Title: Battle Scars

Fandom: X-men

Pairing: Pryde/Wisdom

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: 041 Shapes

Summary: Not all scars are emotional…

Unbeta'd.

"Where did this come from?" Kitty Pryde was lying in bed next to her boyfriend, Pete Wisdom. She was tracing a finger over a scar on his right bicep. His skin jumped a bit t the tactical assault before he responded.

"That one? That was… Oh. I know. That was a training excersize."

"So, it's just a training scar?"

"Heh. Nah. We accidentally broke a window. The glass cut my arm."

"Oh." Kitty smiled at him. "Your turn."

"This one?" Pete trailed his hands up to her shoulder, where a small, almost star-shaped scar decorated the skin.

"Oh man. That one. That was a fight with a sentinel, I think." Her eyes drifted as she tried to resurrect the memory. "Yeah. That was it. It was a piece of shrapnel from the aforementioned miserable excuse for a megazord. It was excruciatingly painful, actually."

"Sounds it."

"Eh. I survived." Kitty's eyes worked their way over his torso, exposed above the sheet draped casually around his waist. Spring had actually brought minimal warmth to Muir Island, but it had also brough torrential rain, and the two were taking advantage of the weather and spending the day in bed.

Kitty's gaze fell on another grouping of three small scars on Pete's abdomen. "Where'd these come from?"

"Those are bullets."

"All of them?" Kitty sat up a little, flushing slightly as Pete's eyes zeroed in on the exposed skin that the maneuever revealed. "Hey. Stop it. I asked you a question, remember?"

"What? Oh. Right. Yes. All of them." Pete looked back at the aforementioned scars again. "It was a rather unfortunate Black Air mission to somewhere in Eastern Europe."

"Wow. Looks unfortunate."

"I survived." Pete teased, his tone clearly mocking Kitty's earlier statement as he leaned down to kiss her on the nose. "Now, let's see, it's my turn."

He pushed her backwards slightly on the pretext of examining her abdomen for identifying marks, but she suspected that he was just using the opportunity to stare at her breasts. Then, it appeared that something else caught his focus. "Where on Earth did you get this one?"

Kitty contorted around until she could see to what he was referring. It was a small stripe of a scar running along the skin right underneath her right breast. It was clearly the remains of something that had required stitches, judging by the small dots that trailed along the sides of the stripe.

"Heh. I had forgotten about that. That was Logan."

"The codger cut you?" Pete was surprised. Of all the sources for past injuries he'd expected, the Canadian had not been one of them. "What in the shiny hells for?"

"Shiny—" Kitty shook her head, clearly deciding not to question that expression further. "Never mind. Yeah, it was Logan. We were sparring and he aimed lower than I expected. I could have phased, but I thought I'd taken care of the blocking and it wasn't going to matter."

"Looks like stitches."

"Yeah. Twelve of 'em." Kitty ran her own finger over the slightly raised skin. "Logan felt horrible. I expected him to be all like 'That's what you get when you fight, 'Cat.' And instead, he's all 'I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. Does it hurt bad?' I didn't know what to think of him." Kitty sniggered. "It was really confusing."

"I can imagine." Pete tried to picture Logan overcome with concern. It wasn't something that came to the mind easily.

"Of course, the minute the stitches were in for good, he conveniently forgot about his concern. As soon as the bandage was on he said 'Well, I guess you get a break for a couple of days. Meet you in the Danger Room on Tuesday morning at 6:30 AM, half-pint.' Then, he left."

"Sounds like the Logan I know." Pete nodded.

"To quote the man himself: Yup." Kitty giggled. "Okay, roll over for a minute. There's one on your back somewhere that I'd like to ask you about."

"Fair enough." Pete complied, settling his chin on his folded arms as his stomach came to rest against the mattress.

"It's somewhere by your right shoulderbla—There." Kitty poked at a small patch of raised skin right below the aforementioned shoulderblade. The skin there was about the size of dollar bill, and was textured and strangely coloured, Kitty had been wondering about it since the first time she saw his naked back, but hadn't known when to ask about it until now. Their little impromptu game seemed like the best time. "What in the world is that from?"

"Heh. That one is from when I was in Secondary school."

"That's like High School, right?"

"Right."

"What on Earth happened to you in High School to put a mark like that on you?"

"I was an idiot."

