xp_logs | North and Kurt - Friends help you move...

Moving into the Brownstone, David gets help from a fellow expatriate.

David shook the snow off his hat as he passed into the foyer of the brownstone for the sixth time in one day, this time hoisting a large olive drab duffle over one shoulder. He'd spent the majority of the last twenty-four hours filling out paperwork with Betsy at the Snow Valley offices, which culminated in her handing him a set of keys and an honest-to-god lease agreement. Usually when he accepted a job, it came with "So-and-so will disavow any knowledge of your actions" not "Here's your company-owned apartment, put any moving costs on the expense account."

Moving wasn't so much a problem for someone who'd been completely nomadic for the past three years, living out of hotels, tenements, the occasional carpark, and off-the-record safehouses. Most of what David owned in the way of personal items had been up in his old White Plains apartment, and put into storage by a landlord when he'd vanished three years prior. That had been the monotonous part of the trip. The remainder was just shuttling around town between various storage facilities and long-abandoned caches, picking up equipment and moving it into the first-floor apartment.

Passing the doorman, he stopped by the stairs, letting the duffle fall to the floor for a moment. "...meine besten Jahre sind hinter mir..." he mumbled to himself, massaging his right shoulder with one hand.

Kurt teleported into the hallway of the building at just that moment, nodding to the doorman with familiarity then blinking at the unfamiliar face.

"...can I help you with anything?"

At the unfamiliar voice, David spun around to see the indigo-skinned mutant behind him, the cloud of brimstone-scented smoke already dissipating. His immediate reaction was to reach for the small of his back and unholster his pistol, but given the doorman's lack of reaction, this demonic individual was obviously an accepted fixture.

"You're either the most unusual porter I've ever seen," he ventured cautiously, "or you're here to see someone?" Elisabeth had familiarized North with the employee files of the Snow Valley employees, both on and off the books, and none of them bore any resemblance to the man before him. He was sure he'd have remembered "blue-skinned with a tail" in the human resources files.

"My sister", Kurt explained, realizing it was a little belated. "Amanda Sefton - I am Kurt. But I am quite willing to play porter if you do need help. Are you working for Snow Valley?"

David hefted the duffle and passed it to Kurt, nodding his head. "David North. And yes, I'll be managing the ins and outs of Human Resources for the Center starting tomorrow." He strode down the hall, pausing by a now-familiar door and unlocking it. Inside rested a few stacks of locked trunks, ranging from simple traveling boxes to military-grade containers with complicated-looking electronic locks. "Just drop that anywhere, I'll sort it later. Can I offer you anything? Beer or..." He looked into the mostly-bare refrigerator and frowned. "Beer or soy sauce, it seems."

Kurt set the duffle bag down on top of one of the stacks, glancing around in idle curiosity at the boxes. "Pleased to meet you, David. If that is the choice, I think I would prefer beer."

Popping the cap off two bottles with a churchkey, David stepped into the unfurnished room and handed one to Kurt. Cocking his head, a slow realization came over him. "Wait, no. I do recognize you. It would have been, Gott, more than twenty years ago. Yes! The Munich circus. They called you..."

"The Incredible Nightcrawler", Kurt finished, smiling a little wistfully. "I wondered if you might remember, when I heard you speak German. I was just a boy then, of course, but my circus career did go on quite a lot longer."

"Before the Reunification," North explained, "I was on an assignment in Munchen, trying to catch a defector before he made his way to his contact. My partner and I, we retrieved him after he left the circus and we brought him back to Berlin - but I remember being quite entranced by the show. Of course, a Rom circus would not have been so successful in the GDR, but I digress."

He raised the bottle in a brief toast. "To a changing world, ja?"

"To a changing world", Kurt echoed, clinking his bottle against North's. "And no, my family circus never was quite as successful. Not as many funds for publicity, among other things... and that is why I was with the Munich circus to begin with. Sending money home."

"And here we are now," North mused. "Changing the world. If you'll pardon me, your abilities and your presence here in New York, I assume you are with the X-Men, yes? I was not aware that Charles Xavier had begun recruiting overseas."

"He did not", Kurt said with a slight shrug. "I was in America when he found me. I had come here on a world tour and, well... I do not know if you were in a position to watch the American news, some five or six years ago? I had some quite significant trouble."

"Five or six years ago, I was... not myself." Not exactly true, David had to admit silently. He was as much David North the cover identity these days as he was Christophe Nord, former spy and Weapon X operative. Betsy's psychic knife had seen to that, fusing the artificial personality implants with his own natural mind.

"And neither was I", Kurt said dryly. "It is only through luck I did not do something regrettable, and then Ororo and Jean found me and here I am."

Suddenly the timeframes clicked in North's mind as he put two and two together with the information he'd gleaned from various sources about Weapon X and William Stryker's activities since he'd been under deep cover. "The attack on President McKenna in the White House. The so-called 'lone mutant', that was you, wasn't it?"

"Yes", was the simple response. "But I assure you, it was not by my free choice. I was... brainwashed, I suppose is the best word for it, chemically."

"Jason Stryker."

North's accent clipped the syllables as he spoke them with vitriol. He'd heard the rumors among people he'd encountered - former soldiers who'd served under Colonel Stryker, those who'd survived the flood at Alkali Lake, even Daniel Lyman himself - concerning the depths that the former Weapon X commander had descended to in his anti-mutant crusade. "The bastard used his own son as a weapon. To fatherhood," he added sarcastically as he drained the last of his beer.

Kurt snorted and echoed "To fatherhood" in much the same tone, then added, "I did not know until afterward what he was using but yes, I believe it was drawn from his son. It was... quite effective."

David shrugged and pulled himself to his feet, throwing the empty bottle towards a cardboard box already filled with discarded newspapers and packing materials. "Listen to us, like two broken old men," he joked. "William Stryker is dead, and the world's a better place for it. I remember, the newspapers reported his 'accidental helicopter crash' as a tragic end for a war hero. Me?"

North smiled, and for a second the menace of Maverick came through the friendly facade of David's expression. "I call it a good start."

"It was Logan's doing", Kurt informed him. "But I cannot say anyone who was there mourned the man's passing." He finished his bottle and set it aside. "Is there anything else you have to bring up?"

North shook his head. "No, no. This is my life. All sorted and boxed. At least until tomorrow comes." He chuckled and looked over at Kurt. "Why do I get the feeling I should be very afraid when Elisabeth Braddock smiles as she offers me a job?"

"When Betsy looks amused by anything, most people fear", Kurt answered, straight-faced. "Just ask our young Angelica, if you meet her, what happened when she ambushed Betsy with snowballs."

"Mein Gott," David replied with an astonished look. "And the child lived?"

"As far as we can tell, yes."

"Wonders never cease."