It was just after midnight when the call came into the Avengers Academy. A group of wealthy people attending a major charity fundraiser had been taken hostage by a group of supervillains. Hank made the call that, since the case was delicate, he, Hawkeye and Tigra would go. They hopped in a Quinjet and took off for the scene.

Greer couldn't help but notice that Giant-Man seemed tense.

Clint walked up to his longtime ally. "There'll still be plenty of time, Hank," he said.

"I'm looking for a needle in a haystack," Hank said. "My lifetime may not be enough time, let alone today. But I've got to know the truth. She deserves that, and today is one of those days that it would be really nice to get her what she deserves."

Hawkeye patted Hank's shoulder and returned to his seat. "What's going on?" Greer asked.

"I'll tell ya later," Clint said.

They arrived at the event center. As team leader, Giant-Man approached the incident commander for the police. "What's the situation?" Hank asked.

"We've got about 20 people held hostage by this group calling themselves the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime," the commander said.

Hawkeye rolled his eyes.

Hank looked grim. "Today of all days," he said.

"What's he talking about?" a nearby officer said. "It's the middle of the night."

Hank scanned the building's exterior. "Clint, give me a lift through that window. Greer, you and Clint are my backup. Wait here."

Hank shrank to insect size and rode Hawkeye's arrow through the gap in a top floor window. He made his way downstairs and snagged most of the circus from behind before they knew what hit them. All that were left were the Ringmaster , Princess Python and the Crime Clown - and the princess' python was in the group he'd already gotten.

As the trio turned toward him, Hank grew to giant size and snagged both the Ringmaster's hypno-hat and the Clown's can gun. He crushed the hat and snapped the gun like a twig as he blew the Clown's unicycle out from under him. A finger tap knocked out the Clown and Princess.

Hank shrank to eight feet, grabbing the Ringmaster by a lapel. He punched the man in the face several times. "Today? " he shouted. "You had the nerve to do this today?" Then he threw the Ringmaster on the floor.

Hank turned to the ex-hostages. "Head out, folks and get the police in here. I need to get back to work, and these idiots can't hurt you any more."

Once back at the academy, Hank turned to Clint. "You know where I'll be," Hank said.

Once Hank was out of earshot, Greer said, "Clint what is going on? I've never seen Hank like that."

Hawkeye sighed. "Today would have been his and Jan's wedding anniversary … You know, if things were different."

"Oh," said Greer. "But why was he so hard on those super-creeps? They were pretty small potatoes."

"It's complicated," Clint said. "The world thought Hank was dead when he married Jan under his new Yellowjacket identity. The Ringmaster thought that would be an ideal time to hit the Avengers and crashed the wedding."

"And now they hit him on his anniversary again," Tigra said.

"It's more than that - but, like I said, it's complicated," Hawkeye said.

"But where's he going?" Tigra said.

Clint sighed, looking after where Hank had gone. "He's going to spend every moment he can today looking for her - for Jan."

"I thought he'd moved on," Tigra said.

Clint shrugged. "There's moving on and there's moving on. He's learning - maybe learned - to live without her again, but he's never stopped loving her. Besides, he still doesn't really know where she is, or if he can get her back. He needs to at least know."

"But, for all we know, there are infinite numbers of universes," Tigra said, "How will he find her, and how would he know it's really her and not some other universe's version of her?"

"We're into super-science mumbo jumbo there," Clint said. "According to Hank, Jan's death left some kind of unique energy signature or vibrations or something, and there's something that will show she belongs in this dimension the sensors can pick up."

"He's just gonna spend as much of the 24 hours as he can in there?" Greer asked.

Clint nodded sadly. "It's as close as he can come now to spending the day with her," he said.

Twenty-two hours crawled by for Hank. He went with no sleep; that used to come easily when he had a project he wanted or needed to do, but it wasn't as easy now. Hank was by no means old, nor even middle-aged, but he was starting to get beyond youth.

It was shortly before 11 p.m. when the signal came in. Hank was surprised - astonished - to receive a signal from another dimension. There was a message file, and some sort of additional data dump, but it needed a password Hank didn't have.

Then he opened the message. At the same time, his heart beat again for the first time in months and his blood ran cold.

Hank hit the speaker button. "All staff, report to the search room," Hank said. "Code Red! All staff report to the search room."

The team was there in minutes. "What's up?" Hawkeye said.

Hank hit a button as he said, "This."

On the room's biggest monitor screen, an image appeared. In the foreground was a frighteningly familiar figure. It was unmistakably Ultron - looking a bit worse for wear than when they last saw him, but it was clearly him just the same.

But none of the faculty looked long at Ultron. All of them knew the person in the background. Pietro was shocked at what he saw. Greer was torn between joy and terror. And Clint just couldn't believe his eyes.

"Oh, my God," said Clint. "That's Jan!"

"Yes," said Hank. "But you can see she's still glowing purple, which means she's still toxic. Let me start the message."

Hank hit another button, and the images began to move. Staticky sound came from the speakers.

