Chapter 4: Jubilee

Gambit was in the gym. Sports in general was a dangerous activity for him, or rather, the people and things around him when he was so engaged. However, he was far too active a person to stop exercising altogether. As long as he took things easy and didn't have an intense workout (those were only done in the Danger Room), he was usually okay. Usually.

The gym was mostly quiet at this hour, as most of the school population was in classes. The only other person in the gym at the moment was Jubilee. The short, lithe young woman was caught up in a gymnastic routine: an intense, breath-taking routine that could've only been done by a skilled gymnast. Gambit had gotten so caught up watching her, that he'd forgotten his own exercises.

Jubilee, however, became well aware of her audience when she landed back on the mat. She grinned at him where he stood on the mat behind the chin-up bar.

"Enjoy the show?" she asked teasingly.

"Actually, yes," Gambit replied blithely, not at all embarrassed at having been caught staring. "That was amazing."

"Thanks."

"You must have been doing that since you were knee-high to a grasshopper."

"Heh, yeah," Jubilee replied as she began her cool-down exercises. "In fact we had high hopes of me being able to complete in the Olympics."

"Awesome. What happened?" Gambit said. "If you don't mind my asking?"

"Nah. I had to miss tryouts on account of a family emergency," Jubilee said, sounding casual in a 'I just finished an intense work out' kind of way. "My parents were murdered."

Gambit blinked. "Well, that's one hell of a family emergency."

"Yeah, I really could've lived without it."

"Did they ever catch the guy?"

"Yeah, so that's some closure at least," Jubilee said. "I'd rather have my parents though. What about you? If you don't mind my asking?"

After that admission, Gambit wasn't inclined to deny her.

"I'm adopted," he said. "My parents were pretty good to me, didn't care that I was a mutant, 'least not until…" he trailed off, knowing that if he pursued that train of thought stuff was going to start exploding, and quickly continued: "Never knew my birth parents. Always figured the demon eyes must've scared them off."

"Ugh, yeah, my foster parents were cool too, at least until after I started accidentally blowing things up. Figured that was my cue to leave," Jubilee said musingly. "Ended up living oi malls for awhile until these guys found me."

"That must've been fun."

"You'd think so, but the lack of proper showering facilities was a bit of a drawback."

Gambit chuckled and went back to his chin-ups.

Jubilee finished off her cool-down and headed over to the showers. She returned a few minutes later, and stopped at Gambit's station on her way back through the gym.

"Hey, Remy," she said. "You know, Valentine's Day is coming up…"

Gambit threw her a look and let himself back on the ground. "Aww, I'm flattered, chere, but sadly, this Cajun can't date right now."

Jubilee giggled. "I know that. I was just, sorta kinda thinking of throwing a Valentine's Day party for those of us who don't have dates. I was wondering if you'd be interested?"

"Hmm, I don't know," he said slowly, between breaths. "I think it'll depend on what mood I'm in that day. I ain't exactly choosing not to date willingly, and I don't particularly want to remind everyone else precisely why that is."

Jubilee nodded. "I get that."

"Who else is coming?"

"I don't know. You're the first person I asked."

Gambit chuckled lightly and Jubilee grinned at him.

"I think mostly I just want an excuse to decorate," she went on. "I can just imagine the dining hall covered in red and white streamers and heart-shaped balloons. The tables lined with Valentine's Day table cloths. Hearts everywhere."

"I like this plan, and I think you should do it," Gambit said.

"Ha, really?"

"Can you imagine the look on Logan's face?"

Jubilee laughed and Gambit grinned at her.

"I can just picture him sitting there with his cigar, looking completely out of place," Gambit said. "Do it! Do it!"

Jubilee laughed harder. "Okay, I will! I'm gonna need to go shopping."

"And I'm gonna need to decharge this bar."

Jubilee looked up to see magneta light flickering around the chin up bar. "Right. I'm supposed to think of something to distract you, aren't I? But all I can think of is Valentines Day. And the fact that when I go shopping, I'm going to have to bring someone with me to do all the maths. I hate maths. But I have an excuse for hating maths. I've got dyscalculia."

"You should take me," Gambit said cheerfully, while at the same time wishing he could regain sufficient control to remove the charge. "Not only can I do maths, but I will enable you."

Jubilee laughed again.

