Nate was a little worse for wear, but he could have been far worse. He was still dealing with the emotional ramifications of breaking up with Quin and whether he made the right choice. The stress of analyzing an emotional decision (which was basically analysis-resistant) was wearing him out, but his... interesting encounter with Megan earlier in the week did take his mind off of things, at least for a week.

The real negative side-effect of that night was Megan's decision to drink or pour out most of his liquor cabinet. It was probably a terrible decision for Nate to handle the emotional loss of love with meaningless intimacy, but he was certainly not going to go through the post-breakup moodiness sober.

It was Nate's third straight night out at a different bar. The last thing he wanted was to be seen as a mopey regular, so he spread kept himself scarce and anonymous.

Nate had finished a long day of classes while recovering from a hangover and little sleep, so he was still dealing with a mental fog after a brief nap at his desk. He was passing by the bar, and for some reason the illuminated sign called out to him. Sitting on a stool at the bar, he could not help but feel a sense of familiarity.

When his eyes scanned the area behind the bar, he noticed a bottle of vanilla liquor. The place looked different full of people and in the dim night lighting, but could he really have not noticed...?

The day had been slow but the bar had not gotten a decent day crowd since they opened. She once again considered the idea of a giant obviously poor sighted Raccoon man doing the food, might have been part of it. Still he did cook half decent food and most people were to drunk to care within an hour of arriving anyway. Despite his abrasive personality he was an honest man and she was unsure he could actually get a job anywhere else.

She had been surprised that the mutant related incidents in her bar had been so far minor. she knew it was a matter of time but was grateful all the same. She had however replaced a tv when a mutant with fire powers melted it on accident when he got angry at the NHL lockout. She never understood the high Emotions that came with sports and why people sometimes did dumb things over them. However she did know enough about some of them for bar pools.

She served a man, who looked like nature had constructed his body out of thin tubing and suppressed a mild shudder as she watched the liquid flow through his body. Turning her head away to avoid looking at the vital organs any more then she had to, she caught site of a man she vaguely recognized and was grateful for the distraction.

"What can i get ya?" she asked with a smile, and brushing her curled hair from her face. "You Look like you have seen a few better days" she said looking at the man. It was quite hard to forget those eyes, now that who the man was more clear to her after thinking for a few minutes. A second bartender tended to the other side of the bar which was larger then most, for the size of the bar.

Nate was still looking at the bottles of liquor lined up on the shelf when the bartender grabbed his attention. It was immediately clear to Nate that he was indeed in the same bar he once visited for a midday drink. In retrospect, with the heavily mutated clientele around him, he should have come to that conclusion sooner.

It took him a second or two, but he recalled the bartender's name through the fog. "Melissa," he said with a smile. "Yeah, I've been better." He had entered the bar to avoid thinking about his break up, but Melissa was a sweetheart, so he could handle being a bit more honest with her.

"Have any more of that vanilla liquor?" He asked, even though he already spotted the bottle. It was a nice reminder of their first meeting, and the drink itself was soothing. "I certainly wouldn't mind tryin that again."

"you remembered, im flattered" she said with a playful smile. In truth she was, it had been several week's since she saw the man, most could not have recalled her hair color after a single visit. She nodded at his request for the bottle and plucked it off the shelf. She glanced at how much was in the bottle for a moment and knew she would need to make some more, in another night or to. SHe was going to need to find a new place to stay soon.

She poured a shot of it and set it on the table for him, keeping the bottle on a lower more accessible shelf. "Well whatever the trouble, you came to a good place" she said honestly. She did feel the bar helped people, at least in the short term. "I'll make sure you feel better" she said glancing back at the liqueur shelving.

"I have a number of other helpful bottles as well, " she said referring to her own brews on the shelf's. Most remained ignorant of their true origins and she was happy to keep it that way, though many just ordered their usual anyway.

She glanced back once to make sure the other bartender was going her job and did not need her help. Owning the business Melissa tended to let the other bartenders get the tip's as she figured they needed them with the prices in the city.

"I do what I can to remember the best bartenders." It was true enough in the sense that she was the only bartender whose name he actually remembered. Nate was not usually the type to spill his heart on the bar, but his experience meeting Melissa was a good one.

The drink was placed before him alongside a promise to make him feel better, which forced a grin out of the Southerner. It was hard to tell whether Melissa was flirting or just being her welcoming, sweet self. "I'll take all the comfort you can spare, hun."

She was promising him the aid of whatever bottles she had at her disposal. For a moment, Nate found himself imagining the creation process for some of those drinks. There was probably a good reason Melissa's mutation was her own little secret, since she had to be violating a health code or two.

Nate downed his shot, savoring the smooth vanilla taste on his tongue. He fished a debit card out of his pocket and placed it on the counter, ready to start a tab. "Those bottles better be ready, cuz it's been a rough week."

