Summary:Cookout gathering at the Boathouse, conversation and beer and food Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
       |
Evening has come to the mansion, and fall is slowly and steadily arriving. The air is cool, there's that musty-sweet scent of leaves that are turning. Summer is definitely gone, but Winter has yet to make itself known.
Rogue had convinced Remy over the summer to do some digging, and between digging, some bricks and some benches she'd bought cheap and refinished, there is a nice little spot for fires and fun. Tonight seems a perfect night for it, and the belle sends out a text to invite people over. She's got the fire started, slowly building, and there's a cooler with beers and sodas and the like, and a smaller one with hot dogs, s'mores fixings, and then there's always chips and things.
She lays the metal and wooden sticks for putting things into and over the fire with next to the cooler to make sure they are in the grass. She's sitting on a bench near the fire, the flames lighting her face and pulling out the red in her hair. She's in a long sleeved t-shirt and jeans with her favorite beat up boots.
Warren's arrival is heralded by the loud thump of his wings opening out of a dive, then wildly backwinging to slow him for his landing. He jogs a few steps, eating up the last of his momentum before he finally comes to a halt. He's in street clothes at the moment, which for him involves a pair of dark slacks and a shirt that has been tailored to accomodate his wings. The Worthington family tailor definitely knows all the family secrets.
Logan hikes, of course, more than comfortable walking in the forest on his own. He thought about catching something and bringing it along to cook, but he figures some of the others might be a little squeamish about havin' him skin and cook a critter right over the campfire. These were definitely turkey sandwich and potato salad people.
He has a cowboy hat on, tucked down a bit over his face, and a match between his teeth, anticipating the cigar that's sure to come soon. Bomber jacket, flannel, the usual gear. "Even at a cookout, you look like a friggin' accountant," he snorts to Warren good-naturedly, takin' a squat next to the cooler and pulling out a beer.
Hank is actually rather happy to get together with folks, and he's looking forward to their reactions when they see him. He's dressed in a black t-shirt, written across his formidable expanse of chest in a dark green font reminiscent of an 80's computer screen 'There's 10 types of people in the world; those who understand binary, and those who don't'. As well he's in khaki shorts and that's it. Now this is hardly unusual attire for The Beast, but what IS notable as that he is furless, no claws, no pelt. Only those who've been at Xavier's for a long time, first class, will recognize him right off. For the rest he's got tousled brown hair, his eyes are unchanged, and his build is just as simian as ever.
He's also carrying a pair of covered plastic trays, one with meats, crackers and cheeses, the other a vegie tray with dip.
"Hello everyone." His voice? Yup, still Hank.
Scott had just gotten back from a grocery run and restacked the pantries with food for the ravenous students! But when he walked outside, Scott smelled such a wonderful smell of cooking food. "Remy and Rogue must be at it again." he mumbles to himself as he adjusts his Ruby Quartz Sunglasses. He currently wears a leather jacket with a gray shirt and dark blue pants. Some nice outdoor shoes as well, because these days as a mutant, you never know when you're gonna have to run.
So, following somewhat close behind Hank is Cyclops himself. "Hey team. How are we doing today?" He looks at Logan, catching his words. "And you look like a cowboy from a crappy western." Scott takes a firm jab at Logan as he was wont to do.
But then he smirks. "Pass me one, will ya Logan? You can pay me back for the comment later."
Because oh yes…this was adults time. Beer-o'-clock!
"How is everybody doing? Staying fresh?"
Her head turns at the sound of Warren, a smile across her firelit features before she's laughing at Logan. "Decided to grace the mansion with your presence, did you?" The belle asks the Canadian, as she rotates her hot dog over the flames.
She's examining said hot dog, when Hank's voice floats over. "Heya, Ha…Hank?" Rogue blinks, eyes wide. "Is this… another Hetty experiment thing?" She's on her feet. "Aww, you didn't have to bring nothin'. You're sweet, though."
