After seeing First Class (too amazing) a couple weeks back, I decided to get re-acquainted with a series I enjoyed with as a kid - this one. It's a strange feeling, falling back in love with something you used to know. Just finished watching the finale. Everything about that show was incredible, and I'm still upset they never brought it back for a fifth season. :( All that aside, this would be the first I've ever written for this series, so hopefully it turns out okay. Hope you guys enjoy!
(This was partly inspired by LadyTamika499's Kitty/Lance video featuring the song That Thing You Do'. It's really sweet and well put-together, I recommend you guys search it up!)
Set after 'Mainstream'. Please note that sections aligned in the middle are present events, and everything else are flashbacks.
Disclaimer: X-men Evolution (c) Marvel Animation.
"You're crazy."
They weren't the very first words she ever said to him, but they might as well have been. It's what he remembers, anyway, from the day they first met. The time he was vandalizing a row of lockers while he skipped second period, the usual. The time she phased out of one of the lockers, not so usual.
The time he realized he wasn't the only one.
The time he tried pulling her in, informing her she was just like him.
The time she first pulled away, and sprinted down the other direction.
It was also the first time he got to watch her leave.
Lance Alvers slumped into his seat, trying to recall the moment everything had gone wrong. The beginning. The signs were always there. Following him all the way from Chicago, all the way to New York, where he would so easily march back into her life. Had he been too blind to see them before? To see that things were never meant to work?
He really needed to get out of here.
After making a detour to the fridge to grab a Coke, he walked out of the Brotherhood Institute and hopped into the 'ol Jeep. Within ten seconds flat he had finished his drink, and tossed the bottle aside. He lacked a destination, and frankly that was the very last thing on his mind.
Sooner than later he was on the freeway, driving at a speed even Quicksilver might have approved of.
For some completely irrelevant reason he thought of her again.
Hell, they were doomed from the start.
A ponytail. Her hair was always tied up in a damn ponytail.
He asked her about it once. They were on the phone, and he said he'd called her up to ask about their chemistry homework, but really he just wanted to talk.
"Really, Lance?" There it was again. That annoying tone she always used on him. The one he sort of dug, as strange as it sounded.
"Yeah. You've got a problem with me asking or something?"
He could just picture her on the other end, throwing things. "My problem is that I was trying to help you out with chemistry, and here you are, bothering me about my hair."
"Actually, there's another reason I called."
"Yeah?"
"You think you maybe wanna go to the mall with me this Saturday? So I can bug you about your ponytail in person?"
They were always teasing him about it. Toad and them.
He can't remember a day that didn't include him sitting in the living room at some point, surrounded by those losers, unamused. Kitty this. Kitty that. Kitty and Lance sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
Usually he'd let them to cut it out. You know, start another earthquake or something. Wreck the house for the billionth time.
But then there were other times. Times he didn't really let it get to him, times he'd just sit there and sigh.
"What's the matter, lover boy?" Toad would ask, hopping around from place to place. "Cat got your tongue?"
But the truth, as he would find later, was they were never meant to be.
I mean, how was that even possible?
They were as different as day and night. She fought for good, he fought against it.
They were on different sides.
Was there really such thing as middle ground?
Lance knew that even if were to find it one day, he'd probably end up sending a treacherous rock-slide right down the centre of it.
He was always wrong. It was a well-known fact.
But there was that exception. He knew (eventually, anyway) they wouldn't last, and for once he was right.
"This is the real you, isn't it?"
There she was, turning his life upside down again. Marching up to him before their four-on-four battle with Duncan Matthews, grabbing him at his torso. Tugging at his heartstrings. She knew exactly how to make him tick, and come on, she had to be aware of that. "You're nothing but a hood!" she cried.
"Right," he enlightened her, tearing her hands away from him. "I'll never be good enough for you."
Make that two exceptions.
You, doing that thing you do
Breakin' my heart into
A million pieces,
Like you always do
Lance turned off the radio, and began driving even faster than he had.
His heart ached more than being crushed amidst a landslide. She was right, like she always was. He was crazy. Crazy enough to let go of the best thing that ever happened to him.
The 'ol Jeep took an unexpected turn.
"Wanna know something, Lance?"
His favorite memory. The first thing that comes to mind when he thinks of her. It happened during that time he tried joining the X-men. Biggest mistake of his life, but there was one good thing that came out of it ..
"What?"
Garbed in her pink pajamas, she stood on her tip-toes and whispered into his ear nine words he knew he wasn't going to forget for awhile: "Deep down, I know you're a good guy, Lance."
And she kissed him.
And he liked it.
Man, was he going soft or what?
For some uncanny reason he ended up at her place, parked in front of the mansion.
He didn't really care for the consequences then. It wouldn't be that big of a surprise if Wolverine popped up out of nowhere and threatened to slice his throat for showing up. Or if Cyclops appeared and started shooting dainty lasers at him. Big whoop.
Instead, it was her who noticed him first, leaning casually against his car, hands in his pocket.
"You should go," she told him twenty feet over his head, all the way from her bedroom window.
He'd already seen it coming. Naturally, that didn't change his own reply. "Nah. I think I'll stick around."
"You never learn, do you?"
Was she smiling? She was too far away for him to tell.
"Never."
And that was that. This encounter was over, but as he watched her turn her back towards him, he knew that not all hope was lost.
Lance Alvers helped himself to a smirk.
Because he saw that Kitty Pryde had finally let her hair down.
Fin.
Sorry about the length, I haven't written much in awhile. But I hope you guys liked it! :)