Disclaimer: anyone I gave a full name for is property of Marvel. Some of the students I made up myself; any similarities to already-existing Marvel characters are coincidental and unintentional.
When they returned to the mansion, Bobby naturally had to debrief Ororo on the John situation. Though he insisted repeatedly that there hadn't been a scuffle, that he'd walked away unharmed and that he believed John to be more or less zero threat, Ororo still regarded his story with some suspicion. She'd never much cared for John when he'd been a student at the school, and after he'd left them to join with Magneto, her dislike had bloomed into near-hate, with a firm foundation of distrust.
On the one hand, Bobby couldn't really blame her. They'd been burned. But on the other hand, it was John. John had been his roommate since he'd moved in. They ate meals together, trained together, joked together, laughed together. They fought constantly, but at the end of the day, John was his friend.
Even now, Bobby couldn't shake that feeling.
He wasn't expecting a warm welcome when he returned to his room, considering that he and Rogue hadn't spoken to each other since their argument. She'd slept on the couch, and had been gone before he'd even woken up. But she looked up from her desk, highlighting her already dog-eared copy of Daisy Miller. "How are you holding up?"
"Fine," he said.
She capped her pen, using it as a bookmark. "I heard you saw John today."
"Who told you?" he asked, keeping his back to her, occupying himself with the task of arranging his materials for the next day's class.
"I heard Thomas talking about 'Mr. D' going 'toe to toe' with a member of the Brotherhood. There's only one you'd openly fight." Bobby was now organizing his pens by color. "Did you?"
"Well, you're not seeing it on the news, so no."
"What did he want?"
"I don't know. Just to taunt me, I guess. I can't imagine why." Bobby straightened his papers.
"Because he's a heartless bastard?"
Bobby turned and glared at her with all of the anger that had been stewing inside him, anger that he didn't even know he possessed. Rogue shrunk back a fraction of an inch, more out of surprise than fear. Her spine remained ever rigid, and she matched him glare for glare. "No, he's not," he said.
"So you're delusional."
"What's your thing with trashing my friends?" he asked pettily.
"Not all of them. Just the ones that try to seduce you, or try to kill you." Bobby gritted his teeth, but bit back a response. After a moment of thick and bitter silence, Rogue sighed. He heard a catch in her exhalation. "I'm sorry. It's just... John... You're too level-headed to start a fight, but I know with John, you might not be able to stop yourself."
"Are you saying I can't handle a fight?" he said, although he'd been the one to egg John on, not the other way around. He had been regretting that from the very first moment he'd opened his mouth with John, and it prompted him to be angry with himself in addition to being angry with her.
"Of course you can," she said, "but I'm just saying, John could go off at any second. You know what he's like." It wasn't what she was saying, rather, the way she was saying it, with more disdain dripping from her voice than he believed possible.
Bobby had had an extremely trying day, and he was at the absolute end of his rope. "God, Marie, you know, if you'd just stop for five minutes to consider—"
"If you'd take time to consider that I was worried about you! It's one thing when we were fighting together, Bobby, but now every time the X-Men go out, I have to sit here and twiddle my thumbs and wonder if you're ever coming back. If I'm ever going to see you again. Don't you understand that? John is unstable, you can't deny that. He was always like that, a powder keg, and I think you're the only thing anymore that ignites him."
"This isn't about John," he insisted. "This is about you and me, and how you refuse to trust me. You won't believe that I wasn't cheating on you with Kitty, you won't believe that I have the John situation under control."
"Bobby..."
"Forget this. I don't want to deal with this," he said. She was already rising to go over to him, and had just extended her arm to touch his shoulder, but he shrugged off her probing fingers with increasing irritation.
He went straight to his old room, the one he had shared first with John, then Piotr, and found that only Piotr's new roommate, Sam Guthrie was there, his blond head bowed in near-reverence over a microwavable dinner. "Take that into the kitchen," Bobby said, automatically locking into administrative mode before he could stop himself. The boy's eyes reflected his disappointment and annoyance in the true style of a little boy caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar. Bobby had no time for the complaints about to issue out of Guthrie's opening mouth, and instead asked, "Where's Piotr?"
"Downstairs, training with Lo—uh, Mr. Logan," Guthrie said quickly.
