xp_logs | Angelo and Nathan, at lunchtime

Nathan's working in the boathouse - or trying to, in an effort to keep his mind off Cain's situation. Angelo is keeping him company. When work is clearly not getting done, they wind up having a rather intense conversation, sparked only partially by the fact that Nate did not leave on the Blackbird with Cain. This has been building for a while.

He couldn't concentrate.

He'd been staring at the same chart breaking down different levels of different types of foreign aid to Cameroon for the last... thirty minutes, Nathan realized, glancing at the clock on the computer. Shit. He picked up his coffee, sipped at it, and then grimaced. Ice cold.

"That's what happens when you don't touch it for the best part of an hour", Angelo observed from the other side of the room, where he'd abandoned his own work temporarily when he noticed that Nathan didn't actually seem to be changing pages.

Nathan raised an eyebrow at him. "Smartass," he muttered, rubbing his hands over his face and widening his eyes briefly, willing the chart to come back into focus. "I think I need glasses."

"Or maybe you need to put that one down an' look at somethin' else. I think Moira would've noticed if there was anythin' really wrong with your eyes."

Nathan sighed, leaning back in his chair, his gaze straying out over the office. "I've had a nagging headache all week," he said quietly. "Just stress. Pressure on the shields."

Angelo nodded. "The mansion's been... tense, this week. Between Marius an' whatever Mr. Marko's gone to do, an' all the rest of it..."

"I understand a little better now how the rest of you feel when the team's off somewhere," Nathan murmured, resting his chin on his hand as he leaned forward again.

"When you're off somewhere an' sometimes when you come back", Angelo corrected quietly.

Nathan looked up at him, the eyebrow going up again, but no response immediately forthcoming as he regarded the younger man quietly. "You know," he finally said, "don't think I've missed the occasional comments lately. Even if I haven't said anything about them."

Angelo suddenly found the papers on his desk fascinating, and it took him a few minutes to think of anything to say to that. "You already knew how I feel about you goin' off an' comin' back hurt."

"Which I don't always do," Nathan pointed out, his voice still low. "I don't even usually do that, anymore."

"Still happens often enough to matter."

Nathan rubbed at his eyes. "It's a risky business at times," he said tiredly.

"I know it is", Angelo said, still quiet, before dropping into silence. Nathan already knew all the things he could use as arguments, so what was the point?

"I asked Cain if I could help, with what he's gone to do. He told me to go home to Moira and Rachel," Nathan said pensively, after another moment.

Angelo looked up sharply at that. "He was right. Rachel's..." He tried to find the words for what he meant for a moment, then gave up with a shrug.

"... someone who deserves to grow up with a father," Nathan said, filling in the blank for him. His smile wsa a bit tight. "I know, Angelo."

He hadn't meant for them to have this argument yet. But what was started, was started. "Then why do you keep goin' out there? When you've got Rachel, an' you've got other ways to make a difference?"

"Because I can make a difference in that way, too?" Nathan asked, although there was no edge to his voice. Just a certain amount of uncertainty. "I'm not used to not doing all I can, Angelo. And police, firefighters, members of the military... they all have families, and they all still do their jobs."

"Yeah. But you're tryin' to do two. An' how long do you think you're gonna stay lucky?"

Nathan made a face. "Could you give me a bit of credit, please?" he asked, somewhat plaintively. "It's not about luck, unless you're Dom, and even with her there's a not-inconsiderable amount of skill involved..."

"Fine, it's about skill too. My point stands, Nate - just think about the times you've come back here hurt so far. It's not exactly been cuts an' bruises, more often than not."

"How many times have I actually been hurt on X-Men missions?" Nathan asked pointedly. "And yes, I know Youra kind of overshadows everything."

"It's not about how many", Angelo retorted, frustrated. "It's about how badly. And hell yes, Youra counts for more than one."

"I've never gotten hurt out of stupidity," Nathan said, flushing a little, then remembering Logan in the FoH headquarters and grimacing. Even the incident with Pete... but that hadn't been an X-Men mission, and that sort of thing, he certainly wasn't doing anymore. Ever.

