LOG: Logan and Nate - Nicaragua, Beer, Memories, and Suspenders

[x-wolverine.livejournal.com]

Logan stops down at Harry's for a beer and sees Nathan working through some Elpis work. The two men talk and make a good start on patching things up.



The office was still not the most conducive place to work, and Nathan had finally decided to spend a few hours down at Harry's with some of the literature he'd dug up about Borgran's group, as well as the 'further details' the man had sent him about the current situation. Maybe beer would help him make the connections he wasn't seeing, come up with an approach he could propose. He'd like to have one when he sent the information to Elpis's newly constituted board of directors. It would be nice to appear on top of things.

Logan was spending a great deal of his evenings down in Harry's. It was friendly, the stench was tolerable, and the alcohol quite decent. Plus he was getting to know the locals, and they him. And sharking at pool put a couple of dollars in his pocket and was a more-than-pleasant way to spend an evening. Pity Harry didn't much go in for cagefights. Still, even with that glaring defect in Harry's character he still spent a great deal of his time in the bar. When he arrived, he tipped his hat to the girl behind the bar and collected his first pitcher of the evening. Essential supplies in-hand, he scanned the bar to look for a place to park.

Nathan frowned at his printouts, leafing through them in search of the annual report from Borgran's organization - the only one he'd found, which suggested it was only slightly older than Elpis. Had he not brought it down with him? He grumbled, taking a sip of his beer before turning to the other pile, which included reports of various groups, including Amnesty International, on the doings of the Managuan police. It was in here, surely...

Logan saw Nate up to his eyeballs in paperwork, mentally sighed, then made his way over. "Hey." he said, sliding into the booth opposite of the larger man and topping Nate's beer off from his pitcher. "Don't you have an office for that kind of thing?" he said, looking for a place on the table to set his pitcher down and pour himself a pint.

Nathan looked up, blinked, and then hesitated for a moment before slowly shifting paperwork out of the way. It was as close to an invitation as Logan was going to get. "Yeah," he said quietly, a bit warily, "but it's a mess. I needed to get some air."

"Hear that." he said by way of agreement, then set his pint glass down to pour. Once full of malted beverage goodness, he switched the pitcher and the pint glass and half-emptied his glass in a single swallow. "What is all this, anyway?" he said, looking at the paperwork from the wrong side.

"Someone in the Managuan municipal government decided that homeless mutant kids constitute a threat to public safety and ordered the police to start rounding them up and imprisoning them," Nathan said, and ah-hahed as he found the report he'd been looking for. "I got a heads-up from an activist working in the city," he said, cross-referencing the information he'd been puzzling over with a glance and a thoughtful nod.

Logan hrmmed at that. "You going to take a look-see for yourself?" he asked curiously. Something about this whole setup made his brain itch.

"Possibly. I need to find out what's going on, first. See if they're open to taking an alternate approach to the 'problem'." Nathan closed the file and lifted his beer, taking a sip. "I have a few ideas. Nothing more than just sketchy yet, though."

Logan shrugged and drained the rest of his beer. Refilling himself, he looked at Nate. "If it gets to the point where you want someone to go take a look-see, I'll go. I can take care of myself in a scrap if it comes down to it, and I see, hear, and smell more than anyone else you know." he said confidently. "Your call."

Nathan gave him a long, measuring look. The offer certainly seemed sincere. "I'll keep that in mind. Thanks," he said finally. "I've spent quite a bit of time in Nicaragua myself. Like I was telling Angelo, this isn't quite as nasty as it could be - on the surface, at least." He smiled somewhat humorlessly. "Suppose it's the nature of my background that my brain automatically goes to how long it might take for someone in the government to think 'Hey, wouldn't these kids be better blowing up the enemies of the state as opposed to sitting in jail?'"

"You're not the only one who tends to think that." he reminded Nate, taking another drink to wet his throat. "And I have no idea if I've ever been to Nicaragua."

"Does the issue of your missing memories come up in every conversation?" Nathan asked. There was no edge to the question, just honest curiosity. "You know, you're not the only one around here with that problem. You're by far the most extreme, don't get me wrong. But you're not alone."

Logan shrugged. "It comes up pretty much daily in one form or another." he said. "How do I know how to do this? Dunno. Where'd I learn to drive? To fight? To drink? I don't even have a _name_ - Logan is what Heather and Mac called me when they found me." he said. "Suppose it does get irritating to have to keep hearing it. I'll work on it." he said.

"It wasn't a complaint, just an observation," Nathan said. "I'm missing the first twelve years of my life," he said, rearranging his paperwork into a single pile. Something told him that he wasn't going to get much more work done here. "My... uncle, carved out memories telepathically and leave great big holes. The problem is that a child's mind will try and heal itself, even if there's nothing much it can do. So I have huge gaps, and about a year's worth of memories that are constructs - nightmares, really."

