Hell Hath No Fury

Hell Hath No Fury Chapter Nine
Disclaimers Apply

A/N *sigh* I’m a bad, bad girl. Sorry it took so damned long. *kicks muses* Goddess Foxfeather is indeed wondermous for remembering this fic, lol, and she is Uberbeta extraordinaire! J Readers/Reviewers: *grovels*

Kurt thought his heart was going to explode, his fear was so great. The door had sealed itself shut, trapping them inside the giant round room. Kitty was shouting at him but he could not understand her—the blood pounding in his ears was almost louder than the alarms around them and the annoyingly calm female voice advising them to remain still. He shook off Kitty’s hand as she plucked at his sleeve, trying to pull him towards the door herself when his legs did not seem to want to move. Kurt’s thought processes had become disturbingly simple—run, fight, survive. He was beyond understanding commands or requests or entreaties and had become purely drive. His breath came in short, desperate pants and his stance became distinctly hunched, almost a half-crouch. Kitty was, for the first time in a while, very scared.
“Great,” she muttered. “You’re trapped with a fucking lunatic…” She gave up trying to phase him through the door and held up her hands pleadingly. “Kurt, breathe. It’s okay… Shhhh…” He was not hearing her, hies wes were darting from side to side, looking for an escape. She did not want to do it, but she knew she had to if she was to get any measure of calm out of him. She edged around him, then ran to the control panel. She had helped the Professor reprogram Cerebro some months before to accommodate Jean’s burgeoning psychic powers and she silently thanked her mentor for insisting she help… She knew just where to push her hand through the metal and wires. In seconds, the alarms stopped and the voice faded. _I’ll fix it later, _ she told herself firmly to assuage the guilt at breaking the machine. “See? All gone…”
“Do not,” he panted softly, standing straighter and looking more certain of himself, “talk to me like I’m a child. I am not.”
She felt color creep across her cheeks at his stern expression. “Sorry, but you were kind of freaking out on me there. Are you okay? I knew this was a bad idea… It makes sense he’d have a code he wouldn’t even tell me,” she sighed. “A fail safe.”
Kurt nodded as if he understood. “I need to hide. Help me.”
“From what?” she asked, startled. “Come on. We’ll just go tell Professor Xavier that we were looking for some idea of who you are, why you were running, and we had a little… oh, crap.” As she spoke, the door to Cerebro slid open and revealed the entire team, in full dress and high dudgeon. “Um… hi.”
Jean, eyes snapping with irritation, stepped forward. “What is this?”
“Uh… this is Cerebro,” Kitty said with false brightness. “The Professor and other people with strong telepathic ability can use it to track mutants with active powers!”
Jean was not amused. Liz, however, giggled softly, glancing past her to Kurt. “Hey,” the pyrokinetic said softly, moving forward with her hand out as if to tempt a scared puppy, “you need some help?”
“Ja… nein…I don’t know!” he replied jaggedly, his hands moving to cover his face. “I just… I need answers!”
Hellboy snorted and came to join Liz, effectively blocking Kurt’s view of the X Men. “Look, Little Blue, we came here to find you some answers and that’s what we’re gonna do. No use sneaking around and getting these folks all twitchy because you’re anxious. Come on.”
Kitty trailed Kurt almost anxiously as Hel led led him through the small crowd outside the door and towards the elevators. She paused and looked Bobby up and down. “Why did you all dress up?”
“We didn’t know what we’d find,” Scott replied for him. “For all we knew, he was going to do something drastic?”
“Or,” Kitty sniped, “be scared and alone and desperate. Always a cause for a full frontal assault.”
Jean held her tongue until the trio was behind closed elevator doors. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say Kitty had a thing for that…person.”
Liz raised a brow. “Stranger things have happened…” Switching subjects suddenly, she asked, “Do you people always overreact like this?”
Rogue sighed. “Only on our good days.”