"In fact," Gambit said thoughtfully. "I think I might be on kitchen duty that night. You know what this calls for, right?"

"No, what does it call for?"

"Heart shaped food."

Jubilee squealed and clapped her hands together. "Oh yes! Do it! Do it! Wait, can you do heart shaped food with stuff that's actually healthy? Because you know Storm'll be pissed if you only have dessert food."

"You can cut vegetables into heart shapes. Not all kinds of vegetables, but enough to get the point across," Gambit said thoughtfully. "And there'd be some kinds of meat you could cut into shape too, though I think I'll have to experiment, because we're going to have to make enough for everyone, and we want stuff that'll be quick and easy to cut into shape."

"This is true."

"Hmm…"

As Gambit pondered, Jubilee looked back up at the bar, and tried to think of something else she might say that could help. Because she could, however, the charge was removed.

"So many possibilities," he said. "I think I will definitely go shopping with you. Plus I need to get a stack of heart-shaped cookie cutters. And to double-check if I am on kitchen that night."

"Ha, sounds great!"

Gambit, Jubilee, and Rogue headed off shopping late one afternoon a couple of days later. Gambit had confirmed that he was on kitchen duty for Valentine's Day dinner, and Jubilee wanted Rogue along just in Gambit had another incident.

"I just drew a complete blank. I had no idea what to say to him," Jubilee had told Rogue. "You're good at this. Please come? Just in case?"

With Valentine's Day so close on the horizon, the three had no problems finding all sorts of appropriate stuff. Gambit fully encouraged Jubilee to grab all the fluffy, sappy, and pretty stuff she wanted. Rogue, being a bit more practical in these matters, managed to keep a lid on both her enthusiasm, and the budget.

"So, Roguey, you and Bobby got any plans?" Gambit asked her as they went through the options in one of the shops.

"Yeah, he's taking me out to lunch," Rogue replied.

"Lunch? Not dinner?"

"He's got a late class that day," she said and grinned at him. "So, yes, I will be able to make your heart shaped dinner that night."

Gambit grinned at her. "Excellent."

"Oooh! Look at the little cupids!" Jubilee exclaimed, turning around to face them and show off the cupid decorations, one in each hand. "So cute with their little bows and arrows! We must have these!"

"Okay, sure," Rogue said "Let's see how much they are…"

They finalised their purchases from that shop, and then headed onto the next. As they walked, Gambit spotted a man not paying attention to where he was going (too distracted by his phone) and habitually adjusted his course just enough to ensure the distracted man would run into him.

As expected, the two collided. As Gambit's shoulder rammed right into the other man's, he reached around out of sheer reflex and slipped the other man's wallet out of his back pocket. He dropped the wallet into one of the bags he was carrying.

"Whoa hey, sorry," Gambit said the same time the other man cursed: "Hey, watch where you're going!"

"You were the one not paying attention," Rogue said, glowering at the other man. "You apologise, rude boy."

"Don't worry about it, chere," Gambit said as he adjusted his bags, and hoped that neither woman had seen him pick the guy's pocket. "No harm done. Hey," he quickly closed the distance between them and pointed, "that looks like it has more Valentine's Day stuff."

Rogue shot a parting, whithering glare at the other man, but he'd already walked away.

Unfortunately, the incident wasn't entirely over. Gambit, after not being able to do much stealing for months, almost a full year, had just picked a pocket. His fingers began to itch, filled with a potent reminder of the addition he had been failing to feed for exactly the reason his already pink shirt was lighting up. He swore under his breath, and both girls heard it.

"What?" Jubilee asked, the same time Rogue noticed the brighter-than-normal shirt and said "Damn it."

"Yeah," Gambit said slowly. "That's what I thought too."

"Oh," Jubilee said, looking nervously towards the shirt and then to Rogue.

"This is why you avoided that confrontation, isn't it? Sorry, if I made things worse," Rogue said, and Gambit felt relief, realising that she hadn't seen what he'd done.

"It's okay, chere," Gambit replied as he fought to both maintain control of the charge and to hide it. "I appreciate you defending my honour."

Rogue grinned at him. "So tell me about this dinner you have planned. Does it involve heart shaped pies?"

"I am seriously considering it," Gambit replied. "But I have a feeling the necessary number of pans required will make it unnecessarily expensive."

