2576/Of Ants and Ant-Men

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Of Ants and Ant-Men
Date of Scene: 23 July 2020
Location: SHIELD Medical Facility.
Synopsis: Yeah, she's Hank's kid!
Cast of Characters: Janet van Dyne, Hank Pym




Janet van Dyne has posed:
Whenever someone's in the medical bay, the team takes turns holding watch. Not that they arent' close to the medical staff; not that the medical staff isn't some of the best in the world at their job. It's a spiritual support. Nothing's more terrifying than waking up from a drugged stupor, particularly after a kidnapping or similar ordeal, and being alone. Or facing a suite of nurses in scrubs waiting to swing into action again.

Nadia's passed out in the chair in the corner when Janet comes to attempt to relieve her for the second time. The young woman pushed herself hard and it's hard to ignore the body's demand for rest after an adrenaline dump. Janet herself had managed only a little sleep, and enough time to take a shower and have a drink. She's dressed casually, in low-riding jeans and a flowing, off-the-shoulder black tee. Stylishly strappy brown booties and a few pieces of citrine and diamond jewelry add some flaire, lest someone catch her looking anything less than photo-ready.

Janet leans over Nadia to check her breathing, then with an oddly uncertain expression she tucks the blanket up under Nadia's chin where it had fallen down slightly.

She turns to Hank and moves to sit on the edge of his bed while looking at his vital signs on the readout.

Hank Pym has posed:
Hank Pym opens his eyes. That in itself is a good sign. Those intelligent blue eyes lock with Janet's as she checks his vitals. There's a small pause as he swallows to speak after a long enforced silence. "Janet. Two things if you ever loved me 1) I need coffee, black, three sugars 2) do you see a young cosplayer in that seat playing a Wasp Ant-Man mash up and snoring away? Oh one other thing, take a shot of that monitor panel and let /me/ see it please."

The eyes close for a moment as he swallows and tries to get his mouth working better. "This is my... our Earth, right? You made sure you got the right Hank Pym from that murderous Copy-tron." The eyes open again and he stares at Nadia, trying to work out what is going on with the young woman. He spins off several possible explanations for her, first and foremost being he isn't on exactly the right Earth. Janet training a replacement is the most likely.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet purses her lips, partially in irritation, partially to suppress a smile. "Hank, you'll never change. Awake for ten seconds and already telling me what to do," she advises him. The monitor's very deliberately angled away from him and she pushes it away on its rotating arm so it's helpfully telling the wall all about Hank's heart rate.

"You're you. We've been running blood tests and cell studies. Nanobots are going through your internal organs looking for any cyberware we missed." There's a coffee carafe nearby; Janet pours him some, adds the sugar as requested, and returns to give it to Hank. She doesn't sit this time, folding her arms loosely across her stomach and resting her weight over one hip while she looks down at him.

"So yes. You're very much 'you'. The Hank who neglected to tell me he was *married* before? And had a *child*?"

Injuries be damned-- Janet's clearly been bottling this tantrum up since she first heard the story from Nadia, and now that Hank's awake, it's coming to a head.

Hank Pym has posed:
Hank Pym recognizes that stance and he merely touches the coffee cup to his lips, doesn't drink it till she lets the hammer drop. As a sign of his seriousness. He puts the coffee cup down. "There's a better time for this, like after I've had my coffee."

He takes the moment for the horrible joke to register to work up his response. "We were only married for a week or two before she was abducted and killed. It was my fault really, I thought I could protect her and she-Maria, wanted to go home and see her family. She never did. I didn't think it would be good to bring her up to you. There was nothing anyone could do.

He reaches for the coffee and takes a sip, then does spit some out and begins coughing.

"Child?" he manages to gasp. He looks over at Nadia more intently, examining her features and equipment.

He shakes his head, "No there was no child! This is a ruse or a clone or from a-a parallel Earth. there was no child!" And he is getting up from the bed, pulling sensors off his arms and grabbing for the saline solution IV. He glares at Janet and says, "This is another hallucination of that damned encephalo beam! This is not real. I will dies before I show you how to pierce dimensions you damnable mechanical hack! I will die an Avenger and a man!"

