[ Nathan's not qualified in the literary sense to recognize intentional narrative irony, so he's never stopped to be annoyed by the fact that despite his inability to feel in the physical sense, his emotions tend to do whatever they damn well please. So for a second he can't help his expression - and he can't tell what his features are doing anyway, can't identify the tug of a grin, the heat of a blush or the sting of loosed tear ducts - for just that instant he's somewhere very far away. One heartbeat where longing tugs at him like the tide.

He knows people think he's fallen as hard as he has for Audrey because he can feel her. Maybe if he was looking through their eyes he'd think that too, it only makes sense. The truth is, though, that before anything else, she made him feel--normal. She didn't pity him, she didn't treat him like something that needed to be handled gently because it was broken.

So maybe he gets--some of that back, in that single blink, but he would rather experience all the pain hyperbole applied to normal people in these situations than explain, and he's pretty sure he and Erik have enough in common to gauge the other man, similarly, would rather not ask. Instead he will just efficiently pretend none of that happened with the eyebrows of Not Buying Your Nonchalance, Mssr. Lensherr. ]

The last time science tried to appreciate a Troubled person a guy almost had his brain removed. I'll pass.

[ He says Troubled with a not dissimilar inflection to 'mutant,' relevantly; it's about as pejorative intrinsically, but on Nathan there's a tinny tang of defiance. ]

So--what'dyou do, exactly? Electricity?

[ Look, he doesn't know. Explain Marvel science to him, Magnerik. ]