Chapter 10: "You Broke The First Rule of Tiny Fight Club, Kamala"

July 4

Rooftop of the Tribute Training Center

After dinner, Kitty and Alex left their suite to head up to the roof — after Scott had insisted they drop by to get in as much training as they could. Apparently, there was a good crowd up there, and as Kitty had pointed out, every little bit helped when they were about to be in a fight to the death.

Alex had hemmed and hawed a bit over the whole thing — he didn't want to seem like he was letting his older brother push him around — but he had finally agreed. He insisted, of course, that it was only because Kitty had swayed him. Not Scott.

They were only part of the way up to the top floor when the elevator opened to admit a new passenger, and Peter Quill walked in from Ten's floor. He looked just as surprised to see the two of them as they were to see him — especially coming out of the wrong floor — before he broke into a grin. "Going up?"

"As a matter of fact," Kitty said with a little smile. "We are."

"Great, me too," Quill said as he leaned against the side of the elevator. "Little bird told me that's where the party was and suggested a responsible adult — but you got me instead."

"Is that what the birds have to say about it?" Kitty asked with a little laugh.

"Oh yeah. All of 'em. The mocking kind and the falcons," he said with a crooked grin.

She shook her head and tried to keep from laughing. "I didn't realize you were all so close."

"Sam likes to fly — so do I. And Bobbi knows a lord when she sees one," Peter laughed, though this time the smile wasn't quite as broad. But he quickly shook it off. "Anyway, someone said it would be fun, and I'm all about that. So — what's the game?"

"I have no idea," she admitted. "This is our first trip up there, but Alex's brother said we needed to go."

"Great, we can find out together," he said, grinning her way as the doors opened up to the top floor, and he reached across her to open the door to the stairwell, the grin turning somehow wider when she returned it.

"You're awfully flirty for someone that's engaged," Alex said with his arms crossed.

Peter looked Alex's way for a moment, losing his grin, and then shrugged. "Like I said, I'm all about the fun. And I'm not married yet, genius."

Alex raised an eyebrow at that, and Kitty rolled her eyes as they headed up the stairs together — though this time without as many wide smiles from Peter.

But even Peter was a little surprised by what they found when they got to the roof. Logan had most of the kids paired off, and they were all trying to break holds back and forth. Or, for the new kids — they were learning how to hit and block, with the newest little victor making his way through them, correcting who he could where he could when there was a problem.

For a little while, Peter was simply content to watch the whole thing, but then the doors opened to admit one final latecomer, and little Miles Morales let out a disappointed noise. "Oh. Everyone's already paired up. I didn't know this was a bring-your-own-date situation."

"Come on, kid," Logan said. "Start with me, and I'll pair you off with a good match."

Miles tipped his head to the side for a second before he nodded. "O-kay, but you should know, I'm hard to shop for."

Logan stopped for a second and looked at him hard. "Just … hit me."

Miles balled up both hands in fists but almost couldn't help saying, "In the hand, right? You don't want me to find your glass jaw in front of all the kiddies?"

"No danger of that. You can try if it makes you feel better, though."

But Miles just shook his head. "No, that's okay — I just—"

"Yeah. couldn't help yourself. I know."

He grinned at Logan for that one and then hauled back and hit his hand with all the force of a very skinny thirteen-year-old kid.

"I can't believe it," Logan muttered as he showed Miles how to make a fist right. "You even hit like him. Jesus."

"I've never been compared to a god before," Miles said with a horribly troublemaking grin.

In spite of himself, Logan had to smirk at that. "The new Spider brat, right? It fits."

"Man. Spider-Man," Miles corrected him. "And yeah, Gwen already okay'd the name, so… hopefully, the shoes fit right."

"Oh, they fit. Just don't make the same mistakes, alright?"

"I won't," Miles promised before he paused. "And ... just for clarification purposes… those are…?"

"Don't be too damn noble for your own good," Logan said. "Especially for a couple guys that don't really deserve it."

"That sounds more like Gwen than me," Miles said. "She's, like, way nice. I'm surprised she's not up here. What have you got against Spider-Gwen?"

"Not a thing. Bring her if she needs it. Looks like we got half the kids in this thing anyhow."

"Yeah, I noticed. How many were you planning on adopting before the week is out?" he asked, gesturing out over the crowd.

Logan let out a sigh and looked around for a moment. "It's kinda snowballin', isn't it?"

Miles nodded gravely and rested a hand on Logan's shoulder. "It's alright — the overtaxed dad look is good on you."

"Shut up and get to work."

