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WASPS by BobH (c) 2009 (Note: A few months ago long-time Marvel Comics character Hank Pym took on the superhero identity of his dead ex-wife, the Wasp. No, he didn't change his gender as well, but an image released at a recent comic convention that looked an awful lot like a female version of him had me speculating that this was Marvel's next step with the character. As it happens I was mistaken and, despite looking nothing like her, this turned out to be a drawing of the dead ex-wife. However, I had already done a fair bit of speculating on what they were going to do with this before I realized my mistake, speculation that it seemed a real shame to waste, hence this story. Characters used herein are all property of Marvel Comics) **************************************** - 1 - In his offices on the tenth floor of Manhattan's Ditko Building the psychiatrist carefully aligned the pens on his desk before glancing around the room, taking in the couch, full-length mirror, and subdued decor, and nodding approvingly. His two o'clock would be here soon and she was no ordinary woman. Then again Leonard Samson was no ordinary psychiatrist. Built like a Greek god, able to bench-press several tons, and with his long green hair (non-dyed) tied back in a ponytail, he was about as far from being an ordinary psychiatrist as most people could imagine. The office window had been opened to its full extent of about three inches, just enough to let some air in during New York's murderously hot summers. More modern buildings had full air conditioning, but Samson liked the early twentieth century charm of the Ditko Building with those old wooden water tanks on its roof. And, of course, you could not open the windows in those other buildings, which would have prevented his next client from entering the way she preferred. As two o'clock arrived and the clock struck once, Samson seated himself behind his impressive old redwood desk. As the clock struck twice so his client flew in through the window, a tiny Tinkerbell on gossamer wings who alighted on the floor in front of his desk an immediately started growing, her wings shrinking away into her back as she assumed the full five feet four inches of her normal height. Most men would have been astonished by this, but as the psychiatrist of choice among America's superhero community, Leonard Samson had seen far stranger things. "Have a seat, Ms Pym," he said, indicating the chair in front of the desk. "Thank you," she replied, seating herself. She was a petite woman, slightly built, with small high breasts, and short blonde hair, and she was wearing a tight fitting spandex costume of the sort that was de riguer in their community, a large 'W' forming its neckline. "So," said Samson, picking up his notepad and fountain pen, "should I call you Hannah?" "Yes, please do," she said, pouring herself a glass of water from the pitcher on the desk. "With the changes I've gone through 'Hank' just doesn't fit me anymore." "You're calling yourself the Wasp now," said Samson, "after your dead ex-wife, Janet van Dyne. During our last session it was Yellowjacket." Hank Pym had more problems than most of his peers and had seen Doctor Samson several times over the years, though seldom willingly. The fact that this visit was voluntary was an encouraging sign. "After Jan died during the Skrull invasion, I wanted to honor her memory," said Hannah, "so I altered my biolgy and took on her superhero name." "You altered your biology?" "Yes. I've been able to shrink and grow for years, but I never used to develop wings when I shrank." "Was changing gender part of altering your biology?" Samson watched carefully for a reaction to the question, but when her answer came it was entirely matter-of-fact. "No, nor was it something I ever considered. Me being female was a parting gift from Loki." Loki, the Norse God of Mischief, had been responsible for the creation of the branch of the Avengers superhero group currently led by Hannah Pym, but Samson did not know all the details. "Loki," he said, "tell me about Loki." "Well, when we unmasked her, she..." "I'm sorry," he interrupted. " 'She'?" "Oh, so you hadn't heard? OK, I got some of these details from Thor later. Apparently he and his fellow Asgardians went through Ragnarok some time back, the death of the gods. Only it turns out Ragnarok isn't as final as it sounds but is in fact part of some cycle of death and rebirth. When Loki was reborn he came back female, or so it seemed. In actual fact he'd stolen the body of the goddess Sif, in the process disguising it just enough so none of the other Asgardians recognised it. As you know, Loki was inadvertantly responsible for the formation of the Avengers in the first place. This time around, as some piece of mischief whose purpose we still don't fully understand, she decided to deliberately engineer the creation of a new team. Masquerading as Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch - who's been missing for months - she manipulated events so that several ex-Avengers, including Jocasta and I, came together to battle menaces outside America." Samson wrote down the name 'Jocasta' on his notepad, circled it, and put a large question mark next to the circle. Jocasta was a robot, a sentient self-aware being who had been programmed with the brain-patterns of Janet van Dyne, Pym's dead ex-wife. The one time he had had her on his couch, Samson had found psychoanalysing Jocasta a fascinating experience, almost as fascinating as when he had done the same with the android Vision, another artificial intelligence, but there were potential problems in