It wasn't much later when they arrived at Scott and Cassie's favourite bench. Weirdly, despite being located near the cliff's edge, it didn't overlook the sea, but rather over the view of the houses and stuff on the other side. Stupid, but hey ho. Tradition was tradition.

No one sat down, like they never did, but just stood around. Instinctively, Scott and Cassie both looked at the clear night sky. Nothing disturbed the stars – not any fireworks, not the glowing trail of Carol Danvers. Obviously they expected this now, but Cassie still sighed in disappointment.

"So, we're just going to stand here?" asked Stephen.

"For an hour, yeah," Scott sighed. "Don't expect anything interesting to happen in that time."

No sooner had he said that had there was a bright flash from behind them. Everyone spun around to look at the sea, searching for where it had come from. Scott was confused... it reminded him of a firework, but there was no sound and anyway, who would set one off in the ocean?

And then another firework went off, right in front of them, not too far away, but Scott still couldn't see where they were coming from. Nor figure out why they were silent. It was only after the third firework did he catch on, but he didn't say anything, just smiled to himself.

Cassie was looking up in amazement. "It's nearly the same start as that one ten years ago," she said, her face in awe.

"You remember that?" Scott asked. Even he didn't.

"Yeah, it was the year before you became Ant Man," Cassie said. Scott didn't ask how she remembered that... how could it have been almost ten whole years already? It didn't even feel like one.

Scott half-watched the fireworks, half-watched Cassie's reactions. She looked six again, with that face. He was waiting to see how long it took before she realised the true magic of the moment. (Ah, dad jokes.)

"Wait," she said, about a minute into the display. She peered down at the ocean. "Who's setting them off? There's no one down there."

Everyone (with the exception of Hank and Hope, who were still hanging behind somewhere, and Scott and Loki) looked down at the ocean, confused. Even magic dude Stephen hadn't caught on.

"Who knows?" Loki said, giving himself away by smiling. "Maybe it's magic?"

Cassie understood immediately. She gasped happily. "Wow..." She looked at the fireworks lighting up the sky and back at Loki. "Did you... make this for me?"

Loki shrugged. "Call it a last minute Christmas present."

Scott thought it was so sweet how Cassie grinned and thanked him. Even though, in his opinion, his present (the letter from actual Santa Claus himself) was the best.

Being magic fireworks, Loki didn't limit them to a measly five minute display with the basic colours and normal shapes with a repetitive pattern. The fireworks did all sorts, changing colours when they exploded, exploding then each bit exploding again, then exploding again, different colours each time, and even explode into letters spelling out Merry Christmas, which Scott wouldn't have thought possible if he didn't know it was magic. Cassie was totally loving it.

Scott appreciated he was actually making an effort. Loki doing something like this for him or Stephen made sense, because he'd become (although he only reluctantly admitted it) quite fond of them now. But Loki was doing this for Cassie, who he'd barely known a day, and it wasn't as though he was even partly doing this for himself either, because he wasn't even watching the display. Instead, he and Stephen were discussing the mechanics of the illusions (which was apparently the reason they were silent), a conversation he hadn't taken part in for obvious reasons. So he watched the display along with Cassie.

Neither of them spoke. This was much better than what Scott could remember of the last one they had been to, and not just because of the quality of the display. Last time, it had just been him, Cassie, Paxton and Maggie, and the latter two he hadn't got along with at all at the time. Now, with Hank, Hope, Janet, Loki and Stephen there with them (although the first two weren't exactly engaging in conversation) things seemed much nicer and... more comfortable? Maybe?

But he wasn't bothered what it felt like. It was nice, and that was all Scott was bothered about.

He just didn't want anything to ruin his almost perfect Christmas.

"Hey, Scott?" Hope's voice said from behind him. He turned around, hearing the worry in her voice. "Um, can you come here a second?"

She was looking terrified, Scott saw. He felt himself starting to worry too. Nothing rattled Hope like that.

Crap.

Just crap.

"Yeah?" Scott asked uncertainly, walking towards her and Hank. "What's up?"

