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Andi Murakami had been raised to be a good girl. She had spent a lot of her energy excelling at school and making clear-eyed, career-minded decisions. She was proud of the fact that she had accomplished these goals while contributing to just causes and helping those in need—at least those she had some competency to help. She did these things for herself, she knew; but she also did them to please her parents. She knew that even if they died in a car accident the next day, she would still be trying to please them. Or perhaps, more importantly, not to disappoint them.

Along the way, she had collected additional surrogate parents. These, too, she tried never to let down. Now one of them was waiting patiently and curiously for her to speak.

Andi sat in her accustomed chair in the Ellen Rotenberg’s office at the Psychology Department of Columbia University. Professor Rotenberg had been her teacher and mentor for five years and was now her Master’s supervisor. The cushiony chair’s well-worn embrace and the soothing effect of the Professor’s excellent Darjeeling tea served to take some of the edge off Andi’s anxiety. She had a hard decision to make.

“How is your writing going, Andi?” Rotenberg inquired gently. “I was expecting to see some more from you last month.”

“That’s sort of what I want to talk to you about, Ellen,” she began tentatively. “I’m thinking of changing the focus of my research. I have become interested—very interested—in studying mutant youth.”

Professor Rotenberg gave a small quirky smile as if she thought Andi was making a joke. Perhaps an inappropriately distasteful joke. The smile died when she saw Andi wasn’t kidding but a hopeful nature required her to venture, “You are kidding, aren’t you?”

Andi let out a small squeak and stuttered, “Um, no Ellen, I’m completely serious.”

“Then I don’t understand,” Rotenberg answered, kneading her hands reflexively. “You have spent years of your life—right from your undergraduate years—researching children of divorce. And now, just when your work is paying off, you want to jump to an entirely new… And not just new, but so… so radical!”

Andi felt herself wincing under Rotenberg’s piercing eye and a wave of panic ran through her. She tried to lighten the atmosphere with a smile and a laugh, saying, “Well, I don’t know if ‘radical’ is the word I would choose. ‘Different,’ maybe. Ellen, you should meet some of these kids! It’s fascinating—”

“My goodness, didn’t I just read about a family whose house collapsed when a mutant—their son I think it was—just blew up the furnace.” She was straightening pages on her desk distractedly, seemingly witnessing the horror in her mind’s eye.

Andi suddenly felt very cold. Why did they always have the air conditioner on so high? She glanced out the window at a starling perched on a wire. Despite its precarious position, it sang with confidence in the piercing sunshine of this blazing late-July morning. Andi longed for that heat on her own limbs.

She responded carefully, “Ellen, please don’t think I haven’t given this a great deal of thought. That’s why I’m seeking your opinion about—”

“It’s not just the lost time I’m concerned about. You would be plunging straight into controversial waters. I’m not saying that it isn’t important for us to learn as much as possible about…” she seemed to struggle just to speak the word. “About mutants. But there are many other aspects you could choose: public reaction, institutional planning.”

“But Andi,” Rotenberg continued in an increasingly strained voice, “you are looking to study and, I fear, to advocate on behalf of mutant youth, a population whose legal status is far from certain and who—you must admit—might be highly dangerous to you personally and to the public at large. Not to mention to this department professionally!”

“Professor,” she ventured, trying to keep the discussion rational. “Have you ever met a mutant?”

The older woman immediately went on the defensive. “Well, not personally, but I’ve read many articles in the Times. The Atlantic also had an excellent piece—”

“Because,” Andi interrupted, “I’ve been working with mutant kids this summer. And if you could just see them! They’re beautiful! Some of them have iridescent skin and some can do wonderful things. It’s nothing to be scared of!”

“They’re children, Ellen. Their bodies are doing strange, horrible and even miraculous things that none of us understand, least of all them. They’re just as scared of what’s happening to them as we are. They’ve been rejected, hunted in some cases!” The older woman looked pained and Andi found that her fear of confronting this parental figure had completely evaporated.

Rotenberg sighed deeply. “Well, of course they’re children, but what kind of… Andi, dear, please think carefully. A good academic career is not something to gamble with so recklessly.”

Andi felt her spine straighten “Professor, thank you for your concern, but I think I’ve finally made up my mind. Now that I’ve gotten involved, I realize I have a duty to this population. Frankly, it’s hard for me to believe that this would not be a good move for me professionally. I have the potential to be one of the first experts out of the gate in an important new area that will have ramifications politically, socially, militarily…”

Militarily? Andi had actually surprised herself with the word. Until she said it, she didn’t realize that the military would, of course, be planning anti-mutant strategies and, perhaps looking to recruit mutants for their combat potential. She felt another chill go through her and she had wait to regain her composure.

Professor Rotenberg glared at her in silence until Andi forged ahead, braver now. “Furthermore, I’m pretty sure I want to take this work straight through into a PhD.”

“And who would supervise?” she asked coldly. “Who is qualified in this new field and, more importantly, who is willing?”

“Charles Xavier has offered to be my advisor, Professor. You know him of course.”

The older woman seemed utterly startled. “Well, yes, of course. Charles would be ideal. And he does still have adjunct professor status here. However, Andi, you might want to think twice about having him as your advisor.”

Professor Rotenberg leaned forward with a conspiratorial air and an almost comic excitement because there is no nugget of knowledge the academic savors as much as collegial gossip. “Rumors have been heard in the halls here, Andi. They say Charles’ interest in mutants goes beyond the professional. If you know what I mean.”

So, Andi thought, people suspect Xavier is a mutant. Should I warn him? He must know…

“Well if he is… like that, it’s hard to know what his real motivations…” she struggled to find words that didn’t make her sound less than a tolerant member of the New York liberal intelligentsia.

Andi was tired of being shut down. She rose from the chair—probably the last time she would know its comfort—and said, “Anyway, Professor, I’ll complete the paperwork for my new course of study and have it back on your desk by Wednesday. I have every confidence that the department will support my research in this field.”

She realized she should be more polite, more politic. Fuck it, she thought. I’ll mend bridges later.

