What Becomes of Us
Title: What Becomes of Us (5 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 Three Four
He’d put it off as long as he could, but after registering for his second term of college and sending in his payments, his funds were dangerously low. If he wanted to keep paying rent and buying food, he’d have to start job-hunting. Bobby hadn’t wanted to, because it was just so permanent. An apartment, going to college, friends, a job, it was almost like he really planned on staying there for awhile. Like he’d fit himself into somewhere else, some new life that had little to do with his real home. He’d done it before, when he’d left Boston to go to school at the Institute.
Bobby’d destroyed his chance of still having a home in Boston when he’d been born a mutant, or maybe when he’d brought over a friend who’d nearly burnt the house down, and now he’d done the same with the Institute because the choices he’d made turned him into a traitor. Maybe he wasn’t meant to have the kind of home that was forever. Maybe he’d had it all wrong. Maybe he was the one who could never stay in one place, not Johnny. Or maybe it was both of them. Maybe they really were a lot alike.
Or maybe he’d been spending too much time thinking lately and he needed to do what he’d come downstairs to do and get his mail before he ended up standing at the foot of the stairs and staring off into space for a few hours. Lorna was on the phone when he approached the help desk, but she was the only one there, so he leaned against the counter to wait. She saw him and smiled, holding up one finger before returning to her phone conversation.
“Keep talking, asshole, it’s not going to change what I’ve already told you. There’s no one here named West Kent.” She paused, then rolled her eyes. “Look, I really don’t want to go to jail just because I had to kill you for annoying the hell out of me. So shut up, and if you’re really so desperate for a booty call that you’re trying to track this guy down in places he doesn’t live, you can come by tomorrow and look at the register. Then you can see he’s not there and leave me the hell alone.” She paused again. “Okay. Tomorrow. And if I hear from you again after that, I’ll risk jail.” She hung up without waiting for an answer, then turned to Bobby. “What do you need, hun?”
He blinked at her. “Um. Isn’t that guy going to be kind of pissed when he sees that West really does live here?”
Lorna smiled a bit. “Even if he does come in here, he won’t find West’s name. We don’t have security, but we can still keep the assholes from getting at you guys.” She stopped, looking at him curiously for a moment, then said, “If there’s someone bothering our tenants, we do what we can. If that means having a list of people who don’t live here if someone asks, then.” She shrugged. “Hmm. Tessa’d remind me to ask if you were interested.”
Briefly, Bobby wondered if that was even legal. Fortunately, he was smart enough not to ask, and he was ready to politely decline when he realized that if anyone called asking about him, he’d very much like to not be there. If the X-men found him, he doubted they’d be using the phone to check, but it couldn’t hurt, so he nodded. “Yeah. I think I am.”
She looked like she’d been expecting that answer, which made Bobby shift slightly uncomfortably. “Do you have a name ready or do I have to make one up?” she asked.
Bobby considered that, then said, “Charlie. Charlie Sheppard.” It was a combination of two characters from the movie The Iceman. Charlie was the Iceman, Dr. Sheppard had been the main character. When Bobby had found out there was actually a movie called The Iceman, he’d immediately gone out and rented it. He’d forced Johnny to watch it with him (well, actually, he’d just put it on in their room, but since Johnny was in there he’d had to watch it, so Johnny’d blamed him). Johnny’d gotten a kick out of it when the Iceman turned out to be a caveman, but the movie had kind of sucked and in retaliation Johnny’d gone out and rented a whole bunch of movies with fire or burn in the title, including St. Elmo’s Fire, which he had apparently picked up without reading the back. Johnny’d been pissed, and ranted about false advertisement for like ten minutes.
“Did you need something else?” Lorna asked.
He blinked, focused his thoughts away from the past, and nodded. “Do I have any mail?”
Lorna looked under the counter to check and pulled out a couple of rolled up newspapers. “Just these.”
“Thanks,” he said as he took them.
She nodded and he headed to the rec room with his papers. He dropped into one of the chairs, greeting Shade, Zephyr, Dani, and Sam, who were already in there. He’d been getting the New York Times and the Washington Post, just to keep on top of the news, especially mutant related (and maybe to keep an eye on signs of unexplained arsons), but those wouldn’t help him in his job search, so he set them aside and opened up his copy of the local newspaper. With any luck, he’d be able to run any potential jobs by the others and see if they knew if the place was any good.
He had better luck than he thought, because he’d only been looking at the Classifieds for a minute or two when Shade noticed and asked, “You looking for a job, Bobby?”
“Yeah,” Bobby replied. “I figured it’s probably a good idea if I’d like to keep living here.”
Shade grinned a bit, then after a moment said, “Well, we just lost three of our guys at Rendezvous, the bar I work at.”
“I, um. Don’t really know how to mix drinks,” Bobby said, although it occurred to him later that his first protest should have been that he wasn’t quite twenty-one yet.
“How are you at stopping fights?” Shade asked.
Bobby smiled, amused even though no one would understand why that question was mildly entertaining. “Pretty good.”
Shade nodded. “You have some free time tonight? I can give you a trial run.”
Bobby blinked. “You serious?”
Shade grinned. “Yeah. Ryn and Cass and Zeph and I work there, and West used to before he abandoned us to tattoo people. We’re open seven days a week and we got a whole bunch of shifts to fill, and we get a lot of college students who quit when they graduate or decide they can’t handle it and school.”
“It’s great,” Zephyr said. “I know, I was complaining, but it’s a great place to work. The pay’s good, the atmosphere’s great, and you get free food after your shifts.”
“That’d be awesome,” Bobby said. “I’d really appreciate it, man.”
“No problem,” Shade said, shrugging. “You work out, you’ll be doing me a favor. It really sucks when we’re short-handed. My shift starts at nine tonight, that work for you?”
Bobby nodded. “Yeah, definitely. Thanks.”
