Coming home *Forge*

[bobbi]

I’ve finally found it. With this letter you’ll find the powder I was telling you about. Slip it in his drink tonight. It should put him down for several hours. Have everything ready and I’ll come for you. I’ve found your way home. Good luck, Bobbi.

Forge

Bobbi sighed and hid the small packet of knock out powder in a drawer she knew that Clint would never look in and destroyed the letter from Forge. Then she went to pack up all of the stuff she had when she was brought here. Dull blue eyes looked around the opulent room that had been her prison for the last three years. She’d tried to escape it but Clint actually knew hand to hand and she was hard pressed to beat him. He insisted that she learned to use a bow and she had realized how screwed up this place was. Everything was all wrong and three years hadn’t made it any better. She was a prisoner and there had been no hope for escape until now.

It took nearly a year before Bobbi finally caved and became somewhat withdrawn and subservient. It went against her nature but it was easier on her body when she didn’t fight. After awhile she realized she wouldn’t survive if she kept fighting him. He was exceptionally insane and more violent than she had first believed. The loss of his first love had taken its toll although she was convinced he had been slipping before then and it just pushed him over the edge. When she first got here her feistiness had turned him on to the point that what he considered as consensual sex [really rape] was fairly hard and violent. After she learned to back down he gentled but she still hated the feeling of him on her and in her. She’d tried killing him several times and she time she suffered for it. Bones had been broken and finally healed, the bruises faded and the scars have become faint over time.

There was only one thing that kept her from taking her own life and that was getting back. Back to the one person who could make this all right again. Her head whipped around when she heard him outside her door. She found herself whispering silent prayer that it had been a good day for him. He always hurt her worse when it was a bad day. She heard the growl and the familiar panic set in, this was going to hurt. Clint slammed through the doors with agitation and anger in his eyes. He wasn’t mad at her she knew that but he’d take it out on her. She also wouldn’t be able to get him to drink anything until he was through with her she just hoped she wasn’t broken by then.

The next four hours went by in a blur of pain and tears. Her body ached and everything hurt. Blood ran from her nose and busted lip. At least nothing was broken this time. Bobbi whimpered as she rolled her bruised body off the bed to get him a drink. She slipped the powder in his wine and brought it back to him then shuffled into the bathroom to take a long hot shower and clean the blood off her face. When she came back she saw him passed out on the floor. She checked to make sure he was really down for the count before getting dressed in the outfit he found her in. Quickly she grabbed her gear and made her way to the meeting point to catch up to Forge.

The man looked her up and down and growled a bit. ”I’ll be fine, he’s done worse you know that. You can get me home?” The man nodded. ”I can get you home.” Bobbi nodded and slid the bag on her shoulder and winced. She followed the man through the maze of the city into a hidden area. Blue eyes widened when she saw the work area and then the portal. ”This it?” Forge nodded and motioned her forward. Bobbi covered her eyes as the portal lit up and it was like a large fan got turned on. She could see a city on the other side and she looked back at Forge. ”Welcome to New York, November 2009.” He motioned her forward and Bobbi took a deep breath as she stepped through the portal.

The place looked vaguely familiar until she realized this had been where she had been taken from. ”Clint… I’m home….” Bobbi wiped at the tear in her eye as she looked for how much cash she had on her not sure if her bank accounts were still active. Nodding she headed toward a hotel and dropped off her stuff. Then she went to get some food. After she ate she started to walk. How much had changed in three years? Blue eyes scanned as she pushed her battered body to keep walking as if in search of something or someone. ”Clint I’m home…Come get me….”

[silvercloud]

As was often the case with his powers working having been used over time, Forge was experiencing yet another bout of seemingly endless and incurable insomnia. Not even his favourite brand of bourbon seemed to be able to cure it this night, causing him to fall back to the age old standby of taking a walk and hope that he wore himself out before the dawn came. So far he’d wasted a good hour and a half with no joy and it was getting late... or early... one of the two.

Just as he was about to turn around, give up and head home, he hesitated at the sight of an oncoming shadowy figure, his or her identity shrouded from view. Knowing full well that “normal” people don’t usually frequent this ungodly hour, Forge absently curled his fingers on his right hand into a fist, he prepared himself for the worst as the figure stepped into the light. It was a woman. A badly battered woman at that he noticed as she drew nearer, the street lamp’s light seeming to accentuate each bruise and mark. Instantly his hand relaxed as to not give the wrong impression, the last thing he needed was to scare some poor abused woman.

His first instinct was to let her pass, to keep his nose out of trouble like he’d promised himself he would after quitting his job for Uncle Sam. Unfortunately he was never one to follow his instincts, no matter how often they were proven to be right. Keeping his voice calm and steady to avoid startling her, he called out. “Hey, you alright, Miss?” The question seemed stupid even to his ears, but since Forge wasn’t exactly what you’d describe as a people person, it was the best he could come up with on the spot.

