xp_logs | Angelo and Medusa; Angelo and Pietro (Reply)

Angelo and Medusa have a normal day at work, then go back up to the house for Thai takeout.

"Perhaps we should add a paragraph outlining the services Elpis could aid them with at the beginning of the letter, to catch the interest of the person reading it? After all, it would be a shame if all our efforts ended up in the wastebasket after some intern sorting the mail failed to recognize it's importance," Medusa said, her voice earnest as she peered at the screen of the computer on the desk she and Angelo were sharing in order to work together.

Angelo nodded, glancing over what they'd already written. "Not a bad idea. Course, for some of them we know the name of the person to send them to, but even for those it can't hurt."

"Indeed, as most of these are new contacts and it would behoove us to make a lasting first impression." The redhead's eyes darted up and down the screen before her hair shot out to point at an offending line. "Change that to a semicolon." Medusa nodded, her hair settling around her shoulders in satisfaction. "Do you see any other edits or additions necessary before we turn this over to Nathan for proofing?"

"Not offhand", she said slowly, scanning it over one last time just to make sure. "He'll probably have a few changes to make, but nothin' I can see right now."

How could he improve upon perfection? Medusa scooted her chair back and rose gracefully to her feet. "Another project for the completed pile then. What is next on our agenda?"

Angelo glanced over at the pending stack, with a slight frown. "Maybe look into this guy who's been causin' trouble for our friends in Germany?"

"Yes, that is rather troubling, is it not?" Medusa asked, though it was clearly more of a statement. Tendrils of hair wound their way across the room to open a file cabinet, pulling out a large file and two smaller ones then retracted to deposit them on the desk in front of Angelo.

She flipped them open without blinking, not bothered in the slightest by her hair after all these months working together. "That's one way to put it."

She moved her chair to the other side of the desk and sat down lightly. "Has he continued funding the anti-mutant ad campaign?" It was of course not labeled as such, but it may as well have been.

"That's part of it. An' I'm pretty sure he's the one puttin' the pressure on so Magda's people get all that official harassment. He's not elected, yet, but he's got support."

"And the support is what makes him dangerous," Medusa said. "Combined with the fact that he appears relatively smart and is managing to keep himself from having direct connections to the more suspect groups - it is always through a third party."

"Exactly. But there's got to be some way to take him down, legally."

The two continued talking about the Wagner problem, sorting through the information they had and hunting down a few new leads. It was hours later when Medusa glanced outside and noticed the sky darkening. "Perhaps we should stop for the evening," she suggested. "It is creeping past dinnertime already."

Angelo blinked and followed her gaze through the window. "...I was supposed to stop doin' that", he muttered mostly to herself. "Yeah, I think we've got as far as we're goin' to today."

"Indeed," Medusa said, though it was impossible to tell which of his statements she was agreeing with. Picking up her cell phone, she scrolled through several numbers. "I believe I am in the mood for Thai. Would you care for any?"

"Thai sounds good, thanks", she said with a smile. "You gettin' take-out, then?"

"Yes. I have quite a selection of take-out numbers that I have carefully collected and sorted during my time here." She held up her hand as the woman on the other end picked up and she ordered a selection of dishes. It was obvious from her tone that she ordered from the place frequently and as she hung up, she smiled at Angelo. "They will be here in twenty minutes."

"Good service", she said approvingly. "They bringin' it up to the mansion, or here here?" He assumed she'd meant the mansion, but best to ask.

"The mansion," Medusa said. "So we can close up here and head over. I hope you like spicy food."

"Nothin' better", Angelo answered with a grin, reaching over to shut down the computer they'd been working on.

Gathering her things, Medusa quickly made sure everything was in its place, then paused and waited by the door for Angelo.

She was quick to follow, notebooks and papers stacked neatly in her hands.

They reached the mansion at about the same time as the food, the deliveryman having broken every speeding law in the area to arrive there as quickly as possible; Medusa was 'famous' amongst the deliverymen in town for her tips. Flashing one of her smiles at him, Medusa accepted the food, handing over one of the bags to Angelo, before giving the boy a wad of cash and another smile to send him on his way.

Angelo chuckled, taking the bag and turning back towards the inside of the house. "The local take-out places really like you, huh?"

"Who would not?" Medusa asked with an arched brow, her tone making it difficult to tell if she was teasing or serious.

The obvious answer would be 'Logan', but that would just get into a whole can of worms she didn't really want to open right then. So she just grinned and shrugged. "Got me there."

Later, having gone back to the boathouse for something, Angelo runs into Pietro on the way back to the mansion and is obnoxiously cheerful at him.

