Ororo had asked Bobby to be a teacher what seemed like eons ago, but it was only now that she decided he was competent enough to take his advanced physics class on a field trip. Although it was only six kids in a van, one of them was Lester, whom trouble seemed to find, and another was Thomas, who sought trouble out. The latter had a talent for making objects smaller than a breadbox vanish, a power he used for evil more than good. Rounding out their troublesome trio was Jennifer, a girl who could create a layer of water-resistant scales over her body, and Bobby's most outspoken student. In class, they were restrained, but Bobby wasn't about to let his students loose in New York City without an extra set of eyes on them, so he recruited Warren to join him.
Warren was more or less useless supervision on the drive to the city, as small, confined vehicles made him antsy, as well as physically uncomfortable. Storm never asked him to wear the harness or the bulky coat that hid his wings; still, Warren decided he didn't want to draw attention to them as X-Men, in case they might be targeted. He wore a light jacket over his wings, despite it being a good sixty degrees out.
Bobby figured out early on that very little learning would be accomplished on this trip, and after visiting the Empire State Building, with a brief and unnecessary lecture on gravity, he agreed that they could wander around the city, so long as they stayed together. Since Warren's powers included enhanced sight, the two X-Men fell to the rear of the group, keeping only a cursory amount of attention on the students.
"What do you think of Kitty?" asked Warren.
Bobby debated this. "She tends to work in extremes. When she's happy, she's ecstatic; when she's sad, she's miserable; and when she's pissed... Well, it's not pretty." Beside him, Warren laughed appreciatively. "She's a genius, and knows it. And that lecture I gave on gravity earlier? It doesn't apply to her. I mean gravity literally doesn't apply. But she's sweet, and funny, and she really likes you. You could do worse." He grinned at Warren's widened eyes. "That was what you wanted to know, right?"
Warren blushed. "Well... She likes me? Really?"
"Oh, come on." Bobby punched his friend's shoulder. "You're a pimp, admit it."
Warren shrugged modestly, then grinned fiercely while Bobby continued to laugh. "What can I say? When you're hot, you're hot."
Bobby refrained form saying any more, because Thomas was passing a street vendor, and looked far too interested in the small crystal paperweights being sold. Bobby darted ahead, grabbing the boy's arm and steering him away before any damage could be done. "I wouldn't," he said. "He's going to think you stole it, and then we'll be in a world of trouble."
"You never let me have any fun, Mr. D," said Thomas, rolling his eyes.
"You're allowed to have fun. Just make sure it's fun that won't draw attention to us."
"Oh, like the X-Men do."
Bobby ruffled the boy's hair. "Move along."
Thomas jogged ahead to join his friends, and Bobby fell back in line with Warren. "So you think I should ask her out?" said Warren, as though the past few moments hadn't even taken place.
"Well, I don't think she'll say no. But really, beyond that, it's up to..." Bobby trailed off. In front of him, the students had stopped and grouped together. Bobby was pretty sure the last time he'd been on this street, well over a year ago, he'd taken a different route to get there. Of course, at the time, he'd hardly been paying attention to where he was going, just so long as he actually got there. Now, he was largely concerned with getting away.
They were across the street from the clinic.
The James A. Atwater Clinic, specializing in walk-in care for mutants, was one of the first to administer the cure to mutant kind, despite it being introduced on the opposite coast, and was the closest mutant-only clinic to the mansion. This was where Rogue had gone to get cured. It was the same building John had attempted to destroy, what was most likely mere minutes after Rogue had left. In the passing months since the incident, the building had been repaired, the scorched walls stripped and repainted, the exterior redone, the blown-out windows replaced. The clinic was one of few in the country still offering the cure.
"What the hell, Mr. D?" demanded Jennifer, scales emerging to form a shell over her already tight fists. "You drag us here to get euthanized?"
"No," said Bobby, moving forward to usher his kids away. He didn't like being here any more than the rest of them did. "Calm down. We got a little lost, is all, a problem easily rectified. Come on." He had to actually exert a minimal amount of force to get them to move forward. "Go. Go. We can go to the MOMA or the Met or something. Stop gawking."
They finally started on their way again, but Bobby hung back, unable to stop himself from gawking. It was much easier to stare when he wasn't searching for a friend, or being pushed on by a crowd. But now, without the added distractions, he was forced to confront the building, in a way he hadn't before. The building, squat and unobtrusive, had essentially changed his entire life. John's act of terrorism had sparked the final war that had killed one of their own. Rogue had gone here to get the cure, and changed her relationship with Bobby forever.
