3295/Red Wasp Needs Food Badly

Red Wasp Needs Food Badly
Date of Scene:	07 September 2020
Location:	Labs - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Nadia builds space propulsion for the T-Jet. Karolina brings Nadia food. Nadia is terrible at self-care. Karolina is the new Cait.
Cast of Characters:	Nadia Pym-van Dyne, Karolina Dean

---

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
The aftermath of the operation against Warworld has affected all of the Titans in different ways. Some responded with optimism, others pessimism. Some stepped up, while others ran away, some running further than others.

Nadia was among the vanished pretty quickly after the T-Jet returned. She didn't share much of her thoughts on the outcome, likely because she still doesn't know what actually happened. She intends to find out however.

It is not hard to track Nadia down, she never left the Tower. In fact, she never left the laboratories. It is there that she has been holed up for the past four days working on /something/. Likely something that will allow her to figure out the fates of the others with the certainty that only SCIENCE! can provide.

Currently the sixteen year old girl genius is bent over a table with a large mask on and blowtorch in hand welding sections of metal plate together with a shower of sparks flying off of the metal. A large metal frame looking like a cross between jet engines and something that belongs on a next generation space shuttle has begun to take shape. Nearby is an interactive digital whiteboard type screen displaying detailed slightly messy schematics that look like they've been hastily drawn up from scratch along with a veritable sea of accompanying equations. In the background there is also an odd buzzing sound like someone left a window open and maybe a bee or two got in.

Karolina Dean has posed:
    Karolina has been... a mixed case. She has stepped up to help out, being one of the newest members of the team, and also having been a part of "Team Event Horizon" that saw the tragedy unfold. So she alternates, spending most of her time doing her part with food and comfort, and then some of her time isolating herself and letting her emotions pour out. She's an emotional creature, made of warmth. Literally.

    She's been making her rounds this morning, spending time in the kitchen, basking in the sunlight, and eventually finds her way to the lab. Everyone knows where Nadia's at, and that's pretty much where Karolina hopes to find her. Except, she's not glowing. Somewhere in the interim she made it back to New York to sort out her class schedules, water her plants, and pick up one of her spare bracelets. The barefoot blonde steps into the lab, clad in gym shorts and an NYU tank top, carrying a big plate.

    "Hey.... hello? Good morning?" she calls out, moving closer, trying to get Nadia's attention. The sparks flying don't seem to bother her in the slightest.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Welding is surprisingly noisy, a hissing, crackling, popping sound as the two pieces of metal are joined together. It is unlikely she can hear anything being said in her current state.

That state, however, does not last for long. About a minute later the seam joining the two disparate plates of metal is finished. The blowtorch is turned off and a sweaty disheveled Nadia is pulling off her welding mask and the earmuff looking things that were protecting her ears from the sound.

Fashion seems to be the last thing on her mind right, dressed simply in a long sleeved black shirt, red cargo pants, a pair of thick souled boots for work safety and an abundance of pockets. Her hair is a mess, and it is questionable if she has even slept in the last four days with those dark circles under her eyes. She's also looking a bit pale, making the dark circles stand out even more, and the last time she stopped to even eat is a very open question.

Karolina Dean has posed:
    Karolina is definitely not exactly exhibiting workplace safety procedures. But she's keeping her excessively long hair away from moving parts and keeping track of where her bare feet are stepping along the lab floor. When the welding stops and the mask comes off, she smiles, and speaks up again, "Hey... good morning... Nadia, right?" she asks, voice kind and gentle.

    "Goodness... you look like a wreck... how long have you been awake? Did you have dinner last night?" she asks, sounding genuinely concerned, and holds out the plate she's holding in both hands. It looks to be laden with potatoes, scrambled eggs, and what looks like circular patties of breakfast sausage. And it smells pretty much like what it looks like, too.

    "Take five and eat?" she offers.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia is about to hoist the newly welded component plates over towards the rest of the frame when the sound of a voice distracts her and she turns around blinking owlishly at Karolina. "You're.." she's trying to remember, it's been a lot lately, "Rainbow Girl? Sorry I'm bad with names." She's still just holding that big piece of welded metal like it's not a big deal, definitely stronger than she looks.

She looks at Karolina and looks at the food and back to Karolina and back to the food, "Oh yeah, food, right, that's a thing," she pauses like she's trying to remember the last time she ate and doesn't seem to be able to, coming up with only, "I should probably eat something." Her stomach proceeds to gurgle, almost as if emphasizing the point.

