7327/Wasp on Wasp

From United Heroes MUSH
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Wasp on Wasp
Date of Scene: 25 April 2019
Location: Unknown
Synopsis: Janet finally meets Nadia Pym
Cast of Characters: Wasp (Pym), Wasp (van Dyne)




Wasp (Pym) has posed:
As a condition of her immigration Nadia Pym has, upon pain of deportation, promised she will share any and all information regarding the secretive and rather nefarious group known as The Red Room with anyone the US Government wants. Near the top of the list was providing copies of everything to the Avengers.

And that's why, after jumping through all manner of security verifications and dropping her fathers name, the teenage supergenius is currently sitting in a waiting room in the Avengers Mansion. And has been for quite some time.

Dressed in casual street clothes, a denim skirt and long woolen sweater, she glances around nervously while clutching a big bundle of folders that are yellow with age. As if perhaps she knows she's done something wrong. Like getting involved stopping the attempted robbery of an armoured car when she very earnestly promised she'd stay out of trouble...

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
Janet's actually been standing just outside of the mansion's main room for a solid five minutes before she comes in. Pressing fingers to her forehead, head bowed, trying to push a migraine back bhind her eye. Because of course on the day Steve's gone, when Tony's in the lab, when she's the senior American present and one of the few with high-level SHIELD clearance-- that's the day that Nadia Pym WOULD show up.

Still. Job's a job. She steels herself, tugging her outfit into place. A black-and white demi-sleeved dress, clinging close and draping to her knees. The simple palette twists into itself in a complex knotting at her left hipbone and radiates asymmetrically from there. Bumblebee-yellow high heels give it a striking bit of color and sets off jewelry on her ears and wrist. "Nadia Pym?" Janet comes to a stop near Nadia's position, heels clicking all the way. A speculative once over is given, then she offers her a cooly polite hand. "I'm Janet van Dyne. I'm sorry to keep you waiting. C'mon, follow me to the office. I guess you've got some paperwork to drop off?" She starts to the office with an efficient stride, as if unconsciously trying to speed the whole affair along.

Wasp (Pym) has posed:
"Oh! Yes that is me. And I know who you are from the..." Nadia starts to respond with a hint of a Russian accent. "From this." She digs through the bundle of papers and hands Janet a file on herself. It's mostly in Russian, although some pages seem to be in English, with each page stamped with a Red logo marking them as property of some kind of numbered facility. "I took inspiration from your costume when I designed my escape equipment."

She hops off the chair and hefts the rest of the documents. A huge stack that she can barely carry it and see where she's walking at the same time.

"It is no trouble really. I don't have anywhere else to be and.. it gets a little boring being at home by myself all the time." She pauses for a second, then shrugs and adds "And when I do go out there are Russian agents following me. It is /such a bother/."

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
"Not from-- not from Hank?"

Janet looks a little surprised. Taken aback? Maybe even insulted. But she accepts the papers and looks at them, walking steadily without looking where she's going. It's her second home after all. She gets to the office doors, opens them, holds them for Nadia, and follows her into the conference room. Her brow deepens into an irritated 'v' as she gets through the dossiere. "Personality: Aggressive, impulse control, low intelligence."

She mumbles a few obscenities under her breath and slaps the dossiere on the table, glowering at it. As if realizing Nadia's looking at her she glances up and smooths a beatific smile into place, Perfectly Polite modelling practice at work. "Well, screw the Russians, right? They peaked with Sputnik."

She settles into her seat opposite Nadia at the corner of the table, and her yellow-painted nails scratch a tattoo against the lacquer. "Speaking of outfits, I heard through the grapevine that someone else was rocking the shrink-tech and calling herself 'Wasp'." She lifts her brows mildly at Nadia. "Was that you?"

Wasp (Pym) has posed:
"I... We... It's..." Nadia starts, trying to follow along without tripping over anything or dropping all the paperwork. "Uhm. I've only been in the country a few weeks so far. And there has been ever so much paperwork and not so much of the... you know. Talking about things."

Thankfully years of ballet classes and the Red Room etiquette lessons have made her adept at walking with grace. So she makes it into the conference room without mishaps and drops the rest of the files down. There seem to be files for a lot of the Avengers, although the focus seems to be on those with powers that are linked to science or technology. Some of them even contain preliminary plans for assassination or capture. Although many of the plans seem to be incomplete or attempted and failed.

"They have exceptional brainwashing and torture technology. Some of which is decades in advance of American methods," she points out with a shudder that implies a degree of personal knowledge. "I did bring my... Oh..."

