scott x hope oneshots

no strings attached

Hope liked to define her relationship with Scott Lang as casual (though Hank would later tell her that they were never casual). While they never really talked about what they meant to each other, she assumed there was a mutual understanding that there was no strings attached, which is the way Hope preferred her strings.

She wasn't exactly a relationship person; she wasn't even much of a people person. She excelled in science and math and numbers. She appreciated facts and the truth, which was understandable having been lied to and hurt by her dad most her life.

So, it was no mystery as to why Hope kept people at a distance, figuratively and literally. Her first real boyfriend lived half way across the country, and when he offered to move closer to San Francisco she fled, and chalked it up to his addiction to cigarettes that she refused to be a part of. After that, her track record consisted mostly of flings, and fighting off the unwanted advances of Darren Cross before he went bat shit crazy.

But Scott was different... well they were different, like night and day. When she was in boarding school with her head buried in a book on molecular geometry, he was learning how to hot wire a car. When she was moving up the ranks of Pym Technologies, he was breaking the law. He was an ex-con who was incapable of taking anything seriously. He still took bubble baths like a child (it relaxes the soul, he would say) and thinks that Rock Band and hot pockets justify a good date.

Yet despite all the reasons that made him imperfect and wrong for her, he understood her like no one else ever has. He made her laugh, and made her feel safe, and wanted. He knew when to give her space when she was working on an algorithm that she just couldn't get right, but he also knew when to interfere when she got too lost in her head.

("Watcha readin?" He asked, hiding a yawn very poorly as he sat down next to her in the worn couch he found at a garage sale.

"Go to bed," she said, running her hands through her hair for about the hundredth time, a sign of her frustration.

Her hair looked so much different then the business-only bob cut she wore months earlier. Her bangs were growing out and it was already down past her shoulders. She kept saying she couldn't find the time to get it cut, but really she liked the way Scott brushed it out of her face when they were alone together.

Scott sighed at her stoic response. Cracking the shell of Hope van Dyne sometimes felt like an impossible task. Luckily, Scott was incredibly skilled at breaking and entering even the most difficult of safes.

"You know, I heard that even Einstein took breaks every so often," Scott said back, with that confident smirk of his that made every word out of his mouth seem convincing.

"Well, I'm sure Einstein didn't have to worry about getting his supposedly long-dead mother, who now may or may not have been alive this whole time, out of the mysterious yet extremely dangerous quantum realm," she snapped back, her eyes never leaving the files in her hand.

Scott stiffened up at her words, silent for once, unsure of what to say. Hope expected him to leave the muggy living room of his apartment that has become more like an office whenever she visits and never look back, but instead he grabbed her free hand and gave it a gentle squeeze of encouragement.

"You'll figure it out," he said with those puppy dog eyes that always reeked of pure honesty and astonishment no matter the crap that spilled out of his mouth in his attempts to draw a cheap laugh. "You always do," he finished, before getting up, and going to bed.

With her eyes still glued on her work, she felt the imprint of his hand on hers like an anchor in a storm ridden sea. She slowly put the file down, left the clutter and pool of anxiety around her, and crawled into bed next to him. Hope fell asleep with her head pressed into his warm chest, and the next morning she woke to the smell of pancakes and at the same moment she figured out what she was missing).