Hank arrived, though even agreeing to meet, he wore a sour face from start to finish.
The moment he sat down in the conference room, he opened his mouth before anyone else had even settled in.
"Stark, if you're here to atone for your despicable father's sins, then don't bother speaking."
This stubborn old man had no intention of showing mercy. But Tony, knowing the truth behind the past, wasn't someone who would stand by and let anyone insult his father.
The only ones allowed to criticize Howard Stark were Maria, his mother, and Tony himself.
Bang!
He slammed his hand hard on the conference table. While it was somewhat expected, both Steve and Reed were still startled.
"Tony... calm down..." Steve tried to reason with him, but under these circumstances, there was no way Tony would listen.
"Hank Pym, I'm warning you. Being ignorant isn't the problem. Parading your ignorance like it's something to be proud of is. My father is not someone a coward like you, who just stood there and watched his wife sacrifice herself, is qualified to judge."
Since Hank attacked his father first, Tony had no hesitation striking back where it hurt most.
"You!"
As expected, for all his sharp tongue, Hank was no master at hiding his emotions either. Tony's trigger was his parents. Hank's, naturally, was his wife.
"Someone get this arrogant Stark brat out of here!"
Already advanced in age, Hank felt short of breath after Tony's outburst. He was in no mood to argue anymore and simply called for security to throw him out.
Right after he spoke, the door to the meeting room swung open. The security guards waiting outside stepped in, ready to carry out the order. But clearly, not everyone here was willing to let one petty argument ruin this rare opportunity.
Before the guards could even lay a hand on Tony, Doom stood up and casually waved his palm. The two men were thrown across the room with a single strike.
Then, the door shut on its own and was quickly sealed with a strange layer of magical energy. The guards outside tried everything they could, but the door wouldn't budge.
"Oh? Is the despicable little Stark planning to kill me now?" Hank sneered. Though Doom's sudden move caught him off guard, he realized he had acted out of impulse. Still, admitting fault had never been in his nature, so he just kept mocking.
Tony, who had just calmed down, was about to fire back again. But Doom wasn't going to let this farce go on any longer.
"I finally understand now. Why your wife is still trapped in the Quantum Realm. Why LexCorp, despite having far more advanced quantum technology, never bothered to recruit you."
"What did you just say?" Hank frowned, his gaze shifting toward Doom. He finally started to process who exactly were the people he was speaking to.
His hostility toward the Stark family had blinded him to everyone else in the room. But now that he thought about it—Reed Richards, once expelled by LexCorp. Steve Rogers, now a top-tier superhero of Vought. And Victor Von Doom, rumored leader of the Latverian revolution. Not a single one of them was ordinary.
"What I'm saying is, you absolutely deserve it. You deserve to live in regret for the rest of your life. You're nothing more than a pathetic failure lost in your own world. Pym Particles?"
Doom gave a slight smile and a thin green beam of magic shot out from his fingertip, hitting the coffee cup in front of Hank
Everybody in the room watched in shock as the cup began to shrink, just like the effect caused by Pym Particles.
"What?!" Hank's face twisted in disbelief. He had never imagined that something other than Pym Particles could also alter the size of objects.
"You are just a narrow-minded person living in a bubble," Doom said, his tone dripping with scorn.
"You really thought creating the Pym Particle was some untouchable miracle. Something no one could ever replicate. So the moment you saw the slightest sign of danger, you cut ties with the one person who could've helped you, Howard Stark."
Tony's expression darkened. This was the truth. It was what his father had confessed to him before his death.
Howard never coveted the Pym Particle. S.H.I.E.L.D. was full of spies from other countries, and even Hydra was hiding in the shadows. He wasn't the only one who had access. But Hank didn't investigate any of it. At the slightest hint of doubt, he left the agency and turned against Howard completely.
He never stopped to ask himself if the man was really trying to steal from him. That wasn't important to Hank. What mattered was that by doing this, he could show the world that Pym Particles were something even Howard Stark couldn't achieve. That he was the better genius.
Hearing all this from Doom made Hank's face flush with shame and rage.
He had always been mentally unstable. In the comics and movies alike, Hank Pym was a man with serious psychological issues.
He might not even have realized it himself: whether what he truly cared about was rescuing his wife, or proving that he was better than Howard.
But now, hearing Doom say it out loud, he could no longer deny it. He hadn't done any thorough investigation. He had been all too eager to sever his relationship with Howard.
Doom continued to speak, "Your wife was trapped in the Quantum Realm, and all you did was bury yourself in solo research. You could've asked for help, gathered minds from around the world to speed things up. But no, you thought only you could do it. That only you were capable. Pym Technologies brought in brilliant scientists from across the globe, yet you wouldn't let a single one of them touch quantum research. So tell me, was your wife's life less important than your fragile pride?"
That was who Hank Pym was. A man obsessed with his pride, and yet constantly weighed down by insecurity.
Because he felt he never contributed much as a hero, he developed a split personality and forced Janet to marry him under another identity. Because he made a mistake during a mission and couldn't handle being publicly judged by Captain America, he built a robot to attack an event just so he could stage a fake rescue and prove himself. That decision destroyed his marriage.
Even if the Hank Pym of this world wasn't exactly the one from the comics, their personalities shared the same core.
Doom hadn't spoken empty words.
Anyone Reid targeted or tried to recruit had something that made them stand out. But those who were neither targets nor recruits were simply worthless.
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