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“You could have just phased through my sword, you know,” Illyana says, bending over to tie off the bandage wrapped around Kitty’s palm. “Tight enough?”
Kitty flexes her fingers experimentally. “Nah, too loose. And that would have been cheating.”
“Don’t let Erik hear you call using your mutation cheating or he’ll give you a lecture on internalizing human ideas of success,” Illyana warns her, tightening the bandage.
Kitty rolls her eyes. “What I mean is that I need to be genuinely good at swordplay regardless of whether someone can actually stick me with a sword, you know? I’ll get rusty if I rely on that.”
“I guess.” Illyana finishes adjusting the bandage. “And for what it’s worth, sorry about the whack. Sometimes I forget how frail opponents who aren’t demonic entities can be.”
Kitty shoves her hand, now sufficiently bandaged, in her coat pocket. “You’re forgiven,” she says absently.
“You know,” Illyana says. “You might be starting to infringe on my brand with all this swordplay stuff.”
“I think I’d have to significantly upgrade the amount of black leather in my wardrobe for that to be true.” Kitty laughs, and it’s pretty much the best sound in the world.
“Wait, hang on, is your other hand okay?” Illyana asks, grabbing it to check. It’s fine, of course, since it wasn’t the one holding the sword that she had sent skittering across the deck of the Mercury with one blow of her soulsword a few minutes ago. But better safe than sorry.
“All good,” Kitty says, wiggling her fingers as if to prove it. “I can take a bout of swordplay without cracking to pieces, promise. You really don’t have to worry so much.”
“I do, though,” Illyana says, without meaning to.
Kitty’s gaze softens. “I know you do, Yana.” She sighs. “I know you all can’t help. But I’m okay now. The resurrection protocols worked.”
“I know they did.” She traces an invisible line on the med bay table, unable to meet Kitty’s gaze. “But I never want to lose you like that again.”
It’s not like she’s never known death before. Storm and Cat, Piotr and Doug. Herself, even. Death has had a seat at every table she’s ever joined. But here on Krakoa, she was never supposed to feel that ache of loss again. Here, every day was supposed to be a second chance.
Kitty is sitting right in front of her, but she still remembers it all so vividly. The way Emma had opened her mouth to say “It’s Kitty–” and the bottom of her stomach had dropped into an abyss before the sentence was even finished.
Kitty pulls her hand back out of her pocket so she can hold Illyana’s between both of hers. “I get that you’re all still kind of worried about me because I can’t use the gates. But I chose this, Yana. I’m out there doing things on my own terms. Helping people who need it.”
“And I’m glad you are,” Illyana says hoarsely. Her throat feels tight. “But I thought I’d lost you. Really lost you. The resurrections weren’t working and Erik was starting to talk about sitting shiva for you and none of us could figure out what we were supposed to tell your mom.” Her breath hitches and she grinds a palm into her eyes, refusing to cry. Stupid, stupid brain, trying to mourn someone who’s still here.
But it all felt so real . Like, oh, of course it was going to end like this. With Kitty’s corpse in a coffin and Illyana squeezing her hands into fists so tight she left red crescents on her palms and everyone else in the world so awfully alive around her.
“Hey, hey,” Kitty says, scooting around the other side of the med bay bench to squeeze Illyana in a side hug.
She didn’t cry when Emma brought the news. Not when the first resurrection failed. Not when the seventeenth resurrection failed. Not even at the party after Kitty phased her way through the eighteenth attempt and Illyana tackled her to the ground in a hug she never wanted to end.
But her face is wet now, and she thinks of afternoons playing in the snow at Xavier’s. Her hands would grow red and numb with cold as she flung snowballs at the other students, but the real pain came later, thawing inside and feeling prickled back into her frozen fingers.
Kitty’s hair falls in a cloud of curls around her face, like they’re kids again. Like they should be worrying about algebra tests and not the fate of a nation.
“Do you remember,” Kitty says softly after a moment, “When you used your allowance to hitch a bus to Massachusetts and save me from Emma Frost?”
“Yeah,” Illyana says into Kitty’s shoulder, muffled. “And now you’re a pirate queen with her now. Times change.”
Kitty sighs, breath ruffling the top of Illyana’s head. “You always wanted to protect me, even then.”
“I remember,” Illyana says, pulling back from the hug at last. Part of it, she thinks, was how normal Kitty seemed. How being around Kitty made her feel normal, too, even if only for a few minutes at a time as they read magazines or complained about homework. How she didn’t ever want Kitty to lose that.
Back then, she thought Limbo had tainted her soul to the core with black magic, that every breath she took was a defiance against her destiny of evil. Now she’s older, and knows they all have their own demons, and that plenty of hers aren’t so literal, but some of that instinct remains. You’ve seen hell with your own two eyes. But Kitty doesn’t have to.
“But I can handle myself now,” Kitty says firmly. “Being a member of the X-Men has never been risk free. But I’ve chosen this. And now we’ve got the Five and their giant gooey eggs as a back-up.”
Now it’s Illyana’s turn to sigh. “I know . And I’d never want to keep you from doing this. But I’m allowed to worry .”