Of course, he did just pick that guy's pocket… The glow in his shirt flickered brighter.

"I was thinking I might put little heart shaped pieces of pastry on top instead," he went on determinedly.

"Less fun, but cheaper," Rogue said as they stopped just outside of the shop Gambit had pointed to. "Although it's not like the pans wouldn't get used again."

"I see I'm not the only enabler out here today."

"Yes!" Jubilee said gleefully. "Heart shaped food every year!"

"Pies take awhile though," Gambit went on thoughtfully. "I think I need to check recipes and make sure I pick something that can actually be cooked in the allotted kitchen duty time."

"That's probably a good idea," Rogue replied. "Otherwise you're just going to be trying to cook it by yourself, and there's a lot to be cooked."

"There is indeed. It's a good thing the school has such a serious kitchen," Gambit said. "Oooh, you know what I should do? Make bread sticks in the shape of hearts."

"Oooh, I love it!" Jubilee said. "But doesn't bread take hours and hours and hours to cook?"

Gambit shrugged. "I can sneak into the kitchen in the dead of night and cook them then, and everyone will have fresh loaves of bread in the morning. Just have to warn whoever's on breakfast."

"Warn, or surprise?" Rogue asked with a glint of mischief in her eye.

"Hmm," Gambit considered. "Depends on who's on."

"Can you even make that much bread on your own?" Jubilee asked.

"Why? Offering to help?"

"At that time in the morning? Hell no."

Gambit laughed and as he did, he found he had sufficient control back that he could finally deactivate the charge. "We do have a couple of very serious mixers in there, which means most of the work is going to involve waiting. I think I can manage." He gestured to the shop they'd been standing in front of the window of. "So, shall we go in?"

"Yes, let's," Jubilee said, and eagerly lead the way inside.

The night before Valentine's Day, Jubilee, Gambit, and Rogue were busy putting up decorations in the dining hall. Gambit and Rogue found themselves doing most of the ladder work while Jubilee stood back and said things like "no, that doesn't look quite even" and "just a little itty bitty bit higher" and "alright perfect!"

Finally, after enough time had passed that they wished they'd brought in extra hands to help (even though it was supposed to be a surprise!), they finished. Valentine's Day themed paper table cloths covered the many long tables. Streamers, balloons, hearts, and cupids lined the walls. The plain white serviettes stocked by the buffet had been replaced with ones decorated with hearts.

Jubilee looked around, tired, but well pleased with their work.

"This looks awesome," she said.

And as she flung her hands in the air, fireworks shot from her fingers and set the streamers above her on fire.

"Whoops!" she exclaimed.

Rogue immediately went for the fire extinguisher (of which there were plenty in the dining hall). Gambit pulled out his playing cards and threw a couple with pinpoint accuracy at the steamers, slicing through them and bringing only the parts that were on fire (or about to be), to the ground. Jubilee yelped as she jumped back out of the way.

"Well, that's one way to make sure the fire doesn't spread," Jubilee said as Rogue returned with the fire extinguisher and turned it on the flames with a couple of quick, effective blasts.

Gambit shrugged, then grinned at her. "I'm just glad it wasn't me accidentally blowing stuff up this time."

Jubilee giggled. "Misery loved company?"

"Misery loves company so much he wants to marry her."

"And have babies!"

Rogue appraised them with a raised eyebrow. "I'm not convinced that Misery should be allowed to breed."

"They can always adopt," Gambit replied with a grin.

Jubilee giggled, then pointed towards the ceiling where the streamers had been severed. "I never realised playing cards could be so sharp."

"It's the spin behind it," Gambit explained. "With sufficient speed and spin, I can slice through bananas and carrots, and give you one mean paper cut."

"Oooh—" Jubilee began only to be cut off by Rogue: "Not tonight, Jubes."

Gambit chuckled as Jubilee pouted. "We can do a demo some other time. It's late, you two should probably get to bed."

"What about you?" Jubilee asked, then pointed at both the ceiling and floor. "And this?"

"I can fix this." He grinned at her. "Cleaning up after these kinds of accidents is in my job description."

Jubilee eagerly awoke earlier than usual the next morning. Excited about the reception her surprises for the day would bring, she got out of bed like a child on Christmas morning, grabbed her yellow dressing gown and pulled it on as she left the room.

