Chapter 3: Pyro

Three and a half months ago:

"John?" Rogue exclaimed as she and Gambit sat down at the table, starting at her estranged friend in surprise. "What are you doing here? I thought…" She trailed off, not wanting to voice what she thought. "It's good to see you."

"My name is Pyro," he retorted sourly. "Not John."

"Oh, wow, sorry," she replied cynically, and then made a mental note not to sound snippy at people who called her Rogue instead of Marie in the future.

"We rescued him from Alcatraz," Bobby said, his face going dark. "One of the few we could."

An uncomfortable silence fell, reminding Rogue that while she had been getting the Cure, her friends had been fighting.

"You went through with it then," Pyro said, eyeing Rogue's bare hands. "You got the Cure."

Rogue lifted her chin and looked Pyro dead in the eye. "Yes, I did."

"Sellout," he sneered.

"If I'm a sellout, then you're a traitor," Rogue retorted hotly.

If looks could kill, Rogue and Pyro's eyes would have been throwing daggers at each other.

"I'm a traitor?" Pyro scoffed. "Mutants are being exterminated and I chose to throw my lot in with the people who are actually trying to make a difference. If I'm a traitor because I didn't want to stay with the X-Men and their half-arsed measures, then I'm a traitor and I'll wear the label proudly. But you? While we were fighting," Pyro gestured to everyone at the table, "you were throwing your lot in with the humans. I might be a traitor to the X-Men, but you're a traitor to your entire kind."

The table erupted. Rogue launched into an angry tirade while Bobby, Kitty, and Jubilee rushed to their friend's defence, talking over one another. Pyro stood by his position, and made both sneering and defiant retorts. Storm and Piotr quietly listened and attempted to make sense of the overlapping voices. As much as they would have liked to stop the argument, they knew any attempt to do so would simply be ignored.

"You're a filthy traitor who has no right being around true mutants," Pyro sneered at Rogue. "The humans want nothing more than to wipe us out, and instead of fighting for our existence like the rest of us, you were lining up at their door like a lamb to the slaughter. You are a collaborator, a turncoat, a race trai—"

Pyro's plate blew up, sending shards and food in all directions. The explosion ended the fight with a number of startled cries and expletives and even scared some of the neighbouring tables into silence.

Everyone stared at the mess, then a deceptively calm and even voice broke the silence.

"My apologies to the plate," Gambit said, his eyes now closed.

Present:

Gambit sat disinterestedly in Pyro's writing workshop. He was there under protest, partly because he didn't like Pyro, and partly because he already knew that writing was never going to be the hobby Storm wanted him to find. He liked reading and watching sci-fi, he didn't want to write it.

Pyro continued to lecture the small class on…whatever it was he was talking about. The class was optional for all but Storm's emotional control students who had yet to find a suitable hobby. Gambit found it preposterous that Pyro, who had left the X-Men to join with Magneto, was being trusted with teaching. Then again, these were the same people who took Pyro back after all his new buddies were forcibly Cured or killed at Alatraz. Gambit had no doubt that Pyro was only staying with the X-Men because he had nowhere else to go.

"Okay, would anyone like to share their project from last week?" Pyro asked.

Everyone glanced at Gambit, who hid his smile and held up his hand.

"Anyone other than Remy?" Pyro asked, then sighed when no one else responded. "Fine, let's get this over with."

Gambit's smile broadened as he stood and lifted a single sheet of paper to reading level. He cleared his throat.

"Once upon a time there was a little mouse named John who liked to set things on fire. One day the other mice got well and truly fed up with John burning all their things, so they decided to burn him at the stake. This was a happy ending for all: the other mice didn't have to worry about John burning their stuff any more, and John got to go out doing what he loved most. The end."

There were giggles from the class and Pyro gave a long-suffering sigh.

"The writing prompt was barbecue," Pyro said with the voice of someone who already knows that they're not going to like the answer to their question. "What in the world does this have to do with barbecues? Aside from the use of fire, that is."

"He got burnt at the stake, didn't he?" Gambit replied mischievously.

"Wrong kind of stake," Pyro said, and held up his hand. "Okay, now that we've gotten Remy's usual nonsense out of the way, anyone else want to read theirs?"

