xp_logs | Kaiten: Call Me Miguel

Where did Angelo go, anyway?

The rooming house was about what he'd expected, all things considered. It wasn't horrible, though - it was clean, and not as shabby as it could have been, even if the room was tiny. He'd slept in far worse places. Reaching down to rummage in his bag, Angelo started looking for the best clothes "Miguel" owned. You didn't go to a club in everyday clothes, after all, especially when they were as ragged as Miguel's.

There were noises from the room beyond his, the sound of angry voices raising in an argument, then dying down again. On the floor above, it sounded like a child was running back and forth across the room, small rapid footsteps in a repeating pattern. What made no sound even as it opened, on the other hand, was the window leading out to the fire escape.

Nathan was just there, all of a sudden, smiling very slightly at him.

Angelo's head snapped round as he caught a glimpse of the man from the corner of his eye, then he relaxed when he saw who it was. "...huh. I'd've thought that window would creak", was the only response, though he couldn't keep back a relieved smile at seeing Nathan. It was good to know he'd be checked on, even if he'd already known it.

"Well, you know me. I firmly believe that just because you're over six feet tall doesn't mean you can't be sneaky." Nathan had however made an obvious concession to staying out of sight, however, and his smile grew a little as Angelo sized up his all-black (but not leather) clothing. "I intend to lurk on rooftops a fair bit over the next few nights. I'm hoping you have no objections."

"Playin' ninja, huh?" Angelo commented in vague amusement. "No, no objections here." He knew he could trust Nathan not to even think about anything that might wreck this, and backup would be more than welcome.

"There might be other people keeping an eye on you from time to time. Duncan okayed it, and even if he hadn't, we look after our own." Nathan leaned back against the wall, folding his arms. He'd already made the decision not to tell Angelo about Scott, at least tonight. "How are you feeling?" Angelo would know he didn't mean physically.

"Okay", he answered after a moment's hesitation that might have just been for thought. "I mean... I get to do somethin'. An' I know this'll be an easy part to play." It wasn't even four years since it hadn't been an act, after all.

"You were the ideal person," Nathan said, his lips twitching slightly. "I'm not surprised that they decided to ask you. I mean, imagine me trying to play this role."

Angelo snorted. "You're right, old man. Nobody'd buy you as an ex-con used-to-be-gang-kid guy."

Nathan's smile grew a little. "My problem is that I project the wrong kind of danger. What you can project... that's what will draw them in."

"It's kind of scary", Angelo admitted after a moment, quietly. "Thinkin' of it that way. I mean, if these guys were around four years ago, if they'd found me before Scott did..."

"But they didn't. And what you let them see, the you that might have been... that's what's going to get you in with them. And then," Nathan said, his gray eyes wintry in the dimly lit room, "they're going to get a very nasty surprise. Because you're the wrong kind of dangerous too, Angelo. And they're not going to find that out until it's too late."

That got a flint-edged smile. "Too right they are. Every last one of them's goin' down for what they did."

Well, he couldn't fault Angelo's enthusiasm. He was still going to watch him like a hawk, thougrh. "There's something I wanted to give you," Nathan said, stepping away from the wall, one hand going into the pocket of his coat, "but I didn't get the chance before you left yesterday."

Angelo glanced up at him curiously, then at the pocket. "Yeah?"

What Nathan handed him, wordlessly, was a small coin. It was clearly ancient, green with age and rough-edged.

Angelo took it without pause, looking down at for a long moment before he closed his hand around it. He knew what the gift meant, without doubt. "...where'd you get it?"

"Local store, here in New York. Don't ask me why, I know it's a little macabre for me to still have an interest in Spartan memorabilia, however historic." Nathan looked a bit abashed for a moment, but his expression cleared as he looked back up at Angelo. "Still. I'm not sorry I have it to give to you. And if everyone back in Tel Aviv knew what you were doing... I think they'd see it as pretty fitting, too."

"I hope so", he said with a faint smile, looking down at his closed hand for another moment before putting the coin carefully in his pocket. He'd be keeping it. "Maybe I'll tell them, when this is over. If I'm allowed."

