Side by Side with You: Chapter 1

An X-Men Evolution Fanfic

When Kitty was ten years old, her family moved.

They didn’t move far, just far enough that her father wouldn’t have to drive so far to work everyday. The new house took some getting used to, but it surprised her how quickly it began to feel like home. How easily she learned its quirks and how perfectly her things fit in her new room, as though they had always been there.

The mansion was like that, when she first moved in. A new place to live with friends who accepted her so easily, with a bed that fit her quilt from home just perfectly and a shared bookshelf where she filed her adventure stories next to Rogue’s romance novels. She never even noticed how easily home had shifted from a quiet house with her parents to a busy school filled with kids.

(She regretted, now, letting it go that far, every time she sat down in front of an empty email to her parents.)

But now, the beginning of her last semester of high school, her room was nearly empty. A generic flowered comforter the professor had probably bought in bulk years ago covered her bed, and the only books on the shelf were a couple reference books Dr. McCoy had let her borrow for homework.

It should have made finding her calculator easier, especially without Rogue’s stuff scattered all over the room, but it somehow continued to evade her, despite the fact that she was fairly certain she hadn’t pulled it out of her backpack over winter break, except—

Oh.

She had pulled it out once, to settle an argument, and she couldn’t remember ever putting it back. She had probably left it just lying there on the kitchen table. Yeah, she wasn’t getting that back in time for school. Maybe Kurt would let her borrow his for class. She finished packing her backpack, sans calculator, and pulled on her shoes.

A text popped up on her phone without a name. Trying to press down the anxiety that spiked when she recognized the number, she hit “open”.

They need me to come in an hour early.

She slung on her backpack, grabbed her jacket, and ran downstairs. Thankfully Kurt was already waiting by the door.

His eyes widened when she ran in. “Kätzchen? What’s wrong?”

“He has to go in, like, an hour early today. I don’t know if I can drive everyone back, and what if I’m late—“

“It’s fine, I was planning to go out with Amanda after school anyway, and even if you’re a little late, everything will be okay.”

“But the others—“

He held up a hand to cut her off. “It’s fine. I’ll make sure they all get home.”

Right. Right, of course he would. She threw her arms around. “Thanks. You’re, like, the best!”

He grinned. “No problem.”

“Hey, Kitty!”

She turned around and saw Scott walk over to them, carrying a small cardboard box. “You got a package from your parents.”

“Oh!” She hadn’t expected it so soon. She took the box and opened it, pulling out the tin inside. She peeked in and grinned. “Thanks.” It took some rearranging, but she managed to fit the tin in her backpack.

Scott raised his eyebrows. “You’re taking it to school?”

Kurt jumped in quickly, “We really need to go or we’ll be late to school.”

“Right, sorry.” Scott raised his hands. “Will you two be here for the group session in the Danger Room after dinner?”

“Yeah, I should be back by then,” Kurt said.

“I already had a session with Logan this morning,” Kitty said as she pulled out her keys. She had learned months ago that no one asked her to participate in later sessions when she joined Logan in the mornings.

“Oh, ok. I’ll see you later then.”

She waved as she darted out the door, Kurt on her heels. She slipped into the drivers seat, but paused to type out a quick text.

I’ve got it taken care of.

Kitty clutched her lunch tray and scanned the cafeteria. This was always when she missed Rogue the most. Her feet started to drag her to the library.

“Kitty! You can come sit over here!” Amanda waved from where she and Kurt were sitting. She perked up and skipped over to join them.

“How is everyone?” Amanda asked. Her hand waved as she said “everyone” but the gesture wasn’t directed toward the new mutants, who sat a few tables away.

“They’re good.”

Amanda started to ask something else, but Jubilee bounded over, planting her hands on the table as soon as she reached them. “We’re going to the mall after school. Want to come?”

Kitty shook her head. “I’ve already got plans.”

Jubilee nodded, but didn’t ask what Kitty had planned. No one ever did.

“Amanda? Kurt?”

“Sorry,” Kurt said, “But we’re going out ourselves after school.”

“Alright. Just thought I’d ask.” Jubilee ran back to her friends, waving. “See you later!”

All through her last class, she watched the clock, counting over and over to make sure she would make it in time. An hour before 4:30 was 3:30, and if class got out at 3:15, and the drive was ten minutes, she could just make it. So long as nothing stopped her—

A piece of paper landed on her desk, and she realized it was her graded lab report. She scanned it, checking the answers she got wrong, then tucked it into her folder.