Gambit chuckled to himself as he sat back down. Getting to annoy Pyro was about the only good thing about doing this workshop. He only half listened to the others' stories, and glanced frequently over to the clock to see the time.

"Okay," Pyro said as the workshop came to an end and Gambit eagerly packed up his things. "That's it for today. Your writing prompt for this week is 'theft'."

Gambit paused all so briefly in packing up, then quickly resumed. Theft, huh? He was actually tempted to take that one seriously.

Gambit swaggered up to the group that was growing at the Danger Room doors, a staff resting over one of his shoulders. Already there were Rogue, Bobby, Pyro, and Jubilee.

"Hey Remy," Bobby said as Kitty and Piotr joined them. "Come to watch?"

Gambit raised an eyebrow, and flipped his staff off his shoulder and onto the other with a flourish. "No."

"You're pretty handy with that staff," Rogue said before Bobby could reply.

"Oh, you'd be amazed at the things I can do with my staff," Gambit said with a wink.

Rogue sighed dramatically. "I walked right into that innuendo, didn't I?"

"I'm surprised you didn't see it coming." Gambit smirked.

"And I'm not even going to dignify that one with a response."

"I dunno chere, that sounded like a response to me," he said cheekily, then paused as the demeanour of the waiting X-Men changed to attention. He looked behind him.

"Good," Logan said as he approached. "You're all here."

Bobby pointed at Gambit. "He's not going to be joining us, is he?" He looked quickly towards Gambit. "No offence, Remy, but I've seen enough of your solo sessions to know your explosions are lethal."

Gambit gave a half shrug as Rogue jabbed Bobby in the side. "Tell me something I don't know."

"Yeah, he's going to be joining us, once a week, from now on, until further notice," Logan said, his eyes firmly on Bobby before scanning across the group as he went on. "You need to know you can fight along side each other in a pinch. For now, Gumbo'll be mostly using his non-mutation combat training—"

"Yeah, but what about accidental explosions?" Pyro cut in.

"And that's why we're going to have a safe word," Logan said, and ignored the smirk that reappeared on Gambit's face. "In the event that Gumbo can't deactivate a charge, he'll use the safe word, and we'll pause or stop the simulation so you kids can evacuate and he can release the charge." He looked at Gambit. "By the way, you decide on a new one yet?"

Gambit nodded. "Popcorn."

"Popcorn," Logan repeated, while eyeing Gambit like he expected there to be some sort of innuendo or joke. "Alright then. Safe word is popcorn. Now, let's get started. We're running Street Ambush, at level 3."

Gambit followed the X-Men into the Danger Room proper, while Logan headed into the control room.

"Level 3, huh?" Kitty said musingly as they walked in. "That's not so bad."

"Well, it is a 'get to know you' session," Rogue said.

"True. We'll probably pay for it later."

"Probably."

The doors shut behind them, and a moment later the room transformed into the appearance of a city street. There were shops and offices on either side of the street with light pedestrian and vehicle traffic.

"Oh yeah," Kitty muttered under her breath. "Definitely paying for it later."

Rogue chuckled, and then jumped as she heard Gambit's voice right near her:

"I don't know this sim," he said. "What's the deal?"

Rogue gave him a light smack with the back of her hand. "Don't sneak up on me like that. And in this sim we basically walk around until some folks decide to attack us."

"Ah," Gambit said, rubbing his arm even though her smack hadn't hurt at all. "It's not much of an ambush if we know they're coming though."

"I don't know," Kitty said, as the group walked down the street. "Aside from the fact that we don't know who's going to attack us, it is possible to be in a situation where you know you're walking into an ambush."

"Hmm, I suppose."

As they walked, Gambit looked around. Most of the simulations he had been in were stark in design, intended more for providing a safe environment for him to practice with his mutation. He had only seen more complex ones from the viewing room. This was the first time he'd been in one.

The best way he could think of to describe it was 'token realism'. Whoever had programmed it had gone to a great deal of trouble to make the outside look realistic, right down to the texture of the foot path, with the sole exception of the shop and street signs, which were written in gibberish. However, if anyone looked into the store windows they would see the window display and nothing else but a dark, bare room. It bothered him, especially when pedestrians walked into the stores and just stood there.

