Heroes and Villains

by petalpusher

Bobby thinks that's why afterwards, when everything is all over, he decides to write to John in prison. Takes place after X3.

Bobby Drake is not a superhero.

Sure, he's saved a few people in his time, but he's not sure he's as gold-hearted as superheroes should probably be. He wants to talk to someone who understands that, and it isn't Rogue and it sure as hell isn't Warren, his new roommate. He just doesn't feel right taking out all of his frustration on someone who looks like an angel, and as far as he can tell, acts like one too.

Bobby thinks that's why afterwards, when everything is all over, he decides to write to John in prison.

He knows he shouldn't, that if anyone knew they'd think he was crazy, but for some reason he goes through the trouble of finding out what prison John was taken to after the battle at Alcatraz. It just feels like he should, like he's supposed to. So he does, and once he starts writing everything just comes spilling out from there.

"..I went a whole week without missing you. One whole week where I smiled and laughed and your name never even crossed my mind. But then I saw someone lighting up a cigarette with a damn Zippo lighter that looked so much like yours and it all just kind of hit me in a rush. You being gone. You walking away without any kind of warning. I kinda sorta hate you for this. Ok, no I don't, but I honestly wish I could, and I figure that's just as bad. I'm not sure what I'm expecting from you, or if I even want you to write back. Hell, I probably shouldn't even send this (but we both know I will). I guess this is one of those things you do to blow off steam when you can't actually take it out on the person you want to because the person you're pissed with took off without warning in a helicopter with two mutant terrorists thus becoming your enemy by association ever since.

I'm gonna be honest with you, John, even if you can't be honest with me. I loved you. It took me a while to realize it, but I really did. I guess this is part of the reason why I'm writing to you; for closure or whatever. Since I never even got a chance to tell you before you went and became Magneto's new lackey. (If I sound bitter its because I am). You know we could've had a good thing, right? You and me. I know how you felt about the whole thing with Rogue, but I would've taken care of it (don't roll your eyes at me, you bastard, I would've). But you ruined that for both of us. Now the only time I'm going to see you is on the news as just another mutant captured, one of the bad ones. That's what they're gonna call you, you know. I guess you're a bad guy now. That makes us on different sides of a war. Is this what you wanted? For us to become enemies? Did you even think about it before you left, or was it just another one of your impulsive moves? I like to think that you didn't think about it first, before you did it. That at the time you didn't realize just who exactly you were leaving behind. That maybe you didn't realize what it would mean for us if you joined Magneto.

I never wanted to be your enemy, John, but you're making it very hard for me when you do the things that you do (or did, rather; I doubt they let you near any fire in the prison you're locked in). But I guess you know that, huh? Hell, that's probably why you did it. Or is it too conceited of me to think that your leaving was just another, more drawn-out way for you to fuck with my head? Only I'm still waiting for you to smirk and call it off, tell me you were only fuckin with me, to stop being such a little bitch.

I'm still waiting, John."

Bobby slips the tattered envelope into a mail box on his way back to the Institute. He went into town under the pretense of seeing a movie but in truth he just wandered around town, running his fingers over the letter in his pocket, trying to decide if he was making a bad move. He hopes, hopes, that when John opens it he's alone, because the last thing Bobby wants is to become the running joke of The Brotherhood.

When he gets back he passes the Professor briefly in the hallway and tries to concentrate on anything else other than what he's just done. He knows it doesn't really matter though, because as he's walking by he's sure the Professor is giving him A Look, either that or a trick of the light. With the state Bobby's in, so distracted and weighed down he couldn't tell you his own last name if you asked, it could very well be either.

Nevertheless, he slumps into bed and soon falls victim to another night of restless sleep. He dreams of fire, flames consuming him, only this time it isn't the pleasant tingle that he used to dream of, Back Then; this time the flames burn and melt his skin and when he wakes up it's with a frantic look in his eyes, pillow damp with sweat and tears and panic.

