'I gotta go,' he said.
Kitty didn't think she'd been too harsh – no more than he deserved, okay? She couldn't help it. Seeing his face just made her so mad because it reminded her of how much she'd cried after they broke up. She thought she would never see him again, and knowing now that he had been in New York the whole time but he didn't want to see her? That hurt. Like, a lot. It was different when she told him to get lost because she usually only half-meant it and it was only after he'd pulled some stunt with the Brotherhood that destroyed a building or endangered people. But Kitty genuinely thought, after what happened with Apocalypse, that things were going to change. They were going to get back together, he was going to come back to the Institute, and this time Scott wouldn't be such a jerk about it. Then Lance told her it was never going to happen. And just because he flew to Mexico to help her did not mean he wanted to give their relationship another shot.
And she was standing here in front of him feeling like the world's biggest idiot in her fluffy pink jacket and green face paint, while he lied to her again and he said he had to go.
"No, you don't," Kitty argued with no small amount of accusation in her voice, because he didn't have to 'leave'. He just got here. "You're bailing," on her. Again. It made her so angry. "You are really good at that, Lance." It was, like, his secondary mutation.
Her passive aggressiveness ticked him off and he finally made eye contact with her. "You got something to say, Kitty? Just say it."
"Fine," she would. "You lied to me about leaving New York!"
"I never said I was leaving New York-"
"Don't do that. Don't act like you didn't know what you were doing," he just wanted to break up with her and be a coward about it. "You're not that dumb."
Lance looked pissed. "Wow, thanks."
"I didn't mean- I don't think you're dumb, Lance," but she did think he did a lot of dumb things. "Why didn't you just tell me the truth?" She could've handled it. She would've left him alone if he told her to. "You didn't have to join S.H.I.E.L.D. just to get away from me!"
"Oh for fuck's sake!" Lance swore at her and a tremor radiated through the ground, causing a handful of gourds to roll off the cart with a succession of thumps. She noticed people were staring – including her friends, so he better not lose control. "Come here." He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her towards the parking lot.
Bamf.
Kurt appeared in front of them and Lance nearly ran into him. "Kitty, you okay?"
Lance looked so mad – for a lot of reasons, mainly that Nightcrawler jumped in his way and then ignored him like he wasn't there. "I'm fine," Kitty insisted, phasing her wrist out of Lance's grasp with an irritated, "Don't grab me. You know I hate that."
He glanced between the two of them and Kitty could see him giving up, right in front of her. "Forget it," he said flatly. He wasn't about to have this conversation outnumbered by X-Geeks. "I'm outta here." He walked off and left her with Kurt.
"Lance, wait!"
"Kitty, don't." Kurt put a hand on her shoulder.
"Just let me do this, okay?" She was trying not to let her anger get the best of her – because she didn't want to take it out on Kurt. "It'll take, like, five seconds max."
"Kitty-"
"Kurt, trust me," she interrupted him impatiently, because she knew what she was doing. "Can you give us some space?"
Kurt said something in German that she didn't understand – but she probably didn't need to. She got the gist. He wasn't happy about it, but he bamfed out of sight a moment later, leaving Kitty to dispel the sulfuric smoke left behind. She knew he wouldn't be far, but he was far enough that she could stop Lance before he pulled out of that parking lot.
"Lance?" She called out his name but she didn't see him and it was hard to tell all these cars apart at night. She wouldn't have found his beat-up jeep if he didn't crank on the ignition, nearly blinding her with the headlights a few feet away. "Lance, wait. We're not finished yet." She tried to open the passenger's side door but it was locked. "Don't make me phase through your car."
He left her waiting outside for a full five seconds, long enough that she thought either he couldn't hear her or he was determined to be completely immature about this. He finally leaned over and manually unlocked the door – just before Kitty lost her temper, too – and she got in the jeep. It smelled stale. Like old beer, and chips, and dirty clothes. She couldn't tell if that was the result of having Blob as a passenger – or if it was always this grimy and Lance just didn't notice because he was used to it.
