Title: "The Emancipation of Swords"
Author: Hecate
Fandom: X-Men (movieverse)
Rating: PG 13
Pairing, Character: Pyro, Mystique
Summary: The pawns without the king. Post X3
Disclaimer: Not mine. No money made.
Note: Thanks for the beta goes to lady_darisa.

First – Two Shades of Blue

Scars are written on Pyro's arms after Alcatraz, baby blue and midnight woven into his skin, and when he looks down on them he remembers Bobby and he thinks of Mystique. One of them is lost to him; the other isn't, so he walks away from the warehouse that sheltered him for a month and blinks into the summer sky above him. It's blue, of course, and so are the clothes he steals and the car he hitches his first ride on once he left the city.

He sleeps on fields and park benches, in tunnels and empty houses, cheap motels after he steals some money, and he makes his way to the prison Raven is kept under the bluest sky he ever saw. He takes it as a good omen, the sky and the open secret her location is, and he rubs his arms and ignores the pain.

He travels fast and light, he keeps the fire wrapped inside of him and there are no burned marks to trace through the landscape or on the road. He has been invisible before and he makes himself transparent now. A little boy lost on the search for something and the cars keep stopping for him. He listens to the humans beside him and smiles; sharp teeth hidden, and he practises patience. He will need his strength, anger and hatred later so he wraps them like his fire and he glows from the inside.

He tells them his name is Bobby because Bobby is a nice boy's name. He talks philosophy and human rights while the miles pass him by and the shades of blue change in the sky. He hears about Magneto in the news, the broken king playing chess in the park still sacrificing his pawns, and he wishes he would have stayed with Mystique from the beginning. Because he wasn't ready to face Bobby yet, he knows that now, and Magneto wasn't interested in showing him how to watch his friend die. He'll learn it, he knows, but it will take time and distance and lies he'll tell himself until they're made of truth and belief. He needs someone who starts the lies and Mystique would have been happy to be the one. Maybe Raven thinks the same.

He eats more now, fast food and the home made lunches worried mothers give him. They were made for the children screaming in the back but they want to help this boy. Bobby thanks them while Pyro smirks and polishes his façade.

He stops for a while after he almost runs out of money and he stays in a town that's as blank as his face, emotion sucked out of it by a corrupt major who plays with the law in a way that reminds Pyro of Magneto playing with metal. It's easier to steal money in a town; a car only has so many sources. Pyro had learned a bit from a mutant that joined the Brotherhood only to leave two months later. He remembers him, red eyes and a laugh that was a virus, making Pyro smile even when he didn't want to. Bright boy, Pyro decides now, and he wonders where the other mutant is. He watches the major for a while and listens to his anti-mutant propaganda and Pyro sets the Major's house on fire before he leaves. Stupid, he knows, too easy to find out he was there, and he slips deeper into Bobby and smiles some more as he leaves the town behind.

He almost runs into the X-Men three days later and he has to duck behind a wall to avoid being seen. He curses silently and creeps away from them, his body hard as steel, one hand fumbling for his lighter. He hears Iceman's voice and thinks ‘Bobby' and his arms start to hurt again. He wants to hurt Iceman, wants to burn him and melt him into a puddle of cooking water but he remembers Bobby and midnight snacks and beer they smuggled into the school.

John remembers and Pyro almost stumbles as he tries to put more distance between himself and his past. He steals a car that night, a first on his trip, another stupid move. But he needs speed now; he needs miles between himself and the things he wants to do. Killing Iceman or returning to Bobby and he can't decide which would be worse.

He discards the car after three towns and returns to hitch hiking, repairing the hair-fracture lines in his masks and trying not to think of Bobby. The first helps with the latter and so he's Bobby again and the too nice smile stops hurting his face.

He has to stop at one of Magneto's old bases to collect the information Mystique gathered about the prison months ago. The base is empty and cold, and first dust is gathering on surfaces. Pyro feels like a ghost haunting a ruin, an old idea not ready to leave. He shrugs it off. He's the future, not the past.

He finds the intelligence Mystique has left behind and he finds a picture of Mystique and him, standing together, triumph on their faces. Magneto took it shortly before Mystique left, a picture of his generals. For a moment Pyro feels sick looking at it. He thinks of Mystique, pink skinned and dark-haired, broken and human, and for a moment he hates Magneto. For a moment he hates her.

