Museum of Natural History

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh's eyes roam briefly across the assembled dinosaur skeletons, but they don't hold his interest for very long. The bones were an important contribution to science... just not the kind of science he was interested in. Later on in the trip, there were supposed to be some more biology-related displays.

For the time being, though, at least he and Warren were having a good time. It was strange being 'dorm-parent', especially to students who weren't all that much younger than he was. Hey, someone has to do it. Being at a boarding school meant that their kids lost out on a lot of family-type activities, and the Institute did its best to make up for it.

> Check it out, Danny has apparently made a new friend.

Josh raises an eyebrow and grins. Here's hoping he doesn't start acting weird, or he'll blow our mutant stealth cover. Danny had made quite the improvement in terms of social skills, but he was still always a little... unpredictable. Then again, I guess you've already done that. Josh looks at Warren fondly, and surveys the crowd. They were getting a few more glances than he was used to pre-Warren, but sometimes it was hard to decide whether it was Warren's wings or his physical looks that brought on that.

As he glances over the crowd, he can't help but realize he's scanning for potential threats as well as for the locations of their students. I guess our visit to the future has made me a more cautious person... Mostly, he just didn't want anything to happen to any of them. Including John, despite the sour attitude he was extuding. I can't believe he tried to smoke in the Museum of Natural History...

Josh's eyes widen as Veronica brushes a hand across one of the displays. God, I feel like such a boring adult. He steps between museum patrons in the crowded gallery, drawing close to Danny, Veronica, John, and the unknown boy.

"Hey, Veronica... not to pick on you, but I don't think the museum really wants us touching the skeletons. Just don't want them kicking us out." He tries on a smile to soften the criticism.

[Warren Worthington III]

It doesn’t take Warren very long to reassure himself that his batch of adolescent charges are present and accounted for and not getting into more than the usual amount of trouble… and a quick checkin with the other chaperones confirms that the same is true on their ends, which is further reassuring.

He’d originally suggested equipping all the chaperones with comm-gear so they could coordinate, but had been talked out of it on the grounds that it would call attention to them. Which he still thinks is amusing; it’s not like he has much choice in the matter. Not quite true; I could wear the harness. (But he’s not going to. Despite temptation, he’s never done anything quite so melodramatic as burn the thing, but if he can avoid it he does not intend to wear it again in his lifetime.) Still, the others are significantly more subtle than he is… at least, when they choose to be… so it was probably the right call. And Josh’s telepathically coordinated zone defense seems to be working fairly well.

He really does try not to eavesdrop on the students, but it’s difficult to avoid it when he’s paying attention to their activities at all. He can’t help but smile at Veronica’s reaction to Allerdyce’s predictable cynicism, or cringe at her questionable musical taste, but tries not to make either of those reactions too obvious.

He considers dropping Allerdyce a small hint in the direction of actually looking at some of the exhibits, but decides after some consideration that it would be counterproductive to do so; unlikely as he is to actually look at any of it out of native curiosity, he’s even less likely to pay attention to any suggestions Warren might make. With a pang of regret, he comes to the same conclusion about Laurie… whatever she’s going through, there’s very little he’s able to do to help.

Well, he shrugs resignedly, you can lead a horse to water…. For his own part, he’s absorbed by a skeletal pterodactyl suspended a dozen feet above his head under the vaulted ceiling, trying to decide if he believes the thing was capable of true flight. It’s pinions suggest a mostly gliding mode of operation, but the whole thing hinges – no pun intended – on the musculature of its shoulder-joint.

> "Hey, Veronica..."

He looks up again at Josh’s voice, wondering what he’s reacting to…

> " not to pick on you, but I don't think the museum really wants us touching the skeletons. Just don't want them kicking us out. "

Ah, he thinks, must’ve missed that. And here I thought you were going to mock her dance steps.

[Tempero]

Danny laughs as Hector catches onto the comment. In fact, he himself manages to do the same in about the same time. Completely unknowingly did he divulge the information of knowing Veronica. Not that a great government secret is concealed in it...yet. With the institute, one never knows.

