I was bored. Mind blowingly, sing all your favorite songs until you're sick of them, check your arms and legs for weird moles over and over again bored. It had been five days. I wanted out.

Every day was the same. Reid and Joanna would come down. He would yell and scream and slap me as I ignored his asshat comments while she stood there helplessly. Then he would leave and she would step forward to ask if I needed anything. I always asked to talk to my brother, and she always said that wasn't possible.

I could see her attitude changing. I could see her wincing when Reid hit me, even when I didn't. Joanna hesitated every time she was told to do something, and only did so when Reid screamed. But she kept coming back. I couldn't help but wonder why. So on the fifth day, when she came down to check on me, I was prepared.

I was lying on the cot facing the wall when I heard Joanna come down the stairs. She paused, clearly confused as to what I was doing.

"Are you alright?" She spoke after several minutes.

I didn't respond.

"Miss Stark?"

Again I stayed silent. I heard Joanna begin pacing, and a few moments later, someone else started down the stairs.

"What the hells the matter with her?" Reid snarled loudly.

"I don't know. She hasn't moved since I came down here," Joanna responded quietly.

There was a small zapping noise; the forcefield was down. My heart started beating faster as stepped closer to me. He grabbed my shoulder roughly and began to yank me away from the wall when Joanna protested.

"Sir, I think you should leave her alone. There's a very real possibility that somethings wrong with her."

Reid's footsteps went back towards her and I exhaled silently.

"Like what?"

"A-anything," Joanna stammered. "She could have the flu, or a cold, or she could be pregnant, or-"

Oh HELL NO! I screamed in my mind but stayed perfectly still.

"She's not pregnant," Reid spat. "She's faking."

"I'm starting to think we should let him down here," Joanna said quietly. "Maybe he can get something out of her that we can't."

I could practically hear steam flying out of Reid's ears.

"No, we are not-"

"UUUGHHHHAHHBB," I cut him off with a loud groan.

"Sir!" Joanna snapped sharply. "It's the best option."

Now I expected Reid to be foaming at the mouth out of anger. He was silent for a few minutes, then sighed loudly.

"Fine. Go tell him."

He stomped up the stairs and out the door. Joanna lingered, and I almost turned over to thank her.

I didn't.

After a few more moments, she left, and I exhaled loudly. My plan had worked. Sort of. What felt like eons later, I heard the door slide open. Suddenly, I was terrified. Footsteps made their way across the room and stopped a ways away.

"Alright. Get up."

I flipped over and sat up, immediately making eye contact with my brother. Clearly, he was pissed.

"Nice to finally see you," I said quietly.

He avoided my eyes and looked above me. "What do you want?"

"I want you to let me out of this shoebox, for starters."

He rolled his eyes. "I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Why not?!" He repeated loudly. "Why not?! Why the fuck should I, Cara?!"

"Because you know this is ridiculous! I don't even know what's going on completely, but I know you're fighting your best friends and that's not you," I retaliated, standing and moving towards him. "Bucky didn't do anything wrong, neither did Steve."

"Jesus, it's always about that robot isn't it?!" He spat.

"It's not only about him. It's about the fact that we're tearing our team apart," I paused and crossed my arms over my chest. "Tony, we're tearing our family apart."

He was silent for a moment, and I thought I'd actually broken through to him.

"We're a family, you know it," I said quietly. "It's not too late to go back to how things were. You contact Steve and tell him to come in and talk, you know he'll do it. You know him, you know me, you know everyone you're fighting against. We can sit down and talk it out and everything can go back to the way it was."

"You know as well as I do that I can't do that."

"Take a step back, Tony. Think about what's going to happen. Think about Clint. He's got a family. His son is less than a year old," I whispered, stepping even closer. "You can't take his father away from him."

"Well maybe Clint should've thought about his family before he ran off and became a fugitive."

"He was thinking about his family!" I yelled. "Suppose he did go along with it and registered with the government. Then lets say some asshole psychopath hacks into the database, which we known could happen, and finds out all about Clint, thus finding out about his family. I know you know how much danger that puts Laura and those children in!"

"We could prevent that from happening."

"No, you can't! You can try and try but you can't. All you'll do is alienate your friends from everyone else and make them miserable."

"You're so dramatic."

"I'm not being dramatic! I'm being realistic!" I cried. "Tony, this doesn't need to go any further south."

He hesitated from a few moments, and took a slight step towards me.

