Kitty and Noriko, Saturday Morning

[om_shadowcat]

Kitty finds Noriko to ask about JVX, but Noriko ends up finding out about Clint and Philip instead.

So, Kitty had had Lockheed do some poking into the school's security system to see where she could find Noriko. It wasn't like she was spying on anything private, and Nori was always so hard to pin down, what with the speed and all. So when she'd found out that the older girl was in the DR's control room, she hadn't waited on an elevator, and had just timed her breathing between floors as she phased down through the sublevels of the house.

She landed outside the door to the control room, and gave a little knock before peeking her head in. "Hey? Got a minute?"

Noriko pressed pause on the session she was reviewing, saved the file she'd been taking notes in in her Starkphone, and looked over at Kitty. "Sure. Come on in."

Kitty slipped on in, using the door for once, then dropped into the chair next to Noriko. "I was hoping I could get your advice on JVX."

Noriko nodded, angling her body towards Kitty. "What's going on?"

"Well, one of my biggest problems is who to let on the team and who not to..." Kitty frowned. "Should I be going to Scott for approval?"

"I didn't," Noriko offered, which wasn't a yes or a no. "Honestly, I let people on that I wouldn't have taken on the field. As long as they weren't a danger to themselves or to the rest of us, and as long as they were ready to put in the work. JVX isn't a team like LXQ is."

Kitty pursed her lips at that. "So you think I should let Nick and some of the younger kids on?"

"I don't know," Noriko answered honestly. "It's a case by case basis, really. I always try and make sure their reasons for joining are real, and not fucked up. Nick's sound good, but last we talked he isn't there yet, from a psych point of view."

"Oh good," Kitty breathed. "it's not just me."

Noriko smiled a little at the obvious relief. "Nah. He told me himself last time he tried a triggering sim, it didn't go so well."

"Right! See, how can I let him on the team like that? And I'm not even sure if I should include the kids that are thirteen and fourteen, but...I don't like an age cut off for so many reasons." Kitty sighed.

"I agree," Noriko confirmed with a nod. "Case by case basis, that's the way I did. ...has Nick already asked you?" Their talk hadn't been that long ago, and given what they had discussed, Noriko really hadn't expected him to try it out so quickly.

"A while ago," Kitty confessed. "I turned him down. Well. I told him that he needed some more time with the counselor."

"Huh." Noriko frowned, then let that go. "Yeah, I told him he shouldn't be making that kind of decision without his therapist's approval, anyway." She would know. Not that she'd experienced anywhere near the kind of trauma he had, but she'd had her own hurdles to overcome.

"Well, that's not my only question. I'm kind of at a loss for how to keep the team training, and what sorts of things to come up with. I was thinking of maybe asking Philip to teach a class or something?" Kitty suggested.

"Yeah, I'm really not the person to help you there," Noriko wryly stated. She meant with Philip, rather than with what to train the team on more generally.

Kitty very nearly smacked herself in the face. Of course Noriko wouldn't want to talk about Philip. "Oh gosh, I'm an idiot."

"So does everybody know, or just a few people?" Noriko asked with a small frown. It wasn't much of a surprise, but it wasn't a pleasant thought anyway.

Kitty's eyes widened a little. "I...I don't know. I just saw them together at Halloween. I mean it was kind of dark, and late, so probably not that many?"

Noriko's frown deepened, and it felt as if her blood had just gone cold. "What?"

"Philip and...Clint?" Kitty tried, and immediately started to backpedal in her head. "I mean. What?"

Noriko was silent for a few long seconds, just trying to take it in, and get her emotions in check. "Right. That's okay," she finally said, but she didn't exactly sound okay. She sounded like she was repressing a whole hell of a lot of feelings.

Kitty chewed on her bottom lip a little. "That's not what you meant, was it? It. I mean. Maybe I got it wrong?" But...she didn't think she had. She'd been kind of surprised by it, honestly, since she'd thought Philip was totally straight up. Heck, she'd thought Clint was too.

"Right," Noriko said again. Because Kitty sounded like she believed she might have gotten it wrong. Not. "Just. JVX. Training." That was what she wanted to focus on right now. Not... not the fact that Philip and Clint... or that Philip hadn't seen fit to let her know. Did she even have the right to be angry about that? Either way, she was.

"Um," Kitty desperately tried to reel her brain back on track. What the heck did you do now, Pryde? She cleared her throat. "Right. Training. So. Anyway, I was thinking private...lessons, and then maybe some DR scenarios, and maybe some one on one sparring?"

Noriko nodded. "Keep scheduling regular sessions with Betsy, too. And whenever you get new kids, set aside a few hours for DR sims geared specifically towards team-building. Watch for team dynamics - Claudia can help you out - and figure out who works best with who. But shake things up once in a while. You never know who you'll be paired with in real life."

Kitty frowned, momentarily distracted from her tragic blunder. "Why Claudia?"

"Her mutation makes her crazy good with patterns," Noriko answered, her tone still a little too tight.

Nodding, Kitty blew out through her nose, then slipped to her feet. "I'll, um. Think about it. Thanks. I should. You know, work, school, all that."

Noriko wasn't sure what that was about, but... "Okay," she simply said, frowning slightly - but then again, she'd pretty much been frowning for the past couple of minutes now. "Any time you need my input. And don't worry about it," she added, since she figured Kitty was the sort to still feel bad about that.

Kitty was so going to worry about it. "If. Uhm. I can do anything?" she offered, fidgeting with her shirt.

"Yeah, I'll let you know," Noriko stated, although she was convinced there was no way for Kitty to help on that front. She was saying it more for Kitty's peace of mind than anything else. "Thanks."

"Yeah, okay. And...thanks...too," Kitty told her awkwardly. Then she cringed, and said a quick, "Sorry," and fled through the door.