Untitled X-men Fic - (2 Parts)

[Hex]

Okay, so… This is something Secrets asked me for, a Wolverine and the X-men fic where Bobby gets sick. This is part one, and it’s got more setup than actual sneezing. But, there will be lots in the next parts. Promise.

Hope you like it, Secrets (and whoever else is reading this)!

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Dammit! Bobby barely ducked a blast of fire in time, and responded by flinging out spears of ice. His opponent laughed manically and simply melted the projectiles out of the air.

“Getting’ a little slow, snowboy?” Pyro taunted, and hurled another fireball at the X-man. Bobby ducked and rolled, coming up behind Pyro and freezing the rogue Acolyte’s feet to the ground.

“Fast enough for you,” Bobby responded, trying to keep his voice from betraying how worried he was. He knew he was slower than normal, off his game. What was wrong with him?

“Is this supposed to stop me? I’ve battled flatscans with more fighting skills,” Pyro sneered, and waved his arm, creating a trail of fire that began to cocoon him. He quickly disappeared behind a wall of flame.

“Ah, crap.” Now what? Bobby asked himself, and fought back a yawn. He had been woken up at six in the morning by an urgent call from Magneto. If he had been monitoring the transmissions, Iceman would have hung up. But no. It was Beast, and Beast said this was a mission “worthy of the X-men’s attention.” Some of Magneto’s Acolytes (what kind of a name was that? Bobby thought idly) had gone rogue. They had released some of the dangerous mutants Magneto was keeping in custody, and were leaving a trail of destruction all over the is-

BAM

Iceman reeled. “The heck-?” he began, but Pyro kicked him in the kneecap before he could finish. Iceman hit the ground, and stayed there. “Ow…”

“Are you always this stupid? Or did Mags tell you ta go easy on me?” Pyro smirked, placing his boot on Bobby’s chest. “Didn’ want his precious goon squad damaged, and all…” He activated his flamethrower, and created a small ball of fire in his palm. He grinned down at the fallen X-man. “They call you Iceman. Let’s see if you melt!”

Bobby raised his hands and tried to fire a blast of ice, but he felt so tired. Worn out. In fact, his concentration was already fading, his body returning to something made out of flesh…

Before Pyro could reduce Bobby to a pile of ash and water, a burst of red light sent him flying. “Iceman! Up!” Cyclops yelled. Bobby struggled to his feet, wobbling a bit. Pyro snarled from a few meters away, and raised one arm. Fire belched from his glove, growing and twisting. It began to take on a recognizable shape, and Iceman stared. This was not his day.

Pyro laughed again, and sent the enormous fire-hound charging towards Bobby. He tried to ice up, but only succeeded in creating a few patches of ice on his skin. He couldn’t protect himself…

But before the hellish construct reached him, Bobby felt a hand on his arm. He turned automatically, and looked into Kitty’s deep brown eyes. “Idiot,” she said flatly, and phased. Bobby could feel it as his own body became intangible, a strange bubbly feeling that started where Kitty was touching him and soon covered his entire body. He couldn’t feel it when Pyro’s fire construct barreled through them. But he could hear Pyro’s cry of outrage and shock. He could also hear the hiss of chemicals as the flamethrower was ripped to shreds, and a cry that was cut short by Wolverine slamming his adamantium-filled fist down on Pyro’s head.

Kitty let go of Bobby’s arm. The bubbly feeling left him, and he staggered. “Uh… thanks for the save, Kitty…” he muttered, wishing there was something in the battle-scarred landscape that he could lean on. Maybe that would make his head stop spinning.

“Did I just hear the almighty Bobby Drake say thank you? Who are you, and what have you done with Iceman?” Kitty put a fist on her hip and stared at her teammate, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

Bobby turned, and made a serious face. “We are holding your friend hostage,” he said in a deep voice. “We will release him if you take off your- ow!” he rubbed his cheek. Kitty glared at him, hand raised to deliver another slap if necessary.

“Pig,” she said, annoyed.

There is, in fact, still a battle going on! Emma Frost hissed telepathically. You can have your lover’s quarrel another time.

“‘Lover’s quarrel’?!” Bobby and Kitty cried, almost simultaneously.