When Rogue asks him later on that day about what's obviously bothering him, Bobby smiles and tells her that he's just worrying too much. Rogue assumes it's because of the test they have next class period, and Bobby doesn't correct her. Still, when she leans in and kisses him on the cheek he flinches. Bobby has never been a comfortable liar.

Not like John.

A few days pass, then a week, then two, until he starts to lose count and wonders if maybe, somehow his letter got lost in the mail. So Bobby does what he considers the only logical course of action, and he tries again. This time the letter's much shorter.

"I don't know if you got my last letter. I think you did. I think you're just too scared to write back. Now who's the bitch, huh John?"

It's obvious that Bobby is trying to provoke John, bait him into writing back, but he doesn't care how it looks. Licked and sealed and inconspicuously slipped into the slot, he sends another letter, and even the mailbox, with its drooping drop slot, seems to pity him as he walks away. He's not desperate for an answer, though (really, he's not). He's just...curious. He thinks he deserves at least that, right? Right.

Soon enough John writes back, and Bobby tries not to rip the envelope as he opens it.

"No, it's still you, Drake. I'm not afraid to write a fuckin letter. Maybe I'm just busy, Icedick, as I would assume you would be, come to think of it. Tell me again why you aren't off somewhere, groping your coward girlfriend. You can touch her all you want now, can't you? No need for a substitute anymore, now you can get the real thing."

Quick and right to the point. Bobby tries not to be disappointed at the brevity and bitterness of John's letter and writes back.

"I could, but she doesn't burn like you do. I haven't yet decided if that's a good thing or not."

Apparently John hasn't either, because three weeks go by without any word. Bobby writes again, shorter this time, only a sentence long. "You were never a substitute," and before he can convince himself that he's being stupid, playing this dangerous game, he slips that one into the mailbox too.

A week and a half later there's still no answer; he gets antsy and writes again. This time he uses a lighter to singe the corners of the paper, a subtle knife in the gut meant to remind John what they don't let him have in there. A part of him is well aware of just how low he's stooping, sending crumbs to a starving man, but he pushes the feeling away as he lets the letter slip from his fingers and into the drop slot.

It's not like he'd included any spent matches in the letter (but really it's only because he didn't think of it until he was already in town and couldn't find any on his way to the mail box).

"You know, I've been dreaming about it. The stuff we used to do together when it was dark and we were alone. The way we used to pretend that we were so half-asleep that we didn't even realize what we were doing. Like I was sleep walking into your bed every night or something. It's really funny, now that I think about it. How two people just somehow manage to deny anything happening, even when waking up naked in the same damn bed. Now that's stubborn for you. Jizz sticking the bed sheets to our skin. Marks all over our bodies; our necks and chest and stomach and backs, all decorated with scratches and teeth marks that weren't there the night before. And yet we still managed to pretend that nothing was happening. It's actually kind of amazing how long we played pretend. Do you still think of it, John? I think you do. No, I know you do. You always seemed to like it a lot more than I did."

Bobby aims to hurt this time around. He wants John to feel it. When John takes almost a month to respond, he knows that he's succeeded. He doesn't acknowledge the guilt that seems to wrench apart his stomach every night. No, he would not feel guilty, not for this, not when John hadn't even expressed any remorse for leaving that day at Alkali Lake. John's reply is brief and annoyed.

"Why do you keep writing to me? If I stop responding, will you quit bugging me? I don't remember you being so stubborn. And to answer your (stupid) question, no, I don't still think of it. I've got bigger things to worry about than random, drunken experimentation, thanks."

Bobby pauses reading for a moment, temporarily overwhelmed with the inclination to mention that neither of them had ever been the least bit drunk at the time of any "experimentation". And since when is "experimentation" so consistent anyway? Bobby frowns, indignant, and continues reading.

"There's a lot of muties here. Down a few cells from me is a guy from Alabama or Louisiana or somewhere. Calls himself Gambit. I told him that the word gambit in no way has anything to do with his powers and he told me to fuck off. The people here are real nice."

Bobby takes the sudden change of subject on John's part to mean that he's won this round; John can't come up with a decent response to what he'd said save for curt denial. If Bobby thinks about it though, then he knows there's never any winning over John, just draws to be continued at a later date when John could win. John only ever makes small talk to change the subject, and that isn't really losing so much as ignoring the challenge.

