The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes

039

CHAPTER 039
YELLOWJACKET

LOCATION: avengers mansion

TONY STOOD IN FRONT OF A
podium, speaking at Dr. Henry Pym's funeral. That morning when Kasey woke up, she got the call that Hank died from an explosion by an unshielded quantum annihilator. Not that she would admit it, but she did cry. Kasey hasn't seen Jan all day, figuring that the woman would want to be alone, but then Kasey thought when her parents died, the last thing she wanted was to be alone.

"We didn't come here to remember an Avenger," Tony begins. She wondered how he could be so calm through all this. Hank was an Avenger. He was one of them. And now he was gone. A giant statue of Ant-Man standing on top of the sun and then tiny planets orbited around it was behind Tony as he continued his speech, "or a scientist, or a man. We came here to remember a dreamer," Kasey looks down with a slight smile. She knew she shouldn't be laughing in this moment, but she knew that there was no way Tony wrote that speech. She knew her brother and he could never in his life, write out a speech. "who gave his life trying to make the world a safer place." Tony looks down, "Taken from us too soon." As Kasey heard silent cries from beside her, she looked to her right to see a sobbing Jan. Kasey's eyes saddened and then she held the woman's hand in comfort, "We will never forget our friend, Dr. Henry Pym."

After Tony's speech was over and each of the Avengers paid their respects, the funeral was over. Everyone stood in front of the statue, talking to one another quietly. Many were there. The Fantastic Four, Vision, Spider-Man aka Peter Parker, Power-Man aka Luke Cage, Iron Fist aka Daniel Rand, and others that Kasey, personally did not know. But still, Kasey didn't know a lot of people. Or maybe she did, but she didn't remember. Kasey had only heard of Spider-Man recently and didn't even know who Power-Man and Iron Fist were, but apparently they knew Hank, so who was she to question what they were doing there.

Kasey stood with Jan, away from the others. The woman was on the brink of tears as she spoke to Kasey with a broken voice, "I wish he'd been able to finish what he started." She looks up at the statue of Ant-Man, "I wish I could have told him—" Jan covers her face and begins to sob.

Kasey wraps her in a hug, "Hank knew how you felt. He knew. He felt the same. He just—" Kasey sighs, "he got lost."

Jan breaks out of Kasey's arms and runs into a forest, sobbing. Kasey sighs and runs after her, "Jan!"

When Kasey catches up to Jan, she heard footsteps behind her and then turned to see Nick Fury. He steps out of the shadows, looking at Jan, who hadn't noticed him yet. "Miss van Dyne," Jan turns with a slight jump, but calms herself when she sees Fury, "my condolences."

"Fury?" Jan asks.

"Yeah." He answers and glances at Kasey, "Keeping a low profile nowadays." He steps towards her, "I was hoping to have a word in private with your brother."

Tony's sigh makes Kasey look to her right to see her brother walk up, "Great timing as always, Fury. What do you want?"

"Sorry to be blunt." He glances at Jan, "There's no easy way to say this." Fury looks down shortly, "The explosion in Pym's lab wasn't an accident." Kasey looks at him confused and Jan's eyes widen. Fury tosses Tony a device and Tony catches it as Fury finishes, "It was murder."

• • •

The Avengers now sat in the mansion, around the Assembly desk. The device was projected through a hologram of the Assembly desk as Tony wanted the actual device in his lab for study. Wasp stood as she informed the rest of the team with an angry voice, "S.H.I.E.L.D. agents found it in the wreckage of the lab. A detonator." Wasp's eyes narrow, "Hank was killed."