Kitty studied the sheets of the plastic binder with the kind of intensity she usually reserved for complex programming languages. "We have to find something for you to sing, Hank."
"I don't suppose they have any Tom Waits?" Hank said. "I'm good with lower registers. One of the advantages of my secondary mutation."
"I'm looking," said Kitty. "Since you're cool, and you're going to sing, and you're not like the rest of these losers. . . "
"I'm merely considering my selection," said Emma. Lounging against Scott's arm, she slowly pulled the beer bottle from her lips, doing something to it with her tongue that looked more than a little obscene. Kitty quickly looked down at the book. I don't want to hurt her. There's no reason for me to want to hurt her. I spent all those months in anger management counseling, back in Chicago, so that at a time like this, I shouldn't want to hurt Emma Frost just for being the way she is.
On the karaoke stage, some drunk girl was butchering "Mack the Knife" in a high reedy voice. "Anything would be better than that," said Emma. "Probably even Scott here." And that was stupid because Scott was a good singer, which Emma really ought to know, if she ever paid any attention to anybody but herself. Oh, wait. It's Emma. What am I thinking?
"I'm not singing," Scott said firmly.
"Killjoy," said Kitty. She was brave enough to look up and see Emma rubbing the back of her hand over Scott's neck, and why did she even care? What they did was their business.
"It's not trying to be uptight about this," Scott answered. "I just don't sing in public."
"Scott thinks he's Captain Von Trapp," Hank suggested.
"Mmmmm, Christopher Plummer," Emma mused. Running a thumb over Scott's cheek, she said, "I'll buy you a whistle. Although, if this means you're waiting for a nun with a bad haircut to come along and steal your heart. . . I liked it better when I thought you were fantasizing about Barry Gibb."
"Please." Scott flipped a peanut into his mouth. "Andy was the cute one."
"Wait a minute –" Logan leaned forward. "You said you thought he was fantasizing. Don't you know?"
"Logan –" Scott warned. At the moment, Kitty was very much on his side.
Logan persisted. "You must have found out something interesting while you were poking around there –"
"Hey –" Scott jutted his thumb at the other man. "Why don't you poke around him for a while, see how he likes it?"
"Well, actually," said Emma. "Last time Logan was talking to Nick Fury, I couldn't help getting this vibe. . ."
"Tom Waits!" Kitty crowed, waving the binder at Hank. "'Invitation to the Blues'!"
"Perfection. Put me down," said Hank, obviously sharing Kitty's desire to steer the conversation away from Logan's subconscious.
Kitty pointed at the book, and Peter obediently transcribed "HANK" and the selection number onto the entry slip in his meticulous handwriting. He then handed the slip to Lockheed, who flew forward and deposited it in the bin.
"Now, Logan –" Kitty flipped open the book and marked a place with her thumb, then held it across the table to show him. "I know you know this one."
Logan looked down and laughed. "Okay, I do. But no. I'm not singing."
"Please!" Kitty thrust out her lip in a mock pout, then clasped her hands. "I will if you will."
"I am sorry," said Peter. "This is meant to be – how do you call it – an incentive? Because, Katyushka, I have heard you sing –"
Emma snorted, and Kitty yelped, "Hey!" She slapped his sleeveless arm. "That was mean." Peter looked down in surprise at her touch, and Kitty started tapping out a pattern on his substantial bicep. "That was so mean, I almost thought Emma said it!"
"Believe me, dearest," said Emma, her voice all smoke and honey. "When I'm being mean, you'll know it."
Kitty had been trying for a joke, and Emma merely returned the volley. There's no reason for me to want to hurt her, Kitty repeated silently. But then she caught a flash of those pale blue eyes, and the thought was upon her, fully formed, before she had a chance to restrain it. All the loss and pain and misery I've seen in this world, and there's one person who seems to walk away from every killing field without a scratch on her, and it has to be you. "I'm sure, Emma," said Kitty, tightening her grip on Peter. "I'm sure that I will."
