Chapter Nine: Sick and Tired Of People Trying To Kill Me
The next morning, Hank was up early, enjoying the quiet, smiling company as he and Daisy discussed her plans for the new job and house that brought her closer to Tyler and the school in general. As it turned out, Annie's suggestion to look into employment in the city had panned out well, and with Daisy's impeccable employment history, she'd landed a prime shift on a county ambulance that would keep her out of the city itself.
Not to mention Daisy was thrilled when she was able to meet up with Annie's sister Rachel and her husband, Anton, who she'd been talking to long distance as per Annie's suggestion — and naturally, she'd hit it off with them immediately. Both of their little ones, Leslie Ann and Mary Beth, had absolutely adored Daisy in return, and they were already asking when "Miss Daisy" could come back to visit.
"Rachel said they were going to have a picnic next week. You wouldn't be interested in joining us, would you?" Daisy said with a little grin.
At that, Hank broke into a grin of his own. "That sounds like a perfect way to spend an evening. I'd be thrilled to accompany you."
"Perfect," Daisy said cheerfully before she took a hold of his arm and scooted a little closer. "It's going to be fun."
The two of them were still smiling contentedly at each other as the first of the rest of the X-Men came down to breakfast. The little ferals didn't bother either of them in the least, curled up with the newspaper as usual, though when Jubilee and Noh arrived, Jubilee couldn't not elbow Noh in the ribs and tip her head at the sweet new couple sitting close together like that.
"I see fall is truly getting underway; the students and their families are returning," Noh said with a polite smile Daisy's way.
"It really is," she replied. "It's such a shame to say goodbye to summer, though."
"Ah, well, the seasons come, the seasons go," Noh said, unable to stop his smile at the lyrics.
"Oooh, a music lover," Daisy said with a grin his way. "What's your favorite era?"
"I'm partial to the 1960s," he said. "The tight harmonies are a thing of beauty."
"Seventies," she said with a nod. "America and Van Morrison are my favorites."
Noh positively lit up. "I love that era as well," he told her earnestly. "Though there is nothing quite like the Ronettes or like Nina Simone."
"Everyone has their favorites," she said.
He nodded. "And there is so much to choose from in this world. It's truly astounding," he said, still grinning wide as he started to tell Daisy about some of the music he'd recently discovered, clearly excited about it.
"Oh, somebody got Noh on the subject of music," Kate said as she and Kurt made their appearance as well. Her gaze settled on Daisy, and she had to grin. "Has he told you about the old B-side Jubes found of his favorite record in the whole universe? Because he'll get to that."
Daisy just had to laugh and shake her head at that. "Not yet, but if you say it'll happen, I'm sure it will."
"He's an adorable alien nerd," Kate said with obvious affection as she punched Noh in the shoulder on her way past him to get some coffee.
Not long after that, Tyler arrived to sit by his mother, and the conversation turned more toward the upcoming school year — at least between the two of them and Hank, who was deeply engaged in suggesting to Tyler where he could study when he graduated.
"I've been saving," Tyler assured Hank with a proud sort of smile. "Got a summer job as a lifeguard."
"Where are you planning to apply?" Scott asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee, having just arrived and already finding himself interested in the morning conversation between the little group.
"Honestly, anywhere that'll take me." Tyler rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "With how much time I wasn't in school, not to mention… you know." He gestured at his face with one hand, though Scott was already shaking his head.
"You should definitely try for MIT and NYU — you have the brains," Scott decided. "NYU would be a good stepping stone for Johns Hopkins and Harvard."
Tyler looked surprised and also a little flattered, though he was already quietly shaking his head. "Oh, well, that would be nice, but I'm trying not to drown in debt if I can help it."
Scott just stared at him for a moment. "You know we have scholarships available for alumni, right? Ones that no one else has access to?"
For a moment, it was clear Tyler was surprised — and obvious that he had not, in fact, known about the available scholarships. But he quickly covered for it and nodded. "I'll make sure to apply for those."
"The application process is a little different than what you'll face with other scholarships," Scott told him as he crossed the room to sit by the little group. "It's just an interview. Think you can do that? The Worthington Foundation is one of our biggest supporters."
