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Day 1
Kitty would not define the events of today as “hard”. Sure, leading the X-Men was hard. Fighting against discrimination was hard. Leaving your fiance at the altar- actually that one was surprisingly liberating. Regardless, today was not hard. Today was unfathomable.
It had started off so well too, from the very moment she woke up. Kitty had called a lot of places home; Graymalkin Lane, Scotland, London, a Lighthouse, San Francisco, Space, and now back to Graymalkin. In that time she’s slept in a lot of beds, some comfy, some not. None of them were as pleasant as waking up with him. Warm, nuzzling against soft, velvet-like fur. Safely secured within his deceptively muscular arms and dexterous tail. She was thankful that she had woken up before her alarm to bask in this moment.
Besides her alarm on the nightstand was a now empty bowl of popcorn from their movie night. This week was “ Return of the Jedi” , since they had watched “ Captain Blood” the week prior. Poor Kurt had fallen asleep halfway through. He’d already seen it of course, dozens of times, more than likely all in her company. At this point the movies themselves weren’t that important, it was just an excuse to sequester themselves away from the others for a night, and enjoy each other's company.
When the alarm sounded, the two reluctantly separated (Kurt in particular taking his time) and got ready for the day ahead. Kurt left a quick kiss on her forehead before departing to teach his morning class, and Kitty went to her office, where she would spend most of her morning going over various paperwork. This was the unglamorous “boring” part of being in charge of a school for super powered individuals.
At about quarter to noon a mutant-related disturbance had been reported in Claremont Park. She gave Illyana permission to lead a small team to investigate, and selected Bobby and Kurt to go with her. She thought nothing of it, each of them having gone on hundreds of small missions like this, and hundreds more that were far more dangerous. At around 1:45 PM, she thought it was a bit odd that she hadn’t heard from the team in over an hour. At 2:20 PM, she found out why.
“Uh Kitty,” she felt the familiar tingle of telepathy as Rachel’s voice echoed in her head. “Illyana’s team is back. We’re in the conference room…Something happened. You-you need to come down here.” Rachel’s words were laced with a nervousness detectable even via telepathy. She didn’t sound angry or sad, just nervous, and maybe confused. That, along with a lifetime with the X-Men allowed Kitty to keep calm despite learning that something had happened to a team consisting of 3 of the most important people in her life.
“What happened?” she asked, as she got up from her desk. “Is someone injured? ”
“Maybe, probably, I really don’t even know how to describe it. You need to come down here.” Now, Rachel was scaring her.
“I’m on my way.”
She did her best to keep her composure as she made her way downstairs from her office towards the conference room in the basement. They had two teleporters, she reasoned with herself, and Kurt was a field medic. if there was some kind of injury, she was sure it would be taken care of, unless Kurt was injured, but the thought caused her to shudder. No, he would be fine. He was immortal, apparently. He had survived being beaten to death, when she had stupidly let him convince her to send him out into a demon-filled city without his ability to teleport. It wasn’t even the demons that did him in, it was the civilians he was trying to protect. Another time, he teleported into the side of a mountain. she hadn’t seen it happen, but she had seen the large boulder sized hole in his costume. He would be fine, he had to be fine. So that left Illyana or Bobby. Hopefully when she got there, Kurt would give her the full story on whatever happened.
She arrived and immediately looked around hoping to meet his luminous eyes. She did not. Instead she locked eyes with Rachel, who was chewing on her lip, glaring daggers at Bobby. The chillest guy in the room was hunched over in a chair, eyes wide as saucers. Illyana wasn’t there. She scanned the room, looking for the two missing members, even made sure to double check the dark corners she knew he would blend into, but Kurt was not there, and neither was Illyana.
“Illyana’s tending to him.” Rachel said, as if reading her mind (she probably did). “ Bobby, can explain what happened.” no attempt to hide the anger in her words was made.
“Hey! I am not going to take the fall for this one, this was not my fault!” He said, incensed.
“According to what I saw, you already took the fall.” Rachel fired back.
“Stop!” Kitty said, taking charge. “Bobby, you were there. What happened?”
