Does the Green still run deep in your heart? Open

[Bobby Drake]

(( OOC: Picking up from Bobby’s birthday party but in real time… Bobby’s been comatose for almost two weeks.)

Hank snarls inarticulately at his computer and resists the urge to smash it into shards against the wall.

This is the thirty-seventh analysis he’s run on Bobby’s most recent medical data, and they all gave the same results, and they aren’t positive. Perhaps I’ve made an error… overlooked something… He’s told himself that over and over during the last two weeks, and it’s certainly true that his analysis is incomplete: the interaction of genetic retroviruses in Bobby’s system caused by MGH, Cure, and Protocol G, along with his own natural mutation, was far too complex to model precisely.

But there’s no arguing with measured results, and in Bobby’s case the results are clear: Protocol G may have prevented the MGH-augmented X-factor in Bobby’s genes from expressing itself before it triggered a fatal cascade, but new protein-synthesis chains started forming almost immediately. Now, they were already bypassing the artificial blockages, via the same kind of adaptive process that made the Cure a temporary phenomenon.

Only this time the treatment it was bypassing really was a cure, and its temporary nature meant that Bobby’s mutation would express itself again in days, or maybe hours. And then they’d be right back where they’d started.

There has to be a way to block it permanently! He takes a deep breath and resets his simulation parameters, starting over for the thirty-eighth time. He wishes Reed were around to brainstorm with, but the Richards are in Washington reporting to Fury, leaving him on his own for now. Maybe if I stop thinking of it as a one-time catalysis… perhaps using nanoassemblers for ongoing enzymatic reconfiguration, bypassing the genome itself altogether?

It occurs to him, not for the first time, that if his research is successful he’ll have accomplished what Warren’s father had searched for: a permanent suppression of mutant genes, a “real” Cure. Something he would normally have refused to have anything to do with. But now, with so many lives at stake… not just Bobby but Reed and Susan and dozens of others… well, he’ll worry about the social and political consequences later.

Several hours later Hank is immersed in a world of simulated protein folding and enzymatic expression when the shriek of a diagnostic alarm sends him jumping across the room in startlement. There’s only one patient in the lab at the moment, which makes it easy to guess what’s going on. No! I just need more time! He bounces off the wall and through his office door, kicking it into splinters in his urgency.

A quick glance at Bobby’s monitors reveals just what Hank had dreaded: mutagen production climbing at an accelerated rate. He leaps to the boy’s bedside, only vaguely aware of others sitting vigil nearby, then skids to a halt at the sudden, maddening realization that there’s absolutely nothing he can do about it. He shuts his eyes tight, suddenly grateful for the moisture-absorbing fur covering his cheeks, and bows his head. I’m sorry, Bobby. I failed you.

After a moment the mutagen monitor is joined by other alarms: body temperature, respiration, heart rate all plummeting; a dissonant orchestra of chimes and blares, as if John Cage had written a symphony about inevitable death. No, wait… that can’t be right! The life support systems– he shouldn’t be… For a moment he worries that Bobby’s cyberpathic abilities have re-emerged, interfering with the life-support equipment… but he can see it’s all working properly, it just isn’t having any effect.

It takes no more than a few seconds for heart-rate and respiration to flatline, and Hank can already see a bluish pallor spreading across the boy’s cheeks. Core body temp has already dropped to room temperature and continues to fall… and fall… and fall…

…until sheer scientific incredulity intrudes itself on Hank’s grief. No… that can’t be right… his body temperature can’t drop like that, even if he’s dead… it’s a thermodynamic imposs-- he stops short then, feeling just the slightest touch of hope. …and this is Bobby Drake, for whom thermodynamic impossibilities were once a matter of routine.

The facts reassemble themselves in his mind in light of a tentative new theory. Yes, Bobby’s mutation had overcome their blockage… but what if was Bobby’s natural mutation? It wouldn’t cascade catastrophically the way artificial mutations do… and Reed had already established that MGH doesn’t work if the subject is already expressing a natural mutation… which means…

"Oh my stars and garters – I am an addlepated excuse for a geneticist! That’s it! You exquisite endothermic anomaly, you!" Bobby’s skin is already taking on a familiar translucent bluish cast, and Hank can feel the room growing colder even through his insulating fur. Heartbeat and respiration are still flatlined, but that I can do something about!

He tilts Bobby’s head back, ignoring both the numbing cold in his fingers and the disturbing sound of crackling ice, and listens for breathing: nothing. He pinches the boy’s nose shut – more cold, more cracking sounds – and breathes twice into his mouth, relieved to see Bobby’s chest rising slightly as he exhales. He doesn’t even notice the pain as he pulls away, leaving small amounts of skin and larger amounts of blood stuck to Bobby’s icy lips, and starts pushing rhythmically against the boy’s chest, muttering under his breath “one, two, three, four, five…”

By the time he reaches 100, he’s aware both of having attracted a small crowd and of a complete lack of respiratory response from Bobby. “Much as I’m inclined to eschew the vernacular,” he growls quietly, “I’ll make an exception for the sake of emphasis: breathe, damn you!” He prepares to administer mouth to mouth again, then stops, bewildered, as an icy hand pushes him back.

