9806/Jubilee is going to need more jelly beans

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Jubilee is going to need more jelly beans
Date of Scene: 28 October 2019
Location: Wellness Office - Xavier's School
Synopsis: Jubilee is a great counselor! Starring Doug, Scott and BeanyBeans Sam.
Cast of Characters: Jubilee, Samuel Morgan, Cypher, Cyclops




Jubilee has posed:
Having summoned her new pet project to her office, Jubilee is behind her desk with her feet kicked up on top of it, lobbing a squishy stress ball up towards the ceiling, then catching it. She is playing some rock on the radio on her desk through her phone speakers. Something current that is upbeat and fast. Lots of guitars and drums. She is dressed in a pair of black joggers and a hot pink t-shirt today. Her bowl of jelly beans and suckers are almost gone, save for a couple of green apple ones and black licorice. They are the worst. She'll use those for 'punishment' beans.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    As is his habit, Bean arrives at the office exactly ten seconds prior to the appointment, escorted by a member of the staff. He knocks, waits for permission, and enters, closing the door on his shadow who waits patiently outside. The fractions of relaxation that could have been spotted over the last two weeks have utterly disappeared, and the young man that presents himself looks every bit as rigid and correct as the one that came to the school nearly two months ago. His clothes are immaculate, black with accents of dark grey on black, a single crease where one is expected, and not a single ruffle to indicate anything as vulgar as daily use. He's even wearing a comfortable hoodie as if it's some form of uniform, contriving to make it look smart and almost formal. "You wished to speak to me, Miss Jubilee?"

Jubilee has posed:
"Park it Beaner." Jubilee says as she points to a chair, then swings her legs off the table. "You suck at being a kid, you know that? I gave you a simple challenge and within like three days you go off and pull a stupid. Geezey Petes Sam, I thought when I was a New Mutant we'd go out and make dumb decisions, but you guys? You guys are trying to one-up the hell out of us. Now I know why the professor is bald. He yanked his hair out after dealing with all of us." She lets out a heavy sigh. "What was going through your head? Why would you run off and do something like that instead of talking to me, or Sammy, or hell.. even Logan? What if you got killed?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "That was an unlikely contingency." is the slightly chilling answer as Bean sits, looking straight into Jubilee's eyes. "And if it did happen, then there would have been no threat to this facility. I carried no identification on me. Any attempts at identifying my body would have alerted SHIELD, and they would have made me disappear. And probably informed you too." It... doesn't seem to matter to him. At all.

    "As for my reasons for operational secrecy, mostly I knew that anyone capable of assisting me would either complicate the mission, or disapprove. It had to be done quickly, and everyone here has a tendency for debate. In future, I will seek out Mister Logan or Laura. Perhaps even Vi, she was quite useful."

Jubilee has posed:
"No. You won't. Because in the future, you aren't going to do any of that shit, or we will bury you in a hole so deep you can't climb out of it. You going out and pretending to be Rambo is what puts this school at risk. You don't think the bad guys are savvy enough to track your dumbass back to our school? They were smart enough to go out and get a whole country to build fucking flying purple robots that murder us in the street!" Jubilee says as she slams her hand down on the desk, hard, causing her toys and jelly beans to rattle.

"What you don't seem to grasp is that you don't work for Hydra anymore. You aren't a soldier. You aren't on a mission. You don't have a purpose in life besides PASSING YOUR MATH CLASS." She all but hollers at him. "And I'm not going to give you gentle love and pats on the fucking head like Sammy will. You scared the crap out of all of us. You scared your fellow students. We /care/ about you. We care about every kid in here and we know that you have had a pretty messed up life but you need to be willing to put in the work, or else you being here is a waste of everyone's time."

"What do /you/ want to get out of your experience here? You want to be an X-Man? No way. Not going to happen with your attitude. X-Men have emotions and empathy and we work as a /team/. Even Logan, even Laura. We do things as a team. Do you /want/ to be normal and graduate and go to college and find a cute girl or a guy or an alien to marry? What do you want to do in life? Because it doesn't seem you want to give /this/ a shot." She says with a wave of her hand. "Do you have skills that are amazing? Yes. You are capable. You are strong. You are smart. But what you /are/ is a fifteen year old kid who shouldn't be out there trying to ninja a bunch of racists in the middle of the night and dragging another student along the way with you." She starts to pace the office, snagging her squeeze ball and tightening her fist around it. Squeeeeeeze.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    It's utterly bizarre. The sudden slam of a hand on the desk doesn't phase Bean at all. There's no sudden jump, no indication of alarm or surprise... but he begins to relax. Being asked about this feelings, being told to open up about his experiences, to write down his inner thoughts... it was utterly and completely alien to him. Kindness, in the kid's experience, is almost always fake, and practically guaranteed to be either a trap or a sign of fatal weakness, a defect of the mind. But being yelled at in an office about his failures? Now that is something he understands.

    It's familiar. The tension drains.

    "Want? How does that even factor into this? What I want is irrelevant. I can't change what has happened, or what's happening, but I can give a damn about what's happening other people and put a stop to it. Want? What I want is not be this, not be some kind of weapon on two legs that is barely trusted to walk around without hurting someone, not having a shadow over my shoulder every time I walk out of my room like some sort of prisoner."

    And with that, the deluge begins, a torrent of anger. "I am a soldier. I've accepted that about myself, and I find it insulting that nobody else seems to be able to. You want to hold me to some kind of immature standard? Fine. Give me your tests, all of them, maths, physics, history, geography, chemistry, any three languages you care to name. And while you're at it, why not hand me the college tests in advanced biochemistry and high energy physics? Then maybe I can be done with his remedial bullshit!"

    "Want? What I want, is for this to end. For the scrutiny, the second guessing, the constant questions, to finally fucking end, so I can do what it is I'm good at, what I've been trained to do. Make this world a better place by hunting those that darken it, to teach people that fucking with mutants equals pain. And when I'm through here, when I'm done with happy fun time learning, I'm joining the military, or fuck it, why not SHIELD? To do this properly, to have some effect, and not sit around for two days agonizing about wether or not fighting back against this one limited target might be construed as bad optics in the political fight against actual fucking genocide! Want?! This world does not care what I want, why should you? Why should anyone, why should I?!"

Jubilee has posed:
"You can't say in one breath that you don't want to be a weapon, and then in the next spit everything else out there about wanting to join Shield, who will just /use/ you by the way, like a bunch of leeches. They won't care about you. They won't love you. They won't treat you like a person. You will be a statistic on their spread sheet." Jubilee says with an exasperated sigh.

