Sue Storm Comes Out To The Wasp

Janet van Dyne's apartment in Manhattan looked as if much of it was made from cut crystal glass. It was new, spotless, futuristic, and every single surface seemed to double as a screen. The Wasp had the champagne open before Sue sat down, and Sue accepted a glass of the bubbly gratefully.

"So," Sue Storm said without preamble. "I'm gay."

Bubbles did not fly out of Janet's nose, but her eyes widened a little, showing more of the whites. The brunette was dressed in what passed for pajamas: a slinky black outfit of raw silk that hung off her body. Janet was a few inches shorter than Sue, petite, her dark hair in a pixie cut, her eyes that shade of blue that can look grey depending on the light, like deep ice. When full-sized, Janet's wings weren't visible, but Sue knew they were there, between her shoulder blades, and the pajamas had slits in the back so that they could emerge if the Wasp needed to shrink.

"Okay," Janet said, as she reached for a bowl of fresh strawberries. "And how did you discover that?"

Sue explained, in between steps. How sex with Reed had petered out. The stress she'd been holding. The referral to Dr. Stone. The massages with Nairobi, the date. Dr. Stone telling her to be an ethical slut. It all came out, not as a ramble, but putting it together the way Sue did, she remembered details she had forgotten or overlooked, made connections that she hadn't before.

Janet van Dyne made connections, too.

"I've never heard of this Dr. Stone," Janet said with a frown.

"She was recommended—approved—" Sue said.

"And you don't find it suspicious that you only discovered you like women after you started meeting with her?" Janet said, raising one eyebrow. "Sexual attraction doesn't work that way, Sue. Awareness, maybe, but not attraction."

"What would you know about it?" Sue asked.

"Because I'm bi, Sue," Janet said levelly. "I've had sexual encounters with men and women."

Sue paused, a strawberry in her mouth.

"It's not something I put out there. But I've always found women beautiful. Sometimes that led to things. Sometimes it didn't," Janet said with a shrug that was almost French in its elegance of meaning. "But the thing is, people don't just flip a switch and become gay. You don't wake up and discover that dick has lost its allure. Your psychiatrist, from the sound of it, has been manipulating you. And the whole thing with the glowing eyeglasses...that seems suspicious."

Sue had no response to that. Now that Janet pointed it out, more memories surfaced. The odd way she couldn't remember all of her sessions in detail. Dr. Stone's nosebleeds. The glowing glasses. It all seemed to go together.

"Does this mean I'm not gay?" Sue said.

"No," Janet said firmly. "No one flips a switch and becomes gay. Sexuality is a spectrum; you were always a bit gay, you just hadn't acted on any impulses except heterosexual ones. Whatever this Dr. Stone person has been doing, they may have pushed and manipulated you, but the feelings and desires are real. And they're something you and Reed and this Nairobi person are going to have to deal with."

"After," Sue Storm said firmly. "I do something about Dr. Stone."