xp_logs | Frank & Clint | Later Thursday Afternoon (backdated)

Frank drops in on Clint to check if he's okay, too, and Tekken ensues.

The boy's suite (when compared to those of some others in their age group) was a haven of quiet and social calm. Very rarely, for instance, did people pick crazy fights with each other over breakfast, and when disagreements did arise, a game of Tekken tended to serve as an admirable tension breaker.

This was how it was. This was how Frank liked it. This was also the reason he was approaching Clint's room with a bag of caramel popcorn in one hand and a bottle of coke in the other.

"Clint?" he asked. "You around?"

"Yeah," Clint called, poking his head up over the side of his bed. He hadn't precisely been hiding, but he figured if Hope could come and find him maybe being less obvious about habitating his room would be better. Of course, that didn't generally include the guys he shared the suite with because, well. They weren't likely to come apologize and speak formally at him and make him facepalm for losing his cool on the journals.

Frank gave him a look scrubbed clean of all amusement. "You... are hiding in your bed. Because of the journals. How long have you been a fourteen year old girl?" He held up the junk food in his hands, still grinning. "We have junk. Stop being a little bitch and come play Tekken. I promise you, you'll feel better."

"I'm not hiding in my bed with the covers over my head like a little kid," Clint said, not even bothering to muster up an indignant tone. "I'm hiding beside it where I will, hopefully, be overlooked without much effort on my part. However, that plan has apparently failed me so. Junk food and tekken it is." He pushed himself up properly, leaving his homework spread on the floor beside his bed as he headed toward his door.

"Whatever, dude," Frank responded, sniggering as he fell in behind Clint. "You went and hid in your room." The console hummed to life as it usually did, and both boys settled in for some good, soothing, therapeutic violence. "You realize he had a point, right?"

"Who?" Clint asked, having a sinking feeling it wasn't going to be as easy as tekken and junk food.

"Matt," Frank replied, carefully keeping his tone nonchalant and his eyes on the screen. "This new guy was being a dick. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of better ways to point out someone's being a dick then on the journals where everyone can see, but that's a problem with the execution, not the point itself."

A brief pause.

"This Sochi stuff is really pissing you off, huh?"

"Matt usually has problems with execution," Clint pointed out, lining things up on the screen so they were battling one another and picking his character before glancing over at Frank. "But it's like I told him - Hope instigated the actual argument. Namor's not infallible, he's kind of an asshole a lot of the time, it's true. But their bickering totally distracted from the point of my journal entry. And yeah, Matt chiming in like an asshat didn't help. Sochi's a sore spot and nobody's paying attention unless it's to mock hotels. Fuck that."

Frank grunted in understanding, eyes still fixed on the screen. Christ, he was out of practice- Clint was kicking his ass. "Dude, I don't really know how to tell you this, but... conversations do tend to drift. Like, a lot. Wanting people to stay on topic is fine, but you can't flip out every time they don't. Trust me. Journalists' kid." He offered Clint a glass of the coke.

"Will admit people need to pay a lot more attention to what's going on over in Russia, though. We need to pull our collective heads out of our big fat western asses."

"Mostly it was Matt being an ass that pissed me off. I wasn't actually angry until that," Clint said, taking the Coke. "But everybody hating on Russia is kind of getting to me."

"Dude. Matt IS an ass. The guy's one of my best friends and even I admit he can get on my nerves some time. Then again, Maddie can be overbearing, I can be a bullying prick, Hope freaks out over literally everything and Namor was being a fucker. Lots of us are asses. Gotta make peace with that." He shrugged. "Not trying to tell you to be cool about it. Just. We're stuck with each other for the foreseeable future, dude. Either we learn to make peace or we spend the next few years picking fights with each other and getting pissed all the time."

"Dude," Clint said, snorting softly. "I'm not pissed off anymore. It was like, a half hour after I kicked him off my journal. I went upstairs and chilled with Namor. And today I've been fielding tentative inquiries about whether I'm okay from everybody which is ridiculous."

