xp_logs | Forge and Paige

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Paige, on her way to go see Moira after Girl Plate Breaking Bonding, loses it and storms in on Forge. There's a lot of screaming.

Paige lived in the basement right now. She was down here to see Moira. Just to see Moira, and then go to her room which was in the basement and only happened to be by the labs, purely coincidental really, and- oh, screw it. So much for plate breaking. Storming through the hall, Paige slammed open the door to their, no, his lab now, quite the feat considering the whole touch pad entry sliding door thing and braced her feet, eyes already ablaze. "I am not your sidekick! Nor am I your 'assistant'! I am your partner, your confidant, your equal and even your friend, when you're not being a total jackass but I did not sign for minionage under you when I agreed to work with you and I don't appreciate you making less of our relationship!"

Forge jerked his head up at the sudden interruption, hearing the grind as the point of the scanning microscope skidded across the delicate substrate.

"God damn it!" he growled, both at the machine and at Paige's interruption. Whirling to face her, he glowered. "Equal? Since when have you seen me as an equal?" Stepping out from around the work bench, Forge stripped off his lab coat. As he wadded it up and threw it forcefully against the wall, he paced back and forth, clenching and unclenching his hands.

"Equals implies an understanding, Paige. A smooth rapport. Not smiles and laughs one minute and then whiplashing to this... this ice cold steel bitch the next!"

"Always, you moron! I wouldn't work with someone I didn't consider good enough for me. You'll notice I never had a steady partner until you came along!"

Tendons in her throat stretching, pulsing hard with her heartbeat, Paige's eyes darkened, refusing to look away, to give him anything. Unbeknownst to her, her right hand was mirroring his at her side before she flung it into the air, gesturing wildly. "And you know what? If when you're angry beyond all reason you giggle like a school girl, I have Samson's number and do suggest you giving him a call. I have every right to be upset."

"Angry?" Forge blinked, but refused to back down. "Because I used the word 'assistant'? 'Sidekick'? In the middle of obviously playful banter? What in the hell is your problem?" Without even thinking about it, Forge crossed the lab in three long steps, raising a finger accusingly.

"Whatever issue you've got with feeling less than people, it ought to be damn obvious that I don't think of you as anything other than the most brilliant person I've ever worked alongside whose name hasn't been thrown around for the Nobel yet!" Wagging his finger for a moment, Forge growled loudly, spinning on his heel and throwing his hands up in frustration. "And that's why you piss me off beyond all belief when you do this shit."

"In case you missed it, so was I! I assumed the part where I informed you I was naked in the lab made that somewhat obvious!" she yelled at his back, just resisting storming forward and forcing him around to face her. "And I'll admit it. I was waiting to see which way it would go with the journal entry. I wanted to make sure. And then you go calling me some egotistical drama queen and I'm sorry, but that is not the sort of thing you call someone you think is brilliant!"

Nostrils flaring, Paige made her way into the lab, yanking her labcoat from it's hook forcefully and throwing it onto a table, where one of her binders of notes and another followed; she was collecting her things. "I hate that it was you, you of all people, who would say it out loud. In case you've missed it, I've been being followed around by sideways glances and bets since I got out of iso and I'd been dealing with it, dealing with it well even, and it was you who decided it would be the cool thing to do to... to..."

"I called you that because you're acting like that!" Forge yelled back, slamming his hand down on top of one of Paige's binders. "When you're at your best, and I have seen you at your best, my god are you brilliant. I've been down here for eight hours trying to get this done, and with your help I'd have had it finished before dinner."

"But then you make a scene, lose your temper, get all impetuous, and where are we then, huh?" he accused, "I might be a jackass, but I'm down here getting the job done, with or without you!"

"Oh, my bad for being insulted and angry and-" Paige cut herself off, taking a shaky breath and looking away, finding another notebook that was hers within the organized chaos. She was not going to say hurt. She wouldn't give him that. "And not wanting to be anywhere near you. And as you said, I'm merely the assistant! You don't need my help! You're getting the job done without me just fine, just like I will get my jobs done just fine without you!"

"You aren't getting it!" Forge growled, leaning over the lab table and resting both hands on the stack of Paige's books. "I'm not calling you 'merely' anything. Yes, you're hard to deal with. You're temperamental, you're mercurial, you're... you're oppressively female - and if you weren't so goddamned smart and wonderful and amazing you wouldn't get me this damn angry when you say you're walking out that door." He slammed a fist down onto the books. "I can find an assistant or a sidekick anywhere, but I'll be damned if I know how to find another partner!"

"So why would you even say it!" she snarled back, lips peeling back to show her teeth as she spoke. "Obviously my so called wonderful traits are being usurped by my other, less pleasant ones. Please, John, tell me what you really think! I'm sorry I'm such a horrible human being, so difficult to deal with!" Picking up a text, Paige checked the inside cover distractedly, looking for her name, and coming up empty handed shoved it forcefully back on the shelf where it belonged. "You might find this difficult to imagine, but there are a good deal of people who have very few problems with me except for the fact that I don't sleep enough and I work too damn hard."

