What Becomes of Us

[briyamineko84]

Title: What Becomes of Us (3 of ?)
Author: Bri
Rating: R
Characters/Pairing: Bobby/John, other couples include OCs
Summary: He missed them more than anything, but except for Johnny, they were still X-men. He was on the run from them, too. Post X-3, Bobby makes a decision that changes everything.
Notes: Told mainly from Bobby's POV, and for the first few chapters, the story bounces back and forth between the present and backstory.
Previous chapters: One Two


His last class of the day got out early, and with a lack of any new assignments, which meant Bobby was free for two days until his psychology class. In a good mood, he followed the rest of the class out the door, then turned and headed for the elevator. The auditorium for his class was on the fifth floor, and while Bobby normally didn’t mind stairs, nearly two hundred students trying to cram down two staircases got really frustrating really quickly. Fortunately, he’d found the elevator in the third week of class, and few other people seemed to know about it.

Sure enough, the only other person in the elevator was a blond guy who looked a few years older than his age. Bobby gave him a smile in greeting and got one back, then went to push the button for the ground floor. It was already lit, though, so he just leaned against the back of the elevator while it started moving. And then jerked to a stop.

Bobby blinked, and the blond guy groaned and leaned over to push the down button, and then the door open button. When nothing happened, Bobby opened the phone box that was next to him and picked up the phone.

“Um. Hello?” he asked into it.

“Did it break down again?” a girl on the other end asked. “Damn. Okay, we’ll get it looked out, and we’ll have it fixed as soon as possible. Don’t worry, it shouldn’t take longer than an hour. Or two. The phone’ll ring when I’ve got updates, okay?”

“Uh. Okay. Thanks,” Bobby said, hanging up the phone and turning back to the guy. “She said it should be fixed in an hour or two.”

“Mmm. Great. Like usual,” the blond said.

“Were you coming from class or going?” Bobby asked.

The blond grimaced. “Going.”

“That sucks, man,” Bobby said sympathetically.

“This is the third time this has happened, and I missed my class the other two times. You’d think I’d know not to, but.” He shrugged. “I was running late. Oh, well. My roommate’s in that class, she’ll take notes for me.”

The blond had an accent, Southern, but a different Southern than Marie’s. Bobby didn’t know accents well enough to place it, but he liked it.

“What about you?” the blond asked.

“I’m done with classes for the day,” Bobby replied. “Luckily, because I couldn’t have missed either of the ones I had today.”

The blond nodded. “This is the only class I have where absences don’t count against me. I’m Sam, by the way,” he added, offering his hand.

“Bobby,” he returned as he shook his hand, grip firm and friendly, and Sam grinned cheerfully at him.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Bobby,” Sam told him.

“You, too,” Bobby agreed. “Even if it is making you miss class.”

Sam smiled again, slow and amused. “I’m sure you’re more interesting than my professor anyway.”

“Don’t bet on it, I’ve been told I’m very boring,” Bobby replied with a joking grin. That was mostly a lie. Mostly, because he had been told he was boring, but not often, and mainly by Johnny when Johnny was trying to get him to skip class or convince him that having a bonfire in their room was a good idea and would result in no scorched walls, no matter what happened previous times, and Bobby’d told him no.

“You’d have to really, really try to be more boring than him,” Sam said. “You could sit there and do nothing and I think you’d probably still be more interesting.”

“Really?” Bobby asked, shaking his head in mock dismay. “All this time I’ve been actually having conversations with people when I could’ve just been standing there and still be entertaining.”

“Hmm. Other people’s standards for entertainment are probably higher than mine,” Sam told him.

“Damn,” Bobby said. “Well, as long as I hang around you, I’m set.”

Sam laughed. “Good thing you got stuck in an elevator with someone as easily entertained as me.”

It turned out to be a very good thing, because it took closer to three hours for them to get the elevator to start working again. Fortunately, Sam was relatively good company, and even when they weren’t talking, the silence was companionable. When they finally got out, it was already dark, and Bobby waved good-bye to Sam before hurrying to the bus station on campus.

