Logs:Student Work Permit (Remote)
| Student Work Permit (Remote) | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | 2024-05-31 "I've got chill. I'm totally chill." |
| Location
<XAV> Scott's Office - Xs First Floor | |
There are relatively few personal effects in the Residential Dean's (actual) office, save for a few framed photos and a diecast model of a sleek black muscle car in the hutch of Scott's L-shaped computer desk. The rest of his space has been devoted to printouts and papers -- stacked in manila folders in plastic trays, leafed into neatly labeled three-ring binders on his shelves, and probably filling up the wall of sleek black filing cabinets that extends from behind him out to the opposite corner. There is room for four comfortable-ish chairs opposite the desk for guests, but three of those chairs have been lined up by the wall next to the door to create more maneuverable floor space. On this last Friday of term it is somewhat unusual to find Scott here, in his office -- though he may not be the most social teacher at Xavier's, with vacation on the horizon, close enough to taste, usually even Scott is feeling something about the end of the school year. The window is open, enough to hear raucous chatter from the grounds, still a little subdued for this late in term; there is a light breeze rustling the blinds. Scott is seated at his desk, going through some papers with a pen -- he is dressed nice-casual, in a collared shirt (okay, a navy blue work shirt) and jeans, opaque red glasses. The mild ambience in his office is accentuated by the hum of a stand fan in the corner. There is a small amount of commotion outside of Scott's office before the door opens without any kind of knocking to warn about the sudden entry. Rocket stalks in, wearing a much smaller version of Hawkeye's outfit, though it fits him a bit odd on the shoulders. At least it's clean, though. He puts his hands on his hips and looks around the room appraisingly, glances back towards the door that he just walked through, then asks Scott, "You got any snacks?" It's another beat before Clint slips in. He's not in his Hawkeye outfit. He's not in a suit like a proper agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. He's wearing a black tee shirt with "BE MORE CHILL" in large letters above a teenager dissolving into pixels, his thumbs hooked in the belt loop of his jeans, a dorky sling pack over his shoulder and even dorkier thick-framed glasses on his face. "Hi. I'm Clint Barton. Agent Coulson said he briefed you." His tone is very flat, but it's somehow a little preemptively defensive. He looks down at Rocket without any change in his expression. "If you do have any snacks, may as well just give him some. Save you a lot of time." Scott lifts his head sharply at the noise outside the door, and as the others enter his office he stands, perhaps just to be polite. Maybe to get a better look at Rocket -- he stares just a moment too long before lifting his head up at Clint with a very short nod. "Yeah, I -- close the door, have a seat." He's having a somewhat heavy seat himself, sliding open a drawer of his desk. A moment later he holds out a roll of Ritz crackers for either of them to take. (One roll; there are several still left in the box.) "Yeah. Agent Coulson said something about planetary security." There's a very faint question in this statement -- he's watching Rocket very steadily, though it's anybody's guess how much of a cosmic threat he finds his guest. Rocket just nods confirmation of Clint saying that Scott should just hand over the snacks, and reaches out to take the roll of Ritz crackers. It's almost visible the gears in his head turning as he spots the box of them being retreated back into the desk. He gets up into the seat, scootching back so that his back can be leaned properly against the backrest. "You're not going to introduce yourself after this guy did? Kinda rude." Considering both the casual tone and the fact that he has not introduced himself either, he probably is not actually taking great offence. He is still casual as he is prying open the bag of crackers, "Yeah, it's planetary security, I gotta get back to my ship, and a beetle telepathically told me you got some magic teleporting kid here." Clint hesitates, then pulls one of the chairs out from the wall and sets it at kind of an awkward angle that keeps both Scott and Rocket more or less centered in his visual field. He finally sits as Rocket is starting in on his snack. "I don't know what Salinas told you, but just to be clear, when he asked me if I'd seen a kid at my place he didn't say the kid was a beetle." At a small delay. "Is he doing alright? By. Beetle-kid standards? He seemed upset about not having clothes. Excited about going to space, though." "Oh, sorry." Scott is still staring at Rocket, but he tilts his head back over at Clint to introduce himself, "Scott Summers." He turns his chair slightly to face Clint better, tilting his head with a kind of rueful smile, squaring the stack of papers on his desk and setting it aside. "Sorry," he says again. "We didn't know he could turn into a beetle until last week. He's fine. Still a beetle." One hand is tapping idly at the armrest of his chair. "I can... try to figure out beetle clothes. We have," he pivots swiftly, now addressing Rocket, "a lot of kids here, I can't give you private information about our students. I can put you in contact with another teleporter if you like. Or -- you already met Joshua." "Does it happen lots that your kids here get turned into beetles?" Rocket asks Scott, slightly muffled through a now cracker filled mouth. "Or is that private information too?" He swallows, then gestures upwards, vaguely in the direction of the sky, "Are your other teleporters able to get up to a ship that is in space? Do you know a lot of teleporters?" He pulls out another cracker, sniffs at it, and gets back to snacking. "He wasn't any trouble. Made for a surreal evening," Clint says philosophically. "But I already had this guy sleeping on my couch after a bunch of alien bugs tried to eat New York." He shrugs. "Surreal is kind of relative." His eyes skate over to Rocket, then back to Scott. "Kid said his brother's roommate could help. Seeing as you can't swing a cat without hitting an Allred or a teleporter or both, that might not narrow it down all that much." Scott starts to shake his head before he seems to decide that this is private information, actually. There is a very minute pause before he fishes his phone out of his pocket, the corners of his mouth twitching up, though he doesn't laugh -- "I can ask." He's a pretty slow texter; midway through drafting this message he lifts his head at Clint and adds, "Thanks for taking care of Bryce, it means a lot." His tone is still a little brusque, here; he nods once, decisively, then finishes his text.
