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The Forge	By : IndigoMiko Category: Marvel Verse Movies > Iron Man (all) > Iron Man (all) Views: 1688 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Iron Man, X-Men, Avengers, or any other Marvel verse property. I also don't make any money from writing this. All I do is wile away my free time kicking things around inside my head. It's a mess up there.

Chapter List
- 17
- 18
- 19
Disclaimer: I checked everything, still no ownership papers for Iron Man. Also don’t own Chloe x Halle. I make no money from anything, ever, especially from writing this. Blah, blah, blah put the fire ants back in their homes.
Chapter 18: Who We Are
“I could be a warrior. Yes, I am a warrior. There’s no need to worry love…You know where to find me.” Warrior Chloe x Halle
Thursday morning Tony didn’t video call her. The news was talking about an office building in Newark being leveled overnight, trapping workers inside. It was a good thing JARVIS could tell her Tony was okay otherwise she may have begged a ride from Romanoff.
He was not supposed to be in New Jersey, but it was a little bit too close for Forge to brush off. Maine would have been too close for her to ignore.
He was due back at the airport in Malibu at three but didn’t want her there to pick him up. So Forge spent between three and the time he got home pacing around the living area waiting for him to walk in the door.
When he did she knew something bad had happened. The side of his face was bruised, he had a busted lip and it looked like he was holding himself a bit gingerly. Forge stood there cataloguing his injuries until she remember JARVIS.
“JARVIS scan Tony for injury,” she commanded.
“Uh,” before Tony could protest JARVIS was already done.
The AI flashed up an outline of Tony’s problem areas and started reciting them aloud. No broken bones. Some damaged muscles in his back. A nasty cut on his leg. Bruises, swelling. Forge took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second. Okay. She could work with this.
She pointed up the stairs. “Upstairs. Strip.”
A smirk slid across his face. “I missed you to,” he purred.
“Oh, you’re gonna get naked, but you’re not gonna like it.” She would bet her smile looked a little threatening.
She followed Tony up the stairs and drug out the first aide kit. He had a separate tub in his bathroom and so Forge helped the billionaire superhero idiot out of his clothes and plunked him in the bath. First aide started with his face.
“Are you angry?” He asked after a bit.
At him, “No,” and that was the truth. “At the people who caused this, yes. Are they still alive? Do you have their address or name?” Because she could take a trip while he was taking a bath. Romanoff would totally be okay with lending her a ride for that.
He reached out and grabbed her hand, slopping a bit of water on the floor. “No, I think they’re all probably dead.”
“Probably dead?”
“A building fell on them,” he commented lightly. Forge took his statement to mean a building also fell on him. So definitely New Jersey.
Forge let herself stew a bit as she fussed. She knew she was fussing too. Stupid man made her do stupid things right from the start.
The bruise on his back was enormous and black. The cut on his leg was jagged and deep enough to maybe need stitches. She didn’t know how that was going to work. Forge ran a hand across her face.
She hadn’t even been in the fight this time and she had a tinge of that sick adrenaline feeling. It was bad enough just knowing he was under a building; pinned, crushed. Forge held her breath for a moment and then drew a deep one in through her nose.
“Hey,” Tony called tugging on her hand.
Forge opened her eyes. She hadn’t remembered closing them.
Tony’s eyes darted around her face. “I’m sorry,” he apologized.
“No,” the word shot out of her mouth. “You didn’t do anything. I have,” she clenched her jaw. She did not like talking about it. It reeked of therapy and fuck FOKUS for ruining that for her too. “A few anxiety triggers.” She rolled her shoulders uncomfortably. “Normally its FOKUS related stuff. It has to be kind of bad for that, but being crushed,” she trailed off. “My Uncle Wall was killed by being crushed under a car that was on a malfunctioning lift. I wasn’t there to keep it from falling on him.”
Tony pulled her down until he could reach her temple and kissed the side of her head. Georgia took in another deep breath and centered herself. Tony was not under the building, stuck. Tony needed his leg looked at.
“What are we going to do about the leg?” She asked.
“It just needs a few stitches.” He kept rubbing her hand between his. She let her eyes fall closed again and focused on the calluses he had on his fingertips and palms. Was it too fast for her to love the man? It should be. Right?
“I don’t know how to do stitches,” she said lamely.
When she opened her eyes again he was giving her that small smile. “I do.”
“Right,” she sniffed. “I need my hand.”
He tilted his head but obediently released her hand.
“Tylenol, Ibuprofen, or Aspirin?” She was trying to be business.
