Amanda, Angelo - Wednesday lunchtime

[xp_daytripper]

As arranged, Angelo and Amanda meet up and he takes her to visit his mother. They talk, as they do, about everything and nothing.



The hotel was nice enough, Angelo noted absently. Not top-range, but not bad at all for all that. He walked purposefully up the steps, stopping at reception to ask them to call Amanda.

It only took a few minutes for Amanda to come down, bounding out of the elevator and flinging herself at Angelo for a hug. She'd missed him and being with Marie-Ange and Doug so much in England had only highlighted how much her friends meant to her. "Thanks for coming, it's brilliant to see you," she said, hugging him tightly.

Angelo laughed, catching her and swinging her round. "Good to see you too. You're lookin' well!"

"I am. Spending time back in England always does me good. And look at you! Working man and all, from what Nate tells me." She gave him one last squeeze and let go, dropping the few inches back down to her feet, given he'd swept her off them. "How is everything?"

"It's goin' really well", he informed her happily. "Nate's got big plans for what comes next, an' I'm gonna be involved. Doin' good things."

"And how about you?" she asked, looking him over carefully - it had become something of a ritual to make sure he was taking care of himself, given his habits of throwing himself into his work. "How're things with you?"

"They're fine", he said with a smile. "Really. I'm eatin' an' everythin'." Yes, he knew what she was thinking.

"Good." He did look well, she had to admit. "Remembering that all work and no play makes Angelo an anti-social sort with no life, I hope?" she asked, conveniently forgetting she'd been doing pretty much the same thing since leaving Muir.

"More or less, yeah. Bobby drags me out every once in awhile, an' I had breakfast with Marie... oh yeah, an' Marie an' Logan are both back in the mansion", he said with a faintly sheepish grin at not having mentioned it before.

"Marie's back?" Amanda's face flickered, reactions passing across in rapid-fire succession. It was wonderful, but at the same time Amanda was worried. Marie had left partly because of the damage done by the love potion. Given the events of the last year, Amanda wasn't sure she could deal with another of her 'victims' being back. Especially when people only came back to the school for help, traditionally. "How's she look? Is she okay?"

"She's doin' a lot better", he said quietly. "From all of it. Got the echoes or whatever you'd call them under control, an' she's... better."

"That's good. Really good." The words were said with utter sincerity. "So are she and Logan still... whatever?"

"Doesn't seem like it. They're in separate rooms as far as I can tell, an' he came back before she did. Don't know what happened there, though, an' I don't really like to ask."

"Ah, Xavier's. Mutant soap opera, whenever you like it. And sometimes when you don't." She grinned slightly, not meaning it in a caustic way. "So, where are we headed? You said something about kidnapping me on the phone."

"We're goin' to Mom's", he informed her with a wide grin. "She's been droppin' hints since I happened to mention you were goin' to be in New York again."

Amanda beamed. "Perfect. I think if you hadn't thought of it I might have invited myself over there sometime soon." She didn't mention it, but she'd been a little on the bored side the last few days. And worried, too, with the way her powers were acting. "She sent me a Christmas box, did I tell you? Surprised the hell out of me."

Angelo beamed back. "Thought she might have. She showed up at the school with a bunch of them for people."

"That's so your mum..." Adjusting her jacket, Amanda took hold of Angelo's arm and started for the door. She'd seen enough of the hotel to suit her for a while. "Oh, I ran into Jubilee, too. She works in a diner 'round the corner. has the silly uniform and everything."

"...she's in a diner?" He blinked. "What, to make up the rent or somethin'? Last I heard, she was at police academy."

Amanda nodded. "Yeah, basically. Works mornings and goes to police school in the afternoons. She seems to be doing well, tho'. Still with the boy, enjoying the whole cop thing. We had a good chat and I go in there most mornings for breakfast now. Besides, she has a hat with a cow on it. It's hysterical."

Angelo chuckled. "I'll have to stop in sometime, if I'm down this way again. Don't see that much of her since she moved out."

"Yeah, she's pretty busy. She said something about trying to get back to the school semi-regularly, if only to do her laundry and raid the fridge..." Amanda chuckled. "Typical student, from what I get from TV."

"Lorna'll be glad to have her", he said with another grin. "One more excuse to cook, if she needed it."

"Hmm." Amanda's face closed slightly at the mention of Lorna. "She and Alex still quits?" she asked, possibly a bit more bluntly than was polite, but she'd never worried about that with Angelo.

