Logs:Great eXpectations

Great eXpectations
Dramatis Personae Jax, Kitty
In Absentia	2022-01-17 Jus' do make me wonder sometimes about what it means to be an X-Man. An' who defines that.
Location '<XAV> Command and Control Center - Xs Sub-Basement'
Here is the heart of the Xavier Institute's true operations, the room most central to its purpose, where the Institute's most adventuresome and powerful individuals gather to receive exposition. The room is dominated by an oversized viewscreen on one wall, presently displaying an intricate diagram of the planet Earth, as well as a large central holographic projector and a handful of computer terminals along the periphery. Curiously, the whole place is rather dimly lit, as though its designers prioritized dramatic lighting over being able to find anything. It’s still at least an hour before whatever meeting is to take place in the control center is going to actually start, so it’s a little odd that the lights in the CCC are on, anyway. It’s not a lounging or working sort of space, not with the sad state of the overhead lights, but someone is working in here anyway. There is a laptop and a notebook at the center table, red winter coat thrown over the back of an associated chair. The view screen has been toggled to another display for now, this one showing not Earth but the stars above. At the console for it, Kitty taps and zooms through space. Her hair is damp from the shower still, tied up at the top of her head. She’s dressed in soft yellow corduroy denim overalls, blue and pink runners, and a dark blue turtleneck. She’s been around the school — well, all day, really, having parked Widget before the first class and then disappearing into the gym, the Danger Room, various senior instructor’s offices, and the teacher’s lounge intermittently throughout the day. It’s not been hard to spot her moving determinedly through the walls of the school the whole day, and walking by the auto shop after lunch it would have been easy to hear her voice raised behind the wooden door. She seems to have burned through this energy — her shoulders are slumped, and her eyes drift unfocused over the map of stars. Jax hasn't been quite as visible in his path around the school today, but it's still easy enough to tell where he's coming from as he enters the CCC -- the plate of espresso chip cookies he has in one hand are still hot, issuing their own fragrant greeting even before he says a word. He's vibrant as always -- in his attire, at least, vest and slacks a deep purple-blue ombre over his green button down, a slow drift of snowflakes fluttering down onto the bare boughs of a peach tree in his eyepatch. "Oh gosh, sugar, you look beat. I was gonna leave these for the meetin' but you can get in on 'em a touch early if you need." He's setting the cookies down on the center table; the lighting in the room grows juuust subtly brighter as he rests a hand on the back of a chair by Kitty. Kitty begins to smile before she turns around, leaning against the view screen console. “Am I smelling coffee in those? Please tell me thats you and not my brain trying to send me a message about my caffeine problem.” She drifts away from the console and gives Jax a quick hug before reaching for one of the still warm cookies. “You’re the best. I don’t know how you have the energy to be the best with the media being —“ Kitty pulls a disgusted expression, “— like that right now. But you are, in fact, the best.” "There is so much espresso in these. Also chocolate. It's like havin' a mocha without the mocha. An' anyway I'm done my classes for the day so it ain't no nevermind of mine that there's a whole bunch of 'em in the rec room, too." Jax leans in to return the hug, quick and warm as well before dropping down into a chair. The thermos in his other hand also smells of coffee when he uncorks it for a gulp. "My kid owns a coffeeshop an' I teach a class centered on sugary treats," he offers lightly, "energy's one thing I tend to accumulate in spades." His smile's gone a little lopsided at the mention of the media. "Gosh, I hope they didn't heckle you too much on the way in. You'd think they'd get tired of lurkin' but I guess lurkin's a thing you can do in shifts." His tone stilll sounds light, anyway, when he adds -- almost casual enough to be afterthought save for the thoughtful glance he flicks to Kitty: "-- don't think Scott'n'em are too thrilled with the attention I brung down here." The energy comment is met with a contented hum as Kitty bites into the cookie, eyes fluttering closed briefly. “The best. The best sugary treats.” She leans up against the table as she finishes it, only licking her fingers a little bit to catch the crumbs. “If they give me any more grief they’re gonna find themselves buying new cameras and recorders. Been thinking about doing a little walkthrough of that FOX van on my way home, get their feeds off the students.” Kitty rolls her eyes, then her expression turns serious. “You haven’t talked to him, have you? Or Charles? They seem -- nervous. Whole old guard seems to be.” She kicks up off the floor to perch on the table, legs dangling off the edge. "Wouldn't be no more'n what they deserve." Jax rests his thermos on a knee, fingers squeezing down hard at its sides. His teeth catch at his lip, wiggling at a lip ring there. "Been meaning to, but things been..." He just shakes his head. "Heard tell you had some words with him today, though." His eye tips up toward the ceiling, and tiny whorls of light eddy across the surface of his thermos out from where his fingertips press. "I'm not trying to make things harder for 'em. For any of us. You know that, right?" “Things sure have been.” Kitty’s eyes flare bright and angry for a moment: “Scott Summers is being a jerk. I don’t think he gets to have an opinion now after keeping us on the bench for all the hard stuff.” A little, but not all, of the agitation fades. “I know that, even if it don’t seem like it. Not sure the top brass do, though.” Jax's hand goes to his mouth, fingertips splayed over his lips at this brief outburst. "I'm sure he's jus' been tryin' to keep everyone --" he starts, but then falters, dropping his hand back to his lap with a