Two days later, Forge answered another knock on his workroom door to find a half-dozen mutants waiting for him.
"Hi there," said Lance.
"Can we come in?" Scott asked.
"Thanks," said Jean.
Forge got out of the way.
"Is this about the beating?" Forge demanded as the group entered his workroom. "It's about the beating, isn't it? You said it was coming. Are you gonna beat me up?"
Pietro slung a brotherly arm around his neck. "Forge, my man. Let bygones be bygones! We're not here to hurt ya. We're here to help ya."
"How?" Forge wanted to know.
"Here." Kitty held out a large gift-wrapped box. "It's for Einstein."
Blinking, Forge set the package on a bench and ripped it open to reveal a solar-powered hotplate.
"You can even make popcorn on it," Jean informed him. "Problem solved."
"Uh..." Forge blinked. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," Tabitha said cheerfully.
"So we're good, right?" Forge said carefully. "You're not gonna keep threatening me because of the whole Nanobots thing?"
Scott waved a hand. "Oh, pshaw. We already forgot about it."
"In fact," Lance agreed, "we even got you another gift."
"Oh?"
Lance handed Forge a large sheaf of paper. Forge looked down at it.
"What's this?"
"A contract," Kitty explained. "You're gonna sign it."
"This is a pretty big contract," he observed.
"It's also part list," Pietro told him.
"List of what?"
"Things we're going to do to you if you ever experiment on us again without getting our permission."
Forge went pale.
"Check out page twenty-seven," Jean advised. "I wrote the entire page myself."
"So," Kitty explained cheerfully. "You sign the contract, and all this unpleasantness will never happen again. Okay?"
Forge stared at them.
Tabitha slung an arm around Forge's other shoulder. A plasma bomb appeared in her free hand.
"Forge," she said. "Baby. Honey. Darling. Sign the contract."
The bomb got larger.
"You'll regret it a lot more if you don't," Jean informed him.
The bomb got even larger. Forge swallowed.
Put the contract down on the bench.
And signed it.
-FIN-
