Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Dating is a security risk,” Phil said. He patted Jimmy companionably on the shoulder as he said it.

Jimmy pointedly shrugged off Phil’s hand. “Seriously? Is this really the time?”

Phil shaded his eyes against the sun. They were both wrapped heavily in parkas, knee-deep in snow a couple of miles out from Mt. Lussari village. Nothing but brilliant blue sky, mountains, and the wreckage of a military plane with all the bodies suspiciously missing. “It’s always a good time. Especially if you insist on using unsecured apps.” Phil began to trudge down towards the plane, careful of where he put his feet. He left a deep trough behind him through the snow.

“On my private phone. This is a breach of privacy. Wait. Did the Director tell you to talk to me?” Jimmy grimaced. That was going to be a whole new level of awkward. Not that it would surprise him—Director Fury tended to take his den-mother approach to his Special Agents to new and unexpected heights all the time. Fury was a great man, but a control freak.

“I didn’t look at your phone and Fury doesn’t know about it. I made a logical deduction based on the facts at hand. You gave up on dating years ago. Ergo, something happened recently that made you try again. A new app recently launched, targeting gay men, which got a lot of publicity in the news. Since then you’ve—”

“Okay. Okay,” Jimmy muttered. He forged through the snow to catch up to Phil, rubbing his palms together as his breath steamed in the air. Mittens didn’t seem to make a difference in the cold. The chill was settling into his bones, making him try to burrow down past his padded collar. “I’m being careful, all right?”

“I don’t doubt that you are. You’re a trained Agent. But a risk is still a risk.” Phil inspected a piece of fuselage half-buried in the snow. “Huh. Look at that. Over here.”

“Charring on the inside.” Jimmy bent for a closer look, then hauled out the modded DSLR from his pack and took a snapshot. “So what, I just don’t date at all? Like you? You’re going to die alone, Agent Coulson. With lots of cats.”

“If I die surrounded by cats, by definition I haven’t then died alone.”

“They’d eat your body. I read it in an article.”

“I wouldn’t begrudge them that if I’m dead. Besides, people tend to be disappointing. I’d rather not die being disappointed. Also, I’m going to will you all my cats, so I’ve covered all my bases.” Phil picked his way to the next shard of debris, a piece of the wing.

“I’m allergic to cats. You’re trying to kill me. I’m going to make a report to HR.” Jimmy took a photo of the wing.

“By the time I die there’d probably be an app for that,” Phil said, merciless where the fate of his cats was concerned. He bent, picking up something from the snow that he dusted off. It was a pale glass canister, containing the dregs of something silvery. Phil set it down on the snow with a yellow marker, let Jimmy photograph it, then bagged it and the marker. “Prototype was definitely on-board, sir,” Phil said, touching his earpiece.

“You’ve got an hour before we have to sterilise the zone.” Director Fury said. He sounded sour about it, but that was nothing new. As far as Jimmy could tell, Director Fury was immune to positive emotions. “Best I can do, boys. So hurry the fuck up.”

“Wilco sir,” Jimmy said. He waited for the faint click, indicating that Fury had left the direct channel. “Why don’t you give your cats to Agent Barton?”

“Why?”

“You two are friendly…?” Jimmy hedged. He wasn’t entirely sure if Phil and Clint Barton were friends or frenemies or just colleagues who got along because they had to. Barton always requested Phil as a handler on strike missions though. That had to mean something. As a field operative, Phil wasn’t even technically classified as a handler.

“I would trust Agent Barton with my life. But not with my cats’ lives. That man is a special kind of mess outside of missions. Three o’clock,” Phil said. Jimmy obligingly walked to his right, unearthing another empty canister.

“What about Agent May?” Jimmy asked, as innocently as he could. It was a long-standing joke—behind Phil’s back, of course—that Phil had a crush on Melinda May. Jimmy thought it was possible. Melinda was the only person who could play pranks on Phil and get away with it.

Phil shot him a sour glance. His sad bulldog face was good for sour glances. “What about her?”

“Maybe… she’d like cats.”

Phil sniffed, as though he thought Jimmy’s comment didn’t deserve an answer. “So who’s this new guy?” Phil asked instead.

“New what?”

“You’ve been going home early on Fridays and you haven’t been coming in on some Saturday evenings. You’re going ‘steady’ with someone. Whom you met on an unsecured app.”

“Firstly sir, the way you verbalise air quotes is mildly traumatic,” Jimmy said. He bagged the canister and kept heading into the main body of the plane, past the shorn-off tail. “Secondly, that’s none of your business. Sir.” He smirked at Phil, who mock-scowled at him over from the wreck of the tail.

“I’m just concerned about you.”

“You’re trying to find a delicate way to remind me that being a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative is confidential.”

“That too,” Phil said. He had the grace to pretend to study another piece of fuselage, looking away.

“I’ll be careful. S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t my first stint in black ops, remember? And for your information, he’s a nice, normal guy.” Jimmy took a photograph of a scorch mark on the hull.

“Nice, normal guys are a statistical anomaly. Probably a contradiction in terms. Possibly means he’s hiding something.”

“You’re definitely dying alone,” Jimmy told Phil, “and no, I’m not taking care of your cats when you do.”

“You have no heart,” Phil said, trudging in to examine the mark. “And that’s why you’re going to go far in S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Very funny, sir.”

“Dating is a security risk,” Hope told Scott as Scott crawled under the reactor.

“Unlike you, I have no intention of dying alone,” Scott said. He squeezed himself into position and started unscrewing the access panel.

“Statistically we’re unlikely to die alone. Given what we’ve both chosen to do we’re more likely to die together.”

Scott paused and glanced out under the narrow crawlspace to Hope, who was sitting cross-legged on the gantry typing code into her laptop. She didn’t look like a board member of Pym Technologies when dressed down in a shirt and jeans on the floor of her father’s lab, furiously editing code. This was the real Hope van Dyne. Or maybe just one of her faces, a preferred one. Hope often complained about having to do press.

“That’s so sweet, Hope,” Scott said, in as syrupy a tone as he could manage, “I lub you too.”

“Sarcasm aside, it’s true.”

“My God you two please,” Hank whined from the mezzanine floor. “Less banter, more fixing my reactor please.” Hank Pym, on the other hand, pointedly wore what Scott thought of as Scientist Duds whenever he was in his lab—huge spectacles, coat, the works.

“This is your fault, Dad,” Hope said, without even looking up. “But for your tendency to interrogate tradespeople who come to our house about physics, you wouldn’t have decided to employ Scott here as your new assistant.”

“Our new live-in plumber, you mean,” Hank muttered darkly, no doubt glowering at them from his vantage point. “Mister Lang is not my assistant. If he was my assistant he’d be the least qualified assistant I’ve ever had.”

“I have a Masters in Engineering,” Scott said, as he set the panel aside. He grinned to himself as he heard Hank snort.

“Pssh! Only a Masters. I don’t even know the University that you went to. Is it even in the Ivy League?”

“Don’t be such a snob, Dad,” Hope said absently. “How’s it look down there?”

“Extra crispy, I’m afraid.” Scott slid his toolbox over and started to carefully cut away charred wiring.

“Didn’t you say you don’t even know what this ‘Jimmy’ guy does for a living?” Hope asked.

“I said he’s a government staffer.” Scott grimaced as he cut away enough wiring to reveal the full damage beneath. “Circuit board’s also extra crispy. Aaand I think we’ve damaged the particle whatsit behind it.”

“Quantum particle array,” Hank said, with a huff. “Jesus Christ. Where can you find properly qualified assistants with a proper Ph.D. in quantum physics from a proper University nowadays?”

“Give me a raise and I will totally use ‘quantum’ in front of everything I say too, sir.” Scott chuckled as he carefully loosed the warped catches holding the first cylinder in place.

“A government staffer doing what? A receptionist would technically be a government staffer. As would the goddamned President,” Hope said.

“Pretty sure he’s not the President,” Scott said. He detached the array cylinder with a grunt and rolled it carefully out of the reactor towards Hope. “Or if he is, I didn’t vote for him.”

Hope ducked her head into view, pulling a face. “I can’t believe you’re so blasé about this. He could be a threat. Not just to you.”

“Because we’re technically doing illegal experiments in your dad’s basement?” Scott started to carefully detach the second cylinder.

“Exactly.” Hope started to run a handheld scanner wand over the cylinder beside her.

“My lab,” Hank said, then muttered, “basement. Pssh.”

“Meh, you worry too much. He’s a cute, really sweet guy who also happens to be great in bed—” Scott smirked at a choking noise from the mezzanine floor, “—and besides, nobody’s going to believe what we do down here. Shrinking people? Enlarging mass without changing density? Shit, I don’t even sometimes believe what we get up to here.”

“Because you don’t have the imagination for it,” Hank grumbled.

“Okay, if you’re sure,” Hope said doubtfully. “Want me to run a background check on him though? Just to be sure?”

“Nah. It’s not that serious. And I’ll be careful, okay? Real careful.”

Since Hank was paranoid at the best of times, Scott was only allowed to put the battery back into his phone and turn it on once he got home. For all of Hank’s bitching and bitter-old-man issues, he paid Scott a handsome salary, more than what Scott had earned in VistaCorp. Even without Hope in the equation, or the cutting-edge science he got to be a part of every day, Scott would’ve been willing to forgive Hank a lot.

His phone started to load messages the moment it was back online. Scott’s heart skipped a beat. One from Jimmy, at around lunchtime.

Jimmy: How’s your day been?

Not that serious. Yeah, fucking right. Scott spent a few minutes trying to think of a casual yet not flippant response.

Scott: great
Scott: u?
Scott: looking forward to weekend
Scott: free on sat?

So much for casual. Nothing from Jimmy. Disappointed, Scott showered and fixed himself a quick dinner from the slowly wilting ingredients he still had in his fridge. He was clearing up when his phone buzzed, which nearly caused him to drop the plate he was holding.

Jimmy: Yes I’ll be free. Any plans?
Scott: nope
Scott: I picked last week so
Scott: ur turn babe

Scott finished loading the dishwasher. He was curled on the couch, flicking through TV channels without watching anything when his phone buzzed again.

Jimmy: Brunch?
Scott: sure
Jimmy: After that, SFMoMA has a new Magritte exhibition.
Jimmy:: Interested?

SF what? Scott did a quick Googlefu on his laptop. Oh. Right. A museum. Of modern art? Scott was neutral about art in general and neutral bordering on suspicious about modern art as a whole, but still.

Scott: sure babe ;) that’s a date

Scott stared at the TV for a while, sighed, and muted it. He probably should Google ‘Magritte’. Whatever that was.

“Your parents know?” Agent Melinda May asked, right after she kicked Jimmy in the stomach.

Jimmy rolled over on the practice mat and got back to his feet, trying to catch his breath. “About what?”

Melinda shot him a long and pointed stare. “Your new boyfriend.”

Jimmy groaned. “Not you too. I’ve already gotten the lecture from Agent Coulson, all right? Isn’t that enough secondhand helicopter parenting for the week?”

This got him a snort. Melinda was in Phil’s generation, a senior S.H.I.E.L.D. operative—and just like Phil, she took her seniority very seriously. She brought her gloved arms back up in a guard, hopping from foot to foot in the sparring chamber. “How many Asian operatives are there in S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“Uh…” Jimmy ducked out of range of a swing, only to get his legs scythed out. It’d been a feint. He rolled again, scrambling out of range. “There’s Lakshmi over in comms and there’s Nora with the air force—”

Melinda shook her head. “Two. There are two active field operatives. Just us. Which means,” she said, prowling closer, “I feel like I don’t just have a responsibility to watch your back. Think I need to make sure you don’t shit the bed for all of us.” She smirked.

Jimmy let out a startled laugh. He blocked a jab at his face, snapped one back that Melinda spun away from. “Come on ma’am. It’s just dating. I’m not selling State secrets or thermonuclear devices.”

“Doesn’t matter. We’re the model fucking minority.” Melinda lunged. Jimmy skipped out of range of the first punch and brought up his arms to block the next. Melinda kept jabbing, relentless, backing him in circles. He forgot to watch his feet. Kicking out his knee, Melinda pounced as Jimmy yelped and lost his balance, pinning him to the practice mat in an arm lock. “You want to go far in S.H.I.E.L.D.? You don’t just have to be good to break that bamboo ceiling. You have to be twice as good. Better than anyone. And you can never fuck up. Once you do, you’re gone.”

Jimmy squirmed, but Melinda didn’t let up. “I don’t think that you get to ask me about my parents. Were your parents OK with you eloping?”

“Heh.” Melinda grinned down at him. “No, of course not. But they got over it eventually. It was the best decision Andrew and I ever made. Saves on the big damn wedding with the hundreds of guests and the tea ceremony. Shit, we would’ve had to do two weddings. One in the USA, one in Macau. Instead, we put a deposit down for our house.”

“White picket fence? You?”

Melinda shook her head, though she shifted away and let Jimmy sit up. “You’d be surprised. It’s a good feeling.”

“My parents would’ve disowned me for pulling something like that.” Not that Jimmy wasn’t already a Disappointment to the Family. “And no. They don’t know about Scott.”

“Thought so. By the way, your mother offered Fury twenty-five million last week. Cash. To get you relegated to a desk job.”

“Tell the Director that he should hold out until she doubles it,” Jimmy said facetiously. Melinda laughed as she uncurled to her feet, hauling Jimmy up to his. She didn’t let go though, her smile fading.

“Some days I don’t get it,” Melinda said, studying him. “Your parents own a goddamned bank. Why are you here?”

“Because I believe in the mission.”

“The Director rescues you from a kidnapping in your childhood and made you a believer ever since?”

Jimmy tried to hide his irritation, but it probably showed. “Isn’t that classified?”

“It is to a certain clearance level. And purpose.”

Oh. So that’s what this was. Why Melinda had been pushing him more recently, why she insisted on at least one face-to-face training session a week, even if they were both busy with missions. Jimmy’s exasperation faded. “You’re considering me for your team?” he asked hopefully. No more having to shadow senior agents, doing the operative equivalent of holding their cloaks. No more having to run errands.

“That depends. Why are you here?” Melinda narrowed her eyes. “Sure you’re not just running away?”

Jimmy exhaled. “I came up through the FBI. This is hardly my first job. And I’m in my thirties. Pretty late for a rebellious phase, or whatever you think this is. Ma’am. If you think I’m here because my parents paid for me to be here, you’re wrong. The opposite kinda happened.”

“Yeah, the Director said that. Said you’re probably S.H.I.E.L.D.’s most expensive asset. Meant it as a joke.”

“Doubt he meant it as a joke,” Jimmy said, resigned. His parents had gone right ahead on their threats and pulled their decades-long funding from S.H.I.E.L.D. when Director Fury had accepted Jimmy into the organisation. “I try not to think about them. I’m grateful for what they’ve given me. And I can’t speak for all Asian parents, but it feels like conservative Chinese parents try to exercise a sort of ownership over their kids. Try to decide what they become. How they live. Who they love.”

“Because they care,” Melinda said, though her smile was rueful.

“Because they think they care.” Jimmy pulled his hand out of Melinda’s grip, stepping back and bringing up his arms back into a guard position. “It isn’t always the same thing. And I would be terrible at a desk job. I’d get bored. Steal everyone’s lunch.”

“I don’t know. You’re good at paperwork. Got that much out of your Harvard law degree.” Melinda took a step forward, only to go still, cocking her head. The door to the sparring chamber slid open. It was Phil, already fully suited up.

“You’re both on,” Phil said, always brisk and professional whenever in Melinda’s presence. “Code Yellow incident outside Khartoum.”

Jimmy brightened up. “I’ve never been to Khartoum.”

“Your enthusiasm for travel is commendable, Agent Woo. If only your enthusiasm for proper footwork was just as commendable.” Melinda inclined her head to Phil and walked out of the chamber with long strides, scooping up her bag as she went.

“Ouch,” Jimmy said, once it was just him and Phil.

“She’s probably right.”

“Doesn’t make it hurt any less, sir.”

Chapter Text

“It’s a 0-8-4,” Phil said on the flight, flicking the details to everyone’s briefing pad. “Outskirts of Khartoum. Fury’s managed to wrangle the local army into cordoning it off through a local CIA asset, but he’s not sure how long it’s going to hold.”

Sitting behind Melinda in the modded Hercules, Jimmy tried not to feel too excited. He was quiet as the other agents in the team whispered to themselves, reading the dense infodump loaded onto the pad. 0-8-4 meant an object of unknown origin. Could be an alien artifact, could be nothing. 0-8-4 missions warranted the presence of two senior agents because they could, in Fury’s words, go “shitfaced like no tomorrow”.

Jimmy was the most junior agent in the team by far and everyone in the plane probably knew it. He’d felt their eyes on his back when he’d followed Melinda into the plane. On hindsight, sitting right behind her like a baby duckling following its mother probably hadn’t been good. Tactically speaking.

“Local CIA asset?” Melinda was saying, with distaste. “Deep cover?”

“You know the CIA,” Phil said. Melinda sniffed and muttered a rude phrase in Mandarin.

Jimmy couldn’t stifle his laugh in time. On the opposite side of the aisle, Mark scowled. Mark Smithson was the next most junior agent, with four years on Jimmy. “When did 0-8-4s become babysitting gigs?” he asked, with a pointed stare at Jimmy.

“If you have a complaint about my team, bring it up with the Director, Agent Smithson,” Phil said. He didn’t even look over.

Smithson scowled. “Diversity’s very nice and all, but—”

“Jesus,” Melinda said.

“Hey, I got nothing against you, ma’am.” Smithson raised his hands in a playful gesture of surrender. “Just saying.”

“Just saying what?” Melinda asked, with a friendly smile that didn’t touch her eyes. Leaning out from her seat, she looked like a hawk preparing for a killing stoop.

“How fluent are you in Arabic, Smithson?” Phil asked. He flicked something on his briefing pad.

“Not at all, sir.”

“Anyone else here fluent in Arabic?” Phil looked over the other agents, who all avoided his eyes. “No? Thought so. Jimmy is. In MSA. Gets by in some of the dialects too, I hear.”

“Not that well,” Jimmy said, before he could help himself. He could manage the Egyptian dialect because he’d been stationed in Cairo for a few months. Sudanese Arabic was supposed to be close, but Jimmy wasn’t sure what Phil meant by “gets by”—

“You questioning me as well, Agent Woo?” Phil stared at him.

“No sir.” Jimmy couldn’t look at Melinda. His ears felt hot.

“Good. I like questions. When they’re pertinent. For everything else, take it up with HR. I’m not here to be anyone’s friend, therapist, life coach, whatever. Keep any mission chatter relevant to the mission. Understood?”

“Yes sir,” Smithson said. He sounded subdued.

There weren’t any photographs of the 0-8-4, only a grainy shot of a massive dust storm that sat as a foamy orange wall against a gray sky, dwarfing the pale blue and green blocks and spires against its belly. Jimmy flicked over to the S.H.I.E.L.D. assessment of Khartoum and started to read. It was a long flight. By the time the plane landed in Wadi Sayidna airbase Jimmy was impatient for the mission. He wasn’t the only one keyed up as the plane taxied to a stop. Even Melinda had her feet flat on the deck, staring avidly out of a window as the ground crew hurried towards them.

The Sudanese government had sent a colonel to meet them, fluent in English. He spoke quietly with Phil as Jimmy studied the line of Land Rovers and watchful soldiers. Many of them were either staring at Jimmy or at Melinda with open curiosity. Not that Jimmy blamed them. The rest of the S.H.I.E.L.D. team were white men and anomalies made soldiers uncomfortable.

Phil walked over as the colonel started shouting orders at the jeeps. “They’ll drive us over to ground zero,” Phil said.

“Not ideal,” Melinda said.

“They don’t trust us and they think it’s some sort of JEM trap,” Phil said. When Melinda scowled, Phil added quickly, “Remember the rules.”

“Rules, Psh. You know what they do to their own people. I’ve been to Darf—”

“Mellie.”

“Tell the Colonel we’ll take a guide. No escort. And we’ll drive ourselves.”

“This is my op,” Phil reminded her. It wasn’t said with much heat.

“And you know I’m right. We can’t risk not being in full control here. I don’t even like the fact that we’ve got an escort. Besides, you just want the semblance of having an argument with me as a diplomatic excuse.” Melinda smirked, daring Phil to disagree. He did not. Phil lifted a shoulder into a light shrug and walked back over to the colonel. There was a brief discussion with involved a few incredulous glances sent a sphinx-faced Melinda’s way, then soldiers grudgingly emptied out of three of the Land Rovers.

Jimmy was the driver for Melinda’s car. His hands were sweating on the wheel as he followed the car in front. Melinda was in the front passenger seat, two agents in the back. Once they were well out of the airbase, Melinda whistled. “You seeing that too, Phil?”

“Yeah,” Phil said into their earpieces. The dust storm hadn’t been there, and then it was, a huge wall that sat impossibly still in the distance, taller than towers. It’d taken all of Jimmy’s self-control not to flinch at the wheel.

“How’d it fool a camera?” Jimmy asked, and flushed when Melinda shot him a pointed stare.

“You had a question, Agent Woo?” Melinda asked. Not on the general channel, but Jimmy still nearly shrank back and muttered an apology.

“Well it’s an illusion,” Jimmy mumbled. Under Melinda’s unblinking stare, he found he couldn’t stop talking. “It’s too regular. I saw that in the briefing photo too. Someone cloned blocks of the same sandstorm effect somehow. Looks like Photoshop in 3D. It’s pretty good?”

“That’s right,” Melinda said, after a pause where Jimmy felt sweat starting to prickle down his back. She looked back at the wall. “It’s an illusion. As to how it fooled a camera? It didn’t. It fooled a cell phone. Same way it’s fooling your eyes. Hijacked a signal. Between the phone and its camera. Between our eyes and our brain.”

“Doesn’t have that big a range. Guess it didn’t need one. Local forces backed off and CIA called us,” Jimmy said, thinking it over. “But wouldn’t people have gone inside for a look?”

“Don’t speculate without data. It’s a bad habit.”

“…Sorry, ma’am.”

Melinda sniffed. “Don’t be sorry. Just do better.”

Before Melinda had left home to go to college her mother Lian May had given her two rules: Don’t ride motorcycles and Don’t get pregnant. Melinda had broken the first rule a week into college, and to her mother’s growing despair, had so far stuck to the second.

“I still don’t understand the motorcycle rule,” Melinda dared to tell Lian nearly a decade after, when she finally quit the Air Force to take up S.H.I.E.L.D.’s offer. “I mean, it’s not like you’re some suburban soccer mom who thinks motorcycles are for biker gangs or something. You used to be a CIA agent. What’s wrong with motorcycles? You probably used them before on missions.”

“I wasn’t that kind of agent,” Lian said, with a snort. “If a mission ever devolves to James Bond escapades it’s already failed, by my books. And I gave you that rule just to see how long you’d take to break it.”

“I hate your tests.”

“Then you’re going to hate it in S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Lian predicted, though she didn’t smile. “Here’s the last rule from me. Don’t ever give in to the impulse at work, however well-warranted it may seem at the time, to baby a grown man.”

“In S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“In life in general, I suppose. Adult men can be such… incomplete creatures. It’s tempting to forgive them their many faults just to reward them for being a basic human being. But remember. They’re the reason why you’re going to be paid less for doing the same work. They’re the reason why you’re unlikely to ever get to the Director position.”

“I never took you for a radical feminist,” Melinda said wryly.

“I'm a pragmatist, dear,” Lian said, with a sharp, mirthless smile. “I just want you to be conscious of the fact that you’re about to join one of the biggest boys’ clubs in the world, in a job that attracts a certain kind of person. Someday you’d probably believe that it isn’t worth it without even knowing why. I’m telling you why right now to save you the trouble. Even if you’re not going to believe me. I know you. You need to see everything for yourself.”

The years had not quite proved Lian completely right—but it hadn’t proved her completely wrong, either. Melinda got out of the Land Rover after Jimmy parked it behind Phil’s and swallowed the urge to nitpick. Melinda would have parked further away, just in case something destroyed Phil’s car and everyone had to pack into another car to escape. 0-8-4s could be unstable that way.

The other agents in the back got out and took positions behind Melinda, watching the security cordon. Jimmy had stayed in the car. Frowning, Melinda was about to ask him what was the holdup over the radio when Jimmy took the Land Rover into reverse, parking further away. He’d noticed the third car’s positioning and course-corrected. Melinda relaxed. Jimmy was the first person she’d broken her mother’s rule for, and she didn’t want to regret it.

Melinda walked up to Phil, who was standing by as agents set up a recon robot unit. “Illusion tech’s very good,” Melinda said. Up close, she could even see the particles.

“Which is why it annoys me that they were so lazy about it.” Phil gestured at the cloud. “It’s static. It’s in cloned blocks. If the tech’s so good, why was whoever who used it so terrible?”

“Drop them an angry performance review when we catch them.” Melinda watched the robot unit activate shielding with a faint hum. It was built like a mini tank, heavily armoured and dwarfed by its large treads. Its camera was an eye sunk into its front flank, and it came online with a decent visual on Phil’s PSP-sized handheld. Battery check. Security check. Systems check. Satellite uplink encrypted. Once the bot was fully online, it started to trundle into the illusion.

“Look at that. Sloppy,” Phil said, as the visual on the handheld blurred for only a moment before clearing to show what the cloud had swallowed: a long-abandoned, squat concrete block, unfinished, one derelict of many that still peppered even central Khartoum. Its floors jutted out as dusty ribs, only walled in on its northern flank. Phil stiffened. The robot wasn’t picking up any sound, but flies were gathering over five painfully small bodies on the ground.

“Air quality clear,” Melinda said, looking at the visual. “I’m going in.”

“Wait!” Phil snapped as Melinda strode forward. She braced herself as she went through the illusion, but she made it through to the other side without an issue. Breathing in, Melinda blinked. The air was several degrees colder. And she couldn’t hear herself breathe.

The illusion distorted. It was Jimmy, scanning his surroundings sharply, gun drawn, muzzle pointed to the ground. Melinda glowered at him. Phil would forgive insubordination from Melinda—she was of equal rank to him anyway—but not from a newbie agent. “Initiative isn’t appreciated with junior agents,” she said—or tried to say. No sound came out of her mouth.

Jimmy’s eyes widened a little. Melinda gestured for him to go back through the illusion. Jimmy bowed his head, embarrassed, and backed off—only to flinch back as he came too close, clapping a hand to his ear. Melinda took a step towards Jimmy instinctively and winced as a painful ringing sound scraped through her hearing. The remote-controlled bot had turned around, and Melinda could feel Phil radiating disapproval and worry through its glass eye.

Ah well. The lecture would be pretty impressive, at least. Melinda beckoned for Jimmy to follow her. He fell into step at an appropriate distance, watchful. The FBI tended to turn out decent clay. Melinda jogged over to the flies, sucking in a sharp breath once she got close enough to see what—or who—had died.

Three boys. Two girls. They’d held hands jumping off the roof, head-first. Couldn’t be older than twelve, thirteen. Melinda forced down her shock, her grief. Held on to the anger. She made herself examine each body, taking her time. No life signs. Massive trauma to the skulls. She looked up, shading her eyes against the sun. The illusion of the cloud only ran as a cylinder around the block, centred somewhere within.

With each floor so gutted it didn’t take long for Melinda to find the 0-8-4. It was on the roof, a translucent sphere with a silver death’s head ring within it. Melinda waited from a safe distance. Nothing happened. As she took her phone from her pockets to take a picture, the sphere began to spin. Melinda backed off, then yelped and dragged Jimmy down through the roof access, violently enough that they tumbled down the stairs to fetch up sharply on the floor beneath.

An explosion shook the ceiling above, raining fragments and dust down over them. Jimmy disentangled himself, inching up the stairs for a look, even as Phil’s voice finally filtered through her earpiece. “—ellie? The hell is going on?”

Melinda looked out over the empty floor. The illusion was gone. She pressed her hand to her ear and picked up her phone. “Five casualties. No life signs.”

“The ring’s gone, ma’am.” Jimmy said, ducking down from the top floor.

“What ring?” Phil said, exasperated.

“The 0-8-4 on the roof. Death’s head ring. In a translucent sphere. Blew up when I took my phone out,” Melinda said.

