Notes: CC, I love your notes and your enthusiasm so much. :D

Chapter 3: Hold Your Tongue

The first team practice with the junior X-Men was … interesting, to say the least. Noh had expected that it would be different than any other training, but he still wasn't entirely sure what to think of it all.

Monet did have talent, and she did seem to work hard, but she also simply couldn't wrap her head around taking any cues from Jubilee. Or, really, taking cues from anyone who wasn't one of the senior X-Men running the show — in this case, Scott and Storm.

And the others were certainly powerful, but again, Noh was struck by a lack of discipline that he simply hadn't expected. They were able to come together a little better in practice than in their classes, but…

"So, what did you think?" Jubilee asked him after he'd gotten out of the shower after the first practice.

Noh frowned and ran a hand through his hair. "It's… different," he admitted at last. He didn't want to insult Jubilee, since she was supposed to be leading her team. And they hadn't been trained as he was, hadn't been doing this since birth, hadn't even fully mastered their powers. So he knew that this wasn't exactly a team of elite fighters.

But that was what he had come from. A team of elite fighters. A crew filled with Kree that had been specifically designed to fit each position. It was far more ordered and far more powerful in many ways — not that the X-Men didn't have power. They just… didn't seem to be able to focus it.

Jubilee had one eye closed and her head tipped to the side as she considered Noh. "Yeah… that's not exactly enthusiastic, cutie."

Noh let out a breath of a laugh and then put his arm around Jubilee's shoulders. "It's simply a bit of… culture shock," he tried to explain. "It's not like any team I have ever been on."

"Yeah, well, we're not all born and bred for combat or whatever it was you told Scott," Jubilee said with a little smirk.

"That's… pretty close to it, yes," Noh admitted, though he flushed a bit when he realized that Jubilee was grinning at him with a crooked, teasing expression on her face.

"So, what's got you wound up?" Jubilee asked, popping a big pink bubble as she looked up at him.

Noh let out a soft sigh. "I… don't want to insult your team…"

"Hey," Jubilee said, one eyebrow raised, "if you totally hate it—"

"No, that's not it," he said quickly. "I do want to be part of the team." He ran his free hand through his hair as he tried to find the words to explain himself. "But, Jubilee… I would much rather work with the senior team than the junior team."

"Dude, that's a given," Jubilee said, totally waving off his concerns.

"It's more than ambition," Noh said. "I want to be on a team that… well, to be blunt, Jubilee, your team isn't very disciplined, and they seem to struggle with cohesion…"

Jubilee let out a long sigh of a breath. "I guess it would be different than you're used to," she allowed. "We don't all jump straight into combat mode out of our diapers."

Noh couldn't help but laugh when he heard it. "Jubilee, I was never in diapers. I told you—"

"Yeah, yeah, you grew up fast. But I'm telling you — that is just a shame. The world was deprived of baby Noh!"

Noh had to laugh at her enthusiasm. "Yes, well, the point is… we had battle tactics programmed into our minds. We were ready to go on missions from day one. I've never dealt with a team so…"

"Yeah." Jubilee bit her lip as she looked up at Noh. "You totally hate it, don't you?"

"Not totally…"

"You totally hate it," Jubilee said, shaking her head. "It's okay."

"I won't give up," he promised quickly. "I know there is always a period of adjustment with any new endeavor. It wasn't so long ago that the very idea of free will was foreign to me." He gave her a little smile. "Give me time to adjust, please. I want to be on this team."

"Well, that's good, at least," Jubilee said.

"How could I turn down a team where you are the leader?" Noh asked, trying to redirect the conversation with a gentle smile as he took her chin in one hand and brushed back some of her hair.

Jubilee shrugged one shoulder up, though there was no mistaking the pink hue that her cheeks had taken on. "I don't really know what you want me to say to that?"

"I wasn't trying to elicit a response other than a smile," Noh told her — which had the desired effect as she blushed and broke into a little grin despite herself.

"You say the nicest things sometimes, you know that?"

"I mean every word," Noh said. "I know what love is, Jubilee, and I would be a fool indeed if I did not express that love constantly."

Jubilee looked stunned for a long moment, simply staring up at Noh until she finally broke into a sort of surprised smile. "Is that your way of… I mean, if you're going to say it, then you should just come out and say it…"

Noh smiled a little wider and brushed her hair back. "Jubilee, I thought you knew. Of course I love you," he said.

