Chapter Text
Dinner that night was a simpler affair, given that Logan was gone for the night and Ororo hadn’t cooked. It was a sort of…fending for yourself/leftovers night, which, Jean knew, wasn’t the Professor’s favorite. The mansion was spacious, but Ororo liked to keep cooking implements on higher shelves that…weren’t wheelchair accessible.
(When it was Professor Xavier’s week to cook, there were an awful lot of things ordered in, Jean noticed.)
Kurt was still getting used to American food, and was…endearingly particular about making sure he had a protein, a carb, and a vegetable.
Ororo usually preferred making something, rather than reheating it. So she had sandwich things over by the sink, humming contentedly as she toasted her bread.
Jean was feeling overstimulated from school, and as a result, rather lazy. She found a casserole and plopped it in a bowl to reheat.
Scott didn’t seem to have preferences. He let everyone choose what they wanted first, and then created a smorgasbord of whatever was left.
(There had been a period of Scott’s life where he didn’t get to eat, so he’d learned to not be picky, and to be fast.)
They all came to the table, though, for their dinner, and Jean watched the little rituals everyone had about eating. The Professor took a napkin and placed it on his lap, and took up a utensil in each hand. Continental table manners meant his hands were always visible. Kurt took the time to cross himself and recite a prayer in German before taking his utensils in hand the same way as the Professor, taking small, polite bites. (This side of him was in stark contrast with the Kurt who had eaten his first Gut Bomb hamburger, taking as much of it into his mouth as he could stuff, in the car, to the amusement of Scott, who’d entered the drive-thru to order him a second helping.)
Jean did sit up straighter, and take a napkin, guiltily realizing that, despite her mental overwhelm, she could try and be a better example. Even if she was eating only with her fork, like a barbarian.
Scott shot her a small smile before starting to eat his own food—Jean was the telepath, but she was still certain, sometimes, that Scott could read her mind—and Ororo settled into her own plate with no utensils at all, her sandwiches in open-face style.
“When are your tests scheduled for?” Ororo was the first to set a table discussion topic.
“Ja! It was everything that people spoke about today,” Kurt jumped in, looking at Scott and Jean for an explanation.
“You just got here, you’re probably exempt from them,” Scott said easily. “For the rest of us mortals, they start tomorrow for the younger grades. Day after for the older ones.”
“So tomorrow is then a holiday for me? Wunderbar!” Kurt smiled. “I would like to see the city!”
“Um. Kurt, being exempt from the test doesn’t mean you get a day off school. I don’t know how they do it in Germany, but here if you skip your classes, I’m pretty sure Principal Darkholme will go nuclear,” Scott said smoothly.
Kurt’s face morphed into a disappointed frown. “Oh, bummer!” he said, slumping into his seat.
“We can do sightseeing another time,” Jean said, smiling. “And then you can call home and tell your parents all about it.”
“My. My mother wants. Um. A photo of the. The skyline? Is. Is that right?” Kurt frowned at his own word choice.
Scott intercepted the conversation then, and Jean was drawn smoothly into a side-conversation with the Professor.
“Speaking of calling home. A certain old colleague of mine had mentioned wanting more phone time with his daughter. I’m sure it can be arranged?” Professor Xavier said, playing at a coy aloofness they both knew was false.
Professor Xavier had spent a great deal of his time cultivating his research into his chosen field of genetics, and had happened to gain Jean’s father as a colleague at one of the colleges he’d frequented.
Jean smiled, chastened. “I didn’t mean to make him feel neglected, or anything. Just,” Jean shrugged. “It’s easier talking to my sister sometimes. That’s all.”
The man nodded. “I understand. And if you’re wanting, perhaps, to…mmm…spare them an argument? It’s worth noting that arguments…don’t keep well.”
Jean nodded. “I know. It’s just. It’s different, now that we’re…not pretending. Harder.”
As Jean’s powers had developed, the common practice had been to act like nothing was wrong. And that had been easier, in some ways. But Jean knew which way she preferred. And it had become a startlingly regular occurrence for Jean to realize she still had bitter feelings and buried resentment about the whole situation. These feelings usually manifested in her small acts of rebellion.
Like not calling her parents on their designated call days. And using the minutes to speak to Sarah instead.
Professor Xavier was looking carefully at Jean, now. “I am happy to provide a listening ear, if you’d like to discuss it. I am a professor of genetics, but I also have a degree in psychiatry,” he stated simply, adding telepathically, I’m told I’m quite quick on the uptake in fields involving the study of the mind.
