Entry tags:

cypher, shadowcat

Who: Shadowcat, Cypher
When: Thursday, August 7th, 2008
Where: Xavier's; classroom
What: Being dorks, making plans
Status: complete
Rating: PG

“When a particle’s velocity changes, the particle is said to undergo acceleration. For motion along an axis, the average acceleration over time interval delta t is,” cue a quick scribble of the formula, “where the particle has velocity v one at time one, ditto with velocity two at time two. We can combine this with the delta v over delta t formula…” Kitty continued in a moderately excited tone as she wrote notes on the whiteboard complete with formulas and graphs and diagrams. She tried to jazz up her sample problems with real-world situations, the beauty of physics, such as roller coasters or cars crashing; sometimes little stick figures rode in the cars with little happy faces, until they crashed and their eyes turned into little ‘x’es.

As she continued offering examples and problems, she tried to remember to switch colors. When she first jumped on board of helping out the science classes, Xavier gave her a teaching run-down: be excited about your material; use colors as a visual aide; keep things interesting and fun. Two out of the three were definitely not issues, but she often got carried away with whatever color marker ended up in her hand and forgot to switch. This time, it was green. After she assigned a set of problems for homework and the class dismissed, Kitty moved to the whiteboard and started erasing her notes, noticing how difficult it probably was to read her handwriting. Hopefully everyone had gotten used to it by now.

While it was initially awkward to teach students who were only two or three years younger than she was, the genius loved physics, and she loved sharing that love any way possible. Her being closer in age just allowed her students to be more comfortable with her. Not to mention she managed to stay in the loop of teenage gossip with general class chit-chat, something she thought she would have left behind on her twentieth birthday, but oh well. At least all the physics nerds didn’t rate how attractive their teacher’s smiles were – as far as she knew.

Doug bounced his leg impatiently. He knew all this crap, particle acceleration, and as entertaining as Kitty's excited motions and quirky little diagrams where, he was bored. Not even the scent of dry-erase marker that was quickly filling the room could keep him awake. In fact, that might actually be partly to blame for his drowsiness.

But Kitty was his friend, and he refused to let his forehead thunk against the desk while Kitty Pryde was teaching him. He used his fingers to pry his eyelids apart as Kitty's words began to melt together into one long string of vowels. God, he should have slept earlier last night. It was just that the Team Fortress 2 tournament had been too engaging to stop early. Oh, man, Kitty's face was starting to blur. Doug blinked several times until her pretty smile came into focus. Why was she smiling? Was she done?

He looked around a noticed the other kids already out the door. Oops. He got up quickly.

"I wasn't asleep," Doug said sheepishly, gathering his books into a small pile on his desk. "I, uh, had something in my eye."

He suddenly started to feel foolish, making excuses to someone who he'd been friends with for years. "Good lesson today, Professor." He emphasized the word "Professor", still finding it amusing that she was actually his teacher. "Great way to end the school day. What are you up to now?"

Oh, honestly. Doug was too smart to teach – now she understood why all of her teachers complained about her being in their classes. She knew he understood the material; she used to bug him about it when she was working on a physics degree, and even then he was able to follow her discussion. By this time, she had expected to have a nice, shiny diploma in her hands, but then the world fell apart. She just hoped that they won’t expect her to pay tuition for a year wherein all her teachers turned to zombies.

Glancing over her shoulder as she finished erasing the whiteboard, she saw the teenager practically falling asleep in his desk. At least he managed to stay awake for her lecture, right? Even if he wasn’t paying attention… She should have probably woken him up or at least told him to respect her, but Cypher was one of her best friends. How was she supposed to lecture him? Turning around, she leaned against the whiteboard, folded her arms and smiled; once he came back to Earth, she laughed.

“Ugh, professor,” she groaned, still keeping the smile on her face, adding, “How awkward.” Turning around, she dropped the eraser onto the shelf and moved to her desk, gathering up the few things she had laying around into a tote bag. “Well, I guess nothing really,” she shrugged, grabbing her empty thermos. “Prom’s in a few days, so I might try to find some cute shoes. I’ll probably have to steal them from Jubes.”


