People Behind the Masks 1/2

[just_a_phase]

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.

Comments

[just_a_phase]

So she does.

She's silent as she quickly takes in all the data. It's that stress she feels when she stops phasing put into numbers, letters, and symbols.

Except her control's slipped more than she realized because this shows her mind, if not her physical brain, is split up in different--realities, she guesses, might be the best word--even when she isn't phased.

And it shows just how hard she has to will herself not to phase past a certain point.

She doesn't say anything for a second after she's finished reading and then finally says, "I knew this. Some of it's new in the sense of having the details--but they're just details that explain what I was already aware of." Kitty pauses as she grabs her t-shirt and jeans from the floor. "But I haven;t had anyone run these kinds of tests for a few years. It's probably a good idea to have the data up to date. I found a contact in Russia's intelligence a few weeks ago for info on Red Room movements. Parts of this might be useful to have on hand when I'm talking with him, though he actually has my trust. Double accomplishment today."

She leans against the wall and looks at him before allowing, "I didn't know about my mind. I'm betting that's why telepaths can't get into it unless I let them."

She's not sure where the hint of disapproval in his expression comes from. Or the worry.

[iron_avenger]

"That there," he replies. "That bit where you mentioned the Russian contact in the middle of talking about something else entirely. Check the readout."

"Because," he states as Kitty looks it over. "I was thinking about asking about what you might have found out. I didn't actually voice the question. My guess -" He points to the parts where she blows Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle out of the water. "Is that you heard it from some other parallel possibility of this conversation."

[just_a_phase]

She looks at the section he indicates for a few seconds.

Her first response is, "Doing the impossible one mutation at a time, apparently."

Her second is, "I hate parallel universes. They only screw with your mind."

And her third is a sigh as she slumps a little and rubs her eyes. "Before I give you any more information, give me your response from just the data and what just happened."

[iron_avenger]

"Your electrons have other ideas about parallel possibilities," he notes dryly.

Tony rubs his chin. "You're a walking contradiction in particle and subatomic particle physics. I may be many, many things in addition, but - right now - I'm a scientist. This scientist has just experienced something beyond what is accepted theoretical norms. The best you get for now is a shrug. Not reassuring, but truth generally isn't."

"The only thing I can say for sure? Your body fights you on being solid." He points to the graphs. "Too much energy in too confined of space. Your form is as a kind of cool plasma - and on that, you can get back to me on how that works - but your power is compressing your local atmosphere to contain it all through a kind of localized, body-focused pressure."

[just_a_phase]

"My electrons don't get a vote."

He's good. She knew that.

It's just different hearing it when the subject is her.

When he's finished, she just says quietly, "A+. I know. I used to be a solid person who could phase. Now I'm a phased person who can become solid. Short answer to how it works: evolution. I assume you want the longer version? And I know my body is fighting it. I phase in my sleep. If I get distracted enough, I lose control." She is not saying what distracts her that much, thank you. "And I know because I can feel it to greater and lesser extents pretty much all the time. I feel everything. Everything. It's hard as hell not to phase past a point I set as the most I will." Reluctantly, she finishes with, "It didn't use to be this hard."

It's said as statements only. Information is required to reach the most accurate conclusion. So he gets it, even if it means she has to vocalize things she nearly never has. Not really. Not to this extent, and only to Piotr to an extent that's close.

And Piotr didn't have the data on the screen to realize just how hard it is not to just let go.

[iron_avenger]

Not that it's his department to explain all this with facts and figures anyway.

"There's one more thing."

He points to her biometric data and then physically steps back to have her examine it. Kitty not trained in medical science to the extent he is, but the data is there to tell her something she likely already knows. Either her child has stopped developing and hasn't miscarried, or - more likely - the pregnancy is subject to the same kind of suspended physicality she is subject to.

He'll say more, but only if she's ready to hear it.

[just_a_phase]

She stares at the screen for several seconds before she blinks back a set of tears. Just one.

"We thought I was pregnant," she whispers, and then the rest of the data starts to click, and she feels like there's ice in her stomach.

Kitty stiffens and is silent for several seconds, just staring at the screen. "...Tell me."

[iron_avenger]

"I have no idea what to tell you," he admits. It's a hell of an admission. "It could be the fetus isn't developing, or that it's phased into a parallel possibility or -" Weakly, he half-lifts his hands in muted frustration. "Something else entirely. I could get consultation on this, but it would risk blowing our cover. High risk."

"Your call."