Phil exhaled. There was a faint click as he switched to a private channel. “This is why you wait for protocol.”

“We had to see whether those children were still alive. And quickly.”

“They’d have been dead for almost a day. We took fifteen hours to fly down here.”

“We couldn’t know that,” Melinda said. She got to her feet, dusting herself off. Her face felt hot. Phil was right. Breaking protocol had nearly gotten herself—and a junior agent—maimed or killed.

But she couldn’t have been sure.

“Mellie,” Phil said. She could hear a faint scrape. He was coming up the concrete steps.

“Yeah, yeah,” Melinda muttered.

“Strange symbols on the ring. I’ll upload the data for further analysis.” Jimmy was studying something on his phone. “The material it’s made of doesn’t look like silver. There was also an odd distortion right before the blast.”

Melinda blinked and walked over. “Where’d you get footage from?” On Jimmy’s phone was a clear still of the sphere with the ring.

“I clipped on a body cam from the kit before heading through,” Jimmy said, sounding surprised that Melinda even asked. He gestured at a discreet black clip on his suit pocket. “Since the visual from the bot worked. Thought we might need additional footage.”

“Good thinking,” Melinda said approvingly, just as Phil got to the floor.

“Woo, I’m going to need you to find and interview the families. Stevens and O’Malley will go with you. The kids were wearing well-made clothes. Expensive. Their family or families would’ve reported them missing. Let Stevens liaise with the local authorities, he’s the one with the CIA contact.”

“Yes sir,” Jimmy said. He shot Melinda a brief, worried look and went down the stairs.

Melinda waited until Jimmy was out of earshot. “Still not sorry,” she said.

“I know.” Phil looked rueful.

“Connected to the Geneva case and the Alps matter?”

“Possibly. What’s that you like to say? Not to guess without data?”

Melinda sniffed as she followed Phil up to the top floor. “We have data. Three incendiary events with casualties.”

“The… victims, in this case, didn’t die to explosives. And I don’t see how a bunch of kids might be connected to a group of bankers and a team of mercenaries.” Phil shuddered. “I hate it when it’s kids.”

“Yeah,” Melinda said. She’d been grateful that she hadn’t been able to see any of their faces, checking for life-signs.

“You all right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Phil held up his hands briefly in a placating gesture. “Just checking in.”

Melinda bit down her first retort. Phil was a friend, her closest friend in S.H.I.E.L.D.—and sometimes that was part of the problem. “Well, you’ve checked.”

Phil exhaled. “I know you’re impatient to start running your own teams, but—”

“But what?” Melinda cut in flatly. “I’m the only senior agent of our generation left who hasn’t been able to run her own ops. Yet. I only just got approval to pick my own team last week.”

“Because you’re reckless,” Phil said. The mildness of his tone grated.

“Maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. could use a bit of recklessness. Most of the time we’re behind the curve.” Melinda gestured at the blast zone around them. “Look at this. A day too late to do any fucking good for those children. What’s the use of being the world’s biggest international military operation if we can’t even save some kids?”

“It’s a question of scale,” Phil said. He looked tired. “Look. Director Fury had some standing doubts about your judgment. And you can’t really blame him. I mean, you did put that live mouse in his drawer.”

“That was just one time. Years ago! He wasn’t even Director yet.”

“If you think Fury forgets or forgives anything, you don’t know him very well.” Phil smiled wryly. “The rest of us spoke up on your behalf, all right? But until then—”

“Until then I’ve got to be patient? Be happy with what I’m given?” Melinda forced herself to breathe slowly. Taking out her poor mood on Phil wasn’t going to help. Only male agents can afford to be seen as ‘difficult’, her mother had said once to her, on the second Chinese New Year of Melinda’s S.H.I.E.L.D. stint. “You’re right. Those kids. I hate it when it’s kids.”

“We all do,” Phil said, clearly relieved at the ceasefire offered. They started to head down the stairs. “I saw the tentative list you put forward for your team. I don’t think Hill’s going to be happy that you’re trying to poach Diaz.”

“‘Trying’ is the word. It’s just a tentative list.”

“You sure you want Woo on your core team? He’s very green.”

“You picked him for this particular trip,” Melinda pointed out.

“To give him a bit of experience on a 0-8-4. Not as part of my core team.”

“He came up through the FBI. If he was a real freshie I wouldn’t. I’m confident that he’s ready.”

“All right,” Phil said, though he clearly had more to say. “It’s your team.”

Chapter Text

“I fucking hate this job,” Hank said, sinking into his plush chair. “I want to go home.”

“Don’t be such a baby,” Hope said, even as Darren Cross said, “Maybe you should take it easy—”

“And you stop babying him, Darren,” Hope cut in. Darren’s jaw clenched, but he nodded and smiled affably enough. Darren was a tall sharky-looking guy with a smooth dome of a head and a charming enough grin when he wanted it to be. Once he’d been Hank’s favourite assistant, Hope said, but he’d moved into management in the company.

Scott had disliked Darren on sight, a visceral and unprompted reaction that Hank had later called proof that somewhere buried deep within Scott were the instincts of a half-decent scientist. Still, since Darren was a board member, Scott kept his head down and sat quietly at the side desk in Hank’s office, going through Hank’s emails and flagging the important ones for Hank’s attention later. He didn’t particularly mind this aspect of being Hank’s personal assistant, tedious as it could be. Hank paid Scott enough not to mind boredom.

Almost enough not to mind Darren.

Darren plastered on a fake smile. “Well, since your father is still CEO of this company—much as I think you should have recused yourself from that vote—Hank still has a responsibility to the company.”

“That has my fucking name on it,” Hank growled, “so I can do what I fucking like. Does Tony Stark go to board meetings?”

“I wouldn’t be privy to Tony Stark’s schedule,” Darren said, “but he does work in his own way to build the company’s profile.”

Hank reddened. Getting compared to Stark always got under his skin, even if he was the one who started it. “Oh? So what, I should go and… and parachute jump out of a plane with supermodels into a pool of chocolate? Get myself kidnapped in Afghanistan? Build a fuck-off billion dollar flight suit and crash-land in Central Park?”

Hope glanced at Darren, who grimaced at her. She pressed her lips together and turned back to Hank. “Dad.”

“Don’t you dad me. You wanted to work here? Fine! Can’t have it both ways! You take your mother’s name—”

“Tourists would love that,” Scott said, as Hope went pale and took in a deep breath. As everyone shot him a startled glance, Scott pretended to look surprised. “Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about the, uh, Pym-branded Iron Man suit in Central Park. Except I guess ‘Iron Man’ is probably trademarked. Uh, I could forward a set of costs for the supermodels and chocolate pool idea though.”

Hank’s face assumed a look of nascent horror. “I was joking.”

“Really? I was going to ask whether you wanted single-origin chocolate, though maybe we should go fair trade for the press,” Scott said, concentrating on the screen. “I could try reaching supermodels through their agents. Who’re you thinking of? If you want to go one up on Stark, we could do it with a diverse set.”

Hope started to snicker. The laughter bubbled out of her even as she clapped her hand over her mouth and looked a little guilty about it. Darren sighed. “You can skip tomorrow’s meeting but you have to be at the AGM, all right?”

“Fine, fine.” Hank made a rude sound. “Pssh. What part of ‘reclusive billionaire’ don’t they understand?”

“I could maybe order in lots of jungle plants,” Scott suggested. “You could hide under some ferns with some vegan bircher muesli and pretend you’re communing with Nature. Might get the idea across.”

“Hah! Best idea you’ve had yet,” Hank said, propping himself up a fraction on his chair. “Give me one of them cost-benefit whatevers on jungle plants.”

“See you guys at the AGM,” Darren said. He nodded wearily at Hope and wandered off. Once he was out of Hank’s office, Hope sighed.

“Any reason why you hate him so much?” Hope asked. “You guys used to be close. Hell, when I was growing up you even invited him over for Thanksgiving a few times.”

“Because he’s backstabbing little weasel with tiny balls,” Hank growled. He glared at his computer, lowering his voice. “He’s been trying to get his hands on the Pym particle. Got the shits with me when I told him it didn’t exist.”

“Well,” Hope said mildly, “you lied. And you lied even to me. Up until Scott came along and somehow patched up more than just the house’s ancient plumbing system between us. Face it, Dad. You’re lonely.”

Hank gave Hope an incredulous look. “Am not. I’m surrounded by people. I have to beat board members off with a stick.”

“You are. You’ve been lonely since you lost Mom. Looking for family everywhere you can and then kicking them to the curb the moment they can’t live up to your impossible standards,” Hope said, her jaw set. “I should know.” She turned on a heel, heading out of the office.

Once she was out of the door, Hank deflated into his chair, now every inch an exhausted old man. “God damn,” he whispered.

“Um, coffee break,” Scott said, and slunk quickly out of the office. He caught up with Hope before she got to her office. “Can I schedule in a catch-up?” he asked with an ingratiating smile. Hope shot him a long look, glanced around, then gestured at her office.

It wasn’t as big as Hank’s, but it also had a sprawling view of San Francisco, near the top of Pym Technologies’ tower. It was more lived-in than Hank’s, at least, with framed degrees, a little molecular model made of coloured sticks, and a small line of clay figurines and gifts that kids from one of Hope’s many charities had sent her. “My father is a dick,” Hope said, once the door was closed.

“Yup.”

“So let him stew in his dickishness. Don’t apologise on his behalf. We all know he’s a dick. I’ll come over after dinner. We can keep working on the reactor. I’ve got an idea why it keeps malfunctioning.”

“Okay, good.” Scott relaxed now that it looked like a Pym Family WWIII had been averted. “Uh, speaking of which. This Saturday I’m gonna be busy. So can you two maybe not kill each other while I’m not there?”

Hope laughed. “Hank doesn’t pay you enough to wait on him six days a week, Scott.”

Scott coughed. “Actually, he does.”

“Well, I don’t agree, and I’m one of the main reasons why his personal net worth is still rising every year.” Hope patted Scott’s arm. “Seriously. Thanks for everything you’ve done. Don’t know what we’ll do without you.”

“You’d probably have voted your own father out of his company,” Scott said, because sometimes he could see that Hope was tempted.

“Don’t remind me of the possibility. Sure. Take Saturday off. Hell, take the weekends off. Forever. If Dad’s crabby about it, I’ll tell him to pay up or shut up.”

Outside, on the way back to Hank’s office, Scott pulled out his phone, put the battery back in and switched it on. He’d never used it during office hours before, but he felt he was owed after all the bomb defusing he’d just done.

Scott: still ok for sat right?

Jimmy didn’t answer, but then again, he usually didn’t immediately. Scott stared at the screen for a bit, then went to make himself a cup of coffee.

None of the children had been reported missing. S.H.I.E.L.D. techs had done the sad work of digitally reconstructing the children’s faces, which Jimmy had then cross-referenced against Sudanese records. No match. No one had come for the bodies either. Phil had been ready to call it off and pack everyone back aboard the Hercules when Stevens’ CIA contact came through.

Omdurman souq was gigantic, the biggest market of its kind in Sudan, a sprawling labyrinth of superheated alleyways packed with shops dense with antiques, sandals, spices, everything Jimmy could imagine wanting to buy. They’d passed a bleating pack of black and brown goats to get here, and even in the dying day, the souq was stiflingly hot. Jimmy was painfully aware that he and Melinda stood out despite having changed into tourist-looking clothes.

Melinda pretended to examine an old Roman helmet, of all things, smiling at the shopkeeper as he beamed at them. She looked odd in a modest flowing dress: Jimmy was used to seeing Melinda either in a pantsuit or in training gear. “I don’t like this at all,” she told Jimmy in Mandarin.

“The helmet? It’s probably a fake,” Jimmy said in kind.

Melinda didn’t even drop her smile. “I didn’t mean that. Stay focused. Extraction's is going to be difficult if we need it. And we could easily get lost in here.”

“I could’ve come here with Stevens. You could’ve run the mission from the Hercules with Phil.”

“Yeah, like a Chinese guy and a white guy weren’t going to stand out like goddamned ticks on a wall. While we can pose as married tourists.”

“Doubt people here get a lot of Chinese tourists,” Jimmy said, only for the grinning shopkeeper to say, “Nyee Hao!”

As Jimmy stared at the shopkeeper, Melinda laughed. “你好,” she said in turn. “Chinese tourists love pyramids,” she told Jimmy. “The ones Sudan have are pretty impressive and they’ve got a couple hundred of them, the most in the world. Hell, there’s a Chinese hotel here, Nantong.”

“Ah, Nantong! You stay at Nantong?” the shopkeeper asked in scattered English. “I can deliver. Anything you buy, my son deliver. To Nantong. Tonight.”

Melinda chose a bronze bangle, one that Jimmy counted out Sudanese notes for, still playing the part of a husband and wife out on tour. They wandered down the alley, other shopkeepers angling closer and trying to attract their attention. “Don’t look at your watch,” Melinda said, as she pretended to inspect a carpet. “We’re early, we know that. And we’re meant to be tourists. Act like one.”

“I’ve never actually been a tourist like this before,” Jimmy said, a little embarrassed to admit it.

“Really?”

“I was kidnapped when I was six. In Vienna, of all places. Took a week for Fury to rescue me. After that, my family went full paranoid. Security bubble everywhere.”

“But you left.” Melinda smiled and shook her head as the shopkeeper tried to invite them into his shop to look at other carpets.

“Didn’t take any holidays when I was in the FBI. Because it was just a means to an end. To get to where I am now.”

Melinda gave him a brief, odd look before her persona came back up. She waved politely to the shopkeeper and hooked her arm around Jimmy’s, walking them on. “You probably should take a break at some point. Christmas, maybe. Go somewhere nice with your boyfriend.”

“I volunteer for holiday shifts,” Jimmy said. He rather liked it. Even in the FBI, it was usually quiet. And it meant he could avoid his family. Melinda made a clucking noise, only to glance to a side. One of the shops further down the alley had just folded an orange carpet over the leftmost heap. The sign.

They took their time strolling there, checking other shops. Jimmy even bought a small bronze lion paperweight, which they tucked into Melinda’s bag. At the orange carpet shop, Melinda pretended to haggle for a while with the shopkeeper over the carpet. He beckoned, and they followed him into the musty recesses of the shop.

“You get fifteen minutes,” the shopkeeper said, in crisp American-accented English once they were out of sight of the street. “After that, she leaves through the back. The two of you come back with me through the entrance.”

“Thanks,” Melinda said. The shopkeeper grunted. To all appearances, he looked like one of any of the souq shopkeepers, dressed in sober colours with a great beard graying over his narrow brown face.

“Tell Stevens this is the last favour I’ll do for him.” The shopkeeper ducked into a hidden room, past a hanging carpet. Whispered to someone behind it. Then he was out, nodding to them and leaning against one of the stacks of carpets, waiting.

Jimmy went through first, a hand kept loose near his messenger bag where his gun was hidden. In the narrow, stifling room beyond the hanging carpet was a nervous young Sudanese woman in a hijab and a dark dress. She stiffened, wide-eyed, then relaxed as Melinda came in behind Jimmy.

“You are people who found children?” she asked, in heavily accented English.

“Yes. That’s right.” Melinda smiled gently at the woman. “We were told that you might have information for us.”

She shot Melinda an uncomfortable look and asked, “Do you have the pictures? Of the children?” in Sudanese Arabic. Frowning, she tried to find the words in English. Jimmy took out his phone, scrolling to the digital reconstruction file and showing it to her.

“The people we found,” Jimmy said, in MSA. The young woman gave him a startled look, breaking into a smile of relief that fell off her face as Jimmy scrolled to the first picture.

“Dead?” she whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Jimmy said. The young woman collapsed on her knees, sobbing. Melinda knelt and hugged her, rocking her and cooing gently, patting her back until the young woman had cried herself hoarse.

Still sniffling as she blew her nose from tissues in Melinda’s bag, the young woman sat down and began to speak. She was the youngest wife of an important man, she said, one who controlled much of the black market in Sudan. She would not give her name or his, for safety. But she would name the children, even those by the older wives. Because together they had loved them, though they had feared their husband. Three months ago he had begun meeting with foreigners. Outside Khartoum, at first. Then in Khartoum, in hotels.

They wanted him to find something for them. Her husband grew angry and stressed as the days went by. Then he found it. In a pyramid in Meroë. That was when things got worse. Her husband asked the foreigners for more money. Much more. They grew angry. Then five of the children disappeared. The husband decided to cooperate, and in return, the foreigners negotiated a slightly higher price. And just like that the dead were forgotten, a blood price for their father’s greed that everyone else had accepted.

She waited until Jimmy finished translating. Melinda thought it all over, quiet. “How can we help you?” she asked.

“Help?” The young woman shook her head, with a bitter smile. “Revenge.”

“Revenge I understand very well,” Melinda said, grasping the woman’s shoulders and looking into her eyes. After a long moment, the young woman bowed her head. She took a phone from her bag, an old LTE.

“This was what my husband found in the pyramid,” the young woman said in Arabic. She thumbed through her phone and held up a slightly blurred photograph. It was a blue stone cube, sitting on a messy desk of books and printouts. Melinda held out her hand, and the woman gave her the phone. She sent a copy to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s encrypted hotline.

“You should delete this,” Melinda said. Jimmy translated, and the woman nodded. She looked exhausted, as though this very act of defiance had already drained her to the bone. “Will you be safe? Do you want to come with us?”

“I won’t leave the others,” the young woman said, when Jimmy translated. She clasped Melinda’s hands and waved to Jimmy.

“We will do all we can,” Jimmy said, as she prepared to leave. “For revenge.”

“I know.” The young woman pointed at Melinda, smiling a little shyly. “This one is a lioness.”

“What did she say?” Melinda asked, when they were alone. Jimmy told her, and Melinda chuckled. “Wonder where she got that impression.”

“It’s true.”

Melinda sniffed. “I hate that kind of comparison. Tiger, lion, dragon… they’re all so elemental. Gives you assumptions.”

“Somehow I’m not surprised that you’re complaining about the semantics of a sincerely given compliment, ma’am,” Jimmy said, with a completely straight face.

“Think we’ve hit paydirt on that photo,” Phil said into their earpieces. “Well done.”

“That’s fast. What’s the box?” Melinda asked, surprised. “I thought it was just some lapis lazuli relic.”

“Not the box. Techs enhanced the paperwork on that desk. Gave us a lot of leads. Fury’s recalling us back to HQ. Come back to the airbase. We’re flying out.”

“Thanks again,” Melinda said, as they followed the CIA contact out. He grunted as they headed through the shop to the front, only to stop dead at the sight of three gunmen in black and khaki outside, two with pistols, one with an AK-47.

The CIA contact yelped, holding up his hands. He started to speak in character, with a plaintive question, only to choke and stagger back, gurgling, as he was shot in the throat by one of the people with pistols.

“Back entrance!” Melinda yelled in Mandarin. She lunged forward and grabbed handfuls of carpets from the teetering stacks. Pulling hard, rolls of carpets to tumbled down before them, closing them off. There were muffled shouts from beyond. Melinda rested the contact against the floor, but her face was grim. The wound was mortal and they all knew it. The CIA contact had a palm pressed uselessly to the wound, his smile bloody with gallows’ humour as he facetiously waved them on. They ran.

Back entrance. They raced through adjoining alleys until they got to a wider road. Melinda jumped in front of a motorcyclist and shoved him off, getting on the bike. “C’mon.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Jimmy told the cyclist, tossing him all the notes in his wallet, Sudanese pounds and US dollars. As the man instinctively stooped to pick up the money, Melinda sped into traffic. “We’re going to draw attention,” Jimmy said, as he held on gingerly to her.

“We’re drawing attention anyway,” Melinda snapped. There were shouts as more gunmen ran out of a nearby alley, pointing at them. There were screams as people scattered out of their way, the gunmen firing wildly in their direction. Not even close.

“What’s happening?” Phil asked sharply into their earpieces.

“Situation got kinetic,” Melinda said, as she concentrated on traffic. “We’re on our way back. Tell Stevens his contact didn’t make it.”

“Shit. What about the source?”

“Didn’t see her on our way out. Don’t know her name. Don’t know where she went.” Melinda set her jaw. “Didn’t look like they followed her, or they would’ve been at the back entrance. Doubt the contact would’ve let her through the front. There’s a leak somewhere. Possibly from our fucking escort.”

There was a pause, then Phil said, “We’ll talk back in the base. Over and out.”

“Maybe we didn’t really look much like tourists after all,” Jimmy said, thumbing off the general channel. “I don’t see any pursuit.”

“Don’t get cocky yet.” Melinda smiled ruefully. “James Bond escapades.”

“What?”

“Just keep an eye out, rookie.”

Chapter Text

Jimmy looked tired through brunch and was stifling yawns in the museum. “Long day yesterday?” Scott asked sympathetically. It didn’t help that the museum was thick with people, especially tourists. Jimmy didn’t look happy in a large crowd—he’d tensed when he’d seen the queue, though he’d gotten in line anyway before Scott could say anything.

“Long week,” Jimmy said. He looked away. “I’m sorry. Think I’m awful company today. Jetlag. Had to fly off during the week with my boss and back.”

“Hey, don’t be sorry babe.” Scott tucked his arm around Jimmy’s waist, around the sleek navy blazer that he was wearing. “I’m sorry. That your job sucks.”

“I love my job. It’s just. Tiring sometimes. Really sorry.”

“Nah. I mean, sure, the paintings of a guy with an apple for a head are gonna be really cool and all, but we can come back some other time.”

“Magritte isn’t just ‘paintings of a guy with an apple for a head’,” Jimmy said. He actually sounded a little appalled, which was kinda adorable. Scott laughed as Jimmy tried to pull him in the direction of the exhibition. He chivvied Jimmy in the opposite direction instead, against the crowd. Jimmy tried to drag his heels. “We already bought tickets.”

“So what? Let’s just come back another time when you won’t fall asleep face-first into weird-ass surrealist paintings. Or. Whatever this is.” Scott peered at the closest painting to them, a large painting of what was some kind of huge-ass kiddie scrawl of two naked women. “Picasso? Huh.”

“Please tell me you’ve heard of Picasso,” Jimmy said, though he smiled. He looked at the painting and his smile faded, easing into a frown.

“See, you don’t like it either.” Scott peered at the discreet plaque beside the painting, scanning it quickly. “Donated by the Woo Family Trust.” He nudged Jimmy with his hip, grinning slyly. “Relatives of yours?”

“What?” Jimmy flinched.

Scott sobered quickly. Was that counted as a micro-aggression? “Sorry. Bad joke. Didn’t mean to imply… sorry.”

“No, I’m just. No, you’re right, I’m very tired. Let’s go home. Your place or mine?”

“Mine’s closer, I think.” Scott’s salary meant that he could finally, for the first time in his life, afford to rent a nice place. It was small, but Scott preferred to think of it as ‘cozy’. Jimmy dozed off on the way there in Scott’s car, and only woke back up all the way when they were in the apartment, still yawning.

“Nice,” Jimmy said, blinking at the view from the glass windows. “Thought you said you were a secretary.”

“What, a secretary can’t have nice things?” Scott grinned.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Just teasing, babe. I’m a personal assistant. Which, yes, also includes secretary stuff, but it’s not just that. And my boss is a crabby old rich guy who pays me a lot of money to do whatever he wants. Aaand I didn’t mean for that to sound as creepy as it did. My life is more The Office than Fifty Shades, I swear. Err. I think I just made things even creepier.”

“Nothing you say can be creepy,” Jimmy said, in the adorably serious way he could get sometimes, and pressed in for a kiss, sweet and slow.

“Challenge accepted,” Scott said. Jimmy snorted and backed Scott over to the side of the couch, the both of them kicking off shoes. Scott had never had someone kiss him like Jimmy did, with a hushed awe that he folded against Scott with each stolen breath, with each wandering caress up Scott’s thighs. Scott was getting hard, grinding his erection against Jimmy’s hip. Jimmy hummed, cupping Scott through his jeans.

“Guess you really did miss me,” Jimmy said, with a faint smirk.

Scott pressed into his grip. “Hell yeah. Though. If you’re tired, we can take it easy.”

“I’m not that tired.” Jimmy squeezed him playfully.

“You sure?”

“Yes, Scott.”

“Really sure?”

Jimmy shot him an odd look. “Unless you don’t want to… we could just—”

“I mean, I don’t want you to start anything you can’t finish,” Scott said innocently, “especially since I’ve already gone to all the trouble to get prepped.” He grabbed Jimmy’s palm and eased it down his ass, making a show of moaning as he pressed Jimmy’s fingers against the hidden mass of the plug.

Jimmy stared at him, speechless for a long moment. Not exactly the reaction Scott was looking for. “What. We went to the museum. You were wearing that. In the museum. There were kids there. Scott!”

“Somehow I was expecting more gratitude, less scandalised horror. Actually, I don’t know why I expected gratitude,” Scott said, starting to laugh despite himself. “Only you, Jimmy. Jesus.”

“Is nothing sacred,” Jimmy said, though he crowded Scott against the couch, catching Scott’s ear in his teeth, running his tongue tenderly against the shell.

“Porn is a lie,” Scott said sadly, and let Jimmy pull off his shirt. “I do something that Pornhub assures me is going to be sexy and it weirds out my cute boyfriend instead.”

“If you let Pornhub dictate your life decisions I’m kind of surprised you’re not in prison,” Jimmy said, because of course Jimmy would be completely oblivious to the compliment and zero in on the logical disparity. “And this is why you were single at your age.” Jimmy kissed him hard on the mouth as he undid the button of Scott’s jeans and pulled them down with his underwear. “Despite being this hot.”

“Ooh, I’ll take that compliment. Backhanded as it is.”

“It’s not a compliment if it’s true,” Jimmy said, so matter-of-factly that Scott started to laugh. “You’re seriously hot. I couldn’t understand at first why you were single. I thought you were going to be one of those ethically polygamous people. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just not my thing.”

“The youth pastor schtick gets in the way, huh?”

“No?” Jimmy started to look concerned. “Why do you ask?”

“I’m too clingy to be poly,” Scott said, as facetiously as he could, before Jimmy could start freaking out or worse. He wiggled his ass, grinding pointedly against Jimmy’s thigh. “I’m one of those people who’d want to be joined at the hip, zero secrets, finish your sentences—” Jimmy kissed him, doing something complicated that ended with them both on the couch, Scott straddling him, Jimmy’s fingers stroking his ass, tracing the stretched muscle around the plug that Scott had fit inside himself in the morning. “Mmm,” Scott purred, only to realize that Jimmy was giving him a strange look. “Now what? Please don’t stop. I might die.”

Jimmy looked visibly uncomfortable. “About secrets. A lot of things about me are—”

Scott groaned. Of course Jimmy was now going to take a joke seriously. It was a character trait that Scott often found impossibly cute. Save when naked and horny and with a plug up his ass. “Classified? Because you’re a government staffer or whatever, I know, it was a joke, please fuck me. Serious about dying.”

“Statistically improbable,” Jimmy said, though he smiled tentatively. He pushed the plug a little deeper, making Scott hiss and pull at Jimmy’s belt with frustration.

“C’mon,” Scott growled, fumbling zippers and buttons as Jimmy ignored him, pressing worshipful kisses over Scott’s shoulders, moving the plug in little thrusts that nudged against Scott’s prostate. “Fuck,” Scott whimpered, his fingers slipping against Jimmy’s pants. “Please, babe. C’mon.” He got Jimmy’s shirt off and bit him as Jimmy fumbled in his wallet for a condom.

“Might need more lube,” Jimmy said, as Scott grabbed the condom packet from him and pulled Jimmy’s pants and underwear down. “Wait.”

“Nope. The whole point of prep is not having to wait.” Scott glowered at him, tearing the packet with his teeth and rolling it onto Jimmy’s gorgeously thick cock. He spat on his hand as Jimmy murmured a protest and held Jimmy’s eyes as he slicked up Jimmy’s jacketed cock. Rearing up, Scott pulled out the plug and tossed it aside, baring his teeth as he guided Jimmy’s dick into himself.

