33 || emergency superhero hotline

"Look at us, Ant-Man and Breakout, spilling tea and gossiping like we were on Real Housewives or something!"

Anderson-Marnell Apartment, Queens, New York, October 2016-

DAYS UNTIL HOMECOMING: 4

The line was ringing, and for a very long time at that. Alison, who was pacing the floor by the kitchen, looked rather antsy, while Charles was lying on the sofa, playing some sort of video game on his phone. The long buzzing kept repeating, and the anxiety in the room (for Alison) rose higher by the second.

Charles looked up at his older sister, concern on his face. "So is this person of yours gonna pick up or not?" Throwing his phone on the sofa, Charles stood up from his comfortable spot. "I mean, I'm all for FaceTiming- Skyping? a superhero... but.."

" I would sure hope so. He's... well I have no clue if he's even here. But he gave me his number just in case I wanted to talk to him." Alison sighed, hearing the line ring once again. "I don't even know if he escap- actually, I do know that he escaped." She corrected, contradicting herself. "So we just wait a few more minutes."

The line rang for a few more seconds, allowing Alison to breathe in a hefty sigh, and start to walk towards Charles on the sofa. Suddenly, the line picked up, and the connection sound rung, Alison's huge face shrinking down into the corner of her screen. "Scotty!" She exclaimed, her eyes widening with relief. "I didn't think that you were going to pick up."

"Alison?!" Scott exclaimed, the same thrilled tone evident in his voice. Taking off his headphones, a smile began to form on his face. "Wow, hi. I didn't ever think that you'd use this number." He seemed slightly shocked, and he was breathing very heavily. His hands held drumsticks, indicating he was doing some sort of drumming. "I mean, I thought you would, but I wouldn't be at home."

"You're at home?" Alison questioned, arching an eyebrow in suspicion and surprise. "I would have thought that you would be on the run with our good old friend Cap. You know, since he broke everyone else out of jail."

"Yeah, well, a few hours after you left, thanks for that, by the way." Scott interjected his sentence, placing down his drumsticks. "I got a negotiation deal. Two years of house arrest for freedom and not being a criminal. Again." Scott added, wearing a firm expression as he shook his head.

"That doesn't sound too bad." Alison tried to lift Scott's hopes up, knowing that even two days of being stuck in her house (and a bed) drove her crazy, and being stuck in a wheelchair was even worse. "I mean, I was stuck in a wheelchair for a few weeks. That sucked."

"Wait, wait, wait. Back up about two sentences. You were in a wheelchair?" Scott asked, his face scrunching up in surprise. "You're going to need to explain this further, because I'm pretty sure everything that you've been doing is way cooler than learning about my house arrest for two years."

"She's been through so much, including shattering some of her spine." Charles interjected in a monotonous voice, not looking up from his video game. Alison gave him a much needed glare, not looking at Scott's reaction to what her brother had said.

"Okay, turns out you have a little less and a little more to talk to me about." Scott corrected, shaking his head with a sigh. "And start from the beginning, please. Not the beginning of your life, or of our little escapades-" When his statement was met with a protesting glare from Alison, Scott threw his hands up. "I know you Alison, you're just gonna be a smart aleck. Start after you left the prison."

Alison sighed, running a hand through her hair. "You better be somewhere comfy. It's a long story, and it involves me breaking the rules, the little teenager twerp known as Spider-Man, and some trips to DC. Oh! And a villain who intends to kill me. Settle in, we're gong to start the story of a lifetime."

Charles shook his head, almost offering an inaudible sigh. "Why don't we just condense this? I know this story, so I can help explain it." Without even letting Alison agree to the idea, as he knew she probably would, Charles continued. "Basically she had to make a deal with Mister Stark to switch high schools, and play superhero for him if he ever needed her help."

"That doesn't sound too bad." Scott disagreed, thinking of his own terms to be released. "So why are you complaining, Alison? It sounds like Stark gave you more freedoms than he took away. Sounds way better than how I have it."

"Yeah." Alison snorted, disagreeing slightly. "Except for the fact that Spider-Man was my babysitter. That really sucked. Plus, Tony Stark thought that it was okay to call in and check in with me every single week. It was rather annoying."

"She's overreacting." Charles stated bluntly, still not looking up from her video game. "It was like only two months of check in calls from Tony. At least, that was before she started to cause more than a little trouble around Queens."

