WHO St John Allerdyce & Bobby Drake WHAT Burgers and Powers WHERE Goodlands about places WHEN Shortly after Bobby's arrival WARNINGS Long as hell, but none really STATUS Complete
As if this place wasn’t weird enough, with all the other world X-Men popping up, some that John had no clue about, others he was just avoiding, even if they didn’t seem to be the ones he knew.
Magneto being around, but young and less Magneto was weird on it’s own, never mind that there was a Jean around here that matched his age. Now there was a Bobby from an entirely different place that didn’t just want to punch John in the face and ignore him, well. Weird.
He’d been kicking himself for offering to work with Bobby again, really. Although it was the first time for this version, it’d taken weeks for the frostbite to heal on John’s hands after Alcatraz. He had to wonder about the timing too. Given a version of Rogue’s old flame just showed up as well.
The Entity had a sick sense of humour.
But Bobby had gotten settled, and did ask about John’s offer, so he mentioned the burger place and was prepared to figure out just how weird this was going to be.
Bobby was excited. So excited he felt like he was vibrating out of his skin. Making friends was something that he’d always liked to think he was good at but in actuality he sort of sucked and he recognised that, as much as it bummed him out to do so. Being here was weird because there were people around that he sort of knew who weren’t the ones he knew - including a Jean that had some kind of cosmic thing in her (haha, that’s what he said) but who didn’t know him, or people that knew a version of him.
And Professor Kitty was the same age as him.
It was wild. He had made a few friends outside of mutants too which also felt good even if he missed Romeo and was also upset that hadn’t worked out for them. But then… when his people went to war against those of his boyfriend… any kind of relationship was doomed to fail because as much as he would have happily remained the Juliet to Romeo’s, uh, Romeo, it was just a bit too much to overcome apparently. Apparently. Pssh.
Anyway, he was meeting a new friend. Someone who was… friends? Maybe, though they didn’t sound much like friends if they headbutted each other and if this other him froze John’s fingers… And he wanted this to work. And for him not to come off as even remotely like the other him. If that was possible, maybe?
He approached with his hands in his pockets and baseball cap askew on his head, hair sticking out underneath it errantly.
“Hey,” he greeted, managing to not sound like he was about to explode with nervous-excited energy, but his breath did cloud as he spoke. “Thanks for agreeing to do this, man, I really appreciate it.” Nervous babbling: activated. “I know it must be really weird for you meeting someone who’s kinda the same person to the one you know but isn’t, I know I’ve found it weird that-”
Oh God, other!Bobby did this too. The nervous rambling, it was annoyingly endearing and frankly, John didn’t want to deal with that either. “It’s fine.” He was maybe a little sharp, cutting Bobby off in the middle of a ramble about whatever. And then he felt bad, that kicking a puppy feeling that bugged him just as much.
“I mean… I know starting out here is weird, with the alternates and stuff.” John just shoved his own hands into his pockets, shoulders hunched a little. “Besides, I hadn’t seen Bobby in a while, back home and stuff.” John was sure Bobby was probably still with the X-Men and hated him anyway. “So this isn’t too weird.”
Which wasn’t a total lie, but still.
“You wanna eat first?” John tended to focus his powers better when he wasn’t hungry, he had no idea if it was the same for Bobby though.
On cue, Bobby flinched when John cut him off sharply and opened his mouth to apologise when the other guy was talking, and he wondered if John was the kind of guy who didn’t appreciate rambling, in which case they might have a problem, but also, Bobby needed to at least allow himself a moment to recognise that John was hot, and not just because of his powers (which Bobby could sort of feel in the air, the way the air warmed up around the pyrokinetic and he knew if he went into his ice from right now he’d be able to see the way he’d stand out in the head spectrum Bobby could see in and-
Wow, rambling thought train much.
It took his brain a minute to catch up with John, grasping for context, the slightly hunched shoulders and how the other mutant was turned slightly towards the display and counter and he just nodded, hoping that the question was ‘are you hungry?’ because he was.
“I’m always hungry,” is what he said, hoping that he was right with the context of the conversation and offering John a hopeful little grin that he hadn’t said something completely irrelevant.
“Cool, okay,” there’d always been those jokes, back when John was an lanky teenager and Bobby was just the star pupil. The hot and cold, fire and ice jokes. Cool and all those other double meaning words. It felt kinda normal to slip back into. Which was very dangerous. “I like the burger place here, they don’t slather all the dressings on. I mean who needs a whole pound of mustard on a burger?” Why did John even let them put mustard on his burger?
