The Wasp's New Nest

Janet awoke -- and panicked.

She sat up instantly, clutching the bedsheet to her bare chest with one hand, holding the other hand outstretched, summoning the strength to hurl a bolt of energy at whoever or whatever had spirited her to this strange place. For this certainly was not her own room; she couldn’t afford silky sheets like this, or this big four-poster bed (complete with canopy), or that beautiful dressing table with the ornate mirror …

The glow around her hand died as the last wisps of sleep drifted from her mind. Oh, right, she told herself. I’m an Avenger now.

Her instinctive terror at awakening in a strange place gave way to a rising sense of glee. She was an Avenger, and had been for weeks, but she still hadn’t gotten over her excitement at being a fellow team member of some of Earth’s mightiest heroes, and she certainly hadn’t gotten over her excitement over getting to live at the Avengers mansion. Yes, this was her nice big four-poster bed, and after she got out of it she could take a nice long hot shower in a bathroom that was bigger than her old apartment, followed by a few laps in the gigantic swimming pool, breakfast in the gourmet kitchen, a little mindless morning TV in the gigantic entertainment center, and then maybe, just maybe, a little joyride in the beyond-state-of-the-art, super-fast, super-sleek, no-baggage-check-required, private jet plane …

She let herself flop back into the pillows with a happy sigh. Or, she could sleep late, and then have a nap, followed by a doze, and then an afternoon siesta. It really was a very nice bed; she’d been sleeping in the nude so that she could fully enjoy the feel of the fine sheets against her skin. It was kind of a shame that Hank wasn’t here to help her enjoy them.

The thought of Hank dimmed her mood a little. She’d met him in college, and they’d become fast friends -- but nothing more. He'd utterly failed to make the slightest ghost of a pass at her, despite all of her hints and signals. He just wasn't like normal men; instead of giving her dinner, a movie, and a roll in the hay, he'd given her superpowers. In a moment of crisis (long story there) he’d exposed her to the same body-altering energies that he’d already used once on himself, giving her the ability to increase and decrease her size and mass with a mere thought. As a kicker, he’d given her the ability to pluck energy out of the empty inter-atomic spaces of the universe and hurl it outward in narrow, stinging blasts -- and he’d given her the ability to grow wings on a moment’s notice, after she had shrunk herself small enough to use them.

He’d given her wings. How many women could say that about their guy?

Except that he wasn't her guy, and he definitely wasn't here. The reason Hank wasn’t here was that he was in Wakanda, studying the elusive scientific properties of vibranium, the miracle metal everyone seemed so worked up about. And the reason Hank was in Wakanda, studying vibranium, and not in Janet’s bedroom in Avenger mansion, studying Janet, was that Hank was a scientist. His single-minded drive to push back the boundaries of science, to discover the undiscovered, to solve the unsolvable, was second to nothing else in his life. And that included Janet.

The lab equipment that Tony Stark had given Hank access to was everything he had ever wanted, and more. And then there was the scientific information Shield had shared with them, to assist the Avengers in recapturing the super-villains that had escaped from various extra-extra-high-security facilities around the country -- information that had opened up new worlds of biology and physics for Hank. She couldn’t compete with all of that. So she was here, and Hank was elsewhere. And maybe that was the way it was going to stay.

She let out a breath, then shrugged. Or he might come to his senses any moment and come running back into her arms. There was no sense in lying around brooding about it. She was an Avenger now, and a whole new world of excitement and possibility had opened up to her. With friends like the Avengers, she could go anywhere, do anything.

Or she could go back to sleep. It really was a very nice bed.