“Well…you see…the thing is…” Bobby nervously fiddled with his hands as he trailed off. Kitty gave him a moment to collect his thoughts, but he made no signs of continuing.
“Bobby, my best friend, and my partner are missing, PLEASE , get to the point.” Kitty said, finally losing her patience.
“WEFOUNDAMUTANTWHOFIRESLAZERBEAMSFROMHISEYESTHATTURNSPEOPLEINTOBABIESANDIMAYHAVETRIPPEDANDFELLANDKURTTOOKABLASTFORMEANDGOTTURNEDINTOANINFANT!” Bobby shouted, his words blurring together to the point of being unintelligible.
“...I’m sorry, what?”
“When we got to the park, we saw a couple of babies lying around.” Bobby said, this time slower. “At first we were concerned, cause y’know who would leave their baby alone at a park? That’s dangerous, but then we realized that they weren’t actual babies, they were adults who got turned into babies.”
“How did you discover that?” She asked.
“He told us,” he said, without elaborating.
“Who’s he?”
“The Pacifier.”
“Bobby, who the heck is the Pacifier?”
“The dude. That’s what he called himself.”
“ WHAT DUDE?!”
“The dude who turned Kurt into a baby.”
“WHAT?!” Kitty’s face turned the same color as Rachel’s hair. Rachel, now seemingly the calm one, put a hand on her shoulder, and lowered her into a chair. “Alright, fine, I’m calm,” she lied. “Rachel, I’m assuming you saw their memories. What happened? In a way I can understand, please.”
“There was a mutant at the park, some petty thief who thinks highly of himself. Called himself the Pacifier. His mutation apparently lets him fire bolts from his eyes that turn people they hit into toddlers. The genius over there, tripped and fell, and knocked his head against the ground, dazing him. Kurt decided to teleport in front of him to take the blast that was aimed at Bobby.” Rachel explained.
“Okay,” Kitty replied after a minute. If she was a normal person, one that perhaps never left Deerfield Illinois, everything Rachel just said would sound like utter lunacy. But, Kitty is an X-Man, so her boyfriend getting turned into a toddler made perfect sense, in fact, maybe she should’ve expected it. “I see. So Kurt is a baby?” Rachel and Bobby nodded. “Where is he?” Instead of answering her, the two turned to the now opening door. As the door opened the sound of a baby’s cries, which grew louder and louder, were heard.
“It seems I am utterly incapable of making a baby stop its annoying cries.” Illyana said as she walked in, cradling the source of the cries close to her neck. Kurt didn’t have any baby pictures of himself, so the sight before her was both foreign and familiar. He looked a bit similar to the Bamfs that used to follow him around after his resurrection(come to think of it, where did they go ?) except his hair was curlier, and it seems his uniform was thankfully shrunk along with him. He was quite possibly the cutest thing she’d ever seen, and he was crying, loudly. Instinctively she rose from her chair, approaching Illyana and the bundle of fuzz that is- was?- her boyfriend.
“Kurt?” she asked shakily, and to her surprise the Baby immediately stopped crying, turning to focus two, painfully familiar, yellow eyes on her.
“ Kät…zen” Baby Kurt attempted to call her by his nickname, but was now too small to correctly pronounce such a big word. He tried to reach out to her. His tail, which had been wildly thrashing during his crying, now curled towards her outstretched hand.
“By all means.” Illyana said, thankful to hand off the baby holding duties. Kurt immediately settled in Kitty’s arms, and nuzzled his small, still fuzzy, head against her neck. “Looks like he recognizes you at least.”
“Rachel?” Kitty asked, hoping to learn just how much he remembered in his infantile state.
“He definitely still has his memories, but I don’t think his brain is developed enough to fully process them. His thought patterns are close to that of a one to two year-old, maybe a smidge better. Also, all his thoughts are in german.” Kurt’s small paw reached up and played with Kitty’s curls as Rachel explained his mental faculties.
“We interrogated the Pacifier after we took him down. He said that his powers only last for 104 hours, then those affected revert back to their adult selves,” Illyana explained.
