CHAPTER EIGHT ;
" dramaticism - a made up word ? "
" and take a look around the room
love comes wearing disguises
i can't help myself but stare
double check for double meanings "
✧ MY TYPE
saint motel!
"So..." Gordo stretches the word out, sitting on top of the island counter in the middle of the mansion's kitchen.
"So... what-o, Gordo?" Laurie responds, standing across from him on top of the opposite counter and looking through the cabinets.
The boy makes a face at her, dipping his chin down so that his floppy hair falls on his forehead, "So... you wanna tell me what in Godzilla's name is going on?"
"You have brought forth a good question, my buddy ol' pal." Laurie pauses her search through Hank Pym's cabinets, mockingly tapping her index finger to her chin, "Hmm... Nope!" She pops the 'P' and then her voice drops way super deep when she announces, "You can't handle the truth!"
The fifteen year old boy scrunches his nose at her, "When God gave you the gift of dramaticism-,"
"That is a made up word, my friend."
"So what if it is?!" Gordo bursts, throwing his hands on his hips, "I can be cool and fun and creative too!"
"Touchy, touchy..." Laurie mutters in a mockingly highly voice, the one that makes you want to punch the person even more.
Gordo narrows his eyes at her, "Anywaay, I was trying to say that when you were popped out with the gift of the dramatics, He was cursing the rest of us poor unfortunate souls."
Laurie smirks a little at his insult.
She hums to herself in irritation, not being able to find what she's looking for, as she still steps along the cold countertop in her alien socks. She got those bad boys for her eleventh birthday and she will die a gory and brutal death before she allows her mom to throw 'em away. Little one-liners are set between the aliens, saying phrases like, 'outta this world' and 'greetings normies'. Aaand, the little green dudes on her feet glow when in the dark.
All in all, her socks are pretty stinking rad.
Gordo interrupts her inner monologue about her paranormal socks to say stupid words like, "Laurie. I mean it."
Ignoring him and his stupid words, Laurie huffs and then pretty much shoves her entire head into one of the cabinets.
"Laurie."
"Sorry, I can't hear you when - aha! I found it!" She suddenly yanks her head out, in turn slamming the back of her skull against a shelf with a very loud bang.
Gordo jumps in his jean jacket and then the boy cringes, squinting an eye at her.
"Ow! Ow!" She howls and jumps up and down on the counter, rubbing a hand into the back of her head, "Oh, dirty cuss word!"
Her best friend cringes even more at her jumping, totally being able to picture the clumsy and sorta / kinda lanky girl slipping off the counter and then falling to her death. Agh, that would get blood everywhere. Gordo pushes himself off of his own spot a few feet away, awkwardly holding his arms out in case she plummets down from above. Meanwhile, Laurie is still doing a little jig.
With a wince, Laurie scowls down at the item in her hand as if this little bitty box was the one that nailed her before she suddenly exclaims, "For the LOVE of Benji, this isn't even the-," She groans and carelessly tosses the item back over her shoulder.
Gordo panickedly snatches it from the air, narrowing his eyes at her back before he gently sets it down onto the counter like any normal person would. Laurie is still mumbling to herself as she continues rummaging in the cabinets once more. The girl's best friend is really not in the mood for any of her games at the moment, kinda feeling a lil' bit stressed out about all of what's going on. Though, to be fair, Gordo has a perfectly decent reason to be so cheesed off and confused. He sort of roped himself into a situation he really didn't understand, like, at all. He's sooo far out of the loop that Laurie actually finds it hilarious.
"Alright, Laurie. I'm just gonna explain this to you as simply and honestly as I can, okay?"
"Okay." She responds, but it somehow doesn't really sound like she's listening.
"Okay." Gordo sighs out a heavy breath, "You know I'm always with you on anything and everything. No matter how stupid or completely insane it is-,"
"You've got a friend in me." Laurie begins to sing and sway slightly, "You've got a friend in me!"
"Laurie, no! I beg of you, don't!"
She spins around to face him, pointing a sharp finger at him, "You've got troubles," she jabs a thumb back at her chest, "well, I've got 'em too."
Gordo squeezes his eyes shut, groaning out a sigh, "Laurie, you know I am weak and I cannot resist singing Disney."
"There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you."
Gordo opens his eyes and scowls at her, "Curse you."
And then, together, the best friends sing, "We stick together and we see it through. 'Cause you've got a friend in me. You've got a friend in me!"
"Enough! No more!" Gordo abruptly breaks off the performance, making Laurie shrug and turn back to her search before he himself heaves a deep breath and goes on, "Okay. I need you to just be straightforward with me about this. What is it that the Pym feller wants your dad to do?"
"Steal." Laurie's voice sounds echoed as her head is once again in a cabinet.
