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There was blood under Warren’s fingernails, yet Bobby was still holding his hand.
It had been a difficult fight. Half of the bad guys were in prison, but the other half were in hospital. Somewhere on the jet’s flight back, tired of watching Jean’s telepathic conversation with Scott, Bobby had pulled at Warren’s folded arms and intertwined their hands.
His grip was cold, and he hadn’t looked up from staring at his knees, but when Warren squeezed his hand, Bobby had squeezed back.
Now Hank had stormed off to tinker with his latest project, and Jean had run off to debrief Magneto with Scott hot on her heels, and Bobby was still holding Warren’s hand.
Before he could overthink it, Warren turned to face Bobby. His hair was slightly dishevelled, and in his eyes Warren could see his own reflection.
He cupped Bobby’s cheek gently with his free hand, and kissed him.
It was soft. It was all very Bobby: the awkwardness of too many limbs between them, the sudden proximity of their bodies, the coolness of his chest.
When Warren pulled back, he felt suddenly too warm, and he knew his cheeks were flushed.
Bobby stammered. “I didn’t know you were-“
“Yeah,” Warren interrupted, quietly. “I’m…” He took a deep breath. “Older Warren says they call it pansexual.”
Too fast, Bobby nodded. “That’s cool. So… all this time.”
“I’ve found you cute?” Warren raised their joint hands between them, then pulled them to his chest. “Pretty much. Probably why I used to call you those funny names.”
“Shit,” Bobby laughed, despite himself. “Yeah. We were very aggressively of our time, weren’t we?”
Warren flashed him a devilish smile. He felt disconnected from the landing bay by Bobby’s touch, but he also felt incredibly grounded.
He kissed Bobby’s hand, then let it fall from his.
“I’ll see you around,” he drawled, purposefully elongating the last word, and Bobby gave him a cheerful salute.
There was blood under Warren’s fingernails, but that was okay because Bobby had held his hand.
—
Living in the bunker, hiding from HYDRA’s pet mutant leaders, Warren had all the excuses he needed to get in Bobby’s personal space.
Hands brushed? Trapped together. Shared a sandwich? Low on supplies.
Warren watched Bobby’s eyes turn darker and darker, until he volunteered to stay behind with Warren to hold the fort as Briar did whatever it was that she did.
Briar had been off the perimeter less than thirty seconds, when Bobby grabbed his face with both of his hands and kissed him senseless.
Warren grinned through it like an idiot, and of course that made Bobby kiss him harder, until they had to pull away.
He watched Bobby carefully, the rise and fall of his chest, and let him speak first. “That was intense.”
Warren raised an eyebrow. “You think.”
Bobby’s cheeks flushed. “I’m… I'm not complaining. I just…” His nervous motion was forming a snowflake at his fingertips. “Damn, Warren. You drive me crazy.”
“Good crazy?” Warren asked, trying to sound dismissive, but he caught Bobby’s eye and dropped the tone. “Look, Bobby.” He caught one of Bobby’s hands, freezing to the touch. “Hey. We’re mutants from a different century. Everything is crazy.” He pulled him closer, their noses bumping. “This isn’t. You’re you, I’m me. We just… do this now.” To exemplify his point, he kissed Bobby again, less teeth and more gentle. His attempt to pull back was met with protest. “I’m not done! I…”
“Warren,” Bobby breathed slowly, impulsively kissing his nose. Warren shivered. “Briar’s coming back in an hour, so would you just shut up?”
—
They were walking around a secret supervillain base, and Warren was starting to feel heady and hot and…
He pinned Bobby against the wall and kissed him for all he was worth, dragging it out and digging his fingers into the soft ice covering his hair.
After a while, it stopped being cold and Warren pulled back to see Bobby’s ice melting off his head to reveal his brown hair.
Bobby groaned, embarrassed, and ducked his head into Warren’s shoulder. “‘S my concentration. When we get all… and your fire wings…”
“Oh,” Warren flushed pink and stepped back, removing his arm. “I’m literally too hot to handle, huh?”
Bobby placed a hand on his other shoulder, leaning in close. The ice was reforming around his head. He kissed Warren slowly, like they weren’t meant to be tracking down a rogue, destructive mutant. Like they were the only people alive, like fire and ice weren’t a combination for disaster.
(In his mind's eye, he saw Bobby—older, broader—taunting Pyro with bared teeth. He thought that he understood that instinct now.)
If Bobby kept kissing him like this, it was going to destroy Warren.
Warren really hoped Jean wasn’t in their heads. Or that the supervillain mutant didn’t find them like this.
—
Warren could pretend he wasn’t the type to jump off a cliff for Bobby, until he did just that to swoop to Bobby’s rescue.
