Hank felt the odd pulling and squeezing that accompanies dimensional travel for what, to him, was a few seconds. Then he was there, floating in a void, alive because of the equipment in the suit he wore, with Ultron yards away, hovering above a landscape he knew was, in fact, his ex-wife.

Hank instantly willed himself up to his maximum height.

"Preparing for a fight, Father?" asked Ultron, through Hank's headset. You will lose this time, you know."

"No, Ultron," Hank said. "I acknowledge that you've outdone me, and I know all of what that means. I just wanted Jan to be able to see me before … the end."

"I know you've missed her," Untron said. "Go to her. Let your last embrace be the death of you."

Hank, now big enough for Jan to see and recognize, flew over to her. Jan's eyes, now hundreds of feet across, widened. "Hank?" she said.

Hank nodded, then sent the signal B-U-Z-Z in Morse code through his headset.

Tears, each the size of a waterfall's load, flowed from Jan's eyes. L-O-V-E, she sent back.

Hank moved in.

"No, Hank!" Jan said. "I'm still toxic! I'll kill you!"

Hank held out his right gauntlet. Jan could just make out a control the likes of which she had seen only once before, on the day she died - a day that, for her, was still only hours ago. She looked quizzically at her ex-husband.

"Not like what he did," Hank said. "Quite the opposite, in fact."

Hank clicked a button, but not the one the Skrull "Yellowjacket" had hit.

Suddenly Jan stopped glowing purple and growing - and Hank started to. He screamed, the agony Jan was now spared by the collar flowing through him.

"What?" Ultron said. He had time for nothing more. Hank reached a rapidly growing arm to Ultron, swallowing his wayward creation in the purple haze of toxins and out of control energy. The machine was demolished with less than a pinch.

"Hank!" Jan said. "Are you all right?"

"Just buying you time," Hank said. "Skrull tech … had a failsafe … so if you …somehow fought off the bomb … he could temporarily … channel the energy … into himself … and fulfill his mission."

Jan looked at herself. "I've stopped growing," she said, "But I can't shrink."

"Bomb's still in you," Hank said. "Got to get it out. Working on way … Got Reed and Dr. Strange … helping at home."

"Hank, you're in agony!" Jan yelled. "Believe me, I know! Let me take back the energy. With the collar, it doesn't hurt any more."

"NO! yelled Hank, who was now nearly as big as Jan. "Every second I take this buys Reed and Stephen more time. I've got to get you home! We're … too close to that now."

"Hank," Jan said, "I love you."

Hank grinned down at Jan. "I love you, too," he said. "That's my limit. Got to send it back to you."

Jan nodded. "Do it," she said.

Hank did, immediately slipping down to his normal maximum size.

"How big are you?" Jan asked, sounding anxious. It was a tone Hank wasn't used to in her voice.

"My max," he answered.

"Oh, God, you look like a bug!" Jan said. "I'm so big - and getting bigger again."

"Jan, I hate to do this, but I've got to leave you here right now," Hank said. "But that's so we can get you home."

"I know," she said.

Hank thought for a moment. "Oh, by the way," he said, "Happy anniversary."

Jan looked panic-stricken. "What?" she said.

Hank was confused. "Some time has passed back home since you were last conscious," he said. "Today would have been our anniversary - you know, without the divorce and you dying, and all."

"Oh, God, Hank, you scared me," Jan said. "That Skrull bastard - I realized right before I died that an "anniversary gift' he gave me was the growth bomb he put in me."

"I - I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Jan smiled. "No way you could, lover. Now go. Get me home."

Hank readied to send himself back. "We'll get you home soon, Jan," he said.

"I'm holding you to that, big guy," she said.

"Soon!" Hank said as he hit the send signal.

"Soon!" he heard Jan answer as he felt the tugging and squeezing begin again.

In a few seconds, Hank was back in the academy's search room. He practically dived to the communications console. As the others asked a flurry of questions about him and Jan, his fingers flew around the keyboard.

