His bow tie was straight, but he adjusted it again, just for good measure. Hair: combed. Lime green dress shirt: tucked. Smile: winsome and inoffensive.

Jiri met his own green eyes in the mirror, and thought hard about his primary goal for the Cafas Johnson interview: not being pounded into a bloody paste.

He was interviewing Maya Csendes' boyfriend. The internet was choosing the questions. He was half way to failing already, just with that set up. But with any luck, they could keep things light and pleasant and non-physical.

The boy in the mirror grinned just a hair wider.

...The things he did for his fans. All right. Time to do this thing.

Laptop and webcam in hand, Jiri went to interview a poltergeist’s pink-haired boy toy.

His publicist had been very clear. He was not to hit the kid, no matter what. It would only serve to reinforce Maya's negative image, and it would create hell for him as well. Cafas had no intention of doing so, and yet they'd felt the need to tell him. Weird. Maybe he should have watched the rest of the interviews. Maybe then he'd have understood.

The metal manipulator shrugged on his publicist approved button down, maybe ever so slightly too tight shirt. The T-shirt he'd worn under his motorcycle jacket was left balled up in the bottom of his locker. His jeans seemed fine, perhaps even stylishly crinkly. Yeah, he was as ready as he'd ever be.

Which is to say not at all.

The war room had been cleared of almost everything that wasn't literally bolted to the floor. Documents, laptops, communicators, all had found their way back where they belonged. Those screens that still remained had a spinning X-man logo up. All input devices had been removed. It had really been a hell of a project. The internet had better appreciate it.

Will they even care?

Cast in seemingly out of place warm light, two chairs sat around the briefing table, one for Cafas, and one for Jiri. The former strode into the room and set himself in his seat to await the latter. The student had been granted temporary, one time access to the war room. Literally one time, hopefully he didn't forget anything in there, there'd be no getting back in.

This is ridiculous.

Jiri opened the door with a combination of his hip and his foot. This was the proper way to enter the Mansion's one-and-only always-locked-such-a-tease War Room while juggling electronics. He'd always been pretty sure it was just a staff lounge. The giant conference table and the personal touch screens at every seat were a little more than he was expecting, to be honest. As were the signs that more sensitive equipment had been recently removed.

“Holy crap,” the teen said, “so this really is a War Room? I owe Leo ten bucks.”

This seemed an appropriate time to greet the man at the end of the table. That pink. That pink was even more impressive in person. Had he gotten a touch-up dye just for this interview?

Jiri set his computer down in front of the room's only other chair, and offered a hand. “Jiri O'Leary. Thank you for agreeing to this, Mr. Johnson.”

Polite.

Polite polite polite.

Nothin' but polite.

He found the electric outlets quickly enough (what were they doing in here, that they needed as many as a pot house?), and got his laptop set up. And his webcam, the nice new one that Jaager International had furnished him, presumably as a bribe to never film their CEO shirtless ever again (or possibly as an invitation, depending on whether Jaager had been behind the gift).

(He was never going to think those thoughts again.)

“So. Ah. Are you ready to get started, or do you have any questions--” Jiri had made the mistake of loading up the question chat for this AMA session. He thought a single eyebrow twitch was the epitome of self-restraint, really. “--about how. This is going to, um, work. Ready to start when you are.”

The camera was hooked on the back of Jiri's laptop, facing Cafas. He took this opportunity to tilt the screen so the man couldn't see it. At all.

Definitely not getting punched. Or hit with his own computer. Not this time.

Cafas laughed under his breath as he stood to greet the boy. "Oh yeah, and it's way more impressive when we actually have a situation." The metal manipulator leaned across the table to shake Jiri's offered hand, "Nah, should be fun. And feel free to call me Cafas, if you like." He sat back with a smile firmly affixed. His only experience with the AMA series Jiri had been doing was Maya's, and a brief run down of previous interviewees his agent had given him. He was doing his best not to let the tension get to him.

Don't know that I offer anything new... Well, maybe the celebrity aspect.

