ax_main | Teddy and Jubilee | Backdated, March 26

Ms. Frost assigns Teddy to be Jubilee's algebra tutor. They hit it off, and some math actually happens.

Backpack slung over his shoulder, Teddy headed in to the library and cast a curious glance around. He was only vaguely familiar with the freshman he was supposed to be tutoring, but he was pretty sure he didn't see her at any of the tables in the middle of the large room.

The conversation with Ms. Frost had been deeply uncomfortable, as they usually were -- her glaring at him like his mental shields were somehow a personal insult, him trying to figure out some way to fix the dismissive dislike she'd thrown his way since day one.

It hadn't helped that she'd brought up the whole scholarship thing, and the 'college selection committee' thing, like she didn't think he'd be motivated to do anything out of the goodness of his heart. or he could just be projecting... she wasn't wrong. Just... her delivery could use some bed side manners. Either way, he'd agreed to help, and now he just had to find Jubilee and get this whole show on the road.

Late, late, late - not that she cared. Nope. Jubilee absolutely, positively did not care that she was late for her first tutoring session. Or at least, she wouldn't have cared if not for the fact that Ms. Frost had told her that if she didn't show, the D- she'd been laboriously maintaining in Algebra was going to magically transform itself into an F.

Seeing as an F would mean retaking Algebra (which probably wasn't considered a Fate Worse Than Death, but which should be) Jubilee raced into the library, her backpack slung over one shoulder, and stopped at the desk to look around. Her tutor had to be here somewhere, right? She could quietly go ask people, or...

Naaaaah. "Yo! Attention all library users!" she announced - if not quite at the top of her lungs, then at least at sufficient volume that anyone in the room would hear it without difficulty. "Would the person who's supposed to help me not fail math please step forward?"

And that settled that question. Teddy turned and gave the kid a half-wave, and headed over in her direction. "That'd be me," he replied, the back of his neck prickling with his certainty that everyone in the library was now staring at them both. Maybe he should take a page out of Jack's book and start dressing better. The plaid shirt he'd thrown on over a t-shirt and old cargo pants was really more of a 'blend into the background' sort of outfit. "It's Jubilation, right? I'm Teddy."

"Jubilee. Or Jubes," she corrected, because seriously, the only one who actually called her Jubilation was Ms. Frost, and she was pretty sure she did it just to annoy her. Her new tutor was hot, though, and she spared a moment in admiration before asking, "Dude, doesn't that like, hurt when you eat? Because I've never understood how they can't, considering they're right there and all. Not that it doesn't look seriously cool," she added quickly so he wouldn't think she was criticizing. "Because it does. I just always wondered."

"What? Oh! Thanks." Teddy bumped the lip ring with his tongue on the inside of his mouth, the new texture and weight still a fun novelty. "Not really? It's off to the side and out of the way. A tongue piercing would be more of a problem for that, I think." That was one he wasn't all that interested in; the idea of getting food caught in it was unappealing to say the least. He smiled at her, a little less self-consciously now, and nodded toward one of the tables. "Did you want to sit?"

"Not really? But you can't really do Algebra homework standing up," Jubilee observed with a sigh as she slipped into a chair and started pulling stuff out of her bookbag. "I've tried. Also while roller blading. And once while standing on my head, in the hopes that it'd make more sense upside down, except it totally didn't and then I had a headache on top of Algebra-itis."

Teddy's lips twitched and he tried not to laugh. "That... yeah, I can see why that wouldn't work so well." He dropped his bag on the floor and took the chair across the table from her. Rollerblading -- that brought up a memory of catching sight of someone doing circles on the driveway, but he'd been too high in the air to notice the face. That had to be her. "When did you get to school?" he asked, curling one leg up underneath him. "Is it a catching-up-on-missed stuff issue?"

"Nah, it's totally an I suck at math issue," Jubilee confessed. She plunked her book and notebook down on the table. "I got here back in September, so I can't even blame coming in late, y'know? I mean, I was late? But not like, that late, just a coupla weeks." She looked at him curiously. "How 'bout you? Ms. Frost didn't tell me anything except that you were good at math and 'potentially had the ability to retain your sanity even when faced with my inability to stop talking." She grinned. "Direct quote."

