Garlic days and pub nights

[lance]

Lance felt bored. He felt slighted from the fact he had to cater for other people while they just regard him as some kind of servant. The only good thing about his job was the pay, he managed to pay rent, pay for groceries and save a little bit, you never know when you might need it.

Staring at the faces around him he couldn't help but notice that they seemed to blur together. Lance rubbed his eyes discretly, after all his boss would fry him if he thought that he wasn't giving 100%. This was a 'good' pub compared with the others in this dreadful town and that meant he was supposed to act like a 'refined butler'. Who wanted that?

However Lance couldn't help but pause and turn his head towards the giant television screen. Another news report on the mutants from the Alkatraz incident. He slightly hung his head in pity for them before turning back. He had mixed feelings on the 'cure' that they were spouting. Lance didn't want to believe it, after all he thought that nature's way was the best way and 'curing' something that was part of their own evolution... well that was plain stupid.

The faces of the poor mutants were shown and Lance was slightly surprised. He could of sworn he'd seen some of them before...around. But he couldn't of, could he? The old quote came into his head, Of all the gin joints... Lance laughed pitying himself...he wasn't that important, it was imposible. All he was was a worthless guy from no where. Time to get back to reality.

He turned back to the bar to serve another customer another of the just white wine orders. Some people just didn't go for variety, the same old same old thing day after day. Would he be able to continue this way? He doubted it. Even in the wide open spaces of the rance he had hours of back-breaking labour to do and he knew it'd be worth it in the end, when a new foal was born or the annual earnings went up.

This was...well this was unimportant. Who cared in the long run if they had wine with lunch, there were bigger things in the world than this. Lance sighed after getting another glare from the boss. Yeah, i'll be here forever.

[Pyro]

The Bear's Head, with its tacky old-world atmosphere, was definitely not Pyro's sort of joint. So wholesome. So hearty. So... dull. Not even the barest hint of seediness in its knowingly smoky air. None of his sort of people, just the 'regulars' with their half-pints and dry whites. He didn't know what the hell he was doing here...

No, that was a lie. He was getting good at the whole lying to himself thing, really. He knew the reason; his sort of joints were, of course, off limits. By now they'd be crawling with cops who, understandably, would be more than a little pissed off that the urban legend they'd claimed to have caught and cured had come out of retirement, proved to be little more than a mere boy, and blown the lies quite literally sky-high. It was the sort of return he'd have killed to make... once. Now it was just inconvenient, especially since, as he saw it, it wasn't really his choice. He'd have to remember to thank Magneto for that one, if they ever got round to actually talking. There seemed to be this unspoken assumption that he'd fall back into rank now that there were no other options left, and Magneto's response to his rejection of that was to ignore it and hope he'd come around to his way of thinking with time alone.

For the moment, at least, he was outfacing that with equal blind tenacity. Take this, for example; had Magneto had his way, he wouldn't have been out at all, but the Master of Magnetism should have known better than to try and pen him in...

He wasn't stupid, however. Which was why he'd ended up here and not followed his real darker desires back to somewhere he'd feel more at home. Here there was just enough risk to make it interesting rather than suicidal. Taking a seat at the bar he ran a critical eye - shielded, in a nod to a disguise he should probably have taken more seriously, with dark lenses - over the liquor selection. Sigh. Yep, definitely not his sort of joint.

[lance]

Lance knew the score for being able to work in this joint. Part of it was being friendly and curteous but a main part of it was about looking the part. He wasn't allowed to wear scruffy clothes or have tangled hair and he expected that. There were other, more disrepitable, places in town that didn't care but his boss wasn't running one of those places. This is why when the next person came through their main entrance he was suprised to see someone that looked like he didn't belong anywhere.

As he sat down Lance was tempted not to serve him, his boss would agree, but his boss wasn't here right now and the guy looked like he needed some dutch courage, for what he didn't care but Lance was a nice guy. Scratch that he didn't care all the people who came in were the same, nice to have some colour back into the room.

