Go Fly A Kite (the sometimes the wind doesn't blow Remix) [XMM, Jubilee, Hank McCoy]

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Title: Go Fly A Kite (the sometimes the wind doesn't blow Remix)
Author: K Marie (roguewords)
Summary: The contents of the shoeboxes made sense when applied to Mr. Summers
Rating: PG
Fandom: X-Men Movieverse
Spoilers: for X-3
Title, Author and URL of original story: Go Fly A Kite by renata_kedavra.
Author's Note: A great big thanks to my amazing betas, mjules and sionnain. They made this story a thousand times better than I wrote it. Thank you both.




Go Fly A Kite (the sometimes the wind doesn't blow Remix)

***
Three days after the funerals and everyone was still in a state of shock. It wasn't that Jubilee wasn't, just that she was used to loss, as much as one could be used to loss. She had asked Ms. Monroe if there was anything she could do to help with around the mansion. Ms. Monroe suggested that Jubilee could see about Mr. Summers' room, take a look at what could be gotten rid of, what could be donated, and what should be set aside for his friends.

The room was normally meticulous. She knew that from pulling a few pranks and from being punished for pulling those pranks, back before everything went to hell. The room she walked into now looked nothing like she remembered. It looked more like her room than Mr. Summers'.

She started with clothes, easy enough, a box for Mr. Summer's clothes and a box for Dr. Grey's stuff. The majority of Dr. Grey's clothes seemed to be thrown around the room, particularly on the bed. She tried not to think about what that might mean. Grief was a funny thing, and made its self known in different ways for different people. She'd seen enough to know that.

It ended up taking her a few days to get through the clothes. Some that looked like they had been kept for sentimental value rather than practicality were beyond repair and went straight to the trash. Some items were going to Goodwill, some to the students in the mansion. Jubilee even set aside a pair of Dr. Grey's boots for Rogue, a sweater for Kitty and a skirt for herself. Bobby and Piotr had come by and picked out something for each of the older boys. No one thought this to be odd, or wrong, simply taking a piece of their teachers to keep, to help them through their own grief. The evening wear would be saved in case anyone might need something formal. She had them sent to the cleaners to be cleaned and stored.

Once the clothes were finished, she began working on the personal items; books, photo albums, and the like. Books went to the library downstairs, though a couple she put in a box marked for Dr. McCoy and Mr. Worthington to go through. Some things were just too personal for the younger kids to understand. Yes there was a copy of the Karma Sutra down in the library, but the kids didn't really need to see the one that Dr. Grey and Mr. Summers had made notes in. Some of Dr. Grey's things would be sent to her family; there was a box marked for that. Mr. Summers' personal stuff went into the box for Dr. McCoy and Mr. Worthington.

Six days after Ms. Monroe had asked her to sort through Mr. Summers' stuff, Jubilee finally got down to the closets, one for Dr. Grey and one for Mr. Summers, both almost perfectly immaculate. Dr. Grey's closet was void of clothing, presumably Mr. Summers had finally managed to start cleaning out her closet after all this time. There were a few school books from college classes, Jubilee thought, and Dr. Grey's jewelry box, but most of her belongings had been scattered about the room.

Mr. Summers' closet was another case. The shirts and pants in order by color, starting with blacks on the left, whites on the right and reds in the middle. The top of the closet held shoeboxes labeled with the color.

All of that sorted itself out easily into the pre-marked boxes. However the bottom of Mr. Summers' closet didn't fare so well. While everything was still neat, it was a disaster in terms of what was in what. Shoeboxes filled with pictures, baseball programs, old mix tapes, back issues of car magazines and broken model airplanes. The contents of the shoeboxes made sense when applied to Mr. Summers, in fact all of it did. The only thing that didn't make any sense to Jubilee was the box kite still in the original box.

Ms. Monroe had told her to tell Dr. McCoy when she had finished with the room, so he could take Dr. Grey's things to her family. Taking the kite with her, she headed down to the lab to find out the story of the kite.

***

Jubilee looked around the lab for Dr. McCoy. It was quiet and spooky without Dr. Grey there to make it feel more comfortable. She was almost back to the stairs when a loud thump from the office made her yelp.

"Jubilee is that you?" Dr. McCoy asked, sticking his head out of the door.

"Yes. I, umm, I was cleaning out Mr. Summers and Dr. Grey's room and I found a kite in Mr. Summers' closet, and I was wondering what it was but if this is a bad time I can come back later, or never, whatever's best for you," she said in one breath.

"A kite? A red box kite?"

Jubilee nodded, still a little too startled to speak. Not that Dr. McCoy's mutation was any different than Artie's tongue or Wolvie's hair, but she was still getting use to the idea of Dr. McCoy as blue.

"I remember that kite. Shall we adjourn to the outdoors and set it up? I'd like to see it flying again. And the story is a good one," Dr. McCoy said heading towards the hanger deck.

"Sure." Jubilee grinned at the idea of getting Dr. McCoy to tell her a story about the old days.

***

The directions were still in the box. "I don't believe it."

"I do. Scott kept close to everything. Only they seem to be in Chinese."

"Like that's going to be a problem," she laughed.

After they'd set up the kite and managed to get it into the air, Dr. McCoy started to tell her about Mr. Summers' first birthday at Xavier's.

"Scott wouldn't tell any of us, of course. Professor Xavier got it from his file from the orphanage. Jean made a cake and made a show of floating the presents across the table. She almost knocked my drink over in the process."

Jubilee giggled at the idea of Dr. Grey not having control of her powers. Dr. McCoy chuckled at the memory or possibly at the way Jubilee barely managed to keep the kite in the air.

"She was very insistent that Scott open her present last. Professor Xavier gave him baseball tickets, I remember because we all went to the game the next day. The Yankees won, of course."

"Of course, for Mr. Summers' birthday," she grinned.

"That's what Scott said. I believe Warren's money might have had a part in the Yankees doing so well also. Of course, I'd never tell Warren that," Dr. McCoy grinned back.

As they watched the kite fly, Jubilee was amazed that she'd remembered enough Chinese to put it together. A comfortable silence fell over the pair.

"I have to tell you the rest of the story of course," Dr. McCoy said after a while. "Being blessed with super-human senses, I was able to hear Scott and Jean's conversation the first time they moved into the same room."

"The first time? You mean there was more than once?"

"Yes, but that's not important to this story, Jubilee. This is about the first time. Now as I was saying, being blessed with super-human sense, added to the fact that Scott and Jean were notoriously loud and had the door open; I was able to hear a very interesting conversation. Scott and Jean both had a large collection of items to consolidate into a much smaller room than either had at the time. I believe that was part of Professor Xavier's plan for making sure they were ready for that step. But the best part of being able to hear the entire thing was hearing Jean say: 'Scott Summers, I think you're the only man I know who could turn 'Go fly a kite' into a pickup line.'"

Jubilee laughed. It helped to think of Mr. Summers and Dr. Grey not just as teachers, or X-Men, but as real people. Scott and Jean who were once as scared and screwed up as the rest of the students at Mutant High. "Dr. McCoy, do you think you could share some of these stories with the rest of the kids? Just to help us remember that all these people we look up to are still human? X-Men or not."

"I'd be honored, Jubilation Lee. And I'm fairly certain that I can convince the rest of the staff to help me out."

***

Fin.

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