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Chapter Twenty-Nine: Suspicious Reactions
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A shaft of light darted across her glasses, but Pietro fought the urge to look away from the white-hot radiance being sent into his face by the resulting refraction. He pressed his lips together, breathing hard through flared nostrils, the uncomfortable slither of sweat gliding along his spine. He squirmed, shifting his weight from left to right, right to left.
Why does she keep it so damn hot in here, anyway?
Mystique glanced at him for a brief second, tapping a long, burgundy fingernail against her front teeth and letting her tongue trail tantalizingly over her upper lip. She smiled crookedly up at him from her seat, the ballpoint pen in her fingers shaking as she chuckled silently, reading his message off of the computer screen. A glare of sunlight from the open window once again caught her glasses, but the eyes behind them gleamed even more, the light there distasteful.
"This is excellent news, obviously. But did you really need to put it on file for me?"
He shrugged. "It just didn't seem like the kind of thing to say over the phone. I wasn't positive that you'd be here when I came, and I didn't want you to miss the message if I didn't see you until tomorrow." His voice sounded distant to his own ears, and he was beginning to wonder if she kept the room so warm with the express purpose of disorienting her guests. "After all, Magneto's been around a lot lately, and I thought maybe you'd be off with him this afternoon."
Her eyes narrowed. "Yes." She sucked a breath in through the tiny "O" her mouth had formed, rapping on the corner of her desk with the pen. "But we aren't here to mince words, boy. Now I have to pose the real question: how far have we come in this mission?"
Pietro's pale eyes glittered, and his forehead beaded with perspiration "Much closer to our ends, I assure you, Mystique. We're not too far from getting our hands on her." He cleared his throat, catching the accidental double-meaning in his words. "So to speak."
She grinned. "Excellent. We need her by the end of the month, if that is at all possible. The sooner the better, I suppose. Magneto, I'm sure you've noticed, is becoming restless with our…lack of satisfactory performance. Perhaps I should send a few of the others to assist you?"
"No!" His intensity surprised them both, and Mystique's tapered left eyebrow shot up. He would have blushed, if he were anyone besides the immovable Pietro Maximoff. "I mean, n-no. I can handle this without them." He added a wicked grin, just for good measure. "I promise."
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Carefully, quietly, Nat slipped the door shut behind her. She let her hand, shaking in a way that the bones seemed to tremble, linger lightly on the brass knob, locking it with numbed fingers and making her way slowly to the bed. Not breathing, she sat down on the edge and crossed her bare feet at the ankles. Her palms were hot and dry, as if the skin there was wrinkling up and peeling away, so she rubbed them hastily on the taut denim that dressed her thighs. Her training with Logan and the Professor had helped her retain a slight measure of control over her abilities that she had not originally had, but her emotions ran high at the moment. She sat that way for a long while, listening intently but hearing nothing, her head cocked slightly to one side.
Outside the door, she got the eerie feeling that someone was listening to her, too.
It was Kurt. It had to be.
A wave of fear threatened to cascade down upon her, but did nothing to salve the throbbing discomfort growing in the back of her throat, where the entrapped sobs were fighting to break free. Hot tears bleared her vision, thick strands of hair curling out of the haphazard braids and into her face as she shook harder. Her hands ached and smoldered, crescent moon-shaped indentations creasing the supple flesh. Tiny tendrils of smoke snaked between her fingers. She longed to let her hands unfurl, but knew what the results would be.
Who was to say that they were talking about her? How could she know that Pietro had told them about her dirty little secret? And if he did, how much had he told? Only about the fire? The kiss? Both? Was Kurt downstairs right now, hearing all about her treachery? The thought wrenched a strangled cry from her.
And here she was, in a house full of her supposed friends, fearing that they were going to turn her onto the streets. How dare Pietro, and how dare Kitty, spread her past around like butter? If she chose not to tell, why did they think they had the right to share it with the world? It wasn't that egomaniac's secrets or Little-Miss-Shopping-Mall's past that they were sharing, but hers.
A sob broke free, and the smoke thickened, almost enough to make a normal person choke. With a little moan, she ran to the only place that she thought she might be able to stifle it: the shower.
She used her elbows to push back the vinyl curtain, patterned with brightly-colored fish and iridescent blue bubbles, and stepped into the stall. It didn't seem to matter in the slightest that the water was cold, or that she was dressed, only that she had to ease the burning in her hands. She stopped the drain and started the stream, and plunged her hands up to the forearm into the cool water that gathered at the bottom of the tub, cloudy with her hands' desperate attempts to burn through the water. Shower water and briny tears mixed bitterly with smoke, and the taste of defeat rested on her tongue.
