Request: "Can you do a Hope Van Dyne x OC?" from ManchurianReject I hope you like it and sorry for the long wait !!

Characters & Pairings: Hope Van Dyne/OC, Scott Lang/Hope Van Dyne

CW: PTSD, death, manipulation

this is a long one, so if you don't want to read it all in one go you can take breaks at the "~~~"

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Orange. That's all she can see. It stretches on for miles, at least she thinks it does. It's too dusty for her to even see her own hands, and the sharp sting of what she can only assume to be sand is painfully distracting. Like thousands of paper cuts happening all at once and forever.

She's been here for ages, but the days don't seem to end. It's always bright, and the light shines and glitters off the sand. If it wasn't so painful, it would be more beautiful.

She doesn't have much to think about except wondering where she is, how long it's been, and where the light source is coming from. The sun maybe?

It's driving her mad. It hurts and she can't keep trudging through the sandy ground. Her legs get heavier with each step, and she's had to close her eyes to protect them from the sand.

Screaming for help is useless, all that happened was a mouthful of sand. It coated her mouth and lungs and made it harder to breath. She couldn't stop coughing but that only made more sand enter her lungs.

Someone, God, please save me.

Hope wakes up breathing heavily and covered in cold sweat. It's still dark out and her clock reads 2:43 a.m. Her sheets crinkle as she breaths out.

It's been 2 and a half years since the Blip. But Hope still dreams about the not-quite-living not-quite-dead Hell. Most people don't even remember it, they say the blip just felt like blinking and then blinking again but everything around you was different. And five years in the future.

Her therapist says nightmares are normal, especially after a traumatic event. That it's her mind's way of trying to relive and rationalize what happened. Hope doesn't buy it. She doesn't have nightmares about her father's death and she's still trying to figure out why he had to die.

The post-mortem said it was a heart attack, natural causes. But Hope doesn't buy that either. She swears she saw something, but since Scott didn't see it, her therapist says it was her subconscious making it up to—once again—rationalize his death.

Hope looks back over at the clock, it's 3:05 a.m. now. She grabs her phone from right beside it and opens it up to the news.

Climate Crisis Worsening, Experts Say

Charity in Honor of Tony Stark Funds New Hospitals

New Study Shows That Mental Health After the Blip Seems To Be Improving

Teens Call for School Reform

Boring, Boring, Boring...

Videos of Possible Post-Blip Side-Effects Go Viral

Ah. Here we go. Something worth while. Hope clicks the hyperlink.

"...Reports of people collapsing on the streets and 'phasing' as people have begun to call it...the only connections is that all cases concern people who where blipped..."

Hope thinks she speaks for everyone when she hoped that all this shit was over. No more blip, no more space aliens, no more Thanos, no more. But it seems that every single member of society was wrong. Guess you can't ignore and try to forget about a worldwide crisis that made half of the population disappear. Just because it happened two years ago doesn't mean it still doesn't affect the present, as much as we all wished it wouldn't.

Before Hope could find another article to read, her phone dings with a notification.

"Jouta Saito has added you on LinkedIn!"

Jouta? She hasn't thought about him in years. Last she heard, he went back to Japan when they were in the 10th grade to spend time with his dying Grandpa.

Hope clicks on the notification. She adds him back and goes to send him a message.

"Hey! Sorry if I'm mistaken, but did we go to High School together? Grover High?"

She gets a message immediately in reply.

"Haha, yeah! I was scrolling through trying to find a colleague of mine and I saw your profile. Figured I might as well add you"

"That's crazy.
It's been what? 17 years?"

"That sounds about right lol
Do you still live in San Francisco? If so, we could meet up for coffee or something tomorrow? Catch up in person?"

"I do! That sounds perfect! Do you know Marvin's? Near the Whole Foods?"

"Yeah. Does 11:30 a.m. work?"

"Yep, sounds like a plan!"