"It's Xavier's, man. What did you expect? Until you put on the gimp suit and pick a codename it's all kid gloves and stories at bed time." Frank grinned as he said it to take the sting out. "So you're cool, is what you're saying."

"Yeah, I'm cool," Clint said, laughing a little at Frank's description of life at Xavier's. "Though I wouldn't really say it's all kid gloves. You've never trained with Logan outside regular self defense. And my shoulder's still bruised from where Mister Summers had me shooting at clay pigeons to test my accuracy." Glancing over at his friend, he asked, "So you're still leery of the X-Men?"

Frank shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable. "I don't know. They do good work, I get that, but... secret paramilitary agencies make me nervous on general principle. What happens if one of them ever goes bad? Who's got oversight? Who holds them accountable when they fuck up? I don't like knowing all that keeps the super-powered swat team downstairs honest is their own consciences. That's not a recipe for anything good."

Clint quirked a smile. "Yeah, but it's not just their own consciences that keep them on the straight and narrow, is it? It's everybody else's consciences, too. Like you know if you ever saw me doing something shady, you'd talk to Maddie or Billy and they'd confront me - if you didn't do it yourself. I'm guessing the same thing applies to all of them. They went to school together, most of them, the same way we're doing." He paused, considering their game for a moment, before saying, "I was kind of thinking about asking Mister Summers to become a trainee."

"Well, yeah, but that's just it. They all went to school together. The same school. Full of other people who, like them, are mutants and believe the x-men is a good thing. That's one perspective we all grow up with and don't see much outside of. My definition of shady and your definition of shady line up- but what about the dude living in Brooklyn with a wife and kids? We're not voted for, Clint, we're not appointed- we just show up and fuck stuff up. And that makes me nervous."

Frank stopped, and turned to stare at Clint. "Wait, what? You're thinking of joining up?"

"Been thinking about it," Clint clarified. "For a while. The thing about the guy in Brooklyn, though? He's the one you need to worry about. He's the one who would blow up a building because they refused to give him a job because he's a mutant. That's not the X-Men. They try and stop that shit. So I'd stop worrying about them, if I were you, and worry about mutant rights because that's where all the problems come from. We're treated like half-citizens most of the time, either we're passers who get by because nobody knows what we really are or we're beat up and kicked down for being what we are. Focus on that and less on the guys trying to keep the world from imploding."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying my Brooklyn guy's a sane well-adjusted dude. Neither am I saying your average mutant is a well-loved member of the community. I just don't want that to justify... something bad. Which the X-Men aren't," he added quickly, to forestall any argument there. "Again. They- well, you, maybe- do good work. Just make sure it stays that way."

"That's the whole checks and balancing thing," Clint said, shrugging. "The likelihood of the whole team going evil or being taken over by aliens or whatever is like. Slim to none. But I get what you're saying. Sometimes people do bad things because they think they're doing the right thing - or the ends justify the means."

"Exactly. And it'd suck for this place to get raided Waco-style, you know? Embarrassing for all concerned." He went back to the game for a minute. "...You are gonna look so stupid in the gimp suit, man. "

"Dude, whatever - black is slimming and I need a reason to maintain my girlish figure," Clint said, possibly the most ridiculous thing to have ever come out of his mouth - and that was saying something, given some of the things he and Maddie discussed. His arm alone was the size of most 'girlish-figures.' Or their waists, at least.

"Only if you like the bondage gear look," Frank replied, smirking. "Besides, I thought you trainees all wore grey?"

"Yeah, we do. Or. They do - whatever. I'd look awesome in any color. I could rock some purple spandex, don't even think I couldn't." Clint shut his mouth as he went through an elaborate series of button-pushing, grinning when he combo slammed Frank's character into the ground. "Ha."

"Oh, you sneaky prick," Frank replied, watching his health meter turn a deeply aggravating shade of red. "How the hell did- Okay. My honour is offended here. Best two out of three?"

"Yeah, sure - you're just gonna lose anyway. But how's this - winner gets to pick lunch," Clint offered.

"You're on. Hope you've made room, dude," Frank muttered, turning his full attention to the game, "because you're about to eat left-over roast chicken and a slice of humble pie."