Hope and Scott were just settling into a hard-earned rest in one of Hank's sofas when the doorbell rang. Then rang again. Then kept ringing with the persistence of a telemarketer who'd just discovered cocaine.

  "Are you kidding me?" Scott groaned, his face buried in the pillow. "We just saved Hope's mom from a quantum hell dimension ruled by a time-travelling tyrant. Can't we get five minutes of peace?"

  Hope threw another pillow at him. "You answer it. I'm dead to the world."

  The doorbell rang three more times in rapid succession, now accompanied by enthusiastic knocking.

  Scott dragged himself out of the sofa, muttering curses that would have made his ex-wife cover Cassie's ears. He stumbled down the stairs, threw open the front door with more force than necessary, ready to deliver a piece of his mind to whatever salesperson had the audacity to...

  He froze.

  Deadpool stood on the doorstep wearing nothing but his mask, tighty-whities covered in little hearts, and a white apron absolutely drenched in barbecue sauce. The mercenary struck a pose like he was modeling for a calendar, one hand on his hip, the other holding up a plate stacked with burgers that dripped grease onto Hank's welcome mat.

  "Who wants a burger?" Wade's voice carried cheerful enthusiasm that suggested he saw absolutely nothing wrong with this picture.

  Scott's brain short-circuited. "What... who... you're... why aren't you wearing pants?!"

  "Resource management, baby! I only had the one good suit, and I'm not getting smoke and grease stains all over my beautiful red spandex. These bad boys are washable." Wade did a little shimmy that made his apron strings dance. "Plus, the ladies love my glutes. Check out these bad boys, they're like two perfect cantaloupes."

  Scott looked past Deadpool to the front lawn, where his brain tried and failed to process the scene before him and decided this was a dream and went back to wash his face.

  The entire Mercs for Money crew had set up what could only be described as the world's most questionable barbecue. A George Foreman Grill sat on a folding table, smoke rising in lazy spirals. Lawn chairs scattered around like someone had just given up on organizing anything. Coolers open, ice melting, drinks sweating in the California sun.

  Gorilla Man, wearing yellow robes, stood at the grill, his massive simian form wielding tongs with surprising delicacy as he flipped burgers that sizzled and popped. He wore a chef's hat that said "Kiss the Cook", which looked absolutely ridiculous on his gorilla head.

  Hit-Monkey perched on another chair, mixing beer and sake in a Solo cup while taking photos with a phone that looked giant in his hands. A kid from the neighbourhood, maybe ten years old, had wandered over and was trying to get a selfie with a suit-wearing monkey, offering up a notebook with hopeful eyes.

  Hit-Monkey, focused on his drink mixing, grabbed a burger bun from the table and chucked it at the kid's face without looking.

  "Hey!" The kid stumbled backward, bun bouncing off his forehead.

  Gorilla Man reached over and smacked the back of Hit-Monkey's head with enough force to make the chair rock. "Bad Monkey! Apologise right now. We don't throw food at children."

  Hit-Monkey chittered something that sounded distinctly like cursing.

  "I don't care if you're busy. Apologize or no more drinking sake."

  Hit-Monkey made an elaborate gesture that might have been an apology or might have been the monkey equivalent of flipping someone off. Hard to tell.

  Machine Man hovered near the property line, where a small crowd of young women had gathered, equal parts curious and entertained. His body flowed with exaggerated confidence, metal stretching and narrowing as his waist rolled in slow, overcommitted circles, like he was halfway between a sultry dance and a malfunctioning inflatable tube man. His limbs elongated and bent into poses that no skeleton should survive, held a beat too long, then snapped into the next with theatrical flair. One arm flexed. A hip popped. Something in his torso .

  The effect was immediate as laughter bubbled up between surprised gasps, a few women covering their mouths while still very clearly watching Machine Man's failed attempt at flirting.

  "And for my next trick," Machine Man's voice carried theatrical flair, "I'll unscrew my face!" He proceeded to do exactly that, his head detaching at the shoulder and waving at the crowd independently.

  The women squealed with a mix of horror and delight.

