Doug and Jubilee - Winter Wonderland

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Doug and Jubilee go ice skating at Rockefeller Center, and Jubilee tries to wheedle information about Christmas gifts out of Doug.


"Come on, we don't want to get there too late or they'll totally kick us off the ice before we've even got started," Jubilee noted, looping a fluffy scarf in a rather dark colour of blue around her neck and pulling on soft leather gloves.

The gloves had been a present from Marie-Ange for a birthday long forgotten but they'd held up over the years and happened to be a favourite pair considering they were both warm but still thin enough to not hamper the movement of her fingers.

"We'll be fine," Doug said reassuringly. As was his habit, he'd timed stoplights and subway routes, ensuring that he and Jubilee reached their destination within about sixty seconds of when he planned. He had his old hockey skates with laces tied together slung over one shoulder. He checked his watch, by habit. "Right on time."

Jubilee was already ahead of him, headed toward the ice with her own pair of skates slung over her shoulder, she made a bee-line for the set of seats and toed off her boots as she sat down. "How awesome is this? I didn't make it last year, which was so of the suck, but this year I get to go with you, which totally makes up for it."

She'd spent all week planning the trip to Rockefeller Centre, making sure Doug didn't have any other plans and hoping that they didn't get sent somewhere weird before the set day. It had finally arrived and she planned on enjoying every minute of it, even if she did still have her cell-phone turned on in case of emergencies.

Doug hadn't been to the skating at Rockefeller Center in a few years.

Perhaps not since he'd been living at the mansion and taken Rogue to it. But he skated enough that he was still in practice, and after they hobbled their way across the mats to the edge of the ice, they both took off easily, moving through the slower and less practiced of the skaters.

Jubilee moved out to the middle of the ice rink, performing a quick Mohawk turn before heading back toward Doug. "So, just how good a skater are you?"

Doug raised an eyebrow. "Depends on how you mean. I mean these," he waved a hand down at his hockey skates, "aren't exactly built for jumps and things. But if it's speed and turning and such..." He smirked. "I'm not bad."

"Race ya?" Jubilee said, the simple joy of the moment shining in her eyes as she took off across the rink without waiting for his reply.

The head start wasn't quite as big as it would have been, because Jubilee didn't catch Doug entirely off guard. Between the mischief in her body language, and the sheer fact that he knew her very well after months of dating her, meant that he was only a split second behind in taking off in her wake. The cold air chilled his cheeks as they raced around, darting around other skaters and laughing merrily.

Jubilee felt the cool of the afternoon air in her hair as her beanie decided to make a break for it, turning on a dime to head after it as it slid across the ice. It was hard to miss considering it matched her skates, a Day-Glo blue colour that she figured set off the purple in her hair. "Race halted on account of wardrobe malfunction!" she called out to Doug with a laugh.

Doug came to a halt, snickering as he watched Jubilee chase after her cap, threading through people who struggled to get out of her way.

"Sounds like we should declare the race a tie," he said as she finally caught it and came skating back to him. "That way we're both winners."

"Pft," Jubilee replied, slinging her arms around his neck, using the front of her skates to keep her level as she did so. "You would totally fail at being a despot. Rule of thumb is to never give an inch, yeah?"

"I'd be a terrible dictator," Doug agreed. "Big softie, that's me."

Which was true. At least when it came to his friends and coworkers.

He could be hard when he needed to for the job, but even that didn't always come easy to him. In the moment, he could do what was needed, but he was often the hardest on himself in after-action analysis.

"Good," Jubilee replied, running a gloved hand against his cheek, before dropping a short kiss on his lips. "Leave the cold calculation to people like Marie-Ange and Remy, you and I have other talents of use."

Jubilee didn't consider herself a planner, cold or otherwise. She was good at logistics and an excellent thief and while her psychological issues made it easy for her to switch off her emotions, she didn't consider that an actual healthy way to get through the day, let alone an operation.

Frankly, she was content with what she had, and if she still needed training in certain things, and way more therapy with Sofia, then she'd continue along that path, happy that she'd reach the end of it eventually.

Doug's eyes narrowed minutely at the mention of Marie-Ange. She was still something of a sore subject with him. But he did his best to shake that reaction off. Marie-Ange wasn't there, after all. Jubilee was. "So, have you figured out what you're getting me for Christmas yet?" he asked teasingly.

"Uh-ha," Jubilee replied with an equally teasing grin, trailing her hands down to rest in his as she pulled him back toward the centre of the ice. "But it's a surprise."

"Darn. My not-really plan of trying to sneak it out of you didn't work," Doug murmured with a chuckle. He knew he wasn't always the easiest to shop for, and he very rarely had a clear idea of what he wanted to provide suggestions like Jubilee had asked for on the journals.

"Good, cause the guilds totes trained me to resist many forms of torture," Jubilee noted, dropping his hands to slide around him in an almost perfect circle before setting off again. "What about you? Got me anything yet?"

"I've got a few ideas," Doug demurred. He'd done most of his easy Christmas shopping when Terry had claimed a shopping trip as penance for their 'confession' breakfast. But some people, like Jubilee, were harder to shop for. For that matter, most of his teammates he had yet to purchase something for. He'd gotten North a nice cuckoo clock, that had been easy. But what did one get Remy Lebeau for Christmas?

For that matter, he still hadn't figured out what to get them as a 'congratulations on getting married in an out-of-the-way French town and only telling us all after the fact' gift.

He wasn't even thinking about Marie-Ange and what to get her when they couldn't generally even be together without the buffer of Jubilee and Wade around. And maybe if he told himself that enough, he might actually start believing it. And maybe if he believed it enough, it might actually be true.

"Anything you'd like to share with the class?" Jubilee asked, continuing to circle around him before pulling out into a jump before once again circling inward so she was backwards skating in front of him. So, she was showing off, just a little bit, she was pretty sure there was nothing against it in the 'how to be a good date' manual, had she been the type of person to read that sort of book, anyhow.

Jubilee wasn't the only one who could skate backwards, and the blades of Doug's skates carved the ice as they circled and turned at the far end of the rink so that she was the one skating forwards and him backwards. "Yeah, because I'm going to tell you what I'm getting you for Christmas and spoil the surprise," he told her with a faux-exasperated look.

Jubilee sidled up to him, her hands going to his hips as she matched her movements to his. "I could totally make it worth your while," she noted, a glint of seductiveness in her eyes.

"I'm sure you could," Doug told her. Jubilee could be quite creative about making it worth his while too, he was sure. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to tell you. What's the fun in knowing ahead of time what you're going to get?"

"Well, if you can't see the fun in me trying to seduce you into telling me, then like, I totally don't know what to tell you," Jubilee replied, a teasing light in her eyes as she swung out away from him into a complicated routine of changing footwork.

Having come from California, Jubilee had been late to learning how to skate on ice, but when she'd learnt, she'd taken to it like a duck to water.

Doug stuck his tongue out. "I didn't say I wouldn't enjoy it..."