Wow. It has been years since I've written fanfiction. But lately, I've been back in the mood, thanks to a resurgence in my X-Men obsession. So, enjoy this, and tell me what you think! If it gets a good reaction from you guys (or if I feel like it enough) I'll definitely keep it going the way it goes in my head. That is to say, a (quite) slowly growing friendship that eventually evolves into something more.

Please let me know if you enjoy this by reviewing! Even just a "yeah, this is alright, keep it up," would be much appreciated.

In His Eyes

After three months of living at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, most students had managed to get accustomed to living amongst mutants and amongst friends. But if there was one thing Warren Worthington III could say about himself, it was he was not most students. At this point, he still hardly even considered himself a student in the first place. He hadn't wanted to move to the school, but then, he'd been giving in to things he didn't want since the day he was supposed to have died. When he'd been pulled from the plane wreckage, close to death and even closer to unconsciousness, wings mangled with bent feathers jabbing him from all angles, he'd been sure that that would be the end, the final blow in a series of devastations that had brought him to that plane crash. But the light, the sweet release of nothingness he'd decided to embrace never came. Instead, he faced muffled yelling, people poking and prodding him and asking him questions his concussed mind couldn't comprehend.
And pain. So much pain. Pain that screamed in his bones and writhed under his skin, for hours and hours until he was finally put under. When he woke again, the pain continued, its sting dulled but nowhere near quelled by rounds of painkillers and months of rehabilitation. He had to hand it to the Institute: they knew how to heal up a mutant, even when said mutant hardly made it easy for anyone trying to deal with him.

Now, three months after that day and a week after moving into his own room, the sun is rising, tendrils of light reaching over the horizon and through the gaps in Warren's curtains. He squints, shunning the beam and holding up a hand to block it out, stumbling from the windowsill to his bed. The clang of empty bottles accompanies his uneasy steps, and his head swims through last night's beer, churning his stomach and threatening to spill. He had no trouble procuring the drink: Peter was always glad for an excuse to get his hands on something he hadn't paid for. Though lately even he had been growing hesitant, asking Warren if he wouldn't prefer soda instead.
It isn't long before Warren hears a knock at the door, and at first he hopes he can get away with pretending to still be asleep. But when the knock comes again, along with a timid, thickly accented, "Warren?" he knows that this one can't be avoided.

The first time Kurt had approached Warren was three days after the crash. He remembered seeing the blue face from underneath swollen, bleary eyes, and thinking that it had to be a fever dream. This face from his past, the reason he'd lost his wing, his one remaining morsel of freedom. Kurt had introduced himself, not as Nightcrawler, as Warren had remembered him, but as Kurt Wagner, and almost instantly, Warren had shoved him away, spitting and cursing that he was the reason he had ended up like this, broken and pitiful. The day his wing had been fried on the electrified cage was the day he had been set on this path. And why would he ever want anything to do with the monster who was responsible for that?
It had surprised him when Kurt had appeared again a little over a week later, this time having subdued his smiling, cheerful demeanour in accordance with Warren's mood. Warren's memories were fuzzy, a result of the steady stream of pain meds, and all he could remember was Kurt apologising, over and over apologising for what he had done. What the fuck are your apologies worth, Warren had thought, when you've already led me to this? And yet, despite the swearing and the insults and the yelling, Kurt kept coming. In truth, he thought he sensed a softening in Warren's resistance each time he attempted to speak with him: from week to week, he hesitated a little longer before tossing out a cutting remark or demanding to be left alone, and every week the verbal abuse got a little less poisonous. A step towards the reconciliation he hoped for, and the friendship he fantasised about.

"What do you want?" The winged boy finally tosses out, after being lost in thought for what could have been moments or minutes.
"I just wanted to say good morning," Kurt justifies. "How are you feeling today?"
"Peachy." Warren's retort is dry, weary. Silences set in, and neither is sure how to continue, or whether they even should.
"You can come in if you want. Or whatever." Warren picks at a section of chipped paint on his bedhead as he speaks, digging the talon of his reformed wing into the surface of the wood. A couple of seconds pass, and in a cloud of deep blue-purple smoke, Kurt appears in the centre of Warren's room. He tries on a smile, the corners of his mouth flicking to the side self-consciously. He does his best to ignore the state the room is in: empty bottles scattered on the floor near the window, clothes strewn across the floor. Pants, mostly – Warren didn't much like the struggle that it took to put shirts on. Dust whirls in the air, dancing in the sunlight. It looks like the window hasn't been opened in days, and Kurt wonders how Warren can manage to breathe in a room so stuffy.
"How did you sleep?" He asks politely. He does everything politely, Warren thinks with a surge of irritation.
"I didn't."
"Oh."
The blue boy's eyes skirt around the room, tail twitching restlessly across the faded carpet. He opens his mouth, pauses, and then closes it again. There are too many things he wants to say but now, he feels, is not the right time for any of them.
"Breakfast is finishing in ten minutes," he says finally, his tone resigned. "I thought I'd let you know. Hank said you should keep your energy up." Warren nods absently in response, his eyes pointedly on the ground.

When Kurt had first seen the Angel in the underground infirmary, only days after the coming back to the school, he had felt the same sickness in his stomach as he had that day in the cage. The sound stuck like glue in his mind: a dull thud accompanied by a buzzing that had made Kurt's skin crawl for a fraction of a second. Then, the screaming began and the stench of burnt feathers and singed skin overwhelmed him and made his head spin. When he saw Warren again, thrashing in pain in the hospital bed, he swore he could almost smell that foul scent again. He wanted to help, but the moment Warren's eyes had locked onto him, he was incensed with rage, and Jean had calmly informed him that it would probably be best if he left Warren alone for that time. So he had left, and returned when he could. Though his attempts at apology fell on deaf ears, he hadn't given up. The guilt drove him to keep trying: all he wanted was to relieve the pain he felt upon seeing Warren, to help him.
The recovery process had been long, and though Kurt hadn't been part of it physically, mentally he struggled to keep from thinking about it. Hank had quickly grown annoyed with how often Kurt had asked about Warren's progress, and his thoughts drifted often during meals and classes. He had given quite the impression to his new friends at first about being as absentminded as they came. But when Ororo had snapped her fingers in front of his face one night at dinner and demanded to know what was happening in his head, he decided to come clean and tell them about what had happened that day in East Germany. Once he had told the story, to a table that had fallen silent and formed a pocket of stillness amongst an otherwise loud and bustling dining room, their irritation turned to sympathy. It felt nice to Kurt to have people know and understand – he had been keeping it inside so long it had begun to take him over. Once it was out there, the others began to tell their own stories, and when his mingled with theirs, it had begun to feel not smaller, but at least more manageable. More human.

Without any response, the chance of a proper conversation withers.
"I- I'll leave you be now," Kurt relents. "Sorry to disturb you."
And before Warren can push past his pride to thank Kurt for thinking of him, the boy is gone, leaving only a fast-fading puff of smoke and the faint smell of sulphur in the stale air.