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By the time he gets to the kitchen, Bobby is running so seriously late for school that he only really has time to down his medication and grab a piece of toast if he doesn’t want to be late walking to school. If his mom asks, he’ll blame it on the alarm not waking him up and not the thin ice residue bonding him to his sheets, which he really doesn’t want to think about.
Probably their air conditioner is just running overtime, since they just started it up for the season. That sounds reasonable.
His dad is reading the paper at the table, reading the stocks section out loud to his mom while she washes the breakfast dishes. The cover of the paper is a school illuminated by a fire billowing out of the windows. The picture in and of itself is unremarkable, but accompanied by the headline “Angel Saves Students From Burning Building”, it becomes fascinating.
“What’s with the cover story?” He asks, mouth full of toast.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” His mom says.
“Some students got saved from a burning school, kids are saying it was a miracle.” His dad says, sipping at his coffee.
Weird.
Bobby buys a copy on the way to school, despite how seriously uncool it is to have a copy of the newspaper as a teenager. All of the students the reporter interviewed seem assured of the same story- they were saved by a real, live angel.
The New York Post could never get away with an article that seems to conclude that an angel, from the bible, just appeared and saved a bunch of kids, but this is the Long Island Daily Press. They can publish whatever they like.
He doesn’t think about it much after that for the next few days, until he sees the headline while he’s waiting at the bus stop- “Halo Left at Crime Scene- Return of The Angel?”. He relinquishes his pocket change for the issue, shoving it in his backpack.
Bobby’s not sure, yet, why he’s so curious about it.
A week later, he adds another to his collection- “Avenging Angel Saves Woman From Muggers”. He’s sure it’s the same guy, and now the paper is sure that he’s not a real angel at all, he’s a mutant.
This one has a photograph of the guy on the front page. His costume is a little silly, and there’s maybe too much product in his hair, but he’s cute. At least, that’s probably what Bobby’s female classmates would say.
He keeps that one on top of the pile of them, for no particular reason.
Over the next few months, he acquires at least ten more clippings and photos, which he keeps tucked away with his comic book collection. They’re not in neat piles anyway, so it’s not noticeable.
Every once in a while he unearths them from the pile of Howard the Duck comics to look at, and just- well. If he were a girl, he’d probably fantasize about being saved from a burning building by the Angel. But he’s not, so he doesn’t. He just sits there and feels a little bit weird.
Sitting on his bedroom floor, with the clippings and cover stories spread out around him, it feels not so lonely, to sometimes be covered in ice.
A few weeks later he’s started sleeping in the garage, because the ice has only gotten worse. The water damage to the window sills is going to set his parents back hundreds, and that’s not even accounting for the doctor’s visits.
It’s spread to his body now. His fingers look translucent and blue and he doesn’t feel all the way human.
He doesn’t have time to look at the magazine clippings, and he can’t leave the house to see if there are any more.
By the time Scott Summers knocks on the door, he would do almost anything to just be normal again. Unfortunately, that’s not what Scott is offering. He seems vaguely put out by Bobby’s desire to just go back to high school and forget all about the whole thing.
In the end, he moves to Xavier’s mansion. It’s not like he has a choice- not a real one, anyways. He doesn’t want to be dead, so he’s an X Man.
It’s kind of cool, in a way. Scary, but still cool.
Sorting through his comics remains low on his priority list as he learns to control his mutation (Not powers, Xavier says and Scott echoes). So the newspaper clippings stay tucked away in his stacks of comics.
He takes them out of the box and puts them on the bookshelves in his room, but spends very little of his free time reading them. If he wants to hang out with somebody, it’s going to be Scott, which means they’re mostly doing kind of boring stuff.
Scott’s fine, though, when he isn’t being pedantic or strict.
Hank comes around shortly after, and he’s great. A bit older than Scott, who’s older than Bobby, but he’s fun, and willing to play cards and watch football games.
Two weeks later, the professor ushers a new student into the mansion from a car with a hood ornament and a driver that wears a uniform- Bobby recognizes him immediately, even without the cowl.
It’s the hair, he does it the same in and out of costume. Bobby doesn’t have to worry about that because he’s made out of snow in his “costume”, but he files that away for later as something to warn Hank about.
The professor introduces Warren that night at dinner- his full name is Warren Worthington iii, which is ridiculous. Bobby is fairly sure he’s seen him on newspaper covers out of costume as well, when his family donated enough to renovate the rec center in Bobby’s hometown.
He specifically does not tell him that he’s kind of a fan, because that would be weird. And he’s not really a fan, per se, it’s more of a- well, it’s different than that.
He can be a little bit of a jerk in person, but usually not on purpose, and he’s just as fun as Hank when he’s not being terrible. He doesn’t mind watching the weekend cartoons instead of the news in the mornings, and he always asks Bobby to do his wings for him.
It’s kind of nice- Hank rigged up a harness to tie Warren’s wings down more effectively than the belts he had been using before. Bobby helps him take it on and off most of the time, and they talk.
He doesn’t ask anybody else to do the wings, not even Jean, who would probably be better at it. Not that Bobby’s not being careful.
Eventually, months after Warren moves into the room two doors down from his, he makes the mistake of bringing up a comic issue he bought years ago, and goes to dig it out of the pile.
“It’s in here somewhere.” He declares, rifling through the stacks. They’ve gotten less organized since he moved in and more of his bookshelf space has been taken up by textbooks.
“I’m sure it is.” Warren says, and Bobby can tell by his tone that he absolutely does not believe him.
He throws a little bit of snow at him in retribution, which is fairly good control if he does say so himself.
Warren yelps loudly, and Bobby remembers abruptly that Warren is shirtless and does not have tolerance to cold like he does.
