Title: Cover Up the Sun
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Religious themes, discussion of self harm, angst/grieving.

Near the end of January, Piotr Rasputina - the mighty Colossus - returned (temporarily) from his missions in Arizona. Piotr was also the older brother of Illyana Rasputina, and he had approached Loki very coldly, suspiciously, at first. That lasted until he'd actually sat in with one of Loki and Illyana's lessons - Loki hadn't been pleased about that, but it was clear that he couldn't force Piotr out short of physically incapacitating him, and that was a battle he didn't intend to pick.

Once he witnessed the way Illyana was able to relax and open up, how under Loki's guidance she was able to use small magics again, Piotr's attitude reversed on the spot and he apparently now considered Loki one of his greatest shield-brothers. His effusive enthusiasm was annoying, but Colossus was held in high regard by the other X-Men, and Loki had enough trouble from Storm to wish to make any more enemies among that group, so he tolerated it.

Piotr was only in town from Thursday through Sunday, and naturally wished to spend as much time with his fellow X-Men as possible before he had to return to his post. Piotr, Hank, Jean and Loki ended up in the teacher's canteen more often than not; Loki would have just as soon done without Piotr, as he was not enormously fond of the boy's somewhat brainless sentimentalism, but he found himself dragged along.

Given that there was a substantial (for mortals) age differentiation among them, the three current and former X-Men tended to fall back on tales of valorous battle - a familiar enough subject for Loki - and anecdotes about other mutants all three of them knew. More often than not this was Nightcrawler, aka Kurt Wagner, the dark blue-furred mutant that Loki had met so briefly and inauspiciously during his first week at the school.

Hearing them tell tales of Kurt's mischievous exploits stirred an interesting mix of emotions in Loki. He found some of the pranks amusing (and the teachers' exasperation over them even more so.) More than once, he surprised himself by wondering why such a joke had not occurred to him, himself. For some reason, ever since he had come to the school, he just had not had the energy - or the heart - to engage in any serious mischief. It wasn't that he feared approbation; it just didn't seem like as much fun as it used to.

Three days of Kurt stories was about all that Loki could stand. Everyone had one - even Hank, who had never had Kurt in his classes, knew a few good ones from his other students. Jean, of course, told them from the point of view of a teacher - and Piotr had several to relate as his shield-brother.

What annoyed Loki was not only the incessant way they could not stop talking about Kurt, or the abbreviated way they tried to avoid expressing regret for the fact that he was not here (as he continued to avoid Loki in all public spaces.) No, what nagged at his attention was that his own Kurt Experience - however brief - painted a very different picture than the happy-go-lucky, teasing trickster that the others described.

He had once been such a trickster himself, although his peers and tutors had never looked on his antics as fondly as Kurt's did. But if anyone knew how good a job the mischievous facade could do at keeping others from looking too closely, Loki did.

"I should like to get to know this Mr. Wagner better," Loki announced abruptly on Sunday night. Jean and Hank looked up at him with surprise, and Piotr beamed at him.

"That's very good news," Piotr exclaimed. "He is our friend, and you are also our friend, so we should all be friends together, yes?"

Loki ignored this commentary, especially how oddly it twinged inside his chest that Piotr - who'd only known him for few days, for the Norns' sake - should so easily call him a friend. "I must make amends for my former thoughtlessness," he said. "What is the appropriate social tradition for apologies?"

"I really don't think you have to do that, Loki," Jean said. "Kurt's not the type to hold grudges and besides, I don't think he's actually angry."

Loki shrugged. "Nevertheless," he said.

"You might consider bringing a gift," Hank suggested. "That's a pretty common tradition for both apologies and just as a friendship overture, so it could work for both."

"An excellent suggestion." Loki considered it. "I shall acquire some alcohol for him, then. Alcohol is always a suitable gift, yes?"

Piotr nodded, but Hank and Jean were shaking their heads. "Normally it would be," Hank said, "but Kurt is underage."

Loki blinked. "I do not understand," he said. "Kurt is sixteen years of age, is he not? There are kingdoms in this realm where that is the legal age of adulthood, is it not? Xavier told me so."

"There are some, yes, but America isn't one of them," Jean said. "Here you can drive at sixteen, and vote at eighteen, but the legal age to drink is twenty-one."

"That is absurd," Loki scoffed. "A man who is sixteen in another country is sixteen here as well; you don't suddenly become younger simply because you cross a kingdom's border. How can you say that he is any less of an adult here than he is in his own country?"