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"Hank. Hank!" Her voice is pitched low and urgent to try and keep him from waking the slumbering Nadia.

When he starts ripping at his IVs and drawing blood, Janet slaps Hank across the cheek. Not hard-- enough to jar him out of his sudden hysterical state. She puts a hand firmly on his chest and pushes him back to the mattress. While Janet might look like the slender former model she is, she is a *lot* stronger than people give her credit for. Partially due to the dubiously ethical genetic tampering Hank himself was a part of.

"If you rip out your IVs, I swear to god I will make them give you a catheter," she threatens him.

Once he stops struggling, she holds for half a second, and then her features soften with regret as well. A hand rests on his cheek apologetically, soothing away the red mark. "I'm sorry. You're hysterical, and the kid's out cold. The last thing she needs is you screaming at her about how she's not really your kid." Janet starts reattaching the sensors and the IV drips. "She moved heaven and Earth trying to get to you. Came to us. Broke into your old lab. Even if she didn't have your nose and eyes, she's got your attitude down pat," Janet says wryly.

A hand flexes in the air, back-and-forth. "You gonna calm down now, or do I go get that big nurse, Bjorn, and tell him you need a new set of tubes?"

Hank Pym has posed:
Hank Pym says after a moment, "Slapping a hysterical person does no good. I wasn't hysterical. Obviously. Maria... what's her name?" he rubs his cheek thoughtfully. "I assume you did a dna test, checked her story... what am I saying. She probably got run through the wringer... did Natasha get to her? Listen, I am getting up and I am taking a closer look at this girl." He gets up, more careful of the sensors. He also turns the monitor back so he can see it. He looks down at Nadia eyes unreadable.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"I don't know. You were raving like a lunatic and possibly terrifying a sixteen year old, and now you're not, so--" Janet shrugs her shoulders once and lets them drop. She looks over at Nadia while Hank stands, standing outside his immediate bubble but close enough to reach out and grab an arm if he starts falling over.

"Nadia," Janet says. "That's all we've gotten from her. I talked to Bobbi-- y'know. Mockingbird. SHIELD's handling their end of things. -Apparently-, she's a defector from the Russians," Janet explains. "She's a trooper. Scrabbled together a suit out of some junk she found in your lab, figured out how to hack that portal open from old lab notes. Flies like she was born to it."

Janet shakes her head minutely. "Bobbi says, she could be some kind of assassin or plant or spy or something, but-- I don't know. I don't see it in her."

Hank Pym has posed:
Hank Pym looks at the sleeping girl. It's not scientific but... "She looks like poor Maria. The age fits... she must be brilliant." He uses the word in its clinical sense. "Assassin doesn't fit. They don't need to send someone who's smart enough to hack my equipment to kill me. They'd send a second rate Natasha. No, if she can hack my gear, she's a resource you do not want to waste. Also... she had ample opportunity to murder me in my sleep... if she'd wake up. This is clinical exhaustion... also she could use a good meal I'm guessing... my god, this is me after one of my up periods!"

A hand covers his mouth. "That isn't known really outside our friends... and Richards. If this kid... Nadia is an assassin... they'd be sending her after Steve, or even Tony. Not me. You could probably take me out with a zamboni as I went out for coffee these days."

He does wobble a little and goes back to the bed. "I've seen a new universe, I may have made universes, I found new elemental particles, I married a beautiful woman and made her a metahuman. I faced an Avengers' court martial, been to Asgard, played poker with a couple gods. However, she did what nothing ever did before... she humbled me. Such... love... and she must be so lost..." He shakes his head.

"She's going to be so disappointed," he almost whispers.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet whirls on Hank and gets in front of him, staring up at him with a sudden intense anger in her green eyes. "That's the last time I better hear you play the pity party in front of her," she seethes. Her voice is pitched low, only for Hank's ears, but the ire coming off of her is almost palpable as heat.

