Scott and Logan, Saturday morning

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Logan's annoyed, and goes to confront the source of his annoyance. Said source is utterly unrepentant, slightly disingenuous - and not backing down.


Saturday mornings were his favorite of the week, quite seriously. They were uninterrupted - except in case of crisis - time with the Blackbird, and Scott treasured those hours dearly. He was doing just basic maintenance on the left engine this morning, being between design projects. It was always good to have this time, and given the events of yesterday, it was particularly welcome today.

Logan's sensitive nose was of great use in tracking down people. In this case, it was useful in finding wherever it was Scott spent his Saturday mornings. Logan walked into the hangar and made a beeline for Scott. The hangar stank of solder, jet fuel, sweat, and underneath all of that, Scott. He didn't bother to say anything, instead he just walked over to where Scott worked and waited for the other man to notice him.

"Logan," Scott greeted him after a moment, climbing down off the raised, wheeled platform he used when he worked on the engine. There was a noticeable difference to the way Scott held himself these days. The stiffness that had marked his movements for months was only there on bad days, and only barely even then. He was back up to his proper weight, and weeks of devoting himself to his usual fitness routine had put him back in something close to the shape he'd been in a year ago, before 2006 had gone to shit.

"Do you have a problem?" he asked, pulling a cigar out of the breast pocket of his flannel shirt and sticking it in his mouth. "Because from where I'm standing it would appear that you have a problem."

Scott gave him a brief, amiable look. "No, actually, the engine's in fine shape - I'm a little anal about maintenance, but I figure better safe than sorry."

"Not even remotely what I meant. Do you have a problem with me, or do you routinely arbitrarily fail your people for no reason?" he asked around gritted teeth. The engine held little interest - for some reason, he felt that jets were ... wrong. He preferred props. "Five runs in a row. Varied scenarios. All failed for no reason. What the fuck?"

Scott raised an eyebrow, detouring over to the worktable to grab a cloth. Oil all over his hands, as usual on Saturday mornings. "Do I need to point out the difference between me failing you and you... well, failing?"

"That's just it. One buzzed me six seconds in. You can't tell me that was a fair test." he said. "So I have to ask you again - do you have a problem with me?"

The smile was wide, and very slightly malicious. "Many. None of which have anything to do with the fact that you're failing Danger Room runs. Which you're doing for one reason, and one reason only."

Logan just stared at Scott with the look that a predator gives prey just before the strike is made.

"You have more advantages in close combat than most of us," Scott said very patiently, as if he was explaining something to a five year-old. A slow five year-old. "You're stronger than most. Faster than most. More agile than most. You're more durable than nearly everyone. You should be able to use all of that to get the better of any opponent who's not throwing cars at you or searing the flesh off your bones. But instead," and there was a nearly mocking edge in Scott's voice as he tossed the rag back to the worktable and
turned back to his plane, "you go for the claws."

Logan blinked. "That's what this is about?" he asked incredulously. "The claws?"

"Gold star for you," Scott said, pulling himself back up the ladder. "That's exactly what this is about. Don't think I missed that detail in Kurt's mission report."

Logan thought back. "Op was flawless. Zero casualties, 100% success." he said. "Took the boats out, took the CO out. What more did you want, an engraved invitation?"

"For you to hold your target when you're asked to hold him. Hold him. Not hamstring him." Scott, from above, gave him a brief, disapproving look without much in the way of vehemence about it. "It was unnecessary. And sloppy."

"He wasn't hamstrung. Clean hit, in and out of muscle only." Logan said casually, as if discussing a cut of meat at the butcher shop. "You want to complain about Youra, look to Haller's performance."

"He got the job done without doing any unnecessary damage to the people we were there to help. The problems he caused are of a different sort entirely," Scott said, picking up a wrench. "And you're doing a great job at trying to deflect the conversation."

"Your excuses are bullshit. You want to be squeamish, that's your business. But I get results. As Youra just showed. You give me a target, I accomplish it. Every time. You want to start adding bullshit restrictions because you have a hard-on for making my life difficult, I ain't interested." he said.

"Why did you need to use the claws?" Scott looked around the engine at him. "You've got a better grasp on hand-to-hand combat than I do, Logan. I happen to know you know plenty of ways to immobilize someone without hurting him. So why slice up the poor mind-controlled soldier?"

"Best way to handle it quickly, cleanly, and efficiently." he said plainly. "He went down and stayed down. Mission accomplished."

Scott shook his head, almost dismissively. "Wrong decision," he said, still nothing but detached disapproval in his voice. "We go for minimum harm, Logan, and Kurt told you to hold him. We've had this discussion once before, as I recall."

"And I implemented minimum harm. As you pointed out, I'm better at hand-to-hand than you are. I'm the expert, and I made a call." he pointed out. "You don't want to go down this road with me, Scott."

"Why?"

"Second-guessing decisions made in the field is a real good way to go nuts. Again." he pointed out uncharitably. "You don't trust me, say so. I can hit the road in a half-hour." he pointed out.

"Do I look like I'm in any danger of going nuts?" Scott set the wrench down, leaning against the wing as he looked down at Logan. "If I didn't trust you, you'd know that. But if you don't start applying a little discrimination with how you apply your claws, yeah, you and I are going to have a problem. You think that you're required to have any less self-control than the X-Men who can incinerate people with a thought? It wasn't necessary," Scott said, and his voice was hard for the first time in the conversation. "There are going to be times that yeah, you're going to have to stab the fucker in front of you. You'll never hear me deny that. But there's a man in hospital in Greece right now who didn't need to be. Who's going to be weeks learning how to walk right again because you went for 'quick and easy'."

Logan shrugged. "War's a dangerous business. People get hurt." he said dismissively. "I hurt him exactly as much as I wanted to hurt him. Took him down and out with no permanent harm. You don't like it, that's really just too bad." he said. "I'm not going to hobble myself so you can sleep better at night. You gave me an order, I accomplished it with every means at my disposal."

"You know what's really interesting?" Scott said, ignoring Logan's bluster. "When you stabbed one of your teammates in the leg, you were out of your mind. When you stabbed this Greek soldier in the leg, you were in control of yourself. End result was the same. You lose your cool, you keep your cool - but you do the same thing. There's irony there, and it's not the good kind." He picked his wrench back up. "As for hobbling ourselves... we all do it, to one extent or another, depending on the situation. How much of a threat was he to you?"

Logan thought it over for a second. "I was out of position, on the floor expelling bullets. Kurt was flat-footed and out of position. I had to make a decision quickly. So I made it. I'd make it again if it happened again." he said flatly. "His time spent recuperating doesn't mean anything at all to me."

"Why not? You know who these people were. The situation they were in, the fact that they'd had their free will taken away from them because they thought they were doing something to help their country, which was taking notes from fucking Mistra."

"It doesn't matter to me because he was the enemy. I'd just been pumped full of lead." he said with a very slight growl. "He survived. A little pain is nothing."

Scott's expression was calm, oddly reflective. "Okay," he said suddenly, abruptly. "Thank you. I think I see what needs to be done now - you won't have any more of those particular scenarios."

"Good." he said suspiciously. Scott was up to something - he'd caved too soon. He turned to go - he had no real desire to talk to Scott any more, and they'd settled the issue he came down to talk about. Maybe he'd go get some grub, work out some. Maybe he'd finally put that chin-up bar in his room.

Scott paid no attention to the departing Logan. The answer was simple, so simple. Why hadn't he seen it before? He shook his head slightly, then put the matter aside.

He had two more (hopefully uninterrupted) hours with his plane before he had to worry about any of the rest of it.