The snap

“Ok, here we go. Time travel test number one.”

They turn the van on and take an unconscious collective breath. Scott disappears behind his visor with a last salute and presses down on something. 

Nothing happens.

He opens his helmet, looking agitated: “I don’t… I don’t get it. This… It worked when I came back!”

“Let’s try again” Bruce Banner suggests. 

He turns the van off and they start over. 

Nothing.

They try a third time, with the same outcome.

Scott looks about to lose it: “This works, I swear it works. This is exactly how I’d always activate it. I don’t understand…”

A heavy silence settles over them. 

Lena steps in to defuse it: “Why don’t Dr Banner and I take a quick look at the suit and at the van, to make sure everything's in working order? We can resume afterwards.”

Lena comes to find her later that day: “Alex, do you have a minute?”

“Sure” she steps away from the controls and follows her to a more secluded area, “everything ok? Did you finish all your checks?”

“We did.” A pause. “How well do you know Mr Lang?” she asks, voice low.

“Scott? Not super well. I met him for the first time when he rocked up here, two weeks ago. Why?” 

“It is unfamiliar equipment to us, granted, but Dr Banner and I can not find any fault that would explain a malfunction.” 

“Should someone else take a look?” 

Lena crosses her arms: “I don’t believe that is necessary, no. Alex, there‘re no signs the suit’s mechanism was activated.”

Meaning: Scott Lang didn’t activate it? “So… like… he got it wrong?” That‘d be an easy fix.

“That could very well be, but feels unlikely with his years of practice.”

Alex cocks her head, eyes trained on her: “You’ve got a working theory.”

“The last time Mr Lang used the suit, he got stranded in the quantum realm for several hours, an episode I imagine must have been quite terrifying at the time.” 

Sure…

“He then, through a still unexplained stroke of luck, managed to return, only to discover that he’s been declared dead, has missed the past four years of his daughter’s and his own life and that his partner‘s among the disappeared.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Dr Banner and I were wondering whether Mr Lang may perhaps have some difficulty facing the prospect of returning to the quantum realm.”

“And what, sabotage the tests?”

“Not necessarily consciously so.”

As in: a mental block? “Shit.” She doesn’t know Scott well enough to approach him about such a topic, though. “Let’s tell Natasha and Cap, they’ll know what to do.”

In the end, it’s Cap who takes Scott aside. When they return, Scott looks paler and won’t meet any of their eyes. They postpone everything by a week, without a single one of his incessant quips. 

Alex prays Lena‘s right and dreams of Kara.

They give it another go, everyone trying a little too hard to appear relaxed.

Banner and Natasha… banter? Scott disappears, replaced a couple of seconds later by a child in the exact same suit, who claims to be him. (It’s quite disconcerting.) 

Banner and Lena bicker, fix things here and there. She understands a good half to two thirds of the science, the rest is gibberish to her. She helps out as best she can, guided by Lena’s easy instructions. Scott vanishes and reappears as an elderly almost instantaneously. (The resemblance is undeniable: it must be him.) 

This is… fuck: this is real. And weird and freaky and did she mention real?

Lena scribbles down some notes. They adjust more formulas and parameters. Scott returns as a baby. For a second, it looks like Banner’s on the verge of panicking. Lena for her part remains calm throughout. Still, they all breathe a collective sigh of relief when Scott finally comes back as his adult self.

The enthusiasm of earlier sinks somewhat. 

Her gaze falls on Lena: seemingly immune to everyone else’s disappointment, her eyes sparkle with excitement. And it’s contagious: it keeps them – keeps her – going. It’ll take time, that’s all. (Looking back, it was actually quite delusional to expect to crack time travel in a day.)

By attempt number 17, she stops counting. By attempt number 22, they run out of Pym Particles.

Lena picks one of the last vials up: “So, the red ones you use to shrink?” 

Scott nods, looking drained: “Yup.”

“And the blue ones…”

“Make me go big” he supplies.

“Without them…”

“Simple: without them, no shrinking. No shrinking: no quantum realm.”

The follow up looms unsaid in the air: no quantum realm, no time travel. 

“Right. Well then, first things first: we need more of these Pym Particles” Lena explains. “Mr Lang?”

“I already looked everywhere. I searched Hank’s – I mean, Dr Pym’s – and Hope’s place. I scoured their mobile lab. These 3 vials are all that’s left. This is it. This is what we have.”