Rogue turns her head to narrow her eyes at Scott. "No swipin' at each other tonight. Mean it. We're here to relax." Not that she expects that to stop them.
Warren's eyes widen at the sight of the de-furred Hank. Hank! You're… you. I mean, old you. At the risk of an answer I can't understand, how'd this happen?" He walks over to Hank as he talks, and moves to take one of the trays the Beast is balancing, just to assist.
Logan regards Hank with a curious eye, "Huh." he says. He can recognize Hank by scent, of course, even if his underlying scent has changed a bit with his alteration. "Ain't sure I like it, but you do you, bub," he says, slapping Hank on the shoulder as he cracks the top on his beer.
He regards Rogue innocently, "Me? Swipe at somebody? Ain't never happened. I'm the picture o' manners and hospitality."
Hank grins at Rogue. "Not at all, dear girl, this version is a Success and working as intended. A few weeks — possibly longer — to be sure the serum is stable, then I'll see about implementing the changes permanently." He does hand over the trays, Rogue should know by now that he never comes to a gathering like this empty handed.
A smile to Warren would reveal he still has his fangs. "Short version - I wanted my old face back, so I have been working on that, et voila - present form." He knows better than to do the whole scientific explanation for folks, just the basics.
And then a grin to the Wolverine. "You know, you're not the first person to say so, Logan. I find it curious." A chuckle at the manners comment and the oh so sincere innocence.
Gambit appears alongside the lake, walking along it wearing his leather trench coat and wearing a dark maroon colored beanie wool knit cap on his head, some black jeans and a black shirt on beneath his long coat.
In his arms is a brightly colored blue and orange NERF repeater rifle and as he walks he sings a little song and pumps the rifle, then fires a pair of NERF rounds up into the air that are lit up in bright pinkish magenta color that individual explode with a snap and crackle of his mutation-influenced power. His finger is curled up inside of the plastic rifle, igniting the rounds just as he fires them off whilst walking along, singing his little tune, drawing ever-closer to his friend at this little gathering.
Scott looks at Rogue with a bit of innocence as he gets his own beer, since Logan didn't pass him one (bromance over *___*). "I've no idea what you mean." he smirks at her before he pops open the beer and takes a drag from it. Though not an aloholic by any means, even Scott can relax.
But then he -actually- notices Beast.
"….Hank." Scott says, apparently looking almost weirded out by the difference. "Nice look." Is all Scott can say because the science would just trip him out. "One of these days, when I'm better at science, I'll ask you how you pulled it off."
Then Gambit finally arrives. Though he seems to be blowing up his own nerf bullets, Scott takes aim at the last one, taking off his glasses and briefly opening his eyes to sharp-shoot a nerf bullet that was about to be Gambited with an optic blast. Because yeah, even Scott has t oshow off too. Putting his shades back on, Scott grins. "Hey Remy. Come on down and pick a spot."
Rogue will smile at Hank brightly. "If it makes you happy, it makes me happy for you, Hank." She means it completely. Then she's looking between Logan and Scott. "Right. Y'all, I might have been born at night, but it wasn't /last/ night."
There's a shake of her head, before she's looking at Remy goofing off, but she can't help but smile at the Cajun as she grabs a beer of her own.
Warren grabs himself a beer as he sets down the tray he took from Hank. The first exploding Nerf dart makes Warren jump a bit, but once he realizes what's going on he relaxes and laughs a bit as he takes the first drink from his eeer. He comments, "One thing we're never short on around here is fireworks.
Jean had a training session earlier in the day, which has kept her busy. She's been talking about asking the Professor to remove some of the blocks on her telepathy for a while, but none of that is going to happen until he's certain that she can handle it. Which means a lot of training time. She has some catching up to do after leaving for college, after all.
She squints a bit as she steps outside, raising a hand to shade her eyes, then waves to the gathered group. "Hey, guys," she grins as she reaches them, laughing as the darts explode overhead. "I see it's business as usual around here."
