"Do you want to break up?"
The words are a slap in the face. Better – salt thrown into the gaping wound in her chest that opened up in the dead of night and has been bleeding and festering these last few days, poisoning Kitty's mood and everything she touches. Poisoning Illyana.
Kitty knows she's been pulling away, smiling a little more hesitantly, turning away when she should be turning toward, giving short, chaste kisses instead of longer ones, retreating when things got too much. She's seen the injured expressions on Illyana's face when she does, the small crease in her forehead, the downturn of her lips. She recovers quickly, puts on a braver face, a slightly forced smile, but Kitty notices. And she hates herself for it.
It's the complete opposite of what she wants. She has been trying to avoid hurting her best friend, not to hasten toward what she thinks is inevitable, and yet every move she makes is counter to what she wants. She is a traitor to her own desires.
It had started with a thought. Just one, tiny thought about the people she had loved before, and what had happened to that love. It crossed her mind so fleetingly that it barely made an impression on her consciousness – but which nevertheless made an impact on her behaviour in the following days – that maybe it would have been better if she and Illyana had just stayed friends. The blonde has been through so much in her young life already, Kitty doesn't want to add to it with heartache.
She knows, though without really knowing, that it wasn't her fault that the other relationships she had had, had ended. Not completely, at least. With Bobby it had been a bad match from the start, made worse by what had happened with Apocalypse, and then with her students and the future Brotherhood. Whatever she had had with Shan had disintegrated before it could start. Pete – they had been happy, for a while. They had also spent a lot of their time arguing like her parents had used to argue and somewhere along the line it had fallen apart – if it had ever really been holding together. She didn't even want to think about Piotr.
None of them had been okay afterwards, but Kitty has gotten used to heartache. She doesn't want that for Illyana.
Her girlfriend's words now are exactly what she's dreaded. The fact that her own behaviour has brought them about just makes everything worse.
She doesn't know what to say, and her throat is too tight to let anything else out besides, "No."
"You're acting like it."
Illyana's face, as she stands in the doorway to her converted-torture-chamber of a bedroom, is a mask. It's hard, but Kitty knows what secrets it guards.
"I'm sorry," she croaks, wishing she had the same control over her own expressions. Her face is already starting to crumple, and that is all it takes for Illyana to drop the stoic act.
They were best friends, first. Illyana has always known when something isn't right with her.
All concern now, Magik closes the door carefully behind her, leaning against it until the latch clicks into place. She's across the room and on her knees by Kitty's chair before she says anything else. Tenderly, she takes her girlfriend's fingers into her own, her thumbs sweeping over the back of her hands.
"Tell me what's wrong, Katya." It isn't a demand, but a gentle prompt, permission to cry about her troubles if she so wants. There's a little defensiveness there still, under the surface, some apprehension, but Illyana hides it well.
Kitty is usually so talkative, always has a big, profound speech ready, but now, with her vision blurring as tears well in her eyes at the thought of the damage she's already done, all she can say is, "I don't know."
"You do." Illyana's voice is honey, understanding and comforting, sweet despite how awful Kitty thinks she has been. When Shadowcat doesn't say anything, she asks, hesitantly, "Is it me?"
Kitty laughs a wet laugh, and frees one hand to sniffle and wipe her nose, "No."
Her eyebrows dip again, her chest aching, "I don't want to hurt you."
Illyana recoils. It's only slight, but the hurt that flashes across her face is unmistakable. The mask goes back in place and Kitty bites back a sob. It's Illyana's first relationship, and she's trying so hard that it hurts to watch. "So we are breaking up?"
"No!" her words are practically a shout, and Illyana dares to look relieved, though she's still obviously confused. To calm herself, Kitty plants her elbow on her desk and pushes her hand through her thick, tussled bangs. She hates herself for this entire scene, for what has lead up to it, and her inability to take it back is killing her.
Maybe she has already done too much damage. Maybe it would be better if they just broke up, before she can do anymore.
God, she doesn't want to. She had been so angry before Illyana – at Bobby, at the other X-Men, at the world that still refuses to treat them like anything more than weapons waiting to be used against them, at her father and at Scott and at herself and how fast she had had to grow up.
Illyana lets her act her age. She doesn't have to be Professor Pryde or the X-Men's prodigal daughter. 'The best of us', Scott had called her, not realising how much of a burden that was when all she wanted to do was have a normal life for once.
With Illyana she goes to arcades and bowling alleys and gets tickled off the bed. She has ice cream for breakfast and goes out drinking and can stop worrying about whether a mutant holocaust is right around the corner. She can finally relaxand get as close to normal as possible while living in a converted Weapon X facility. They tease and laugh and play like they had when they were kids and whenever they're together the world and everything that is wrong with it goes away for just a little while. There is actually something right in her life, as weird as it had felt initially telling her ex-boyfriend's younger sister and her own best friend that she had feelings for her. As nerve-wracking and simultaneously exhilarating as it had been in the silence that had followed that confession. It has just been so normal.
The idea of losing that twists a knife in that gaping chest wound.
Finally, she just has to explain herself.
"I'm Midas. Everything I touch, every relationship I'm in, I ruin. I don't want to ruin you, too. You're too… You're my best friend. If I ruin this I don't just lose a girlfriend."
Illyana seems amused at that, and it's so inappropriate that Kitty wants to shake her, but before she can, the blonde asks, "Did you just compare yourself to a god?"
As much as she tries to prevent it, to turn her expression into a glare instead, Kitty lips twist into a smile. She snorts, rolls her eyes, and shoves her girlfriend with her foot, "You know what I mean!"
"I do," Illyana sobers, "Katya. You're not going to ruin me. You're making me better."
Kitty's smile turns sad at that, but she's insistent, "For now. If we break up—"
"Are we going to break up?" Illyana cuts her off, her eyebrows raising testingly now. She isn't being unkind, Kitty knows, just challenging her in all the ways she needs to be challenged right then.
She sticks out her lip, "No. But if—"
"Stop. We're not going to break up."
Kitty tips her head back, resigned, and lets a long breath out of her nose before she turns her gaze back to Illyana, "I thought I was supposed to be the stubborn one."
"You still are," Illyana teases, her own smile finally breaking out. It's like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, and just like that, Kitty knows they'll be okay. She pushes the blonde with her foot again, a little harder this time, enough to make her teeter in place, without there really being any risk of her falling.
Illyana takes both her hands again, she pulls Kitty forward, "Are you going to kiss me properly now?"
Kitty purses her lips and pushes them to one side of her face, a show of consideration. Eventually she says, "Maybe. You should start."
Illyana does, and this time she doesn't pull away.