A couple of chatty people passed them by, and Gambit couldn't understand a word they said. More gibberish, he supposed. It sounded more like baby talk than a real language.

The X-Men continued to walk and idly chat until three bulky figures wearing arm bands marked with the letters "FOH" approached them. Gambit looked behind him to see more of the arm banded folks close in on them. Most of them were armed with baseball bats and other improvised weapons, but two were holding guns.

"Die muties!" several of them yelled.

Bobby immediately froze over one of the guns. The second gun fired, and its bullet flattened against Piotr's steel skin as he deliberately moved into its path.

"Happy Fourth of July!" Jubilee shouted as she let loose a fireworks display around herself.

Her words warned her friends to cover their eyes, which they did, and avoided being dazzled by the bright lights. Even Gambit got the cue, which he wouldn't have if he hadn't watched sessions of theirs in the past. The sims yelled in anguish, many covering their eyes, and others dropping their weapons as Jubilee's fireworks temporarily blinded them.

Kitty, Piotr, Jubilee, and Rogue moved in to engage them in hand to hand, Jubilee and Kitty making liberal use of their powers. Gambit engaged them with his staff and powerful kicks, leaving his powers very much out of it. Bobby continued to use his powers to freeze over weapons and the ground, until Pyro got bored with using his fire to drive the sims onto the road and starting setting them aflame instead.

Though outnumbered, the fight was relatively swift and easy.

Rogue and Kitty shared a look as Logan called that first wave to an end, confirming to each other their conversation from earlier. Then Rogue glanced towards Gambit, and the thought occurred to her that perhaps there was more to this 'easy session' than simply getting to know Gambit's fighting style: the fight wasn't enough of a challenge to cause an incident. In fact, as Rogue thought on it more, she became certain that Logan was deliberately making this an easier session for the purpose of making sure there wasn't one.

They were definitely going to pay for it later. But it would be worth it if it helped Gambit.

"So, how many waves of this we gotta do?" Gambit asked as they resumed walking down the street.

Rogue shrugged. "Keep getting them until we run out of session time, or Logan gets bored."

"We don't want Logan to get bored," Kitty said sagely. "He gets bored, he'll deliberately up the difficulty level to something ridiculous for the sole purpose of wiping us out."

"He can be a real sadistic bastard sometimes," Bobby said, shaking his head in disgust.

"I heard that, Drake," Logan's voice said over the speakers.

"Doesn't make it any less true!" Bobby replied, looking up at the control room window as he spoke.

At first there was no response, then it started snowing.

"Aww man," Bobby said, pulling a face.

The next wave to ambush them were wearing snow gear and armed with ice picks.

Pyro was casually going through the books in the school library, when he spotted Gambit in one of the little reading nooks by a window. Unable to believe what he was seeing, Pyro found himself walking over to Gambit to check if it was actually him.

"You're reading." Pyro sounded completely dumbfounded.

Gambit tucked his finger under the word he was up to and glanced over at Pyro. "Well done, Captain Obvious."

"I didn't know you liked to read," Pyro exclaimed. "Wait, you're not just looking at the pictures, are you?"

Gambit raised his eyebrow and then turned the book around so Pyro could see the cover of Dune. "That's the only picture. Now, if you're done embarrassing yourself—"

"But if you like to read, why do you screw around in my writing workshop so much?"

"I like to read books, not write them," Gambit replied as he turned the book back around again. "Now, if you don't mind…"

"You like to read." Pyro shook his head. "I can't believe you like to read."

Gambit sighed. "Yeah, and it's much easier to do when I don't have some wanker breathing down my neck going 'I can't believe you like to read'."

Pyro was silent for a moment, and Gambit hoped he would go away. After a minute, to Gambit's irritation, Pyro spoke again:

"You don't like me very much, do you?" he said.

"Nope," Gambit said, keeping his gaze firmly upon the pages of his book in the hope that he would actually be able to get back to reading it. "You're not going to turn this into some sappy heart-to-heart where we discuss our feelings over our mutual love of reading, are you? Because I will throw this book at you. Hard."

