ax_main | Kitty and Nolan

Kitty fesses up to some stuff, and Nolan fesses up in turn, and they get each other.

With all of Kitty's drama dying down, and physical therapy finally over, she was actually looking forward to the holidays, busily finishing up some gifts she had planned and nervously trying to plan in her mind what she would say to Bobby's parents when she met them. In the midst of all of that, however, she hadn't managed to miss Nolan's appearances in the workshop, and his mood when he'd been around, which, she believed, was even more broody than usual.

They'd settled into a kind of quiet partnership, but friendship was still a bit of a stretch, so she'd waited almost a week before finally turning in her chair one day when they were alone together. She watched his back as he worked for a moment, chewing on her lip thoughtfully, then finally blurted, "So what's up?"

"Hmm?" Nolan looked over from the software he'd been working on - the one to run her drone - and saved his work mechanically, without needing to look at the shortcut he pressed.

She took a deep breath and let it out. "I mean, I know I'm not Shinobi or anything, but I can pretend to be, if you want. You've been...off, lately. Something's wrong. I mean, I think something's wrong, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there is - I'm totally guessing here, but you know when you get goosebumps and you just know something? It's like that. Like, a 'Nolan' intuition or something - maybe it's just that I hit my head too hard in Limbo?"

"You're saying your Nol-sense is tingling," Nolan replied, in his usual soft-dry tone, the sort that always sounded nonchalant, bordering on disaffected. "I think I'm touched."

"I'm totally calling it that from now on, B-T-Dubs," she told him seriously.

"Please do," he stated with a hint of a smile. He wanted to dissemble and ask what her pretending to be Shinobi might look like, phasing aside, but, well. "It's nothing. I've just been reminded that I'm unfit to socialize with my peers."

"I mean," Kitty pursed her lips. "Who are we calling 'peer' here, really, because it's arguable that I'm one of your biggest peers here, and we haven't even tried socializing yet, so I'm not sure how that could've gone wrong. Yet. I mean."

"In the larger, age-based sense," Nolan admitted. "Less tech geniuses, more high school students." Of course, he turned back to his work as he spoke, to give himself something to do - well, pretend to do.

Immediately, the body language registered with her, and she turned back to her own work, turning over one of the sneakers in her hands to work with the blade mechanism as she talked. That gave them both space without having to go anywhere. "Well, that one's hard for me too," she admitted. "I mean, I almost lost my best friend a month ago and I'm still not sure what I did was wrong. I mean, I guess not telling her about it was wrong, but I think I'd still do it, if I had it to do over."

"That makes it worse, doesn't it?" Nolan asked after a moment. "Knowing that you would do it all over again." It certainly made him feel unfit for social interaction with anyone outside of business circles.

She nodded, then realized he couldn't see it and sighed. "Yeah. But it. It was the right thing to do. We didn't know if we could trust the Brotherhood. Heck, I'm still not sure we can, and it wasn't like they were going to hand over information about themselves, right? So I planted a tracker on my roommate's boyfriend."

That made him swivel back around in his chair. "You did wh..." He paused, closed his mouth, then told her, "You're brilliant."

Kitty blinked and looked up at him. "What?"

"Well, I'm not sure if I would've gone for a tracker or something more, but I'm assuming this was before the current détente," Nolan stated. "Why wouldn't you tag him?"

"Well. Yeah," she agreed, turning back. "See, you get it. I mean, I may have gone a little far breaking into their base, but the tracker, that's just common sense, right?"

"It is if you ask me," Nolan confirmed, "but I'm hardly a good marker for that, apparently. ...breaking into their base, that's where you're on your own." Then again, she was exceedingly more fit for that sort of thing than he was.

Kitty nodded slowly. Next time she'd be taking backup along. But at least Nolan understood. "Anyway, what I probably should have was figure out a way to attach a device to him that would hack into their server and instead - so I never would have had to have gone in there."

"That kind of hack is near impossible without installing any hardware," Nolan replied. "Or at least knowing what kind of security you're up against." He was only adding that last bit because of how brilliant they were; if anyone could figure out a remote, entirely wireless hack, it would be them.

With a sharp grin, she hopped up and strode over to the glass board where they did some of their calculations. Wiping one side clean, she added a heading of "Things That Will Be Awesome When We Figure Them Out".

Nolan was not a fan of writing things out where anyone could find them, but the board had grown on him. He'd picked up a marker of his own and asked her, "If I may." When she stepped aside, he added, under the heading, "- Remote software-only all-purpose hacking." Then he turned to her. "We're bordering on evil genius territory, I believe."

"I mean, I'm okay with it if you are," Kitty grinned.

"Very," Nolan assured her with something bordering on a genuine smile. "I'm very okay with it."

She laughed softly. "Okay, feeling better about the thing with Yana."

"Good," Nolan said with a small, honest smile. He hesitated, fiddling with the marker, then asked, "Did she forgive you?"

Kitty's lips quirked. "In her own way. Eventually."

