Chapter Text
Scott hasn’t slept . Not properly. He doesn’t say anything about it, doesn’t show it—not outwardly—but it’s in the tightness of his jaw, the constant clench of his fists, the fact that he trains until his muscles shake and then keeps going. If he had been paying attention that day, if he had listened to his instincts when Kurt didn’t show up for their usual ride home, maybe—just maybe—they wouldn’t be here.
But there’s no time for regret. Scott is a leader. And leaders don’t stop .
So he pushes harder. If he keeps his body moving, if he keeps the team sharp, if he doesn’t let himself breathe —then he won’t have to acknowledge the sheer terror clawing at the back of his mind. Because the truth is, Scott’s never been good at handling loss, and he refuses to entertain the possibility that Kurt might already be gone .
—------
Jean closes her eyes, presses her fingers to her temple, and searches . Every day. Every night. Every hour in between. It’s become ritualistic at this point—stretching out her mind, skimming the edges of consciousness, trying to catch even the faintest whisper of Kurt’s presence.
But there’s nothing .
The absence is deafening , a black hole where Kurt used to be, and Jean doesn’t know what’s worse—knowing he’s gone or the fact that she can’t find him at all . Some nights, it keeps her awake, the strain of overextending her abilities leaving her with splitting headaches and blurred vision. But she doesn’t stop.
She can’t .
Because if she stops, she’s accepting that maybe… he’s already too far gone.
—----
Evan fights . That’s all he knows how to do anymore. If he’s not in the Danger Room, he’s in the gym. If he’s not sparring with Scott, he’s throwing punches into the reinforced walls until his knuckles bruise. And if he’s not doing any of that, he’s sitting alone in the dark, letting the rage fester inside of him.
Because what the hell are they even doing? Training? Strategizing? Standing around waiting for a miracle? That’s not enough.
Kurt wouldn’t have waited. He wouldn’t have just stood around if someone he cared about was missing. He would’ve gone after them .
And yet, here they are. Wasting time. Wasting days . How many more days do they even have before it’s too late? Before they’re not searching for a missing teammate, but a corpse ?
Spyke clenches his fists. He doesn’t want to think like that. But he does —because no one else will.
—---
Kitty doesn’t let them see.
She can’t. If she breaks, they’ll worry. If she cries in front of them, it’ll make it real .
But every night, when she’s alone in her room, she presses her face into her pillow and lets the tears fall. Losing Kurt is like losing her brother , and she doesn’t know how to function without him. His absence is everywhere . Every room feels emptier . Every meal at the mansion feels wrong without his ridiculous jokes. The sound of his laugh echoes in her mind, and she clings to the memories because she’s so scared they’ll be the only thing she has left.
She just wants him back. She just wants to hear him say “Kit-Kat” one more time.
—---------------
Logan returned at dawn.
The front doors of the mansion slam open with the force of a storm breaking, the echo rolling through the halls like a thunderclap. The moment he steps inside, every eye in the room snaps to him—and to the figure he’s dragging behind him, half-conscious and bloody, barely staying upright on unsteady legs. The scent of sweat, dirt, and old blood clings to Logan’s battered form, and his breath comes rough and ragged as he throws the man forward.
The Hydra scientist collapses onto the floor with a grunt, coughing weakly as he struggles to lift his head. Logan barely spares him a glance, rolling his shoulders as his claws retract with a metallic snikt . His knuckles are bruised, his face smeared with dirt, but his eyes—his eyes are wild , sharp, filled with something feral and unrelenting.
“They had him,” Logan growls, voice raw with exhaustion and barely leashed fury. “Hydra had him.”
The room stills.
The air thickens, suffocating, the weight of those words pressing down on every single person present. Scott stiffens, his entire body going rigid, his fists clenching so hard his nails dig into his palms. Jean’s breath hitches. Storm exhales sharply, tension radiating from her usually composed frame. No one speaks at first—because it’s the worst-case scenario. The one they hadn’t dared say aloud.
