xp_logs | Janet and Scott - The Way Things Are

On one of her visits to the mansion, Janet finds out Kyle's not where he's supposed to be. A visit with Scott leads to an unexpected discussion and sends Scott into shock. Warning: The following log contains Serious Janet. Surprising, I know.

"Kyle's missing? What's that all about?" The grin Janet usually wore was missing, replaced by what almost looked like a frown. The cheery, chipper tone to her voice was gone, too. "I mean, he goes out and there's an incident and he vanishes? I don't get it."

Scott sighed. "Sit down, Janet?" he asked, and went on as she did so. "We're still trying to find them, and find out exactly what happened. This has happened before - there's a reason we take so many security precautions with the students here."

"Before?" Jan asked. "Yeah, I heard about that, but really? This really happens a lot? And then you guys go out and find whoever's been kidnapped or vanished or whatever this time?"

"Well, not a lot," Scott protested, a bit feebly. "Just more than your usual high school."

"Uh-huh." Jan favored Scott with a skeptical look. She'd talked to people and read the journals. Who did he think he was kidding? "So, do you guys always find whoever's missing at the time or are there still missing people out there? 'Cause this is Kyle we're talking about, and he's nice and cool and has a wicked sense of humor and I'd kind of like to talk to him again, you know?"

"We've never not found someone," Scott said immediately, more steadily. "Someone goes missing, gets in trouble - we always find them. That's the way it is."

"How?" It sounded like a simple question, but Jan was sure it wouldn't have a simple answer.

This was his job, Scott reminded himself. He answered these questions, tried to balance honesty with not scaring the crap out of the children. With not letting on that the optimism was hollow, more often than he wanted to admit.

"A number of ways," he said briskly, none of his thoughts showing on his face. "We have a lot of friends in various law enforcement agencies and other friends who have access to all kinds of information we don't. The Professor is the most powerful telepath in the world -he's been searching, as well."

"So you find them through all of your secret agent stuff and then what? Getting them back can't just be as simple as that." Kyle was missing. Funny, fuzzy-hatted Kyle who, without even a single complaint, had agreed to act as a method of transportation for a tiny girl he didn't even know.

"... actually, finding them usually is the hard part." He gave her a long, searching look. "I know your interactions were, uh, restricted due to size issues while you were living here. But you maybe heard some of the students talking about what the staff does when we're not teaching?"

"You're the guys who go out in those really cool leather costumes and kick Magneto's butt and save people and stop tsunamis and stuff, right?"

"I only wish we kicked Magneto's butt more often," Scott muttered, then shook his head. "Sorry. Yes, we... intervene in crisis situations of various types. We're used to these sorts of situations. There's not a whole lot that we haven't been able to handle," he said simply. It wasn't hyperbole, after all, although he wasn't going to get into how hard the handling often was with Jan. Reassurance was the name of the game here.

At the moment, Jan wasn't looking to be reassured, at least not like that. "Cool. So, where do I sign up?"

Scott just stared at her for a long moment, utterly taken aback by the question. "... where do you sign up?" He closed his mouth, opened it again - then hesitated. "Janet, it's... pretty dangerous at times. I don't know if you've heard that part of it, but the students around here get used to seeing their teachers come back on stretchers on a regular basis. Personally speaking," and he cracked a tiny, strained smile, "it's been about six weeks or so since the last time I nearly died."

"Um, yeah, I kind of figured it was dangerous. I'm not stupid, you know," Jan replied, frowning slightly. "I'm not a straight A student or anything, but I'm not dumb. Look, if you don't want me or you think I can't do it, just say so. I get it. I never did much with my powers before you guys went out looking for me, and I'm still new to being around other mutants and learning about my powers and actively using them, but I can do this. We're all going to die some time, right? Might as well do something useful before you go. I can do this. I know I can. You just have to give me a chance."

"Janet..." Was this so different, though, from the other times that young people had asked to join the team? She was being matter-of-fact about it, and was that so bad? The need to help, expressed in a down-to-earth manner... it might even be a very good thing. Probably was, as a matter of fact. He closed his mouth, regarding her intently for a moment. "You'll need to talk to the Professor, about what you're asking. And then Ms. Munroe - Ororo and I will need to give you a lot of reading to do. So that you know what the X-Men do, in detail."

"Okay," Janet said, nodding. "I will. Whatever it takes, I'll do it. I'm serious about this. Just find Kyle as fast as you can. Please."

Scott thought for a moment, then turned to his computer. A minute or two of typing, and an encrypted email was sent to the inbox of Janet's Xavier's email account. "Wasp," he said. "That's the temporary password to get into that file, and into the team database. You'll have to reset it once you're in." He looked up at her. "Read the mission files," he said more seriously. "Talking at length with Charles will have to wait until after our missing students are found, but you can be doing this in the interim."

"Definitely," Jan replied. "Finding Kyle and the other kids who were with him is the most important thing right now. I wouldn't want to get in the way of that or interrupt anything because, yeah, I can wait. Kyle and his friends can't."