Karolina Dean has posed:
    "Do... you want to put that where it goes before you eat? You... probably don't want to eat with your hands full... I hadn't intended on feeding you myself," she teases, smiling. Karolina then nods, laughing, "Rainbow Girl works, I'm Karolina. I... supposed I don't have a costume or a secret name or anything... I had a nickname though?" she suggests, putting the plate down carefully, away from tools but on the worktable.

    "What are you doing with the jet? I heard you've been tearing it apart to make it better. Faster. Or something... That sort of science is beyond me, but... that was the first time I'd been in space... it was amazing..." she sighs, gushing for a moment, also remembering the feeling of joy to push back the other feelings associated with some elements of that trip.

    "Right, yes, food is a thing, and you need brain food so you can keep doing the things. Wouldn't want to be passed out from hunger when our friends are returned, right?"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
The large piece of metal is lugged over to the frame and heaved into place where it will be bolted to the base frame later. Once that is done she begins pulling off her heavy work safety gloves, it's only then that she sees Karolina's feet. "Are you invulnerable to conventional harm or something? You should really be wearing shoes in here." A pause. "Karolina, I will try to remember that."

She walks over to a sink and begins washing her hands. "Right now the T-Jet is only capable of upper atmosphere, low earth orbit maneuvers. While it is environmentally sealed it doesn't have the propulsion systems to go to say Jupiter. So I'm building them, and also reinforcing the superstructure to be able to withstand the additional stress. That way we can go to the site of the wormhole collapse and try to figure out what happened. It's taking too long though, I need to work faster. If they're somehow alive every second could be critical. If Vic and Cait were here..." She trails off looking at the unfinished engines, but ultimately tears herself away to eat realizing passing out from hunger would cost her even more time. She moves over to where the plate is on the work table and begins shoveling eggs into her mouth.

Karolina Dean has posed:
    Karolina blinks, looking down at herself, then back to Nadia. "Mmm? No, not quite. But I recover really quickly... I was more not scared of the welding torch.." she gestures to the tool on the table, clasping her hands behind her back. "I'll be careful, though," she says gently. "I'm just more comfortable when I have more skin showing. I'm always warm and the sun just... feels so nice~" she exhales a happy sort of sigh.

    She does listen intently to the business about the ship's capabilities, glancing over at it. She understands -most- of it, but not so much the -how-. "I see... I can fly pretty fast but I can't breach the atmosphere with my abilities, so I can understand the ship just isn't quick enough to get out that far with any sort of... efficiency and rapidity, yes?" she offers, frowning now. "...working faster and harder is all well and good, but if you're not eating or sleeping, you could make a mistake, or simply...pass out for even longer... please take care of yourself? We're all working together, and we're all depending on each other. I might not be an engineer but, I know I can offer other things to the team.." she smiles.

    The food? Amazing. Hearty potatoes and ... well, the eggs and sausages are vegan. But it's hard to tell the difference, with how they're cooked and spiced and everything. "Oh! I didn't know what to bring to drink, do you want juice or tea or coffee? Or water? Are you staying hydrated?" she takes on a concerned tone again, "I hope you're staying hydrated."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia continues shoveling eggs into her face and then a whole sausage patty followed by some potatoes, nom nom nom. It is quite clear her body was actually starving even if her mind refused to acknowledge it, pushing her to continue working through sheer force of will.

Nadia shakes her head at Karolina's question, she starts to say something completely unintelligible with a mouth full of food before stopping and swallowing it down so she can be understood, "No, that's not it. Currently the T-Jet has no propulsion at all in a complete vacuum. Jet engines require atmosphere, air, to function. In space there is no air, which is why NASA's spacecraft use rocket propulsion. Rocket propulsion, however, suffers from the problems you said, it's slow and uses too much fuel, which in my mind is any fuel at all. The goal here is to create non-turbine based thrust that can continue in a sustained reaction once initiated making outside energy needs as close to zero as possible to maintain propulsion. Because you don't want to be out near Saturn and run out of gas and fuel stores add a lot of mass. Most of the mass of our current rockets is for the necessary fuel."

Another sausage patty disappears into the black hole that is Nadia's mouth. "This is really good!" When the question of staying hydrated comes up Nadia just points to the coffee machine next to one of the lab refrigerators. "It's fine, I drink plenty of coffee!" The water present in the coffee brewing process is perhaps the only thing standing between her and dehydration. Then again with the amount of the stuff that she drinks, it is a miracle there's any blood left in her caffeine stream.