By midnight that night, Bobby had a job. Shade’d taken him to the bar, which looked like shit on the outside but was relatively large and in excellent shape on the inside. The bar was crowded, filled with people playing pool and dancing was well as sitting at the bar or one of the tables. Shade showed him around, explaining that usually they liked to have eleven people working per shift, three bartenders, three waiters, three bouncers, and two cooks. It didn’t happen often, though, so most people did a little of everything. Except the cooks, who were always there.
After the tour, Shade told him that his job for the night would be to keep order as best he could; break up any fights, kick people out when he deemed it necessary. There was another guy doing the same, but he’d be outside doing crowd control, so Bobby was pretty much it. Cass and another girl were waitressing, and he should also keep an eye on them. The bar patrons were usually fine and the girls could take care of themselves, but just in case. Lastly, Shade said if things got tough to come find him, and then he joined Ryn and a guy with shoulder length blond hair at the bar.
Bobby moved hesitantly amongst the bar patrons, but after he quickly put a stop to an argument before it could result in physical violence, his confidence grew. He may have left the uniform behind, but part of him would always be Iceman, and he roamed casually through the crowds, watching. Just like a training exercise, keeping the peace, reading for anything, just because he wasn’t wearing the leather didn’t mean he couldn’t give off the same cool determination, non-threatening but confident, in control. It came naturally to him, or maybe it was too many Danger Room simulations, or maybe it was something of both. Crowd control, stopping riots, Storm had put him through exercises that were almost like this and he changed, just a bit, not completely becoming Iceman but not quite just being Bobby any more.
The names used to not mean much to him. Just codenames, something fun, like a superhero game that was so awesome when he was younger and even more awesome because he didn’t have to pretend he had superpowers. It’d meant a little, just because he could be Iceman at school but not at home, but it had never been as big of a deal to him as it was to some of the others. Not until he started serious training with the X-men and he realized there was a difference between Bobby, the kid who liked making people smile and laugh, who did all of his homework and was a practical joker but a good listener and a bit of a (huge) dork, and Iceman, the X-man who stood tall and took charge, assessed the situation and acted, projected confidence enough that he’d lead most of the training exercises with just the junior X-men. If he was being honest with himself, the names had started meaning more when Johnny’d left and became just Pyro.
He broke up only two other arguments that night, neither of which came to blows, and at a little before midnight, Shade found him again and pulled him into an office.
“Job’s yours, Bobby,” Shade told him with a grin. “Let’s sign the paperwork and set you up with some shifts.”
~*~
Friday morning, Bobby started packing. He had to be careful, had to make sure it looked like he was only taking enough to be gone for a couple of weeks. It should have been easy, he’d packed just that much whenever he went back to Boston for Christmas. But he hadn’t needed to pack much, then, he still had most everything he needed at his parents’ house. He’d wanted to start packing earlier, but since he wasn’t supposed to be leaving until late on Saturday, he’d thought that might be a little too soon. Still, he kind of wished he had, because he spent nearly an hour just kind of standing in the middle of his room, staring at all of his things and realizing just how many of them he was probably going to have to leave behind.
More than anything else, that really made him think about what he was about to do. He’d been putting it off, but now that he actually had to decide what he was going to take and what he was never going to see again...No. Obviously, he needed to stop thinking. Just focus on what he had to do. Just like another training exercise, another mission, someone he had to rescue. Put everything into planning and he could think about the rest later.
He packed his clothes first. He pulled out his duffel bag and put in his favorite clothes, then all of the newest things he had (they’d last longer), and then put in as many of his other clothes as he dared. Shoes, beach towel, his pillow and favorite blanket, he could get away with that. His baseball card and comic book collection, no one would notice he’d packed those until well after he was gone. Some DVDs, all of his CDs, his iPod and portable CD player, those went into his combination backpack and shoulder bag, along with his GED and any other paperwork he thought would be important. At the time he’d taken the test to get his GED, he’d known that Professor Xavier could get him into any college he wanted, if he decided to go, but Bobby’d wanted to take the test anyway, just in case. Now he was glad he did.
He wished he could take his computer, but it was a desktop, and there was no way he could get it out of his room without people seeing. Same thing with his snowglobe collection, although he really didn’t want to leave that behind. His parents had first started getting him snowglobes from places they went to when he and Ronnie were too young to go on vacation with them and had stayed with grandparents, but the snowglobe thing hadn’t really kicked off until he’d gotten to the Institute. The first Christmas he and Johnny had realized that they needed to get each other presents, neither of them had any idea what to get the other. They’d both gone with clichés: Bobby’d gotten Johnny a Zippo and Johnny’d gotten him a snowglobe with what looked like ice sculptures inside. They’d both been really entertained, and it wasn’t long before everyone was getting Bobby snowglobes, although no one ever gave Johnny more lighters. Maybe that was why, although they both moved on to giving other presents, Bobby sometimes added in a lighter but Johnny never gave him another snowglobe.
When Bobby’s things were packed, he pulled out a notepad from his desk and sat down. He’d been going back and forth on whether or not he was going to leave a note behind, because he wasn’t sure he could handle writing something without changing his mind, but he’d decided he couldn’t just leave with nothing. So he wrote, and the general note he’d planned on became personal notes, and then he put them at the top of his top desk drawer and closed it, trying hard not to think about them.
Then he dug around in the back of his closet and found a backpack that had once belonged to Johnny and, a little deeper, a fairly dusty, unmarked box. After Johnny’d left, Bobby refused to clean out his half of the room for as long as he could. When Professor Xavier finally offered to have someone else do it, Bobby’d gave in and done it himself. Most of the stuff went into storage. But he’d left Johnny’s favorite clothes hanging up in the closet and folded in one of the drawers of Bobby’s new, bigger dresser. And the box of all of Johnny’s favorite books, CDs, some of his lighters, the notebooks he wrote in that every once in awhile, he’d let Bobby read samples of, Bobby’d put that right at the front of his closet. Bobby still believed Johnny’d come back, then, and he wanted Johnny to see that he still had a place there.
