xp_logs | LOG: Nathan and Marius, only slightly awkward

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Nathan and Marius are properly introduced, and remarkably neither party requires hospitilization afterwards.

Deja vu, Nathan thought, walking much more cautiously into medlab and looking around suspiciously. He didn't know where the boy had been moved. And really, this was entirely unreasonable on his part, given that Marius apparently wasn't randomly attacking people anymore, but still...

Marius, absorbed in eating an apple he'd saved from breakfast, turned a corner and almost walked into Nathan.

"Ah, sorry," he said automatically, then blinked. The man's face wasn't particularly familiar, but something else was . . . Marius blinked. "Mr. Dayspring?" he hazarded. He phrased it as a question, but even as he said it the sixth sense eliminated all doubt. The --well, "mutagenic aura," as Moira termed it, was familiar, and there was only one person he could think of who he might have met but wouldn't remember.

"Marius," Nathan managed, not quite through gritted teeth. "You're looking... better."

Marius grinned. At least the extra sense he'd acquired was proving to be good for something. "Yeah, guess I have you to thank for that, come to that," he said. He cocked his head, regarding the man. "You okay? Moira said whatever I did put you under the weather for a few days."

"My immune system's not what it should be," Nathan said warily, stepping not back, per se, but around, in a sense. Just to put a little distance between them. "Like having a quick bout of the flu, that's all." With coughing. Lots and lots of coughing, and oh, how he hated his lungs most days these days.

"Glad to hear it," Marius said, not appearing to notice Nathan's careful repositioning. "Hospital stays aren't a favorite. Wouldn't wish it on anyone else." He uncocked his head, considering something. "Your power. What is it? Telekinesis?" Something about Nathan's power felt familiar to him, like a power he'd seen in someone else. It had its own tone to it, something he thought might be specific to Nathan, but it was ultimately a variation on a theme he'd heard before.

"Telekinesis, telepathy, and precognition," Nathan said shortly. "Grab-bag of the standard psi-mutations, lucky me." He was being sized up. He was very definitely being sized up, and that, given what had happened last week, was making him more than a little nervous.

Marius snapped his fingers. "Dr. Grey," he said, pleased he'd made the connection. "That's who you feel like." He grinned at Nathan. "More mutants I meet, more I get a sense of what's what. Mutation-wise, I mean. Don't really know what anyone does straight off, but I'm gettin' some ideas. Maybe one day, right?"

"Noble goal," Nathan said, and then could have smacked himself. It wasn't the kid's fault that he fed off other mutants. And it certainly wasn't his fault that Nathan had happened to walk so temptingly past his door at a time when he was crazed with starvation. He really ought to be able to put that little incident accident. Really, he should be.

"So, what brings you to the Lair of the Redheads?" Marius asked, displaying what was either a substandard awareness of tone or a complete failure to register tension. He took a bite of the apple, which issued a satisfying crunch.

Nathan gave him a level look. "Visiting my wife," he said.

Marius paused in mid-chew, genuinely confused for a moment. He remembered to swallow before he asked, "Who's your wife?"

Nathan almost managed a deadpan tone as he went on. "Moira. Did she forget to mention that?"

Marius' brain hurriedly replayed any conversation with Moira that had involved Nathan. "Uh . . . actually, yes."

"Yes, we would be married. I would be Mr. Dr. MacTaggart."

"Oh." Marius thought about this for a moment. "Does that make you exempt from the hitting?"

"Oh, no. I get special levels of violence because of the ring." Nathan waggled a hand at him, to show off said ring. "Plus we push each other into large bodies of water from time to time to demonstrate affection."

Marius thought of the few times he'd incurred Moira's ire. "I can see why that would be necessary," he said. He twisted the half-eaten apple in his fingers reflectively. "She's a good doc. Most would at least chill the instruments if a patient threw 'em against the wall and chewed on their husband."

"She chills instruments. Never imagine that she doesn't. You just need to misbehave far worse to get that privilege." He eyed Marius for a long moment, almost grudgingly. "She's the best," he said, more shortly. "If anyone can help you, it's her. Trust me, I speak from personal experience."

Marius eyed him suspiciously. "What happened to you? So far I've met the guy who blew his own legs off, the guy with brain damage, and the guy who got hit with his own power neutralizer. Got anything to top that lot?"

Nathan blinked at the boy for a moment, then told himself that no, he was not going to laugh. Or tell Marius precisely what had happened to him... okay, so he was. It had been too long since he'd been able to scare the crap out of a new student with the wonder that was him.

"Well, let's see," he said, almost in a drawl. "I was recruited at fourteen into a top-secret government mutant training program and put through all kinds of nasty telepathic and empathic conditioning. I worked for them for sixteen years, then escaped after being infected with a bioengineered virus that I use my telekinesis to control, and then spent the next seven years as a mercenary. Meanwhile, my long-distance precognition was getting all quirky on me, to the point that my visions were stopping my heart and people from the future were being very unpleasant. I called Moira from Lichtenstein - this was well before we got married - and thankfully she decided to come and pick up my sorry carcass and bring me here for treatment."

For a moment, Marius regarded him in silence. "You know," he said presently, completely dead-pan, "I'm startin' to think what this place mostly teaches is how to bear on under the weight of all the weird-ass baggage you lot seem to accumulate."

"That is entirely possible," Nathan said with a perfectly straight face. "And I haven't even told you about the precognitive ghosts in my head, either."

Marius scratched his head. "Wait, do you mean you can see ghosts of the future in your head, or the ghosts in your head can see the future?"

"No," Nathan said, and smiled. "The ghosts in my head are from the future."

"Ah. Glad we cleared that up." Marius seemed to think again. "So...what exactly does seperate being a mutant from being raving mad? Because so far I haven't been able to figure it."

"Occasionally not a whole hell of a lot. But I think you've probably figured that out."

"Yeah." Marius shook his head with a sigh. "And to think, my first day or so I actually wondered why a school had so many restraints on hand."