Genosha, Day One

[just_a_phase]

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.

Comments

[konocc]

They both needed a break, and, apparently, they had both thought of going to this small mutant-friendly county for that break.

He suggested they just go together - as friends. Of course, he also suggested the separate rooms - because they were friends.

And he was Czar of All the Russias!

That was his mind and heart though, and for once the dark clouds of regret are staying away, too. Even if the winds of fate might shift tomorrow, he'll treasure her touching him in a quiet, intimate way today. As a breeze whips her hair around, he stops to curl a strand around his fingers and gently slide it back behind her ear, daring to graze it just slightly with his fingertips before pulling her closely for warmth.

[just_a_phase]

After the shared mental illusion they'd had where he'd died--where she'd had to be there, watching him, and kiss his dead body, whispering she'd loved him--there was no way in hell she was going to say no to his suggestion.

She's not at all certain how this will work out, but she's determined to enjoy it. To enjoy being with him. With her Peter.

She smiles and looks down a little when he moves her hair back. When he starts to pull her close, she deliberately moves towards him on her own power as well. It makes it doubly clear where she wants to be. And with whom she wants to be.

Here and now, for the moment, she feels at peace.

"It's beautiful here," she says quietly, more into his chest than anything else.

[konocc]

Piotr moves his fingers into her hair, pulling her even closer into him. Even if he's had others in his life, he will never stop loving her. It's just hopeless. So, slowly, ever so slowly, he places a lingering kiss on the top of her hair, inhaling the scent of it as he does so.

The voice of his control grasps ahold of him once more. Here we are again, and 'again' is not up to you.

She feels his body stiffen. Even though he's not physically moving, he's backing himself down on all levels again.

[just_a_phase]

She feels it, and Kitty wants to sigh. She doesn't know the right words, not for this. Not with him.

So after a moment, she wraps his arms more firmly around herself and presses her face more firmly against his chest. After a few seconds, she finally murmurs, "I'm not cold, Piotr. And that was--was more than okay."

It's all she can think of to say and to do. The best opening, the clearest one, she can give--and so she does.

[konocc]

"Can you pretend to be cold?" he asks, pulling her back in. Still, the wall is there now. He won't let this go too far, but his heart is dancing in his chest and she can hear it, just as clearly as she can hear the ocean rolling in on the beach they're walking on.

[just_a_phase]

She looks up at him, eyes dancing. "What if I don't want to have to pretend anything?" She deliberately rises on her toes to kiss the underside of his jaw faintly before whispering, "I'm not 14 any longer," as she settles on the ground and against his chest again.

And she's not cold, but oh, she enjoys his warmth.

[konocc]

Direct hit. Kitty can feel all of Piotr's muscles tense as his willpower places a vice grip on his impulses, but some responses are just automatic. He takes a half step back and gazes down at her.

He swallow hard. "It is not about that. We -" His voice is thick. "We have been like this a very long time," he reminds her. "We can break each other."

[just_a_phase]

"It's exactly about that," she retorts, and keeps her eyes locked on his while they talk. "And yes. We can break each other. I remember each time one of us has broken the other. Have you--have you ever thought about what that means? How we can do that to each other--and especially when we're not together?"

Then Kitty looks away at the water and takes a deep breath. "...You died in the Professor's mental illusion--but I had to watch you die. Hold you while you were dead. I don't--I don't want us to stay like this any more. We've been this way for a long time, like you said."

Kitty looks back at him, jaw slightly sight, voice firm.

"I want a change. I want us to change."

[konocc]

"I think about it every day," he admits, then adds. "No. That's...not right. I let myself think about it twice a day - or else I will be a jerk." He says 'jerk' with a slight bit of mirth. It has been at times, her favorite descriptor of him.

He straightens. "I want to be good for you. I know I have not been."

[konocc]

Some things cannot wait, even if it is late in the night. After some searching, Piotr has found himself on the deck of the Before the Fall, a 30 ft yacht docked in a relatively non-nondescript moorage on the west side of the island. Taking a moment to focus himself, he knocks on the side of the boat, hoping the owner is not out on some late night venture.

[just_a_phase]

There's a long enough pause between Piotr's knock and an older man stepping out onto the dock that Piotr would have had good reason to think that Carmen wasn't there.

