FicWad

Kitty walked through the Academy’s gates swiftly. She looked around, the setting sun giving everything a warm golden glow, but to her relief she saw no one. Clutching her books to her chest she quickly made her way into the foyer of the mansion. This was where her first stumbling block appeared.

The voices of Scott and Kurt were coming from the door to the kitchen, and heading closer to the entrance hall. Kitty quickly ducked behind the grand stair case, as the door opened.
“… and that’s another thing, has anybody seen John at all, today?” Kurt was saying, his voice full of worry.

“He’s going out with Marie, again.” Scott ground his teeth.

“Whoa, slow down. What do you mean by again? Did you just say Marie? As in Miss Short, Dark, and Icy?”

“Yes, again, he went out with her the day she came to the Institute. And she’s not short, unless you think that you are short,” Scott commented, “She’s got to be about your height.”

“Judging her on height, now?” Kitty could almost hear the grin in Kurt’s voice.

“What?! No! I just was saying that-- oh never mind.” Scott cried defensively.

“She’s a fine looking woman,” Kurt nudged Scott in the ribs.

“Well, yeah, but those friends of hers--,” Scott trailed off as there were foot steps on the stairs.

“Jean! Uh, hi, how are you?”

“Just fine, Scott,” Kitty wished that she could laugh as lightly as that, “I’m looking for my jacket. Have you seen it anywhere?”

“The red one, right? Here you go. Where are you going?” There was a rustle of cloth as Scott spoke.

“Oh, just out with Duncan,” Jean sounded happy, “Thanks a lot. I’ll see you around dinner time.”

“Oh, yeah-- well, umm-- have fun.” Scott sounded just so thrilled.

There was the sound of a car horn, mutters of “Do I have my cell phone?” cries of happiness when Jean found it in her purse, and then the front door opened and closed.

“What were we talking about?” Scott directed at Kurt as the sound of a car pulling out of the driveway died.

“Marie’s a fine looking woman,” Kurt reminded Scott conspiratorially.

“Yeah, she looks OK. But those friends of hers. Alvers is evil.”

“Yeah, and of course the fact that he beats you in every Auto body showing that Mr. Cassidy has doesn’t come into it at all.” Kitty almost giggled as she imagined the way Kurt was rolling his dark blue eyes.

“It doesn’t! Todd’s just as bad, and don’t let me get started on the fat man.”

“Well, I can agree with you about Todd…” Kurt’s voice trialed off as the two boys went out into the garden.

Kitty sneaked up the stairs, and went to her room. She felt very lucky to have a place like this. Even if she did have to share it with Betsy, it wasn’t so bad, and she could always go to the library when Betsy began to blast Garbage at the highest volume.

Katharine Pryde dumped the books on her bed, and left the backpack on the desk. Her face felt stiff, and maybe a little sore, but other than that she was fine, and it could have been a lot worse. She went to the bookshelf and pulled out a volume of Poe that Betsy was “letting” her borrow. More like trying to force feed it to Kitty, but at the moment the girl didn’t really have anything better to do, having already finished her homework.

Half an hour later Kitty was still struggling with Annabelle Lee, which was depressing in the extreme. She was so absorbing in trying not to throw the book out the window that she didn’t hear Betsy come into the room until the girl started to talk on her cell phone.

“Yeah, I’m fine Brian; you can stop worrying now, luv. The Americans haven’t corrupted me in the slightest. What do you mean any cute guys around here?” Betsy’s cheeks became a little red, and it wasn’t from her rogue. “Uh-huh, like a twin really knows. Brian you’re a sick minded--” Betsy turned around and saw Kitty, who was trying to use her book as a shield, for the first time since Chemistry. “Gotta go luv, talk to you later.” She snapped the cell phone shut. “Kitty, what happened to your face?” She exclaimed rushing over to her roommate’s side.

“Nothing, just a slight accident.” Kitty ducked under her covers.

