17293/An Evening to Remember

An Evening to Remember
Date of Scene:	27 February 2024
Location:	Central Park
Synopsis:	Jubilee to the Rescue when Patty freaks out.
Cast of Characters:	Patty Sloan, Jubilation Lee

---

Patty Sloan has posed:
"UGH! This is a disaster!" The young blonde has made her way to Central Park. She was looking at her phone when some news came up from her old home town. She looked at the news and it was a video of her, blasting Emily into a DVD display. What's more, The news made her appear to be the villain of the story. What makes this even worse is there is nothing she can do. She watches the video again and again. "Oh this is so bad. What am I going to do if more people see this. I'm going to get outted all over again and then I am going to have to find somewhere to hide!" She panicks to herself.

She looks at her phone. THankfully she got a good charge on it at the fundraiser last night otherwise it would be dead. She quickly sends a text message to Kitty's phone. "Umm Miss Pryde, I am sorry to bother you but you wouldn't happen to know of anywhere people like me can stay? I found a video on the internet of me doing something not so good. They made it out to look like I was attacking someone! I didn't do that I swear. I'm currently in Central Park." She sighs and sends it. She hates bugging people, especially new potential friends but right now its really important.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Earlier this evening, in the faculty lounge at a private school approximately thirty miles north of New York City...

    The pink bubble that formed in between Jubilation Lee's lips popped after reaching its limit, leaving behind a flimsy wad of bubble gum dangling from her lower lip. "Me?" she questioned, looking up from her phone and its endless supply of distractions. At first, the idea was kind of silly. After all, she's the newest hire, having just been brought on the payroll a couple weeks ago, and wouldn't they rather send someone more like a Kitty Pryde or a Rogue or a Monet St. Croix? Whatever explanation was given went in one of Jubilee's ears and out the other as her imagination got immediately captured by thoughts of the Big Apple. "Yeah, sure!" she agreed without so much as a moment to think it over. Unfortunately, no, she can't borrow the Blackbird jet. Sorry, Jubes.

    After an hour or so of slowing down highway traffic by driving her Vespa scooter all the way from Westchester, NY to Central Park, she finally made it. She parks it at one of the entrances to the park and skates in using one of the many little roads that are spread all over Central Park. Oh yeah, she wore a pair of throwback Rollerblades she got at a skate shop. Life's better with wheels! "Hello, New York, it's me...Jubilee!" she announces as she begins to pick up speed on her skates. "I am in you!"

    After a few minutes of pure, unadulterated skating bliss, Jubilee's phone goes off -- a text from someone asking her how it's going -- to remind her that she's here on business. There's a mutant who might be in some trouble, but how could Jubilee find her? They've got special equipment that can help out there, but all Jubilee brought were her skates. She continues to skate along the park, eyes peeled and on the lookout for the girl she met at the water park. Lots of people fit that description, sure, but Jubilee's vampire senses are attuned to the smells of her prey: people. Her head is on a swivel, eyes open, nose ...also open. Suddenly, Jubilee skids to a halt on her skates and focuses her attention on a little bit of something in the air. "That way!" she decides, pointing in the direction that she's sure will lead her to Patty Sloan! Or...maybe just one of her socks or something.

Patty Sloan has posed:
Its been a while since Patty sent the message. She was still panicked and is currently using a copy of the daily Bugle to hide her face from anyone who might have seen that video. She had already broke rule number one of the internet. Never Read the Comments. There was a lot of hate there for her. Saying that she should die among other colorful things. It hurt a lot. "I can never go back, can I?" She asks no one in particular as she closes the news app on her phone.

A cold breeze blows through the park. Patty frowns, "Not again..." SHe crosses her arms and tries to keep warm. She didn't exactly have a lot of clothes from her great escape aboard Peter Quill's Space Ship. She only had the clothes that were on her back and that wasn't enough for the chilling wind, even if she caused it to blow in the first place. "Just be calm. Read the newspaper like a normal person and don't get too worked up. You can control this." She states to herself as she tries to build some confidence.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    That breeze just makes finding Patty a slam dunk for Jubilee, bringing her closer and closer to the origin of that little smell she's tracking. Jubilee picks up some speed on her skates and continues making a bee-line towards where she assumes she'll find Patty Sloan. She's here on business, sure, but that doesn't mean she can't enjoy herself a little, right? It's just a nice coincidence that the route to find Patty has so many fun benches and railings to skate on! No harm in enjoying her work, Jubilee figures. After a few more minutes of aggressive skating and one final grind down the handrail of a small, stone staircase, Jubilation's search reaches its end.

