happy if you started that up again.”

“It’s one walk or another, Sam, I’m not magic,” Scott mutters, angry-old-man annoyance biting at his now perpetually frayed nerves.

“I don’t mean all on the same day, genius.”

“Not now,” Scott says, the idea of taking a walk seeming like a ridiculous waste of precious energy, though there’s a forward-thinking part of him that thinks that he’d like to walk with Sam at some point, and he misses spending time with Wanda that doesn’t involve one of them taking care of the other.

(He has a fleeting thought: I should write Cassie letters. I should write Luís too. I bet he’d want to hear from me. Maybe I can call Hope, tell her I’m okay. Tell her I’m going to be okay. Can I? I should ask, I should…)

“Well, it’s a process,” Sam says, shrugging.

“I think it’s actually processing for real, though,” Scott replies. “I’ve been better, except not—not ‘I’ve been better’ like ‘I’m not doing well’, I mean ‘I’m doing better’. I woke up.”

Sam chuckles. “Nice going. Come on, even if we don’t go on a walk, you can at least leave your lair. Keep up the winning streak.”

Scott grins. “I like that.” His smile falls as he struggles heroically to a seated position. He wants something, but he can’t remember exactly what. His hands itch. He furrows his brow, willing his sieve of a mind to finally remember something. Pen and paper flicker through his mind, and he snaps his fingers. “Letters,” he says. “I want paper, pens. Letters. I have to write. To Cassie and Luís, I have to write. And Hope. I have to call Hope. Can I do that? You called Hope before, right? I can’t call Luís or…or Cassie, but Hope…”

Scott must seem agitated, because Sam lays a gentle hand on his shoulder and smiles. “Hey, calm down, I’m sure we can send some letters, and sure, I’ll get Hope on the phone for you. We’ve been talking to her. Steve and Wanda like her a lot, they actually kinda hit it off, who knew?”

Scott likes the idea of Steve and Hope being friends, of Wanda and Hope being friends. Hope needs more friends, and so does Steve. So does Wanda. Everyone in general needs more friends.

Friends.

Luís.

“Luís likes letters, I think he’d be excited if I sent one.”

“Yeah, of course. He’s your friend, right?”

“I haven’t told you much about him, have I? I…I don’t have the…you know, I can’t really…not right now, but I will.” Scott sighs. “Can’t call him or Cassie, though. Their lines are probably tapped or something. It’s way too dangerous.”

“Probably,” Sam says regretfully.

“I wish I could hear Cassie’s voice…” Scott says. He hears her voice in his dreams, and if he can’t hold her he wishes he could at least listen to her talk. She’s nearly a year older now. “It’ll be her birthday in a week,” he murmurs. “I think. I remember when she was born…I was so freaked out, but I was so happy. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I wish I’d been better to her.”

“Hey, it doesn’t have to be in past tense. I know it sucks that you can’t see her, but you were in her life through letters before, and you can be again. I’ll figure something out for you, all you have to do is write.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Scott says softly, gratefulness surging in his chest. “I haven’t said it enough, but. Thanks.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Sam replies, and it sounds like, somehow, he’s telling the truth.

Scott feels tired again, but he still says, “I think I can do it. I mean, get out of bed today, but not just—I mean, maybe write a letter.”

“It’s really good that you want to interact with the outside world.”

“Slow down, Dr. Wilson,” Scott jokes in a shaky half-monotone. “This winning streak’s already been on for a few days. Who knows how long it’ll last?”

“True,” Sam agrees. “It’ll probably start getting better soon. Hey, don’t look at me like that, you know you’ve gotta think you’re gonna keep getting better. I mean, you’ve come so far. Why not get your hopes up?”

Scott nods slowly. “You’ve got a point,” he admits. “I’ve been cautious long enough. But…I’m not that much better, or this isn’t…I don’t know, a sign of something. It’s been like a week.”

“Carpe diem?” Sam suggests, and Scott snorts.

“Carpe diem,” he agrees.

He takes a deep breath and clambers out of bed. Sam supports him when he sways, but the dizzy rush isn’t as bad today. He thinks that if he really prepares for it, he’ll even be able to shower and change completely by himself tomorrow, if this lasts.

It’s going to last, he tells himself. It will. You’re going to make it last. You’re going to hope. Save yourself.

“How about those letters?” Sam asks, and Scott nods.

“Right, yeah, good idea.” He doesn’t really feel like it anymore, but he thinks of the future, of getting letters back, and decides that he might as well give it a shot.

