Scott and Alison, Thursday morning

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Alison finds out she was excluded from helping draw up the new training rotations for a reason other than having blown up recently, as Scott gives her a very interesting (and possibly very entertaining) job to do.



His laptop under one arm, Scott paused in the doorway, smiling slightly as Alison looked up from her computer - message from Haroun, he was willing to bet judging from the expression on her still deeply-tanned face - and gave him a questioning look. "Busy?" he asked. "Or ready to be put to work?"

Giving him a blank look was probably not the best thing, but she'd spent the morning snooping through the files on the team server to try and get up to date, the post to team from the previous day still stinging and then some, though Madelyn had helped a bit with that the previous night. And she was still staring at him. "Yes!" And that had probably been a bit too eager sounding, but feeling like that had been unexpected and very unpleasant. "Work I mean! Work is good." Her voice was a bit clearer today, thanks to the fact that there was an outing to the FBI offices in the afternoon.

"Good," Scott said and took two steps into the room, then paused, frowning. "Hold on... you weren't stressing out about not having been in on drawing up the training rotations, were you?" The edge of relief to her answer had been unmistakable, and the way she didn't leap to answer this question was telling, too. "Oh, crap," he sighed, coming over and sitting down beside her on the couch. "Ali... I suppose I should have said something, but I didn't think--" And he should have. Taking a deep breath, Scott managed a rather sheepish smile. "I didn't want you in on the planning of that," he confessed. "At all. Because I wanted you coming at what I want you to do without having had a hand in that end of things."

"Oh." Miraculously, it didn't take her too long to get the idea. "So you had something in mind for me to work on already that didn't involve that. Fresh point of view?" And it wasn't as though she'd asked to be put on duty rotation yet. "I-" She took a deep breath and smiled, just a little, although there wasn't much heart to it. "I figured I should probably start by writing up some sort of report on what happened. I pretty much remember a fair bit now." And Miles has given her a good idea of the rest, though she'd probably have to talk to Terry and Kyle more. She hadn't looked at Sean's report on things, so as to not influence her own.

Scott paused. "When you're ready," he said with a nod, setting his laptop down on the coffee table. "It's waited until now - it can wait a while longer if it turns out to be a bigger job than you thought." He smiled a bit teasingly at her. "How about I give you some fun stuff to balance it all out?" he asked, opening the laptop and switching it on.

Well, since she wasn't sure when ready would happen, that might not be part of the equation, really. Alison figured now was probably a good time to take Charles up on that offer of someone to talk to about things. "Fun stuff? Is it fun stuff that'll make everyone want to throw things at me, or fun stuff that'll make everyone run away in fear each time I cackle softly to myself?" Every single worry about not pulling her own weight had magically faded at the prospect of being able to do something at last.

"A little bit from column A, a little bit from column B..." Scott called up the training files, selecting the one he'd specifically created for Alison, a list of the training exercises he and Ororo had planned and short summaries of what their reasoning was behind each. "I want you to read this," he said, sending it to her, "just so that you know what everyone's doing."

Wireless connections were truly the way to go. Reaching over, Alison thumbed the spacebar on her computer to bring it out of sleep mode, a low ping signaling the files' arrival in her inbox. "I'm guessing that's part one of the Plan?" she asked. She was smiling as she glanced at her computer screen, some of the tenseness which she hadn't realized was nagging at her until yesterday fading further.

"Necessary background reading," Scott said briskly. "You need to know the Plan before you can start adapting it." He grinned at her. "Everyone pretty much knows how Ororo and I think by now," he went on, explaining. "They can probably guess at what the intent is behind each of these exercises. So I want you to observe, or at least go through the tapes - or both, you know, depending on how you're feeling on a given day - and then turn the exercises on their heads. Swap things up."