any relationship between her and Pym. "You said your current condition was 'a parting gift'?" "Yes. When Loki was unmasked and we fought, she threw a spell at me...." - 2 - Had he not been in the middle of battling her Hank Pym, aka the Wasp, would probably have described Loki as magnificent. She was clad in a form fitting green-scaled sharkskin one-piece whose V-cut neck showed off her impressive cleavage, thigh-length calf-skin boots, a headpiece with long curved horns, and a voluminous fur cloak. That cloak and her long black hair were whipping around behind her, borne aloft on the winds produced by the sorcerous bolts she was throwing, her beautiful face contorted in fury as she fought her attackers. "Look out, Hank!" shouted Jocasta, concern in her robot voice, as he swooped around Loki's head, somehow managing to pepper her with bio-electric 'stings' even as the winds buffeted his tiny form. "Enough!" shouted Loki, simultaneously swatting him aside and bringing down a wall of the mansion with a bolt of energy, thus cutting the two of them off from the rest of the Avengers. Seconds before crashing into the opposite wall, Hank Pym grew to his full height in order to minimise the effect of the impact on his body. He still struck with some force, however, and slid to the floor winded. When he looked up, Loki was standing over him. This was it. He was a dead man. There was no way he was going to be able to pull himself together in time to have even the slightest chance against her. "So," she sneered, gazing down at him. "The pathetic Doctor Henry Pym who never even realised he was being manipulated by me. A man so dissatisfied with who he is that he could never settle on one identity and so ended up taking on the identity of his wife, a woman." "You can talk!" said Hank, a bit of bravado he regretted the instant the words escaped his lips. "Yes, I can," said Loki, giving him an icy smile, "but this particular guise of mine serves a greater purpose in a plan that will soon come to fruition, but you...? Hmmm, I've achieved most of what I set out to in my time with your team of Avengers, Henry, so it's time I was on my way but I think I'll leave you something to remember me by." So saying she turned her right hand palm-upwards and a ball of energy started to form there, hovering over it. "Since you were so eager to take on Janet's identity it's only fitting you should go all the way. Goodbye, Henry." With that she threw the ball at him. It struck his chest and Hank cried out as a searing pain flooded through his entire body. Then he blacked out. "Henry, Henry, wake up!" Someone was shaking him. He opened his eyes to see Jocasta kneeling over him. "S'up, 'casta?" he slurred, gazing up into her glistening robotic features and wondering why his voice sounded so odd. She helped his to his feet and he saw the other Avengers were there, looking at him with the oddest expressions. The Vision looked as impassive as usual, but Cassie Lang's face was a picture of concerned sympathy, Hercules looked grim, Amadeus Cho fascinated, and Quicksilver exasperated. Weidest of all was USAgent, who was smirking at him. As he stood up straight, Hank became aware that he wasn't as tall as he should be. Had something gone wrong when he grew from wasp-size? Then he glanced down at his body and gasped. Pushing out from his chest were small but unmistakeable female breasts. "What the hell...?" he said in a voice higher than it should be. Jocasta had produced a small hand mirror from somewhere and held it up for him. The face it reflected was that of a woman. It bore a family resemblance to his own face and could plausibly have been that of the sister he never had but it was softer, sweeter, prettier. "You are are a woman now, Henry," said Jocasta, stating the obvious. "Loki shall pay for unmanning you, Henry," said Hercules, placing a massive hand on his shoulder. "On that you have the word of the Lion of Olympus." "Looking good, Pym!" laughed USAgent. "A big improvement, if you ask me." "Stop it!" said Cassie Lang, taking up position on the opposite side of Hank to Jocasta. "She's been though a traumatic experience and the last thing she needs now is your juvenile cracks!" "A teenager calling me juvenile? That's rich!" said USAgent. "Enough of this foolishness," shouted Quicksilver. "I only joined this circus because my sister Wanda was a member. Now we know it was not she but Loki masquerading as her I have no further reason to tolerate your antics." And just like that he was gone, an inrush of air and a lot of papers sucked along in his wake being all to show that he had run off at high speed. "Cassie and I will take Henry away from here now," said Jocasta. "She needs time to adjust to her new condition." That didn't take long, thought Henry as the two female Avengers led him away. Both of them were already referring to him using the female pronoun, Cassie probably unconsciously and Jocasta undoubtedly as a deliberate choice. Well, maybe they were right. There was no guarantee he would ever be able to reverse this so perhaps it would be healthier if he...no *she*...proceeded from the start as if it was permanent. It was the women who had rallied around her protectively, in female solidarity, and she appreciated it. "I guess we're all girls together now," she murmured. "What was that, Hank?" asked Jocasta, her sensitive ears picking this up. "Oh, it was nothing," said Hank. "Y'know, I think I'm going to need a change of clothes. This costume adjusts in size as I shrink and grow but it's cut for a male body and is now pretty uncomfortable." "That will not be a problem." said Jocasta. They took Hank to the rooms in the