The hangar was bathed in darkness. Jubilee searched the wall next to the door, but couldn't find a light switch at all. Her lips twisted in annoyance. That's not impractical, she thought to herself. For a moment, she was tempted to turn her back and follow her gut. It told her to count her blessings for getting out of this nuthouse while she could. It told her she didn't have to come crawling like a sissy on her knees, begging for forgiveness. It told her that she hadn't done anything wrong, and that Scott Summers was a prick with bad hair and streak marks in his yellow undies.
Her gut could be a real bitch sometimes.
Sighing loudly, she stepped into the darkness, heading towards the spotlights on the far side of the huge room, shining down on the X-Men's jet, the Blackbird. Her shoes made light scuffing noises as her tiny legs stepped over wires, tools, and equipment of various sizes. The sound of an air impact wrench shattered the silence, sounding like a volley of gunfire. Jubilee, surprised by the suddenness and volume of the racket, screamed and grabbed her ears. Her shout, however, was lost in the echoing of the ruckus, and she was immediately embarrassed for having screamed in the first place.
With real determination now, she quickly made her way towards the Blackbird and the man she knew to be working under it. He had to be. She'd looked everywhere else, and asked just about every person in the mansion she knew. The journey through the hangar grew easier as she neared the bright lights. She gritted her teeth as another burst of highly compressed air was released by the impact wrench.
Finally, stepping over a small welder, she arrived in the circle of light and relative clutter-free area beneath the Blackbird's wingspan. Jubilee looked around, stretching her neck, her hands clasped behind her back. Her irritation at the noise was replaced with the butterflies of nervousness. "Hello?" she said timidly, but the wrench started up again just as she had started forming the word.
"Jeez!" she exclaimed. She held her ears and waited for the whine to die down. "Hey!" she yelled. "Anybody here?"
She walked around the underbelly of the jet, and found nothing except some tools spread around and a couple of cords leading to the top of the plane. "Hello!" she shouted, now directing her voice upwards. Still, her only answer was another deafening sequence of high-pitched squealing and a rapid-fire firing.
"That's it," she muttered. She grabbed her pink shades from her hair and dropped them over her eyes, leaned back, and shot a dozen high-powered fireworks towards the ceiling, igniting them all around the jet in a most impressive, and blinding, show of light.
The loud tool suddenly whined to a stop, accompanied by a man's voice as he cried out. She could hear something that sounded like footsteps, or maybe something rolling, across the top of the blackbird, and then she saw a tall, muscular man with brown hair and bright red sunglasses fall from the wing of the jet and land on the ground with a thud.
"Oh, shit," Jubilee said, both gloved hands going to her mouth, and her eyes wide as saucers. "I killed him."
She rushed over to him, yelling, "Cyke? Can you hear me? Mr. Summers!"
When she reached his side, she could hear him groaning. He slowly pushed himself from his side onto his back. For a moment, she stood back, holding her hands close to her chest, afraid that he would be seriously hurt. Or seriously pissed. She spotted some orange headphones laying a few feet from his head and her stomach sank. Oh, great.
"Mr. Summers," she finally braved when he started rubbing his forehead. "Are you okay?"
The man was silent for a beat, and then finally sat up, leaning on his elbow. "I'm fine, Jubilee. You scared me and my foot slipped. That's all." He tried to rise, but he winced and grabbed his back. "Hchmmm," he said.
"Oh, no," Jubilee said worriedly. She took his arm and tried to help him. "What's wrong? Ah, jeez, did you get hurt? I'm sorry, Mr. Summers, I'm so sorry."
Cyclops raised his hand and stifled the young girl's concerns. "I'm fine," he said. He certainly didn't feel fine, but he could tell nothing was broken. He was just going to have one heckuva bruise on his lower back and shoulder tomorrow and some painful stiffness in his bones. Thankfully, the back of the wings of the Blackbird weren't too far from the ground, and he had had time to go limp before he hit the ground. Otherwise, he could have been seriously injured.
"I was just trying to get your attention," Jubilee continued. "I tried yelling and I guess you couldn't hear me."
"It's okay, Jubilee. It's not your fault. What do you need?"
"I- Well, I was just…" Jubilee stammered, dropping her hands from the man's bicep and stepping back. All of the determination she'd felt earlier melted away before Cyclops' red stare. I'm beginning to think my gut was right all along, she told herself.
