Jubilation "Jubilee" Lee

Laura was about to push her friend off so she could work, but the ceiling cried for help and there wasn’t anywhere else for Jubilee to put her weight on to get that fixed. The whole thing was a real safety hazard held together by wood, concrete and sweat, but it was theirs and they were sure to make it work.

“Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,” Laura sang under her breath. The lyrics made no sense, but neither did New York sometimes. “Well, it’s not like anyone can jump us or take the money we don’t have. We put up a listing for a quick, clean service, they can use the gym’s showers and coffee machine… it’s practically a stable job with benefits,” she said as she stuck two more planks into the concrete block. “You hungry? This won’t go anywhere until we find someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“Keys, this is a disaster zone,” Jubilee huffed, standing on her tippy-toes to really give that extra push to the ceiling panel. “I’m gonna up you to Carey. Darling, if you only knew

All the things that flow through my mind.” She sang quietly, building up her very best impression till she reached the bridge. “You know this gym is just a sweet sweet fantasy baby. When I close my eyes, you come and you take me!” 

Singing her heart out and beckoning Laura to join, she suddenly wished they’d allowed themselves a boombox. Unfortunately the fear of not hearing a possible collapse outweighed the delight of music. Sweet music. There should have been music everywhere. “For real. I say we start them soft with repairing the basement and building moving targets for, uh,” she thought for a long while. “The kickboxers! And we have enough for one guy if he accepts low budgets and some pay in Starbucks gift cards.” 

“Aha, hello,” Edward said with polite poise, stretching his smile into something that could perhaps pass as excitement. It was not. He took Jubilee’s hand and gave it a firm shake- up once, down once, up again, and release. The perfect handshake, as he’d calculated.

…Maybe he had put too much thought into it.

He laughed at her joke- it was the sort of laughter that was too stilted to be genuine. He could never manage sociable laughter. It was a work in progress, even now.

“Aha, I see- very nice to meet you, Jubilee,” Edward said, tipping his hat towards her. He followed her quickly, glancing around the establishment with a critical eye. He wasn’t entirely sure what could require his expertise in a place like this but, well, if it payed he was happy to oblige.

Or, willing. Willing to oblige.

“Job sounds good,” he said with a dash of humor to his voice, adjusting his tie out of habit as he watched the door close. “But otherwise, no thank you, I’m alright. I don’t think I properly introduced myself, I’m afraid- Edward Nashton. As I said, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Nashton. A name he’d left behind for long enough that it had faded into obscurity. Not his legal name, not anymore, although she didn’t need to know that. Not many people nowadays wanted to work with a former ‘supervillain’, after all.

If his handshake was too calculated, if his laugh was too forced, Jubilee didn’t mention it. Sure, she thought to herself that he was a bit like a robotic beetle with his glancing eye and his green tie. But she didn’t mention it! Besides, being detail-oriented was going to be an absolute necessity in this job. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Edward. Ed. Can I call you Ed?” She poured herself a coffee and sauntered around to sit on the edge of her desk. “Believe me. If this works out, I’d be so fucking happy to offer you a job. I’ll start with the standard pay.” Jubilee raised a finger, walked around to her chair, wrote a number on a post-it note and slid it face down across the table. It was on the low end of the medium side. Nothing unexpected of a startup in the middle of Brooklyn. 

Laura put her hands on her hips, looking around at their makeshift, do-it-yourself basement. A lot of controlled explosions and raw strength – combined through their powers – had been needed to get that far and it looked… well, not pretty, but workable. Or so it seemed, before crumbs of dirt fell from the ceiling once again. Godfuckingdammit.

“Someone who understands of secret training rooms, because we sure as hell don’t. We should have asked the Professor for help, doesn’t the mansion even have a nuclear bunker?” She sighed, picking up a heavy block of concrete to start building another pylon. “Not that we would have been able to pay for that level of professionalism or anything, and this shouldn’t appear on anyone’s paycheck. Who else do we know? No union workers, that would hit the legal part.”

“Someone who understands the secrets of secret training rooms,” Jubilee repeated, leaning her entire weight against Laura’s concrete beam. “The Professor wouldn’t touch this with a ten kabillion foot psychic pole.” A little more dirt crumbled from above. “All the same…” she pressed a ceiling panel haphazardly above, one arm on the concrete as the rest of her ascended the ladder. 