She left the office without a backward glance. She began walking down the hall, faster and faster, a wave of emotion slowing growing in her breast. She ran down the stairs, through the building’s lobby and out the doors where the heat hit her like a fist. Still, she surged confidently into the daylight, closing her eyes and turning her face to the sun. Her heart was pounding and she wasn’t sure which of the many emotions cycling in her breast was dominant. Exhilaration, she decided.

The day dragged on under the merciless sun and the citizens of New York struggled through it until at last sunset brought them relief and they stepped out into the relative cool of evening to share the joyous respite. Among them were John and Keever who sat hunched across a decaying table in a greasy spoon, both with their long hair dangling over their faces. They were playing an intense game of hockey with a slowly-disintegrating sugar cube and two spoons. John couldn’t remember being happier in years.

A fierce slap shot split the cube in two, one piece hurtling through John’s goal (as demarcated by the serviette holder and his fork) and the other skittering sideways off the table.

“Score!” Keever yelled in triumph and threw his spoon in the air, catching it gracefully after two spins.

“You’re a sore loser, Johnny! I’m the champion.” In response, John picked up the winning sugar chip and whipped it at his opponent, bouncing it off his forehead. Keever’s eyes went wide and John shuddered pleasurably at his own bravado.

It was the first time the two of them had been out together in weeks. Sure, it was just for coffee and cherry pie at a craptastic diner, but Keever was John’s tonight. Since the fight in June, the boss had been possessive and paranoid and John had become a virtual prisoner in their squat.

Despite being with him all the time, Keever hadn’t had much room in his life for John. The turf war was in a state of tightly sprung détente, the tension never quite spilling over into violence nor receding completely.

But some weird concatenation of circumstances had somehow given them two hours when they could get away and be… Actually, John didn’t know what they were. He was both a romantic and a realist, which meant Keever was his very first boyfriend and his coldly calculated meal ticket. But tonight, John let himself play the romantic. He allowed himself be courted.

He thought back to his first night in the city just two months earlier, the day he had run away. He had been sitting in a park not far from where they were now, scared and alone but kind of high on his daring. Until he had packed his few things and climbed aboard the bus in Syracuse, he hadn’t believed he could escape from the nightmare of his home life. But he had done it. He was John fucking Allerdyce! He was Pyro!

In his memory, he and Keever had spotted each other at the same moment like in a hokey chick flick. It wasn’t long before the sexy young man was chatting him up, strutting for him like a macho peacock, inviting him back to the squat. John’s romantic side sort of remembered it as a perfect night of love. However, the nagging buzz of the realist in the back of his head also reminded him of his need, his fear and the pain he sacrificed up that night on the altar of dubious security.

But now here they were, out on a date! Keever sat back, brushing his thick hair from his face and sipping his coffee like he was in a chic Parisian café. “I’m going to be something, Johnny. You stick around and see. My life won’t just be selling crack to lowlifes. You watch! In a couple of years, I’m going to put you into a cool little loft overlooking Washington Square. I’ll get you a good laptop and you can write all day while I manage the empire.”

John kept the usual sneer out of his smile. He knew Keever needed his dreams and tonight, John could even pretend they might happen. He was about to start weaving his own golden threads into their mutual fantasy when the cell rang.

He cursed quietly as Keever answered the phone with the air of a busy Wall Street exec. He watched with consternation and then panic as changes passed through the boss’s face and body.

“Hold it, calm the fuck down,” the older man said firmly. “It’s Nikkatyne’s gang, right? Okay, here’s what you have to— Shut up and listen to me! I need you to keep the situation under control until I get there.” He now stood, pulling bills out of his jeans and tossing them on the table. John just stared. “And you don’t let any of our guys pull a fucking gun, is that clear? Keep a lid on those dumb shits.”

John sat frozen as Keever started to move for the door, hoping he’d be forgotten in the excitement, but Keever put a hand over the phone and yelled, “Johnny, with me! Now!” before heading out the door.

He swore again and followed, running to catch up with Keever’s long strides as the boss headed down the street for the schoolyard where shit always seemed to go down.

Keever was just heading through the gates of the yard when John caught up to him, panting. “Keever! Wait, I’m gonna head back. You don’t need me here, I’ll just be in the way.”

The man spun around and grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him through the gate. “No, you’re with me, Johnny. You are going to be standing by my side.”

“Hold it, hold it,” he gasped. “Keever, I-I can’t be there! I don’t know how… What do you want with me anyway? I’m no fighter! I’m just… just your—”

John kept wrenching Keever’s hands off him but Keever kept grabbing a new piece until he finally pulled a hand back and slapped John hard across the face. John froze in shock, his hand rising to his hot cheek. He stared up at the boss and felt tears coming to his eyes.

Keever stared back with furious certainty. “I am marching into that schoolyard and you are going to be at my side. You are going to present yourself as my lieutenant. You will look fearless. You will look pissed off. You will give everyone there that same fucking sneer I see you hand out to the gang. Are you hearing me, Johnny?”

John stared back and felt something like hatred burn in his stomach. He wanted to tear Keever’s face off and light it on fire. But he couldn’t, so he used the anger to straighten his spine and to push the fear down. He spit his words in the boss’s face: “Fine. Let’s go!”

Keever tossed his hair, straightened the hem of his t-shirt and began marching into the schoolyard, John at his heels. They rounded the building and saw a game of human chess between their gang and Nikkatyne’s. There were boys on the playground, boys on the jungle gym—scared and dangerous. Two sides coiled in unblinking tension, two colors facing off, waiting to see who would make the next move, ready to take out any players who showed signs of weakness.

Keever climbed up on a raised air vent like he was taking a stage and John jumped up beside and just behind him, arms crossed in front of him so his shaking hands wouldn’t be as visible. He looked out as the boys turned to them and he realized with a sickening lurch of his stomach how many of them were armed. And how exposed he was.

Most of the boys were no older than his 16 years and some were younger, but he recognized on their faces the same hard look he was throwing back their way. He had learned that look at home, facing down the man who could beat him with impunity. He had learned that he could not protect his body but he could hang on to his pride and, when that was torn away, to his anger.