Scott is the first to move.
He storms forward, grabs the Hydra scientist by the collar, and yanks him up with a force that sends the man choking for breath. The usually composed leader is seething , his entire frame taut with the kind of rage that simmers beneath the surface for too long before finally breaking. “Where is he?” Scott demands, voice dangerously low, his grip tightening. “Where’s Kurt?”
The Hydra scientist spits blood onto the floor and lets out a weak, wheezing chuckle. “You’re too late.”
The room erupts into chaos.
Jean forces her way into his mind—only to find nothing . A void, a mental barrier so thick it’s impenetrable. Whatever he’s seen, whatever he’s done, it’s buried deep. A cold sweat breaks out on her skin as she stumbles back, shaking her head. “He’s been conditioned against telepaths. I—I can’t break through.”
The man laughs again, weaker this time, his bloodied face twisting into something close to a sneer. “You think I’d be able to tell you anything even if I wanted to? Hydra doesn’t keep loose ends.”
Scott snaps . He slams the man back against the floor so hard it rattles the nearby furniture, his restraint crumbling. “You are going to tell us everything —”
“Enough.”
Rogue’s voice slices through the tension like a knife.
She hasn’t spoken much since Kurt vanished. She hasn’t needed to. The grief has settled into her bones, silent but suffocating, pressing against her ribs with every breath.
She barely eats. Barely sleeps. The mansion feels wrong without him, a house filled with ghosts and echoes of what was. The teasing jabs, the stupid jokes, the late-night conversations when neither of them could sleep—it’s all gone. And now? There’s just the hollow space he left behind.
No one knows how much it’s tearing her apart. She makes sure of that.
Because if she breaks, then what’s left?
Now, standing here, she forces down everything she’s been bottling up for days, letting it burn, letting it fuel her.
Everyone turns. She steps forward, slow but deliberate, her green eyes locked onto the trembling form of the Hydra scientist. There’s a determination in her gaze, an acceptance —one that sends a ripple of unease through the room. Logan’s jaw tightens, Jean takes half a step forward, as if she wants to stop her, but neither of them speaks. Because they know .
They know what she’s about to do.
“I’ll do it,” Rogue says, and her voice is steady. No hesitation. No fear. Just quiet, resolute certainty.
The Hydra scientist freezes. The bravado in his expression cracks. “Wait—”
Rogue pulls off her glove.
“Rogue, you don’t have to—” Jean starts, but Rogue silences her with a look. Not cruel, not dismissive. Just final .
“I do .”
She kneels beside the man, her hand hovering inches above his face. He struggles, twisting, but he’s too weak to fight. The moment her fingers brush his skin—
He screams .
It’s violent, immediate. His body seizes, his eyes rolling back, his breath hitching in broken gasps as Rogue takes . The memories flood into her, searing and jagged, raw and chaotic. Flashes of cold metal, the hum of machinery, the scent of antiseptic and something darker. Screams—Kurt’s screams—echoing through sterile halls. A voice, sharp and clinical: Subject is resisting. Increase the dosage.
Then—
Needles. Everywhere. Injecting into his arms, his neck, his spine. Thick syringes filled with unknown substances, piercing his skin, withdrawing samples of his blood, of his DNA, of whatever it was they wanted from him. His body jerking involuntarily as they tested his pain tolerance, as electrodes sent shocks through his nerves, as metal clamps held him down when he convulsed.
A machine above him, whirring as they inserted a needle into his brain —cautious, precise, different from the others. Not about pain this time. About control. About breaking him carefully.
A scientist’s voice murmuring, clinical and detached: “We need to be more careful with this one. The brain injections require a slower dose.”
Kurt writhing, barely conscious, his golden eyes unfocused, his breath ragged. His tail twitching weakly against the restraints before going still.