Jimmy’s hands jumped to Scott’s hips. He pressed open-mouthed kisses against Scott’s throat as Scott ground down. It burned. Prep hadn’t been quite enough but Scott wanted it that way right now, wanted to know he was going to sit uneasily for days. He dug his fingers into the meat of Jimmy’s shoulders and moaned as he took it. Jimmy was fit. Didn’t have what Scott would call ‘pretty muscle tone’ but there was a wiry strength to him, a runner’s stamina. That combined with his self-control meant Jimmy was capable of taking things exquisitely slowly, keeping Scott on the edge for hours. Today wasn’t one of those days, thank fuck. Jimmy’s hips were twitching against Scott already, grinding against him. He was gasping something unintelligible against Scott’s skin, a hungry visceral sound. Scott grinned and raked his nails down Jimmy’s chest, leaving weals and moaning as Jimmy gasped and thrust into him.

“Yeah,” Scott hissed and bit down in the soft skin under Jimmy’s ear. “C’mon, babe. Fuck me.” Jimmy’s breath rasped in his throat. He twisted them around with a sharp jerk, a handy—and yeah, fucking sexy—display of strength. Shoved Scott down against the back of the couch and kissed him, tender until Scott scratched fingers over Jimmy’s throat. Tucked a thigh around Jimmy’s waist and tugged. Jimmy went quiet, always a good sign. He bowed his head against the pulse at Scott’s throat and tightened his grip on Scott’s hips, fucking him in vicious little thrusts, hard enough to skid the couch a fraction against the carpet. “Fuck,” Scott gasped, holding on, “oh, oh fuck.” Jimmy’s answer was to twist against him until he found the right angle to pitch Scott’s gasps into hoarse yelps. “Jimmy,” Scott choked out between moans, “up here, babe, look up.”

Jimmy looked. He was gorgeously disheveled, flushed and wild-eyed, and it was Scott doing that to him, wrecking him. It was Scott that Jimmy was staring at so desperately, like he couldn’t look away, like he couldn’t believe Scott was here. Like there was so much more he wanted to do. Like he was a little angry that there was never going to be enough time in the world. Scott kissed Jimmy and bit him because he understood. It was what he felt himself. When he met Jimmy, for the first time Scott resented being mortal. Being mortal meant their time together was necessarily finite. Being mortal meant maybe someday fucking up, losing Jimmy, or falling out of love, something terrible. Jimmy made a hoarse pained sound between them, against Scott’s teeth. He went still, his hips twitching as he breathed hard. Then he spat into his hand and started to jack Scott off in urgent tugs, kissing Scott, breathless and clumsy and tender.

Later in bed, instead of dropping off into an exhausted slumber as Scott expected, Jimmy gave Scott a long, measured look. “What?” Scott asked.

“About secrets,” Jimmy said, hesitant.

“Hey. I was joking, sweetheart.” Scott snuggled over, kissing Jimmy on his forehead. “I am totally not interested in any of your fancy government secrets or whatever. Unless they involve Area 51 and aliens. I am extremely interested in alien life forms.”

Jimmy didn’t laugh, which was a little scary. He looked soberly at Scott. “I understand the sentiment, though. Even if it was a joke.”

“If you freak me out I’m never going to joke around you again. Serious. Maximum boring Scott mode will be engaged.”

“I just. I think it’s unfair that you don’t really know that much about me.”

“So what? I like the parts about you that I know. As to the rest, eh, as long as you’re not like some sort of serial axe murderer or something, so what. There’s stuff about me that you don’t know either. Should I be worried?”

“No. I respect your privacy.”

“You’re being way too serious about this. Tell you what. I’ll tell you one secret about myself right now, one that I’ve never told anyone else.” Scott kissed Jimmy on the nose as Jimmy started to protest. “My favourite food is cheap-ass funfair food. Corn dogs, toffee apples, candyfloss, the works. Whenever you take me somewhere nice for dinner I’m thinking, this can’t compare to a dubious hotdog with lots of mustard.”

Jimmy shot him a long, suspicious stare. “You’re joking.”

“Nope.”

“Really?”

“Not joking.” Scott kissed him on the nose again. “But I don’t mind going with you on your fancy overpriced multi-hour dinner things, even though you always resort to underhanded tactics to never let me pay, because at least that’s two hours I’m spending with you.”

Jimmy looked torn between tenderness and disbelief. “On one hand I’m horrified that you actually prefer ‘funfair food’ to good food—”

“Ooh, your biases are showing.”

“—but on the other hand, I’m really. Happy you said the last part?”

“Great! There. Now you know something else about me.”

Jimmy looked determined instead of calming down, which wasn’t what Scott was hoping for. “Uh. My turn?”

“You don’t have to.”

“Fair’s fair. I love my job,” Jimmy said soberly, “and I worked all my life to get there. But for the first time since I got it, I kinda wish it didn’t mean that I’m just not around all week. Because of all the traveling and stuff. For the first time, I kinda wished it was a nine-to-five thing, where I could clock off like a normal person. See you more than just on occasional weekends and Fridays.”

“Normal people, pssh.” Scott leaned over for a kiss, eyes stinging, sap that he was. He stroked Jimmy’s cheeks and throat in gentle circles until Jimmy relaxed and kissed him back.

“This is nice,” Lian said, as they sat down for high tea at the St. Regis’ lounge. “Fancy.”

“I can only hope it will live up to your standards,” Melinda said, settling back against the cushions.

Lian shot the other people in the lounge an assessing stare, particularly the other people having high tea. “Look at that. All these lonely women.”

“Mum.” Melinda winced. “This is why I can’t take you anywhere.”

“I’m right, dear. That lady over there with the green scarf. Twice-divorced, I’ll put money on it. The one over in the corner with the other friend her age. Never-married. Her friend has a boyfriend, but it’s not serious even though she wants it to be. Oh, don’t shush me. It’s very disrespectful.”

Melinda resisted the urge to bang her head on the table. “I don’t know you.”

“Of course you do, I carried you for nine awful months and then spent twenty-one agonising hours trying to force you out into the world. I once spent three days covered in lice and filth in a desert in a godforsaken part of the world and it was a holiday compared to that ordeal.” Lian shuddered delicately. “Well, why are you treating me to high tea again?”

“Can’t I treat you to things without you psychoanalysing me—and the other guests?” Melinda asked, though she smiled.

“Because high tea with a $54 per person price tag just feels suspicious to me, dear. Burned someone you shouldn’t have, did you?”

“Maybe. In Khartoum.”

Lian pursed her lips, though she lowered her voice. “Hm. Control won’t be happy. Hard to develop trustworthy assets in that part of the world. Takes a very specific sort of personality and skillset.”

“I know. It couldn’t be helped.”

“I’ll see what I can do, but you’ll have burned a lot of credit either way. Was it your fuck up or theirs?”

“Not sure,” Melinda admitted. She’d studied what little satellite footage was available afterward, on the flight home, and couldn’t really tell who had been behind the attack. Considering they’d shot to kill—

Lian smiled as serving staff brought the birdcage of food and waited until they were gone before pouring herself a cup of steeped tea, no sugar, no milk. “Well dear, I did say, you could have gone to the Company. Good pay, decent advancement, and afterward you could go private and make silly money as a consultant. But noo. You had to do your thing. Take a job where I only see you once a month or less. Someday I’ll die, then you’ll know.”

“Yes mum,” Melinda said, as dryly as she could.

“Don’t ‘yes mum’ me, you ungrateful child.” Lian sipped her tea. “I shudder to think what the situation would be if I didn’t have favours you wanted. If I’d been a nurse or a secretary or something instead. Would I only see you once a year?”

“Can’t imagine you as anything else really.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I could have made a very good lawyer. That’s what I wanted you to be, by the way.”

“You’ve only told me a million times, Mum. And seriously. Normal Chinese family? Lawyer, engineer, accountant, doctor, sure, I get it. But you? From you?”

“What’s there not to like about lawyers? It’s a nice professional job in a swanky office where you probably won’t get shot at.” Lian set down her teacup. “And then you could run for Congress.”

“Not for President?” Melinda asked facetiously.

“No dear. An Asian woman running for President? And winning? Hah. That’ll be the day.” Lian selected a tart. “Even for a flaming liberal like you.”

Melinda chuckled. Like most CIA agents of her generation, Lian was a Republican. Not that she often bothered to vote. Life was disappointing enough, apparently. “We flaming liberals will take over the world someday.”

“I’ll like to see that. Free things for everyone! Never mind. Don’t argue. It gets very tedious, dear. So what does your poor mother have to do to see you more often, hm? Do I have to call the Director?”

Melinda shuddered. “Please don’t.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve talked to him anyway. I suppose not everything’s a disaster. At least you surprised me by somehow marrying a nice man who also happens to be a doctor. How is Andrew?”

“Busy. He’s away on a medical conference right now. Back tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, hm? Pity.”

“Why?”

“I know tomorrow you’d be back on base. If it was tonight you could at least welcome him home. Maybe finally make me a grandchild. Your biological clock is ticking, you know.” Lian halved the tart with sharp flicks of her knife and ate the first piece.

“There will be no grandchild because you’d move into the house and be absolutely unbearable. We’re going to adopt a dog. You can accept that as a stand-in.”

“That’s disappointing. Speaking of disappointments, why doesn’t this afternoon tea have scones? What even is the point?”

Oops. Melinda, on hindsight, should definitely have double-checked the menu. “I didn’t realize you were that attached to scones. Sorry.”

“It’s too late,” Lian said, with a sigh. She ate the second piece of the tart. “I’m resigned to the disappointments in my life, of which there are so many.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Mum.”

Chapter Text

“Two main leads,” Phil said, when they convened for the Monday morning briefing aboard the helicarrier. He gestured, expanding an enhanced image of the lapis lazuli photograph. Parts of the paperwork highlighted themselves. “Deposit payments made from the ‘Atlantic Conservation Fund’. Not a charity. Shell company out of Panama. The Director pulled some favours, had the funds traced. The Fund is a front for the Roxxon Company. Which used to be the Dogs of War.” Phil brought up an additional holographic image, a rogue’s gallery of blurred headshots.

“Part of Blackwater before it splintered off,” Melinda said. She was reading something on a briefing pad, frowning to herself. “Thought Hill’s team terminated them over in Beirut.”

“Clearly not as thoroughly as we liked.” With a wave, several faces from the rogue’s gallery highlighted themselves. “From what little we could splice out of satellite coverage, these were the people who attacked and killed the CIA contact.”

“Weren’t the Dogs just muscle? Why would they be handling the money?” Melinda asked.

“They might have diversified. Or, more likely, they have a new boss. Someone interested in a group of bankers, in a military prototype, and in a lapis lazuli box dug out of a pyramid. No use speculating. Our forensic accountants are still chasing that lead.” Phil made a gesture, and new diagrams popped up over the holomap table. “For our second, the Pentagon finally decided to play ball. The prototype that was being transported over the Alps for further study by a specialist was an Area 51 creation. Based off copies of old S.H.I.E.L.D. notes.”

“That must have gone down well with the Director,” Melinda said.

“Splendidly,” Phil said, without cracking a smile. “The notes originally belonged to Hank Pym.”

“The billionaire?” Stevens said, looking up from his notes. “Pym Technologies? Ex-S.H.I.E.L.D., yeah? From WWII. The reason why he quit’s highly classified.”

Phil nodded. “For the purposes of this mission, all you need to know is that Hank Pym was indeed once a S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist and an operative. Until his wife passed away during a mission. After that things soured and he left. He had assistants at the time who tried to continue his research, but the program was eventually shut down after a series of accidents. According to the Pentagon, one said assistant is still working for them in Area 51. The prototype that was stolen was a modified version of the Pym particle.” As Phil spoke, he flicked through slideshows of grainy images, from the World War to molecular formulas.

Melinda tabbed through her briefing pad. “They name the assistant? Bill Foster? Starr?”

“Starr’s most probably dead and Bill Foster, last we checked, is leading a quiet life as a tenured physics professor.” Phil made a face. “Pentagon’s not playing that much ball.”

“They’re the ones desperate enough to come to us. What lit a fire under their ass? Khartoum? Why would they care about that?” Melinda asked.

“They cared about Geneva.” Phil brought up a row of familiar faces. All the men in the photographs were in their late forties or older, all of them Swiss. Dead. The second photograph from the left grew brighter. “Noah Meier, real name Max Cecil, was a CIA agent. Undercover. He was trying to trace funding streams for certain persons of interest to the CIA. Including Hank Pym.”

“Always something odd about that guy,” Melinda said. “Billionaires either go full Stark—supermodels, rocket ships to Mars—or start trying to solve world hunger in Africa. Pym’s just. Quiet. He doesn’t own fancy properties everywhere. Still lives in the house he lived in before he got rich. No fancy cars, no yachts, no private jets. No philanthropy. All that money has to be going somewhere.”

“According to the CIA, that’s quite likely a front. Records indicate that Hank Pym’s house in San Francisco uses far more electricity than it should. Produces too much heat.” Phil brought up a satellite heat map of a residential suburb and rolling statistics. “He tripped a few wires sourcing materials of concern off the black market, using money wired out of Swiss accounts.”

“Recreating the Pym Particle?” Jimmy asked, perking up. As a boy, he’d been a superfan of Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne’s exploits in S.H.I.E.L.D.—as he had been with all notable S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. There were perks to his family being a major donor to S.H.I.E.L.D., even if all the stories he could beg off the archives were WWII and older.

“Probably. Given Pym’s always maintained in public that the Pym Particle never existed. Despite the acrimony of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s split with Pym, we’ve always respected his wishes to deal with his own work as he saw fit. Curious that he’s chosen to continue it in private. Instead of with his company,” Phil said.

Melinda sniffed. “Stark conducts experiments in private too. The Iron Man suit has nothing to do with Stark Industries. Vanity projects kept free of their board and shareholders. These tech billionaires.”

“Stevens and Smithson, Geneva, you’re going to meet one of Fury’s contacts who might have more insight into Pym’s finances. O’Malley and Nash, try to sniff out the Roxxon Company, we suspect they’re operating out of Chad. May, you’ll be posing as a possible Chinese investor in Pym Technologies. Woo will be your assistant.” Phil glanced at them both.

“Not going to work,” Melinda said, folding her arms. “Pym knows how S.H.I.E.L.D. operates. He’ll smell a rat.”

“You won’t be meeting with Pym. You’ll be meeting with Darren Cross, who by all reports is a highly ambitious young man, angling to take over as the CEO.” Phil flicked them over a profile.

“Just us sir?” Jimmy asked.

Melinda frowned, but Phil shot him a curious stare. “Yes?”

“Uhm. Just. Wealthy Chinese people, they tend to travel with an entourage. The 小人,” he told Melinda, unsure how to express the sentiment in English.

“We don’t have any other—” Phil began.

“I’ll sort it out,” Melinda cut in, with a warning glance at Jimmy. He subsided reluctantly and kept his peace as Phil ran through mission parameters. The others left on their assignments. Jimmy stared at his briefing pad, waiting either to follow Melinda out or for Phil to leave. The apology sat uneasily on the tip of his tongue.

“Sort it out how exactly?” Phil asked, leaning a hip against the holomap table.

“We have operations all over Asia,” Melinda said.

“None of those operatives are qualified field agents.”

“They don’t have to be,” Melinda said briskly. “I’ll give you a list. And I’ll be meeting Darren in Pym Tower, I presume. I don’t expect to get shot in the middle of the Financial District.”

Phil gave in. “Fly in who you need and I’ll get ops to build appropriate covers.”

“Have them run the covers past Woo before they go live,” Melinda said. Phil nodded at them both and left the room. Once he was gone, Melinda exhaled.

“Sorry,” Jimmy said.

“For what?”

“Undercutting you in front of Agent Coulson. Ma’am.”

“You were raising a valid point. That’s not undercutting.” Melinda looked a little annoyed with herself. “It’s one that I should have raised myself. No matter. How many 小人 would be appropriate?”

“How many can we get?”

“You’re not joking.”

“No,” Jimmy said. His parents always traveled with a cloud of assistants, flunkies, security, and random hangers-on—especially if it was a business matter. That had been the strangest thing about striking out on his own. The absence of people and noise, the hours made newly lonely. It was still exhilarating sometimes.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Melinda said, She left the briefing pad on the table and leaned into her chair, crossing her legs. Seeing Melinda relaxed felt like an extension of trust, one that was unearned. Jimmy had not done anything yet to justify Melinda taking a risk on him for her team. “You’re overthinking,” Melinda said, into the silence. “I know you are because I do it.”

“Permission to speak plainly ma’am?” At a little nod from Melinda, Jimmy exhaled. “You really don’t need to try and help me. Of everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. I have the biggest safety net. If this doesn’t work out.” Sure, going back to his parents would be embarrassing, but he was still their only son. Hell, he could probably go back to the FBI.

“This isn’t about you,” Melinda said, closing her eyes. “It’s about me.”

“Really?”

“Selecting a core team is about selecting agents whom I feel will bring the most to the table. My table. Who will be loyal to me, but not blindly loyal. Who won’t be afraid to question me if they have to.” Melinda glanced over at Jimmy. “The fact that you do have the ‘biggest safety net’ is an advantage. Because of who you are. S.H.I.E.L.D. is no longer content to fight symptoms. Fury recognises that many of the problems we face often have wealth at their core, a wealth so great that it convinces its holder that they no longer need to be human. You understand that world better than anyone here.”

“I suppose so,” Jimmy said, blinking, “but I don’t know what you want from me.”

“You’ll see,” Melinda said, closing her eyes again.

“So what happened?” Scott asked, as they were shown to a tiny table jammed into a corner of the busy restaurant. “Did you get fired or something?”

“What?” Jimmy blinked at him, then turned as a waitress came to the table, handing them menus in plastic red-rimmed folders. She clearly knew Jimmy—they chatted for a bit in… Mandarin? Cantonese? then the waitress nodded and sped off.

“You’ve never been able to meet me for a weekday dinner before,” Scott said. Jimmy wasn’t even often good at replying to texts on weekdays. Scott didn’t mind. Intermittent as their actual meetings could be over the months that Scott had gotten to know Jimmy—hell, Scott would take what he would get. He'd known that long before they'd both tentatively decided to make things official.

The restaurant was packed, and Scott was the only non-Asian person seated. There was a strange but not unpleasant scent of incense mingled with fried garlic and something oily that he couldn’t place. Plastic plants sat on top of dividing walls, looking over framed pieces of calligraphy and photographs.

“Oh, that. No. Just working a little closer to home this week or so. It won’t be permanent,” Jimmy said, already apologetic.

“Just teasing, babe.” Scott made a show of looking at the menu. “Since 1920? Huh. Didn’t know this place was even here.”

“You’re the one who said you wanted to eat Chinese food,” Jimmy said. He smiled and thanked the waitress as she returned with tea, saying something that made her chuckle. “You mind if I order? Or is there something you really want to eat?”

“Nope. Go ahead. Though. You always steal the bill, so let me pay this time, okay?” Jimmy turned to the waitress. “Please don’t give him the bill later if he tries to sneak it on his way to the bathroom or something. I will seriously tackle him across the restaurant.”

She laughed and glanced at Jimmy, who shrugged and ordered. As the menu was packed off, Scott said, “I really will tackle you.”

“If you like.” Jimmy smiled. He was way too smug, which meant—

“You’ve already paid, haven’t you.”

“Maybe,” Jimmy said, and poured tea for the both of them into tiny ceramic cups.

“I’ve never met anyone so determined to never go dutch.” Scott pretended to sulk.

“It’s a cultural thing,” Jimmy said, his favourite vague response to anything Scott found weird.

“I find that hard to believe. Don’t tell me there’s an entire group of people out there who are pathologically against letting guests pay for stuff.”

“Depends on the guest. See that table over there? Don’t stare. Near the door, the table of eight. Looks like a family entertaining the father’s sister. She probably flew in from Hong Kong to visit them.”

“Yeah? What about them?” There were three generations seated at the table. The kids and their young parents spoke with an American accent, everyone else spoke some Chinese dialect in rapid-fire. The aunt was elegantly dressed with a colourful silk scarf, her throat and wrists looped with jewelry.

“Going to be interesting who wins the right to pay the bill. They’re getting ready to make a play for it. Dishes going to be cleared soon for dessert.”

“Here’s where people start tactically pretending to go to the bathroom?” Scott asked, fascinated.

“Won’t work here, the cashier’s too visible from where they are.”

“What, you lose points by making an obvious play for the bill?”

“Showing off isn’t considered polite. The point is to pay for the bill without obviously paying for the bill.”

“But everyone’s going to know who did it. I mean, there’s only a limited pool of suspects,” Scott said. On the other table, the aunt smiled and poured tea for her sister-in-law, chatting excitedly about something. Nothing about the table hinted that a bill war was about to break out.

“Point of pride and style,” Jimmy said. The first dishes arrived, baskets of steamed dumplings, a plate of stir-fried vegetables sprinkled with deep fried garlic chips. The table grew rapidly crowded—for some reason, Chinese restaurants seemed to make it a point to have every dish arrive at once, folding time and space to have it all fit on the table itself. There were no sharing utensils save for the stir-fry.

Scott tried to scoop a dumpling up, only for it to slide everywhere in its basket. When he gave up and stabbed it with the chopsticks, he looked up to Jimmy hastily hiding a look of amusement. “What? I’d use the fork and spoon from the stir-fry, except you’re gonna judge me even more.”

“I’m not judging you,” Jimmy said, an obvious damnable lie. At least the dumpling was awesome. Scott was about to say so when Jimmy glanced over his shoulder. A waiter was approaching the table with a credit card, a receipt, and a pen on a tray. The father beamed at his son as the aunt frowned.

“Wow, how’d that happen?” Scott asked.

“Daughter-in-law handed the youngest kid to the aunt for a hug when the table was being cleared and the son slipped a card to one of the staff.”

“Two-teaming isn’t fair is it?”

Jimmy gave him a look of surprise. “Well of course it is. All’s fair in family and war.”

“Pretty sure that’s not how the saying goes…” Scott trailed off. The aunt had leaned over the table. She grabbed the receipt before it could be set before her nephew and ripped it to shreds. With a sweet smile, she pushed her credit card into the stunned waiter’s hand and sat back down among her shell-shocked family. The terms of surrender were silent. The payment was reprocessed to the aunt’s card. She signed with a flourish.

“Wow,” Jimmy said, as the family packed off.

“Power move,” Scott agreed, still blinking. “I thought you said it’s not OK to make an overt move for the bill. What the hell was that then?”

“I don’t even.” Jimmy stared at their cooling food for a moment, like he couldn’t remember how it got there. He smiled ruefully to himself. “I’ve forgotten what that was like.”

“You’ve got family like that?”

“Kind of.”

Scott popped another speared dumpling from another basket into his mouth. Also pretty good. “Oh yeah? When do I get to meet them?” Scott sampled everything at the table before he realized belatedly that Jimmy wasn’t eating. He glanced up. Uh oh. Serious Jimmy stare. “What did I say?”

“Scott,” Jimmy said uneasily. “About my family.”

What? Oh. Right. Scott silently cursed his easy tendency to shove his own foot into his mouth. ”What about them?” he asked, as casually as he could.

“They’re. Well. We’re not exactly on speaking terms right now.”

Jimmy frowned. “Homophobes?”

“No? Yes. Well. Not really. Wasn’t really that problem. Other problems.”

“Okay well. You don’t have to tell me.”

“I should.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t have to tell me anything that you don’t want to. C’mon. Eat. Or I’m gonna try and feed you with my terrible chopsticks skills. That’d be fun. Wanna try?” Scott tried picking up another dumpling, which slid pointedly away. Jimmy laughed, thankfully, and let it drop. The rest of dinner passed by without any minefields.

“I have an early start tomorrow,” Jimmy said after, when Scott invited him home, clearly reluctant.

“How early?”

“Early enough that I’m gonna be embarrassed about waking you up.”

“Pssh, like I’d care when someone this cute is waking me up,” Scott said. It was nice to have someone again, to kiss them on the street in front of everyone, make them laugh. “Thanks for dinner, even though next time I’m fucking paying.”

“We’ll see,” Jimmy said, kissing him back. “Sure you won’t care?” he asked, hushed.

“Nope,” Scott said, grinning hopefully. They ended up on his couch, snuggling with a couple of cold beers and Netflix, and he’d missed having something like this too, being so casually intimate with someone else, tangled on the couch.

Though of course Jimmy had to get all serious about it. “Scott. About before. I do think I should tell you about my—about my family.” He exhaled. “They’re rich.”

“That’s it?” Scott said, frowning up at Jimmy. “The way you were acting, I thought you were gonna say that you’re related to Kim Jong Un or something.”

Jimmy shot him an incredulous look. “No?”

“Okay. That’s good.” Scott settled down against Jimmy. “Let me guess. They wanted you to take over the family business but you told them to piss off and now it’s like, a hostile ceasefire.”

“…In very broad terms, yes. How on earth did you guess?”

“I watched a few popular Chinese dramas and things after I first met you,” Scott confessed. “Thought maybe I should get to know you better.”

There was a long pause. Jimmy started to laugh, burying his mirth against Scott’s temple. “That’s the… that’s the worst way to… I don’t even. You must have so many weird impressions now. What the heck.”

“Hey, I still guessed your life story. In broad terms. The Chinese soapies were good for something.” Scott poked Jimmy’s knee. “Okay, my turn. I didn’t know my parents. Got dumped into the foster system early. Got passed around because I was a thieving little asshole. Somehow I made it to uni and an OK job, all things saying, but then I found out that the company was stealing from its customers. Reported that to the FBI, they didn’t believe me, I got fired, and here we are.”

Jimmy gave him a strange look. “What company was this?”

“VistaCorp. S’ok. I’m kinda zen about it all now. Don’t try and do something on your end. I don’t want you to get into trouble.” Scott watched the TV without really paying attention. “I’m glad things worked out this way. A job that I like. You.”

Jimmy was silent for a while, pensive. Then he tugged at Scott’s shoulders until Scott laughingly settled over Jimmy’s lap, his arms loose over Jimmy’s shoulders. “I thought someone had an early start,” Scott said, smirking.

“Mm.” Jimmy rolled his hips lazily against Scott’s ass. “Think I’ll manage.”

Chapter Text

“You’re in a good mood,” Melinda said. They were pulling up outside Pym Tower in a bulletproof car, hogging the traffic. Melinda was dressed in a white pantsuit with a red blouse, her throat and wrists looped with antique jewelry that Phil had borrowed from someone he wouldn’t name. Overall, the cover looked good enough to Jimmy.

“We got to work close to home all week,” Jimmy said, checking last minute parameters on the briefing pad. “Means no 24/7 helicarrier canteen food.”

“What’s wrong with the canteen food?” Melinda asked, though she smiled.

“Canteen food doesn’t have har gow.”

“Sure it isn’t because of the company?”

“Nothing wrong with your company, ma’am,” Jimmy said, as innocently as he could. Melinda chuckled, letting it slide. Jimmy put the briefing pad away as the car stopped. The uniformed driver hurried out to open the door for Melinda.

“Game on everyone,” Melinda said to the general channel. Her ‘security’ stepped out first, forming a neat bubble with Melinda at the centre and Jimmy at her heels, hangers-on floating in her wake. They made for a noisy and impressive entrance into the lobby of Pym Tower, where Darren Cross was waiting for them, smiling and alone.

“Miss Lien,” Darren said, as the security parted reluctantly. He shook Melinda’s hand. “What a pleasure to meet you.”

“Mister Cross,” Melinda said, in heavily accented English.

“Wow that’s a lot of people,” Darren said, looking around. “Uhm, I guess we’ll take a few lifts up. Don’t know if we have enough guest passes. Though I’m sure it’s fine,” he added hastily, under Melinda’s unblinking stare.

Jimmy pretended to translate, and Melinda sniffed. “They are assistants,” she said haltingly.

“Of course, of course. Come on through.” Darren got them all waved through security and packed into a few lifts, heading up to the forty-eighth floor. He kept up an endless friendly chatter with Melinda all the way, apparently not minding her reticent answers, discussing Pym stock and market volatility, hinting at upcoming investment opportunities. There was, apparently, an AGM later today. All the board members were on the premises already, many of them having a morning breakfast meeting with Hank Pym on one of the upper floors.

