Just wanna say since my comments were deleted: on that slop:
Never ever let the hate or critiques or nit picks that clog these tags dissuade you from writing.
That user called it “lazy” to not know the characters to their full extent before writing a fic and they had hella attitude about it- except thats literally fine, personally im just happy to see a new post when i refresh the tag and im sure others agree with me on that.
The REAL lazy people are the ones hating on writers for shitty reasons and yet they dont even write anything themselves. it blows my mind - the entitlement when you’re in a creative space and something isnt made to your exact taste or to the extent of your exact knowledge.
People new to the fandom write here, thats GOOD. Chill.
(sorry for clogging the tags but that shit WORRIES me i hope some little newcomer to the fandom isnt feeling called out by these posts - you are so welcome to write even if you dont know jason todds blood type and batburger order like its fine baby)
like be so fr, get off ur ass and WORK if these fics piss u off so bad
summary. being a hero to the whole world has never been easy, but being one to your own family is even less so.
word count. ~3k
content warnings. implied past pregnancy and birth
author's notes. I love em dashes
ao3 link
You wake with the underlying feeling that something is not right. It’s a sudden shift, a stumble of your lulled consciousness, and it only takes a second and maybe a half — one moment you’re still asleep and the next you aren’t. The gaudy nothingness of your dream fades without a trace like a morning mist, and when, with a single blink, you gain awareness, everything in your core feels caught in a web of strange unease. Something’s changed.
It’s dark, darker than one short shut-eye ago. The walls of the small living room are adorned with shadows like dark festive garlands, and only the distant pale glow of the city seeps through the uncurtained windows in a meek flow. The air feels motionless, the quiet disorienting. Has the sun set already? How long have you been asleep? And why are your arms—
—so empty?
You jerk so violently you feel something warm stretch in your neck muscles, and the couch screeches with old springs underneath. Immediately something clawed grips at your airways and squeezes them with cruel fingers. Where is she? It all comes back to you: the weight of her in your arms, the tug of her teething gums on your nipple, the supple softness of the couch cushion as it molded itself perfectly around the exhaustion in your bones... Yes, you were feeding her and must have dozed off — just for a quarter of an hour or so, right? — but now you are alone.
Panic shoots through the tangle of half-formed thoughts, and before your mind has a chance to catch up, your body has already hurled itself into motion. You spring up from the couch, feet almost getting caught in the fallen blanket, and there is only one notion, a single, terrible conviction that seizes your whole being. Someone took her.
You try to call out her name, but it burns down in the furnace of your chest, leaving only a bundle of choked syllables. The silence of the dark hallway echoes back with the thuds of your own heartbeat — and not a single cry to guide you. With frenzied persistence you stumble through the apartment, suddenly as foreign as the labyrinths of a gloomy jungle, until at last you reach the door to your bedroom — and see it cracked open. A strip of light squeezes through the tangle of shadows, and your insides turn frosty. The night lamp. You never leave it on.
Someone’s in there. You feel the air shift around their presence and hear the rustle of their feet along the carpet. With stiff fingers you grab the door handle; the metal is cold against your feverish skin, grounding, encouraging. Your grasp tightens, ready to yank the door open, stealthiness be damned — but then you stop.
“Weißt du, wie viel Kinder frühe
stehn aus ihren Bettlein auf…”
Softly, like a whisper of fine summer rain, the voice of your husband floats through the room. It dips and rises — a tremble in his breath, a murmur dripping from his lips — and weaves its gentle song. You feel it settle over your shoulders like the warmth of a cotton quilt, and you cannot hold back the shiver that finally releases the tension from your limbs. Moisture gathers on the door handle, right under your palm.
She’s safe. Of course she is. And you are such a fool.
Relief floods in, carrying the faint smell of brimstone and flames long burnt out — of your heart finally setting in its place. Carefully, you push the door wider and wince when the tiniest of creaks plunges itself into the flow of Kurt’s voice like a splinter. His tail twitches — a momentary acknowledgement — but he doesn’t turn to greet you, all his attention devoted to the small figure resting in his arms.