Infinite Avengers Mansion where all Jan's effects were stored. "Whoa!" said Hank, as they entered. "Why here?" "I have scanned your new form, Henry, and it exactly matches the dimensions of Janet van Dyne's." "Exactly?" "Exactly." "Wow, when Loki decided that if I was going to take on Jan's superhero identity I should go all the way, she wasn't kidding." "That means you've already got a whole wardrobe of designer clothes, Aunt Hank," said Cassie, "which is great, but the downside is you won't have any reason to go shopping for more anytime soon." "Why's that a downside?" asked Hank. "Are you kidding me?" said Cassie. "Shopping for clothes is one of the most fun things about being a girl!" "Yes, well, I'm pretty new to being a girl," said Hank. "The scientist in me is fascinated by my transformation but the rest of me is still in shock over it. So I can't see myself wanting to go shopping for clothes anytime soon. And while we're at it: 'Aunt Hank'? I need to start going by another name." "'Henrietta' is the logical choice," said Jocasta, "being as it is the female form of your name." "Yeah, but I've never liked it," said Hank. "It's always seemed so old fashioned." "The other logical choice would be a female version of 'Hank', but I am not aware of one," said Jocasta. "Hmmm, how about 'Hannah'?" said Cassie. "It's in the same ballpark so it won't seem totally unfamiliar, and there are lots of girls named that these days." "I like it," said Hank. "So that's settled. Hannah it is." "Thank you for your help, Cassie," said Jocasta, "but I think I can take it from here." They exchanged a significant look and then Cassie nodded. "OK, well, I'll see you guys later. Good luck, Aunt Hannah." "Why did you send her away?" asked Hannah, puzzled. "Because the next thing you are going to do is take all your clothes off and I wished to spare you and she any embarrassment." "Yes, I should've thought of that myself," admitted Hannah. "I guess I've been thrown even more by all this than I'd thought." She cast her gaze around the room, taking in the rows of drawers, wardrobes, and chests that contained Jan's effects, and the many mirrors. "Time to take the plunge," said Hannah, and quickly stripped off her male clothing. Naked, she studied her body in the mirror from all angles. Running her hands over it she was disturbed by how it's curves felt like the familiar contours of Jan's body. In fact the only real difference between them lay only in that unfamiliar face with its head of thick but short blond hair. If she put her hand out and masked her face the body in the mirror was recognizably Jan's, right down to the mole on her abdomen. "May I?" said Jocasta, coming up beside her. Hannah nodded, and the robot reached out and gently grasped her left breast. "Interesting," she said. Though made of metal, she raised her surface temperature to match that of the human body when the two of them were together so her touch was not unpleasant. Anything but, in fact. Jocasta began to slowly knead Hannah's nipple with her thumb and Hannah found her breathing speeding up, an unfamiliar wetness developing between her legs. Jocasta pulled Hannah to her and they kissed, a long lingering kiss that made Hannah almost melt into the robot's arms. Her lips might be metal but they weren't unyielding. There was nothing soft about Jocasta's body, but the exotic technologies used in her construction gave the metal in various parts of that body a remarkable degree of flexibility. "No," gasped Hannah, pulling away. "That felt good, unbelievably good, but now's not the time." "I apologise," said Jocasta, "but I have observed in the past that sex helps relieve you when you are tense and I thought it might do so now." "No, please don't apolgise," said Hannah. "Your timing may have been off but your instincts were spot on." Hannah looked at the robot curiously. "So you don't have a problem with me being a woman now?" "I have the shape of a woman and have a personality based on the brain patterns of one," she replied, "but I am still a robot, Hannah. For me gender is a choice. As for you, the gender you are is irrelevant to me and does not affect my feelings towards you in any way." "Thank you," said Hannah. "Right now, that really means a lot to me." Jocasta opened one of the drawers and fished out a lacy black bra and thong set. "I believe we need to find you some underwear first," she said, "but none of Janet's undergarments seem very practical." "No," chuckled Hannah, taking the garments from her. "Jan wouldn't have been seen dead in plain or sensible underwear so these are about as 'practical' as it gets." She donned the underwear with Jocasta watching her curiously. "My first bra," said Hannah, adjusting her breasts in the cups, "a big day in any boy's life." She laughed, but it was a nervous laugh. Never had Henry Jonathan Pym imagined such a day might come. "You look nice, Hannah," said Jocasta. It was, Hannah knew, meant to cheer her up, so she smiled. "Thanks," she said, "but I really miss being taller." "Oh, I have a solution for that," said Jocasta, producing a pair of four inch high heels from a cupboard. "Heels? No, I don't think I.....oh, why not?" Hannah sat down and let the robot slip them onto her feet. Standing up, she walked up and down the room slowly and carefully. It felt odd, and she was a little unsteady on her feet, but having a few inches of height back definitely felt good. Hmmm, if she was forced to remain a woman, then maybe.... "How does it feel?" "A little weird, but not too bad, actually. Not that I'm ready to take up wearing them full time just yet. We're going to have to return to the other Avengers for our