Kurt and Scott; Kurt and Amanda, Thursday

[x-bamf.livejournal.com]

Scott comes to visit. Kurt wants to quit. Scott blackmails him out of it.



"Amelia's informed me I'm not to upset you," Scott said from the doorway of Kurt's infirmary room. He was leaning against the doorframe, watching the man on the bed with an unreadable expression. "I almost told her to shove it up her ass, but then I remember Jean isn't always the one to patch me up when I need patching. Plus the redheads tend to stick together."

"Amelia does like to play guard dog", Kurt said with something that might almost have been amusement. "But you need not worry, my condition is not such that emotion could make it worse."

"Good, because I'm not in the mood to go easy on you," Scott said, coming in - and closing the door. His voice was low, very even, but something close to outright anger seethed under the surface. "So maybe you can tell me when the man who used to be Ororo's XO turned into one of the kids, or Nathan on a bad day?"

"If I knew when, I would tell you." There was nothing but tired regret in his voice. "Perhaps when the mother of his childhood disowned him. Or perhaps when she took him back and died in the same hour."

"Uh-huh." Scott's voice was still low, but harsher. "You're my friend, Kurt, but right now, this isn't about the emotional basis behind the idiocy. Why did I have to find out that you'd gone after a terrorist, alone, from your sister? Who, incidentally, blamed us for letting you go - apparently we should have seen through your excuses and understood you were running off to do something inadvisable."

"I will tell her not to do that. My sister could have stopped me, had she wanted to, but she understood. I... believed... that if Mystique allowed me to find her, it would not be to hurt me."

Scott folded his arms across his chest. "I had honestly thought," he said, very levelly, "that you'd started to understand that your relationship with Mystique could not be pursued. Or that you'd at least learned to put the welfare of the people you care about who aren't dedicated to the overthrow of human society first and foremost."

"What, exactly, do you think I went to Mexico to do, Scott?" Kurt sked, leaning back tiredly. "If you think it was to join her, or anything else to harm your welfare, then I am more than just a liability."

"I don't know what you went to Mexico to do. I didn't know that you went to Mexico," Scott said, more forcefully. "And now that I know, I really don't know what you thought you'd accomplish."

"She let me find her, Scott. And the things she said... perhaps she was lying, but if she was not, she may yet be talked into leaving him. I went there to hear what she had to say, and to bring her back to where she might have... time to think."

Scott was silent for a long moment, but it would have taken a blind man not to notice how he paled with anger at Kurt's words. "Even now," he said, "you want to believe the best of her. After she let you find her. After you were nearly killed in an entirely random hit-and-run, and then used by Magneto to accomplish something we don't even fully understand yet. After she very possibly participated in setting this whole thing up, given that the strange woman who passed evidence to Suzanne - Suzanne, whom the Brotherhood should not be able to identify yet! - could very well have been her."

"I know she may have lied", Kurt repeated quietly. "I did not mean for her to be free while she thought. And if she did set it up, whatever was behind this... without her, I am an orphan. Not alone, but orphaned."

"I don't have a mother - up until a few months ago I didn't think I had a father, and I'm not sure the correction to my personal universe is to be preferred," Scott said tightly. "That doesn't justify anything, Kurt. That doesn't give you an out, for putting yourself and teammates in danger to try and reason with a terrorist."

"I warned you of the danger", was the flat response. "I warned you because I knew you would come, whatever I said or if you heard nothing at all. I would have told you to leave me if you would have listened."

"Well, that's very noble and self-sacrificing of you, Kurt." Scott sat down in the chair beside the bed, still visibly angry. "And yet another example of you making a choice for us. I honestly didn't think you trusted us so little."

"In the field, I would trust you with anything." That was sincere. "But I am a danger to you now, Scott, and the danger may outweigh my use. I believe Magneto knows I am her son."