The problem with being a woman was--wait. Pietro shook his head. The real problem with being a woman was that after a while holed up in his suite, he tended to start all his sentences with "The problem with being a woman was," and while normally he was right behind the idea of a little constructive brooding, in this body it felt more like sulking and he started to want a carton of ice cream and a spoon. Pietro might be stuck with a woman's body but he was damned if he was going to turn into a bad cliche. He settled for wandering out onto the grounds instead.

At a damned normal human's walking pace, of course. The problem with being a woman was the stupid hips.

Angelo... did not have quite so much of a problem with the switch, now she knew it was temporary and had adjusted to it a little. It was partly because she didn't have the powers issue, partly because she'd been lucky enough to avoid the cramping, and partly because she was still getting laid. So she looked considerably more cheerful on her own walk up towards the mansion from the boathouse.

Espinosa looked far too pleased with himself, Pietro thought as he caught sight of the other. . . well, usually man; the real casualties in all this had been the poor pronouns. This whole thing had started as a team-building exercise, and the least people could do would be to bond over shared misery.

"Having fun?" he asked sourly as they passed each other.

"Pretty much, yeah", she answered easily, then paused, eyebrows raised, taking in the sour voice and the matching expression on Pietro's face. "I'm guessin' you're not?"

"Oh no, no, I'm having an absolute blast," Pietro replied, his tone even more caustic than usual. "I can't decide whether my favorite part is how none of my clothes fit, or the way my emotions are completely out of control, or--oh yes, it must be how I can't get up to a proper speed without tripping over myself. I don't know why we don't do this more often."

Angelo eyed him, and refrained from making any suggestions of ways to regulate the hormonal-emotional thing. It probably wouldn't have gone down very well. "It's only temporary. An' you could maybe deal with the speed thing with practise... just be glad Clarice hasn't tried to make you go shoppin' for new clothes."

"Practice implies that I acknowledge the possibility of this happening again. I think I'm being far too generous by acknowledging that it's happening now." Pietro snorted, looking Angelo up and down. "I have to say, though, if any of us had occasion to go undercover this week, we'd have ironclad identities."

She was even shorter than usual, for the week, and dressed in what were quite obviously thrift store clothes. "It does seem to happen a lot 'round here", she agreed wryly. "Think I've done my share of it for awhile, though."

"I should think. You didn't do too badly for your first time out, though. Got in deep enough to find the information you needed, and got out alive." Pietro tilted his head slightly. "Don't be so quick to burn your cover identity next time, would be my best advice. You never know when you'll need to reuse one."

"Wasn't much of one I was usin'", Angelo told him. "Those kids... when I didn't give them a surname or much of a past, they didn't question it. An' I went over to the mutant name like the rest of them pretty soon."

"Which would have left you plenty of room to flesh out the identity if you ever had to resume it, if you hadn't thrown it away during the arrest. Sloppy." Pietro smirked faintly. "But then, it was your first time, after all."

"It was", Angelo said with a slight smile in return. "An' it turned out pretty well for all that -got most of the New York branch cleared out, an' the information like you said."

"Oh, to be sure. I only point it out as something to consider next time. The unmasking might be viscerally satisfying in the short term, but it's generally not a good idea to burn any resource you don't have to." Pietro chuckled softly. "Besides, I have a certain reputation to maintain--we've got quite enough identity issues already this week without me going around handing out unhedged praise."

That got laughter. "Yeah, can't have that. Still... at least we know it is only a week. That makes it an experience while it lasts, not somethin' that really has t'be got used to."

Pietro snorted. "You're one of those glass-half-full people. Away, away! Cramps, stubbed toes, and road rash are not my idea of a worthwhile experience."

"I try to be", she said lightly. "An'... yeah, not so much those parts. But isn't there anythin' to this you could maybe see as worthwhile?"

Pietro's eyebrows shot up. "This is what, a trick question? Or have I stumbled onto the set of an after-school special by mistake? You're the Pollyanna, you tell me what the big learning experience is supposed to be. Other than that I shouldn't have stopped with one of that idiot's fingers."

Angelo shrugged. "Just don't see much point bein' miserable all week if there's any reason not to be. Even if it's just countin' down the days 'til it finishes. An' I never said anythin' about learnin' experiences... just somethin' that might not be completely horrible."

Pietro glared at him for a long moment. ". . . Chocolate," he said reluctantly. "Chocolate is not completely horrible. But it's not a reason to be happy about all this either."