"They're pretty good at keeping secrets, all in all. I wonder where they learned that." Nathan gazed at Angelo for a long moment, feeling an odd sort of pang. The world didn't seem quite done yet, providing him with these all-too-obvious moments that the boy he'd known was gone. And yet... that wasn't a bad thing. There was a pretty remarkable man, standing in his place.

Not altogether gone, for all that. Not when Angelo could still call up the boy he'd been when he needed to... or at least, imagine and pretend to be who that boy might have been in a different life. He nodded. "I'll tell them, then. When it's done."

Nathan looked away, at the window. "I should go. I may be making sure no one sees me, but that takes a little less effort on the rooftops." He looked back at Angelo with another faint smile. "If someone else we knew were here, she'd be wishing you good luck."

Angelo chuckled. "If she was here, she wouldn't need to wish it."

The window opened - again, not creaking. "True. But I'll do it for her."

Angelo looked up at him, with another half-smile. "Then... thanks."

"And be careful." Angelo proceeded to experience an odd glitch in his perceptions - Nathan was there one moment, gone the next. Spillover, clearly, from the projection that was keeping him unseen by the rest of the neighborhood.

He blinked, looking towards the window for a few seconds. Then, deliberately, he went back to what he'd been doing.

---

"Miguel" had his hands firmly in his pockets as he approached the door of Silver, looking every inch the angry young mutant ex-con, and not only thanks to the image inducer. A lot of it was body language, and it had been disturbingly easy to fall back into the character that hadn't always been a character.

"ID," the very large bouncer at the door said, not unkindly. There was no rancor about it, although his eyes might have narrowed slightly at Angelo's body-language and appearance. He was after all just doing his job.

He was, and neither Angelo nor "Miguel" saw sense in starting trouble this early in the night, especially not when it would kill his chance of getting in. He produced the fake ID he'd had squirrelled away, holding it out silently.

The bouncer gave the ID a very close look, his expression slightly dissatisfied as he looked from the picture on the ID to Angelo, then back again. There was nothing overtly wrong with the ID, however, and eventually he handed it back, waving a hand to gesture Angelo into the club.

That got a cocky grin as Angelo walked past him and into the building. It was more like a bar than a club, right now, as it was a weekday, but that would do.

Even so, there were a number of people there. A few visible mutants, but most either not, or baselines. The atmosphere was relaxed, although there seemed to be a fair number of intent conversations going on.

It wasn't as if he could tell right off which of the human-looking patrons actually were baselines, in the interests of the plan he had in mind. So he just headed for the bar to order a drink, a little way away from one of the groups talking.

Likely candidates weren't going to jump out at him right away. One of the busier nights at Silver might have been best for this, but he was here tonight, and needed to make the best of it.

All he could do, really, was listen to their conversation - not really making any effort to be unobtrusive - and wait for something, however slight, that he could use to "take offence".

It came finally, in an unexpected form. "-and then the bedframe broke," a dark-haired girl at a nearby table of four was giggling. Her boyfriend, to judge by the arm he had slung around her shoulders, was turning bright red but grinning rather helplessly. "I think someone was getting a little too into things..."

"I can't help it!" her boyfriend cried, mock-woefully, and kissed her on the cheek. "You just have this effect on me."

"Awww, so sweet. But I have these horribly nosey acquaintances at school, you know, who always want to know what it's like, being with a mutant. And I haven't been able to keep a straight face, the last few times. Because I mean, how would they react if I told them that the sex was so good that he broke the bed?"

Perfect. He glanced at the couple with a visible sneer and said quite clearly, pitched deliberately for them to hear, "That's what you get for choosing your boyfriend because he's a mutant."

The girl turned scarlet, then white. The other two people at the table looked shocked, embarassed. The boyfriend, on the other hand, looked pissed. "Fuck off," he growled over his shoulder at Angelo.

Angelo glanced him over contemptuously, not bothering to move. "Make me, flatscan-lover."

The other young man rose, reddening. "Flatscan-lover, huh? Get up, asshole. Let me see if you've got a fucking 'Magneto was right' t-shirt on, you sure as fuck sound like you should-"

He did get up, but in his own time, casually poised. "Magneto?" was the sardonic answer. "Magneto's all about the gestures that don't do a damn thing. And he takes out his own kind as often as anyone else."