He slumps down into Magneto's chair, the laptop in front of him, and looks across the desk. He sees himself standing there, an eager soldier, he sees himself and he feels disgust. Maybe he shouldn't do this, maybe he should forget about the queen of the game and move of the field. Start anew, forget about flames and battles, be normal for a while, be John. Then he remembers that he hates John and he returns back to the intelligence, looking through blueprints and personal files. He uses the passwords Mystique wrote down; rows of numbers, signs and letters. He logs into reports of prisoner transports and guards until he knows which cell has turned into Raven's home. He's patient and precise, letting the plan develop in his mind, fog turning into a cloud formation that looks like fire.

When he leaves his steps are easy, a duffle back slung over a shoulder, a gun slipped into his waistband. He never shared Magneto's disdain for bullets and steel, he loved the feeling of cold turning warm against his back, and Mystique taught him to use everything in a fight. He leaves the light on when he closes the last door and when he looks back into the base for the last time the dust dances like fairy wings in front of him, golden in the neon light. He doesn't wait until it settles.

He takes one of the Brotherhood's cars, an old Pontiac, red and modest, and he drives the last miles with one hand on the steering while, listening to preachers on the radio and the clicking of his lighter in the other hand. He stops twice for gas; he spends the night at motels and pays with the Brotherhood's money, taken from Magneto's desk. It's easy travel now and he hums to himself on the last miles, only stopping when he realizes its Johnny Cash.

The attack is smooth and fast, a fire alert started on the west side of the prison, a huge fireball exploding through the gate on the east side. Black smoke everywhere and he slips through the burning debris and guards, the fire dancing as he starts to hum again. Once inside its harder, the screams of the guards he sets on fire shrill in his ears, the smell of burning plastic and flesh making him choke.

He stumbles through the corridors, the sirens going off all around him, and he tries to find the way to Raven's cell by memory, the blueprint clear in his mind, her cell a red dot. It's hard in the noise and smoke and smell, he follows the wrong corridors three times until he finds the right one. His humming turned into muttered curses by then. Time is running out, soon the prison will be filled with police and strike forces instead of guards, and he can't risk such a fight. He's not ready yet.

He's shaking by the time he finds the right cell and he feels more like John than he has in the last months. He pushes him away, far away, and he thinks of Iceman and the coldness burning in his arms and then he's Pyro again. He's Pyro again and the small flame of his lighter turns into a fireball and turns hotter until it is heat itself and when he throws it against the cell's door the metal gives in and melts away.

When he crawls through the hole he's shaking again, but now it feels good, it feels right, and he thinks he might explode or implode or turn into fire himself. Pyro takes in the cell, the greyness of it all, and when he looks at Raven the fire inside of him has dimmed already, eaten up by the lack of colours, drained by exhaustion.

Raven looks at him first and then at the burnt remains of the door that stopped her before. He smiles and bows his head, his steps still easy as he walks towards her.
"You shouldn't have betrayed him."
He steps closer and sees himself mirrored in the defiance of her eyes.
"He shouldn't have left you behind."
He reaches out then, offering her his hands. He sees blue on his, Bobby's scars, and he knows she sees them, too.

"John," she says and he winces.
She laughs then and stands up, graceful movements that look alien on her human form, and ignores his hand. She steps through the hole he made and looks around and he knows she takes in the damage, the burnt bodies, and the screams echoing through the hallways. A smile goes up on her face, brilliant and happy, and when she turns around her skin shimmers blue.

"Let's go Pyro."

Second – Yesterday's death

"Why did you come for me and not for Magneto?"
Mystique asks three states away from her prison and he shrugs.
"Because he left you behind," he says finally and he's grateful for her following silence. When he looks over to her she looks outside of the train window, her eyes distant, almost empty.

Travelling is different now, aimless and without any sense of direction, carefully wandering behind the scenes. They jump cargo trains sometimes, steal cars or pay a train ticket, Mystique's appearance hidden for now, skin tinged light blue and dry, but no scales and no change; Pyro's hair short and dyed red, base cap or the hood of his pullover pulled down. He feels like a teenage runaway again but this time there will be no benevolent seeming old man to stop him.

