Amanda and Jubilee - Confessions
Oct. 25th, 2016 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsWhile on a stakeout, Jubilee finally has the chance to ask Amanda what's on her mind.
“So, are we going to actually talk about this, dude?” Jubilee asked, flipping a small spark along her fingertips as she watched their mark on a small monitor screen.
They’d set up in a small room several buildings away from what sources had said was some kind of magic black market in mutant body parts. They were far enough away that Jubilee felt confident they wouldn’t be spotted by any of the ‘customers’, but close enough to bring the pain if need be.
"Talk about what?" came Amanda's vague reply. For her part, she was ankle deep in the floor, communing with the city and looking for the power spikes which would indicate a powerful magic user. It was potentially unsettling, the way her unseeing eyes seemed to flicker with the lights of the traffic below.
“Like, I don’t know, the epic shitfit you’ve been pulling for the last couple of months?” Jubilee drawled, switching screens to get a closer view of the entrants. If they could prove something hinky here, they’d be one step closer to snipping off this hydra head. “Haven’t seen you this like, not talking about it, since we were teenagers.”
Amanda frowned and blinked, the odd glow disappearing from her eyes. "Really? You want to have a heart-to-heart chat now while we're in the middle of a stakeout?"
Jubilee rolled her eyes, shrugging off the implied censure with the same attitude she showed everything, up to and including the job, when it wasn’t imperative that she focus. “As if we’re ever in the same place long enough to have a heart to heart these days when we’re not on a job. Not like we have forever, and I’m kinda sick of the cold shoulder, dude. Besides, multi-tasking is good for your brain.”
"I haven't been..." Amanda stopped her protest half way through. "All right, fine. I have been avoiding you. But only so's I don't wind up starting some brawl."
“Aren’t we a little old to be breaking each other’s arms?” Jubilee noted wryly, shifting her eyes from the screen to Amanda and then back again, making some notes on a notepad beside her. “Pretty sure I got over the ‘I gotta beat the sh*t outta ya to make my point’ a long time ago. So, like, you know, talk to me, dude. What’s the problem? Other than the obvious ‘welcome to the family’ weirdness of us being suddenly sisters.”
Amanda winced at that last word, but since she had her head down as she pulled her feet out of the floor, it was hidden by her hair. "Problem is, I don't know how to start," she admitted, walking over to the battered armchair that someone had left behind when they'd moved out. She perched gingerly on the arm, fingers twisting the bottom of the t-shirt under her leather jacket. "And you aren't going to like it."
“Always start at the worst and work your way down,” Jubilee offered, putting her pen down and giving Amanda a serious look. “You’ve been stewing on it so long, it’s gotten bigger than you think. Talk to me, dude. I promise not to set you on fire.”
"Better not. New York will be pissed off at you." Amanda managed a brief grin before taking a breath. Might as well get it over with. "I don't want you to marry Kurt."
“Okay, why?” Jubilee asked, expression mild.
It wasn’t like she wasn’t aware that Amanda’s family were important to her, the idea of Jubilee marrying her brother was always going to be a bit of a sore point, especially given their history. But that didn’t mean Jubilee was right, there could be completely different issues, if there was one thing she’d learnt it was to get all the details before you made a move.
The mild response was a surprise, but then again, they'd both matured in the years working for X-Force. Even if Amanda didn't feel very mature right now. In fact, she felt downright childish. Annoyed at herself, she got up and started pacing around the room. "Because one day you'll get yourself killed and it'll kill him," she said at last. "I mean, we talked about this already, back when you started dating. And I thought you understood. But then you go and ask him to marry you..." The witch's voice rose a little, and she paused to breathe and calm herself down. "I mean, if it had been Kurt to ask you, it might have been a bit easier, but... you didn't. You forgot about everything we'd talked about, about the job, what we do, about Kurt, and you go and get engaged like it's another one of your wacky jokes."
“What do you know about your brother?” Jubilee asked, turning her eyes back to the screen and picking up her pen again. “Like, what’s the first thing you think of when you think about him?”
It wasn’t that she wasn’t affected by Amanda’s words, but given the amount of training she’d received from both Remy and the guilds, she’d learnt to contain some of her more flamboyant responses. It certainly led to less misunderstandings, and less running battles in the long run. That and a genuine respect for the consequences of her own actions, at least in regards to people she worked with and spent time around meant that she could meet this conversation with a certain degree of restraint that would have been unthinkable even as late as a year ago.