“And one of these doesn’t have a name on it,” Ms. Holland said as she finished passing out the reports. “Who doesn’t have one?”

No one spoke up.

“So this doesn’t belong to anyone?” Ms. Holland asked dubiously.

The class remained silent, and Kitty’s gut twisted as she was suddenly very sure she knew who it belonged to. She stayed quiet though, until the class ended, then she walked up to Ms. Holland’s desk.

“Uh, Ms. Holland? Can I see that report that didn’t have a name on it? I think I may have turned it with mine by accident.”

Ms. Holland raised an eyebrow. “Are you tutoring someone?”

Kitty’s fingers tightened on her backpack strap, but she laughed. “Sort of.”

“Hmm.” She pulled the paper off a stack on her desk and held it up. “Does this look familiar?”

She did, in fact, recognize the thin, near-indecipherable scrawl. She winced. She had to be more careful. “Yeah, that’s my friend’s. Sorry, Ms. Holland. It won’t happen again.”

“That’s alright, but make sure it doesn’t. I’d rather not have to grade extra papers.” Kitty relaxed a bit and smiled at the teasing tone. Ms. Holland handed her the paper and she put it in her folder, smile widening at the sight of the red A at the top.

Then she glanced at the clock.

“Thanks, Ms. Holland,” she called as she ran out the door.

She made it with two minutes to spare.

She pulled up to the old house, parked the car in the driveway, and turned off the car. She grabbed her backpack and dashed up the steps, flipping through her keys. Despite owning it for months, no one had noticed the new house key hanging from her ring, or at least, they hadn’t asked about it.

As the door swung open, a figure leaned out of the kitchen. Wanda lit up when she saw Kitty, running over to hug her. “You’re home early!”

Pietro dashed down the stairs, visibly relaxing when he saw her. “You made it.”

She rolled her eyes as she hugged Wanda back. “I told you I’d take care of it.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He slipped on his shoes and grabbed his jacket.

“Wait, before you go!” Kitty pulled the tin out of her backpack and handed it to him. He raised an eyebrow and took it gingerly as though it might be a trap. Then he opened it, and his brows furrowed in confusion. “Why’d you—” It clicked, and his eyes widened. “Wait, are these homemade?”

“My mom made them and sent me some.” She shrugged. “I didn’t really want them though.”

He looked at her like she was crazy. Then, in a blink, he had grabbed a donut and was halfway through it. “It’s good. Tell her thanks.”

The tv turned off, and Todd hopped over. “Those look good.” He reached for one, but Pietro swatted his hand away.

“Don’t even think about it.” He stuffed the rest of the donut in his mouth, smearing jelly and powdered sugar all over his hand, and closed the tin. He shut it in one of the cabinets and wiped off his mouth.

He looked between the two girls. “You sure you’ll be okay?”

“We’ll be fine,” Kitty promised him. “It’s just, like, an hour longer than normal.” She shooed him away. “Go to work!”

He hated leaving his sister, and he especially hated leaving her with only Todd, who couldn’t do much if she had a breakdown. Kitty absolutely understood, but she had been staying with Wanda for months now, and he needed to realize that an extra hour was hardly going to make a difference.

“Right. Okay. Be back later.”

Wanda barely finished the word “bye” before he was gone. She shook her head, then turned back to Kitty, raising her eyebrows. “Did your mom really send those?”

“She did,” Kitty assured her, then she grinned. “Because I asked her to.” She hadn’t thought anything of just buying some from a kosher bakery for the holiday, at least until he’d mentioned how much he missed the homemade kind.

Wanda shook her head, but smiled. Kitty noticed that, despite her claims of sharing her brother’s fond memories of their mother’s Sufganiyot, she didn’t get one herself. Instead she went back to the kitchen table and sat down in front of her open math textbook.

Kitty joined her, sitting her backpack on the table in front of an empty chair so she could pull out her books. Todd hopped into the chair across from her and held out his hands.

“Gimme, gimme, gimme!”

Kitty laughed and ignored how brittle it sounded. She pulled out her Chem textbook and handed it to him as she told him which pages they’d covered in class that day.

“And I have a surprise for you too.”

Todd stared up at her. “Me?”

“Mmhmm.” She pulled out the graded lab report. “I turned this in with mine on accident.”

His eyes widened as he saw the grade, and he grinned. “I gotta tell Lance!” She forced a smile, though her heart clenched.