"You are /not/ a soldier!" She repeats to him. "You are a kid that was taken out of a normal life, brainwashed, and forced to do terrible things. You weren't born to be this. You were born to be an adorable little rug rat who can talk to computers and cheat at video games or something, and then awkwardly ask a girl out to Prom or something. That's who you are supposed to be. I don't.. know what to do here, okay? I suck at this. If you had a real kid problem I could tell you how to fix it. I /want/ you to be happy. /I/ care about you, Sam. I care about your wants. What I want is for you to be happy and to do something in life that is meaningful to you, and not because you feel some type of obligation to be the world police and fight bad guys."

"I have been an X-Man since I was a kid and maybe that was a mistake. We figured all of this out as we went along. I have lost friends along the way. I've watched them die, I've watched them move on and I've seen most of them become successes."

She leans against the wall, propping herself by her foot behind her, watching him for a moment. "Did you write in your journal I gave you?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Then begin with the basics and understand that I wasn't born!" It's one last outburst from an equally exasperated Bean, leaning back in his chair like any other kid his age that has been arguing with a parent or teacher. "I'm not a rug rat, I'm a lab rat. They never made me because they wanted me to be happy, or have some kind of wonderful future, they made me to because they needed someone genetically identical to someone else for blackmail purposes. That was my entire purpose in life, okay? I look like a normal person, but if you run any kind of genetic test on me you'd know better. At best, I'm a chimera."

    For a moment he takes his head in his hands, groans in frustration and then takes a deep breath, going back to sitting almost normally upright. "You think I haven't seen friends die? Worse, I've killed friends. The difference between you and me is that I didn't have a choice about joining up, and the people I was with were better organised."

    For a moment he looks away and then sighs, leaning back once more. "Yes, I did. I wrote in the journal. Because you told me to."

Jubilee has posed:
"Well, I don't know about all of that stuff. I just.. thought you were kidnapped .. or something. It's not like I have a Hydra file on my desk I can pull from." Jubilee says with a longer sigh, rubbing at her face.

"So what did you write in your journal? What was the three things you hate about yourself, and what is the one thing you love about yourself?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Nobody does. Because people always assume." It's a barbed comment, but Bean doesn't even try to raise his voice this time, as if losing his temper earlier was enough to get him to try to master his emotions again.

    "If you must know what I wrote..." which is, of course, the entire point of the exercise "... I hate being duplicitous, I hate not being able to understand more than half of the social cues around me, and I absolutely hate having no idea about popular culture."

Jubilee has posed:
Taking her phone out, Jubilee types along the screen for a moment, most likely looking up the word duplictious. Freaking big words. She furrows her brows at the definition, then slides the phone back into her pocket. "And the one thing that you liked about yourself?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    He sees the phone, he raises an eyebrow, and Bean can't help but comment when the next question comes. "I should really say erudition now... but no, what I like is that I'm decisive. I don't agonise over a decision. I evaluate a problem, calculate courses of action, determine the most efficient resolution and resolve. Once I've made that decision, I don't second guess myself."

Jubilee has posed:
"Okay." Jubilee says as she furrows her brows a bit as she thinks over his answer. "Do you ever regret your decisions though? You may not agonize over them, but do you regret them?" She asks. "Do you regret what you did the other night? And before your answer, think about the external stuff. Do you regret how that made your friends feel? Do you regret how that made the staff feel?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    There is a moment of reflection, as if considering for the first time the emotions of others. And then, Bean comes up with his answer, having weighed the truth of the statement.

"No. I don't regret it. As I told Mister Guthrie, even with the benefit of hindsight, I'd do it again. It was necessary."

Jubilee has posed:
"And that is how you lose people's trust in you. You have a lack of true empathy. You care more about the mission than you do about your friends or how they feel. If you were to get hurt, or killed, even if you think it'd be a small chance. /If/ you got killed or captured, how do you think that would affect Shannon?" Jubilee counters him. "She is your best friend, right? You two are like velcro around here."

She flops down heavily into her racing gaming chair she dragged down here. It's hot pink and black. Way more comfortable than those boring office chairs. "So, even though you pride yourself on your decision making, you have to start thinking outside your box. Every decision you make that puts yourself in harm, will have a ripple effect that will harm others, either emotionally or otherwise depending on the outcome. That is very important to understand about yourself, Bean."

"Wanna know what I was hoping you'd write in your journal?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Very well..." Bean nods, sitting rigidly upright again. "I will adapt the parameters of my decision making to take into account the likely emotional state or distress of those closest to me." Or, in non-robot speak, he's going to think about other people's feelings. It might not be empathy, but it's the next best thing, right? Right?

    "I'll admit, I'm curious to hear what you think I should have written about myself."

Jubilee has posed:
"I was hoping you'd write something down like .. you like helping other people, or protecting them." Jubilee says as she starts plucking the black beans out of the bowl and lobbing them into the trashcan with a metallic clank. "Because then you'd have fooled me into thinking you have empathy and thus your decision making was less about punishing people and hurting them, but more along the lines of you actually caring about people enough to take action."

"But I do appreciate the honesty at least, which is another thing you could write down about yourself. You may be duplicious." She says it like it's delicious, "But you are honest, bluntly honest, when it comes to speaking /your/ truth. So, Beany, my next challenge for you is to take the three things that you hate about yourself, and try to improve upon them. Learn social cues. Find someone that you trust about here to help you out with that if you need to. But also /try/ to build upon the first challenge I had for you, which is trying to fit in and be a kid. Let the guard down. Take a kid risk. Go play video games with one of the dorks in the rec room. Go ask a girl out. Take a walk in the gardens and maybe just look around and enjoy it for what it is, instead of tactically try and develop an escape plan if bad guys attack."

"For a full week, /try/ and turn the mission brain off and try and think like a human. Don't worry about pass or fail. Just try. Be creative."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Now there is a slight hesitation... Bean bites his lower lip and seems to debate making his next comment at all, but in the end is persuaded by the rather flattering notion that he's known to be honest. So, there's no holding back. "I can't. Not for the reason you think, let me be clear, but I can't just relax for a week. Not this week anyway."

