LAURA

Something was strange. 

I couldn't put a definite finger on it but it was a sense of foreboding in the air. Oddness, stillness, gone. Something was lost which was a surety because I felt utterly wasted and empty. What for I didn't know, but I was done. Taken somewhere else, far from Queens.

Sin was long gone. And, I was through with that. 

It was a hospital wing I was locked in. SHIELD headquarters. There were no windows around and a tense silence with the simultaneous buzzing of the electric lights above. No one walked by except one nurse, Susan, who came to check up on me every hour and collect a report for a pap smear every now and then. They'd bandaged my head, saying that my head had hemorrhaged slightly and might take a while to heal. I probably sported a black eye too, completing the demolished Laura look.

When my first pap smear was obtained, I was more confused than my first failure. I was pregnant but scraping up my womanhood was not the way to go about it. The baby could get hurt.

I remembered stopping Susan and the redhead who'd come in with a grimace. 'You'll hurt the baby.'

'Miss Sharp, you need to know that - '

The redhead interjected. 'Not now, Susan. Just get the tests in like the doctor said.'

And that was the end of it. How much ever I prodded and pleaded the nurse, she never opened her damned mouth. Came in, scraped me out and left. Smile, give me my papery food and collect it after I was done. This went on for hours till the end until I raised a question.

'Where's Eddie?'

'He's with Fury. Questioning.'

'They aren't going to hurt him, are they?' I whispered. 'He doesn't know about the baby.'

No answer.

'Can I see him?'

Susan smiled ruefully, squeezing my shoulder and leaving the room without another word. I opened my mouth to call out her name but the metal door banged shut behind her. I sat there patiently, waiting for her to return, Pulling my knees to my chest, I placed my cheek over them and rocked myself slowly. 

We were having a baby. A little brunette like Eddie with eyes like mine. Ten little fingers, ten little toes, and a pretty smile. The gender didn't matter to me though I rooted for a brunette baby. That lead to brainstorming a name, rushing through the little number of names that bombarded my head. I stopped my rocking when I thought of the first one. 

'Ezra.'

It started with Eddie's name's first letter and with my name's last letter. Yes, it was perfect and it was unisex. Grinning to myself, I rubbed my legs to create some warmth in the cold room. They'd dressed me in the flimsiest attire, a tiny cloth tied at my neck and falling like a cylinder around me. Tilting my head to face the door, I widened my eyes when I saw Eddie standing there. He had a monotonous glance and staring ahead at me.

'Eddie!' I swiped the covers out of my way to greet him. A sharp pain shot up my head, making me stumble and lose my balance. He was by my side before I could fall back, grabbing my waist. I chuckled silently. 'Headrush.'

A little twitch of his lip. He brushed a strand of hair from my eyes softly, letting me sit on the bed. 'How are you feeling?'

'Fine,' I waved my hands with musing. 'Just a little knock to the head.'

He sat beside me with his hands not leaving my waist. His eyes were fixated on my abdomen, scratching the end of his nose nonchalantly when I saw him. I craned my neck to meet his eyes with a smile.

'You know.'

His jugular bounced. He was sweating bullets and thick veins of Venom crawling up his neck like a maze scribbling. He looked contemplative. The bad kind of contemplative. I didn't know what made me go on.

'I,' I murmured with a secretive smile, 'want to keep the baby. I know we haven't talked about - '

'Laura,' he said with finality and grazed both his hands over my shoulders to get me to look at him. He steered clear of anywhere near my head and rubbed his thumb over my collarbone. 'The baby . . . '

I blinked. 

'You had an abortion,' he said softly. 'Sin being expelled out of you acted against the child.'

It took me a beat to process it. I shook my head in disbelief. 'There must be some kind of a mistake.'

'Laur.'

'No,' I said sternly and pushed myself from his arms. 'Susan took my results to the lab and she said I was doing fine. That I - ' I was doing fine. Just me. Not my baby. Not Ezra.

'I'm sorry, doll.' 

He brought me to his chest. His hands rubbed my back and my expressionless face pressed into his chest. I couldn't bring myself to believe that ten little toes and fingers were never going to happen. That I wasn't going to get to kiss little Ezra's soft cheeks and tell her about the voice in my head.

'Laur, you're not even crying.'

'I can't believe it,' I said in the smallest voice. I was in major disbelief. All the possibilities seemed slim so slim all of a sudden. About how dumb I was to think I could actually birth a baby, after all, that's going on around us. 

'That I won't get to meet Ezra.'

Eddie half-laughed. 'A sweet name.'

I nodded and winced when he rubbed my arms a little too hard. He sighed and set his chin gently over my head. He was touching me so much and it was so thoughtful because Eddie knew that hugs warmed me up the most. His touch calmed me and I loved that he was able to make me feel fine.

'That gag gift wronged us, huh?'

