Chapter 2: Flying and Talking
Twenty-five minutes later, Kurt and Logan were in the air en route to Mississauga, Ontario, a suburban extension of Canada's largest city, Toronto. For nearly 48 hours now, a terrorist group known as the Humanity Brigade had been holed up in an abandoned office building with a group of between 20 and 30 hostages from a local community shelter known for its outreach programs for mutants. Among the groups' obviously outlandish demands were the immediate institution of a Canadian mutant registration act and sanctions against Canadian mutants' reproductive rights. If the Humanity Brigade didn't receive confirmation of those political reforms from the Prime Minister by noon that day, they had promised to start killing their hostages.
Local law enforcement had been reluctant to breach the position given the difficult territory and the large number of hostages. Yet it was 24 hours before they decided to reach out to the American government for help contacting the X.S.E., and another 6 hours after that before the government finally called Storm. A dawn assault had been decided late the night before. It was unconfirmed whether any of the hostages were dangerous mutants, though the possibility was slim that any of them were mutants at all; while the shelter did reach out to mutants, the vast majority of its aid recipients were still merely human. In reality, the situation was a bit outside the X.S.E.'s mandate. Ororo, though, knew a good public relations opportunity when she saw one, and, anxious to establish the X.S.E.'s international credibility so close to home, she had offered the services of senior agents Nighcrawler and Wolverine to resolve the situation.
Given that they would be relying on his teleportation powers to navigate the abandoned building the terrorists were using as their base, Kurt was in charge of the operation. They didn't anticipate any problems—a couple of dozen fifth-rate terrorists against two of the most seasoned X-Men wasn't expected to be much of a contest. The plan was non-lethal submission and, more importantly, zero casualties among civilians or hostages. Kurt and Logan were to land the Blackbird at a private strip at the Mississauga airport where they would be escorted the rest of the way by local authorities. Via Kurt, they would create their own surprise insertion point once they reached the target.
It was a short flight from New York, just half an hour in the Blackbird. Kurt and Logan spent the first ten minutes reviewing the details of the mission before settling into their own particular brand of catching up.
"So you're not sleeping, huh?" asked Logan.
"I'm sleeping," said Kurt. "I'm just not sleeping well."
"Bad dreams?"
"No, nothing like that. I don't know. I'm just not feeling very optimistic these days, I suppose."
"That's not like you."
"Isn't it? I don't know anymore…"
"Cry me a river, elf. At least you're not still trying to lay everything at the Lord's feet and forsaking the company of the fairer sex."
"I might have given up the priesthood, but I still believe in God," Kurt reminded him.
Logan shrugged. "Makes me sleep easier, anyway, seein' you less guilt-ridden."
"Guilt-ridden?" Kurt echoed, not quite incredulous. It was far from the first time he and Logan had argued about religion. "That's really how you think about my faith?"
"That's how I think of you spending a year and a half being celibate. You weren't sleeping too well then either, as I recall."
Kurt tried to meet Logan's gaze but his friend's eyes seemed lost in the clouds beyond the windshield. Logan was projecting an air of almost deliberate casualness, leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, working a toothpick back and forth between his lips.
"No," Kurt admitted, not a little hesitatingly, suspicious of Logan's motives. "I guess not."
"'You guess not,'" Logan smirked. "How long after you left the priesthood before you called Amanda?"
"Logan, please."
They both stared forward at the deep grey dappled clouds.
"Four days."
"And?"
"And what?"
"Year and a half's a long time…"
"What is that supposed to—"
"Just sayin'."
Kurt looked very busy for a moment examining some readings on the control panel.
"We didn't leave the bed for two days except to teleport to the kitchen for food."
"Ha!" Logan slapped him on the back.
Kurt grinned, succumbing to Logan's mirth. "She is a remarkable woman."
"But you never make it work."
Kurt's smile faded, eyes dropping once more to the controls. "Ach, it's complicated."
"Sure."
"No, I mean, complicated."
"Un-huh."
"We're both very busy."
"'Course."
Kurt looked at him. "You are driving at something. What?"
"Did I ask a question?"
"No…" Kurt faltered. "No, I guess not."
Kurt surveyed the clouds, the controls, his own white-gloved hands.
"I'm getting something to drink," he said after a moment. "Want anything?"
"No, I'm good."
He returned with a Vitamin Water.
"Those any good?" asked Logan.
Kurt shrugged. "It was in the fridge."
Logan leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the dash.
Kurt eyed the dangerous proximity of Logan's boots to a slew of delicate controls. "Good thing Scott's not here."
"Yup."
Kurt sipped his water. "Amanda knows me too well," he said finally. "We know each other too well."
"Doesn't let you get away with anything, huh?"
"Nein."
"That her problem or yours?"
"Both."
"Diplomatic."
"Yes, and it's the truth. It will work for a while, and then we drive each other crazy—the wrong kind of crazy. The last time we broke up, it was after a period in which we were not only siblings and lovers but teammates. For a while it was wonderful. And then it wasn't. I still don't even know what happened. She broke up with me through Peter. But then, her body might have been possessed by my foster mother at the time…"
"Um… what?"
"Please don't ask."
"Fair enough." Logan used his tongue and lips to shift the toothpick in his mouth to the opposite corner. "I've never been too good at that either. Lovers and teammates."
Kurt denied the urge to examine Logan's face, determined to act casual. "You're thinking of you and Jean…?"
"Talk about complicated."
"I would have to agree. What is it with you and redheads, anyway?"
"Let's not go there."
"Agreed," Kurt assented earnestly, deciding to change the subject. "How's Kitty? I rarely get a chance to see her anymore. I hear she's really come into her own."
"Not surprising."
"No. She's always been more than capable, one of the bravest people I've ever met. It was just a matter of growing up."
"Remember when we razzed her about wrecking the Danger Room fending off the brood? Hard to think of her now as the same kid that ran away crying from being laughed at by the likes of us."
"I felt very badly about that," said Kurt seriously. "She was very young. She deserved our support."
Logan snorted. "She also deserved a wake up call. Remember how she treated you those first few weeks? She'd practically flinch every time you came in the room."
"Yes, but that's something I'm used to. I should not have let it get to me."
"Nobody's got the right to treat you that way, elf."
Genuine surprise overcame Kurt's determination to remain casual. When he looked at Logan the lines around his liquid, golden eyes conveyed a mixture of compassion and confusion.
"Where did that come from?"
Logan shrugged. "Maybe I missed you."
Kurt blinked. "I… Missed you too, Logan."
"You want to start our descent?"
Seeing that they were, in fact, approaching their coordinates, Kurt returned his attention to the controls, this time in earnest.
"Starting descent."
Once they'd landed, expecting the usual dressing down by the local law enforcement, Kurt was pleasantly surprised that Logan generated hearty, welcoming handshakes all around, a somewhat ridiculous rehearsal of "local boy makes good." Kurt, however, did garner a few of the customary slack-jawed stares and equally obvious attempts not to stare. More often than not, Kurt found such reactions more comical than threatening. Regardless, though, he did his best to finesse the situation with plenty of smiles and a jovial attitude—in his experience, just the act of speaking to people usually did a lot to convince them he was neither monster nor beast.
"Whew—All that getup and you can also disappear from one spot and reappear in another? Just by thinkin' about it?" quipped one brave, particularly sage young officer.
"Ja," Kurt grinned. "Remarkable, isn't it? Now, let's get to work."