"You don't get to be a disappointment. She's sixteen. She's never had parents. You're her father and she worships the ground you walk on. This isn't some intern you can fire, or a project you can bail on. You can't ship her off to a boarding school to get her out from under your feet."

A pointy index finger jabs Hank's sternum. "So man up, take some pain meds, and slap a smile on your face when she gets up. It will break her heart if she thinks for a *second* you don't want her here. You owe her that much."

Janet exhales through her nose in an effort to calm herself down. "And maybe shave and comb your hair. You look like you've been hiking through Colombia for a week."

Hank Pym has posed:
Hank Pym glares at Janet. "You. Don't. Get. To. Jab. Me. Anymore."

He considers the sensors and looks at the monitor, "I'm fine. I was suffering from dehydration and exposure to an encephalo beam. He... Pym wasn't going to impair me before he got the information he wanted. Then he'd kill me. Now listen... I am removing this saline IV. I am going to drink a lot of water, get a shave and comb my hair and look like a human being when she wakes up. Period. You could hand me wallet, in my pants over there. Pym kept my own Pym particle fields in flux, I have a few things I packed I can access now." He does get up then and start doffing the hospital gown, which really only protects your modesty either coming or going. But he has nothing she hasn't seen before. He carefully removes the sensor leads.

He says cooly, "I understand what I have to do. I'm not going to put my progeny in an ordinary school. I just... for everything I ever achieved, I have an equally immense fuck up. Case in point: you Janet."

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet looks a little abashed at Hank's cold remonstration. Her eyes drop away and she turns her hips away from him as her posture becomes less bellicose, and turns around fully when he starts getting changed. His wallet's retrieved and held over her shoulder, eyes fixed at the far wall.

"I'm the sort of fuck-up that we could fix with a divorce. You can't divorce this one, Hank."

A weary exhalation slips her nostrils and she looks skyward in mute appeal. A hand fingers the pendant at the hollow of her throat, an absent expression of worry and frustration. "She already thinks the world of you. You don't have to pretend to be anything you're not. You just have to be what she expects you to be. Listen, I know--" she glances out the corner of her eye to make sure he's dressed, then turns to him.

"I know I've got zero maternal instincts. But I know what it's like to be a teenager looking for some sense of identity. Stability." She's struggling with the words; emotional introspection doesn't come easily to Janet. "God. I don't know. Just...." She purses her lips, then walks up to Hank and puts her hands on his triceps, looking up at him. "I'm only going to say this once a year, but you're a good guy, Hank Pym." The words and eye contact are earnestly sincere. "You don't have to be a superstar or perfect. Just be that good guy for her, and it'll all work out. I know you can do it."

Hank Pym has posed:
Hank Pym is already in a jumpsuit from his WCA hey day. He reaches into the wallet again and pulls a shaving kit out of it, somewhat like Hermione's bag in those wizard movies. He stops as Janet puts her hand on him. He wants to say, "That divorce didn't fix anything. It just was the easiest way to go on living." Instead "You only told me it once a year before we got divorced too." He peers in the wallet and says, "Hey... that's where this got to. Remember, you went crazy looking for this?" He reaches and snaps a sequined cocktail dress out to full size... "Oh it was that weekend in the Berksh... here!" He quickly tosses it to her and starts shaving.

He doesn't have a problem beard. In fact he gets away with shaving maybe twice a week.

As he finishes, "Thank you Janet. I appreciate what you did for her. I owe you big."

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet catches the dress and examines it on her fingertips. She's shaking her head, though, and flashes a smile at Hank. Not a big one, but it's real enough. "You don't owe me anything, Hank. She's a good egg. Comes from good stock."

She lifts the dress up minutely. "Thanks for this, though. I'll.... leave you two to it. I imagine you've got some talking to do."

Janet looks at the sleeping Nadia in the sitting area once more, with an odd expression, then turns and heads back to the door to Hank's hospital suite and the Avenger's mansion beyond.

Thinking about what, though, is anyone's guess.