CHAPTER 45 - A TINY PROBLEM

"Can you just believe me when I say I wasn't trying to steal it? I mean, I was, but I was going to return it later." Scott Lang argued as he found himself restrained in red bindings in his diminutive size.

Sam scoffed in ridicule, "Yeah, says the guy who did five years in San Quentin for corporate larceny."

Scott looked offended as he heard the words of the winged man he one-upped in minutes, until he was caught by the scary girl that is. "I burgled them."

"Yeah right." Sam rolled his eyes, not at all amused at Scott. 

Wanda looked between them, her only curiosity being whether the man was a mutant or the shrinking powers he had was somehow connected to his suit. 

"Hey, look here, I'm trying to change, okay?" He grimaced as he saw the questioning eyes of his captors and remembered why he got caught. "This is different. I'm trying to save the world. I also said I was going to return it, didn't I?"

Wanda turned to look at Sam and asked, "What are we going to do with him?"

Sam looked at the device on his arm and replied. "Steve will be here soon. Vision is not in the building or else he'd be here already." He then looked at Wanda silently asking if she knew of the elusive Avengers whereabouts. 

Wanda only shook her head in a negative reply. "Pietro and Davis are not in the base so it's likely that he took them with him." She conjectured. 

Though he's only met Davis once, he had watched the video when Vision fought and put the brownish-grey Hulk to sleep, and yeah he wasn't a fan of any raging Hulk. 

"You know what they could be up to?"

"Probably training." Wanda said. 

Sam didn't need any more clarification after hearing that. Though he was curious about how they could train a Hulk, he wasn't that curious that he really wanted to know. 

"So, uhm, what's going to happen to me?" Scott interjected them, feeling frustrated that he couldn't even twitch his limbs despite the fact that he was way stronger than a bodybuilder in his small size. Whatever the girl was using to hold was hella strong. 

Sam cut him off as he felt his frustration rising with every word left in the man's mouth. "Shut up."

Scott groaned at Sam's stubbornness. "Come on, you know where I live, there's no way I can run even if I wanted to. I really need that tech thingy."

"What tech thingy?" Sam asked, knowing fully well that Scott wouldn't just give it up. 

But,

"It's a signal decoy. You guys have a few of those, I just need one."

The two Avengers looked stunned and looked at the man as if he was an idiot but before anyone could say anything else, the doors opened and Steve walked in, not looking a bit surprised at seeing the shrunken-sized man in a red blob of energy. 

"This him?"

"Oh my God, it's Captain America." Scott whisper-shouted to himself as he saw the war icon face to face for the first time. 

Steve looked at Scott and despite feeling a bit weird, he sat down in front of Scott who stood unmoving on a table. "I'll get to the point; why were you trying to sneak inside our base?"

"Okay, first of all, I didn't know it was yours. It was supposed to be an old Stark warehouse according to what I was told-" 

"Someone told you to rob us?" Sam interjected, catching the slip-up which made Scott pause with a wry smile on his face. 

"Well…"

The doors opened up again and this time it was Vision in his robotic look and a piece of tech in his hands and little ants running around it. 

"I believe these little guys are your doings?"

Scott's expression paled as he realized that his little plot had been thoroughly busted. 

"Ants?" Steve asked. 

"Yes," Vision nodded. "Mr. Lang here can control ants. It's not an inherent power, but one based on technology." He looked at Wanda and signaled her with his eyes which she understood making her release Scott of her hold. 

Scott reverted back to his normal size but didn't make any move because he knew he would just be easily put down as long as the Wanda girl was here. 

"So what now?" He asked hesitatingly as he was faced with the scrutiny of the Falcon, the scary girl, the good to honest Captain America, and the weird looking robot dude. 

Steve and Sam were confused but understandably allowed Vision to do what he wanted. 

"So can you tell us the real reason why you broke into our storage?" Steve asked calmly. 

Scott sighed as he had to convince them from the start again. "Listen, I already told you, I need that thing to stop a bad guy. You know how it goes."

They all looked at Vision and Wanda because only the two of them had the means to verify whether the man was lying. Wanda would have to be in contact with Scott to ascertain his truth because of her lacking expertise in telepathy and empathy, different from Vision who could directly sense it as broad as day. 

"Well, he's telling the truth."

Those words of confirmation changed the atmosphere and opinion of everyone in the room. 

"But before we get into that, I believe it's time we get your own side of the story, Dr. Pym."

"Oh fuck." Scott cursed, realizing that the heist was now fully busted. 

The voice that had been shouting at him through the comms even before he landed on the base immediately quieted down. 

He didn't know how the red weirdly-looking guy figured that out but he knew he just put Dr. Pym in the spotlight of Stark, something he recently became aware of with how the man hated the other's father's guts. 

"Relax, I don't mean anything malicious with that. In good faith, you can take this and leave." Vision handed him the signal decoy despite the confused look on Scott's face. "But I'll be visiting in a few hours to understand why Hank Pym made someone else the Ant-Man."

Steve and Sam were surprised by Vision's actions, with Sam looking very unsure of the latter's action, but they did nothing and just let Scott go.

"Thank you. I promise you, I'll return this." He took a deep breath and looked at everyone one by one. "Goodbye everyone; Captain America, Falcon, weird scary lady and the weird red dude." Sam scoffed at him while Wanda narrowed her eyes dangerously at him. 

He was about to shrink down to hightail the fuck out of here but he stopped as his curiosity got the better of him despite the urging voices coming from his speakers as he turned to Wanda and Vision. 

"Are you guys related? Siblings? Married? I just want to say that red suits both of you?" He immediately shrank down and called to the nearest winged ant to take him out of there at the nearest speed, luckily escaping by the time Wanda snapped out of it and rage took over. 

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