Author's Note: Okay, this one might be a bit different than what I normally try, but here goes!
II. Katherine Pryde aka Shadowcat
Two weeks after their daring escape from the Goon Squad via Vanessa's awesome powers, Darcy found her second stray in the form of a sixteen year-old raiding their motel room fridge.
It was a rather unusual situation to walk in on, as she had been sure she'd locked the door before she'd headed out for the midnight coffee run, and she had used her keycard to get back in. None of the windows were open, even if the room was on the first floor. She took a moment to absorb the strangeness of the moment, and she blinked when the girl emerged from the fridge with the bowl of leftover pasta from dinner.
Darcy was glad Jane was on the roof with Vanessa because the astrophysicist had been known to fight people over her intern's homemade pasta.
Then the girl turned around, Darcy got her first good look at her, and the young thief froze as she noticed that someone was now in the room. It was a bizarre tableau that didn't last long because Darcy's mothering instincts fairly roared when she saw how thin the girl looked and the torn, dirty state of her clothes.
Blue eyes narrowed, and the girl began to look even more scared than she had previously before Darcy said bluntly, "Sit down and wait, that pasta is no good cold. And you need veggies, girl, you're skin and bones!" So it was decreed, and so shall it be, because the moment she finished speaking Darcy turned into a culinary whirlwind, snatching the pasta from the girl and grabbing bowls and plates from their places on the counter.
Ten minutes later and the young thief looked a bit shell-shocked as she stared down at the plate of warm pasta in front of her, and just as Darcy set a small bowl of green beans next to her the smaller brunette blurted out, "Why are you being nice to me? I totally broke into your room. I could be a murderer for all you know!"
Darcy just gave the girl a Look over her glasses, and the girl had the grace to look a bit abashed because yeah, that was kind of unlikely.
The teenager quietly ate her food, making a soft, surprised noise when she tasted the pasta. Darcy smiled smugly as she set a glass of orange juice down next to the bowl of veggies.
Of course just as the teenager finished the pasta and started on the green beans Jane and Vanessa came inside to ask what was taking so long with the coffee and things really got confusing.
Jane ended up tackling the sixteen year-old when she made a run for the door.
Her name was Katherine Pryde, they learned when things calmed down some, but her friends called her Kitty, not that she had a lot of those anymore, she had added quietly.
Apparently Kitty had run away from home after a giant fight with her parents - what the fight was about she didn't say, and they didn't press - and she'd just been wandering around since, stealing small snacks from convenience stores to get by. Lately she'd been having a bad run of luck with convenience stores having better security, so she'd decided to take a chance and break into a seemingly-empty motel room and scrounge for food, which was what Darcy had found her doing.
The story had obviously tugged at Jane's heartstrings, not to mention what they were doing to Darcy's, and even Vanessa seemed sympathetic, which was how Kitty came to be pretty much ordered to stay the night.
Thank goodness that they still had Erik's old sleeping bag.
It turned out the Kitty was a whiz with electronics and could even get Jane's old, notoriously finicky laptop to work right. Darcy nearly cried when the computer crashed and Kitty was able to both resuscitate it and recover all the data.
One night turned into two, then three, and before anyone knew it a week had passed and it was time for them to pack up the equipment and move on.
The entire time Darcy and Vanessa organized data and Jane packed up the pieces of equipment she'd moved into the room Kitty had fidgeted, an upset look on her face as she chewed on her lip. The teenager was wearing one of Darcy's old shirts (it had shrunk in the wash and rather than throw it away she'd given it to Kitty, since Thor knew the younger girl needed it) and a pair of Jane's pants with a hole in one knee. Several times she opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it before making a sound, and Darcy was starting to get worried.
Surprisingly it was Vanessa who approached Kitty about it, if by 'approach' you meant walking right up to her and saying, "Quit fidgeting, girl, and start helping us pack. The sooner we get everything loaded the sooner the four of us can move on."
"Four?" Kitty frowned, her eyes moving over Jane, Darcy, and Vanessa, obviously coming up one person short before it hit her. "Wait, you mean I'm coming with you?" Her light brown eyes were starting to light up with hope, and Darcy had to quickly turn her attention to the papers she was shuffling before she gave into the urge to hug her.
