Chapter Text
Kitty Pryde’s life turned upside-down ever since she turned thirteen. Her parents were divorcing, she was the new girl at a new school, and she was a superhero.
Did she mention the last two were related?
Yes, Kitty Pryde is a superhero (in-training). At least that’s what she told herself to beat back the reality that she was born a mutant, a freak. Convincing herself she was just like her favorites from her storybooks and comics made the whole adjustment a bit more…palatable.
After all, who could hate a superhero?
Kitty didn’t really want to know if that question had an answer. So, she never dwelled on it. Instead, she remained in her world of fantasy and delusion. That she was a character from her stories and that she was out saving the world just as they’d done.
That usually did the trick to keep her in high spirits. Usually.
Sometimes, however, it was not enough to hold back the bitterness and frustration that swelled in her chest.
Like now, for example, as she found herself staring up at the bottom of the kitchen table as her back pressed into the cold, ceramic floor. When she had originally been wrapped up nice and warm underneath her comforter, tucked away from all the worries of the world.
How did she end up here? She fell through her bed. And through the floor. And through the table. All thanks to her “power.” This power, her gift, as Ororo liked to put it, was the ability to pass through solid objects. Within the records of the school, it was defined as “Selective Phasing/Intangibility.” Regardless of how it was described, it was one that she currently had trouble controlling.
Some superhero she was turning out to be.
It was empty in the kitchen, which saved her embarrassment as she banged her head on the table’s underneath as she sat up.
“Seriously?!” she hissed. She rubbed her forehead and felt a bump beginning to form. Great. Now all she needed was it to bruise, and she’d hit the jackpot on the “Stupidest Injury” lottery.
She crawled out from underneath the table and straightened up. The kitchen was completely dark except for the moonlight that streamed through the window. She glanced at the clock on the wall. 2 A.M.
Amazing. On top of phasing through her bedroom floor, she barely slept more than an hour. She already had enough trouble falling asleep, hardly used to the creaks and groans of the house that surrounded her. So, when she finally did manage to drift off into dreamland, her power activated subconsciously to drag her back to reality.
At least it was quiet. The last thing she needed was someone waking up to find her sprawled out on the floor like an idiot—
“Kätzchen?”
Too late. Kitty flinched as the kitchen light flicked on. She swerved on her heels to face the kitchen entrance, where a towering figure stood, dressed in loose cool-blue pajamas with finger on the light switch.
Kitty had to suppress a shiver at seeing his hand. It was completely unnatural, with thick, three fingers protruding from his palm. And that wasn’t even considering the rest of him—pupilless yellow eyes, blue fur, and more. In a school full of freaks, he was by far the freakiest.
Kitty scrunched her nose as she squinted to adjust to the light. She deliberately avoided looking at the man—could she even call him that?—at the door. “What did you call me?”
The man blinked. “Kätzchen? Is that not your…” his voice trailed off, his German accent heavy when he spoke English. Something twitched in the shadows behind him as he got lost in thought.
Kitty bit back a gag. God, she had forgotten how he had a tail, too.
“Kitty!” A snap of the fingers. “Apologies, Liebchen. I had not meant to—”
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Kitty quickly waved him off, shading her eyes with her other hand. “Can you turn off the light?”
He paused for a moment, before realization dawned on him. “Right, your eyes…” he murmured before quickly switching off the light.
Kitty yelped as she watched him disappear entirely. Floating yellow eyes blinked at her in the darkness, which only added to her panic.
“Never mind, turn them back on!”
The room brightened with a click, and the man reappeared in front of her. He beamed at her, flashing his fangs. “Apologies for the spook. Nightcrawler is quite the fitting name, ja?”
Kitty had to suppress a shiver at the sight of his sharp incisors. Right, his name was Nightcrawler. Or to be more specific, his codename. Kitty wasn’t sure what his real name was. Heck, for all she knew, that was his real name.
Nightcrawler leaned against the doorway, adjusting a blanket he had wrapped around his shoulders. The edges of his lips pulled downward into a frown, and his nose crinkled as he knitted his eyebrows together. Or at least what Kitty thought were eyebrows. For some reason, despite being in the brightest part of the house, his face was still cloaked in shadow. It added an insane amount to his creep factor.