But Johnny hadn’t come back, and the box had gotten shoved further and further back into his closet. The clothes that had once been worn by both Johnny and him so much that neither of them could remember who they originally belonged to had become just Bobby’s, and he’d even started to wear a couple of things that he liked from the clothes that had been purely Johnny’s. It wasn’t like Johnny was ever going to come back to claim them.
Now, though, Bobby transferred the contents of the box over to Johnny’s backpack, along with Johnny’s favorite clothes (Bobby’d already packed the things that had once been both of theirs and the clothes he’d started claiming as his). When he was done, there was still a little room, so Bobby stole some of Johnny’s space to put two of his favorite snowglobes; one his parents had gotten him and one that had been personalized, with a group picture of Johnny, Kitty, Pete, Jubilee, and himself goofing off. He couldn’t remember who’d gotten him that one. And then he just had to bring along his other favorite, the one Johnny’d gotten him, so he made room for it in his duffel bag.
He loaded everything into his favorite car, the one Storm had given him permission to take on his trip, and then headed into town. He picked up some basic food stuffs, the kinds of things he’d be expected to bring along for a short vacation, then, at the last moment possible, stopped by his bank and liquidated his account. It was this move that scared him the most, both because it was way too much money to be carrying around, and because he was worried that, for some reason, even though he’d opened the account after it became obvious his parents wanted nothing to do with him and it had nothing to do with the Institute, they’d call up Storm to let her know what he’d done and she’d want answers.
Paranoid and trying not to look it, he hid the money in scattered locations in the three bags, then stowed the rest under the backseat of the car for now. Then he drove back to the Institute and locked the car, but kept the keys instead of putting them back in the box. It wasn’t an uncommon move if he was going to use the car again, especially if people knew he was, and no one really touched the car, anyway (they all had their favorites), but it was just another thing for him to be paranoid about.
With all the time he’d spent getting ready, Friday night was there before he knew it, and Bobby found himself on one last assignment of surveillance duty, watching to make sure Pyro was sleeping peacefully like a good little boy.
He slept differently now. It wasn’t like Bobby’d spent all of his time watching Johnny sleep, but after over six years of being roommates, he’d noticed things. Both of them had been restless sleepers, just in different ways. Bobby had difficulty getting to sleep, which often lead to late night ice cream trips, but once he was asleep he was out, and didn’t move until he was awake again. Johnny could fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, but he shifted constantly, rolling over, changing positions, muttering to himself, and generally being annoying until Bobby got used to sleeping in the same room with him. When Johnny’d left, Bobby’d realized he missed it. He found it even harder to get to sleep after that.
But now, even though the sensors in the room monitoring everything about Pyro said that he was fast asleep, Bobby had yet to see him move. He was just lying there, perfectly silent and almost perfectly still. It’d taken him awhile, too, though Pyro’d closed his eyes and mimicked sleep, his heart and metabolic rate hadn’t slowed for almost an hour. There were other little things, too, like Johnny’d used to pile on the covers but kick his left foot free of them, so all you could see were his head, shoulders, and foot. Now he just had a single sheet pulled up to his waist.
They used to both be able to “sleep like two lame guys having the best dream ever and refusing to wake up because this time, she might actually take off her clothes,” like Kitty put it. Bobby’d never had the heart to tell her that he had no problem getting his dream girls to take their clothes off, and more, he just always seemed to wake up before things got finished. And it’d also been slightly uncomfortable for him because while it was usually hot celebrities, girls back in Boston, or Rogue, once he’d met her, there’d been a couple of times when Kitty had starred in his dreams. But he didn’t really think anything of it, because it’d also been Jubes, or Storm, or Doctor Grey, and once or twice it hadn’t been a girl at all, and those were the times when there’d been a couple of days where Bobby couldn’t look Johnny in the eye. But Bobby knew none of that meant anything except that he was a teenage boy surrounded by people that were incredibly attractive and not getting much action.
Anyway, that was a long time ago, and the point was that both Bobby and Johnny had slept like the dead. Pyro still did, kind of, he sleep through lights being turned on and doors opening and his name called, but the second something touched him or a potentially dangerous noise sounded near him, he was awake, in body if not in mind. That, at least, was something that had changed about both of them. Bobby wondered if Pyro’d trained himself to be more aware of his surroundings while he slept or if it was just something that happened naturally while he’d been living with Magneto. It’d be just like Johnny to grow naturally into something that Bobby had to work on.
And there were other differences, too. Like, Pyro’s hair was stupid. Petty, Bobby knew, but it was. There was a reason that Bobby laughed the first time he saw him with that hair, even though it’d been the fifth time they’d met in battle and Bobby’d been pretty much convinced that Johnny was never coming back. His laughter was probably the reason he’d gone home with second-degree burns on his arms, but he couldn’t help it. It just looked stupid.
Johnny’s brown roots were starting to show. Not much, but enough that Bobby could see them. It must have been a little while since he’d last bleached them before Alcatraz, and obviously he hadn’t been able to get bleach since then. Absurdly, Bobby was glad. The brown was a little bit of the old Johnny showing through, just a little bit, but as long as he couldn’t get bleach, more brown would keep resurfacing. And it was a good thing that Bobby wasn’t analyzing what he was thinking, because it was really stupid that he was thinking that much into Johnny’s hair.
“That’s kind of creepy,” Logan commented from behind him, and Bobby started.
It was a small move, barely even a twitch in surprise, but when Bobby turned slightly to face Logan, there was a smirk on his face that told Bobby he’d noticed it.
“What is?” Bobby asked.
“Watching while he sleeps,” Logan replied. “It’s the smart thing to do, not arguing with that, but it gives me the creeps.”
“I’m only here because everyone else needs some sleep,” Bobby said, knowing he sounded a bit sullen and resentful. “And I’m leaving tomorrow, so I’ll get plenty of sleep then.” Which was true. That had been the reason Storm asked him to take one last shift of guard duty. He just hadn’t let on that he’d wanted to take it. He’d been lucky, if he’d asked Storm to be put on it, it probably would have been suspicious. But no, they still trusted him, and that would never make Bobby stop feeling guilty.