But sadly, he’d missed the last bus back to the stop by his apartment building. Bobby spent a moment staring forlornly at the clock on the wall of the campus station, then sighed and kicked at a bank of snow before he started walking. It was a twenty minute walk from campus to his building, and once again he had the problem of not being a typical mugging victim, but there was still a chance.

“Aw, shit,” someone commented from behind him, and he turned around to find the blonde, purple-eyed girl that lived in his apartment building looking at the bus schedules.

“Miss the bus?” he asked.

“I fucking knew it,” she said in reply, then bit her lip. “Um. Are you heading back to the building?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “You want to walk with me?”

“That’d be great,” she said, a slight hint of relief in her voice. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he said.

“I’m Cass, by the way,” she told him as they started walking.

“Bobby,” he said, smiling over at her.

“Yeah, Ryn told me,” she replied. “She said she was in your psychology class.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I talked to her a few weeks ago at a study session that turned out to be a party.”

“She mentioned that,” she said. “And by mentioned I mean complained about for three days.”

Bobby grinned a bit. Ryn had sat next to him in class a few times after that, and she’d complained about it once or twice to him, too.

“So have you started the paper you have due Tuesday?” she asked.

He hesitated for a moment, trying to figure out how she’d known about that, then realized that Ryn had probably mentioned it. “Yeah, I’m about halfway through.”

“You’re ahead of Ryn, then,” she said. “She hasn’t started yet.”

“She said something about just re-using an old paper,” he said, then asked, “Are you a psychology major, too?”

“No, I’m a history major,” she replied.

“Huh. What do you do with a BA in history?” Bobby asked, falling into a bit of a sing-song voice out of habit.

Cass grinned widely at him. “The same thing you do with a BA in English. Absolutely nothing.”

He laughed. “You can go to grad school?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “At least I know what I’m doing for the next five or six years. What’re you majoring in?”

“Accounting,” he replied.

“Ahh, you’re one of those people who went for a useful degree,” she said. “And yay math.”

“You like math, too?” he asked, slightly surprised.

“Yeah,” she replied. “I don’t go out and get math problems and do them for fun, but I like it.” She must have caught his sheepish smile, because she grinned at him. “You’re one of the people who does math problems for fun, aren’t you?”

His smile widened a bit. “Hey, I like them.” He was used to getting taunted for it. Johnny was the only one who never made fun of him for it, and he figured that was probably only because Bobby’d found out that Johnny’d already read all of the books they got assigned in their English classes for fun.

“Well, I do spend a lot of my free time playing Sudoku,” she said.

He made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “Sudoku’s not math. It’s pattern recognizing and logic. And luck.”

“It has numbers in it,” she informed him. “That totally counts as math.”

They reached their apartment building then, and Bobby followed her in after she unlocked the door.

“Are you busy?” she asked as he closed the door behind them. “We’re probably going to order pizza or something, if you want to come hang with us.”

He hesitated, but only for a moment before giving in and nodding. “Yeah, sure. Pizza sounds good.”

Cass smiled at him and they headed for the rec room. There were a couple of people already in the room watching TV: a black-haired guy sprawled on his stomach over one of the shorter couches, a guy with a shaved head perched on the back of the same couch, Ryn sitting backwards in a plastic folding chair, and a Native American woman reclining on one of the larger couches, her feet propped up in the lap of the guy sitting next to her, who Bobby recognized as Sam.

“Hey guys,” Cass greeted. “What’s up?” Without waiting for them to answer, she turned back to Bobby. “That’s Shade and West over there, West is the dumbass taking up the whole couch because apparently he can’t sit up, Ryn you know, and that’s Dani and Sam.”

“Hey Bobby,” Sam greeted with a grin. “If I’d knew you lived here, I’d’ve offered you a ride.”

“Nah, then there would’ve been no one to walk Cass home,” Bobby replied.

“Ahh, can’t resist the chance to help out a pretty girl?” Sam asked.

“Helping damsels in distress is in my job description,” Bobby said with a grin, ignoring the little voice at the back of his mind that said, Not anymore.

“Hey!” Cass protested. “I’m so not a damsel in distress, thank you.”