He ends up at the coffee table in the living room, a laptop next to him. It’s not to write with, because he always ends up getting confused and distracted trying to actually write on the computer, since he pretty much only has the ability to do just about anything that’s not writing with that goddamn QWERTY keyboard, but there’s an online dictionary he can use.

He knows these letters won’t be long, because he’s realistic enough to be aware that he’ll burn out halfway through the first one if he decides to write everything on his mind. To be fair, there’s actually not much on his mind. He wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a tumbleweed or two in there. Possibly even some teeny-tiny people gearing up for a gunfight.

Wanda’s the only one with him right now, and she’s looking at him with great curiosity as he tries to write as neatly as possible despite his tremor and his awkward penmanship.

Cassie,

I hope you’re doing great. I know it must have hurt that I left, and I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I left. I thought it was the right thing. Maybe in some way it was, because I guess that’s what a superhero does. Answers the call even when it’s hard. Does hero things. That’s what we talked about, isn’t it?

But leaving without even saying goodbye was not a hero thing, and I know that, and you should know that. I haven’t been the father I should be to you, but I will always do everything I can to be part of your life. I’m also sorry I haven’t written you since I left. I promise I haven’t forgotten you. I never could.

It’s just that things have been very hard. I hope they haven’t been too hard for you. Hope school is going well. It’s ok where I am. Very pretty. How are you? Tell me everything. I really want to know.

But if you don’t want to write back, I understand. I still just want you to know that I miss you. More than anyone.

I love you so much, Cassie.

Everything is going to be ok.

With all of my love,
Daddy

Scott looks over the letter, which takes a little over forever to write because he doesn’t want his kid getting a letter full of spelling and grammar mistakes, and finds that he’s exhausted.

But at least he did this. It was important. He really should’ve done it earlier.

He furrows his brow a little, because he can still feel Wanda’s eyes on him. He drags his head up and meets her eyes. She looks away, embarrassed.

“What’s up, Wanda?” Scott murmurs, because he gets the feeling that it’s something important, and he’s not going to ignore that, because Scott Lang is still alive somewhere, and he likes helping people.

His words have gotten a bit slurred, like he used up all his language on the letter, but he doesn’t worry too much about enunciation when talking to her.

“Pietro did the reading and writing,” Wanda says suddenly.

Scott’s briefly caught off guard before he manages to put the pieces together and asks, gently, “So you can’t?”

“I…am not so good at it. A little in Serbian, I can write and read, but English is often lost to me. I do not usually tell, but…”

“You must’ve figured my thing out,” Scott finishes.

Wanda shrugs sheepishly. “I am sorry.”

“It’s no big deal. Hey, if you want, you can help me write a letter to my friend. I…I want to, but it’s a little…” He trails off.

Wanda nods eagerly and goes to sit down next to him. She folds up the letter to Cassie with a glow of red energy, and puts it in the envelope.

Scott almost smiles. “Now you’re just showing off.”

Wanda grins. “Yes.”

Scott puts pencil to paper.

Luís,

It’s Scott. I can’t tell you where I am, but it’s nice.

You would not believe how crazy it’s been. Or how crazy I’ve been.

Wanda snorts with laughter when he helps her sound out the words. She knows a little, at least. The alphabet. That’s always a good place to start.

I don’t know how much anyone’s told you, but things got hard. Don’t tell, but I tried to

Scott pauses, hand shaking a little more than usual. He asks, “What do I say? Tried to kill myself?” He shakes his head.

shuffle off this mortal plane. If you know what I mean. I know you do.

“Luís gets all that stuff,” Scott explains to Wanda after only being able to shrug and say ‘just means I tried to kill myself’ when she asks what he means. “It’ll soften the blow.”

He’s not actually sure if it will, but it’s worth a shot.

Things are still bad, but I’m getting better.

How are you? How are the guys?

Te extraño,

Scott

Wanda is confused to no end by the last bit before Scott explains what an ñ is, and that it doesn’t exist in English, it’s mostly a Spanish thing, he thinks. Wanda looks more than a little fascinated, and Scott smiles. She hasn’t had much of a chance for book learning in her life, but soon she’ll be better at this than him, and it hits him again how proud of her he is.

Once he puts down his pencil, Scott can feel his mood pulling itself down, and he’s just—tired again. The idea of staying conscious feels like a chore, so he drags himself over to the couch and curls up there. Wanda comes to sit next to him, and he can hear her singing. It’s "Ruby Tuesday", today. Scott doesn’t quite fall asleep, but he sinks into something close, a state between dreamland and Wakanda, which sometimes feels like a dream anyway, body heavy and mind exhausted. He remembers that he wrote letters, but can’t for the life of him remember what he wrote.

