Pyro and Illyana | Post Take-Down
Aug. 27th, 2018 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ax_mainThe missions may have been a success, but talking about them afterwards reveals a whole different set of problems Pyro and Yana are less capable of dealing with.
It had been a long day, and having to work with Scott fucking Summers hadn't done wonders for Pyro's mood. First they'd grabbed Pietro while they were on the phone, and then... Shit, the entire day had been a succession of things happening way too fast, and way too slowly. Like how long they'd spent talking shit out instead of just going in to save Alex.
But at least they'd gotten him out. The other teams had gotten everybody else out, too, including Q.
Long fucking day.
When he got back to his room, he just sat on the edge of his bed, and slowly unstrapped his fire-device from his wrist, trying to muster up the willpower to go get a shower. Get out of his uniform, and get clean. But suddenly, he felt as if he was running on fumes.
Having finally finished up with all the last minute "Can you just drop this off"s that everyone had come up with every time she'd tried to leave, Illyana appeared in the room she shared with Pyro to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, looking worn out. "You ok?" she asked, concerned, as she shrugged off her cloak and let it fall to the floor.
Pyro looked up and over at her, then nodded. "Yeah. You?"
"Yeah, fine. All I was doing was drop offs and pick ups," she pointed out as she came over to sit down next to him. "You look kinda not ok," she observed quietly.
"I'm kinda wiped, that's all," Pyro replied with a shake of his head, the device still in his hands. Putting it away would mean standing up, and he kind of... didn't want to do that just then. He leaned his shoulder against hers.
She slipped her arm around his back and tilted her head to his shoulder. "Tough mission?" she guessed. "How was Scott as a leader?"
"Well, I didn't get to burn anyone to a crisp," Pyro replied wryly, which was an answer to both questions, really. He'd really wanted to kill those fuckers. "But we got Alex out, so. I guess he wasn't too bad. Eileen was the best." As always, but clearly especially in that team.
"Of course she was." llyana rolled her eyes - it seemed sometimes as if Eileen was always the best - but smiled fondly. "And yeah, getting Alex out was the big thing." She made a face. "I'm still annoyed I got stuck transporting people around instead of doing anything."
"I'm kinda surprised you went along with it," Pyro stated. But, hell, he'd gone along with following Scott Summers's orders, so.
"Why would you be surprised?" lllyana frowned. "Lance and Wanda told us to cooperate. We had to get PIetro and Alex back."
"Hey, I'm kinda surprised we all went along with it," Pyro pointed out, hoping this wasn't going to turn into a fight. Fuck, he didn't have the energy for that. "It wasn't - you know." Ugh, he could make words even less than usual.
Illyana wasn't sure she knew what it wasn't, but she nodded anyway. "We did what we had to do. It was the best chance to get everyone back. And, I mean, you've said it yourself - it shouldn't be us against them. It should be all of us against the Right. And it was."
"Yeah, according to their rules," Pyro pointed out. It always had to be their rules. But in the meantime, mutants still died. They'd been lucky, this time.
"Lance and Wanda led two of the teams," Illyana countered. "And other than not burning the place down, how were the rules any different, really?"
Pyro straightened up, frowning at her. "Why are you - you know how they're different." And that was a big part of it, actually, not one you could dismiss with an 'other than'.
"Not really." Illyana shrugged and pulled back, turning to look at them. "I mean, I know how they're different personally? That's why I like it better here. But as far as this goes? Everyone goes in, gets people out of the way without killing them, rescues whoever needs rescuing, and gets out. Sometimes they blow the place up, sometimes we burn it down, but it's all pretty much the same, right? Except this time they wanted to get pictures afterwards and call the cops, so no one blew anything. Just like we didn't when we rescued Nico."
"We lost someone when we rescued Nico," Pyro pointed out sharply. Nope, still not over that. Who cared if she'd been dying already, they could have done something. Who cared if she hadn't been one of theirs, technically. She'd been a mutant.
"Fine, we lost someone." Though honestly, given that they'd never actually met the girl, she really didn't feel any loss. Just kind of sad that she'd died like she had. "That doesn't change the rest of it, does it?"
"We're only holding ourselves back because their judgemental bullshit got to Wanda and Lance," Pyro pointed out. "We might not have lost her if we'd gone in differently last time. It's a fucking miracle we didn't lose anybody this time. Still, we could've gotten Alex out more quickly if we'd just done our thing the way we used to. Those were all assholes who deserved to die."
