Work Text:
Mission For Love
by Pirate Turner
She knew her team was falling apart, and she couldn't blame them. She was barely holding it together herself, but it was the knowledge that they were relying on her that gave her the strength to project the calm leadership they needed so sorely now. Yet it was not with calmness that she went searching for the two who did not show up for their scheduled training session in their on-going struggle to determine how they could best their friends and family but with panic beating wildly in her thudding heart.
Ororo managed to swallow that rising fear as she knocked on her best friend's door. "Jean?" At first, there was no answer, but upon her second call, she heard a soft muffling. Ororo cracked the door open just wide enough that she could slip in and called once more. "Jean?"
She was not prepared for the sight that met her but nonetheless maintained her projection of the calm, reserved leader, the one who had all the answers and was nowhere near as terrified as her followers. She stood where she had entered, her blue eyes full of concern and surprise as she gazed upon Jean and Bobby wrapped in each other arm's and crying their hearts out.
Jean looked over Bobby's shoulder at her best female friend. "How did he do it?" she asked her from the confines of her best male friend's arms. She knew Bobby meant to be reassuring, but what he didn't understand was that the fear and sorrow she felt radiating from him as clearly and nearly as powerfully as her own kept him from being able to reassure her like he intended.
He was as lost as she, and for once, the life preservers she had always counted on, Scott and the Professor, were gone from them. What was even worse was the knowledge that Scott had betrayed the Dream that they had not only dedicated their lives to fighting for but had also been brought together through their dedication to it. "How can he just turn away from us?" she cried. "How can they?!"
Ororo sighed, releasing the emotions she had fought so hard to keep penned up all day in the breath of air. "All I can tell you, my dear, is . . . Just ask him. Ask him, and he will answer, though I fear we may not wish to hear that answer. Goddess knows I wish I knew."
Looking to Bobby, Ororo continued, "Robert, I know Jean cries for Scott, but do you, as well?" When his shoulders shook with another quiet sob, Ororo crossed the floor on silent, graceful feet and wrapped her arms around them.
To her surprise, Bobby pushed her off and glared at her with fury in his tear-filled eyes. "How can they do it, Ororo?! It was bad enough when Hank joined the Avengers, but now -- to side with Magneto, of all creeps -- " His hands fluttered helplessly in the air as he realized he had no words for how deeply he had been hurt. Then he realized that he had just admitted his darkest secret to his team leader and looked at her with wide eyes and open, silent mouth.
Ororo allowed her surprise to show but then closed the distance between them again. "It is all right, Robert. I care not who you love, only that he has hurt you." She placed both hands on his shoulders and drew him into a tight hug.
Goddess, she wondered, why had she not seen? How could she have been so blind? How could they have all been so blind as to Robert's true feelings for his team mate? She pulled away from him just enough that she could gaze questioningly into his eyes. "Does he know?"
"Yes," he sobbed, "and he doesn't care!" He buried his face in Ororo's long, white hair, and only then, as she felt his tears flooding her hair and dampening her skin, did Ororo realize just how fragile and tender-hearted her friend was. She burned with sympathy for his and Jean's broken hearts and swore that she would not return without their men the way they should be, the way she had always known Scott to be and now believed Henry to be. "He said he loved me," Bobby was whimpering against her, "but he must have lied! He must have! How else can he keep breaking my heart?!"
Ororo put her hands on Bobby's shoulders ever so gently at first and then with growing strength until she pulled him away from her and made him look at her. "If Henry told you he loved you, Robert, I am certain his words were truth. I am sorry, my friend, that I've never seen your love for him before this night. Why you did not tell me -- "
"We told Scott," he murmured, "and he said -- "
"I care not to hear what Scott said at this time, dear one, but it matters not. I am your leader now, and I will do everything within my power to assure your happiness and safety, beginning now." Her gaze flitted to Jean and then turned back to Bobby's. "We are going after your men, and regardless of what they think is best for them or whatever Magneto has done to their minds, we will not return empty-handed. Dry your eyes and come with me now, my friends, for we've a mission we must not fail in."
Taking Bobby's hand in one hand and Jean's in the other, Ororo led the way to the Danger Room. The lightning that danced in her blue eyes warned all who they encountered not to speak a word of Robert's or Jean's sadness for her fury would surely devour them if they did. All their hearts were already saddened, however, so though they looked at them with compassion and sympathy, none spoke a word out of place, and all swore instead that they would find a way to reunite their family. Magneto may have parted them, but they would heal what he had tried to kill. They would bring their family home.
The End