By that point, John had a regular order, so he placed it and then let Bobby take a look for what he wanted. Which at least gave John some time to compare. Bobby wasn’t as tall as the one he’d known, his features weren’t as sharp, but you could see the same structure there, same earnest face, same sunny disposition, same energy.
There were enough similarities that it was just Bobby. A little younger, but that was about it.
Bobby wiggled his eyebrows in response to John’s ‘cool’, managing to slip in a quick, “you know it,” before they were talking about burgers. His expression shifted to one of disgust when John mentioned mustard. Because mustard was the food of the devil.
He stuck his tongue out in Official Disgust.
“Gross. Who wants to put the devil’s gunk on their burger? Or on hot dogs. It’s just wrong. Ruins perfectly good food.”
He trailed along and bounced up on his toes, unaware of the scrutiny as he looked at the menu, mouthing the names of the the burgers as he went through the menu, tugging on the edge of his sleeve and worrying at it with his fingertips.
He glanced at John and grinned, “Okay, I think I’m gonna for….. That one?” It looked good, and he hoped they could make it without mustard. He could ask. Or wipe it off.
He grinned at the guy behind the counter and placed his own order before sidling up to John and bumping his shoulder with his own. “You know, I really love how many burger places there are in the future. And how it’s like, nicer. I mean, it’s only like, ten years or whatever but still. I mean the cell phones are so small and have so many games.”
He was rambling again.
The contact was a little bit surprising, although not in a startling way, just enough to catch John’s attention as very Bobby, yet another thing that got filed away as ‘same’ in his head.
“Time travel must be pretty weird,” he could only guess, because he came from a time that was pretty similar to all of this. So he couldn’t really say, “But who is ever unhappy about more burgers?” It was weirdly easy, there wasn’t really a tension about talking with Bobby, he didn’t feel overly weird, just a little off balance.
That was normal though, right? It’d been two years since he’d even seen Bobby, so a little unsteadiness wasn’t abnormal. “Don’t you need to be careful that you don’t like, mess up something for your future self?”
How did that even work too, existing with your future self at the same time?
"Well, like, yeah. There was that one time one of us nearly died and the grown up version of us disappeared. It confirmed that we were from the same timeline and all, but I think by coming to the future we've messed things up anyway." Bobby shrugged, almost off-handedly but not quite. He was unsettled by the future that he'd found himself in; it was such a mess and Scott had become a terrorist. "But when we tried to go back, we existed there too, so I guess the timelines have righted themselves."
Which had meant that they were stuck somewhere they didn't belong anyway.
He tilted his head at John. "I wish I'd known enough to google you when I was there. I mean, I don't think it's the same world that you're from anyway, but it woulda been cool to know if you existed there too. If I ever go back I can look for you." It was totally earnest; Bobby figured if they got on here and he ever went home then maybe he'd get along with his world's version of John.
"How long've you been here? Also, yeah, like, more burgers are the best. And the tiny cell phones with games. Still no good at handling the cold, though."
It sounded like all those sci-fi movies, about not messing up something in the past to affect the future, and you’d think the same could be said for the future, especially if you were the one interacting with your future self.
“You probably shouldn’t,” John doubted there’d been much change, and from what he’d got from Kitty, he wasn’t exactly X-Men material in that place either. “I’m not exactly the cookie cutter type.” Considering how he left the X-Men in his world, well, he doubted it’d turn out well in Bobby’s either. “You could ask Storm or Emma though. They’d probably know.” Even if it wasn’t good news.
Drumming his fingers on the table, John tried to work back how long he’d been in Goodland. “Nearly nine months.” And that was fucking scary on it’s own. “It’s okay, not too different from at home, aside from the weird shit that happens is a little overblown.” It wasn’t like he was thrown into Halloween horror nights or sent to different places all the time. “You feel the cold?”
“Cookie cutter type is boring,” Bobby pointed out with a lift of his eyebrow. “Where’s the fun if you’re always following the rules? Even Scott learned that when we came into the future.”
He did grin at John though, “I did make my older self gay. Or, like, at least stopped him hiding in the closet. Even if my relationship went up in flam- smo- well. I mean, it didn’t end well.”
Glancing over to see where their burgers were on the List Of You Must Wait, Bobby watched John’s fingers drumming on the table before lifting to look him in the eye again. “Yeah, I saw someone say something about how this whole place was made of candy for a while? But that- that’s a long time dude, to be stuck here. Guess it can’t be all bad if you’ve not gone nuts or anything.”
Huffing out a breath he shook his head. “No, and I only feel the heat when it’s, like, real hot. Like Arizona-in-the-summer hot and there’s no moisture in the air. What about you? Bet you hate the cold, huh.” He felt a little sad at that, since he was always just on the cold side anyway. “With you being so hot and all.” And yes, okay, if he wiggled his eyebrows a bit that was merely a coincidence.