Rogue gasps, her back arching as the surge of memories slams into her, a hurricane of pain and cruelty and twisted experimentation. The room around her blurs. Distantly, she hears someone calling her name—Jean, maybe, or Scott—but she can’t stop . She won’t.
Because she sees him.
Kurt. Strapped down, struggling, his golden eyes wide with fear, his wrists raw from metal restraints. His voice, weak but desperate, pleading in a language she doesn’t fully understand.
And then—
A location.
A hidden facility. Underground. West of Bayville.
Rogue rips her hand away with a choked gasp. The Hydra scientist slumps, unconscious, his body twitching in the aftermath of the contact. She staggers back, vision swimming, bile rising in her throat, but she forces herself to stay upright. Her breathing is shallow, erratic, her pulse hammering in her ears.
Scott catches her before she can fall. “Did you get it?” His voice is tight, barely restrained.
Rogue swallows hard. The words don’t come easily, but when they do, they are razor-sharp .
“I know where he is.”
—---------------
The underground facility is empty.
They storm in expecting resistance, expecting a fight, but they find only silence. The halls are cold, sterile, abandoned, a ghost of whatever horrors had taken place within them. They spread out, methodically combing through each corridor, searching for any trace of Kurt.
Then they find it.
A room, identical to the one Rogue had seen in the scientist’s mind. A cold metal table in the center, the restraints still open. On the floor, traces of blue fur—Kurt’s fur.
Scott bends down, running his fingers over the strands, his stomach knotting with quiet, burning frustration. “He was here,” he mutters, barely above a whisper.
But something is missing.
Jean is the first to say it, her voice tight. “Where’s his image inducer?”
Logan exhales sharply through his nose, scanning the room with narrowed eyes. “They either took it… or he didn’t need it anymore.”
A heavy silence falls over them.
They aren’t at square one, not entirely. They know he was here. They know he left. The only question now is— where did they take him next?
The search isn’t over. It never was.
—-------------------------------
Pietro wanted nothing more than to stay like this—to bottle up this quiet, intimate moment and tuck it somewhere safe, where it wouldn’t slip away, where the world and all its complications couldn’t reach them. It was ridiculous, how something so small—just Kurt taking slow, careful sips of soup—could completely undo him, could make his chest feel tight in a way that wasn’t uncomfortable, just… overwhelming. He hadn’t expected Kurt to finish the bowl. Hell, he’d barely expected him to take more than a few spoonfuls, and yet there he was, scraping the bottom with his spoon, golden eyes flicking up beneath dark lashes, hesitant but hopeful.
And then—
“Could I have more?”
Pietro almost dropped dead on the spot.
His brain short-circuited, the request so simple yet so unbearably soft that it nearly knocked him off his damn feet. It shouldn’t have meant anything—it was just soup, just a second helping—but the way Kurt asked, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to, like maybe he’d been expecting the answer to be no—God. Pietro nearly fucking broke.
For a split second, he could only stare, words catching somewhere in his throat, unable to escape past the sudden lump forming there. It wasn’t just about the soup. It was everything—the quiet trust in Kurt’s voice, the way he was opening up without realizing it, the way this moment felt like something fragile and precious that Pietro wasn’t sure he deserved. He could feel himself unraveling, his usual cocky bravado slipping away, leaving him completely bare in a way that terrified him.
He swallowed, forcing himself to move before Kurt could notice the way his hands had curled into fists against his knees. With a quickness that betrayed his nerves, he pushed himself up from his spot at the desk, grabbing the empty bowl without a word and heading toward the kitchen. It gave him a few precious seconds to get his shit together, to shove down the mess of emotions clawing at his chest and focus on something—anything—else.
By the time he returned, bowl refilled, Pietro had managed to pull himself back together. Mostly.
“Here,” he said, plopping back into his chair and handing it over, feigning nonchalance even as his fingers brushed against Kurt’s for just a moment longer than necessary. “Don’t say I never do anything for you.”
