Waiting on the world to change...

[Bobby Drake]

(( OOC: Kicking off the Bob/Robert/Pyro bit we talked about here, in the hopes of luring John and Rogue back into postage.

Picks up from Pyro and Rogue’s arrival and Bob’s recovery and Future!Bob’s interrogation of Laurie ))

Colonel Robert Drake

He’d thought he’d come to terms with the whole thing, with what his life had turned into. He really had. But his interview with Laurie – and he has to admit that it really is Laurie, despite how little sense that makes – has him questioning it all again.

She always had a knack for that, he thinks wryly.

It’s not like he didn’t have reasons. Sure, running the same Mutant Containment Camps he’d fought so hard to shut down twenty years ago isn’t where he’d seen his life going back then… but what was he supposed to do? They’re here, they’re a fact. At least when he’s running the show he can exert some influence, keep the atrocities under control. He can work with Warren to avoid escalating violence like they have on the West Coast, to extricate the folks who don’t deserve to be here.

He’s been telling himself that for years. On good days, he believes it.
Or maybe those are his bad days. He’s not sure, anymore.
But either way, this isn’t one of those days.

He’d almost managed to convince himself that Laurie’s little performance was some kind of trick… then he made the mistake of checking the cell surveillance feed for this so-called “Bobby Drake.” He’d expected to see some kind of clone, or fake, or something. Instead, he saw himself, cracked and shattered and despairing, just like he’d been on that night twenty years ago.

It was an oddly nostalgic moment, really. He’d remembered his own experience of that night, when Primer tried to kidnap Gail, and he’d been pretty much helpless… remembered how overwhelmed he’d felt. God, I was so young! He’d wanted to slap his younger self and tell him to get over it, to just do it already, that things were only going to go downhill from there and he’d better prepare for it.

Instead he turned around and went for a walk around the grounds. And by the time he’d come back, Warren’s team had already started their attack. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Drake had known the extraction of Cannonball was coming, they’d scheduled it together, but all this time-traveling craziness had made him lose track of time.

"This is Colonel Drake, priority alpha-alpha-bravo," he shouts into his commlink, "Report! What’s the situation!" The stream of reports he gets in return reassures him somewhat at first – everything is still going off more or less as he’d intended, and Sam should get out safe and sound. But then it goes pear-shaped. Entering the facility? What the hell does he think he’s – oh.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Warren is up to, once the security camera footage shows him images of a teenaged Josh blowing through security forces. What made me think all the time-travelers came here? That was stupid of me.

“Colonel, we’ve got a new problem… a transport vehicle arriving with new prisoners was damaged by those redirected SAMs, the prisoners have escaped somewhere on the grounds. Ground forces are engaged in defense; shall I redirect?”

It only takes Drake a moment to check the prisoner-transport logs, and he laughs a little bitterly at the names that turn up. Of course. Who else, really? I should have expected that. "Negative. I’ll track them down myself."

Finding the wreckage of the transport isn’t difficult, and following the fading heat-trail of the escapees doesn’t turn out to be too hard, either. He never was subtle.

When the trail comes to an end at a sealed door and a downed guard, Drake doesn’t even slow down to open it… the brittle, frozen fragments of door simply blow into shards around his ice-giant form.

[Pyro]

Backtracking more than a little to bring you Ryro's Daring Escape, Part I - will be synching up to 2027!Bob's big entrance in the not-too-distant

With the redirected SAMs her primary concern, Agent Stryx could be forgiven for not placing the comfort of her charges at the top of her priority list - a pair of mutant rebels enduring a few bumps on a less than smooth ride is a small price to pay for her getting back alive and besides, where they're going it'll be a hell of a lot wo... woah-ho, eyes on the road, Stryx

The way the transport's bucking under their driver's less than gentle care is enough to jolt her cargo back to the land of the living with an indignant yowl which, predictably, mutates quickly enough into "Fuck!"

""John!? Y'okay?"

"... 're'we still in some fucked-up version of now where's there's no 'stute and a shitload of robots?"

"...yeah." Best not mention that they're currently being kidnapped by said robots (or, rather, people who apparently operate them?) right about now, probably...

"Then no." John pulls himself up, wincing more than once. "What the fuck happened? I'm guessing you surrendered"

While not exactly the answer she was hoping for, she'll take that as his being at least okay enough to be annoyed, which is reassuring enough for now, at least. She can't help the slightly-defensive edge in her voice when she responds. "Yeah. I didn't exactly have much choice..."

"Could've let me waste the tin-plated fucker." John scowls, equally defensive, though distracted from elaborating further on exactly how he'd have achieved said miracle by the increasingly frequent noises outside the vehicle. "Are they shooting at us?"

"You weren't exactly concious anymore..." she retorts, before becoming aware of the noises outside too and looking around as if to see what's going on (even though she can't see much of anything at all in here). "...I don't see why they would? They got us - that wouldn't help anything..."