John could hear Keever speaking, trying to both diffuse the situation and come out ahead in the turf war. But he couldn’t hear the words through the rushing in his ears and the pounding of his heart. Sometimes, someone in the yard would light a cigarette and the sudden explosion of the match or lighter would be like a firecracker in his head. He couldn’t hear Keever, but he could hear the flames, like angry ghosts, cursing in the void. Through the chaos of his brain, he thought he understood conditions being drawn up and Keever calling for a meet-up with Nikkatyne.

And suddenly it was over and John felt Keever pulling him away. The square was emptying, occasional impotent threats ringing through the air. John couldn’t clear his head, could only stumble after Keever as members of their gang surrounded them, debriefing, decompressing.

“Nah, he never shows his face, but I bet the fucker was watching. I know he was.”

John felt another explosion in his head that made him stagger. He snapped his gaze around to the fire-escape on the back of the school. Up around the third floor, a large man in eerie silhouette was lighting a cigar, puffing the flame higher as he watched them. The flame pulsed an echo in John’s head and he fell against a wall for support. He felt the man’s eyes on him, staring intently before he vanished into the shadows. John suddenly pitched forward at the waist and vomited with a wet splash on the concrete. His hands were on his knees and his head was swimming as he looked down at the ruins of his cherry pie. What a night of romance, he thought bitterly.

Then Keever was behind him, a gentle hand on the back of his neck, helping him up, wiping his face with a tissue.

“You did good, Johnny,” he said quietly to him. “My little lieutenant.” He wrapped an arm around John, steering him towards home. John leaned his weight into the man and let himself be cared for.

“Much better, Robert,” Professor Xavier nodded, handing Bobby back his sociology paper over the expanse of his wide, cluttered desk. “Your research is much more rigorous than in the first draft.”

Bobby leaned forward in the wingback leather chair that was probably a Xavier family heirloom like a hundred years old and, smiling, took the essay back. “Really? I worked until almost three last night.”

“Hmm. You should ensure that you are getting adequate rest. Your life is too busy to go short on sleep, Robert.”

Too busy? Bobby thought. My life is perfect! Aloud, he apologized, “I know, Professor, but you really challenged me to back up my points.”

“—I want you to carefully consider your comparison of mutant integration with that faced by immigrant populations in America. What are the distinctions? Off the top of my head, I can point out that mutants raised here have advantages of language, relative wealth—”

“Right, cultural background, et cetera. Okay, okay. I’ll fix that.” Bobby hadn’t known before that he could be so simultaneously exasperated and pleased. Teacher and student kind of beamed at each other for a minute before Bobby stood up.

“And I have the great pleasure of filling out yet more paperwork for the District School Commissioner.” The old man glared at the forms in front of him as Bobby moved to leave. “Robert?” he called out, stopping the young man in his tracks. “I’m glad you’re here with us.”

Before things got too mushy Bobby opened the oak door and raced out, forgetting to close it as usual. He ran down the corridor singing “American Idiot” at the top his lungs because he loved how the echoes sounded against the paneled walls. He knew that in a few short weeks 12 new students would arrive and the mansion would become a busy place, but for now, he could feel like a rich boy in one of those British costume movies, living his life in a hundred rooms, puffing out his chest with the certainty of his baronial privilege.

“Now everybody do the propaganda / And sing along in the age of paranoia!!”

He ran past the big hidden door—the secret elevator to the lower levels that Scott and the other adults were so cagey about. He knew Cerebro was down there, but what other mind-blowing high-tech wonders shared the space? Super computers? Mutant testing labs? As his curiosity had grown, so had the wildness of his theories.

His rubber-necking almost landed him in a pile of construction garbage in the lobby. He jumped over it with a battle cry, ducked under a ladder in the adjacent corridor and did a final sprint through the locker room door.

Panting, Bobby looked around for Scott and saw him sitting on a bench by the lockers in just track pants, tying the laces of his training shoes. Bobby felt his brains kind of freeze up the way they did when Scott was around in some state of undress. Conscious thought took a coffee break as he allowed his eyes to quickly wander over the lean, fit torso with its sparse hair and well-defined muscles. Scott’s six-pack especially made Bobby’s intelligence depart for some other galaxy while the more primitive parts of his brain had a field day.

“Come on,” Scott said in his brusque field-commander voice. “You’re five minutes late. I’ll meet you outside.” Scott stood and pulled on a gray t-shirt which made the School’s stylish ‘X’ logo stretch over his firm right pec. He closed his eyes while he switched from glasses to visor then firmly shut his locker. He left the locker room and Bobby could hear him open the heavy fire door that led to the back gardens of the mansion, the sports field and the acres of meadow and forest beyond.

Bobby hurried to his locker and began to change into X-marked sweatpants and a sleeveless t-shirt with a big central ‘X’. Idly, and connected to nothing at all, he wondered if he’d have time to jerk off between training and dinner.

During a memorable and slightly drunken night at Mike’s house, his friend had asked Bobby what he thought about when he jerked off. Stammering like a jack hammer, Bobby had told him, “Nothing! I don’t think of stuff... I just sort of do it.”

Bobby was vaguely aware that there were whole sections of thought that seemed to be off-limits and that was… just fine and didn’t merit more consideration.

He met Scott outside and joined him in his stretching regime before they began a two kilometer jog around the track at a medium fast pace. When they had started training almost a month earlier, Bobby had been shocked to find out just how out of shape he was compared to his 24 year old instructor, and after a couple of days, he had been a ball of aching exhaustion. Yet Scott never disparaged him, instead giving him tips on managing his breathing and on maintaining optimal balance in his workouts.

After a couple of weeks, Bobby was amazed at how strong and fast he was becoming. Similarly with his schoolwork, he came to remember the joys of learning. Xavier challenged and encouraged him in sociology, literature and physics. Ororo gave him new perspectives through her teaching of history and reminded him how much he had always liked biology. Scott, in addition to making him feel like an outright hero through his training was also an excellent math instructor, even if he was a bit, well, boring when explaining quadratic equations.

