Too Little Too Late

Scott Lang

Scott wanted to help where he could as much as he could. He had the feeling that he had royally fucked up since he answered Captain America's call. He had always been too trusty, too impulsive. Would he ever learn? Now he was just feeling lucky that he wasn't in jail again and most of all that he could see Cassie regularly. The deal T'Challa got him felt like a miracle. He could have been spending the rest of his life paying for the damages at the airport. Or for the theft of the ant suit. For things to stay that way, he was ready to put a lot of effort. He actually would do anything to stay on the right side of the law this time. Third time wouldn't be a charm. Not for him.

He even tried to explain things to his team, to make them see his way. Steve told him he understood even if himself would not participate. Scott doubted he did understand, that and a lot of other things. Captain America was very stubborn once he had decided on something. Natasha from what he saw, was only doing what benefited herself and now that she had been in the centre of the media shit storm, she was keeping to herself. A hair colour or a pair of eye contacts wouldn't be enough for her to disappear in the crowd anymore. Barton had taken a jet without authorisation and came back from where he went completely broken. And then he vanished. The U.N. was looking for him. Rumours had that the archer had gone mad and now was killing people around the globe. Bad people. Drug dealers, members of a mafia, assassins... With a katana. Still it didn't feel right to Scott.

Barnes and Wilson were helping around as well. They didn't have a family to make up to and protect but they surely were feeling some kind of guilt. For what exactly, Scott didn't know. Wilson probably felt responsible for Rhodes. The colonel had been paralysed but thanks to braces made by Stark, he was walking again. Wilson and Rhodes talked about it. Sam had just evaded the shot. It wasn't not his fault. Vision had been distracted. With powerful powers like the android had, that was something that shouldn't have happened. Barnes wanted to be away from Steve as much as possible. Bucky did not exist anymore but the good captain didn't seem to understand that. Maybe they had realised that the accords weren't that bad. Maybe something else happened that he didn't know about. His team wasn't that trustworthy in the first place. Everybody had secrets. Contrary to belief, Scott wasn't a complete idiot. Sure, sometimes he was too hasty in his decisions as proven by him following Captain America without the whole story. He knew that something happened while they were imprisoned in the raft.

Wanda and Vision were "in love" at first. That felt wrong to him on so many levels he couldn't even count them. Vision was maybe very knowledgeable but on many level he was just as old as the day of his creation. Something like three years old. Everybody on the team were looking at them with an indulgent smile. The personnel of the U.N. were indifferent at best. Scott had been turned down that one time he had tried talking about it. Their relationship was over now. She was blaming everything on Stark again. That girl just couldn't take the blame for her own actions, ever. Now, Scott was just thinking about himself and let his so-called team be.

Actually, he wasn't thinking about him but about Cassie, his little peanut. Something had changed between them. His girl was still talking to him and smiling at him. He wasn't stupid enough not to feel that it wasn't the same as before. When she thought he wasn't looking, her face would take such a sad expression. An expression a girl her age shouldn't wear. That was all his doing he knew that. He had to try everything he could to make her happy again. He wanted to her to look up at him like before. He wanted her to be proud of her dad like before. Scott made a lot of mistakes in his life. Even when his intentions were good, things tended to go south for him. But he wasn't the only one to suffer during those times. Cassie was too young to go through those kinds of disappointment. Her daddy shouldn't be a bad man, someone who could leave her behind to play the superhero.