"Well, someone's shooting" he half-mumbles, with the indignance of a child who's just been corrected. "Shit, Rogue, where are we?" He reaches into his pocket - a reflex action, nothing more, certainly not anything pathetic and wussy and dependent - and finds nothing, and tries to make it look like that's not a surprise. Of course they'd have taken it - they knew who he was, and why waste valuable resources neutralising him *properly* when it's that fucking simple?

.... on which note - Oh shit. He's almost afraid to ask. "You okay, Leech-ette?"

"We're in one'a their vans. They're taking us to ...wherever their base is? They didn't say much..." It's true, there wasn't a lot of talking involved in the load-up, and possibly even less before that...

The question gets a glance over towards him, and a small half-smile. "Yeah, 'M okay... 'Fraid I won't be much help in gettin' outta here, though." Yes that's guilt in there, because she should have known they'd cure her the moment they got her, knowing (however they managed to find out) what she was capable of.

"So you're telling me we're stuck?" It takes more than a moment for him to realise that's not quite the ideal response - if there can be such a thing - and to adopt a suitably downcast and apologetic aspect. "Shit... sorry." (it doesn't help that half of what he's apologising for is being more than a little grateful it wasn't him cured).

[Pyro]

Skipping forward to sync-up the threads, minor g-mod for Rogue (sorry hun) in the interest of tying up camp action in the not too distant - the dramatic escape part II, in which John is either uncharacteristically chivalrous or his usual asshole self. Or something.

He's struggling to remember which part of stashing Rogue what seemed like a safe distance away from the wreckage and insisting on scouting things out on his own was a good idea - a noble one, sure, and maybe that's the best explanation; trying to protect her, now she's newly flatliner-d, the way she would probably have insisted doing him back when she was the stronger party. Better by far than the other option, which runs closer to protecting himself, and which he tries half-heartedly to justify by telling himself she doesn't need to put the distance in the way he does (can't really be charged with breaking the MRA now she's not a mutant, right? And in any case she was a hero before, and not an ex-terrorist) and is probably safer without him anyway. Because if they were being taken anywhere even remotely like where he thinks - fuck it, fears - it might be, then there's no way in hell they're getting him. Not again. And the more he sees of where they are, the stronger both his certainty that this is somehow, impossibly, a recreated Neverland, and his determination to hold them to the whole 'over my dead body' thing, become.

It's not like anything'll happen to her... and just in case, he did leave her the gun (something he's regretting now, along with finishing off the woman - the driver, he thinks - they salvaged it from... though that's being written up as an act of mercy, she seeming to have taken the crash injuries that should probably have been theirs)... so there's nothing to feel guilty about, right?

The missiles seem to have been only the first in an uncommonly good run of luck for John; whatever attack they're part of keeps most of the heat off him... and the one guard he does run into? Not only is it (thankfully) a 'regular' guard and not one of the semi-robotic monstrosities from earlier on but, swinging from the sublime to the ridiculous, the fucker's only decided now's the ideal time for a cigarette break.

Downing him's a messy affair - fuck, he'd forgotten how different fighting without powers was - and the lighter doesn't sit quite right, rounder and longer than a Zippo and with a rubberised ring that's uncomfortably tacky and rough next to the metal he's used to - but it's well worth the split lip and what should become a rather spectacular spattering of bruises it costs him, to say nothing of the fact that the guard's bunker - again, with incredible good fortune, otherwise unguarded - should make for a decent enough base from which to plan his next move once he's melted the metal door to its frame (how he intends to go back and collect Rogue now is a question for once he's recovered from that, which took far more effort than it should - what the fuck is this place made of? - one thing at a time....).

... not that those defensive preparations make a blind iota of difference, it seems, as he barely has time to catch his breath, the haze of over-concentration only just dispelled, before the door... implodes. A reflexive heat-shield catches most of the shrapnel, but that's fuck all comfort against anything that could smash in the door that easily.

A cautious cursory peek out becomes a double-take and then an incredulous stare as 'anything' turns out to be an impossibly huge ice-Bob, the sight of which is just so ridiculous and impossible that, coupled with everything else that's happened, it finally breaks him and he lets out a harsh, sharp spasm of a laugh. "Okay, now I know isn't real..."

... real or not, there's something not quite 'right' about the ice-Bob, beyond it's size and power... something else, something he can't quite put his finger on, and something he sums up as "Fuck me, Drake, you look like shit."



_{Lighterwise, I'm thinking something like a Colibri Assault which yes, is completely different to a Zippo /pyromaniac-geeking-about-lighters}

[Bobby Drake]

> " Okay, now I know isn't real... fuck me, Drake, you look like shit."

Fuck. It really is him.

Drake isn’t really sure why that surprises him. He’d been expecting it, after all… after seeing Laurie, and his own younger self, and the “cargo tags” on the transport vehicle, it was just too perfect a set-up not to be true.

But it surprises him just the same. Not so much it being John, but it looking like him, sounding and acting like him. Like he looked and sounded and acted back before it all went to shit.

"Fuck. It really is you, isn’t it?"

Behind him, Drake can hear the whine of hovertanks gearing up. We’re switching from airborne defense – makes sense, after Worthington’s stunt. Which means we’ll secure the perimeter any minute now, come charging in here. It’s a reassuring thought, he tells himself… it means he doesn’t have to take action. He can just wait… wait, and take advantage of the situation.

