Time for a Talk, My Boy (Pyro)

[Magneto]

Magneto's room was probably one of the most lifeless places in the entire Brotherhood hideout. The room was pretty vacant save for a metal desk with various metal knick knacks and a few interesting office toys. The floor was a cold marble and the walls were stainless steel, giving Magneto a nice reflection everywhere he looked. Lights were mounted in each corner of the room, a low watt of course to keep from blinding anyone who entered. A row of three windows, spaced about two feet apart, ran behind Magneto's desk and gave him a rather wide view of the forest which hid the hideout.

Magneto himself stood at the middle window, dressed in a purple and black suit, his cape draped across his chair and his helmet setting on the desk, facing the only door in and out of the room. His hands were behind his back, a pose he usually assumed when thinking, and his face was stony and serious. He had been meaning to have this little talk with Pyro for a while now and seeing as how things only became more complicated with each passing day, as well as how the boy seemed to become more agitated and angry, Magneto figured now was the right time. He had had the telepath Pyro had picked up and brought here summon the boy and direct him to come to the "Boss's room" as the girl had so amusingly put it.

[Pyro]

Shit…

That, and other choice expletives, echoed inside Pyro’s head alongside the thud of his footsteps and the increasingly breakneck tattoo his heart was beating out. It had been a hell of a long time since he’d been ‘summoned to the head’s office’, as it were, but it seemed not much had changed on that front, since he was still that odd mix of pissed off and terrified impending chastisement inspires.

(Okay, things had changed… and his fear was probably sensible. Because this was the first Head he’d encountered who’d be able to kill him with an executive desk toy… and since this wasn’t school he couldn’t use inexperience and ‘lessons still to be learned’ as excuses)

He was probably more than ‘in for it’… given how well things had been going recently. The unspoken glare of disapproval and – even more painfully – disappointment was bad enough, but now it was going to spill over into actual ‘serious words’. There was no way this was going to end well.

Reaching the door, he paused. Knocking would probably be a good idea, because anything less would no doubt get things off on the wrong foot. This was no place for his usual attitude, was it? The metal of the door was cold against his knuckles… though that probably wasn’t the main cause of the shiver coursing the length of his spine.

[Magneto]

The door opened as soon as Pyro's knuckled touched it, swinging wide to allow the boy entrance to a place he probably did not want to be.....ever. Magneto refused to turn for a moment, trying to gather himself for the awkward discussion that was about to take place. He genuinely liked Pyro and that was what made this a tad difficult. The others he could openly chastise and feel nothing, but Pyro was almost like Mystique, he was held a bit higher and thought of as something beyond a game piece to be used as he wished. "Come in and have a seat my boy. I think you and I need to talk about a few things," Magneto said coldly in the tone he usually reserved for those he made his speeches and threats to, something he was sure Pyro would instantly recognize.

As Magneto turned, so did the long chair he had placed in center of the room, something which only further showed the control the old man held. Magneto was near invincible in this day and age, for metal was in abundance and everywhere. Calculate into the equation of the natural magnetic field which partly made up the planet and you had a near mutant god, something Magneto had been accused of playing in the past and who knows, maybe in a way, he was. "Quickly Pyro, lets not make this any more awkward than it already is," he added nodding his head toward the chair, wanting to get this over with and get things back on track to the way they should be.

[Pyro]

Oh yeah… this wasn’t a good place to be. He knew that tone, all right. Knew enough to recognise that being on the end of it didn’t ever bode well. The display too drove home just how screwed he was, how (and it galled him to admit it) vulnerable. The man (though such a term didn’t seem enough) before him might once have praised Pyro as a God among insects, but for all his well-practiced bravado he was of course painfully aware who was the insect in this set up… without the lighter he was as ‘special’ as a flat-liner, while Magneto could take that pathetic scrap of metal on which his sanity seemed to depend and kill him while barely raising a finger. That, naturally, was scary.

Taking a quick breath to steel himself for what the Master of Magnetism was probably about to unleash, he took the seat as quickly as possible. The picture, to anyone who knew him, was odd to say the least; stripping away the sparks left something smaller, younger, than should have been possible given who he was and what he had done, the boy biting his lip slouched awkwardly in the chair as if trying to melt into the chair almost impossible to reconcile with the terrorist. Being this placid, this obedient, only made him more uncomfortable because it wasn’t territory he knew how to negotiate, and there was little enough breathing room that he couldn’t hope to take any of it up with the usual quick jibes that broke the tension in such occasions.

