Ghosts, Ants or Bees?
“Okay, I admit. This is delicious,” Ava said, licking her strawberry ice cream with enthusiasm. Scott and Hope were taking Cassie out for ice cream tonight, and they had asked if she wanted to come too after her session with Janet.
Ava was going to say no at first. Because while she was grateful for their help after their not-so-nice meeting, she didn’t exactly see them as her friends since their help was mostly out of guilt rather than generosity. But, Scott and Cassie had asked her very nicely and thanks to Hope, she was free of the pain almost a week now. So ice cream didn’t sound so bad.
She was both realizing and remembering that this was her life before the accident, free of constant pain and fear. She was now gaining it back, with the help of Hank Pym and his family, who was the one responsible for her state in the first place.
Now, she was eating ice cream in a park with the said man’s daughter, her rather silly partner, and his cute daughter. Considering she tried to kill the two adults and abduct the kid, this was something new and unexpected.
“I know, right! This place makes the best ice cream in the whole city!” Cassie said with her strawberry ice cream in hand and a big smile on her face. “So, are you staying for a movie too, Ava? We’ll watch Antz tonight!”
Ava frowned for a short moment before leaning over to look at Scoot over Cassie, “Antz?”
He shrugged and nodded at Hope. “We watched Bee Movie last week so, tonight Antz it is!”
“Yes, and let’s never watch Bee Movie again please,” Hope murmured to her caramel ice cream.
“Or we can watch something with ghosts if you’d like!” Cassie offered to Ava sweetly.
For a short moment, Ava froze with her mouth open, but she quickly put on a smug face and asked Cassie teasingly, “But won’t you be scared?”
“I eat fear for breakfast!” Cassie exclaimed with ice cream on her upper lip.
“Wow! Such a tough cookie,” Hope said before biting her ice cream. “Your dad should learn how to be tough from you, Cass.”
“But he’s already tough Hope! Aren’t you tough, daddy?” Cassie asked with a frown.
“Yes, I am peanut! Hear that Hope?!” Scott nudged her with his elbow, and she giggled. “My daughter thinks I’m tough. Therefore I’m the toughest of all.”
“She only thinks that way, because she didn’t see you reading John Green books,” Hope said with a smile that Scott returned.
“We can watch the Scooby-doo!” Cassie yelled.
“No, I’m okay with Antz. I’ve never watched it before,” Ava smiled.
“Then you’re gonna love it!” Cassie said and started to tell about the movie in haste until Scott stopped her from giving away any spoilers to Ava.
“No, we wouldn’t,” Cassie said sheepishly to her ice cream, and Hope snorted.
“Those are big words, coming from a man who is an actual spoiler machine,” Hope murmured and threw a nasty look at him. But Scott only shrugged and continued to lick his ice cream.
“I like Ava, she’s nice,” Cassie said as Scott pulled the covers over her. “I wish her hand didn’t phase though, it seemed to upset her.”
Scott bit his lip and nodded. “Yeah, but Hope and her parents are trying to help her, you know. Dr. Bill too. You saw that yourself today. It’s just… sometimes you need to try very hard to achieve something you know.”
“Yeah,” Cassie said and hugged her thin blanket. “I hope, Hope and her parents find a way to cure her. Tell Hope that I’m really hoping that she finds a cure.”
Scott frowned and just as he opened his mouth, Hope’s voice came from the doorway. “Did you just make two Hope puns in a row, Cassie?”
Cassie giggled into her pillow, and Scott got up from her bedside with a smug grin. “Oh, yes, she did. She’s learning from the best, aren’t you peanut?”
“Yes daddy,” Cassie said, and Scott leaned to kiss her forehead before tucking her in again. He caressed her hair and wished his goodnights.
“Goodnight Cassie,” Hope said, turning the lights off and Cassie wished them a goodnight too before Scott closed the door and left her to sleep.
“Just for the record,” Scott whispered to Hope as they walked down the stairs. “She made the Hope jokes by herself, and I’m very proud of her.”
“Of course you are, Bae-bee,” Hope said, and Scott didn’t miss the little smirk on her lips.
“So, you actually like the nickname,” Scott teased.
“No, I don’t. I just used it as an example of your terrible sense of humor,” Hope dismissed him and entered the living room.
“Hmm, sure, sure,” Scott followed her suit.
Hope sat down on his couch with a huff. Scott knew what that was about. “What goes wrong with her?” he asked and sat beside her. "Why is her body keep rejecting treatments?"
“I don’t know. None of us know, even mom.” She folded her arms and put her head on the couch, looking at Scott sideways. “We start trying a new method, it seems to be working for a while, and then suddenly she starts to phase again. She probably didn’t say it out loud because of Cassie tonight, but I’m almost sure her pains were back too.”
Scott silently nodded and crawled next to her. He wrapped an arm around her waist, and her head went to his shoulder. In a calm silence, they sat like that for a short while. Both of them thinking but finding nothing.