Which is clearly not the response Lena was hoping for: “Then we’ll have to make some more.”

“The thing is, I don’t have the formula. It’s kind of a sore subject? It’s a secret Hank – I mean, Dr Pym – will take to his grave. Or, is it took to his grave?” He scratches his head: “This whole thing’s very confusing.”

“So no one else has ever replicated it?”

“Let me think. Well, apparently this guy, what was his name again? Famous guy.” He snaps his fingers: “Tony Stark’s father: he tried. But this is all secondhand information, way before my time. Oh and Darren Cross of course. A former colleague of Dr Pym’s. See, they once worked together in Pym Technologies. But then he double crossed him. Or something. I never got the full story, all I know is: it got ugly.”

Lena taps her finger against her chin, interrupting him: “The name rings a bell. Cross Technologies. Or Cross Enterprises. I met him once. Tall. Bald, no? Jovial, arrogant, if I recall. Was he successful in his endeavour?”

Scott nods emphatically: “Yes.”

“Excellent! We’ll start with him.” She lifts her wrist and a miniature hologram of Jess appears: “Jess, can you find out what Darren Cross is up to these days and schedule an appointment with him, please?” 

Scott grimaces and lifts a hand, speaking up: “Yeah, about that: I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

That’s bound to put a certain damper on things.

“You’re sure or you’re pretty sure?”

“I’m sure. Sure sure. It’s… uh. Yeah… he’s dead.”

“The Snap?”

Scott shakes his head energetically: “Nope.”

“Pre-Snap?”

“Yup.”

Lena dismisses the call with a sigh: “Nevermind, Jess.” She taps her foot impatiently: “There’s no going around it: we have to find a way to manufacture some more.” She lifts the vial up into the light: “My guess would be: it’s based on an actual particle and then tweaked.” A beat. “I need journals, notes, reports. Dr Pym’s, his daughter’s. Anything you can find that could in any way be connected to it and contain information on the particle. If Mr Cross managed to replicate it, so can we.”

“Yes, Lena Luthor, Sir!” Scott executes a hand salute that’s no technique and all eagerness. 

It’s a snag, not much more. There’s no doubt in Alex’s mind that Lena will manage this. She’s seen her synthesise kryptonite; better yet, seen her create black kryptonite out of nothing: this will be child’s play for her.

“I can scour our database for any relevant information on the particle” Natasha volunteers.

“Yes, please, that’d be great. Anything on Dr Pym and associates. First sightings of the ant suit to get a sense of how long this particle’s been known for and the technology available at the time.” 

“What about us?”

It’d appear everyone’s deferring to Lena. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, for this is CEO Lena: sharp and commanding, exuding control. 

Lena takes a moment to think it over: “Well… Dr Banner, we could use your smarts to make sure we maximise our future stock. It’d be useful to calculate how particle-intense shrinking is, vs growing, vs a 1min round trip in the quantum realm vs a longer one, etc.” 

“I can try to do that.”

“And I can look into alternatives to production: find where in time and place we could go to snatch the biggest stock possible…” Cap volunteers. That he’d so readily offer to help now, says a lot about Lena’s charisma.

“Excellent idea.”

Her eyes land with a gleam on Scott Lang: “In the meantime, I’m going to take these three remaining vials, Mr Lang. We need to find a way to chemically break the particle’s composition down.”

She’s already back on the phone with Jess, placing an order for materials.

Alex speaks up: “I could help with that. I mean, if you’d like.”

Lena answers with a smile: “I was counting on it. Your bio-engineering background will be most useful.”

She throws her a pair of goggles with – was that a wink? – the instruction to “Suit up” and they’re off.

One day turns into a week. A week into a month. 

Bruce Banner, Scott and Lena’s presence uproots the easy routine Natasha, Cap and Alex perfected over months. All of a sudden, the compound’s abuzz with activity. 

Lena has equipment sent over, footing the bill. One shipment becomes two, trucks become helicopters lowering entire containers onto the ground. They find the Quinjet a new home and turn the hangar into their base of operations: a state of the art lab here, the van and all related machines there. L-Corp robots whizzing around become a common sight. Though they’ve more than proven their usefulness – offloading and maintaining some of the most advanced tech Alex has ever seen – they should also come with a warning: she’s already tripped twice on these tiny hazards on wheels and been admonished by Lena for kicking one in retaliation. (Turns out Lena’s quite protective of her little prototypes.) 