Miles just straightened up and shot him a salute. "You got it, Dad."

Logan rolled his eyes and let out a breath, working with the kid for a little while longer — at least until Miles was putting enough force behind his hits that he was making some actual progress.

"Ready to learn how to block? Scott's a pro." He called over to Scott, who had gotten to a point that he looked ready to do something else. "Miles needs a coach to block. Got a few?"

Scott nodded and made his way over. "He show you how to punch without breaking anything?" he asked Miles with a small grin, and when Miles enthusiastically gave him two thumbs up, that was enough for Scott to take the much younger boy and show him some blocks further out from the others, though of course Kamala was close enough to call out encouragement the whole time they worked together.

Kitty, meanwhile, dove right into the training — and was outpacing Alex a bit faster than the younger Summers could keep up. Finally, Alex let out a groan of frustration and shook his head, holding both hands up. "I'm out."

"No you're not," Logan said. "Come over here — let's fix what you're doing wrong." He looked over to the other victors hanging around. "One of you can help her, can't you? She just needs someone to hit."

"I'm pretty good at that," Peter said with a self-deprecating laugh, though when he stepped forward and slid his gaze to Kitty, it turned into a crooked smile instead. "Don't feel bad if you break things either."

"Is this how you want me to hit on you?" she teased with a grin.

"Oh, are you hitting on me?"

"Well. I'll be hitting you. Kind of the same thing, right?"

"No, no, there's a very crucial difference," he said, grinning even wider as he held up both hands. "Want me to explain it?"

She giggled a bit and grinned wider. "Go for it. I'm here to learn, remember?"

The grin just widened as he nodded her way. "Alright. Hit me first," he said, holding up his hands, and when she did, he nodded once before he put both hands down, took a step forward and draped an arm around her shoulders, leaning in close to whisper, "And this is hitting on someone. See the difference?"

"I might need to see that again," Kitty said with a little smile.

"Whatever you say," he agreed, the grin threatening to split his face as he took a step back and held up both his hands again. "Alright. From the top."

"You sure you're not working your way up to holds a little quicker than normal?" she asked as she took up a fighting stance.

"If I was, would you hit me or hit on me? Remember the difference, now."

"Guess we'll have to wait and see," she replied with a troublemaking sparkle in her eyes.

He laughed at that before he started to go through the basics of a wrist hold for her, skipping right ahead at her suggestion as he showed her where he would grab her and how to escape it. "Don't worry about hurting me, either, 'cause I can take it," he said.

"I'll try to keep that in mind," Kitty replied. When they started to work on breaking holds, though, once he got her into a tough one that she couldn't remember how to break, she looked over her shoulder at him and darted forward to steal a quick kiss and slip out of his grip.

It absolutely worked as a way to distract him and get him to let her go, though he just kept grinning wider and wider her way.

"So … I used what I could," Kitty said with a shrug. "Oops."

"That wasn't what I'd call an 'oops.'" Peter grinned crookedly at her. "Way to think on your feet."

"Sorry," she said with a little smirk.

"Hey, don't apologize," he said, shaking his head. "I'm just trying to figure out a clever way to return the favor without risking the wrath of the whatevers."

She looked down at her watch for a moment and bit her lip. "Well. You still have like an hour to figure it out."

"Then maybe we should try that hold again," he suggested, the grin only widening.

Jess and Logan shared a look at the flirting before they both pointedly turned the other way to try and at least act like they had no idea what was going on — both of them heading to different pairs of kids to move them forward a bit. Logan headed to Kamala and Jess to Miles and Scott.

"Isn't he… engaged?" Kamala whispered to Logan when he met up with her, her gaze on Kitty and Peter and her eyes wide.

Logan nodded slowly. "Not exactly by choice," he said at nearly a whisper before he held one finger up to his lips.

"Like an arranged marriage or… like something else?" she asked in her quietest possible whisper, even more wide-eyed than before.

Logan looked over at Peter for a moment. "Let's just say yes." He adjusted his stance. "Okay. I want you to learn some take downs."

Kamala straightened up and dropped her wide-eyed look as she broke into a huge grin. "Bring it on!"

They started fairly small — leg sweeps and how to take someone off balance, but it wasn't too long before Logan decided she'd graduated. "Okay. I'll have to get you a new target," Logan said. "What I want to show you works best on someone a lot bigger."

"What about Scott?" Kamala asked, gesturing at where Scott was working on holds with Miles and Jess.

"Scott's tall, but you need someone bulkier," Logan said. "Let him catch up to you anyhow. He needs to learn the holds and breaks too."