“Tell Scott it’s dinner,” someone—Clint—calls from at least a few feet away, and Wanda shakes Scott. He hums in acknowledgement, and does nothing. The amount of shit he has done today feels unprecedented, and he’s not ready to move, not even to get more comfortable. He’s reminded, suddenly, of the time he fell asleep on the bathroom floor, and how his elbow ached for days after because he’d decided it was too much work to adjust himself.

“It’s dinner,” Wanda says helpfully, and Scott rolls off the couch and ends up with his face pressed against the living room carpet. Wanda giggles like she can’t help it, and then cuts herself off like she’s guilty, but Scott doesn’t mind at all.

Sometimes this is funny, when he thinks about it. He’s only just gotten his sense of humor back, so it’s not exactly polished and most of it falls firmly under the ‘gallows’ column, but he knows he’s found this shit funny before too, and he’s starting to find it just a little funny again.

Like—currently he’s lying on the carpet, too depressed to move, and it’s ridiculous, and it’s amusing in some vague way, though he doesn’t laugh.

Instead, he pushes himself to his knees and takes Wanda’s outstretched hand to haul himself up with her help.

He doesn’t even stumble before getting his footing, and he absentmindedly mumbles, “10/10 on the landing.”

Wanda snorts a little and hooks her arm around his, half-pulling him towards the dining room. Scott wonders if there’ll be a Dining Room Freakout today. He doesn’t feel like there will be—actually, at this point, he quite suddenly feels pretty calm, though a little bit in an ‘I care about nothing so nothing can hurt me’ way—but he can’t be sure.

There’s soup today, and Scott nearly weeps with gratitude, because at least that’s easy to eat and he doesn’t have to cut meat or have his meat cut up for him in advance like he’s five. Incredibly, he doesn’t actually weep, he just sighs in relief and puts his heart and soul into eating that goddamn soup.

He’s not sure what it tastes like, since flavor hasn’t exactly come back to him yet, but it doesn’t feel like a chore to ingest food, a little because he’s pretty suddenly started feeling almost cheerful. He wonders when the mood swings will get more extreme, or if it’s just his personality.

He’s a little far away, not quite registering everyone’s actual words for more than a few seconds, but he’s still listening to everybody chat and trying to ignore how blatantly they’re trying to be normal and cool, talking about the weather, telling jokes, Clint updating everyone on how his family’s doing, Bucky and Steve competing with each other for who can tell the most embarrassing story from their past. (Steve generally wins, mostly because Bucky’s an amnesiac.) He laughs sometimes, and even if he forgets why pretty quickly, he knows he means it, and when the others laugh with him there’s a relieved ring to it.

In his gut, he can feel their hope. Maybe he’s getting better.

He doesn’t even leave the table early (and unintentionally compel one of the others to leave early too), he just stays there until everyone’s clearing it up and Wanda’s covered his hand with hers. He figures it’s to get his attention, but when he looks over at her, she smiles and doesn’t pull her hand away. She doesn’t say anything, and usually silence makes Scott feel awkward, at least when he’s normal, but he just smiles back at her and it feels like sunshine on his face.

There will always be something special between him and Wanda, even through their respective issues, even though her eyes are still haunted and he still hears her scream at night sometimes in his waking dreams.

He looks out at his friends, who are moving, living, breathing, and, with a dully painful discomfort, wonders if they’ve ever really known him. Him, as he was, as he’s been, as, maybe, he will be. Happy, okay, quick thinking but not too fast, scattered but not completely distant and dissociated, with the memory of an elephant.

His memory.

He’s coming back to himself enough to start genuinely worrying about the memory loss again.

How much is he going to forget? Is it going to get worse? It’s gotten better in some ways—he doesn’t completely lose time anymore when he goes far away, his memories aren’t so confused and dreamlike anymore, he can remember specific facts about his recent experiences—but it’s not gone. It’s not going away. He’s still leery of actually admitting to anyone how far his memory loss actually goes, but it’s bad. It’s the Pym particles, but he thinks that the Quantum Realm has more to do with it, really. It’s not like there’s much of a subject pool when it comes to exposure to the particles, but no one’s been so deeply affected by the particles themselves so quickly or in this way, with these memory issues and confusion, but Scott survived the Quantum Realm.

He knew it would do something, but he thought it wouldn’t matter so much, since it would pretty much kill him.

His second family will never know about the perfect short term and working memory that he used to have, but at least they’ll know the rest of him. He’ll try to be real to them.

