2629/Complicated Family Trees

Complicated Family Trees
Date of Scene:	26 July 2020
Location:	Avengers Mansion - Study
Synopsis:	Nadia comes to Janet asking for some advice and some help about her living situation.
Cast of Characters:	Janet van Dyne, Nadia Pym-van Dyne

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Janet van Dyne has posed:
"Hey kid. You busy?" Janet knocks twice on the open doorframe of the Avenger's study. It's as good a place as any to be able to relax somewhere in the Mansion without being underfoot, and she'd texted Nadia previously asking her to meet there. Naturally, Janet's a few minutes late, and doesn't really wait to be 'invited' before walking into the room. Her authoritative stride slows to a dither two paces in. Fingerttips hook onto her pockets. Close-fitting jeans are paired with stylish black high-heeled sandals and a yellow-and-white blouse with poofy sleeves, worn off both shoulders and with a revealing amount of decolletage. Earrings that vaguely resemble diamond-studded dreamcatchers are paired with an assortment of bangles on her wrists. The well-worn patriotic pendant in the hollow of her throat looks the least valuable, but the most often worn.

She clears her throat. "Figured, uh... after everything with... PymTron and your dad, and everything, we should." Elbows flare out in a shrug. "I don't know. Talk. Clear the air or something. If you want."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia is sitting in one of the comfy chairs, and unlike most teenagers her age, reading an actual physical book. 'The Higgs Field and the Relative Mass of Elementary Particles', not exactly your typical teenaged fair but Nadia seems utterly engrossed in it. Next to her on the arm of the hair is a notebook that she is absently writing notes in the old fashioned way. It seems like even now she is still 'doing her homework' trying to crack the mysteries of Brainiac's technology.

She's dressed on the happy edge of goth. Maybe it is a holdover from her time in the Red Room but she seems to favor dark colors, reds and blacks, yet just enough frills to be feminine. Knee-high combat boots, a black pleated mini-skirt, and a sleeveless top that looks like something a Prussian Hussar might wear with a frilled open neck and silver buttons supporting black straps across it, beneath which is a simple form fitting black t-shirt and what almost appear to be fingerless opera gloves on her arms.

She looks up when Janet enters, seemingly completely oblivious to the time and probably anything else, marks her place in her book, and puts her pen down. "Oh yeah, Hi." she seems a bit unsure herself what to make of Janet and reconciling their radically different first and second meetings. But after a moment she seems to summon inner reserves of happy and brightens, "Thank you so much for your help, you were amazing, I don't think I could have saved him without you."

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"We're Avengers," Janet says, with a modest shrug and smile. "Rescuing people kinda comes with the territory. And I couldn't just let Hank die, it'd -kill- stock prices." That last is very clearly an excuse for some deep-buried, lingering affection for Hank.

Very, very deep, but there.

She walks past Nadia and nudges a boot with her toe. "Love the boots, by the way. You've got a real look going."

It takes her a few seconds to survey the area and find a place to sit. A high-backed chair is brought over and placed facing Nadia, and Janet settles into it. Legs cross, shoulders against the backrest, hands in her lap. "If you, uh, want food or something to drink, just... say the word."

Shoulders rise and fall with a slow exhalation through her nose. "Listen," she says, after a beat. "I ... was kind of shitty to you when you showed up. I wasn't kidding about the BS paternity suits. But you came here looking for someone to help. I should have been the first one to step up, and I ended up being the last."

Fingertips push short, curly bangs back from her hair, then she grimaces and tugs on one earlobe as if the earring's irritating her. "So... I'm sorry."

One might get the sense that Janet very, very rarely utters those two words.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia fidgets a bit, closing the notebook and setting it on top of the larger scientific hardbound volume in her lap. "Um thanks, Viv, she's my Great Niece, told me you really like fashion." she smiles up at Janet when her boot is nudged, "They didn't really let us wear much aside from soviet era jumpsuits in the Red Room, so I'm not too sure what goes with what, I was going to ask you but, I wasn't sure if you'd want to so I just went by some shops and picked some things I thought looked fun and interesting. SHIELD gave me a credit card while Dad was still missing, so I was able to do some shopping." It's nervous chatter, a bit rambling, but it's sincere nervous chatter.

