John and Tony

A/N: Disclaimer's in the first chapter.

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The typical kid at the X-Mansion had had a good life, before their mutations popped up. A few of them even still had supportive, loving parents who knew they were mutants. The rest had only known the fear and desperation that was life on the streets for a few days or, at most, a few weeks before Charles found them and brought them in.

John envied them their naiveté. Because that hadn't even been close to John's life. John had been born to the town drunks. The violent, abusive town drunks. John's earliest memory is of being on the receiving end of a drunken beating. He spent most of his childhood wearing long sleeves hating everyone around him, because everyone knew his parents were drunks. They even knew his father was a violent drunk, because he ended up in the town lockup at least once a month. But no one ever bothered to find out if that viciousness was being turned on John.

Things just got worse when, at the age of ten, his mutation had blown wide open during yet another fight (and yet another beating), resulting in everything in a half block radius burning to the ground, and the death of both his parents and the neighbors on both sides of his house, because they hadn't had time to run before the fireball consumed their houses. There'd been something like twenty injured, ranging from severe burns to smoke inhalation.

John had, rather understandably, run for the hills when the smoke and fire had cleared and he got a good look at the devastation. He'd been forced to keep running, too. Because his mutation was practically a living thing under his skin.

It had taken time for him to get any sort of handle on it whatever, but he eventually figured out that he could 'feel' any fire, no matter the size. From the little flame in the pilot light on the stove all the way up to the superhot blazes used in funeral homes to cremate the dead. Worse, he could control them all. Or, well, in those early days, inadvertently hijack control and cause rather epic amounts of damage. He'd left rather a lot of devastation in his wake without meaning to.

He'd scrabbled to survive over the next couple years. Had ... done things, to survive that he ... really hated himself for, most days. He'd been fourteen when Charles showed up and tried to talk him into coming with him. John had very nearly lit him on fire, because John had assumed Charles wanted him to come with him for *entirely* different reasons than the ones Charles meant. It'd taken Charles two solid weeks of talking to convince John he wasn't an axe murderer or a serious creeper of some sort before John went with him.

When he'd met Bobby, and found out Bobby had been coming to the mansion since he was ten, it had resulted in a rather epic flame-up, because all John had been able to think was 'why the fuck didn't I get found when I was ten?', because he was literally only a week older than Bobby. He hadn't spoken to any of the adults for a month after that. Had almost walked out. Had, in fact, punched Bobby in the face.

When he'd finally explained why, Bobby had actually looked a little abashed, and had said he'd punch himself in the face, too, under the circumstances. It had been the beginning of their rather oddball friendship. Which remained the only friendship John had at the mansion.

At least, until Logan came. Rogue had made damn sure everyone knew exactly what Logan had done on her behalf before they got rescued by the X-Men, so by the time the guy woke up and came upstairs, he'd already managed to attain something remarkably close to legendary status with more than one of the kids.

The next few days had done absolutely nothing to destroy that status, and a fuckton and a half to strengthen it. Because Jesus Fucking Christ. John had envied Rogue more than a little for having such a stalwart, determined and fucking lethal protector.

What had made it a bit weird for John was the fact he wasn't afraid of Logan. Which, considering the dude's tendency towards violence, and the fact John had been leery of every other adult male in the mansion, including Kurt and Hank, who would sooner kill a fly than hurt any of the kids, was kind of odd. It wasn't until John realized half the kids in the mansion gravitated towards Logan given half the chance that he realized the phenomenon wasn't limited to him.

What had surprised him was the fact that Logan let it happen. That Logan didn't give a shit about the damage John could do, and didn't push John to talk about his feelings or constantly remind him to not use his powers. Logan didn't treat him like he was a baby who didn't know his own mind, either. John loved it, and started hanging out with Logan more and more.

Figures something had to happen to ruin it.

John had flashbacks, sometimes. It wasn't like he didn't have sufficient cause for them. It wasn't a frequent thing, thankfully, but they happened, and it always sucked when it did. Though normally, he didn't try to set the world on fire when he had one. But somewhere in the middle of her rant, Jean had become his mother, and that slap had not been aimed at his hand at *all*, and ... yeah. Fire in the hole, as the saying went.

He was still hearing the screams, and smelling the unmistakable, unforgettable odor of charred human flesh as he packed, the room shimmying around him, trying to morph into a room he'd burned to the ground almost seven years ago.

It was something of a relief to be sandwiched between Logan and Rogue in the truck. They both had unique scents that clashed with the past that was trying to continue fucking up his day. Between Logan's cigar stench and Rogue's magnolia-scented perfume, John was finally beginning to get his feet back under him about the time they hit the city limits.

Sometimes, he really hated his life. He wasn't looking forward to meeting Stark and the others. Logan's insistence be damned, John just knew this was not going to end well. Nobody liked having someone around who could burn their house down around their ears inside of a minute if they got upset. Granted, the Tower would take John longer than that, but it could still happen.

"Sir, Logan is in the lobby, with two teenagers." Jarvis informed Tony, who was out in the city helping with cleanup in his suit. "One of the teens seems to be in some distress, and they are all carrying luggage."

