The following does not reflect the views or opinions of Marvel or the author known as 'Kinetically Charmed'.
A/N- Hey everyone! I've been on a roll! I'm just gunna keep crankin' them out before I lose steam, so please remember to review, because reviews give me... more steam? Coal... reviews give me coal, which produces the steam? I don't... I don't know. Analogies are NOT my thing.
Just... just review, okay? ;)
Entry number fifty five:
It was a beautiful Thursday afternoon, the sun was shining, there was a a gentle breeze in the air, the birds were singing the promise of summer soon to come, and Rogue and I were going to a stupid art exhibition.
An art exhibition, guys.
Despite the fact that I'd sworn off all things art related, after my last art excursion.
Thanks to our new "buddy system" rule, I was totally forced to suck it up and tag along with Rogue a few blocks away from school, so she could do some weird Art History assignment.
"So how exactly does this pertain to art history?" I asked as we walked down the bustling New York sidewalk towards the red brick building at the end of the street, with Wisdom and Logan safely tucked away in a car somewhere behind us, watching from afar.
The adjustment into being constantly watched from a distance was frighteningly easy for both of us, and I can only assume this was because we'd become desensitized to Wisdom's constant presence over the past month and a half. Although I will openly admit that I much preferred having him around to talk to.
"We're supposed to observe and discuss style influence." Rogue replied with a shrug, "It'll honestly only take like, ten minutes. Maybe fifteen."
"Uh huh." I rolled my eyes, "Just like how-"
My sarcastic retort was cut short when my shoulder collided with a pedestrian's arm causing me to twist and stumble stupidly, dropping my pink backpack to the sidewalk with all the grace of an elephant. A large hand caught my upper arm and helped steady me before the Zac Efron clone it belonged to gave me a wide grin, bending over to scoop my bag up off the ground for me.
Obviously I recognized him immediately, it's kind of hard to forget a face like that. Even if you're not into the Zac Efron type.
He released my arm with a chuckle and handed over my backpack, "We have to stop running into one another like this."
I let out an awkward laugh and shouldered my bag again, "Wow, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." He chuckled, "You clipped one of my toes there but I think I'll survive. Are you always this coordinated?"
I felt my face heat up and I smiled back with a sheepish laugh, "Pretty much, yeah."
He pressed his lips together and hummed playfully, "Let's try to avoid this next time, okay? You go right, I'll go left?"
I laughed and shook my head, "My left or your left?"
He grinned thoughtfully with his lips pursed together, "We both go right?"
"Sounds good." I nodded as he exaggeratedly sidestepped me, causing me to laugh a little more.
"See you around." He said, the corner of his mouth tugging up as he glanced over at Rogue with a quick once over, "Stay safe, ladies."
I rolled my eyes and smiled with an embarrassed blush, "We'll try." I gave him a little wave before continuing on my way down the sidewalk next to Rogue.
"Who was that?" She asked, practically bursting at the seams with curiosity as she glanced back over her shoulder at him.
"Oh, just some guy." I shrugged, trying super hard not to be flustered, "I think his name was Gus... we had some class together or something. I don't remember him."
"You don't remember him?" Rogue turned back to me with a quirked eyebrow, "Damn girl, you really need to pay more attention in class."
I slid her a glare which really only seemed to spur her on.
"Oh come on. He was cute. If you're into that... clean cut look."
"Stop it." I hissed through my teeth.
"You should get his number next time you bump into him. You know, when you're finished with the bodyguard."
"Please stop it." I grumbled, knowing that Rogue absolutely loves to push my buttons.
"You're worried that Wisdom is watching you flirt with other boys?" She teased with a laugh. "Relax, it's not like he's listening in."
We climbed the steps to the red brick building and pushed through the glass doors leading into the art exhibition.
"He was probably too pretty boy for you anyway." She commented as we both glanced around the foyer bustling with artistic types, with their dread locks and skinny jeans, intermingling with old people dressed to the nines, "You need someone more rustic and rugged. He was too..."