She had tried, after the battle with Apocalypse, to convince the Professor to get them back into school. (Well, Pietro and Todd anyway. Lance was already working on getting his GED at the time, and had a full-time job he wasn’t willing to give up, and Fred decided school was no longer for him. None of them thought Wanda should even attempt it, even if she were at the proper grade level.) His response had been a lecture on how some people had to face the consequences of their actions if they would ever learn from them.

That was the only time she had spent the night at the boarding house, sleeping on Wanda’s floor, wrapped in their only spare blanket.

But despite Todd’s insistence that he hated school, he would always bombard her with questions about her chem or math classes until she got fed up one day and threw her textbook at him. He’d been studying alongside her ever since.

Kitty knew Lance was trying to convince the younger boy to study for the GED, despite the fact that Todd only ever wanted to study science and occasionally mathematics. So she couldn’t help but smile when she saw history book with a library sticker on the spine lying open on the counter.

As was their habit, the three of them sat together in near silence as they completed their school work, with only the occasional questions about a particular problem.

At least, until Kitty pulled out her math homework.

“Oh, have you guys seen my calculator? I think I must have left it here the other night.”

“Uhhh…” Todd rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, then hopped up. “Oh! Yeah, I think I took it upstairs. Just a minute.”

He hopped up the stairs. A few minutes later, several loud bangs came from his room.

Kitty winced and looked at Wanda. “You think everything’s okay up there?”

Wanda shrugged. “Who knows what he does up there.”

Todd came down a minute later, bearing the calculator. “I hope you don’t mind I played around with it some.”

“That’s fine,” Kitty assured him, though she tested a few buttons to make sure “played around” didn’t involve removing any pieces for longer than it took to put it back together.

He glanced at the clock and decided it was time to start fixing supper. The boys usually took turns fixing meals depending on who was home. Wanda had never learned to cook, and, well, no one wanted Kitty cooking.

“Hey, KitKat!” Todd called as he tossed spaghetti into a pot of boiling water.

“Hmm?” Kitty finished writing the answer to her math problem, then looked up.

“Wanna play a prank on Lance?”

She pressed the end of her pencil against her cheek as she considered. “What kind of prank?”

Todd’s grin spread from ear to ear. “Tell him you made this.” He pointed at his pan where he was cooking ground meat for the sauce.

She pouted. “I’m not that bad.” She turned to Wanda. “Right?” Wanda ducked her head and pretended to focus on her math problem.

Kitty sagged in her chair. That was just rude. Of both of them. On the other hand, it might be kind of funny. “Okay, fine.” Todd cackled and turned back to the spaghetti.

About ten minutes before Lance and Fred were due home, Wanda and Kitty put away their books and set the table. Right on time, they heard the familiar shuffle of feet on the doorstep and the rattle of keys in the lock.

Lance kicked off his shoes as soon as he was in the door, and came into the kitchen, leaving Fred to lock the door behind them. Kitty took his hand and tugged him closer, and he ducked his head to kiss her. “Hey.”

She hooked her arm around his neck. “Hi. How was work?”

“Good. How was school?”

“Good.” She grinned. “I made supper.”

His smile didn’t fade, it just tightened at the edges. “Oh, thanks.” She bit her lip to keep from giggling, and led him to the table where Todd had already set the dishes. She dished him out a nice, large portion, and watched him reluctantly pick up his fork.

“What’s the matter, Lance?” Todd asked innocently. “Aren’t you gonna eat the food your girlfriend made you?”

Lance forced a smile. “Yeah, of course.” He took a small bite, then his eyes widened and he took another larger bite. “You made this?” He asked with his mouth full.

Kitty frowned. She wanted to say he didn’t have to sound so surprised, but considering she hadn’t actually made it . . .

Wanda made a half snorting, half choking sort of sound, then clamped her hand over her mouth. That set Todd off, who started laughing so hard he fell out of his chair.

Kitty glared at him. “Okay, it’s not that funny.”

Lance looked between the three of them. “What isn’t?”

“I didn’t make it,” Kitty admitted. “Todd did.”

“Oh.” It was a little gratifying to see how guilty he looked. “Sorry.”

“It was Todd’s idea,” Wanda said, quickly, pointing her fork at him.

“Hey!”

Lance put his arm around Kitty. “I love you, I just know you just tend to get a little . . . distracted in the kitchen.”

Okay, that was fair. She smiled and leaned into his side, mollified.

