Work Text:
There were many things that had happened in Robert Drake’s life that made him unusual. For one, he could destroy the universe with a thought at this point, having never found a single boundary to his powers other than himself and his sense of what he should be able to do. And, he admitted to himself, deep down, so deeply down that Jean Gray (the younger or the older, if she ever came back) would never hear it, even if she was kind of a snooping pain in the ass (and had she always been like that and he’d just missed it before?), he had kind of enjoyed the reactions of his out-of-time teammates when they’d realized he was Omega class. It was satisfying in a supremely childish way.
There was also the part of his life story where the time-traveling younger version of himself had finally figured out the truth that Bobby had been avoiding his whole life - he was gay, gay, gay, oh, so gay - but he still was working his way around that realization and what it meant and the possibilities that spiraled from that moment of revelation the way dandelion seeds danced in the wind.
Nope, the thing that made Bobby extremely unusual today was his barely repressed desire to throttle his younger self. The same younger self that stood there looking at him mutinously, with more contempt than anyone had ever shown Bobby (except himself, and oh, God, it was complicated, wasn’t it?), and man if that didn’t fucking sting, Bobby wasn’t an X-men. And he was. Foundational member and all.
Younger Bobby smirked at him. “You can’t kill me. It’d cause a time paradox.”
“Divergent points of existence,” Bobby corrected, even more furious when his younger self shook his head.
“God, you’re a nerd.”
“Takes one to know one,” Bobby spat back and then forced himself to take a breath. Had he always been this unbelievably annoying? “Look, kid, you make a good point behind all that bitching. If you get killed being a fool, we both might go. And I know you’re not all that impressed, but this is our life here, and some parts of it are worth fighting for.”
Younger Bobby looked unimpressed. Entirely. Bobby narrowed his eyes. “I know that expression,” he warned. “I invented that expression. Don’t look at me like that.”
“Cool story, bro.” Younger Bobby scoffed. “When did you turn into such a snooze?”
Bobby hesitated. He has answers to that question, painful ones. Ones that involved losing people, losing control, hurting people he loved, grieving people he’d lost, losing friendships, losing his self-respect, and then gaining it back again. But the 13-year-old standing in front of him didn’t deserve a lifetime’s weight of the fuckery awaiting him. Bobby took a breath and mentally distanced himself. This was him, yes, a younger - and somehow more annoying version of himself, surely, but him. They went way back together. He wasn’t going to give this kid one more burden to carry than the ones he was going to pick up on his own. But this was also a kid and Bobby had grown up in a school and spent years of his adult life teaching students. He checked himself hard and breathed out slowly, the air puffing white, as he thought.
“I’m not asking you to be a snooze,” Bobby said, forcing himself to be calm. “I’m asking you to think, to exercise one bit of caution.” He gestured around the Danger Room, where jagged ice stuck out from every flat surface, remembering all too well the scene twenty minutes back when his younger self had lost control. “You’re not in here fighting for your life. You’re supposed to be training. And you're damn lucky you didn’t hurt anyone else.”
Bobby could see that his last remark hit its target and his younger self flushed. Bobby held his breath, silently begging his younger self to get it. But how do you teach a 13-year-old about the knowledge that comes from the act of growing up? Younger Bobby’s thoughtful expression melted into a haughty one, and Bobby swore he would apologize to every teacher he’d ever had, his parents, and Scott - assuming he and Scott ever managed to be on talking terms again. Yeah, a lot of those expressions had been deserved, but he knew for a fact that a lot of them hadn’t.
“Nothing happened.” The brat was glaring at him, completely ignoring the fact that they had been inches from everything going wrong, and that only Bobby, the adult, had kept a mini-ice age at bay. Fine. Bobby was no stranger to doing things the hard way and if that’s what had to happen now, so be it.
Jaw flexing, Bobby went to the door to the control room and opened it. Hank sat behind the controls, ostensibly looking at his phone, but Bobby had known him too long not to know that he was paying avid attention to what was going on in the Danger Room. It was a good thing, too, since Hank had been the one to recognize that Younger Bobby was pushing himself too hard, too fast, too much, and after the brat had blatantly refused to listen to the orders to stand down, had evacuated the room just before the jagged ice shards had pierced almost every space in the span of a few minutes. Bobby knew, even if his younger self didn’t, that those ice shards were capable of wounding gods and immortals, and there wasn’t a child - or an adult - in that room who stood a chance if they had been skewered. If Bobby hadn’t been in there to do damage control, they would be having a vastly different conversation, one involving ambulances and morticians.
“Hank,” Bobby asked, and Hank glanced up at him, expression neutral. “Don’t let anyone in, yeah?”
“Certainly,” Hank shook his head, and some of the tension that had grown into their friendship over the years melted as he gave his onetime best friend a sympathetic look. “Be easier on him than you were on yourself.”
Bobby managed a tight smile. “Sure.” Then he shut the door and turned to look at his younger self with intent. Despite what anyone else had ever said, he hadn’t been an idiot at thirteen. Younger Bobby was regarding him with an appropriate amount of wariness.
