BY MADRIPOOR ROSE
CHAPTER TWO: THE ANNOUNCEMENT
Rachel Grey raised an eyebrow as she entered the Yellow Parlor she'd been directed to, with Ororo Munroe and Kurt Wagner. The walls were plastered a richly tinted amber, and the gold damask curtains gave the room its name. It wasn't a room the X Men usually used for meetings, and in truth, this looked more like a party.
A low table was set with Champagne flutes and bottles chilling in ice buckets. The centerpiece was an elegant silver epergne crowned wit a swan made of ice, a cut glass dish of caviar held clasped between the wings of the swan. The upper arms of the epergne held cut glass dishes of chopped onion, sieved egg yolk, and curls of sweet butter, the lower ones held baskets of thinly sliced dark bread, and crunchy melba toast.
Trays of other hors d'oeuvres surrounded the elegant display. Stuffed mushrooms, tiny eggrolls, cheese puffs, skewers of bacon-wrapped shrimp fanned out, pate and crackers. Between the trays, the table was decorated with silk ivy and bowls of miniature marzipan fruit.
"Emma's certainly raised the tone of team meetings," Kurt said with a low whistle. "Scott used to just open a few bags of chips and pretzels and make onion dip."
Rachel looked over at Scott and Emma, noting that a certain group...the old guard...had been recalled for this meeting. Wolverine was talking to Rogue and Remy. Henry was leaning against a bookshelf. Peter and Kitty were by the fireplace.
Rachel winced. She'd never actually apologized for her behavior after bursting in on that intimate little tete a tete in front of the fire, not long after Peter's rescue.
She'd have to say something to both of them.
There was a brief babble of conversation, as teammates separated by duty greeted each other and commented on the room and the grazing station.
Scott cleared his throat for attention and everyone fell silent, expectant. "I'm glad we could all be here tonight. Usually we come together for tactical planning, only in times of defense or disaster... Tonight we come together in celebration..."
Rachel's eyes widened as a terrible thought struck her. Her erstwhile father was broadcasting the low level mental static telepaths could only block with some effort...fragments of subvocal thoughts, memory, emotion. The word, engagement, came through. Flashes of his wedding to Maddy Pryor. Regret. Hope.
"If he's marrying Emma, I'm moving to Schenectady and starting a psychic hotline," she muttered in an undertone to Kurt.
He swatted her lightly on the rump with his tail.
But the sudden flare of pure joy made her turn unexpectedly to the fireplace as Peter squared his shoulders and Kitty stepped up onto the hearth beside him.
"Katya has done me the honor of consenting to be my wife."
"We're getting married!" Kitty translated with a girlish squeal.
Storm's face lit up like a shaft of sunlight breaking through cloud cover. "Kitten! Little Brother! This is wonderful news!" She rushed forward to embrace them both in turn.
Kurt gave Kitty a quick hug and teased Peter about a long engagement, after their on again off again unrequited romance. Beast offered his congratulations and felicitations. Rogue joined Ororo and Kitty and made high pitched noises about the diamond ring, while Kurt, Logan, and Remy began loudly planning Peter's bachelor party and wondering how many strip clubs it was possible to hit in one night.
Rachel shook off the shock, walked over to Peter and gave him a hug, bouncing up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. "This is fantastic, I'm so happy for you both."
Peter gave the best hugs. But instead of pulling her close, he held her stiffly, almost at arm's length, and there was a sadness in his eyes.
Are you? He didn't have to say it out loud. Rachel could hear the thought just fine, could see his memory of standing to greet her, the first time he had seen her since his abduction, and she'd...pushed him away.
"Da, Dyadyushka Piotr," she said quietly. Yes, Uncle Peter. In Russian. Soviet Russian, with a Siberian Baikal accent, just like his.
His expression softened at that. They were standing by the french doors. Rachel asked with a jerk of her head, and they stepped out of the party onto the cool stillness of the stone terrace. She looked up at his handsome face and tried to find some way to explain, to apologize.
"I always forget how dark your hair is," was what she came up with. "You were mostly salt with a dash of pepper by the time I was born and as far back as I can remember, it was iron gray that turned to dark pewter when you armored yourself."
"Rachel..."
