Kurt and Nathan, Tuesday afternoon

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Kurt happens across Nathan retrieving some marking. Nathan happens to mention Kurt's reaction to the 'stab him to see if he turns blue' jokes. A rather intense conversation about evil parents ensues. Nathan is somewhat disappointed that 'kill her with fire' is not on Kurt's list of options. Kurt has issues, but we knew that.



It wasn't very often Nathan came up to his office in the mansion, all things considered. So it was out of the ordinary enough to see the light on in there that Kurt stopped and backtracked on his way upstairs, peering round the door. "Nathan?"

"Kurt," Nathan greeted him without looking in his direction. He was still in a suit, having just gotten back from the UN and remembered that he needed to pick up a pile of Russian exams to mark before heading back down to the too-quiet boathouse.

"We do not see you up here very often out of class hours", he remarked casually, stepping further into the room.

"I need to take some marking with me back down to the boathouse tonight," Nathan said shortly, sorting the large pile into two smaller ones. He didn't have the heart to tackle what he knew would be the poorer papers. It had been an aggravating day.

Kurt looked up at him - the bad mood was difficult to miss - then shrugged inwardly and stepped back towards the door. "I will leave you to your work, then. And see you at Rachel's next lesson?"

"Mmm," Nathan said, eyeing Kurt a bit balefully as he sidled towards the door. "So what's so wrong with joking about stabbing your mother?" he asked, in a total non sequitur. "Frankly, I find the image a little appealing."

Kurt froze mid-step, not looking in the other man's direction. "I did not find it funny", he said flatly. "The first time, I said nothing."

"You see, the only problem with that is that the kids don't know that Mystique is your mother, Kurt. So you get starchy about them joking about someone they know as a bad guy, and it leaves them wondering precisely what the hell is with Mr. Sefton." It was probably wrong of him to be poking at Kurt on the subject, given his own Evil Parent issues, but what the hell.

"You know", Kurt said wearily, "looked at from the other way, he was joking about someone from this school, or one of our friends in Pete's case, being taken and replaced. Is it allowed for me to get... starchy... about that?"

"Finding it unfunny is one thing, but can I suggest that it might have been more productive to email Forge in private to tell him that? Rather than do it in public and leave those who aren't in the know wondering what's wrong with you?" Nathan shook his head, his eyes back on the papers as he continued to sort. "I may not understand precisely why you're allowing yourself to fence-sit on the subject of your mother, but I'm not going to dispute your right to do it. But unless you want to have to explain to some too-clever child why you're feeling ambiguous..." He trailed off, having made his point.

"I do not think I could explain that to anyone outside my own mind", was all the answer Kurt could give to the first part. And to the second... "Forge said something similar." And he'd almost considered making a clean slate of it, for a while.

"You know," Nathan said irritably, looking sideways at Kurt, "you remind me of me, and that frightens me to death, Kurt." His expression was tight enough that Kurt could tell that it wasn't quite hyperbole. "You're depending on her not to ever use those ambiguous feelings for her own benefit - or Magneto's. If you think a parent's love is any barrier to that sort of thing when the parent is committed enough to their ideals, you're deluding yourself."

There was a silence before he answered that. Then, "Perhaps I am", came the slow response. "And I know that I can never be allowed on team missions that involve her because of that, even when I am back on active status." It had become 'when', not 'if', at some point since his return, almost without him noticing. "To do as much as can be done to stop her using these feelings."

Nathan's jaw tightened even further and he shook his head. There was a flicker of a different emotion in his gray eyes, something too raw to be simple sadness, but it was gone again as quickly as it had come.

"You can't use the feelings," he finally said. "They use you. Because you're the one in the position of weakness, Kurt. Not her."

Kurt turned away, just slightly. "I did not say I could. But she is still human, Nathan, and I am not the only one with feelings. Perhaps there is weakness in us both, if more in me." He sighed. "Or perhaps that is only more delusion."

'She's evil! Pure evil! Evil parent, kill her with fire!' is not the appropriate response here, Nathan. "You say things like that," he said slowly, "and I remember that my father loved me. Didn't stop him from doing any of what he did, or allowed to be done to me, but he loved me. Love can be one of the ugliest, most damaging things in the world, Kurt. And if your mother ever decides to manipulate you for your own good, to help create a world where visible mutants like the two of you don't have to be afraid, she will walk right over you if you proceed with a mindset like that."