Bobby's frown deepens and he stuffs the letter under his mattress with all the others.

Rogue is getting suspicious, and asks him why he keeps going out, all the way to town so randomly, and every time he makes up an excuse. Somehow he doesn't think "I'm just going into town to send letters to someone who would probably kill me and definitely you if he had the chance because I feel guilty sending them off from here even though someone must notice the return address when they hand out the mail. But yeah, it's nothing you should worry over."

A week later Bobby finally gets up the nerve to ask the question that's been in the back of his mind, angrily eating away at all rational thought ever since he saw that special on the History Channel on what can happen to guys in prison. The pretty ones, the young ones, and John is barely eighteen...

"..Do they fuck you in there, John? Does it hurt, some stranger being your first when it could've been me if you had let me? I would've been gentle with you. I wouldn't have hurt you. You know that, so I don't even know why I'm saying it. I bet when some overgrown Neanderthal named Big Gus fucks you into the mattress you pretend it's me, don't you? You let him take you like you never would me and you moan my name to try and make it feel ok. But it doesn't work, does it?

That's cause it's not me, John.

Only half of Bobby wants it to hurt John as much he thinks it will. There's something about John that leaves him saying and doing things he'd never in a million years say or do to anyone else, and it burns him up inside because John must know that.

John writes back, the shortest "letter" yet, and Bobby can feel the angry heat radiating off of the single notebook page.

"I am nobody's bitch, Drake."

And Bobby believes him because he wants to. He breathes a quiet sigh of relief without really knowing why and tries not to think of Magneto, of what he was almost certain went on between them behind closed doors. He just writes back.

"Nobody'd have you, huh? Not even in there."

Bobby hopes that John can tell that he's not entirely serious, only realizing that the feeling may be hard to get across in written words when he's walking away from the mailbox. Nevertheless, John writes back quickly and Bobby notices their letters getting shorter and shorter. He wonders when they'll be nothing at all, just blank pieces of paper stuffed into envelopes out of habit, maybe a random swear word scribbled here or there to let the other know just where they stand.

"Nobody here quite dumb enough to try and take something Magneto himself once claimed as belonging to him."

And that one stings Bobby like a thousand papercuts all under his skin, even if all John is doing is contradicting his earlier statements. It hurts like a bitch because Bobby knows exactly what John's implying and isn't even able to look in his eyes to tell if he's lying or not. It's just so like John to say so much in one short sentence, and Bobby can even see his smirk as he wrote it, so perfectly clear in his mind's eye. He grits his teeth until his jaw starts to hurt and the paper in his hands becomes covered with frost without him even realizing it. The next morning he wakes up almost completely frozen solid.

Bobby doesn't do stress well.

He skips every class of the day and writes one letter a million different ways before he finally settles on one final draft, more out of exhaustion than actual satisfaction.

"I'm not surprised. How long's it been going on? You sucked him off all the time, didn't you? Is that the only reason he even invited you to join him? That pretty mouth of yours? Does he taste as good under your tongue as I did, John? Do you smile when you take him all the way down? That's the difference between him and me, isn't it? You got off on blowing me more than I did."

And even Bobby knows how insecure and desperate he sounds, that the vulgarity and harsh words don't sound at all as if they could ever be said in his voice. He still sends it off though. Maybe, for once, John won't be able to see though him.

Another fast response from John comes a few days later and he locks himself inside the bathroom, sitting on the cold tiles as he reads. This whole thing is childish, this whole fucked up game of who-can-hurt-the-other-more that they're playing, but Bobby is far from caring (and knows John probably never did in the first place.)

"Longer than I'd ever consider being with you.
Sure did, Icedick.
If it was, could you blame him?
No, better.
Every time.
And no, the difference with him is that I actually liked it."