"You're welcome," says Rocket, immediately taking credit for taking care of Bryce. "Teleporters I know about need to have coordinates of some sort. Different places have different ways though, you guys, you got magic kids." He just shrugs as if this isn't a huge deal. "If you can't give me the teleporter's private info, can you send a message for me? It's a pretty big deal, I've saved the world before. Just not..." He pokes the chair arm. "This one. But I need my stuff if I'm gonna knock it off my checklist." Clint nods back at Scott, though his eyebrows slowly tick up at the pace of the other man's texting. "Got magical adults, too. Might be a better bet." A little lower. "More ethical bet, anyway." His lips compress. "Yeah, so that's the planetary security part. We need Rocket's help, and Rocket needs his ship back to help us." He shrugs again. "This information is on a 'need to know' basis." His air quotes are kind of unenthusiastic. "But Rocket's going to tell you what he tells you anyway, and I'm pretty sure you and yours can keep a secret."
"Mm." Scott lifts his head again, his own eyebrows raised, setting his phone face-up on his desk. "We're a school, we're not contracting our students out even on matters of planetary security. They're kids." He adjusts his posture in his chair -- "But I do know some adult teleporters, I can take a message. I was wondering when we would loop back to --" he gestures vaguely, offhandedly -- "the planetary threat, I didn't get a big jokester vibe from Agent Coulson. Something else coming our way?" "Oh yeah, that Coulson, he's a real joker!" says Rocket heatedly, "Imprisoning innocent guys in tiny cages!" He laughs an absolutely fake laugh and bites bitterly into another cracker. He leans in towards Clint and asides in a way that will be fully audible to Scott, "Do kids not work here? How big are they before they can work?" He raises his hand in a hold up gesture to Scott and continues, "The bugs-- The Brood, if you care to know-- were on the run from something worse. I was investigating, but got too close to what I think your scientists call a 'shitstorm'. So I had to drop my escape shuttle and team up with Earth's mightiest heroes over here so I can help you." "He has a dry sense of humor," Clint opines, dryly. "Can't cut it in our line of work without one. Unfortunately, he wasn't kidding about planetary security." He props his elbows on his knees to lean closer to Rocket, and opens his mouth, then closes it and frowns with thought before actually answering. "The kids here are probably mostly old enough to work, but they don't work here. I think Summers here is mostly worried about his kids being in danger. On account of the cold vacuum of space and potentially hostile aliens." He sits up and looks at Scott. "You're not wrong. But if there's no other way to get Rocket back to his ship. Might want to talk to Doctor Xavier, the kid, their guardians. You're probably gonna have a hard time protecting your kids if aliens invade." His lips press thin. "You already did, and that invasion was aborted before it got properly on the ground." Scott is rubbing one thumb over the stitching on his armrest, his mouth pressing very thin too. "They don't work here," he says. "I'm here to defend them, not the other way around." But after a moment of thought, he inclines his head -- "I'll talk to the Professor," he readily agrees. "And my team, I can promise that much. And if it really looks like my only option is to ask one of our kids to put themselves in danger like this --" he pauses, the muscles in his jaw working silently. "Well. It will take a lot to convince me there's nothing else I can do." He glances aside at Rocket, then back to Clint, and perhaps it is not the most tactful to say, "Your people trust the raccoon?" "There'd be air on board. Probably. And no hostile aliens. Hopefully," is Rocket's idle response to Clint's words. But at what Scott says, Rocket snarls and says, "Hey, who're you calling a--" His wrath is put on pause for a moment when he leans towards Clint again and asks more quietly, but again completely audible, "What's a raccoon? Is he insulting me? Is that something cool to be?" His eyes shift towards Scott, and then with back towards Clint with more urgency so that he can tailor his reaction in time. Clint's expression does something minute yet complex at Scott's insistence, and something differently minute yet complex at Rocket's question. It's hard to interpret either set of reactions, but he answers Rocket first. "A raccoon is a lifeform native to this--" He pauses and scruffs at his chin with the knuckles of one hand. "--a lifeform on this planet that looks so uncannily like you the vast majority of humans who see you will think you are one. I think Summers is using the word descriptively. That said..." He narrows his eyes. "Agent Coulson said he briefed you." A long sigh escapes him. "S.H.I.E.L.D. is treating this as developing diplomatic situation. I don't know what our scientists and data analysts think. That's not my department. But I've been hanging out with Rocket and, speaking for myself, he seems like a pretty solid guy who has a lot of culture shock and not a lot of chill." "He did. It was very brief," says Scott, his voice incongruously casual once again -- he turns his gaze curiously back to Rocket, head tilted like he's doing a mental spot-the-difference puzzle between the alien and an Earth raccoon, before just shaking his head. "S.H.I.E.L.D. has a hell of a way with euphemisms," he says, possibly this is with some amusement. "And so do you, Barton. Agent?" He shrugs one shoulder, magnanimously offering, "I'll be in touch." Rocket listens to Clint's explanation, "I thought humans were supposed to be the only--" He scowls and rolls his shoulder (one of the physical structures that he has that is unlike a regular raccoon). After a moment, he folds the crackers closed in their plastic packaging and gets up to stand on the chair. "I've got chill. I'm totally chill," he states as he hops down onto the ground and heads for the exit, but pauses to look askew, not quite looking back. "And Summers? You're the damn raccoon." | |