A telepathic sigh echoed through both their minds. You would focus on that aspect of my comment. Yell later. Fight now.

“You’re not off the hook, you jerk,” Kitty muttered, and ran off. She quickly engaged another mutant, some guy with whips. Well. It was clear who was going to win THAT battle. Bobby grinned, even though he was still dizzy and his cheek stung. He clenched his fists, ready to rejoin the battle, and iced up…or tried to. As before, his ice armor was patchy, and didn’t feel as thick as it usually was.

“Work, damnit!” Bobby tried harder, willing his body to freeze. The ice began to spread. “Yes!” He pumped his fist in the air. He ran at the battle, forgoing his usual ice bridge. It was hard enough to keep his armor on. “HEY! Silicon girl!” he yelled with his usual tact at the first enemy he encountered. She turned, clearly annoyed. “Eat i-whoah!” Bobby fell over backwards. He hit what felt like jello, and his concentration broke. His ice vanished.

The girl smirked. “Mercury, not silicon, you idiot.” Tendrils of the silvery material began to wrap around Bobby.

“Uh, wait! Stop! Isn’t mercury poisonous? I’m too awesome to die y-grrpllp!” The mercury slid into his mouth, and it was all Iceman could do to keep from gagging.

“Well, yes. Sadly, my mercury isn’t.” She smiled. It was extraordinarily creepy. Her teeth were the same color as her skin, and her eyes. Bobby would have commented if his mouth wasn’t full of mercury. “You know, when I heard Pyro yelling at you, I thought it was just his usual banter. But you really are a horrible fighter, aren’t you? You don’t even have control of your powers. I’d feel sorry for you… if your teammates hadn’t taken out my friends.” Her hand began to melt. It quickly reformed into a giant hammer. “Nighty night.”

Bobby’s last thought before the world went black was Beaten by a creepy silicon chick. That’s just humiliating.

------

“Hey, guys, Sleeping Beauty woke up!” Kitty called as Bobby’s eyes flickered open. He winced, his body loudly and insistently informing him that he had SUCKED in the battle.

“What was wrong with you yesterday? Mercury kicked your ass. You’re an Omega-level mutant and an X-man. You should have taken her out,” Scott said, stomping over to Iceman’s bed. Bobby slowly realized he was in the infirmary. Wow. The creepy silicon girl had put King Drake in the infirmary? What had been wrong with him?

“Hello? Earth to Bobby. Answer the question, Drake,” Scott said, roughly shaking Bobby’s shoulder. “I need to know what was going on.”

“I, uh, I…” Bobby became aware of an irritating tickling sensation in his nose. He rubbed at it with the hand Scott wasn’t pinning to the bed. “I don-nnhhh-n’t know… I was f-hhhhhii-feeling weird, though. I-” The tickle became too much to ignore, and Bobby barely got his hand in front of his nose in time. “IhhhHHUSHHOO!” The force of the sneeze made his upper body curl. “Ugh…” Bobby muttered, and slumped back. His head was throbbing, and the sneeze, though satisfying, hadn’t completely gotten rid of the tickle. At least the sneeze hadn’t been too wet, and he could move his hand away from his nose without worrying.

“Bobby? Are you okay?” Kitty asked. She hadn’t moved from her position by his head, and she rubbed her hand over his forehead, brushing away rebellious strands of hair. “Maybe he’s coming down with something,” she said to Scott. The man frowned.

“Maybe. Bobby? What do you think?”

“I’m fine! Totally healthy. It’s just… um… the medlab! Hank needs to dust in here. Anyway, I don’t know what was going on yesterday, but I am A-okay today! How’d the battle go, anyway?”

“After you got taken out, Kitty dropped Senyaka- that’s the guy with the whips- and phased Mercury into a rock. It didn’t hurt her, but she was semi-solid for a time, and I was able to hit her with an optic blast. She was the last Acolyte standing, so it ended after that.” Scott frowned. “I still don’t understand why the Acolytes would have gone nuts like that.”