Hope and Hank exchanged a nervous glance. Hank was still holding his phone, which he'd been glued to like a teenager.

"You might wanna get those two," Hank mumbled, looking down at his phone again. "I think it has something to do with all three of you."

"Those two?" Scott asked, looking over his shoulder and back at Hank again. "Loki and Stephen? You can say their names you know."

Hank opened his mouth to say something, but Hope interrupted. "Can you just get them over here? I didn't want to ruin your Christmas, but things have got serious now and we can't really afford to lose time."

Scott's senses heightened. That sounded ominous at the very least. He called Loki and Stephen's names over his shoulder, interrupting their geeky magic conversation, and causing Cassie to tear her gaze from the fireworks and not-so subtly try to overhear.

"What's up?" Stephen asked, also noting the worry in their faces. "Let me guess, we aren't going to like it?"

"Probably not," Hope said, frowning. "Depends if you wanted to spend the rest of Christmas on a sort-of-Avengers-mission/sort-of-not-an-Avengers-mission."

"Woah, what?" Loki interrupted. "An Avengers mission? Since when have I been considered an Avenger?"

"I'm not sure, but you three are requested specifically," Hope shrugged.

"Requested?" Scott asked, completely baffled. One look at the other two told him they were too. "What the hell for? Is this what you've been discussing for the last two days? And if it's about us, why not include us sooner? My brain is totally overloading." Scott put a hand to his head, his cold hand helping slightly.

Hope looked guilty. "I told Dad not to involve you because I didn't want to ruin your Christmas, because I know you've been looking forward to it, Scott. And it's only the most recent update that involves you three. And I'm sorry to hear about your brain."

The little stab at awful comedy wasn't enough to distract Scott. He was so confused. What the hell were they on about?

"So," Stephen started, "are you actually going to tell us what the heck this is about?"

Hank cleared his throat. "Hope and I have been following and looking at a case for the last couple of days. In fact, most of your Avenger pals have. There have been rising energy levels of the... abnormal kind in a remote mountain range in what remains of Sokovia. People weren't too bothered at first, until the locals started reporting some very strange things..."

"Pun intended?" muttered Stephen under his breath, and Scott almost smiled.

"No pun intended," Hank said, very seriously. "The soldiers sent in to investigate didn't return-" Scott, Loki and Stephen all raised their eyebrows in synchronisation "-but we did get some radio signals from their comms units, and picked up a voice from the person we believe to be behind the energy spikes. No one could figure out what the voice said, or who's it was, for quite a while, but we'd already figured out by this point, with the high energy levels and how we'd got no response from the soldiers, that the suspect was likely a threat. But, around ten minutes ago, they received a message, and, as we've been following the case, they contacted us urgently to get to you."

Stephen was nodding very slowly. "OK... so who was this message from?"

"Someone who's been off the radar for a long, long time," Hank continued. "Five months or so. And someone who's been in a lot of trouble earlier this year. Our suspicions were confirmed that they were definitely a threat, and we couldn't risk anyone else going off investigating. But, luckily, or unluckily, depending on which way you view it, this person left a solution for us to neutralise the potential threat before it happens. Because this person contains a lot of world-destroying power. And the only people they want to speak to are the three of you."

A little silence followed his speech. Scott was waiting for him to elaborate. Who was he talking about?

Loki held up a hand to speak. "OK, world-destroying power. That narrows it down to half the threats in the universe. Think you could explain that in English? Or heck, speak in Russian. It'll be easier to understand."

"Eto luchshe?" Hope said, like a total smart arse.

"Namnogo luchshe spasibo bol'shoye," Loki replied, like even more of a smart arse. How many languages did this guy speak?

"English version?" Stephen asked.

Hope sighed, stuffing her hands in her pockets and her face giving the impression she was about to deliver some very bad news. "Basically... well..."

They all waited. Scott found himself feeling very tense all of a sudden. And he couldn't believe what he heard next.

"Wanda Maximoff's come back onto the radar. And she wants to speak to you."

The End

(For now...)