Angela was still lost in the grand vision of “Magneto lifts a hand and scrap metal converges from every direction,” and said absently, “Robbing banks is illegal, though. That’s not really okay.”
Scott didn’t soften it in the slightest.
“Magneto’s done who knows how many illegal things. What’s one bank robbery on top of all that?!”
Only then did Angela snap out of it.
“So Magneto really has robbed a bank?” she said hesitantly.
Scott spat.
“He’s done years in prison!”
Logan let out a snort, walked over and slung an arm around Angela’s shoulders, and warmly, enthusiastically began schooling her on Magneto’s “long list of misdeeds.” Angela listened, stunned.
So this fellow used to be the sort who made the news every other day and threw down on a massive scale at the drop of a hat?
Hurling trucks with a wave of the hand, carrying aircraft bare-handed, dragging a whole stadium along to wreck the place.
Incredible.
Even at the height of the Omnic Crisis, Overwatch had never had anyone who could cause this much chaos—otherwise the agents might as well have packed it in.
Angela sighed from the bottom of her heart.
“Then I suppose I should thank him that the money he brought me this time is all legal…”
Logan nodded.
“Since Charles already said it’s fine, then it’s definitely fine. Relax.”
He thought about it a little more and nodded, fully reassured.
“And even if there had been some issue, Charles could smooth it over for you, no doubt. Spend it with an easy mind. Is there anything you want to buy—want to get some new clothes? I’ll drive you into the city.”
Something gave a jolt in Angela’s chest.
What could have driven a rugged, hopelessly macho man like Logan to volunteer for clothes shopping—the very thing most men flee from in dread?!
She looked down at her work uniform, the white lab coat, and thought about how she’d been getting by at Xavier’s School all this time. This story is hosted at g.com.
For casual wear she’d been scraping by on a few pieces Jean Grey had kindly lent her, rotating them to death; on workdays she went out in the lab coat, and at the training room she practiced her shooting in her combat suit—and being lazy, she’d never once switched skins, sticking the whole time with Mercy’s default white combat suit.
So Logan figured she had no clothes at all besides her work uniform and her combat suit, but had held off mentioning it out of regard for her pride and feelings, so she wouldn’t be embarrassed about having no money—and now that he saw she had money, he’d brought it up right away?
Angela found herself sizing Logan up a few times; she hadn’t expected this rugged, wild-looking man to have such a thoughtful side.
He really was… putting a lot of heart into looking after his “little sister.”
The staring left Logan thoroughly baffled.
“What is it, Angela?”
“Mm… it’s nothing.” Angela gave this strong, dependable “big brother” a trusting, contented smile, hugged his arm affectionately, and gave his powerful muscles a squeeze in passing.
“Sure. Then this weekend, I’ll trouble you to take me on a trip to New York. I’ve been wanting to wander around the city for ages.”
Logan nodded without hesitation.
“No problem.”
Logan’s muscles felt far too good under her hand—no wonder the school had so many brazen students with the gall to want to sleep with a teacher.
After that first squeeze, Angela couldn’t resist the temptation and snuck in a few more, marveling enviously, “Logan, your physique is just unfair—like a classical statue come to life. The fabled Spartan warriors were probably built exactly like this.”
Scott winced at the secondhand embarrassment and made a quick getaway.
This brother and sister were sometimes just too much to bear—they’d say absolutely anything, completely open about it, without a shred of embarrassment.
No man would be unhappy to get praise like that.
Logan smugly flexed a muscle in passing.
“Told you—put in the work and you’ll see results too.”
Angela thought about how her appearance seemed to have stalled out somewhere in her mid-twenties, then about how the system’s character profile didn’t even list an age, and she had a rough idea of the truth.
In the game Overwatch, Angela Ziegler and Mei-Ling Zhou had once shared a conversation: Mercy asked Mei how she’d stayed so young, and Mei said it was thanks to cryostasis, then went on to remark that Angela hadn’t changed much either.
Clearly, the “Angela Ziegler” form had been more or less fixed once it was created, with nothing to do with aging.
She changed the subject offhandedly, lest dwelling on the question dredge up the fear again.
“My path is different from yours—hand-to-hand is only a just-in-case thing for me. Twelve million, Logan—help me think. How am I ever going to spend all of it?”
She’d only thrown the question out to change the subject; she hadn’t expected Logan to actually give it serious thought. Visit novelping.com for the full chapter.
By the time the two of them reached the infirmary door, Logan, gripping the doorframe, said, “Buy a house. Living in Charles’s place forever isn’t a real solution.”
Angela blanked for a second, then it dawned on her.
“Right—Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters was converted from Charles’s ancestral home. It’s essentially his house. The students count as boarders, more or less, but I’m not a student here. There’s no reason for me to keep living in someone else’s home and never leave—even framing it as staff housing doesn’t really hold up.”
She’d had the thought at the very start, but back then she’d had no money, and Charles had so courteously invited her to stay, so she’d stayed.
Once she became the infirmary doctor and spent enough time among these mutant students who boarded year-round, she’d muddled herself into forgetting entirely that “school staff don’t need to live on campus.”
Logan nodded, satisfied.
“I’ll dig up some listings for you. Anywhere you’d like to live? Westchester, one of the nearby cities, or New York like you just mentioned—all fine. If it’s far, I’ll drive you to and from.”
The good fortune came so suddenly it left her a little at a loss.
Angela nodded reflexively and stared blankly at Logan for a moment before she realized he was still waiting for her answer.
She weighed it quickly and replied, “New York, I think? Anywhere in Westchester, I’d still get the feeling I was living in Charles’s house.”
Having gotten his answer, Logan waved a hand and left, not in the least concerned with whatever reasoning lay behind Angela’s choice of location.
Angela’s reasons, of course, went beyond what she’d said.
More importantly, her system mission had finally shown a glimmer of progress.
One of the completion conditions for the mission to re-form Overwatch was “possess a stable, secure headquarters.”
Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters did meet that condition—but it was Charles Xavier and the X-Men’s headquarters, not hers.
If she tried to cobble together an agent organization right here in Westchester, it would be all but a provocation aimed at Professor X—and being this close, if she went to all that trouble and then failed, it would feel rather awkward.
New York would be different: at least there’d be some distance.
However formidable Charles was, surely he couldn’t read events all the way from Westchester to New York by telepathy?
In any case, the system hadn’t specified the headquarters’ size; even a place of just a few dozen to a hundred-odd square meters (several hundred to over a thousand square feet) could make do in a pinch.
Angela shut the infirmary door, rubbed her hands together, said a prayer to every deity she could still remember—from every direction, every era, East and West—and at last reached out toward the supply pack she’d left sitting untouched for several months.