With a twist, Jubilee spun out of the way of the second robber only to return with a swift kick to the groin followed up with a double punch to his nose and chest. “Can’t take you guys anywhere,” she huffed. 

Jubilee glanced at Remy out of the corner of her eye. Not because she was at all worried about him, but because there was a chance he was trying to pull off a grand fuckery without her. She jabbed at her robber once more with a shot of blue sparks. He collapsed.

“Hey, nice to meet you, uh… Jubilee,” Roy replied with a slight chuckle at the quip about her name. He took her extended hand to shake it. His other was holding the hand of a dark haired little girl. “I’m Roy and this here is Lian.” The little girl gave a small wave. Roy looked around the gym. “You’re the owner? Nice place you’ve got here.” Looking back at Jubilee, he continued, “Yeah, I heard your gym is kid friendly and well…” he nodded towards Lian, “that seems like a good match for us.” 

Lian eyed Jubilee suspiciously, but then she noticed Shogo and her face relaxed into a small smile. She raised up on her tiptoes to get a better look at the baby. “Yeah, do you see her baby, Lian? He’s sure cute, isn’t he?” Roy said, to which Lian nodded. “What is your baby’s name?” she asked Jubilee. 

She shook Roy’s hand and then held it out again for Lian. Gotta respect the kid. Thank the fucking lord she’d absolutely seen the little girl from across the gym and followed her entirely tried and true, definitely not brand spankin’ new rule: Do not curse until one hundo p. certain the newcomer doesn’t have a kid present. “Thanks. We run a tight ship here at Firecrackers. We’re new, and we’re already the best in the biz.” 

Jubilee knelt down to show off the baby for Lian. “This here’s Shogo. He might not look it, but he can bench two-fifty,” she joked, showing off his powerful, fat little baby arms. “Sho doesn’t reach the age requirement for the group you’d be a part of so you don’t have to worry about the competition, though.” She winked. 

job interview E. NYGMA for @babyimafirework

Edward didn't like the premise of an interview. Of course, he approved of vetting- he was one to ensure the capabilities of his employees, and even his employers of course. It was just the fact that anyone would doubt his abilities that grated on him. A disappointment that his accomplishments could even be brought into question.

Still, he had accepted- not for a lack of jobs, of course! No, not at all. It was just that this job had... caught his eye. Yes, definitely. That had to be it.

He straightened his tie (forest green, spotted) and adjusted his hat before slipping from his car, taking care to lock it behind him. A good habit, from one too many break-ins in Gotham. The building was nothing to get excited about- a gym who needed a tech contractor. Edward was good enough at that. He approached the doors, pushing his way inside with a pleasant smile transposed onto his face.

Finally, someone had answered the Craigslist ad. 

They were in the heart of Brooklyn. Okay, they were in Brooklyn. It should have been easy. She seriously shouldn’t have needed to wait a day and a half to get a response that wasn’t an automated dick pic. 

Jubilee left Shogo at the daycare for the interview. She’d even spit out her gum. This was happening and it was going to be all ready and perfect for Laura. Everything was going to go off without a fucking hitch. 

If there was one thing that Jubilee was exceedingly good at, and let her be the first to remind that she is exceedingly good at many things, it was feeling out a potential customer. Firecrackers was positively buzzing with activity when he stepped in through the sliding doors. That didn’t make one lick of difference. It was like a sixth sense. For money. 

Jubilee’s head swung around.

She gave Shogo a little bounce, waved up high at the young man, and shouted, “Over here!” before traipsing across the gym. Past the ring and the kickboxers, along the side of the balance beams, and straight through the tai chi class.

“At last.” Jubilee wiped the sweat from her brow. “Three months.” She gave a laugh that landed somewhere been exhausted and maniacal. “Three fucking months of digging hand to claw. Literally holding up the ceiling to construct additional pylons so neither of us gets motherfucking buried alive. At last, we have expanded our basement to my satisfaction,” she finished triumphantly. “And yours, I guess.” She flashed two sparkling finger guns at Laura. 

A bit of dirt crumbled down the side of the wall. 

Not a bad thing to be early, although Steve could have reminded Jubilee that if she wanted to be in someone’s good graces, especially a figure of authority, it wasn’t a good idea to put her feet onto their desk – but that would be if he cared about that kind of thing. It was different at the Mousehole, in comparison to the military’s obsession with order – something that Steve hadn’t always respected on his part, so he didn’t feel like correcting the young woman’s posture.

