Avengers/ Ant-Man

The Day After

By Jelsemium

Dedicated to Qweb! You're the best, sis!

Chapter 1: Sam

Sam Wilson wasn't sure what to do. That invader had gotten into the Avengers' Training Center and had taken... something.

He sighed. He really didn't want Captain America to know that he'd let an intruder into the training facilities. Not that he thought that Steve would throw him off the team. (He wouldn't do that, would he?) He didn't even think that Steve would laugh in his face.

The laughing, however, would be preferable to the earnest expression that would cross Steve's face as Captain America assured him, the mere mortal, that everybody had an off day. Why, even he, Captain America had made a mistake... once... probably...

Then Steve would turn away and there would be only the slightest twitch of his deltoids to indicate that he was fighting down a laugh. Really? An Avenger? Defeated by ANTS?

Oh, god, the only thing that would be worse is if Tony Stark ever found out about it.

The worst part was the longer he delayed reporting the situation, the more embarrassing it was going to be. If the other Avengers found out before he had any more information, then Steve was going to give him that "disappointed" look.

So he had to find out what had been taken, but he had no idea how. There was nothing in the facility's computer about it. On top of that, the store room predated the internet and possibly databases.

Checking the security videos showed that the intruder hadn't gone in any of the areas that the Avengers were using. The item had been stolen from an unused … well, the only term that came to mind was "storage area" since it was too big to be a closet, too low to be an attic and not greasy enough to be a garage.

With no easy way for him to find the information there wouldn't be some montage of him hacking the database to the tune of some catchy techno-rock. Not that he knew how to hack into a computer, anyway. That meant he would have to get a look at some paper records. Assuming that there were any paper records.

Ironically, it occurred to him that having an army of ants would be useful in getting into a locked file room, a locked filing cabinet and then searching thousands of papers. He snorted at the thought of the ants reading the inventory lists.

He tried to ignore the thought niggling at the back of his mind that if he knew the Ant dude well enough to enlist his help, he wouldn't need to enlist his help. Maybe if he'd taken the time to actually talk to him, he could have found out who he was and what he had wanted.

Sam had searched the Avengers facility, but if there had been an inventory of that room anywhere, it was gone. He cudgeled his mind, trying to think of somebody who wasn't Stark who would know where all the records from the old Stark warehouse would have gone.

Pepper Potts, Stark's former Girl Friday/ Current CEO/ Lady Love would know. The problem with that solution is that he hadn't been introduced to her. There wasn't a casual way for him to approach her and ask a favor. At least, not without revealing more than he wanted to.

Face it, the only thing worse than confessing to Captain America that he lost to ants was confessing the loss to a beautiful woman. Cancel that, confessing the loss to the person that People Magazine had named "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World."

"Okay, Wilson," he muttered. "Think, who do you know who knows Tony Stark or Pepper Potts?" He was pacing through the halls of the Avengers' facility. The list of super powered 'folks' that he knew was painfully short. It consisted of Captain America, who knew Stark and Potts. The drawback to that plan was that Cap was exactly the man he didn't want to tell about this.

He'd met Iron Man (sort of), but he didn't know him well. Which is why he was now trying to think of somebody who knew the guy. At least, somebody who knew a guy who knew Stark... No, let's not start on that.

The Black Widow was as scary as Captain America, but in a more lethal way. He kind of knew Hawkeye and Thor, if you count seeing them across the gymnasium. He'd trained with Vision (which is why he classified the Avengers as super powered 'folks' rather than 'people').

Another of the newbies was the Scarlet Witch. She didn't know Stark well and she still might be bitter over the whole "We waited for three days for Stark to kill us." So she might be willing to aid in a foray against Stark. Her mental powers might be useful... He shook his head. Her ability wo read minds would only be useful if somebody had the inventory of the storage room memorized. That left... drum roll please... War Machine.

Oh, Hell, yes. He actually knew Colonel James Rhodes. They'd met at the party that Ultron had crashed. (And wasn't he just heartbroken that he'd missed that debut? Not really, but if he was going to be in the super hero biz, then he'd better get used to talking trash like that.)

"Okay, Falcon," Sam said. "You've determined the person who's most likely to be able to get at the inventory records of this joint. So, what's the next step?"

He supposed the simplest course of action would be to just call Rhodes. He frowned and ran that around in his mind. He couldn't find any flaws with that. Officers were humans, too. They answered the phone just like working grunts.

He flipped on his Stark Phone and scrolled through his contact list. The beauty of being an Avenger, aside from the military hours, the drills, the exile to upper New York state and, yeah, the ever popular possibility of getting squashed like a bug (yeah, Ant Dude, squashed) was having contact numbers for all the other Avengers.

And damn, that witch was cute.

"Focus, Samuel," Wilson muttered. He paused, thumb hovering over Rhodes' contact number.

"Rhodes," was the crisp and prompt response. "What's up, Wilson? Problems?"

"Yeah," Sam said. He decided that telling the truth was in his best interest. However, he didn't have to deliver it in a believable manner. "The Avengers Facility just underwent a massive invasion of non-humans..." He didn't feel like he was lying to a fellow Avenger. Ants weren't human, after all.

He heard Rhodes draw his breath in with a hiss. Then, "Wait, if you're in trouble, then why didn't you send out a general alert?"

"I handled the situation," Sam said. (He'd handled it poorly, but there was no need to over share.)

"And did you gather any intel on these... invaders? Like, maybe what they were after?" Rhodes spoke as if he were waiting for a punchline. That probably went with knowing Stark for his entire adult life.

"That's kind of what I needed help with," Sam said. Suddenly, he had a reason to ask for what he wanted without going into details... Well, actually, by going into details without actually letting Rhodes know what the hell just happened.

"Go on," Rhodes said cautiously.

"They seemed particularly interested in one of the storerooms," Sam said. "I don't have any records of what's in there."

"Stark probably has some sort of inventory," Rhodes mused. "Since that building's so old, it's probably on paper."

"Yeah," Sam said. "Thing is, I don't know the man very well..."

"You want me to ask him for inventory records?" Rhodes guessed.

"Yes, please," Sam said.

"Okay," Rhodes said. "I think I can beard Iron Man in his lair. Couple of things, though."

"Yeah?" Sam said noncommittally.

"First, what the hell invaded the facility?" Rhodes demanded. "If it had been aliens or robots or giant insects, all sorts of alarms would have gone off."

"It was ants," Sam informed him.

"Ants?" Rhodes asked incredulously. "If giant ants had attacked, then the alarms should have gone off..."

"Well..." Sam said. "They weren't, um, giant."

There was a pause. "We were invaded by regular ants?" Rhodes asked incredulously.

"Well, yes," Sam said.

"Normal sized, ants?" Rhodes asked, as if not believing his ears. Sam couldn't blame him because he was having problems wrapping his mind around that himself. If he was going to be an Avenger, he supposed he'd better get used to this sort of thing.

"Yes."

"So, why are you calling for help?" Rhodes asked, reasonably enough.

"Um, there were a lot of them," Sam said. "And why the sudden interest? As far as I know, nothing's been put in there for decades."

There was another pause. "Could be something's started leaking," Rhodes said thoughtfully. "Or maybe some electronic gadget started broadcasting."

"Think I should call Cap?" Sam asked.

"No," Rhodes said. "I think we can handle this. Give me a few hours to get over to Stark and pry the paper records out of him. I'll need to think of some way to convince Stark that it's his idea to hand them over, if you know what I mean."

After Rhodes hung up, Sam said. "Yeah, I know exactly how that goes, Colonel."