    "There's a gang war starting in New York that I had a hand in planning." Yes, it has to be said, so here he is, saying it. "A crime lord wanted the help of heroes to fight a brutal gang that's terrorizing New York. They saw what I could do, invited me to their meeting for all the wrong reasons, and rather than give them another pair of fists I gave them my tactical mind. That makes me partially responsible for what's going to happen, and I will need to deal with the fallout of my decision. Secondly, I need to talk to SHIELD about Location Echo, a HYDRA slave camp and weapon forge. That's where Vi is from, and I've known about it for years. I've been there, I've... done horrible things there. So I'm going to talk to SHIELD, give them the location, and free everyone there."

Jubilee has posed:
Sliding her hands into her face, Jubilee thumps her head on the top of her desk and lets out a long, withering sigh.

"You need to talk to Jean and Scott about this first, before you do anything. Period. End of statement. That's an order." She mumbles into her hands, thumping her head against the desk two more times.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "I would be very happy to speak with anyone you think is appropriate if you can arrange the meeting." Wait, is that Bean uttering some form of veiled criticism? Or even, could it be hoped, suggesting that someone might be better placed than himself to bring something about? Someone check the calendar... "I was also led to believe that, during this meeting, there would be ice cream."

Jubilee has posed:
There's a loud snort from Jubilee as she squints her eyes up at him, peeking through her fingers. Pushing herself upwards to her seat, she stares at him. "You want ice cream? Is this a tactical move to try and make me humanize you? Or are you trying to create a moment of levity?" She pauses. ".. holy shit, you got me all paranoid now. I think /I/ need a counselor now."

Sliding out of her seat, she makes her way to a small freezer she has set up on top of a fridge and opens it up. Taking out a carton of ice cream which is a personal serving and unopened, she holds it out to him. It's Peanutbutter Cup Crunch. The best flavor in the world according to her. It has enough sugar to make a dentist squeal.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Actually, I was only reminding you of the promise you made last time we met. That we'd discuss my failings and celebrate the thing I loved about myself with ice cream." Bean calmly asserts, although he nevertheless takes the ice cream with a smile. "But you raise an excellent point. You've met me three times. We've barely spoken to each other."

    "Now imagine living in a place where everything that is said has a double meaning, and even your closest friends will stab you in the back at the slightest nudge. After six years of that, you tell me how you would feel around people trying to be your friend. Do you have a spoon? This needs a spoon."

Jubilee has posed:
"I wouldn't stay in that type of place if my friends stabbed me in the back and I felt scared and paranoid all the time around them." Jubilee points out as she digs a plastic spoon out of her desk from a small box. "I would have left around the first year."

"What about me? Your friends here? Do you trust them? Do you think they will stab you in the back? What about me?" She asks as she takes her own ice cream out and pops a spoon into it. "I care about you, Sam, even if we don't hang out all the time. I care about all the kids here. I used to be a kid here, taking classes, going to the DR, riding shotgun with Logan and being awesome. You shoulda seen me in my old days. I was a real wild child. But the one thing I knew is that staff had my back and they cared about me. It's why I stuck around and decided to become a teacher and a mentor. I don't have any hidden agendas up my sleeves outside of trying to help you become an awesome person."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Ice cream, the great leveler. Perhaps he feels that the official part of the talk it over, or perhaps he's just trying to get his week of relaxation in early, but Bean turns in the chair and lounges sideways, knees over the armrest on one side and his back propped up by the other. Spoon meets frozen deliciousness, nom. "What if you don't have a choice. What if the one thing you know for sure is that they'll kill you if you try? How do you survive?"

    Yes, he's turning this counseling session around, but that in itself might have its own meaning. "Look, I know about team work. I know about watching each other's backs. There's just times that I'm best suited for what needs to be done, and short circuit the decision making by doing it before the debate begins. Give people a fait accompli."

Jubilee has posed:
"Well, I would get out and seek help. If I knew what was happening was morally wrong, I'd do whatever it took to get out. I'd rather die than be forced to kill other people. That's not how I want to live my life. I would try to escape and if I died in the process, so be it. I'd rather go out on my feet than be used as a weapon to hurt other people." Jubilee says rather honestly. "I'm not scared of dying or how I die. I just want to know that when I do, I left this place in a better spot than when I came in."

"Here in this school, we have to work as a team, especially if you're a kid under our care. You may not like the situation you're in, but that's the rules. Soldiers follow rules, right? If you're going to go at this new life of yours through the eyes of your old life, then see it that way. We give orders and rules to not break them. Don't go out and be stupid. Trust your teachers. Trust your friends. Show each other empathy and respect. If you have a problem, talk it out with them, if you can't, talk it out with me. Simple stuff. One of our rules is not going out on your own, starting gang wars, attacking the FOH without backup, or any other moron out there."

Team work makes the dream work. It's one of our rules as X-Men. If you woulda came to us with your plan, I bet you anything we'd have supported it, and supported you. The results of those idiots getting arrested was awesome. It's just about how you went at it which is what scares us."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Bean gestures at Jubilee with his spoon. "And that's exactly what I did. But not because I thought it was morally wrong. I didn't understand that until well over a year later. What happens, is in a situation like that you adapt. And what comes out is someone like me. I'm giving people the benefit of the doubt. But everyone is expecting this to be an overnight thing, that one day I'm going to wake up and forget the harsh lessons of six years of my life. At least it feels that way."

    More spoon action, more sampling if the delicious ice cream. "It's the team work that's the problem. What team? One of the co leads of the New Mutants doesn't want us to do anything active. You said yourself I'd never make an X-man. So where does that leave me for a team? Scratch build one from the students around? Or go talk to the heads of the school who are always busy? To the Professor himself? I've never even seen him. My point is that, if I want to organise something time sensitive, I can't go through the official channels, because it takes too long."

Jubilee has posed:
"It doesn't take too long because you haven't tried it yet. The New Mutants is not a 'team' by definition. They're a student body group that is designed to put students together to work on school spirit activities, work together in the DR to prepare and learn how to defend one another and support each other, /in/ the case that /if/ we are under attack, we have students who can help the staff get people to safety and protect those who can't protect themselves. When I was on the New Mutants, it was the same thing, but we still went out and did stupid things like you did. We got in trouble and we got punished and we learned from them and then went out and did more dumb things and etc etc. Know what I mean? We are not expecting you to come into this school and tomorrow be normal. We understand this is a learning curve for all of us." Jubilee says as she takes another bite of ice cream.