Everything had changed when the universes fell and they needed to patch things together again, including Jubilee’s need for chaos and excitement.
"He's good," Amanda replied instantly. "Kind, loyal, sweet... and sometimes, a little too much so for his own good. He gets hurt easy. What's the phrase? 'A precious cinnamon roll, too good for this world'." She shrugged a little at Jubilee's response to the meme. "There's a lot of wanna-be witches on Tumblr, as well as the real thing. I pick stuff up."
“Do you remember when Nate was an X-man, back in the day?” Jubilee asked, not being able to help the smile at Amanda’s description of Kurt, he was definitely all those things, but he was also strong as well, more than capable of taking care of himself. “Would you say that being an X-man is a pretty hazardous job?”
"Nate also had a hero complex and specialised in putting himself in harm's way even when he didn't need to," Amanda pointed out. "Not to mention a habit of getting knocked on the head. Kurt's smarter than that, if that's what you're getting at. I know none of us is immortal, especially after... you know. But you have to admit our job doesn't exactly lead to a retirement in the country with the grandkids."
“Remy was always fond of telling me I’d die on the job,” Jubilee admitted with a shrug, writing down another note. “But since when has that meant not having a life? Remy married ‘Ro, didn’t he?”
"And they both died. Nate and Moira died. Jean died, and left Scott dealing with another whole different version of her." Amanda sighed. "And why do you have to get married? Can't you have a life without that bit of paper?"
“Dude, if it’s just a bit of paper, why are you so against it?” Jubilee noted, giving her a look. “Do you really think Kurt’s going to be fine with me biting it just because I don’t have his ring on my finger when it happens? Or have you been hoping he’d come to his senses and see what a waste of time I was?”
Now she was angry, and really, wasn’t that the point? She’d been trying to be reasonable, to be mature about this conversation, prove something to herself maybe. But she’d be damned if she was going to sit here and let someone dictate her life because they didn’t think she was good enough.
“It’s fine when I’m just his bit of somethingsomething on the side, he’ll get sick of me eventually and then you can go back to setting him on that pedestal, the amazing big brother who’s too perfect for this world. Well, guess what, he thinks I’m worth it. Every single fucking time I’ve told him he should find someone else, he’s still here. So I’m marrying him, because he’s worth it, because he deserves to feel like he matters enough to me to do it.”
"It's not what the bit of paper means to me, it's what it means to him," Amanda shot back. "He's the religious one, who believes in all that stuff. And I'm sick to death of watching everyone I care about get destroyed by losing people! Yeah, Kurt got off lucky with this whole end of the world thing - he lost some friends and an ex-girlfriend, but his family and you came through the same. And it's not even about you. Hell, I'd be the same if it was Wanda and he getting hitched, 'cause to Kurt it's permanent. It's forever, and we don't fucking get forever. We don't get normal."
Jubilee placed the pen carefully on the paper and took a moment to rub her hands over her face. She’d been burning the midnight oil for what seemed like forever, trying to do Remy’s job when she had only barely enough operational experience to be about one quarter of him. They all worked in, they all did multiple jobs but this was what she’d been trained for and it felt like if she gave even less than one hundred percent, she was letting him down, wherever he was now. She’d made mistakes, almost cost them contacts and still kept showing up for work every day because they needed her and she’d never in her life been that needed or that able to actually do the job before her.
She knew better than any of them what the life expected, no, demanded of them. Remy had been brutal in his training, and in his expectations and she’d tried her hardest to live up to that, even when she had to do it differently.
Kurt needed her too, and maybe it was because of the job she had to do every day but she wasn’t willing to give him up. Who gave a shit about normal anyway?
“How do you see this ending?” Jubilee asked her, voice weary beyond imagining. “What do you want from me, Mandy?”
"I don't know." Amanda sighed and echoed Jubilee's gesture, brushing a handful of hair out of her face. "Nothing. What the fuck can you do? What's done is done and I just need to deal." She turned away from her teammate, staring down at the street from the window. "Call it my personal breakdown from the whole end of the world thing. It's about my turn, any way. And maybe getting it out, instead of letting it fester will give me a chance to get my head straight."
