Chapter Text
He watched her, never realising that she was watching him.
Kurt liked to think of himself as silent and stealthy. He had grown up to hide and to go unseen, and it had influenced him much further into his life. He had adapted to run and hide from those who would see him as a monster, those that would hurt him, kill him.
But everyone at Xavier mansion had come from some sort of background like that, Kurt soon learned.
There was one student, in particular, who fascinated him. Her name was Y/F/N, her skin was the colour of a pasque flower, and her eyes the colour of glacial ice. Two black, curling horns protruding from her raven black hair- silky and soft- and a long black, arrow-headed tail came out of where her tailbone should have finished.
She was exquisite.
And for once in his life, Kurt found something of humanity that should be preserved, marvelled.
Indeed, one could call it love at first sight.
After spending a year at Xavier’s school for mutants- oh, I’m sorry, school for ‘gifted youngsters’- you had successfully gathered yourself a handful of GCSEs and a rather unsatisfied crush on Kurt Wagner, a boy in most of your classes.
Considering the school was still recovering following the war and the rather interesting events involving the President and some mutant-killing sentinels and Magneto- whom you understood to have had some ‘particular’ history with Professor Xavier- it was understandable that there were still only a small number of students.
You had hit 19 a while back, but seeing as you had never been to school- due to your natural form being a violet shaded skin colour, with shiny black horns poking up from among your mass of black hair, complete with a black, pointed tail- you had no education and the Professor decided you would have to go through those first few years again. Probably the fact that you were stuck in the same class as thirty twelve-year olds was why you were so bitter about the idea, but now you had ‘graduated’ and the Professor had reluctantly allowed you to alter your timetable and drop certain subjects. This also meant that you joined an older class, too.
Currently, you were sprawled lazily on top of a vault in the gymnasium where you were in PE with your teacher, Alex Summers. Being almost the same age as many of the professors, you had also gotten to know Alex and considered him- if not a friend, then- a close associate.
“Y/L/N!” he suddenly bellowed and you yelped as you shot upright, bracing yourself in a crouched and defensive position, a snarl on your lips.
He grinned at you and turned back to his class. “And that is the kind of reflex I want to be seeing in you lot,” he said to his students. “We’re gonna play some dodgeball-” the entire class let out a loud groan “-and quick reflex and instinct is what you’re gonna need to incorporate unless you want to be walking around with a dodgeball-shaped bruise on your face. Now, go!” Alex upturned a bag full of red balls and kicked a few of them across the hall. As he left the students to grab for the balls and begin throwing them at each other, he bounded over to you and hauled himself next to you on the raised vault.
“That was not funny,” you grumbled, settling back down again and sending him a glowering look.
Shooting you a crooked grin, Alex shrugged, “It was a bit. And plus, you do have good reflex so I knew it’d be worth it. For the kids, of course.”
You harrumphed and dropped the matter as the pair of you chuckled at the children’s attempts at both lobbing and avoiding the ball. This class was the younger pupils- you noticed Alex’s younger brother, Scott, a short brunet with red sunglasses (Hank had explained about his laser eye mutation); Jean, a telekinetic and telepathic red-head with a shy personality; Storm- it rained if you called her Ororo- a dark-skinned young girl silver white hair and the ability to manipulate the weather; Suso, Janos’ son who had popped up from nowhere and wasn’t aware of his father’s existence- he had the power to shoot powerful blasts of wind from his palms (the Professor believed with some practice, Suso could use it fly, but everyone was rather dubious of the idea); Brodiline and Kaserina, twin girls from Bulgaria who both had the ability to stretch their limbs to inhuman sizes; Wanda Maximoff- Pietro’s little sister- who was a petite brunette with red irises and psychic abilities; Warren Worthington III, a blond boy with a quiet attitude and magnificent, pristine white feathered wings.
