Princess: Have a good day at work. I love you.
Me: You too princess. I love you too.
My eyes look over the past few days of messages, my heart feeling a small ache from missing Wanda's presence next to mine at night. It's currently Thursday so me and Wanda have officially started doing the whole space thing that we talked about. I'm not going to lie, I hate it but I can't let Wanda know that because she will probably just say 'this is good for you, good for us' or something. I mean I'm the one who even brought up the subject and now it's happening I am the one struggling.
We spent most of Monday cuddled on the couch watching TV and movies with the boys, completely relaxing after our busy week in Canada. But now I'm here on a Thursday afternoon at work, staring at paperwork. The words on the page seem to be melting together with how long I have been staring at it, and I've taken nothing in. I groan as I rest my head on the desk, pushing the paperwork to the floor planning to deal with it later. The sudden buzzing of my phone's intercom causes me to raise my head and try to sound at least a little excited to be at work.
"Good afternoon Boss. You're 2 o'clock is here, well all three of them." Mantis informs me and I perk up remembering the meeting I have planned for today.
"Oh right, yes. The three teens. Right, send them up, don't put them on a tour. I want to do that myself."
"Of course boss. Do you require any drinks or food for this meeting?"
"Ask the three of them what they want, and just get Gabe to go to the tower to grab mine from Wanda again please. Get Gabe to get you and himself something too."
"Of course boss." When the line goes dead I lean back in my chair, looking up at the ceiling as I rub my hands up and down my face.
I sit forward after a few moments, opening the calendar on my laptop to see what else I have coming up. I groan when I see it's all just meeting from now until late tomorrow night, having the weekend and Monday off. The calendar also reminds me I've got 4 more days. 4 days to prepare. 4 days to decide what I need to do. 4 days.
I get lost in thought. I don't hear my name being called through the door until I hear a loud knock and the appearance of mantis' head in the doorway brings me back and I smile as she leads the three teenagers into my room. Mantis leaves the room, leaving the three of them to their own devices as they all look around my office, then to me.
I stand from my seat straightening out my suit, using my right hand to pop open the button that's keeping it closed as I walk around the desk. I hold in a chuckle when I see both the boys look between each other with a nervous stance, as the girl stands with her arms crossed eyeing me up and down trying to get a read on me. I hold out my left hand towards the girl first.
"Hi you must be MJ, it's nice to finally be able to host this introductory day." She takes my hand as she raises a brow.
"How old are you?" The boy I know to be Peter looks at her in shock as he elbows her.
"MJ!" He says through gritted teeth.
"What? I'm just saying she looks young." MJ shrugs as she nudges Peter back.
"It's okay. I'm 22 so yes I'm only 5 years older than you guys." I move to shake the other two boys' hands. "Nice to finally meet you Peter and you Ned, right?"
"This place is so cool Miss. Like really, really cool. I was going to do a Stark internship but when he saw my work he suggested applying for your programme, saying that it was for the best of the best. He also said that he thought I would be a good fit for the team, but I'm really nervous. I don't know if you can tell but when I'm nervous a ramble. And I'm rambling now and I don't quite know how to stop, oh please someone put me out of my misery." I stifle a laugh when MJ's hand makes contact with the back of his head, shutting Peter up quickly.
"Pete." Ned rolls his eyes as Peter cowers a little from MJ's glare.
"Honestly it's no problem Peter. Tony is right, my program is for the best of the best and the hiring process is rigorous, but with that being said I would like to officially have you on my team. Before you get too excited I want to show you around, but I do have a small meeting with someone at the same time. So if it's all the same with you they will be joining us on our tour."
"No, no problem at all Miss. And just again thank you so, so, soooo much for this opportunity." I chuckle when MJ rolls her eyes and Ned clasps a hand over Peter's mouth to stop him from rambling again.
"Okay. So we can have the food first and then get going on this tour. By the time we start, my other guest should be here." Just as I mention food, Mantis pushes the door open with a few food bags in each of her hands, and Tommy’s old backpack that makes me laugh to myself.
"Let me help you with that Miss." Peter grabs two of the bags, following Mantis to the desk to set it up.
"Please take a seat anywhere. This is an informal meeting so no need to worry about etiquette or anything like that. Especially since it's fast food anyway."
Just to prove my point I move my chair to the front of my desk before jumping on my desk and resting my feet on the chair. I grab the small rucksack with star wars characters on it from Mantis, earning a raised eyebrow from everyone. Mantis makes sure everything is set out for the others before making her way out of the room while I grab the tupperware out of the rucksack.