"Um… not that I’m not flattered, but… you really don’t have to do that again. Besides, your fur tickles…"

[Pyro]

Outside in the corridor, starting a few minutes earlier
It’s funny how much of their relationship seems to be revolving around beating the simulated shit out of whatever the Danger Room can throw at them. Maybe it’s not especially healthy or normal, but fuck, what about this arrangement is? The full uniforms have their obvious advantages when it comes to her being untouchable (and… erm, other qualities fucking hot foremost amongst them, even if she doesn’t see that), and the mix of rush and exhaustion afterwards usually either leaves her unable or disinclined to resist much or him too dead to bother giving her cause to resist (usually it’s him *losing*, though the occasions it isn’t make that worthwhile…). And then there are, of course, the other reasons. The reasons they don’t talk about, like… well, mostly how it stops them having to talk or think about much. Because however much things have moved on, how much more comfortable she is or less likely to trigger her discomfort he’s becoming now that they’ve had time to get used to how they fit together, it’s obvious how much of that’s resting on their not facing certain… things.

”Obviously I was being a gentleman and taking it easy on you” - The doors to the Danger Room slide open, the programme complete but the playful sniping which inevitably follows it in full swing and John, his arm draped across Rogue’s shoulders in a ‘I’m going to collapse and die if I let go’ sort of way, grins over at her as he catches his breath – ”Playing nice. Unlike some bitch who decided to use her womanly wiles and stand around in…”He lowers his gaze to make the point, taking in ‘that outfit’ before locking eyes with her again, the grin widening. ” Yeah, distracting me like that’s low… too fucking right, you should be blushing. Fucking minx.”

”S’okay though.” He’s still wearing the leather gloves that came with the uniform (full credit to Ororo, she kept to her word, and the red trim looks fucking awesome) – they’ve become pretty much a fixture in his civvies as well, really, because much as he dislikes the idea and would rather just take his chances and play with fire there’ve had, of course, to be some compromises to account for her comfort – so he takes his leave to be bold, pulling his arm back and stopping dead, turning her to face him, and cupping her face in his palms – ”I’ll forgive you this time” – and…

… stopping before he can get anywhere because there’s a high pitched squeal piercing the corridor, one he pauses and listens to, frozen, for a second or two as if to confirm for himself that yes, it really is that, before the smirk fades and resets into something harder and colder as he pulls back. It’s a noise they’ve been waiting on since the party-that-never-was, and he’s pissed off that it startles him because… yes, he should be glad of it. Means this nightmare stasis is finally over, doesn’t it?

[Rogue]

Calling the Danger Room sessions ‘relaxing’ is probably the wrong word – they’re not relaxing, not really, but that itself makes it easier to …relax. To take out all the stress on holographic enemies and not have to think about anything except where to hit, or that sort of momentary thought. And it’s just nice to be doing something, too, instead of sitting around and dwelling on bad things, or …whatever. It just works. Seems that way for John, too, so that’s another bonus, because when he’s in a better mood, she worries less that he’s secretly brooding and such…

He’s hanging off of her as they leave the room, as if the moment he stops he’s going to collapse and pass out (though she’s almost sure it’s exaggerated, so she’s not worrying much), and she flashes a slightly playful-smug Haha, I win sort of smile his way (she’d beat him good today).

”Obviously I was being a gentleman and taking it easy on you. Playing nice. Unlike some bitch who decided to use her womanly wiles and stand around in…” The glance down it fairly obvious as to how his sentence was meant to end, and she blushes. Sure, she’s sort of come to expect that sort of thing, but …womanly wiles? Her? And, yeah, the leather’s way too form-fitting for her comfort (she makes a mental note for the millionth time to get a jacket or something to go over this…)though it looks, um … nice on him…, but at least it covers her skin properly…

”Yeah, distracting me like that’s low… too fucking right, you should be blushing. Fucking minx. S’okay though.”[/color] He stops, and she lets him turn her towards him (this totally doesn’t help the blushing, either, really), and she almost-but-doesn’t tense as he reaches out, hands cupping her face. ”I’ll forgive you this time” [/color]

She’s still sort of shy, sometimes, with the touching and such, even after this long. ‘Course, that he’s wearing gloves lately helps with the some of her worry (because even if he thinks he’s fine, has been, for the most part, so far, he’s bound to get hurt eventually, so this is safer…), but not with all of it, because even if she were a normal girl she’d be shy and edgy, right? But it’s not bad, and this isn’t one of the panicky moments, so she smiles slightly at him…

Then he freezes at the same time she tenses slightly, listening a second to the sound… no, that’s not that, is it? His expression changes and he pulls away, and … must be. What else sounds like that? But…she doesn’t want it to be. Which is obviously stupid to think that her insisting it’s not means it isn’t (especially now that wishful thinking’s failed so horribly badly before), but … Still.

