Chapter Text
Kitty Pryde’s life had not been the most stable recently. Why then, should she be surprised that this day was not any different. Last week had started normally enough, until a 7 foot tall robot had come to try and take her away. Next thing she knew a man with claws coming out of his hands was saving her life while a bald guy in a wheelchair tried to explain something called the Xavier Institute to her. Her parents had an easier time understanding it all at first than Kitty, and had agreed that this Institute would be the best and safest place for her. It wasn’t until she woke up the next day that it all really began to set in.
Up until today her new life as a ‘Gifted Youngster’ was nothing but one weird diagnostic test after another, with class orientation sprinkled in there for good measure.. It had been a lot to take in, which was why two of her upperclassmen, Jean Grey and Scott Summers, had invited her out for the day. Normally Kitty hated to third-wheel, but she had needed something, anything, to make her feel like a regular 16 year old again. It had actually worked too, up until an explosion rocked the ground and the already busy New York street turned into full chaos.
It had been a bank down the street, the front blown open and streaming smoke. The smoke and the debris made it impossible to see what was going on, but Kitty saw something or someone leap from out of the bank front as people streamed away from it. Scott pulled Kitty’s arm as the three of them ducked into an alleyway.
“What was that?” Scott asked hurriedly.
“I don’t know!” Kitty exclaimed, the words bursting from her mouth like a champagne cork.
“Robbery of some kind…Three perpetrators…” Jean began, both ignoring Kitty in favor of the growing problem.
Jean’s brows were furrowed with concentration as she held her fingertips to her temple. Kitty remembered Scott telling her earlier that Jean was a telepath, like the kindly Professor Xavier, but much less powerful. She seemed to remember Jean being there during her rescue, but most of that night was still very much a blur in her mind. She could see beads of sweat appearing on Jean’s brow and her look of concentration growing more strained.
“Wh-what’s she doing?”
“Jean’s an empath.” Scott explained before checking around the building corner at the deluge of civilians, “She’s projecting calm emotions across the city block. The more they panic the more dangerous this gets for everyone.”
Kitty chanced a look down the street with Scott and sure enough people were slowing down. They were still running, but more consciously and with less fear. It was almost orderly. She even noticed a few stopping to help others get to their feet. A more orderly mob she had never seen.
“Neat trick, care to teach me?”
Kitty jumped and turned around. At first she thought it was some kind of awful creature and she almost screamed, but she came to her senses before she could. It was Spider-Man, his body flattened against the wall and his two big empty eyes staring back at her. Kitty shuddered and took a few steps back. She had never seen Spider-Man in person, even at a distance, but he gave her the creeps regardless. Some scrawny guy crawling up and down walls, probably peering into windows while he did it, and marketing himself as a spider? As far as Kitty was concerned, nobody in their right mind liked spiders. Why someone would choose to model themselves after one was beyond her.
“Glad to see you, Spider-Man. Marvel Girl’s on crowd control, you go high and I’ll engage at a ground level.” Scott explained as he slipped off his shades and replaced them with the visor stored in his backpack.
“Wait, you know each other?” Kitty asked, getting very tired of needing to have things explained to her.
“Sure, me and ‘Syke’ go way back, but that’s a story for later.” Without another word, Spider-Man turned and launched himself into the air by way of web like a human slingshot.
“X-Men business?”
“X-Men business, that’s right.” Scott nodded, “Until the street’s evacuated Jean’s going to need to stay behind. Stay here and keep an eye on her. Understood?”
Kitty nodded, but felt hopelessly out of her league. Scott gave her and Jean another look before rushing out into the street. She could hear some kind of commotion and the sound of the Spider-guy’s webs mixed with the concussive blast of Scott’s beam. She looked at Jean, still concentrating, but looking more relaxed as more and more people reached a safe distance. She stared cautiously for a long time, as if to make sure that Jean wasn’t going to evaporate in front of her, and then snuck a glimpse around the corner.
The smoke had cleared significantly, but the explosion had left most everything covered in dust and debris. Cars stood still, some sitting patiently where their owner’s had ditched them, but most were tossed around either by the explosion or the crazies who had started this. She could see some guy, the biggest she had ever seen, fighting Scott. He was practically a circle, with stubby legs and flabby arms, and a bald potato of a head. Scott, or Cyclops as he was called on missions, was giving him everything he had, but his optic blast did nothing but slow the mammoth down. She could see the bright ray of kinetic force rippling against the bad guy’s gut who slowly worked his way forward against the current. Kitty could also make out a satchel stuffed with what she assumed was money, strapped to his back.
Spider-Man was fighting a tall punk who was busy launching fire up at him through two tubes strapped beneath each arm. The fire behaved unnaturally, seeming to bend through the air to reach for the arachnid. She wondered if these guys were mutants like the kind you heard about on the news. Freaks, they were always called, and degenerates too. Still, Kitty was one of those freaks now, and she couldn’t help but feel more than a little ticked to be lumped in with goons like these.
