xp_logs | Nathan and Angelo, early Sunday evening / Nathan and Sam, Sunday night

Focusing on other people is a tried-and-true way of self-distraction. Practicing with Angelo, Nathan convinces him to try and put his powers to use, just as an experiment.

"Don't overreach," Nathan said a bit testily, ignoring the way Angelo winced as he twisted his arm up behind his back. "Especially not when you're fighting someone with a whole lot more reach than you, that's just asking for trouble..."

He let go of Angelo, giving him a little push that sent him staggering. "How do you compensate for the size difference?" he asked more evenly as Angelo regained his balance and turned. "It's not just height I've got on you, it's weight, too."

Angelo nodded thoughtfully. "Normally, I'd try an' use it against you, somehow. Knock you off balance an' take you down that way."

Nathan blocked Angelo's next strike and lashed out with one of his own, a half-strength punch that snapped the young man's head back for a moment. He was pulling his blows, but moving more quickly than he had the first couple of times they'd done this, wanting to see how well Angelo could keep up with him. If nothing else, perhaps it would illustrate to the kid that giving up cigarettes would be a very good idea.

"The obvious answer is a weapon," he said easily, blocking a quite respectable kick and wincing a little as the shock jarred his bad shoulder.

Angelo raised an eyebrow. "Always did prefer goin' in armed when I could, now you mention it. What kind of weapon you thinkin' of?"

Yeah, there was the reaction he'd expected. He had asked around a little, discreetly, and found out about the discussion about guns that Angelo had been involved with a while back. "I'm wondering what kind of weapon you would think of," he said, landing another couple of blows that made Angelo reel a little. "If you met me in a dark alley..." He gave Angelo a deadpan look, to suggest that he was being mostly facetious, when he really wasn't.

Angelo considered the question. "You? With or without telekinesis?"

"If I'm coming after you in a dark alley, Angelo, I'd be using everything I had."

Angelo nodded. "Okay. Somethin' fast, then. Bein' a telepath, you'd probably know I was there. Gun might be best, 'cause it's probably hard t'stop a bullet in time even with TK." He was frowning slightly, not sure he liked this conversation.

"Not for me," Nathan said calmly, monitoring Angelo's reactions as closely as he could. He circled him, deliberately not going back on the offensive. Give the kid a minute to think. "One person with a gun at close range is not much of a threat to me. Not unless they come at me in the middle of a crowd, where their thoughts would be masked."

"Not that, then - no crowds in dark alleys. Hmm." He thought, trying to come up with an alternative that would work, and finally giving up. "Can't think of anythin' that'd really work against a psi, at close range, off the top of my head."

"Let's take a break," Nathan suggested, taking a step back and then turning towards where he'd left his water bottle. "This is worth pursuing, I think." Angelo nodded and followed him, stepping off the mats. "Not that I'm expecting you to have to try and take me down anytime soon," he said dryly, "but it does bring up something we haven't talked about."

Angelo looked interested, snagging his own water bottle and taking a drink. "What's that?"

"The fact that I've never seen you use your powers," Nathan said, fighting the urge to douse himself with the contents of his water bottle. A session with Illyana, then a couple of hours of a workout of his own, now another session with Angelo... his stamina was getting closer to what it should be, but he still had a ways to go. "Under any circumstances, not just when we're sparring. Why is that?"

Angelo shrugged, a little uncomfortably. "I do sometimes", he answered, a note of defensiveness in his voice. "Just don't feel the need to all that often. Not much I can do with them that I couldn't do without."

"I don't always use my powers either," Nathan pointed out. "I mean, I get people giving me crap all the time about why I carry guns when I'm out in the field. They think because of my TK I don't need them, that it's an affectation or something." He tilted his head, regarding Angelo thoughtfully. "Why do you think I carry guns?"

Angelo thought about it. "'Case somethin' happens that means you can't use your TK. In case you run across someone with some kind of power dampener - powers that do it, like Miles, or a machine, or a field?"

Nathan nodded. "That, and the fact that I can't always safely use my TK." Angelo looked surprised, and Nathan smiled a bit thinly. "When I got shot on Muir, for example. I could have blown those special ops bastards into red paste by lashing out hard enough, but I also probably would have taken out most of that wing of the castle. And I couldn't do that, not with Moira and the others in the vicinity." He waved a hand, using the other to lift his water bottle to his mouth and take a sip. "In most situations, I can't really cut loose with the telekinesis, not safely. Too much potential for collateral damage."

Angelo nodded. "Makes sense. Can't really see Domino or any of them givin' you crap about it, though - who'd you mean?"

Nathan shrugged. "Other mercenaries. People back at Mi--where I used to be, before I went freelance. Them especially - some of them wanted for a long time to use me as the human equivalent of a bomb. Send me in, let me total a place and walk back out." The humorless smile came back. "Not that I didn't do that occasionally, but I also worked my ass off to prove that I was more than that." He shook his head. "I'm getting off-track here, but it is a funny reverse parallel. I was valued almost entirely for my mutation at first - you don't see any value to your mutation at all."