Bobby reads it only once, the words whose only purpose are to hurt him, before he crumples it in his hands, freezes it and then thaws it out so that the ink bleeds down the paper and the words are almost gone. That doesn't stop him from reading over it in his head, though; he's already memorized it whether he was trying to or not. Angrily, he discards the soggy paper and tries not to think of it again (which, of course, just means that for the next week or so he thinks of almost nothing but).

Rogue comes dangerously close to reading one of his letters as he's writing it. They're sitting in the library, studying, and Bobby is hunched over his notebook, scribbling furiously because if he doesn't get this out right now he may explode or turn the whole room into a walk-in freezer.

"Bobby?" she asks, looking over at him tentatively. A vein in his temple is pulsating and it must be the first time she's ever seen him like this. It would make sense; he's never gotten as angry around Rogue as he used to around John.

She touches his shoulder and repeats herself. "You ok?"

Quickly, he covers the page with his arms, breathing heavily. "Yeah, I'm fine," he mutters, closing the notebook entirely and feeling a pang of guilt at the concern on Rogue's face. She touches his cheek (its something she does often, now that she can) and it stings because only the night before he had been recounting a brief escapade with John a Forever ago that had made him half hard just thinking about it. He doesn't like to think of himself as a cheater, a liar, someone somebody could hate with a good reason to.

That's when Bobby starts to realize that he may be developing a problem, when Rogue kisses him softly and he wishes that it'd burn like it used to, like it did with him. He wishes so badly for it to burn that he actually moans into her mouth, and not at all from the feel of Rogue, but from the memory of the feel of John. Bobby pulls away, mumbling an excuse and rushing to his room. He doesn't even take his schoolbooks with him.

No. He's not developing a problem. He has a problem.

For the rest of the week he avoids Rogue like the plague and waits until he's alone in his room to write. Only two words this time and he doesn't care if it's pretty much a waste of a stamp.

"Fuck. You."

Soon another letter comes and he tries not to seem too eager when he opens it (but no one's around so he lets himself tear open the envelope like it's a goddamned Christmas present).

"You must have me confused with Rogue, Drake. Speaking of which, you know there're rumors going around of the cure not working? What will you do then? Guess you'll just have to go back to fucking your hand then. Or imagine if the cure wore off right when you were fucking her. Do you think your dick would fall off? It'd probably be an improvement on the sex, though, huh?"

And Bobby has to stop reading for a minute because the bitterness in just that short paragraph is enough to make his head spin at how much it rivals his own. After a moment, he continues.

"You know what that means for me, though, right? Magneto'll be back, strong as ever. I'll be outta this shithole soon. I can go back to fighting the good fight."

Bobby can't decide whether to scoff at or pity John because there's no hint of sarcasm at all there. He brushes it off as he reads the last sentence:

"This isn't over, Bobby."

Bobby repeats the last line over and over in his head, hearing John's voice say his name in the way that only he could, the hushed and intense way that gives him goose flesh just thinking about it. "This isn't over, Bobby." He doesn't know whether John means it isn't over as in the two of them as friends, as lovers, or as enemies, and knowing John he could very well mean all three.

The next few mornings Bobby wakes up a human icicle again. Damn, he doesn't do stress well. During the time where he's irritable every hour of the day, Rogue breaks it off with him, quick and painless. Afterwards, standing underneath the calming spray of a cold shower, Bobby is able to stave off the panic that seemed to rise almost automatically at such a drastic change being thrown at him. It's not like he didn't see it coming; they'd barely seen hair nor hide of each other for the longest time.

Bobby supposes that he just doesn't care much for being the one left behind.

During the next couple of days he hears whispered rumors of mutants escaping from their special prisons, most of them being broken out by Magneto or someone associated with him.

Bobby doesn't write anymore letters after he catches a glimpse of the 5 o'clock news that evening. There's live footage of the wreckage where the prison John stayed in used to be, big piles of concrete, twisted metal, and ashes. It reeks of Magneto, of John, of the Brotherhood, and he tears up the letter he was working on. He knows it would've been returned to sender.