"What can I get ya?" In keeping with the whole feel of the place Lance said this in the dullest tone imaginable, which was pretty flat and lifeless.

Lance just stared at him, trying to unnerve him so he could get him his drink quickly so he could turn his attention back to the news story. Anything was more interesting than working here, God if you stayed too long in the place you feel the instant depression of knowing that life is too boring to carry on with. The regulars were lucky, none of them stayed past their drinking time and were usually filled with alcohol before that, enough drink to not recognise that this place was soooooooo boring.

[Pyro]

No request for ID (which, of course, he didn’t have… note to self, get Magneto to fix you with fakes again)? Maybe this situation wasn’t quite as dire as he’d first thought. Or maybe the ‘barman’ was just bored stupid, too fed up to pay much attention…

Pyro couldn’t blame him for his disinterest when he noticed the news story. Oh shit. Looked like Magneto had been right about the press getting a hold of the story and running with it. Luckily it seemed that for the moment at least they weren’t giving any names – he guessed that the police, hell even the government, were probably hugely embarrassed by the whole affair and trying to work out a cover story – though it would have been obvious enough to anyone with even a passing interest in the ‘original’ story once even passing mention was made of metal and flame.

The story naturally demanded his attention, but he couldn’t be too blatant in his interest, could he? He’d have to fake the same dispassionate general curiosity of the norm masses to avoid arousing curiosity, shrug off paying attention to the screen and answer the man’s question before he felt the need to ask again, take a second look…

What could he get him? Good question… ”I don’t know…” His eyes lighted on the name tag, with it’s fake air of class and limpidness “Lance. What d’ya recommend?”

[lance]

Wow this kid was spunky. Lance was not impressed by the show what he considered friendly chatter. They all were nice until they got enough in them and were tempted to throw up somewhere or prove to themselves that they weren't drunk. The women were the worst, too many flirting techniques that were usually the same, annoyed him.

"I don't know. What do you like? Wine, beer, or something stronger?"

People didn't usually go for the last one, unless they were proving to themselves that they were indeed part of the upper classes and asked for burbon, or for drinks that had names that Lance had never heard for before. Lance mentally shrugged and decided he didn't care, one more guy in and out. Routine sucks.

Lance detected something about the newbie that was slightly off. He couldn't determin his age, but wasn't bothered about asking ages, it was irrelevent, who actually cares? The stranger started to shy away from the television set and seemed to wince at certain bits. This intrigued Lance, maybe there was something more to him after all.

[Magneto]

Magneto moved through the semi-crowded street, unnoticed and indiscernible from any other old man out for a stroll on such a nice day. He wore a pair of black dress slacks and a white button up dress shirt, no tie of course. As always when wearing such attire, he left the top button on his shirt open to leave a bit of breathing room but instead of rolling up the sleeves, he left them down this time. His white hair was perfect as always and his ice blue eyes as unnerving as ever. Clasping his hands behind his back, a trademark stance, he moved slowly down the street, letting his gaze drift from one homo sapien to the next, his face not hiding his disgust for them. Normally the old man didn't socialize like this, but he was looking for potential mutants to join the cause, looking for those who had had enough of being pushed around and picked on just for being what they were. As he stood at a corner crosswalk, he caught sight of a familiar sight, that of Pyro, who happened to making his entrance into a rather prominent looking pub.

The "walk" sign flashed and Magneto fell in step with the small crowd, making his way over to the pub where Pyro had disappeared into for who knew what reason. Normally, Magneto would have left the boy to his own devices, but recent events called for him to keep the boy on a short leash, for safety reasons solely....or so he told himself. Stopping outside the pub, Magneto looked up at the sign and smiled to himself. "Excuse me pal," a voice from behind Erik spoke up, causing Magneto to turn and step aside, allowing a rather portly looking middle aged man entrance into the pub. Reaching out his hand, Magneto caught hold of the door and followed the stranger inside.