“Tylenol,” he replied.
She collected the pills and a glass of water. It was tap. He could deal. He had that small smile on his face the whole time. When he’d taken the glass of water and pills from her she felt she could continue.
“I hope you found something worth,” she forced herself to say it, “almost getting pinned under a building?”
“JARVIS is trying to hack their systems right now. The Xenix Foundation. Their security is on par with SHIELD’s.” He answered.
“Of course it is,” she sighed. Rat bastards.
……………………………….........................................................................
Tony watched Four buffer herself from bad memories with work. It didn’t seem to matter what kind of work. She just needed something to do with her hands. Taking care of him helped for a bit. When he went down to the lab to do the stitches she followed him and tinkered with her suit. When he was done with the stitches she was apparently done buffering.
“Next time, I go with you,” she demanded. She was at his desk while he was off to the side near the sink.
Tony still didn’t want to have that conversation. He finished buttoning his pants up, focusing on that instead of her face.
“That’s probably not a good idea.” He started to walk toward the door but it seemed she was done being put off.
“Can you shield yourself from a falling building? Keep a metal beam from falling on your head?” She didn’t raise her voice and the questions were more like statements.
He rolled his jaw and felt his chin set into what Pepper had called his stubborn expression. Tony knew he got off easy earlier. Coming back from being Iron Man with Four waiting was, so far, different than with Pepper. Even when they were just friends the red head went from scared, to angry, to nagging.
“Doing what you can do, doing good with what you can do, it’s important to you. Right?” Four asked.
This was the opposite of the other night it seemed. She was the one asking the questions she already knew the answers to. Tony nodded anyway. “It is.”
“You wouldn’t want anyone to stop you from using your powers?” She was close enough to lay a hand on his arc reactor and tap the side of his head. Tony hadn’t noticed her move. Maybe because he was looking anywhere but at her.
He wouldn’t. Tony tried for some levity. “I thought I was Ron Wilson?”
“You are a mad genius who MacGyver’d you’re way out of a cave in the middle of a desert. If you’re not Will Stronghold then you’re the non-super villain version of Syndrome.”
Tony chuckled a bit at that.
“You even have the crazy science hair,” she teased. “I’m just a woman who bends metal.”
“Don’t do that,” he murmured. He finally focused his gaze on her to see the questioning look she was sporting. “Don’t sell yourself short like that.”
She raised an eyebrow.
Tony got her point. He couldn’t tell her she was capable of more and then ask her not to be it. “I know I’m being a hypocrite. It’s not fair.” He put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed a little. “I don’t want to lose you. I can’t have you out there with me. I‘d just,” He trailed off in his rambling.
Four shook her head. “I’ve always been out there, Tony. You said superhero’s always wear masks. My power doesn’t go away just because I’m not dressed extra spiffy, and neither does yours. We are who we are.”
He could feel the way every muscle in his face seemed to tense and he rubbed a hand over his face and goatee.
“Even if I never went out there with you specifically to super hero, am I supposed to ignore a car about to plow into a group a kids? What about someone waving a gun around in the grocery store?” She pushed.
“That’s happenstance,” he argued. “You’d be out there purposefully putting yourself in harms way,” he continued.
“Like I did at the Expo,” she finished.
He gestured. “Yes, and look what it started.” Tony started pacing away from her.
“The longest I’ve lived anywhere since I was eighteen is the five years I’ve lived in my shop,” she confessed lowly. He turned back toward her and she continued with a shake of her head. “All that moving around wasn’t because I was out doing highly visible things like I did at the Expo. It was because of rumors, because people will always want what I can do. I need to be able to protect myself.”
Tony wanted to say that protecting yourself was different than being a hero, but he knew that sometimes to keep yourself safe you had to become a hero. Damn him if he didn’t spout what he’d wanted to say almost a week ago. “You don’t have to because I can protect you.”
“Yes, you can,” she agreed, “But I want to look after myself. I want to be able to protect you too.” She huffed out a breath and gestured. “Don’t you get it? We could have each other’s backs in this.” Tony could tell she was getting exasperated with him.
“I don’t know if I can take that risk,” he told her honestly his eyes trailing to the display of suits.
There was a long silence and when Tony looked up again he could see she was looking around the lab. “You wouldn’t give up Iron Man if I asked you to.” She stated.
No. He wouldn’t. Iron Man was him.
Her eyes shot back to him. “Don’t ask me to give up being Forge.”