Melinda made noncommittal noises, to all appearances the indifferent representative of a government-linked investment fund. Jimmy tried not to think of how this was probably the first field mission for most of their “assistants”. Phil wasn’t the only one with doubts. Fury had called in personally before signing off on the op, a meeting that everyone but Phil and Melinda had been shut out of. Hadn’t really been a good sign. Jimmy tried to concentrate on the mission, to let the stress of it slide away. This was San Francisco, not some failed state in the middle of a nowhere war.

The lift door opened. Security pushed back against the people outside, Darren smiling and apologising, smoothing down feathers. He was enjoying it. Having a clearly important guest, the trappings, the noise. Definitely an ambitious—

“Seriously, you guys were holding up the lifts for a tour group or… What the fuck. Jimmy?”

Jimmy flinched. “Scott?” It was Scott, wide-eyed at the back of the people who’d been waiting for the lift, a laptop clutched to his chest, dressed in a suit. Darren blinked at Jimmy, and Melinda narrowed her eyes. Jimmy forced a smile. “Classmate,” he said to Darren, then murmured the same to Melinda in Mandarin.

She smiled sharply and hooked an arm around Darren’s. “We say it is lucky when Fate makes coincidence. Don’t you think?”

“I suppose so.” Darren chuckled. “What are the chances.”

“Go say hi to friend,” Melinda told Jimmy, indifferent. “What room?”

“Big one at the end, you can’t miss it,” Darren said, and looked over at Melinda as she started to ask pointed questions about manufacturing. Jimmy slipped out of the group and grabbed Scott by the elbow.

“Bathroom,” Jimmy said, pitched for Scott’s ears. When Scott just stared at him, Jimmy repeated himself. “Bathroom, Scott.”

“Oh. Right. Here. Uh. Here.” Scott led them away from the lifts to the closest bathroom.

“Agent Woo,” Phil said into his ear, “clear this up. Quickly.”

Shit. Phil sounded pissed. Jimmy’s ears were burning as Scott pushed into a sleek bathroom. Jimmy checked the stalls. Empty. He locked the door and glanced up. No visible cameras. Scott was leaning against the sink, wide-eyed. “What the fuck? Don’t you work for the government?” Scott asked.

“The rich guy you work for as a personal assistant. Darren Cross?” Jimmy asked.

“No?”

“Hank Pym.”

“Yes? Jimmy, what the hell is all this about? Is this a… an IRS raid or something? You work for the IRS?”

Jimmy switched off the general channel. He reached for Scott and froze as Scott flinched away. Jimmy exhaled and dropped his hand, even as it ached to do it. He’d had bad dreams about this. Turned the possibility in his head in a hundred different ways. In the cold light of day, with his lies and evasions laid bare, the consequences still hurt a lot more than he thought it would. “Scott. I want you to take the day off, okay? Just leave the building. Promise me you’ll leave the building.”

“What? No! Not until you tell me what this is about.”

“I’ll tell you after everything. I have to go.” If he stayed away too long—if something happened to Melinda and the others…

“No. You don’t get to pull that on me. The hell is going on? You’re. FBI? CIA?”

“Something like that.”

Scott coughed out an incredulous laugh. “I can’t. I don’t even. You? Yeah, fucking right. You don’t even, every time you see a fucking dog on the street you have to stop to pet it. You’re a Sunday school youth pastor. You have this weird unironic love of shitty vanilla ice cream and. You?” Wordlessly, Jimmy twitched his suit jacket open, just enough to reveal his shoulder holster. Scott jerked back against the sink as though he’d been struck. “Jesus.”

“Scott. Leave the building. Promise me.”

“I don’t have to fucking promise you anything. Did you know that I worked for Pym Tech? When we first met?”

“No? I was as shocked to see you right just now as you were.”

“If you’re really a… an FBI agent or a spy or whatever why didn’t you know huh? That I worked here?”

“Because I didn’t want to do that to you,” Jimmy said, forcing calm. “I didn’t want to run one of our agency background checks on you and have to lie to you and pretend I didn’t know anything about you when I did. I just. I just wanted to do things normally.”

“Like fucking normal people,” Scott said. He was shaking his head, as though trying to jerk himself out of a bad dream.

“Like normal people,” Jimmy said softly. “Scott.”

“Don’t. Okay? Give me a moment. Can’t believe I’m having some sort of goddamned meltdown in a bathroom. Rewind a little. Why are you guys here?”

“Can’t tell you that.”

“Because of Darren? What did Darren do? He’s always been an ass.”

“No comment, Scott. Please. Leave the building, all right? And don’t talk to anyone else about this. Just today.”

“Then you’ll tell me everything,” Scott said skeptically. “When?”

“After this.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means what it does.”

“This is why you hate spy films so much,” Scott said, frowning. “Like every time I try to put even seriousmode spy films on Netflix like Tinker Tailor you look like I’m forcing a lemon down your throat.”

“Scott.”

“Fine. Fine. I leave the building. Then. You talk to me tonight. Phone call if you have to.” Scott glared at Jimmy.

“Okay. Promise.” Jimmy started to unlock the door, only to freeze as Scott shoved him up against the door frame.

“I swear this always fucking happens to me,” Scott said, low and angry and hurt. It twisted Jimmy up inside to hear it, and he was grateful when Scott let him put his arms around Scott’s waist. A last measure of normality.

“What does?”

“Every time I think I’ve finally lucked into something too good to be true. Something about it always turns out to be really messed up.”

“I love you,” Jimmy said, in case he never did have the chance to say it again, and kissed Scott hard on the mouth as he made an incredulous noise. Jimmy unlocked the door behind him and pushed Scott back a step as Scott stared and sputtered. “You promised,” Jimmy reminded him, and left before Scott could speak.

Melinda raised her eyebrows when Jimmy found them in the spacious conference room, and he sat down beside her with an apologetic smile, taking out a notebook. Darren was in the middle of a presentation about Pym Technologies’ investment opportunities. Jimmy tried to concentrate on the details and not on whether Scott was really leaving the premises. He’d have to somehow convince Scott to either take leave or quit tonight, and he wasn’t looking forward to that conversation—assuming Scott didn’t just turn right around and talk to Hank. Would he?

“This is very interesting,” Melinda said, as Darren finished, “but it is also very…” she shrugged and switched to Mandarin. “It tells me nothing I want to know about the company. About who I can trust.”

Jimmy dutifully ‘translated’. Darren sat down in a chair with a smile. “What do you mean, ma’am?”

“You are young. Maybe someday you think of your name on company?” Melinda said, with a sharp smile of her own. “Hank Pym is old, and I hear, difficult.”

“Perhaps so,” Darren said mildly. Something sounded odd in his tone. He chuckled softly, even as there was a faint click behind them. A door locking? “It was a good act.”

“What?” Melinda frowned at Darren.

“Come now. The coincidence is too great. You people here, right before the AGM’s meant to start, you want to meet me, not Hope, the convenient classmate…” Darren smiled, teeth bared. “Are you people from Hope? Or someone else? Please, don’t bother arguing. We already have an expression of interest from the Chinese government for the product. So who or what are you people?”

“Get ready to abort,” Phil said into their earpieces.

Melinda tensed up. Before she could speak, Jimmy forced himself to laugh, clapping his hands lazily. “See,” Jimmy told Melinda, willing her to play along, “told you he wouldn’t buy it.” He turned to Darren, nodding at Melinda as he did so. “She’s the head of my personal security. Kinda paranoid, but it’s part of her job. Thought she could play the figurehead for safety’s sake or whatever.”

Darren stared at him, even as Melinda let out a deep sigh. “Your parents aren’t going to like this,” she said, in her normal voice.

A little uncomfortable core in Jimmy untwisted itself in relief as Phil stayed silent in his ear. “Well, what they won’t know they can’t dislike.”

“And who are you meant to be now?” Darren asked, suspicious.

“You have a Swiss bank? No need to tell me which. Yes or no question,” Jimmy said.

Darren scowled. “If you think I’m going to give you that kind of information—”

“Pssh.” Jimmy flapped his hand. “I told you I don’t care which bank it is. Just call your Swiss banker. They’ll know who I am. If they don’t, then they aren’t senior enough in their bank and shouldn’t be handling your money.”

This was a gamble and Melinda knew it—under the table, her hands tensed over the arm-rests. Bravado paid off, though. Still frowning, Darren took a photo of Jimmy and sent it off as a text. Then he started to set his phone down on the table, only to flinch as it went off. Darren picked up. “James? Yeah… sorry to jump on you with such a weird question… What? Really? I… Yeah. Jimmy, that’s the name… Oh. Yeah. Call you back.”

Darren’s hostility had eased into confusion as he tucked his phone away. “James Jordan?” Jimmy guessed. “Baerstein?” At Darren’s slow nod, Jimmy laughed to hide his relief. “Nice guy. Family friend. Think he gave me a horse once for my fifth birthday. Some colt he wasn’t planning on racing. Not sure what happened to it.”

“You’re here on behalf of APBC?” Darren asked.

“No, no. Nothing to do with my parents’ bank. I’m branching out. With my own money. I like cool tech, so I thought the stuff here might be a good fit. Your boss isn’t that friendly though,” Jimmy said, pretending disappointment. “So I thought I’d try you instead.”

“What do you mean by ‘cool tech’?” Darren was getting wary again. Something wasn’t quite right.

“When I was a boy, I got kidnapped,” Jimmy said. Darren blinked, yet again startled out of his hostility. “Not sure if you heard about it. Got kept out of the news. James would’ve heard, if you’re really that curious. Anyway. The agents who rescued me were all… unusual. It left an impression. That’s the sort of technology I’m interested in. Things that can push the limits of reality. Legal or not legal, doesn’t matter to me. Call it a lifelong interest.”

“Ahh.” Darren smiled, steepling his fingers before his nose. “Sadly, there’s none of that in Pym Technologies. Despite the rumours.”

“Oh.” Jimmy didn’t bother to hide his disappointment. “Well, then I’m sorry that I’ve wasted your time.”

“I said none in Pym Technologies,” Darren said, before Jimmy could get up. “But, shall we say, someday when ownership of this company changes hands… something that might interest you is already in the works. And I would welcome an angel investor.”

“We can’t trace Cross’ Swiss accounts, they’re locked tight. But someone made calls to his personal cell from Khartoum. Before we arrived, and after we left.” Phil said into the earpiece. He was tense with excitement.

Sloppy. And very circumstantial. “What exactly is this something?” Jimmy asked.

“It’s confidential at the moment. Several bidders, as I’ve mentioned, including a few governments and similar organisations. I do need a bit of funding to get over the line, even after ownership of this company changes hands. Smooth down some manufacturing hiccups,” Darren said.

“‘Someday’ is very long to wait,” Jimmy said, wrinkling his nose, “for a project that’s too confidential to even discuss.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say so,” Darren said, smiling. “I expect to have some good news very soon.” He got to his feet, extending a hand for Jimmy to shake. “I’ll walk you out.”

“I’m meant to be incognito,” Jimmy said, with an arch grin that made Darren laugh.

“Sure. I’ll walk the lady out then. Same way we came in.” Darren inclined his head to Melinda.

“What’s the rush?” Jimmy asked, looking around. “This is the first time I’ve been inside Pym Tower. Pretty exciting. How about a tour?”

“Today’s the AGM. Perhaps another day?” Darren was trying to sound apologetic, but he was getting tense. Annoyed. “Very sorry about it.”

“Just assign someone else as a tour guide, I won’t be offended,” Jimmy said brightly. “Let’s start from the top floor! I bet the view from there is great.”

“Really not the time, I’m afraid. Hank Pym has these quirks. Billionaires, eh?” Darren managed a wan grin. “I’ll show you out.”

No sign of Scott anywhere on the way out. Jimmy wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or worried. Darren watched until they were packed into their cars before heading back into Pym Tower in long strides. “Weird,” Melinda said, frowning. “That’s not how you’d treat an angel investor.”

“He’s hiding something,” Jimmy said—just as something exploded in the sky right next to the Tower, blowing in the glass on the highest floor.

Scott had left the building. He’d gotten changed into the Ant-Man suit in a subway bathroom, debating whether to call Hope. Or Hank. “Fuck this shit,” Scott muttered under his breath as he pulled on the helmet. Fucking Jimmy. “Low blow. ‘I love you’? What even the fuck.” Jimmy was probably the worst. Scott was swinging between fury and feels and it was making him mildly nauseous.

The feeling didn’t get better as he shrank down and hitched a ride on a flying ant back into Pym Tower, dodging revolving doors. He made it into a lift, which was thankfully heading up to Darren’s floor. Ants were already gathering in the vents to keep an eye out. Nothing much had happened by the time Scott got in position in the vent. Darren was still going through the investor deck. Jimmy was sitting beside the lady who was presumably his boss, judging from the body language.

Things went wrong—Darren wasn’t buying the government’s cover story—then Jimmy somehow rescued the situation with some wild new story that Darren bought, hook, line, and sinker. Like a boss. Now Scott wasn’t sure what he was meant to feel. Anger? Pride? His flying ant steed nudged him with antennae. “Yeah, that’s right,” Scott told it gloomily. “You guys have it easy. One queen and everyone else’s her bitch.”

The meeting wrapped up without anyone getting hurt, which would’ve been a relief, except that Jimmy and his maybe-boss were clearly weirded out by Darren’s impatience. Though nothing was happening right now in the building as far as the ants could tell.

Other than the AGM.

“Shit!” Scott swung himself onto the flying ant. They sped upwards through the vent system, navigating the maze ever upwards. He tried to raise Hope on the suit comms as he flew.

When Hope finally picked up, she sounded hushed with annoyance. “Scott? Where the hell are you? Dad’s in a real snit of a mood right now.”

“Something probably bad is going to happen and we should cancel the AGM,” Scott said quickly.

“What? Cancel what? That’s… Scott? Where are you?”

“Where’s Hank?”

“Already in the meeting room?”

“Shit!” What floor was this? Scott peered out through the nearest vent slat. Top floor. The flying ant angled down an intersection.

“What do you mean ‘shit’? Where the hell are you?”

“I need you to get people out of that meeting room now. Uh, trigger the fire alarm. Something. No, wait. Don’t do that. That might scare them off.”

“Them? You’re… Okay. Okay. I’m on it,” Hope said. Scott took a new turn. He peeked out of the closest vent, just in time to see Hope pointedly chivvying people out of the room, including a loudly complaining Hank. Once she closed the door, Scott flew down and called the ants.

Thank the Gods Hank kept a secret colony of ants in his office. They swarmed out of vents and gaps in the walls, a thick red mass that started to search every inch of the conference room. They found it right under what would’ve been Hank’s chair, a tiny bundle of C4 with a device collared around it that had a passing resemblance to Hank’s tech.

“Scott?” Hope hissed. “I can’t delay people any longer. They’re coming back.”

“Shit.” The ants hastily started to scuttle out of sight. “I see it. It’s a tiny bomb? On Hank’s chair.”

“What?”

“I’m going to move it.” His flying ant steed grabbed the package. As Scott steeled himself to jump free, the ant hovered up just fine. No explosion. Scott flew it back up the vent until they were on the roof. He got off, switching to his normal size, and sent the ant off with its deadly package, saluting it from where he was.

“Scott, what the fuck do you mean by a bomb?” Hope growled as Scott watched the ant get buoyed along by a stiff wind.

“Relax, it’s—” Scott yelped as the bomb abruptly enlarged in the air and beeped. Somehow he managed to throw himself behind the roof access just as it went off.

“—cott? Scott!” Hope was still yelling into his ear as Scott’s hearing slowly started to come back. Wincing, he picked himself up.

“Still here. All bits attached. Everything OK down there?”

“Nobody’s hurt. What the hell is going on?” Hope demanded.

Scott opened his mouth, closed it tightly, and grimaced. He’d promised. “I’ll tell you after tonight. But it’s got something to do with Darren. Just watch your back—and Hank’s, okay? Stay low. Get some ants to watch Darren.”

There was a long silence. “You okay?” Hope asked.

“Think so. Yeah. Uh. Why do you ask?” That hadn’t been believable even to his own ears.

“…After tonight then. But if you need back up? Call me.”

Chapter Text

“That’s the Ant-Man suit,” Phil said, nodding at the zoomed in satellite image of the roof of the Pym Technologies building. “It wasn’t Hank Pym wearing it though. He was definitely evacuated along with his board. He was with his daughter and staff at all times. Stood by her side during the press conference afterward.”

Melinda looked at Jimmy through the corner of her eyes. He was visibly pale, his lips pressed tightly together. Jimmy had either guessed—or already knew—who was in the Ant-Man suit. Was it the handsome man they’d run into at the lifts who’d recognised Jimmy? “We should reach out to Hank Pym,” Melinda said, “if he’s no longer a person of interest. If Darren Cross is using stolen or modified Pym Particle technology, Pym could be an invaluable consultant. I think it’s possible that Pym was the bomb’s real target.”

Phil assumed a sour look. “By all reports, Pym is not at all a pleasant or entirely rational individual to deal with. And he can’t be intimidated.”

“His daughter then,” Melinda said, as reasonably as she could. “It’s not that big of a security risk. Pym’s already aware of S.H.I.E.L.D., he used to be an agent. Perhaps he’d be willing to put aside bad blood to stop something that resembles or copied his own technology from hurting other people. Irascible or not, he was a decorated agent for years. Him and his late wife. That has to mean something.”

“I’ll speak to the Director,” Phil said. He looked unhappy at the prospect. “It was definitely some version of Pym technology behind the bomb. Technology that can remotely enlarge—then detonate—explosives? That’s going to change the way war itself is fought. It’s going to make counterterrorism a nightmare. The Director wants this stopped.”

“The illusion tech was Pym tech too,” Melinda said, checking through the briefing. “Prototype from their entertainment arm. As to the environmental jammer, we're not certain why there was a temperature effect—that's usually the indication of unorthodox sorcery—but we know that Hank once worked on area of effect jammer tech in S.H.I.E.L.D. labs. If Pym decides to be difficult, we can get a warrant to shut down Pym Technologies for a forensic search on that basis. Make his life difficult.”

“And we still have to find Darren Cross. He’s gone to ground. Took medical leave after the bombing, citing shock and stress,” Phil said.

Jimmy cleared his throat. “Uh, I’ve got an idea for that.”

“Wait for him to contact you for investment purposes? Time’s of the essence. And his plan in Pym Tower likely didn’t go the way he wanted.” Phil shook his head.

“A cousin of mine is getting married. In a few days. Another banking family. James Jordan would’ve been invited. He goes everywhere with this laptop that contains security keys for the few clients that he has. If we can get our hands on that, we can trace Darren’s financial trail,” Jimmy said. He squirmed on his seat, looking away.

“Your cousin?” Melinda asked.

“Yeah. Uh. She’s the heir of BOHC. Marrying some European prince.” Jimmy coughed. “Kinda what she always wanted. To marry an actual prince. Don’t ask. We’re not close, but my parents are the guests of honour, so if I wanted to go I could go.”

“And you don’t think Jordan’s going to be suspicious?” Phil frowned. “Have you attended any other family gathering at all since you joined the FBI?”

It was a rhetorical question—everyone knew Jimmy never took leave. He volunteered to work holiday shifts, even Thanksgiving and Christmas. Jimmy drummed his fingertips briefly on the armrest of his chair. “If this ends up being a joint op with Pym,” he said, in a weird, flat voice, “I could have a reason.”

Jimmy would…? “You don’t have to do that,” Melinda said sharply.

“The Director doesn’t exaggerate. This technology will change the terrorism playbook. Probably worse,” Jimmy said. He leaned back in his chair, staring briefly up at the ceiling. “The guy I’m seeing. Was seeing. Scott Lang. He’s Hank Pym’s personal assistant. I think he’s the person in the Ant-Man suit. From the satellite imaging, he looks about the right height and build. Besides, Pym's extremely possessive of the Pym Particle tech. According to his file, he's only ever let his immediate family or his lab assistants use it. Scott has a Masters in Engineering. On hindsight, he's rather overqualified to just be a secretary. And he's the only person outside of S.H.I.E.L.D. who might have had an inkling that something was wrong. I broke protocol and tried to warn him off.”

Phil blinked. Melinda exhaled. “So what’s your plan? Assuming there’s a joint op?”

“I’m going to talk to Scott tonight. With your permission, I’ll tell him about the situation. Whatever you think might be appropriate. I won’t go into detail. I’ll see what I can get out of him in return. Whether Pym was aware of what Cross was doing on the side. Why Pym’s house uses more electricity than it should.”

“And? About the wedding?” Melinda asked.

Jimmy was silent for a while. “If I show up with Scott on my arm it’ll be like throwing a grenade into a koi pond. Everyone will be asking questions, but they won’t be asking the right questions. Good enough distraction to get to Jordan. I can bring whoever I need as personal security or whatever. Nobody will care at that point. They’d be busy freaking out.”

“I don’t want you to, uh, publicly out yourself for the sake of a mission,” Phil said, in a strangled voice.

“I could go,” Melinda agreed, “instead of Scott.”

“My parents will have you looked up instantly. They’ll figure it’s an op of some sort. Scott has a clean cover. In comparison,” Jimmy said. He ran a hand tiredly over his face. “Besides. I’m in my thirties. My parents already know about my preferences. And I don’t give a damn about anyone who might have a problem with it.”

That was clearly a lie said for Phil’s benefit, but it worked. Phil relaxed, though he still looked unhappy about it. “I’ll talk to Fury. As to Mister Lang? Use your judgment. On what’s relevant. If you can get him to corral Pym on our behalf that would be ideal.”

“Yes sir,” Jimmy said. He was still pale. Phil shot Melinda a glance, nodded to them both and left the room. Once the door sealed, Melinda sighed.

“Jimmy.”

“It’s a good plan. I’ve thought it over. As head of my personal security, you’d have full access to the venue—”

“It is a good plan,” Melinda said, “and that’s the problem.”

Jimmy wrinkled his nose. “That it’d work?”

“That you even thought about it at all. Look. The job we do is important, sure. All of us make sacrifices. But S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t expect its agents to sacrifice who they are. That just damages people. The power we have as agents is a responsibility that should only be granted to stable, grounded people. Everyone else burns out sooner or later. And it can get ugly.”

Jimmy was quiet for a while. “I look at this world and think: how sad would it be to die, having never made a difference? Money… the resources I have are all invested in various projects everywhere. But it’s like pasting band-aids on a terminal wound, for all the overall good it does the world. It never feels like enough. I want to make a difference that I can touch. Do something good with my own hands. Rather than just with the resources I was born with.”

“You’re stubborn,” Melinda said.

“Heard that’s a good trait for an agent.” Jimmy cracked a wan smile.

“Speaking from personal experience? Not really.” Melinda reached over, patting Jimmy’s arm. “Don’t do things that you know you’re going to regret for the rest of your life. It’ll destroy you eventually.”

Scott would’ve preferred neutral ground, but he guessed that was going to be a hard sell with Jimmy if Jimmy was going to break his cover or whatever the hell was happening. So he named his apartment in a text, was surprised when Jimmy agreed instantly, and spent the rest of the day desultorily cleaning up or sitting numbly on the couch, watching the endless CNN coverage of the “terror attack” at Pym Tower.

Fuck Darren Cross. He’d disappeared too, according to Hope—they were still looking for him. Scott glared at the TV until he dozed off in a sprawl on the couch, waking up when Jimmy gently shook him by the shoulder. “Still have your spare keys,” Jimmy said, when Scott blinked up at him. He handed them to Scott, his jaw tight.

“God, you piss me off,” Scott growled. He’d had an idea of how this was going to go, a tense but civilised conversation over the kitchen counter or something where Scott would ask suitably intelligent questions and preferably acquit himself without embarrassment. Instead, he grabbed Jimmy by his collar and hauled him down. Jimmy yelped and lost his balance, the keys skidding under the coffee table. With some awkward squirming Scott managed to shove Jimmy down on his back on the couch, climbing over his lap.

“Scott—” Jimmy tensed but shut up as Scott kissed him, giving back just as much as he’d got in the bathroom.

“That was such a dick move,” Scott hissed, in between kisses, ignoring the hands curling over his back. “You’re such a fucking asshole, why didn’t I ever fucking notice? Government staffer my ass.” He paused, pulling open Jimmy’s suit jacket. No shoulder holster. “Shit,” Scott said. Anger was ebbing away despite his best efforts, leaving misery in its wake. He squeezed his fists tight in Jimmy’s lapels and buried his mouth against Jimmy’s throat, breathing him in, shaking.

Jimmy stroked fingers over the back of Scott’s throat, through his hair, down over his back. He was breathing in small, sharp gasps against Scott’s temple. Somehow even listening to that hurt. Scott tried concentrating on Jimmy’s heartbeat instead, wedged between them. Leaning his weight on top of Jimmy like this couldn’t be comfortable, but Jimmy said not a word of complaint. Jimmy eased off petting Scott when Scott stopped trembling, holding him loosely instead, one hand curled over the back of Scott’s skull.

“Being a Bond Girl sucks,” Scott said, because jokes were what he retreated to when he had nothing else to say. It worked anyway. Jimmy let out a startled laugh.

“I don’t know. You’re pretty enough for it to work.”

“Yeah, right. I can’t hold a candle to Halle Berry. I don’t want to be a plot device.”

Jimmy shook under Scott briefly in amusement. “Some Bond Girls aren’t that bad.”

“Hah! So you do watch James Bond films.”

“Sometimes. When I’m stuck on a plane.”

“Wow, it’s all coming out. All the stuff I should know about you but don’t,” Scott said. He tried to sound playful but it was flat instead, hurt.

Jimmy didn’t answer for a while. When he spoke, he was subdued. “You shouldn’t have worn the Ant-Man suit. In full view. On the roof of the Tower.”

Ah, hell. “Suit?”

“You just tensed up. And your heartbeat’s quickening.” Jimmy nuzzled Scott’s temple. “I told you to leave the building.”

“I did. You didn’t say I couldn’t head right back in.”

This got another laugh, a rueful one. “That’s against the spirit of the agreement but I suppose it’s within the letter of it. I’m going to ask you just once. The bomb at Pym Tower. Was that from you?”

Scott jerked up, incredulous. Jimmy’s face was carefully blank. “What? You guys think that was me? I threw it off the goddamned building. I found it in the conference room! Stuck to Hank’s chair!”

“The way it got bigger all of a sudden. That’s the Pym particle, isn’t it?”

“Wasn’t us,” Scott snapped, and froze. His goddamned big mouth. Jimmy relaxed however, closing his eyes and rubbing his hand over his face. He made a tiny sound, far past relief. Scowling, Scott sat heavily on Jimmy’s stomach. “You thought it was me? What, do you kiss all your suspects?”

“I thought there was a small chance I might have been wrong about you.”

“Then what?” Scott asked, fascinated and annoyed all at once. “You’re unarmed.”

“I’m never unarmed.” Jimmy glanced up at him. “So what else is Pym doing under his house then? You’ve clearly inherited his Ant-Man gear.”

“Not telling you that.”

“Is it about Janet van Dyne?”

“Wha—” Scott cut himself off, but it was too late. Jimmy nodded.

“Thought it might be. She vanished during Pym’s last mission as an operative. Went ‘subatomic’ trying to stop an ICBM, according to the post-mission briefing. After that, Pym left the agency,” Jimmy said.

“Hank never told me that,” Scott said, a little subdued. He’d known they were looking for Janet, building a machine for it. Asking Hank for details was always a surefire way to set off one of his black moods though. And Hope didn’t like to talk about it. “Operative? In what agency?”

“In S.H.I.E.L.D.—a UN organisation. Global peacekeeping, counterterrorism, security. I’m a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Decades ago, so was Pym.”

“I thought the UN didn’t do much.”

“That’s what they’d generally like people to think. Though. Yes, they don’t do as much as they should.”

“And you guys were investigating Darren?” Scott asked.

“We were investigating Pym. A CIA operative died in Geneva—he was looking into certain Swiss accounts, including Pym’s. A prototype copy of the Pym Particle was stolen, with all soldiers in the vicinity KIA. Children died in Khartoum, behind an illusion wall made with Pym tech. When I investigated, something that looked like a ring exploded. I’m guessing now that there was a shrunken-down bomb attached to the ring. One that exploded remotely as it was expanding.”

“…Okay,” Scott said, a little faintly, “I can see why all that was kinda suspicious. Darren tripped up in the meeting you had with him, right? You guys were suspicious when he didn’t want to give you the tour.”

