Alright, Jubilee had
decided. Living at a school bit ass *hard*. She wanted to go back to the way
things had been before Remy got a major bug up his butt about her being in
danger. Psh, like she hadn’t been in danger before he ever came along and she’d
gotten herself out of it all by herself thank you very much. She gnawed on her
thumbnail as she looked out over the ridges of the rooftop, huddling into the
comfort of her bright yellow coat.
I want to go home.
Unlike most people,
her home wasn’t a place. It was a person. One lean, charming Cajun thief with
devil eyes and a way with cards and women. Since he’d found her, earned her
trust and weaselled his way into her heart, he’d been her one aspect of
stability. He’d replaced the life she’d had before, one of quiet Beverley Hills
spoiled princess, to one of excitement, of *fun*. And here she was, back again,
trying to fit into a place where no one seemed to want her and everyone was
uptight.
Jesus, like Rogue. Or Marie.
Put to that name all the angsty teen nasal whine you can, folks. She’d only
been talking to Bobby, just talking and laughing, hanging out, trying to make a
few friends. It was what she did. She made friends of people, charmed them into
liking her so they didn’t hurt her. She’d been hurt enough, and was smart
enough to recognise her own weaknesses in comparison to the people around here.
And here? There was no one to watch her back. Not at all. No one. She was as
alone as she had been on the streets, just better fed and nicer smelling. And
up swanned Rogue, Marie, whatever the hell her name is. She can’t seem to
decide, and sometimes Jubilee can just see these flashes of someone else in the
other girl’s eyes. And off went Bobby, to attend to Rogue’s crisis. And there
stood Jubilee, shrugging it off with a laugh but being totally rebuffed later
when she tries to strike up another conversation.
Seeing Rogue standing
off to the side and knowing exactly why. Rogue doesn’t like her hanging around
her boyfriend. But Jebus Crow, Jubilee can’t get why. It’s not like she’s even
interested in guys that way, thanks. She’d been scarred and frightened away
from any sort of willingness to experiment with males after some of her
experiences with them in the not so well protected halls of Juvenile Detention.
She just wanted a *friend*. Turned instead with a shrug to Pyro, Saint-John,
Sinjin, John. He was more fun anyway. She could see, all the time, the sort of
longing in Bobby’s eyes as she and the pyromaniac whispered and plotted,
laughing quietly. Wanting to be in on the fun. But Rogue was always there to
draw the attention back to her with a wounded look and a simper, while her eyes
just said ‘mine’. Because she had him and she wasn’t ever gonna let him go,
even while she flirted and carried a torch the size of the one that the Statue
of Liberty had had for Logan. The Wolverine.
Who, Jubilee admitted
frankly to herself, but only to herself, scared the bejeebers outta her.
Jubilee stared out at
the half drawn moon, smogged with cloud, and wished. Wished she was home. She
didn’t want to go back inside, but she knew, sooner or later, that Jean or
Xavier would send someone after her. Probably ‘Ro. They kept doing that, and
she really wished they wouldn’t. Sometimes a body just had to be alone. To sit,
and think, and reflect. Soon, a newly familiar scent hit her nose and she
snorted in disgust.
“New tactic to get the
mall rat ta talk. Sending you after me.”
Logan settled on the
roof near her, but far enough away that she could ignore him if she felt like
it. The glowing ember of his cigar lit the planes of his face slightly, smoke
drifting around him.
“No one sent me.”
“Pull the other one,
Wolverine, it’s got bells on.” She flicked a contemptuous glance at him from
the corner of her blue eyes. “I won’t talk to Stormy, Scott doesn’t do
feelings, Jean gives me the freaks, as does the oh so sainted Professor. Which
leaves you as choice of last resort. But you don’t really do feelings either,
do you?”
A low chuckle then.
“Nah, kid.”
“Don’t call me that.
Them, down there,” she pointed downwards, “they’re kids. Dumb kids. Me? I
haven’t been a kid since my parents died.”
“Whatever you say,
kiddo.” Jubilee scowled at him, then huffed a short breath out sharply as she
turned her head away. He grinned around the cigar in his mouth, and puffed
reflectively as she looked at the stars. They sat in silence for a long time,
Jubilee trying to outstubborn him by being quiet. But no one could outwait the
man who called himself Logan, from the name left to him on his dogtags. Which
currently hung around Marie’s neck, Jubilee knew. The girl boasted about them
often enough, the silvery tabs of metal hanging outside her clothes. Jubilee
wondered how Bobby felt, that his girlfriend wore such a visible claim from
another guy on her all the time, and she wouldn’t even let him be friends with
another girl.
“None of you actually
understand what I am.”
“Which is?” Logan
said, tapping out embers of his cigar on the rooftiles.
“I’m a thief, a damn
good one too. I was *made* to grow up way too fast. I’ve killed people...yeah,”
she said as he gave her a curiously blank look, “I have. Just the once. But
y’know, he totally deserved it. Belieeeeeve me.” He seemed willing to give her
the benefit of a doubt. “I wouldn’t have come here at all if Gumbo hadn’t thought
I needed it. Well, not even that. If I had checked out the place we were
robbing a little better, I would have seen that guard and disabled him, meaning
I wouldn’t have gotten shot at, which means that Rems wouldn’t have gotten the
heebie jeebies about taking me along on jobs anymore. I mean, god! The reason
he picked me up off the streets was that I was a good pickpocket to begin
with.” She brooded over the injustice and illogicality of the whole thing.
Logan’s cigar glowed
in the dark, highlighting his whiter then white teeth all sharp and fangy in
his mouth as he bit the end and talked around it. “He’s got your best interests
in mind, Sparky. You can change his mind when he comes back best by not acting
like a spoiled, whiny brat.”
Jubilee drew in a breath
to immediately retort that she *wasn’t*, then paused. Had she been? Maybe a
little. She pouted. “Fine.”
“Talk a lil’ bit to ‘Roro. She ain’t that bad. But take advantage of what’s here, kiddo. A chance to be your age.” Logan chuckled briefly. “You’re not all that old or as hard as you’ve been making out to me just now. G’wan, git. Curfew’s in a few minutes.”
Jubilee poked her
tongue out at him, then swung down below the roofline, fingers in the guttering
as she clambered in through the window of her dorm room. Logan chuckled again,
tapping the end of his cigar out on the tiles. Good kid. Just a little
confused, but most of the ones here were at least a little confused. Take all
the trauma and stress of moving through adolescence, then add in *mutant* as
another label to carry around, powers going haywire on them and everything all
mixed up with everything. He was surprised sometimes why the mansion was still
standing. He walked across the rooftile to the attic window of Storm’s room and
stepped through. The weather goddess looked at him, watering can in her hand
and the general humidity of the small greenhouse in her room sticking the shirt
almost immediately to Logan’s back.
“She’ll be fine,” he
told her, then ambled on out.
Storm smiled slightly,
then bent back to nurturing the small plant beneath her fingertips.