The Warrior with No Name
By The Odd Little Turtle Named Froggie
(AU Character study while I'm going through writer's block on my Tomb Raider fic. No continuity- AT ALL. And this doesn't really have a plot. Just writing what my muse tells me.
If Marvel made them up, that's who they belong to. I made some up too. Story's strictly for fun. Inspired by a few fics floating around ff dot net, Christine Feehan's Predatory Game, and my intense love for Colossus and Shadowcat. Spreading the love.
Be aware that I'm experimenting with tenses and points of view. I would appreciate some input. Happy reading.)
#
I am not sure what came over me. She was but a slip of girl, not tall but small and dainty. Her clothing and hair was saturated by the time I'd seen the driver race away angrily. She was not afraid of me. In the middle of nowhere, soaking wet and looking like she could take on the world. She probably could. It was in her eyes. The haunted way they watched me. I didn't know her age or name, but I felt compelled to converse with her, to help her, to protect her.
What the hell is wrong with me?
#
Kitty looked at the stranger, willing herself to relax. She could take him if she needed to. "Smart? I'm stranded, drenched and lost. How was that smart?"
The man was cloaked in a long black trench coat, his pale face and hands the only skin showing. Kitty took in his compelling blue eyes, his reserved handsome face. There was an air of isolation in his tall figure that Kitty couldn't place. She also got the feeling she should know him.
Before he could answer, there was a sickening sound of metal on metal and she instinctively knew that Wally the Worm had gotten into an accident. A shadow passed over them. Looking up, the silent figure of Spiderman headed in the direction of the wreck.
"I guess he can handle it without me," she said as gust of wind chilled her to the bone. She shivered.
Piotr Rasputin watched in awe as the Spiderman passed overhead toward the sound of the metal on metal. Thirteen years ago, Piotr would have gone to assist, but Piotr was no longer the X-man known as Colossus, no longer a hero. He looked down at the shivering girl, wondering what she meant, but didn't press the issue. She looked no older than a child, but her eyes… Those were not the eyes of a child, but a woman, a woman who had seen too much, had been to too many places. Her wide-eyed innocence was merely a smoke screen. He took a breath, then another and closed the distance between them. Though his back was now getting soaked from the rain, he sheltered her with his umbrella.
"Piotr," he told her in way of introducing himself. "I am called Piotr. You should not be in the street, in the rain, little one." He extended his hand.
Kitty nodded an agreement, eyed his extended hand, and then took it firmly in her own. Actually, his hand engulfed hers almost possessively.
"I'm Katherine, but I've been called Kitty since I was three."
"It is nice to meet you."
She decided she liked his voice, velvet-edged and strong with a thick European accent. "What are you doing out at two-thirty in the morning?" she asked conversationally as he guided her back to the sidewalk, a strong hand on her shoulder, and down the block to his apartment building. "I was getting dumped by an exceptionally bad date."
"Monahan's. Manhattan." His voice was a velvet murmur that sent her pulse skittering.
Kitty waited for him to elaborate and when he didn't her mind raced to ask another question. "Why are you helping me?"
He regarded her quizzically for a moment, his icy blue eyes searching her face. "Would you prefer I didn't?"
"Help is good." She gave him a wide grin.
Piotr's mouth twitched with amusement and he chuckled, a deep rumbling that started deep in chest and rippling outward warmly.
"Here we are." He dug into his pocket for his keys, wary of the girl as she looked up at him with curious brown eyes. Awkwardly, he cleared his throat. "It isn't much."
"It's dry, right?"
"Da. Very dry."
Before he could put the key in the keyhole, the door opened to reveal a bleary-eyed old woman. A trail of blood trickled from her temple. "Mrs. Brogan?"
"Peter?" His land lady looks up at him hopefully. Tears prickle her eyes. "They—they stole everything."
"By the White Wolf." He hands the umbrella to Kitty and takes the older woman under her wing. "Have you called the police, Mrs. Brogan?"
Mrs. Brogan seemed confused, disoriented. "What?"
"The police," Kitty urged. "If someone stole your things, you'll need to report it."
Mrs. Brogan squinted at Kitty, eying her suspiciously. "I know everyone in this building and all of their relatives."
#
I was glad Kitty was there. Mrs. Brogan was injured. I had to explain to the poor woman who Kitty was, when I didn't even know who she was. I will go to visit Mrs. Brogan in the hospital just as soon as I am sure that Kitty is safe.
Is it okay to wonder if she will give me her number? I would like to stay in touch with her. She is not the type of woman to want a one night stand. There is something different about her. She is delicate and witty and has an inner strength that I have only seen in one other woman and that is Ororo Monroe. Even Jean does not have the integrity Ororo has.
I wish that Ororo had been at Monahan's with Logan but she had been away with her team. Logan said she was looking for a missing teammate codenamed Shadowcat. Apparently this Shadowcat is just as impressed with Xavier's dream as I am. (That is me being sarcastic.) And it also seems that Xavier is no longer at the mansion but on a sabbatical of some sort.
I've only seen Logan's eyes soften when speaking of Jean or Mariko. Shadowcat must be very special to him.
#
Piotr ran a large hand through his thick black hair, eyed the elderly woman on the stretcher. "Will she be okay?" The question was directed to the tall blonde woman in the EMT uniform that was taking Mrs. Brogan's vitals and helping her partner load the old woman into the back of the ambulance.