    "Sup?" is all she says as she slowly rolls backwards on her skates and comes to a halt just over one of Patty's shoulders. She's now wearing a pair of dark Ray Bans over her eyes. A pink gum bubble begins to form in between her lips while she waits for Patty to say something.

Patty Sloan has posed:
Patty didn't know what to expect when she asked for help. She really had no clue. Finding the girl chewing gum and on roller skates definitely caught her off guard a little. "Oh umm, Hi! You're Jubilee if I remember right. Nice to meet you again." She blushes a little as she looks around making sure no one else has spotted her. "Sorry I am hoping no one else saw the video. They news really made it look like I am some kind of monster!" She frowns and looks down into her news paper again.

"So what's up?" She asks curiously wondering what is going to happen now. "I really didn't try to hurt anyone. That is the last thing I would wanna do... Unless I needed to do that but this was just... THe person was a bully and was trying to steal from me. I couldn't stop myself before it happened." She sighs. "Sorry."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Jubilation Lee, at your service," she says, bowing her head and twirling her hand around a couple of times for maximum pomp and circumstance. She's often introduced as Jubilee, which can make people think that's her real name, so the first order of business is to correct that little mistake right away. However, her tone and demeanor suggest that she's almost mocking the people who would unironically correct someone regarding their name. She's not one to put on airs and won't suffer the people who do. After her little demonstration, Jubilation puts her hands on her hips and falls silent while Petty tells her side of the story.

    When Patty finishes up by apologizing to her, Jubilee remains silent for several seconds. It's a long, long several seconds. She just chews her gum, staring at Patty. What will she do? What will she say? What if she's part of some secret anti-mutant hit squad who came to right one of nature's wrongs? If she is, an apology isn't going to be enough.

    Finally, Jubilation breaks her silence. "Patty... you want some gum?" she asks, claiming the empty seat on the bench next to Patty. Her smile is a little different now. Jubilee's confident, sassy smirk has been replaced by the warmth of Jubilation. She drops the act, tones down the over-the-top persona, and just smiles at Patty while holding a piece of gum for her to take if she wants it.

Patty Sloan has posed:
"Oh Sorry. Jubilation. Nice to meet you." The blonde smiles. "I've never met anyone named Jubilation before. My name is Patricia Sloan. But most everyone calls me Patty." She takes a deep breath. "Oh um sure!?" She accepts the gum and puts it in her mouth. Idly she starts chewing and more importantly calming down.

"Things just went far worse than I could have imagined. I didn't want to hurt her. I didn't want any of this." My moms warned me that this could happen. That if I let people see what I really am that it could be a disaster." In reality her moms just didn't want her to be a mutant and wanted her to hide every bit of it. That is neither here nor there. "Even in the video I was fighting to restrain myself and you can see it but, I lost control and she went flying."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Look, Patricia Sloan...." Jubilation begins, trying her absolute best to say the right thing in the right way. She's an irreverent ball of energy and attitude and it's hard to keep it all under control. She's trying though! Instead of continuing to say whatever was coming next, Jubes begins to pull her thick, warm hoodie up and over her head. It's bright pink and has the words TUMMY ACHE SURVIVOR printed across the breast in big, black letters. Underneath, all she has is a flimsy tank top that might as well not even be there. It's doing absolutely nothing to keep her shielded from New York's brutal February temperatures. Strangely, there's absolutely no indication that she's cold. No goosebumps. No shivering. Nothing.

    "...You think you're cool enough to wear this?" she wonders, holding out the sweatshirt for Patty to take. It's almost like she's purposely avoiding the exact details of what Patty's telling her. Instead, she's just trying to be kind. It may seem like nothing, but vampires are not kind. Then again, they're also not real.

    "Patty... look, I'm not, like, you know... Kitty. I'm not gonna be able to say something that's gonna cure all your sads and make you realize that the answer's been inside you this whole time or any of that," Jubilee explains. She shrugs one of her bare shoulders and smiles. "But... I can tell you a couple things about what it's like to be a mutant that you're just not gonna ever get from your /mom/... or /Tiktok/....." She pronounces 'mom' and 'Tiktok' with exaggerated levels of disdain, trying to reduce them in Patty's mind. Jubilee immediately leans in and mutters, "...I really like Tiktok, though..." she adds, briefly interrupting this powerful moment she's trying to create.

Patty Sloan has posed:
The blonde smiles a little and takes the sweatshirt. She slips it on. "ow!" Her wings shift under their belt. Joy causing them to want to spread. "Sorry. Wing problems." She states as she reaches behind her back and rubs as close to her shoulder blades as she can.