And yet, the three of them also effortlessly fit in. Bruce Banner’s gentle disposition and Lena’s reserved force of nature counterbalance Scott’s chatty overeagerness with ease. (Alex thinks she speaks for everyone, though, when she says that they could do without Scott‘s magic tricks.)

Scott’s desperate for group interactions (or maybe social interaction, period). He insists on communal dinners every evening, going as far as to hunt each of them down when they don’t show (with different rates of success: he’s smart enough to give up with Lena at the first sign he’ll be turned down and gives Natasha a wide berth). He’s taken to sit with Cap and Alex during their music sessions – hopping being a more accurate description, considering he’s utterly unable to stand still – is proud of his air drums skills honed while under house arrest and has taken it upon himself to teach Cap some of the 90s’ most horrendous dance moves. (Now, if only she could erase the image of Cap doing the sprinkler and the running man from her memory.) He’s also an avid board gamer and enough of a good sport to let Nebula win whenever she and Rocket drop by. (Alex has quickly come to learn Nebula‘s the worst playmate possible: she rarely has the patience to see a game to its end and is a terrible loser.) And he joins Cap’s support group.

Lena meanwhile is a fucking genius. There’s no better word for it. She already knew that of course, what with working closely together on a cure for Sam (and so many other instances, really). But it bears repeating. She’s not just holding her own with Banner: every day further solidifies her as the one in charge of the whole project. 

And she’s amazing at it.

She presents them with a choice: they can either continue to keep this on the down-low between the few of them; or blow it wide open, build big teams working in parallel on the various issues that need solved. The discussion’s difficult, for there’re good arguments for both: expedite this and lose some of the secrecy, or accept that the project will take a while. In the end, secrecy wins out.

She makes sure to check in on Alex’s progress at least twice a day, generous in dispensing words of praise and encouragement. Lena never fails to provide valuable input to help the work along. and the excitement of such stimulation adds another layer to their interactions. Alex  finds herself looking forward to these private moments, the easy banter they fall back into replacing their earlier tentative interactions, a memento of an old burgeoning friendship that, even if perhaps rusty, just needs the tiniest of attention to bloom again.

Alex huffs in frustration: she can feel she’s getting somewhere, slowly but surely. And yet, she has the distinct feeling she’s missing something. A key part of the equation.

“What’s eating at you?” Lena wants to know, coming to stand next to her.

She gestures to the microscope: “This particle! It defies the most basic and cornerstone laws of physics.”

“It is a thing of beauty, isn’t it?” Lena muses, bending to look into the microscope’s lens.

“Beautiful, I don’t know. But impossible: definitely.”

Lena adjusts the magnification and focus: “What’s your working theory?” 

“They’re the mediating kind of particles. They must be.” 

There's a flash of delight in Lena’s eyes. She straightens back up, leans against the table, close, and murmurs: “I agree. Subatomic. Connected to another dimension. And for some reason, not yet discovered.” 

“Now: how do we test that theory? We don’t have the equipment…”

“We don’t” she pauses. “But the Europeans do.”

Alex frowns - what is Lena referring to? - before it clicks, her eyes widening: “You’re thinking of the Hadron collider.”

“I maintain: management is a waste of your talents, Alex. I have half a mind to try and convince you to join L-Corp. We could really use someone with your intellect and expertise.”

Alex hides her blush by deflecting: “I haven’t been in a lab in ages. I’ll admit, it’s… exciting. But ultimately, not for me.”

“A real shame.”

“So you want to access CERN’s Hadron collider.”

“I don’t see an alternative. Do you?”

“They’ll never let us have a go at their equipment, just like that.”

“If only we knew of a group of superheroes, who brave the impossible on the regular… » 

“You want the Avengers to break into one of the places in the world with the highest security? They’re trying to keep as low a profile as they can. If any of them were to suddenly be spotted in a foreign country and at such a sensitive facility at that…”

“Mhh.” Lena taps her finger on her chin. “That would call for someone with a set of very special skills, wouldn’t it.  An expert in stealth, a shadow, able to come in and out undetected…”

It feels like a rhetorical question. Yet Alex can’t figure out who… Oh.

