Unwilling Weapon

Lies By Omission

Warbird felt her lip curling back into a sneer when she saw the little firecracker heading upstairs with a full tray of food — leftovers from the dinner everyone else had enjoyed while the so-called warrior of the Kree languished in bed.

She'd heard the rumors, though even she couldn't hope that the worst of what the students were saying was true, that he was dying. He was a thorn in her side; she couldn't be rid of him that easily. She wasn't that lucky. But from what she had seen, at least some of the rumors were true — he was weak, ill-used. Had this been any other world, he wouldn't be a problem anymore to her. No one would weep for him if Warbird simply dispatched him.

But here, infuriatingly, he had allies. Even, somehow, a lover with the X-Men. How he had managed this was still beyond her understanding, and as Warbird watched Jubilee head upstairs with her tray, she found she simply couldn't keep her thoughts to herself any longer.

"Playing nursemaid again, I see," she said, not bothering to hide the sneer as she caught up to Jubilee.

Jubilee shot her a deep glare. "What — jealous you can't get the same attention from Bobby?" she shot back.

Warbird stopped and fell into a glare that matched hers. "I would never degrade myself to need such attention. I am not so weak."

Jubilee's eyes flashed, and she drew herself up to her full height — which was, admittedly, much shorter than Warbird — as she put a finger in the Shi'ar fighter's face. "Why don't you keep your nose out?" she challenged, sparks flying from the fingertip of the index finger in Warbird's face.

For a long moment, Warbird just met Jubilee's glare with her own before she simply shook her head with a dark chuckle. "Fine. Waste your time then. Waste your efforts and your resources — but when he leaves again, don't expect any pity." With that, she spun on her heel and stalked away, nose in the air.

The color rose up in Jubilee's cheeks, and without really meaning to, a small plasmoid launched that caught up in Warbird's feathers as Jubilee turned on her heel and walked off.

...........................

It was early morning, and Kate was absolutely dead to the world when three bamfs pounced on her all at once with insistent chattering as another two forcibly picked her head up off the pillow and jammed a headband crookedly on her head.

"What — what's going on?" Kate slurred out, still half asleep as she had a face full of one bamf who had grabbed her on either side of her face and was chattering slower than the others to try and get her to understand him. "It's too early for this," she groaned, trying to escape, but they simply wouldn't let her.

"Kurt!" she said, trying to more or less call for backup, but his side of the bed was empty — he must have already gone down to breakfast. "Oh, I've been abandoned," she muttered as the chattering got more insistent. She turned her attention to the bamf in her face. "I can't understand you. It's too early. Why. Why did you wake me up this early?"

The bamf let out a loud sigh of frustration, and a moment later, she found herself in the kitchen, still in her pajamas with her hair askew and the headband tangled in her bedhead, though the bamfs had tried to tame it. They had taken her straight to the coffee, and two of them were already pouring her a cup, while another one pushed the new brand out further on the counter and pointed at it with insistent chattering.

"Who the heck switched coffee on me?" Kate asked in disbelief as the bamf just nodded triumphantly at finally being understood.

"If you hate it, I'll just keep it in my room," K said distractedly over the paper she was reading next to Logan. "But it's really, ridiculously smooth."