Blast From the Past

[tingrin]

Peter had taken his drawing things back to his room, put his letter to Illyana into an envelope and taken a brief stroll outside to drop it in the post box. After a while, he found himself back indoors watching the 24-hour news channel. He liked to keep abreast of world events, hoping in a shy, Peter-like way that he might hear something about home.

Much to his displeasure, there was yet another 'X-Men Special' on. He turned the volume down on the TV and picked up the book that he was wading through. Periodically he'd glance up just in case anything interesting was on there.

The X-Men Special finished and a news programme came on. Setting down his book, Peter turned the volume back up just towards the end of an interview.

"...Trask said today that the first stage of his Sentinel programme is almost complete and that the public can expect what he calls a 'grand unveiling' in the next couple of weeks. Given that Trask has not exactly been forthcoming about the specifics of this project, it is perhaps interesting that he chooses to market the results in such a blaze of glory. He claims that the Sentinel programme is going to be vital in the ongoing war versus the mutant terrorists."

That made Peter sit right up and pay attention.

"On the subject of mutant terrorists, police in England today are no closer to locating the gang of mutants who robbed a branch of the Halifax Building Society in Liverpool. Two of the mutants have been positively identified as Cain Marko, codename Juggernaut and St. John Allerdyce, codename Pyro, both known members of a terrorist mutant group known as the Brotherhood."

Mugshots of the Juggernaut and Pyro flashed across the screen and Peter stared. He'd never really had an awful lot to do with John when the boy had attended Xavier's Institute, but he knew that a lot of the students had expressed sorrow at the assumption that he had been killed during the Alcatraz mission.

Except Bobby, of course. Bobby hadn't expressed any regrets at all.

"The other two mutants, one male, one female are still at this time waiting to be positively identified, although police believe the woman is Jane Martin, a known immigrant. The gang pulled the heist in the middle of a packed shopping area and the Liverpool Armed Response Unit were there in a record time."

Peter watched somewhat grainy CCTV footage of Pyro standing in the middle of a shopping precinct hurling his flames every which way and involuntarily winced when the kid was shot.

"Well, well, well," he murmured. "John's still alive, then."

[Shadowcat]

Kitty'd slipped out of the Conservatory early. Much as she hated to admit it, even Cal weirded her out a little; even now, she wasn't used to people being quite so close to nature.

And Crypt... had wings. And fangs. When he'd first come to the Mansion, Kitty was more than slightly ashamed that she was one of the kids who'd had nightmares about him.

That probably wasn't a good thing, was it? To be willing to accept only the normal mutants? It at least didn't make sense, even if it wasn't strictly bad.

She'd taken to wandering around the Mansion when she got in a Mood, which she currently was, because she'd got on the internal topic of how the Professor would feel about her immediate shying away from the stranger mutants, who ostensibly needed more of her help and guidance. Maybe it was just one of those wisdoms that came with time. Maybe it was just further proof that she wasn't very good at being an X-Man.

Either way, she was just glad Storm wasn't a telepath, since she'd probably get struck by lightning or something for thinking something so human in nature. Kitty was kind of scared of Storm, too.

So, by this point (as was usual in her adventures) she'd wandered through the kitchen and was carrying around a half a bowl of Cocoa Puffs, they being her comfort food of choice in general. Dancers couldn't have real comfort food, not really, and they couldn't even eat real food most of the time anyway, so if you were really going to comfort-eat even through ballet you had to pick something like cereal - something that wasn't half a cream cake but tasted like one. Kitty'd been eating a lot of cereal lately.

"...Trask said today that the first stage of his Sentinel programme is almost complete and that the public can expect what he calls a 'grand unveiling' in the next couple of weeks. Given that Trask has not exactly been forthcoming about the specifics of this project, it is perhaps interesting that he chooses to market the results in such a blaze of glory. He claims that the Sentinel programme is going to be vital in the ongoing war versus the mutant terrorists."

The TV's words were slightly blurred by the time they got down the hall to Kitty, but as most of the kids did, she picked out "mutant" pretty easily and gravitated naturally towards the source, which turned out to be Peter watching the news. Kitty wandered in and smiled silently at him, leaning her hip on the side of the couch and glancing up at the anchor.

"On the subject of mutant terrorists, police in England today are no closer to locating the gang of mutants who robbed a branch of the Halifax Building Society in Liverpool. Two of the mutants have been positively identified as Cain Marko, codename Juggernaut and St. John Allerdyce, codename Pyro, both known members of a terrorist mutant group known as the Brotherhood."