Cafas brushed off the subject of questions with a laugh. "Nah, I'm not that old. The live streaming is a little new, but I've done enough convention panels to know what to expect otherwise. You use Reddit for the questions, or the stream chat?" Well, maybe he did have one question, because if it was Reddit he might go through and answer a few more by text.

Stream chat would be much harder.

One way or the other, Cafas was as ready as he was getting, and threw Jiri a thumbs up. His eyes danced over the camera, which seemed bizarrely expensive for a Mansion kid to own, searching for the little red light to tell him they were live. Green eyes found it not long after.

“A kind of chat. Ever heard of the Audubon X forums? It's a mutant, ah, photography club.” Seriously, what was the best way to describe them? He'd have to ask Leo later. For now, it was probably best to call them by their real name, and not such colloquialisms as Bird Watchers and AX-Men. To be fair: the snap shots through the Mansion gates had gone way down since LionOfTruth had yelled at them all, in the form of the dread Thread-Stickied-By-Admin. “Anyway, we're using a chat based out of there. I'll be picking out the,” ready airquotes in three two-- “best questions and reading them. You, ah, don't want to see the ones I don't read. Trust me.”

That was the mistake Maya had made. They'd both regretted it, though he'd like to think his regret was a bit more concussive than hers.

“All right. Ready to go? I'll intro us.”

The dark-haired teen flashed a grin, and leaned back in his chair. “Hello, internet, and welcome to the first meeting of the Audubon X's very own movie appreciation society. He's got hair the color of a maiden's blush, and enjoys long walks on the beach at Dusk—gentleman and gentleman-pretending-to-be-ladies-on-the-internet, I give you: Cafas Johnson. Be gentle, and for the love of god, please stop spamming yaoi fan art to the chat, our mods will ban you. Text questions only, and try not to make my eyes bleed. We'll start nice and easy:”

“How do you balance being an X-Man with your movie career?”

“Do you do your own stunts?”

“ 'Does the chest hair match the drapes?' In case that was too subtle, let me read the very stealthy text-in-parenthesis: Take off your shirt. Good to see our audience today is keepin' it classy.”

To be fair, that had become the standard opening for these chats.

Mutant photography. Now, that had two meanings, and both were kind of odd. He had the distinct feeling it was the creepier rather than the "how is that any different" option. He didn't get long to ruminate, as Jiri launched into an introduction Cafas would have expected on a late night talk show. He had to have been practicing, right?

Wonder if there's any of that fan art I haven't seen...

Then there were the questions, all, as promised, easy. Good to see he wasn't just getting thrown in the deep end without so much as a warm up.

"Honestly, with incredible difficulty. I can really only do one at a time, especially given how much travel the movie career demands. The bigger issue is balancing either with life. I also run a medieval armory, train daily for both martial arts and general fitness, and maintain my social life." Cafas laughed, though inside he knew he'd had to sacrifice more than he'd have liked to of his social life in order to maintain everything else. It had totally ruined his relationship with Calley, and it certainly hadn't helped his PTSD.

To be fair, you're the one that turned that into a hard hitter.

"Of course I do my own stunts! I sometimes think I'm a bit of an adrenaline junky. I really love the challenge, and it's satisfying when you pull it off. Plus they pay you to train in new skills. Heck, for the first Dusk film I learned some parkour from some of the best in the business, which was awesome." They were back to ground Cafas was far more enthusiastic about, eyes rolling into a pink/yellow combo as the emotional pain the last question had stirred faded away.

"As to your cunningly disguised request for me to take my shirt off, I have been informed that it would be a faux pas on this stream not to." He'd also been informed that his publicist would prefer if he could get his chest waxed for the interview, and he sure as heck wasn't wasting that pain. He hadn't broached the topic with Maya, but surely she wouldn't mind too much...

I'm not taking that bet, bud.