“...dass sie ohne Sorg und Mühe
fröhlich sind im Tageslauf?”
Notes hang in the air tinkling like crystal morning stars, and you feel almost hesitant to enter your own bedroom. Shadows and light shift on Kurt’s frame, swaying back and forth across his shirt as he rocks her slowly, but the lines of his body are taut, the slope of his shoulders too flat as if the tension pulls them higher by the string. And as you step along the carpet, heel to toe, to stop right beside him — your lover, your husband, the father of your child — you know at once that it’s not exhaustion that weighs the timbre of his voice down. Under the veil of shadows, his eyes glimmer like two dimmed windows.
“Gott im Himmel hat an allen
seine Lust, sein Wohlgefallen,
kennt auch dich und hat dich lieb.”
The little one only snores quietly, all three tiny fingers clasped around one of his, and the sight cradles your heart in warmth. From the tips of her pointy ears down to her grabby little toes, she is his daughter through and through — if only bearing a softer shade to her fur, blue blushed with the peachiness of the sunset-blooming sky. The tail that usually sticks out like a proud little flag rests curled at her feet, short and chubby like a kitten’s, but you know it has already grown longer and weightier than it was a mere month ago. She’s growing fast — faster than any of you were ready for — and by the way melancholy deepens the lines of Kurt’s smile, you feel he’s thinking the same thing.
A sigh flutters between his lips, outlines the last words (“Kennt auch dich und hat dich lieb”), and then he falls silent for a moment. Not to put her into the crib, no, he doesn’t hasten to do so, but to simply watch her. His daughter, his creation, your love for him taken form, whittled in every little feature that resembles his own so intimately, and when he tilts his head to you, his gaze holds the warmth of a thousand suns, but the squint of his eyes is shaped weary by an unspoken rumination.
“I’m sorry, Liebling, you were asleep, and she started to get fussy. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
You shift awkwardly, embarrassment prickling at the back of your neck. Kurt must have heard your anxious walking, no doubt thudding with footsteps in the hushedness of the apartment, and sensed your distress from behind the door. How foolish.
“I probably just dreamt of something,” you chuckle bashfully. “Didn’t think you’d be home already. Was the mission okay?”
Kurt’s mouth tightens ever so slightly as he chews on his words, and you don’t miss that.
“Yeah,” he settles on then. “Yeah, it was.”
He doesn’t say anything else. Instead he leans in to her chubby, sleep-mellowed face, presses his lips against her forehead, and buries his nose in the wisps of her curls — already a perfect little replica of his own in their tangled disarray — to inhale the smell you know he’s been missing for weeks. Milk and baby powder. Oatmeal-honey soap and the sweet, earthy fragrance of her fur. The scent of life he wasn’t a part of.
Quietly you watch his face contort with something you two will no doubt talk about, a feeling he’s brought home from across the ocean, and as he slowly lays her in the crib, finger sliding from her grasp, your hands slide around his arm, and for the first time in weeks you feel his warmth against your skin. Oh, how you’ve missed it, God above, you have.
For a minute more neither of you speaks. Outside, the world hums faintly, life rushing along the streets and highways like blood through vessels in streams of senseless sounds. Joyful, empty songs from an open window bleed into a high-pitched laughter downstairs and it in turn shatters against the shrill howl of a police siren. A shapeless noise of human destinies merging into a single chaotic pulse. And yet she sleeps — serene and carefree, safe and loved, none the wiser about the tremble that skews her father’s brows or the dead weight of his tail lying on the floor or the involuntary strength of his grip on the wood rails.
“It’s not right.” Kurt murmurs at last, and the edges of his profile are sharp, shadows eating away at the golden glow of the night lamp. “It’s not right that you’re so unused to having me around that you'd rather expect a malefactor in our home before me.”
