Time for a Talk, My Boy (Pyro)

[Pyro]

Forget the flashbacks… Pyro had a new nightmare to add to the list one that just now seemed far more startling because at least he was expecting to be on the end of whatever the flat-liners were dishing out. Magneto, on the other hand… Pyro had only roused him to any sort of anger once, right after Xavier died when again he seemed to have misunderstood exactly what his role was, and even then it had been a icy, disapproving anger – a few quick words, a glare and the cold shoulder for a few days. This, on the other hand, was fire… and he wasn’t used to getting burnt.

(The twisted irony of the situation, however, was hard to miss… because hadn’t some part of him been wanting Magneto to take over where his ‘dad’ had left off?)

He winced at the thud of metal on metal (next time – if he survived this – negotiations would be somewhere wooden… or something. Anywhere but metal. Being Magneto’s latest executive stress reliever wasn’t an experience he planned on repeating), the shudder it sent through him seeming to localise at the base of his spine – pain not helped by the fact he’d gone from a glowering semi-slump to fully coiled with super-speeds his mutation didn’t quite allow his flesh to keep up with.

Magento might have gone back to calling him Pyro, but he couldn’t have been further from that identity. If he’d had to pin it down, it would have been pure John – the twelve year old runaway, fresh from having dropped the St. and just starting to find out exactly how fucked up people can be when it comes to the price of their assistance… which is how ”I’m not asking to be your equal” comes out sounding so much like (in his head, at least, where memory ensures he knows what the combination of his voice and those words sounds like) a scared and desperate Okay, go ahead, fuck with me. I’m not going to fight you. ”And I’m trying to sort things. My problem” (hmm, so he was admitting to having one then? … well, yeah. It didn’t seem like a wise time to contradict Magneto.) ”is with the flat-liners and whatever the DMCD took from me when the lights went out.”

[Magneto]

And this was what it seemed to take to rouse that secret and fear from Pyro, just a bit of authority. Perhaps this was what the boy had been looking for in Magneto and was really wanting, someone to take a firm hand with him, someone for him to lean on and draw strength from. Magneto stood down for the moment, letting the boy speak and get this little bit out in the open. The old man was curious as to what was wrong with his young protege and now seeing as how the boy was opening up somewhat, Magneto wasn't just going to ignore him.

The mention of the DMCD made Magneto's anger flare a bit, poking at very old wounds and rousing too many nightmares of his own. A concentration camp was the same no matter what name you gave it or the people who ran them. Erik had seen and experienced first hand what these so called protectors were capable of within these "safe havens" of theirs. "My dear boy," he said simply as he shook his head, finding his momentum suddenly pulled away from him, "Whatever they took from you was the same thing they took from everyone who was unfortunate enough to be penned by them and now maybe that you admit your problem, then you can see what we fight for. Those who run the DMCD and those like them will be repaid in spades," he said as she stopped about two steps from Pyro, his face holding a different sort of seriousness now, his anger that was once directed at Pyro, not directed elsewhere.

[Pyro]

Was that somehow scarier, seeing Magneto laid low? Perhaps. It was no secret that there were horrors enough in his past, but in Pyro’s (admittedly limited) experience of Magneto outside of his ‘official’ roles, as a person rather than a leader, he’d never seen him let anything get to him. Magneto was untouchable, or at least he was supposed to be…

… but then again, Pyro wasn’t sure he’d be able to put his faith in someone that untouchable the way he had to for this to work. Perhaps this was, in some strange way, just what he needed to restore some sort of faith in their ability to do something… though exactly how screwed up that made him was a whole other kettle of fish. The flat-liners could carry the blame for that as well.

”Exactly. So when I say I’m back in the game…” The uncertainty, the weird disabling vulnerability, and everything else he’s found himself revealing, against his wishes, along with the DMCD atom-bomb, still lingered, though a steely determination overlaid them now – the determination to be the one to deliver those spades of fiery vengeance. Magneto should have been able to read that as plainly as he’d read that there was something wrong. His reluctance to reveal that yes, he’d been one of their toys post-Alcatraz had come in no small part from the constant burning desire not to be marked out as damaged, inferior, or anything else – he hardly needed something else to mark him out from the edge the others seemed to have, and admitting as much was a dangerous floodgate to open when being ‘fine’ was what held things together – but the effect now was in many ways the reverse, desire for retribution and desperation not to be rendered that weak again now that the stakes were higher than ever making for a powerful motivator. Magneto’s little Zippo – as Bobby had insultingly labelled him – he may have been, but god help those caught in the flare when the Master of Magnetism felt the need to spark him off.

Whenever that might be, given how slowly things were moving.

[Magneto]

Magneto knew this meeting was over with now and whatever was hampering Pyro was now out in the open and much easier to deal with. The boy had demons not unlike some of Magneto's. The two shared a strange set of social traits here and there, of course this was blindly disregarded by both no doubt and would be laughed at as ridiculous if ever brought up by anyone else. Pyro was an inferno of hate and vengeance, a deadly and very lethal combination, both to those on the receiving end of such carnage and to the one dishing it out. Magneto would see to it that Pyro had his vengeance, just as every other mutant out there. The old man had had his day long ago when he traveled back to Germany and laid to rest many demons and ghosts and now, it was time to step aside in a way and allow others to do the same. Mystique had her won set of vendettas to mark off and why shouldn't Pyro. Magnus had been blind to the boy in a way but no longer, he would give the little fire starter the sense of right and wrong he so craved.

"When the time comes my boy, it'll be your time and no one else's so make it count and make sure its what you want," he said reassuringly as his hands quickly found one another behind his back once again, his usual stance. Pyro would be given his day, no doubt now, but the boy needed to realize that he would have to wait until that day came and until then, play the good little protege and learn what was being taught him.