“What?” The brat challenged. “These are my powers, too. I should be able to use them…”
“And you are able to use them,” Bobby cut him off, taking a deep breath and steeling himself. “But I know you know the first rule of using powers. You gotta accept the consequences of using ‘em.”
The kid stared at the adult blankly for a second, then he flushed and backed up a step. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’ve been told that a lot over the years,” Bobby countered, crossing his arms. “But you know better than that, too. I know, brat, how afraid you are of yourself. I know. And I know that you put yourself in situations because you’re mad at yourself about it and a small part of you hopes that you self-destruct.” Watching his younger self shaking his head frantically was like staring into the past, and Bobby had to push past a moment of disorientation. His words, when he spoke, were resolute, unyielding, and certain. “You can lie to everybody else, and even Chuck might believe you, but you can’t lie to me. I know.”
“You’re fucking full of it.” Bobby had to hand it to himself. He’d never met a pile of trouble he wasn’t willing to leap in face first, and even here, knowing what his adult self-intended, his youthful self was quite happy to fling shit and make the situation worse. Bobby was going to get everyone a big bottle of scotch for Christmas, he decided, even as he advanced on his past, identical ice blue eyes locked on each other.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” Bobby challenged. “Tell me you didn’t push yourself to the edge, and then blindly jump, because why the fuck not? Isn’t that what you thought? Isn’t that what you always think?”
For a moment, Bobby was looking into a mirror to his own childhood and it hurt to see that his words had struck the truth. He could feel the kid’s pain like it was in his own old-ass body. The kid just stared at him, and Bobby took a breath and moved towards the teenager. “You’re better than this,” he said softly. “You’re worth more than this. And I know that it doesn’t feel like it, and I know that it feels like everyone that should be there for you isn’t, and I wish to God I’d been there for you, for me, more often. But I’m here now, brat. And whatever else comes from this, you’re going to know that we deserve better.”
“Go to hell.” It was a whisper, but Bobby heard nothing but raw and desperate pain in the words. His heart ached, but he kept his face stern.
“Been there,” Bobby said. He grabbed his teen self’s arm, and he felt his younger self jump and start to pull away. He gave himself a shake. “Stop it. You’ve more than got this coming.”
“You can’t do this!” Snapped from his reverie, the younger Bobby started shouting and fighting for his freedom. “What sick pervert bullshit is this? You’re out of your mind! Help me! I’m being oppressed!”
Bobby snorted and ignored him. Focusing, Bobby stared at the ground and made a satisfied noise as a bench grew where he looked. Turning, he sat on it, and yanked his younger self over his lap. Had he always known all those cuss words? Or had his younger self picked them up in modern times? After all, the O5 had been given a freedom here, without the watchful eyes of Charles Xavier, that he’d personally never enjoyed. He wasn’t sure what would come of this time travel sinkhole Hank had created, but he was sure of one thing. Right here. Right now. He was about to tan his own hide.
Nothing for it, then, and Bobby caught his teen self’s legs in between his own and brought his free hand down with a sharp crack on the upturned backside over his knee. The string of curses that flowed back at him was impressive. He wasn’t even sure he knew all those words now and he filed some away to look up later. For the moment, though, he let his hand answer them, slapping smartly down on one cheek then the other, then spending a lot of time in the middle, until his younger self had stopped screeching obscenities and started just screeching. “In a minute,” Bobby said, conversationally when the kid stopped screaming to suck in a breath, “I’m going to let you up to take these down.”
The cursing resumed and Bobby patiently swatted through the belligerence until his teen self was bucking as wildly over his lap as he could manage while being so thoroughly pinned. “Was I this bullheaded?” he muttered aloud, and his teen-self snarled back.
“You still are, you stupid prick. You want to punish me for shit you still haven’t fixed about us yet. What a god damned disappointment.”
“That’s fair,” Bobby said. “And here, brat, listen to this. We. Aren’t. Perfect. And. That’s. Okay.” Each word came with a heavy swat. “It’s taken me a lot longer to learn that than it should have and I’m not proud of it. You can learn it now, though. Show me up in a way that matters, because it isn’t going to be by flexing your powers and killing your friends by accident.”
Teenage Bobby froze, no pun intended. “I didn’t mean to lose control.”
“I know,” Bobby stopped and hauled his younger self to his feet. “You’re not in trouble for that, not from me. And I hope you forgive yourself for it, too, because you’re about to have a plenty sore backside and don’t deserve to beat yourself up more. Lose the pants.”
For a long minute, teenage obstinance met adult perseverance, and neither of them moved. Bobby sighed. “I know you think you deserve this. I can tell in the way your hands are fisted.”
Flushing, the teenager dropped his hands. He still made no move to lower his pants, and Bobby took pity on himself. That moment, where compliance in his own spanking was expected, had always sucked so bad. He reached out and unfastened the kid’s pants, yanking his younger self bare from the waist down with one sharp tug, and then pulled the brat back over his lap. “There. See, I can be nice to myself.”