Then Jubilee goes into her spiel. She takes a deep breath and speaks up a little. "I um. I don't know much about it. Just that I was supposed to keep everything secret about it. My wings couldn't be out ever. I was excused from Gym class so I didn't have to change in front of others. I wasn't even allowed to use my other abilities. Its probably why I lost control with that bully." She listens carefully. "Tiktok is fun!" She states as she listens now. She is just excited to be talking to someone who actually has experience with this stuff.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "It's awesome," is Jubilee's answer for what it's like to be a mutant. She nods her head a few times but realizes she's leaving out a major part. Jubes gestures vaguely in some direction, as though drawing attention to some hypothetical other time and place. "...I mean, sure, a mutant at a school full of normies and everyone's all weirded out by you.... /sucks/.... and, like, yeah, being a mutant when your mom is telling you 'no wings before marriage' like you're some kind of Amish..../sucks/....."

    Try to get back on track, Jubes!

    "...But..." Jubilation hesitates, wondering just how much she should say about where she came from tonight. Officially, it's just a school for gifted kids. That's all it is. Sure, tuition's free and there's a big iron gate that surrounds the property, but it's just a school. Accredited and everything, too.

    "...What if you didn't have to hide your wings from people?" she wonders quietly, suddenly navigating this conversation with the same vulnerability and hesitation that Patty herself might be experiencing. Jubilation's confident, easy-going bravado is unable to answer the phone right now.

Patty Sloan has posed:
"Yeah that really does suck. I've had to use belts to strap down my wings for the past two years. No Swimming, No swim suits, Nothing. I've had to dress like a prude because of it." She sighs. "The wings aren't what got me in trouble though." She states as a side note.

"What if I didn't have to hide my wings from people? That would be amazing! Maybe I could actually see if I could use them even! I think it would be cool to try to fly... though not too high I guess Well maybe." She sighs as she thinks about it. "To be able to just be myself... To let my wings out or to cool down in the summer... Those things would be amazing." She smiles and looks into the distance. How it would be nice to not have to hide who she is. "But such a place doesn't exist. The world seems to hate us just for existing and being able to be yourself just doesn't seem possible."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation nods along as Patty connects the dots she's leaving behind, hitting on all the main points. It's all very by-the-numbers and Jubes just needs to wait for her turn to talk so she can tell Patty, oh, but there's this magical far away land -- thirty miles away -- where everyone's a mutant and she can finally roam free and stop letting the genetically mundane continue to hold her back from reaching her true potential and that within those walls she'll find the friends and family who will be there by her side no matter what. That's what she might say if she was reading from the brochure or doing that pretend promotional video they made as a joke that one time. That's not what happens, though. Instead, Jubilee decides to slow play this, perhaps to regain some credibility and appeal to Patty's critical thinking. Or maybe she's just doing whatever because she's Jubes!

    "Patty..." Jubilee repeats, sitting up straight. "Do I seem like someone who hides who I am?" she asks. Self-loathing and shame are not natural exports in Jubilation Lee.

Patty Sloan has posed:
"No of course not. I mean, I don't know you super well but you don't seem like someone who hides yourself." She looks down at the ground. Her own dreadfully low self esteem starting to shine through the cracks of her facade. "I didn't have a choice." She states. "I had to. I was already being picked on a lot because of my glasses and because I was a late bloomer. If they would have seen my wings or if I accidentally used my abilities... It would have been far worse."

She breathes deep and lets out a sigh. "Wait are you trying to say there is actually a place where mutants are safe?" She asks curiously, going right to the point. "Because that sounds completely unreal to me. I mean if such a place exists why didn't someone mention it before now?"

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "A late bloomer..." Jubilee repeats. She frowns a little at that. "Says who?!" Her voice rises a bit there, making it very obvious she's not really expecting an answer. Before there's even a chance to accidentally get an answer, she's talking again. "You know why all these dweebs are such a-holes to mutants, Patty? Because they're jealous. They know the deal. We're cool as heck, doing awesome stuff, having a blast, and they're just over there talking about their 401K's and, like, knowing what those even are...." She trails off a little, giving Patty a brief glimpse in her irreverence and just how little she knows about financial planning. Jubilee shakes her head a little and gets herself back on course.

    "No," Jubilation answers, suddenly finding that small bit of somber seriousness she keeps hidden deep, deep inside. "...No, I'm not saying there's a place where mutants are safe. There's probably not a place like that..." She lowers her eyes only for a moment before Jubilee comes back out to play. She's suddenly on her feet, rising with a supernatural, unworldly smoothness. There's really something truly eerie about her.