"Yep. Well, I mean, she doesn't talk about it much, but... she's here, he's not, an' I don't think there's been regular long phone calls goin' on."

"Hmf." Amanda's lips pressed together - she wanted to mention the woman coming down to New Orleans to mess with Remy's head (or at least that was how Amanda saw it) but Remy probably wouldn't appreciate it. "Seems like things are falling apart all over the place there - Remy mentioned something about Doc Grey leaving Captain Fuckwad?"

"That's... gettin' somewhere close to fixed. Don't know exactly what happened, but the team went out to get her back, an' she's around again now. Doesn't sound like it's how it looked."

Amanda raised her eyebrows, glancing at him as they walked down the street. "Not another possession," she said. "'S getting to the point you can skip doing your homework and say it was because you were brainwashed..."

Angelo laughed. "I'm not sure what it was, seriously. I'd think they'd have brought her home long before this if it was an actual possession, but..."

"So they're still treating you lot like mushrooms then?" she said wryly. "As far as the drama goes, any way."

He shrugged. "I guess. They tell us what we need to know if there's danger, but it didn't seem like she was out to hurt anyone. Except Scott."

"Eh. That still relies on them knowing what you lot need to know to stay safe. And it's been proved their judgement's not always the best." Amanda shrugged and veered away from the subject - she didn't want to turn this into a slanging match against the school, no matter what her issues were. "I would have brought you something back from England, only I got distracted by the whole rescuing Romany from the evil civil service thing."

"....what happened to Romany?" He hadn't met her more than a few times, but he liked her.

"My exciting moonlighting as an occult researcher," she said, grinning. In her usual casual fashion she outlined the events of the last few weeks. "... and then the bastard dropped dead of a heart attack, right in police custody. Talk about unfair. But Rom's all right, that's the main thing, and Pete's going to keep an eye on things. I think that's why he's here - he and Remy are plotting something a bit more permanent."

Angelo nodded. "Workin' together as a permanent thing, then? Their own team?"

"Maybe. I don't really know, just that they're meeting up with Emma Frost a lot. I can't see them in the bondage gear tho', so something a bit less leather-obsessed than the X-Men." She snickered a little bit at the mental image of Pete in an X-Men uniform. "I'm sticking around to see what happens - I want to see Remy sorted, I s'pose." She blushed a little. "I try and keep an eye on him, for Tante. His leg's getting worse and we worry."

"...should it still be gettin' worse, after so long? I mean, it was an injury, right, not a degenerative thing?"

"The joint wasn't set right," Amanda explained, a shadow crossing her face. "The plastic bonded to his bones, it got in the way and I..." She bit her lip, having not actually talked about that fateful Healing with anyone but Moira since it happened. And that had been for medical purposes. "I couldn't put it back to where it was supposed to go. So now every time he moves on it, he's grinding the joint away and tearing the muscles again."

Angelo winced, expressively. "An' there's nothin' ordinary medicine can do about it?"

"Not without making him lose the leg entirely. Or not be able to walk again." Amanda's own face twisted with pain. "It sounds awful to say it, but I didn't have enough power. Maybe if I'd..." She shook her head sharply. "Any way, there's nothing I can do for him now either. The magic's gone, for good, even if my powers are coming back."

Angelo looked at her, just as sharply. "Amanda, you did everythin' you could. He'd have died if you'd done any less, an' you know what might have happened if you'd taken any more power.... an' what do you mean? How can your powers come back without the magic?"

"I meant from me. I couldn't have taken any more without killing someone and I'm not a monster. At least, I I hope I'm not." The last was said almost too quietly for him to hear before she raised her voice again. "It's always been separate, Ange. My mutation and the magic. Sure I need the mutant power to do the magic, but not the other way 'round. Tante took the magic away back last year, when I left, 'cause I asked her to. It can't come back, she said so. But my mutant power... that's something else." She gave him a wry grin. "Remember that talk about manifesting we had once? And I said I'd never had one? Guess I'm in the club after all - I ended up at Muir after the migraines started getting too bad and Moira and Curt worked out I was manifesting again. Properly, this time."

"Oh. Well... that's good, right? You get a do-over an' stuff... do you know what your power is, without the magic?"

"That's what Moira said." Amanda huffed out a breath, blowing her hair out of her eyes. "And I'm not sure... It's energy absorption, same as it used to be, only it's not the same thing setting me off. I was at a mystic site in England and I didn't get a thing, but London did. Same as here... there's something about New York and London that give me a buzz but I'm buggered if I know what from."