Finally, someone else to spend her time with other than Scott. Not that she didn't like Scott, she liked him a lot actually, he could just be a bit much sometimes. After turning off her phone, Hope thinks that she should probably get some sleep before then.

~~~

Hope sat at a table, her coffee already ordered. Jouta wasn't late, she was just early. Probably because of nerves. Who knew that reconnecting with childhood friends could be so stressful? What if you didn't turn into who they thought you would?

She hears the bell above the door jingle, and looks up. Jouta looks around before spotting her and smiling. He looks the same.

"Hope! It's nice to see you! I'm going to go order really quick then I'll be right back," he says.

"So, how ya been?" she asks, when Jouta comes back and sits across from her

"Good, good. I actually just recently got a job here so I was able to move back from New York. Mostly just programming work. How about you?" He replies.

"Yeah same, I've just been working mostly for my father's business, doing the paperwork that no one wants to do," Hope chuckles dryly. "Putting everything in order after his death, as I'm sure you've heard of."

Jouta's eyes soften. "I did. I'm sorry about that, Hope," he says, his hand reaching out to touch her's.

"It's okay. I'm over it," she smiles bitterly. "So, programming? I'm glad you went with that. Imagine if you became an engineer like your parents always wanted."

"Yeah. That would have sucked. I'd rather stick with my zeros and ones instead of quadratic formulas and shit," Jouta responds, going along with Hope's change in the subject.

Before the conversation could go farther, Hope's phone rings. She looks at her screen. It's Scott. "I'm so sorry. It's my boyfriend"

Hope picks up her phone and smiles apologetically at Jouta.

"Hey, are you busy?" Scott says through the phone. "I need your help with some... ya know... bug stuff."

"Getting coffee with a friend. What do ya need Scott?" Hope looks at Jouta and rolled her eyes and mouths sorry.

"Since Clint is visiting, I'm helping him make some arrows with the particles, and we need some help. Usually, we'd ask Bruce over a call or Ton...," Scott clears his throat. "But, Bruce is on vacation right now. Having some, quote 'TLC time with Hulk' or something."

"Is it urgent or can I finish my coffee first?" she asks.

"Not really... but I'd really like to see you. We haven't been talking much and I miss you, Hope." Scott answers.

"Alright. I'll be there, just give me half an hour. You're at the..." Hope says waiting for him to finish her sentence.

"Pym Building, yes."

"Okay. See you soon," she says hanging up. "Sorry Jouta. I have to go, can we finish this another day?"

"Of course, do what you need to do. Here's my number. Text me when you're free," Jouta smiles. He stands up, "It was nice to see you again Hope."

~~~

Hope and Jouta meet up often after that. Coffee, quick lunches, and sometimes the rare dinner. They became close friends quickly after that.

Jouta confided in her about his mother's cancer and how that was why he moved back. It was hard on him, seeing his mom like that. And Hope confided in him about her nightmares, something she struggled to even tell Scott about. Scott would get over protective of when she told him, but Jouta just listened.

They both provided support for each other, not trying to fix it or make the other see that it wasn't so bad, they just understood.

~~~

"You're always spending time with him, Hope! I'm not jealous—well maybe a little—I just miss you. You're always cancelling on me to spend time with him," Scott yells.

"Have you ever thought that maybe I needed a friend and not just boyfriend?! You never listen to me, I just need someone to talk to sometimes, Scott! Not just someone to fuck!" Hope yells back.

"I do listen Hope, you just never talk to me anymore," Scott says, his voice catching in his throat. "You're distant now. It's- It's like you're moving on and leaving me in the dust. I'm trying so hard to stay with you but you're making it difficult, let me catch up with you. Please, Hope."

"Well, then maybe we need a break," Hope replies.

"I don't want that, I just want to work with you. I want to work together and work on us. I want us Hope, I want to make it work," Scott counters.

"Let's take a day then, and come back to this. See if our heads have cleared then," Hope offers, feeling defeated.

"Okay. Okay, see you tomorrow then?"

~~~

While getting coffee with Jouta, Hope's phone dings with a message.

"Scott: We have a Situation. Get to Docks ASAP. Use your suit to get here if you have to, just get here"

"Um, Jouta, I, uh, I gotta go," Hope says looking up from her phone.

"Oh alright, let me walk you out then," Jouta says standing up. Hope stands up and quickly heads to the entrance of the café, Jouta following close behind.

Once she gets outside, Hope clicks a button on her watch and her nanotech suit opens up. "Jouta, I'll explain later. I just have to go now," Hope says, flying away before she could get a response.

~~~

When Hope and Scott finally solve the issue, Hope goes back to find Jouta. He wasn't at the coffee shop, so she calls him.

"Hey, can we talk? About what just happened?" Hope says once he answers.

"Yeah, of course. I'd really like some clarification."

"You can meet me at the Pym labs. The guard should let you in but let me know if there's trouble."

"Got it," he responds.

Once he gets inside the building, Hope meets him by the door and leads him inside. She takes him to the lab where Scott sits.

"Scott, Jouta. Jouta, Scott."

"Hi," Scott says with a slight edge to his voice.

"So, um, basically we're Avengers? Like Ant-man and the Wasp?" Hope begins.

"Yeah that's us," Scott adds.

"Cool! So you use your Dad's Tech to do all that? The flying and shrinking and stuff? At first I figured it was some weird superpower thing, like Hulk or something, but this is so much cooler— Sorry, I'm rambling," Jouta apologizes.

"Yeah, that's the basics of it." Hope answers, smiling.

"Do you mind if I take a look at the programming? For science ya know? It'd be cool to see that aspect of it!" Jouta asks.

Hope quickly agrees, and Scott reluctantly does. Jouta goes over to the computer once Hope pulls the programs up.

"Woah...," he says, scrolling through it. "This is some high level stuff, I've never seen anything like it. Whoever wrote it is a genius, the annotations and style is amazing," Jouta marvels clicking at a few things.

"That would be my dad. He worked on this stuff for decades. Poured everything in him into it all," Hope says.

"Well he's amazing. This is amazing."

