Warnings: Veiled references to child sickness, death, and suicide.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Marvel or CW

Author's Note: So umm, surprise? I guess I could spend a whole chapter apologizing and explaining why I haven't posted in so long, but I figure that is a waste of everybody's time. Suffice it to say that I have been busy and that this story has been on my mind for years and that I do hope/plan to continue it.

However, before you guys get too excited, I should point out that this chapter is more of an interlude (hence the chapter title) than an actual continuation of the story. I just felt that since I haven't been all that nice to Pym, nor do I particularly plan to be in the future, I at least owed it to the character to try and explain where he is coming from and what makes him tick.

Also, thank you so much to all of you who posted comments over the last couple of years. If not for you guys, I may not have scraped together enough motivation to continue (go peer pressure!).

In any case, I hope you will enjoy this.

Chapter 9. Interlude

When Hank Pym was six years old, his grandmother took him on a trip to the big city. Years later, he still remembered his excitement as the familiar sights of paddocks, sugar beet fields, and grain silos slowly transformed into small towns with bustling streets and glossy chain stores. By the time they finally drove into Lincoln, the sky had grown dark and his head was buzzing with the glow of the city lights. For three days he and Gran toured the city, visiting museums and eating store-bought sandwiches at the park. And every night when she thought he was asleep, Gran would call home, her voice quiet as she asked how Lizzie's treatments were going and no, don't worry Doris dear, the boy and I are having a grand time.

On the last day of the trip, they went to an art museum. Hank had asked if they could to go back to the science exhibition instead, but Gran insisted, telling him that he needed to broaden his horizon and besides how did he know he wouldn't like it if he didn't even try? So he had walked through the big echoing rooms and dutifully looked at the paintings on the walls, even though he had quickly grown bored. To him, the canvasses looked most of all like his baby sister's finger paintings. Maybe Gran had sensed his fidgeting or perhaps the no-nonsense old dairy farmer had little use for modern art herself, but she had cut the visit short, steering them towards the small museum café. To this day, Hank still did not know how he managed to wander away. All he remembered was finding himself alone at the entrance of a softly-lit section of the museum. A large banner proclaimed it to be a temporary exhibition entitled "Purgatory – Renaissance Masterpieces".

The gallery was dark with shadows clinging to the walls. Only the red, orange, and black canvasses were lighted, and he had felt himself drawn to them like a moth to a flame. At their own volition, his feet had carried him to the centrepiece of the room. At first, the sheer chaos of the intricate scene overwhelmed him. Primal shapes and dark shadows darted across the canvas in a mesmerizing dance of fury and hellfire, painted so lifelike that he could almost see the flames flickering. In the darker patches, obscured by shadows and smoke, small human figures cried out, their faces twisted into masks of pain and despair. For the first time in his young life, Hank Pym felt a stirring of awe and terror deep inside him. Enthralled, he didn't know how long he stood there before a worried Gran found him and ushered him back outside into the warm sunshine.

For weeks after they returned home, he would dream of purgatory; of fire and torment and judgment. Eventually though, the nightmares faded and life moved on. And if Hank suddenly started paying more attention to the Sunday sermons and asked to borrow his grandfather's old bible, well what was the harm in humouring the boy? Besides, his parents had other worries.

The night before Lizzie's funeral, the dream came back. Only this time, she was the one burning, calling out for him to help her, to save her. All through the service, Hank felt a cold coil of shame and guilt twisting inside him from not telling anyone that he had seen his sister suffer. As the small coffin was being lowered into the ground, he sought out Gran whose familiar face suddenly looked so very old and frail as though she had aged a lifetime in a single day. Next to him, he could hear his mother's muffled sobs as the priests threw dirt on the coffin. The weight of his father's hand on his should felt heavy and limp. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

In that moment, Hank realized he had to be strong, that he must never be a burden. Must never cause his parents grief like Lizzie had. With the heat of the sun on his face, he made a silent vow. Then, taking all the shame and the guilt and the anger inside of him, he pushed it down into a dark hole, deeper and deeper, until at last he felt nothing at all. When the priest finished the rites, it was Hank who gave him a solemn nod of thanks.

It was several years before he had the dream again. By then, he had long since outgrown childish fantasies. His grandfather's bible was back to collecting dust on its shelf, replaced by stacks of library books from two counties over on advanced biochemistry and medicine. Gasping, he woke with the taste of ash in his mouth and long-forgotten sense of dread pooling in his stomach. Despite his best efforts to shake the irrational feelings brought on by a silly dream, Hank couldn't help but feeling out of sorts. His daily chores of mucking out the stalls and feeding the animals were suddenly infinitely more tedious, and he almost failed to hide his irritation as he listened to his father's muddled attempt to make the proper arrangements over the phone. He was even short with his mother when he brought her afternoon tea and pills, unable to cope with the soft vacant look in her eyes.

In the end, it was a quiet affair. Most of Gran's friends and acquaintances had already passed or were either living too far away or were too infirm to attend the funeral. This time, it was Hank whose small hand rested firmly on his father's shoulder as the man sat in stony silence. Afterwards, Hank smiled and shook hands and accepted condolences before going to the barn and hitting a bale of hay until his knuckles were bruised and bloody.

