Tʜᴇ Aᴠᴇɴɢᴇʀs: Tʜᴇ Lᴀsᴛ Hᴇʀᴏᴇs

Ｍɪᴅɴɪɢʜᴛ Ｓᴜʀᴘʀɪｓᴇｓ

Astrid's feet made barely a sound as she carefully tip toed across the wood flooring. This was a stealth mission, one wrong move and she'd wake her up, and that was the last thing she wanted. She eventually made it into the room and with a deep breath, opened the door.

There it was, the object of her mission...Oreo cheesecake. It clearly had Makayla's name written on the container in big black Sharpie letters but it had also been in there since Makayla's birthday three days ago, she deserved that cake as much as she did. Not wanting to waist anymore valuable time, she took one step closer to get to the refrigerator... and that's when it happened.

The floorboard bellow her made that irritating squeaky noise that woke the whole house in a matter of seconds. Astrid rolled her eyes as lights cut on and footsteps could be heard.

"Busted." She thought to herself. Before she could even run away, Makayla and Joey bolted down the steps. "Astrid, what the hell?" Joey began, rubbing his eyes. Makayla, on the other hand, stepped past Joey and bolted towards Astrid. "I know you are not stealing my cake at 4 am!" She yelled. A door opened then closed and Nathaniel sleepily stepped out of the room him and Makayla shared, in nothing but a towel that was loosely tied around his toned body. Astrid then noticed that Makayla was trying to tie the strings on her robe and a smile spread across her face. "Your birthday was 3 days ago." Astrid began. But Makayla just shook her head. "No, you never steal a girls food and this isn't the first time, As."

Joey tried to muffle his laughter but before Astrid could apologize and Makayla could rant some more everything paused because the proximity alarms had just gone off. "Someone go past the gate undetected." Nate said, running back into the room to put some clothes on, Makayla following.

Confused? Allow me to explain. Makayla, Astrid and Joey are living in a house in Joey's place in Santa Monica while they worked on the Quantum Realm theory. Nathaniel started up his detective business and bounces between housing since his job involved traveling but he came to visit Makayla, his girlfriend, for the week in Santa Monica. Joey has a gate surrounding the perimeter to keep out intruders and then cameras and alarms in place on the house itself just in case someone got past the gate undetected...which they did.

Astrid quickly ran into her room to throw on some sweat pants and a jacket before meeting the others in the surveillance room. When she got there, she saw everyone quit confused as they looked at the footage. "What?" She asked, moving closer. Joey tilted his head and then looked closer at the screen and then back at Astrid. "What?" Astrid asked again, now slightly irritated and impatient.

Eventually everyone looked up at her but it was Joey who spoke the chilling words. "It's Scott Lang." He said. A smile spread across the blondes face as she raced towards the screen. Sure enough it was the one and only Scott Lang standing at their front door. "Hello! Yeah, my friend and I would love to come in! My name's Scott Lang, I think you guys might be able to help us!"

Us?

Astrid questioned. But before she could ponder, another person stepped into eyes view and Astrid looked as if she had seen a ghost. His blonde hair was unmistakable, his cocky smile that highlighted his muscled shape. It could only be one person and she had watched him die.

"Astrid who is that?" Nathaniel asked. Everyone looked at the pale girl in curiosity. Eventually, she spoke.

"That right there, is my long lost brother...Arkin's alive."

A few moments later, Astrid was sitting on the couch with her dead brother and an equally dead doctor. "I don't get it, you died I saw it." Astrid stated, confusion and disbelief in her tone. Arkin looked at his little sister and smiled a weak smile. "My dear sister, to be honest it is quit a weird story as to how I am here today. In fact, it was Dr. Lang that brought me to this conclusion, my body was morphed into quantum particles after I was killed by Thanos. Whatever stone he used to kill me helped my molecules survive." He smiled. Joey and Makayla looked at him, mouths agape but neither Nate nor Astrid were surprised. "So...you've been alive all this time?" Astrid asked, getting a little emotional which Arkin caught onto. "Oh dear sister, give me a hug, come on bring it in." He gestured with his hands for a hug and Astrid fell into them, tears in her eyes.

