In Your Eyes

[deeperwonderment]

Title: In Your Eyes
Word Count: 1,000
Continuity: Comic Verse Wolverine/Shadowcat
Prompt: xmen100

I promised a Kitty/Logan pairing and here it is.




Of all of her friends from her old life that she expected to show up on her doorstep, she should have expected him. He was sitting on her bed when she walked into her apartment.

"Logan."

"Kat."

She put down her bag and sat next to him. "Never expected to walk into my place and find you waiting for me, Logan."

"Who'd you expect?"

She shook her head. "I don’t know."

"Jean sent me, Kat."

"Why did she send you, Logan? I made it pretty clear to the Professor X that I didn't want to be contacted by any of the X-Men. I'm not a hero any longer, Logan. That ended when... that ended when Peter died."

"Charlie doesn't know I’m here. He doesn't know Jean sent me. He did what you asked. He deleted every reference to you from Cerebro's files. As far as he knows, he conceded to your every demand. There is no record of you or how to contact you in any of his files. He, of course, still holds out hope that you'll find your way back home. He doesn't know that you still meet with Elf once a week. As I said, as far as he knows, he obeyed your every wish."

"What do you mean, as far as he knows?" Kitty raised an eyebrow. There was obviously some underhanded dealings here.

Logan smiled at her. "You aren't the only one that underestimated the rest of us. Jeanie kinda figured that one day something might happen to Cerebro, so she started making back-ups of all of the information."

She looked at him. "Not that you would have needed numbers or Jean to find me if you wanted to, Logan."

"True enough."

"Why are you here, Logan?"

"Why did you leave, Kitty?"

She sighed and walked to the window. "He shouldn't have died, Logan. There was no point in his death."

"He put an end to the Legacy Virus, Kat. His death saved countless lives."

She turned to him and he saw that there were tears in her eyes and streaming down her cheeks. "I don't care, Logan! I don't care how many lives he saved. He died! He's gone and he shouldn't be! He had so much to offer to the world to the people he cared about and he will never get the chance to do that."

"Kitty..."

"No!" she cried. "He didn't have to do what he did, damn it! He didn't have to die and Charles could have stopped him!" She was shaking. "I should have been there. I could have stopped him."

Logan grabbed her, realizing what was happening here. Jean had only known about part of the problem. Jean had told him that Colossus had come to her and told her that Kitty was still grieving, that she wasn't sleeping and she wasn't moving forward. Hell, she was blaming herself. She hadn't allowed herself to grieve properly because she was blaming herself for his death. Damn it, he should have expected this. He should have known this. He knew her better than anyone did.

"I should have been there for him..."

"Shhh... Kat... shhh, it's all right." He held her to him as she struggled and then finally she just collapsed and sobbed. Damn it, he hadn't held her like this since she was a child. Then again, with the exception of Ororo and Peter, he was the only one she had ever accepted comfort from. Every one else who tried either got slugged or she just phased away from them.

She’s not a child any more, so what the hell do I do now?He picked her up and carried her back to the bed and sat down, holding her while she cried.

"No, it's not all right," Kitty sobbed against his chest. "Every time the man I love is counting on me, I let them down. Peter...you..."

He felt like he had just been kicked in the head. Kat, loved him? That was something that Jeanie hadn't prepared me for in all of this. “Kat, don't be stupid. Wallowing isn't like you and you've never failed me---or Peter. He didn't do anything until you weren't in the area. He knew you would try to stop him." Hell, I hope that’s the right thing to tell her. I don't think that Kat even figured into his thought process when Peter decided to do what he did.

"But Wolvie, I should have known. I spent more time with him than anyone. I should have stuck around. I just wasn't paying attention to him."

That was it. He just wasn't that good with the comforting of someone that he thought was beating themselves up for no good reason.

"Damn it, Kat, cut it out. Quit beating yourself up," He looked her in the eyes, meaning to talk some sense to her, and found himself drowning. He had never noticed how deep her brown eyes were before. How come he had never noticed that before? He gave himself a mental shake and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. "Punkin, you need to calm down. Now, I don't doubt that you knew Colossus better than any of us, but I can tell you that there was nothing you could have done to stop him once he got his mind made up to do something." He smoothed that same strand of hair back from her face and found himself staring into her eyes again. "You didn't fail Peter in any way, and how the hell do you think you've let me down?"

Kitty lowered her head, but Logan growled softly at that and lifted her chin so he could see her eyes.

"Because I gave up."

"What do you mean, you gave up?" Damn it, those eyes are going to be the end of me, but what a way to go.

She sighed and looked at him, those brown eyes still bright with unshed tears. "I gave up on you."