Kitty and Nolan - Backdated
Oct. 6th, 2017 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ax_herald posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ax_mainNolan and Kitty finally meet.
Nolan's tools and extra gear had been delivered a little while back and had been sitting in a corner of his office, still packed. It wasn't that he didn't like to get his hands on some hardware, but really that he hadn't had the time. Managing his company from a distance was exhausting, never mind the fact that the drug treatment he was on seemed to make him drowsy half the time.
He hated it.
As another spell of drowsiness hit, he decided to step away from his computer and do something that required a minimum of physical activity. Finally setting up his workspace downstairs seemed like the perfect option, and with a bit of luck he might even finally meet the elusive Kitty Pryde.
Sadly, the workshop was empty, but that allowed him to make the few trips it took to bring all of his gear down. Between fighting off the urge to take a nap and the desire to have a look at the phones lying on the other, already set up workspace, it took him longer than it should have to set up his own, but finally, everything was in its place, most tools magnetically stuck on a rack on the wall in front of him, above the monitors attached to the couple of homemade laptops he was now booting. He would run a quick diagnosis - it never hurt to be too careful - and connect one of them to the school network, with the necessary firewalls in place. The other one would stay decidedly offline.
He was there and settled for probably ten minutes before suddenly, he wasn't alone. A girl phased through the door as though it weren't there, clearly distracted by the phone in her hand and the apple she was eating off of in one hand. Younger and somewhat short, her brown hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, she was wearing an odd assortment of torn up skinny jeans, black vans, a soft gray tank top, and a black and white flannel shirt.
Nolan's white jacket was draped on the back of his chair, leaving him in a couple of polo shirts (bright blue on top, white underneath, with the collar popped) and a pair of white trousers. It was a relatively casual look for him, all things told. His hair was naturally messed up - or was that artfully so? - and his attention was entirely on what he was doing, until he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and started.
He relaxed immediately, though, and muttered to himself, "I should be used to this by now." Then he stood, smiling at Kitty and holding out a hand. "I've been looking forward to meeting you. Nolan Ross."
Kitty had come to a screeching halt at the first mutter and had turned toward the sound. So she just kind of stood, staring, when Nolan-freaking-Ross held out his hand like a goofball. Not that she had a hand to give, between the apple and her phone. She wasn't really sure how to answer him, either. "Um. Hi," she finally settled on. "Yeah I got that. The who you are part. You're kind of on half of the tech blogs I read."
You'd think that would make her want to shake his hand? Nolan really was the worst at this 'social interaction with his peer group' thing he had to do here. He winced slightly as he pulled back his hand, feeling inescapably awkward. But it was hardly his first time soldiering on despite some awkwardness, and he slid his hands in his pockets and gave her another one of his usual smiles - slightly too tight, slightly too dry, like awkward was only ever a second away. "Only half," he remarked. "I'm losing my touch."
Which was, of course, a joke, and not at all the arrogant statement one could easily assume that it was.
Her lips tightened nevertheless, and she turned back toward her workstation, tossing her phone onto the desk and setting the apple down a little harder than she should have. "Well, maybe you should be out there campaigning your awesomeness right now, then."
"I'm - paying an entire department to do just that, have I done something to offend you?" Nolan asked in the same breath as he answered, watching her with a confused frown. Yes, he was terrible at social interaction, but not to the point that he usually garnered hostility straight off the bat.
Kitty rolled her eyes at the department comment, then started turning on her computer and a few of the monitors. "Does it really matter?"
"To me," Nolan confirmed, watching her with both confusion and trepidation. "The only persons I usually want to offend tend to be Hamptonites and businessmen." And your usual, run of the mill haters, of course, but that went without saying. Tech geniuses he was going to be sharing room with were nowhere on his list.
"Must be rough," Kitty murmured. "All those Hamptonites bringing you down."
"More like recreational," Nolan answered, still frowning. "Is that the problem? My wealth?" He would not put it past Shinobi to have completely left out the fact that Kitty had a problem with wealthy people, but that did not feel quite right, all the same. Like he was missing a piece of the puzzle.
"No," Kitty told him, then frowned and said, "Yes. No."
Nolan watched her expectantly for a second, and shifted his weight slightly, hands still in his pockets. "What is it, then?"