"Teamwork applies to friends also. If Shannon needs help in math, you'd help her, right? That's teamwork. If I need help lifting something heavy and carrying it, that's teamwork. If you find out that a bunch of FOH members are holed up in a warehouse, you come tell someone. Tell /me/. I'll help you. Tell Sam. Don't just bust out of here at midnight. Sometimes you need patience. But that is part of what it's like to be a student here. Is to trust us, trust the system and sometimes, you may have to watch an opprotunity go by. You'll have another one."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "But what if the missed opportunity means that a group of mutants is killed, in broad daylight? What if you know that it's going to happen, and you have the means to stop it, but only if you act right now? Why wait? Every second is one that brings you closer to mission failure." Is Bean saying he had inside information that he's not talking about? Or just talking hypothetical?

    "I help out where I can. I don't just sit around by myself brooding and making lists of targets I'm going after next. But I've done a lot of evil, and the only way I see to redress that balance is to do a lot of good. More good than I've done evil. That's what I want. To be square with myself and the world."

Jubilee has posed:
"So, are you saying you had inside information on all of that and that's why you acted?" Jubilee will voice the inner thoughts herself. She has no problem doing so. "If you want to be square for yourself, then do us all a favor and not focus on that stuff. Take a deep breath and learn to appreciate the flowers, the sun, the color of your bedroom walls, what you had for lunch. Focus on that. You can't shoulder the burden on what ifs, because when something happens and it doesn't go your way, that is guilt you are putting on yourself. Sometimes in life, bad shit happens. Sometimes we'll be late to the party. That's life. It sucks, but that's life. All I'm saying is to slow down, focus on /yourself/ before you focus on others. That is what is most important right now. Making sure you are okay."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "And I won't be until and unless I'm sure people I can save have actually been saved." Someone change his nickname from Bean to Nut, because he's being tough to crack right now. "And right now, I have information about a slave camp. Shutting it down won't just save literally hundreds of people, it'll hurt HYDRA a lot to lose the foundry and the research. So, it's all well and good to sit here and talk about thinking about myself while eating ice cream." Spoon. Nom. "But I'd never forgive myself if I just sat here and did nothing. That's not me, and it never will be."

Jubilee has posed:
"And that is why I want you to talk to Scott and Jean ...and Logan. Definitely Logan, because he has experience in this." Jubilee says to him. "Because you will /not/ be going out by yourself into a Hydra camp to attack them, that's for sure. I like the effort and the willingness to help but a project like this is beyond just the scope of one. I'll even help you out."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Bean actually laughs at that, shaking his head. "By myself? Absolutely not. The plan, and this is one I've talked to Mister Guthrie about, is to talk to SHIELD, and go in full Howling Commando style. Grab the people, get them to safety, shut down Echo and ... Cannonball has half a plan to relocate the people we free to Kentucky and set up a mining community. You'd have to talk to him about that."

    The spoon scrapes against cardboard. Even ice cream has its limits, it seems. "I have half a mind to take Vi as well. She knows the people, she'll be able to spot a plant. And there is no force on this planet that can make me go into a HYDRA facility by myself."

Jubilee has posed:
"Okay, as long as Sam or you talks to Jean and Scott, I'm sure we can make a day out of it. I'd still strongly be against Vi going because she just got here, and regardless of what she has in her head, I don't want the expectation of our current student body is that we're okay in taking kids out on missions to fight terror groups." Jubilee lobs her empty carton into the trash can.

"I'm proud that you want to do good, Sam. So don't get that twisted or anything. I think /one day/ you may be a great X-Man. One day. Not saying never. If that is what you want to do, and you can work within our system.." She gives a lick of her lips. "Anything else you wanna talk about? You got anything you want or need to offload?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Yeah, actually." And Bean stands up to throw his carton in the trash, rather than punting it the short distance like most kids his age would do. Littering, even by accident? Please, he's used to going somewhere and not leave any forensic evidence. "I get what you're saying about the team work. I fully agree. But I feel that my point about not having a solid team that can be called at short notice for the delicate work is also perfectly valid."

    And so he sits again, not quite as nonchalant as just before, but nowhere near the rigid pose of a subordinate in to see the camp commander to have a strip torn off him. "I want to reach out to other teams. There's someone called Robin who seems to do work in Gotham that expressed an interest in working with me. There's the Titans that appear to have a much shorter call notice than a student body. Don't think the Avengers will let me go anywhere near them on general principle, but why not find out? We might want to work with them on Echo. Then there's SHIELD, which is a tricky one, because they're also the organisation that's technically keeping me under arrest. There's others. I would like permission to contact them, see if they can use my services, perhaps even with active assistance from whichever part of the school you would deem appropriate. They might not listen to a kid my age, they might be more inclined to listen to the X-men."

Jubilee has posed:
"Well, we're are a school for a reason, not a team." Jubilee does point out to him. "We aren't a military or the mutant police. We're a school of higher learning first and foremost before we are anything else." She listens to him now as he explains the rest, mulling it over carefully.

"That's a decision for Scott and Jean. Though Robin did cut the head off of Superman's statue and wave it around like a batshit spoiled kid and ruined a perfectly peaceful night of mourning, and then called your fellow students explicitives. I don't know if he is the type I would suggest kicking it with for coffee and donuts. I've heard good things about the Titans though."

Letting out a breath, she says, "You got anything else on your mind that isn't blasty beat up bad guy stuff? Is there anything that I can do to help you be successful? What can I do for you?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Another nod, as Bean seems to concede the point. "Fair comment. I tend to focus on the operational side and... " Deep breath, let's try again.

    "I'm getting a bit worried that some of the things I'm learning are a bit... to used Laura's phrase, laughably remedial. I understand that there's a set path for students, but I'm finding it very hard to stay focused on the actual lessons." Not that you'd notice. His behavior in class has been utterly exemplary and his work impeccable. "You mentioned maths earlier. I've already done all the homework for the year. Same with physics, with chemistry. I mean, I used the chemistry lab to nickel coat half a motorbike... I get that you're all worried I'm going to start making bombs or something, but c'mon... Isn't there a way to just... accelerate this? At what age am I supposed to graduate?"

Jubilee has posed:
"I'm not worried about you making bombs. I expect half the student body to at some point try and make one. None of you kids can just be normal kids for some reason who complains about classes or stealing girlfriends or normal gossip. Nooooo, you guys want to go take on Hyrda and go to lunch with Captain America." Jubilee grunts in amusement as she reaches for a green jellybean, then pops it into her mouth.

"You're supposed to graduate after your Senior year. With everyone else. I guess we can take you out of normal classes and put you in something else. Classes that focus on ethics. Classes that focus on community service. Maybe I'll put you in Kurt's drama courses so you can understand pop culture references and stick you in some tights and have you dance about the stage."

