Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men.
Before she knows it, the break is over and classes are resuming. Kitty, at the recommendation of Professor Xavier, enrolled in two classes at a nearby community college, the same one Piotr is starting art classes at. He's offered to drive her.
She looks over the schedule she's copied down—Data Structures and Algorithms, Discrete Mathematics. She thought she'd be nervous, and she is—but not to the degree she'd been expecting. It seems after everything, fears like the first day of school in a new place have become mundane. On the drive over, she and Piotr are both quiet. It's hard to believe that this will soon be their routine.
Trying to navigate a campus she's only been to once before, Kitty feels suddenly small again. This isn't her territory; she doesn't know the rules here. It takes too long to find classroom she's supposed to be in and she enters her first class a few minutes late. No one pays any attention as she tiptoes into a seat in the back row. She's been reduced to her former self: a child in a sea of adults.
It takes a long time for Kitty to fit herself into the role she has to play now. Spending so much time outside of the mansion feels strange. She has to remind herself constantly not to draw attention to herself, something she's always found as easy as breathing—but here, the countless tiny uses of her mutation that she doesn't even think about will turn heads, breed whispers. Her ability's become a part of her; hiding it again feels like a step backwards. But Kitty remembers the stares at her old school and makes her choice, cowardly as it is.
So she's gone back to being anonymous again, the too-smart girl hiding in the back of the class, trying desperately not to be noticed. After a few weeks it becomes easy to sink back into being invisible, so easy that it disturbs Kitty. She decides to compromise.
Eventually she finds a happy medium, a carefully calculated ratio of hand-raising and contributing, well-timed questions, opportune comments to her classmates. Fraction by fraction, she begins to settle.
It still feels surreal, being back in the world after so long. Professor Xavier's school is set up in such a way that it would be best if it were in its own little bubble, a completely closed-off environment. It can't work that way, obviously: they need groceries, repairs, new textbooks. But what John told Kitty only a year ago is true: she did get used to sparse interaction with the world outside.
On the drive home one afternoon, Piotr and Kitty get into a conversation about their classes. First Kitty attempts to explain to Pete what her classes involve, only eliciting bewildered expressions from him. Then he tries to tell her about the ideas behind his latest projects and she, too, can't even pretend to understand. This leads to a frustrated silence before Pete says, "Come with me tonight."
"What?"
"I'm going back to do some more work tonight. Come with me. I will show you what I'm working on." He smiles ruefully. "Perhaps that could be one step towards…understanding each other better."
Kitty can't help but laugh. "That was pretty sad," she agrees. "Sure. I would like that."
Honestly, she still doesn't understand art and has all but given up trying to, but the idea appeals to her: a nearly empty building, an evening quiet in stark contrast to the chaos of the mansion. Even if she just ends up sitting in the corner doing nothing, for that alone it'll be worth it.
Later that night, Kitty stands in the middle of the sculpture studio, admiring an array of works from Piotr's classmates as he tells her tidbits about them—and as five other rowdy mutants lounge in the background playing Truth or Dare, eating chips, and blasting music.
It was optimistic of Kitty and Pete to think they could leave the mansion without a few stragglers. With each minute they delayed, it seemed another student found them and tagged along. By the time they made it to the garage, they'd picked up Bobby, Jubilee, Sam, Rogue, and Elena, and narrowly avoided more hitchhikers by the sheer fact that the car they were taking didn't have any more seats. Pete's expression grew wearier with each new addition, but as soon as they'd reached his studio he'd been rejuvenated. The change in him made Kitty smile. She's always awed at the way art affects him.
The others admired his sculptures for a few minutes and then, one by one, began pulling up chairs and generally making themselves comfortable. Elena pulled a huge of chips out of her purse, Mary Poppins style, and Jubilee hooked up her MP3 player to the stereo in the corner. Rogue stays with Kitty and Piotr the longest, but now when Kitty turns, she spies the distinctive white-streaked hair at a table between Sam and Bobby.
Beside her, Pete observes, "They all have such short attention spans."
"Tell me about it," Kitty agrees dryly.
"I'm going to get some work done." He shoots her a small, amused smile. "You know, we leave the school all the time for classes, but they are hardly ever able to. They're just having fun. You should join them."
Kitty eyes her backpack, lying forgotten in the corner; then she looks at her friends, talking, laughing, and singing loudly (in Jubilee's case). "Yeah, okay", she says.
As Piotr slaps a lump of clay down on a table and begins shaping it, Kitty pulls up a chair just in time to hear Jubilee dare Sam to draw a penis on the studio's chalkboard. Rogue rolls her eyes and mutters, "Real mature", and Kitty's inclined to agree, but Sam hops up and completes the task without hesitation. He turns, grinning, and bows. Jubes claps until they all join in, even Kitty, after she snatches a handful of chips. They go another round.
