by Alex Irvine
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A Sneak Peek of Avengers: Age of Ultron
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PROLOGUE: 1989
Hank Pym strode into the large conference room deep inside the under-construction S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters known as the Triskelion and saw Howard Stark, Mitchell Carson, and Peggy Carter deep in conversation, exactly where the guard outside had said they would be. “Stark,” he snapped.
“He doesn’t seem happy,” Stark murmured.
Stark stood up to meet Pym. “Hello, Hank. You’re supposed to be in Moscow.”
“I took a detour through your defense lab,” Pym said. He got to the table and slapped down a steel-and-glass vial containing a red fluid.
“Tell me that isn’t what I think it is,” Carter said, turning to Stark.
“It depends if you think it’s a poor attempt to replicate my work.” Pym glared at the S.H.I.E.L.D. brain trust, furious at what they had done. He could see immediately that Carter hadn’t known this sample existed. “Even for this group, that takes nerve.”
“You were instructed to go to Russia,” Carson said. “May I remind you, Dr. Pym, that you’re a soldier—”
“I’m a scientist,” Pym interrupted.
“Then act like one,” Stark shot back. “The Pym Particle is the most revolutionary science ever developed. Help us put it to good use.”
Pym couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “First you turn me into your errand boy and now you try to steal my research?”
With a condescending smirk on his face, Carson said, “If only you’d protected Janet with such ferocity, Dr. Pym.”
That was it. Pym lost his temper and punched Mitchell Carson square in the nose.
Peggy Carter grabbed his arm before he could throw another punch. “Easy, Hank.”
“You mention my wife again and I’ll show you ferocity,” Pym growled.
Carson, grimacing, wiped blood away from his nose. He looked over at Stark, like he wanted him to take his side.
Stark wouldn’t. “Don’t look at me—you said it.”
Pym couldn’t work with these people. They were too tied up with the government and their secret plans. He’d been mistaken to start working with them in the first place. “I formally tender my resignation,” he said.
Stark shook his head. “We don’t accept it. Formally. Hank, we need you. The Pym Particle is a miracle. Please, don’t let your past determine the future.”
“As long as I am alive,” Pym said very slowly, “nobody will ever get that formula.”
He stalked out of the conference room, wishing he’d thrown that second punch.
“We shouldn’t let him leave the building,” Carson said. He was embarrassed and angry, and wanted to get back at Pym somehow.
“You’ve already lied to him; now you want to go to war with him?” Carter clearly didn’t think it was a good idea. Carson was letting his emotions get the better of him.
“Yes,” Carson growled. “Our scientists haven’t come close to replicating his work.”
“He just kicked your ass full-size,” Stark pointed out. “You really want to find out what it’s like when you can’t see him coming? I’ve known Hank Pym for a long time; he’s no security risk.” Stark paused, considering S.H.I.E.L.D.’s options.
“Unless we make him one,” he added, and now he sounded worried. Mitchell Carson glared at Stark, but for the moment he let it go.
CHAPTER 1
Scott Lang stood waiting for the punch to come. He was ready. It wouldn’t be that bad.
But then the punch landed like a hammer hitting him in the right eye, and Scott reeled back into the line of other prisoners assembled to watch his fight with Peachy. “You like that?” Peachy taunted him. “You like that? Come get you some!”
Scott went after him. He charged into Peachy, who was a lot bigger than he was, and then stood up to throw a punch into Peachy’s gut. Peachy looked fat, but when Scott punched him it was like hitting a stone wall. “You didn’t even move,” Scott complained.
Peachy shrugged. “Nah.”
“I mean, what if I come in on the left side, right…?” Scott stepped up to Peachy again and outlined what he was talking about, miming a half-speed punch. “Just out here, and see this one, and—”
As Peachy looked down, Scott hit him hard with a straight right. Peachy’s head snapped around, but he didn’t go down. Scott didn’t know what he’d have to do to him to actually knock him down. The convicts roared, and Peachy, with a little smear of blood on his lip, looked up at Scott.
Uh-oh, Scott thought. Might have gone too far there.
Then a broad smile broke across Peachy’s bearded face. “I’m gonna miss you, Scott.”
Scott grinned back. “I’m gonna miss you, too, Peachy.” They exchanged handshakes and hugs. “Man, you guys got the weirdest good-bye rituals.”
“All right, break it up,” the guards called, and an hour later Scott Lang was a free man.
He walked out past the prison gate, took his first breath of free air in a few years, and heard the unmistakable sound of his former cell mate Luis’s voice. “Scotty! What’s up, man?”
Luis was calling from across the visitor parking lot, his arms spread wide and a big grin on his face. “Hey, man,” Scott called back, heading over to slap backs and get reacquainted.
“Hey, what’s up with your eye?” Luis said, seeing the butterfly bandages on Scott’s right eyebrow.
“Oh, well, what do you think? Peachy. His going-away present.”
“Oh, yeah, I still got my scar from a year ago,” Luis said, pointing to his own right eyebrow.
Scott could see the little ridge of scar tissue even though his eyebrow mostly covered it up. “Oh yeah.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Luis said. “You know what? I’m still the only one to knock him out.”
