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Chapter Eighteen: Stalked by the Brotherhood and Other Annoyances

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By that following weekend, Kurt had come well within striking distance of accidentally revealing their plans for Kitty's birthday several times, but he had managed to cover for himself well enough that Kitty was still pretty much in the dark. She did, however, give him quite a strange look when he told her that he was planning to spend Saturday getting his bikini zone waxed, which, he later told Nat (after she and Rogue had shared a good laugh at his expense), was the first thing that had come to mind. The only problem with that was that he had to explain why he'd been pondering bikini zone waxing in the first place.

Nat woke up early Saturday morning so she and Jean could go pick up the cake from the local bakery, but when she got out of bed Kurt was already showered and dressed, lounging on her computer chair with his feet resting on the desk. Apparently, he was only a late riser on school days. He hung around her bedroom as she got ready, and she caught him taking little sideways glances through the crack between the door and the wall as she dressed, trying not to be too obviously pervy. Blushing rapidly, she had hurried to clothe herself but said nothing to deter him.

As the two approached the garage at a slow, easy pace, Kurt looped his arm companionably around her waist, making her shiver with some strange quivery feeling in her chest. He was silent for a long moment, staring forward, apparently not wanting to look right at her. He cleared his throat. "Vat do you think I should get for Kitty's birthday present?"

Shaking her head, Nat stifled a laugh. "After all the planning that you've put into this party, are you seriously telling me that you haven't bought her a gift yet?"

Kurt shrugged and hopped into the car, a grin lighting up his face. He offered her his hand and she plopped down beside him, neither of them even thinking of going through the traditional argument over the "shotgun" seat. "I vork best under pressure! Vat did you get for her?"

"Oh, there was this candle set at the mall that she was fawning over when we went shopping last weekend. I got that. It's really nice, with all different flower scents and sweet little bath salts to go with it."

Kurt wrinkled his nose, eyes sparkling. "Mein Gott, you are such a girl."

Jean grinned at them in the rearview mirror, flashing her perfect teeth, and flipped her long red braid out of the collar of her blouse. "Still shopping, Kurt?"

He sighed and sagged down in the seat, looking beaten. "Ja, I can't think of anything really good. After last year's disaster, I have to get something that she vill absolutely love."

Nat's face brightened with interest. "What did you get for her last year?"

Jean rolled her eyes. "Don't ask him. Trust me." She laughed and started to hum along with the radio, pulling the car out onto Graymalkin Lane and heading off toward Main Street. "We'll stop at the complex of stores down the street from the bakery for a little while. They've got that bookstore that Kitty loves so much, so you should be able to find something there that she would like."

Beside Nat, Kurt pressed the necessary buttons on his wrist and the now-familiar hologram shimmered into place with a mechanical sound and a strange bending of light. Nat, with a shiver, turned away briefly and gulped, still rather disturbed by her friend's eerie instant makeover. She folded her arms and leaned on the car door, staring out the window at the trees and houses flashing past, lost in thought. Who'd have guessed? she wondered. The fuzzy blue elf looks normal to me now...

The ride to the shopping center took only a few minutes, and the three of them exited the car into the early morning sunshine. Nat glanced around at the rapidly passing customers, the brightly colored shopping bags and the warm rush of activity that seemed to pulse through the atmosphere. Jean waved to them and took off toward the clothing boutique on the corner. "Meet me back at the car in an hour and we'll go get the cake. If you're late, I'm leaving without you!"

Nat laughed, but Kurt glanced at her, his expression grave. "She isn't kidding, you know. I had to valk home from the hardvare store a few months ago. Seventeen miles!" Nat's smile collapsed and her eyes expanded in surprise, but all he did was laugh animatedly, tossing his head back so his hair fell over his shoulders. "You're vay too easy!"

She slapped at his arm and laughed. "You're a big jerk, but I'm sure that you're aware of that. Got your wallet, jerk?"

"I'm loaded, idiot," he snickered pleasantly, and patted his hip pocket as if to prove it. "Vere to?"