"Zac Efron." I supplied for her and she snapped her fingers.
"Yes. He was too Zac Efron. You're more... Chris Pratt."
Whatever the hell that means. I rolled my eyes at her again and shot out a breath, "Alright, can you just hurry up and do your stupid assignment so we can get the hell out of here?"
"Yep." Rogue said with a nod as she hauled her notebook out of her rolling backpack and flipped it open, "I'll be like, twenty minutes. Thirty tops."
I nodded, and watched her disappear into the crowd of artistic minds, finding myself totally and utterly alone.
I will say that this time around, the crowd seemed far less pretentious. This seemed to be where the mainstream art scene, and the unconventional art scene collided. In Manhattan. I mean, there were literally people with children here. Like, legit parents, who just popped in to art it up.
It made me feel much more relaxed. I didn't stick out like a sore thumb this time, even if I didn't quite *get* what the performance artists wearing rubber robot masks were supposed to mean. I was beginning to get into the art groove. I could totally do this. I could totally pretend that I wanted to be there, for the sake of like, forty minutes or however long it took Rogue to take her notes. Tonight I'm gunna arty like it's 1999, and all that jazz.
I meandered my way up the narrow staircase, past some expertly lit paintings of ships inside of plastic coke bottles, and made my way down the wall which was adorned with Instagram pictures. Like, literally. Complete with the comment section and everything. Art is so weird guys.
Next to the Instagram Art was a series of stone slabs with scenes from popular movies carved into them. I'll admit that I kind of enjoyed this one. I would definitely put that Zoolander rock in my garden.
I turned to walk through a wide arching doorway into a room filled with close-up photos of snowflakes. Which doesn't sound impressive, but there were seriously hundreds of pictures in this room, and it was pretty dang impressive.
And then that's when I saw him. All six foot four inches of him, staring at the wall of snowflakes with his hands stuffed in his pockets and his brow furrowed in that perpetual scowl, glancing over vaguely at the sight of movement in his peripheral.
And then, he saw me, which meant that unfortunately, it was too late for me to try and escape. His scowl relaxed slightly as he turned to face me, clearly just as confused by my presence as I was by his.
"Piotr. Hi." I blinked a few times and closed my gaping mouth, "You're back."
Duh.
He gave me a single nod, "I got back a few days ago." He paused for a moment before adding, "I have just been staying... with a friend."
"Oh." I nodded in return, sliding my eyes over to the photographs on the wall. "I'm here with Rogue."
He nodded back with his lips pressed together before turning back to the snowflakes.
"She's got an Art History assignment, and we have to do this whole... stupid buddy system thing..." I rolled my eyes at my incredibly lame attempt at explanation slash small talk. "It's a long story."
"Yes, Illyana mentioned it."
"Oh, you... you've talked to her?" I asked, somewhat taken aback by that. Because I spend like, every evening with the kid helping her out with Algebra, and not once did she bother to mention Piotr. Not once. Which is unusual, because bothering me is kind of her forte.
"Yes." He worked the muscles in his jaw a few times before adding, "I have been."
"That's good." I replied, finding myself at a loss for anything else to say, and wishing that I could discreetly phase myself through the floor without him noticing. We were silent for a few more moments before my brain could physically no longer handle it, and I said, "So... how was San Fransisco?"
Even though both of us knew I really didn't care.
He glanced back over to me through the corner of his eye, "It was fine."
"Did you eat a lot of rice?" I smiled feebly, and he knit his brow turning to me with a confused frown, "You know, Rice-a-Roni? The San Fransisco treat?"
"...No." He said flatly, rolling his eyes back away from me.
"That's a shame." I shrugged, before we were suddenly plunged back into more awkward silence. I glanced back at the doorway longingly, ruing the moment that I walked up those stairs. I should have just stayed downstairs by the free cheese and wine. What was I thinking? I shot out a breath and turned back to Piotr with a small, very forced smile, "So did you do well there? Did it... go... well? Did you make friends?"