"Nevermind," she said. She heard several bones crack as the tall man rolled to his knees and then started pushing himself up to his feet. "It's nothing. I'm sorry I bothered you."
A pained laugh escaped Scott's lips. "Jubilee," he said. "I don't think you would have came all the way out here over nothing."
"Well, uhh, yeah, I…" Jubilee kicked the ground. "What are you up to?" she asked.
Scott stood tall and bent his back backwards, stretching it. "I was tightening the bolts on the wings," he said.
"Oh, yeah? Were they loose?"
"Not really," he replied. "No."
He could see the question in her eyes, and she even snarled her nose a bit, so Scott decided to spare her the confusion. "I come in here, sometimes, when I need to be alone. It helps me to clear my mind, working with my hands, putting something together, seeing something accomplished…" Scott's voice trailed and he sent Jubilee a sidelong glance and immediately regretted it. He started walking back towards the lift situated near the Blackbird's wing. "The bolts work loose sometimes," he said. "It never hurts to be safe."
"That's cool," Jubilee said, her head slightly bowed. She stepped after him when he turned around the lift and started lowering the platform. "Hey," she said over the whirring mechanics. "Can I help?"
Scott released the lever and looked at Jubilee, frowning. How did he tell her that he had come to the garage to try and get her out of his head? To quit worrying that he had done the wrong thing?
Jubilee swallowed hard as she looked up at Cyclops, who looked none too pleased with her surprising question. Even she was surprised. She didn't know the first thing about working on a jet. And something told her she was the last person he was looking to hang out with at the moment. From what she had observed, Scott Summers wasn't exactly the "hanging out" kind of guy.
"Sure," Scott said finally. "Grab those headphones and there should be some safety glasses in the tool box over there," he said, pointing.
Jubilee grabbed the orange gear and then followed Cyclops' finger towards a big red toolbox. Sure enough, there was some plastic goggles laying on top of everything. She took off her shades and laid them down and placed the huge clear glasses in their place. "Every time," she muttered. "I gotta look like a dweeb every time."
"Shut up, Jubilee," she mumbled to herself. "You just almost killed the guy."
She jogged over to him and arrived just as the platform touched down. They both climbed on and then Cyclops started raising them off the ground. "Be careful up here," he said. "Watch your step, and don't fall off."
Jubilee's shoulders raised and her head drooped. She looked up, to apologize yet again to see Cyclops looking at her, an almost invisible grin on her almost perpetually frowning face. "Hey!" she said, slapping his arm.
"Ow," he said.
"Oops. Sorry."
The platform jerked to a stop, and Scott opened the little gate and hopped onto the plane, trusting Jubilee to follow. He'd put her through the ropes, all the weeks that they'd trained together. He was fully confident that there wasn't anything on the top of the Blackbird she couldn't handle. In fact, he had a feeling she could probably do everything he knew how to do if he showed it to her once.
He stepped carefully over the plates of armor, bolted onto the jet's frame, towards the air impact wrench still laying where he'd dropped it. He picked up the rather long tool, holding it by the handle, careful not to touch the trigger, and checked all of its settings, until he was confident nothing had been knocked out of place. Jubilee approached from behind.
"Is that what you were using?" she asked. "What is it?"
"It's an impact wrench."
"How does it work? I mean, is it like a drill?"
"Yes," Scott said, looking at the young girl. "Sort of. You use it to tighten nuts or bolts really tight. Inside this cylinder," he said, tapping the large part near the end, is a hammer and something like an anvil. When you start tightening a bolt, and there's resistance, then the hammer spins and then hits the anvil, which tightens the bolt a little bit. Imagine that at about two-thousand rotations per minute, and you've got the idea."
"Of course," Scott said, hefting the tool, "this is no ordinary impact wrench. Everything Hank or Forge works with has to be specially designed and built." He pointed to a knob on the side which even Jubilee could tell was turned pretty low. "This thing could probably replace the motor on a passenger plane." He smiled and handed the tool to her. "Here," he said. "I'm going to show you how to use it."