People are looking for Mystique and the mutant who broke her out. Not Pyro yet, his name hasn't been mentioned, but it will and he knows the X-Men already know who they're looking for; if they look at all. A leaderless soldier and a de-powered spy are not material for the Most Wanted list but soon they'll be again. Because he's fire and she's change and they'll never go away.

Travelling together makes him feel different, somehow narrowed, and he likes this feeling, he likes the pressure of Mystique's presence. It's different than the professor, the old smile, the old eyes, disappointment and lectures all rolled together. Different from Bobby and Rogue, holding him back and urging him on, tearing and pulling and whirling him around until he lost orientation and the hardness that followed the line of his back before he came to the mansion. Different to Magneto, who pushed into one direction only, who told him he was a God while Pyro fell in love with Prometheus. Mystique smiles and changes, even without blue and scales, and the only rule she bothers to follow is survival. They might be able to build a kingdom together and they could burn it down the very same day, and it makes him smile and when he looks at his reflection he sees that his smile looks like hers now.

Surviving is easier together, slipping through the net and ducking into shadows. Mystique is a light sleeper, when she sleeps at all, and his nightmares have kept him awake for years already. He's good at stealing cars; she's perfect in charming men, even if some might wonder about the way her skin shimmers sometimes, how dry it looks. And the cars that stopped for him only before stop for them now and she smirks at the men and he smiles at the mothers. When they pass close one of the Brotherhood's safe houses they decide to stop for a while.

Mystique has been there before, Pyro can see it by the way she moves through the rooms, and he takes the room closest to hers. He curls on the bed, breathing slowly, his lighter clicking, and he listens to her moving through the house. This is good, he thinks, and it is. It's the calm before the storm, before something greater than a storm and he breathes and waits.

He feels Mystique waiting, too.

Pyro tells her that he hates Iceman one evening while the news are on, the X-Men in the background, Bobby in tight black leather and she laughs at him, deep and throaty, and he thinks he hears the echo he was so used to before she turned human in her laughter.

"Hate is a bit more complicated than that." Mystique says and her voice echoes deeper than usual as well, almost sounding like before.
"It requires energy. And work. It keeps you up at night and leads you on during the day. It blinds you, it eats you. It's a lot like love."
A smirk runs over her face then, playing with blue scales that form sometimes now, before it vanishes.
"I don't bother with either one."

He wants to ask about Magneto then, wants to ask if she ever loved him because he had thought she once did. He wants to ask if she hates him now, and he knows that both questions would be a mistake. Still they are there, rolling on his tongue, itching in his mouth, and it's the news that finally save him from asking what he wants to ask.

A mutant prison, a secret for so long, but now it's out because this channel is mutant friendly. Pyro can see the tension in the reporter's face as he speaks about the high security measures, the secret location somewhere underground, and the Seals guards whose identities are as secret as the project itself. But the prison is out there, the reporter assures, not finished yet but it's out there and the government doesn't want them to know.

Pyro feels Mystique tensing beside him and he knows she wonders how he would have broken her out of this one. How they would get out if they should be caught. He wonders himself.

"It needs to be destroyed," she finally says and he swallows and nods.
"Yes."

She gives him a blue-skinned smile that creeps down his spine and makes him shudder. She's dangerous, even now, and sometimes he forgets that. Sometimes he remembers.

Mystique gets up, her movements graceful but tensed, and Pyro follows her as she walks through the house and into the basement. The computers are there, hidden behind a trapdoor that leads another level down, and she turns one on and he's reminded of how often he saw her doing this. Going through their network, checking all the information they had collected, looking for their next mission.
"We must have missed this one," she says and he can hear her restrained anger. "Magneto must have missed this," he says because it had been Magneto who made the final decision. She doesn't react and he doesn't push her, waiting and watching as she reads through files.

She's too quiet and he still hates this, hates waiting and sitting and listening to nothing more than his own breathing. He gets up slowly and leaves, wandering the house and playing with fire. He wonders what the X-Men think of this prison. He thinks they probably help the government in building it. He sets a lamp on fire because his anger flows out of him and he curses quietly when he puts it out. He wants to burn something. He wants to burn Iceman and forget about Bobby and the mansion and that he used to feel safe there. He can't remember how that feels. Safety. Just another lie they told him. Just another thing he has to forget.