Save yourself. Lie less.

He always tells Cassie to be herself because it’s the right thing to say and because it’s legitimate. She should be who she is, because she’s an amazing little girl, sweet and bright and yes, a bit eccentric, what with the imagination on her.

She got that from him.

She got a lot from him, and he’ll always be proud of that.

Cassie’s memory is incredible.

Scott’s chest hurts and then his heart sinks and there it is again, the exhaustion. He just wants to go to bed. He just wants to go home. He doesn’t know where home is.

“Wanna go to bed?” Sam asks, bringing Scott back. (At least he can say he’s always gotten lost in his head.)

Scott’s breath is shallow and shaky, but not too fast, and his body is heavy and his head is light and he says, “Yeah.”

He walks to his room on his own, and collapses into bed. Sam follows.

Scott thinks it’s still early, and he says something about this to Sam.

Sam says, “It’s okay. I’m tired too.”

This time, when Sam wakes Scott up to take his meds, Scott stays up.

His body feels gross and his hair feels greasy and he’s not sure when he last changed his clothes, so he rolls out of bed and mumbles, “I’m gonna take a shower.”

Then, incredibly, he actually takes a shower. He’s shaky on his feet because he really hasn’t been eating enough, and he does a double take at his reflection more than once, but he cleans himself up, changes his clothes, and when he steps out of the room, he feels like something’s been washed away. Something bad.

He’s awake and alive and when he takes a deep breath he realizes something very, very strange: he’s not depressed. Not really. Sam smiles at him, and he smiles back. He’s happy to see him, really happy.

He’s tired, but he thinks he’ll go on a walk today, and he laughs when Sam looks surprised.

“You’re the one who said it’d get better. Anyway, maybe the meds are working,” Scott offers instead of saying anything stupid like, Maybe I’m cycling into mania.

Carpe diem, stop worrying, easier said than done, moving on—“The letters,” Scott remembers. “The letters, did they—?”

“Steve sent them yesterday,” Sam says. “They’re express, so they’ll probably be there in a couple of days.”

“Wow,” Scott murmurs. “It’s been a while.”

He’s not sure what exactly he’s referring to, but it’s been a while since a lot of things have happened, and he says, “The walk! We should go on the walk, seize the day while I can.”

“Right,” Sam says, raising his eyebrows, probably at the sudden change in subject, but come on, he should be used to that by now.

Scott takes a deep breath and wanders out of the room, Sam trailing behind him.

Scott feels much lighter than he has in ages, and maybe it’s just the pretty morning, but when he steps outside for what might be the first time in months, he feels a stirring of joy in his chest.

He’s missed this, he thinks. He’s missed existing outside of the condominium, outside of his room, outside, where the chilly, sticky-sweet morning air settles into his bones and fills his lungs, where the brilliant green Wakandan flora surrounds the world, shrouded by fog. Scott runs his fingers over the trunk of one of the huge trees he’s traveling past, moss damp against his skin.

“Wait up, Tic Tac,” Sam says, jogging up to Scott so that they’re shoulder to shoulder. That’s when Scott realizes he’s been going fast, bouncing around like he used to, exploring, lost in the comforting breadth and depth of the mountain.

Scott stops cold, and Sam stumbles.

But Scott has to say it, he has to ask, because this doesn’t just happen. Episodes end, even the supposedly endless kind, but—

“What if I’m manic again?” He wonders out loud.

Sam is silent next to him, and Scott knows he’s been wondering the same thing.

Scott’s always been a mood swinger, but an acute depressive episode to depression to happy energy in the space of a couple of months, that can’t be normal. Not when he’s got reality dangling over his head. It’s usually not like this, but none of what’s going on is usually like this, and Scott can’t stand the idea that this might all be nothing.

Mania is real, but it’s not good. It feels good for a while, but then it gets worse, and then it goes away. It goes away, and you’re left with debts and destroyed relationships and new scars and AIDS scares and the bitter knowledge that God, at least it was fun while it lasted.

“You just seem happy,” Sam finally says, very softly. “I haven’t really seen you happy before, so I’m not sure, but you just seem…happy. Why does it have to be something?”

Scott sighs and starts journeying farther into the jungle. “It just usually is.”

“That’s kind of what the medication’s for.”

“Anti-depressants can make you manic,” Scott points out.

“Yeah, but if they did, it sure took them a while. And what’s so bad about a little mania?”

Scott pauses. “Nothing, really. It’s great at first, but then it just falls to pieces.”