She shook her head. "I was being a brat. And I never really apologized. For hurting you. Coming back from the dead is a damn running joke around here, but it's not. Funny," her voice broke.
"Rachel," he said again, and this time she was enveloped in one of those Peter-hugs she loved. Strong arms wrapped around you, gently, like he could and would protect you from all the world.
"The only reason I really knew Scott and Jean as my mom and dad is because you and Kate kept their memory for me in the camps. Before I was taken for Bloodhound training. Always telling me stories about when I was little, and the X Men." Tears were stinging her eyes now. She blinked them away and pulled back out of the hug, looking up into Peter's eyes and willing him to understand.
"They kept us separated most of the day, the men and women. So I was with Kate more. And then, when sending Kate back in time worked, and we changed things, and I ended up here/now...Kitty was my first friend. My best friend."
She took a breath. "And it was stupid, and selfish. But I had just been through a rough patch in the Savage Land, and I was looking forward to seeing Kitty, to having a little X Girls Gone Wild time...and when I walked into our room...and saw all my things were boxed up and she was having a romantic evening in front of the fire with you...I was jealous."
"Rachel," he cupped her face with his large hands and gently wiped away the tears with his thumbs. "You and Katya are close. I will never come between the two of you, I promise this."
"I believe you. But I'll still feel like a third wheel. And maybe that was part of it. Kitty got her true love back. Me? Franklin's seven years old. And none of my other relationships have exactly worked out. It feels like...like Kitty's all I have." Peter looked concerned, so Rachel mustered a grin. "And my Uncle Peter back."
"And perhaps," he said it gently, "you found some small comfort in my seeming death by the Legacy cure? It was one more thing different in this world from the hellish life you knew."
"No..." Rachel stared at him, shaken. "No, I never thought that!"
"Perhaps subconsciously?" he saw how disturbed she was by the thought and relented. "No. Perhaps not."
"So, you and Kitty are getting married," Rachel made an effort to lighten her tone. "Guess I'm a little too old to be the flowergirl this time around. Have you set a date?"
"In spring, nothing more definite."
XxXxXxXxXxX
"We haven't set a date yet. We still have some planning to do," Kitty told Ororo, and smiled. "I bet whatever day we pick, we'll have good weather."
The mutant known as Storm laughed. "Of course, Kitty. It will be one of my gifts to you both."
"When I was a kid," Kitty admitted wistfully, "I kinda had my heart set on an outdoor wedding on the school grounds, in the formal garden or out by the lake. But Peter and I haven't really talked about it yet."
Kurt grinned impishly. "Too busy planning the honeymoon?"
Kitty and Ororo rolled their eyes, used to Kurt.
Kurt was innocently protesting that he simply meant picking a location. Kitty tuned him out, watching as Peter and Rachel stepped outside. She frowned.
It still stung. But she could understand Rachel's reaction that day she'd returned from the Savage Land and found Peter was alive. That Ord had faked his death and held him captive for two years.
Peter came back from the dead.
So did Betsy.
Even Wisdom.
And Jean...always died again.
Leaving behind a loving daughter who never really got to know her mother.
It wasn't fair.
Kitty made her way across the room, accepting congratulations and pausing to show off the ring, then went out onto the terrace just as Rachel buried her face into Peter's shoulder and he pulled her into a tight embrace.
"You know, a girl could get awful jealous walking in on a scene like this, if she had less faith in her boy and best bud," she quipped.
Rachel took a step back, and Kitty could see that she'd been crying. "Oh, hey," she said, uncertainly, and glanced up at Peter, trying to lighten the moment. "Waterworks? I know Peter getting engaged is going to make some of the students cry..." Peter shifted his weight. Kitty shook a finger at him. "I know you don't encourage it, but face it fella. You came back all broody and angsty and hunky and you're this generation's Wolverine. Deal with it."
Rachel began to grin. "You're kidding?"
"Nope," Kitty heaved a theatrical sigh. "Teenagers! There are five Colossi-chicks who follow him around and giggle and sigh," she smirked at her blushing bride-groom to be. "Unfortunately Scott put a stop to the Real People Fanfic. Some of the pwps were giving me good ideas."
"Katya!"
"Our lives are very weird," Rachel announced, like that was news to anyone.