[just_a_phase]

She needs the Red Room obliterated. They took three daughters from her. She needs--

But what if she doesn't and it's a fourth daughter?

And suddenly, Kitty's certain: it's a girl. She's carrying a girl. She doesn't want to think about how she knows--but she still knows.

That gives her the answer.

"You can't," she says quietly. "It's not just high risk because of our cover. They can't find out I'm pregnant. It's a girl. They'll want her, and it'll all just happen again. And if we don't take them down, they'll try again. They want girls made from Piotr and me. I want my baby safe."

As she speaks, Kitty holds up one hand and looks at it.

Phases it. Phases it more.

Lets it phase just a bit past the point she has set as "you shall not pass" and sees it start to be sapped of color.

She shudders and it instantly snaps back to being solid.

"Besides. She's developing. You...don't need to know everything that was done to me by the Red Room. But they did a lot. She's okay. They guaranteed it." It's just calmly said. "We'll go over the data. I'll explain what you don't know. That's all we can do. They can't know I'm pregnant."

Then she looks at him. "But this means I need your help with my suit's upgrades. ASAP. Please."

[iron_avenger]

"We're going to have to design it from the ground up. I literally have nothing that is going to help you the way it is now."

He holds up a hand. "The problem is this: the suit is...It's everything in a fight. It's the totality of you being. It is a total experience of being merged with the technology to the point where it becomes you. That kind of concentration isn't possible in a normal suit if you want to stay solid."

He stands punching numbers and brings up the Dreadnought armor. "We'll need to make the suit something you can phase meld with."

[just_a_phase]

"Not...entirely the ground up," Kitty says after a moment of taking that in; she goes to grab the case she brought with her and brings it over to him. It clicks open to reveal the suit Seth had left her with.

Green and purple paint blasted off.

"I figure we're at least a foot off of it, anyway. Couple of things," she continues, typing quickly and accessing Cerebro's mainframe before bringing up scans and notes and records.

They're all about her.

She mutters under her breath, "I tried to get out, they dragged me back in. Now here we go again," and takes a breath. "Here's the main cause of the strain: it shouldn't be there. Unstable evolution doesn't make sense. The problem is that my body wants to phase further and farther. I don't let it. I've continued to evolve. But I don't let myself phase past a certain point." Her tone is only that of someone stating facts. "That's why there's too much energy. The amount's also significantly increased from my last set of scans a few years ago."

"Thing two: I came across this a few years ago. The Neo made it. It's not really even something we could use and build features onto--but I've tinkered, and it has one feature we need. I've insulated the electronics enough that accidental phasing won't blow them. It takes deliberate will on my part to short them out."

"Thing three: I think the concentration won't be the biggest issue, but we'll get into that later. It'll involve metaphors on my part and probably several scans of my mind at different stages of being phased, as well as solid. It's a constant, but it's not something that requires a lot of thought. Just...a little more over time as the energy builds up and I still don't phase entirely."

Kitty glances over at him, pulling a file from the same case the suit's in and handing it to Tony as she does so. "And this is a record of my interactions with the head of Russian intelligence. The Red Room is making more noise than usual, but they haven't been able to figure out what any of it means yet. Questions, Mr. Stark? "

[iron_avenger]

Tony favors her with a half smile. "Yes. When are you going to learn to delegate?" Says the master of not doing so. "Tasha can handle the intelligence end better than we can. You need to trust her to do her job because -"

He types in a few more commands. Reed Richard's design for unstable molecules flash to life on the screen in front of them. "We're going to be teaching these things how to dance."

[just_a_phase]

She shrugs. "I trust Tasha. But I also have a connection-by-marriage to the Head of Russian Intelligence--and Xavier's worked with him off and on for years. Hell, the Prof is the reason he's the head. The guy saved Piotr's life. It would have been stupid not to contact him, even if he had next to nada. That said?"

Kitty's eyes don't, in fact, sparkle as she looks at the unstable molecule. This is life, not an anime.

But they do look almost hungry as she murmurs, "I do so love to dance."

This is great because it's doing something, yes.

But what they'll be doing--

She's been wanting more for longer than she realizes. It is not like a parched woman presented with water. Nice cliché, but not accurate.

It's a feeling much more like she's been ignoring a muscle for years and suddenly is using it again--and it hasn't atrophied at all.

Her stomach has one hand on it for a moment, and then she's bringing up more files from some of the more specialized uniforms mutants have worn from unstable molecules, and she has no idea how wide she's smiling.

--and she can't wait to tell her Luddite husband just who it was that confirmed her pregnancy.