If there was a common thread in all their teaching, it was focus. Bobby was learning to quiet the voices of despair that had taken over his soul in the past year and apply himself fully to whatever he was doing.

Bobby and Scott finished their 2k but instead of stopping, Scott turned from the track and ran them deeper into the wild part of the grounds. Breathing evenly and enjoying the warmth in his limbs, Bobby smiled because they were going to the best place of all. They climbed a small hill and stood at the crest overlooking a stretch of scorched and broken turf. This blasted field was surrounded on all sides by rising banks of earth, which formed a safe bowl where a mutant in training could unleash even deadly powers. Inside the pit were various painted circles and targets, most half-destroyed, and a series of colored game flags.

Scott tried to look serious as he surveyed the pit, but there was a mischievous smile playing at the edges of his mouth.

Bobby dutifully spread his arms wide, took a centering breath and each hand quickly filled with a rough ice sphere. He wound up and sent one and then the other out over the pit. Scott’s hand flew to his visor control and released short blinding optic blasts, completely eradicating the ice balls in turn before either could hit the ground.

“I’m escaping,” Scott shouted, before the hiss of steam was dead on the air. “Don’t let me get reach the red flag!” He began racing in a zigzag down the slope into the pit.

Bobby chased after him, sending shots of ice and sleet through the air at his target’s back. But Scott was weaving too fast and would soon reach the flag. Bobby swept his arm in a wide arc and a ragged sheet of ice suddenly formed in front of Scott. Scott tried to evade it, but his momentum was too great; he found himself slipping and rolling downhill.

Bobby jumped up and threw his hands into the air in victory; but his celebration was premature as Scott rolled neatly out of his tumble into a stable squat and blasted the ground loose below Bobby’s feet. Now it was Bobby who found himself rolling down the muddy slope as Scott got back on his feet and raced for the flag.

Cursing, Bobby pulled his face from the dirt and look around desperately for a strategy. Then, just as Scott moved in on his target, a sudden whirlwind wound out of the ground like a cobra, knocking him sideways before it encircled the flagpole and lifted it right out of the earth, showering Scott with mud.

Bobby rolled over and saw Ororo at the top of the hill, one arm extended as the whirlwind brought the flag right to her, her white hair flying in its wake. Bobby grinned like an idiot and Ororo responded with a small, satisfied smile. In her no-nonsense way, she commented, “Today’s lesson, Bobby, is teamwork.”

“Teamwork, huh?” muttered Scott, rising to his feet and brushing the mud from his hair. He raised his hand slowly, menacingly to his visor and yelled, “Bobby! Ice wall!” before he began shooting at the ground, sending clods of earth flying at him. Bobby squeezed his eyes into slits at the assault and began building a narrow wall of ice from the ground up to shelter himself. It took him almost five seconds to make a shelter he could barely crouch behind—a much faster time than last week, he noted—but by then he was coated in mud.

Bobby peered nervously over the edge of his dirt-spattered wall and saw Scott smiling dangerously at Ororo. “You might want to join Bobby in his shelter, ‘Ms. Teamwork’,” he said before he shot a series of pulse blasts into the earth in front of her, sending a shower of mud at the fastidious weather witch who howled in response.

Soon the three of them were together in the pit, fighting with ice, optic blasts, wind and whatever dirty tactics they could improvise. Bobby kept falling into the role of sidekick, sometimes aiding Ororo against Scott and sometimes becoming Scott’s lieutenant in the battle of the guys against the girl.

Fifteen minutes later, they were lying together on a small patch of grass that had survived unscathed on one side of the pit, filthy, breathing hard and staring up at the beautiful high clouds that twisted into spectacular, mutant forms overhead.

“Bobby,” Scott began, “you keep leaving your left flank open. Every time I knocked you down I came in from that side.”

“I know!” he answered, frustrated. “And every time you did I thought, ‘Left flank! Left flank!’”

“Well, that’s good. Becoming conscious of an error is the first step in overcoming it.”

Bobby loved how Scott taught him. He neither condescended nor hectored. He rarely handed out overt compliments but he always let him know that he was improving. More than anything, Bobby wanted to make him proud.

The three sat up and looked at each other with a sense of joyous shared experience.

Excitedly, Bobby announced, “We should rent ourselves out as security or something. You know, for someone big like a hip-hop star or the President. We could be, like, an ultimate fighting team!”

Ororo raised an eyebrow in Scott’s direction and said dryly, “There’s an interesting idea, Scott. Perhaps we should suggest it to Charles.” Scott frowned at her but she didn’t seem to notice. She stood, brushed the mud from the front of her sweatshirt, turned and began walking back towards the house, giving them a small wave over her shoulder before she disappeared over the crest of the hill.

After a minute, Scott spoke. “There is much we can do as mutants to help the world. But for now, we have to educate the public so they accept our help instead of resenting it. We are training for the day when they understand.”

“We also train to defend ourselves against a day humanity decides we are a danger that must be…” He paused until Bobby raised his eyebrows in concern. “Dealt with.”

The wind picked up again, making the dance of the clouds more anxious, more foreboding.

“Even so,” Bobby offered, “we could have some really awesome uniforms. It would totally cool.”

While they jogged back to the house, Scott treated Bobby to a discourse on seven ways to find a hole in an opponent’s defenses. He explained how the principles were the same for hand-to-hand combat as for an army storming a castle. Bobby listened respectfully, noticing that Scott was at his most verbose and engaged when discussing battle tactics. Bobby figured he must have been one of those kids obsessed with strategy games, an area that had never really interested Bobby. He was more into games of speed and skill like SSX.

As the mansion came into view, Scott picked up the pace and then notched it up again. Bobby kept up with him, stride for stride. Looking down, he saw their thighs rising and falling in unison and the sight thrilled him. Scott Summers and Bobby Drake, the fighting mutants, friends on and off the battlefield!

They turned into the formal gardens behind the mansion and Scott started sprinting, turning them into competitors. Bobby pushed hard, but Scott gritted his teeth and pulled ahead. It was sheer determination, Bobby realized. Scott wanted to win. Every time. At any cost.

