xp_logs | Logan and Nathan, Sunday morning

(Set prior to the announcement about RedX's call for volunteers.) Nathan runs into Logan in the Situation Room, and they manage to have a friendly and even somewhat productive chat. Yes, really. No, there are no alien pods involved.

The ice climbing had been beyond wonderful, being in the mountains hadn't been too shabby either, and even the kids had behaved themselves to a truly impressive extent. All in all, his breaking of the field trip curse had been a resounding success. Nathan just wished that he hadn't woken up feeling quite this hellish.

Moira had growled something at him and suggested staying in bed, but Nathan had begged off, saying that he'd promised Ororo he'd put together a couple of new tactical reviews before the beginning of the week. He had the strong suspicion that the only reason she'd permitted him out of the boathouse was that what he was wanting to do involved a whole lot of sitting on his ass.

She maybe had a point. Still, this convalescent shit was for the birds. He'd gotten out of the habit of feeling under the weather.

Logan was sitting coms, cheerfully disregarding the No Smoking policy. Shift was almost over and for once things were relatively quiet. No real fallout from the flap with the President's kids and the usual asshats were keeping it down to a dull roar. The newsfeeds were, for once, behaving themselves. Logan had his Stetson pulled down low over his eyes and his feet up on the console.

As Nathan stepped into the Situation Room, he spotted Logan in the coms alcove. Oddly, there was no desire to snark. Maybe because of the headache, or the residual good mood from the field trip - either way, he just waved tiredly and went on to sit down in front of the main table, calling up his folder of tactical reviews.

Stepping out of the alcove, Logan ground out his smoke against his palm and nodded to Nate. "Afternoon." he said politely. "Tac reviews?"

"Mmm. Promised Ororo I'd have a couple of fresh ones," Nathan said, squinting at the screen. "Thought I had a new one half-done here, actually..."

Logan plopped himself down in a seat next to Nate. "Whaddya got?" he asked curiously. "'Ro's been gettin' on my case to do a few for her." he elaborated.

"Well, nothing all that exciting. I thought I might model one after that mission in Hungary, for the newbies especially..." Nathan rubbed at his forehead, sighing. "And I don't know, maybe some variant on a staged assault."

"The Hungary op - that the one with the coatrack?" he asked without a trace of a snicker or mockery. "Remember reading about that one - we got real lucky."

"Lack of full info going in. If we'd known how enhanced he was... well, Scott probably would've had Cain along and Veres wouldn't have beaten the crap out of most of the inside team."

"Bad scene." he said. "Fuckup on the ground, bad intel, bad ground." he said. "Think they handled it about the best they could, given the unknowns and given that we couldn't just reach out and shut him off telepathically."

"We've got enough people fresh to the team that getting their take on how they would have handled things probably isn't a bad idea." Nathan tapped in a few additions to the half-finished simulation. "I'll swap some stuff up, so they don't recognize it from the file..."

Logan nodded. "Might want to run that one myself." he offered as a peace gesture. "In a lot of ways, I'd be the ideal beater for this op. He can't break me and I can hold my own against augmented folks." he said without a trace of arrogance.

"We'd be much better off these days in terms of communication, too," Nathan said. "If that had happened today, it could have been me, Jean, and David holding the switchboard together. Even if I'd still gotten taken out by the coatrack we would've been all right," he said with a wry little smile.

Logan quirked his head as he studied the half-done plan. "And people think I'm crazy..." he muttered. "Be a fun little op. Send the fish in, gank their comms and let 'em play. See if they can get the bad guys before they get got themselves."

"Sadistic enough to appeal to Scott," Nathan said, tweaking the simulation a little further. "Maybe he'll run another DR scenario on it..."

"Given our fish, I suspect we'd be looking at a bloodbath." Logan said. "Got no real hitters in the new squad." He looked at the mission report again. "One thing I can see. You guys got trapped into linear thinking. Veres wasn't - he's climb, descend, rip holes in things. We took the stairs." he pointed out.

"Not many options. We had what, one flier on site? Plus they were operating in the middle of several hundred panicked civilians because that ass of a police chief sealed off the building." Nathan remembered how that part of the story had ended.

"Bad force mix, but we've already talked about shit intel." he said. "Three flyers. Sunfire, Jetstream, and you." he pointed out. "But yeah. Bad scene, did the best we could with it."

"That was a busy summer," Nathan said, remembering. "Athough 2007's kind of shaping up that way so far, too."

"Hey, if they're all as boring as the last op I think we'll be all right." he said with a grin.

Nathan snorted softly, but not with any particular derision. "Just because you got to watch the alley..."

"Thrill a minute, let me tell you." he said with a yawn. "Still - they can't all be exciting."

"Plenty exciting from my viewpoint but that's the problem when you see everything," Nathan said. "I was multitasking too much, wound up with a migraine for most of the next day. Wasn't helping that Ray was bound and determined I wasn't getting any sleep last week, too..."

Logan shot Nate a look. "Didn't Scott and all them go through a big long grind-you-into-the-dirt deal while I was out being injected with glowing goo three days a week about recognizing where your limits are?" he asked.

"Oh, I recognize where my limits are," Nathan said, something very close to an evil glint in his eyes, "and I don't take stupid risks anymore. Doesn't mean there isn't plenty of room to push pretty hard before I get to those limits. Although I'm starting to think Moira was right and I should have taken another week off."

Logan hrmmed. "Should get Jean to devise a way to test just how far my ability to heal goes." he mused. "No-one's ever been able to find a hard limit. Supposedly, Jean's got blood samples down in Medical from two years ago that are still alive and well."

"I don't know, Logan. If I were you I'd be content with knowing you heal from pretty much anything - that's not really something you want to push the limits of, is it? And tests on blood or tissue or whatever can't really duplicate how you as a whole heal accurately."

"It'd be good to know." he said stubbornly. "But maybe you're right. Toxins don't bother me. Diseases never touch me. Don't get old. Repair damage almost as soon as it's made."

"Besides, if you push that she's liable to leave you in Moira's hands. And that, trust me, would not be nearly as much fun," Nathan said with a perfectly straight face.

Logan laughed. "I'm not afraid of the harridan you married." he said. As he recalled it, he used to get on tolerably well with Moira.

"Oh, but you ought to be. I think she's had a set of instruments in the freezer for you ever since you stabbed me."

Logan shrugged again. "She messes with me, I mess with her right back. The way the world works. She freezes me and Mr Coffee Maker goes bye-bye." he said with a shrug. "Or something else."

"Yep. Still a crazy man," Nathan murmured, amused.