right where you left me
"did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen?
time went on for everybody else, she won't know it"
-right where you left me // taylor swift
Out of all the recurring nightmares Leila’s had over the course of her life–and there have been many–this one might be the most versatile.
Sometimes it starts differently, but it always leads to the same place. She's on a stage, being controlled by puppet strings, and she looks up and finds the person controlling the strings, and it's always different, but pulling from the same pool of people. Everyone who’s ever interfered with her autonomy. Thanos, David, Johnny. Iain Warner, one time. Her past self, with blank, emotionless eyes, a few times. Occasionally more than one person, even if the people in question never met in real life.
It’s Thanos, this time. She locks eyes with him, and as always, she wakes up.
Leila isn't a shrink, but it's not hard to figure out what the dream means. What's trickier, and what she hasn't quite figured out yet, is what to do about it.
She sighs and drags herself out of bed, and tries to shake the nightmare off. Sometimes she can't; sometimes it haunts her all day. A few times she's woken up into a panic attack. Today, though, is one of her better days; she can already feel it slipping out of her mind like sand through her fingers.
She’s on her third chai latte when her phone rings. “I'm on my way,” she lies.
“Hello to you too.” Natasha sounds amused.
“Thought you were Tony,” Leila replies, stirring her latte absently. “I'm heading up there today. It's Morgan’s birthday.”
“Be sure to enjoy it, because I need you to come in tomorrow.”
Leila pauses. “So this isn't a social call,” she says, hiding her unease under a layer of snark.
“'Fraid not, Princess.” Despite being out of the field for years, Leila’s nickname, derived from her codename–Snow White–lives on. Old habits die hard, she supposes. Natasha has been calling her that for…almost a decade, now.
“I'm retired, Nat.”
“No, you're clinically depressed. There's a difference.”
“Thanks, Doctor Romanoff, I'll keep that in mind.”
“You can ponder it more tomorrow when you come in.”
“Make someone else do it.”
“We need someone with your specific skill set.”
“Make Talos do it.”
“He's busy.”
“Then make Gravik do it.”
“Also busy.”
“Then make–”
“Stop naming skrulls. Besides, we need someone with your experience with organized crime.”
“You have that experience, too.”
“I've got a lot on my plate, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
And Leila can. The responsibility Nat took on in the aftermath of the snap is extraordinary. Sometimes Leila feels bad about rejecting her offer to be her right hand. Then she remembers why she did.
It's funny, in a way, that the thing that's made her more trouble than she's worth is the one thing that wasn't even her fault. (It wasn't, right?)
“Organized criminals lost people, too. They're not gonna want to talk to me.”
“They won’t be talking to you. They’ll be talking to each other. Or so they think.”
“Yes, I understand how shapeshifting works.”
“Leila,” Nat says, suddenly serious in a way that makes Leila sit up straight. “It’s about the Trust. That’s why we need it to be you.”
Leila takes several moments to process this, making a point to take deep breaths.
“Fine. I’m in.”
“Good. Meet me at the compound tomorrow at 8.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Lei–by the way, just so you aren’t taken off guard–you’ll be working with someone.”
Leila tenses reflexively, and tries not to let that tension into her voice. “Who? Anyone I know?”
“You might remember him. His name is Scott Lang.”
It’s early mornings like this that Scott starts to have reservations about X-Con. He comes into his office, and something about the morning light reminds him of the single office they’d inhabited years prior, lit almost entirely by fluorescents, four desks crowded into the space. Him, Kurt, Luis and Dave. It’s him, Kurt, Luis, and a small number of employees now.
(He wonders sometimes, which office Dave would’ve taken, and if he would’ve liked it.)
The success of the business is great, of course. It’s great to be able to help support Cassie. It’s great to be able to keep people employed that would otherwise be exactly where Scott was when he got out of prison. And it’s great to help keep people safe.
The only problem is that the business didn’t start growing to this level until right after the snap. Scott doesn’t have, like, hard data to prove it, but he can never shake the idea that there’s a cause-and-effect there. People, now more than ever, want to feel safe. X-Con can’t protect people against genocidal aliens, unfortunately, but it can help them feel protected. Scott knows he isn’t doing anything wrong, technically–why people give him their business is their own prerogative–but sometimes it feels opportunistic, anyway.
