Being naked in a New York alleyway, with cars bustling along not twenty yards away, wasn't really all that fun.
Kitty was as kinky as the next mutant, having super powers inevitably found its way into the bedroom. How could it not? She could just phase out of her clothes, and had a boyfriend who could control the temperature. It was going to happen one way or another. This, on the other hand, was unpleasant and disconcerting. The people of the 1970's didn't need to see every inch of her bafflingly pale skin on display. Psylocke had shown enough skin for her and the rest of the girls on the team combined.
Uneasily, she rose to her feet, pavement rough on the soles. The journey through time had left her joints wobbly and weakened.
In three short steps she'd phased into the closest wall. Thankfully the bricks here were several feet deep, so she had space to sit, and contemplated. Staying inside things like that was actually rather relaxing. Her molecules were buzzing as they circulated and recirculated through the solid matter. It made her feel alive.
A moment later, she stuck her head out of the wall, peering down the alley.
She'd have to find Logan, fast, and take stock of their situation.
He was nearby, that much she knew. There was a tingling in the back of her head that was more than a little Logan shaped.
Suddenly, the sounds of shouting and gunfire sounded from somewhere above her. These were punctuated by the sound of least one arm breaking, an agonized cry, and the thumps of knocked out bodies hitting the floor. Kitty sighed. There he was.
Roughly a minute later the man called Wolverine stepped out the front of the building, gazing in awe at his new surroundings. He looked the same as he always did, ridiculous hair spiked up in two points on each side of his head, grizzled jawline and intense eyes. The only thing new was the suede leather jacket and the boots.
"Hey Logan!" she called, though not loudly enough to draw unwanted attention.
Thankfully, the man's animal-keen hearing picked it up.
He looked at her for a moment confused, before his expression became one of bemusement.
"I'm gonna guess your clothes didn't come with you, kid," he said with a smirk.
"You'd guess right," Kitty replied, fighting the urge to punch that smirk off his smug face. "Clothes aren't really part of me, so I came out of the stream without 'em. Little help?"
He held up a thick finger, still smirking.
"One sec, kid."
Several secs later, he returned with an armful of clothes she could only describe as skankerific. A ridiculously tight, nearly open blouse, flimsy sandals, and a pair of cutoffs so short that she may as well be parading around in her undies.
"You were sleeping with some mobsters daughter or something, weren't you?" she asked dryly as she inspected the new garments. She'd have to find a proper bra at some point.
Logan shrugged.
"I think so. Don't quite remember this. Shit starts to blur together after a while, ya know? But hey," he reached into his pocket and brought out a rabbits foot charm, key dangling from one end. "Got lucky."
"We're gonna need it," she took a deep breath. God there was a lot to process here. May as well work through it. "Let's get going, it's what an hour to Westchester? We need to talk through things."
Before long the pair was riding down the streets in a sweet convertible. One they should probably return at some point considering ti belonged to the mob, but then again, what mob in their right mind would screw with a bunch of mutants…..unless they were mutants themselves. There had been quite a few mutant gangs in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the sewer dwelling Morlocks being the by far the most numerous.
They'd been some of the first major slaughters for the Sentinels. Even with someone like Calypso looking after them, they hadn't stood a chance.
Kitty closed her eyes for a moment, letting the blurring shapes of passing building fall out of her sight.
It was hard to believe how normal things seemed in this time. Yes, the architecture was different, and peoples clothes were a variety of colors that had bled over from the society shaking sixties that had just passed, but still, things were too….normal. Was it really possible that the actions of one vengeance obsessed woman would send all of this plummeting towards Armageddon? That the final fate of two races depended on mending the friendship between two incredibly different yet equally stubborn men?
They were doomed if that were the case.
"What's on your mind, kid?" Logan asked.
Somehow he'd found himself a cigar. Because of course he had. The silvery smoke trailed from his lips in curling ribbons. Kitty would complain, but instead she just phased her nostrils out of corporeal form. That way she couldn't smell anything.
"I know that look, kiddo. Talk to me."
"This is it," she said after a long pause. "No more time jumps…. That part of my power is gone."
