He smiled as she was looking at him, and he rose to a full sitting position. "There's a reason I got into fighting, besides the obvious. An overlooked side effect of my ability is that I lack the ability to pull my punches. When I fight--would fight," he caught himself, "I'd rather it be against someone with the training to take it, because the only way I know I'm hitting hard enough, is to give every hit everything I've got. Also why I use grapples on the drunks; even then I have a strong grip so I know I've got hold of 'em."

His voice was dark, but at the same time, almost sad. "Good. All I seem to attract are fights. And thanks for patching me up." He gave her a warm smile, already having opened up more than he normally would to anyone, but Lee seemed to understand. She seemed to care.

He couldn't pull his punches. Lee nodded, as he explained, and she thought about it a bit more, it did make sense. Sort of like when she was very energized, she couldn't write control her speed and strength all the time. It was different, there was no question, but Lee understood.

As she stood leaning back against the desk, Lee was just about to cross her arms in front of her when she noticed the blood still on her hands. With a slight frown, Lee turned back to the bowl of water and grabbed a clean cloth. Cleanings her hands up as best she could without cleaner water and soap, Lee looked over at Blaine as he thanked her.

”Anytime,” Lee replied with a smile of her own, before continuing on. ”I can check them over the next few days if you want me to, make sure they're healing alright. And what happened to your ribs? Looks like you had a nasty bruise there.”

Already, he could tell Lee cared a lot more than his previous employers. Most of them figured no pain meant no problem. Maybe it was because she was a fellow mutant, but she seemed to understand.

"Should be pretty straightforward, but I'd appreciate that," he replied sincerely. And then she asked about his ribs...he adjusted himself in his chair to look her in the eye.

"I had some trouble with a guy who could alter his own body mass. Guy got me in a bear hug and I heard it crack." He was telling the truth, just leaving out some details.

"....Then, one swift blow to the jaw and I was being scraped off the floor.... " His expression soured, but he was unable to notice his face turning red with shame.

Lee simply nodded as she sat the cloth back in the bowl and turned to look at Blaine again.

Then Blaine was explaining what had caused the bruise, and Lee couldn't stop the flinch when he said that he had heard the crack. At least that was something, when she had her collar bone broken, at least Lee didn't remember hearing it break.

”That… ouch,” Lee couldn't help but say. Then Lee shook her head slightly.”Sometimes all it takes is a lucky shot,” Lee continued slowly, a frown on her face. ”At least so far I've always managed to deflect that lucky shot so it doesn't kill me.”

"Not really," he said lightly as he straightened up. Though he did remember meeting an adapted the next day. That was ouch.

"I think I just had an unlucky night. Confidence got the best of me," he said sadly. "He looked easy. Then the bell rang and he gained about a hundred pounds... " He froze. ****!!! He knew he'd said too much, but it was too late now.

Of course not really. Blaine wouldn't have actually felt it, so it wasn't an ouch, at least not for him. Lee still couldn't help feeling some sympathetic pain, though.

But when Blaine continued, Lee's brow furrowed and she stood up straighter. ”What do you mean ‘then the bell rang’?” Lee asked, both confused and concerned. ”What in the world were you doing?”

He let out a long, hard sigh. There it was. He was caught now, though he was also reminded why he opted not to share too much. He had to admit he felt safe here, with Lee. Maybe too safe. After all, it'd only been a week and here he was blabbing all his secrets--well most of them.

"Let's say...I didn't exactly hang my gloves up, he said quietly, his tone letting on that his activities weren't exactly sanctioned.

Lee raised an eyebrow at Blaine. ”You haven't exactly hung up your gloves,” she repeated, her voice flat. Then Lee pushed herself away from the desk, shaking her head as she paced across the office. Then back.

Then Lee looked back at Blaine. ”There are rules, right?” she asked. ”I mean, I still think it's completely idiotic, but there is a ref and rules that they actually enforce, right?”

And another thought popped into Lee's head, the memory of how Blaine hadn't even realized he had been hurt that night. Lee's brows furrowed again in concern. ”How would you even know you've been hurt doing that, unless you actually hear something like with your rib?”

"There are rules, and an official. Very few have bad untentions. Most of it is people--humans and mutants alike who need to blow off steam, or just...couldn't make it in the legit business." People like me...

His gaze averted a bit, but then focused back on Lee. "After each fight, my trainer looks me over. If anything seems out of place, I go to the clinic and Marge patches me up."