Turning back to face him, she leaned back against the counter, folding her arms over her chest. "Do you even do any of your own work anymore, or just pay other people to do it?"
So... his success? His having gone into business instead of tinkering in a garage somewhere? Nolan wasn't sure, but he sucked his lips in before asking softly, "Why do you care?" It was not a retort to her accusation, but very clearly a genuine question.
That was a good question, and Kitty looked down at her arms for a moment, absorbing it. The most simple answer was that she was jealous of his success. And, that was true to a certain extent. There was a time when Kitty would have given anything to have what Nolan had. To have been given the opportunities he did.
She slumped into her chair with a sigh. Opportunities. That was the real source of her annoyance and upset. She could feel it like a rock in her stomach. Nolan had gotten a golden opportunity. He'd run with it, and he'd made himself rich and famous. It wasn't quite her childhood dream, but who didn't dream of becoming the next Steve Jobs every now and then, right?
Nolan took her lack of response as a lack of acknowledgment of his question as something real, and his frown only deepened. But he wasn't going to push, of course. He took a seat in his own chair, pulling his hands out of his pockets and laying them on his thighs. They were going to be sharing this space. Regardless of his admiration for what he'd seen of her work, and regardless of her apparent contempt for him, they ought to be able to get along, if only superfluously.
So he spread his hands peacefully. "Tell me if there's anything I can do, or not do."
"Don't be so nice and accommodating?" she grumbled. Then she sighed again, rubbed her face with one hand, and finally looked up at him. "Sorry. It's been a bad month." Which was also true.
Nolan paused, and then stated, "I don't suppose you'd like to talk to me about it." It was a statement, not a question. "But I'm here for the near future, however much we both wish I'd be somewhere else. I'll do my best to be a jerk, if that's what you'd like."
"I thought you only did that for Hamptonites," Kitty pointed out.
"Being a decent person is much more likely to offend my usual targets, actually," Nolan replied, because it was true, never mind that it was beside the point altogether. He had no idea how to navigate the current conversation.
"I like that you at least don't let them tell you how to dress," she said grudgingly.
Had that just been a compliment? Nolan looked wary. "Thank you," he answered uncertainly.
Kitty started to deflate. He was just so nice. And she had never, ever seen someone genuinely cowed by her. Not by her, all of 5'4, tiny, insignificant Kitty Pryde. "Wow, I'm a terrible person," she suddenly realized out loud.
"I'm - sorry, what?" Nolan usually understood conversations a bit better, socially awkward though he was.
"No, I am," she sighed. "I'm just so...wrapped up in your awesome success and the fact that I'm here, thinking about having to run for my life when a mob comes knocking down our door. It's not fair. I'm just...jealous, I guess. I'm sorry."
Jealous. Now he was on vaguely familiar grounds, only he'd never liked anyone who was jealous of him before. They were usually narrow-minded idiots, not geniuses in their own right. "Ah." He paused, and then went on, "You know that if you're half the genius I think you might be, I'll do whatever I can to help you succeed, too?"
"In a perfect world, sure," Kitty frowned. "But nothing's what it was anymore."
"Do you mean that mob?" Nolan asked, going off of what she had said.
"Right. That," she agreed.
"No reason to let them stand in your way," Nolan simply remarked. He never had, and wasn't about to start now.
Kitty looked down. She’d had the same thought before she’d discovered that people were experimenting on mutants. Now...the fear and anger she had clouded her ability to work. That was Magneto’s curse, she decided. Knowledge. Oh god, she wasn’t going to cry in front of one of her idols.
Quickly, she swiveled her chair to put her back to him, scrubbing furiously at her eyes with one arm.
Nolan's eyes widened as he realized what was happening. It was clearly time to change the subject so she could compose herself, and he turned back to his computer to give her some privacy. "Shinobi's mentioned some of your work on adapting cell phones to mutant needs here," he stated, sounding almost conversational about it. Almost; there was an edge of apology in his tone. "Have you looked into patenting any of it?"
There, practical concerns, hopefully it would do the trick. Nolan doubted that she would welcome any comfort from him, so this was the best he could do.
Right. Work. She swallowed the emotion, taking a deep breath. “I didn’t want anyone to find out what I was doing,” she explained, blinking the last of the tears away.