"I'm not going to argue that," Illyana agreed, because honestly, she would've happily sent the whole lot of them to Limbo and let the demons have a field day. "But even before Lance and Wanda were calling the shots, you guys weren't exactly racking up casualties. The only time you did was Montana."
"But we were never careful about flatscan lives either," Pyro retorted. And with Pietro taken, he was pretty sure both Wanda and Lance wanted to kill those fuckers as much as he had. From what he'd heard, sounded like Lance hadn't held back, for one. The way things should be. He sighed, and finally found the energy to get off the bed. "Can we stop talking about it? It's bullshit, and we both know it, the end." The fact that they had to go along with it was kind of too depressing to linger on right now.
"Fine, done talking." Illyana got to her feet, walked over to the dresser, and started stripping off her uniform. "I like the bulletproof spandex," she observed as she tugged off the uniform the guy with the awesome hair had given her. "Beats the hell out of my vest." Granted, it'd be better not black, but she could probably fix that in Limbo, given a little time. Or just change her accessories. Either way.
Pyro had only worn the X-blacks because Wanda had given him a look that said he'd better, or else, but he'd still shrugged his sleeveless bulletproof jacket over it, because all-black was not his thing. He unzipped the jacket now, and pulled it off. "They're all right. I mean, it's not like they were using bullets against us, mostly, anyway."
"No? That's something, at least. What were they using?" She considered the uniform,then folded it up and put it in her dresser drawer. If X-Force wanted it back, then could come get it. "And I'm keeping mine. I'm pretty sure I look better without random holes in me, and my cloak covers most of it anyway. At least they didn't stick an X on it."
"Sound stuff, and charged nets, and like... power neutralizing bullshit that didn't last," he answered. Thank fuck.
"Huh, weird." Illyana frowned. "I wonder what'd happen if I got my power neutralized? Cal says the ability to use magic is a mutant thing, so...would it turn off or something?" And what would happen to Limbo if it did? Maybe she was better off not knowing.
"What does 'Cal' know about your magic?" Pyro asked with a scowl, as he put away his jacket.
"First off, he wasn't talking about my magic, he was talking about magic in general. And second, what's your problem?" Illyana frowned at him, her forehead furrowing.
"I don't have a problem, I'm just asking what makes him an expert," Pyro replied as he unzipped the top half of his uniform.
"It sounded like a problem. And he's not an expert, it was just something he heard. Maybe from Caleb? I don't know." She debated what to put on, and finally pulled out an oversized t-shirt she used as pajamas. Getting dressed seemed overrated.
"Well let's never figure it out, if it means you getting neutralized for a while," Pyro replied, moving right on from what was definitely not a problem. "It fucking sucks."
"Uggh, they got you with it?" Illyana said, turning towards him, her expression changing to one of concern. "I thought you were saying they hit someone else. Are you ok?"
"I'm fine, it was temporary." He'd peeled himself out of the top half of the uniform. "I'm gonna grab a shower."
"Which translates as I don't want to talk about it?" Illyana guessed.
"It translates to I really want a fucking shower," Pyro retorted, moving to get fresh clothes out of the drawers. "There's nothing to talk about, anyway. It didn't last."
Illyana rolled her eyes. "Fine, forget I asked. Go take your shower." It wasn't like she was going to get anything else out of him. She never did.
Pyro looked like he was about to say something, but in the end he just turned to grab his towel, and headed out the door.
A glare followed him out, but once he'd left Illyana sighed, retrieved the phone she'd set down on the dresser, and plopped down on the bed.
Hey, she texted Cal. Looked for you before I left but couldn't find you. You ok? Because why not? It wasn't like Pyro was going to tell her what he was pissed off about this time, and she felt like talking to someone. At least Cal answered.
* * *
By the time Pyro came back from the shower, all he wanted was to slide under the covers, snuggle up to Mage, and apologize. Maybe tell her about... It didn't matter, though, because of course, of fucking course she would be gone. Off with one person or another she liked better than him, and for a brief moment, he was tempted to set his fucking bed on fire.
But that wouldn't serve much purpose, and Wanda and Lance had better things to focus on than his fucking temper tantrums.
So he killed off the lights, grabbed his Zippo, and laid on his back, drawing things in fire in the air above himself.