There is no accusation in his tone — only an ash of sorrow, a bitter helplessness that dulls the jovial chime of his voice, and for a phantom moment he stands before you not as a man who’s found his way back from the other side of life, not as a hero who’s clashed swords with gods, but as a boy who had to learn he couldn’t be there for everyone to save. You remember telling him so all those years ago, on the roof of Xavier’s Institute under the pale, predawn sky. You remember how tiny your voice felt, how painfully squeezed out by your own throat, and how his hand clutched yours in a desperate search for something constant, grounding, alive. Not escaping his grasp, not turning cold in it, not leaving behind the stains you knew he always chose to wash off himself. Your words didn’t sink in fully that day, merely disturbed the surface, but you were there for him and you were patient, and that was enough.
“Is this what you’ve been telling yourself? That you’re a stranger?”
“I might as well become one.” He huffs a chuckle but it’s humorless, dry, and scratchy like a thorn caught between his teeth. “She rolled on her own and I missed it because I wasn’t there.”
Oh, bless your darling and his poor, feeling heart. Days ago, on a whim, your daughter decided she'd had enough of staring at the ceiling, so she rolled onto her belly in the playpen while you were busy untangling the laundry from the basket. You even took the photo just like that — with a sock still clutched in one hand. You were so giddy when you sent it to him and even giddier when, hours later, he finally saw it. His reply was short, but you could never hold it against him: you knew that pride stayed with him through the rest of the mission. If only you could foresee it would cut both ways.
Gently you pry Kurt’s fist apart to cradle his hand against your chest.
“My love, such things are so short-lived and happen so suddenly. I could have missed it too, and many parents do. Don't burden yourself with guilt.”
The moment the words leave your mouth, you feel them freeze in the air, hanging heavy and ringing hollow. You hear a rustle — his tail moves, dragging against the carpet, and winds itself tight around his leg.
“When she just entered this world, I looked at her and thought: how can such a tiny thing already be so opinionated and quite loud about it too?” His lips twitch, touched by that thoughtful fondness with which people reminisce about the melody of their mother’s lullaby or the song that played the day they found their true love, or the first cry of their newborn. And you know he hasn't forgotten that sound any more than you have.
“And after that I made a promise that I will always be there for her. For her first laughter and first steps and the very first bruised knee. And yet I missed it.”
Pity pulls at your heart. You try to say something, anything, but Kurt seizes the short breath between you.
“I know what you’re going to say. That it was one small milestone in the road of her life, wasn’t it?” At your silence, he nods slightly to himself. “Perhaps it was, but every milestone that seems so little to us is a huge breakthrough for her, one that she makes on her own. All I had to do was be there, and I couldn’t.”
His voice breaks in the middle, jumps, and drops down with the fracture, and the rugged tear of it is so sheer in the quiet of the room, that you flinch and the little one frowns with a grunt, tail flopping against the mattress as if calling for order. You both wait with bated breath, but almost instantly her face smooths out — she squirms a little, rustling her curls on the bedsheet, turns her head to the other side, breathes out in a short purr, and then stills again. Kurt’s hand slips out from your grasp and finds its way back to the rail of the crib.
“I’ve been thinking about it for days. And I’m scared, Liebe.”
At last he turns to you, and when, in a familiar bid of weakness, you lean in to press your lips against his, they are twisted with dejection and guilt, yet your affection opens them up just enough for him to feel the warmth of your mouth. You kiss him and then you pull back, and he lets out a sigh of a titan holding the firmament on his shoulders.
“You know I’m scared this world will hurt her just like it has hurt us. Humans with malice in their hearts, sworn foes that come back stronger and more spiteful time after time, conquerors from the other side of the Milky Way or demons from dimensions we cannot even begin to comprehend... So many forces might take her away from me, and I’ve been chasing after them for all these months, but— but now I’m afraid it is me they are taking away from her.”
Wrapped in the earnest anguish of his voice, you recognize your own chewed-up thoughts, ones that’ve been stirring up your mind during endless daylight hours and quiet fatigued nights. Five months have passed, and through them all, only one thing has held unwavering like a silver thread: your silent acceptance. Your husband is a hero, and you would never strip him of this place he fought for long before he ever called you his. It hasn't grown easier to see him leave, nor any less painful to wonder if he secretly regretted his vows — but you always knew the price you would have to pay for loving a man whose heart was more noble than the world deserved.