"I'll definitely give it a shot," Tyler said.
"A shot?" Scott asked with one eyebrow raised. "You've got it in the bag if you tell Warren you want to go to school and join the team. You'd qualify for a full ride if you play your cards right."
"Join the team?" Tyler repeated, not even bothering to hide his surprise — after all, he hadn't been at the school for too long, and he wasn't exactly a gung-ho fighter type, either.
"It would require a lot more work on your hand to hand," Logan rumbled from his corner. "Unless you got a problem working with the team."
"No, no I don't—" Tyler shook his head quickly. 'I just… I guess I wasn't expecting that?" He scrunched up his nose, his eyebrows knit together. "I mean — I can put in the work. Yeah. That's not a problem. Are you sure?"
"Of course we are," Scott said with a little frown. "Pick your college and apply. When you're ready, I'll have your interview set up. In the meantime, work on your self defense more, and start thinking of a codename. You have to have one. They usually reflect on your power set, but I'm sure you figured that out already."
"Yeah, I got that," Tyler agreed, still a bit wide-eyed at the direction the morning conversation had taken — away from a general discussion of how school was going to an actual invitation to the X-Men. It was clearly something he hadn't considered as a real possibility, though he would have been lying if he said it wasn't something he had thought about. After all, he was seventeen. Everyone in his generation — especially mutant kids — had dreamed about being either an Avenger or an X-Man at some point.
"Well, come on," Jubilee said with a grin. "Don't act like every mutant teenager in the past twenty years hasn't come up with a name they want to use. I had 'Wondra' for a hot minute, and Kitty went through, like, a dozen before she finally settled down with 'Shadowcat.' Whatcha got?"
At that, Tyler flushed and rubbed the back of his neck again, almost compulsively. "Well, I had a few really dumb ones when I was a kid," he said. "But ... maybe… Naaman?"
Scott scrunched his nose a tiny bit, trying to place the reference as both Logan and K gave Tyler a look over their shared newspaper that could only be read as a concentrated 'no'. But Kurt looked as if he understood perfectly.
"That… would certainly speak to your healing gift," Kurt said with a small smile, trying to help the others — and let Tyler know he got it.
"Not if he needs to explain it to everyone," Logan said with a shake of his head without looking up, totally rejecting it. "He'll spend all his time trying to justify it when everyone gives him the look Scott's got."
Tyler looked a bit embarrassed as he glanced over at Scott, who was trying very hard not to look too confused.
"Don't pay attention to him," Kurt advised. "He shoots down everyone's first attempts." Logan let out a little 'hmm' at that and went back to his coffee and the news.
And with that, the real brainstorming session began — with the whole of the kitchen, minus the ferals, jumping in to offer suggestions. Even Daisy got in on the fun. The group at large couldn't help but laugh at some of Jubilee's ridiculous suggestions, but as it wore on, it was apparent that none of the options offered quite fit — and Tyler was quickly becoming discouraged that all these X-Men couldn't find a name for him.
They were just giving Jubilee a hard time about her suggestion of 'Retractor' when Logan finally spoke up.
"Lifeguard," he said simply without setting down his newspaper or even looking up at any of them.
The others looked at him for a minute as a slow sort of grin started on Tyler's face, and Kate pointed at Logan with her other hand on her nose. "Hey! Yeah! That's perfect!" she said.
Logan shook his head as he raised his mug to his lips. "Always so surprised," he muttered.
"I like it," Tyler said with a growing grin as he repeated 'Lifeguard' to himself like he was trying it out. It was absolutely a boost too — on top of the fact that he liked it, the suggestion had come from Logan, and Tyler couldn't shake that childhood awe at his favorite X-Man giving him a name suggestion.
"Wait, wait," Jubilee said, holding up a hand as she dug for her phone. "This — this is a historic moment. We've got to get this on camera." She started to snap a few pictures before anyone could stop her, and then she set to trying to herd them all together — surrounding Logan and K so they had to participate — for group shots of Tyler and his new teammates.
"I'll send these to you if you give me your number," Jubilee promised a positively beaming Daisy.
Though the pictures were more or less finished, Jubilee was still keeping everyone uncomfortably close in around Logan and K — though K was snickering at the look on Logan's face — until the doorbell rang and he sprang to his feet to go catch the door, glad for the excuse to get out from underneath everyone.