Cal hadn't answered, or at least, he hadn't right away, and Billy'd been busy with Tommy, so Yana had closed up her phone and gone in search of Nico. Who, granted, wasn't the chattiest person on Earth, but who'd at least been willing to talk about the mission to rescue Pietro. Sometime later, and with a bag of Fritos in hand, she came back and entered the room, half surprised to see Pyro there. "Hey," she said, and helped herself to one more chip out of the bag before holding it out to him. "Want some?"
Pyro looked up when the door opened, and drew the fire into a disk oscillating above him, then pushed up into a sitting position. He wanted to say no, but his stomach rumbled loudly, and he rolled his eyes at himself. "Sure."
She brought it over and plopped down on the bed beside him. "Trying something?" she asked, gesturing towards the fire floating over their heads.
"Just dicking around," Pyro replied, as he helped himself to some of the chips. Not at all trying to calm himself down, not at all reassuring himself that he could still do it. Besides, if he stopped now, they would be in the dark. "Where've you been?" He didn't really want to know, did he? But here he was, asking anyway. Sucker for punishment.
"Getting Fritos." She propped her pillow against the headboard and leaned back against it. "Also hearing about the mission to rescue Pietro from Nico. He was on a team with that guy Wanda's dating."
Of course. The newbie. Better than a bunch of other options, at least. "And with Lance. Fucking lucky."
"You were with Eileen," Yana pointed out. "And Scott can't be that bad, right? He hangs out with Wanda." So, if nothing else, he wasn't totally anti-Brotherhood.
"It took forever to get started, and then we weren't allowed to kill anyone," Pyro retorted, with raised eyebrows. Avalanche had buried them all under rubble. No doubt he would have let Pyro loose. "And I wasn't with Eileen. She was with that guy Billy, and I was stuck with Cyclops."
"I've never met Billy," Illyana said, dodging the subject of X-Force's no kill policy, considering they'd covered that earlier and she still didn't understand how it was any different than theirs. "What's he do?"
"Knives of like, light, or something," Pyro answered, munching on more Fritos.
Illyana frowned. "Light knives cut? That's kinda bizarre." Or not, she guessed - lasers cut, right? Kinda the same concept, maybe.
"Hey, I make fire not burn when I wanna," Pyro pointed out with a shrug. All the science-y stuff was beyond him. "They look like light, anyway. I don't know what they are."
"Huh. Well, cool, I guess?" It didn't sound all that exciting as powers went, but she could be wrong. "Did they run into the suppression thing, too?"
"I don't think so, no," Pyro replied with a shake of his head. "Other shit, though."
"Like what?" Illyana asked curiously, reaching over to help herself to a handful of Fritos from the bag.
"Weird sound cannons, I think?" Pyro offered. "Eileen could tell you better."
Talk to someone else. Huge surprise. Illyana knew she wasn't being fair - it actually did make more sense to find out from Eileen directly - but she was tired of being fair. "Should I ask her what happened to you, too?"
Pyro scowled. "I don't know, maybe you could ask Nico."
"I tried that already. He didn't know. Maybe I should just post something on the fridge," Illyana countered.
The disk of fire that had been gently oscillating above them was now shifting a lot less smoothly. "Yeah, you go do that. Don't forget to ask Cal, I'm sure he'll know everything about that, too."
"Why would -" Illyana broke off and swiveled to stare at him, incredulous. "You're jealous," she accused.
The fire went out all of a sudden, plunging them into half-light, with only the light from the hallway filtering into the room. "Why should I be. He's just one more person you'd rather spend time with than me." He reached over and turned on the bedside lamp, then turned back to Mage, looking both wary and pissed. "Look, just." Part of him wanted to tell her to break up with him already, but he couldn't imagine what that would be like. He wiped a hand over his face. "Forget it. You do what you like."
"Uh, no. I want to get this straight." Illyana glared. "You hang out with Eileen. You hang out with Wanda. And your newbie the computer goddess. And I don't say a damn thing, because they're your friends. But if I do the same thing it's a problem?"
"I don't care if you hang out with whoever," Pyro retorted. "I care that you don't wanna hang out with me, okay? Like, just break up already, seriously." There, he'd said it, and now... now it would all go to shit. Well, more to shit.
