[OPEN] X-Mansion clean-up

[agoddessonce]

WHO: Storm and you!
WHEN: Late May-Early June
WHERE: Xavier Institute for Mutant Education and Outreach
WHAT: Come bother a lonely goddess in a blast from the past mansion!
NOTES\WARNINGS: N/A for now, but this is the X-Men - discussion of death, bigotry, and discrimination likely.

A new building has popped up in Etraya - easily visible from the Hospital and Apartment Complex on the main island. Ororo spends a few days flying back and forth from the main island and to the Institute, investigating its exterior and interior, before finally just taking one of the bedrooms in the main mansion.



⏵ i. indoors;

The gate and the doors are, actually, left unlocked for now. Ororo is alone, and isn't too worried about security just yet - it was just her in this large, lonely mansion and she could take on anyone who might feel like trespassing -- not that there was anyone like that here, she'd found. She can imagine people like Scott or Logan or even Hank berating her for being careless anyway, but... she isn't worried. She's more concerned about how much of the institute is even real - and thus, how safe everything actually is.

So, she goes through the entire building one room at a time - testing light switches, checking stoves or microwaves, looking through the computers in the old staff offices (they switch on, but there's nothing saved in them), turning beds so she can offer them to people who might be sick of the apartments... It's a large place, so this takes her a couple of days. It won't be hard to run into her walking through the halls with a little clipboard and a pen -- she'd had a brief moment of missing the modern conveniences of Henry and Forge's tablets -- and a smile for anyone who'd wandered in after her.

"Hello. Come to help me investigate?"

However, if she sees anyone approaching the main elevator, she calls out instead in a sharp warning -- "The sub-levels are restricted. If you'd like to go there, you'll need me to key in some biometrics to access them."

⏵ ii. pool;

The Olympic-size pool is easily seen from surrounding islands. It's dry and empty when Ororo first discovers the Institute, and not yet very clean. She considers putting up a message on the network to ask for help, but... perhaps that'd be better suited for when the pool is actually usable, instead?

So when she's done poking through the inside of the mansion, she figures it's time for a more mundane use of her powers. She blasts the tiles with wind and water to wash away any grime or dirt left between the crevices. Filling it up with clean water later was no trouble at all either, with a convenient cloud of fresh rain.

Maybe she should work on clearing out spaces for some tables and chairs next? But that'll involve more hands than she has, so it'll have to be a project for another day, maybe.

⏵ iii. rooftop;

Between self-imposed chores to make the mansion feel a little less shadowed and a little more lived-in, Ororo takes her breaks on the east wing's roof. She's taken a pool lounger and set it up here, and lies under the sun or the moon or in the shade of one of those odd, chrome structures in nothing but her underwear and a pair of sunglasses, sipping from an insulated tumbler she'd picked up at Kwiktrip and a paperback she'd taken from Corrine's (she'll return it! eventually!)

It's the last place she expects anyone to find her, really, but... people could always surprise her.

⏵ iv. wildcard;

Feel free to mix-and-match or tag in with something else completely, or use the X-Mansion as set dressing for other threads! ♥ If we have previous CR, you can also assume Ororo has messaged your character in some way to help her check the place out. Message me on almondlychee if you want something more specific.

Comments

[heartofthedream]

[ Does she actually have anything to do with this curtain now? Not really. But she arranges it regardless, looking it up and down, making sure the valence is straight, and the curtains are equally even in what space they are covering.

It's pointless. But it's something to do with her hands.

(Outside—the decidedly not Westchester outside the window—is disjointing.)]

Better than the times the X-Men aren't given any.

[redvisor]

( quiet, he watches her. tries not to, but. he can’t help himself. not when it’s her. even if it’s not her.. )

I guess I’ll leave you to…

( whatever she was doing. whatever she’s looking to do. might as well go and figure out another room for himself if he’s planning to stay here. )

[heartofthedream]

—pretending I have anything to do in here now?

[ The look Jean throws over her shoulder at him—sending a small wave of red hair billowing over that shoulder—is wry.
It's as much a chagrin confession and prodding note that he knows that just as well.

She turned around and let herself lean back on the window.
Hands curled over the lip of the window sill. ]

We'll both need to find new rooms.

[redvisor]

Yeah. Kind of figured that.

( the whole both deciding to find different rooms for each other. if she does end up taking this room, though, it’s not as if he’ll be mad about it. as it stands, he doesn’t know how he’d feel being in here alone. much like back at the mansion he’s from.

an awkward stretch of silence, he slides his hands into his back pockets. stands there. turns away a little. )

I should probably go do that.

[heartofthedream]

[ She says— ]

Would you like me to wait and pick a separate wing once you've chosen?

I don't mind.

[ —but in the center of her chest, all she wants to know is
whether it would make it so much worse to ask to walk with him. ]

[redvisor]

( he's about to head out. try and find a room for himself in here but... she goes and said that— asks that and he lingers there in the doorway. back slightly turned to her. )

No, that's not— ( a breath. a sigh. ) It doesn't have to be like that.