"He'd learn faster if he wasn't teaching," she teased.

"I think he learns by teaching," Logan said. "Helps him cement it better."

"Does it help you?" she asked, honestly curious.

"I haven't shown you guys anything that new," he admitted.

She took a step back and made a sweeping gesture with her arms. "Show me?"

"Alright," he said, glancing toward Jess for a moment. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to decide what simple martial arts move would work best for her and wouldn't be too complex. "Throws." He took a couple steps forward and started to explain how she could throw him over her head — and to her shock, she got it on the first try.

"Oh wow! Oh wow — oh… are you okay?" she asked belatedly, her eyes shining with excitement.

"I'm fine," he said from the ground. "That wasn't bad. Don't hesitate next time."

"But your ribs — I don't want to hurt you—"

"I got looked over, I'm okay. Don't worry about it. Just bruised. Nothin' broke." He got to his feet and brushed off some of the pebbles that had stuck to him.

"Well, somebody's gotta look out for you for all the looking out you do for us," she pointed out. "That's all I'm saying. But.. if you're okay…" Her eyes sparkled. "I really, really want to do that again."

"Whenever you're ready," he said, taking up the same position.

When Kamala did the same thing and broke into delighted laughter, the two of them found that they had an audience as Kitty had made her way over to watch with a grin of her own. "Can I learn that too?"

"Sure," Logan said before he got to his feet again and simply started to explain it to her, though Peter was watching with interest too. "You just need to use your opponent's size against them. It's all just leverage."

"Something you've gotta keep in mind when you're his size," Peter teased almost without thinking about it.

"You might want to learn this one yourself, hot shot," Logan teased. "Before you pick out your china patterns."

Peter gave him a look for a second before he broke into a little smirk. "Think I can aim it so a, um, certain mutual friend hits a certain table of tools of his?"

"Or a pair of idiots with a shared brain maybe?"

"Right. Hypothetically speaking of course."

"While you're going to your part-time job," he teased. "Cell jockey."

"I thought this was my part-time job," he shot back as Jess looked at the two of them like she couldn't believe they were joking about this.

"No, this is the one you gotta keep so they can prove you're still breathing."

"Have I mentioned how much I love that part of the job?" Peter asked, mostly serious this time. "Because I do."

"It's a burden that I'm glad is yours alone. By the way."

"Don't be jealous now," Peter said with a ghost of a smirk.

"Come on, Lord-lapdog or whatever you're going by now. Let Kitty throw you."

"Star Lord. Come on, is that so hard?" Peter whined jokingly, though Kitty just shook her head at him as Logan walked her through the steps one more time so she could, in fact, throw Peter over her shoulder.

"Perfect for handsy first dates," Logan called out. "Nail him."

Peter just laughed from the ground as he grinned up at Kitty. "Is that what I am?"

"Handsy? Not by my count, no," she said with a laugh as she offered him a hand up.

He took the offered hand and got to his feet, though he didn't release her hand either and used it to pull her over to steal a kiss back before he broke into a little laugh. "How 'bout now?"

She tipped her head to the side. "No hands — still not handsy." She broke down laughing as Scott shook his head nearby.

"Logan's Dating Service Express," Miles called out over Scott's shoulder.

"Do not drag me into this, Spider brat," Logan said.

"He has issues with names," Miles stage-whispered to Peter. "Don't feel bad. It's a moral failing of his."

"You can throw me if you want, but I'm going to try to get someone bigger tomorrow," Logan told him. "Not always about height."

"I can show you how," Kamala offered brightly. "Scott, come here and be my partner so Miles can see to throw Logan."

Scott glanced at Miles for a second before he couldn't help but smile at Kamala's enthusiasm. "Okay."

Logan gave him a little smirk as he took up position to let Kamala try to explain it to the boys and offered his arm when she was ready. And of course, there was no mistaking the look of delight when she threw him as she was clearly having a blast — though Miles peppered Logan with a few clarifying questions when it was his turn to try. He was clearly a bit nervous about it.

"You're overthinking it," Logan said. "Just give it your best shot. You've seen it done a few times now."

Kamala nodded from where she was working with Scott. "Yeah, see — look!" She demonstrated this time by tossing Scott with particular glee. "Easy peasy!"

Miles screwed up his whole face in concentration before he took a deep breath and — to his surprise — actually managed to throw Logan, though it wasn't nearly as graceful as Kamala had been.

"See? No big deal," Logan said from the ground before he sat up. Hide it all he wanted, getting chucked over and over was actually starting to hurt.

