Work Text:
It’s a rather weak taunt, all things considered. They always are.
“For one, we could ask Emma what else is fake,” Kitty says, eyes pointedly on Emma’s chest, and Emma just so bites back the heave of a sigh, opts to just roll her eyes instead. A lot of professionalism shown during what is very much a school board meeting. Doubling as an X-Men meeting—what doesn’t, these days, with how something is happening every day, even at something that should very much be a sanctuary like a school—sure, but still.
“Very clever,” she says. “Thank you for your input, Katherine.”
Kitty looks like she’s fuming, but she always looks like that when Emma is around, so it’s not like Emma isn’t used to it. Sometimes—though she’s really rather sure it happens much more often the other way around—she’s asked why she insists on keeping Kitty this close to her, and this close to the work. Kitty is a good teacher, of course, but the actual reason…
Emma studies her nails, her lips pursed. She’ll need a new manicure after this whole mess.
.
“I didn’t realize you’d be coming along.”
Emma laughs, and it’s almost—almost, almost, almost—an unguarded thing. Startles out of her, barking and sharp.
“I needed one, too, darling,” she says, and Kitty wrinkles her nose and frowns at her like a child. Really takes one back, doesn’t it!
For some reason, it only takes this in Emma’s head for some of it to come flooding over her: Kitty certainly acts most childish—though mostly when around Emma, and mostly when pissed at her; Emma’s heard that Kitty can be quite a valuable and level-headed person, and a remarkable young woman, blah, blah, blah—but there is no way around the fact that much has changed; that she’s a young woman now instead of a child as she was when first they met. It’s an odd thing: Kitty is taller, and there is less baby fat to her cheeks, though she still looks rather young. Kitty is taller, there’s more muscle to that lithe body, and she’s not as much of a fashion disaster anymore.
She’s come a long way, Emma supposes. But then again, so has Emma.
They’re getting manicures, of course. Emma had given Kitty a confirmation ticket that an appointment had been booked for her, as some attempt at goodwill—obviously; what else would it be, Katherine?—and Kitty—obviously, et cetera—had been wary. It’s almost a little funny, the bursts of light that are her surface thoughts, the way they scatter and scoot tightly together.
It’s understandable that she does not trust Emma, naturally. Many would even consider it wise.
“Relax, Katherine,” Emma sighs, sinking deeper into the lounging chair; their comfort is most of why she continues to bless this establishment with her regular presence. She’s found that none of the others quite match, quite make her go slack like this. Well, but there are other reasons, too; it is quite the nice place. “Think of it as a spa trip with the girl friends.”
Next to her, above the noise of nails being filed, Kitty scoffs. “Yeah, right.”
Such hostility! Many might consider it wise, but Emma doesn’t even have any ulterior motives today. Well, perhaps a little… A taunt for a taunt, but that’s it.
Kitty does not complain further, but she does not talk to Emma, either. Instead, their cuticles are treated perfectly, their nails filed to perfection and then built up with gel until they are as durable as… well, diamond, if one can forgive her the joke. Acrylics are so cheap, after all…! For a moment, Emma wonders if Kitty’s ever done much of anything with her nails, be that acrylics or simple nail polish, or something. For the life of her, she cannot remember, but it’s not like it matters, really.
Once they’re all done, Emma wiggles her fingers in the brilliant—though comfortably soft—light of the crystal chandeliers, reflecting in the perfectly polished marble floors but angled so it doesn’t in the wall-length mirror in front of them.
“Spa trip,” says Emma. “Would you be up to getting your hair washed, Katherine? They do incredible scalp massages here, I’ve been told.”
“I’m sure you have.”
“Now, now, enough with your taunts; yes or no?”
Stripped of the pretenses, it seems all that’s left for Kitty is to scowl. Some might consider this a colossal waste of time given there isn’t any indication that young Kitty is about to warm up to her at really any point in the near future, but that’s not really Emma’s goal, anyway. She’s more than fine with being disliked; with her life, she’s had to be. It doesn’t scratch her, nothing does.
Kitty’s thoughts spark around inside her head, and Emma doesn’t look too closely at all, because she does not need to. No, in the end, the reason she insists on keeping Kitty around is that out of everyone, it’s her who has the most firsthand experience with the bad Emma is capable of.
It’s good to have a reminder, Emma thinks. For someone like her, it’s beneficial to have someone around who does not like her and perhaps never shall; someone who will oppose her if necessary. An outside perspective, if you will.
“Yes,” Kitty says after a pause much too long, brown eyes squinted warily. It’s good that she keeps an eye on Emma. It’s good that she doesn’t know Emma wants her to do precisely that.
It’s the little things.
“Marvelous!” says Emma, then turns to the woman rubbing lotion into her hands. “Did you hear that, darling? If you would be so kind…?”
“Yes, Miss Frost.”
There’s Kitty’s glance, rather long and rather pointed, when they get out of their chairs and are lead down the hall to another room, the lights somehow impossibly softer and impossibly more comfortable. This, too, is dispelled when the lovely lady taking them here bows and then takes her leave.
“Miss Frost, huh? What happened to I’ve been told…?”
Emma sighs. “Oh, Kitty, please don’t embarrass us with things we both already know.”
Kitty’s nose wrinkles, then she shrugs, stalking over to the next chairs they will be residing in: nice looking leather, with sturdy neck rests and polished crystal basins with delightful little silver faucets. Emma really does love this place. After all, in their line of work, one has to take all the little comforts one can get…!
“Fine, whatever.”
It is so very interesting. Their little back-and-forths, yes, but more than that, the intensity in which Kitty seems to be invested in them; one would think, with how little she likes Emma, that she wouldn’t indulge in them—or try to—and that she wouldn’t get quite this frustrated when it all seems to be water off Emma’s back. Which, well, it is, as much as Emma’s fond of her facades.