small exhale. For a second, there's a flutter of wings across his eyepatch; a dart of speckled feathers, a flash of yellow, a tiny bird perching in the bare tree branches before the snowfall obscures it. "There's sure been times we could've used the backup." His voice is quieter, here. "I jus' -- feel like I'm toeing the line already all the time with them, it's a miracle they ain't booted me from the team." "Been trying to keep the stick up his ass, I think," Kitty grumbles, through less impassioned than before. "Ororo at least had the decency to seem embarrassed. Scott's -- I just. After Joshua I don't get it. I don't get why he didn't send the rest of us with you. That's not -- forget the optics, if it was Scott taken we would have been out there in a heartbeat so why not --" Kitty presses her lips together, cheeks puffing out as she swallows the rest of the rant. "They need you too. They know they need you, at the school and in the Blackbird in the stupid yellow and black. Probably more than you need them." "Need Joshua more'n we need me and they wouldn't even --" There's a bitter edge to Jax's voice, and he bows his head for a moment, taking a deep breath. "I used to always kinda wonder, if I went through that all over again if they'd come for me again but I'm pretty sure I got my answer this fall. I do still wonder with what we know now, if the labs took one of our kids again would they back me up? Don't think Prometheus is like to make that mistake again, though." His fingers drum slowly against the side of the thermos. "I expect we could save a thousand thousand lives and we'd never measure up to Scott an' Jean an'em in the Professor's eyes. Jus' get lectured on our discretion. But sometimes..." He hesitates, biting down on his lip ring and glancing over at Kitty. "Jus' do make me wonder sometimes about what it means to be an X-Man. An' who defines that." Kitty's cheeks deflate, flare out, deflate again. “I let them talk me out of it too many times. Risk assessments, they said. I — God, I hope they would go for the kids.” Her brows furrow, distress creeping into the lines of her face as she contemplates it. She adds, low and only a tad bitter, “He’s got favourites.” “Who defines what an X-Man is?” Kitty frowns, legs kicking out and then back through the edge of the table. “It depends what the X stands for, I suppose. Is it for the X-gene? Or is it for Xavier? Are we Charles and Scott’s mutant strike force? Or are we the defenders of our people?” She meets Jax’s gaze for a moment. “I know I thought it was one of those when I joined up, and not the other.” "I'd sure hoped it was the latter, too. An' I know I ain't never seen eye to eye with 'em on exactly what that looks like but it feels like..." Jax hesitates, his brows pinching slowly together. His fingers squeeze tight against his thermos. "Ionno. Like one man's assimilationist fears shouldn't be holding all of us back. There are so many people who need us and the more the world hates us the less we're gonna be able to help them if we're concerned about image. Scott has to see that and if he doesn't he ain't --" His mouth twists downward, and he bites the rest of this thought back. Kitty nods along, chewing at the inside of her cheek. “Maybe he needs new glasses. Something less literally rose-coloured.” Kitty’s fingers drum against the table as she thinks. “Maybe… if they care so much about the X-Men image, maybe there should be, like, a branding split. You’ve been running two teams out of here for so long anyway. Why not make the raid team the X-Raiders or something? Same resources, different image, different mission.” Kitty watches Jax’ expression, her own curling into a smile before she adds, “Or, we could attack and dethrone Scott Summers.” "Oh, goodness, I think some of my folks would revolt if I tried to make them respectable. Can you imagine Ion's face if I said he was gonna be an X-folk now? I'd bring him a uniform an' all just to record the moment." What remains of Jax's frown crumbles away in the face of a hearty laugh, his hand slapping down against his knee. "You talkin' full on coup now? Gosh but I'd like to see that. Not literally -- well, maybe literally." He's pressing his knuckles to his lips to stifle the tail end of his laughter as he considers Kitty. "You got a gauntlet you feel like throwin' down? We could do with a change around here." Kitty grins, her laughter light and bright. “I’d pay money for that video. Donate one of my old uniforms to the production, even.” The grin and laughter fade under Jax’s gaze, replaced with something a little more serious, a little more earnest. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea but, like, yeah? Something’s got to give. I’d rather do, like, a vote for new team leader, but I’ll fight Scott too. It’s only one step up from yelling at him.” There’s a faint embarrassed flush in her cheeks at the admission. "If you do fight Scott I'm bringing the popcorn," Jax replies, before his expression slips more thoughtful as well. "Can we take a vote? Always felt like things 'round here was sorta -- calcified but. Just 'cuz it ain't been done before don't mean we can't do it. Though I expect it'll still be a fight one way or another." His cheeks puff out on a slow exhale as he glances toward the door. "Y'know, I'm actually kinda looking forward to this meeting now." "I don't think Charles will be happy about it, but --" Kitty shrugs. "If the status quo makes him happy I'm not super interested in maintaining it. If there's no vote allowed, that tells us something, doesn't it?" She looks towards the door too, twisting and standing up through the table, her legs disappearing like a magician's body-cut-in-half trick."Me too. If I do end up throwing down with Summers, get it on video. I want it for my campaign video." "I'd have to do a whole lotta reconfigurin' in my life if I aimed to please the Professor, I'm pretty sure everyone in my family gives him a migraine jus' when we step through the doors." Jax's grin is a little lopsided, his hand lifting to scrub through his shaggy mop of brightly coloured hair. "Oh, for sure. Campaign or no campaign Shane'd kill me if I didn't catch that for posterity."