"What you were doing, or why you were doing it?" Nolan asked, typing a new command into the terminal.
"Both," Kitty conceded, glancing over at him.
"Why the what?" Nolan asked and, feeling her gaze on him, looked over to meet it. If it was only on account of the why...
"Well, for one, it kind of points to the school, because there's no way I could get the materials for these phones on my own, and if I filed a patent, I'd have to go through all of that with the examiner. Not to mention the fees for the patent itself. I mean, I barely got the one for my solar powered charging station," she told him.
"But now you've got me to help," Nolan offered. "All it would take was a reasonable explanation for how we met."
"Like what?" Kitty frowned.
"Let me see," Nolan stated, and turned back to his laptop. Some ten seconds later, he told her, "There's a computer science convention in New York in November. That seems like the perfect venue."
"So...what, I meet you at this convention in November and you decide to mentor me?" she asked.
"As far as the examiner is concerned," Nolan confirmed. "I could certainly have funded your research. And helped you pay the fees for your patent."
He knew that he really should be angling to sign her onto NolCorp. Shinobi would be direly disappointed. But she was a genius in ways he could only dream of attaining, and he wanted her to... well. Like him.
She continued to frown at him. "Why would you do that?"
There were some very in-depth answers Nolan could make to that question, but he did not want to. Instead, he stuck to the basic. "I got my chance. Why shouldn't you?"
Okay, wow, Kitty, don't start crying again, she told herself. What was with all the crying lately omg. She pretended to just be rubbing at her eye for a moment. That was it. She was just tired. Not crying. Definitely not crying. "That. Um. Sure. As a cover and all."
"I'll help as much or as little as you want," Nolan offered, and pondered turning back to his laptop just to have something to do with his hands. Instead, he tangled his fingers together, rubbing his thumb nervously on his opposite palm.
"Shinobi didn't put you up to this, did he?" she asked quietly.
Nolan chewed on his cheek for a second, wondering how to answer. "I don't need him to want to help out a fellow whiz kid, although his fondness for you doesn't hurt. No, he didn't ask me to do this."
Only strongly hinted at how perfectly happy Kitty would be at NolCorp, a sure sign of how much Shinobi liked Kitty, for not simply wanting to snatch her up for Shaw Industries. Not that Nolan would mention this just now. Their peace was tentative, and he did not want her to think that his help came with strings attached. If she wanted nothing to do with NolCorp, that would be fine too.
He could use some real competition for a change.
"Do I have to sign a contract?" she asked cautiously.
"Only if you want to," Nolan assured her with a small smile. "Which, you might actually want to, to protect yourself." He knew he wasn't going to screw her over, but she would have no assurance that he didn't mean to make a case for his involvement and steal some of her profits from her.
That...made sense. Kitty sighed. Wow, she never thought she’d be throwing in with NolCorp. But then again, she never thought Nolan Ross was as sweet as he was. Unless he was playing her. But the contract would help with that. Ugh, she was so bad at this business stuff. Maybe she should show the contract to Bobby and get his opinion? Or Warren. Yes. Warren. He’d make sure she was covered.
“Okay,” she said. “As long as I can get a second opinion on the contract.”
"And a third, and a fourth," Nolan assured her. "However many you like. I'm sure someone other than me," or Shinobi, given the conflict of interests there, "can recommend a good lawyer to run it by." He wouldn't actually want her to sign it without having had a professional opinion on it. Good business acumen was necessary to survive in the world of computer technology, and developing good habits from the start was the way to go, especially when you didn't have a mutation that unknowingly helped you out along the way.
She sighed softly. “Why did you have to be so nice? I was totally ready to hate you and your fancy houses and cars and awesome business.”
"Please hate me, but don't hate my business," Nolan replied, looking mildly affronted - and absolutely playing. "It's much too cool for that."
She stuck her tongue out at him. “I can’t hate either now. You ruined that. Plus...I could use your help.”
Nolan gave her a small smile at that, a little tight as always, as if he'd gotten a little too used to masking his emotions, growing up. "I wouldn't be here without Shinobi's help. Think of it as me paying it forward."
"I didn't mean like..." Kitty shook her head. "I mean, yeah, I could use that too, but I mean I could use your actual, hands-on help."
"Oh... Oh." Nolan changed gears completely, his body language shifting into something a lot less awkward, and more eager. "What can I help you with?"
