Summary: Set in Triple Scoop, a short one-shot for Bobby's Icequeen about how Pyro got away. Ryro. Pyro's POV.

A/N: This one's for Bobby's Icequeen, my faithful reader/reviewer.

Disclaimer: The characters and verse belong to Marvel and Fox respectively. I am only providing the circumstances.

Baked Alaska

John Allerdyce looked at the group standing defensively in the middle of his ring of fire. Kitty, Colossus, and Jubilee were unimportant, but the other three weighed heavily in his mind. This whole mess was Leech's fault. If he hadn't provided the doctors with a "cure" for mutantcy, Magneto wouldn't be powerless right now and Pyro wouldn't be here having to face down his two best friends.

There had always been something ironic in his and Bobby's friendship. They were polar opposites: Iceman and Pyro. Bobby the good guy, John the bad boy. Bobby was straight-laced, always followed the rules, and came from a happy family. John lived to break rules and pull pranks and his family was far from happy. But the two of them had still been friends for as long as they had both been at Xavier's.

And then Rogue came. She came between Bobby and John like nothing else had. Their pasts, their differences, none of that had mattered in their friendship. It was a girl that ultimately did them in. And John couldn't even be mad at her.

"I'm trying to do you a favor, Rogue, and put you back the way you're supposed to be," Pyro reasoned.

Magneto had been shot with a cure gun and wanted his powers back. The best way to do that was to capture Leech and use his DNA to reverse the process. But Magneto didn't want to test the anti-cure on himself, so they needed another mutant who'd gotten the cure. Magneto wanted to use Rogue as his guinea pig.

"NOW!" John shouted. Multiple Man leaped through the ring of fire and snatched Leech away from the group, leaving the X-Men stunned. John bit back a laugh as Kitty looked around and, with a start, realized what just happened. She ran after Pyro's accomplice and Colossus pounded after her.

Leech's little girlfriend made some threat that Pyro didn't really hear. He remembered seeing her around Xavier's, but didn't remember what her mutation was. He wasn't too worried about it; she wasn't important. John was more concerned about Bobby and Rogue than he was about the girl in the yellow dress. So he was surprised to find himself flat on his back with little lights exploding over him like fireworks.

"Jubilee!" Rogue yelled.

"Call your goon back!" Jubilee demanded, ignoring Rogue completely.

John didn't look up, but heard Bobby call, "Marie, what are you -"

The white lights faded from John's vision and he found Rogue standing over him. He could have sworn he saw worry in her face, but she was good at masking herself and almost anyone else would only have seen anger. Then, just to make a point, she kicked him. It wasn't as painful as it looked, but it caught John off guard and he reacted without thinking, grabbing Rogue's ankle and twisting it so she fell on top of him. Her bare skin touched his for the first time for what seemed like an eternity to John, but couldn't have been more than a few seconds. Neither one of the old friends moved.

He had her. All he had to do was push her away long enough to get himself out from under her. If he could do that, he could be on his feet before Rogue had time to escape. All he had to do was grab her and take her back to Magneto. Jamie already had Leech. John just had to bring back Rogue.

"What happened to you John?" Rogue's words played back in his head. She had sounded disappointed in him, but concerned too.

She's weak for getting the cure, John tried to remind himself. She's pathetic. It was hard to think that in this position. Rogue could feel now and what kind of friend would he be if he took that away from her? Human contact was the only thing she'd ever really wanted. Could he really just hand her over to Magneto to be used again?

"John?" Rogue breathed.

We are gods among men and she gave that up. She's running away from herself.

No matter what he said, John couldn't justify it to himself. Rogue could have run when he first showed up, but she didn't. Here she was, kicking him and getting herself captured. She wasn't a coward and she wasn't weak.

In the end he knew he'd hesitated too long anyway and now he would be dragged off to jail. Rogue was still on top of him, but Bobby wasn't turning him into a Pyro popcicle yet, so they couldn't have been in that position much longer than a few seconds. Now Bobby would come running over and trap John in a glacier and when he finally thawed, he would be in jail with Multiple Man's copy and a few Brotherhood members who had been lucky enough not to get dusted by Phoenix, but not lucky enough to escape the police.

Then Rogue was levering herself off of him and whispering in his ear, "Find what you need to find and come home." She pushed herself back to her feet, somehow managing to pull him up too. Behind Rogue, Bobby was fuming. John was sure that if Bobby wasn't covered in ice, steam would be shooting out of his ears.

Oh, I'm dead, John thought.

Rogue pulled harder than she needed to and managed to make it look like he pushed her backwards. She collided with Bobby so that he was forced to catch her, giving John time to escape. This time, he didn't hesitate. With a final look at Rogue in Bobby's arms, John headed back to Magneto, glad to be empty-handed.

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A/N: I'm actually a strong BobbyxRogue fan, but Ryro is just intriguing.

I actually kept it to a oneshot this time...

Thanks for reading/reviewing!

--X