I was somewhat aware that I was beginning to sound a little bit like my mother when I came home from summer camp as a kid, and bit my mouth shut.
Piotr pressed his lips into a thin line, and if I didn't know any better, I would have sworn that he was thinking the exact same thing, with an amused little twinkle in his eye. But then he turned to me with a sigh and any trace of amusement was gone,
"I did well. I did... very well." He said honestly, rubbing the back of his neck with a frown, and for the first time I noticed the weariness around his eyes and the few days worth of scruff on his jaw.
"That's good!" I said with enough mustered up enthusiasm to sound sincere.
"They have asked me to come back. Indefinitely."
My mouth hung open for a long moment before I finally gave my head a shake, "Oh. Well... that's good. Isn't it?"
He squared his jaw again and turned back to the wall of snowflake photos, tipping his chin up to look at the top row, "I don't know anymore."
I chomped down on the corner of my mouth as I stared at the snowflake directly in front of me, silently praying for some type of reprieve from this awful conversation.
"San Fransisco is nice. They have the rice." I nodded and furrowed my brow, "Alcatraz. Which... Is something. You know... the bridge."
"It's not the city I'm unsure of, Kitty." He clipped, "It is the... lifestyle. Everything..." He trailed off and shook his head with his jaw clenched, "The success, the people, the prestige... It isn't what I thought it would be. It is all empty. It is just... worthless."
"The money's not bad."
He sniffed and shook his head, "At what cost?"
At what cost indeed.
It's lonely at the top. I could have told you that, Piotr. In fact, I think I might have, while I was throwing footwear at your head.
I knit my brow and glanced back towards the doorway again, "Yeah well, live and learn, I guess."
"Kitty-"
"Why do they call it the Golden Gate Bridge if it's painted red?" I asked suddenly, in a desperate attempt to talk about something else. Anything else. "Or orange. Is it red or orange? I can never really tell which one it is, because sometimes it looks red. But other times, it's like, woah, that's definitely orange. Like when I watch Full House, it totally looks orange, but then when I see pictures of it, it looks red. And I wonder if like, it's just the colour on my TV is off-"
"It's orange, Kitty." Piotr interrupted my jabbering but didn't elaborate, and it was safe to say that he got my not-so-subtle hint that maybe now was not the best time to be discussing these things.
"Are you sure? Because-" Whatever moronic thing I was about to say at that point was cut off when the power suddenly died. Piotr and I both looked up, for some reason, and glanced around, listening to the murmured conversations of the people in the adjoining room.
"I guess they had one too many spotlights, huh?" I joked, vaguely noticing that the emergency lights above the staircase hadn't kicked in. I mean, not that they were necessary, there was plenty enough light from the windows for people to safely see the exit, but for some reason I didn't feel okay with this. I remembered Wisdom's warning, that I should contact him at the first inkling of trouble, and cast Piotr a wary glance, before reluctantly bringing my wrist up to switch the communicator on.
Only to discover that it was dead.
I knit my brow, and reached into my back pocket to pull my cell phone out, while I muttered quietly about useless technology, and that's when Piotr's hand clamped around my wrist.
"Get behind me." He demanded, before tugging me aside and stepping in front of me. It was then that I noticed the large dark figure, looming ominously in the shadowy doorway, and I realized I was too late to call for help.
Like, way too late.
Sabertooth lunged with a sickening growl, without uttering a single word. No threats, no taunting or teasing, just a sickening guttural growl and he was on top of Piotr.
I backed myself into the corner, watching with wide eyed horror as Piotr tossed Sabertooth headfirst into the brick wall of snowflake photos, wincing at the crunching and cracking of glass picture frames being obliterated, wondering for a split second why the hell Piotr wasn't armoring up, quickly ascertaining that he wasn't going metal because he couldn't.
A sickening feeling of absolute dread settled in my stomach like a lead ball, when I realized that I was basically trapped, without my powers, like a rat in a cage. I fumbled with my phone, discovering that it too was dead, coming to the conclusion that this guy was definitely pulling out all the stops this go around. Knocking out electronic devices, the power and mutant abilities, like he had some kind of hardcore electromagnetic pulse.