Okay, he laughed at that, though he was starting to get the sense Jubilee wouldn't take it personally. "And here I thought she didn't like me." He grinned back at her. "I guess that's one way to recommend someone. I got here just before school started, end of August. Though I'm from New York, so it wasn't a huge trip."

"Dude, New York, seriously? Coast to coast," Jubilee announced, holding her fist out for a bump. "I'm from LA - well, Beverly Hills, but whatever, right? I took the Clarice express here, so I probably had an even shorter trip."

He bumped fists, his laugh coming more easily. "Brooklyn, if you want to get specific, but yeah. It's a couple hours drive, so you definitely beat me in terms of mileage and speed. Have you had a chance to get down to the city yet?"

"Once? I went skating with Gar a coupla weeks ago, but I'm totally up for the grand tour sometime, because honestly, neither of us had any idea where we were going, and we really didn't see a whole lot other than the skating rink because Gar's image thingie might've run out of juice." Jubilee sighed. "They need more oomph, seriously. I should talk to Gilmore. He can make pretty much anything."

"I've seen him around, but I don't think I've really met him. Gilmore, I mean. I know Gar," Teddy grinned. "He's the first person I've ever met with a similar power set to mine."

"So you do the whole change into animals thing, too? Because that's pretty awesome," Jubilee observed, grinning back. "And Gilmore's awesome - he totally made the confetti canons for New Years, and made them blow on their own at Midnight. I mean, I found all the stuff for him?" she added, because credit where it was due, right? "But he put it all together and boom, conffetti!"

"I didn't actually make it to the New Years Eve thing. But I saw the pictures, and it looked awesome." Teddy didn't continue into the whole 'I was watching bad movies with my seriously traumatized boyfriend at the time' story. Unnecessary. "And I don't just do animals, though I can -- Gar's better at it, and he's got more size range. I'm just a shapeshifter in general."

He hesitated, tried to decide if it was a good plan or not, then gave in to impulse. Jubilee seemed like she'd have a sense of humour about the whole thing. He shifted into a pretty good copy of her, albeit in his clothes and with his piercings still in place, held it for a beat, then shifted back to his own baseline. "Like that."

"OMG. Dude! That was like, totally and completely amazing!" Jubilee applauded. "I'm pretty sure Gar can't do that - or at least, I haven't seen him do it. Besides, green? Totally not my color." She paused, eyeing him curiously. "Can you do that again? Because I seriously want to see what I look like with cartilage piercings."

Teddy grinned at her request, staving it off for a minute. "Yeah, Gar's just animals -- anything that's existed on Earth, from what he told me. He does a pretty good T. Rex, if you ever get a chance to see it." And because she'd actually asked him to do it, he slipped back into her shape again. "I don't normally copy people I know," he apologized... the voice wasn't quite right, and he adjusted slightly to get it higher. "It gets weird if it's for more than just a shock-value demo."

"Fair, but it's for a good cause, right? Because I don't wanna get a piercing if it's gonna look lame, and now..." she tilted her head, forehead furrowing appraisingly, then grinned. "Now I know it's not. It's all good, thanks!" she added with a grin and a wave of her hand to show she was done looking at him-as-herself. "And I haven't seen his T Rex yet, but I'll remember that. I wonder if it's stuff that's existed, or stuff he knows has existed? Because that'd be one way to find out if there were ever, like, unicorns or dragons or stuff, right?"

Teddy shifted back to himself as soon as she released him, and shrugged. "He said it was things that have really existed, but I think he has to know what they are in order to try it? All I know is that I asked him to do a dragon and he laughed at me. It was worth a try." He grinned to show he hadn't taken any offense at any of it. "What are your powers? If you don't mind me asking."

"Dude, I never mind anyone asking." Jubilee grinned brightly, raised one hand over her head, and fired off a few lights-only pafs.

He glanced around quickly, kind of sheepish at having disrupted the library yet again, but no-one seemed to paying them any real attention and he relaxed. "That's really cool," Teddy replied, nodding in appreciation. "Can you do light-and-sound like fireworks? Or blow stuff up?"

