Log: Marie-Ange and Jubilee

[x-jubilee.livejournal.com]

Backdated to Friday 16th January 2009

The morning after this e-mail exchange, Marie-Ange confronts Jubilee over her interference.




It was just after dawn, the sun creaking slowly into the sky and Marie-Ange had spent a restless night unable to sleep. With Doug still being odd about intimate touch, she hadn't even had the luxury of spending the night in his bed, or having him in hers, and so she'd spent it drawing and doing some extra work and reading, and been on edge the entire time. Once the sun had started to rise, she decided that was more than enough time and padded up to Jubilee's apartment door, and pounded on it until it opened to the bleary-eyed tiny Asian girl.

"Downstairs to the gym now, because you and I are going to have a discussion about what you did, and if we do not have it there, I am going to have it here, and blood does not come out of carpets easily." It was more than obvious that Marie-Ange was furious, and dressed for a workout in yoga pants and a clingy t-shirt and low-cut trainers. "You have two minutes to get dressed or you go in your pajamas."

Jubilee simply stared at her for a moment, her first option being to close the door in Marie-Ange's face and go back to bed. Still, that would be 'impolite', and considering how angry the other woman appeared, probably not terribly wise. Instead, she left it open and went to find her gym gear, she could tell this was going to be an interesting morning.

"There's some coffee in the pot if you want it." she said, rummaging around in her bedroom.

Coffee was out of the question, as was Jubilee's attempt at either bleary-eyed politeness or sullen agreement. Marie-Ange waited in the doorway, arms folded across her chest, scowling until her teammate returned, dressed and marginally more awake. "Do you want to guess at what you did to offend me, or should I just start yelling at you?"

"How about you just yell." Jubilee said, gesturing for Marie-Ange to lead the way. "You seem like you'd like to. Dr. Phil says it's not healthy to hold these things in, or so 'Yana says."

"If you start quoting Dr. Phil, I am going to go right past shouting and just toss you off the roof." Marie-Ange said, her voice quiet but firm. She started down the hallway, footsteps echoing a bit off the walls. "Manuel tells me that you have been acting as his unwanted bodyguard. Might I ask just how you came to decide he was in danger?"

It was more than obvious she already knew, she just wanted Jubilee to admit it.

"I overheard you and Doug talking about your premonitition. I figured that Manny could use the extra lookout." Jubilee noted, shrugging. "Was I wrong?"

The frustrated noise that Marie-Ange made was short and lacking in any sounds that even came close to English. She waited until they got to the Danger Gym, and then sat down on one of the benches for the weight machines.

"Aside from snooping on the conversation, because Doug and I were in his server room, there are two reasons you should not have done that. First, there is no way that you heard the entire prediction, because I only finished explaining it to Doug later that day over dinner. Second, because acting on precognitive visions without warning the person who saw them can have unintended consequences. You do remember when Doug was shot, yes?"

Jubilee walked over to a series of alcoves and pulled out a set of gloves and then some tape to begin wrapping her hands. "I remember." she said, but the words were soft as if to herself. "I'm sorry."

The second was said louder, and she leaned back against the alcove wall, thumbs thrust into the waistband of her gym pants.

"I was up all night making sure nothing significant would change because Manuel knew you were watching him." Marie-Ange didn't look like she'd been up all night, but then she almost never did, not if it was a single night of not sleeping. "I do not think anything is likely to change, but that is luck, and we know from Jennie how unreliable luck can be." Aside from the fact that Doug would probably have to soundproof his server room if he wanted to be sure this type of thing would not happen again, nothing had gone horribly wrong - but Marie-Ange wanted to make sure Jubilee understood.

"Yeah." Jubilee said, after a moments pause, as if weighing the things that might have happened. "Could it really have gone that badly?"

Marie-Ange passed a hand over her face, weighing her options. Jubilee knew about Doug having been shot, she'd been told about other predictions. "What would you have done had one of us warned you about leaving California, about what you would have to do in Hong Kong?" She didn't want for an answer, the expression on Jubilee's face told her enough. "Had we done that, Apocalypse could have very well taken an orphaned Chinese girl for Death, instead of Alison." There was no hint on Marie-Ange's face if she was making it up on the spot, or if it had been something she had seen.

Jubilee's head pressed back against the alcoves, her eyes closing briefly as a spasm of pain flicked across her face. Her gaze was infinitely more exhausted when she centered it back on Marie-Ange. Some things she could have done without experiencing, but she had to believe it had been neccessary. Marie-Ange was not, as far as she knew, deliberately cruel without reason.

"I was wrong, I shouldn't have been eavesdropping. Will you take my word for it if I tell you it won't happen again? That's not some kind of shot, by the way. Just haven't given you reason to trust me what with the listening in an all." she finally said.

"I will take your word that if you -do- eavesdrop again, and you hear a prediction of mine, that you will talk to me first before doing anything about it." Marie-Ange said flatly. "I - no one, really, expects you to be perfect. I just expect you not to go off half-cocked when you do not have all of the information."

Jubilee smiled, stretching her arms behind her as she stood from the slouch she'd fallen into. "You know me a little too well sometimes, you know that? I won't go off half-cocked again. Did you want to actually hit me some now? I'll even let you chose the style."

Now that she was awake, and up, she didn't feel like going back to sleep and she could use the practice. If Marie-Ange was willing to spar, she didn't really care why she wanted to do it, and if it helped siphon off some of the anger she'd been feeling before, all the better for Jubilee.

Marie-Ange laughed quietly, and pushed a few stray locks of hair behind her ear. "Style? What is this thing you call style? If we are going to spar, then we are going to spar. If you want to restrict yourself to one style, you should try to spar Doug sometime and ask him just to use the things he learns in his class instead of the things he uses when he is fighting." And then Jubilee could fight toe-to-toe with Doug instead of toe-to-toe with Marie-Ange, which would be somewhat fun to watch.

"Old habits die hard." Jubilee noted with a shrug, throwing Marie-Ange the tape for her hands. "Beatings, many, many beatings and Remy's friends are still finding bad habits to exploit."

"It is always good to change partners sometimes." Nonetheless, she certainly preferred not having regular beatings, which was why Marie-Ange was quite happy to let Jubilee take the training from Remy's "friends" and to not partake of much of it herself. "We all fight differently. Amanda likes to headbutt people. Doug is very... fluid in a fight, he reacts more than he attacks." She wrapped the tape around one hand, and bit it off. "Wanda fights dirty." At Jubilee's quizzical look, Marie-Ange shrugged. "I cheat. I use whatever is lying about that I can get my hands on as a weapon." And to punctuate her statement, she winged the roll of tape at Jubilee bouncing it off the other woman's shoulder just hard enough to sting.

"Whereas I?" Jubilee started, bursting from her seemingly relaxed stance toward the other woman with an effortless grace. "I always did like a little speed."