"Oooooooor..." Jubilee pauses, licking her lips in thought as she is cranking out an idea in her head.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "I've already signed up for Herr Wagner's drama class." Because, let's face it, he would. A good part of his training to date has focused on pretending to be something he's not, so what's the difference between playing Sam-Bean, the regular kid or Cyrano de Bergerac? He even figures he'd make a decent Hamlet. "I'm thinking about Glee club as well, but I'm not sure how well my voice is suited for singing. And the closest I've gotten to playing the guitar is to use the strings to... well... let's say it's not considered to be a musical thing to do."

Jubilee has posed:
"Really? Drama and Glee?" Jubilee's brows rise upwards in surprise. "That's actually really cool." Her thumbs brush over the glass of her phone, tapping in a text.

'Hey hot stuff, it's Jubes, I'm dealing with this Bean kid. I need a big brain. Halp me! Come to my office? I got jelly beans and ice cream. Please???? kthxloveyousoooomuch.'

"I'm calling someone down I want you to talk with also on the staff. His name is Doug. He is the smartest person in the world. I think he may be able to bonk heads with me and we can find you a cool project that doesn't involve murder and mayhem."

Cypher has posed:
'You're lucky I'm not in New York today. You'd better have the really good raspberry flavored ones'.

A few minutes later, Doug, still in his headband, tank top, and workout sweats, is standing in the doorway, techno-organic and regular-organic arms folded over his chest.

"Hey Sam." He says, "...So what's the issue, Jubilation?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    The advantages of being a technopath? Bean isn't surprised when Doug shows up, because let's face it, he knew exactly what text was being sent. And to whom, but he kept quiet about that until the man himself is standing in the doorway. He gives Doug a respectful nod, and half a smile. "Mister Ramsey. Good to see you again. I was hoping you'd be able to give me some advice later, about movies..."

Jubilee has posed:
"Doooougie!" Jubilee pops up from behind her desk, looking pleased. She is wearing black joggers and a hot pink t-shirt herself. She's looking comfortable. ".. Sorry I don't have raspberry beans. I only have licorice and green apple. But! I do have strawberry shortcake ice cream in the freezer."

Pointing to Sam, she says, "This guy decided to go Rambo and drag a student out to a FOH safehouse and do ninja things all on his own without telling anyone about it. Guthrie is pretty heated about it and so as his counselor, I thought I'd uselessly get no where with a conversation about this and that. Long story short is the kid is a trained weapon who's bored out of his mind because he's too advanced for our coursework."

Giving a long stretch of her arms up to pop her back, she heads to the freezer to open the door. "So, I am thinking maybe we can put together a community service capstone project for him. One that does not involve him building bombs in metal shop or something. How 'bout you and him partner up together to gather the intel he has on Hydra and the FOH, create a mission out of it, decide who is best suited to go in on it, and then present it to Scott and Jean? This will show off his critical thinking skills, decision making, empathy and team work abilities. Because he's gonna do it no matter what, but his complaint is lack of availability of our 'higher up staff' to get engaged in something like this. Well, you're staff, and this is in your wheelhouse."

Cypher has posed:
"Well I mean. I'm kinda just... by default... the IT guy." Doug says, lamely. "I troubleshoot the computers. When I'm in town. And Kitty isn't available." He holds his hands out and then rubs the back of his neck, before he looks at Sam. "So the 'learn to be a kid' training isn't working, huh?" He says, "Well, I had hope, but I can't say I'm surprised, Bean."

Then he finds a place to sit, and gestures to Jubilee with one hand. "How is this anything worse than the stuff we used to get into? I mean really... truly. Wow. I just said that." He slaps his palm into his forehead.

"Well, OK. It's good intelligence, anyway. We can slap the Avengers in the face with it the next time they turn a blind eye to the plight of the tribe." He sighs, and glances at the little guy. "So you got Sam to lose his temper? I never managed that."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "In my defence, Vi followed me when I snuck out. And she's good at it too." From Bean, that means something. To willingly admit he'd been blindsided by another student? That's a serious mark of approval. "When I saw she'd followed me into New York, I had the choice between telling her to go away, leave her alone in the city, or change my mission parameters to minimise the potential of harm to her. You'd be amazed at her senses, she can hear distinct heart beats five floors down in a building."

    As for getting Cannonball angry. "I may have mentioned remembering someone once telling me that I should try to get in trouble a bit more. He ehmm... didn't take it well." Now he relaxes again, positively slouching in his seat. "And don't get me wrong. I want to be a kid, but only if there's time for it. Not while I know people are in danger and doing nothing about it, that'd make me an accomplice. You've heard of Vi, our new student? She's from a pretty bad place, call it a HYDRA slave labor camp. I happen to know where it is, because I've been there, several times. So my plan was to work together with SHIELD and go rescue slaves. I've got a ten page mission outline, if you want it?"

Jubilee has posed:
"Okay! YES, I told you to get in trouble more often! But I meant more like steal a horse and go riding it through the living room or get caught skinny dipping in the swimming pool or something. You know, dumb kid stuff." Jubilee says as she pokes at Doug in the shoulder. "And this is way different, because when you and I would go out and be stupid, we'd do it as a team. All of us. You, me, Sammy, Rahne, Illy. We'd go out and be idiots together. All for one, one for all. But him?"

She points at Sam with a soft huff. "He wants to go out and fight the world himself to 'minimize casualities'. He doesn't really do the team work thing real well. So, on top of trying to help him be a normal kid, which I already know is not going to work, I'm trying to get him to at least loop us in before he runs out there."

"I just want this to be a school, not a boot camp for kids. It's not the Hunger Games up in here. When you and I were kids, Doug, it was different. You know what I mean? We were all stupid, we had no clue what we were doing or the risks out there. What happened to you.." She pauses, biting on her lip. "I don't.. want that to happen to him, or to Shannon, or Andrea or anyone else. That day still .. hurts." Aw.

Cypher has posed:
Doug quirks his mouth. "That's sweet. I didn't actually know you felt that way. I never asked." He sets that aside for a minute.

"He is..." Doug says, "In my evaluation, a good kid. With good interests. But he wasn't taught how to be a team player, how to be part of a group. So, Bean, you have decided to be a lone wolf." Then he glances to Jubilee. "You know... if I remember right, both you and Kitty used to tag along behind the quintessential lone wolf."