Like a muscle that had atrophied, the twinging, pulsing nerve in her brain that had facilitated going back in time had shriveled up and faded away, replaced only by the strange tugging sensation that helped her feel Logan's presence nearby.
"We won't need anymore jump," Logan said, reaching over and squeezing her shoulder. "We get this done, and everything's fixed."
She smiled a bit. He was lying through his animalistic teeth.
Hard as we would fight to see the mission through, he was as resigned to failure as she was. Fighting a war without any kind of hope would do that to you. All you could do was lie, push forward, and grasp at any sort of victory you could find.
"What do you know about Raven?" it was a question that needed to be asked. All she really knew about the blue shifter was about Mystique, and the few things she'd gleaned from conversations with either Kurt or the Professor. Her last days had been as Raven. The incredibly short amount of time she'd spent with the X-men after regaining her powers post "cure". Those days had ended in her sacrificial death.
"Not much," he admitted. "Never met Raven. Just the psycho she turned into."
"Didn't you meet the Professor about this time, though?" the Professor had mentioned that.
Logan snorted through his smoke cloud.
"Only technically. For about five seconds. Chuck and Erik were recruiting for the CIA, I think."
"Aaand you told 'em to take a hike."
"'Go fuck yourself.'" Logan laughed. "They just turned and walked away."
"Probably for the best. Who knows how bad the crisis in Cuba could have gone if you were there to mess it all up."
All Logan did was grunt in response. He let the steering wheel flow through his grip, turning the convertible down a steep boulevard that cut through the burgeoning forests of evergreen pines. Early morning sun rays just barely scraped the tops of trees, layering the street in ambient oranges and yellows.
"Any idea how we can convince Chuck to take down his sister….if necessary?"
That addendum was an acknowledgment of what they both knew. The Professor would want to save his sister, not stop her. They wanted the same thing, of course. Even Logan, and he had anough blood on his hands and beef with Mystique that if you'd asked years ago, he'd want to cut her fucking head off.
"We show him the truth," Kitty replied somberly.
She peered back out the window, orange draping her face. It was hard not to well on the lack of a pulse behind her brain. Her friend in the drivers seat gave off an ethereal blue glow in her eyes, the remnants of her powers that bound him to his body fifty years in the hypothetical future….a future she could never go back to.
The pulse was gone, but she could still feel the background radiation of time well enough.
When that went away completely, everything she ever loved would be truly erased. It was inevitable, it may as well have already happened. Yet she dreaded it with every fiber of her soul.
"We may have to bring Kurt into this." He'd have been born by now, maybe four years old at this point. "He'll be somewhere in Germany with his fosters, but bringing him up may help, especially if it's her brother who brings him up."
Logan took a breath, unleashing more smoke. He offered her the cigar. Cheap looking brown wrapping covered the tobacco. Nothing special, just a cheap, quick cigar that didn't take a lot of moolah to afford. Not a great first smoke.
"Want some of this, kid?"
She hesitated.
"Fuck it," her nerves could use the loosening.
He had the grace to not laugh in her face when she inevitable sputtered the fumes back up. She'd never smoked before, really. Unlike Wolverine, she lacked the healing factor for it to have no effect whatsoever on her lungs.
"What about Erik, then?" he asked.
"The Professor," she sputtered, laying the cigar in the ash tray between the seats an spitting at her feet. God that tasted awful. "Convince him, then help him convince Magneto." She paused. "Convince Magneto. That's a good one."
Time passed, and soon the shape of an isolated mansion on a hilltop came into view. The trees had been cleared for space on the grounds, and even from a mile away they could see the twisted, overgrown vines that had come to covered the walls and the front gate. No lights shone in the various windows on the upper floors. None of the bustling life signs that marked this as Xavier's school were there.
It was like returning to the house you'd grown up in, only to find it abandoned, empty, and desolate. The garden was reduced to a mangle of weeds, you're fathers old station wagon was a rusted ruin, and all signs of home had eroded away.
God, it was a depressing sight, even with the building still in good repair.
Hopefully, the one man who could maybe help was still inside.
LINEBREAK
Hank McCoy didn't know what to do with himself.