"Hello, Father," Ultron said. "Whether you are the first to receive this message or not, I assume it will be relayed to you. As you can see, I have succeeded where you have failed. I have found and revived your beloved Janet. I will gladly restore her to earth - but only if you will come to me and acknowledge my superiority."

"My God, she's still growing," Greer said.

"What's that thing around her neck?" Clint said.

"This signal will follow a homing beacon to your dimension," Ultron continued. "You can use it to come here, and I can use it to send Janet home. I will await your answer - but don't wait too long. As you can see, I won't be able to keep her here with me forever. Soon she will outgrow this dimension and into another - and then, you may never find her again."

The image froze. "That's where the signal ends," Hank said. I've got the coordinates. There was a sort of data dump that came in with the signal, but it's got a password, and I can't open it."

Pietro was at the console before any of the others could blink. "Hank, did you see the coded information the data dump came in with?"

Hank nodded. "It says it's from Jocasta,"

"Makes sense," Greer said. "The last time we saw Ultron, he had one of Jocasta's avatars with him, and he was in Underspace, where he could have accessed others. They're probably what he made the collar out of, and the broadcasting equipment, along with bits of himself."

"How big is she?" asked Clint.

Hank sighed. "Hard to tell," he said. "She's growing more slowly than in the video of her … death, but it appears Ultron is a lot of miles in front of her. I'm guessing she's probably on the scale of mountains, at least."

"She didn't appear to be in pain any more," Tigra said.

"Maybe slowing her growth took that away," Clint said.

"That collar's probably what's slowing her growth, and may even be keeping her alive and/or from blowing up again," Hank said. "Look, I've got a plan, but I need you to be ready to take things over here."

"You're not going to go," Greer said."

"Tigra's right," said Clint. "He just wants you there to gloat. He'll send Jan through toxic either way, and then he'll wipe out humanity and Jan will die again."

"Hank," said Pietro. "This data has Jocasta's encryption code on it. I don't think Ultron sent it. This looks viral - as in sent from a virus Jocasta put in Ultron, not a virus he was trying to send to us."

"Hey, Hank, zoom in on Jan's face," Clint said. "Greer, check this out."

"What is it?" Tigra asked.

"Jan's just staring at the camera, or whatever it is - not vacantly, though. More like intensely."

"Yeah," said Greer. "Hey, what are these distortions on her forehead?"

"Distortions?" Hank said, bolting to the screen.

"Yeah, right below her hairline, in line with her eyes," Clint said.

"Her antennae!" Hank said. "Jocasta rebooted her antennae!"

"Huh?" said Greer.

Hank was hitting keys on a keyboard. "Jocasta knew her consciousness could be used to reboot Jan, and knew Ultron knew it," he said as he worked. "She must have known what he'd do to her, too. When he used her, destroyed her, she uploaded some instructions to Jan to find a signal to us for a password, and she knew the word Jan would want to use to talk to me. She also gave Ultron a virus so the data dump could be sent. I'm guessing it's what we need to know to get Jan home safely."

Hank looked at the results of his work. "I knew it!" he said. "She's signaling in Buzzword."

"Buzzword?" said Pietro.

"It's code she worked out right after she first became the Wasp, to communicate with our antennae in case radio communication failed," Hank said. "She's sending tha call signal - Morse code for B-U-Z-Z . I'm betting the password for the data is the reply, again in Morse code.

Hank bit the keys to send the Morse signal. On the screen appeared the letters L-O-V-E.

He looked at the others, smiling. "She was a flirt even then," he said.

"The file's opening," Pietro said.

"Right," Hank said. He glanced over it. "Well, this could get her home, but it doesn't look like Jocasta got all the bugs worked out. "

He turned around. "OK, team. I need one of you to contact Reed Richards. He's an expert in dimensional travel and can help with that stuff while I'm gone - and do it if I don't get back. Somebody else get ahold of Stephen Strange."

"Dr. Strange?" said Hawkeye. "Why?"

"Thor's portal to save Earth from the growth bomb in Jan was magical, and that seems to have stumped Jocasta a bit," Hank said. It may affect what we can do to get her home. Besides, Stephen is a medical doctor, too and we need one of those as well. His presence kills two birds with one stone."

Hank turned to Pietro. "In my closet is a box marked 'Last Day.' There's a Yellowjacket uniform in it. Bring it here, and make sure you get everything in the gloves."

Pietro nodded and was back with the uniform before it fully registered on anyone else that he was gone.

"Sorry to ask, but I need a quick change," Hank said. It was complete almost as soon as he finished the sentence.

"With luck, I'll take Ultron out," Hank said. "Without it, I'll at least buy Reed and Stephen some time. Either way, thanks, folks. It's been an honor, and one I hope to continue."

Clint looked at the clock. He grinned. "Hey, Hank," he said, "Happy anniversary."

Hank nodded. "I hope to relay the message. Send me now."

"Sending," said Clint.

"Godspeed, Hank," said Greer.