“You were watching?”

“Well yeah,” Scott muttered, “then I flew up to check the AGM room and found the thing. The bomb. Which I did not put there, OK? And if I hadn’t removed it, It would have blown Hank up. And Hope too.”

“Pym’s not a suspect any longer. Or you, or Hope.”

“Great. So what’s your plan? With Darren? Found him yet?”

“No, but I might have a way to trace his money trail.” Jimmy looked up soberly at Scott. “With your help. If Pym’s willing to help.”

“’Course I’ll help.”

“Shouldn’t you ask Pym first? He didn’t part on good terms with S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Jimmy said.

“So what? He can bitch and moan all he likes but if Darren’s out there selling remote Pym Particle bombs, then he needs to be stopped. I don’t need Hank’s approval or whatever to do that. Hope will understand. What?” Scott said, when Jimmy started to chuckle.

“You’re amazing.”

“And you’re a dick,” Scott said, folding his arms. “What’s the plan?”

Jimmy squirmed out until he was sitting on the couch beside Scott. “Still working out the details on our end, but I’m going to need you to attend a wedding with me. As my plus one. Sorry.”

“Sorry about what?”

Jimmy stared at his hands. “Having to pretend.”

Shit. Scott let out a huge breath. He wrapped his arms over Jimmy’s shoulders and nudged his chin over soft hair. “Okay. Are you breaking up with me because I now know too much, or is it the Ant-Man suit thing, which by the way is totally not illegal. Hope had a ton of lawyers look into it.”

Jimmy eased up to stare at him. “Aren’t you breaking up with me?”

“What? Why?”

“You said I was a dick.”

“Which is true! Even if you had ‘reasons’ or whatever. You can be angry with someone without breaking up with them, Jesus. What kinda people have you been dating before me?”

Jimmy thought this over. “I’m not actually sorry about anything I did.”

“This is not really a good time to test your luck, buster,” Scott growled.

“Not testing my luck. Just being honest. I don’t intend to stop being an agent. Which means. There’ll always be secrets between us. My awful hours. Other consequences.”

“This job that you worked all your life to get to,” Scott recalled.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m glad that you got there,” Scott said, because he could see it. Jimmy loved his job. Scott was maybe a bit jealous about that. “Also, maybe I’m biased, but I think you were pretty good at it. You talked Darren out of kicking you out? That was awesome. Clutch moment with the banker thing.”

For some reason, Jimmy tensed up all over again. “About that. Got lucky there. That the guy Darren called was really someone who knew me.”

Of course Jimmy would now choose to be pedantic over his own awesomeness. “Just take the credit where it’s due, babe.”

“That’s. Well. I told you my family was rich. It’s kinda an understatement.”

“What, they really own a bank?” Scott asked dryly. When Jimmy said nothing and looked away, Scott said, “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So instead of… of doing rich people stuff, like going on yacht cruises with supermodels, you’re. Here? Doing special agent stuff? Why?” Scott asked.

“Because I believe in the mission,” Jimmy said, solemn.

“And this wedding thing? What’s so special about this wedding?”

“Darren’s banker will be there. We need his laptop.”

“Okay,” Scott said. That sounded doable. “In the Ant-Man suit I can get pretty much anywhere.”

“Another agent will be handling the laptop. Our job is to be a distraction.”

“Uh, right. Doing what?”

Jimmy raised his eyebrows. “Just by being there. You’d be the first person I’ve ever introduced to my family.”

“Okay, so?” Scott asked, puzzled. “I mean, I’ve been introduced to people’s families before. Guys and girls. It’s never that big of a deal. Unless. That time when I asked about the homophobe thing and you gave me a weird answer.”

“That’s not really it.” Jimmy rubbed at his temple. “It’s going to be very unpleasant for you,” he said, after a while.

“If it’d help us find Darren so we can kick his ass, I can deal with unpleasant,” Scott said confidently. Jimmy didn’t reply. He looked tired to the bone, glancing back down at his hands. “Hey. Are you okay?”

“Depends. Are you still angry with me?”

“Kinda wish I was, because you deserve it,” Scott said. Jimmy eyed him for a long moment in disbelief, then he leaned up, angling for a tense kiss that he deepened with a grateful sound when Scott licked against his mouth.

Chapter Text

The man Jimmy had broken protocol for was handsome and charming enough, but having met a large number of handsome and charming men in the course of her work, Melinda wasn’t exactly sure what it was about Scott Lang that Jimmy found so fascinating. There was something weirdly forgettable about his face and something annoyingly naive about his dad-next-door charm. Other than his apparently accidental involvement with Hank Pym, Scott appeared to be painfully normal. Maybe that was it.

Hope van Dyne was considerably more interesting. She’d been the one who’d suggested, with a sweet smile, that her father “process” his “problems” with Director Fury privately, cutting into what had been working out to be a spectacular screaming match. It’d left everyone else shut awkwardly in one of the helicarrier’s Situation Rooms. Melinda had been relieved. Phil looked visibly pained, but Melinda rather doubted that a crabby old scientist—retired agent or not—could do very much to the Director. More importantly, the suggestion had temporarily defused what had been escalating into a volcanic second Pym exit from the agency instead of the help that they wanted.

“Now that the testosterone level in the room is back to breathable levels,” Hope said, “how about we go over the plan?”

Phil stared at her. “Director Fury needs to personally give this the go-ahead.”

“Oh, come on. Global terrorism threat, bombs, rogue tech, existing casualties… he’s going to approve the operation and we all know it. Everything right now’s just schoolyard posturing, and I find that tiring coming from anybody older than twelve.” Hope faked a yawn. “Private island in the Pacific Ocean, was it? I’ll be coming along, of course.”

“You’re not an operative,” Melinda said, keeping her face carefully blank.

“You people made my father an operative. Your standards can’t be that high,” Hope said, with a cheeky smirk that made Scott stifle a laugh. Phil somehow managed to look visibly unhappier, though he said nothing. “Besides, it’s my family’s tech out there. You’re going to need me on this case. Unless you want my father instead. Whom, as you’ve all already seen, is rather more difficult to deal with.”

“That’s blackmail, but at least it’s persuasive blackmail,” Melinda said, and stayed deadpan as Phil exhaled. Hope flashed her a quick grin as Phil activated access to the holomap table, and Melinda inclined her head slightly in return.

“When do you have to RSVP?” Phil asked Jimmy.

“Whenever,” Jimmy said. He was sitting next to Scott, their body language far too casual to be truly casual. “I’ll put in a call to my cousin’s head of staff and she’ll handle the details.”

“Your parents know you’re in S.H.I.E.L.D.—would anyone else?” Melinda asked.

Jimmy shook his head. “I doubt it. My family likes its privacy. My cousin does know that I joined the FBI, as would most of my extended family. They don’t know anything else, as far as I’m aware.”

“What about James Jordan?” Hope asked.

“Doesn’t look like he freaked out after getting that photo of Jimmy,” Melinda said, checking the briefing pad. “Not according to the tabs we’re now keeping on him. He did however put an encrypted call through to a contact at APBC.”

Jimmy nodded. “Yeah, probably Karl Weiss. Inner circle. Lots of lateral movement in banking, they used to work together in APBC. Doesn’t mean anything. It’ll have been a courtesy call. Darren and I didn’t exactly tell Jordan to keep a lid on it.”

“I’ll like some advance time on the ground,” Melinda said. There wasn’t much detail in the briefing pad about the island Jimmy had named. It’d been purchased by a Panaman shell company. No geographical records on file. Satellite imaging was murky after a certain definition. Jimmy had provided a sketchy hand-drawn map, but he hadn’t been on the island for over two decades by his own account.

“Probably best if we leave this to the last minute,” Jimmy said, apologetic. “If we don’t give the family that much advance warning to check cover stories. Especially if we’ll be bringing in a team.”

They’d gone over most of the briefing by the time Pym and Fury returned, both of them scowling. “We’ll be working with S.H.I.E.L.D. for now,” Pym said grumpily as he sank into a chair beside his daughter. “Can’t be avoided. Much as I’d like to.”

“Excellent,” Hope said.

“Our more recent history aside, I truly am sorry about Janet,” Fury said, as he settled into a chair at the head of the table. “I was honoured to be able to call her a friend for a while. She was a remarkable person.”

“You’re still an asshole,” Pym said, though he looked slightly less grouchy. “I’m still shocked that you’ve made Director. Thought you’d have pissed off too many people to get there.”

“Not yet,” Fury said. He studied Hope, then Scott, his single eye narrowed in his ascetic face. Fury was in one of his favourite turtlenecks and a jacket that probably hid at least a couple of weapons, but as always, despite whatever he wore, he exuded menace and competence in equal measure. “You’re still set on this plan?” Fury asked Phil.

“In lieu of better alternatives, yes sir,” Phil said.

“Great,” Fury said. He sounded sour about it. “Try not to piss off all my remaining private donors, eh?”

“Sorry about that sir,” Jimmy said, but Fury made a dismissive gesture.

“One more thing. If we do secure this rogue technology, whatever it is. I want it destroyed,” Fury said. He stared over the table at Pym. “No hoarding it, no tinkering with it.”

“Of course not.” Pym bristled.

“Because I know you scientists.”

“And you think I don’t know soldiers?” Pym snapped. “I’d rather destroy it than see you people put it to use.”

“Starr died, did you know?” Fury said. Pym flinched. “He had an accident. In a lab that he built privately using his own dime. Blew up a warehouse. He was the only casualty, as far as we know.”

“He always took bad risks,” Pym said stiffly. “I used to tell him off.”

“You took risks as well. I remember that. And your new fucking lab is right under a residential area. Don’t think we aren’t aware of that. Lots of families with little kiddies running around in their nice fucking yards just metres away from whatever the hell you’re building under your house.” Fury smiled mercilessly as Pym straightened up. Getting to his feet, Fury glanced over at Phil. “Make sure nobody fucks this up.”

“Yes sir,” Phil said, as Fury strode out of the room.

“God, I still hate that guy,” Pym muttered.

“Uh, what are we waiting for exactly?” Scott asked. He’d been trying not to get keyed up all morning. They were all in Jimmy’s apartment—Scott, Jimmy, Agents May and Coulson, and Hope, who was wasp-sized and hopefully not suffocating in Scott’s luggage along with the ant colony.

“It’s almost time.” Jimmy was checking his watch.

“Shouldn’t we be heading to the airport?” Scott asked, trying not to stare at the other agents. “Hank doesn’t have a jet, but I guess maybe you S.H.I.E.L.D. guys do? I wasn’t asked to check in to anything, but I brought my passport.”

Jimmy gave him a surprised look for a moment. “Oh. Right. Uh. We’re not taking a plane.”

“Helicopter?” Could a helicopter land on Jimmy’s roof?

“Uhm. The thing about the very wealthy. We don’t take planes anymore? It’s pretty much. A waste of time. The families just employ… I can’t really explain it. You’ll see,” Jimmy said, just as some weird, sparkly doorway opened right in front of Jimmy’s kitchen. Scott yelped, flinching back a step. The circular portal looked right through to a sandstone floor that dropped away in wide paved steps into a pristine, pale beach overlooking the ocean.

May went through first, looking around sharply then nodding back at Jimmy. Jimmy and Scott were next, followed by Coulson, who was hauling the luggage. The portal closed behind them as Scott looked around wildly. They’d gone from a chilly morning into balmy tropical heat. The sandstone floor led to a sweeping set of pools that ringed an elegant bar manned by a couple of people in tuxes. Behind the pools was an immense manicured garden, tiered with trees trimmed into spherical shapes. Perched at the end of the garden like pale icing on a lush cake was a white castle, with red flags flown from the battlements. Security staff stood loosely close by, including a short woman in a gray suit who looped sparks over her wrists.

“What. The fuck,” Scott whispered.

Jimmy was busy greeting an Asian lady of indeterminate age with coiffed hair and a heavy necklace that nestled over a plunging neckline. He walked her over. “My cousin Jeanne. Jeanne, this is Scott.” Jimmy didn’t introduce May or Coulson, and Jeanne didn’t bother to look at them, studying Scott closely instead.

“The dragonslayer,” Jeanne said, grinning as she shook Scott’s hand. She had a firm grip and spoke with an accent Scott couldn’t place.

“And you’re the blushing bride, I presume,” Scott said, with a bright smile. “Congratulations. Also, ‘dragonslayer’? Jimmy has been exaggerating my worth.”

“Cute and charming,” Jeanne told Jimmy, lips pursed. “I almost considered forgiving you there for upstaging me at my own fucking wedding.”

“What, me?” Jimmy asked, with mock innocence.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. You didn’t even have the balls to tell your own parents. Sent in the RSVP with your named plus-one and expected me to do it on your behalf, huh?” Jeanne linked her arm around Jimmy’s and started to tug him towards the pool. “I’m so tempted to drown you right now. Do you know how much money and planning went into this party?”

“I didn’t expect you to do anything. I’m just here to attend your wedding,” Jimmy said.

“Please. If you cared about that, you’d have RSVP’d when I sent you the fucking invite months ago, not three days before the wedding itself. Thanks, by the way. For setting off more table seating drama just when I’d un-ruffled everyone’s feathers. You’d think I was asking everyone at each table to suck each other’s dicks, the way some of them were carrying on.”

“Table seating drama is normal for a Chinese wedding,” Jimmy said, clearly unrepentant.

Jeanne scowled at him, then at Scott. “By the way, if either of you do something even more dramatic at my wedding, like propose, I will shoot one of you in the balls.”

“Duly noted,” Scott said and started to laugh.

“I’m not joking,” Jeanne growled.

“She’s not joking,” Jimmy agreed.

“Well,” Scott said, very dryly, “warning duly noted, and thank you for allowing us to come to your party, even if Jimmy had to be an ass about it. I’m sorry about the last minute thing. I didn’t even know there was a wedding party or anything until three days ago. Or that it would be such a big deal.”

Jeanne shot him a pitying look, then glanced at Jimmy. “This man seems very mediocre to me. Is he just very good in bed or something? Has a big dick? If you like that kind of thing, I could introduce you to Michael Fassbender. He owes me a favour for funding his last futile Oscar-chaser.”

“So you’ve said before,” Jimmy said, amused, “and no. Hey, could one of my staff do the usual check of my room and things? I brought the minimum. For your sake.”

Jeanne shrugged. “Yeah, whatever. Alina, handle it.” Off to a side, a tall woman in a suit nodded and beckoned politely to May and Coulson. Coulson went, May stayed behind. “Your parents were going to arrive tomorrow but they’ve changed their plans and will come tonight. Thanks for that as well. A few guests also changed their plans because they plan on rubbernecking on your little family showdown. I had to call in the favour Alain owed me so there’d be a suitable dinner for all you last minute leeches.”

“Ducasse or Passard?”

“Passard, obviously. But I told him, none of his pescatarian sensibilities. And I’ve been assured dessert will be fucking spectacular.”

“Who else changed their plans?” Jimmy asked.

“Aunt Mary and Aunt Noor… and the whole Teo clan.”

“So just family. No one from the industry.”

“Oh, them too,” Jeanne said, rolling her eyes. “The family friends, anyway. Ethan, James, Anisha.”

“Baerstein James?”

“Who else? That old man’s fucking nosy.”

“Where’s your fiancé?” Jimmy asked, making a show of looking around. “Did you lock him in a room somewhere under guard?”

“Hah, very funny.” Jeanne prodded Jimmy in the ribs. “Nicholas will arrive tomorrow. For the reception. I’m not going to risk him getting spooked by our fucking families and their bullshit until we’re married. So until then, try to keep your goddamned drama to a minimum, all right? Jesus. I still can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”

Jimmy grinned lazily at her. “Like you aren’t actually delighted.”

Jeanne sniffed instead of denying it and said something that was probably rude in Mandarin—Jimmy laughed. Jeanne pulled away, nodding at the gray-suited woman. With a few quick loops of her hands, the woman opened a portal into an ornate foyer. Jeanne stepped through with her security, followed by the woman. The portal closed.

“Wow,” Scott said, as Jimmy curled an arm around his waist and buried his mouth against Scott’s throat. “Your cousin is really pissed.”

“Not at all. That’s just her normal mode. If she was pissed something would be on fire.” Jimmy sounded resigned. He kissed Scott’s cheek and steered Scott towards the beach. Once they were close enough to the waves without getting their feet wet, Jimmy said quietly, “Jordan will probably fly in. He doesn’t like teleport travel.”

“Noted,” Coulson said.

“What even was that portal thing?” Scott whispered.

“A lot of families keep them on the staff. Graduates of a sorcerer sect in Kamar-Taj.” Jimmy bent his head against Scott and leaned against him. “Miss van Dyne?”

“Just call me Hope, thanks,” Hope said into their earpieces. “I’m trying to find out which room Jordan’s going to be staying in.”

“Security’s tight,” Coulson said, sounding grim. “There are a few other guests here. Immediate family of the bride, I believe, all with professional private security. There are a number of powered individuals. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I always know what I’m doing,” Hope said.

“Have you done something like this before?” May asked.

“Nope. Relax. If we don’t manage to do things my way, you people can do your usual James Bond stuff.”

May sighed, even as Coulson muttered something ugly about ‘James Bond stuff’ that made Scott snicker. May was wandering off, studying the pool while keeping them within view. “It won’t be easy to do that,” May said, “since extraction from this place is going to be a bitch.”

“There’ll be people arriving tomorrow on the usual Gulfstreams. Airport’s on the far end of the island,” Jimmy said.

“I’ll scope that out. Something’s scrambling our spy satellites overhead. Keep in touch,” Coulson said. There was a pause, then a faint click.

Jimmy pressed something in his ear, then in Scott’s. “Signing off the general channel,” Jimmy murmured.

“Oh yeah? Something you want to say to me?” Scott nudged a kiss over Jimmy’s jaw. “I think I like Jeanne.”

“That impression will wear off really quickly.”

“She’s probably just stressed. Brides get stressed before their weddings. Though I still can’t believe she’s actually. Getting married to a prince in a castle. I didn’t think there were European royalty richer than the Queen of England.”

Jimmy coughed. “There aren’t. This doesn’t belong to her fiancé. It’s her family’s winter house.”

“House? You call this place a house?” Scott asked, incredulous.

Jimmy looked visibly uncomfortable. “Well. I said. About wealth?”

“Is your family hiding any private islands with castles on them?” Scott asked facetiously.

“No. It’s not their style. They prefer to live on a yacht. In international waters. Tax-free.”

“That’s not as out there as a private island with a castle on it.” Scott was still trying to process. People who could live in places like this. Have multiple places like this. Who never had to take a plane anywhere. Hell, they didn’t even bother to walk across their own goddamned garden to get back to their castle. What even. Rich people were a whole ‘nother species.

“You haven’t seen the yacht.” Jimmy glanced back over his shoulder. “I was actually meant to marry Jeanne."

Scott blinked. "But she's your cousin."

"She's my cousin by marriage, not a blood relation. Families planned it when we were born. Political marriage, in a way. Merging financial interests.”

“Yeah? What happened?”

“We kinda hated each other on sight during our first play date as toddlers. Think we both couldn’t even walk yet. She hit me with a toy and we had to be separated.” Jimmy cracked a sharp grin. “When we grew up we agreed to conspire to never have to get married. She’s actually the reason why I managed to leave all this behind. Join the FBI. She called in her own favours.”

“Nice of her.”

“It wasn’t altruistic. This is what she wanted, not me.” Jimmy made a vague gesture at the island. “It was unheard of I guess. Political marriages are the norm and scions usually just endure it to make their families happy. She wasn't why I wanted no part of this world. All this. It’s obscene. That’s why I left it.”

“Obscene?” Scott looked around furtively, trying to spy any signs of the sexual perversions of the filthy rich.

Jimmy was silent for a while. “The dragonslayer thing. It was a joke between Jeanne and I, growing up. Some Han Chinese call themselves 龙的传人… descendants of the dragon. Nationalistic sentiment based on history. Yet it’s only the extremely wealthy who really do live like celestial dragons. The Kings of everything. When there’s so much poverty in the world. That’s the biggest joke of all. That people who don’t have this kind of life can celebrate and defend the idea of having it.”

“I didn’t take you for a socialist,” Scott said, kissing Jimmy’s temple.

“I’m a pessimist,” Jimmy said, staring out at the sea. “And in many ways, still a hypocrite.” He kissed Scott on the mouth before Scott could think of an answer. “We should do a tour of the grounds.”

“Pretty sure Coulson and Hope have that covered,” Scott said. He nodded at the bar. “I think we should get a drink.” When Jimmy started to frown, Scott patted his ass. “And before you say something about drinking on the job, this is your job. Playing a part. Before a bunch of dragons.”

Jimmy’s mouth twitched at the corners. “All right.”

Chapter Text

Jordan arrived with personal security and a briefcase that was chained to his wrist, which, Phil said, was “not ideal”.

“Can say that again,” Melinda muttered. She was standing in the corner of the East Drawing Room, against a huge wall-to-ceiling freshwater tank that made up one of the walls. The contents of the tank had been carefully aquascaped to resemble a mountainous Chinese painting, with crags of granite dusted with “grass” and “bonsai”. Tiny brilliant fish darted among the lush plants. The king of the tank was a huge red arowana, which drifted lazily in the water and eyeballed everyone with suspicion.

“Surely he has to take that off at dinner,” Hope said. Her voice had a faint tinny sound, nearly drowned out by the chatter in the room. The opposite wall had been folded back to open into the vast garden, and Jimmy and Scott were surrounded by relatives before the view, having tea on antique furniture. “How’re the boys holding up?”

“They’re keeping.” Jimmy was visibly tense, but Scott was grinning as he fended off a pointed interrogation from some distant aunt of Jimmy’s, a no-nonsense older woman in a bright orange hijab. Melinda vaguely recognised her—she was the head of some sovereign fund in Southeast Asia. The bride was nowhere to be seen.

“Jordan’s being driven to the house.” Phil paused. “Residence. Castle.”

“Let’s just stick to ‘Residence’,” Hope said, and chuckled. “Man. My father’s a billionaire. My great-grandchildren are going to be born wealthy. But I didn’t think it was possible to live like this. Maybe we don’t have enough imagination.”

“Jimmy had this theory that most of your father’s resources are sunk into trying to get Janet van Dyne back.”

Hope paused for a long moment. “Yeah. Lifelong obsession.”

“How’s that going?”

“He hasn’t made much headway. Not even when he finally let me into the project,” Hope said. There was a faint edge to her voice.

“Let me guess. He tried to keep it from you.” A bubble of laughter rose around Scott. He was smiling sheepishly, his head ducked to a side. Even the interrogator-aunt was laughing. “Until a stranger arrived and somehow patched things up.”

“Scott is supernaturally good with people,” Hope said wryly. “Hell, I think if Scott ever went to jail he’d probably be one of those people who’d make friends with all the lifers. Anyway. I’ve found Jordan’s room. It’s the fourth from the end of the guest wing. Care package in the suite with his name on it. Bottle of Dom Pérignon Rose, not bad.”

“Location noted,” Phil said. He sounded a little tense. “We have another problem. Jordan’s security. Two of them are a facial match for Roxxon operatives.”

“Dogs of War? Here?” Melinda shot the table a worried look. Jimmy had straightened up, but Scott was busy joking with the aunts, showing them something on his phone. Jimmy was listening in on a one-way connection. Melinda wasn’t sure if Scott was. “The hell are they doing here?” Melinda whispered.

“What dogs?” Hope demanded. She listened as Phil gave a brief description of Khartoum and the CIA agent’s death. “Maybe they’re just a mercenary group that takes a lot of gigs. Including security.”

“Doubtful. I hate coincidences,” Phil muttered.

“Is it going to blow your cover? If they’ve seen Agents May and Woo before,” Hope said.

“These aren’t matches for Khartoum,” Phil said, after a moment’s pause. “But stay sharp. I feel like we’ve missed something. Something isn’t right.”

“I’ll tell you what’s funny about all this,” Hope said. There was a faint buzzing sound like magnified bee’s wings, then it went quiet and her voice grew tinny again. “This wedding.”

“What about it?” Melinda asked.

“Well, not to play to stereotypes, but the groom’s name. I saw it on the care package with Jeanne’s.”

“Nicholas?” Melinda had overheard Jimmy and Scott talking on the beach.

“No, the full name. The surname. Von Doom. Wouldn’t that be considered inauspicious or something?”

“Jeanne just wants to marry a Prince,” Melinda said, though she couldn’t quite understand that herself, “and as much as Latveria’s King, Victor, declared himself King via a military coup, his son Crown Prince Nicholas is still a Prince. And, perhaps more importantly, Prince of a small country in desperate need of foreign investment.”

“Greece has an unmarried Crown Prince and is in desperate need of foreign investment,” Hope said, after a moment’s thought. “Greece has the Parthenon. Latveria has… I don’t even know what its major export is.”

“She probably tried Greece first.” Princess of Greece sounded somewhat more impressive than Princess of a country that most people probably didn’t know existed.

“Declaring yourself King through a military coup is traditional anyway. Isn’t that how all monarchies pretty much start?” Phil said. He sounded impatient with the conversation. “More importantly—” There was a scuffle and a yelp, a faint click. Someone had cut Phil off the general channel.

“Agent Coulson? Agent Coulson! Okay. Hang on. I’m on my way back.” Hope was on the move. Melinda glanced over at Jimmy, who had turned his head to look at her through his peripheral vision. She gave him a slight shake of her head and let herself quietly out of the room. Jimmy could handle himself and his aunts’ security teams were peppered around the room anyway.

“On my way,” Melinda said, once she was outside the drawing room. “Hope, don’t engage. Tell me what you see.”

“I’m still in the ventilation system.”

The corridors were busy with staff doing last-minute checks of the decor. Security staff were stationed unobtrusively in corners. They glanced at her as she passed, studying her face for a moment before looking away. Lots of ex-CIA, ex-FBI people and their ilk from other agencies. Melinda could recognise the breed: after all, she’d grown up seeing them come in and out of her mother’s house as guests.

Up a set of winding stairs to the guest wing. The security staff let her through with another look at her face. Like the staff on the ground floor, they’d probably been given her photo when Jimmy had brought her through as part of his staff. The lavish corridor had a high painted ceiling and a marble floor, the domed roof thick with murals, as though transplanted out of some European cathedral and restored. Melinda’s heels clicked loudly on marble.

“I’m at the suite. I don’t see… wait. There. Agent Coulson’s fine? He’s. Talking to a middle-aged lady in a pantsuit. She’s not holding a gun on him or anything though.”

“Which part of the suite?”

“Away from the windows in the solar. Near the door to Agent Woo’s room.”

Good. Not in view of the entrance. Melinda pressed her thumb to the keypad by the ornate door and there was a faint click. Biometric scan accepted. She opened the door slowly and slipped inside, drawing her gun from her shoulder holster and thumbing the safety. Padding quietly over the carpeted floor, avoiding the windows, she checked behind her. No other hostiles.

Slipping through the entrance room of the suite to the solar, Melinda raised her gun, only to stare. “Mom?”

“Really?” Hope said, incredulous.

Lian May turned away from Phil, her lips pursed. “So you really are here.”

“The hell are you doing here?” Melinda flicked the safety and holstered her gun.

“I told you I consult,” Lian said, with a deep sigh. “In one ear and out the next, I see. Typical.”

“You didn’t tell me you were consulting for who. BOHC?” Melinda demanded.

“No dear. APBC. Imagine my surprise when I saw your photo sent to me in a briefing, attached to their precious son’s ‘security detail’. And I knew Phil would be here too.” Lian sniffed. “So. What’s this all about, then? It’s obviously a S.H.I.E.L.D. op.”

“This is a hell of a coincidence,” Melinda said warily.

Lian chuckled. “Not at all. You think Kim and Margaret Woo don’t keep tabs on their only child? They’re probably the richest helicopter parents in the world. Just because they’re no longer on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s donor board doesn’t mean they’ve washed their hands of their boy. They just shuffled a few specialised consultants with useful contacts onto their staff. Including me.”

Melinda glanced at Phil, who looked visibly resigned. “Well,” Melinda said slowly, “Jimmy really is dating Scott.”