"What's with the bag? Not that I don't love star wars but isn't that a child's bag?" Ned asks as he grabs his McDonald's.
"It's my girlfriend's son's bag. She makes me lunch even though I only go there on weekends and I get my driver to pick it up for me."
"Oh that's sweet. What did she cook for you?" MJ joins me by leaning on the edge of the desk grabbing her taco bell and digging in.
"Looks like Mediterranean fish curry or something. I don't know but it smells good. I'm just gonna heat this up." I hop off the desk, quickly disappear into the small kitchen to heat up my food, only to peep my head back into the office when I hear another voice I recognise. "Oh Yelena. Hello! You're early!"
"Is that a bad thing?" She looks at the three teenagers confusedly as she makes her way over to me for a hug. "It's good to see you."
"You to Lena and no, it's not a bad thing." I pull away with a smile. "Actually it's perfect because it gives me time to introduce you to Peter, MJ and Ned."
The three of them give a small smile and wave as they continue eating their food, Yelena giving them a small nod as she turns to look at me with a raised eyebrow.
"Why are there children in your office?" I gently shove Yelena’s shoulder as she laughs but before I can explain the microwave goes off.
"Why don't you get acquainted. I just need to sort my food. I'm going to be taking them on a tour while I help you, if that's okay." I say as I disappear back into the kitchen.
"Yeah that's okay. It might help because I can ask the three of them questions." I turn to see Yelena has followed me into the kitchen.
"Well for starters you need to get in there and introduce yourself properly. Also, a good choice of outfit." I point out the white shirt, black pants and green coat ensemble. "It's relaxed but not informal."
"Thanks, Natasha helped."
“Really? I thought Nat only knew how to wear black on black or white on white, but I guess I was wrong. Anyway, follow me back into my office so I can introduce you to the three people who will be with us while we talk.” I lead us back into the office where I sit back on the desk, my feet resting on the floor as Yelena decides to lean against my legs with her arms folded over her chest.
“Did you get me any food?” I roll my eyes at Yelena's never ending need for food, but give her a tupperware dish I got Wanda to make knowing I was seeing Yelena today. Just because we aren’t spending our nights together doesn’t mean I am going to say no when Wanda offers to send me leftovers. “Mac and Cheese.”
“Yes and it's got hot sauce on it, just for you Lena.” She pulls the lid off the tupperware excitedly grabbing a sprae fork that I brought in and digs in.
“You’re the best. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, thank Wanda. She was the one that cooked it.” Yelena turns to look at me with a mouth full of pasta and scrunched brows.
“I thought you were having some quality alone time.”
“We are, but you know Wanda is a big mama bear and wants to make sure I eat. So she cooks enough food for four and sends me the leftovers.”
“She is so whipped for you.”
“And I for her.”
“Oh I know, you literally went on holiday after knowing each other for a month, even offered a private jet to fly you guys there.”
“So what? You just wish you were whipped for someone.”
“No, not really. Never really cared about the whole being with someone thing” I raise my eyebrows at her admission but don’t question it further. “However, you better watch your new employees because he is giving her puppy eyes, and he looks like he is bored of third wheeling.”
I look up to see Peter looking longingly at MJ, rolling my eyes at the young love in his eyes even though it is most definitely cute on his part, he looks like a lost puppy when MJ doesn’t look back straight away. A little desperate, now that's not a good look on anyone. Unless it's Wanda, desperate for me but that’s completely different. ANYWHO, I then turn to see Ned rolling his eyes as he finishes off his food and stands up from the couch to put it back in the bag then in the bin. I turn to look at MJ next to me who has a slight blush from hearing Yelena’s observations, her eyes flicking to Peter every now and again.
“Hmm, guess you’re right there Lena. Are you three ready to go?” They all turn to look at me, giving me a thumbs up each as they move over to the trash can to add in their rubbish.
"So what will this tour consist of?" Yelena asks me as I lead the four of them to the elevator, pressing the button for the genetics and biochemical research and development lab.
"So I'm going to show these three around the lab they are going to be working and learning in. At the same time we are gonna chat and I'm gonna ask you some questions that someone could possibly ask you in an interview. It's gonna be nice and relaxed so take a breath" I smile when I see her nod and let out a relaxing breath, obviously a little nervous.
