Log: Jubilee and Remy

[x-jubilee.livejournal.com]

Backdated to lunchtime Monday 1st August 2011

Jubilee takes Remy out to lunch and they discuss the job, relationships and the potential high cost of doing the things that they do




Jubilee knocked on the door to Remy's office, peering inside to see the man himself seemingly surrounded by piles of paperwork, and what looked like a half-drunk cup of coffee.

"Lunchtime, Boss," she noted, giving him a grin. "Figured I'd come and take you away from all this wondrous paperwork for an hour if you're up for it."

Remy looked up from the stacks, still trying to catch up with the Intel from the time he was missing. It turned out to represent a significant amount of paperwork. "You started to freelance dere, petite? Or did you all vote for raises while Remy was away?"

"Well, see, I figure either I can somehow get you to pay, or I'm totally screwed," Jubilee replied, giving him one of her best 'I'm a defenseless hungry soul, you wouldn't want me to starve to death, would you?' looks. She doubted it would work, but the percentages of success weren't that bad.

"You trained wit' both de Assassins and de Thieves Guild. If you can't figure a way to cover lunch, den you didn't train hard enough." Remy said, getting up from the chair and heading for the door. His gait was no longer hindered by the cane, but he was still not quite as fluid as normal.

"I think New York frowns on murder as a way of paying bills," Jubilee noted as she fell into stride with Remy, not having to move quite so fast these days to keep up. "But I'll keep that under advisement. You in the mood for anything in particular? There's this Italian place not far away that does the best gnocchi."

"You and you carbs. Sounds fine." He teased as they got into the elevator and headed for the ground floor. The noon day sun was sweltering, and the city seemed to seethe in the heat.

"More carbs mean more paff when it counts, dude," Jubilee replied, but she winked at the end of it. She'd missed Remy, not just his expertise at the job but this, the easy moments between jobs when there was work to do but they had time to breathe as well. Remy gone had meant not just stress and worry but more work for all of them, it had been sobering to realise just how much work he took on day to day. Things would be different now that he was back, they wouldn't let him do that all by himself anymore. She winced as the heat hit her in the face like a wet blanket, instantly breaking out beads of sweat on her forehead. "Argh, this heat is absolutely disgusting, sure there's no super villains in like, Sweden or somethin' that need defeating?"

"I spent almost two decades in and out of Africa regularly. At least in New York, less people on de street are carrying AKs." The heat rarely seemed to touch LeBeau. He felt hot, but a few tricks he'd been taught by the locals let it slide off of him, and his movements changed slightly to help keep his body from over heating. After all, a boy from the Big Easy couldn't be seen sweating buckets without a steaming, hundred degree swamp fugue being the cause. "Want to do a tour down in de Indochinese jungles? Lots of bad men smuggling guns and drugs, little local clans dat have been fighting for de same ten acres of hillside since de Mongols were new in town to bargain wit', plenty of contacts wit' killers, warlords, and bad men wit' sinful intentions to keep you busy?"

"Do you need me down there?" Jubilee asked, raising eyebrows at him. She wouldn't say no to it if he did, that wasn't the way she worked these days. She really hoped he was joking though, if only because jungle was usually full of bugs that no bug spray alive ever seemed to totally defeat. "Cause I'll go, but I will totally be cursing you out in colorful language in my head, just so you know."

"Jubilee, I've already forgotten more languages den you speak, and Remy think dat I can pass more convincingly as Chinese over de phone wit' my Mandarin den you." He pushed open the door of the restaurant and called out a quick hello in Spanish to the owner behind the bar. "At some point, dere's going to be de need to insert you into de field on more den a short term assignment. Partially because dere's skills you need dat you can't pick up a week here and a week dere. De other reason is dat eventually, you going to have to face whether or not dis life is for you, and you can't do dat until you know from a first hand perspective what dat means." He held up his hand as he sat down. "And don't try and convince me dat you already understand. It's a question dat only experience raises, and you haven't had enough to recognize it yet."