  Massacre sat alone on the far end of the setup, silent as a grave, focused entirely on his burger. He ate with each bite measured, his expression suggesting he was contemplating the philosophical implications of ground beef or possibly planning a murder. With Massacre, it was always hard to tell.

  Domino emerged from inside the house, her expression caught somewhere between exasperation and the kind of exhaustion that came from dealing with Wade's nonsense for too long. "Wade, what the fuck is going on here?"

  Her voice had dropped back into the crass, no-nonsense tone of her mercenary days, the refined maternal warmth she'd been cultivating for Luv completely absent.

  "Easy there, ," Wade said, holding up a finger like he was about to start a TED Talk nobody asked for. "No need to drop the verbal nukes. Though I will say, hearing you swear again feels like watching a rock star relapse in the best way. That polished 'responsible hero' voice you've been using lately was making my skin crawl. And I already look like a medical experiment."

  "Don't call me Goddess."

  "Okay, but hear me out," Wade continued, utterly undeterred. "Divine Lady of Luck. Saint Domino of Improbable Violence. Or my personal favorite, and this one's trademark pending: 'She Who Bends Reality and Is Freakishly Accurate With putting lead in a guy's balls.' I mean, come on. That one's practically science."

  "Wade."

  "Right, right, getting there." He waved his hands like he was corralling an invisible audience. "You summoned us, remember. With a very dramatic group text. 'Need you at these coordinates. Full gear. Weird job.' Capital W weird. That was three hours ago. Do you know how long three hours is for me? I got an entire personality in that time."

  Domino pinched the bridge of her nose. "Time was… off. It's this Quantum nonsense. It happens."

  "Oh, we noticed," Wade said cheerfully. "But no stress. We just got hungry. Gorilla Man declared that running ops on an empty stomach was 'bad for team cohesion' and 'a violation of bro code,' so we improvised."

  He gestured behind him.

  A full barbecue setup of Grill smoking, folding chairs and mariachi music playing quietl

  "You're welcome, by the way," Wade added. "We brought supplies. Mostly. We have raided Hank's fridge for condiments. And possibly that bougie imported cheese wheel he pretends he doesn't hide. Call it a late fee. Or foreplay. Depends how mad you are."

  He leaned closer, dropping his voice. "Also, I regret nothing. That cheese was slutty."

  A shriek cut through the backyard chaos, high-pitched and genuinely startled.

  Everyone's heads swiveled toward the house where the sound had originated from the downstairs bathroom. Then another shriek answered it, this one deeper, more masculine, carrying equal parts surprise and indignation.

  The group stampeded inside with the kind of coordination that suggested they'd done this many times before when one of their own was in danger or when something interesting was happening.

  They found Scott and Slapstick in the bathroom, both of them screaming at full volume, standing maybe three feet apart, fingers locked on each other like they'd just walked in on a murder scene and decided the guy clearly did it.

  "There is a cartoon in my bathroom!" Scott yelled, voice cracking like he was twelve again and getting pantsed. "A living, breathing, bug-eyed Saturday-morning nightmare! It just next to the sink!"

  Slapstick recoiled dramatically, jaw dropping so far it actually against the tile. "And there's a flesh goblin in face!" he screeched. "I'm washing my hands, minding my business, and suddenly this ugly mug pops up like a cheap jump scare! I thought I was about to get murdered by Home Depot!"

  "Ugly?!" Scott shot back, turning red. "You're calling ugly? Your face just detached from your skull and hit the floor like a dropped lasagna!"

  "At least I'm to look like this!" Slapstick snapped, scooping his jaw back into place with a wet . "You're meant to be a normal human being, and somehow you still came out looking like that! That's effort!"

  Scott jabbed a finger at him. "My daughter calls me the coolest dad in the district!"

  Slapstick squinted. "Is your district a prison yard?"

  The argument was seconds away from turning physical, or possibly metaphysical, when Domino shoved through the doorway, took one look at the scene, and immediately regretted every life choice that had led her here.

  She pressed her fingers to her temples like she was actively fighting off an aneurysm.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  "Both of you," she said, voice low and vibrating with murderous restraint, "shut the up. Right now."

  Neither of them listened.

  "He started it!" Scott yelled.

