4068/GIRLs Night in the Mansion

GIRLs Night in the Mansion
Date of Scene:	08 November 2020
Location:	Avengers Mansion - First Floor
Synopsis:	Nadia, Natasha, Janet, and Wanda chat at the mansion about the incorporation of G.I.R.L. and why Nadia shouldn't do paperwork by herself. (Also magic and aliens.)
Cast of Characters:	Nadia Pym-van Dyne, Natasha Romanoff, Janet van Dyne, Wanda Maximoff

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Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
It is a rare peaceful afternoon, for once it doesn't seem that the world is in imminent need of saving. Perhaps the villains union organized a company picknick or some such, in any case the girl that is normally being pulled in a dozen different directions simultaneously or hermiting in her lab is today doing none of those things.

Instead Nadia is sitting at a table in one of the mansion's sitting room with an array of papers spread out before her. This isn't too unusual, she does lots of research like this. Though it is usually in her lab and she usually doesn't look... so out of her depth.

Next to her is a cup of coffee, which seems to be fueling whatever sort of research project this is, though judging from the look on her face, it's probably not SCIENCE!.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha has learned to go against her better judgement and start announcing her presence in polite company, since startling the daylights out of people tends to give people a negative impression. But sometimes old habits die hard, like now, when Natasha is just sort of THERE peering down at the papers with a mug of coffee in her hand. "You look..." she starts to say, the first sound or indication of her presence she's made. She takes a sip from her mug between words, "... uncharacteristically befuddled."

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"Where is everyone?" Janet's voice wafts down the hallway and JARVIS murmurs something in response to her. There's the sound of heels clicking along and she appears in the study's entrance, purse dangling from her elbow and wrist held near her face. Designer sunglasses are lifted away and put to rest atop her head.

"Oh there you are." She walks into the room and peers down at the paperwork. It's finally getting cold in New York and Janet's switched to heavier day clothes. Dark maroon trousers with a flowing cut are paired with heeled winter boots and a tweed women's blazer. Striped shirtsleeves hug her wrists and hands, and a black belt is bound over the jacket's waistline.

What's going on in here? It doesn't look terribly stimulating."

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Wanda's appearance is not quite so stealthy as Natasha but a little quieter than Janet. As she heads in from upstairs, also sporting an afternoon coffee, she heads over to the sound of the voices. Lingering nearby but not intruding too much with her physical presence, she takes a small sip before speaking.

"You certainly do look a little troubled."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
The paperwork as it turns out is not so complicated to anyone with any degree of business training, who say doesn't spend most of their time in a lab or out punching bad guys. It is all documentation for incorporating a new lab and explanations of non-profit versus for profit and the different types of non-profits and ways to incorporate something. It is enough to send a teenager, even a genius teenager cross-eyed trying to parse it all.

The downside to hyperfocusing, even when you are trained to notice sneaking, you don't always notice sneaking particularly when someone is very good at sneaking like Natasha. The seemingly sudden appearance of the Black Widow causes Nadia to all but leap out of her chair, nearly flipping the table. It is a good thing her brain works fast, once it does process the actual situation beyond what she was focusing on, and she lets out a breath rather than going into a defensive crouch, "Please don't sneak up on me." She looks up at Natasha with an expression like you of all people should know this. "I'm trying to put together a lab." She tells Natasha after another breath. "And apparently there's a whole lot more to that than just putting a bunch of lab equipment into a room and Bobbi was busy today so I'm trying to get some of this figured out." Because of course she is, Nadia has never been the best at 'waiting' if she thinks she has even a small shot at cracking a problem on her own.

At the sound of Janet's voice she looks up, hope has arrived! "Janet! Oh Janet, thank god! How do you even make sense of all this?" She looks stricken like corporate law is some kind of special torture cooked up by the US Government just to torment good young scientists.

Wanda gets a weak smile from Nadia, "This is really hard!" Not words this girl is used to saying, not at all.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha doesn't look particularly sorry; though in her defense, she did sneak up on Nadia from the front. "Mmm." She acknowledges Nadia's issue dispassionately mid-sip. "... Can't help you there. I only act like I know everything."
    "Janet. Wanda." The arriving women each get a nod and acknowledgement in turn. She at least doesn't volunteer their services for Nadia, so she's at least feeling *that* courteous.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Wanda is greeted with a wiggle of fingers when she pipes up from the periphery. "Hullo Wanda dear," Janet bids the redhead. Her purse gets sat down a safe distance from the explosion of paperwork and the socialite starts going through it.

Janet furrows her brow. "This isn't right. You can't be an S-corp and be registered as a 501. Nonprofits are tax-deductible under state and Federal statutes so there's no reason to sell stock or retain a board of directors."

Other pages are flipped through. Back and forth Janet goes between three different blocks of paperwork and finally frowns. "This is an application for an agricultural loan. Are you trying to raise cows?"