"No thanks, I'm fine." she replies the offer of food, "I had a taco and a soda on my way over. American junkfood is so delicious, I'm curious if they've somehow found a mix of regular ingredients to create an otherwise narcotic effect, because it certainly seems addictive."

When Janet actually full on apologizes to her, the chatterbox is momentarily speechless. "You.. you don't have to, not to me. I'm the one who just showed up out of the blue and triggered all your alarms and disturbed everyone. I should have found a better way... you helped me though, you were there when I needed you." she pauses taking a breath, "That's what counts isn't it? Not the mistakes we've made or who we were in past, even a few weeks ago, but what we do moving forward and how we change." It is soft spoken but there is conviction there. Conviction rooted in the traumas of the Red Room and her need to believe she really can be something other than the assassin they wanted her to be.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet just stares at Nadia for a beat, and then the left side of her mouth pulls up in a bemused smile. "Wow. That was... a pretty good speech," she concedes. "You're gonna like Steve. If you want to meet him," she amends. "But, uh, that can wait."

It takes her a second to collect her thoughts again, and she shifts her weight while she does. "I'm not gonna pretend your dad and I are ever gonna be on great terms again, and... we're not getting back together," she says. "But we can be civil. We've got... well... I don't know. It's a family. It's a weird and complex little family, but it's still mine as much as it is his. I helped him design Vision. Did the color scheme, I was big into primary colors that year."

"But I -- I don't know what... if anything... I am to you. I'm not trying to pressure you into anything, either," she adds, quickly. "I just, I know your dad, he's not always..."

Janet grimaces and bites her lower lip. Hard. "Goddamnit, see, I'm ... I told myself I wasn't going to do that, and I'm already talking down on him. I came here to tell you I want to help you. I don't know if you need it, or want it, but..." her face softens a little. "You really came through for Hank. You've got a lot of spirit. If nothing else, I don't want to get in your way, whatever you want to become."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"Steve?" Nadia asks canting her head curiously until it dawns on her after a moment, "Oh! Mr. Rogers!" Of course she has heard of the leader of the Avengers before, just not on a first name basis. She may have been about to answer that question but Janet is continuing on and she smiles listens attentively.

At some point while Janet is talking, it's hard to say exactly when it happened, the books that were in Nadia's lap have been set aside on a nearby table. It was all very subtle, perhaps tricks she learned in the Red Room.

When Janet says she doesn't know what she is to Nadia though, suddenly she is being hugged. It's amazing how fast that girl can move when she wants to. One moment Nadia is in her chair and the next she is giving Janet a big hug, "Who are you to me? You're Janet. Let's work with that for now and I'm happy you're part of my family."

"You were there for him, too." Nadia smiles up at Janet, still holding on to her hug barring being physically pushed off. "In your own ways, I think you both still care about each other. Just maybe not in the same way that you used to?" she gives a little shrug like it's an educated guess but she knows she doesn't quite understand. She may know a lot about a lot of things but married life isn't one of them and she's okay with that.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet grunts and reflexively hugs Nadia back. The fact that she caught her in a hug momentarily surprises her. Eyes widen, and she finds herself hugging Nadia even more.

"Oof. Okay, kid, my ribs," she says finally, and pats Nadia's back before gently disengaging herself from the precocious teen. She turns slightly in the seat so she's facing Nadia, and takes Nadia's hands in hers while looking up at her.

"Hank and I are Avengers. We were married. There's..." She smiles lopsidedly. "I told Steve that earlier today, actually. There's a thin line between love and hate sometimes. Hank was there for me once when I really needed him. We irritate the piss out of each other and it's hard not to take cheap shots. I'd die for Hank, and I know he'd do it for me."

