Disclaimer: I don't own any characters except my characters. Which are quite a few this time around. Let's try it this way: I don't own any Marvel characters that happen to show up in the upcoming chapters and which I'm sure you'll recognise without any need to name long lists. I also do not own Jenny, which Dizi created a few years back and which is a fabulous character. I strongly recommend you read her adventures with Wolverine and the X-Men.

14. Sociopaths with no Family Feelings

Jubilee wandered into the den and sprawled herself onto a sofa, one final slice of cake in her hand. It was still warm and incredibly tasty. Sighing, she closed her eyes, and sighed.

"What's all that sighin' 'bout?"

She forced an eye open and found Logan's face looking down at her. What was with him? He didn't usually poke his nose where he shouldn't. That was her job after all.

"It's the trademark 'this tastes great' sigh. Why? Got a problem with it?"

That smirk said he wasn't buying it so Jubilee closed her eye and hoped he'd go away.

"Didn't ya say ya was stickin' 'round fer dinner 'cause ya was curious 'bout tonight's mission?"

Uh... Yeah, she had said that, hadn't she?

" 'Cause Scotty is gonna go over the details and I got this impression ya ain't on yer way t'the meetin' room."

Frowning an annoyed pout, Jubilee got up on the sofa. "Ha ha... As if I didn't know you smelled me lying through my teeth when I said that."

Logan waved a hand as if telling her to go on and she got suddenly pissed. "What? Whaddya want?"

Looking away, she stuffed the rest of the slice into her mouth. It was amazing how she wasn't even allowed to enjoy something nice without someone poking her in the back. Or in the side, since Logan had come over to sit next to her.

"Thought ya wanted me ta know somethin's not right," he said, and Jubilee forced herself to ignore the man's slightly worried frown. "I mean, ya usually just says ya wanna join us fer dinner, no reasons given an' so no chance o' bein' caught lyin'. But tonight... First ya came off wi' that debriefin' as an excuse t' stop by when there ain't nuthin' ta debrief, then it's another excuse ta eat with us, an' then it's this girls' night out when neither Jenny nor Kitty had the slightest it was in the works. It ain't like you ta throw excuses around fer yer comin' an' goin'."

She used the fact of not having swallowed yet as an excuse not to say anything. But her mind pointed a finger at the excessive excuses and she ended up grunting at herself.

"What's buggin' ya, Jubes?"

She finished swallowing and gave in.

"It's no big deal." And it wasn't. Not for her, anyway. "Tell me one thing, honestly. Why don't you ever talk about your past? Your family?"

She could tell from his body's sudden stiffening he had been caught off-guard on an unwanted topic.

"It's none o' no one's business," he grunted.

"Yeah, I hear you."

She looked at her hands and hoped he didn't probe any further. If he wasn't at ease going in deep on the topic, she didn't feel much better. Funny how similar they both were on some things.

"Is the FBI going through yer family's past?"

"The FBI? No! Where did you get that idea from?"

And they had better not go poking around in the dead ashes of her family, anyway. Even though she was dead for years, if her Aunt Hope's line of work ever became known to the Feds, it might be problematic for Jubilee's career. She had no plans of getting stuck in the lower tiers of the organisation over stupid family issues.

"So who?"

Jubilee glanced at a window, grumbling as she wondered if Logan shouldn't be heading over to Scott's debriefing. "Who what?"

"Oh, I get it. It's that Fed ye've been goin' out with. What's his interest?"

Now that was a good question. What on Earth was interesting about going through a person's dead relatives, huh? What? That's something she'd just love to know.

"You know that quote? No man's an island or something?"

"John Donne," Logan said quietly.

"Well, if you asked Justin, he'd say something like 'no man's an island: he's an archipelago called family'."

Why did the sweetest, handsomest guys always have to lumber emotional luggage about?

"Uh... an' that means..."

Jubilee glared at him. As if it weren't obvious!

"Like, duh, Wolvie! He's family centric. And to make it worse, his family is family centric too." Logan's face was still drawing a confused blank that exasperated Jubilee. "Look, they get together every Saturday lunch, Saturday dinner, Sunday breakfast, Sunday lunch, Sunday dinner AND random week day dinners. It's like they can't live if they ain't discussing their day every day, ok? AND talking about aunts and uncles and cousins and... Oh, have I mentioned they start preparing baby showers for couples who're barely even couples much less thinking about sprouting babies? 'Cause they do, you know. They do."

"Uh-hu."

"Exactly! Thank you." Jubilee breathed out her frustration angrily. "I mean... it's like I'm an alien or something just because I have no living relatives. You know, I've actually thought about saying I'm, like, half-alien half-demon and that they can, like, come and meet my folks in Shi'ar's Hell, and I'm pretty sure they'd think I'm more normal than they think I am now!"

"Uh-hu."

"And everyone's so stupidly hung up in the past! Jeez! What did you do when you were a kid? What was your mummy's Sunday dish? Oh, and comfort food! What comfort food did your mummy cook for you when you were sick or feeling down? 'Cause, like, Justin's Mum wants to cook me some comfort food when I'm down with the flu and stuff. Yupe. She wants to cook me comfort food. And then I'm the weirdo!"

"Uh-hu."

"Look, they're dead, okay? Dead. D-E-A-D, dead. Gone. Adiós, caput. I've made my peace with all that... thing. Them being killed and... and stuff. Done. Game over. So who cares? Worse, because if I want to care about it, give it importance and stuff... it's my life, my past, my family, so it's, like, my decision if I care about it or not. If I think about it or not. But no! I play it all down and Justin gets in his head that my soul is either deadly wounded or I'm a sociopath with no family feelings. Does that even make sense? Family feelings? What's that even supposed to mean?"

Jubilee looked at Logan and he shrugged his shoulders. Of course he didn't know. Who did anyway? This whole stupid family drama was eating her inside out.

"Like... Wolvie, I know you don't... you know. But you can, like, be honest with me, right?" He lifted an eyebrow in his usual distrustful inviting way and she went for it: "Your whole family is dead too, right? Do you ever, like... think about them?"

"This is about yer family, Jubes, not mine."

She rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, I know. But I know I don't ever go about thinking about my parents and you're, like, the only person I know who's got his whole family dead and doesn't look like you care to spend your time thinking about them. Right?"

Logan got up. Must be getting late for the meeting before the mission, she guessed. "My case's different."

Getting up herself so they could talk some more on his way down, Jubilee rolled her eyes even more dramatically.

"Like hell it is! Your folks are dead. My folks are dead. It's all the same. They – are – dead! The whole matter of their death is dead. So what's to think about, huh? You tell me: is there any reason why I should start talking about my long lost dead family?!"

"Not as far as I'm concerned," he grunted as he hurried down the corridor. She shouldn't have held him back for so long; Scott was probably going to give him some grief over being late.

"Thank you!" She burst annoyedly victorious and shook her head, aggravated. "Wanna volunteer to explain that to Justin?"

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