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Meet the Fuckers; 5/23 - Night, Rachel, Calvin, Others
Topic Started: Jun 9 2013, 11:04 PM (673 Views)
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[Cross-posted and continued from Drink With Me]

A sister. She’d never had a sister.

She’d wanted one. But she could barely remember telling that to her parents, and then Mom was gone, and Daddy... she could never have that conversation with Daddy again. Even then, she’d known that.

And now, she had a sister. A little redheaded half-sister sister, climbing on her lap, pushing little four year old almost-chubby hands around her neck, seeking to hug her. A sister who’d belonged to Him, but who was free, and remarkably... he hadn’t touched her.

He’d been waiting, that was why. But he hadn’t touched her.

Prying Hope’s hands away from her face, Rachel smiled, and then used her tk to spin the little girl around in her lap and wrap her arms around her, hugging her tightly as she sent a small smile across the room at Calvin. It would be okay.

And then...

*Mom!!* someone shouted. Wait... Quentin? Quentin? What was he doing, shouting for Mom? She couldn’t cope with that, not right now.

*Rachel! he threw in for good measure. *They're going to fucking kill me!!*

*I’ve got this,* Rachel sent to Jean quickly, reaching out with her mind to reassure her before that plea could do more than start to rock her mother’s still fragile mental state. Another moment, as she tapped into the Force to key her into everything that Quentin - who was her brother, in his own way, no question of that - and his plea hadn’t explained.

Two girls, one holding him down so the other could choke him. Another watching calmly, only bothering to move to use a discarded shirt to wipe the beer off a boy’s face, who was newly released and ready to...

Wow. Her little brother did like to make interesting times for himself didn’t he?

*No one’s going to kill you,* Rachel sent, bouncing Hope absently on her knee as she reached out to shut off the TK tendrils that Hellion was reaching toward Quentin at the same time as she forced the mist cloud that was Veil away from Quentin’s nostrils. *Now could you stop making them want to, please?*

She waited a moment, checking on whether Risque would also try to use her powers if her friends had been stymied, before adding, *And don’t call for Mom, okay? She doesn’t need this right now. Really.*

That settled, Rachel looked up to the rest of the room, from Calvin to Kara and Forge and Clarice, eyebrows raised as she gathered Hope up a little tighter in her arms. “Err, yeah, trouble. Trouble in River City,” she told them. “Forge, I think a few of your kids might be getting a little out of hand down in the stripclub.”
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Mimic
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He had a daughter.

For the last...hell, he didn't even know how long anymore, Calvin had sat there, just watching her run around the room. Going from one thing to another, investigating the room. From one person to another, investigating them, too. Crawling up onto laps, trying to poke around in pockets, fascinated by Kara and Clarice. Their different colored skin and hair. By Forge's prosthetic hand. By his own beard.

Still felt like she might've pulled a good handful of that out, but he didn't really give a damn.

He had a kid...a daughter. Her name was Hope and she had her mother's hair and her mother's smile and by some damned miracle he didn't have any right to but was thankful as fuck for all the same she was all right. Generally healthy, according to all the healers and doctors and nurses down in the infirmary. The bastard hadn't messed with her head, which was a fucking miracle all in itself.

Waiting until she was older. Old enough for him to use.

Ahab would never have his chance. Not with Hope, not with anybody else. Not ever again. It was all he could do for Jeannie, and it wasn't much, but he'd at least made damned sure of that.

What the hell he was gonna do with a kid, Calvin didn't have a fucking clue. Scared the hell outta him, every time he looked at her, realized she was his. His and Jean's. And when he remembered that part it somehow made him a little less terrified, made him believe he could actually do this and maybe not fuck her up too much in the process. That maybe what she'd got from her mother would override whatever idiot tendencies she might've got from him.

So he sat there, watching her climb on her sister's lap, try to hug her and mostly get her face instead. Couldn't help but chuckle at that, shake his head. Saw Clarice smile from where she was perched on the arm of the chair next to him and he turned his head enough to send a crooked smile her way. How the hell she'd put up with him, and this whole, fucked up mess, he still couldn't figure out, but he couldn't help but be glad she had. That she'd stuck around.

Looked back over at Rachel and she was lifting Hope up with her TK and spinning her around, hugging her tight and looking over at him and smiling. A small one, but one that he couldn't help returning, one side of his mouth crooked up a little higher than the other, edges softening.

Yeah, they were gonna be all right. Somehow or other, he'd find a way to manage this, even if the idea still scared him shitless.

Hell'uva thing, looking over at them both like that. No question of the relation. Hope's eyes were blue - she'd probably got that from his mother - and Rachel's were green, but the hair was the same. So was the smile. You could see Jean in both their faces. But Rachel was Summer's daughter. Summers with Jean from yet another damned universe (and it was starting to feel a little like they were starting some kinda alternate universe convention around here). Apparently the boy scout had lucked out, though, since from what he'd seen she hadn't inherited any of her old man's stick up the ass syndrome.

Hell, that gave him some hope he might not screw, well, Hope up too damned much.

Then some damned telepath or other (and why the hell did they keep coming from) was brain yelling out some shit about somebody trying to kill them, or him. Yeah, him. Sounded like a kid, for fuck's sake, and Calvin didn't pay it any attention, though looked like Rachel was as she bounced a laughing Hope on her knee and got that look. The one they all seemed to get when there was head conversation going on.

Whoever it was, he assumed she must know them. Maybe one've the people from the world they'd all come over from, though he couldn't place any 'paths from there other than Jean, but who the hell knew? Maybe some more had wandered over when they weren't looking.

Whatever was going on, Rachel looked up, eyebrows lifted, as she tugged Hope in closer. Aw, hell, what was up now? “Err, yeah, trouble. Trouble in River City,” she told them. “Forge, I think a few of your kids might be getting a little out of hand down in the stripclub.”

Calvin snorted softly, smirking over at Forge as he turned his head that way. "There's a damned surprise," he told the Fucker, "Told you you shouldn't have put blasters on the mouthy Julian kids new hands."
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Forge
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A little girl named Hope.

A little red-headed four year old girl, with all the curiosity and inquisitiveness that belonged to the age. If she were a little tentative at times, a little more quiet than perhaps would be expected in a normal child, that was hardly a thing to be surprised at. Not a normal child. A miracle.

Finally sitting still now, or mostly still, safely ensconced on her ‘sister’s’ lap, and seemingly unconscious of the way five other pairs of eyes in the room were following her every move with a mix of amusement, confusion, and a disbelief that would take, Forge thought, a little longer than this to fully subside.

A little girl named Hope, who was Calvin’s daughter. Her mother’s look about her, but you could see the big Fucker too, if you watched her. Something in the line of her jaw, giving the hint of an extra helping of stubbornness even in the softer four year old features was familiar enough.

As Rankin shared a brief, small smile with Clarice, who’d set herself down beside him with the air of someone readying for the long haul, Forge turned to offer one of his own to Kara, left hand pausing in the slow steady stroking of her shoulder it had been engaging in and squeezing it briefly. Just a small smile from the Fucker, but seeing any on his face again was a win he hadn’t looked to be seeing any time soon after yesterday, let alone the low chuckle that it had followed from, as the little girl’s hands were gently pried away from a mis-aligned attempt to hug her sister.

Another smile from the big Canadian, this one shared with Rachel Summers over the top of Hope’s head as the little girl was spun gently to be facing the rest of the room, seemingly completely unfazed by being handled by telekinetic powers. The young adapted quickly, Forge supposed, and that could hardly be a bad thing in this case.

Something, though, had taken the smile from Rachel’s face, replaced by a faraway look that bore some of the hallmarks of a person listening to a conversation not audible to others. Telepathy, presumably, though the young redheaded woman who apparently had hosted the Phoenix Force over a long basis did not seem too disturbed by whatever the intrusion was, continuing to bounce Hope on her knee as she cocked her head to one side.

A few more seconds, and she looked up around the rest of the room. “Err, yeah, trouble. Trouble in River City,” she told them. “Forge, I think a few of your kids might be getting a little out of hand down in the stripclub.”