They spent the rest of dinner swapping stories about school, work, and everything Wanda, Pietro, and Todd had gotten up to while the others were gone. When they finished, everyone cleaned up and then they crowded into the living room to watch Star Trek: Enterprise.

Fred sat in the armchair, and Todd sat on the floor in front of the tv, fiddling with wires and a breadboard. He never could sit totally still. Kitty leaned against Lance, covered in her favorite blanket, and Wanda let her stretch her legs out in her lap. It was nice to be able to finally relax for the first time all day, and she decided to rest her eyes for a minute.

“Kitty? Hey, Kitty?”

“Hmm?”

Lance brushed her hair out of her face. “You need to wake up. It’s almost curfew.”

“What?” She sat up. The tv was off, so the show must have gone off a while ago, and Pietro was back, perched on the arm of the couch beside Wanda, eating leftovers. Wanda was curled up on the couch, with Kitty’s legs still stretched over her, and her own head on Kitty’s stomach.

“Sorry.” She yawned. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

Pietro raised an eyebrow. “Are you not sleeping at the mansion or something?”

“I’m sleeping,” she promised. It just seemed like she was always busy, and then she had to be up early enough to join Logan in the Danger Room every morning, and she stayed out until curfew every night . . . . “I’m fine.”

“You know I don’t mind,” Lance assured her. “But are you okay to drive home?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’m feeling, like, totally awake now.” She sat up slowly and tried to carefully untangle herself from Wanda.

“If you’re sure . . .”

“I’m sure.”

Wanda groaned and tightened her grip around Kitty’s waist. “Mmmph, don’t go.”

“I have to,” Kitty said. “It’s almost curfew.”

“So just stay. You can sleep in my room.”

Kitty pursed her lips. She wanted to. She really, really did, so much that it was getting harder and harder to find excuses not to.

“The X-Men would be mad if she missed curfew,” Lance said gently. “They might ground her or something, and then she wouldn’t be able to come at all.” It wasn’t the real reason, and he knew it, but it worked. Wanda reluctantly let go, and Pietro appeared, plate suddenly gone, to help her up.

“Time for bed,” he told her, then started leading her up the stairs. “Thanks, Kitty.”

“Good night, Kitty,” Wanda called. “See you tomorrow!”

“See you!”

Kitty got up and went into the kitchen to gather her things. Lance followed her in, wrapping his arms around her waist. He lowered his voice so the others couldn’t hear and asked quietly, “Are you really okay?”

“I am, I’m just . . .” She sighed and tilted her head back against him. “I’m so busy, and it’s getting exhausting.”

His fingers pressed harder into her sides. “You know you don’t have to stay so late every night.”

“I want to, though. I want to be with you—with all of you.” She turned around and laid her hands on his chest. “I’ll get it figured out. I always do.”

He leaned down to press his lips against hers, and she slid her hands up to curl around the back of his neck and dig into his hair. She wished all over again that she didn’t have to leave when he picked her up and set her on the table, stepping between her legs. His hands pressed hot against her back, though her thin blouse, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, tugging him closer.

She reluctantly pulled away. “I have to go.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Be careful, and call me if you need me.”

She rested a hand against his cheek. “You too.”

No one cast her a second glance when she slipped back into the mansion, just before curfew. She took her backpack up to her room, then came back down into the kitchen to get a snack.

Jamie and Jubilee were already there, washing the dishes they had used to bake—whatever they managed to spill all over the counter. Kitty grabbed a piece of fruit and a knife and grinned as she watched them splash each other with water in the sink.

“Good evening, Kitty,” a deep voice said as she was cutting up her pear.

She had gotten very used to not startling in the mansion, so outwardly, she didn’t react. Inwardly, she forced her heart rate to slow, and double checked her mental shields before turning to face the Institute’s newest instructor.

She forced a smile. “Hi, Mr. Lehnsherr. Were you getting a snack too?”

He nodded at Jamie and Jubilee with a teasing smile. “Just checking to make sure these two hadn’t set fire to the kitchen.

Jamie laughed, while Jubilee launched into a hasty reassurance of her culinary skills. Mr. Lehnsherr nodded, listening with a fond sort of indulgence.

What a father should look like, she thought, then buried that thought as deep as she could. She finished slicing her pear and tossed the core. “Well, I’ve got a little more homework to finish. See you in the morning!” Clutching her plate like a shield, she made her escape.

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