Doug picked his books up and tried not to make it obvious that they were heavier than expected. He faltered for a moment before adjusting his grip and making his way up to the whiteboard where Kitty was. At her mention of shoes, he made a face. At her mention of prom, his face twisted even more and he groaned in mock disgust.

"Shoes. Prom. I can't believe you're into that stuff," Doug said, sighing loudly in pretend exasperation. "Sure you don't want to just forget the whole thing?"

He was mostly kidding about that. Prom too big of a girl thing for Kitty to pass up, even if she was one of the cooler specimens of her female species. Still, he wouldn't have minded some company and help building the computer he was working on for his mom. Or a new team member for the Team Fortress tournament he was setting up online. They needed a player for the Pyro class. Speaking of..his eyes narrowed. He'd heard some rumors, but hadn't gotten a definite answer from Kitty yet.

"Who're you going with again?" he asked, mentally willing himself to not get too overprotective of his friend. Allerdyce never ceased to leave a bad taste in his mouth. Possibly because he had the tendency to be a pompous, arrogant douche on occasion. "Those shoes of Jube's, are they gonna have to be flame retardant?"


Kitty kept an eye up as she made room for her thermos in her tote bag, weighing his reaction to her mention of prom. She knew how he felt about John; when he left, and after the attack on Alcatraz, she relayed to Cypher what she saw. Wolverine, Colossus, Beast, all of the people she trusted and admired left bodies on the ground – limbs were even literally scattered around Logan. She still doesn’t really know how she felt about that. After she told him about Pyro standing next to Magneto, his reaction was almost stereotypical for a young, idealistic X-Man-in-training. It had been her initial reaction, too. Disbelief. Then anger. Kitty had never really gone into the anger phase, but the majority of her close friends had.

“Haven’t I told you already? I could have sworn I have,” Pryde wondered, straightening up from her bag and putting a hand on her hip. After he spoke again, she laughed, shaking her head. “He heard that good dancers set their feet on fire, and you know how he’s always so literal,” she said sarcastically, adding in a curious tone, “I think I could phase through it, actually. I’ve never tried to phase through fire.” That was probably poetic in some way, but she was never good at metaphors.

"Right..." Doug said uneasily, still wondering why of all people, it had to be Allerdyce. "Well, you'll be missing out on some quality being a bum and eating lots of Doritos time!"

He watched as Kitty rummaged around in her big bag, talking fondly about Pyro's dancing skills. Doug highly doubted that the guy could pull off more than a jerky two-step, but he kept that to himself. Also, it wasn't like he could do much better with his two left feet.

"Sounds like he's a better dancer than I am. I dance like a one-legged lumberjack. A blind one. With tree branches for arms." He stiffened his arms and waved them around in demonstration, grinning. "I know what you're thinking. Play that funky music, white boy."

Doug blinked, alarmed at the thought of someone trying to phase through fire. "You think? Fire's energy, isn't it? I don't know that there's matter in there to phase through." He was firmly against her trying it, but tried to think of a way to say that while sounding cool and not like a scaredy-cat dweeb at the same time. "Yeah, uh, you probably shouldn't."

Okay, he'd tried, but one couldn't deny who they are, could they? "Have you tried water yet? That could be cool. Or some other liquid. If you stick your foot through a toilet, does it get wet?"

The uneasy, drifting tone sent Kitty's eyes straight to Doug's; instantly, she felt guilty that she should have told him the story first. She had thought that he wouldn't have been interested. After all, he hadn't asked her to go. Prom, she guessed, was not Doug's thing. "I think I can survive," she said, teasingly, "Plus, I need a break. A night of dancing. We've deserved it." In theory, the event should be pure fun and frivolity; in practice, she expected some drama. Hopefully it wouldn't involve her.

Laughing as Doug danced in front of her, she added, "A deaf one. Whose hair is on fire." She could have offered to show him a few moves, maybe just dance with him, but she doubted he was as terrible as he made himself out to be. And it wasn't as if everyone in the mansion needed to be an expert dancer, especially if they had no desire to even attend a dance.