Stopping just long enough to let his eyes adjust to the the faint light, Magneto glanced about, getting a feel for the place, seeing just what clientele frequented this fine establishment. Most of what he saw was businessmen and a some spoiled homo sapiens who had nothing else better to do with their mundane and boring lives. As he took a few steps inside, the sound of the television in the corner caused him to turn and then smile. It seemed he and the boy were news once again, something that made him swell with pride just a bit, however he knew such media coverage right now could hurt them more than help. Shorting out the television was easy enough, all it took was a single and simple alteration of the magnetic field near it and the entire circuitry would fry itself. This of course is exactly what happened, causing a few sparks and some smoke to rise into the air.

With a smile, Erik pushed further into the bar, catching sight of Pyro and another young man who seemed to be taking his order. Slowly and methodically, Erik approached Pyro, putting a hand on his shoulder as he moved behind him and took a seat beside him, "This doesn't strike me as the sort of place you would visit my boy....a bit too rich for your tastes I would think," he said laughing a bit as he sat back in his chair, making himself comfortable.

[Pyro]

I don't know. What do you like?
This would be why he hated easy conversation… because it wasn’t easy. It was a strain, all these pointless questions and nice little, erm, niceties. Round and round in circles until, oops, you get… absolutely nowhere. Never going to be Pyro’s style, since he favoured a more direct route.

That in mind, he scanned the bottles again, and wasn’t any more heartened than he had been the first time around. Bourbon… Bombay Sapphire… Curacao… Galliano… any number of exotic concoctions in pretty bottles which he didn’t recognise but guessed would boil down to one thing – alcopops for adults, the sort of thing you drink to show how worldly and sophisticated you are. No doubt they’d all taste like crap… and he could be pretty damn sure they wouldn’t even have the reassuring alcoholic bite which made drinks which didn’t taste good sort of worthwhile.

Damn Magneto. He was starting to really miss the sleazy bars where he could be sure of meeting an old friend whose dark glass was conspicuously absent amongst the selection here. ”Tell me you have some JD’s hidden back…” he started, his tone world weary enough to surprise him…

Not as much as what happened next did, however.

Oh shit

No, hang on. There was no need to get worked up, was there? Televisions short out all the time, right? It didn’t mean that it was…

A hand lighted on his shoulder, and he knew even before the newcomer spoke that yes, it did.

As Magneto relaxed, so he tensed up, their reactions in perfect counterpoint, the situation only lightened by how this must look to the poor schmuck serving them. Because really, even given how wholesome this place was, what was he meant to assume when the slightly sleazy old man laid a protective hand on the shoulder of a younger and very obviously fucked up just-older-than-boy? Part of him – the part that used to find messing with Bobby’s head far too entertaining - wanted to play that for all it was worth to see how long it would take to get to Lance, but given as how he’d already broken protocol and how they were plastered on every TV screen and in every newspaper it didn’t seem the wisest of ideas.

”Expensive tastes, boss.” he half-smiled, mimicking Magneto’s easy nonchalance with markedly less success. ”Just ‘cos I’m slumming it with you for now…” A second comment hovered unspoken – not like Magneto had left him any choice after the debacle at Mimi’s, was it?

[lance]

Lance looked between the stranger and the newcomer and was slightly scared at the impliction that it brought. It was - it was the guy! The one everyone was scared of and caused so much damage. He wanted to do nothing but crawl and hide from what he thought could be a potentionally dangerous situation.

Lance was even more startled by the fact that the television seemed to be broke. While that could be excusable in many situations, this wasn't one of them. Magneto's powers were legendary and what sort of coincidence would it be that the television would break at the same moment as a news report was on about him. That obviously meant that he had powers, but how? The cure? He had never had much confidence in the press, was it all some sort of lie to make the mutant population scared? It made sense.

But... did it? Why would Magneto hide like an injured animal if he was fully powered. The implications of these things just ran through his head, he was honestly confused. It could be best if he would just shy away from them...