And that one went into a check for different. John couldn’t remember the number of times he’d had to talk Bobby into cutting curfew but just twenty minutes, like it was going to go onto some permanent record that he’d been late one time.
At least some version of Bobby was less concerned with what people thought of him though, “Yeah, relationships are weird though, they don’t always work.” Not that John classified many of his involvements as relationships. Rogue and him were as close as he’d gotten in years to calling it a relationship. Bobby had never thought of them as that. “Even if you are open about whatever.”
The candy land thing had been weird. “Yeah, that was crazy stupid. Someone had to find the Candy King, you know like the board game? And we were in New Orleans for a while, and Paris, stuff got a little crazy with bad guys for a while too.” The less said about that the better though. “It’s weird, but it’s better than whatever is happening at home.” At least it wasn’t like John had a lot to go back to anyway.
That sounded a bit like what John knew too. There’d been one Danger Room simulation where they tested John and Bobby’s reactions to heat and cold, to see how they both altered. John did not do well in the cold, Bobby didn’t like the extreme heat either.
But John couldn’t avoid the snort at Bobby’s eyebrows, far too much like the Bobby from way before all the shit happened. “I’m sensitive to the cold, yeah, I feel it more than others, y’know?” He caught chills faster if he was out in the cool for too long. “But I tend to operate a little warmer than most, my standard temperature is close to 102 most days.” Which, for normal people, would be close to a brain frying fever.
"Especially not when your, like, uh, race I guess? Go to war with his people and then everyone's just like super mad. And when the adult version of one of us died it just was all weird and Romeo - don't say a word about his name - and I kinda worked out it wouldn't work."
He lowered his finger from where he'd lifted it, preempting being teased for the fact that his boyfriend's name had been Romeo. Warren had given him endless grief over it, even if Kid A had been super supportive. Like, super supportive.
The snort made him grin, pleased that he'd made John do something approaching a laugh. He looked pleased with himself, and it really was the simple things that made him happy. Making others smile was one of those things. And sometimes that was a tall challenge.
"Ugh that'd break my brain if I was that hot all the time," he said with a nod. "I don't think I was listening when Hank took my temperature, but like, I'll remember that. So if you ever get non-Bobby related hypothermia I know how hot I gotta make you." Useful information. He should get a notebook. "I have an ice form which is apparently like nearly indestructible. According to older me. And wizard me. But wizard me was kind of a dick."
He hummed. "That seems to be a running theme. I'm definitely learning from that. Ooh, burgers.”
John mimed zipping his lips, even if he wanted to let loose a hell of a lot of comments about Romeo. It likely wasn’t warranted for Bobby. At least Bobby was capable of accepting things about himself and just going for it.
More than the others could say if Bobby was on track with the closet comments.
“Apparently my mutation counteracts it, I dunno, I wasn’t really listening either.” He hadn’t really been too trusting when he’d first arrived at the mansion and everyone was wondering why he was constantly burning up but felt fine. Probably why he and Bobby were roomed together. John would’ve made it too hot for anyone else, while Bobby made it too cold. “I can attest that the ice form is definitely hard.” He was pretty sure when Bobby headbutted him, it was the first time he’d fully iced up.
“At least you get the benefit of knowing?” The burgers looked just as good as usual, and if Bobby was this easily pleased with food it probably wouldn’t be a disappointment. “You don’t seem like the asshole of the bunch.” Nope, that was definitely John’s thing.
Bobby grinned again, clearly pleased at how much they had in common, and maybe it was because some version of him in some reality knew John but Bobby felt… comfortable, was that weird? They were probably pretty different, but he hadn’t completely screwed up so far and that was a huge relief.
“I mean- I can’t say I’ve ever headbutted anyone,” he admitted. Most of his fights had been the more sort of long-distance style, quipping like a smart-ass and being a distraction, using his powers to protect people and slow the bad guys down rather than get the final blow. That was normally reserved for Scott or Laura. Or Warren, more recently, his flame wings had really done a number on his brain. But then again something weird had definitely happened when he’d met his future self. Something in Warren had just kind of snapped a bit.