“Cyclops, head’s up!” Spider-Man yelled as he twisted through the air, threading the needle through a cone of flame and coming out the other side unscathed.
There was a harsh ‘THWIP-THWIP’ sound as he shot two streams of webbing out of his wrists and around the gargantuan neck of Scott’s opponent.
“Going down!” The web-slinger cried as he suddenly dropped to the concrete, slamming the fat dude’s head into a nearby car in the process.
The big dude let out a low groan with his head now submerged partway through the trunk of a sedan. He was moving, but it was twitchy and unfocussed. Kitty was shocked the guy was even still breathing, but his friend seemed not the least bit concerned. The firebug shot two gigantic streams of fire in Spider-Man's direction, but without even looking behind him he flipped out of the way while Scott began to charge forward.
“This ends it, Pyro!” Scott shouted as he ran onto his prone opponent and jumped off him like a ramp made of marshmallow.
Launching himself into the air, Scott got a clear shot and blasted the accomplice into a nearby telephone pole with a loud ‘Crack!’. Before the crook could regain his senses, he was covered in a thick layer of webbing which bound him to the pole. Without missing a beat, he launched another glob of webbing at the huge guy to keep him from getting up. She could hear Scott talking with Spider-Man, but now that they weren’t shouting, it was impossible to make out. Breathing a sigh of relief, Kitty turned back to Jean who was kneeling on the ground, panting.
“I’m sorry, Jean I got distracted!” Kitty hurried back and knelt beside her.
“I’m- ah- I’m fine, Kitty.” Jean put a reassuring hand on Kitty’s and slowly stood up with her. “Using my powers on so many people takes a lot out of me.”
“So, if you could calm all those people down, why not the bad guys?”
Jean smiled at her, “If only it were that easy. Using my abilities on such a large scale dilutes them somewhat. Scared people are easily suggestible and looking to be soothed, so it’s not as hard for me to…Guide them.”
“Well at least you guys took care of it.” Kitty said, more than a bit impressed by both her upperclassmen and that weirdo, Spider-Man.
“Don’t count your chickensh before they hatch, Lady.”
Kitty turned in surprise, and this time she did scream. Some kid was crouching at the end of the alleyway, his skin a gray-green and a long tongue hanging from out of his mouth. He wore a backpack so full it made him look like some hunchback and for a second the tattered rags he was wearing made him look like some kind of court jester. Compared to this freak, Spider-Man was a teddy bear.
“Toad!” Jean exclaimed. She reached her hand out, trying to mentally reach for something to defend them with, but she only winced in pain and grabbed at her head. Jean let out a whimper of pain and fell back to her knees as the stranger crept closer.
“And jusht who are you? Another one of Xavier’sh Merry Mutantsh?”
Kitty’s attention turned back to this new threat and she stepped between him and Jean. She cursed her stupidity, Jean had even told her that there were three hostiles and she had gotten so focused gawking at the heroes that she let her guard down and forgot that there was still one unaccounted for.
“You stay away from her! I-I can turn people inside out! I-it’s, like, really really nasty!”
The creep just chuckled, not even a little intimidated by her boasting. Kitty realized she was shaking. Now that’s intimidating, she thought, if you don’t stay back I might just shiver until I shatter. She wanted to scream that she wasn’t even one of the X-Men, that she was just a normal girl going through the most abnormal month of her life.
“I’ll-I’ll mess you up!” Was what came out of her mouth.
She threw her hands up, confident that she could at least bust up a nose before he did whatever he was planning on doing. Unfortunately, she was not prepared for him to clear a twenty foot space in a single bound. His tongue lolling out like a madman, ‘Toad’ snickered as he wrapped his arms around her and hopped onto the side of the building on their left.. Whatever Kitty had expected, being kidnapped was not it, and she squirmed madly as he hopped up the side of the building. Toad’s sticky hands held her in place and his tongue was wrapped tightly around her ankle. Worse than both though was the stench coming off of him, like he had been bathing in New York’s storm drains.
“Well thoshe idiotsh may have cocked everything up, but one of Xavier’sh bratsh will make for a good consholation prize!” He started laughing then, a squeaky series of croaks that gave Kitty the ick something fierce as he began leaping from building to building.
Kitty didn’t know who these guys were or what they wanted her for, but it certainly wasn’t anything good. She fought more to free herself, but that only made Toad laugh more and she could feel his hands clinging all the tighter to her. She realized quickly that she couldn’t free herself through her own strength leaving her just one other option. She had done her best to not use her power since that first night. Getting stuck waist-deep in her front lawn while a killer robot was on her tail was still a fresh memory, but this was potentially life-or-death and until she had exhausted all options, Kitty Pryde was not going to quit.