( as if neither of them exist to one another in this space. )

[heartofthedream]

[ She walks toward the door, toward his slightly turned back.
Not aiming to be silent, even as she follows it with another question. ]

How would you like it to be, then?

[redvisor]

( he knows this isn't the jean he knows but she's still jean and because he knows her, he takes the precautions of shutting his mind — locking his thoughts behind a wall as a means to keep them from being filtered to her. no, he's not a telepath himself. but having known one— having been in love with one for years, you learn a thing or two along the way. )

Look. We're here. We might as well just accept that and... do whatever we can with what we've been dealt. Aurora, Eos, this place. Making sure the worlds we come from aren't lost in whatever game or social experiment they have going here.

[heartofthedream]

[ There's a blink, and if he's looking, he'll catch it. The moment she realizes what he's trying to do. The reminder that he expects so little—knows so little what her powers are. The flare of star song burning in her veins. The one that would make his walls tissue paper under a tsunami. She looks away, blinking it off. Trying not to overly attend to the spider-webbing ice cracks through her body at the offensive rebuff when she hadn't even been trying. (But when had she ever needed to.)

The Phoenix never lies,
she'd told Bishop and it's not wrong.
Her arms cross loosely across her stomach.

She tries to make him white noise.
To respect where she's not welcome.
(That she's not welcome.) ]


We do the work.


[ It doesn't answer her question.

And it does.



It's cold.

And understandable. ]

[redvisor]

( he knows that look. she doesn't need to say anything— doesn't need to react in a way that's so blatantly obvious. he knows her and how she's capable of feeling everything, even when she doesn't want to and it has him twist up inside to think that he's doing this.

but he can't. she's not... her. no matter how much he wants her to be. no matter how much he wants to hold her. to cry on her. to ask her for his forgiveness for not being able to save her. to tell her how much he needs her. how much it hurts without her. how much he loves her.

he can't and she doesn't deserve that. so he just needs to shut everything down.

for both their sakes. )

Storm mentioned there's a Danger Room here. I'm going to check it out.

[heartofthedream]

[ Jean can't quite bring herself to look at his face again yet, but it's fine. She'll— It's fine. She's an adult. They both are. And she's been in worse states with her actual husband. Who isn't the man standing so nearby. (Apocalypse. Emma. Charles. The Shadow King. There are so many options to choose from, too many to even list. But maybe she does. Maybe she needs a distraction. Somewhere else to anchor herself suddenly.)

Scott is in a prison cell. Tortured. Waiting for her. Undoubting.
While she's standing inside this soap bubble, not breaking it.



She moves past Scott,

slipping through the doorway without touching him. ]

There is. It's not in the greatest of shape, but it is down there.

[redvisor]

( she moves past him in a way that's both gentle and elegant — so jean — and he stares after her as she goes. standing there. momentarily... confused. )

Are you— you're not going there, are you?

[heartofthedream]

[ Jean doesn't stop walking, and she doesn't look back.
And it takes so much more willpower than she wants to admit. ]

Of course, I am. You said we're working.

And given you haven't been down there yet,
we don't know if the doors will open for you yet either.

So, I'm coming down in case someone has to set a code for you.

[redvisor]

( it takes him a moment before he realizes what's happening here and, with a sigh on his lips, he follows after her. hands in leather jacket pockets. )

Alright. Working it is.

[heartofthedream]

[ It's almost on her lips to say, try not to sound so disappointed, Summers, but it bounces into her head and the back of her throat, and she does her best to swallow it whole. The words. The thought. The momentary lightness. The edge of a ironic bite. The backslash of cold that knows she doesn't belong and isn't wanted.

She keeps walking. Doesn't slow her pace. Doesn't look back. ]

I'm assuming you have one of them at home, as well?

[redvisor]

I built it. After you— ( he catches himself. clears his throat. ) Didn't take as long as I thought.

( not when he'd been obsessed with making it and spent damn near all hours focused on that and only that. )

[heartofthedream]

Mmm.

[ It's barely there. An acknowledgment.

Somehow she's not surprised at all.
That is ... very Scott Summers. ]

What all can your Version 1 do?

[redvisor]

Detailed and lifelike simulations. The purpose being to train the others. To work better and more efficiently as a team when on the field. We don't have room for error. Not when there's so much on the line.

( not when, if they had been better, they could have saved jean. )

[heartofthedream]

Same here. Unsurprising.

[ It's not an exceedingly short walk, but it's not epic either. They aren't walking across all the wings, and there's the elevator coming up soon enough, too. ]

Ours has been through several retrofits over the years. The Professor made it, but Shi'ar upgraded it with their holographic technology and a tactical computer matrix. Then, once Forge joined us, he started inventing continual updates, as well.

[ ... it's probably wiser not to say Danger came to life at a point.
And then that very, very bad things happened. ]