xp_logs | Nathan, Angelo and Domino, Saturday afternoon (Reply)

Angelo finds out he's not going to Wakanda, but is given another responsibility by Nathan - and takes yet another on freely.

"Thanks, love," Nathan said quietly into the phone. "Good to know he's on his way. We'll be waiting at the airfield. Yes... I will, I promise." When Moira hung up the phone, Nathan held onto it for a moment longer, eyes closed and a sigh slipping out. One more logistical aspect dealt with.

The presence standing in the doorway of the office was being very admirably quiet, he thought after a moment. "It's better that we leave the Blackbird available to the rest of you here," he said, opening his eyes and looking at Angelo. "Scott asked if I'd ask Moira to loan us her plane instead. That was her giving me an ETA."

"Lower-profile, too", Angelo agreed, leaning against the doorframe. "Don't s'pose there's any chance I'm goin' to Wakanda, is there?"

"The team members for this little jaunt were picked for a specific powers mix," Nathan said, then paused for a moment. "I'm sorry," he finally said. "I know you don't like being left behind."

Not by you. "Not so much." He mustered a wry grin and a half-shrug. "But hey, if my powers wouldn't fit whatever you need..."

"What we think we might need," Nathan murmured under his breath, then raised an eyebrow as Domino came down the stairs, carrying his duffel bag. She set it down beside the couch. Which was, incidentally, right beside hers, which was also very obviously packed. Nathan saw Angelo's eyes go to the two bags, and sighed. "Yes, she's coming." #Unless you want to ride herd on her while I'm gone.#

"He thinks he's keeping an eye on me," Domino said, far too brightly, "and really, I'm keeping an eye on him." She had been alarmingly antisocial, by her standards, since arriving at the mansion. As everyone who knew her knew all too well, a quiet Dom was a Dom who bore careful watching.

"An' I don't get to go along to keep an eye on both of you?" Angelo demanded. At another time, it might have been a joke, but... not now. "When you don't know I won't be useful?"

"It's not a question of whether you'll be useful," Nathan said with a sigh. "Just... whether you'll be useful enough. The type of mutants they'd be sending to take down someone like T'Challa aren't the type that you want to take on hand-to-hand."

It was a logical response, but that wasn't really the point, Nathan knew. He eyed Angelo for a moment longer, ignoring Domino watching both of them. "There's something you could do here," he said finally, "while we're gone. Something we really ought to have done a couple of weeks ago. The office needs to get back up and working, now that New York's open for business again."

"Yeah, I can do that", Angelo said, resignedly but willing. "I'll get Jane back from Tel Aviv, an' if John bitches about no more paid leave, he can just deal."

"You can always smack him around," Domino said, sitting down on the arm of one of the chairs. "It might be entertaining." She looked from Angelo to Nathan, and then back again. "He didn't tell you, did he?" Without waiting for an answer, she went on."He came back last night and started pacing in circles around the living room. Apparently Frost's sister picked up that the courier knew a certain Mrs. Esther Morrow."

"...Nate." Angelo walked over and sat in Domino's chair without looking away from the older man. "We did go over the whole thing where you tell me the important stuff, right?"

"There's nothing to it," Nathan said, more wearily than defensively. To say that he hadn't slept well last night would be understating the case. "We don't know the nature of the connection, and right now, we have more important things to worry about than old associations someone who may not even be directly involved in the matter at hand may have had." It sounded feeble even to him. He believed in coincidence, but this was stretching it.

"Like things were ever that simple. You want me to find out who he was while you're gone?" At least then he'd feel like he was helping with this>.

Nathan paused, then shrugged mentally. "The name he gave John was Malachi Hark," he said. "Your guess is as good as mine as to whether it's his real name. He looked to be mid-thirties, maybe, and he had some sort of psionic mutation. Not a telepath, but he was hard to read. You could only pick up his surface thoughts." Nathan looked frustrated, suddenly. "I stood back and watched him walk out, because he'd handed John the information and so I figured he wasn't relevant. Teach me to keep my eye on the ball."

"Good a place to start as any. If he's used the name this time, chances are it's not the only time, an' I know just where to start askin'. Pays to be friendly with the king of couriers."

"Don't we just live in interesting times," Domino said, with a bitterly amused little smile. "I say we all run off and join the circus. You could be the Amazing Flying Squirrel-Man, and I could do acrobatics. Nate could... I don't know, juggle small children."

"Well, any time you want to, we do have connections at a circus too..."