“Well, I definitely didn’t,” Scott said as they got into the ancient brown van Luis had driven all the way to the prison so he could meet Scott. It was a long drive from San Francisco, and Scott was looking forward to every minute of it. He’d served his time and now he was going to savor his freedom. Start a new life. Reconnect with his daughter.
“Thanks for picking me up, brother,” he said a little while later as they drove down a mountain road toward the interstate.
“Oh, now, you think I’m gonna miss my cell mate getting out?”
You meet a lot of bad people in prison, Scott thought, but you meet some good ones, too. Luis was one of the good ones. “Hey, how’s your girl, man?” he asked.
“Oh, she left me.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, my mom died, too.” Scott got quiet. A minute later, Luis added, “And my dad got deported.” Now Scott really didn’t know what to say, but a second later Luis brightened up. “But I got the van!”
Scott tried to get in the spirit. “It’s nice.”
“Yeah, right?”
“Thanks for the hookup, too,” Scott added. “I needed a place to stay.”
“You wait till you see this couch,” Luis said, like he was describing a room at the Ritz. “You’re gonna be really happy. You’re gonna be on your feet in no time—watch.”
“I hope so.”
“Yeah. And I gotta introduce you to some people, some really skilled people.”
“Not interested,” Scott said immediately. He knew what Luis was talking about. Luis wanted Scott to get back into the life—the same life that had landed Scott in prison to begin with.
“Yeah, right!” Luis scoffed.
Every convict says he’s going straight when he gets out of jail. Scott knew that, and he also knew that most cons didn’t stick to the promise. But he was going to. “No, I’m serious, man. I’m not going back. I got a daughter to take care of.”
Luis got serious, too, which was pretty unusual for him. “You know that jobs don’t come easy for ex-cons, right?”
“Look, man, I got a master’s in electrical engineering, all right?” Scott was looking forward to putting that degree to use. It had been a while since he’d gotten sidetracked into his life of crime. They were coming up to the bridge. San Franciso glittered in the distance. Scott felt good. “I’m gonna be fine,” he said.
CHAPTER 2
Scott was remembering that conversation a week or so later, when, after applying for every job he could think of, he ended up working the counter at an ice cream shop. “Welcome!” he said, trying to sound cheerful. “Would you like to try our mango smoothie?”
“Uh, no thanks,” the customer said. He looked at the menu, but Scott didn’t think he’d actually read it, judging from what he said. “Um, I will have… I’ll have a burger, please.”
“Oh, we don’t… we don’t make that,” Scott said.
“Pretzel. Hot pretzel, like, mustard… in mustard dip?”
Trying to be patient, Scott said, “It’s ice cream.”
“I’ll just do with whatever’s hot and fresh,” the customer said.
Scott shook his head. “Dude,” he said. Some people…
His manager, Dale, called from his office doorway. “Can I see you in the back, chief?” Scott looked over at him. “Pronto,” Dale added.
“Sure thing, Dale,” Scott said. He turned to his coworker, a teenage girl who treated Scott like he was somebody’s grandfather. “Darby, could you just, uh… take care of this idiot? Thanks.”
He walked back to his manager’s office and found Dale sitting at his desk, arms folded. “Hey, Dale.”
“Come on in. Pull up some chair.” Dale picked up a folder from his desk. “Three years in prison, huh?”
Scott sighed. “You found out.”
“We always find out,” Dale said, as if they were some kind of super-secret spy agency instead of an ice cream chain.
“Look, I’m sorry, all right, but I… No one would hire me.” Scott didn’t know what else to say.
“Breaking and entering,” Dale said. “Grand larceny.”
“Look, I’m—I’m sorry, I, you know, it was…” Scott was floundering. “I—I don’t do it anymore, I just try to…”
Then Dale caught him completely by surprise and threw Scott a salute. “Respect,” he said. “I couldn’t be happier about it.”
Scott blinked. “Really?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Over Scott’s thanks, Dale went on, a goofy smile on his face like he was talking to a celebrity. “You really stuck it to those billionaires, and the more I read about what you did and stuff, I’m like… ‘Wow, I know this guy? I’m in charge of this guy? Wow!’”
Scott had never been congratulated for his criminal career before, and so he wasn’t sure what to say. He decided to stay grateful. “Well, I’m very happy in this job, and I’m… I really just appreciate the opportunities and—”
“Yeah, yeah… Well, you’re fired, of course.” Dale still had that weird smile on his face. “I can’t really keep you on.”
For the second time in a few seconds, Scott blinked in surprise. “Wait, what? Fired?”
Dale nodded. “Yeah.”
“Dale, look, it wasn’t a violent crime,” Scott protested. “I mean, I’m a good worker.”
“No, it wasn’t a violent crime. It was a cool crime.” Now Scott was completely confused. Dale admired him and was firing him all at once. “I’ll tell you what, though,” Dale went on. “This’d be totally off the books, off the records, but, uh… if you want to grab you one of those mango smoothies on your way out the door, I’ll just pretend I didn’t see it.”
