NOTE: This story occurs at least a few months after Uncanny X-Men v3 033. Kitty and Illyana are engaged, and have adopted Bo.
The raincoats had been a good idea. The patter of paint splattering on plastic was even more frequent than that of the repetitive shhh of the paint roller being dragged back and forth across the previously off-white wall. It was accompanied by high-pitched squeals and guilty laugher, feigned innocence and knowing, playful glares thrown over shoulders. Despite their protective gear, however, pant legs had already fallen the victim to the light pink paint being rolled onto the walls, and hair had been mattered with the stuff. At this point, their bare feet looked as if someone had spilled a bottle of nail polish over their toes. The soles of said feet were likely even worse, if the sticky footprints left across the tarp on the floor were anything to go by. At least the carpet beneath that was safe.
At first, all three of them, Kitty, Bo and Illyana, had been determinedly rolling paint onto the walls, after having picked it out earlier that day along with all the furniture and decorations for the little girl's room, and for other parts of the house. Some of it wouldn't arrive for a few days, whereas others lay on the floor in flatpacks downstairs, waiting to be assembled that night. Bo had made it less than an hour before she had laid down on her stomach in the middle of the floor to paint pictures with the smaller brushes, but Kitty and Illyana hadn't expected even that much. She was a hard worker, their little girl, but painting was tiring work. They still had a second coat to go before they could embellish the walls with the decorative stencils they had gotten.
Now, whenever Kitty or Illyana went to roll more paint onto their brushes, they made sure to splatter a few drops on Bo's back, just to hear her giggle and watch her nose screw up in that cute scowl she had. She had gotten cheeky, taking the cue from Illyana to stick her tongue out at them, which only made her adoptive parents laugh.
"You'll get paint on your tongue if you're not careful," Kitty warned her, which made Bo pull her tongue back into her mouth as quickly as a frog that had just caught its dinner.
Illyana's laugh echoed around the empty room, "What are you painting now, zvyozdochka*?"
"Flying horse," Bo answered, lowering her eyes back to her work. The way her teeth sunk into her lip and her brow furrowed ever so slightly as she worked was truly gorgeous.
"Do you remember how to spell horse?" Kitty asked. She flashed a smile at Illyana as if to say 'watch this'. She had been teaching Bo about the English alphabet, and her munchkin was a star pupil.
"H." There was no hesitation at the first letter, and Bo leaned forward to dip her brush in the rolling tray, "O."
At the third letter, she raised her head, the cease in her brow deepening as she tried to gleam the answer from Kitty's face. This time, there was more uncertainty in her voice, "R?"
Kitty gave her an encouraging nod, lifting her eyebrows to urge her on.
"S like the ssssnake," Bo grinned at the memory.
"One more," Kitty prompted her, when she looked as if that might be all.
Bo paused, her eyes back on the paper in front of her, while her lips whispered the letters she had said so far. Finally, she exclaimed, "E! E is the last letter in horse!"
"Good girl," Kitty praised her, a proud smile on her face, while Illyana smacked the back of one hand with the other in the best applause she could manage while holding her roller.
Unfortunately for Illyana, her make-shift claps were hard enough to dislodge some of the paint from her brush, which promptly sprayed her cheek.
She stopped clapping abruptly, gasping loudly enough to draw both Kitty and Bo's attention. They started laughing immediately, and when Illyana gathered up some of her raincoat to wipe her skin, and ended up smearing it down her face instead, they howled.Bo at least had the courtesy to cover her mouth, but Kitty was ruthless.
Illyana wasn't going to take it laying down. Roller in hand, she seized Kitty by the shoulder, turned her around, and spread a wide line of paint down her back, over the bump of her ass, and down the back of her legs.
"Yana!" Kitty cried, jerking out of her hold to do the same down the blonde's front. Bo was on her feet by then, too, and had snuck up behind Kitty to add the darker pink paint on her brush to the mix.
With laughter bouncing off the walls and plastic crinkling beneath their feet, a fight ensured that saw the three of them chasing each other around the room, carefully avoiding the paint pots in the centre, and trying not to ruin the work they had done on the walls.
* Little Star – Translated from Russian