He bit his lip a moment. "When I was blackballed, my dream was ripped from my hands. Just like that. This is the closest I can get. But even then...I don't think I'll be fighting much longer. I mean...feeling or not, the fact stands...I'm not twenty-five anymore...But at the same time, I don't know what I'd do with myself."

They had officials and rules. That was good at least. But as Blaine was explaining, Lee couldn't help but wonder why this mattered so much.

Rather than try to figure this out at the moment, Lee shifted things on the desk a bit more and hopped up to have a seat, crossing her left leg over her right. Listening to Blaine.

He did seem to have everything figured out in terms of how to make it all work because of his powers. And it did make sense considering what he had told her before about how he had been found out and list his chance at the big time.

But all Lee could manage was a slight nod. She still couldn't understand why he would want to do that. She did try, Lee just was not able to understand.

”Maybe it's a guy thing,” Lee said thoughtfully with a slight shake off her head. ”Or maybe I've just been in a few too many life or death fights. But I just don't know why anyone would want to do that.”

He thought as she said she didn't understand; he chewed his lip a little as he tried to put it into words.

"To me, it was a practical way to use my newfound mutation. I'm the only mutant in my family, to my knowledge. Making it to the professional level would have given a mutant role model. But then...once I was ousted...I couldn't stop."

He looked sad now, an almost forlorn expression on his face. Sometimes he wished things had been different.

Blaine looked like he was really thinking about what he was going to say, how he was going to explain this to her.

And, in reality, Lee really couldn't argue with anything he had said. Tarin had run the shop for so many years because it was a practical way to make money with his powers, something good he was able to do with them. And how many times had they talked about trying to figure out something like that for her. Hell, that was what working with Slate had been.

How could she possibly tell Blaine that that wasn't a good enough reason?

And wanting to be a mutant role model? Lee hadn't even considered that a possibility for herself. But wouldn't that be amazing?

Lee knew that expression, though. That desire for life to be different, for everything to be different. She hadn't felt it, at least not strongly, but it had been such a large part of who she had been and what she felt like for so many years...

”Fair enough,” Lee allowed with a slight frown.”Maybe it says more about how ****** up my life has been, then.”

He nodded, looking at her. "The way the world treats us, I'd hazard a guess that every mutant is living a pretty ****ed up life. Some are hiding, afraid to show their gifts. Others get weird stares every day because they can't hide. Others are bullied or have been bullied, and damn if all of us don't suffer from some sort of disdain or ostracism simply because of something we can't even control. Maybe fighting is also my way of coping with this; especially when it's me and another mutant. Maybe beating the hell out of each other is barbaric, but...in a sense, it's still therapy, ain't it?" He shrugged, pushing himself to his feet and grabbing his shirt--oh, right.

He held the cut fabric in his hand and gave a chuckle. "So I'm thinking at some point I may need another one of these," he said with another laugh, looking back at Lee.

Again Blaine had a good point. had Lee ever met a mutant whose life wasn't ****ed up in at least some way? Not that she could think of. But then again, how many people died in the middle of a Romanian mutant concentration camp only to be brought back to life by the merged form of a medium and a unicorn shifter? Even that thought was a little hard to understand, and Lee had been there.

But then Blaine stood up, grabbing at his shirt as if to put it on, only to realize that it was no longer in one piece. Lee blushed slightly as she jumped down of the desk and moved over to the side of the office with the box of security shirts. She had left him sitting there without a proper shirt, hadn't she? That caused the blush to intensify a bit even as she pulled a new shirt out and turned to toss it over to Blaine. Turned, and saw that abs and week defined pecs, muscles Lee hadn't actually even imagined despite the talk about his MMA fighting just moments ago.

”Uh, yeah, you probably do need another one,” Lee said, though it may have been slightly delayed.

Blaine caught the shirt, though it was pretty awkward. He grabbed it, but then got his fingers tangled up in the fabric. Finally, he freed himself before pulling it on. He'd noticed the delay, and the blush, though he really didn't understand it. Sure, it happened quite a bit when he was shirtless, but...maybe it was the lack of feeling that sort of made things like that pointless to him. "You okay?" he asked, once he was finished getting dressed, and he tossed the cut shirt in the trash.

"Thanks for the help. There's no way I can do this kinda stuff myself. Not feeling anything is sort of a curse as much as it is a blessing, when you think about it..." he let his voice trail off as he thought of the things he'd missed out on. Some of them, like the pain of a broken bone, a third degree burn, or even a simple headache, were a plus. But the simpler sweeter things were just as foreign to him.