The Jean Grey School- Monday

[throughaphase]

Clint and Kitty had decided to stay the week and get a break from whatever Fandom was choosing to do to screw with everyone. (Or not screwing with, actually, but they'd probably be glad they were staying in New York.) It gave them both a break, Lexi could see people she didn't get to spend much time with at all which felt like a crime, and Kitty really wanted to spend more time with Kurt before he got called out to go do something X-Manny. And right now, she was just taking a while to stand out on the lawn and set Lexi down to crawl around in the grass without worrying too much about her.

After a few minutes, someone stood next to her, and Kitty recognized Illyana out of the corner of her eye. Between the blonde hair and the dominatrixy thing she had going on with her uniform these days, she was hard to miss. Not know what to say, Kitty didn't say anything for a while, just watching Lexi pick at grass and decide whether she was going to move or not.

And then Illyana didn't say anything either, just watching, too.

All right, fine, Kitty would have to go first. "I'm surprised you're still here." She'd thought about not saying it, but at this point, why worry about what an honest question might do to this relationship?

Illyana paused for a moment, and said, "I teleported. I was hoping my brother would come."

Oh. "He wasn't on the Professor's list. Jennifer might not have thought to stalk him," Kitty reasoned. "She had her hands full getting Scott here..."

Illyana nodded, folding her arms across her chest. "Have you talked to my brother?"

"No," Kitty said quickly, and added, "No."

"I hope he's okay."

"I'm sure he is," Kitty said, surprised at how easy it was to be reassuring to someone who'd turned on her pretty easily after a long history together. "I do get news on him sometimes, he's fine."

She'd last seen Peter in prison, when she broke into the Raft to leave him a present along with a heartfelt letter about how upset she was he'd tried to kill her husband and students, days before his girlfriend or whatever broke him out anyway, and by the way, even if she didn't have feelings for him anymore it was weird to hear about her love being with someone so very much not like her, like it was just weird to look back at her fourteen-year-old self about it, it was fine.

"All that went on recently," Illyana continued, "it just reminded me... I really made a mess of things with him. I said and did some terrible things."

Yeah. She did. But still, Kitty just didn't want her to be upset about it. "You two... I wouldn't worry about it. He'll come around."

"I don't think so."

"I... I miss him a lot."

Kitty started to turn to her, because this was turning into a terrible conversation to have while totally avoiding looking at each other, and saw Illyana coming towards her for a hug-

-and phasing right through her, hitting the lawn instead.

"Oh my god! Illyana, I'm so sorry!" Kitty said, getting down to try and help her up a little. And maybe, she gave her a hug that way. "I did not expect you to hug me! You are not a hugger!"

"I didn't realize I was going to do that either," Illyana said.

Kitty had spent so long being mad at Illyana, and right now it just felt dumb. A lot had happened in the last couple years, they'd both missed a lot of each other's lives, and considering they were having some version of girl talk complete with lawn hugs... maybe it was time to be done.

"At least if you're here we can always hang out again," Kitty told her.

"And whine about my brother," Illyana deadpanned.

Kitty laughed. "Just like old times. Except, you know, everything else."


[NFB, NFI, etc. Taken from All New X-Men #18 because I'm jumping around to fix things that need fixing.]