Nolan wasn't sure what that meant, but it was none of his business to ask for details. So he nodded instead, and said, "That's good," before putting the marker down to get back to his computer, and the drone software.

She blinked, watching him go. Nolan was an odd duck at the best of times, and Kitty could only guess that it was because he had to deal with being a millionaire and a businessman when he never got to be a teen, but this...was odder than usual. "Nol-sense alert," she informed him.

He huffed out a humorless chuckle and sat at his desk, but spun on his chair to face her. "I hacked the school records of someone I was growing close to, after they said something... troubling. They didn't take kindly to it."

He wasn't sure why he was telling Kitty. It was a far cry from what she had done, in the end. There was no greater picture to consider in what he was saying, and he doubted that her moral compass was as skewed as his clearly was. But perhaps that was exactly why he was telling her.

Kitty listened, then lowered to sit on her own chair, pulling her legs up to tangle beneath her. "What kind of 'troubling?'"

"I thought they might have been a bully," Nolan said simply.

Her stomach dropped out at the suggestion, and Kitty slipped her arms around her stomach. A bully at Xavier's? That would be...disastrous. Xavier's was a safe place. For everyone. The biggest reason why it worked was because kids knew they wouldn't be harassed for who they were. "You were right to check up on it," she finally said, her gaze flinty with decision.

Nolan frowned slightly, surprised and uncertain. He knew that he would do it again, but he had not expected her approval. "Even if they've changed?"

Kitty frowned. "In my experience, a bully is always a bully."

"That's - what I thought," Nolan confirmed with a nod. "But I really believe they have. I would never have thought..."

She side-eyed him. Maybe Nolan thought they'd changed. Maybe there was bias. But that impulse to do harm, or exert power over others? That didn't go away so easily. Then again, she didn't want to tell him that, either. "I still think what you did was right."

Nolan knew that side-eye for what it was; he would have been just as skeptical of someone else making that claim. But he wanted to believe in Lil. He held Kitty's gaze for a beat, then nodded. "Thank you." He didn't often hear that. "That is no small comfort." Having Shinobi's support somehow did not mean much, in terms of morality, for all that it meant the world in terms of emotional support.

Kitty smiled softly. "So what are you going to do? Since the person obviously didn't like it."

"Well, we're not seeing each other anymore," Nolan dryly answered, but then his tone grew hesitant. "We're going to try to be friends." He didn't know what their odds of success were, but at worst, he could keep an eye on her.

He really was a terrible person.

Kitty's eyes widened for a moment. She didn't know who she had thought Nolan was talking about, but it definitely wasn't Lil. She swallowed as she thought about the girl, and the recent drama on the journals, and started to understand. "That's um. That's good, I guess." If she really had changed.

Nolan winced slightly as he realized that Kitty had likely just figured out who he was talking about. He really wasn't sure how much news traveled, but he shouldn't have been surprised. Too many people knew for it to not have spread. And you call yourself a genius. There was a vulnerable look in his eyes as he asked, "I'd be grateful if you didn't spread the word."

And then it was Kitty's turn to wince, because didn't people have a right to know what Lil was? She gnawed on her lower lip a little, watching him. "You really think she's changed?"

"She hasn't bullied anyone here," Nolan replied simply. She hadn't gotten physical with anyone here, that he knew of, not even when it might have seemed to her like they deserved it. He wanted to believe in her. "I'd like to give her a chance."

She nodded. "Okay. I won't say anything."

"Thank you," he told her, his voice quieter for how much he meant it. "Of course, should I be wrong, I won't hold you to that." Should he be wrong, he did not expect her to stay quiet. He did not expect that he would, either.

Kitty took a deep breath. "Okay. Thank you. I mean, as long as you're right, and she's changed, then there's no point in spreading stuff around."

"That is my hope," Nolan confirmed, holding her gaze for a beat before looking away, as if he couldn't quite stand being this open and vulnerable with her. Or with anyone, really. He visibly composed himself, then gave Kitty one of his usual soft-dry smiles. "Thank you, for - paying attention to your Nol-sense."

Annnd he was back to 'Nolan', Kitty realized, smiling softly at the sight. "Just remind me to shut up if you never want to hear about it."

"I've mastered the art of evading topics I don't want to discuss," Nolan assured her. A very necessary skill, with journalists.

"Oh, I've noticed!" Kitty grinned. "I think I need to learn your evade-fu."

"I realize this likely won't matter," Nolan stated, with another one of his smiles, "but I'd rather you didn't."

She rolled her eyes. "Not learn how to overcome it. Learn how to do it myself."

"Ah," Nolan acknowledged. "Well, that I can help with."

Kitty laughed softly. "It's okay. I think I can learn by example. And don't worry. I won't pry when you don't want me to. We're sharing this workshop, right? That means respecting each others' quirks. I don't know why you evade, but you've clearly got a reason, right?"

"I think that's the way it's supposed to go, yes," Nolan confirmed, giving her a hint of a smile. He paused, and then, "Thank you, Kitty," he added, his tone more earnest by far.

She smiled, warm and happy. “Anytime, Mr. Ross.”