2012-11-29 A Delicate Job

"Alright," Logan grunts as he braces himself against the rear of the Blackbird's chassis. He's wearing a safety harness secured somewhere high above, a bulky toolbelt, and a welding mask; he's still working on getting the torch sparked as he looks towards his friend and teammate. "Gotta make a couple of adjustments; make sure everything's up t' snuff. Noticed a thing or two the last time I flew 'er." Frowning beneath his mask, he focuses his attention back on the stubborn flint and torch; it takes him a couple tries more, but eventually he is rewarded with a jutting gout of blue fire.

"You comfortable with spot weldin'?" he wonders, looking to Ororo once more as he turns the flame down. Once it's controlled, he pats the soldering iron sticking out from his belt. "Solderin'?"

This, for good or for ill, is what happens when Logan asks if someone has a minute while he's wearing his tools; be warned, X-Men.

So much for that manicure, work gloves or no. Ororo pulls her hair back, and shrugs off her jacket, revealing an old, stained shirt and well-worn jeans underneath. "Hand me the soldering iron, then," she agrees, and grabs a spare pair of welding goggles, just in case. "Although, if you simply wanted help with the jet, I can't imagine I'd be your first choice of assistant. What else is on your mind, Logan?"

"Hank's off in the jungle, or whatever," Logan replies as he sets the flint aside to pass the iron down. He begins to offer further explanation - no doubt something about Ororo's powers making her worthy candidate - but he holds the words back, turns his attention back to the plane, and waggles the iron around a little.

"Betsy's in Latveria," he'll say once it's taken. His voice is heavy with the admission--weary and guilty all at once. "Left a few days back; no idea if she's still alive. Wanted to tangle with the dictator that runs the place." He gently slaps a hand against a bit of the curved fuselage around one of the jets, then starts working his way around to get directly behind it.

"Plane's gotta be in tip-top shape; I figure I can trust you with this." Beat. "Just you, right now," he adds as he casts another glance towards the goddess. "Sensitive job that it is."

Storm frowns. "Latveria." If she weren't about to work with molten metal alloy, she'd pinch the bridge of her nose. Instead, she brushes some of the flux in place, and uses the iron to smooth a bead of solder overtop. "I'd ask if there were any chance of using Cerebro to locate her, but given that I can't recall it ever locating /any/ signs of an active mutant in the entire country... well, what is more likely, that there are no mutants in Latveria, or that Doom is able to block any detection scans from /finding/ mutants in Latveria."

She shakes her head a little, indicating that the question was entirely rhetorical. "When do you plan on going in- and, more importantly, how do you plan on finding her once we're there?" The use of "we" was very purposeful there. The team may put up with Logan's lone wolf habits when he's on the trail of something unrelated to the rest of the team, but given this involves another X-Man, she's not about to tolerate him going alone.

After pointing out a few problem areas, Logan swings into position and gets to welding; soon enough, he is awash in noise and blue sparks. Neither is particularly pleasant, given his acute senses, but those sharp ears /do/ make listening to Storm a hell of a lot easier; he /definitely/ does not miss the pronoun switch--nor is he particularly /surprised/ by it.

It still takes him a few moments of silent, intent welding before he puts an abrupt stop to the sparks and replies, "I don't know," in a low, flat voice. "I know that it's gotta be done; the when's, the how's--I don't know. Far as Cerebro goes... usin' it to look for one've our own after she invaded a sovereign country?" He clucks his tongue briefly.

"How do you think Chuck and Jean are gonna take /that/ one?" he lowly wonders, casting a visored look across the way.

"How many of us, at one point or another, have done something- be it under telepathic influence, curses, brainwashing or simply poor judgement- that could earn us the title of 'villain?'" she asks. "And just how many of those people have we welcomed back into the fold? We are a family as much as we are anything else, Logan. There is nothing any of us could do that would make the rest of us turn our backs to them," she says, calmly and evenly, as a summoned breeze blows away the worst of the sparks and smell of hot metal.

"Admittedly," she adds, "this may be our first official /international incident/, but really, it probably was just a matter of time before something like this happened. Even I can't fault Betsy entirely," she admits. "There have been times I've been tempted to visit vengeful, meteorological hell upon certain corrupt heads of state in Africa. Sometimes I've been closer to giving in than I'd like to admit."

"Yeah, well, if some warlord in the Congo loses his mansion to a freak tornado some day, I promise I'll keep that little tidbit to myself," Logan--well--

He /means/ it to be a joke - probably - but his tone doesn't quite carry it; too much uncertainty, too much guilt for humour.

It probably doesn't help that if it came down to it, he would happily find himself a place at the eye of any freak African tornados as backup, just in case.

"Probably right, though," he cedes as he swings back into position. "She's--" The sparks don't come just yet; the flame hovers a foot or two away from metal.

"--I don't know," he repeats. "Girl's had a rough couple'a months. Gettin' restless, wrestlin' with shadows." With that, the welding begins anew. "This--I think it's been buildin' up for a /while/."

"I appreciate your candor in that hypothetical situation," Ororo says, equally joking-but-not-joking. Then, she grows a bit more serious, and nods.

"None of us are likely to act without having reason to, Betsy included," she agrees. "Whatever it is, I can only hope she will allow us to help her, when we can," she says. Again, her choice of words is quite purposeful, even if it is quite possible that Psylocke is dead, she refuses to speak about her as if she is.

"Needless to say, I am quite willing to accompany you to Latveria, should it come to that. Even if it's just you and I, there /will/ be X-Men coming to Psylocke's aid."

"All we've gotta do is make it out alive," Logan says in reply. While that is - probably - /not/ a joke, there's still a tight, pained smile beneath his metal plate. "It was her, a SHIELD agent, a merc, some mutant drug dealer, an' a teleporter; five hostages." There's another break in the welding as he bounds his way towards another jet.

"Ain't gonna be just us," he points out before the fire comes again. "It /can't/ be--but if it's down to you an' me as the only X-Men there, I'm good with that."

After all, as the goddess so wisely pointed out, he didn't - couldn't have - come to her today, with this on his plate, for nothing more than her technical acumen.

Storm frowns, and nods. "Then we go, and we take anyone we trust enough to handle themselves in the situation with us," she agrees. "Thank you, Logan, for trusting me with this." And she doesn't mean the soldering iron. Although there probably is some measure of trust involved there, too.

"I got a couple irons in the fire," Logan grunts over the roar of metalworking. "I'll keep you posted. You know anyone who knows, has anything - /anything/ - that might help us, keep me in the loop." His voice takes on a hint of desperation when he shuts the torch off, nudges his mask up and turns to meet his teammate's eyes. "/Please/. There ain't gonna be a third team. I won't have it."

With that, he starts lowering himself to the hangar floor, where he'll toss the welding gear to the nearest workbench; apparently, his share of the repairs are finished, if only for now.

"You get a chance, by the way," he calls up as he pulls his gloves off, "put the team through their paces in the Danger Room. Anyone, doesn't matter who; get 'em workin' on extraction scenarios, escapes, invadin' enemy territory--anything on those lines. Push 'em /hard/; I want /everyone/ ready for the worst. Just in case."

"I'll begin looking through the scenarios now, and see who I can't pull into some training sessions," she says, following him away from the jet, and discarding her own gloves and tools. "I'm not sure there's any way to be entirely prepared for this, but we will get as close to it as we can." She picks up the jacket she discarded earlier, and starts towards the door.

"Do what you must in the mean time, Logan," she tells him, knowing that he's bound to be restless as hell in between now, and whenever they're able to leave.