xp_logs | Paige and Nathan, Friday afternoon

Nathan, finishing up in the Danger Room, has a rather 'creative' encounter with Paige. Afterwards, they talk - or rather, he babbles a little (having aggravated his sprained brain) and she listens, and makes a surprising offer.

He was getting to be increasingly hard on the practice drones, Nathan thought cheerfully, pulling off his blindfold and telekinetically 'sweeping' up the debris from the latest batch. The sonar trick was getting more and more effective by leaps and bounds; practice made perfect and all.

He sensed a very definite presence outside the door, a presence that hesitated and started to move away, and he spared a flicker of telekinesis to hit the release for the door. "I'm just cleaning up, Paige," he called through the opening door. "Room's all yours in a few minutes if you want."

The door opened just as much as it needed to show her head, which she peeked in. She gave a solid nod and said, "All right. Thank you. I'll just double-knot my shoes," before drawing back again. Pushing her luck was not on the agenda today.

Nathan tilted his head, considering the fine example of avoidance he had just been treated to. Classic technique, really, he thought, smiling to himself as he continued to gather the debris into the center of the room, a spinning sphere of growing ever larger as he added more to it.

"I hope I didn't run overtime," he called out, deliberately slipping a shield over the door and one around himself. "If I did," he went on, preparing to let go, "I'll owe you the time out of my next session..."

Now. He let the metal sphere fly apart, and it made a very satisfying sort of shrieking explosion-sound.

Paige ran to the door once the explosion had cleared, giving him a quick look-over for damage. He seemed fine, as did the "mud-room". She gave a satisfied look, unwilling to admit defeat from the man quite yet. "No, you're fine. You have... one minute, twenty-four seconds left, actually. Take your time." At that she ducked back in, deciding to spend the time retaping her right wrist.

Nathan raised an eyebrow, smiling again. He pulled together the debris he'd just scattered to the four corners of the room, but this time formed it into shapes. Half a dozen little human-like shapes - rather well-done, if he did say so himself - which he then had saunter out the door to where Paige had ducked out of sight. Whimsically, he had them do an interpretative dance for perhaps half a minute, then had five of them drag the sixth kicking and silently screaming back into the Danger Room.

"Thirty seconds!" Paige called from still inside the room, having taped her wrist and watched Nathan's antics at the same time. A multitasker, that's what she was. "And you can stop making me madly jealous of your mutation now!" She was teasing, obviously, and considering that she was still hiding, it came to a surprise even to herself.

A horse the side of his hand, which galloped out of the Danger Room and promptly threw its equally tiny rider over its head..

"Ten seconds!" she continued, trying very hard not to smile.

The little men trooped back out, picked up the fallen rider, and carried it back in, followed by the horse, which capered around, as if quite delighted by its 'victory'. Back in the Danger Room, metal pieces spinning around him in fractal patterns, Nathan chuckled softly. "Any requests in my last five seconds?"

Paige came to the door finally, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed and a mild smile playing on her lips. The corner of her eye was fixed on her training watch and her look intensified as the second hand hit twelve. "Well. Grand finale time, Mister Dayspring. Your choice, but it'd better be good. You're on my time now."

Nathan closed his eyes for this one, because it was rather more complicated than rough-but-cute little metal sculptures. First, he pulled all the debris in the room together into a rough cylinder. Then he shredded it into a fine metallic glitter, just like he had when he'd been working with Paul last week. Only then did he start to work, shaping the glitter into a wispy, yet detail-perfect, three-dimensional portrait of Paige. He opened his eyes and the ghost-Paige moved towards her flesh-and-blood counterpart, that same slight smile playing on her lips, and raised a hand almost in salute.

Her look softening slightly, Paige managed to tear her eyes from her mirror self, giving Nathan a steady look and murmuring, "That'll work." It held only a moment before she returned to his work, somehow much more fascinated than she would ever admit.

The ghost-Paige's smile grew and she floated backwards, spreading her hands wide and moving into a pirouette. Nathan's eyes narrowed, and for a moment there was the suggestion of wings, of wispy garments fluttering around the glittering shape as she danced. Then he concentrated harder and the glitter flowed upwards, coalescing around the ghost-Paige's face and giving the impression that she was fading. But the face stayed, and a little more concentration hardened the metal into a mask. Smooth and perfect and just as detailed. Still smiling. Nathan levitated it over to Paige, who reached out her hands and took it. "Think I have a future in art?" he quipped.