"Evening, Pyro. It’s been a long time."

Ice-walls seal off the room’s exits, and Drake is almost surprised by them, despite being their cause. Which makes sense, he assures himself… he has to interrogate John, find out what’s going on. It isn’t a protective maneuver… no, not at all. After all, John isn’t one of the safe ones, not one of the ones he can protect. He never was. Even if Drake had been running this place back then, it wouldn’t have made any difference.

No matter how much he’d have wanted to.

"Mind telling me what you all are doing here, now?"

[Pyro]

< Fuck. It really is you, isn't it?
"... who else would it be, Icicle?" It's not the fact that Bob's surprised to see him that's especially unsettling - were this one of their common-or-garden crises (and fuck, doesn't that say volumes about life at the 'stute?) then he'd put it down to the usual 'thank fuck you survived!' relief - but this isn't normal. Something in Bob's tone suggests that his surprise goes deeper than that - like he's seen a ghost - and maybe John's imagining it but he's starting to feel like some sort of echo because doesn't Bob look older, more haggard...?

No, that's crazy talk, and he tries to ignore the feeling, covering it up with more words (not his finest wit, it must be said, but under the circumstances it's not too tragic). "Don't tell me you're seeing some other Pyro now, I'll be fucking crushed."

< It's been a long time
Bob cuts him off, and again the sense of unease deepens as he ventures a wary "It has?" He doesn't think so, but something in Bob's manner suggests that it's not up for debate... hell, that he's not someone used to being argued with. Which is wrong again, isn't it?

... and in any case it hasn't been long, he's sure of it.

... unless...

No, that's fucking insane. A shiver courses down his spine none the less, not just because of the ice walls he notices in a hasty side-to-side glance. And okay, what the fuck are they about? Feels uncomfortably like he's being caged in, which doesn't make any sense... unless Bob's just replacing the defenses... yeah, that's got to be what it is, right? Still... "Steady on, Drake... don't really want to freeze to death before we get the fuck out of here. Kinda defeats the point of escaping, ya know?"

(It's odd too that he hasn't asked about Rogue, because for all the tension about her - none of which is her fault, granted, but all of which is undeniably there none the less - he still clearly gives - gave? No, that's nuts - more than a shit about her wellbeing... and John wishes he cared a bit more that that seems to have gone out of the window... but it's his manner towards him which is of immediate concern).

< Mind telling me what you're all doing here?
... okay, that's just plain weird.

"Us all?" John's tone betrays his exasperation with the whole thing, and he doesn't bother trying to cover it up because damn it, Bob'd better stop with the weird shit, and soon. "Fuck's sake, we're on the same side, aren't we? You must'a been hit in the head or something, but whatever; stop fucking around already..."

... it's clear, though, that as far as Bob's concerned this is not 'fucking around'. John sighs, defeated, and proceeds with his summary in a weary 'do we really have to?' tone. "Fine. There was an alarm, and an explosion, and next thing we knew we were here and the Institute had fucking vanished and some asshole reject from a Star Wars convention in somekinda souped-up stormtrooper suit started babbling about some Registration Act bullshit... the rest's kinda fuzzy... ring any bells?"

[Bobby Drake]

> " ... who else would it be, Icicle? Don't tell me you're seeing some other Pyro now, I'll be fucking crushed."

"There never was – " It’s a sign of how thrown he is by the current wave of chaos – not to mention the nickname he hasn’t heard in years – that he gets that far into that sentence before stopping.

> " Fuck's sake, we're on the same side, aren't we? You must'a been hit in the head or something, but whatever; stop fucking around already... "

He’s about to correct Pyro’s misunderstanding when something in his expression apparently gives away his intention, and the boy – and it’s insane to realize that this Pyro really is a boy, young enough to be his son – changes his tune… not exactly agreeable, but at least cooperative. Which is all anyone could get out of John at the best of times, he remembers nostalgically. Almost all, anyway.

> " Fine. There was an alarm, and an explosion, and next thing we knew we were here and the Institute had fucking vanished and some asshole reject from a Star Wars convention in some kinda souped-up stormtrooper suit started babbling about some Registration Act bullshit... the rest's kinda fuzzy... ring any bells? "

There was a time, he remembers, that Pyro could lie to him effectively. But he’s pretty sure that wasn’t a lie. And… Star Wars? Wow. Now there’s nostalgia. The market for science fiction had gone up in flames about the same time Washington did. So. The boy doesn’t know anything.

"Not really, no. But I’ve heard the story before. Welcome to the year 2027, Pyro. You’re under arrest. Where’s Rogue?"

[Pyro]

< There never was -
He gets the distinct impression he wasn't meant to hear that, and for once that suits him just fine, pretending nothing was said. He definitely doesn't want to hear any more. Couldn't care less where that sentence was headed. Nope. Far more important things to worry about.

< Not really, no
... and there goes any hope he had that this was all going to end up making any kind of sense.