Arriving at the door to the gym a few seconds after Scott, Bobby collapsed on the ground, panting, rivers of sweat carrying the mud down his neck.

“Get up,” Scott told him. “Do a cool down or you’ll get cramps.” He put a warm hand on Bobby’s bare shoulder and helped him stand, saying, “Good workout, buddy.”

When they’d finished their cool-down routine, Bobby watched Scott peel off his muddy t-shirt, the dirt on his neck and arms forming a negative shirt with the clean white skin of his torso. Scott opened the heavy fire door, the muscles of his back working, and disappeared inside.

Bobby moved in a kind of nonchalant slow motion, entering the building and following his teacher to the boy’s locker room. Once inside, Bobby stood at the mirror checking out his dirty hair, finding moments to catch glimpses of Scott as he got naked. Bobby had a deal with himself: as long as he didn’t stare too much, as long as he only saw stuff in his peripheral vision, it didn’t mean anything.

Yet as the weeks had passed, he had been building a mental map of Scott’s slim, powerful body piece by piece. Here, the crease of an arm as a bicep formed. There, the lean grace of the calf. Here, the jut of the pubic bone below the beautiful abs and there, the swing of the sturdy, compact equipment in its neat nest of dark hair. And at that especially he never stared.

“Look at that,” Scott teased. “The guy hasn’t even showered and he’s already admiring himself in the mirror.” Bobby blushed and turned away, circling around to his locker. “Is this what a houseful of adolescents is going to be like, Drake? God help me!” He trotted off to the showers, Bobby ‘accidentally’ witnessing the bump and bounce of the firm ass cheeks.

It was a long time before Bobby emerged from the showers to dress in the empty locker room. He stood again in front of the same mirror, putting gel in his hair, practicing smiles. He wondered who would be around at dinner. Sometimes it was everybody: the Professor, Ororo, Scott. Sometimes even more when visiting officials or friends stopped by.

Just last week, the Professor had announced that an old friend from the State Department would be joining them for the weekend. Bobby had been shocked when he had found the distinguished visitor hanging from the ceiling by one enormous bare foot while chatting with Xavier. Hank McCoy had been a bit stiff and formal but he had taken Bobby’s views about mutant issues with an air of seriousness that made Bobby feel important. He wished Mike could meet Hank.

But sometimes, rarely, it was just him and Scott and he hoped it might be that way tonight.

When he felt he looked good enough, he left the locker room quickly and headed for the lobby. As he got there, he heard loud laughter coming from the recreation room—a large area they were in the midst of furnishing with foosball and billiards as well as a ring of seats around a widescreen TV. Xavier was there, Ororo was lounging across the full length of the couch in bare feet; and on the loveseat sat Scott, almost hidden by the tall woman in his lap.

Bobby stood frozen at the door eyeing the stranger. She was tall—maybe six feet—wearing a tight mauve shirt that showed off her large breasts and a mid-length navy skirt. Bobby wasn’t a good judge of age, but she had to be 30. She laughed loudly and seemed to dominate the room with the force of her personality. Scott too was laughing at everything she said and he ran a hand along her neck and through her hair, his other hand squeezing her waist.

Perhaps sensing his presence, the Professor turned and called out, “Robert! Come meet Jean.”

“Hi,” she called out warmly, “I’m Jean Grey. Welcome to Westchester, Bobby. Have a seat!” One of the empty armchairs beside the love seat suddenly rotated his way, startling him. He then remembered: Jean Grey, one of the Professor’s original pupils. Medical doctor. Telekinetic. He stood frozen, wishing he could just back out of the room again. He felt confused, jumpy.

“Hey Bobby,” Scott chided, “Don’t be anti-social. I know my girlfriend looks scary, but really, she only bites if you ask her to!” Jean looked comically outraged and swatted Scott on top of his head. He retaliated by tickling her into oblivious howls.

Bobby felt kind of sick to his stomach as he came forward and curled himself into the armchair putting a fake smile on his lips and reaching out to shake Jean’s extended hand. There were thirty minutes until dinner, during which he was painfully monosyllabic despite his best efforts to be polite.

When the dinner bell rang, they headed for the dining room, Bobby lagging behind, dragging his feet with squeaking sneakers. He watched how Scott strutted around Jean and couldn’t keep his hands off her, like the football players at school who were always showing off that they had the hottest chicks. She was more self-possessed but seemingly happy to be the object of his adoration.

Bobby caught up with Scott and tugged at his sleeve. “Hey, do you want to try and map the circuit breakers for the dorms tonight?”

“Not tonight buddy,” he replied, reaching over to tussle Bobby’s curls. “I’m going to be busy, if you know what I mean!”

“Scott!” Jean admonished, “For a guy who dresses like Bing Crosby, you can be incredibly crude.” But she was grinning as she said it.

Dinner was set out in steam trays on the side tables of the dining hall. They filled their plates and moved to sit down at the heavy maple tables that Bobby and Scott had picked up from another old school in the area that was closing down. They all sat together except Bobby who ostentatiously picked up the New York Times and moved a few tables away. No one called him on it. They seemed too enthralled to hear about Jean’s latest work on the X-gene.

Bobby tried to shut them out and concentrate on his paper but he couldn’t stop the ungenerous questions that filled him. What does Scott see in this Amazon? Why does he let her talk to him that way? Doesn’t he know how dumb he looks mooning at her? Doesn’t he see she’s too damn old for him?

When Margit laid out dessert, they all got up to serve themselves and Bobby took the opportunity to slip out unobserved. He knew it was rude not to say goodnight but he felt like he couldn’t summon up one more smile. He walked up the stairs in silence.

His small room would eventually be a dorm for two but now Bobby was happy to be alone. Sort of. He paced back and forth, waves of tension running through his body. And with the waves came ice that he kept inadvertently leaving in his wake. He cursed his loss of control at the same time as he wished he could just let loose and bury the whole fucking school in a new ice age.

And so what? he harangued himself. Isn’t he allowed to have a girlfriend? What did you think? He was yours?