Kitty's knuckles went white around the edge of her bowl and her spoon clanged from her hand down against the porcelain as she stared intently at the TV. "Oh my -" she whispered, her voice instinctively cutting out the 'God.' You couldn't say 'God.' "Oh -"

John's mugshot flashed across the screen, followed by the Juggernaut's, and Kitty took a step back to stand against the wall behind the couch. Almost no one had lived through the fires and the shooting at Alcatraz, at least not powers-intact, but the X-Men, had they? But there John was, torching a bank...

"The other two mutants, one male, one female are still at this time waiting to be positively identified, although police believe the woman is Jane Martin, a known immigrant. The gang pulled the heist in the middle of a packed shopping area and the Liverpool Armed Response Unit were there in a record time."

The police pulled into the CCTV cameras' range, and Kitty's heart nearly stopped.

"Well, well, well. John's still alive, then."

"Peter, he just got shot!" Kitty said, her voice climbing an octave. "They shot him!"

[tingrin]

"Peter, he just got shot! They shot him!"

Peter was alarmed at just how high Kitty's voice crept as she spoke and turned to look at her. "Of course they shot him," he said. "You saw what he was doing, Kitty, and you know how he can be when he is being destructive. They could hardly have tried reasoning with him..."

The big Russian broke off at the look of horror on Kitty's face and recalled an important point to mind. She and John had dated a few times in the months prior to John's defection from the Institute, a move which had surprised very few people - except perhaps Kitty herself who'd always insisted there was more to Pyro than people gave him credit for.

Nobody had ever believed her and when it had become clear he was with Magneto, it seemed that the point was categorically proved.

"Kitty...it looked like it was just his shoulder," Peter said, attempting to soothe things down again. "I am sure it will not kill him."

[Shadowcat]

"Of course they shot him. You saw what he was doing, Kitty, and you know how he can be when he is being destructive. They could hardly have tried reasoning with him..."

"But..." Kitty took a deep breath, trying to get her thoughts to settle on one thing rather than repeating 'oh God' and 'you can't think that' in her head. "But - shouldn't they have - shouldn't they use rubber bullets, or, or something? For crowd control? He wouldn't have... he wouldn't have hurt anyone, just the buildings, maybe scared some people, he's not like that."

But no one ever believed her about John, probably because he was only the nice guy he could be around her. Stupid, stupid, stupid Pyro.

"Kitty...it looked like it was just his shoulder. I am sure it will not kill him."

"It could get infected or something," Kitty said, feeling vaguely stubborn despite the fact that she obviously didn't want John to really be dead. She pressed the sleeve of her hoodie against her right eye, trying not to start crying, though it was probably futile. She hated crying in front of people. "When did it happen?"

[tingrin]

"...he wouldn't have hurt anyone, just the buildings, maybe scared some people, he's not like that."

Peter had to exert an enormous amount of effort not to comment at that point. Kitty hadn't really been there in Alcatraz to watch John on his destructive spree; she'd been inside the complex with the Juggernaut crashing after her at the time. Like the majority of people at the Institute, Peter had always suspected that John was borderline psychotic, probably not entirely his fault: the mutation couldn't have helped.

"It could get infected or something. When did it happen?"

The kindly Peter was upset by the sight of Kitty obviously trying to hide her tears and reached over to squeeze her hand. "This afternoon UK time - so what, maybe ten, twelve hours ago?" Peter flipped the TV into standby mode and concentrated instead on the girl next to him. "I am sorry. I forgot that you and John...you know."

[Shadowcat]

Kitty sniffed into her sleeve and shut her eyes tightly, trying to block out the world at large for a moment to get a grip on herself, and felt Peter reach across to take her hand. She put her other arm down, trying to smile, and successfully avoided breaking down. At least for the moment.

"This afternoon UK time - so what, maybe ten, twelve hours ago?"

Peter turned the TV off, and Kitty had to restrain herself from leaping at the remote to turn it back on. They'd report if they thought they'd killed him, wouldn't they? "Oh," Kitty said. "Okay." How long does it take to bleed to death from the shoulder?

"I am sorry. I forgot that you and John...you know."

Kitty had to push against her eyes again, this time with both hands, and she slid onto the couch, into the very corner of it. "It's fine," she said thickly, her voice firm. "It doesn't really matter now."

She reached for the remote a little too quickly and flipped the TV back on, hoping that the broadcast was still on the subject.

[tingrin]

"It's fine. It doesn't really matter now."

It clearly did matter, but Peter was too nice a man to push. He simply reached across and squeezed her hand again, letting her know in his awkward way that he was there for her to talk to, should she so desire.

