xp_logs | Mutants and Molotovs // Captive Audience

While waiting at the hotel, Nathan and Jubilee have a heart-to-heart. Twenty stories above a riot. No one ever said these two didn't have a weird relationship.

Jubilee sat down on one of the window seats in a side room off the hotel room a lot of the kids had gathered in. She could make sure things were fine in here just as well as in there. Also, this way she wasn't freaking anyone out by her need to keep looking out the window every few seconds. She hoped the X-men got here soon, she felt so useless just sitting in here when she should be down there stopping people from killing each other.

Not that watching the kids wasn't useful but...Gah! She did not want to get into an arguement with herself as to where she could help the most. Right now, here was where she was, so that was that.

"Jubilee," came Nathan's voice from the doorway. He came in to join her at the window. "Stewing's not going to help," he said quietly. "They'll be here when they get here. And they're on their way."

"I know. An I know we've got to look out for the kids too. That here is where we need to be right now. It's just, it's always about time, ain't it? Time for them to get here. Time for the city to get their riot forces into place. Time it takes for someone to die out there while we're doin' all that. Sometimes I wish I had the type of power that could just stop it, ya know? Make time freeze...I don't know, anythin' to give us more of what we need most, an don't have." Jubilee replied, looking up at the clouds that were starting to obscure the sky. It was going to rain soon.

Nathan gazed at her, and then, gently, whapped her upside the head.

Jubilee blinked at him, opened her mouth to say something, and then blinked some more. "Wah?"

"Do you practice? In the mirror?" Nathan asked. "The monologues, I mean." His tone was severe, but the telltale twitching of his lips was fairly obvious.

She blushed, looked out the window again and then snorted. "Dude, you are totally ruinin' my angst, ya know that? Here I was, gonna launch into the 'Why God, WHY!?' phase and you got all humorous on me."

"I'm no fun at all," Nathan said tranquilly. "Or so I've been told."

"Nope. Horrible grumpy old man, you are." Jubilee replied with a firm nod, lips twitching. "Especially to your poor, hard done by students. What with all the homework an all. You made me break a nail once, you know. All those carrying of books. I was traumatised for weeks."

"Poor baby," Nathan mocked gently. The banter was much more productive that the heartfelt discussions of the meaning of life and so forth. It really was.

Jubilee leaned back against the window, looking down at the street again. "Not so much. You always made me work for the grades I got. Made me appreciate it more when I did do well. I'm still not forgiving you for the pop quizes after weekends though."

"Oh, good, becauser you were meant to hold an eternal grudge. That was the idea." Nathan's expression was distant, wistful and sad, as he stared down at the city.

Jubilee placed her hand on his shoulder. "Sounds like you've got a weight on your shoulders, Nate. You want to share? Or we can continue with the witty banter, either way."

She didn't usually pry where people didn't want her. Or, being more truthful, she usually gave people an out if she did pry. It was only fair, afterall.

He shrugged a little. "Amanda," he said, briefly.

"Oh dear." Jubilee replied, unable to think of anything constructive to say for a second. "So...what did she say?"

She was not the person she would have suggested had someone asked her who the best person to talk about Amanda with was. However, she was here, and she was at least one of the people unlikely to suggest boiling pitch and a drop from a big cliff in regards to the topic at hand.

"I talked to her after the incident in medlab. And didn't, after that." Nathan sighed. This really wasn't the time to be thinking about this, but relating with the kids over the course of the last day, feeling himself sliding into patterns that reminded him of her... it was bringing home to him just how much he had been isolating himself from them, these last couple of months.

"You can't blame yourself, you know." Jubilee replied, squeezing his shoulder. "You have a baby, they don't understand like we do. You can't tell a small kid that they've got to wait so you can go play den mother to some screwed up teenager because she's too damn stubborn to come find you when she's feeling abandoned."

"It's not that simple." Nathan tilted his head suddenly, looking down at Jubilee. "I did avoid her, from the beginning of September on," he said with a sigh. "It wasn't being busy with Rachel."

"Why?" she asked, looking at him quizzically.

He'd surprised her, she hadn't been aware that there was a problem between Amanda and Nate.

Nathan turned towards her, staring down at her for a long moment. "My accident at the beginning of September?"

"Yeah?"

Nathan smiled, very faintly, no humor at all in the expression. "It wasn't an accident. I didn't step in front of a truck."

"What!? So...How? Dude! You need to stop letting bad people hit you with heavy things!" Jubilee replied, jumping to the conclusion that if it hadn't been a truck, it had to have been a bad guy.

"Jubilee..." Maybe it was the day, or just a moment's perverse whim, but he found himself shrugging. "It was Pete."

"The fuck?"