With a final click, he said into a microphone, "Jan, can you hear me?"

"Hank! Yes, lover!" came a garbled but identifiable voice.

"Good!" Hank said. "Honey, we can only use this link for short bursts, and I need to get to work on getting you home, but there are others here who want to talk to you."

"Hank," said Jan, "Remember; soon."

Hank chuckled. "Definitely soon," he said. "I love you."

"Oh, I love you, too!"

He turned to the other faculty. "A warning light will give you a minute's notice. Don't go over. This is our only link to get her home. We burn it out, we've lost her again."

All three nodded. Pietro was already at the mic as Hank left. "Hello, Janet," he said.

"Pietro!" Jan said. "It's so good to hear another familiar voice!"

"Jan! It's really you!" said Tigra.

"Greer! How are you, girlfriend?"

"Furry as usual. Jan, there's so much to tell you when you get back."

Clint walked up "Hey, Janny," he said.

"Clint!" Jan said, obvious joy in her voice. "Oh, God, it's good to hear you! How are you?"

"Good," said Clint. "You OK?"

"As well as can be expected," Jan said.

"Janny, Hank just missed you," Clint said. "The ship full of freed prisoners landed just after you … well, died."

"Oh, God! Poor Hank,"

"There were a lot of others there, too Jan," Clint said. "One of them was Bobbi."

"Bobbi? Your Bobbi?"

"It was the Skrull double who died," Clint said. "Bobbi's alivc."

"Oh, Clint, I'm so glad for you.," Jan said.

"Yeah, me, too," Clint said. "Now I'm glad for you and Hank, too."

A red light began flashing on the console. "We've gotta go so we don't burn out the link, Jan," said Greer. "We'll get you home as quickly as we can."

"I'm looking forward to it," Jan said. "See you soon."

Meanwhile, Hank entered the lab to find Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Strange already there. "Reed, how'd you get here so fast?"

Reed pointed a thumb to Strange. "Stephen gave me a lift. Hank, this data is fascinating … and troubling."

"Tell me about it," Hank said to Reed. He looked to Strange. "Thanks, Stephen," he said.

"Anytime," said Stephen.

Over the next 12 hours, Hank made short contacts with Jan every three hours to give her updates on progress.

On the first of those calls, Jan confirmed what Hank had suspected: Her consciousness went straight from when Thor tossed her exploding body into the dimensional portal to when she woke up wearing Ultron's collar. She had no knowledge of how Ultron did it, other than that he used the Jocasta avatar he had with him, and possibly Jocasta herself - and she only knew that much because Jocasta, even in death, had managed to implant some knowledge into her mind to aid her in her own rescue.

Jan said, "Hank, I'm so big, a planet I'm near is smaller than my boob."

Planetary boobs, Hank thought, having to fight off arousal to focus on the moment at hand.

"I don't think I have any gravity, though," Jan said. "Nothing's moving toward me."

"Your molecules are too diffuse," Hank said. "You're almost ghostlike."

"There's a happy thought," Jan replied.

"Sorry," Hank said, yawning.

"Hank, when did you sleep last?"

"I'll sleep when we've got you home. I've got to go, honey. We'll get you home soon."

"Soon," she said.

Six hours later, Jan said, "Hank I'm a little bit bigger than this galaxy nearby. It's so beautiful - and so fragile. If it weren't for the price to do so, I'd wish you could see it."

Hank's face went grim. They were running out of time. "Honey, next call I'll give you instructions. We'll get you home yet today."

"That IS soon," Jan said, delight in her voice.

"Jan, I'm not going to kid you," Hank said. "We're having to do this too fast. We'll get you back, I'm sure of that. But it's going to be rough. I'm not sure … I'm not sure you'll be just like you were … or able to function completely normally. I mean, you won't be handicapped or anything, but your size -"

"Is THAT all?" Jan said. "Hank, you've been trapped as a giant and I've been trapped at bug-size. If I'm stuck at an odd size, or have something weird happening with my size control, I'll deal with it. At least I'll be alive, and back on Earth."