It really put a spanner in the works. He loved Bobby, but he wouldn’t die for him, right? (He was being stupid. He could fly.) But… he was the type to die for love. Or for Bobby. Whom he loved.
The realisation almost made him drop Bobby.
Which was fine. Everything was fine.
“Nice save, Warren,” Bobby grinned, and Warren looked at him deeply, then gave him a chaste kiss, teasing as he pulled away and dropped Bobby back into the fight.
He felt Jean buzzing in the back of his head, and he gave her the mental equivalent of the middle finger, to which she chuckled. With a grunt of effort and the glow of telekinesis, she punched the supervillain into the rocky cliff face, where his lights literally went out. You’re welcome.
Warren dived towards the ground, towards Bobby standing on a mound of snow, and tried his best to project the appropriate response. Thanks, Jeannie.
She projected back his lovelorn expression, the mental phrasing which he rejected, and floated downwards to break up the posturing between Hank and Scott.
An arm grabbed Warren as he dived, and he stopped just in time to turn and kiss the smirk off Bobby’s face. Bobby laughed, and bit his lip, and Warren’s head was pounding.
His feet crunched on Bobby’s makeshift snow mound, behind him Hank raised his voice, and all he could think as he looked at Bobby was that he really would die for him.
Bobby lopped an arm across his shoulders, and Warren found his hands were at Bobby’s hips. “Can you give me a ride?”
With a lopsided grin, Warren proclaimed, “Sure.”
Try hard not to die for him, Warren. I don’t think he’d appreciate it all that much.
Warren kissed Bobby’s hairline. Jean? Shut up.
—
Everything got harder and sharper as their days in the future wore thin.
Bobby sought out Warren even more, if possible, necking in dark corners and sharing his bed while everyone else was asleep.
In moments like those, Warren felt like a buffer for Bobby’s anger and his fear, like he was the wall between him and the world.
It was a price he was happy to pay. Sat on his bed, curtains drawn and in his pyjamas, everything was about Bobby.
Bobby’s tone was thick with anger. “He doesn’t get it. He can’t get it.” He gestured wildly between him and Warren, who caught his hand protectively. “None of this… none of this means anything because it didn’t. In order to become him, I…” He stared deep into Warren’s eyes. “None of this matters.”
Warren shook his head, giving the kitchen a cursory glance. “Don’t say that. Don’t you dare say that.” And he leaned in close so their noses were touching.
Bobby took the bait, and kissed him with such strength that Warren wasn’t sure how he was supposed to ever forget it.
“Warren?” Bobby said, after they’d messed up each other’s hair and stopped to breathe.
He made a mmm noise and kissed Bobby’s jaw.
“What are we?”
Warren threaded his fingers back through Bobby’s hair and kissed him again, slower. Moments like that came so much more naturally than words.
“Something that matters.”
—
Bobby was a little tipsy, and a little flushed, and maybe Warren was too.
Either way, he couldn’t be sure whose idea it was that he walked Bobby back all the way to his room, but it was his idea to push Bobby up against the closed door and kiss him frantically, Bobby’s hands in his hair.
When he pulled back, he took a deep breath and turned away. “It really is that good, huh?”
“Deflection. Classic Warren,” Bobby said a little sharply, and then quieter as he continued. “Guess that’s why he kept asking if I was into you.” He began to speed up as he spoke. “I mean, it’s like every teenage fantasy I ever had. It’s weird. Because, y’know, I always thought you had a thing for Jean. Like everyone else. Really it should have been a clue that I wasn’t into her, since clearly she was so irresistible and-“
It was another bad idea, but Warren figured they were going to lose count, so he kissed Bobby mid-sentence. His wings spread out from his back absent-mindedly and knocked over a lamp. “Humour as a coping mechanism. Classic Bobby.”
“You owe me a lamp,” Bobby replied, close enough for their noses to bump, and still wrapped in Warren’s arms.
Warren raised an eyebrow. “Now who’s deflecting?” He kissed Bobby again, and he felt the temperature in the room drop. “That’s flattering.”
“Well, you’re still kissing me,” Bobby returned, “and I can feel stubble. So.”
“So?” Warren asked.
Bobby took a deep breath. “What are we doing?” He stared into Warren’s eyes, and his icy touch made Warren’s heart speed up. “I mean, you’re Warren. Not sure I could take you rejecting me.”
“Bobby,” Warren groaned, kissing him again, fiercely, “does it feel like I’m rejecting you?”
“Now we’re adults, our feelings are way more complicated!”
There was no response to that, but thankfully Bobby didn’t seem to want one, so Warren resolved to keep kissing him until there was. Or he had to stop. Either was fine.