A woman was approaching the front door cautiously. She was the tallest person Bobby had ever seen, easily towering over Logan or Piotr, balanced on two skinny, green chicken legs. They remained bare, but the rest of her body was covered in neon green feathers and hastily stuffed into ill-fitting clothing. If there was a textbook definition of mutation, Bobby thought she'd be a good example.
She seemed to sense Bobby looking from across the street, and she hunched her shoulders and rounded her back under the weight of his stare. She ducked into the building. Bobby could have stood there all afternoon and never be sure if he saw her leave, since he couldn't possibly imagine what she looked like in human form.
"When you heard about the cure," Warren said into his ear, "did you want to get it?"
Bobby didn't have to think to answer, much like he hadn't when he'd first heard the report. "No." He loved his powers, was proud of them. He wouldn't then, nor now, have given them up for anything.
"Even for Marie?" said Warren, as though reading Bobby's thoughts. "Would you have done it if she asked?"
"She wouldn't have," Bobby said. He focused on that absolute, because the truth of the matter was, he simply didn't know if he would have done it or not. If he'd do it now, should she ask. He loved his powers, and he loved his girlfriend, and it seemed that the cure put them directly at odds with each other.
The can of worms had been opened, and Warren smiled sympathetically. "Come on, those kids are going to destroy New York if we're not careful," he said by way of apology. "That, and I don't want to go to the MOMA again."
Warren's influence, or more likely, his smile, won over the girls, making the vote five to three. But when they walked down the staircase of the Metropolitan Museum of Art a few hours later, even the boys, who had wanted to go clubbing, were in good moods. Lester studied his guidebook and called out restaurant choices as they headed down Fifth Avenue. Warren paused at a vendor's stand, and returned to them moments later, proudly displaying a baseball cap on his head, the price tag still hanging off the back.
"The Yankees?" said Bobby.
"They're the best in the league!" said Warren.
"Yeah, because they drop the cash for it."
"Not a fan, I take it?"
Bobby grinned. "Are you kidding? Born and raised just outta Boston. Red Sox all the way, baby."
"The Red Sox suck," was the reply, coming not from Warren, but from behind Bobby. Bobby knew that sports rivalries were vicious, but he wasn't expecting to be attacked by a stranger. He turned around, ready to politely defend himself, but the person wasn't a stranger.
It was John.
"Warren," Bobby said in a low voice, stiffening, "get the kids, and take them back to the van."
"Bobby?"
"I'll take care of this. Just go." He glared at John, knowing that they were both remembering their last encounter, and Bobby's victory. The man calling himself Pyro was, if Bobby knew him at all, aching for revenge. "What do you want, John."
"Maybe I'm just dropping in on an old friend," John said with a dangerously enigmatic smile. Bobby didn't know if he should be worried or not: either John was lying to provoke him; or, much worse, he was following Bobby, knew about him, Angel, the students, and was plotting something devastating.
Bobby struggled to keep himself calm and alert, in case of an ambush. Not that he was particularly expecting one, because if John wanted retribution, he was going to do it single-handedly.
"Well, you've done that. Now you can just go away."
"Aw, c'mon, Bobby. Don't you want to reminisce?" Now John's expression was mocking, and Bobby wondered when was the last time John smiled for real. Certainly not around Magneto. With that bastard, every smile was political and calculated, putting on airs of respectability, so the dumbest mutants flocked to him. For example, a few well-placed words, and John had been turned into his little errand boy. But John was too trashy to ever fully ascend to Magneto's level of sophistication, so he was just a poor facsimile. Bobby was already tired of John's smirk.
"What's up, John? Are you so desperate for companionship that you'll latch onto anyone who once cared about you?"
"What, you mean you and me aren't still BFF?" said John with a pout. "I'm wounded, Drake."
"No, I believe that's leftover from the last time I kicked your ass," said Bobby, and had the satisfaction of watching all of John's carefully orchestrated expressions slide off his face. Now all that remained was pure, unadulterated John: flaming rage. "So, what, Magneto's a regular old homosapien now?" Bobby continued blithely. "Where does that leave you? Wandering the streets like some lost little boy, looking for his mommy."
"Wow, Bobby, you read me just like a book," said John. "That's exactly it. Maybe since I'm just a sad little waif now, I can go join up with the X-Men. You saps will take in anybody."
Though he'd fully expected the comment, he found he could not take it. "The Professor's dead, John; Scott's dead, Jean's dead. Doesn't that mean anything to you? These are the people who took you in when you had nowhere else to go." What Bobby found he wanted most of all, however, was simply to know why. Why did John leave them behind?
