CHAPTER FIFTEEN ;
" growing pains "
" daddy, please forgive me for the
drinks spilled on the floor, to the
ones who never left me we've been
down this road before i'm so sorry,
i'm not sober anymore "
✧ SOBER
demi lovato!
PREVIOUSLY ON STINGER . . .
Seizures rack through Laurie's long frame, her head jerking back and forth as her limbs violently twist at odd angles. Her muscles begin to stretch and tear and shudder and retract, and blood begins to drip out of her ears. And Laurie tries to cry for help, but her voice won't make a sound and her tongue can't seem to form any words.
Foam bubbles and leaks out of her mouth as her body convulses and writhes on the floor. It's like her body is drawing in on itself, flesh consuming flesh as it eats her up and ravages her figure. And she knows she isn't going to make it out, that whatever's happening, it's gonna take her whole.
Her fingernails desperately claw into the concrete and she finally belts out an agonized scream, just trying to get someone to hear her
- for someone to finally hear her -
before Laurie Lang shrinks entirely.
THREE YEARS LATER . . .
*record scratch*
Yep, that's her. Laurie LaRue Lang, a tongue twister and a paradox all mixed up to create one perfect idiot. I bet you're wondering how she got into this situation.
Well, it all started three years ago when she done got shrunked up into the size of a little tiny ant and became, what the government calls, a "criminal", psh, like that mattered to her. I mean, it didn't matter up until the point she was wearing a supersuit, fighting an actual ghost, and her very favorite pals got arrested.
But wait, we're getting ahead of ourselves, let's backtrack a lil' bit.
Growing up wasn't anything like Laurie Lang had wanted. She had big dreams. She had dreams so big that sometimes it felt like even the stars were within her grasp.
But she turned eighteen way too quickly, and then all the sudden her childhood was over and she was left in a whirlwind. Laurie still felt like a little kid — in no way, shape, or form ready to be an adult. She was still just a kid when everything went sideways for the third time in her pathetic little life. Whatever semblance of stable ground the girl had finally settled on was dropped out from under her and she was in freefall.
Laurie thought things were getting better. Paxton and the dreaded word "stepfather" stopped seeming so bad. Scott was back in her and Cassie's lives for good, finally becoming the dad they needed so much. Hank and Hope decided not to be the reason they went to prison, but became friends instead. Laurie and Gordo were all set to be best buds for the rest of their happy little lives. Everything was all fine and dandy, and the sun was setting on her perfect paradise.
Laurie should've known the world was about to screw her over. Again.
It all started with frickin' Scott going AWOL, randomly getting arrested in Germany with the actual real-life Avengers (which was wacky in of itself but we don't have time to unpack all of that).
The Sokovia Accords took affect, and the Avengers she had idolized for so long disbanded.
After that, Hank and Hope, some of the only friends she actually ever had, were forced to go into hiding and on the run.
And then the thing with Gordo... That terrible, awful thing... where her greatest fears came true.
But even that couldn't come close to comparing to that day. All of what happened felt as if it had been set off by that one single event, such a tiny moment that would change her entire life. When the Pym Particle slipped from her hands, every good and perfect thing got swish-swished down the drain.
When mini Laurie Lang finally rematerialized to something close to her original size, Hank and Hope hovered over her in terror, having heard her panicked, hoarse screams from upstairs. The lab was a mess. Puddles of warm blood smeared across the floor and the walls. Acidic foam and bits of flesh strewn through the room. The vial's broken glass scattered about the cement. But there was absolutely nothing left of the blue sciency particle, every single last droplet having sunk into the fifteen year old girl's pores.
They couldn't take her to the hospital. How could they? How could they explain that this awkward spunky fifteen year old girl tripped and absorbed a special magic potion that gave her the mystical ability to grow and shrink? Especially once the Sokovia Accords came into effect. Some secret organization like SHIELD or HYDRA would apprehend her and make her some kind of lab rat for the rest of her life.
Bloody and bruised, Laurie was comatose for the first week, and near immobilized for the second. Flashes of the Quantum Realm haunted her and she didn't have her dad to stick by her when she broke through roofs and then slipped through the cracks in the floor.
The chemicals altered her brain chemistry and her body lost control of itself.
Her cells repeatedly expanded and contracted, making her limbs stretch and shrink beyond her control. Stretch marks. Growing pains. Cravings. It was like puberty, but, like, a bajillion times worse.
It felt like being underwater.
Her limbs felt like rubber bands stretched to their limit, the muscles shaky and taut and tired.
Her eyeballs felt like lead, pressing down into her brain until she felt like her head was going to explode. The bleeding from her ears and her eyes didn't stop, no matter how long or how hard Hank and Hope forced her to train. Even when she managed to somewhat get these newfound abilities under control, she never got used to the blood, or the pain.
Sometimes it all just became too much that Laurie Lang was bedridden, popping too many pain meds just to ease some of the pain tearing her body apart from the inside out. And as much as she tried, it barely helped some days, but on other days, the pain meds did their job just a little too well...
Every day that she started physically getting better, her behavior was only getting worse.
This kid started acting out in every possible way she could think of - from isolating herself, having (extra) arguments with her mom and step-father, to running away, to skipping classes, disappearing for days on end, fighting in school, fighting out of school, and all the way to winding up in the city jail six different times. And then the pills, God, it always went back to the pills.
It was an accident.
Not the Laurie-"I totally did this on purpose"-type of accident; it really was an accident. It wasn't her fault. She thought she had it under control. The poor kid didn't mean for it to happen. The pain was just too much and then she grew dependent and it was a downward spiral.
Rehab was the final straw.
Scott made a deal with the G-Men and came back to the States, and Mom-o and Paxton decided that staying at home wasn't doing Laurie any favors. So they thought it'd be best if the then sixteen year old moved in with her newly home-bound father and his best pal/roommate, cool guy Luis, so her dad could keep a better eye on her.
And somehow Scott, the Great and now Regular-Sized managed to get a rein on her behavior. Well, like, as much a rein anybody can get on Laurie's behavior. And then, from then on, due to personal reasons, she began performing vigilante justice.
Now, I know what you're thinking. 'Gee willikers, Laurie, these may be your worst mistakes to date!' Well, just hold onto your butts, my pals, because she's about to make it way worse.
And that is where our story begins once more.
so i'm not dead. supriiiiiise. well, it's been a wild couple weeks but like, hi, i'm back. whoops! sorry for the super long delay in parts there. but the good news is, here is the very first chapter of part two! wowowow, this chapter was funky. what did you think? it was very much a summary chapter but i wanted to give us all a little catch up so we can dig into the big mess that these three years have brought us! what did you think? poor laurie, man, she's been put through the ringer. and agh, how about gordo huh? what are your thoughts on that?
well, i'll catch ya next time! feel free to leave some comments, a vote, maybe a follow?
love ya'll!
here's a funny thingamabob for ya: