The X-Project

Catseye comes to see Forge about repairing her collar, and they have a conversation over pastrami.



With a plate containing a pastrami sandwich in each hand and her ripped collar over one wrist, Catseye knocked on the door to Forge's lab with her tail. "BrainyButtBoy? Catseye heard you came back! Can Catseye come in? Catseye needs BrainyButtBoy's brains please!"

The door slid open, revealing Forge seated at one of the workbenches, poking at a number of floating holographic images, setting some rotating while others expanded, twisting and reconfiguring themselves. "Hey there, Cats," he said distractedly, sweeping his hand through the images, wiping them out of the air as the projector before him ceased its humming. "Hey, snacks! Awesome!"

His happy tone seemed at odds with the rather ugly black eye he was sporting, with what looked to be a bandaged cut above it. Bandages around his ribs were visible through his tank top, but the young inventor seemed genuinely happy to see his feline friend.

Catseye grimaced at the sight of Forge, setting the plates down on a clear spot on the workbench and poking gently at the bruise around his eye. "BrainyButtBoy went and got hurt again! Catseye hates it when BrainyButtBoy gets hurt! So many friends being hurt, Catseye does not like!" Yvette, Jean-Paul, now Forge? "Catseye should have been with BrainyButtBoy to help keep him safe." She hated that she was never there to help her friends when they were injured. "How did BrainyButtBoy hurt himself?"

Forge swatted halfheartedly at Catseye's hand, sticking his tongue out. "Some jerk tried to take over the hotel we were vacationing at," he explained, "He sicced a bunch of robots on me. I suppose I won, since I walked out of there and they're all spare parts now. Go me."

Biting into one of the sandwiches, a corner of Catseye's mouth turned up in a smile. "Robots? Did BrainyButtBoy take the parts home to play with here at the BigHouse?" She held out the collar to him. "If BrainyButtBoy is not too busy playing with robot spare parts can he fix Catseye's collar? Inez broke it. By accident," she added.

Forge laughed. "No, they're quite a bit behind the bleeding edge of technology. Unlike those," he jerked a thumb to where some of the cybernetics he'd recovered from the Reavers in Brazil rested in a case behind reinforced plexiglass, "which I'm still trying to reverse-engineer. Someone out there's working on some seriously high-end stuff and I want to find out who it is."

Noticing the collar, Forge took it from Catseye and walked over to a microscope, peering at the edges of the tear. "Oooh, yeah. We should have replaced this a while ago," he announced. "The memory fibers are torn and it looks like the chemical-sensitive oxidizers have, well, oxidized so it's basically scrap now. Although since you seem to be spending a lot more time in human form these days, I'll bet a bit more variation would be welcome, hmm?"

Catseye had wandered over to the plexiglass case to survey the cybernetics absently as Forge looked at the collar. "Catseye has to be a human to drive, and Catseye loves driving. Catseye likes to swim too and it is more fun in human form. But Catseye still likes being a cat the best," she said quickly, trying to be casual but frowning to betray her discomfort with what she'd admitted. "But yes, different clothes if BrainyButtyBoy can make them will be nice. Nick might like."

"It shouldn't be too hard," Forge mused, still peering through the microscope. "We can just figure what you like and I can have it fabricated with the same treated fabric and wait whoa hold up! Nick? Who is this Nick fellow? Do I know Nick? Is there suddenly some Nick boy that is sniffing around? Do I have to go have a talk with Nick? Should I bring a pipe wrench?"

"Yes Nick is sniffing around," Catseye answered. "Nick is a wolf sometimes. He has a good sense of smell. He is Catseye's friend." She wasn't entirely sure why she was worried that he liked her clothes, but she brushed that confusion aside. "Yesyes BrainyButtBoy should go talk to him because he is very nice but Catseye thinks he does not like being around other people because he feels nervous about his wolf self, and Catseye is a cat so he is not nervous with Catseye but Catseye thinks he should make lots of friends like BrainyButtBoy! BrainyButtBoy can bring a wrench if he wants to. Maybe Nick will play fetch with BrainyButtBoy? Does BrainyButtBoy like Catseye's name for him or want Catseye to call him another name?" she asked suddenly, to derail Forge off the topic of Nick.

Forge tried to keep up with the sudden flood of information. "Oh, that guy. Aha, yes." Suddenly he was very thankful for Catseye's naivete, the fact that she'd missed the hidden implications in Forge's questions probably meant that she wasn't getting herself into any of that kind of "playing fetch" with the new students. He was well aware that Catseye was technically an adult, but a part of him would always be somewhat overprotective of his friend.

Thinking about her other question, Forge shrugged. "BrainyButtBoy, ShinyBitsBoy, it all makes sense to me," he said, moving around to enter a materials order into the computer. "You name things like you see them. I never really put much stock in names. People call me 'Forge' because that's my family name, but even that's just a name my father made up when he left the reservation to go to college. Hardly anyone calls me 'John' except for my parents and the Europeans."

"Some people think Catseye should not name things like she sees them," she pointed out, devouring more of her sandwich and holding the second one out for Forge. "It might be mean and Catseye does not want to be mean, especially not to ShinyButtBoy." She smirked. "BrainyButtBoy's fatherperson made up the name Forge? Like how Catseye makes up names?"

Forge shrugged. "Kind of. He thought that if he kept his tribal name, people would think he was just some dumb Indian from the reservation. I never asked him why he chose 'Forge'. Names never really meant all that much to me. It's why I didn't bother picking one for the X-Men. Codenames there usually mean... well, kind of what your names for people do."

He turned around, hopping up to perch on the bench and begin noshing on the offered sandwich. "Scott's called Cyclops, see, because he used to wear the visor that made it look like he had one eye. Now he actually has only one real eye, so that's irony. Jean uses Phoenix, because she came back from the dead. Even outside the X-Men, Doug likes to call himself Cypher, because it means a kind of code, which is what he does. Sometimes folks choose names to define their own identity. It's why more people know the name Magneto than Erik Lehnsherr - that way they see the construct, but not the man."

The catgirl nodded in understanding in response to Forge's comment about the way his dad feared to be perceived. "Humans are sometimes as mean as Catseye used to be calling people by what they are instead of their special name." She paused to chew as she pondered what he'd said about the X-Men. "Catseye does not understand irony, or phoenix, but Catseye understands about people choosing names to... define who they are. Like clothes, yes?" she inquired, picking at the sleeve of the shirt she wore. "Forge wants to make Catseye a collar with more clothes so she will look different sometimes?"

"A few collars, actually. You might be a little more resilient than most of us when it comes to cold weather," Forge stated, "but I think we can add some variety."

"Catseye can have different things for working at Elpis!" she stated, excited despite herself. The catgirl didn't usually get excited about clothing in the least. "Is BrainyButtBoy going to make now, or can Catseye and BrainyButtBoy go driving?"

Forge pondered for a moment, then reached into his desk and grabbed a digital camera. "Tell you what," he said, "Tomorrow, you drive us into town, and we'll take some photos of clothes that you like, how about it?"

Devouring the rest of her sandwich, Catseye jumped up and down and threw her arms around Forge. "BrainyButtBoy is the bestest! Catseye thinks that is the best idea! Catseye loves driving with Forge the most because he doesn't get afraid when Catseye drives."

Forge laughed, and bumped Catseye's forehead gently with his own. "That's because I installed passenger-side airbags."