“Just as long as you never try to turn me into your backpack,” Kitty punches her lightly on her upper arm, grinning.
“I think you’re a little too big for that to work comfortably,” Illyana says.
Kitty splays a hand palm-up on the table, running a finger over the lines and bumps. “I lost my swordplay calluses after the resurrection. Guess I’ll have to start all over again on those.”
“Seems like you’re making good progress on that already.” Illyana eyes the bandage on Kitty’s hand. “Maybe take a break until that cut heals.”
Kitty flips her hand back over, lacing with her other one. “That’s the downside of being corporeal to your sword. Magic is weird like that, I guess.”
Don’t you know ? Illyana wants to ask. Don’t you know? Why you’re the only person who can touch it like that? Not Piotr, not Dani, not Doug or Sam or Beto or Rahne. Always Kitty, only Kitty, whose touch doesn’t simply slide through its shining silver length like it’s nothing more than an illusion.
Illyana’s always thought it must be so blatant–no matter how emotionless she can make her face, the proof that Kitty is the only person she will let close enough to lay hands on her very soul is manifested as a gleaming silver blade.
But Kitty has never asked.
Illyana wants her to ask.
Or, really, Illyana wants her to know without having to ask.
It’s like that night on the rooftop of Xavier’s all over again, Kitty luminous in the moonlight and Illyana’s heart aching in her chest.
It hurts, it has always hurt, ever since she put a name to the feeling growing inside her, and that’s why she knows her soul is a blade and not something sweet and peaceful. It hurts, because to be known like this is a terrible vulnerability where the world won’t hesitate to twist a knife. It hurt on that rooftop and it hurt when they were girls studying together in their dorm and it hurts, now, because every time there’s an ultimatum she hasn’t been able to make herself speak the words.
I love you, Kitty.
Krakoa is about second chances, or it should be. And who is she if she can’t take this one?
“Kitty,” Illyana says, and her voice comes out as a whisper. “I never…” swallows hard, making herself continue. “I never want to feel like that again.”
Kitty lays her bandaged hand across Illyana’s. “You won’t. The Five understand what the problem was now. The resurrection protocols will work on me again, assuming I ever need them.”
Illyana shakes her head, because that’s not quite it. “No,” she says. “I mean, yes, I’m so grateful they brought you back. But it’s not just that. I mean, I never want to regret that I didn’t tell you when I had the chance.”
Kitty’s eyes are amber-brown in the afternoon sunlight. “Tell me what?”
“This,” Illyana says, and leans forward to kiss her.
It’s sugar and fire, hot chocolate on a winter afternoon, a sunshower bursting through a summer sky in a rain of gold, the elation of a spell well-cast, the headiness of drinking too much hard cider on Christmas Eve and standing outside the school watching snowflakes spin golden through the light of street lamps, it’s real and now and it’s Kitty.
Kitty draws back, and Illyana’s heart plummets.
Of course this was a mistake. They’re best friend, but Kitty almost married her brother and now Illyana’s gone and messed it all up and–
“Oh,” says Kitty, breathless. “That’s–”
“I’m sorry,” Illyana blurts, and god fucking dammit she might be a demonic sorceress raised in hell, but this might be the worst moment of her life and she’s really wishing she had the ability to phase through the floor right now.
“No!” Kitty says, reaching out and placing her bandaged hand on the back of Illyana’s neck. The touch is electric even through Illlyana’s flush of humiliation. “Don’t be sorry,” she says, and whatever rambling response felt pushing its way up her throat vanishes under the press of Kitty’s lips on her own.
Time has always been pretty weird for Illyana–folding up and skipping around, reversed and undone, a ball of yarn careening around the floor and entangling in itself–which is maybe why she’s not unnerved when the world slows to a halt and becomes only a slow, golden drip like the flow of honey, Kitty’s lips on hers and Kitty’s one of Kitty’s hands in her hair and other firm against the curve of her spine and nothing, nothing, nothing has ever felt like this before.
Kitty pulls away for a breath, resting her forehead against Illyana’s. “Yana,” she whispers, her breath hot against Illyana’s cheeks. “How long?”
Illyana clenches her eyes shut, then opens them sheepishly. “I don’t know.” She sighs. “No, I do know. We were fifteen and Erik had just let us attend a dance at the nearby human school. I was brushing my hair before bed and you were telling me about a boy who danced with you and I thought It should have been me dancing with you. And then I knew.”
Kitty lets out a huff of a laugh, stirring wisps of hair around Illyana’s face. “I…wow.”
“I could never find the right time to tell you,” Illyana admits. “Or maybe I just told myself that.”
“Well,” Kitty says. “There’s no time like the present.”
And Illyana thinks, maybe, that it was all worth it–the heartache of that night on the roof, the desperate relief when the resurrection finally worked–just for this moment in the med bay of the Mercury.
“You know, Kitty says, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “If you’re going to teach me swordplay, I think it’s only fair that I return the favor with some instructions of my own.”
“I’d like that,” Illyana says, taking Kitty’s hand and letting her lead her out of the med bay. “I'd like that very much.”