LOG: Nate and Logan

[x-wolverine.livejournal.com]

Logan's just wrapping up a session in the Danger Room and Nate's got the next session. Paths cross, and the two of them reaffirm that, golly, they're never gonna be bosom buddies.

Ever.



Logan finished up his Danger Room and scowled at the room. These nonlethal runs weren't even good -exercise-, let alone good training. He hated them, which is, he reflected, almost precisely why Ororo kept giving them to him. He doubted she'd forgiven him for the dozen trashed bots last week. The "disabled" bots silently wheeled themselves into wherever bots went when they weren't needed, and the lights came back up to full. He wanted a shower, a cigar, and a beer. Probably in that order.

Nathan was leaning against the wall outside, his expression distant, his eyes fixed on the blank wall beside the doors to the Danger Room. The conversation with Medusa had left him in a strange headspace, even hours later, and he'd moved through getting his leathers on like a man sleepwalking. Not the best mood to be hitting the DR in, but then, he wasn't in the Room yet.

The door opened to reveal Logan, now freshly showered and clad in a wifebeater and jeans. "Nate." he said, noncommittally. "Room's clear."

Nathan straightened, shaking him a little. "You just finish?" he asked a bit unnecessarily.

Logan scowled but nodded. "Yeah. Another in a long line of boring subdual runs." he said. "Saw the bird the other day." he commented. "Paints you as a nice big target."

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "A nice big target that not much can hurt," he pointed out, a sharp edge to his voice. "Which has tactical value in and of itself..." He was remembering that journal conversation, now, and irritation flickered in his gray eyes as he looked down at Logan.

Logan nodded. "There's always a bigger gun." he pointed out, then stepped aside so Nate could access the room. "Bird just shuts you down, right? Purely defensive move, and pure defense never won a battle." he pointed out.

Nathan tried not to laugh in his face. "Sure, the bird shuts me down. Purely defensive. You did read the mission report from the oil platform in San Diego, right? Do you want to know how much I can lift, in the bird? Not to mention," Nathan went on sarcastically, "that if I come at you in the bird, ducking's not really going to help. If I'd just chucked Magneto at Cain a little harder we might have had a much more pleasant resolution to that day."

"Well well, guess we'll all just sit back and let the Mighty Cable save the day next time." he said sarcastically. First Lorna, now Nate. He'd just about had it with all the attitude he'd been getting. The fact that they were likely _right_ just made it burn worse.

Nathan's smile was decidedly unpleasant, and his body language was verging on the outright challenging. "Well, we forgive you your natural handicaps, Logan. Someone's got to hold our coats while we get the job done."

"Guess the coatrack was busy." he shot back with an amused grin.

The smile on the other man's face didn't alter one iota. "I'm always getting into trouble, using my telepathy," Nathan said casually. "The coatrack being a prime example."

Logan didn't say a word, just kept the grin on his face. "Might want to be careful with that. Never know what you might run into."

"I know what I'm best at," Nathan said blandly. "Bravado is a whole lot more fun when you've actually got the goods to back it up."

Logan just chuckled at that. "Ain't nobody here who tops me in hand-to-hand." he said flatly. "I'm the best at what I do."

"Yes, but how often is it just hand-to-hand?"

"Nonlethal takedowns, remember?" he countered pleasantly. "I happen to be a crack shot and I'm not half-bad at stealth. Get in, do the target, get out. That kind of thing."

"Yeah, and I've taken down targets from ten blocks away with no one the wiser," Nathan said, and for an instant there was something bleak enough in his voice that it was absolutely clear that he was not presenting this as a good thing. "Know how easy it is for a telekinetic to cause a stroke?"

"I like to use my hands." he said with a nearly feral grin. "You can keep your hands clean if you want to. That's between you and whatever you hold dear."

"Then it's a damned good thing you're on a team with people who can put you through a wall with a thought, isn't it? Always so much fun," Nathan said, "to have to watch your teammates as well as your opponents."

"Walls don't bother me too much." he said. "And I guess I deserve that." he noted after a moment. "And you should always watch your back."

There was a grudging flicker of something in Nathan's eyes. "I've had other people get their noses out of joint about not being able to do everything some of the rest of us can," he said after a moment. "You're the first who's acted like that doesn't matter. Seriously, Logan... Lorna could pick you up by your skeleton and tear you limb from limb. I could liquify every internal organ you have - and speaking as someone who was taught how to kill ferals, if I paid enough attention to your spinal cord you wouldn't regenerate. You can't not know that. So why the act?"

"It pisses me off, this whole We're The Gods Of The X-Men shit. Like if you're not teek or you're not a heavy you're nothing. And yeah, straight up I'm dogfood. Doesn't mean I got to like it, but I know it." he explained, not phrasing his thoughts well at all. "I've never been a coat-holder, and so help me I never will."

