Log: Matt and Cecelia

[x-daredevil.livejournal.com]

Cecelia goes to check on an upset Matt.



Cecilia knew Matt's texts were basically a sign she should stay away, but she just couldn't help herself. Maybe it was the healer in her, or maybe it was because he was basically the closest thing to a friend she had in the mansion, or maybe even she was just a busybody. But Cecilia wanted to make sure the guy was okay. Or that he hadn't flown into a rage and destroyed half the furniture in his room.

So she'd gone into the kitchen and whipped up two mugs of cocoa, on top of which she added a little whipped cream. Then she carried them ever-so-delicately upstairs and around corners until she finally figured out she had no idea where Matt dwelled.

After a little wandering (and polite question-asking), she ended up in front of his door." Hands full of cocoa, she knocked with her foot. "I come bearing gifts," she announced.

Answering the door, Matt scowled, but it wasn't really meant for Cecelia, but he was scowling in general at the moment. "Cocoa," he said, opening the door to the suite further to let her in. "Thanks Cici," he liked the new nickname for her. He hadn't destroyed anything, though he also hadn't done anything constructive either other than listen to music on his computer and play solitaire.

"Cocoa," Cecilia repeated, walking into his suit. It looked like she'd expected, given that she'd essentially lived in a carbon copy 10 years ago with Dr. B. "Elixir. Cure-all." She handed him the mug. "I'm a doctor, and I'm sure there's a santero or santera somewhere in my blood, so I've got the healing touch for whatever ails you."
Matt certainly wasn't much for decor and Meggan hadn't done much as he understood. Taking the mug, he took a careful sip automatically, getting whipped cream on his nose and then wiping it off, "Thanks," he repeated, meaning it. "I'm good with faith-healing. Catholic and all that," he offered a wan smile and then went into his room to turn the music off before returning to the couch and taking a seat.

"Ah yes," she nodded sagely. "I recognized the cross you bear as a fellow Catholic myself." Cecilia stiffened and feigned solemnity while crossing herself — not that she bought into much of the religion anyway. Given how eerily similar her and Matt's backgrounds seemed to be (seriously, what was with that?), she had a feeling he might not have been the biggest believer either. "What were you listening to?"

In fact, Matt considered himself pretty devout. He didn't discuss it much, but he went to mass once a week and followed most of the rules. Not all. "Oh, uh, Saliva," angry music. "You wanna sit?" he asked, gesturing vaguely to the couch and chair in the living room. "What can I say? Former alter boy and all that."

Cecilia raised an eyebrow, amused. "Saliva?" Well, teenage boys were certainly still predictable. "The I-love-you-I-hate-you song people?" She scrunched her face up in disdain as she headed toward the couch. "That's your tune out the world music?"

"It's loud enough," Matt pointed out. That was really all that mattered. "What's appropriate hate-the-world music then? What would you listen to? Let me guess....Nirvana? No wait, you're from the barrio. Selena?"

"Racist," Cecilia deadpanned. She placed her mug on a nearby table. "First of all," she started, adopting a pronounced South Bronx accent a la Rosie Perez (who was from Brooklyn, but still). "First of all," she waved her finger, "Selena is mexicana, and I'm puertorriqueña, honey. Second of all, okay, her music was a treasure, R.I.P. And lastly, my gringo friend, Nirvana appropriately voiced the disaffection of an entire teenage generation of which, yes, I was a proud part." She picked the mug back up and took a sip. "And before you ask, I am not so into that reggaeton shit, even though saying so makes me a traitor to my people."

Matt flipped her the bird amicably. "Selena was from Texas. So an American with Puerto Rican heritage can't listen to an American singer with Mexican heritage? Good to know I'm the racist here," he noted. Selena was also not really angry music. "Does anyone listen to reggae though? I mean, really? Wait wait, I know. You're a Tupac fan."

