There was once upon a time where patrolling a city might have been the modus operandi of a much younger mutant – in theory, though age was relative when you could slip through timelines with ease – than the one currently waiting at a specific place at a specific time for a specific individual who, according to what he had picked up from his own monitoring of the timeline, would be there, following a specific group of low time criminals that probably weren’t worth the trick arrows in his quiver. Of course, that was an immediate perception of it, but who knew if those same low level criminals would become something worse if they weren’t stopped by a character that, frankly, he had little to go on other than what Peter had vouched for.

The uncertainties were why he was waiting, why he wanted to see what this Roy Harper could do in action versus whatever records the C.S.A. might have had on him, and while there could have been something found in the S.P.Y.R.A.L. archives, doing so with his own two eyes was far better an experience than reading it on someone’s observation report.

So he sat, hood on his head from the new and improved cowl he wore, and he waited, enjoying a cup of coffee from a Thermos that sat nearby keeping the rest nice and warm while he kept his eyes on the street across from him for the expected commotion. It might not have been a big bust – definitely not to the level of trying to take on a walking bolt of electricity riding high on the Goblin Force – but this was what the vigilante class of heroes did: Kept the city safe on a more direct level of patrolling the streets, taking out the big and small problems as they went, and usually finding out that the rabbit hole went far deeper than a bunch of goons. In a way, it worked well for the C.S.A., able to keep eyes and ears on any number of situations through their potential agents.

And when push came to shove, all Nate did was sit back and watch, observing how this Roy Harper, someone from a universe not his own, took out the trash. Of course, he could have helped. Of course, it would have been easy. Of course, Nate had inkling to, a test of teamwork if anything, but no – he continued to sit there, coffee in tow, until all had been said and done in a flurry of red, arrows pinning those lucky enough to just find them caught up in their clothes while those with far less favor on their side caught the sharp end painfully.

Up on his feet in due time – namely when he had finished the cup of coffee in his hand and secured the top of it back on the Thermos – the shift in the air about them wasn’t particularly obvious as he threw up the telepathic blinders, a means of keeping things quiet. After all, it wouldn’t have been the first time someone had intended to snoop on recruitment efforts if anyone was around and while grunts did fine and well for such pursuits, Nate had his own means of making sure there was some camouflage from prying eyes and ears.

“You must be Roy,” Nate said, his cybernetic eye emitting its usual glow as he looked over the archer for a moment, arms crossed as if he was sizing up what damage he could actually do to something far less street thug and far more impending world threat or something like it; and just like that, he extended his hand for a shake. Whether it was taken or not – well, he supposed that would be up to Roy to make the judgment call on whether he accepted it as it was or something far more suspicious.

“Nathan Summers,” he introduced, tacking not a code name or necessarily his home team to the end of it, but his employer – if that was what the agency could be considered. They gave him a pay check; they even provided accommodations that he didn’t bother using; he had clearance in a few different departments and had a bead on placement in another that was more up to his speed. ‘Employer’ seemed like far too light a word for something as in-depth as his placement with the C.S.A. had become in one timeline or another. “I’m with the Commission on Superhuman Activities – Peter Parker has told me a little bit about you. I’m here to see if you’re interested in some work.”

Of course there was hesitation. It went hand-in-hand with being approached by tall, dark, mysterious and arguably mutant who had a proposition of work from a government agency that didn’t exactly have the full backing of the super powered community with it; but while he had his own ulterior motives with being a part of the Commission, plenty of it to do with keeping a handful of individuals off the radar or relics from falling into the wrong hand, Nate would have been foolish to think that every driving force of the C.S.A. was to stick it to his fellow shifters. Just as anyone else, they did their good things and their bad. They had their questionable partnerships and their equally questionable missions – something he knew would only get deeper as the more clandestine operations found agents to carry them out.

He was nonplussed – at least as much as he could be – when the conversation erred towards humor and smart-aleck, Nate all at once able to recognize where Peter Parker and this Roy Harper might have gotten along so well. Tangent thought at it was, it still elicited a sigh out of Nate’s lips even as Roy continued, stepping into the territory of enhancements not quite hidden from view as they might have been in any other circumstances – namely those that didn’t involve patrolling the streets, looking for thugs to stop or rookies to bring aboard.

Still, the similarity got a smirk and that was saying something when he was attempting to be all business and very little of the charming Summers brat he was any other day of the week.

”Can’t say we come with business cards,” Nate said, though he was sure there was someone in the agency who liked to run around town, approaching super heroes in suits and flashing mysterious business cards with a dubious smile like the middleman to the big time in a Marvel movie, “but if you’re interested meet here – the Presidio – at this place and this time for what might as well be your orientation.”