debriefing shortly so what I need right now is a Wasp costume, preferably a one piece - no skirt, no heels." "No skirt and no heels," repeated Jocasta, sliding back the doors on one of the wardrobes,"Yes, it is too soon for you to feel comfortable with those, though you would look very nice in them. Fortunately, there are a lot of costumes to choose from that fit your criteria. I have always liked this one." It was an early red and black outfit from the period when Hank had first become Goliath, and high-necked, too. "Why not?" shrugged Hannah, taking the costume the robot had chosen. When she was dressed she studied her reflection thoughtfully. Seeing herself like this, as a woman and wearing one of Jan's old costumes, was beyond strange. Being a superhero was a wonderfully weird thing anyway, but this was definitely the biggest curveball that life had thrown her so far. "What about make-up?" asked Jocasta. "What?" said Hannah, turning to face her. "Make-up?" "Janet always wore it," said the robot, "so I assumed it was part of being an adult human female." "Well it's not something this adult human female has any intention of wearing anytime soon, if ever," said Hannah. "And now we really should get along to the meeting room. They'll be wondering what's happened to us." - 3 - "Doctor Pym? Hannah?" said Leonard Samson, bringing her back to the present. "What? Oh, sorry," said Hannah. "Where were we?" "You were telling me about your fight with Loki and the spell she threw at you...?" "Yes, right. Loki said that if I was going to take on Jan's identity then perhaps I ought to go all the way. The spell hit, and I turned into the woman you see before you. I'm even exactly the same size as Jan was so all her clothes fit me perfectly. And the last thing I ever imagined I'd one day be doing when we first met was wearing her clothes." "What did you think of her that first meeting?" "That she looked like my first wife, Maria Trovaya, only younger - barely out of her teens. Her father, Vernon van Dyne, brought her along with him when he sought my help with his own work. He was a scientist seeking out intelligent life in other dimensions and on other worlds. Soon after he was killed by an alien from one of those worlds. I gave Jan her powers, and together we defeated the alien as Ant-Man and the Wasp." "According to my notes, you had your first breakdown when you were told Maria was dead." "I...yes, yes I did. I was still mourning her when I met Jan, and during our early adventures together. That's probably why it took me so long to realise Jan had fallen in love with me." "How did you think of her during that period?" "I saw her as my partner and - God, this is embarrassing to admit - as sort of a groupie. That'a a great disservice to Jan, but that's how I felt at first." Hannah had squirmed a bit in her seat during this admission, and blushed a little, too - easy to see since she wasn't wearing any make-up - something Samson recorded on his notepad. "Interesting. When did your feelings towards Janet change?" "It took a while. When the Avengers first formed, Jan was always flirting with the other guys, trying to get a rise out of me, but that only had the effect of making me feel more inferior?" "Inferior? Why?" "I'd been Ant-Man, for Pete's sake, someone who shrank to the size of an ant, in the company of Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk. Even when I compensated by becoming Giant-Man I still wasn't in their league. I consoled myself with the knowledge I was at least the smartest guy in the group until one day, by accident and years before anyone else knew, I discovered Iron Man was Tony Stark. That's when I decided to leave the Avengers, give up the super-heroing, and devote my time to scientific research. Jan loyally came with me, of course, though I think she would've remained with them if I wasn't leaving." "But you didn't stay away from the Avengers, did you?" "No, though I didn't return to them through choice, not at first. Jan had gone missing and I joined in the search for her, using my growing powers and now calling myself Goliath. Unfortunately, my body had never adapted as comfortably to growing to giant-size as it had to becoming ant-sized and I soon found myself stuck at ten-foot. I eventually sorted out that particular situation but it was years before I licked my size-growing problem entirely." "I believe that not long after this came what you've termed both your greatest achievement and most disastrous mistake." "Ultron," said Hannah, shivering at the name. "I'd attempted to create artificial intelligence before, but this time I succeeded - and I curse the day it happened. Not that I was aware what I'd done for several months." "Why not?" "Because no sooner was the robot activated than he attacked me. I was defeated, and hypnotized into forgetting I'd ever created him. He then went away to rebuild himself into the formidable, genocidal monster we know today. In the meantime, life continued with the Avengers until I had a mental breakdown and assumed a whole new persona as Yellowjacket, someone who claimed he had killed Hank Pym." "And that's when Janet married you." "That's when Jan married me, yes. She saw through my disguise, realized who I really was, and accepted my proposal." "According to the report by SHIELD psychiatrist Dr. Carver, you snapped out of this particular breakdown and realised who you really were shortly after the exchange of vows. How did you feel about what Jan had done?" "At first, I was OK with it. Jan might have waited forever for Hank Pym to ask him to marry her, so when Yellowjacket proposed she took her chance. Afterwards, when I thought