Kurt Wagner was a mutant with many ways to work off anxiety. He was never one to seek out the company of his companions when something upset him, instead inevitably retreating to his room, the Danger Room, or a tree on the Mansion's grounds far enough away from the building that any searching for him would neglect to pass by. It was only in such solitude that he could find various ways to take his mind off of his worries. Sometimes he listened to whatever music he had on hand until he was so caught up in it that he didn't think of what it was that had bothered him. Others he brought out his rapier and had at whatever opponents were at hand, be they imaginary or the product of the Danger Room's systems. Still others, he just sat and talked to God. These talks varied from prayer, to almost companionable discussion, to outright arguments that sometimes even ended with the German yelling to the skies in anger. Whatever he did, it worked. They were all great ways to throw off the stress that burned the life of a young, fuzzy, blue elf.
And, now, apparently, he was being introduced to the exception that proved the rule. The elf sat amongst an open grove encircled by trees, rapier lying near his hand and CD player set off to the side. He'd tried talking to God when he'd first come outside about an hour and a half ago. God hadn't answered. Kurt hadn't expected Him to. He never did. But usually Kurt was left with the feeling that up there somewhere, God was looking down upon him and giving him the strength to persevere. Today, he hadn't.
He was stressed and confused, and nothing he did was helping! He'd tossed it over in his head a few million times, but he couldn't come up with any answers. It had all started a few days ago...
He'd been walking home from school after getting left behind thanks to an hour's worth of detention for constant tardiness, and had passed by the Boarding House. He'd started to hurry by, not wanting to get involved in anything, but then he'd caught a glimpse of her. Wanda Maximoff. The Scarlet Witch.
He hadn't noticed just how attractive she was until just then, just how fast his heart started to beat when she passed by, though he hadn't been quite sure whether that was because of this attractiveness of the angry way she glared at him as he passed by. Nevertheless, he had to admit that he was very, very attracted to her. The thoughts of how odd this was...that he, Kurt Wagner, lover of the fair damsel in distress, could be so suddenly stricken by such a powerful, dark, mysteriously feminine figure...would come later. But still, he needed to be getting back to the Mansion.
Which was why he was somewhat surprised to find himself sitting in a tree near her window fifteen minutes later. Technically, he remembered sneaking over to and scaling the tree...it was the "why" part that stumped him. So Wanda was good looking! That wasn't any reason to do something this insane over it! There wasn't an ugly girl at the Mansion, and he never did anything this stupid around them. At least, not without it being public. And this wasn't his zany, over the top kind of stunt. This was reminiscent of something a stalker might do. Still, he sat perched there, slipping back into the heavy shadows the tree's branches cast, and deactivating his inducer so that he could blend in with them.
She'd come up to the room only a few minutes later, muttering under her breath about Toad...the window was open just enough for him to hear her. He'd stayed there, perfectly still, as she'd went about her business, writing in what he presumed was a diary, reading in a book, and, once, leaving and coming back with food. He had sat there for at least an hour, knowing well that he was already late for Logan's afternoon training session. Still, that mad little bit of his mind wouldn't listen to reason.
He hadn't left until she had started to undress. Even an insane elf was still chivalrous enough to know watching her go about that was wrong.
He'd ended up completely missing the training session that afternoon, and had been rewarded by an extra one before bed every night that week. Oddly enough, in the back of his mind, part of him still felt it was worth it. Which only reinforced, really, that the back of his mind needed serious help.
He'd gone back every day since, and he still wasn't sure why. He tried to write it off as wanting to know something more about her, since none of the X-Men could make heads or tails of her, with the possible exception of the adults. And probably even fewer knew what she was like after what Magneto had done to her. No one had really seen her after that...apparently she stayed around the Boarding House all day, every day. It didn't seem like much of a life...not much of a life at all...
And, then, he'd gotten the "why" to that question just today. It was Saturday, and he'd slipped over to the Boarding House and Wanda's window right after the afternoon training session, only to find her in her room once again. She was always in her room, or so it seemed. The rest of the Brotherhood wasn't there.
He sat there for only a few minutes when she had started writing in her diary...and reading along as she wrote. Once again, logic, not to mention morality, told him he ought to stop listening in. It was an invasion of privacy! It was wrong! Horribly, horribly wrong! But still, he sat there, watching and listening as she wrote "out-loud".
Apparently he'd caught her in the middle of an entry. "...I don't mind being left here alone. Not really. The minute they show up I want them gone, after all. I just can't stand why they leave me here. They're afraid of me. And, really, that's a good thing, usually. If it was just them, it would be great! But it's not. Everyone's afraid of me. It isn't just these morons...it's the X-Men and even people that don't know me. And its not really so bad, but, sometimes, I wish that they weren't. Wish that I didn't have to throw hex bolts at everyone to get them to quit bothering me, or that I wasn't a mutant, or that I didn't help my idiot brother and the rest of them blast Xavier's students. Every once in a while, when my hex bolts have done their job and I'm finally alone, I can't help but think, 'This can't be worth it. This can't be all there is to my life...scaring off people just so I can be lonely.' I mean, I can't stand Pietro and the rest of them, but I wish I had someone to talk to at least."
Then, with a look of fury, she'd exclaimed, grown sick of sounding angsty and whiny to even herself, "Oh, I don't know!" and hurled the book away with a hex bolt...where it promptly burst into flames and sailed through the window, sending little bits of glass everywhere. Including on Kurt, who yelled, "Ow!" Wanda had been surprised, to say the least, when the tree outside her window gave a yelp of pain, and rushed to it. Just in time to catch a glimpse of Kurt's yellow eyes before he teleported away as fast as he could.
And that had left him back at the Mansion, with a troubled mind, a burdened conscience, and an empty stomach. Which, for an elf with an accelerated metabolism, was a very bad thing. So he'd hurriedly procured some snacks, and then, hunger satiated, had ended up out here, trying to fix the former two of his problems with little to no success.
What bothered him the most was the little that the logical portion of his mind had realized. Or, at least, he pretended it had just realized it. Really, he'd known since that first day...he had a crush on the Scarlet Witch. A childish case of puppy love, the kind where you realize how much you're attracted physically and the emotional connection seems to follow immediately. What was worse...he had no earthly idea why. He had Amanda, for God's sake! They were supposed to be in love and eventually settle down to raise a family of their own, which her parents would grow to support, even if they did fear and hate him now. He certainly wasn't supposed to develop feelings for another, especially not when he knew all of nothing about said other! And certainly not when said other was Pietro Maximoff's sister and a member of the Brotherhood! He was Nightcrawler, heroic swashbuckler! An X-Man! Not some pathetic teenager who clung to every little hormonal impulse!
He felt like rolling over and dying, but, instead, he stood and collected all the stuff he'd brought out with him. With a bamf, he was back in his room, where he dumped the stuff on his bed with a sigh and a deep frown before wandering out into the hall to go get another snack. Maybe food would take his mind off of his pain...
He was about halfway to the Kitchen when someone called from the Living Room, "Kurt, phone!" He called back, "I'll get it in here!" Then he promptly picked up the kitchen phone and pulled it to his ear, fully expecting to here Amanda or his mother's voice.
He really wasn't expecting to hear Wanda say with cold, barely restrained fury, "Why were you outside my window?"