Vanessa rolled her eyes, her tone conveying the perfect 'duh' as she replied, "Of course you're coming with us, who else is going to work that old computer that Jane insists on keeping the important data on and that crashes at least once a week?"
The teenager actually squealed and hugged the older woman before running over to hug Darcy and then Jane, who just blinked in bemusement.
It was only after Jane got an offer to consult at Tromso, turned it down, and then SHIELD showed up to strongly recommend she reconsider that they found out about Kitty's power.
They were pretty much stranded in the middle of nowhere and Darcy had wrapped herself in a cocoon of blankets when Vanessa muttered, "Something's going on, something they don't want us to know." And man if that didn't hit the nail on the head. There wasn't even a freaking T.V at the facility, and even Jane found it suspicious that the computers only connected to a database and not the internet.
Kitty had tried to get around the computer blockade, but had finally given up after five days of frustration, "There's literally no connection to the internet; it's a completely isolated network! Whatever's happening, they definitely don't want us getting news about it," she'd said, scowling as she glared out one of the windows at one of the SHIELD guards.
Their suspicions were proved right when, three days later, the jack-booted thugs keeping them company began to get agitated, muttering to each other, growing tense and casting furtive glances at Jane and to a lesser extent Darcy. The straw that broke the camel's back, however, was when one of the guards sneered at Darcy when she'd asked what was going on and snapped that it was none of her business.
It was barely twenty minutes after that that Kitty stood up and declared angrily, "Forget this, those lousy thugs aren't going to keep us here without an explanation!" and then proceeded to walk through the door, leaving the other three women in the room blinking in shock.
Kitty returned with the keys to one of the facility jeeps and a StarkPhone, the latter of which she used to log onto the internet and answer their questions about what was happening that they weren't being told about.
Apparently aliens were destroying New York and SHIELD was a bunch of dicks who didn't want to tell Jane that Thor was back. The astrophysicist promptly got very, very pissed off as she snapped orders, "Grab everything essential and screw the rest, we're getting out of here. Kitty, can you make other people pass through doors too?"
The teenager paled as she realized what she'd done in full view of the others, but recovered quickly when a glance around showed that no one seemed to be freaking out. "Um, yeah, as long we move fast, and it tires me out a lot if I try to do it too often," she said slowly, frowning in thought as she automatically began gathering up the datasheets on the desk next to her, Darcy and Vanessa doing much the same thing.
Jane nodded sharply, "Good, if they try to stop us from leaving that will be a trump card. For now though, download all the data we've gathered from those computers and make sure there's not a trace left. Like hell we're going to let those SHIELD dicks have access to my research after this!" They all jumped into action like someone had hit the fast forward button on a remote - Jane's tone of voice was sending warning alarms through them and they didn't want to be the ones to push Jane over the edge.
Fortunately enough for their escape, the jack-booted thugs were too distracted by what was happening in New York to pay attention to the four women they were supposed to be guarding and they were able to practically waltz out of there, no powers needed. They also stole the largest van they could find to transport the equipment, but did it really count as stealing when Kitty got them the keys?
They unanimously decided that no, it didn't count as stealing, not after all the trouble SHIELD had put them through. Kitty had also left the thugs a nasty computer virus for their trouble when they inevitably tried to recover some data from the network.
After spending half the drive to the nearest city with an airport in stony silence, Kitty cracked, blurting out, "Okay, so, um, I have this power that lets me go intangible and pass through solid objects. Doesn't have to be doors, I can go through walls, floors, just about anything. I ran away because my parents didn't want to have to deal with having a freak for a daughter, and I heard them talking about sending me away to some boarding school." She had said all of that with hardly a pause for breath, so she was panting slightly by the end.
Darcy was driving, so she was unable to look back at Kitty for too long, but Jane was in the back with the teenager and promptly made Darcy wonder if she was telepathic when she hugged Kitty exactly how Darcy had wanted to. "Hey now, it's all fine. You're one of us now, so you don't have to go anywhere," the tiny scientist soothed as Kitty let out a few sniffles, but amazingly didn't cry.
In the front seat and after exchanging a glance with Darcy, Vanessa shrugged nonchalantly and said, "I can shape-shift."
A pause.
"That's really cool."