< But I've heard the story before
... not much more enlightening, though he has to bite his tongue to keep from asking when and where Bob might have heard anything similar, whether anyone else from his world's gotten through.

... his world? Okay, what the fuck? Since when did talking like that start making sense? It's still totally fucking crazy, right?

< Welcome to the year 2027
... slightly less crazy now, admittedly, and yet somehow more so. For a moment it seems he'll respond, predictably, with little more than a disparaging 'yeah, right' snort and the mother of all eye-rolls... but again, something in Bob's demeanor cuts him short, because this doesn't feel like a joke.

"Fuck off... no fucking way... seriously?" His mind's racing with a billion questions - what the hell happened to the 'stute, since when was the MRA even remotely legal, where's he got to in the two decades that might have passed if this is really truly real - ... or at least, it is for the split second before Bob's next, even more preposterous statement.

< You're under arrest
The disparaging response he had been saving up's all spent when Bob pulls that particular card - "Fuck off... for what? Illegal time-travel?" He snorts, tossing his head and regarding this future-Bob cooly, as if he's still his new room-mate and not worth the time of day and not someone claiming to be old enough to be his father. "Unless" - and okay, maybe he shouldn't laugh, because as a possibility it's horrific... but laugh he does, because it's also remote - no fucking way, right? - "Unless you're somehow working for those assholes... seriously, Dra... possibly-future-Bob, let's just get the fuck out of here and figure out a way to get me back to 2007 and out of your hair before Team Registration drag me back to wherever, okay? That's how this shit's meant to work, right?"

< Where's Rogue?
He's not sure why he refuses to gratify that with nothing more than a shrug. It's not like it's dangerous, because clearly this 'arrest' business is some perverse joke (Bob's sense of humor always was, well, pretty fucking shit...), and it's hardly as if he'd object to her being there, taking some of Bob's attention. Probably something far more childish - he's not telling Bob anything until he gets some answers, or something...

[Bobby Drake]

> " Fuck off... for what? Illegal time-travel? Unless you're somehow working for those assholes... seriously, Dra... possibly-future-Bob, let's just get the fuck out of here and figure out a way to get me back to 2007 and out of your hair before Team Registration drag me back to wherever, okay? That's how this shit's meant to work, right?"

And there, inevitably, is the question he’s been avoiding asking himself: is he really about to arrest John? And if he does, what then?

He’s lived on the borderline of that question for a decade now, playing judge-and-jury with the lives of hundreds of mutants. This one deserves a second chance, a free life up north or wherever Warren’s team sends them. That one is too volatile, stays imprisoned. That one really is a criminal and deserves incarceration. It’s become second nature for him; the fact that the first group can’t get too big without him getting fired doesn’t even make him feel like a hypocrite anymore.

It shouldn’t be that complicated. No way is John going to settle down in some nice quiet civilian identity and cause no trouble. No way does letting him free not end with some officer or civilian or soldier somewhere screaming brokenly as his flesh chars. This just isn’t one of the ones it’s safe to let go, and Drake knows it.

It wouldn’t even be the first time he’d had to bring in a friend. Nor the tenth. Hell, he can’t remember all of them anymore, and besides they all stopped being friends a long time ago.

He’d made all these decisions years ago; it shouldn’t be that complicated.

Except he remembers when it first started being uncomplicated: t was the same day he’d stopped carrying around that stupid lighter, and the last day he’d had to buy a new television because he’d made the mistake of watching the execution again. The day he’d stopped working for the “X-Men” – not that he’d told them that at the time – and started working towards the position he’s in, where he could make these decisions.

And he knows he only managed it because John wasn’t around to protect anymore. And he dismisses John's alternative suggestion of sending him back to 2007 without half-hearing it. He'll contemplate it later, when he has time to think clearly. Right now, he has to deal with the real world, not some fantasy-land where the past is editable and mistakes can be undone. He's not a kid anymore, and he's learned the hard way that real life isn't like that.

"These assholes are working for me, John. I don’t expect you to understand… and it doesn’t matter. I can’t let you run around wild... it’s not like the old days. There’s no place to hide anymore, no place safe – not for people like you." He shakes his head sadly and tries to sound convincing, or at least convinced, and manages neither. "Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be. Give me the lighters and you won’t get hurt."

[Pyro]

< Those assholes are working for me, John
It's an odd feeling, the bottom falling out of your world the way it just has. John can only remember it once before - back during 'all that' when he'd sold his soul and Magneto made it clear it wasn't enough - and this is worse because that he'd deserved and, on some level, expected while this new shit's come from nowhere and fucked him over seven ways without any even half-baked justification. He should by rights be raging, refusing to lie back and let fate have its way again, and he hates that all he can manage is a lame, plaintively insistent "No. No fucking way" because, well, no fucking way.

It's just impossible, and he almost has to laugh again, only this time more nervously with the stretched smile of a man trying to talk his way out of the gallows when the noose is already around his neck, as he insists "No way you're in charge of them. No." John snorts. "That's just fucking stupid"'

He wishes he could think of a half-decent reason for Bob to lie like that... because it has to be a lie, right? Practically an insult, expecting him to believe something so utterly ridiculous... but believe it it seems he will have to, and that's sickening and terrifying and just totally fucked up.

