Heya i'm re-posting all the chapters of this story as the wonderful noxlumen is going through them and editing them for me to fix all my crappy punctuation etc so things should be much better to read. I'll be sure to post each one as soon as i get them.
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Chapter 1
It had taken nearly a month before Kurt and Pietro clapped eyes on one another, just enough time for Evan to get to know Kurt's easy going nature and for the X-Men to observe Pietro's cool implacable calm during his many skirmishes with Evan. Kurt hadn't been there during all the X-Men's initial dealings with Pietro. They had accepted that he despised Evan and goaded him at every opportunity, meeting Evans blustering rage with cutting quips and a cool exterior.
So the X-Men were understandably surprised when, on Kurt and Pietro first meeting, both boys acted wildly out of the characters that the X-Men and Brotherhood had come to be used to. Pietro seemingly completely forgot his feud with Evan, immediately zeroing in on Kurt, much to Evan's and Toad's slight disappointment, both feeling that they had lost perfectly good adversaries.
The Kurt who everyone knew so well seemed to disappear within seconds of being subjected to Pietro's company. Gone was the happy go lucky joker, the gentle mannered fuzzy blue elf who forgave quicker than offence could be taken. In his place was the snarling savage demon he claimed he wasn't, spitting out poisonous words like acid.
They couldn't figure it out, but something about Pietro just seemed to rub Kurt's fur in the wrong direction. He was snappy and sarcastic, delivering cruel verbal blows to his opponent, and Pietro, who always seemed so cool and unruffled in an argument, would fall apart struggling for comebacks. They would all watch as his usually pale complexion would burn red with anger, his usual casual smug tones during an argument being replaced with frustrated yelling and screamed insults.
Their physical fights never seemed to do much damage to one another. The others put this down to the fact that both boys' powers were defensive in nature, but the arguments ran long and loud, both parties screaming and roaring at each other. The funny thing was even with how angry they got, most of the insults were kind of lame but oddly seemed to hit home.
Kurt had made fun of the way Pietro's hair had wings and Pietro had ended up wearing a baseball cap for a week. Pietro had told Kurt he was getting fat from all the Gut Bombs he ate and Kurt had then practically starved himself till Logan had to take him in hand. One time, Kurt had announced that Pietro had scrawny legs and both Evan and Rogue had sworn they saw him in the school gym using the leg weight machines. Another time Pietro had made fun of Kurt's girly long locks and Kurt had spent the next few days trying to persuade Rogue to absorb a hairdresser so she could give him a decent haircut without him having to explain away the fur.
It was silly things like this that seemed to be the base of their arguments. After a few months everyone just got used to it. Evan switched to Toad for their fights, and though the X-Men wondered what it was that turned their normally mild mannered friend so wild around Pietro, they became accustomed to the slanging matches that happened every time the two boys bumped into one another.
The X-Men and the Brotherhood weren't the only ones concerned. They may have been slightly confused but they were nowhere near as confused as Kurt and Pietro themselves.
Kurt couldn't understand what was wrong with him. They had all just come home from the Sadie Hawkins dance. He'd gone with Amanda. She was sweet, funny, pretty, and was attracted to him even knowing about the way he looked and she had kissed him.
He should be bouncing off the walls with happiness right? Wrong! He'd felt nothing. He kept telling himself that maybe Amanda simply wasn't his type, but how many people was he likely to come across that didn't mind the way he looked, and Amanda was amazing. He'd told her that maybe they should just be friends, and although she had been disappointed, she'd accepted that. Now he was wondering what the hell had possessed him to turn her down.
Evan had called him an idiot when he'd told the others. They had all been surprised. He'd tried telling them that he was doing her a favour. Mutants couldn't stay hidden forever, and when it came out and people realised how he really looked, then Amanda's parents for one wouldn't be very pleased that their daughter was dating a freak. They had all professed how there was nothing wrong with the way he looked, but they had accepted it as an explanation. Kitty was saying how noble she thought he was being.
They had then gone on to talking about the other people there. He'd listened to Kitty rhapsodize over how sweet Lance was. Then Evan had laughed about how Pietro had turned up with 4 girls on his arms, and Kurt felt the same rising annoyance he'd felt when he had seen Pietro at the dance with all those girls hanging off him.
Moronic bunch of bimbo's. Kurt scolded himself for his uncharitable thoughts. That was another thing that had been bothering him for some time. He hadn't met Pietro when the others had due to a rather lengthy grounding he'd received for a prank involving Wolverine and a bucket of water, but he'd heard about him from Evan and the others. He'd been prepared to dislike him, but he hadn't been prepared for the sheer uncontainable anger that seemed to consume him.