about it all, I found it a little disturbing. She took advantage of me during what she knew was a psychotic episode, and why had I been so reluctant to ask her to marry me anyway? Why did it take a breakdown and assuming a new persona to get me to pop the question? I didn't have answer, and that worried me. Soon afterwards, we had our first encounter with Ultron. And soon after *that* with his android creation the Vision. That's when we learned I had brought Ultron into the world. We kept defeating him but he kept coming back. I'm not sure he ever can be permanently defeated. He has back-up copies of his core A.I. secretly stored on computers around the world, ready to be downloaded into a new robotic body whenever his current incarnation is destroyed. A few years after this, Ultron took advantage of me, tricking me into helping him create Jocasta, something he couldn't have done without my help." "I don't understand. Didn't you just say he created the Vision?" "I did, yes, but he didn't create him from scratch. He took the body of the original android Human Torch, the one created by Professor Horton in 1939 - or, at least, a temporal clone of it, which is something we don't need to get into now - reengineered him to alter his appearance and power set, and reprogrammed his personality using the recorded brain patterns of the then-deceased Wonder Man, Simon Williams. Such reengineering and reprogramming he could do, but the creation of an android body and of an artificial intelligence was beyond him. Robotics he was very good at - he'd rebuilt his own body several times, after all - so he made a good job of putting together Jocasta's body, but he could not have given her life." "And you could?" "After a fashion, yes. Ultron had wiped a chunk of my memory causing me to regress in time. I believed it was still the early days of the Avengers and I turned up at Avengers mansion as Ant-Man, looking for Thor, Iron Man, and the Hulk. Instead I found the then-current line-up, none of whom I knew, and I attacked them assuming they were intruders. I was defeated when Jan showed up and used her Wasp sting to zap me into unconsciousness. She knew I'd been acting increasingly erratically prior to the breakdown and she convinced the Avengers to try and help me. Long story short, Ultron showed up, defeated the Avengers, and captured Jan and me. I woke in one of his labs and he convinced me the Avengers I'd fought were my enemies and that he'd saved us, though Jan had been badly hurt during his battle with them. He had her on a table, hooked up to the robot body lying next to her and told me we needed to temporarily transfer her consciousness into that shell before we could repair her real body. He needed my help as the world's foremost bio-physicist to achieve this, and so we set to work. What I didn't know was that Jan was only unconscious but otherwise perfectly well. As a psychiatrist, you'll have realised what was actually going on, of course." "Of course. It's pretty obvious what Ultron was up to." "Yeah. When I first created him, Ultron immediately started calling me 'father' and just as immediately tried to kill me. Now here he was trying to pour Jan's soul into that of a robot in female form who was to be his 'bride'. He'd tried to kill his father, now here he was wanting to 'marry' Jan who, being my wife, stood in for his mother. Ultron is and always has been a walking Oedipal complex. He even named his robot bride-to-be Jocasta. Anyway, the Avengers showed up in the nick of time, drove Ultron off, and rescued us. Not that I was grateful. I'd gone into a full psychotic breakdown by this point and was ranting. I called the Avengers 'murderous scum' and accused Jan of being a traitor. You know what happened next." "The Avengers found the machines Ultron had used to wipe your memory and realized they could be used to restore it. They called me in to help with the process since even with what had been erased being restored they knew you would need help coping with the experience, and they were right. Ultron's manipulations may have triggered your breakdown this time but as the original Yellowjacket episode had shown there were clearly underlying problems. You were not the easiest of patients however, Hannah." "No, I don't suppose I was," she said, a little sheepishly. - 4 - "Cowards! Murderers! Monsters!" ranted Hank Pym , struggling to no avail to free himself from the arms that held him. "If you continue to struggle you will only hurt yourself, Doctor Pym." said the one they called the Vision in that cold, emotionless voice of his. "You do not possess the strength to break my grip." "Strap him into the chair, Vision," said the Black Panther, his mask pulled back, a look of concern on his handsome African features. The android did as he was directed, and Hank soon found himself securely strapped into a chair that lay at the heart of a complicated array of machines, unable to move. "Lowering the encephalo-hood," announced the Black Panther, pulling a lever on the control console on the gantry that ran around the room. They were in the Stark International facility in Nassau County, Long Island, part of which had served as Ultron's most recent base of operations. A plexiglass hood festooned with all manner of arcane sensors descended from above to cover Hank's head, a secondary arm emerging from somewhere in the machinery and clamping itself around his throat. This didn't restrict his breathing but it did paralyse his vocal chords. "Is he going to be okay?" asked Janet van Dyne, worry etched on her face. "I promise you we'll restore the Hank you love," said the green-haired man, putting a friendly arm around