"Well technically /I/ did not call myself Wasp! It was a misunderstanding on behalf of... she called herself Ghost Spider." She explains with an earnest smile and a shrug. "I made it clear to the superheroes involved who I was. But there.. might have been some bystanders who simply saw someone with wings shrink and assumed..."

She pulls a locket out and, with a click, opens it to reveal a tiny costume. Black and red, with wrist mounted weapons and a backpack that probably contains the wings.

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
Janet leans forward and peers down at the costume. "Oh, lovely!" she says, reflexively. Oops, now she's being nice to Nadia, and she forces herself to sit back with a studied indifference. "I mean, it looks serviceable," she amends, hedging clumsily.

"Well, I guess there's... no harm done," she allows, finally. "You're not using my name or my color scheme. It looks more like the old style ant-stuff, more than anythign," she tells Nadia. "I guess you could call yourself the ... I don't know. 'Bullet Ant' or something," she remarks.

"Anyway, 'nuff about that," she says, waving it off. "It's not like I've got the intellectual rights to shrinking insect themes." She flips through some papers, mostly covering up a muttered 'just the rights to the technology'.

"Wow. SHIELD really wasn't kidding," she mutters, looking at the dossieres. Steve's is on top and she flips through it. "Send a femme fatale to seduce and destroy him... HAH!" Janet snorts in an undignfied manner and tosses the document aside. "Russian intelligence isn't as good as they say, I guess."

She loosk up at Nadia. "Speaking of, how *did* you escape? The FSB is pretty good at keeping their assets under lock and key, even kidnapped ones."

Wasp (Pym) has posed:
"I had very limited time and resources to design and build it all," Nadia points out with a sigh. "And if I was seen working on any of it then the Red Room would have taken it for themselves and tortured then killed me.."

"I'm not sure I want a codename. Bad people already know who I am /and/ who my father is. So there doesn't seem to be much point keeping either a secret. Besides secrets remind me of.. /them/. And I don't want to be... to be someone who lies to everyone all the time."

She swings her legs back and forth while Janet flicks through the pages. "I don't think any of the documents are fabricated. The facility was never intended for people with access to the records to leave, let alone for any of the students to escape."

She can't help but grin at the question about her escape. "Uhm well I genetically engineered myself using the stolen Pym particles they had provided for study. Then I just had to inject myself into one of the guards I knew would be leaving the facility.. Which got me as far as the sensors they had set up to detect pym particles." She tips her costume out from the pendant and reverts it to normal size. "And then I fought my way out. It was why I built the laser cannons.."

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
"It's not just about a secret identity. I mean, everyone in the world knows I'm The Wasp," Janet reminds Nadia. Fingers lay across her sternum for a moment, then return to the dossieres. "It's a branding thing. Nadia Pym, she's just this girl. But 'The Bullet Ant', that's like, an /icon/ or whatever."

Her tiny nose wrinkles. "I don't love that name, but it's a placeholder, so don't get attached to it."

"Anyway. I'm glad you got out OK. And ..."

She exhales, rubbing palms along the subtle lines of muscle in her arm. "Oh, god, let's just get out in front of the whole family thing: it's super weird. I know it's weird, you know it's weird, I'm sorry it's weird and I can't do much about it," Janet tells Nadia. "For what it's worth, I was nineteen, dumb, and maybe sort of trying to piss my daddy off. I never even knew he had a..." She gestures vaguely at Nadia, winces, clamps her hands together in her lap. "Do you ... like... wanna talk about it...?" she hedges, wincing.

Wasp (Pym) has posed:
"What is a branding issue?" Nadia wonders, frowning at the unfamiliar concept. Siberian bunkers not known for their access to mass media. "And I don't /just/ want to fight crime in a costume. That's fun don't get me wrong, but I also want to... you know. Fix things. Save the world with science."

"I just wish I could have saved the others.. They'll have moved them by now but someday..."

Her head tilts. "Oh you and... I think I understand now..." She coughs. "Well. To be fair no-one seems to have known about me. They faked my Moms death before she even looked pregnant." Her hand touches against the most well worn of the files. It seems to be her fathers. "It.. it doesn't really bother me." She sits up straighter in the chair, perhaps trying to look older than she is. "It had been a long time since my mother had died and I.. I think I would have wanted him to try find someone new. Even if it did not work out."

"If it makes you feel any better I feel /far/ more uncomfortable every time I look up at the sky. It takes a lot of getting used to. Not being underground."