Jean chuckled, but then sighed. “I could give my mom a call, later. She waits up for my dad, but I have school tomorrow.”
“You can call tonight. Only, if the conversation heads in a disappointing direction? Best to end the call and sleep on it. Hurt feelings only fester, in the late hours when we should be sleeping, instead. They were right in saying ‘things always look better in the morning,’ you know.”
Jean nodded. “All right. I think I will.” She smiled, then, in real gratitude. “Thank you, Professor. For. For helping, with this. It. It really shouldn’t be your job.”
“Not my job? To ensure the healthy development of my pupil? Which might sometimes involve suggesting a correction in behavior that would help them to achieve more satisfactory results in their everyday life?”
Jean returned to eating her supper. “Touché,” she acknowledged with her fork.
Dinner continued, and Jean joined the conversation Scott and Kurt were still having about which buildings constituted as ‘famous’ and which didn’t, as Ororo just smiled and seemed to simply be happy surrounding herself with the conversation, much like a plant taking in sunlight.
She smiled. This was what she’d missed. All the dinners she’d shared with her family, when they were trying to pretend everything was fine, and normal.
Sometimes you just needed to sit in the conversation and…bask.
-o-
Kitty popped a Tylenol as she readied herself for bed: the headache she’d been nursing off and on had mutated into a full-blown migraine, and she’d actually begged off dinner because the thought of sitting in the brightly-lit dining room made her feel nauseous.
She wondered if she was starting her period. That would be rude. She’d already had her turn this month. Leave it to her uterus to try and assert its dominance or whatever and make her have it twice in a month.
It would be nice to blame her recent symptoms on something that made sense. Instead of trying to decide if she needed to go to the doctor for something more serious.
She made sure to wear a panty liner, just in case, and she wore her soft summer pajamas—the pink ones that weren’t too tight if she started feeling bloaty.
Periods were gross.
She entertained the notion of studying, but honestly, the thought of keeping the light on and trying to focus on her AP Bio flashcards was just…too much. So she embraced the migraine and fell asleep quickly.
She didn’t dream.
Across town, a mild tremor grew into a larger one—a local earthquake, it seemed, that stopped within a few minutes.
On perhaps an unrelated note, Lance Alvers had another fight with his super and the man’s floor had a large crack in it. Probably those darn termites, or maybe his apartment was unluckily located on a fault line.
-o-
Cerebro pinged a discovery, and Charles Xavier started to move his plans around. Perhaps he could schedule a trip to Illinois.
He pulled up some information to get an address for the lad, finding only a ramshackle apartment belonging to a Constance Jones. A registered foster parent.
Hmm. This…could prove difficult.
-o-
There was a small village in the south of Bavaria, Germany that touched the Vils—a lazy river that wound and bent around the countryside: farms, mostly, and isolated cabins in tiny villages—Dörfer that Kurt Wagner knew of only by their tiny names printed on maps his Mutti collected in her efforts to help him feel like his world was big, when his appearance ensured that, in fact, his world was quite small.
Kurt’s childhood home was several acres of land to the east of Gerzen, and to the west of Winzeldorf: both towns claimed that the land was within their borders. This didn’t seem to concern anyone. His Vatti had just one fishing permit, and Kurt had spent every summer he could remember setting lines or swimming in the river, or else playing in the trees that surrounded their property.
The kinds of villages that dotted the shores of the Vils were the kinds of Dörfer that boasted none of the staples of larger cities, like a city hall, or a town square. They didn’t have a market proper, a church or accompanying churchyard, or even a paved road.
“Eine Segnung,” insisted Kurt’s Mutti. A blessing. No one passed through their village unless they knew where it was. And Sabine and Thomas Wagner had lived long enough in this area that they could confidently assign those people names.
Theirs was a community of people who used their own farms for produce and traveled fair distances to see their neighbors, who found cause to regularly travel to bigger towns like Gerzen for things like worship services, and funeral rites, and perhaps less regularly to larger cities like München or Ingolstadt for things like museums or theatre.
The exception was der Zirkus.
The summer Kurt was nine, and every summer thereafter, the arrival of a travelling Circus in Gerzen opened opportunities for locals to volunteer their services in return for compensation in the form of performance tickets, or free lessons in horseback riding, swordfighting, or tightrope walking.