An hour later, Kitty's sporting a blue acrylic mustache, Bobby has a set of cardboard devil horns, and Elena's empty chip bag has morphed into a Superman cape, which Jubilee wears around her shoulders. Sam's found a huge sheet of newsprint, and they're all sitting on the floor now, contributing ridiculous doodles. Piotr is still working at the other end of the room. It looks as though he's ignoring them, but Kitty can tell from his smile that he isn't. She's recently told everyone present about the time she was six and peed her pants right in the middle of kindergarten, she's flushed and covered in charcoal, and the taste of salt and vinegar is still on her tongue. It's definitely not the quiet night she'd envisioned, but even so, she's stupidly happy.
"Wow, Kitty," Bobby says from her left. "You still suck at drawing. What is that, a dragon-cow hybrid?"
"No, it's—" She shakes her head and elbows him. "You're one to talk, Drake. You made Rogue look like a monkey."
Rogue sits up suddenly. "Wait, that's supposed to be me?"
"Uh…" Bobby says, as Jubilee takes a look and starts laughing uncontrollably.
Elena leans over and begins sketching over the infamous drawing in a brave attempt to fix it. Sam starts drawing Jubilee, who starts drawing Rogue, who ruthlessly starts drawing Bobby, who starts in on a monkey version of Kitty—intentionally monkey-like or not, she can't tell. She's just reached for a pencil of her own when someone sits on the floor next to her. Silent but smiling faintly, Piotr bends over a corner of the paper to create his own addition. Kitty looks around at the ring they've made. And then she completes the circle.
On the ride back she somehow gets relegated to the backseat. It isn't too long a drive, but most of the students manage to fall asleep anyway. Kitty ends up wide awake with Bobby's head on her right shoulder and Jubilee's resting on her right, Sam and Elena unconscious in front of her. Rogue chuckles from the passenger seat.
"Might as well join them, Kitty," she says.
Instead, Kitty phases her top half. Bobby and Jubilee jolt awake as their heads drop rapidly. Jubes, of course, grumpily tells her off, but Bobby just waits until she's solid again and then rests his head back on her shoulder.
"Sorry, you're stuck with me," he mumbles sleepily.
Kitty rolls her eyes at the snickers from the front seat, but it isn't long until she, too, drops off.
Between this unapproved 'field trip' and the actual official field trip they take later that week, not to mention her college courses, Kitty's spent the most time away from the mansion since she first arrived. She's grown accustomed to the community college's campus, but she's still a little unused to the real world. Not to mention, the last field trip she took was actually way back last year, before the name Alkali Lake meant anything. She remembers wandering through the museum with Bobby and Rogue and John, falling farther and farther behind in her quest to actually read the displays, until she finally gave up and let them go on without her—how Bobby glanced at her every now and then to make sure she was still there, how his glances thinned with time. She remembers mazes of fossils and explanations and videos—remembers being lost, alone, in a nearly deserted exhibit; remembers the strange calmness that went along with it. And she remembers the strange spike of fear, not at being lost, but at being seen. Fear at the strangers in the other, more crowded exhibits, fear at them noticing her and analyzing her the same way she analyzed them.
A flash of her old life, again: invisibility, and being torn between wanting it and fearing its eventual outcome.
She shakes her head out of the memory—she isn't afraid anymore, she isn't—and takes in her surroundings. As far as field trips go, the planetarium isn't bad, even with a bunch of young mutant children generally misbehaving. Kitty wonders at the choice, since no one's teaching astronomy this year, but doesn't complain. The entrance is full of photos. They feel familiar—the stars she placed in careful constellations above her bed, what feels like a lifetime ago. The sight she stared at before going to sleep, every night for years.
Storm leads them into the theater: a dark slope of a ceiling, circular layers of lush seating, dimly glowing projection equipment like a bulky centerpiece. It feels vast, boundless. She shivers at the dip in temperature.
The show is actually pretty cool—Kitty likes the dizzying way the sky overhead shifts to show the different stars and constellations—but she falls asleep halfway through. She only wakes up at the end when Jones pokes her awake with a disapproving look. Embarrassed, she picks her way out of the seat and back onto the bus, where Bobby proceeds to tease her the whole way home.
Later that night Kitty stares at her blank ceiling and thinks about buying some of those glow-in-the-dark stars, even if they are cheap and unrealistic and childish.
They remind her of the world.
It's the cheering that draws Kitty downstairs. She's flopped on her bed reading when the noise reaches her and she decides to investigate. Following the commotion to the den, she discovers an arm wrestling contest that has converted nearly the entire student body into spectators. Piotr, obvious reigning champion, is seated at one end of the coffee table, opposite a line of contestants. Some kids mill around behind him furtively placing bets. Of course, hardly anyone is willing to bet against Colossus, so there isn't much actual betting going on.
Kitty gets in line just for fun while she watches. A flash directs her attention to the side: Jason, standing at a good vantage point, hoists a camera. He's been like a one-man swarm of paparazzi lately, roaming around the mansion clicking the shutter on the ancient camera whenever he sees anything remotely interesting. Kitty saw the last batch of photos Storm took to get developed, and so far he's already caught some good blackmail material. Kitty hopes his camera falls apart before he gets anything on her (not that she ever does anything interesting enough to be blackmail-worthy). The thing looks about a hundred years old anyways. Jason catches her frowning at him and winks before snapping a photo of Pete defeating yet another opponent.