"I never said you did. But why it happens doesn't really make that much difference, does it?"

"It does. Because if I hobble around with a cane for a month because I saved someone's life - I'll heal and they'll live and how is that not a win-win situation?"

"Tell that to Rachel, for the next five or six years. An' for that month, you lose.... for as long as you're lucky enough that it is only the month."

"I could walk out of the UN and get hit by a car on Monday," Nathan pointed out with a sigh, flinching a bit as Angelo's first comment hit home. "I could die from the virus at any time if my powers got too out of whack or the antivirals stopped working."

"So you should keep goin' out there on combat missions an' takin' risks just because somethin' else could kill you? Well, hell, why don't I just sign up to the teams tomorrow, then."

"You don't know enough about what we do, I think." Nathan gazed across the room at him, then shrugged mentally. "Do you know what I was doing when Moira went into labor? We were in Rio de Janeiro. Lorna and I tore the roof off a school library and shielded the kids inside from the bullets while the police and the rest of the team stormed the place and took down the hostage-taking bigoted bastards who were threatening to kill every mutant student in the school. As a political statement."

Angelo closed his eyes, looking suddenly defeated. "Yeah, I probably don't. I just get to sit in the medlab after the times somethin' goes wrong, what do I know? An' that was a good thing to do, a good reason, but Nathan... you're not the only telekinetic in the world. Not even the only one in the mansion, anymore. An' I've seen Lorna do harder things with metal than handle bullets."

Nathan grimaced. #I didn't mean it like that,# he said, reaching out tentatively, wanting Angelo to see what he meant - the frustration that even he sometimes felt about the necessary security the team involved, the weird dissonance between what they did in the field and what those who hadn't been out there thought they did. #There have been times I've really wished I could talk more to you about it.# To him, even to Moira... the link aside, he didn't share nearly as much as people probably thought he did. It was like that part of his life was segmented off from the rest, and there were walls there. He felt them at times like this.

While the contact was established, Angelo took the opportunity to show Nathan what he meant in return - his own frustration and fear and pain from the times he'd seen Nathan come back seriously hurt. #So why don't you? This is me, Nathan, not some kid at the school who doesn't need to know half of what's goin' on.#

#Maybe because I know how you feel,# was Nathan's response, not at all facetious or angry. Just tired. He closed his eyes, flashing suddenly on the memory of that damned coatrack coming blurring through the air at him in Budapest. That had frightened him, he remembered - afterwards, when he'd had time to think about it and realized that he would have died if Shiro hadn't happened to be on the roof with him.

#What's that supposed to mean?# Angelo's tone was similar, though there was a tiny edge of something that wasn't quite anger, through the weariness.

#It means I know you sit in the infirmary when things don't go well, and I know that it hurts. And as I much as I don't want to stop doing this, I also don't want to hurt you. Call it avoidance - it's not something I do very often,# and it made him feel like a coward, #but I don't know how to do what I feel like I have to do without putting you through this stress.#

Angelo nodded, watching him carefully. #Why d'you feel like you have to do it? Like I said, your powers aren't even unique in the mansion now, and... isn't what Elpis does enough?#

#... because I can do it?# It sounded so ridiculous. But at least they were talking mind-to-mind, so Angelo would see that he wasn't being flippant. #The idea of not doing everything I can is... wrong,# Nathan sent, a bit confusedly.

#An' if doin' everythin' you can do means burnin' yourself out? Or killin' yourself tryin'?# Angelo asked pointedly, thinking fleetingly of Rachel again.

#I don't want that to happen, either. It's...# Selfish? part of him wondered suddenly. #I'm not an action junkie,# Nathan sent back a bit desperately. #I don't feed off the adrenaline or anything, it's not like that.# It had never been like that. Not for him, with his constant post-action nerves, right back to his very first mission for Mistra. They hadn't gotten much better in the twenty-five years since. He'd just gotten better at not showing them.

