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"Let me get this straight. You were on a satellite, sent by an evil mad scientist to watch bad movies in hopes that they would drive you to insanity. Then, once he found the movie that pushed you over the edge, he'd inflict it on the rest of the world?"
Mike Nelson nodded, grinning his bright and cheerful grin before reeling in the fishing line to make certain that nothing had miraculously appeared since he reeled it in ten minutes ago. "That's the long and short of it, yup."
"Well, I guess it's no more odd than Jean coming back from the dead countless times..." Katherine Pryde sat across the dock, watching the bobber trail towards them in a stream of ripples.
"Who?" Mike asked, recasting the line.
"Jean Grey." Kitty nodded, assuming that everyone knew that story. Lord only knows, it caused enough craziness.
Mike raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Coming back from the dead, huh?"
Kitty offered an Oreo across the dock. "It's hard to explain."
"I'll bet," Mike replied, taking the Oreo and nibbling on it. "Probably about as weird as traveling to the edge of the universe and becoming beings of pure energy."
Now it was Kitty's turn to look lost and confused. "Beings of pure energy?"
"Yea... it's kinda hard to explain too."
"I can imagine. Or having a guy travel back in time, kill his own father, create an alternate universe that gets destroyed, and then when everything's set right, bits of that universe invade this one and mess everything up."
"Ooooh, yea. That's definitely odd and confusing. But so is traveling forwards in time and finding out that all of your descendants have married apes."
"Bet I can beat that." The mutant girl grinned, leaning against the dock post. "Okay, so there was Jean. She was in love with Scott, but she turned into the Phoenix, then the Dark Phoenix. She destroyed a planet, then offed herself. While she was gone, Scott married her clone and had a kid. Then it turns out Phoenix wasn't really Jean, and that Jean's body is in a cocoon. Jean comes back. Scott leaves his wife. Nate, their son, gets a virus and is sent into the future--"
Mike interrupted, rubbing his temples. "Okay, okay. This is already giving me a headache. But I still think me blowing up three planets on accident kinda tripped the weird-o-meter too, you know."
"Nate comes back to the present, calling himself Cable--" Kitty grinned impishly.
"Oh Lord." Mike just started laughing. "You win! I can't take anymore."
"What, don't want me to go into how Rachel comes into it?"
Mike put on his most serious expression, which wasn't all that serious. "Not unless you want to see my head explode."
"That wouldn't be good, no," Kitty chuckled, eating at an Oreo herself. It was a pleasant summer day, and getting out to sit on the dock was better than training in the Danger Room.
Mike reeled the line in again, giving the bobber a look. "Nothing yet." He pursed his lips and recast it.
Kitty smiled slightly, teasing, "It might help if the lake had fish in it, y'know."
"It might also help if there was a hook on the line." Mike grinned in response, reaching over to steal another Oreo from the bag.
She broke down into laughter, shaking her head. This man was completely insane, even by her standards. And Kitty had met some serious nutcases in her day. Still, it was nice talking to someone who wasn't always lamenting about the latest tragedy, and he had a great sense of humor. Not to mention, a smile that could light up a blackened room, and could certainly cheer up a sad day... "You're nuts, Boy Wonder."
"Who, me?" Mike chuckled. "No one's proven it yet, so ha!"
"Just wait. The men in the white coats'll be here any minute," she replied, smiling.
He reeled the line in and tied an Oreo on the end of it, as well as he possibly could. "Not before I nail a fish."
"In a lake without fish with an Oreo for bait and no hook?"
"Why not?" Mike smiled a bit, tossing the line out. "We did come to the conclusion that crazier stuff had happened."
"Yes, we definitely did that." Sometimes being an X-Woman meant being subjected to odd things, but she wasn't about to mention to Mike that he ranked in the top thirty.
He watched the bobber for a moment, then turned his mischievous gaze back at her. First really pretty girl he had been around in years, and their entire conversation revolved around the oddities of life, the universe and... well, not everything, but pretty close. Ah well... he was never really that good at making small talk and he totally sucked at flirting. What do you say to a girl who can walk through walls, and who had seen a lot more pain, suffering and death in her twenty years than he had in his thirty-five? Nothing. Make her smile, because she has a really pretty smile. "Clones, planetary destruction, and time travel," the former temp turned guinea pig said, grinning, "and still no damn fish."
Kitty nodded seriously, offering another Oreo. "What we'll do for you, Mr. Mike Nelson, is travel through time to get a specially cloned fish from a planet that's about to be destroyed."
Mike took the Oreo, grinning again. It was a look he wore more than not. "Eh. Too much trouble." He munched on it thoughtfully for a moment, then reeled the line in. "How about we forget the fish, the cloning, the planetary destruction, the family lines that could drive a man to throw himself from a cliff and the oddities of the universe and go into town to get a cup of coffee?" He stood, offering a hand down to her.
Kitty took it and got to her feet, smiling slightly. "I think I would like that."