One More Night (Ultimate AU)
Nightcrawler slammed the door of the gym shut, walked over to the punching bags and started hacking at one of them with his swords. Jamie, Rahne, and Jimmy all looked over at the indigo man. “What’s gotten into him?” asked the Scottish girl.
“I don’t know and I don’t like that. But based on how he’s acting, I’m not sure it would be safe to ask,” responded Jamie.
“I’ll go,” Jimmy volunteered. “He probably can’t do enough damage to kill me before you can restrain him, Captain.” The blond American walked up to the German, hands up carefully beside his head to show he meant no harm. “Kurt? Is there something-”
“Scheiß drauf, du schwienhund hurensohn!” The subsequent swing nearly took Jimmy’s head off and he backed away quickly.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What’s this all about?”
“You had your chance with her, pisskopf, let someone else make her happy now!” There were really only a few ‘hers’ that both Wolverine and Nightcrawler knew, and most of those were on the other side of the world right now. “This is about Kitty, isn’t it?”
The assassin didn’t say anything but turned back to destroying his swords.
“Okay. I know this isn’t about me, because I this is the first time I’ve seen either of you today. Is this about the people SHIELD sent over to help us? I don’t think she knows any of those people either.” Kurt had finally worn himself out or just got too depressed to continue. “Was one of them flirting with her or something?”
In an exhausted voice, Kurt finally said something understandable. “The woman, Jessica Drew, Spider-Woman or whatever her name is. Turns out she’s Peter Parker’s clone.” Before Jimmy could ask, the assassin continued. “With all his memories.”
Today had been frustrating. First the woman, Jessica had pulled her into a close hug before introductions even started. Then Nightcrawler had stormed off half-way through the mission, declaring they didn’t need him. He was right, they didn’t but it wasn’t like him to just leave like that. Then Jessica had requested that she speak to Kitty in private.
“I’m sorry. I know this must be awkward for you.” The private conversation had somehow turned into a starlit picnic, on the far side of the island. Kitty tried not to feel uncomfortable. The last time she had done something like this, it had been with Peter before everything had gone to hell. The memory was intruding in her present, tainting both somehow.
“It's a nice picnic. Very romantic. But Jessica, I don’t swing that way.”
The younger brunette nodded. “I know. I just wanted . . .” her voice faded away. “Look, I need to explain something to you. I’m . . . not a real person.”
Kitty stared at the other girl. “I don’t understand. You’re sitting with me, right here, right now. Are you saying you’re a ghost or a hologram?”
Jessica chuckled but the sound lacked any humor. “A ghost maybe. What I actually am is a clone. A clone of Peter Parker.” She turned towards Kitty. “A clone with all his memories.”
“Ah.” The silence was heavy and oppressive. “I don’t mean to be rude, but that doesn’t make you the same person.”
“Yeah. I just . . . he’s got a lot of bad memories, you know.”
“I’m not surprised. I feature in more than a few of them I bet.”
“A lot of bad memories, but a lot of good ones too.” Jessica turned to watch the lights play over the coast. “At the end of things, most of the good ones were about you.”
“Jessica . . . you can’t let those memories define you. You’re you, not Peter. I can’t emphasize this enough.” Then sotto voce. “No matter how much I miss him and want him back.”
“I know. I’m not Spiderman. I’m not even a boy. But the memories . . . they feel incomplete. Like he never got a chance to end things properly with you.”
“He died,” said Kitty dryly. “I’m not going to hold that against him. I knew he would have stayed if he could have, but it wasn’t his decision to make.”
“He’s never going to get a chance to propose. Never going to get that June wedding, the house with the white picket fence and the two kids.”
Kitty barely managed to choke out, “I dreamed of those things too. Sometimes I still do.”
“I just . . . I just want one more night. One night to pretend that everything’s alright, that everything’s okay and that all those dreams are still possible. One last chance to kiss you goodbye and smile when you walk away. I have to be Jessica forever. Give me one more night to be Peter and say everything he wanted to say to you.”
This probably wasn’t healthy for either of them. But Kitty still missed Peter and maybe she was weaker than she made others believe. “Alright. There’s a lot of things I wish I had gotten to say to him too.” She reached out to take Jessica’s hand.
The other also leaned forward, then hesitated. “May I ask you a question? If you weren’t . . . if I was . . . could we have?”
Kitty’s smile was sad. “I’m afraid we’ll never know. Maybe it’s a good thing that life can’t go down that path.” She wove her fingers through the other girl’s and leaned against her shoulder. “Now, the last time we did this, you were describing the constellations to me.”
Kurt crawled along the ceiling until he reached Kitty’s room. From a shadowed corner, he watched Kitty and Jessica kiss deeply, Kitty’s arms around Jessica’s shoulders, Jessica’s arms wrapped around the Jewish girl’s waist. They parted and Kitty whispered some words to Jessica. Then Spider-Woman walked away and Kitty watched her with a soft smile on her face that made Kurt’s heart sink. Only when the younger girl turned the corner did Kitty enter her room.
Kurt wrestled with his conscience before losing the battle and teleporting in. “Augh! Kurt! What the hell are you doing in here!” Kitty had taken off her shoes and sweater but hadn’t gotten undressed any further.
