Angelo & Forge - Rationalization

[x-forge.livejournal.com]

When talking about Angelo's whereabouts the previous night, Forge deduces a few details that he's not too comfortable with. Words are had, and some judgments are made.



Forge finished toweling his hair as he wandered out of the bathroom, gingerly avoiding a newly-bruised shoulder where Garrison had thrown him into the wall a few times too many. But then again, Forge thought, he was already starting to get the hang of the leverage concepts that the Mountie was exposing him to, and at least twice he'd been able to tag Garrison with what would have been a rather painful shot to a normal unenhanced fighter.

Still, winding up face-down with your own foot in your ear wasn't a good place to be, and Forge knew that his combat skills were still hovering around the bottom rung of the ladder, with a long way to climb.

As he walked through the suite, he noticed Angelo on his laptop, looking a bit more grey-and-brooding than usual. Sticking his head into his suitemate's room, he rapped his knuckles on the doorframe. "You got in pretty late last night," he said, "or early this morning depending on how you look at it. Rough time?"

Angelo glanced up at him, then shrugged slightly. "Yeah, it kind of was. Trouble at the shelter again." To put it incredibly mildly.

"Shit, those Church of Humanity wackos again?" Forge asked, slinging the towel around his neck. "Some people will go to any lengths, I swear. At least nothing got violent..." He paused, noticing some of the bruises Angelo was sporting. Even as difficult as they were to pick out against the grey tinge of his suitemate's skin, Forge was becoming rather familiar with the kind of marks a fight left on someone. "...or did it?" he concluded. "That what the sudden team scramble in the wee hours was for?"

"Yeah, it got violent", was the bleak response. "An' yeah, that's why the team came out. Miguel an' Alejandra are in the hospital." He was eyeing the obviously fresh bruises just visible under Forge's towel, but distractedly.

"Your friends from L.A.? Ah hell, serious?" Forge asked. At the nod from Angelo, he cursed under his breath and cracked his knuckles. "Well, stuff like that's why the team does what it does. Alejandra and Miguel are going to be okay to testify against the bastards, right?"

"They're gonna live", Angelo confirmed. "As for testifyin'... I don't know. Depends on a lot of things - 'm not sure if they can even identify them, for one." And how many were alive to be prosecuted.

Forge shrugged. "Well, you were there, right? It should be open-and-shut, unless..." Stopping for a moment, he narrowed his eyes at Angelo. "...unless 'justice' already got handed out, is that it?"

"Can't talk about it", Angelo said quietly. "But you can bet even if it was, it didn't touch them all."

"Can't or won't?" Forge shot back. "If you're saying what I think you're saying... shit, Angelo. Those were just humans, man. No matter how whacked out they might be, do you have any clue how much those guys get off on the whole martyr mentality? You just... argh!" He gritted his teeth in shock and frustration and pushed off from the doorframe, pacing around outside Angelo's room. "You went in and lone-wolfed it to save your friends, did you?"

"Against an entire fuckin' cult of psychos, human or not?" Angelo stared at him. "Might be crazy, Forge, but I'm not stupid. I took some back-up. Hell, I would've waited for the team, but there was no time."

"You took 'back-up'," Forge repeated, arms folded across his chest, hands clenched around the ends of the towel. "And you 'can't talk about it'. Jesus, Angelo. I'm not a moron, I can figure it out." He turned away to lean his head against the wall, feeling the cold surface on his warm forehead, whether from the shower or the sudden anger, he couldn't tell. "I asked Storm once why the X-Men use the stupid code names all the time. And she told me that it's because we have to divorce ourselves from our personal agendas when we go out there. That we take the training we've got and we use it like professionals."

He turned quickly, whirling on Angelo, eyes glaring. "Or does leaving the team behind mean that it's all right to make it personal?"

Angelo shot to his feet at the sudden attack, face darkening. "I didn't leave the team behind! I was at Amanda's, Miguel came to us for help, an' there was no time to waste or Alejandra would've been dead." He stalked forward, laptop forgotten, towards the door. "You don't know what happened, you weren't there, an' you didn't see what they were doin'. Christ, it had three of the X-Men lookin' like they were about to throw up. So don't you dare stand there not knowin' any of that an' judge me, Forge."

"Then tell me you didn't cross the line!" Forge yelled back, standing his ground. "The rules don't change just because it's your ex-girlfriend in trouble, you can't take it on yourself to make that call, dammit! Because the instant you did, you left the team behind. There's doing what you think is necessary, and then there's doing what's right," he intoned, staring Angelo down. "And if we can't tell the difference, even when it's personal, then what's that make us?"

"I won't fuckin' tell you anythin' I don't want to", Angelo snarled. "You want to know what it makes me, whatever Scott says? Fucked in the head, an' I know it. You want me off the team? Then go tell Scott an' Ororo so. Maybe they'll even listen."

"Off the team?" Forge shook his head. "I can't make that call. It's not my place. And you're right, maybe I don't have the right to judge you for doing what you thought you had to do. Maybe you're right. Maybe there wasn't any other way to save your friends. Maybe it's not as black and white as I want to believe it can be." He stopped, twisting the ends of the towel in his hands before speaking again. "The only thing that makes a difference is whether you went in there knowing you might have to kill someone to get the job done, or whether you went in there hoping you would."

"You've got a right to tell them your opinion", Angelo said flatly, biting back any words about having thought they were friends. "An' to tell you the truth, Forge... I don't know."

"You don't know," Forge repeated, nodding his head. "You don't know. You know what frightens me, Angelo?" he asked rhetorically, "It's not that you might have killed someone. It's not that you might have even meant to. It isn't even that you can sit there and rationalize the necessity of it. What scares me is the thought that one day, I'm going to be the one sitting there doing the same thing. Rationalizing."

Grabbing a t-shirt off the back of the couch, he threw it over one shoulder and walked for the door. "When you figure it out," he said quietly before walking out of the suite, "you let me know."

Angelo watched him go, still standing where he'd been all along, but eyes far bleaker now. "If I figure it out", he said quietly, then turned back to his laptop.

Comments

[x-jubilee.livejournal.com]

Awesome work guys, this was a great log. I especially like that Forge is worried because he figures he might be in Angelo's position one day and Angelo's battling with probably what his instincts are from the past and what he's been taught he should do as a X-man.