    "What I'm sayin' is you need a shower and, I dunno, food, I guess?" Jubilee declares. She /actually/ sounds a little unsure about the food part. The mundane memories of life, the daily routines that people have to keep up with for the sake of their living bodies, sometimes feel like a distant memory to her. "...How about you come stay with me for a couple days?"

Patty Sloan has posed:
Patty blushes a little. "A late bloomer as in, I didn't physically mature when the other girls did. I was late." She continues to blush and just looks down. "Wait some Mutants are late bloomers too?" She listens to what she is being told and she can't help but smile. "I guess you're right. We got something they don't and I guess we need to learn to deal with those things. I know I can be dangerous with mine but I don't want to be without a need to be. You know?"

Then there is the lesson that nowhere is safe. "I figured it wasn't real. God I probably sound like a naive little girl. She does note that something is a bit off about Jubilee. She doesn't know what it is but she doesn't push it.

"Oh God yes. I really need a shower and I need to get some food." She sighs, "I have a little money left until my next check hits. I can manage but... Okay?" She smiles nervously. "Whats the catch?" She asks expecting to here that its going to cost her an arm or a leg.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Yeah, yeah, I know what a late bloomer is but...everyone blooms when---" Jubilation cuts herself off right there. Her face scrunches up like she just ate the world's biggest lemon. So cringey. So after school special. She just abandons that train of thought like it never happened. "Well, like, we learned in school that a lot of mutants, especially us girls, realize we're mutants right around when we start realizing we're not girls anymore," Jubilation explains, wincing a little as she forces herself through the sentence. "...Ugh...I sound like the brochure in the waiting room at a doctor's office.... " She waves her hands in the air -- the universal sign to just forget it and move on.

    "...The catch?" Jubilee repeats. The question kind of stumps her at first. She brings her index finger up to her mouth and tap-tap-taps on one of her teeth with the edge of her nail as she thinks about that. "...Uh... Well...." Jubilee sounds like she's really thinking about this. She's a kid at heart, taking her first steps through adulthood, and Patty is forced to see it. She's the newest member of the Xavier's staff and even the world's best resource for mutants doesn't have a manual for this kind of thing.

    "....Well, you're gonna be on the couch, I guess.... And you gotta gimme your phone!" Jubilation declares, not even sure of that fact, herself. It feels cruel. "I'll give it back to you when you leave. And...and... you might need to have, I dunno, like... a teeny tiny uh... brain scramble on your way out...." She brings a finger up to her temple and waves it around in a circle. "....Probably not. But maybe!" Is she kidding? Maybe. If the visit ends up being a catastrophe, there are some omega-level mutants who can make Patty forget, at least. Jubilee takes a tiny step back and sizes Patty up, cringing a little for some reason. "...And you're gonna have to ride on the back of my scooter the whole way there...." Her teeny, tiny, Vespa.

Patty Sloan has posed:
"My Phone?" Patty repeats back looking at her phone nervously. "But what if my job calls me to fire me..." She comments expecting that to be the coming phone call from them. "Or my moms call?" She frowns. "Fine!" She sighs and hands over her phone. She is not happy about that. Its quite literally her only possession at this time.

"Okay Couch surfing. That's fine. Wait what?! You're going to scramble my brain?!" Immediately the wind picks up around her as she panics a little. "I don't want my brains scrambled! They are barely together as is!" She laughs a little seeming much more nervous now. She stands up and gets ready to go. "On the back of the scooter? Okay I can manage."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    It really sounds like Jubilation didn't know how to answer Patty's question and was just making up some stipulations on the spot. You gotta give up your phone! And we're gonna scramble your brains! Still, some of it is based in the foundation of logic. "Okay, okay, like, I don't know if we gotta take your phone for real. Maybe!" she admits, shrugging her shoulders. And then out comes the truth. "...I've never done this before..." she says, briefly lowering her voice in a suddenly display of vulnerability. This, of course, being the act of bringing a mutant in trouble back to Xavier's. It's an odd thing to say considering she hasn't actually told Patty where they're going. Jubilation never actually takes the phone from Patty's hand. Instead, she just leans in and whispers, "...Look, just turn it off for now, okay?"

    Jubilation would then lead Patty to a brightly colored Vespa parked near one of the openings in the stone wall that surrounds Central Park. The ride back to Westchester, NY would be uneventful. Just two girls, one scooter, one heartbeat, traveling through the darkness until they arrive at the coolest place in the world.