She bounded down the hallway in the staff wing and almost ran right into a yawning Gambit as he came in her direction.

"Remy!" she exclaimed. "How'd it go last night? I hope it wasn't too hard of a mess to clean up. What about the bread making? Did they turn out? Whose on breakfast this morning?"

He gave her a tired smile. "Mess was no real problem. I've clean up way worse. Bread turned out great. Logan's on this morning, and the look on his face was just as priceless as I could've imagined. It was a cross between 'I knew there had to be a catch', 'resignation', and 'it's going to be one of those days, isn't it?' 10/10, fully recommend, would do again. Just not straight away 'cause then he'd get used to it, and that would take all the fun out of it."

Jubilee giggled and gave him a hug. After a moment's pause while Gambit's brain registered what was happening, he hugged her back.

"Thank you!" she said.

She was promptly zapped by static.

"Uh, sorry," Gambit said, the same time Jubilee jerked back and said: "Whoops, forgot about that."

Prolonged physical contact with Gambit was usually avoided, since it generally resulted in being zapped with static electricity.

"And now," he said while yawning. "I'm going to bed. Have a good day. I'll see you this afternoon."

"Okay! Have a good sleep!"

Gambit just waved at her as he continued to his room.

Jubilee half-skipped her way down to the dining hall. Breakfast kitchen duty had only just started: the dry foods were laid out (the freshly cooked bread was filling the hall with its heavenly scent), but none of the drinks were out yet, and as Jubilee got closer it seemed that the hot foods (eggs, meat) were only just being put on to cook. As Jubilee approached the buffet, her face lit up at the sight of the bread sticks, baked into pretzel-like heart-shaped loaves. Beside the loaves was the required ingredients list, this one written in Gambit's neat hand.

"Jubilee?" Logan said as he came out of the kitchen proper with something in his hand. "You're up early."

"I know!" Jubilee said happily, and gestured around the room. "Isn't it great?"

Logan gave her a long look. "This was all your doing, wasn't it?"

"Not all," she replied merrily. "I can't possibly take all the credit."

"Uh huh." Logan lifted his hand to reveal a heart shaped egg ring. "This your doing, or the Cajun's?"

Jubilee's eyes lit up at the sight of it. "No! I had no idea we had those—ooh! I bet Remy got them. I wonder what else he got? I can't wait until dinner tonight."

Logan gave a long suffering sigh. It was definitely going to be one of those days. "You just tell your co-conspirator that we'd better have the normal egg rings back in the drawer by tomorrow morning."

Jubilee giggled. Somehow it didn't surprise her at all that Gambit would remove the regular egg rings, just to make sure the heart shaped ones got used. "I will!"

Jubilee wasn't content to just leave it at decorations and heart shaped food. She decided to make Valentine's Day cards for everyone in the school. They were originally all going to be hand made, but Kitty stepped in when she realised Jubilee was about to bite off far more than she could chew.

"Yes I know handmade ones are more personal, but there is no way you can make that many between now and Valentine's Day," Kitty informed her. "Here, let me show you this thing on the computer, it's called a form letter—"

"Oh, but I don't want everyone to get the exact same card. I'm gonna write everyone an individual message."

"You can still do that. When you set up your mailing list, you can have a field for the message. You can make it different for everyone, same as if you hand wrote. Only it's being printed. And that's a good thing because a, I've seen your handwriting, and b, it's only going to get worse when you get tired and worn out. And you will get tired and worn out if you try to do this all by hand."

"Meh. Okay fine."

It was with great delight that Jubilee went around the school hand delivering all the cards, and liberally giving out hugs to those who were so inclined. She even interrupted a couple of classes.

"Jubilee," Storm said when the enthusiastic young mutant came bounding into her classroom. "This is hardly the time."

"Nonsense, it's math class," Jubilee replied as she looked at the next card in her hand. "This is the best time. And this one is for you, Jimmy."

Jimmy smiled shyly as he accepted the red card. "Thank you."

"You're welcome!"

She finished handing out the cards to the students and then pulled out Storm's. "And this one's for you."

Storm gave Jubilee a tolerant smile as she accepted the card. "Thank you, Jubilee. Now if you're done—"

Jubilee gave Storm a hug. "Hey, hey, you're awesome, Storm. We love ya."