"We'll do it, Honey," he said. "Next message will be homecoming plans."

"I can't wait," she said.

Hank went down the hall to Reed and Stephen. "It's crunch time," he said. "She's gone galactic."

Reed took a deep breath. "Then we're running out of time. We're not going to be able to perfect resizing her."

"I know," said Hank. "The Skrulls really screwed things up with that purple energy-toxins mix. We can delete it, but we can't get a proper fix on her to get her home at the right size because of it. Have we been able to narrow the range any?

"I'm afraid not," said Reed. She could still come through as everything from submicroscopic to mutligalactic."

"Stephen, you're sure the deletion process will work safely?"

"As much as I can be," Strange said.

"She'll be able to shrink and return to her base height, but that base height will be unstable until she's through," Reed said. "And her shrinking range will be limited."

"I know," said Hank. "Give me an alternative,"

"I may have one," said Stephen. "But I'm not sure you'll like it."

Hank gestured to Strange. "You have the floor."

This time Strange rook a deep breath. "I can get Janet back by reopening Thor's original portal - the one he created with his Uru hammer to save Earth from Janet. That will bring her home, but it would lock her size where it was just before she went through the portal."

"But she was skyscraper-sized at the time," said Reed.

Stephen shrugged. "Better than submicroscopic or multigalactic," he said.

"Reed, I know the relative scale of things," Hank said. "With what Jan will have left, she'll be able to function with normal humans when we get her back this way, and, with luck, she'll even be able to reach a human size."

Reed nodded. With Hank's experience at size-changing, he knew what he was talking about. "So, we'll dimensionally shunt all the Skrull elements and any suspect Pym particles, which will limit Jan's powers, then Stephen will reopen Thor's portal to bring her home. Will we need to be in New York to do that?"

"No, said Stephen, "But Janet will be exhausted and huge when we get her back. She may sleep for a day or even two. With her on that scale, we should avoid a populated area."

"We can take Quinjet to a place in the desert," Hank said. "There's an old lab site of mine from when I was first working with growth serums there. We can bring Jan back there, and do the work inside once she shrinks. The shunting can be done from here, then we can do the rest there."

"I'll take the point here," Reed said. "Hank, you should be there when she gets in."

Hank smiled an exhausted smile. "Wouldn't miss it," he said.

As soon as he could, Hank called Jan. "Honey?"

"Hank, I don't want to rush you, but I don't think we have much time," Jan said. "Some of the smaller galaxies are starting to turn into single pinpoints of light."

"The trip is minutes away," Hank said. "The go signal is, 'Soon is now,'"

Jan laughed. "I love it," she said.

"If you're ready, the reply is the same."

"Got it."

"See you soon, Honey."

"Yeah, soon," said Jan.

For Jan, it was the silence, the waiting, that was the hard part. She had always been a woman of action, working to accomplish a goal, even if sometimes that goal was just ot have a good time. As a super heroine, she was a leader, a strategist. Even in the early days, when she was considered one of the lowest powered superheroes, she acted. She was competent in the lab, having been lab assistant to both her father and Hank; even there, she took part, rather than stay on the sidelines.

Now, this founding Avenger, this team leader, was reduced to playing the damsel in distress - although maybe that should be enlarged to playing the damsel in distress, she thought.

And that was the thing. All she could do, except observe, was to think. In the last batch of hours since her revival, Jan had thought about how she died, and her life with Hank and without him and with the Skrull, and a series of realizations hit her. There were realizations about herself, and her feelings for Hank, and about the Skrull's secret invasion. It was the realizations about herself and Hank that were the most profound, but the key one about the Skrull plot was something she knew she would have to address, if she could figure out how.

