X-Men X-Mas Shopping

[old_one_eye]

Cyclops was still leery about letting anyone out of the Institute with the Purifiers still out there, but he knew he had a riot on his hands if he didn't give everyone a chance to get out and breathe. As such, he arranged for a trip into the city, a chance for everyone to get out, go Christmas shopping, take in the sights, and stretch their legs a

Comments

[canadianwildboy]

Logan decided to hang around at a coffee shop in the middle of the students' prime shopping territory. He had no one to buy for that couldn't be handled with a couple of phone calls. Booze didn't require you select it personally if you knew what they liked or what cigars they smoked religiously.

He was just back up, muscle and security, all rolled into one grumpy package.

Christmas. Who needed it?

[ororo_munroe]

Not she, but Ororo always appreciates this holiday that seems to influence people to act a little kinder to family, friends, and strangers, even if just a little bit. Plus the snow.

She grins behind her cup of hot chocolate as she spies Logan looking utterly gruff and unapproachable, approaching him anyway in her typical way.

"Well. I would wager that you'd prefer to have remained behind at the mansion, off by your lonesome, or corraling Piotr and Kurt into some... bar adventure, when not dealing with something much more serious. Or has everything changed since I've been gone these several months?" It's a half-rhetorical question.

"I hear you went and picked up your own title of Big Brother, for instance?"

[canadianwildboy]

"No power on earth is gonna make me go shoppin' with a group of kids," he grumbled. "They're all around here. I'll know if somebody starts trouble, an' it won't be the little sister. She knows better."

He patted the seat next to him. "How ya been, darlin'?"

[ororo_munroe]

"That is what I would prefer to think about all of the students, but 'knowing better' often contradicts and then caves under hormonal bouts of teenage idiocy. But I understand your little sister is not like the rest."

She settles in the offered seat. "Going walkabout in Africa was good for me. Started out in Egypt and found myself ending up in Wakanda. An email from Rockslide wanting to know if the students could turn my greenhouse at the mansion into a staging area for a mud-pit wrestling tournament is merely what prompted my sudden return," completely joking about the latter.

[canadianwildboy]

He did smile at the joke. Jeannie's return was prompting the people who would care to touch base with the mansion.

He lifted his cup and tapped it against hers. "Glad to hear yer okay. Wakanda treatin' you right?"

[ororo_munroe]

Some of the marshmallows given to her with her hot chocolate are inspected, before she pops one into her mouth. The rest are poured into her cup.

"The King treats me well. Wakanda itself is of two minds on whether to welcome the Kenyan weather witch as esteemed guest of their leader, or expel the mutant outsider to whence she came, though I am oversimplifying. Still, I have enjoyed many things." She gives him a cursory look. "Even learned a few new takedown methods I do not believe that even you have ever seen. If you ever go to Wakanda, request a spar with a T'Challa's personal guard."

"You? Who treats you right these days?"

[canadianwildboy]

"I'll do that. Maybe you'll give me a preview soon?" The words struck something in him. Might be he'd been in one place too long. People were all coming back; could be it was time somebody left for awhile.

Except he'd brought an killing machine into the mix and he wouldn't leave Little Sister on her own, or the rest unprotected.

After the waitress renewed his cup, he gave a shrug to her question. "Ya know me, darlin'. Waitresses and barmaids like me well enough."

[ororo_munroe]

"Was hoping you'd ask for a demonstration," granting him a sporty grin. "You have remained with the team all this time then?"

She always envied the way he could pick up and go, return again. Understood it was his nature and part of it was hers also. Leadership thrust her into a position to which she could rarely afford to do so, until she had nothing left to give in fighting for a dream she didn't believe in as earnestly as she once did.

The edge of blue eyes crinkle wryly, "For some reason, I was hoping for a name, rather than a general profession. Even it were Scott."

[canadianwildboy]

"Ya know me too well, darlin'."

He took a sip of the hot brew. "Was gone a few weeks at the beginnin' of the year to work a few things out, but I came back. Somebody's gotta give the kids a bad example so Summers looks good in comparison."

[ororo_munroe]

She would thank him for being there with the team, but there's nothing more she can say that wouldn't be a repeated conversation. "Right. Mentor of the Year, old friend-" saluting him with her mug.

"Jean's return. Did it shake the entire mansion, or faze anyone at all? Was there a betting pool that anyone won?"

[canadianwildboy]

He gave her a sour look. He wasn't a mentor. Kids just gravitated to him. No clue why.

"One of the kids thought Jeannie was a zombie an' tried to get another one to kill her before she ate Cyke. Think it was a Guthrie."

[ororo_munroe]

Ororo easily ignores that look, well used to teasing him about his prevalence for picking up young sidekicks. She also can't help letting out a hard chuckle at hearing the rest.

"Good to know their entire family is full of heroics, attempted or otherwise. I hope Jean was not offended. Or Cyclops, for that matter. I have not spoken much with either yet," frowning to herself from an annoying sense of uncertainty suddenly niggling at her about the last sentence.