  "He exists wrong!" Slapstick countered.

  Domino's eye twitched. "I swear to God," she continued, teeth clenched, "Both of you, shut up. Right now. I swear to God, if I have to deal with one more ridiculous thing today..."

  She paused, glanced at Slapstick.

  "…And put your jaw back where it belongs. This isn't a cartoon network audition."

  Hope appeared behind her, followed by Hank and Janet, all three of them drawn by the commotion. They took in the scene: the screaming men, the gathered mercenaries, the cartoon character's jaw still on the bathroom floor.

  Janet stopped in the doorway, and her eyes went wide.

  After thirty years in the quantum realm where impossible was the baseline, where beings shifted form as casually as breathing and architecture defied geometry, she'd thought she was prepared for anything Earth could throw at her.

  A cartoon character. In a bathroom. With his jaw literally on the floor.

  Her hand found the doorframe, gripping it for support.

  "Hank," she said slowly, her voice carrying the careful control of someone trying very hard not to lose their composure, "is this normal now? Did I miss something in the past three decades? Are cartoons just... walking around? In bathrooms?"

  Hank's expression cycled through embarrassment, frustration, and something that might have been hysteria. "I... no. This is not normal. This is..." He gestured helplessly at the scene. "I don't even know what this is."

  "Who are these people?" Hope's voice carried dangerous calm, though her hand had moved instinctively toward where her Wasp suit controls would be. "And more importantly, why is there a nearly naked man covered in barbecue sauce in my father's house?"

  Wade perked up. "Nearly naked is such a harsh term. I prefer 'fashionably undressed.' And before you ask, yes, the ladies are free to appreciate my glutes. I'm thinking of starting an Instagram."

  Domino slapped the back of Wade's head hard enough to make his mask shift. "Stop talking."

  Massacre chose that moment to interject from his position leaning in the bathroom doorway, his burger somehow still in hand despite the chaos. "Now hear me, sinners," he drawled, voice dropping into that smooth, Southern-preacher cadence, "the Good Book says you do piss off folks touched by the divine. And that woman?" He pointed. "She don't just walk with the Lord anymore. She's got Death on a leash. Even Wade can't regenerate from it."

  The statement hung in the air like a lead balloon.

  All the mercenaries, who'd been laughing and joking, went quiet and turned to look at Domino with expressions that ranged from confusion to dawning horror.

  Domino tensed, her shoulders going rigid. "Massacre, I swear to God..."

  But it was too late. Slapstick started laughing, a high-pitched cartoon cackle that sounded like a hyena on helium. "Wait, wait, wait. Are you telling me Domino is supposed to be a goddess? The same Domino who once got so drunk after her breakup with Jay that she broke in the RAFT and beat up Abomination? The same Domino who rage-quit a mission because someone called her 'Spot-Face'? That Domino, who once said she 'wasn't in the right emotional space for murder?"

  Machine Man said in agreement, "Please! I've seen Uzbekistani wrestlers more feminine and refined than her. How did you even bag Jay with that temper?"

  The other mercs joined in, their laughter building like a wave.

  "Goddess of 'not getting over her Ex," Wade wheezed between laughs.

  "Patron Saint of 'Fuck This, I'm Out'!" Gorilla Man added.

  An anvil materialized above Slapstick's head out of nowhere. It hung there for exactly one second before gravity remembered it existed.

  The anvil dropped with a cartoon sound effect. BONK.

  Slapstick crumpled like a accordion, his rubber body compressing into a tiny pile with stars circling his head. "Ow! What motherfu... since when can she do that?!"

  Domino's hands were wreathed in crimson strings, and her eye had gone dark with barely contained irritation. "That's what you get for bringing up my 'dark and shameful past.' Next person who mentions anything about Uzbekistani wrestlers or my dating history gets worse."

  Wade raised his hand. "Question: How mad are you exactly? Because I've got like ten more jokes and I need to know which ones are worth permanent brain damage."

  "Wade."

  "Right. Shutting up. Mouth sealed. Lips zipped. Completely quiet starting... now."

  He lasted approximately four seconds.

  "Although in my defense, the abomination thing was hilarious."