There really wasn't any other reaction she could have to that besides simply throwing her arms around his neck to kiss the sense out of him.

That weekend, Jubilee and Noh had decided to get out for a while, away from the team and the other students. So, they opted for a roller skating date, making sure to hit it on cosmic night so that the neon lights lit up the rink and pulsed to the music — which Noh seemed to absolutely love. And the fact that he could make requests of the DJ made it even better.

Jubilee couldn't help but smile up at him as they skated hand-in-hand. It hadn't taken him long to get the hang of the skates, and by halfway through the date, he was even going so far as to pick her up to spin her a few times — the result, he said, of all the training he had as well as the fact that she was light as a feather to him.

The result was of course that the two of them were skating circles around everyone else around them, and Jubilee made sure to steal a kiss before she darted off to go get a drink — and some ice cream for the two of them.

She was waiting in line when she heard snickers close by, and she narrowed her eyes when she recognized a couple teenage boys who had been in the group that had been giving her grief at the mall the other day.

Nothing that they were saying to her was entirely surprising — or creative — but it was enough to get her to send a little spark of a plasmoid their way. The sparks weren't big enough to do anything but surprise them — but someone needed to teach them a lesson in manners.

It definitely threw them off their rhythm of insults for a moment, and Jubilee smirked to herself as she passed them by to get her ice cream. "Jerks," she muttered under her breath.

But the interaction hadn't gone unnoticed by Noh and his enhanced hearing. Anyone who had been paying him any attention knew the moment he overheard what was going on, because he paused and narrowed his eyes, his head tipped to the side as he clearly worked out for himself what he wanted to do with these boys.

He wasn't going to let the insults stand, that was for sure. And the fact that they were repeat offenders was only further sealing their fate, in his mind. But there was the question of what his actions would do to reflect back on the X-Men as well.

He had meant it when he told Jubilee that he wanted to join the team. Even if there were times that he despaired and wondered if he would ever be able to align himself to the different values, the different methods, the different training levels… the X-Men were all that he had in the universe. They were precious to him, and he didn't want to do anything that would reflect poorly on them or their ideals. He respected them too much to allow that to happen.

And yet he also knew that he loved Jubilee. He knew what love was; he'd felt it before. And so he simply couldn't deny that feeling in the middle of his chest, that rush of warmth when he looked at her. He had been open about the way he felt from the moment he kissed her, though he knew he'd had much ground to make up when he left to go to Hala.

Paige Guthrie had been an incredible source of advice for Noh since that time. She had explained that Jubilee had a history of being left behind, of being abandoned, forgotten, belittled. And so Noh was doing everything in his power to be sure that she never felt that way because of his own actions.

So to hear these young men doing that very thing, belittling her and making her out to be something less than she actually was…

It was a completely unconscious thing when Noh's lips curled back, but as soon as his lips had parted, he started an instinctual hiss, low enough that no one around them would hear it without enhanced hearing — but it also set everyone's hair on edge.

It had the effect of throwing off the people around him so that they were giving him a wide berth even as he stalked toward the boys, the hiss still reverberating around him.

The boys looked up in time to see him coming, and even though they were clearly thrown off by the sound that moved them without being able to hear it, they both wore their sneers like badges of pride. "Oh look. Another one," one of the boys said.

Noh almost laughed, which only served to make him look more off-putting when he had a nearly predatory smile on his face. "You misunderstand," he said, the hiss finally audible in his elongated s's as he approached the boys. "I am no mutant. I'm not even from this world."

The boys glanced at each other, obviously more nervous than before. "What are you even talking about, man?" asked one.

"Crazy mutie," the other agreed.

Noh allowed his predatory smile to stretch a little wider before, faster than either of them could react, he spit at the two of them.

At first, both of them reacted in obvious disgust, reaching up to wipe away the sticky substance with complaints and expletives about how he was no better than an animal.

And then… their eyes unfocused, and both of them looked up at Noh, nearly cringing under his gaze as he crossed his arms. "You will apologize to my friend," he told them in no uncertain terms. "And then you will leave this establishment."

Both of the boys nodded, still with their shoulders drawn up and looking like they were waiting to be hit. They slunk away, still with those same unfocused, glazed-over looks, until they found Jubilee, who had just gotten the ice cream cones to bring back to Noh.

When she saw the two of them apparently back for more, she glared at them and stuck her nose in the air. "What, you losers back for more? I can totally take you with my hands behind my back and not drop my ice cream."

