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Post by Critter on Jun 18, 2023 20:49:24 GMT -5
Date: Friday, June 30, 2023 Tag: open! Words: 208 Notes: Just an open thread for anyone who wants cookies! She stared at the egg carton, briefly wondering if she would be able to juggle two or three of the eggs. It was basically just playing catch with oneself, wasn't it? If she did drop an egg or two, it wouldn't be too hard to clean up...
Willow glanced at the tiled floor of the kitchen for a moment before her gaze wandered to the cupboards and small closets of the room that no doubt held mops, brooms, and other cleaning supplies. She obviously wouldn't mind cleaning up a mess that she created herself--
The oven abruptly beeped as it preheated, reminding Willow of her original reason for being in the kitchen. She gathered an egg and some butter and shut the refrigerator before making her way back to the counter with the rest of her ingredients.
She could learn to juggle another time.
"Okay, let's get the flour, baking soda, and baking powder all set..." Willow mixed the dry ingredients in a small bowl before setting it aside and bringing the larger bowl closer to her. The larger bowl was soon filled with sugar, butter, the egg, and vanilla extract, and Willow cheerfully beat the mixture.
There was never a bad time to make sugar cookies, right?
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Post by Iceman on Jun 22, 2023 7:30:48 GMT -5
Remembering the layout of the estate was like second-nature despite how long Bobby had been away from the manor. He took some time to get used to the place again, visiting his favorite haunts like the media room and the hanger with the Blackbird (oh, how he had missed that jet!), and briefly meeting the trio of new recruits that were living there. He figured the next step would be to get better acquainted with the others now gracing the manor's walls.
Wandering into the kitchen, Bobby caught sight of Willow mixing up some ingredients, and he grinned. "You know, one of the first things I was told about you is that you are an excellent baker," he said to the teen. Bobby plopped himself down on one of the stools at the counter. "By the sounds of it, I am in the presence of a culinary genius and I'm eager to observe your methods.
"Of course, if there's anything I can do to help, even if it's leaving the kitchen, let me know," Bobby said, giving Willow a crooked grin.
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Post by Critter on Jun 23, 2023 6:45:43 GMT -5
Tag: Iceman, open Words: 178 Willow perked up when she heard someone else enter the kitchen, and she gave Bobby a grin. The newest teacher at the manor was apparently a new recruit when he had been a teenager, someone who had found his way back to the institute, and Willow was looking forward to getting to know him.
"Thank you," she said in response to the praise about her cooking skills. With a light laugh, she added, "You haven't even tasted anything I baked yet. Hopefully it lives up to the hype!
"Actually," Willow said, "can you reach up and get the cookie sheets? They're in the cabinet above the refrigerator. Last time I shifted into a bird to try to grab them with my talons and, well, it worked, but I dropped them and it made this loud clatter against the floor, and it almost gave Roy a heart attack."
She continued to mix the dough, bringing the conversation around to ask Bobby, "What do you do? I don't think I got a chance to ask what your abilities are."
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Post by Iceman on Jun 23, 2023 16:45:45 GMT -5
"Well, I'm sure all the praise I heard within the past day is well deserved," Bobby said when the teen thanked him.
She asked him to reach the cookie sheets for her and he got up from his seat immediately to comply. Then Willow continued talking, giving him an explanation as to why she asked him to reach the cookie sheets aside from, you know, her being vertically challenged, and Bobby paused to try to listen and decipher if she had any other instructions from him hiding amid all of her words. When it was apparent that she was just telling a story, Bobby gave her a crooked smile and brought the cookie sheets over to her.
"Was Roy helping you when you were trying to reach the cookie sheets last time?" he asked. He remembered being introduced to Roy, the first new recruit to have graced the manor walls after Kurt and Sierra had reopened it. Roy seemed like a quiet kid based on Bobby's first impressions.
"The scientific term for my mutant abilities," Bobby said, "is cryokinesis. Ice manipulation and creation, with ice mimicry for good measure. Heard you're a shapeshifter, and you mentioned turning into a bird. Is it all sorts of animals?"
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Post by Critter on Jun 23, 2023 20:37:42 GMT -5
Tag: IcemanWords: 295 Willow threw Bobby a grin over her shoulder when he doubled down on his praise, but she stayed focused on her dough mixing. She thanked him when he got her the cookie sheets, resisting the temptation of throwing in candy pieces in the dough as it finished up in the mixer.
"Oh, no, Roy wasn't in here when that happened," she said. "He just came running from wherever he was in response to the noise. Maybe the living room or somewhere." Willow gave a light chuckle and added, "There were lots of little kids where he came from, so I may have accidentally triggered his big brother instincts with the clatter, you know?"
Bobby told her about his powers, and she grinned up at him. "That sounds amazing! And totally appropriate right now." She found the saran wrap in one of the kitchen cabinets, using it to wrap up the block of sugar cookie dough nice and tight. "Can you use your powers to chill the dough? I wasn't going to chill the dough, since I'm kind of impatient for cookies, but the cookies come out so much better if the dough is chilled first. It doesn't have to be long and obviously don't turn it into a block of ice, but it'd be great to see if this can be a shortcut to make better cookies.
