"That took a while, but we did it" said Tony, breathing heavily.
It had taken them hours to defeat the robots. Luckily, no more showed up afterward, giving them a brief sense of security.
One that didn't last long.
"Let's hurry, it's almost nightfall" said Loki.
"Does our Asgardian god have something more important to do?" Tony joked, though he still followed him.
Loki, as always, ignored his comments and kept walking.
Soon they reached Dr. Pym's house. The place was completely silent, with no signs of movement. After searching for a while, they found a door to the basement and went down.
As if it were a villain cliché, Hank Pym was waiting for them in the center of the lab, smiling.
But his smile didn't hide the frustration and coldness in his voice.
"You ruined everything, you know that? You got here too early. I had plans for all of you. You were going to die without even knowing 'why.' I prepared a plan to distract you, gave you bait, and still you found me. How is that possible? And on top of that, you weren't even supposed to heal. How did you do it?"
"Hank Pym, let's do this the easy way," Steve said firmly.
But Pym just shrugged, wearing a crooked smile.
"There are a lot of things that shouldn't be happening... but fine. You're here. All of you. Let me show you something."
He pointed to a device on a table.
"This is a bomb, and not just any bomb. It's a dimensional dissolution interface with surgical precision. Maybe some of you are familiar with the Quantum Realm, an environment where the fundamental laws of time and space are not just distorted, but constantly redefined. There, time doesn't pass, it fluctuates. Space doesn't expand,it folds. This unit, powered by Pym particles in an unstable state, is designed to destabilize that environment. What follows is inevitable: by disrupting the quantum structure, it triggers a forced fusion between its space-time dynamics and ours. Two realities overlapping. Two incompatible systems of time and space... forced to coexist in the same point. The result is structural chaos: a progressive rupture of space-time continuity. And when that happens, when the friction between both frameworks of reality reaches the point of no return... well, there won't be an explosion. Not the kind you're imagining. It'll be more like a collapse of logic. A breakdown of reality itself. And you'll be right at the center."
"Tony?" Steve asked, expressing the team's collective doubt in one word.
Tony sighed and answered bluntly, with unusual seriousness.
"In short: if it goes off, we all die. And when I say all, I mean EVERYONE. No one's left. Not on Earth... not anywhere."
The tension was absolute. The team immediately got ready.
"How do we stop it?" Natasha asked Tony, but it was Pym who responded.
"You can't. That thing is going to go off in one minute. Maybe you can run... not that it'll help."
"You know you'll die too, right?" said Steve, glaring at him.
"Of course I have a plan. Don't worry about me."
"You're not escaping, Pym."
"Pym? No one's called me that in centuries. My name... is Yellow Jacket."
And with those words, he shrank until he disappeared from sight.
Or at least, from almost everyone's.
Just as he vanished, something ant-sized jumped from Steve's shoulder and shot after him. Scott Lang had been waiting for that exact moment. He caught Hank before he could stabilize and punched him, breaking his nose.
Hank spat blood and sneered.
"You're no superhero material."
"I'm not trying to be one."
Without another word, they both launched into combat. Pym had experience, but his age and weakened body put him at a disadvantage against Scott's youth. Though the fight started off even, Scott knew they couldn't waste time. He shrank even more.
He thought that was his edge, since Hank himself had warned him never to shrink too far. But Hank just laughed.
"You think those tricks will work on me? I've got years of experience in the Quantum Realm."
The fight grew even smaller. But the suit was taking its toll on Hank. His body couldn't handle the strain, and Scott didn't waste the opportunity.
He struck him multiple times until Hank could barely react. Faking a blow to the stomach, he baited Hank into covering up, then bent his arm and drove an elbow into Hank's jaw, knocking him out.
Both returned to normal size. The team looked at them, surprised.
There was no time for questions. They searched Hank's body for a way to stop the bomb, but found nothing useful. Just a strange alien-looking weapon.
"What's this?" Gwen asked.
"A miniaturizer. Sends stuff to the Quantum Realm," Scott explained. "He loved using it to get rid of anything that bothered him."
"You think it'll work on the bomb?"
Scott shook his head.
"I don't think so. The bomb affects the Quantum Realm. Sending it there won't help."
"We don't have another choice. I'll do it," Tony said, grabbing the weapon.
Seven seconds remained. He aimed and fired.
Just before the beam hit the bomb... everything froze. Time stopped. Only the bomb and its countdown kept moving.
An invisible voice echoed in that frozen limbo:
"Ah, sorry, sorry. I was busy doing my own thing, so I sped this up to wrap it quickly, but it looks like you handled it too fast."
No one heard it. But Leonardo chuckled to himself.
Four seconds passed. When the counter hit three... time resumed.
The beam hit the bomb. It shrank instantly, vanishing.
For the next three seconds, the group barely breathed.
---
In the Quantum Realm, two people had miniaturized a different bomb to avoid one of Ultron's traps. Just as it exploded, another bomb appeared next to it, and exploded too.
The two blasts collided. Then, something changed. The energies mixed... and vanished.
For a moment, there was silence.
Then, a black point appeared, and it exploded.
A strange, silent explosion. A black energy that devoured everything.
Wanda reacted instantly, shielding the group with her chaos magic.
When they opened their eyes, they were floating in a black, infinite space. The only visible thing was a glowing door.
With no other choice, they stepped through.
And returned to Dr. Pym's neighborhood. But his house no longer existed.
In its place stood a massive, black spatial gate.
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+20 chapters in advance on Patreon.
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(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)