“Sure you are, hon,” Ryn commented, grinning at her. “It’s a blonde thing.”

“I resent that,” Sam said.

“Me, too,” Bobby agreed, running his fingers through his short hair. “It may be dirty blonde, but it’s still blonde.”

“You two can be the exceptions that prove the rule,” Ryn informed them. “And this is Bobby, for those of you who didn’t catch that. I’m only here for a little bit, Riley and I are hitting the movies.”

“On a date,” Dani added. “And hi, Bobby.”

Ryn rolled her eyes. “It’s not a date.”

“Uh-huh,” Dani said. “That’s why you curled your hair.”

Ryn tucked a few strands of hair behind one ear, which, yeah, looked wavier than the last time Bobby’d seen it. “Like this is the first time I’ve curled my hair. I just got bored.”

“Bored while waiting for your date,” Shade told her with a smirk, then sent a wave in Bobby’s direction. “Hey Bobby. Just in time to make fun of Ryn and her boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Ryn protested.

“Yet,” West said. “And I’d suggest not making fun of her, Bobby. You’re closer to her than we are, she’ll probably hit you.”

“That would be why I haven’t said anything,” Cass said, crossing the room to sit in a chair next to the couch that West and Shade were on. “Now I’m good. Ryn and Riley, sitting in a tree.”

“Hey, Bobby, do you have anything that you don’t want?” Ryn asked.

Bobby fished around in the pockets of his jeans. “I’ve got a bottle cap?”

“That’ll work,” Ryn said.

He handed it to her, and she set it between her thumb and forefinger and flicked, sending it flying in Cass’s direction. Cass ducked, and the cap bounced harmlessly off the wall behind her.

“Ha,” Cass commented, then promptly got smacked in the head with a crumpled up paper cup that Ryn had tossed right after the bottle cap. “Hey! Ow!”

Ryn smirked. “So shut up about me and Riley already.”

“I wasn’t the only one saying things,” Cass grumbled.

“No, you were just the only one who said you were safe from getting hit,” Shade replied. “Moving on to more important things. Who wants what on their pizza?” He paused, then added, “You in for pizza, Bobby?”

Bobby grabbed one of the chairs next to Sam and Dani’s couch and sat down. “I’m always up for pizza. And I like pepperoni and sausage, but I’m not picky.”

“Dude, sweet,” Cass commented. “You’re our third.”

“Third?” Bobby asked.

“Me and Cass like pepperoni and sausage,” West said. “But our rule is three people get a whole pizza, and everyone else always gangs up on us with their sausage hate.”

“It’s not our fault sausage on pizza is disgusting,” Shade commented.

“Says the guy who puts up with pineapple,” Cass retorted.

“It’s good!” Ryn said.

“Better than sausage,” Shade agreed.

“Yeah, well, you weirdos aren’t getting it tonight, because Ryn’s not in,” West commented.

“Ryn, you suck,” Dani commented. “Way to abandon us to the sausage people.”

“Nope, we’re still on for pineapple,” Shade said. “Zeph’s off work soon, and she said she’d be good for the pizza when she gets here.”

“Sweet,” Dani said cheerfully.

“So we’ve got one pineapple, one pepperoni and sausage, and one regular pepperoni for Sam and his pineapple and sausage hate?” Shade asked.

Sam grinned. “You know, it’s possible that I really like pineapple and am just doing this so I get a whole pizza for myself.”

“For you and everyone else who wants more,” West corrected.

“Ryn, honey, staring at the clock won’t make it move faster,” Dani commented.

“Huh?” Ryn asked. “I, uh. I wasn’t staring. I was looking.”

“Hey guys,” someone greeted from the door.

Bobby turned to see a guy with light brown hair standing there, dressed nicely. The guy noticed him and gave a friendly smile.

“Hi, I’m Riley,” the guy introduced.

“Bobby,” he replied. “So you’d be the owner of the Jeep? It’s nice.”

Riley’s smile widened. “That’d be me. And thanks. Sorry I can’t stick around, but Ryn and I have a movie to catch. You ready to go, Ryn?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ryn replied casually. “See you guys later.”