"I can transform into all sorts of animals," Willow said when Bobby asked about her own abilities. "Birds are some of my favorites, though. Flying is awesome, and the sharper eyesight makes the colors in sunrises really pop! Dogs are fun too, I tend to transform into a golden retriever so everyone is super friendly to me when I wander around in a park or something as one."
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Post by Iceman on Jun 24, 2023 19:46:40 GMT -5
Bobby raised an eyebrow as Willow described Roy's actions from the time that Willow dropped the cookie sheets. At the very least, Roy had a streak of courage in him since he dashed after an unknown noise to be sure no one was hurt. Bobby wondered briefly if Roy had a bunch of younger siblings or what his actual background was, but he didn't get a chance to ask Willow to clarify.
Willow was delighted with Bobby's abilities and immediately asked him to chill the block of dough. Bobby chuckled and agreed, gathering the wrapped-up dough and having no problem holding it for a few good minutes. He made sure not to make his hands too cold, but his hands still iced over, giving them a bluish-white tint on his skin.
"Glad I can be useful," he said.
Willow then started describing some of her favorite animal forms and Bobby was doing his damnedest not to decide right then and there that she was her favorite new recruit.
"Can you transform into any breed of dog," he asked, "and golden retriever is just one of your favorites? How different is it to be a chihuahua versus a Great Dane?"
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Post by Critter on Jun 25, 2023 10:36:40 GMT -5
Tag: IcemanWords: 189 Bobby was nice enough to oblige and hold onto the dough to chill it a bit before Willow would roll pieces of it into cookies. As the dough was chilling, Willow busied herself with prepping the cookie sheets, finding parchment paper and double-checking that the oven was preheated to the temperature she wanted.
"I never really thought of it," Willow said when Bobby started asking her about different breeds of dog. "I think my default is golden retriever when I think of shifting into a dog. I suppose I can transform into different breeds. Maybe I'll give that a try soon... Not right now, despite wanting to. I should focus on the cookies."
She waited a few more minutes before deciding that Bobby chilled the cookie dough for long enough. She divided the dough in half and placed part of it along with one of the cookie sheets in front of Bobby, a silent invitation to start rolling out cookies with her.
Willow got to work on her half of the dough and asked, "What was it like here when you were a new recruit? Is it much different?"
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Post by Iceman on Jun 25, 2023 16:38:22 GMT -5
"Huh." Bobby pondered on Willow's words regarding her shapeshifting abilities, particularly the dog examples. "Maybe it's based on your personality. Golden retrievers are known for their friendliness, after all. If you were a little pricklier, maybe chihuahua would have been your default breed," he joked.
Wordlessly, Willow divided the cookie dough between the two of them and Bobby dutifully followed her example in rolling out pieces for cookies (and maybe sneaking a bite or two of the dough). Willow nearly threw Bobby for a loop when she suddenly asked him about what the institute was like when he was a new recruit.
Bobby took a moment before saying, "It was fuller then. Heh, that probably sounds a little melancholy. I don't mean it to be. I came in with the second batch of new recruits, if you will. Kurt was part of the first half dozen. Sierra was a bit in between, I think.
"Being such a full house, though," he continued, "it was tons of fun with everyone around and all sorts of powers. We really appreciated the family dynamic that was around, despite some of the more... dangerous situations."
Bobby paused, unsure how much to tell Willow. He had plenty of stories from when he was a teen, getting into all sorts of trouble. Some of which was his fault, and some of which was just because he was a mutant.
"Think we'll have just as full of a house eventually like we did when I was a teen?" Bobby asked instead.
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Post by Critter on Jun 27, 2023 20:45:55 GMT -5
Tag: IcemanWords: 201 "Don't make fun of chihuahuas," Willow said, grinning at both the compliment on her friendliness and the teasing tone their conversation had. "They're actually one of the best guard dog breeds. What they lack in size, they make up for in feistiness."
She raised an eyebrow when she caught Bobby stealing a bite of the cookie dough, but her expression smoothed over when he began talking about the institute from when he was a new recruit. He briefly seemed lost in memory lane as he spoke, and she didn't think it would be appropriate to pry when he mentioned dangerous situations.
Maybe one day when they got used to each other more.
Instead, she said, "I hope this place will get fuller. It does sound like tons of fun with all sorts of different powers and people. Almost like this was a built-in family, you know? What kind of powers did everyone have?
"Were you closer with Sierra then, since Kurt was part of the group ahead of you?" was Willow's next question. The dynamic between the instructors was something Willow was super interested in, especially seeing how different Kurt and Sierra worked. How would Bobby fit in as a teacher?