Forge raised an eyebrow, but he was beaten to getting to his gathering question of which of the Dance, and what ‘out of hand’ might mean, exactly, but Calvin’s low (and entirely predictable) snort. "There's a damned surprise," he told Forge, smirking in his direction in a way that might have given the inventor the urge to send back a dry reply, had it not been another welcome expression to see back on his friend’s face, "Told you you shouldn't have put blasters on the mouthy Julian kids new hands."

“Always jumping on conclusions,” Forge shot back dryly, rolling his eyes for good measure. Welcome or not, the Fucker wasn’t going to get away with that attempt at what might pass for wit completely unchecked. It would only disappoint him if he did, after all. “You don’t even know it’s Julian,” he pointed out, though a glance toward Rachel showed the young woman smiling a touch wryly herself, shrugging one shoulder.

“He’s one of them,” she admitted. “No blasters, though. Looks like he’s forgotten he has them.”

That made it Forge’s turn to snort, glancing briefly toward Kara again, more because his eyes were still drawn to her at every possible opportunity than for any formed plan of query before he looked back to Rankin. “Call it a draw, then, Fucker,” he said, before beginning to shrug his own shoulders, shifting back as if preparing to rise. Were it anything more than ‘a little out of hand’, he imagined that Rachel might have been showing more concern than she was, but nevertheless, it was probably time to make his way down there, to check on them all.

“I suppose we should...” he began to say to Kara, but the sentence was cut short by Hope as she looked quizzically toward her father, uttering - in a tone befitted to someone making a verbal experiment - a single word.

“Fucker,” she said, extending a pair of slightly chubby, babyish arms toward the winged man.
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It still seemed like a miracle.

Thinking on that no more than a moment had Kara supposing it actually was as she watched the little girl with the red hair move around the room. To her father, to peer at something else that'd caught her eye, then over to the other redhead that was her sister by way of another dimension or two. Considering that just the day before they'd all been sure this little girl - the little girl named, aptly enough, Hope - was four years dead, killed at birth by Ahab, miracle was the only appropriate words for it.

Why the Hound Master had kept her didn't take a lot of guessing, even without having those guesses confirmed. Her parents were amazingly powerful, he'd been gambling on another telepath the level of Jean Grey. Or some other mutation that he could use.

He'd never have the chance now, thank the Gods, and this little girl climbing into her sister's lap and reaching for her with hands and arms that were caught somewhere between baby and child was one of the few honestly good things that had come of the whole mess of Stamford and Rugby and the raid on the Hound kennels.

She was inquisitive, if a little more reserved than probably most four year olds. Obviously bright, even if she was also quieter than most kids her age Kara had come into contact with. She was healthy and strong, and she'd managed to make her father smile again. That wasn't something Kara expected to see from Calvin Rankin any time in the near future the afternoon they'd left Rugby. One Jean Grey frozen into a solid block of ice, the other practically collapsed in his arm, and a sense about him that he was holding himself together by fraying threads.

But now he was smiling over at Clarice. A small one, but there. When the purple skinned woman turned her own head toward Forge he was doing the very same in her direction, hand squeezing lightly at her shoulder. Her own hand, resting on his leg, squeezed gently in return and she smiled back. Thankful they all had something to smile about again.

Everything wasn't magically fixed, of course. Calvin had still lost a lot, endured a lot and those sort of instant resolutions only happened in stupid romance novels. But Hope fixed a lot, too, she suspected. Hope gave her father a reason to smile again.

Right on cue, there was another smile from the winged man, this one for Rachel Summers - yet another interdimensional visitor, a young woman with shadows in her own eyes and a vested interest in all of this - over the top of his daughter's head as the sisters shared a hug. Kara leaned comfortably against Forge's side, content to watch it all in relative silence.

A look back toward Clarice and she and her friend and team leader shared a small smile of their own. It was obviously contagious, but she wasn't going to complain even a little. It beat the hell out of all the worry and pain and trauma Calvin and Forge and everyone who cared about them had gone through the last week.

When she looked back, Rachel Summers had that almost-absent look of telepathic communication on her face and Kara sent up a fervent prayer to any gods that might be listening that they weren't about to be hit with yet another emergency, or problem, or gods knew what. For one night, they could give it a rest.

“Err, yeah, trouble. Trouble in River City,” Rachel told them, looking back at the rest of them. Well, so much for benevolent gods. "Forge, I think a few of your kids might be getting a little out of hand down in the stripclub.”[/b][/i]

Kara let out a sigh, shaking her head in something that was almost, but not quite, amusement as one of Forge's brows inched up. Now what on earth had made them think the Dance might manage a whole evening without doing...gods knew what. She didn't even want to guess.

"There's a damned surprise," Calvin spoke up, letting out what she interpreted as an amused snort as he smirked over at his friend, "Told you you shouldn't have put blasters on the mouthy Julian kids new hands."

"Don't knock the blasters," Kara told him good-naturedly, "They work wonders against mystical ninjas." And thank the gods for that, too, or half the dance and her in the bargain wouldn't be around to make trouble.

“Always jumping on conclusions,” Forge shot back dryly, rolling his eyes for good measure... “You don’t even know it’s Julian,” he pointed out, and this time it was Kara's eyebrows that started upward. No, they might not know, but the odds were heavily stacked in that direction. Her money was on Julian, Gloria, or Quentin.

Sure enough, Rachel shot down the 'not Julian' theory in her next breath. “He’s one of them,” she admitted. “No blasters, though. Looks like he’s forgotten he has them.” Yet another thing to add to her Thank The Gods list as Forge took his turn at letting out a snort, looking her way again as she smirked at him. But she gave a quick nod, too. Might as well go see about it before Julian did break out the hand blasters.

“Call it a draw, then, Fucker,” [Forge] said, before beginning to shrug his own shoulders, shifting back as if preparing to rise....I suppose we should...” he began to say but she was already nodding again, half out of her seat when a much smaller, younger voice spoke up, as if trying out a brand new word.

“Fucker,” Hope said, holding out her arms to Calvin and leaving no room to doubt exactly who she meant. Pursing her lips, eyebrows shooting up her forehead, Kara looked over to Clarice, which was a huge mistake. After a wide-eyed second, the pink-skinned woman burst out laughing and Kara was only a second behind her, shoulders shaking.

Calvin was sitting there with his mouth half open, looking like he was about to facepalm and, trying to swallow her laughter, Purple Girl looked between the two men. "I knew it was only a matter of time," she told them, grinning at Clarice briefly, "but I thought it'd take at least a little longer than this for her to pick up your bad habits."
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[Crossposted also in Drink With Me]

Considering she was currently in a universe she didn’t belong to, and would never exist in, and had only been there slightly less than twenty four hour, making a point of keeping a pretty low profile while she was at it, Rachel had to confess herself a little surprised at how many voices were starting to call for her in her head.

First Quentin, who needed some quick careful steering away from his first instinct of yelling for Mom (also some gentle Mom soothing, because that had threatened to tip her right back over the edge), and the imminent threat of death by choking, telekinesis, or (oh yeah, it was kind of nasty what Risque did to people) dealt with, or at least frozen for the moment. Sorted - at least it ought to be, if Quentin could try to stop making people want to kill him.

*It was a joke!* he protested to that request, but before Rachel could get around to answering that, Pete, of all people, was projecting her name out into the mental ether. Wait... Pete? *Rachel,* he called in as calm and even a mental voice as he could manage. *Where are you? I’ve been- You’re okay, yeah?* A quick readjustment of mental plane of focus (bouncing Hope on her lap all the while, because multi-tasking was made of win) and Rachel had located him with this universe’s Madison Jefferies and Fuzzy, over by where Kitty and co had been setting up the transporter off and on over the day.

*Pete?* Rachel sent back, but deciding to waste only that much time bothering with confusion, continued quickly, *I’m fine - go find Kitty.*

Shouldn’t need to tell him that more than once. Okay, so back to Quentin then, because while this particular crisis had been easy enough to intervene on and keep away from any meltdowns (whether literally being melted in Quentin’s case, or mentally in Mom’s), the prospect of having to make a habit of it didn’t appeal. And would suck for Mom, so focusing back on little Bro in the Strip Club, Rachel tacked back an instruction not to call for Mom, who really didn’t need this stuff right now.