"Right, I've, um, hah, sorta picked that up." He paces around behind her, folding his hands together like he's about to pray, "But maybe you can explain to me why is it somehow, like, okay that he wants us to steal something? Like, no offense, Laurie, but that didn't really turn out so swell for ya last time, ya know what'm saying?"
Her shoulders again shrug and her lips pucker in agreement.
"And what the heck is the importance of that formula Old Man Pym was talking about?"
Now, Laurie's response to that could only be described as silence on the other end of the phone line, only this is real life and they're actually, in fact, not on a telephone.
"Laurie." Gordo clenches his jaw, "Stop making static noises with your mouth." The guy groans when she still doesn't respond and he falls tiredly back into the kitchen island, "Okay, you're driving me crazy, what is going on? What are you looking for?"
"Noodles, you nimrod!" Laurie suddenly answers like it should be completely obvious, "I'm making you pasta."
Gordo's eyes widen, "Okay, so you know I'm always completely down for pasta, but why with the pasta?"
She gives a sigh, unsteadily turning around to face him, and then resting her hands on her hips to frown down at him, "Dear child."
Gordo quirks an eyebrow up at her.
"I am making you pasta for I am about to blow your ever-loving mind."
Insert SpongeBob SquarePants Narrator voice: ONE HOUR LATER
"Great pastacholi..."
"I know."
"What the rigatoni?!"
"I know!"
"Holy ravioli!"
"Okay, the swearing in pasta varieties has gotta stop."
Gordo just gazes into space with his big brown eyes, his mouth hanging out and his face utterly shocked as Laurie presses an ice pack to the back of his head. The poor guy passed out once Laurie had Scott show him how the suit worked when just explaining it didn't work. He smacked his head right on the kitchen counter and now he's got this massive egg like thingy on the back of his head. He's lucky he didn't split his skull wide open to the surrounding planet.
No one would've wanted to see the interior of his head.
That'd've been gross.
"How are you feeling, buddy?" Wincing, Scott stays crouched in front of the two best friends.
Gordo doesn't respond.
Laurie sighs and pats his shoulder, taking it upon herself to explain her bestie, "Gordo Makina wasn't hardwired for big and life-altering plot twists in the book of life. Such zigzags in the day-to-day existence messes with his engineering."
Scott stares at her for a long moment and then shakes his head.
Standing and crossing his arms behind him, Hank purses his lips at the girl, "I have to tell you, Miss Lang: most of the time, I have no clue what you're talking about."
Laurie nods up at him and concedes with a shrug, "I respect that."
Gordo suddenly snaps back to them all, a crazed look in his eyes, "A shrinking suit?!"
Hank gives a sigh, rolling his eyes and nodding for them all to follow him back down to the dark and wicked awesome lab in the dungeon-er, basement.
"This isn't the first time these guys have tried to get their hands on game-changing weaponry." The group sits or stands behind a display of computer screens that are flooded with important info and some shady looking guys, "That's Mitchell Carson, Ex-Head of Defense at SHIELD, presently in the business of toppling governments. He always wanted my tech."
"That's not good!" Gordo suddenly blurts, his eyes darting between the screen and Hank Pym.
"Aww, there we go." Laurie lovingly pats the side of his face, "He's coming back to us now."
Gordo doesn't bother removing her hand from his face, ignoring her to seriously say, "If this Mitchell Carson guy works for HYDRA like a lot of those dudes in SHIELD did, and if he gets your tech, Mr. Pym, then that could mean..."
"Anarchy." Scott finishes for him, a grim look on his face, "Murder at will. You name it."
Laurie slowly lowers her hand from Gordo's face, another grim look that looks exactly like her father's now coming onto her face. This isn't a time to play around. This isn't just some little game that she pokes fun at.
This is real stinkin' deal.
Hank lets out a sigh, "And now, unless we break in and steal the Yellowjacket and destroy all the data, Darren Cross is gonna unleash chaos upon the world."
A long pause follows as the heavy information sinks in.
"I think our first move..." Scott says slowly, looking from the screen over to Hank cautiously, "Should be calling the Avengers."
"Ooh yes!" Laurie suddenly brightens, nodding quickly, "Let's!"
Gordo rolls his eyes and smirks at her never-ending obsession with the awesome weird mix of heroes that saved protect their world.
Hank gives an annoyed scoff, standing and stalking around the room, "I spent half my life trying to keep this technology out of the hands of a Stark. I'm not gonna hand-deliver it to two of them now!" Hank looks at the three of them from across a work table, "This is not some cute technology like the Iron Man suit or little metal repulsors! This could change the texture of reality."
Laurie's brown eyebrows drop in, considering what that could mean for her own little reality. Why would they ever need to change reality? It's not perfect, but it's theirs. If they ever needed to do something like that, then something must have gone wrong. So disgustingly wrong.
Scott stands up from beside Laurie, walking over to be closer to Hank with furrowed eyebrows.