Jan's shoulders. What was it the others had called him? Samson, that was it, Doc Samson. Hank glared at him. Was this the man who had made Jan turn against him? If so, Hank would kill him. Jan and Samson descended the stairs from the gantry and crossed over to his chair. Jan leaned in closer, tears in her eyes, and whispered: "I love you, Hank, never forget that." Hank smelled alcohol on her breath. Since drinking was something Jan only did when she was seriously stressed he knew she must be heavily conflicted about what they were doing to him, the treacherous bitch! "Come away, Jan," said Samson. "It's time we got this show on the road. OK, T'Challa, go to level one." Up on the gantry, the Black Panther turned various knobs on the console then threw a switch. As he did so strange but not unpleasant sensations rushed through Hank's head. "OK, Hank," said Samson, leaning in close as Jan had done, "if we understand Ultron's machines correctly you should now be feeling a little odd, as if your brain were being wrapped a warm blanket. When we go to level two, a couple of memories should emerge from your subconscious. One of these will be from the memories you still possess and the other will be from those that were taken from you. Both should be innocuous, even trivial - though they may have a deeper significance we can explore later - but the important thing is that these are what the machine will lock on to when we feed those stolen memories back into your brain. Please concentrate on these and hold them clearly in your mind. If you don't, the process could end up being a lot more painful than it needs to be. OK, T'Challa, let's go to level two." As the Panther threw the switch, a memory swept into Hank's mind so powerful that it was almost like being there again. He was four years old and hiding in the warm, dark closet that was his favorite place in the whole world. There with his mother's clothes hanging all around him he felt warm, and safe, and at peace. It was almost like being back in the womb. He reached and touched a fur coat, then a shimmering evening gown, and a soft leather purse. He liked the feel of the materials and the feminine smells of the closet. He found them all deeply comforting. Almost as quickly as it had come, this memory was replaced by another of him and Jan riding on the back of a dragonfly over an icy landscape. He was wearing an unfamiliar costume, but what shocked him most was what he was feeling towards Jan. He knew that he loved her, but at the same time he was feeling deep seated resentment towards her and, at a level so deep he could not even acknowledge it...envy? "We have a lock on," said the Black Panther, his voice seeming to come from somewhere impossibly distant. "Then start reloading his memories, T'Challa," said Samson. Hank was vaguely aware of T'Challa throwing another switch and then he was forced back in his seat by the sheer weight of memories flooding into his mind. The pain was indescribable. Unable to help himself, he threw back his head. And screamed. - 5 - "Getting all my memories forced back into my head at once was no picnic," said Hannah, "but the sessions with you in the week that followed really helped me reintegrate them with those I had retained and made me whole again. I can only apologise for being such a difficult patient, and I know it can't have helped that there was stuff I was keeping from you, and stuff I hadn't even admitted to myself then." "No, it didn't," said Samson. "Had you been honest with me then it's possible we might have averted what happened only few months later - but we'll get to that in a minute. First, tell me what happened to Jocasta after that affair." "With the transfer terminated we assumed she was now inert and so had her crated up and, eventually, shipped to Avengers mansion. It was only a couple weeks after we'd battled him that Ultron showed up for a second round. First he sent a signal activating Jocasta as an obedient, non-thinking robot. However what neither he nor we realized was that Jocasta had retained an imprint of Jan's personality from that aborted transfer. During our fight with Ultron this asserted itself, Jocasta achieved true self-awareness, turned against him, and Ultron was defeated." "Tell me about your court martial a few months after this." "I...you know what happened," said Hannah, visibly uncomfortable. "It's not something I like talking about." "Getting you to talk about stuff and to face up to it is the whole point of these sessions," said Samson. "I was cracking up again, and was on trial for my actions during a recent case. But what I did during the court martial - lashing out angrily at Janet and blacking her eye....," Hannah said, pausing and staring into space before swallowing hard and composing herself. "That was the worst point in my entire life. After that I was out of the Avengers, Jan divorced me, and my life spiralled downwards." "That's when you most needed to come and see me. I could have helped." "I couldn't face you, or anyone else I was too ashamed of what I'd done. At my lowest point my old foe Egghead recruited me into his Masters of Evil. I turned against them of course. Why, even as far as I'd fallen, he thought I would ever help him against Jan and the other Avengers I'll never know. It was when I defeated his Masters of Evil that I turned a corner. That was when I started my long climb back up out of the pit I'd dug for myself." "And did that work?" "Well enough for Jan and I to reach the point where we could be friends again and, eventually, lovers. And yet, there was still something standing between us, even then, even when we seemed to have put our past