Granted, since Bobby’s party - since he collapsed and went comatose - it’s been really hard to even think maybe, because he’s gotten that bad, and …how can he just get better now? The odds really are worse than they’d been before. Still, the sound, the connection between it and what must be happening, is almost a shock, and …

But instead of the normal panicky sort of response, it’s just an almost resigned expression, upset but closed off. Panic didn’t do any good last time, won’t do anything now, either. And she’s not sure she wants to go in and see what happens, so she sort of steps away a little, backing away from that side of the hall. Despite the non-panic, there’re tears in her eyes already. It isn’t supposed to happen like this – not supposed to happen at all, and at least in the coma he was alive but now he’s gone, really actually gone…

[Pyro]

She doesn’t want to see… he has to, morbid and fucked up as it is; he has to know this is finally, definitely over, because it seems every time it comes to anything like an end some new complication springs up and he’s sick of it, so fucking sick of getting over Bob being gone and yet having some part of him still around and not gone the way he should be. Once he’s gone, and it’s real and final, then maybe they can move on and he’ll stop haunting them all like a horrible shadow, and the earth will hide him and… And he’ll stop losing it like this, because it’s fucking embarrassing and pathetic and not what he does, not when he’s so clearly over all of that.

And maybe part of it is that he has to prove to himself that he is over it, that he can watch the thing in there expire and not give a fuck. Whatever.

”Well… guess this is it.” He doesn’t quite smile, because that’s still wrong, however relieved he is – it’s not a happy relief, can’t be, because the end result is the same; Bobby’s gone. That doesn’t change. It just gets easier to deal with. So it’s not a smile, just… a crazy calm, really, as he moves away towards the Med Lab as she tries to distance herself from it. ”I’ll be back when it’s… y’know.”

****

John’s prepared for a lot of things on entering the Med Lab, if unsure exactly what he’s expecting… but he neither expects nor is prepared for that, because… no. Bobby’s dead, and dead people, however weird this place is, however much evidence there is to the contrary with people coming back from drowning and people wearing dead people’s skin for months while everyone pretends that’s life proper and all… dead people don’t do that.

It’s like his brain’s the computer now – a computer which has blue-screened and is frantically re-booting and running its back up programme as walking, standing, breathing even... all the basic stuff goes to hell and he stumbles back, still failing to process what’s going on, clicking into autopilot as an instinctive, plosive ”Fuck…” is, as per usual, all he can manage.

[Bobby Drake]

> "Fuck…"

Bobby becomes aware of a number of things at the same time, or at least it’s all fuzzy enough that he’s not really sure what happens in what order. He’s pretty sure collapsing during his birthday party happened first, though that’s as much logical reconstruction as direct experience… and he’s not sure that weird thing about splitting in two happened at all.

But waking up to the sounds of medical crisis alarms… Hank cracking his chest with those hands of his… discovering to his horror that he isn’t breathing, and to his bewilderment that he doesn’t seem to mind… that he can still talk… hearing John’s voice… pushing Hank off of him… all of that just rolls around in his brain like lottery numbers; he can pull them out and order them, but no order seems preferable to any other.

And as for everything before his collapse… or, well, between that and Johnny Storm blowing up… it’s complete chaos. Not amnesia… at least, he doesn’t think it’s amnesia; he’s pretty sure all the memories are in there, but they’re like jigsaw puzzle pieces; he’s got to re-assemble them to make any sense of any of it, like they were indexed for use by somebody else… which, if he’s properly making sense of the fragments he’s got right-way-round, isn’t far from right.

And it all at once doesn’t matter, because he knows that voice, and the way it makes him feel to hear it is, at least for now, more important than history, and he sits up to see John before responding.

"Well, you could buy a fellow a drink first…"

[Pyro]

< Well, you could buy a fellow a drink first…
In the *reboot* whatever controls speech clearly hasn’t started back up yet, because he chokes on whatever he was going to say – not that that’s a great loss, because it’s only have been some incoherent huh-whuh-what? babble – and just comes out with a harsh, stifled gulp-sob hybrid.

It’s not just that the ‘thing’ is alive. Because it isn’t. This is not the ‘thing’. This, it seems, is Bobby. And that… can’t be real. Can’t be. True, it doesn’t feel like a dream – he’s gotten good at knowing when it’s a dream, and waking up and reminding himself that it can’t be real, and this feels different and isn’t following the script – but… no, no fucking way. Because if he’d been wrong, if there was something of Bobby left and he hadn’t known that… no, that’s fucking insane. Bobby was dead dammit, dead and not ever coming back, and if it had been any different then things would never, ever have played out the way they did… And he needs to tell Bobby as much – as if pointing out that he’s not allowed to exist will make a difference – only it’s too huge and complicated to be articulated and a lame ”You’re dead.” is about all he manages to stutter out – far too nervous and unsure for his liking, so he restates it, no less lame but more forceful, as if it’s a personal insult that things aren’t playing out that way ”Fuck, you fucking died!”

It doesn’t help that the last time he saw Bobby like this was back at Alcatraz (though he’s not sure it was quite like this… but figuring out whether that’s solid ice or just armour is fairly low on the list of priorities right now), just deepens the sense that this is all some huge joke at his expense, proving him wrong and… shit, yes, definitely a joke, because he’d been wanting a clean slate, right? And given that Bobby doesn’t seem to remember anything that went down after he stopped being Bobby (because if he did… he wouldn’t be joking about that…) it’s a pretty fucking perfect re-set… except that he’s moved on far too much for that, and…

Shit.

