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So, first off, Caroline's mad. That's the thing that gets her, she's mad, and she's not been this kind of mad-at-the-world in a while. She's in the gym, and she's managed to actually mess up one of the punching bags but she's moved to another so she can try and blow off steam.

Well, half blow off steam, and half get better at this, so that her age isn't so much of an overriding factor that she wasn't a better sort of pick then two humans. Let's see Cuthbert go up against Logan, or Klaus, or Mystique, and honestly she wasn't really one to blow her own horn and stack up her powers for her being capable, but it wasn't just her powers. She'd gone up against the Hulk, and was pretty well fine. She could handle herself. She'd died a bunch of times, she wasn't exactly jumping at shadows in the dark. She's trying hard, and she's here, and it's everything that everybody's shown her in this sort of weird mishmash of steps and movements that mixed between human-fast and faster than, and Logan said it was like stacking marbles.

She's sweating and glaring, and really it looks like the bag's personally offended her, but she'll figure it out later - except, of course, she hears the woosh of the door and she turns on a dime, glaring - somewhat without reason - at whomever's in the doorway.

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"Well, lookie here," Raven says as she opens the door. It's her sometime-sparring pupil, Caroline, the prettiest little teenage bloodsucker around. She's also Klaus's girlfriend, and while she can't even begin to understand what makes them tick, romantically speaking, Raven has to acknowledge she's made some weird choices herself in that department. Whatever-- she's not here to judge. She's here to teach babydoll here how to kick Logan's keister.

There's something decidedly more on about Caroline today, which is promising-- and, my oh my, is that a busted sandbag she sees at the edge of the ring?-- but Raven's not letting her know that.

"Hope you don't mind if I crash this little tea party," she says as she walks down to the ring, as if she's just going to go about her own routine. "I've got some work to do."

"What do you want?" She says it sourly, and then looks away, rolling her shoulders back. "Sorry," she said lowly, and she motioned to the ring. "Be my guest, I've got plenty to do." Because, apparently, she's not good enough.

Which is why she turns around, and squares off, and wham, it's not long before the sand leaking onto the floor, and Caroline's throwing up her hands. "Are you serious? Look! Look. It's not like I don't work hard, you wouldn't say I don't work hard, would you?" It's clear she's pissed, and that there's one answer she's looking to hear, no matter what Mystique's opinion is on the subject.

Caroline apologizes before Mystique has a chance to question her attitude problem, and a for a second, she's worried this is going to be an ordinary session after all.

She doesn't even get a chance to pick up her kettlebell before she's proven wrong. There's a loud dull thud, the sound of sand rushing out of a busted bag, and an immediate temper tantrum. Raven turns around, eyebrows way up.

Jesus Christ, kid, those things don't grow on trees! Right now it's all Mystique can manage to think about-- Caroline's taken out two today and god knows Logan's already filleted his share. What the hell are they gonna box with when all the bags are gone? Sure, there's plenty of dead weight around, but it all talks.

She walks up, letting Caroline stand there in silence as she sits down on the stairs, leaning against the ring. There's a long pause while she looks her over, and the only sound is the sand piling up on the floor.

"What's wrong, Caroline?" She's completely calm in the face of the girl's rampage.

She already had moved to start taking it down while Mystique was sitting, so now she's got sand on her shoes and she moves the bag with the other one where she's planning for all the world to fix them later.

She's not so big on breaking things and then leaving them that way. Which, honestly, makes her even more angry, and that's why she's trying to find the right words and all of that just sort of goes out the window. "I can be hit by the Hulk and get up after. The Hulk. That's not talking about you, or Logan, or all the shit I went through at home, but the Hulk. And still, somehow, it's just 'Sorry, Caroline,' and 'He's psychologically difficult,' and 'You're too young'" and then- and then, do you know what I see? Cuthbert. The one-eyed kid. He's guarding Hyde, and they have other normal people guarding him, and I'm sorry, but who thought that was the best idea in the world?"

She's standing with her arms crossed, and only then, when she's gotten through her giant burst of words, does she sit heavily next to Mystique, and honestly, the next words are way too petulant little kid, but also just her being annoyed. "I try really hard."

Edited 2013-02-11 19:22 (UTC)

There aren't many things that Raven has a lot of patience for, but this-- an angry teenage girl coming to grips with the way people treat her because she's a freak-- is one of them.

She listens to the whole thing without comment or expression, just nodding now and then to indicate she's paying attention. Caroline comes to sit by her, then, all in a huff, and for awhile, Raven says nothing.

"Okay. This isn't what you want to hear, but I don't care." She purses her lips, and starts up very matter-of-factly.