And before Storm could reply, Jubilee pulled away and headed for the door.

"Happy Valentine's Day!" she said, and zipped out.

After delivering the cards, she headed to the rec room, where she promptly collapsed on the lounge. Keeping up that level of energy for so long was exhausting.

She sat there for a few minutes, then reached over and turned on the TV. It came up on the news channel and she was about to change it, when the next story came up:

"She's a rising star in the world of fashion: Ronnie Lake."

Jubilee watched with interest as they did a little bio on the beautiful blonde, Ronnie Lake, said to be the next supermodel. She didn't even notice when the rec room doors opened and other people entered.

"She can assume any pose, any emotion, any mood in an instant. Photographers love her."

"Huh," Pyro's voice said behind Jubilee, making her jump. "She looks oddly familiar."

"You probably saw her a lot in the past couple of months," Jubilee replied haughtily. "She is a rising star in the world of fashion."

Pyro leaned over the lounge and looked down at her. "Do I look like someone who cares about fashion?"

"No," Jubilee replied. "But you do look like someone who drools over supermodels."

"Ha!" Gambit's voice cut in. "You put that way more politely than I would've."

Jubilee giggled and twisted around on the lounge to look at him. What she was going to reply died on her lips as she saw the huge Valentine's Day card in his hands. He grinned at her, and ignored Pyro's comment of "tacky much?"

"Here," Gambit said as he handed her the card. "Happy Valentine's Day."

"Oh!" Jubilee exclaimed happily as she accepted the huge, way over-decorated, heart shaped, hand made card. "Thank you so much! This is awesome!"

She admired the cover, then opened it up and read the message inside. Then she set it aside to give Gambit a great big hug.

He hugged her back. Then she got zapped again and pulled away. "Ow!"

"Sorry."

"No no, my fault. Second time in one day, ha!" she grinned. "This card is amazing. Thank you!"

"You're welcome." He smiled back. "Glad you like it."

"I do, I love it!" Jubilee said. "Oh, and I have a card for you too." She reached over to where she'd left it on the coffee table. "Here. Happy Valentine's Day."

"Thanks."

It was then that Jubilee noticed that Gambit had another card with him: a more conventional sized one, still in its envelope.

"Who's that card for?" she asked as Gambit read his card from her.

"Hmm?" he glanced over. "Oh, that's for Rogue. I'm gonna give it to her when she and Bobby come back from their date."

Jubilee smirked knowingly. "Right where Bobby can see it, huh?"

"Oh yes."

She chuckled. It was then that Pyro picked up the remote and turned up the volume on the TV. Jubilee was about to make a snarky remark when the words of the news anchor caught her attention:

"The gang known as the Reavers struck again today…"

The three watched and listened as footage of three people with weaponised cybernetic prosthesis robbed a jewellery shop.

"Well, that was poorly timed," Gambit said.

"What do you mean?"

"They should've robbed the place before the Valentine's Day sales started. They would've gotten more stock to hock later."

Jubilee giggled, then shook her head. "I shouldn't laugh at that."

Gambit grinned wickedly at her. "Hey you either laugh or you cry. And those guys are going to be crying later when the don't have enough stock to sell to guys waiting until the last minute to buy Valentine's Day gifts."

Despite herself, Jubilee snorted with laughter.

"Omigod!"

Gambit took that shrill cry of Jubilee's voice as his cue to emerge from the kitchen and grin at her as she surveyed the buffet.

"Omigod!" she exclaimed again, bouncing on the spot as her hands waved in the air. "This is amazing! This is better than I was expecting!"

The buffet was filled with as many heart shaped foods as Gambit could think of and reasonably produce enough of for the large crowd. There was heart shaped pizza (the pepperoni pizza had heart shaped pepperoni slices), heart shaped pies, and pastries, and eggs. The potato salad had slices of heart shaped potatoes in it. Any other vegetable that could be cut into hearts was.

There were other foods that hadn't been cut into hearts (balanced diet and all that), but they seemed more to compliment the hearts rather than take away from them.

"I take it you approve?" Gambit asked her, while those on the other side of the buffet moved around Jubilee to fill up their plates.

"You have made this the best Valentine's Day ever," Jubilee informed him. "I love this so much."

"Glad you like it."