"How has that not gotten on the news?" Scott asked, used to the world ending events that the Avengers normally partook in. "I mean, I would of assumed that you breaking your back was part of a huge world ending event."

"Nope," Alison chuckled, popping the "p" in her sentence. "That was from something else, but we're getting there. Two months into my phone calls, I basically just started fighting local crime in Queens, and stumbled upon some weapons dealers with tech that's alien and from events that were world ending like Sokovia and New York."

"Oh. That's a slight improvement." Scott commented, bumping his drum stand. The clatter of his drumsticks could be heard through the call, the noise rattling on the ground and startling Scott. The man was a klutz, that was for sure. "Better than world ending events, anyways."

"Yeah, I suppose so. And then, I went to New York to chaperone the Academic Decathlon team for their nationals, which they won. That was pretty cool, except for the fact that Spider-Man and I ran into a little trouble with those arms dealers again. And we got locked in a DODC vault for a night." Alison added nonchalantly, looking to the doorway to make sure that Jackie wasn't home, and heard that bit of information.

Ali still hadn't told her guardian (and cousin) everything that had gone down in D.C. Some things were just better remained as secrets, and some details of D.C. were perfect examples of that sentiment. "After that little enjoyable bit of our D.C. trip, Spidey and I-"

"Oh so you're on a nickname basis?" Charles teased, finally looking up from his phone. "I didn't know that." He joked even further, giving Alison a look that resulted in him being pushed off the sofa, Alison finally getting fed up with his teasing.

"As I was saying," Ali continued, not breaking away from her long story from Scott for very long, "We had to stop a bomb in the Washington Monument. Actually, it was more like I was a civilian again and Spider-Man was being a slow poke in getting back into the main D.C. area. Regardless, our Academic Decathlon team was in the elevator as the bomb went off, and so one of the cables snapped. And everyone got out-"

"Except for Alison. She dropped 555 feet, and 5 1/8 inches, and broke her spine." Charles crawled back onto the sofa, his face finally coming into frame with Alison's. "Hi Scott, my sister's told me a little about you." He smiled, interrupting the conversation to talk with another person that Alison had fought with in Germany.

"And Alison told me a little bit about you. Actually, it was more like she told everyone a little bit about you while we were stuck in prison. There really wasn't any privacy in there when she was trying to talk to Wanda, and me, for that matter." Scott smiled back, knowing how to perfectly talk with a kid. After all, he did have Cassie. "Anyways, Alison, continue on."

"Okay." Alison nodded, taking a deep breath before sharing more of the crazy month that she had. "And then I was stuck in a wheelchair for like a week or two, because somehow on top of super speed, my cells regenerate faster and cause me to heal faster."

When Scott gave her a skeptical look, Alison shrugged. "Yeah, I don't really get it either. Anyways, moving on. I got out of my wheelchair earlier than I was supposed to, and so I kind of hurt myself again. And then I tore a ferry in half with Spider-Man, or, more like he tore up a ferry with me. I mean, it was his fault, but-"

"You're getting off track Alison," Charles warned, giving her a look that told her to stop rambling on and on and get to the point. "I'll just finish this part up for you. And then she couldn't go to Homecoming, got her supersuit taken away, and was on bedrest for- what?" He questioned, turning to Alison with an unsure look. "A week?"

"Five days." Alison clarified, looking at Charles for a second before turning to the screen where Scott was. "Anyways, I also have to clean up Stark Tower in a few days instead of going to Homecoming. It's going to be very boring. So that was the punishment of the whole D.C. and crime fighting thing. Now we're onto the point of why I called you."

Scott took a deep breath in, almost laughing in shock as he breathed out. "You mean there's more than all of the tea that you just drowned me in?!" He exclaimed, shaking his head at the very idea. "You, Alison, have a plethora of problems."

"Yes I know." Alison rushed out, ready to continue with the part that she needed Scott to listen to the most. "Okay, so not even twenty minutes later, we get this knock on our door. Spider-Man is in my room, cause he and I are actually kind of friends by now, and we're discussing stuff. Jackie opened the door and found-"

"The worst person in the world!" Charles yelled, getting really angry and scared even just thinking of her. "Can we give her a nickname? I really don't want to discuss her name. Her name sounds like something you shouldn't do."

Alison sighed, letting out a small chuckle. "Hey, buddy, that's abstinence. There's a difference. And we can call her... Abby. Abby sounds better than Absinthe." She agreed, watching Charles wince as Alison spoke her name. "Okay, sorry Scott, let's get back to talking."

