just_a_phase | c:/mydocs/current

The various items she's made and programmed for the farm haven't taken up all of her time. Now that most of the major work is finished, they take up even less. That means Kitty can work on other things.

Projects of her own, old and new. Some in code, some in metal. Some will blend the two.

But there's one thing that keeps her out late in her office more often than anything else. It causes Piotr to come out and silently wrap a blanket around her shoulders. Sometimes he then sets a mug of herbal tea next to her, softly kisses her hair, and leaves. Sometimes he reaches his large hand around her much-smaller one and suspends or shuts down the program, app, or computer. Then he lifts her up and takes her to bed.

She has spent so many hours looking online for even the faintest of traces of the Red Room that the hours long-ago became days. Months.

You can't hide forever, she swears each night, and in the meantime--

--there is work to do.

She's known Iron Man since she was 14. She's worked with him. They're not friends, but they've been teammates.

But out of the suit--that's different and new.

After discussion, they had agreed to work in his workshop as opposed to hers. Common sense.

The case she carries by her side is heavier than it looks like it is by how she walks and holds it; she and he have technologoy and suits and armor to talk. His armor and a suit of hers that needs help.

The last few weeks, though, have had more interesting search results than ever before. And she's pondering over what she's read and seen on a screen, twisting the words and images about like an object she's trying to figure out.

She may need to bring that up, too. She's not sure yet.

First, she supposes, she should set the damned case down before she loses an arm.

She doesn't want to do this.

Mostly because she knows Hank will find evidence of--don't think about that.

But she'd rather do it on her own terms than have Hank drag her in because she's put it off too long.

She refuses to let herself take a deep breath.

"Hank?"

She's battered and bruised and--despite his insistence on carrying her bridal-style into their home and all the way to their bedroom--she's aware that Piotr is too.

Kitty doesn't care.

This. This is what she's been moving towards for a decade, even if at times she denied the fact. They've finally made it through all the pain and hurt and lies (to themselves as well as each other) and now--

They're actually married. She's kept her maiden name, while they both muse on if he takes her name or she takes his, but that means nothing.

The fresh ink on and in her skin tingles, even if rationally she knows it can't.

She's seen so many marriages fall apart, and she promises herself, nuzzling Piotr's neck as he shuts the door to their room with his body, that this marriage won't be one that does.

In retrospect, one or the other of them should have cried at some point. There had been sounds of pain from them both, if not equally so, yes, but tears? Only the sort that your body forces out, rather than the kind you let fall.

Then again, they're X-Men. So the pain of the escape not bringing tears is not a shocker after all, is it?

The loss of the child makes both of them shed more than enough tears--of grief, of rage, of pain that's beyond physical--to make up for every embryo they had to leave behind.

And they do what they're trained to do: they go on the run and go low to ground.

(If they could have handled it differently--if there were police for things like this--then maybe it wouldn't shatter them so. The problem is that they are some of the police for things like this. And so--and so. Something that was almost finally woven into a beautiful thing develops a fray, and time takes a different turn.)

Getting to Genosha--at least, if you want to be as discrete as possible and not announce to all the island that you're X-Men--involves more flight transfers than Kitty wants to think about at this point. More than once she drowsily woke up to find her head on Piotr's shoulder.

He didn't say anything about it, so she didn't either.

But after the second time, she found she'd also wake up with a faint smile.

They're finally here, though, finally through customs and security, and they can just...be. Be the two of them. Be lost in the crowd.

It's a little scary, and a little neat, and a lot needed.

Her head's on Piotr's shoulder--well, upper arm--again as they walk by the shoreline, and for once...

Kitty Pryde has nothing to say.

And she thinks that's okay.

This is a test post. It is only a test post.

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The Red Room tries many things with many mutants.

Some of them--especially if there are complications, like DNA tainted by the Legacy Virus--fail.

Or, at least, the Red Room believes them to fail. Believes one particular attempt to bring back a mutant failed.

Magic--and Magik--can do amazing things, though, and is as much tied to a soul--to two souls, at that, soul mates without the romance, except as a might-have-been--as a body.

And in some cases, that can make a body.

And that body, once the soul is back in it, knows there's only one place to go. The soul needs its soul mate, and disoriented as Magik is, that's all she knows.

Kitty is busy in the workshop Piotr set up for her on their farm--and she'll never get over the fact that they have a farm, this farm--when she suddenly gasps and leans over, one hand flying to her chest. Flying to directly over her heart.

She's felt this before. Every time, though, it was tied to someone who she knows is dead. Knows is dead and mourns that fact.

--Except her last name is Rasputin, and her brother is a living example of the fact that death for mutants isn't always permanent.

"Can't be," she murmurs, but slowly turns around, watching the room.

Waiting, even if she doesn't realize it yet.

Some days, she hates being the only true student here, despite what the others are listed as being.

It means she has to do actual schoolwork, and Kitty Pryde does not want to be comparing the various leaders of the Civil Rights movement with specific mutant activists today.

