CHICAGO
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"Daddy, Daddy, watch this!"

Was the first thing (Y/N) heard as she, Ikaris and Sersi walked into the front porch of a familiar house in a calm neighborhood with the plan of finding another person who was missing from the Eternals, the one and only Phastos.

He was fixing his son's, Jack, bicycle as his husband Ben, played catch ball with their son in front of the garage with a smile on his face as he lifted his head to look at them.

"Watch this. Watch this."

"Let me see it."

The smile washed off Phastos's face when he spotted the trio in the porch, turning into a solemn expression as his hands dropped from fixing the bike beside him.

"Dad," Jack told him when he noticed his attitude shift. "I'm only a starter."

Ikaris was about to step forward but (Y/N) took the lead before he could speak, since she was already somehow familiar with this. "Hi."

"Hello, (Y/N), it's nice to see you again," Ben smiled as he held the football on his hands until he noticed the other two people standing next to her. "Can we help you?"

Jack huffed when he saw how his dad wasn't throwing the ball again and followed his eye to look what had caught his attention and the boy's eyes widened in surprise, running up to greet the familiar woman.

"Auntie (Y/N)!" Jack squealed in joy and wrapped his arms around (Y/N)'s waist with too much strength.

Sersi and Ikaris looked both surprised and confused by this, turning to (Y/N) for answers as she hugged Jack back and rubbed his back, catching their raised eyebrows. "What? Somebody had to gain the title of the cool aunt."

"Hey, buddy," she smiled down at the boy. "I see you've missed me a lot."

"I did!" Jack exclaimed. "Did you see what Dad and I were doing? We — "

"Hey, Jack. Ben," Phastos left the garage as he chuckled. "Hey, guys. You already know (Y/N), but these two are also my friends from college."

Phastos missed the way Ben looked at him with a raised eyebrow since he was standing in front of them and pointed a finger at the pair. "Uh, this is Sylvia and, uh, Isaac. That's Isaac."

"Isaac," Ikaris mumbled under his breath to Sersi and (Y/N) with disbelief, mocking the name.

Jack tugged on Phastos's sweater and pointed at Ikaris with an amazed smile. "Dad, that's Superman. Dad, that's Superman!"

"Jack. . .that's really funny, Jack," Phastos laughed his enthusiasm off. "That is definitely not Superman."

"No, no! He is Superman. I saw him on TV. He was in London, fighting a monster," Jack rambled and (Y/N) noticed how Ben and Phastos exchanged a look between themselves. "And you were with a cape and you were shooting laser beams out of your eyes."

"I don't wear a cape," Ikaris said.

"Oh, sorry."

"Okay, well? we should just go inside, right?" Phastos cut the conversation short before he could say something else and guided the trio all back to the house. "Can I call you Clark? Is that what you go by now? Because, you know — "

"You've called me worse," Ikaris reminded.

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"You've got it, Jack?"

"Hmm."

"Way to go."

"Yes."

"All right. Show me how it's done," Phastos spoke to Jack as they both leaned on the sink of the bathroom. "Round and round and round and round and round."

They both shared a laugh that echoed through the bathroom and down the hall, but this made Phastos's eyes drift away from Jack and frown at the sight of Ikaris, Sersi and (Y/N) all peaking in the corner to watch the scene from afar.

At this, (Y/N) winced and Sersi struggled to push Ikaris away from the wall to have them all sat back down like nothing ever happened. "Come on."

"Yep, you got it. Keep going."

(Y/N) grabbed the coloring book from the table to pretend like she was reading it on her chair but Ikaris took it away from her hands and copied her actions while Sersi acted like she'd been staring at her empty cup the entire time as Phastos walked back into the dining room.

"Yeah. Incredibly natural, guys," Phastos said drily and sat down while removing his glasses. "So, after all these years, even you fell for Ajak's lies."

"No need to rub it in," Ikaris told him.

"It all makes sense why she wouldn't let us interfere with human conflicts. Conflicts lead to war, and war actually leads to advancement in lifesaving technology and medicine," Phastos explained. "So our mission was never to make a peaceful and harmonious world, but to increase the population at all costs. Just farming humans as food for the Celestials, right?"

"That's bleak," Ikaris muttered.

"Well, so is telling your husband and your child that they could be dead within a few days."

Ikaris raised his head to look at him in the eye as his hands still fiddled with the toy in his hands. "Thought you'd given up on humans."

"I got lucky. Okay? I have a family now," Phastos responded. "They give me faith again. And I see the good in humanity in them every single day. So, look, I cannot help you. I am never leaving them."

"Phastos — "

"I'm sorry, Sersi," he cut her off. "It was wrong for me to use my powers without thinking about the consequences in the first place. So, now, I choose to use my hands to fix my child's bicycle, okay?"

"Do you?" Ikaris questioned.

Phastos shrugged. "I don't use my powers anymore."

"You sure?"

"What are you — "

Phastos, Sersi and (Y/N) flinched as Ikaris fired a laser beam out of his eyes directly at the glass door on the side, and he realized that the glass didn't budge out of the door's frame or even cracked.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Phastos snapped. "My child is right down the hallway!"

"That looks like someone's been using his powers," Ikaris grinned in satisfaction.

"Oh, my God," Phastos rolled his eyes.

"I bet you've built the perfect safe house," Ikaris looked around before his eyes fell on the table. "What is this even made of? Vibranium?"

"Don't!"

Ikaris punched down at the table underneath him and this time the table broke in half, causing the water glasses to spill down onto the floor and the coloring book to fall down with it. (Y/N) had raised her hands out of surprise and she covered her mouth with her hand to muffle her laugh.

"Fall collection. IKEA," Phastos revealed. "Ass. How did you even deal with this guy for over 5,000 years?"

"If you stay here, you might as well invite the Deviants to dinner," Ikaris continued. "Never mind waiting for the end of the world."

"First time I agree with Ikaris in something," (Y/N) nodded along to his words and Ikaris seemed deeply offended.

"No, I'm sorry. You can't just show up in my life and expect me to go with you. I'm not gonna — "

Ben walked out of the hallway and cut his husband off. "You should go, habibi."

"You want me to go?" Phastos looked at him.

"You know what my mom would say to you right now, right?" Ben smiled slightly before starting to speak up in Arabic. "Quit procrastinating, Phil, and take care of your business."

"He's a chronic procrastinator."

"I'm not leaving you two," Phastos stood up. "No way."

"I'm not happy about it, but if there's a chance for us to watch Jack grow up to live a life of his own, we should take it."

It took a lot of convincing, but in the end, Phastos agreed to leave with Sersi, (Y/N) and Ikaris after bidding his son and husband a heartfelt goodbye to go and find the rest of the group and return back to the Domo once and for all, deciding what to do about the emergence.