Kurt didn’t say anything, but the way he murmured a quiet Danke before taking another sip, the way his tail flicked contentedly against the blanket draped over his lap—it was enough.
Pietro exhaled slowly, sinking deeper into his chair, watching as Kurt let himself relax by degrees, shoulders no longer wound so tight, the tension bleeding from his posture. It wasn’t much. Just soup. Just a quiet evening. But in the grand scheme of things, it felt like something monumental.
Still, he had to play it cool. Had to bring some normalcy back before he did something stupid—like let Kurt see just how deep he was in, how his whole identity seemed to blur whenever Kurt looked at him like that, like he was someone safe, someone worth trusting.
“So,” Pietro said, stretching his arms behind his head, “what’s it gonna be, Blue? Back to bed, or are we watching TV?” He quirked a smirk, hoping it was enough to mask the way his heart was still racing in his chest. “I mean, I did just feed you twice. You kinda owe me, don’t you think?”
Kurt hummed, the same soft sound from before, and Pietro had to look away, had to pretend it didn’t shake him to his core.
Yeah. He was so fucking screwed.
—--------------------
Kurt saw it.
The way Pietro hesitated—just for a fraction of a second—before handing him the second bowl, like he was holding onto something unspoken, something caught in his throat that he couldn’t quite force past his usual smirk. The way his fingers lingered just a little too long against Kurt’s, the barest, fleeting touch that shouldn’t have meant anything, but still sent a small spark skittering down Kurt’s spine. And the way he looked away—quick, practiced, like he wasn’t even aware he was doing it—when Kurt hummed, quiet and content, as he took another sip.
It stirred something deep inside him, something unfamiliar, something that curled low in his stomach and made his tail flick lazily against the blanket in thought. Maybe it was the warmth of the soup, the way it settled deep and comforting in his gut, or maybe it was just the high of having food in his system for the first time in what felt like forever—but he wasn’t about to let it go unnoticed.
So, he pulled.
Gently. Curiously. Testing the weight of the moment, the tension Pietro probably thought he was hiding so well.
He kept his gaze fixed on the TV, pretending to be engrossed in whatever was playing—some mindless late-night rerun that neither of them were really watching—but his focus was entirely on Pietro. On the way his knee bounced just a little too quickly, a nervous energy buzzing under his skin that had nothing to do with impatience. On the way he shifted every so often, as if trying to physically shake something off, but never quite succeeding. On the way his lips parted slightly, then pressed into a thin line, like he was stopping himself from saying something, from blurting out whatever was running rampant in his head.
Kurt let the silence stretch, let the quiet buzz of the TV fill the space between them. Then, as if absentmindedly, he let out another hum—not quite the same as before, but close enough. Soft. Almost thoughtful.
And that’s when he saw it.
The twitch of Pietro’s fingers where they rested against his knee, the sharp inhale through his nose, the way his jaw tensed for the briefest second before he forced himself to relax.
Gotcha.
Kurt suppressed a smirk, schooling his expression into something entirely neutral, like he hadn’t noticed anything at all. But he wasn’t done yet.
He shifted slightly, adjusting the blanket around himself as he took another sip of soup, his movements slow, deliberate. Then, without looking away from the TV, he nudged his foot against Pietro’s, light and barely-there, but intentional.
Pietro froze.
It lasted only a heartbeat—half a second, maybe less—but Kurt felt it. Felt the way Pietro’s entire body went still, the way his breath hitched ever so slightly, the way he didn’t pull away but didn’t push forward either, stuck in some strange limbo between reaction and restraint.
Oh, this was interesting.
Kurt took another bite of soup, feigning distraction, but his mind was whirring. He didn’t know why he was doing this—why he was testing Pietro, why he was pressing against the edges of something he didn’t quite understand—but he couldn’t stop himself. There was something thrilling about it, something oddly satisfying in watching Pietro stumble, in watching the unshakable, smooth-talking speedster crack, just a little.