"And we wouldn't want it any other way," Kitty agreed, taking Peter and Rachel by their arms. "Now let's get back inside and hit that grazing station before all the gourmet goodies are gone."
They went back inside and dutifully sampled a few tidbits, mingling with the other guests.
Kitty watched Rachel and Kurt flirt without realizing that that was what they were doing, and shook her head, wishing for once her two dear friends would open their eyes and see each other, for their own sakes.
Then again, it had taken her and Peter long enough to get it together and get together. Glass houses.
The party started to wind down, and they retired amid catcalls and ribald remarks from the last of the guests.
Kitty chuckled as Peter climbed the main staircase slowly, blinking owlishly at his feet and keeping a hand on the banister rail.
"A tad tipsy, are we?"
"Champagne is sneaky," he declared. "Bubbles. No drink that has bubbles should make you drunk."
"Lightweight," she teased.
He gave a contemptuous snort. "Katya. I grew up drinking vodka we made from potatoes that wouldn't pass quality for our quota. Could take the rust off a nail, our vodka. Champagne, it is like lemonade. Too sweet. And full of bubbles."
Kitty laughed. "So you're saying a real drink tastes like the hangover you're going to have in the morning?"
"Da. Exactly."
Kitty just shook her head. "My room or yours?"
"My room, my bed."
"Your bed is comfy. Lockheed's getting spoiled. I've been sleeping over so much he's getting my bed all to himself, lazy dragon," she followed Peter into his bedroom and glanced around with a sigh. "and we need to look at the bedrooms Scott offered, and choose one to move into, which means deciding what furniture we're keeping. There's one that overlooks the back garden, and one in the East Wing, the light's probably better there for your painting..."
Peter stooped to kiss her. "I like this room best right now. You are in it."
"One track mind," she teased, and started taking off her shirt.
Peter started to undo the buttons of the light blue oxford he was wearing, then snarled. The combination of alcohol and the late hour making his large fingers clumsy. "Hold still," Kitty ordered. "Let me do that."
She could have just phased the clothing off of him, but there was something simple and seductive and satisfying about sliding each faux mother of pearl plastic button free.
Peter fell into bed in his boxer shorts, while Kitty retrieved a silky knee-length sleep shirt from the drawer of his bureau where some of her stuff had migrated. A few midnight emergencies and you soon learned an X Man didn't sleep in the nude or wearing anything you couldn't fight in.
She tossed it on, and joined Peter in bed. They kissed, and she sat up to turn off the light, set the alarm, and activate the psiproofing. She settled back into Peter's arms. He kissed her temple as she snuggled down with her head on his shoulder.
"So I guess I walked in on something pretty heavy between you and Rachel."
"Da. We made up. We left things strained between us too long," he sighed. "She feared you would have no time for her, with me back in your life. And I forget too easily what she went through in her native timeline...why your friendship is so important to her. We both understand better now."
"I love you," she sighed.
"I love you," he replied, and there was a pleasant interval.
"It was a nice engagement party, don't you think?" she asked sleepily.
"Very nice."
"Ororo cried. Happy tears. But hey. We made Ororo cry."
"She was always very kind to me when I was young, and had first left the farm to join the X Men, adopting me as her 'little brother'. And you were a daughter to Storm, her Kitten." Peter chuckled. "And I fear I am in for more appallingly fatherly advice from Logan on that bachelor night he and Kurt were plotting."
Kitty giggled and gave him a comforting pat on the chest, remembering Peter's aggrieved confession that when they'd first started dating, lo those many years ago...Peter had been a little nervous when Logan cornered him alone. Expecting the paternally protective older man to warn him off. Instead, to their mutual embarrassment, Wolverine had brought a Playboy and took it upon himself to give the inexperienced farmboy a practical lecture on the birds and bees.
It was definitely Logan-logic. He didn't mind if Peter slept with her as long as he knew how to show her a good time.
"I'm a little worried about Emma. She got this psycho-socialite gleam in her eyes when we started talking about the wedding arrangements," Kitty confessed. "I think I trusted her more when I thought she was evil."
Peter snorted. Kitty poked him.
"Don't think you're getting out of the decision making process just because it's girl stuff. We've got a zillion things to do."