< I don't expect you to understand
"Too fucking right I don't. What, you just wake up one morning and think 'You know what, shutting down the deathcamps was a mistake, I think I'll re-open them and start chucking m'mates in there for shits and giggles'? Fuck the hell off, Drake, that's not you... what the fuck happened?"

< ... and it doesn't matter
"Well, you see, Bob, it does matter. It matters a whole fucking lot because they - you, if y're expecting me to believe the shit you're coming out with - are going to stick me back in one of those places and you and I both know there's no fucking way I'll..." He trails off, 'no fucking way I'll survive that' sounding way too hokey and too much like begging. Because there's no way he's going to beg this or any other version of Drake. Especially not this one, not if what he claims is true and not if it's not because that's just fucked up and...

... fuck.

It occurs to him that he should maybe show a little more respect, instead of talking to this Bob as if he can still throw his weight around and get little more than sulkiness in return. If he is who he claims to be, has the power he claims to, then the response this time'll be a little nastier, no?

It occurs to him that he doesn't care.

< ... not for people like you
"... the fuck?" There's the trace of a laugh in his tone - the part of him that's still refusing to believe lacing it with an incredulous edge. "'People like me', what the fuck's that meant to mean, Drake?"

< Don't make this more difficult than it has to be. Give me the lighters and you won't get hurt
He snorts derisively - yeah, right, exactly how much of an idiot does this Bob take him for? "No, fuck that."

[Bobby Drake]

(( picking up from Spitting out frustration, line by line ))

The hovertanks gather briefly around the shards of Bobby’s body – his second body, he reminds himself – then move on to other targets. He observes it, somehow, despite not having a body to observe it with… which is somehow easier this time.

Well, OK, not exactly easier. But it’s not as frightening as it was the first time. Not as disorienting. OK… no body. That’s no good. Can’t do any good this way. So… time to build another one.

It seems a little ridiculous to rebuild it from the bits of ice scattered across the crater-filled courtyard, though. Just a little bit further away… a few hundred yards at most… Bobby can sense a drop in temperature, a field of unusual cold. That’ll make this easier, he thinks, and drifts towards the spot.

---

Colonel Drake listens sadly to John’s complaints and criticisms and challenges, and shakes his head. There was a time he’d have felt compelled to defend himself, to make this boy understand the reality of the situation. But that was a long time ago.

"No, you’re right, John. There’s no fucking way you’ll make it. You never could. Even when we tried to protect you, you got yourself killed… and took a lot of good people with you. That’s not going to happen again. Not on my watch."

Drawing the heat out of John’s body takes hardly more than a thought… not enough to kill him, or even hurt him, but more than enough to leave him shivering and helpless. He’s about to pick him up and deliver him to processing when he overhears a report on his commlink about one of the subjects deceased during an escape attempt.

"This is Drake. Report circumstances of prisoner death." His voice is calm and steady, his thoughts less so.

“Colonel, it was an accident. The invaders tried to break Drake – the other Drake -- and Monroe out of custody; Drake fell out a window. Shattered into pieces… nothing left to collect, even.”

Drake starts to correct his captain, then stops short. He’s kept the full range of his own capabilities secret from his SHIELD superiors, which makes him the only person in the Camp who knows that Bobby Drake can survive that experience. He intends to keep it that way. "That’s fine, Captain. I’ve got an escape prisoner captured here in Hangar 12, come pick him up."

To the blue-lipped shivering John he adds "I really am sorry, John. I’d explain if I could, but you’d never understand." before wrapping the prisoner in a cocoon of ice and heading towards the site of Bobby Drake’s “death” to investigate.

---

I don’t fucking believe it. Bobby isn’t quite sure what he’s feeling right now, listening to himself betray his best friend… somewhere between incredulity and self-loathing… but that’s not the important thing. The important thing is getting John out of here before those soldiers show up. And to do that he needs a body.

OK… here we go.

It’s easier the second time… whether because of practice, or because the room has already dropped below freezing, or for some other reason, he has no idea. It’s slow, though… slower than it was.

"John… it’s me. I’m… gonna try to get you out of here. You have any idea what’s going on?"

[Pyro]

< There's no fucking way you'll make it
It's true, but that doesn't make it any less important that he protest the case because damn it, who the fuck is this Bob to judge? Not like the way he turned out gives him any sort of moral high-ground, is it?

... in fact, for once, that's his, isn't it? And while a smirking, self-satisfied "Fuck you" isn't perhaps the most eloquent, or wisest, of retorts, it does the job.

< Even when we tried to protect you, you got yourself killed...
... that gem, however, does sort of take the edge off it all... because... what the hell? That can't be right, can it? Because he's... not dead. Insane, possibly, thoroughly fucked over otherwise, no doubt, but definitely not dead...

... unless he's talking about the other-him, maybe... If this is 2027 he'd be... fuck, pushing... 41? So maybe being dead isn't that unbelievable, because shit, he has trouble imagining himself getting past 30, and if this is how things turn out then...