It was a wonderful time, for Kurt, who found that, among circus performers, appearances didn’t really matter much. Kurt had blue fur, but the zirkusdirektor Herr Stephan didn’t bat an eye at that. His Zirkus boasted a bearded woman, a sword-swallower, and a mermaid.
When Kurt came to the tents as a teen with the occasional talent for willfully disappearing in a cloud of smoke, Herr Stephan said dismissively, “Meine Clowns tun das gleiche. Und du jonglierst nicht.” And indicated the trick car used for the Clowns who similarly disappeared from the performances.
Kurt, for his part, enjoyed the time he spent feeding horses and petting the trained dogs that belonged to the clowns. He came at night, when the crowds were gone, and picked up after the audience for a wage of cotton candy and simple acrobatics.
At fourteen, Kurt wasn’t the youngest person who found himself working odd jobs in Herr Stephan’s Zirkus, but he was the only one allowed fencing lessons from Herr Stephan himself and additional lessons from Frau Jimaine and Frau Baumgardt, who taught aerial gymnastics and acrobatics, respectively.
The only one invited, that year, to help strike the tent. The Big Top.
It was paid work. Herr Stephan didn’t usually use local volunteers to help strike the tent.
“Stimmt. Und? Du bist ja in meine Zirkusfamilie, oder? Wir anfangen um 22 Uhr. Nächstes Jahr kannst du beim Aufbau helfen.”
And it was so amazing. Kurt’s dependability had earned him Herr Stephan’s respect. And now Kurt was being asked to work for a wage alongside the other Zirkusarbeitern. And to be able to help set up next year!
His excitement knew no bounds, once he was alone, finding his way back to the parish where he’d left his father: Sabine had an easier time with Kurt’s “job” with the Circus if Kurt allowed Thomas to accompany him into the town, instead of trying to go alone.
Kurt had made the trip to the St. Georg Pfarrkirche from the Zirkusgelände so many times, he could have done it blindfolded. Instead, he retrieved the dark coat he always wore—an overlarge fisherman’s coat with a hood to conceal his face and deep pockets into which he could tuck his hands—and ambled out the back like he always did. Slow walk, long strides, not changing his pace.
No reason for anyone to be suspicious.
Upon reaching the church and glancing around the dark grounds to make sure he was alone, Kurt pushed open the door, lowering his hood and dipping a finger in the bowl of holy water he knew was there, crossing himself before entering into the nave, glowing eyes already seeking for the pew where he knew his father usually sat.
“Sollen wir gehen?” the man in question asked softly, as Kurt, in the absence of the Eucharist, offered a bow to the altar in the sanctuary instead of the customary genuflection before taking a seat next to his father on the bench.
Thomas Wagner was an honest, hardworking man: strong, barrel-chested, with hair gone white at his temples to betray his age. He said he liked the idea of growing a beard like Santa Klaus, but didn’t like the way his moustache grew in so dark. He was always saying he’d give it another ten years and try again; that maybe he just wasn’t old enough to grow the kind of fine beard he wanted. (Sabine, whose hair was firmly and fully a silvery white, didn’t appreciate his jokes.)
Kurt, with his lanky acrobatic build, envied his father’s strength, but loved his hugs. He felt like getting embraced by his father was like being held by a small mountain.
As Kurt sat next to him, on the bench, Thomas absently pulled him close with an arm, and it made Kurt smile, and he allowed himself his excitement, then. Exuberant, hushed tones that were louder in the quiet parish as he explained everything: The trust Herr Stephan had in him. That he would be allowed to help strike the tent. That they would start soon: at ten o’clock tonight.
Everything was good for this moment. Perfect, almost. Kurt with his excitement, his father’s quiet approval, sitting in the peace and warmth of the Lord’s house.
Thomas smiled, then, and said he’d wait until Kurt came back. “Unser Herr wird es nicht für blasphemisch halten, wenn ich schlafe, denke ich. Ich bin zu gemütlich, um die Wärme dieses Ortes zu verlassen.” As if to make a point, he adjusted in his seat, which was conveniently located next to one of the radiators for the nave. Despite the warm season, Thomas had turned this one on to offset the chill of the stone floor, which he said robbed his body heat because he was old. The result was, Kurt had to admit, a very comfortable place to pass the time. Thomas burrowed his chin into his chest and crossed his arms, all but settling in for his cozy wait.
“Es sei denn, du denkst, du könntest mich mitnehmen? Mit diesem seltsamen Trick von dir?" He asked then, almost as an afterthought.