behind us. When my biggest, darkest secret came out, the thing I was ashamed of and had never admitted to anyone, that should have resolved everything. There was nothing else left to reveal after that...or so I thought." "That secret involved Ultron." "Yes. The Vision was programmed with Wonder Man's brain patterns, Jocasta achieved self-awareness after being given an imprint of Jan's brain-patterns, yet no one ever asked where Ultron's personality came from. The process I used and which he adopted requires copying the brain-patterns of an actual human being. Ultron was my first prototype, my first real attempt at creating an artificial intelligence with that process. Surely it's obvious whose brain-patterns I would use for such an attempt?" "Your own." "My own. The process creates a unique individual yet one who is still to a greater or lesser degree an echo of their progenitor, who still shares character traits with them. So if Ultron was a genocidal monster with an Oedipal complex, what did that make me?" "It was after Ultron laid waste to the country of Slorenia, slaughtering every last man, woman, and child, that I snapped. At giant size and wearing adamantium knuckle-dusters, I laid into him, pounding him into scrap, seeing nothing but a blood-red haze of fury and hatred. That's when the secret came out. That's what everyone assumed was the thing I'd been suppressing that had been causing my breakdowns. Even I believed it. But we were all wrong. My psychological problems worsened not long after this when, during an encounter with the sorcerer Kulan Gath, I was temporarily transformed and the aggressive, alternate personality I assumed during the breakdown when I'd first become Yellowjacket reemerged. The subsequent attempt to break the spell resulted in another Henry Pym being created from the extradimensional bio-mass I draw on when I grow. So then there were then two of me - the ultimate split personality - with one reflecting my thoughtful, scientific aspect and Yellowjacket reflecting the impulsive, over-compensating aspect. When Kang the Conqueror invade our time period, we began to deteriorate from being apart. Fortunately, we were restored when the Jan helped us realize that we needed each other, that alone neither of us was a complete individual. I believed the integration of our personalities had finally enabled me to resolve my past problems, and I told everyone I was cured. Not quite, as it happens. After the disbanding of the Avengers in the wake of the attack on us by the Scarlet Witch - the real one - Jan and I left the team for one last attempt to re-kindle our relationship, this time in England. It didn't work. And the very night we called it a day, I was kidnapped and replaced by the shape-shifting Skrulls. I was gone for months, long months during which I had a lot of time to think about our relationship, and where it had all gone so wrong." Hannah was silent for a while after this and Samson did not say anything either. She was on the verge of something important, and he knew better than to say anything that might get in the way of what could be a crucial point in the session. "Everyone thought I only ever hit Jan once in anger," said Hannah, "even Jan thought that, but there was another time, not far into our marriage. It was during the Project Atavus affair, in the early stages of the Kree-Skrull War. As we approached a Kree outpost in Alaska, on the edge of the arctic circle, riding tandem on a large dragonfly, I realised we were being bathed in rays radiating from it, rays of unknown effect. Wanting Jan out of harm's way, I rendered her unconscious and sent her back on the dragonfly while I continued on." "How did anger come into it?" "The Yellowjacket costume I wore then had stingers - basically neural disruptors - built into the gloves that I could've used to shock her into unconsciousness. Instead I hit her with the back of my hand, hit her hard enough to knock her out. I didn't need to, but I did. I rationalised it to myself later, and though annoyed I'd sent her back Jan accepted my reason for doing so, but I remember what I was feeling when I hit her. I was feeling anger and resentment towards her. I loved Jan, and I always will, but I also resented her. I just wasn't self-aware enough to know why, not then." "Ah, I begin to see. So when you took on the name and identity of the Wasp after Jan's death there was more to it than just honoring her." "Yeah, there was, and I might have figured it out sooner if I hadn't been kidnapped and replaced. Ultron - it's always Ultron - had waved it in my face, or rather my imposter's face, only a few weeks earlier, when he infected Tony Stark." "I don't know any more about that case than I read in the press. Care to fill me in?" "That's not much different to how I first heard about it myself, remember, when I was catching up with all I'd missed. I'd already been transformed into a woman by the time I got round to reading a pirated copy of the Avengers Case File on the incident. What I read came like a punch to the gut." - 6 - When Jocasta had offered Hannah her arm she had taken it, and the two of them were now walking through Central Park on this gloriously sunny Manhattan morning, heading for a coffee stall they both liked. Hannah had let Jocasta choose her outfit again - ironically, the robot had a better fashion sense than she did having inherited this along with Jan's brain patterns - and was now attired in a tiny pleated skirt, fishnets, strappy three inch heels, a silk blouse, man's necktie, short leather jacket, large hoop earrings, and a beret. It wasn't a combination that would have occurred to Hannah, but it