"She makes it look easier," Miles said, gesturing at Kamala.

"That's because you're still overthinking it."

"I'm just thinking of the angles, and…"

"Overthinking it. Yeah. That's what I said."

"You teach this kind of stuff to the original Spidey?" Miles asked as he offered Logan a hand up.

He paused before he took Miles' hand and let out a breath. "No. I didn't know this back then."

"Oh." Miles tipped his head to the side and fell quiet for a moment before he nodded. "Well… that's good for me, then. Gotta have something to give me a leg up with big shoes to fill like that."

"You're doing fine!" Kamala called out to him encouragingly, flashing him a double thumbs up before she went back to working with Scott with a huge grin on her face — she clearly enjoyed being the teacher this time around.

"Okay guys," Jess said as she watched Logan wince when Miles threw him again. "Probably should wrap it up for tonight. And tomorrow night, the Careers are coming up here, so … where should we go?"

"We can use our suite," Billy offered quickly. "It's not like we're using it right now anyway, and Black Bolt won't mind, really."

"Noh might like the show," Logan said with a nod.

"He'll bring a soundtrack," America agreed, smirking the slightest bit.

"He probably will, that's not even a joke," Logan said. "Guy's got a soundtrack for everything."

"Then it's settled. We'll all meet in Twelve and kick butt to a killer soundtrack," America decided before she leveled a finger Logan's way. "Make sure your little sparkle stylist knows so she can come too."

"If you tell Noh, she'll know," Logan promised. "They're starting a line, after all."

July 4

Rooftop Across From the Capitol Training Building

Most of the Tahiti kids were scattered on various rooftops throughout the Capitol, with the goal being to make it through the night without being seen — and to gather as much intel as possible on how to get in ever closer to the inner rings of the Capitol buildings.

Kurt had gotten the closest of anyone and was happily camped out on the building right across from where all the tributes were training. The biggest threat he'd encountered so far was simply the fact that civilians with binoculars also wanted to be where he was, but the Sentinels were manning the buildings around the tower-like structure carefully. They just… hadn't noticed Kurt.

Kurt settled in with his own binoculars — much higher powered — and other surveillance equipment for the night, though even with his naked eye, he could see the occasional glimmer of the force field around the whole tower.

He had expected to see a tribute or two on the roof, since he remembered it being a pretty popular spot to go and get away from the craziness of the Games for a while, though he was pleasantly surprised to find that it was Logan and his two tributes on the roof as night fell, and he couldn't help but smile to himself on seeing his old friend. Logan looked far better than he had the last time Kurt saw him — it was good for him to have those two to work with, to give him someone, something to focus on.

But to Kurt's surprise, more and more tributes kept coming up to the roof — and it looked like they were training. Not just the kind of training the Capitol teachers would do, but real, helpful, one-on-one work. Both of Kate's friends were there, along with the little girl from Six — and Kitty and her district partner.

Kurt couldn't help but grin when he saw Kitty. He could tell she'd grown, and yet next to her district partner, she still looked tiny, like he remembered her. She would hate that.

He was still smiling to himself as he watched Logan's little group of kids work together. He wasn't surprised at all to find that Logan had managed to get himself in the middle of what looked like most of the youngest kids there in addition to his own tributes. He couldn't hear what was being said because of the security in place there — again, likely to keep civilians from getting insider information on the Games. A scrambler of some sort was in place to keep him from hearing the conversations, but he saw that the youngest, the little Six girl, was grinning like mad at Logan — that wasn't a surprising sight either.

What was surprising, though, was Kitty working with the victor from Five, of all people. None of the Five tributes were up there, so Kurt wasn't sure what he was doing there, and he couldn't help but fall into a deep frown when he saw the unmistakable body language that meant Peter Quill was flirting with her.

The two of them worked through holds together, and Kurt refocused his binoculars to get a better view just in time to see his old friend from home steal a kiss from the tall, blonde victor — and he couldn't help but drop his jaw.

"Katzchen, what are you doing?" he muttered to himself. "Everyone there, and you pick not only the engaged person but the man at least four years your elder."

When the flirting didn't seem to stop in the slightest, though, Kurt let out a long sigh. He didn't like this the least bit. And if Kitty won, as he was hoping she would, she would return to find him married anyway — what was she thinking?

Still, Kurt had to admit, it was good to see her again. Not only that but it was good to see her grinning and clearly okay. Happy. Even if she was about to head into the Games, it looked like she at least had friends. She had support. And that gave him hope that she could make it through.