He nudged his foot against Pietro’s again—just a little firmer this time, just enough to make it clear that it wasn’t an accident.
Pietro shot him a look.
Sharp. Suspicious.
Kurt played innocent, spoon poised between his fingers, golden eyes still on the TV like he hadn’t just poked at something he shouldn’t be poking at.
“What,” Pietro said flatly.
Kurt lifted a shoulder, taking a slow sip of his soup. “Nichts,” he murmured, voice perfectly even.
Pietro squinted at him, skeptical, lips pressing together like he was trying to solve a puzzle he didn’t even know he was a part of.
Kurt just hummed again, slow and quiet, and Pietro immediately looked away.
Oh. Oh, this was definitely interesting.
And Kurt wasn’t done pulling at that thread. Not by a long shot.
Kurt tried to figure it out—tried to put a name to whatever had him pressing at Pietro’s edges, tugging at something he didn’t fully understand just to see him react. Was it amusement? Curiosity? Some strange, unspoken challenge?
Why was it so entertaining to watch Pietro squirm, to see that brief flicker of something unguarded in his expression before he smoothed it over with a lazy smirk and a too-casual quip? Why did it send a thrill down Kurt’s spine when he caught the way Pietro’s fingers twitched, the way his breath hitched at the lightest touch of Kurt’s foot against his?
Why—
Oh.
Oh, his heart fluttered.
Like a sudden gust of wind rattling through his ribs, knocking something loose, leaving him breathless in its wake.
Oh.
Oh, Kurt, you dummy.
Heat crept up the back of his neck, spreading over his ears, his cheeks, down to the pit of his stomach like a slow burn. The realization crashed into him with the force of something inevitable, something that had been waiting for him to catch up.
This wasn’t just amusement. This wasn’t just curiosity. This was him being completely, utterly doomed.
Because suddenly, all of it made sense—the way he’d started noticing the small things, the way Pietro’s casual teasing lingered a little too long in his mind, the way his stomach flipped at the sound of his voice, the way watching him move—fast, fluid, always just a little reckless—made something ache in a way he didn’t want to examine too closely.
And now—now that he’d realized it, now that his own heart had betrayed him—it was impossible to ignore.
He snuck a glance at Pietro, at the sharp line of his jaw, the way he was still staring at the TV but not really watching it, the way his fingers drummed absently against his thigh, restless, like he felt something too but didn’t know what to do with it.
Kurt swallowed hard. Oh, this was bad. This was very bad. Because suddenly, teasing Pietro didn’t feel like just teasing anymore. And suddenly, he didn’t know if he wanted to stop.
Kurt didn’t think.
He didn’t give himself time to hesitate, didn’t let the nerves creeping up his spine sink their claws in and stop him from doing what every fiber of his being was screaming at him to do. He was in too deep, and maybe he had been for a while—maybe he’d been falling from the moment Pietro had handed him that first bowl of soup, or maybe even before that.
Maybe he’d been falling since that first moment Pietro called him Blue .
Since the first time the nickname slipped so effortlessly from Pietro’s lips, lazy and familiar, like it had always belonged to him—like he had always belonged to him. Since the first time Pietro had looked at him, really looked at him, with something soft behind those sharp, cocky eyes, something that made Kurt’s stomach flip before he even knew what that feeling meant.
Maybe it had started there. Or maybe it had been inevitable.
Maybe he had been falling this whole time, long before he ever let himself realize it, long before that quiet part of his heart whispered that Blue didn’t sound like just a nickname when Pietro said it.
It sounded like something his.
And now, before he could stop himself—before Pietro could turn his head and make this a thousand times more complicated—Kurt leaned in, quick and quiet and impulsive, and pressed the softest, quickest peck against Pietro’s cheek.
Just for a second. Just long enough to feel the warmth of his skin, to catch the faint scent of something sharp and clean—cologne and static and Pietro —before he pulled back, his pulse roaring in his ears.
And then—
Pietro froze.
Like completely froze.
