Teddy & Jean | Backdated
Apr. 5th, 2018 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ax_mainTeddy's feeling guilty following the rescue at one of the Right facilities, and Jean talks him through his doubts.
Sean Cassidy might not be much of an art teacher, but the studio he'd set up was Teddy's saving grace at the moment. The press of people had been too much that morning, along with the feeling that everyone was looking at him and knowing. That he'd screwed up on his first mission, that he'd let people die on his watch. Evil people, sure, who had done terrible things, but people nevertheless. It wasn't how things were supposed to go.
Teddy stared at the paper on the easel in front of him and splotched the paint-filled brush against the half-assed sketch in a fit of irritation. The blue paint splotch stared back at him, voiceless. If Teddy had given more thought to how seriously traumatized prisoners would react when they were given the powers to take out their oppressors- If he'd sent Billy into the cells to teleport the prisoners out one at a time instead of releasing them so obviously- maybe the bloodshed could have been avoided. He tore the paper off the pad and crumpled it into a ball, paint in the middle, then lobbed it toward the garbage can by the door. It went in clean; at least he still had that.
"It goes in clean, nothing but net." Jean Grey walked in and offered Teddy a smile. "Hey. Mind if I intrude?" She held up a slim little digital camera. "I wanted to play with some shots, and the PCs down here have better programs than my laptop."
It was Jean -- Teddy nodded, his momentary tension ebbing again. She wasn't likely to rip into him for hiding out; given the craziness around the school over the last couple of weeks, she might just as easily be doing the same thing. "I don't mind at all," he replied with a faint smile. "If I'm going to bug you I can go somewhere else."
"I hate to be the one to tarnish your self-image, Teddy Altman, but I don't think you're capable of 'bugging' anyone." Jean headed for the pair of computers over in the far corner; the areas with strongest natural light were reserved for the standing easels. "So please, don't let me run you off."
Teddy had to grin at that, leaning over to grab his pencil again. New piece of paper, new subject. "Please. I have it on good authority that I'm an annoying meathead, so I may as well own it." He said it flippantly. Tommy's annoyance with him was more funny than hurtful at this stage; Illyana's dislike was more raw.
Jean pretended to consider. "Maybe I just have a thing for annoying meatheads, then." She winked at him and turned to her project. Her camera chirped as she plugged the USB into the machine, and selection of photos from the past weeks popped up: Shen and Kurt's rally, various students in candid moments on campus and in Salem Center (no few of those featuring Scott Summers), the last couple of parties, and a shot or two of newcomers Billy and Goodnight down in the infirmary at the tail end of it. "How are you doing anyway?"
His false cheer faded, and Teddy frowned at his paper and the handful of guidelines he'd sketched on to it. He could fib and get away with it; Jean couldn't read his mind from all the way over there. But then she'd have heard about it all from Scott, not to mention the guys they'd actually rescued, so was there even a point? "Not so great," he admitted reluctantly. "It's been a weird few weeks. And then with the mission and everything..." he trailed off, shrugging uncomfortably. "Just trying to get my head on straight, I guess."
"I haven't heard all the gory details," Jean said softly. "But I can only imagine it was a hard one to get through. I've seen the state some of the new kids are in."
"That part went fine," Teddy sighed, and started his sketch over again. The dimmer light in that side of the room put soft shadows all around Jean, and the glow from her computer screen picked out highlights in the sweep of her hair - that worked. He started blocking in shapes again, more focused this time. "Getting to them was the easy part. It was after that everything went south, and I keep thinking about everything I should have done differently."
Jean frowned slightly and turned in her chair to look at him. "Like what?"
"Like considered that kids brainwashed into being baby assassins were going to have a really predictable reaction to being turned loose," Teddy admitted, the regret and self-doubt stinging and sharp. "People died because I didn't think things through. If Scott had been leading instead of me-" he trailed off, shaking his head. "Anyway. You've been dealing with everyone else's crap for days. You don't need me dumping on you as well."
"You didn't drop this on my lap," Jean pointed out. "I mean, yes, some days I can't take the voices in my head and the voices outside of it that want my attention, but I asked how you were doing after a rough mission. So that includes being willing to listen when you tell me it sucked.
"As for the rest, you didn't know what shape these kids would be in. Whether their powers had been inhibited or burned out, or if they could even walk out on their own. What are you thinking you should have done differently in approaching them?"