"Talk to me." Kitty decided not to insult the jeep for the time being, especially since the heater kicked in and that was sort of nice. It was cold outside. "Lance?"
He slouched in his seat and stared at the driver's side mirror like it was the most interesting thing he'd ever seen in the world. Was he just going to ignore her the whole time, because- "I didn't join S.H.I.E.L.D. to get away from you," he said in a low voice. It was quiet but not calm. He was still angry.
"Then why? You made that decision without even talking to me!"
Lance turned to her, responding to her raised voice with his own, "It wasn't your decision to make!" And Kitty would have just told him not to do it, and all the reasons why it was a bad idea.
"So it doesn't matter what I think?" That was nice to know.
"I know what you think." He made it sound like a bad thing, and his left hand clenched against the steering wheel. Nothing happened.
"That you could do better than S.H.I.E.L.D.? Because yeah, you could."
"No, I can't!" He slammed his hand against the wheel and the horn blared into the empty parking lot. Kitty flinched in response to the sound – the way it cut through the air – and said nothing. "I can't." He repeated the words, more calmly this time. "Look, S.H.I.E.L.D. offered to wipe our records," give them full pardons, all of 'em, for all the shit they pulled in Bayville - and all they had to do was join up, "Nobody else was gonna hire me, Kitty." He was a mutant and a hood. He didn't even graduate from high school. The only thing he had going for him were his powers.
Kitty didn't know that S.H.I.E.L.D. gave the Brotherhood government pardons. She didn't know they had that authority. And it wasn't that she thought Lance should end up in jail or anything – like a jail could hold him, but that was besides the point – because a lot of the stuff he did… yeah, it was bad but he was also working for Mystique (who was much worse). And Kitty felt like the good he'd done in helping to save the world should've balanced that stuff out. She was willing to give him a clean slate.
But S.H.I.E.L.D. could actually do it. Give him a clean slate. And now he owed them. "You don't think there are strings attached to that?" Kitty bet the second he quit – if he tried to quit – they'd get him arrested for the stuff he did.
Lance shrugged. "There's always strings attached." He said it like he'd thought about it – a lot – and decided that it was worth it. Was it really, though? Was it really worth it to get indebted to S.H.I.E.L.D.?
"Not at the Institute." He could have come back to the mansion. The Professor would have been totally fine with that. He knew what a good person Lance could be.
"Yeah, right."
"Lance, I'm serious." He said nothing. "You think there are strings attached to living at the Institute?" she demanded.
"No," he retorted, glancing at her, "I know there are."
"Like what? Like training sessions?" He didn't want to do that? Were those the strings? Kitty had no idea what he was talking about. "You don't have to be an X-Man to live there. Tabby isn't."
Lance shook his head. "I'm not Boom Boom," who got along with everybody.
"There's a shocker, Lance." Wow, she totally couldn't tell.
He scowled at her. "I don't want Xavier's charity, Kitty." His annoyance made her annoyed – because that wasn't what it was. It wasn't 'charity'. "I got this under control."
"You've got S.H.I.E.L.D. under control? I feel so much better now." Kitty laid the sarcasm on thick, so he knew exactly how she felt about that. She thought Lance was going to get mad again, but instead he just sighed and leaned back in the seat. He seemed tired. "You know S.H.I.E.L.D. is just using you," she insisted, and while her voice softened she just couldn't let it go. A muscle tightened in Lance's jaw but he didn't say anything. "I'm worried about you."
"Don't."
"Easier said than done." Kitty didn't mean to say that out loud. She was immediately embarrassed and felt herself blush before Lance shifted in his seat to look at her.
"I'm never gonna be what you think I am, Kitty," he said quietly, "That's why I didn't tell you." Because he was sick of disappointing her and it was too hard to be with her knowing that he'd just keep doing the same shit 'cause he-
"What does that even mean?"
"I'm not a hero," he said flatly. She got it in her head that he was, so he kept letting her down. He was tired of it.
She stared at him. "What do you call Mexico?"