Hmm. "Oxidation, yeah," she added, thinking that if she only thought of flames and gas around the burning materials, she would definitely be able to pass through; she wouldn't even need to phase, just like that game of holding your hand over a flame, or moving through it really quickly. But could she stay there? Would the temperature affect her? Or maybe the lack of oxygen? She could hold her breath. Heat travelled at an atomic level through moving or vibrating atoms transfering the energy; maybe she could stop her atoms from being affected. She controlled them, after all. Subconsciously chewing on her bottom lip, she continued to consider phasing through fire until Doug brought up another question.

"No, of course not. I work atomically. It's not like I'm picking up liquid atoms as I go," she explained, an eyebrow quirking. She thought he understood how her power worked, but maybe he hadn't demystified it yet. It really got significantly cooler when physics was involved. Continuing, she said, "I've phased through bottled water on shelves and even jugs of them, but I haven't consciously tried to pass through water. It doesn't seem like it would be as cool as fire," which, at this point, was going to bug her until she figured it out. Even if Doug thought she shouldn't, she might just have to try, even just with a cheap plastic lighter - at first.


Doug suddenly felt a little guilty. Kitty was a pretty good judge of character, and if she said Flame Boy was a decent person, then maybe he was. Maybe. She was right about one thing, though. She and the others definitely deserved their prom. "Yeah, you guys earned yourselves some fun. It should be a good stress-free time. Unless the small army of a mad mutant-hating scientist breaks into the school trying to kidnap us all, or something. But really, how likely is that to ever happen?" He winked, hoping she found it funny and not an ominous prediction of what was more likely to happen than one would hope..

"Hey, you're not supposed to agree with me! Thanks a lot," he smirked. "But uh, I do a mean Robot? I was C3PO for halloween when I was ten." The truth was, even if he were a fair dancer, he wouldn't bother going to something as fluffy and poufy as a prom. The idea of it seemed to be nothing more than a popularity show, who had the best looking date, who had the nicest dress, blah, blah. Having never been the popular, good-looking kid surrounded by friends and groupies, he never quite understood all the fuss. And shaking what his mother gave him didn't interest him in the slightest. He'd much rather plant what his mother gave him in a chair and shoot some aliens. Same level of fun to be had, but with none of the trivial preparation.

Doug could already see the wheels turning in Kitty's head as she pondered her ability to phase fire. Judging by the thoughtful look on her face, something told him that he'd just opened Pandora's box and Kitty wasn't going to rest until she tried it. Her eyebrow quirked and he knew she was gone, in full physics experiment-mode. There was no shutting that off.

"Oh boy..." he muttered, throwing his hands up in defeat and eyeing the fire extinguisher in the corner of the room. He'd never used one before, but they came with instructions. Simple instructions, in three different languages that Doug could understand, in case one was more clear than the other. "Okay, fine. Do it. But remember - Stop, Drop, and Roll."

Stress-free? She doubted that. John had been pretty funny when they were alone, and she accepted his offer because he seemed like the kind of guy who kept her on her toes and wouldn't delve into anything deep (like why he left), but really, she was unsure how Bobby would react. She didn't think that he would be upset or jealous or anything, since their romantic relationship had been such a dud, and he probably had enough time to cool off after the brawl. Still, though. She could never be sure. With a smile, she spoke closely enough to Doug's words that she might have cut him off, "Again? Lightning never strikes twice, but there are some weird guys out there. I think someone's making them all, because really, where do they all come from?" Especially Magneto. Him and that weird swirling thing Rogue powered. Who thinks of that stuff?

Raising her eyebrows, she laughed and said excitedly, "Really? I can so see that." Stiffening her upper body, she raised her arms to a ninety-degree angle at her side and said in a mock-English accent, "Hello, I'm Cypher, human-nerd relations. I'm fluent in over six million forms of communication." Laughing, she dropped her act and said in between her giggles, "That's a match made in heaven." An arm reaching across her stomach to rub at her other, her smile faded and she said, "But honestly, I can come hang out with you after prom if you'd like. Gossip and play Quake or something."

