xp_logs | Log - Forge meets David, around dinnertime.

Around dinnertime, Forge takes a tray of sandwiches towards his room, and ends up sharing them with the mansion's newest staff member over some casual conversation. Apparently the two of them don't find each other as odd as everyone else seems to.

Balancing the plate of sandwiches perfectly on his outstretched left arm, Forge weaved past the shorter children in the hallway, gently rapping one child on the forehead as she attempted a lunge for his food. "Get your own, you little anklebiters," he chided, "I bet Dani would love it if you all went into the kitchen at once and asked for frybread."

The resulting stampede down the stairs brought a smile to the boy genius's face, as he turned and almost ran face-first into a student -no, not a student, too old - staff member he didn't recognize. Wasn't one of Nathan's friends, they'd all left last week. That left.

"Oh, hey, Dr. Haller, is it?" he ventured.

Jim blinked down at the boy, mildly startled by his sudden appearance. Occasionally he wished he had the professor's sensitivity; Jim privately suspected that even the sudden appearance of Magneto in a ballgown and a pearl twinset would fail to startle Charles. Still, Jim did well enough concealing surprise the non-telepathic way.

"Yes," Jim grinned, stepping back a pace so neither of them sprained their neck. Forge was slightly on the smaller side, and Jim was not a short man."But it's not 'doctor' yet. Preferably not even 'mister.' Being on staff is strange enough as it is."

Satisfied that the kids had departed, Forge lowered the tray to chin-level, extending it to Haller. "David, then, right? Tuna fish?"

"David's fine, as is tuna," he said, then raised his eyebrows at the platter. "Were you looking for me, or is the plate of sandwiches some kind of training exercise I don't want to know about?"

Forge nodded past David's shoulder. "My room's this way. But since you're standing right there, oh no, I'll have to put off studying the Professor's ethics classwork for a while. Contrary to the growing trend, I'm one of the seniors here who has no intent of dressing up in leather to save the world." Pausing, Forge smacked himself in the forehead. "Shit. You do know about the... um... side project here?"

"Charles teaches ethics? Well, that's hardly a surprise." Jim grinned at the young man, casually claiming one of the sandwiches. "I've known the professor for ten years, two of which I spent here. I wasn't aware of much for at least half of that, but he has kept me up to date. And even if he hadn't, I think I'd have noticed eventually. The average school doesn't have its own hangar."

Forge breathed a sigh of relief, taking a seat on the top stair, laying the tray down on the floor. "Ethics, yeah. And English Lit, and occasionally subbing in History. He popped in on Ms. Munroe's class last year for a surprise quiz on the Spanish Inquisition. He said it was because no one expected it. I didn't get the joke, but I did ace the quiz." He shrugged, extending his mechanical arm to make a few adjustments near his wrist. "So what is it you do again? You mentioned telepathy, and other folks have been talking about pyrokinesis, and then you mentioned telekinesis - which is it?"

Jim raised an eyebrow at the prosthesis, but reserved comment for the moment. "It's all three. Or it was the last time I was here." He sat down on the stair a respectable distance from the student and took a bite of the sandwich. "Pyrokinesis is just telekinesis on a microscopic scale, so they're technically one talent. Usually uncontrolled expression favors one or the other, but in my case the macro- and micro-TK would manifest indiscriminately." The hand holding the sandwich waggled demonstrably. The scars were still clearly visible. "Contrary to the jokes, I never actually set myself on fire, but on bad days I did ignite the things around me. I finally had to ask the professor to block it off -- the power was just too dangerous."

Forge whistled, not giving the scars a second glance. "Most mutants have an inherent safeguard against their own powers, exceptions like Mr. al-Rashid aside, of course. But yeah, not always the secondary effects of them." He flexed his prosthesis in emphasis. "So you mentioned you were touring the institutions of Europe. Staff or patient?"

"Volunteer staff." Another bite. "My years as a patient were spent in America, then later on Muir. Any visit to a mental institution since then has been purely professional." Jim smiled around his sandwich. "With the possible exception of the school." He nodded towards Forge's arm, judging from the boy's demeanor it was safe enough to ask the obvious question. "Powers accident?"

"Sort of," Forge admitted with a sheepish shrug. He chewed his sandwich thoughtfully and swallowed before answering. "I'm an instinctive mechanopath, to use the technical term. I can look at any machine and know how it works, and the fun part, I can build anything I can conceive given materials and a good workshop." He remained silent for a while, then looked down the stairs. "To make a long story short, I built a bomb and got caught when it went off. When I got out of the hospital, my parents brought me here."

Jim, still in mid-chew for the admission, paused only for a moment. Then he swallowed and glanced over at the boy. "Are you doing better now?" he asked, his tone still conversational, although a shade gentler. It was clear he wasn't asking about Forge's injuries.

"Oh yeah," Forge said easily. "Now if I have a problem with my classmates, I just storm off and get kidnapped by Magneto."

Jim shook his head. "The really unfortunate thing is that I don't even feel I need to ask if that was a joke . . ." he smiled, a touch wryly, "though it would explain what Ms. Maximoff meant when she said Magneto has some difficulty coping with a refusal. How are you doing with that particular experience?"

"I'm seeing Dr. Samson twice a week," the young man said, still staring into blank space down the stairs. "I don't have the nightmares as much as I did the first month. Still... I'll walk around a corner and I think I hear that dry chuckle of his... and it's like I'm back there. He wanted me to build him a superweapon, so I did but I ended up using it on Lorna to save her life, and ended up losing my powers for a few weeks as a result." He finally cracked a smile and looked over at David. "It makes more sense in the long version. It's weird, how someone can be such a nice guy and... and someone I'd consider a friend if he weren't... you know. Crazy."

Jim nodded. "It makes sense. The feeling's unsettling, in a way -- it takes some time to really understand that liking someone doesn't necessarily mean you agree with them." He gave Forge a smile of his own. "But I know what you mean. For a terrorist, he's oddly charming."

Downing the last of his soda to wash down the sandwich, Forge looked closely at David. The odd blue and brown mismatched eyes were unnerving, he decided. The guy probably won every staring contest he was ever in. Placing a hand on the empty tray, Forge pressed a small stud in the center, watching as the tray split into a number of metal strips, then folded in on itself like a flower until it collapsed into a tiny metal disc that he picked up and put in his pocket. "A lot of megalomaniacs are like that, I'm told. Usually by people who've had to partner with me for a class, go figure."

Jim grinned. "As long as you're using your powers for good I can't say I'm too inclined to worry about that. Of course, you do realize that should you ever unleash an army of super-compacted food trays upon the world the professor won't even bat an eye in retaliating with that liquid tar Dr. MacTaggart calls coffee." His face assumed a pained expression. "I can't believe she's still allowed to keep that stuff in an enclosed area. They've had at least ten years to document the health risks."

Forge arched an eyebrow. "Why's everyone think there's something wrong with Dr. MacTaggart's coffee? Except maybe that it's not chewy enough." He braced himself against the steps with one arm, kicking his feet over his head and rolling to a standing position. "As for using my powers for good, heh..." He arched an eyebrow. "It's been fun meeting you, David. Be seeing you around."

Jim laughed and, because at his height repeating Forge's trick probably would have taken out part of a wall, rose in a much more sedate manner. "You, too. And while I hope it won't have anything to do with kidnapping and world-domination, I know better than to assume."

"Never can tell, David," Forge said with a cheeky wave, "Never can tell."