This was the part she'd feared. More than the humiliation at possibly having been caught, more than the potential loss of friendship or the knowledge that they might know about her past, she feared this. More than the notion that they no longer saw her as the innocent she'd almost successfully carted herself as, Nat was afraid of the prospect of her own body going awry once again. Weeks of training in the Danger Room, running simulations that became progressively more difficult with each session, hadn't completely stopped her from losing control, and neither had the time she'd spent on Muir Island. She was a ticking time bomb, just waiting for the emotional fuse to be lit.
What if she really was dangerous? As the sims grew in difficulty, Nat had taken them on as a good little X-Girlie should, donning her recently acquired uniform with the X-shaped yellow slash across the breasts and battling holographic foe after holographic criminal. Mostly, it was still nothing but kid's stuff. The others were usually absent for these "missions", although Kurt had been joining her more and more, so she could get used to the idea that this was all simple practice. God only knew how long it would be before she was deemed equipped to join the X-Men in the field, and the idea was a sort of quiet comfort to her. The longer it took before she had to really prove herself, the longer it would be before she could completely screw up.
For weeks, she had been thinking about the possibility of some day going into actual battle. It both unnerved and excited her, like the idea of doing something naughty but delightful at the same time, some sort of unacceptable sexual act. It would be her chance to show everyone that she wasn't a weakling, or a bumbling idiot without a sense of direction. If she could fight, she might be able to win. Her own interest terrified her, but the worst part was the idea that she might do something wrong, and a teammate might be hurt or killed as a result of her actions or inactions. That Kurt might be hurt or killed.
Now, as she had feared so often, it wasn't her responses on the battlefield or even in the Danger Room that were at risk of hurting her friends, but her own body. Her own damnable hands! It wasn't enough that she had caused untold damage to her school, and before that, a memory locked away in her brain for only her to see and remember, to the house where her father had been staying. No car accident there, as she had once told Kurt. There are some things that even a telepath might miss, if he wasn't looking for it. Oh no, it was never enough, it seemed, until she had alienated and possibly injured all those people that were important to her.
Nat sighed, emitting a wretched, tremulous outward rush of air. Downstairs, they were probably still talking. About her? She wasn't sure, but the likelihood was definitely there. Shaking, she rose off of her knees and stepped out of the shower, standing in the center of the bathroom. Her hair was wet and tangled, her clothes soaked and clinging uncomfortably to her skin. Watery streaks of black charring dripped down her arms and onto the bathmat, and her bare feet were making her shiver with cold. She pulled her bathrobe off the hook behind the door and draped it around herself, and sat on the edge of the tub to think.
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The clink of silver on china was not an uncommon sound in the Xavier mansion at around six-thirty, but the unaccustomed silence of awkward diners was. They all sat in their normal seats, with Nat between Kurt and Ororo, eating a normal dinner and wearing their normal clothes. Scott, Evan and the adults, the only ones not clued into the situation, looked relatively concerned, but Xavier's lack of resolve seemed to calm them into a mild state of semi-discomfort. Scott kept making desperate little attempts at half-hearted conversation, and Ororo was carefully avoiding any subjects that she thought might be controversial. Logan, between bites of food, glanced at Nat, trying to decipher the situation and gauge her reaction to the odd behavior of the other students.
Nat's stomach churned to the point that she was ready to abandon the dinner table for the quiet solitude of her bedroom, but feared the responses of the others if she were to do so. Kurt, as gently supportive as ever, held her hand beneath the table, and she guessed that he hadn't heard anything yet. Kitty eyed her wearily, but smiled sheepishly, embarrassed, every time Nat caught her staring and tried to stifle a glare. Rogue was silent for the most part, but that was fairly common, and Evan seemed far too caught up in a magazine article that he was reading to care much about the comings and goings of his everyday family. Jean was the only one who looked as disturbed as Nat, flushed and silent, staring at her food uninterested.
Xavier glanced up at his students, briefly catching Logan's eye. Wolverine shrugged, not willing to go into an outward dialogue at the dinner table, but apparently engaged in a mental discussion. Nat gulped, and Xavier frowned.
"You look peaked, Natalie. Perhaps you should retire early tonight."
Nat started in her seat, surprised as she always was at Professor Xavier's preferred method of conversation, and blushed. She stared at the water in her glass, where the light reflected and bent among the ice cubes. "That's alright, Professor. I just had a tiring day, that's all. Homework and stuff. I'll be fine, really."
Beside her, Kurt's elbow brushed against her own and he smiled, recognizing the signals of an internal meeting with the professor. Nat severed the link with Xavier and smiled at Kurt, pushing her carrots around on her plate with her fork. Jean was looking similarly preoccupied, frowning at her chicken as if she were arguing with it.
