Just Like You: The Return

by Alestar

The doors whir open, and the shadows and nighttime stillness of the hallway are replaced with the bright, noisy whiteness of the medlab. Bobby steps in blinking.

"Hallooo from the mountaintop."

Hank, bent over his computer across the room, looks up-- also blinking. "Bobby? It's two in the morning."

"Yes, it is." Bobby moves to take a seat to where Hank is sitting, scooping up a non-descript piece of paper off the desk as he walks by. "Time for all good little mutant scientists to be in bed."

The mutant scientist looks back down at his computer dismissively, in the way of someone who's parried the same lecture with the same comment a hundred times. "I have only to finish a few more things, and I'll be done. I'll be sure to get some rest."

Bobby takes the paper, folds it two ways, down the center. "Yeah, I know. I didn't come down here to make you go to bed." Hank halts his typing and looks up at him skeptically.

"You know that Ororo threatened to have us drawn and quartered if there were anymore midnight twinkie runs this month."

The paper gets folded in half, with one corner sticking up. Bobby grins. "It might be worth it. But, nah, I didn't come down for that, either."

The typing resumes. "Why did you come down, then?"

"Couldn't sleep. Wanted to talk."

"About what did you want to talk?"

Bobby wraps the corner sticking up around and tucks it into the other side. Another corner is folded, another pulled out. Then turned upside down.

"Look. I made you a camel."

Hank looks up but the clicking of the keyboard continues. "A camel?"

Bobby scrunches up his face. "Well, maybe like a kind of funky boat." He makes a bobbing-in-the-ocean motion with the origami camel. Sets it on Hank's desk.

"I just, y'know, wanted to talk about stuff, I guess. How's it going with the Legacy Virus, what do you think of Rogue's new haircut, who're you gonna vote for, what happened in the alternate reality that you and Marrow went to that you won't tell anybody, if the Mets have any chance this season, how to make a good--"

The typing stops by question number four. "The Legacy Virus is going as well as any rapidly-spreading incurable virus, it's a little frumpy, Gore-- and, Robert, I have already told you and everyone else what happened in the alternate reality. It was just like our reality, with only the most minute differences. We stayed there until that reality's X-Men could teleport us back. Nothing happened."

"You had to pretend to be their Hank and Marrow for a while, didn't you?"

"For a while, yes. Until we discerned what caused our jump and whether there was any danger to be faced."

"And there wasn't."

"No."

"Hank?"

"Yes?"

"I was a bad guy, wasn't I? That's why you won't tell me about it."

Having already given up on his typing, Hank pushes away from his desk and moves toward the coffeepot a few feet away. "You weren't a bad guy, Bobby. You were just like you."

"Except . . ?"

"Except nothing, Robert."

"Marrow keeps giving me these looks . . and making these little comments . . "

Hank sighs and sinks into his cup of coffee. "Sarah likes to stir up people. It's her way of bonding."

There is a long pause before Bobby nods. "Okay."

"Do *you* think the Mets have any chance this season?"

Bobby accepts the coffee Hank hands him and shrugs. "I dunno. The line-up's okay, I guess, but the coaching sucks, so . . "

And they talk for quite awhile, about simple things that have nothing at all do to with other Bobbys and places and possibilities that would keep Hank up even if he followed everyone's advice and went to bed. They talk until there is nothing else to say-- or nothing else easy to say-- and then they sit in silence until Bobby says more.

They both look down into their fourth cups of coffee, and he interupts.

"Hank. I'm sorry. For-- when that evil Hank fake guy took your place and I didn't realize, and I'm sorry."

Hank shakes his head in that same same-comment way. "No, Robert, you don't need to apologize. No one does. I had been spending all of my time down here, and he was a remarkable impersonation. And besides which, it's over. It doesn't matter."

Bobby cringes into his coffee. "No, c'mon, Hank. It does matter. You were *replaced*, and I didn't notice. Of *all* people, I should've noticed. I mean, you're my--"

Hank's sudden stillness is a noise in and of itself, and it echoes in the room as Bobby looks up at him. He falls silent and remains that way as several minutes pass. Then, Bobby speaks in a quiet voice.

"That other reality thing that you won't talk about. It was what I think it was, wasn't it?"

Hank takes a deep breath. "Quite a few 'was's in that sentence, Robert."

Bobby doesn't waver. "Here's another one: Was it?"

He stands and pours more coffee, offers more coffee to Bobby-- with cream, because Bobby never drinks coffee without cream, and Hank knows that. "I don't know what you think it was, Bobby."

Bobby sighs. If there is one thing he's familiar with, it's unspoken things. "Yeah, you do."

Hank sits back down in his chair and looks at Bobby directly. "Yes."

"'Yes', you know what I'm talking about, or 'yes', that's what happened over there?"

"Both."

One beat, then two. "Oh."

"Yes."

"So, in the other reality, you and I . . ?"

"Yes."

"And while you were pretending to be their Hank, you . . ?"

Hank's resolve falters on this one, but not for long. "Yes."

Bobby releases a big breath. "Okay. I mean. Wow. So, did you-- was I-- I mean. Okay."

Hank smiles. "Yes. I can sympathize, believe me."

"Yeah, I bet," he laughs shakily. "Lemme. Lemme formulate a question. There's definitely a question here."

Hank nods and looks down at his clasped hands. Waits for Bobby to ask.

"So," says Bobby, after a moment. "You and me. Was it. Was it like me?"

"Yes, Bobby," Hank answers, studying his knuckles. "It was just like you."

"Like-- everything was the same? Except, with-- that?"

"Well, there were some differences." He looks up and shrugs. "A goatee." Bobby makes a face and Hank chuckles. "A curious Kevin Spacey fixation. And a tattoo."

"A tattoo?"

Hank smiles, and then his blue-furred skin darkens slightly and he looks down again, remembering his discovery of that tattoo, and Bobby looking on. He coughs. "Yes."

They lapse into silence again, until Bobby says, "Is that it? Nothing else different?"

"Well," begins Hank.

Bobby leans forward when he doesn't continue. "Yeah?"

Hank smiles ruefully into his coffee cup and says quietly, "I was going to say that you seemed happier. But. It might've only seemed so because I was happier."

He looks up at Bobby, who looks back at him steadily.

"Okay." Hank drops his eyes again, and Bobby takes a deep breath. "Tell me this. Did you love him, this Bobby, while you were there?"

"Yes, Robert. I did."

Bobby moves his hand on the table, to draw Hank's gaze up from it. Then he says,

"Do you love me?"

He says, "Yes, Bobby. I do."

He sits back, then. Bobby nods, and then moves forward, down, to sit in front of Hank's chair. He shuts his eyes and rests his forehead on Hank's knee. Moves the side of his face against the soft blue fur.

"Good."

They sit like that, and Hank rests his hand on Bobby's head, pushing through the light brown hair-- watches the back push out the breath that tangles with the hair on his leg. He fills.

"Robert," he says softly, after a while. "It's four-thirty. Bedtime for Bonzo."

Bobby lifts his head and blinks sleepily. "I love you."

"I know," says Hank. He leans down and Bobby reaches up, and the one pushes his mouth across the other. Which isn't new, really, to either of them-- and they do know, both of them. "I'll see you at breakfast."

"Okay," Bobby says, getting to his feet. He takes a step towards the door and then stops and turns around with his nose crinkled. "I'm not growing a goatee." Hank grins, and Bobby grins.

"But," he adds, with a smile, turning back-- leaving Hank to gather his work before going to bed. "I already have the tattoo."

-end-

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