  Domino manifested another anvil.

  Wade threw his hands up. "Okay! Okay! I'm done! Merciful Goddess, spare this humble fool!"

  "Everyone shut the hell up before I start introducing you by your dental records," Domino's voice cut through the chaos like a knife, "Pym family, meet Mercs for Money." She gestured at the gathered group. "Mercs, meet the Pym family. If anyone so much as breathes wrong around them, I start rearranging skeletons. Clear?"

  The two groups stared at each other with the kind of awkward tension that came from being complete strangers forced into proximity by circumstances beyond their control.

  After a long moment of painful silence, the introductions began properly. Handshakes were exchanged, though several were more reluctant than others.

  Hank spent an uncomfortable amount of time staring at Machine Man and Gorilla Man, his scientist brain clearly trying to reconcile what he was seeing with what he knew was possible. "A sentient machine and a gorilla with human intelligence. The evolutionary implications alone..."

  "Don't start," Janet touched his arm. "We just got back from a place where Form is meaningless and time flows sideways. Accept the weirdness."

  Scott found himself trapped in a game of "guess the Looney Tunes character" with Slapstick, who was demonstrating his various transformations with increasing enthusiasm. "Okay, what about this one?" Slapstick's body contorted, inflated, and twisted into the unmistakable shape of a massive cartoon hammer, complete with a squeaky wind-up sound when he lifted it.

  "That's... I don't know, is that Bugs Bunny's hammer?"

  "Close! It's actually from the episode where..."

  Hope, meanwhile, was dealing with the deeply uncomfortable experience of being hit on by Massacre.

  "The Lord teaches us to appreciate competence, especially when it comes to finding a wife." Massacre said with surprising sincerity.

  "Thanks, now step away or I'm going to send you to your god " Hope's confusion was evident.

  "Kinky! As the Lord says 'the more spice the better'"

  Hit-Monkey, having finished his drink mixing, had apparently decided that Hank's wine collection looked more interesting than the ongoing social disaster. He'd migrated to the kitchen and was systematically working through bottles that probably cost more than most people's cars.

  "Is that the 1982 Bordeaux?" Hank's voice rose several octaves. "That's a $15,000 bottle! Put it down!"

  Hit-Monkey chittered something that roughly meant "finders keepers" and took another long drink straight from the bottle.

  After nearly ten minutes of this chaos, Wade clapped his hands together with enough force to make everyone jump. His expression, despite the mask hiding most of his face, shifted into actual seriousness. It was such a rare occurrence that even the other mercs went quiet.

  "Alright, boys and girls and sentient machines and primates and whatever the hell Slapstick technically counts as, story time's over. Goddess Domino, if you'd be so kind as to explain why we're all here?" He paused. "And before anyone asks, yes, I just called her Goddess again. Yes, I'm aware of the anvil risk. I'm living dangerously today."

  Domino took a deep breath, centering herself with visible effort. "Right. Okay. So, here's the situation. Everyone sit down because this is going to sound insane even by our standards."

  They gathered in Hank's living room, an odd collection of individuals that looked like the world's strangest support group. The mercenaries claimed various pieces of furniture with the casual entitlement of people used to making themselves at home anywhere. The Pym family and Scott looked distinctly uncomfortable with this invasion of their space.

  "First things first," Domino began, her voice taking on the professional tone she used for mission briefings. "Everyone here needs to understand what a Celestial is."

  Wade raised his hand like a student. "Ooh! Ooh! Pick me!

  Domino ignored him and pointed at Gorilla Man.

  The new mystic warrior's voice carried weight. "In the Kamar Taj library, it's well written; they are the universe's gardeners. Responsible for genetic experimentation across the universe. Created the Eternals and Deviants. Operate on timescales that make human civilisation look like a sneeze. They plant seeds of life, then return to harvest the fruit. The cycle is neither good nor evil. It simply is."

  "Good, you have pieces of it, but still not the full picture. They travel the universe planting seeds in planets with the right conditions, then those seeds grow into baby Celestials over millions of years, feeding on the planet's energy and the intelligent life that develops."

  She let that sink in.