It hurt, of course it did, and immensely so, but being a mother has changed the shape of this hurt into something slim enough to stash away for later. Perhaps, you muse, for this particular moment of time.
Kurt looks into your eyes in search of understanding, and you let him find it — and so much more. And when his lower lip curls up, a smear of shadow on his chin trembling ever so slightly, you know he sees you now, for the first time in months he does. No words are uttered, but you two were always fabulously good at reading each other’s minds without the need for telepathic aptitude. After all, why else would marry this man?
“I’ve been such a fool, haven’t I?” He mutters, and the admission opens something in your soul that has been sealed shut, like a valve that almost burst under pressure.
Yes, you have. You shake your head.
“You’ve been a hero. And a good one at that.”
“Just not as good a husband and father.” Kurt sighs again, and as the tension leaves him with a soft, hissing exhale, his shoulders droop — and at last he doesn't look like a statue of himself carved out of stone any longer. “I cannot believe I was so… unfeeling, so blind. Not noticing this cross of pain and exhaustion you’ve been carrying in silence, all by yourself. Why? Why not tell me, dear heart? Why not make this misery be known?”
“Because our universe needs you, Kurt.”
“And you don’t?”
You open your mouth but your voice doesn’t shape itself around any of the scattered thoughts. What are you supposed to say to that? That you needed him, desperately, overwhelmingly so, but was too hesitant to admit it, too scared to hear his answer? At what point, you can’t help but think, did you grow so scared of your own better half? Was such defeated acquiescence born together with the little one or did it grow bigger alongside her like an unwanted nestling?
The urge to cry rolls over, sudden like a storm wave. Even if you had anything to say you cannot anymore — a lump too big for your throat squeezes the vocal cords and renders you numb. You fight the urge to sob, and it’s a battle you’ve won so many times over these long months, but when Kurt pulls you into himself and you drown in the dear scent of fur warmed under cotton, something small and wounded quivers at the root of your mouth. His chest rumbles under your cheek.
“You speak of the universe, but Liebling, you are my universe. And she?” You feel his muscles shift when he glances at the crib. “She is the brightest little star in it. This is what I should protect, this is where my duty lies. The world has many heroes to keep it safe, but she only has one father. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for taking so long to realize such a simple truth.”
For several long, quiet minutes he holds you close — cradling your weary head with the same protective tenderness he cradled his daughter, and through the wet hiccuped sniffles you hear him croon the lullaby anew, words interlacing into constellations. They gleam under your eyelids, young, unfamiliar, and yet untraced, but bearing a promise that when you wake up again, he will still be there.
“Weißt du, wie viel Sternlein stehen
an dem blauen Himmelszelt?”
This text was somewhat inspired by Scott and Madeline's story in Uncanny X-Men and X-Factor. It all might read silly and even kinda senseless — I know it does to me — but still I decided to push this topic and see what comes out of it. If I'm being fully honest, it is difficult for me to imagine Kurt having kids and being the keeper of the hearth in the usual sense, so I wanted to challenge the whole "Kurt would be an amazing husband/dad from the get-go" formula, but do so lightly, in a gentle way.
As per usual, I apologize for any grammatical, syntactic, and punctuation errors or any weird phrases, given that I'm not a native English speaker. Constructive criticism is always welcomed.
Okay so I know what I said about a College AU FWB to Lovers Wally West story, but the thought of this one literally wouldn't let me go so I had to write it. I lowkey didn't edit it, so if it's a little rough that's my b. Anyways this is a Kurt Wagner x postulant! reader, because I like forbidden love.
Before you read:
*a postulant is a person who is essentially testing out becoming a nun before becoming a fully fledged nun
*I am not Catholic, so if anything is misrepresented here, let me know! I didn't lean crazy heavy on religious themes, but they're definitely still prominent so lmk :)
*I also don't know that much about Kurt, but his character fit this trope so perfectly, so if I misrepresented his character here at all I'm sorry!
