xp_logs | Angelo and Yvette, Saturday morning

Angelo's turn for a talk with Yvette about her apology.

Being grounded was, Yvette decided, more boring than anything else. Being stuck at the school, not allowed to join her fellows on the bus run into New York, doing homework instead of anything fun... It wasn't as bad as when her mother had her locked up in their apartment, but it was getting close. With a sigh, she flopped on her stomach onto her bed, her math book open in front of her. Angel was down at the pool, doing her laps, and the rest of the suite were out, having fun, so it was very quiet. Perfect for the dreaded math homework, since no-one was around to hear her swear in Albanian when the problems wouldn't work out.

The quiet also meant that the knock on her door was clearly audible. Angelo wasn't just going to walk in, after all, not when he hadn't come to deliver another scolding.

"Come in?" Yvette called, sounded puzzled. She wasn't expecting anyone and she was reasonably sure she'd gotten all the lectures she was going to get so far.

"Hey, Yvette." He stepped into the room, closing the door, but there was no anger on his face as he looked at her this time.

Regardless, she sat up quickly, so quickly she snagged one of her toes in the bedspread and had to pause to untangle herself. If she could blush, her face would have been on fire as she stood to address him. "Um, hello, Mr.. Espinosa. I did not know it would be you. Is there something you did want?"

"Just figured we should talk. You sent that email - apology accepted, by the way, an' you can work in the office whenever you want far as I'm concerned - so I guess we should clear the air."

"Oh." Her eyes brightened a little at the acceptance of her apology, but the thought of further talking wasn't something she was looking forward to. Still, she'd done the stupid thing, time to accept the consequences, even if it was another Talk. "Please, to be sitting down?" she offered, gesturing at her desk chair and waiting for him to sit before gingerly sitting on the corner of her bed. "I am glad, that you are accepting my apology, Mr.. Espinosa. I truly was not thinking when I was running away."

"You were angry", he said quietly. "You're really not the only one here that's done dumb things when they were angry, so as long as you try not to do it again... you understand why we were all so mad at you, though?

"Yes," she replied, her voice small. "Mr. Kane was to be explaining. I was not trusting you and putting people in the danger."

"That's part of it." He was looking at her steadily. "But also, you ran off on my watch. I was meant to look after you an' I found you an' Angel a twitch away from bullets in the head. Who d'you think would've gone to explain to your mom an' Angel's parents what happened?"

Her head drooped until she was looking down at her feet. "I am sorry," she whispered. There wasn't really anything else she could say to that. "I did not mean to make you afraid, Mr. Espinosa. I did not think we could be hurt, with our powers."

"Even Monet can get hurt", was the almost-gentle response. "It takes a lot, but she can. I don't know how bullet-proof you are but Angel, it'd just take knockin' her out so she couldn't turn the fire on. So yeah, I was scared."

"I was not wanting Angel to come with me," she replied, not so much defensive as trying to explain she hadn't deliberately put her friend in danger. "But she would not let me go by myself." Then she sighed. "But that was the wrong thing to do, also. Have you ever had the thing you have wanted to take care of, Mr. Espinosa, because it is personal and very important to you?"

"Yeah." Just for a second, his mouth twisted into something that could have been a smile if it wasn't so very unamused. "More than once, an' I'm not gonna say I always didn't react the same way you did. That's why I know where it can go."

"That man... he was taking my life away. Not just the time they were keeping me, but the time since. If he had not stolen me, perhaps I would have the control for my powers." The confession came out reluctantly - she didn't want to be seen to be making excuses for herself. She'd done the wrong thing and she had to accept it, as Mr. Kane had said. "All of the things I cannot do... some of those are being his fault. And that is why I was so angry. I wanted him to be as afraid as I was when he took me."

"But that's the thing, Yvette. You get angry, and people deserve it, but when you go do something about it... you think it's gonna go away, afterwards, an' sometimes it does. But sometimes it just burrows down an' maybe later, another piece lands on top of it, an' then another, an' sooner or later it stacks up so high it chokes you. I know what that's like, it's poison, an' back in that warehouse, I thought I was seein' the first piece in you." He smiled faintly. "I screwed up, this year. Nate was hurt, an' I let the anger get me again."

She glanced up at him, eyes flaring again. "Did you get into the trouble too?" she asked, then shook her head. "No, you would not. You are the X-Man and you do not get into the trouble."

"I got in... just about as much trouble as you are, actually", he told her wryly. "Too old to be grounded, but I got benched for awhile, an' I had to go see my therapist more often. That's the kind of trouble the team get into when we screw up, an' benchin's like groundin', really."

She blinked at him. "I did not know you could be... benched? Is that when you cannot be doing the X-Men things?"

"Got it in one. Sometimes it can be 'cause you got hurt an' you're off missions till the doctors say so, sometimes it's more... psychological."

She resisted the urge to snort, as Mr. Kane had pointed out to her, she didn't know everything that went on. "It does not seem so," she said instead. "From the journals. Many people are having the problems and are not doing the thing to help themselves. They are still having the problems."

"It doesn't go away overnight, if you've got problems like some here do. I've been seein' one therapist or another for five years an' I'm the first to admit I'm still screwed in the head - just not as much as I used to be. But there again, sometimes it's hard to admit you need it."

"I did not realise... But if people are having such problems, why are they allowed to be X-Men?" she asked, surprised into honesty. "You are doing such dangerous things, what if there is the accident because someone is not being well?"

"It's happened, once or twice", Angelo said frankly. "Mostly the ones that hid it too well. We watch out for each other, that's part of the whole team thing, but sometimes we miss stuff."

"Sometimes it is easy, to not notice something." Yvette looked away, far too aware of the "team thing". Laurie had stopped being one of the students and had been solely a trainee, after a while. "I am understanding now, Mr. Espinosa. I will not be doing such a thing again, I promise."

"Too easy", he agreed. "I missed somethin', that day in the hotel. I should've noticed you listenin', heard you run off, somethin'. Like I said, I was meant to look after you."

"I am easy to not notice," she told him, a little wistfully. "But it is not up to you to be looking after me. I am sixteen now. In my country, that is being the grown up."

"In this one, it's not", he said, calm but firm. "However you feel about it, an' God knows I looked after myself when I was sixteen, more than my mom would've liked. We're friends, right, but you're a student an' I'm a teacher an' there's still responsibility."

There was a momentary flash of her eyes, and then she nodded meekly. "Yes, Mr. Espinosa. I will not be making your job to be difficult again. I am sorry."

Angelo nodded and got up, since they were going round in circles. On his way to the door, though, he paused and turned. "I wasn't talkin' about my job."