He shot them a look as Kurt slid into Logan's seat and the joking continued, then shook his head and kept right on down the hall, leaving them to their nonsense. When he got to the door, a young man in a courier's uniform was standing on the doorstep with a polite sort of smile, though it was obvious to see he was a bit nervy at having to deliver to the institute. He looked new, maybe sixteen, and he fumbled a bit with the clipboard — though to his credit, he did stand his ground when he said that it was a private delivery for Kate and that he wasn't allowed to give it to anyone else.
"I'm sorry but it has to be Miss Bishop," he said insistently, though he looked nervous and kept half apologizing every other sentence.
"No it doesn't," Logan argued. "Give it up." But the young man bravely shook his head and again insisted on Kate.
"I'm sorry, but the directions were very particular. It has to be Miss Bishop."
Logan looked irritated, but before he could tear into the guy, Kate and Kurt stepped around the corner. "Kate, this jerk says he needs your signature," Logan told her, already looking a bit too snarly this early in the day.
Kate spared a little glance Kurt's way, her eyebrows raised. "You sure it's… mine, not Kurt's?" she asked carefully. She and Kurt had come to investigate the matter, considering it was Monday and Kurt had just recently gotten the flash drive promising "instructions" — but this was obviously not what they had expected, and Kurt was already holding onto Kate around the waist a little tighter and more protectively when he heard it.
"If it was for Kurt, I would have said Kurt," Logan countered.
The delivery boy half smiled Kate's way. "I'm sorry, but I can't …" he paused. "It has to be you, Miss Bishop." He looked apologetic but held his ground.
Kate let out a sigh. "Fine," she said as she kissed Kurt and stepped out of his grasp, then held out her hand for the slip to sign. "But this is just ridiculous. I'm literally standing right here and I'm telling you — you don't need to be a pain about it."
"I'm really sorry," the delivery boy said — again. "But I just got this job…"
Kate let out a sigh as she balanced the clipboard on her knee so she could sign for the package. "It's alright," she said, trying for a kinder tone since it was obvious the teenager in front of her was just trying to do what he'd been told.
Through the whole interaction, Logan didn't step all the way back, almost blocking Kate from the delivery boy — clearly not trusting the situation as the young man retrieved the package while Kate signed the form, though she tried to elbow Logan back a few paces so he wasn't in her way as she moved to hand the clipboard back to the skinny teen. Logan looked over at Kurt for a moment, a frown set on his face that only disappeared when he caught the scent on the package — turning instead into a look of urgency. He made a rush forward to knock it away from Kate an instant before the bomb went off, blowing the front door apart and tearing up all three people there at the threshold.
Kurt was just far enough back from the two of them to escape the worst of the damage — purely out of luck that he had been stepping back to let Logan handle playing bad cop with the strawberry blonde delivery kid — and he ran the few steps to the door. Kate and Logan were both bleeding and the delivery boy was clearly dead. Shrapnel in the bomb had embedded itself into the walls nearest the door, and Kate had a few pieces in her chest that were quickly blooming into large blood stains.
"Kate." Kurt dropped down beside her and simply looked stunned as he looked over the damage. Logan had taken the worst of it trying to shield Kate, but even so, it was obvious that the blast had done Kate some serious damage, and she was losing blood rapidly.
Both Scott and Hank had come running at the noise, and as soon as they saw what was going on, both men ran to Logan and Kate. Hank was already starting to triage Kate as Scott began to pull out bits of shrapnel when K came running around the corner, with her 'appointed babysitter' Tyler hot on her heels.
As Tyler tried to apologize for failing to keep her away from any kind of action, he fell silent on seeing the scene laid out in front of him. It was obvious that both Logan and Kate were hurt badly, and Logan was completely unconscious as well.
As he watched, K slid to a stop on the other side of Logan. She looked over at his arm before she knelt on it and started pulling out shrapnel alongside Scott — not shy in the least about digging in to pull out the deeper pieces.