[bobbi]

Barbara Morse had never really been scared in her life until three years ago and that was more anger than fear. But right now the woman was terrified and hurting on so many levels. She wondered the streets knowing that after three years he wouldn’t be in this area anymore. She even forgot that he’d left the area to begin with in order to go on another mission. Yet still she wondered the streets adrenaline from finding out she was going home was starting to wear off and the fatigue was settling in along with the pain from the beating she recently got.

She stopped when she heard a familiar voice and frowned. Dull blue eyes scanned the area until the landed on Forge. ”Forge? What are you doing… I thought you sent me…” She frowned in confusion and then she started chewing on her bottom lip. If the other Clint was a bad man and her Clint was the good man, would this make this Forge a bad man since the other Forge was a good man? Trying to work that out along with the pain she was already in just intensified the headache she had. ”Don’t hurt me…” No matter how stubborn she could get Mocky knew there was no way in hell she’d be able to take him.

[silvercloud]

Forge. The woman knew his name, well his other name that he’d picked up over the years. Why mutants seemed to be drawn to taking second names Jon would never be sure, perhaps it was to signify the change that had gone on? He shook his head slightly, once again finding himself sidetracked from an issue at hand due to his absent wonderings. The real thing he should be focusing on was how she knew his name, and better yet, what she meant by “sent me”. As far as he could recall he’d never set eyes on the woman before him, and admittedly he had something of a bad recollection for people as opposed to machinery, he was pretty certain of this fact.

“Do I know you?” One again that had sounded harsh to his own ears, and once more he cursed his lack of people skills. Maybe he could fashion a machine to help, maybe some sort of device to... He stopped himself again from going down that route, a flaw his power seemed to have. He just couldn’t help but want to figure things out. At her assumption that he was going to hurt her, Forge’s mind reeled and his automatically hands came up in a placating gesture, the street light causing his right hand to sparkle dimly. “I’m not here to hurt you, I don’t even know you. Though, I’m thinking you know me...Or at least of me...”

[bobbi]

God she was so confused right now. Gently she rubbed her temples trying to rid herself of the headache that seemed to be constantly there. This was supposed to her reality, universe, world, whatever you wanted to call it. But was it really hers? Things looked so much different yet felt so familiar. Her arms went back around her waist as she tried to get her bearings. Her body ached in every place conceivable and she was so scared.

Blue eyes watched him a bit warily. She shook her head at his question and her brow furrowed. ”No.. you don’t. I don’t know you… but I know the other you…” Bobbi flinched at his tone and almost expected him to hit her. She rolled her head from side to side to work out the strain in her neck. ”You wouldn’t believe me if I told. I lived it and am having trouble believing it now that I’m not in it.” Leans against a wall and closes her eyes. He wouldn’t believe her if she told him. ”I need to find Clint…. He’ll make it better…. “ It was her only hope to stop from going slightly if not completely crazy. At least that’s what she’d convinced herself the last three years.

[silvercloud]

Forge’s brow furrowed in confusion as the woman talked, seeming to make less and less sense with each word that came out of her mouth. She didn’t know him, but knew another version of him? If it wasn’t for the fact that he’d called him by his name, a relatively unknown name at that, he would have just passed her off as another crazy woman that had fallen on some hard times. But the fact remained that she had and Forge quickly found himself at a loss on how to proceed. Maybe she knew of him and was just simply confused? Needless to say he practically leapt on the opening to find out more, his constant curiosity fuelling the way where his natural confidence would normally falter in this kind of situation. “Try me; you’d be surprised at what I’m willing to believe in.”

He took several steps forward hesitantly, not wanting to make any sudden movements to startle or rile the woman before him up. “Clint? I’m afraid I don’t know any ‘Clint’, well beyond Eastwood that is, so you might want to give me a bit more to go on then just a name.”

[bobbi]

Bobbi tried to calm down and took several deep breaths. She looked over at him when he told her to try him with the truth. She gave an empty laugh and forced herself away from the wall. ”Three years ago I was kidnapped by a man that was, for all intents and purposes, m y boyfriend. However, he was not the man I was in love with and was in fact someone completely different.” She scrubbed a hand over her face and winced. ”He wasn’t from this universe, dimension, reality, whatever you want to call it. His version of me died in his world and he went looking for a replacement. He forced a man by the name of Forge to create a transdimensional portal. Or something like that. Anyway that’s how he found me and he took me back there. It took three years for Forge to find my reality and to recalibrate to send me back. Now I’m here again.” She wasn’t going to tell him the rest of it since she didn’t know if she could fully trust him or if he’d even care.

The blond watched him warily but he was so much like the other Forge she wasn’t too worried about it. Unlike the other Clint who was a complete bastard. Had she not held onto the memory of her Clint throughout all these years she’d have been dead by her own hand. ”Clint Barton. I’ll find him, don’t worry. I’ll find him…..” She just hoped she wasn’t too late although once she calms down she’ll probably realize how freaking stupid she is. But at this moment in time she still had one thought and that was Clint could make it better.