A/N: I make three promises: 1) This fic will be saccharine! 2) This fic will have troupes! 3) This fic will never take itself too seriously!
Chapter rating: T
Late Spring, Year One
Kitty doesn't want to be the one to tell him, but she doesn't want the first time he finds out to be a fist fight either. Well, fist fight if they're lucky. He's sitting next to his girlfriend. They're sharing a bowl of strawberry crumple, and it's just typical because his favorite is rocky road and maybe it's not fair but it feels like Rogue always gets everything she wants.
Kitty slips over to the counter where they're huddled together. It splits their attention, and Bobby gives her one of his big, charming smiles. "Hey."
"Hey." Her voice is a feather riding the wind. "I kind of have bad news."
Bobby's smile actually cracks into a wide grin, and Kitty realizes he thinks she's making a joke. I have bad news, you guys are giving me a toothache. I have bad news, there's a run on ice cream and there's only rocky road left. I have bad news, you're so beautiful it's making my eyes hurt.
Rogue's lips are forming a tight line. "What happened?" Rogue's seen enough bad in her life that her blood runs hot at the suggestion of trouble.
Kitty swears her heart is actually beating slower. Time to drop the bomb. "Pyro's back." Her eyes are locked on Bobby as his smile slips and his sapphire eyes try to register.
"Where did you hear this?" Bright, blue eyes intent on her.
"I saw him. I thought I needed to get my eyes checked, but it was him. Scott was showing him to his new room."
"I don't understand." Bobby continues. "He fought with the Brotherhood at Alcatraz. He attacked me. They just let him back in?"
Kitty feels bad for him. Bobby is the forgiving type, but Pyro's not. He looks scared. "That's all I-" she starts, but Rogue cuts her off.
"Bobby, he's our friend." Her face is halfway between ecstatic and reproceful, like she's trying to play the disapproving school teacher but can't hold the joy back.
Bobby turns to face Rogue, their hands still together. "No, he's not, not anymore." He leans toward her instinctively. He does that a lot, just moves his body closer to Rogue's like there's some magnetic pull he forgets to resist. "He blew up Cure clinics, you know."
Rogue's lips tighten. For someone who enjoys the perks of the Cure, she's sensitive about it being brought up. "He's John." Her voice is soft, but definitive. Her eyes are wild as a smile starts to form again.
"Well, he's in the east corridor if you want to catch up." Maybe it's not fair, but if she wants to tie her lot with Pyro, Kitty is happy to keep Bobby company.
Bobby grabs her hand under the counter, squeezes it lightly. They seem to have an entire conversation in the looks between them. It's something private that Kitty just can't break through.
"If he's back…" Rogue seems to think that's explanation enough, because she just gets up and leaves the room.
Bobby follows, because he has to. Kitty follows too, because everyone needs someone, and she's pretty sure the chain starts with Pyro and ends with her.
There's a stack of rooms in the east corridor that have been filling up. It seems like every mutant in the country is either in hiding or cured. The state of things has the mansion filling up. Rogue imagines the Brotherhood is feeling the same influx. So, if he's here, he must really be back.
Her heart is pounding in her ears as she goes door by door. There's something desperate in her limbs, she realizes. She stops for a breath, doesn't know where this is coming from. It's just been a long time is all.
She realizes Bobby and Kitty trailed behind her. Bobby's eyes are all concern, but he's hanging back. She gives a small smile, and gets back to the work of knocking when she hears John.
He swings the door open hard, and then he's there looking back at them from the doorway.
His expression plays anger, shock, embarrassment, and something else too that she can't put her finger on. There's something dark in his eyes, and his mouth opens like he's going to say something but nothing comes out. She barely registers all of it before she throws herself around him, arms locking around his neck.
"John." It's a whisper, something like a plea. It's relief letting out like the whistle of a tea kettle.
He takes a sharp breath from the shock of it, and closes his eyes like instinct. One of his hands falls into the small of her back and the other is cupping the back of her neck. His brain just hasn't caught up with his body, because all he can think is skin, skin, skin. She's bare, and he's touching her, and he hoped she wouldn't do it but the proof is indisputable. He slips his hands to her waist and shoulder, and pushes her away with an uncharacteristic gentleness. "You really did it."
She's shocked by how hard his eyes are. His mouth is in a loose frown. He looks tired. "John…"
He lets out an unsteady breath, his eyes scanning her face. It's like looking straight at the sun, and he looks away. Bobby's stepped a little closer and there's some frost forming on his hand in threat. John tightens his grip with the hand that's still on her waist, and he feels his mouth twist. He pushes her away a little harder now, not giving her so much as a glance. "You want to go a round?"
"Don't." Rogue's put herself between them. She's facing John, but his face leaves no room for the tenderness she's offered him. She turns. "Bobby, no." She goes to him. "Come on, you don't have to."
Rogue takes her boyfriend's hand, feels how chilly it is and envelopes it between both her hands. She runs her thumbs up and down hoping the friction will help things.
"What're you doing here?" Bobby's eyes are locked on John's that're locked on Bobby's. Neither one of them seem to register her, and Kitty's just standing there like she's not sure what she wants to happen next.
John sneers. "I live here." His head tilts in punctuation as he says it. He backs into his room, hand grabbing the knob behind his back, and he's gone behind a closed door in one swift motion.
Kitty lets out a hard breath, and Rogue realizes she can hear her heart beating again.
"We should go." Kitty is speaking into the void with that one. Bobby and Rogue both are a little shaken, a little too intense to feel that the moment is over.
"He'll warm up. He's just gotten back." Rogue's voice is cracking a little.
A soft sigh. "I wouldn't count on it." The lines of Bobby's body are all protectiveness now. All he sees in John blowing up a Cure clinic while knowing she might be inside. He looks down at her hands holding onto him. "Kitty's right. We should just call it a night."
She nods, turns to Kitty who's just standing there, incidental, taking in the drama. "You didn't know him. The stories… the Brotherhood. It's not what he's like."
Kitty gives her a look like she feels sorry for her. But it's true that she doesn't know him. John left before she got here. She just doesn't have the room to judge.
And Bobby's leading her away while Kitty peels off into her own room in the east corridor.