Doug had a good point - what would happen if she actually couldn't arrange her atoms properly and she ended up burning off her skin? There were probably more doctors than not at the mansion, and she knew Joe could heal anything she could do to herself. "Maybe I'd have Pyro set me on fire," she shrugged. "He could stop it before it got bad." If it got bad at all. Geeze, how come she hadn't asked Xavier about this before? They both figured out how she would be able to phase people into things instead of getting their legs chopped off if she left them in the middle of the floor, but why not this? It seemed obvious.

Kitty spoke abruptly, and Doug decided that thinking up ways that prom could go to hell in a hand basket probably wasn't the most cheerful thing to talk about. He tried to discreetly steer away from that topic. "Hell if I know. Maybe there's an academy? Like our school, except all the little douche bags go there to learn how to grow up and be big evil douche bags. But okay, I promise you this: if anyone invades the school, I'll hold them off until the last dance." He flexed his skinny arm. Powerfully, of course. "Other than that, what else could go wrong?"

Unless, of course, the problem didn't come from the outside. There was plenty of drama going right there inside the school, as would be expected from a building packed full of young people with their hormones or whatever. Just off the top of his head, Doug could name half a dozen fights that could breakout, including another possible showdown between Mr. Fire and Mr. Ice. That would be devastating for Kitty, of course, but he couldn't help but wish juuuust a little that he could see something like that. He was annoyed that he'd missed their fight at Alcatraz, because that sounded epic. And it went without mentioning that he was totally pulling for Team Bobby. The rumors of him going into total ice mode and PWNING Pyro in the face? Sweeeeeet.

Doug laughed at Kitty's parody and leaned forward rhythmically, swinging his arm expertly at the elbow. "Domo arigato, Mister Roboto," he sang. "Muchas gracias, Senor Roboto. Danke schon, Herr Roboto. Puno hvala, Gospodin Roboto...yeah human-nerd relations sounds about right."

He shrugged, still smiling. "You don't have to if you'd rather hang out with the other prom-goers. But hey, I'll have an extra can of Sprite and a large pepperoni pizza anyway. I might be inclined to share with you." It was probably not likely, since he'd seen all the TV shows. Wasn't there usually an after-party or something following proms? Those were considerably less stuffy and frilly than the actual prom, but Doug still would probably opt out. Social situations just made him even more awkward.

"I guess that's what you'd call a 'hot date'. Eh? Get it? Hot da...okay yeah sorry I'll never joke again ever," Doug grinned sheepishly. "But look, pure fire? Atoms? Are you trying to start up that fight we had again about the photon nature of light energy? Because I've had nerdy conversations in my day, but that one pretty much tops the list. It's even higher than when I disagreed with my 8th grade science teacher about time travel."

He sighed. "But okay, if you absolutely must have your boyfriend light you on fire, please have a fire extinguisher around? Or something?" Maybe he'd get Professor to supervise. Or at least Bobby.

She would definitely not be surprised if there were Douche Bag U somewhere creating all of these people to hate mutants. From all of the civil rights milestones in the history of the world, why couldn’t people just look and see – oh, hey, maybe we shouldn’t discriminate anymore. It seemed to Kitty that people looked for things to hate about each other: race, sex, hair color, even DNA, something that they couldn’t see on the surface at all. Sure, she looked “normal” enough to pass as a human, whatever normal meant, so she hadn’t experienced very much discrimination first-hand. She heard stories, though, and found herself even unnerved by some physical mutations.

Pushing her thoughts away from the serious, she smiled and said in a bright tone, “Oh, nothing, of course! People are generally pretty cool with other people dating their exes,” it became clear she was being sarcastic, “and people older than them, in the Brotherhood, or just, well, related to them directly!” Yes, nearly everyone had heard about the latest OMG DRAMA in the X-Family Household. Besides the obvious reaction of, ‘Isn’t that illegal?’, the incident provided a ridiculous amount of joke fodder.

Sprite and pizza! What could be wrong in the world when one is surrounded by soda and junk food? Teasing, Kitty questioned, “Oh, you might be inclined to share? You won’t share with me simply to enjoy my company and witty jokes?” Not-so-witty jokes. “I’m hurt, Doug. I’m hurt.” Putting a hand over her heart, she held a feigned look of pain, until she laughed and said, “Yeah, I’m not sure what time the whole prom deal is over, but I’ll come harass you whenever it is. If I have to drag you out of bed and shove a controller in your hands, I will.” Not that he didn’t go to bed at a ridiculous hour. She would have to party until dawn in order to wake him up afterwards. Even then, it was not a guarantee.

