And the Snap Echoes

Quantum Realm

How long had it been? Scott had no idea.

Time was difficult to determine. It could've been a few seconds or thousands of years. Janet had spent thirty years down here, but he had no idea how long it had been for her.

His thoughts wandered back to recent events. Hank, Hope and he had brought back Janet from the Quantum Realm. Hope and he had gotten together, and it was safe to say that the past few days were amongst the best days of his life. Then, continuing in the quest to heal Ava, he had gone back into the Quantum Realm to gather healing particles. While there, he had randomly lost contact with Hank, Hope, and Janet. With no means of getting out, he was stranded here.

He looked around, but it did not help much. The first time he had come down, Scott hadn't become this small. It was his first time shrinking down to such small size. He had no idea how he was still breathing because technically he was supposed to be much smaller than atoms, but he decided to not question that. He was happy with staying alive for the time being.

Everywhere and anywhere he looked, he saw weird pulses which looked as if they were made out of pure energy rippling through the realm. He remembered Janet saying that it was indeed energy, and it was the thing which had kept her alive all those many years. She had somehow fed off the energy, but he had no idea how that was possible. Should he simply go towards the pulse, push his hand in, grab some, and put it into his mouth. The idea sounded ridiculous, even to him, and that was saying something. He was walking on solid ground, but even that felt as if it would give away any second. The entire place seemed as if it would collapse on itself the next moment. Lots of restless energy flowing through the place, making it seem like some kind of nuclear reactor.

He remembered Janet warning him not to run into any time vortexes. It had seemed funny at the time, as he had just planned on going in and coming back out immediately. Now, that he was stuck, he wondered about how dangerous his surroundings really were. Time vortexes, those weird animals he had seen while on his way down, and God knows how many dangers lay ahead of him.

He continued on. There was nothing else he could do. He had no idea where he was headed, but there was no point in staying where he was. Keeping in mind to just not go backwards, he trudged on. Multiple times, he thought that he saw movement some distance in front of him, but he shook the idea out of his head. Twice, he even heard a noise which sounded almost human-like. He looked around, but there was no one there. Of course, there wouldn't be anyone. He was in the quantum realm, not some amusement park.

He suddenly stopped in his tracks. He thought that he had seen some kind of structure in the distance, but he wasn't sure. His entire surroundings were glowing, so it was a bit hard to make out stuff, but Scott was pretty sure that he had seen movement this time. He moved ahead because he was really desperate to get out of this place, and he had no idea how he was going to achieve that on his own, so better to get some help.

He was positive that there was something up ahead by now, and he continued on. Upon going further closer, he saw that it was some kind of stone arch, and there were two figures near it. The weird thing was that one of the figures seemed to be green-skinned. The other figure had his back turned to him, and was slightly shorter than him. Neither of them showed any signs of acknowledging him.

"Heyyy!!" Scott called out.

No response.

"HEYYYY!!! CAN YOU HEAR ME??!!!"

No response again.

Then suddenly, they were gone. Scott could have sworn they were there an instant ago, but the next second, they had vanished. Scott was suddenly reminded of Ghost, and how she used to flicker in and out of realities, vanishing at some times, and permitting objects to pass through her. Maybe this was something similar. After all, both of these occurrences had something to do with the Quantum Realm.

He looked around, seeing if they had appeared anywhere else, but Lady Green and the other fellow were nowhere to be seen. He didn't continue moving ahead but just sat down on what seemed to be a part of solid ground, waiting to see if they would appear anywhere.

While waiting, his thoughts shifted back to the people outside. Why had Hank, Hope, and Janet just ceased all contact? They of all people knew how dangerous it was to get stuck down here, and he knew that they would never leave him stranded on purpose, which meant that something had happened back there.

"What if some asteroid had crashed into the earth, and the entire planet had been razed? "What if some nuclear strike had been ordered?" His thoughts went a bit too far.

"What if Cassie- SHIT!"

Cassie had never even crossed his mind once since he'd been stuck here. He felt like a horrible father. What would she say when she found out that he was missing? How old would she be if he got out? Would he ever get out and be able to see her face?

"There is no point just sitting here," he thought. "They couldn't see me anyways. Maybe if I keep on moving ahead, I'll see anyone who'll actually be able to help me."

He got up and moved ahead, only this time, determined not to stop until he came across something which could prove to be of some use.

He didn't have to go on for long, however. Having only walked around ten minutes, at least according to him, he saw a figure lying on the ground in the distance. There was no mistaking the black hair, the yellow and blue suit and the wings attached to it.

"Hope..."

She wasn't moving. The earlier figures which Scott had seen were at least standing.

"HOPE!!!"

All thoughts rushed out of his head as he scrambled across the plain. He had no idea what he was going to do, just that he somehow had to get to her.

An energy flair popped up in front of him out of nowhere, but he was too distraught to stop. He didn't remember Janet's advice and plunged headfirst into it.

All he remembered after that was getting bigger and bigger and Janet's words ringing around in his head, "And don't get sucked into a Time Vortex." Was this a time vortex? Or was it simply Hope and the others pulling him out of the Quantum Realm?

Thirty seconds later, he found himself on solid ground, only it wasn't the place where he had gone into the Quantum Realm. He had somehow managed to turn up in New York, just below Freedom Tower. He had never been to New York himself, but Scott was pretty sure that New York wasn't supposed to be this quiet. He searched for a newspaper vendor and found one nearby.

"JULY 14TH??!!!!!"

That wasn't the only thing which caught his attention. Written on the front page in bold letters was "DAY 118 – WHAT ARE THE AVENGERS DOING TO HELP US".

Unable to make head or tail out of it, Scott simply put down the newspaper. Something big had happened, but he wasn't going to wait about to hear of it. He needed to get to Avengers Headquarters, and if he wasn't wrong, they were situated somewhere upstate.

An hour later, Scott found himself in front of a massive door. He noticed a camera towards the corner.

"Hi, is anyone home? This is Scott Lang. We met a few years ago... at the airport... in Germany... I got really big. Ant-Man. I know you know that. It's me. Can you buzz me in?"