With an obviously exaggerated exasperation, smile still in place, Cafas removed his shirt. He'd done a little diet prep for the interview and all, so battle (and bedroom) scarred skin was almost tight across his bulky, meticulously toned musculature. No dehydration, so his six pack wasn't what it could be, but this wasn't exactly a proper photo shoot.

"To answer you question, no, the draped do not match the upholstery. Dyeing my body hair is just a step I'm not willing to take." Why was the air con set so cold? Sam must have been using the room. That, or he thought it'd be funny. Probably the latter.

Despite initial trepidation, I'm actually enjoying this.

Oh, shirt off. Though he'd literally asked for it, the Iranian teen took this opportunity to face palm for the both of them, grinning at his interviewee through his fingers. A collective capslock cheer went up from the internet.

“Thank you for that, Cafas, and I feel obligated to add, in the words of the great throwawayAccount69, 'Pants 2 plz thx.' ” It was a tricky thing, pronouncing internet-type, but as a modern teen, Jiri was a native.

So far, so good. If the man was hiding any homicidal and/or faceicidal urges, he was doing in a relaxed, friendly, answered-these-questions-a-million-times manner. Jiri wasn't quite as experienced of a host, but he'd definitely been getting in his hours lately. If Maya's boyfriend was relaxing, it was probably safe for him to relax, too. Probably.

“All right, now, a serious one.” Jiri's serious face was serious. “Please respond to allegations that your armory's website—which has already been spammed at least fifty times on the chat, seriously people, stop asking about it and just scroll down—is—and I quote, 'So 2000's'?”

“And hannahBannana asks, 'omg, so that thing with your eyes wasn't a special effect, tell us tell us what's the mood-ring color-code for your eyes?' ”

"Sorry Throwawayaccount69, You;ll need to pick up the June 2015 issue of Men's Health Magazine for that request." Because taking his pants off online didn't seem even slightly wise. Though as an actor, nude scenes might in fact be in his future... Still, that was a professional environment, totally different. The consideration of the request did flicker across his face.

“Please respond to allegations that..."

Oh dear, this might be bad...

"...your armory's website..."

Phew.

"Like I said, balance is tricky. The site's up to date on stock listings, has paypal integration, and has not once crashed from high loading, though I have a suspicion that might be about to change. I just haven't gotten around to updating the look. I should probably just pay someone to make me a new one." It was kind of a pride thing though. He'd coded it himself, sure it didn't have fancy java apps or hover over features, but every line was his own, except all the payment bits.

Yeah I should just do it.

Cafas' eye turned an embarrassed combination of pink and green. He just never got used to being called out on his eyes by total strangers. Heck, he'd worn sunglasses for years just to avoid it. "Sadly Hannah, I actually can't. I know of one, maybe two people that could, and one of those kept a note book. Still, if it helps, whatever I've got on right now is embarrassed." He gave a smile and wink, and a totally incidental and subconsciously controlled flex of his pecs.

Fan service in place of satisfactory answer. Classy.

“Hey, hey,” Jiri chided, “no product placement. Not unless I get part of the cut, anyway. Speaking of: ten percent on the ridiculous number of orders you get today sound good?”

Cheeky smile was cheeky, in the same degree that serious face had been serious. This guy was actually kind of cool. And… possibly mature? Between Ghost knocking him out and Sam being a not-so-closet alcoholic and the new headmaster signing him up for aerial basket weaving while he wasn't paying attention, Jiri had been starting to worry that the only reasonable adults in the Mansion were Mrs. Taylor and DJ Roomba.

Mature meant he could probably get into some of the more interesting questions that had popped up in the feed. He'd been copy-pasting them into his own notes, so they didn't get lost amid the fan-squeals of 'what's your favorite Dusk ship' and 'no plzzzzz pants plzzzzz.'

“Okay, so serious serious question. What do you think of the new META bots?”

“How have the bots affected X-Men and NYPD relations?”

“What would you change about the deputy system if you were in charge?”

>“Okay, so serious serious question. What do you think of the new META bots?”

