Hope you all had a good Christmas. On that note, here's the next chapter.
Jinero: Why thank you. They will be about as impressed as most of us were. Which is not at all. Sorry, really not feeling that nickname. Thank you, you as well.
Agent N: Glad you enjoyed it.
Watson Smith: That's fine, but not everyone is going to like it as much as you.
Guest 1: Yes, yes it was.
Guest 2: Yes, everyone loves John Wick because it's awesome. At least that's been my experience; I have yet to come across anyone who dislikes it.
Guest 3: Yep, Burch would be at the bottom of the list.
Guest 4: If Fury was in Civil War, there would have been no Civil War.
Guest 5: Is that supposed to make it better? They could have included Peter in multiple ways that didn't make it as bad as it did. They chose the one way that would sabotage whatever relationship Tony would have with Peter right off the bat and make Tony look horrible.
Scott, Hope and Hank walked to Bill's university wearing cap and glasses as disguise. An uneasy Scott said someone would recognize them. Hank said no one would but Scott said it wasn't a disguise as they looked like themselves at a baseball game.
"Which is what makes it such a good disguise. Everyone's looking for them, they won't expect you to be hiding in plain sight," Natasha said.
Bill Foster was teaching a class when he noticed Hank and decided to end it a few minutes early with a joke. He later sat with them in his office and talked about Quantum entanglement with Scott, who dryly said that was what he was thinking before he joked if they put 'Quantum' before everything.
"Yeah, it makes everything sound more complicated," Parker joked.
Hope said they needed to find the lab but Bill said he couldn't make the equipment. Hank said they should go but Bill asked him not condescend as he was on the run from the FBI for growing to a size his ego could fit in. Hank said that was Scott, surprising Bill. Bill noted he would have been tired from that and Scott said he had slept for 3 days.
"Did I really?" Scott asked surprised and Barton and Scarlet nodded.
"Once Cap broke us out, you passed out the moment we were on the Quinjet. We were worried about you until you woke up. Freaked out when you saw we were in Wakanda," Barton said with a grin as he and Scarlet laughed at the memory.
Bill said he had been Hank's partner on a project called Goliath back in the day. Hank was angered but Bill said the only thing more tiring than going that big was putting up with Hank's bullshit and the two laughed as Hank looked angry, causing Scott to stop.
"He's not wrong," Scott said with a chuckle as the future Avengers laughed with him, each having met the man at least once.
"Hank is not an easy man to work with," Parker noted.
Bill said he had grown to 21 feet while Scott had grown to 65 feet. Hope said they needed to find the lab and Bill mocked Hank, saying he seemed to have all the answers back in the day and that's why he had left. Hank said he had fired him but Bill pointed out all of Hank's flaws, saying he pushed everyone away. Hank said just the mediocrities as Bill said only Janet could endure him and chose to stick it out but paid the price. An enraged Hank was going to attack him but Scott and Hope restrained him.
"Okay, that is going way too far," Rhodey said as all of them glared at the screen.
"Jerk," Steve said roughly, feeling sympathy for Hank as he imagined how he would have felt if someone had said that to him about Peggy.
"Clearly, Dr. Foster and Dr. Pym have more than a disagreement about work," Vision noted.
Hope scolded them as Scott noticed Woo and other FBI outside and thought someone had seen him.
"You were saying Nat?" Steve said dryly as Scott tensed.
Hank looked at the camera feed from Scott's and saw an ant playing the drums, asking if Scott was 15.
"You're the world's biggest fifteen year old," Natasha teased and Scott flushed as everyone else laughed.
Hope said they needed to go right now as Bill told them if they modified the diffraction units on the regulators, they would improvise the trackers. Scott and Hank ran out as Hope thanked him gratefully before the three ran out as Woo and the others arrived.
"Thank god," Scott said in relief. "I can't go back to prison; I can't put Cassie through that again."
"You won't," Tony said as he began making plans in his head. "I'll make sure of it."
Woo later told Bill campus police had ID'd Hank and Hope but Bill said he hadn't talked to Hank in 30 years and he was the last person Hank would want to meet. Another agent tried to argue but Woo asked why and Bill said they hated each other's guts.
"Gee really, we had no idea," Clint said sarcastically.
In the van, Hank ranted how Bill never had a good idea his entire life but Hope said his diffraction idea could work so he grudgingly said one decent idea.
"He really is more arrogant than me," Tony said in disbelief. "And when I call someone arrogant, you know it's bad."
Hank reminded he had eliminated the defractors on upgrading the suit and Scott realized this could work if they had an old suit. Hank said they didn't but Scott then said they did, with Hope realizing he had never destroyed the suit.