The same question he'd been asking himself for two days. "Asked Wiccan to teleport them directly to the rendezvous point as we opened the cells, maybe -- if we could have gotten them out before the guards caught on, we could avoided the entire fight." Except that wasn't entirely right, was it? "Only if I'd done that," he considered it aloud, turning the words over carefully one at a time. "Then we might never have found Goodnight. It was Billy who knew where they were holding him."
"That's a good point. Another question is, would they have all gone willingly if Billy - our Billy -" But they were both "their" Billys now, weren't they? Or at least the school's Billys. "- Wiccan," she decided, "had offered to just teleport them away? Or would that have just ended up with them fighting all of you? Or Wiccan when he was alone with them?"
That was a point he hadn't considered, and Teddy winced. "There's that. It's for the best that I'm the one who got stabbed -- Billy doesn't heal the way I do." And if it meant Billy didn't get hurt, Teddy would have jumped to take the shot regardless. "And just throwing them over our shoulders and making a run for it wouldn't exactly have helped them trust us."
"You got stabbed?!" Jean's voice went up an octave, and she actually covered her mouth in surprise. Apparently she was still enough of a normal girl to be shocked by people stabbing her friends. And of there being no sign of it later. "God. Sorry. I hadn't heard about that part. Let me guess: other-Billy?"
"Good guess. It wasn't that bad, not really. It hurt a lot, yeah, but I heal fast," he shrugged, half-apologetically. "Another screw-up of mine. I walked right into it - he saw a guard and opened fire, and considering the condition they'd left him in I can't blame him. At least it was me and not Billy or Scott."
"There's that," she conceded, though not happily. All right, Jean. No fair getting annoyed with other-Billy in retrospect. Teddy's fine. Our Billy's fine. Scott didn't get stabbed. Everyone's fine. And Teddy's right, the poor kid had no idea who he was.
"And you're right, the caveman move probably wouldn't have scored you any points. Especially if they," meaning other-Billy, "thought you were leaving one of them behind. Plus it would have probably blown your cover earlier and made the info-gathering part of the mission a bust."
He didn't want to accept it; it felt like ... like he was looking for an excuse not to feel bad about what happened. That he was ducking his responsibility as team leader - first and only time the Professor will ever trust me with that one - if he decided the deaths hadn't been his fault after all. "Thought far enough ahead to bring knockout gas or flashbangs or something, then," Teddy frowned. "A way to disable without killing." Or would they have gone ahead and done it anyway?
Jean nodded. "Contingency plan, in case stealth didn't work out. Something to keep in mind, if we've even got that stuff on-hand. But that doesn't necessarily account for the variable of very traumatized, very angry mutants either." Jean toyed with the ends of her hair. "I'm not trying to say there's nothing that could have been done or anything. Or that those guards deserved to die." Jean had the feeling she would have been a lot more disturbed by those casualties six months ago. But after what had been done to Nick and his family? Not so much. People didn't just find themselves in situations like that; they decided to be there.
"But there was a lot going on that you had limited control over," she went on. "And even with that, you got Scott and Billy and all of ours back safe. You got those kids out safe and they're going to get the help they need. And you got information that's going to help us save more kids in that same horrible situation. It could have been a lot worse."
"Worse than getting shot at and the roof caving in on us?" Teddy replied dryly, then relented with a resigned flap of his hand. "I know, I know. Not making it out after the roof caved in on us. And hopefully the database that Jeanne dumped will be useful. At the very least," he tried to reason out loud with himself, "she made sure the Right doesn't have the data anymore. Unless they had off-site backups, anyway. And they won't be using that location or equipment again, so we put a dent in their resources."
"All objectives achieved," Jean agreed, pulling her best Tessa. "But with a messy exit. So... maybe a B-?"
"Definitely not going to be good for my GPA," Teddy joked wryly, then winced at his mistimed humour as he picked up his pencil again. "Sorry. Too soon. How's Scott doing?"
"Not talking about it much," Jean admitted. "I don't think he wants to seem like he's trying to second-guess your decisions. Though if you want an objective analysis from someone who was there, I imagine you'd get one."
Teddy winced. "Can I vote for the 'gently letting me down' version instead?" On the other hand, no-one on Teddy's mission had ended up being bitten by one of the rescuees. On the other-other hand, Teddy'd been stabbed by one of them. So maybe it came out closer to even. "I might do that," he admitted. "Billy's more focused on making me feel better about the whole thing, but he's not exactly objective."
"Well, he gets a pass," Jean said, a laugh tilting the last of her words. "Boyfriend perogative and all."
Her laugh lit up her eyes, and he quickly sketched in the differences, tried to capture a little bit of the sudden glow. Teddy couldn't help but smile back, some of the weight he’d been carrying lifting off his shoulders, if just for the moment. "Yeah, I guess he does."