"It's a concussion," the EMT told him quietly, her green eyes meeting his blue ones. "Are you her family?"
"Nyet. No. I am only a tenant. This has been my home for more than ten years now. When Mr. Brogan had the heart attack that killed him, I drove Mrs. Brogan to the hospital."
"We'll do our best."
"I've contacted her son, but he cannot get here until morning. Which hospital will she be in?"
"Weiler."
"Peter, maybe you should with them." Piotr looked down at Kitty. She looked so tiny and fragile standing there in his oversized trenchcoat, her hair still damp from her earlier soaking. He started to argue with her. "I can call friends to pick me up." She didn't look too happy about having to do that.
"It is not my place," he told her, holding up a hand to silence the protest already forming on her lips. "Mrs. Brogan is not family. They would not let me see her anyway. David will be here in the morning. I will go with him when he gets here. You, however, I can help. You have been in the air conditioning too
long and will catch your death if we don't get you a dry change of clothes." His fingers took her arm with gentle authority and he guided her up the three flights of stairs to his apartment in silence.
He unlocked the door and as he stepped in and flipped on the lights, Mikhail greeted him with her normal authority, running to him mewling, rubbing against his pants leg. "I am sorry I am so late getting home," he told the two year old cat as he stooped and scratched her back.
"You have a cat?" Kitty watched the interplay between human and animal in wonderment. She never would have guessed the big guy had a cat. A small, secret smile played across her lips. The animal came to see her next. She was very curious about the visitor, sniffing daintily like only a cat could as Kitty caressed her silken back. She missed the nonchalant shrug that Piotr gave.
"Do you think I could use your shower?" Kitty asked suddenly, her voice sounded tired. "Wally the Worm left me feeling funky."
"Funky." Piotr repeated the word. "Is that not a form of music?"
Kitty blinked. "That would be Funk."
"Ah. I've been America since I was sixteen, and I am still learning certain aspects of the terminology."
"How did you learn English?"
He drew his lips in thoughtfully. Piotr knew he couldn't tell her the truth, that Xavier had taught him telepathically, but he loathed telling her a lie. "I was taught in school," was the answer he finally came up with. Even after he'd said it, he knew it sounded lame, but it was technically the truth. She looked at him oddly, but didn't press the subject. He cleared his throat and pointed a thick finger at the hall in front of them. "The bathroom is just down the hall, second door on your right. I'll find you some dry clothing and get you a towel."
As she shrugged off his large trench coat, he was struck in awe of this girl, at her beauty. This dimunitive wisp of a woman stirred something long forgotten, something he should have been able to keep buried. He should have let her call her friends to get her and he should have gone with Mrs. Brogan to the hospital. He'd known her all of hour and already felt he'd known her much longer. When the door closed behind her, the pleasant expression he'd forced his face to wear melted into a scowl. He had a complete stranger in his bathroom. What the hell was he thinking? Obviously whatever he had been thinking, it wasn't clearly.
He was always careful not to bring a woman to his apartment. If he needed sex, he would pick a willing woman up at a bar and go home with her. But never would he bring her to his apartment. He almost had this evening. His waitress had been most appealing. But then Mrs. Brogan might have been dead by morning, so he was glad he had not given into the urge. There was also the fact that Kitty had been stranded not fifty feet from his home.
Piotr half-sighed, half-groaned, scrubbing a calloused hand over his somber face, and grabbed a clean towel from the laundry basket in his bed room along with a cotton tee shirt and a pair of boxers.
Knocking on the bathroom door, he opened it enough to put his hand and arm in. Steam billowed out, fogging up the narrow hall. "Kitty, here is a towel and something to wear. They are hanging on the door."
He shut the door closed without awaiting a response and padded to his bedroom, disrobing and throwing his laundry in the hamper near the door. He slipped into his pajama bottoms and threw on his pajama top, but didn't button it. There was no need. It restricted his movements while sleeping and he would be sleeping just as soon as Kitty finished her shower. He fed Mikhail and scooped her litter box, and then made his way to the first room down the hall way, his studio.
That's where Kitty found him, wedged into a papasan chair in the back corner of the room, one large leg curled under him with his black cat snuggled against him on his thigh, the other bent, a sketch pad in one large hand propped on his erect knee, a charcoal pencil in the other. His open shirt revealed a muscular chest covered with crisp dark hair. She took in his tempting, attractive male physique a moment, knowing the minute he became aware of her presence. Not that he looked up, because he didn't, but the way his body stiffened, the rich outlines of his shoulders straining against the fabric of his open shirt.
"So you're an artist?" Kitty stepped into the room, pleased that her voice revealed nothing of her inner turmoil, her brown eyes taking in his paintings. Piotr looked up then, not surprised that she was there. She'd been standing there as he finished his sketch of her.
"As you say," he replied, closing his sketch pad and putting aside. Kitty came to stand near an early oil painting he did of one of the few people he called friend.
"How—" she started, staring at it in wonderment. There was the man known as the Wolverine glaring balefully back at her. Logan taught her everything he knew, practically raised her as his own during her time as an X-man—er, X-woman. She looked at Piotr, the question shining brightly in her eyes. "How do you know Logan?"
#
(Input is welcome. That's all I can think of at the moment. I'll continue this as I think of it.)