When Mystique comes up again her smile lets him know that she found what they need.
"We got a mission?" She nods and he smiles, the quietness is over and they'll be moving again. And he'll burn something and that's all he needs.

They pack guns, ammunition, knives, bombs and plans and Pyro feels his heartbeat synchronize with Mystique's movements as they get ready. He knows this; has done it before, before Mystique left for the mission that broke her body and destroyed the Brotherhood. But the past doesn't matter anymore and Pyro doesn't ask himself what they are now. They have a mission, they have a plan and nothing will stop them this time.

They take a Brotherhood car, an old van, and it swallows more gasoline than miles but it doesn't really matter because they're on their way. It doesn't take too long, the soon-to-be prison is not too far away from their safe house, and they have to wait until night before they make their move.

Their plan is easy enough, the prison might be underground, but they have fire and they have bombs that do much more than make a little noise. And they know how to get it down there because the prison isn't finished yet; it's still open tunnels and unclosed connections and Pyro knows it's not the first time Mystique stops humans from finishing one of their masterpieces.

They crawl into the night, closing in on the guards surrounding the area, and Pyro knows that Mystique kills hers by hand while he relies on the gun he carries. Two down, three, then four and Pyro doesn't like the ease of it all. Something will go wrong, he knows it, he feels it, and when they reach their destination he sees tension radiating from Mystique.

He tries to smile at her, tries to tell himself that nothing could possibly go wrong but when she slips into the darkness of the tunnel ahead he doesn't want to follow her. He stops, hesitates, breathes, and steps into the darkness. Some steps and he can't hear Mystique, a few more and there she is. Still, listening, and he forces his body to freeze.

"Hurry!"
The whisper is a gun shot in the quietness and Pyro jumps back, his hand reaching for the gun at his side.
"I'm hurrying!"
Another voice and then the darkness moves and turns into three people running towards them. They see them and stop, almost running over each other, and for a moment there's nothing but shadows again. Shadows that stare at each other and for a second Pyro is scared. Then he has his gun in his hands, pointing it at the newcomers and Mystique moves beside him.

"That's Mystique!"
An awed voice and Pyro hesitates, gun wavering.
"Wow."
He looks over to her, watches as she steps forward. Sudden light and he closes his eyes against it for a moment, glaring at the flashlight. He hears Mystique chuckling then, a low sound that fills the tunnel.
"It's the new Rainbow Alliance."
Her voice is amused, a taunt hanging in the air between them and the newcomers.
"The what?"
Another chuckle and then she points at the badges the three wear on their shoulders. He can't really see them but Mystique had always been better in the dark than him and that hasn't changed.
"Mutant friendly humans fighting the good fight."
A snicker and her smile is dangerous again, staring at the humans. For a moment no one moves and Pyro stares at them as they stare back weary and tensed. Then a cough from one of them.
"As much as I love this staring at each other, we better move. We brought some bombs in there and they should go off soon."

And then the quietness turns into running, their footsteps loud in the tunnel, the light of their now turned on flashlights dancing before them. The tunnel ends but they keep on running and he can see Mystique ahead of him, her legs a matching staccato to his heartbeat. Then comes noise and light and he's flying, pressure all around him. He never knew an explosion could be like this. He had always been far away when the bombs went off before but now it happens behind him and under him and the ground is shaking when he's crashing into it.

For seconds he can't breathe, he can't hear and the world tilts all around him before everything comes back to him and someone pulls him to his feet. Big, rough hands, not Mystique and he pulls out the human's grasp, pushing him away. He doesn't need saving from them, he doesn't want them to touch him.

He doesn't want them to fight the mutants' fight.

Pyro stares at them, two men, one woman, all of them covered in dirt now, and he wants them to die. They stare right back, straight backs and too damn proud, and his finger itch and he can feel all the fires around him. Feels how they pull on him, love him and he loves the fires right back and he wants to feed it.

Two of them, the woman and the man at her side seem to notice the fires now and look away from him, taking in the flames and the debris.
"We really need to get away from here."

The third human only nods but doesn't look away, he keeps on staring at Pyro. Blue eyes, Bobby-blue, and Pyro wants to look away. But he won't. A human won't force him to back down; Bobby won't force him to back down.