"You strike me as the type to have a future in whatever they want," Paige replied smoothly, but not bothering to keep the awe out of her voice. Luckily, she was talented enough to add in a lining between it and her envy, removing the tinge of green. "Although, don't take this personally, but I don't think this is the sort of thing you hang in your own bedroom. Maybe when I get a living room."

Nathan tilted his head and shifted it in her hands. First to Angelo's face, then to Jono's, then Sam's, then back to her own. "It's an interesting exercise," he said almost thoughtfully. "Not as nerve-wracking as turning things to glass. Not as hard, either."

Paige glanced up at him. "I'll take your word on it." She didn't mention she'd also catalogue it. Better to keep that secret.

He had seen that look before. That 'I'm filing this away in one of my mental drawers' look. "Funny how the remains of two dozen practice drones can compact down into something that small," he said lightly. "I wouldn't even want to guess at the composition of the metal."

"I would," Paige replied, in just as airy of a tone, turning the mask over in her hands. "But that's what I do. Nerd, me."

Nathan cast a look around the room, looking for any debris that he might have missed. Not nice to leave shrapnel for the next person. "I think that's all of it," he said. "The debris, I mean..." He started to step towards the door and then stopped, suddenly feeling lightheaded. "Well," he said, blinking at her. "I think I may have overdone the showing off. How very male of me."

Paige eyed him carefully, ready to dash if it looked like he was going to topple over. "Do you need any assistance?" She had a not very vague feeling that the answer was going to be no; he'd just admitted to being very male and what man admitted they needed help, but she thought she should at least ask. It was the polite thing to do.

"But then you wouldn't have the fun of watching me fall on my face," Nathan bantered a bit weakly.

"Oh, for goodness sake..." Paige muttered, coming over to him and slinging a hand around his waist. "The doctors are going to think I've been beating up old men and making them promise to tell people it was a mishap soon. I swear, if Paul comes up to me with a black eye I'm leaving him in the hallway." She gently led him out of the room as she ranted, making a beeline for the hall that would take them to the med lab.

"Old men?" Nathan protested, letting her draw him along rather more passively than he might have otherwise. He did really kind of need an analgesic, and maybe he'd luck out and find Madelyn on duty. His little demonstration for Paige on top of two hours of practicing killing drones might have been a little much. "Bite your tongue, Paige. Just because I'm old enough to be your father... well, not quite," he amended a bit absently, not really thinking about what he was saying. "My son would have been a few years younger than you... Clarice's age."

Paige let him protest, dragging him along like a professional. If her lifelong dream of becoming an X-Man fell through, it was good to know she could fall back on old man dragger arounder. Perhaps she could branch out to stupid people in general dragger arounder. "Didn't know you had had a son," she said absently, but kept a quiet tone out of respect.

Nathan glanced at her for a moment, but then answered. "Tyler," he said, figuring he probably owed her an explanation of the cryptic remark. "He was seven..." He trailed off, frowning a bit. "You don't really want to hear it."

"Really, Nathani- Nathan. Do not presume to know what I do and do not want. You know better than that," Paige replied, tightening her grip on him a little before musing, "I really like the name Tyler."

"It was his grandfather's name. Maternal grandfather," Nathan thought, shivering a little at the idea of naming a child, any child, after his own father. "He was... well, I'm obviously biased, having been his father, but he was a sweet little boy. Blond hair, blue eyes, sunny disposition..." A faint, sad smile played on his lips. "Which he got entirely from his mother, I should say."

"Mm..." Paige answered, without saying anything at all, nodding at him to continue.

"I found out that there's a grave, just recently," Nathan said, more thinking aloud than anything else. "Him and his mother... I had to leave their bodies behind, but it turns out there was a grave. If hopping on a plane wasn't such a supremely bad idea right now, I think I might go try and find it..."

"Here's a crazy idea." Paige shuffled them along as she spoke, mindful of going around corners at a healthy speed. "Why don't you get someone to go with you? There seems to be a massive amount of people who adore you here. I doubt they would mind."

He really had no idea what he was doing in this conversation. His head was definitely spinning, and he only hoped she was directed him towards the medlab and not somewhere handy to stash the body. "Trap, possibly," he explained, remembering the rather dubious source of that information. "Don't know for sure that there is a grave. And I seem to get people in large amounts of very violent trouble when they're with me off mansion grounds. Hence, a bad idea."