“What happened to your head?”
Kitty’s hand shot up to her forehead, where she pressed it against the bump. Had it gotten bigger? “Nothing,” she muttered.
“That does not look like nothing, Liebchen.” Nightcrawler took a step towards her. She moved a step back. Something flickered in Nightcrawler’s eyes, but it was so brief, she couldn’t tell what it was.
“Let me see,” Nightcrawler frowned.
“I told you it’s nothing.”
Nightcrawler stifled a sigh as his gaze flicked around the kitchen. “How did you get down here? I did not hear you come down the stairs.”
Kitty’s cheeks burned at his questions. This was already so embarrassing, and it had to be in front of the weirdest one?! She wished she could just melt into the floor right then and—was it just her or did Nightcrawler get taller?
“Kätzchen?”
The look of confusion on his face grated Kitty’s nerves. His eyes darted between her face and her waist. Why was he looking at her like that?
She glanced down to see what got him so worked up and was greeted to the floor as a belt. Oh.
Oh.
She was phasing, again. And this time, she had sunk waist deep into the floor. Her palms pressed into the tile, cold and hard against her skin, but she could not feel her lower body. It might as well not even be there.
What was this? A partial phase? Was she stuck? What if her lower body stopped phasing? Would the floor cut right through her? What if her upper body phased too? What was below her? Would she just sink into the ground and suffocate? What if she couldn’t phase back out?
“Kätzchen, easy, easy.” Nightcrawler’s voice ripped her away from the questions that were rapidly racing through her mind. He was still the same distance away, but he crouched to the floor to meet her at her new level. “Deep breaths.”
What were deep breaths going to do while she was stuck in the floor?!
“Is there—is there anything under here?!” A pressure built behind her eyes and her head ached as it spun around her. She better not start crying.
“It is the hangar. Kätzchen, do you think I can pull you out?” Nightcrawler inched forward, offering a hand.
She shuddered at seeing his three-fingered hand. No way did she want to touch him. “G-Get back!”
Nightcrawler’s fingers twitched, curling in slightly. That same emotion flickered in his eyes briefly. This time, Kitty caught it. Was it…pain?
A pang hit Kitty’s chest. She hadn’t meant to…she didn’t mean to…
“I-I can get myself out,” she stammered, though she couldn’t keep her arms from trembling. “L-let me do this on m-my own.”
Hard to do when she was too busy berating herself for being such a jerk. Just because he was totally weird and freaky-looking and gave her the heebie-jeebies because he was basically a Christian horror movie monster turned real—
She felt herself drop suddenly. She shrieked when it happened. Her palms pressing into the floor lost all feeling as she dropped down to her shoulders. Now she couldn’t feel anything except what was still in the kitchen. God, the floor felt so tight around her chest. She hardly felt she could breathe.
Something hot and wet streamed down her face as she gulped down air. She’d feel completely embarrassed if fear wasn’t overriding every instinct. “N-Nightcrawler, I-I don’t w-want—”
She tried to speak, but between her choked sobs and hyperventilating, she could hardly get any words out.
Nightcrawler finally closed the distance between the pair, crouching in front of her as his eyes darted around her, rapidly searching for a solution.
“I-I don’t want t-to f-fall,” Kitty finally managed to choke out, shaking like a leaf.
“You won’t. I won’t let you. If you do—” He reached out towards her. Kitty began to hate how her heart jumped into her throat at the sight of his hand.
She felt herself drop again. She gasped, gulping down air and screwing her eyes shut. She was now entirely weightless, unfeeling. She could not feel any part of her body. She might as well have been stuck in a dream. She wasn’t sure if she was moving. She wasn’t even sure if she was falling as she feared.
Then in an instant, she felt the air hit her body again. The weight of gravity on her limbs. Her eyes shot open.
She was plummeting. Down to the bottom of the hangar where they kept the Blackbird, nearly a hundred feet below. Fear flashed through her. Her blood ran cold. She felt a scream start to form in the back of her throat. The stench of brimstone hit her like a wall.