Well then. That explained the avoiding of Amanda. But it didn't explain the sheer 'what the fuckness' of Pete attacking Nate. Well, okay, there had been that incident. But Nate had been insane and Pete had been defending Xavier. Jubilee stared at Nate in a suitably stunned way.

"It's complicated," Nathan said quietly, his gaze going back to the window. "And my fault, all of it. Although my uncle had a hand in it, and possibly my father... you know, I don't know why I just told you that?" He sighed and looked down at her again. "I suppose at this point it hardly matters, and you've more than proven that you keep team matters to yourself."

"I ain't gonna be tellin' anyone." Jubilee replied firmly. "An okay, Pete is close with Amanda. Did you talk to her about it at all?"

She was starting to see a picture of events here but she was still in the dark.

Nathan shook his head. "I couldn't," he murmured. "I... damn it." He laid a hand against the window, feeling the chill seeping through the glass. "You know, I was on a respirator for most of a day, afterward? And then I had to come back and pretend that I'd been in a traffic accident. Hell, I even went down to the medlab at odd times to get the bandages changed, because I didn't want to run into any of the helpers who'd seen me with hotknife burns last year..."

"Did she find out? That you and Pete fought, I mean? And, while we're at it. Just where the hell is Pete now? Do you think that's where Amanda went?" Jubilee asked, pulling her knees up to her chest and leaning her head back against the wall to see him better.

"No, she didn't, I don't know, and no clue." Nathan's expression was bleak. "Part of me hopes, maybe... at least she'd be safe if she was with him."

"I'm sorry." Jubilee replied.

Now that Amanda was gone, there was no way Nate might get a chance to talk it out with her. It couldn't feel very good, especially since Jubilee knew how close Nate and Amanda had been.

"~Strange days,~" Nathan murmured, slipping into Askani, and then shook his head. "Okay, why are we having a heart-to-heart while watching a riot? That's bizarre even by our standards."

~When aren't they?~ Jubilee replied in kind, having to pause a moment to remember the words. "And well, it was this or raiding the ice machine and seeing if I could sneak up on one of the other chaperones. I'm told ice wars are frowned upon in hotels."

"Hey." Nathan crouched down in front of her, his expression serious but not grim. "You're going to do fine tonight, by the way. I thought I should perhaps make that clear to you."

She looked out the window again, and then looked back at him. "Thanks. I just don't wanna let anyone down. I'm scared."

"You know what? So am I." Nathan's smile was a bit twisted, but there was a flash of real humor behind it. "I've been in situations like this before... mass rioting, civil unrest. Not trying to control it, mind you. I think that might even be worse."

"Like herding cats." Jubilee replied, laughing suddenly. "Gods, at least we can't say it's all our fault this time. No mansion in sight."

~*~

On his way out with Jean and the others to meet the X-Men at the airfield, Nathan makes a few stops first - asking Angelo to keep an eye on things, appealing to Manuel's better nature, and informing Marius that he's not allowed to eat anyone while the adults are gone.

"Angelo?" The suite door was open, which made Nathan smile very faintly. It was a small but telling sign of the change in Angelo's outlook, that he paid attention to the small details of making things go more smoothly in a potential crisis situation. He stepped in, at the same moment that Angelo stepped out of the washroom, blinking at him. "It's what we figured," Nathan said briefly. "The Blackbird's on the way."

Angelo nodded after a moment, resignedly. "That bad, huh?"

"It's getting worse out there. The request came from the President, so the whole team's deploying to help the police. By the time they get here, the National Guard should have deployed, too." Nathan bit his lip, gazing down at him. "I hate to do this to you, but you're quite literally going to be the most responsible person of age left, here. I'm going to see if I can appeal to Manuel to help, but it's going to be primarily on you to make sure that none of the kids does anything stupid. Although if it comes to that, there will be a pair of Secret Service agents in the lobby keeping an eye out for the lot of you."

"Sure, I'll watch out for them. Get 'em all in here if I have to."

"No need to do that unless the rioting gets this far. Which I'm hoping it doesn't," Nathan said with a sigh, glad that they'd picked a hotel on the fringes of the downtown. "If it does. Those two agents will come up here looking for you, specifically, and you'll have to help get everyone together to leave."

"Easier to keep track of everybody if they're in here, though. Might just do it anyway."

"All right. Up to you." Nathan hesitated, then made himself smile down at Angelo. "So much for the field trip."

Angelo smiled back, slightly. "Yeah. Maybe next time."

Nathan laid a hand on his shoulder for a moment, giving it a quick squeeze. "I'll see you soon, then."