Taking the food over to a table, Bobby settled opposite John and hummed ‘burgers burgers burgers’ happily under his breath for a good half a minute, just inspecting it before glancing up at John. “Yeah, I mean, it’s good to know who I don’t wanna be. Most people only know that kind of information retrospectively. Still, I don’t like how many people the older version of me hurt ‘cause he was stuck in the closet, y’know? That’s not cool.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Thanks for not calling me an asshole though, it means I’ve made a good first impression.” He didn’t think that crappy welcome wagon person liked him much but honestly, make a stupid comment, get a stupid answer, right? “Or second. Third? Whatever. I mean, it’s great ‘cause now we’re friends.” John didn’t seem like an asshole, either, just that he didn’t take any crap.
“So, like,” he said, around a mouthful of the burger that tasted good enough he actually groaned, “do you make the fire? Like, can you set your hand on fire and be like ‘FWOOM’?”
It left John wondering just who he was in other worlds, in Rogue’s or Bobby’s or even in Laura’s. Bobby’s opinion on his own alternates made John pretty sure that he’d hate any other versions of himself he met. “Many Bobby’s really seem to care what people think about them. I dunno about the others,” John picked a little at his burger, contemplating what to give up to this Bobby, “the one I knew had some pretty shitty parents.”
It wasn’t like John was about to make excuses for what was going on, a lot of people had shitty parents, but John was pretty sure that his Bobby’s shitty choices and attitude stemmed from his parents rigid world view.
“Been here long enough to figure out that who I know isn’t really who’ll show up here. Rogue’s different, Kitty is a completely different person, Jean and Storm are different. You.” John shrugged one shoulder, “Figure it’s better to wait and see.” Honestly, the more people who turned up that weren’t versions he knew, the more John was sure his world just fucking sucked. “Maybe make some friends that way.”
It was very rare that John actually counted someone as a friend; there was Finn, Kitty and now Bobby (at least this one) that could get away with claiming it. Even during the period of Bobby and John at the mansion, he wasn’t sure they were friends.
“Um, no,” John matched a bite for bite with Bobby, shaking out one of his hands while he chewed through, “I gotta have fire to control,” and he left the mansion before anyone could figure out if he could get past the need in order to produce fire himself. “Usually from a lighter or match.” And it was a bone of contention sometimes.
"Well," Bobby said around another mouthful, "that's a universal constant. My parents were shitty too. I accidentally froze the pool and then they wouldn't talk to me anymore. Like, threw me out kinda didn't want anything to do with me anymore." He shrugged. "Their loss, I'm great."
But he did know they weren't exactly... pro-mutant and they definitely weren't pro-gay dudes either. So he was batting a twofer there. Or whatever the right metaphor was.
"Does it suck? Not seeing people from your own reality or, like, the version of people you know?" He didn't want to ask if the others were better because that seemed rude, even if he was clearly superior to this other Bobby that John had known. He wasn't gonna headbutt him or freeze his fingers. Not even when they were playing with their powers in a bit.
He hummed, rested his elbow on the table and tilted his head. "Guessing you carry one then, for emergencies?" He made a note to start doing the same, sticking a lighter into the pocket of his jeans or whatever just in case they were out somewhere and got attacked by swamp monsters or mole men or something. "I mean at least it means when you sneeze something doesn't catch fire?" There was a bright side to everything. "That's a small upside, even if needing something to kickstart you is a pain. Like, what if it's windy?"
That self assuredness wasn’t something they shared, the Bobby’s. John happened to know that his would be looking for affirmation from someone, rather than being decently confident in anything. Even in training, Bobby was always looking to Scott for approval. Probably why he got called ‘the Mascot’.
“No, not really.” Maybe if it’d been the start of his period at the mansion, when everything was new and all he could tell was that people were trying to help. It’d been the first time he’d been convinced that someone actually wanted to help him, without expecting anything in return. But then, slowly, the shine wore off, and John realised that there was a price, it just wasn’t the traditional one. “There were some issues with people back home, nothing major, I didn’t kill anyone. But we weren’t all seeing eye to eye.”
In his world, Bobby and Rogue hated him, Kitty barely spoke to him, Jean was dead, Storm would probably shun him. No, it definitely was better that this place was full of strangers. It was like a bit of a fresh start.
“Sure, it’s helpful like that. But I’m usually carrying more than a few sources and sometimes it’s a bit of a pain to get to that source.” It was why Magneto had the flamethrowers rigged onto John’s wrists, and they were helpful and everything, but it didn’t stop his hands from burning sometimes. “Wind doesn’t usually matter. Like when you strike a flint, there’s a spark, right? I can ignite that spark, pull it out. That’s all it takes. A spark goes to an inferno pretty quickly when you can push it.”
Even if it hurt and got out of control. Usually when he needed to do that, John wasn’t thinking clearly. “Probably also why Bobby and I were paired up.”