Betsy pulled them off ruthlessly. She looked at Kitty in concern. The girl had dirt smeared all over her face, and there was some bruising along with a nasty scratch.

“You call that a slight accident?! I’d hate to meet what you’d call a real accident, then. C’mon Kit-Kat, what really happened?” Betsy said, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

Kitty fluffed the pillow distractedly, and hugged her knees to her chest. “Nothing happened, I was walking, and then I tripped. I’m a little sore, but other than that I’m fine, honest.”

Betsy nodded, “Of course, you’re fine. After all, scratches that have had gravel rubbed in them never get infected, oh no. C’mon, I’ll take you to Dr. MacTaggart. I’ll bet she’s got something to say to you about not washing everything off as soon as possible.”

“But Betsy, she’ll yell at me, and give endless lectures, and I really don’t want to go through all of that to get a little antiseptic.” Kitty whined as she resisted Betsy’s tugging.

“Well, tough toenails,” Betsy told her severely, “I don’t know the first thing about first aid. Oh, all right,” She said, giving up in exasperation, “I’ll see if Jean’s back yet. She can fix you up. If she isn’t, though we are going directly to MacTaggart.”

The purple haired Goth girl hadn’t a clue where to look for Jean but, she did know someone who would. She trotted out to the garage, and sure enough, under the hood of the cherry red convertible, Scott Summers was there.

“Hey luv,” Betsy came up behind him and placed her hand on his shoulder.

“Yahh!” Scott jumped, hit his head on the hood, and ducked out from underneath the car looking annoyed and rubbing the back of his head. “Don’t do that! What do you want?”

“Where’s the grey lady?” Betsy asked innocently.

“Jean? She came back about four minutes ago, and should be--,” Scott paused, going over Jean’s usually routine after she came back to the Institute, “walking from the library to her own room.”

That boy has got to get a life beyond cars and falling in love, she thought with rolled eyes.

“Creepy, but thanks anyway.” Betsy grinned and walked off after Jean.

Betsy found Jean on the Grand stair case snacking on an apple and trying to read geometry notes at the same time. Betsy smiled with evil intent as the red head’s back was to her. She wondered if Jean would jump as high as Scott had.

“Hey luv, wha’cha working on?”

“Yahh!”

The mackintosh flew into the air and Betsy caught it deftly. Jean whirled around, glaring at the purple Goth, her hand over her heart. She stood for a minute glaring down at the girl, but eventually regained her composure.

“Betsy, you scared me. What do you want?”

“Kitty had a small accident, and I want you to see if she is OK. She’s not exactly thrilled with the idea about listening to a lecture about how we should be more careful around this terror of the week from Dr. MacTaggart.”

“Fine,” Jean said walking up the stairs, and heading to the bathroom where the antiseptics were. “You know,” she told Betsy, who had followed her, “You should show Dr. Moira a little more respect. She’s a really nice woman, even if she is a little too dedicated to her research. She cares a lot about people.”

“Pfft,” Betsy commented, “I’ll believe it when I see it. You should have seen poor Johnny today. He looked like an overcooked noodle until Lance gave him some coffee. She has a tongue like a bull whip.”

Jean kept her mouth shut on her own views about “Johnny” which were not the most complementary things in the universe. She grabbed the antiseptic from the medicine cabinet and walked out of the bathroom, Betsy still grumbling about the Scottish harridan behind her.

Walking into Kitty’s room she looked around and gasped. Kitty was staring in the mirror over the desk and trying to get the grime off of her face using a handkerchief and some spit. This had only succeeded in spreading the dirt, making her face an over all grey.

“Ohmigod Kitty what happened?” Jean cried feeling very protective of the young girl.

Kitty winced, although if this was because of Jean’s sentiments, or because she had pressed too hard on the bruise on her jaw it was impossible to tell.

“I tripped, and the ground bit me. I’ll be fine, Betsy’s just afraid of germs. Do you have the antiseptic?”