A glass syringe lay emptied on the side table to his right. Several drops dribbled out of the needle. The last, unused bits of the serum that allowed him to keep his human form.
He examined his arms, in awe of their fleshy, pink hues. Carefully, he readjusted his glasses.
They were far easier to wear without the tufts of blue fur that grew over his ears and face. Funnily enough, for all the strength and intelligence his mutation granted him, he still needed to wear corrective eyewear.
Charles's study was filled with mid-morning sunlight. The books on the shelves hadn't been touched in ages. Empty shot glasses were strewn about the coffee table, and the rank scents of alcohol were evident in the air. He tried his best to keep things tidy, most of the house was in order, but Charles had long ago stopped caring. He was upstairs, classical musing glaring, sounds of scratching vinyl echoing downward.
How had things gone downhill so very, very quickly?
For a while everything had been looking up. The school had started, and mutant children were slowly starting to trickle in. teachers like he and Alex found a place here, and the dream of mutant assimilation became a bigger and bigger possibility with each passing day. Then Vietnam happened. Charles opened his mind to the world, and something in their suffering had broken him.
Now he mainlined the serum far more than was healthy. Walking, but not thinking or feeling any longer.
Cerebro lay unused a mile underground.
The halls of the school were empty. Hope was gone.
Idly, Hank let himself think of better days. Those days were short, only a few months in which Charles, Erik and the others had all been together in these halls. The days before he'd pushed away a wonderful, beautiful woman who may have actually felt something for him, and traded away what might have been love for his own insecurities.
Insecurities he clung to even now.
Charles was half dead, Raven was gone, and Erik was in prison. Everyone else had been drafted, or had left.
There was so much left to live for, wasn't there?
He was shocked out of his contemplation by a rapping on the front door.
Intrigued, and shocked, he rose from his armchair and stepped into the entrance hall. Who the hell could that be? No one had come to that door in well over a year.
Opening the door revealed a short woman wearing a brown leather jacket over a thinly clothed chest. Beside her stood a stubbly man in long sleeves with slate colored eyes.
"Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters?" the woman chimed.
Hank lowered his eyes.
"Sorry," he said. "The school's clothed."
He swung the door shut resignedly. Before he could he turn all the way around, the woman stepped through the door, looking annoyed.
"Well that was rude, Doctor McCoy."
A tiny hand pushed the door open, letting the gruff man in.
"Thanks, kid." He took a deep gulp of air. "Yep. He's here. Chuck upstairs?" he pointed down the entrance hall.
"W-wait just a second-" Hank babbled, flustered. Clearly these people were mutants. Not an odd sight in thjese halls, but...what?
The man started towards the stairs, but Hank grabbed him by the shoulder. This didn't please his guest.
"Look here, Hank," he said, almost smiling. "You and I are gonna be good friends one day," then his fist came into contact with Hank's jaw, laying him flat on the ground. "You just don't know it yet."
The woman in the jacket groaned.
"We're here five seconds, and you've already decked someone. And it's someone we like, too...damn it Logan."
'Logan' shrugged.
"Happens."
The woman leaned down and helped him to his feet. Above them, the chandelier glittered in the little light that made it into the hall.
"Sorry about that, doc. The 'Wolverine' here has a temp-"
Hank barely stayed on his feet as she tumbled forward, clutching her head. Logan shoved him aside, kneeling beside her prone, writhing body.
"Kitty!" he cried, holding her shoulders.
Blue glowed in her eyes, and, clearly not of her own volition, words came out of her mouth.
"'A father lost to hunger, the temptation of control,'" she cried. The blue fizzled in her eyes, and it glowed around the man, very, very faintly. "'No sentiment he represents can tame her savage soul.'"
Her head banged against the floor, and Charles came toddling down the stares, gaping.
LINEBREAK
Black leather boots perched daintily on the low glass table. Their owner narrowed her eyes, reading the next line in a book on Feminist Theory.
Focusing would be far easier were it not for the rhythmic, repeating sound of a ping pong ball bouncing back and forth across a table. A flash of movement moved along with the ball, catching it with a paddle each and every time.