Okay that should be it! I hope you enjoy!!!
༛༛ ༛ ༛༺♱༻༛ ༛ ༛༛
The halls of The Cathedral of St. Augustine of Hippo were silent and still. The dust particles that hung in the air were alighted by the moonlight that filtered in through the giant stained glass windows that adorned the wall, each with a different scene of the Passion of Jesus Christ, culminating in an ornate cross in the central window above the altar. It was a serene picture that was suddenly disturbed by the shifting of something, or someone, in the nave. A figure wandered forward, almost in a trance, transfixed on the image of the cross above him. A barbed tail dragged on the floor behind him and his feet were cloven hooves. As he stepped into the light of the sanctuary, his skin glowed a soft, unnatural blue. Yellow eyes still locked onto the cross, he knelt at the steps of the altar as prayers began to spill from his lips. Confessions and supplications filled his prayer until he could no longer bear to look at the cross through his teary eyes and bowed his head, nearly collapsing where he was knelt. He prayed and prayed until he fell could no longer move his mouth from exhaustion, and then he lay on the steps and let his heart keep crying out until he fell asleep there.
What he didn’t notice was that he wasn’t the only one to disturb the silence of the room. A pair of eyes was watching him from the clerestory. A young postulant had come into the cathedral from the nunnery that it was connected to. Suffering from insomnia, she had taken to sneaking into the cathedral to pray whenever she couldn’t sleep. Most nights it brought the relief she sought and eventually it became her routine. While the doors to the cathedral were always left open, as it was meant to be a safehouse for any who needed it, she had never seen anyone there at night before. She had come into the building just after the devil-boy and watched him pray. She saw how tightly he gripped his rosary, and unconsciously thumbed her own, running her finger along the smooth wooden beads. For someone who looked like Satan himself, he sure was a devout Catholic, she thought. She was curious about him, but didn’t want to interrupt his sacred moment. She waited until he fell asleep before she joined him before the altar. When she had first seen him, she was frightened by his appearance. It was demonic and for a girl who had been raised to hate demons, the visage was enough to stir up uneasiness. But when she got closer, her anxiety quelled a little. He looked human, once you really saw him. The tail, hooves, and blue skin were what had frightened her, but as she observed him longer, they became more familiar. Though she wasn’t fully sure of how safe he was, she was too curious for her own good. She was careful not to wake him, and though she considered staying longer, until he awoke, she decided against it and returned to the nunnery. The next morning, when she went in for morning mass, he was gone. She continued about her day distracted, too busy thinking about the mysterious devil-boy she’d seen that night. Part of her wondered if she’d been so sleep deprived she’d imagined it. She hoped he’d be there again that night. Maybe she’d be brave enough to go down and talk to him. She had never been more anxious for the night to arrive.
When it did, she waited for the other nuns to fall asleep before she snuck back off to the cathedral. She decided to sit in the choir section while she waited, so that she would be able to talk to him when he walked by. However, sleep came quickly to her, unusually. She fell asleep slumped in a choir pew before seeing the devil-boy. That night however, he came again. As he crossed from the nave through the crossing and into the choir area, he saw her. In fact, her presence pulled his eyes away from the cross before him, as he stopped in his tracks and stared at her sleeping form. At first he paused, not wanting to be caught and fearing that her sleep was light, but once he realized she posed no threat, he moved towards her slightly, observing her. Her face was beautiful, it looked content in sleep. He couldn’t help himself from staring. There was something almost self-deprecating about it, he felt, the ability to stand in the presence of such beauty when he himself looked the way he did. That night, though he spent the evening praying, per usual, he couldn’t stop his thoughts drifting back to her. He elected not to sleep the night at the church, in fear she would wake up and see him, so he left quietly, disappearing with a quiet BAMF into the night.
She awoke at the sound of the cathedral bell chiming the nuns’ wakeup call, disappointed she hadn’t seen the stranger.