“It’s because Magneto wasn’t telling us everything,” Emma said from the open door. She walked up behind Scott and began to rub his shoulders. “I was scanning all of the Acolytes. Magneto locked Pyro in a cell for speaking to his youngest daughter. It caused the rest of the Acolytes to revolt, break Pyro out, and wage war on Genosha.”

“What?” Kitty, Scott, and Bobby cried, almost in symphony.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Scott asked, roughly shoving Emma’s hands off his shoulders. “We were on the wrong side!”

“First of all, it was a battle. We couldn’t exactly say, ‘oops, sorry, you were right. Continue trashing the island, please.’” Emma glared at Scott. “Second, they weren’t attacking Magneto. They were attacking his city, which was full of people who had nothing to do with Pyro’s imprisonment.”

“Fine,” Scott muttered.

“So I got knocked out for nothing?” Bobby asked, indignant.

“You got knocked out for not keeping your concentration,” Scott told him. “And if you’re so okay, I want you suited up and in the Danger Room. Stat.”

Suited u- ohmygod who undressed me? Until that point, Bobby hadn’t realized that he was wearing normal clothes, instead of his costume. Now I’m seriously embarrassed. He didn’t verbalize his little freak-out, but he saw a smirk tug at the corners of Emma’s lips. “Yes sir,” he said to Scott, blushing furiously.

[Guest Secrets]

Wow, I haven't been on for a while! Thank you so much, Hex! That was amazing! And the characters were portrayed perfectly. I can't wait for Part 2!

[Winged]

Hah, that's great! You really did well with the characterization -- Emma made me lol. (: Can't wait for more!

[Hex]

This chapter went up fast ‘cause I’m about to go on vacation. So. Short, sweet, and full of sneezes! I’ll be back on August 8th. But this oughta hold you over ‘till then, okay, guys?

Read! Review! Enjoy!

(( By the way, this is AU WatXM. Angel never lost his wings, and he and Colossus are members of the team (‘cause they are AWESOME), and, clearly, Jean is not here and Emma is alive... among other things. Those things will be revealed in later chapters. ))

“Danger Room, run Scenario 56b,” Scott barked. Bobby cringed. 56b was a hard scenario when he was feeling good... it was going to be impossible now. Even though he did have Angel and Rogue on his team. Especially because he had those two on his team. Well, Angel wasn’t that big of a problem. Rogue was. She didn’t do the team thing, and anyway, her powers didn’t work on robots. That left Bobby and Angel to work together, and that wasn’t a very formidable team, what with Bobby’s powers not working they way they were supposed to.

Crap. Stupid Scott taking stupid Colossus and stupid Kitty on his side. They all work together perfectly. I’m stuck with Prettyboy and

Rogue glared at Bobby. “Yah do remember that Emma let me take her power f’r this, right?”

“Uh... yes?” Bobby said, and grinned weakly. Crap. How do I get her out of my head? I know! Think about naked Emma and Kitty! He smiled, a dreamy look coming over his face.

Rogue made a disgusted face. “And you wonder why I don’t work with you...” she muttered, flexing her hands as the Danger Room sprang to life. Tentacles with whirring blades on the ends sprung out of the walls, cables dropped from the ceiling, pits formed on the floor, and robots walked through doors that had appeared in the walls.

“You know the rules! Subdue the other team and avoid the enemies!” Scott yelled over the mechanical whirring. The man had a serious set of lungs. Maybe that was his secondary power.

“Focus, Bobby!” Rogue yelled, and turned to diamond. Scott wanted her to practice assimilating and learning control of the powers and psyches she absorbed. For every training session, she drained a little of someone on the team, enough to give her their powers and a few memories for the duration of the session.

She ran at one of the metal tentacles. Correction. She ran through it, her diamond form tearing through the steel tentacle as if it were nothing more than paper.

“Angel!” Bobby yelled at his teammate before the winged mutant could take off. “Carry me, and I’ll ice ‘em from above!” It was a good strategy... for hiding his inability to make an ice bridge.

Angel ran over, wrapped his arms around Bobby’s chest, and used his momentum to take off. “Don’t ice up!” he told Bobby. “I won’t be able to hold on!”