"...cities?" He blinked, looking around. "Well, I guess there's a lot of stuff here it could be."

"That's the part that makes it hard to work out." She pulled a face. "Too much going on. Tell you one thing, tho' - it's not a bad feeling. Not like before, when I got too close to something big. It feels... natural, I s'pose you could say. Like what I'm feeling is what's supposed to happen."

"Well, that's probably because it is", he pointed out reasonably. "The way things would've been without Rack screwin' around, or close to it."

"You're probably right. I've spent so long with my powers not being right I didn't even think they could be any different." They were heading down the steps of the subway now - Angelo's mother lived across town. "And hey, I've learned to bleed off the extra, since I'm not doing the magic. Used what Rack used to do as a base and figured it out at Muir. Go me, huh?"

"Go you", he agreed sincerely. "Good to see you can turn some of what that bastard did into a good thing."

"You and me both. Fucker'd be rolling in his grave at me getting along so well now. If he had a grave, that is." Amanda paid for her fare and pushed through the turnstile, ignoring the somewhat shocked look on the face of the ticket seller.

Angelo laughed, ignoring the guy at the gate just as much and hoping he'd assume they were talking metaphorically. "An' that's the best revenge you can get on him."

"Uh-huh." Leaning back against the tiled wall of the platform, Amanda shoved her hands in her jacket pockets and glanced at the taller boy standing next to her. "So, enough of me and my dramas. What about you? Any gossip?"

He shrugged. "Not really. Started talkin' to Paige a bit more than we were..."

"Oh?" Amanda's eyebrows rose and she looked at him carefully again. Angelo gave 'stoic' a whole new meaning and sometimes you had to prise things out of him. "How's that going?"

"Could be worse. Not sure it'll ever be like it was before we got together, but... talked a bit when we went out to get Nathan back, an'... it's a start, anyway."

"Get Nathan back?" Amanda was about to ask more but was interrupted by a gust of wind and the arrival of the train. Waiting until they had boarded and were seated, she continued, in a lower voice so the other passengers wouldn't hear. "Was this the drama a little while ago? Moira didn't come back to Muir when she said, just sent a message saying something had come up."

"Yeah." He grinned ruefully. "Nathan bein' an idiot. Stuff with his family... not sure how much of it's really mine to tell."

"He mentioned some of it. He sent me my herbal book back as a birthday present and we started emailing again." Amanda smiled a little sadly. "I really loved that book and I was so happy to have it back. We're meeting up sometime in this week, for lunch. And to Talk." She managed to convey the capital letter. "I'm fucking terrified, to be honest."

He offered a reassuring smile. "It'll be okay."

She found herself reaching for his hand any way. "There's just so much... stuff. I know he doesn't hate me but..." She bit her lip and gave him a wan smile. "I miss how it was and it's never going to be like that again."

He squeezed her hand, smiling slightly. "Now you sound like me. An' no, it's probably not. But that doesn't mean you can't make somethin' just as good."

"We always did share half a brain. And not in the telepathic link way," she said, with some relief as to the last part. She'd had her fill of any kind of link to last her the rest of her life. "You always know the right thing to say, too. How d'you do that?"

"Practice", he said with a mischievous grin. "An' workin' for the Envoy project or whatever we're callin' it now's helped a whole lot, too."

She poked her tongue out at him. "No fair using your training on me."

He laughed and turned towards the train door as they pulled onto the platform. "Sure it is."

"No, it's not. It's sneaky and underhanded I might just have to use the puppy eyes on you," she protested, giggling a little and not letting go of his hand as they got off the train.

"Like that stops you the rest of the time." He was laughing, though.

"Well, no, but that's not the point!" They passed through the barriers, both laughing now. "Can we stop off on the way? I should get your mum something. There's that little florist down on the corner, I could get her some flowers."

"Course we can. She'll love that."

***

Angelo's mother was very happy to see them, and immediately set about cooking up a feast. "How long are you going to be in New York, Amanda?" she called over her shoulder.

"A couple of weeks at least, I'm not really sure," Amanda replied, setting the daffodils she'd bought in a vase supplied by Angelo's mother. Her ribs still ached vaguely from the hug she'd gotten. "I'm still working out where I'm going to go afterwards. I've been at Muir Island for a few months, working on my powers, but those seem to be stabilising. So it's probably back to New Orleans. I should be able to get my job at the bar back, at least."

That got her a vaguely disapproving look. "At a bar? At your age?"