“Maybe on meds, with a psychologist, it doesn’t have to fall to pieces.”

“And maybe I’m just happy,” Scott points out again. “That’s still a theory.”

“Definitely true.”

“Maybe I’ve managed to cycle into sanity,” Scott suggests, and it’s a whimsical thought, but he really, really likes it.

Sam grins. “Let’s go with that.”

He gets a letter back from Luís, full of exclamation points and rambling stories. It’s twenty pages long. It takes Scott forever to read.

He can’t stop smiling.

“Acute depressive episodes are called acute for a reason,” his therapist, whose name he can’t admit he’s forgotten, points out when he tells her that he actually feels better, that the medication must be kicking in, that his mood swung and he’s pretty sure it’s not mania. “They end. And it seems like you have cycled out of your…let us call it standard depressive episode, despite its severity.”

“I forget that it can actually be that easy,” Scott says.

“It’s not, most of the time,” his therapist warns. “We have to watch carefully to make sure you don’t become manic.”

“I still get down at night,” Scott admits. “I mean, sometimes during the day it’s not great either, but at night it’s like it was before the nervous breakdown, and it was pretty bad. Not as bad, but…not good. Still, this is…it just happened. And I don’t think it would feel like this if it were mania, but it happened.”

“Well, you know better than most that bipolar disorder can be that way.”

“I can think again,” Scott says suddenly. “I can. The clouds in my brain, they’re gone. They’re not gone, but they’re cleared up. It’s not perfect, but it’s like at some point everything…” Scott can’t put it into words, so instead he just snaps his fingers, because that’s the closest he can get to saying what he feels.

“I suggest that you enjoy it,” his psychologist says. “Sometimes it’s best to just let things be.”

“That’s what Sam says.”

“Ah, yes, Sam.” She smiles, and Scott stubbornly doesn’t read into the amusement there. “Remember when I said that you should try your best to get what you want?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Scott says primly, but later that night he looks at Sam when he’s sleeping and thinks, I fell in love with you when I couldn’t even really feel anything. You must be special.

It’s been so long since he’s been in love, and he’s so much more cautious now, he still doesn’t know what to do about it.

Besides, there’s always the chance that Sam doesn’t feel the same.

Sam wakes Scott up most mornings with a grin and a suggestion for What To Do Today.

He doesn’t look at anyone the way he looks at Scott.

Sometimes, when they’re watching TV, Scott can feel an excited tension, and when he looks over at Sam, Sam immediately looks away, concentrating hard on the TV.

One time, they’re joking together, and Sam goes totally silent and starts leaning in so tentatively that Scott’s not sure if he’s even reading him right.

Scott’s momentary confusion is enough to snap Sam out of whatever state he’s gotten himself into. Sam says something rambling and barely coherent about the TV show they were watching, whatever it was, and he sounds more like Scott than himself.

The chance that Sam doesn’t feel the same is rapidly approaching “negligible”.

Luís included some drawings in his letter, just to spice things up, Scott guesses. They’re pretty good. Scott knows this, objectively, because Steve looks over his shoulder at one point and says, “Hey, did your friend draw those? They’re good.”

Scott writes, Captain America liked your drawings.

He can’t wait to see the reaction.

He and Clint spar, one day. Scott’s way out of practice. Clint wins.

It’s still fun.

Afterwards, Scott cleans himself up, and then he goes to his room to work on a letter to Luís. Cassie hasn’t sent a letter back, and Scott wonders sometimes (a lot of the time) if she even got it, if Maggie let her see it, and he checked the calendar and what he felt in his heart was true, it’s her birthday soon, and he thinks he’ll write her a letter for her birthday anyway, even if she doesn’t answer.

He barely takes into consideration the possibility that she got the letter and doesn’t want to write back, that she’s mad at him, that she doesn’t want him as her dad anymore, because he’s still more than a little fragile, and he can’t ruminate on that idea too much because he’s not ready for it yet. He lets his mind take him to any other anxiety instead.

He snaps back to reality, to his letter, and lifts his head up to ask if Wanda can look up how to spell ‘difficult’, which she probably can’t at this point, but he might as well give her a chance. They’ve been working on reading and writing.

But Wanda’s not there. Scott’s in his room, alone.

No one but him.

It hits Scott, then: he can’t remember the last time he wanted to die.

He spills his water at dinner, and ignores how everyone goes completely quiet.

Instead, he just swears and tries to mop the water up with his sleeve before Steve laughs and says, “That’s not going to work at all.”

Scott makes a face. “Excuse you, I am old and wise and I know how to clean things up.”