He held off going to college for almost three years. It was only Gran's voice nagging at him and the quiet demand of a never-forgotten promise that finally made him drag out the old acceptance letters from Ivy League Universities along with scholarship applications filled out in Gran's handwriting. Hank silenced the guilt of leaving his parents by reminding himself that they had sold off most of the farm, leaving little manual work for his father, and that it would in fact be easier on the family financially once he accepted a full ride.

His mother died in his second year of med school. Hank felt strangely numb as he listened to his father's voice break over the phone. All he could think of was the timid hug his mother had given him the last time he had visited for Christmas and the faint scent of her lotion as she pressed a quick kiss on his cheek. It was only on the drive back to university after the funeral that he realized he hadn't had the dream. Pleased to have finally left the childish nonsense behind, he resolved to double his efforts in his studies. He still had a promise to fulfil.

Hank knew, in a peripheral sort of way, that he was not popular at school. His peers had long since given up on inviting him to social events and even the professors seemed ill-at-ease around him. In fact, the only human he regularly interacted with was the janitor cleaning the labs late at night. He detested any classes that involved patient contact as it took time away from his research and he found himself floundering and awkward when having to reassure or comfort others. He still advanced at record speed, earning glowing praise from his supervisors threaded with carefully worded concerns over his lack of interpersonal skills. His progress wasn't fast enough though. For some reason, he felt he was racing an invisible clock. No matter how hard he worked or how clever he was, the solution remained just beyond his grasp, teasing and mocking him.

The sense of an invisible clock counting down stopped the moment his phone rang and he heard the gruff voice of the local county sheriff at the other end. Because his father had been a longstanding member of the community, the coroner kindly put the cause of death down as accidental even though the road had been straight as an arrow and the tree the only one around for miles. Hank briefly wondered whether he should be feeling guilt for not noticing the signs but dismissed that train of thought as pointless. He stoically accepted the insincere condolences of his superiors and ignored the nosy comments from old neighbours as he packed up the house and sold off the remaining livestock. Yet, no matter how irrational, he could not make himself put up the farm for sale.

The night before returning to his life in the city, he lay in his childhood bed and looked at the familiar constellation of glow-in-the-dark stars his mother had taped to the ceiling when he was a child. The house felt strange, eerily quiet and already giving off a muted air of abandonment. As he slowly drifted off to sleep, he found himself in a familiar dream of fire and damnation. Once again, he was judged and found wanting, only this time his sister and Gran and his parents were also there, watching him with sad eyes as he burned for his sins.

Three months later, a research collaborator sent Hank an email with an attachment. The classified document detailed that the cure for his sister's illness had already been discovered. That it had in fact existed for years, even before Elizabeth had gotten sick. Apparently, it had been tied up in court over an intellectual property rights dispute and was only now being moved forward for final FDA approval. If all went well, it was expected to be released for clinical use within a year.

Hank Pym dropped out of medical school the next day.

Feeling completely adrift and with the shocked protests of his closest supervisor still ringing in his ears, he found himself in one of the many local college bars and for the first time in his life decided to get thoroughly drunk. As it turned out, it was the best decision of his life.

She had auburn hair, blue eyes, and the prettiest smile he had ever seen. She said her name was Janet and he offered to buy her next drink. Her razor-sharp wit made him laugh for the first time in what felt like forever and the brush of her hand felt like lightning.

In the days and weeks that followed, he found himself orbiting her. She became his sun, the centre of his universe. What she saw in him in return, he would never understand. She helped him pick up the pieces of his life and cobble them into something new that included late-night movies and dinners, art galleries, and concerts. He even allowed his supervisor to convince him to come back to finish his degree, switching from the medicine to biochemistry. It was the first truly selfish act he remembered allowing himself. Then one day as he was tidying up his old lab notes, he stumbled over a half-forgotten idea about subatomic particles and suddenly his intellect had found a new purpose.

For years he didn't think about his childhood dream. Other nightmares took its place. Nightmares fuelled by real fears and traumas, of fantastical battles fought and won and comrades lost.

So no, Hank Pym hadn't thought about his old dream for years. Until now.

His first thought was that the old catholic church must have been beautiful before it had been mutilated and turned into a nightclub. Marble pillars rose up from the floor like the fossilized trunks of massive trees, their canopies growing into sweeping arches before being swallowed by the echoing darkness high above. The stained-glass windows had been painted black and the heads of angelic statues chopped off. Along every wall, roaring flames licked against the bricks and the floor was obscured by a thick blanket of smoke that swirled and eddied around the dark shapes twisting in impossible poses of agony and ecstasy on the dance floor.

And suddenly Hank Pym was six years old again, standing in front of a living canvass, mesmerized by the flames.

"Gentlemen," Dean Winchester yelled over the thundering beat of techno music. "Welcome to the Hellfire Club."

References: I've borrowed a few details from the official canon surrounding Hank Pym such as the name of his mother (Doris), his grandmother playing a big part in his childhood and him growing up in Nebraska. All other details are purely made up for this story.