"I know. I will help," he shifted a little, reaching up to adjust the pillow under his head. "Tomorrow we start to make lists."
"I need to go to the bookstore and get some of those bridal magazines. Martha Stewart. They probably have suggestions for things we haven't even thought of yet."
"You need to call your mother."
"I will."
"Tomorrow?"
"Okay. Tomorrow." Kitty hesitated, and snuggled a little closer to Peter. "And...there's someone else I should probably call," she added, tentatively.
There was a long moment of silence. "Wisdom."
"It wouldn't be fair. When I went on that mission with the new Excalibur team...it hurt him that you were back, that we were back together...and he had to hear it through official channels. I should tell him that I'm marrying you in person."
"You're right. You should call him."
The tone was flat, and soft. Kitty wasn't sure how to read it. Then he rolled over and kissed her, a very normal kiss, and she relaxed.
"Was he...was he good to you?" Peter asked abruptly. And although he didn't come out and say it, she knew what Peter meant. Pete Wisdom, her second love and first lover.
Kitty thought about the sarcastic, selfish, self-destructive Wisdom, and sat up in bed, hugging her knees. "Was he good to me?" she repeated the question. "Not...exactly. But he was good for me. Does that make sense? We both hated ourselves, but loved each other," she mused. "It wasn't exactly a healthy relationship for either of us. But it was real."
"I don't like him," Peter muttered, breaking her out of her reverie.
"Yeah, the way you smacked him around like a tetherball was a clue."
"I don't like him," Peter continued, doggedly, "but you loved him, once, and he is important to you. So if you want to invite him to the wedding..."
"Oh, no. I don't think he's the 'let's be friends' type," Kitty smiled, and settled herself back in Peter's arms. "Though it might be a good way to earn a little quick cash. He'd provoke you, you'd end up trying to smother him in the wedding cake, and I'd end up dumping a punch bowl over your heads like throwing a bucket of water on two fighting dogs. We'd send the tape to America's Funniest Wedding Videos and probably win the hundred grand."
Peter laughed at that, and on that note, they both settled down to sleep.
XxXxXxXxXxX
Peter was in the small storage room that had once been a walk-in closet, counting boxes of oil pastels when the first students came in for art class.
"Because it's totally romantic! They've been in love, like, forever. Since they were our age, even! And they broke up,and he joined the bad guys, and she left the X Men for another team, then he came back, and so did she, and there was the Legacy thing where everyone thought he died to save us all, but that Ord guy kidnapped him, and then they found out and she went and rescued him, and now they're getting married. It's, like, fate!"
Peter smiled, hearing his life recapped through innocent fifteen year old eyes.
"Colossus is so hawt. You think they'll have the wedding here? And we'll get to see him in a tuxedo?"
There was girlish squealing over that.
"So anybody get the latest Logan Pool? Which teacher is he gonna flip out and attack next?"
"I've got five dollars on Mister Summers. Cyclops is a sure bet."
"I dunno. It's been a while since he went after Doc McCoy."
"This lady my mom works with says her husband saw Wolverine fighting with Spider-man in the Bronx last weekend."
"Doesn't count."
"Off campus, not faculty, doesn't count."
"And, like, Wolverine moonlights as an Avenger. So, was he fighting with Spider-man, or fighting, with Spider-man? So it doesn't count."
"Aw crap. The glue didn't work."
"The glue?"
"The glue! My project. My collage. Half of it fell off. Stupid glue."
"The Thing collage with the broken terra cotta pieces? I told you that was too heavy."
"I gotta ask for an extension. And some superglue."
Peter stepped out of the supply closet, and the students went quiet. "Good morning, class. Today we are going to have a free day. Those of you who wish to add finishing touches to your projects may do so, those of you who are finished and would like to get a head start on tonight's reading..."
XxXxXxXxXxX
Kitty grabbed a quick sandwich at dinner, and then went to her bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed, and stared at the phone.
She got up, dug a quarter out of her purse, and flipped the coin. Heads she'd call her mother first, tails Wisdom.
Tails it was. She dialled the contact number she had for him, waited for the identification and verification process, for the call to be rerouted and triple encoded.
A woman answered. Wisdom got the phone away from her after a few incoherent pouts and giggles.
