A Dark and Stormy Night

A Dark and Stormy Night Chapter Three (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… Just forure ure reference, don’t watch Muppets and try to write smut…it gets scary… lol. ;) Readers/Reviewers: As always, this is a big time AU and this is from an idea by Shkspr1048. *glomps him * And *extraglompage * for reading/reviewing! This chapter takes place a few years after the last one and from here on out, it’s going to stay in “real time” as in no more huge year jumps after this.


Kurt eyed his plate warily. Pietro smiled down at him like a plaster saint, his hands folded neatly at his waistWellWell?” the blond boy asked his foster brother. “Aren’t you going to try some?”
“Um…okay…” Kurt did not like how eager Pietro was for him to eat hookiooking. The food seemed to be okay—it did not smell strange or look strange, and, Kurt added mentally, it did not taste strange, but he knew something was wrong with it like he knew his own name. “Gut,” he murmured, taking a long sip of water, just in case.
Pietro sat down on the chair opposite Kurt, his smile growing. “Try some more. Take a big bite…that mouse nibble won’t give you an idea of how it tastes!”
Kurt fought hard not to throw the plate at Pietro and run like the wind in nascent fear. Instead, he shoveled a large bite of the food into his mouth and started chewing slowly, waiting for something to burn or fizz or become bitter or worse. When he finally had to swallow, he was a little surprised. “Still very good,” he informed Pietro, taking another sip of water. He was saved from further potentially harmful sampling by the appearance of Wanda, Pietro’s twin sister and, Kurt smiled inwardly, the one person in the house who did not treat him either like some fragile piece of glass or a punching bag. “Wanda! Try some of this! Pietro made it!” Kurt said with a tinge of warning.
Wanda raised a dark brow. “And you’re eating it? Pietro, what did you do?” With a sudden lunge, she gra her her brother’s arm and twisted it behind his back, throwing him to the floor where she knelt on his spine. “Are you trying to poison him? AGAIN?”
Kurt felt his eyes go wide and his mouth go dry as he fumbled for the water glass. “Again?” he squeaked. “What do you mean again?”
“He’s a sick freak!” Pietro snarled, trying to throw his sister off. “Father made him from spare parts, you bitch! Get off me!”
“It wasn’t spare parts, jerk off!” Wanda snapped back. “It was dod DNd DNA stuff!” She shoved her knee hard into her brother’s spine one more time before rising and stepped around him to move to Kurt’s side. “You’re not a freak,” she informed the blue teenager. “He is.”
Kurt had lost any shred of appetite he might have had. “I need to go a w a walk now…” He pushed away from the table, upsetting his chair, and staggered to the door. He hated the reminders, hated that they knew… Days could go by when he would not think about it, think about the machine in his father’s lab, the long rows of glass tubes and complicated equations spewing onto the computer screens. Then Pietro would say something, or Mystique…
“Far afield for such a hot day,” a low female voice broke into Kurt’s reverie.
“Speak of the devil,” he murmured. “Literally.” He blinked as he realized where he was. He had not even noticed leaving the house but there he was, halfway to the riverbank in the old gazebo, overrun with flowering vines and humming cicadas. “I was going for a walk.”
“You’ve been sitting here for ten minutes,” Mystique pointed out, sliding through the entrance into the small outbuilding. “Pietro bothering you again?” She could not help but feel some pity for this child, the child she had born in her body for nine human months. Her slavery to Eric made it her duty to carry the spawn, but, she thought, it was her own doing to care for him or abandon him. “Or is it Wanda this time?”
“Why would Wanda ever bother me?” he asked, startled. “She likes me! She doesn’t call me a freak! She doesn’t think I’m some monster!” He looked down at the blue hands in his lap and sighed. “But I am…I’m spare parts.”
“You’re melodramatic is what you are,” she snorted. “Kurt,” her voice had become suddenly serious as she leaned forward, “watch your back around Pietro. Spiking your food with saltpeter is one thing but what he has planned…”
“Saltpeter? That’s not poisoned…that’s for…” He stopped coldDoesDoes he think I am doing things to Wanda?” he asked tremulously. “I’d never…”
“Never say never,” Mystique replied quickly. “Pietro is a jealous boy, Kurt. And Wanda does like you…but she does nee yee you as her brother. You are something else entirely.”
“Was? What do you mean?” He stood as she did, reaching for her arm to keep her there, to make her talk. “Bitte…”
“Watch yourself, Kurt. Do not let yourself be fooled.” Mystique stepped out of the gazebo and seemed to vanish into the shadows of the trees.
Kurt groaned and bit his lip, his head aching with implications. Ever since he could remember, Pietro had teased him and hit him andse. se. Wanda had been the one to intercede, defending him when he could not, making sure Pietro stayed away when no adults were around and even being Kurt’s friend. “I don’t understand,” he muttered aloud. “I don’t…” He heard splashing at the river and sighed. He knew who might understand. She understood everything, he told himself, already walking towards her.
“Kurti,” Mama Wagner smiled. “You find me again. Trouble follows you like a cloud today.”
Kurt sank to the ground and smiled thinly at the woman across the narrow river from him. “Pietro,” he said simply.
“Ah, of course.” She fell silent for a time as she splashed some of the cold water onto her legs, cooling them in the summer heat. “Kurti, I see great things for you in the future…But before then, there will be pain.”
“I’m sorry,” he replied stiffly, “I don’t believe in fortune telling.” He shrugged and toed the soil sadly. He had been raised Catholic, despite the others in the householdng Jng Jewish. Mystique had taken him to the little chapel down the road, the only outing he was allowed each week. He wondered if this religious choice had been foisted on him merely to give him a chance to leave the house without Magneto, Pietro and Wanda in tow some days…
“I don’t tell you this with the tea leaves or crystal ball,” she laughed. “I know this because I see you. You are destined for happiness, Kurti, but you must suffer first.”
“Thanks…I think…” he muttered. He glanced up at her and sighed again. “I’m afraid,” he admitted. “Pietro thinks I’m doing things to Wanda and that makes him angry…”
Mama Wagner smiled kindly at him and spread her hands in a “well…” gesture. “Perhaps he sees something you do not. Keep your eyes open Kurt. Always.”
Kurt nodded. “Yes, Mama Wagner. Of course.” He rose to his feet and dusted off his trousers. This distant church bells were tolling three and he knew his father would be backn. n. “Will you be here tomorrow?”
“I may. Or I may not. We’ll see.”
Kurt offered her a cheery wave and began the trot back to the house.