"Because if we're supposed to be equals, partners, a team - we're supposed to trust each other's opinion!" Forge hissed out forcefully. "I know you're not a mind reader, but you should at least have SOME clue as to what I think about you!"

"I thought I did! I thought you thought of me as, well, sane! Obviously that was wrong!" she yelled back, way past keeping her voice down. "You calling me mercurial has nothing to do with an opinion or trust. It might be your explaining your distress, might! But that's about it."

"What is it going to take to get through to you?" Forge groaned, pacing around the table behind Paige. "I talk and talk and maybe that's the problem."

Paige closed her eyes, shaking her head. "You've made yourself perfectly clear."

"No, I haven't," Forge said quietly. Shoving down all the internal voices of doubt and caution, he did the only thing he could think of.

One simple step forward, two hands to reach out and pull Paige forward. Before he had the time to think fully about his actions, Forge leaned in, closed his eyes, and kissed Paige as hard as he could.

Okay, obviously he hadn't. Eyes flying open, Paige found herself being kissed quite thoroughly and not in any way, shape or form pulling away. In fact, if one were to enter the lab right now, they might even say by the way she was closing her eyes again, that she was kissing him right back. It was difficult to say. Either way, when Forge finally did need to take a breath, there was a moment before she could come up with something, anything to say. "No, I... I guess you didn't, then. My bad."

Blinking, Forge took half a step back. "I... uh... hi?"

"Hi," she answered, laughing a little as she blushed. "I'm not supposed to be the nervous one, am I? Right. I... wow."

"Wow?" Forge found a goofy grin creeping onto his face. "Wow is good, yeah? Because yeah, wow."

Laughing nervously, Forge cleared his throat. "You still piss me off, you know. But I am going to stick by my partner, no matter how much we butt heads. No more joking about sidekicks or assistants, I promise."

"Wow is good. That was good. I think it was g- well, no. It was. I'm just really confused right now, but. Maybe I should have stuck with wow." Paige smiled back at him, shoving shaking hands into her pockets. "Can we just... call all this part of my charm or something? Or maybe ignore it on the basis that I am kind of cute occasionally and maybe took it worse than I should have, sorry."

"Occasionally? It's more than occasionally, and more than 'kind of' and it's more than just charm and I am sounding like the king of all dorks again, aren't I?" Forge turned to place his hands flat on the counter to try and stop them from shaking. That was...

Dumb? Completely reckless? Absolutely the coolest thing ever? Yeah.

"I... I mean, this..." he motioned between himself and Paige, "if this, if there IS a 'this' ... I don't want, I mean, I do want to but... partners first, you know? Anything more, I know I can't ask or hope for but now you know and I should just really shut up now and take the inevitable as it comes, right?"

Paige laughed quietly, eyelashes creating shadows on her cheeks as she ducked her gaze again. "I... no. It was good. And that's good. Partners is good. Please," she stumbled, her mind going too fast and in too many directions for her to even have a hope of speaking in straight lines. "I don't know what I want anymore, hon. Everything is a little messed up, you know? But I do want to be your partner, no questions there. I really don't think I could handle losing you, as pitiful and, well, drama queeny as that sounds."

"Oh."

Forge tried to keep the smile on his face, masking the mix of awkward not-quite-regret and more-than-mild disappointment. "I suppose... no, I know that sounds good. Partners. And if... well, y'know..." he managed to shrug, blush, and grin sheepishly at the same time, "I'm usually, y'know, here if I'm anywhere. If, I mean, you ever... did I mention that was really, really nice? Is nice the right word?"

"I just don't want to be accused of leading people on again," Paige said quietly. "I'm not that person. I just don't know how..." She smiled suddenly, tired but pleased underneath it, brushing the melancholy off. "Nice works. Fantastic or awesome or made me want to write an epic poem would also do, it's a comfort level thing."

At this point, Forge was thoroughly convinced that if he died right here, they would need a plasma torch to remove the smile from his face for the funeral. "Hey," he began, trying his best not to stutter or stammer, "I'm not... I mean, I don't expect... anything, really. After today, just the way things were would be the best I thought I could hope for, so if that's the way things are tomorrow, then I am so much more than okay. There's no leading on if I'm not expecting anything, right?"

"I guess we'll see," Paige agreed as best she could, smiling a little wider at the look on Forge's face; he really was obnoxiously adorable. "So really, the only question now is... between the two of us, both hopped up on adrenaline, how fast do you think we can finish the ablation process? I'm thinking about ten minutes, but I'm told I have a bit of an ego."

Shifting gears almost instantaneously, Forge slid across the floor to the microscope, pulling out the damaged substrate and clipping in a clean one. "The substrates aren't meshing properly, and I can't figure out why," he explained, "because I'm only a genius at molecular chemistry, but if I asked a super-genius her opinion..." He stepped aside and motioned to the microscope.