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Post by Iceman on Jun 29, 2023 20:56:44 GMT -5
"They have to, feistiness is all they got," Bobby said, returning Willow's grin with his own to continue the teasing. He pointedly ignored her raised eyebrow when he stole a bite of cookie dough.
She didn't ask further when Bobby mentioned dangerous situations, which he was silently thankful for. He would have to figure out what would be appropriate to tell the new recruits of the X-Men's history.
The joyrides. The original manor being blown up (he still had nightmares about that; thank God for Scott). Apocalypse.
Bobby focused on the question Willow did ask, giving her a crooked smile as he remembered his old housemates. "Well, there was Jubilee. She did something that we called fireworks. She was able to make lights, sparklers come out of her hands. Amara did a lot of stuff with heat, heat from the earth. Walked in lava to stop a volcano from erupting once, actually.
"Jamie was able to create copies of himself," Bobby continued. "Oh, you would have gotten along well with Rahne. She was a shapeshifter too, but into a wolf. She was riot at Halloween, a perfect werewolf!"
He could have continued detailing the others' powers, but Willow asked about his relationship with Kurt and Sierra. "Not necessarily," he said. "We all got along fine, of course. Looked up to Kurt, even if he was kind of a killjoy at times whenever I and the other new recruits were trying to do something fun. Sierra... She kind of kept to herself anyway. She was closer to my class, if you will, in terms of age, and we probably would have been closer if she had been more social."
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Post by Critter on Jun 30, 2023 19:58:44 GMT -5
Tag: IcemanWords: 253 Willow laughed at Bobby's comment about chihuahuas and made sure to stop Bobby from eating any more cookie dough. She took the cookie sheets and put them in the oven, setting the timer so they would soon have sugar cookies for the institute. With a couple of hops, she sat up on the counter, her legs swinging as she listened to Bobby detail a couple of his old classmates, so to speak, from when he was a new recruit.
She grinned as Bobby's tone turned fond while he spoke. "Fireworks? Oh, those sound fun!"
She appropriately ooohhed and ahhhhed as Bobby continued to talk about all the different powers that had once upon a time been behind the manor's doors. "I'm a bit sorry I won't be able to meet them. Well, that may not be true. I suppose it's possible that I'll be able to meet them one day, right? You came back to the Xavier Institute, so they can too."
Bobby answered her question about which of the other two teachers he was closest to, and Willow tilted her head in slight confusion when he mentioned that Kurt was the killjoy. Kurt was a good headmaster, but he seemed jovial. She couldn't quite imagine him being a killjoy, as Bobby said.
His words about Sierra she could imagine.
"I don't know what I expected for an answer," Willow said, "but it wasn't quite that, admittedly. What kind of fun things were you trying to do that made Kurt a killjoy?"
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Post by Iceman on Jul 1, 2023 7:12:49 GMT -5
Bobby pouted when the cookie dough was taken away from him, but he didn't complain when Willow put them in the oven. She perched herself up on the counter and he leaned back in his own seat, content to wait with her until the timer dinged to let them know the cookies were all set.
Willow listened as Bobby described his old friends and it was a little bittersweet to hear her wistfully mention that she wouldn't meet them. She backtracked to add that it is definitely possible that she would meet Bobby's classmates considering he had returned to the Xavier Institute.
"That's true," Bobby said, giving Willow a crooked smile. "I do hope they're all doing well, but I would love to see them again. We went through a lot together...
"Some of those things that we went through were dangerous," he continued. "At the time, us new recruits thought the dangerous stuff was fun, which circles back to Kurt being a killjoy." Bobby chuckled. "He definitely tried to take on the big brother role with us new recruits. Didn't appreciate it as much as I should have back then."
He enjoyed the scent of the sugar cookies beginning to decorate the air. "Hey, thanks for not minding me hanging out while you baked," he said. "It's been nice getting to know someone over cookies."
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Post by Critter on Jul 2, 2023 10:13:46 GMT -5
Tag: IcemanWords: 227 Notes: This may be a good place to end the thread? Thanks very much! Bobby seemed just as content as Willow to wait for the cookies, and she didn't mind the company at all. She did try to reach out and kick -- or at least tap -- Bobby's seat when he answered her question about Kurt being a killjoy.
"You didn't quite answer my question," she said with a crooked grin. "I can see why you wouldn't want to admit what the dangerous things were, but I want it known that I did notice you not giving out specific details." Willow paused before adding, "It's good that Kurt was there, and I'm sure others were too, to help you guys out of whatever situations you found yourselves in."
She grinned when Bobby actually thanked her for letting him hang out. "Of course! I enjoyed this too. It's been good getting to know you, especially since you're one of the teachers here. There's nothing like food, especially desserts, to bring people together."
The oven timer dinged not too long after, and Willow hopped down from her seat to get the cookies out of the oven. Letting them cool for a few minutes, she took out a few things -- candy pieces, icing -- to decorate the cookies with.
"C'mon," she said to Bobby, setting up shop on the counter. "After we decorate them, we can let everyone else know there are cookies ready to eat."
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