“You’re an asshole.” The kid muttered and Bobby shook his head.
“Yeah, sometimes. But not right now.” Bobby smacked his palm down on his past self’s bare butt and heard him suck in a breath. “Right now, believe it or not, I’m trying to do us both a favor. So, listen up, brat.” Bobby smacked his hand down steadily, watching in one part of his brain as his own bare backside started taking on a red hue, and knowing it would be solid red before he was done.
“You are allowed to take your own paths. You are allowed to move at your own speed. You do not have to live up to anyone. You do not owe anyone. These powers are… they’re so fucking great… but they are dangerous and you can hurt yourself and other people with them.” He focused a whole bunch of swats on his - not his - sit spots, until Bobby the Younger was pushing desperately to get away.
“So don’t be in such a rush. Stop when you need to stop. Rest when you need to rest. But don’t hide behind the unknown, because you know a lot. Trust yourself, Bobby.” Bobby had spanked steadily through this speech, and if voice had choked up, he wasn’t sure that the kid had noticed. His younger self was sobbing, and it touched a part of Bobby that he’d buried a long time ago. He could remember being over Charles’ lap a time or two, hearing some of these same words. Hell, he could remember being over Scott’s lap hearing these words, and grief, thick and heavy choked him. How in the hell had everything gotten so fucked up?
Shaking his head, Bobby forced himself to focus on the boy over his lap and he felt a surge of protectiveness that startled him. “We deserve to care about us,” Bobby said thickly. “So, do it. Care about yourself. Don’t wait until you've earned it - because if you do that, you will never feel like you’ve done enough.”
“I’m sorry!” The wail echoed through the Danger Room, the ice melting away into nothingness, and Bobby stopped spanking. He rubbed the bright red butt for a moment, steadying himself. He honestly wasn’t sure who had cried out - the kid, or him - and he could hear it echoing in his brain. Taking a shaky breath, Bobby let his palm ice over lightly, and rubbed again. The kid hissed in pain and relief as the cold soothed the inferno raging in his backside.
“I’m sorry, too, Bobby.” Bobby said. “I let us down. And I’m sorry, so sorry. But you don’t have to make the mistakes I did. Be better, for yourself.” They stayed there like that for a long time, both crying, although Bobby did his best to keep his tears quiet. This wasn't about him and he hoped he’d gotten through to his younger self. Finally, teen Bobby pushed up. His face was a mess, and he reached up to rub his eyes before he thought to pull up his pants. That just made him cry more, as the uniform pants were tighter than comfort now demanded. Bobby stood up in front of himself, and pulled his younger self into a hug, holding them both together, and ignoring the tears that soaked his shirt.
“Do you really believe all that stuff you said?” The teen asked. “About us deserving better?”
“Yeah,” Bobby quirked a smile, hoping it didn’t waver. “Most days. But, when it comes to you, I know you deserve better.”
“How?” Younger Bobby demanded, eyes pleading for something to hold on to. “How do you know?”
Bobby shrugged. “Hindsight.”
It took them a while, but they eventually made it out of the Danger Room. Bobby the Younger made a hasty exit, barely acknowledging Hank. Bobby watched him go, and then noticed with a start that Hank was staring at him with a thoughtful expression.
“What?” Bobby asked.
“I’m sorry, Bobby.” Hank finally said, looking sad. “I feel like I did you a disservice when we were younger. I didn’t realize what you were hiding.”
Bobby managed a tremulous smile. “Hey, man. I’m a question wrapped in an enigma, buried behind a mystery.”
“I wish you’d felt safe to tell me these things,” Hank said, ignoring Bobby’s automatic deflection. Bobby sighed.
“I wish I’d felt safe to know these things,” Bobby shrugged. “But you don’t know what you don’t know, until you know.”
“True,” Hank agreed with a sigh. He looked into the Danger Room wistfully. “I wish…”
“Yeah, me too, Hank.” Bobby moved over to bump Hank’s shoulder with his own. “Hey, quick question?”
“What’s that?”
“Was I really that much of a shithead?”
Hank snorted laughter and lightly cuffed Bobby on the back of the head. “That’s my best friend you’re talking about.”
Bobby grinned at him, the years melting away for a moment, and reached up to rub the sting. “I was, wasn’t I?”
“Oh, no,” Hank assured. Then he smirked. “You were much, much worse. Unbelievably worse. Impossible to describe amounts of worse.”
Bobby rolled his eyes. “All right, all right. Have fun fixing the space time continuum, Dr. McCoy.”
“Hey, Bobby?” Hank called just as Bobby was leaving and Bobby turned around. “You deserve better. Don’t doubt it and don’t wait for the benefit of hindsight. You deserve happiness, even if the rest of the world falls to shit.”
Bobby didn’t answer. He couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat. Instead, he just nodded, and stepped out, letting the door close behind him.