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𝑰𝑻 𝑻𝑨𝑲𝑬𝑺 𝑻𝑾𝑶
-𝒔𝒆𝒃𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏
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2015

          LUIS SMILED, looking over at Christina. "Man, you're gonna love Scott!"

She let out a light laugh, reaching down to lower the volume to the radio. "That's the millionth time you've told me that, Luis." Luis shook his shoulders with excitement, keeping his eyes on the road as he drove. "Sorry, sorry. I can't help it. This guy was my man in prison! Man, once you meet this guy, you'll know."

"Alright, Luis. Whatever you say." Chris responded, chuckling.

          "SCOTTY!" LUIS shouted, lifting his arms into the air. Christina looked up from her phone, watching as a man with dark hair and heavy scruff lifted his arms in response. Her lips twitched upwards, can't helping but to smile at their already fun friendship. "What's up man?! Damn! Hey!"

"Ha-hey!" Scott greeted, jogging over to the pair. When he reached Luis, they clasped hands, pulling one another for a one-armed hug. Luis beamed, pulling back to gesture towards his head. "What happened to your eye?"

Scott's shoulders sank as he nodded. "Oh, well, who do you think? Peachy. It's a going-away present."

"Oh, yeah." Luis nodded back. "I still got my scar from a year ago."

Scott reached forward, using his thumb to push up Luis' right eyebrow, inspecting closely to see a faint scar under his brow. "Oh, yeah."

"Yeah." Luis said proudly. "You know what? I'm still the only one who knocked him out."

Scott chuckled, shaking his head. "Well, I definitely didn't." His green eyes moved towards Christina, who was still leaning against the front of the van. "Who's this?"

"Oh! This is Christina. She's our new roommate."

Chris smiled, stepping forward to shake his hand. "Hey, Scott. I've heard a lot about you, thanks to Luis."

Scott chuckled. "Well, that's Luis for you." he glanced towards the van, gesturing at it. "Shall we?"

They all agreed, moving into the van.

          "THANKS FOR picking me up, brother." Scott smiled, sitting in the passenger seat. Luis smiled widely, glancing at him. "Bro, you think I'm gonna miss my belly getting out?"

"Hey, how's your girl, man?" Scott asked with a warm smile, looking back at him.

"Oh, she left me." Luis replied, still smiling.

"Oh." Scott said, smile dropping.

"Yeah, my ma died too. And, my dad got deported."

There was a pause of silence.

"But I got the van!" Luis exclaimed, smile widening. Scott pursed his lips, looking around at the interior of the vehicle. "It's nice."

"Yeah, right?"

"Thanks for the hookup too. I needed a place to stay." Scott thanked as they rounded the road on a hill. Luis glanced at him, one hand off the wheel to move as he talked, "You wait till you see this couch, man. You're gonna be really happy. You're gonna be on your feet in no time, watch."

Scott nodded, looking out the window. "I hope so."

"Yeah, and I gotta introduce you to some people. Some really skilled people. Chrissy back here was the first." Luis smiled, jabbing a thumb behind his shoulder to Christina, who sat behind him. Scott looked over his shoulder to give a quick glance.

Scott looked back at Luis, shaking his head. "Not interested."

Luis scoffed. "Yeah, right..."

"Serious, man! I'm not going back. I've got a daughter to take care of."

"What's her name?" Chris piped up, leaning forward in her seat. Scott looked at her. "Cassandra. Cassie for short."

"You know that jobs don't come east for ex-cons, right? Chris says there's a lot of payoff." Luis said, trying to convince Scott.

"Look, man, I got a master's in electrical engineering, all right? I'm gonna be fine."

Chris chuckled, looked out her tinted window. "If you say so..."

Scott frowned, looking back at her once more.

          SCOTT ENTERED the apartment to find Luis stirring a whisk in a bowl of batter. Luis looked up for a moment. "Hey, Scotty. What's up?" Luis stopped, doing a double-take. "I thought you were supposed to be at work."