She includes Natasha in her puzzled look. "I hope you're not the one helping her with this. It looks like you two are trying to incorporate an offshore black market cattle combine."

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
The mention of raising cows gets an amused laugh from Wanda as she makes her way closer to study the paperwork. Natasha and Janet are given a tiny wave of greeting and smile each as she peers over in Nadia's direction. "A lab? I thought you had plenty of space to work with already. Are you planning something bigger?"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia is about to say something to Natasha when Janet starts going through the papers and she blinks several times nodding slowly, watching the ease with which Janet easily makes sense of things. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wonders to herself if this is how other people feel when she is talking about SCIENCE! "Cows?" She blinks again, seemingly pondering what they might do with cows, her head still spinning a bit from it all.

At Wanda's question, she pushes aside a bunch of papers and comes up with a drawing of a logo for something called G.I.R.L. "I have plenty of labs I can use, my own, Dad's, the Titan Tower labs, the ones on the Moon, sometimes even the SHIELD labs, but this isn't about just a lab. I want to make I guess you could call it like a Science Collective, a team of female supergeniuses to challenge the status quo in Science. Did you know some of those super agencies like SHIELD keep a list of the most brilliant minds on Earth, but the first woman doesn't show up until like #27? I want to change that and also help change the world for the better. At the rate super science aliens keep showing up, I think without a dedicated super science team we'll be in trouble soon. I call it Genius In action Research Laboratories or GIRL and it's going to be amazing! Viv, Shuri, and Valeria are already on board and we can hopefully help all of those girls we rescued from the Red Room too. If the supervillain that is paperwork can ever be defeated anyway. We also need a headquarters still, somewhere for a central shared lab. But once we manage that Shuri and Valeria have already said they'll help outfit the place with Fantastic Four and Wakandan technology, too."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha lifts her shoulders and raises one hand in a vaguely defensive gesture at Janet's accusation. "Don't look at me, I'm not in a position to put my-" Natasha darts her eyes to the side and speaks very quietly "-real-" Natasha looks and speaks normalky again: "-name on any business ventures."
    Natasha listens to Nadia with a quiet look that's both impressed and concern. "Sounds... formidable." She says, but then she has to be Nat and adds, "... Are you sure you want that kind of attention?"

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet starts making some corrections on papers as she goes through them. Smaller bundles and stacks are examined and she rips out irrelevant parts and tosses them in a messy pile on the table. Some fall off and land on the floor as the pile grows.

"This is all still going to go through legal before it gets sent to the IRS," Janet reminds Nadia. "You don't *have* to do this on your own. We'll use a shell corporation to register GIRL as a 501(3)c to trademark your IP and safeguard the product lines. Then a subsidiary of Pym Technologies will conduct a business-in-kind exemption and hire GIRL permanently as a subcontractor with a 15% bump on wages minus depreciation fees and estimated downstream revenue losses. -Then- we write an exclusivity agreement, that's this form 2004-AB, and countersign against a Declaratory Writ which we'll need to register in Delaware since that's where the holding company is based out of."

She looks up at Wanda and Natasha. "Really though, you two couldn't help her out? This isn't really rocket science you know."

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
"I think it is important to weigh the greater good in all of this. If Nadia believes the world is better for having GIRL, then I imagine she'd be willing to accept that the eyes of the world will be on her in some fashion," Wanda says, though her gaze shifts towards Natasha.

"I understand the idea of staying in the shadows, being hidden from the limelight, but it is hard to do something remarkable with no one seeing." She looks back towards Janet with a wry smile.

"I'll be certain to ask for your help the next time I'm creating wards for a location. It's really quite easy."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia looks up at Natasha, "I don't want to hide, that's just a game of cat and mouse forever. In some ways the best defense might be the spotlight. It will be more difficult for mother to abduct me if there are so many eyes on me. I do not doubt they'll try again eventually, but it's far easier for an anonymous girl to disappear than one all over the news." Apparently she has thought about this, "But it's like Wanda says, and I think one of the reasons there aren't more girls in STEM is there aren't enough heroes like them to inspire them. So I want to be that, too."

She nods her head slowly at Janet when she explains further, "Yes, of course, sure, all of that. You're right, I probably should just leave all of this to you and Bobbi." Even the girl genius can admit when she's out of her league, hyper advanced alien tech? No problem. Corporate Law? Might as well be Thanos. She'd probably have the better chance against Thanos.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha is very quiet for a moment. She's still not used to hearing Mother invoked so freely, especially not in... mixed company. She supposes that cat's more or less out of the bag now, though; whether or not everyone's met it, to stretch a metaphor. If only she had had time to glean something - anything! - from her encounter with Mother before she was forced to sign off, she might feel like she has SOME tools to work with here.
    Traditionally Black Widow is not the first to endorse a plan that isn't either low-key, or at least kills an opponent very very quickly. But... "... Your call." Is all she says, very very quietly.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet pulls a face at Wanda. "Sure. Give me the magic battery and the instruction manual, I'll go nuts. I mean, I've seen Strange do it." Fingers wiggle through the air with a vaguely mystical gesture. "How hard can it be?"