Sean Cassidy might not be much of an art teacher, but the studio he'd set up was Teddy's saving grace at the moment. The press of people had been too much that morning, along with the feeling that everyone was looking at him and knowing. That he'd screwed up on his first mission, that he'd let people die on his watch. Evil people, sure, who had done terrible things, but people nevertheless. It wasn't how things were supposed to go.
Teddy stared at the paper on the easel in front of him and splotched the paint-filled brush against the half-assed sketch in a fit of irritation. The blue paint splotch stared back at him, voiceless. If Teddy had given more thought to how seriously traumatized prisoners would react when they were given the powers to take out their oppressors- If he'd sent Billy into the cells to teleport the prisoners out one at a time instead of releasing them so obviously- maybe the bloodshed could have been avoided. He tore the paper off the pad and crumpled it into a ball, paint in the middle, then lobbed it toward the garbage can by the door. It went in clean; at least he still had that.
"It goes in clean, nothing but net." Jean Grey walked in and offered Teddy a smile. "Hey. Mind if I intrude?" She held up a slim little digital camera. "I wanted to play with some shots, and the PCs down here have better programs than my laptop."
It was Jean -- Teddy nodded, his momentary tension ebbing again. She wasn't likely to rip into him for hiding out; given the craziness around the school over the last couple of weeks, she might just as easily be doing the same thing. "I don't mind at all," he replied with a faint smile. "If I'm going to bug you I can go somewhere else."
"I hate to be the one to tarnish your self-image, Teddy Altman, but I don't think you're capable of 'bugging' anyone." Jean headed for the pair of computers over in the far corner; the areas with strongest natural light were reserved for the standing easels. "So please, don't let me run you off."
Teddy had to grin at that, leaning over to grab his pencil again. New piece of paper, new subject. "Please. I have it on good authority that I'm an annoying meathead, so I may as well own it." He said it flippantly. Tommy's annoyance with him was more funny than hurtful at this stage; Illyana's dislike was more raw.
Jean pretended to consider. "Maybe I just have a thing for annoying meatheads, then." She winked at him and turned to her project. Her camera chirped as she plugged the USB into the machine, and selection of photos from the past weeks popped up: Shen and Kurt's rally, various students in candid moments on campus and in Salem Center (no few of those featuring Scott Summers), the last couple of parties, and a shot or two of newcomers Billy and Goodnight down in the infirmary at the tail end of it. "How are you doing anyway?"
His false cheer faded, and Teddy frowned at his paper and the handful of guidelines he'd sketched on to it. He could fib and get away with it; Jean couldn't read his mind from all the way over there. But then she'd have heard about it all from Scott, not to mention the guys they'd actually rescued, so was there even a point? "Not so great," he admitted reluctantly. "It's been a weird few weeks. And then with the mission and everything..." he trailed off, shrugging uncomfortably. "Just trying to get my head on straight, I guess."
"I haven't heard all the gory details," Jean said softly. "But I can only imagine it was a hard one to get through. I've seen the state some of the new kids are in."
"That part went fine," Teddy sighed, and started his sketch over again. The dimmer light in that side of the room put soft shadows all around Jean, and the glow from her computer screen picked out highlights in the sweep of her hair - that worked. He started blocking in shapes again, more focused this time. "Getting to them was the easy part. It was after that everything went south, and I keep thinking about everything I should have done differently."
Jean frowned slightly and turned in her chair to look at him. "Like what?"
"Like considered that kids brainwashed into being baby assassins were going to have a really predictable reaction to being turned loose," Teddy admitted, the regret and self-doubt stinging and sharp. "People died because I didn't think things through. If Scott had been leading instead of me-" he trailed off, shaking his head. "Anyway. You've been dealing with everyone else's crap for days. You don't need me dumping on you as well."
"You didn't drop this on my lap," Jean pointed out. "I mean, yes, some days I can't take the voices in my head and the voices outside of it that want my attention, but I asked how you were doing after a rough mission. So that includes being willing to listen when you tell me it sucked.
"As for the rest, you didn't know what shape these kids would be in. Whether their powers had been inhibited or burned out, or if they could even walk out on their own. What are you thinking you should have done differently in approaching them?"
The same question he'd been asking himself for two days. "Asked Wiccan to teleport them directly to the rendezvous point as we opened the cells, maybe -- if we could have gotten them out before the guards caught on, we could avoided the entire fight." Except that wasn't entirely right, was it? "Only if I'd done that," he considered it aloud, turning the words over carefully one at a time. "Then we might never have found Goodnight. It was Billy who knew where they were holding him."
