Flashback: 7 years ago.
Bobby loved the cold, even at a young age; it just refreshed him, made him feel alive. It made him feel like he could do anything. Of course, the fact that he was able to walk around in the freezing weather with nothing more than a light T-shirt worried some people.
"Bobby, get in here right now and put a jacket on!" Bobby's mother screamed at him from the doorway of the house.
"But mom…" 7 year old Bobby complained, "I'm not cold."
"Well I am, mister, so put a jacket on," his mother said.
"How come when you're cold I have to put on a jacket," Bobby asked as he trudged through the snow to his house.
"Because," his mom said, as if that was explanation enough. But right now, nothing could get Bobby upset. It was the first snow of the year, and he and some of his friends were going to the lake and play hockey. Bobby wasn't actually that great, but he was sure he could find some fresh snow to throw at the people playing.
After properly dressing, Bobby grabbed his skates and hockey stick and headed off with a quick goodbye to his mom. "And if you take that jacket off you're in big trouble!" His mom called after him.
Bobby made it to the lake in no time. It was a pretty small town, everything was close together. It wasn't an incredibly small town, where there was nothing to do, but it was small enough to be away from the major cities. It was pretty isolated to; there wasn't another town for miles, which was what Bobby's parents had been aiming for. They didn't like being smashed in one huge city, and were comfortable with the simple life.
"Bobby!" One of his friends called out, "where've you been? The game's started, and we're losing."
Bobby strapped on his ice skates and started on to the ice. He stumbled a bit at first, but soon found how to maneuver on his skates.
"And Bobby," one of the dads who was watching them said, "stay away from the side over there," he pointed to behind one of the trash cans that was serving as a goal, "the ice is thin, we're not sure if it will hold someone."
"Okay," Bobby nodded. Soon, the game was underway. Bobby stayed off to the sides for a bit, trying to figure out how his skates worked. After a couple of minutes, he was getting better, not great, but pretty good for a guy who had only been on the ice a few times.
He swerved around some of the older kids, and tried to get the puck a few times, but was unsuccessful. Suddenly, one of his friends who was on the other side of the rink slid the puck to him.
He stumbled a bit, as he had to rush for the puck, and almost fell on his face. He regained his balance, and started aiming for the goal. Everybody was on the other side of the rink, so he was able to get to the goal fine.
The goalie was no problem, his mask was too big, and he couldn't see that well. He was looking to the opposite side, like he thought the puck was still over there. By the time he noticed Bobby, it was too late.
"Goal!" Bobby shouted, raising his hockey stick in the air.
"Bobby, watch out!" His friends called out. Bobby looked around, wondering why they were yelling at him. Suddenly, he realized that he was skating towards the thin ice.
"Hey guys!" Bobby cried out frantically, "I don't know how to stop!" He finally stopped skating, and fell to his knees, but he was still sliding. He tried to grab something that would make him stop, but the smooth ice was too slippery to grab hold of.
He started to slow to a halt, but by then, he was well onto the thin ice. He lay there for a minute, scared to breathe, as if the slightest of movements could bring him into the icy water. He wasted precious seconds making sure the ice was safe to walk on, and slowly got up.
Instantly, he knew something was wrong. The ice wasn't the nice firm floor he was skating on before. He gasped as he felt, rather than heard the ice crack, and was plunged into the icy lake.
At first, Bobby was freezing, but when he swam to the top for air, he realized how it wasn't that cold. In fact, it was almost refreshing. He ignored the others calls to get out, and started splashing around the water, which had chunks of ice still in it.
"Guys, come in," Bobby called out to the others, "the water's fine."
"Bobby! You're going to freeze in there, get out!" One of the dads called out. Seeing that Bobby wasn't going to come out willingly, he carefully crawled out to where Bobby was, and put his hockey stick in front of Bobby. "Grab the hockey stick, son," he said.
Bobby ignored him, but the longer he stayed in the water, the colder he got. The cool, refreshing feeling was gone, and was replaced by a chilling one that froze him to the bones. He grabbed the hockey stick in front of him, and was pulled out of the water.
He gasped for a few seconds, since it was exhausting to climb out of a hole, and laid on the ice for a few minutes.
"It's not normal," he heard some of the dads talking to each other, "most kids would have frozen by now, or had frostbite, or something. It doesn't make sense."
"Wow, Bobby," some of his friends were congratulating him. "That was awesome."
Bobby soaked up the attention that his friends offered. He wasn't cold anymore, but he was still scared of what happened there. He thought he was shivering more from what just happened, rather than the fact that he was in a frozen river for at least 5 minutes.
Once Bobby's mom had been told about what had happened, she hugged Bobby tightly, almost to the point of suffocation. She swore that he would never be allowed to ice skate again, and thanked his guardian angel for protecting him from the freezing cold for so long.
Present time.
Bobby had never gone on the ice again; he chose to just watch his friends from the sidelines.
'Those are the same friends who just tried to hang me,' Bobby thought. It didn't make sense; he had known most of the people in this town his whole life. And now, they had just tried to kill him.
"Hey, is everything okay?" Scott asked. Bobby ignored him; it didn't seem worth answering.
Of course everything wasn't okay. He had almost been hung; he had a slight bruise on his neck and his wrists from where the ropes had bound him, and he had to leave his home, without saying goodbye to the ones he loved- who probably didn't love him any more.
Scott noticed how quiet Bobby was. He didn't blame him; it must be hard to have everything change so drastically. He knew what he was going through; he had lost his family and the life that he knew in one plane trip.
"If it's any consolation," Scott said, "I know what you're going through."
Bobby continued to ignore him, how could he know what he was going through? Bobby still couldn't believe it, even as they walked to his home, and reached his empty house, and started to pack his things.