"Now, now, Flattery will get you far" she said with a smile. It was not quite true, but she was not about to complain either. She felt like she could connect with Nate outside of the bar, which had in the few short months of operation, become most of her waking life. She turned and served a drink to a blue fish looking mutant, then looked back at him. "Hon, i could have you swimming in comfort" she said enjoying the intended double meaning. Using kiddie pools to create various mixtures was her preferred method.

Her attention was forced away as she was forced to yell across the bar over the noise at the same drunk fish mutant she had served moments earlier. "Stay out of the fish tank" she yelled, as across the room the fish mutant had a foot in the tank and looked shocked he had been caught. "Go home for the Night Roy, that's the third warning this week she shook her head. "Ill cook ya with my laser eyes if you don't" she said, the and seemed to consider this and headed for the door. Few knew of her power so it was easy to trick drunks into thinking she had a verity of other powers she only wished she had.

She grabbed a different bottle, this one was milk white bottle, it was unmarked otherwise. A white ribbon around the neck noted it as another of her concoctions. She opened a red bull as well and mixing that with the bottle she made two shot's. "It tastes a bit like dr pepper." she said as she passed him the shot. "Hope nothing to bad, brought you back to the the only bomb shelter that protects those outside of it, more then those within?" she joked with a soft smile.

Well, it was now pretty clear that Melissa was flirting with him, and fairly suggestively at that. It was likely that the friendly bartender traded saucy remarks with plenty of customers to beef up her tips, but she was sweet enough that he could ignore that possibility.

There was still a voice in the back of his head trying to guilt him for flirting, but he overrode that voice with reminders that he no longer had a reason to feel guilty for such things. If he did, the Megan thing would have been a more prevalent red flag. "Well then, keep the drinks coming, sugar."

The former thief laughed loudly as Melissa threatened another bar patron with a power he was almost definitely sure she did not have. When she returned her attention Nate's way, he shot her a look. "Laser eyes?" He kept his voice quiet, since he did not want to hint at her real power around other paying customers.

Nate took the next shot and drank it, but allowed the liquid to sit on his taste buds for a moment out of curiosity. She was right; the taste was smooth with a hint of spice, tingling on his tongue with carbonation. Pleased with her drink selection, he moved on to answering her less-than-pleasant question. "Meh. I, uh, broke things off with my girlf-- well, ex-girlfriend."

"Last week, it was the touch of death, no ones pushed the issue so far. " she said knowing it was only a matter of time before someone did. Still few in the bar had any idea of her powers. Jupiter knew and through him Venus and various other's, from there rumors of what her power was had spread. "Work's better then siccing the fur ball on them" she continued with a glance at the kitchen.

A break up, she heard that often enough, people trying to chase away the memories. "Sorry to hear that, it was for the best though?" she asked wondering if he were regretting the break up and making her feel a little guilty about flirting with him. He seemed like a nice enough guy but having never met the ex she could say little about what may have gone wrong.

"Life has a way of working out for the best in the end, or at least i like to think so" she said honestly. It sometimes just took awhile for it all to work out. Relationships could be wonderful and cruel things, a silken touch one day and a knife the next. Still the appeal of love kept people transfixed like moths around a candle. "Still their are few thing's less painful" she said sympathetically.

The first things out of Melissa's mouth would come across as cliches from anyone who was not Melissa. She was clearly sincere, which was nice to have from a bartender. Most bartenders played the considerate ear in hopes of a bigger tip, but Miss Melissa was very clearly alright with being someone to lean on for him. (She was going to get a bigger tip anyway, but regardless, the sincerity was nice.

"Well, I'm at least hoping it was for the best, or I'll feel kinda stupid for doing it." Nate sighed, happy to just push any doubts away/ "We were just... different people by the end of it." You know, by the end of it, I was a former con-man. It was an apt breakup idiom for him.

There were plenty more painful things in the world, but she was right; so soon after a broken romance, it was hard to call them to mind. "I'll be fine. I'm a big boy." He forced a grin and pushed the empty shot glass away. "It'll just be easier with a little help, y'know?" Nate was finding help in many places, from a full glass or a sweet-smiling bartender, or that one time a no-strings scenario with a frenemy.

...Well, it was probably best if he kept that last moment of help as an isolated incident.

Looking around she made sure no other odd incidents were going on, assured the bar was safe, she grabbed a second bottile. checked it to confirm what she had assumed and with her other hand, she picked up the used shot glass and slipped it into the sink below the bar top. This time she mixed something that would taste more like chocolate milk with a kick. Glanceing back at the other bar tender she wished the girl had a useful power as well.

She understood his word's well enough. It had been some time however since she felt loves sting. "Well better now then when your married" she said the words forming from a perpetual topic at the bar in which men tended to at least in their words lose everything to their wives in the devorce. "People change as they grow as time moves on." she said with a comforting smile.

