Amanda & Nico - Job Offers (Backdated to the 18th)

[x-staffofone.livejournal.com]

Nico meets Amanda on the Brownstone, and the older witch has a suggestion for the younger one

Normally Amanda's sessions with Nico took place at her apartment, but this time she'd asked her student to come to the Snow Valley offices. To the boardroom, in fact. And when Nico came in, there was no sign of the usual magical parapharnalia - books and charms and the rest - in sight, just Amanda with a notepad, looking kind of official in her business suit.

Her smile, when she saw Nico peering around the door, was the same, however, as was her greeting: "Hey Grasshopper. Have a seat."

"Oh no. Nonono. You aren't enrolling me into college. I don't care you are pretty much the only adult that is kind of looking after my whole magical mess, but that doesn't give you this kind of power over me. You are not my mother you know!?"

Someone was freaking out by the door...

"No college applications, I swear," Amanda said placatingly, holding up her hands. "But this is sort of about your future. And I promise, I won't make any decisions for you - like you said, I'm not your mother." And thank fuck for that. "C'mon, have a seat and hear me out?"

Nico nodded as she sat next to Amanda, although she still looked rather weary. "Yeah, you know how awkward would that be?" It would be beyond weird, she felt like adding, but apparently Nico had overreacted, so she kept quiet. "Then...what did you want to talk about?"

"Besides, I am way too young to be your mother, thank you," Amanda said almost primly, before giving her student an encouraging pat on the shoulder. "Nothing scary, Grasshopper. Well, maybe not. I was wondering what you were planning to do with yourself, actually. In the general "this is the rest of my life" sort of sense."

"Okay how about we never ever talk about that again?" Because seriously. Seriously.

"My future? As in...beyond next week? I don't know, depends on which series gets a new season..." And the worst part was that she wasn't completely joking. Partly joking perhaps, but Nico didn't have much going on in her life as of late. "I know I don't want to study more, not because I don't think I can, but because I seriously want to stay here, you know? I need to grow up a little more before leaving the mansion and what not."

Besides the fact there was a supernatural entity out there waiting for Nico to 'ripen' before taking over her body. Amanda refrained from bringing that</> up. "I was thinking, maybe I could help with the whole 'what next', thing," she said instead. "Wanda's still in England, looking for her old teacher and bonking my old teacher, and Illyana went off ages ago to learn to be a real human being, so I'm kind of short handed here." 'Here' meaning Snow Valley. "How would you feel about being my assistant?"

Nico listened in silence, jaw dropping lower and lower by the minute. When Amanda was done, she had to actually remember herself to close her mouth. "Are you for real? Me working here? Won't the whole merry bunch of spies get uncomfortable with me...sorting books or what not?"

"It depends - do you do something that makes spies uncomfortable? Like posting their photos online under a site called thesepeoplearespies.com?" Amanda teased with a grin. "And yeah, you working here. There'd be some extra stuff, like more training to take care of yourself when things go to shite and you'd have the option of deciding if you wanted to take on the spy part, but for now, you'd be part of the whole occult network thing with me."

"Nah, I'm not a teller. Go tell on a spy and next thing you know everybody knows you are a life sucking mutant. Bad deal." Nico was grinning too though. "I could use some extra training I guess." So Amanda wanted to make a network team thingy with her? That actually sounded pretty tempting. "Well, if you put it that way...it would be great. The occult research thing, because I'm pretty sure I don't want to do spy stuff right now. Maybe watch from afar, but the sidelines with the books sounds really neat."

"Well, I'll warn you, sometimes the spy stuff isn't so 'afar' as 'in your face', so while we won't toss you out on field ops or anything, you might find yourself pitching in. Or fending off giant bugs or the old man downstairs who beat up Doug and Wade once," Amanda warned. "And any time you want to, you can quit and I won't be upset. But I figured it was something you'd like to do more than, say, working at Elpis or something."

Nico nodded, getting more serious. "I know; things go down to Hell the whole time, and trust me, I've seen my fair share of things getting terribly violent. I think I can accept that. I mean it's not like I have this magic just to sit back and do nothing when I can be of use." Plus, adventures, they were hard to deny too.

Amanda grinned wryly. "Well, you might have this talk with a few people - we have this thing about making sure people know what they're getting into. But as far as I'm concerned... you're hired."

"I could think of a couple of people trying to tell me how not suited I am for this, yeah." Which was probably right up to some point, but Nico was slowly making her mind. "Those will surely count as the weirdest set of application interviews I'm ever going to do right?"

"Probably. Especially if Remy decides to hang you by your feet outside the window. But I think he saves that just for Jubes." Amanda grinned. "Oh, which reminds me... it's kind of assumed you'll move to the brownstone, just so we have everyone together in case of emergencies. That okay with you?"

"Hah! He's welcome to hang me by my feet if he feels he should. I wouldn't want to piss him off or something." The last bit caught her by surprise, which was quite something considering she was already surprised by this turn of events. "Move here? You think Xavier- I mean, the Professor will oblige? I mean, it's not like I was doing anything over there..." She went silent after this, as her brain considered the changes she would undertake. "Well, it can't be helped right?"

"You're nineteen, Grasshopper, the Professor doesn't really come into it," Amanda pointed out. "And it's not like you can't visit - plenty of us hang around like a bad smell." She paused and then added. "And to be honest, I'd feel better with you here. We can protect you better and the kids will be safer if Arcana comes calling."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Oh well, I think I kind of grew attached to the place, you know? Crazy stuff." She didn't say so, but the mansion had slowly yet surely turned into her true home. At least she could thank the Staff of One for that. But maybe it was time to move on. "Um, so; I guess first I need to battle Remy to the death and then plan the moving, right?" She would rather die than move all her crap, in all honesty.

"Something like that, yeah." Amanda grinned. "Welcome to the Trenchcoats."