"Trying hard doesn't matter. This isn't high school, or Girl Scouts: nobody cares how hard you're trying, sweetie." That last epithet actually isn't sarcastic; she's giving her the same advice she'd give to a Brotherhood neonate, and in the same gentle step it up before I school you hard tone of voice. "And how hard you're trying isn't the problem, anyway. The problem is you're expecting to be treated fairly and equally in a place where you're not going to be taken seriously by anybody, for reasons that are largely outside of your control. One, you're a woman. Two, you look like a teenager, and that's a handicap you're never getting over. And three? You're not human."

She sighs, debating internally where to take this conversation. She's got a lot to say on the topic, especially after Cap and Spock's little interview with her, supposedly to determine she had enough grit for the job of guarding Hyde. She'd like to know who'd evaluated them, exactly, and why in god's name a Vulcan figured he was fit to evaluate emotional health. The whole thing's a joke, and she was surprised to see the protocol pop up in the first place, after nearly a year of all the unemployed heroes and captains and commanders and god knows what else sitting around and planning the next birthday party.

None of this is anything Caroline needs to hear about, but Mystique has no qualms letting her know which side of the line she's on. Which is to say not on the side of two self-appointed male officials laying down law without so much as a town meeting. Funnily enough, she can honestly say she's been pushing for such a thing for months now; she's not exactly a "talking stick" kind of girl but it's clear to her now, and it's been clear to her, that they're all sitting ducks if and when a truly chaotic element gets introduced to the station.

Hyde's just a barmy cannibal Englishman and look what he managed.

"I'm sure between Klaus and Erik you've gotten enough vampire pride pep talks to last you the rest of your preternaturally long life," she says, smiling a little, "so tell me to back off if you've heard this before." Raven waits, watching her expression.

Caroline sits there, and her brows furrow and she's looking at Mystique like she's going to have some answers because if anybody's gone through those three things-- Obviously she was a teenager (for real, not just because she looked like one) at some point, and she's a woman, and blue skin says not human, way more obviously than Caroline's issues marked her as not the same-- it's Mystique. There isn't another woman on the station who can say the same thing, and it calms her down some, but she's just tired of all this crap.

"I'm not useless," she says, and she stops a second after that, because she realises fully that Mystique didn't say that, and it's a loaded set of reasons why she said that to start with, but she shakes her head. "I know it's not high school, believe me." Her words are measured, because she's used to have to explain herself. "All I meant was that it's not like I can't do this, and if I really can't, I don't get why they chose, why people who I haven't fought with, who haven't seen what I can do, who don't even know me are making the decisions. If it was you or Logan or Klaus then it would make sense. You know? It would make sense, and none of it makes sense, and you know what? Cuthbert smells like a bar half the time! He's missing an eye! Which, I mean, there's nothing wrong with missing an eye, but being drunk and missing an eye? Good! Good. Just have the drunk guy with no peripheral vision who can't be more than a few years older than me guarding the crazy guy! Good plan!"

She runs her hands over her face, her voice lowering again, because the end of that? The end of that had gotten into the Why isn't anybody listening to me sort of volume. "Klaus is different," she said after a second, "And Erik..." She trailed off. "We've talked," she says flatly, and from the sourness of her tone, you could see exactly how well that had gone. "But go ahead," she says after a second, because she really, honestly wants to know what Mystique has to say.

Edited 2013-02-11 20:51 (UTC)

There's a whole lot to address there, but Raven keeps her focus.

"Did they say why they turned you down?"

She exhales slowly, and leans her chin on her hand, her every word sour. "Because Hyde is 'psychologically difficult' and I'm 'too young', like I'm not dating somebody who kills people because he feels like it and wasn't dead five times over."

"This isn't about wanting to babysit Hyde, is it?" she asks, sounding dubious. "This is about hypocrisy. I don't think you really disagree with the fact that you're young, or that Hyde's a few sandwiches short of a picnic. You don't understand why you were overlooked for-- uh, what's his name."

"This is about the fact that two people - one who barely knows me, and one who I'm pretty sure, while he's a nice guy, thinks I'm just a pretty face decided that I'm not mature enough to handle myself. I mean, seriously, the guy with one eye who's human? Seriously?" She thought a lot more of Cuthbert than that, for all that she'd only met him two-maybe-three times, but right now, that's what it came down to. If Hyde tried to take a chunk out of him, what would he do? How long would it take him to heal?