"The help is what i'm for, ANy kids involved?" she asked knowing that always made this kinda thing harder. She had no idea how long the two had been together, though she felt a guilty drop of hope in her chest at the idea the man was single. Still she decided now would not be a good time to act upon such a thing. Instead she merely glanced over her shoulder at a sound from the kitchen which sounded like loud indistiquishable curse words, but as her cook did not run out she assumed everything was fine.

It was definitely a good thing Quin and Nate never got married. It was bad enough for a breakup to hurt emotionally without legal issues getting involved. He probably would have had a hard enough time convincing himself morally that he could write Nate Holloway on a marriage certificate.

Nate replied to her next question with a shake of the head, accepting the next drink. "No, no. No kids. My classes are enough of a handful right now without a kid of my own," he joked. It was nice to joke, and she made a good point: the breakup could have been much worse.

Nate knocked back the next drink, which was smooth like cocoa with a spike of alcohol. A loud, angry noise came from the kitchen area, capturing Melissa's attention as well as his own for a moment. "Never a dull moment here, huh?"

"I could imagine, Roof still on the place im guessing?" returning the joke with one of her own. She had never really dealt with Mutant kid and when she considered her work it was prolbely a good thing. She wondered what was more dangerous, a kid who could not control their powers or a drunk who could. It was something she really hoped she need not find out, as no matter the outcome she could only picture it leveling the place.

"Maybe breakfast, he has trouble staying awake during the day" she said. His mutation had been steadily turning him further down the path to becoming a male racoon man. "He was less moody before he became a mutant. He told me he worked in a five star hotel, but the Hotel would not employ him because of his fur and health issues, plus he kept burning his claws due to poor eyesight. Honestly i expected more issues keeping him on, but the health official barely raised an eye" she said.

"Oh, i have not encountered any student's trying to drink here. , the roof still on at your work?" she joked, knowing that much like the bar, it could be blown away at the slightest notice one way or the other.

Nate respected Melissa's decision to hire a mutant cook who was down on his luck and could use a second chance. In a way, the school unwittingly did the same with him, even if he was less fuzzy and health-code violating. "It's mighty kind of you to keep him on."

Melissa was nice enough to fill Nate in on Mutant Student Watch 2012, which elicited a chuckle. "Good to know. Keep an eye out though; some of my kids can be pretty sneaky." Heck, some of them could easily slip through wall or pose as an adult or something absurd. It was hard not to see the reasoning behind mutant-related laws sometimes.

"The school has some high, well built ceilings to keep the roof firmly in place," he joked. It had been a while since the girls' wing caught fire, anyway.

Nate decided to take a break from pounding back shots and requested a beer. "So you've been in New York a while now. Making yourself at home here?" The bartender was so considerate, but it would be nice to talk about her for once to break up the monotony of Nate's love-life woes.

She smiled at the praise, she was trying to do what she could for the fowl tempered fur ball. She was sure someone else would have done the same, or at least she would have hoped so. She recalled a time when the cook had been told to shave his body to hide his mutation, the effect had been worse then if had just kept the fur and so he had let it grow back.

"Teenagers usually are, but with powers mixed in, i/m not sure their would be much i could do. I can ID people, but i don't think the invisible man's going to carry ID or cash" she said. Her Powers forced her to keep a clear inventory count, but if someone could turn invisible or telaport the booze out. "Floating bottle maybe?" she offerd with a shrug though if a mutant could make themselves invisible, she was sure they could do so with liqueur.

"Honestly i have almost lived in the bar, a bit afraid the place might burn down without me. New York City's not a cheap place but it is beautiful. Still the Neighborhood look's worse then it is, most people seemed happy something opened. Im getting use to it though, i know most of the people who live in the area, a lot of them Mutant.s Back home i never found any Mutnats living in communities" She said, entirely unaware of the order's influence. The bar located just inside the order's further reaches of their insurance plan.

There was tragically little that could be done with mutant delinquents, because there were about a million contingency plans needed to be ready for every possibility. All she could do was keep an eye on bizarre occurrences. "Just keep one of those big red guys at the doors, and I'm sure that'll deter some invisible thieves." Giant red hulking men were likely to deter most forms of delinquent.

Melissa was apparently all business, keeping herself attached to the bar, which was probably necessary with the chaos housed within, but it was still disappointing. "This place is fantastic, but a pretty little thing like you needs to get out and enjoy New York every now and then."

The obvious suggestion for most people would be more like work for a girl like Melissa. "Maybe not the nightlife, since you've got enough of that. But I'm sure you can find other entertaining things in such a big city. Lord knows you could deserve a break," he teased. She ran an alcoholic mutant madhouse. A night off could do her well.