----
"Scott Lang?"
Nolan frowned. 'What the hell was he doing at Oscorp?'
If he remembered correctly, Scott had already sided with Captain America during the Accords fallout.
'Don't tell me he's here to steal back the shield.'
Nolan had already broken down the composition of the shield. Most of it was vibranium, but there was a synthetic element in the alloy something not found in nature.
A man-made element, rare and unstable. It was the key that made the vibranium atoms bind even tighter, enhancing the already legendary durability of the shield.
He'd already documented its properties in detail.
At this point, the shield wasn't just a collectible it was a scientific breakthrough. Still, if Rogers offered something valuable in return, Nolan might consider a trade.
But stealing it? That wasn't going to fly.
He tapped his comms. "Max, we've got a little bug buzzing around the front door. Deal with him. Alive if possible. If not, that's fine too."
"Understood."
Max Dillon—Electro—nodded from his lab station, already suited up. He was used to staying late anytime Nolan was in the middle of a project. Unless Nolan clocked out, Max rarely left.
Down in the underground training chamber, Max stepped into the elevator, heading to the ground floor.
---
Outside Oscorp Tower, a red mechanical drone circled overhead. Redwing, Falcon's trusty surveillance bird, was scanning the entire structure using X-ray vision—looking for one thing: Captain America's shield.
"Redwing, any luck finding the shield?" Scott asked, clinging to the side of the drone and speaking into his earpiece.
"Still scanning. Give me a minute," Sam Wilson replied, voice tense.
Scott rolled his eyes. "Or, you know, just drop me in there and I'll find it myself."
"Scott, don't do anything stupid. Oscorp is dangerous," Steve Rogers chimed in, clearly frustrated. He hadn't approved this mission. In fact, he'd told Scott not to go anywhere near Nolan.
But by the time he found out, both Ant-Man and Falcon were already en route.
"Come on, I've been in worse places than this. Oscorp? Please." Scott chuckled.
Then Falcon's voice came through—suddenly more serious. "Heads up. Someone's coming out the front door."
"So what? We're airborne. He can't see us."
"I think… he just did."
From the drone's feed, they saw a man step through Oscorp's front entrance, glance up, and smirk. His lips moved.
Falcon read them instantly.
"Bug."
"Scott, watch out!" Falcon shouted.
A flash of blue light exploded upward—lightning.
CRACK!
A bolt of electricity struck Redwing in mid-air. Even Falcon, an expert flier, couldn't react fast enough.
BOOM!
The drone erupted in flames. Scott screamed as he was flung through the air, spiraling into chaos.
"Dammit!" Steve's voice roared over the comms.
"I'm okay!" Scott shouted, shrinking mid-air and catching himself atop a flying ant. "Thanks for the save, buddy!"
But before he could regain altitude, another bolt of lightning ripped through the sky.
The ant never stood a chance its tiny form sizzled and dropped. Scott's suit shielded him from the worst of it, but his utility belt sparked violently.
"Oh no…"
He didn't need to check he already knew. The EMP blast had fried his size regulator.
FZZZZT!
Suddenly, a towering red giant materialized in the sky.
Scott's suit had short-circuited in growth mode.
He plummeted to the ground like a meteor, landing with a seismic crash that cracked the pavement and snapped a full-grown tree in half. A jagged branch rammed into his backside, and he howled.
"ARGHHH! Damn, tree!"
He smacked the belt's control switch over and over, but nothing worked.
Thankfully, it was nighttime, and the streets were mostly deserted.
Otherwise, a fifty-foot man landing outside Oscorp would have made the evening news.
Max hovered above, eyes wide. Even he didn't expect this.
Then another figure dropped from the sky.
Nolan landed beside Max, his coat fluttering slightly.
It was almost laughable. One random surge of lightning had fried the Ant-Man suit's regulator pure chance. But it made sense. The original Ant-Man suit was far from perfect Hank Pym's tech had always had its vulnerabilities.
"Come on, not now! Don't glitch out on me!" Scott prayed, still frantically mashing the belt.
Miraculously, his body shrank in a snap down to toddler-sized.
He darted forward on tiny legs, only to feel a massive hand clamp around the back of his neck.
"Where do you think you're going?" Nolan lifted him like a squirming child.
Scott fumbled for a backup shrink disc, but Nolan noticed and flung him across the courtyard like a frisbee.
Scott hit the dirt, groaning. The disc flew from his hand striking a tree in the distance.
POOF!
The entire tree shrank to the size of a bonsai. Still leafy, just… tiny.
"Scott, tell me does Hank Pym know you borrowed his suit for a heist mission?" Nolan said with a faint smirk. "And now you're trying to rob Oscorp?"
Scott's eyes widened. He didn't respond; he just kept pressing his malfunctioning belt in desperation.
BZZZZT!
Nolan tapped a button on his own glove. A piercing buzz filled the air an electromagnetic pulse.
Sparks exploded from Scott's belt. Fried. Toast. Gone.
"…Okay, that's bad," Scott muttered. "I can't change size anymore."
"You're staying like this, then," Nolan said, gripping him by the collar like a misbehaving kid.
He turned to Max. "Grab that drone wreckage. Send it to engineering for reverse engineering."
"On it, boss."
Max glanced at the miniaturized Scott in Nolan's hand. "Man… shrinking and growing like that is wild."
Back in the lab, Nolan stripped the suit off the still-shrunken Scott and dropped him into a containment cage.
"Hey! That's my tech!" Scott shouted.
Nolan smiled. "Possession is nine-tenths of the law, my friend."
He locked the cage with a casual click.
"Didn't expect a bonus prize tonight," he muttered, grinning as he turned back to his experiments.
----
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