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Chapter Thirty-Eight: Another Kind of Knowing
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There was a long silence in the truck. The radio was turned off, and the air conditioner's hum was nearly inaudible. Outside, the sound of wind passing the vehicle and the intermittent drone and buzz of the other cars muted the sound of Nat's pounding heartbeat. She shifted uncomfortably in the seat, the backs of her legs clinging to the leather, and stared down at her intertwined hands.
Beside her, Pietro said nothing and kept his attention firmly on the road ahead. He drove quickly, the same way he did all else in the world, and every few minutes he would have to whip the steering wheel sharply to one side to avoid colliding with the rear of another car. Nat stared at him for a lengthy, soundless while, watching his profile as if doing so would tell her something about what was going to happen next.
Pietro had found Nat waiting for him in a narrow strip of dry grass that flanked the interstate where he had dropped her off a few days earlier. She was still dressed in the clothes he had given her, and her skin and hair looked somewhat dusty and blanched. Her feet were gray with dirt. Her arms were wrapped around her torso in discomfort, clearly aware of her less than stellar appearance. She looked like a bum, and knew it perfectly well.
He wouldn't soon forget the expression on her face when he pulled the truck up alongside her, and tossed the door open so she could climb inside. Her eyes were narrowed and slightly red, her shoulders pulled in tightly as if she were trying to make herself implode. Quicksilver might not be the best at reading other people's emotions or intentions, but he would have to be blind to miss her discomfort.
His face lit up suddenly, and he reached a lean arm into the backseat, pulling out a small paper sack and dropping it into her lap. She eyed it warily and opened it to find a turkey sandwich and a slightly bruised banana waiting at the bottom of the sack, wrapped in a paper napkin. Her stomach growled impatiently, but her head told her to be a little less impulsive. She was supposed to be trusting him here, but it was easier said than done. Nat glanced at him suspiciously, and he let out an acerbic laugh.
"Chill out, would you? Damn, Flamethrower, you're acting like I forced you to come with me. Nobody kidnapped you or nothin'." Pietro shrugged irritably and rolled his eyes. "I just thought you might be hungry, 's all," he said, but he once again his attention had returned to the road. She caught sight of a smug grin on his face, quickly smothered.
"Um…thanks."
He yawned. "No problem."
That silence descended again. Nat swallowed tightly to wet her sore throat, eating the offered food quickly and without a hint of ladylike manners. Her stomach had been pretty much empty for three days now, save the apple and bread from several nights earlier, and her metabolism was furious at the neglect. She felt his eyes resting on her as she ate, and ignored the uncomfortable impression that he was somehow appraising her.
"Careful not to eat the napkin, there," he snorted, and she shot him an aggravated glare.
Around a mouthful of the soft yellow fruit, she sputtered, "Shove it," and went diligently back to her lunch, finishing the sandwich in just a few big bites.
They were coming back into Bayville now, and she fought down the urge to duck her head below the bottom edge of the window. She could see her reflection in the glass, and remembered that it was tinted, breathing out a sigh of relief. Nat knew that at some point she was going to have to relax again, but she just wasn't ready yet. The idea that they might pass Scott or Kurt on the sidewalk, and that they might see her in the truck, made her blood run cold.
They passed rows and rows of neatly manicured lawns and suburban-style homes, some with rose gardens in full bloom or porch swings where she could imagine the homeowners sitting down and drinking lemonade. A group of eleven-year-old boys came around a corner on bikes, shrieking and laughing, followed by a group of girls whose bikes carried baskets brimming with dozens of pinecones that were the perfect size for throwing. The pavement was shining and wet with the recent torrential rain, which was just now beginning to slow.
It was a deceptively provincial setting, she knew, and one with an almost illusory traditional quality. None of the people in these homes knew that in their midst were some of the most powerful mutants in the world, and their young charges, too. If the knowledge got out of everything that the X-Men and the Brotherhood knew, and were capable of doing, these people would loose their minds in terror.
Or try to lynch them. One or the other, maybe both.
She caught sight of a slash of vividly anti-mutant graffiti on the wall of a small grocery, a blur of multi-colored spray paint enacting a vicious scene in which bright red paint seemed to be most prevalent. The dead mutant, a cruel approximation of a human form with garishly distorted features, lay with a man's boot planted in his midsection. The man wore a shirt that read "Friends of Humanity", and an American flag with too many stripes was scrawled on the wall behind him. The mutant's face was twisted in pain and its tongue bulged out unattractively. Devil's horns adorned its head.