“Bobby!” He lightly shoves at him, knocking Bobby off his balance. To be fair, this is not extraordinarily difficult to do.
He stumbles over the piles on his floor, knocking several more of them over.
It is precisely at that moment that he remembers for the first time in months that, somewhere in these piles, is a stack of newspaper clippings and pictures of Warren. His friend Warren, who he knows personally and will have to see everyday for the rest of forever.
He has a moment to hope desperately that they’ve remained buried before he sees Warren stop laughing at him and tilt his head, slow and birdlike.
“What are those?” He asks, not waiting for Bobby to answer before he picks them up.
Bobby buries his face in his hands. He isn’t sure why this is so embarrassing, except that he doesn’t do this for any of his other teammates.
There is a long, long moment of silence before Bobby can make himself look at Warren, who has settled next to him on the floor, wings half out of their binder.
He looks kind of delighted at the pictures, actually.
“I had no idea I had a fan.” He says, and Bobby can’t tell if he’s being mean or not, yet. He can be absolutely vicious when he chooses to be, and Bobby would prefer not to receive the brunt of that for… whatever this is.
“Well, not anymore.” Bobby quickly corrects, ignoring the way Warren’s expression shifts to hurt for a moment before returning to triumphant.
“You still have…” He flips through them. “Possibly every newspaper article that’s ever been written about the Avenging Angel.”
“Don’t tease me.” Bobby says, somewhat miserably.
“I’m not!” Warren protests. “I’m just curious. I mean, I didn’t even know about half of these, and they’re about me.”
He still looks like the cat that got the cream, but Bobby thinks he might just genuinely be pleased about the whole situation. Warren likes attention, no matter who it’s coming from.
That sounds mean, but it’s really not. At least, Bobby doesn’t mean it to be.
“Most of them are from the Long Island Daily Press.” Bobby says, pained as though it's being dragged out of him.
“But not all of them.” Warren pushes.
“Well, no. These ones are from the Daily Bugle.” Bobby admits, selecting the two he’s referring to.
There’s one shot of Warren diving from a building, wings tucked in close, blurred from the motion, and another of him perched on a building ledge. They’re both extraordinarily good pictures, taken by a P. Parker and printed in color.
Both of them ran in place of the usual weekly column detailing Spiderman’s exploits and property damage, which Bobby also kept up with but didn’t keep for himself.
“And you have these for… all of the X Men?” Warren asks.
Bobby sighs, clearly seeing the out he’s been given and unable to take it. “No.”
“Oh.” Warren seems pleased by that answer, as though he isn’t the most popular X Man by every metric. If they were regular superheroes and not mutants, he would probably sell the most lunchboxes.
“My dad has a subscription to the newspaper, though. I wasn’t, like, buying them for myself.” Bobby says, blatantly lying.
“Uh huh.” Warren says, grinning. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you have a crush on me, Bobs.”
Bobby covers his face with his hands again. It does kind of look like that, doesn’t it? And, if he’s being honest, it kind of feels like it too. He’s sure his face is really red, he feels warm.
“Shut up, Warren.” He groans. It is, notably, not a denial.
Warren is quiet for a moment, and when Bobby peeks at him through his fingers, he’s staring with his mouth slightly open. It would look stupid on Bobby, but he just looks kind of cute and puzzled. It’s stupid unfair, actually.
Warren shifts a little bit closer, considering. Still staring directly at Bobby.
“Can I kiss you?” He asks, more tentatively than Bobby is used to. Bobby is almost certain that this is the first time the idea has occurred to him, but he’s never known Warren to take things slowly.
“What?” Bobby whisper-shouts, glancing towards the closed door just to double check.
“Just to see.” Warren assures him, as though that makes any sense at all. Plenty of people feel curious about what kissing their best friend would be like, and they just ignore that.
“You’re not gay.” Bobby says, sounding less sure than he’d like to.
“You don’t know that.” He says, sounding slightly peeved.
Bobby removes his hands from his face, still keeping his eyes cast towards the ceiling.
“Are you?”
Warren frowns at him. “Well, I don’t know. A little, at least.”
Bobby’s heart is beating out of his chest, and he’s sure the flush hasn’t gotten any better. “So what, you’ll just… kiss me?”
Warren nods sagely.
“Then what?” He asks.
Warren shrugs. He’s used to getting what he wants, and Bobby’s sure he can already tell where this is going. He’s not trying to sell it too hard, but he is starting to blush. “If we like it, we can do it again.”
“Alright.” Bobby says. It’s, most likely, a stupid decision, but maybe he wants to see too. And sue him, he thinks his friend is hot.
Warren moves a bit closer to him, considering his face for a moment. Bobby wonders what he sees briefly before he moves closer and then all of Bobby’s thoughts short out.
He’s kissing him, one hand holding his face where he wants it. Gently, but still. Bossy, Bobby thinks fondly.
After a moment he settles back onto his heels, still so, so close. Bobby can feel him breathing, which he hadn’t previously considered but has now decided he likes.
“What do you think?”
Warren squints at him. He looks kind of silly, up close like this. “Just give me a second.”
Bobby grins. “That’s what he said.”
It’s not his best work- it doesn’t even really make sense- but Warren doesn’t seem to mind all that much.
Warren grins before leaning in and kissing him again, slower this time. He leans back after a long moment, and this time he looks more decided.
“Yeah?” Bobby asks.
“Yeah.” Warren responds. He looks smug, which Bobby immediately realizes he really, really likes.
He’s so happy he could melt. He tells Warren as much out loud and is met with a derisive snort and another kiss, presumably just to make him stop talking.
Bobby can work with that.