"So... what can I do to help? This is not an area I have a whole lot of good instincts for, fair warning," Janet advises Nadia. "And we're gonna have to figure out some ground rules and boundaries, I don't want you to get in dutch with your dad over something I told you to do. Or not to do."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
It is indeed possible to escape the young super soldier's vice grip hug, realizing and controlling her own strength is probably something she needs to work on. But all the same her smile never wavers, "I don't really understand." she readily admits. She's got happy down, but complex interpersonal emotions are definitely something that she is still working on. "But I don't think I need to either, that's for you and Dad I'm just happy you're there for each other when it counts, like the Ant-Man and the Wasp I heard stories about even in the Red Room."

When Janet shifts topics to what she can actually do for Nadia, the girl seems uncertain at first. There is a very high probability /she herself/ has not given much thought to this topic. That would require focusing on something other than helping people who are not her.

"I'm not really sure. Nobody has ever asked me that before..." she stops and thinks for awhile, "Maybe a lab? I mean I have one, but one that I could bring other people to that isn't the Titans or my Dad's. I should show you my lab sometime though it's so cool." the excited babbling returns again as an idea overtakes her, "But I had this idea. I heard recently that SHIELD has this list where they try to keep track of the smartest people on the planet and the first woman doesn't show until number 27. That seems really wrong to me that the first woman would be so low. I think maybe their test is biased or maybe just brilliant girls get overlooked. So I want to make a Lab where I can gather together really smart girls and together we can change the world!" A pause as she comes back to reality having gotten completely lost in her idea, "Is that something you can help with? Or do you mean like fashion advice? I'm new at this, too..."

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"You're hanging out with the Titans?" Janet's brows lift approvingly. "Wow. They're good people, from what I've heard. All kinda young, I mean-- I'm older than most of them, and I'm the youngest Avenger. But they're good folks."

Janet rises to her feet to pace around, thinking. A fingernail thumbs into her palm, a steady metronome of contemplation, and looks out a window.

"You know I'm the CEO of Pym Industries?" Janet's head doesn't turn, watching the city milling around outside. "Hank's the head researcher, of course. He's the face the public expects to see. But I'm the one who runs the board. I deal with investors and make the calls on research."

A pivot, smooth as a drum majorette, brings her to face Nadia. "I'm not science smart, but I'm business smart. I built my fashion label into a global production company in under five years, by myself. The Pym Particle is proprietary and we license it at enormous cost to very, very few corporations, but it's a fraction of the revenue for PI."

Janet paces a bit more. "Twenty-seventh place. That's ... sad, and not at all surprising. Maybe it has to do with how they quantify 'smart'. I've noticed men tend to see numbers as the bottom line, not reading into things like productivity or worker happiness. Always measuring their--"

The words are broken off and she waves it away. "Nevermind. I'm rambling. What would you -do- with these girls?" she says, more pointedly. "If you had labs, I mean. Research equipment. Science... stuff."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia dances back a few steps when Janet starts to pace, eyes moving this way and that as she watches her go, "Oh yeah, it just sorted of happened. I was just finishing the suit I made out of parts I found at Dad's house to help me find him when Brainiac's ship came back." she looks down for a moment like she is suddenly realizing this story might get her in trouble, but she continues anyway, "So I.. put it on... and went to try and help? Natasha said it was an Extinction level threat! What was I supposed to do?" It's almost like she's filling in getting a lecture in her head as she tells the story.

"Anyway, I saw the Titan's T-Jet breaking through his defenses and I kinda.. followed in their wake and we met up inside and destroyed all of his drones and turrets and recovered a bunch of technology. The X-men were there, too. And this girl Illyana who could do amazing things with portals that I still haven't been able to figure out. And I rode their jet back with them after and we had pizza and I think I'm a member now?"

Eventually she finds her way back to the topic at hand, "I think that was in one of the dossiers I was shown about the Avengers, that you're the CEO. The Red Room has information and files on all the big superheroes that they make us memorize in case we have to fight them someday. But they especially insistent on giving me information about you and my father and Pym Industries because they wanted me to reverse engineer some Pym Particles they got from the Black Market. You might want to look into that by the way, they somehow got Pym Particles on the Black Market."