Kitty sighed. "Only everything. I mean, the activist kids are wanting to put out mutant-rights videos, and just re-routing the IP addresses and everything every time one of them wants to is going to be exhausting. Then there's the Professor's new team. The security around here is going to need to go from sort-of-good around here, to top-notch. Not to mention maybe making sure they'd be safe in the field and someone needing to run communications and backup and I'm guessing that'll be me, even though I can do a heck of a lot of good out there too. That's not even taking into account the fact that all the famous kids are out there practically outing the school every day. No offense. I mean, you're not out, so, right. Not you."
It was probably the most she'd ever said around Nolan. It was probably the most she'd said to him period, let alone in one breath. It was just...all very overwhelming, and he was probably the only other kid at school who could understand the challenges they were looking at.
Nolan was smiling by the time she was done; what could he say, he liked a challenge. "I'd planned on having an in-depth look at the security over the weekend. Between you and me, we can probably write a better rerouting script than has ever existed. I actually think that Tessa might be better at running comms and back-up, but I'll lend in a hand if you need me. ...and I don't plan on coming out." He paused, and smiled again, truly amused, or happy at the prospect of getting his hands dirty again. Or both. No, definitely both. "I think that about covers it?"
He would have a minor panic attack at the thought of handling all this on top of running his company later. Once he was on his own. For now, he was going to ignore that and enjoy the prospect.
"See?" she pointed out. "You're already helping."
"I built my company on more than Shaw money and my rapier wit with reporters," he replied. The slight dryness in his voice was his default, rather than the sign of anything else. He smiled at her, very happy with where they'd gotten, and turned back to his screen. "You don't really think anything is too much for a couple of geniuses like us, do you?"
"Let's just hope this room is big enough for the both of us," she drawled, shaking her head at him.
"I'll be out of your hair more often than not," Nolan pointed out with a hint of a smile, typing another command on his laptop.
"Right," she realized. "NolCorp."
"Yes," Nolan confirmed. "It sounds like my stay here will be a lot busier than anticipated." He paused, and sounded quieter, and more genuine, as he added, with a glance at her, "But I'll be glad to help."
She gave a small nod. "I'll take your word on that."
Nolan's tools and extra gear had been delivered a little while back and had been sitting in a corner of his office, still packed. It wasn't that he didn't like to get his hands on some hardware, but really that he hadn't had the time. Managing his company from a distance was exhausting, never mind the fact that the drug treatment he was on seemed to make him drowsy half the time.
He hated it.
As another spell of drowsiness hit, he decided to step away from his computer and do something that required a minimum of physical activity. Finally setting up his workspace downstairs seemed like the perfect option, and with a bit of luck he might even finally meet the elusive Kitty Pryde.
Sadly, the workshop was empty, but that allowed him to make the few trips it took to bring all of his gear down. Between fighting off the urge to take a nap and the desire to have a look at the phones lying on the other, already set up workspace, it took him longer than it should have to set up his own, but finally, everything was in its place, most tools magnetically stuck on a rack on the wall in front of him, above the monitors attached to the couple of homemade laptops he was now booting. He would run a quick diagnosis - it never hurt to be too careful - and connect one of them to the school network, with the necessary firewalls in place. The other one would stay decidedly offline.
He was there and settled for probably ten minutes before suddenly, he wasn't alone. A girl phased through the door as though it weren't there, clearly distracted by the phone in her hand and the apple she was eating off of in one hand. Younger and somewhat short, her brown hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, she was wearing an odd assortment of torn up skinny jeans, black vans, a soft gray tank top, and a black and white flannel shirt.
Nolan's white jacket was draped on the back of his chair, leaving him in a couple of polo shirts (bright blue on top, white underneath, with the collar popped) and a pair of white trousers. It was a relatively casual look for him, all things told. His hair was naturally messed up - or was that artfully so? - and his attention was entirely on what he was doing, until he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and started.
He relaxed immediately, though, and muttered to himself, "I should be used to this by now." Then he stood, smiling at Kitty and holding out a hand. "I've been looking forward to meeting you. Nolan Ross."