Bobby’s mind began replaying all the times he and Scott had spent together—working, laughing, talking—in the last month. He remembered endless boring hours filing all the papers that were piling up in the office and how they would keep each other entertained making up dumb action movie dialogue. He remembered drives through the countryside and excursions to the City and promises Scott had made to teach him to drive. He remembered the strength of Scott’s hands massaging a cramp out of his thigh after a hard run.

Bobby sat down at his desk and banged on the keyboard until his computer woke up. Emails from Mike. Fuck it. Emails from his mother. Double fuck it. He should do draft number goddamn THREE of his stupid paper that never satisfied Xavier. He should log on to 2gether and let Gina know he was alive.

But he was fucking sick of SHOULDS! What was the point of all this studying, all this training. He was nothing but a stupid mutant kid, nothing but a…

He tapped his desk aggressively with his pen until the rhythm coaxed more Green Day out of him: “Welcome to a new kind of tension, all across the alien nation.”

The tapping grew into aggressive banging on the old wooden desk with the flat of his hand and he shouted the lyrics hoarsely, tunelessly: “Well maybe I’m the faggot Ameri…!”

He froze. He saw his face reflected in the computer screen, in the desktop picture of Ross Rebagliati on his board, cutting through fresh powder in Torino. He stared at his reflection and it seemed like the snow and ice were in him, like Bobby Drake had been lost in the arctic wastes till he forgot what it meant to be human. Till there was no one there but Iceman.

He knew it had been unlikely. He knew that. But hadn’t it been at least possible?.

He started to cry.

The middle of August came around and John found himself living as a prisoner in a castle under siege. Despite tentative agreements between the two gangs, tension had remained high and, after the mysterious death of one of Nikkatyne’s boys, Keever had been expecting retaliation daily.

They had moved to a higher floor for security but that meant the living conditions were even more primitive; they had to climb five flights to haul water up and slop buckets down. The broken fence leading from the alleyway to the airshaft yard had been torn down and replaced with a guard post. No one got in or out without being seen.

John found himself once again abandoned by Keever and he spent his claustrophobic days writing poetry. That, at least, seemed to be going well. He was finding new confidence in his poetic voice and a new sense of playfulness that surprised him as much as it thrilled him.

From the old red trailer
By the abandoned mine
He watches the hills
For possible unlikelies
With their impossible scalpels

In the oily night they’ll
Open him up
And their dirty hands will
Rummage for interpretations
And plastic fetus parts

John cackled to himself as he wrote the last line. He had tried to interest Keever in his poems but the man had seemed perplexed and sheepish. John realized the boss was scared he would look stupid if he didn’t understand them. John felt profoundly let down by this show of insecurity from his knight. He found himself hating Keever—just a bit; just for a minute.

But that didn’t matter now. Now there were pretty words tucked into the leather folder which lay at his side as he stretched in the sunlight that filtered hazily through the dirty window and he felt just fine. He imagined the sun heating the folder until all the words inside were jiggling like cockroaches, starting to fuck each other in a wild literary orgy. They would beget whole new forms of expression, new words and new syntax—language that would invade the streets, slithering and writhing, turning everyone it touched into mutants! A new literary revolution of unprecedented fecundity.

He dreamed he was in a field and in the field was a tree and it was a swing set. His hands were over his head, tied to the bar and he was rocking lazily like a swing himself, bare feet inches above the ground. He was naked and he thought that was funny—being naked in his parent’s backyard in broad daylight. There was a beautiful woman in a blue dress like a glacier and she shared the joke, both of them laughing. She was holding something in her hand—long, furry. It was a wildcat and it snarled ferociously. He suddenly wanted to leave but his wrists were held tight by the ropes and his arms were aching badly. She swung the cat by its tail, back and forth, warming up, readying herself to strike. And John said, kind of desperately, “Not my face, Bobby.” And Bobby said, “I don’t want to hurt you,” and he raised the whip high.

John was being shaken awake by Chisel. Night had fallen and John felt a cold dampness fill the room. The beams of flashlights were crossing dizzily in the air and the sound of footsteps on the stairs was anxious and fraught.

“Come on, Joanna,” Chisel was saying but there was another note underneath his usual abuse: fear. “Get your ass downstairs.”

“It’s fucking Nikkatyne. He’s here, in person, with half his gang looks like. We’re either gonna strike a deal tonight or go to war.”

“Fuck.” John tucked his portfolio under the mattress and pulled a torn sweater over his t-shirt before following Chisel down the dark stairs. Windows in the stairwell looked out onto the airshaft which was filling with guys. Floor by floor as he descended, he peered out and his trepidation grew. He could see cigarettes lighting up and with each ignition, his head made a little ‘pop’. Since the standoff on the schoolyard, he’d become more sensitive to fire and he didn’t know what to make of this development. At least the little explosions were helping to wake him up.

Just as he approached the second floor landing, he felt a wave of sensation slam through him and he staggered, ending up on his knees. He breathed deeply, trying to steady himself. He pulled himself up to the window and saw that someone had lit a big fire in the garbage can in the yard. Eerie light turned the faces around the square to tribal masks and giant shadows appeared on the brick walls behind them.

John’s fire sensitivity was on overdrive. Since he had been 12 years old, he had been able to sense the presence of fire but this was a whole new level. He could feel the white hot core of the blaze; he could feel its hunger as it greedily consumed the scrap wood; he could feel each orange-yellow tendril as it licked the rusted rim of the barrel and then stretched skyward. Now that he was over being blindsided by the sensations, he realized it didn’t feel half bad. He raced down the last flight of stairs.

A knot of guys was huddled in the doorway that lead out to the airshaft, half hiding, ready to retreat. John pushed himself through them and out into the open. His heart was beating faster as he took in the scene. Guys were arrayed closer to or further from the blazing garbage can according to toughness. About ten feet out, everyone was armed and showing them off. In the center stood Keever and a huge black man in a long coat puffing a fat cigar: Nikkatyne.

John suddenly felt way too exposed and scuttled along the wall in a half crouch, heading for a dark corner where he could observe anonymously. He wondered how he’d react if Keever was attacked.