And this is how three weeks later, Alex flies into Switzerland. Cap, Natasha and Banner can’t risk showing themselves and Scott is officially dead: she’s the only viable option. Sitting this one out is obviously costing them – particularly so for Cap, who insists on going over the plan with her five times until Natasha intervenes. 

Lena booked a private 2-day tour of CERN and smuggles her in as part of her security detail. (Lena’s having a little bit too much fun with the Bodyguard theme, if you ask her.) Natasha meanwhile, roped a trusted hacker from their extended network in: Sutra (no doubt a fake name). Though they have yet to meet in person, she quickly becomes Alex’s lifeline. Thanks to her precise instructions whispered in her earpiece, Alex ditches Lena’s party, bypasses the many security measures, and accesses the collider itself. She gets a trojan horse into the system and lets it work its magic. To any outsider, it’ll appear like the facility fell victim to an untraceable ransomware attack and had to shut down. In reality, Alex uses the alarm and ensuing chaos of the evacuation to put the collider to work. She exports the results, before deleting them. Sutra manoeuvres her through a few hairy close calls on the way out and Alex reaches the rendez-vous point that very evening. She makes the drop and lays low in the French Alps for a few days, surviving on cheese and cured meats. 

There’s a certain exhilarating thrill that comes with being back in the field like this. And yet, she can’t deny she’s surprisingly… eager to return stateside. Or rather, to get back to the compound and its people. 

Natasha & co welcome her back with Nepalese take out and accolades, while Lena fixes her a drink. She clinks her own glass to Alex’s with a private congratulatory smile.

It feels good to be back.

Yet the rhythm’s also starting to take its toll. 

Only Jess - who’s for some inexplicable reason behaving like Alex’s personally offended her - has been made aware of Lena’s new side gig. The CEO leaves for National City incognito under the cover of night, returns around lunch and takes important L-Corp related calls throughout the day. Seven days a week. Her commitment and work ethic are admirable, but she’s basically burning the candle at both ends. And Alex can’t have that: they need Lena at the top of her game, if they ever want a shot at this. 

Even Natasha’s worried. 

Alex’s in the middle of texting Sun when she approaches her one day. “How’s that going?” Natasha asks, nodding in Lena’s direction.

“I…” That? “We’ve isolated the particle. At least we’re pretty sure it’s the right one. It certainly behaves in a very similar way. We’ve just been unable to have both size and mass shrink together.”

Natasha hums.  

“I told you she’s a genius” she continues, proud of their progress.

“That you did. I must admit, you did not oversell it.”

Alex goes back to looking at Lena: “She’s amazing.”

“All the more reason to heed what I’ll say next.” It’s less Natasha’s words and more her tone, which has suddenly lost its playfulness, that brings Alex back to the moment. “You need to say something. And soon.”

Uhh… Sure, except: “What are we talking about?”

“I know you’ve seen it and I know you’ve reached the same conclusion as me. It has to come from you. She won’t listen to anyone else.”

So it’s not all in Alex’s head. Others are noticing Lena’s impossible rhythm too. 

“Just so I’m sure we’re talking about the same thing here: you mean the comings and goings, right?”

“That. The hours. This wanting to be on top of everything at all times. Textbook recipe for burnout.”

Alex keeps her reply of: “pot meet kettle” to herself. She looks at Lena’s tired features with renewed concern. Natasha’s right: this isn’t sustainable. Something has to give. 

By the umpteenth all-nighter Lena pulls with Banner, Alex steps in. She shows her to one of the many empty rooms, lends her a pair of shorts and an NCU T-shirt, and orders her to sleep. And because she’s not an idiot, she takes her watch, her two phones, her tablet and two work computers. Lena’s too exhausted to protest – which kind of says it all. She must follow her advice, too, for she doesn’t emerge until the next morning. 

Alex sends all incoming calls straight to voicemail, including Jess’ increasingly frantic ones. Her quick: “sleeping in today” message must be too out of character, for it does nothing to placate Lena’s assistant. If anything, her calls triple in number.

Lena looks rather unimpressed once Alex returns her various devices to her. She lets her off the hook with a stern: “Apologise to Jess” and is on her way to the hangar, shaking her head. Alex catches a muttered: “Sleeping in. No wonder she’s in a right state.” Further souring her already shaky relationship with Jess wasn’t the plan, but Lena appears rested, which means: whatever the cost, it was worth it. 