Hank groaned and buried his head in his large, fuzzy hands. Jean gave a long-suffering sigh. "Loki, just humor us," she said. "Don't give any of our students alcohol. We're teachers; we're supposed to be role models, setting positive examples. Okay?"

"Ah," Loki said.

Two hours later Loki was knocking on Kurt Wagner's doorway, a pair of glass bottles clinking gently together in the bag in his hands. Kurt's rooms were set apart from the general boy's dormitory, among the apartments for senior students - or students whose mutation required them to have a room to themselves.

After a moment the door opened, revealing a curly-headed silhouette of deep blue darkness against the light behind. Only a puzzled-looking pair of bright yellow eyes shone in the light from the doorway. "Yes?" Kurt said, sounding surprised but polite. His eyes widened as he saw Loki there. "Herr Lehrer - Loki? Vhat are you doing here?"

Loki thrust the bag holding the wine ahead of him, forcing Kurt to stumble back slightly and allow the door to open wider. "I have come to repair my relations with you," he announced, and followed up on the foothold he'd gained by stepping forward into the doorway. "Do accept this token of my remorse and regards, in preparation for accepting my apologies for my earlier boorish behavior."

Kurt blinked. "Are you asking me, or telling me?" Kurt said, the thick accent evaporating out of his voice as he slipped into his native tongue. Loki handed over the package in a decisive gesture and Kurt automatically raised his hands to take it, arms dipping with the weight of glass and liquid. Loki took the opportunity to brush past him into the apartment.

"Er... do come in," Kurt mumbled, sounding somewhat confused and overwhelmed. He turned towards Loki, letting the door close behind him, and moved to set the bottles down on his kitchen table. As the paper packaging rustled and shifted, Kurt's eyes caught the labels on the bag and widened almost comically.

"What... this is glühwein!" Kurt gasped, pulling out one of the long, ember-red glass bottles that Loki had brought with him. "And the little one, mit shuss... Cherry wine with spices and cinnamon. And it is still warm?" he said with disbelief, laying his hand against the bottle.

"And will remain so until such time as you drink it," Loki said. "Really, it is not unlike the gløgg they serve in Asgard. Considerably less potent, of course, but I thought the similarities fitting."

Kurt was still working through his evident astonishment at the gift. "But this is not to be found in America," he said. He raised his yellow eyes to Loki. "Where did you get it?"

Loki shrugged. "Where else? From a spirits shop in Germany, of course," he said. It had been nice to revisit the cold European country in a more peaceful spirit than the first time he'd been there - although he'd worn a glamor during his visit there, just in case.

"But Kitty had you in self-defense just yesterday. You went to Europe and came back in a single day?"

Loki smiled. "You are not the only one who can travel in the blink of an eye," he said.

"This is an incredible gift. I thank you," Kurt said solemnly. His expression fell. "But maybe you didn't know, it is against the rules for students to have alcohol in their dorm rooms."

"Is that so?" Loki raised his eyebrows, letting a faint mocking tone into his voice. "And since when have you been a great one for following petty rules?"

Kurt grinned at him shyly, and Loki matched the smile with one of his own. For a moment, camaraderie glowed between them, as sweet and warm as the mulled wine.

And then, because he was Loki and Loki destroyed everything he touched, he had to ruin it. "I wanted to speak with you about our... last meeting," he said.

Kurt's smile faded, although he didn't - quite - regain the closed wariness he'd had when he met Loki at the door. "There's no need, really," he said.

"But there is. I insulted you, and that was never my intention," Loki said. In hindsight, with the benefit of perspective, he could well understand (too well understand) why commenting on Kurt's monstrous appearance had hurt him so. "You must understand, in my culture, a warrior's strength is highly prized. Many go to rather extreme lengths to increase the ferociousness of their appearance. I thought merely to offer you a compliment. I... may have been exaggerating the effect of your appearance somewhat, in aim of that."

Kurt laughed. "So you are admitting that you were not entirely truthful?" he said.

"Well, I am not known for my excessive commitment to honesty," Loki said with a smile, drawing another laugh from Kurt. He quickly sobered, though. "I did not mean to hurt you."

"It's all right," the boy said quickly. "I forgive you."

Loki shook his head. "But I still need to know why. Lest I say something that hurts you again."

"It's okay, really," Kurt protested. "I'm fine. I'm more resilient than that!"