Kurt blinked. Oh. He’d never thought of that, interestingly enough. Never taken anyone with him when he teleported. “Möchtest du mitkommen?”
Thomas raised his eyebrows. “Möchtest du, daß ich mitkomme?” he returned evenly, leaving the decision to Kurt.
And after a moment’s deliberation, Kurt smiled and shook his head. Perhaps it was a little selfish, but he wanted to keep this for himself, for now. A personal victory independent of his identity as his parents’ son.
Thomas nodded and re-settled himself, genuinely content. Such was their culture, and such was his way. Waste no time with the complexities of overthinking. Frank honesty served best. “Ich werde das heiligste Nickerchen halten, während du weg bist.”
Kurt snorted—the holiest of naps, indeed –then got to his feet, bowed again in the direction of the sanctuary, and left the church the same way he’d come in.
And then it was back out into the night, wrapped in the overlarge fishing coat. Hands shoved deep in his pockets, striding purposefully in the direction of the Big Top, breathing in the scents of a summer evening, even holding his head up a little higher than usual – higher than was safe, really, because it removed some of the shadows that covered his face—hopeful to catch a breeze under his hood, which could get stifling in the summer months.
He didn’t teleport. The ability was still too new for him to want to use it in the open. He wasn’t sure how much distance he could cover if he tried, and he certainly didn’t want to come up short and find himself drawing undue attention. Better to wait and let himself practice at home, in his woods, where he was safe.
Upon arrival at the Circus grounds once again, he purposefully avoided the crowds of people still loitering on the grounds after the last performance—ofttimes they were there for several hours more. They were city workers, Kurt knew. Their work started after the Circus had been completely cleaned up. They were paid to set up for the next event; to shovel gravel anywhere that had been worn too muddy, to erect bleachers or clear a track—once it had been a large stage for a live theater production.
And it was fine. Kurt’s work would be inside the big top. His path wouldn’t end up crossing with theirs.
Everything was going to be just fine.
-o-
“I just worry you’re taking on too much. You…have a lot to deal with.”
Jean didn’t audibly scoff, though she did roll her eyes. It probably crept into her tone defensively, when she offered her response, but she didn’t care. “But I can’t just…not be involved, Mom. What, I’m a mutant, so I’m not allowed to—to join the human race? I want to take pictures for the yearbook, and go to football games with my friends! What’s so bad about that?”
“And now that boy—that other student—destroyed the bleachers? Is that—am I getting that right?”
To her credit, Elaine Grey didn’t have that tone she usually used when she meant to be provoking. She was just…worried. And seeking information.
Jean rubbed her forehead, trying to keep that in mind. She’d decided to make the call from her bedroom, instead of from the hall, and was glad, now, for the option of sitting down on her bed, reaching for a pillow to squash, using a nudge of telekinesis when the pillow proved too far away. “That’s different, Mom, Scott needs help controlling his powers, just like I do. Just like we all do! But we’re not…this isn’t, like…like a monastery, or—or a hospital. And you knew that, when you brought me here.”
“Is it—do you—do you like this boy? Is that—“
“Mom, that’s not—Scott’s just—that’s so not the point!” Jean cut her mother off, and felt heat rise in her cheeks, and wished she could have this conversation in person—if her mother was in psychic range, the conversation would run much more smoothly, because there wouldn’t be these layers of surface-conversation to wade through in order to cut to the heart of what was really wrong: Jean was a mutant, and her mom didn’t know how to be a mom to someone with mutant abilities, and it scared her. So she wanted to have control over the things that…she could have control over. Conversations about boys and school activities were easier, for her.
“All right, all right, I’m sorry,” Elaine responded, and she was…more relaxed, at least. Amused, even. Comfortable. Because if this was about Jean liking a boy, it was something she could deal with.
Jean wanted to scream. She buried her face in the pillow for a moment before replying, calmly, “I haven’t had an incident in a while, Mom. I work with the Professor twice a week for help with filtering, I train physically five or six days a week, with specialty training for my TK on top of that…It’s just midterms. That’s all, I promise. And the thing with the bleachers was 100% an accident. Scott got grounded from his car, and he has to do extra training to compensate the anonymous donation the Professor is going to give to the school for the cost of repairs. It’s…being handled.”
