May 10, 2018:
Scott, training in the Danger Room, receives a visit first from Lorna, then Jean. Many things are left unspoken.
Danger Room, Xavier Institute
Characters
NPCs: None.
Mentions: Reed Richards
Plot:
Mood Music: [*\# None.]
Fade In…
A craggy arid wasteland. Sand and sunblasted there is no cover for as far as the eye can see, the skies are full of black creatures that resemble crows, massive in size and circling. Scott Summers in full costume stands in the center of four of them, already downed. A slow back peddle has him watching them, awaiting the next coordinated swoop before he is firing off optic blasts up, ripping through two of them in ZRATT of releassed focus fire.
One slips past, talons out and raking across the man's uniformed chest, more impact than talon it sends him sprawling across the ground and coming up in a kneel, taking it down with a shot to the back as it ascends.
"Pause simulation." He barks out. Frustrated and rubbing his shoulder. Cyclops muttering to himself walks in a circle, the danger room 'paused' looks like that reality just freeze framed all save Scott, even the wind and ruffling feathers. Portions of it digitizing to reveal the solid room underneath. Lorna will possibly be surprised the floors accesses are working for her, shes not barred out of anything shy of Cerebro and primary functions.
"Accelerate by .73. They are too slow and lift impact point about one notch. They need to be more dangerous."
Lorna sought out Scott after the visit from one Reed Richards, hoping to brief him or Jean on the message before leaving the globe on Jean's desk. Of course, that's when someone told where the leader of the X-men was—in the Danger Room. She had expected to be denied access, planning to sit around outside the sub-basement and wait. Which was a surprise when she found the doors opening and admitting her below. A green brow lifted as she continued onward, to find Scott as he paused the simulation, and she peered down from the control room to speak into the room below.
"Color me shocked that you returned my permissions, Cyclops, but I have a message from Mister Fantastic. Apparently he wants a job." She floated back from the control panel, cast still encasing her leg. She still dressed like a lost tramp without care for how ragged looking her clothes had become.
"It's restricted and you're monitored when present." Scott says. "It doesn't make a lot of sense to revoke access to many of these points when they're actually helpful to you and us if you have somewhere to vent." Also it allows him to review and map information thats put out, Scott likes numerized data. Angles and statistics. They make sense to him.
Cyclops doesn't look over at Lorna as she enters, he is looking up, a hand risen and he swipes it to the side, manually adjusting position of several of those odd massive carrion birds, "Thats better in Jean's hands. Shes traveling less shes got full control over the faculty and school criteria. Allows me to focus here."
"Thanks for the heads up though."
Lorna shrugged, and crossed her arms as she watched Scott from the view-port. "I haven't felt particularly angry these days. But I appreciate the thought." She murmured, depressed is how the green haired mutant felt. And it was an uphill struggle every day to get past. Still, she watched the news, read the papers. There was plenty to be angry about.
"I left his message globe in her office, so I mean.. whenever Jean gets to it, she gets to it. But since you kinda run around all over, I figured you'd like to know." She paused, considering Scott as she floated there on the magnetic fields.
"Do you need anything else, since I'm up here? Or should I just let you get back to it?"
"Glad to hear." Scott says without much conviction towards belief in his words.
"It's been ten seconds and you haven't rolled your eyes yet, thats a vast improvement already."
A red visored glance over his shoulder at the view screen that surveys in to the Danger Room.
"Shes probably already gotten it, responded and signed him up to run every class we have for the next four years. When shes on the ball, shes on the ball."
"You can join if you like. I'll change the simulation up. This one needs a lot more work, I don't even remember what mission it was we seen these things but this isn't… this isn't how it was."
"His resume was very impressive, yes. No need for a reference check."
The familiar voice is the first indication the woman under discussion has arrived, even before the soft click of her heels as she steps into the frozen simulation of the Danger Room. Heels, a skirt-suit, her waist-long hair drawn up in a messy bun, she is a stark contrast to the martial surroundings of the Danger Room. Her arms fold, head tilting as she takes in her surroundings — both with mundane and not-so-mundane senses. "But that's beside the point. It's not often men like Reed Richards come down from their towers. When it is for a good cause, they should be made welcome."
That seems to be all Jean has to say on the matter of Richards, here. Her gaze turns in a wide sweep, across the frozen birds hanging in the false sky, and the constellation of numerical data fanned through the air. She seems to see neither, her eyes unfocused in a way that suggests she looks beyond them.