Magneto was of course right; things needed to be discussed. Though getting the words out was going to be interesting, since they seemed razorblades embedded in his throat rather than the usual stream. Playing dumb was perhaps not a brilliant plan (they both knowing exactly what needed saying, though not of course the cards the other was planning on playing therein) but it seemed as good a place to start as any because he couldn’t think of any other script he might have a chance at being able to play. ”Want to tell me what this is about?”

[Magneto]

Magneto watched coldly as Pyro slinked into the room and took the offered seat, sinking into the cold metal as if he could lessen the moment around him by making himself smaller and less obvious. Gone was the smart mouth, the witty comments and the oh so confident smirk and in its place was something that Magneto had forgotten was there, something that had always been there. Pyro may have done many horrible things while in Magneto's service but he was still only a boy, as Magneto had taken to calling him ever since their first meeting. Perhaps it was this face that lessened Magneto's resolve and momentum or perhaps it was Magneto's own guilt.

The door closed slowly and rather silently as Magneto readied himself for the practiced speech, a speech which had just totally jumped out the window in light of the old man's sudden realization. With a heavy sigh and a shake of his head, Magneto started in the only place he knew, "Its about you my boy. Your not the same since Alcatraz and really I can't blame you there, none of us will ever be the same," he said as he put one hand on the back of his own chair and pulled it out, ready to take his seat when he chose to do so. "I prize you above most others within the Brotherhood Pyro, you know this but it seems to me, that you really don't. You've grown a bit more cynical with the others I've brought in and I don't really understand why," he said, leaving out a few other things, like maybe the arrival of a certain female a few nights before, "Maybe your the one who should start this discussion since its you who apparently has the problem," he said trying to keep himself calm and cold to better stay in control of the situation and moment.

[Pyro]

Oh brilliant. Talk about Pyro time. Just to make things even less comfortable than they already were. He’d always hated that sort of introspection, usually outfacing the awkward questions about his feelings and issues with either smouldering silence or a barrage of table-turning questions so it was the interviewer/therapist/well-wisher squirming.

Neither of which, of course, could be used against Magneto.

Magneto’s words, too, sparked off more than enough emotions to add to the general awkwardness. The idea that he was valuable… wow. Of course predominant there was guilt, because hadn’t he been acting like a spoiled brat lately? Feeling all sidelined and underappreciated and stuff, and now it seemed that wasn’t justified. Fantastic.

”Problem might not be the right word…” he started, somewhat stop-start as the words still refused to come out despite the amount of effort he was putting in to them to ensure they weren't his usual inflammatory remarks. ”It’s just… things are difficult. Settling back in to it all… It’s just a phase.”

He wanted to believe that’s all it was so much the words almost rang true… though even ‘just that’ was a hell of a lot. Settling back in to the old way after everything that had happened was, to put it bluntly, head-spinning, because everything that’s happened wasn’t something a boy like him coulkd really get his head around (claiming that, even inside his head, with Magneto standing there sparked another wave of embarrassment and guilt… It’s not as if his ‘problems’ were that huge by comparison to the picture he'd built up of Magneto's past, but the memories still wounded. A cigarette could burn a building down, after all; so small hurts could eventually kill. Or something).

[Magneto]

Magneto moved to sit down in his chair, putting his fingers to his temple and giving Pyro a "you know better than that" look. Magneto was a master at manipulation and he saw through Pyro's charade of playing casual. "We're all having some trouble settling back in my boy, but yours is different and don't act like it isn't. I know your upset about Mystique being back buy that is something you and she have to settle between yourselves, not me. I have my own problems to tend to with her and I really don't need yours added in there with them," he said as he began to tap his finger against the side of his head in no particular rhythm. Teenage boys were very unpredictable and the only thing you could count on them to do was the most stupid and chaotic thing imaginable and Pyro was no different, but this situation went beyond that.

Magneto knew Pyro was trying to find a way out of this little situation and while his wit and style usually saved him, this time he wasn't going any where until a few things were solved and addressed. "You can be up front with me boy, you always have so why should now be any different?," he asked Pyro trying to pull a bit of information from the boy, which turned out to be like pulling teeth.

[Pyro]

Shifting under Magneto’s gaze Pyro leant one elbow on the arm of the chair, propping his head up on his fist with eyes dipped as if in contemplation. The other hand – quel supris – flicked the ever-present lighter in a dull rhythm he was as knowingly-ignorant of as he was of his heartbeat (that is, it was there, and he’d miss it if it wasn’t, but at the same time it was automatic and therefore didn’t merit consciously noticing). Magneto’s comment that this was somehow about Mystique raised a dull half-ghost of a smile, but otherwise he was pulling back, becoming the sullen, disinterested kid who sat through Group Therapy and Talk Sessions and every other stupid scheme meant to get him to address his past. Didn’t work then, and probably wouldn’t be much more use now.