“Diana is the one in charge of the decoration here, but I’ll pass the suggestions over to her,” Steve replied with a hint of amusement. A tropical theme would be pushing it a bit, but it never hurt to have some color and life around. “Strong in what sense? You’re aligned with the X-Men, there’s no shortage of role models for the kid.” He raised his eyebrows, but soon relented. “I wouldn’t mind the distraction, I only worry about his safety here. I was under the impression that the Institute’s better equipped for this?”

“It’s a shared office. They could be shared ficuses. Trust me on this,” Jubilee said reassuringly, but pointedly without putting her legs down. “A splash of color never hurt anyone. If the tropics aren’t to your taste, how about some brighter furniture. Maybe a light, woven trash bin. Or paintings of horses?” She snapped her fingers. “That’s it. A well-lit oil painting of a fine chestnut stallion. I bet we could find one in Novi Grad.” 

She gave him something of a look. “Now, Steve, you know I love my people, but I’m sure you’re aware that there are some issues present regarding role models on Genosha.” Jubilee raised a brow. “Charles isn’t exactly a blessed fucking angel when it comes to ethics. Even Scott has been known to treat his women as if they were disposable hand towels. And don’t get me started on Erik.” She crossed her arms. “Hank is here.”

“Jubilee. You’re here early.” Steve tried not to sound surprised as he showed up at the door – the girl simply didn’t strike him as the type to want to sit through a boring meeting with a superior. He was arriving from his morning run, while the Mousehole residents didn’t usually think of coming to him unless strictly necessary. Still, he had indeed called for her, as she brought a… unique situation to her stay at the fortress, which should be discussed thoroughly.

“Thank you for coming, I hope I didn’t leave you waiting for too long,” he continued politely, pulling up the chair from behind his desk to sit across from Jubilee. “How’s Shogo?”

“Little bit,” Jubilee replied, putting down the magazine and holding her thumb and forefinger very close together with her free hand. “I got your memo and some part of me thought, ‘what the Hell? Better to be in the boss man’s good graces.’” Then she grinned and leaned her chair back, pulled up her legs, and plopped them on the edge of Steve’s desk. 

“Only about, er,” she checked her phone, “twenty-five minutes. But it’s nice down here. You ought to think about hiring a decorator. Maybe some tropical fish or some palm fronds to spice things up.” Jubilee waggled her eyebrows. “What do they call those fucking plants? A ficus?” Again, she grinned. “One there. One by the water cooler and one over…” Her hand slowly cast across the room. “There.” 

“Trademark that one,” Laura said through their laughter, allowing her claws to come out on the hand she kept to the side, just for that snikt sound effect. The sharp bits were gone the next time she swung towards Jubilee, in the back of her mind holding that information about Shogo – maybe she could find some store in Matchak with new picture books for him.

“So did I, firecracker,” Laura replied without pause, crouching down to avoid the kick. Everything was different, but they moved the same, her body shooting up and leaping over when the other leg came swinging in. I missed you. Trust Jubilee to make all her defenses crumble not from the fight but with that genuine sentiment. Even though she’d held her head high as that fist approached, it was the nose-pinching that made Laura scrunch up her face, playfully clicking her teeth.

“You won’t fool me as you’d fool him, you can’t take my nose away,” she remarked, then corrected herself. “Or I mean, I’m sure you could, but that’d be awfully rude, I need it to breathe.” The pretense of the fight was gone, and she threw her arms around Jubilee for a hug. “I’m glad you’re safe, you and Sho both. I missed just being us, not what someone’s telling us we should be.”

“Oh, I will. I figure once I come up with a song for Snikt-Monster,” Jubilee mimicked Laura’s claws and sliced through the air, too, “Sesame Street will have no choice but to buy you. It. You. Definitely you.” Jubilee laughed. “Someday, when we’re old and gray and Shogo is, like, three, I’ll take him to Sesame Place and there you’ll be. Slicing up fruit cups for all the kiddos. I started that as a joke, but I actually fucking love that for you.”

Jubilee’s broad smile changed to a lighter one. Smaller, yet somehow even more pleased than before. It was just too cheesy to say, Jubilee thought as she balanced Laura’s thrusts with her own paced dodges, but they were two halves of a whole. 