"So it is an alpha thing," Nathan said, unthinkingly drawing straight from the old Mistra vocabulary. It was a function of the conversation, he supposed, plus thinking about Columbia... "You know, I can appreciate the desire to not back up for anyone, but spitting into the wind isn't going to make a damned bit of difference either. And what it is going to do is piss off the people you're supposed to be trusting to watch your back. I'm tired," Nathan said, and looked a bit distant for a moment, "of people who think that people like me must have it a lot easier just because I can bowl with tanks. I stood on that beach two months ago watching that tsunami coming and knew I needed to be there because I was one of the few people there who had a shot at stopping it. I also figured it would kill me, even if we managed it."

"Cry me a fuckin' river. Your power, your responsibility. Too late now to start crying about it." he snarled.

Nathan's expression went cold. "Power and responsibility... what a funny pair of concepts to mention in tandem. Coming from you."

"How so?" he asked, leaning now against the doorframe. "I'm curious, Nate. Don't hold back here. Lemme have it."

"I seem to remember you stabbing me in the leg and writing it off to that void fucking with your head. Pity the poor feral, at the mercy of his senses," Nathan said, his voice quietly mocking. "You lose your temper, and it's the fault of whoever turned your brain into a pretzel with pieces missing."

"There's a pretty strong case to be made for that, yeah." he said agreeably. "Even norms got a rule about insanity. Besides, your leg's fine and you're still here."

"If you're insane, what the hell are you doing wearing leathers and going out into the field with the rest of us?" Nathan demanded icily. "Either you're fit or you're not. What was done to you isn't there to serve as a convenient excuse when you need it."

"Like the world is a static place, Captain Sprains His Brain. Either you're sprained and you're sidelined or you're not and you're active. Which is it, Lawyer Boy?" he parroted back at Nate. "Wheels says I got it together - that there's enough me there to count for something. I trust his word a helluva lot further than I trust yours."

"To be honest, Logan, I'm a lot more worried about your impulse control than I am about your sanity. About your ability to respond appropriately to a threat," Nathan said bitingly. "And Lawyer Boy would like you to know that your parallel sucks. I only ever sprain my brain in a good cause."

Logan laughed at that. "I got threat control down just fine - why do you think I keep running these bullshit scenarios, day in and day out? Not because I like them, but because 'Ro wants to be _absolutely_ sure." he said. "And when it comes to bodycounts, I really don't think you want to open that book. Your hands are a helluva lot bloodier than mine. Tends to happen when you go fight wars."

"You were running these training scenarios before you put one of Masque's victims in the hospital, I think, no?" Nathan asked, his voice hard. "Pardon me if I haven't seen proof yet that they've sunk in. As for bodycounts, the one that really matters is one that's been standing at zero since we put on leathers."

"Hospital? Shit, that's nothing. He's breathing, and he'll recover fully. If I wanted him dead, he'd be dead. You've probably seen my file, you should know that." he pointed out. "Gave him better than he deserved."

The look that took shape on Nathan's face at Logan's last comment was one of freezing contempt. "And you just stood there and told me you could make those sorts of judgements properly in the field."

"Just did, and will do so again." he said, just as coldly. "I decide if he lives or dies, based on mission criteria." he said. "As we're X-Men, that means that he lives. End of story. If he's in a hospital bed for three weeks with a broken foot, fine. Puts him down and out of the way and leaves him alive at the end of the day."

"Free piece of advice? If you can take someone down with minimal damage, do it. Don't bluster after the fact about how you could have given them worse just because you're having a pissing contest with a teammate. Make us believe you want to restrain yourself," Nathan said acidly, "not that you're doing it just to humor us."

Logan just grinned at Nate. That grin could have meant ... anything at all.

"Glad to see you don't give a damn about how your teammates see you. Then again, I'd heard you weren't much of a team player."

Logan just shrugged. "I didn't sign on to be everybody's buddy." he noted. "I don't give a shit if you like me or not, so long as you do your job while I'm doing mine."

"'Like' and 'trust' are two different things," Nathan said, turning towards the Danger Room door. "You don't need the first from me, no, but you haven't earned the second, either."

"Good thing you spend your days in a suit working the politicos then and not in black leather with the rest of us grunts." he noted.

"Don't make me laugh," Nathan said dismissively. "I've done as much as an X-Man as you have. More, maybe, if you go back and count missions. I suspect we're both here to stay, Logan," he said, and the doors slid open as he took a step forward.

"Cable." he said just before Nate walked into the Stygian gloom of the Danger Room. "If it's the both of us out on an op - I got your back." he said. "Just save the moralizing and the speeches for the post-op."

"Not to worry, Logan," came the reply, and while there was perhaps a moment of acknowledgement in Nathan's last glance back before the door closed, there also wasn't much of a concession. #I wasn't brought up to be chatty in the field.#

"Good. I fuckin' hate that." he said, and then finally took a cigar from the pocket of his jeans, lit it, and inhaled the smoke.