He ignored the question. “So, how was your date?”
She calmed. “It wasn't really a date. More a memorial or maybe a therapy session. A chance to trim some loose ends and say goodbye properly. I never got to do that with Peter and she never really had a chance to escape from his shadow while he was alive.” Kitty sat on her bed. “It hurt a lot, but I think it was good for both of us.”
“So you’re not going out again?”
“She did ask. But no, we’re not doing this again. Peter’s gone and he’s not coming back and we both needed to accept that.” She looked up at the assassin. “So what did you come here for? Probably not just to check how my date went.”
He debated, then dropped down onto her bed, doing a flip in the air to orient himself properly. “You may get a complaint tomorrow. I got into a fight with Hudson.”
“Jimmy? He’s pretty easy-going, what did you get into a fight about?”
Kurt waved his hand. “That’s not really important. It wasn’t really about him, just me being in a bad mood and taking it out on everyone. We worked it out sparring in the gym.”
She raised one skeptical eyebrow at him. “Okay, it’s probably good that he can regenerate otherwise some of those wounds would have taken months to heal. But there was nothing inherently fatal. The problem is I pretty much went off on him, called him every insult I could think of. Jamie was watching the whole time. He may call you into a disciplinary hearing about me tomorrow.”
Kitty thought about this for a while. “You say you didn’t try to kill him?” Kurt nodded. “And Captain Britain was watching the whole time and didn’t interfere?” Another nod. “How does Jimmy feel about this?”
“He was on the defensive the whole time but that was by choice, not because I was overwhelming him. Hudson could have struck back and ended the fight much sooner. After the fight, he said it was alright and he understood that I needed to get some stuff out of my system.”
“If Jimmy’s not going to press charges, that does take some of the pressure off you. And if Captain Britain was watching, I’ll take your word that the fight wasn’t serious enough to warrant an intervention. Are you worried about what you said? Was it like what you said to Piotr?”
“Similar but not as harsh. Jimmy didn’t seem to take it seriously.”
She looked at him with narrowed hazel eyes. “You’re lucky Jimmy had such a stable upbringing. If you had hurt him as badly as you hurt Piotr, he’d be hard to stop.” Kitty closed her eyes and thought about it. “I don’t think you’ll be court-martialed or expelled from Excalibur. But be prepared for some pretty awful missions in the near future. Jamie will also probably revoke some of your privileges as an officer.”
Kurt nodded. “That’s about what I expect too. I just wanted to warn you before Captain Britain springs this all on you.” He shifted and got up off her bed to pace. “The second thing I want to tell you is that I nearly kidnapped you today.”
“Oh my God Kurt, there are so many things wrong with that statement.” Kitty pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay, let’s take them one by one. First, I’m glad you’re being honest with me and given that you didn’t actually do it, I won’t report this to Excalibur. So you don’t have to worry about that.”
The assassin let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Katzchen. That means a lot to me.”
“That leads me to the second point. Do you have any idea how wrong things would go for you if you kidnapped me?”
Kurt nodded. “First, unlike Dazzler you have a very good reason for not believing me since I’ve done this before. Second-” he raised his hand to count off the reasons, then realized the futility and let them fall to his side. “Unless I strapped an inhibitor collar on you while you were unconscious, I’d have no hope of keeping you isolated. And since doing that would be a sure-fire sign something was wrong which would cause you to fight back. Not that you’d win that fight,” he side-eyed her. “But it would defeat the purpose of kidnapping you in the first place. And third, it would break my parole and I’d be dismissed from Excalibur.”
“You would not be dismissed, you would be collared and imprisoned and that’s only if the Captains were feeling merciful. When I said this was your last chance, I meant it, Nightcrawler. There are too many governments demanding for your head for this to end well. If it gets bad enough that you’re dismissed you’ll be heading straight for a cell and probably execution too.”
“Yes oh. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that Xavier mind-whammied quite a few politicians to get you to the X-Men. There’s no one left to do that now and you are not worth the political capital it would burn if you slipped up that badly. Are we clear?”
Kitty took a few breaths to get her temper under control and let Kurt regain his own equilibrium. She didn’t want to push him into another breakdown. Finally, she spoke again. “I don’t know why you’d want to kidnap me anyway. You only did it to Alison because she had been so badly injured in that mission. I’m completely healthy.”
“Badly injured and because I was in love with her and jealous that she chose Angel over me,” he corrected her.
“Yes, and you’re not in love with me.” He was silent. “You really aren’t.”
“I was in love with you long before I loved her.”
“You were young enough that I never said anything. Then you were with Spiderman, then he died and then Hudson. The time never seemed right and I tried to get over you with Dazzler.” He snorted. “We all saw how well that went. But if it makes you feel better, I don’t think I could have hurt you the way I did her.”
Yellow eyes looked at the shocked expression on Kitty’s face. “Look, I really didn’t mean for you to find out this way. I’ll give you some time to think this over. You can tell me to go to Hell or whatever tomorrow.” With that, the indigo man bamfed back to his room, cursing himself internally. Well, there went another friend he could cross off the list.
