Routine

Marie doesn't know exactly what to do with herself when she's left alone.

At the Institute there were classes and a schedule to adhere to, and consequences for not attending class or finishing your lessons, or staying up past curfew.

Here, there are consequences all right, but there is no set schedule and the idea of having “classes” makes her laugh. You are just expected to do your part and get things finished, and if you don't….

Marie tries not to think about that. When she was first brought here she suffered Magneto's displeasure at her failure to submit to him quite often indeed.

She's not eager to repeat the experience now, when she's finally become one of them.

So she practices and reads books and writes things, and learns how to fight from Mystique. She's a good student and Mystique accepts with admirable grace the few times Marie becomes Rogue and pulls at her powers.

The others are not exactly friendly, but they're not mean to her, either. Pyro seems to be fond enough of her, and she's glad he's around because the stone-and-metal fortress is freezing .There are many places she cannot access without Magneto there to build the walkway—she can't even get to the bedroom without him, for instance—so she spends a lot of time in the library.

Lately she's been trying to work on her chess game, because Erik beats her every single time they play and it's driving her nuts. She's moving the figures around the board when Pyro enters; she notes it is him with relief. Some of the others make her nervous, and besides, Remy's a worse chess player than she is.

He walks in and sprawls in a typical adolescent fashion on the sofa. “What are you doing?”

She looks up from the chess book. “Tryin' to figure out how to win.”

Pyro laughs at her. “You think you can beat Magneto? Not possible.”

She looks up at him and scowls. “What, can you?”

He shrugs negligently. “No. Don't know how to play.”

So she teaches him, and in doing so, she actually talks to him. Because of that, Marie likes him a little more than she used to.

Pyro always annoyed her at the Institute; he was too quick to anger, too intense, and she had enough of that with all the people in her head.

Here, he's different. Maybe the Brotherhood is like the army, she thinks, and straightens out wayward teens. Magneto certainly does not allow him to get away with half of what he tried to pull at the Institute.

Camp Brotherhood. Like one of those reality TV shows Remy likes where they send bad kids to live out in the wild for a month to reform them.

The thought makes her laugh.

Sometimes they watch movies together, action movies, and Pyro likes the stunts and says if he wasn't fighting a war he'd be in movies as a stuntman. He tells her about fire and all the things he's learned about it, and she finds it's actually interesting.

One day Remy wanders in, and they all watch a movie together, and then it's something they do all the time. Someone picks up popcorn on their next trip inland, and they end up making some and Remy has a beer and Rogue laughs at their antics and suddenly she feels like she's got two brothers.

One night when Remy is gone she asks Pyro why he did it, why he left with Magneto that day at Alkali. He shrugs and says it was because he wasn't doing so hot at Xavier's, then tells her loftily that he likes not having a curfew and the bad guys have better outfits.

“And we live in a fortress made out of rock overlooking the sea on island,” she reminds him, tugging at her hair and winding it around her gloved fingers. Erik always tells her to stop that when he catches her at it.

“I like the ocean,” he tells her obstinately, and she throws a pillow at him.

She can tell he wants to ask her about why she stayed, so she answers him before he asks. “I think some of us need to fight,” she says seriously, and he nods and rolls his eyes.

“Well, yeah. Me too. Pick a movie, then.”

She doesn't think he's trying to change the subject or ignore what she's said. It's only that you can only think about war and fighting so much before you need other things to concentrate on. She picks the old version of The Haunting and throws him the DVD.

“Never seen this,” he says, then gives her a scowl. “It's scary, right? It's in black and white.”

Marie nods. “Yeah. It's scary. Trust me, I couldn't sleep for a week after I watched it.” She shivers and that seems to be enough of an endorsement for Pyro, who puts it in the machine and fiddles with the remote to start it.

He never lets her have the remote, even when it's her turn to pick the movie.

The movie is scary and even Pyro's impressed; when it's over, she notices he turns the light on very quickly. “Who told you about this one?” He reads the back cover. “You usually like zombie movies.”

“Erik. He makes me watch old horror movies sometimes. They're his favorite.” She's returned to the chair and she studies him as he looks at the movie.

Pyro looks up at her, and she sees the question on his face. Only she and Mystique ever call Magneto Erik , and she suspects he wants to know why she shares his bedroom.

“Out with it,” she says, huddling in the blanket. The fortress is cold and there are blankets everywhere; she pulls at the chenille strings and watches him as he flushes. His embarrassment makes her laugh a little. “You can ask,” she says gently.

He looks up at that and reddens further, she takes pity on him. “Why don't I just say you probably don't want the details, but the answer is yes.”

Pyro makes a face at her. “Got plenty of us young enough for you running around the place,” he says sulkily, and she throws her head back and laughs.

“I'd put you into a coma in two minutes,” she reminds him, a small smile on her face.

“Oh yeah. I forgot.” He flops back on the sofa and there is silence between them for a few minutes. “Just kinda sucks,” he says suddenly.

She blinks in surprise. “Why?”

He is playing with his lighter again; she hasn't seen him do that in while. Somehow, it's oddly elegant, the way he manipulates the flames and sends them up in the air between them, where eventually they vanish into a puff of smoke with a lingering trace of sulfur.

He grins at her, all adolescent male pride and insouciance. “You're the only girl around here. And you can't mess with the boss's woman.”

“What about Mystique?” She asks quickly, not liking being called that.

He laughs. “She'd kill me faster than you would.”

Marie thinks about that, then shrugs and grins a little. “You've got a point there.”

They're both quiet until they hear a banging sound; eerily reminiscent of the movie where the two women had been huddled together as the ghostly presence in Hill House terrorized them. Marie looks over at Pyro. “Put something funny in, St. John.” She no longer pulls power from Magneto when he touches her, but she's around him enough that sometimes she picks up that tone of command that comes so effortlessly to him.

“Gotcha.” He scrambles up, long-legged grace, and she thinks he might be handsome when he's older and has grown into himself. Now she thinks of him fondly, like a skittish colt with a burning need to please others and impress them with his talent.

Not that that isn't bad, but Marie appreciates self-confidence of the sort Pyro will have to grow into.

I just like older men, I guess.

He doesn't ask her why she's laughing, and she's sort of glad of that. Knowing Pyro, he'd try and burn her eyebrows off.

One white streak in her hair is enough.