xp_logs | Angelo and Rachel; Angelo and Scott, Tuesday

Back at the mansion, Angelo checks in with ~~Her Royal Highness the Princess of Darkness~~ Rachel, who has missed him. Then he looks up Scott.

Time to get back to his everyday work, as far as Nathan would allow him. Or that was the general idea, when Angelo pushed open the boathouse door and walked in.

"Ange! AngeAngeAnge!" The red-haired blur of a toddler literally came flying at him, and the impact was considerable.

...it was a good thing he hadn't got hurt on the mission, Angelo thought rather dazedly, finding himself suddenly sitting on the floor with a tiny redhead in his lap. "...hi, Ray."

A torrent of giggles was his only response - until Rachel spotted his hair. "Bad," she said disapprovingly, making a face as she touched the stubble with a small hand.

"You don't like it?" he asked, mock-hurt. "You, Yvette, Sooraya... what's a guy s'posed to do?"

"Bad," she repeated, patting his head and then flinging her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. "Ange?" It sounded like a question.

He hugged her back, tight but careful. "Yeah, Ray. It's me, I'm back. An' it's all okay."

"Hee." She sounded purely happy again. "Ange."

It was a good thing to hear, and he somehow managed to scramble to his feet without dropping her. "So what'd you get up to while I was gone?"

"Plane," she informed him happily. "Mama."

"You went to see your mama?" he said with a smile. "An' then she brought you back here, right?" He'd never believed in talking down to her.

"Cassle." It wasn't quite 'castle', but close, especially given that it was a new word.

Angelo blinked at her, then grinned, hefting her in his arms. "Hey, you got a new word! You showed that off to anyone else yet?"

"Bella."

"You... taught it to the parrot." He couldn't help laughing at that, and tossed her up in the air just because. "Well, makes sense, I guess."

"Whee!" Rachel went up - and didn't come back down.

**********

They'd told him, more than once, that Scott was fine now. But there was being told and there was seeing it for himself... so the first chance he got, Angelo headed to Scott's office.

Scott was surprised, really, by how much repair work had indeed been done. He'd been gone for only a week, after all. Still moving a bit stiffly, he wandered around the office, putting things back in place, noticing that some things that should have been there weren't. Wrecked in the explosion, he supposed.

Angelo paused in the open doorway, glancing fleetingly at the repaired wall, then reached up to knock on the doorframe.

Scott looked around and smiled slightly. "Hey," he greeted Angelo. "I hear you had quite the week."

Angelo chuckled quietly, leaning against the doorpost. "Yeah, it was... eventful. But then, so was yours."

"Actually, no. Mine was... pretty dull, up to yesterday. A whole lot of sitting around staring at the walls," Scott said, waving for Angelo to come in if he wanted.

He moved the rest of the way in, to the first free chair he could see. "Well, yeah. But if you look at it that way, a lot of mine wasn't that interestin' either. Just a few busy points."

"You're all right?" Scott's smile grew a little crooked. "And yes, I'm aware of the irony, me asking that."

"Just fine", Angelo assured him. "Didn't get a scratch for the whole thing." Which, he was well aware, was more than most of the team could say.

Scott's expression was slightly pained for a moment, as if he was reflecting on precisely the same thing. "That's good. You're going to write up a mission report, right? I'll be really interested to read it."

Angelo looked vaguely panicked for a second at that, never having actually written a mission report before - Moscow hadn't really counted, he'd only been in on the real action at the end. "Uh... sure, if you think I should."

"Yeah, I do. I gather you did really well, and I think everyone should know how and why." Scott lowered himself into the chair on the other side of the desk - a replacement, definitely not the one he'd had prior to blowing out the wall.

"I guess I will, then. But it really wasn't that difficult, for most of it."

Scott didn't push. There was no real point to trying to force Angelo to pat himself on the back, and really, Scott kind of liked the matter-of-fact approach. The younger man wasn't a trainee anymore. He was an X-Man, and X-Men did the job without fanfare.

"Still," he said instead. "I'll be looking forward to reading it."

Angelo grinned. "Should be done before the end of the week, then. Probably. How're you, anyway?"

"Not too bad. Kind of sore, still, but that should fade." Scott coughed, to cover a helpless chuckle. "I, uh, kind of crashed a plane too."

"...what, is that the theme for the week, or somethin'?"

"Apparently." It was kind of refreshing, someone not reading him the riot act for his impromptu attempt to resolve the situation. "I half-expect Val Cooper to show up with the bill for the seaplane."

Angelo just figured everybody else would be doing exactly that, so why not give Scott a break from it. "She wouldn't do that, would she?" Angelo asked with a wry grin. "I mean, the team caught her how many terrorists?"

"I'm not sure. Rather a lot, in any case." Scott took a deep breath, then let it out again. "I hear the bombmaker died, reversing the process with me."

"That's what Kurt said", Angelo confirmed, giving him a careful look. "Can't say I'm exactly... well, okay, a trial would've been better, but if the process was gonna kill him, it's not like anybody could've changed it."

"Actually," Scott said after a moment, "I think I probably killed him. Not intentionally. But apparently there was a lot of energy discharge, when he, uh, de-bombified me." Scott looked down at the top of his desk.

"Y'know the important part of that?" Angelo said after a moment, watching him. "Not intentionally. Anythin' that happened to him was his own fault. Even if he didn't know what reversin' it would do..."

"Still." The response was almost inaudible, but Scott went on in a more natural voice. "So. Good to be home?"

"It really is", he said, relaxing slightly if still a little concerned about Scott's thinking. "For however long until the next time I take off for somethin'."

Scott's smile was more natural. "You need a vacation, I'd say. A real vacation, not a working one."

Angelo laughed. "Hah. We'll see when that happens. I did just take the weekend, sort of?"

"Sort of is better than not at all. Charles told me to ease back into things myself," Scott said. "We'll see if I actually take his advice."

"Easier said than done, isn't it?" came the more serious response. "Once you've got used to this life..."

"The key is not to get too used to it," Scott said wryly.