"Get out!" Piotr barked at me with concerted effort as he struggled to keep Sabertooth pinned down long enough for me to escape.
In spite of the drumming sound in my ears and the fact that I felt like I was about 2 seconds away from a panic attack, I ran full tilt towards the wide open doorway, and I nearly made it too. But then Sabertooth gave Piotr a headbutt and kicked him off to the side before lunging towards me, clasping a furry beclawed hand around my ankle and tugging so hard that I felt like my leg was going to rip off. I hit the hardwood floor with enough force to knock the wind out of me, and Sabertooth dragged me back towards him. Once I was within striking distance, he raised his other arm poised to nail me square in the head.
Piotr came in from the right and body slammed him off of me, tackling him this time into the flimsy drywall, taking a chunk out of the archway when they made contact and causing a few more of the snowflake pictures to tumble off the wall and crash to the ground.
I frantically looked around, considering my options which were to either try and escape through the partially demolished archway, or try my luck out the second story window, all the while having basically one pleading thought in my mind the entire time:
I had to get to Rogue. No matter what, I had to get to Rogue.
This was all my stupid fault, I should have stayed with her. I should have just followed her around through this stupid art exhibit and stuck to the rules of the buddy system, instead of assuming that being inside of a brick building would somehow make us invincible.
I made the split second decision to try my luck through the archway, crawling my way over to the wall while Sabertooth and Piotr exchanged blows, figuring that I could stay hidden here, partially out of sight and wait for the right opportunity to run. I was crouched up against the wall, ready to spring into action, when Sabertooth cracked Piotr in the face so hard that *I* saw stars. Pete stumbled in a daze, blood smearing its way down his face from the fresh wound across his cheekbone, and the Sabertooth hauled him up off the floor, dragged him a few steps inside the room, and then hurled him shoulder first into the brick wall.
The archway was wide open. And it was clear that Sabertooth had completely lost interest in me, his insane eyes locked on Piotr's body as he lay in a lump on the floor in front of the brick wall, amidst the broken snowflakes.
Without a second thought scrabbled over to my backpack, ripped it open and hauled out the can of mace Remy had given me earlier in the week. Then I hurled my backpack with all of my might, directly into the back of Sabertooth's head. When he turned to snarl at me, taking a few quick steps in my direction, I raised my arm and shouted,
"Pepper spray, bitch!" As I unloaded the entire contents of the can into his face.
Sabertooth roared in pain, grabbing and clawing at his face as he dropped to his knees. I have no idea what was going through my mind at this point because my reaction makes no sense. Instead of running out of the building and getting, you know, real help, I hurtled myself towards Pete.
I grabbed his shoulder and rolled him onto his back to make sure that he was still breathing, and then I slapped him.
"Pete!" I cried, stealing a glance up at Sabertooth who was slowly beginning to regain his wits, "Come on, big guy. Wake up." I pleaded desperately, trying to shake him awake. When that didn't work, I looked frantically around the room for God knows what. Something to drag in front of us? Some type of magical, invisible car, that I could toss him in and drive us the hell out of there? Obviously there was no such a device in the broken snowflake room, and by this time, Sabertooth had struggled back up to his feet and had his bleary, bloodshot eyes fixed solely on me with a terrifying snarl.
"Pete..." I whimpered one last time, knowing that even if he did suddenly wake up, we were still royally screwed. My muscle memory kicked in and I dropped myself down on top of him, protecting him with my body, as if my powers would just miraculously start working purely from my strength of will. And then I squeezed my eyes shut and waited. Waited for Sabertooth to take those four steps across the room, and finish us both off in one fell swoop. Waited for blinding pain and broken bones, a growl, a taunt... anything. But instead, all I heard was the sound of my own frantic heart, throbbing wildly in my ears. So after an incredibly long and painful ten seconds of nothing, in which I partially wondered if maybe I'd died from the terror of it all, I turned my head and cracked an eye, relief flooding my system by what I saw.