Her hand drops and rests on the paperwork in front of Nadia. "Leave this to me. Bobbi's a nerd, she's as bad as you are. I appreciate the offer to try and do your own paperwork honey, really," Janet reassures Nadia, and touches her shoulder. "But to each their own, and this is sort of what you do with an MBA."

Janet sits at the table and shifts to cross her legs under her before starting to sort the paperwork into more sensible stacks. Whatever is in front of Nadia at least makes sense to Janet.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
There's a bit of a laugh from Wanda at the suggestion of the instruction manual. "If only magic were so specific." She looks between Nadia and Janet. "I think you're in luck that this is just Janet's cup of tea. Every member of the Avengers seems to have a very particular skillset... I believe you could cover most anything you'd need with help from one of us."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia watches Natasha wander off with a little wave. Really she seems more than happy to leave all of the paperwork to Janet, "Now we just need to find a building, originally I thought maybe we could use the house lab space since Dad is usually off in his mobile lab but he didn't like that idea and if others are supplying sensitive technology, then a more neutral location is probably best anyway."

"Magic is really neat, like a whole other set of physics. I wonder if I could learn it..." She grins at Wanda before looking back to Janet again.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"You are working with a budget," Janet reminds Nadia. "There's suitable unused space on the Pym Technologies campus and you can rent it for a very good rate, which will help with keeping your profit margins where they're supposed to be. Infrastructure, security, resources-- there's a lot more to claming lab space than 'find a building, put down a security deposit'."

Janet's eyes flicker from Nadia to Wanda and she tilts her head at the Romani girl. "-Can- she learn magic? I always thought it was one of those things you had to be born into it, y'know, like having good balance or whatever."

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
"I could see the comparison," Wanda agrees with a small smile. She looks between Janet and Nadia. "A lot of magic is learning how things work, learning ingredients and elements that make something up. Plenty of books you can study. But there are different styles of magic. Some is more innate, but some of it can be cast with component ingredients. And, of course, there are things like potions. If you ever wanted to create a potion for something, I could certainly teach you something basic."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia leans back in her seat, "Yeah, existing lab space is probably best for the time being until we can secure more funding. OH! That reminds me SHIELD already wants to contract us to do something!" She grins, "Ironically it's to try and help someone who I'd already been trying to help with the Titans. Apparently they showed up on SHIELD's radar, too."

She looks a bit thoughtful as she listens to Wanda, "Yeah, that sounds just like physics and chemistry. Well except for the some being innate part. But if it's like physics I mean I don't have a huge reserve of electricity inside of me but I can build a portable generator to let me fling lightning bolts. I think it would definitely be interesting to at least read some of those books. Dr. Von Doom does both Science and Magic, he's /so/ cool! I actually got his autograph when we were working on the Brainiac Array!" Nadia looks between Janet and Wanda, the easily excitable girl is clearly excited at this prospect. "I would love to see how you make a potion and how it compares to synthesizing compounds through chemistry." Magic is definitely more interesting than paperwork and budgets.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"Yeah, that reminds me, we'll need to have a talk about insurance claims and why you're gonna need a good deductible," Janet says in a wry tone. "Anyway, my advice: one project at a time. Get GIRL up and running before you get distracted too much with a new field of study, hmm?"

She gets to her feet and slides her purse over her shoulder. The much slimmer stack of paperwork's handed to Nadia. "Read this, sign where I've marked, and then scan it over to my office. I'll ask my accountant to look it over and then set legal on it for you. They'll make sure you don't accidentally register yourself as an international drug cartel or something."

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
"Janet has a very good point there," Wanda says with a tiny smile. "One thing at a time. Besides, it is not as if I'm going anywhere. It's not hard to find me here if you ever want to see a few things or take a break from learning one thing for a few minutes learning another."

Her gaze goes to Janet. "I wasn't aware you could register yourself as an international drug cartel. I'll be sure to remember that." There's certainly a look of amusement from Wanda at the suggestion.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia makes a face, but bouncing from project to project without finishing /is/ one of the things her Therapist mentioned she should avoid. "Okaaaay." The drawn out reluctant agreement of a teenager, "Boring parts of lab setup first, then magic! Also probably dealing with aliens. The girl we're helping, I think it's aliens. Lately it always seems to be be aliens. In space the other day we met still other aliens, how do some people still not believe in them? There seems to be so many..." And just like that she's distracted herself off on to a tangent /again/.

"Focus." She tells herself slapping both hands against the sides of her face. "Okay, I'll sign the things and send them back. Thanks Janet!"