"Oh that's so cool though," Bobby latched onto the talk of powers instead of making John relive the crappy place he'd come from. It sounded crappy, he didn't looked pleased when he talked about it, whereas as awkward as it had been for him to have been yanked out of his timeline it had happened with friends and he'd seen so much that he might not have seen otherwise. He'd never have really learned about himself without all this weirdness having happened. "I mean, about the spark and all. That means long as you've got like two rocks you'd probably be okay too. Like flint? That's the thing, right? Flint's what's used to set rocks on fire? Well, not rocks but y'know the fire rock and stuff. It's not just the name of the wheel-y thing on a lighter?"
He caught himself mid ramble and looked sheepishly at John, slurping at his milkshake to cover the ramble.
"I mean, I guess? Ice is a pretty good counter for fire."
It was surprising, a little, that Bobby was observant enough to skirt the awkward issues. Sometimes, back home, Drake needed to be hit with a clue-by-four to understand anything, like when Alison and Jubes were arguing, or when someone had swore in front of Sarah.
“Yeah, rocks, sticks, the ignition on a car, metal to bash against each other, a gas stove.” The less said about that though, the better. Because he was still a little weird about food, John picked out some of the veg from his burger, too many onions or a pickle he didn’t actually feel like eating anymore.
“When we trained… It was more like countering a loss of control. Drake could douse my flame before it hit someone, I could thaw anything he froze,” like a thin sheen on a lobby floor. “Throw in the temperature changes when we used our powers and it made the most sense I guess.”
And the Professor was probably a fan of symmetry.
"Well, that makes sense. Surprising that you guys became besties then if your version of the Professor made you like... rivals in a way? I mean, that's what it sounds like, stuck together 'cause your powers countered each other and caused less property damage." Bobby peeled the top bun off his burger and peeled out a piece of wilted lettuce, pulling an exaggerated face and dropping it on the tray. "I don't really have anyone like that where I come from, but like, where I was pulled from the five of us were the first ones that the Professor took in."
He breathed out. "It's good to know somewhere I'm not the youngest in the group."
Slurping at his milkshake again, glancing down into the cup when he realised the ice had melted - so fixed that right up - he added, "Oh, so, can your Bobby make ice golems of himself? Like, snowlems?" He grinned, "Man, that's a good one. I'm keeping that. Snowlems."
“Not… we weren’t besties. Not really rivals either.” The mansion hierarchy was a confusing one, everyone knew who was at the top and who was at the bottom, but it shuffled around the middle so much. It was hard for anyone at the mansion to really have beef with Bobby, and while they didn’t get along instantly, John wouldn’t say they were enemies. Not in the same way John disliked some of the other idiots there at least.
It was hard to explain what he and Bobby had been, given that Bobby refused to actually address it and John hadn’t been too bothered to label anything. It was something, but that was all he knew. (Which was a huge lie to himself, but John wasn’t exactly planning an introspective look on his fucked up relationship with Bobby and Rogue.)
“Nah, there were about fifty students when I was there. You were around the middle ground.” Not that John bothered to learn who any of the younger kids were. He’d barely lasted a year and a half at Xaviers, learning names of the underclassmen hadn’t really seemed like a priority.
“Snowlems?” The frown was clearly telling Bobby that it wasn’t a good one, not the way he thought. “No, Drake wasn’t there, or couldn’t bring himself to get there, I dunno.” For all that John was considered less of a threat, because of the ‘some assembly required’ quota with his powers, Drake was probably less of a threat because of his own unwillingness to experiment.
"Well, middle ground is better than nothing, I guess." Well, if John's Bobby and John hadn't been best friends or whatever, that didn't mean he and John couldn't try. It wasn't often Bobby met people that he sort of felt like he clicked with, Romeo had been a definite exception and at some point he might let John tease him about that. Not right now though. Maybe later.
John's less than positive reaction to the word snowlems just made him pull another face. It wasn't his fault if John didn't appreciate his punny genius. He was pretty punny, if he did say so himself. He was keeping snowlems. It was much better than snow golems or just golems.
"Hm." It seemed like there were a bunch of differences between the two of them which was good. It would have sucked if he was the same as a Bobby that John had already known. He'd already done the treading-in-someone's-footsteps-and-that-someone-is-you thing. "Well, I guess there's always time to learn new stuff. Maybe during practise you'll find out you don't need the lighter. How long's it been since you've let your powers go, dude?"
Maybe he’d tell Bobby, eventually. Let him know what that middle ground was, figure out if it made any sense to someone else, because John sure as hell hadn’t told anyone what had been going on (he’s sure Jean and the Professor knew, but never said a thing) but it wasn’t like he was rushing to confuse things.