“Don’t worry, I won’t keep it for long,” she answered, placing the invisible ‘nose’ on Laura’s forehead just as the other woman went in for a hug. “I’m so glad you’re safe, Laura. When we were out there trying to hide from the ISA, it was the thoughts of keeping Sho alive and finding you that kept me going.” She cracked a bit more and stroked Laura’s hair. “Life is just better with you.”

“I’m telling you,” she said with a swipe, “the best kind of unicorns are the unicorns with wings.” Another swipe. “You know, so ya can fly them right to the spot where the water’s poisoned!” 

So, patrol was going about how it usually did, Jubilee decided. Pretty boring. Four nights in a row since she was the new blood and still nothing. Good to get out and be with adult company. And Steph. Steph was like the shimmering brilliant idea of one of those giant gender reveal balloons only without most of the devastating forest fire. Steph was big and loud and fun. Jubilee had taken a liking to her immediately. 

It wasn’t his fault that Jubilee was happy to wait for literally any adult company just about anywhere as long as Shogo was sleeping comfortably under a trusted babysitter’s, in this case Laura’s, watchful eye. The thing about having a baby, she was finding, was that hours upon hours spent loving and preening and playing and caring left one positively starving for both time alone and time with other non-children. Even if that meant she smiled all through a reprimand for leaving gum all over the Mousehole. 

Laura cackled at the idea of becoming a post-mortem Muppet – horrible, yes, but she knew that Jubilee’s gory descriptions would never reach the baby. They reserved their nastiness for the battlefield and their stupid banter. Laura didn’t need to think about her choice of words or try to tamper down her temper to accommodate someone’s delicate sensibilities when it was just the two of them.

The sparring was also natural, bodies moving swiftly as they played up each other’s strengths – it wasn’t a moment to exploit weaknesses, unless one of them wanted to make a point. She took turns with each arm, letting Jubilee choose when not to hit and taking the heat of the blow whenever a punch did land. Before long, her friend was sliding backwards and Laura responded in tow, rushing up to charge at the other. She dodged and rolled on the floor before they could collide, jumping up to her feet on the other side of the room and then charging all over again. It was another dance, as the music changed to We Will Rock You. 

“He loves the Muppet Babies so much. I’ve been snatching up every book on them that I can find.” She side-stepped and traced her fists past Laura’s abdomen to the beat of the music. “I know he’ll just adore an actual Snikt-Monster to play with.” Jubilee laughed and allowed her gait to become just a little goofier for the third verse.

Everything with the two of them felt like it had back in the days when things were complicated, but complicated in the sense that there was still something to be done about it. Jubilee mimicked Laura and rolled back to avoid collision, then hopped back up and had her turn to come back, like the give and take of waves hitting the shore. “You know I missed this,” she said, jumping up and over Laura with her legs splayed. “Like, I didn’t realize how much I needed this.” She landed gracefully on the ball of one foot and swung the other leg out in a kick. “Everything’s so different now… With the ISA, with the Accords…” Then she swung the landing leg. “Even with Sho. I missed this. I missed you.”   

Ah, the missing link. Hank simply waggled a hand, expressing, as succinctly as he could, the questionable state of the concept. The X-Men, on the whole, spent fewer course hours on the history of human evolution than the present state of it. As manifested in the classroom, especially. Those lessons did have to take priority. 

Ears perked to the soft sounds of that baby monitor - he couldn’t help it - Hank let Jubilee have herself a good think. And grinned, satisfied, when the answer arrived. That burst of jubilation did a great deal to convince him, actually. The link between state of mind and mutant manifestation wasn’t missing at all, and Jubilee, she was clearly shining bright. As he’d hope. Even if he couldn’t necessarily agree that their situation was, on the whole, looking especially up… the more of them there were, together again, the better. So far as he was concerned. A bit codependent, perhaps. But just a bit. And functionally. He’d like to think so, at least. 

“Oh, obviously. On all counts.” Hank’s smile only grew, warm and gentle and completely, absolutely sure Jubilee was right about that. Maybe he couldn’t, wouldn’t, promise that nothing was going to happen to her. But he could promise this much: that he, personally - a sucker for babies, since he’d sat them around Dunfee to help pay the bills - would love this child she’d decided would be hers. And, that Shogo could count on everything the X-Men had to offer: a place, people. What they’d been - imperfectly, yes, but what home, what family, was perfect, or could be, under their circumstances, as hard as they’d tried - to each other, and every new generation that came through the Mansion’s doors. 

