Bird Set Free | Natasha Romanoff ✓

Chapter Forty-Nine

Aquila raised an eyebrow as she watched Scott Lang nervously pace around the living room of the Avengers Compound, slightly mumbling to himself.

None of them really knew what was going on, five years ago they had all thought that Scott had disappeared with the rest but now he was standing in front of them very much alive.

"Scott, are you okay?" Steve asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Yeah, I'm fine. . ." Scott replied as he wrung his hands together, pondering over his next words. "Have any of you ever studied Quantum Physics?"

"Only to make conversation," Natasha admitted honestly.

"Scott, what's going on?" Aquila asked.

"Alright. So. . . five years ago, right before. . Thanos, I was in a place called the Quantum Realm. The Quantum Realm is like its own microscopic universe. To get in there, you have to be incredibly small. Hope, she's my. . . She was my. . . She was supposed to pull me out. And then Thanos happened and I got stuck in there."

"I'm sorry. That must've been a very long five years." Natasha said.

"Yeah, but that's just it. For me, it was five hours."

Aquila shared a bewildered glance with Natasha and Steve, the three of them could hardly believe what Scott had just told them.

"See, the rules of the Quantum Realm aren't like they are up here. Everything is unpredictable. Is that anybody's sandwich? I'm starving. Cute dog, by the way." Scott said, hurrying across the room to finish the last bites of Natasha's sandwich.

"Scott, what are you talking about?"

"What I'm saying is, time works differently in the Quantum Realm. The only problem is right now, we don't have a way to navigate it. But what if we did?" Scott gestured wildly with each word. "I can't stop thinking about it. What if, we could somehow control the chaos, and we could navigate it? What if there was a way to enter the Quantum Realm at a certain point in time but then exit at another point in time? Like. . . Like before Thanos."

"Are you talking about a time machine?" Aquila asked incredulously.

"No. No, of course not. No, not a time machine. It's more like a. . . Yeah, a time machine. I know it's crazy. But I can't stop thinking about it. There's gotta be some way. . There's gotta be. . . it's crazy."

"Scott, I get emails from a raccoon, so nothing sounds crazy anymore."

"So, who do we talk to about this?" Scott asked.

Aquila shared a look with Natasha and Steve knowing very well that they were all thinking of the same people.

"Can we disturb them?" Aquila asked.

"They are the only option we have left. We have to." Steve said, turning to Nat as she nodded in agreement.

Tony Stark moved up the dirt path towards his cabin home, moving his daughter, Isabella in his arms as he moved up the stairs of the porch.

"Don't worry. Your mom never wears anything I buy her. That hasn't changed since I first met her. . ."

His voice trailed off at the sound of a car pulling to a halt in the driveway, Tony turned slowly, knitting his eyebrows together as his eyes met first with Steve Rogers' own as he was the first to exit the car only to follow by Scott Lang's, Aquila Cadman's and Natasha Romanoff's.

"Oh look who it is." Aquila teased, trying her best to break the tension that laid heavily in the air. "It's my favorite Stark!"

"Hey!" The familiar voice of Keira Stark filled the air from the porch after she had also come to see who the newcomers were. "I'm just going to try and pretend that that didn't hurt as much as it did."