"You want to break up?" Illyana stared at him, stunned, then set her jaw and got to her feet. "Fine. If that's what you want, you've got it." Eyes stinging with tears she was not going to shed, she walked over to the dresser and started piling her stuff on the floor for easier transporting.
And there they went. Tears welled up in Pyro's eyes, but he swallowed them back furiously, glaring to the side, since watching her would just make them overflow. This was for the best. No matter how empty his bed (his life) was going to be without her. It wasn't like he was in her life very much, and he'd been clinging to something that only existed for him for too long. Refusing to let go, like an idiot, because he'd believed - wanted to believe - he was a fucking idiot.
Illyana half dumped, half threw the rest of her stuff onto the pile on the floor, her anger rising. She didn't know where the hell this had come from - okay, granted, hed been making snotty comments about Cal from the start, but she'd written them off as his usual disdain for anyone associated with the school and hadn't thought more of it. But given that she'd been double-timing things in Limbo so that she didn't lose time at the base...she spun on her heels and glared at him, tear filled eyes backlit with a red glow.
"Y'know, if this is what you wanted? You could've told me before I doubled up on the entire summer so I'd have time to spend with you and still get everything I needed to get done in Limbo done. Seeing as you didn't want to stay there with me." Because yes. That had been his choice, because his team couldn't live without him. Even if, given the ability to get back literally before they'd left, they wouldn't even have known he was gone.
Pyro turned back to her with wide eyes. "Are you for real?" Aaaand back to glaring. He stood up from the bed, because sitting no longer felt like a viable option. "What did you need to do in Limbo all that fucking urgently? You chose to spend all your time there! You thought you were doing me a favor? It just took me longer to realize you didn't give a shit!"
"I didn't -" Ilyana blinked, confused. "That makes absolutely no sense. I wanted you to stay with me, but nooooo. You wanted to come back. Fine. You got what you wanted. You got to spend all the time you wanted to with your team, and as much time as you wanted with me, and I fit the shit I needed to do in between. But that's not good enough? I rule an entire dimension, Pyro. You wanted me to. I can't do that during Game of Thrones commercial breaks. It takes time."
"Yeah? Because from what you've told me, you've been decorating," Pyro shot back. If she'd been doing anything else, she hadn't bothered telling him.
"I - you want to see what I've been doing? Fine." Despite Pietro's explanation on why sending people to Limbo wasn't ok, Illyana called up a stepping disk beneath Pyro, who'd basically asked for just that - then followed with one of her own a moment later. And crossed her arms over her chest and glared, giving him a chance to get a good look at the foot-long dragons circling over the fire moat before saying anything.
"Any idea how hard it is to turn lizards into dragons?" she snarked. "Ones that are fireproof, and can breathe fire, and reproduce? How to do it without torturing the things in the process, because Belasco's spell books don't exactly figure in not wanting to make things hurt. Or how to adjust the ecology so they have a food source?" She glared at him. "I need to spend time here anyway. I'm not sure what'd happen if I didn't, but I doubt it'd be anything good. But this?" She waved her hand at the sky. "This was for you, you bastard."
Pyro looked back down at her, and his glare hadn't diminished any. "No. It was for you." It was a good thing there was the fire moat, because he felt vulnerable as fuck, standing in Limbo in his t-shirt and boxers. "All of this is for you, Mage! It's your dimension, your world, your tower, your fucking dragons!"
Illyana took a step back as if struck, feeling almost as if she had been. Wasn't that what he'd wanted for her? It wasn't as if she'd wanted - no, that wasn't true. She had wanted it, badly, but she wasn't sure she'd have actually done it without his encouragement. Rescued her teammates, yes. Taken the dimension...
"Fine," she retorted, setting her jaw as she straightened her stance. Because at the end of the day, it was all hers, and she wasn't going to apologize for that. Not to the person who'd enouraged her to make it hers in the first place. "You've got your team, I've got my dimension. Everyone's happy." She gestured and a stepping disk formed beneath his feet. "Just throw my stuff out in the hall. I'll get it later."
Pyro found himself back in his room, and he let out a short yell of frustration. "Fucking fine," he muttered, and grabbed her stuff to go throw it into the room she used for her magic.
And no, he wasn't fucking crying.
He didn't protest. She'd been hoping he would, that they'd scream at each other some more and then...not, like they usually did. But it wasn't like usual, none of it, and as the stepping disk closed around him, she had to brace herself before heading over the bridge to het tower.