"It is hard to get used to my old face again, I know. I wake each morning prepared to deal with fur and claws when I get ready and I still blink at the sight." This to Scott, then to Rogue. "We'll see how it goes. I /have/ gotten used to being fuzzy. As it stands if I don't like being the old me, I can always let the serum revert, and then not do another. Part of why I want to trial run for a bit."
He laughs at the explody, and then Scott's version. "I feel so mundane, when /I/ explode things it involves chemical agents or tech."
A smile of welcome for Jean, though…he's not fuzzy anymore, and not wearing an image inducer. "Hello Jeanie, beer or soda?"
Gambit lowers his plastic NERF rifle down after Scott blasts that last foam energy-injected dart out of the sky before it can burst into that shower of purple and pink sparks that he'd charged it up to do. "Fair play, fair play." He tells the X-Men's esteemed leader with a grin whilst he jogs the rest of the way over to join them.
Sitting down then, Remy chooses a spot beside the Belle and he leans over to give the side of her head a kiss, then he steals her drink for a sip from it. He sets the NERF rifle down, then steadies it so it doesn't fall over. "Oop, don't you go no where, yeah? You gonna be on our next mission with me, Gambit Gun." He tells the rifle, talking to rifles is normal right?
Remy takes a sip of the drink Rogue had then offers it back to her with a grin. His eyes go over to the others. "No chemical explosions, Hanky, I beg of you." Gambit says with a big grin.
One can almost see the gears turning in Hank's head. "So…tech-splody is okay, good….gooooooooood." And he even finger taps those thick fingers of his in true Palpatine fashion.
Logan lights his cigar, sitting a little separated just because he's not crazy about explosions. THey're a little rough on the old ears. He nurses at his beer, raising his bottle ing reeting to Jean as she joins, hunkered down a bit as he listens to the palaver rolling back and forth between the old friends.
Rogue shakes her head, though she leans into the Cajun. "Good job, Rem. You're giving him ideas." She teases, before she's pulling her hot dog off her skewer stick, and offering the Cajun the first bite. "Decided to join me after I got it all out here, huh?"
Scott turns his head right on over to Jean when she arrives. "Hey Jean. Come on over." He'd greet her with a kiss. "How was your training?" Then of course, there's Gambit showin' respect where its due. "Good to see you, Remy. See you're still blowing stuff up as usual. Maybe you could show Hank the ropes?"
He teases, surely.
But then he looks over at Logan as he starts smoking, then to Hank. "Well, maybe the serum has a time limit on the repressed phenotypes that your mutation caused? I'm just gonna…well, gonna have to get used to it. But I'm glad you finally got it working for you Hank."
"Now there's a handsome face I haven't seen in a while," Jean arches a brow at Hank when he turns around, slipping an arm around Scott's waist and tipping her chin up for the kiss. "I always knew you'd figure it out eventually. If you decided you wanted to," she adds with a crooked smile.
At Scott's question, she grumbles a little bit, squinting and resting her brow against his shoulder for a moment. "I've got a headache," she admits. "But. If you're not sore after exercising, you're not doing it right, right? Or something? If I'm wrong, just let me believe it. I'll feel better about it."
She takes a soda from Hank, raising the bottle to Logan and then to the others before taking a drink. "Maybe caffeine will help."
Warren takes a long pull from his beer and looks oddly at Jean for a moment as something comes to mind, but he decides in the end that it's not the moment to bring up what's on his mind. He spends a few moments just watching the others interact and smiling at it. It's good to be with friends.
"Or ibuprophen." Hank quips to Jean, and half bows to the handsome comment.
Hank snorts at Scott's comment. "Oh, I'm sure Remy could show me a thing or three about explody." He allows. It IS the Cajun's power after all. "And the serum is derived from the original one that caused my mutation." He smiles. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jeanie, I was pretty well stuck until recently."