"Not reggae, reggaeton. It's still regrettably big in San Juan." Cecilia shrugged. "Not my thing. And I'm more of a Biggie fan, because he's from Brooklyn, and I'm old enough to remember the whole East Coast-West Coast beef, however stupid it was. Public Enemy too." She shook her head. "You chingado kids today." And just to make a point, she leered him and flipped him the bird back, not caring how undignified it made her look.
"Never heard of it," Matt liked music, but sometimes the different genres blended too much and he missed the split. "Hey, it could be worse. I could be a hipster and refuse to listen to anything mainstream and all that. With a little mustache," apparently mustaches were big with hipsters. He shaved, but he couldn't grow much of substance yet. Maybe if he didn't shave, but it came in all patchy.

"Hm." Cecilia tried to picture a mustache on Matt's incredibly boyish face, and she grinned. "Nah, don't do it. Indie music's great, and all, but you don't have the look. You're more Bon Jovi than Bon Iver. Not that you're particularly Bon Jovi-esque." She crossed her legs. "I find it helpful to have a few playlists of angry music to choose from, based on what's pissing you off. Sometimes you have that 'I am woman hear me roar' anger that only Alanis Morisette will satisfy."

"Bon Jovi?" that amused him, "That'd be something my dad liked probably. He liked that stuff. And Bruce Springsteen. I've got a few playlists and stuff. I was impatient, that was the first angry one I came across," because the voice program operated slower than he preferred, but it was a good program. "I keep going back and wondering if I was truly as much of an ass as Kyle said. I don't think I was, I was just excited, you know? It's a month out, I didn't really look at details beyond I could watch some of it on TV...." he made a face into his cup.

"Yeah, who knows what that guy's deal is?" Cecilia kicked her flats off and brought her feet up to the couch. Might as well get comfortable. "I think you were fine. I mean, obviously you were excited. That came across." She dunked a finger into the whipped cream left at the top of her mug and stuck in her mouth, since Matt couldn't see her do it. "Maybe he's just a snow grump. Shouldn't be taking that out on you, though."
Well, good. It was nice to have a second opinion who wasn't insisting he go talk to Kyle like Hope had done. "Maybe." Matt agreed. "Took all the fun out of it. This is the first time it's being televised in the USA you know? Now I dunno....maybe I'll feel differently when it comes on, but right now I don't even care. It's more trouble than it's worth, you know?" He liked the summer games more since they had gymnastics, but the paralympics in general were awesome. The comment about him not needing the big screen because he was blind really struck deep.

"Well, that's stupid." Cecilia frowned and crossed her arms, inadvertently spilling a drop of cocoa on her jeans in the process. "Shit." She put the mug down again and reassumed the pose. "If you're excited about something, you should still be excited about it, even if people are being illogically dismissive. If anything, you should be pointedly more excited about it just to prove to them how much better than them you are."
Maybe it was stupid, but it was hard to keep being excited about something after being treated like that. "I wanna be excited. Maybe I'll just watch in here or something, leave others out of it. Then there's no problem about the blind kid using the TV," which was the stupidest thing ever. The sound system wasn't great, but it would be easier. "Or there's youtube," no description like he wanted, but again, less hassle.

"Was that seriously one of their arguments?" Cecilia's eyes narrowed. "That's so... rude." Leave it to mutants to stigmatize other people for things they couldn't control. "I'll just tell him the next time he wants to watch, uh..." She struggled to think of something Kyle would be interested in that wasn't horribly offensive and didn't involve Bigfoot jokes. "Well, whatever he wants to watch, that he's got to watch MTV Tres."
"Yeah, it got brought up," it was a stupid argument. "I do watch TV, there's a few shows I like. I just don't watch much, I like reading more. And I'm too busy to watch a lot," Matt explained, "How's the snowball fight go?"

