xp_logs | Wednesday afternoon: Forge & Marie-Ange // Forge & Wanda

Wednesday afternoon, Forge stops by the Snow Valley Center and comes to Marie-Ange with quite possibly the most unexpected question of all time.

Forge smiled as he passed Mark's desk and looked around the Snow Valley office space. The first time he'd come by for his security consultation with Remy and Pete, there had still been packing boxes used as impromptu dividers and stacks of paper sitting atop folding tables. Now months later, he'd be hard-pressed to tell the Snow Valley Memorial Research Center apart from any other bustling corporate office. Even down to the nameplates on individual office doors. Of course, "P. Wisdom" and "R. LeBeau" weren't found on the directory anywhere, but that was to be expected.

Hopefully, what would be less expected was Forge stopping in front of the door marked "Marie-Ange Colbert" and knocking politely before sticking his head in with a sheepish "Hi."

Forge was the -last- person Marie-Ange expected at her door. He wasn't even in the list of people she might have unexpectedly understood being there. Angelo, Nathan, Kurt - there were more than a few people ahead of him on the 'people who might drop by' list. So her confused blinking and stunned silence was entirely normal.

"Hi," Forge repeated with a little more emphasis, easing himself into the office but not closing the door. He went to stick his hands in his pockets, paused, then settled for leaning against the wall. "You guys seem to have things going pretty busy here, it looks like."

Marie-Ange was still confused. Doug was not in her office, Forge had to be talking to her, why on -earth- would he have come all the way to the office to talk to her? She glanced around, to make sure that there wasn't an invisible linguist or witch somehow hiding in her office. "Most days, yes. Some are just endless research and, of course, tormenting Mark."

"Ah yes, Mark," Forge said nonchalantly, peering about to see what exactly Marie-Ange was looking for. "Well, the research sure does... well, that is, it goes to good... I'm sure it's all very good. Yes."

"Forge?" Marie-Ange asked, sounding very -very- confused. "Was there something you needed? Or wanted?" The slightly nervous speech she -was- familiar with, as much as it reminded her of Doug sometimes. "There have not been more odd happenings at the mansion have there? No strange visions? No more of Marie's odd precognitive visitor?"

With a blink of his eyes, Forge stood up straight, the nervousness seeming to fade away in an instant. "Actually, I came here for you," he said, walking over to stand on the other side of Marie-Ange's desk, leaning subtly forward with his hands clasped behind his back. "Friday nights at seven, there's a string jazz quartet that plays at Ricardo's, one of the better seafood restaurants in Manhattan, or so I'm told. I'd like to take you to see them. With dinner, of course. Interested?"

Marie-Ange held up a finger, blinked at Forge, and then put her hand back down. She was still very confused, but the beginnings of a plan were starting to come to mind. "Forge? Are you asking me out?" She asked slowly. "That is not to say that I object to the asking but I want to be certain that I not somehow misunderstanding.."

Forge nodded, resting one hand on Marie-Ange's desk and adjusting his tie with the other. "That's exactly what I'm doing, yes. I know you all have been working around the clock here, and I've been busy and -- beyond all that, I want to take you out to a nice dinner. So yes, I am indeed asking you out. And by the lack of objection, I do not want to misunderstand when I take that as a yes?"

"I can tell that you've spent time with Dr. McCoy..." Marie-Ange said, without answering. "You sound as if you've taken a thesaurus out to a nice dinner.." She smiled when saying it, and not in any of the usual 'I am laughing at you and you do not know it." ways. "I would like that, a great deal." And then she paused, and raised an eyebrow. "At Ricardo's? How did you get a reservation for Ricardo's?"

Forge tapped his chin conspiratorially. "A matter of luck, actually. One of my professors was going to take his wife there for their anniversary, but as it turns out, she's been seeing their accountant and I happened to be around the corner when he called to cancel his reservation.I figured, see an opportunity available, take it." He smiled broadly and stood up straight. "I can pick you up at the brownstone apartments around, say, quarter past six on Friday?"

Ricardo's -was- a good restaurant, and it was not as if Forge was terrible company. He'd grown up, quite a lot. Although, not too much. In her heels, she was taller than he was, Marie-Ange realized. Which meant she should probably wear flats on Friday. "That would be very good, yes. Although, I think perhaps call first, in case I am stuck here, or there is a subway delay?"

"Of course," Forge nodded and stepped for the door. Pausing at the threshold, he turned and gave a warm smile. "I'll see you Friday, then."

After leaving Marie-Ange's office, Forge runs into Wanda amidst a perfect example of chaos-based organization strategies. Years ago, she taught him to dance - now he needs to learn something else.

Juggling the paper sack, books and keys, Wanda struggled to unlock her office door. With the realization that her eating habits were going the way of the dinosaurs, she'd taken to either making sure she brought lunch or went out to get it. Fantastic plan until she had to juggle everything to get back in her office. She needed a bigger purse.