"I could burn you alive."

The human smiles, his face calm, but Pyro can hear the startled gasps from the other two.
"Do what you have to do."
And Pyro knows that this is their leader. His smile brightens at his words and for a moment Pyro wants to burn him just for that. Not for being human but for the way his lips stretch over his teeth, for the way he seems so calm and unafraid. The way he looks like himself and no one else. And Pyro wants this, wants to feel like that and maybe if he burns that human and eats the ashes he can.

Or maybe he has to make himself alone, form his body and mind from mud to matter and add his soul in the end. Maybe he has to. Maybe he can.

Maybe the smoke and noise is getting to him and he's going crazy.

"All I have to do is getting me out of here," he finally says and the human laughs.
"Agreed. I think we have to go this way."
His finger points to the left and they march on, Pyro with Mystique on his side, the Mutant Rights activists scattered around them. When they hear the sound of the X-Jet the woman speaks up again.
"We really, really need to get away from here."
Pyro chokes down his laughter and speeds up his steps.

It starts to rain and he knows that its Storm's doing, trying to stop the fires. The humans stop, suddenly, and the leader smiles at them again and Pyro wonders if Mystique will kill him anytime soon.
"Well, I think we better leave you now, because we really don't want you to kill us."
The smile turns into a grin and Pyro hears Mystique laugh beside him.
"I really hope we don't meet each other again. Well, unless you change your opinions on humans. Then we could work together."
Another grin and Pyro wonders if this human is crazy, if all three of them are, and when Mystique finally speaks he's ready to kill them if she wants to. They're only human, after all.

"We rather not," She says and smiles at them. "But I'm sure you'll find mutants who want to."
Then she turns and walks away and Pyro follows her, finding his place by her side.
"What do you think of them?"
She shrugs, her steps guiding them closer to the prison again.
"They could be useful but I have no patience for idealists."
"Is that what they are?"
Another shrug and they are on a small hill now, fires and screams ahead of them.

He watches the X-Men fight the flames from above, his eyes sweeping over black leather, new explosions and the chaos of people trying to get away. He stops when he sees Iceman.

"You think we should still be here?"
"Yes. We need to know how they fight now." Now. After Dr. Grey and Cyclops and the professor.
"You think we'll fight them soon?"
"Maybe. Do you care?" It's his turn to shrug now, a forced movement. He cares. He isn't ready yet.

They keep on watching and Pyro has to admit that the humans did a better job than they would have done. New explosions come in waves and Storm's rain can't do much against the fires starting again and again. He sees Iceman and Colossus and Shadowcat and he remember laughing with them and joking with them and for a moment he closes his eyes. For a moment he needs the world to stop spinning and his life to stop. When he opens his eyes again everything is brighter and harder and nothing has changed at all.

He feels the urge to reach out and calm the fire and he hears Mystique laugh beside him. He wants to tell her that it's just Iceman's ice inside of his skin reaching out to its maker but he knows she wouldn't believe him. He knows it's a lie.

He keeps quiet and watches as Iceman is encircled by flames and for a moment he's sure Iceman will get out of it without problems. But Bobby staggers and Bobby falls and John has flattened the fire around him before he even realizes it.

Mystique laughs again and he shrugs, hoping that Iceman won't see him.
"You're such a good boy."
"No, I'm not." He isn't, has never been, he's just not without a past and he isn't an evil mastermind.

He doesn't really want to be one anymore.

Third – A map of tomorrow

Bobby wakes him with a not so friendly fist against his shoulder and he chokes and stares.
"Yo, man."
Bobby's voice, almost Bobby's voice, there's an echo and when Pyro blinks he sees gold in Bobby's blue eyes.

"Mystique?"

Bobby laughs and changes and now there's blue and scales and Pyro smiles.
"So, you're back."
"Almost."
He nods and thinks of Bobby's voice.
"Almost," he agrees.
The voice doesn't fit, not yet, but it will. It has to. Pyro doesn't want to think of the consequences of a permanent cure, doesn't want to think of the war that would be ahead of them then.

"God, you really had me there for a second."