"Besides, they're probably too busy dropping cities out of the sky."
She and Gordo suddenly frown simultaneously, both sadly thinking back to the recent and horrible events of Sokovia.
"Okay," Scott concedes with a flat tone, shaking his head, "then why don't you just send the ants?!"
"Scott, they are ants!" Hank squints at the man through his glasses, nodding his head off to the side, "Ants, they can do a lot of things, but they still need a leader."
Laurie just watches while Scott's face grows less and less willing as the two guys go on back and forth. And, if she thought of him the same way she did like five days ago, then she would think it's cowardice of selfishness or him just ditching out something or someone important again. But he's not. And that's not what Laurie sees now. She sees that he doesn't trust himself. He doesn't have the confidence in himself to do it.
"He's right, Hank." They all turn to look at Hope as the Ice Woman herself walks through the lab door, "And you know it."
Scott's shoulders are tense and Hank's eyes not even meeting his daughter's. Laurie folds her arms over her stomach, standing up to be in between her dad and Gordo as the woman unrolls some plans out on the table.
"You've seen the footage, you know what Cross is capable of. I was against using him when we had months, and now we have days." Laurie's eyes narrow but Scott's face just stays blank when Hope looks at the Langs, "I'm wearing the suit."
"Absolutely not!" Hank immediately snips back, stepping around Gordo to scowl at her.
Hope just cocks her head to the side, not willing to give in without a fight, "I know the facility inside and out. I know how Cross thinks. I know this mission better than anybody here."
"We need you close to Cross. Otherwise, this mission cannot work."
Laurie inaudibly hisses and wiggles around, her eyes meeting Scott's as he turns in a small circle, feeling that same discomfort in his chest. It's them. Gosh darn it, it's just like them.
"Hope, please..."
"We don't have time to screw around!"
"Hope, listen to me-,"
"He is a criminal! I'm your daughter."
"No!" Hank finally breaks, his voice so hard and harsh all the sudden that Laurie jumps and bumps into Scott behind her.
An awkward silence filters through the room.
Hope's mouth hangs open in disbelief, that after all this time, after all this pain that this man has caused her, nothing has changed. Hank just lets out a thick breath, his eyes dropping and then flicking quickly away from her, unable to look at his little girl who isn't little anymore. After all, how can you even stand to look at your kid when you've abandoned them? Scott awkwardly looks from Hank and then to Laurie and then to Hope. And something changes in Hope, she curls back into herself, her cold facade taking back over and her mouth closing and her shoulders straightening. Her eyes stare into Scott's, seeing him as the man her father chose over her, seeing him as the man who is the same exact thing to his own kid.
And, with a bitter smile, she turns and she walks away, just like they did.
The silence stretches on and Laurie was suddenly finding great interest in her dirty shoelaces when Gordo finally elbows her gently in the arm.
"What?" She mouths, quirking an eyebrow.
Gordo nods his head towards the door, "Go after her."
"What? Why me?"
"Don't act stupid with me. You know why. Go."
Laurie's expression crumbles and she silently whines, "Nooo, don't make me."
"Go." Gordo's face remains deadpanned and immoveable.
"I hate you!"
"Love you too."
Never able to resist his scoldings, Laurie finally mimics a groan, trudges out of the room, and tries to find Hope. Scott watches her go out the dark doorway, nodding to Gordo in thankfulness. The teenager nods in response, knowing just what his best friend needs and when. Scott slowly turns back to look at Hank as the man pushes up his glasses, runs his hands over his face, and lets out a deep sigh.
Scott stares at the back of the man's head for a long moment, "She's right, Hank. I'm not your guy."
Hank turns in his chair, running his hands over his beard over and over again, a nervous habit, and today is a perfectly understandable day to be nervous.
Scott squints his eyes and shakes his head, "Why don't you wear the suit?"
Pym lets out a heavy sigh, painfully squeezing his eyes shut and pushing himself back in his chair, "You think I don't want to? I can't. I spent years wearing it, and it took a toll on me."
Scott purses his lips in sympathy, patting Gordo's shoulder and moving to sit beside the older man.
"You're our only option." Scott just continues to stare at him as Hank sucks in another strained breath, "Before Hope lost her mother, she used to look at me like I was the greatest man in the world... And now she looks at me and there's just disappointment."
"I know the look." Scott quietly responds, giving a stiff nod.
As Laurie moves through the darkness outside the lab, her feet trip to a stop at the sound of Scott's voice. A sound comes out of her throat, a sound she hasn't made in a long time, something that sounds eerily like a... sob? Laurie clamps a hand stiffly over her mouth while her eyes dance around in a panic and she pushes her back into one of the nearby walls.
Hank just shakes his head at the younger version of himself, his eyes red with almost tears, "It's too late for me, but not for you. Not yet."