But still, no fucking way.

And can't-possibly-be-Bob-can-it-cos-nothing-he-says-makes-any-fucking-sense keeps talking, only he's not really hearing it because his head's spinning and his breath's catching and fuck, did it just get really fucking cold in here or what?

John manages a choked "F-fucking bastard" before anything more than shivering becomes too much to ask; Drake knows full well how quite literally hot-blooded he is, and what being deep-frozen'd do... and more than that, fuck, he should respect him enough to let it end in a proper fight and not with him quaking and mewling and totally fucking pathetic. Not like this. Never like this.

His senses as sluggish as his movements, he misses most of what Drake says, and it takes him a ridiculously long time to realise that said fucking bastard's gone. Same old Drake... doesn't have the stones to just fucking kill me himself he notes... at least, he hopes it's that, and not that Bob's grown cold enough to just leave him to freeze to death...

... on that note, it's an odd mix of reassuring and dismaying to hear Bob's voice again. The thing to do, he realises, would be to meet his end with some sort of dignity; look the bastard in the eye, at least. Except that that's beyond him right now, because it's fucking freezing and the slight chance that staying curled up - hugging his knees to his chest and trying, in between shivers, to rub some sort of life back into his arms - is helping at all against that makes uncurling a very unwelcome prospect. He doesn't hear what he says - doesn't want to, couldn't care less, fucking asshole.

"F-fuck's sake, Drake, c-could you grow a p-pair and just fucking k-kill me already? B-because I'm f-fairly sure the G-geneva c-convention has something to say about you m-making me sit through another f-fucking l-lecture about h-how you're s-so f-fucking s-sorry b-but I w-... g-get me out of here?"

Okay, so he hears that much, and it peaks his interest.

"Y-you could s-start by un-f-freezing me"

He doesn't want to get his hopes up too much, of course - it's not unfeasible that this should be some change of heart on Bob's part, or part of a plan to throw the enemy off, but it's equally feasible he'd stick to his percieved 'duty' and let him rot if that's 'protocol' - but if he can at least get to his feet he'll have some glimmer of a chance, and maybe that'll be enough.

[Bobby Drake]

If Bobby were able to move at all, he suspects that watching John curling up into himself like that would make him shiver sympathetically. After all, he still wakes up sometimes in the middle of the night, shivering with the memories of Magneto’s cell and the then-unfamiliar experience of cold, and his present-day immunity to that experience makes that no less compelling.

But he isn’t, and no matter how compelling it is to watch John quaking and helpless (entirely, Bobby assures himself, out of sympathy for his best friend and teammate and ex-lover, and not at all for any other reason), his primary focus has to be on getting himself rebuilt. Again.

And let’s try not to do that again, OK, Drake? Bodies are precious things. Most people make it through their whole lives with just the one. Got to get out of this habit of breaking them. Very careless. He’d laugh at his own internal monolog except, again, for the whole unable-to-move thing.

Well, that and the fact that nothing about this situation is in the least funny.

> " F-fuck's sake, Drake, c-could you grow a p-pair and just fucking k-kill me already? B-because I'm f-fairly sure the G-geneva c-convention has something to say about you m-making me sit through another f-fucking l-lecture about h-how you're s-so f-fucking s-sorry b-but I w-... g-get me out of here? "

It takes Bobby a while to make sense of that… not so much the words themselves but the sentiment behind them. "John, this is the real me." Not that the “Colonel Drake” who’d just left is precisely imaginary… if anything, he fits this world better than Bobby himself does, as far as he’s seen so far… but Bobby hopes John gets the idea, as talking is for some reason far more of an effort than it seems like it ought to be.

> " Y-you could s-start by un-f-freezing me"

I wish I could, he thinks but doesn’t make the effort to say out loud. Unfreezing is a trick he’s tried dozens, if not hundreds of times, always unsuccessfully. Wherever it is he sends the heat, he doesn’t seem to have any way of bringing it back. Rarely has he regretted that as much as he does right now.

"Let me put myself together and I’ll get you out," he adds after a few moments, reassured that it seems easier to talk now. "It won’t take much longer."

So of course, that’s when the guards arrive. The five of them burst in like professionals, synchronized and smooth, covering every corner of the space with their rifles… then one of them, a burly bald man with a moustache, bursts out laughing at the sight of John on the floor, and all trace of professionalism disappears.

“Look at that, Deke… we got ourselves a trussed-up homo superior here, and it ain’t even Christmas!” He kicks John in the ribs once, just for the fun of it, like a skeptical customer testing a used car’s tires. “Can’t say the Colonel ain’t generous.” A second guard, presumably Deke, laughs just as though Baldy had made a joke, and runs eagerly over to join his friend in the kicking.

“Knock it off, both of you. You know Colonel Drake’ll have your ass if he catches you messing with the prisoners before they’re processed. Get back in position, now.” “Yes ma’am, Sarge,” the two place-kickers mutter angrily before returning to their guard positions, while the sergeant – a surprisingly small but unmistakably competent Korean woman – prepares a dose of long-term Cure for the prisoner. “Hold him down. Once I’ve injected him we’ll take him in for processing.”

