xp_logs | Angelo and Marie, Friday night

Marie hunts down Angelo after beer and pizza night and tries to talk some sense into him.

"Did you really think Ah was just gonna let you sulk without coming down?" Marie asked, arms across her chest as she stared defiantly at her friend. "And don't even think of trying to shoo me away," she added as she pushed past him into the room.

"You're stronger than me", he pointed out flatly. "Also now in my room an' there's no way I'd get you out. Hi, Marie."

"Don't worry, Ah'm not here for the standard lectures. Ah'm assuming you've gotten those already," she said, raising an eyebrow. "So you tell me. What's going on?"

"You already know", he retorted. "Or you wouldn't know there was anythin' to lecture me about."

"Hearing from other people and hearing from you are two different things and you know it, Skin," Marie said, her voice sharp. Her face quickly fell and she turned around to hide her face, her voice coming out in a barely audible whisper. "Ah can't lose you too."

"Any of us could lose any of us just on a mission", he reminded her, less sharply than just tired. "But I'm still here."

Turning back around, Marie's face soft and worry obvious in her eyes. "You're right. Our regular lives our dangerous enough. It's why we should all know better than to run off half-cocked."

"You tellin' me I didn't have enough provocation?" he asked, eyes hardening despite her clear worry. "You know what that bitch did."

"And that gives you the right to do what you did?" she asked, her voice growing harder, but the worry still very present. "Where do you draw the line? She hurt you. She shot Nate in the back. You gonna go shoot her in hers?"

"Oh, no. If the day comes I see her die, even if I don't do it - an' don't worry, I'm not gonna go runnin' off after her again - she's gonna know I'm there." That was a simple statement of fact.

"Ah see," Marie said, shaking her head sadly. "You know, Ah used to think that killing him would make all my problems better." There was little question that Magneto was the him in question. "Some days Ah still do. But most days...most days Ah realize that the guilt Ah'd feel at having purposefully plotted out the death of another human being would outweigh anything else. And that if Ah ever realized Ah felt joy as the result of another person's death at my hands...well, Ah wouldn't recognize myself anymore." She swallowed hard. "In fact, that'd make me exactly like many of the folks we hunt down."

"It's not about my problems", Angelo retorted quickly. "It's... it wouldn't even be joy. Satisfaction, maybe. 'Cause it's about what she's doin', what she'll keep doin' every day she's out there. It's not even all about Nate."

"And killin' her is the only option?" was the equally quick reply.

"She'll keep gettin' into people's heads one way or another if she's still alive."

"And what about the costs?" Marie said, her hands dropping to her sides. "Are those worth it?"

"Y'know", he said slowly, "when I first got here, I wouldn't've said it ever would be again. But that's when all I knew about the kind of bastards there are in the world stretched to dealers an' pimps an' corrupt cops." He'd never have thought of himself as innocent, back in those days.

Marie just stared at him for a minute before saying anything. "You willing to lose your job? Your friends? Your girlfriend? Your place on the team?" She paused again, shaking her head. "Yourself?"

"My mutation already took every one of those things away from me, four years back", Angelo reminded her, almost angrily. "Different job, different friends, different girlfriend, different team, but I still lost it all an' never got a choice. I'm still tryin' to figure out if I want to finish it off an' lose all of the self I had then too."

"So you want to go back to that place? You have a choice here, Skin. It's yours to make," she said. "And you know what? No matter what choice you make, you have friends who will be here for you and will try and pick up the pieces. But just think if you want to put them through that...because if you keep heading down this road, you're going to hurt the people you say you love."

"I never said that. I can't go all the way back, but... you said somethin' about losin' myself, Em, but you of all people should know myself's never gonna be all that shiny bright. I used to get off on sparrin' with Sarah, for God's sake. Still happens sometimes I have t'go find Amanda after we fight. What does that tell you?"

"It tells me that you fit in with our rag tag group," she said. "Ah'd never ask you to be perfect. None of us is. We all make mistakes...we all have a bit of dark in us. That keeps us human too...just," she reached out, as if to brush her hand against Angelo's, but dropped her arm to her side instead, "don't lose your light in the process."