She catches herself rambling again and tries to draw her focus back to the question at hand, "What would we do? Change the world. Tackle things we could never do alone. Maybe city to city teleportation or cure cancer or create something that would allow people to photosynthesize so nobody needs to go hungry again. I don't know, whatever we want to do! I'm certain if we got a talented group of girls together in one lab, we could do something /amazing/!"

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet's smiling despite herself. Nadia's enthusiasm is infectious and it shows in the Avenger's reaction to the girl's confidence. Hands lift and she pats the air in a placating motion. "I'll look into the Pym particle thing," she promises. "Thanks for lettig me know. We don't like those getting loose."

Janet drifts towards Nadia. "Y'know, that part's new," she comments. "The teamwork thing." She puts an arm around Nadia's shoulders and starts walking towards the kitchens. "Hank's a solo act. Does it his own way. I was the one who pulled the original cast together. The Avengers. Pitched the name and everything."

"If you're serious about this--" she winces. "Sorry. Bad choice of words. I know you're serious. I mean..." She looks up for inspiration. "If this is the goal you want to adopt-- and it's a good one-- then there's more to it than just picking names from a hat. You've got to find people who have strengths that overlap weaknesses. Maybe it'll be different with girls, but with male scientists, they tend to be a prickly lot. You're gonna need to be a leader. Help keep the peace. You're gonna find that you don't get to do as much pure research or invention as you want to. Sometimes you have to even do work you hate because it's necessary. That was one thing Hank and I always wrangled over. He felt pure research was sufficient justificaiton for any budget. I felt like I wanted to keep the lights on and pay the employees."

Janet looks down at Nadia. It's not much of a height for now, even with Janet's heels on. "You okay with that? I worry it's a bit more of a sacrifice than you had in mind."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia puts her hands on her hips and puffs her chest arms akimbo, like some sort of super hero pose impression, "I shall be their fearless leader!" she exclaims gesturing one arm upward towards the ceiling with index finger extended for dramatic affect. "I'll find them. Finding information is one of the things the they taught me to do really well. Then I just need to convince them. But who wouldn't want to change the world and show we're just as good if not better than boys?! I /know/ they'll join me!" she seems absolutely certain of this fact. It's amazing how quickly she can shift emotional gears sometimes.

The less fun details eventually begin to penetrate her enthusiasm. But the same arm that was pointed skyward comes back down in 'V' shape in front of her with a thumbs up gesture. "It's not about me. It's about them, it's about all of us! I want to try! I just feel like it's the right thing to do. I get it there will be some responsibility, I think I can handle it." The concept of being able to do whatever she wants almost seems like a foreign one to her.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"First rule of the negotiation table," Janet tells Nadia. "Never add qualifiers. 'I think' is a qualifier. Just say it. 'I can handle it!'" she emphasizes. "Say it, like that. People want to know their leaders and bosses aren't wrapped up in self-doubt. You'll never hear me or Steve saying 'I guess'. It either is, or it isn't, and it's always better to be an 'is' than an 'isn't'."

Janet roots around in the fridge and comes up with a couple of cold diet soda. One's offered to Nadia and she cracks the other, then drops a straw into it. The straw immediately floats to the top and she pins it in place with a finger. "I take it you haven't run this idea past Hank yet, though?"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"I can handle it!" Nadia echoes with spirit as she follows after Janet, "I will remember that! Thank you!" she grins. Her grin only gets wider when she is presented with the cold diet soda. After only being able to dream about it for most of her life Nadia holds a special appreciation for American junk food quite above and beyond most teenagers. "Oooh cola! Thank you!"

When Janet brings up running the idea past Hank, Nadia's gaze becomes evasive darting to one side and then the other, "Not yet? Originally I was thinking I might use the lab space at the house, but I've heard he can be a bit... territorial? So I was waiting for the right moment to bring it up? Like maybe when he's really happy about something or eating some really delicious food? But this way it doesn't have to be at the house and it should be okay right?" Bright smile morphing to slightly nervous caught trying to sneak something smile.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"I'll put it this way," Janet says. "Hank and Reed Richards shared a lab for a week while we were on the move, chasing some HYDRA research goon, and I honestly thought they were more likely to kill each other than the bad guys were."