"Sure..." He said to the stranger, turning away towards the opposite end of the bar.

It wasn't that Lance was completed scared of the mutant, it was more that there was obviously something between the two of them that looked serious and anything that serious would probably explode. As a mutant himself he was slightly biased towards the events but he didn't recognise the other and so couldn't anticipate the powers he might have (he knew it had to be a mutant - it was magneto and hearing about him convinced Lance that he wouldn't voluntaryily hang out with a normal human).

He found the drink and started back towards the couple, unsure about what was going to happen...

[Magneto]

Magneto sat quietly until Lance departed to fetch Pyro his drink, or at least that was what the old man assumed. He had kept a cautious eye on the boy as he had seemed to tense up at Magneto's presence, unsure if it was just the strange feel of the situation or maybe if recognized his old face. The terrorist known as Magneto was a very recognizable fellow to those who had their eyes open to what was going on around them, and even more so if they were a mutant. The old man had two very different faces, it all just depended on who you were talking to as to which one was described to you. Some saw him as a terrorist and a felon, a threat to both mutant and homo sapien alike, while others saw him as a savior, a way for mutants to rise up and take what was rightfully theirs.

As he sat there, Magneto wondered how Pyro would pay for this expensive habit, but kept that curiosity to himself. He knew the boy had not been living the most comfortable life and figured that it was time to put that part of his life behind him. Of course, there was always the option of burning this fine establishment down when he was done, thus eliminating his tab as well. Shaking his head slightly and then looking down at his hands, Magneto pushed such unimportant thoughts from his mind and took a deep breath, feeling just how old he really was.

"Have you found any of our old friends yet my boy?," he said rather casually as he looked up, keeping his gaze straight ahead and from looking at Pyro. He knew the boy was still upset with him in a way and that it would take time for his wounds to heal and for him to sort through the questions pounding at his brain right now. However, Magneto could only be so easy on the boy, he had other more important things to do, like gathering together some of the more powerful and trusted mutants that stood with him before the Alcatraz incident.

[Pyro]

“Not exactly..”

As ever, he was following Magneto’s lead, here by also deliberately not looking at him, his gaze instead trained on the fake wood of the bar, drumming his fingers on it. Stupid no-smoking rules had to go and make everything that much more difficult for him, didn’t they?

Then again, maybe getting chucked out wouldn’t be too bad… that way he wouldn’t be able to run up a tab (he hadn’t considered that before, had he? Stupid. This, being one of the ‘classy’ bars, wasn’t somewhere someone else’s credit would hold good, or somewhere he could count on picking up someone fool enough to pay for him). No, this refusal to give into the urge to click probably had more to do with the knowledge that once he started, what with Magneto being here and all, it probably wouldn’t end prettily, and he’d burned down more than enough potential hangouts in the last few days. Not to mention that the police would no doubt turn out far more quickly, and in greater numbers, because this was the nice part of town.

The question wasn’t one he could answer honestly, was it? Because aside from admitting that he’d failed in what was effectively his first mission since ‘returning to the fold’ (he wasn’t counting Mimi’s, or Starbucks, because that was survival) it wasn’t going to be an easy pill for Magneto to swallow… Not that Magneto would be doing the swallowing, really. No, this was the sort of pill he’d end up having forced down his own throat. While pinned to a wall by something sharp and metallic. Before having his spleen cut out. Abso-bloody-lutely fantastic.

… yeah. What exactly, then, was he going to say?

Directness wasn’t all bad, right? Pyro didn’t exactly do the whole ‘beating around the bush’ thing, so if his particular brand of blunt honesty really was able to piss Magneto off to that extent, he probably wouldn’t have made it this far.

“Because, erm, thing is…” he sighed, shifting to look blankly at the wall for a moment or two while choosing his words… then down to the wood again when the right ones weren’t exactly forthcoming. Nothing, at least, which would lessen the blow of what was coming.

Still, brutal honesty, right?