Loki raised his eyebrows. "Now it is you who are not being entirely truthful," he said.

Kurt moved about his home restlessly, picking up dishes and placing them down again. "I should not have troubled you, truly," he said at last. "It's just that, when I saw your markings... Well, they looked a little bit like scars. But too even, too smooth for battle scars. I thought that you... I thought that..."

"That I had laid these scars into my own skin?" Loki said. He shifted into his Jotun form easily, with barely a thought - both to illustrate his point, and also to try to make Kurt more comfortable in his presence.

"Yes." Kurt nodded.

"Like you have lain yours into your own."

Kurt was avoiding looking at Loki at all, now. "...Yes."

"Your markings are far too deliberate to be random, or accidental, any more than mine are," Loki said. "If not for battle, why then? If you were from Asgard, I would assume they had some magical purpose. If not magical, then perhaps sacred..." He caught the subtle flicker of Kurt's expression - gone in an instant, but not quick enough to hide it.

Kurt sighed. "It doesn't matter now," he said "I wanted, I just wanted to see if there was someone else like me, someone else who... did the same things as me, for the same reasons as me. Now I know that it's different for you, there's no need for you to worry yourself about it."

Loki could see the loneliness in his eyes, the longing for connection. But I do worry, he thought.

He made his voice gentle, encouraging. "How can I know whether my reasons are the same as yours are not, or different, if I do not know what they are?"

"I am sure they are not the same," Kurt said firmly.

"Why are you sure?" Loki asked. You can tell me, you can trust me, I will not betray you.

"Because..." Kurt hesitated for a long moment, then shook his head. "Because your people do not believe in God." His sharp yellow eyes rose to met Loki's, jolting them with their intensity.

"Not as yours do, no," Loki agreed.

For the common folk of Asgard - as it had been for the mortals, in centuries past - the matter was simple: Those who dwelt on the hill in the golden hall of Gladsheim were gods. End of story. It was they who were appealed to when feats beyond their normal lives were needed, and they who were paid tribute at the end of each season and on festal days.

But for the nobility of Asgard, who actually had to live in those golden halls, they knew it was not so simple. They saw their 'gods' every day, after all, and knew their frailties and failings as well as their own. Their concept of divinity was much more abstract and arcane.

For the Aesir, it was not simply the notion that higher powers than themselves existed in the universe. They knew that they did - the Fates, the Tree, the avatars of Life and Death and more that inhabited the world beyond their halls. But the fact that these beings existed did not make them gods, or requiring of worship. They simply were, and belief made no difference to their lives - nor to the lives of men. They made poor targets for a religion.

Instead, the religion of Asgard centered around the notion of 'paths.' Every as or asynja, it was said, was dedicated at birth (by the fates, if not by their parents) to follow a path. Wisdom, Strength, Charity, Fertility, even Hospitality - there were as many different paths as there were leaves on the trees (although Strength was a popular one in Asgard, for obvious reasons.) At the end of the paths were the ultimate forms, the pure concepts of pinnacle and perfection that could not for long exist in this imperfect world. Striving towards those pinnacles, even if they could never be achieved, was the religion of the individual Aesir.

Of course, a concept was a mindless and impersonal thing, passive and static. And an individual was flawed and weak, full of faults and imperfections. It was in the union of the two - the moment when the man became the ideal - that godhood was achieved. So it was when King Bor entered the berserkrgang, the battle-trance, and drove the Dark Elves from the face of the universe. So it was when King Odin immersed himself in the waters of Mimir's Well, linking his very life to the magical spirit-force of Yggdrasil. So it was when Thor summoned the storm and rode with it, commanding the lightning and the thunder. It did not matter that Bor was an indifferent bather and cheated constantly on his wife, Bestla; it did not matter that Odin snored (that Odin lied) and threw food scraps on the floor, or that Thor had a tendency to pick his nose and put his boots up on the furniture when he came in from the stables.

In those moments, the moment when force and form combined, they became War, they became Magic, they became Storm. In those moments, they were gods.

Mortals, with their flyspeck lives, took comfort in the idea of a permanent and immortal God, ever changing and dependable throughout the ages. Immortals, who had an endless time of stagnant sameness to look forward to, rather found their divinity in flashes of ephemeral exaltation.

