nevanna | Ficlet: "Cold Comfort"

Fandom: X-Men movieverse
Pairing: Bobby/Kitty
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, and I do not profit from their use.
Summary: Bobby wants to reassure Kitty that she'll be all right, but she's already thinking about what will happen when she finally gets taken down.
Words: 515
Notes: This fills the "poisoning" square for

hc_bingo. It takes place in the dystopian world of Days of Future Past.
Warning: Non-graphic descriptions of vomiting and illness.

Cold Comfort

The walls of the abandoned subway station are scrawled with graffiti, and the air smells of rust and worse. Even so, after walking and sometimes running for far too long, Bobby is glad that the group has found a place to rest.

After they’ve eaten, Peter leaves to guard the entrance to the station, and everyone else sits around the fire and trades stories, as they’ve done whenever they managed to stop for long enough.

Bobby isn’t sure when it stopped hurting so much to talk about his other friends from Xavier’s School. The time that he spent with Rogue and John has started to seem like it happened to someone else. He wonders if Kitty, who sits with her hand laced in his, ever feels the same way.

Earlier today, she went on a supply run, returning with protein bars and new batteries. They kissed goodbye before she left, like they always do, even if they never talk about why.

James is describing the day that his mutant power first manifested, during a hiking trip with his brother, when Kitty breaks apart from the circle and runs in the direction of the platform. He stops mid-sentence. “Did I say something wrong?”

Clarice looks up from the flashlight that she’s testing. “If you did, we both know that she would tell you. I think that she heard something else.”

Bobby stands. “I’ll go check.”

“And I’ll be ready to blink us out of here if I have to.”

Bobby finds Kitty leaning over the edge of the platform, retching and shaking. Alarmed, he reaches out to hold her steady and to pull her hair back from her face.

She straightens after a few minutes. “Thanks. Must’ve been something I ate while I was running around outside.”

Bobby calls to the others that they’re both still in one piece. He murmurs to Kitty, “You’re going to be all right,” even though it’s impossible to forget that they don’t have access to doctors or hospitals, and she might not have time to sleep off a stomach bug.

“I know I am. If I get taken out, I want to be fighting one of Trask’s overgrown Transformers, not food poisoning.” Her voice is a little bit steadier. “Ready to head back?”

“Whenever you are.”

Kitty turns suddenly and leans over the edge again, but only manages to dry-heave. When it passes, she whispers, “What are you going to tell when it’s your turn?”

“You mean, what story? I was thinking about when we used to go sledding on the hill outside the school.”

“You made an ice bridge for us…”

“We pretended it was just for Artie and the other little kids, but I don’t think we pretended very hard.” He keeps one arm around her. “At least one of us would always fall off and end up with a face full of snow…”

As he speaks, he hears Kitty take a deep breath, as if she can taste the falling snow and the sharp winter air, cleaner and sweeter than any of them might ever know again.