And no. She wasn't crying either.
It had been a long day, and having to work with Scott fucking Summers hadn't done wonders for Pyro's mood. First they'd grabbed Pietro while they were on the phone, and then... Shit, the entire day had been a succession of things happening way too fast, and way too slowly. Like how long they'd spent talking shit out instead of just going in to save Alex.
But at least they'd gotten him out. The other teams had gotten everybody else out, too, including Q.
Long fucking day.
When he got back to his room, he just sat on the edge of his bed, and slowly unstrapped his fire-device from his wrist, trying to muster up the willpower to go get a shower. Get out of his uniform, and get clean. But suddenly, he felt as if he was running on fumes.
Having finally finished up with all the last minute "Can you just drop this off"s that everyone had come up with every time she'd tried to leave, Illyana appeared in the room she shared with Pyro to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, looking worn out. "You ok?" she asked, concerned, as she shrugged off her cloak and let it fall to the floor.
Pyro looked up and over at her, then nodded. "Yeah. You?"
"Yeah, fine. All I was doing was drop offs and pick ups," she pointed out as she came over to sit down next to him. "You look kinda not ok," she observed quietly.
"I'm kinda wiped, that's all," Pyro replied with a shake of his head, the device still in his hands. Putting it away would mean standing up, and he kind of... didn't want to do that just then. He leaned his shoulder against hers.
She slipped her arm around his back and tilted her head to his shoulder. "Tough mission?" she guessed. "How was Scott as a leader?"
"Well, I didn't get to burn anyone to a crisp," Pyro replied wryly, which was an answer to both questions, really. He'd really wanted to kill those fuckers. "But we got Alex out, so. I guess he wasn't too bad. Eileen was the best." As always, but clearly especially in that team.
"Of course she was." llyana rolled her eyes - it seemed sometimes as if Eileen was always the best - but smiled fondly. "And yeah, getting Alex out was the big thing." She made a face. "I'm still annoyed I got stuck transporting people around instead of doing anything."
"I'm kinda surprised you went along with it," Pyro stated. But, hell, he'd gone along with following Scott Summers's orders, so.
"Why would you be surprised?" lllyana frowned. "Lance and Wanda told us to cooperate. We had to get PIetro and Alex back."
"Hey, I'm kinda surprised we all went along with it," Pyro pointed out, hoping this wasn't going to turn into a fight. Fuck, he didn't have the energy for that. "It wasn't - you know." Ugh, he could make words even less than usual.
Illyana wasn't sure she knew what it wasn't, but she nodded anyway. "We did what we had to do. It was the best chance to get everyone back. And, I mean, you've said it yourself - it shouldn't be us against them. It should be all of us against the Right. And it was."
"Yeah, according to their rules," Pyro pointed out. It always had to be their rules. But in the meantime, mutants still died. They'd been lucky, this time.
"Lance and Wanda led two of the teams," Illyana countered. "And other than not burning the place down, how were the rules any different, really?"
Pyro straightened up, frowning at her. "Why are you - you know how they're different." And that was a big part of it, actually, not one you could dismiss with an 'other than'.
"Not really." Illyana shrugged and pulled back, turning to look at them. "I mean, I know how they're different personally? That's why I like it better here. But as far as this goes? Everyone goes in, gets people out of the way without killing them, rescues whoever needs rescuing, and gets out. Sometimes they blow the place up, sometimes we burn it down, but it's all pretty much the same, right? Except this time they wanted to get pictures afterwards and call the cops, so no one blew anything. Just like we didn't when we rescued Nico."
"We lost someone when we rescued Nico," Pyro pointed out sharply. Nope, still not over that. Who cared if she'd been dying already, they could have done something. Who cared if she hadn't been one of theirs, technically. She'd been a mutant.
"Fine, we lost someone." Though honestly, given that they'd never actually met the girl, she really didn't feel any loss. Just kind of sad that she'd died like she had. "That doesn't change the rest of it, does it?"
"We're only holding ourselves back because their judgemental bullshit got to Wanda and Lance," Pyro pointed out. "We might not have lost her if we'd gone in differently last time. It's a fucking miracle we didn't lose anybody this time. Still, we could've gotten Alex out more quickly if we'd just done our thing the way we used to. Those were all assholes who deserved to die."