"You're just full of surprises Tic-Tac," Sam said amused and Scott shrugged.
"It was his life's work, I couldn't destroy it," Scott said simply.
Hank was angry but Scott said it was his life's work and he couldn't destroy it so he had shrunk it down and sent it to Luis through mail. Hank was angry his suit had been sent through the mail but Scott said they were very reliable and did tracking numbers like UPS.
"You sent it through the mail?" T'Challa asked amused and Scott shrugged as everyone else laughed.
"They're very reliable," Scott said simply, which only made them laugh harder.
Scott said it was in a very safe place.
Later, Scott called Luis asking about the trophy but he said it wasn't there, shocking Scott as Luis was pestered by the giant ant.
"You put the suit on your trophy?" Thor asked amused.
"That's what you're focusing on? Who cares where I put it, it's missing!" Scott exclaimed, on the verge of panicking.
Scott then remembered putting out to Cassie and realized something as Luis scolded the ant for startling him. Scott cut the call and said the good news was that he knew where it was.
"Damn it!" Scott groaned as realization hit all of them.
"Cassie took it to show and tell," Wanda said as she remembered Cassie bringing it up at the beginning of the recording.
"Great, can things get any worse?!" Scott grumbled.
A miniature Scott sat on a flying ant and flew to Cassie's school along with Hope and joked how everything was supposed to look smaller when you returned to school but this looked huge.
"Maybe because you're tiny now," Rhodey joked.
Then Scott suddenly grew to a medium size and fell down as Hope realized the new regulator was malfunctioning and Scott asked how much of a work-in-progress it was.
"You had to say it, didn't you Tic-Tac?" Sam teased as Scott groaned.
Then the recess bell rang and students ran out so Scott ran to a side room and opened it, hiding inside with Hope as he grew too large, causing Hope to laugh.
"What is this, embarrass Scott day?" Scott grumbled as everyone laughed. "The universe hates me."
Hope grew slightly larger and opened the regulator, noting that the sizing coils were malfunctioning and tried fixing them. They sparked and Scott cried out in pain.
"I can feel that from here," Scott said with a wince.
After making sure Scott was okay, Hope fixed the coils as they both grew to normal size before it malfunctioned again and shrunk Scott to the size of an elementary schooler. Scott tried to fix it but nothing happened.
Scott covered his face, humiliated as everyone laughed at him.
"Just kill me now," Scott pleaded.
"Sorry, we're having too much fine," Clint said with a laugh.
"If only Cap could see you now," Hope smirked as she leaned down.
"I'm seeing it right now," Steve quipped and everyone laughed as Scott slumped down in his seat.
"Seriously, just kill me, right now," Scott pleaded.
Scott then saw a hoodie that was oversized and wore it. Hope shrunk and the two snuck out as a teacher spotted Scott from behind and thinking he was a kid, asked if he had the hall pass but Scott ran off as Hope flew with him, the oversized sleeves flaying.
"Seriously, why?" Scott demanded as he looked towards the future Avengers as everyone else laughed.
"It was funny," Lila said with a shrug and a smirk.
Scott eventually found the room and the two snuck in as Scott tried to reach Cassie's schoolbag and Hope jokingly cheered him as if he was a kid before enlarging and getting the bag.
"Seriously, what do I have to do to be taken seriously?" Scott asked annoyed.
"Be a regular sized man," Rhodey joked as everyone laughed.
Scott opened it and found the trophy, getting a little emotional on seeing 'World's Greatest Grandma' and opening the bottom part, took out the miniature suit and handed it to Hope before putting the bag back.
"Well thank god that's over," Scott said in relief.
"Not just yet," Parker said and Scott groaned.
Hope shrunk and flew out as the bell rang again while Scott ran, struggling due to the oversized clothes and struggled to jump into the van as Hank jokingly asked if school was good that day.
"Oh he's hilarious," Scott said sarcastically as everyone laughed.
Scott laughed sarcastically and told him to joke later and fix the regulator first. Hank asked jokingly if he wanted juice box and string cheese and Scott asked if he had that as the van started.
"Now it's over," Scarlet said and Scott sighed in relief.
The three then worked on the suit as Hank wondered if the idea could work and it did, with the location being triangulated as the three looked happy.
"It worked!" Scott cheered.
"You still have to face this Ghost," Thor pointed out and Scott's mood dampened.
They stopped in front of the house, wolves howling in the distance as Scott joked that this seemed right.
"Scary house for a Ghost. Makes sense," Tony joked.