Not that she gets to choose.

She's periodically tempted to pinch her arm to see if she's awake.

This is not happening. She is not on vacation in Japan with Emma Frost.

...She also has not told Emma Frost about this tiny thing called the Path of Destiny that she knows she's technically the head of since Ogun's death. But she's not entirely sure she has to, and that is not a conversation she particularly wants to have ever, if she can avoid it.

It's going to be interesting enough explaining why she has a Japanese passport, as well as an American one.

Lockheed was pissed she didn't let him come in disguised-via-image-inducer cat form, but somehow, she doesn't see a dragon making anything better on this trip.

And that, too, is a rare thing.

She's feeling rather smug.

But Piotr, she knows, is too, as he's not exactly one to enjoy himself and leave her hanging.

So their moods are both good after they've showered and curled up on the bed; he's pulled his trousers back on, but he's bare-chested due to her stealing his shirt. (He mumbled once that he senses a habit developing, but even he couldn't entirely keep the smile off his face.)

Kitty's reading one of the books from the few boxes of hers that's in the house--she doesn't know about Piotr, but the idea of the work part of making "his" house into "their" house exhausts her to think about--and he's sketching, one hand resting on her stomach.

It's nice. It's quiet. And it's peaceful.

So she lets it go on for a while before she gives in to the nagging thought that's been looping through her mind. "...As much fun as it was, we...didn't exactly finish talking. I still have to tell you about Chicago, and--" She sighs.

She doesn't want this, but they both need it, want or not.

"And you...were going to tell me about what happened to you in Genosha."

She dreams.

When she was awake, there was too much, much too much, to remember. To sort through. She was too many places at once, and in most of them, no one noticed her. In some of them, she scared people.

In one, though...

One was close. Closer than the others. Like it wasn't a different universe or dimension or timeline, like she just...shifted.

Awake, it's all too much to sort through--another dose of Kick, and she probably could have. But another dose of Kick, and she'd probably have never stopped.

But she dreams, and she could swear, it's so real, then, it's not like dreaming, it's like remembering something that she desperately wishes she could believe was true...

She can't believe she bought this.

The inhaler--it looks just like one for asthma, but for the X on it--is sitting by her feet on the bed. Kitty stares at it, like it'll disappear and undo the purchase she made if she waits long enough.

But it keeps being there.

She's trying. She's trying so hard. She hoped it might be better at least when Hong was dead--but all she feels is fear. Fear that there's a little girl out there she'll find if she goes hunting again, and then she'll have to tell this little girl she doesn't have a daddy, and--

Before she's realized it, she's inhaled two puffs of Kick and is curling up on the bed.

And.

Oh. Wow.

This is...this is--she suddenly knows. She knows. That she could phase all the way, and it wouldn't kill her. And she's everywhere throughout the room all at once, spread out, but her mind, her too-fast-jumping-mind is--

It's in other worlds, oh God oh God, that's why it's so hard for people to follow her thoughts, her mind is all split up in dozens of other worlds and oh, God, she can see him, she sees worlds where Piotr is alive, and she spreads spreads spreads and she knows, again, she could pull herself to that world. To that Piotr. To any of those Piotrs, maybe a Piotr who lost his Kitty. She could make herself solid if she wanted to, just in that place, not this.

She could run so far away she could find a place where she might be able to be happy again. She can't remember happy. She thinks she scattered happy when she scattered Piotr's ashes--and that leads to thinking on things and she knows again, too, she can phase them without touching, and suddenly her lamp is phased so far it's translucent, and the last thing in the world she wants is to stop, she's so light, and no one can hurt her here, can touch her here, no one...

Time must have passed. She only realizes that because she's naked and solid on the floor and crying so hard her stomach hurts.

Hurts a lot, actually, and she doesn't know if it's the crying or the Kick, but she's throwing up a moment later. She rests her head on the bathroom tile, nice and cool, and calms down.

Her clothes are gone. They phased away to nothing--and that means she phased so far it was dangerous. (Was it? She can remember, is the thing, but only almost--and all she knows is that she can do much, much more with her powers than she ever know. That she's more powerful than she imagined. And it terrifies her.)

She brushes her teeth and, very slowly, makes her way back to her bedroom.

The lamp's gone, too, and she stares, trying to remember if she touched the lamp.

She's sure, she realized, she didn't, and a cold feeling runs down her spine. She did that.

She's afraid to try again. Not unless it's monitored, not unless it's someplace like Xavier's--and she can't go back there. For too many reasons.

She grabs her robe, wraps it around her, and finds herself staring at the Kick again.

The thing is---

It was terrifying, yeah. But terrifyingly good. (Maybe, maybe, the back of her mind suggests, like that drug from Genosha would be if you weren't tied down as someone's personal porno show, maybe if you were with someone you loved, someone like P--stop. Stop thinking that. He's dead, his ashes scattered by your own hand. Grow up, little girl. Grow up.)

She wants to try it again, and she wants it badly.