He’s at his desk, going over his schedule for the day, when the door to his office swings open. “You have a visitor,” Jez announces.
“You could’ve used the phone,” Scott says without looking up.
“But then I wouldn’t get to spend this quality time with my favorite brother,” she replies, leaning in the doorway.
“I’ll be sure and let Matt know you said that.”
“He knows what he did.”
If Scott had more time, he’d probably take the bait, but he doesn’t. “Can you send the client in? It’s a tight schedule today.”
Jez gives a lazy salute and heads back to the front desk. Weeks ago, their usual secretary had resigned, and Jez has been “filling in” ever since. She’s not an ex-convict, and she didn't have secretarial experience, which makes her a nepotism hire by any definition, but she needs the work, and Scott’s been watching out for her since she was nine years old. He’s not going to stop now. Besides which, she’s done enough free babysitting for him over the years to have earned it, anyway.
He’s also pretty sure that nobody here–outside of Luis and Kurt, who knew her pre-X-Con–has figured out that she’s never been to prison. Not that it’s a secret, but still. She’s young, but even on her best behavior, she has roughly the same personal energy as the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Toons.
(He remembers her first visit to him in San Quentin. “It’s weird, because I always thought I’d be the first one of us to go to prison,” she’d told him.
“Sorry, first?” he’d asked.
“Yeah. Me, then you, then Matt.”
“Why would Matt go to prison?”
“Wrong place, wrong time. I’d be locked up on drug charges, obviously.”
“Of course.”)
The door opens. He looks up and smiles. “Hi, I’m Scott, thanks for–” he pauses, and then tries not to sputter. “Hawkeye?”
Clint Barton gives him a half-smile, the kind where Scott can’t quite tell if he’s happy or not. “Scott,” he greets. “Good to see you again.”
Leila always forgets how beautiful the sky above Tony’s home is until she’s there. It’s one of those summer nights where the twilight seems to last forever, and she knows that once the sun is finally down, the stars in the sky will be actually visible, unlike the city. She can even see a few of them now, faintly.
It’s the lakeside that ties it all together, though. Isabella had wanted to live somewhere by water, and Tony had, as he did to any and all requests or mild whims that Isabella made, obliged.
Isabella is some ways ahead of them, maybe ten yards, holding a toddling Morgan’s hand. Still clearly in sight, but far enough away for Leila and Tony to talk, which Leila knows is coming–otherwise they would’ve had Leila take Morgan for a walk by herself while they cleaned up the house.
“So,” Tony says, “why’re you crashing on our couch tonight, again?”
Leila knows what he’s actually asking. Are you okay? Do you need to not be alone? Are you about to go off the deep end again? Are you trying not to relapse? She kicks a rock into the lake.
“I’m just saying, it’s an expensive couch,” Tony continues. “I feel like I at least deserve to know. Not that you aren’t always welcome.”
“I know,” she says, and she does, both about the couch and the welcomeness. Leila could ask to move in tomorrow and Tony would have the guest bedroom decorated for her within the hour. Her friendship with him is possibly the one thing in her life that she’s never questioned.
“I’m going to the compound tomorrow,” she says finally. “Nat wants me back in the field. It’s just easier to stay here than go home and come back up.”
Tony whistles lowly. “You sure you’re up for that?”
“No. But apparently I’m the only woman for the job.” She pauses. “It’s about the Trust.”
“The Trust? That crime ring we took down back in…” Tony runs the numbers in his head. “2012?”
“Apparently we didn’t take it down far enough. Or someone decided to reboot it.”
Tony nods. “Are you working alone? I imagine it’s hard to build trust, given…well, you know.”
“Given that half of the world hates me.” Leila can handle innuendo from anyone else, but she doesn’t like dancing around things with Tony. His straightforwardness is one of the things that first drew her to him.
“That’s the one, yeah.”
She smiles a little despite herself and kicks another rock. “Apparently I’m going in with someone named Scott Lang. Nat said I might remember him, from the Raft back during the whole Accords thing.” Leila had only spent a few hours on the Raft, and she doesn’t remember a lot of it. Frankly, the entire debacle is somewhat blurred in her mind. “I don’t, though. Do you?”
Tony thinks. “Right. Ant-Man. He was in Munich with Cap.”