"Hullo Missus Rasputin."
"You knew?"
"Way we left things, luv. Knew I might run into Shadowcat again on some official misadventure someday, but I'd never talk to Kit again, unless she was telling me she'd tied the knot with the soddin' man of steel," he gave a humorless laugh, "or the fickle fellow'd run off again and she was hoping to console herself in my waiting arms."
"Waiting arms?" she asked dryly.
"Tcha, blondes don't count."
Kitty filed that comment away for future use on Emma, and laughed softly. "Well, you were right the first time, near enough. Piotr and I are getting married."
"He making you happy, luv?"
"Very much so, yes."
"Well. All right, then. Do me one favor?" He paused, and she made an inquiring noise, warily wondering what that favor was, and half afraid he was going to ask her to delay the wedding and give him a second chance. "Gain a hundred pounds, become a nagging shrew, and make his life bloody miserable? For me?"
"Pete."
"Goodbye, Katherine."
She took a breath. "Goodbye," and ended the call. She flopped back on the bed, bonelessly, drained by the short but emotionally charged conversation.
"Right, Kitty. Let's get this over with," she said out loud, counted to ten, and called her mother.
"Hey mom, it's Kitty,"
"Kitty? Is everything all right?"
"Yes," she started, but was interrupted.
"Because this isn't really a good time, dear. I'm showing a house and my clients just went into the yard right now...why don't I call later when I can chat?"
"Okay. You remember Peter Rasputin? Colossus?"
"The Russian boy you had such a crush on, yes?"
"Yes. Um. We've been dating, and, uh, erm...we're getting married."
"Married! Kitty!"
"So! You go back to your clients, and we'll talk later tonight. Okay? Bye!" Kitty hung up, and immediately turned off her cell phone before her mother could call back, flopping again across the bed with a sigh.
After fifteen minutes she checked her voice mail and saw she had twenty three new messages from her mother. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and let the phone ring again. And answered it.
"Are you pregnant?"
"Mom! No! Geez, why would you even ask that?"
"Why? I don't know, Kitty, you call up out of the clear blue sky and you tell me that you are marrying this man, and I don't know what to think. What about college? Your plans to go back and finish your degree?"
"I'm still planning to do that."
Her mother sighed. "It's just. Oh honey, you're terribly young to get married."
Kitty smiled a little wistfully, "not that young." On the collective farm where Peter had been born, it wasn't unheard of to marry at fourteen. A farming community in the backwoods of Siberia needed large families to handle the workload of survival, and the earlier the start the better. When they'd first started dating, there'd been a bit of a culture clash over that, Peter gamely trying to treat the young woman he'd fallen in love with as the child American custom labeled her, although she'd been chafing against those restrictions herself.
"I don't want you to make a mistake," Kitty's mouth tightened at the unspoken like I did at the end of that sentence. "Of course, I don't really know Peter, so I can't say if I approve. I've only met the boy a few times."
"Maybe you could come up for a while, before the wedding? Get to know him, see the school, all of that?"
There was a silence, and Kitty swallowed sudden anger and offered, "or we could come down to Chicago, I can take him to Deerfield and show him where I grew up."
"No...I think maybe I should come up there and see the Xavier's place. It's been such a big part of your life."
Kitty's heart leaped at this, and sank again as her mother went on with new enthusiasm. "Speaking of Deerfield, do you remember Myra's son Tom? He's an orthodontist now, has his own practice, doing very well for himself. What kind of salary does superheroics bring in? You can't live on love alone, you know."
"Oh, being an X Man is more of a public service. We both teach here, and Xavier's pays very competitively with other top private schools. And Peter's making a name for himself in the art world. His last gallery show sold out, and the big canvases are going for ten thousand, so..."
"ten...thousand...dollars?"
"And a publishing company has been after him to do some commission work, they want paintings of alien worlds the X Men have visited, for some kind of coffee table book." Kitty told herself that it was immature to take such delight in surprising her mother and deflating her next argument and assumptions. But she did, anyway.
"Oh. Well. That's good to hear. Money can't buy happiness, but it can certainly smooth out some of the rough spots."
"I know, Mom. I'm not rushing into anything. We've crunched the numbers on getting a house, and starting a family, all of that. We're not going to starve."