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
"C'mon." Janet gets to her feet and beckons Nadia to follow her, five steps to... a window. She flicks a hand at the documents. "I always feel better when I'm flying," she explains. "And it's all stuffy and lame in here. I've got a little tea service set up in an old bird feeder, it's adorable and very cozy. I ..." She flickers a smile at Nadia. "I guess we should probably get to know each other a *little*. Right? Not a lot of us gals who can do the shrinky-dinks routine."

There's a familiar *pfuft* of displaced air, a little energetic flash of light, and a bumblebee-sized Janet flitters out the open window into the pleasant springtime warmth before hovering in lazy figure-eights while waiting for Nadia to come along.

Wasp (Pym) has posed:
"I need to change first," Nadia points out. "My wings are biomechanical.. I suppose I /could/ have genetically engineered myself to grow wings but..." She hrms and glances around distractedly for a moment, before remembering she's supposed to be changing into her costume.

For a speedy change she shrinks to an even smaller size than Janet. At least for a moment. Her own size change process seems off slightly to the more experienced size changer. No real flash of light and she seems to shrink to microscopic size effortlessly. But a few seconds later she re-appears insect size and hovering with fluttering wings.

"It might be nice, yes. If nothing else I would like to know the truth about.. well everything really." She points over at the files on the desk. "I could never really trust anything they told me in the Science Class."

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
"I thought about the mechanical bit," Janet admits as Nadia joins her. "But then that's one more thing I've got to carry everywhere, I can't set it down or I'll lose it, I can't do fast changes... all I need for these is a hidden seam in the back of my outfits." Sure enough, a diamond-shaped patch of bare skin is visible between her shoulderblades, from which glittering wings emerge.

She beckons the other woman along, bobbing through the warm spring air towards a perfectly plain looking bird feeder. An iris opens to admit them into ... a surprisingly comfortable room. Were they to scale, it'd look like a rather open and inviting parlor fit for two or twenty people. Not like a dollhouse either, but like someone actually shrank an entire suite and hid it inside a birdhouse.

"I love the mansion but sometimes it's nice to have some quiet, and the Pec Patrol can get kind of distracting," Janet explains. "We can sit and ... I don't know." She looks around the little kitchen area and her hands flop once, then prop on her waist. "Look, I'm not good at this." She looks at the wet bar, then gives Nadia a speculative look. "Russians drink, right? I think I've got liquor in here still."

Wasp (Pym) has posed:
Nadia Pym nods in understanding. "I have a lot of ideas about improvements I could make to myself," she admits. "But.. I may have made out that genetically engineering myself wasn't really a big deal and.. strictly speaking in theoretical terms it wasn't only doing it to myself without anyone to help or check my working was good.. Well lets just say I estimate the procedure I underwent would likely have around a forty percent mortality rate."

She takes a few moments to investigate the room. Not quite touching anything, but ducking down to peer at things in shelves and looking at the view from the windows. "I have a place like this myself. It's still a mess though. I stole a /lot/ of Red Room documents and I didn't have time to neatly store them." She beams with pride at the memory. "Just knowing how furious 'Mother' must be.. It.. how do you say. Warms my heart?"

"Uhm, I'm not certain exactly when my birthday is but I'm preettty sure I'm not old enough to drink." She sticks her tongue out. "We /did/ have some lessons on resisting intoxicants and building up immunity to some poisons. But they were not fun. Anyone who lost control would be in very serious trouble." She bites her lip. "It was not a place you wanted to be in trouble. Ever." Then she forces another smile and, in a brighter tone, adds "But I do not mind if you have something yourself."

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
"That's about the odds they gave me when I got mine done," Janet says, reassuring Nadia despite her wry tone. "The words 'total immunological rejection' got tossed around a lot. I've got more synthetics on me than Dolly Parton. And I'm still only a B-cup!" Lips quirk at Nadia, trying to provoke a smile from the girl.

She digs around and comes up with a bottle and a couple of glasses. Her walk takes her back to Nadia and she sits down next to her at a pair of facing, comfy old chairs. Drinks are poured and she offers hers in toast.

"Well, you're not *there* now, you're here with me," Janet tells Nadia. She curls back into the chair, knees and heels tucking in. "And I've forgotten more about intoxicants than the Russians ever knew. Try partying with DJ Jazzy Jeff fifty miles into international waters on a yacht the size of a football field," she says, brows rising with a slow series of nods. She curls her drink close and sips from it. "And then going to a board meeting the next day to review profit loss statements and not fall asleep."

Wasp (Pym) has posed:
Nadia Pym tilts her head. "I know about Dolly the sheep...?" she offers. Slightly bemused. "From reading about cloning research."