#Then what is it?# Angelo genuinely didn't understand, and his frustration and misery were clear. #We're makin' a difference, Nathan. With Elpis, we're doin' good work. An' that's not gonna go away, so why isn't it enough?#

Nathan bit his lip. "When I came back here yesterday morning," he said very softly, "after I talked to Cain, I... it took me a while to be able to think, Angelo, and remember that he had good reason to keep me out of this. Because I paced back and forth here in the office, in this... I don't know how to describe it," he said in quiet frustration. "I think it was worse because he's my friend, and I'm so worried... but I've felt it other times. Watching the Blackbird take off from the ground, knowing that I'm not going along to help... everything gets disjointed. I wander around in a haze, like I'm not entirely here..." And he was suceeding in making himself sound completely nuts.

Angelo stared at him, suddenly fighting a headache. "I'd rather have you here in a daze for a few hours", he said finally, almost under his breath, "than out there where I don't know what's happenin'. An' maybe that's selfish, but..."

"It feels like so much a part of who I am," Nathan said painfully, "that the idea of not doing it feels like I'm betraying myself. Not to mention the people here. Charles, all the others who gave me the chance to use my powers to help people, instead of just to kill..." He looked up at Angelo, and his eyes were very slightly overbright. "I don't believe in redemption, I've said that before. But every time I can use my powers to save a life instead of end one, I feel like I have them for a point. And the days when I was just a weapon, a thing, seem farther and farther away."

Angelo hadn't moved from his chair during this conversation, but he went very, very still now, as he tried to think. "You're... you wouldn't be betrayin' anyone, Nathan. If you stopped, if you concentrated on Elpis, you'd still be... we'd still be helpin' people. You think I don't understand why that's so important? We'd still be savin' lives. Is it so important to have your TK involved in that, if the end result's the same?"

Damn it. Where had Angelo learned how to argue? Too much time in my company... "The problem," Nathan said, and his voice shook a little, "is that I can do both. I can fight the war on both fronts. If I do any less, am I really doing better than I was? That's my replacement for redemption, remember. I have to accept that what's in the past is never going to change, and put everything I have into making the future better. Otherwise..." Otherwise, they haunted him. All the dead. His dead. "It has to have meaning. All of it. Everything I do," he said a bit faintly.

"Everythin' you do can have meanin'", Angelo retorted fiercely. "Elpis has meanin', Rachel has meanin' an' I know damn well you're not sayin' either of them doesn't. It doesn't mean you have to go out there an' get yourself killed or crippled tryin' to do better than Mistra made you."

Nathan grimaced. Was he deluding himself? Was it just sophistry, all of this - the lawyer-part of his brain, coming up with a way to mean redemption without saying it? Or worse, was this actually as deeply dysfunctional as it sounded and part of his old complex about having to do what needed to be done because he was only good for what he could do... that would be irony.

"I don't know," he finally said, uncertainly. "It... I don't know, Angelo," he repeated lamely. "I'll think about it? I'll talk to Jack..." He probably needed to do that anyone. Some things had come out here he hadn't expected, that they certainly hadn't touched on. "I just... I don't ever know how much time I'm going to have left." The words came out seemingly of their own accord, and Nathan's throat felt tight.

Angelo looked at him steadily. "That's just more reason to make a difference in ways that don't risk makin' your time even shorter", he said, trying hard to keep his voice as steady as his gaze. "An' I guess thinkin' about it's the best I can ask."

Unsettled, Nathan looked back down at that damned chart. "I am not," he said after a moment, "focusing very well today." Too worried about Cain. And Angelo had just taken very clever tactical advantage of that, Nathan thought, cracking a slight smile. "Why the hell are we working on Saturday morning anyway?"

Angelo shrugged. "'Cause you needed to take your mind off stuff an' I didn't have anythin' better to do?"

"How about you and I go swipe my daughter from her mother's office and introduce her to the pool? Since the outside one's open and all now..." He had to get away, just for a little while, from all of this.

"Sounds like a plan. Has she ever been swimmin' before?"

"Couple of times with Moira and I in the indoor pool," Nathan said, closing the book in front of him with a hesitant smile. "I think she'll like outside better."

Angelo returned the smile, though it was just as hesitant, all too aware that the conversation had only led to moderate resolution. "Don't forget the tether."

"Never."