"Oooh. Training. I'm getting to think up new training." Alison grinned, a more than evil glint in her eyes. Lorna was used to it, but she could imagine what she'd have to say about it once the new exercises started coming out. And she'd already taken notes on this, to boot. "I didn't show you the file I'd started on new suggestions, did I?" Well, the blowing up thing had sort of put a monkey wrench in that process. "I can add that in too. Work from more. Nefarious plans are fun." She smiled serenely at that, patting the computer lightly, just because she could.

"You're the wild card," Scott told her, still smiling. "Turn that strategic brain of yours loose, see how well you can shake everyone up. Then you can toss it back to me, and I'll change things up again. Keep everyone on their toes." He chuckled. "We can't have the team getting into a rut, after all."

"Oh no, we can't have that." Them not knowing who the new exercises came from for sure would be good, though some might guess. Maybe. "I like it. Mix things up, break up the usual training teams, exercises that don't cater to specific powers but put people at distinct disadvantages and force them to think outside the box." Being power dependant was a Bad Thing. And then some. "There'll be moral pick me up work to do on some of those, probably."

"Oh, yes," Scott said quietly. "Between the people whose confidence will be shaken when they don't do so well, and the people who'll take failure as a personal affront..." He shrugged, his smile turning wry. "All these little wrinkles. Don't be like me and delude yourself that you can anticipate all of them, though."

Alison shrugged a bit, shaking her head. "Better that than ending up hurt on the field." Or worse, though she didn't need to say it - he'd know what she meant, she had no doubt about that. "We can serve warning that training is just that, training, though. That it's about finding the blindspots before others do."

"You'll notice that a lot of those initial exercises pair the less-experienced with the more- experienced," Scott told her. "Mostly because I want to see their respective reactions. I've stacked the deck against the subjects in a lot of the exercises, too - especially the ones that are happening outside the Danger Room." He gave Alison a thoughtful look. "We need more of that. Soon. I'm going to talk to the Professor about sending small teams out for wilderness and urban training."

Alison smiled, just a little. "You should check the exercise I set up for Haroun and Paige, actually. If you haven't already. That was before..." she flicked her hand, the meaning clear. "They went through it since - the report is interesting to read." And it had been, in fact, tailored a great deal like what Scott was asking her to do now. "It'll be fun to think up more." And she was just asking to be called sadistic, now.

"I'm so very glad you didn't do that devious mind of yours permanent damage," Scott teased. "That's the one part of you I've always lusted after, you know. And now it's mine to put to use as I please..."

A strangled sound greeted that, though it finally resolved into laughter, Alison clearly highly amused by the remark. "Finally! Someone who wants me for my mind!" The intended melodrama of the comment was ruined by the fitful giggles, most certainly, although Alison did get the arm raised to sky in thankful supplication rather well. "Betcha you'll be the only one once I'm through working out more exercises for people." She grinned cheekily, eyes dancing with merriment.

"See, I'm sadistic too," Scott explained very gravely. "Hence my uncontrollable attraction to you."

"Mmm. Must be all the black leather and stuff, huh?" It wasn't as though there hadn't been the usual jokes about the suits, after all. Her lips quirked, though she managed to keep the somber expression. "And now I have work to do." Miming the cracking of the whip, she gave him an imperious look. "Off you go!"

"Yes, ma'am," Scott said with a chuckle, getting up a bit reluctantly. He had forgotten how much fun it was just to sit around and banter... "You'll let me know when your evil has sufficiently percolated, so I can come take a look, I trust?"

"Ooh, but I insist. How else can we sit here and chortle evilly together while plotting to take over the world?" She blinked at him innocently, as though the thought should have occured to him ages ago. "Bring some tea with you when you come back?" Still wouldn't be Haroun's tea, for which she'd developed a ridiculous craving for of late, but it would do. "Mint?"

"This is me making a mental note," Scott said with a smile, waving at her as he headed out the door. "Enjoy."

Alison cackled merrily as he left, waiting until the door was closed to somewhat greedily open the file. Something to do! Something to do that would very much distract her from all the aches, and the upcoming outing to the FBI that afternoon, as well.

This was good. Very good, even.