As he looked at the big intruder he no longer had any doubt; this was the man he had spotted on the fire escape that night in the schoolyard. Nikkatyne was older than John expected; probably in his 40s with a deeply lined round face, head shaved, lips full, nose fat and prominent. His eyes were large and keen. They betrayed no fear and stayed steadily on Keever’s face. John shuddered, imagining what it would be like to be caught in that gaze. It kind of turned him on. And kind of not.

Then it happened. Just before John reached his safe shadows, Nikkatyne’s penetrating eyes turned on him. Instead of running the final distance into the shadows, John froze and stared back. Without taking his eyes off John, Nikkatyne said something to Keever who—holy shit—turned and stared at him, too. What the fuck?!

They turned back to each other. Nikkatyne was smiling. Keever, his back to John shifted uneasily and bowed his head. John overcame his inertia and sprinted into the shadows, crouching behind an old refrigerator that was lying on its side. Something was really wrong. Another young member of their gang—a recent recruit who looked no older than 14—was also hiding behind the fridge.

“I dunno,” the boy whispered back, “They were arguing about where to draw a line between the territories. Nikkatyne—he wasn’t giving an inch and Keever just kept babbling like a…” but he realized he shouldn’t complete the sentence and instead just concluded, “It was bad.”

“Shit,” John muttered, digging a fingernail into the flesh of his arm until the pain was sharper than his fear. “Now what? They got all quiet!”

John’s heart stopped. No, he thought in panic, he didn’t just fucking call me, did he? He didn’t move—not a muscle, not a hair. The crouching kid stared up at him, eyes bugging out.

The voice came again, with an edge of frenzy and fury to it: “John! Out here, now!”

John rose slowly from behind the refrigerator, noticed by a few and then by more until everyone in the silent yard was staring at him. Shaking, he walked forward, from the relative shelter of the fringes to the flaming center of the event.

He tried to put on his game face, but this was just all too wrong. He knew he looked exactly as he felt: a scared kid. Nikkatyne had a smile on his face—a hungry fucking smile. Keever was red, staring holes in the ground, not looking back at John who was desperately willing his boss, his protector, his lover to please turn and face him—to let him know with a nod and a wink that it was going to be okay.

But, if anything, the closer John got, the more Keever was shutting him out. John knew that the kid behind the fridge was right. This was bad. Keever was beat. When he was ten feet from the men, John stopped. There seemed to be no sound in the universe but the crackle of fire.

His ginger hair covering his eyes, Keever said in a low, raspy rumble, “Johnny, listen. I need you to do something for me. For the whole organization.”

From inside the garbage can, the flames seemed to be shouting, arguing. Keever was speaking hoarsely, but John couldn’t hear him above the shouts of the flames. He shook his head to silence the voices, looking desperately up at Keever who had all but turned his back now.

John’s stomach was a tight ball, he felt Nikkatyne’s eyes on him and when he looked his way, the man smiled broadly showing sickly teeth, brown as mahogany.

“He says you got a sweet mouth, little John,” Nikkatyne said in a voice of toffee and acid. John started backing away slowly.

The flames almost seemed to be saying words, difficult poetry that his brain couldn’t parse: “Insinuate! Carnivore! Excoriate!” Shut up! Shut up! he thought.

Around him, men were fingering their guns nervously and Nikkatyne was staring with unwavering calm. John suddenly ran around the garbage can and grabbed Keever with desperate clutching hands.

“Keever! Please, no, don’t do this!” and Keever was pushing him off like he was a dog. John fell to the ground, crying now, grabbing at his lover's clothes, trying to climb back up him, desperate to find his protector inside this wall of stone! He had no dignity, no bravado—he had only his fear and his need.

Then a huge hand fell heavily on his shoulder, squeezing painfully, bringing him to his feet. John stood inert, tears streaming down his face. The stink of old tobacco filled his nostrils and he felt the heat of the fetid breath as Nikkatyne hissed into his ear, “You stop your bawling now, little boy, and come along quietly.”

“Retribution! Holocaust!” chanted the white hot core of the flames. “Incendiary!!”

“Let go of me,” John said in a new voice that had never been heard before. Nikkatyne straightened a bit in surprise and even Keever looked around.

The flames shot 20 feet in the air, leaving the wide mouth of the garbage can like a geyser. And somehow, impossibly they seemed to stop at their zenith and hang there like a hawk sighting its prey before they dropped like the wrath of God onto Nikkatyne’s back.

His followers were frozen at the unnatural sight. John broke free and ran halfway across the square. He turned back just as Nikkatyne fell to the ground, the flames devouring his long coat, licking greedily at his bald head. John seemed to see everything as if in a dream. He felt no fear and watched, fascinated, as the man struggled against the beautiful, beautiful fire. It was like seeing the Northern Lights on a summer night. He looked down at his own arms, which were also coated in flame. But instead of burning him, the flames seemed to dance around his limbs like a school of fish. A strange, child-like smile opened up on John’s face as he took control of the dancing fire and pulled it into himself. His sweater was only slightly singed.

Small bonfires of flaming debris were now scattered around the square and they seemed to sing to him, soothing and lovely. He turned his attention back to the burning man who was screaming now. The gang members were at a loss. Some were looking around desperately, impotently for help; others were arguing. To John, even those terrible flames, consuming fabric and flesh were beautiful. He walked calmly back to Nikkatyne, the heat from the fire having no effect on him. He raised an arm high in the air and the flames left the man’s body and flew in an arc back to John’s arm where they flashed like a sun and vanished.

The only sounds in the square were Nikkatyne’s pained groans and the crackle of the fires. John slowly turned three-hundred and sixty degrees, meeting the eyes of all. His circle ended at Keever whose mouth was hanging open.

John’s voice sounded very far away as he said very calmly, “I thought you loved me.” And with that, his legs buckled and he fell to the ground, the world vanishing in blackness.

He awoke with no sense of where he was or how long he had been out. Still, it must have only been a minute because now people were running, shouting, lifting Nikkatyne and hauling him awkwardly away. God, thought John, he looks like shit! What the fuck happened?