Tyler started moving again, though, when Hank called him over to where Kate was very obviously in shock. Tears were slipping down her cheeks, though it was pretty obvious that she didn't even realize it was happening. "Tyler, I need to know how deep these pieces are, to see if she needs surgery. I don't want to take pressure off to move her unless we have to. I want her stabilized first," Hank explained quickly before he directed Kurt on where to apply some pressure to a deep gash in Kate's arm that was dangerously close to a major artery.
Tyler of course nodded and knelt down next to Kate, laying a hand on her shoulder so that he could 'see' the damage to report to Hank. To his surprise, there were many many cuts that he hadn't seen — smaller, less obvious ones that were easy to miss with the big bleeders — though he more or less tried to ignore them as he focused on the larger bits that were embedded in her torso and arm. He had one hand on a piece of the door that was sticking out just below her collarbone when he decided that simply fixing it would be quicker and much less traumatic at this point — considering she was already in shock and bleeding badly.
He took a solid hold on the bit of metal and started to pull, concentrating hard to repair the damage that was deepest as the shrapnel came out, paying close attention to any arteries that might have been severed or nicked. He'd gotten two pieces out of Kate when the group as a whole ran into a new problem — Logan had woken up, and immediately started to fight Scott.
Logan was thrashing almost blindly when K climbed over him and pinned him, directing Scott to step back, though of course, Scott did not want to, citing concerns of Logan accidentally stabbing her.
K gave him the very driest look that Scott had ever seen directed his way. "Back off, or I'll stab you."
By that time, Noh and Jubilee had also come to investigate the blast, and while Jubilee went straight to a livid-looking Kurt to help with Kate — and to help keep him calm in the face of his fiance being dealt such serious damage — Noh took a look at K sitting on Logan and figured he'd step in. "Let him stab me," he said with an easy shrug as he all but picked up the little feral to get her out of the way of even the possibility of Logan's claws.
"I'm not letting him stab anyone," K argued as Scott held Logan down long enough for Noh to join him once he'd set K down. Of course, Logan only fought them harder, but K pushed her way around the men to crouch down next to Logan's head and then started to whisper to him low and give him something to focus on that didn't smell like gunpowder and blood. It took a few moments, but very shortly after Logan got her scent properly, he seemed to relax.
K peeked up at Scott and nodded. "Keep going before it closes up over them. He won't hurt you — at least not for that."
Scott gave her a dry look for just a moment before he tightened his jaw and went right back to work — noting to himself that Logan was pointedly ignoring him in favor of focusing entirely on K.
Henry let out a relieved breath when he saw that things with Logan were settling out before he turned back to Tyler. "What's the prognosis?" he asked. "Surgery or stitches?"
"Hopefully neither," Tyler said out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated more on healing than on the question. "I just need to get a couple more pieces out…"
Henry looked both shocked and proud for a moment when he realized that Tyler had been pulling out shrapnel and healing the wounds this entire time. He even noted that Tyler had — consciously or not — made sure to put himself between Logan and Kate while Logan was thrashing while he worked, so that Kate would be shielded if things got out of hand.
Hank couldn't help but smile before he began to gingerly work on the less worrisome wounds that Kate had sustained to her arm, leaving the worst of the damage to Tyler to heal, since it was obvious that Tyler had a good system in place, healing the damage to Kate at the same rate he was slowly removing wood and metal so that she wouldn't bleed out any worse than she already had once the shrapnel was removed.
Looking over the injuries the two of them had sustained, it was very clear that Logan had blocked the bulk of the blast — and the lion's share of Kate's damage at this point was superficial at best. It was just that handful of bits that managed to hit hard that Tyler was carefully repairing as he removed them. She had certainly lost a lot of blood, but as Hank watched, her condition moved from critical to far more stable — and he couldn't help but be proud of the young man for it.
Finally, Tyler let go of Kate's hand and sat back for a moment — finished even before Scott could get out the last pieces of shrapnel in Logan's arm. He stepped slightly to the side so Kurt could see for himself that Kate was stable — though she was understandably worn out from the shock as well as the massive healing that Tyler had just put her body through. In fact, both Tyler and Kate looked a bit pale — the healing had taken a lot out of Tyler, too, for how much damage there had been and how severe it was.