"Thanks," said Bobby, and set off on his quest once more. Neither Piotr nor Logan were in their uniforms, instead having a light sparring session in their civilian clothes. Since the simulator wasn't activated, Bobby didn't warn them of his arrival via intercom, although it was what politeness would've required.
"Frosty," said Logan, not missing a beat. He knew of Bobby's arrival seconds after the door opened, his senses being what they were. Piotr, on the other hand, got the memo seconds too late, still occupied in the act of aiming a punch at Logan's head. Logan bobbed safely at the last second, and directed at Bobby, "You got a good reason for interrupting?"
"I believe he does," said Piotr with a knowing look, and Bobby wasn't surprised that the news of Bobby's day had already hit his friend's ears.
"I want you guys to spar with me," said Bobby, feeling incredibly lucky that the school's two biggest and fiercest guys were down there.
No doubt Logan had picked up on the tension radiating from Bobby in red, angry waves. He felt like someone had stuck a screw in his back, and then twisted it as far as it could go. He needed to let go of that feeling before he said anything else he regretted. And Logan, who was far more sympathetic than most of the student body gave him credit for, said, "Kid, if you've got a lot of anger to work off, I'm glad you're doing it here."
"No powers," said Piotr quickly, no doubt knowing the advantage he held over Bobby even without turning into steel.
"Whatever," said Bobby. "Just don't hold back."
Logan cocked a grin that, if Bobby had been in his right mind, he would have found terrifying. "Fair enough," he said, and promptly launched himself at Bobby.
Bobby barely had enough time to register the assault and block himself from Logan's dangerous fists. But of course, in side-stepping Logan, he ended up right in Piotr's path, and became the victim of a roundhouse kick to the gut. He wheezed at the attack, but recovered easily to retaliate with a punch that met Piotr's massive jaw.
True to nature, Logan whaled on Bobby consistently. Piotr was a tiny bit more gentle, but was far from holding back. Bobby's anger only fueled hotter as he continued, repeating every last of Rogue's harsh accusations, word for word in a series of punches.
He didn't even register the tenderness of the bruises blossoming on his body, or the ache of his muscles. He just continued to punch and kick, duck and dodge, until finally, his blood no longer boiled, but instead spilled out of scratches and gashes, leaving sticky red trails. He could no longer remember why he was angry; he couldn't really remember much of anything. After taking another blow to the belly, he bent with his hands on his knees, sucking in every molecule of air he could. When he didn't rise again for several seconds, Logan and Piotr fell out of their offensive stances. "You done, Frosty?" asked Logan.
"Yeah," Bobby panted, finding that his throat burned around the syllable.
Logan patted his back in condolence. Bobby was spaghetti in the arms of his friends as they pulled him to his feet and hefted him right to his front door, against which Logan banged like the coming apocalypse.
Rogue opened the door in her black nightgown, her face slowly slipping into horror. "Oh my God, Bobby, what happened?" The men shuffled Bobby over into her arms, and she looked at them accusingly. "What did you do?"
Logan shrugged, disinterested, and looking like he needed a smoke. "You tell me."
"Thanks, guys," said Bobby, slumped against Rogue.
"You feeling any better, kid?"
Bobby had long since lost the ability to tune out the pain, and now felt like his entire body was on fire, a sensation not often known to him. He was too tired to even put his powers into effect, and cool himself down. But the flip side of that was he was too tired to think, which he found to be a blessing. "Yeah," he groaned. "Lots."
Bobby hadn't been this tired since the war at Alcatraz, and his actual battle with John. Rogue had pulled the armchair over to the side of the bed, and was waiting for him when he woke up. She held out her hands, one clutching a coffee mug with wisps of steam rising, the other brandishing a bottle of aspirin. "Good morning."
"Did I die?" he mumbled.
"To the best of my knowledge, no. But you came pretty close. What the hell were you thinking?"
"I honestly don't remember," he said, his head pounding and his limbs begging to be amputated. He sighed, popping two aspirins, swishing them down with a gulp of unnecessarily hot coffee, and wishing for the third time since he'd woken up that he had Logan's powers instead of his own. Instead, he used his own powers to put an icy shell over his own body, the frosty cool relieving his pain momentarily. He'd been too exhausted the day before to even so much as take off his clothes, merely had Rogue help him over to the bed, where he promptly forced himself into unconsciousness.
