Dating an X-Man is Hazardous to Your Health

Chapter 11: Killing Contracts and Aliens

The morning after the party, Kate dropped by Jubilee's room to return the clothes she'd borrowed for their Halloween switch. "Jubes, are you home?" she called out as she knocked on the door.

"Come on in," Jubilee called out in a sing-song tone.

Kate pushed open the door with her little bundle of clothes and looked around, half-expecting to see Noh-Varr too. "So. Have a nice night?" she asked teasingly.

"Not bad," she said with a shrug. "I've had worse."

"Alright." Kate shrugged lightly in return. "Well — I brought your clothes... Hope your clothes didn't get you ... more attention than you meant," she said carefully, still remembering the image of her ex kissing a girl who looked just like her.

"Oh, honestly? I think he was holding back," Jubilee said as she dropped onto her bed. "I don't think he was strictly interested."

"Really?" Kate raised her eyebrows. "Holding back?"

"Yeah, he was, like, being polite," she said as she pulled a little face. "So — must not have made the right impression."

Kate had to laugh a little bit as she relaxed substantially on hearing it. "Well — if he was being polite, it means he wanted to see you again. You'd know if he just wanted the one night," she promised.

"Well, we'll see," Jubilee replied easily. "Don't know if I'll even see him around honestly." She seemed to wave it off before she sat up and leaned forward. "How was your night after a well-planned case of mistaken identity?"

Kate grinned outright as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Well, Kurt got two of my friends drunk, Clint was a Ghostbuster... and I'm learning German," she listed off on her fingers with a wide smirk.

"Well that's a good start," Jubilee said with a nod. "If you want to learn Mandarin, let me know."

"I'll let you know," Kate promised. "I'm pretty quick with languages, actually. Learned sign for Clint — took some French in school..."

"We have a few polyglots around here, so if you want langages, you've come to the right place."

Kate sat down on the edge of Jubilee's bed and nodded before she broke into a wide smile and leaned forward. "Well, enough about languages and alien boys that may or may not be interested in you. How was the rest of your night?"

"Dancing, drinking — but just a little — more dancing, and Bobby tried to steal a kiss when he cut in for a slow song."

"You should wear purple more often. Sounds like it works for you," Kate teased.

"Oh," Jubilee waved her off. "Bobby hit on me before — when I was still a vampire. Made a comment about cuddling up for warmth when we were soaking wet. Said it was more effective if we were naked." She laughed at the memory. "I told him I was game if he wasn't afraid that I'd eat him."

"I'm adding that to the list of reasons I'm sad I missed half the X-fun until now," Kate said as she gathered up her own clothes from Jubilee's dresser, all folded up nice for her. As she did so, she almost knocked over a picture and caught it before it could fall. "Oh — hey. What... is that the Shi'ar empress ?" she asked, staring at the picture of the much, much younger Jubilee, with Charlles and Lilandra.

"Lilandra?" Jubilee asked as she got up and looked over Kate's shoulder. "Oh, yeah. She and Charlie used to be a thing. " She smirked a bit at the old photo. "She actually was a whole lot nicer than the rest of the Shi'ar we met. She had some humanity about her."

"She... and Professor X?" Kate shook her head and just laughed. "That explains all the Shi'ar tech around this place."

"We had that before they were involved," Jubilee clarified. "But it gave us a lot of leeway once they were an item. The tech came when the Phoenix was an issue. They wanted a way to get in touch and show good faith, so we got all the techy upgrades."