"I think..." He taps his chin, "We need to surrender the Bean here to..."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    There's a deep sigh. Never will Bean get used to having others talk about him while he's still in the same room, and he hangs his head for a moment. "I'm not a poor team player. If you must know, the first time I snuck out was to do a close quarters recce for a shopping trip we were going to take to Times Square. I didn't want to trust anyone else with the security, so I went to scout the ground. To keep people safe, to keep my team from being ambushed. Things just... sort of spiraled from there." Quite a spiral, considering it culminated in working with Fisk to hatch a plan to take down the Foot. "I'm not a lone wolf, it's just that ... there was no team for me to call, at the time."

    "And I'll have you know that I've actually been a fire team leader on several missions. Motivating and building teams is what I do."

    An eyebrow is raised, and Bean looks at Doug with keen interest now. Surrender him? That sounded ominous. "To whom?"

Jubilee has posed:
Giving him a 'look', Jubilee is obviously a bit emotional even just bringing up that topic. It's taboo after all. One of those 'don't ask don't tell' sorta things. But it was a dramatic affect on the New Mutants 1.0 at the time. "And yet, he sneaks out at midnight by himself to go jump a FOH safehouse. Yeah, you're really selling me on the team leader thingy."

"Look, Dougie, I dunno.. Logan... you sure about that? Sidekicks isn't really his thing now and he's not a chick. He sorta doesn't fit the Logan checkbox." She says jokingly, brows lifting upwards.

"But, you're probably right.. Logan would be ideal for him. He and I did go on a /ton/ of sweet adventures. Oh my God, when we'd go to Madripool and go fight The Hand together, that was craaaaazy. He was /so/ irresponsible taking me out there with him." She says with a laugh. "Scott would tear him a new one when we'd come back."

Cypher has posed:
Doug raises his eyebrows. "Well. Think of it like this. This kid hates Hydra almost as much as Logan does--"

He glances back to Sam, and says, offhandedly, "Logan and Madame Hydra have been at one another's throats for a long time. I think they used to date. And Logan has beef with the Silver Samurai that goes back even longer than that, from what I've been told. I think Logan used to date his sister. So if you want an X-Man who's going to turn an attentive ear to your desire to mess up Hydra..."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "There are some names you don't just casually drop." Bean practically hisses, glancing around all of a sudden. Senses reach out to try to find bugs, trackers, hidden cameras, anything that might indicate that the conversation is being spied on. Only when he's absolutely certain this wasn't a very elaborate loyalty test does the kid settle down again, looking a bit more agitated now than before. "It sometimes feels like you're not listening to me. Yes, I want to utterly destroy HYDRA. Anyone who has ever gotten away from them does. But this isn't about that. This is about..."

    Another deep breath. At least someone has taught him how to do that before going off on too much of a tangent. "... I've done horrible things in Echo. When SHIELD debriefed me, the topic never came up, and ... to be honest, I tried very hard to forget it even existed. But ever since Vi showed up, I just... I can't ignore it anymore. These people, and let me remind you that the vast majority of them aren't mutants or I'd have taken the information to the Genoshan embassy instead, these people are slaves. You wouldn't believe what's being done to them. And this is too big a deal to leave it to quick point scoring between us and SHIELD, or us and the Avengers. Dammit, we're going to need allies on this, because I honestly don't think this school has the firepower for what's going to probably turn into a commando raid or a full blown battle. Unless, of course, I'm mistaken and you're hiding IFV's and field artillery around the place somewhere?" He waits a few moments, looking from Jubilee to Doug.

    "Didn't think so. This needs to be done cooperatively. And when this is done, I'll happily team up with Mister Logan and be the short in their circuit."

Jubilee has posed:
"Oh. Yeah. We totally don't have.. artillery.. or anything." Jubilee says with a glance to Doug. WINK. WINK.

"Look, Dougie, I agree with you, in principal, but .. I'd /really/ be more comfortable with just trying to turn this kid into a kid and get him off this path of being a weapon or a brainwashed tool. This is a Jean and Scott decision in the end, know what I mean? I'm a guidance counselor and my gut is telling me to protect him, I just don't know how."

Sighing, she drops down into her seat again, kicking her feet up on top of it as she reaches for her energy drink to crack it open and pop a straw into it. "But he's right, those people need to be rescued and that shit has to end. He is also right it has to be a Shield thing because that is so above our paycheck. It's why I was thinking of a capstone course, make this an educuational thing and then we pass the intel over to the good guys and we let them run with it." She folds her arms out at the sides, then takes a long sip of her drink. Slurp.

Cypher has posed:
"Well, here's the thing, Jubes." Doug says, before he grabs some jellybeans and tosses them up and into his mouth. "Sam -- what you're trying to tell us is, that you're not going to cooperate with deprogramming until you feel that the intelligence you brought with you from Hydra is acted upon -- right?" He holds his hands up. "...That's your sticking point. You're just being too nice to say it so bluntly."

"Am I on the mark, here?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "What are you talking about? I've been deprogrammed." And now Bean actually looks distressed. More so than he has looked in quite some time. The dominant expression here seems to be existential horror, as if a fundamental thing he believes about himself may not be true. "Right? It's been two years, I'm done with that sort of thing now, right? Am I?"

    "I just..." Head in hands now, looking down, feeling dizzy. "I know so many things. I've told SHIELD so many things. What's the point if nobody ever does anything with it?"

Jubilee has posed:
"I think Doug means with this mentality of being on an never-ending mission of war. Mini-Punisher." Jubilee says as she swings her legs off the desk and heads over towards the student. She reaches out to place her hands on his shoulders for a comforting squeeze.

"So, let's say we pass this intel to the Avengers and Shield and then we all roll in there like badasses and kick the shit out of them and save the people. What next? Do you have a /next/ mission or are you able to let this go and try and fit in? Like, /really/ try and fit in. You know.. try and work through the paranoia and the instinct. To try and settle and watch MTV and cartoons or something? I know this is like.. asking for the impossible. But I'm sure there is a 'next' mission, right?"

Cypher has posed:
    Doug thinks about that, and then he sighs. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Once again, being able to understand people doesn't give me the super-power to always pick the right words to say."

"There's a lot that goes with this sort of thing. Post-traumatic stress. Learning to cope with the unexpected, with unregimented environments. With days where you *just have nothing to do*. I have to reiterate, that the purpose of the school is to help you learn to use your abilities... and how to live with them."