"Yeah, I know her. I don't know her all that well, but we've been through a few PE exercises together." And of course, those exercises involved incapacitating guards who were out to get us, but he doesn't need his head filled with that...though it might help if that one had more blood going to it right about now.

"She's a fun one, I'll tell you that. Never a dull moment. But, that's the way most things are... And no, I don't think she has either of those." he says, a smirk on his face, thoughts racing back to see a time when he might have been staring at everything with boobs. None comes to mind.

Did I miss out on puberty? he glances at Hector and then Veronica, seeing the boy's chances, Or was I spared?

"When you said you were fascinated by the skeletons, I wasn't expecting that you meant ones that still had the rest of the package on them..." he comments with a laugh, and looks over to John. Now, John you can count on. The behavioral pattern was there, but then again he could be wrong. Danny and John have not had almost any interaction, and what he gathers of him is either from gossip (quite a few select words about him, too), or from knowing his mutation, which doesn't help much, really.

"Why don't you set your sights on someone from your class or something? I don't think Veronica plans on settling down any time soon..." he gives the boy sage advice, and immediately afterward feels stupid. Did I ever behave what my age would dictate? When was I a child?

The more important question raised by this little conversation, however, is why in the nine hells is he still single. In fact, he cannot remember one time that he even felt in love with someone. He glances at Warren and Josh, and then at Laurie.

Maybe I should ask them for help?

"What school do you go to?"

[Veronica Devereux]

>"Hey, Veronica... not to pick on you, but I don't think the museum really wants us touching the skeletons. Just don't want them kicking us out." Upon hearing the familiar voice, her hand shrank back. Feeling her face flush, she cleared her throat and turned to face Josh, the music still coming out of the earphone. Making a puppy dog face, she shrugged."Sorry about that. It's just so interesting, ya know?" she queried as she raised a single blonde eyebrow at him.


Instead of waiting for an answer, she nodded her head in the direction of the three boys."Do you know who that one kid is? They've been staring at me for awhile." she said, shuddering slightly."I mean," she paused, and brushed a few strands of hair out of her eyes as she blinked at him,"It'd be nice to have a stalker and all.. But, it just feels weird!" she explained as she began to flip through the songs once more.

Pausing, she listened to the first few notes of a certain song, and nodded, as if it needed her approval to play. While she waited for him to respond to her first question, she allowed her eyes to roam back over to Warren, who was currently staring at them. Connecting her icy orbs with his, she gave him a single wink. Smiling, she turned back to Josh and listened to the lyrics of the current song."Heart breaker you got the best of me, but I just keep on coming back incessantly."

[Toni Craft]

* Aaaaaaaaand Toni has officially made her entrance! Woo! *

While dinosaurs are, like, the uberest cool things on the mother freaking planet, Toni is definitely more interested in heading off to the Neanderthal section where she can stare longingly at hairy, muscular, scantily clad mannequins with sunken eyes and protruding foreheads. Ah, what fun it would have been living with such a bunch of multi-tasking-deprived humanoids. Too bad she’s stuck baby-sitting a bunch of geeky various-powered mutant kids who are too busy gawking over a triceratops.

“You know,” She comes up alongside Warren. “I’d totally forgive ‘Ro for not getting me that electron microscope I’m pretending she promised me if she got me a t-rex skeleton. Big teeth are totally gnarly.” A pair of the younger X-kids go racing by, excited at the sight of the huge dinosaur, leaving Toni with a slightly annoyed raised eyebrow. “And just for comment’s sake, I don’t like taking care of ritalin-stuffed ‘Stute-lings on massive sugar highs. Although I did get one of the puberty-lacking little dudes to snort a pixie stick on the bus. That was totally awesome.”

She can see Danny a ways away chatting up some tiny X-Men wannabe and Veronica groping the triceratops’ snout. “Hey Warr, I’ll give you a dollar if you lick the fossilized dino turd.” Toni nods in the direction of the 65 million year old fecal matter. “I bet it tastes like those purple jellybeans.”

[Hector Vidal]

> " Yeah, I know her. I don't know her all that well, but we've been through a few PE exercises together. "

Hector looks back over at his new friend with a sly eyebrow raised, then judges from Danny’s expression that, no, he really just did mean gym class.

