Institutionalized

INSTITUTIONALIZED CHAPTER FOUR (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, Billy and Joaquin are determined to find their old mermaid...* sigh * I tried telling them that she wouldn't fit in the sink, but they won't listen. InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink make me all googly because they archive. Readers/Reviewers: One of the armadillos tried to bite one of the Killer Minions (tm) when they crossed the line of demarcation, which has escalated things a bit. Okay, a lot. I have concertina wire all across the lawn and armadillos are natural burrowers...*sigh * I'll never get those holes filled in. In the mean time, THANK YOU for reviewing and reading!



Kitty was mentally chiding herself for being nervous about meeting Kurt's extended family, as the circus seemed to be. Of course, she thought with a slightly pained sigh, she was right to be nervous about being several yards off the ground, standing on a tiny platform, with Kurt standing several feet away on the high wire. He was bouncing on his toes as if it were nothing to him, which, she thought, it probably was, and chatting with Erika on the opposite platform. As Kitty chewed her lip and glanced down at the brown puppy, which she had taken to calling Baby when it bonded with her unexpectedly, Kurt called to her, "Katzchen, come on! I won't let you fall!"
"You say that now," she called back, "but you're over there and I'm over here and the ground is there...." She closed her eyes as the platform seemed to sway under her. "Oooooh...."
"Katzchen, "Kurt said patiently, "there's dozens of people down there if I can't catch you..." He knew that was not quite the right thing to say by the way she paled. "Kitty, come on! You're holding up the line!"
She glanced behind her and was slightly surprised to see several people waiting patiently to climb the narrow ladder and take their trip across the high wire. "Oh, great," she sighed. "Okay, Kurt," she said louder, "don't, like, jiggle the wire or anything!"
"Like this?" he grinned, bouncing up and down again.
"Kurt!" she screeched, though she was perfectly safe on the platform. Several people giggled and someone called for her to just go. "Remind me why I'm doing this again?" she said a bit fearfully as she squeezed her eyes tight, reaching forward with one foot, barely touching the wire with her toes before losing all sense of solidity beneath her.
"Katzchen! You're phasing!" Kurt shouted as she squeaked surprise, sure she was falling.
"Damn it!" she bit out. She did not phase through the platform entirely. Only a few inches of her legs above her ankles protruded form the bottom of the square of metal. She could hear several people chattering excitedly, crying out in surprise, and one person even screamed. "You'd think they never saw a mutant before," she said to Kurt, drawing first one foot, then the other back up through the metal to stand firm again.
"Well, they have...me...but...that phasing thing is kinda creepy the first time you see it."
"Love you, too, fuzz ball." She sighed. "This can't be worse than that...okay, here I come!" Despite the continued murmurs and sounds from below, the words "ghost" and "strange" clearly audible, Kitty took one tentative, shaking step out onto the wire, finding her balance before setting her other foot directly behind the first. "This far enough?"
"Five more steps, Liebes," Kurt said, standing very still. He could not remember any one ever being afraid of going up on the high wire, but, he thought, everyone he knew had an advantage over Kitty where this was concerned. They were born to it, exposed to it since infancy. Kitty looked distinctly peaked. He knew that the people who had seen her phase would be interested but, because they knew him and all he was capable of, they would not be afraid. However, he could not help but realize that she was going to be in for some teasing when she got back down to the ground because of her fear. This, he realized, would not help her feel any more confident in their presence. Kitty took another small step and sucked in a great lungful of air as the wire swayed. "Slowly, Liebes...even I had to start out slow..." He held out his hand and motioned for her to take another step. She did so with slightly more confidence and he could hear her muttering under her breath.
"He won't let me hit the ground. I won't go splat. Kurt won't let me fall..." Kitty felt the wire sway again but did not let it scare her. "Could be worse...I could be telling Logan I'm pregnant. I could be pregnant...I'd much rather be up here than that!" She thought briefly of Tabby and wondered how she was. This was not a good idea, she found quickly. She misplaced her left foot and felt her arms pinwheel of their own volition as she pitched to one side. "Kurt!" She felt the sharp pull and disorientation of teleporting and found herself in his arms and firmly on the ground. ry,"ry," she said miserably.
"For what? You fell. It happens to everyone here at least once." _Well...almost everyone... _ "At least you didn't hit the ground!"
"That's a bonus," she said shakily, glancing up at the high wire. "Remind me why I let you talk me into this."
"Because you can't resist my elfin charm."
"One more thing like that and I'll find you entirely resistible." She sighed and pulled away from him. "Where'd baby go?"
"Who?" Kurt wrinkled his brow at that. "Baby?"
"There he is!" Kitty said happily, bending to pick up the squirming puppy. "He's been following me around since he spent the night in the room with me!" She let the dog cover her face with kisses. "Do you think the Professor will let me keep him?"
Kurt let out a long breath. He did not have the heart to tell her what she well knew, that they were not allowed to have pets at the Institute and she would have to leave him here for his sisters to care for until they found him a new home. Instead, he said, "I think it's almost lunch time...why don't we hike it back over to the house and see if Mama needs help?"