"Oh, that." Cecilia scoffed. "I handled myself with dignity, I guess. My strategy going in was pretty lame, but since I can't get wet and slushy, I figured I'd win by attrition." She picked her mug off the ground and drained the rest of the cocoa. "You know, they threw snowballs at me, which stopped six inches from me and hit the ground. And then I shivered and kind of stood there." She shrugged. "Shouldn't have been participating anyway. I'm supposed to be an adult. But I couldn't let what's-his-face get away with calling me old."
That made Matt grin, "Sounds like it would have been awesome to see," he said, liking the idea of snowballs that hit and fell short, "Who said you can't have a snowball fight? Are you like, 50? Because even Wade would do a snowball fight. Can you get cold then through your shield?"

"Yeah, totally," she nodded. "I still feel, like, the sensations. The parts that cause pain, you know?" Burns were still a problem. "But I don't get injured, as it were. No bruises from flying snow spheres." She grinned thinking of Clint's face after he launched his first barrage.

"Thing is, Clint had the entire sub-20 set rallied around him, and Kyle. Since the only other snowball-loving adult was in the gym with somebody," she cleared her throat pointedly, "Namor opted to come to my defense. And Sharon," she added after a second, "who's a tour de force."

Matt flipped her off again. Wade had worked him over hard in the gym and he felt better afterwards getting that anger and aggression out, "You uh...you know I'm an addict," he said, they had talked about it before and she had access to his medical files. "Times like that, with stress...going to the gym like that helps get the anger out, but also helps me keep the urge to use in check. I'll probably see if there's a meeting on campus tomorrow after classes or something too if I'm feeling weird." Right now he didn't think he needed it, but sometimes it was good to stop in at an NA meeting just to touch base with everything.

"You and that finger..." Cecilia clicked her tongue, teasing him. "I get it, though." And she did, since she'd retained enough of her psych rotation to know basic things about addiction. "Didn't mean anything by it, except that maybe I need to make more friends here. Blech." She made a face. "It's good that you can use workouts as a release, though. For me, the gym often feels like a necessary evil. Takes a lot of work to be this, you know, whatever."

"Facial expressions broken, watch for finger," Matt joked, glad she wasn't angry. "You will. I guess there's been a lot of change since you were last here, huh?" 10 years was a long time. "My dad was a boxer so I kinda grew up in boxing gyms and stuff. It was fun," he also was in and out of bars, but whatever. "Are you joining the team then?"

"No," Cecilia said resolutely. And then her brow wrinkled and she looked a little pensive. "I don't think so?" Pause. "Maybe. I haven't thought too much about it. It doesn't seem like my speed, you know? I mean, I think I'd just get in the way. And I'm all about doing good, but I think people at hospitals might need me more than the people here ever would." She brought her left knee close to her chest. "But I don't know. There are things I think that — I need to talk to some people. Not sure where I fit in all the crazy, not this time anyway. It's a very different situation." She tilted her head. "Are you... on the team?" Jesus, that sounded like she just asked if he was gay.

"Yeah," Matt grinned, he hadn't gone on too many missions yet, but he liked it, "I'm a trainee. And I'm not saying you should join if it's not your thing. Clarice and Dr. Grey are both on it for medical and stuff, so you wouldn't have to if you want to stay here. I want to do good too, you know? And I think the X-Men do good."
"So I've heard," she nodded. "But I think I'm a... case-by-case kind of gal. There are days where it's better to stay in town and fix people up than go gallivanting off somewhere, I think. And I worked really hard to be able to... you know, cut people open and save them in extreme situations." She shrugged again. "Not looking to give that up."

"Then don't," Matt shrugged, "That's kinda the nice thing about choices, you know? You get to choose." It wasn't so much fun when there weren't choices. "Wanna see my bruise?" he twisted and tugged down his sweat pants to reveal a large red rope burn that was a few days old. "It only hurts when I poke it," he of course then poked it.

"Gross." But, of course, Cecilia leaned in a bit for a closer look. "How'd you even do that? Danger Room?" She leaned back and crossed her arms. "Wade Wilson?" She asked, a knowing smile on her lips. "Or Namor?"
That sounded so bad! "None of the above," Matt grinned, "Ropes during aerial work yesterday. I was swinging and hit a pole. I thought I was father away than I was," oops. His powers had told him it was there. He'd just miscalculated the distance. "The split lip from the other day was from Namor."