She sips her soda through the straw, carefully behind her back teeth so it doesn't smudge her lipstick or stain her teeth. The can goes back down; straw floats back up. "I think that-- is something you should talk over with your dad, first," Janet says, in a carefully neutral voice. "It'd be rude to assume that he'd want you working there, and rude to assume that he doesn't. I don't know how *you* feel about sharing space with your dad, but-- if you want my honest opinion, I think he's going to look unpleasantly on the prospect of a couple of teenage girls living and working in that lab. It's not a house. It's a lab with living quarters tacked onto one end," Janet mutters.

"Another tip, then: always offer other alternatives. Don't give someone a yes/no question. Give them alternatives to slide into. How's that bit go.... 'diplomacy is the art of getting the other person to have your way."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia makes a bit of a face when Janet describes her father's relationship with Reed Richards, "One of the girls I wanted to talk to is Valeria Richards... Yeah, I should definitely wait until he's in a good mood..."

She listens curiously when Janet starts describing a lab with living space associated with her father, "Which lab?" she asks as she sucks down her soda through the straw, "There's a lab with living space? That sounds neat! I mean we probably wouldn't live there. I am assuming everyone would have homes to go back to, but we could try that thing I heard about. Janet do you know about SLEEPOVERS?! They sound really fun. We could do like a Science Sleepover!"

She catches herself before completely derailing in an excited tangent, "That's kind of why I thought maybe we shouldn't do it at the house. That maybe he wouldn't want to share space. That's why I thought I'd see if you had any ideas. I'm not really sure about his labs, but he only seems to spend time in his mobile one out back." she points in the direction of the backyard of Avenger's Mansion, "Anyway, I will ask him about my idea. The alternative might be to start an independent lab?" she ventures. She's still very new to this whole money thing. All she knows is Janet apparently has a lot of it.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"Wait, slow down, roll it back." Janet's hands make a little reverse roll motion. "Feels like we're having two conversations at once. First, you gotta sort out with your dad where you're going to stay. Contrary to what Hank says, you can't sleep on a cot in a lab room your whole life. Second, you need a social life. You're sixteen. You need to be spending a little time in school, for socializing. Learning stuff like US History and civics. Viv goes to Happy Harbor; might be a good option for you."

"If you want to set up some kinda... I don't know. Research lab for young women-- and I'm all for that-- you need to run it past your father first. I want to be involved, honey, I really do," Janet says sympathetically. "But I'm not going to do an end run around Hank unless he can't-- or won't-- help you with this. I'm ... my relationship with my daddy was pretty bad before he died. You and Hank only just found each other. I don't want to poison the well."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia deflates a bit, but she is still smiling as she finishes her soda, "School?" she asks like the thought had never remotely occured to her, "Haven't I spent enough time trapped in school?" In Nadia's mind apparently the Red Room is the same school.

"Okay, I get it. I will talk to him and make sure he is okay with it. You just asked how you could help me and it was the first thing I thought of. He's been having a rough time. He told me he is Bi-Polar and Ultron kept him off of his meds. But he's trying really hard. I just need to wait for the right moment, maybe after restoring Brainiac's victims. For now I should probably focus on that. So many lives are on depending on me." She leans forward to give Janet another hug, "Thank you though, for everything, I'm glad we had this talk."

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet returns the embrace willingly and with a firm reassurance. "I'm still willing to help you, honey," she promises Nadia. "This is one of those things about being a teenager I remember well. Grownups don't seem to have our priorities in order. Trust me," she pleads. "I really am trying to look out for your best interests."

"Speaking of your dad's ... issues," Janet says, evenly, and squeezes Nadia's hand. "Sometimes what he needs when he's having one of those fits is... just some space. You can't bring him out of it and you can't get mad at him for it. He really can't help himself, and the more you try to stick your nose into it, the angrier and more distant he gets."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"I believe you." Nadia leans her head on Janet's shoulder.