“You’re lucky you talked to ‘Ro first, kid,” Logan told him. “I wanted out of here for awhile.”
Bobby must have looked surprised, because Logan shrugged.
“I told you before, Snowboy, the kid’s a moron and deserves what’s coming to him, but that doesn’t mean I’m in favor of handing mutants over to the government,” Logan said.
Bobby looked closely at Logan, wondering if he was making comparisons between Pyro and Logan himself. Both of them had killed people, lots of people. But Logan had never turned traitor. “Kitty said it’d be different if he actually regretted what he did.”
Logan snorted. “You can regret all you want, kid, it doesn’t mean anything if you keep doing the same shit over and over again.”
“And if we let him go, he would,” Bobby said. It came out as almost a question, thought he’d just meant for it to be a statement.
Logan looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “No reason for him not to.”
Bobby nodded. “I thought you were going to be out tonight?”
“I am,” Logan replied. “Leaving now. Had to talk with Marie, first.”
Almost immediately, a lump appeared in Bobby’s throat. He tried to swallow it, failed, and settled for talking around it. “We broke up.”
“I heard,” Logan said. “She said it was just time, that’s the reason you’ve still got all your limbs.”
“It was. I wish it wasn’t, but I think it kinda was. It might have been past time, actually, but.” He paused, then admitted quietly, “I still love her.” Bobby didn’t know why he was telling Logan this. There was just something about Logan that, well, quite frankly, terrified the hell out of Bobby. But for some reason, he always found himself admitting things to Logan. Maybe that was why. Maybe he babbled to fill the silence and wound up confessing things.
Logan was just looking at him like he had no idea what to say to that. And it was probably a bad idea to bring up the subject of love around him, anyway, considering what had happened on Alcatraz. For a moment, Bobby considered asking him how he’d done it, how he’d handled Doctor Grey being the enemy and how he’d been able to bring himself to kill her. But he didn’t, because he remembered Logan’s reaction last time he’d brought her up. And it wasn’t the same, anyway. Jean hadn’t been Jean, she’d been the Phoenix, and the real Jean would have wanted the Phoenix stopped more than anyone. And besides, what Logan felt for Jean was different than what was between Bobby and Johnny.
“I hate this,” Bobby said, changing the subject. Or returning to what they’d been talking about before, whatever. He was still talking too much. “I hate feeling like we’re making the biggest mistake ever.”
Logan sighed. “Kid, if you’re lookin’ for someone to tell you that everything’s gonna be okay, it ain’t me.”
“I’m not,” Bobby said defensively. “I’m not an idiot, I know that there’s no good choices here. I just think there’s a better one than this. I know we were fighting to keep Magneto from killing Jimmy, but weren’t we fighting to keep the Cure from being used against people against their will, too? The government’s not putting it in weapons anymore, but they’re using it as punishment?”
Logan shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable. Like he wished he’d just left instead of stopping by, so he wouldn’t have to be having this conversation. “Times like these, sometimes you got to make decisions you wish you didn’t have to.”
“Like using it on Magneto,” Bobby said. “You know, if Magneto hadn’t gotten away on Alcatraz, the government probably wouldn’t care so much about putting Pyro on trial.”
“No,” Logan agreed. “Probably not. Pyro’s just their consolation prize.”
“Why don’t we stall, then? Work on finding Magneto?” Bobby asked.
“You fucking stupid now, Iceman, or were you just not paying attention in the meetings? It’s pretty fucking difficult to find him without Cerebro. And, okay, say we find him. Then what? Dangle him in front of the government until they forget about Pyro and get caught up in punishing the head of the Brotherhood?” Logan asked.
Bobby nodded.
“And we just, what, let Pyro go? Send him out there to torch who the fuck knows how many other people?” Logan said.
Bobby hesitated. “He could stay here.”
Logan snorted.
Bobby frowned. “I would’ve thought you’d believe in second chances.”
“Idiot left before,” Logan replied. “You see anything that’s changed to lead you to believe he wants to stay here? It doesn’t matter how many fucking chances you give people if they don’t change what made them screw up the one in the first place.”
“You changed,” Bobby said, then wondered if he’d gone a little too far. But it didn’t matter, and Bobby sat up a little straighter, tilting his chin to show that he wasn’t going to back down from his comment.
Logan looked at him, then smirked a bit and shook his head. “Sometimes, kid, I don’t know. But maybe I found some things to change for. To stay for. Your buddy, he found some things to leave for.”
“Maybe there’s still some things that he could stay for,” Bobby protested, but even he could tell he didn’t really believe that. Johnny’d never liked the rules here, and he’d been gone too long, had too much fun without them to go back to them.
But Logan didn’t say that. Instead, he just looked Bobby over again, and shrugged. “Maybe. But if there were, it’s a little too late for him to find them.”
“It doesn’t have to be. They could find him,” Bobby said.
Logan stared at him once more, and Bobby wondered if they were having a second, unspoken conversation that he wasn’t really aware of. It kind of seemed like they were. Like Logan was reading things into his comments and responding, and maybe Bobby was supposed to be reading things into Logan’s comments, too. He tried to figure out what they could be, but then he got a vague notion that Logan knew he was planning on doing something and it just freaked him out a little.
“You can keep on being delusional, bub, but it ain’t gonna do you much good in the end. Best thing you can do is say your good-byes and move on,” Logan told him.
Bobby shrugged, resisting the urge to ask if that’s what he’d done on Alcatraz.
There was another moment of silence, then Logan shook his head. “You’re gonna do whatever you’re gonna do, Iceman. I’m taking off.”
Bobby gave him a nod, and got one in return, then Logan walked out. Bobby looked back at the video screen, then the monitor. Pyro was still lying there, like he was asleep, but the sensors said he was awake. Bobby resisted the urge to turn on the speaker and say something, and instead glanced over at the clock. It was just after midnight. He’d give it another couple of hours, and by then Logan should be pretty far gone, and everyone else asleep.