“Yes dear. My clients have known that for some time. Their son’s hardly bothered to be subtle about it.” Lian folded her arms over her chest. “So? What is it, a bust? A sting?” She stared at Phil. “Given I helped you guys cover your ass with the CIA over the shitshow in Khartoum, surely I’m owed a little bit of professional courtesy in return.”

“We’re not here for APBC. Or for Kim and Margaret Woo,” Phil said, after a long pause. “It’s a matter of global security.”

Lian scowled. “Well, what else could it be. You people don’t get off your ass unless shit is already burning down. This is why I told you to join the Company instead,” she told Melinda. “But of course you had to do things your own way. Motherhood is such an ongoing tragedy.”

“Jordan’s settling into his room,” Hope said into the earpiece. She sounded as though she was badly trying to stifle laughter. “Uh, I left you guys to your visitor since it looked like you guys had it under control. I see the laptop bag.”

“If everything goes to plan,” Phil said, in a faintly strangled voice, “the wedding will proceed normally and there will be no disruption to any of the guests. That is the only guarantee that I’m in a position to give.”

Lian looked at Phil and at Melinda in amused disbelief. “What exactly about this wedding is normal?”

“I can’t believe you pretty much told my aunts that we were sneaking off to have sex,” Jimmy said once they were back in his suite, both shocked and awed at once.

“Well, how else were we going to believably leave by ourselves?” Scott asked innocently. He glanced around. No Coulson or May anywhere. Grinning slyly, he advanced on Jimmy, who shot him a narrow-eyed look but held his ground, even when pushed up against the wall beside the large doors.

“Scott,” Jimmy hissed.

“What, you want to make me a liar?” Scott leaned in. Jimmy was way too tense even as Scott kissed him, though he rested his hands tentatively on Scott’s hips. Scott pressed closer and didn’t let up, kissing until Jimmy let out a tiny sound and started to laugh.

“Okay. Okay,” Jimmy whispered, badly trying to stifle his chuckles. “You’re a menace.”

“Even if Hope hadn't called in for backup, you looked like you needed a time out away from your relatives. Who, so far, have been lovely.”

“You don’t mean that.” Jimmy paused. “You do mean that?”

“Well yeah? It’s cool that they care about you this much.”

“They actually don’t, they love gossip.”

“Well, that’s not a nice thing to say. I mean, your Aunt Noor even invited us to her house.” Scott nuzzled Jimmy’s jaw.

“Don’t think she actually meant it.”

“You okay though?” Scott asked, more seriously. “I mean. About learning your parents knew all along and all that.”

“I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I guess. I’m not really.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Now’s not really the time.” Jimmy tipped his chin meaningfully to a side.

Scott looked. An older, petite Asian lady was frowning at them from the doorway to the solar. “If the two of you have quite finished,” she said.

“You’re Agent May’s mum,” Scott guessed. “Really nice to meet you.” He’d heard the chatter over the general channel. Jimmy had been so tense.

“Pleasure’s all yours, I can assure you.” Lian peered at Jimmy, who hastily but politely nudged Scott back a step. She sniffed loudly and ducked away.

“Wow, we pissed her off already? New record,” Scott said.

“She works for my parents. You heard that.” Jimmy brushed a quick peck over Scott’s cheek. “Go get changed. We can’t actually stay in here that long. Jeanne will send people to check on us.”

“Wanna help me get changed?” Scott asked innocently, and laughed when Jimmy sputtered. “Okay, okay. Game face on and all that.”

Once in costume and shrunk within the vent on the back of a flying ant, Scott waved at Hope. She hovered in the air, her gossamer wings whirring behind her as she led them down the vent. “Jordan’s in his room,” Hope said briskly. “He’s been drinking the champagne so I’m guessing he’ll have to use the bathroom soon. Have a couple of ants watching him. Sorry to have to call you out here, there's too much security. Nearly got caught when I tried stealing the briefcase myself. Going to need a distraction.”

“Distraction is my middle name," Scott said cheerfully. "And what, he's already hitting the champagne hard at this time of day?”

“He’s really nervous about something.” Hope sounded tense behind her mask. “And I really doubt it’s the wedding.”

“It’s Darren? Is Darren here or something?”

“Not so far that that we’ve seen, no. We’ve got ants watching most areas in the house and Agent Coulson set something up near the airport.”

“Maybe he’s just tense because everyone out there is either his boss or a shark in his industry.”

Hope shook her head. “You’ve never met bankers like Jordan. They take on maybe ten, twelve very high net worth clients. They aren’t intimidated by the very wealthy. Money alone wouldn’t scare him. Not the normal sort. Like Lian said. Something’s not normal about this wedding.”

“But she didn’t want to elaborate.” Jimmy and Scott had listened to Coulson and May’s futile attempts to interrogate Lian until Jimmy had started looking stressed, at which point Hope had called in for help and Scott had made excuses on their behalf.

“You heard her. Said it was none of our business if we didn’t know about it.”

“Well, Coulson and May—err, Melinda—refused to say anything about our business, so maybe it was quid pro quo?”

“Maybe.” General channel was quiet anyway. Either the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were staying off it or they were just listening in on a one-way. Hope took a sharp turn down a shaft and paused at a vent slat. “Here.”

Scott peeked through. Jordan was pacing the room, drinking champagne. He was starting to weave a little, and he was sweating into his shirt collar, his tie loosened. His security detail was visibly armed—the two at the door had rifles, the one at the window had holstered pistols.

Jordan was talking to himself. Scott couldn’t quite hear what he was saying though. With a gesture, Hope sent a flying ant through a vent, one with a miniature listening device strapped to its thorax. It landed behind Jordan’s suit collar and crawled under it.

Audio on. “—the box. Just give him the box. That’ll be all. Just the box.”

“He’s afraid of something all right,” Scott said, “but what—”

Hope grabbed Scott’s wrist. A sparkly portal opened into the room, disgorging a tall man in a black suit with a deep green shirt. His face was brutally scarred, his skin rubbery and an ugly shade of reddish pink, pitted and striated. Jordan flinched back a step and bowed deeply. “Your Majesty.”

“You have the box.” It was not a question. The tall man had a deep, rich voice, his English spoken with a guttural accent.

“Yes! Yes.” Jordan gestured. Footsteps, and one of the Dogs of War walked over with a locked case. Jordan unlocked it on a table with a thumb scan and pushed the heavy lid open. Within it was a blue stone box.

“You guys seeing this?” Hope whispered. A couple of ants were moving one of Coulson’s spherical spy cams closer to the vent slats.

“That’s the lapis lazuli box,” May said, surprised, “from the Sudan op.”

“And that’s King Victor von Doom.” Coulson sounded grim.

"That silvery ring on his finger with the symbols," Jimmy said.

May grunted. "I see it."

Victor let out an exhalation of relief. He strode over, only for Jordan to close the box. “Delivery on full payment,” Jordan said. His voice shook a little. “Your Majesty.”

“I tolerate many things,” Victor said, after a pointed pause, “but discourtesy is not one of them.”

“Such were my instructions,” Jordan said. Man had balls where money counted.

Victor took a phone from his pocket. He unlocked it and tapped at the screen. “Payment has been made. Tell Cross that I’ll also be glad to invest in his technology. And I will soon have the resources to help him take Pym Technologies private. When he regains control of it, of course.”

Hope blinked. “Private?” Jimmy said over the general channel, surprised. “Jeanne doesn’t have that much money. Even if she liquidated all her family’s assets. Given what Pym Technologies is worth, it’ll be the biggest corporate buyout ever.”

“Why would Cross want to do that?” Coulson asked.

“Frees up the company from media and investor scrutiny,” Melinda said grimly. “Though yeah. I don’t see how he can do that just by marrying his son to Jeanne. By all reports, Latveria is an impoverished country.”

“I’ll let him know. Thank you, your Majesty.” Jordan reopened the box. Victor picked up the lapis lazuli box with reverent fingers, setting it down beside the case.

“Has anyone tried to open this?” Victor asked.

“We understand that it’s possible that—”

“Has. Anyone.”

Jordan hastily shook his head. “The box is tightly sealed. We… we suspected, perhaps it was a puzzle box of sorts—”

Victor chuckled. He turned the box over, tracing faded glyphs cut into its base around a faded eye. “The ancient Egyptians believed that lapis lazuli was sacred. A ward against evil. And yet consider this box. Solid lapis lazuli, with no ornamentation other than these glyphs and this eye.”

“I’m not an expert by any means, your Majesty, and bow to your greater knowledge,” Jordan said.

That was laying it on a bit thick. Victor appeared appeased. He smiled, skewing his ruined face, and made a complicated gesture over the box. A dull red glow spun outwards from his hands, easing into the box. It made a grating, keening sound but didn’t open. Victor scowled. He spun a bright yellow light from his hands and folded it into the box, more and more of it, until the box was moaning, the table quaking beneath it. With a hoarse gasp and a violent jerk, it sprang open.

Something within it flicked out. Victor’s hand jerked up on instinct. The silver dart glanced off his arm and buried itself high in Jordan’s shoulder. Victor had been wearing some sort of silvery armour under his suit. Jordan yelped, staggering back in surprise. He pulled the dart from his shoulder. “That’s a… ugh…” Jordan started coughing, hacking at first, then harder, until he sounded like he was trying to cough his lungs out from his chest. He slumped against the wall, clawing at his throat. One of the Dogs of War started to kneel by him, but at a gesture from Victor, straightened back up.

“Drag him through the portal,” Victor said, distracted. He tapped a message to someone his phone and the portal reopened.

It took two Dogs to haul a convulsing, choking Jordan through, chained briefcase and all. Victor didn’t even look. He was reaching carefully into the box. The interior of the box was bright with gold inlay, densely tiled with eye patterns. All of which would have looked inward at a surprisingly ordinary-looking gunmetal mask, with slots for eyes and the mouth. Victor smiled savagely. He started to raise the mask to his face.

Hope shot through the vent slat. She fired her stinger at Victor’s wrist once she got within range. Victor yelped, dropping the mask in his shock. Hope tossed a disk onto the mask and shrunk it down, grabbing it as it dropped and speeding towards the window.

Victor snarled. With a sharp gesture, Hope froze in place just over the windowsill, surrounded by pale light. “Who dares—” Victor began, only for Scott to pop into normal size right before him and throw a punch.

The amplified kinetic energy tossed Victor into the portal, right into the startled Dogs dragging Jordan’s body. Hope fled through the window just as Scott zipped back down and onto a flying ant. Dogs of War crowded the windows, looking around frantically, but Hope and Scott were already overhead, darting back into the building via a roof vent. Once safely within, they landed, catching their breath.

“Well done,” Coulson said. Scott flinched violently—he’d forgotten about the others listening in.

“Shit,” Scott said, turning to Hope. “You’re awesome.” Hope didn’t answer. She was staring at the face of the mask, mesmerised. “Yeah, creepy isn’t it?”

Hope didn’t respond. Scott waited for a while. “Hope. Hope?” Scott shook Hope by the shoulder. It was like shaking a doll for all she noticed. “What the hell?”

“What happened now?” May asked sharply.

“I don’t know! Hope stared at the mask and now she’s… Hope! Hey.” Scott grabbed the mask from Hope and jerked it out of her hands. Instantly she collapsed, eyes still open wide and staring at nothing. Heart pounding, Scott felt for a pulse. Steady. “Hope.” Scott tried shaking her again. Nothing. “Wake up. Hope!”

“…Wrap that thing up in something,” Coulson said, “and get Ms van Dyne back here.”

Chapter Text

Hope didn’t stir even after judicious shaking, water being splashed on her face, or smelling salts. She was lying on the bed in one of the adjoining rooms in the suite, her helmet set aside. Pulse was steady. Melinda checked her eyes with a torch as Scott hovered nearby and wrung his hands anxiously. He’d carried Hope back to the suite and adjusted them back to their normal size, a process that Melinda still found visually confronting.

“What’s wrong with her?” Scott kept asking anxiously.

“Magic artifacts, my favourite,” Lian said sourly. She was sitting by the window, occasionally checking her phone. Jimmy gave Scott a worried look.

“Scott, you should change.”

“Change?” Scott said, incredulous. “My friend’s catatonic for Gods know what reason, your cousin’s marrying the son of a legit Disney-esque villain, I’m pretty sure I just saw some guy die, and we still have a fucking cursed mask on our hands and you want to go back out there and pretend nothing’s wrong?”

Jimmy set his jaw. “Actually, yes.”

“There’s no more mission. Jordan got dragged through the portal to somewhere. No more laptop. You guys wanted evidence Darren’s mixed up in all this, you’ve already heard it. He’s in league with Evil King Scar.” Scott let out a hoarse laugh, rubbing his hand over his face. “Can’t believe that even just came out of my mouth. How is this real life?”

Melinda glanced up at Jimmy pointedly. Jimmy got the hint—he tried to grab Scott by the elbow. When Scott jerked back, Jimmy said, “A word?”

“No. There’s nothing you need to say to me right now. I’m going back into the vent to check around Jordan’s room.”

“According to the camera Hope left in the vent, the room’s been vacated,” Melinda said firmly. “We’ll get Hope transferred aboard the helicarrier for observation and treatment.”

“This is a magic thing, isn’t it? Aren’t we like knee-deep in wizards?” Scott looked desperately towards Lian. “Can’t you get your pocket teleporter to come in and do their thing? Cast Dispel Magic or whatever on Hope?”

“This is what happens when you get civilians involved,” Lian told Melinda disapprovingly. “In my day, ops were agents only. Civilians tend to go to pieces. Very messy and depressing.”

Scott took in a deep breath. Jimmy got hold of his arm this time, hauling him off to the closest room and pushing the door shut with his foot. There was an immediate argument off the general channel, muffled through the door. Melinda looked at Phil, who nodded. “She’s cleared for evac. Ma’am, if we could get a portal back to San Francisco, that’ll be much appreciated. Fury also wants the item brought to the helicarrier for analysis. I’ll take it and accompany Hope.”

“Yes, yes. Young agents nowadays. Always have an exit strategy of your own, that’s what I used to teach kids at the Company. What would either of you have done if I wasn’t here? But does anyone listen? No. James Bond has so much to answer for.” Lian sent a message on her phone. “Ready?”

“Sec.” Melinda walked over to the closed door, knocking on it. There was a pause. Jimmy opened the door. “We’re sending Hope back to San Francisco,” Melinda told them. “Scott, do you want to go with her?”

Scott glanced at Jimmy, his expression tight with worry and frustration. “Nah. I’ll stay. Um. I’ll call Hank though. It’s his daughter. Give him a heads up.”

“Sure. Go ahead. We can drop Hope off anywhere in San Francisco. Pym’s house even, if he prefers. He can accompany her for evac to the helicarrier where she’d be examined by our specialists, or he can choose to check her into a hospital. His choice as next of kin,” Melinda said, keeping her tone as neutral as possible.

Scott still looked visibly pained. “Give me a moment.” He walked off to the main bedroom of the suite to look for his phone. Melinda gave Jimmy a significant stare.

“Under control,” Jimmy said, though he looked tired.

“Hell you say,” Lian said from the window. “As it stands, I’m not going to be able to recommend that my clients attend the wedding.”

“My parents can do what they like,” Jimmy said, curt. “That’s what they’ve always done anyway.”

Lian smiled, sharply amused. “I’ve talked to you about babying men,” she told Melinda. “See what I mean?”

“No,” Melinda said, even as Phil started to give a credible impression of melting into the background, shuffling close to the drapes.

“It’s a fault of Asian parenting, perhaps. We ruin our children in many ways. Trying to compensate for the things we lack in ourselves, our lives, or our time. Then you get ruined further by the places you live in.” Lian pursed her lips. “A cultural fault, maybe.”

“Doesn’t matter whether the Woos attend the wedding,” Melinda said, trying to be patient. “Hell, if the wedding can get called off or delayed, all the better.”

Lian gave her an unimpressed look. “The amount of face that’d be lost because of that will be unacceptable. Especially to Jeanne Wong. Please. And of course it’ll matter whether the Woos get spooked. The others will investigate. Then you’d have private security all over your op, which I can assure you from personal experience is very uncomfortable.”

“So what do you suggest?” Jimmy asked flatly. “We confiscate your phone? I call my parents and ask them to come? I don’t want to put them in danger either.”

“Hmm, we’ll see,” Lian said, irritatingly enough. “There’s still time.”

Scott came back into the room, already changed out of his suit. “Hank says to get her to his house and send someone over for usual evac,” Scott said. He sounded unhappy about it. “Need a photo?” he asked Lian.

“You can see Hank Pym’s house via Google Earth, so. No.” Lian sent another text.

A sparkly portal opened after a few minutes, and a slender cowled woman in loose-fitting robes stepped through. She gave Lian an inquisitive glance as the portal closed behind her, then stepped over to inspect Hope, pressing brown fingers to her throat. The sorcerer said something to Lian, who nodded. Sparks circled around the sorcerer’s wrists as she opened another portal, right into Pym’s garden. There was a pause as Hank stepped into view, pale and tight-lipped as he looked at the sleeping form of his daughter.

Scott carried Hope carefully through the portal and into the house after Hank, with Phil on their heels. After a few minutes, Scott emerged and walked back through alone. “Hank’s really pissed,” Scott said.

“Understandably,” Melinda said. She paused as the sorcerer said something else—in Tibetan?—before nodding to them all and opening a separate portal to a gray room, disappearing through into it and closing the portal after her.

“She said it’s just a sleep hex,” Lian said, folding her arms. “Hope should wake up in a day or so.”

“Should?” Scott repeated. “Can’t she remove the ‘hex’?”

“Dispelling hexes isn’t like finding the right wire to cut on a bomb. Same result though. Cut the wrong wire and—” Lian clapped her hands sharply together. Scott flinched back a step. “Can be very messy.”

“If she doesn’t wake after a day, S.H.I.E.L.D. has contacts in Kamar-Taj. They can get a specialist,” Melinda said, patting Scott’s arm reassuringly.

“Right. Okay.” Scott didn’t look soothed. “Now what? More performative socialising? I mean, I’ll try. But I’m really kinda out of sorts right now. Don’t think I’ll be any good.”

“No need for that right now,” Jimmy said. He looked tired. “Try to rest for a bit. In the meantime, I’m going to have a talk with my family.”

Jeanne had been in the middle of having her hair done, and was clearly annoyed that Jimmy was there. “This can’t wait?” Jeanne asked. The large stylist staff had been had been briefly packed out of the sprawling suite to a side room somewhere, tutting and eyeballing Jimmy as they went. Only Jeanne’s security remained, dotting the windows and doors.

“No,” Jimmy said.

“Oh, all right. Sit down. Over there.” Jeanne stalked over to the divan facing the wide windows that opened out towards the ocean. There was a fine breeze, light with salt. Jimmy sat on the divan beside Jeanne, his hands clasped over his lap. She was folded into a silk bathrobe in shards of orange and turquoise, her hair bound up and held in place by clips. “Don’t tell me. You broke up with Scott.”

“What? No!”

Jeanne wrinkled her nose. “He broke up with you? Because that would only fucking figure, and it’d be your own damned fault for letting the aunties loose on him. I’ve never let them near Nicholas for a good reason.”

Jimmy stared at her soberly. “It’s about Nicholas, actually.”

This got him an eye-roll. “Okay. Here it comes, I should’ve known. Are you gonna lecture me about using my resources to marry a Prince? You and your goddamned holier-than-thou attitude. I’ve never fucking met anyone who thought he was too good for money. How big is the stick in your ass? I bet you’re one of those socialists with ‘fuck the bourgeoisie’ tattooed somewhere on your body.”

“Jeanne.”

Jeanne grabbed Jimmy’s palm, leaning forward a fraction. “Look. There is really. Nothing wrong. With being born into a family that’s richer than God, okay? I’ve never understood what your problem with that was. We’re lucky, great. People who aren’t that lucky? Shit, too bad. Why shouldn’t we have fun? Oh, people are dying of hunger somewhere? Well, why is that our problem?”

Jimmy took in a deep breath. “I don’t want to talk about that,” he said flatly.

“Every country in the world’s fucked up in some way. But I think your parents should’ve had you grow up like me. In Singapore, Hong Kong, one of the countries where us Chinese are in the majority. A lot of you who grow up in places like America internalise a lot of self-loathing. Think that’s part of your problem. Which, fine, it’s your problem. Why does it have to be ours?”

“Calm down, okay? I don’t want to have that argument again.”

“Fuck you. Wonder why you got selected for the FBI right out of law school when the median age for selection is what, people in their thirties with prior relevant experience. Could it be that someone called in a favour from a friend? Someone who then mentored you through the Academy and arranged for you to be put into your choice of placement? Hmm, I wonder.”

Jimmy dug his nails briefly into his palms. He’d forgotten how much patience was required to deal with certain members of his family. “I know. And I’m thankful for your help.”

“I didn’t do it for you. If I hadn’t done it, we’d have ended up married years ago. Spent the rest of our lives probably despising each other and re-traumatising a new generation of kids.”

“I’m still grateful.”

“So what’s your problem with Nicholas? Is it because he’s younger than me? Men marry women who are far younger than them all the time and it doesn’t ever pass notice. Besides. How many of our cousins are in political open marriages? Sara’s latest boy toy is ten years younger than her. A college kid.” Jeanne paused for a moment. “Incredibly handsome though, I’ll give him that. Can’t really say the same about your Scott.”

“Aren’t you concerned about how Nicholas’ father even became King in the first place?” Jimmy asked.

“Oh, is that it?” Jeanne’s lip curled. “Yeah, fucking right. If you cared that much shouldn’t you have said something when I announced the engagement? Or did you even fucking read that? Excuse me if I’m suspicious that you’re raising this a day before the wedding.”

“Okay. Yes. I wasn’t originally planning on coming to the wedding, all right? So I didn’t really pay that much attention to the original RSVP. And I’m sorry. Despite our differences, we did grow up together. You helped me out at a time in my life when I had no one else to turn to. I really am grateful. I should’ve been more mindful about that.”

Jeanne stared at Jimmy for a long moment. She smiled, patting his knuckles. “I’m not ignorant, Jimmy.”

“I didn’t say that you were.”

“You’re implying it. You think I’d have gotten into this marriage without first doing a complete background check on Nicholas and his family? Come on. You don’t need to be someone of our resources to know what Victor did in Latveria. You just need access to Google. We know, all right? Hell, I know things about them that never made it into the CIA’s reports. But so what? Bloodshed’s in the history of every royal bloodline. What’s different about von Doom? Just because it’s newer?”

“And you’re okay with that?” Jimmy asked, incredulous.

Jeanne curled her lip into a silent snarl. “There you go again. Does it make you feel like you’re a better person? To judge your own family by your tedious little moral code?”

“Don’t you think it’s evil? The combined wealth of everyone currently on this island, it’s larger than some actual countries. I just. I’ve always found it unbelievable. We could reach out and feed everyone on Earth. But we don’t.” Jimmy looked away, taking in a slow breath. He’d allowed himself to be baited. He could see Jeanne smirking at him in his peripheral vision, malicious and amused. Jimmy loved his family, even the difficult people—it was impossible not to, complicated as family was. He just sometimes also hated them a little. “I really didn’t come here to lecture you,” Jimmy said.

“I know. But you can’t help yourself. It’s hilarious. Poor people want to be rich. Fact of life. Just look at Hollywood. They’d make films about people like us. I’m funding one right now. You think it’ll spur any kinda nuanced discussion about wealth distribution? On the contrary. The plebs will attack anyone who dares to have a critical opinion. I find humans funny. Even you.” Jeanne patted Jimmy’s knuckles.

“At least you’re not building rocket ships or weaponised suits,” Jimmy muttered.

Jeanne laughed. “Building phallic displays of wealth really isn’t my style.”

“But buying a crown is?”

“Why not? Latveria’s not so bad. Some parts of it are very pretty. And since its royalty is new, it’s modern enough. None of that ceremonial protocol shit. If I married Prince Harry I would’ve been climbing the fucking walls in days.”

“There’s Greece. Denmark. Monaco.”

“If I married into any of those, I’d just be yet another babymaker. Pop out a Prince or a Princess, smile and wave to the crowd. I’m not in this to be a Barbie doll with a crown. I want to be Princess and have that actually mean something. And someday, the Queen.”

“You think you’d get that with Latveria?” Jimmy shot back. “Jeanne, Victor’s up to something. He’s in this for your wealth. Maybe not even just yours. I’ve got information that he’s planning on backing a large financial buyout that he can’t possibly afford, not even with all of your assets. I’m worried about you.”

Jeanne’s smile faded. “What?”

“I really am dating Scott. But I’m here not as a… I’m not here to make a public statement about it. Besides, it turns out that my parents already knew all along anyway. I’m here as part of an investigation.”

“About von Doom?”

“About rogue technology, actually, but Victor did intersect unexpectedly. He’s now a definite person of interest in the investigation. A possible prime suspect, in fact. I’m telling you this in confidence. Because you’re family,” Jimmy said quietly. “And despite what you think, it still matters to me. You still matter to me.”

Jeanne looked out towards the ocean, lips pressed into a thin line. “And you have evidence?”

“A recording. Victor was just here. Through a portal. He didn’t leave with what he wanted, but I don’t doubt he still has a plan. Look,” Jimmy said slowly, as Jeanne twisted her hands in her lap, “it’s really not too late to just postpone the wedding. If only for a few days. Maybe Nicholas had nothing to do with it. Once I clear things on my end—”

“This thing that Victor wanted. What was it?”

“An artifact.”

“And where is it now?”

“Someplace safe. Off the island, don’t worry. Jeanne, give me time.”

Jeanne shook her head slowly. She got to her feet, walking over to the window and clasping her hands behind her. “You always think you fucking know everything. That’s the thing I couldn’t stand most about you.”

Something stabbed into his neck—a syringe? Jimmy flinched, twisting in his seat—or tried to. Jeanne’s head of security, Alina, caught him in an efficient arm lock as she depressed the syringe. “Jeanne!”

Jeanne turned around, her smile sharp. “This gives me no pleasure. Or. I wish I could say that, but frankly, it kinda does. You were always a pain in the ass, cousin. And you should never have come poking your nose into my business.” She glanced up at Alina. “Call Victor. I’m sure he’d be pleased to have something he can bargain with S.H.I.E.L.D. for, if it’s the mask that he lost. And tell him. No more fuckups until the wedding, all right?” Jeanne pursed her lips, her voice fading farther and farther away, the world going dark. “Maybe in nicer words. He is, after all, going to be my father-in-law.”

Chapter Text

“That’s weird,” May said. She was sitting at her laptop in the suite, flicking through video feeds from the cameras Hope had seeded around the vents. “Jeanne and her security just came out of her suite. No Jimmy.”

“What do you mean, no Jimmy?” Scott asked sharply. He hurried over to look at her laptop. Jeanne was in a sleek black dress, her newly coiffed hair caught in ringlets over her throat, surrounded by a bubble of security.

“They’re heading to the guest wing,” May said. On screen, more and more security staff were peeling away ahead of Alina, joining the bubble.

“Well, that’s fucking torn it.” Lian was peering at the laptop next to Scott. At his startled stare, she sniffed. “Doesn’t that look suspicious to you? They’re coming here. Mob-handed. And Jimmy Woo’s missing? Fantastic.”

“Jimmy switched off the general channel when he entered the suite.” May opened up another tab, keying in a personal identification code, then pressing her thumb to a little biometric pad beneath the keyboard. A screen of what looked like medical data came up, beside a small picture of Jimmy and his key information. Blood type. Age. “He’s unconscious, according to his S.H.I.E.L.D. implant.”

“What?” Scott started for the closest door, intending to change into the Ant-Man suit. May grabbed his elbow and glanced at Lian.

“Fine,” Lian said, with a scowl. “You can both hitch a ride. To mine.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Scott said, trying to pull his arm out of May’s grip. “If Jimmy’s in trouble I’m not leaving. Can you trace the implant? Is he still in Jeanne’s room?”

May checked the data. “He’s… no longer in the country.”

Scott set his jaw. “Right. I’m going to change into the suit and take a look.”

“Oh, don’t be difficult. We can pop back onto the island anytime. While we have to leave right now,” Lian said. She tapped a code onto her phone. A portal opened just as the door beyond the solar was loudly kicked open. They ducked through with May’s gear just as people started to shout and point, the portal closing behind them with seconds to spare.

