Inhale!
Under the moonlight, Venom Robin's entire upper body expanded rapidly. The mummy shrouds that had just coiled around him stretched and strained as his physique bloated.
Robin didn't have lungs; his "breathing" was merely the opening of internal cavities, using air pressure to "suck" atmosphere inside.
With this sudden, massive gulp of air, Venom Robin's body quickly swelled into a spherical shape.
Buzz, buzz, buzz...
The dense cloud of flying ants commanded by the Wasp had already converged on the skylight. Some began crawling over Venom Robin's body, while others moved with clear purpose, swarming toward his ears, eyes, nose, and mouth.
Any normal biological creature would find it difficult to stay calm with foreign objects entering their body.
But for Venom Robin, aside from his mouth, even his eyes were essentially optional. He wasn't afraid of these flying ants crawling into his maw in the slightest.
In fact, he even sneakily used his tongue to snag a cluster of ants, finding their flavor far more acidic and less pleasant than chocolate.
"Hey, if you keep inhaling, you're going to pop," Janet van Dyne, the Wasp, said as she hovered nearby, arms crossed over her chest.
Venom Robin transformed his hands into tentacles, wrapping them around his rotund torso from both sides. He lowered his voice, doing his best Batman impression:
"You're right."
Whoosh!
The air he had just gulped down was forcefully squeezed out by his tightening tentacles. In an instant, it turned into a localized gale, blowing the flying ants and the Wasp herself backward through the air.
This was a move Venom Robin had learned from the Hulk. He had once seen the Hulk blow Professor Morbius away with a single roar, and he had always thought it looked incredibly cool.
Flash!
Amidst the gust of wind, Janet's size increased rapidly, growing from less than a millimeter back to her normal human height.
Venom Robin's "breath" was far weaker than the Hulk's; while the latter could send Morbius flying, the former's exhale couldn't even budge the Wasp once she returned to her full size.
Seeing Janet's palms glow again with bright yellow bio-electric stings, Venom Robin tucked his head in fear. He crouched low and lunged upward, simultaneously firing several pitch-black tentacles from his hands to pull himself toward the top of the skylight.
The Wasp followed close behind, but this time she didn't shrink; she maintained her normal size as she flew up after him.
With a loud shatter, Venom Robin smashed through the glass of the massive skylight. Aided by the boost in strength and speed provided by the moonlight overhead, he sprinted toward Central Park.
"…I remember Hank saying this glass was imported from China and was exceptionally strong. How did it break so easily?"
Chasing from behind, the Wasp was forced to shrink again to dodge the falling shards, her mind filled with confusion.
Venom Robin glanced back. Seeing that the Wasp hadn't followed him out yet, he couldn't help but gloat:
"Hmph. Does old Batman still calculate the stress points of glass? Has he forgotten I have over fifty tons of strength? What kind of glass could possibly stop me?"
"Who's there?!"
Ant-Man had been hurled toward the dining room by Janet. Because he was so small, air resistance was negligible, and the Wasp had thrown him with every ounce of her strength.
Ant-Man appeared in the dining room almost instantly.
But he was still a step too late. He only caught a glimpse of a wide, black cape dragging against the floor before it disappeared around the corner between the dining room and the kitchen.
Hank Pym didn't choose to give chase immediately. Instead, he dashed toward a refrigerator in the dining room and yanked it open.
As his most vital asset, Pym didn't follow conventional logic by storing the Pym Particles in a laboratory.
There were far too many labs in the Pym Technologies building, and Hank used the particles far too often. Once he began entering and exiting a specific lab too frequently, people would eventually notice—regardless of whether the particles were actually kept there.
During World War II, the Ant-Man's Pym Particles had been stolen once; he could not tolerate a repeat of such an event.
Therefore, even though the Pym Technologies building was filled with nothing but him, Janet, and ants—and despite the building being saturated with monitors and sensors—he had still hidden the Pym Particles in the dining room.
A refrigerator in a dining room was perfectly normal. Hank Pym had a coffee habit and frequently moved between the lab and the dining area; even if someone saw him, they wouldn't suspect a thing.
"But the Pym Particles were discovered anyway! Stolen! This is nothing but robbery! Anthony!"
Hank Pym opened the fridge and roared at the sight of a missing vial in the cold storage compartment.
The one he called "Anthony" wasn't a person, but a flying ant that rushed over at his command.
Ant-Man pressed a button, shrinking his body to a microscopic level. He grabbed the flying ant's leg and vaulted onto its back.
"Catch them!"
With a frantic buzzing of wings, Anthony the ant flew toward the corner leading to the kitchen.
"Faster, Anthony!" Hank Pym shouted. As they rounded the corner, he saw the wide cape disappear through the kitchen window.
Without a moment's hesitation, Ant-Man rode the ant out the window.
But in the next second, his heart sank.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of bats had gathered outside the window at some unknown point. They had seemingly been circling in the air, only closing in once the thief who stole the Pym Particles jumped out.
A city bat's primary food source consists of mosquitoes and other flying insects—and that naturally included flying ants.
Unsurprisingly, the massive cloud of bats used echolocation to lock onto Anthony. They swarmed toward Ant-Man in a chaotic blur of wings and fur.
"Dodge, Anthony!" Ant-Man cried out. Seeing the flying ant narrowly avoid a bat's snapping jaws, he couldn't help but clap. "Good boy!"
Before the words had even left his mouth, he and Anthony were swallowed whole by another bat.
Bang!
A second later, the greedy bat's head exploded. It hadn't even had time to swallow before it was torn apart by Ant-Man, who had instantly returned to his normal size.
After bursting the bat, Ant-Man shrank again. As he fell through the air, he summoned another flying ant.
"From this day forward, you shall be called Anthony II!"
The next second, Anthony II was struck by a swarm of bat wings and went spiraling down into the darkness.
"Anthony III!" Ant-Man wailed.
This continued until Anthony VII met a tragic end in the mouth of a bat. Hank Pym couldn't take it anymore.
Hum—
He pressed another button on his wrist. His body expanded mid-air, growing larger and larger until he became a titan standing a hundred feet tall.
THUD!
His feet slammed into the ground. Bracing himself against the Pym Technologies building, he crouched down and used his hand to sweep away all the landscaping and greenery around the base of the tower.
But where was the thief? There wasn't a trace of the person who had stolen the Pym Particles. They had vanished as if into thin air.
Ant-Man remained crouched there, his expression shifting between fury and disbelief. After a long silence, he slammed a fist into the ground, leaving a deep indentation in the tiled pavement.
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