Tony frowned. What the hell? "Wonder what happened. Let them up to the penthouse. If the kid is actually injured, give Bruce a call. He's the best we've got until I hire someone in." Which would take some doing, because finding a doctor who could handle two aliens, a supersoldier and Bruce when it came to medical needs would be a hell of a trick. "I'll be right there. And let the X-Men that are in the city know he's here."

"Of course, Sir." Jarvis told him.

Tony finished helping to deal with the rubble where he was at, then apologized, claiming another site needed his assistance, and jetted off.

"It is John with him." Jarvis said as Tony was landing on the balcony assembler. "As well as Rogue."

"John?" Tony scrambled for a minute, trying to remember who that was. He'd met all the X-kids at one point or another, but there were a lot of them, so remembering who was who was ... tricky.

"The young man with the gift for fire control." Jarvis supplied.

That rattled the right memory into place. Angry kid with brown hair, always had a blonde-haired kid tagging along in his wake. "What the hell happened?" He wanted to know.

"Logan has not said, but he is ... I would almost classify it as hovering, Sir. And John is showing fading symptoms of shock."

Well, that couldn't be good. By then, the suit was completely stripped off and Tony walked into the penthouse. "Logan, good to see you again. John, you too." He turned to the girl. "And you must be Rogue." He held out a hand to shake.

When she hesitated, Tony rolled his eyes. "Yeah, skin, I know about it. Logan talked. A lot. Well, sort of a lot. A lot for him, I guess. Point is, I know. I also don't give a fuck. You're covered, and I seriously doubt you're going to get frisky with me for shits and giggles, so ... " He waggled his hand at her.

She smiled at him and took the hand to shake. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Stark."

"Sorry we dropped in like this, but there was a bit of a situation earlier today." Logan growled.

Like, literally growled. Tony was impressed, because he did not know human vocal chords could do that. It was a little impressive.

"Yeah, no, no big deal. There's plenty of room around here. You guys can hang out as long as you want." Tony said.

John was giving him a funny look. "Don't you even want to know what happened?" He asked.

"Nope, don't care." Tony told him.

He found out anyway. John glared at him, the sort of challenging look that Tony had all but patented long before this kid was even born. "I had a fucking flashback and damn near burned the forest down."

Tony shrugged. "Not my trees." He said. "And flashbacks happen, kid. You're not going to be the only one having them around here." The Avengers were sort of spoiled for choice when it came to flashback material in their lives. "Long's you don't start with the maniacal cackling and deliberate burning of half the city, I'm not going to give a shit. Hell, I'll give you access to my lab. I've usually got some sort of metalwork going on down there thanks to the suits. You want to burn shit, you can work it off heating the metal up, save my equipment some wear and tear."

And now the kid was staring at him with the sort of 'wtf' face that Tony normally saw after one of his more unusual stunts, from Rhodey. Tony shook his head. "C'mon, I'll show you where you can put your stuff. Speaking of, is that all your shit? Because if it is, that's just sad, and it needs to be fixed, pronto. I'm already planning to stage an intervention for Steve, because his clothing choices are fucking tragic. The Spy Twins aren't much better. They came in with two duffels apiece and I'm fairly sure it was all weapons, which ... " Tony shook his head. "And Agent's got a closetful of the same suit and nothing else. And poor Bruce hadn't even had enough to completely fill a duffel bag. "So yeah, planning a shopping trip in a few days. We can add you three to the list."

"Are you for real?" John asked, his tone one of pure shock.

Tony grinned at him. "Last I checked, yeah. Seriously, it's not like I'll miss the money. I make more on *interest* in a couple hours than I will end up spending on you lot in a day."

John shook his head. "Un fucking believable." He muttered.

Tony laughed. "It gets better from here, John." About then, the elevator doors opened. Both teens just sort of stared in shock.

"The entire floor is one apartment?" Rogue asked in disbelief. "I'm with John. Are you *real*?"

Tony laughed. "Go, shoo, pick a room. There's four in this apartment, so you all have plenty of room."

Both kids took of like bats out of hell, the upset of earlier forgotten momentarily as they hurried to claim rooms and check out the amenities.

"So what actually happened, or did he sum it up fairly well?"

"Fairly well." Logan admitted. "Missed a few things. Like that Jean was the cause of it. Yelled at him and slapped his lighter out of his hand. I dunno the kid's story so I don't know why that set off a flashback, but it was a doozy. He lit up quite a piece of real estate before Ororo and Bobby got it stopped. Just glad they were both there for it. I told them both to pack up. He doesn't need to be around her right now, and if I stay near her I'm going to end up doing something we'd both regret."

Tony shook his head. "Well, you're welcome to hang out here as long as you want." He said. "Like I said, it's not like I don't have the room or the money to put you up." Then he spoke a little louder. "Jarvis, go ahead and give John access to my lab. That way he can get in to play fire monkey if he needs to."

"Already done, Sir." Jarvis said, sounding smug.