*Yeah, like she cared anyway,* he replied in a sulky mental tone, then sent along the mental equivalent of a sigh. *But yeah, okay. Sorry - wasn't thinking. Sort of busy with the attempted murder and all.*

Rachel frowned - or mentally frowned. Not physically frowned, because her physical face was watching Hope, and that kind of totally precluded frowning as an option. *Oh, stop being melodramatic, you’re not being killed,* she sent back, in the best exasperated but still kind of fond all the same big sister tones she could manage (yay, she was finally getting to use them!), before turning a little more serious (into the lecturey part of the big sister repertoire) as she continued.

*And I mean it. Leave Mom alone, and stop complaining about her in your head then still yelling for her the minute you fuck up. She doesn’t deserve either of those things - and anyway, I’ve got your back, little bro. Me and...* because there was someone else who wasn’t an over-excited teen or pre-teen descending on the group that had him still pinned, though as she registered who it actually was, Rachel felt personally obliged to turn in a mental grimace *Eww... Emma Frost. Ah well, just stare at her cleavage like you’re really impressed by it and she’ll probably let you off easy.*

She was pretty sure that would work, anyway.

Alright, pulling back a little from watching that all unfold as Emma began to deal (or imagine she was dealing, but as long as it worked) with sorting the rest of that back into no more imminent threats of death now. Right. Next on the agenda, letting the rest of the people in the room she’d kind of been spacing on in on the big Trouble in River City aspect of this. Forge would probably want to know about some of his kids getting out of hand.

Which led to a little of what she was already starting to get the feeling was never-ending and almost scripted back-and-forth between Mimic and Forge (with interjections from the purple girl named Purple Girl) about whether one of them was Julian, and whether he ought to be allowed hand blasters or not.

Huh. Probably a good thing the kid seemed to have blanked on that new addition, Rachel decided, taking just a moment to check he wasn’t about to go for them belatedly since realising his telekinesis had been blocked. Nope? Good. Now to report that back to the room again. “He’s one of them,” she admitted. “No blasters, though. Looks like he’s forgotten he has them.”

*Thank you, Rachel,* Quentin sent again, apparently just now realizing why TK hadn’t already squished him or started righteously beating him around the head with the chair or the pitcher. He’d been let go already, apparently only paying the penalty of his own beer glass, and seemed to be standing up and readying to make an exit from the table of Would-Be Quentin-Doom.

*Anytime, but try not to keep making me do this, yeah?* Rachel sent back, listening with only half an ear to the room she was sitting in as Forge said... well, never mind, she’d pull it out of his mind once she was done with Little Bro.

Or... yeah, okay, swooping that conversation back into the mental batters box, because what the hell had Hope just said? It had sounded like...

...yeah, everyone else had heard it just the same, and the way the little girl was stretching her arms right out to Mimic, as if looking to be picked up, no doubt at all that she’d meant to refer to him.

Wow. She’d called her Dad Fucker.

Yeah, definitely not a full sibling. Wow.

And then Purple Girl and Blink (why was Blink here again? And why was she so much older than that poor little girl that had died last year in that mess of Phalanx that had given them Douglock?) were bursting into laughter, Forge was chuckling quietly himself, and Mimic looked like he couldn’t decide whether to bury his head in his hands or crack up himself.

"I knew it was only a matter of time," [Purple Girl] told them, grinning at Clarice briefly, "but I thought it'd take at least a little longer than this for her to pick up your bad habits."

Wow, and she’d thought she had an odd extended family, growing up, Rachel had just time enough to think to herself, before Quentin’s voice chimed in yet again. *So, congrats on the little sister,* he sent as he weaved his way around the tables. *She cute, or does she take after her dad?*

*Behave like something other than an amoral brat,* Rachel sent back to him, at the same time as she bent her head down and eyed Hope quizzically, *and you’ll get to meet her yourself sooner than later.* If he couldn’t stop making a pain of himself with people who weren’t quiet four year old girls who’d lived their whole lives under the aegis of Him, or blaming Mom for what her counterpart had thought was a good idea to do to his brain, putting him in a room with Hope didn’t seem like a good idea. But... well, Little Bro had more reason to know than most just how special it was that there was Hope at all, and that she was free and untainted like she was. He’d know to look out for her.

Should be alright. Just not now, when there were the most important things to be setting up. Like the all-important Girl And Dad relationship.

*Talk to you more later, Bro. Try to avoid pissing any more people off in the meantime,* Rachel added, before shutting off the mental channel to Quentin with a mental squeeze that was still nevertheless complete with a touch of ‘do not disturb except in case of dire emergencies’ finality in its closing.

Right then! Back to that all-important Girl and Dad relationship, and Rachel bent her head down a little further, looking down at her sister, who was sitting calmly on her lap, apparently only mildly intrigued at the varying degrees of mirth that seemed to have overtaken the rest of the adults around her. Mostly, she still seemed to be watching her father carefully, little hands dropped down a little, but rising again as Rachel quirked an eyebrow down at her.

“You want to go sit on your Daddy now, huh?” she asked Hope, who nodded solemnly. “Okay, arms out wide,” Rachel told her, gesturing with her own and keeping her little sister steady with TK, “we’re going to fly you over there.” And with that, she gently lifted Hope up with her powers. Her little sister obligingly spread her arms out airplane style, as requested, and Rachel floated her over toward where Calvin and Clarice were sitting together.
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Hell, what'd the Fucker expect, giving that kid new hands he could shoot people with whenever he felt like it? He was probably lucky it was just 'a little outta hand' and not 'your damned kids have turned Queens into a smoking ruin'. Or, fuck, more of a smoking ruin, he guessed.

"Don't knock the blasters," Kara told him good-naturedly, "They work wonders against mystical ninjas." Yeah, alright, maybe she had a point there, but he doubted any've the Hand had dropped in on the party down at the strip club.

“Always jumping on conclusions,” Forge shot back dryly, rolling his eyes for good measure.Hell, he could roll them all he wanted, wasn't gonna stop it from being true. “You don’t even know it’s Julian,” Calvin let out another dismissive snort. Yeah, right.

Five minutes with that kid was all it took to know he'd probably be in the thick of whatever trouble popped up. Reminded him a hell'uva lot of himself at that age sometimes.

“He’s one of them,” [Rachel] admitted. “No blasters, though. Looks like he’s forgotten he has them.” The winged man turned an 'I-fucking-told-you-so' smirk back toward Forge as he let out a snort of his own.

“Call it a draw, then, Fucker,” Forge told him and starting to shrug. Looked like he was gonna take Kara and go make sure his damned kids didn't actually blow anybody up, and Rachel was still fielding what 'sounded' like everybody in the damned place suddenly yelling out in their head for her, from what little attention he'd bothered to pay all the shit floating around in the mental ether.

None of it seemed particularly urgent, or any've his business, so he'd mostly tuned it out.

“I suppose we should...” Forge started, looking over to Kara who started getting up to go help the Fucker corral his group of teenagers. Calvin was still wearing a hint of that 'I-told-you-so' grin, right up until a small little voice he was almost getting used to decided to speak up.

"Fucker," and there was Hope, sitting on Rachel's lap and holding her arms out to him and Calvin was just kinda staring at his daughter with his mouth half open. Oh, the hell?

He tried to glare at Forge, since this was definitely his damned fault, and couldn't quite manage it. Dammit, then Clarice and Kara were laughing and Rachel was looking like she didn't know what the hell to think of any of this (yeah, not a huge fucking surprise there, since they were all outta their damned minds apparently).

"I knew it was only a matter of time," she told them, grinning at Clarice briefly, "but I thought it'd take at least a little longer than this for her to pick up your bad habits."

He couldn't manage to glare at them all at once, though fuck knew he tried, and so Calvin settled for letting out a groan as he gave his head a shake, dropping his face briefly down to his hand, with a mumbled, "Jesus."

Oh yeah, he was doing a stellar fucking job as a parent. Obviously.