Scott and Hope changed into suits, with him commenting how they were teaming up twice a day and Hope said it made her think about Germany. They were working together, training together and other stuff-ing together.
Scott flushed as everyone else laughed. Still, he couldn't help the goofy smile that spread across his face.
Scott asked if she'd have come had he asked. She said they'd never know but she did know he'd have never been caught if she had as she shrunk and flew off while Scott smiled.
"If Hope had come, things might have gone better, at least for me," Scott mused. "Not so sure about the rest of you."
"There's probably some truth to that," Natasha noted.
Hank turned to him and asked him to stop daydreaming about his daughter to get his lab.
Scot flushed as everyone else laughed at his expense.
Scott shrunk and sat on a flying ant as Hope asked what had taken him so long and he said he was coming up with a name for his ant- Ulysses S Gr-ant. Hope found it hilarious.
"You and your ants," Barton teased as everyone else laughed.
"They call me Antman," Scott quipped.
Hank said he wasn't getting anything on the monitors due to electronic disturbance and asked them to be careful. Scott said he always was before being startled on seeing Ghost until Hope realized it was the suit.
"You were saying?" Steve asked with a smirk as Scott flushed.
"This is so embarrassing," Scott repeated.
The two then saw Ghost was lying in a chamber with Quantum energy surging through her as they wondered what she was doing. They saw the lab and Scott joked about it being their shrunken building and not anybody else's. Hope told him to do it fast and both enlarged. Hope then looked to see Ghost wasn't in the unit anymore and was knocked out by her, with Scott following a second later.
"Damn it, can't anything ever be easy?" Scott groaned.
"Nope," Parker said, popping the p.
Scott woke up later to find out he was tied to a chair and Hope and Hank were tied next to him, both unconscious. He tried to wake them when Ghost said they couldn't hear him. She greeted him and introduced herself as Ava.
"Oh great, now the bad guy likes me. Aren't I lucky?" Scott said sarcastically.
Scott then saw she was turning intangible and realized she didn't need the suit to go through walls. She said it was only needed to control it as Scott asked her not to phase through his chest and crush his heart.
"Hey, I've seen The Flash," Scott said as everyone shot him amused looks, the situation forgotten momentarily.
She laughed and said he was funny and told him she wouldn't hurt him unless she had to.
"Gee, that's comforting," Natasha said sarcastically.
She told him she needed what was in his head as her hands seemed to phase before she knocking the chairs of Hope and Hank, waking them both up.
"And here we go," Steve muttered as they tensed.
Hope told her not to touch Hank and she said she was going easy on him all things considered. Hank asked what she was talking about and Bill's voice was heard saying, "Another casualty of Hank Pym's ego." He walked into plain sight.
"He's working with her?" Peter asked surprised.
"I can't believe I thought he was cool," Scott grumbled. "He's a bad guy!"
"Things are never that simple," Scarlet said with a sad smile, confusing the past Avengers. "Just watch, it's all explained in a moment."
Hank asked what Bill had done but Ava said Hank had done it. Scott groaned how he had thought Bill was cool. Ava said she doubted Hank had ever mentioned her father Elihas Starr, shocking him.
"That name, why do I know that name?" Clint asked, the name ringing a bell.
"It's all explained in a minute," Barton assured him.
Hank and Elihas had been colleagues at SHIELD until Hank had fired Elihas for disagreeing with him and discredited him for good measure. So he had continued his work on his own, desperate to restore his stock and name and had taken too many risks. A machine of his was shown malfunctioning in a flashback as he told his wife and Ava to run and they did but Ava was heard saying she didn't want him to be alone and she was shown running back to him in the flashback, with her mother running after her to stop her. And then there was an explosion.
"Son of a bitch," Tony whispered as they all stared in horror, Wanda in particular affected as she remembered her parents dying as the shell hit their home.
Ava was heard saying her parents had died when she had woken up but she wasn't that lucky. In the flashback, some firemen approached her and one of them tried to hug her for comfort but his hands went through her every time as she looked at herself in shock. Ava said it was called 'Molecular Disequilibrium' but that was a dull name which didn't do justice to what it meant. All cells in her body were torn apart and stitched back together at all times.
"Good god," Steve said horrified as the past Avengers stared at the screen in horror.
"She's not evil, she just wants the pain to stop," Thor whispered, feeling sympathy for her.
Bill said he had been at SHIELD when he had gotten a call about a 'Quantum anomaly' in Argentina and he was shown meeting Ava for the first time in a flashback, introducing himself as a friend of her father. He tried to gift her a teddy bear but her hand phased through it. He told her to try again and this time she did it.