“Thing is, we don’t have any old 'friends'. Because everyone hates you. All your old 'friends' are either bitter and twisted, or 'normal', or both. Alcatraz fucked up every friendship you had left”

[Magneto]

Magneto waited patiently while Pyro fumbled with words and excuses that wouldn't exactly pass his lips easily. The old man breathed easily, his face showing no real emotion or interest in anything particular, that is until Pyro finally spit out his sentence. What he said was of course nothing Magneto did not already know. The old man's reputation had been marred among mutant kind, even if he was still thought of as a terrorist among the homo sapiens. Pyro's own admittance to something so obvious seemed to awaken something in Magneto, something that dared not rear its ugly head until now, something which would not bode well for those around. "Well then, if those pompous self righteous fools think me incompetent because of one failure, then I guess I'll have to educate them on just how in control I still am," he said with a sharp tone, each word and syllable clearly spoken so that Pyro would not miss their meaning or his feelings at the moment. "Did all of you think it was going to be sunshine and rainbows?," he said now, directing his narrowed eyes and harsh tone to Pyro, "I was fighting for our kind when your pathetic homo sapien father was still in diapers you ingrate. Do you think that if it wasn't for Charles and myself that any of us would have what little freedoms that we have now? Who gave you all a home and a cause to lay a name to? Who gave you a reason to hold your head up high and proclaim what you are?," he questioned Pyro, his voice becoming louder with each sentence and his face more angry. Magneto did not show anger much, but when he did, it never ended well. If others thought him crazed and a monster when he was being himself, then he would truly disturb them now.

The vein which ran across his forehead began to throb and the air seemed a bit more alive now. The metal of the window frames creaked and groaned a bit as did the other various tid bits of metal within the room. "One set back and everyone runs away, cowering back into the darkness like nothing but a bunch of roaches. Not one of you dared step forth and take up the mantle of our cause....not a one. Instead, everyone sat around and blamed me, finding a scapegoat for their own inadequacies and failed dreams!," he shouted now, the television across the room shattering into a shower of glass and metal and circuitry. Magneto stared hard at Pyro, not really made at him, but mad at the would be followers of his cause he once led. The old man whom he appeared to be was gone now and in his place stood a man possessed and full of his own hate and disappointment. Magneto was always calm, to a degree anyway....but now...now he finally let out some of the anger he felt. He had finally had enough of being the one to have to fight the good fight and being the one who was scowled at when he stumbled in that fight.

[Pyro]

So much for lying low, blending in. Magneto’s outburst had blown cover spectacularly enough, and it didn’t take much to kindle the sparks flying from the wrecked set into a flame he could call to him – an insurance policy, should things turn even uglier, seeing as how a metallic lighter was probably not the best thing to rely on. What few regulars, sluggish and bloated on their dry whites and half-pints, had not fled before were quick enough on seeing that, screaming and running. Just like old times.

"Of course. Sit around blaming you, that’s what we did. Because we had that luxury.” he laughed bitterly. "Now who’s being naïve?” So much, too, for biting his tongue; while for most of the speech stunned silence had been, if not easy, then manageable enough, those last words had proved one can of worms too many.

Pyro had only been on the receiving end of Magneto’s temper once before, after the Phoenix business, and that had been an icy disapproval he hadn’t known what to do with. This, on the other hand, was fire, so the whole ‘calm and controlled’ thing was never going to be an option even if Magneto’s arguments had been solid. As it was, to say the inaccuracies touched a nerve would be something of an understatement. Magneto had not been the only one holding things in since the reunion, deep-set issues now coming to the fore in what would no doubt degenerate into a quite literally blazing row. He might have lacked Magneto’s power and articulacy, but underestimating the force of a full-blown pyrokinetic tantrum – because yes, he was still more than young enough to throw one convincingly, and hardly lacked the motivation – was a mistake you only got to make once.