"No, I just… What have I ever done to you?"

"Hmm, you're right. I should throw a hardcover book at you instead of a paperback," Gambit said irritably. "That'll hurt more."

A charge seeped into Dune and Gambit gave an exasperated sigh as it lit up with magenta light.

"I don't know," Pyro said a little nervously. "I think an exploding book would hurt more than a hardcover."

Gambit glared at the book for a moment, then sighed again, and turn his glare on Pyro.

"Fine," Gambit said "You want to know why I don't like you? I took an instant dislike to you the moment you called Rogue a race-traitor. You know, just in case you forgot about me blowing up your plate that night."

"Well she—" Pyro began, then stopped as he saw the magenta charge glow brighter.

"She is not. She had a serious problem that was ruining her life, and she fixed it," Gambit replied. "If she really was what you say, she would've convinced me to go through with getting the Cure too instead of coming here. Go away, before I do throw this book at you, and blow you up along with, I dunno, this whole quarter of the library."

Pyro's eyes widened. "You can blow up that much with just that one book?"

"I don't know, I can't measure charges any more. Maybe it'll be a quarter of the library. Maybe it'll be half. Maybe it'll just be that section there. Either way, you will be badly burned, if not dead." Gambit fixed him with an angry glare. "Go away, source of frustration, so I can remove this damn charge already."

Pyro held up his hands in surrender. "Okay okay."

He backed off and left Gambit's view. Gambit forced himself to take a few deep breaths and think of anything other than Pyro. His thoughts immediately went to Rogue, for whom the only irritation he felt was that he couldn't date her.

With one final long breath out, the charge dissolved, and Gambit went back to reading.

Much to the annoyance of both men, Gambit and Pyro left the library at the same time, and started walking the same route back to the staff bedrooms. They walked in silence, Gambit not wanting anything to do with Pyro, and Pyro not wanting to trigger another incident.

The loud voices of Rogue and Bobby broke the silence. Their words were hard to discern until the pair stepped into the hallway two doors ahead of them, but their tone was clear: they were arguing, again.

"Ugh, I'd wish they'd just break up already," Pyro muttered. He had intended the comment only for himself, but Gambit was just close enough to hear.

"Why?" Gambit asked snidely. "She not good enough for him since she took the Cure?"

Pyro glanced at Gambit. "No, it's not that. It's just… well, look at them," he gestured to the not-so-happy couple, too absorbed in their argument to even notice them. "They're always arguing these days. They were never like that before."

Gambit grunted. "I'll have to take your word for that."

"I guess you could say the Cure ruined their relationship," Pyro went on thoughtfully. "It ruined a lot of things."

Gambit snorted derisively. "The Cure did not ruin their relationship. Bobby's inability to acknowledge that Rogue can and will make decisions that don't involve him is the problem. And if it hadn't flared up over this, then it would've flared up over something else."

"Hmm…" Pyro considered that carefully. "So you believe Rogue when she says that she didn't take the Cure because of Bobby?"

Gambit didn't reply. Pyro shook his head.

"Right," Pyro said. "I'm talking to you. Why did I even bother to ask?"

"I'm amazed that you guys are so obsessed with sex that you can't recognise that decisions like taking the Cure have consequences that go far beyond enabling you to get laid," Gambit replied. "And that people can, in fact, make major life decisions that don't revolve around sex. Every single one of you who thinks that Rogue took the Cure for Bobby is insulting her intelligence."

"Hey, people do make major life decisions because of their partner," Pyro replied defensively. "And it sounds very romantic to choose to take a bullet for someone, but what you're really choosing is to ruin your own life."

"You sound like my father," Gambit said. "He calls self-sacrifice a romantic and foolish idea."

"Sounds like you don't agree."

Gambit was flooded with memories of many arguments with Jean-Luc about his charitable tendencies. His shirt began to light up with a faint magenta glow that caused Pyro to sharply back off.

"No, we never agreed," he said quietly, before barrelling on forcefully in the hope of forgetting his past. "But choosing to take a bullet for someone is very different from taking the Cure. Rogue hasn't chosen to give up her life so that someone else can live; she chose to give up her mutation so that she could live."