She and Riley left, and Shade fished a card out of his wallet and held it up.

“Okay, guys, it’s time for the usual fight over who has to call,” Shade said.

“So not it,” Cass said immediately.

“You’re never it,” West said.

“I hate calling,” Cass reminded him.

“I’ll call,” Bobby offered. Kitty and Jubilee had usually made him call for pizza when they ordered it back at the Institute. They’d wheedled him into meeting the pizza guy at the main gate, too, and Bobby’d used to drag Johnny with him to keep the pizzas warm. Johnny only complained a little, because it meant he could eat pizza on the way back before everyone else and get the best slices for himself. After Johnny left, Pete had come with him to carry the pizza, because otherwise the girls complained that Bobby made the pizza colder faster.

“Dude,” Cass said. “Bobby, you’re officially always eating pizza with us, so we can get sausage and you can call.”

“Way to sweet talk him into hanging out with us and getting stuff for us,” West said, rolling his eyes.

Bobby grinned. “I’m used to only being wanted for my mad skills,” he teased, pulling out his cell phone. “What’s the number?”

Shade handed him the card and Bobby called for the pizza, adding two orders of breadsticks and a pair of two-liter Cokes at Cass and West’s insistence. They watched TV and chatted while they waited for the pizza, then there was a mad dash as everyone tried to pull together enough cash to pay and ended up handing it all over to Cass, who didn’t have any on her and was going to pay with her card.

Before long, all of the pepperoni and sausage, most of the pepperoni, and three quarters or so of the pineapple was gone. Bobby was considering another slice of pepperoni when a young woman with shoulder-length blue hair walked into the room and fell face-first onto the couch next to Dani.

“Ugh. Dead,” she muttered into the couch.

“Rough night?” Dani asked.

“Deeaaad,” she repeated. “We were so busy today. And there were these three tables at the end of my shift that were just so. Annoying. They couldn’t decide what they wanted and kept changing their order and making me go back and forth and take their food back and fix it and they refused to leave and one of them short changed me.” She rolled over and sat up. “Do I smell pizza?” She reached over to take a slice of pineapple, then paused at noticing Bobby. “Oh! Hi. I’m Zephyr. And I don’t usually complain this much, I swear.”

“Bobby,” he said, grinning absently in amusement at just how many times he’d said his name that day. “No worries, I’m used to a lot more complaining.”

She tilted her head, looking closer at him. “Hey, you live next door! Between me and Ryn. Nice to finally meet you.”

“You, too,” he said.

Bobby ended up staying down there for a lot longer than he meant to. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it, having people to hang out with and talk to. When he finally headed back up to his room, he wondered if he’d just made things worse.

~*~

After the meeting, Bobby spent the rest of Wednesday avoiding everyone. He walked around the grounds for almost two hours and somehow ended up at the garage. Before he realized what he was doing, he’d punched his code into the box that held the keys to all the vehicles and grabbed the ones to his favorite car. He drove off, no destination in mind, just driving. He needed to think, or maybe not to think. Bobby didn’t know what he needed.

The car’s radio was still turned to the classical music station he liked, but right then he needed lyrics, something to sing along with so he didn’t have to make sense of everything running through his head. He rummaged through the glove box and found an unlabelled CD, then an AC/DC CD. He knew most of the songs on that one, so he put it in, turned it up, and focused on singing the parts he knew and memorizing the ones he didn’t.

It worked until he got to one of the songs and remembered that the first time he’d heard it had been when Johnny was blaring it in their room. Bobby’d known the band, but not the song, and when he’d asked if it was them just to be sure and mentioned he liked them, Johnny’d snorted and asked how he could like the band and not know one of their best songs. But after the song had ended, Johnny’d pulled the CD out of the stereo and told Bobby he could burn it if he wanted to. Johnny always used burn instead of copy, and sometimes he did it with this little smirk that made Bobby wonder if he did it just because he liked saying burn.