She knew she shouldn’t have brought up the homecoming fiasco. It had slipped out, when she mentioned that Scott hadn’t been able to drive them to school. And of course, her mother was overreacting. Jean twisted the pillowcase, where it hung from the edge of the pillow, and when that wasn’t enough, she separated a section of hair from her temple, dragging it through her fingers and braiding it.
“Well, I just worry, when it’s midterms and training and all those clubs and isn’t there a new student? The one from Germany?”
“How did you know about Kurt?” Jean blurted, scowling when her mom laughed.
“Sarah calls us more than you, and it appears you call her more than us.”
Jean groaned as her mom laughed again, and she flopped back on her bed diagonally—her legs were still on the floor by the foot of her bed, but her head landed just short of her pillow, about a foot from the wall. She separated her hair again, trying for a more complicated braid.
“Kurt is fine. He’s really nice, just…kind of anxious, I guess. He says he doesn’t speak English very well, and he has…other stuff to…work at,” Jean said carefully. “Even if I do accidentally pick up his thoughts, they’re…scrambled. A little. He still thinks in German, so I don’t usually understand it.”
“Hmm,” her mom said non-commitally. This was back in territory she wasn’t sure about, and Jean stifled the urge to groan again. She sat up, and then stood. She didn’t have a window—not one that opened, anyway, because of the special shielding her room had been given to offer extra support against a telekinetic tantrum in her sleep, so she settled for opening her door, noting that she’d have to make sure to keep her conversation from carrying to another wing and waking anyone. It was nearly midnight.
“He’s a sophomore. And, like…he’s a young sophomore. You know? So it’s not like…you know. Like I like him. Not like—”
“Scott?”
“Not like that,” Jean corrected firmly. “He’s super sweet, but…I don’t see…like…dating him. That’s all.”
“Is he good-looking?”
Jean smiled. “I mean…yeah. He’s cute. He’s strong. And he’s really good at, like, acrobatics? When we spar, I can’t let him get close, because he’s way more agile than I am. And that’s hard, because he can teleport, so—”
“Which…which one is teleport? Hold on. I’ll…I think I’ll write it down. Telepath is, um, the mind. It’s the Latin, you know, your father and I were talking about it. Pathos is to do with, um, feelings or perceptions. So you can, um, transfer thoughts outside of yourself. And…um…here it is. Telekine is just…the movement. Kine- is from…kinetic. So…moving energy. So…teleport is…I think like ‘portable.’ It’s—so he…he can—that’s the one where he moves himself?”
“He can go instantly from one place to another,” Jean said slowly, smiling as she heard her mom muttering under her breath as she wrote it down.
“So he’s…okay. So he’s strong? You said? Is he tall? He’s—you said he was from Germany, so…so…oh, is it stereotyping if I ask if he’s blonde?”
“Oh,” Jean said, blinking. “Um. Yeah, I think that…I think that is…stereotyping…But, um, Kurt…doesn’t look…human. He is cute, though.”
“Doesn’t…doesn’t look human. What does that mean?”
Jean sighed. “Um, he has pointy ears? And blue fur?”
“Oh. That’s…that’s nice. Is it…is it soft?”
Jean let out a surprised laugh. Her mom was trying. Maybe that’s what mattered. “I…I don’t know, actually. It seemed rude to ask,” she laughed again.
Fear. Raw, unadulterated terror seized Jean, then, and it actually took her a moment to discern that it wasn’t hers.
“Well, I know it’s already past time for you to go to bed, I hoped you’d get to speak with your father, he’s running so late. I hope he’s all right.”
Jean shook her head. “Um. No, it’s. It’s fine. I can…I’ll call…um…tomorrow. Okay?”
A withering resurgence of fear swept down Jean’s spine, and she glanced up sharply, noting her open door and starting to draw conclusions. It doesn’t feel like Scott. It must be Kurt.
“—tell you goodnight, okay? Sweet dreams.”
“Yeah, Mom. Same to you. Love you,” Jean murmured, hearing the click on the other line as though from far away.
It…must be a nightmare, she decided hesitantly.
Jean stood, exiting the door, not pausing for slippers or a bathrobe. Kurt’s nightmares came filtered the same way his thoughts were: he dreamt in German, too. The Professor had told her that, in the mind, there wasn’t really a need for language. But it wasn’t a concept she grasped, yet.
His emotions were coming through clearly, though. So even if she didn’t get 100% of what was going on…she understood well enough.
And regardless of whether the contents of the dream were real…she could feel the fear.
The fear was real.