Fuck. Tony had no idea what to say to that except, “You haven’t been a superhero before.” It sounded like a dumb statement even to him.
Georgia Maddix smiled at him. “I busted a dozen mutants out of containment built especially for them, with nothing more than the grommets on an lazy asshole’s boots, at the age of twenty one. I have always been a superhero. I‘m just done running from it.” She leaned up and kissed him. “I’m going upstairs to get a drink. Join me when you’re ready.”
Tony stubbornly stayed stewing in the lab for the rest of the night.
……………………………….........................................................................
When she reached the top of the stairs a voice called out, “Did it go as bad as you thought it would?” Natasha, the creeper.
“Not as bad,” Forge said moving to the fridge and searching around until she found some crafty IPA’s in the back. “There was less yelling.”
The red head sat at the countertop bar and crossed her legs. “Will he come around?”
Forge popped the top on her beer. “I don’t know.”
“What if he doesn’t?” She tilted her head a bit.
After a drink from her beer, Forge shrugged. “I don’t know that either.”
“You love him,” she assessed.
Georgia gave a half amused chuckle. “Kind of stupid isn’t it.”
Natasha uncrossed her legs and stood up. “I don’t know.” With that she left Forge alone in the kitchen sipping her beer.
When Georgia woke up after a shitty night of sleep to JARVIS announcing the time and weather. She was alone in Tony’s bed. She wished she could talk to her Uncle Wall, or Judy, but she didn’t really need to. Forge knew what Hay would say. Be you. She wasn’t sure if she had gotten her right yet. She’d definitely found the best version so far.
……………………………….........................................................................
“I have some aggression to work out.” Forge announced when she found Natasha in the kitchen.
“Powers or hand to hand?” The red head asked.
“I really want to let it rip.” Forge popped the knuckle on her thumb. “Can we do both?”
Natasha turned to her and smiled. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask that. You hobble yourself when you don’t use everything at your disposal.”
Yeah, Forge thought so too.
By eight am they were out on the grounds. The grass this time. Far enough away from the house to not accidentally break something. Forge stretched herself out, but kept an eye on Natasha. The woman enjoyed taking her out with sneak attacks way too often.
When the woman leapt toward her this time Forge had already planned her attack. ‘Visualize how you will attack, what you will hit with. When will you launch the attack? Visualize different scenarios so that you have one already in mind to choose.’ Natasha was totally her Master Shifu.
So when the woman lunged at her when she was bent over stretching her leg, she flipped her hand back and sent a piece of metal at Natasha’s wrist. Forge was already half down so forward was the way to go. ‘Don’t hold still, move.’ She slid inelegantly onto her stomach and then rolled, sending two bean bags with a single metal pellet hidden inside all the Styrofoam at the red head.
‘If you stop moving you’re dead.’ Natasha threw two blunted pieces of metal at her to simulate knives. Instead of simply spiking them in the ground like she had last time, Forge flung them back at her. She knew it took extra time to reverse momentum or gravity, so she also threw two more bean bags at the woman and tried again with the wrist cuff. From there it was easy to lose herself in the fight.
The red head was going easy on her, no crazy pretzel tricks, no gun, no special taser. The woman did change it up though. A rock tossed at her forehead. A cheap plastic butter knife flung at her chest. Forge only had the two metal wrist bands she’d taken to carrying around the house, and bean bags.
Natasha had reminded her that in the city there were pipes, and staples in telephone poles, and… Ha. Forge almost forgot her pocket full of change. She spun it around the red head and clocked her in both shoulders before the woman swept Forge’s feet from under her. Even then Forge didn’t immediately give up. ‘So, you’re down. You’re not dead.’
Forge wrapped the metal around her own ankles and used it to pull her body between the red head’s legs. ‘Don’t be fancy unless it’s effective.’ As she passed her ankles Forge grabbed and pulled. Natasha kicked like a mule and made Forge let go. While she was temporarily fighting off the hold the metal manipulator tapped her three times in the center back with pennies.
“Hold,” Natasha called.
Forge rolled herself to her knees and stood up, brushing the grass off. The change zipped back to her pockets. The metal wrapped back around her wrists.
“You just won,” Natasha announced.
Forge blinked in surprise. Yeah. She had. Holy shit. “I thought you said I’d barely be adequate in a year if I trained every day?”
“You wouldn’t. That little talent of yours certainly helps cover the gaps, but you still have a long way to go,” Natasha warned. The red head brushed her own pants off. “Again?”
“Fuck yeah,” Forge answered.
- 17
- 18
- 19
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The Forge