Requital
Summary: Kitty helps John, and John learns about reciprocity. Kyro oneshot.
Timeline: Pre-X2
Disclaimer: All things recognisably X-Men are obviously not mine. I just like making up my own stories.
Author's Note: Written in 2006 for the prompt 'requital' on the theme 'firsts' for the livejournal kittyandpyro community.
Kitty was strolling down the hall, when a loud, angry barrage of curses poured through the not-very-soundproof walls.
Alarmed, she phased into the room the noise was coming from. "What's going on?" she asked as she burst through the wall into John's room.
John turned to her, brandishing a piece of paper. "Our Physics assignment is due tomorrow, that's what!" he snarled.
"So?" she said, feeling bewildered. "We've had it for over a week. Surely you've almost finished it by now."
"Finished?" He gave a derisive snort. "I've barely started!"
"Oh." Kitty suddenly remembered a conversation she'd overheard between John and Mr Summers – John had been told that he was extremely close to flunking out of Physics.
She reached up and plucked the paper from his hand.
"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded, trying to snatch it back.
"Helping you," she replied calmly as she phased his hand through the paper and quickly re-read the task.
He blinked. "What?"
"I'm helping you," Kitty repeated slowly, emphasising each word. "Come on, you didn't seriously think you could do this in one night without any help, did you?"
John narrowed his eyes at her. "Okay, so you're helping me," he said. "What's the catch?"
"There isn't one," she said, furrowing her brow in confusion. "Why should there be? I'm just helping you out here, John. I don't expect anything in return."
"There's always a catch," he muttered to himself, preparing to shoo her out of his room. But he looked at her open, earnest face and sighed.
"Okay," he said, dropping onto the end of his bed as she sat triumphantly in his chair. "Let's get this over with, then."
Kitty rubbed her eyes blearily and sighed. "Okay, I'm going to go over this one more time. When you have a convex lens and you place the object outside of C, the image that's formed will be real, inverted, diminished and between F and C. Okay? Diminished and between F and C."
"Yeah, I get it," he snapped. But she saw him discreetly scribble something out and re-write it differently. "I'm not some idiotic five-year-old."
She wisely refrained from comment, and looked up at the digital clock on his desk. "John, it's almost midnight. I really need some sleep. We're almost done – if you just co-operate, then we can both go to bed."
"I am co-operating," John retorted, glaring first at her and then at his notebook.
"Okay, just copy out the diagram from the textbook and you should be finished," she told him.
There was quiet for a couple of minutes, John's pen scratching against his notebook the only sound.
"Done," he announced sullenly.
Kitty moved to sit beside him on his bed, peering over his shoulder at the work he'd written out. "That's it!" she exclaimed, a tired smile. "It's a bit untidy, but not bad for a night's worth of cramming."
"Great, so now you can leave me alone," he muttered, picking up his lighter.
"John," she said, hurt. She sat back on her heels, leaning away from him. "I just spent the whole night helping you do this. The least you could do is pretend that you're grateful."
He looked back at her over his shoulder and felt his facial muscles soften. An apology was on the tip of his tongue, but he reeled it back in and said instead, "Why do you even care?"
Kitty sat there for a moment, looking at him out of those unfathomable brown eyes. When she answered him, her voice was quiet and steady. "Because I like you."
John stared at her. Did I hear her right? "You like me?" he asked finally, genuinely surprised. "What do you mean, you like me?"
A faint pink stain spread across her cheeks, and she dropped her eyes, letting her hair fall forward to curtain her face. "It means exactly what it means."
He gazed at her for another few seconds, then turned his head and stared at the wall, her voice echoing in his ears. I like you.
Silence.
Behind him, he heard her shift. She got off the bed and walked to the door.
Kitty paused to glance back at him, blinking quickly. "I – I hope I helped," was all she said. And she phased through the door and was gone.
Mr Summers walked through the class, handing out their marked assignments that had been submitted a week ago. He placed John's face-down on his desk.
"Good improvement, John," he said with an approving nod. "Keep it up."
John picked his paper up and glanced at the mark circled in red at the top of his page. Inwardly, he sighed with relief – he wasn't going to fail Physics.
"How'd you go?" Bobby asked him.
Wordlessly, John handed his friend his assignment.
Bobby grinned and gave it back. "B-plus? That's pretty damn good, John."
"Yeah, I know," John replied, glancing across the room at Kitty, who was engrossed in conversation with Jubilee.
Bobby followed his gaze and frowned. "You didn't make Kitty do your assignment for you, did you?" he asked worriedly.
"You think I'd do something like that?" John said indignantly. "Anyway, if she had done it, I'd have gotten an A. She just helped me out, that's it."
"She helped you? When?"
"Stayed up with me the night before it was due."
Bobby's eyes widened. "You asked her to pull an all-nighter for you?"
John rolled his eyes. "She's the one who offered to help."
"Well, in that case," Bobby said, leaning back in his chair. "I hope you've figured out a way to thank her."
Easier said than done, John mused as Kitty caught him looking at her and turned away. They had never had a lot of contact in the first place, but John got the feeling that she was avoiding him.
And then there was the issue of what he was supposed to do for her. She'd basically stopped him from flunking out of Physics. How was he meant to return the favour? She was a straight-A student. Kitty Pryde didn't need anyone's help.
He snuck another glance at her, and found her looking right back at him. John raised an eyebrow at her and smiled, and she blushed and looked away.
I like you, her voice repeated in his mind. He still wasn't sure what she meant by that.
But maybe he had a way to thank her after all.
"Kitty," he said, catching her elbow and drawing her back into the empty classroom.
She looked inexplicably nervous, her eyes darting around as though she was figuring out which wall she could escape through the quickest. "What – what's up, John?"
"Why have you been avoiding me?" he asked bluntly. He was never one to beat around the bush.
"I haven't been…" She trailed off and sighed. "Okay, maybe I have."
"Why?"
Kitty shrugged and averted her eyes, fixing them on a spot somewhere to his left.
This was proving to be about as difficult as he had thought it would be. John tried a different tack. "Kitty. Kitty, look at me."
Slowly, reluctantly, she raised her eyes to his, and his lips twitched into a tiny smirk.
"I never thanked you," he said, shuffling a little bit closer to her, "for helping me pass. I didn't give you anything in return."
"You don't have to give me anything," she asserted, tucking her hair behind her ears. "I just…wanted to help you."
"Yeah, but it's not really fair, is it?" He raised an eyebrow. "You should get something. I was thinking something like…this."
Suddenly, his arms were around her and his lips were pressing against hers. His kiss was firm and gentle and strange and bewildering all at once, and Kitty could feel herself trembling.
And as quickly as it started, it was over and he was halfway to the door, leaving her stunned in the middle of the room.
John paused and looked back at her, a look on his face that was a little too cocky for a real smile and a lot more genuine than his smirk.
"Oh, Kitty," he said. "I like you too."
Fin