But none of that would matter if Hank and the others didn't get her out soon. Jan realized that, to her, the smallest galaxies - the ones that had become single points of light to her colossal eyes just minutes ago - were now becoming so tiny she couldn't see them any more. She was nearing the point when she would outgrow this universe, and nearing it fast. Once out, the collar either would be useless or, worse, would collapse, leaving her once more a growth bomb and in agony.

Then Jan remembered the impossible things she'd seen Hank do - and he'd said he was being helped by Reed Richards and Stephen Strange. She smiled. They'd get her home somehow, she knew.

At least Jocasta had given her a means of acting on her own behalf, Jan realized, and it was great to finally get to use Buzzword in the field. It wasn't much, Jan realized, but she had been able to do something on her own behalf.

The rest would come when she got home.

Hank was surprised when he got in the Quinjet. In it was not only Stephen, but Hawkeye, Mockingbird and the Invisible Woman.

"Sue? Bobbi? What are you doing here?" Hank asked.

"We're going along," said Sue.

"Yeah," said Bobbi. "Jan's going to need to decompress. Even though it's radically different, Jan's going to been through a trauma here, one that's as much the fault of the Skrull's secret invasion as ours was. In a sense, she's that invasion's last hostage."

"And she'll need women, especially women who've been through it," Sue said. "Besides, there aren't very many members of the superhero wives club, even if two of the three I can think of are technically ex-wives. We've got to stick together."

"That's true. You're the only one of us who isn't an ex-wife," said Bobbi. "Sue, you're weird."

By this time, Hank was buckled in and had launched the Quinjet. "Why are you here, Clint? Won't the academy need you?"

"Not as much as you and Jan," Hawkeye saisd. "Greer and Pietro can handle things for a few hours, anyway."

Hank glanced back at Dr. Strange. "Stephen, have you briefed these three at all?"

Strange shook his head.

"Well, you three need to know something. This process isn't perfect, but we're running out of time, so we've got to get Jan back now - I'm calculating within the next half-hour at most. But we're going to need a large landing zone. The only way we can get Jan back is to bring her through the path she left - at the size she left."

Of the three, Hawkeye was the only one who had been there when Thor had transported Jan. "Holy crap!" he said. "That big?"

"Yeah," said Hank, "and there may be problems with shrinking for her for at least a while."

"I don't get it," said Bobbi.

"It was hard to tell just how big Jan was when she went through because of the stuff the Skrull growth bomb made her body emit," Clint said. She might only have been hundreds of feet tall - or she might have been pushing 2,000."

Clint had never seen Bobbi's eyes so big. Sue had gone slack-jawed as well as wide-eyed.

Hank was starting to bank in. "There's the landing zone." He clicked a control. "Reed, can you read me?""Loud and clear," came Reed's reply.

Hank looked at Stephen, who nodded.

Hank hit the comlink button. "Jan, we're about ready here."

"Do it, Lover," Jan said.

Hank actually blushed at how that sounded. "Jan, this is gonna hurt."

"Bring it!" Jan said.

"Reed! Begin purging!"

"Purging," Reed said.

Jan screamed, then said, "You … weren't … kidding."

"Purging complete in five - four - three - two - one - zero!" said Reed.

Stephen knew his cue. He had the portal open precisely at zero, and pulled Jan back through with eldritch energies. She hovered in the air for a moment, then collapsed gently, like a marionette being lowered to the stage.

As she went down, Jan said groggily, "Air! I'm breathing air! Feels … good." Then she fell asleep.

Hawkeye, Sue and Mockingbird were staring up at Jan'e enormous form. "Holy crap," Clint said.

"She's … huge! Friggin' huge!" Bobbi said.

Sue, knowing Hank's capabilities, turned to him. "How big is she?"

"About 500 feet," Hank said. "That's good."

"That's GOOD?" Clint said.