"Sucks to be us." he said, hoisting his beer towards Nate before downing the rest of his pint. "You enjoy your payback?" he asked.

"My payback?"

Logan nodded. "Finding and putting an end to the guy who destroyed your childhood like that." he said.

Nathan tilted his head, staring down at his beer, his expression faintly pensive. "Not as good as it should have felt," he said, "and I don't think it had to do with me not being the one to kill him. I'm actually kind of happy about that, in the end."

"Some days it's the thought that keeps me going." he admitted. "Finding the guy who created the WEAPON project, who destroyed my life. I really don't know what I'd do. I can't just kill him, he knows small things like who I am, where I'm from, all that stuff folks take for granted. But at the same time anyone who does what they did to me deserves to die real slow-like."

"My uncle... well, I hesitate to call it kidnapping, because I let it happen, thank you very much, wacky precognition. But he had me, back at the end of March." Nathan shook his head a little. "It's the damnedest thing, but even when I told him I didn't want to know about my mother, because I didn't want to see her through his eyes, I didn't mean it. I really did want to know."

Logan thought about that for a moment, then shrugged. "I turned my back on Bill when he offered me knowledge." he said. "And if it hadn't been for the kids and getting them all out, I think I would have said yes."

"Well, in my case, it was just me and him and it might have actually been a nice break from the torture." Nathan grinned suddenly, wryly, and signaled Harry for another beer. "My family is... was an odd one by any standards." There might have been a flicker of sadness in his eyes, but it came and went very quickly.

Logan shrugged again. "I don't know if I have a family at all. Brothers? Sisters? Children? Parents? Grandkids? No idea." he said, then washed the taste out of his mouth with another beer. "Sometimes I wonder. What my name is, if I have any kin at all."

"It might be better not to know." Nathan waited until the waitress had dropped off his beer and retreated again before he went on. "Hell, who am I kidding. I don't believe that. Ignorance isn't bliss."

Logan grimaced. "I've never liked that expression. Ignorance isn't bliss. Ignorance is hell." He then saluted Nate again with a fresh beer and downed it in a mighty swallow.

Ororo would be all proud of him. Here he was, sitting in Harry's with Logan, having beer and a pretty civil conversation. "You know, I couldn't have more than a few sips of beers without getting totally wasted for nearly a year and a half?" Nathan asked with a faint grin as he lifted his new glass. "Metabolic stuff. It was embarassing."

Logan grinned at that. "I have to seriously work to enjoy a little impairment." he said. "My body just knocks that shit out cold."

"I used to have an impressive alcohol tolerance for a non-feral," Nathan said. "It's not what it used to be, but then, I'm getting old."

Logan made a face as an odor crossed his nose. "Speaking of impairment, seems that alcohol's not the only thing on the menu." he said, then went back to enjoying his beer. "I tell you I've been talking to Chuck lately?" he mentioned.

"Logan, this is the first time we've talked in a while," Nathan said with a crooked smile. "So no, you hadn't mentioned."

Logan shrugged. "Grapevine's fallin' down on the job." he observed. "But yeah. Talking with Chuck." he said, clearly flailing for words. "How's the leg?" he asked, changing tacks abruptly.

"Pretty much healed," Nathan said after a moment. "My father was a cellular-level metamorph. I don't have a healing factor, but I do heal faster than your average carebear." He waited for the obligatory moment to let the words sink in, then gave Logan another crooked grin.

Logan returned it with interest. "We're opposite sides of the medical spectrum. Your file's a mile long, mine's empty."

"Yeah, I've taken a stupid amount of punishment, even just since I've been here." His back twinged, as if to remind him, and Nathan straightened. "You know, when it comes right down to it, I'm not bugged about the leg," he said after a moment. "It was an accident, and now that I'm not limping around, I can be objective about that."

"I still maintain that it was the environment, but that don't mean shit. Gotta own up to what I did, and what I did was put claw in your leg." Logan said with honesty.

"Seriously, we're fine on that. I maybe should've just knocked you out as soon as I saw you were having difficulties - probably would have been easier on you when that place was messing with you."

Logan nodded. "I don't want to think about what that place did. It was like cross-wiring my brain."

Nathan nodded, conceding the point and moving on, as requested. "Actually," he went on, not quite as lightly, "the only bone I have to pick with you, as far as I'm concerned, is you throwing Youra in my face in that friendly little chat we had afterwards." He paused to take a sip of his beer. "Don't do that."

Logan shrugged. "You were crawling up my nose. Anyone ever tell you you're a real ass when you're all self-righteous?" he asked archly.

"And if you'd told me I was an ass, it would've been one thing. Although I suppose I can understand the man with no past not entirely understanding the weight of carrying around something like that." Nathan set his beer back down. "At least read the rest of the damned Mistra file before you go using any of it as ammunition," he said, more tiredly. Better than a year, and there were still moments that thinking about it hurt as much as it had last May. He wondered sometimes if it was ever going to fade.