It had been Sean and Alex who had come to find you after a certain -ahem- incident involving an upturned bus and a lot of witnesses. Your mutation wasn’t just physical, it also enabled you to control the elements. On a cold day in the Autumn, you had been walking through town clad in a heavy trench coat and hat, careful to keep your tail wrapped around your waist, to steal some food from a grocery store, when you had taken a turn down a side street and come across a pair of muggers in the process of beating a young man with a baseball bat and two by four.
‘What’re you looking at?’ The taller of the two had yelled at you, spitting in your direction. ‘Get outta here or you’re gonna get it, too.’
A growl had bubbled up through your throat and you had tossed him effortlessly into the brick wall with a flick of your wrist- by throwing a burst of air at his chest- and easily enough finished off the second man with a well-aimed kick to the groin. A quick anonymous call for an ambulance and you were about to leave the scene when you heard a gunshot and felt a sudden pain in your right thigh. Looking down, you saw blood pouring out of a wound and spotted the smoking gun held in the first man’s hand.
Unable to control the beast- a part of you that was aptly named in mannerisms, and that you kept pushed down firmly inside yourself, but when certain situations arose, you couldn’t control it- you opened out your mouth and a animalistic cry shrieked out of it. Tearing off your coat, you lunged at the man and slashed at him with your claw-like black nails. Without your notice, a gale-force tornado twisted through the air and destroyed the street behind you.
Only hearing the Professor’s voice in your mind stopped you.
Listen to me, Y/N, you have to calm your mind. There is a tornado in the street behind you and you have to control your powers and stop it.
‘Get out of my head!’ you screeched, clawing at the man beneath you and baring your teeth as though he was the source of the unexplainable voice.
You must listen to me, Y/N. Calm your mind.
When Charles realised that that was going to be harder than he anticipated, he quickly sent you to sleep himself and, fortunately, the moment your eyes slipped close, the tornado tumbled to the ground and returned to a gentle breeze.
So went the upturned bus you caused. Seventeen people died.
After that, it wasn’t long till Alex and Sean had found you and convinced you to come back with them to the mansion on the promise of being able to learn to control your abilities.
“I’m gonna go grab some lunch,” you told Alex, clapping him on the shoulder before leaping off the vault and trotting out of the gymnasium, hearing Alex shout behind you something along the lines of ‘Get back up, Williams! It’s only a dodgeball!’
Chuckling to yourself, you wandered through the long corridors until you found your way to the kitchen and busied yourself with making a sandwich and poured yourself a coffee.
Without warning, there was a muffled spat sound behind you and Kurt -Nightcrawler- appeared behind you in a cloud of midnight blue smoke.
Spinning around, you pointed a finger at him and warned him, “Kurt, if you creep up on me again, I will blast your blue ass with fire.”
At your threat he merely chuckled, inadvertently baring his pointed teeth, and asked, “Are you making coffee?” in that heavy -delicious- German accent of his.
Gods, he was gorgeous...
His sparkling blue eyes were literally the bluest blue to ever freaking blue and all you could think about whenever you were with him was that you just wanted to drag your nails down his back and tangle your fingers in his hair.
“So...that coffee?” he prompted, making you realise that you had been wordlessly staring -gazing, as Alex would term it- at him for a moment too long.
“Oh,” you spluttered, “yeah, I’m just making a pot. Want some?”
“Sure,” he accepted, pulling up a chair and planting himself in it, folding his arms over the back and watching you with vaguely interested eyes and a small smile- worn as though one had forgotten it was there.
Unnerved -and slightly embarrassed- you turned back to the work station to pour two cups of coffee, adding sugar to one and milk to both. As you turned to hand Kurt his mug, you offered him a smile and tried to not let your stomach flutter too much when he returned it.
From your first few days, you made good friends with the reclusive scientist, Dr Hank McCoy- who insisted you called him Hank- over your mutual insecurity of your physical appearance and inability to venture further than the mansion’s gardens.