> " When you said you were fascinated by the skeletons, I wasn't expecting that you meant ones that still had the rest of the package on them... "

Hector barks out a laugh. "Oh, come on… just look at her! With that kind of package… ?" He trails off at the expression on Danny’s face again… no sympathy at all. Meanwhile, an older kid – or possibly a young teacher, it’s hard to be sure – interrupts Veronica’s bone-fondling, and he suppresses a scowl.

> " Why don't you set your sights on someone from your class or something? I don't think Veronica plans on settling down any time soon... "

"Hey, I wasn’t thinking about proposing… but you can’t blame a guy for looking, can you? ‘specially not when someone’s putting that much effort into being looked at." Danny seems distracted by something now, though, and Hector wonders what the subtext is here. Is the kid gay? Is Veronica his sister, or his ex-girlfriend, or something?

> " What school do you go to? "

He decides to accept the change of subject, just for the sake of peace. "McKinley School, up on 25th and 3rd." He doesn’t expect Danny to recognize the name; while it’s a fairly good private school as such things go, it isn’t the sort of high-powered famous place that anyone’s heard of. Which is fine, since Hector isn’t really that much of a student anyway. "How about you?"

[Warren Worthington III]

> " I don’t like taking care of ritalin-stuffed ‘Stute-lings on massive sugar highs. Although I did get one of the puberty-lacking little dudes to snort a pixie stick on the bus. That was totally awesome. "

Warren nods wearily. "Yes… I was there. For what it’s worth, I’m not entirely fond of the sugar high myself… maybe we can skip that part on the trip back, if you don’t mind?"

He ignores her comments about fossil-licking and jellybeans, pretending to be fascinated by one of the exhibit descriptions, then looks around and adds "Speaking of our variously pubescent charges, have you seen your brother recently? We seem to have lost track of him." Not that Warren is worried – Matthew is one of the more responsible of his students, unlikely to get into trouble – but still, he’s supposed to be keeping track of them. Especially now that the Institute’s mutant demographic is even less of a secret than it was on their previous trip, things could potentially get dangerous extremely quickly.

[Tempero]

>"Oh, come on… just look at her! With that kind of package… ?"

Danny waves his head, but a smile's still on his face. Think with the other head, kid...

"Hector, it helps if you behave more gentlemanly. Blubbering about a girl's looks out loud like that might be flattering to some, but if you do it with style, it's a lot more accepted. Saying "with that kind of package" hardly counts as subtle," he explains, and then stops for a moment, taking a deep sigh.

Lose the lecture, lose the lecture, lose the lecture...

To Hector's other comment, Danny just laughs and says, "Indeed."

He sees Josh warning Veronica, and looks around, just in time to see Toni explode herself into the room. She was one of the teachers whom he'd always rather liked. True, the two of them have not had a lot of interaction, but with Toni, it is enough to be in the same room to get an opinion of her. The bet proposal reaches his ears, and the comment about the taste forces a delighted laugh out of him.

>"How about you?"

He has never heard of the school mentioned earlier, but now how does he explain? Well, really the only question about it is how Hector will react, if he gets the hint.

"Xavier Institute," he says and for a moment the advice that the kid should visit as well almost escapes. Avoid mutation...can't allow myself to slip up and tell the boy he's a mutant...might cause havoc.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

> must’ve missed that. And here I thought you were going to mock her dance steps.

Ha, ha. I'm glad I married such a comedian... maybe next time, though. And I mean, Toni is usually the one to openly mock the students... apparently I just give them performance anxiety during lab exams. Josh shrugged his shoulders. He didn't think he was that intimidating, but Institute students expecting a disorganized student teacher-type in his biology class had gotten a rude awakening pretty early on.

> "Sorry about that. It's just so interesting, ya know?"

Josh nods. "I know - I'm glad you're finding the trip worthwhile." To be honest, he isn't sure if she was - Veronica didn't strike him as the type of student to be interested in ancient skeletons. The headphones hanging out of her ears didn't exactly reinforce the image of an enthralled student, either.