Kitty had come to a screeching halt at the first mutter and had turned toward the sound. So she just kind of stood, staring, when Nolan-freaking-Ross held out his hand like a goofball. Not that she had a hand to give, between the apple and her phone. She wasn't really sure how to answer him, either. "Um. Hi," she finally settled on. "Yeah I got that. The who you are part. You're kind of on half of the tech blogs I read."
You'd think that would make her want to shake his hand? Nolan really was the worst at this 'social interaction with his peer group' thing he had to do here. He winced slightly as he pulled back his hand, feeling inescapably awkward. But it was hardly his first time soldiering on despite some awkwardness, and he slid his hands in his pockets and gave her another one of his usual smiles - slightly too tight, slightly too dry, like awkward was only ever a second away. "Only half," he remarked. "I'm losing my touch."
Which was, of course, a joke, and not at all the arrogant statement one could easily assume that it was.
Her lips tightened nevertheless, and she turned back toward her workstation, tossing her phone onto the desk and setting the apple down a little harder than she should have. "Well, maybe you should be out there campaigning your awesomeness right now, then."
"I'm - paying an entire department to do just that, have I done something to offend you?" Nolan asked in the same breath as he answered, watching her with a confused frown. Yes, he was terrible at social interaction, but not to the point that he usually garnered hostility straight off the bat.
Kitty rolled her eyes at the department comment, then started turning on her computer and a few of the monitors. "Does it really matter?"
"To me," Nolan confirmed, watching her with both confusion and trepidation. "The only persons I usually want to offend tend to be Hamptonites and businessmen." And your usual, run of the mill haters, of course, but that went without saying. Tech geniuses he was going to be sharing room with were nowhere on his list.
"Must be rough," Kitty murmured. "All those Hamptonites bringing you down."
"More like recreational," Nolan answered, still frowning. "Is that the problem? My wealth?" He would not put it past Shinobi to have completely left out the fact that Kitty had a problem with wealthy people, but that did not feel quite right, all the same. Like he was missing a piece of the puzzle.
"No," Kitty told him, then frowned and said, "Yes. No."
Nolan watched her expectantly for a second, and shifted his weight slightly, hands still in his pockets. "What is it, then?"
Turning back to face him, she leaned back against the counter, folding her arms over her chest. "Do you even do any of your own work anymore, or just pay other people to do it?"
So... his success? His having gone into business instead of tinkering in a garage somewhere? Nolan wasn't sure, but he sucked his lips in before asking softly, "Why do you care?" It was not a retort to her accusation, but very clearly a genuine question.
That was a good question, and Kitty looked down at her arms for a moment, absorbing it. The most simple answer was that she was jealous of his success. And, that was true to a certain extent. There was a time when Kitty would have given anything to have what Nolan had. To have been given the opportunities he did.
She slumped into her chair with a sigh. Opportunities. That was the real source of her annoyance and upset. She could feel it like a rock in her stomach. Nolan had gotten a golden opportunity. He'd run with it, and he'd made himself rich and famous. It wasn't quite her childhood dream, but who didn't dream of becoming the next Steve Jobs every now and then, right?
Nolan took her lack of response as a lack of acknowledgment of his question as something real, and his frown only deepened. But he wasn't going to push, of course. He took a seat in his own chair, pulling his hands out of his pockets and laying them on his thighs. They were going to be sharing this space. Regardless of his admiration for what he'd seen of her work, and regardless of her apparent contempt for him, they ought to be able to get along, if only superfluously.
So he spread his hands peacefully. "Tell me if there's anything I can do, or not do."
"Don't be so nice and accommodating?" she grumbled. Then she sighed again, rubbed her face with one hand, and finally looked up at him. "Sorry. It's been a bad month." Which was also true.
Nolan paused, and then stated, "I don't suppose you'd like to talk to me about it." It was a statement, not a question. "But I'm here for the near future, however much we both wish I'd be somewhere else. I'll do my best to be a jerk, if that's what you'd like."
"I thought you only did that for Hamptonites," Kitty pointed out.
"Being a decent person is much more likely to offend my usual targets, actually," Nolan replied, because it was true, never mind that it was beside the point altogether. He had no idea how to navigate the current conversation.
"I like that you at least don't let them tell you how to dress," she said grudgingly.
Had that just been a compliment? Nolan looked wary. "Thank you," he answered uncertainly.