"Both, duh. But not in here - the Prof chewed me a new one the last time I blew stuff up indoors. So, lights only demo here! I've done fireworks shows outside a coupla times for people, though," she said, blowing on the tips of her fingers. She grinned. "Sucks I can't do it for tips at the mall here, but there's the whole secret mutant school thing."

He laughed, nodding. "Far be it from me to encourage anything the Professor's already told you off for, but I bet you could make some bank in Central Park this summer. Assuming the Friends of Humanity aren't around, of course," he amended. "Though I don't know if mutant buskers would trigger their crazy."

"Oh man, I so need to try that!" Jubilee grinned. "And whatever with the crazies." She waved away any annoying FoH morons with one wave of her hand. "I totally handled them before; I can do it again."

"They have a group in California as well?" Teddy raised an eyebrow at that. Not that he was surprised, not really, but part of him had really hoped that the jerks were a little more isolated to one region than that. He was a lot happier if he pictured them as being a couple of local nutcases and a small internet echo chamber.

"Nah, but crazy assholes are crazy assholes everywhere." Jubilee frowned. "Or at least, I don't think they have a group there. Could be wrong." She shrugged and offered a lopsided smile. "I've never been much for watching the news."

Oddly, that actually made him feel a little better. "Honestly, you're probably better off. The world didn't feel nearly so weird this time last year."

"Right?? I mean, I was living in a shopping mall putting on firework shows for cash, and it still seemed less weird." Jubilee shook her head. "This place is like a weirdness magnet or something, I think. A weirdness magnet with Algebra."

"There are downsides to everything." Teddy nodded toward her books. "And on that note, we should probably at least take a stab at this. Where do you want to start?"

Jubilee sighed and flipped her book open. "I should probably start with last year's math class, but let's go with the new homework. It's on page 208, and I have, like, a negative understanding of what they're even talking about."

"You'll get it," Teddy reassured her. "Math can be annoying, but the concepts are all pretty logical. We'll just work back until we figure out what part you missed, and go from there."

"Uh huh. Just that easy." Somehow, Jubilee very much doubted it.

-

She was still doubting it an hour and a half later. "I still don't get it," Jubilee protested for what had to be the thirty millionth time. "I mean, yeah. If I subtract the number from itself I get zero - which is awesome, because I don't want it there. But it's not on the other side of the equals sign, so I don't see what the point of subtracting it there is." Or what the point of Algebra was, period. Other than to drive her insane. Maybe it was actually invented by Psyciatrists as a way of getting new business? She wasn't ruling it out.

Okay, so this wasn't working. Teddy frowned at the paper between them. There had to be another way to explain it, even though it seemed perfectly logical to him... maybe he wasn't so good at the tutoring thing. He sat back, then caught sight of the old wooden ruler sitting on the main desk. "Hold that thought," he instructed, heading over to grab it.

He had a plan by the time he was back to their table, grabbing a couple of erasers and markers to build himself a mini teeter-totter, using the ruler as the main plank. "Okay. So balancing equations is like a game," he said, shifting the ruler back and forth until he actually got it to balance evenly, one eraser at each end. "The goal is to make sure the equals sign - the ruler - never falls down on one side or the other."

"O-kaaaay." Jubilee's forehead furrowed. Visual aids were awesome, and games were even better, but she didn't see what it had to do with Algebra.

"Bear with me," Teddy asked, grinning as his idea took hold. He turned out his pockets, finding a handful of coins, a 20-sided die and a pack of gum. He stacked them on the sides of the ruler, trying to keep it balanced, making sure there were a couple of coins on each side. "Give me a hand with this?" he asked, shifting things back and forth until the ruler was balanced out again on top of the highlighter fulcrum. "Okay. Now, what happens if you take something off only one side?"

"Everything tips," Jubilee answered obligingly. She eyed the makeshift scale with some interest, then looked at Teddy. "Dude, can I have a piece of the gum? Please? I'm out."

"Sure, no problem." Teddy nodded at the pile on one end of the ruler, and stuck his finger on the ruler over the fulcrum so it wouldn't all topple immediately when she went for the gum pack. "But you're going to have to take one of the pennies off the other side too, or I'll have to start over."

"Right." Biting her lip in concentration, Jubilee pulled out a piece of gum, but kept her finger on that side until she'd removed a penny from the other, then let both go carefully. Surprisingly, it wobbled but stayed steady. "Do I rock, or what?" she asked as she popped the gum into her mouth and grinned.