[Rogue]

”Well… guess this is it.” [/color]

She wishes she had the energy (and the belief it requires in the first place) to protest that that can’t be it, shouldn’t ever happen this way, it can’t be real, but …she can’t, she just sort of presses herself to the wall, slides down so she’s sort of curling up, knees to her chest, hands fidgeting, holding her legs there. She can’t leave, it doesn’t feel right to just turn and leave, but she can’t go in, either…

Which he seems to be doing. She watches as he moves that direction almost detached look, blinking back tears so she can see clearer (though this means they start falling instead of just getting in her way, but she’s not really bothered by that because this isn’t something she shouldn’t cry over).

”I’ll be back when it’s… y’know.”[/color]

Yeah, definitely crying now. She’s not sure if anyone’s going to come down here, but she doesn’t care if they do, either. This isn’t right and shouldn’t have happened be happening to them…

…He’s not been gone long, really, but at the same time it feels like it’s been too long, and she’s alone and she’s let him go alone and that can’t possibly be good. He’s probably just as upset, if not worse, than she is, even if he’s making it seem like this is good (which it can’t be, can’t ever be, and she’s almost angry that he’s even made it seem that way ever, but she isn’t because it’s how he’s dealing so she sort-of understands)…

So she pulls herself together best she can manage (which isn’t much, really, basically just wipes her eyes and tries to stop shaking) and moves towards the lab.

”You’re dead. Fuck, you fucking died!”[/color]

She slips into the room in time to hear John’s outburst, momentarily confused because John’s not the sort to talk to someone who’s dead, is he? That doesn’t seem much like the closed-off sort of thing to do, like he always seems to …

…But he’s not talking to a body - he’s talking to Bobby. Who’s …alive?

It takes all of a full three seconds to comprehend this (…How? When’d he wake up, and why the monitor’s sound?), then to decide that does it really matter? and hurrying over to hug him tightly (though carefully, because she doesn’t want to hurt him), ignoring the fact that he’s ice at the moment because it’s not really that cold to her, and trying to come up with something to say that’s actual words and not the almost-sob sounds. (And she won’t say ‘I knew it’ because she didn’t, not really, it was only a hope never knowing for sure and now that he’s really alive it’s so much of a shock she barely remembers that she’d had that hope, before, because it’s a sharp contrast from the bleak last few weeks.)

[Bobby Drake]

> " You’re dead. Fuck, you fucking died!"

In that moment, Bobby feels like he’s got twelve tracks going on in his head all at once, all searching furiously through his head for jigsaw-puzzle parts, trying to assemble some kind of story.

One track is bewildered by John’s response and starts looking for context. A conversation in his room (no, it’s not his room anymore, but it was)… "All I want you to do is hurry up and die…" John avoiding him… fragments of conversations with John and Rogue (except those can’t be real, because he wasn’t there… was he?)… "Bob’s dead… dead… dead… fucking dead… dead”… a room full of people (this room?) with paper cups and plates of food, stumbling slack-faced and awkward… (a wake? For him? No, a birthday party… no, that can’t be right…)

Another is simply fascinated by the response itself, by the once-mundane exercise of reading emotions in the pattern of facial muscles and tone of voice and posture. He remembers working so hard at this, failing over and over, and now… it’s like magic, like a whole new mutant power, oddly like taking a small child to the zoo. Oh look! There’s anger, see that? And fear, and guilt, and… oh, my, all kinds of things, I wonder what that is?

A third barely has a chance to notice Rogue slipping into the room before she’s caught him up in a gentle bear-hug, but responds without thinking (and that second train is absorbed by the simple beauty of that, as well, that he can respond without thought, somehow know what that hug means without knowing what he knows, or how… it’s almost overwhelming) by returning the hug, careful not to touch her exposed skin.

A third, slower and bulkier, is trying to make sense of the others, trying to understand what’s going on in John’s head, and Marie’s, and Hank’s, and how he got here, and, and, and… but there’s too much going on for it to keep up, and eventually he gives it up for now.

"I died? " He’s putting the picture together a little, now… MGH… Reed and Hank’s treatments… conversations with Josh… Ororo’s anger… statistics and charts and SHIELD funerals…that last, brain-rending collapse… "Oh. The Mutant Growth Hormone. Right… I remember now." He shakes his head for a moment and laughs. "You know, the irony is I was expecting my cryogenic powers to come back when I did that… guess it didn’t work that way, huh? OK, that’s officially the dumbest thing I’ve ever done."

[Pyro]

… what, Rogue’s here now? Where the hell did she spring from?

It’s still not making any sense. None. And yet everyone else seems to be acting like it’s perfectly normal, like this is how it’s meant to play out (and he still can’t accept that maybe they’re right, maybe he’s the one who made the mistake, because… no. Fuck, no one could have known Bobby better, and he’d thought he was dead and… fuck) and it’s almost sickening, watching Rogue cling on to him (even though at least part of him knows that’s the *proper* response… it just feels wrong, a mockery of what’s right and proper because this shouldn’t be happening, defies all reason…) and none of them realising how fucked up it all is… Why’s he the only one left out, the only one not caught up in celebrating that Bobby isn’t dead? What the fuck is wrong with him?