She tried focussing, though the stench coming off her captor did not make it easy. Professor Xavier had told her that a mutant must always strive to maintain full control when using their powers for the consequences could be dire otherwise. She took a deep breath, collected herself, and counted down.
…1…2…3…
Kitty felt her stomach sink as she phased through Toad’s grasp and began to drop. She had intended to phase while he was on a rooftop, but her own nerves had ruined her timing. Instead she was falling from six stories above ground. With only seconds to spare she tried weighing her options. If she turned tangible again, she’d probably break something serious, maybe even die. If she remained intangible though, who knows how far below ground she could fall. She might even get stuck in bedrock or something, and never escape. She gulped, felt the physicality return to her body, and shut her eyes. She curled into herself to try and protect herself as best she could before the inevitable splat.
“Woah there!”
Kitty felt herself get plucked out of the sky and for a second she thought Toad had caught her again, until she looked up and saw a familiar set of bug eyes looking at her. He had caught her midswing, cradling her one-armed as best he could before catapulting up into the sky and landing safely on a rooftop.
“This your stop?” He asked.
Kitty realized only after an awkward second of silence that she was still clinging to him. Suddenly embarrassed, her urge to let go manifested by her phasing through his body and landing butt-first onto the roof. She winced and blushed, but the worst now seemed over. She saw no sign of that Toad guy and she could hear police sirens getting closer to where the other two had been disposed of. When she finally turned her attention back to Spider-Man he was leaning forward and looking at her.
“So, you okay?”
Kitty stood up quickly and brushed herself off. Was she okay? Well, her butt was aching, her arms and clothes still felt sticky from where Toad had been grabbing her, and just moments prior she had entered a complete free-fall with every expectation to splatter on the payment. And, that wasn’t even factoring in the complete upheaval her life was going through or that she had just found out that a not insubstantial percentage of the world wanted her, and those like her, dead. She didn’t want to cry right now, and she managed to fight back the tears and give a sad smile and a shrug instead.
“No? Well me neither. Can you believe I just got this suit fixed?” Spider-Man lifted his arms and started pointing to numerous singes and burns acquired from his fight, very pale skin visible through some of the bigger spots.
She smiled again, this time in spite of herself. She didn’t know what someone was supposed to say to her in this situation, but that couldn’t possibly be it. Still, she thought it was kind of funny.
“Oh! I’m sorry, we haven’t even been introduced. I’m Spider-Man.” He reached his hand forward, “You might have seen me in the news.”
“The news says that you’re a hoodlum and a creep.” Kitty replied acerbically, but she took his hand anyway, “My name’s Kitty.”
“Nice to meet you Kitty.” He shook her hand, his grip much stronger than she would’ve guessed from looking at him. “Are you a student at Xavier’s?”
Kitty shrugged, “It’s my first week really. It’s all a little much right now.”
“Yeah I hear you, but stick with it, okay?”
“Why d’you say that?” She asked, taking her hand away from him and giving him a wary eye.
“Professor Xavier’s a good guy and there’s no place on Earth better equipped for, uh, ‘Gifted Students’. He explained, with air quotes and all.
“You guys must work together alot.”
He gestured vaguely, “Eh, we bump into each other on occasions. Stuff like today. The occasional impromptu team-up.” He paused, “Been happening a lot more often lately though, come to think.”
Kitty heard something from the street and looked down to see Scott and Jean calling for them.
“Are you ready to get down?” He asked.
Kitty looked back at Spider-Man, suddenly realizing he couldn’t be much older than her. His voice was too youthful and she wondered briefly if he was perhaps a former student of Xavier’s. She nodded and Spider-Man scooped her up and leapt straight down. Kitty found herself clinging to him again only for their fall to be more controlled than she was expecting. With a web stuck to the roof, they came down gently in front of her upperclassmen and she dropped out of his arms.
“Kitty, are you alright?” Jean asked, looking her up and down for any sign of injury..
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She assured before turning back to her rescuer. “Thanks to Spider-Man here.”
This far away from where the skirmish had gone down, there were still plenty of people and a rare Spider-Man sighting was already drawing a crowd to where the four of them were standing.
“All in a day’s work, young lady.” Spider-Man replied in a deeper voice than usual, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I still have a few robberies to stop before I hit my quota. Be good now!” And with that, he was off. He leapt onto the side of a building before rebounding off of it and swinging away again to a mix of gasps, rude gestures, and a cheer or two from the crowd.
Kitty got a few curious looks from the crowd, but most went back to their business once Spider-Man had left. She couldn’t exactly blame the rest for staring though, she looked like a hot mess. Toad’s spit was still glistening on her pant leg, not to mention her scuffed up clothing and messy hair. Still, she couldn’t find it in her to actually care. Maybe she was finally getting used to the chaos around her, or perhaps she was just exhilarated over not dying, but she finally felt like she was in a good mood.
