Kitty

Kitty's always been ambivalent about her soul tattoo. It's not that the words themselves were that bad, "Wait! Slow down girl. I need details." in large, looping, lazuli letters so dark they were almost black on her right wrist, did seem to indicate some sort of crisis, but she found herself worrying more about what would happen after whatever emergency had been resolved.

About maybe a quarter of the population had soul tattoos, and she was one of the 'special' ones. Soulmates were considered one of the things that made for a wonderful life. In media, they were all either happy to be with their soulmates, or eager to meet their 'destined one'. People who didn't have soul tattoos always oohed and aahed when they found out about hers, cooing over how 'lucky' she was.

But she'd met people like her before and reality never seemed to match the silver screen. She'd seen soulmates lie to or get angry with or even hate each other. Her parents were soulmates (matching black mirrored on their wrists) and they fought all the time. Sometimes she thought they fought more than the non-soulmate parents of her various friends.

(Sometimes she wondered if her family was a lie, that her parents had just gotten tired of trying and had those words tattooed to fake that they were as perfect as they wanted people to believe. She knew a couple, parents of a friend, who had done that. But no, she'd seen pictures of her parents as children, they'd had their marks from the very beginning.)

In fact, if you asked Kitty, the only 'connection' soulmates had was that they felt much more intensely about each other. That never meant that emotions were positive. So she wore gloves or long sleeves or a hundred bangles, anything to cover her forearms, and waited the Speaker of her Words with trepidation.

Kurt

Kurt's always considered himself one of the lucky ones. Not only did he have a soulmate but he even knew her name and how he'd find her. Sharply printed rose-gold words in English on his right wrist gave him all the clues he needed. "H'lo? Is this the X-Men? I'm Kitty Pryde - Ororo told me to call this number."

So he did whatever he could think of to speed up their meeting. He started learning English at a young age so that he could speak with his soulmate. He agreed to travel with Margali's troupe in case she lived in a different country. And when Professor X appeared and told him about the X-Men, he jumped on the opportunity.

Some of his comrades found his enthusiasm for meeting his soulmate a little strange. The Professor, who always wore long sleeves, would warn him that soulmates weren't always a good thing. Logan, who had no soulmate, would regale him with tales of all the various soulmates he had seen hurt or harm each other, even to the point of self-destruction. Ororo (how happy he had been to meet someone with her name) settled for warning him not to get his hopes up and that no matter what happened, the X-Men would always be there for him. But Jean and Scott would show him the words written on their wrists (hers in bright red print, his in multicolored script) and discuss their plans to marry, and it would only encourage him to continue to dream.

Match

Of course, given what happened, neither had the opportunity to even think about their Words until several days later. In fact, they didn't even have a chance to talk to each other until weeks had past and Kitty had already started her training.

Part of this was Kitty's fault. First was recovering from the shock of being attacked, then for a while she simply couldn't recall what she and Nightcrawler had actually said to each other. When she realized what had happened, well, she had already been covering her Words. She just made sure her new uniform had long sleeves and gloves (she had initially tried for her 'look-at-everything-other-than-my-wrists' tactics, but the Professor had shot that down). She was still trying to get used to Nightcrawler's appearance, never mind getting used to the fact he was her soulmate. At least, they wouldn't be one of those pairs who hated each other, the way her parents did.

On the other hand, part of it was Kurt's fault too. There was no ambivalence on his part; no he knew he liked Kitty, and was pretty sure that once she got used to him, she'd like him too. But he hadn't expected her to be quite so young. Thirteen, thirteen he'd been polishing up his acrobatics and just starting to control his teleportation. Kitty was balancing her mutation, schoolwork, and actively trying to save the world. How could he even consider dropping another weight on her shoulders?

But the conversation had to start eventually. So one day, Kitty approached Kurt after he'd been training alone in the Danger Room. "Hey Kurt?"

"Ja?"

She paused, then turned around. "Never mind." she tossed back, phasing through the wall.

Maybe next time.