If he had had any sort of plan when it came to the outburst, he hadn’t meant to launch down the personal route. That would be… pathetic. Problem was, the cans Magneto had unwittingly chosen to open didn’t exactly lend themselves to taking the moral high ground and making some deep comment about mutantkind as a whole (because of course, he could have pulled that off convincingly). Well whatever. If Magneto – who had, after all, escaped all the Alcatraz fall out by virtue of being newly human and making an understated getaway, leaving them all behind – could come out such total bull then he had every right to set him straight with equal ferocity. "You’re right. I didn’t know what I was signing up for. I was, what, 16? Next week was all the eternity I could cope with. And in you come, talking immortality and freedom and knowing exactly what buttons to press.”

And press he had, and John, as he had been then, had been more than willing to sell his soul for an approving glance and the recognition that his powers were something more than a problem he had to control. Alkali Lake felt like a lifetime ago, and at the same time he was the same boy (yes, boy, because everything that had happened since then had denied him the right to grow up as much as it had forced him to mature) he had been in that instant, outfacing issue far too vast for someone like him to deal with with petulant teenage rage. His tone, like Magneto’s, was rising; unlike his, which maintained enough control to drive every point home, it was also becoming more stretched, as if he was trying not to cry. Which he wasn’t, of course. That would be weak and pathetic, and he didn’t want to give Magneto the satisfaction of seeing him broken, nor to break for so little when he’d made it through so much more.

"And I drop everything – name, home, closest thing to a family shit like me gets – to follow you and your precious cause.” The words were spat now, adult bitterness and childish temper sitting somewhat uneasily together in the already awkward electric atmosphere. "Because I’m so damn good at following. Problem comes, doesn’t it, when you follow someone into hell, and find out that when it comes down to it you’re all that’s left. When the hundredth guard doesn’t turn blue and bust you out, the millionth needle doesn’t miraculously bend away. And you curse the guy behind the needle, and the person you’ve stupidly followed to the end of it. But more than that you curse yourself, every fucking minute of every day, for sticking your neck on the line for someone else’s ‘failed dream’, for trusting them not to do the same as everyone else and fail you when it matters most.”

He wasn’t making any sense, he knew. He’d also spilled far more than he’d intended to, and would probably regret having said at least half of it despite the fact every word was true…

… but if it were, what the hell was he doing back here?

"And then this blind, deaf, crippled god comes back, and you fall straight back into following him. And what does he do? Rants and rails about how everything you’ve been through isn’t enough, and calls you a fucking roach.”

The pure rage was dying away, though the stretched quality was becoming ever more prevalent. He hated Magneto, hated what he’d made him do, and hated how he’d driven him to hate himself. It was merely the hate of the moment, no doubt, by the morning he’d be back as his right-hand whatever, but right now it was painfully real, and so he hated the silence, the absence of those measured words which had always been enough to make him believe before.

[Magneto]

Magneto surprisingly listened as Pyro threw insults back at him....showing what little backbone he had. The old man narrowed his eyes more and shook his head as he saw how Pyro had missed the mark completely. He talked about being left alone....well....poor thing. Had not Magneto worked on his own for years before finally putting a small band together? Had he not rallied others on his own, stuck his own neck out, and faced down an entire nation countless times? These questions, along with others, ran through Magneto's mind as Pyro continued his own rant now. Everything around the old man seemed to slow and become unimportant, even the stumbling and shuffling drunks and lushes who scrambled away from the two of them.

"Don't talk to me of loneliness or betrayal, boy," Magneto cut in as Pyro seemed to die off in his rant, "I lost just as much as anyone else at Alcatraz and the events which led up to that incident. I could have just as easily given up at any time, but I didn't......so why did you? You and a few others where to be the ones to carry on after me......You sat at my feet and threw everything I taught, and tried to teach you, away," he said with a bit of disappointment in his voice as he fell back into his chair. "Your life was crap John, but so was a lot of others that followed us. I expected them to fall back into their sordid little pasts......but never you.....I never expected totally loyalty to me...but to the cause....that I did," he said as he locked his blue eyes on the boy, showing just how hurt he was at the moment. Sure he had just went off on a rant, but he was venting and Pyro just happened to be the one to open that vent. "I don't need you telling me how I failed and how I ruined everything, I face that every night I close my eyes...and then some," he said looking away now, his interest in Pyro gone just as the boy's loyalty appeared to be.

