Marie and Kurt - Shared Guilt

[x-traction.livejournal.com]

Kurt is the first to notice Marie’s self-imposed isolation and goes to check on her. Unfortunately, all they really establish is that they both wish they had a bit of foresight instead of hindsight.

Kurt hadn't missed how tired Marie had seemed, just before they left the store with the two wannabe looters, but it hadn't seemed exactly the moment to call her on it. Now they were back at the mansion, though, there was nothing stopping him. So he made his way to her suite to look for her.

Marie hadn’t left her suite much since returning from California. She hadn’t had a restful night’s sleep since before the mission and the dreams seemed to be getting more and more disturbing. Hearing a knock at the door, she grabbed a hat off her dresser and put it on before opening the door.

That hadn't gone unnoticed, either, and Kurt offered a tentative smile as she opened the door. "Good afternoon, Marie."

Marie forced a smile and nodded at Kurt. “Good afternoon.” After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped aside and motioned for him to enter.

"I have not seen you much since we came back", he observed gently. "How have you been?"

“Considering everything, Ah would say Ah’m doing pretty well,” she said, crossing her arms in a somewhat defensive gesture. “Ah mean, how many girls get the opportunity to run into the man that kidnapped them and watch him get away again?”

Kurt stilled at that, to hide his inward flinch. One more harm Mystique had a hand in. "He will get what is coming to him, Marie", was all he could offer after a moment. "Have faith in that."

Faith. Marie was having more and more trouble having faith. She locked eyes with Kurt, and there was something hard and unyielding in them. “Ah know he will get what he deserves. But Ah don’t know that faith has anything to do with it.”

“Faith has everything to do with it", Kurt corrected, not breaking the eye contact for all he might have wanted to. "I did not say faith in God."

Marie smiled coldly, before nodding once. “Then Ah suppose Ah do have faith.” She settled into a plush armchair with a sigh. “Though even that faith is gettin’ harder to hold on ta.”

He eyed her worriedly, not moving to sit down himself. "Marie... you do know that if you ever need someone to talk to..."

Marie tried to smile, but her face contorted into something more resembling a grimace. “Ah know Kurt, Ah do. There’s…there’s nothing to worry about, really.” Liar “Just been a long week y’know?”

"It has for many of us", he agreed, still not sitting down but leaning against the wall a little. "The mission was not an easy one."

“No, it was not,” she said softly, unable to look Kurt in the eye as she spoke. “Ah didn’t expect it to be. But Ah also didn’t expect…” she trailed off, and shrugged her shoulders.

"Did not expect what?" he prompted quietly.

She looked up to meet his gaze, and there was a flicker of ~something~ in them. “Ah did not expect for it to still feel so fresh, so personal. And the feeling of helplessness…it was like being on top of the Statue all over again. Ah couldn’t stop him.” A sense of desolation entered the last of her words and again she focused her eyes on the floor.

"I do not know what to tell you, Marie", Kurt responded softly after a moment. "Whether anything I could say would make this better for you... or worse. But it is we who could not stop him, remember that."

“Ah do not know that anything can make it better.” She brushed a phantom lock of hair out of her face. “All Ah know is that however it happened, Magneto has taken another child’s innocence.”

Kurt nodded sadly, glancing in the direction of the corridor, as the closest he could come to looking Julio's way. "At least he is where he can be helped."

Marie followed his gaze. “At least there is that.” But is it enough? “Ah just wish he didn’t need helping.”

"That would have been the ideal. But it does not work out that way, far too often." Because of my blood mother.

Marie shuddered. She could all but hear Erik taunting her…Stop, stop, STOP! Her hands flew to clutch her head and she squeezed her eyes shut. Taking a few deep breaths, she slowly relaxed herself and dropped her hands to her lap. “Ah…Ah’m sorry. Just a touch of a headache.”

"...that looked like a little more than 'a touch of a headache'. Have you been to see the doctors?"

She nodded and managed to force her face into a smile. “Ah was told that for a girl who was set on fire Ah was doing mighty well.”

"Invulnerability is occasionally a blessing", he agreed, managing a slight smile of his own.

“’course next time it’d help if Ah remembered Ah was invulnerable. Ah coulda been more help if Ah didn’t panic and dive into the ocean,” she said.

"It is more than forgiveable that you did", he said quietly. "Humans have every reason to fear fire, after all."

She nodded in agreement, though her heart still told her that she should have acted differently. “And now Ah shall know better for the next time.”

"If there is one. And I sincerely hope there is not." He'd hated being unable to do anything but watch as the mission went to hell. A lot.

Marie grinned wryly. “Ah can’t say Ah wouldn’t be unhappy if that never happened again. But…” A worried look crossed her face as Kurt’s tone finally registered. “Ah’m an idiot. How are you holding up?”

"As well as I ever do", he assured her, conveniently ignoring the fact that it had been a little harder to make that true, just lately. "I just... wish, as we all do, that we could have intervened sooner."

“Hindsight is always 20/20, huh?” Marie’s eyes unfocused as she stared off into space, her mind replaying the events in slow motion as she tried to determine if they could have done anything differently.

"So they tell me." His tone was rueful, and his thoughts in a similar place... though thoughts of Marius's condition kept sneaking in, for all his efforts.

“Ah guess the real question is will we ever believe that we should not have had that sight before?” she said, arching an eyebrow at Kurt.

He chuckled a little, as wryly as his previous tone of voice. "On the evidence? I would say not. Any of us."

She responded with a wry chuckle of her own. “No one can say we don’t have high standards.” Ah just failed to meet them.