Nat sighed and looked away. There was a heavy fatigue pulling on her eyes, spurred on by the warmth outside and the faint, soothing vibrations of the vehicle. Her discomfort kept her awake, but her body didn't like it.
Her stomach felt a bit warped, calmed by the presence of a bit of food but aggravated by her surroundings.
With every second, they were coming closer to her home at Xavier's mansion. Her former home, that is. A fine, cool sweat sprang up on her forehead. She ran the back of her hand across her face, licking her over-dried lips as she imagined what must be going on there. What should have been going on.
It was a Saturday, so no one was off at Bayville High. Normally, Xavier would be leading the students in their first of three hours of intensive Danger Room training, tossing new situations and objectives at them each time. Often, there would be some sort of twist in the plan, or some unanticipated obstacle, usually something entirely unforeseen but equally plausible. The first time that one of her teammates had "died" on one of these mini-missions, Nat had been terrified. That had essentially been the main idea.
Now, of course, Xavier wasn't there to lead the training sessions. Perhaps Storm and Logan were there to take over temporarily, until the professor could get back to work. Well, if he ever did. The familiar thought made her feel slightly nauseated, and she pressed a hand against her abdomen.
There was really no way of knowing what was going on at the mansion, save walking up to the door and asking politely. Instead, she tried to internally visualize what she thought the others might be doing. There was only one place where she could imagine Scott: at the hospital, hovering over the professor's bedside like a lonely puppy, his face tired but set in determination. Jean was probably with him, her presence one of customary calm and quiet strength, Scott's only anchor in a suddenly out-of-tilt world.
It was probable that Evan, Kitty and Rogue were at the mansion, Rogue shut up in her room and Evan as hyper as an impatient toddler, while Kitty tried to pretend that she wasn't upset even when she was close to tears. Storm was likely taking on the roll of the chief parental unit, and Logan was either getting drunk and violent or out looking for her. Hopefully, for the sake of her own skin, he wasn't doing both at the same time.
The only person she couldn't seem to picture was Kurt. He was, rather, the only one that she couldn't examine or interpret at the moment. He was the only one that looked unclear in the lens of her mental security camera.
Oh, Nat could see him, even feel him. His face was etched forever in her mind, and it was almost always smiling, lovely yellow eyes glinting with a joke or a look of gentle affection. She could see his hands, strong and warm against her own, and remembered the way his tail sometimes twitched when he kissed her. She could even recall the pattern of muscles on his lean back, and the way his smile was slightly crooked when he was most content. Nat knew the softness of the light fuzz on his cheeks. She could see every part of him, except what he was thinking at that moment, and how he must be feeling.
Had she hurt him badly? Nat knew that she cared about him more than she had ever cared about another, and somehow also knew that he felt the same. She was excruciatingly aware of the pain that she had caused him when he heard of her indiscretion. The worst part was that she didn't know if he harbored real anger toward her, or if he still loved her the way she did him.
Most of her wanted him to care for her forever, to disregard her faults and embrace her dumbly with blinded adoration. It was impossible to overlook this desire, to pretend that she wanted him to forget her. She wanted his love forever.
Still, she couldn't quite swallow the idea that he wouldn't or shouldn't be upset. Nat had seen the look of pain in his eyes when she revealed her secret, the heartache and injured fury sparking where his pupils would have been if nature hadn't decided to play games with its creations. He had been angry, aching with a ferocity brought about by injury. Would he feel less pain if he didn't care for her anymore, if he hated her and went on with his life as if she were nothing more than a bad memory? If that was the case, she prayed that he would.
If only it were that simple, and none of them could remember her.
Nat had tried to forget them, with less than superior results. She could remember all the silly arguments over the breakfast table. There were hardly any bad memories that had Kurt in them. Only a few.
And those had been her own stupid fault.
Pietro's foot seemed to fall on the gas pedal with a bit more force than usual, and Nat's attention returned to the outside world. To her left she could see a very recognizable patch of magnolia trees in bloom, while she spotted the mouth of Graymalkin Lane to the right. Her heart twanged slightly, and she ignored it with all her ability. The urge to pull something over her face to hide from being spotted was almost unbearable, but she stomped it out of existence. In the driver's seat, Pietro could see her watching the street with a wounded expression, and he sped up even more. Soon, Graymalkin was a fading speck in the distance.
Then it was completely out of sight.
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Kurt felt vacant.
Quicksilver. She had left with Quicksilver.