The news had moved away from the attack in London, but had gone into a debate on the fact that mutant terrorists like Marko and Allerdyce continued to be a menace. There was an allusion back to the Sentinel programme that had been mentioned, but no further comment was made on the progress - or otherwise - of the police looking for the bank robbers.

Peter was no doctor, but he was prepared to bet good money that the shot that had put Pyro down hadn't killed him. It probably wouldn't have been very comfortable, but he had been with others and it was more than likely that they'd mopped him up. Time would tell.

"Join us after the break when we compare the behaviour of the terrorists to the heroism of the X-Men."

Not MORE X-Men specials.

Peter was briefly glad for the fact that there were no televisions on the farm back in Siberia. His parents would have swelled up with pride at the number of times their little Piotr had been on the television of late.

"I am tired of hearing about us on the news," he observed, sourly. "Do you not think it is strange that we are suddenly heroes?"

[Shadowcat]

Peter took her hand again and Kitty smiled at him, something approaching a real smile for the first time that day. "Thanks," she said thickly, though he hadn't said anything.

The TV was blathering on with the usual debate and Kitty stoppedpaying attention more than halfway pretty quickly. She wondered breifly was the "Sentinel" project was, but it sounded something (at least based on the SAT Word Book definition of sentinel that Kitty remembered) sort of like a rehash of the registration program, maybe. Nothing big, anyway.

"Join us after the break when we compare the behaviour of the terrorists to the heroism of the X-Men."

"I am tired of hearing about us on the news. Do you not think it is strange that we are suddenly heroes?"

Kitty clicked the TV back off, since it wasn't being very helpful. "I'm not sure I like it," Kitty said. "I mean, I know everyone always wants to be famous, but it's getting kind of annoying." At least they didn't know anyone's real identity. Kitty had shown up as merely "Unidentified" on most of the specials, since Alcatraz had been her first real X-Man thing. "I just... I don't know. I never wanted to be a hero, even one that's not on TV. It feels weird. Whenever I go anywhere in town I always think everyone knows."

[tingrin]

"I never wanted to be a hero, even one that's not on TV. It feels weird. Whenever I go anywhere in town I always think everyone knows."

Good. He'd got her mind off the Pyro situation.

"Da, yes, this is how I feel too whenever I leave the mansion. Before, I go into town, I buy things, I ride the subway like everyone else. Now, I think, they are all looking at me." He shook his head. "I feel like the animals in the Central Park Zoo, always being stared at, people pointing. I would not choose to be a celebrity."

He hesitated, then grinned a little sheepishly.

"And yet, it makes me feel proud at the same time. I am glad that we were able to offer damage limitation at the Worthington laboratories. It did mutants good on the whole rather than harm. It is just a shame we had to fight those of our own kind. All those times the Professor told us that we as mutants should work together, he would have been deeply shamed to know that mutant fought mutant the way we did, I believe."

Oops. He'd mentioned Alcatraz.

[Shadowcat]

"Da, yes, this is how I feel too whenever I leave the mansion. Before, I go into town, I buy things, I ride the subway like everyone else. Now, I think, they are all looking at me. I feel like the animals in the Central Park Zoo, always being stared at, people pointing. I would not choose to be a celebrity."

At least Kitty and Bobby and a couple of the others could slip through society unnoticed still. Not being enormous or blue or having foot-long claws made getting through the day a lot easier, but the feeling was still there, like everyone somehow knew that the little brunette had fought at Alcatraz and knocked out a man almost seven feet tall and easily a few times her size.

"And yet, it makes me feel proud at the same time. I am glad that we were able to offer damage limitation at the Worthington laboratories. It did mutants good on the whole rather than harm. It is just a shame we had to fight those of our own kind. All those times the Professor told us that we as mutants should work together, he would have been deeply shamed to know that mutant fought mutant the way we did, I believe."

Kitty's eyes went down to her lap. "I think so too," she said quietly. "I know we've had to fight them before, but - but it was never that bad, I don't think."

Kitty sighed, then took a deep breath and held it before exhaling slowly, trying to center herself like her dance teacher had always taught back home. "I felt so bad for Logan," she said. "With - with Jean."

[tingrin]

"I felt so bad for Logan. With - with Jean."

"As did we all," said Peter, softly. The sense of grief back at the mansion following the Alcatraz mission had been all-pervading. Even the walls themselves seemed reaedy to shed tears of grief at the loss of Jean Grey and Scott Summers on the top of the death of Professor Xavier. Storm had stepped up to the plate to take over the running of the mansion, but she had been remarkably conspicuous by her absence in the past weeks. Peter, who had been through his own grief in the past with the death of his older brother Mikhail, sensed that she needed time.