He felt a wave of nausea and he put his head down between his knees, trying hard not to throw up. Everyone who passed him gave him scared looks and kept their distance. He was confused, couldn’t put it all together. But then somewhere in the fringes of the square, he caught the words “mutie freak”. He got to his feet and suddenly remembered everything that had just happened. Everything he had just done!

“No!” the word flew out of his mouth and terror gripped him. He looked at the retreating figures of Nikkatyne’s gang, spotting the charred figure of the huge man they were carrying. The faces around him were scared and angry. Members of his own gang were pulling out knives and guns to defend themselves. From him.

He felt inside himself for that pure, elemental fire power he had unleashed just minutes before, but it was gone. Something had indeed shifted; he could feel it. The fires around the yard were calling to him in ways they never had before but he knew he wasn’t the demi-god that had called down burning wrath from heaven. He felt his fatigue—his limits. He had to get away. Now!

Beside him, an old wooden packing crate was blazing. He took a deep breath and did something he had never done before. He stuck his hand into the heart of the flame. It didn’t burn him. He grabbed a flaming stick and raised it in the air like the sword of judgment—though, in fact, it was a bit on the pathetic side as heavenly weapons go. The flames danced around the stick and around his hand. He began to move towards the guard station and the alleyway beyond, the others backing away. He didn’t feel cocky. He knew one bullet from a scared kid would end him fast.

He resisted the temptation to break into a run and just kept his steady pace until he had turned the corner. The torch went out abruptly and he grabbed the wall for support. He had to run, get away from them. But where the fuck would he go? Where could he…?

He suddenly remembered the leather folder with all his poems and stories, hidden five flights up. Leave it! his brain screamed. But he never listened, did he? He ran for one of the ground floor windows boarded up with old plywood. He began tearing at a loose corner, cursing as a rusty nail cut his hand. Then the wood was off. He grabbed the hunk of charred wood again and climbed into the dark corridor. He pulled out his lighter and relit the torch. Despite his fatigue, it was easy to make the flame take the wood in its hungry jaws.

With the torch his protection and his beacon, he reached the back staircase and climbed. He only bumped into a few of the gang but each time he would make the flames flash threateningly and they would turn and run. He finally reached the bedroom. The flames played eerily across the familiar space.

In the flickering, orange light, he saw all the little useless treasures he had hoarded and all the little domestic touches he had made to the dismal space. It was all part of a fantasy that had just, literally gone up in flames. He ran to the mattress and dug under it to find his portfolio.

He was shaking again and he realized that what he feared was meeting Keever. Portfolio in hand, he turned to leave and there the man stood in the doorway.

John clutched the portfolio to his chest with one hand and held the torch with the other, the flame sputtering down to a small glowing ball at the tip.

Neither moved and John didn’t know how to read Keever’s face. The silence probably felt longer than it was, but then Keever spoke. “You’re a mutant.”

John thought that of all the things Keever needed to say the moment, he had chosen the most banal and annoying. You figure that out by yourself? he wanted to snap back. But that wasn’t what he really wanted. He wanted to hear the truth of the betrayal. He wanted to hear something that would allow him to hate the man he loved.

The older man blushed. “Johnny, I had no choice. That was one of his conditions.”

“Me?” John’s voice was weak, much to his own annoyance. He wanted to become furious. He wanted to ignite the room and kill them both. “I was a ‘condition’?”

Keever barked out angrily, “It’s business, Johnny! It has nothing to do with… with us. Besides, it was you who lied to me! All these months, living here, pretending to be normal!”

John cursed the tear that broke loose and descended over his cheek. He realized he wasn’t at all afraid of his former boss anymore. He realized everything about them was “former” now and that made more tears come.

He wanted to fall into the bed—their bed—pull his clothes off and give himself to the stupid asshole by the door who just glared and stammered and swallowed. But he put on as angry a face as he could find and, concentrating on the torch in his hand, made the flame grow until it again encompassed the hunk of charred wood and his right hand. The power he had unleashed against Nikkatyne was gone now, but Keever didn’t know that. John returned the man’s glare.

The room danced in orange light and Keever suddenly looked frightened. He ran a hand through his hair and checked his route to the door.

“Johnny,” he ventured nervously, “Don’t do anything stupid. I wouldn’t have let him take you! I was just setting him up!” He smiled too wide, like a dog trying to appease its master. “Listen, we can be a team now! Remember when you stood up beside me in the school yard? Just think if we did that again. The little fuckers would shit their pants! Keever and his fire mutant!”

The rage welled up in John and the fire puffed out its chest like a swaggering dragon. “Keever, I’m the fire mutant,” John hissed quietly. “So why would I need you at all?!”

The fire puffed right to the ceiling this time and Keever cowered, holding his forearm over his face, but John could feel the drain on his resources. He wouldn’t be able to keep his powers flowing much longer. It was time to leave. With eyes as grim as death, he moved slowly towards the door and Keever jumped out of the way.

John dared give him one final horrible look and called out, “Don’t follow me or I will roast you like the pig you are.”

And then he was out the door. Almost immediately, the flame died out and he felt his legs growing shaky again. He punched himself hard in the bicep to snap out of the stupor. Portfolio clutched to his chest, he ran down the stairs as fast he could, counting on speed and surprise to get him out of the building.

He didn’t stop running until he was many blocks away on a main street. It was late, close to midnight probably. He looked all around as if he were in an adventure game—as if options would present themselves if he just kept his eyes open.

But everywhere he looked it was just the cold hard city of strangers. There was no one he knew, nowhere he could go that didn’t cost money. He had to get out of this part of town, that much was sure. He had just publicly burned up a major crime boss and outed himself as a mutant. He was fucked.

Once again he thought of the Bobby kid. But he might as well be on the Moon for all the help he could be. John was a criminal and maybe a killer now and Bobby… Bobby was all kinds of pure. Bobby wouldn’t—couldn’t help a guy like John anymore. He was alone now.

He feared the city; it was a silent behemoth that showed its teeth when roused. But he would survive and on his own. He willed his tired legs onward across the pavement and disappeared into the night.