A/N: So this is definitely going to be longer than a just a few chapters. I've been writing a lot more than I originally thought.
Thanks for all the reviews so far!
Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men.
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters is better than Kitty could have imagined.
As soon as she walks inside, she sees a messy-haired boy hanging from the ceiling by his sticky palms, and another older kid levitating just slightly off the floor, and a lanky blond girl whose skin glows as bright as a flashlight. At every turn, there's someone just like her. And they're not afraid.
The Professor shows Kitty the gardens, the classrooms, the common areas; the photos on the brochure he gave her earlier come alive before her eyes. She can't help the smile that creeps across her face.
That night she sleeps without disruption.
The next morning, as sun filters through the window, Kitty opens her hastily packed suitcase. She takes a deep breath. The few clothes and books she'd stuffed inside smell just like her old room and she finds herself closing the suitcase just as quickly and heading outside instead. Students are playing basketball or hanging out on the grass, and Kitty finds it surprisingly easy to just fall in with them, as if she'd arrived months ago and not just yesterday.
By the next day, she already knows most of the rules of the mansion (both official and unofficial) and most of the mutants who inhabit it. Kitty starts classes and makes friends and is generally happier than she's been in a long time. The Professor, true to his word, trains her privately until she feels fully in control of her powers. His classes are her favorites. Sometimes she stays after class, and she and the Professor continue that day's discussion. He's the wisest person she knows and she jumps at the chance to hear his thoughts on any topic. Kitty knows it makes her a major nerd, but she enjoys his company just as much as her peers'.
Sometimes, when she's about to go to sleep after a long day of studying and training and hanging out with her friends and even playing pranks (she only recently discovered her mischievous side), she finds herself smiling uncontrollably, for no specific reason. She's just happy.
Still, Kitty can't pretend there's not a part of her that sometimes misses her old life. It confuses her, but she does. Just small things—the lake near her house where her dad used to take her ice skating, or the way her best friend would laugh at her when she'd just done something unintentionally funny, or even the chocolate cake at the restaurant she went to every year for her birthday. At first she tries to shake every memory out of her head. But Kitty knows that she can't just erase them: these memories are a part of her too. They're who she is.
Here, she's able to accept every part of herself.
It feels like she's finally stopped falling.
Kitty soon learns that by trading her old life for a new one, she's only traded her old problems for new ones. Granted, the new ones are infinitely more preferable, but that doesn't change the fact that they're there, obstacles that she can't just phase through.
The first one appears in combat class.
In addition to all the regular classes—like Chemistry, World History, Mutant Ethics—the students also take a training class, where they learn to master their powers. The younger kids and the new kids either work individually with Professor, in special cases, or take a basic training class with Jean. The older kids have a choice of two classes: a self defense class with Storm, which usually involves fighting without powers, and a combat class where Scott teaches students to fight using their mutations. Everyone's at a different level, but Storm and Scott handle classes the best they can.
Under the Professor's guidance, it isn't long before Kitty has enough control to be able to move on to an upper level training class. She's grateful that he chose to help her individually; she knows she's one of the less powerful mutants living in the mansion, so it means a lot to have the Professor give her some of his time.
She opts for Scott's class. She's pretty sure fighting without her mutation would just end in her getting her ass kicked, and she's not really willing to take that risk. Her mutation doesn't give her much in the way of offense, but it does provide a solid defense against pretty much any kind of attack, which comes in handy in Scott's class. It amazes her sometimes how quickly she's grown to rely on her mutation. Kitty knows it's cheating, in a way, and she never actually wins; usually she just phases through her opponent's attacks until they wear themselves out. Scott just sighs and tries to teach the class something new. She listens carefully, but it doesn't show.
Kitty senses Scott's growing frustration with her. In the back of her mind, she knows she's failing him and herself. She's just afraid, and the fear is keeping her stuck. She tells herself that she'll work up to it slowly, but it sounds like a lie even to her. Kitty just can't bring herself to make the first move. Evasion has always been easier for her.
After two weeks of this, Scott asks her to stay after and talk. He suggests that she take Storm's class instead, but the idea of fighting without her mutation sends panic coursing through Kitty; disguising it as stubbornness, she outright refuses. Scott sighs again.
"Kitty, I can't teach you anything new if you won't try anything new. You might as well not even be taking my class."
Her heart sinks, panic shifting into guilt. She swallows. "I'm just scared." Her voice wavers like a little girl's and she hates it instantly. Suddenly, the room seems too small, oppressive, closing in too fast. The lights brighten and blur painfully. She's dimly aware that Scott is waiting for more, and in that moment, Kitty wills the old feeling of invisibility to come back. It doesn't.
"Fighting doesn't come naturally to me," she admits finally. "It's my nature to just…avoid. I mean, it's even my mutation."
Scott thinks for a minute. "You're pretty smart, right?" he says slowly, as if he's just discovering something. "Jean tells me you're taking Biochemistry with the older students. And you're in my Calculus class."
Kitty ducks her head, embarrassed.
"Well," Scott smiles like he's on to something, "just think of fighting as…an equation. Something you need to solve. When you're fighting against an opponent, you have to be calculating. You need to track their moves and find a pattern. Figure out their strengths and weaknesses so you can find an effective way to counteract their attacks. Fighting isn't just physical—it takes brainpower too."
Kitty nods. Already her mind is wrapping around this new way of looking at combat; just a problem to break down and find the solution to. She doesn't miss the relief on Scott's face. "Okay," she says. Her voice catches slightly, but the fear is already starting to recede.
