Chapter Text
Kitty was distressed when she stumbled into his room. She hadn’t even bothered to knock. She was never good at masking her emotions, but she also couldn’t exactly hide her puffy red eyes. Kurt couldn’t decide if it was an improvement to the deep, dark circles that she had arrived home with initially.
She must have been home for at a month now. He wasn’t sure. He had stopped obsessing over the number of days that went by since she and Logan returned.
Logan hadn’t been looking well either, walking a lot slower with a partial limp. When Kurt inquired about what happened, Logan gave him the short of it. There was a problem with Kitty’s father, Kitty went to Japan, got into some trouble, and Logan went to help.
Kurt remembered feeling more than a bit miffed at that. It seemed both Logan and Kitty were more similar that he’d like to admit: gallivanting off into danger without a second thought.
“You could have at least let us know,” Kurt had said, rather scathingly.
All that got him was a grunt from Logan as he took a swig of a long overdue beer. He wasn’t up for talking. So Kurt gave up asking.
All he knew was that whatever happened while they were abroad certainly left its mark on Kitty. She was withdrawn. Sleeping late. Restless at night. In the beginning, she insisted on intense Danger Room practices, to the point where she was too exhausted to go to dance practice. Logan and Ororo thankfully intervened at that point, limiting her to only supervised sessions once a week.
But Kurt had a sneaking suspicion she was slinking off at night to use it. His suspicions proved right when he crept along the shadows of the control room to see its monitors alight with activity. She had done this every night—running through some complicated scenario with skills he had never seen before. He wasn’t sure how to ask Logan about it without giving away what she was doing.
Kitty was far too stubborn to stop. Nearly all the X-Men were stubborn, but she was by far the most stubborn, in Kurt’s view. Being the youngest, the least experienced, she probably thought she had far more to prove than the others. Xavier “demoting” her to the New Mutants for a time probably only reinforced that belief.
So, of course, she would keep pushing herself even though the more senior members of the group told her not to. She would not listen to him, most certainly. The best he could was make sure she didn’t hurt herself. So every night, he watched over her.
He disliked doing so without her knowledge. But ‘pride’ was in her name. And she was far too proud to admit when she needed help.
At least until this morning.
“Kurt…do you think you could help me?” Her voice shook at little as she leaned on the door frame.
Kurt had already been awake when she stumbled in, twisted into a pretzel on the edge of his bed as he stretched out some his lesser used ligaments. As he untangled himself, he gave her a wide, reassuring smile.
“Of course, Kätzchen.” He leaned forward as he sat on the edge of his bed. “What can I help you with?”
“Um…” Her hands instinctively went up to her shoulder, trying to twirl a non-existent curl. As soon as her fingers pinched air, her hands dropped down again. A pained expression crossed her face. She was never good at masking her emotions.
Kurt slipped from the edge of his bed. “Bad hair day?” he pressed gently as he approached.
Kitty’s brows furrowed and her frown deepened. “A…little,” she offered meekly. “I don’t know how…”
Kurt heard her voice break slightly as she stopped herself. In the low morning light, he could see her eyes glisten as tears began to form. She shuffled slightly back as she dug her nails into her arm. She was withdrawing. On the verge of backing out, he feared. He needed to intervene before that happened.
“Well, it makes sense you would come to me, and not the likes of the Wolverine,” he gestured proudly to his hair with a flick of his wrist, done perfect as always, before he bowed dramatically towards her. A mischievous grin danced on his lips. “I mean, have you seen him in the mornings?”
His little theatrics did not illicit much of a response, to his quiet dismay. She mumbled something he could not catch as she averted her eyes to the floor. Withdrawing more? Less? She was still standing in front of him, so either way it was good, he supposed.
He was not granted the gift of foresight, so as he done many times before, he took a step off the platform and prayed to God that his skills and instinct would be enough to make it through unscathed.
“Come, Kätzchen, with me.” He softened his tone slightly, fearing his dramatics spooked her slightly. His arm hovered around her shoulders as he gently steered her out to the hall. She, thankfully, followed along.
It was a delicate situation. That much he understood.
He did not know the circumstances of her haircut, but it was the first thing he noticed when she and Logan first returned home. It was cut remarkably, horrifically short, with uneven patches sprouting throughout her head. He had initially been shocked but a quick thumb across the neck from the Wolverine that limped behind her made him mask his reaction.
Whatever the circumstances, they were not been good. And by the way she held herself now, they had not been consensual. Perhaps even violent.
Kurt was not well acquainted with anger. But the boiling pit in his stomach that threatened to swell up into his throat made him want to gnash his teeth. For a moment, he understood Logan’s fits of rage.
If whoever had done this to Kätzchen was before him now, he’d probably go berserk, too.
But who was before him—or more accurately beside him—was Kätzchen herself. And she did not need rage now. No, what she needed now was a safe place. A private space.
Which is why he led her to the most secluded powder room in the house, tucked away in a corner, with the least foot traffic. But with Logan nearby. Just in case.
He flicked the light on with his tail as he guided her in. The light flickered on, annoyingly so, that caused them both to squint at the change.
Her gaze graze the mirror. He felt her flinch against his hand. The tip of his tail lashed slightly.
He gently squeezed her shoulder as he dragged the only wooden chair by the door towards her. “Sit, little one,” he murmured, smiling wide.
Kitty dropped into the chair obediently, sitting on her hands. She slouched forward, staring hard at the floor. Kurt held back a noise as he felt his chest cave in at the sight.
Her hair had not been growing in…kindly, to say the least. Frizzy and frazzled, it looked as though she hardly took care of it since returning. In an ideal world, he would wash it for her, but he was hesitant on requesting her to do more than she was ready for.
“You just want it styled?” he ventured, hands hovering around the back of the chair.
“Just whatever you need to…” She pulled her hand up for a moment to gesture vaguely to her hair.
Just styling today. Perhaps a wash tomorrow.
That’s what Kurt decided as he stepped out from the powder room to port to and back to fetch his personal hair care items.
He prayed his instinct would prove him right.