"Hyde's crazy, and I'm young, They're not wrong, but like I said- I mean, I just--" And she's flailing around, trying to find what she's got to say. "Either I'm this thing that's got uses, or I'm not. Either what I am, and what I have are parts of me and make up the whole of what I am, or they're not. You can't say one second that what I am and you are and Klaus is and Hyde is, is dangerous, and then the next second say that I have the maturity of a normal eighteen year old, because I've been dead since I was seventeen."

And it's an explosion of words, and it has nothing to do with Hyde, and Caroline's eyes are shiny, holding her breath for a second as she swallows hard. This is the deep, awful part of it, that she's not talked to Erik about, or anything else, and she doesn't really want to start, it just came out. "Nevermind," she says thickly. "Yeah, they're being hypocrites." And she delicately uses the heel of her hand to scrub across her eyes, one at at time, her head still bent, before she takes a deep breath and looks up.

"They really shouldn't talk about my emotional maturity when they don't even know me." That's what she meant by that, because she's not going to mention that whole dead thing again.

Edited 2013-02-12 01:09 (UTC)

God, we need a shrink on board.

It's not the first time she's thought it, either.

"What do you want, Caroline? Do you want people to treat you like they treat Klaus? Dangerous?"

"I want to not be dismissed."

She pressed her lips together. "I mean, I know I'm seventeen forever, so that's not exactly something that I can make appear out of thin air."

"Why do you care what they think? Why are you looking to make an impression on the Avenger crowd?"

She's genuinely baffled. Klaus certainly has no love for them, and in her universe, anyway, vampires are even less popular than mutants. Caroline has no reason to expect Cap and the gang to treat her and Klaus like anything but a really nasty vermin problem should they ever decide to fall off the bagged blood wagon.

"It's not about the Avengers," she says with her brows furrowed. "It's about this place. It's about the fact that besides me trying to get a bunch of adults to let me throw Prom because I swear to god I'm going to have one, I'm useful. Because what I am is useful. And just because I am going to look like a seventeen year old for the rest of my freaking life doesn't mean that automatically anyone else is a better choice than me!"

She takes a deep, deep breath, and exhales slowly. "I've been here for almost a year. I can't leave the station, my friends are gone, and believe me, I think I've ransacked everything out of the wardrobe that's really wearable. So, I have nothing to do, so I've been working hard. Doing the one thing I pretty much can do that's not getting me lynched, and doing it better. And I know," she says, holding her hand up like Mystique's going to talk, because she's already gone over this. "That the fact that I'm trying doesn't mean anything, and it doesn't, but it does mean that I know exactly how good or bad I am, and so do other people, who are actually qualified to make these choices. I'm annoyed because two people, who don't know me, who somehow have the power to make those choices, decided that they get to be the ones who pick who guards the scary guy, and when shit goes crazy, then what? If I help out they're hardly going to say no, right? What if someone dies?"

She sighs, then, and her speech? Done. "Just because I'm a blond teenaged cheerleader doesn't mean that I need to get back to my Easy Bake Oven," she says tiredly, and shakes her head.

Raven's looking unimpressed. Yeesh, I forgot how much this sucks.

"Caroline-- just listen to yourself. Trying to get a bunch of adults to let you throw prom? Can you even take yourself seriously right now?"

Maybe trying to field this had been a bad idea. She might have a soft spot for fledgling weirdos learning how to raise their freak flag, but what she has next to no patience for are teenage girls blessed with unimaginable power throwing a hissy fit because they can't be normal, can't have a boyfriend, can't go to prom. Maybe it's simply that the idea is beyond her-- her mutation manifesting was the best thing that ever happened to her, and sure, she knew being human would've made for an easier life, but that had never been a life she wanted.

Caroline's clearly already had a taste of the Homo sapiens suburban good life and is still clinging to it like it matters.

"First of all: you have no business asking anyone here for permission for anything, much less... prom. The idea is absurd.

"Second, I'll say it again, it seems to me like this isn't about guarding Hyde. It's about needing the approval of people you've chosen to recognize as your superiors. It's about you suspecting deep down you have a lot to make up for because you're cheerful and blonde, and those traits don't exactly earn you vampire street cred. Listen to me: do you want a shift?"

The moment that Mystique asks her if she's serious is the moment that Caroline shuts down. Her posture straightens, and she shakes her head slightly, so that when she's done - when Mystique is telling her it's not about Hyde (and clearly, it's not) and she's done arguing even though there's a million things that she wants to say. This isn't about vampire street cred, it's, to her, about the fact that people are going to get killed, eventually, because Steve and Spock decided humans would be better for the job.