"Good," Scott nods at her. "It will get better, Kitty. Just don't let your mutation own you." He turns to leave. "See you tomorrow."
Kitty finds that fighting isn't so hard after that. It's easy for her to find patterns and to plan against them. She's not big or strong enough to face an opponent head on, but she can gain the upper hand by sneaking up on her target. Figuring out different ways to attack is actually fun sometimes. When Kitty isn't thinking of fighting as just aggression, force, violence—when she thinks of it more as a puzzle, a problem, an equation like Scott said, it's easier for her. She's put it into her own terms.
Kitty spars against Bobby a few times in class. He's a couple of years older than her, and Scott says he'll probably get to start training with the X-Men soon. Bobby is an excellent fighter. He's also probably Kitty's best friend at the mansion.
He almost always beats her when they face off, but at least they can both have a good laugh about it afterwards. After one such time, bruised and sore, he and Kitty head to the living room to collapse onto the couch.
Kitty shivers. "Even when I phase through your ice, I still get cold," she complains.
"Quit whining," Bobby says, hitting her playfully over the head with a pillow. "At least you can phase. When I get attacked, I have to actually take it."
"Who's whining now?" Kitty retorts. She grabs a pillow of her own. Bobby attempts to stop her by smacking her over the head again, but she phases through it and manages to get him square in the face. He groans.
"See what I mean?!"
Kitty just laughs. She and Bobby have become fast friends. He's kind and funny and easy to be around, but most of all, he's incredibly genuine. He's just so real and that's exactly what she needs.
Exhausted, they both drop their pillows and relax into the sofa. The younger kids' classes are still in session, the faint sound of teachers' voices carrying in from the hallway. The quiet is mostly unbroken. She loves it when the air is still like this.
"So, Kitty," Bobby muses. She looks over at him, but he's gazing up at the ceiling as if it were the night sky.. "Why 'Kitty'? Why not Katie or Kathy or something?"
Embarrassed, she folds her legs up under her.
"When I was little, I couldn't say my name. I could only say 'Kitty'. So my parents started using it, and…I guess I just never grew out of it."
Upstairs, hidden in a shoebox under Kitty's bed, are all of her mother's letters, all 38 of them. All of them start with "dear Katherine", even though her mom only ever called her Kitty. She never really understood why. A memory surfaces unexpectedly: her dad teaching her to ride a bike, her mom watching them silently from the kitchen window, wearing a private smile. Kitty still has a scar on her shoulder from that first attempt at biking, but she'd forgotten her mother's face at the window until now.
She brings her mind back into the present.
"So why 'Bobby'? Why not...I don't know, Robby or something?"
"Robby?" Bobby repeats incredulously. She has his full attention now. "I'm not going to lie, Kitty, I'm a little offended that you don't think my nickname is good enough. Also my little brother's name is Ronnie, and 'Robby and Ronnie' sounds like some kind of half-rate comedy show."
Kitty shrugs. "'Bobby and Ronnie' is bad enough."
"No way. It's so much better."
"So what's Ronnie like?" she asks curiously.
His expression shifts into something a little more pensive. Kitty thinks they're pretty good friends, but they don't often discuss their families or their pasts or anything. No one at the school really does, so she feels a little bad for bringing it up. "Sorry. Forget I said anything."
"No," Bobby replies, back to normal. "No, it's okay. I just miss him. And I've kind of lied to him—to my whole family actually. They don't know I'm a mutant. They think this is a school for gifted children. Regular gifted children."
"Oh," Kitty says quietly.
"He's a good kid, though. Ronnie is. We used to be a lot closer, but, I don't know. Not so much anymore."
His mouth is set in a line, brow furrowed, eyes faraway. Tentatively, she reaches out to squeeze his hand.
"Things will change. They can't stay this way forever."
Kitty meant it to be reassuring, but as the words leave her mouth they instantly sound more ominous than she'd intended. She's wondering how to fix it when she feels Bobby squeeze her hand back. His face lights up with the most sincere smile. He always seems happy to be around her, just as she's always happy to be around him.
"You're pretty terrible at pep talks, you know that?"
"Hey!" Kitty laughs at him in disbelief. "I just don't have a lot of experience."
"I could find you some kids to practice on," he offers.
"That would probably go really badly."
The sun is starting to set just as classes are letting out. Bobby looks like he wants to ask her something, but before he can, younger students start filing into the room. One of them boldly tugs on Bobby's sleeve. "It's time for Yu-Gi-Oh!" he insists.
"That sounds like a sneeze." Bobby wrinkles his nose, but the kid just tugs harder. "All right, all right, I get the message." he stands and offers Kitty a hand. "Care to relocate?"
She takes it. "I've got to shower, actually. And no offense, but you probably should too."
"Wow, Kitty. So blunt. Have some tact."
"Get over yourself," she teases. "Come on. I can even show you a shortcut."
Bobby pulls a face. "Does it involve phasing? Because I think I prefer being solid."
"I used to, too," Kitty tells him, then walks through the wall and out of sight.
December arrives before long. Kitty loves the winter; she spends the week before finals studying in the library in front of the big windows, watching the snow float in. There's something so peaceful about the snow settling. The landscape becomes uniform, monotone, differences buried. She knows that underneath the ice and snow nothing is so perfect or unified. But for now, everything is the same, and she takes comfort in knowing that it stretches on unchanged for miles and miles.
Usually around the end of January, Kitty gets sick of the slush soaking her boots and the aching cold that permeates her clothing and stays for hours. Soon she'll be longing for just a glimpse of grass, but for now she enjoys the cold freshness of the weather. It makes her feel new.
