Wedged back into the other corner, Nathan took a long drink of the coffee before answering. It tasted good, the way it was supposed to, and that was just a point to be grateful for right now, another reminder things were normal. While Nathan's fabricated life hadn't been the most ridiculous or most burdensome or even, in the end, all that different from a path he could have taken, it did still have a serious impact on him. Which had lead to a lot of thinking and the decision to finally address the situation of A.I., Championless for months and still trying to function as if a Champion was just a day away from being delivered.
"I'm getting there," he said with one of those infamous half-shrugs. "Being one of the bad guys is something I've fought hard against since New York, and they really worked to sell this to me. They mixed my past right into that life – I still remembered Ma and Pop and Pete, just in a new context – put me in a powerful position where I didn't take orders from almost anyone, even though I was really just a puppet, gave me a wife and kids – and Simon and Monty were just pulled right into this-
It was said with a brief tightening of his lips that spoke to how pissed off he still was about them being dragged into this, before he continued.
"And left me testing my fidelity to the woman I married, because of a woman in a club with a voice like nothing else I've ever heard." He smiled, but it was a reserved one, as his mind had wandered, just as it had many times, to the painful similarities of the situation. One unhappiness traded for another, one motivation to cheat traded for another. "Heidi singing Sinatra and the boys still being there were the only good things about it."
He studied her, eyes just slightly narrowed, as if trying to figure things out all for himself with his lawyerly non-superpowers.