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"So now I run. / So now I hide.
From all the pain / And past inside."
-Jamie Thomas Durbin
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Chapter Thirty-Three: Mister Crystal Ball
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There is little in the universe more heartbreaking than losing someone that you love. Standing on the front porch of the Xavier institute, better known as "home" to the teenaged mutants that lived and trained there, Kurt Wagner met the staggering hardship of facing that kind of misfortune twofold. His body felt numb, his mind a chaotic muddle.
As the white-shirted paramedics strapped Charles Xavier's unconscious body onto a gurney and loaded him gently but rapidly into the back of the ambulance, Kurt felt his throat constrict, threatening to release a sob. The older X-Men had recently returned to the mansion, but they were turned away from the ambulance just as the students had been, leaving Wolverine fuming more out of fear than anger. Behind him, Jean was crying softly into Scott's chest, and Evan looked as if he were on the verge as well. Like Kurt, the rest of the X-Men looked too stunned to do much more than stare, blank-faced and stony-eyed.
When Nat had fled on foot into the wooded area alongside the Xavier property, he had set out almost immediately to chase her, but was held back by Jean. He could have teleported and simply cut off the fleeing quasi-X-Man in mid escape, but he wasn't positive of exactly where she was, and the team needed him nearby to help them with the professor. He had seen the desire to follow her lingering in Scott's eyes as well, but in a different capacity. Scott, like most of the others, wanted nothing more than to catch up with Nat so they could ask her some questions about what had happened, if not slap a few answers out of her.
Kurt swallowed hard, trying not to break down in the tears that were so eager to escape. That was the problem with being the resident joker and comedian: it's hard to let people know how down you really are. When someone actually is blue, it's harder for them to come right out and say it without getting a few snickers, he guessed.
Of course, no one would have blamed him if he had lost a bit of his emotional "control". He did it all the time, really, just through more…light-hearted manners than crying. No one would have given it a second thought if he'd shed a few tears. Tensions ran high in a household that had so recently been ravaged by such a terrible event, and it wouldn't seem out of place in the slightest. Still, he clung to his optimistic façade as he always did. This time, he just didn't crack any jokes.
The side of the mansion that had been devastated by the fire was cordoned off by the police department, but smoke still rose in weak, spiraling loops into the inky night sky. The smell of burned wood, charred brick and ruined books and furniture was thick, and the metallic tang of destroyed computer equipment could be tasted on the breeze. Several square meters of grass and gardens had been blackened and ruined as if they'd been invited to the world's cruelest barbeque, and he felt a trace of pity for Storm and all the hard work she had spent keeping the plant life blooming on the grounds.
Logan and Ororo had arrived back at the mansion shortly after the authorities were contacted, and both had leaped back into the roles of caregivers, just as they were supposed to do. Much to Kurt's chagrin, Wolverine had noted after doing a bit of investigation of his own that there were no scents at the scene besides those of the X-Men themselves. No one bothered to mention that if there had been, they had been well snuffed out by the heat of the blaze and the fumes of smoke.
Squeezing his hands into tight blue fists, Kurt leaned on one of the white marble columns on the porch and tried to breathe deeply of the cool, nighttime air. It was flavored with what seemed like charcoal, like a fourth of July gone wrong, and he tried to imagine it differently. Just yesterday, he'd known nothing of Nat's secrets, and the air had smelled fresh and sweet. Now, after just a few hours passed and a few secrets were revealed, the outside world was so different that he tried not to focus on how different he felt on the inside.
Slowly, the X-Men were beginning to head back inside to the functioning majority of the mansion. He heard Evan sniffling, trying not to seem fragile and scared. Rogue, with a single gloved hand, brushed her fingers lightly against Kurt's forearm.
"You okay, Kurt?" she asked, her voice soft with concern. In the foyer, Kurt caught sight of Kitty watching him sadly as the front door slipped shut.
"I…vell…nein, Rogue. I don't think so," he returned. He failed to meet her gaze directly.
"D'you wanna…" she trailed off and scratched a blotch of reddish poison ivy rash on the back of her arm, looking troubled. "Ah dunno, talk about it or somethin'?"
He sighed and slid his back down the pillar until he was seated on the porch, turning back out to the yard. Pausing a moment as if she were afraid to seem pushy, Rogue did the same, coming to a seated position beside him. In the distance, Kurt could see the wrought iron gates at the front end of the property and the quiet suburban street beyond, but he couldn't see houses. There were trees that lined the distant sidewalk, and tall, faintly glowing streetlamps that would have flickered with candlelight years ago, but now hummed weakly with the buzz of electricity.