"Full costume, Scott?" Jean asks, though her still-distant green eyes are thoughtful in a way that belies the gentle jest of her voice. They finally lower and refocus, tracking back and forth between Scott and Lorna. "You're taking it easy on yourself. I expected the blindfold and the stick."
There was a furrowing of her brows, the only real show of irritation on the comment about her not rolling her eyes. She exhaled a huff of a breath, and she shrugged finally. "Probably." Of course, that question was answered as Jean entered and spoke of Reed Richards having requested a job with the X-men and her thoughts on it.
"He said he wanted to branch out or something. I dunno. He apologized a lot." She pursed her lips as she considered Scott's offer to join and she slowly shook her head. Her hands flexed briefly at the thought, before she dropped them back to her sides.
"Can't do that with the cast on. I'm not risking it healing messed up. Supposed to have it come off next week."
Very few people in the world have an effect on Scott to the degrees that Jean Grey does. The stoic and solid demeanor drifts away at the sound of her voice, it has him losing his train of thought and looking away from Lorna just to admire the entry of the redhead. In a heartbeat the man is a gawky sixteen year old in an oversized visor who has yet to grow from lanky to the well-build soldier he is now.
A gloved hand rises up to the back of his neck and fingers bind in, rubbing in place. A creeping grin appears, a rare one that shows only in certain company, "Someone has to represent structure. It's a small practice in discipline. Everyone starts getting lazy and using actual names, casual wear… we'll lose our dynamic."
A blink, Lornas voice registers again and he looks at her, remembering she was here with him and Jean, not because he was being rude but…
"Only a week? You'll be fine." A tad sadistic of Scott as he starts to flick fingers at the air, scrolling through various scenarios.
Perhaps Jean, too, sees that sixteen year-old still when she looks at the man she has known for half of her life. Perhaps she sees something else. The Mona Lisa quality to the faint smile she wears tells little, likely in deference to him wanting to maintain that air of structure and discipline in front of another.
"God forbid," she murmurs, though her smile warms into something more genuine in answer to the grin he flashes. "Shall I have the students line up for morning PT at oh-six-hundred?" She's obviously teasing him. "A little downtime never hurt anyone, especially times like these. We break if we become too brittle." Her voice dips lower. "Nate tells me you have been making plans. Have you been sleeping, as well?"
Her attention turns to Lorna, as Scott's returns briefly to the readout. "He apologized a lot?" Jean asks, a vague frown crossing her features.
Lorna watched the two with a raised brow, propping her chin up as she looked down at the Danger Room and once more shook her head. Still, she seemed hesitant to speak, to break the spell between them as she watched Jean and Scott interact. The easy smiles and relaxed demeanor. She hadn't seen Scott that way for a long while.
Still, feeling as she if were intruding the green haired woman shook her head as attention drifted her way once more. "I'm not risking it, but thanks." She murmured, green eyes flickering toward Jean again. It was a rare day when Lorna turned down Danger Room practice, much less a clear invitation for it.
"Yeah, well I ripped off the hatch to his invisible car. He didn't try to tell us he was coming… So he apologized a lot."
"You're an hour off. When the Brotherhood amped up their aggression I set the team to oh-fife-hundred training days." Scott remarks without looking behind him at Jean and Lorna. "Downtime does hurt when someone keeps buying stacks of doughnuts for the teacher's lounge. Sooner or later, I'll find out who it is."
No comments towards sleep or the number he is or is not getting.
The terrain begins to alter, from a wasteland to a lush broken up forest, pitted with craters from the size of bowling balls to an airliner. They dot the landscape between the tree and foliage growth.
"You realize, you're showing more concern over your own wounds now then while you were carrying Aurora? That have anything to do with the child's power irregularities when she was still… " A full stop and Scott clenches his jaw, "Ignore me. I realize that might sound shittier than I intended it to."
Talk of the Brotherhood paints a more somber cast across Jean's eyes. It's no surprise to her that Scott is like this — whenever that organization rears its head again, in its various incarnations, he's always wound up taut with tense energy — but she has perhaps hoped to ameliorate some of that this time. As well try to stop the Hudson with a two-by-four; Scott Summers is a force of nature, when it comes to the aspects of the Dream which require a fight to achieve.
"We can put out a reward for the apprehension of the donut terrorist," she says, lightly. She did not miss his failure to address her question, and her psychic presence presses a little almost like the thickening of air… but now is not the time.