"I didn't-"
"No, what do you call it, Lance? You came!" Sure, when she initially went to the Brotherhood for help – he told her, 'no', he didn't care what Apocalypse did or to who. But in the end, he did show up. "You did the right thing."
"I came for you."
"It's the same thing!"
"No, it's not, Kitty."
"What about the train?" Last year Wanda had lost control of her powers in the subway and derailed a train. "You helped people get away – regular people, not mutants. That was real." The Brotherhood started staging accidents after that so they could pretend to be 'heroes', and that wasn't so great but Lance's instinct was still… he still did some good.
"Kitty…"
"No, Lance, you like to think you're not good enough-"
"You said I wasn't!"
"I was angry!" That was their big blow-up before this last one. Kitty had been furious - because Lance stupidly let Principal Kelly manipulate him into trying to get mutants banned from school.
"You were right."
Kitty was exasperated, and she could've kicked herself for what she said in the heat of the moment – because she couldn't believe he was still upset over that. She did call him a hood – in front of everybody – because that's how he was acting. And when she confronted him outside of BHS, she wanted to hurt him for what he did. But that was, like, two years ago…
"And that's why you don't want to be with me?" Kitty just wanted to be sure she understood what was going on. And a part of her knew that she was being dumb (so dumb) because everyone had told her she was better off without him. They were always 'off-and-on' and mostly off, and he was always putting the people she loved in danger because of what his stupid friends convinced him to do, and it was frustrating to her because she knew that he knew what he was doing was wrong. And it wasn't enough to stop him. What do you even do with someone like that? You don't date them. That was a bad idea.
"It's not…" Lance stopped. He made a sound, like a cross between a groan and a growl that made her stomach twist, and raked his fingers through his hair. It didn't do any good. It fell right back into his face again. "This is the right call," he said instead.
"Why are you the only one who gets to decide that?" Why did he get to make the call about what was 'right' or 'wrong'? Why didn't she get to have a say? Her throat felt tight but she didn't want to cry because one, she never cried in front of Lance and two, she didn't want her face paint to run.
Lance looked at her and he wished he hadn't. He felt bad. "Damnit, Kitty."
"What?"
He turned to her completely – or as completely as he could, in the cab of the jeep – "I'm tryin' to do the right thing here."
"Really? Because it just feels like you're breaking up with me." Again. It was not an awesome feeling.
"I am not gonna drag you back down into my shit, okay? Leave it alone."
"Your shit?" He was talking about S.H.I.E.L.D., right? "I can't leave it alone. If Mastermind is in town and doing something bad, we have to stop him." Because that's what the X-Men did.
"I never should've told you that," he muttered, half to himself.
"Well, you did," she retorted shortly, "So… thanks."
"What?"
"Thank you," again, "For telling me about Mastermind." She could understand why he was confused – because she was thanking him in a very aggressive way. She was still upset. It showed in her voice.
"Oh." Lance scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "You're welcome. I guess."
An uncomfortable silence stretched between them for nearly a minute, and Kitty became acutely aware of the fact that this was the closest they'd been to each other in a long time. She looked at him and bit the inside of her bottom lip anxiously. She watched him follow that movement with her eyes. He was staring at her mouth. It made her blush.
She had to do something to distract herself. "You need to shave," she told him lightly, forcing the quaver out of her voice. "What is that scruff?" Kitty reached over and brushed her fingers against his chin. It was meant to be a playful gesture. It would've been, if Lance didn't grab her wrist. He moved a lot faster than you'd think he could, by looking at him. He held her wrist but not hard, he didn't squeeze, so she didn't phase out of his grasp.
"What are you doing?" she asked him.
He didn't release her wrist and, in fact, he leaned over to slide his other hand behind her head. He crushed her ponytail between his fingers. "Something stupid." Kitty didn't think he meant to say that out loud.
"You think kissing me is stupid?" That's what she thought he was doing. That's what she wanted him to do. It was why she let him pull her forward, bracing one hand on the stick shift.
"I think it's a bad idea."
"It's definitely a bad idea," she agreed, but she didn't pull away.