Jubilee grunted as the tool, which was as long as her arm, was suddenly thrust at her. She held it cradled in her arms like a log with an expression somewhere between fear and irritance. "Mr. Summers, I don't think I…"
"It's Scott," he said. "We're not in the Danger Room, and I think you can. You'll just have to hold it tightly and be careful. Here," he said. "You hold it there, and there." He guided her hands to the proper places. "There you go. Now give the trigger a squeeze. Oh, wait…"
He picked up the headphones from the black metal and slid them onto her head. "Okay, now!" he said, loud enough for her to hear him, and he moved behind her, watching her carefully to make sure she didn't let go or hold it wrong.
Jubilee's palms were sweating like crazy. Her finger shook over the trigger, unsure whether or not she really wanted to do this. Finally, she started pressing it. Just… barely… She closed her eyes tightly. The trigger slid in, but nothing happened. She opened her eyes, and held it up. "Is it on?" she said, speaking louder than she probably intended.
"Just keep squeezing!" Scott shouted. "Be careful!"
She tightened her grip and again started squeezing the trigger. She again closed her eyes. "Okay," she said, "But I don't think it's woAAAAAHHHH! She screamed as the trigger suddenly clicked and power thrummed in her hands, shaking and sounding loudly, even through the headphones. Her cry turned to laughter as she released the trigger and turned to face Scott.
"That was wild!" she yelled. She pulled the headphones from her head, shaking her hair out of her face. "Show me how to tighten a bolt!" she said.
Okay, Scott said smiling. He took the wrench from her and positioned himself over a bolt he hadn't yet tightened. He was about to show her how to properly insert the bolt and explain how to know when to release the trigger when he heard Jubilee softly clear her throat.
"Uh, Mr. Summers?" she said.
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay, Jubilee," Scott replied. "I told you, I'm fine."
"No," she said, shaking her head, suddenly very serious, her eyes shimmering. "I'm sorry I let you down. In the Danger Room earlier."
Scott lowered the tool. His face mirrored her seriousness. He said nothing.
"Kurt told me what you did for me… That you never had to give me a chance."
Cyclops watched as young Jubilee raised her eyes to his. She jutted her chin, finally unafraid to speak, determined to be heard. He found himself cheering her on, like he'd done so many times before during their training sessions.
"I wanted to say thank you for doing that for me, for spending all of that time with me, and for putting up with all of my tantrums, and for all of the times I called you," she coughed, "and Miss Grey" she said through a cough, "bad names and stuff."
"You never gave up on me," she said. Scott saw her eyes glaze over. "And you never left." She cleared her throat. "You taught me all kinds of stuff," she said. "But mostly, you taught me that I had a lot to learn."
A single tear fell down her cheek. Scott felt his heart rip.
"I thought you were being mean. Now I know you were just doin' what you thought you had to. And so I'm sorry. I'm sorry I let you down. Now, I know, I'll never…" she coughed to hide a sob. "I know I don't have the stuff to be an X-Man."
She wiped her nose on her glove and stepped back. "But thanks for givin' me a shot, okay?"
She turned, ready to run and never look back, to cry and never stop. To finally put the X-Men, Wolverine, and Cyclops and all of the craziness out of her life forever.
"Jubilee!" Cyclops shouted behind her. "Jubilee, wait!"
Boots clanked on the metal behind her. She couldn't hold it in anymore. She began sobbing loudly. She turned, sniffing. There, standing in front of her in his greasy overalls and ridiculously bright red sunglasses, five o'clock shadow on his tanned, rough face and set jaw, was Cyclops, not Scott Summers. In front of him, his hand was outstretched.
"What?" Jubilee said. "What do you want?" She pulled the safety glasses from her face. "Oh, right," she said. "I'm sorry. I forgot." She put them on Scott's hand, but he didn't take them.
Finally, he grabbed the glasses and dropped them onto the Blackbird, and then took her wrist and lifted her hand into his own, where he squeezed it and shook it up and down slowly. "Jubilee," he said.
She looked up at him, confusion drying the tears from her eyes.
"Welcome to the team," he said.
"Do you mean it?" she said. "You're not just sayin' that cause I'm crying are you?"
"You just showed a tremendous amount of courage and a strong sense of responsibility," he said. "You showed me that you most definitely have what it takes to be an X-Man." He shook her hand again. "So I'll repeat, 'Welcome to the team, Jubilee.'"
Once again, she launched herself at Scott Summers, shrieking with joy, and she wrapped her arms around his chest. He held her tightly, patting her back softly, hoping she didn't notice the tear that ran down his face. For a short, wonderful moment, their shared laughter filled the empty hangar.