"You do rock," Teddy confirmed, letting go and watching the ruler wobble again, but stay up. There were another five pieces of gum left in the pack, and three pennies left on each side of the ruler. One side, pack of gum and three pennies - other side, eraser and three pennies... it was perfect. Teddy grinned. "So how much would you have to take off if you wanted to steal the whole pack?"

Jubilee frowned, her forehead furrowing. "I couldn't, right? Just three more pieces, because if I take more than that, it'll all tip over."

"Sure. So how can we get the gum?" Teddy settled his chin on his folded hands with a grin and watched her work it through.

Forehead still furrowed, Jubilee considered the question. "Leave the pennies and steal the eraser?" she guessed. "I mean, you'd have to take it all off and put the pennies back on, but it'd work."

Teddy nodded along. "That'd work, yeah. But it's a lot of extra effort. There's gotta be a lazier way, right?"

Jubilee looked up from the improvised teeter totter and grinned. "What kind of a tutor encourages people to be lazy?"

"Not lazy," Teddy corrected her, holding up a finger and grinning back. "Efficient. This stuff is all like learning how to unscramble a rubix cube -- there are patterns and tricks that you can use that make it a lot less work than twisting and turning randomly until something clicks. So we know the ruler will stay balanced if it's totally empty - zero equals zero, right?"

"Right." No weight on either side = balance. She got that much.

"Assuming the game is doing it without dumping everything off at once," he joked, "then what we want is to get we want to get the balance down to the gum alone on one side and something else alone on the other."

Jubilee gave him a "duh" look. "So you take all the pennies off. They're even."

Teddy nodded to the ruler. "Go for it." He took his finger off the fulcrum and grabbed his pen and Jubilee's notebook. Where she'd written X, he crossed it out and drew a quick doodle of the pack of gum, helpfully labelling it 'gum' as well (just in case).

He was up to something. Jubilee tried to see what he was doing with her notebook, saw he was apparently doodling a pack of gum, and shrugged. It wouldn't be the first picture in there, that was for sure. She turned her attention back to the ruler, and carefully removed the pennies from each side. "There. Gum vs. eraser. I win."

"Sweet," Teddy cheered her on, then turned her book to face her. Instead of X + 7 = 16, the last step of the homework question now featured a picture of a pack of gum and a stack of seven pennies, an equals sign, and on the other side, a round tower that was as close to sixteen pennies as he could do with a couple of seconds notice. "How about this one -- how do you get the gum now? Cross stuff off, since we can't pick it up."

Jubilee wrinkled her nose at him, just on principle - for a minute or two, she'd actually managed to forget the algebra - then turned her attention the problem. At least, she consoled herself, there were still pictures. Biting at her lip in concentration, she started crossing out the pennies that were on both sides.

Teddy watched, nodding encouragingly when she was done. "So to balance out the gum, we've got to get rid of -" he fell silent, gesturing for her to continue his sentence.

"Seven pennies on each side," she replied promptly. "There's...I think 9 left?" she guessed, trying to make sense of his stack picture.

"Nine, yeah, sorry. The picture sucks," he apologized sheepishly. "But check it out. You got the answer."

Jubilee looked further up the page, saw the problem, and stared. "They coulda just said that," she complained.

"They kind of did. They use letters like X and Y as placeholders for 'thing that we don't know what it is,' but you can replace it with a pack of gum, or a puppy, or the Empire State Building and it would all still work. Math mad libs," Teddy suggested with a shrug and a grin. "Choose your own adventure."

"Why don't they just leave an open space like they used to in 3rd grade?" Jubilee grumbled.

"Because when you start moving things around the equals sign, you need a symbol to help you remember where you stuck your 'unknown thing.' X marks the spot for pirate treasure," he joked. "Trying to find it again when you've left it invisible would be a massive pain."

"Like that commercial for the hearing aids," Jubilee observed helpfully. She sighed. "Okay, lemme try the next assignment."

"You've got this," Teddy encouraged her. And because he was the tutor here, he was going to be an adult and keep resisting the strong urge to tap one end of the ruler and catapult the eraser across the room. "One step at a time."