Part of it has to be that it’s just plain bizarre to see Bobby reacting like… well, like a human. To see anything of Bobby, in fact, when he was that ‘Robert’ thing for so fucking long. And part of seeing that is a knife to the gut, isn’t it? Because he’d pushed and cajoled and tried so fucking hard to get even the vague shadow of anything like this out of him, and failed, and if anyone was going to get it it should have been him and… and now it’s just happening, seemingly at random…

… if he’d just waited and not given up…

… no, fuck that. No way he could have known this was going to happen.

He’s still staring, still hanging back, almost wary of Bobby, as if at any second he’ll stop being him and flip back into ‘Robert’ or maybe that he’ll remember how things really are, what happened between them, which is probably where the barked ”Rogue, get back over here” comes from, as if he’s warning her not to pet something dangerous, something that might turn around and bite her at any moment (because mad as that sounds, it’s better than thinking it’s about anything else).

< Oh, I remember now
”No, you don’t. You don’t fucking ‘remember’. If you did you wouldn’t… fuck, you couldn’t be laughing about it” – which is true. There’s nothing remotely funny about it, not even a bleak black humour, because it’s all fucked up so far beyond even that, and part of the anger in John’s tone is at that, and part a weird enragement at how Bobby’s come back from that okay and able to laugh at it because it doesn’t seem fair and it’s fucking frustrating for him to treat something so raw and huge and fucking apocalyptic like it’s just one big joke - ”You died, Bobby. Every fucking thing that was you. Dead, bang. Nothing left… And now you’re back, and fuck, we’re meant to act like nothing happened?”

His mind's racing at a million miles an hour, too fast for him to keep up let alone to filter it. There’s a voice telling him this isn’t the time or place; it’s not fair to be blaming Bobby, and it’s horrible and twisted to be laying that on him now when he has every right to be fucking ecstatic, but there it is – the rest of them had to cope somehow (even if he was the only one who realised that and tried to deal with it… and even if in retrospect their strategy’s probably going to work a lot better because if they never admitted he was dead then his not-being’s got to be a lot easier to deal with…) and… no, it’s not fucking fair. It’s sick.

[Bobby Drake]

Bobby’s hug becomes more enthusiastic once he remembers Rogue’s invulnerability, then he slacks off a little when he feels his arms cracking against her back, which is more than a little disturbing. What the… that’s not armor? It’s… I’m… that’s not how it works? But he puts his confusion about his powers to one side (with a mental note to ask Hank, who has discretely returned to his office) in favor of grinning back uncontrollably at her. "Hey… it’s good to see you, too."

For just a moment it’s like it used to be, what seems like lifetimes ago, before the Cure and… well, before everything… and Bobby can’t remember ever being happier.

> "Rogue, get back over here"

The barked order startles him, not just with its suddenness and wary anger, but with the very fact of it. Since when does anyone order her around like that? It’s not that Marie was especially self-possessed; heck, she depended on external validation even more than Bobby did sometimes… but not like that, not preemptory and demanding. At least, he never thought she did, though it’s not like he’d ever tried it.

And John’s watching him warily, as if he were some kind of wild animal and Marie were his hostage instead of one of his best and oldest friends. Jeez, since when does John get so possessive about… about…

The slow train finally crashes into Bobby’s mind, and in the wreckage he remembers a cascade of incidents and exchanges: lying alone and cold in the medbay… John dropping into bed at 3am, drained and disheveled…" penetrating the great big void "… " St. John Allerdyce and Marie D’Ancanto are not, and never were, engaged in romantic liason… ness. And any-implication-to-the –contrary-was-just-St-John-trying-to-elicit-a-response-from-Bobby-Bob-Robert-Drake "……no, wait… that can’t be right? He said… but…… red leather and smoke in their closet… soldiers… " All I want you to do is hurry up and die "… a thousand other things, most of which had meant nothing to him at the time because he’d been a brain-damaged emotional cripple then, but now seem fraught with meaning.

> " You died, Bobby. Every fucking thing that was you. Dead, bang. Nothing left… And now you’re back, and fuck, we’re meant to act like nothing happened? "

"No, I – I mean, I don’t – " He stammers to a halt, unsure what it is he wanted to say, knowing he has to protect himself but not quite clear on what he has to protect himself from. His throat clogs and his heart pounds as if he were taking live fire and a scared, hidden part of his mind is shouting Fuck, take it back, I didn’t want this part! and it’s all he can do for a moment not to run away.

And it’s not the anger, exactly; John’s always been angry, always said stuff like that. This is different… before, there’d always been a kind of an invitation under it, almost like it was a kind of game, or a test, or something, and that’s gone now. John’s scowling at Bobby like… like Pyro did at Alcatraz, like Bobby’s something he has to crush under his foot, an invader to be burned with fire. Except it’s not Pyro. Bobby doesn’t know how he can tell, but he knows it’s not.

And for a moment he thinks he must have touched Rogue somewhere careless, because the way everything just drops away from him, the room and everybody else in it and the inside of his own chest, feels like nothing so much as the night her powers came back. But mostly it feels like nothing.

