Uncanny X-Men 1943

Chapter 19

"Why would Miss Frost allow herself to be betrayed?" Monet asked, closing the door to Miss Frost's office with more force than was strictly necessary.

Jubilee jumped involuntarily. "You're allowed to knock," she said, sitting up straight. She's spent the past few days looking busy as best she could. Since her interview with MI6, no one had bothered her or asked her anything, and she was out of actual work to do. She'd been left all alone in Miss Frost's office. No telegrams came, no orders, no visitors. Until now.

"Shouldn't you be somewhere else?" Jubilee asked.

"Do not patronise me. Why would she do that?" Monet demanded.

Jubilee sighed; she'd been asking herself the same question. Miss Frost had had all the evidence to have Shaw arrested before she left, so why wait until afterwards? Why give him time to tip off the Gestapo? "I don't know..." Jubilee said, leaning back in the chair and staring up at the ceiling.

"It is your job!" Monet cried. "Are you not a spy?"

"I'm a secretary!" Jubilee said, springing to her feet. Monet was someone who was clearly used to getting what she wanted when she wanted it, and if the girl was going to be showing up at Baker Street, well that was one things, but demanding information was quite another. "I send telegrams and write minutes and type memos. And I just happen to be able to make 'fireworks', which is a great power when you need a distraction, but otherwise I don't know what to do with it. I'm not - I'm not anything special, all right? I don't know why Miss Frost went on this suicide mission to save Angel. I don't - " Jubilee stopped as she saw Monet's shoulders drop.

"I couldn't save him too. I am sorry."

"It's not your fault. Pretty sure you've been told that." Jubilee sighed. "All right, let's try. If I was Miss Frost, why would I leave my comfy office and nerdy-but-kinda-cute husband and presumably nice house and relatively safe country and literal handful of children to jump out of a plane into occupied territory just to save one man?"

"Honour?" Monet suggested.

Jubilee sat back down and shrugged. "For Mr Summers maybe. But not Miss Frost. I don't think she cares much about that sort of thing. I think normal people do things for love or money, but Miss Frost isn't really normal..." Jubilee looked and Monet, who leaned against one of the filing cabinets and folded her arms. "What if you were Miss Frost? Why would you go?"

"I have met her once. I hardly know her."

"M, please play along."

Monet rolled her eyes. "If I could, I would kill as many Nazis as I could, to avenge my family."

"Miss Frost doesn't need to... ooh..." Jubilee said, her eyes widening. She felt a shiver go down her back.

"What?"

"Avenge her family..."

"Miss Frost has family in France?"

"No," Jubilee said. "But one of her daughters was adopted as part of the Kindertransport."

"The what?" Monet asked.

"A few thousand Jewish kids were brought to Britain from Germany and Austria before the war. Miss Frost adopted one of them who's also got - powers. Like us, sort of."

"She is avenging her adopted daughter's family?"

"I guess?"

"Does that fit her character?" Monet asked.

Jubilee chewed on her lip, and nodded. "If anyone hurt her family, hurt her kids, then yes. Yes, I think you'd rather cross hell than cross Miss Frost if you'd wronged her family."