xp_logs | Log - Forge and Laurie, Saturday morning

Forge has had something on his mind for a while, and it comes out in a discussion with Laurie

Laurie placed the leftover turkey in a large container and then slotted into an empty spot in the fridge. As it was going, they were going to be eating leftovers for awhile, although her mind was already planning out ways to use the food. Turkey burgers seemed like an interesting way to use up some of the leftover turkey and had the bonus of being delicious as well.

If someone with enhanced senses was in the kitchen, a small *thump*
might have been heard from below in the basement. As it was, Laurie
only had to wait a minute or two before Forge walked slowly into the
kitchen past Laurie, opened the freezer, and reached in to produce a
double handful of ice. Blinking through a layer of soot that seemed to
coat his face, he leaned face-first into the ice, letting out a
muffled groan.

Laurie paused in her stacking of containers, looking at Forge with
something akin to exasperation. It wasn't that someone stuffing their
head in the freezer was normal, far from it, it was just that this was
Forge and this was the mansion, you would have to get up rather early in
the morning to shock most of the residents who had been there for more
then a few weeks.

"Problem?" she finally asked, trying to sound somewhat sympathetic and
not at all laughing at him quietly.

"Testing volatility of new jet fuel additives," Forge mumbled, leaning
back and rubbing the rapidly-melting ice over his face. "Got
distracted and leaned a bit too close. Am I missing... an eyebrow?" he
asked, feeling over his face.

Laurie took a quick look at his face, making note that there were no
serious burns, just a certain bright redness to his complexion. He'd
peel later on but that was about it. "Your eyebrows are still there. Why
weren't you wearing protective gear?" she asked, reminding herself that
she'd promised not to be so bossy this year as part of her New Year
resolutions.

Questions were still okay though...right?

"Got careless," Forge admitted, wiping his face with a towel. "Didn't
have my head in the game. On the upside, I'm pretty sure the ignition
levels were well within acceptable parameters for the Blackbird's
scramjet system."

Laurie walked over to the cupboard under the sink and pulled out a small
first aid kit, rummaging inside for a second before removing some after
sun moisturiser. "It's not like you to be careless," she said, handing
him the tube.

"I know," Forge said, rubbing the sunburn cream into his skin, wincing
slightly. "Just been a little bit unfocused lately."

"Since the um, powers thing?" Laurie asked, placing the kit on the bench
till Forge was done with the moisturiser. She knew Forge had suffered
through something recently, the cane and problems with his artificial
limbs had been hard to miss. She hadn't been aware that it might have
affected more though. She gave him a concerned look for the first time,
hoping this wasn't the start of something bigger.

Forge looked over at Laurie quizzically, then shook his head. "Ah, no.
This is thinky-think stuff, not brainmeats stuff. I just..." he
sighed, then slumped his shoulders and looked over at Laurie. "I need
to learn how to fight. I know I'm not going to be any good, and I know
I'm never going to be able to be like Kyle or Garrison or Logan or
even frickin' Jennie - but I nearly got killed because I didn't
have the first clue how to even defend myself."

It took Laurie a second to refocus, she hadn't ever thought she'd see
Forge talking about the need to learn to fight. It was...well, this was
Forge.

"Killed?" Laurie asked, not entirely sure what else to say. She hadn't
known, there had only been mentions of some sort of powers overload in
the team notes.

Forge nodded. "This guy, Cortez. Ramped my power off the scale. I
could... I could see everything, Laurie. Celestial mechanics, a
unified field theory, the interworkings of every cell of the human
body - it all clicked and it made sense. It was like... like seeing
with the eyes of God for that moment. And it almost killed me." He
shook his head in shame. "I keep thinking that if I could have
defended myself, even had some clue..."

He angrily punched a fist on the counter, sending a stray ice cube
skittering across the kitchen. Closing his eyes and taking a deep
breath, Forge's voice came out quieter. "Do you know why I don't take
the self-defense training? Or why I don't build weapons? Or take the
easy job working for the military in defense contracting?"

Laurie had known Forge for a little while now, and thought she might
have a small idea as to why but she'd rather know then guess. "No, at
least, not with 100% certainty anyhow. Even physical limitations, well,
you're a genius. I figure you could easily make your limbs combat ready
if you wanted to."

"Because if I do, then I will use them," Forge hissed out.
"When I was there in that tower, and I saw Milan - all his misguided
Magneto-worship and delusions of grandeur - I didn't want to
stop him," he confessed. "I didn't want to leave him tied up in
front of a police station with a note saying 'From your friendly
neighborhood X-Men' - I wanted to hurt him. Because he made me
look like a fool. Because I was angry."

He crossed his arms over his chest, looking down at the floor. "I
thought that if I never learned how, then I wouldn't be dangerous. But
if my only other choices are either to sit on the sidelines while
other people risk their lives, or to keep on being a victim, then I am
going to have to learn to deal with being dangerous, Laurie. And that
terrifies me."

"It won't change." Laurie replied, and wondered if that was overly harsh
of her. She'd been dealing with being unwittingly dangerous for awhile
now and it was hard, something she hated having to deal with but it was
still always there, inescapable. "You'll be terrified every time you do
something but you'll do it because you need to. I'd be worried if I
stopped being worried, about hurting people, you know? It's the
difference between us and them, we still care enough to wonder, they
don't."

Forge laughed self-deprecatingly. "Is that what it is?" he wondered
aloud. "People like Scott, or Shiro, or even Angel, they could cause
more damage than an entire tank battalion. They're aware of that.
Cain, Logan, Marie? Could kill someone without even trying hard and
they know it. Everyone knows it. Me?" he chuckled to himself. "There
are thirteen things I can see right now in this room that combined
could create a device that would leave this building a smoking crater
and render the area impassable for at least six months. And I can't
turn that off."

He shook his hair out of his eyes and looked at Laurie. "So the thing
that makes me different from Magneto, or Nimrod, or Sabretooth is that
I'm aware of it?"

"No. I'm sure they're fully aware of the damage they can do." Laurie
replied, looking him directly in the eye. "It's that we care about it.
Do you think someone like Sabertooth or Nimrod has nightmares about the
people they've killed? Do you think they spent years not doing something
because they were scared of using it if they did do it?"

"No," Forge said firmly. "And I can't help but wonder if that's what
I'm worried about. The day it becomes comfortable."

"John Henry Forge," Laurie said, giving up her position by the food
containers and stopping directly in front of him. "That day is never
going to come. You won't let it."

"You're more certain than I am," Forge admitted with a wry grin. "I
suppose that's why I keep you around, huh?"

"Well, that and my fantastic ass." Laurie replied with a cheeky grin,
pulling him down into a hug. "You're a good man, it's something I'll
never doubt."

Forge comically peeked over Laurie's shoulder. "You know, I think
acknowledging that comment could be a misdemeanor in this state. The,
um, first part, not the second."