~*~

The knock that came at Manuel's door was brisk, not quite hurried but somehow managing to convey that the person doing the knocking didn't intend to be standing out in the hall for any longer than absolutely necessary. Absolutely necessary turned out to be less than five seconds. #Manuel, come on,# Nathan sent sharply. #Open the door - I'm on a timeframe here.#

Manuel sauntered over to the door, opening it with a gigantic yawn. "Yes?" he said once he managed to finish his yawn. "Wait, let me guess. You're going to go jump out there with both boots and show everyone the errors of their ways until they're singing Kumbaya and holding hands."

Nathan raised an eyebrow at him. "Something like that," he said, managing to keep most of the sarcasm out of his voice. "Look, anyone who's not team or RedX is going to have to stay here - by here, I mean in the hotel. And believe it or not, there are two Secret Service agents in the lobby to keep an eye on the lot of you."

Manuel nodded. "Have fun with it." he said with another yawn. "I know who the Feds are. Spot the Fed is a game I excel at." he said with a thin smile. "I for one have _absolutely_ no desire to go out into all... that. That's what you're for."

"You and Angelo are going to be the only ones over eighteen still here," Nathan said. "I'm not asking you to chaperone, but you have certain advantages. If you catch anyone doing or planning anything stupid, you have my official permission to encourage them to stay in their suites and order room service."

Manuel displayed another sign of his change in outlook - he didn't even gloat. He just nodded once. "Any other instructions before you go get yourself killed?"

Nathan opened his mouth, then closed it again, giving Manuel a hard look. "No one's getting themselves killed. This is what we train for, remember?" He shook his head. Not the time to be getting into a debate. "That being said, if things go extremely badly and those agents decide that it's time for you all to depart the hotel, obviously do what you can to facilitate."

Manuel came as close as he ever did to a full-blown grin these days. "One other thing. If you want us all to stay in and order room service, we're going to need funds. Set something up with the help for a line of credit or something."

"Already done," Nathan said with a trace of amusement, "within reason. Anything not within reason will come out of your allowances - I've asked Angelo to let the others know that, too."

Manuel nodded, and then took a step back to close the door. "Have fun." he said before closing the door.

~*~

He didn't actually have time for this. The van was waiting downstairs, and Jean was giving him warning pings, but Nathan figured he needed to make one more stop before he left the kids. On their own. I'm insane. Unavoidable, though. Dammit.

He knocked, hard, on the door of the next suite. "Marius," he called out sharply.

There was only a moment between the knock and the opening of the door. Marius looked a little startled to see him (a sure sign the kid hadn't even thought to use the peephole, which was something Nathan might have been more worried about if most of the threats they'd had to face were the sort that bothered to knock first), but recovered quickly.

"Mr. Dayspring?" Marius said, his tone making it a question. CNN was audible in the background; probably Forge's choice of station.

"Marius. Bend your ear for a moment?" He was already sliding into business-first mode, and the question came out more flatly than he'd really intended.

Marius blinked, but nodded. He stepped into the hallway, shoved his hands into his pockets, and nodded. "What's up, then?"

"We're leaving. As in the adults and everyone else who wears black leather for specific reasons," Nathan said, speaking rapidly but somehow not managing to sound rushed. "We'll be out on the streets trying to help the police. I'm just making sure that you're going to be all right. This would be a very bad time for you to have one of those unthinkingly hungry moments."

Ah, that explained it. "No worries," Marius smiled. "Dr. MacTaggert thinks the Incident With Forge That Is Not To Be Repeated will tide me over for a while. And it's not as if I'll be doing anything too heavy, stuck in the hotel and all." Which he wasn't altogether happy about. Hostility towards mutants or not, he'd have been happier on the streets where the action was than staying in his hotel room watching it on the news. The direction of 'Stand back and let the grown-ups deal with it' never sat well with him, especially since the riot in question concerned him, too.

Nathan gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Stuck in the hotel. Yes. I should mention that there are a pair of Secret Service agents in the lobby keeping an eye on things."

Marius raised an eyebrow. "Secret Service? Give you lot credit, that's a hell of a babysitter you managed to find." Although his brain added, Only a pair? Heh.

He was not allowed to throttle the boy. "Marius," Nathan said very patiently, "you do remember that I'm telepathic as well as telekinetic, right? Consequently, if you put one foot outside this hotel while I'm gone, I will find out. And then I will make you believe that you're a Japanese macaque for forty-eight hours."

Curses. Marius raised his hands in a placating manner. "Right, right, obey the curfew. Teacher knows best and all that." Also, he wasn't sure what a macaque was, but damned if he was going to ask.

"A monkey," was Nathan's reply. "Small, loud, and prone to doing very embarassing things." He shook his head a little. "If Angelo or Manuel shows up at the door, do as they tell you. All right? And I have to go."

Oh. I knew that. "Obey anyone with a Spanish accent. Got it." He smiled, a bit ruefully. "Have fun savin' Seattle."