Her wings retract and fold up into a little metal disk as she sits. And she tucks her legs up under herself and holds the cup with both hands, sniffing it cautiously. "I'm not even sure what a DJ is. Some sort of professional qualification? Like being an MD?" She finally mimics the toasting motion and takes a sip herself. "It's very awkward trying to talk to people. They say things and I just don't know what they mean but how do you explain not knowing what a DJ is because you grew up in a secret Russian assassin school and then moved over to doing mad science experiments for them?" She pouts. "It's hard enough trying to explain I don't need to be in school because none of the lessons would be worth my time."

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
"Disk jockey. Musician," Janet says. "Basically sex, drugs, alcohol, and music nonstop until your heart goes out."

"Look, like dont'.... don't take this wrong or anything, but a big part of the reason I... separated from my ex was that he wanted a hot young wife to come home to. I was a superhero, I loved to go out partying-- I almost crashed this actor's yacht into Ibiza, believe it or not. He just wanted me to sit at home, nice and safe, and do... I don't know. Boring shit. I don't *do* boring shit," she reassures Nadia.

"So screw the little people," Janet tells Nadia. "Don't listen to haters. These are like ... corporate drones and laborers and people who *live and bleed* conformity because it's all they've got. Be a rebel! An iconoclast! Break the mould, get out there and do wild shit and don't apologize to *anyone* for it."

Wasp (Pym) has posed:
Nadia Pym ahhhs at the explanation of what a DJ is. "I do intend to go out dancing and listen to music. We only had /one/ CD in the entire facility." The Red Room it seems not at the cutting edge. "And not a single digital music file. Now I have one of the smart phones and it has more songs than I could ever possibly listen to!"

"But.. I do not think I want to take drugs. Not because I have any moral objection it's just... I do not think it would be wise for me. With all the.. potential bad memories." She takes another sip of the drink. Still keeping her expression neutral regarding the taste.

Her head tilts "I do not think I can be /too/ wild. Or they will deport me. If I don't get kidnapped and taken back forcefully first." She shrugs. "I have ideas. Things I want to do. Like start up a proper lab and do the sort of research big companies never tackle because there is no money in it. Even though it'd improve so many lives."

She swirls the liquid around inside the glass, then gulps the rest down. "I'm.. I'm not going to let the bad stuff define me. I have all this knowledge most people can't even dream about and if I don't use it for something good.. Then what was the point in escaping?" She coughs, blushing slightly. Although that might just the alcohol. "You probably get people my age coming to the Avengers mansion saying stuff like that all the time I guess."

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
"Literally all the time," Janet confirms, and grins at Nadia reassuringly. "Most of them have pretty lame concepts and even lamer backstories. 'Oh my parents are middle-class suburbanites and I have the power of being a champion lawn dart competitor, I'll be Stinger and you can teach me everything'," she says, miming a younger person's higher voice.

"You've got... as much as it *kills* me to say it, you've got some pedigree in the game," Janet concedes. "Natasha was Red Room, you know. So was Buck-- er, James Barnes. Winter Soldier?" she says, quizzically.

"Plus you're not in it for the fame or glory. That's a big mark in your favor. Who knows? Maybe someday I retire to a little farm upstate, and it might be time to bring in the next Wasp."

She sips her drink, pauses. "Y'know, in twenty or thirty years," she mumbles.

Wasp (Pym) has posed:
"I didn't get the full Red Room training program," Nadia admits, serious again despite the alcohol. "They moved me into the Science Class when I was eight. But I still know... roughly twenty ways to kill a person with a pen. Not that I want to kill /anyone/. Not even the people from the Red Room."

Her brow wrinkles with concentration. "The Winter Soldier sounds familiar. 'Mother' wanted us to study his cybernetics for her own personal use. She was in charge of the Science Class."

She can't help but giggle at the notion of Janet retiring. "In thirty years I'm sure I'll have fixed the world enough there won't be any need for superheroes. All it would take is secure food and energy for ten or so billion people. That would cut a significant amount of crime and improve the general quality of life."

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
"Perfect! I can retire to a private beach and Steve and I can spend our days applying coconut oil to one another."

Janet blinks as if only just then processing what came out of her mouth, and the rest of the vodka disappears in a chugging few swallows.

"Uh, anyway," she coughs, and rises. "Look, I... I know I don't have any right to offer this, but if you need..." She fidgets. "I don't know. Some advice, or something. A shoulder, I don't know. I just know that the Pym name comes with a ..." she sighs. "A lot of baggage. This is weird, I know, I'm sorry it is," she tells Nadia. She gestures between them. "You're probably okay on your own. But you can... I don't know. Call me, or something. If you want."