"I just… I mean, I know I was, different?" He hates how that turns into a question, a plea for approval, but barrels on regardless "But I’m OK now! I mean… well, I think I am?" He suddenly wishes Hank were here to back him up on that score… or, even better, that he were safely in Hank’s office, away from this reunion-turned-interrogation. "I mean, I’m…" he trails off in the face of John’s scowl, looking for some trace of hope there, of the willingness to believe, and finding nothing.

"I’m still… "

Of course, he tells himself. It’s over. It’s been over for months, I was just too fucking brain-dead to notice. Jeez, Drake, what the hell were you thinking? You just hop out of this hospital bed and back into John’s? This isn’t some fucking Star Trek episode where everything gets reset to normal once the crisis is averted, you idiot… it’s been months. Things move on.

Except… he’d thought that before, too, after the rescue mission… and he’d been wrong about that, right? Or… had he? John said so… but he’d lied about it in the first place, maybe he was lying then? Bobby isn’t sure what to believe anymore, everything is so convoluted. He flashes absurdly back to a line from a webcomic he’d read months earlier… “there are three guards: one always tells the truth, one always lies, and one kills people who ask tricky questions”.

"I’m still me… "

He lets go of Rogue then, pulls back just enough to look her in the eyes when he asks the question he wishes he didn’t have to ask, knowing she’ll tell him what he wants to hear, and hating himself for needing that.

"… right?"

[Rogue]

"Hey… it’s good to see you, too."[/color]

Yeah, she’s really not going to stop crying for awhile, is she? But that’s okay, it’s happy, post-panic sort, not because she’s sad, which is another fuel for more tears…

”Y’scared me, thought y’…” No, not saying died. Not saying any word that really means death because …no, she can’t. “Don’ ev’r do somethin’ like tha’ again?” It’s not meant to sound like a question, but it still does because there’ve been too many scares too often lately and she almost doesn’t know for sure nothing like that’s going to happen again (and she pointedly doesn’t think about what would happen if he reverted back suddenly, or it wasn’t really all-better and he was still dying…)

”Rogue, get back over here”[/color]

So many responses to that right now, because since when does he think he can just order her around like that, and why would he want her not to be there anyway, and no she doesn’t want to move yet ‘cause he’s alive and she’d been scared and it’s like waking up from a nightmare except that the nightmare was real and this part isn’t a dream, or she hopes it’s not, but if it is she’s not ready to wake up from it to find things bad, because now everything can be okay again, like it’s supposed to be.

(And, yeah, okay, things are more complicated than ‘supposed to be’, but she’d rather things be a million times more complicated and Bobby alive than him being dead and everything else simple…So for now that’s not important and everything’s okay.)

"I died? Oh. The Mutant Growth Hormone. Right… I remember now. You know, the irony is I was expecting my cryogenic powers to come back when I did that… guess it didn’t work that way, huh? OK, that’s officially the dumbest thing I’ve ever done."

It’s good that he’s laughing – she hasn’t heard him laugh in too long, and she’s slightly startled to realize she didn’t think she ever would again…

”No, you don’t. You don’t fucking ‘remember’. If you did you wouldn’t… fuck, you couldn’t be laughing about it. You died, Bobby. Every fucking thing that was you. Dead, bang. Nothing left… And now you’re back, and fuck, we’re meant to act like nothing happened?”[/color]

She can understand why John’s not exactly happy – if nothing else, because there’s a fragment of him reacting much the same way within her mind, but also because she just knows him enough, has been around him in this enough, to understand – but she still doesn’t like it, wants to just make him be happy for once – because this is definitely something to be happy about, the sort of good that hasn’t happened in far too long.

And it’s about time he stops insisting that Bobby was dead because he never was, not really, right? Just not there, hidden or lost or something, but he’s back now so it doesn’t matter where he was or how, because it’s okay now. But he wasn’t - couldn’t possibly have been - dead.

"No, I – I mean, I don’t – I just… I mean, I know I was, different? But I’m OK now! I mean… well, I think I am? I mean, I’m… I’m still… I’m still me… "[/color]

He pulls back and she lets him (though there’s a quick flash of panic – what if when he moves away he won’t be there anymore, or this’ll really be a dream and …?), though she doesn’t pull any farther than he already has, meets his eyes and manages a small smile even though she’s still crying.

"… right?"[/color]

He’s directing the question to her so clearly, and even though there’s only one answer in mind, one that she could ever give, there’s the pressure to it that what if she says the wrong thing? But she won’t, can’t, exactly, right? ‘Cause there’s only one answer to give, that she can see, and it’s the one he wants to hear, clearly, so … So nothing to worry about. Rogue nods with a smile that’s still fighting with the crying.

”Yeah, y’back now.”

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh, wearing only pajama pants, sprints down the subbasement hallway, careful to avoid slipping on the floor paneling. It's somewhat easier than usual, since he's in bare feet.

He'd gone up to their bedroom to get some sleep. As worried as he was about Bobby, he couldn't quite bring himself to camp out in the subbasement... the floor was just too cold. (That, and Warren threatened to carry him to bed the moment he fell asleep. All he'd get was a sore back.)