‘Just over four days then’ Kitty thought to herself, as her boyfriend began to drool a little on her shoulder.
“Someone will need to keep an eye on him at all times.” Kitty said, beginning to try and think of a schedule. “I’m happy to take the bulk of it, but I’ll need some help.”
“Of course we’ll help, he’s our friend too.” Rachel said.
“Yeah! They don’t call me Babysittin’ Bobby for nothing,” Bobby agreed.
“Nobody calls you that, and you are not touching that baby, Robert Drake. God forbid you trip again and end up crushing him,” Rachel said sternly.
“Am I ever gonna live this down?” He asked.
“No.”l all 3 replied in unison.
“Neigh,” said Baby Kurt.
DAY 2
Kitty watched her boyfriend sleep in a crib, and realized that sentence would probably sound really bad out of context. Thankfully they found the crib among the many artifacts of former residents of the manor. He seemed to be able to crawl, but he was still far too little to sleep in a bed. The three of them had established a schedule for watching him. Kitty would hand Kurt off to Rachel when she left to take care of her duties as headmaster, Rachel would then hand Kurt off to Illyana when it was time to teach her classes in the afternoon, who would then hand her back to Kitty around 5pm. Kitty would then take care of him until she gave him back to Rachel the following morning. It was a shame Ororo had left a week ago to handle a personal affair, she was probably way better equipped to care for a baby-fied friend than any of them were. To their credit, the first full day of this schedule had gone without any hiccups. except for the fact that he still would not stop crying whenever Illyana held him.
Rogue and Remy had stopped by earlier, having heard something happened to him. Rogue seemed positively elated with the development.
“Heavens to Betsy,” she had said. “I ain’t ever had a baby brother before.”
Rogue had then asked to hold him. Kitty respectfully declined, citing obvious reasons. Rogue was saddened, but seemed content with just waving to him after that, as Remy held him. Kurt seemed to have reacted positively to it, though in Kitty’s biased opinion, he seemed happiest in her own arms.
It was a strange feeling looking down at him as a baby, watching him, feeding him. All of it was just so very weird. What made it ever weirder was the pesky voice in the back of her head that often asked her. “Is this what raising a kid would be like?” She didn’t even think she wanted kids, and her and Kurt had never even come close to discussing them. She had met TJ Wagner though, so she knew that if Kurt ever did have a kid, they would likely share a resemblance to him. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She wasn’t sure if she should feel anything about that. Thankfully she didn’t have to continue thinking about it, as Kurt reached through the bars of the crib to tap her. She fawned, even as a baby, he could tell when she needed him. Then her nose caught a whiff of something foul , and not his usual brimstone smell.
‘Oh yeah,’ she realized. ‘Kurt’s not potty trained…Oh lord, I have to change my boyfriend’s diaper.’
Day 3
“Do you think he still has his powers?” Illyana had asked Kitty on the first day.
“Kurt once told me he didn’t teleport for the first time till he was a pre-teen, so probably not.” Kitty had said. Illyana had no reason to doubt this, so she trusted her friend.
…So why did the baby she was entrusted to protect just disappear in a cloud of brimstone?
Everything had been fine. Well, the damn baby still cries everytime she holds him for whatever reason, Kurt just had poor taste as a kid she guessed, but it was fine. She had put the TV on as a distraction and sat on the couch with him, as he crawled around the space. Then out of nowhere a cloud of lovely smelling (in her opinion at least) ash and brimstone pops up, and poof, the baby disappeared.
‘Alright calm down, he couldn’t have gotten far, ’ she said to herself. After all, Kurt can only teleport 3 miles on a good day, and that was as a fully fledged, developed, and downright vampish adult. He couldn’t have gone that far as a baby. right? She did a comb over the room, she found that lego piece she had thought missing, but no blue furry baby. Right as she was considering the ethicality of using demonic magic to locate a baby, one of the students, Hisako Ichiki, strolled in, carrying him.
