Nathan, Rachel and Logan, Wednesday afternoon

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Logan steps outside for a smoke and notices a floating baby. Obviously he investigates, and gets to meet Rachel and re-meet Nathan. Rachel is her usual charming self, and Nathan and Logan agree to meet later at Harry's to discuss all the things they have in common.


"Ooooo...."

Nathan couldn't help a smile as Rachel looked up at him with wide gray eyes, displaying the fistful of grass she'd just pulled up by the roots. "You better watch yourself, munchkin. Cain will have your head if you wreck his lawn." He got a huge, sloppy smile in return, and his own grew in response. Rachel giggled and promptly dropped the grass, crawling with admirable speed over to where he was sitting on the sun-warmed grass, watching her. Crawling was a relatively new thing for Rachel, but she'd picked it up with uncanny speed. All in all, Nathan had to think that crawling was a far better idea than flying, so he was doing his best to encourage it.

"Look at you," he said approvingly, lifting his chortling daughter into his arms as she reached him. "You're going to start setting landspeed records."

"Heeheehee!"

Logan stepped out onto the back porch and lit his cigar. He inhaled deeply, feeling the burn in his lungs, and exhaled the smoke through his nose, watching the snoke curl away and feeling his acute sense of smell go deader by just a few degrees. He glanced up at the sky and made a mental note to see if Ororo had been grading papers by herself last night - it was a _gorgeous_ day out today.

Rachel squealed and slipped out of her father's arms, floating upwards. Nathan merely raised an eyebrow at her and kept a firm hold on what he and Moira had decided they were not calling the Rachel-leash. The baby bobbed like a balloon at the end of a string, and as always seemed to find the whole process hilarious, to judge by the shrieks of laughter.

"You are such a strange child."

Logan blinked as he spotted the shrieking baby atop a tether. Not something you saw every day. Curious, he wandered over that way to investigate.

Nathan glanced back over his shoulder as he sensed a very odd psi-pattern approaching - ah-hah. "Morning, Logan," he said amiably to the other man. "I heard you were back." And that Marie wasn't, although Nathan wasn't about to probe too deeply about that.

Rachel waved her little hands at Logan, giggling madly, and rolled over in the air as if she was in zero gravity. "Mwah! Mah-bah!" she declaimed loudly. "EEEE!"

Logan kept one very wary eye on the baby, and one on Nate. "Mornin'." he said amiably. "Nice day today. That your kid there on the leash?"

"I have that privilege, yes. Rachel, this is Logan. Logan, this is the world's smallest flying megalomaniac."

Logan didn't even bat an eye at the rather odd title Nathan gave Rachel. Instead, he took his cigar out of his mouth and put it out against his palm - he was perfectly willing to give his healing factor a workout but he wasn't about to let a kid inhale secondhand cigar-smoke. That wouldn't be right. He waved at Rachel, careful not to come anywhere near her.

Nathan rose, and gave the leash... tether a small tug. Rachel promptly blew a raspberry at him. "I can't wait until she starts figuring out how to open doors. Babyproofing will be moot at that point."

Logan hrmmed. "Got a lot of stuff 'round here that kids shouldn't be into." he said cautiously. "Too dangerous."

"Tell me about it. Unfortunately, this one decided she was going to be telekinetic in the womb," Nathan said, giving the tether another gentle tug. This time Rachel floated downwards and snuggled into his arms with a happy little sigh. "Best we can do is try to keep up with her."

Logan snorted in amusement and brushed the tobacco dust off his now-healed palm. "Guess that could explain the gray hair..."

"She accounts for some of it. Not all. It's been a rough year." Rachel smacked him in the chin and Nathan rolled his eyes at her. "No being violent. So," he said to Logan, "I hear you're back for a while. Self-defense?"

Logan nodded. "Yeah. Also gonna track down this Kyle kid, see if he needs any help adjustin'. Wheels says he's not holding on as well as he could be."

"He could use someone who's actually got the same mutation around full-time," Nathan said. "He's been having a hard time, and he was working under a disadvantage to start with. All these kids have to grapple with their mutations. Not all of them have to do it on top of dealing with the fallout from being part of something like Mistra."