Bobby's up next, shuffling confidently to the table. He and Piotr join hands, elbows stiff, and wait for Lyka to give the signal. Kitty watches their expressions: Pete's calm, impassive; Bobby's eyebrows furrowed deeply in concentration. And then it happens. It starts with his palm, flooding gradually into his fingertips and up his wrist. Kitty stares at Bobby's rapidly icing hand in shock, as does Pete—and his distraction loses him the game.
"You cheated," Piotr protests. "But also…how did you do that?"
Bobby stares down at his hand as it thaws back into muscle and flesh. "I'm not sure," he says slowly.
"Not fair!" complains Jubilee from her spot in line. "Your mutation was already cool."
Word gets around fairly quickly about Bobby—not terribly surprising considering half the mansion was in attendance when it happened. Now, students everywhere can be seen squeezing their eyes shut in concentration, muttering to themselves, meditating and jumping off things and running around, trying to achieve what he somehow did. It's a sight to behold.
The Professor calls it a secondary mutation. The name makes Kitty think of Jean, briefly: the only mutant she can knows of with what were essentially two separate mutations. Telepathy and Telekinesis are more distinct, though. Bobby's ice hand seems more like an extension, just a different sort of application.
It's making her think a lot, this secondary mutation thing. She spends some time in the library reading through the collection of books on genetics, particularly the subversive ones—the ones that were widely dismissed as nonsense because no one believed in mutants yet. Still they don't have much to say on that particular subject. The question Kitty keeps returning to remains unanswered: what if all mutants have the potential to develop a secondary mutation, but most are unable because they don't know what direction to take?
She thinks of her own ability, but the truth is that it already has more applications than she can count. Lately she'll walk through things and pause in the middle, taking a second to see what no one else can. Her awareness of her own mutation only develops and expands with time.
Bobby demonstrates his newfound ability for her. Even working with the Professor and Storm, he's only been able to extend it to his right elbow.
"It's not really useful for anything so far," he says.
Kitty shrugs. "Beating people at arm wrestling."
"Only if I catch them by surprise. Pete made me rematch and—" He makes a face. "Well, you know."
"Yeah, but that's Pete. You need to try someone less…formidable."
"Good point." Bobby waggles his frozen fingers. "Care to test it out?"
"Uh uh." She backs away. "I don't know how you roped me into that one, Drake."
"My awesome powers of persuasion," he retorts, but he lets his hand thaw back into its regular form. "All right, all right, come back. I swear I won't fight you."
Kitty wants to shoot back that she would totally kick his ass, but refrains in case he puts it to the test and she can't. Instead she sits back down. "Wait, I just thought of something. Do it again."
He obeys without question, which makes Kitty smile. She reaches into her backpack for the tiny flashlight on her key ring—Scott handed them out to Pete and her after a lecture on personal safety their first day at the college, even though all their classes were in the daytime—and points it at Bobby's hand. The light, fractured and dancing, projects out onto his shirt. She giggles. "Wow, you really are ice. Just…ice. I honestly can't explain that."
"Magic," Bobby says flatly. He looks less than amused.
She clicks off the flashlight. "Okay, okay, sorry. I promise you're not just a science experiment. And, you know. You're not just around for my personal amusement, blah blah blah."
"Tread carefully, Kit," he advises, though his tone has become playful. "I'm a literal iceman now."
"Oooh, scary," she teases, then lunges out of the way as he tries to tickle her.
Eventually she manages to steer him towards safer territory and ends up kicking his ass…at Halo.
It's around this time that something starts to happen to Scott. Whatever it is, it starts gradually: a few missed meals, some longer-than-usual motorcycle rides, an increase in the amount of videos shown in class. Soon Kitty can't help but notice the change in him, his demeanor, his nervous gestures. There's a spot on the back of his neck that he touches every now and then, but now his fingers fly to it constantly, and when they make contact the slightest grimace alters his face. He enters conversations reluctantly and contributes little; the pauses between his words are as vast and unfathomable as oceans. Once Kitty runs into him in a hallway and asks about an upcoming assignment and he takes too long to answer, as if her words have to travel a boundless distance to reach him. It makes her feel cold and she wonders, over and over again, what is happening. What has happened.
Scott catches her stare then and she can almost see him rush back into himself. "What?" he snaps. And Kitty, feeling guilty for turning him into an animal on display, shrinks back. She shakes her head and he walks past and she hopes fleetingly, but fervently, that loss—because it will come, she has to get used to the idea—doesn't do to her what it has done to her teacher.
Not long after that he withdraws even more, missing training sessions and classes, hiding out in his room. He's still around sometimes, but he isn't the man that Kitty knew. It's like his essence has detached and left behind an empty shell of a person.
He's outside himself and no one seems to know how to bring him back.