And she had. It's been too long since he had been with Bobby, had spent time with him without the lines of fire and ice and hatred drawn between them. It was harder now to see who Bobby was.

"So, any plans?"

Mystique shrugs and gets off his bed. They're back in the Brotherhood safe house and the encounter with the mutant right activist has turned into the amusing anecdote it should be. Along with watching Iceman and wanting to help him. Just a silly fancy of the moment, easily forgotten the day after.

Easily pushed away.

"I don't know yet."
Pyro hears the lie in Mystique's voice, he's better at reading her than he thought. He almost wants to make a guess but he doesn't. There are things no one should ever do when it comes to Mystique and he learned these rules before she was made human and he was made a victim of ice and coldness.

"OK. We have time, I guess."
Mystique doesn't answer, just leaves the room and Pyro lies back down, closing his eyes against the sun shining through the window. They have time. He just doesn't know for what. He hopes Mystique will share her plans soon.

In the end it takes her a week until she walks into the living room, a young woman, vaguely familiar, with golden eyes.
"We need to meet Magneto."
Pyro shrugs, he knew this was coming, and still he had no real opinion about it. Magneto had been his leader, their leader, and he left Mystique behind. Pyro left her behind, too, but he was too busy following Magneto to realize that back then.
"OK," he finally says and she doesn't really acknowledge him.
His opinion doesn't really matter, not for this. Pyro knows and he doesn't protest. He just follows again. For now. For her.

Another Brotherhood car and another trip through the country, the landscape flying by at the edge of his vision and he falls asleep while Mystique drives. Cheap motels, short stops for filling up the car and their bellies, avoiding the masses since Pyro still can't risk ending up on the radar again.

It takes them days and Pyro realizes that he missed this, missed moving. It feels as if he's on a mission again, as if he has a purpose again. He remembers freeing Mystique and he remembers the destroyed prison. Maybe he has. The war isn't over, after all, and Mystique is with him now and things are different than during his time with the Brotherhood.

It's only then that Pyro finally understands that he doesn't miss the Brotherhood, doesn't miss Magneto's speeches of freedom and his iron rule, doesn't miss Magneto's bases. He misses being with so many mutants, Pyro thinks, but he missed Mystique more when she was gone.

He missed feeling her resonating to him, a soft timbre in the air, a silent echo of his voice. Mystique might have been like him years ago. He might grow up to be her. Possibilities between them and the future and he thinks he could like it. He knows he needs it. Filter his emotions until nothing is left but his goal and his strength and his fire. No ice left to melt, no friendship to mourn.

Mystique turns the radio on, changing stations until the car is filled with something to her liking, guitars and drum beats and a woman's voice, and Pyro goes back to watching the world outside as they pass it by. He sees clouds, far away, dark grey shapes storming the sky, and he waits for the rain to come over them. The sky is still blue, blue enough to remind him of ice flowing his veins, and he closes his eyes against it, resting his face against the window.

He doesn't want to return to Magneto and he doesn't want to fight the X-Men now. He wants to grow into fire, he wants to grow until blue reminds him of Mystique only. And then Pyro will kill Iceman and Bobby with him.

When he opens his eyes again its hours later and they're close to the end of their journey. He looks over to Mystique, expecting to see the young woman that drove the car as he fell asleep. There's an old man beside him instead, grey hair and wrinkles and a black suit. Pyro knows its Mystique, sees it in the way the body doesn't move old yet, and he shrugs the change off. Then Mystique looks at him her eyes are grey. He misses their golden glow.

And suddenly he can't bring himself to look any longer at this façade. Too human, he tries to tell himself, too much like Magneto, whispers something inside of him, and he really doesn't want to meet his leader. He still follows Mystique out of the car when she finally parks it and he walks beside her, forcing himself to look calm and ready for whatever lies ahead of him. Of them.

He isn't. Not yet, but he has to do this. His future will take a turn today, he might return to a fold of iron and obedience or he might find something else. Something new. ‘It's today or never', he tells himself, but it's a lie. It's today because Mystique wants it and never is far away.

The house in front of them seems to pulse with power. Grey coldness seeping through the bricks and Pyro feels as if he could taste Magneto's power. Metal hugging the balconies and steel flowing like veins through the house. Pyro doesn't need to see it; he can feel it, the current of Magneto's power vibrating through the stone. He would always be able to feel this. Forever.