Loki, himself, had never found his moment of godhood. For much of his life this had been a source of private doubt and pain for him, never sure just what path he should be devoted to. In his childhood he had thought that he should devote himself to Magic, as Odin had, but he had never achieved that same state of divine ecstasy. For a time, after he had fallen from the Bifrost, he had believed it his destiny to be a God of Evil; but the vile acts he had committed in his time on Earth had brought him none of the fulfilment that the divine trance was supposed to bring, and he admitted to himself that he had not the stomach to try anything more extreme.

But this was all too much to try to explain to this young mortal, especially when he was clearly too troubled by his own thoughts already. "It's rather complicated."

"Complicated," Kurt echoed, then shook his head. "For us, it is different. God is not complicated at all. But like many other simple things, it is the hardest to explain." He raised his hands as though to make a shape with his fingers, then dropped them and huffed. "I am no missionary, nor a priest. They could say it better."

"I'm not interested in what they have to say," Loki pointed out. "I'm interested in what it means to you."

Kurt huffed a half-laugh, more a release of tension than true humor. "How can I say..." He ran his hand through his hair, then started again. "God is the Father, the Creator. He is the only one, the absolute, the everything. All-powerful, all-knowing. He is all things good, and he is perfection.

"Man, though... man is not perfect." Kurt ran one finger over the scars webbing his arm, his expression trouble. "We are all conceived in sin and born in sin, and however we may try, none of us can hope to live a sinless life. But because God is merciful, He is willing to forgive us for our sins.

"He gave us His son to suffer and die for us so that we might be redeemed, and He gave Saint Peter the Church so that we might be guided and cleansed. -The Church, they do much of God's work on Earth, but one of the things they do is to take confessions," he explained as an aside. "When you have sinned, you can go to a confessional and a priest will hear your sins, and tell you how you can be forgiven.

"When I was young and still living with my mother and brother and sister, we had the church in my home village. But after I..." He stopped, searching for words, old hurt written on his face. "...had to leave, it wasn't so easy. There are not many places I can go, looking as I do... I'm sure you can see why I would not be welcome into many churches." He gave a wry smile, gesturing at his darkened skin, his yellow eyes, his long and pointed tail.

"Even so I still feel..." He bit his lip. "They worry at me. My sins. I cannot go to be blessed but I am still human, I am still weak. With small things, bad thoughts, bad words, it is enough to think upon my sins and say my prayers, many times. The weight leaves me and I feel clean again. But with terrible sins, terrible things I have done... there is nowhere I can go to escape from them. There is no one who can lift them from me."

His expression was lost, desolate. Loki couldn't say that he understood, not really, but he could still feel a deep and almost painful empathy. He knew what it was to be heartsick, heartsore, cut off from everything and alone. If there had been some way for him to take a knife to his skin and cut off the Jotun blue, if by doing so there was some way he could have become one with his adopted people again, he could not say for sure that he would not have done it.

"These symbols..." Kurt ran his fingertips over one, outlining its shape on his upper arm. "They are the symbols of the angels, the language of God. I write them in my skin where God can see me, and hear me, and know my remorse. I write them on my skin and I remember how His son suffered for the sins of Man... and I feel a little bit closer to Him, and not so alone."

It seemed to Loki that if this God of men was really as all-knowing and omnipresent as Kurt believed, then he ought to be able to hear confessions wherever they were said, not just in a church - if he could see the scars, why not hear confessions? But the greater part of him understood that this was not about logic, not about reason. This was about heart, and about hurts that no amount of rationality could cure.

"But you are not alone, are you?" Loki said. "You have many friends, teachers, and teammates. They all care very much about you." He had to fight hard, not to let a bitter edge into his voice: he understood, rationally, that just because people liked Kurt didn't mean they liked him, Loki, any less. But there were some hurts that no amounts of reason could cure.

"I... yes. The school is nice, the people here are very kind... I love my teammates, I am grateful for them. But it's not..." He trailed off, looking miserable. It's not the same, hung unspoken in the air.

"It's not everything you need." And that, Loki understands. The school was wonderful, welcoming; it offered sanctuary and camaraderie and acceptance. But it could never be home, it could never be mother, father, brother. Those things are lost forever beyond repair.

"Some people have asked me why I still cling to my devotion to God, even after all that has happened," Kurt said. "I think, how could I not? He has been with me all my life; He saw me at my best and my worst. It is all I have that links me with my first family, my home. You see..." Kurt reached under his shirt and pulled out something that gleamed silver in the light. He held it out in one dark, three-fingered hand for Loki's inspection.