But he is. Nothing about his stance is welcoming; it's not inviting a fight, exactly, it just makes it clear that Piotr is not wanted here.

Or anywhere him. Or, more specifically, anywhere near Carmen's daughter.

None of these facts are recent developments, nor, if they were said aloud, would they surprise Piotr.

It does make it awkward, though, seeing as Piotr is there, so eventually Carmen tilts his head towards the plank to the yacht. "Wanna come in?"

[konocc]

"Yes, sir, I would."

Even a spacious boat is still a compact space. Piotr finds himself sitting on the stairs to the exit.

"I am sorry for the late hour, sir, but this is a matter of some importance."

[just_a_phase]

He just sighs and sounds tired when he answers, rather than exasperated or angry.

Both emotions are there--have been for a long time, especially each time he saw his daughter's tears--but right now, he's just tired.

Funny, that.

"Somehow, it's always been a matter of some importance since the day you showed up on my front porch." He waves one hand and sips from a tumbler--neither drunk nor tipsy, but he finds the burn a comfort at the moment.

"Well, say whatever it is, then."

[konocc]

"I can appreciate your perspective," he confesses. To the disbelieving snort he gets as a reply, he adds. "I know you do not believe such a thing. We did not ask to be made as we are. But that is an old argument. I am here for another matter."

He pulls himself to his full height and summons his courage. "Tomorrow I will be asking Katherine for her hand in marriage."

[just_a_phase]

"I saw what you turned my little girl into," he says after a moment, slowly. "Before Japan. I saw that brilliant mind consumed by a broken heart, and I saw my liquor cabinet broken into twice. It's a lot less a 'we' and a lot more just you, kid."

Those words flow easily; after Piotr says what he plans to do tomorrow, he sees red, literally. No more doubts; he's suddenly certain that he's doing the best thing, if it keeps his kitten away from this man.

His voice and expression are both much more calm and even. "What makes you think she'll have you, let alone that you deserve her?"

[konocc]

He is the frontline for the X-Men. He is used to talking blows. At least this is what he tells himself, so to Carmen's correct accusation, he merely nods in acceptance.

"My father told me that a man who marries well will never fully know why his wife has accepted him; only that he should be grateful she has. If she will be my wife, I will be grateful. If she does not, then -"

He stops himself, swallows hard, and thinks about it. Really thinks.

"Then I doubt this conversation will be in vain. If it is not me, it will be someone in the life she leads now, and I will still be with her. I truly cannot imagine a life without Kayta involved in it in some way." He spreads out his hands. "There has been crazy things I could not explain if we had weeks which we have endured - that have tried to tear at what we are to each other. We have tried to be apart." He closes his hands. "It does not work." Piotr's steel eyes find Carmen's brown ones. "It becomes a misery I would wish on no one."

[just_a_phase]

Once, there was a time where he would have listened. Asked to listen, and wanted to listen, both.

And then he was told everything he's been told. Too many suppressed suspicions given enough evidence to look true. Too many new suspicions formed.

One one just-barely-supicion--known as truth, really--confirmed by the truth-tellers, when it comes to the fact about where half of Kitty's DNA came from.

He feels some anger begin to burn and doesn't want to force himself to direct it away from Piotr, who isn't the valid target anyway.

Doesn't want to, but does.

(Nature vs. Nurture. The old debate on an almost as old blackboard at college. Suddenly it's funny. For so many reasons--but the very few people who would get the joke aren't here now.)

"Oh, I could tell you a misery or two. More than a few." Carmen studies his glass, the alcohol and the ice in it, with surprising care, though his face isn't filled with pain--or, equally surprising, it's not pain for himself. Next to the pain is empathy, not self-pity.

Something's been cracked in Carmen Pryde.

Steel is perfect for breaking it.

"So if you're asking her to marry you tomorrow, you're here why, then?"

[konocc]

The marina is nice, but it's not perfect. It smells too much like dead fish. Maybe that's just because of the conversation with Carmen tainting his opinion of the place.