Angelo managed a wry grin. "Yeah, I guess it is, at that. Oh, it comes in handy from time to time, when the remote or whatever's just out of reach an' I can't be bothered to get up. But apart from that? Not so much." His eyes darkened as he remembered the incident with Marie, and started to suspect he knew where Nathan was going with this, put together with their previous topic of conversation.

Nathan's smile went a little warmer. When Angelo was paying proper attention to what was going on around him, it wasn't nearly as easy to slip stuff past him. Which was rather nice to know, he reflected with a flash of amusement. "You're comfortable when you're working out like this," he said, gesturing at the mats. "The physical activity, the challenge, puts you in a good frame of mind. It's not a bad starting point. I want you to try and integrate your powers into what we're doing." He met Angelo's eyes, his own going more serious. "Maybe it'll help your comfort level with your mutation in general."

Angelo nodded, trying to project an air of unconcern without huge success. "I'll give it a try", he said non-committally.

"So let's," Nathan suggested, setting his water bottle down and moving back to the mats.

Angelo followed him in silence, only a little reluctantly, falling back into ready position when they got there.

Slowly, much more slowly, Nathan went on the offensive, aiming another punch at Angelo's jaw, to see what sort of reaction he got.

Angelo, mindful that he'd said he'd try to use his powers more, ducked the punch and experimentally - still somewhat reluctant - sent out a strand of skin to wrap around Nathan's wrist.

The grip was surprisingly strong. Smiling inwardly, Nathan yanked back, pulling Angelo off-balance and moving to sweep his legs out from under him.

Angelo released his grip on Nathan's wrist, retracting the skin out of the way and trying to dodge the sweep of Nathan's foot.

He didn't quite manage it, and in a moment, Nathan was bending over him, offering a hand back up. "You could probably have yanked me off my feet if you'd tried," he pointed out. "Just how strong is your skin when you're manipulating it?"

Angelo shrugged, genuinely not sure. "Marie said it was pretty strong", he offered flatly, unwilling to hash over the details of exactly how Marie would have known that, unless Nathan asked directly.

"Hmm. Might be something worth sorting out with Moira's help," Nathan pointed out. "Want to try again?" He grinned. "You get to come at me this time."

"Yeah, it might", Angelo allowed. "I'll ask her about it. An' sure." He moved into ready position, and lunged almost immediately, keeping his skin retracted for now until he saw how Nathan would block.

Nathan limited himself to a very simple, basic block, wanting to give Angelo all the room to be creative.

Remembering what Nathan had said about how he could yank him off his feet, Angelo decided to try it, going for the other wrist this time.

The pull was forceful enough that he staggered, his bad leg protesting as he lost his balance. He tottered a little, but managed to keep to his feet. "Wonder what you could do if you practiced," he said with a chuckle. "The amazing Angelo Espinosa - just how much can he benchpress with only his skin?"

Angelo chuckled, noting the effect of his efforts. "I always kinda figured I can't lift any more that way than I can normally. Never really tried, though, so who knows?" Moving back into action, he decided to see if he could take Nathan down with an attack on both wrists, since it had so nearly worked last time.

Nathan found himself crashing to the mats before he could react. For someone who didn't work with their mutation a lot, Angelo was pretty damned fast when it came to manipulating his skin - and what did that say about the mental effort involved? Nathan wondered a bit dizzily, making a move as if to break Angelo's grip but grasping the tendrils of skin instead and wrenching, trying to turn the tables.

Angelo winced in discomfort bordering on pain as Nathan wrenched at his skin - ah, yeah, there was the downside - and staggered a little before altering his footing to give himself a firmer standpoint. Wondering what would happen if he tried what he was about to, he started to reel the skin back in, dragging Nathan with it - necessarily slowly, with Nathan's weight on the end.

Well, holy shit. Nathan managed to get his feet under him as he was dragged and got up into a crouch, managing to brace himself. "Does it hurt?" he asked, breathing heavily still as he tried to resist the pull. "If it hurts, we can stop..."

Angelo nodded. "Hurts some, yeah", he answered through gritted teeth, still stubbornly trying to draw his skin back against Nathan's resistance. "Should really've figured on that, I guess..."

"Then let's call it quits for now," Nathan said immediately. "We've established enough for a first kick at the can, I think."

Angelo nodded, letting go of Nathan's wrists with barely-concealed relief, drawing back his skin and rubbing absently at his still-sore hands. "Sounds good to me."

Nathan stood up, wavering a little and giving Angelo a lopsided grin. "Didn't have to introduce me to the mats quite that hard, you know," he said teasingly, coming over and taking Angelo by the wrists for a moment. He concentrated briefly, telekinetically manipulating the young man's endorphin level to take the edge off the soreness.

Angelo grinned gratefully, aware of what Nathan was doing. "Didn't have to, no. Call it payback for the times you did it to me."

Later, while out for his run, Nathan catches a falling Guthrie. He and Sam talk a little about Sam's continuing uncertainty when it comes to what he's doing with his life, and Nathan recruits him for Moira's training sessions.