Cafas' jaw tensed, and his power fluxed slightly. Had he been touching any metal, he wouldn't have been after that. The X-man took a deep breath, and tried to remember he was a representative of the group. Arguably one of the best known.

"My personal opinion on the META program is, unfortunately, irrelevant. We support NYPD in the decision to employ robotic officers. I think they're strong, they're fast, and they'll certainly take a beating so that biological NYPD officers don't have to." He bit back several opinions. Who knows what sort of trouble they'd have landed him in.

Between a lot and all of it.

>“How have the bots affected X-Men and NYPD relations?”

Cafas had to convince his teeth to ungrit so that he could speak, the pink in his eyes darkening ominously as he struggled to keep his expression neutral. It was taking a lot to stop his body language giving him away. "The META bots have helped the X-men and the NYPD apprehend many extremely dangerous threats without casualty." The truth was, as far as Cafas could tell, their relationship with the NYPD was on the ropes from the META bot's continued deployment. They were barely better than the sentinels, and almost more dangerous.

Slowly introducing registration again. At what point do we draw the line? The writing's right there on the wall.

>“What would you change about the deputy system if you were in charge?”

Cafas really was struggling not to just speak his mind. Most of the time he avoided such questions, but it didn't seem fair not to offer at least a token answer. Frankly, he was beyond caring if people could tell that's what it was. "I trust the decisions of the X-men's, and the NYPD's, leadership in this matter." His expression was apologetic, because unfortunately, that was the best he could give them.

God I wish I didn't have to...

Pink. Pink was anger. The man had dyed his head the color of his angry-eyes. Did… did he not know, like he'd said earlier? Or was he perfectly well aware that hot pink his personal Hulk color, and he'd done up his hair the same way a poisonous snake did up its scales?

Jiri kept his expression professional and polite as those eyes kept darkening through the spectrum of My Little Pony to from Pinkie Pie to Twilight Sparkle to Friendship is Murder. Polite polite polite. He absolutely, positively did not press the point as Cafas deflected the questions through teeth that could have ground boulders to dust.

Time to change the subject. Something lighter, fluffier, safer. He scanned the chat quickly, scrolling down until he found something nice and innocuous.

“So, ah, you're from Australia originally, right? What was it that brought you to the Big Apple?”

“What surprised you the most, when you got here?”

“Have you noticed any differences in how mutants are treated, between the United States and your home?”

Jiri was curious himself, he had to admit—he didn't know much about Australia. That was probably the biggest difference between what he did, and what real interviewers did: research. A stunning lack of research.

>“So, ah, you're from Australia originally, right? What was it that brought you to the Big Apple?”

Cafas stiffened, coming just short of narrowing his eyes suspiciously at Jiri. The kid seemed nervous, but that could mean anything. The X-man relaxed back into his chair and tried to let some of his previous anger seep away. At least this he could speak openly on. Whether his publicist would approve was another matter entirely. Honestly, he didn't care.

"I am, did what's left of my accent give me away?" He laughed, but even the fake mirth rang somewhat hollow. "I actually moved here for Xavier's school. Same as many mutant kids. A safe place, as a mutant, to sleep, eat, and finish my education was incredibly enticing."

>“What surprised you the most, when you got here?”

"Seeing mutants just walking around in the streets. I'm still not over it, to be honest." Even after living at the Mansion for years. Existing around mutants, both visible and otherwise, day in and day out. It was just incredible to him. He'd grown up without ever seeing a visible mutant except on the news. He still couldn't take it for granted.

>“Have you noticed any differences in how mutants are treated, between the United States and your home?”

There it was. The question he could vent some frustration on. "Buckle up, guys, this is going to be a long one." Cafas leaned forward, oblivious to how silly this might all seem coming from a shirtless man. "The USA has its problems, and it could even stand to improve on how it treats mutants, but there's a whole school of us, you all know where we are, and we're left in relative peace. In Australia, we'd all have disappeared, and not a word would have been said of it." Flashes of suited men carrying him to an unmarked van flashed through his mind.

