xp_logs | Forge & Scott

Forge shows up to give the damage report to his slightly-concussed team leader, and delivers a bit of a lecture as well.

"So how bad is it?" was Scott's first question as Forge appeared at the door of his infirmary room. Some rest had improved the state of his head, so he wasn't seeing two of the younger man. One and a quarter, at the worst. But even if the headache was improving, his leg was only feeling worse. He hadn't quibbled with Jean's decree that she wanted him here overnight; the idea of trying to get back up to the suite, even with some telekinetic help, was not appealing.

Forge glanced down at the small PDA-like device in his hand and shook it, watching it project quick holographic images into the air that resolved into a scrolling block of numbers and text. "Well, you - or whoever - managed to hit a junction box behind four layers of shielding. Those were designed to take glancing shots from Juggernaut, so I'm guessing there was a lot of strength, mass, and momentum -which means either an optic blast from you or a full-speed cannonball from Monet. Anyway," he continued with a wave of his hand, "blame aside, it caused a power surge that knocked the safeties offline. Which meant increased activity, which overheated three of the processing units - I don't have to tell you how much those each cost -which the system tried to compensate for by shifting processing power from the auxiliary arrays, but the procedure requires, yep, that particular junction box."

He tapped a particular area of the floating text, and it froze and expanded into another panel, the translucent glow partially masking Forge's face from view. "You didn't break its back," he said by way of analogy, "but you definitely ruptured a spleen and caused some internal bleeding. The circuit rerouting will be easy, it's just going to take grunt work."

"Well, enlist whatever help you need," Scott muttered, trying to keep the chagrin off his face. He'd figured that the damage had to be fairly extensive, given what had happened, but still. "And yeah - just a hit in the wrong place at the wrong time." He didn't specify by whom; there was no real point to it. "And to think I always assumed that when something like this finally happened it would be one of Jennie's bad luck snaps."

"Couldn't have had anything to do with there being no spotter in the control room, could it?" Forge asked, not even trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Because the spotter would have been able to manually shut down the Danger Room before it fried itself. I wonder who it was that kept drilling all those safety protocols into my head. I wonder, hmm..."

"Probably the same person who got cocky enough to think he could get a better look at the trainees from the floor, instead of the booth," Scott said. "And who is now thanking his lucky starts that he got the worst of it, instead of one of his teammates."

"All three of whom are functionally invulnerable and could have laughed off anything short of an anti-tank rocket," Forge scolded harshly. "And I know you're not dumb enough to make excuses about it being just a practice run. Because you know what? Last summer we had 'just a simple pickup' in the Blackbird that wound up trashing the jet, sending us face to face with the Brotherhood, and getting me injured and maimed. Because we never saw it coming."

Forge paced, one hand balled up into a fist at his side. "Since the day I got cleared for training again, I have been spot-on, by the book, no mistakes. No compromises. Kyle's been pushing himself the same way. We've got new trainees wanting to put on those leathers because of the way you go out there and show us that we can do amazing things fighting the good fight. It's been six months since Apocalypse and New York, and aside from those dust-ups in Japan and Wakanda, a lot of us have been sitting on the sidelines. Training. Preparing for the next big crisis."

He whirled, pointing at Scott accusingly. "What makes you think that you of all people can get cocky and not take this seriously? You lead the team, dammit! If you fail, we fail. If we fail, people come home on stretchers at best, in body bags at worst."

"This didn't have anything to do with not taking it seriously," Scott said, not batting an eye at Forge's anger. "I thought I could observe from inside the scenario more effectively - that I could do that because I'd programmed that scenario and knew what was coming. It was a mistake, and a stupid one, but it wasn't done on a whim." He raised a hand before Forge could say anything in response to that. "That said, I know. And not just because Jean and Charles have both had this conversation with me already today."

Forge gritted his teeth momentarily, then nodded, pulling up the damage notes again. "Once you're up and mobile, I'll need you down there supervising the diagnostics. Apropos of nothing, while you're down, I'll be redesigning your leathers - this is another instance where you've nearly blown your knee out. You're going to have to sacrifice a fraction of mobility for some stability, or you'll be joining the Professor in a wheelchair before you're thirty-five."

Scott's smile was faint and humorless. "If you hadn't mentioned it, I would have asked. I know that once you dislocate something the chances of it going out again get exponentially higher, but three times is ridiculous." He paused, then shrugged his unbruised shoulder with a faint sigh. "Jean warned me that a third time would mean surgery. But hopefully that'll prevent a fourth time. You know, given the kind of shit we get into on a regular basis, I suppose I should be grateful that after ten-plus years of it, all I have is a bum knee."

"And a missing eye, and any number of psychological complexes. And your hairline's receding," Forge added with a smile. "We could get you one of those, you know, headsock things. Kind of hide that a bit. You know, like cyclists use."

"... oh, right. The eye. Did I mention that I was a little concussed?" Scott rubbed absently at the scars on the side of his face. "You know, I don't notice that so much anymore? The eye, I mean, not the concussion. Maybe because it doesn't really get in the way much. Whereas the damned knee aches even when it's not dislocated. You know, past thirty, it really is all downhill."

"Says you," Forge replied with a rap of metal knuckles against the steel of his artificial leg. "I have a manufacturer's warranty that claims otherwise."

"Oh, hah. Don't think I've forgotten your 'one body part per person' rule, you skinflint." He really was a little concussed.

"That's it," Forge said, reaching out to poke his team leader in the (hopefully uninjured) shoulder, "I'm calling in Amelia to give you the once-over. And I know where she keeps the stethoscopes."

He headed for the door, then stopped and turned around. "Knock it off with the breaking yourself, boss. Because at the rate things are going, we're going to be left with me in charge and no one wants that. Least of all me."