“—I will catch you!”
Soft cloth wrapped around her body, as though she was being enveloped into a warm cocoon. Strong arms pulled her tightly, flushing her against another body. The tug of gravity slammed to a halt with a deadening thud.
Kitty shot upright, pushing away the cocoon she was wrapped in. Her pounding heart began to slow as she got her bearings. Draped around her shoulders was a familiar blanket—Nightcrawler.
She became acutely aware she was sitting on something—or rather someone. She staggered up, dragging the blanket up with her.
Nightcrawler was on the ground, completely motionless. Kitty’s throat got tight as her heart started beating faster once more.
“N-Nightcrawler?” She crouched down beside him, doing her best to beat down the fear that still swelled up inside her. “H-hey. Nightcrawler—”
She hated how her voice quivered. She hated how her head hurt. And she hated how she was still scared. She reached out towards him, ignoring how her hand trembled.
Her hand brushed his shoulder as she nudged him and called his name again. He did not stir.
She swallowed, trying to steel herself as her fingers hovered just below his chin. She had to take his pulse. She knew that. But the idea of touching him—no, not just that; the idea of there not being a pulse frightened her more than anything.
But what the hell kind of superhero would she be if she can’t even do that? He was her teammate. She’s supposed to look out for him. That’s what teammates are for. That’s…
…what he did for her.
C’mon, Kitty. Get it together.
Kitty’s fingers pushed up against his neck, just below his ear. She braced herself for an ungodly coarse and unsettling texture but was pleasantly surprised to find his fur was…soft. It reminded her of her neighbor’s kitten from back home, whose coat always gleaned in the sun.
Beneath her fingers, she felt a strong pulse. Relief washed over her, replacing the fear that had seized her prior. Her confidence started to flow back. She leaned forward, moving her hands to cup his chin and the back of his head. Her fingers tangled with the wiry, black curls that made up his hair, an entirely different texture from his fur, but not at all unpleasant.
She gently lifted his head, checking to see if there was any blood or injury, when that same baritone voice spoke up.
“Kätzchen?” His voice sounded weary. Yellow eyes slowly blinked at her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m the one who should be asking that,” huffed Kitty as she eased him into an upright position. “What did you think you were doing, pulling something like that?”
“I did say I would catch you, didn’t I?” He flashed a smile, his usual cheerfulness almost immediately back.
Despite it all, Kitty still couldn’t suppress her shiver at the sight of his fangs. Nightcrawler seemed to have noticed, as he quickly closed his lips to hide them. Shame quickly replaced her fear. She turned her head, avoiding his face.
“It’s Kitty, by the way. Not…um…”
“Kätzchen? You said it was fine, ja?”
Oh. Maybe she did. That’s not how she meant it, but she could see how that’s how he’d understand it that way. “Yeah…I did.”
Silence settled between the pair. It felt awkward, uncomfortable. Nightcrawler slowly picked himself up. His hand twitched for a moment, as if he was going to offer it to Kitty, but he held to his side.
It’s not like she needed it anyway. She could stand just fine on her own. She pulled herself up from her knees, eyes glancing around the hangar, avoiding him.
“Let’s…go back upstairs…” Kitty murmured.
“Ja. You need an icepack.”
“Huh?” Kitty blinked.
Nightcrawler tapped his forehead, an eyebrow raised.
Oh. Right. The bump from before. She’d nearly forgotten about it. Why did he have to remind her?
“Do you know your way out of here?” Kitty muttered, pulling the blanket around her shoulders tighter.
“Ja, I’ll lead the way.” Nightcrawler turned on his heel. She heard something click against the floor, like the sound of a dog’s nails against metal.
Her eyes darted down to his feet, and she had to suppress another shiver. His feet were elongated, with two long toes on each foot. Black nails grew at the ends, though they appeared sharp like claws.
Gross. No matter how Kitty tried to reason, she could never beat back the instinctual reaction that he was gross. She hated it. She hated herself for it. She hated everything about it.
What kind of superhero thinks of their teammate like that?