Lifting his head, he looked up at Hope and sent her a crooked smile all the same. Little arms were still out, but drooping a little and he was about to get up and go get her when Rachel looked down at her, one brow quirked up.

“You want to go sit on your Daddy now, huh?” she asked Hope, who nodded solemnly. “Okay, arms out wide,” Rachel told her, gesturing with her own and keeping her little sister steady with TK, “we’re going to fly you over there.”

Hope stretched out her arms like she was told and Rachel floated her over. Watching her, Calvin's expression couldn't help but soften. Looked so damned much like her mother he couldn't do shit about the lump that caught in his throat, but he smiled all the same. Then reached up and gently plucked her outta the air as she let out a little giggle.

"C'mere, kiddo," he told her, settling her on his lap as she looked up at him with those big blue eyes. That lopsided smile he couldn't help softened a little more. "Maybe we oughta stick with Dad, instead of that? Wha'cha think?" And oh, Jesus, when the hell would he have ever thought that was something he'd ever have anybody calling him. Made him wonder again how the hell he'd ever manage this without screwing her up in every way possible, but fuck if he still wasn't gonna try.

Hope just kept watching him, like she was trying to figure him out, and hell he didn't blame her. He'd been trying to do that himself for years now. Then she let out a little giggle and wrapped those little arms around his neck and hugged him, and said, pretty damned happily, "Fucker."

Well shit.

Wrapping his arms around her and squeezing her gently, he shot a look back over at Forge, lips twitching up despite the fact he was trying like hell to glare at the Fucker. "This is your damned fault," he told him in no uncertain terms. Not that it'd make a damned bit of difference. "Fucker."

Screw it, wasn't like she hadn't already latched onto the damned word.
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Well now. That had certainly put a little kink in the plan for heading down to the party to see what, exactly, Julian and whatever others Rachel Summers had been alluding to had managed to get themselves into. A smirk and a pair of quick, wordless nods had been enough to know that Kara would be with him, before she’d started rising from her chair even as Forge himself did, but it seemed the big Canadian’s newly discovered - or perhaps newly-restored - daughter had other matters to bring to the attention of the room.

In particular, a declaration, once and for all, of the answer to that long-standing question: who really was the ‘Fucker’. What was that ve’ho’e saying about truth from the mouths of babes again?

Clarice was the first to laugh, though it was a near run thing between the pink-skinned teleporter and Kara, after they’d shared a look. Forge himself opted for the very slightly more dignified option of chuckling softly as he looked between the gobsmacked Fucker himself and the only slightly less surprised-looking red-haired telepath seated across from him, shaking his head slightly in a gesture of innocence as Kara’s eyes caught his, then passed on once more to her countryman, observing, "I knew it was only a matter of time," as she grinned over at Clarice, "but I thought it'd take at least a little longer than this for her to pick up your bad habits."

As Forge snorted softly, the big Fucker dropped his face into his hand, letting a groan and a shake of his head escape. "Jesus," he muttered, which of course left Forge no option but to snort again, and then point out drily, “You might have the hair for it, but I doubt she’ll go for that as an alternative name.”

Sure enough, that particular suggestion for a moniker seemed to have failed to make any impression on the young girl, though her arms still stretched out toward her father, two strikingly blue eyes were fixed very carefully on the Fucker, lighting up at the smile that crossed his face when he turned his eyes back to her.

Watching the pair of them, Forge was smiling quietly himself at what was signified in that brief lopsided smile his best friend was wearing - a small victory in what would certainly be a long-standing series of battles toward healing. Not healed - not yet, and just as the loss of a limb, there would never be total restoration to whatever wholeness had existed before. Yet still, Hope’s existence had seemed already to manage a transformation of the wounds from a suppurating mess threatening further amputation or the gangrene of creeping invidious despair to something cleaner, something that supported the possibility of remediation with time and care.

Rachel Summers leaned down to confirm that the little girl she clearly considered to be her younger sister wanted to take a turn sitting on her father. A solemn nod from Hope settled the matter, and soon enough there was one blue-eyed child floating through the air across the room, arms outstretched and giggling as her father reached up to pluck her out of it.

"C'mere, kiddo," he told her, settling her on his lap as she looked up at him with those big blue eyes. That lopsided smile he couldn't help softened a little more. "Maybe we oughta stick with Dad, instead of that? Wha'cha think?"

Forge was pleased to find that his reserves of self control were still sufficient to maintain a smooth, neutral expression in the face of this degree of provocation, though his lips did twitch slightly when he turned to glance at Kara after watching the thoughtful series of expressions crossing over the little girl’s face as she seemed to silently process this suggestion. The Fucker certainly would have a lot to learn, if he thought that sort of pleasant reasonableness was going to make an impression on any person - however young - sharing 50% of his DNA.

Though no doubt he’d learn that soon enough, especially when Hope finally came to her own decision, giggling, reaching up to hug her father, and once more naming him "Fucker," with all the happiness and certainty that Forge couldn’t help but think boded well for her intelligence (despite his relatively often uttered opinion of that of at least one of her parents).

Calvin put his own arms back around her quickly, returning the hug with an air of someone who was still trying to convince himself that his daughter was not, in fact, made from porcelain, shooting a look in Forge’s direction that the inventor thought might have been intended for a glare, but which was certainly failing to muster the proper degree of righteous wrath to really deserve the term. "This is your damned fault," he told him in no uncertain terms. "Fucker."

“Ah, but it looks like that name belongs exclusively to you now, ‘Fucker’,” Forge rejoined, smiling serenely back at him and nodding his chin toward Hope. “Our impartial judge has spoken, and we wouldn’t want to make it confusing for her by trying to muddy the waters.”

Most definitely a smart girl. But then from what he seemed to recall, she had rather a lot of intelligent people for grandparents, on both sides. It must simply skip a generation.
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Forge was snorting again and Calvin had dropped his face down briefly into his hands with a groan and a shake of his head. She and Clarice were still trying studiously to tamp down the laughter and Kara suspected Rachel Summers might think they'd all lost their minds.

"Jesus," Calvin muttered and, of course, Forge couldn't have possibly let that opportunity slip by uncommented on. It hadn't taken her long to get used to the particular way that friendship seemed to work and so Purple Girl wasn't at all surprised by another snort from the Cheyenne man and an accompanying, “You might have the hair for it, but I doubt she’ll go for that as an alternative name.”

Calvin was trying to glare without any real success at all and the little girl called Hope was still holding out her arms for her father, unusual choice of names or not, those little blue eyes fixed firmly on the bearded man. And a little face that brightened immediately when he turned back to that little girl, the bearded man's own smile softening in a way Kara hadn't expected to see from the bearded man any time in the near future, if ever, just the day before.

Next to her, Forge was smiling in a way that said his thoughts likely ran along the same line and Kara reached for his hand. He missed very little, as she was quickly learning, and most especially when it came to those people he really cared about. She was as glad for his sake as for Calvin's that there was Hope to give his best friend something to move forward for. Something good.

It didn't take away the rest, nothing ever would completely, but it made it easier to bear and time was a decent healer, too, in most cases.

A quick consultation between the elder Summers sister and the younger had Hope floating through the air toward her father, laughing and arms outstretched. Mimic waiting and plucking her out of the air gently as the rest of the watched. Kara's smile turned a little wistful and she glanced to Clarice again, finding her friend looking back her way, too.

Yeah, that was how is should be with fathers and daughters. Calvin might be worried and nervous, but he'd be fine.

"C'mere, kiddo," he told her, settling her on his lap as she looked up at him with those big blue eyes. That lopsided smile he couldn't help softened a little more. "Maybe we oughta stick with Dad, instead of that? Wha'cha think?" Call her crazy, but somehow she didn't expect a lot of success to come of that.

Looking up to Forge as he glanced her way, she couldn't help but admire his self control. He was doing a much better job than she was of keeping the amusement off his face, except for that small, barely perceptible lifting of his lips she could see up close. Kara didn't even bother to hid the small-but-still-there grin on her own face and it only widened as Hope came to her own decision a second later.

