How was Nadia supposed to interpret all this? Where would she even begin? She traced her finger along one of the lab tables, leaving a clean trail behind. The benches were cluttered, but she could see a pattern through the mess. She recognized a bit of herself in her father’s haphazard methods. Did that make her and her father similar? Was it coincidence?
Ying called it Nadia’s “organized chaos.” Nadia didn’t think much about it; she simply didn’t have the time to be tidier. But here she was, in the middle of Hank’s own “organized chaos,” and she wanted it to mean something about Hank. She could make it mean whatever she wanted, she supposed. The truth was somewhere underneath all the dust, but Nadia couldn’t reach it by cleaning.
She did laugh at an ancient box of Lucky Charms, though. Nadia thought they were disgusting brand-new (who wanted to eat that much sugar first thing in the morning?! Americans were wild). Hank, on the other hand, obviously loved them. So he was probably a child at heart. Or a sugar addict. Either way, she was going to need to throw those away. And clean. And do a hundred other things…
Following the light of her headlamp, Nadia wandered over to look at the books. Sometimes, when she was overwhelmed, it helped Nadia to focus in on just one, simple thing—like music, or counting a collection. Nadia began to read the titles off the spines of the books in front of her.
“‘Particle Physics and You,’” she read, trailing her finger down the books’ spines. “‘Feynman’s Lost Lecture,’ ‘The Strange Theory of Light and Matter’…‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’? He liked to cook!” Nadia marveled at this new insight into Hank. She kept trailing down the titles of books, knowing that these would have been her father’s favorites, the ones he referenced again and again. Mostly physics titles.
Of course. Mostly boring fonts and terrible design choices betraying the fascinating worlds they contained.
Except… Nadia’s finger stopped on a book smaller and thinner than the rest. Its spine had nothing on it. It was blank.
She pulled it from the shelf. It was soft brown leather. Nadia twisted it so she could see the front cover. In gold embossed letters was a single word: JOURNAL.
Nadia’s eyes went wide. She was surprised. Knowing what she did about him through Janet, Nadia really didn’t think Hank would be the introspective type—but then, she never really knew him. If he’d been in touch with his own feelings in any way, he might not have been so…Well. You know.
Nadia went to flip open the cover, but stopped herself. This was personal; private on a level that invading a secret laboratory just wasn’t. She hadn’t even been comfortable entering his bedroom until an hour ago. Was it okay for her to open this?
She shook her head. There had been no ghosts in the bedroom; no answers even in the secret lab, really. Hank Pym had been dead a long time. He wasn’t going to complain. Ultimately, there was more to gain by reading it than by leaving it untouched.
Nadia adjusted the light on her headlamp and cracked open the front cover. The first page had a simple bookplate stuck to it. THIS JOURNAL BELONGS TO…There was a name inscribed below in clear, loopy handwriting. Despite its legibility, Nadia had to read the autograph three times before she was sure she had read it right.
Maria Trovaya.
Not Nadia’s father.
Nadia’s mother.
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* Nadia wasn’t exactly well-versed in pop culture, but a fellow bug-themed phenomenon had gotten her attention early on in the cultural crash course she was embarking on with the other G.I.R.L.s.
* Trinkets, usually useless but often sentimental. Much as Nadia loved efficiency and disliked things that were useless, sentimentality was a new sensation that she felt taking root in her heart more with every saved ticket stub and treasured artifact that served as a reminder of the many good days she’d had since escaping the Red Room.
* Mostly Nancy Drew.
When Nadia felt sad or alone or confused or in particular need of some serious experimentation time, she needed to know that she could be alone. Really and truly alone. Not in the house, where Dedushka could stop by unannounced at any moment alone. Not in the lab, where Shay was probably listening to Beyoncé (Shay had made sure Nadia was fully up-to-date on her Beyoncé). Not even in her therapist’s office, which was probably the healthiest kind of alone that Nadia could be right now.
But she couldn’t think about therapy or the coping mechanisms that she relied on in the world at large (literally); Nadia just wanted to take this journal, and she wanted to be alone.
There was only one place she could really go for that. And it was even smaller than Hank Pym’s secret laboratory.
Clutching her mother’s journal—her mother’s journal—in one hand, hardly even feeling it against her chest, Nadia fumbled with the front zipper on her Wasp suit. She lowered the zip just enough so that she could reach beneath it and feel around for…
There. A chain. Nadia tugged, pulling the necklace through the gap in her zipper. With an extra tug, the charm on the end of the chain popped free: a small pink crystal, glowing with an extra-dimensional light from within. She never went anywhere without it, lately.
Nadia gently set the crystal down by her boot, then zipped her suit back up, adjusted her helmet, and pressed the button by her thumb.
Already tiny, Nadia shrank.
And shrank.
And shrank.
And shrank.
She became so small that she could see the space between the atoms that made up the pink crystal. She watched them vibrate and separate and swirl and meet and part. She held the journal out in front of her. And, with it, she walked right into the crystal.