~~~

Jouta took it all really well. He didn't bring it up often, and especially not in public. Hope trusted him, and Scott eventually warmed up to him.

Without Hope's dad to work on upgrades for their suits, Jouta began helping them. He writes the programs and Hope would help bring the mechanical aspect of it to life.

Their suits were advancing faster than ever before. But the entire time, the cases of phasing were rising and it's always in the back of Hope's head, nagging at her. She doesn't know what to do. It seems that phasing was a problem molecularly, like Ava Starr. Maybe Hope could find a way to help the phasing like they tried to help Ava.

She spends her nights scribbling away ideas in a notebook, which helps keep the nightmares away.

~~~

"Are the nightmares improving at all, Hope?"

Hope stays silent. She stares outside the window watching the gentle sway of leaves on the trees.

"Hope?"

"Oh... sorry. No, they haven't. Anytime I fall asleep I have them," she answers. It's not like Hope sleeps much anyways, she has other things clouding her mind.

Her therapist looks at their watch. "We have ten minutes left, do you have anything else to discuss or should we wind down with some time to talk about whatever?"

"We can talk about other things, I feel a bit drained."

~~~

The avengers were getting stressed about the rise in phasing cases. No one really knows what happened to those who phased. Some bodies were left behind, others disappeared without a trace.

Hope and Scott constantly receive emails from the team about the cases. Hope resorted to muting them. The emails make her more stressed about the situation than she already is.

The stress transfers into tension between Hope, Scott and Jouta. They can't sit in a room together for very long without starting an argument.

She's starting to feel isolated and lonely again. Her therapist suggested joining group therapy to make friends, Hope declined.

~~~

The arguments are worsening. It's getting harder to calm each other down during them. They're lasting longer and getting more hurtful with every day.

Today seems off. Jouta was acting weird but he says he's fine when Hope asks. It makes sense that Jouta starts todays argument.

"You could be saving the world Hope! And instead you're too caught up in yourself. Pym Particles are revolutionary! Every person you hear about on the news 'phasing' could be saved with your father's technology," Jouta says.

"Jouta, I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

"My mom, Hope," he says spitting her name out. "It's not cancer. She's dying because the blip ruined her molecular structure, and the only thing that can save her is the thing you hide from the public. Pym Particles. I need you to give me some."

"You were just... using me?" Hope says, her voice breaking.

"You're just realizing this?" Jouta laughs. "I never cared about you. Honestly, who could? You're so fucking annoying, always complaining about something. Well, guess what?! No one cares about your stupid nightmares!"

"Hey, watch it idiot!" Scott defends. He readies his hand to open his nanotech suit.

"It's no use Bug-Boy, I disabled your suit with the new upgrade," Jouta smiles.

Scott hits the button anyways and nothing happens. He hits it again and it fails again. "So much 'for science'," Scott recalls bitterly.

"Jouta, we can work together and find a way to help your mom and everyone. Safely, just please calm down," Hope bargains.

"Yeah, that won't work." Jouta pulls out a gun and points it at Scott. "I need them now, Hope. I've waited too long, and wasted too much damn time trying to build your trust."

"No. I can't."

Jouta pulls back the hammer on his gun. "Now, Hope, give me the Particles or I'll blow your boyfriend's fucking head off," he says pausing between every word.

"Jouta, just breathe," Hope takes a step forward but her appearance shudders and she falls to her knees. Hope screams out in pain and Jouta freezes.

"Hope!" Scott calls, rushing to her side.

Hope's appearance shifts back and forth. It feels like being torn apart and put back together. Her heart beats in her ears.

I'm phasing.

Is this what her dad felt like? Did he phase and die? Like Jouta's mom is? And now, like her? Will everyone who blipped phase out? Oh god. Was every sacrifice for nothing?

Her heart hurts. It feels heavy and sharp pains stab her lungs. Her whole body feels like it's on fire. Hope wants to scream.

"I'm sorry, Scott," she chokes out instead, as he grips her hand. A tear falls from his eye and lands on her hand, she doesn't feel it when it falls though her onto the floor.

Hope thinks that the sand hurt less and then everything goes black.