And she knows that's a dangerous sign. She's wondered, when she couldn't help it, if part of her anger at Piotr after the miscarriage had been withdrawal symptoms not handled.

After a moment, she gets out a painter's mask. Goes to the bathroom and turns the fan on high. And she proceeds, for fifteen minutes, to spray all of the Kick into the toilet, flushing regularly.

She leaves, fan and mask both still on. Grabs a Sharpie and covers the inhaler entirely in black, so the X is hidden.

Mask comes off--she feels a little off, suspects she got a little more Kick in her, but nothing like before--and she silently phases outside and down the levels, knowing it's too late for anyone to see her.

The inhaler is thrown into a dumpster, all of this done quickly, so quickly.

Because she knows, as she makes her way back to her apartment, turning the bathroom fan off, and climbing into her bed, that if she didn't do it immediately, she wouldn't do it at all. and there's be another night, and she'd try it again.

Instead, she reaches for one of the pictures she keeps by her be, this one of Piotr, and holds it tightly to her chest and closes her eyes and, eventually, dreams.

God, she hates being awake.

It's the worst thing she can imagine, being solid and trapped instead of phased and free--and all the worse because she knows they're fussing over her because she just miscarried a baby (a baby, her baby, Piotr's baby, does he know? What are they doing to him, are they telling him?) and she know, from what she hears, that once she's recovered they're trying again.

She won't cry in front of them, though. Never. They don't get to see her tears. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you came into the world this way. I'm sorry I couldn't save you.

It's too much, too much constant touch, and she hates it.

She notices a shadow over her and turns her head, best she can, to see Dr. Keller. He's Canadian, young, and, if he wasn't an evil bastard, she might say attractive.

All she sees is her baby's killer. Keller, killer--it fits.

"I know you're uncomfortable." His voice is sickly sweet. "I have something for you. It will help you. You'll be," and his pause should have warned her, "better. Feel better."

He places the capsule in her mouth. "It's a little bitter, but chew it anyway. Let it rest under your tongue for a while, then swallow."

She almost spits it back in his face.

But she's tired, so tired, and everything is hell, and so she does what he says.

That's the first mistake she makes.

Oh God oh God oh God, she needs--

She needs stimulation. Something to rub against. She can feel her back desperately arching, except she can't remember why she can't reach anything, and then the straps are burning where they touch her, and it's almost enough she forgets about the throbbing between her legs.

Almost.

Everything after that is pictures and light and sound and scent, that scent, on her own breath and in her nose, and she can see Keller watching her and she knows, she knows, he's enjoying this, and she thinks he's getting off on it, but she can't even be angry.

She's terrified, and she needs release, and the sounds and the smells make her feel sick, and she thinks she's crying.

And all she can think is, I hate you at the world.

She can't even look at Keller when she comes down. She's never felt like this before. Used and dirty and very small.

"See? You forgot, didn't you?" And that's true. "You'll take one twice a day. And if you don't," and the sing-song quality to his voice makes her want to vomit, but so many things do right then, "I'll just put it in your IV drip." His hand passes, so gently, over her hair, and she can feel the tears slipping free. "There, now. Until we're ready to try again, you won't have to remember. Isn't that nice?"

Piotr, my Piotr, where are you?

Keller walks away.

And she tries to suck the tears back into her eyes and forget.

"I tried that one first. Good luck, Rasputin. You're never getting away."

She might as well have tattooed an "X" on her arm, instead of a dragon around a sword. (She will never tattoo a name, though. Not even his. ...Maybe. Maybe the child who has a name now. But in kanji, for only her to know. For only her to be certain how to translate.)

"Now you get it," she hisses, seeing it click with the sheen of tears, "and by God, if you ever try to guilt me over one thing I did, I will break your arm. Goddamn you."

It's not easy, with his weight, to roll her hips up against his. She does anyway.

She can't remember what the main point of this is anymore. She should have warned him. She knew, she knew, when the box came out, that her grip on her temper was going to be tenuous at best.

It's gone, gone, gone, now, and so are her clothes, and she almost doesn't notice, just sneers back, "I'd hate to impose," and nips his neck, sharply.

resume

Kitty "Shadowcat" Pryde

Marvel Universe: Excelsior! | A Marvel Universe RPG

July 2017

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23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

Being an X-Man?

It's Like Wearing a Shirt That Says, "Please, Try and Kill Me, I Like It!"

c:/mydocs/current

People Behind the Masks 1/2

[Test Scene - Hank - Kitty's Required Medical Exam upon Returning to the X-Men]

With This Ring, Thee I Wed

Genosha: Time Stopped Having Meaning So Long Ago

Genosha, Day One

Testing 1 2 3

[Illyana Test Thread]

TimeWarp: If we'll ever come full circle, we have to start somewhere...

Made In Japan

Genosha, Chicago, and Japan, Oh My!

What Is Real? (Just a Dream)

Kick

Genosha - One of Many

[continued - let's be safe, rating wise, shall we friends? Children, hide your eyes.]

resume

July 2017