His whole body went stiff, breath catching hard in his throat, fingers twitching midair like his entire system had short-circuited. For once, the fastest guy on the planet wasn’t moving at all—wasn’t capable of moving, apparently, because Kurt was watching, waiting , and Pietro still hadn’t even blinked.
Kurt swallowed, ears burning, heat crawling up the back of his neck in a slow, humiliating wave. Maybe— maybe —he’d miscalculated. Maybe he—
Pietro exhaled, sharp and sudden, like his lungs had finally caught up with him. His fingers curled into the fabric of his jeans, gripping tight, and then he turned his head— slowly , almost cautiously , like he wasn’t sure if he was about to wake up from whatever the hell just happened.
His eyes locked onto Kurt’s, something unreadable flickering behind them, something sharp and searching, like he was trying to understand, trying to piece this together, trying to figure out if—
“Oh,” Kurt blurted out, suddenly realizing he had no idea what to do now. His tail curled tight against his leg, his hands clasping together in his lap like they could somehow anchor him, keep him from flying apart at the seams. “Uh.”
Pietro blinked. Once. Twice.
Then—
“Oh?” Pietro echoed, voice cracking just a little at the end, like his brain was still buffering. His face was still stuck in that stupid expression of wide-eyed disbelief, like he couldn’t believe it either, like he hadn’t even processed what just happened yet.
And that— that —was somehow worse.
Kurt let out a mortified groan, dragging his hands down his face as he curled in on himself, his tail flicking wildly behind him in absolute betrayal .
“Forget it,” he muttered quickly, hurriedly, desperately , as he reached for the blanket and tried to bury himself in it, because why, why, why had he done that? “I—just— forget it. ”
“Wait, wait, wait— ”
Before he could make his escape, before he could disintegrate into pure embarrassment, Pietro moved .
And when Pietro moved , he moved .
One second, Kurt was trying to disappear into his blanket cocoon, and the next—there were hands, actual hands , grabbing his wrists and pulling them away from his face, yanking him back into reality like Pietro needed to see him, needed to confirm this was real.
Kurt’s breath caught. His stomach flipped .
And then—
Pietro grinned.
Not his usual cocky, self-assured smirk, not the lazy, half-amused grin he threw around like it was nothing, but something smaller , something real, something genuine —and God, that was unfair .
“So, uh,” Pietro said, voice a little rough around the edges, a little too fast, a little too off-kilter in a way that sent Kurt’s heart plummeting straight into his stomach. “You wanna explain that, or should I just sit here and pretend my brain didn’t just short out? ”
Kurt groaned again, louder this time. “No,” he muttered, mortified. “No explaining. No thinking. Just—just— ignore it. ”
Pietro let out a breath of a laugh, something shaky and disbelieving, but didn’t let go of Kurt’s wrists. His grip was loose, gentle , like he wasn’t quite ready to stop touching him yet, like he was still processing, still reeling from whatever just happened.
“You kissed me,” he pointed out, like Kurt hadn’t just done everything in his power to avoid acknowledging that fact. “Like, on purpose. That happened. ”
“I am aware,” Kurt muttered, absolutely done with himself.
Pietro’s grin widened.
“ Blue. ”
“ Shut up. ”
But Pietro wasn’t shutting up— of course he wasn’t —because Pietro never shut up, and now he had ammunition, and—
“You like me.”
Kurt’s entire soul left his body.
Pietro cackled, triumphant.
And, honestly?
Kurt deserved this.
—--------------------
Oh, Pietro wasn’t letting this go.
Not now. Not after this. Not after that tiny, fleeting, earth-shattering kiss that sent his brain straight into the goddamn void. Not after the way Kurt had frozen when he realized what he’d done, like it had just hit him that—oh shit, he actually wanted this.
Pietro wanted to drag this out, wanted to press every single one of Kurt’s buttons just to see—to watch the way he reacted, to pull out every single embarrassed twitch, every flustered tail flick, every breathless little noise that made something deep in Pietro’s chest tighten. Because now he knew.
