Hank Pym – Maine SHIELD Installation
(Am I picking random states/cities off a US map and deciding things happen there? Yes I am).
Hank must have read the email from Director Fury seven times before he really understood it. It was called the 'Avengers Initiative', a plan to gather the world's superpowered individuals and have them work as a line of defence towards any alien attacks on earth. Or anything as severe as what had happened at Stark Industries' fair or Liberty Island. Aliens were real, SHIELD knew now, after the Norse God Thor had landed in New Mexico and destroyed a small town.
Unbelievable, only with SHIELD clearance Level 7, Hank was very sure it was actually true.
Fury wanted Hank and Jan to join this 'Avengers Initiative'. Be Ant-Man and the Wasp, costumed heroes.
They already did that, only not so visibly. Compared to the Fantastic Four, Daredevil and Iron Man who everyone had heard of at least. Ant-Man and Wasp did exist in public channels, they were hidden, like the X-Men, Hawkeye and Black Widow, who appeared out of the woodwork every few months very visibly then crawled right back in without a trace.
Hank wondered if this was a declinable request, sometimes a request was a cleverly worded order and he wasn't as good at telling one from the other as he wanted to be. He and Jan could do it, certainly, but they had Hope to consider among other things. They had been Ant-Man and Wasp for eleven years now, and it still had the thrill.
They'd been SHIELD biochemists before discovering the Pym-Dyne particles, almost by accident. In hindsight Hank shrinking to the size of an ant after accidentally spilling an experimental serum on himself and having to stay in a jar for several hours until Jan found out how to counteract it was amusing. At the time it had been terrifying.
After reporting the incident and clearing it up they had tried to forget it, then when their team was held hostage by terrorists they had become Ant-Man and the Wasp for the first time. Then Fury had ordered them to find some way to use their technology to create superhero identities, it was much later they had come to use them themselves.
Hank could communicate with ants and Jan with wasps, their suits made the change far easier and it could be done by thought, Jan had the wings and antennae that allowed her to fly and communicate without a helmet. She'd got the newer model rather than the prototype Hank was still stuck with.
And now Fury wanted them to join what would become a very public team of superheroes, planning to use figures with less known vigilante activity. Or that was his explanation, appealing to the Fantastic Four and X-Men had most likely resulted in Fury being told to put his 'Avenger's Initiative' in a certain uncomfortable place. Hank himself hated the idea.
Only it wasn't exactly an offer, so he and Jan would have to resign themselves to it. Fury was reasonable, if they complained he would change his ideas, and if they got Black Widow on their side of the argument he wouldn't be able to do it fast enough.
Notes:
I finally managed to write about Ant-Man and the Wasp who will be main Avengers, even though this chapter is mostly exposition, like my Fantastic Four chapter, I hope they improve.