Rogue stood in the middle of the room, looming over Sabertooth's lifeless body, clutching a rock carving of The Breakfast Club in her hands, clearly having used it to smack the feral man upside the back of the head. She dropped the rock to the hardwood floor with a thud and kept her eyes stuck on me, as I clutched onto Pete for dear life, before eventually letting out a "oh thank God, I'm not going to die today" breath of relief and dropping my forehead back down to Pete's chest. I felt the prickle of budding tears sting behind my eyes and squeezed them shut in an attempt to nip that in the bud, and worked on controlling my breathing.
"Welcome home, Pete." Rogue muttered under her breath, which caused me to let out a strangled sort of choke laugh that sounded much more like a sob than intended.
Rogue knit her brow as she stepped over Sabertooth's body to pick up my pink backpack, which was now sporting some lovely blood stains and pepper spray residue, and that's when Wisdom came bursting through the archway with his gun drawn and fixed on the lump of fur in the middle of the room. His eyes flicked up to Rogue and then over to me, scanning my body for any signs of damage.
He turned back to Rogue with the gun still trained on Sabertooth, "You two alright?"
Rogue nodded silently and he gave her a single nod in return, reaching on hand into his inner jacket pocket and pulling out a zip tie to toss over to her.
"Secure him." He instructed keeping his gun fixed while Rogue tugged Sabertooth's limp arms behind his back and wrapped the thin plastic around his wrists.
"You just carry these things around with you?" Rogue asked as she stood up, dusting her hands off on her jeans with a quirked brow and a smirk.
"Part of the job." Wisdom replied without a trace of humour. He holstered his gun and strode across the room, kneeling down in front of me. "Little space, love?"
I pulled myself away from Piotr and shifted back to let Wisdom get to work, his mouth set in a tight frown as he pulled off his jacket and went to work, checking Piotr for a pulse, checking his breathing, scanning him to treat the worst injury first, which was clearly the disfigured left arm that was definitely broken.
The power blinked back on and Wisdom glanced back at Rogue and Sabertooth cautiously, obviously aware that with the power back on, and quite likely our mutant abilities back on, Sabertooth would start healing. Quickly.
"Stop the bleeding there." He said to me, pointing to the cut on Piotr's cheekbone. I nodded and pulled my grey cardigan off and pressing it firmly against his face. I mean, it was already torn and bloodstained anyway. Thank goodness Forever 21 clothes are basically disposable.
"Rogue, call 911. Request an ambulance and the police." He said, without taking his eyes off his work. His index finger suddenly turned red hot and morphed into a razor sharp knife, which he then used to slice Piotr's shirt up the side a few times before looking up at me with a frown, "Pressure, Pryde."
I snapped back to attention, realizing that I'd been staring at him while he did all this and forgot about what I was supposed to be doing. I flicked my eyes back down to Piotr's unconscious face while Pete set about turning Piotr's navy blue t-shirt into a makeshift sling for his arm. It was pretty damn impressive too. It was some serious Survivorman stuff.
"Jesus." Rogue muttered, bending over to watch Wisdom make a few more hot hand knife slices of the shirt, "I forgot you had powers. Full on forgot."
He cast her an irritated glance, "You need to be covering Sabertooth."
"Sorry." She muttered, turning to move back to him, "Not that I would be of any use if he came to. Just sayin'. Where's Logan anyway, shouldn't he be helping?"
"He's securing the perimeter." Wisdom clipped, tying the last of the t-shirt sling into place and ensuring Piotr's elbow was tucked in nicely, "I'll call him and inform him of the situation."
Wisdom stood up and moved over to the crumbling archway with his cell to his ear, I looked around the broken snowflake room and chewed the corner of my lip, before turning to Rogue with a weak smile.
"I sure hope they don't have a you break it you bought it policy."
She did not laugh at my joke.