"I'm sorry," he said, once the drugs had taken effect.
"Got a specific offense in mind?" she said, the goddess he had to appeal to in order to keep receiving the holy coffee.
"Do you want a list? I'm sure I can come up with a list."
Rogue kissed his forehead and allowed him another sip of coffee. He focused on the lack of feeling in his taste buds, to ignore everything else. "That's okay," she told him.
"I love you," he said.
"I know."
Bobby closed his eyes, for the express purpose of not wanting to see Rogue's reaction. "John and I are more alike than he realizes, you know. His thing is abandonment. His family, the system, the X-Men, the Brotherhood. They all left him behind." Tears threatened to well beneath his closed lids, and in prevention, he squeezed them tighter shut. "My parents don't want me, John left and I couldn't stop him, and then you quit the team, quit being a mutant altogether." A few tears escaped despite his best efforts, and he scrubbed at them with the heel of his hand. "I'm sorry."
To his surprise, he felt her hand closing around his wrist. She pulled it away from his face and twined her fingers with his. "Bobby, not to discredit your pain, but most of the kids here feel this way. Some of them came here because they wanted to or their parents did, but some came because they had no place else to go. The mansion is like a sanctuary for mutants with a lack of options. My parents didn't want me either. And John wasn't just your friend. It hurt me too when he left." Rogue squeezed his hand, and he dared to open his eyes, to see the sadness etched in her face. He felt a fresh wave of guilt so hot that his ice began to melt, and he had to be careful to keep from soaking the sheets.
"You're not alone, Bobby."
Bobby licked his lower lip, pink and swollen from the coffee's heat, and spoke carefully. "My feelings for you haven't changed one bit since you got cured," he said, sitting up. "I haven't loved you any more or any less or any differently than I did the day that you agreed to go out with me. I'm sorry if I ever made you feel like that wasn't true." He sighed. "But I have to do some thinking."
Rogue stared at him, and he had to look away.
"Thanks for the coffee," he said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and sitting up, aware that he was invading her space. "I need to go to class."
"Pete's covering," she said. "He dropped by this morning, while you were still unconscious." He admired her effort to pretend everything was normal again, but just because they had apologized didn't mean they'd moved forward. "He felt bad about yesterday, so he said if you still weren't feeling well, he'd take care of it."
"He's not even a teacher," said Bobby, wobbling as he rose to his feet, more from dizziness than anything else. It had passed by the time he counted to ten, and he stripped his cold, smelly, blood-stained t-shirt over his head. He wondered if Rogue had slept next to him in bed, since he reeked of sweat and dirt.
"Be grateful it wasn't Kitty, or you'd be out of a job," she said. The only reason that Kitty hadn't been given the position in the first place was mere age and inexperience. That, and she was such a genius she would have left all the students hopelessly in the dust.
Bobby made sure the shower was so hot it practically boiled, and when he stepped out, his skin looked sunburned. He toweled off, then turned himself to ice, taking refuge in the temporary end to his aches. He still felt pain when he was iced, but in a vague, far-off sort of way, and it translated into a dull discomfort that passed after a day or two. At the moment, though, the ice only served as a relaxant.
Rogue was gone when he went back into the bedroom to change, having left for her own class. Bobby shrugged into a shirt and jeans, and went down into one of the sub-basements.
Cerebro hadn't been in use since the Professor's death. There were a few telepaths littering the school, but none of them had even half the skill that Dr. Grey had had at the lowest point of her powers. Xavier was the only one who'd been able to work Cerebro effectively. However, after his promotion, Bobby had been given the access codes to a variety of the labs that Xavier and Dr. Grey had worked in, and the lab he let himself into contained a supercomputer full of files that the Professor had taken from Cerebro. There was data that he and Dr. Grey had compiled, as well as files contributed by Dr. McCoy. Bobby settled himself in at the desk, entered the appropriate passwords and pulled up a series of files.
In the world Bobby lived in, the common definition of mutant was a person with extraordinary abilities. Normal humans had a tendency to group all mutants together, whether their mutancy was physical or visual, whether they had powers or not, whether they were good or evil. Most of the students at the school, while possessing powers, didn't appear to be mutants at first glance.