"Yes, please do." Scott tucked his fists under his chin, leaning his elbows on one of the drumming pads. "Because I need something to do besides magic tricks and basketball trick shots in this house." He sounded a bit sarcastic, but his boredom was genuine.

"Okay, Abby-" Alison looked at Charles, who was nodding in approval with the nickname, and continued. "Barged into our apartment wearing what she said was a cosplay- but it was actually her evil villain outfit- and holding a gift basket full of jams and a bottle of white wine. It was all a front, and she knocked out Jackie with a frying pan-"

"Like Tangled?" Scott asked, familiar with the movie. Cassie had made the grown man watch the movie more than a few times, and he was familiar with most of the songs, characters, and the plot by this point. "Knocked out with a frying pan?"

"Yes." Alison laughed a little, realizing that Scott was right. She had been so busy just worrying about Absinthe that she hadn't even realized that they way the villain had knocked her cousin out was classic Tangled.

"Anyways, then she touched this one-" Alison ruffled Charles' hair tenderly, trying to talk to Scott about her crisis without making Charles remember too much of what had happened. "And he was knocked out instantly, going into like a fear vision of some sort. Then, she walked over at stormed into my room-"

Alison took a deep breath in, realizing that she wasn't fully recovered from the emotional damage that Absinthe had done (it was very little compared to Peter and Charles, but the woman had still scared Alison senseless). "Knocked Spider-Man out the very same way she did Charles, and did this whole monologue to me."

"And?" Scott asked expectantly, unsure of what else to ask. The whole idea of a villain storming into a teenager's apartment with her family after doing nothing to even cross paths with the woman was alarming. "What did she say?"

"Oh, that she was Absinthe, the Daughter of Thanos, Bringer of Death, and that she was here to kill me. Oh, and she basically told me she'll also kill all my friends and family, and everyone that I know and love." Alison finished nonchalantly.

'Wow." Scott said, grasping for anything else to say. She had said a lot, and the new villain threatening to kill her was a lot more than Scott had faced. Well, he had taken on Cross and gone into the quantum realm, so maybe it was the same level of what he had faced. "So, um, what did you need to tell me this for?"

"I need your advice. I trust you, and you won't go all crazy parent on me like Tony will, or give me a lecture like Clint or Steve will. If Steve would even be reachable. Wanda already knows about it, so she's working the whole powers side of the villain. You know, making people go into a vision to see their worst fears." Alison summarized, looking to Scott for a small piece of advice.

"Well-" Scott thought for a moment, considering what would be the best idea for the girl. "If you lay low, and don't go out and challenge her, chances are that you won't get...killed. My advice would to be to wait it out, as I'm sure it won't happen again."

As soon as Scott finished speaking, there was a rapid knocking at his door. "Aw crap." He hissed, glancing at his door before glancing at Alison. "That would be the FBI for our weekly check-in. Look, I gotta go, but feel free to call me again if this escalates. Bye!" He waved to the camera for a second before the feed cut out, leaving the phone with a blank screen.

"So," Charles looked to his sister, who glanced back at him with a small and tight lipped frown. She clearly didn't get the full amount of advice she wanted, and her concern was clear. "What do we do now?"

"We do what our trusty friend Ant-Man says." Alison sighed, pushing a strand of hair out of her face. Reaching over to give Charles a side hug, letting his head rest in the corner of her shoulder, Alison gave him a kiss on the head.

"We wait it out."

<~*~>

okay, WOW!

thank you so so much for 20K!

before I could finish this chapter, you guys actually gave me 21K :)

AND I HAVE DECIDED WHAT I AM GONNA DO AT 25K

I'm going to release a book. It won't start until after Breakout finishes in 19 chapters, ( don't worry, I have the whole plot figured out, so chapters should be coming out quicker) but the premise and stuff will be up

it's gonna be fun, that's for sure

I also saw Ant-Man and the Wasp last Friday, so like a week ago?

also mercuryindustries I provided you extraction

I CHANGED THE DATE OF BREAKOUT, it is now accurate with the timeline of the MCU, instead of 2017 it is of 2016, I changed it in every chapter

okay that's it from me, I gotta get to sleep at 9:30 cause I have swim tomorrow at 5:30 AM

I hope you guys enjoyed and I'll see you in the next one!

bye

:))