“There’s a napkin right next to you,” Steve points out, eyes lit up with amusement.

Scott pauses, narrows his eyes, and pointedly continues attempting to clean up via shirtsleeve, mostly because he knows it’ll make Steve laugh.

It does.

Scott knows how to make people happy again, and he revels in that.

Today is Cassie’s birthday, Scott can feel it, and he’s not depressed, just a little sad. He wants to have some connection to her again, wants to be able to communicate with her, wants his daughter back. He’s fucked up so many times, but he thinks he could do better, with another chance. He thinks he could be someone she deserves, just like he was for one brief, shining moment in his life, when he was willing to die for her. He’s still willing to die for her, of course.

He puts pen to paper over and over again, trying to write her a happy birthday note, but it keeps ending in disaster, smudged and misspelled and grammatically incorrect, and his eyes are glazing over with frustrated tears when Wanda shakes his shoulder. “Scott, I am sorry, but Sam wanted to show you something.”

Scott frowns at his letter, not quite able to tear his mind away from the words on the page to process what Wanda’s said for nearly a minute. “Sam?”

“Yes. At the control room.”

(It’s not a control room. That’s just what they call the room where everyone goes to get their fix of the outside world. Sometimes that means talking to Hope, but mostly, it’s where Clint goes to contact his family, because he’s the only one who can actually get calls through to them, and video calls, at that. Lucky bastard.)

“Oh, is Hope calling?” Scott asks, though he’s still not sure what Sam has to do with anything here. Scott hasn’t talked to Hope yet. Honestly, he’s still not sure what to say to her, how to explain his upward trajectory, how to explain his downward trajectory. He’s putting it off, is what he’s saying, and he knows she is too.

“Yes,” Wanda says quickly. “Come on.”

“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” Scott says, standing up and following Wanda to the room.

The room consists of a big oak table, a phone mounted on the wall, and some couches. Clint’s sitting on one of the armchairs shoved into the corner, headphones in, talking to Laura or the kids or everyone at the same time. The soft, sappy smile he’s wearing makes Scott think he’s talking to Laura.

Sam’s leaning against the wall James Dean style, trying to look cool, while Bucky sits at the table, surfing the internet on his tablet, and Steve chats on the phone to the person Scott assumes must be Hope.

Sam pushes himself away from the wall when he sees Scott, and says, “I have a surprise for you.”

He looks like a little kid on Christmas morning, and Scott smiles warily. “What?”

“Okay, I have Hope on the phone.”

“I hate to break it to you, but that’s not exactly a surprise,” Scott points out. “Wanda told me.”

“Yeah, but it’s not just Hope on the phone. I mean, look—Hope has a secure line, right?”

Scott’s starting to get a little excited, but he forces himself to not get any of his hopes up at all as to who the mysterious person on the other line could be.

“Yes,” he prompts Sam. “Secure line, go.”

“And she knows your kid, so I got a hold of her, and we kind of planned this out for a birthday surprise, and—”

Scott’s breath catches, and he grabs at Sam’s shoulders. “Whose birthday surprise?”

Sam grins. “Cassie’s.”

"You got her on the phone?" Scott asks, breathless with excitement that he couldn’t have imagined feeling just a week ago. The anxiety that follows is more status quo. "Are you sure it's safe?"

“Seriously, it’s one hundred percent safe, I got help from the King of Wakanda himself. We double checked that Hope’s line was totally private. I actually didn't mean to make it a surprise, but I didn't want you getting your hopes up. You've been disappointed way too many times."

Warm, sappy feelings rise in Scott's chest, and on the kind of impulse that's always been in his nature, even if his nature forgot itself for a while, he pulls Sam in by his shoulders and kisses him.

It feels like the most natural thing in the world. It feels like something that, in a better world, would've happened months ago. It's warm and firm and electric and ecstatic and Sam kisses back.

Their arms are wrapped around each other now, and Scott hasn't kissed anyone like this since Hope, and this is so different, it's so real, it's not just the way you kiss someone you love and are attracted to.

It's the way you kiss someone you're in love with.

When Scott and Sam break apart, Scott's still smiling like a fool, but so is Sam. To be fair, Sam is smiling like a slightly shocked fool, but it's still goofy and genuine. "I thought I was gonna be the first to do that,” Sam says.

Scott giggles. "When would you have made the move?"

"...I don't know."

"I knew I was in love with you for a reason," Scott blurts out, and usually he'd immediately follow that with desperate backtracking and variations of ‘sorry for making this awkward', but it's true and Scott tells the truth now and he's happy and he doesn't want to minimize this.  