With a little girl giggle, she wrapped her arms around her father's neck and pronounced him cheerfully again as, "Fucker," and there they had it. Calvin was hugging his daughter back, still a little like he thought she might break into pieces but he'd get over that, but trying to glare at them, or maybe just Forge, past her all the same. That was kind of failing, too, to reach the same impressive levels she knew he was capable of.

"This is your damned fault," Mimic accused, though not all that convincingly, considering the watered down glare and the happy four year old hanging around his neck. "Fucker."

Kara sighed, more in amusement than exasperation, and gave her head a light shake. Obviously, that would discourage Hope from using that word.

“Ah, but it looks like that name belongs exclusively to you now, ‘Fucker’,” Forge rejoined, smiling serenely back at him and nodding his chin toward Hope. “Our impartial judge has spoken, and we wouldn’t want to make it confusing for her by trying to muddy the waters.”

Looking to Mimic and not bothering to hide her own amused smile, Purple Girl shrugged lightly. "He does have a point, you know." Then turning briefly to Rachel Summers, she added a bemused, "And before you ask, yes, they're always like this as far as I can tell."

And wasn't that going to be an interesting way to grow up for Hope? But a good one, all the same.
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They were arguing - well, okay, not really arguing, but... uh... discussing, in that pretend-serious joking way Rachel always associated with Uncle Ben and Johnny ‘discussing’ anything and everything - whether her baby sister should call her father ‘Fucker’. Given that the only alternative anyone really seemed to be even pretending to consider was ‘Jesus’, it was looking pretty settled already.

Man. She’d either waited too long before cutting little bro off, or not nearly long enough at all. But one last quick mental scan indicated that he was doing okay with a couple of friends his age, and that Pete had also managed to find Kitty, and - yeah okay, freezing out that mental link a little, she didn’t need to get all of that in her head right now, while hanging with her baby sister.

Still, ‘seeing’ her best friend - and her newest Friend (emphasis on the capital, because that meant a whole lot of stuff) - reunited was more than worth a bit of quick partition-and-quarantine-ing of her headspace, and Rachel was smiling as she finally put all of her attention (or near enough, as it worked out with the Force) into Hope, and getting her what she most definitely wanted, which was to go hang with her Daddy. Flying, of course. Only way that Summers girls could travel, even if her baby sister wasn’t actually one of them. Near enough.

No argument or freaking out from Mimic (definitely a good sign) as he waited then picked Hope out of the air as she got close. "C'mere, kiddo," he told her, settling her on his lap as she looked up at him with those big blue eyes. He had a look - a smiling look - on his face that seemed bizarrely, unaccountably familiar for a second or two to Rachel, before she managed to place it from out of faded memories that had got tangled, lost, and restraightened too many times over the years. It was Daddy’s look, that she’d only ever seen him make when he was looking at her. The one he’d only explain as ‘sometimes Daddies are silly’, and then not let her read his mind to find out more.

Huh. So that’s what it had been. It was a lot easier to read it off Calvin, or maybe just to figure it out now she wasn’t five - I don’t know how the hell I’m going to do this, but I’m going to give it everything I have trying anyway.

"Maybe we oughta stick with Dad, instead of that? Wha'cha think?" Calvin tried next, looking maybe just a little hopeful. Rachel personally thought it was the best idea that had been floated so far, but judging from the looks on the faces and thoughts in the mind of the other people in the room (possibly even including the would-be ‘Dad’ himself), he was on an inevitable hiding to nothing even bothering to try.

Yup. All the people’s thoughts. Including Hope, who giggled, hugged her Dad, and then once again called him, "Fucker."

Half-sister. Half-sister, Rachel repeated to herself in her mind. It could almost make some sense if she remembered that part. And Hope seemed very pleased with both herself and her ‘Fucker’, who was giving in and hugging the little girl very gently (wow, seeing that from the outside, she remembered that exact same sort of hug too) in return. Which was all that really mattered, after all.

Except, apparently, for the ongoing game of good-natured blame and abuse that you didn’t have to be a telepath to recognize as the default pattern Mimic and Forge fell into when they had nothing more important to worry about. "This is your damned fault," he told him in no uncertain terms. "Fucker."

Purple Girl might sigh at that (okay, so they weren’t all totally insane then? Maybe? Or at least not quite yet), but the Cheyenne man looked way too calm, perhaps just the teensiest little bit pleased with himself as he declared that the name only applied to Calvin now. “Our impartial judge has spoken, and we wouldn’t want to make it confusing for her by trying to muddy the waters.”

Wow, yeah, he was pretty smugly, quietly - though not unobviously - pleased with himself right now, wasn’t he? Not off-puttingly so, at least in Rachel’s opinion, but she couldn’t help but think it was no wonder Mom (at least the one from 617) didn’t like him much, she’d never seemed to be into that sort of thing in people that weren’t Dad. And it did make her itch a little to offer up Mom’s ‘Asshat’ nickname that she strictly applied to Forge as an alternative for Hope to be able to use to distinguish them.

Oh man, now she was getting corrupted by the insanity herself. Maybe - seemed like the sort of gift a big sister should give her strangely precociously potty-mouthed little sister, since it was easy and would probably make her happy - but not right now though.

"He does have a point, you know," Purple Girl told Calvin with an amused look and a shrug (apparently quiet smugness wasn’t off-putting to her), then looked back to Rachel herself to add, "And before you ask, yes, they're always like this as far as I can tell."

At that point, Rachel gave up, giving a little shrug herself. “I guess it shouldn’t really surprise me,” she admitted with a wry smile. “My uncle Alex has a pair of them on his team back... home-” arggh, kind of confusing to find ways of referencing universes when you were on your third, and your original one had lost all right to be called home a long time ago, but never mind “-and everything I’ve ever heard says they’re pretty much the same there.”

Go figure.
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Forge was a smart-ass.

That was kinda like saying Forge was still breathing, but what the hell. It'd took them all of half a day to teach his daughter (shit, yeah, still didn't have a clue how the hell that was gonna work) to call him 'Fucker', the actual Fucker was trying to suggest 'Jesus' as a damned alternative, Kara and Clarice were both trying not to laugh their

And he didn't have a goddamned clue how he wasn't gonna fuck this up. For all he knew, he already had in the space of a few hours, but it was harder to convince himself of that as Hope floated through the air, courtesy of her 'big sister', laughing and hugging him as he plucked her outta the air.

Then declaring him 'Fucker' again, despite the hope, slim as it was, that he'd be able to convince her 'Dad' might be the better alternative. Even if he sure as hell wasn't in any way convinced he'd ever be able to get used to somebody, anybody, calling him that.

But she was his and all he had to do was look at her to know that, even if she looked a hell'uva lot more like her mother than she'd likely ever look like him, thank fuck. Hadn't been any doubt in that damned place of Ahab's when he'd got his first look at her, sure as hell wasn't now when he halfway felt like she might still vanish like so much smoke if he wasn't careful.

This Fucker thing, though? Forge's damned fault, the smug jackass, and dammit! Now he couldn't even manage a decent fucking glare. That was probably his damned fault, too.

“Ah, but it looks like that name belongs exclusively to you now, ‘Fucker’,” Forge rejoined, smiling serenely back at him and nodding his chin toward Hope. “Our impartial judge has spoken, and we wouldn’t want to make it confusing for her by trying to muddy the waters.” Smug Fucker. Dammit. Calvin at least managed something closer to an actual glare - though still not quite where it oughta be - which didn't stop Kara from looking way too fucking amused over there.

"He does have a point, you know." Which was a lotta damned help, and he might've told her so if Hope hadn't decided just then that it was time to pull back from hugging him and grab a handful of his beard again instead. "And before you ask, yes, they're always like this as far as I can tell." she added over to Rachel, and the winged man stopped mid-motion trying to very gently trying to pry Hope's fingers outta his beard while still leaving some beard there.

"He's always like this," Calvin added with a half-hearted grumble as Clarice, thank fuck, managed to distract Hope - mostly just by being amazingly damned pink, apparently - long enough for him to rescue the majority of his face hair. Of course, now she was reaching for his damned wings, but he could deal with that unless she started trying to rip them off.