Part Six
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 Three Four
He’d put it off as long as he could, but after registering for his second term of college and sending in his payments, his funds were dangerously low. If he wanted to keep paying rent and buying food, he’d have to start job-hunting. Bobby hadn’t wanted to, because it was just so permanent. An apartment, going to college, friends, a job, it was almost like he really planned on staying there for awhile. Like he’d fit himself into somewhere else, some new life that had little to do with his real home. He’d done it before, when he’d left Boston to go to school at the Institute.
Bobby’d destroyed his chance of still having a home in Boston when he’d been born a mutant, or maybe when he’d brought over a friend who’d nearly burnt the house down, and now he’d done the same with the Institute because the choices he’d made turned him into a traitor. Maybe he wasn’t meant to have the kind of home that was forever. Maybe he’d had it all wrong. Maybe he was the one who could never stay in one place, not Johnny. Or maybe it was both of them. Maybe they really were a lot alike.
Or maybe he’d been spending too much time thinking lately and he needed to do what he’d come downstairs to do and get his mail before he ended up standing at the foot of the stairs and staring off into space for a few hours. Lorna was on the phone when he approached the help desk, but she was the only one there, so he leaned against the counter to wait. She saw him and smiled, holding up one finger before returning to her phone conversation.
“Keep talking, asshole, it’s not going to change what I’ve already told you. There’s no one here named West Kent.” She paused, then rolled her eyes. “Look, I really don’t want to go to jail just because I had to kill you for annoying the hell out of me. So shut up, and if you’re really so desperate for a booty call that you’re trying to track this guy down in places he doesn’t live, you can come by tomorrow and look at the register. Then you can see he’s not there and leave me the hell alone.” She paused again. “Okay. Tomorrow. And if I hear from you again after that, I’ll risk jail.” She hung up without waiting for an answer, then turned to Bobby. “What do you need, hun?”
He blinked at her. “Um. Isn’t that guy going to be kind of pissed when he sees that West really does live here?”
Lorna smiled a bit. “Even if he does come in here, he won’t find West’s name. We don’t have security, but we can still keep the assholes from getting at you guys.” She stopped, looking at him curiously for a moment, then said, “If there’s someone bothering our tenants, we do what we can. If that means having a list of people who don’t live here if someone asks, then.” She shrugged. “Hmm. Tessa’d remind me to ask if you were interested.”
Briefly, Bobby wondered if that was even legal. Fortunately, he was smart enough not to ask, and he was ready to politely decline when he realized that if anyone called asking about him, he’d very much like to not be there. If the X-men found him, he doubted they’d be using the phone to check, but it couldn’t hurt, so he nodded. “Yeah. I think I am.”
She looked like she’d been expecting that answer, which made Bobby shift slightly uncomfortably. “Do you have a name ready or do I have to make one up?” she asked.
Bobby considered that, then said, “Charlie. Charlie Sheppard.” It was a combination of two characters from the movie The Iceman. Charlie was the Iceman, Dr. Sheppard had been the main character. When Bobby had found out there was actually a movie called The Iceman, he’d immediately gone out and rented it. He’d forced Johnny to watch it with him (well, actually, he’d just put it on in their room, but since Johnny was in there he’d had to watch it, so Johnny’d blamed him). Johnny’d gotten a kick out of it when the Iceman turned out to be a caveman, but the movie had kind of sucked and in retaliation Johnny’d gone out and rented a whole bunch of movies with fire or burn in the title, including St. Elmo’s Fire, which he had apparently picked up without reading the back. Johnny’d been pissed, and ranted about false advertisement for like ten minutes.
“Did you need something else?” Lorna asked.
He blinked, focused his thoughts away from the past, and nodded. “Do I have any mail?”
Lorna looked under the counter to check and pulled out a couple of rolled up newspapers. “Just these.”
“Thanks,” he said as he took them.
She nodded and he headed to the rec room with his papers. He dropped into one of the chairs, greeting Shade, Zephyr, Dani, and Sam, who were already in there. He’d been getting the New York Times and the Washington Post, just to keep on top of the news, especially mutant related (and maybe to keep an eye on signs of unexplained arsons), but those wouldn’t help him in his job search, so he set them aside and opened up his copy of the local newspaper. With any luck, he’d be able to run any potential jobs by the others and see if they knew if the place was any good.
He had better luck than he thought, because he’d only been looking at the Classifieds for a minute or two when Shade noticed and asked, “You looking for a job, Bobby?”
“Yeah,” Bobby replied. “I figured it’s probably a good idea if I’d like to keep living here.”
Shade grinned a bit, then after a moment said, “Well, we just lost three of our guys at Rendezvous, the bar I work at.”
“I, um. Don’t really know how to mix drinks,” Bobby said, although it occurred to him later that his first protest should have been that he wasn’t quite twenty-one yet.
“How are you at stopping fights?” Shade asked.
Bobby smiled, amused even though no one would understand why that question was mildly entertaining. “Pretty good.”
Shade nodded. “You have some free time tonight? I can give you a trial run.”
Bobby blinked. “You serious?”
Shade grinned. “Yeah. Ryn and Cass and Zeph and I work there, and West used to before he abandoned us to tattoo people. We’re open seven days a week and we got a whole bunch of shifts to fill, and we get a lot of college students who quit when they graduate or decide they can’t handle it and school.”
“It’s great,” Zephyr said. “I know, I was complaining, but it’s a great place to work. The pay’s good, the atmosphere’s great, and you get free food after your shifts.”
“That’d be awesome,” Bobby said. “I’d really appreciate it, man.”
“No problem,” Shade said, shrugging. “You work out, you’ll be doing me a favor. It really sucks when we’re short-handed. My shift starts at nine tonight, that work for you?”
Bobby nodded. “Yeah, definitely. Thanks.”
