“Mr.
Stark, watch out—it’s Ant-Man!” Peter called out, warning him immediately as his instincts kicked in.
Inside his armor, Iron Man received a prompt alert from Friday detailing the breach.
He wasted no time activating the suit’s internal fire suppression system.
“Uh-oh, busted?” Ant-Man’s voice echoed through the comms within the suit.
“You’re the guy who shrinks?” Iron Man asked smoothly.
“Nope, I’m your conscience,” Ant-Man shot back.
Iron Man let out a cold laugh.
“Let’s see how well my conscience handles a flood of coolant.” “Whoa, whoa, whoa!
I’m gonna die!
I’m gonna die!” Ant-Man yelped as a torrent of coolant blasted through the internal conduits straight toward him.
Ant-Man turned to run, but there was no way his microscopic legs could outrun the high-pressure spray.
Stark had engineered the cooling system specifically to combat rapid thermal overloads and sudden internal fires caused by battle damage.
In short, it operated instantly.
The wall of coolant flushed Ant-Man straight out of the suit, sending him skidding flat onto the ground outside with a wet splash.
At the same time, Cap’s team leveraged Wanda’s earlier burst of energy to quickly break away and create distance between themselves and Stark’s forces.
After a brief, rushed consultation, they agreed to stick to the original plan: Cap and Bucky would head for Siberia, while the rest stayed behind to keep Iron Man’s team tied down.
Before executing the split, however, they needed a massive distraction to draw all eyes toward the field, giving Cap and Bucky the cover they needed to slip away unnoticed.
Ant-Man stepped up and volunteered to be that massive distraction…
“Holy cow…
what on earth is that?” Peter stared in sheer shock at the center of the plaza.
Towering before him was a giant-sized version of Ant-Man.
Standing well over thirty meters tall, he looked almost like an Ultraman.
“The little guy got big…
Man, this guy is weird.
How does he keep shrinking and growing like that?” War Machine grumbled helplessly as he dangled upside down, caught by one foot in the giant’s grip.
“Nice work, Tic Tac!” Falcon praised from above.
Without a word, Giant-Man swung his arm and hurled Rhodey through the air—sending him sailing straight over Peter’s head.
Peter shot out a web-line, trying to anchor War Machine, but the immense kinetic force jerked him off his feet, dragging him along for the ride.
Only by bracing against the side of a nearby city bus did Peter manage to counteract the momentum, reeling War Machine back in safely.
“Good save, kid,” War Machine offered a quick word of thanks before firing his thrusters to charge back at Giant-Man.
Right on cue, Giant-Man kicked another city bus straight toward them.
Peter pivoted, catching the bus with both hands, skidding back several paces before coming to a complete halt.
“Right back at ya!” With a sudden burst of strength, he hurled the bus back at the giant.
Iron Man and War Machine closed in, attempting a coordinated pincer attack.
Faced with a giant who was casually tearing off airplane wings to use as butter knives, however, both armored heroes found themselves temporarily stymied.
“Anybody on our side hiding a special talent?” Iron Man shouted, spraying a barrage of armor-piercing rounds at the giant’s frame.
Peter voiced his confusion as he dodged nearby debris.
“This guy completely breaks the laws of physics!
Even if he grows in size, his body density shouldn’t magically change, right?
How is he tanking artillery shells like that?” “Does growing thirty meters tall sound like it abides by the laws of physics to you?
His mass increased too!” Iron Man called back over the roar of thrusters.
“Fair enough!
I have a plan—let me try something!” Peter still couldn’t quite wrap his head around the science, but it didn’t matter—he could figure out the physics after the fight was over.
Closing the distance rapidly, he fired off several wide web-nets, pinning Giant-Man’s feet, ankles, and knee joints.
The high-tensile web-fluid instantly restricted the giant’s range of motion.
Already slowed down by his sheer scale, Giant-Man was reduced to a lumbering, shambling behemoth in seconds.
Taking advantage of the opening, Peter launched web-lines with both hands, running circles around the giant’s legs from the feet up like Spider-Man in a classic sci-fi maneuver.
“Mr.
Stark!
And, uh…” Peter paused mid-stride—he still didn’t actually know War Machine’s real name, let alone his superhero title.
“Rhodey.
My name is Rhodey.
What do you need us to do?” War Machine supplied.
“Got it!
Mr.
Stark, Mr.
Rhodey, find your opening, use your thrusters to hit his chin at full speed, and knock him out!” Peter laid out his plan on the fly.
“On it!” Iron Man and War Machine trusted the kid’s call without hesitation.
Giant-Man seemed to sense what was coming, but pinned down as he was, he had become a sitting duck with zero leverage to retaliate.
Truth be told, this was only the second time he had ever used his enlargement ability, and he had never grown quite this big before.
He was essentially an oversized target designed to draw fire; his actual combat effectiveness at this scale was far from optimal.
*CLANG!* Relying on the full output of their suit thrusters, both armored suits poured all their kinetic energy into a unified punch straight to Giant-Man’s jaw.
The massive figure reeled backward, crashing to the ground before rapidly shrinking back to his normal human size.
“Nice work,” Iron Man said, glancing at Peter with clear approval.
Peter flashed a cheerful victory sign.
“Don’t mention it!” *ROAR!* As they spoke, the engines of a Quinjet whined to life on the tarmac nearby, lifting off into the sky.
“Damn it!” Iron Man and War Machine swore under their breath in unison, taking off after the jet at top speed.
Observing from afar, Falcon ignited his thrusters and gave chase as well.
Peter stood on the tarmac, momentarily dumbfounded.
The entire battle had just shifted from a ground skirmish into an aerial dogfight.
What was he supposed to do down here?
Which version of Spider-Man could fly anyway?
Can someone give me a copy-paste ability?
Waiting online, super urgent!
“Hey…
kid…
a little help here?” Ant-Man groaned from the ground, calling out to Peter in distress.
Peter walked over, stopping about three meters away.
“If I help you up, am I going to get tagged as a war criminal too?” Ant-Man: …
“No, course not!” Ant-Man tried his best to convince Peter.
Pushing his body to giant proportions had placed immense strain on his system; his entire body throbbed with ache, leaving him with virtually no strength left to stand.
“Sounds risky.
I’d rather not chance it,” Peter teased mildly.
“I have a daughter!
Her name’s Cassie, super cute—how about I introduce you two?” Ant-Man resorted to outright bribery.
Truthfully, he genuinely liked the kid.
You could tell from his voice that he was young, but he had courage, smarts, and remarkable ability—a truly outstanding youth.
Even if Cassie was still young, Scott didn’t mind setting up an early introduction with a reliable young man.
Besides, they were practically “relatives” anyway!
Peter: …
“If your daughter heard you saying that, she’d be heartbroken,” Peter muttered, stepping forward to pull Ant-Man up by his arm.
Naturally, he didn’t do it for the hypothetical pretty daughter; he simply felt that lending a hand to a defeated opponent wasn’t a big deal.
After all, anyone with eyes could see that neither side had been playing for keeps.
Ant-Man introduced himself with a weary grin.
“Name’s Scott Lang.
You can call me Scott.
What’s yours?” “Uh, I’m Peter Parker.
You can call me Peter,” he replied.
“Heh, good, good.
Peter…
what a fine young man.
Man, look at those muscles, nice and firm,” Scott muttered, resting a hand on Peter’s shoulder and patting his chest with a chuckle.
Peter felt a sudden chill run down his spine.
“Please don’t make creeping-guy gestures and expressions at me, sir.”