"Okay, cool. As long as it's okay with you three?" Yelena looks at the three who are looking over the floor index, giving her a nod and smile and she further relaxes.
Ding. The elevator doors open and the three teens' jaws drop at the sight of people in lab coats and the size of the laboratories. The room has small private labs around the edge of the room along two walls, then open work benches and lab space along the other wall. In the centre of the room is a central hub sort of thing that has multiple screens that are linked to each of the private labs computers. It's more for safety than anything else in case anything is to happen within the lab while no one is in there we are able to see any potential changes. It is also so other scientists can look at the progress and maybe even suggest different approaches.
"So we are all about the community when it comes to working in this lab. As you can see everything is connected through the central hub. Now this doesn't mean that people are free to intrude on other people's experiments and works, but if they see something in the data that maybe someone else doesn't then suggestions and ideas are very welcomed. However, you can't tell someone how to do their experiment unless they ask because it can be condescending and otherwise rude to do so."
I explain as we walk towards the central hub the four pairs of eyes scanning around the room in awe at what they see. I see Yelena’s eyes going wide at the sight of everything in front of her, mumbling the names of equipment and experiments that she can see. She then looks up to a computer on the central hub, her brows scrunching.
"You are looking into the RNA sequences within different spiders and if there is any parallel to human RNA to see if you can create a DNA strand from the both strands, and create some sort of human spider or spider human. A spider man?" I smile as Peter leans against the round counter looking at the screen that shows exactly what he described. "Trichonephila clavipes?"
"The species of spider you're looking into is the golden orb-weaver?" I turn to look at Yelena with a surprised smile.
"You know your species." Yelena shrugs as she looks back at the screen.
"I dabbled in biochemistry on the side during my time at college before I moved to Russia." I smile to myself as I look at the three teens.
"Okay, so my people know you are here today and have access to everything on this floor. You can have a look around, look at the different things people are doing and you can ask questions. You are allowed to suggest things but because you aren't on the payroll and insurance yet, you can't actually touch or do anything I'm afraid." They all nod quickly, splitting up and going to a few different stations. "Now I can help you. Take a seat."
Me and Yelena take a seat next to each other at the central hub so I can keep an eye on the three visitors while I help Yelena. She puts her bag in her lap grabbing out a few bits of paper and putting them in my lap before getting comfortable.
"It's just my CV and a few notes from interviews I asked for." Yelena shuffles a little nervously in her seat, as I look over the CV raising an impressed eyebrow.
"You studied neuroscience at college with a paper in the neural pathways and how an external manipulation can be used to change the way something is to behave and think. You were basically looking into the possibility of mind control."
"Chemical subjugation to be exact." I let out an impressed hmph as I read the rest of her CV. "Yelena this is a very impressive CV."
"But I haven't done much apart from the college, and then a year out at my mother's pig farm." I softly chuckle as I scoot my chair closer so I can show her her CV as I talk.
"It's not all about the jobs you've had or the skills you already have. This CV shows me that you take initiative, you came up with an idea and you wrote a whole dissertation on it. It also shows that you are attentive and can easily learn new skills and retain information, I mean the course you did would have been crammed packed with absolute nonsense to most people yet you are able to utilise that knowledge to your advantage. You came in here, looked at a computer screen with a few images and numbers and immediately knew what was going on. You're really smart Yelena, smarter than you give yourself credit for. So why have you been going for any giving job when you can work in pretty much any medical facility or laboratory?"
"I didn't think they would want someone who took a year out to help on a farm. These big places want people dedicated to their scientific field, not someone who left college and worked on a pig farm with their mother for a year. But I can't even get a normal 9-5 job so what's the point in even doing this." I give her a stern look and she shrinks a little. "I'm sorry I really appreciate this, I'm just frustrated."
"I wasn't mad about the fact you questioned this meeting. I'm mad you talked badly about yourself. Yelena, your CV is amazing, your knowledge and intellect is something you should be proud of. So I think we should go over the interview comments and see if it's something that I can help you with there."
"I think most of them said I rambled too much or that I went off topic too easily." Yelena sums up as I look over the notes.
"This one says they asked about your hobbies and all you spoke about was a pig farm and mixed martial arts for 10 minutes even when they tried getting you away from the topic." I scrunch my brows as I read more about why the interviewers didn't hire her.
"So what can I do?" I turn to look at Yelena keeping my face emotionless as I scrunch up the interview notes and throw them in the trash. "Hey I need those."