"Hey, by the way, guys, everyone saw that," Clint says cheerily, his voice startling both Scott and Sam into flinching. "We're all here."

Sam huffs and lets his forehead fall against Scott's. "Of course they did."

When Scott looks around, he sees Wanda looking like she just won the lottery and saw the cutest cat video in the world, Bucky wearing a shit-eating grin, and Steve—well, Steve's whispering over the phone, sounding giddy as a fourteen year old gossiping over his parents' landline. "Hope, they kissed! Yes, Scott and Sam! It happened!" 

"I feel like they knew something we didn't," Sam murmurs, and then he pauses thoughtfully. “Or something we did?”

"Laura says congrats to you crazy kids!" Clint calls over to them, and Scott laughs.

"I think you might be on to something." Scott detaches himself from Sam and says, "Sorry to leave you to the commotion, also not really sorry but whatever, I have something important to do."

He heads over to Steve, who hisses, "Shit, Hope, pass the phone to Cassie, pass the phone to Cassie."

Scott snatches the phone from his hand and says, "Peanut?"

A part of him doesn't expect her to answer, expects a disappointment, something to send him right back over the cliff because good things don't happen to him, especially not two in a day, but life's not as bad as all that, he guesses, because Cassie's familiar voice pipes up, "Daddy!"

Scott has to take a second to catch his breath, because his brain is quite possibly imploding from the beautiful, wonderful stress of hearing his baby talk to him after he doesn’t know how long.

He must take more than a second, because Cassie says, louder, “Daddy?”

“I’m here, peanut,” he answers, and there’s a pang in his chest when he remembers that ‘here’ is Wakanda and not with her, but he shakes away the pain, because now’s not the time. He may be considering the future again, but for now he’s going to live in the moment, this moment, because he’s been waiting for it for so long. “Did you get my letter?”

“Yeah, but Hope’d already told me I was gonna talk to you soon, so I didn’t answer yet. I read it, though.”

Scott doesn’t know how to respond, whether to ask what she thought or just move on, when she says, “I know you were just being a superhero.”

“You don’t have to forgive me,” he responds. He knows it’s a little sudden, but he says it because it’s important. He forgave his mother for a lot, but it doesn’t mean that Cassie has to be like him.

“I wasn’t ever really mad,” Cassie says matter-of-factly, and Scott doesn’t know how he ended up with a kid this good. “I know you’re the good guy, and you were doing the right thing, and I was sad, but I wasn’t mad, because you said you wouldn’t leave, but I didn’t believe you, so.”

Scott’s chest constricts painfully. I didn’t believe you. Cassie’s smart enough to know that people don’t keep their promises, that he doesn’t keep his promises, that sometimes he straight-up can’t, but it still hurts to hear.

“I’m sorry,” Scott says uselessly, and he knows he’s never really going to get forgiveness for this one, not from Cassie, because for her there’s nothing to forgive. So he’s stuck with the anger she really should be feeling, stuck with the guilt, but at least he hasn’t hurt his daughter beyond repair. Maybe she was angry, at some point, but Cassie’s like Scott in that way, he guesses.

Not an angry person.

Of course, she could be faking it, learning to say what people want to hear, just like he did, and Scott hopes with everything he has that that isn’t true, that she’s not giving herself up to keep other people happy.

“It’s okay,” Cassie says, and Scott takes a deep breath and centers himself, wraps his mind around his daughter’s bell-clear voice.

“How have things been with you and your mother and Jim?” Scott asks, because he has a lot of questions, and he doesn’t know how long he has to get through them.

“Good,” Cassie replies. “Jim takes me to soccer and he says I’m really good. I scored a goal at the last game!”

Scott’s relieved that Cassie at least has a stable father figure in her life, even if it burns that it’s not him. He gasps dramatically. “No way!”

Cassie giggles. “Yeah! Everyone else on the team sucks, so we didn’t win the game, but I still got our only goal in!”

Scott laughs. “That’s amazing, Cassie. Even though you probably shouldn’t tell your teammates they’re terrible.”

“Oh, no,” Cassie dismisses. “Duh. But I’m way better than them.”

“I believe you. I wish I could see you play.”

“Well, you will.”

Scott frowns, a little taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“You’re not gone forever,” Cassie says. “You’re coming back soon.”

Scott blinks.