"I'm not going to argue that," Illyana agreed, because honestly, she would've happily sent the whole lot of them to Limbo and let the demons have a field day. "But even before Lance and Wanda were calling the shots, you guys weren't exactly racking up casualties. The only time you did was Montana."
"But we were never careful about flatscan lives either," Pyro retorted. And with Pietro taken, he was pretty sure both Wanda and Lance wanted to kill those fuckers as much as he had. From what he'd heard, sounded like Lance hadn't held back, for one. The way things should be. He sighed, and finally found the energy to get off the bed. "Can we stop talking about it? It's bullshit, and we both know it, the end." The fact that they had to go along with it was kind of too depressing to linger on right now.
"Fine, done talking." Illyana got to her feet, walked over to the dresser, and started stripping off her uniform. "I like the bulletproof spandex," she observed as she tugged off the uniform the guy with the awesome hair had given her. "Beats the hell out of my vest." Granted, it'd be better not black, but she could probably fix that in Limbo, given a little time. Or just change her accessories. Either way.
Pyro had only worn the X-blacks because Wanda had given him a look that said he'd better, or else, but he'd still shrugged his sleeveless bulletproof jacket over it, because all-black was not his thing. He unzipped the jacket now, and pulled it off. "They're all right. I mean, it's not like they were using bullets against us, mostly, anyway."
"No? That's something, at least. What were they using?" She considered the uniform,then folded it up and put it in her dresser drawer. If X-Force wanted it back, then could come get it. "And I'm keeping mine. I'm pretty sure I look better without random holes in me, and my cloak covers most of it anyway. At least they didn't stick an X on it."
"Sound stuff, and charged nets, and like... power neutralizing bullshit that didn't last," he answered. Thank fuck.
"Huh, weird." Illyana frowned. "I wonder what'd happen if I got my power neutralized? Cal says the ability to use magic is a mutant thing, so...would it turn off or something?" And what would happen to Limbo if it did? Maybe she was better off not knowing.
"What does 'Cal' know about your magic?" Pyro asked with a scowl, as he put away his jacket.
"First off, he wasn't talking about my magic, he was talking about magic in general. And second, what's your problem?" Illyana frowned at him, her forehead furrowing.
"I don't have a problem, I'm just asking what makes him an expert," Pyro replied as he unzipped the top half of his uniform.
"It sounded like a problem. And he's not an expert, it was just something he heard. Maybe from Caleb? I don't know." She debated what to put on, and finally pulled out an oversized t-shirt she used as pajamas. Getting dressed seemed overrated.
"Well let's never figure it out, if it means you getting neutralized for a while," Pyro replied, moving right on from what was definitely not a problem. "It fucking sucks."
"Uggh, they got you with it?" Illyana said, turning towards him, her expression changing to one of concern. "I thought you were saying they hit someone else. Are you ok?"
"I'm fine, it was temporary." He'd peeled himself out of the top half of the uniform. "I'm gonna grab a shower."
"Which translates as I don't want to talk about it?" Illyana guessed.
"It translates to I really want a fucking shower," Pyro retorted, moving to get fresh clothes out of the drawers. "There's nothing to talk about, anyway. It didn't last."
Illyana rolled her eyes. "Fine, forget I asked. Go take your shower." It wasn't like she was going to get anything else out of him. She never did.
Pyro looked like he was about to say something, but in the end he just turned to grab his towel, and headed out the door.
A glare followed him out, but once he'd left Illyana sighed, retrieved the phone she'd set down on the dresser, and plopped down on the bed.
Hey, she texted Cal. Looked for you before I left but couldn't find you. You ok? Because why not? It wasn't like Pyro was going to tell her what he was pissed off about this time, and she felt like talking to someone. At least Cal answered.
By the time Pyro came back from the shower, all he wanted was to slide under the covers, snuggle up to Mage, and apologize. Maybe tell her about... It didn't matter, though, because of course, of fucking course she would be gone. Off with one person or another she liked better than him, and for a brief moment, he was tempted to set his fucking bed on fire.
But that wouldn't serve much purpose, and Wanda and Lance had better things to focus on than his fucking temper tantrums.
So he killed off the lights, grabbed his Zippo, and laid on his back, drawing things in fire in the air above himself.