While Kate seemed to be physically fine after all of the trauma, it was clear she was upset — and still in shock — when she buried half her face into Kurt and muttered that she was "sick and freakin' tired of people trying to kill me" with a couple hiccoughed little sniffles that meant she was trying hard not to cry at that point, even though it had already started.
Kurt simply pulled her into his arms and kissed her gently, trying not to let her see too obviously that he was upset as well, murmuring comfort into her hair and letting her hide and cry if she needed to — though Jubilee beside him could see the familiar glint in his eyes that meant he was ready to destroy someone for what had happened there.
And just beside her, Noh and Scott both backed off as soon as they were done with Logan, and K flat out wrapped herself around Logan as he took a moment to breathe and recover while he took stock of himself.
"Young lady," Hank said gently as he held Kate's hand, her other hand knotted in Kurt's shirt as she simply couldn't quite get a hold of herself just yet. "I'm afraid you need to spend a little time in the lab with an IV pole."
"I hate those things," Kate grumbled, still half hidden in Kurt's side, and Kurt gently kissed her forehead again in response, trying to help her calm down.
"I know, everyone does," Hank told her with a kind smile. "But I promise to make you some fresh coffee to go with your Twinkie and meds."
She picked up her head and gave him a wry smile. 'Well, if there's coffee…" she allowed, which got the slightest of smirks out of Kurt.
"K will keep you company," Logan offered, to which K gave him a look of open disbelief.
"I wasn't even scratched, you giant pain," K argued, but Logan simply leaned in and gave her a kiss to get her to stop arguing.
Once Kate had agreed to that, Kurt picked her up to take her down to the lab. He was gentle about moving her and made sure to press soft kisses to her cheek, her forehead, and just behind her ear. He kept up the gentle attention, holding her hand and rubbing his thumb over her knuckles as Henry got her all set up.
But as soon as Kate was settled in and had even fallen asleep, utterly exhausted from the ordeal, Kurt turned to Logan with a far sharper look than the one he'd just been wearing as he pulled his old friend aside. "Take a walk with me," he said under his breath.
Logan simply nodded to avoid drawing any attention to the two of them — at least any more attention than they already had. K and Scott were both watching them carefully, and Scott stepped over with a frown.
"Do you have room for a third?" Scott asked low.
Kurt looked his way for a second with raised eyebrows but nodded once as K stepped up to the boys. "What's your plan?" she asked.
"You're not going," Logan said with a little frown.
"Yeah, I gathered as much when you volunteered me to stay behind. That's not what I asked," K shot back. "What is your plan?" She was watching Kurt more than the other two.
"Find the people behind this attack and ... go from there," Kurt said with a little glare that wasn't meant for her. "I thought we might ask the other Hawkeye what his current leads are…"
"Or... I can just tell you where Fisk went last year after he left the party," she said frankly. "Unless you like going the long way around and really can't accept any help from those of us without danglers."
Kurt looked her way for just a second. "Where?"
She walked over to Hank's desk and very carefully jotted down the address, the floor, and even where the board room was situated on the floor. "If any of you come back in worse shape than you are now, I swear to God, I'll make you pay somehow." She gave both Kurt and Scott a quick kiss on the cheek before she gave Logan a much more involved kiss that ended with a severe threat if he dared to come back in worse shape than he left before she wished the three of them luck. "I'll keep an eye on Kate," she promised to Kurt.
"Danke," he said simply before he put a hand on both Scott and Logan's shoulders. "Let's go and meet this 'Board," he said before he teleported them to the address K had written down — and into the boardroom itself.
The three men appeared in a puff of smoke standing on the middle of the table, which was surrounded by several recognizable villains. It was clear that they'd interrupted a bit of self congratulatory celebrations — not that they were bothered in the least.
Naturally, before the smoke had even cleared, Logan looked around quickly and made a flat out dive right for Fisk — claws out and snarling. One of Fisk's guards moved to block him but just ended up with three deep holes and a boot print on his belly before Logan stuck Fisk. The big guy had moved at just the right time to avoid a triple-pronged set of holes in the center of his heart, but it still took out a lung, and he was gasping out in pain.
Kurt, meanwhile, went after Ringmaster before the guy could get a half-decent hold on their minds to try and stop the fight, and Scott had his hands full with a burlier guy with a large moustache and three familiar-looking scars down his face.