"Oh yeah?" Pyro asked, his eyes warily focused on Gambit's charged up shirt, both men oblivious to the fact that Rogue and Bobby had stopped arguing. "What if it was a Cure bullet?"

Gambit shrugged. "Principle's the same."

"Yeah, but it means giving up being a mutant. It means going on the rest of your life, being one of them."

"One of what, exactly?" Rogue asked coldly, with a withering gaze fixed directly on Pyro.

"You know, human," Pyro replied. "Homo sapien. You used to be amazing and now—"

"You're still amazing," Gambit cut in firmly. "I'm completely smitten. I would love to take you back to my room and—"

"Hey!" Bobby objected.

"—cuddle, I think," Gambit said, ignoring Bobby. "I could probably go as far as cuddling before I got too excited and risked blowing you up."

"I think you should be more worried about blowing yourself up, right now," Pyro said, gesturing to Gambit's torso.

Gambit glanced at him and the charge dissolved. Not wanting to risk remembering why the charge had showed up in the first place, Gambit looked back at Rogue.

"So, chere, whaddya say?" he asked. "Wanna come back to my place and spoon?"

Rogue smirked at him and pointed at Bobby with her thumb. "My boyfriend is standing right here."

"He's not invited." He leaned in towards her suggestively. "I'm not hearing a no."

"You're not hearing a yes, either, Swamp Rat," Rogue replied, and turned her glare back on Pyro. "And I am not less of a person because I took the Cure, rude boy."

"There is nothing about you," Gambit said as he casually swaggered over to her and stopped only inches away, "that could be considered 'less' ma chere."

"Do you mind?" Rogue demanded. "I'm trying to have a go at Pyro here." She glowered at Pyro. "I feel sorry for anyone who might take a Cure bullet for you. You'd probably repay the sacrifice of their mutation for yours by stabbing them in the back. You wouldn't deserve their sacrifice, and they would deserve better than you."

With those words, Rogue turned on her heel and walked the final few steps to her room, slamming the door close behind her.

"Well, someone's been told," Gambit said, lazily stretching his arms above his head.

"You know, I get that you like to flirt," Bobby said irritably. "But do you really have to flirt with my girlfriend?"

"Yes, as frequently as possible," Gambit replied as he swaggered up to his own room on the other side of Rogue's. "Why, I got you worried or something?"

"No, I just think you're being…" Bobby trailed off, floundering for a word.

"Rude?" Pyro suggested. "Inconsiderate? Ooh, I know, a better flirt than you."

Gambit chuckled as Bobby threw Pyro a dire look.

"You're hilarious, Pyro," Bobby replied as Gambit entered his room.

"I know, I should write comedy."

Another week, another writing workshop. Pyro chatted to the group about writing techniques while Gambit sat there, patiently waiting for the cue for them to read the stories they'd written during the week.

He glanced down at the two pages. Writing was not his forte, and he felt like his end product read more like an instruction manual on how to steal, rather than a story. Still, no one but he was likely to notice. He smiled to himself as he went back to half-listening to Pyro.

"Okay," Pyro said. "Who would like to read their story?"

As usual, everyone looked over at Gambit. Gambit eagerly held up one hand, while the other held his precious two pages. Pyro looked resigned, then confused.

"Wait, is that more than one page in your hand?" he asked Gambit.

"Yep," Gambit replied smugly.

"You mean…you actually wrote something more than a paragraph?"

"Oui."

"You didn't use just really big handwriting, did you?"

"Nope."

"Okay, well, great," Pyro said, pleasantly surprised. "Let's hear it."

Gambit stood, cleared his throat, and began a dramatic reading of his instruction-manual-masquerading-as-fiction. The class listened, partly amused by the theatrical manner of the reading, but mostly confused.

"Wait, sorry," Pyro said, cutting in after only a few sentences. "Sorry to interrupt, but that sounds an awful lot like French."

"It is. I wrote my story in French," Gambit replied.

"Why?"

"Never said we couldn't."

Pyro sighed as Gambit continued his reading. He knew there had to be a catch.