Laurie grits her teeth and rolls her eyes up at the ceiling, trying to keep back her emotions as she always does.
And in the lab, Scott straightens just a bit while a little bloom of hope just pokes slightly through the crap that is this situation.
"This is your second chance. The chance to earn that look in your daughters' eyes. To become the hero that Cassie already thinks you are, that Laurie believes that you can be."
Scott doesn't dare move, doesn't dare breathe, not wanting to interrupt the man and not hear what could get him that look, the one that isn't disappoint but pride.
"It's not about saving our world. It's about saving theirs."
Scott stares at him for a long moment, swallowing hard and giving the briefest of nods, "Dang. That was a good speech."
"Scott. I need you to be the Ant-Man."
And Scott, with the reluctance pushed back now, agrees.
With a sick feeling in her stomach and a nice little collection of hot coals heaped upon her head, Laurie's shoulders droop and she quickly scratches at her freckled cheek where a stupid tear is rebelling against her. With a harsh breath and her hands forcing themselves into tight fists, she shuffles back the darkness of the basement. But she suddenly stops when she sees Hope leaning against the wall not far from the doorway, apparently having heard that entire conversation as well.
The lump is in the fifteen year old's throat grows like twelve times larger and Laurie stifles another groan.
She's too emotional for this right now.
Why did Gordo force her to face her problems like this?
It's just cruel. And unusual. She should sue. This is America, they know about that.
Besides, even on her best day when she's not on the brink of tears herself, Laurie Lang was not designed for comforting people. It's just not... her. She's just not... kind enough, she guesses. Maybe she used to be. She just really hasn't been really kind in a long time.
Laurie stops in front of Hope, awkwardly tapping the toe of her Converse into the wall, "Listen, uh,"
"I don't need a pep talk from a fourteen year old." Hope quickly squeezes her eyes shut, trying to hide the source of the stinging in her own dark eyes.
"Uh, u-kay, first of all, I'm fifteen." Laurie's sass fades away with a sigh, "And B. well, I, uh, didn't come out here for a pep talk; I'm not the pep-talker, I'm more of the pep-talkee, actually, if you want to get particular about it. If you want a pep-talker, that's usually Gordo so I can get him if you really want,"
Hope squints an eye at her, "Was there a point to this?"
"Yesh, ish, I mean, yeah." Laurie bounces on her toes, shoving her hands into her pockets and sighing, "Scott - my dad - went to prison when I was twelve and, uh, I just saw him for the first time since then, like, five days ago which was... heavy."
Hope's other eye opens and her facial expression softens just slightly from its usual iciness.
"So, I know what it's like to feel like your dad sucks. Even if he doesn't. Or even if he does, in your case, I don't know. Like, I don't know what the whole dirty backstory is between you and your dad, but I got one too, you know what I'm saying?" Laurie swallows hard, her heart beating crazy in her chest and her palms feeling sweaty from the pressure she feels that's on her right now, "I just... I understand all the dramaticism that comes with having a pretty much nonexistent dad."
"That's a made up word."
Laurie rolls her eyes, "I'm beginning to doubt that. Point is... I'm not really sure if I actually did have a point. I think I had one-,"
"It's fine." Hope nods and sighs with a flat smile, "I understand. You relate."
"Yeah. I just thought that..." Laurie rolls her eyes and rubs at her itchy nose, "Maybe, if you do this, if you stick with your dad, then maybe I can too. To make sure what needs to get done, gets done. Save the world, that whole kinda important thing. We would make like... like a deal?"
Hope's dark and perfectly sculpted eyebrows raise, "A deal?"
Laurie irritatedly throws up her hands, "Okay, if you think it's stupid, then we don't have to have a deal, but I just thought it was a good idea."
Hope gives the girl a hint of a smile, "Alright, Miss Lang, if you stick with your father, then I'll stick with mine. To get the job done."
Laurie suddenly puffs up a bit, feeling kinda proud that something she came up with is bearing fruit.
So Laurie sticks out her hand, "Deal?"
And Hope rolls her eyes before shaking it, "Deal."
Whew, finally an update right? I do apologize for my awfulness. Life has just been... you know, the usual insanity and grief. But hey, look, another chapter! And the good news is, I've already started the next! I really hope you enjoyed this one, what did you think?
It was a bit of a filler but some seriously important stuff occurred in here! We had Scott willing to become Ant-Man just to fix things with Laurie and Cassie (guys, I have a big break through moment planned for those two and whew, I hope you love it), we had Gordo finally becoming part of the plans, we had some hints at Infinity War when it comes to changing reality, and now we had the start of a friendship stricken up between Hope and Laurie (their friendship in Ant-Man and the Wasp gives me life). What did you think of all of that?
I love you all for your support and kindness! I just wanted to say thank you! And please do comment, vote, and, if you will, give me a follow?
Funny Thingamabob:
Didn't we all?