Bobby observes the proceedings at first with a combination of relief that the guards don’t consider his half-constructed ice-form worth worrying about (presumably they assume it’s something his older self created for some reason) and frustration that he can’t get his powers to work yet. As the guards start abusing John, the scale tilts precariously to the ‘frustration’ side, and when Sarge pulls out the Cure shot it blows completely off the charts. No, no, no, no, no… not this, not again, not gonna happen.

Except, of course, that there’s not a thing he can do to stop it. Hey, if anybody’s listening out there, WE NEED BACKUP!!! Bobby knows he saw Josh just before he’d been blown out the window, and for all he knows Jake may be floating around as well... but he gets no response. OK, he thinks with increasing desperation. Can’t move, can’t freeze, can barely even talk… think, Drake! What are your options?

After a moment he rethinks his initial assessment… he’s not sure how he can tell, but he’s pretty sure he’s got a little bit of “juice” available. Not enough to do anything spectacular, but maybe, if he’s lucky… Got to try…

The remaining two guards hold John still while Sarge slips the hypodermic into his shoulder and presses down on the plunger… which doesn’t budge. She frowns and presses harder, to no avail. Finally, with a grunt frustration, she pulls the needle out again and notices that its contents have frozen solid.

All right! It worked!

That’s when Sarge finally notices the “ice-statue,” slightly more intact than it was when her team burst in, and glares in sudden understanding. “Oh… very clever. Team, drag Little Mr. Blue-balls there behind cover, and find some yourself. We’re about to see how this ice-statue stands up to an incendiary grenade.”

Uh-oh.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

The pulse of high-tech weaponry and the explosions of conventional explosives sound in Josh’s ear, nearly deafening him. Even worse was the screaming - probably not from troopers, but from innocent prisoners caught in the crossfire. He winces. Changing objectives in the middle of the mission had thrown off Colonel Drake’s troopers… but things had gotten a whole lot more unpredictable.

He’d been trying to work his way out of the complex. After smashing through the wall, he’d seen Bobby thrown out the window by a blast of wind, either from Storm or Jade. Bobby’s shock at his landing had radiated outward… but he hadn’t caught the sustained fluttering panic that usually accompanied grievous injury. Josh himself had been separated from the two women, and there were too many guards between the three of them to reunite at the moment. So… he was on his own.

Not really something I enjoy. Between being married and being on the X-Men, he usually didn’t have many solo opportunities, which was just as well. After looking around the edge of a cross-corridor, he sprints farther down the hall, running all out for a set of doors at the end. If he’d memorized the layout right at the briefing…

Yep. He crashes through the doors and skids to a halt. This was some kind of large courtyard. It was empty, save for a pile of construction materials directly to his left. On the other side of the yard was another pair of double doors, curiously encrusted with ice. Bingo!

Before he’s able to take more than one step, a metallic figure drops down into the courtyard on jets, and a blue flashing light plays across him. Josh’s blood turns cold. Oh god…

“Mutant ZX 2402, Josh Dalton Worthington. Stand down and prepare to be taken into custody. Retrieving records… Status: Eliminated.” If possible, the android sounds puzzled. “Reacquiring DNA records…”

This was the kind of robot that had killed him. Killed him. Shit shit shit. In their briefing, Warren had sad that their only defense from these things were to run like hell, or hit brutally and relentlessly. First option wasn’t viable...

Josh lets out a shout and charges it, throwing it backwards into the icy door. It hits with a crunch. The robot opens up with laser fire, which dissipates into a telekinetic shield that Josh throws up between them. He slams the robot into another wall, bounces it off a steel column, and drives it into the ground.

tink tink tink

A small ball, pulsing erratically, drops in front of Josh’s feet. He throws himself backwards, and waves his hand in its direction. The sphere leaps off the ground and sails in the direction of the Sentinel, who blasts it. The resulting shockwave rocks the small area.

Hey, if anybody’s listening out there, WE NEED BACKUP!!!

Bobby's mental cry hammers at him from behind the frozen doors. Gotta finish this, fast! The Sentinel issues a gravity wave that throws Josh backwards across the courtyard Yeow! He’d taken their X-Men uniforms for granted - they sure seemed to absorb impacts better. He dives for a column as more laser fire homes in on him. It eats away at his cover as Josh considers his options.

_________


Grinning, Deke yanks John back behind some crates. “Cain’t wait to see what kind of snowcones your lil friend makes, can ya?” He laughs nastily, and traces a hand over John’s cheek. “Tell ya what, let’s get you set up for a front row seat.” Deke maneuvers John so he has a clear view of Bobby. Sarge is pulls out a grenade, and begins fiddling with it. She jerks as something smashes into the door. Colonel Drake took care of that. No worry.

_________

A piece of construction material floats into the air, catching the Sentinel midjump and battering it to the ground. Josh throws his hands out, smashing the robot backwards into the door again. Something told him that time was running out, and quickly. Panic and terror was leeching off Bobby like nothing he’d ever felt before. Another gravity wave throws him backwards into the wall. Josh drops to the ground painfully, coughing.