He's waiting out in the car here with a pay and go cell phone Kitty picked up for him on the trip. So far, he's learned to turn it on (8 minutes), connect to the wifi (another 8 minutes), enter his school account name and password (4 minutes), have it rejected twice due to typing errors (10 minutes), have it run low on battery and find a way to plug it in (17 minutes and thank Mother Russia for teaching him inventiveness!) turn off and on the speaking feature (by accident and then on purpose 5 minutes), and then he texts Kitty to tell her about the phone working (4 minutes after finding the texting feature, which took 3 minutes) only to amazed at the filthy mind the auto-correct has. ("As bad as Wolverine," he mutters to the salt air.) It takes him another 7 minutes to craft an apology for sending that in front of her father.

He would never dream of interrupting, but he hopes Katya comes and rescues him from this damnable device soon.

[just_a_phase]

The phone texts are a blessing. Because this is just--it's not a fight that she's willing to let her father win.

She's a big girl. Big girls don't cry, even if they sometimes want to.

Now and then they hit things.

Other times, they remember they're actually grown women. And that means they can take what--or who--they want.

And God help her, she wants the Russian waiting for her. They circle each other all the time. She's tired of that and ready to meet in the middle.

"I don't care what strange, kool-aid drinking cult you think I joined, but you're wrong. Watched the news? I've done more good before hitting 25 than you have in all your years," she says angrily, and (as happens more and more) feels the edge of her body start to tingle, to almost-phase, at her rage. "You do not choose my life for me. That is how I ended up with an ancient ninja in my head!"

Carmen flinches like she's struck him, and she's glad. It would lose power to shout the words; instead she stands tall and says them evenly, smiling, even, when it will hurt him the most.

She's been hurt a lot by him; that's not what father's do.

Suddenly everything looks more clear than it has in years.

"You stay here, Dad. Live your life. I'm going to live mine. And if I'm lucky, I'll be living it with the most noble man I've run across yet. I'll invite you to the wedding, if there ever is one."

Smiling, calmly said, and totally in control as she steps out onto the marina. The fact that this ensures Piotr will hear her words is one she's deliberately considered.

[konocc]

"Wedding?" he asks, trying to keep his voice even while hoping Carmen did not dishonor him.

[just_a_phase]

Instead of answering, she grabs his shirt and pulls him close enough to kiss him the way she always wants to. If she could get away with phasing them together, she would, and she likes to think this kiss says that.

It's a little bit of an angry kiss, too, though the anger isn't directed at him at all. She regrets that even as she bites his jaw before licking her way into his mouth again.

He loves all of her. For what she is, and in spite of what she is, and any other ways possible.

So she regrets it immediately after the fact, but she doesn't restrain herself now.

You. I choose you.

[konocc]

Carmen Pryde is a bastard who undercut his proposal. At least this is what he thinks because that kiss contains anger and pain in addition to love. When she breaks it off, his first remark is, "We should go from here."

The next few minutes driving are spent in thoughtful silence until he reaches a scenic pullout spot where he slows and then stops the car.

"What did he say?" he asks.

[just_a_phase]

She laughs a little, bitterly, as she glances out the window.

It's what he said, what he didn't say, what he's said before...

Her left hand rises for a moment, as if a gesture will compensate when words are lacking--and then it fails, too, and so it falls, the feel of the denim rough against her skin.

"He was Carmen Pryde," she says finally. Starts to idly wonder if he remembers her sharing a suspicion with him long ago, and doesn't even complete the thought.

Of course he does.

"That was enough. It's like he's convinced I drank the crazy juice, or..." Her shoulders shrug slightly once.

"Something. Dunno. You've seen him before. You know him."

[konocc]

His eyes dart out to the sea. "Da."

It's quite peaceful here.

"Sometimes, love is not enough." His hand finds hers. "But it is sometimes, it is the only thing that matters." He puts a finger to her lips. "You matter to me. You have mattered to me every day of my life. Even on those days where I did not remember or matter to myself, you mattered to me."

His hands return to the steering wheel. "But I can't do this the same way we have been. All I have to offer is myself, Katya, but will -"

When the ground shakes under them, the instinct kicks in before thought does. The shift to steel is instantaneous. Attack!

[just_a_phase]

He has never heard her voice like this; it's not only pained, it sounds like the words are physically ripped from her with a meat hook.

Because she's not exactly stupid.

And she wants, oh, she wants, what she knows he was about to offer.

"Not fucking now, damn you all to hell!"

She's already phased.