"Cause that would be completely relegated to High School." Kitty snorted and Pete shook his head, feigning injury.

"That hurts, luv."

"Bull. Okay, so you were in High School…"

"Yeah, and I was drunk with Braden, my best mate at the time, his girlfriend Lara, and her best friend Callie who had a bit of a thing for me."

"Uh-huh. And you were how old?"

"I dunno, Pryde, about… seventeen, probably." He shrugged. "Anyway, as it happened, I had a slight thing for Callie as well, and we got around to me demonstrating my particular brand of ability."

"I'm going to assume you mean your mutant ability." Kitty raised on eyebrow.

"Yes. Now, stop interrupting."

"Right. Sorry."

"Anyway, I was showing them what I could do, and I ended up lighting a piece of paper on fire. The paper slid off of the desk and I didn't see it, because Callie had attached herself, quite suddenly, to my face. When we dropped onto the floor, I put my shoulder right onto it."

"…You can get burned?"

"Did you not notice the charred half of a leg I came home with after the London Hellfire Club incident?"

"Oh. Right." Kitty nodded. "I guess I just never put two and two together before. I just figured that with your ability…" She shrugged.

"So did I." Pete snickered. "Until that day."

"Ah. So you burned yourself pretty badly, huh?"

"I did, indeed." Pete nodded. "It hurt like a sonofabitch once the pain fought its way through the haze of alcohol that I'd consumed, and my raging hormones."

"Wow."

"Yes. It was quite painful."

"Actually, I was referencing the fact that you were so intent on making out with this Callie girl that you didn't notice that you were, in fact, on fire." She snickered.

"Ah. Well, your sympathy is so incredibly appreciated." He rolled his eyes. "Although, for what it's worth, Pryde, I'm fairly certain that someone could actually light my head on fire if I were snogging you, and it would completely escape my notice."

"Aw. That's sweet in a very strange way."

"I usually am."

"Sweet or strange?"

"Yes." Pete smiled. "My turn now?"

"Fine." Kitty grinned. "Anywhere in particular you'd like to see?"

"Heh. Man, that's a great question." Pete waggled his eyebrows. Kitty rolled her eyes in response. "Actually, there's this random one right on your thigh that I've always wondered about."

"Oh. This one?" Kitty pushed the sheet out of the way in time to reveal a jagged scar running down the inside of her left thigh.

"Yeah. Where in the hell did that come from?"

"An ice skate." She shrugged.

"An ice skate? Ice skates are not generally lethal weapons are they?"

"Do you actually know how sharp an ice skate is, Pete?" Kitty rolled slightly to face him.

"Apparently not." He shrugged. "You actually cut yourself on one?"

"Yep. I was ice skating with my Dad, and I was trying this new jump that I'd seen on television that week, and I tripped, fell, and sliced my thigh open."

"Ow." Pete cringed in sympathy, rolling back over onto his back and tucking the sheet back around his hips.

"Yeah. I had to go to the emergency room, but, thankfully, I didn't need stitches. They just bandaged it up. It hurt like gang busters for about a month."

"Yeah. I believe it."

"Okay. I've got another one I want to know about."

"Go."

"What is that?" Kitty pointed to a scar on Pete's lower abdomen. "Because, if I didn't know any better, I'd swear that it was—"

"Yep." Pete nodded, and Kitty could have sworn that a slight blush coloured his face for a moment.

"Someone bit you on the stomach?"

"Not just someone." Pete shook his head.

"Oh?" Kitty raised her eyebrows. "Then who?"

"A stripper." Pete shrugged, as though feigning nonchalance.

"A… You got bit by a stripper?" Kitty couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Yes. It was a mate's bachelor party. The hired entertainment got a little intoxicated, and so did the guests, and, at one point, she was dancing for us, and she… well, she bit me."

"Wow. That's definitely a new one. I was expecting some epic story."

"That's not epic? How many people do you know with actual stripper injuries?"

"Fair enough." Kitty shrugged, rolling onto her back as well. "Any other scars that you want me to explain? Because I think that I'm done asking questions for a while."

"The stripper story do you in, luv?"

"Nah. I think that's kind of hilarious, actually." Kitty smiled. "It's just that, it occurs to me that we have the whole day to lay in bed and we're using it to quiz each other on scars."

"An excellent point, Pryde. Excellent. Shall we find other activities to occupy our time?"

Kitty's response was a wink and a long kiss.