"I haven't actually said congratulations yet, have I?"
"Nope."
"It's just that I worry. I worry about you so much, and most of the time I don't even know you've been in danger until it makes CNN. The possibility of a bad marriage...well, that's something I understand better than Sentinel robots or reality altering witches. Let me arrange my schedule, and I'll come out to Westchester and meet your Peter, yes? See if he's good enough for my little girl. I remember...when you interviewed for the school, and your first Hanukkah there, he seemed polite and personable."
"I'll call you this weekend and we can arrange the visit. Mom, you're going to love Peter. He's wonderful."
"He must be, if a wonderful girl like my Kitty loves him enough to marry him."
"He is."
"Bye, sweetie. We'll talk this weekend."
"Bye, Mom."
XxXxXxXxXxX
Peter had done a load of laundry and was moving stacks of underwear, rolled tube socks, and folded pajamas from the basket on the top of his dresser to their appropriate drawers. Kitty walked in, walked across the room to his desk, turned the chair around and straddled it, resting her arms on the chair back and her chin on her folded arms.
"I made my phone calls."
"Ah."
"Wisdom wished us well...in his own way," her lip curled slightly. "Mom flipped out."
"Ah."
"She flipped out, and she apologized for flipping out and congratulated us, and she wants to come visit and get to know you. And, by get to know you, I of course mean judging every miniscule aspect of my life for something she can disapprove of. Won't that be fun?"
Peter frowned. "You think your mother will disapprove of our marriage?"
Kitty shrugged listlessly.
"Will...do you think she will disapprove of me? Because I am not Jewish?"
Kitty sat bolt upright at that. "Uh, specifically, yes. You aren't Tommy Schlamie."
Peter raised his eyebrows at that, and Kitty sighed deeply. "My mom...on some level my mom really believed that all this...this X Man mutant superhero activist stuff was just a...phase...I was going through," she smiled sourly at her pun. "and I'd outgrow it, come home and marry the son of one of her friends, and pretend like I'm a normal person."
"I see." Peter said, bemused.
Kitty waved her hands. "Mom and I were never...I was a Daddy's Girl. And since I joined the team and they got divorced, she and I...she wants to get to know you, but the truth of it is that she doesn't really know ME. She's just got this mental image of what she wants her daughter to be labeled 'Kitty' in her head. And she's never been good at dealing with the fact that the picture doesn't match up with reality."
"Katya," Peter moved over to sit at the foot of his bed. "Come here."
She joined him, received a kiss, and leaned her forehead against his shoulder. "It'll be fine. She'll love you. Moms always love you. You couldn't have a better future son-in-law if you ordered him from a catalog. I'm just..."
"Flipping out?"
"Making myself crazy," she corrected. She closed her eyes, swallowed, and then looked up at Peter with a bright smile. "Hi honey. How was your day?"
"Not bad. Lie down, and I'll rub your back?"
"Oh, I love you."
"I love you."
The tension and tight muscles in Kitty's neck and back melted under Peter's strong fingers. She relaxed, moaning and murmuring appreciatively. One thing led to another. They kissed and undressed each other, making love.
Peter found himself pitching forward slightly as the thigh he'd been leaning against vanished suddenly.
He groaned softly, and sat up, opening his eyes. The bed was empty, and he was alone in his bedroom.
Smiling to himself and shaking his head, Peter rolled over and moved up on the bed, climbing under the covers and tucking a pillow under his head.
He yawned, and looked at the door expectantly.
And waited.
Panting, Kitty dashed through the closed door and stopped, glaring at him, and clutching her improvised garment around herself with both hands. It was something of a toga-like wrap, of an appealing silvery white gauze.
"Peter Nikolievitch! You've got to stop doing that thing with your tongue, no wait, you've got to start warning me before you do that thing with your tongue. This is just getting embarrassing."
"Is that a drapery sheer?"
"That isn't the point."
"I'm sorry, Katya," he said unrepentantly.
"You are not," she pouted, dropped her curtain and crawled back into bed. "You think this is funny."
"So did you, our first time."
"Yeah, well, you're not the one trying not to flash random students," Kitty paused, and giggled. "okay. Still funny."
Peter grinned and kissed his fiancee.