xp_logs | Labor Day BBQ - Nica and Scott

Backdated to the day of the BBQ - Nica and Scott chat over condiments.

"Ketchup, Mr. S... er Scott? For your burger?" The voice and the hand, holding a large bottle of Heinz, belonged to Nica. She looked bright and happy, with the tell-tale glow about her skin that indicated she was making the most of the EM spectrum offered by the sunshine.

The mansion's sun room was pleasant enough, a good way to pretend you were out in the sun in the middle of winter but...it really just couldn't match up to the actual feeling of the sun on your skin, especially if someone else was manning the grill. Scott had claimed one of the loungers as his own, pointedly ignoring the shenanigans by the pool, if he didn't see it then he didn't have to get up to intervene right? Nica's offer of ketchup though, that was a whole other story. A dark eye cracked open, his gaze settling on the girl as he reached for the paper plate laying next to him, offering her a small smile. "Not that easy to get used to calling us by our first names?"

"No," she admitted with an abashed grin, passing him the bottle. "I blame the military upbringing; some of the teachers at my many, many onbase schools were really strict about using honorifics. And you're not a teacher, but you're teaching me, so it feels kinda disrespectful to call you by your first name."

"If it helps, I used to be a teacher, I picked up a master's in education a while back though strangely they never covered how to train a secret paramilitary organization. I should really write in and complain to them about that." Fingers squeezed the bottle, spreading the ketchup over his burger before handing the bottle back to the girl. "Honestly, if it's what makes you comfortable I'm not gonna stop you, I've definitely been called worse."

Nica chuckled and sat down on the grass beside his lounger, ketchup bottle held loosely in her hands. "It's not that I'm uncomfortable. Force of habit, mostly." She grinned suddenly. "I could always call you "O Captain, My Captain" from that old Robin Williams movie?"

"Oh ouch, are you trying to say I should be fired? I didn't know you hated me that much, I guess the lesson's learned." The small smile on the dark-haired man's lips gave the tie to the shocked tone of voice and over-exaggerated mock hurt on his face. "I'd threaten to call you kid, but that'd make me sound too much like Logan for comfort."

"Fired? Oh, no, definitely not." Nica reacted seriously, then caught the smirk. "Oh. Joke. Right. I know those." And she did, normally, but the above-mentioned awkwardness of Scott being a team leader didn't help. "Is there anyone Logan doesn't call 'kid'? Apart from maybe the Professor? Or you?"

"I'm pretty sure he calls Jean by her name, and perhaps a few of the older team members but if I'm honest we're all like half his age, and he used to call me kid to get under my skin. Though, he'd do a lot to get under my skin now I think about it..." A smile touched his face as he held his burger up towards Nica like a drink being toasted, "Hey, join the I get jokes sometimes club, we have t-shirts and everything."