Kid was strong for a four year old.

“I guess it shouldn’t really surprise me,” [Rachel] admitted with a wry smile. “My uncle Alex has a pair of them on his team back... home-” arggh, kind of confusing to find ways of referencing universes when you were on your third, and your original one had lost all right to be called home a long time ago, but never mind “-and everything I’ve ever heard says they’re pretty much the same there.”

Well wasn't that just fucking great.

"How do you like that," Calvin asked entirely rhetorically as he smirked over at Forge again, wrapping an arm securely around Hope's small waist to keep her from taking a header over the back of his chair as she made another grab for his wing. "Can't even get the hell away from you over in a whole other universe."

"Pretty," Hope declared quietly and the big man sighed in resignation, curving a wing around where she could reach it.

"Yeah, they're great," he agreed wryly, smirk softening back toward a smile without his notice as she grabbed a handful of feathers but, much to his surprise, didn't immediately try to yank them out. "Don't you have some kids to go stop from blowing up the damned world or something?" he added pointedly to Forge, one bushy brow inching up, but amusement in his expression again all the same.

Hopefully before he taught his daughter to call him something worse than Fucker. The Fucker.
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A strange day. A strange day indeed. And one that held oddness for all of them, not just the big Fucker, Forge couldn’t help but think as he spotted the tail end of a look pass over Kara’s face as she turned from watching Calvin and Hope to share a smile with Clarice. Not quite sufficiently familiar to place with certainty - he was still learning the intricacies of shade and hue those fine eyes could hold - but he recognized enough there to be gently stroking her palm with the pad of his thumb.

Strange days indeed, that in the passage of a few brief days, and almost without the need to even speak directly of it, that it should feel like the most natural thing in the world to have those slim purple fingers curled around his own. Yet there it was, just as it was already almost an instinctive habit to turn her way when Calvin tried unsuccessfully to tempt his daughter into using a more conventional choice of paternal nickname, and let corners of his mouth tipping upward to destroy the careful neutrality of his expression as he saw her smile.

Hope, of course, was far too smart to let such an obvious ploy distract her from her decision about who in fact was the Fucker in this room. She named her father that once again, provoking the bearded Canadian to lay the fault at Forge’s door with one last ditch attempt to return the appellation. Too late, though - an impartial judge in the form of his daughter had already declared that the name belonged to him, and trying to fight that at this point could surely only confuse her.

If he’d had anything to do with planning it, Forge might have considered himself to have executed a piece of tactical wizardry, but as it was, he was still more than content to reap the benefits and leave Calvin in sole possession of the name.

"He does have a point, you know," Kara chimed in, as Hope also decided to express her agreement by once again taking hold of a chunk of her father’s beard and testing whether it really was attached to his face (it seemed that it was, at least until she’d started to pull, which ought to settle at least two betting pools certain members of the Dance had had going for a while and still believed he wasn’t aware of the existence of) "And before you ask, yes, they're always like this as far as I can tell," Kara added, for the benefit of an apparently rather bemused Rachel Summers.

"He's always like this," grumbled the big Fucker.

“Yes. You’re usually far worse than this,” Forge rejoined, eyebrows lifting up in amusement once again, as Clarice set about playing interestingly hued distraction for long enough to coax Hope into loosening her grip. Probably a good thing. Calvin wasn’t nearly pretty enough to get away with having empty patches in that small tortured mammal-pelt he had fastened to his chin.

“I guess it shouldn’t really surprise me,” [Rachel Summers] admitted with a wry smile. “My uncle Alex has a pair of them on his team back... home-” and here the redhead paused briefly, while at the same time Forge couldn’t help but double-take a little himself as his brain stuttered then managed to connect the obvious identity for ‘Uncle Alex’ to what the young woman was saying about them, “-and everything I’ve ever heard says they’re pretty much the same there.”
The two of them. On a team run by Alex Summers?

"How do you like that," Calvin asked entirely rhetorically as he smirked over at Forge again, wrapping an arm securely around Hope's small waist to keep her from taking a header over the back of his chair as she made another grab for his wing. "Can't even get the hell away from you over in a whole other universe."

“Fairly sure that should be the other way round,” Forge shot back, though with less attention than the retort rightly deserved, distracted as he still was by the idea that in a world like the one Rachel Summers (with some odd reservation) called home - a world that had apparently managed to consistently avoid going entirely to hell - that there could be a team led by the Goblyn Prince, and including Rankin, general walking potential unlimited power disaster that he was, and himself, over-rash architect of the Adversary’s attempt on Dallas.

How on earth had they managed to keep that world intact thus far?

"Pretty," Hope declared quietly, finally jarring the inventor out of those thoughts as he looked to see what it was that she was declaring pretty this time. Her father’s wings, apparently (at least she wasn’t trying to word on for any other part of him, or he’d have to recalculate that recent estimation that she’d somehow managed to acquire more intelligence than her parents). But the wings, at least, were certainly something, and in spite of a sigh that didn’t quite manage to sound as resigned as the big fucker had intended it, her father tempted fate to bend one down for her to reach at.

"Yeah, they're great," he said, trying for wryness and messing it up by the softness that crept into the smile as he looked down at the small girl. "Don't you have some kids to go stop from blowing up the damned world or something?" Ah, there it went, now that he was looking back up toward Forge and Kara. Not quite the gruffness he might have thought he was going for, despite all the advantages provided by a pair of thick bushy brows, one of which was rising, but a decent effort all the same.

“Probably,” Forge agreed, not bothering to try to hide his own amusement as he nodded, then turned to Kara to check that she was still willing to come with him. “Anything you need, Fucker, you just call for it,” he added with a more serious expression as he looked back to Calvin. Simple honesty, and his friend already knew it for the truth, but still likely better to reiterate now, before the fucker lost his head in a panic over the enormity of the task that had been dropped into his lap, and tried to do who knew what instead of seeking the help that was his for the asking.

“I’ll drop you two down, if you like,” Clarice added, slipping off her perch on the edge of Calvin’s chair with one last tousle of Hope’s hair, and one last gentle smile for the girl’s father as she added, “Same goes for all of us - if you need any of us, it’s just a thought and a ‘port away. Excusing me that rhyme,” she added, with a wink.

Somehow, Forge thought, Rankin probably wouldn’t find that at all hard to excuse.
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Kara might not have a lot of experience yet with the dynamic between Forge and Calvin, but some definite patterns were showing up, all the same. Patterns just like the current one that had Hope proclaiming 'Fucker' to be her father's new call sign.

Or maybe his code name?

Rachel, who'd seemed to be taking it all in, lifted her shoulders in a light shrug. “I guess it shouldn’t really surprise me,” she admitted with a wry smile. “My uncle Alex has a pair of them on his team back... home-”[/i] the redhead paused, giving Kara a second to try to place who 'Uncle Alex' might be. Alex Summers was the only possibility she could come up with, “-and everything I’ve ever heard says they’re pretty much the same there.”

The purple skinned woman's expression shifted to one of definite surprise along with the amusement still there. "That is a team I'd like to see." Maybe from afar, so she wouldn't get caught in whatever explosions probably happened at regular intervals, but it was an interesting mental picture and there was a small but definite grin on her face as her eyes slid sidelong to Forge.

Who was busy going back and forth with Calvin on who couldn't get away from who in any universe as Hope let go the handful of her father's beard she had again in favor of declaring his wings 'pretty' and making a dive over his shoulder for his wings instead.

She couldn't imagine the tall, gruff man putting up with that for anyone else on earth, despite realizing fairly quickly there was more to him than just that gruff, imposing exterior. But all he managed with Hope was an almost sardonic, "Yeah, they're great," that fell short of it's mark, softened as it was by an underlying warmth.

Though he got points for then attempting to deflect it with an attempted-brusque, pointed aside to Forge of, "Don't you have some kids to go stop from blowing up the damned world or something?"

Kara didn't bother not smiling any more than Forge bothered to take his friend at all serious as he agreed, “Probably,” with an amiable nod. Then he turned a slightly questioning look to her and she nodded, her hand tightening briefly on his. Trying to get them out of his hair or not, they probably should go on down and make sure Julian, or Veil, or gods help them , Molly, weren't running amok. Or maybe any more amok than normal.