After years of loss after loss, she finally gained something and she thanked the gods that it was this. "I missed you." She sniffled. Arkin tightened his grip. "I missed you, too." He responded. "Aw." Scott smiled, looking over at the siblings with happiness. "Ah hem." Joey interrupted. "Oh, right um, nice to meet you..."

"Dr. Joseph Russo but Joey's fine. This is my lab assistant Makayla and her boyfriend Nathaniel who is a global detective and of course miss Astrid who helped develop the Quantum Realm theory." He introduced. Scott nodded towards everyone and then began talking. "Um...well for starters I um...thank you for...well for saving my life I mean...I went in one year and came out five later. my daughters 15 now and I just, I'm kinda confused." He laughed. Joey nodded, getting up and walking over to the chalk board in the living room. "Right so, during my time as a doctor in New York I stumbled across some files of yours that prompted the theory of the Quantum Realm. I enlisted the help of a superhero because we shared common interests and goals and then I asked my assistant to join me in the quest to find wherever the hell you went. Eventually we found a warehouse with the van that you were last seen using and found the machine that helps get to the Quantum Realm inside it."

"But that doesn't explain how he got out." Astrid questioned. "She's right, by the time we left there were no signs of that machine being active so what happened?" Makayla asked. Scott jumped, seeming to remember something. "Almost forgot I had this. He pulled out a red USB. "It's the security footage of the warehouse, the cameras still worked even after 5 years." He said, handing the drive over. "I thought it would give me some answers but I couldn't find a computer to plug it into." Dr. Russo got up for a minute and when he returned he held a lap top in his hands.

"Great." Scott smiled, plugging in the hard drive. He of course realized that they had to fast forward through almost five years of footage so everyone started to socialize before eventually eyes closed and sleep came, came to everyone but Astrid. Her visions had stopped as of recently, maybe because the Fates didn't need to tell her anything or maybe something was wrong, which made her kind of upset because she had mixed emotions about if she liked this idea or not. Regardless, insomnia had claimed her nights now so she stayed up and just glanced at the black and white marks running across the screen for a few more minutes when she saw something change, a light.

"Guys, wake up." She yelled, shaking everyone awake. Groggily everyone began to pay attention to the screen. The Quantum Realm Portal had opened and Arkin and Scott came rolling out confused as ever but eventually got their bearings and walked out the warehouse. "Wait, go back and zoom in on the sixth frame." Nate said, everyone looked at him suspiciously. "Just do it." He said, waving off their stares. Astrid nodded and rewound but stopped when Nate held up his hand. "Zoom in on the right corner and play please." He requested. Astrid did as she was told and sure enough, they found what brought the doctor and Arkin back from the realm.

A mouse scurried across barrels and crates and shelves before eventually he stumbled upon the button that brought the two back.

"Well, now that we have that settled, what next?" Scott asked, a little underwhelmed that their savior was an inquisitive rodent. A smile formed on Astrid's face as she looked up at the ceiling. Beyond that ceiling was a sky full of stars, sometimes with her insomnia keeping her up she'd make up scenes in her head about her and her friends except this one felt so real.

"What do we do next? We save the universe." She stated. "How?" Makayla asked. Ideas raced through her head she tried to trace her thoughts of the vision she had back at the Avengers base. "Come on, come on, come on!" She yelled at herself. A few more moments went by of thinking before a light bulb went off in her head, she had it.

A warm smile spread across her lips as she used raised her hand to the sky. "What is she doing?" Scott asked. Makayla and Arkin looked at each other knowingly. "Pack your bags folks." Astrid began. Thunder cackled around her as it shot through the ceiling and her super suit formed around her, still the one Lilly made.

Her hair wrapped into a ponytail as the lightening show died down.

"My ceiling..." Dr. Russo began.

"We're gonna save the world, by going back to before we broke it." Astrid clarified. "Um, what?" Nate questioned. Astrid looked around the room.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to build a time machine."