“About a year before I ended up here. And eight months here, so probably closer to two years than normal.” And it wasn’t because he was calming down, less sure of his powers or whatever, he’d constantly gotten shit at the school for his free use of his powers, Magneto had been so refreshing because he’d told John to use his powers as openly as he wanted, it was an extension of him, control came from understanding, from figuring it out, and that meant using them. Xavier was all about controlling your emotions to control your powers.
“The last time I let go I nearly burnt down an apartment building.” It had gotten him away from the pick up squad though, and after that he’d been more cautious about drawing attention to himself with powers. “The theory is I could learn to create it.” Dr Grey thought that was why John’s body temperature was so high all the time, his body prepared to combust half the time. “But I can get burnt, so they were never in a rush to figure it out.”
Bobby winced, first because two years was a long time when Bobby was literally hopping from crisis to crisis using his powers pretty much daily but also because the idea of getting hurt by his powers was a brutal one. He was lucky, he supposed, he’d never given himself frostbite. The worst thing that had happened to him was the first time he’d turned to ice he’d completely frozen (haha, get it?) and couldn’t change back. Jean hadn’t even been able to get into his head when he’d been iced up so she couldn’t help calm him down. She said when he’d gone into his ice-form he’d become invisible to her.
Which, handy power. Non-useful mental segue.
“Oops?” was the sound he made because yeah, burning down apartments was bad. But also, unless he’d just done it because he didn’t like the decor there had to have been a reason. They never had particularly easy lives. “Is that- I mean, do you wanna work to see if you can create it? I’m guessing this training together thing isn’t gonna just be a one-off…”
The longer they talked, the more John realised that he hadn’t been using his powers, not really. He wasn’t rusty or anything, he could still feel every source and ever little flame in a mile radius, and he and Kitty had used ample amounts of mutant power to kick the Pride’s ass when all the bad shit happened.
But he wasn’t training the way he had been at Xavier’s, or with Magneto. There weren’t mutant uprisings or battles with enemies to get to flex his fire.
And for a while, Pyro was all he’d been.
“We can work up to it, yeah,” John had no desire to burn himself more, the crap he’d already inflicted on himself was bad enough at times, but it was something that could come after time. “But um, no. I don’t think it’ll be a one off. I’m up for figuring out some schedule or just whatever.”
Blowing of steam was usually better when someone was around to douse his shit if he got carried away. And John would rather it be Bobby than Storm anyway.
Bobby beamed and went back to his burger, demolishing what was left of it (bar a piece of gerkin and another wilted lettuce leaf), partly because he was hungry (he was always hungry, but it always felt worse when there was food right in front of him, he just had to eat it) and partly because he was excited to go somewhere and encourage John to let loose with his powers.
He'd have gone insane if he hadn't been able to use them for that long. As it was, he hadn't used them properly since he'd arrived and he already felt himself twitching with the desire to fight bad guys and let loose.
"A schedule? Can you just, like, hit me up and be like 'hey Bobby, I got a fire-related itch to scratch wanna go break stuff'? I'd respond well to that."
Nothing felt overly awkward, which let John’s shoulders relax a hell of a lot, he’d started from scratch with a few people, he could do the same with Bobby. It did feel easy enough after all.
“You mean you’re not planning on getting a job? I mean, I can do that, I don’t keep a normal schedule anyway.” Writing in Goodland was exceptionally strange, because you never saw any of the residents outside of the villa, but they did seem to be there, and everything just seemed to tick over like in a normal city. “I just assumed you’d have something else going on.”
"Oh, well, I mean, I probably should get a job but it won't be the kind of job where I can't just... duck out for a bit of superheroism or whatever. I've got no idea what I'm gonna do. It’s kinda crappy they expect us to work and pay rent when we didn’t buy tickets here or whatever. I always just figured I'd be part of the X-Men until I died or, like, lost my powers again or something."
Not that he'd lost his powers, but the older him had. Or thought he had and had managed to repress his ability. Which, honestly, was impressive. The older!him was super good at repressing things.
"What do you do for a job?"
John figured that most places around here were very flexible on the ‘superheroism’, even if John barely managed to not roll his eyes at that entirely. Bobby was with the X-Men because he fit in there, it wasn’t John’s thing, but he didn’t need to shit on Bobby’s group just because they were fucking idiots from what he’d known of them.
“There’s a couple places that people around here set up,” little businesses or big ones, he figured they’d be the most understanding about that stuff, “if you needed to ask around or whatever.”
John couldn’t say he thought being an X-Man was a job. He really doubted they got paid, considering the damage they usually did, or who they were fighting did. Hell, the Mansion had been the victim of the attack when John was last with Xavier’s.
