Fly, Dragonfly

Life's Funny

Scott gave Mom the directions to Luis's apartment. "Wow, Dr Pym! Like, who would've thought that, once again, in your hour of need, that you would turn to us, you know?" Luis wondered. "Not me." Gramps said. "Help yourself." Kurt offered some danish. "Hey, what's up with the fancy pastry?" Luis asked. "We gotta keep the food budget down." "Well, what are we supposed to have for breakfast?" Dave asked. "The oatmeal packets." Luis replied. "Oatmeal packets." Dave scoffed. "It's insult!" Kurt complained. "Why is it an insult?" Luis asked. "Because it tastes like sand." Kurt replied. "You know why? Because it's organic." Luis argued. "It's not organic, it's sand." Kurt said. "It's the most important meal of the day." Dave added. "Guys! Guys! C'mon man." Scott exclaimed, stopping the fight. "We got bigger fish to fry! Is that my desk?" "Yeah." Luis replied. "Why do I have such a small desk?" Scott asked. "Because you weren't there when we were choosing desks." Luis replied. "You snooze, you lose." Kurt added. "Well, I was under house arrest." Scott explains. "You know what? This isn't even a desk. This is garbage. You found this outside amongst garbage." "I got it at a rummage sale." Luis confessed. "So you saved money on my desk?" Scott argued. "Guys!" Mom exclaimed. "Hope, please, we need to focus, alright?" Scott said. "We gotta find that lab already. Jeez." "You know what? I heard stories about, like what happened to you." Luis explained. "Like this crazy, creepy cat, who walks through walls and stuff. Like a ghost." "Like Baba Yaga." Kurt added. "What the hell are you talking about?" I asked. "Baba Yaga, the witch." Kurt replied. "They tell stories to children to frighten them. Does your grandfather know Baba Yaga?" "Whoever stole it, we need to find it." Mom said. "Oh, you don't find someone like that. They find you." Dave explains. "Like Baba Yaga." Kurt repeated. "Dr Pym, you're like, the smartest genius I know. Don't you put some kind of LoJack on your lab?" Luis offers. "Because if you didn't, we have a variety of affordable options." "Of course I did, Luis." Gramps replied. "It was disabled. Whoever stole the lab knew exactly what they were doing." "They also looked like they were phasing." I added. "Phasing?" Scott asked. "Quantum phasing. Where an object moves through different states of matter." Gramps explains. "Oh, yeah, that's what I was thinking." Scott said. "The lab emits radiation. Can we modify a quantum spectrometer and track it?" Mom asked. "That could work, yes, but all my equipment is in the lab." Gramps replied. "Well, where else could we find that equipment?" Scott asked. "Well, there is one person. Bill Foster." Gramps sighed. "Great!" Scott exclaimed. "Who's Bill Foster?" "He's an old colleague of my dad's, from SHIELD. They had a falling out years ago." Mom explained. "You seem to have a lot of falling outs with people." Luis said. "It's probably just a waste of time." Gramps rolled his eyes. "Hey, I'm risking everything by being here." Scott reminded everyone. "Don't you think we should check?" "We need to find out who took the lab." Mom said.

We headed on the road to look for Bill. "Guys, it's not a good idea to be out in the open like this." Scott warned. "Relax, no one's gonna recognize us." Gramps said. "What, because of hats and sunglasses?" Scott asked. "That's not a disguise, Hank. We look like ourselves at a baseball game." "Jokes on you, I'm a big Dodgers fan." I replied.

Bill was giving a presentation to a bunch of people. He took a pause to try and help us. He ran a test on Scott and came back with some interesting results. "It's incredible! You're linked to Janet." Bill explains. "It's quantum entanglement between the quantum states of Posner molecules in your brains." "Yeah, that's what I was thinking." Scott said. "Do you guys just put the word "quantum" in front of everything?" "Doctor, we need to find our lab." I explained. "Brenna, I'd love to help you, but I don't have anything like the equipment you're describing." "I told you this was a waste of time. Come on, let's go." Gramps scoffed. "Don't condescend, Hank. You're the one who's on the run from the FBI." Bill said. "All because you had to grow to a size that finally fit your ego." "That wasn't me in Germany, it was this idiot." Gramps argued. "Really?" Bill asked. "Going that big, it must've been exhausting." "I slept for 3 days straight. You have no idea." Scott replied. "Actually, I do." Bill explained. "Back in the day, I was Hank's partner on a project called Goliath." "Excuse me? You were my partner?" Gramps asked. "The only thing more tiring than going that big is putting up with Hank's bullshit." Bill said. "How big did you get?" Scott asked. "My record? 21 feet." Bill replied. "You?" "I don't..." Scott said. "No, really, I'm curious." Bill wondered. "65 feet. Yeah." Scott replied. "65." "Whoa!" Bill gasped. "Huge." "If you two are finished comparing sizes, we need to figure out a way to track down that lab." Mom said. "And the great Hank Pym hasn't figured that one out yet?" Bill asked. "Strange. You had all the answers back in the day. That's why I left the project." "Left? I fired you." Gramps corrected. "Best decision I've ever made." Bill said. "Hank was a terrible partner. Temperamental, stubborn, impatient. Sooner or later, he just pushed everyone away." "Just the mediocrities." Gramps explained. "Janet was the only one who could endure him and chose to stick it out." Bill continued. "Watch it, Bill." Gramps said. "She paid the price though, didn't she?" Bill asked. "You son of a bitch!" Gramps shouted. "We didn't come here to listen to you two squabble." Mom recalled. "We're trying to save my mother." "Oh, it's Woo! Someone must've seen me." Scott panicked. "Relax, if this is about you, they'd be in your house right now." I explained. "What are you? 15?" Gramps asked. "C'mon. We gotta go right now!" Mom exclaimed. "Wait. You might be able to improvise the tracker if you modify the diffraction movements of one of your regulators." Bill explains. "That could work." I said. "I don't know what that means." Scott added, leaving Bill's office.

We got back in the van, listening to Gramps rant about Bill. "So, I'm a terrible partner?" Gramps ranted. "Foster, he hasn't had one good idea in his unremarkable career." "But his ideas of the diffractors could work, right?" Mom asked. "Fine. One decent idea." Gramps replied. "Except I eliminated diffractors when I upgraded the suits." "So, if we had an old suit, we might be able to track down the lab?" Scott asked. "Yes, but we don't." Gramps replied. "What if we did?" Scott wondered. "What do you mean?" I asked. "I mean, life's funny." Scott confessed. "Oh my God. You didn't destroy the suit." Mom gasped. "What?!" Gramps exclaimed. "Well, it was your life's work, Hank. I couldn't destroy that." Scott explains. "Before I turned myself in, I shrunk it down and mailed it to Luis." "YOU SENT MY SUIT THROUGH THE MAIL?!" Gramps shouted. "Hey, the postal service is very reliable. You know, they do tracking numbers now. Like UPS." Scott explains. "Face it, Gramps. You were upset when you thought he destroyed the suit." I recalled. "Where is it?" He asked. "It's in a very safe place, alright? Don't worry." Scott reassured him. Scott took a second to call Luis about the suit. "Well, the good news is, I know where it is."