“We better start heading back to the school, the Professor is going to want to hear about this.” Scott said, sporting his sunglasses again and looking untouched and unfazed aside from the dust on his clothing.
“Toad didn’t hurt you did he?” Jean asked, as they made their way down the street.
“No, no, I’m fine really. Who were those guys?”
“The Brotherhood of Mutants.” Scott answered with a frown, “The big one’s Blob, the small one’s Toad, and the pyromaniac is, well, Pyro.”
“What’s their deal supposed to be?” Kitty felt that she was owed at least the background of the guys who tried to steal her.
“They’re a mutant supremacist organization.” Jean told her, “They target the people funding anti-mutant legislation and technology. Like the Sentinels, the things that attacked you.”
“So then, what’s the catch?”
“Put simply, the Brotherhood are terrorists. We have a lot of common enemies, granted, but that’s where the similarities end.” Scott chimed in.
“They’re bad people.” Jean agreed, “Those three are just some of their foot soldiers.”
“Well what did they want with me?” Kitty asked, wondering why mutant supremacists would be trying to kidnap other mutants.
“Professor Xavier isn’t the only person interested in molding young mutants.” Jean explained, “Likely, they wanted to recruit you as a young, potentially suggestible recruit.”
“We’re not even sure what their objective was with this shoddy bank heist.” Scott added. “Blob and Pyro had bags full of cash, but only a few hundred thousand each. That has to be chump change for the Brotherhood.”
“The Professor will have some kind of insight I’m sure.” Jean replied, and that seemed to settle the matter for the two of them.
They walked for a few blocks in silence as Kitty tried to decompress and process. It was all so much and so fast, and she was already getting menaced by supervillains. Membership in the X-Men was not required for a student at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, in fact it was quite difficult for a student to be accepted. So long as Kitty wished it to be, Xavier had assured her that she would never need to involve herself in that world if she did not opt in herself. Today must surely be a fluke then. Nobody lived long in New York nowadays without some kind of encounter with a super-powered psycho.
“So, is Spider-Man a mutant?” She had been turning the question around in her head for some time now, and it seemed as good a topic as any to break the silence.
Scott chuckled, “We thought so too at first.”
“But, he’s never popped up on Cerebros. However he got those powers, he wasn’t born with them.”
Kitty remembered that Cerebros was the supercomputer the X-Men had used to find her. If they couldn’t find him with that, then he really must not be a mutant. Though, that only made Kitty more curious about how he got those creepy crawly abilities. She had never seen someone so lithe and acrobatic, dodging through Pyro’s flame without even needing to look at what he was doing, and then of course him appearing in the nick of time for her climactic rescue.
“So he’s not a mutant, but you guys have worked with him before?”
“A few times.” He clarified.
“A few times too many according to Logan.” Jean added and the couple shared a laugh.
Logan was the real name of the guy they called ‘Wolverine’. She could easily see why his and Spider-Man’s personalities might clash. She didn’t know him too well yet, but he had been consistently surly with her and everyone else she saw him interact with.
“So then…He’s a good guy?”
Scott smiled, “Even got the Professor X seal of approval. Certified: ‘Good Guy’.”
Looks like mutants weren’t the only ones being misrepresented in the press, Kitty thought. There were a few big names who sang Spider-Man’s praises, but most outlets thought little and less of him. Kitty had to admit though, that she was a fan now. Creepy or not, he had saved her and helped stop a couple of terrorists and in Kitty Pryde’s book, saving the girl and stopping the bad guys were the only requirements for being a hero.
Once they were only a couple blocks away from the school, Kitty had another thought. Spider-Man may have saved her from falling, but she had gotten out of Toad’s clutches on her own, with her own power. Maybe the execution left something to be desired, but at the end of the day she had handled her own escape. She smiled to herself as the school came into view down the street. There were dozens of her fellow students scattered about the palatial lawn and gardens, studying, playing with friends, or just killing time. It struck her then that they all had gifts like hers, that they had all had their life’s upturned just like hers and they were sticking with it.
Maybe she wouldn’t rush back to her old life just yet. Dangerous as it had been, today had proved a good one and the fact she had exhibited just a smidge of meaningful control over her power was encouraging as well. Maybe she would stick around and see just how far she could go with her gift. Maybe she would even see Spider-Man again sometime. It seemed like he knew the X-Men well enough, maybe he would swing by the campus one day and they could have a chat. That idea might be a bit unrealistic, but recently her life had been as well so why not hope?
As they approached the school, she studied the gilded sign set into the exterior fence.
Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters
Est. 2013
If nothing else, she figured it would be more interesting than regular school.