“You’re due,” Jubilee replied, tone gentle suddenly, understanding. “You lost a lot, and you got all those ducklings looking to you. It’s not easy, dude. Especially when you don’t say anything.”
"Someone had to hold it together with Remy gone." Amanda shrugged again. "Maybe I should take some time off, only I don't know what would happen with the kids. 'S not like just anyone can sub in for me."
“Wanda’s still here, I’m pretty sure she’d take over for you,” Jubilee noted, looking at the screen again. “We’re short staffed but it’s like, not going to help anyone if you end up cracking and having to take a month off rather than a day here or there. Isn’t there any place you’d like to go? I hear Tahiti is a wonderful place.”
"This might be a surprise, but the Scarlet Witch? Doesn't actually do magic." Despite the sarcasm of her words, Amanda's tone sounded less heavy, less self-loathing. Slightly. "I could probably bribe Billy Mark 2 and Topaz to cover a week or two and possibly not have anything blow up I suppose. I guess I've just been running on full for so long I don't know how to stop." She looked back over her shoulder at Jubilee. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. 'Bout the wedding thing. Especially for making you feel like you weren't good enough."
“Who said anything about doing magic?” Jubilee replied with a grin. “That’s for your ducklings. But, Topaz seems trained up enough, and Billy will be there to help her, like you said. You gotta give them responsibility at some stage, they’d have to do it if you pushed yourself to falling over any way.”
She waved away the apology, it wasn’t like she hadn’t known that Amanda was having issues – Jubilee had always been of the opinion that if people were going to blow up, better it be at her than at anyone else. It was something she could do quite well, frankly.
“And, not to sound like this hasn’t been interesting but is that the guy we’ve been waiting for?”
The witch shoved her hand into the wall, using New York's energy to fine tune her powers. "Oh yeah, that's him all right," she replied, sounding almost relieved. At least now she'd get to hit something, instead of shredding her psyche and feeling like a royal bitch. "You take the high road and I'll take the low?"
“Like you had to ask, let’s do this!” Jubilee replied as she headed out the window and onto the fire escape. “Last one there only gets to punch him once.”
“So, are we going to actually talk about this, dude?” Jubilee asked, flipping a small spark along her fingertips as she watched their mark on a small monitor screen.
They’d set up in a small room several buildings away from what sources had said was some kind of magic black market in mutant body parts. They were far enough away that Jubilee felt confident they wouldn’t be spotted by any of the ‘customers’, but close enough to bring the pain if need be.
"Talk about what?" came Amanda's vague reply. For her part, she was ankle deep in the floor, communing with the city and looking for the power spikes which would indicate a powerful magic user. It was potentially unsettling, the way her unseeing eyes seemed to flicker with the lights of the traffic below.
“Like, I don’t know, the epic shitfit you’ve been pulling for the last couple of months?” Jubilee drawled, switching screens to get a closer view of the entrants. If they could prove something hinky here, they’d be one step closer to snipping off this hydra head. “Haven’t seen you this like, not talking about it, since we were teenagers.”
Amanda frowned and blinked, the odd glow disappearing from her eyes. "Really? You want to have a heart-to-heart chat now while we're in the middle of a stakeout?"
Jubilee rolled her eyes, shrugging off the implied censure with the same attitude she showed everything, up to and including the job, when it wasn’t imperative that she focus. “As if we’re ever in the same place long enough to have a heart to heart these days when we’re not on a job. Not like we have forever, and I’m kinda sick of the cold shoulder, dude. Besides, multi-tasking is good for your brain.”
"I haven't been..." Amanda stopped her protest half way through. "All right, fine. I have been avoiding you. But only so's I don't wind up starting some brawl."
“Aren’t we a little old to be breaking each other’s arms?” Jubilee noted wryly, shifting her eyes from the screen to Amanda and then back again, making some notes on a notepad beside her. “Pretty sure I got over the ‘I gotta beat the sh*t outta ya to make my point’ a long time ago. So, like, you know, talk to me, dude. What’s the problem? Other than the obvious ‘welcome to the family’ weirdness of us being suddenly sisters.”