Kitty started to deflate. He was just so nice. And she had never, ever seen someone genuinely cowed by her. Not by her, all of 5'4, tiny, insignificant Kitty Pryde. "Wow, I'm a terrible person," she suddenly realized out loud.
"I'm - sorry, what?" Nolan usually understood conversations a bit better, socially awkward though he was.
"No, I am," she sighed. "I'm just so...wrapped up in your awesome success and the fact that I'm here, thinking about having to run for my life when a mob comes knocking down our door. It's not fair. I'm just...jealous, I guess. I'm sorry."
Jealous. Now he was on vaguely familiar grounds, only he'd never liked anyone who was jealous of him before. They were usually narrow-minded idiots, not geniuses in their own right. "Ah." He paused, and then went on, "You know that if you're half the genius I think you might be, I'll do whatever I can to help you succeed, too?"
"In a perfect world, sure," Kitty frowned. "But nothing's what it was anymore."
"Do you mean that mob?" Nolan asked, going off of what she had said.
"Right. That," she agreed.
"No reason to let them stand in your way," Nolan simply remarked. He never had, and wasn't about to start now.
Kitty looked down. She’d had the same thought before she’d discovered that people were experimenting on mutants. Now...the fear and anger she had clouded her ability to work. That was Magneto’s curse, she decided. Knowledge. Oh god, she wasn’t going to cry in front of one of her idols.
Quickly, she swiveled her chair to put her back to him, scrubbing furiously at her eyes with one arm.
Nolan's eyes widened as he realized what was happening. It was clearly time to change the subject so she could compose herself, and he turned back to his computer to give her some privacy. "Shinobi's mentioned some of your work on adapting cell phones to mutant needs here," he stated, sounding almost conversational about it. Almost; there was an edge of apology in his tone. "Have you looked into patenting any of it?"
There, practical concerns, hopefully it would do the trick. Nolan doubted that she would welcome any comfort from him, so this was the best he could do.
Right. Work. She swallowed the emotion, taking a deep breath. “I didn’t want anyone to find out what I was doing,” she explained, blinking the last of the tears away.
"What you were doing, or why you were doing it?" Nolan asked, typing a new command into the terminal.
"Both," Kitty conceded, glancing over at him.
"Why the what?" Nolan asked and, feeling her gaze on him, looked over to meet it. If it was only on account of the why...
"Well, for one, it kind of points to the school, because there's no way I could get the materials for these phones on my own, and if I filed a patent, I'd have to go through all of that with the examiner. Not to mention the fees for the patent itself. I mean, I barely got the one for my solar powered charging station," she told him.
"But now you've got me to help," Nolan offered. "All it would take was a reasonable explanation for how we met."
"Like what?" Kitty frowned.
"Let me see," Nolan stated, and turned back to his laptop. Some ten seconds later, he told her, "There's a computer science convention in New York in November. That seems like the perfect venue."
"So...what, I meet you at this convention in November and you decide to mentor me?" she asked.
"As far as the examiner is concerned," Nolan confirmed. "I could certainly have funded your research. And helped you pay the fees for your patent."
He knew that he really should be angling to sign her onto NolCorp. Shinobi would be direly disappointed. But she was a genius in ways he could only dream of attaining, and he wanted her to... well. Like him.
She continued to frown at him. "Why would you do that?"
There were some very in-depth answers Nolan could make to that question, but he did not want to. Instead, he stuck to the basic. "I got my chance. Why shouldn't you?"
Okay, wow, Kitty, don't start crying again, she told herself. What was with all the crying lately omg. She pretended to just be rubbing at her eye for a moment. That was it. She was just tired. Not crying. Definitely not crying. "That. Um. Sure. As a cover and all."
"I'll help as much or as little as you want," Nolan offered, and pondered turning back to his laptop just to have something to do with his hands. Instead, he tangled his fingers together, rubbing his thumb nervously on his opposite palm.
"Shinobi didn't put you up to this, did he?" she asked quietly.
Nolan chewed on his cheek for a second, wondering how to answer. "I don't need him to want to help out a fellow whiz kid, although his fondness for you doesn't hurt. No, he didn't ask me to do this."
Only strongly hinted at how perfectly happy Kitty would be at NolCorp, a sure sign of how much Shinobi liked Kitty, for not simply wanting to snatch her up for Shaw Industries. Not that Nolan would mention this just now. Their peace was tentative, and he did not want her to think that his help came with strings attached. If she wanted nothing to do with NolCorp, that would be fine too.