"At this size, she'll be able to shrink into the range of human heights - albeit just barely," Hank said. Much bigger and she couldn't have done that."

Stephen had been hovering above Jan. He landed by Hank. "I detect nothing foreign with her," he said. "Even though Ultron was artificial, if he were present here, I would perceive him. She's clean."

"The Skrull particles, toxins and energies are all gone, and there aren't any nanites," said Reed through the comlink. "I think it worked, Hank."

"Looks that way," Hank said.

"You look exhausted," Sue said to Hank.

"Haven't slept in about three days," Hank said. "Now I can afford to - and I know where I'm going to sleep. If you folks will excuse me," he looked to Stephen. "I won't bother her, will I?"

Stephen smiled. "She might stir a bit, but that won't be all bad. I suspect she's been waiting for this, too."

Hank nodded and grew to his maximum size. He was still dwarfed by Jan. He crawled into her arms.

Jan opened one eye and smiled sleepily. "Mmmmm, 'Hank the Teddy Bear.' My favorite cuddle game," she said.

"Welcome back, Honey," Hank said.

"I've missed this," Jan said as she drifted back to sleep.

"Me, too," said Hank as he did the same.

Hawkeye shook his head and smiled. "Holy crap," he said again.

Jan was lying on her left side in a fetal position. The group was positioned with a great view of her backside. She was fully clothed in her last Wasp uniform, but the skintight uniform and the sheer scale of her derriere - ascending 100 feet in the air as she lay on her side - left little to the imagination.

Sue started walking around toward Jan's face, a walk that would now take several minutes due to Jan's size. As she did, Clint beckoned to Dr. Strange.

"Doc, are you sure she's really OK?" Clint asked. "I mean, I had a short stretch as Goliath using Hank's serum myself. The size limits aren't due to the serum. There's a limit to how big a person can get and still function using Pym Particles, and Jan's way above that."

"She's fine," Stephen said. "Jan's condition is unique. The Skrulls poisoned her size-changing ability, and Reed and Henry had to limit it as a result to make her safe for a return to Earth.

"But Jan's condition was also affected by how Thor saved Earth, and how we got her back," Strange continued. "Think of it like a reset button on a computer. Jan's base size was reset when she came through the two portals. The old Norse magics have made it so that, to her, her current height of just over 500 feet feels to her as if she were her old unaltered height."

"So she feels like she's 5-foot-4 right now?" Clint said.

Strange nodded. "And shrinking to as close to human size as she can get will feel to her as if she's an inch tall."

Clint shook his head as he looked at Jan's backside. And I once made love to her, he thought. "Holy crap," he said again.

Bobbi started the way the Invisible Woman had gone. "I'm gonna go check on Sue," she said.

Bobbi sprinted around to Sue in about a minute. Mockingbird found Sue staring up at Jan and Hank's sleeping faces, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Look at them, Bobbi," Sue said without shifting her gaze. "They both look so peaceful, so blissful. I've never seen either of them look so happy, so … content, and I've known them a long time."

Sue sobbed violently. Bobbi put her arm around her.

"Sue, maybe this wasn't the best idea for you to come here," Bobbi said. "I mean, that whole business with you and Hank on the Skrull ship -"

Sue shook her head. "No," she said. "Hank and Jan were two of our first superhero friends, and they're both going to be going through more adjustment after trauma. They need both of us here to help them through."

"But if any of them figure out -" Bobbi said.

"They won't," Sue said. "Not Reed, not Jan and not Hank. None of them will know."

Bobbi patted Sue's shoulders. "Well, if you need someone to talk to, I'm here."

Sue patted Bobbi's hand. "Thanks," she said. Then she started wiping her cheeks. "Reed will be here any minute," she said. "I don't want him to see I've been crying."

"He'll just think they're tears of joy for Hank and Jan," Mockingbird said.

Sue sniffled. "Doesn't matter," she said. "I don't want him to see any sign of what I'm really feeling - especially him."