Her green eyes instead appraise Lorna at the continued refusal to risk a Danger Room session. The cast is not a significant impediment to the practice of her particular suite of powers. Jean doesn't need telepathy to read between the lines. "Shall we catch up later, Lorna?" she invites after a moment. Jean, eternally tactful, choosing a way to address matters without forcing the younger woman to feel outright exposed in front of another.
As for Reed? Jean… sighs, to hear that he showed up out of nowhere in an invisible car, and that Lorna ripped the hatch off of it. "Well, he's not renowned for social skills," she says, rubbing the bridge of her nose.
The matter of the child strikes her watchfully silent, her eyes on both Scott and Lorna.
It would seem that Scott had found at least one of the many reasons for Lorna's hesitancy toward actively using her powers. Her hands flexed, and she averted her gaze, swallowing a lump that formed thickly in the back of her throat. Moira had warned her, others in Genosha, had warned her that her powers might never return to their fully capacity after Aurora was 'born'. One way or another.
She bit her lower lip, her hand clenched and unclenched briefly once more.
"I don't.. I don't know." She murmured, "And.. don't apologize. No one could tell me one way or another. I was told having a child.. they change one's base DNA structure. It's possible that she's.. permanently changed my powers. No one.. no one knows.." She murmured and pursed her lips together.
Jean's words caught her attention finally, and she shrugged. "Sure, if you.. if you wanted to catch up, it's fine Jean." She was mumbling, averting her gaze as worry gnawed at the inside of her stomach. Anything further seemed to drown in her tangle of emotions.
"Yeah… we'll make the sugar bandit a priority." Scott adds dryly though its not cold in regards to the former Phoenix host. Although he does stop adjusting the Danger Room, apparently finished now anyways as he look over at Jean, watching her expression, a quiet conveyence of thought without so much as a telepathic relay. An exhale from Cyclops and there is noises in the distance, through the trees. A ways off still and he ignores them.
"Might be a good idea. It could do you both some good." Scott flexes his hands and doesn't exactly know what to add about the child's impact on Lorna, thats a time will tell thing and perhaps necessary to approach when they have the ability to do so, someone like Reed and Banner, those two, big helps on that field he likes to imagine.
"I'm going to get back to this. Jean, I'll find you later, when I am done?" Not telling her, not like he used to, as though it was once expected he just shows up around her but inquiring.
It is well within Jean's capabilities to strip the answers from their minds. All the things they hide. All the fears they conceal. All the emotions that salt the air. The urge is there sometimes, chewing the back of her thoughts, like a lingering hunger… an ember smoldering in her soul that she cannot quench. It is a lingering echo of something else, something that is not her (that is her). You could take, it says.
She blinks it away. Her demeanor carries the patient timelessness of falling snow, and her green irises reflect nothing but kindness, when she looks to Lorna. Despite their differences in the past, Jean always listens. "Everything begins as a mystery," she says gently. "It is fearful being a pioneer, but often the outcome is not so bad as we fear."
Her attention returns to Scott. She's drawn closer to him since last he looked at her, the gap crossed in silence. Her head lifts, green eyes lashing half-shut as he gives her that long look. Telepathy is not always needed with them. Fifteen years — and more — is often a fair substitute.
His tone — inquiry, not command — registers in her eyes. They open fully again, and she smiles on his insistence to keep working. "When you're done," she agrees, and turns to take her leave. "You know where to find me. Both of you."
Lorna shook her head briefly as if considering what to do next, which decidedly, was not a Danger Room session. She glanced toward Jean, watching the looks between them and fighting back the urge to make a face or tease either one of the two. The tales and jokes about Scott and Jean could go on forever, especially in the X-mansion, but given the time of it they'd all been having… she refrained entirely.
The bombshells about her looking at places in Mutant Town to live.. about going into hiding to try to raise Aurora away from everything..
Those she tucked away in her pocket for another time. But the cloud of her lowest point remained heavily upon her. The shadows of events now weeks past had yet to leave her. They lingered and stole her breath and her ability to sleep most nights. Perhaps she should be chatting with Jean to try to find measure of peace again..
But that too, would have to wait, it would seem. She offered a wave to Scott as he seemed intent on returning to his practice as Jean offered some comfort in her words. "Yeah.. uhm… good luck.. er have fun. Whatever, Scott. I'll see you around." Her murmured. But that lost and listless blanket had returned to her tone and she departed, floating away, gliding on the magnetic fields.