Johnny used to smirk a lot. Kitty and Jubilee joked that his smile programming was broken and it defaulted to smirk. They’d even categorized his smirks (‘I know something you don’t know’ smirk, ‘you’re a moron’ smirk and accompanying eye roll, ‘ha ha very funny’ smirk, ‘I find your pain amusing’ smirk, ‘keep that up and I’ll torch you’ smirk, and so on) and Pete had made a little cartoon out of it.

When Bobby’d told Johnny about it, he was pretty sure Johnny thought it was really entertaining. But Johnny’d wanted revenge, just for the principle of it, and Bobby’d helped him because he was pretty sure they joked and drew little cartoons about him that he didn’t know about. They’d gotten a week’s worth of detention, but the looks on Kitty and Jubilee’s faces when they’d gone back to their room and found all of their clothes pinned to the ceiling under a foot or two of ice had been so worth it. They’d complained for weeks that their best clothes had been completely ruined, even though mostly everything had been just fine after it was dried out, and Bobby pointed out that they could’ve been much meaner. Johnny’d wanted to burn everything.

That had sparked off a prank war that lasted for several weeks, until Scott had gotten the coffee laced with methylene blue that was supposed to be for Kitty. They’d been very sternly told to knock it off, warned about playing with chemicals, and given another two weeks of detention. Johnny’d actually laughed for about a minute straight at the idea of Scott not knowing what was going on and freaking out about peeing green, maybe not being able to tell exactly what was wrong and having to call Jean in to look and tell him what color it was (And oh, fuck, could you imagine that conversation?) and Bobby figured that was worth more detention.

He didn’t mind detention, anyway, since usually it was just him and Johnny in one of the classrooms with one of the teachers watching them while they did homework. That was what they’d be doing if they weren’t in detention, anyway, although Johnny worked a lot slower when he was in detention and forced to work. That was slightly annoying, since Bobby couldn’t look over Johnny’s math and get Johnny to look over his English assignments until Johnny was done. Johnny wouldn’t trade assignments until they were back in their room, anyway, like he didn’t want the teachers to know that he got Bobby to correct his math for him.

Bobby didn’t care, and his English papers usually ended up a lot more marked up than Johnny’s math, so he should have had more to hide. But Johnny was like that; he hated it when people learned he had weaknesses. Bobby actually couldn’t remember how he’d found out Johnny wasn’t all that great in math. It just seemed like they’d always corrected each other’s homework. But he must have found out somehow, and he was probably the only one who knew. Well, except for maybe Storm, if she’d figured out why Johnny was suddenly doing so much better in math.

He wasn’t supposed to be thinking like this. Bobby’d blocked it off, he’d stopped all trains of thought that led to Johnny when he’d left and joined Magneto. Bobby’d convinced himself that he didn’t miss Johnny, that it was better with him gone, that Johnny’d made his choice and now he was the enemy. That was the way he was supposed to think, that was the way everyone else thought. That Johnny was gone, and now there was only Pyro.

For awhile, he’d managed to do a pretty good job of ignoring five, going on six years of knowing Johnny, but obviously, it wasn’t working so well any more. Not when now he was realizing that Johnny knew him better than anyone, and he probably knew more about Johnny than anyone else. Maybe more than Johnny’d wanted him to know. But obviously not enough, because he’d never thought Johnny would ditch them to join Magneto.

That helped, a little bit. He just had to keep thinking of that, that Johnny’d turned traitor. He’d made his decision, picked his side, and it wasn’t with them. He’d even been ready to kill Bobby. Just keep reminding himself of that, and maybe then Bobby’d be okay with handing him over.

Except he couldn’t. His brain kept jumping around, remembering things like the time they’d snuck out to go to the midnight premiere of Star Wars: Episode Three, which Johnny’d said he was only going to because it was the first time Bobby’d actually wanted to sneak out and he couldn’t miss that. But Bobby’d snuck glances at him during the movie, and Johnny’d looked completely captivated.