By midnight that night, Bobby had a job. Shade’d taken him to the bar, which looked like shit on the outside but was relatively large and in excellent shape on the inside. The bar was crowded, filled with people playing pool and dancing was well as sitting at the bar or one of the tables. Shade showed him around, explaining that usually they liked to have eleven people working per shift, three bartenders, three waiters, three bouncers, and two cooks. It didn’t happen often, though, so most people did a little of everything. Except the cooks, who were always there.
After the tour, Shade told him that his job for the night would be to keep order as best he could; break up any fights, kick people out when he deemed it necessary. There was another guy doing the same, but he’d be outside doing crowd control, so Bobby was pretty much it. Cass and another girl were waitressing, and he should also keep an eye on them. The bar patrons were usually fine and the girls could take care of themselves, but just in case. Lastly, Shade said if things got tough to come find him, and then he joined Ryn and a guy with shoulder length blond hair at the bar.
Bobby moved hesitantly amongst the bar patrons, but after he quickly put a stop to an argument before it could result in physical violence, his confidence grew. He may have left the uniform behind, but part of him would always be Iceman, and he roamed casually through the crowds, watching. Just like a training exercise, keeping the peace, reading for anything, just because he wasn’t wearing the leather didn’t mean he couldn’t give off the same cool determination, non-threatening but confident, in control. It came naturally to him, or maybe it was too many Danger Room simulations, or maybe it was something of both. Crowd control, stopping riots, Storm had put him through exercises that were almost like this and he changed, just a bit, not completely becoming Iceman but not quite just being Bobby any more.
The names used to not mean much to him. Just codenames, something fun, like a superhero game that was so awesome when he was younger and even more awesome because he didn’t have to pretend he had superpowers. It’d meant a little, just because he could be Iceman at school but not at home, but it had never been as big of a deal to him as it was to some of the others. Not until he started serious training with the X-men and he realized there was a difference between Bobby, the kid who liked making people smile and laugh, who did all of his homework and was a practical joker but a good listener and a bit of a (huge) dork, and Iceman, the X-man who stood tall and took charge, assessed the situation and acted, projected confidence enough that he’d lead most of the training exercises with just the junior X-men. If he was being honest with himself, the names had started meaning more when Johnny’d left and became just Pyro.
He broke up only two other arguments that night, neither of which came to blows, and at a little before midnight, Shade found him again and pulled him into an office.
“Job’s yours, Bobby,” Shade told him with a grin. “Let’s sign the paperwork and set you up with some shifts.”
~*~
Friday morning, Bobby started packing. He had to be careful, had to make sure it looked like he was only taking enough to be gone for a couple of weeks. It should have been easy, he’d packed just that much whenever he went back to Boston for Christmas. But he hadn’t needed to pack much, then, he still had most everything he needed at his parents’ house. He’d wanted to start packing earlier, but since he wasn’t supposed to be leaving until late on Saturday, he’d thought that might be a little too soon. Still, he kind of wished he had, because he spent nearly an hour just kind of standing in the middle of his room, staring at all of his things and realizing just how many of them he was probably going to have to leave behind.
More than anything else, that really made him think about what he was about to do. He’d been putting it off, but now that he actually had to decide what he was going to take and what he was never going to see again...No. Obviously, he needed to stop thinking. Just focus on what he had to do. Just like another training exercise, another mission, someone he had to rescue. Put everything into planning and he could think about the rest later.
He packed his clothes first. He pulled out his duffel bag and put in his favorite clothes, then all of the newest things he had (they’d last longer), and then put in as many of his other clothes as he dared. Shoes, beach towel, his pillow and favorite blanket, he could get away with that. His baseball card and comic book collection, no one would notice he’d packed those until well after he was gone. Some DVDs, all of his CDs, his iPod and portable CD player, those went into his combination backpack and shoulder bag, along with his GED and any other paperwork he thought would be important. At the time he’d taken the test to get his GED, he’d known that Professor Xavier could get him into any college he wanted, if he decided to go, but Bobby’d wanted to take the test anyway, just in case. Now he was glad he did.
He wished he could take his computer, but it was a desktop, and there was no way he could get it out of his room without people seeing. Same thing with his snowglobe collection, although he really didn’t want to leave that behind. His parents had first started getting him snowglobes from places they went to when he and Ronnie were too young to go on vacation with them and had stayed with grandparents, but the snowglobe thing hadn’t really kicked off until he’d gotten to the Institute. The first Christmas he and Johnny had realized that they needed to get each other presents, neither of them had any idea what to get the other. They’d both gone with clichés: Bobby’d gotten Johnny a Zippo and Johnny’d gotten him a snowglobe with what looked like ice sculptures inside. They’d both been really entertained, and it wasn’t long before everyone was getting Bobby snowglobes, although no one ever gave Johnny more lighters. Maybe that was why, although they both moved on to giving other presents, Bobby sometimes added in a lighter but Johnny never gave him another snowglobe.
When Bobby’s things were packed, he pulled out a notepad from his desk and sat down. He’d been going back and forth on whether or not he was going to leave a note behind, because he wasn’t sure he could handle writing something without changing his mind, but he’d decided he couldn’t just leave with nothing. So he wrote, and the general note he’d planned on became personal notes, and then he put them at the top of his top desk drawer and closed it, trying hard not to think about them.
Then he dug around in the back of his closet and found a backpack that had once belonged to Johnny and, a little deeper, a fairly dusty, unmarked box. After Johnny’d left, Bobby refused to clean out his half of the room for as long as he could. When Professor Xavier finally offered to have someone else do it, Bobby’d gave in and done it himself. Most of the stuff went into storage. But he’d left Johnny’s favorite clothes hanging up in the closet and folded in one of the drawers of Bobby’s new, bigger dresser. And the box of all of Johnny’s favorite books, CDs, some of his lighters, the notebooks he wrote in that every once in awhile, he’d let Bobby read samples of, Bobby’d put that right at the front of his closet. Bobby still believed Johnny’d come back, then, and he wanted Johnny to see that he still had a place there.