"I'm not really sure vat there is to talk about."
"Well…didja hear how they think the professor is doin'?"
He shook his head, looking weary as he gazed out once again toward the empty woodland.
"Oh." She frowned a little, doubting the wisdom of her choice of conversational topic. "He ain't too good. Comatose, or somethin'. But they think he should pull through, once they get him t' the hospital an' all."
"I hope so."
"Yeah. Me too." There was a long moment of silence, neither entirely sure of what to say, and neither particularly uncomfortable with the silence. Rogue looked suddenly sheepish. "Ya know…ya don't need her. Better off without her, really. Anyway, she ain't gonna get away. Not once Logan sets out lookin' for her in the mornin'." She smiled faintly, remembering an earlier confrontation between Wolverine and their young teammate. "He wanted to go out huntin' tonight, but Jean convinced him to wait until there's light so she could come along t' get a better look into Nat's head. Actually, she sorta made him, not convinced him, but whatever."
Her smile faded when she realized that Kurt had turned around to face her, and was all but glaring in her direction. His voice quavered when he spoke. "You think she did it, too? Like everyone else does?"
Rogue's eyebrows lowered in confusion and she shrugged uneasily. "After all that happened? Why? Don't you?"
Uttering a disgusted little groan, Kurt's head fell into his hands and his shoulders tensed as he tried not to sob. "I just don't know anymore!" And with that, he vanished in a violet tuft of smoke.
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Her bare feet stung as she clambered over tree trunks and snarls of root underfoot, occasionally snaring her skin piercingly on a tangle of blackberry branch or a cluster of nettles. Above, the sky was dark blue-black and dotted here and there with stars, and there wasn't a single cloud to obscure the plump yellow moon. Tears stained her cheeks, but she tried hard not to cry. After all, she'd need her breath for running if they sent someone out after her. The police might be coming, not to mention her former teammate with the bionic nose.
She wasn't sure what to think of the fact that no one had tried to directly pursue her when she fled from the mansion. In her head, this meant that there were three possibilities: one, the professor was too badly injured to waste time and energy in catching up with a useless runaway colleague; two, they were afraid of the possibility of her harming them as she had apparently done to Xavier; and three, they were biding their time.
None of the scenarios seemed all that comforting.
Nat sighed loudly, using one hand to hold her hair as she ran to keep it from sticking to her face or obscuring her vision. Crickets chirped alongside her, but she ignored their hushed violin-like music and kept her eyes on the path ahead. Her vision had adjusted to the darkness fairly easily, which was lucky considering the fact that she refused to light herself a torch, even a tiny, match-sized one, out of fear that her biologically induced lantern might be spotted by a pursuer.
From time to time, she would stop to catch her breath behind a tree. The air was getting colder as midnight approached, despite the summer heat of the day, and she was becoming painfully aware of her nudity. White skin glowed blue in the dim moonlight. The worst part was that there was no way to solve it, at least not one that she could think of: naked teenagers are pretty easy to spot in just about any landscape, even in the dark of night. She might have to break in somewhere and steal something to wear, considering it would be just about virtually impossible to walk into a shopping mall without pants to buy pants. Besides, where would she be keeping any money?
The thought choked a strangled laugh out of her.
Half-laughing, half-crying, Nat stumbled over to a nearby rock and plopped down on top of it, burying her face in her hands. The absurdity of the entire situation was almost enough to drive one mad, and Nat wasn't feeling too far away from the possibility of lunacy. Bizarre, that's all it was.
"Where would I be keeping money?" she asked herself out loud, dissolving into laughter again. She let her body fall backward onto the rock, feeling the chilled surface against her pale skin, her hair spreading like a dark fan behind her.
"Well, I don't know why you haven't thought of it, but I could offer a solution to that question," came a voice behind her.
Uttering a terrified shriek, Nat leapt to her feet and tried to scramble away, covering herself frantically with her hands. Not more than a few meters away, she could see a narrow male shape silhouetted against the trees, his fair skin and hair glowing as her own was, both angelically and frighteningly in the watery, filtered light cast by the moon. He stepped a bit closer, so his face was bathed in moonlight in a clearing, and she felt herself hiss quietly, like an aggravated cat.
"What the hell do you want, Maximoff?" She fought the urge to point at him accusingly, and reminded herself that her hands needed to remain right where they were.
