25 Unicorn Street- Friday late afternoon (daytime)

[throughaphase]

Since the island was mostly a murderous hellscape now and they'd all just sort of accepted that, Kitty wasn't spending a lot of time outdoors. She was trying to keep Lexi entertained indoors, which today involved setting her on the floor on her stomach and trying to encourage her to crawl after the dogs. Which she would, but only when she felt like it. Maybe if Kitty started throwing toys for her?

Sometime in all that encouraging, Logan called.

The fun thing about Kitty's life was that while she was uncomfortably used to losing people who were important to her, sometimes you got news about things like how Kurt was back from the dead.

And when she was off the phone, she started looking at portals to see when the next one was, and then looked at the time. Ugh. This was a bad week for this sort of thing.


[He was dead too long. Open!]

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[so_hawkward]

Clint had tried telling himself he wasn't feeling cooped up, but he'd also just spent time deep cleaning their freezer so...

When he passed by Kitty and glanced at what she was doing, he couldn't help but perk up. "Are we taking Lexi and escaping? I knew you'd crack at some point."

[throughaphase]

"That wouldn't be a terrible idea," she said, still frowning at her phone. "There's some stuff going on at home."

[so_hawkward]

"Uh oh, what kind of stuff?" Clint asked. "If Logan needs bail money, I might be willing to help him out."

[throughaphase]

"Kurt's alive again," Kitty said, still a little stunned by that one. Happy! But stunned. She'd thought that death would stick so it didn't feel real yet. "Apparently soulless? But they haven't noticed a difference in him so I don't know what that matters yet? Also some will stuff."

She didn't care about that part.

[so_hawkward]

"Okay, that's amazing news. It'd be better without the soulless part but hey, complaining seems a little wrong," Clint said. "Are you going to head home to see him?"

[throughaphase]

"I want to. If there's an excuse to all be at the same place, and maybe Lexi can see daylight for once." Seriously. This poor kid had to literally be sheltered this summer. "Portal's at a time I'm not going out there, though."

[so_hawkward]

"Why not?" Clint asked. "Is it at night? You don't have to worry about getting through town."

He wasn't at all jealous of the phasing, honest.

[throughaphase]

"No, but I'd also like to not traumatize an eight-month-old when some skinless zombie shows up and can't touch her," Kitty reasoned.

[so_hawkward]

"Do you want to go ahead on your own, and I'll see if I can get a daytime portal with Lexi?" Clint offered. "I don't mind, and it'll get you to your friends sooner."

[throughaphase]

She thought about it, and said, "We can all go together tomorrow. In the day. It might help to have some time to wrap my brain around this."

And she hadn't even given much of any thought to anyone else she might be seeing yet.

Plus portals with kids were hard and she didn't want to make Clint deal with that when she could wait one night.

Also, anxiety!

[so_hawkward]

Clint might not have been the best at interpersonal stuff, but he'd learned to read Kitty pretty well, and he slipped his arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug. "Okay, that sounds like a plan then. This is probably a good thing, right? Someone you care about not being dead anymore? Even if it's not perfect, it's a good place to start."

[throughaphase]

"No, it's great," she said, but she hugged him back. "It's just... Illyana comes back from the dead and she's really embraced the demon sorceress thing. Peter comes back from the dead and that whole thing happens. It's a little hard not to feel like I should brace myself."

She worried.

[so_hawkward]

"Okay, now that you mention it, this situation hasn't exactly worked out well for you guys in the past," Clint admitted. "But... I don't know, Kurt's so nice. Or was nice? Maybe he'll just be all right without any drama."

Yay optimism?

[throughaphase]

"I hope. That's why it's going to hurt if it doesn't turn out okay," Kitty admitted. "But that's why we take a night. To process and not be weird about it."

That last part was really said mostly to herself.