Scott took it. Why not? It was all he was going to get.
He walked back to the hotel room he shared with Luis and found a huge party going on one floor down. The hotel was not a quiet place. Luis was stirring something at the kitchen counter. “Hey, Scotty, what’s up?” he said. “I thought you were supposed to be at work.”
“I was,” Scott said glumly. “I got fired.”
“They find out who you are?”
“Yeah.”
Like everyone knew it, Luis said, “They always find out, bro.”
Scott noticed two other guys sitting at the kitchen table, one tapping away at a laptop and the other just hanging out.
One moment of seriousness was about all Luis could manage. “You want some waffles?”
“Yeah, I’ll take a waffle.”
Luis noticed Scott eyeing the two newcomers. “Oh. That’s Kurt. He was in Folsom for five years. He’s a wizard on that laptop.”
“Nice to meet you,” Kurt said.
“Yeah, nice to meet you, too,” Scott said. He had a bad feeling about why Luis would have a hacker in the room. “And who are you?” he asked the second guy.
“Dave.” After a long pause, Dave added, “Nice work on the Vista job.”
“Vista job? Yes,” Kurt said. He had a thick Russian accent. “No, no, I have heard of this robbery.”
Word gets around, Scott thought. “Well, technically, I didn’t rob them. Robbery involves threat. I hate violence; I burgled them. I’m a cat burglar.”
“You mean you’re a wuss,” Dave said.
Scott thought about this. “Yeah.”
Luis knew Kurt hadn’t heard the whole Vista story, so he launched into it while he served the waffles. “They were overcharging the customers, right? And it added up to millions. He blows the whistle and he gets fired. And what does he do? He hacks into the security system and transfers millions back to the people that they stole it from. Posts all the bank records online.”
“And he drove dude’s Bentley into a swimming pool,” Dave added, his voice full of admiration.
Scott pinned Luis with a look. “What are you doing? Hm?”
Luis played innocent. “Oh, I…”
“Why are you telling my life story to these guys? What do you want?”
Luis gave up pretending. “Okay,” he said. “My cousin talked to this guy two weeks ago about this little, perfect job.”
“No way,” Scott said. He took another bite of waffle.
“No, no, no, wait! This guy, this guy fits your MO.”
“No! I’m finished, man. I’m not going back to jail.”
But Luis wasn’t going to let it go. “It’s some retired millionaire living off his golden parachute. It’s a perfect Scott Lang mark.”
“I don’t care,” Scott said. If this was how it was going to be living with Luis, he was going to look for another place to live. “I’m out.”
CHAPTER 3
It had been a long time since Hank Pym paid a visit to the headquarters of the company that bore his name. The security guard at the gate did a double take when he pulled up. “Dr. Pym?”
“Yes. I’m still alive,” Pym said, half-amused and half-irritated.
Inside, at the lobby checkpoint, he emptied his pockets into the tub for inspection and passed through the metal detector. “ID,” the guard said.
Pym nodded past the guard. “Perhaps that will suffice.”
Following Pym’s look, the guard noticed the huge oil portr
ait of a younger Hank Pym, hung prominently on the wall. “Very sorry, sir,” he said immediately. “Please come in.”
“Is that Hank Pym?” a younger worker said as Hank strolled through the inside lobby. Hank didn’t say anything. He was nervous about the day for a lot of reasons, and he wasn’t good at small talk even in the most relaxed circumstances.
A familiar voice caused him to turn. “Good morning, Hank.”
“Hope,” he said, greeting his daughter and again feeling the ache of guilt and regret that came from their estrangement. “Would it kill you to call me Dad?”
She ignored the question. “Well, Dr. Cross will be so pleased that you could find time to join us today.”
“More like thrilled,” said a grinning Darren Cross, approaching Hank with his hand stuck out.
“And I’m surprised to receive any kind of invitation from you, Darren,” Hank said, shaking Cross’s hand. There was bad blood between them having to do with Cross’s desire to run the company himself and take it in a direction Hank didn’t approve. “What’s the occasion?”
“Oh, you’ll see,” Cross said. “Won’t he, Hope?”
All she said was “We’re ready for you inside.” Then she turned and headed toward a locked door that led to an adjacent presentation room.
“Ouch!” Cross said, trying to commiserate but not quite coming across as genuine. “I guess some old wounds never heal, huh?” He guided Hank toward the door, where Hope waited. “Don’t worry. She’s in good hands. You’re in for a treat.”
Pym didn’t trust Cross, and he trusted him even less when he saw that one of the other attendees at this event was Mitchell Carson. “Long time no see, Dr. Pym,” Carson said, barely disguising his hostility. “How’s retirement?”
“How’s your face?” Pym answered. He wanted to take another swing at Carson, but this was 2015, not 1989.
Carson didn’t say anything, but the look he gave Pym was full of hate. Hope opened the door. “After you,” she said.
One of these days he and Carson would have to really settle things between them, Pym thought. But that day hadn’t quite arrived. Hope was a different and touchier issue. He still wanted to one day have a real relationship again, but he didn’t know how to begin.