“Wow,” Kitty exclaimed, shaking her head at his terrible pun, smiling nonetheless, “Wow, that was painful.” Hot date though. That was kind of clever. She would bet that John’s heard them all; she’s heard all of the “Bobby, you’re so cool,” ones, and even she was sick of them. Remembering their nerdy argument, she laughed. “That conversation was epic. I still don’t agree with you though. And look, I’m your teacher, so you can’t argue with me unless you want to fail,” she said in mock seriousness. Laughing, she added, “I tend to attract nerdy conversations though, honestly. I geek out at least once every few days.” Her and Doug’s, though? Definitely topped her list, too.

Immediately, she retorted, “He’s not my boyfriend,” almost out of instinct. She had dated teammates before, and it was something she didn’t plan on happening again. “I mean, we’re just going to a dance.” Both of them started out as her friends, too, and just evolved into something – sometimes just because the opportunity rose. “It’s not like it’s that serious or anything.” John hadn’t really been her friend at all before recently. “I doubt he’ll even get a corsage.” She didn’t want what happened with Bobby to happen with John – both of them just kind of drift into ‘togetherness’ because there’s no one else, and then someone snap out when someone else better comes along. Not that she expected anything to happen with John. Geeze.

Doug blushed slightly at Kitty's sarcasm. Apparently he wasn't the only one to notice the glaringly obvious. Still, at least she knew what to expect. And hopefully, she knew that she couldn't blame anyone for the way they felt about Allerdyce. He'd look out for anyone cracking on Kitty, though. She hadn't done anything wrong, except befriend Douche Bag U's latest graduate, and he supposed condemning people for being friendly was fairly stupid.

"I know it'll be fine. Your prom will be awesome," he lied finally, knowing no such thing but figuring it might make her feel better. If it didn't, and everything sucked, well, he wasn't kidding about having soda and pizza waiting.

Doug shrugged. "I don't hang out with you for your company and witty jokes. I do it in spite of that! But okay, you know that it's every kid's dream to have their pushy high school physics teacher barge in and eat their food. I'm in." He grinned, glad that they would have time to hang out. Two years never seemed like a large age difference when they were both in school, but now it seemed like Kitty was so much older. Plus with everything that had gone on lately, he had worried that everyone, not just he and Kitty, was starting to drift apart. New feuds were cropping up, old ones were being reignited, and who knew what the Brotherhood and whoever else still had up their sleeves.

He snorted. "Once every few days? If by that you mean every three seconds or so then yeah, true story."

Kitty quickly went on the defensive at his mention of Pyro being her boyfriend. He'd inadvertently struck a nerve, it seemed. Doug hadn't even realized he'd called him that. Maybe he was just so quick to assume it because Kitty was so comfortable talking about dating the guy herself. It was kind of nauseating to think about, though, him getting so comfortable with Kitty and Pyro that it just rolled off the tongue like that. He shuddered. Ewww.

"You don't need a corsage," Doug said. "You'll look awesome in your new shoes. Or, uh, Jube's shoes. Either way, You'll look great." Even with Pyro on your arm.

As she gathered up homework papers and tapped them on the desk, her gaze rose subconsciously to the clock on the far wall. She had asked Jubilee to meet her after class, and if she kept up giggling with Cypher, she would probably miss her opportunity to raid the shopper’s closet. Straightening up, she slipped the homework into a folder and quickly shoved it into her bag. “Thanks, Doug,” she said honestly, giving him her best genuine smile. “For sure I’ll meet you afterwards. I’ll probably change first though, because honestly, I have no idea how long I can stand being paranoid about staining my dress.”

Leaning over the desk, she half-hugged him with one arm and said, “I promised Jubilee I’d meet her in a few minutes, so I’d better run.” Pulling her bag over her shoulder, she smiled again, offering a quick, “See you around,” before stepping back, through the wall behind her to make a beeline for Jubilee’s room.