definitely worked. Whenever she let Jocasta choose her clothes, Hannah always seemed to end up in heels and a skirt. She liked Hannah to show off her legs and Hannah was happy to indulge her. This was also why she had started wearing make-up. Jocasta had spent a lot of time studying human behaviour and had developed some quite firm ideas on how an adult human female should present herself. To an outsider it might seem odd that she was taking lessons in how to be a woman from a robot, but Hannah trusted her judgment and was grateful for her help. "Did you tell Doctor Samson?" asked Jocasta. "That I'm happier now, as a woman, than I've ever been? Yes, yes I did. I told him I wouldn't change back even if I could. He didn't seem surprised." "We have arrived," said Jocasta, as they came upon the coffee stall, which was near the Central Park lake. She pulled a chair out from one of the tables for Hannah, then seated herself in the chair opposite. "Take your orders?" said the waitress, arriving at the table. Then her mouth opened in an 'O' of surprise as she got a good look at Jocasta. "Y..you're..." she gasped. "No," said Jocasta, "I just look like her." Shaken and clearly not quite believing her, she took their orders and went to get the coffees. "You've got to start loading some new identities into your holographic image inducer," chuckled Hannah. "Walking around with Angelina Jolie's face doesn't exactly make you inconspicuous." "You're right," she said, flashing Angelina's famous smile. "A pity. I like looking like her when I'm playing human." "Yeah, I know," said Hannah, looking Jocasta over appreciateively. She really did look good. She was wearing a dark tailored trouser suit, four-inch Manolo Blahnik heels, and had a large pair of sunglasses pushed back on top of her head. "Here are your cappuccinos," said the waitress, returning with the order and placing one in front of each of them "Thanks," said Hannah. Jocasta reached into her purse, fished out a pack of Marlboros, and lit one. Smoking was a new thing for her. She didn't breathe any more than she ate or drank - she would be slipping Hannah her coffee when Hannah had finished her own - but she had recently realized an unplanned consequence of her needing to move air across her artificial larynx in order to produce a fully human-sounding voice was that she was able to simulate smoking. Always looking for things to help her pass when 'playing human', she had decided that this should be part of her guise. With typically methodical thoroughness she then studied actresses smoking in old movies and determined that the one who had smoked the most elegantly was Tippi Hedren in the 1963 Hitchcock movie 'The Birds'. This wasn't something Hannah had ever given any thought to, but Jocasta had adopted Hedren's gestures and way with a cigarette and, Hannah had to admit, she did smoke very elegantly. Sipping her coffee, she smiled as she regarded Jocasta, her friend, lover, and confidante. Despite her beginnings the robot was fully self-aware, an individual with feelings, desires, and thoughts of her own. In her early days she had been severely lacking in self-confidence, but no more. Recently, she had begun increasingly to take charge in their relationship, and Hannah had been happy to let her. Watching Jocasta grow and develop as a person had been one of the great joys of Hannah's life. "Did you tell Doctor Samson about the epiphany you had when you read the report on Ultron's latest attack on the Avengers?" asked Jocasta, picking up their conversation where they had left it. "Of course," said Hannah. "I was amazed Tony Stark had been stupid enough to integrate a version of his armour into his very body. That was just asking for trouble. When Ultron's A.I. infected it he was able to transform Tony's body along with the armour, and it was when I learned what he transformed into that I knew it was aimed at me." "A version of Janet, albeit one with metal skin," said Jocasta. "Ultron's mind is based on my brain patterns," said Hannah, "and he was taunting me, showing me that in those patterns he had found something about me that I had never acknowledged. I loved Jan, yes, and I always will. What I'd never admitted to myself was that I also wanted to *be* her. I was wracked with guilt over creating Ultron, but this is what lay at the root of all my problems. You can't bury something that fundamental about yourself without the stress it causes you coming out in other ways, you just can't." "I'm glad everything is finally resolved and you are whole and happy for the first time," said Jocasta, placing a hand over Hannah's. "From now on everything is going to be alright." "Yes, I really think it will be," laughed Hannah. In that moment in Central Park, bathed in the warm sunlight of a beautiful morning, she truly believed it would be. And all was right with her world. The End. ************************************* Sources: 1. SECRET INVASION: REQUIEM. This is the one-shot in which Hank renames himself the Wasp. It also has reprints of Jan's first ever appearance and of the court martial in which he strikes her. 2. AVENGERS #90. This is the issue where they're flying on a dragonfly in Alaska and Hank knocks Jan out. It's all there on page 13 panel 6. 3. AVENGERS #161 & 162, and #170 & 171. The first appearances of Jocasta, as heavily referenced above. 4. Various other Avengers issues lightly referenced. Most significant recent run is MIGHTY AVENGERS #21-up which features Hank's new team, as brought together by the disguised, transgender Loki. At the time of writing #27 was the most recently published issue. This story accords with everything up to that point.