Or when Bobby’d tried to hold Johnny’s lighter. Bobby’d been curious, wanted to know why he always had his lighter in his hand, playing with it, and on the third day they were roommates, Bobby’d absently reached over to take it and look at it. Johnny’d freaked out and pulled away, glaring at him like he’d done something horrible. Now, it occurred to Bobby that without Johnny’s lighter, he was powerless, just like a normal human. Bobby’d pretty much just tried to take his power away in a place he wasn’t comfortable in.

It meant something, then, the first time Johnny’d let him hold it. Bobby’d been typing his history essay, and Johnny been leaning over his shoulder, reading it and flicking his lighter. They were supposed to go see a movie or something, and Johnny got impatient and shoved Bobby’s hands aside, casually dropping his lighter into one of them and telling him to hold it while Johnny quickly reworded some of it and finished it up. At the time, Bobby’d been surprised, and he’d known it was sort of a big deal, but he hadn’t said anything.

But it meant there’d been a time, once, when Johnny trusted him. Bobby wondered when that had changed. When Johnny’d gone from trusting him with his lighter to trying to kill him. Bobby wasn’t sure it mattered. Johnny’d trusted him, and five years of being his best friend still meant something to Bobby, even if it didn’t seem to matter to Johnny any more.

Really, Bobby’d known he couldn’t let them give Johnny over even before he’d known what their decision would be. He headed back to the mansion, still uncertain of everything except that he had to get Johnny out. Even if it meant that Bobby’d have to go, too.

It wasn’t hard to think of an excuse for why he’d be packing bags and putting them in his car and getting ready to leave. Bobby showed up in Storm’s office Thursday morning, waited for the younger student in there to leave, and then closed the door behind him.

She watched him, then when he turned around to face her again, said quietly, “We’re not going to change our plans, Bobby.”

“I know,” Bobby replied, letting defeat enter his voice. “That’s not why I’m here. Well, it is, kind of. I need to get away for a little bit. Just, just for a week or so.”

Her expression softened. “I’m sorry, Bobby. I wish there was something else we could do, but we can’t - ”

“I know,” he said again, cutting her off. “You made the only decision you could. But that doesn’t mean I have to be here for it.”

She sighed. “Can you wait until Saturday to leave? Logan’s going out Friday and he won’t be back until sometime Saturday, and I don’t want to be short two team members.”

Bobby felt guilty, and he knew he looked it. He wasn’t just depriving the X-men of a team member for a week or so while he got his head together, he was leaving. He was doing the one thing he thought he’d never do, what he’d never wanted to do. He’d always wanted to be an X-man. Always. Ever since his first day here. And now that he finally was one, completely, he was leaving. He’d been upset at Rogue - Marie for leaving them, and he still was, and how was he any better?

He felt like it was different. She’d left in the middle of things, he was leaving after they were done. She’d left so she could stop being who she was, he was leaving because who he was couldn’t live with the decision the rest of the team had come to. She’d come back, he wasn’t going to. He didn’t know if any of that made a difference, and right then, he didn’t think he cared.

Especially because, amongst the guilt, he was thinking that with Logan gone, Friday night would be the perfect time to get Johnny out.

“I’ll wait until Saturday,” Bobby said. “A few more days, it doesn’t matter. I just want a little break.”

Storm remained silent, looking at him like she knew what he was really thinking and not saying. She was good at it, too. She’d learned the look from the best, after all. But Bobby’d gotten that look from the best too many times, and Storm wasn’t a telepath. He just looked back at her, and he realized it wasn’t suspicion in her eyes. It was concern. That right there almost changed his mind. He couldn’t stand the thought of letting her down. But he hadn’t saved Johnny on Alcatraz just to let the government kill him.

“Where are you planning on going?” she asked finally.

“The beach, maybe? I don’t know,” Bobby said honestly. “I was sort of just planning on driving for a bit. Clear my head.”

She nodded. “Be careful. And call when you stop, or when you decide where you’re headed.”

“Okay,” he agreed, wondering when lying had started being so easy. When he’d gotten good at it. “I’ll let you get back to work.”

He started to leave, then hesitated. “Thanks, Ororo. And I’m sorry, for having to leave.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she told him. “And we’ll miss you, while you’re gone.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” he said, and that, at least, was true. So incredibly true.

Chapter Four