"We must have just missed your parents coming out," Scott said, picking up a picture of Bobby and his family that was on the dresser. "We're lucky; it might have been kind of messy if we bumped into them."
There was no doubt that his parents wouldn't have understood what was going on. They hated anything that was different, anything that changed from there ordinary life style. And having a son that could turn into a living ice cube was definitely something they wouldn't accept.
"Okay, I'm done," Bobby said, once he packed up all his stuff. He couldn't bring everything, heck; he couldn't bring half of the stuff he wanted. He could only bring a few of his favorite things, like his clothes, his baseball mitt, and some of his personal stuff. He couldn't bring himself to grab the pictures of his family with him. He thought that they would be too much of a reminder of what he had left.
"Okay, we got to get out to the lake, the plane will be meeting us there," Scott said, putting down the picture.
Bobby nodded, and started after Scott. The lake- he should have known seven years ago what was going to happen.
The fact that he never got cold, how he was able to handle the coldest days without a sweater, how he always had the air conditioner on as high as it could go, it all made sense now.
If only he had known before he had ruined everything.
The plane was an impressive sight to Bobby, who had never been on one before, and he normally would have started asking a million questions about it, but now, he couldn't bring himself to care. To him, it was almost a death sentence, taking him away from the only life he knew.
And the girl inside was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He knew she was way out of his league, but the old Bobby still would have hit on her. But he was barely able to lift his head to look at her. He knew she was gorgeous, with her red hair, perfect figure, and her beautiful face, but now her face was etched with worry, and Bobby knew that she knew what had happened.
He noticed Scott and the girl exchange a look, and then the girl nodded, and sat back down in her seat. Bobby thought it was weird how they didn't say anything, but didn't think about it too much. The girl was the pilot of the plane, with Scott as the copilot, and Bobby wasn't sure if he was comfortable with riding in a plane with two kids who didn't look that much older than him.
As if sensing his thoughts, the girl said, "Don't worry, Scott and I both know how to fly the Blackbird, and the professors watching us constantly, he can help if we get in trouble. I'm Jean Grey," she flashed him a winning smile, and turned to her controls.
"Yes, Bobby, don't be afraid," Bobby jumped out of his seat, hitting his head on the ceiling above.
"What was that? That voice, it was in my head!" he screamed, searching for the hidden voice.
"Oh, that's just the Professor," Scott said, as if it didn't matter. "He's a telepath; he can read your mind and stuff. Don't worry; he does it all the time."
Bobby nodded wearily, and sat back down in his seat. "Don't worry, Bobby," the voice said. Bobby perked up after hearing the voice a second time, but wasn't as shocked about the strange voice in his head.
"You'll like it at the institute," Jean said, "you're the first of the new recruits that the Professor's getting. Logan and Storm are out recruiting some others, but everyone else is at the mansion. You'll really like them."
Bobby nodded, and turned to the window, the people he would soon be meeting didn't matter to him. Saying his last goodbye to his home, the fact that he might never see it again- that's what mattered.
After an hour or so in the air, Jean and Scott said that they were there. Bobby had fallen asleep in his seat, trying to forget about all the things that had happened that day, but got up and grabbed his stuff when they woke him.
It had been an almost completely silent trip, Bobby avoided talking to them at all, but every once in a while, Scott or Jean would look at each other and burst out laughing for no reason, making Bobby think that they were both crazy.
He followed the couple through a couple tunnels, and then an elevator, and was led into a huge house. He dropped his bags in shock at the huge house. In a small town like his, there weren't a lot of places that were this big.
Scott laughed at the expression on Bobby's face. "I was that surprised at how huge this place was too," he told Bobby. "Wait until you see the danger room."
"Danger room?" Bobby asked. Scott nodded.
"Yeah, we go in there pretty much every day," he said.
"Why?" Bobby asked.
"Because it's fun," Scott said simply. "Well, unless Logan's in charge, then it's just lethal, but you get used to it." Bobby stared after him in shock, that didn't seem like a fun way to spend the day.
Soon they split up, Scott went one way, and Jean and Bobby went another. She led him up to an empty room. "This is your room, you can just stay here until dinner and unpack," she said, and left the room.
Bobby looked around. It had a single bed in it, a dresser and a desk, and had a door that he figured led to a bathroom. Besides that, it was pretty bare. Not bare, really, just clean, something that his room never really could be called.
Well, his old room, this was his room now. He thought back to earlier that day, but pushed the thoughts out of his head. He didn't want to think about it. This place was weird enough to think about. It was a boarding school in a huge mansion with a jet and a 'danger room' and who knew what else.
He looked out his window, which showed a huge pool. A girl and a boy were in it, another girl was on a chair to the side, and Scott was walking out.
"Evan, I'm warning you, if you hit me with those…things, I'm like, totally going to de-spike you," the girl in the pool was saying. He couldn't make out her features, but she had a ponytail.
"Hey, I can't help it if my spike's hit you if you get in my way," the boy- Evan said.
"You could try aiming," the girl on the side of the pool said. Bobby noticed that she had two white streaks in her hair, which just seemed to suit her face that had a ton of make-up on it.
Suddenly, a monster, or a demon, Bobby wasn't sure what to call it came out. Bobby opened his mouth to scream a warning to the people in the pool, but they saw the demon, and the girl splashed some water on him. He jumped in the pool, splashing the pool, and they all started laughing. They obviously knew this…thing, whatever it was.
Bobby thought about what he had seen so far, they had a jet, a mansion, a danger room where they spent their free time, a guy who could tap into his head, people who laughed out loud for no reason, and they were friends with a demon.
It was official; this place was a nut house.
R&R please, sorry if Bobby seems OC.