"Those are the people that held me back," snapped John. "Magneto taught me how to use my power. The Professor didn't teach me shit."
"Maybe because you never wanted to learn," said Bobby. "You made your bed, Johnny, how does it feel to sleep in it all alone?"
John had since abandoned his wrist gear that Magneto had fashioned him, in favor of the old Zippo that had been his partner in crime for as long as Bobby had known him. It was now battered, no longer sleek and gleaming; likely, John had run out of resources for its maintenance. Old habits died hard, however. He flicked it open and closed, open and closed, in quick, nervous succession.
"You wanna fight me, fight me," said Bobby, icing up his fist in anticipation. "But it's not going to make a difference. I'm still going to beat you."
"You know," said John, "attitude like that, you could've been great in the Brotherhood."
Bobby ignored that particular slur, knowing that John was just looking for weak points. "I'll always beat you," he continued. "Don't you know why? Haven't you ever wondered why you never really developed your powers?" said Bobby. "Because Magneto always wanted to be the strongest mutant on his team. You could have done incredible things. But instead, you decided to play second banana to an egomaniac." Bobby knew that as well as he knew himself: that while Magneto trained mutants only to the extent that they were useful to him, Professor Xavier trained them to be the best at what they did.
John clicked his lighter shut, and kept it that way. No fireballs hurled at Bobby's head, or at anything or anyone else. For the first time, Bobby noticed how tired John's eyes were, how he had lines in his face that no man his age should yet develop.
"Whatever," said John, and started to turn away. Bobby felt a twinge of disappointment that the best he was getting was three syllables and a heel spin. Not that he was particularly desiring a fight, not when there were too many people around, and the X-Men were several hours away, and he had kids to protect. But he wouldn't have minded something, anything, that would have ended the hell of his relationship with John.
"John," said Bobby, his voice raising, "I thought you wanted to fight." He wasn't sure why he was provoking this; maybe he just didn't want John to go.
"You'd love that, wouldn't you. A member of the X-Men going toe-to-toe with a scary old member of the Brotherhood." John managed to drag the word 'scary' out to about five syllables, the obvious effort expelled to do so indicated that he was anything but. "You'd make it on the nightly news, maybe get to be a hero for once in your life. Isn't that what you breathe for, Bobby? Being a hero? Impressing your parents, your little girlfriend, Cyclops and the Prof." John scoffed. "Well, screw that. I'm not your sidekick, Bobby. I'm not gonna do anything just so you can look good."
Bobby rolled his tongue around his mouth, hoping to find appropriate words through the thickness.
"We're not friends, Bobby, we never were. We're better off without each other. Get used to it." And this time, he walked away for good.
In those last callous words, Bobby had an epiphany about John and his state of affairs. What little he knew about John's family situation came from studying files after Pyro's departure, not from anything John had willingly told him. And he could see why. John's parents had given him up at an early age, and when his powers kicked in at puberty, his foster family kicked him out. Both families had discarded him, so he joined up with Xavier. The X-Men left him behind at Alkali, so he went to Magneto's side. Now Magneto had abandoned him, and John wandered in search of the next person or cause to take him in. John was betrayed by all of the people who were supposed to care for him. No wonder he continually refused Bobby's efforts at friendship.
Bobby opened his mouth, prepared to extend the hand of friendship, and offer John safe passage back. But he knew John well enough to know it would be refused. Even if John truly wanted to return, which Bobby didn't really believe, he'd still snub a chance to crawl back. Instead, he only strode away. Bobby could sleep tonight knowing that John wouldn't be up to too much trouble. But the situation would be permanently unresolved, and Bobby might never be at ease.
When he finally rejoined the group, they were all clamoring for information. "Wasn't that one of the Brotherhood, Mr. D?" asked Lester eagerly.
"The Brotherhood's disbanded," said Bobby, although he wasn't sure that was true. No doubt there were a band of mutants somewhere, trying to find a new way to promote the Homo superior cause. But at the moment, they were under the radar of the X-Men, which as far as Bobby was concerned, meant they didn't exist. "That was just an old classmate of mine."
As they started the drive back to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, though, Warren in shotgun kept casting Bobby anxious glances. He'd been at Alcatraz, however briefly, and he'd seen Iceman and Pyro fighting. No doubt he'd gotten the full story from Kitty at one point or another. But Bobby shook his head slightly. He didn't want to talk about it. Not in front of the kids.
Someday, he'd have to reopen that book. No doubt sooner rather than later. Right then, though, all he wanted to do was relish in the fact that at last, that chapter was closed.