Hank had promised to page him via the Institute's intercom system if anything changed while he was gone, though. Which is why he'd woken up a few minutes ago to a thoroughly overexcited Dr. McCoy, spouting scientific babble he had some difficulty understanding while totally alert. The best thing seemed to come down and figure it out for himself. Maybe they'd been able to give Bobby some more time.

When he arrives, the medical lab doors are open. Good, they take too long anyway. He slides to a stop just inside and takes in everything. His jaw drops. Is this for real?

"Oh my god. You're alive! You..." Josh cuts himself off and pushes through the crowd assembled, just as a emotional-looking Rogue lets go of Bobby. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots John, looking somewhat upset. He wades right in, though, throwing his arms around the other boy tightly. Bobby's cold against his bare skin, but he hardly notices, still in utter amazement.

"I knew Hank and Reed would figure something out... but it was such a long shot, I didn't know whether..." There's a hint of tears in Josh's eyes.

[Pyro]

That she doesn’t move… irks, but in a way that he feels almost resigned to, because this is sort-of familiar, kind of; those two inside something he can’t access, him as the third, isolated and uncomprehending. Familiar, and at the same time distant, because it hasn’t worked like that for a good long while now and fuck, he’s not ready to go back to that. He doesn’t want to. And that makes him a selfish bastard, sure, expecting heaven and earth to move to accommodate what he wants… but it doesn’t seem much to ask next to the shift they’ve already made to let Bobby come back from the dead.

Three always was inherently instable, it’s one of those facts you can’t avoid… but having got used to two it’s worse, far more complicated than it ever was before because they can’t hash out a comfortable co-existence; however the pieces fall, one of them’s superfluous to requirements…

… and Bobby made his choice (because if he’s got to accept that Bobby was in there through all that shit – which he still doesn’t want to think could have been without him noticing, but since when did reality care what he wants to think? – then he could have come back, and he didn’t, and that’s a pretty fucking clear rejection. Bobby failed him, simple as) and lost him, and he’s not taking her too. No fucking way. Bobby abandoned them, clear enough, even if Rogue can’t see that, and he can’t come waltzing back in and expect them to drop everything and welcome him back (and yes, the hypocrisy doesn’t escape him, but that’s totally different; no one ever asked, fuck, let alone begged him to come back, did they?).

< I mean, I don’t –
”Don’t what?” There’s some small part of him that still wants Bobby to be the hero, to come out with some sort of explanation that’ll make it all make sense, and partly that’s where the well, come on comes from. Come on, Bobby, this has better be good. And the rest of him knows that heroes fail, and that he was a fool to have ever hoped for anything different and is not going to let himself make the same mistake again, no fucking way, so it’s mocking as well as pleading because things with John are never straightforward, never hero or villain but somehow both at once and somehow neither and all just fucked up beyond reason.

< I know I was, different?
”Understatement of the fucking century” John snorts, features twisted into a derisive sneer at the neediness in Bobby’s tone, because it’s too fucking late to try that line; the time to try and get him to understand is long past, and this is just pathetic.

< I’m still me…
< Yeah, y’back now
< You're alive!
John wishes he could believe that – on some level at least, he really, really does, wants to be on the same level as the crowd now gathering (where did Josh spring from?). It's like a religious reverie, almost, or that weird 'togetherness' you get at times like Christmas... both of which he's used to being excluded from like a match seller in one of those grim fairytales without a proper happy ever after, or an unwelcome ghost at a feast, and neither of which he's ever wanted in on as much as he wants in on this. But he knows that’s wishful thinking and hates himself for being that weak (because it’s easier to say that than to admit that not knowing whether it’s true or not is killing him, far far easier just to say that it’s just plain not true). And staying here isn’t doing him any good, not with this mockery of things being okay, which is worse than Robert’s imitation of life because that at least had been obviously, blatantly ‘off’… this, there’s nothing specifically wrong, nothing that reaches out and slaps you and says ‘this isn’t how it’s meant to be’, just a general sense that it’s not quite ‘right’ without any specifics he can latch on to…

”Yeah, welcome back” – and it’s not a greeting, not by any stretch of the imagination, richly sarcastic as it is and almost more of an accusation, an unspoken weariness masquerading as anger and asking why the fuck couldn’t you just let me be?. "I'll leave you to your adoring public, Popsicle."

John turns to leave, wondering whether the DR has a pre-MGH Bobby sim uploaded because something needs to burn right now.

OOC - 800th post!

[Bobby Drake]

> "Yeah, y’back now."

It’s not like it proves anything – Bobby’s pretty sure she’d say the same thing if he were seven feet tall with purple skin and faceted insect-eyes, if she thought it was what he needed to hear – but it reassures him that she thinks he’s worth reassuring, however dizzyingly self-referential that works out to be. Far more important are the things she says with her body, the way she holds him for a microsecond when he pulls back, and doesn’t pull back any further herself; telling him without words that he’s back home. It astounds him how much he needs that.

And yes, she’s also radiating tension that spikes every time John opens his mouth (or is he just projecting his own desire to flinch away from each derisive snort?), and there’s obviously something going on here he doesn’t understand, but for the moment that’s not important; all he needs to know is that somebody still wants him here.