Of all the things he had thought he might hear, he had thought of this possibility the least, but feared it the most. Somehow, he had misread her so badly, and perhaps angered her with his reaction to her confessions, that she had felt the need to leave with his new enemy. Kurt chewed on his lip, thinking.
Was she with Pietro, or with Pietro? Neither option was to his liking, but the latter was far more difficult to gulp down.
Sickness threatened to leave tears in its wake, but the emptiness wrestled the sadness into submission, and left only an oddly blank sensation behind. His head hummed with silence, making his skull feel like a drum that pulsated with rapid-fire finger beats. He felt drugged, absent, unaware.
He sank onto a stool near the counter, staring at the cabinets and biting his tongue. A few steps away, he felt a light rush of air from Ororo's skirt as she tried to approach but was stopped by Wolverine, and heard the older man whisper something. Storm's gaze lingered on his back for a moment, then she took in a swallow of oxygen before exiting gracefully from the room. He could hear the jewelry on her ankle jangling in the hallway as she slowly departed.
There was a long moment of stillness, and neither man spoke. Wolverine stayed a few meters behind the younger mutant, dripping rainwater onto the tile floor. He seemed to read Kurt's silence, and understood the lack of words more than anything that could have been spoken aloud. Nonetheless, he felt the need to say something, and did.
"You, uh, alright, Elf?"
Kurt sighed, rubbing his eyelids with his thick blue fingertips. "Ja." He stood, pressing his palms against his eye sockets, and Wolverine stepped slightly aside to let him stagger by. "Ach. I need to take a valk."
Logan frowned, a vein in his neck jumping, but he nodded as Kurt swept passed him and out the back door. The screen swung shut with a loud banging sound that usually made Kurt jump. He hardly heard it this time.
The blue-furred mutant stood silently on the back porch for a while, breathing in the scent of wet grass and the warm, moist air. The rain had nearly stopped, with the exception of a few latent raindrops that seemed to drop down heavily from out of nowhere, and the clouds were already beginning to thin so that the sun glowed faintly through with its more customary yellow light.
Knowledge, assumptions, doubts and questions all warred amongst themselves in his brain. He was more aware than ever that he knew nothing about Nat, and perhaps never had. When she made her confessions, and told him of her painful history, he had never, not for a moment, considered abandoning her for her past. She had hurt others, even killed them, but at heart he believed that she was a good person. She could love, and he thought she had loved him.
Now, he could feel himself beginning to wonder.
She had betrayed him, and questions were raised in the shadow of that duplicity. Had she planned it to happen this way, never really loving him? Or had she broken down in the heat of her pain and fear, and abandoned him then?
No matter what, one thing was somehow certain: Nat Fairbanks had never intended to hurt Xavier. In some way, deep inside himself, he was positive of that. Perhaps she had never loved him, but he knew that she was not a murderer. Not usually, anyway.
Of course, she was conceivably capable of it, both physically and mentally. He knew of the existence of her rage, her hidden desire for revenge and retribution, and her inability to contain her anger at times. She had always tried to pretend that she was in full control of her emotions and her powers, and always tried to be so, but Kurt had known from the day he met her that she was often led astray by simple passion. He could see this long before her confession about the school and the truth about her father's death had come to light.
More than anything, Kurt knew that Nat was angry. She was angry at fate for its cruelty in dealing her a pitiable hand, angry at the treatment she had received from everyone from her parents to her schoolmates, angry at the bigots that loathed her kind with such ruthless brutality for no fault of their own. Hatred was burning a black spot on her spirit, staining her. He had known this for quite some time, and said nothing, subconsciously fearing that she would turn to the Brotherhood when she realized that the X-Men cared nothing for revenge.
Apparently, he had feared correctly about that.
Despite his confirmed worries and his muddled sense of uncertainty, he was certain about another area. Nat hadn't tried to harm Xavier. Perhaps she had started the fire, and maybe she had even been involved with Pietro Maximoff, romantically, professionally or otherwise, but she had not tried to hurt the professor, despite what his teammates might think. The others' insistence was starting to wear him slightly ragged, but he still trusted his heart on the matter.
Somehow, he knew that he was right about this. His knowledge went beyond his normal understanding of the universe, and went against evidence that seemed to be as clear as day. It was a "knowing" that he felt more than comprehended, one that was new to him. It was a knowing that the others couldn't grasp. It wasn't born of indication, or proof, or understanding.
It was another kind of knowing.
But he knew it.