xp_logs | Nathan and Angelo, Friday morning

Nathan and Angelo butt heads briefly on an old familiar subject. They may have had this conversation numerous times before, but Angelo's always going to worry and Nathan's definition of 'acceptable risk' is always going to be a little more broad than most people's.

"It's a possessed demon photocopier. Why else does it always pick Juliette's day off to do this?" Nathan groused, and refrained from kicking the photocopier. He did however shake it. Just a little. The paper jam did not oblige by resolving, and Nathan growled under his breath, bending down to open up the problem tray.

A couple of minutes of effort and a great deal of cursing later, he had it fixed, and what Juliette was calling The Great Russian Report started rollling out again. Nathan stood up, coughing a few times and wincing at the pain in his chest as he did. It was getting better, but not nearly fast enough for his liking.

Angelo was watching him from his desk, not making the slightest effort to hide it. "Cold gettin' to you again?" he asked casually.

"Just the pneumonia hangover," Nathan said dryly, willfully ignoring the fact that technically, he was probably no better than mid-pneumonia - and that was being optimistic.

"Never heard of any such thing", came the next observation, still carefully offhand. "Seems to me you're better or you're not."

"Well, then, technically I suppose I'm not. But I'm functional, and so long as I don't go neglecting to get enough rest and the like, I should be over it in a week or so." Oh, he knew what this was about.

"That mean you'll be takin' your name off the team list until you are over it, then?" Right guess, Nathan.

Nathan hesitated, his eyes narrowing slightly as he thought of some of the various discussions that had been had regarding What To Do about Sabretooth. "Off the list for anything active, yes," he said cautiously.

Angelo eyed him. "An' that means what?"

"Active? Running around, hand to hand, that sort of thing..."

"Promise?"

Nathan paused, blinking at him for a moment. "Promise," he said a bit uncertainly as he moved back to his desk. "You know," he went on as he lowered himself back into his chair, "I really thought you'd figured out by now that I'm not shooting to get myself killed by being stupid."

"Well, I never thought that", Angelo said, more seriously, looking up at him. "Not for a long time anyway. But there's that, then there's decidin' they need you, or lettin' yourself get into somethin' that wasn't in the plan..."

"I'm not reckless, Angelo. I've never really been reckless." It was hard to explain the fine distinction, despite all the times they'd had similar conversations. "And I won't be, not now, not with Rachel to consider. But I made the decision to keep taking calculated risks."

"An' if I didn't understand that, I wouldn't still be here", Angelo told him frankly. "But sayin' you'll go out there when you're still sick..."

"There are always alternatives. But if I decide I can do what they're asking me to do, and if that's the best way to accomplish what we need to do... then I'll do it. Not unless both conditions apply. And not," Nathan said with a wry little smile, "if I wake up the morning in question and feel particularly lousy."

"...okay, then." They'd had this argument so many times, and this was the best he was going to get, he knew that. He turned his attention back to his work, mostly.

"Besides," Nathan said more lightly - this wouldn't be the last time they had this conversation, he knew, but at least this iteration of it seemed to be wrapping it up, "don't forget - Scott and Ororo are both mortally afraid of Moira."

"Yeah, but they don't control everythin' that happens on missions, much as they probably want to." He shrugged, though. "You do what you need to."

"They control who goes on the mission," Nathan pointed out, "and I trust them to catch it if my judgement isn't quite what it should be. I trust them to do that for any of us."

"There is that", Angelo allowed. It only came out a little grudging.

There is that - but you still worry, don't you? Nathan smiled a bit, looking down at his desk. He doubted Angelo was ever going to get out of the habit of doing that, no matter how long his streak of 'missions completed without mangling myself' ran. It had been a hell of a couple of years.

"Just so long as you're not picking up any of my bad habits, Skin."

"I did that years ago. Cable."

"I'm still waiting for you to ask me where that name came from, you know..."

"...huh. Well, count it asked?"

"It involved a bomb on a cable car on Mont Blanc," Nathan said with a perfectly straight face.