Obligingly, Loki bent close to look at the pendant: it was a symmetrical, oval shape, with the robed and hooded figure of a tall woman in bas-relief in the center. She was holding her hands out to each side, and her face was peaceful and serene. Straight, sharp-angled runes marched around the border of the pendant in a language Loki could not read. "It's a miraculous medal," Kurt told him, almost shyly. "Sacred to Mother Mary - born without sin, mother of Jesus, she intercedes for us. My mother gave it to me... it was the last thing she ever gave me. It's for protection, you see; she knew that I would need it, and that she wouldn't be around to give it to me any more."

Loki could tell at a glance that there was no true warding or spellwork upon the pendant; it was just a piece of jewelry, pretty perhaps, but nothing more. Yet there was something about the serene woman's face that tugged at his chest, and he deliberately broke off his gaze and leaned back to put space between them. "As a talisman of protection, it doesn't seem to have worked very well," he said.

Kurt looked surprised, then gave a little chuckle as he tucked the necklace away. "Well, maybe it has," he said. "Who can say? I'm still alive. It could always have been worse."

"I suppose so," Loki said. "I am... glad, that you have something that you can remember her by. Your mother." This time, perhaps, he was not quite so successful at keeping the bitterness out of his voice; it clogged his mouth like funeral ashes.

Kurt dropped his eyes. "I, too, am glad," he said softly. Then he blinked up at Loki and smiled, a real, heartfelt smile. "But that does not mean I am not glad to have friends, too," he said. "And ever glad to have one more. Come on, Herr Loki, will you share a drink with me? You should not leave without a chance to sample the gift you went to so much trouble to get!"

Loki walked back to his apartment slowly, still a little warmed by the wine and so deep in thought that any number of students could have hailed him without his notice. Lost in thoughts of how Kurt managed to cling to his faith despite years of loss and persecution, and somehow had not been degraded by it.

The image of a silver medallion, engraved with the image of that beautiful, serene face, refused to leave his mind's eye. Kurt truly was lucky, to have such a concrete keepsake of his mother's love; Loki couldn't help but envy him for it.

But it need not be mere envy, did it? He found himself suddenly energized by the thought, excited by the possibility. Frigga had owned many things, many talismans and pieces of jewelry in Asgard. Perhaps he himself could acquire a keepsake of his mother, some token that could be used to remind himself of her...

No.

There was nothing on Midgard of hers, certainly. But he could return to Asgard, in secret, hidden from the eyes of the Gatekeeper and the Allfather...

No.

Most of her greatest possessions would have been burned in her ship beside her, but she had been a queen and a mother for centuries; there would surely be some left, bundled and forgotten in corners here and there. He could still...

No.

His own chamber had been emptied out, scrubbed to the bone and closed like a tomb; but perhaps Thor's...

No.

He let himself into his apartment, silent and shrouded as a tomb; he let the door fall closed behind him, but did not move to ignite any of the lamps. His mind churned restlessly within his skull, and he began to pace in the shadowed darkness, never content to be still.

Why did his thoughts shy away so hard from any thought of returning to Asgard? He could barely even think of the place without an intense swirl of compressed emotions; panic, fear, revulsion. Actually setting foot in the place was utterly unthinkable, even for the promise of some last token of Frigga's.

Why?

Was it denial? Did a part of him still cling childlike to the idea that as long as he didn't go to Asgard, he wouldn't have to face that Frigga was really dead? As though, if he could not see it, it would not be real? Certainly not. He was not that naive, not that self-deluded.

(Was he?)

It surely wasn't fear. Asgard had already done their worst by him and he had survived it; not only survived it, but proved himself well able to dodge and dazzle and deceive his way out of anything they could throw at him. Odin had already forsaken him; what more need he fear from his not-father? He certainly didn't need to fear Thor; his brother had wept for him, despite all that had passed between them. Thor, who had cared for him more when he lay dying than he ever had for him in life, would surely be overjoyed to discover that Loki was still among the living after all.

But no. No, that bridge was burned and gone behind him. In the eyes of Asgard, his home, his family - his allies, his enemies, everyone who ever mattered - he was dead. He was dead, and he was not ready to be not dead just yet.

Or ever?

But you're not dead, are you, the insidious little voice whispered in his ear. Because the dead do not feel pain, and you do.

