TITLE: Campaign of Distraction
RATING: PG-13 for language
SUMMARY: Bobby/Rogue/Pyro triangle. A sudden rash of anti-mutant violence has erupted and frightened mutants are taking refuge in Xavier's school which is quickly becoming ground zero in a totally new breed of war.
SPOILERS: I have seen X2 so if you don't want to be spoiled you might wanna wait to read this.
DISCLAIMER: I disclaim
PAIRINGS: Bobby/Rogue, Rogue/Pyro, Cyclops/Storm
AN: This is my first X-Men fic so please forgive any little errors. Though it does focus on the love triangle it's gonna lean more on the Bobby/Rogue side and the 2 of them will be together in the end.
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I tell you all about it
It's just not working out
Not working out
It's a campaign of distraction
And revisionist history
It's a shame I don't think that they'll notice
It's a shame I doubt they even care
~Ghost Man on Third~ Taking Back Sunday~
~~~
"Hey Drake! Can I get a light?"
Bobby Drake grimaced as his surrounding peers snickered at the oh-so-clever jeering of one of their friends. An unlit cigarette bounced lightly off the back of his head as he made a quick retreat to the safety of his classroom. His teacher shot him a brief disgusted glance before returning his attention to his pre-class preparations.
Only 2 more months, 2 months and Bobby was 18. 18 and no longer legally obligated to remain prisoner in his house, to attend this shithole of a highschool, and to associate with these intolerant neanderthals known as his peers.
The law passed almost a year ago required that mutants be allowed to coexist with humans but it couldn't enforce their ethical treatment. As a minor the law requited Bobby return home and attend a normal high school for the duration of his time there. This meant nothing but isolation and ridicule for the high school senior, a freak in the eyes of the close minded pricks who tormented him.
His visit months before his permanent return had sent the rumor mill turning and he came home to a stifling wave of gossip.
"I heard he breathes fire."
"Fucker almost torched the neighborhood."
Of course the little pyromatics show had been John's not his but the threat that he could roast any one of them without notice did give him an intimidation factor. Third degree burns scared the ignorant highschoolers a little more than killer frostbite.
They had said things would be better. Humans and mutants living peacefully together, they could go back to their families, to their jobs, to their lives. But Bobby knew that his life was not among these people. He didn't want their acceptance, their respect, he just wanted to return to the life in which he belonged. With people, mutants, like him.
"Oh no. If your in one of those reflective, self-pitying moods I'm leaving."
"And going where?" Bobby asked, a smile tugging at his mouth as he regarded the new occupant of the room.
"Cute, Drake," the boy sniffed, "like I need the senior class' token freak reminding me of my own outcast status." Alec Harris was Hebron High's only other mutant. He was the invisible man, able to make his lean frame, blonde hair, and sardonic green eyes disappear whenever he wanted. Alec was a year younger than Bobby and his mutation made him less susceptible to contempt. Where he was different, Bobby was dangerous and it was fear that made the teasing worse.
"So we still on for tonight Sunshine?" Alec asked. Bobby shot his friend a withering glare. "Or are we gonna spend another night mooning over the memory of a girl who has you whipped from several 100 miles away."
Bobby's scowl deepened and he breathed a thin layer of frost over his desk. 'Fuck You' he traced lightly with a finger. Alec laughed and flicked off the older boy before blinking out of sight. Bobby was left alone in the classroom staring at the quickly melting frost on his desk.
~~~
Rogue sat on an abandoned bench in the mall, her feet swinging idly against the scuffed tile floor as she watched various shoppers breeze by totting bags from assorted chain stores. She kicked a soda cap that came skittering towards her and watched it disappear in a crowd of passing feet.
She was aware of the questioning glances she received from several passerbys. Curious 'why aren't you in school' stares. She wasn't in school because she didn't want to be. If they wanted she could've produced a crumpled note from her backpack labeling her a problem student. Informing her parents of their fuck-up daughter's unacceptable number of tardies and absences. She had toyed briefly with the idea of leaving it somewhere for her parents but figured that they wouldn't care. In all honesty they would be overjoyed if she flunked out and was shipped off to a military academy.
She drummed glove clad fingers on the bench trying to remember the last time she had even seen her parents. She had been home for nearly a year and her parents had been studiously avoiding her from Day 1. She got a weekly allowance left on her dresser and the occasional note regarding her dinner tacked on her door. Emotionless, anonymous messages from a family counting the days to her approaching birthday.
When she bothered to go to school she was routinely accosted by the people she once called her friends, she was jostled in the halls and verbally berated for almost killing her ex-boyfriend, the schools current golden boy, martyred for his athletic accomplishments. They called her freak, called her killer, called her mutant.
Rogue longed for the companionship she had found at Xavier's school, for her mentors, and for her friends. This freedom she had been granted was a veritable death sentence, humans weren't receptive to change and she was sure it was only a matter of time before a bitter, frightened classmate took Daddy's gun and took care of a small piece of Mississippi's mutant infestation.
She would travel the halls, brushing by the various cliques, her bare arm brushing someone's inadvertently. They would feel a brief head rush and she would walk away with a piece of them embedded in her. These nameless people, overshadowed by the presence of a few select others. Logan was the most prominent, the sheer volume of power she absorbed from him singing through her veins for years to come. And then there was Bobby. That one intimate moment and her heart was forever cased in ice.
Rogue watched her soda cap come skipping back off the momentum of someone's step and she sent it back into the crowd. Into the hostile press of human feet.
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TBC!!!!!!!!! Review!!!!!!!!!!!!
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