“Miss Rasputin, I found Mr. Wagner, wandering around the hallway. figured he probably wasn’t supposed to be doing that.” She held the baby out to Illyana, who looked way too proud of himself. Illyana took him, which he clearly wasn’t a fan of, but she wasn’t a fan of him either right now. If Hisako noticed, she did a good job of hiding it. “Do you think this means I’ll get extra credit for his class?”
“Kurt is the most lenient grader here. Why would you need extra credit?”
“German is hard.”
“Fair enough,” Illyana said with a shrug. “Perhaps, but that will be up to him, not me. Thank you for your help.”
“No problem,” Hisako said, before exiting.
Kurt continued his incessant whining. Why did he only cry with her? Rachel was his ex, and he seemed fine with her, why is she the problem? She scowled at the crying baby, who was also one of her kindest friends.
BAMF
She coughed as the nice smelling cloud bloomed in her arms, replacing the baby.
BAMF BAMF BAMF
She watched as the baby rapidly teleported around the room. The limitations of his infantile state quickly caught up, by the fourth and fifth bamf, he was slowing, by the sixth he had clearly passed out, unfortunately, in midair. Quickly, Illyana used her magic to place a shield under him, ensuring he wouldn’t fall, then used it as a platform to float him back down to her.
Thanks to being unconscious, Kurt was finally not crying as she held him. a pyrrhic victory.
Thankfully, Kurt was fine. He woke up 10 minutes later, and after a discreet visit to the team medic, seemed in perfectly fine health. One thing had changed though. Ever since she used her magic to catch him, the baby’s opinion of her did a complete 180. Instead of being fitful or crying in her arms, he now seemed unwilling to part from her. When she had set him back on the couch, instead of crawling away to the other side like before, he crawled back to her, settling himself in her lap, like a cat. When she lifted him into her arms again, ready to return him to Kitty, he cooed. He even tried to hold on to her when she handed him to Kitty. Though he did immediately settle happily once in her arms.
“Looks like he’s finally warmed up to you.” Kitty said, giving her one of those trademark Pryde smiles.
“Da, though I do not know why.” Then as if he understood what she said, the baby responded.
“Magie,” The baby excitedly exclaimed.
“Yes, she does have magic,” Kitty said, wincing as Kurt’s tail inadvertently started brushing against her face. Kitty thanked her for watching Kurt, then departed her office, Kurt and the paperwork she would need to finish that night in tow. Leaving Illyana to ponder one question.
‘How did he know I used magic? Wasn’t he unconscious.’
Perhaps, Kurt’s propensity for performance was still intact.
Day 4
The X-Men were needed; Juggernaut was back to his bad habits. With herself, Rachel, llyana, and Bobby all leaving to deal with him, the duty to watch Kurt fell to Amara. Beating Juggernaut took a while, but after much trial and tribulation, Kitty managed to phase that helmet off his dome, leaving him wide open to Rachel’s psychic attack. Kitty took a shower once she got back to the institute, then set out to retrieve Kurt from Amara. To her surprise, Amara was empty-handed when she found her.
“Ororo arrived, I explained what happened to her, and she said she’d take care of him.” Magma’s words made Kitty’s blood turn cold. That wasn’t possible. Ororo had left her a message this morning, saying she still needed another week or so to handle her business, and that she’d keep in touch. Which means whoever has Kurt right now, is NOT her.
“Did she leave the school?” She asked, urgently.
“Huh,” Amara was confused by the sudden intensity. “No, nobody left from what I saw. I think she’s upstairs in her room. What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you later, standby for now, I gotta get Kurt.” She said as dashed away up the stairs.
“Rachel!” She mentally screamed hoping the telepath could hear her.
“You don’t need to scream, I can hear you.”
“We have a potential Code: Raven, I need you on standby.”
“I thought the protocol for a Code Raven was to immediately psychically fry her synapses.”
“She has Kurt.”
“Oh, that sucks. Understood, standing by.”
Kitty arrived at the door to Ororo’s room, quickly phasing in to find Not-Ororo(Nororo for short) cradling a sleeping Kurt.
“Shhh Kitten,” the imposter Nororo said, sounding exactly like her friend. “Our friend here is sleeping.”
