Forge meets Doreen

[x-forge.livejournal.com]

The mansion's resident tech runs into the squirrel girl in the garage, and is assaulted by Monkey Joe, who MIGHT not have the plague.



"No, you have to get down from there, I don't care what you smell. I can't smell it. Everything in here smells like oil!" Doreen snapped, looking up at Monkey Joe, who was frantically searching for the food he swore he could smell. To be out in the garage, it would likely be bird seed, and they could get plenty of seeds and nuts other places. That wouldn't smell like oil.

"You're going to break something...!" she said, moving a box of something on to stand on to try to reach for her stupid squirrel. She didn't trust the shelf's strength enough to climb up on to it to chase after him, "Get back here!"

Forge entered the garage, suddenly doing a double take and freezing in place as he saw the puffed-up tail blocking his view. He managed to get out an utteration of "...um," before a small creature bounded from the shelf, off a stack of boxes, and onto his head.

Immediately, Forge's eyes bugged out and his face went pale white. "Oh god," he gasped, "don't tell me it's a rat. Have I just been attacked by a rat? Rats carry the plague. Please don't let it be a rat. You... girl with tail. Can you check my head and see if I am being attacked by a small plague vector?" The frantic pointing would possibly have been amusing if it weren't... completely hilarious.

"Monkey Joe!" Doreen picked her friend up and held him tightly and looked at the guy her squirrel had jumped, "No it's not a rat, and people don't get the plague anymore, do they? See, it's a squirrel," she said, holding him out, trying not to chuckle at the flailing, because that was kind of funny, "He's my friend. He thought he smelled food. And he really doesn't carry the plague, promise. He's just fat."

"Squirrel?" Forge raised an eyebrow as he stared at Monkey Joe before realization set in. He pulled out his PDA, holding it up to center the camera on Doreen's face and let the image recognition software run until it came up with a name and student record. "Doreen Green, but you prefer Dori, yes? I'm Forge, I don't think we've actually met, although... wait, no, yes, I believe I saw you in Kosovo, right? With the Red X trip? Yes, of course."

He reached out awkwardly and shook her hand firmly, not taking his eyes off of the squirrel. "And you have some sort of... psychic bond with the rodent?"

"Yep, I was there. And no... I don't think so. I just... talk to him. And he talks back," Doreen said simply, "He can be kind of a twit sometimes, but that's because he's a city squirrel. He thinks all the squirrels here are hicks."

Forge raised an eyebrow, glancing at Doreen with a practiced eye for noting physical mutations. Tail, teeth, claws... probably feral, he thought. "Interesting. I suppose I should be more shocked at the attribution of complex emotional evaluations to a squirrel, but then again, my new protegé says 'please' and 'thank you' to her iPod, so who am I to judge, eh?"

"Really? She does? That's cool. I don't think I've met her," Doreen said, "And it shouldn't be too surprising, animals have emotions even if they're not exactly like what people feel, you know? I guess I just get squirrels."

"Miss Vale? Bright young girl. Dark hair, about yay..." Forge held his hand out to indicate Sarah's approximate height, then snapped his fingers and pointed at Doreen. "Yes! Now I recall! You were with Yvette when she had her accident. You did very well in helping those children, exceptionally brave."

"Oh... uh... yeah. Well, we couldn't really leave them there. They don't deserve anything like that," Doreen said, looking down at the floor. At least Yvette was getting better, she smelled closer to normal now, anyway.

"Bah," Forge said with a dismissive wave. "You never need to explain acts of courage. They explain themselves." His attention turned to one of the maintenance clipboards and he gave it half a glance before marking off a list of surplus parts. "So what brings the two of you into the garage, hmm? Planning a summer drive?"

"I only have my permit," Doreen said, "I need to figure out what I have to do here to get the license test. But no, Monkey Joe thought he smelled food. Maybe it was birdseed or something. He snacks more than he should," she said, letting him crawl on to her shoulder.

Forge considered that, then smacked his forehead and reached into one of the multiple toolboxes that littered the garage, producing a package of Pop-Tarts and waving it in discovery. "Good nose there. I don't think we've kept birdseed since Warren was here. I think he ate birdseed. Or something." He shrugged. Worthington had been at the mansion for all of fifteen minutes or something during Forge's tenure, and the inventor had learned the hard way not to make birdseed jokes about Jay.

"Oh, that's what it was!" Doreen said, holding on to a clicking and now squirming squirrel, [They're not yours!] she clicked to her friend, catching only 'mine mine mine mine' when she slipped in to answer him and then tuned it out. She didn't need to be paying too close of attention to Monkey Joe to know what he was saying. "All I can smell around here is oil," Doreen said, "Sometimes if there's too much of something it's really hard to tell things apart."

"Kyle has the same problem sometimes," Forge said with a nod, tucking the foil-wrapped pastries into one of his many pockets. "It's okay, I get the same feeling around lots of new tech all at once. Server farms give me vertigo, for instance." He tapped his head by way of explanation. "That's what I do. Machines. Invention on a base instinctual level. Here, best to probably show."

He pulled the sleeve of his work shirt up over the elbow of his mechanical arm, extending an open hand towards the young mutant girl. "All my own design. Cool, huh?"

Doreen sniffed a couple of times. It didn't have some over the top smell, she hadn't even known it was there, "Yeah! That's really cool. I wish I could do that!"

"If you'd like," Forge offered, "I can show you some of the basics if you have some interest in electronics or mechanics. Consider it... sharing the gifts we've been given." He liked the thought. While he had absolutely no desire to go the route of teaching the students at Xavier's, being able to use his abilities for the benefit of his 'tribe' was becoming more and more important to him these days.

"Really? ...I don't know how good I'd be, I never did very well in classes and stuff back home, but I'd like to learn," Doreen said. Now that she had something to compare it to, she had a feeling that the teachers back home really hadn't cared about what she learned.

Reaching for a piece of paper, Forge scribbled down brief directions to his lab and handed it over to Doreen. "Ten-thirty tomorrow. Think of it as... arts and crafts, but a little different. No harm in seeing if it interests you. If there's one thing that you can learn here, it's that you don't have to be limited by what people think of you as. Just because you might have difficulty with classroom learning doesn't mean you're not smart - and just because you like the outdoors and chatting with squirrels doesn't mean you're unable to venture beyond that. Give it a chance, yeah?"

Doreen took the paper and nodded, "Okay! Yeah, I'll give it a chance. I do like to try new things," she said simply, "I will totally give it a chance. I'll try really hard too, you'll see!"

Forge made a mental note to warn Scott that he was possibly likely to have a rather enthusiastic addition to an Engineering class when the fall semester rolled around again. "I expect you will, Doreen. Now, what do you say you and I - and... Monkey Joe there," he still eyed the squirrel with a suspicious eye and could swear the little fuzzball actually glared back at him, "- what say we go grab some of the leftovers from the 4th? I think there's still some barbecue in the fridge."

"I'll have the potato salad if there's any of it left," Doreen said brightly, "And if there's any deserts and stuff left... I like chocolate, do you like chocolate?" she was really hyper now. The excitement of getting to try something new along with the excitement of raiding the fridge bubbling to the surface.

Forge actually looked astonished at the question. "Of course I like chocolate. I am not some kind of barbarian."