She gets quiet listening to Janet talk about Hank's issues and how sometimes he just needs to be left alone, "Maybe I should research it, maybe I can help him fix the problem? I mean it's all brain chemicals right? That's just Bio-Chemistry, I can do that!" This is perhaps the wrong message to take from that, it's a slightly twisted sort of optimism.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"No-- nono, Nadia, listen," Janet says, and there's a little urgency to her voice. She leans back and grips both of Nadia's hands, firmly, and makes pointed eye contact. "You're a very smart person. You're a genius," she corrects. "That doesn't mean that you're a genius at everything. A lot of very brilliant people have spent their lives trying to come up with a chemical or therapeutic cure for manic-depressive disorder. It's a complex chronic illness. You -can't just fix it-," she says, with low emphasis. "Your dad's health is not your responsibility. Part of it is chemical. Part of it is that he needs to be in therapy and work with his therapists. If he won't do that, that's on him. You can't make yourself responsible for his mental health. That's not your job as his daughter and it's not fair to you as a person."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia closes her eyes for a moment as she listens while Janet grips her hands, like she's wrestling with something internally, that need to fix things to 'help'. "It's really hard Janet," she says opening her eyes again, "I want to help him. What good is this brain if I can't even help my own father?" This child, already often burning the candle at both ends may well burn herself out completely if left to her own devices. There seems to be absolutely no sense of her own limits. The Red Room probably didn't have any interest in instilling any in her given what they wanted from her.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"That was a line I heard from your dad," Janet says, wryly. But not unsympathetically. "Right up to and through signing our divorce papers."

She looks at Nadia's hair and pushes it behind Nadia's ear with her fingernails, a reflexive sort of maternal grooming, and sighs. "I know you want to help him. I'm saying that ... there's a certain mentality with scientists, the really driven ones. Like Bruce, or Reed, too," she offers. "Ever heard the saying 'can't see the woods for the trees?'" she suggest. "It means that they can't see the big picture because of the little stuff in front of them. They start trying to identify every problem as a scientific one. What are the controls, the variables, what's the efficient solution. 'There's a solution to this and all that I have to do is apply the proper scientific rigor.'"

Fingers flex and gesture at Nadia, trying to urge to to see the point. "Does that kinda sound familiar?"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"So there are trees blocking the view of the woods? No that doesn't seem right." Nadia clearly hasn't heard that expression before. She makes an 'Oh' face when Janet explains it being about the big picture and not actually about forests and trees.

She nods along with everything Janet says. It all makes perfect sense to her, that is /exactly/ how you deal with a problem, the world is SCIENCE! after all.

She peers at Janet for a moment, "This is when you tell me that isn't actually right, isn't it?"

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"This is the part where I tell you that there are a lot of kinds of intelligence," Janet says, kindly. "Kind of-- oh, okay, like how some people are good at theoretical math, and some people are better at engineering. Something your dad struggles with is emotional intelligence. Understanding how and why people feel things. You can't just 'fix' someone's feelings. There isn't a perfect set of buttons to push in the right order that works for everyone every time. Manic depression requires therapy and medication, and ultimately while those help your dad control those emotions, he has to on some level be the person who says 'I'm taking responsibility for healing myself'. It's not a broken leg that he can just set and it'll heal and never trouble him again."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Slow nod, that look of information she has never been taught and never even considered before, "A lot of kinds of intelligence..." she repeats turning the words over in her mind. There is a look in her eyes like she's trying really hard to wrap her brain around this concept of 'emotional intelligence'. It's safe to say though despite her happy and optimistic appearance in the face of everything she has been through, she may not be the most developed in that department herself. "Feelings are really complicated, aren't they?"

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"They're the simplest and the most complicate things in the world," Janet agrees, wryly. "You're gonna get really mad at someone someday, and you won't quite understand why, and you'll feel stupid for it later. But in the moment you're going to feel perfectly justified being angry and anything they do wrong is just going to justify it more."

