Bruises

Summary: A little more pain for the already-wounded. Kyro oneshot.
Timeline: Post-X3
Disclaimer: All things recognisably X-Men aren't mine - I just like making up my own stories.
Author's Note: Inspired by Loose Ends from Imogen Heap's Speak For Yourself album.

If she was asked, Kitty described her relationship with John as 'complicated'. She would give a small, tight-lipped smile and say nothing more on the subject. People gradually learned not to ask, and when he left again (presumably for good this time), there were no more questions.

Kitty was left alone with fragmented memories of her complicated relationship with a boy who caressed fire as tenderly as he had never caressed her.

He had never been especially gentle with her. John was John; he made concessions for no one. She remembered that the whole thing began when John pressed her rather unceremoniously against the wall of their just-emptied classroom and kissed her. It had been hard, brief and sudden, and it had left her with bruises on her mouth.

They agreed to keep their relationship private. It was fine at first – hours spent together after everyone else had gone to bed, in-school dates disguised as study sessions, kisses stolen in empty rooms between classes, carefully planned movie dates that inevitably ended with Kitty dragging John into a photo booth. And yet, it seemed to Kitty that the closer she got to him, the more he pulled back.

"John!" she called. He didn't stop, but his pace slowed, and she caught up to him easily.

"I was thinking that maybe this weekend, we could go out and see a movie or something," Kitty suggested cheerfully and she walked beside him. "We'd have to get there separately, but it should be fine. And –"

"Can't," was his short reply.

"Why not?" she asked, staring at him.

"Detention for setting Bobby's shirt on fire," he explained curtly. He still hadn't looked at her.

"Oh," she said, smile fading. "I guess…another time?"

"Yeah," he replied distantly. "Whatever."

He had a real flair with excuses – it had taken her a long time to finally realise that John was only using his detentions and extra training sessions to avoid spending time with her. It had taken her even longer to notice how much he watched Rogue, flirting with her openly in front of Kitty and even Bobby. Afterwards, if Kitty ever confronted him about it, he snapped that he only did it to keep other people from discovering their relationship.

Kitty was never sure she really believed him.

As the nights wore on, their angrily whispered arguments led to one or the other of them walking away, vowing that this time it was over.

Yet they always ended up back in each other's arms, pressing bruising kisses to already bruised lips. A little more pain for the already wounded, masquerading as passion.

When he left, their relationship was left hanging in the balance. Unfinished. Open-ended. The night before the raid, he kissed her before he left her room for the last time. It tasted like restlessness tinged with a hint of apathy. A kiss that wasn't a kiss.

Kitty never knew that John had been afraid of what they had. She never knew that even from the beginning, he had been waiting for something to go wrong – and when nothing did, he became the catalyst. He let himself develop a wandering eye. He let his love of the control of flames take over. He let her go as wholly as he could.

In truth, he had left her before he ever got on that helicopter.

She remained in love with him for a long time after he left. Eventually, love turned to hope. Then hope into anger. And finally, anger into acceptance. She realised that he wasn't coming back, and all those weeks she spent missing him and waiting for him felt like a hundred years. She grew up – older, sadder, wiser – and finally separated her identity from his.

He left her behind, and after a while, she was able to do the same to him. And as the dramas and problems of life as a mutant teenager continued to unfold, she forgot about John and sought comfort in the smiles of Bobby Drake.

Kitty knew that he was completely in love with Rogue. But she found solace in the fact that he listened to her and understood her and was gentle with her in a way that John had never been. She liked that Bobby was different to the boy who had pulled her roughly to him and then pushed her away. She liked that Bobby drew her close and kept a friendly arm around her shoulders.

It was Bobby who brought John back, rescuing him from Alcatraz and bringing him to the mansion. Storm imposed several restrictions and confiscated his flamethrowers and old collection of lighters. He was under a sort of house arrest, but he was safe from the authorities.

