xp_logs | Marie-Ange and Jean, backdated to umsometimelastwinteroops

Jean meets with Marie-Ange to thank her for the precog-save during Hotel California, and they talk about work, and how work tends to eat your social life.

The Waffle Iron was a 24/7 diner that had been going since the 60s and the decor looked like everything one might imagine it to be. A long counter with red leather barstools, upholstered booths with built in playable tiny jukeboxes, and chrome, lots of chrome and linoleum. The place was dead with the exception of a waitress, the cook, a couple of nighthawks who had been kicked out of a near bar and were currently devouring an entire pie, and Jean, who waited in one of the booths while perusing a menu and nursing a cup of coffee. Insomnia. It had gotten better for awhile, but after her visit to hotel hell she occasionally found herself unable to sleep, especially if her mind was preoccupied.

It wasn't much of a wait - Jean's coffee was still warm when Marie-Ange slid into the booth opposite her. "I am surprised that none of our other night owls have found this diner yet. Or if they have that they are not here eating a stack of pancakes the size of their head." Granted, the most likely culprits for that were a) in their room at the mansion or b) more likely at the all-night Hunan place, because Jubilee had fallen in love with the place. She'd even sent them a valentine's card. "Which means you have to keep it a secret, so they do not move in!' She was clearly feeling a little puckish tonight.

Jean laughed. "I found this place when I was in undergrad at Columbia. A group of us had just finished pulling an all nighter studying for an exam and we stumbled in about 4 am to refuel," she said. Glancing back down at the menu a moment, she then added with a grin.

"I can attest that their pancakes are pretty amazing."

Taking a sip of her coffee, she added another packet of sugar on afterthought. "Other than Hank, you're the only one that knows about it. Consider it a token of gratitude."

Marie-Ange's expression went from amusement to confusion to that sort of distant vague questioning look that people got when they were trying to sort through memories. After a moment, she nodded, almost to herself. "For the hotel incident, yes? I would try to start the "no, there is no need to thank me" conversation so that then you could try to say it really was, but I am very hungry, so I am going to skip all that, and order pancakes."

Jean grinned into her cup of coffee. "A wise decision," she said, then savored another sip. They made a great brew, even if you were hungover or sleep deprived and didn't much care for anything but to wake up.

"The dinner/breakfast and whatever your choice of caffeinated beverage is also on me."

She was feeling generous.

It was late enough that coffee was the drink of choice - and the pancakes, because Marie-Ange made no secret of her love of them. It was why they were the only thing she could cook that didn't come from a microwave. She ordered, and fussed for a moment with a packet of sugar before setting it back down on the table. "Do you ever have a difficult time separating yourself from your job?" The question came abruptly, and with a certain amount of uncharacteristic awkwardness. "I was very nearly to ask if we should exchange team notes, before I remembered it was not my week to do that."

Jean ordered scrambled eggs, two pieces of bacon, and french toast to go with another cup of coffee and a request to refill the bowl of creamer pods the waitress had previously set out. She usually drowned her coffee to the point where it probably would've been simpler to just drink a cup of milk. But that didn't wake her up like coffee did.

She answered Marie-Ange's question with barely any hesitation, resting her chin in the palm of her hand.

"I believe I would be considered a typical case study for a lack of separation," she said with a soft, rueful smile.

"It's come back to bite me in the ass more often than not. But I think it's par for the course sometimes when you have people who rely on you."

She leaned back, watching the short order cook work from behind the sliver of a window between the front of the diner and the kitchen.

"I take it you're having a similar problem?"

The now-empty sugar packet was turning into a pile of pink shreds as Marie-Ange fussed with it. "I cannot even sit down for coffee with a colleague without work coming up." She answered, with a nod that seemed to indicate the entire table. "And yet I am not sure I could fix it, or would know how, or even want to most of the time."

"When you live, sleep and eat around your coworkers more often than not, it's pretty much inevitable," Jean said thoughtfully.

"Do you have any friends outside of work?"

That implied she had friends. Which Marie-Ange knew she did, but she worked with almost all of them and sometimes that made friendships harder. "I suppose Wade does not count?" She asked, with a twisted smile. "Or my cousin? No, I find that outside work and the mansion, the closest I have to a friend is an artist I know, and ... he would probably sell me a fake Monet if it meant he could buy himself an island, and if he thought I might be fooled."

Jean quirked an eyebrow and made no attempt to hide a smirk. "And how did you meet him? Let me guess...on the job?" There seemed to be a recurring pattern forming with Marie-Ange's social circles.

Marie-Ange laughed. "No, for once. He 'taught' a class I was talking, and I was the only one to realize he was not really the teacher." She shook her head, and frowned a little. "But I only knew that because of work, and it turns out we know a lot of the same people, so I would have met him through work eventually anyway."

"Hmmm," Jean said, taking a sip of her coffee. "Do you think trying to meet some people outside of work might help?"

"I think we both have that problem, no?" Marie-Ange wasn't trying to deflect on purpose exactly. Just - the problem of meeting people outside of work was what her work was. "But, perhaps yes, perhaps no. I find all the people I meet outside work end up being not outside work."

"Mmm," Jean nodded in agreement. "You find a connection to work no matter where you go." She shrugged. "Most of my friends outside of the X-Men are those I met either in college or on Capitol Hill. They have a connection to work at times but I try not to let it be what defines our relationship."

"I am not sure I am very good at that." Marie-Ange answered after a long pause for thought. "Work seems to define quite a bit of my life. I am terrible at letting it go."

Resting her chin in her hand, Jean glanced Marie-Ange over, eyes carrying the weight of the experience of decades, though it was a weight she seemed comfortable with.

"You train for work, right? You go to the Danger Room....the gym...you study tactics....read case files...You do everything to prepare yourself for the missions to come. Because you know that practice is what helps you get better. And that the first time you try something it won't always turn out right, so that's why you do it over, and over, and over again until it is," She smiled.

"It's the same thing with letting go...it takes practice. If it was easy we wouldn't have the expression."

Marie-Ange poked at her pancakes with her fork, creating neat rows of holes. "That makes it sound so unappealing. I have to practice and be very bad at being a regular person so that I can try to be a little better at being a regular person." The pancake was slowly becoming a tattered maple-soaked pile of crumbs.

Jean laughed. "The only other option is to...wing it, like you've been doing," she said, neatly cutting up some of the her french toast. With the eggs and bacon it was a large order but she hadn't really had time to eat anything for dinner beyond an apple and a bite of Scott's sandwich.

"There's no easy answer, I'm afraid." She took another sip of coffee, realizing she needed to slow down, otherwise the caffeine buzz would make her start to twitch soon and she'd want to reorganize the medlab, her office, the

rec room, the kitchen....

"I wish there was."

"Not even in obsessive tarot card readings." Marie-Ange said, with a wry smile and a pat of the bag next to her. "Oh, that reminds me! Do you want the copy of the card I had drawn for you and Scott? I am not sure it is altogether decent, but it is amusing?" Technically they were both covered in the card - loose cloth draped over waists, but The Lovers was that sort of card, and Marie-Ange certainly had no shame where that was concerned. It was other people's shame she worried about.

"I had forgotten about that," Jean said thoughtfully, laughing again. "Actually, sure, why not? I'll be interested to see Scott's reaction when I bring it home."

"Can you video tape his face?" Marie-Ange liked Scott, much more than she had when he was Mr. Summers and giving detention because she'd called Piotr an enormous wanker. "Because I can imagine and I want to compare what I think he will look like versus what he really looks like."

"We'll see," Jean mused with a smirk, nibbling at the french toast with a healthy amount of satisfaction. "I make no promises."