"We're all the same kind, you moron-"

"Tell that to your girlfriend an' her friends", Angelo snapped back, continuing mockingly, "'Oh, it must be so different bein' with a mutant! Tell us all about it!'"

From a close by yet safe distance, Crystal had been listening and observing the events as they escalated. Now that Medusa had a roommate, she knew why Crystal tended to spend time away from her room, and had asked Crystal to accompany her to Silver tonight, persuading the bouncer to let Crystal into the club. It was supposed to be a night of relaxation and fun, but this was not relaxing, and it did not look like the people at the table were having fun anymore.

"Oh, so you're one of those," the young man said witheringly. "Lighten the fuck up, you jackass. Or let me guess," he continued with a mocking smile. "You're not getting any, baseline or mutant. That the problem?"

Angelo smirked at him. "I get what I want. You're the one who won't see the truth about flatscans. If they don't want to kill us, they want to assimilate us and breed us out. Or make us into useful little slaves."

The boyfriend's manner of speaking reminded Crystal of the way she had sounded as Princess Crystal Boltagon and she winced inwardly. Moving her head only slightly, Crystal took a quick glance around the area. No one seemed to want to have anything to do with this argument. One could hope that it would only stay to words, but that didn't seem to be the way it was going, and even words could be quite harmful. Putting on her best diplomatic yet engaging smile, she took a step forward, not knowing what exactly she might be dealing with.

"Is there a problem here, gentlemen?"

"Nothing. This asshole's just making mutants look bad, that's all," the boyfriend said, and looked as if he was forcing himself to calm down. "All this garbage about 'flatscans'..."

"I got a right to say what I want", Angelo retorted. "Just 'cause you and your pretty little mutant fangirl don't like it..." He was cursing inwardly at Crystal's arrival, but gave no sign of knowing her.

Crystal nodded, keeping the smile on her face, "Yes, of course you do, but he possesses the same right, yes? He also has the right to form his own opinions and have his own beliefs, just like you do." There was something... off about the angry-looking man in front of her. Crystal wasn't quite sure what it was, but something was not quite right.

"Hey, he's the one who started somethin' after I spoke my piece."

You insulted him and his girlfriend Crystal wanted to say. Despite her feelings on the situation, she would never actually say anything about it. Why had she tended to find herself as the calm, sane, mature voice of reason ever since she had arrived at Xavier's? "I understand, but perhaps you came on too strong and he felt threatened. Maybe it would be for the best if they were left alone?"

He shot her a hard glance, turning his attention away from the other young man for a moment. "What, are you a bouncer or somethin'?"

Crystal laughed lightly. Jerk. "No, but I can go alert the rather large bouncer to this situation if you so desire." She had to be a bouncer in order to make sense and try to stop people from insulting each other and very possibly getting into a physical fight? "I think it would be best for all involved parties if that is something we can all avoid."

The other young man raised his hands, shaking his head. "Hey, I'm done," he said, visibly calming. "There's no talking to people like that." He smirked, a little offensively. "The ones all caught up in this mutant militancy shit tend to remove themselves from the gene pool pretty effectively all by themselves." His friends grinned; even his girlfriend seemed to relax a little, if less so than the other two.

Angelo just sneered at him and picked up his drink. "You watch yourself now. Wouldn't want any flatscans decidin' they don't like you bein' with your girlfriend either."

"I do not believe that this is a problem here," Crystal pointed out, her smile still plastered on her face. What was was this guy? "This is a mutant-friendly club, yes? Perhaps they came here for this very reason, wanting to avoid being told what they should or should not do with their own lives. You do not have to agree with their choice, but, right or wrong, it is their choice to make."

"They won't be here forever", he said curtly, turning away in a clear dismissal.

Crystal watched the angry young man leave, multiple thoughts racing through her mind. She turned to the four friends sitting at the table and gave them a polite nod. "Please enjoy the rest of your evening," she told them before heading off to find Medusa. You could take the girl out of the palace, but you couldn't take the palace out of the girl.