I chuckled halfheartedly, clutching his shirt tightly. He had an inviting coldness, my head moving into his neck and the chillness feeling good against my skin. His rough stubble scratched my bandages, my hands coiling into his firmly.

'You're the strongest woman I've ever met, Laura Sharp,' he said into my hair. 'You're so fucking bold and beautiful so this loss isn't going to keep you away from your job back home, you hear me? Do you want babies? I'll give a soccer team full of kids if you want, we'll adopt if you get tired and get a dog - no, honey, don't cry!'

I palmed my eyes not ready to show my tears to him, short sobs leaving me. My head started to prick with the pain of my tears, my hands going to clutch my hair. I squeezed my eyes shut; it was as if my an unpoppable bubble was lodged into the nodes of my brains.

'Ssh, stop crying. You're hurting yourself.'

Eddie's arms went around my neck pushing me into the pillows and his thumbs brushing the tears from my eyes. I tried to calm myself by heaving breaths and looking up at him. 

'I love you,' I said with a weary smile, 'so much.'

'I know,' he murmured. I resisted a glare despite the ripping pain.

'Say it back, Han Solo.'

He chuckled. 'I love you, too. So much more.'

- ♣ -

I woke up the next morning, hopefully, to an outlandish male stranger and Peter sitting at the foot of the bed and minding their own business. Peter had a jacket over his Spiderman costume, swirling around in his stool-chair and the red-and-silver suited stranger with a thick metaled headgear in his grasp, blatantly judging the kid.

'Peter?' 

He shot his brown gaze to mine with a smile. 'G'morning, Ms. Sharp.'

'Just Laura,' I reminded him and felt an arm going to my side to pull myself up. Eddie sent me a grateful smile as I adjusted myself over the cushions. I strained my eyes on the lanky looking male with hesitancy.

'And, you are?'

'I'm Scott, Scott Lang. Sure you've heard of me and I read the reports about you,' he got up from his stool to shake my hand. His hands were clad with gloves and some sort of a tube running through gauntlets and buttons in his hand. I gawked at him with awe. I instantly knew he was when I familiarized myself with his suit.

'You're Ant-Man!'

'Yes, I am!' He said in the same tone as mine. Awestruck. Scott Land was a handsome former criminal, his striking features and watchful eyes getting me riled up the right way. Oh, I was interested alright. 

'Hey,' I leaned closer to him and he followed motion. 'Can you really talk to ants?'

'Long story short - yes, I can. It's complicated but it's really this EMP comm. device - ' 

' - that can generate EM waves? Holy shit, I knew it from the time I saw you turn to Giant-Man at that airport!'

Scott's eyebrows raised with regard as I rambled about my theory which turned out to be true. He shrugged and laid a hand over his hips. 'Yeah, that. Smart one.' 

'And - '

'Alright, babe, let's not get into the specifications,' Eddie mused from beside me and placed an elbow my shoulder. 'Scott, talk to us.'

'Actually,' Peter interjected with a raise of his hand to which I grinned softly. He was such a sweetheart. I didn't know what came over me but I had a strange urge to just give him the biggest hug. 'I know what's going on. He's just here to steal my thunder.'

'I'm an Avenger, Spiderkid. It's what I do.'

Peter scoffed. 'It isn't official unlike me. You were the last resort. Like Teddy Daniels but less of a . . . fanbase.' I let out a short chuckle at Peter's reference to Shutter Island. Peter smirked at his feet when I sent him a wink.

Scott looked at Eddie with disbelief. 'This kid is going to help us fight one the most powerful soldiers in space?'

'Fury insisted on getting the most help we could get,' he said and sent a hand through his overgrown hair. 'Besides, he's got some high-level A.I. sh - '

' - stuff,' I finished for him with a glare. 'He's a child, Ed.'

Eddie exhaled sharply. 'Another obstacle.'

'Okay so,' Peter said in a sarcastic voice. 'What exactly do we do?'

Scott crossed his built hands over his chest and said in a domineering voice. 'I have a twenty-five percent of a plan. Papa Smurf has enough coming his way.'

Everyone looked at Eddie's phone that buzzed in his pocket and watched as he attended to it. Seeing that it was a message, his eyebrows contorted weirdly. Instantly, everyone was put off.

'Mr. Brock?' Scott and Peter said together in all anxiousness.

'Ed, what is it?'

Eddie blew out a breath and looked at me with bewildered eyes. I couldn't help but slap a taken-aback expression on my face.

'Tony Stark just flew in. Said he wants to hear from us.'

[ w/n: yay, Ant-Man! okay, I know I haven't added too much emotion into the revelation scene but you guys, give 'em a break. They've been dating for like six months. They've got two symbiotes, a deranged villain and two superheroes to handle. A baby into the mix? I'm pretty sure that anyone would've seen the naivety of the situation. It's only right that they take it slow. looking past, what do y'think is their plan?