Good kids, all of them, but they could be a handful when they wanted to be and she still hadn't figure out why half of them kept calling her, Clarice, and the others some kind of pony. (Plus, she looked nothing like any of the purple My Little Ponies. Really)

Then, expression more serious, Forge turned back to the man that was obviously his best friend and added, “Anything you need, Fucker, you just call for it,” and Kara added her own nod to that, too, dark violet eyes serious as she regarded the other man, scenes from Stamford and Rugby and their return to the helicarrier flashing through her head. He was an amazingly sturdy, resilient man. Both of them were.

"That goes for me, too. Anything you need, any time," Purple Girl told him, then turned to Rachel to add, "And if he's too stubborn, you know how to find us." She had no doubt of that, and that the redhead would do just that if she thought the occasion called for it. It didn't take any special abilities to understand she had a vested, personal and emotional interest in a great deal of this.

“I’ll drop you two down, if you like,” Clarice added, slipping off her perch on the edge of Calvin’s chair with one last tousle of Hope’s hair, and one last gentle smile for the girl’s father as she added, “Same goes for all of us - if you need any of us, it’s just a thought and a ‘port away. Excusing me that rhyme,” she added, with a wink, and Kara had no doubt he would.

Even if he was trying to look somewhat gruff again, and failing miserably as he turned to Clarice, features softening in a way she knew he wasn't doing consciously. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll manage not to self destruct for a few minutes. Even if I may not have any damned wing feathers left." That was punctuated by a small giggle and a wince from Mimic as he tried to gently urge his daughter to let go the handful of feathers in her grasp. As he did that, he turned to Forge with a more serious look and a nod of acknowledgement, followed by another involuntary wince. "Now go the hell on, and maybe bring back some superglue when you're done."

"We'll see what we can do," Kara promised, grinning over at Forge as a laughing Clarice 'blinked' them out of the room. Gods, she didn't want to know what horrors Calvin, a pile of feathers, a tube of superglue and a four year old would manage, but she suspected they might find out.

[cont'd for Forge, Kara, and Clarice in Drink With Me]
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"That is a team I'd like to see," said Purple Girl, apparently both surprised and amused by the information that Mimic and Forge (or was it supposed to be Fucker and Asshat now?) were on a team together back home, and just like this too.

Surprise seemed to be the order of the day, judging from the room’s reactions, with greater or lesser degrees of amusement going along with it, and maybe a little dour confusion from Forge, who seemed to be thinking pretty hard about how they and Uncle Alex could possibly avoid having blown up a world, if in the same room. Clearly, he was forgetting about Aunt Lorna, who wouldn’t stand for anyone else doing that instead of her, but... well, never mind, because as the two men did their bickering thing back and forth, Hope was totally making a play for a handful of feathers that Rachel vaguely remembered doing herself.

Calvin was faster than Uncle War had been though, and so it played out kinda differently than in her memory, with more carefully secure hugs around the waist, and less taking a dive over the back of the chair and onto the floor (she’d been fine. Uncle War, not so much, after Daddy started on the glaring and the lecturing).

"Pretty," Hope declared, and apparently faster or not, Mimic was either just as susceptible to compliments as Uncle War, or just as unable to hold out against small children being cute and adorable, because he was bending the wing forward to where she could reach, and admitting only somewhat reluctantly that they were ‘great’ looking all kinds of gooey in Hope’s direction all the while.

Didn’t look - or feel, mentally - like it was an expression that had done a lot of his time on his face, and it didn’t exactly square with anything Rachel knew about the winged man on her Uncle’s team, but given that that was almost nothing at all... yeah. Who knew? Come to think of it, she didn’t even remember Calvin Rankin being around when she was growing up, either, but telepathy, and the Force especially, were usually enough to give you a decent picture of how things worked with people. And that expression? Yeah, she’d say that was new for him. And maybe that he didn’t even know he was wearing it...

...or maybe he did, because a few seconds later, he was arching an eyebrow and taking a stab at gruff amusement as he tried to ask whether Forge needed to go stop kids blowing up the world.

“Probably,” Forge agreed, sharing a glance with Purple Girl that seemed to confirm that they’d both be going without any need for words (or anything like telepathy either). That apparently settled, he turned back to Mimic with an instruction (assurance? demand? All of them at once?) that anything he might need was his for the asking, which the Canadian woman was quick to reiterate for herself, images of Mimic that had to come from the last few days - Mimic and Mom, and Mimic alone, looking the way he had when Rachel had first seen him for herself this morning - playing across the front of her mind, and speaking to her own commitment. "That goes for me, too. Anything you need, any time," Purple Girl told him, then turned to Rachel to add, "And if he's too stubborn, you know how to find us."

Smiling slightly, Rachel nodded back at the purple-skinned woman. Just once, and without needing to put words to it, since ‘Purple Girl’ didn’t seem like the type that would need more than that. And with Blink offering to ‘port them down to the party, and adding her own offer of support and assistance, you could definitely have upgraded the smile Rachel was wearing as she watched her little sister pull at her Daddy’s wing feathers more than a few notches above ‘slight’.

Maybe she didn’t have much in the way of genetic relatives left in this world, but Hope was going to have a family, that was clear. Clear, and good. And whatever Calvin might be feeling right now, or trying not to think or feel to keep himself from panicking, maybe, he was going to have people around him, just like Daddy had. If they could put this world back together, it could be okay for Hope - and she was here, and okay, and He hadn’t touched her, and beside that, just about anything was possible.

Including, apparently, Calvin Rankin managing not to self-destruct in the space of minutes, at least according to him. Forge had an eyebrow raised as the big man made that declaration, Rachel noted, coming out of her own reverie, but he was going on - and wincing a little, while Hope giggled and tugged at the handful of downy feathers she’d laid claim to - "...Even if I may not have any damned wing feathers left."

Heh. Well now Rachel had to giggle herself, because that had just brought another long buried memory up to the surface, of the time when she was six when Uncle Bobby had tried to convince (or maybe it was bribe?) to pluck Uncle War for Thanksgiving Dinner. Even Daddy hadn’t been able to keep a straight enough face to lecture them that time.

After sharing what had looked like a real look and a serious nod with Forge, Calvin added, "Now go the hell on, and maybe bring back some superglue when you're done." Which had both of the tall Cheyenne’s eyebrows shooting upward, and a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth while a rapid fire staccato array of imagery and ideas flew across his brain.

A grinning Purple Girl promised that they’d see what they could do, and Blink laughed, and winked the three of them out of the room, and then there was just her, her sister, and her father. “Pretty sure Forge is taking that as carte blanche for whatever he can dream up to do to you with superglue, just in case you missed that,” Rachel pointed out in the relative silence that followed. It seemed easier to go there, rather than to think about how to start anything else just yet. Plus, well, the ‘whatever he could dream up‘ thing? Had been pretty impressive to pick up on, mentally, as she went on to admit with a somewhat bemused shake of her head, “He can come up with a lot of ideas really quickly.”

His mutation, or something, she supposed. But seriously. There were apparently a lot of pranks you could do with superglue and a giant winged man. More than even Uncle Bobby had ever dreamed up, and she'd never have thought that was possible.
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Yeah, yeah, if he fell on his damned face or, more likely, lost his mind and panicked like an idiot over this whole thing when it finally all finished settling into his head (hell, if it ever would; so damned much, and so damned big he wasn't sure there was room in his thick skull) he knew where they all were. Or if he didn't, or was too fucking busy going crazy to manage it, he was sure Summers over there would send out the distress call for him.

And, shit, it wasn't even like he didn't appreciate it. He might be stupid, but he wasn't that stupid. If it hadn't been for the people in the room, and a couple of others that weren't, he wouldn't have made it ten minutes in the middle of all this, wouldn't have even known how to start making sense of it. Not after all the shit in Stamford and the back ass crack of the Midwest. And that raid on the bastard's pens that had presented him with a daughter he still had a hard time believing was real more times than not, though the fact she was trying to pluck him like a chicken made that a little easier at the moment.