"I think it's already gone pretty damn south, Cara," he growled.

With that, he turned and walked towards the stairs.

"Tony, wait!"

I rushed forward, and was almost instantly knocked onto the concrete floor. The forcefield was back up. Tony stopped at the bottom of the stairs, his back still to me. Tears pricked my eyes as he turned slightly and sighed.

"Peppers pregnant," he whispered suddenly. "A girl."

My heart wrenched and I tried to ignore the lump forming in my throat. I sat up slowly, immediately knowing I'd sprained my ankle from the fall.

"Tony," I said faintly. "I'm happy for you, really."

He nodded slightly. "Yeah. It's a shame she'll never know her aunt."

My brother turned on his heel and disappeared up the stairs in a flash. I called out after him loudly, but was ignored. The door slid shut again, and I rolled over onto my back. I screwed my eyes closed, trying to keep the tears from leaking down my face. Slowly, I felt myself drift off to sleep.

***

I woke up with a sharp pain in my neck. I groaned loudly and stood, stumbling over towards the cot, quickly collapsing on top of it. Something on the wall quickly caught my eye. I squinted at the small speck that seemed to be moving across it.

"Is that an ant?" I muttered, sitting up on my knees so I could see it better.

That's exactly what it was. The ant scurried up the wall, then across the ceiling before pausing in the corner of the wall. I noticed another crawling up from the other wall. Then another, and another, and another. They all gathered in the same ceiling corner, almost as if they were trying to block something.

Suddenly, there was a thudding sound, and a figure in a red and black outfit stood in the center of the room.

"Agh!" I yelled, jumping off the cot. "What the fuck?!"

The person straightened up and looked towards me, his mask-helmet thing incredibly ant-like. They reached up and pressed a button on the side of their head, revealing a smiling man with a slight beard.

"Hi!" He waved casually before motioning to the ants. "Sorry about that. There's a camera up there, and we don't want them seeing this."

"Who the hell are you?!" I cried, flattening myself against the wall. "What the hell are you?!"

"Oh yeah, sorry. I'm Scott."

"Um, okay, Scott. WHAT ARE YOU?!"

He rushed forward suddenly, clapping his hand over my mouth. "Shhhh, Cara, they're going to hear you!"

I pushed him off.

"I'm going to ask you one more time, and then, I'm going to scream so loud the goddamn president shows up," I growled. "What are you, how did you get in here, how do you know me, and what do you want?"

He sighed and put his hands on his hips. "I'm Ant Man."

I raised my eyebrows at him. "Ant Man."

"Yes I know it's stupid, God, Sam had the same reaction when-"

"You know Sam?" I cut him off quickly.

He nodded. "Well yeah, I was getting to that. We had a little...run in not so long ago and he's been keeping tabs on me. Couple days ago he called me and said he needed me to do something. So, here I am."

"You're here to break me out?"

Again he nodded. "Yeah. It's pretty simple, actually. Hard for me, simple for you. You'll be fine."

I stayed silent for a few moments. This seemed too good to be true.

"And how do I know that Sam and the other guys really sent you? For all I know, you could be some kind of sick joke to lead me to my execution."

"Well, first of all, morbid," he made a face at me. "Second, they didn't think you'd believe me, so they told me to tell you some stuff."

I furrowed my eyebrows together. "Uh, okay?"

"Captain America, who is so cool, by the way-"

"I know I've met him."

"Sorry, anyway, he says that he's sorry this happened and that you didn't make it to the garage," he recited. "Sam says his showers aren't the same without you. Bow-chicka-bow-wow, am I right?!" He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows.

I rolled my eyes, but felt better. But now I was thinking about who I'd been telling myself to not think about since I got in here. I cleared my throat loudly and rubbed the back of my neck, praying Scott had another message.

"Oh, and that scary dude with the metal arm said that he wishes he hadn't listened to you and jumped out the window, but you're so stubborn that it's literally impossible to say no to you."

A small smile spread across my lips, and my chest felt tight.

"What's his deal anyway? He seems like a bit of a brooder. A scary metal armed brooder."

"Hey, Scott?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up and get me out of here."

A/N: Hey everyone, I'm so so so sorry that this update took so long. Life has been super super busy lately, so I won't be able to update as frequently as I'd like to be. I promise I'll be doing my very best, though :))) thank you all so much for reading and don't forget to vote/comment/share!!! Thanks again, ily all