The school itself virtually ran without her guidance, but he was faintly aware that she was always involved in everything, even if she rarely came out of her office.

The thought made Peter feel strangely cloistered and claustrophobic.

"I think," said Piotr, eventually, "that a trip to that fantastic cafe in town where they do those great milkshakes might be in order if you fancied getting out of here for a while?"

[Shadowcat]

"As did we all."

Kitty felt bad for Jean, too. Somewhere in there, Jean knew that she'd killed Scott, a man she probably would've married - Kitty didn't think she could ever reconcile herself to that kind of pain. Or Logan's, killing a woman he'd been after for years and even claimed to love.

They were silent for a moment, each thinking over their losses, before Peter spoke again.

"I think that a trip to that fantastic cafe in town where they do those great milkshakes might be in order if you fancied getting out of here for a while?"

How many calories were in one of those milkshakes again?

"I think that'd be perfect," Kitty said. She was officially sick of Cocoa Puffs. What had she even done with the bowl...? "I'll buy. My mom just sent me allowance."

[tingrin]

"I'll buy. My mom just sent me allowance."

"That is very kind of you, Kitty. Perhaps we will buy each other a milkshake if we are there long enough."

It occurred to her that Peter, in his rather awkward, even clumsy way, was actually flirting with her.

He gave her a smile and got to his feet. "Allow me to go and change my shirt and put on my shoes and we can go as soon as you are ready. I just feel that sitting here inside this place all day cannot be good for any of us."

He ran a hand through his hair.

"Should we ask any of the others, do you think...?"

[Shadowcat]

"That is very kind of you, Kitty. Perhaps we will buy each other a milkshake if we are there long enough."

Kitty smiled again, more happily this time. It was all so surreal - right now, it was easy to ignore the fact that John had just been shot on national TV. Kitty knew it would probably come again, stronger, later tonight, but for now she was just going to be normal.

"Allow me to go and change my shirt and put on my shoes and we can go as soon as you are ready. I just feel that sitting here inside this place all day cannot be good for any of us."

"Okay," Kitty said. "I'll meet you by the door and we can walk - it isn't far." She needed to run a brush through her hair if she was going anywhere today, maybe touch up her mascara. Kitty was more than slightly obsessive about her appearance, even if it was only little things she really did.

"Should we ask any of the others, do you think...?"

Other people? Hmm... "Sure," Kitty said impulsively. She could handle it. She probably needed more exposure to others. "If you want. Just a few, maybe, I don't... really like crowds."

[tingrin]

"If you want. Just a few, maybe, I don't... really like crowds."

"Neither do I," said Peter, with a friendly smile. "Then it will be just you and me. Me and you. I am never sure which way round I am supposed to say that." He ran a hand through his short-cropped hair ruefully. "I will meet you in the entrance hall in twenty minutes, then Kitty."

He headed for the door, paused, then turned to look at her, his expression serious.

"Kitty, you must not allow yourself to worry over much about John. I am sure that he will come through this unscathed. But you must remember that...well, that he is no longer one of us. You must not lose site of that fact, despite any feelings you still have for him."

It was quite a stern statement for the young Russian to make, and he looked almost flustered when he finished. Then he disappeared to change.

[Shadowcat]

"Neither do I."

Kitty couldn't figure that one out. At least Peter had no chance of getting squished in crowds. He was big enough that he cut a natural swathe - wouldn't it be hard to get lost in a crowd when you were a foot taller than the rest of creation?

"Then it will be just you and me. Me and you. I am never sure which way round I am supposed to say that."

"You and me," Kitty said with a smile. "You had it right the first time. My English teacher at home said it was because you wanted to be polite and put someone else first, but I think at the end of the day it doesn't matter."

"I will meet you in the entrance hall in twenty minutes, then Kitty."

Kitty looked for her bowl and eventually found it on the coffee table (how had she found the presence of mind to put it there when she'd been freaking out the whole time?) and picked it up, about to go drop it off in the kitchen sink before Peter spoke again.

"Kitty, you must not allow yourself to worry over much about John. I am sure that he will come through this unscathed. But you must remember that...well, that he is no longer one of us. You must not lose site of that fact, despite any feelings you still have for him."

And then he vanished. Kitty stood in the living room for a few minutes, staring wide-eyed at the door through which Peter had disappeared. He was... she wasn't going to say he was right.

It's over, she said to herself, set her chin firmly, and headed out through another door to wash out her bowl and go up to change.