The boys paused, taking a few shuffling steps and obviously trying to fight the directive that Noh had given them, before one of them finally bit out a quiet, "Sorry."

Jubilee stared at them; she obviously hadn't been expecting that, of all things. "Come again?"

There was a bit more shuffling, and one of the boys looked over his shoulder to see Noh still standing with his arms crossed and a glare on before he swallowed and turned back to Jubilee. "We're… sorry about what we said."

Jubilee blinked at them for a moment longer before she recovered and sniffed, trying to look more imperious than surprised. "Well, good. You should be."

The boys glanced at each other, but since they had already done what they were supposed to do, they could only quietly nod Jubilee's way before they slunk off again, this time headed for the exit.

Jubilee watched them leave in obvious surprise before she finally made her way over to Noh and sat down beside him, handing her his ice cream cone. "What did you do?"

Noh shrugged lightly. "I simply adjusted their worldview," he said, though he hadn't quite let up on the sort of grim, satisfied smile, either.

Jubilee shook her head at that. "No, seriously. What did you do?"

Noh paused, suddenly wondering what Jubilee would think of his methods. He hadn't used violence to coerce the young men, but he had certainly coerced them, forced them, taken their free will. And while Noh felt that they had lost the right to exercise that will when they chose to spew hatred, he wondered now if he hadn't been a little bit rash. Hadn't he spent all this time learning what it meant to allow this universe its choices?

Still, he knew he couldn't lie to her, so he let out a long breath and gave her a softer smile. "I didn't harm them," he promised. "But…" He tipped his head to the side as he considered how best to explain it. "I am capable of mixing compounds into my saliva that cause vivid hallucinations."

Despite the seriousness of the conversation, Jubilee smirked at him and leaned over to steal a kiss. "Should I be concerned?"

He couldn't help but laugh. "No," he promised. "No, it's something I can control. And I would never exert that kind of influence over you, my Jubilee. You are too precious to me to risk our friendship by stooping to such methods."

Jubilee bit her lip and smiled up at him. "Okay, but now I have to wonder if you went and kissed those two idiots, because Noh, some apologies just aren't worth that!"

Noh blinked at Jubilee for a moment before he burst into a laugh. "No, nothing like that!" he assured her. "I simply spat at them."

"And that made them apologize?"

Noh nodded. "I can direct the hallucinations. It's…" He paused. "Well, it's a form of mind control, to be quite honest with you."

Jubilee bit her lip as she looked over her sweet space man. He looked almost abashed, and she knew he was probably a little worried about how she'd take the whole thing — though she wasn't sure if he was more worried about her reaction to the mind-control saliva or the fact that he'd actually used it on someone.

But if she was honest, all she could see was this sweet little alien boy who had been trying to stick up for her. So she simply leaned over and kissed his cheek with a smile. "I can handle those creeps," she told him. "I totally flicked a little sparkle their way. They nearly wet their pants."

Noh chuckled and then pulled her into an actual kiss. "Of course you can handle them. You are an X-Man."

Jubilee smirked at that. "But it's sweet that you're all… protective boyfriend."

"Well, I am dating you, and I am protective of you and your good name," Noh pointed out.

"And it's really cute," Jubilee said with a smile. "I can totally handle a few creeps, though, okay?"

"I never said you couldn't," Noh said, one eyebrow raised. "I simply meant to help."

"You always do," Jubilee said with a smile before she went back to her ice cream cone, still smiling up at him.

Noh let his shoulders drop a bit, relieved that she wasn't mad at his methods, before he took a bite of his own ice cream and simply smiled her way. "It's because I love you, Jubilee," he told her warmly. "You do know that, yes?"

Jubilee turned pink practically down to the roots of her hair as she nodded, halfway hiding behind her ice cream cone. "Yeah."

"Then I will continue to do everything I can to keep you safe. It's only right," Noh said, nodding to himself.

Jubilee bit her lip as she watched him finishing off his ice cream cone before she leaned over to steal a kiss that was a little bit sticky and sweet still. "You know," she said quietly, "that's part of why I love you. You're just… so sweet."

Noh smiled wider at that and offered her a hand up to her feet. "Why don't we find someplace to go together where we don't have to breathe the same air that those imbeciles were breathing?"

Jubilee couldn't help but chuckle at that as she nodded and took his hand. "Yes, let's."