Evan provided the opportunity that Nat had been waiting for. When he got up and cleared his plate, and Rogue followed him in doing the same, Nat was finally able to make a break from the table without feeling conspicuous. She went through the standard after-dinner-cleaning-up-and-chatting routine with the others in the kitchen, but felt considerably less involved that usual. Her hands shook and dishes clattered noisily against one another whenever she touched them. By the time she was on her way up the stairs, she was feeling a little better, and took comfort in Kurt's hand holding hers.
From behind, Kitty coughed awkwardly, apparently determined to chalk up the remnants of the evening into some semblance of normality. Nat turned around the face the younger girl, whose face met Nat's midsection as she stared up from a lower step. "So, Nat…"
Nat swallowed and wished for a glass of water, settling between annoyance, anger and fear on a toadstool of somberness. "Yeah?"
"Did you, like…finish that physics project on time?"
Nat's speech took a momentary hiatus, unsure of the grounds of Kitty's chosen topic. Kurt smiled at her over his shoulder, and jerked his head to indicate that he'd be upstairs, winking at her to lighten her mood. Nat nodded at him, but paid attention to Kitty all the same. "Um, yeah. I got it done last week."
Kitty nodded. "Cool. I think that format will work pretty well."
"It looks like it. Um…thanks for your help. I didn't think I was ever going to figure it out."
There was a long pause, in which Kitty leaned against the banister, smiling and swinging her mousy-colored ponytail. "No problem." She cleared her throat. I've got to do something so I don't, like, look like a total jerk, Kitty thought.
There was an awkward pause, neither knowing what to say to the other, their discomfort palpable but its source indistinguishable. Nat still wasn't sure what had been said in the kitchen earlier that day, and Kitty felt more and more positive that she'd been caught spreading gossip. She sighed, wrinkling her pale brow.
"Hey, I just wanted to tell you—" she broke off, swallowing hard "—that I'm sorry I was talking about you earlier."
Nat blinked back a bit of moisture in her eyes, but nodded. "I thought you might have been."
"I…I didn't mean for you to hear me…" she shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. "That's not what I mean. I didn't, like, want you to hear me, but I guess…well, I shouldn't have been spreading rumors about you, anyway. So I'm, like, you know, sorry." She blushed, averting her gaze.
Nat felt her bottom lip quiver, her fingers begin to tingle. "Th-that's okay. I understand." There was a long pause as she thought of how to phrase this next question. "What did he say about me? Pietro, I mean."
Kitty shrugged. "Nothing really. Not anything important, I guess."
"If you suspect something of me," Nat continued, her blush becoming one of semi-anger, "I really wish that you'd tell me what you're thinking."
Blue eyes narrowed, Kitty grimaced slightly. "It was nothing. He just said that you, like, did some…things. A long time ago. What do you think he said?"
Fury welled up within Nat's chest, fury at Pietro, fury at Kitty, and fury at herself for letting this all go on so long. She tried to pacify her tone, taking a deep, shaky breath. "You're the one going around telling everyone about my supposed past, not me. I don't think I should have to tell you anything about what I think he said."
"Hey, I didn't mean anything by it…"
"Of course not! You just meant to make my personal past into public knowledge!" Her emerald eyes flashed and her upper lip curled slightly, her hands starting to smoke for the second time that day. Nat rubbed her hands together, soothing their urge to blaze. Kitty shivered and inched backward a centimeter or two, trying not to look intimidated.
"So you mean it's, like, true?"
Nat's hands shot up in aggravation, the only emotion she seemed to be able to stay steadily on, and Kitty jerked nervously. "I told you already, I don't know what he said! How can I tell you if it's true if you refuse to tell me what the hell he said?"
"Oh, fine! Never mind, then!" Kitty shouted, turning on her heels and stomping down the stairs, fuming. Nat caught sight of Jean standing near the front door with Scott, apparently heading out somewhere for the evening, and the redhead looked troubled by the sight of Kitty treading heavily away. Nat stood alone on the stairs with smoke trickling between her knuckles, and Jean saw her, too. The older girl's mouth curved into a rose-colored frown.
Tossing her dark hair over her shoulder, Nat turned and raced to her room, throwing her door shut and locking it behind her. She ignored Jean's loud, desparate mental calls from below, and threw herself onto the bed with a furious shout into the pillow, slamming her smoking fist into the bedside lamp. In her diverted state, she didn't notice Kurt sitting quietly at her computer desk until he spoke, and she jumped, startled.
"Vat vas that all about?"