Score! I ought to be able to make good ice blasts, if I don’t have to focus on my armo-“JESUS CHRIST WARREN! YOU MISSED THAT TENTACLE BY TWO INCHES!”

“You try maneuvering when you’re carrying someone else, Drake! How many bricks did you eat for breakfast?” Warren tucked his wings in and dove between two more tentacles, which crashed into each other. The whirling blades tore each other apart, and the tentacles flopped to the floor, limp. Metal dust flew through the air. “Crap. Don’t inhale,” Warren said. But Angel’s advice came too late, as Bobby had already gotten a lungful of the stuff. His nose burned and itched.

Not again! Bobby groaned mentally. “iiihhh-ihhuhhh-” Nonono! Hold it in! You’ll scare Warren, wreck his flight pattern, and then he’ll drop you! But the tickle would not be ignored. Bobby wished, desperately, that he could pinch his nose shut. With every hitch of his breath, he was sucking in more metal dust. And he couldn’t do anything about it, because Warren’s grip on Bobby’s chest depended on Iceman keeping his arms by his sides.

Hold it in hold it in hold it in...

“There they are,” Angel said, trying to be quiet so the X-men below wouldn’t hear him, “We’ve got the drop on them! Ice Cyclops first, he’s the only one who can hit us fast.”

“G-hhh-gotcha,” Bobby said, trying not to inhale. They were past the metal dust, but one breath would make the tickle worse. And the results of that would give away his position. He iced up his hand to shoot the blast. Big mistake. The coldness spread from Iceman’s hand to his entire body, raising the hairs on his arm and making the tickle unbearable. He couldn’t hold it any longer. “Ih-HUSHOO! HHHSSHT! HSSHT!”

Warren’s grip on Bobby slacked and he backwinged in surprise. “What the heck?” he cried, but Bobby wasn’t done. It felt kind of good to relieve the tension that had been building up since he took his first breath of the metal-tainted air, but Iceman still wanted to stop. His sneezing was alerting Cyclops. He only had seconds before he and Warren would be blasted out of the air. And he was still sneezing.

“HUSHOO! *sniff* EH-HTCHT!” Cyclops’s hand was going to his visor...

“Bye-bye, Bobby!” Warren said, and dropped his friend.

“AAAAUGH!” Bobby screamed as he plummeted, the shock scaring him out of his sneezing fit. “WHY DID YOU DO THAT, YOU LUNATIC! Oh god, I need to ice up, ice up, come on...” His still-iced hand was shaking wildly, and he still felt cold, but there was no other way he’d survive the impact. As the ice spread, slowly, ponderously, he got colder and colder. It was so intense that Bobby almost felt like he was dying. Parts of him began to de-ice, and he screamed again. “NO NO NO! I NEED ICE!”

When he hit the ground, he had managed to ice up enough that the impact didn’t kill him. But it still hurt, a jarring pain that rattled his teeth and made him bite his own tongue. Bobby groaned. “No more... wanna go home now... I’ll be good...”

Cyclops came into view, looming over his downed teammate. “Did you completely forget how to function?”

“Warren freakin’ dropped me! Didn’t you notice?”

“He was executing a maneuver that you have practiced with him, Bobby. You know, the one where you make an ice bridge and freeze your enemies? It’s not to be confused with the one where you scream like a baby and give a half-assed attempt to ice up!”

“Perhaps you are being too hard on him, Leader,” Colossus said quietly, reluctant to interrupt Cyclops’s tirade. “He does not look well. Perhaps he is ill?”

“Hell no! I’m not sick!” Bobby cried, shoving himself to his feet. He staggered as soon as he was upright, and fell against Cyclops’s chest. He blinked, finding himself face-to-face with a very irate Scott. “Hi,” Iceman said weakly. “You have a beautiful eye-OW!” Scott had shoved Iceman roughly into Colossus. “Take him to the infirmary, please, Piotr. You’re both excused from the lesson.”

“Hey! You can’t do this! I’m perfectly fi-ii- ihhhsh!- fine! It was the metal dust! Honest! Petey, put me down!”

[Bongo]

Wow, I'm really loving this. I've never seen Wolverine and the X-Men, but I have seen a couple other versions and Iceman is my favorite character.