Scott and Clint were hit hard at this, imagining Cassie and Lila in Ava's place. Scott looked away as Clint gripped his pants' legs tightly. Wanda placed a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort her as Natasha looked at him concerned.
Ava said Bill had done his best to keep her safe but others at SHIELD had seen an opportunity and built a containment suit to control the phasing and turned her into a stealth operative. Flashbacks were shown of Ava being pulled away, being put in the suit and carrying out missions as she said they had weaponized her, "I stole for them; spied for them...I killed for them. And in exchange for my soul, they were going to cure me. They lied."
"I don't believe that," Steve said as the original Avengers nodded.
"Fury was a bastard, but he wasn't a monster," Tony added.
"He'd never use a kid that way," Clint agreed.
"You're right, he wouldn't. I did a little digging when Scott told me about Ava. It was a Hydra cell, Fury had no clue about what was going on with Ave," Barton said.1
"That makes a lot more sense," Natasha noted.
Bill said after SHIELD had fallen he had taken Ava in and built the chamber to slow her decay but the condition was still progressive. She had wanted to kill Hank but he had stopped her, telling her to watch instead as they saw he was building a Quantum tunnel. During this time, he was interrupted twice by Scott's phone vibrating due to being texted. Bill then talked about Janet's message to Scott and the phone vibrated a third time, annoying him as Scott apologized. Bill picked up Scott's phone and Scott asked who was texting him and Bill said it was 'Cassie, 911.'
"Cassie!" Scott exclaimed worriedly but was confused by the future Avengers snickering. "Why are you laughing?"
"You'll see. Don't worry, she's fine," Parker said as he laughed.
Scott said he needed to text her back as it was an emergency but Bill refused until she video-called so he accepted it and put the phone on Scott's face as Cassie said she couldn't find her soccer shoes and had a game the next day, to Scott's shock.
"When I get home, I'm gonna have to talk with her about the meaning of 911,," Scott grumbled, torn between exasperation and amusement as everyone else laughed.
"She really was cute back then," Lila laughed.
Maggie asked him to walk through the house but he lied he couldn't because he was sick so she told him to look around later and she, Jim and Cassie waved him bye before the call was cut and Scott apologized to Bill.
Everyone was laughing by this point.
"Oh I love that kid," Tony said with a laugh. "Scott, you made a cute kid."
"Yeah, I did," Scott said with a beaming smile.
Hank said he wanted to help Ava but Bill said she didn't need his help and he knew how to save her. Hank asked how and he said Janet had been absorbing Quantum energy for 30 years and they could extract it to save Ava but Hank snapped and said it would rip Janet apart, which Bill denied.
"Sacrificing one life to save another is no victory," Steve said firmly.
Bill said he would fire up the tunnel and when Janet's location popped up in Scott's head, he would give it to them or be turned over to the FBI.
"Come on man," Scott groaned.
Bill said Hank would stay to help but Hank started shouting at Bill about Janet when he started groaning in pain as Bill and Ava started to leave.
"Hank!" Scott shouted worriedly as the future Avengers smirked.
"Relax Scott, just enjoy the show," Barton told him, confusing everyone.
"Something's about to happen, isn't it?" Natasha realized and her only answer was four smirks.
Hope said it was his heart and he needed his pills or would die, begging Bill to give them the tin Hank had stopped Sctt from opening earlier. Both Scott and Hope begged Bill as Hank started breathing while Hope told him it was in the Altoid tin.
"He doesn't have a heart problem, does he?" Steve asked as they realized what was happening.
"Nope," Barton smirked.
"Remember when we said you'd be glad he didn't give you a mint?" Scarlet asked Scott, who nodded. "You're about to see why."
Bill picked up the tin and Ava realized what it was but too late as he accidentally triggered it and ants popped out, enlarged, freeing the three.
"Yes!" Peter cheered as Scott shook his head.
"Should have known," Scott said with a chuckle.
Hope threw Ava down with a shot and Scott tossed Hank his ear piece. The three escaped with the lab while Bill was surrounded by ants.
"You two work well together," Natasha noted.
"We always have, even when she hated me," Scott mused wistfully.
1: Fury is a ruthless, manipulative, somewhat self-serving person. We know this and have accepted it. But he's not a monster. You only have to look at the lengths he went to in order to protect Clint's family to see that. So I refuse to believe that Fury had anything to do with what happened to Ava. And since Hydra was hiding within SHIELD at the time, it makes a lot more sense that it was Hydra.