He could use some real competition for a change.
"Do I have to sign a contract?" she asked cautiously.
"Only if you want to," Nolan assured her with a small smile. "Which, you might actually want to, to protect yourself." He knew he wasn't going to screw her over, but she would have no assurance that he didn't mean to make a case for his involvement and steal some of her profits from her.
That...made sense. Kitty sighed. Wow, she never thought she’d be throwing in with NolCorp. But then again, she never thought Nolan Ross was as sweet as he was. Unless he was playing her. But the contract would help with that. Ugh, she was so bad at this business stuff. Maybe she should show the contract to Bobby and get his opinion? Or Warren. Yes. Warren. He’d make sure she was covered.
“Okay,” she said. “As long as I can get a second opinion on the contract.”
"And a third, and a fourth," Nolan assured her. "However many you like. I'm sure someone other than me," or Shinobi, given the conflict of interests there, "can recommend a good lawyer to run it by." He wouldn't actually want her to sign it without having had a professional opinion on it. Good business acumen was necessary to survive in the world of computer technology, and developing good habits from the start was the way to go, especially when you didn't have a mutation that unknowingly helped you out along the way.
She sighed softly. “Why did you have to be so nice? I was totally ready to hate you and your fancy houses and cars and awesome business.”
"Please hate me, but don't hate my business," Nolan replied, looking mildly affronted - and absolutely playing. "It's much too cool for that."
She stuck her tongue out at him. “I can’t hate either now. You ruined that. Plus...I could use your help.”
Nolan gave her a small smile at that, a little tight as always, as if he'd gotten a little too used to masking his emotions, growing up. "I wouldn't be here without Shinobi's help. Think of it as me paying it forward."
"I didn't mean like..." Kitty shook her head. "I mean, yeah, I could use that too, but I mean I could use your actual, hands-on help."
"Oh... Oh." Nolan changed gears completely, his body language shifting into something a lot less awkward, and more eager. "What can I help you with?"
Kitty sighed. "Only everything. I mean, the activist kids are wanting to put out mutant-rights videos, and just re-routing the IP addresses and everything every time one of them wants to is going to be exhausting. Then there's the Professor's new team. The security around here is going to need to go from sort-of-good around here, to top-notch. Not to mention maybe making sure they'd be safe in the field and someone needing to run communications and backup and I'm guessing that'll be me, even though I can do a heck of a lot of good out there too. That's not even taking into account the fact that all the famous kids are out there practically outing the school every day. No offense. I mean, you're not out, so, right. Not you."
It was probably the most she'd ever said around Nolan. It was probably the most she'd said to him period, let alone in one breath. It was just...all very overwhelming, and he was probably the only other kid at school who could understand the challenges they were looking at.
Nolan was smiling by the time she was done; what could he say, he liked a challenge. "I'd planned on having an in-depth look at the security over the weekend. Between you and me, we can probably write a better rerouting script than has ever existed. I actually think that Tessa might be better at running comms and back-up, but I'll lend in a hand if you need me. ...and I don't plan on coming out." He paused, and smiled again, truly amused, or happy at the prospect of getting his hands dirty again. Or both. No, definitely both. "I think that about covers it?"
He would have a minor panic attack at the thought of handling all this on top of running his company later. Once he was on his own. For now, he was going to ignore that and enjoy the prospect.
"See?" she pointed out. "You're already helping."
"I built my company on more than Shaw money and my rapier wit with reporters," he replied. The slight dryness in his voice was his default, rather than the sign of anything else. He smiled at her, very happy with where they'd gotten, and turned back to his screen. "You don't really think anything is too much for a couple of geniuses like us, do you?"
"Let's just hope this room is big enough for the both of us," she drawled, shaking her head at him.
"I'll be out of your hair more often than not," Nolan pointed out with a hint of a smile, typing another command on his laptop.
"Right," she realized. "NolCorp."
"Yes," Nolan confirmed. "It sounds like my stay here will be a lot busier than anticipated." He paused, and sounded quieter, and more genuine, as he added, with a glance at her, "But I'll be glad to help."
She gave a small nod. "I'll take your word on that."
