"Why don't you just get big and crush them?"

"Huh?"

"You heard me, Pym," Barton snaps, because he's mad his bow got broken and he's never really nice anyway, "Why don't you get big and just--step on them?"

"Um--" Pym, for once, doesn't have anything to say.

"Because this being small all the time thing of you--it's useless. And it's dangerous. You know what happens to small things?" Barton points his broken bow at him. "They get stepped on. Do you want to be the one stepping or the one in the footprint?"

It's not Barton's fault. It's not. But Pym feels his eyes welling up because he's tired and it's been a long day and being small is useless and he just--he flies away, blurring out James' angry reply with the wind. He flies all the way back to the camp that's not home and hides in an air duct.

Being small is useless.

When Pym was eight he went through a week of insisting he remembered his mom. He really did, he told everybody, he hadn't known he remembered until Azari carried him to the infirmary when Pym crashed in a tree, but then he'd remembered. His mom had carried him like that when he was a baby and sung him a lullaby, and he just knew, he knew he remembered--

"Your mom died when you were a month old," James had snapped, finally, slamming his dinner plate down in the sink so hard it cracked and storming out of the kitchen, and Pym stood there while everybody looked at him and he didn't cry because he knew James was right. He didn't really remembered. But he wanted to remember. Everybody else did, even Azari. But he knew when Tony came later that night and sung to him when he thought Pym was asleep...he knew why he thought for a while he remembered.

Tony's his real dad. It doesn't feel weird for him like it does for everybody else, because it's always been Tony. Sure, he calls him Tony in front of everybody else now, but growing up and in private it's always just...dad. Tony bandaged him up when he was three and learning to fly, Tony taught him all about computers, Tony built that treehouse with him. Maybe that's why he's always been Pym and not Henry, because he might be a junior but that's not his dad. Not like Tony is. Sometimes Pym would pretend that his mom was actually married to Tony and Tony just didn't tell anybody because he didn't want to make everyone else feel bad, but he never told Tony his idea--in case it wasn't true, or it was. But he could pretend in his head.

But Jocasta isn't his mom. He likes Jocasta. She's nice. But she's just an AI. And Torunn definitely isn't his mom, and Azari and James are his brothers, and Pym just...knows he's more like her than the giant. He can get big, they found that out when he was just two, not long after he learned he could get small and grow wings. But back home, Pym wasn't allowed to get too big--Tony had said it was the Pym Particles that might attract Ultron, but now Pym knew it was because he would've broken through the roof. The same reason him and Torunn never flew too high. And Pym didn't mind, because he likes being small.

Nobody else gets to see everything that close up and strange and different than it is when you're tall, not without a microscope. And he gets to fly, which is awesome, and glow all cool, and shoot his stings, and he can't do any of that when he gets big. He can just...step on.

He was five when he started having the nightmares. He'd asked Tony if his mom fell down a lot when she learned to fly, and Tony said he didn't know, but his mom--it was hard to imagine his mom ever falling. But maybe she did. Probably she did. She was a lot like him.

And it wasn't Tony's fault that Pym started thinking about her falling. He knew Ultron had killed her, he'd known that as long as he could remember. Ultron had killed everybody. But somehow it hadn't been real until then. It was just a story. Except now Pym knew the scary-sick feeling of the ground rushing up too fast, of how it felt when your wings clipped a leaf or you took a turn wrong and all of a sudden you were tumbling out of control, and he realized his mom must have fallen at least once. At the end.

He's not so sure where the idea of getting stepped on comes from, except it's horrible and just as scary. He's never worried any of his family will crush him ("As if it were possible to forget thee and thy racket, Pym") so he doesn't understand why it's what happens. But he dreams about it. Falling, and red eyes, and silver metal coming down--

"Don't let him crush me," Pym had cried, shaking and inconsolable in Tony's arms, Azari hovering worriedly until Tony sent him back to bed, "Please don't let him crush me, not like my mom--"

"Pym, who told y--" and Tony tried to not say it but then Pym knew, knew he was right, Ultron had crushed her because she was small and he was small and he was going to get crushed. Like a bug. And James didn't know why Pym had screamed at him a week later for threatening to swat a ladybug Pym was playing with if he didn't come do his chores until Tony took all the older kids aside. After that, nobody ever swatted anything. But he didn't feel any better. He felt dumb, because nobody else had bad dreams like that. Everybody else was older and stronger and could do things. Torunn was Asgardian and Azari was electric and even James has his shield. Pym was just little. He was smarter than everybody, but he was little, and little things got crushed.

It wasn't like he thought about it all the time, though. Tony promised they'd only deal with Ultron when they were ready, and Pym knew by then he'd be even taller than James. He'd be able to get so big nobody, not even Ultron, could hurt him or his family. They'd stop the evil robots and be the heroes their parents wanted. And in the meanwhile, he was pretty happy. James talked about a neighbourhood he remembered in the city that was New York, some place called Brookdale or Brookwin or something, and Torunn never shut up about Asgard, and Azari studied Wakanda, but for Pym home was home. It was where his family was. The whole world was as big as the protective barrier, and he was happy there.

But everything got messed up, all too soon, and Pym missed it all the time. They couldn't go back. He knew that. Everybody explained it enough stupid times when he talked about it, like he was stupid or something. But he missed his room and his treehouse. He missed all the secret hiding places he had and waking up before anybody else to go watch the sunrise on top of a tree. He thought he'd like the city because it was so shiny, but he didn't like it. It was just sad, big and cold and full of people who were hungry and scared that he didn't know.

Pym just wants to be small. He didn't feel brave every day. Or even most of the time. He wants to be small and to hide, because this was scarier than making the Hulk mad. This is every day fighting and trying not to die, trying not to get crushed, and sometimes Pym doesn't know if he meant actually crushed or just crushed under how sad everybody is. Crushed by how he can't seem to help, not really.

"Pym?"

James knocks on the side of the open air duct and Pym winces; James always forgets how big soundwaves are when you're Pym's size. He huddles up more and doesn't look at him, but lets James carefully scoop him up in he palm. Pym peeks at him then, and sees the split lip right away. He was pretty sure nothing hit James in the face in the last fight. James sees him look and rubs the back of his neck.

"Barton punched me in the face," James admits, and then reluctantly: "I...did kind of hit him first."

Pym--doesn't sniffle, no way, but he does cushion his head on the base of James' thumb. It's a nice place to be, warm and safe. He wishes he could just stay there.

"He didn't know, Pym," James says, quietly, and crooks his finger just so to touch between Pym's shoulderblades, careful of his wings. "And for the record, you're not useless. At all. No matter what size you are."

"I don't want to crush anybody," Pym murmurs, closing his eyes. "Not even robots. It's not fair."

He feels the breath of James' sigh, the way the world tilts a little as James slides down the wall: "I know. You don't have to, okay? I promise."

Pym hesitates, but not long, before he goes to his usual size and curls up in James' lap. As always, James is a little awkward at first, like he doesn't do this all the time, but eventually he's rubbing Pym's back and letting him rest his head on his shoulder. Pym's not crying, he reminds himself, he's just...tired.

But it's okay. He knows it's okay, because he has his family, and as long as he has his family...maybe it's okay to stay small for a while.