"It's just during the summer until I start school at the community college," Amanda assured her, looking a little shamefaced - no-one could mother her as effectively as Moira and Angelo's mother. "And I'm legal back home, Mrs. E. Have been for a year and a bit now."

"But not here", the woman said, shooting her another Look. "And you will eat here while you're in New York."

"No arguments here, Mrs. E." Amanda grinned cheerfully at the older woman. "You know I can't resist your cooking. How've you been? Enjoying being a New Yorker?"

"I've settled in", Juanita said equally cheerfully, relenting and smiling. "And it's good to be near Angelo."

"I'm sure he doesn't argue with that," Amanda replied, casting a look to where Angelo was setting the table. "You sure you don't want me to help? I'm not any great shakes in the kiitchen, but I could stir something maybe? With supervision?"

She laughed. "I'm sure I can find something for you to do."

"Yay. Usefulness is a good thing." Amanda came into the kitchen proper and was handed a wooden spoon and set to stirring something that smelled obscenely good in a pot. "You must be really proud of Angelo," she said after a while. It went without saying, but she'd never been good at small talk.

That got an outright beam, as Juanita bustled about the kitchen. "I am. He's doing so very well."

"You can say that again." Amanda set to stirring, careful not to splash on her beloved Union Jack t-shirt. "Now we just need to get him a girlfriend and he'll be set, huh?"

"That would be nice", she said with a surreptitious glance towards the dining room, and back at Amanda. "Do you have any ideas?"

Amanda considered the girls she knew at the school, rejecting those that were too attached, too insane and too not Angelo's type. Which didn't leave a lot to go on. "Not unless there's been some new faces since I left the school," she said. "Tho' he said something about a girl he met in Khazistan at one point. He seemed to get on with her pretty good."

"Samie", his mother agreed. "He mentioned her, and I think they still write to each other. But she's so far away..."

"Pity. Everyone I know's too insane to do him any good - he needs someone who won't break him." Amanda left unspoken the like Paige did. "He deserves someone who'll treat him well, you know what I mean?"

"Of course he does." The answer was instant and firm - she was his mother, after all, she was hardly going to disagree. "Are all the girls at the school really that way?"

"Well, maybe not that bad," Amanda admitted. "Maybe I'm just fussy on his behalf. The really nice ones are taken, like my mate Marie-Ange. She's been dating Doug for a couple of years now." They'd gotten together as a result of the love potion, she remembered now. Imagine that.

"It always seems to be the way", Juanita said regretfully. "Perhaps he'll meet someone else through his work. Someone closer to home."

"Well, with the way they're expanding, there's always a chance he will. Maybe I should poke around, see if there's any likely candidates?"

This was, of course, the exact moment Angelo chose to finish up his task and join them in the kitchen. "Candidates for what?"

Amanda blushed to the tips of her ears, cursing her fair skin that showed it all the better. "Um, candidates for whatever reality show does that thing with the models?" she temporised. "We think they're all ugly, isn't that right, Mrs. E?"

Juanita looked at her and hid a smile. "Exactly right. None of them look like real girls."

Angelo wasn't looking convinced. "And they're really in need of a feed. This from the girl who was homeless for a while. I mean, it's just stupid, isn't it?" she prattled on, praying for a lightning bolt to put her out of her misery.

"...models always are too thin", he agreed warily, still looking between them dubiously.

"Yep. Definitely. Way too skinny. Um. And how about whatever sports team is doing stuff?" Going for the ridiculous always put people off the track.

Angelo blinked at her, then laughed. "Okay, I'll stop askin'. I probably don't want to know anyway, right?"

"No, you really don't," Amanda said, smiling back. She remembered there was supposed to be stirring going on and went back to her pot. "One of these days you'll have to teach me how to cook, Mrs. E. I mean, Tante's shown me some, but Cajun seems to involve tossing everything in a pot and adding spices and cooking it for three days until it's all sludgy. Good sludge, mind you."

"I'd be happy to", came the answer from the other side of the kitchen. "Whenever you like."

"Could be something to keep me out of trouble while I'm here, huh?" Amanda suggested, shrugging a little. "I'm at a bit of a loose end right now."

"Well, we'll see what we can do about that." She smiled at the girl, warmly.

Amanda basked in the glow of that smile, in the sense that she was at home here. "Thanks, Mrs. E," she said, and was pleased when her own smile didn't falter. Getting mushy would be, to quote Jubilee, lame. "I'd really like that."