Nico & Vanessa - Random

[x-staffofone.livejournal.com]

An unusually irritable Nico meets Vanessa, and her patience apparently ends when the conversation turns into a game.



It was another beautiful day at Xavier's; the sky was clear, the temperature was particularly not so-cold-that-I'm-freezing, and the classes were...not over. Well, one couldn't have everything, right? But at least Nico didn't have to worry about it for the moment, as she strolled down the hallways. She wasn't anywhere in particular, but movement was enough to keep her happy at the moment. There should be something to do between classes, really, she thought as she entered the gym, probably hoping to find someone to waste her time with.

The only occupant of the gym was a six foot tall blue woman apparently trying to kill the speed bag with her fists. Morgan was clad only in a pair of trainers, a pair of short gym shorts and a fitted, racer-back tank. Leaving X-Force meant she had a lack of gym at her disposal. She could have just joined a gym in the city but she figured if she came to the mansion it would give her a reason to make sure she checked in on people like Laurie, Catseye and Jean-Paul. She also had a resident boyfriend with very talented hands to take advantage of here if her muscles demanded the attention. Most importantly, though, there was a pool she could take up her time with after her boxing practice. Eamon would never live it down if she started to hit like a girl.

"Woah, the poor bag didn't do a thing!" Nico was by now mentally prepared to find people of several different tones going on around the mansion, so her concern was towards the unprotected training device. "Or maybe it did? I wouldn't like to interrupt an interrogation process..." Humor was your best friend when you had no freaking idea of who you were dealing with. Most of the times.

The voice drew the former mercenary's attention and her punches ceased. Morgan's hands captured the speed bag in their grasp and stilled its motion before she looked over at the owner of said voice. "I don't know, I think it looks a bit dodgy, don't you? Hanging there all brown and worn and sort of like an overgrown testicle?" One corner of her mouth pulled up into a grin. That was probably not the mental image she should've given the poor speed bag. "It's like kicking a bloke in the bollocks who really deserves it, but much more satisfying."

"Dodgy, right. Testicle? Ew." Nico couldn't help but laugh a little; humor was a weird way to break the ice when the other person continued the jokes, and even worse, raised the level. "Interesting comparison, and a very therapeutic one, if I must say. I think I haven't seen you before?" How do you miss a tall blue woman anyway?

The ew reaction turned Morgan's half-grin into something much closer to a smirk. Oh the young. They were so innocent and cute when they thought body parts were icky. Morgan tried really hard to not ask if the girl had had The Talk about sex yet. Really, she didn't need to know the answer in case it was no. "Aye, that's 'cause I don't live here. I used to teach self-defense, then moved out to the city to work for Snow Valley for a while. Who knows, you might see me around as a substitute here. Sometimes the world explodes and all the terminal Good Guy sorts here who teach run off to get irradiated or shot at or have their asses handed to them so someone has to keep you occupied with stupid work or busy work or a supervised period of fucking off so that you meet your required number of hours you're supposed to get of school a year."

"Self defense? Lex is teaching self defense now, right? And Callisto? I only seem to remember Lex though." Well, the guy had been one of the first people she talked to, so he had earned a spot in Nico's head.

Nico could only smile back; now they were talking. "Such a wonderful world, huh? The world falling into pieces and our education seems to have a special place in everyone's lives but ours...or mine, if you get the idea. Which makes no sense at all for me because, let's face it, half of us can't or won't be allowed to be useful society members in any conventional way." Nico stopped there, considering her words carefully. "And I just don't like school, too." Yeah, that probably was the most important reason, or excuse, depending on how she looked at it. "What would you be teaching? More Self Defense?"

"Aye, Lex is teaching self-defense now." It was an effort to stop the softer smile from cropping up at the mention of the man. Morgan even managed to mostly succeed, but only mostly. "Callisto took over when I left. Lex took over when Angelo resigned his teaching position. Angelo's who I used to teach with."

Morgan was left shaking her head at the girl's view on herself and education. "I'm pretty sure you can be plenty useful as a member of society. And as much as school might suck? You need the knowledge because you're a lot less useful as an idiot. Not to mention how patient people aren't going to be with you because you don't get really basic principles that most people learn at the age of sixteen." She hadn't gone to high school. Morgan couldn't really vouch for the tedium of school or argue against it as a result but she didn't need to tell the girl that. She'd liked school alright before she'd stopped going, at least. That probably had more to do with her friends, though.