He knew that he wasn't acting like himself. This wasn't him yet he just couldn't seem to stop himself. It was like every time he saw the guy he just lost his mind and every barb Pietro threw his way seemed to be magnified tenfold. His stomach would flip and he could feel agitation filling him every time he even thought of the guy and thanks to the fact they pretty much saw each other every day, his thoughts were too often on the white haired speedster for his own peace of mind. He just couldn't figure out what it was about the other boy that could make him become unhinged so fast.
Pietro was also thinking about the dance. He'd caught the just be friends speech Kurt had given Amanda outside the school gym. He'd been out there avoiding the harpies he had come with; their brain dead twaddle was getting on his nerves.
He didn't know why he bothered, really. I mean, sure, he had a bit of a rep as a ladies' man, and they looked good on his arm, but they were just so dull. All the girls he dated, they were all the same, even the ones that weren't brainless valley girl twits.
He was always chatting up these girls and going on dates, but they just felt so pointless. He just wasn't really interested. He didn't know why it was so important to him to keep dating all these girls. Lance would say he just hadn't found the right one. He would then go on to rhapsodize over Kitty's kisses, like just holding her was the most amazing thing in the world. Is that what he was looking for?
He'd kissed plenty of girls. Hell, he'd gotten into more than a few groping sessions. He didn't feel anything like what Lance talked about. I mean, their kisses were pleasant enough; they were nice, just nothing special. The girls he dated thought he was such a gentleman because he didn't push them to do more. How could he tell them he just didn't really feel the drive to go further?
God, what was wrong with him? He was a supposedly hormonal teenage boy. Wasn't getting girls in the sack supposed to be the only thing he could think of? Hell, he spent more time thinking of ways to annoy the blue fuzz ball, which brought him back to what he had seen. He'd have thought fuzzy would have jumped at the chance to be with someone who wasn't freaked by his looks.
He remembered how Kurt had ported Amanda away to take her home before porting back to the gym to wait for the rest of the X-Geeks. How Pietro had just not been able to stay hidden and keep his trap shut and they had got into another one of their headache inducing arguments. He'd teased about Amanda and Kurt had retaliated against the bimbos Pietro had come with. Said bimbos, who had by then come outside to see what all the shouting was about, and had then promptly gotten offended and gone home when Pietro hadn't immediately leapt to defend their honour. He didn't see how he could have. The things Kurt said may have been mean, but they were true.
If only he'd been able to keep his mouth shut he and fuzzy wouldn't have gotten into another fight but he could never seem to stop himself. From the first second he'd seen Kurt it was like something just went off in his brain making him angry and unreasonable. It just wasn't like him. Ok, sure, he'd picked fights with Evan before but he knew exactly why he hated Evan. He had reasonable, valid reasons for his hatred and he'd been cool, calm and in control during their fights. It had actually amused him to watch Evan bluster and bumble around like an idiot, losing his temper and making himself seem even more of a moron than he really was.
But Kurt was different. With Kurt it was like all reason flew out of the window and he was the one losing his cool. He knew he wasn't the only one. Kurt would get all wild and start screaming too, and from what he had heard, that wasn't exactly normal behaviour for the fuzz ball.
He remembered, after the first time they had met, how shocked everyone had seemed on both teams. Toad had even said that he'd never seen Nightcrawler blow up like that and they had had their share of arguments.
Pietro couldn't understand it. If someone asked he wouldn't even be able to tell them what it was about the walking hairball that annoyed him so much, only that he seemed to spend most of his time thinking of ways to antagonize him further. He knew their fights were mostly his fault. He'd see Kurt and just wouldn't be able to stop himself.
He'd rile Kurt up till the guy was literally snarling and looking like something out of someone's nightmare, fur bristling, golden eyes blazing and deep primitive growls coming from behind gleaming white fangs. Any sane person should be terrified but Christ, there must be something wrong with him. He found it exhilarating.
His heart rate would go up his breath would come faster. His stomach would churn and hop. His brain would fizz and it was like the whole world would narrow down to focus on whatever argument they were having and nothing existed outside that sphere.
God, he had to get a handle on himself. He had to figure out what the hell was wrong with him. The bastard that called himself Pietro's father had given him a job. He was here for a purpose to spy, not to drive himself insane baiting the giant blue plush toy.
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