Magneto knew that the others would have fled, but he also knew how to bring them back....but Pyro seemed to think different. The old man never asked Pyro to recruit anyone, he had only asked him to find the others, that was all. This delicate matter would have to be handled by the master himself, something that the student should have realized, but apparently not. Magneto found this equally as depressing, seeing that his apt pupil saw him as weakly and foolish as he did. He had wondered why Pyro followed him now, so, bluntly he asked. "Tell me my boy....Why jump back in line if you despise me so? If I'm so weak and crippled as you believe me to be.....why follow? Looking for another handout? Someone to sponge off of? Just like those pathetic homo sapiens you clung to so desperately to back at that seedy motel I found you at?," he asked, letting his blue eyes drift slowly to Pyro, waiting for an answer.

[Pyro]

"If I’m as totally screwed up as you say, if my loyalty is so in doubt and I’m such a goddam fucking disappointment" – dark eyes locked in on icy blue ones, refusing to give an inch of the surrender they demanded, or to yield the shame they expected – "Why do you want me back?"

Again, perhaps not the wisest move, but instinct was always going to outbalance good thinking, because one of the first things you picked up, if you wanted to survive, was not to waste time on anything that delayed your move least someone else get theirs in first and slit your throat. The comeback – turning the tables so it was Magneto in the line of fire – was also a survival instinct, albeit one from a later life populated by the sort of people who want you to talk about your feelings, work through your issues; when asked a difficult – read introspective / personal etc – question (like What, do you think, is the source of this irrational desire to set the world ablaze?, which, when it boiled down to it, was where all those ‘development’ sessions ended up) you don’t even try to answer, just shoot a more difficult one back. Why is this ‘showing off’, and messing around with someone’s head ‘acceptable use of powers’? always worked pretty well, along with Is this about my issues or your sainthood?

John had been pretty damn good at that game – one of his few merits, Pyro thought – especially when someone broke the Golden Rule, the unspoken agreement that you never talked about home, family or life before. A rule Magneto had, of course, broken.

It was easier, at least, to go off down that route than to think about what Magneto had said. Because there was a hell of a lot to think about there, had Pyro been the introspective type. Aside from the obvious – his using that name, for example, or the reference to things seedy and sordid (which above all left him grateful he could still think You don’t know the half of it) – it sounded suspiciously like Magneto thought he’d been grooming a successor, and even if he had been able to sort of how he felt about carrying that title and all it meant, the box euphemistically labelled ‘Daddy Issues’ didn’t need opening, thanks. This was never about that. The fact he had to remind himself of the fact, biting back the pride he still, inexplicably given all that had happened, felt at the words my boy, was of course totally meaningless. Really.

[lance]

Lance had panicked as the tv exploded and spluttered and dies. Ducking down behind the bar he found himself shivering slightly from fear. One didn't go into situations with 'that' mutant and come out fine. He didn't like the feeling of feeling scared, it made him feel weak and useless maybe he should leave but what would that accomplish? He was probably fired anyway for letting them in the bar in the first place and the fact that the place was trashed and the regulars gone... well he'd never live this down.

He saw that there was a probablilty that the damage could increase even more. Well there was hardly anything left of the bar what was a few more cracks. With his nerves shot his powers weren't that reliable and as the floors shook he couldn't help himself from shaking too. He was surprised that he had enough control to create a fissure down the middle of the room, scattering tables as it went. Stopping it before it brought down the building he glanced wearily over the bar hoping that they'd take a slight hint and take their business somewhere else. It wasn't the nicest thing to do, to trash someone else's property, but Lance knew that they didn't care - this would be a pinprick compared to Alkatraz, what wouldn't they do?