“Yes, but we have to get you cleaned up,” Jean said. She searched around the room desperately before settling on a pinch pot that Brian had given Betsy for their seventh birthday. It was large, and lumpy, but it was also glazed, and Jean quickly dumped the stones out of it, and pushed it into Betsy’s surprised hands.

“Get some warm water, and when I say warm I mean warm.”

Betsy rushed off to do Jean’s bidding, returning seconds later to find Jean and Kitty sitting on the bed with Jean trying to find a clean corner of the handkerchief. Betsy placed the bowl in Jean’s lap.

“Where did you trip, anyway?” Kitty’s roommate wanted to know, as Jean finally found a clean piece of cloth, dipped it in the water, and began to clear the grime away.

“Walking from the school to the-- ow,” Kitty flinched as Jean applied pressure, “Auditorium.”

Betsy, who was still not all that familiar with the school’s layout, was trying to make a mental map. Her attempts were not very successful.

“Auditorium’s right next to the gym, right?” She asked hopefully.

“It’s right in between the gym and the Auto class. It’s where all of the Drama classes are held.” Kitty replied, wincing again as Jean hit another sore spot.

“Oh,” Betsy said, as the auditorium clicked into place. Something else clicked into place, as well, when Kitty said Auto class.

“Well, It looks like my talents are no longer needed here,” Betsy commented, yawning slightly. “Jean, I think I’ll go out for a walk in the park before dinner. If I’m a little late coming back, well, just explain to the Professor that I probably got side tracked.”

Jean rolled her eyes. Betsy was very good at getting side tracked.

“If you think that I’m going to cover for one of your meetings with the boyfriend of the hour then you have another thing coming.” Jean said to empty air as Betsy took the opportunity to slip out the door.

Betsy walked down the stair case considering her next move. She had seen Kitty with Lance, earlier that day. Lance, who was not the gentlest of people, had been walking her to the auditorium. That in itself was strange because Kitty obviously had the hots for the Russky, so why would she be allowing Lance to escort her anywhere? Marie had told her that Lance had the largest crush on Kitty, although it was very hush, hush, in the strictest confidence, and if you make fun of him I’ll hunt you down and peel your skin off layer by layer.

Betsy did not like where her suspicious mind was leading her. She had the facts. They went something like:

1) Lance likes Kitty
2) Kitty like Piotr
3) Kitty comes home all bruised up
4) She says she tripped
5) The ground must be highly aggressive, re: she had bruises on both sides of her face
6) Maybe it wasn’t the ground
7) Lance is a great guy, but gets very jealous very easily, re: the John and Marie incident
8) Lance was walking Kitty to the same place she says she “tripped”

So, now that Betsy had proof of Lance’s guilt, she just had to find him. Marie had mentioned something about him having a job. So she should call Marie, find out where this job was, and then go there to rip his spine out through his nose. She dialed Marie’s number on her cell.

“Oh, hello Ms. Alder. Is Marie home? Oh, really, I guess I’ll try again later.” She hung up with an annoyed look on her face. If she had been an evil villain Betsy would have said, “Blast, foiled again.” However, Betsy wasn’t an evil villain, and she still had one other line of communication open.

Dialing another number she hopped that Pietro would remember that he owed her. Or at least that she had found him exchanging saliva with a cheerleader one day near the girl’s locker room, and hadn’t told the cheerleader’s boyfriend.

“Hullo Mrs. Maximoff, this is Betsy Braddock, I know Pietro from school. I was wondering if you could put him on, I need the math assignments. Thanks a bunch.”

Betsy waited for a minute before Pietro came on sounding annoyed. “Who is this?”

“Betsy.”

“Who? Oh yeah, Rogue’s friend. What on Earth could you want?”

“Do you know where would be Lance, luv?”

“Uh, at The Wolverine, I guess. Why?”

“Curious. Thanks luv, see ya tomorrow.”

Betsy shut her cell of with a click, and went to find a map of Bayville.