It's that she's taking people who die personally when she shouldn't, coupled with trying to figure out where the hell she stands-- she's a monster; she's not a monster. She's a girl, she's an adult. She's human, she's a vampire. It's all sort of jumbled around, and what she gets instead is her saying, "Yes." Just that, because the rest of it, she's already decided that she's not going to talk about it, especially because of Can you even take yourself seriously right now?

"Then quit trashing the ring, go to Rogers and Spock, and get one. Tell them what you told me. Just try not to bring I'm trying or my dangerous boyfriend or prom into it."

Her look is unflinching, but it's not an order, it's a suggestion. Mystique's been trying to parse what Caroline really wants, what this is really about. If what Caroline wants is to be acknowledged as an equal to the rest of the crew guarding Hyde, the last thing she should be doing is throwing a fit and railing about how no one takes her seriously.

"I can see your indignation, Caroline, but the fact of the matter is, the reason you're not on that roster right now isn't because you're a blonde teenage cheerleader. It's because you deferred to them without question. Make them work for that denial and maybe you'll be getting somewhere."

Her brows furrow, and she pauses for a long moment to try and say what she wants to say, not get lost in her own thoughts, and speaks slowly. "I don't know why they're in charge," she says, and then pauses again, before coming up with another sentence, and it's the one that she doesn't even know how to say right. "Steve, I sort of get, but even that - isn't that the sort of thing that people should decide? Like, 'We think you are the one person out of us that knows how to handle this' or whatever."

She rubs her hands on her legs, still trying to stay put together, to not be ranting or mad or anything, because she does want to be taken seriously, especially by Mystique, and the best way that's going to happen is for her not to be all overly-excitable-neurotic-control-freak. "I think they made a bad decision, especially if this guy is as violent as they said he is. How do I- if I push back, what then? It's just their voice against mine, isn't it? And he's Captain America."

Spock doesn't factor into this much, not for Caroline-- because she's met him a couple of times, and he seems sort of nice, but pretty quiet, and she honestly has no idea why he's involved in this at all. She never watched Star Trek, and wasn't about to start.

She must've pushed the right button, because Caroline's cooling down, and finally talking sense. Getting to what Mystique sees as the heart of the issue.

"They're not in charge," she says, shrugging. "But we had a situation, and somebody had to make some calls. They stepped up." That's really simplifying the matter from her own point of view, but she needs to tread delicately, here. "It's absolutely the kind of thing we should all be deciding. And believe me, I doubt anyone here would sing the praises of democracy louder than Captain America."

As for whether or not they made a bad decision, she's not sure. One thing she's been thinking about a lot is Logan, and who's apparently washed his hands of the whole affair, an interesting choice for a guy last seen in the lionized yellow spandex, because he wants to know why anybody's taking Jackman at his word. Having seen the bite marks herself, she can safely say that Hyde's not too different than the wolves Logan was shredding at Christmas-time, and as far as she's concerned, if a guy likes getting tied up, that is absolutely his prerogative.

Also, the guy's name is Hyde.

Maybe Logan pities the tiny berserker he sees in there, and she herself can't say she thinks Hyde is without his charms, but she knows damn well that if the guy was running free, it'd only be a matter of time before he went after someone like Zoe or Caroline. Both Hyde and Jackman would get sliced to ribbands by Wolverine, or ground to a fine paste by the Hulk, and they'd all have their very first prisoner-on-prisoner murder to grapple with.

She's no fan of the idea of the self-appointed police force, especially not one that's bound to be primarily Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D., but they all of them need to get their asses in gear with some kind of plan.

"I'm asking some questions about the decision-making process myself, believe me. Anyway-- first thing's first: you want the shift, go get it. I'm not telling you to go in there and hold 'em at fangpoint or anything." Although it'd be pretty funny. "Just... tell them what you told me."

She stands up, feeling distracted by her own train of thought. She needs to talk to Erik.

Edited 2013-02-13 16:55 (UTC)

She pushes herself to her feet, and she doesn't even unwrap her hands, taking a step towards the door before she turns. "I will." A heavily edited version of what she told Mystique, the sort of thing that leaves off the things that she'd called her on.

Caroline's still dwelling on that - it eats at her, that to her it's important, but to other people it's just trappings that don't mean anything, and they seem stupid and silly. She knows that, but it's a whole mess on if Steve and Spock are right, but they can't be right just because she thinks Prom is important because she wants an excuse to get dressed up.

And it's that she feels like a brat, sort of, because she thinks that the fact she's working on all of this instead of sitting on her ass is important, but like the rest of what she said, Mystique's not wrong. No one cares. Doesn't matter.

And it's what has her turning to leave, her words quiet as she slips out. "I... guess I'll see you later." And she's gone.

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