She sighs heavily. "This is one of the reasons your dad and I broke up. I know I've got a temper. Your dad gets frustrated when he's in one of his moods. We'd get in these feedback loops of me being mad at him for not paying attention to me, and him being mad because I was interrupting his work."

"I'm really not trying to knock your dad down. I'm saying that... just be prepared for some of those emotional landmines, so to speak. He's a good guy, and he loves you and wants to help you. You two are going to have to ... I don't know. Work out where your boundaries are. Which is like looking for landmines with a hammer in the dark. You don't know they're there until it blows up in your face."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"Sometimes.. sometimes I do get really mad." Nadia hesitates like even saying it out loud is uncomfortable, "When I escaped from the Red Room, it was not as simple as me just disappearing. They knew what I was working on, they were the ones who got all of it for me. There were safeguards. They tried to stop me and I hurt them ...really bad. I could have just disabled them, but I was just so angry that they were trying to keep me from my father."

She seems just so confused by all of it, "I don't know what to do with those feelings, they don't feel like me." she shakes her head.

"He's trying though! He's trying so hard." she insists, "I found him in his lab, seemingly trashing the place, but he said he wanted to make sure he couldn't be a danger to anyone until he gets back on his meds. He's really trying and he made me grilled cheese with a plasma torch and it was delicious!" It's an earnest pingponging back and forth across the emotional spectrum for her and it's pretty clear however 'fine' she may seem much of the time, growing up in the Red Room has definitely left its emotional scars on her.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"Listen Nadia, if... if you ever feel unsafe-- well, okay, unsafe is relative. If you ever feel scared, or like you can't control the situation," Janet says, "you can stay with me. Either here at the Mansion or up at my penthouse. Call if you can, but if it's an emergency and you're frightened, you're always welcome. Okay? You don't have to stay somewhere if you feel like things are getting out of control."

"Once you get yourself settled, too, you might consider going in for some therapy," she says, carefully. "We--" she gestures at the Mansion-- "all have an alternative, high-stress lifestyle. Family makes it tougher. So it wouldn't be the worst idea to talk to a professional. Someone who's smart with emotional intelligence. Okay?"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
And Janet gets another hug, it's almost like a theme with this girl, "Thank you Janet. I will. I really appreciate it. I mean it, everything you're doing, you really don't have to, and I'm just really glad, really glad, how did you say it part of my weird and complex little family. I'll try to remember that I can't fix everything either, it's just hard because I feel like I can. Like on one level it seems like emotions are just brain chemicals and hormones from the endocrine system, but after what you said I've really been thinking about it and that just seems like programming a person, like a robot, like Ultron and it just feels wrong, what if fixing the problem changes who they are..." she shakes her head as if trying to banish those thoughts to keep her brain from running away on another frightening tangent.

"Maybe you're right, maybe I should see someone... a professional." she pauses, "But could I really talk to them? SHIELD says a lot of the things I know are 'classified' and things most people aren't supposed to know them. Are there Top Secret emotional intelligence therapists?"

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"Uh, your entire family hangs around with a bunch of superhumans and aliens who regularly and willingly go into life-endangering combat for the sake of a bunch of strangers," Janet says, wryly. "We have therapists on staff. They're even cleared by SHIELD for this kind of thing."

But she's hugging Nadia while she says it, providing what physical and emotional support she can. The poor kid's been deprived of human contact a lot. Janet's not going to add to that.

"Okay. Enough mushy stuff for now," Janet says, when they break. "Talk to your dad about the living situation and the lab stuff. If there's not enough room for you or he feels like it's not gonna work out with you living with him, come talk to me and we'll figure out where to go from there. Okay?"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia finally releases Janet and takes a step back smiling again, it's amazing the affect a simple hug can have on her, "Okay! I will go talk to him. Thank you again Janet. I will try to remember what you said."

She takes a deep breath as if steadying herself, "Okay, Dad first, then back to the Titans Lab. That Brainiac Tech isn't going to fix itself."

There is another hug, but it's much shorter, a simple hug goodbye. She turns to leave but pauses in the doorway to look back and wave before finally disappearing, seemingly quite happy to have made this connection.