Maybe… Scott was no quantum physicist but, “What if we just take her to the quantum realm with us next time?”
“What?” Hope frowned.
“You heard me! Think about it, instead of us going and bringing a bottle from the river, let’s just throw her in it this time.”
Hope rolled her eyes in frustration. “Scott answer me; what would happen if you throw a dehydrated -almost dead- person into a river?”
Scott’s answer was a grimace.
“Yep. And we both know how quantum realm affects the mind, and Ava’s isn’t a very calm one already.” Hope looks at the ceiling again and sighs. “Still, we have to keep getting particles for her to keep her alive until we find a solution that actually heals her.”
Scott put his cheek on her hair and hummed. “Cassie believes in you guys, though. You heard yourself, she is really hoping that you’d find a solution Bae-bee.”
Scott was sure that Hope closed her eyes to keep them from rolling, but she couldn’t stop the smile that formed on her lips. “I hate both of you,” she said while her arm sneaked around his waist.
“What are you doing?” Hope asked Scott when he exited from the lab's door and walked beside her with his suit on. She turned to her father to ask a similar question before Scott could answer her. “What is he doing?”
Hank shrugged. “Our current ideas to heal Ava have proven to be unsuccessful. We need more particles than ever to keep her alive. I figured two at one time means double more particles to work on.”
Hope frowned but didn’t dwell on it. Since both she and Scott had been to the quantum realm before and her parents were more than capable of handling a couple of computers and a switch. So she and Scott walked and stood in front of the mini-quantum tunnel and put on their helmets.
“It won’t be any problem we can handle, so don’t worry jellybean,” Janet said, as if she’d heard her daughters doubts. "We're in the middle of a forest, with ant-cams all around. I doubt the FBI could even find us if we invited them for tea."
Hope smiled faintly and nodded to her mother.
“Ready?” Janet asked.
“Ready,” both Scott and Hope copied her. They looked at each other for a split second as Janet counted backwards before sending both of them to the quantum realm.
Despite going through the tunnel couple of times now, Hope had never been able to keep her eyes open when her mother turned the switch. When she was able to open her eyes, she was always seeing going right besides molecules, microscopic creatures and worlds that she never saw this way before going subatomic and it amazed her every single time.
But still, none of them could ever race with the quantum realm itself. After the short silence of the quantum void, there they are… The realm that was in Hope’s both dreams and nightmares after she learned what really happened to her mother.
30 years down here… Hope thought. Alone, but not entirely. Apart from her loved ones, but with other creatures that Hope could never imagine ever existed. There was so much to learn, so much to explore, even thirty years weren’t enough for all of it.
“Mic check, Hope, Scott? Do you read us?” Hank asked, his voice layered in static.
“Yeah, we read you,” Hope said and looked at Scott. It was the first time they entered the quantum realm together. The colors around them were dancing on his helmet, and it was distracting, mesmerizing even. Hope had to shake her head to focus. “Ready?”
“It never gets old, right?” Scott said. Hope could tell he was smiling from looking at his eyes through his lens. “Ready,” he nodded, and they opened their capsules simultaneously.
What happens next surprised Hope, maybe because it was the first time Hope saw another person to do it in this place she wasn’t sure. With the force of particles going in the capsule, Scott and Hope floated away from each other.
“Huh,” Scott looked at Hope when he closed his capsule. “I never thought I moved when I did this.”
“Me neither,” Hope said with a sudden uneasy feeling in her stomach that she didn’t mention out loud. “Mom, dad, we’re done.”
“Ok, preparing for return five, four, three-”
Hope waited for her to continue, so did Scott. But Janet didn’t say the rest of the countdown.
“Scott, where are you?” she asked instead.
“What do mean where I am?” Scott asked. He looked at Hope with confusion as he answered. “I’m right here.”
“He’s right in front of me, mom,” Hope said, a bit concerned. “Can’t you see him on the map?”
“I can’t…” Janet said and Hope knew something was wrong.
“What do you mean you can’t?” Hope asked.
“I’m right here, Janet!” Scott called with a slightly panicked voice. “Hank if this is you screwing around-”
“Hope, do you have visual of Scott?” This was Hank. “We lost contact with him.”
“WHAT DO MEAN YOU LOST- I can hear you guys!” Scott yelled and looked at Hope with rising fear. He tried to get to her with frantic moves. He waved the canister wildly like they’d see him.
“Dad he’s right in front of me. he can hear you and me, I can hear him- he’s right in front of me!” Hope almost yelled. “Pull us back- NOW.”
“HOPE!” Scott shouted, looking behind him as he pulled towards a swirling tunnel against his will. Hope froze just for a mini-second in fear with her knowledge of the tunnel. A time vortex.
“SCOTT!” Hope cried. She activated her wings and darted towards him, but the vortex’s force was stronger than her wings. Still, she held out her hand to him as she flew and saw him to do the same.
But only a second after, Scott disappeared. And Hope found herself already on half-way back to her normal size, without Scott this time.