Bobby started reading a file. There was a woman in Texas who was an average human being, so long as she stayed awake. If she fell asleep, however, her entire body turned into a pyre of flame. There was a boy in Mississippi who grew at a such rapid rate, that by the age of fourteen, he was already several tons. A man in Montana who emitted a toxic gas. A little girl in California who was completely covered in an adhesive glue.
There were others with obvious physical mutations, as well: fur, feathers, and scales; spots and stripes; every color in the rainbow splashed across them. Some had three limbs, while others had eight. Some lacked facial features, and others had severe deformities.
Many of the mutants had volunteered for the cure.
After perusing the fiftieth or so file, Bobby had enough, and turned off the machine. He leaned forward, bracing his elbows against the harsh cool of the metal desk, resting his chin in his hands. His mutation was so simplistic, in retrospect. It was a power. It was, as the Professor had always put it, a gift. He could pass for normal in society if he wanted. And he was fortunate enough to have the sort of powers that were beneficial, and allowed him to be part of the X-Men.
But not everyone was so lucky, and living at the mansion had never really taught him that lesson, until Rogue came. Bobby would never give up his powers, but he was in a position to make that choice, and perhaps Rogue never had been.
He hadn't realized he'd been down there so long, until his stomach roared at him en route upstairs. He checked his watch to see that several hours had passed; he'd missed lunch. He went to the kitchen to fix himself a paltry sandwich, and took it back to his room, despite the warnings he'd issued Guthrie and countless other students about such behavior. Rogue was in class, and he wanted to be waiting for her when she returned.
Bobby was just licking the last of the crumbs off of his fingers when Rogue returned, wearily carrying a stack of papers. "You're back," she said, but didn't smile at him. "How are you feeling?"
"Confused," he said honestly, then got to his feet, grabbed the papers from her hand and tossed them haphazardly on the mattress. They were in the way of his main goal, which was to grab her to him in a desperate kiss.
Rogue fluttered at him once released. "Bobby, what..."
"When I first came here," he said, "this place was a safe haven for me. I was a mutant, and I didn't know how to deal with that, and this place showed me that there were others like me, and the Professor let me know that mutants were people, that I was still a person. And I've never forgotten him for that. He was like a father to most of us; he cared for us in ways that our own families couldn't. But the Professor sheltered us. Everyone here is a mutant, but we all have powers. I'm not saying the Professor was a bad guy, but he never really showed us the darker side. The deformity and freakishness that makes people call us a disease."
She looked at him, wary. "Is there a point to this?"
"The point is, I'm sheltered. I always thought mutation was about powers, about gifts. It never really occurred to me that it could ever be bad. I thought I understood when you came here, but I never did. I probably never will. I'm sorry. I screwed up." He sighed. "You getting cured was your choice, and I had no right to ever think it was about me for even a second."
"It was, though, Bobby. At least a little bit. I didn't get the cure because of you. I got it because I love you, because I have a boyfriend that I want to kiss and friends that I want to hug." She looked at her shoes. "If it helps, I had already committed to the cure before I saw you and Kitty skating."
Bobby felt the blood drain from his face, leaving him colorless and dizzy. "You saw that?"
"Why?" she challenged. "Was it a secret?"
"Only from Storm," he said. "Marie, nothing happened."
"I know," she said. "I mean, I don't know, but I know you. And I know you wouldn't."
He pulled Rogue to him, locking her in tightly, securing her head under his chin. He was past the point of being able to explain himself in words. Things seemed to be going his way, and he didn't want to ruin that with a poor explanation.
Rogue snuggled further into him. "I didn't think you were cheating on me."
"I wasn't. How about we agree to never discuss this again?"
"Fine by me."
"Although," he mused, "I guess fighting about stupid things makes us a normal couple."
"Weren't we already?" said Rogue.
Bobby laughed. "Look where we live, what we do. For us, fighting means shooting lasers at each other in the Danger Room."
"Sometimes, I wouldn't mind going after you with a laser."
"Be nice," he laughed. "I'm still sore."
Rogue rolled her eyes, but she rubbed at his shoulder with pity. "Remind me again why you decided to have Pete and Logan try to kill you?"
"I was angry," he explained.
She blinked at him. "That makes no sense."
"It does to me. You said it yourself," he teased, poking her arm. "I'm a guy."