xp_logs | Miles & Nica, backdated to Wednesday, February 24 (Reply)

Miles and Nica chat about school and life troubles over lunch.

Miles poked at the poor excuse for shepherd's pie on his tray. This cafeteria was a crapshoot. Some days they provided the school equivalent of gourmet food. And some days, like today, it was like they just threw together all of the leftovers and tried to present the mishmash product as something edible. This was a school for the gifted, but clearly not for the culinarily gifted.

He sighed. Maybe he could get a Snickers from the vending machine and that would hold him over until the end of the day, and he and Becky could get some real food. But his stomach roared loudly in protest. No, skipping breakfast so he could have an extra fifteen minutes of sleep and then skipping lunch would not make for a conducive day.

Movement across the table from him revealed the presence of one of his classmates. "Is it dead?" Nica joked, watching him poke at his lunch as she set her own tray down and took a seat. "I swear I saw it moving as I was heading over this way."

"I think they make it from actual shepherds." Miles held up a forkful and peered at it closely, as if super-sight was another one of his abilities. "Pretty sure beef isn't supposed to look like this. I don't know if I can survive another year here on Soylent Green, you know?"

"If I didn't hibernate so much in the winter, I'd brown-bag it," Nica replied, screwing up her nose at her own tray. "And since when is Jello salad?"

"When it has two grapes in it and a vaguely orange color, they can pretend it's a fruit salad," Miles said wisely. "All right, here goes nothing. If this kills me, tell my parents I want Nicki Minaj to play at my funeral." Mustering up the courage it took to fight New York crime in a skintight costume, he took a bite of the meal. He wrinkled his nose a bit, but it didn't come right back up, so that was something. "Needs more salt."

Never one to let someone else take all the risks, Nica groaned quietly to herself and picked up her spork to make her own attempt. "Is mashed potato supposed to crunch like that?" she managed, swallowing.

"Maybe they forgot to microwave your piece." Miles regretfully swallowed another piece and went for a third when he was overcome with laughter at the absurdity of it all. "Sorry," he said, trying to stifle himself. "I can become invisible and you glow, and we can't even take on cafeteria food. How lame is that?"

"Too bad I can't heat things up as well as glow - mine would at least be warm," Nica agreed, poking at the unappetising blob that purported to be green vegetables of some kind. But she chuckled along with Miles. "So much for us being superheroes. Defeated by the machinations of the dastardly lunch lady. Oh, the shame!" She held her free hand up to her forehead in mock-anguish.

Miles poked at his meal again before looking up at Nica with a serious expression. Serious for him, at least. "Have you told anyone yet?" he asked, lowering his voice a bit so they couldn't be overheard. "Anyone here. That, you know, you glow and stuff."

"You mean here?" Nica looked at Miles like he'd suggested she tell someone she killed puppies for enjoyment. "Fuck, no! It's hard enough keeping things under control so no-one finds out by accident - there's no way I'd actually tell someone."

"There's no one you trust enough here? I mean, I'm sure not everyone's gonna lead a lynch mob if they know. There's probably other mutants here we don't even know, you know?"

"Maybe. But what about the risk? You come out to the wrong person, and it's not just you, it's the rest of the Xavier's kids that're in the shit. Then the next thing you know, we're locked up in the mansion with FoHers picketing the gates and setting up crosses on the lawn and who knows what else fucked up shit." Nica sighed. "I mean, it sucks that we can't trust people just like that, but we're not just keeping ourselves safe."

There was no denying their communal responsibility but Miles's dissatisfaction at Nica's firm position was plain on his face. "That sounds so . . . isolationist," he said ruefully. "SAT word. I kinda hate that, you know what I mean?"

Nica shrugged. "It is, no denying it. But after M-Day, the stakes got a whole lot higher. And sure, if it was just me at risk, I'd probably take more chances, but then I think about people like Rahne and Xavin, who can't even go outside, and I think, what right do I have to take their safe place away?" She poked at the Jello with her fork. "Then again, I've been told I have trust issues, so maybe I'm painting it blacker than it is." With a snort she looked up and met his eyes. "Pun kinda intended."

"I can't imagine anyone would say that about you," he teased. "You, who rushed head first into a magical portal to a living meme instead of waiting for the superheroes we live with to come help."

She poked her tongue out at him. "You heard about that, did you?" she asked. "Possibly not the best decision I've made, but we got the kids out at least. You should have been there - it would have been a chance to stretch your own superhero muscles, Mr. I-Wanna-Be-An-X-Man."

"Bobby told me." He actually had, so Miles didn't have to deal with any Catholic guilt for lying. Technically true was still true. "I wish I was, too. I'd already left to go home to see my parents. So." He shrugged. Okay, maybe he felt a little guilty for not being absolutely honest. "But, I mean, you saved a bunch of lives. That's amazing."

"Not without help. Don't tell anyone I said so, but if the X-Men hadn't turned up when they did, we probably would have been stuck there." Nica didn't like to admit she was wrong, but her sense of responsibility won out usually. "I just wish the adults at the mansion would listen, you know? My Dad, he's a grunt and a jarhead, but at least I know if I have a problem I can tell him about it and he won't brush me off, you know?"

"I don't know what a 'jarhead' is." Finally deciding that the shepherd's pie just wasn't worth it anymore, Miles turned to his Jello. "So, I mean, what is it you don't trust about them all, exactly? Besides, you know, just being lame or whatever. I don't . . . I mean, I haven't had any problems."

"Jarhead's a nickname for a Marine," Monica informed him, and then she shrugged. "I dunno... it's like, they treat us like we're intruding. They're rude when we ask questions. They brush us off when we ask for help. There's a reason I don't really post on my own journal if there's something I want to know - I don't like being made fun of when I don't understand something." She jabbed her fork into the Jello with a bit more force than possibly necessary. "And I don't like seeing people laughed at, especially by the people who are supposed to be protecting us. Or whatever it is they're there for."

Miles recalled the previous summer after Uncle Aaron revealed his true colors, and Miles had been scolded for putting on the mask. "They just . . . don't know what we're all really capable of," he put it diplomatically. "I dunno, maybe they're worried about our safety after M-Day, but it's just . . . You know that line about holding a butterfly too tightly to protect it but then you end up getting insect guts all over your hands."

Nica snorted a laugh. "Ew." She looked down at her Jello, now slightly mashed by her angry fork jabs. "Possibly not the best metaphor over lunch?"

"Still more appetizing, though," Miles countered, grinning. "What class you got next?"

"Physics." Monica made a face. "But at least the powers work I'm doing with Hank means I've got a fighting chance of understanding it this year. You?"

"AP Government." Miles's expression mirrored hers. "I can't wait for these classes to be over. And these exams. I've basically got a week in May where my four AP's and the ACT are all back to back. The only thing more terrifying than this lunch is that."

"That's what you get for being an over-achiever," she teased, just as the bell rang. "And that's it for lunch. Time to go back to the grindstone, yay."