"That's a good point. Another question is, would they have all gone willingly if Billy - our Billy -" But they were both "their" Billys now, weren't they? Or at least the school's Billys. "- Wiccan," she decided, "had offered to just teleport them away? Or would that have just ended up with them fighting all of you? Or Wiccan when he was alone with them?"
That was a point he hadn't considered, and Teddy winced. "There's that. It's for the best that I'm the one who got stabbed -- Billy doesn't heal the way I do." And if it meant Billy didn't get hurt, Teddy would have jumped to take the shot regardless. "And just throwing them over our shoulders and making a run for it wouldn't exactly have helped them trust us."
"You got stabbed?!" Jean's voice went up an octave, and she actually covered her mouth in surprise. Apparently she was still enough of a normal girl to be shocked by people stabbing her friends. And of there being no sign of it later. "God. Sorry. I hadn't heard about that part. Let me guess: other-Billy?"
"Good guess. It wasn't that bad, not really. It hurt a lot, yeah, but I heal fast," he shrugged, half-apologetically. "Another screw-up of mine. I walked right into it - he saw a guard and opened fire, and considering the condition they'd left him in I can't blame him. At least it was me and not Billy or Scott."
"There's that," she conceded, though not happily. All right, Jean. No fair getting annoyed with other-Billy in retrospect. Teddy's fine. Our Billy's fine. Scott didn't get stabbed. Everyone's fine. And Teddy's right, the poor kid had no idea who he was.
"And you're right, the caveman move probably wouldn't have scored you any points. Especially if they," meaning other-Billy, "thought you were leaving one of them behind. Plus it would have probably blown your cover earlier and made the info-gathering part of the mission a bust."
He didn't want to accept it; it felt like ... like he was looking for an excuse not to feel bad about what happened. That he was ducking his responsibility as team leader - first and only time the Professor will ever trust me with that one - if he decided the deaths hadn't been his fault after all. "Thought far enough ahead to bring knockout gas or flashbangs or something, then," Teddy frowned. "A way to disable without killing." Or would they have gone ahead and done it anyway?
Jean nodded. "Contingency plan, in case stealth didn't work out. Something to keep in mind, if we've even got that stuff on-hand. But that doesn't necessarily account for the variable of very traumatized, very angry mutants either." Jean toyed with the ends of her hair. "I'm not trying to say there's nothing that could have been done or anything. Or that those guards deserved to die." Jean had the feeling she would have been a lot more disturbed by those casualties six months ago. But after what had been done to Nick and his family? Not so much. People didn't just find themselves in situations like that; they decided to be there.
"But there was a lot going on that you had limited control over," she went on. "And even with that, you got Scott and Billy and all of ours back safe. You got those kids out safe and they're going to get the help they need. And you got information that's going to help us save more kids in that same horrible situation. It could have been a lot worse."
"Worse than getting shot at and the roof caving in on us?" Teddy replied dryly, then relented with a resigned flap of his hand. "I know, I know. Not making it out after the roof caved in on us. And hopefully the database that Jeanne dumped will be useful. At the very least," he tried to reason out loud with himself, "she made sure the Right doesn't have the data anymore. Unless they had off-site backups, anyway. And they won't be using that location or equipment again, so we put a dent in their resources."
"All objectives achieved," Jean agreed, pulling her best Tessa. "But with a messy exit. So... maybe a B-?"
"Definitely not going to be good for my GPA," Teddy joked wryly, then winced at his mistimed humour as he picked up his pencil again. "Sorry. Too soon. How's Scott doing?"
"Not talking about it much," Jean admitted. "I don't think he wants to seem like he's trying to second-guess your decisions. Though if you want an objective analysis from someone who was there, I imagine you'd get one."
Teddy winced. "Can I vote for the 'gently letting me down' version instead?" On the other hand, no-one on Teddy's mission had ended up being bitten by one of the rescuees. On the other-other hand, Teddy'd been stabbed by one of them. So maybe it came out closer to even. "I might do that," he admitted. "Billy's more focused on making me feel better about the whole thing, but he's not exactly objective."
"Well, he gets a pass," Jean said, a laugh tilting the last of her words. "Boyfriend perogative and all."
Her laugh lit up her eyes, and he quickly sketched in the differences, tried to capture a little bit of the sudden glow. Teddy couldn't help but smile back, some of the weight he’d been carrying lifting off his shoulders, if just for the moment. "Yeah, I guess he does."