A beer is produced for and opened as he hands it to Remy so he doesn't have to keep stealing Rogue's, though, being Remy that might make no difference!
Warren's hesitation is noted with a quirked brow, however.
Gambit looks to Rogue with a sly grin and then points a finger toward Hank. "He an idea man, he already got them ideas, I swear it, Boo." He says back to her then before his gaze goes to the others. He centers his stare on Logan first. He slowly grins at him. "'ey there, Wolverine." He starts at the Canadian like he has a terrible idea inside his head or some such. "How the claws? They sharp'n'good still? Not rustin' with age, no?"
Scott's question draws Remy's stare off of Logan though and he nods once toward the X-Men Boss. "Blowin' stuff up is a way'a life, Slim. You know that. You got the same kinda desire t'blast stuff that I do, you just don't let it go quite as freely. Should think about it though… it mighty fun t'blow off steam." Remy reaches over then to pat his NERF rifle. "Check it." He states then as he opens up his leather trench coat for all to see…
Inside his coat he has a bunch of custom sewn-in pockets that are filled with boxes of NERF dart refills. "I'm loaded up, ready t'go for our next big battle."
Gambit then accepts the beer from Hank. "Why thank you, Baby Blue." And he goes on to slurp it through the foamy cover top.
Logan looks levelly at Remy, "Ain't a bit o' rust on me, bub. Not on my claws, not anywhere. Don't you worry, jambalaya, I still got what it takes where it counts," he says.
"I gotta admit, I don't really understand a damn bit o' the gibberish you just said. Figure Hank's the science boy, he wants to take the risk o' playin' havoc with his body, that's his business. Good luck to it. When the dames who like hairy guys come callin', I got one less piece o' competition," he winks.
"Be a problem if there were rust. Means the air is gettin' in." Rogue will tease, glancing at Logan with a smile before she bites into her hot dog. There are buns and condiments, but she apparently wants it naked. "Well, winter /is/ coming.." She will pretend to eye Logan with interest.
Scott smirks at Jean as she gets a soda from Hank. "Probably will. Though I think the words you're looking for is 'No pain, no gain'." He wraps an arm around Jean's shoulders and looks over at Warren as he seems to take his leave. Though to Gambit, he smirks. "Good. Though I don't actually like blowing stuff up…just sometimes things need to get blown up. Like Sentinels, for example."
Prime eXample, really. He does look over at Logan though as he speaks. "Good. Because we're still going to run you through the highest difficulty setting." Oh yes. Danger Room. Is he serious? Well, Logan can pretty much survive anything so…probably.
Hank gets a bit of a smirk. "Well, thats fair."
"Yes, Hank has now succesfully removed the one thing you two had in common," Jean smirks over at Logan, taking a drink. "Now the ladies are sure to come rolling in." She chuckles, taking another sip with a wry smile for Hank. "If you happen to have ibuprofen with your cookout supplies, I won't turn it down. But honestly I'm not sure it isn't psychosomatic. Literally."
As the others depart, she gives Scott's waist a squeeze then moves to claim a hot dog for herself. "Ugh, Sentinels," she wrinkles her nose. "Although they're at least less ethically complicated than other things. Squishing a giant mutant-killing robot is pretty guilt-free."
Rogue finishes her hot dog, before she's moving to poke around in the food stuffs some more. She reaches down, plucking up a little black nylon bag with a red cross on the front. "Heads up, Jean." She will toss the little first aid kit over the fire towards Jean. "Should be your preference of NSAIDS in there."
Logan throws a wink in Rogue's direction, "Important to keep warm," he says, blowing some smoke for his cigar. "Hank's allowed to do as he pleases. I hope you got explanations for the kiddies, though. Some of the less human lookin' ones might feel a little funky about their favorite teacher gettin' a makeover," he says.
"You set your room however you like, one eye. I'll put down anythin' you throw at me," he says. "I'd rather not do the robots again, though. I've had enough o' that in my time."