"She's not out here?" Kitty asked, letting Kurt lead the way while she cuddled the puppy.
"Nein, she's not going to be out here until this afternoon..." he paused to assure one of the acrobats that Kitty was fine and she added her smiling reassurance as she tickled Baby behind his ears. Most everyone had returned to their rehearsal once they had seen she was fine and not hurt at all, thanks to Kurt's save, but on the walk back to the house, a few more people stopped them to inquire after her nerves and tease her about her shocking lack of balance. Kurt was quite pleased that the Germassonssons that had actually happened seemed to have stuck with her as she was able to answer in somewhat stilted phrases when asked questions in the language. As they neared the house, he leaned over and kissed her soundly, making the puppy whine in jealousy. "I'm very happy you were able to come with me."
"Hmmm...I must be spending too much time with Remy. That sounded so perverted."
"Schatz!" he cried, mock-horrified, as they entered through the side door. "My sweet, innocent Katzchen has been corrupted!"
"Yeah, and you love it," she shot back, setting the puppy down and grinning at Kurt. "Now be good and let's go help your mother!"
Kurt laughed at the face she pulled and followed her down the hall. It was only the third day of their stay and Kitty was already more comfortable with his family than he had hoped she would be. She still had some shyness around his father, but that was quickly fading under the common interest of "you'll never guess what Kurt did" stories. Which, he sighed, both seemed to have far too many of. Their mutual favorite, much to his chagrin, had been his father's tale of little Kurti discovering he could take off his own diaper and running free down the street, calling for his mother to come and look at what he could do. Kitty had laughed so hard she had tears running down her face. "Katzchen," he said softly in the quiet hall, stopping her just before she turned the corner into the kitchen. "Come here a second..."
"What is it?" she asked, frowning slightly. The puppy was frolicking madly around her ankles, his adoration now permanently fixed to Kitty despite the Wagner girls' best efforts to the contrary. Pushing it gently aside with his foot, he took Kitty into an embrace and kissed her full on the lips. She tensed momentarily, aware of his mother ten feet away, the sounds of her humming and puttering in the kitchen quite clear, but then she capitulated, tilting her chin up and catching his lower lip with both of hers, drawing him deeper into the kiss, twisting her fingers unconsciously into the material of his shirt as his hands moved to her back, roaming freely, pressing against her spine and finally ending at her rear, sliding his hands down to pull her closer. She murmured softly against his lips as she felt his arousal growing against her. "You know," she said quietly as they broke for air, "if we're very quiet..."
"Why, Kitty," he said, just as softly, "you wanton woman you..." He did not object, however, as she pressed against him again to kiss him quickly then motioned for silence, leading him back down the hall until they reached the door to the room she was staying in. He bent to kiss the back of her neck and she giggled softly, opening the door and leaning against him at the same time only to gasp and slam the door shut again. "What is it?" he asked quickly. "Something amiss?"
"Um...I...uh...left my clothes all over the place this morning. I don't want you to see my mess!"
"Kitty," he said, laughing slightly as his hands pulled her shirt from the waistband of her shorts, "I know you're usually a very neat person, but I won't be offended by a little mess..."
"Well, I will...In fact, I'm very embarrassed. Um...wait right here!" she said, phasing through the door only to pop her head back out a moment later. "Promise you'll wait here?"
"Ja, ja," he sighed, more than a little confused. He heard some scuffling noises and what sounded like a window opening and closing and Kitty saying something under her breath. "Katzchen?"
"Just a sec!" she called over the shrill ringing of the phone in the kitchen.
Kurt frowned. He could swear that he heard another voice with her in the room. "Kitty," he said loudly, "I'm coming in now..."
"No, you're not!" his mother said from the end of the hall, brandishing the portable phone. "From New York..."
Kurt sighed. "I'll be back in a moment, Liebes...phone call from stateside..."
"Kay!" she chirped brightly before a resounding thump sounded from within the room.

"Are you okay?" Kitty asked sotto voce to Katja. The girl nodded, peering out the window and towards the back corner of the house, where several tea rose bushes bloomed wildly. "What were you thinking?" she hissed as soon as Katja pulled back and sighed.
"It's just..." she had tears standing in her eyes and her breath was coming in great gasps. "Erika is out there practicing and Anja is laying down with bad cramps and...and...well, I thought you'd be gone a while and Sergei...he said he...and I..." she broke into sobs.
Kitty sighed, patting the girl on the back with great understanding. "I know you weren't doing anything...um...bad...but you know Kurt would have killed him if he'd seen you two."
"Ja, I know," Katja sighed miserably. "He just told me that he liked me especially and we got to talking and then we ended up kissing and then we ended up here..."
"Um, do you mind if I ask how far things went?" She was almost afraid to find out, knowing exactly what happened the first time she and Kurt had kissed and having a strong feeling that the entire Wagner clan ran to strong emotional displays.
Katja made a negligent gesture. "Not very...it was far enough for a first kiss, I think...we just...you know."
"I think so..."
"He didn't touch me under my clothes," Katja said hastily.
"Good to know...how old are you again?"
"How old were you when you got your first kiss?" Katja asked instead of answering.