“Give it up Mystique, Ororo is still in Africa. You’re not fooling anyone,” Kitty said, trying to calm her battle instincts, she couldn’t let anything happen to Kurt while he was so vulnerable.
“Oh, on the contrary.” Nororo said, making a cruel smile completely alien to her face. Nororo, skin turned from black to blue, hair from white to red, and eyes from white to golden, the cruel smile did not change, but it certainly fit Mystique’s true face much more. “I fooled enough to wind up here, holding him.” She lifted him gently for emphasis.
“What’s your game?”
“Game? I’m just here to see my son’s latest failure of a bedmate in action. It’s been about as disappointing as I expected,” she said haughtily. Kitty knew she shouldn’t let her barbs affect her. all Mystique was trying to do was rile her up, to distract her from her real intentions. But, on the other hand, speaking tactfully was never one of her strong suits, and she really wanted to fire back.
“I’m sure cradling him was completely necessary for your plan huh? What are you really after? Nostalgia? The last time you held him like this must’ve been seconds before you chucked him off a cliff! Must bring back fond memories for someone like you.”
Kitty remembered when Kurt had discovered his true parentage, she had been staying up for hours and hours waiting for him to call back, eventually succumbing to her need for sleep. When she woke up, it was from a familiar three-fingered hand gently rousing her. Maybe it was because he was guilty from seeing how much he had worried her, but later that night, he told her everything. It was the first time Kurt had truly confided in her, something he still struggled with at times, but it had still been a turning point in their friendship that eventually led them to where they are today.
“Don’t speak about things you know nothing about, girl!” Mystique spat back, eyes narrowed to slits. “I did what was necessary!”
“Don’t try to convince me of something you clearly can’t even convince yourself.” Kitty fired back. At that moment, Amara walked in surprising both of them.
“Amara! What are you doing? I told you to standby.” Kitty said.
“I apologize for this Katherine Pryde, but I am borrowing this body for now.” Amara said, her accent now entirely different, yet..familiar, it almost sounded like… “Amara Aquinas will be returned to her body, unharmed, shortly. But for now, I am here to see my son.” Margali.
“Szardos,” Mystique said, also recognizing what was happening. “What are you doing here? Run out of palms to read at that dingy circus?”
“I am here to protect my son, just as I did when you let him go, all those years ago.” Mystique clutched Kurt closer to her in response to Margali’s words.
“For your information, I am not here to harm my son, I just…” she trailed off, looking down, even without pupils, the sadness in her eyes was easy to see. Whatever she was thinking, Kitty knew she was too proud to ever say it. Especially not now. She looked back up, her eyes narrowed again, but Kitty could only wonder how much of the anger was truly at them. “I heard what happened, and I needed to make sure these naive fools hadn’t done anything permanent to him.” Kitty opened her mouth to tell her it would wear off sometime tomorrow, but Mystique continued. “At least I actually bothered to show up to see him. was it too much trouble to come see him yourself, witch?”
“I am busy with the winding way, you could never understand-”
“NOBODY understands the winding way. it’s bullshit.” Mystique interrupted. Kitty now felt like a spectator, she had to take control back quickly.
“Kurt’s condition is temporary, it should wear off sometime tomorrow!” she shouted, to make sure she was heard. Quickly she phased,turning her hands tangible to grab Kurt, and then phasing him out of Mystique’s arms and into her own. Kurt didn’t even shift, still fast asleep. “If you two want to fight, by all means, but not here, and not with Kurt and Amara in the middle of it.” Mystique scowled, looking ready to say something, but then relaxed. She smiled, then pushed past them.
“I was leaving anyway,” she said, storming out. Kitty knew Rachel would ensure that Mystique did indeed leave. Which left her with just one mom remaining.
“May I hold him?” Margali asked after a moment of silence.
“No offense, but out of the times I’ve met you, you’ve tried to harm or kill him at least half of them. So I’d rather hold onto him myself.” Amara’s face saddened, still being possessed by Margali, then nodded.
“I understand. Then I ask that you please take care of him in my stead.”