"I can come up with a danger room scenario sometime, something with max difficulty and few safeties engaged if people would like. It can get dangerous, of course." Hank offers perhaps a bit dubiously, even so, he's willing to if asked. "And yes, Sentinels need to get blown up." He grins at Logan. "And I've been doing a lot more with Hard Light constructs, so we can avoid straight up robots if you like."
He gets up and grabs a burger for himself, well, two…with cheese and all the fixins and then re-beers himself. "Thanks for the invite, Rogue, as always southern hospitality is legend." That said he sits down and snags some vegies from the vegie tray to have with his burgers.
"Good. Maybe then we can work up a sweat, huh?" Scott seems to be in full agreement to Hank. "With the most recent model of Sentinels please. If they start running them through the woodwork again, we need to know the worst of what we can face off at the moment." Scott shrugs then, looking to Jean and nodding to her when she goes off to get herself a hot dog.
To Logan, Scott smirks just a bit. "Figure its either that, Purifiers, or mutants we know are or were part of the Brotherhood who we've analyzed enough to put in the Room. Juggernaut strike your fancy?"
Scott isn't eating anything yet. He's just sipping occasionally on the beer.
With a soda in one hand and a hot dog in the other, Jean catches the tossed bag with a neat telekinetic grab. "Rogue, you are my hero," she grins at the other woman. She sets her soda down long enough to retrieve a few ibuprofen, tossing them back, then settles into one of the lounge chairs, getting comfortable.
Logan's comment about Hank's change does give her a moment's pause. It's one of those complicated parts of being a mutant, especially one of the earlier students. "It's…probably for the best for them to have different examples," she muses. "If nothing else, it might push them to think about how they think about their mutations."
Logan shrugs, "Can't always help who people are gonna pick to be their hero," he says. "I don't do much of the teachin', though. I just make sure they can run laps and do jumpin' jacks."
He finishes his beer, going to get another and sighing, "Don't mean to seem unhappy for ya, pal. Just an old man thinkin' old man thoughts."
"I'll work something up, Scott, no problem." Hank adds the DR scenario requested to his to do list. Hank does eat with relish, but also with exquisite manners, even outside. Just because his moniker is Beast doesn't mean he has to act like one!
He grins as Jeanie takes her meds, and then with the combo of her look and Logan's follow up comment Hank frowns. "I am not sure what to say to that. I tried for months to revert the changes when they happed a couple years ago, dead ended, but then new avenues opened up based on research and work I was doing as a contractor with SHIELD, so I went back to it. And with a few bumps, succeeded." He finishes his beer, snags a second with his foot and then flips it up to a hand to open it. "But you're not the first to mention it, Logan, or have concerns, Jean."
"Much appreciated, Hank." Scottl ifts his drink to him before he looks over at Logan and Jean as they express their concerns. Scott kinda goes quiet though about it. At least Hank can manage his mutation with science. Scott is pretty much screwed however way you look at it. Shades come off, eyeball lasers come on.
He smirks though when Hank explains what led to his renewed hope and eventually success.
"I'm happy if you're happy, Hank," Jean assures with a small smile. "Logan's right to think about it, but like I said, I think it's probably good for them to think about it now, when they're here, with people to talk to about it, than once they're out in the world where things are…more complicated. Maybe it will help keep some of them from being taken advantage of by people offering things they may or may not be able to follow through on." She glances to Scott as she says it, all too familiar with his feelings on the matter.
Hank sighs very faintly and then rises. "It has given me something worth thinking about, however." He cleans up after himself, and then smiles to all assembled. "I actually do have to do some more bloodwork to make sure the serum is stable." A gallant bow to Jean and to Rogue, and a thump to the shoulders of Scott and Logan. "Good night my friends, I will work on that DR scenario after. Should be ready in the next day or so." And with that it is a very thoughtful Beast he exits.