> "Do you know who that one kid is? They've been staring at me for awhile."

He eyes the boy standing with Danny, and quickly does a cursory probe with his telepathy. Nothing in particular came up as interesting - the boy certainly didn't have any ill intentions towards any of them. "I don't know, but I wouldn't worry about it. My telepathy isn't coming up with any problems, anyway."

> "It'd be nice to have a stalker and all.. But, it just feels weird!"

"Yeah... mmhmm." As he watches Veronica's eyes lock with Warren, the corner of Josh's mouth twitches, and any concentration on the current conversation is lost. Aaaa... what the hell's with the wink? Maybe she had something in her eye. Yeah, right... and she just wears the low cut tops because it's less fabric to wash.

"I'm... going to go back by Toni.... and Warren. Enjoy the museum... you guys should let us know when you want to get something for lunch." He weaves through the crowded room, to where Warren and Toni are standing next to the wall. Josh unobtrusively slips an hand behind Warren and into his back pocket, and leans back against the wall. "Veronica winked at you." He makes the statement casually, but it's obvious he's torn between pseudo-jealousy and amusement.

"Apparently we haven't run enough Danger Room sims together. She doesn't realize that stuff that pisses me off usually ends up making large dents in the wall."

[Veronica Devereux]

>"I know - I'm glad you're finding the trip worthwhile." With a smile, she nodded in agreement. She wasn't exactly lying, seeing a giant statue of bones wasn't something you saw everyday, or, at least she didn't. Sighing, she leaned against the wall that was behind her and let her head rest on. Facing the two boys, she watched them converse.

>"I don't know, but I wouldn't worry about it. My telepathy isn't coming up with any problems, anyway." With a laugh, she nodded once more."There's always something wrong with someone." she replied, anxious to find out the one thing wrong with the new boy. Shrugging the feeling off, she dug her hand into her pocket and pulled out a piece of pink gum. Unwrapping the aluminum foil from around, she popped the piece in her mouth and fiddled the foil between her index and thumb fingers.


>"I'm... going to go back by Toni.... and Warren. Enjoy the museum... you guys should let us know when you want to get something for lunch." Raising her hand, she waved after the man as she dropped the foil."Bye hun', and will do." she called, bending over to pick up the foil. Snatching it from the marbled floor, she smoothed it out and began to roll it up, fold it, then roll it up again.

[Hector Vidal]

Hector rolls his eyes at Danny’s lecture on How to be a Gentleman. He hates it when people come off like they know more than he does… even if they do. Besides, Hector he’s watched his older brother around girls enough to know that being a gentleman gets you only so far, and a certain amount of boldness is also called for. Otherwise, you just blend into the background.

Although his interest level drops significantly when she pulls out her gum. Not that Hector has anything against gum, but the pink quotient has started to exceed his tolerance.

"Hey, thanks for the PSA, amigo… but I can take care of myself, know what I’m saying?" His tone remains calm and cheerful, though not quite as friendly as it had been a moment earlier.

His class has finally started to make its way into the exhibit room, and he waves to a few of his friends while Danny pays attention to what Hector assumes is another one of his teachers. He doesn’t especially react when Danny names his school, having never heard of it, but takes it as his cue to continue conversation. "So, you got a girl there? "

[Warren Worthington III]

> " Yeah... mmhmm. "

Although Warren is always at least vaguely aware of what Josh is doing whenever he’s in range of either Warren’s hearing or Josh’s telepathy, he generally tries to avoid “eavesdropping” on his husband’s activities, as a matter of politeness.

Still, the spike of annoyance across their mental link when Veronica winks at Warren is impossible to miss, and the ghost of a smile quirks his lips.

For about the first year of their relationship, Warren had felt vaguely guilty whenever Josh had to deal with some fan hitting on him in public, or sending suggestive – let alone blatant – mail, or setting up fan-sites. Not that there was really anything he could do about it… he didn’t encourage it, and Josh knew that… but, still, he was aware of Josh’s sensitivity about it.

