ax_main | Kitty and Pete

After the rescue teams return, Pete and Kitty grab some coffee.

And that had been a definite wake-up call.

Pete let out a snort as he headed down the hallway that led to the kitchen. Coffee. After the past eight hours or so, he needed coffee. Not that battery-acid flavored shite that MacTaggart had brought into the office they'd set up in, either - real coffee, preferably flavored with a touch of the Scotch he'd swung by his room to grab a flask of. Maybe more than a touch, considering he'd just gotten an eyeful of just how paramilitary this place actually was.

Not that anyone had ever denied it, he had to admit. They'd been up front from the onset. But he'd figured on missions like the one they'd taken on in London, not...this. If things were this mucked up in the States, maybe he and Bets should consider heading back across the pond?

Or maybe, he admitted to himself as he headed into the kitchen and straight for the coffee, they were better off here, making sure it didn't get worse.

In the kitchen, Kitty was already staking out the coffee pot. Well, she had been. She was leaning on the counter, head in arms on the countertop, half asleep in actuality. Sometime between putting on another pot to brew and waiting for it to, you know, brew, she'd decided to just... rest her head. For a second. Really. Only a second. Which could have been an hour ago, except she probably wouldn't have been able to stay on her feet that long.

Pete's lips quirked up in a rare, non-sarcastic fraction of a smile when he saw Pryde, literally asleep on her feet in front of the coffee maker. The girl'd been at it all day, in an absolute flurry of activity that had been something to see. Granted, she still looked like she should have her nose buried in one of those teen girl magazines he and Cully'd spent time mocking, but even if he hadn't realized it by the time they'd finished off the bombs in England, today'd confirmed it; there was one hell of a brain in her head.

Erasing the smile (because there wasn't any good reason she needed to know about his change of opinion) he walked over and tapped her on the shoulder. "Have a seat, Pryde, before you fall face first in the coffee pot. You want it black, or with add-ons?"

Kitty jerked awake, with an abortive, "I'm still here!"

When she reached for the comm unit on her ear and found nothing, then looked around the kitchen to realize she wasn't in her workshop, she blinked owlishly at the person who had tapped her, then frowned at the question. Normally she added all kinds of things to her coffee, but she didn't want to admit that to 'manly-man-Pete-jerkwad' and honestly she could probably use a straight shot of caffeine at this point. She moved to put her ass down on one of the nearby stools, then blinked at him again. "Um. Black."

"Coming right up." Pete grabbed a pair of mugs and splashed coffee into both, then brought them over. "Hell of a day, yeah?" he asked as he handed her hers and grabbed the stool beside her. Not an awful one, as far as he was concerned; they'd met their objectives without any losses, and Bets hadn't sprouted knives in her back despite him not having been there to watch it. Why he'd been put on logistics was something he still couldn't figure, unless they were thinking he had more experience than the average high school mutant, but still. Hell of a day. He pulled the flask from his jacket pocket and poured a shot into his coffee, then held it out to Pryde, eyebrows rising in inquiry.

"Kind of literally, yeah," she sighed, reaching out to pull the mug close to her chest, then eying the flask suspiciously. "Is that even good?"

"Wot, you don't think I helped myself to top of the line Scotch from Orpinton-Smythe's office?" Pete smirked, then handed her his still un-sampled mug. "See for yourself."

"I meant putting it in your coffee," Kitty pointed out, but she found herself reaching for the mug anyway, taking a daring sip. For a moment, she started to turn her nose up, offering the mug back. But then it all started to smooth together, with tastes and heat that felt amazingly good. Blinking, she held out her own mug for him to dose. "Okay, you don't have the worst ideas."

"Nah, I have the worst ideas." Pete poured a sample into her mug and smirked. "This just isn't one of them. Wakes you up and takes the edge off at the same time. Tell me today doesn't warrant that, and I'll tell you you're lying."

Ugh, why was he so cute? Stupid, bad boy cute. Kitty took another sip of the coffee. "Oh, it warrants it. So very much."

Given that he couldn't argue that at all, Pete took a sip from his mug and just nodded. After a few moments, he said, "You did good work in there." After all, it was true, and he doubted anyone else around here'd think to say it. They were all too busy running around in some kind of alien spandex to appreciate that if it hadn't been for her and a couple of others, they'd have been chasing themselves around in circles. He'd seen it happen too many times himself.

Was he complimenting her? Kitty eyed him for a moment. "Thanks? I mean, I didn't really do that much. Mostly just tried to keep backup or police from busting things up."