Scott let out a harsh gasp. The suit felt heavy in his shirt pocket, and he was dizzy with disbelief. First Hope, then Jimmy? What the hell was happening? The hell was… and was that a fucking horse? Scott rubbed his eyes and pinched his arm. Nope. Life was still a surrealist nightmare.

The horse in question looked like it had been dipped in gold from nose to streaming tail. It stared at Scott with gentle suspicion from the edge of a manicured football-court sized lawn lined with beautiful hedges, lawn chairs, a pool of koi, flowers. A white fin lined with glass windows rose out from behind the lawn, hemmed in by the sky. Which was all around them. Scott turned a slow circle. Walked stiffly to the side and looked down.

They were on a goddamned ship. It swept down from the lawn in elegant lines, white-flanked and streamlined, cutting through the endless ocean. The deck below held a pool, empty of people, shaded by lush flowering trees. Someone in black livery was busy sieving leaves out of the pool.

“What. The motherfucking hell,” Scott said.

Lian tutted. “You see? Pieces,” she told May. The sorcerer who’d opened the way stood to a side, indifferent. “Yes, it’s a yacht. Rich people have these things.” Lian checked her phone, scowling. “I’ve been summoned to talk to my boss. The two of you can sit around here somewhere in the meantime while I do a debrief. Don’t feed the horse.” The sorcerer opened another portal, and they both stepped through.

Scott stared at May, who studied him for a moment. “Deep breaths,” she suggested, not unkindly.

“Is this just a normal day for you?” Scott asked, in a strangled voice.

“Sometimes.” May started to walk towards the white pavilion by the koi pool, its lattice threaded through with sweet-smelling flowers. The horse snorted loudly, backing off and tossing its mane. It was the most beautiful animal Scott had ever seen, which made the situation even more disorienting. He was still staring at it as he sat on an embroidered cushion in the pavilion. May followed his stare. “Akhal-Teke.”

“What?”

“That horse. It’s an Akhal-Teke. One of the oldest and purest horse breeds. They’re called 天马 in Chinese, the divine horses.”

“Why is it so shiny?” The horse was trotting over, pausing every few seconds to reconsider its life decisions.

“It’s just how the breed is.” May reached out her hand. The horse ignored the gesture, snorting loudly. It startled back a step when May opened her laptop. The feed on it was frozen.

“No reception in the ocean?” Scott checked his phone.

“Not normally a problem. I’m guessing it’s a local jammer somewhere. For unauthorised devices.” May closed her laptop and set it aside. She closed her eyes and breathed out slowly. In and out.

“We shouldn’t have run,” Scott said. He twisted his hands into the cushion. “I shouldn’t have run. I could’ve taken on Jeanne’s security. Made them tell me where Jimmy is. Now we’re stuck here and… and Jimmy is Gods know where, Hope is hexed, whatever that means, and—”

“Breathe,” May said, without opening her eyes. “Freaking out isn’t going to help anyone.”

“I’m not freaking out. I’m. She won’t hurt Jimmy would she? They’re family. What the hell even happened? Was she in league with von Doom all along? I should’ve gone with Jimmy to talk to her.”

“Mm, and what could you have done, out of your suit?”

“I could’ve been in the suit. In his pocket.” Scott pressed his face in his palms. “Jesus. What a trash fire.”

“Breathe.”

“I can’t. I mean. What if he’s dead?”

“Then there’s nothing we can do about that.”

Scott glowered at her. “You’re too fucking calm about this. Isn’t he your subordinate?”

“He’s a fully trained agent,” May said. She opened her eyes at the sound of a portal flickering open. Lian walked through, along with the sorcerer and a handful of security.

Behind them was a tall and imperious Asian woman, her hair tightly bunned, her delicate features made only more graceful by age. She was wearing a teal silk jacket and a rich red ankle-length skirt, both thickly embroidered with gold and silver thread, studded with seed pearls and gems. Her feet were sheathed in elaborately beaded slippers and loops of jade were hung around her wrists. The woman stared at May for a brief moment before studying Scott with considerably more curiosity.

“This is Margaret Woo,” Lian said.

Shit. Jimmy’s mom? Scott shot to his feet, holding out his hand. “Hi. Real pleased to meet you, ma’am. I’m Scott.”

Margaret stared at Scott’s hand until he dropped it. “I know who you are,” she said, neutral.

“Uhm. About Jimmy—”

“Be quiet,” Margaret said. She looked over at May, who had also risen to her feet. “I’ve heard good things about you, Agent May.”

“Too kind,” May said, in the same neutral tone.

“I confess I’m very disappointed about how things have turned out.”

“That’s fair.”

“Jeanne hasn’t lost time putting forward her demands. Once she realized all of you had flown the coop, I presume. In exchange for Jimmy, Jeanne wants S.H.I.E.L.D. to hand over the mask. And she wants Kim and I to attend the wedding.”

“I’m not in a position to negotiate on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” May said.

“I know. I don’t expect you to. The Director has been stubborn on this point, but S.H.I.E.L.D. is under the command of fifteen people, whose identities Fury is not aware of. I am. They will soon instruct Fury to make the necessary exchange in Latveria, or wherever Victor von Doom wishes. I would like you to be on that team,” Margaret said, in the same flat tone.

“Me?” May said, surprised. “Yes, of course I’ll push for that. But I don’t have powers, or whatever you might think.”

“I’m aware of that. I think I’m a fair judge of character and I have a good feeling about you. Whatever happens in Latveria, I want my son back. Alive. I don’t care what has to be done.” Margaret stared evenly at May, who straightened up. “Any… difficulties… that may ensue in the process can be smoothed over.”

“I understand,” May said.

“And I would be extremely disappointed if a mere artifact was prioritised over the life of my son.”

“I don’t prioritise inanimate objects over people’s lives.”

Margaret stared at May for a long moment. She nodded. “Good. Until Fury sees reason, you are a welcome guest. Lian, feel free to show Melinda around. Particularly with regards to all the documentation that we have on Latveria.”

Lian nodded. “Come on then,” she said.

“Wait,” Scott took a step over. “I’ll like to be on your team.”

May gave him an unsettlingly sympathetic look, even as Margaret said coldly, “I’d like to speak to you separately, Mister Lang.”

Ouch. May picked up her laptop and followed Lian through a portal that opened into a room that looked like a more luxurious version of the stateroom aboard the helicarrier. After the portal closed behind them, Margaret said, “I do believe that you genuinely weren’t aware of Jimmy’s family background.”

“Well no,” Scott said, with a helpless gesture at the garden around them, at the honest-to-Gods horse. “This is all kinda hard to take in, to be honest.”

“And what do you think about it?”

“Jimmy doesn’t seem comfortable with his family’s wealth. Uh. Your wealth.”

“Pay attention, Mister Lang. I didn’t ask you about Jimmy’s opinion, of which I am already well aware. I’m asking about yours.”

“Uh.” Scott had the sinking feeling that he was only digging his own grave, but before Margaret’s unblinking sphinx-like stare he couldn’t help himself. “I guess some of it feels a bit much to me? Castle on an island? Uhm. But I think. That’s your business. It’s your money.”

“Obviously. How trite,” Margaret said, with elegant disdain. “I’ll be frank with you, Mister Lang. Personally, from reports, I believe you're a genuinely nice, if mediocre, person. You don’t strike me as a gold digger, though I’ve been wrong before.”

Scott scowled. “I’m not interested in a cent of Jimmy’s money. I’m doing fine by myself.”

“And I believe you,” Margaret said, “which is why I’m bothering to talk to you in the first place. You’ve known Jimmy for what, a few months? Not very long at all, wouldn’t you think? You didn’t know about us. Or about his work. Or, I warrant, about the way family is with our people.”

“You mean, the bit where his cousin kidnapped him for ransom?” Scott asked dryly.

Margaret wrinkled her nose. “Jeanne has always been headstrong. Too headstrong for her own good. Without her influence, Jimmy would never have run off to the FBI. I’ve always told Kim that matching Jimmy to Jeanne was a mistake.”

“… Because Jimmy happens to be gay?” Scott pointed out, with a sharp smile.

“Marriage is less of a social contract among people like us and more of a political contract, in which individual preferences can be catered to but are not the beginning and the end of all things,” Margaret said evenly. “Jeanne’s mother, for example, is a lesbian. She’s been out since she was twelve. Open marriage. She’s on good terms with her husband but they have their own lovers. Jeanne was conceived with the husband as a donor, and BOHC consolidated a very favourable arrangement in Hong Kong.”

“Sounds like a sad way to live,” Scott said.

“How many marriages last the test of time nowadays? Precious few, and for good reason. Contracts formed on emotion and ‘romance’ often fail. People fall out of love all the time. But I’m not here to debate social contracts with you. The fact remains that you are inconvenient, Mister Lang.”

“So what,” Scott said, now rather regretting that the suit was in his pocket, “you’re going to throw me overboard?”

Margaret pursed her lips. “Believe me, it’s tempting. No. You’ve given me no reason to believe that you might be an enemy. Let me instead lay things out plainly for you. No matter what Jimmy might have said to you before, at the very end, family will matter far more to him than you think. I can’t explain how important family is to people like us to you because you people often don’t culturally have the context to understand it.”

“Jimmy seems to have done fine living by himself so far. Didn’t even want to come back to the fold until a mission called for it. Which I think is kinda sad. I like the people I’ve met.”

“You’ll see,” Margaret said, narrowing her eyes. “Sooner or later, what you have with Jimmy won’t last. Complicated and difficult to explain as it is to an outsider, family is the most important part of who we are. Jimmy understands that. You don’t.”

Scott bit down on a sigh. “I’d like to try.”

Margaret was unimpressed. “Name your price.”

“What?”

“To walk away from whatever you have with Jimmy. After this, if you prefer. When things are resolved. How much do you want? We can have the money wired to an account of your choice. Anywhere in the world.”

Scott flushed angrily. “You can’t buy me off. What the hell? I’m not interested in your money.”

“You’d be able to retire comfortably. No further need to be someone’s glorified secretary.”

“And you think that’s what I want out of life? Come on.” Scott clenched his hands tightly into fists. “I don’t want money. If someday Jimmy decides he wants to call it quits? Fine. That’s up to him and I’ll respect that. I don’t know why you’re even bothering to go to this kinda trouble. Jimmy’s in his thirties. He’s not a kid. Isn’t making decisions on his behalf at this point kinda infantilising?”

Margaret smiled thinly. “Very well. If you’re hell-bent on being difficult, then I won’t waste my breath. I assure you that I’ll personally ensure that you regret not taking me up on my offer. Inform Tenzin here when you’re ready to leave. She’ll send you back to San Francisco.” She nodded at the sorcerer, who opened a path into a different part of the ship, waiting for Margaret and her security to step through before closing it.

Scott sat heavily down on the bench, breathing hard. Tenzin offered him a blank stare, folding her hands behind her back. When Scott felt a little more under control, he said, “I’ll like to talk to Agent May.” When Tenzin said nothing, Scott hesitated. “Oh. Um. You don’t speak English? I’ll. Try to get some help.”

As he scanned the garden for staff, Tenzin said in very dry, crisp voice, “I speak English.”

Scott's ears burned. “Right! Sorry. For assuming. Can you send me to Agent May’s room? Cabin. Really sorry.”

“My instructions were to send you back to San Francisco, Mister Lang.”

“I don’t want to go back to San Francisco. I want in on whatever they’re going to do to rescue Jimmy. I—” Scott pulled in a deep breath. Getting angry at the staff wasn’t going to help. “Sorry. Okay. I don’t want you to get in trouble either. I’ll walk.” He got up and started picking his way over the lawn.

“2F,” Tenzin said.

Scott turned. “Sorry?”

“The war room. It’s on 2F. At the prow.” Tenzin inclined her head. “When you’re ready to go back to San Francisco, speak to me. Until then, I don’t have any further instructions.” She offered him a faint smile.

“Right. Thanks.”

There weren’t any security restrictions in the lifts he found right outside the garden, though Scott changed back into the Ant-Man suit in a bathroom anyway. He didn’t run into anyone on his way to the war room, and got in through the vent. When he popped back to a normal size near May, she didn’t even give him a second glance. “Well, you took your time,” May said.

“That superhero suit’s remarkably ugly even in my experience of ugly superhero suits.” Lian wrinkled her nose.

“I’ll let Hank know,” Scott said, pulling off his helmet.

May looked at him soberly. “Are you all right?”

“Doubt he is.” Lian sniffed. “Got the roasting of his life, I’d bet. Didn’t take the money, did you?”

Scott scowled. “No! Wait. How’d you know she offered me money?”

“They think every person has their price. And they’re usually right. Pity. You could’ve just split it with Jimmy afterward, that would've been funny.” Lian looked back down at surveillance photos of some sort of castle. “Invest it in bitcoin or whatever’s trendy right now.”

Scott swallowed his exasperation. There was no point getting angry at Lian either. “I want in on the operation,” he told May.

“Sure.”

Scott blinked. “Really?”

“I’d prefer Miss van Dyne, but she’s out for the count. Hank Pym is unmanageable, according to all reports. Which leaves you, as the remaining person familiar with Pym Tech. Darren Cross is still on the loose and we might be facing more Pym Tech in Castle Doom.”

Scott opened his mouth, closed it, then opened his mouth again. “Castle Doom.”

“That’s right.” May kept a completely straight face.

“That’s its actual fucking name.”

“Castle Doomstadt, actually,” Lian muttered. “Previously Castle Latveria.”

“That doesn’t even make it any better. Holy shit. How is it nobody thought that maybe, just maybe, some guy who overthrew a country and then renamed a castle Doomstadt was possibly not in full possession of his marbles?”

“Von Doom is his actual surname,” May said, though she cracked a faint smile. “I wouldn’t judge him just based on that.”

“If this was a comic book I’d accuse the creators of lazy writing, is what.” Scott took in a few more breaths. Jokes made things easier to process. He looked down at the surveillance photos. “Do we have a plan?”

Chapter Text

Jimmy woke into the dark with a splitting headache. For a panicked moment, he thought he’d been blinded, until his eyes adjusted to the gloom. He was in a stone cell with a narrow window that he’d have to jump to reach. The cell wasn’t big, with a cot at one end, a sink and a toilet at the other, and a heavy barred door. Beyond the walls was an unearthly sound, a thready chorus of whimpers and pained groans.

Prison. Where? It took a few attempts for Jimmy to scramble up to the window. He fell once, nearly braining himself against the cot. Wincing and balancing a foot on the toilet, Jimmy managed to haul himself up to the window and peer through. He was looking down over a vast forest, thick with firs under the moonless sky. The air tasted crisp. Nothing else in sight.

Latveria, if Jimmy had to guess. He let himself down from the window, sitting on the cot and gingerly touching the spot where he’d been injected. It stung faintly. Rubbing his face with a low groan, Jimmy fought nausea and self-loathing. He’d been reckless. Worse, he’d been unprepared.

Jimmy performed a few breathing exercises until he was calm again. Inspecting the door told him that there was no way of picking the lock from his side. There was a hatch for food at the bottom and a viewport at the top that was closed. Backing off, Jimmy checked the cot. Bolted to the ground. Foam mattress. They’d taken his suit jacket but not his belt or shoes. Jimmy sat back down on the bed and pulled off his left shoe, feeling under the false sole for the ceramic knife beneath. He waited.

Footsteps getting louder on stone. Jimmy counted three sets. They stopped outside his door. Without checking the viewport, someone started to fumble with keys, preparing to unlock the door. Sloppy. Jimmy sidled quietly to the side of the door, flattening himself beside the frame. The door was shoved open. Jimmy sunk the knife into the throat of the first guard through the door. As he squealed and staggered back, Jimmy grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and belt and shoved him hard. He grabbed the pistol from the guard’s belt as the guard staggered back into the person behind him. Jimmy fired in quick double-taps, gritting his teeth as the burst of sound blew out his hearing.

Checking the bodies for keys, passes, and ammo, Jimmy strapped on a holster to his belt as he looked around. No phones on the guards, only walkie-talkies. Long corridor harshly lit with fluorescent light. It stank, a rancid stink of human waste and misery. A door on one end. Jimmy headed towards it and tried to unlock it with a pass he’d found on the bodies. It didn’t work. The cell block was already on lockdown.

Jimmy hesitated, then he went back and unlocked all the cell doors in the corridor. As he was opening the last door, the exit door buzzed loudly. Jimmy hastily ducked into the cell he was opening, flattening himself against the door. There were screams and the blast of automatic gunfire, loud enough in the cordite-scented corridor that his hearing faded again into a dull ringing. He squeezed off a couple of shots around the corner before it got too crowded. Panicked prisoners were dying as they tried to charge the kevlar-armored shock troops advancing through the door in a unit. The Doom Guard.

Someone grabbed Jimmy’s arm. He nearly shot the person in the gut before he realized they were the prisoner in the cell—a grim-faced woman with a bruised, lined face and filthy hair. She took a guard pass from him and scanned it against her cuffed wrists. A pale light on the cuffs went dull, and she savagely pulled them off and threw them aside. She knelt, pressing her palms to the floor and closing her eyes. The concrete buckled. Jimmy grabbed hastily at the door to steady himself as cracks rippled outwards and down the corridor, fragmenting the floor into falling slabs of concrete and metal.

Jimmy looked down. With his hearing blown, people were screaming soundlessly below, writhing in the dust and debris. He aimed and squeezed off a shot, catching one of the guards in the throat, and backed off as someone returned fire. The woman bared broken teeth in a snarl of rage. Jimmy grabbed belatedly for her shoulder as she leaped down, the floor cratering outwards from her feet. She twisted to face something out of sight, only to stagger back as a round caught her high in the shoulder and spun her around. The next one shattered her skull.

Other prisoners were jumping down, powers flickering and fading as they were caught in the crossfire. Jimmy steeled himself to look away. He angled himself from cell to cell until he got to the exit, the door hanging off its hinges from the broken wall. It was a guard post. A guard was ducked under the control console, pale and young.

“Phone,” Jimmy rasped. He had to say it a few times, motioning with his gun, before the trembling guard handed over an old iPhone. “Unlock it,” Jimmy said, biting down on his impatience. Once the guard did, Jimmy took his gun, tossed it through to the floor below, and kept moving.

Melinda picked up on the first ring, though she said nothing. “Melinda,” Jimmy said.

“What…” Melinda trailed off. The screams and shouts behind Jimmy were probably audible. “Status,” she said, in a clipped tone.

Jimmy peeked past the guard post. Empty corridor. He gave Melinda a quick update as he looked around. Old stone castle, no vents. Backup was probably coming soon. There was a faded fire escape evacuation plan tacked to the back of the door, which Jimmy memorised.

“We’ve been instructed to make an exchange,” Melinda said, as Jimmy crept out on quiet feet, heading for the closest stairwell. “You for the mask. We’re still on our way in. There’s a portal dampener in Latveria that’s signature-keyed. No unauthorised sorcery.”

Instructed. Someone had twisted Fury’s arm. It was obvious who would have the motive and the power. “I’ll find a way out,” Jimmy said, even as he could hear Scott, of all people, ask in the background, “Who’s that?”

“Jimmy escaped,” Melinda said.

“What’s Scott doing there?” Jimmy asked, just as Scott said, “Oh my God. Give me the phone. Please.” There was a pause, then, “Hey. You all right?”

“What are you doing on a S.H.I.E.L.D. extraction op?” Jimmy demanded, unable to hide his exasperation.

“You’re seriously getting shitty with me for wanting to help save your ass. Jesus, babe. Only you.” Scott let out a startled laugh. Jimmy couldn’t help himself—he smiled, even as he scanned himself into a locked door that led to a narrow stairwell. It’d probably once been some sort of servant access, and now served as the fire escape. Reception became patchy. “…on …the,” Scott said, in between static.

“Talk to you later,” Jimmy said. He hung up and left the phone unlocked, placing it in his shirt pocket as he hurried down the stairs, reloading as he went.

Heavy footsteps below, charging onto a lower level of the stairwell. Jimmy looked around desperately. There was a door just a flight of stairs down from where he was. He snuck up to it and carded it open, slipping out as quietly as he could. He was in a small janitor’s storeroom, with cleaning materials and lockers stacked neatly against a wall. Opening the door out as quietly as he could, Jimmy peered out into a large carpeted corridor hung with somber tapestries. Not ideal—was this the throne floor? Still, he was out of options. Jimmy jammed a chair under the door to the stairwell and crept out.

Picking a direction and following it led Jimmy to a wide balcony. Jimmy looked down, trying to calculate whether it would be safe to try and scale down the old stone. He went still as footsteps approached, only slightly muffled by the thick pile of the carpet. Jimmy scrambled up onto the stone balcony and down, wedging himself precariously against a stone gargoyle and the wall.

“Escaped?” It was Jeanne, and she was nearly at the setting-things-on-fire level of pissed. “Seriously, Nicholas? What the fuck.”

Jimmy peeked. Jeanne was in a black dress with gloves up to her elbows, the fabric tiled with tiny crimson feathers. Her hand was resting on the crook of the arm of a tall, handsome young man with raven hair and brooding eyes. He had a sullen mouth that was cast into a grimace. “Father is attending to the matter personally,” Nicholas said. His English had a Germanic accent.

“The same way he ‘attended to’ the mask?” Jeanne shot back. “Christ. Jordan dying, what a fucking mess.”

Nicholas scowled. “You would criticise my father in his house? He is King here. And he possesses powers beyond imagining.”

Jeanne was a whole head shorter than Nicholas, but she looked up at him with a sharp smile. “Darling, I am afraid of no one. Not even a sorcerer.” Jimmy flattened himself out of sight as the procession started to pass by the balcony. “In any case—what on earth are those?”

There was the muffled sound of dogs baying, deep and loud. “Doomhounds. Artificially enhanced strength and intelligence. Father’s creation. They must have caught a scent,” Nicholas said.

“Ugly things. Also, the King’s tendency to name everything after himself is… hm. Unfortunate, in some ways. Oh, don’t sulk. I’ve said as much to him to his face. We can’t delay the wedding, not if your father still wants to go ahead with his plans. I can’t keep all those people in one spot for longer than that.”

People? Their relatives? Jimmy found that he was holding his breath, and let it out reluctantly.

“We’re aware of that,” Nicholas said stiffly, “and by all reports, S.H.I.E.L.D. is on its way to make the exchange regardless. Once we have the mask and the wedding goes ahead, my father estimates that he only needs less than ten minutes to weave the spell together. The suggestion he’d then plant in all your guests’ minds will be permanent. With access to their combined wealth, Latveria will become a true powerhouse in the world.”

“Perfect. I can’t stand long ceremonies, I get bored. Well, where are those dogs going?”

Jimmy’s arms ached as he climbed under the balcony. His stomach dropped to his ankles as he slipped briefly, but caught himself on a gap in the stone. He breathed. Above, something huge was snuffling at the balcony.

“There’s nothing there,” Jeanne said, after a long pause. “Do they think he flew off like a bird?”

The hounds’ handlers were trying to chivvy them on with commands in Latverian, a dialect that Jimmy didn’t understand. Whining and growling, the dogs refused to budge. Jimmy tried not to look down. It was a long drop to the moat, which was lined with jags of rock. Nicholas snapped something at the handlers, who replied in hushed terms. One of the dogs scrabbled at the stone just above Jimmy’s shoulders and barked.

Jeanne started to chuckle. “Oh, I see. Pema, a word.”

A small portal spun into view under the balcony, then a larger one opened right under Jimmy. He looked through to Jeanne’s security and at her vicious amusement. “Not bad, cousin,” Jeanne said, her teeth bared, “but you never could beat me at hide and seek.”

Jimmy had gone quiet and couldn’t be raised on the phone. Melinda tried not to worry, but it wasn’t a good sign. The plane was preparing to land on the private airfield close to Castle Doomstadt. The village close to it beyond the forest was mostly dark, but the castle and the landing strip were dotted with light. It was a forbidding structure, stone spires and battlements looming out of the bleak forest.

Strapped into his seat with his helmet in his lap, Scott was visibly miserable. Melinda didn’t bother with any words of comfort, nor did Phil or the rest of their team. Before the command centre in the helicarrier was a wall of names that Melinda passed by often, on her way to new mission debriefs. The names of the dead were revised often.

“Remember we’re here for a hostage exchange,” Phil said, as the plane taxied to a stop. “No heroics. If the exchange isn’t being made in good faith, we leave. That includes you, Mister Lang.”

“I’m not leaving without Jimmy,” Scott said flatly.

“Compromising the mission gets agents killed,” Phil replied, and eyeballed Scott until Scott looked down at his feet. “I’ve had hostage situations go wrong before because a cowboy couldn’t listen to instructions.”

Scott looked over to Melinda for support. She ignored him. “Okay,” Scott muttered.

“You’re here to keep an eye out for rogue Pym Tech. Stay low and stay out of sight. And for God’s sake. No heroics,” Phil said.

“Yup. Yeah. Heard you the first time.” Scott pulled on his helmet and instantly shrunk down onto the seat. He darted under the seat and out of sight. There was a plastic box beneath the seat containing an ant colony. Melinda didn’t want to think about it. She’d seen the ants obey Scott firsthand, but it was still a little disgusting to contemplate.

Outside the plane, the air was getting chilly. Sun wouldn’t be out for hours yet. At the end of the airfield, a road twisted past dark trees towards the castle. Jeeps were lined beside a black sedan before the road, each with a driver in livery.

“Don’t like that,” Melinda said.

“Nor do I, but that’s definitely Prince Nicholas,” Phil said. A tall young man got out from one of the jeeps, walking towards them with a brace of Von Doom’s heavily armed paramilitary force, the Doom Guard, behind him. He smiled once he got within a respectful distance.

“Ah, our guests.” Nicholas inclined his head. “My father would like to extend everyone an invitation to tour the Castle.”

“Where is Agent Woo?” Phil asked. He didn’t budge.

“Keeping well. There was a little spot of… unpleasantness earlier, quickly corrected.” Nicholas’ smile widened a fraction. “Though it’s made the situation, perhaps, a little more urgent.”

It took all of Melinda’s self-control to stay quiet. Phil inclined his head in return. “I see. May I bring a medical team with me?”

“As you like. Bring whoever you want,” Nicholas said. He backed away to the sedan, getting in. The sedan started up as Melinda got into the back of one of the jeeps. Phil left Stevens with a team by the plane, while medics packed onto another jeep. It was slow going down the dark road in a convoy.

“Ants are hitching a ride on the jeeps, but I’m going ahead,” Scott said on the general channel. Phil didn’t belay the decision. His jaw was clenched tight. The jeeps started down the road. The fact that the Doom Guard following in jeeps hadn’t asked for their weapons was unnerving. Were they that confident? All of Melinda’s instincts were ringing with alarm. And yet Phil hadn’t called off the exchange. She closed her hand tight on the edge of her bench seat and stared hard at Phil’s face. Couldn’t read it.

Phil was waiting for something. He straightened at a gasp from Scott, then looked grim as the gasp broke into a sob. “Jimmy, Christ, Jimmy,” Scott whispered, anguished.

“Alive?” Phil asked, near inaudibly.

There was nothing but the jarring sounds of stifled sobs for a moment, then, “Yeah. He’s alive. Uh. Give me a sec. Oh hell.”

“Breathe,” Melinda said, pretending to look at the trees.

“Yeah. He’s. Been pretty badly beaten. Cuffed to a wheelchair. Don’t think he’s conscious. His left leg, it’s. Really hurt.” There was nothing for a while but Scott taking in slow, shallow breaths. “There’s a lot of those kevlar guys around,” Scott said, in a more normal voice. “And I see some of the Dogs of War people too. People with rifles watching from the castle. And Von Doom is here. The King. He’s standing next to some weirdo in a yellow and black suit with like spider leg things coming out of his back, pretty gross.”

Powered people? Great. Melinda was about to get Scott to take a closer look when Scott hissed in shock. “What the fuck. Yellow Suit guy just shrunk down and disappeared. It’s fucking Pym Tech.”

“Ambush,” Melinda mouthed at Phil. He nodded fractionally. Didn’t call off the op. Melinda wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or relieved. She didn’t want Phil to get burned for a bad decision. If she had to do whatever it took to get Jimmy out of Latveria, Melinda would rather that it was on her.