During her activities at the nunnery, she overheard two of the senior nuns talking about a traveling circus that was in town. It seemed that a few nuns were going to appeal for a recreational evening out to go see the circus, and she eagerly asked to go along. They had decided to go that evening, and the postulant was excited to join them.
The atmosphere at the circus was like nothing she’d experienced. The air smelled sweet and savory like the food vendors that were stationed outside of the main tent. It was loud and exciting. They found their seats as the Ringmaster introduced the Munich Circus and the performances began. One of the last performances of the evening was announced as “The Incredible Nightcrawler.” With a BAMF sound, a blue devilish figure appeared in the center of the ring. The nuns around her murmured in surprise, with a few muttering prayers at the demonic appearance, but she couldn’t help but lean forward. This “Nightcrawler” was the devil-boy from the Cathedral. So he was real! She watched with wrapt attention as he demonstrated his abilities. By the end of the performance, she was fully enthralled. She had to meet Nightcrawler. After the performances had finished and all the performers came out to interact with the audience, she made her way towards him.
He spotted her walking through the crowd towards him and he froze. It was the postulant from the cathedral. The woman whose beauty had captivated him. He almost wanted to run, but he felt an equal if not overpowering draw to stay and talk to her. That side eventually won out and he let her approach.
“You,” she said, once she was close enough, “I know you.” He blinked. How did she know him? Had she been awake when he had seen her?
“You know me?” He repeated, voice thick with a German accent.
“I saw you. At Saint Augustine’s. Two nights ago. I waited for you yesterday, but you never came,” she seemed to pout at that. So she had seen him there the first night. He inhaled softly. The thought that she was waiting for him sent chills down his spine and raised goosebumps along his skin for some reason.
“I was there,” he confessed, “I saw you. I didn’t know you had seen me.” She smiled.
“So you did come! Good! Saint Augustine’s is for everyone.” Her smile was stunning and he felt himself smiling automatically at seeing it.
“I’m Kurt,” he introduced.
“Hello Kurt,” she said, “I’m (Y/n). It's so nice to finally meet you.”
“You as well,” he nodded, “Did you like the show?”
“Oh I loved it,” she beamed, “You’re very talented.” The blue boy flushed a purple color. He thanked her. They were interrupted by the sound of the nuns calling to (Y/n). She shot Kurt an apologetic look and excused herself.
That night, she waited anxiously in the cathedral. She wasn’t sure if meeting Kurt had driven him away but she hoped he would return. All of a sudden, she heard a noise accompanied by the scent of sulfur. She whirled around to find Kurt standing there in a puff of smoke.
“You’re here!” she smiled.
“Of course I am. I couldn’t stay away,” he said. She laughed. They fell into easy conversation. He felt like he could tell her everything and she listened to all he had to say with no judgement, sharing her own life.
This continued over the next couple of days into weeks. There was a steady rhythm. She would wait for him and he would appear and then they’d talk for hours until one or the other was too tired to continue and then they’d bid each other goodnight and leave. For the life of a circus boy, this rhythm and stability was foreign to him. He was comforted by knowing she was there and that she cared. He told her about his love for his adopted family, but the longing to know who he really was. He shared his shame and religious guilt for his appearance and superhuman abilities. He told her all about life in the circus. She told him about her life, about her family, and about the nunnery. She shared her call to become a nun, to fully devote herself to the Bible and its teachings. They wanted to understand each other in a way that nobody else had given them an outlet to before. More than just talking, they taught each other things, things that were central to each other. She taught him her Latin prayers that she had to recite during mass, which he caught onto very quickly. Kurt taught her German, and though she wasn’t the best pupil by any means, she had a very forgiving teacher. She would ask him about his abilities and what it felt like to teleport. One evening, he decided to show her. He took her by the hand and BAMF! They were outside the church. She was fascinated by it and he loved to show off for her, and so he would teleport her around the cathedral like it was a game. Anything to see her smile.
Some nights they didn’t talk at all, they would sit in silence, or simply pray together, letting the presence of another person be grounding.