Deftly, a metal hand shot out to steady Wanda's lunch before the entire stack tumbled to the floor. Carefully, the entire balanced tower was lifted out of Wanda's hands as Forge grinned around the side of the entire mess. "You know," he said, "for someone whose powers generate chaos, you seem to carry enough around with you naturally."

Wanda sighed, sounding put upon as she finally got the key to click in the door. "Chaos, enough like static that it tends to build up. Now if I could only get balloons to stick to me, I believe I would be set." A grin showed through as she took her things back. "Thank you and welcome back, Forge. How was Scotland?"

"Cold, harsh, and barren. Other than that, relatively pleasant," he quipped, leaning in the doorway and looking at Wanda's absolute mess of an office. "Holy crap. And they say I use the tornado system of organization. Please tell me you've got some kind of system for this."

"Controlled chaos," she promised him, setting everything down on a free spot. "And the consequence of what some might considering too many projects on one's hands." Reaching over, Wanda removed one of the overblown maps and started to roll it up. "What brings you by here? Work or pleasure?"

"Oh, personal stuff," Forge replied, although the huge grin implied the second reason more than the former. "Just doing something that should have been done a while ago. Oh, hey, you can probably help. I need to become knowledgeable on string jazz music by Friday. Got any ideas?"

For a second, all Wanda could do was stare. "Is this anything like the time I taught you to dance?" she asked, sounding intrigued. "String jazz music, hrm? I think I can educate you fairly well by Friday, certainly. Any particular reason or did you suddenly have a burning desire for new musical tastes?"

Shrugging his shoulders, Forge rocked back on his heels before answering. "Because there's a string quartet doing a jazz performance at Ricardo's - you know, the real nice seafood restaurant out in Manhattan? - on Friday, and I have a date and wish to appear knowledgeable. As it stands, all I know about jazz is that it usually has lots of trumpets and some guy named Dizzy."

Despite it being cleverly hidden amid a bunch of other words, very interesting in and other themselves, Wanda's sheer innate ability of gossip managed to latch onto the word "date". "A date?" she asked, grinning wickedly. In the mean time, she was flicking through the stack of CD cases on her desk.

"Is it absolutely unthinkable that I have a date?" Forge replied sharply, but with a tone of amusement behind the words to show that he was rather surprised himself. "As a matter of fact, yes. Dinner and nice music and who knows? Even we geniuses are allowed to surprise people by having an occasional social life."

Wanda leveled a look at him. "Unthinkable? No. But I am glad to see you getting outside of your lab, Forge." She looked amused. "We do tend to bred workaholics around this area, you know. At least someone is getting out. Who's the lucky lady for this evening of dinner and nice music?"

Forge absently brushed the knuckles of his prosthetic hand against his tie, absently inspecting the metal. "Marie-Ange."

The CD case she was currently holding bobbled slightly at the name and Wanda found herself staring at Forge again. Marie-Ange and Forge. Now that made for some interesting dating material. "Now the sudden need to know about the music makes sense," she said after blinking. "Oohh...I guess that really answers my earlier question of 'work or pleasure'..."

"Yes, yes, you're very smart. I just..." Forge paused, wondering how much to tell Wanda. Especially with both Marie-Ange and Doug working in close proximity, the news would spread quickly enough. "I don't want to look like an idiot," he admitted. "And it's kind of me wanting to show her that I'm not just the guy in the lab that everyone thinks I am, you know?"

"Of course I am," Wanda teased but nodded, finishing pulling out a few CDs. "Oh yes, I understand, a lot actually. And to be honest, I am glad to see Marie-Ange dating as well." The whole seeing your ex-thing every day was not a strange experience for her so she could understand that as well. As always, Wanda had her own opinions on the situation but it wasn't her place to say something. She handed over four CDs to Forge saying, "Here you are for a start and I can get you some other things by the week's end."

Nodding, Forge tucked the CDs into his jacket pocket and looked around at the stacks of paper and books in Wanda's office. "Okay, even I look at this and want to set you up one of those little cubbyhole organizers. I think if obsessive-organizer Paige saw this, she'd literally explode. Like, husk into nitroglycerin and just boom. There'd be Post-it Notes everywhere."

"Didn't you know? My office is the first defense against an obsessive-organization." It was with great effort that Wanda didn't crack a smile. "If someone gets around Mark and are armed with an organizing file, we send them here. They will be so distracted that they will be easily disarmed." She paused and then grinned. "And one of my degrees just happens to be in bullshitting."

"I should get one of those," Forge mused, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "Is this sort of how I keep Kyle in check by threatening him with my dihydrogen monoxide projector?" He patted his pocket and nodded to Wanda. "Thanks for the CDs. I'll let you know how everything goes? But given the rumor mill here, I'm pretty sure word will get back fast."

Which, of course, was exactly what Forge was counting on.

"When you stop by to drop the CDs back off, we will do lunch so I can pump you for information," Wanda responded, smiling sweetly. The situation was going to turn out interesting, that much she was sure. And it would be fun to watch from the sidelines.

"You European gals sure are keeping me busy," Forge said with a smile, sliding out the door into the hall. "I'll keep you informed. And thanks, Wanda."