"Friend of yours?" Scott called Logan's way as he finally managed to get a good grip on the guy and throw him into the wall.
Logan glanced over and let out an irritated noise. "Time displaced half brother. Go nuts."
That was really all the invitation Scott needed to do just that, blasting Dog across the room before he spun to face the rest of the group — though before he could even pick his next target, the three irritated men were joined by a fourth, red-clad interloper.
"We should really coordinate, guys," Matt Murdock said as he slipped in through the window to join the fun. "I spend all this time tracking them down and you get the jump on them?"
But Kurt wasn't in the mood for any kind of witty banter, even with an old friend, and he shook his head. "Hawkeye was nearly killed. At our home," he said shortly.
Matt tipped his head to the side, the frown obvious to see, before he simply nodded once and seemed to lay into the creeps in the boardroom harder than what was strictly necessary, an echoing crack with almost every hit speaking to just what he thought about that news.
Between the four of them, it didn't take long at all before all the members of the Board had either retreated or been knocked out or subdued, and Matt rested a hand on Kurt's shoulder, both of them taking a moment to get their breath back before he asked, "She alright?"
"She's recovering now," Kurt said.
"You alright?" Matt asked.
Kurt let out a dry sort of laugh. "A little better with this troublesome Board broken up."
Matt smirked. "I'll keep an eye on them. Kingpin and Viper are still big players on their own, but the rest…" He gestured at the various villains in different stages of tied up and unconscious. "Don't think they'll be coming after your fiance for a while."
"Not if they value their lives," Kurt agreed.
Although Matt slipped out after that, the X-Men stayed behind a bit longer. Kurt was still steaming over the whole affair — and he wanted to destroy anything that the Board had on file for Kate, and for himself.
That was, of course, when SHIELD agents finally showed up. No one there had called them, but the fight ... well, it had attracted attention, so the X-Men weren't surprised.
The head agent they'd sent must have been relatively new, because he looked a bit shocked at the damage the three X-Men had dealt, though he went through the rigamarole of claiming the downed supervillains for SHIELD custody — and looked a bit grateful when he didn't get more of an argument than a very irritated look from Kurt.
"And they'll stay in custody, yes?" Kurt said, turning the full force of a very nearly demonic look the agent's way to emphasize his point.
"Yeah, we're not letting them get away," the agent assured Kurt, who just gave him a look and went back to destroying records even as a smaller SHIELD agent told him to stop destroying evidence.
"You might want to turn around and pay attention to the documents that actually matter," Logan advised. "Before you have an accident. Or I make a phone call and have you stuck on a paper-pushing job, since you're so concerned with 'em."
The agent looked a bit wide-eyed before he busied himself with collecting anything Kurt wasn't tearing apart.
"I'd like to get statements from all of you," the head agent tried to say to get a better hold on the situation.
Logan and Scott both turned his way, arms crossed as they openly looked him up and down. "Fine," Logan said. "You got all three of us here at once, and we all have stuff to do. Shoot."
The guy paused for a second and looked like he might argue and then thought better of it, just taking out a recorder pad and trying very hard to look like he was in charge as he asked for a basic rundown of how the heck they'd found the board room in the first place — and why they'd decided to tear it apart in the middle of a Monday afternoon.
"It's called basic detective work," Logan replied. "And we broke it up because they blew up one of our team members — and me. You're welcome for the gift wrapping."
The third member of the little SHIELD team looked Logan's way at that with her head tipped to one side. She was putting cuffs on the unconscious bad guys but had to ask: "Do you need medical assistance? For your other teammate, I mean?"
"No. She's fine," he replied. "She'll be better once she hears this is over."
"And we should get back and do just that," Kurt said as he finished up his 'evidence destruction,' the last of the Board's records on Kate's businesses going up in smoke.
"You guys can't just… we've got to finish with the statements, and I'll need to ask you more questions and…" The head agent was shaking his head hard.
All three of them stared at him with frowns on their faces for a moment. "Yes. We can," Logan said very slowly before he took a few steps toward the guy and leaned in a little closer, looking up at him with a harsh glare. "You don't know who we are, do you?"