Creasing her brow in thought, Nat pointed at the high-peaked building labeled "BOOKS" in tall russet-colored letters. "I guess we ought to start there. Didn't Jean say that it's where Kitty likes to shop?"

"Ja, that's it. Let's go."

They stepped through the large front doors, passing a large marble statue of a woman on a bench with an open book on her lap.

They took off quickly, afraid of running out of time before they could find something suitable for a gift, but soon discovered that their fears were relatively unfounded. Inside the store, it was easy to see what it was that Kitty, who was both an intellectual and a trend-master, liked about the place. The main room was deceptively large, and several other levels stretched both up and down. Hundreds of shelves of books, some with gleaming, uncracked spines and others ragged with years of loving wear, waited for the next pair of hands to slide past and reach out for something to read. There was a small coffee bar at one end, and several dozen young people stood about, sipping lattes and looking bored. Kurt fit in easily with his black sweater, ratty jeans and an aloof glaze to his eyes, but the expression on Nat's face made her look like a child who had been offered a new toy, and was about to climb into a stranger's car to retrieve it.

"Whoa..."

Kurt laughed. "Ach, it's wunderbar, isn't it?"

"I was going to say 'gigantic, but I guess it's 'wunderbar' too." She stepped toward a rack of silk bookmarks and scripting pens in every shade, gently fingering the items and breathing in the aroma of dry paper and leather. "I've never been in a place with so many books!"

He clapped his hands together. "Gut, now all ve have to do is find something for Kitty. If ve split up, ve can find something in half the time. You go to the psychology and religion section, I've got arts and sciences. Then we can meet up again to survey travel and literature." He patted her on the shoulder and laughed, noting her bewildered expression. "Go on! Hurry hurry!"

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Nat stood on the ledge of the ancient civilizations department, staring down over a sea of twenty-something heads and picking out the romance, astronomy and foreign languages departments. There were signs on the ends of every shelf to direct visitors to the various areas of interest, but somehow she had managed to get herself not only lost, but on the wrong floor. Through a window beside a rack labeled "Human Sexuality", she could see Jean's car, where the redhead was leaning against the bonnet of the vehicle and waiting patiently. Nat glanced at her wristwatch nervously, letting out a sigh of relief to see that she still had nearly twenty minutes left to make her way back to Kurt and out to the car. She shifted her books to the other arm, glad that she had at least been able to complete that part of her assigned task.

Then, Nat spotted a dark-haired young man standing in line. It was Kurt, and he was holding a thick book with a painting on the cover. He glanced from side to side, looking for her, carefully setting himself aside from any of the other patrons lest they accidentally brush against him and feel his fur, or see the strange way he held his hands. She grinned to herself, and cupped her palms around her mouth. "Kurt! Hey, Kurt!"

With the exception of several annoyed glares from the shoppers, she got no response from below. With a sheepish grin and an apologetic shrug, she turned and took off around the corner, not paying much attention to her direction or destination. There was a flash of color, a shriek of terror, and a loud thump as she collided sharply with someone standing there, scattering her books across the floor and tumbling onto her backside. She reddened heatedly and tried to gather up her scattered merchandise, muttering apologies and justifications under her breath.

When Nat looked up, she felt her mouth drop open.

There stood Pietro Maximoff, sneering. He had his lean arms crossed over his chest, his head cocked to one side in amusement, and he carried no books or other goods. He offered her his hand to stand, but she shoved it aside and stood by herself, glowering crossly. He'd probably just drop me and let me fall anyway, she thought angrily.

"What do you want?" She put on her best fury-face, crinkling her brow in her sincerest attempt to look intimidating. He appeared unimpressed. "And what are you doing here, anyway?"

He shrugged. "What does anybody do in a bookstore? I'm buyin' books."

Nat felt a vein in her forehead jump, a little pain growing between her temples. She pointed at his empty arms. "Doesn't look like you've had very good luck so far."