Cecilia chuckled and shook her head. "Oops, indeed. The perils of acrobatic exercise. Personally, I try to stay on the ground. I did take a trapeze class once in San Diego, but it wasn't my thing. Didn't have the right kind of coordination, I guess." She scratched her neck. "Probably not a good sign for when we end up skiing, huh?"

"Nah," Matt disagreed as he put his clothes back, "Skiing you stay on the ground. Unless you're jumping, but pretty sure that's not a beginner skill. Trapeze is awesome! You know we have one here, right? A class, too," he had taken it back in high school, it was pretty popular. "Kurt Sefton teaches it."

"Yep," Cecilia snorted, "sounds like Kurt." She could picture him showing off, using his tail to swing between bars and teleporting if, god forbid, he ever missed. "Nah, count me out. I'll stick to running and pilates and all those normal, girly workout things." She yawned. "How'd you get into gymnastics and aerials all those things?"

"My dad," Matt replied, setting his mug down since he drank all the hot chocolate in it, "He was a boxer and he wanted me to do something active, but not get in fights. He was big on not fighting," the irony was not lost on him either, "So the Y offered gymnastics classes and I qualified for free classes being poor and all that. So...gymnastics. I liked it though. This was before I was blind," as if that weren't obvious, but a lot of people assumed he'd been blind his entire life. "After I went blind my dad argued for me to keep doing it, I just couldn't compete. I did it until he died. They don't let you compete if you're blind. It's not a sport for the paralympics either. I started back up when I was sent here."

"Well, that's a cool thing to do. And if it helps keep you centered amid all the chaos around here," she gestured to their surroundings, "then good for you." She studied him for a minute. "You're pretty impressive, you know. Seems like you've really taken a lot in stride."

That made Matt pause, "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Not everyone is good at moving forward." Cecilia answered, suddenly very uncomfortable. "When I was outed and had to leave med school, I... sort of stalled. Took me a while to get back on course. And look at me now," she pointed out. "My plans fell through, and I still haven't really figured out what I'm doing here."

"I've got a juvie record for assault and drugs," Matt pointed out, "You gotta have a goal, even if that goal is just 'get your head together,' you know? Something to work towards. Maybe you succeed, maybe you get derailed and do something else, but you have to work towards something," that was his philosophy anyways, "I never had a choice either, my dad died, foster care came in and that was that. I lost my sight, I had to adapt. There wasn't....there wasn't time to wallow really. If that makes sense?"

"It does," Cecilia nodded. She understood that as well as anyone, even if she wasn't the most successful at putting it into practice. "But not everyone's such a capable adapter, is all I'm saying. Especially at 18 or 19 or whatever."

It seemed to Matt that it was adapt or....fail. And he did not want to fail. "Well...thanks. I guess, that's just life, you know? Adapt and keep going. Clinging to the past doesn't work so well, I don't think. You'll figure it out. And you're still helping people and being a doctor here."

"Which," Cecilia pointed out, "probably means I should stop beaming people here with snowballs." She tried to adopt a contrite pose but failed miserably. "Even if they totally deserve it. And in this case, they definitely did." Showed them right for calling a thirty-something old and denying someone the broadcast of the Paralympics.

"I think you should pelt more people with snowballs," Matt joked, "I'll help. Who knows? You could have a moment of snowball clarity and all the secrets of the future will be revealed?"

"Oh, yeah right." Cecilia grabbed a throw pillow off the couch and tossed it at him. "More likely I'll toss a snowball around here and inadvertently open up the portal to another dimension. Then get sucked in and fall in love with an immoral demon who ages me 15 years in exchange for keeping my skin flawless."

Catching the pillow in front of his face, Matt tossed it back at her, "Now you're getting the hang of things around here!"