Amanda winced at that last word, but since she had her head down as she pulled her feet out of the floor, it was hidden by her hair. "Problem is, I don't know how to start," she admitted, walking over to the battered armchair that someone had left behind when they'd moved out. She perched gingerly on the arm, fingers twisting the bottom of the t-shirt under her leather jacket. "And you aren't going to like it."
“Always start at the worst and work your way down,” Jubilee offered, putting her pen down and giving Amanda a serious look. “You’ve been stewing on it so long, it’s gotten bigger than you think. Talk to me, dude. I promise not to set you on fire.”
"Better not. New York will be pissed off at you." Amanda managed a brief grin before taking a breath. Might as well get it over with. "I don't want you to marry Kurt."
“Okay, why?” Jubilee asked, expression mild.
It wasn’t like she wasn’t aware that Amanda’s family were important to her, the idea of Jubilee marrying her brother was always going to be a bit of a sore point, especially given their history. But that didn’t mean Jubilee was right, there could be completely different issues, if there was one thing she’d learnt it was to get all the details before you made a move.
The mild response was a surprise, but then again, they'd both matured in the years working for X-Force. Even if Amanda didn't feel very mature right now. In fact, she felt downright childish. Annoyed at herself, she got up and started pacing around the room. "Because one day you'll get yourself killed and it'll kill him," she said at last. "I mean, we talked about this already, back when you started dating. And I thought you understood. But then you go and ask him to marry you..." The witch's voice rose a little, and she paused to breathe and calm herself down. "I mean, if it had been Kurt to ask you, it might have been a bit easier, but... you didn't. You forgot about everything we'd talked about, about the job, what we do, about Kurt, and you go and get engaged like it's another one of your wacky jokes."
“What do you know about your brother?” Jubilee asked, turning her eyes back to the screen and picking up her pen again. “Like, what’s the first thing you think of when you think about him?”
It wasn’t that she wasn’t affected by Amanda’s words, but given the amount of training she’d received from both Remy and the guilds, she’d learnt to contain some of her more flamboyant responses. It certainly led to less misunderstandings, and less running battles in the long run. That and a genuine respect for the consequences of her own actions, at least in regards to people she worked with and spent time around meant that she could meet this conversation with a certain degree of restraint that would have been unthinkable even as late as a year ago.
Everything had changed when the universes fell and they needed to patch things together again, including Jubilee’s need for chaos and excitement.
"He's good," Amanda replied instantly. "Kind, loyal, sweet... and sometimes, a little too much so for his own good. He gets hurt easy. What's the phrase? 'A precious cinnamon roll, too good for this world'." She shrugged a little at Jubilee's response to the meme. "There's a lot of wanna-be witches on Tumblr, as well as the real thing. I pick stuff up."
“Do you remember when Nate was an X-man, back in the day?” Jubilee asked, not being able to help the smile at Amanda’s description of Kurt, he was definitely all those things, but he was also strong as well, more than capable of taking care of himself. “Would you say that being an X-man is a pretty hazardous job?”
"Nate also had a hero complex and specialised in putting himself in harm's way even when he didn't need to," Amanda pointed out. "Not to mention a habit of getting knocked on the head. Kurt's smarter than that, if that's what you're getting at. I know none of us is immortal, especially after... you know. But you have to admit our job doesn't exactly lead to a retirement in the country with the grandkids."
“Remy was always fond of telling me I’d die on the job,” Jubilee admitted with a shrug, writing down another note. “But since when has that meant not having a life? Remy married ‘Ro, didn’t he?”
"And they both died. Nate and Moira died. Jean died, and left Scott dealing with another whole different version of her." Amanda sighed. "And why do you have to get married? Can't you have a life without that bit of paper?"
“Dude, if it’s just a bit of paper, why are you so against it?” Jubilee noted, giving her a look. “Do you really think Kurt’s going to be fine with me biting it just because I don’t have his ring on my finger when it happens? Or have you been hoping he’d come to his senses and see what a waste of time I was?”
Now she was angry, and really, wasn’t that the point? She’d been trying to be reasonable, to be mature about this conversation, prove something to herself maybe. But she’d be damned if she was going to sit here and let someone dictate her life because they didn’t think she was good enough.