That’s where you were at the moment, hidden beneath the school in one of Hank’s many labs in the twisting labyrinth that made up the school’s basement. Hank had been peering into a microscope but was now slumped next to you on the sofa and the both of you were slurring your words and could barely make out the blurred images swimming in your vision. You had been the one to coax Hank into joining you in a drink to celebrate his breakthrough with research and before you knew it, you'd both drank too much and were struggling to form coherent thoughts. God knows what Charles must be thinking if he spared a moment to breach your minds.
It seemed that by 1 o'clock in the morning, you and Hank had both managed to consume copious amounts of alcohol and successfully got drunker than either of you had been in a long time. For the past half hour, you'd been playing a game of truth or dare without the dare.
"Ok, so if you could, like, have any other mutation, what would it be?" you asked Hank.
He thought for a minute, before answering, "Definitely not mine. Probably Raven's- you don't know Raven, she's a shapeshifter, Charles' sister, used to be- isn't actually- never mind. But, yeah, I mean then you could, like, be anyone. I wouldn't have to be me. Look like this..."
"Oh, shut up, Beast," you silenced him, waving a hand that had long since stopped obeying what your brain wanted it to do- but so was the power of vodka and depression among physically mutated mutants. "Hank, man, I was chased out of my home by a mob with pitchforks because they thought I was the Devil. Do not get started on changing appearances."
"Guess Texas really is the worst place for a mutant with horns and a tail to grow up," Hank mused, circling his forefinger around the lip of a bottle.
You scoffed. "I wish someone had come to that conclusion a few years ago."
Moving on, Hank shuffled on the sofa and propped his head on his forearm, before asking, "Ok, so what mutation would you have then?"
"I don't know," you admitted, settling back into the sofa's cushions to think it over. "I like Kurt's mutation. I mean, teleportation? That's pretty badass." Sighing, you mumbled, "Kurt," and let your mind slip back into teenage girl mode and think about Nightcrawler. Sniffing and taking another swig of the bottle you held, you suddenly came out with, “Crushes are stupid.”
Surprisingly unfaltered by your proclaimed and unexplained statement, Hank grunted in affirmation. “Pfft, yeah,” he mumbled, his position lying on his back with his feet hanging over the back of the couch making his words almost incomprehensible. “But at least you have a shot with yours.”
It took you a moment to process his words, and when you did, you turned to fix him with a frown and said, “What?”
Without even attempting to sit up and address you properly- and so was the miracle of alcohol- Hank replied, “Kurt. He’s totally into you. Plus, you’re beautiful and shit and he loves talking to you. I literally have no chance with the one I like.”
Retracing your steps, you said, “Woah, woah, woah, how did you know I like Kurt?”
Offering you a shrug, Hank said, “Well, everyone knows. You stare at him all the time and it’s obvious the way you act around him. You really oughta work on your subtlety, Y/N.”
Momentarily brushing over that topic, you retraced your mind back again and came up with, “Wait, who do you like?”
Hank let out a deep sigh and gazed up at the ceiling. “I am not that drunk," he muttered, breezing over your question.
Arching a mischievous brow, you retorted, "Well then, do have another drink, good sir." Hank shook his head with an air of finality but you were so not done. "Come on, Hank," you whined. "We're playing Truth, right? So I told you who I liked-"
"Everybody already knows who you like."
"-so you need to tell me who you like," you concluded, only pinching him a little for his interruption.
With an exasperated exhale, Hank grumbled, "Fine, it's Alex."
You eyebrows shot up.
"He's just so perfect and fucking gorgeous," Hank went on, as though he had waited far too long to divulge this information. "Even with the whole bad boy thing going on- no, especially with the whole bad boy thing going on- he's just so hot."
"Yeah," you nodded. "And straight as far as I'm aware."
With a miserable groan, Hank threw himself off the couch and stumbled in the direction of the camp bed he kept down here for when he fell asleep over the lab table. "Fuck the world," he declared. "All the best ones are straight."
"Or unobtainable," you agreed.
You fell asleep that night with Kurt's blue blue eyes behind your lids and smiling at you through the steam of a coffee.