"No you don't. Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to ask you some basic interview questions. I'm going to make my own notes and we are going to go from there. What I've read in those notes is people don't want to hire you because you are smart, quick witted and have hyperactive puppy energy. There is nothing wrong with that, so I'm going to conduct a mock interview and I will help you from that. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay, first question. What first got you interested in neuroscience?" I smile when I see Yelena sit up excitedly, crossing her right leg over her left.
"Oh easy. My mama used to work in the field, her speciality was in neural pathways and the behaviour within animals when the pathways were manipulated by an outside stimulus such as a small electric shock."
"So your dissertation was inspired by the work you had seen your mother do?" Yelena quickly nods as she points at a free computer screen.
"Can I?"
"Of course, it should already be logged on."
I watch as Yelena flicks through the computer searching our database for something. Once she has found something she turns around, only to grab my chair and pull it across the floor a few metres till I'm in front of the computer screen. Yelena nods her head towards the computer, so I turn my head to look and smile when I see a few labelled diagrams of a human brain and the nervous system.
"Okay so everyone knows that the brain is like our control centre for everything. The way we think, the way we act, even in the way we move. Because our brain is constantly sending out signals to our whole body to keep us alive, apart from our hearts they beat on their own. Anyway, as us neuro nerds know, neural pathways are made up of a series of neurons through the brain that send a signal from one part of the brain to another. There are three main types of neurons that can be found in these pathways. You have motor, interneurons and sensory neurons. And we have about 25 quadrillion of these neural pathways in our brains."
I smile at how excited Yelena gets as she explains the small amount of brain science and the other three, who I completely forgot I was showing around come and stand around my chair to watch Yelena talk. Ned is standing on my left, his eyes scanning the screen with slightly scrunched brows while Peter leans against my chair on my right; MJ leaning against him.
"Okay now imagine being able to take control of all those neurons through chemical subjugation. You would be able to control what something does, how it does it and when. So you could control a person to assassinate someone. Or you could make someone stop breathing with a simple command. Now before you call me a crazy Russian I am simply stating what would be possible with external manipulation of these pathways, I never want to make something that does such a thing. But I just want to be able to study the pathways further to gain an understanding."
"Did you guys understand a single thing she just said?" Ned asks, making me and Yelena smile and Peter and MJ giggle.
"Nope, not a word." Peter adds, making me and Yelana smile a little wider as we hold in a small laugh as MJ rolls her eyes looking back at the screen.
"I understood the words neuron and crazy Russian but nothing else." Me and Yelena break as we both start giggling and shaking our heads.
"I'm sorry. It's just the way you all sort of just added to one another. You don't have to understand this, this is Yelena’s shit. Ned you're the computer guy, Peter you're the biochemical guy and MJ is the chemist gal who is also the most level headed."
"Why was she talking about mind control anyway?" Peter asks as Yelena sits back down, getting the last of her giggles out.
"I'm just doing a mock interview, writing some notes for her to take away so that I can hopefully help her get a job somewhere."
"But you haven't made any notes." I close my eyes for a second as Ned points out my blank notebook causing Yelena to scrunch her brows as she takes a look.
"That's because she is doing perfectly well so there is no need to write anything down."
"Can I ask a question?" MJ looks over the small list of questions on the other bits of paper of my notebook pointing one out to me.
"Go ahead."
"So, Yelena, why did you take a year after college to live in Russia?" I watch as Yelena rubs her hands over her pants, swallowing nervously.
"Originally it started out as a visit to my mama, I hadn't seen her in a year or so and decided it would be good to visit. I would help her on the farm, with the pigs, and we just caught up. I told her about my dissertation on neural pathways, she gave me some of her old papers to look through as soon as she could after that. We got to talking about her ideas, her work and everything about her career. Then we sort of had this idea to see if you can train a pig like you can train a dog, silly really but we wanted to give it a go. So I stayed as we did the experiment. Turns out a pig is pretty good at following commands, not all of the time but sometimes. It also allowed us to test their intelligence by making mazes outside, their memory and all of that. It was pretty cool. Then after a year I wanted to come back here to visit my sister and my mama told me to stay in America as there were better job opportunities in my chosen field."
“That’s cool though, taking time to yourself and being able to talk about what you love with your mom.” MJ points out.
“Oh, I want to ask this question.” Peter points to the paper and Yelena’s eyes flick to mine as I nod to the boy. “Do you prefer to work in a team or on your own?”