“It’s fine when I’m just his bit of somethingsomething on the side, he’ll get sick of me eventually and then you can go back to setting him on that pedestal, the amazing big brother who’s too perfect for this world. Well, guess what, he thinks I’m worth it. Every single fucking time I’ve told him he should find someone else, he’s still here. So I’m marrying him, because he’s worth it, because he deserves to feel like he matters enough to me to do it.”
"It's not what the bit of paper means to me, it's what it means to him," Amanda shot back. "He's the religious one, who believes in all that stuff. And I'm sick to death of watching everyone I care about get destroyed by losing people! Yeah, Kurt got off lucky with this whole end of the world thing - he lost some friends and an ex-girlfriend, but his family and you came through the same. And it's not even about you. Hell, I'd be the same if it was Wanda and he getting hitched, 'cause to Kurt it's permanent. It's forever, and we don't fucking get forever. We don't get normal."
Jubilee placed the pen carefully on the paper and took a moment to rub her hands over her face. She’d been burning the midnight oil for what seemed like forever, trying to do Remy’s job when she had only barely enough operational experience to be about one quarter of him. They all worked in, they all did multiple jobs but this was what she’d been trained for and it felt like if she gave even less than one hundred percent, she was letting him down, wherever he was now. She’d made mistakes, almost cost them contacts and still kept showing up for work every day because they needed her and she’d never in her life been that needed or that able to actually do the job before her.
She knew better than any of them what the life expected, no, demanded of them. Remy had been brutal in his training, and in his expectations and she’d tried her hardest to live up to that, even when she had to do it differently.
Kurt needed her too, and maybe it was because of the job she had to do every day but she wasn’t willing to give him up. Who gave a shit about normal anyway?
“How do you see this ending?” Jubilee asked her, voice weary beyond imagining. “What do you want from me, Mandy?”
"I don't know." Amanda sighed and echoed Jubilee's gesture, brushing a handful of hair out of her face. "Nothing. What the fuck can you do? What's done is done and I just need to deal." She turned away from her teammate, staring down at the street from the window. "Call it my personal breakdown from the whole end of the world thing. It's about my turn, any way. And maybe getting it out, instead of letting it fester will give me a chance to get my head straight."
“You’re due,” Jubilee replied, tone gentle suddenly, understanding. “You lost a lot, and you got all those ducklings looking to you. It’s not easy, dude. Especially when you don’t say anything.”
"Someone had to hold it together with Remy gone." Amanda shrugged again. "Maybe I should take some time off, only I don't know what would happen with the kids. 'S not like just anyone can sub in for me."
“Wanda’s still here, I’m pretty sure she’d take over for you,” Jubilee noted, looking at the screen again. “We’re short staffed but it’s like, not going to help anyone if you end up cracking and having to take a month off rather than a day here or there. Isn’t there any place you’d like to go? I hear Tahiti is a wonderful place.”
"This might be a surprise, but the Scarlet Witch? Doesn't actually do magic." Despite the sarcasm of her words, Amanda's tone sounded less heavy, less self-loathing. Slightly. "I could probably bribe Billy Mark 2 and Topaz to cover a week or two and possibly not have anything blow up I suppose. I guess I've just been running on full for so long I don't know how to stop." She looked back over her shoulder at Jubilee. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. 'Bout the wedding thing. Especially for making you feel like you weren't good enough."
“Who said anything about doing magic?” Jubilee replied with a grin. “That’s for your ducklings. But, Topaz seems trained up enough, and Billy will be there to help her, like you said. You gotta give them responsibility at some stage, they’d have to do it if you pushed yourself to falling over any way.”
She waved away the apology, it wasn’t like she hadn’t known that Amanda was having issues – Jubilee had always been of the opinion that if people were going to blow up, better it be at her than at anyone else. It was something she could do quite well, frankly.
“And, not to sound like this hasn’t been interesting but is that the guy we’ve been waiting for?”
The witch shoved her hand into the wall, using New York's energy to fine tune her powers. "Oh yeah, that's him all right," she replied, sounding almost relieved. At least now she'd get to hit something, instead of shredding her psyche and feeling like a royal bitch. "You take the high road and I'll take the low?"
“Like you had to ask, let’s do this!” Jubilee replied as she headed out the window and onto the fire escape. “Last one there only gets to punch him once.”