Scott shut the door. "I was. I got fired."

"Told you." Chris piped up, smirked knowingly. "Luis, you owe me ten bucks."

"Damn. They find out who you are?" Luis asked and Scott nodded. "Baskin-Robbins always finds out."

"Baskin-Robbins don't play." a man said, sitting at their small table with another man with black hair, as well as Christina. Luis smiled at Scott. "You want some waffles?"

Scott put down his bag on the couch, taking off his jacket it to fold it over the armrest. "Yeah, I'll take a waffle.

After Luis poured the batter into the waffle press, he moved towards the table, pointing at his guests. He gestured to the man with black hair, eyes trained on his computer. "Oh, that's Kurt. He was Folsom for five years. He's a wizard on that laptop."

Kurt closed his computer, nodded at Scott as he sat with the three. "Nice meet you." Scott picked up on his heavy Russian accent. "Yeah. Nice to meet you too."

He looked to his left at the man with the beanie. "Who are you?"

"Dave." he replied, eyes narrow. Scott nodded. Dave jutted his chin towards him. "Nice work on the Vista job."

Luis put down Scott's plate.

"Vista job. No, no. I have heard of this robbery." Kurt commented, sitting up his his chair. Scott looked at Kurt, setting down his utensils as he swallowed a bite of food. "Well, technically, I didn't rob them. Robbery involves threat. I hate violence. I burgled them. I'm a cat burglar."

"You mean you're a pussy?" Dave said. Scott nodded. "Yeah."

"They were overcharging the customers, right?" Luis said, coming to the table with his own small stack of the breakfast. "And it added up to millions. He blows the whistle and gets fired. And what does he do? He hacks into the security system, and transfers millions back to the people that they stole it from."

"Posts all the bank records online." Dave smiled, gesturing at Scott. Kurt whistled, impressed.

"And he drove the dudes' Bentley into his swimming pool!" Luis added. Scott stopped chewing, frowning at Luis. "What are you doing? Hmm? Why are you telling my life story to this guys? What do you want?"

He glanced around, Kurt, Chris', and Dave's eyes all on him.

"Okay," Luis put a forkful of the breakfast food into his mouth, pocketing it into his cheek. "My cousin talked to this guy two week ago, about this little perfect job."

"No way." Scott shook his head.

"No, no, no. Wait! This guy...this guy fits your M.O."

"No!" Scott exclaimed, growing angry. "I'm finished, man. I'm not going back to jail."

"It's some retired millionaire. Living off his golden parachute. It's a perfect Scott Lang mark!"

"I don't care. I'm out."

Chris and Dave scoffed at Scott, falling back in their chairs.

          "DADDY!" A little girl exclaimed, running down the hallway of the house. Christina flinched back, letting Scott bend down and wrap his arms around the girl tightly. "Peanut! Oh, happy birthday!" He pulled away to hold at arms-length. "I'm so sorry I'm late. I didn't know what time your party started."

"It was on the invitation." Cassie replied, smiling widely to reveal her two front teeth missing. Chris smiled at her, looking up when a man walked through the threshold to the dining area. "He didn't get an invitation. But he came anyway!"

Scott stood up, smiling down at his daughter. "Well, I'm not gonna miss my little girl's birthday party."

"I'm gonna go tell Mommy you're here." Cassie said before turning and running off.

"Oh you don't..." Scott trailed off when she was too far.

The man standing next to Scott inched forward. "What are you doing here, Lang? You haven't paid a dime of child support. You know, right now, if I wanted to, I could arrest you."

"Good to see you too Paxton." Scott nodded stiffly, flashing a tight-lipped smile.

"Oh, so you're the guy Scott's been going on about." Christina said, folding her arms and stepping closer to Scott which made the man step back.

The man; Paxton, glared at her. "And who the hell are you?"

"None of your business." Christina snapped, glaring at him.

Cassie ran back down the hallway, making everyone look at her. "Mommy's so happy you're here, she choked on her drink!"