Wanda sighed.
"Do you really have to do that now?" she asked.
The flashing stopped and suddenly her brother stood there, grinning like an idiot. Twelve yards away the ball bounced against the nearest wall. Stacks of pilfered televisions and box after box of assorted sweets stood there. A testament to her his hobbies.
"What?" he asked.
Instinctively, her eyes rolled skyward.
Pietro acted about as sensible as he dressed. Tight jeans, those stupid goggles, a silvery, platinum colored jacket. No wonder he spent his all his time stealing whatever wasn't nailed down...or the occasional bauble for her.
Adjusting her legs made the half dozen anklets that adorned them jingle festively For the most part, these were the only things covering her legs. She wore a skirt that came only down the mid thigh, exposing what their mother thought was a scandalous amount of creamy flesh.
Whatever. Magda said the same thing about the cut of her top. She could dress however she liked.
And she really did enjoy wearing Pietro's presents.
They were like that, the two of them. The only people she really paid any mind, and the only people he ever slowed down for were each other, their adorable little sister Lorna, and mom.
Family was all that mattered to them.
Family was who kept Pietro out of jail, and Pietro was the one who held her during her fits. The images that screamed and clawed at her mind seemed almost distant when she was safe in his arms. Things around her didn't change when he was there, when she was in control.
"Some of us are trying to read," she said, uncrossing and recrossing her legs, anklets jangling.
Pietro shrugged, still grinning.
"You read too much anyway."
Faster than she could blink he was back at his game. Sometimes she marveled at how much that tiny plastic ball could endure. Surely the friction would wear it to dust, right.
In vain she tried to return to her reading, but the words all blurred together with the repeating 'plink' sound.
Dropping the book, she decided to play hard ball.
Midair the ball frozen, surrounded by a swirl of red energy. Comparable only to a miniature cloud of interweaving scarlet light.
Wanda smirked, hand raised, content to stare at her brother's dumbfounded expression. With a twist of the finger, the ball crumpled inward on itself.
"You're getting faster," he said, sounding impressed.
"Thank you, brother dear," her smirk widened. Another finger movement tossed the ball away.
"You're quite welcome."
In a flash he'd moved to sit on the couch beside her, leaned lazily against her frame.
She smiled.
This was her most comfortable place in the world. Here, beside her favorite person, the 'gift' that tormented her was lessened significantly. She didn't loose control. She was happy.
Naturally, it was in this position that everything went spectacularly wrong in a single moment.
Red light burned across her vision, escaping from between her fingers and coming to swarm around her like a group of enormous scarlet colored eels.
Her body writhed and twitched, a scream came roaring out of her mouth, but Wanda didn't even notice. Pietro's frantic yells, her mother and little Lorna coming running down into the basement to check on her, she perceived none of that.
All that existed to her were the images.
A woman rising high into the air as those who loved her gazed on in horror. Fire wreathed her form, a gargantuan, flaming bird painting the sky above her.
Pietro, older, garbed not in his jacket and goggles but in a sleek black battle suit streaked with white. Above him towered a shifting titan, with fire in it's mouth and no soul in it's eyes.
Something had changed in the world. She knew that, somehow. that was her gift. She changed things. Made coins come out heads. Made an annoying boy peeking down her shirt fall flat on his face. Made the odd police officer suddenly forget her brothers transgressions.
Something had changed, and though she hadn't done it, she felt it.
And that brought images.
More came in a torrent of pain and screams.
A pretty young woman with green hair, standing strong against a man in a flowing cape, and a menacing helmet.
Swirling sands in the desert, a dark form rising from their depths beside four horses that radiated pain and death and emptiness.
A dwarf of a men laying dead, shot in the head by blue assassin.
Another young women with brunette hair and a petite form. Strangely, she turned to Wanda.
"I begin at the end," her voice echoed hauntingly. "Time buckles, and time bends."
Momentarily, Wanda came out of her trance. Her family stood stricken, unworried by the shattered appliances and ping pong table around them. Then, one last image came.
Her, and the man in the helmet. Metal twisted in his palms, and he stepped closer.
They had the same eyes.