She sends Jess a handwritten note and a voucher for a spa day. As apologies go, it’s a bit on the expensive side, but she likes to think of it as an investment: she has a feeling their interactions are only beginning. She gets a selfie from an unknown number a couple of days later. It’s of Jess lounging in a deck chair in a fluffy pink robe and holding a steaming cup, with the message: “I like your style, Agent Danvers.”

They crack the Pym Particle formula five weeks later. 

Lena’s dead certain they’ve got the correct formula down. Alex, craving some action outside of the lab, volunteers to test it out with an old Wasp suit Scott’ unearthed. It’s a bit tight around the shoulders and thighs, but it does the trick all the same: she shrinks, flies around the compound, grows back to her size and promptly throws up. It’s… quite the experience. (And that’s saying something, considering Alex once travelled to parallel Earths.)

It’s so wild, Scott sinks down, stunned. He buries his head in his hands: “Hank will never forgive me for this.”

Banner pats him on the back in a gesture meant to be comforting, that ends up so forceful it knocks Scott out of his chair. And Lena quips: “Then I’ll make sure to stress how instrumental you were in this breakthrough, Mr Lang.” Scott responds with a miserable half moan, half wail, so she continues: “If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t started on the formula for the blue vials. And the suit’s mechanism to metabolise the particle is proving trickier than anticipated.”

It was already real, but their first victory lends their fool’s errand a sudden very concrete quality. This could actually work. Kara could come back.

She lifts Lena up into a celebratory hug. She wonders who between the two of them is the most surprised by the move. She’s about to apologise and quickly drop her back down, when something in Lena’s bright shining eyes stops her. She feels, more than sees, arms wrap around her neck and pull. Maybe she doesn’t need to let go straight away. She tightens her hold on Lena’s slender body and buries her face in the crook of her neck.

They might truly be able to bring Kara back!

Maggie calls. It’s been a while since they last spoke, in truth Alex finds it increasingly challenging to keep the compound’s recent developments under wraps, whenever they do. Thankfully, grounding the conversation firmly on Maggie’s turf, her life in Gotham, its murky politics, isn’t difficult in the slightest: looks like Maggie needs to talk today. It’s not the first time she comes up, but there’s something there, now, when she mentions Batwoman, something beyond curiosity: interest. Alex has zero desire to delve into that, but she’s not about to cut Maggie off either, so she listens. 

“Your Lena Luthor” Cap starts after one particularly good morning run. (She’s long stopped feeling offended by the number of times he overtakes her.) He grunts, lunging into a stretch, while Alex remains stuck on the possessive. “She’s quite something.”

Lena’s something alright. “Told you” with a grin, trying to catch her breath. She’s feeling that last sprint, Cap always egging her to push herself further. 

“I’m sorry I was a bit… on the fence, before.”

She braces against the wall, her calves and hamstrings protesting. “Don’t worry about it. I know where you’re coming from.” At Cap’s curious look, she elaborates: “The first time I read her file, all this family history… I wasn’t particularly a fan either.”

He nods, “I’m glad you fought me on this” and turns serious: “I should have trusted your judgement.”

The apology – for that’s what this is, right – is wholly unnecessary. Still, it’s… nice to hear.

With the resupply of Pym Particles now secured, they settle into a gruelling schedule of tests. And with every new failed attempt to use the Quantum Realm for time travel, their frustration grows.

They reach the following compromise: instead of this exhausting daily back and forth, Lena spends Mondays to Thursdays in National City and Fridays to Sundays at the Avengers compound. They set up an office for her, which she uses for calls with Jess and other L-Corp meetings.

Jess remains the only one in the know: Lena’d rather keep people guessing as to her whereabouts, instead of fabricating an alibi. Lena’s assistant’s become a penpal of sorts (and if she may be as bold: she’s pretty sure she’s warming up to her). From occasional and short updates on Lena’s travelling schedule at first, it’s become daily check-ins. They’ve even developed a code for Lena’s many moods, using weather emojis, and to Alex’s mortification, Jess’s started referring to Lena as “their charge” in her texts.

Lena’s not the only one coming and going. Between his time in prison and his time in the quantum realm, Scott’s missed out on a lot of his daughter’s childhood. (Which is truly heartbreaking and never fails to remind Alex of her own wish to become a parent.) If he’s not flying out to her, then she’s coming to him, both trying hard to make up for lost time.