Did she just call her stupid? Because if she did, it didn't hurt at all. "Alright, I hate these kinds of conversations anyway, because it's like trying to argue about something you already know will happen." One thing was knowing stuff, and another completely different one was having common sense. Nico was convinced that the latter had better results than the first...probably. And I do know stuff, come on. "So yay for learning? I don't see myself in college anyway, unless they had anything related with witchcraft besides cheap literature."

"College isn't for everyone," Morgan replied with a shrug. "A lot of people go because they think they're supposed to but they don't have any other other idea what they're supposed to do with themselves. A lot of people are really stupid and go to college because they just think it's the logical next step. It wasn't like that when I was a kid. Back then people went to college because they were damn smart and wanted to do something that warranted it."

The comment about witchcraft, though, that had caught Morgan's attention. Head tilting a bit, those solid, luminescent red eyes of her narrowed. She couldn't help studying the girl a bit. "Witchcraft? You're Nico, then?"

"Well spoken, and totally agreed." Still, the pressure was there, and she was going to come up with some very convincing excuses to keep herself out of more studying once the year was over and so her education. Or so she hoped.

"That's my name, yes. I assume you know of me because of Amanda? I wonder what she told you guys about me." She really did wonder, since that side of Amanda's life was a very big administrative blur, and she wasn't buying it one bit, but considered it would be seriously impolite to ask Amanda again; she didn't want to force her to say something she wasn't supposed to. "But now you know who I am, and I don't know your name or anything."

"Yes, that's who I know you because of." Morgan smiled, amused and cheeky. "It really sucks when people know about you and you've got no clue who you're dealing with, huh? Bit rude, innit? People really should be raised with more manners." But she didn't give Nico her name, mostly because it amused her for some strange reason. Besides, Nico hadn't actually asked for it. Having it likely wouldn't do her much good anyway.

Nico smiled back, realizing she wasn't getting anything on the woman. "Oh, sneaky, aren't we? So you aren't giving me a name? A hint? A nickname? Even a riddle, but I can't really call you anything right now." And yes it was kind of annoying when everyone knew her and she didn't knew them back, but she was managing to keep the annoyance at bay. For now.

"Sneaky? I'm not being sneaky, pet. It's all about supply and demand, Princess." After all, Amanda had supplied without any demand for Nico's name, exactly. Nico had failed to demand so she failed to get supplied. Ah, the world really was a classroom!

Alright, it was a game; Nico was so not looking at life as a subject, and the world a classroom. "Okay, so I demand, and you supply? But then it's too easy; you demand something first, and depending on how bad I want you to supply...this is going to give me a headache." The thought of using the Staff of One to get her name poked her at the back of her brain, but was stupid, and against what she had discussed with Amanda, and a waste of magic, not because of the blue woman, but because it was just her name, and she might end up giving it to her anyway.

"What do you want for your name?"

"Names have power, they say," the woman mused. "There are legends of craft practitioners being able to do quite a bit to a person whose Name they have." You could heard the capital letter on the word when Morgan spoke it. Of course, the most amusing thing for her was that she knew she'd not be giving Nico her real name anyhow. Morgan was closely associated with her, though. It's who she'd been for over a year and a half now. She supposed if names really held power then even a fake one with real significance could make a difference. Vanessa was pretty sure all that name stuff was just from books she'd been reading from the fantasy section, though.

"Alright, you are kind of protective on your name, I get it." She did get it, but it didn't make it less annoying. Nico wondered if she was getting that treatment because of the very fact she obviously wanted to know; maybe someone cool and collected would have gotten the name right away. "Well...whoever you are, this isn't going anywhere, and I have classes and other boring stuff to take care of, so, have a nice time hitting the giant testicle, and see you around...or not."

The funniest part of it all to Vanessa was that she was only protective of her real name. On top of that, all the kid had to do was find someone who'd been here for a while and ask who used to teach self-dense with Angelo. With the poor kid's luck someone would tell her Lorna, who Morgan had replaced. All Vanessa did was grin, wink and salute the teenager with two fingers. "You should actually go to class. You can only ditch so well when you're in the same building as your teachers. Besides, I know most of them." Her grin only got bigger.

"Yeah yeah, awesome and all that." Nico knew what to do to get the name, but her interest had suddenly dropped; if someone made a fuss over something like that, then it meant it wasn't really worth it to her to make herself a fool to obtain it. Amanda would say that names do carry a great importance in the world of magic, but she wasn't Amanda, and the prospect of classes put her in the worst of the moods. "Now I'll go and pretend I listen to classes, and then build angst due to not knowing of your name and all that stuff. Have a nice day." God she was in a horrible mood now, what was wrong with her? The Staff of One was pushing...and she felt seriously wrong. Placing a hand on her chest, Nico made a face, and then turned away.