“Of course I will, I love him,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Love is not always enough, but I am glad. It is nice to know as his mother, that one such as you cares so strongly for him.” She turned her attention to Kurt, breathing softly against Kitty’s shoulder. “Wohin du auch gehst, mein Engel, wisse, dass deine Mutter dich liebt.” she whispered to him. “Goodbye.” Amara’s eyes rolled up for a second, before returning, darting around the room. “Wait, how did I get up here?”
Day 5
It was the weekend, so Kitty decided to take care of Kurt by herself today. She couldn’t help but be excited, by 9:00 pm Kurt should be back to himself. Already the other victims who the Pacifier had Baby-fied earlier that morning were reverting back, soon so would he. All was well until Kitty’s phone buzzed, a facetime, from her mother. Quickly, she set Kurt down in his crib and answered the phone. Perhaps stupidly, Kitty really did not want to explain to her mom that her boyfriend had gotten turned into a baby.
“Hello dear, hope I’m not bothering you.” Her mother said with a smile.
“Not at all mom, what’s up?”
“Oh nothing, I just wanted to check in, see how my daughter was doing.” Kitty’s heart dropped as Kurt let out a cry. “Huh, was that-”
“Just one of the students, I think, hehe, probably just hurt themselves in training.”
“I thought you didn’t have combat training on weekends?”
“Oh-” Shit! How did she remember that? “It’s a, uh, specialized regimen, Kurt’s idea.”
“Oh,” Terri said, seemingly accepting this. Kitty’s anxiety spiked as Kurt whined again. Staring up at her with his big pleading eyes. Nothing smelled, he’d already been fed and burped, so that could only mean he wanted attention.
‘Come on, Kurt,’ she mentally pleaded as if that would do anything. ‘Just be quiet a few more minutes.’
“If that’s a student they must be whining pretty loudly, are you sure Kurt approved this? It doesn’t seem like him. He’s always been such a sweetheart, I’m so happy you two are together now.”
“Y-Yeah so am I.” Finally, she said something true. Unfortunately, she was gonna have to start telling a few more, cause Kurt had enough of being ignored.
BAMF , he teleported onto her shoulder, his wall crawling abilities presumably aiding him in being able to latch onto her. When the cloud dissipated, Kitty stared at her mother. Terri stared right back, eyes wide as saucers.
“YOU AND KURT HAD A BABY?! WHEN?! HOW?! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME? WHEN WERE YOU PREGNANT? OH MY GOD, I’M A GRANDMOTHER!”
Kurt owed her a month straight of Star Trek on movie night for this.
9:00 PM
It started with a faint glow, then Kurt’s body began to shake violently. A flash of light bloomed, and where the baby had been, lying next to her, now was a fully adult Kurt Wagner. He rolled back onto his hands, launching himself off of the couch, standing up and stretching.
“Mein Gott,” he said, and Kitty was almost embarrassed at how much joy just hearing his voice again for the first time in 5 days was. “You would not believe how stiff my joints feel right now.”
“I’d believe it, considering you just grew from a baby to an adult in seconds.”
“Ah, so that was not just a strange dream then,” he said, flexing his toes.
“You remember?”
“Bits and pieces, more glimmers than memories. I hope I was not too troublesome while I was like that.”
“You were a pain in the ass to be honest,” he sulked at her words. Brightening up again when she reached for his hand. “But for you? All worth it.”
“Danke, Kätschzen.” he said softly, placing a kiss on her hand, as he lowered himself onto the couch next to her.
“I’m gonna need your help convincing my mom we’re not hiding a secret son from her, you will be making it up to me for that by the way.”
“ Was ?!”
“Also Amara got possessed by your mother, that’s not your fault, but knowing you, you’ll want to apologize for it anyways.”
“Kätschzen, please you’re going to make my head hurt,” she placed a soft kiss on his temple.
“Better?”
“Perhaps I need to get more headaches,” he said, flashing a fanged mischievous grin. It might have been a hectic week, but she finally had him back, and she certainly wasn’t going to let him go anytime soon