Considering who had been waiting on the other side of the door when Kitty had opened it the previous day, it was no surprise that she was hesitant to repeat her action when the doorbell chimed at 11 o'clock exactly. She looked through the halls, hoping to find someone to rope into playing butler, but when no one walked by for a full minute and the bell had gone off twice in the interim Kitty pulled the door open with a heart almost as heavy as the carved oak it was made of.
As Kitty assessed the visitor she was grasped by an uneasy surge of déjà vu, though the woman on the other side of the door looked nothing like Emma Frost. Her hair was brunette rather than blond, and her attire was professional but not ostentatious. "May I help you?"
Anti-Emma cracked a cold smile that didn't seem to mesh with the rest of her face. "I'm Agent Hill with S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm here to speak with Headmistress Ororo Munroe." She flashed an important looking badge and ID in front of Kitty before it vanished back into her jacket pocket.
"Is she expecting you?" Badge or no, all of Kitty's working brain cells were sounding warning sirens in her head.
"Not exactly, but she was informed that I would be stopping by this week. I'll need to be shown to her office." Agent Hill's voice had been brusque to start with, and was becoming less pleasant by the second.
Squaring her shoulders, Kitty let her instincts take over. "I'm sorry, but Miss Munroe is a very busy person and can't always be seen by unexpected visitors. She might be more willing to speak with you if I can tell her what you'll be speaking about." Her eyes narrowed. "Ma'am."
Hill lifted an eyebrow, and her expression resembled something like respect. "Fine. Please inform Miss Munroe that Agent Maria Hill is here to speak with her about an ongoing investigation."
"But I thought the interrogation wasn't until after he'd been assessed," Kitty blurted, giving herself a mental kick for showing her hand so soon.
"The interrogation isn't, but the investigation began immediately after Dr. McCoy's terms had been approved." Kitty's insight of her reasons for showing up gave her pause, and Hill was wary of revealing any more than she had to.
Backing up just enough to allow the female agent to step inside, Kitty closed the door and retreated up the stairs towards Storm's office with a twisted gut and a sinking heart.
XXXX
Storm and Agent Hall had been in the office with the door locked for almost an hour now, and though Kitty was dying to know what was going on (There's a joke in there somewhere, she thought wryly) she managed to refrain from eavesdropping again. Instead she busied herself with minor tasks-alphabetizing her CD collection, cleaning her desk, and now that it was lunchtime grabbing John's tray from the kitchen to deliver his lunch.
"Kitty!" Bobby called to her as she left the kitchen. "Could you do me a huge favor?"
"Bobby, I told you last time I'm not about to plant a hidden camera in the-"
"Nothing like that." He cut her off before she could finish her sentence. "That was ages ago, Kit, geez."
Kitty rolled her eyes. "Fine. What is it?"
"Will you start the bug scan of the primary lock program when you get down there? I'm supposed to run it today, and…I'd just rather not be there any longer than I have to be."
"Gotcha." Logan hadn't given her any details, but he had mentioned their altercation when Kitty asked him about the two inch thick sheet of ice that was still melting off of John's cell when she took him his dinner that night. "Yeah, it's no problem."
"Thanks, Kitty. You're a lifesaver." He gave her a peck on the cheek and was on his way.
John was asleep when she reached his cell, or so he wanted her to think; Kitty was willing to bet he was pretending. She left his tray on the tiny counter opposite his cot and slipped carefully through the door to start Bobby's scan.
Kitty was so intent on keeping her senses attuned to their captive and tightening the scan parameters (I should so be doing this instead of Bobby) that she didn't notice anything amiss until rough hands grabbed her arm and the back of her shirt and hurled her towards the cell door. Instinctively Kitty phased, passing through the door and-she realized a second too late-the circuitry that controlled the door locks.
By the time Kitty had risen back out of the floor, Rogue had yanked open the door to confront John, who was on his feet in a slight defensive crouch. "You're a goddamn liar," Rogue hissed. Before Kitty could react John had lunged for the only person standing between him and the outside world, and Rogue had met his advance with a well placed right hook.
"That is for bein' a sonovabitch," she yelled as he reeled backwards, stepping forward to backhand him across his right cheek, "that is for tellin' my boyfriend I'm a whore, and this-" her blows had knocked him off balance, and as he toppled over she nailed him square in the ribs with a vicious kick- "is for even implyin' that I'd touch you, with or without my powers." Though her target lay crumpled on the floor, her anger didn't seem to have subsided. "C'mon, traitor. You wanted a fight, didn't you?"
"Rogue, stop!" After being frozen in place with shock at what was happening in front of her, Kitty stepped forward to try and restrain Rogue from doing any more damage, but she stopped when angry eyes glared at her from behind disheveled white and brown hair. Instead she dropped to her knees next to John to assess his injuries.
Logan's heavy footfalls sounded seconds later, and when he saw that Kitty was tending to John, he wrapped a hand around Rogue's upper arm and hauled her out of the cell, with minimal protest from the perpetrator.
After they had left John strained to pull himself into a sitting position, waving Kitty's hands away from the bruises that were becoming apparent on his face. Swiping the back of his hand across his mouth, he cringed and then laughed at the smear of blood on his knuckles.
"Didn't think she had it in her," he managed to choke out, still trying to pull the wind back into his lungs after it had been evacuated by the steel toe of Rogue's boot. The smile on his face was as close to mirth as his mouth had ever been. "Guess we know who wears the pants in that relationship."
His flippancy made Kitty grimace with disgust as she helped John to his feet and guided him towards his cot.
XXXX
"What the hell was that all about?" Logan snarled as he plopped her down in a chair in his office.
Rogue stared him straight in the eye, refusing to feel shame. "I was just givin' him what he deserved."
"We've got Fuzzy trying to keep the heat off us in the White House and a government agent on the property. I don't think you understand what exactly is going on here, Marie." He paced in front of her like a nervous animal, something she'd never associated with him before.
"I understand that we've got one of Magneto's henchmen locked in the basement, and everyone keeps treatin' him like some glass doll, fallin' all over themselves to try and prove he isn't so bad."
The spite in her voice made Logan stop his pacing. "What's this really about?"
His sudden concern set her off kilter, and the steel in her eyes wavered. "What d'you mean?"
"I mean I didn't think you were all that big on vigilante justice."
"I learned from the best." She regretted it as soon as she'd said it-the curtain of indifference came crashing down over Logan's face, and he turned to leave the office.
"Get in your room and stay there until you hear different. I've got to talk to Ororo about disciplinary action."
"Disciplinary action?" The words sounded foreign to her. "I'm bein' disciplined?"
"You think you can pull that kind of shit around here and no one's gonna say a word? Actions have consequences. Get used to it," he growled, and was gone.
"I thought you'd see my side of things," she called after him, but when a few silent moments had passed she left the office and headed back to her room with a heart heavier than she'd expected.