Time to finish this. As the Sentinel begins getting to its feet again, Josh reaches out, pinning it to the ground. A second shield blocks more laserfire. Another section of piping floats over, and he drives it into the chest of the robot. A shriek of stressed metal accompanies sparks, and something in its casing detonates, finishing the thing off.

Bobby, sit tight! Josh jogs over to the door, and takes a deep breath. Josh raises his hands, drawing one backwards. Action time.

[Bobby Drake]

> Bobby, sit tight!

Bobby is astonished that someone actually picked up on his distress call, but delighted just the same. Yeah, like I have a choice?

Then he returns his attention to his still-unfinished body, Sarge, and the incendiary grenade she’s fiddling with. Freezing the hypodermic drained him of what little juice he’d had left; much as he strains, he can’t get enough power together to interfere with the grenade. And he’s not at all convinced he’ll be able to reconstruct himself a third time… every time seems to leave him more drained.

OK… gonna have to rely on John and Josh, then. He’s vaguely aware of John’s body being dragged out of range, and of a battle going on outside the doors that he assumes is Josh. Hopefully one of them will find a way to stop Sarge… after all, an incendiary grenade shouldn’t be much of an obstacle for John, right? Yeah. Assuming he’s even still conscious after being flash-frozen and beaten like that.

Which leaves him with only one task: getting his body built in time to actually do something. They’ll do something. I’m sure they will. He’s lying, but it helps to say to himself even so. The truth is, he’s more panicked than he’s ever felt in his life, but that doesn’t change anything, so he tries to concentrate on the task at hand.

He’s assembled himself up through his chest and is working on a neck when Sarge finally drops the grenade at his feet and gets herself under cover. Fuck fuck fuck fuck….[/u] He tries to accelerate the process, but with no measurable effect… it just takes as long as it takes, and in this case that’s just too damned long.

[Pyro]

< Let me put myself together and I'll get you out
Somewhere in between the shivers he manages to fit in a half-snort, half-snigger and a sarcastic "My hero". Not that he's not grateful for the potential save... it's just, of all the people... yeah. Bob wouldn't have been first choice before, and now...

Another shiver - this one shuddering into a brief, spasming coughing fit - and he at least manages to add a less bitchy "H-how 'bout next winter we try an' s-swing it so n-neither of us get need rescuing?" before all hell breaks loose again, because it just wouldn't do for them to have any advantage for long enough for it to make any fucking difference, now, would it?

< Can't say the Colonel ain't generous
More than enough of the kicks hit home with either sickening crunches or dull thuds (which are almost worse), and those that don't still hurt like fuck, stinging, almost burning with the sudden rush of pain into skin prickling with the pins-and-needles tang as it begins to warm up, and so for the briefest of moments the angry Korean woman's his saviour...

< Once I've injected him we'll take him in for processing
... the very briefest, before that sense that the world's having a very sick joke at his expense returns. No. No fucking way. This is not how it ends. But Deke and his companion know their job well, and what little fight he can muster was never going to be enough, because sure enough that's the needle point - a hot, sharp stab into his shoulder which makes him yelp through gritted teeth, something damp and prickling - which definitely isn't tears - rising behind his eyelids as that yelp twists into something between a snarl and a wail, a death rattle of frustration and defeat and bitter, tragic disappointment that his last stand turned out to be so fucking pathetic...

< Oh... very clever
Clever? What's clever? Not him, deep-frozen and stuck with flatliner-juice in some godforsaken bunker in 2027-or-whenever, and not Bob, smashed to bits and...

... maybe Bob, then, because the Korean woman's pissed off about something... something to do with the needle... is it frozen? Definitely Bob, then, and the swan-song becomes a crowing, cackling laugh of something like victory... cut short as Deke's fist finds his jaw, and somewhere in the blur that follows he's dragged away, losing most of Sarge's speech aside from the all-important word 'grenade'. And even that means little when everything's fuzzed-up and grey-ish and... spinning... except that it's important, probably, and he'll figure out exactly why in a bit... maybe... because it's getting very... distant...

The snarl emanating from John when Deke traces his cheek is the sort usually reserved for anyone foolish enough to lure him out from under the covers any time before about noon - because wherever the distant-fuzzy-grey place being smacked about's sending him to is it's better than here - and earns him another stinging smack before he's twisted into prime position for viewing what's about to happen...

... which is what, exactly? Sarge has some sort of grenade, that much he notes (albeit in an incredibly passive way, the way one might note that it's come over a little cloudly...) and...

Oh. Right. Grenade. That he can...

... make that can't deal with. Because there's no fucking spark. Or, at least, he can't sense one, and for a terrifying moment he almost suspects that the needle wasn't frozen quickly enough but did its job because there should be something... right?

And it's thrown, and it lands, and he can't look...

... and when he does dare to, when there's not the blast he's expecting, nor the flare of light, nor any sound from Bob to signify that it did its job, and he opens his eyes to find that the flame's his...

A smirk. A snicker - low, harsh. The crackle of flame. Payback.

"My turn."

Deke first. It's only proper.