There’s that straightforwardness she loves. Tony is one of the only people who doesn’t hesitate to mention Steve around her. The good, the bad, all of–
“Sorry, did you say Ant-Man?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Why the fuck is he called Ant-Man?”
“Cause he shrinks. He can also grow, but I guess ‘Giant-Man’ didn’t have the same ring to it.”
“I dunno, I might take it over Ant-Man.”
“Because you’re the expert on code names.”
“Snow White is a perfectly respectable code name, thank you.”
“Sorry.” He gives an exaggerated bow. “Please forgive me, your highness.”
Leila laughs. “How do you even know all this?”
“I have a vested interest in knowing the names of people who may or may not hold grudges against me.”
“That’s healthy.”
“That’s precaution.” Tony takes a few quick strides and then steps in front of her to face her. “I’m serious. Are you okay with this? It’s been years.”
“It’s only been three years. Not even that, actually,” she waves a hand. “As long as this doesn’t become a recurring thing…I’m fine. I can handle it.”
Tony watches her for a long moment, looking for any sign of indecision on her face. Finally, he nods.
“Alright. As long as you stay up long enough to watch Tangled. It’s Morgan’s favorite right now, and she wanted to watch it with you.”
Leila smiles. “Traitor,” she mutters. “But yeah. I can do that.”
Scott clears an hour from his schedule (he makes a note to thank Kurt and Luis both for taking on his meetings that day), and makes three phone calls.
The first one is to Hope.
He explains the situation: Clint Barton (yes, that Clint Barton) showed up at his work asking him, on behalf of Natasha Romanoff (yes, that Natasha Romanoff) to get involved in some kind of espionage-related, superpower-related mission-type-thing. He said he wouldn’t do it without Hope (nobody can say he doesn’t learn from his mistakes.) Barton said they wanted him for his security and heist experience more than for his Ant-Man activity. Scott said he’d think about it.
“So now I’m asking you,” Scott says.
“Asking me what?”
That’s actually a good question. “I’m asking if you think I should agree to help,” he says, “and if you think I should do it without you.”
“I mean, you’re always better off with me there,” Hope replies easily. “But if they’re trying to keep the team small, and you trust them…I think you should at least consider it.”
If you trust them. He supposes he does. The Munich incident had involved a lot of mistakes on Scott’s part, but that hadn’t been either of their fault. Neither had the way it ended.
“Have you told Maggie?” Hope continues.
“That’s the next call I’m making.”
“Make it. And think about it. But if you say no, just don’t do it because of me.”
The second call is, as promised, to Maggie.
“Hey, Scott, is this important?”
“Uhhhhh….yes. I’d say so.” He clears his throat. “I need some advice.”
“Okay, but can you make it quick? I’m on my lunch break.”
I can try? “Yeah. Totally. It’ll be quick.”
“Okay. What’s up?”
He tells her the same thing he told Hope, and then tells her what Hope said. “So now I’m asking you. Do you think I should do it?”
“No, I don’t, but that’s not the question you’re actually asking.”
“Okay, what am I asking?”
“You’re asking me if you’d be a bad person if you said no. And you’re asking me if you’d be a bad father if you said yes.”
Maggie’s ability to cut to the heart of the issue is not a quality Scott remembers her possessing during their admittedly short-lived marriage. He wonders idly if, given enough time and thought, he could pinpoint exactly when it started.
“Okay. So what do you think?”
“I think nobody could blame you if you chose to stay out of it. And I think you’re going to do it anyway.”
Scott stays silent for a long moment, and Maggie takes it as an invitation to continue.
“It’s who you are, Scott. Since the day I met you. You see a chance to be useful, to help someone, and you can’t resist.”
Scott sighs. “And Cassie?” he asks hesitantly.
It’s Maggie’s turn to stay silent for a moment. Then, finally: “I can’t ask you to be someone you’re not. But Cassie’s already lost one father. If things get too dangerous, do you think you can back out?”
Scott looks at the photo on his desk. Him, Matt, Jez and Cassie.
“Yeah. I can do that.”
The third call is to Clint Barton.
“Barton,” he answers. There’s a sort of lazy quality to his voice.
“Hey, it’s, uh, it’s Scott. Lang. Ant-Man.”
“Name rings a bell. Made your decision yet?”
“Yeah.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m in.”