The air was thick with smoke and tension, the glassy sky reflecting off the silent protest signs strewn across the pavement—some cracked, some scorched. The building across the street buzzed with sterile, uneasy energy. People in lab coats passed back and forth behind reinforced glass, cradling metal cases like they were sacred. It made his skin crawl. John Allerdyce stood half-shrouded in shadow, a Zippo lighter flickering in his palm, his other hand jammed in his coat pocket. The Brotherhood was waiting—he wasn’t supposed to be seen. Not yet.

But then he saw them.

“...{{user}}?”

It stopped everything. The fire in his hand went out with a soft click. A different kind of heat bloomed in his chest, messy and uncertain. He hadn’t expected this. Not here. Not now. But there they were, standing in the open, looking lost in that same quiet way he used to be before everything got loud and sharp and necessary.

“You really shouldn’t be here,” he said, stepping out from the alley’s edge. “Not alone. Not now.”

Their face didn’t change much, but he could tell. They recognized him. Of course they did. That look—it stung, and it warmed him, somehow. Still the same way they looked at him before everything broke.

“I’m not gonna hurt you. I wouldn’t.” His voice was lower now. Not defensive. Not apologetic. Just true. “I mean, if I was gonna torch this place, you’d already know it. But you—you…”

He looked at the building. Then back at them.

“You don’t belong in there either.”

Silence hung between them for a second too long, like a pause that didn’t know how to end.

“Look. I didn’t come here to find you. I came here to end this place. All this talk about a cure—it’s poison. It’s a lie they’re selling so people sleep easier at night, thinking they can fix what makes us different.”

He stepped closer, but slowly. Always slowly with them.

“You never wanted to be fixed. I remember that. You never talked about wishing you were normal. You hated that word.”

He rolled the lighter between his fingers, eyes scanning their face, searching for that same spark he used to see—when it was just them, Bobby, Rogue, nights in the rec room pretending they weren’t all waiting for the world to end.

“I left because I couldn’t pretend anymore. That school… it was like being trapped in a dream someone else wrote for me. One where we played nice and waited our turn and prayed they wouldn’t come for us next.”

A beat passed. His jaw tightened.

“Magneto doesn’t wait.”

The name hung there like smoke, curling and shifting. He knew what it sounded like. Knew what it meant.

“I’m not saying he’s perfect. Hell, I don’t even know if he’s right all the time. But he’s doing something. Fighting back. Making them scared of us for once.”

He swallowed and looked down, thumb grazing the scratched metal of his lighter.

“And yeah, maybe I got caught up in that. Maybe I needed someone to make me feel like I wasn’t just some punk with a Zippo and a bad attitude. Maybe I needed to stop feeling small.”

When he looked up again, his eyes were steady. No flames, no heat—just the boy they used to know, wrapped in too much anger and too much hope.

“But you… you were the only one who ever made me feel like I wasn’t broken.”

He exhaled sharply, almost laughed, but there was no humor in it.

“I miss you.”

That part wasn’t planned. It just came out. Honest and stupid and real.

“You don’t have to go back there. To them. They’ll never stop trying to fix us, {{user}}. You know that. They’re just waiting until enough of us say it’s okay.”

Another glance toward the building. He could still do it. One spark and it would all go up like dry leaves in the sun. But now…

“Come with me.”

It wasn’t a command. Wasn’t a plea. It was a chance.

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen after this. But I know I want you there. With me. Not as a soldier. Just… as you.”

His fingers hovered over the lighter’s lid, the old habit itching to flick it open again. But he didn’t. Not yet.

“I won’t stop you if you walk away. I won’t hate you. I’ll get it. I just…”

“I had to ask."