The Warrior with No Name
By The Odd Little Turtle Named Froggie
(If Marvel made them up, that's who they belong to. Spreading the Colossus and Shadowcat love because Pete Wisdom and Kitty Pryde seriously scared me.
Thank everyone for the reviews. I appreciate any feedback anyone has.
Just a reminder – I'm experimenting with points of view. Be afraid.)
#
April 3rd
Dear Diary,
Well, here I am again: Katherine Pryde, ex-X-man, girl genius, and all around doofus.
I met a man. An attractive European man. He was kind enough to take me in out of the rain. Okay, let me explain this one. This one is a doozee. But a girl's gotta get out, you know? First, Sal—you know, the tiny bald chick with the piercings? The owner of Riff's on the River? The one I told you digs other women—Well, she saw I was lonely and set me up with this guy named Wally Corbin, Corbun, Corborn, Corburn? Or something like that. So, Wally took me to this awful little place in Queens, then he drives me to the Bronx. The Bronx! Sheesh. If he'd actually driven me to an area of the Bronx that was rundown, then I'd worry, but he drives me to the Park. Near Andrea's place. And threatens to leave me there if I don't put out for him. Ew! So I get out of the car—in the rain! –and Wally the Worm drives off. And that's when I met HIM!
I can't even begin to spell his name. For spelling sake, his name is Peter. I don't even know his last name.
#
"How do I know Logan?" Piotr blinked at the beautiful girl standing in front of him. It was a huge revelation, but he still had trouble drawing his blue eyes away from her lithe tanned legs. He sighed, scrubbed a large hand over his face and set his sketch pad aside. His mouth felt like old paper, dry and dusty. By the White Wolf, how could he be so stupid? "He sent you, didn't he?"
It was Kitty's turn to blink. "What?" Her mind raced with questions. What did she really know about this man? Not much, she realized. Why would he think that Logan sent her? Was this big guy on Logan's hit list or something? Logan didn't need her to take out his enemies. He could do that just fine, please and thank you.
With relish.
And berserker glee.
"Logan set this up, didn't he?" Piotr pressed, his voice hard, awaking Mikhail by picking her up and setting her on the floor. The black cat blinked up at him sleepily and protested by way of meowing. He rubbed her back apologetically and stood, closing the distance between himself and Kitty, towering over her much smaller frame. "Logan knows me very well. I thought I knew him just as well." He shrugged his huge shoulders, his eyes flat as he gazed down at her elfin face. "I guess I was wrong."
Her face clouded with uneasiness. Smothering a groan as she realized how convenient everything looked, she stepped back, looking up into his blue eyes. "Piotr, I haven't seen or spoken to Logan in over a year. The last time I saw him was at a funeral."
Kitty closed her eyes, her heart aching at the remembrance of her lost love. For a moment she couldn't breathe so great was the pain. She gazed up at him in despair, looking too young and too fragile, and against Piotr's better judgment took her at her word.
"The last time I saw him was earlier this evening," he admitted, remembering speaking with the feral man at the bar in Manhattan. Logan had asked him to come back to the X-men earlier that evening. Even now Piotr was considering the offer, weighing his options. He was in serious need of training.
"There aren't many of us left," Logan gruffly had told him. "They're calling it M-day."
Piotr wondered if Kitty knew of Logan's mutation, and he wondered if she were perhaps a mutant as well. At least then he would have something in common with the petite woman besides the man known as Wolverine.
"Well, if you saw him tonight," Kitty began coldly, then thought better of it and heaved a sigh. "If you've known Logan for as long as I have, then you know that Logan honors whatever decisions his friends make."
"Da."
She indicated the painting of Logan with a flick of her small hand. "It's a nice painting." In fact she thought it was a damn good painting. It captured everything that made Logan—well, Logan. From the tense, bearded square jaw and enormous frown, to the cold steel of his eyes and thick brows drawn together angrily, she could imagine Logan telling Piotr what he could do to himself, when, where, how and why he should do it. She bit her lip to stifle a grin.
"Thank you." Piotr's heart thudded once, then settled back to its natural rhythm. He wrenched his eyes away from her face, her lips, gazing at Logan's portrait. He cleared his throat. "That is actually a recent painting from an older sketch. The sketch I did years ago while in school."
Her head flew up in shock, her eyes meeting his questioningly. "You knew Logan in school?"
He tried to put the matter aside with sudden good humor, his mouth curving into a captivating smile. "You are a curious one." He crossed to his chair and flopped down.
"Just getting to know you," she told him with a shrug of her narrow shoulders. She found it impossible not to return his disarming smile.
"How do you know Logan?" He leaned back in the papasan chair, sizing her up.
Kitty's face closed off, becoming neutral. "He trained me."
Whatever answer Piotr was expecting, Kitty knew that her reply hadn't been the one. She stood motionless in the middle of the room, her face revealing nothing. His face was a mask of astonishment. "You're an X-man?"
"You know the X-men?"
"Da. From the news," he said smoothly, with a casual shrug. "I never thought they would go public though." Piotr realized his folly as soon as the words left his mouth.
"Wait. Let's start from the beginning. You're--"
"I would rather not." He stood and yawned and stretched, the muscles of his chest and abs rippling. It took all of Kitty's willpower not to stare. "It's very late. I will fix up the couch for you."
She nodded as he crossed the room and out into the hallway, his long, sturdy legs propelling him with great speed. He could feel her sharp eyes boring into him as he walked away. He mumbled a steady stream of cursing in his native tongue as he searched his hall closet for blankets.
#
I'm stupid, Piotr thought as he gazed at himself in the bathroom mirror, his blue eyes flat and cold. White shaving cream ringed his chin and jaw. The cool razor grazed his stubble as he thought about the young woman sleeping soundly on his couch. Her eyes had haunted him in his sleep. She had almond colored eyes flecked with gold and green, but those eyes were those that had seen too much and too fast. His own innocence had been taken away by the fight for survival. If she were an X-man…He had an X-man sleeping in his living room. What the hell was wrong with him?
Piotr scraped more of his hair away, washing the foaming hair down the drain, remembering a time he'd tried so desperately to forget. When Godspoden Xavier had first asked him to join the X-men and come to live with him in America, Piotr had thought of all the good he could do for the world. Then he'd met Anya. He was amazed that after ten years, the hurt was still there. His first love. His only love. Her betrayal. He knew that he shouldn't blame Xavier for his hurt or any of his comrades. He was a man both blessed and cursed with being a mutant. It wasn't Xavier's fault that his wife had left him for being a mutant, that she'd taken their daughter away. Or that their daughter had contracted a virus meant only to kill mutants. And it wasn't Xavier's fault that he still lived in their old home.
He splashed the cool water over his face, purging himself of the ugly memories. He didn't want them, he didn't need them. Toweling his face dry, he decided that he would ask Kitty to leave as soon as possible. She shouldn't be here. Not with him. It didn't matter that she was a mutant, too. He left the bathroom with the intention of awakening her, of forcing her out of his home.
What would Mama say? He wondered. Oh, she'd grab him by the ear and give him a thorough tongue lashing. Naturally.
"Men are to treat women with respect," his mother told him once. "You want cooked food? You want your shirts mended and you underwear cleaned? Treat your wife like she is a precious stone, and she will love you and take care of you forever. And that includes your sister, Piotr Nicholaivich Rasputin!"
And Papa? Papa would take a twig to his backside. Mikhail would sternly say he deserved it. And Illyana would look at him crossly and tell him which finger to sit on.
So, instead of telling Kitty to leave, Piotr made her waffles.
#
(Ah, too much Shrek for me… Is it just me or does this story need more action? Comments welcome.)