Kurt felt the same way.
Kurt wanted this, wanted him , had been pining too—and that knowledge sent an electric thrill through Pietro’s veins, something fast and eager and greedy because finally , finally, he wasn’t the only one drowning in this.
But before he let himself go, before he gave in to every single impulse screaming at him to mess with Kurt relentlessly, he hesitated—just for a second, just long enough for something real to settle in his chest.
Then, in a rare moment of restraint, he tilted his head, let his fingers loosen slightly around Kurt’s wrists, and asked, voice quiet but curious—
“What changed?”
Kurt blinked at him, eyes wide, breath still shallow, like Pietro had just knocked the last bit of oxygen straight out of his lungs.
He hadn’t expected that question.
Hell, Pietro hadn’t expected that question. But now that it was out there, lingering between them, he needed to know.
Because something had shifted.
Something had tipped Kurt over the edge, made him act instead of just staring at Pietro when he thought he wasn’t looking, instead of all the quiet, hesitant little glances and half-smiles and touches that never quite lasted long enough.
Something had changed.
And Pietro needed to hear him say it.
Kurt didn’t know how to answer at first.
His mouth opened slightly, but no words came out, because how was he supposed to explain it? How was he supposed to take everything that had unraveled in the past few days—the sharp edges, the raw fear, the exhaustion, the moments that had broken him down and built him back up—and turn them into something coherent ?
But then, as if the answer had been waiting for him all along, he remembered .
He remembered the fear that had seized his chest when he heard Pietro arguing with Lance, the way the walls of the Brotherhood house had felt too thin, too fragile, like they couldn’t contain the storm brewing between them. He remembered the moment when he had fought with Lance, the panic clawing at his throat when he’d been pinned , when all he could do was struggle and fail , and the sheer terror of not knowing what would happen next.
And then—
Then, Pietro had been there .
Saving him.
Bringing him back to himself, grounding him through the panic, through the overwhelming, gut-wrenching fear that had left him shaking. Pietro, who hadn’t barked orders or thrown out empty reassurances, who hadn’t told him he was fine when he clearly wasn’t. Pietro, who had held him steady as he sobbed , who had whispered, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, like it had been his fault, like the only thing that mattered in that moment was making sure Kurt knew he wasn’t alone.
And later—later, when the storm had passed and his body had stopped trembling and exhaustion had dragged him under, he hadn’t had the energy to acknowledge it, hadn’t had the words —but he’d heard it.
The way Pietro’s voice had broken when he admitted, raw and unfiltered, that he had been scared. Not of losing Kurt.
But of Kurt fearing him.
That had done something to him, something irreversible, something Kurt hadn’t even been ready to examine at the time. But now—now that the dust had settled, now that he was here , sitting next to Pietro in the quiet of his room, soup still warm in his hands, now he knew.
Because after everything—the panic, the fights, the breakdowns—the only thing Kurt wanted was to go back to Sunday morning.
Back to them being easy . Back to the teasing, the warmth, the little moments that had made him hope .
Hope that they could be something, that this wasn’t just in his head, that whatever this was between them could be real.
But he hadn’t let himself hope. Not really . Because what if he ruined it? What if he misread everything? What if he lost Pietro in the process?
But now—
Now, he didn’t even think.
Now, he realized— he had wanted this all along . Wanted to see Pietro fall apart . Wanted to be the one to make him stumble . Wanted to be the one to kiss him .
So he had.
And now, Pietro was waiting .
Still watching him, still holding onto his wrists like he wasn’t ready to let go, still looking at him with something expectant, something raw, something real .
And Kurt—Kurt had to say something .
He wet his lips, forced his breath to steady, and finally, finally answered—
“Because… you make me feel safe.”
The words were soft, barely more than a whisper, but in the silence that stretched between them, they felt like the only thing in the world.