"Old enough..." Kitty blushed, remembering that her own first kiss had been pushed on her by Lance in the sixth grade, an unpleasant and slobbery experience that made her nauseated. "So why did you come in here?"
"We wanted to talk in private," she said, somewhat sheepishly. "We couldn't talk at the rehearsal, we couldn't talk in my room that I share with my sisters and Mama is in the kitchen...we came in through the back door and snuck in here. I left the window open so I could hear when you returned..." Katja sniffled again, embarrassed more than guilty.
Kitty sighed. "But you got distracted...Been there... Look, I'm not going to tell your mom or anything, okay? I just didn't want Kurt to see you two all...tonguey..."
Katja smiled thankfully then frowned a little. "Can I ask you a question about that?"
"About...kissing?" she asked fearfully.
"Ja...I don't think I was doing it right."
Kitty gulped. _ If I can't talk about it with her, how am I going to talk about it when I have a kid of my own? _ "Well...what makes you think that?"
"I think I was slobbering or something. He was saying something in Russian but I don't know what it was."
"What makes you think it was a commentary on your saliva?" At the girls' slightly befuddled look, Kitty asked, "What did he say? Can you sound it out for me?" Slowly, with her face screwed into a moue of confusion, Katja repeated what Sergei had said. Kitty felt her face go red. "Oh...oh, my. Well, let's just say that he didn't think you were drooling on him..." _Maybe Kurt should scare him a little...that's a little fast for their age! _ The object of her thoughts knocked on the door then, halting any further conversation between the two girls. "Come on in," she called.
Kurt opened the door slowly, peeking around the corner before entering. The room was painfully spotless, Kitty's things neatly in her suitcase and carry-on bag. He frowned, knowing that she had not been honest with him but for what purpose, he could nigurigure out. "Katja," he said, somewhat surprised. "What are you doing in here?"
"Um, she was just on her way back out to the rehearsal," Kitty supplied, too cheerfully.
"Ja...I...I came back for my...um...clippie!" she said, pulling the ornament from her hair. "See you later, Kurti!" She dashed past him and into the hall, the back door slamming a moment later.
"Kitty..."
"She just stopped by to say hi when she saw I was here."
"How could she see you were here with the door closed?" He crossed his arms over his chest, sure now that Kitty was hiding something.
Kitty sighed. "Okay, the thing is, she was waiting here because she needed to ask me something...a girly sort of question," she clarified, hoping it would keep him from pressing the issue. "About...girl stuff."
Kurt stared hard at her a moment longer but she did not budge. "Well...sorry for almost overreacting then..."
"Who called?" she asked, changing the subject with the full knowledge that their hastily planned tryst was not going to happen just then. "Was it Tabby? She's not having problems, is she? I told her to call the Institute if she was having problems with the baby or something and they might have given her the number here..."
Kurt shook his head impatiently, stemming Kitty's babble. "It was Logan. There's something going on back in Bayville..." he gave her the synopsis of the conversation, touching on Paige and Sam's arrival and the forthcoming arrival of new recruits, pausing when he got to the part about the new threat. "Katzchen, he wants for us to go back early."
"Oh...no! He can't be serious! It's been forever since you've seen your family! If anyone has to go back, I will. You stay until Friday."
"Nein, nein...we'll both stay. I told him that much and he argued, but I think Storm must have said something because he put me on hold and came back to say that he was against it, but he had been told we could finish our visit. He seemed to want me to change my mind, though."
Kitty sighed. "Great. Now I'm going to worry all week!"
"Don't, Liebes...if it was very serious, the Professor would send for us with the Blackbird. Come on," he said, trying to brighten the mood, "Mama says lunch is ready and that we're to have more guests tonight. Sergei and his family are joining us!"
Kitty smiled thinly, wondering if Katja knew about this. "Wow...how...um...great?"

Mystique threw the phone into the wall, feeling no satisfaction even as it shattered and jangled to the floor. "Son of a BITCH!"
"What's wrong?" the platinum haired woman behind her asked in a clipped accent. "They all out of that hair dye you like so much?"
"Shut up, Frost, before I rip your tongue from your mouth!" She turned on the woman, her newly acquired partner and growled, "Where are your little pets?"
"They're...out." Emma Frost raised a cool brow. "Why do you ask?"
"If you're going to act, do it now. We only have a few days before we can't. Magneto has..."
Emma snorted delicately as Mystique trailed off. "Surely escaped is too strong of a word...maybe you mean, Magneto has been set free? Or he's bought his way out? I understand that the old man isn't quite up to par...Rumors are thick and fast in the right circles, my dear blue wonder."
Mystique's hand shot out quick as a blink and seized Emma around the through, lifting her from the floor to let her feet dangle uselessly. "I want no part of this. I will help you only insofar as it meets my needs, but I will not be part of your little reign of pseudoterror over these people. I want the Professor's school shut down as much as you do, but I will not be part of harming children!"
Emma blinked once, calmly, then kicked Mystique in the stomach with the pointed toe of her stiletto heels, falling to the ground as the other woman let go, doubling over in breathless pain. Standing carefully, smoothing her linen skirt with an air of distraction, she said "I am not harming anyone... I am showing them the way..."