Logan's nostrils flared at the mention of Mistra. He'd spent a little time looking at old casefiles, and that stack jumped out at him. "Can't say I much care for people getting put in boxes and twisted." he said harshly.

Rachel gave a very distinct meep, peeking at Logan and then hiding her face against Nathan's shoulder. Nathan patted her on the back gently. "I can't say as though I care for it myself," he said quietly. "That particular group of people, at least, is not putting any more kids in boxes." Or bodybags.

Logan nodded brusquely. "Good." he said, then looked at Rachel. He had no experience with kids that he was aware of, but the kid smelled spooked. "Hey, tiger." he said as gently as he could manage to Rachel. "Why you hiding on such a fine day?"

Rachel looked up at him with very wide eyes and made an interrogative sound. Nathan smiled. "She's telepathic," he said to Logan. "Not in any spectacular way - the most she tends to do is let her displeasure be known in your head, too. But she's sensitive to changes in mood."

Logan stiffened a little at that. "My head isn't a friendly place for anyone, much less a kid." he said warningly.

He meant well, Nathan told himself. The little flicker of irritation was completely unproductive. Logan meant well, and Nathan's urge to shout She's just a baby, dammit! whenever anyone had that reaction was entirely out of line. "She projects," he said patiently. "She doesn't go into your mind. She doesn't go into anyone's mind, unless you're me or Moira, because she's got a link to both of us. Charles has a psionic circuit-breaker in her cute little head so that she doesn't do anything she's not old enough to handle yet - because she is only eight months old, Logan. She's still working on the concept of 'no', let alone 'why not'."

Logan still looked skeptical, but he nodded. "Your kid." he said unsympathetically. "She's a pretty girl, though." he said as a sop to Nate's growing irritation.

Rachel gave an odd little grumble and smacked Nathan in the chin again, then slipped out of his arms and floated up to the end of the tether, letting out the occasional high-pitched shriek as she kicked and flailed.

"Thank you," Nathan said, keeping a firm hold on the tether. "She takes after her mother in looks. The telekinesis and the violent tendencies she gets from me, I guess." He cracked a smile.

Logan chuckled at that. "Could be worse, I guess." he said as diplomatically as he could. "She's a pretty girl." he said again, looking up at her. He dug his lighter out of his pocket and toyed with his cigar for a few moments.

"She also flings squirrels for fun. If I didn't know there was no malice behind it I'd be worried. Come on, you," Nathan said to the floating baby. "Lunchtime. And you don't have a hat on. If I bring you in with a pink head, your mother's going to make me sleep on the couch."

Rachel, instead of floating back down to her father, decided to drop to Logan's eye level and peer at him with those wide gray eyes. "Oooo?" she inquired.

Logan returned the favor, staring at her as much as she was staring at him. "Behave." he told her sincerely. "At least for now."

"Ooooo!" Rachel gave him one of those huge 'Love me for I am cute and am not secretly plotting to take over the world, really!' smiles and bobbed gently in the air.

"I'm reeling you in now," Nathan said reprovingly, and proceeded to do just that. Rachel giggled madly, turning lazy somersaults just to make it more difficult, and Nathan sighed as he finally got his hands on her and she really started to squirm. "Monkey."

Giggling, she waved with both hands at Logan. "Mah! Mah-bah!"

Logan couldn't help but laugh at that. "Looks like you've got your hands full." he said. "You gonna be free later?" he asked.

"Should be. She's wearing herself out but good with all of this," Nathan said, unwinding the tether from where it was twisted around Rachel. "She'll probably have her afternoon nap in Moira's office as per usual."

"Good. Meet ya down at Harry's? Want to ask you some questions about Mistra." he said. Mostly, if they had any ties to the WEAPON program that produced him.

"Sure," Nathan said after a moment. "Funny, isn't it, that we didn't know how much we had in common back when I first got here."

"Funny how that works out." he agreed. "See you later, Nate." he said, relighting his cigar and heading back inside.