A whole week passes before the Professor calls a special school assembly and tells them that it's true, it's all true, the cure has worn off, Magneto's back, and students, this is war all over again. Rogue stands beside him, back to wearing her elbow length gloves, and she looks to be visibly shaking. Bobby feels sick to his stomach as he listens to the Professor continue. For the first time he's realizing it, that this fight is a fight they're all doomed to repeat over and over again. The thought makes him wish he could freeze over and melt until he becomes just water in the cracks of sidewalks, until he dries up and evaporates and can't come back.

They have barely a month to prepare before Magneto launches an attack and Bobby gets the most intense case of de ja vu he's ever felt. It's not very long before Pyro and Iceman are staring each other down again, alone on a crowded battlefield. John bares his teeth in a gruesome smile, plays with the growing flame in the palm of his hand. Bobby flexes his fingers and eyes the new set of flamethrowers John's packing this time around.

"It's been a long time, John."

"Too long, friend." John's voice is even different; it's deeper and somehow meaner. Bobby watches as John licks his lips, his tongue running over the dried blood encrusted there.

Bobby looks him up and down, at the way he's filled out in prison, the way his eyes are darker than he's ever seen them before. Bobby doesn't know whether to kill him or kiss him, and the conflicting urges scare him more than anything he's ever had to face, going into battle outnumbered included.

He can hear the sounds of the battle raging on in the background, distant in his ears, and makes a mental tally of the few allies that are in his immediate vicinity; Angel, too injured to even fly away from all of this needless death. Wolverine is running around like a madman, claws out, parts of his insides showing on the outside but still slashing and hacking every enemy in sight. Rogue is following close behind him, watching his back. She's more vicious than Bobby's ever seen her, all the mutations she's borrowed from other mutants turning her into a sort of mixing pot of X genes with Marie buried somewhere underneath, somewhere too hard to find. And Kitty...Oh God, she was so young, too young to be lying dead with no one even to move her body out of harm's way.

Everyone else is either killing or close to being killed, and he's not sure he even wants to know which category the rest of his friends- his family, really- would fall in. Bobby Drake doesn't know much of anything anymore, not as John takes out a piece of paper that he recognizes as being adorned with his own handwriting, and lets an end corner dip into the flame, setting the letter on fire before Bobby's very eyes. He squints at the page, can make out the words 'still waiting, John' near the bottom, and realizes that it's that first letter that he ever wrote to John.

As it goes up in flames Bobby swears he can almost see what's left of his words in the fire reflecting in John's eyes, but he blinks and it isn't there anymore. John catches the ashes in his free hand and steps right up close to Bobby so that a small part of him thinks that maybe John is seriously going to kiss him, but instead John puckers his lips and blows the ashes right into Bobby's face.

Angrily and without thinking, Bobby grabs John's shoulders, presses their lips together so that he can feel the burning one more time, because it just has to still be there somewhere. John struggles weakly against him, but Bobby doesn't care and amidst all the death and destruction there exists one perfect moment where fire and ice coincide perfectly, the way they once were before the whole crazy notion of 'enemies' and 'good versus bad' ever related to them. For now there is only steam, and the two of them are making it.

Everything is quiet and still for a long time, too long, Bobby thinks, and a moment later John is setting his right arm on fire as Bobby breaths cold air into John's mouth, trying half-heartedly to turn his insides to ice. The moment is over and everything is dark and dirty again, the invisible line hastily redrawn with the two of them staring the other down from opposite sides. John is breathing hard as the fire on the arm of Bobby's suit turns to ice and falls off like a scab.

Bobby realizes that this is how its always going to be, the two of them standing up and fighting for two very different ideals, and gets that sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach, the one that says 'I don't want to do this'.

Bobby Drake is not a superhero. Superheroes have hearts of gold and rescue kittens from trees and carry damsels in distress from burning buildings. But most of all superheroes are able to destroy supervillians when they need to.

Superheroes don't turn away like he's doing right now. Superheroes don't refuse to fight their archenemies as if that's an actual option. Superheroes stay and fight supervillians, no matter how much it's killing them. That's the way it goes. They don't just stop.

But Bobby Drake isn't a superhero. And come to think of it, neither is John.