> " Oh my god. You're alive! You..."

He senses the heat-pattern before actually seeing anything through tear-misted eyes, recognizes the voice a split-second before Josh hugs him, and that’s even better; there’s three of them now, and John is the outsider, not him. Even John seems to recognize that in the way he stands, and Bobby is ashamed by how much he revels in that. See?, he thinks nastily, I’m the one who belongs here.

> " Yeah, welcome back. I'll leave you to your adoring public, Popsicle."

"No, wait! That’s not what I – " For a moment, absurdly, he’s convinced he’d broadcast his thoughts somehow… as if his new-old ability to read emotions really was a kind of telepathy. Even after he realizes how silly that is, he still doesn’t really understand what’s setting John off.

It’s not that he expects John to make sense in normal terms… he knows better than that. In some ways, the angry confusion is familiar, even exciting; a reminder of how every conversation with John could give him the same thrill as a field op or a good Danger Room sim. And, he admits as John turns around to walk out, it’s not the only familiar or exciting part of this, and the thrill isn’t entirely intellectual.

But… it was never like this before, he’ never been at such a loss. Or, well… that first night at Mimi’s had been like this, with John angry and Bobby confused and neither of them coherent. Has it come back to that, then? Are we enemies again?

He wants to stop John from walking out, or run out after him, but stops himself… for once, he’s the one who knows the least about what’s going on; maybe Rogue and Josh can explain it… and besides, maybe it’s selfish, but he wants to relax with them first, enjoy the company of uncomplicated friendships… or, well, OK, maybe they’re complicated, but at least he knows they’re friendships.

So he wraps his arms happily around Josh and Rogue, just relaxing in the feeling of being home again… then lets go hastily as he senses how quickly Josh’s body heat is being sucked away. "Oh… sorry! I’m… well, I think my powers are working a little differently than I’m used to?" …and you’re not invulnerable… or dressed...

He tries to de-ice, with no apparent results other than to make it clearer that his normal body is just… gone, replaced by a solid mass of ice. That can’t be right, can it? So he concentrates furiously on making the ice go away, hoping he doesn’t just wish himself out of existence somehow, and is rewarded by a sudden wave of dizziness.

Looking down at his body, he notices first that it’s flesh and blood again… second that it’s a lot flabbier than he remembers… and third that he’s naked. After all the incidents after Alcatraz he almost doesn’t care anymore, but he knows it will embarrass Rogue, so he wraps a sheet from the hospital bed behind him around himself, toga-like.

"Um… sorry about that…" he mumbles, aware that he’s blushing, and it occurs to him he’s not sure if he means the nakedness, or John’s outburst, or if he actually means anything in particular, or if it matters. The hell with it, he thinks, hugging them both again as if they’d disappear if he let them go, I can find John later. No doubt he’ll either be getting drunk somewhere, or blowing stuff up somewhere, or both.

[Rogue]

”Oh my god. You're alive! You..."[/color]

Rogue glances up as Josh joins them, then glances back at John, somewhere between questioning-confused and annoyed, because he should be over here too – all of them together and okay and like they used to be (except ten times as complicated) and…

”Yeah, welcome back. I'll leave you to your adoring public, Popsicle."[/color]
"No, wait! That’s not what I – "[/color]

…And he’s not supposed to leave, especially. Maybe it makes sense for him to need more time to take this in and everything, but he shouldn’t be leaving... How can they all be together if one of them isn't there? It's too much like a different part of used-to-be, a part she doesn't like. She tries her best to push it out of mind (and not panic), though, hugging Bobby back and focusing on the good ...

"Oh… sorry! I’m… well, I think my powers are working a little differently than I’m used to?" [/color]

At first she has no idea what he means (he doesn’t feel that cold to her, and, heck, the chill she does feel is comforting – familiar, same way John’s constantly-warm is, except different), or if it’s a bad sign or something…

But it doesn’t seem to be, so she takes the second while they’re distracted (though there’s a bit of concern that he seems to be concentrating hard …surely that can’t be too serious, though, right? Just… lack of practice because he hasn’t done it in awhile, or something? Nothing she has to worry about…?) to glance off towards the doorway, wondering if she should go after John, make sure he’s okay… and decides that, no, right now she’s going to be here… Both for her own need to make sure he's really okay and not going to go back to how he was, that this is actually real, and because she should be here for him, too. Which she hasn't been doing a good job of lately...

So she turns her attention back over –

-- and then quickly looks back away, upon realizing that Bobby’s ...not wearing anything. She’s definitely blushing, even though it’s not like she’s the one undressed, or like she was intentionally looking or something, and doesn’t look back over until she’s sure he’s covered properly, then flashing a slight smile, wiping at her eyes with one hand now that she’s paying attention to the fact that she’s still definitely crying…

"Um… sorry about that…"

”S’okay, sugah.” she responds with another smile, and gives up on wiping her eyes and hugs back. She should be more worried, probably, this close to two people not wearing much – but she’s pretty well-covered, and so that’s not on her mind for that long, not more than a split-second worry (because putting him back into a different sort of coma, or Josh into one, would be bad…). And she’s still crying, yeah, but she’s laughing now too, so that’s okay.