Aside from the mini moments of criminal acts, well, “I um. I’m writing. Apparently this place still has papers or some shit.”
“You’re a writer?” Bobby asked, bright eyed and curious. “That’s so cool. I’m not, like, eloquent enough or whatever to do any kind of writing. Plus, all my references are waay out of date.” He’d briefly entertained running a blog about being displaced in time but then remembered he’d have to actually update it and that was a lot of effort. “Do you write for the paper then?”
He’d think about getting a job. Maybe he could work at the youth centre place. Later. Today was about powers.
“But yeah, I’ll think about it. Guess I gotta pay the rent somehow, right?”
He wiggled a little impatiently. “You nearly done?”
There were very few people that knew about John’s writing. Rogue and Kitty did, they’d read some of his stuff, but it wasn’t like he did it with his own name, and he sure as hell wasn’t a journalist. “Something like that, yeah.” He really wasn’t planning on telling Bobby yet.
But he could tell that Bobby was getting to the end of the small talk thing, and if he were being honest, sure, he was a little anxious to get to the power part too. Not only to see just what else Bobby could do that the one from his world couldn’t.
John wasn’t about to say ‘snowlem’ though.
“Yeah, I’m finished.” And John finished off his drink too, “You always this impatient?”
“Only when I’m excited,” Bobby admitted with a shameless grin as he finished off the last of his own drink and put the cup down on his tray, balling up the wrapper his burger had come in and started cleaning up the table. The nervous energy was starting to get the better of him.
He had been super patient, after all.
“Power training is my favourite thing anyway. I mean, other than saving people and eating burgers.” And hanging out with his friends but that one was probably obvious. “And since I use them every day at home, not using them much here makes me feel all creaky. Literally. I iced up yesterday and my elbow creaked.”
By this point John was sure he needed to just stop cataloguing the differences between versions of Bobby, otherwise he’d be doing it all day, and that’d just cause a headache in the long run.
“It’s pretty weird around here too, how there’s pretty much an openness about powers. Every time something does go wrong the whole place is basically out there flashing off.” John hadn’t personally heard anything negative, but he was pretty sure that if it was said it was said in private. A lot of the people with powers were crazy scary powerful too.
It’d be stupid to voice a bias in a really negative way around here.
“Let’s find somewhere you can ice up before the whole place turns into Christmas Town then.” Even if Klara would’ve loved more snow, everyone loved complaining about things.
“Christmas Town?” Bobby asked, visibly confused by the reference. He’d been trying to catch up on pop culture since they’d jumped forward into the future but honestly, there was a lot and he hadn’t exactly had much downtime. “But yeah, I- let’s go do power stuff.”
He got to his feet and cleaned up the tray, sticking the contents of it in the trash so that someone didn’t need to come and clean up after them.
“I’m guessing the park’s probably out, since there’s too many people and y’know, we’re playing with fire and all” He wiggled his eyebrows, “and I’ve not been to New York city in ages, since y’know the school’s a little way out and I wasn’t actually there for long, we ended up in Canada. I think it was Canada anyway. The place where Logan was made. I mean, then we were just travelling.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and trailed out of the shop after John, rambling as he did. “So, I mean, I didn’t ask, how old are you? That’s not a rude question, right, since you’re not a girl and all.”
“Nightmare Before Christmas? Stop action, Jack Skellington?” He was about to point out that it became Rogue’s favourite movie at the mansion but decided not to. “It’s not that important.”
John just let Bobby clean up, because it really wasn’t something John tended to do unless it was a huge mess, “Park isn’t too good an idea, no. But there are some rooftops we can get to.” It wasn’t like this place was overly populated by people, but there was still the risk of causing trouble. “Alkali Lake, right?” That was a rough go around, considering all that happened, “We were there for a while.” And it was the place he left.
Hands back into his pockets, John nodded his head in the direction he figured they could go so that they could get to a rooftop without too much worry of affecting anyone with powers. “I’m 22, I think.” John and birthdays hadn’t been a regular thing, and since he didn’t attend school on the regular he had no idea what grade he should’ve been in at any given time, “It’s from what Dr Grey estimated from shit when I ended up at the mansion at least. How old are you?”
“Ooh, rooftops.” He decided to let the whole reference thing slide - for now. He’d google it later. If it was a movie then he’d definitely be watching it: he loved that stuff. He just hadn’t had the time. Now, he supposed, he had nothing but.
He trailed along beside John, ambling with his hands in his pockets but every now and then his elbow knocked the fire starter’s. Was it on purpose? Was it an accident? He would never tell.