Cal hadn't answered, or at least, he hadn't right away, and Billy'd been busy with Tommy, so Yana had closed up her phone and gone in search of Nico. Who, granted, wasn't the chattiest person on Earth, but who'd at least been willing to talk about the mission to rescue Pietro. Sometime later, and with a bag of Fritos in hand, she came back and entered the room, half surprised to see Pyro there. "Hey," she said, and helped herself to one more chip out of the bag before holding it out to him. "Want some?"
Pyro looked up when the door opened, and drew the fire into a disk oscillating above him, then pushed up into a sitting position. He wanted to say no, but his stomach rumbled loudly, and he rolled his eyes at himself. "Sure."
She brought it over and plopped down on the bed beside him. "Trying something?" she asked, gesturing towards the fire floating over their heads.
"Just dicking around," Pyro replied, as he helped himself to some of the chips. Not at all trying to calm himself down, not at all reassuring himself that he could still do it. Besides, if he stopped now, they would be in the dark. "Where've you been?" He didn't really want to know, did he? But here he was, asking anyway. Sucker for punishment.
"Getting Fritos." She propped her pillow against the headboard and leaned back against it. "Also hearing about the mission to rescue Pietro from Nico. He was on a team with that guy Wanda's dating."
Of course. The newbie. Better than a bunch of other options, at least. "And with Lance. Fucking lucky."
"You were with Eileen," Yana pointed out. "And Scott can't be that bad, right? He hangs out with Wanda." So, if nothing else, he wasn't totally anti-Brotherhood.
"It took forever to get started, and then we weren't allowed to kill anyone," Pyro retorted, with raised eyebrows. Avalanche had buried them all under rubble. No doubt he would have let Pyro loose. "And I wasn't with Eileen. She was with that guy Billy, and I was stuck with Cyclops."
"I've never met Billy," Illyana said, dodging the subject of X-Force's no kill policy, considering they'd covered that earlier and she still didn't understand how it was any different than theirs. "What's he do?"
"Knives of like, light, or something," Pyro answered, munching on more Fritos.
Illyana frowned. "Light knives cut? That's kinda bizarre." Or not, she guessed - lasers cut, right? Kinda the same concept, maybe.
"Hey, I make fire not burn when I wanna," Pyro pointed out with a shrug. All the science-y stuff was beyond him. "They look like light, anyway. I don't know what they are."
"Huh. Well, cool, I guess?" It didn't sound all that exciting as powers went, but she could be wrong. "Did they run into the suppression thing, too?"
"I don't think so, no," Pyro replied with a shake of his head. "Other shit, though."
"Like what?" Illyana asked curiously, reaching over to help herself to a handful of Fritos from the bag.
"Weird sound cannons, I think?" Pyro offered. "Eileen could tell you better."
Talk to someone else. Huge surprise. Illyana knew she wasn't being fair - it actually did make more sense to find out from Eileen directly - but she was tired of being fair. "Should I ask her what happened to you, too?"
Pyro scowled. "I don't know, maybe you could ask Nico."
"I tried that already. He didn't know. Maybe I should just post something on the fridge," Illyana countered.
The disk of fire that had been gently oscillating above them was now shifting a lot less smoothly. "Yeah, you go do that. Don't forget to ask Cal, I'm sure he'll know everything about that, too."
"Why would -" Illyana broke off and swiveled to stare at him, incredulous. "You're jealous," she accused.
The fire went out all of a sudden, plunging them into half-light, with only the light from the hallway filtering into the room. "Why should I be. He's just one more person you'd rather spend time with than me." He reached over and turned on the bedside lamp, then turned back to Mage, looking both wary and pissed. "Look, just." Part of him wanted to tell her to break up with him already, but he couldn't imagine what that would be like. He wiped a hand over his face. "Forget it. You do what you like."
"Uh, no. I want to get this straight." Illyana glared. "You hang out with Eileen. You hang out with Wanda. And your newbie the computer goddess. And I don't say a damn thing, because they're your friends. But if I do the same thing it's a problem?"
"I don't care if you hang out with whoever," Pyro retorted. "I care that you don't wanna hang out with me, okay? Like, just break up already, seriously." There, he'd said it, and now... now it would all go to shit. Well, more to shit.
"You want to break up?" Illyana stared at him, stunned, then set her jaw and got to her feet. "Fine. If that's what you want, you've got it." Eyes stinging with tears she was not going to shed, she walked over to the dresser and started piling her stuff on the floor for easier transporting.