"Remy, I totally know I'm not as experienced as you, you being gone taught me that if anything was gonna, but I'm not afraid of hard work, despite my sometimes bitchin' to contrary," Jubilee noted, settling into a chair at one of the tables, deliberately taking the seat that had her back facing the front door, she knew Remy would want the other. "And my Mandarin's getting better, Doug's been helping me with the accents."

"I wish I could drop Doug into de middle of China for a month. His accents are fine, but he talks like a school teacher." The one drawback with Doug's power was that it didn't automatically cover colloquialisms, slang, jargon, and street idioms. He'd improved his European languages a lot, to the point that Remy was comfortable dumping him into Prague with a Romanian cover and trusting he could fool other Romanians into thinking he was a fellow born and raised in the same area as them, with all of the little nuances. Unfortunately, his blond hair made him far harder to insert into mainland China for very long without drawing suspicion while picking up the local flavor. Well, you couldn't have everything. "Bon journo, Diego. How's business?"

"None of yours, mano." Obviously Remy had been here before. Typically New York, it was a good Italian restaurant mostly owned and operated by Mexican veterans of the restaurant business.

"I could always take him to meet my Grandfather," Jubilee replied with a big grin. "Don't think either of them would thank me for it though, even if it would give us an excuse to have him in the country for awhile."

Remy ordered quickly and handed back his menu. Once Diego had taken Jubilee's order and left, she got a disapproving twitch of an eyebrow from him. "Careful wit' what you say in front of people, petite. Never know when Diego might wonder why someone needs an excuse to be in a country in de first place." As security slips went, it was minor, but it was also one of her weaknesses, which training and fieldwork had yet to fully eliminate.

Jubilee winced slightly, giving him an apologetic smile. "Sorry, Gumbo. I gotta big mouth, yeah?"

She hated making mistakes or being reprimanded but better to have Remy pulling her up then having it be a mark or an enemy getting the drop on them because she'd slipped up at exactly the wrong moment.

"You do. It's better den it was, but you still need to mind it." Remy said gently, and leaned his elbows on the table. "De job never really ends, you know. Dere's never really a point dat it's de end of de day and you get to go home and be normal."

"I don't think I was ever normal," Jubilee said, gaze wandering over the decor, which appeared to be 'ye olde standard Italian restaurant style', before she met Remy's eyes again. She gave him a curious smile, something between happy and sad. "You and Ro seem to be making somewhat of a go at it though."

"Don't confuse normal things wit' an attempt to be normal." Remy's grin was like a flash; there and gone in a second. "As for you and Doug..."

"Anything but normal, but probably the closest to it I'm ever gonna see," Jubilee noted, remembering her previous relationships. She made sure that Deigo wasn't anywhere close by but lowered her voice slightly even so. "He hasn't used me as a front for drug running, or sold me into slavery, and he seems to actually genuinely give a damn about whether I come back alive or not. Kinda heady feeling that, knowing someone gives a damn that you're not dead."

"Well, dere's time yet." He said wryly. "Mind you, you and Doug and Marie-Ange. 'manda filled me in. That can't happen again, you know."

"Says you, if anyone is gonna sell someone, it's gonna be me this time," Jubilee replied, a short smile touching the corners of her mouth. "And yeah, figured Mandy would fill you in on most of the fun and games while you were gone. She's totally becoming miniPete, it'd be funny if she wasn't so damn scary when she does it. Marie-Ange and I, I think we're good now, least as good as we get. I told her I'd try my hardest not to irritate the crap out of her if she didn't behave like I've been put on the Earth just to ruin her day."

"Good. End of de day, you have to trust each other. Otherwise, dere's a storm just waiting down de road for you."

"Took me awhile to realise that, and then you were gone and everything was just...," Jubilee shrugged, unable to really put words to how much she'd relied on having Remy there while she tried to learn everything she needed to know about the work they did, and how it had felt when he was no longer there and she was forced to stop kidding around and get serious. "Just try not to do that again, yeah?"

"Can't promise dat." Remy said, seriousness seeping into his voice. "None of us can promise dat, Jubilee. De odds are one day dat I'm going to just be gone, and dere's not going to be a miracle. Or anything. Just silence. De same goes for you. All of us. So between today and de day dat happens, it's about what we do to make it worth de price."