“Yeah, I think that’s the place. Lots of trees. Loads of snow. Big metal underground torture chamber turned new school.” He’d thought it weird but then they’d all decided to follow Miss Frost and the grown up version of Scott anyway. It was safer.
He opened his mouth, starting to say “How do you not kn-“ but catching himself before he made a total ass move. Dick move. Whatever move. “I’m eighteen, but I’ll be nineteen soon,” he announced. “Considering Hank joked it was a miracle no one had killed me yet it’s apparently a miracle.”
“They’re making that place the new school?” John didn’t even try to hide the incredulous tone, it was ridiculous. He hadn’t even been in the lower parts of the base, because apparently the X-Weirdos thought they were better waiting on the jet like spare parts, but the idea of turning that place into a school?
“I mean, I guess it’s harder to attack?” Which was really the only thing he could think of as a ‘plus side’ of staying there.
John caught the start of the question, and he’d been through it before with everyone at the mansion when they asked him his birthday and he said he didn’t know. In the end, Jubilee told him to just pick a date and that was the one they used. It wasn’t as big a deal to him now, he wasn’t put on the spot and reminded just how messed up his upbringing was. “I think if you guys are jumping through time lines and what not, he might have a point.”
"They'd thought about it, yeah. I mean, everything's completely screwed up anyway, and after the war everything sorta seemed to fall away and we didn't go back..." After all, Scott had died. The adult Scott, not his Scott. But it had fractured something in everyone anyway and they'd wanted to do their own thing for a bit and the displaced X-Men just wanted some space of their own.
He wet his lower lip and was very relieved he hadn't carried on with his question, instead just let the conversation flow move on as they turned a corner he used the lampost to swing himself around. He wished he had his skateboard, John walked at a pretty decent pace.
"I ended up being teleported to, like, Atlanta at one point too. Underground with a mole-dude. Way too warm. You'd have loved it there, just- without the mole dude. The mole dude was a dick."
War? There was clearly a lot that John didn’t know, their worlds were probably so very, very different. There’d be time to ask, John was pretty sure, rather than trying to get everything filled in right then and there.
“Atlanta is pretty cool, hot, whatever.” Not that John saw a lot of anywhere he went. “I like Georgia, it’s pretty laid back, y’know.” It wasn’t New Orleans laid back, but few people really figured that John was actually from New Orleans. “But in general I avoid underground and mole people.” He met a toad-man, he didn’t really think he wanted to meet a mole-man.
“So you teleport around a lot?”
“No, not really,” Bobby said, “I mean, we’ve got the- are we nearly there? - the time we kinda jumped forward in time and then we were tryna help a mutant who was new to her powers and she like… poofed us into an alternate world. It was weird. But y’know, like, I- yeah. No not really. And you’d say you’ve seen one you’ve seen ‘em all but I figure my experiences are still super limited.”
He bounced on his toes, the air around them dropping just a fraction. “You?”
John steered them down an alleyway, past a few dumpsters towards the end of the alley where a fire escape ran up the side of the building. “No, not even once.” John and teleporting were a huge no. He wouldn’t even say he was curious about it.
“I was at the school for a little under two years, then with another group for about a year or so.” And John avoided saying ‘Brotherhood’ or ‘Magneto’ out of force of habit really. “And then I was just keeping a low profile before I ended up here.” It was just two stories up, and then they were on a steady level of about five stores that stretched over that block, facing towards the park.
“Not sure I’d wanna get used to just popping all over the time stream.”
Bobby followed John up the ladder without making any comments, but he did look delighted when they hit the large flat rooftop and grinned, stretching his arms above his head. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to make a habit of it. It just feels like if something wild’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen to me and my friends, yanno?”
He rolled his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck, smiling brightly at John.
“This place is awesome.”
He tugged off his hoodie, yanking it enthusiastically over his head and throwing it to one side. He felt the air prickling against his skin as he prepared to train. The sound of ice crackling up along his fingers and forearms was almost obscured by the gentle sound of the wind around them and the sounds of the city but not quite. Bobby still hadn’t mastered the art of the silent switch to his ice form.
“So who goes first, do you wanna go first?”
John opted not to point out that weird shit happened to the X-Men because they put themselves in the middle of the weird shit. It wasn’t like it was going to change anything, John knew that for sure.
“It’s pretty cool, enough space not to worry about anyone getting too close,” because people typically wandered over to see what was happening if they could, “and I kinda like that few people know about it.” John didn’t really love sharing his space with a bunch of people after all.
“You’re already half iced,” John just smirked, leaning on the edge of the roof. “How about you show me what it is you can do?”