Chapter 325: Stealing the Pym Particles
"Seduction is your preferred tool. It isn't ours."
Hank Pym cut Black Widow off with a mild smile, leaning back in his chair.
"Personally, I'd find it more interesting to capture him and run a full anatomical analysis. Figure out exactly what he's made of."
In the ventilation shaft above, the patrol ant had resumed its route. Batman and Venom Robin moved with it, keeping pace in silence, working their way toward the unexplored sections of the building.
"His name," Pym said. "What is it?"
"Henry Cavill."
"Human name."
"Of course he's human. Did you expect something else? I have standards, Pym. I don't entertain things with tentacles."
"So you actually did sleep with him."
"Maybe. Who can say."
Pym's expression flattened. The easy smile faded, replaced by something more clinical.
"Perhaps I should start with you instead. Extract whatever DNA he left behind and let Nick Fury run a global identification sweep."
Silence from inside the ant farm.
Pym let it sit for a moment, then continued.
"You've been lying since the beginning, Natasha. Every word."
"Janet was wrong about you," Black Widow said, the warmth in her voice recalibrating into something cooler and more controlled. "Your head isn't entirely full of experiments after all."
"Then let's talk about Nathan Garrett."
"I don't know anything about Garrett that Fury doesn't already know. Ask him."
SLAM.
Pym's palm came down on the table hard enough to send the ant farm jumping.
"Natasha! I am not interested in continuing this!" He glared at the small structure. "I have legitimate work waiting for me — I want to understand how Reed Richards opened a stable dimensional gateway and pulled living creatures through it. That is what I should be doing right now. Not navigating whatever game S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra are playing with each other."
"Since Fury assigned you to babysit D-2," Black Widow said pleasantly, "I'm afraid you're already in the game."
Pym said nothing. His jaw tightened.
Whatever question he asked, Black Widow answered with something adjacent — close enough to sound like engagement, far enough to be useless. Every response was calibrated. Half true at best.
Batman and Venom Robin had stopped listening as a primary activity. The conversation was cover. While Pym's attention was directed downward at the ant farm, they moved through the ventilation network at speed, pushing into every accessible laboratory on every floor they could reach.
Lab after lab. Equipment bays, cold storage units, secured specimen cases, chemical storage. Batman catalogued each space as they passed through it. Nothing matched what he was looking for.
Venom Robin emerged from one junction, eyes scrunched where eyebrows would have been.
"Nothing. Anywhere."
"It may not be in the lab spaces," Batman said quietly. "Living quarters. Let's look."
The second floor was residential — kitchen, bedroom, dining room, a private theater, a gym. Warm yellow lighting throughout, which felt like an entirely different building from the industrial floors above and below it.
"If you had to hide something valuable," Batman said, "where would you put it?"
Venom Robin answered without hesitation. "Bedroom."
It was the instinctive answer most people gave. The bedroom was the most private space in any living environment — the place where people felt most secure, most in control of their surroundings. The psychology was consistent enough to be reliable.
Batman didn't argue. He led Venom Robin through and let him search.
Venom Robin went through the room with characteristic thoroughness, checking every conceivable space — furniture, fixtures, flooring, ceiling panels. Several minutes later he emerged with a long face.
"Nothing."
"Correct."
Venom Robin stared at him. "You knew."
"I expected it."
"That's Monday morning quarterbacking, Old Bat."
"No," Batman said. "My first search was the laboratories because I was reasoning from Pym's perspective. A scientist who works constantly wants his most important materials where he can access and study them easily. The labs were the logical first choice." He moved back into the corridor. "We found nothing. That tells me I misjudged his personality. The particles are in the living area, but not the bedroom."
"Why not the bedroom?"
"Because scientists don't spend their days in the bedroom."
Venom Robin absorbed this. "That's it? That's the whole reasoning?"
"Yes."
A pause. Then, quietly: "You know, you've been in this world for months and you still don't have a bedroom of your own."
Batman was already moving toward the dining room. He said, without turning: "I have one."
Venom Robin blinked. "Where?"
"Forest Hills. Number twenty, the house on Ingram Street. Aunt May set up a room for me."
Venom Robin was quiet for a moment. The symbiote had its own set of memories — fragments that had transferred with the bonding, impressions and feelings it had absorbed from its time with Peter Parker. May Parker was part of those memories.
"I love Aunt May," he said.
"So do I," Batman said.
---
One floor below, Pym had given up on extracting anything useful from Black Widow. He stood, exhaled, and fitted his silver helmet back over his head. His thumb found the control on his wrist panel and pressed it.
He expanded to his full giant height, reaching across to the seventh floor with one hand and carefully lifting the ant farm from the floor, transferring it back to the large ant waiting to hold it. The ant accepted the small structure and settled its weight over it again.
Back at normal size, Pym looked at Janet.
"Pan-seared dinosaur tonight? The kitchen crew has been working on it for an hour."
"I'm skeptical," Janet said, "but I'll try anything once." She fell into step beside him as they moved toward the dining room.
Batman and Venom Robin were already in the dining room.
Specifically, they were standing at the refrigerator in the corner, which Batman had opened thirty seconds earlier. On the middle shelf, behind two sealed specimen containers, was a rack of small vials. The liquid inside caught the light with a faint iridescence that didn't match any conventional compound.
Batman lifted one from the rack with two fingers.
On the other side of the wall, footsteps.
Pym and Janet were approaching the dining room door.
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