Mystique slows down for a moment, hesitation in her stride, and he knows she feels Magneto, too. Feels it and maybe even doubts coming here. But she's Mystique so she walks on with her back straight and her head held up high. And he's John so he follows. Then he remembers he's Pyro, so he speeds up and walks beside her again.

The house is caught between darkness and light inside. Old stairs creaking under their feet, the pale light of the lamps making shadows dance and celebrate against the wall, the sound of TVs and children crying coming through different doors. Mystique knows where to go, Pyro feels it in her steps, and when she stops in front of a door he isn't surprised. He could feel Magneto, too.

Her fist knocked hard and fast against the door, the strength and impatience a sharp contrast of the mask she was still wearing. An old man with hard fists and John shuddered at the image, thinking of Magneto and falling pawns.

The door opens and they face their king, their future spreading out in black and white squares in front of them. Magneto smiles after a moment, opening the door wider and withdrawing to let them in. There's a second when Pyro thinks Mystique will turn around and leave, there's a moment when he wonders if he would enter the apartment anyway. But then Mystique turns into shades of blue and walks into the apartment and all Pyro can do is follow her lead.

The apartment is bigger than he expected from the building, Pyro can see computers in one of the rooms as they pass an open door and he knows that this is another one of the Brotherhood's many hiding places. It makes sense now that Mystique found Magneto so easily and somehow this makes Pyro feel better. No miracle behind it, just experience.

They are quiet for a while, a silent too thick to cut it with knives or swords, and it stretches between them, turning the small space dividing them into a desert. It's Magneto who speaks first, his voice unchanged, and right then and there it feels as if nothing has changed. No betrayals, no cure, nothing keeping them apart and a war still to lead between them.

"You found me,"
A smile for both of them, calm and certain and Pyro wants to rip it off.
"You came back to me."
"You think we did?"
Mystique's voice is hard and cold and Pyro feels himself straighten, his body mirroring her voice.
"You are here, aren't you?"
Still so damn certain, still the king and Pyro hates him and loves him and things don't make sense anymore. They haven't for a long time.

Magneto looks at both of them and for a moment Pyro wants to follow him again. But he won't. He looks to Mystique beside him, her skin a darker shade of blue than before. Anger, he thinks, and longing.
"You left me behind Erik. I won't come running now. You went too far."

And she turns around, simply turns, and starts walking. Pyro stands still for seconds, caught between Magneto and Mystique and he breathes slowly. Stay or leave, follow Magneto into his war, follow Mystique and find his own. He's not ready yet to be alone and if he stays he'll never be.

He wants to be ready.

He looks at Magneto the last time, takes him in, the greyness, the power, the age, and then he turns and walks away. It's easier than he thought it would be and he catches up with Mystique, his steps synchronizing with hers. Magneto stays silent behind them and when they close the door of the apartment it's loud and final and Pyro almost smiles.

"That went fast," he says and Mystique looks at him briefly before changing into a young woman as she leaves the house.
"There wasn't much left to say. "
And she's right, there wasn't. All the important things passed when Magneto left Raven and when he didn't come for Mystique later. The king was dead for both of them and they wouldn't let another king live their life.

She throws him the car key and he smiles at her, the first real smile since they left to find Magneto. It hurts for seconds, lips too dry, but then it is easy and when he gets into the car he doesn't stop smiling.

He drives too fast and he knows he shouldn't but he wants to get out of this city, away from Magneto and steel and into open spaces again. Where he can see shades of blue above him, bright and clear, and when they hit the highway he almost laughs out loud. This, Pyro thinks, is better. And it might be great one day.

He turns the radio on, changing stations until Cash fills the car once again and he hears a snicker on his left. Bobby sits beside him with golden eyes and a smirk and Pyro laughs quietly.
"Stop it, Mystique."
"Why? Still missing him?"
He hesitates for a moment, looking at her and seeing Bobby's face.
"Yes. But that doesn't matter. With me you don't have to be anybody else."
His eyes are on the road for a while and he speeds up, the car eating miles and spitting out distance instead of them. When he looks over to Mystique he sees blue and scales and a smile that is hers alone.

He thinks it would be a nice moment for a sunrise.