xp_logs | Angelo and Nathan, Wednesday afternoon

After the briefing, Angelo and Nathan weigh risks.

Angelo was walking fast as he left the situation room, tense and unhappy. His hand was already in his pocket for his cigarettes, and he was clearly set on getting outside as soon as possible, so he could smoke.

"Angelo, hold up," came Nathan's voice. Rather unnecessarily, as his longer legs meant that he could catch up without too much difficulty. "Let's head down to the boathouse, okay?"

He half-turned without stopping, aware that Nathan could catch him if he wanted to. "Only if I can stay out on the dock."

"You think I'd let you smoke inside?" Nathan was silent until they got upstairs and were within sight of the back door. "You look a little more gray than usual," he finally said.

Angelo's cigarettes were in his hand already, and he waited to get one lit and take a steadying drag before he answered. "So do you."

"Really? Because I mean, the various looming catastrophes all kind of blur into each other after a while. I was thinking I'd been taking it pretty well."

"This one's a bit bigger than most of the usual loomin' catastrophes, though, isn't it", Angelo returned quietly, and promptly swore as he dropped his cigarette.

The door opened for them as they approached, under a push of telekinesis. "I'd say so, yes." Nathan's voice was almost conversational. "Are you going?"

"Don't know yet.", he confessed. "Are you?"

"'Hi, Moira. I'm going into space to fight Magneto. Who has a laser.'" Nathan said. "I think right now I'm just wondering how I can raise the possibility without her thinking I'm making a bad joke."

"I don't know how to tell Mom", Angelo said, voice low. "At least Moira knows what we do. An' Amanda'll understand, but Mom..."

"Then make it easier for yourself," Nathan heard himself say, as they headed down the path to the boathouse. "Don't go."

"An' be the one left behind worryin' again", he said miserably. "Can't see how that's much easier."

"You wouldn't be leaving your mother to be that person." ... all right, that was downright unfair. But Nathan couldn't repress the urge to try, at least.

The look Angelo shot him was quick, wounded, and thoroughly torn. "That's not fair."

"No, it's not. But neither is this situation in the first place," Nathan said edgily, staring ahead of them at the boathouse. "Does what you can contribute outweigh the magnitude of the risk, that's what you - we need to ask ourselves."

"But here's another question. Does the risk they'll get up there an' find they need us after all if we didn't go... outweight the risk we'll go an' not come back?"

"We've had these conversations before, haven't we?" Nathan said with a sigh, walking up the steps of the boathouse. Usually it had been him saying that sort of thing, though...

"We have", Angelo confirmed. "But they were always more... theoretical, before."

Nathan sank down into one of the chairs. It was a bright afternoon, warmish for late October. He'd have been enjoying the weather, under any other circumstances. "Well. Now they're not." And that was supremely unhelpful.

"Are you goin' to go?" Angelo repeated his earlier question.

"I don't know yet." Nathan's voice was oddly remote-sounding. "I need to talk to Moira."

"But she won't say 'no, you can't go'. You know that. She'll tell you to make up your own mind."

"Do I? I always wondered if Moira had a limit when it came to things like this..." Nathan shook his head, staring out at the lake. "You will have to tell your mother. If you're going. Too much of a chance that some of us might not come back on this one."

"I know." That was almost inaudible. He didn't want to have that conversation, but he knew there was no getting out of it.

"You can't tell her all the details." Nathan took a deep breath and then let it out. "She won't want to know them, anyway. But you have to give her enough to make it clear that you know you're taking these risks, and they're serious."

Angelo closed his eyes fleetingly, pained, then turned away across the lake. "How do I tell her about this? You were there after Tel Aviv, you know... an' there was Moscow, too, an' Asgard an' Prague an' all the shit I put her through in LA... how do I tell her I'm goin' off with the team knowin' I might not come back?"

"Angelo... every time you get on that jet, you risk not coming back. Sometimes the risks are higher than other times," Nathan said. Trying to keep his voice even. "I think your mother knows that. I know she does. The two of us have talked about this sort of thing."

"Yeah, but there's a difference between that an'... this." And that was what he kept coming back to.

Nathan sighed again. "I know. But you have to try and make it make sense to her somehow, if you're going." I wish you wouldn't. "To try and... ease it, if it makes any sense."

"It makes sense", Angelo said, voice going quiet again. "It just... is goin' to be really difficult."

And that, Nathan thought, was probably it. "Rock, paper, scissors to see who goes and who stays?" he suggested. Facetiously.

"No. 'Cause there's no way in hell I'm stayin' if you go" That was not facetious.

"I thought as much. And vice versa, really." Nathan laughed helplessly, shaking his head. "What a day. Magneto in space with a giant laser."

"I'd say it can't get any weirder than this, but that'd just be temptin' fate."

Nathan stared upwards, into the depths of the very blue sky. "Space," he muttered. "I always wondered what it would be like."

"I didn't", Angelo admitted, dropping to the ground to look up in turn. "I was just happy gettin' to see this world."

"I know you have been." The tone of this conversation was getting a little alarming. Nathan coughed, rubbed at his temples for a moment, and straightened in the chair. "It'd be a hell of a view," he said, more briskly.

"From the space station?" He peered upwards again. "Yeah, I've seen pictures taken from up there."

"Just from orbit in general. Time to bring out the mental camera," Nathan said, tapping his temple and realizing that he seemed to have made a decision, too. "I really do need to call Moira."

"An' I should go to New York." That was... resigned, tired, but not seeming to struggle with the decision anymore. "But maybe not tonight."

"You can't leave it too long," Nathan said. "Scott'll need to know by tomorrow morning. We don't have a lot of time on this."

"...then maybe it'll have to be tonight." He wasn't relishing the prospect at all.

Nathan rose slowly. "Let me call Moira," he said. "Once that's done... maybe you and I could go into town to see Juanita together."

"That'd be good", Angelo said with some relief. "She might take it a little better than just me. Maybe."