"I don't know. But I'm guessing you might want some underwear."
"Just shut up and stop ogling me, you revolting bastard!' Nat bellowed, shaking with rage as she ducked behind a tree to shield herself.
Pietro chuckled, his eyes going wide, and he shook a finger as if to denounce her. "My, my, my! Aren't we snippy on this lovely evening." he said. He laughed again, but covered his eyes with his hand, which was wrapped in tiny bandages as if he'd been playing in a tank of piranhas, and tossed something in her general direction. "Put that on."
Nat caught the bundle, which was actually a button-down men's shirt he had kept stashed in the back of the truck. She glared at it, glancing back and forth between the shirt and Pietro, who had his eyes still covered by his hand. She internally debated her options. She could stay naked just to spite him, going for the insult of refusing to accept any offerings. Then again, he might not be too upset about having to look at her naked, either.
Harrumphing, she pulled the shirt on over her head, keeping her eyes firmly on Pietro from around the tree trunk to make sure that he didn't try to sneak a peek. The shirt fell at mid-thigh, and she would normally have felt ridiculously bare in it, but after an hour of racing around outside in her birthday suit, it felt as protective as being stuffed into a seventeenth century Puritan's dress, headwear and all.
"Now, you be a good little girly mutant and I'll give you a nice pair of pantsie-wantsies," Pietro chortled, opening his eyes with a triumphant grin.
Nat stared at him, her expression inert. "You are such a prick."
He shrugged, handing her a pair of black sweatpants and some dirty flip-flops as he dropped onto a nearby tree stump, propping himself up on his elbows. "I wouldn't be tossing insults at the only person you can truly call your friend at the moment."
Clumsily trying to dress herself in the clothes he'd handed to her without having to bend into any unseemly and revealing positions, she glared up at him as she continued. "I never considered you my friend. And I don't intend to start now."
"You might want to rethink that."
"And just why is that?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. She felt significantly more rebellious now that she wasn't standing before him buck naked.
"I know how easy it was for your little X-Pals to toss you out on your ass. You think they gave it a whole minute or two of thought, or was it nice and instantaneous-like?"
Before she could stop herself, her palm shot forward and almost connected with his jaw before he caught her wrist in midair and squeezed it lightly. Tears began to push past her eyelids, and he dropped her hand quickly, looking awkward, and wincing slightly when his hand retracted in pain.
"Aw, come on…I didn't squeeze your arm that hard."
Suppressing a sob, she whirled around and stumbled a few feet away from him, but stopped not far away when she realized that she couldn't see through the tears in her eyes. "Shut up, just shut up! Don't you ever learn?"
There was a long pause, and when she managed to blink back her tears enough to see him clearly his expression was one of embarrassment. He slid his bandaged hands into his pockets and leaned against a tree trunk, not quite meeting her gaze. "I'm…just tryin' to help you, you know."
"Oh, of course you are!" she cried, flinging her hands into the air.
"Don't take it so personally, Fairbanks! I was just teasin' you."
She blinked hard, sticking out her jaw. "Well in case you haven't noticed, I'm not up to it! And I'm not up to dealing with you at all!"
He glared suddenly. "That's fine. Just fucking fine! You go right ahead and keep on runnin' as long as you want to, and wait for the cops or the F.O.H. or your damn friend Wolverine to catch up with you, and wait and see how much you want my help then." He grasped her by the hand again, and before she could pull away he handed her a slip of paper, folding her fingers around it. He paused, and his voice quieted when he took several deep, calming breaths. "Now, you can come with me to my truck, and from there you can pick what you wanna do," he added, as if he had just thought of it.
Nat stood there, silent and stunned, staring at the paper in her palm. An address and phone number were messily scrawled upon it in dark red ink.
"You comin'?" Pietro asked over his shoulder, walking toward a clearing where his truck was apparently parked.
Nat hesitated. "D-do I have to…stay with you?"
He screwed up his face and shrugged. "I'll drive you a distance so you can get a head start on the guys that are gonna be following, but I ain't gonna make you stay with me. You can find me at that address, when you want me. The way I figure it, you're gonna come crawling back soon enough, anyway, so there isn't a point in forcing you."
Nat clapped her hands together in sarcastic glee. "Oh, am I? Am I really? Oh boy, it sure is gee-golly-God-damn wonderful to know that, Mister Crystal Ball," she added sharply, scowling.
He rolled his eyes. "Just get in the truck."