It’s true that he probably won’t be in Wakanda forever, but there’s not much that says that he’s ever going to be able to go back to America. Maybe someday he will see Cassie again, but he doubts that it’ll be soon. Tears sting his eyes, but he’s comforted by her sureness that he’s going to be able to watch her play soccer someday, and he lets himself think that the question of seeing his daughter again isn’t if but when, because there’s still a future stretching out in front of him, one that will someday merge with hers again, and he always forgets that. He closes his eyes and says, “Sure.”

Cassie chatters away about school and friends and books and movies, and Scott hangs on to every word of her update, because he doesn’t know when he’ll next get to talk to her like this, and hearing her cheerful, excited voice reassures him that she really is okay, and that they are okay. It’s been so, so long, but they fall back into conversation like they just saw each other yesterday, and Scott doesn’t think there’s anything in the world that could be better than being a father, than being her father.

“Happy birthday, Cassie,” Scott says as they near the end of their conversation, because they’ve been talking so long that it’s nearing Cassie’s bedtime and Maggie’s at Hope’s house to pick her up. (“Mommy says hi,” Cassie relays, and Scott says hi back, and that’s that.)

“I liked this present,” Cassie murmurs, and she sounds a little sad, now. “I miss you.”

Scott’s heart aches, but he makes sure to keep his voice light when he says, “I bet I miss you more.”

Cassie giggles. “Nuh-uh!”

“I don’t know,” Scott says dubiously. “Seems like it might be a tie.”

“Yeah,” Cassie replies. “Probably.” She pauses, and Scott listens to her breathe for a few seconds, closing his eyes and letting his own breathing match hers. “Daddy, before I go, can you sing me a song?”

Scott’s eyes blink open, and he smiles gently. “Of course. What do you want to sing?”

“The hobo one!” Cassie says happily, and Scott huffs out a laugh, because it all keeps coming back to that song.

“You mean the one your mom says is too weird and age inappropriate?”

“Yep!”

Scott chuckles. “Will you sing with me?”

“Duh,” Cassie says.

“Okay. Here goes, peanut. One, two, three…”

And together they start: “One evening as the sun went down…”

Scott doesn’t leave, when he hangs up the phone. Instead, he contemplates it, wondering why the fuck T’Challa has a landline. There’s no one here anymore, and he sinks to the floor, post-surprise sadness catching up to him. She’s another year older today, and he doesn’t even know if she looks any different than she did last time he saw her.

He sits on the floor for a while before he hears soft footsteps coming his way. He looks up and laughs nervously, because, right, he did make out with Sam not too long ago, that’s coming back to him now.

He’s calm, though, because he knows that kissing Sam wasn’t a mistake. It was just a natural progression.

Instead of offering a hand up, Sam kneels in front of Scott and they look at each other for a moment, a measured gaze that hides just a little bit of hesitation, the big question: what do we do now?

Sam seems to decide on what to do, because he leans in and kisses Scott gently. It’s brief but warm, and more familiar than a second kiss has any right to be, and when Scott and Sam pull away from each other Scott laughs, short and warm and without effort.

He’s happy.

Sam smiles, a grin so bright that Scott feels exactly as dazzled as he should, with nothing inside holding him back, not now, not for a while.

The thought makes him feel a spark of silly joy, and he gasps quietly, a sharp, affected intake of air. "Sam, would you look at that? Oh, glorious day, I'm a real boy!"

Sam guffaws. "Real man, you mean?"

"Well, it would've confounded the joke."

Sam's shoulders shake with silent laughter as he leans his forehead against Scott's shoulder. "What am I gonna do with you?" 

"I dunno, man, I'm versatile," Scott replies, absentmindedly running the palm of his right hand over the back of Sam's head and making Sam sigh gently with pleasure. "Anyway, I'm not the guy who put blond hair dye in Bucky's shampoo. I think the better question is what am I gonna do with you?" 

Sam draws away from Scott to look him in the eye, taking the hand that was just on his head and is now hovering awkwardly in the air, and squeezing it tight. The soft expression he's wearing makes Scott's heart lurch, and the hope in his eyes makes it settle. Sam's next words are said in a whisper. "How about you stay?"

Scott feels breathless, but in a good way, for once, and God, he feels more than okay, he's got Luís's letters in the the drawer of his nightstand and he can still hear Cassie singing and there's a man right in front of him who makes his heart beat with a peaceful steadiness; and hey, it turns out he's still a lucky guy, luckier than he'd ever thought he'd be, and he might be closer to fifty than forty, and he might have been through some bad shit, but it’s all been worth it for the good things, and more than worth it for how things are now, what he is now.

He can't put all these things into words, not at this moment, so instead he says, feeling fierce and fearless and free: "I will."