The jeeps filed out into a sprawling garden that led up to the moat before the castle and a drawbridge that was down for the moment. Doom Guard and Dogs of War formed a loose semicircle around Victor and Jimmy, who was slumped in a wheelchair in a bloody heap. Scott’s estimate of his injuries had been kind. The leg injury itself was horrific—it looked like it’d been deliberately crushed. It’d been bound at the ankle with a tourniquet and Jimmy was hooked to a drip, but things were going to be chancy even with medical on hand.

Melinda got out of the jeep behind Phil, who stopped before Victor. He took a flat box from his suit and held it palm up. “Our agreement,” Phil said, “our agent for the mask.”

Victor nodded. “Have him,” he said, indifferent. Melinda walked over, expecting to be jumped by the Doom Guard at any moment. Stopped by magic. Victor ignored her instead, not even looking at her as she wheeled Scott over to the medics along with the drip. They loaded him carefully into the back of the jeep even as Phil tossed the box to Victor.

“Our business is done,” Phil told Victor. His voice shook slightly, the only sign of his rage.

“So it is,” Victor said. His hands began to glow. The engine of the jeep Jimmy was being loaded into died. “I agreed to exchange the mask for Agent Woo. I never agreed to let you leave Latver—”

A huge ant appeared out of nowhere, barrelling straight into Victor and knocking him off his feet. The jeep rumbled back to life. Melinda shot the Doom Guard in the driver’s seat and hauled him out as medical piled into the back. As she was going to climb in something slammed hard into her back, knocking her rolling on the dirt. She’d broken at least a rib. It was Yellow Suit. As Melinda tried to get to her feet, Scott popped into full size, throwing a punch that knocked Yellow Suit to aside.

“Go!” Scott was yelling. “Get Jimmy out of here!”

Phil had gotten into the front driver’s seat. He started up the jeep and glanced at Melinda. She waved him on, cocking from the gun and firing from the hip to take out a Doom Guard who was charging closer. Phil grit his teeth and accelerated, swerving onto the road. Yellow Suit fired some sort of blue pulse weapon from one of the strange protrusions on his back. It hit one of the medics in the throat, sending him slumping into the jeep. Melinda fired at Yellow Suit, but he shrank down and leaped for her. Scott got in the way, barrelling into Yellow Suit. They disappeared into the grass.

Melinda took cover behind one of the idling jeeps and shot another Guard. Nicholas was nowhere to be seen. More and more ants were popping into giant size, mandibles waving as they charged the Guard.

Von Doom blasted an ant away. A portal opened behind him, but Melinda had been waiting for that—she fired through it, catching the sorcerer through the portal in the chest with hollow point bullets. The portal collapsed on itself. Von Doom turned with a snarl. He hurled a blast of energy at the jeep and Melinda just had time to roll free as the car exploded in a shockwave that spun her painfully against a tree trunk.

“You,” Von Doom hissed. “I’ll have your death.” He started to open the box. Melinda concentrated. She tried to shoot it out of his hand, but the bullets spun astray before they could hit him. Von Doom pulled the mask out of the box and fit it onto his face with a deep sigh of satisfaction. He looked straight at Melinda, and the world stopped.

Scott wasn’t sure at first why May abruptly stopped moving, her arms going loose at her side, then he saw it. Von Doom had put the goddamned magic mask on. Scott had lost track of Yellow Suit Guy in the grass. As he started towards Von Doom, one of the giant-sized ants wrestling with a Guard shrunk down abruptly. Then the next. Someone was removing the augments from the ants.

Biting down an oath, Scott sent a flying ant at Von Doom with one of Hank’s new timed augments. It froze in mid-air once giant-sized, and Von Doom laughed, turning his face. “Do you think I’ll fall for that again?”

“Made you look,” Scott yelled, and let fly with something he’d been saving from his belt. The paint-filled balloon expanded until it was the size of a human, and splashed sticky, viscous pink paint all over Von Doom and the ant. Von Doom staggered back in shock. Concentration broken, the spell ended. Melinda blinked, shaking herself. She ducked in cover behind another jeep, firing and taking out another Guard.

“We’re at the plane,” Phil said tensely. “Hostiles neutralised. Preparing for takeoff.”

“Go,” Melinda snapped.

“We don’t exchange lives,” Phil said.

“We’re not exchanging anything. Go.”

“I don’t…” Phil paused. “More incoming. Dogs of War. And Jeanne Wong’s personal security.”

Shit. Scott looked around wildly for a flying ant. And yet. He couldn’t leave Melinda. He was about to grab her and shrink down a jeep when he saw her drop her gun and clap her hands sharply together. She slapped whatever she caught against the jeep and jammed her taser down, shocking Yellow Suit. Ouch.

Gunfire made Melinda duck back down into cover. The ants were rallying, driving back Doom Guard. Scott made a bee-line for Von Doom, only to have to dive out of the way at a blast of energy that crackled as it ground itself into the tree behind him. Doom stumbled against the body of the ant he had killed behind him and righted himself, bringing up a shimmering shield with a gesture. He flinched and stamped as ants started to swarm up and into his shoes, biting what they could, worming in between the chinks of his armour. The moment his shield dropped, Scott flicked through with particle-enhanced speed, clocking Doom across his chin.

Doom roared. He brought up both his hands. A bright glow arrested Scott in mid-air. “I’m going to burn you alive, pest,” Doom hissed. The air was getting hotter, hotter yet. Scott hissed as he struggled against it, trying to get the ants to do something, but the big ones were too far away and the small ones were being ignored and—

Doom staggered a step forward, trembling violently for a long moment before he collapsed, still twitching. Melinda looked down, still holding her taser. “Fuck these guys,” she said, with relish, and aimed her gun at the body while glaring at the Doom Guard beyond. “Stand down. All of you. Now.”

Scott popped back to normal size as the Doom Guard started to put their weapons down. “I think we make a pretty good team,” he told Melinda, who smirked.

“You’re still my second choice.”

Scott laughed. “Aww, c’mon.”

“Help me drag this guy into a jeep. We’ve got more people to save.” Melinda nudged Victor with her foot.

“No need for that,” Phil said, sounding surprised. “Whatever you just did took down the portal block. We have reinforcements coming through. Security’s surrendering. I’m going to evac Agent Woo through a portal. See you both back in HQ.”

Chapter Text

Scott looked up from the side of the hospital bed as a portal opened into the ward. He wasn’t entirely surprised to see Margaret step through, followed by an Asian man with a square jaw and a lined face. The resemblance to Jimmy was striking. Had to be Jimmy’s dad. Margaret was in another silk jacket, Kim in a tailored pinstripe suit. He ignored Scott, looking at Jimmy instead, his expression blank.

“Um,” Scott got to his feet. He didn’t offer his hand this time. “Jimmy’s gonna be okay. He uh. They had to amputate the leg but. He’ll make a full recovery and Melinda said prosthetic tech is really good nowadays and…” He trailed off under Margaret’s unblinking stare. Kim leaned down, touching an unconscious Jimmy on his shoulder, then he turned around and walked back through the portal.

“By Agent May’s accounts you were essential to the mission,” Margaret said, in a neutral voice, “as well as to the recovery of the mask.”

Scott pulled a face. “Kinda wish we didn’t let King Batshit go. Uh. Pardon my language.”

Margaret narrowed her eyes. “He is the sovereign ruler of a nation and therefore entitled to certain courtesies. He will, however, be duly punished.”

“By what, economic sanctions? Doesn’t that just hurt the locals? They had nothing to do with it.” Other than maybe the Doom Guard.

Margaret shrugged, indifferent to the suggestion. “Insurgencies funded, investments stymied, there are ways. Life has consequences. Even for Kings.”

“What happened to Jeanne? We didn’t arrest her either.” At the time, Scott had just been happy to get away with Jimmy and the others.

“She’ll be taken care of as well.”

“Okay,” Scott said doubtfully, “though it kinda sounds like everyone got away with it other than Darren.” Darren Cross had been Yellow Suit Guy, of all people. S.H.I.E.L.D. had packed him off somewhere, under arrest.

Margaret’s mouth curled into a tight, mirthless smile. “I assure you that will not be the case. Jeanne will be going on a long, possibly lifelong sabbatical, somewhere where she’d no longer be a danger to anyone. In any regard, I suppose a thank you is in order.”

“What for? Rescuing Jimmy? I was gonna do it anyway. And I still don’t want your money,” Scott said warily. “Or a reward, or whatever you’re getting to.”

“So you’ve said. I still believe that you’re a waste of his time. But given the circumstances, we’re content to let him discover that for himself.” Margaret inclined her head. “Should Jimmy choose to spend Christmas with us this year, you will be welcome.”

“We’ll be there,” Scott said, trying to sound thankful instead of belligerent. He wasn’t sure if he succeeded. Margaret stared at Jimmy’s sleeping form for a long moment, then she turned and walked out through the portal, which closed behind her.

That hadn’t been a total disaster, right? Scott sat back down by the bed and curled a hand into Jimmy’s still fingers. “I think she’s starting to warm up to me.”

“Doubt it,” Melinda said into the earpiece. Scott flinched and yelped. He’d forgotten he’d had to put that in place when he’d boarded the helicarrier.

Melinda laughed. There was a faint click, and Scott was left to himself. He squeezed Jimmy’s hand and listened to Jimmy’s even breathing. “Things are gonna be OK,” Scott said. If he said it enough, he could probably believe it.

“At least that’s over and done with,” Hank said, when Scott returned to work, “though there’s still the matter of you dating a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.”

“I’m gonna marry him,” Scott said, and smirked as Hank sputtered and glowered at him.

“Terrible idea. They’re awful creatures, those agents. Take it from me,” Hank said. He eyeballed Scott unhappily as Scott bustled around tidying up the office, which had been napalmed with paperwork in his absence.

“Weren’t you an agent once, Dad?” Hope asked. She was nominally helping out, albeit in the supervisory role of sitting on Scott’s desk and helpfully pointing out stuff that he missed.

“Yes, and look where that got us,” Hank said sourly. “Still, I suppose having access to S.H.I.E.L.D. resources has its benefits.”

At Scott’s curious look, Hope said, “Director Fury agreed to help us get my mother back. Out of friendship, he says.”

“Yeah, right,” Scott said, having already met said Director several times at this point whenever he popped by to check on Jimmy.

“See,” Hank said, with an approving nod at Scott. “Good instincts, this man.”

“Better than having to keep sourcing stuff through black market dealers,” Hope said.

“Yes, yes. Just as long as we’re all aware that we shouldn’t trust any S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as far as we can throw them,” Hank muttered.

“Agent May is nice,” Hope said innocently. “Sent me flowers and everything while I was recovering from the hex.” Hope had taken a couple of days to stop feeling woozy, during which, she later told Scott, Hank had freaked out at least three times. Scott hadn’t noticed. The first few days post-mission had been a blur of nausea, fear, and misery. Even though Jimmy had stabilised quickly.

“It’s a trap,” Hank said gloomily. “It’s all a trap. What did they do with Darren anyway?”

“Locked him up and threw away the key, I think,” Scott said. He made a face. “Probably a human rights violation? Melinda—err, May—didn’t want to say.”

“Them and their floating prisons in the sea. Yeah. Totally a sign of a balanced and just organisation. But yes, we need the tech and all that, and I suppose you need an emotional crutch for your many issues,” Hank told Scott. He let out a magnanimous sigh. “I suppose marriage isn’t too beyond the pale and does have some things to recommend it by.”

“Thank you, sir,” Scott said, as dryly as he could. “By the way, you have a board meeting in an hour.”

“Screw that. Let’s all go home. I have an idea about the reactor.”

“He missed you,” Hope said, with a quick grin as Hank instantly glared at her.

“Did not! Though. I suppose. You’ve been very useful in your own way,” Hank muttered.

“You totally missed me. Aww. I’m sooo touched, boss,” Scott gushed, and laughed as Hank twitched.

Recovery was slow and it didn’t help that everyone seemed to blame themselves, even though it’d really been Jimmy’s personal fuckup. Losing his leg was a low price to pay. Especially since prosthetic technology had improved immensely in recent years. Physio was still an excruciating process, and Jimmy sometimes wished Scott didn’t feel the need to get so involved. Chronic pain and frustration frayed his nerves often.

“It’s not a personal failing or anything that you’re still recovering,” Scott said when Jimmy snapped at him for trying to help him onto the treadmill.

“You’re not medical staff.”

This was an old argument now. Scott grinned, not even phased at all as actual S.H.I.E.L.D. medical staff circled around checking equipment and statistics. “Never said I was. I’m emotional support. Like one of those animals you sometimes see people bring on planes. I think I can get a vest off eBay.”

Jimmy gave him a pained look that turned into a real wince as he stumbled on the treadmill and righted himself. He bent against the bars, gasping until the pain was manageable. “Those… vests… are a real dilemma… especially with the number of people who don’t need it but game the system… ruining it for people who genuinely—”

“It was a joke. A joke.” Scott passed him a bottle of water. “And before you apologise for anything, I totally knew you were going to say that.” He grinned mischievously. Jimmy swallowed the retort on the tip of his tongue and drank the water. Stayed quiet through physio and the trip home. Scott had more or less moved into Jimmy’s, even if it was just for the time being to “help out”—he had spare clothes in the guest room and shoes in the rack.

As Jimmy sat gratefully down on the couch, Scott was padding over to the kitchen. “How do you feel about pasta?”

“We’re never going to recreate that Scarlett Johansson scene in Chef when you still don’t know what ‘al dente’ means,” Jimmy said.

“I do too. It means ‘I like my pasta undercooked’,” Scott said and smirked as Jimmy sighed. “Also, I’m going to take that as a challenge.”

The pasta was most certainly not al dente, though Scott managed the fork swirl with aplomb this time. He laughed off Jimmy’s attempt to help with clean-up. Later, curled in bed, Jimmy said, “You don’t have to do this.”

Scott tensed. Forced a laugh. “Do what, sweetheart?”

“Babysit me.”

“You said no when your actual mum offered, so.”

Jimmy snorted. “I’d rather lose the other leg than have to spend my convalescence stuck on that yacht.”

Scott twisted up onto his flank, balancing up on an elbow. The mischief in his face had ebbed and deep down Jimmy was viciously glad to see it. The enforced peppy cheer that Scott wore around Jimmy had gotten on his nerves within the first week, and now it had been months. “Don’t joke about that.”

“Why? It’s my leg.”

“What even is…” Scott took in a deep breath. “Never mind.”

“No, say it. Tell me.”

“I would get being pissed about losing a leg and having to go through all this therapy,” Scott said slowly, “except that I don’t even think you’re pissed about that.”

“No.”

“So I guess I don’t get it. Why you’ve been consistently shitty for months. Unless Melinda’s around. Or. Is it just around me? You really hate having me around that much?”

Jimmy forced himself to look up at Scott. Seeing Scott visibly upset hurt in a way that was uglier than being glad that Scott was finally taking this seriously. “I think we should take a break,” Jimmy said carefully, “until I’ve sorted myself out.” That was the best he could do, swallowing every other ugly thing he wanted to say.

Scott stiffened. “Okay. Okay, sure. If that’s what you want,” he said, his expression tight, “but I deserve an explanation. Because I can’t figure it out. How am I pissing you off?”

“Doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“Yeah, fucking right. Going to call bullshit on that. You want to break up with me, fine. I’ll respect that. But at least have the balls not to lie in my face, okay?”

“I didn’t say I wanted to break up, I said we should take a break,” Jimmy said.

“Not interested in arguing about the details.”

Jimmy took in a slow breath. Looked up at the ceiling. “This is why I never used to take time off. I can’t switch off. I start to feel trapped and then it’s unpleasant for everyone.”

Scott made a disbelieving noise. “Come on. What kind of shitty boyfriend would only want to be around for the fun bits and not everything else, including the ugly parts?”

“I don’t want you around for the ugly parts. I was in the FBI for a while. Seen what that does to relationships. Not just me. Just about everyone else. The secrets, the bad hours, the coping mechanisms. I guess this whole business just showed me how much I can hurt you.”

Scott stared at him for a long time. “You’re serious.”

Now that he was actually talking to Scott about it, it was like pulling off a scab. It would hurt more later when it bled, but for now, it was weirdly satisfying, in a destructive way. “There wasn’t visual on the scene until Melinda got there, but I heard the playback of the comms. When you were telling them what you saw.”

“What about it? Because I got upset? Jesus. I wasn’t the one beaten half to death and cuffed to a wheelchair. I don’t even. Why the hell are you like this? Is this how you are normally? Like you’d rather push people away than take risks?”

“Hurts less for everyone in the long run,” Jimmy said softly.

“Hey. Hey.” Scott shifted over. He pressed a palm to Jimmy’s cheek, staring intently at him. “You know. I think maybe your family really fucked you over.”

Jimmy blinked, surprised. “What?”

“Leaving them—leaving all that life behind. Looks like it maybe scarred you more than it freed you. That’s what I see. You miss it and you hate that you miss it. Bet you still love all your relatives, even the shitty ones. And it shits you that you do. I saw how you were on the island. And to your mum whenever she popped by to try and talk to you.”

Jimmy narrowed his eyes. Scott’s intuition as always, both impressed him and scared him. He’s supernaturally good with people, Hope had said. It was a rare gift. “Go on.”

“And okay, I guess I don’t know what that feels like. Don’t have the cultural context either, like your mum would say. Punch me if you feel that I’m starting to whitesplain this or something. But I think tearing yourself away from all that kinda broke something in you.”

It was true. Jimmy had been lonely for a long time. He’d just buried it in work. Decided that it didn’t matter, that he had a goal to meet. It was easier than noticing. He was silent for too long—Scott blew out a sigh. “Your mum told me that family’s always gonna be the most important thing to you. Think she was maybe right and wrong at the same time. She’s probably wrong that you’re just gonna do what she wants at the end of the day. But she’s right that family matters a hell lot more to you than it did to me. Though I’ve been thinking it over. Thing is, that’s one thing I like about the idea of family too.”

“Yeah?” Jimmy said quietly.

“That you might wanna push someone away but you can’t really. ‘Cos when push comes to shove real family’s just gonna stand firm and be there for you anyway, even when you’re the one doing the pushing. Look. What I wanted to say is. I want things to be that way with you. I don’t want to be someone you’d be OK with pushing aside for rational reasons. Not someone you’d give up so easily. Or who’d give you up that easily.” Scott took in a deep breath. “Because I love you too. Asshole.”

Jimmy tried to say something, but his throat would only make a strangled hoarse sound. He pulled Scott over for a kiss instead, a nervous gesture, then an apology. Scott breathed out a moan that sounded like desperate relief. They leaned into each other’s warmth, kissing until the ugly tension was a distant memory. The dull pain in his leg, leavened by painkillers, felt cleaner now. Jimmy was shedding septic scar tissue and it hurt in a good way, a clean hurt. He clung to Scott and Scott breathed with low unsteady gasps, shallow breaths that sounded like he was trying to breathe for them both.

“I don’t know why you bother,” Jimmy said, once he could trust himself to speak.

“I think you’re worth it,” Scott said without hesitation. He kissed Jimmy on the nose. “Though you try to make it fucking hard sometimes.” He grinned, irrepressible again, and this time Jimmy chuckled to see it. “But I’m just gonna take that as a challenge.”

“Just tell the chef that we haven’t finished our portions because dinner has been rather mediocre,” Lian said.

“Please don’t tell the chef that,” Melinda said hastily. “It’s just. Big portions. We’re not that hungry.” She smiled fixedly until the wait staff cleared the plates, then she scowled at her mother. “Mum.”

Lian stared at her, unimpressed. “Oh, for pity’s sake. The chef here’s had three Michelin stars for donkey’s years. He’s rich. Our opinion isn’t going to matter. Even if it does, he can cry into his bags of money.”

“He’s probably not even in the kitchen.”

“He probably is,” Lian said, with a sharp smile, “because I had the Woos’ chief of staff make a corporate reservation on our behalf. Either way, it does people no good to rest on their laurels.”

“I really can’t take you anywhere,” Melinda said, resigned.

“Yes, dear. By the way, now that you have your own team and have a couple of successful assignments under your belt, isn’t it about time that you settled down? I’ve been talking to Andrew about it.”

“So I’ve heard.” Andrew had laughed it off, which showed that sweet and kindly as he was, he still didn’t understand Lian. “If we ever had children you would traumatise them. You’d be like the mum in Everybody Loves Raymond, except with CIA training.”

“That would’ve been my prerogative as a grandmother, dear.” Lian looked around the restaurant with a critical eye. “Notice how everyone here is a tourist? Ducasse has really lost his touch. It rather reminds me of Fury.”

“Oh, here we go.”

“You hear things, dear.”

“About what?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t as high and mighty as you think,” Lian said, as irritatingly as ever. Her mother had never gotten over her annoying habit to put out bait to watch people twist in the wind. Even her own daughter.

“High and mighty enough that the Woos reinstated their funding,” Melinda said, with a quick grin.

“Only for the investigation and destabilisation of Latveria.”

“Unofficially.”

“Fury cares about ‘unofficially’, dear. Pay attention. Still, I suppose the Director lives and breathes another day, despite what happened.”

“It wasn’t that bad. Jimmy’s already back to active duty,” Melinda said.

“And in your core team, I know.”

Melinda chuckled. She leaned back in her seat. “Is that what this dinner is about?”

“Well yes. Why else would I go to all the trouble of bringing you to Paris? This city is beautiful only in photographs. I don’t know why you like it so much.”

“It’s romantic,” Melinda said, because Andrew had taken her here on their first overseas trip together.

“It tends to have a distressing smell and many of its people are very rude. You know what they say. First God made paradise on Earth, and called it France. Then to balance it, he made the French.” Lian sipped her red wine. “Oh, don’t shush me.”

“Well,” Melinda said dryly, “you can tell the richest helicopter parents in the world that their son is doing just fine.”

“Any idea when he’s going to work up the balls to propose to Mister Lang?” Lian inquired.

“Probably never,” Melinda said, after a moment’s thought, “because he has this terrible tendency to overthink things. Good trait for an agent, I suppose. There’s an ongoing pool. My money’s on Scott proposing first, Jimmy freaking out, then nothing happening.”

“Men are all babies. Thankfully, that’s not the beginning and the end of my business. By the way, the Woos—and their allies—are willing to back you should you ever decide to make a play for the Director’s position.”

Melinda let out a startled laugh. “Your doing?”

“No dear. You know how I feel about that particular… what is it young people call a hopeless position nowadays? A dumpster fire? They appreciate people who get results.”

“They’d find me even less malleable than Fury.”

“So I told them,” Lian said, and smiled, and there was her pride, worn briefly and fiercely on her face.

“I didn’t pull you in here to have sex,” Jimmy kept protesting, which was seriously cute. Scott snickered as he nudged the door to Jimmy’s ensuite bathroom shut—and had to gawk for a bit. Jimmy’s “old room” on the yacht was huge—bigger than Jimmy’s current apartment, even—but the bathroom was also bigger than it should be. Ceiling shower, jacuzzi, sauna, an indoor garden?

Gawking for too long made Jimmy nervous and defensive though. Scott kissed Jimmy quickly, pretending that he wasn’t disoriented. “Scott,” Jimmy hissed, “people are gonna notice that we’re missing.”

“Let them. They can make educated guesses.” Scott sank down on his knees and mouthed the promising bulge in Jimmy’s tailored pants. “Yeah, wonder why I snuck off with my cute boyfriend. Totally not to admire the fucking huge fish tank in his room. What is it with you guys and fish tanks?”

“Fish are… lucky.” Jimmy’s voice hitched as Scott unbuckled his belt and grinned wickedly up at him.

“You have a goddamned shark in that thing.”

“It’s a small shark. Big tank.”

“It’s still a fucking shark. Wait. Don’t you eat sharks? In soups?”

“No. Cruel practice.” Jimmy’s fingers tangled in Scott’s hair, urging him on.

“You’ve been tense and getting worse all night. Think of this as me helping you let off some steam. Before you snap and dive overboard.” Scott drew out Jimmy’s cock and spat on his palm, slicking it up with eager strokes. He licked the tip before Jimmy could protest, sloppy and loud, making a show of it until Jimmy thickened the rest of the way and started to pant. Scott sucked on the cap as it stretched his mouth, then curled his tongue around the base, lapping to the slit. Kissed down the vein and nosed the root.

“Scott,” Jimmy whispered, “Jesus, Scott.”

“Second name there wasn’t mine,” Scott said and snickered again as Jimmy smacked his head back against patterned tiles with a groan. Scott obligingly sucked in what he could take, trying to relax his throat, take more than he should. Wreck his voice so it’d be damn obvious later what he’d been doing with Jimmy. What Jimmy had done to him. Jimmy shivered and pressed his fist into his mouth to stifle his cries. He could probably guess why Scott was doing this. And it was turning him on—Jimmy’s hips nudged forward a little, his self-control fracturing.

Scott tugged pointedly at Jimmy’s hips until Jimmy got the hint and started to move. Slowly at first, until Scott made an impatient noise and pinched him on his thigh. Jimmy’s self-control breaking all the way was a beautiful thing—he snarled and held Scott still and started to fuck into his mouth. Never more than Scott could handle, but just barely—almost—too much. Scott’s cock ached against his own pants, but he didn’t touch it. Wasn’t just the taste of cock that got to him, or the way he could take Jimmy apart like this. It was the way he knew Jimmy couldn’t help being careful, that he cared more than he was ever comfortable letting on. Scott muffled moans and took it greedily. Closed his eyes as Jimmy started to tremble and shake, sucking until he had to swallow, getting as much as he could down his throat and licking up the rest, nosing hungrily after every drop.

Jimmy slumped back against the wall, breathing hard. “Shit.”

“Uh huh,” Scott said, his voice rusty. He grinned. Leaned over and kissed Jimmy on the hip, then lower, on the knee right over the start of the special prosthetic. Listened to the faint whirs under Jimmy’s pants as it constantly compensated for weight. It was StarkTech, apparently.

“Get up here,” Jimmy said, beckoning.

“Mm, think I wanna wait. For later. We could do it in your room. In front of the shark.”

Jimmy stared at him. “What.”

“Hey, it won’t care.”

“Now that you’ve actually just brought that up, I’m going to care.”

“Pssh, we can put a curtain over the bit of the tank over your bed or whatever then.”

“Just get up here,” Jimmy said, tugging at Scott’s shirt. He kissed Scott when Scott laughingly obeyed and shifted up, making quick work of Scott’s belt and pants.

“Going to ruin your nice clothes,” Scott murmured, “and if we change everyone’s gonna know even if I don’t open my mouth.”

“Let them,” Jimmy whispered, and spat on his palm.

“I like Christmas already,” Scott said brightly, leaning in for a kiss.

Afterward, they lay in the huge bed and watched the small shark swim in lazy lengths up and down the tank, because sex tended to make Jimmy mellow and because nobody had tried to hustle them back up to the party upstairs. Which was surreal, Scott said.

“What, that nobody’s come looking for us?” Jimmy asked, stifling yawns.

“No? I meant. The party upstairs. Has real reindeer. Tame reindeer.” The said tame reindeer had been wearing Christmas decor too, golden bells and beautiful harnesses. One of them even had a fake red nose on. Gods know why it tolerated that.

“They bite when they get pissed off. And kick. Sometimes for the hell of it. In case you’re wondering why they have handlers that don’t let you get too close.”

“You’re spoiling the fantasy,” Scott said, though he’d noticed that. Nice to see that there were somethings that all the money in the world couldn’t change.

“On Christmas Day we roast them for venison.” Jimmy smirked as Scott gave him a horrified look. “Kidding.”

“At least there weren’t any partridges tied to pear trees,” Scott said.

“We had that one year when I was growing up. All the twelve days’ worth of things. The geese were a goddamned menace. Never again.”

Scott started to laugh. “Oh man. Wish I could’ve seen that.”

They lay in companionable silence, watching the fish. Jimmy nuzzled Scott’s throat with another yawn. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Being here. For not giving up.”

“It’s worth it,” Scott said, kissing Jimmy on the forehead. “For family.”

“Family,” Jimmy agreed, tucked against him, “for as long as you want.”

“Don’t make promises I’ll hold you to, babe,” Scott said and grinned, joyous, as Jimmy laughed and pulled him closer.