“Well it depends on the situation on which of those I prefer. If I am doing something in my chosen field then I prefer to do so on my own because I know how I want things done and how to get things done. However, if I was to be put on a project that other people were also working on I am quite capable of working alongside others to complete an objective. I take a bit of the leader role, you know sort of giving the people in the group different things to work on and try and complete, or just being able to say this is what we got to do and this is how we are going to do it.”
“Okay, this question says. How willing are you to stay late at work, possibly travel to different cities or countries or attend business meetings?” Ned is the next to ask a question.
“So I have a lot of free time basically sitting around being a loaf, so to fill that with work, travel or even boring business meetings is something I would participate in. The travelling and the meetings give insight on what other people don’t see when it comes to research and development places like this and staying late comes with the job. I mean you can’t just leave an experiment halfway through the experiment because if we were to do that you might as well just put down null for the results.” I smile at all of Yelena’s answers as I tap my pen against my notebook.
“Okay so I have one last question.”
“Sure.” I write it down in my notebook, only showing it to the other three who all smile widely and nod excitedly giving me the answer I already knew.
“If you were to be offered a job to work in a place like this.” I gesture to the lab around us, Yelena’s eyes doing another quick scan of the room. “Would you take the job?”
“One hundred percent, this is the sort of lab I would love to work in. you know where you can work in teams and be able to help other people around you, but also have the privacy to do your own thing in the private labs. It's the perfect mix of getting your head down and getting it done and being a part of a community.” The three teens nudge me excitedly as I hold out my right hand ready in front of Yelena, she takes it and we both shake as Yelena looks at me confused on why we are shaking hands.
“Welcome to the team Lena.” Yelena’s jaw drops, her hand faltering in the hand shake as her eyes go wide.
“You’re serious? You’re not just pulling some prank on me? You actually want me to work here.?” Yelena stands from her chair shaking her hands out to her side as she asks the questions.
“I do. I want you to be a team leader and project manager who oversees the neuro department alongside a few others. You would also oversee other experiments and that of course, not just specifically neuro but because that’s your specialty that's where you will be mostly based during meetings and that. Oh and i want you to be the team leader and project manager that oversees these three.”
“Holy fucking shit! Holy shit! Yes!”
“Yes?” I smile at Yelena’s excitement as she starts bouncing on her toes with a wide smile.
“Yes!” I hold my hand out again and this time she shakes it enthusiastically now she knows why she is shaking my hand. “I do have one question.”
“Go ahead.” I gesture to her seat and she happily takes it as she bounces her legs with the widest smile I've ever seen.
“What would be my baseline salary? Just so I can see where I am at and if I can finally move out of Natasha’s and all of that. Maybe buy a car. Settle down here in oh so great america.”
“Your salary would start at $120’000 a year since you are going to oversee……”
“$120’000!?” Yelena rubs her hands over her face as she interrupts me, her shock clearly evident as she is muttering nonsense under her breath.
“Yes $120’000 is your base salary since you are a team leader in neuro and then overseeing these three apprentices, which is a lot of responsibility so you get paid as such. You will also get a bonus each time you finish a research and development that can then be produced or published. That can take you anywhere between 3 months to 2 years and the bonus varies depending on what it is you do. You will also get your own work space, your own office and a funding of $1’000’000 to start which you can use for mostly anything you need for your work. If you require more funds you do have to apply but I don't see why there would be much of a problem with your application not being accepted. Anything else? Oh yes, you can come to the lab at any time but you are contracted down to work 9-5, but thats just for the HR side of things. You have a key card to get you in and out of the building, as soon as you step into your office or lab you start getting paid and when you leave the building that's classed as a day's work. We do keep track of hours though and if we see you work over 100hrs a week you will get a couple days off. Like i said you are contracted down for 37hr working weeks but because of your job type overtime is dutifully paid.”
“I…You actually want to hire me?”
“You’re already hired. We shook on it. We just need to go down to HR and get you on our payroll. If you still want the job?” Yelena’s head turns to look at me as a wide smile slowly paints itself on her face.
“When do you want me to start Boss?” I laugh at Yelena’s cheekiness as I flip her off.
“Well these three start next wednesday, so how about you come in on Tuesday and we will get you set up and ready for when your team arrives.”
“Well I guess Tuesday it is.”
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Word count: 5241
Idek what this chapter is but here it is.