Another shrug on Pietro's end. He stared at her coolly, unblinking. "Not yet. We just got here."

Nat wanted to glance nervously over her shoulder, but couldn't seem to look away. "We?"

There was a movement behind her and she swung around, panic and aggravation etched across her face. Pietro laughed, and the young man behind her, who was about Scott's age, brown-haired and dressed in grungy clothes, looked amused. She recognized him from the professor's files as well, but couldn't put a name to the face. He stepped out from behind her, placing himself between Nat and Pietro and resting his elbow on a nearby shelf. "Chill out, babe. We're not gonna do anything to ya."

A chill spread through Nat's limbs at a sudden thought. "You...are you...why are you following me?"

Pietro laughed again, shaking his head, and the other guy snorted loudly, glancing at his friend. The white-haired boy continued. "What makes you think that our being here has anything to do with you? You hold yourself in a pretty high place in the universe, don't you firecracker?"

A flare of anger erupted within Nat's chest, and she rubbed her hands together, feeling the familiar tingling sensation beginning between her fingers but too irritated to worry about it much. "Look who's talking! I don't think I've ever met someone as conceited as you, Pietro Maximoff. You practically ooze narcissism."

He looked stunned for a moment, but he masked it quickly with his trademarked sneer. His friend looked surprised, then amused, and finally angry, his brow folding heavily. For the first time, she noticed a third young man, a thin-boned boy with large eyes and an oddly-shaped jaw, behind the two. He was laughing quite hard, happily chortling at the meager insults she flung at his companion. Toad! He's got to be Toad, she thought, and shivered, but tried to look unruffled as he hopped on peculiarly bent legs down the aisle to stand beside Pietro.

Nat raised her chin. "Speaking of oozing..."

Toad, who was actually "Todd", stopped laughing abruptly. "Hey!"

She clasped her books to her chest and tried to push past the rough little group, but was tossed back when the brown-haired youth thrust out his arm to clothesline her. Her books fell to the floor again, and she rubbed her collarbone and throat, trying to keep tears of pain from squeezing out of the corners of her eyes. Pietro turned on his friend, jabbing him sharply in the chest with his fingertips. "Knock it off, Alvers!"

Nat glanced at him, surprised, as he continued barking at the others. "Get the hell outta here, before I have to make you! Now!" Alvers glared at him, but stalked out heavily on black-booted feet. Toad stared uneasily at them for a moment, unsure of whether he wanted to be talking orders but afraid to go against Pietro. Finally, he followed Alvers down the aisle and away from Nat, without glancing behind him to see what was happening.

Pietro watched Nat for a time as she blinked quickly to stem the flow of tears. He said nothing, just stood there staring for a long moment until she glared harshly at him, her hand still resting lightly on her throat. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Aren't you going to say something snide and infuriating before you go off with your creepy friends?"

He gave her a crooked smile. "I wasn't planning on it."

Nat let out a little growl of exasperation, raising her palms. "Then what do you want?"

Pietro stepped closer, and she moved back a spot, until she was squeezed against a shelf, the wooden lip spearing her in the ribs. He pressed his face in closely, letting his hot breath play across her cheeks. She stifled a whimper but held her chin high, setting her jaw and not letting her bottom lip quiver as it so wanted to do. Her hands were burning like mad now, her fingertips almost numb, and she them pushed against her hipbones to try to deaden the burn while making it look like she was just putting them in her pockets.

"I want you to rethink your current...arrangement."

Pietro's voice was soft, but with that steel edge she recognized now. She knew what he was talking about. "What?"

He jerked his head toward the door through which his friends had disappeared. "Sorry 'bout them. They can be a little…rambunctious every now and then. But I swear: they're hardly the best we have to offer." He stepped back slowly, and began to move slightly back and forth as if he were pacing. "But you could be."

There was a pain in her stomach. "I don't know what you're saying."

"Yes you do. I know you do. Now. What do you say?"

