First comes the match and then the smoke and then the fire.
TITLE: Bonding for the Freedom-ly Challenged
FANDOM: Wolverine and the X-Men
CHARACTERS: Pyro, Boom Boom, MRD Soldiers.
RATING: High Teen. [Language, violence.]
SUMMARY: Time supposedly passes slowly when you’re in custody. When you’ve got an interesting next door neighbour, then it’s a different story. [For andthexmen’s Off-Season Fic Off #4]
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Remember that reaction entry to the first episode of WatXM where I decided fandom had better represent with the Pyro/Boom Boom? Yeah. Never really happened. Or at least I haven't seen it yet, in which case you are MORE than welcome to share links, because I still have a thing for them.
The point is that the latest Off-Season Fic Off at andthexmen had a list of prompts to pick from, one of which was writing about a mutant in the custody of the MRD...specifically Tabitha. Upon seeing this, I realized I had no real option but to write them myself because HOLY CRAP GUYS. I said it before and I’ll say it again: OMGTHEIRLOVEISSOEXPLOSIVE.
The blond guy is a regular headcase, Tabitha decides as she’s dragged kicking and swearing past his cell by two MRD goons.
“Fresh meat,” he says in an absolutely ridiculous accent, shit-eating grin firmly in place while lounging (lounging!) on the cot that’s been so kindly provided to him like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
“Shut it, Pyro,” warns one of the guards as she’s thrown in to the cell next door.
Pyro laughs, and it really only serves to confirm her assessment of the man.
“Like I always tell you, George, you’re welcome to come in here and try to make me whenever you like.”
George’s eyes may be hidden by his helmet’s visor, but the twitch of his jaw is answer enough for everyone in the vicinity. A couple other prisoners snicker.
“That’s right,” Pyro snorts. “You’d rather keep this lovely force field between us. Can’t say I blame you though, seeing as we both know I could take you.”
Tabitha thinks she may like the nutbar.
***
It’s that first night when that same accent and a knock on the wall keeps her from pretending to be asleep.
“So how’d you get caught?”
She pulls a face, though it’s not as though Pyro can see it. For that much at least she’s thankful.
“What’s it to you?”
“You may not have noticed, but we’re a little short on entertainment here.”
“So it would seem.”
“So? ‘Fess up. How were you oppressed by The Man today?”
Tabitha takes a deep breath, silently demanding that her voice not betray her.
“My parents don’t like me much.”
She isn’t sure she can elaborate any further. Thankfully, she doesn’t need to.
“Shitty,” Pyro replies, and even though it’s only one word, she appreciates even the modicum of sympathy. It’s more than she’s gotten from anyone lately.
“What about you?” she asks, wiping at her face and redirecting the attention away from her. “How’d you end up here?”
Mercifully, he catches her drift and lets it go. Her entire body relaxes in thanks.
“Guess.”
“I’m gonna have to go with arson.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” She can almost hear that same grin she saw on his face when he was goading George on earlier.
“With the name and all, yeah.”
She hears him laugh. It’s a welcome sound in this hellhole.
“I actually got ratted out by a neighbour. Ended up getting taken down at the corner store while trying to buy a slush. Feckin’ flatscans.”
“Amen,” she sighs. “Amen.”
***
If Tabitha’s tracking of the dates is accurate, she’s been in here a couple months now.
There’s also a routine that’s in place. It plays out every morning once the fluorescent lights flicker on at what she’s been told is exactly seven o’clock.
“Morning gorgeous,” Pyro will say as he sits up and pops his back.
“Morning,” she’ll reply, stretching out like a cat.
George (or Jim, or Andrew, depending on the day) will come with breakfast. Pyro will mock them heartily, and she occasionally joins in the heckling. They really make it too easy, George especially.
In the afternoons, they’ll swap stories of the outside world, always deftly avoiding any discussion of Tabitha’s family. Once in a while, they’ll sing whatever annoying songs they can come up with in order to drive whoever is monitoring them crazy, since Pyro knows that there has to be someone in the security room at all times, and turning the volume down is forbidden since the prisoners might discuss 'mutant secrets' or something equally dumb.
When they do sing, Tabitha falls back on bad eighties pop, or anything by Dazzler. Pyro’s personal favourite is, of course, “Burning Love”. According to the girl across the hallway, he does a mean pelvic thrust, even if he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.
***
The lights flicker on one morning, and there is no ‘Morning gorgeous’. Alarm bells sound off in Tabitha’s brain.
“Pyro?” she calls, and there is no response.
“He’s not in his cell,” the girl across the hall tells her.
She yells at the guy who brings her food (it’s Jim today), demanding to know where he is.
“How the hell should I know, mutie? Just eat your goddamn food.”
She yells more, and he simply walks on.
A couple hours of pacing later and her food’s no longer even marginally edible, but she hears the airlock in to the detention wing pop open. The sound of footsteps and something being dragged along the floor echo down the hall, and soon enough two guards pull a badly injured Pyro past her cell.
“Morning gorgeous,” he gargles, grin firmly in place despite the fact he can’t even walk. The guards shove his barely conscious body in to the cell. As the guards walk past her, she realizes one of them is George.
“What did you do to him? What did you do to him?” She can barely keep from slamming herself in to the force field on the off-chance that this time, it might give way.
George only sneers at her, and that’s all Tabitha needs to know.
“You’re a dead man,” she informs George, shocked at how cold her voice suddenly becomes.
George attempts to laugh it off, but she can see the fear in his eyes. He shuffles off faster than usual.
***
“Something’s gonna happen,” she says one afternoon a while after she’s completely lost track of time. “Something big. Soon.”
“And what makes you say that?”
She leans against the wall that separates the two of them, hands jammed in her pockets to keep from fiddling.
“They brought in that flatscan family the other night, right? If they’re taking homo sapiens now, the game’s changed.”
There’s an mmmmmm of understanding and agreement from next door before he actually speaks.
“So what do you figure is in the cards then?”
“Not sure,” she admits, and her voice drops so it’s only loud enough for Pyro to hear. She barely dares to hope it herself. “Escape? Maybe?”
There is a moment of silence before he responds with a question in a voice nearly as quiet.
“If you get out, what are you gonna do?”
This is something she’s never actually considered. She can really only shrug, because that`s the closest thing she has to an answer other than not back to her family.
“Who knows. You?”
“You know that Genosha place?”
“Yeah. Island country for mutants, right?”
“That’s the one. Rumour has it that once you make it there, you’re home free. Though to tell you the truth, I’d be happy anywhere there’s a bed with a proper boxspring.”
The two of them laugh, the mood lightened, but they’re both waiting and watching now.
***
When the escape finally does happen a couple days later, the two of them stick together. They manage to take out a couple MRD assholes on the way out (one of whom is George, hallelujah), which feels great, and are the first on the helicopter outside the spandex-clad cavalry, which feels even better.
The funny looking short guy with the claws growls something about blowing up the hangar, and it’s no surprise when Pyro steps up to the plate.
“You’re singing my song, mate.” He turns to face her with a wicked smirk that she actually finds kind of charming. “Boom Boom, light ‘em up.”
She can’t help but grin as well, the bombs already forming in her hands.
“Sure thing, hotshot.”
-FIN-