Author's Note: I felt inspired after watching Ant-Man so welcome to the story of the aftermath featuring Luis and Cassie, two comedic highlights from the most recent film.

With their world shaken, Luis and Cassie are no longer supporting players in Scott's tale. It's their time to lead the charge and save the world. Featuring an MCU interpretation of the Young Avengers.

This chapter is a short taste of what is to come.

Prologue

LUIS

X-Con Security had been on a roll. But half the earth's population disappearing did them no favors. Dave, Kurt, and Scott had dropped off the face of the planet—perhaps literally—and Luis was left fielding dozens of calls from irate customers.

Luis rolled his eyes as the caller screamed at him: "What do you mean you're not liable? The goddamn CEO and half the employees upped and disintegrated! What do you mean your services aren't equipped for Avengers-level events? You promised us the best!"

Luis pressed the mute button on the phone and made faces while repeating the complainer's complaints in a mocking tone. It was lonely doing it without the guys there to laugh along, but it was all Luis could do to keep from going insane. Unless it would be considered to make jokes to yourself. If that was the case, he would amend his rationalization and say that he was doing it to pass the time.

The voice on the line finally stopped ranting, so Luis disengaged the mute button. "Hey man, I appreciate your criticism and all, but next time you wanna make complaints, and you know I'm always up for a phone call—it gets lonely in the office, ya hear—but yeah, next time read the fine print before you call."

Luis pushed himself up from his desk. Walking to the exit, he glanced at the empty desks. He could picture the guys goofing around and smiling, egging each other on.

He grinned for a moment before kicking the wall. He immediately regretted it because the wall barely got a scratch, but his big toe was throbbing, and it was his right toe, which was his preferred toe, although he also appreciated his left toe. In general, he considered toes to be an underrated body part. He never understood why torturers always went for the fingers first. If you break the toes first, you get two advantages—first, they're expecting you to go for the fingers, so you show them how underrated the toes are; second, it's a lot harder to escape with a bunch of broken toes. Luis had told that to a guy at prison once and had ended up with a broken toe, so now he was keeping that info to himself.

A life of crime was looking more and more enticing. His wasn't the only business threatening to go out of business since half the planet disappeared—even the world's governments were in danger of folding—but he'd just finished celebrating his first big business success. He trudged out of the room and wished there was some way to undo all of this bullshit.

CASSIE

The moment the world changed, Cassie was playing Minecraft on her computer. Her mom and stepdad were glued to the TV downstairs and had shooed her up to her room. Something about a terrorist attack on the east coast or maybe in Europe or was it Africa? It all seemed so far away.

Cassie's world ended quietly. There was no warning, no screaming, no loud bangs. She got bored of Minecraft and scampered downstairs to grab a snack. From the front of the stairwell, she had a partial view of the living room. The TV was still on, but it didn't look like anyone was sitting on the couch. At ten years old, Cassie was proud to say that she was mature enough to be left alone during the day, but it was still unusual for both her mom and Jim to leave without saying anything first. And leaving the TV on was even stranger.

Something about the situation sent a shiver crawling across her body. She took a few steps toward the living room and peered in. Immediately, the dread washed away. She was wrong. She was not alone. Jim, for whatever reason, was not sitting on the couch but on the floor, in front of a pronounced pile of dust. After a moment of watching his unmoving ritual, she approached him until she was standing next to him, watching him watch the dust. Several minutes passed.

"Jim?" she said.

He whipped his head around, and normally Cassie would tease him for being a scaredy-cat, but something on that face—she had never seen him so fearful—made her freeze too. Jim's eyes widened for a moment before he shot to his feet and engulfed Cassie in a bear hug.

"Thank god," he whispered into her hair.

"Jim? Where's my mom?" She asked her voice muffled.

He shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know what happened. She just...disappeared."

Cassie had so many questions, but at that moment her mouth ceased to function. She wriggled out of her stepdad's grasp and stood in the center of the room, sucking in breath after breath, panting, hyperventilating. She was breathing so quickly, it felt almost as if she needed the next breath before she had even taken one.

"Breathe. Breathe." Jim rubbed her back. Her breaths returned to normal. He smiled but his eyes were tired. "It's ok. It's going to be ok." He spoke rhythmically.

Cassie looked up at him.

He placed his arms on her shoulders. "Your dad will know what to do."