"God knows what fate we'd have met, I've never been able to find word on it, but I've been around the X-men that fought against the camps here and Romania long enough to have a pretty good guess. Why it never ceases to amaze me that mutants openly walk the streets here, is that in Australia, that never happens, unless that mutant has a death wish. They'd have that street locked down in minutes, police, secret police, military, whoever could get there first. The media would report it as terrorist action. So yeah, you could say I've noticed some differences." He could have gone on, but it just wasn't the right format. Cafas reeled himself in and leaned back into his chair again, nodding to Jiri to let him know he was done.

If Jiri had fancy-pants color-coded fan-girl-attracting eyes, they'd be the shade of surprised, rapidly changing to horror. He hoped, as a mere human-looking-mutant, that his facial expressions were able to convey the message clearly enough.

For the first time since these AMAs had started, Jiri went totally off script. He didn't even glance down at his computer screen, at the usual mix of What's your favorite movie with Who do you back for the 2018 presidential race and every shade of serious in-between.

From surprise to horror, from horror to that very particular flame of righteousness that burned in first world teenagers like a god-given torch.

“Wait, what? That's happening? Like, now? Why the hell aren't the X-Men doing anything about it? That's your home country, and you just—what, up and left? Never thought about it again? Never even tried to use your clot as an international movie star to even bring attention to it?”

What the hell. What the actual hell. Never mind anything else he'd thought: Cafas might be one of the better adults hanging around the Mansion, but he was still one of the worst role models Jiri had ever had the displeasure to meet.

Cafas leveled a look at Jiri that had been known to end fights before they ever happened. A quiver of rage ran through his body at the self-righteous little shit in front of him, that felt the moral authority to question someone that had done unspeakable things in the name of said shit's freedom and safety.

He wanted to throw the kid across a room, or maybe into a tiger pit. They had one of those right? Maybe he could call Calley?

Maya wouldn't want you to.

Cafas was on the edge of cracking a tooth from how hard they were grit. In his eyes flickered purple flame. He swallowed it though, and worked his aching jaw muscle to form words. "What, if you wouldn't mind telling me, would you call this? Unfortunately Mr. O'leary, we are not afforded as much freedom in life as we might like. In fact, some of us now have quite limited jurisdictions to act within, because we are now genuine affiliates of the government of these United States, and our statements on international affairs can be quite damaging to international relations. Yet day in and day out we do the best we can to keep this city safe and to fight for the rights of mutants to the extent of our powers. We do what we can, past the limitations of certain decisions, and I will not have that questioned by a petulant teen who's never sacrificed so much as a drop of sweat in the line of duty I live my life on."

Cafas was shaking. He knew he was shaking. It was the same uncontrollable shaking he woke up with on so many nights, compounded by his anger. He felt ill to his stomach, another all too familiar feeling he could well do without. All of which the youth in front of him would hopefully never have to deal with because of the world Cafas was suffering to forge.

“Nice excuses,” Jiri very clearly mouthed, were Cafas could see and their internet viewers could not.

At the end of the day, what were the X-Men doing? New York was just one city. One big, mixed-bag-of-people city that would always have crimes large and small. Did Cafas really think he was fixing anything, putting in a nine-to-five around here? There were bigger things at stake out in the world, but the adults around here just didn't seem to see that.

If he didn't want to be a hand-cuffed-and-media-gagged representative of the Good ol' U S of A, then there was a solution that even a sophomore could see: resign.

The X-Men all seemed like a bunch of windbags with violent tempers and/or alcoholic tendencies, anyway. It was probably no coincidence that the sanest adult in the Mansion, Ms. Taylor, had nothing to do with them.

Seriously. He needed to talk with Leo and Alex, and see what they could do about this whole Australia situation. More than Cafas had done since high school, probably.

Jiri met the man's stink eye with his own cheekily defiant grin, and skimmed for the first question that caught his eye.

He didn't even feel that bad about it, to be honest.

“Whatever happened to that police pussy you were getting?”