And there they went. Tears welled up in Pyro's eyes, but he swallowed them back furiously, glaring to the side, since watching her would just make them overflow. This was for the best. No matter how empty his bed (his life) was going to be without her. It wasn't like he was in her life very much, and he'd been clinging to something that only existed for him for too long. Refusing to let go, like an idiot, because he'd believed - wanted to believe - he was a fucking idiot.
Illyana half dumped, half threw the rest of her stuff onto the pile on the floor, her anger rising. She didn't know where the hell this had come from - okay, granted, hed been making snotty comments about Cal from the start, but she'd written them off as his usual disdain for anyone associated with the school and hadn't thought more of it. But given that she'd been double-timing things in Limbo so that she didn't lose time at the base...she spun on her heels and glared at him, tear filled eyes backlit with a red glow.
"Y'know, if this is what you wanted? You could've told me before I doubled up on the entire summer so I'd have time to spend with you and still get everything I needed to get done in Limbo done. Seeing as you didn't want to stay there with me." Because yes. That had been his choice, because his team couldn't live without him. Even if, given the ability to get back literally before they'd left, they wouldn't even have known he was gone.
Pyro turned back to her with wide eyes. "Are you for real?" Aaaand back to glaring. He stood up from the bed, because sitting no longer felt like a viable option. "What did you need to do in Limbo all that fucking urgently? You chose to spend all your time there! You thought you were doing me a favor? It just took me longer to realize you didn't give a shit!"
"I didn't -" Ilyana blinked, confused. "That makes absolutely no sense. I wanted you to stay with me, but nooooo. You wanted to come back. Fine. You got what you wanted. You got to spend all the time you wanted to with your team, and as much time as you wanted with me, and I fit the shit I needed to do in between. But that's not good enough? I rule an entire dimension, Pyro. You wanted me to. I can't do that during Game of Thrones commercial breaks. It takes time."
"Yeah? Because from what you've told me, you've been decorating," Pyro shot back. If she'd been doing anything else, she hadn't bothered telling him.
"I - you want to see what I've been doing? Fine." Despite Pietro's explanation on why sending people to Limbo wasn't ok, Illyana called up a stepping disk beneath Pyro, who'd basically asked for just that - then followed with one of her own a moment later. And crossed her arms over her chest and glared, giving him a chance to get a good look at the foot-long dragons circling over the fire moat before saying anything.
"Any idea how hard it is to turn lizards into dragons?" she snarked. "Ones that are fireproof, and can breathe fire, and reproduce? How to do it without torturing the things in the process, because Belasco's spell books don't exactly figure in not wanting to make things hurt. Or how to adjust the ecology so they have a food source?" She glared at him. "I need to spend time here anyway. I'm not sure what'd happen if I didn't, but I doubt it'd be anything good. But this?" She waved her hand at the sky. "This was for you, you bastard."
Pyro looked back down at her, and his glare hadn't diminished any. "No. It was for you." It was a good thing there was the fire moat, because he felt vulnerable as fuck, standing in Limbo in his t-shirt and boxers. "All of this is for you, Mage! It's your dimension, your world, your tower, your fucking dragons!"
Illyana took a step back as if struck, feeling almost as if she had been. Wasn't that what he'd wanted for her? It wasn't as if she'd wanted - no, that wasn't true. She had wanted it, badly, but she wasn't sure she'd have actually done it without his encouragement. Rescued her teammates, yes. Taken the dimension...
"Fine," she retorted, setting her jaw as she straightened her stance. Because at the end of the day, it was all hers, and she wasn't going to apologize for that. Not to the person who'd enouraged her to make it hers in the first place. "You've got your team, I've got my dimension. Everyone's happy." She gestured and a stepping disk formed beneath his feet. "Just throw my stuff out in the hall. I'll get it later."
Pyro found himself back in his room, and he let out a short yell of frustration. "Fucking fine," he muttered, and grabbed her stuff to go throw it into the room she used for her magic.
And no, he wasn't fucking crying.
He didn't protest. She'd been hoping he would, that they'd scream at each other some more and then...not, like they usually did. But it wasn't like usual, none of it, and as the stepping disk closed around him, she had to brace herself before heading over the bridge to het tower.
And no. She wasn't crying either.