But Johnny hadn’t come back, and the box had gotten shoved further and further back into his closet. The clothes that had once been worn by both Johnny and him so much that neither of them could remember who they originally belonged to had become just Bobby’s, and he’d even started to wear a couple of things that he liked from the clothes that had been purely Johnny’s. It wasn’t like Johnny was ever going to come back to claim them.
Now, though, Bobby transferred the contents of the box over to Johnny’s backpack, along with Johnny’s favorite clothes (Bobby’d already packed the things that had once been both of theirs and the clothes he’d started claiming as his). When he was done, there was still a little room, so Bobby stole some of Johnny’s space to put two of his favorite snowglobes; one his parents had gotten him and one that had been personalized, with a group picture of Johnny, Kitty, Pete, Jubilee, and himself goofing off. He couldn’t remember who’d gotten him that one. And then he just had to bring along his other favorite, the one Johnny’d gotten him, so he made room for it in his duffel bag.
He loaded everything into his favorite car, the one Storm had given him permission to take on his trip, and then headed into town. He picked up some basic food stuffs, the kinds of things he’d be expected to bring along for a short vacation, then, at the last moment possible, stopped by his bank and liquidated his account. It was this move that scared him the most, both because it was way too much money to be carrying around, and because he was worried that, for some reason, even though he’d opened the account after it became obvious his parents wanted nothing to do with him and it had nothing to do with the Institute, they’d call up Storm to let her know what he’d done and she’d want answers.
Paranoid and trying not to look it, he hid the money in scattered locations in the three bags, then stowed the rest under the backseat of the car for now. Then he drove back to the Institute and locked the car, but kept the keys instead of putting them back in the box. It wasn’t an uncommon move if he was going to use the car again, especially if people knew he was, and no one really touched the car, anyway (they all had their favorites), but it was just another thing for him to be paranoid about.
With all the time he’d spent getting ready, Friday night was there before he knew it, and Bobby found himself on one last assignment of surveillance duty, watching to make sure Pyro was sleeping peacefully like a good little boy.
He slept differently now. It wasn’t like Bobby’d spent all of his time watching Johnny sleep, but after over six years of being roommates, he’d noticed things. Both of them had been restless sleepers, just in different ways. Bobby had difficulty getting to sleep, which often lead to late night ice cream trips, but once he was asleep he was out, and didn’t move until he was awake again. Johnny could fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, but he shifted constantly, rolling over, changing positions, muttering to himself, and generally being annoying until Bobby got used to sleeping in the same room with him. When Johnny’d left, Bobby’d realized he missed it. He found it even harder to get to sleep after that.
But now, even though the sensors in the room monitoring everything about Pyro said that he was fast asleep, Bobby had yet to see him move. He was just lying there, perfectly silent and almost perfectly still. It’d taken him awhile, too, though Pyro’d closed his eyes and mimicked sleep, his heart and metabolic rate hadn’t slowed for almost an hour. There were other little things, too, like Johnny’d used to pile on the covers but kick his left foot free of them, so all you could see were his head, shoulders, and foot. Now he just had a single sheet pulled up to his waist.
They used to both be able to “sleep like two lame guys having the best dream ever and refusing to wake up because this time, she might actually take off her clothes,” like Kitty put it. Bobby’d never had the heart to tell her that he had no problem getting his dream girls to take their clothes off, and more, he just always seemed to wake up before things got finished. And it’d also been slightly uncomfortable for him because while it was usually hot celebrities, girls back in Boston, or Rogue, once he’d met her, there’d been a couple of times when Kitty had starred in his dreams. But he didn’t really think anything of it, because it’d also been Jubes, or Storm, or Doctor Grey, and once or twice it hadn’t been a girl at all, and those were the times when there’d been a couple of days where Bobby couldn’t look Johnny in the eye. But Bobby knew none of that meant anything except that he was a teenage boy surrounded by people that were incredibly attractive and not getting much action.
Anyway, that was a long time ago, and the point was that both Bobby and Johnny had slept like the dead. Pyro still did, kind of, he sleep through lights being turned on and doors opening and his name called, but the second something touched him or a potentially dangerous noise sounded near him, he was awake, in body if not in mind. That, at least, was something that had changed about both of them. Bobby wondered if Pyro’d trained himself to be more aware of his surroundings while he slept or if it was just something that happened naturally while he’d been living with Magneto. It’d be just like Johnny to grow naturally into something that Bobby had to work on.
And there were other differences, too. Like, Pyro’s hair was stupid. Petty, Bobby knew, but it was. There was a reason that Bobby laughed the first time he saw him with that hair, even though it’d been the fifth time they’d met in battle and Bobby’d been pretty much convinced that Johnny was never coming back. His laughter was probably the reason he’d gone home with second-degree burns on his arms, but he couldn’t help it. It just looked stupid.
Johnny’s brown roots were starting to show. Not much, but enough that Bobby could see them. It must have been a little while since he’d last bleached them before Alcatraz, and obviously he hadn’t been able to get bleach since then. Absurdly, Bobby was glad. The brown was a little bit of the old Johnny showing through, just a little bit, but as long as he couldn’t get bleach, more brown would keep resurfacing. And it was a good thing that Bobby wasn’t analyzing what he was thinking, because it was really stupid that he was thinking that much into Johnny’s hair.
“That’s kind of creepy,” Logan commented from behind him, and Bobby started.
It was a small move, barely even a twitch in surprise, but when Bobby turned slightly to face Logan, there was a smirk on his face that told Bobby he’d noticed it.
“What is?” Bobby asked.
“Watching while he sleeps,” Logan replied. “It’s the smart thing to do, not arguing with that, but it gives me the creeps.”
“I’m only here because everyone else needs some sleep,” Bobby said, knowing he sounded a bit sullen and resentful. “And I’m leaving tomorrow, so I’ll get plenty of sleep then.” Which was true. That had been the reason Storm asked him to take one last shift of guard duty. He just hadn’t let on that he’d wanted to take it. He’d been lucky, if he’d asked Storm to be put on it, it probably would have been suspicious. But no, they still trusted him, and that would never make Bobby stop feeling guilty.