Her lip curled, her head beginning to swim. She could smell his cologne, a brighter, cooler smell than Kurt's warm, almost spicy skin, and see the glow in his eye. "I'm not going with you, any of you, no matter what you say to me. You might as well give up now."

There was a sharp blade of anger that flashed across his face for an instant, and was lost in that cool expression again. He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes bland. His words came out fast and prickly, as if he were thinking them rather than saying them aloud. "You don't know what you're givin' up, here, Fairbanks. You have no idea what kind of life you've walked into. Do you know what it's like to play the hero all the time?"

Nat watched him, eyes wide and wet. Of course she didn't know. She had never been on the side of the heroes.

"I only want to help you. You know you aren't cut out for the life of the savior, the bearer of morality on a silver platter." Pietro sneered. "And why should you be? What has the world ever done for you to deserve being saved?"

He stopped pacing and pressed in close with a dreadfully swift pounce, this time swooping in with a hawk's mouth for Nat's lips. She let out a little shriek and twisted away, feeling her hands flail roughly against the edge of the shelf, skinning her knuckles and making them bleed. There was a moment of intense fear that spread through both of them, and Pietro leaped back, staring at the flames that were suddenly licking around his ankles. They were tiny things, barely a hint of what Nat knew she was capable of, but there was more than just fear and anger warring inside her at the moment. She thought she heard him whisper, "Pyro," more like a strange sort of recognition than of exclamation.

Pietro looked surprised for a moment, but he recovered quickly and stomped out the baby flames before they could cause damage to anything other than the carpet. To Nat's absolute shock, he turned back, smiling as if he was proud of her, with a frightening glint in his eye. "That was pretty good, but I think you can do better."

She pushed him away, ignoring the fact that she was shaking from head to toe, and stepped over the smoldering black mess on the floor. "You're damn right I can! Now stay away from me or I'll give you a firsthand demonstration!" She turned and tried to flee, barely able to do more than wobble away with tears in her eyes. Pietro watched her leave, his expression unreadable.

He turned and walked down the aisle, turning several times and approaching a dark-eyed woman in a leopard-print blouse who sat in an armchair, eyeing him warily. She glanced around and, finding no one watching, shook her head as if to let her hair shiver around her shoulders. In her place stood a teal-skinned, red-haired beauty, her eyes bright smudges of ashen blue-gray.

She placed a slender finger on her chin as if she were thinking deeply. "Well? Anything, Pietro?"

Pietro nodded, tossing himself into another chair. "She's got the kind of powers you expected. Exactly." He shrugged. "She doesn't seem too eager to leave Xavier's little self-righteousness fan club, but I think she's got possibility."

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Outside, Nat breathed in clean, cool air through lungs that felt painfully dry, as if they had been filled with sawdust. Her hands were trembling, her head a throbbing ache between her ears, but she couldn't slow her thoughts. There was so much happening within her, so much not adding up in the way that she was sure it should. There was a part of her that wanted to retch at the thought of Pietro and his friends wanting to recruit her, and another part that was insatiably curious. She knew that they were the so-called "bad guys", that she would be better off staying with Professor Xavier, with Kurt, than she would be staying with Darkholme's "Brotherhood" for a single day. Still, there was a small, terrifying part of her that wanted nothing less than to hear Pietro out, to learn what he had to say about what she was capable of, what she deserved in the face of a world that had rarely been anything but cruel to her.

But, there would be none of that. Her home was with Xavier and his X-Men. It didn't matter that she wasn't exactly hero material, according to Pietro or her own nagging doubts. I can learn...I can become one of them. I know it.

With a quivering little breath, Nat made her way over to the car, where Jean and Kurt were waiting for her. Jean gave her a long, piercing stare, which Nat mistook for suspicion, and ushered her into the back seat beside Kurt. On the way to the bakery, she sat in silence, and Kurt took her hand gently in his in an attempt to comfort her against a hazy trepidation that he couldn't quite decipher. She stared blankly out the window, trying to smother her own thoughts, Kurt's gentle hand standing as her only delicate tether to the real world.