Alex shows Lena all available rooms (even though, let’s face it: they’re pretty much identical). She settles with a displeased frown on the one she’s already been using and starts typing away furiously on her phone, asking Alex for rough measurements. She has a walk-in closet delivered the following day, so large it requires an entire extra room to accommodate. Next come the construction crews: they knock the connecting walls down, doubling then tripling the size of Lena’s room; install floor to ceiling windows; and transform the third room into an en suite bathroom. (Lena explains it all away with a sharp: “I have never indulged in communal showers and am certainly not about to start now!”) 

They don’t get much work done that week: Scott tries repeatedly to engage the foreman in conversation, Steve exchanges playlist tips with the crew, while Rocket provides a running commentary.

She’s very content with her own room as it is, the narrow bunk bed, the whirring in the pipes overhead as soon as someone draws water somewhere in the building. She has to admit, though, that the end result for Lena’s quarters is quite lovely (not that she spends much time in them). She sends Jess before and after pictures and receives an “Only the best for our girl” in response. Which… It’s certainly not the phrasing Alex would have chosen, but fine. 

She wakes to a text from Jess a week later: “Should I be worried?” Alex doesn’t understand at first, until a fully stocked bar is delivered and installed as an extension of their living room. The Scotch selection alone must have cost more money than Alex has ever made in her life. (Lena’s impeccable taste in liquor is a godsend.) Alex sends her a cheeky: “Only the best for our girl!” in response. (Plus, let’s be real: she remembers Lena’s office, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to her assistant.)

Natasha talks Alex into resuming their daily sparring sessions. They become an essential outlet for her: with efforts now focusing on the quantum aspect of things and Scott handling the tests, Alex feels pretty useless. So she fills her days as best she can: she wakes up at the crack of dawn, goes for a run, showers and prepares Lena’s two morning coffees. She then gets cracking in the kitchen and coaxes Lena, Banner and Scott into having breakfast – correction: considering the two guys’ appetites, it’s really only Lena she has to convince. (Unbeknownst to Lena, Alex has an advantage: Jess. She follows Jess’ tips to the letter, finds she’s most successful with fresh fruits, occasionally tries her luck with an avocado and can’t help herself from sneaking in scrambled eggs from time to time.) She then usually catches up with Natasha – occasionally Rogers or Colonel Rhodes – on the latest global threats. She spends 45min in the ring trying and failing to best a black widow, takes her second shower of the day, nurses her new bruises and ensures lunch is delivered for everyone. (Delivered, because one Alex is not a chef and two, she refuses to spend her days cooking for grown ass adults.) In the afternoon, she either helps Natasha or the scientists in any way she can, according to the priority du jour. Dinner’s tasty Indian, Thai, Mexican, Ethiopian, Peruvian, Japanese or Lebanese, you name it, courtesy of Cap’s expanding quest to try different world cuisines. She introduces him to potstickers, an experience that apparently seals the deal on their growing friendship. (Seeing him wolf them down makes her think of Kara. And judging by the misty look in Lena’s eyes, she’s not the only one.) 

Conversation centres on the strategy to adopt should they find themselves able to travel through time. 

First: what does righting the Snap mean? Should they annul the past four years altogether? Or bring the dead back to the here and now? (Cap, who is intimately aware of how jarring an experience waking up in the future and having to adjust to an unfamiliar reality can be, is understandably not taken by the idea.) And if so, should they stick to bringing back the disappeared only or extend it to all those who died in the ensuing chaos since? 

Second: how far should they go? Captain Marvel reminds them to think beyond Earth: any effort should benefit all affected throughout the entire Universe. 

Third: what’s the best strategy to adopt? Should they steal the gauntlet once it’s already half or even fully assembled by Thanos, or build their own? The latter, while undoubtedly more complex, seems the most promising, considering how their last encounter with Thanos and the stones ended. It would, however, mean adding a complex quest for each individual stone to their plan. Unless they were to steal the gauntlet just before a weakened Thanos uses it to destroy the stones ?

She finds herself needing to take a step back. It hits her then, how arrogant they’re being: taking decisions affecting billions, trillions on this planet and beyond. Disregarding moral and ethical considerations for a second, shouldn’t they at least consult with governments, with the United Nations? It’d inevitably attract unwanted attention for a project that remains highly hypothetical, but still: this feels too big to be settled over dinner between the nine of them. Thankfully, her reservations resonate with Cap’s and Banner’s own. They settle on constituting an international panel of experts in ethics and ask Colonel Rhodes to put out feelers at the White House. (It must create quite the upheaval, for they don’t see much of him from then onwards.)