The techniques he had used just might… albeit in a slightly different way. Because he couldn’t just come out and tell Magneto what was bothering him, not if he wanted to retain the respect he seemed somehow to have earned, even if whining about the past had been his style it would be beyond pathetic. A question, on the other hand, just might allow some sort of progress to be made (hell, he was sounding like a therapist. Not good), or else (as used to happen) take things off on some sort of tangent away from putting him under the microscope.

”After Alcatraz… Where did you go?” There was genuine curiosity in the tone, along with something than in any one else would be easily enough identified as an almost wistful quality without the disbelief to complicate matters.

[Magneto]

Magneto smiled as he watched Pyro play with the Zippo he had given him back when he found him once again. He knew the boy liked having the trinket but that didn't stop Magneto from making a note to solve that problem once again. He had made Pyro a device before and with a bit of free time he could do so again, but that might have to wait a bit first, it seemed free time wasn't in abundance as of late. The look Magneto gave Pyro was genuine, as if he watched a grandson or even a son, but at that thought, Magneto quickly ran the other direction, family was a total different situation right now and one that was more present than he found comfortable.

"Alcatraz," the old man repeated as the name poked at his ego and anger a bit. "Well," he began with a sigh as he looked away for a moment, trying not to remember those days if he could, "I played chess in the park with the other old men. You know, feeding pigeons and what not," he said looking back to Pyro with a forced smile. He chose to keep that part of his life a secret for he didn't like thinking back to that time of helplessness. For the first time in decades, Magneto was faced with his inability to protect those around him. When he was younger, he possessed so much power and was unable to raise one finger against his people's tormentors and then when he was sure he would never let that happen again, he found himself right back at the beginning. That was something which terrified Erik and something he avoided thinking about at all costs, or at least he tried.

"We all went someplace John, some of us to a darker place than others," he said with a quieter tone this time as he used Pyro's 'real' name. Erik had called the boy 'John' once before but this time he used the name in an entirely different tone and way. "I told you I was disappointed in what you ran to when I found you, but that disappointment was more of my disappointment with myself for letting it all happen to you and the others," he said as he stared down at the center of his own desk, his words slower now and his accent thicker.

[Pyro]

A click-fwoosh signified that the ‘game’, if once could call his attempts to distract himself that, had changed slightly, shadows and sparks dancing across the strange mirrored walls of Magneto’s office as Pyro seemed to focus his attention on the flame for a moment instead of extinguishing it by completing the flick, the cone first flaring and then holding at the flare’s peak. ”Yeah, well, some of us aren’t all that used to the dark, Erik” A second click killed the light. It was strange, to say the least, calling Magneto Erik, but somehow codenames seemed grossly inappropriate just now.

The words spoke volumes, far more than he intended probably, and at the same time weren’t quite the whole picture. Because the darkness in itself wasn’t the problem. That he was used to. It was… a different sort of darkness, really, that had got to him. One moment he had been young and invincible, the way all teenagers are only more so because he was Pyro, a god among insects, and the next… the fire went out, and, as Magneto had said, he found himself in a dark place. Even that hadn’t been the straw which eventually broke him, because – poor fool – he’d believed that even if he were fallible the cause wasn’t. Magneto wasn’t, couldn’t be.

But when the hundredth guard doesn’t turn blue and bust you out, the millionth needle doesn’t miraculously bend away, then something else dies. And that’s a really dark place.

[Magneto]

Pyro was a maze of dead ends and false leads, always taking you one direction and then leaving you there. His emotions and thoughts never broke free of his tough facade, no matter how hard they tried and no matter how much Magneto did to free them. In a way though, Erik understood Pyro's process, he himself had more than enough demons he didn't feel like facing and one of them had just found him recently, forcing him to address it by name and that name was Wanda.

Shaking his head to put Wanda away, Erik sighed again, "Get used to it then John. Not everything is easy, especially what we do and for damn sure what I do. I need you to back me my boy and for you to do that you need to have your head in the game. So, I ask you....What is your problem?," he asked Pyro, jumping right back to the point and putting it right back in Pyro's face. He wasn't letting things get away from him again, this time Pyro would face his demons or at least one of them, after all, if even the great Magneto had to, so did this boy.