And it’s so very interesting, too: despite all of that, Emma enjoys this game, too. Enough to at the very least keep it going, that is.
They are not left alone for much longer: another two of the wonderful ladies working here join them shortly, and they spend the rest of their stay in silence. Emma has to admit she even nearly falls asleep at several times with how good the massage feels, and how good everything here smells—with that perfectly warm and soft water, and it’s gentle splashing noises!—but she never quite gets all the way there.
When she moves to sit up to get her hair dried, however, she gets the beautiful sight of Kitty’s lady having to wake her up for it, and a short glimpse of Kitty before: eyes closed, lips parted slightly. Probably snoring, but Emma can’t hear her over the noises of the diffuser.
Because she’s so very handsomely polite—obviously!—Emma doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even make a comment, yet still she feels Kitty’s glare from the side for a moment. When next she peeks over, she can see that Kitty’s face is all red; her hair almost black with wetness, slicked against her forehead, pulled back so it doesn’t soak her soft robe. Her curls come back into definition slowly, with the diffuser and all sorts of creams and foams that she doesn’t know if Kitty has ever used, because by the end of it all, Kitty looks better than she ever has. And she is already a pretty thing, if Emma may be allowed to say so!
“Well, bye, I guess,” Kitty says, already halfway outside again, seemingly still committed to scowling, though it seems she’s having trouble to do so; her expression is much less sharp than it was before. Emma cannot fault her. She, herself, is more relaxed than she has been in ages.
She takes a step in, lifts Kitty’s chin up with her index finger—and, indeed, Kitty lets her—then tilts her head with a smile. “You’re welcome,” she says.
Kitty’s eyes are very brown and very wide for a second, thoughts frazzled, then she frowns again, phasing through Emma’s touch and stomping off. Emma glances after her for a second, then shakes her head. What a girl!
.
Kitty’s—still immaculate, despite it all—curls phase through the knocked over steel table first, then her furrowed brow, then the rest of her face. “Where are the kids?” she hisses, loud enough to drown out the zaps of blasters and less sophisticated guns, but only barely. Emma pinches the bridge of her nose amidst a threatening migraine; which is probably one of the worst things to get as a telepath, really. Ridiculous! Deeply and utterly ridiculous!
“Evacuating,” she says, surveying the minds of panicked and less so children, of some of their dear staff—Wolverine punches his claws into a guy’s chest point blank, which is rather lovely to see in POV—and, also, of her own children, who are coordinating said evacuation with her. “We’re almost there, Katherine. Just a little longer.”
Kitty lets out a strangled cry of frustration, hisses something along the lines of You useless bitch, then dives back through the table. Emma is quite aware she ought to be helping her in the effort of holding the line, but once she’s diamond, she loses her telepathy for the moment.
Once she’s diamond, she won’t be able to keep an eye on her children, on all of them, spilling down into the earth where they are safe. This whole school. Not one of them left behind.
She thinks Kitty knows this, too, because she’s not actually taunting Emma this time around. No smart comments tossed back and forth—Kitty in an effort to rile up, Emma just for it is part of their game—just duty. Just getting the job done.
And they’re only working this closely together out of necessity—every time—because they’re the only one left in this floor, the others fighting above or getting ushered (and ushering, indeed) to safety, but it somehow manages to be a surprise, how well it works. How easy it is to navigate the world through Kitty’s eyes—though Kitty spends useless effort on pushing her away from prying deeper, even now, which Emma wasn’t even trying to do—and to coordinate with her, with her sharp wit and her combat training. With the glimpses Emma gets from their attackers, though most of them are regrettably equipped with psy-blockers. Such a shame.
Underneath it all, Emma feels stress course through her system, despite her best attempts at reining it the fuck in. Which she is, for the record, because she’s still functioning, still holding the goddamn line.
There’s some irony about the fact that between her and death—as long as she has to hold on to not using her diamond form, though in a pinch, she could very much phase (hah!) in and out, naturally—is one Katherine Pryde. There’s some irony about all of this, Emma thinks, and she knew that before, but right now it feels so very brutally near. Emma and Kitty and Kitty and Emma. Emma wonders very far when next Kitty is going to break her nose once more, just as she winces at the feeling of Kitty getting her nose broken in real, actual life.
Katherine, she says, Kitty’s mind flaring bright red against hers, left. Now duck. Sweep your right leg out, darling… perfect.
Kitty has managed to wipe her eyes clean from blood, so she does not need any more direction. Emma swallows, presses her back against the steel table, and breathes. There’s so much grunting, so much zapping, so much clanging of metal. A scream, every then and there, when Kitty phases legs into each other and pulls away. The stench of blood is one Emma thinks is really rather unpleasant.
It’s seeping into her brilliantly white blazer, until one could perhaps call her the Red Queen. Even parts of her hair it’s dyeing, and that’s just bringing up a whole other host of things she doesn’t want to think about, so she doesn’t.
Sinks into the minds of other people again. Gasps, so loud she thinks the whole school must hear.
Kitty! Everyone’s safe!
Then she’s not red at all, jumping over the table to join Kitty in the fray; punching one of the guys on the head with a diamond fist that smashes his stupid helmet.
“About time, slut,” Kitty pants. Emma knocks her back to Kitty’s, fists raised.
“Please, Katherine,” she says, “get some better material, will you?”
Once they’re all done, both of their nails have survived the entire ordeal, somehow. Kitty notices it, too—Emma can tell by her surface thoughts, now that she’s flesh and blood again—steals a sideway glance at Emma only to be caught doing so. Emma tilts her head, minutely so. Kitty’s lips go slightly thinner.
“Alright, fine,” she says, to god knows what.