"The problem is... yes. Sometimes things move slowly. Slower than we'd like. Think of it like being in a room full of cobwebs... with a lot of spiders. If you move too quickly, you break a bunch of cobwebs and you get... spiders in your hair." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "...That was lame. I'm sorry."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "There's always going to be a next mission. Just... none that's this urgent." Squeezing Bean's shoulders is like trying to knead steel cable into concrete. After a few moments he actually pulls himself together a bit, and nods almost benevolently towards Doug. "I understand, I do. It's just that... How do you start? Where do I grab a thread and start pulling? It feels like every time I try, something just snaps and I have to start all over. Once my bike is finished, I won't have anything left to do."

Jubilee has posed:
"Ew, I hate spiders." Jubilee says with a wrinkle of her nose.

With a sigh, she taps on her phone again, sending off a text to Scott: 'Hey Scoots. Dougie and I are in my office talking to Bean about Hydra stuff and he wants to pass some intel on to you. I'm also out of jelly beans. Sorry if you were expecting any, but I got your faaaavorite flavor of Twizzlers hiding in my desk that I've been saving for a rainy day. Can you pop over if you aren't too busy?'

"You could start building a car next. Baby steps. Maybe pick up some books and read an adventure tale. Don't worry about the next thing until you finish the first thing."

Cyclops has posed:
'No bribery required, Jubilee. I'll stop by in a few minutes,' is the returned message from Scott Summers, very quickly: he must have already been on his device. The administrator was headed to get a late lunch, but that can wait for a student problem to be resolved, and he's always making a clear priority to be available for the junior staff.

Cypher has posed:
"Well." Doug says, "It's good to have constructive goals. Stopping a ruthless fascist terrorist organization determined to rule the world is an admirable goal. But--" Doug says, "Hydra has a lot of heads, ergo the name. You can attack them on a black-ops military front, but what about their criminal endeavors? The legitimate businesses they operate? The politicians they've bought? You can dedicate your life to slaying the beast, but to do that you'll have to be ready and able to take on all its heads. It seems like your goal calls for a real need to develop your understanding of business, and civics, and political science."

Doug rubs the back of his neck, again, and then he adds, "Life's going to be that way. Two steps forward... one step back. Sometimes."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "It does, doesn't it?" Bean blinks and looks at Doug, frowning for a moment. "I hadn't thought that far ahead. I know there's agents everywhere, there's ways of spotting them, but... What if I always end up looking in the wrong places?" Even Jubilee gets a smile, a genuine smile, and the kid perks right up. "I think we might have found something for me to study."

Jubilee has posed:
"See, I told you that bringing in a big brain like Doogie here would help out. I'm a /great/ guidance counselor." Jubilee even reaches over for her 'back patter' that she got from Kurt for Christmas and uses it to pat herself on the back twice. "Also, Scott is on his way, so you get your chance to see eyes to eye with the man himself and tell him allll about this."

"And also, he'll probably ground you and or high five you at the same time for that stunt you pulled with the FOH. He'll be all silent and tight lipped and give you a long speech about disobeying curfew and putting yourself at risk, and then he'll go back to his room and silently fist pump that you did something pretty recklessly cool, because deep, deeeep inside, Scott is a bro."

Cyclops has posed:
Scott raps his knuckles exactly twice on the door as he opens it, as he'd had the request from Jubilee. His presence, though, might startle the others in the room, if they didn't expect him so quickly. As he isn't a telepath, he has no knowledge of the warnings given by Jubilee.

The administrator's expression is difficult to read: having his eyes covered makes his reserved expression very mask-like, as he takes in the room. A nod is sent to Jubilee and the young men if they turn to look at him, and he closes the door neatly after him, staying near it and setting his hands against his belt. He stands as if he were entering a class to audit from the back. Or to lay down the punishments, as the young woman had just warned them! It's on Jubilee to greet him first: perhaps because he doesn't seek to interrupt, just observe, for the moment.

Cypher has posed:
Doug exhales, perhaps happy that he seems to have said the right thing during a very stressful point. "One thing I'm learning - and we are all always learning, every one of us, is that purpose is something you have to seek. You have to find something that needs doing, and then... you do it. I'm somehow juggling law classes and setting up the tech infrastructure for a multinational NGO. It doesn't leave me much time for a dating life, but... hey."

He looks up at Scott, and raises his black and gold techno-organic hand in greeting. "Hey."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "You know, if you need someone to lay cable, set up terminals or configure a server, you can call me, right?" For most of those things anyway. He'd probably need to take a few classes before Bean could be rated as a proper administrator. "Mister Guthrie had me fixing some of the electrics in his club, and I'm working out a proposal how to set up holograms, because he asked. It's tech stuff, I like that sort of thing."

    Jubilee gets a look when she pats herself on the back, but the look is interrupted by the arrival of Scott. It's only the second time Bean has seen the man, and his posture goes rigid again. It's pure instinct... you never slouch in the presence of authority.

Jubilee has posed:
Lobbing the back patter to the side, Jubilee turns towards Scott and throws her arms upwards. "Hey there! Welcome to chateau Jubilee. Let me fetch your ice cream." She says as she trots to her mini freezer and takes out a small Ben and Jerry's 'Simple Vanilla' for the bossman.

"So, hey, I was following up with Samuel here for our weekly session as I have challenged him to try and learn what it's like to be a kid, instead of a .. weapon that he was programmed to be. I'm sure you've read his file. It's.. messy. Anyways, I know Guthrie is dealing with his latest adventure he went on, or at least he's planning on it. But, I wanted to pick your brain on something."

"Sam here has a /lot/ of intel on Hydra, the camp that was holding another of our studets captive there, Vi. They have a large number of prisoners there and he wants to turn the information over to you and Shield and maybe the Avengers. I told him that you're the guy in charge of that type of stuff. Bossman." She holds the ice cream out to him with a spoon.

"Your favorite."

Cyclops has posed:
The greeting from Doug is met with a nod. Scott gives a clear negation motion with his hand when Jubilee goes for the ice cream. Not now, Jubilee, says the motion. He won't accept the offered items. This is not a relaxed situation of ice cream for Scott. Maybe that's one of the reasons he's not a guidance counselor. "Yes, I am in charge of that. I have been provided with pieces of these adventures," Scott says: he knows some things, but perhaps not other parts. He doesn't seem pleased, nor angry.

"Before we address these various topics, Mr. Morgan, would you prefer this be done privately, or are you more comfortable with your friend and guidance counselor here?" Scott asks. The tone is firm and calm, professional and even. He isn't moving into private content, possibly some that Samuel may not want aired, without Samuel's preference about it being made clear.