They give Steve a crash course on social media and create a Twitter account for him. Within a week, he’s on par with Justin Bieber in terms of number of followers (to Lena’s silent displeasure, far behind in the top ten). He tweets, waxing poetic about his favourite artists and asking for song recommendations. The following day, the compound’s flooded by mailed in mixtapes (USBs, some CDs and even a few cassettes), while his inbox is drowning in online playlists. The #sendthecaptainsometunes hashtag trends for a month, radio stations from all over the world dedicate entire shows to him. From then onwards, Cassie takes over the management of his Twitter account and things return to a semblance of normality. 

Lena returns to National City only once a week after that, if at all. 

With their daily check-ins now a thing of the past, Alex finds herself coming up with the slimmest of excuses to seek Lena out. Today, she’s prompted by Jess’ latest messages. 

“Knock, knock.”

“You can come in, Alex.” 

Lena looks exhausted. “Hey.”

Lena’s eyes light up at the coffee Alex’s carrying. “You’re a Godsend.”

“Bad meeting?”

“What could have possibly given you that impression?” she deadpans. She takes a sip and hums contentedly, sinking back into her chair.

Alex chuckles: “Who was it this time?” 

“Who is it ever? The board of course.”

Alex already knows that, courtesy of Jess’ voice note. “How about… Here, I’ve been wanting to try something.” She steps forward. When Lena makes to stand up, she places a hand on her shoulder and moves behind her: “Don’t get up, stay seated.” 

She can sense Lena’s not fully relaxed. “Close your eyes” she instructs and starts softly kneading into her shoulders.

“Oh.”

“Jess says you enjoy massages?” She’s not a professional, but if she manages to make Lena feel a fraction of how excellent massages used to make her feel, she’ll take it. After a good five minutes, she can feel Lena loosen up. “You work too much.”

“I already got a lecture from Jess today. I don’t need a second one.”

“She’s right to worry.”

Lena sighs.

“Is there any way we could get you more help?” Alex hedges, well aware she’s treading on shaky ground.

“I’ve been working on duplicating myself into an upgraded AI. But it’s not ready yet. Too many glitches.”

Typical. Alex can’t help let a small laugh escape: “I was thinking more along the lines of flesh and bones?”

Lena sits up from her slouch: “L-Corp is my life, Alex.”

“I know. And you’ve made it into this century’s biggest success story, one of today’s largest corporations. I’m not suggesting you stop. But maybe” careful now, “there’s someone – or even better several people – you could bring on board? To handle some more of the day to day?”

“It’s easier said than done. Many parameters to consider. At the first whiff of something perceived as a weakness, several on the board and outside will pounce.”

“You had Sam once...” The reminder’s bitter on her tongue. 

Lena takes a long breath in, then out. “This feels an awful lot like you and Jess ganging up on me.”

“Jess cares about you. So do I.” She’s surprised to realise how easily the words slip out, how genuinely she means them.

“So the two of you are talking behind my back. That’s reassuring.”

Alex smiles: “Don’t pretend you didn’t know.” 

“I think I preferred it when Jess didn’t like you.”

“About that: why was that? I’ve been racking my brains, but for the life of me I can’t remember ever doing something to offend her…”

“You’ll have to ask her.”

She will. However, let’s not get sidetracked: “You can’t shoulder everything, Lena. What good are you to L-Corp, what good are you here, if you run yourself into the ground?”

Lena scoffs: “I have plenty left in me. I am not about to burn out if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

She didn’t expect any less resistance from her, so she switches gears. Time for plan B. “Well, you may not be. But Scott definitely is. So for his sake, maybe we should scale back the number of tests per day. I reckon he’s two, three tests tops, away from collapsing.”

“Don’t think for a second that you’ve fooled me with your dubious argumentation.”   

“Don’t believe me? Ask Cassie!”

Lena gives in: “Fine. I’ll ease up on him. Happy?” 

Alex’d like to believe the massage has something to do with how easily this win came about. But also: she’s no fool. “And for you?”

“You don't let up, do you? Let me give this some thought, make a few calls.”

Alex smiles: Lena, always so tough. That she would insist this be on her terms comes as no surprise and is only natural. She bends down to whisper: “Thank you.”