  "When the baby is ready to be born, it emerges. And when something the size of a planet emerges from inside a planet..."

  "Boom," Slapstick supplied helpfully. "Big badda boom."

  "Exactly. The planet cracks open from the inside. Every living thing dies. The baby Celestial is born. Circle of cosmic life continues."

  The room had gone very quiet.

  Janet finally connected the dots. "There's one in Earth."

  "Growing in the core right now," Domino confirmed. "His name is Tiamut. The Dreaming Celestial. And when he emerges..."

  She didn't need to finish. Everyone understood.

  "Fuck," Scott breathed. "How long do we have?"

  "That's the complicated part. Acutally we've got a few years, but we can never be sure. Celestials don't exactly run on a predictable schedule."

  Slapstick's hand shot up like he was in school. "So that should be easy enough for you and Jay to handle, right? I mean, he can just reality warp the problem away or punch it really hard until it stops being a problem."

  "No." Domino's voice carried finality. "First, Jay is busy elsewhere. Very busy, with his own mission that he can't postpone. Second, this is a Celestial we're talking about. Even ten of me with my current power level couldn't do anything major to it. And on top of that, if we hurt the unborn Celestial badly enough to actually threaten it, we'll attract Arishem and the other Celestials."

  She let that sink in.

  "That would be a surefire way to erase Earth from the universe. Permanently. No resurrection, no do-overs even for me."

  Machine Man's optical sensors glowed as his processing caught up. "Oh. So that's why you need Pym and his technology. You plan to do a C-section on a planetary scale."

  "Exactly." Domino nodded. "But it's never that easy. here's a group here on Earth called the Eternals. They've been here since the dawn of civilization, and their entire purpose is to make sure the Emergence happens. They're going to be a problem."

  "How big a problem?" Wade asked.

  Domino's expression turned grim. "They're basically immortal superhumans with cosmic energy manipulation. There are ten of them. And they've been conditioning Earth's population for thousands of years to accept this as inevitable."

  "So we're fighting gods to save the world," Machine Man summarized. "Again. Why is it always gods?"

  "Because mortals are boring," Wade supplied.

  Massacre raised his hand. "The Lord teaches us that when facing false deities, the righteous must strike with holy fury and really big explosions. I volunteer to handle the explosions part."

  "You're volunteering to handle explosions," Hope said flatly. "You. The religious zealot. Wants to blow up immortal beings."

  "The Lord helps those who help themselves," Massacre said with absolute sincerity. "And those who help themselves to military-grade explosives are especially blessed."

  Janet leaned toward Hank. "Are they all like this?"

  "Apparently," Hank whispered back.

  Slapstick bounced in his seat, rubber body making squeaking sounds. "Wait, wait, wait. This is actually perfect timing! Finally, some real action!"

  Domino's eye narrowed. "What are you talking about?"

  "The golden rain! The temporary hero thing!" Slapstick's enthusiasm was infectious despite the serious topic. "Accidents have been reduced by 99.5%, daylight crimes are way down, and nobody hires us mercenaries anymore!"

  The other mercs nodded in agreement, their expressions ranging from impressed to annoyed to philosophical.

  "It's true," Gorilla Man said, his voice carrying the wisdom of someone who'd learned the ways of mystic arts. "People don't need us for protection anymore. If danger comes, they just become temporary heroes and handle it themselves. The mystic arts have been less in demand too, since Gaea's chosen defenders respond to any foreign entity entering our dimension with malicious intent."

  Machine Man added, "Stark's been busy upgrading his suit and studying Gaea's gift instead of going on missions."

  Slapstick agrees, "The Fantastic Four have been domesticated now that they have Franklin. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but it means less hero work available."

  Hit-Monkey chittered something while taking another drink of Hank's expensive wine.

  Domino felt the implications of Jay's actions settling on her like physical weight. The promise to protect Gaea, to solve the Tiamut situation, suddenly felt more urgent than ever. "Well, what are we waiting for then? Let's get this done by dinner. I have a son to get back to."

  The reaction was immediate and universal.

  "WHAAAAAT?!" Every single mercenary shouted in unison, their voices mixing into one shocked exclamation.