Karolina Dean has posed:
    Through what can only be mad science and black magic, or just really good culinary skills overall, the breakfast is entirely meat-and-animal free. Karolina isn't going to say it, but her cooking and eating habits might speak for themselves anyway. Plus, the food is really, really good. Still, though, her eyes glaze over a bit when talk of the more fiddly bits of the ship sicence are spoken, even if she can pick out the key gist of it, and certain aspects.

    "And here I think I just sort of... radiate... to fly in space..." she glances down at herself, then back to Nadia. "Oh... um... there's... also the trouble with stopping, right? You have to save fuel for the ride home but also for stopping once you get to your first destination... can you really do that? Make a fuel-less solution that's also faster than... covnentional stuff?"

    Then it's the coffee. And her expression falls, her whole body slumping just a bit in a big sigh. "I'll bring you some water... coffee is dehydrating, and also in such quantities may have a diuretic effect..." she then gives a lopsided smile, "..trust me, I'm a college student."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia sets the plate aside having utterly demolished the food in record time, she really was hungry. "It's already being worked on by NASA actually, I'm just... taking things several steps further. Also I have a few technologies at my disposal which they don't." Such as Pym Particles, but she doesn't come right out and say it. When you can condense molecular structure making something tiny while maintaining output it might as well be cheating as far as more mundane engineers are concerned. On some levels what she does isn't that different from a Wizard. A Science Wizard.

"Coffee is what keeps me upright and conscious. Trimethylpurine is necessary for existence." She replies using the technical chemical name for caffeine.

Karolina Dean has posed:
    Everyone in the Titans is a wizard of some sort! And Nadia's impressive science wizardry isn't lost on Karolina, not entirely, at least. "I mean, I feel like a lot of hero teams have a lot of -really- cool toys..." she leans on the table, smiling at Nadia, still fascinated. "Just, please remember to eat, ok? Do I need to come back in here at dinner time and bring you curry, too? I mean, I got Kate addicted to it already, I think... so if I have to make a bigger batch I can just... pass it out.." she muses aloud, then lets out an exasperated sigh.

    "...and I'm bringing you some water. Keep up with the coffee all you like, but you need to be drinking some good, pure water, too!" she folds her arms, but the look on her face makes it certain that she's not actually mad or frustrated. She's just worried. Worried like everyone else is. Worried that people in this team are going to work themselves to death. "...there has to be some moderation... our friends will want to see us healthy when we meet them again... and..." she lets an arm fall, her other hand lifting to squeeze it as she half-hugs herself. "...our enemies won't be so kind either... so please take care of yourself, too?"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia stops and considers for a moment, "I would like to say that I will remember, but if I'm being self-aware I have to say that I probably won't." She smiles and shrugs like that's just how it goes, can't be helped.

"Water might be good, but I'm afraid I'm not good at moderation, my brain just isn't wired that way. It's amazing at some things but apparently has really bad wiring for others." She lifts her giant novelty sized coffee mug from the table and takes a drink, "It's fine though, my body is much more resilient than most people and heals from things and processes toxins way quicker, so you don't need to worry so much. I was exposed to a form of super soldier serum as an infant." She says as if this is a perfectly normal thing.

Karolina Dean has posed:
    And Karolina is a space alien that shoots sunbeams. "...we really do all find ourselves in strange places and situations..." she says quietly in response to the whole super soldier baby thing. She shakes her head though, and lets both arms fall again. "I'll be back with a litre of water... and I'll put you on my curry list," she nods, picking up the plate. "If you're not asleep around dinner time, I'll bring you a helping. Home-made bread, too," she says with a smile. "And make sure you get some rest for goodness' sake. I dread passing out writing an essay and losing the data on my computer because of the battery dying or something... I don't want to imagine you falling asleep while working on a ship to make it spaceworthy." Again, good natured concern, and she starts to head for the door.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia smiles good naturedly, or at least as much as she can manage under current circumstances. There's a kind of underlying frenetic energy to her, a need to be doing /something/ that in some way contributes to fixing the problem at hand. Sleep is unlikely though as Karolina is quite aware, even with her jacked up physiology, there's a limit to how long she can keep this up.

"Oooh homemade bread! That sounds delicious!" She takes another big drink from her giant mug of coffee. "Thanks for coming by." She watches Karolina go before pulling on her thick work gloves again, there's still a lot more welding left to do before the frame is done, let alone machining out all of the internal components.