He spoke to Kitty a week after his arrival, leaning in her doorway with a smirk on his face, as if nothing had changed between them since the first time he'd kissed her.

"Is this a bad time?" he asked casually, folding his arms in a gesture that belied the tension and apprehension he felt.

She had known this was coming, but it didn't stop her from being startled. "Yes," she replied curtly, turning back to the box of photographs on the floor next to her. She smiled briefly at a picture of her and Bobby that Rogue had taken a few months ago, and placed it on a small pile of similar photos.

"So when's a good time?" John persisted, sounding very much like the boy she had fallen in love with so long ago.

Kitty finally looked at him, her eyes steely and almost angry, all of the pain she had ever felt in relation to him visible in her tense posture. "Not now," she said slowly, deliberately. "Not ever."

He narrowed his eyes and moved slowly towards her. "Why so bitter, Kitty? When I left, we were fine. Why don't we just pick up where we left off?" He leaned in towards her, ready to seize her lips with his.

She phased through him and stalked to her door, yanking it open. "Just leave, John," she said wearily. "Please. Just go." In truth, she was afraid that if he kissed her, she might not be strong enough to push him away and save herself the pain of going through it all again.

He obeyed reluctantly, and once he was gone, she phased downstairs and began to look for Bobby, the photographs left forgotten next to her bed.

Their interaction during the months that passed was limited to brief, inane conversations in the halls and silent hours spent in front of the television with Bobby and Rogue. Every time she looked at him, she imagined she could feel bruises on her lips, left over from kisses that weren't kisses.

He came to her once more, looking restless and determined. Somehow, when she opened her door, she knew that this was the night that all their loose ends would be tied up – either knotted separately or together.

"I'm leaving."

"Well, that's what you do best," she responded blankly, beginning to shut the door.

He forced it back open. "I'm leaving with you."

She stared. "What?" was her incredulous response.

"Kitty. Please." His eyes shone with something like desperation. "I never – I…" There was a pause, and he swallowed. "I need you," he finished.

Wide eyes stared into his, and Kitty felt a hundred different emotions course through her, setting off a hundred questions. He needed her. Did she want him? Did she need him? Could she afford to give him a second chance?

She stared at his pleading face and felt her fingertips rise and graze his cheek.

"I…" she began in a strangled voice. His eyes were burning into hers and she could feel his heat so close to her and she could see fire and flames and there was smoke in her head and she could feel all the warmth and passion and pain –

"I can't."

And just like that, the fire burnt out and the smoke cleared. John just looked at her, all of his desperate passion doused.

He opened his mouth, and closed it. Another second passed – and then he kissed her, sliding his lips slowly, softly, gently across hers. And under his lips, she could feel all those old bruises, and they were fading.

He stepped back and walked away without another word, and Kitty shut the door and closed her eyes.

When she got out of bed the next day, she knocked her foot hard against the box of photographs left on her floor. The box fell on its side, spilling its contents.

As she bent over to inspect the damage to her foot, she could see a photo of her, Rogue and Bobby from their trip to the city. Rogue was partially covered by a picture of Jubilee. John was in the background, his head directed at the half of Rogue that was visible.

Kitty blinked and looked back at her foot. There were no bruises.

She knelt to gather the pictures up, and something caught her eye.

It was a strip of photo booth pictures, taken on her and John's first real date. She was smiling; he was rolling his eyes. She was grinning at the camera, he was looking straight at her. The last picture was of a deep kiss. They both looked like a normal teenage couple – happy.

Kitty gazed at the strip, frozen, wondering how they had gone from that to this: a broken, twisted relationship, full of old memories and an impossible future.

There was a soft knock at the door, and Bobby's cheerful voice asked if she was coming downstairs for breakfast, teasing her for oversleeping.

Kitty shook her head quickly and tucked the strip away at the bottom of the photo box, placing the pictures of her and Bobby on top. And then she opened the door.

Fin