"Look, I just got the call that there were some superpower types having a showdown up here, okay?" he said at last. He gestured at the various villains. "We've got most of these guys on record, and I mean, Nightcrawler isn't hard to miss, but… the lack of uniforms is a bit of a murky waters situation."
Logan smirked. "Hey Cyclops — you wanna show this kid your ID?"
"Probably just confused without the visor," Scott said with a bit of a smirk before he tipped his head Logan's way, still facing the SHIELD agent. "That's Wolverine, you know Nightcrawler, and I'm Cyclops — and no, we're not wearing our uniforms. We weren't planning on being blown up today."
The agent frowned at both of them, eyes slightly wide, before he looked to the other two agents, who had more or less finished up and were ready to start loading villains and evidence at his say-so.
"If you got any other questions, they know where to find us," Logan told him before Kurt gave the clearly green agent a smirk and teleported the three of them back to the mansion.
They reappeared outside Henry's lab, where K had waited with Kate, true to her word — half snuggled up with her as it seemed like all of Kurt's little bamfs were there to either try and get snuggles as well or to fuss over Kate themselves. Kate's little flirty friend in particular was perched by the coffee and seemed determined never to let her run out of it now that she was awake again.
On seeing the guys, K gave Kate a little squeeze and slipped off her bed. "Any trouble?" she asked as she looked them each over for injury with a scrutinizing appraisal — she had been serious about her threats if any of them had come back injured.
"Nothing we couldn't handle," Scott said with a smirk Logan's way. "Hardest part was dealing with the green SHIELD agents."
"Well, you can thank Henry for that," K told him. "For some reason, he was concerned that there might be a disproportionate number of deaths. Like that's a problem."
"Well, he can rest easy. I think it's safe to say we're all alive — and that little 'Board' isn't going to be bothering anyone," Kurt said as he skirted around her to take her place snuggling Kate instead, brushing her hair back from her face so he could see for himself that some of the color was returning to her face now that she had been rehydrated.
"SHIELD's got the board members in custody," Scott added, tipping his head to Hank.
"Pity," K said with a little frown before she simply took Logan's arm. "I'm going to take this one upstairs … you guys, try not to scar Hank."
"Actually, I should head up myself. Promised Annie I'd take the twins for the afternoon so she could go out with her sisters," Scott said. "Theresa's in town from Atlanta — and you know how it goes with those three."
"Hale's Angels?" K said with a smirk. "Yes. Trouble of the most innocent variety."
"That's not bad. Where were those naming skills when we were working on Tyler's codename?" Scott teased.
"Keeping quiet so others could play," K replied.
"Well, he loves the name he got, so I guess we can't complain," Scott said. He shook his head with a little smile and waved at Kurt and Kate before he headed up to go find Annie, with the two ferals not far behind.
With the others gone — and Hank discreetly slipping out to give the two of them privacy — Kurt turned his attention back to Kate, cupping her face with one hand as he ran his thumb over her cheekbone. In that moment, he was incredibly grateful to see her alive, and he couldn't help but pull her into a long kiss. "Well it seems the board won't be an issue anymore," Kurt told her when the kiss broke. "Clint will be upset we handled it without him, I'm sure."
Kate just smiled and rested her head on his shoulder for a moment. "Yeah, he'll be bummed he didn't get an invite," she agreed.
"Logan was already considering telling him it could have been done years ago if he'd called a professional."
She rolled her eyes — and even though she knew he was teasing, she had to come to her fellow Hawkeye's defense. "He is a professional. He's just… also Clint."
"Yes, which I believe is almost exactly what Logan said."
She snuggled a bit deeper into his side with a sigh. "Kinda wish I could've come too."
"I know," he said as he kissed the top of her head. "But it was enough."
"That'll teach them to tick off my swashbuckling Elf," she said with a little smile. "Bet they're regretting all their life decisions on that one. Honestly. Coming after my favorite X-Man."
"Well, I don't believe it was me they wanted," Kurt replied. "But they got me anyhow."
She grinned at that and kissed him briefly. "Yes. And now I've got you," she pointed out. "And I did want to catch you." And just to prove her point, she pulled him down for a longer, much more involved kiss.