It's here that we should be very glad Nathan is projecting like a maniac, as Paige probably would have stashed him in a broom closet about now. "That was not your fault, so do stop feeling sorry for yourself. It's unbecoming." Obviously, spending time with the Valkyries had only managed to increase her bluntness. Maybe it would wear off with time. "Anyway, in case you haven't noticed, a large chuck of those large amounts of people are very capable of taking care of themselves and you if need be."

Nathan blinked at her. "You don't like me enough to be kicking me in the ass," he said, pulling his somewhat scattered thoughts somewhat back together. "Anyway, it's safer if I leave it for now. Self-indulgent to put people at risk just because I have a hankering for closure."

"Fine then," Paige replied stubbornly. "You stay put. I will find it for you." She really had no idea why she said that, but she did know she'd meant it. "And the rest of that was debatable."

Nathan stopped, staring down at her as she grimaced and tried to urge him onwards. "Um. Did I ever thank you for the sweatpants?"

Paige hummed thoughtfully for a moment, not yet put off that he'd ignored her previous words if only because really, he didn't have a choice in the matter. "I do not think so," she finally answered.

"Well." Nathan stared down at her, perplexed and yet strangely... touched? Yeah, that was the feeling. Touched. "Thank you. For the sweatpants. And that really... kind of scarily kind offer." He stared down at her for a long moment, feeling totally off-balance, and not just because of the lightheadness. "He liked Winnie the Pooh and chocolate milk. He would not go to bed without his stuffed tiger Rufus. And he loved leaving those little miniature cars in my shoes where I'd find them when I left in the morning." He shook his head slowly. "Always seemed very wrong to me that no one but me remembers these things anymore."

There you have it folks. Reason twenty-one why Paige thinks she shouldn't have children; one of them would end up dead and things like this would happen to future generations. "You're welcome," she replied, in a hushed sort of tone that spoke of her thinking a little too hard. "He sounds like a beautiful soul."

Nathan leaned back against the nice, handy wall behind him, trying to figure out why exactly the conversation had gone in this direction. He had been thinking more about Tyler these last few days, with the kids reappearing from Asgard. Wondering what it would be like to have your child reappear as if by magic, when you'd thought he was lost...

"I think that's why I got along so well with your brother at first," Nathan said distractedly. "Looked at him and thought he looked a little like Tyler might have, grown up..."

"Must have been a beautiful boy, then," Paige said, letting Nathan rest for a moment. Or, better yet, assuming he was resting and not delaying getting to the medlab. See? Not a Nazi. "As much as I hate to admit it, Sam did get the looks in the family."

"I have a picture," Nathan said suddenly. "I should show you sometime. My former employers sent it to me to remind me what happens when I misbehave." He pushed away from the wall, tottering a little, and started back in the direction of the medlab. Definitely a painkiller or two. Moira would be proud. He'd conquer the whole drug phobia yet...

Paige shuddered visibly at that, suddenly very glad that Nathan was ahead of her so he wouldn't see. It took her a moment to regain herself before she returned to his side. "I'd like that." Part of her was proud at how little her voice shook when she spoke. "Oh look, almost there."

"Mm," Nathan said. He wasn't looking forward to the lecture he would probably get - he was still supposed to be taking it somewhat easy, psionically speaking, after that training exercise that had gone weird a few days ago. Brain sprain and all. "I'm glad you're all right," he said after a moment, looking down at her. "I know I didn't say that yet. I've been wandering around hugging people at random since Tuesday, but... well, didn't think you'd appreciate that." He gave her a lop-sided smile. "It is really good to see you back, though."

Remaining in the doorway at Nathan entered the medlab, Paige gave him a split smile; half warm, half wry. "Then you obviously don't know very much about me. You should rectify that, you know," she said, when he turned around for goodbyes. "It's good to be back, though. Thank you."

"Mm," Nathan said again, with a grin that was probably goofier than the situation warranted. Ah, well. "I'll keep that in mind. And I won't tell any of the doctors you've been beating up old men." Before Paige could respond, he glanced at the mask she was still holding in her hand, and made a small change. Just a small one, but it was enough to jack up the headache just a little. Ow, he thought, and wandered into the medlab to find the closest doctor-type person. Ah well again. It had been worth it.

Paige looked down. She was smiling.