Peter Rasputin
Peter wasn't sure, for a moment, where he ought to be focusing his attention: the look on Katya's face, or her hand on his arm. That look was new or, at least, it was something she had acquired while he was gone. This was far beyond the impulsive anger she had been capable of as a girl; this was a look that said, if Katya had possessed Cyclops's mutation, Emma Frost – diamond skin or not -- would have been reduced to a pile of smoldering dust.
He felt the same anger in her touch on his skin. She dug fingers in, almost claws, like the animal she was nicknamed for. And yet there was affection, too, if only because he was the one she reached out to; he was the one she cornered, for that matter, every day in the mansion to rant about Emma's latest injustice. But the anger wasn't only at Emma. It couldn't be. If it had been, she could have left the team; she had done it before. She never had to come back in the first place. If she was still here, did it mean that there was something life as an X-man had to offer her, or simply that she had given up hope of anything better from the world outside? And if that was true, what did it say about the two of them? Was she reaching out for him because she cared for him? Would it be right to return that or were the two of them simply. . .
"Hungry like the wolf," said Katya.
Peter blinked. "Pardon?"
"Duran Duran." She poked his shoulder and pointed at the page. "'Hungry Like the Wolf.'"
"I do not know the words," he answered.
"They don't make sense anyway. As far as I can tell, they're totally random. Look, I'll be Simon Le Bon and all you need is the 'Do- do-do-do-do-do-do-do' part."
Peter tried to oblige her. "Do-do-do-do-do-do-do." He had no clear idea of the tune.
Katya chimed in at vaguely the right time with an atonal variation on, "Hungry like the wolf!" She nodded at him. "See? Easy-peasy."
"There is a saying," Peter mused. "Those who can, do. And yet. Katya and I – clearly cannot. And yet it seems we will." He nodded across the table at Scott who was looking, perhaps, a bit too comfortable curled against Emma's shoulder. "You, Cyclops, can but will not –"
"Cyclops can what?" Emma demanded. She tilted her head back and looked up at Scott. "I've never heard you sing a note. Are you good?" When he shrugged, she looked around at the others, "Is he good?"
"Very, actually," said Hank.
"Very," Peter agreed -- knowing but not caring that Scott was going to thrust that disapproving chin at him. It had been years and years, and even back then it was like pulling teeth to get a song out of him. But Peter remembered one night, early in his years with the team, when he and Kurt had been trying to master a few American Christmas carols. Jean had offered to teach them, but clearly she had no concept of how many lords were supposed to be leaping. Finally, Scott had to push his way into the circle, just to set everyone straight. "I believe," Peter said gravely, repeating the explanation Scott had had given at the time, "that he belonged to a choir in Omaha."
Logan arched an eyebrow. "You know, when I was doing covert missions for the government, I used to go to bed every night and say, 'I hope one day I get to be on a highly specialized team led by a choirboy from Omaha.'"
"By coincidence," said Emma, jerking the songlist out of Katya's hand, "that's exactly the kind of man I always knew I wanted to date."
"You guys are enjoying this too much," Scott mumbled. He looked to where Emma was intently studying the catalog. "You better not be looking up a song me, because I'm not doing this."
"Fine," Emma said airily. She took one of the entry slips from Peter and cupped her hand over it as she wrote. "For your information? This is for me." She folded the paper and put it on the stack with the ones that Peter had made. "No peeking," she warned, then looked back at Scott. "Of course, I'd never force you to do anything you didn't want to."
This seemed to send Katya into a coughing fit, and then propel her to her feet. "Pete!" She grabbed his arm. "Come with me and take these up. And then –" she shimmied, "We can practice for our turn. Make up a dance."
As they moved away from the table, Peter put a hand on her shoulder. Leaning close, he murmured, "Katya, are you all right?"
"Fine," she said shortly. "It's just that when certain people think they're the queen of everything and the boss of everybody, it makes me a little sick to my stomach."
His hand moved up to her chin, and she turned slowly to look at him. Her lip was white from where she had been biting it. "Is that all?"
"No," Katya answered. "No, it's not." She reached up to lace her small fingers through his massive ones. For a moment, her form flickered, and then her palm pressed solid against his. "Now, Mr. Rasputin. Come and dance with me."
TBC
(Next: Logan and Scott)