“You’re lucky you talked to ‘Ro first, kid,” Logan told him. “I wanted out of here for awhile.”
Bobby must have looked surprised, because Logan shrugged.
“I told you before, Snowboy, the kid’s a moron and deserves what’s coming to him, but that doesn’t mean I’m in favor of handing mutants over to the government,” Logan said.
Bobby looked closely at Logan, wondering if he was making comparisons between Pyro and Logan himself. Both of them had killed people, lots of people. But Logan had never turned traitor. “Kitty said it’d be different if he actually regretted what he did.”
Logan snorted. “You can regret all you want, kid, it doesn’t mean anything if you keep doing the same shit over and over again.”
“And if we let him go, he would,” Bobby said. It came out as almost a question, thought he’d just meant for it to be a statement.
Logan looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “No reason for him not to.”
Bobby nodded. “I thought you were going to be out tonight?”
“I am,” Logan replied. “Leaving now. Had to talk with Marie, first.”
Almost immediately, a lump appeared in Bobby’s throat. He tried to swallow it, failed, and settled for talking around it. “We broke up.”
“I heard,” Logan said. “She said it was just time, that’s the reason you’ve still got all your limbs.”
“It was. I wish it wasn’t, but I think it kinda was. It might have been past time, actually, but.” He paused, then admitted quietly, “I still love her.” Bobby didn’t know why he was telling Logan this. There was just something about Logan that, well, quite frankly, terrified the hell out of Bobby. But for some reason, he always found himself admitting things to Logan. Maybe that was why. Maybe he babbled to fill the silence and wound up confessing things.
Logan was just looking at him like he had no idea what to say to that. And it was probably a bad idea to bring up the subject of love around him, anyway, considering what had happened on Alcatraz. For a moment, Bobby considered asking him how he’d done it, how he’d handled Doctor Grey being the enemy and how he’d been able to bring himself to kill her. But he didn’t, because he remembered Logan’s reaction last time he’d brought her up. And it wasn’t the same, anyway. Jean hadn’t been Jean, she’d been the Phoenix, and the real Jean would have wanted the Phoenix stopped more than anyone. And besides, what Logan felt for Jean was different than what was between Bobby and Johnny.
“I hate this,” Bobby said, changing the subject. Or returning to what they’d been talking about before, whatever. He was still talking too much. “I hate feeling like we’re making the biggest mistake ever.”
Logan sighed. “Kid, if you’re lookin’ for someone to tell you that everything’s gonna be okay, it ain’t me.”
“I’m not,” Bobby said defensively. “I’m not an idiot, I know that there’s no good choices here. I just think there’s a better one than this. I know we were fighting to keep Magneto from killing Jimmy, but weren’t we fighting to keep the Cure from being used against people against their will, too? The government’s not putting it in weapons anymore, but they’re using it as punishment?”
Logan shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable. Like he wished he’d just left instead of stopping by, so he wouldn’t have to be having this conversation. “Times like these, sometimes you got to make decisions you wish you didn’t have to.”
“Like using it on Magneto,” Bobby said. “You know, if Magneto hadn’t gotten away on Alcatraz, the government probably wouldn’t care so much about putting Pyro on trial.”
“No,” Logan agreed. “Probably not. Pyro’s just their consolation prize.”
“Why don’t we stall, then? Work on finding Magneto?” Bobby asked.
“You fucking stupid now, Iceman, or were you just not paying attention in the meetings? It’s pretty fucking difficult to find him without Cerebro. And, okay, say we find him. Then what? Dangle him in front of the government until they forget about Pyro and get caught up in punishing the head of the Brotherhood?” Logan asked.
Bobby nodded.
“And we just, what, let Pyro go? Send him out there to torch who the fuck knows how many other people?” Logan said.
Bobby hesitated. “He could stay here.”
Logan snorted.
Bobby frowned. “I would’ve thought you’d believe in second chances.”
“Idiot left before,” Logan replied. “You see anything that’s changed to lead you to believe he wants to stay here? It doesn’t matter how many fucking chances you give people if they don’t change what made them screw up the one in the first place.”
“You changed,” Bobby said, then wondered if he’d gone a little too far. But it didn’t matter, and Bobby sat up a little straighter, tilting his chin to show that he wasn’t going to back down from his comment.
Logan looked at him, then smirked a bit and shook his head. “Sometimes, kid, I don’t know. But maybe I found some things to change for. To stay for. Your buddy, he found some things to leave for.”
“Maybe there’s still some things that he could stay for,” Bobby protested, but even he could tell he didn’t really believe that. Johnny’d never liked the rules here, and he’d been gone too long, had too much fun without them to go back to them.
But Logan didn’t say that. Instead, he just looked Bobby over again, and shrugged. “Maybe. But if there were, it’s a little too late for him to find them.”
“It doesn’t have to be. They could find him,” Bobby said.
Logan stared at him once more, and Bobby wondered if they were having a second, unspoken conversation that he wasn’t really aware of. It kind of seemed like they were. Like Logan was reading things into his comments and responding, and maybe Bobby was supposed to be reading things into Logan’s comments, too. He tried to figure out what they could be, but then he got a vague notion that Logan knew he was planning on doing something and it just freaked him out a little.
“You can keep on being delusional, bub, but it ain’t gonna do you much good in the end. Best thing you can do is say your good-byes and move on,” Logan told him.
Bobby shrugged, resisting the urge to ask if that’s what he’d done on Alcatraz.
There was another moment of silence, then Logan shook his head. “You’re gonna do whatever you’re gonna do, Iceman. I’m taking off.”
Bobby gave him a nod, and got one in return, then Logan walked out. Bobby looked back at the video screen, then the monitor. Pyro was still lying there, like he was asleep, but the sensors said he was awake. Bobby resisted the urge to turn on the speaker and say something, and instead glanced over at the clock. It was just after midnight. He’d give it another couple of hours, and by then Logan should be pretty far gone, and everyone else asleep.
Part Six