[Pyro]

”You don’t need to worry about my head. There’s nothing broken in my brain” The speed of his delivery betrayed a desperation to reassure Magneto beneath the slowly-returning more customary tone and its subtextual but unmistakable half-request-half-demand to Drop it – not something he was intending to reveal, this desire to be back in his good books… but it was getting harder to hide, especially now Wanda had arrived and his place was under greater threat than usual. Chess metaphors probably weren’t the best disguise – and would have worked better, no doubt, had he actually understood the game (Magneto having yet to have gone good on his promise to teach him the game… but seeing how he’d treated other vaguely parental responsibilities Pyro didn’t hold out too much hope) – but at least they seemed half-way normal, unlike the rest of this conversation. ”Knight, bishop, whatever…” (not pawn. Never that). ”Board’s set. Ready to roll”

He broke off just shirt of babbling with a half-shrug before lapsing back into the more familiar attitude, everything simmering beneath a cold, distant surface with that withdrawal all too easily mistaken for disinterest, antagonism or surliness (same old story on that front; big thoughts, nice small label)

Sure, he was ready to roll… and he’d keep telling himself that. These ‘problems’ – which definitely didn’t need to be addressed, thanks. At least not in waking life. Elsewhere they were harder to avoid but manageable. Sort of – had given him something of an edge, right? The ‘game’ had gotten a whole lot more serious now it had the taste of vengeance alongside everything else, so the last thing Magneto needed to worry about was his commitment and drive (well, it made sense in his head…) which rendered this ‘therapy’, or whatever, completely pointless.

As ever, he had little problem feeding himself the lie. Convincing Magneto of its truth was the difficult part.

[Magneto]

Magneto was never much of a father figure, not that he had ever really tried to be, he was always putting other things first, never having the time to devote or split between the two and now, things weren't any different. Magneto didn't have time to babysit anyone, listen to the occasional problem sure, but never babysit. Whatever was eating at Pyro looked as if it would just continue to do so seeing as how the boy wasn't exactly ready to share any great deep personal secret at the moment. Magneto would have listened and offered what advice he could and more than likely said advice would benefit him more than the boy.

Dropping his hand to the desk top, Magneto gave Pyro an annoyed look and shook his head slightly. "Very well then Pyro, we'll go on like everything is fine even when its not. Just make sure you do your part and that you learn a bit more manners when dealing with the others. I need them to listen to you, not laugh at you," he said with probably a bit more authority than need be, but as it was, Magneto had enough on his plate without having to worry about some adolescent teenage drama from a boy with "daddy" issues.

[Pyro]

”We go on like everything’s fine because that’s what we do, right?” he shot back… well, at least something was returning to normal. Shame it was something that would probably only serve to piss Magneto off further, given how he was slipping back into the usual abrasiveness despite the ghost of a half-smile, but whatever. It was a step in any case. ”We don’t let what the flat-liners do to anyone different get to us.”

… and that wouldn’t be revealing more than he wanted to, would it? So much for not talking about the problem.

”You were right about the extermination…. History repeats himself” he said by means of, if not cryptic then at least sufficiently limited to let him at least pretend they hadn’t talked about it, explanation before moving the conversation on again because that was somewhere he didn’t want things to do… for Magneto’s sake, of course (yeah… because he was noble like that. Nothing to do with saving himself the flashbacks).

”If you need me for something… I take it there’s a plan? Beyond torching motels and terrorising lushes.”

[Magneto]

By this point Magneto had had enough of Pyro's smart attitude, more so than he had previously. Their last little war of words was cut short by but this time, things looked as if it might escalate into the play of pain it was destined to head. Magneto stood, leaning over onto his desk as he did so, supporting his weight somewhat with his fingers. The master of magnetism was not one to be pushed around and especially not by some snot nosed punk who thought himself a bit of a rebel. Things had to be put right and the chain of command firmly re-established once again. Talk had been tried and quite frankly, talk was cheap, now was the time for action and lots of it.

"Before any plans are made, your going to learn how to control that mouth of yours when addressing me boy," he said as he narrowed his eyes and sent the chair Pyro was sitting in slamming into the back wall, not hard enough to throw the boy from it, but hard enough and quick enough to jolt him a bit. Then standing up, Magneto flicked his right hand to one side and slid his metal desk across the floor sideways and out of his way. "You may be within a more prestigious position here Pyro, but -I- still run the show and so, that puts you as a subordinate, not an equal....understand?," he asked the boy with a taunting and daring tone, "I've let you slide far long enough and given you the chance to sort things out. Now, your going to either clear up whatever little problems you have with me and the Brotherhood or I'm going to clear them up for you," he said as he began to take a few steps toward the boy.