"Well, true. So just focus on it bein' temporary. An' take painkillers with your chocolate." She hadn't missed the reference to cramps.

"Take pain medication for my pain. I wonder why I didn't think of that myself." Pietro shook his head disdainfully. "Any other words of startling wisdom?"

Angelo eyed him. "Whatever it is, it didn't sound like it was workin'."

Pietro rolled his eyes. "I was summing up my experience so far. You don't see me limping from the stubbed toes either."

"Ah, okay. So it's better now?" The question was only a little bit pointed.

"For now," Pietro admitted. "But if there's one thing this body is good at it's finding new and ever-more-annoying ways to hurt."

"Really? I've been fine, except that bit durin' the actual switch." She was trying - and mostly failing - not to be smug. In her favour, she refrained from any insinuations about age.

"You, Terry, nearly everyone else, apparently." Pietro smiled thinly. "This is just the way these things go. Everyone else got to fight dinosaurs while I was stretched unconscious on a Long Island pier, for example."

"Well, that wasn't as much fun as it might've sounded", Angelo offered more conciliatorily. "Not for everybody, anyway, from what I heard."

"Knocked unconscious. By my college flatmate. In Long Island." But Pietro cracked a smile again. "I was half expecting Logan to jump all over me for 'letting' him get away and clearly proving what a dirty traitor I am."

Angelo pulled an unconscious face at the mention of Logan. "You shouldn't listen to him - not that I figure you do. You're here, that means the Professor trusts you to be here, Scott an' Ororo trust you to be on the team, 's good enough for most of us."

Pietro laughed. "Don't worry, I give Logan precisely the amount of credence he deserves. Truth be told I almost missed the paranoid raving--I'm not sure I'd know what to do with myself without the background noise of a disgruntled feral muttering impotent threats."

That got a grin. "I wouldn't let him hear you compare him to Sabretooth. An' to be fair, he is a bit saner than him. Most of the time."

Pietro raised a wry eyebrow. "What's he going to do, attack me? He'd prove my point and dig a new subbasement for his credibility all at the same time. I give him slightly more credit than that. Though I feel compelled to point out that it's really not very difficult to be more sane than Creed."

"Look in the files. Wouldn't be the first time he's attacked someone on the team. Not when he was in his right mind, sure, but get him mad enough... an' fair point about Creed."

"He's occasionally a savage, but he's not an idiot. Lost temper aside, he's not going to make the mistake of attacking me outright, especially given his history, especially if he's waiting for me to be the one to step out of line and prove his whole point about former double agents. Provoke, yes--attack, no." Pietro smiled. "And like I say, the antagonism is actually rather refreshing--the unquestioning acceptance so many of the rest of you display can be decidedly unnerving."

Angelo chuckled. "Call it trust in the ones that decided to trust you. They say you're okay, you're okay. An' you're hardly the only person we've got that's made big mistakes."

"Yes, and as a paranoid that occasionally gives me fits. People who are that trusting tend to die, in my experience." Pietro shrugged ruefully. "I suppose I shouldn't complain, I'm benefiting."

"Can't do the kind of thing we do if you don't trust your leaders at least some of the way", Angelo pointed out. "It's not trustin' them at all that'll get you killed as much as anythin'. An' yeah, you are."

"You can, actually," Pietro replied. "Or, you can do the kind of thing I used to do, which is . . . similar, just the other end of the spectrum. Mind you, the others do," he added thoughtfully. "My father is very good at inspiring trust, when he exerts himself to do so. But it is possible to follow someone without trusting them." Pietro grimaced. "It's merely very stressful."

"But you had your own reasons for bein' there that weren't just 'cause you wanted to be. I guess not trustin' to that point might do almost as well, in its way."

Pietro shrugged. "You may have a point there. I'm not sure I could have done it without the goal to hold to. Fortunately, I shouldn't find myself in that position again. Summers, I trust." He laughed suddenly, glancing down at himself. "Though after this, Munroe is on probation."

Angelo laughed. "Yeah, I think we all get to be proved right, seein' as none of us actually wanted to go to the camp except her."

"And Terry, the little suckup. Who is also having far too much fun with all this, I might add. But I think I've said my piece on the way you people raise acceptance nearly to the level of an institutional fetish." Pietro winced. "And I think I hear my hot pad calling."

"She does that. Bobby's bachelor party, whenever we get round to havin' it, is goin' to have burlesque strippers. Because Terry insists on it." She nodded, turning back towards the house. "Might head back up myself."

"She's a very strange girl." Pietro shook his head. "Perhaps I'll see you later."