Paper Training

Happy Birthday, Dad

Annie jumped as K hit the glass of the booth, just to fall down and dive right back into the simulation she was running below. Scott had barely flinched when it happened, and by the time she'd hit the ground, Logan was already shouting out suggestions.

K had been at it for almost an hour, and it was clear even to Annie that she was wearing down quicker now. Nothing had changed in the program outside of Scott occasionally tweaking one setting or another that seemed to cause a more vicious reaction from the snarling blonde mountain of a man below.

"Do you always run these programs until someone... collapses or somethin'?" Annie asked with some concern.

"No," Scott replied distractedly as he watched with a trained eye. "That's just what these two idiots ask for."

Kate patted Annie's knee and tried to redirect her attention to some of the different flower arrangements they'd been looking at. "Don't worry about it," she said. "Really — she's having a blast with her..." She glanced up at Scott with a smirk. "...recently renamed program."

"I told her to quit changing it to that," Scott said as he glanced Kate's way. "She wasn't nice about it. This morning it had been changed to 'don't be a little bitch, Scott'."

"Funny, I thought that was Sabretooth's name," Kate said, the smirk getting wider.

"Apparently it is," Scott said shaking his head. "I think it was a warning."

Kate just chuckled and looked back at Annie, who was still watching the training but trying to look like she wasn't. "I know it looks like she's losing right now, but that's how you learn," Kate tried to explain with a sigh. "You should've seen when Logan started me on hand to hand."

Annie turned toward Kate and let out a bit of a sigh. "Oh, I know," she said. "I tell my students that all the time — learn from losses. But it's one thing to lose in a simulation...."

Kate put her hand on Annie's arm. "Hey. We're not going anywhere. You're not getting rid of us that easy — I still need your opinion on wedding dresses. The dress you picked out for the proposal went over swimmingly."

At that, Annie had to smile and playfully swatted at Kate. "If I'd known it was for a proposal—"

"You'd have totally spilled it. Sorry, Annie, but you do not have a poker face," Kate said, shaking her head.

"Still!" Annie crossed her arms and shook her head at Kate for a moment before she let out a little laugh and looked back down at the flower book, turning to the next page full of purple tulips.

Meanwhile, Scott leaned forward, looking on expectantly as K managed to climb up Creed's back. She reached around his neck to try and slice him, but in a flash, he'd grabbed her by the hair and slammed her into the ground. He had rushed over her, one hand holding her down and the other with claws outstretched when the sim died — and she just laid there for a moment, trying to catch her breath.

Scott let out a breath as he shook his head, and Logan went to her side, kneeling and talking to her low about what had gone wrong as she just panted and nodded. Scott waited until it looked like Logan was done talking before he hit the comm. "That's enough for today," he said. "You're going to wear yourself too far down the way you're going."

Logan smiled at her as she pulled a face at Scott's helpful suggestion, but stayed next to her until she was ready to be pulled to her feet. The two of them took a moment as Logan took her into a hug and very obviously was whispering to her before the two of them headed out of the Danger Room.

"You two might want to find somewhere else to be," Scott said, turning at last toward Annie and Kate. "Logan's class is coming in here in a few minutes."