Cypher has posed:
"In this instance, I..." Doug says, "Should probably excuse myself." He gets up. "You have something you want to talk to me about later, Bean, I'll be around all day. Sam says I need to take at least one day off a week. So, it's orders."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    There's only two people in the school that ever call him 'Mister Morgan'. Both of them are the absolute face of authority, and everything, there is the core of a kid still somewhere within Bean. The core of a kid that knows he broke the rules, and now has to deal with the head of the school. It's an almost genetic reaction. "Mister Summers, I understand there are things we need to discuss. If you don't mind, I would prefer to keep the more... interesting... parts of my file just between us. But anything else, please feel free to bring up."

    As he stands up to depart, Doug gets a nod. "I will, thank you. It's just that those tickets are going to expire, and I've got no idea..."

Cyclops has posed:
"Required to take a day off?" Scott asks Doug as he passes, one brow lifting, visible above the red glasses. "I didn't approve that requirement," he says, with a ghost of a smile to Doug. While still serious, accidentally strangling the cheery mood in the room, Scott exhibits very minor levity. It's gone as quickly as it came in, like a strange glint on an otherwise rusted blade.

A simple nod shows to Samuel as he expresses where the line is. Scott accepts it, no muss or fuss. "That's fine. We'll start with your information, as Jubilee mentioned, then. I'd request that you begin with a full report, with the expected audience to be an agent from SHIELD. We can go over it here, allow you to edit and collect more thoughts, and continue from there."

Cypher has posed:
On the way out, Doug says, "Sometimes, a movie is just a movie. You can take Shannon with you, and have a friends' day out. HOW-ever..." Doug says, pausing at the doorway, hand on the frame, for just a moment, "If there's somebody you happen to think is cute, some student you'd like to get to know better..." Doug weighs it, one hand and then the other, "...Then it wouldn't hurt to ask them to go with you. I mean, it's all practice for the big stuff later on. I'll, ah, let you know when I figure the big stuff out."

Jubilee has posed:
"You can ask me out to a movie if you want, Doug." Jubilee calls over to him with a grin on her face before putting the ice cream back in the freezer, then trots back over around her desk to flop heavily down into her gamer chair. It's hot pink and black. Way more stylish and comfy than a boring office chair. Picking up her energy drink, she sips from the straw that juts out of it, focusing her attention now on the pair left, staying quiet.

Cypher has posed:
"...Fine, but we're seeing the one about the evil clown." Doug says, "I'll spring for popcorn and dinner after, though. I can afford it, I pay no rent and Bobby da Costa signs my paychecks."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    A brief, very perfunctory nod, and Bean stands. This is the kind of presentation made standing up, and he does so with his hands clasped behind his back, coming to parade rest. And he starts, as is customary, at the basic premise required to understand the frame of the mission, with only a brief nod to Doug on his way out. He's in mission mode...

    "Throughout the world, HYDRA maintains several bases of strategic importance. These bases are never officially named, but remain known by their designation code throughout their entire operational life. For the purposes of understanding the importance of these sites, it is best to compare them to 'Black Sites' as maintained by other organisations, and for much the same purpose. The main focus of every site differs, and this report will focus its scope entirely on a site known as Echo."

    A brief glance around to see if everyone is still with him... he looks like he has a lot more prepared...

Cyclops has posed:
Scott listens with a keen, razor intensity. He has picked up a number of things from his long time with the Professor, and the sensation of listening very deeply and completely to someone is one of them. There is never a sense that Scott is daydreaming or not paying very full attention when someone gives a report. He had folded his arms while listening, and lifts one hand, palm open, to indicate a pause. Scott is deciding something. He doesn't make them wait long.

"There's a great deal of depth to this. I don't want to lose anything in a summary done unprepared, unexpectedly, in this room right now. Instead, let's make this a full /written/ report, that would be appropriate to hand over to SHIELD, or the Avengers," Scott clarifies. "One report on Echo, as you mentioned, and supplemental documents focusing on other zones that also need to be brought forward. Consider this your current project of high priority; I know that you're capable of excellent writing, Mr. Morgan, so expectations will be high as well. The format will be a packet with the reports, and a cover page that includes a summary of each section. I think it will be better to go over written reports that you have had time to add full detail to."

"I expect this may eat much of your free time, but we have seen that you have a little to spare," Scott says, without directly mentioning, but still clearly referencing, the difficulties Samuel has been involved in: perhaps doing this well could help with the outcome of those items, is the subtext.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    There is another automatic nod from Bean. "Yessi- I mean, yes Mister Summers. I'll get on it as soon as possible." And with that, Bean sits, looking distracted for a moment and only Doug or Alek would have been able to understand that he's already starting a rough draft via the notepad app on his phone. Forget text to speech, this is thought to text, a great time saver.

    "I'm glad you rate my writing skills. You have my promise that the report will not disappoint."

Cyclops has posed:
"I'll check in with you. Be thorough: not rushed," Scott says, sounding very much the teacher for a moment. Scott has taught a number of classes, before he moved into full administration, though his classes were math. Not so much related to long essays. "We'll discuss the other items as well." Scott looks to Jubilee with a silent question in the turn of his head.

"I have other matters, unless there's something else right now?" Scott asks towards her.

Jubilee has posed:
As she listens, Jubilee sips away at her energy drink, propping her chin in the palm of her hand as she looks from Sam to Scott. "Well, cool. Ready for that ice cream, Scott?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    There are times when it is wise to say nothing. Bean considers that this is one of those times and lets the adults talk for a change without adding anything.

Cyclops has posed:
"Good, I'll leave you to it, Samuel," Scott says, clearly adjusting the tone of the meeting with the change in name usage. His attention moves back to Jubilee and her offer. "No, I've missed lunch; I've a turkey sandwich in my future. Another time, but thank you." Maybe another time. Scott is notoriously difficult to coax into any kind of fun.

With a simple nod, he excuses himself from the room, taking his formality with him.

Jubilee has posed:
"You can take the ice cream with you! It's /simply vanilla/." Just like their fearless leader! Jubilee lets out a deflating pfft between her lips before she glances over to Sam. She tips a wink to him. "Feel better?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Despite everything, despite being given the extra work, having to go through quite a few emotional events and ending up being responsible for what might be the success or failure of a mission he'd been planning for quite some time, and which may or may not determine his future... Bean actually smiles as he looks up from his work. "Much. Thank you."

Jubilee has posed:
"No problem. Get out of my office and go skinny dip in the fountain or something. Do something normal and get in trouble for that. No more bad guy adventures for at least a week." Jubilee says as she gives another long siiiip from her energy drink, sighing happily.