"Then tell me what to do", Kurt said, looking up at him finally with a horribly vulnerable look in his eyes. "Because I know what she has done, all of it, and they are terrible things. But I was raised to believe in family, and I only have my sister now who would and can acknowledge me. And I cannot just cut out these feelings like a... tumour." It was possible he wasn't just talking about Mystique, by the end.

"Kurt..." Oh dear God, he's asking me for advice. This cannot end well. Nathan set down the last of the papers and came around the desk. He took a deep breath, and met the other man's eyes, his own stormy with repressed emotion. "Do you really, honestly believe that you can somehow... win her back from the goddamned Dark Side by leaving that door open?"

"Not that I can beyond doubt", was the simple answer. "But that I might. And if there is that chance..."

"Then try," Nathan said flatly. "Because if you want it badly enough, you're right, you can't just turn that need off." He sighed, folding his arms across his chest in a gesture that had an odd air of bracing himself, almost. "Either you'll actually manage it, or she'll do something to kill that need for you. Hopefully if it's the latter, no one else will get hurt in the process, but if you're going to take the chance, you're going to take that chance, too."

"If I take the chance, and if it is the latter", Kurt said slowly, "then I will do all I can to keep others from being hurt for my delusions. I hope you know that."

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "I did everything I could to keep a member of my family from hurting the people I care about," he said, quietly and bitterly. "It worked. A little late, but it worked. I will hope she doesn't ever push you to that point."

"So will I." But perhaps, if she does, it will be mine to do.

"Frankly, Kurt, I think the best you can hope for is that she cares enough not to use you." But I'm not holding my breath, either. Nathan moved back to the desk, avoiding the other man's eyes.

"And I think", Kurt said very quietly, "that I have some evidence of that much." Almost thirty years of it, in fact.

Nathan's eyes went right back to Kurt. "And I thought," he said bitterly, "I had nearly the same. Idiot that I was."

Kurt fell quiet at that, and he wanted to look down, but he didn't, just meeting Nathan's eyes in the silence.

Having this particular conversation with Kurt was rather like kicking a puppy, Nathan thought to himself dourly. "Well, let's hope the parallels end there," he said, and did Kurt the favor of being the first to look away. "You never know, yours might be the case that proves the exception to the rule."

"Nathan", Kurt said quickly, almost desperately, "I am sorry it did not work out so for you. But if redemption is possible, as I was once taught it is, then... the chance is not something to offer only once, however many times it is not taken. And who should offer it, if not her son?"

Just don't be surprised if she throws it back in your face, Nathan thought, but didn't say, pushing away the memory of that last conversation with Saul in the car. "Kurt... I'll hope you're right," he said, his voice clipped. "I don't actually want to be the one who's right here."

"You are the one who told me not to leave the team, to show her how it can be", Kurt said, voice back to quiet. "I want to believe that you were right then, that that will be the way to a chance."

Nathan blinked, remembering that conversation - Right, that's why I shouldn't drink when I'm having important conversations. - and then grimaced, his jaw tightening again as he felt a wave of sudden anger. At himself, not at Kurt.

"In vino veritas, maybe," he muttered.

"But truth in wine is still truth, or could be."

"You're an incurable optimist." Nathan sat down in the chair behind the desk, eyeing Kurt. "Don't listen too much to me," he said heavily. "I'm hardly objective."

"I am what I have to be", was the counter, with a whole lot of possible endings to that sentence, most of them involving sanity. "And that is why you are the one person I should listen to."

Nathan opened his mouth, then closed it again, as if rethinking what he'd been about to say. He rubbed at his forehead, letting out a sigh. "It's moot, you know. Until she reappears."

And that opened up a whole new can of worms, but all that showed on Kurt's face was a slight frown. "Of course... until she reappears." He would not think about a certain one of the possible alternatives.

Nathan didn't know what that was about, nor did he want to go poking anymore. He'd done enough of that tonight. Pulling at his tie, he smiled a bit thinly at Kurt.

Kurt nodded a response to the smile, turning a little towards the door. "You had work to do."

"Marking, yes." Although he wasn't sure which was to be preferred the least, the marking or the conversation.