The realization hit him like a tidal wave, forcing him to his knees upon the thin carpeting. He was not dead. He was not dead, and yet he had wanted to be, had pantomimed his death for all the universe to see, had fled behind the finality and pallid stillness that death offered. He had never planned to falsify his death on Svartalfheim; he had thought instead to die in truth, and had been surprised (and disappointed?) to wake again alone on the howling plain afterwards. And afterwards, well, it was so much easier just to keep up appearances, to finalize his death in the eyes and minds of his home and loved ones. To be dead in the eyes of Asgard, as close as he could come to death in truth; he had wanted to be dead, because...

He suffered and died for our sins; and so, when I suffer, it feels like it brings me a little closer to Him.

...because it was the only way left that he could be close to his mother.

He'd wanted to die in the same battle that claimed his mother's life so that his crest would hang beside hers in the halls of the honored dead, so that their names would be chanted together in songs of their courage and sacrifice. So that he and she would be remembered together. As though, if his death followed on hers closely enough, he could be reunited with her. As though that would let him see her again. But it wouldn't, not this farce of a half-life and not true death either; he knew, he knew he would never see her again.

She had taken a warrior's place in Valhalla, and he would never come before those golden doors, not if he died today nor a thousand years from now. He was trapped halfway - too useless to save her, too cowardly to follow her, and he would never, never see her again. Never, never again touch her, embrace her, smell her perfume; never tell her that he loved her, never hear her say the same, never apologize for all the wrong he had done to her, and never, ever hear her forgiveness.

Loki didn't realize he was weeping until he went to take a breath and found his throat closed and choking, his chest shuddering with the weight of his tears. He rocked back and forth mindlessly across the chilled floor, arms wrapped tight around his chest in a futile search for comfort. It was not only his apartment that was dim - the whole world seemed shadowed, the light failing and swallowed up behind the veil of grief.

He remembered a time, long ago... With a sudden burst of energy Loki managed to unwrap himself and scramble across the floor on his knees, wedging his back up against the overstuffed divan to support him. He crossed his legs before him and held his hands open above his lap, calling flickers of light to his fingertips.

When he was very young, he had cried often. He could no longer remember why - everything had seemed bigger in those days, overwhelming, and himself small and powerless against it (and had that ever really changed?) On those occasions Frigga would take him upon her skirts, hold him in her lap and call effervescent blue light to her hands, creating figments and chimera into the air to entertain him. It did not take much to distract his child-self from whatever had prompted the stormy tears, and soon he would watch with open-mouthed wonder while she made the apparitions dance and flutter. One fateful day he had raised his hand to join hers, and wan flickers of green light had appeared in his own chubby fingers, his own magic called in response to hers - and that had been the beginning of the end.

He had his magic still, the magic that Frigga had taught him. Even if he never set foot in Asgard again, even without any scrap or token of her possessions to remember her by, he would always have this. No one could take it away from him - no one could poison his memories of her except for himself, with all the cold and curdling uses that he had put her gift to in the past few years.

Loki could sit here all day and all night, calling illusory butterflies to dance in his palms, but no matter how hard he tried, the color of the magic always retained that stubborn taint of green. The pale blue luminescence of Frigga's magic was gone, to be seen in these realms nevermore.

He wished he could have attended her funeral.

He wished he could have seen her again, before she died.

He wished he could have told her that he was not a traitor, that all he had done was with the best interests of Asgard and the Nine Realms in mind.

He wished she had not died believing her younger son a monster.

He wished he did not believe it himself.

Above all, he wished he could have had a chance to say good-bye.

~tbc...

Apologies for any OOC'ness on the part of Nigthcrawler. Kurt's motives and actions described in this chapter are based on a perception of Nightcrawler's character I built almost entirely out of a three-sentence exchange in X-Men 2. Storm notices that Kurt has scars on his skin that seem to be self-inflicted and asks him about them. They have the following dialogue exchange:

Nightcrawler: They're angelic symbols, passed on to mankind by the archangel Gabriel.

Storm: They're beautiful. How many do you have?

Nightcrawler: One for every sin. So quite a few.

The implication is first that Kurt is pretty religious, since most casual Christians wouldn't be able to recognize let alone reproduce angelic symbols, and secondly that Kurt cuts himself as a way to atone for sins, either real or perceived. This got me thinking about what sort of effect Kurt's very visible mutation would have on his spiritual life and vice versa. I really do not know how well this fits in with Nightcrawler's character in other versions of the X-Men canon, since as far as I know the self-scarification only ever appears in X2.

Also, I have absolutely no idea how religion and spirituality work in Marvel's Asgard. I just pulled that whole section out of my butt. Does it show?