Pete's eyebrows rose. "You ever see what happens on a mission that gets bad intel? Where the backup doesn't come on time, or the police stick their noses in and try to call jurisdiction just when it buggers things up the worst? Trust me. What you did was just as important as anything the spandex wearers were up to."

Kitty rolled her eyes. "It's not spandex. It's a metamaterial made of unstable molecules."

"Whatever." She'd missed the point entirely, so much so he could only figure she'd done it intentionally. Pete scowled and took a drink of his coffee.

She had, and seeing his reaction, immediately felt bad for dodging the compliment. She took another sip, then quietly told him, "Thank you."

"No need. You deserved to hear someone say it," Pete replied, waving off her thanks.

"I guess I never asked how you and Betsy were settling in," Kitty told him sheepishly.

Taken by surprise by what she'd said, Pete stared for a long moment before letting out a chuff of humorless laughter. "Doesn't much matter, does it? Apparently we can best serve Queen and country by being sent off to public school in another country." He shook his head. "Not on you, though. We're well enough. Turns out Bets knows a few of your students already, so she's got that."

"What have you got?" she asked him, surprising herself by her compassion for the infuriating teen.

Pete held up his flask and smirked. "A couple of choice bottles of Nigel Orpington-Smythe's best Scotch?"

"Well, that's one way to handle depression," Kitty answered wryly.

"Please. I'm not bloody depressed," Pete retorted, his smirk disappearing in favor of a scowl. "'Sucks, and I'd hoped for better after everything we did for the bloody bastards, but it is what it is. Not like they're going to keep on two underage agents when the whole rest of the program's gone."

"Maybe they think you're needed here," she pointed out.

Pete snorted. "Orpington-Smythe never thought as far as Wales, let alone across the Atlantic. Trust me, he got me and Bets out of the way before anyone could show up asking uncomfortable questions about just what STRIKE had been up to. He stashes us here, he doesn't have to worry about us talking to the press about a serial killer taking out a dozen mutant teen agents, does he? He's not taking chances that we're going to remember we signed off on the Official Secrets Act. "

"Oh," Kitty answered dumbly, feeling a little bit like an idiot. Sure, they'd want to get the mutants out of the way. Even though that seemed like a terrible way to handle things, it was probably better than what the U.S. would have done. "But...at least you can still act as...agents or something here?"

"Could've," Pete admitted. He drank another gulp of his coffee. "Got a message a few days after we settled in, suggesting I could do an unofficial service and report in on what I saw here."
Kitty dropped her mug to the tabletop. "What?"

"Hey, watch the coffee mug, won't you? You're gonna bust it, and it'll be a waste of good irreplaceable Scotch," Pete cautioned. "Anyway, you can stop the panicking; I told Scicluna - she's one of Orpington-Smythe's aides, so she might have been under orders, or might've hatched the plan on her own figurin' it'd make her look smart, but it'd take more than that - I told her to bugger off. I'm a lot of things, including an idiot wanker at times, but I'm not a bloody spy."

She thought about that for a moment, realizing that a spy wouldn't have just...come out and told her he was expected to spy, and nodded gently. "Thanks. I know you don't exactly want to be here, so that means a lot."

Pete snorted and gulped the remaining contents of his mug down before replying. "Didn't do it for you lot," he pointed out, trying to convince himself as much as her. "Just wasn't about to be part of one of Scicluna's idiotic schemes. If things went south, she'd hang me out to dry in a heartbeat." He set the mug down on the counter next to the coffee maker. "Anyway, going back to see if anyone's got something new to say about the bastard behind the rest of the bloody idiots. Get some sleep, eh? Somewhere where you're not gonna fall face first into the coffee pot." And turned to head for the door.

"Pete-" oh god, what was she doing? But Kitty couldn't stop herself, even though her sleep-deprived self tried to rein all the impulses in. She set her mug down and reached out to gently catch his arm as he turned to go.

"Wot?" he asked, turning back and resisting the urge to pull his arm out of her grasp.

She released his arm at that look, remembering the jerk who'd purposefully smoked in her face. "Just. You're not alone, okay?"

Sure he wasn't. Even with Bets here, alone pretty much summed it up. Still, she meant well, even if she had no idea what she was talking about, so Pete relented and nodded. "Yeah, okay. Going outside for a fag. You want one?"

Kitty glared at him, because he knew she didn't. "Go kill yourself if you want to."

Pete smirked. "Start thinking about what you want to say at my funeral," he countered, then headed out.