He glanced to the baby monitor as Jubilee did, then, as she relaxed, added: “Ah. I suppose I’ll manage to wait a little longer.” Couldn’t cost little Shogo a good night’s sleep. On that subject… Hank waffled. “I suspect so. Though - well, you’ll see. Probably soon.” Probably, yes; he’d left Amarilis in one of her post-meal naps, sprawled across a bookshelf back in his room. This crepuscular period they were in was one of her times, though. She’d lurch awake soon enough, rip into the scratching tree he’d built for her, then, loudly, urgently, come looking for him. A predictable pattern. Comforting, at this point. “But, yes, yes, I’ve been well. And all over,” he sighed, frankly, cracking his neck. “There’s so much to get done. Everywhere! You’ll love this, though: you’re just in time to test run our new and improved Danger Room, here. If that’s not too terribly nostalgic.” The smirkish curl to his smile allowed for the fact that not every X remembered the Room so fondly as he did, but. He had said new and improved for a reason.

Jubilee nodded sagely. “I gotcha. I gotcha.” She didn’t, quite, but she fully intended to forget to Google it later. For the time being, the missing link would be relegated to the same status as the creature from the Black Lagoon. Or Nessie. Sort of a phantom, sort of a boogeyman. Definitely not a scientific breakthrough. 

She leaned over and walked two fingers over the table, pushing the baby monitor with it’s audio-visual receptors over to the other side and stopping before it could fall over the edge onto Hank’s shoes. Shogo was asleep on his back, his thumb in his mouth and one foot up against the crib wall. Jubilee grinned at Hank, proud to show off this first glimpse of her baby. To her and to Shogo, both of whom had spent the past several months sleeping in motels and the occasional AirBnB, things would always be looking up surrounded by loved ones and with a warm, private room to let Shogo get some shut-eye in. 

“Obviously,” Jubilee said with a mischievous grin. “I’m humbled. You’ve got a lot of faith in a big cheeky baby you’ve never met.” She sat back and mused, “He is perfect, though. Tonight was an anomaly. Sho can sleep through anything.” And he had. He’d slept right through the earthquake that had killed his family. She shook off the thought quickly as if that would make the mother’s nightmare disappear, but her face paled for a moment. “He eats just the right amount and tells me when he’s full. Once, when we were living in a van, he even managed to flirt his way out of a parking ticket.” 

“That’s a horrible toy for you to give him, he can’t even hold his own spoon yet,” Laura said evenly, as if discussing disembodied heads for children’s toys happened to be some normal conversation. It was for them, perhaps – one could call it a coping mechanism or a desensitized response to early childhood exposure to violence. “To the pain,” she echoed with a grin, the music swallowing any outside noises.

She swayed her shoulders quickly to one side then the other to escape the punches, more of a dance than a fight based on contact. As soon as Jubilee stepped back, Laura twisted around to swing her leg in an overreaching arc, aiming just above the head. She landed facing her opponent, bouncing on the balls of her feet for the show of it all. “Let’s test that strength.” She clapped her hands twice at the words, raising her forearms in front of her head for whatever kind of hit Jubilee chose next.

“But it’s a wonderful toy if I use you as a Muppet and make you talk and dance along to his music box,” Jubilee parried, also nonchalantly as though the subject were no darker than discussing the weather or the local sports team. She wouldn’t speak this way in front of the baby, of course. She rarely even cursed around him despite his extremely limited baby talk. But with Laura, all hell was allowed and expected to break loose. It was brilliant. 

As practiced a ritual as any they had, the Eye of the Tiger spar was a fight caught in time. Jubilee performed a split to dodge Laura’s swing and bounced back up for her turn in the reckoning. She wasn’t known for her physical strength, but she could keep up well enough. Especially with so much practice. Living with Laura again was going to be amazing on her biceps. And her sanity, of course. 

Jubilee launched a volley of punches at Laura’s waiting forearms. Her misses were a dance in themselves. She knew exactly where Laura would not be and aimed to avoid hitting the arms of her friend during their warm up. Laura would heal from breaking a finger before the next round. Jubilee? Jubilee would curse and whine. “Let’s test that agility.” She practically flew backwards and hopped from foot to foot waiting for Laura to come at her.