"And? How is that a danger to us? He knew perfectly well that Wanda and Pietro were his children - that didn't stop either of them from being X-Men." Because they had their priorities in order, Scott thought, but didn't say.

"It was still a risk, if he had ever decided to take them. And then, their abilities are rarer than mine, and less limited. You do not need me as a teleporter, not when you have Clarice."

There was something close to scorn in Scott's real eye, just for a moment. "Kurt, I've made a habit of being very clear about the fact that I do not want anyone on this team who doesn't want to be there. That if any of you find a better opportunity elsewhere, something that will make you happier, or more satisfied, that I'll be the first to wish you well. That said," and his voice was crisp, "I'm going to be absolutely disgusted with you if you use this as an excuse to give up on us. Poor choices regarding Mystique aside, you're stronger than this."

"I am not giving up on you." He sighed. "You will always do good work. If there is giving up, it is on me, because I know my weakness and sometimes all there can be is distance."

"You know what?" Scott's voice was almost preternaturally calm. "I'm going to write this off to your injuries and the stress of Magneto holding you captive for days, because that is the only way it makes any sense whatsoever."

"If that is how you would like to see it." Kurt leaned back against the pillows. "I would like to go home, when Amelia gives me leave."

"Well, Kurt, I think you should probably not be making any travel plans for a while," Scott said in that same level voice. "You owe us, and not just for the rescue. The least you can do is stay here while we figure out what happened, and what Magneto meant to accomplish with all of this. Not to mention, we have no idea what he might have gotten from you while you were being held - and don't shake your head at me, if they pumped you full of drugs you could have said all kinds of things we'd rather not have had shared."

"Then let the Professor go through the memory of those days", he said flatly. "If he is not satisfied with what he finds, then I will stay. But I gave you years of solid service before ever anything happened with Mystique, and I want to go home. Will you say no?"

Scott gave him a very tight smile. "I'm not going to say yes or no, Kurt, it's not my place. You're going to choose to stay, because you're an ethical man, even if you want to pull the covers over your head and lie here chanting 'woe is me'. You put us all in danger," he said, "and we're not even sure how or why. You're not going to walk out of here and leave us to it. I know you."

"Then it is to be that way." His own smile matched Scott's, suddenly. "Very well. I will stay, until the danger seems to have lessened. Because you have been good to me in the past, and I would not leave the children at risk."

Scott rose, shaking his head. "You don't like me very much right now," he said, "but this is not about me. Or even about you, or your mother, apart from the fact that she and her boss apparently used you as a pawn here. There are more important things than your peace of mind about the woman who gave birth to you, and once you're not concussed, I suspect you're going to realize that." He smiled again, humorlessly. "She can only screw up your life as many times as you let her, Kurt."

"I prefer to think of it as allowing her chances, no matter how she uses them", Kurt said coldly. "And you do not know any more than I do how much she was involved in this, but I will not look for her again. That much, you can count on."

Scott could have said a number of things about the wishful thinking beneath the words, but instead he just shrugged, pausing in the doorway. "Then you've learned something. Glad to hear it. Get some rest, Kurt," he added, and then departed.

Later, Amanda stops in to check on him and talk sense.



Kurt was awake, and wondering how long it would be before they allowed him back up to his room. He had phone calls to make, whenever that might be.

There was a tapping at the door and then the door itself opened, Amanda's head appearing around the edge. "You awake?" she said softly, in case he wasn't. She was pissed off at him, but part of that was from being so worried about him.

"Hello, jel'enedra", was the weary but not sleepy response. "Yes, wide awake."

"I had to wait until they cleared you for visitors," she said, coming in and closing the door behind her. She took in the leg in the cast, the bandaged side. "You look like something the cat dragged in, Blue," she continued, not unkindly.

"It could be very much worse, considering", he pointed out, looking up at her. "It will heal before so long."

She took a seat on the edge of the bed, careful not to joustle him. "Nate mentioned you'd been hit by a car," she said, tone carefully neutral.