Logan was about to retort something rather acidic when he bit his lip (figuratively) and sat on it a moment. "Fine." he said, after a _long_ moment. "But crying about getting turned into a living weapon doesn't cut a lot with me." he warned.

"Funny, I thought I was crying about seeing my friends mowed down around me and breaking the minds of fifty of the people I was trying to save." Nathan shook his head. "I still don't know how we made it out of there without losing any X-Men. Suppose we made up for it with the ninety percent casualties for everyone else." Yeah, there was some bitterness still, there.

Logan hrmphed at that, but at least it was a thoughtful hrmph. "In war, people die." he said thoughtfully.

"Sucked to be a telepath in those training barracks that day," Nathan murmured, his gaze faraway again as he sipped at his beer. "Feeling their minds wink out around me, until it was just me..."

"Hear it told telepathy just sucks, period." Logan agreed around a swig of beer. "But when it comes down to it, X-Men are there for each other. Period. Like or dislike, telepath or not, blank slate or rich canvas or what-the-fuck-ever."

Nathan shook himself out of the memory; it took more effort than it should have. He hadn't had flashbacks for months, but he could still get lost, thinking back to that day. "You don't need to tell me that," he said, his grin a little more subdued than it had been. "When it comes right down to it, I've been an X-Man for longer than you have."

Logan nodded. "Probably. I tend to roam." he said in the Understatement of the Year.

"I don't, anymore. I think I'm about as settled as settled gets." He seemed to be working his way through the second beer rather quickly. Huh. "And rickety old man or not, I'm still useful to the team."

"Didn't mean to imply you weren't - carebear. You stay healthy, you'll do fine." he said with finality and a smirk.

"Keep calling me carebear, and I might have to bounce you around the Danger Room like a ping-pong ball. I know it won't hurt you, but it's not good for the old pride."

"You want to go, I'm all for it. Better prep Medical ahead of time just to be safe - hate for you to get hurt, even by accident. After all, we all know you just can't soak a hit." he taunted, but with a smile.

"For me to take a hit, you actually have to be able to reach me. Which is a little harder when I know you're coming." Nathan paused briefly, his eyes narrowing as he looked away, at a booth across the room. He gave a grunt that might have been disgust or mild frustration, or both, before he looked back at Logan, raised an eyebrow before he drained the rest of his beer. "Someone over there doesn't like you. Have you been cheating at pool?"

"I don't have to cheat." he said with a laugh. "And lots of people don't like me." He sniffed the air to see if he could identify the guy Nathan was talking about. No joy so far - the room was too crowded, too overwhelming. He'd have to get closer.

Nathan grimaced and rubbed at his temples for a moment. "It's getting crowded in here," he said a bit distantly. "Noisy."

"It stinks." Logan said agreeably. "What say you get your shit together and we go talk Nicaragua back in your office?"

"Sure, why not." He wasn't about to turn down additional perspectives. You never knew when someone might have ideas that would never have occurred to you in a year of staring at the facts.

Logan nodded, drained the last of the pitcher of the beer in a titanic swallow, then got up. Stifling a belch behind his hand, he started to head for the front door. If there was going to be a brawl, he'd rather take it outside than trash Harry's.

Nathan saw the man get up to follow Logan and raised an eyebrow. Suspenders, he noted, and unclipped them delicately from across the room. The results were predictable, and while the man was yelping and grabbing at his pants and scuttling for the bathroom, Nathan rose, gathering his papers and leaving a tip behind as he left to join Logan outside.

Logan looked at Nate and then scowled. "You did something!" he said accusingly. "Here I was hoping he'd try something."

"He had a wardrobe malfunction," Nathan said with a wide-eyed, innocent look.

Logan snorted in amusement. "I'll bet. Beefy guy, wears suspenders all the time?" he asked.

"Mmm. He's in the bathroom," Nathan said, his eyes going distant again as he started walking in the direction of the school. "Fixing the suspenders. They're not fastening properly." He smiled. "I so love not having to be in line of sight."

Logan swatted at Nate. "Forget him! He's harmless. I walked here - you got a ride?"

"I flew, actually. Remember what I said about getting some air." Nathan adjusted the stack of files in the crook of his arm.

Logan shrugged. "Fine. See you back at the boathouse?" he asked.

"Well," Nathan said as the air around him started to glow - he'd checked telepathically, and there was no one watching, "I could always give you a ride." The firebird unfolded its wings as he walked. "Then again, I still occasionally wind up in the lake."

Logan shook his head. "No thanks. Appreciate it, but I'll just walk. It's good for me."

"Fair enough." Nathan launched himself upwards and was away from the road and above the low-lying cloud cover without another word.

Logan watched him go, then broke out into a long-distance runner's lope to head back to the Mansion. The exercise felt _good_ - there was a simple pleasure in just _moving_. It wouldn't be too long of a jog to get back to the Mansion.