That aspect of things had gotten much better after Josh went public with the X-Men, and started getting his own fan-mail… most of it just as forward as Warren’s… and even more so when Warren had finally gotten over his own fears of being “pinned down” for long enough to propose. He’d never regretted it for a moment – he’d had the one-night-stand lifestyle for months, and knew exactly what it lacked.

Still, while the substance of it has mostly faded, Josh’s habit of jealousy has remained, mostly as a private joke between them. And, sure enough, a moment later Josh returns and slips a possessive arm around him.

> " Veronica winked at you. Apparently we haven't run enough Danger Room sims together. She doesn't realize that stuff that pisses me off usually ends up making large dents in the wall. "

"My hero," Warren replies mock-breathlessly, batting his eyelashes in Josh’s direction with a grin. "Whatever would I do without you here to protect my honor?"

[Tempero]

>"Hey, thanks for the PSA, amigo… but I can take care of myself, know what I’m saying?"

Danny smiles, not at all bothered by the slight change in intonation. It just stands to confirm that he needs to work a bit on being a kid again. It seems that since his uncle had adopted him, it was either the shadow of his parents' death, or the events that caused the psychoses he used to have, or something else that prevented him from being a child.

Too late for it now, though, I need to start thinking about the future...

"I'll just trust you on that..." he replies, remembering at least the arrogance of the teens. That, he had a lot of. It usually seems to discourage thinking.

"Guess you haven't been around many people who can modify your daily life with one wrong move of yours..." this, Danny mutters to himself, but isn't quite sure if it was audible or not.

"No, I don't have a girlfriend. Haven't had time for that sort of relationship, it would seem. Well, none have struck me as someone I'd like to be with. It's not just the looks..." the reply reveals Danny for the hopeless romantic that he is, or at least hints towards it, and he is painfully aware that Hector will probably end up ridiculing it.

The mutation, however, is starting to bug him more and more. Should he tell Josh or Warren? No, they've got plenty of their own worries, I don't need to start the whole come-with-us thing again...

It is the curiosity about what the mutation may be that's trying to force him to talk about it. The glow from copying would make sure I'm detected...Shit, it would be nice if my power were useful for a change...

[Hector Vidal]

> " Guess you haven't been around many people who can modify your daily life with one wrong move of yours... "

Hector doesn’t quite know what to make of that comment; it makes Danny sound like some kind of abuse victim. Which he might be, for all Hector knows, but on the other hand he might just be tightly wound. And in any case it’s none of Hector’s business.

> " No, I don't have a girlfriend. Haven't had time for that sort of relationship, it would seem. Well, none have struck me as someone I'd like to be with. It's not just the looks... "

Which is more or less what Hector had expected, given how shocked Danny had been at his simple admiration of an attractive girl, but he decides to rub it in a little. "’No time’… sure, man, I get you. I mean, there’s probably a million things you do with your day more important than girls, special guy like you. Bet you save the world every day, or something." His voice is entirely deadpan, and though the sarcasm in his words is hard to miss, the grin on his face takes most of the sting out of it. "And yeah, I know what you mean… gotta wait till somebody worthy rolls around, right? Hey, I hear one of the President’s daughters is still single…"

[Tempero]

>"’No time’… sure, man, I get you. I mean, there’s probably a million things you do with your day more important than girls, special guy like you. Bet you save the world every day, or something."

"Not yet, but hopefully sometime soon. 'Been doing a lot of practice." he laughs, assuming that that little bit won't cause a whole lot of damage. Keeping secrets is not foreign to Danny, but he prefers honesty any day.

"Well, at least I'm glad you've mastered sarcasm...it's so rare this days, you know?" as he says this, his eyes reflexively glance at John, and then wash over the rest of what he assumes is Hector's class. Swallow excretions have a worthy adversary when it comes to abundance...

>"And yeah, I know what you mean… gotta wait till somebody worthy rolls around, right? Hey, I hear one of the President’s daughters is still single…"

He grimaces. "President's daughters? Why on earth would you want to get entangled with those people? Then again," he pauses and offer a smug grin, " maybe some people would like to be carefully checked down to their underwear whenever they come to pick up their date, and then be trailed throughout the evening by the same guys."