"Yes", Kurt agreed. "It came out of nowhere... a careless driver. Perhaps." Or perhaps not, went unspoken.

"And Mystique?" Normally Amanda referred to the woman as "your mother" or without a name at all, since the name evoked official team files and flags and warnings. But this time she wanted him to remember that.

"I do not know. She was not in the car", he said with the emphasis of knowledge. "Magneto would not tell me anything of her."

"But was she there? Did you find her?" Amanda persisted. Kurt might not lie, but he would evade if he felt he had to. "Magneto doesn't just go wandering around looking for downed X-Men. Someone had to have told him where you were."

"I did find her", Kurt admitted. "Or she found me, in the church. We spoke, we walked... and then the car. Magneto said it was a very convenient accident, but no one could have known precisely where we were unless they were a telepath. It was my idea to leave the church and walk."

"Someone could have followed her." Or Mystique could have arranged for someone to do just that. Amanda sighed and ran her hand through her hair. "Honestly, Blue, you're going to be the death of me one of these days. Messing with the Brotherhood is never a good thing."

"Messing with the Brotherhood is one of the founding reasons the X-Men exist", he said dryly. "And it will continue to be one as long as there is a Brotherhood."

"X-Men, plural," she replied tartly. "You're just one person, Kurt, and they've already shown they know how to deal with you. If there's a next time..." She bit her lip. "My location spell couldn't get a fix on you. I know you want to believe Mystique is a decent human being underneath the terrorist stuff, but it's too fucking risky. Chances are you'll wind up running out of luck one day."

"We will all run out of luck, one day", was the soft response. "Whether it be because I am slowing down, or before that."

"Maybe. But I'd like to think my brother is smarter than to go piling headlong into something because he doesn't expect to live past fifty." Amanda's voice was controlled, but tension showed in the set of her shoulders, the tendons of her neck. "You can't go looking for her again, Kurt. It's too dangerous. And not just for you - one of these days Magneto is going to pick himself up a telepath, and then everyone - including me - is royally fucked by the information you have in that stubbornly thick skull of yours."

"I suppose so." He still sounded tired. "She may come to me, one day, but I will not look for her again."

At that she reached for his hand, squeezing it gently. "I know you want to believe in the good in her," she said softly. "But don't let it blind you to everything else, yeah?"

"If I was blind to what she had done, this time, I would not have looked for her at all. I would have had little reason to."

"You looked for her because you wanted an explanation of why she'd been involved in torturing X-Men," she pointed out. "Perhaps it's time to accept that maybe she did it because she wanted to. Just because she's your mother doesn't mean she has to be anything like you, Blue."

"Nature and nurture, the eternal debate." He smiled faintly. "You may be right. Perhaps I should declare defeat."

"If evil was genetic, then we'd have to lock Wanda up tomorrow," she replied with a returning smile. "And you can imagine the fuss she'd make. And I wouldn't call it defeat, Kurt. If anything, she's let you down by not taking the chances you've given her."

"But it is defeat", was the quiet answer. "There should be no limit to second chances, though sometimes there must be. As it seems there must be now."

"Not by any failing of yours." She squeezed his hand again. "Second chances only work if people take them, Blue. If anyone should know that by now, it's me."

"And should I feel no responsibility, then? Knowing what I know, having done what I have done so far?"

"She is what she is, Kurt. And she made that choice a long time ago, before you ever knew her. She might not want to see any harm done to you, but she's shown that doesn't extend to anyone else." And if Mystique did come near Kurt again, Amanda was going to personally see that it was the last time. "Her choice. And it's not from anything you have or haven't done."

"Choices can be undone." He shrugged slightly, smile long gone. "But as I said, perhaps I have done all I can. I have other things to do."

"I think you have." Amanda forced a cheery smile and went for a change of subject. "So, any word when you're getting out of here? I daresay there's an army of small girls waiting to fuss over you."