A few weeks into their nightly rendezvous, something changed. At first Kurt thought that it was just him, but slowly, surely, he felt convinced of the shift. She had become more comfortable touching him, and now actively sought it out. When he wasn’t looking at her, her eyes would linger on him, like his did on her. When they met, the air began to feel charged with something. With longing. Eventually he had to tell her or he felt as though the tension would kill him.
He BAMF-ed into the cathedral as usual, but before she could get any words of greeting out, he hugged her close to himself.
“Kurt?” she asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t,” he cried softly, “I can’t keep it inside me anymore. My heart hurts too much. I’ve prayed for it to stop and its only grown.”
“What has?” she asked, worriedly.
“My love,” he groaned. He leaned in and mumbled into her ear. “Ich liebe dich.” She stilled in his arms. He clung tighter, fearing that he had ruined everything. “Bitte. Please.” His breathing was ragged and he felt crazy. How had a simple crush become such a tidal wave of longing and desire? He wasn’t sure but he knew that he had to bare his heart to her, or else it would crush him.
“Oh, Kurt,” she said softly, pulling back slightly, her eyes sad.
“I know that you can’t be with me when you take your vows but you aren’t a nun yet,” he pleaded. She frowned a bit.
“I know that I’m not, but I will be. I’m called to be. I cannot abandon my calling no matter my feelings. But regardless, you know that the Munich Circus won’t stay here forever. You said it yourself when we were talking, they’re planning to move at the end of the month. You won’t be here any longer.”
“I can make it work,” he tried to argue.
“Kurt,” she sighed.
“Why aren’t you fighting for this?” he asked sharply, “I thought you wanted this?”
“I do,” she replied, “But this isn’t the path that the Lord has laid out for us.” Kurt turned away from her.
“I would have done anything for you,” he said.
“Would you leave the calling that God has set before you?” she asked, “For a girl that you’ve only known a short time?” He paused. No. He knew he would not. But it still stung, it still felt like rejection.
“Kurt,” she tried again. He didn’t respond. They sat in silence for a minute, before Kurt stood and teleported out of the cathedral. (Y/n) sat alone there until the morning came.
She waited in the cathedral the next several nights, but he didn’t return. She was beginning to lose hope of seeing him again, as the end of the month grew closer.
It was the last day that the Munich Circus was set to be in town. She waited in the cathedral that night, though her hope was low. It was past four in the morning and nearing daybreak, and she was considering giving up for the night when the faint smell of sulfur caught her nose. She turned. There he was, in the back of the nave. Her Kurt. She ran towards him and when she reached him, he lifted her up in his arms.
“I’m sorry for my anger,” he apologized, “It was misplaced. I do not want to be your enemy.”
“You aren’t,” she replied, tucking her head into his neck, “You could never be my enemy. I love you, Kurt.” He looked at her tenderly.
“May I kiss you? Just once, before I go?” She nodded. He pressed his lips to hers. He felt his heart thrumming in his chest, a bittersweet mix of joy and sadness that ached. Her heart echoed his, the emotion spilling into the kiss. It was sweet and soft and everything that Kurt had dreamed it would be.
“I love you, (Y/n),” he said, “You are going to make a wonderful nun someday.” She smiled sadly.
“I love you too, Kurt. You’re a wonderful performer and you’re going to succeed at all that you do,” she said assuredly. She pecked his lips once again, in a light kiss. He returned it with a kiss to her forehead, before disappearing into a cloud of sulfur scented smoke.
She remained there, heart hurting softly, staring at where the man she loved had been standing. That was the last time she’d ever see him, she knew it in her bones.
A year later she became a nun fully, and Kurt had joined the X-men as the hero “Nightcrawler”, a nod to his circus past. She continued to live in the convent for the rest of her life, devoting herself to the worship of her God. Kurt went on to save many lives, before sacrificing his own to save one of his teammates. Though they never got their fairy tale ending, both felt fulfilled in their lives, and the memory of their brief relationship, though never forgotten, became a thing of their youth. Maybe in another universe they would have ended up together, maybe it was never meant to be anyways, regardless, they both knew it happened the way it did for a reason, and they were content with that much.