It was just...how the hell did he say that without sounding like an even bigger, completely out of his depth tool than he already did?

Maybe somebody could, but he sure as hell couldn't seem to figure it out. Everything in his head would sound stupid as shit coming outta his mouth and he knew it. But Forge would know all the same, the Fucker (yeah, still wasn't giving up on that one without a fight). He had a good idea maybe Clarice and Kara would, too, and it occurred to the winged man what a damned sorry state he'd be in right now if he'd stayed that stupid kid with a chip on his shoulder for the world and thinking the only person on earth he needed, or that mattered, was himself.

So he probably wouldn't self destruct while they went down to the club to keep those damned kids of Forge's from destroying the place. Or the world, since he was more than half convinced they'd eventually manage to get to that. Hell, Rachel Summers, sitting over there smiling at the whole thing, probably wouldn't let him. If he did, she'd just put his sorry ass back together again with her Phoenix Force powers and make him keep right on going.

And he'd want to do that. He wanted to, for Jean and most of all for Hope. Even if he didn't have one single clue, or so much as a pin feather left by the time they got back. Going by the way Hope was getting a grip on the ones she already had, Calvin decided that was more toward the category of probably than just possible.

Maybe while they were going down there to save what was left of the free world from rampaging teenagers, they could bring him back some superglue. Something told him he was gonna need them.

Yeah, there went the Fucker's eyebrows, right up to his hairline and Calvin snorted at him again, shook his head a little, just for the hell of it. Shit. Who the hell knew what that damned inventor brain was coming up with now?

Kara promised to check into it and then Clarice blinked them all out. And it was just him and Hope and Rachel. Well, hell, now what?

“Pretty sure Forge is taking that as carte blanche for whatever he can dream up to do to you with superglue, just in case you missed that,” Rachel pointed out in the relative silence that followed and he snorted again, semblance of a grin following along with it as the redhead - well, the older redhead who wasn't trying to pluck him - gave her own head a bemused looking shake, “He can come up with a lot of ideas really quickly.”

Hope tugged again, laughing, and he winced involuntarily. Again. All right, yeah, time to see if he could maybe pry her off those a little.

"No shit," he replied conversationally as he kinda awkwardly and too tentatively to do any real good, tried to kinda...encourage her fingers to let go. Now she was kinda frowning at him and what the hell did he do about that? "If he comes back with any, I'm probably gonna have to sneak up on him with another one've those collars."

Not that it'd do him any damned good at all, he suspected. Wily Fucker.

"Though, hell, for all I know, he put glue dispensers in the hands he built Julian. Just because he could." With Forge, you never knew. Calvin gave Hope a gentle tug, trying to see if she'd let go and sit on his lap, but of course she wouldn't. Instead, she gave him a stubborn look that was way too damned familiar and that he'd seen in his own mirror more than a time or two and tried to grab a second handful. "Nothing much stops him if he sets his mind to it, though, even in the Camp. Collar or no collar." Calvin shot something close to a half-grin over at the girl that looked enough like Jean in some ways it still surprised him. "He decides to glue me to the damned ceiling by my wings like a Christmas angel, doubt I'd be able to stop him."

Especially when he couldn't seem to even stop a four year old from grabbing that second handful of feathers, laughing again as she grinned over at him. Despite trying for something close to a stern expression, the winged man found himself grinning back. Oh, what the hell. He wouldn't miss a few feathers.
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Mimic met her observation about the potential dangers that might come from letting Forge have free rein with superglue with a snort and something that actually managed to be kinda like a grin even without you having to squint too much. On balance though, Rachel was pretty sure that the feathered man - who was already on the way to be the de-feathered man, actually, if her little sister had what was looking like her way - knew his friend well enough to retain a healthy degree of fearful respect for that possibility. Forge had had a lot of ideas in just the couple of seconds between Calvin mentioning superglue and the other three porting out. A lot.

Of course, given the way Hope appeared to be going about trying to pluck him - at least judging by the occasional winces Mimic was making while the little girl went about ‘investigating’ his wing, the perils of inventors with superglue might not seem quite so bad right now.

"No shit," he replied conversationally, while waving kinda ineffectually at Hope in a way that a generous observer might have supposed was designed to try to get her away from the wing, and a shrewd observer could have told him didn’t have the slightest chance of working at all. "If he comes back with any, I'm probably gonna have to sneak up on him with another one've those collars."

Rachel gave a quick laugh, both for the piece of black camp humor - it had been a long while since she’d had a conversation with anyone who could make a collar joke - and for the way Hope had paused for a second, eyeing her father with what looked like a disdainful frown that was might just have been intended to let him know just how pointless that attempt at stopping her had been.

"Though, hell, for all I know, he put glue dispensers in the hands he built Julian. Just because he could,” Calvin added, trying a very slightly less tentative tug on Hope that only bought him an even more stubborn look from the little girl on his lap, plus a resumption of feather pulling. Not that Mimic seemed to mind all that much, because in spite of the pulling, he kept on talking. "Nothing much stops him if he sets his mind to it, though, even in the Camp. Collar or no collar." Rachel smiled back, though not without cocking one eyebrow in slight query. He was grinning over at her now at least, so either what Hope was doing was less uncomfortable than it looked, or...

"He decides to glue me to the damned ceiling by my wings like a Christmas angel, doubt I'd be able to stop him."

...or Calvin Rankin had some weird ideas of what constituted fun. Though Rachel did have to admit - at least to herself - that the last idea was a pretty grin-worthy mental image, all the same, particularly for the way it matched onto at least a couple of the things she’d seen running through the inventor’s mind before he’d left.

On the other hand, there was an option three there too, which was that maybe Mimic just didn’t have the slightest clue about how to actually stop a determined (and exceedingly cute) little girl from walking all over him. If she’d had to guess - and in fact, given that she had a feeling that without intervention there were probably going to be feathers all over the floor in under five minutes, she was actually pretty sure she did have to guess - Rachel was feeling pretty confident about Option Three.

Plus she had experience with this sort of thing (mostly from the other side of it, admittedly), and she was also pretty confident her memories (fuzzy as they sometimes still were when it came to her childhood) had equipped her with the answer to Calvin’s problem. Just had to grab hold of that particular pitch and timbre for your voice, get it ready for your vocal cords, and...

“Hope? Stop that.” Once the special pitch had done its job of arresting Hope mid-tug and getting her little sister to turn and face her - Rachel added on a careful, “thank you,” that had a warm smile to go along with it. Though when that didn’t go quite as far as she would have ideally liked in erasing every last little piece of the uncertain look Hope was wearing as she glanced to the corners of the room, Rachel threw in a little ghost mental hug (it was never too early to get used to those) and added, “You’re okay, Little Sis. Just remember the feathers need to stay in place on your Dad, yeah?”

Hope turned her head then, eyeing her father for a moment. “Fucker,” she replied then, with all the calm certainty that could belong to a four year old.

Rachel had to cough to avoid a snort of laughter, but after a second, she was composed enough to nod solemnly back at her sister. “That’s between you and him, I guess,” she said, “but it’s still a ‘no’ on tugging on the feathers.”

Her little sister looked back at her, and then up at Calvin, and then at her again, and then - with a half-determined, half-mischievous expression that Rachel could spot coming a mile off - back at the nearest wing. “No,” Rachel repeated firmly, and this time Hope stopped entirely, plopping herself down on her father’s lap and proceeding to start poking a small finger at his chest instead.

Seeing as there’d be less feathers on the floor that way, Rachel was calling it a win. “Summers Voice of Command - works every time,” she explained with a trace of a smile on her lips that grew a bit more self-deprecating a second later. It probably would be better to have full honest disclosure straight up, yeah? Yeah. “Well, actually it’ll probably work most of the time till she’s about six or seven, and then you’ll have to figure something else out after that,” she admitted then, “but for now...”

She trailed off, biting thoughtfully at her lip as she took watched Calvin’s face and took a moment to try to figure out how to put stuff into words. “It’s okay to tell her no,” she went with in the end. “Trust me on that.”
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