He was sticking to the paths from now on when it came to his nightly runs. No more wandering off into the unknown, Nathan thought with a flicker of weary, somewhat-dark humor. Just sticking to the path and not stopping to talk to anyone. Definitely a plan.

He emerged from the woods at a carefully measured pace, ignoring the way his leg throbbed. It was a little worse than it had been for a couple of days, but then, he'd spent an awful lot of time on it this weekend. The flat, open ground was a welcome change to the uncertain terrain between the trees, and Nathan managed a faint smile, keeping his breathing steady as he followed the line of the woods. If he swung down by the lake and then headed back up, that would be a decent run. It wasn't as if he'd skimped on the exercise today.

A low rumble sounded as Nathan made his way towards the lake, and a tongue of fire appeared to emerge from the setting sun. As it came closer to the mansion, it resolved into the form of Sam Guthrie, riding the thermokinetic flame of his blast field. He made a low flyby of the lake, raising one hand slightly to wave at Nathan.

Nathan slowed to a jog, then to a walk, giving a breathless laugh. #Hey, you,# he sent. #Want to stop and talk, or are you having too much fun showing off?#

#Showing off, sir? Now, would Ah do a thing like that?# Sam's mental 'voice' sounded much like his normal speaking voice, right down to the touch of Kentucky accent that his sister had worked so hard to eliminate from her own. He spun through a barrel roll, and circled lazily above the dock where Nathan had stopped to watch him. #Besides, it won't be showing off so much when Ah give landing a try...#

Nathan grinned. #You look like you're crashing, I'll catch you,# he promised. #One telekinetic 'net', here if you want it - or hell, you could try a water landing?# Okay, so maybe he would stop to talk to certain people after all. So much for his resolution.

#Good enough, sir. Any more divots in the lawn this week, and Mister Marko's liable to have my hide.# Making another slower pass over the lake, he attempted to slow his speed enough to make a landing more graceful than his usual crashes, but this time was no different, and his blast field stalled out with a bang.

Nathan caught him deftly before he hit the water. "Almost," he said, floating Sam over to where he stood. "Although I would have hated to see you faceplant into the dock, so maybe this was the best way after all." Sam got up, brushing at his clothes, and Nathan chuckled. "Have a good flight?" he asked, heading back towards solid ground.

Sam pushed back a battered pair of flight goggles on his forehead and stretched, a smile on his face. "Haven't had a bad one yet, sir," he replied. "How's the leg holding up for you?" he asked.

"Eh, it's complaining," Nathan said with a shrug. "Little too much exercise these last couple of days, but it's good for me. I finally feel like I'm getting back into shape." He eyed Sam thoughtfully. "Haven't seen you around for a bit - keeping busy?"

Snatching up a smooth stone from the shore, Sam sent it skimming across the lake with a side-arm throw. "Ah've been kinda slipping back into my hermit tendencies, to tell the truth, sir," he replied. "Just can't seem to connect much to anyone, lately. Most of my conversations with Gee wind up turnin' into shoutin' matches..." He sighed raggedly. "My social life's a bit of a mess, and Ah'm not sure how to fix it, sir."

Nathan hmmed, glancing sideways at him. "You thought of that offer I made you? Training together, I mean?" He shrugged, smiling again. "I'm pretty much mobile again. If you promise to take it easy on me..."

A dry chuckle slipped out of Sam in response, and he looked amusedly at Nathan. "Ah imagine you've still got a few tricks Ah've never even imagined, much less seen, sir. Ah think you can still probably mop the floor with me, bum leg or no. But Ah'm much obliged. Ah think it's past time to try and get a little control over my flyin'."

"Have you taken Moira up on her offer?" He just needed a button that read 'Doctor MacTaggart's henchman', Nathan thought contentedly. Just to give everyone fair warning. "I'm sure she'd be glad to help you train, too."

"Ah hadn't given much thought to that offer of hers, actually. Figured it was more for the sake of the young'uns. But Ah may go talk to her about it, see if there's anythin' she can do for me. Especially my tendency toward crash landin's." Sam scratched at one of his cheeks, a sheepish look on his face. "Strange enough, even though we never got on much, Ah actually kinda miss Haroun. Most of the other flyers 'round here, like Warren, are completely different from the way my power works, so Ah don't really have anyone to train with."

"Moira's pretty creative," Nathan said, giving Sam an encouraging swat on the arm. "You wouldn't believe some of the things she's come up to help with to help me improve my control over my TK. She can't supply you with a similarly-powered mutant to train with, but I'm willing to bet she can devise some pretty interesting exercises for you if you give her a chance." He grinned shamelessly. "But you and I could still work together, too. Work on the practical, while you and Moira take care of the theoretical."

"That sounds like a mighty fine idea, sir," Sam replied. "Ah'm willin' to take all the help Ah can get. Might ask Mister Summers as well, get as many perspectives as Ah can."

"See? That wasn't so hard, was it? We'll get you de-hermited yet," Nathan said amiably.