Unsolved Riddle
by ALC Punk!

"Here you go, Simmons."

"Thanks, Kit." He smiles at her, drops a five, mouths, 'keep the change' and is gone before she can protest.

It's her own fault. She's slim, built nicely, athletic, and the black leather emphasizes her physique just right. Not to mention the tattoo on her right bicep which draws the eye. But it's a good camouflage, of sorts. She's the bartender, she's supposed to catch the eye and be friendly and attentive. And if her smile is sometimes too stiff, Kitty doesn't think they notice.

Tips are good, though, and the extra goes into the left pocket of her apron (black, to match her leather). Her gaze strays to the left, and she sees him again. Not surprising: he's head and shoulders above most men, anyway. Built tall and solid, comforting, if you need that sort of thing.

She thinks she did, once.

"Pryde! Break for fifteen, then get your ass back here!" Garret is smirking as he sidles up, left earing swinging its gold chain to his shoulder. The patrons like him, even if they're afraid he'll hit on them.

With a shrug, she slips out from behind the bar.

It takes her a second to find him again, and she remembers that she used to be able to always 'know' where he was. She thinks it was his cologne.

Then she's standing in front of him, taking in the casual slacks, the dark grey shirt (it looks good on him). His blue eyes go dark as he notices her. "Piotr."

"Katya."

She looks up at him, and suddenly, seven years are stripped away. She's thirteen and he's eighteen, and he's the cutest boy she's ever seen. Her first kiss, and she remembers Ororo smiling at them when they crashed her attic room. For a moment, the illusion holds. And then seven years of pain and death and life slip between them again. She feels old and bitter, and wonders if it's a trait all X-Men pick up, or only the ones who start early.

"What brings you to Chicago?" She scrambles for something, anything to say that won't sound pathetic and contrived. And fails.

"Art, actually." For a moment, something flashes across his face that she knows she would once have recognized. "There's a new gallery opening up, and Warren sent me to find out if they'd be willing to host some of my work--sponsored by him, of course."

His art. Kitty remembers that he once painted something that broke Meggan's heart. Painted other things. Painted in memory of a life that hadn't been his to begin with. "And?"

"They'll get back to me." Piotr's face closes in.

Not rejection, but enough like one that she's watching him settle back into being blank. The good little Russian communist, sure of who he is, and where he fits in with life. She figures Piotr Rasputin lost that understanding about the same time she did. It just took him longer to realize it. "You want a drink?"

"Thank you, no."

"All right." From the corner of her eye, she spots Garret waving. While she was standing there, a new surge of patrons bustled in, and he's swamped with orders. "I've got to--" she gestures with a thumb, faking a smile, "--it was good to see you, Piotr."

"Yes." His eyes study her a moment, then flicker away, "I did not suspect..."

"What?" She should be moving. Garret will mock her later about her proclivities. No flirting on bartime, Pryde.

"So much has changed," Piotr finally says.

"Has it?" Crossing her arms, she steps back, defenses rising for some reason. Old pain dies the hardest, she thinks. And perhaps that's why she can't stop herself from saying the wrong thing. "Hard not to change when you beat my lover to a bloody pulp." She discounts the months spent working together as a team afterwards, simply dredges up the beginnings of their end.

His eyes close.

Kitty wants to take the words back, but they hang in the air with a silent simplicity that thrusts through convention and breaks them both of civility.

"Katya."

"I shouldn't--"

"You have every right to berate me," he says softly, eyes open and full of something that hurts to look at. Self-loathing and pain that runs deep. "My actions were indeed reprehensible."

"No more than mine the day I swore to you that I would join you on Magneto's Avalon." It hurts to admit (it hurt to do, and she wonders if Charles Xavier will ever understand how much hurt his meddling causes) to her own human frailty, but it's only fair. Pain for pain.

"Old news."

"Not so old I can't still want to apologize." Her breath catches and she thinks that just once, life should be kind. "I'm sorry, Piotr. I need to get back to work."

He considers her for a moment, then asks, "When do you get off work?"

"Two hours." Hesitantly, she holds out a hand, "Can we... go for coffee?"

"I'd like that." Piotr takes her hand in his, and squeezes. "Thank you, Katya."

"Just... order a water, or something."

And then she's gone, slipping back to the bar because Garret needs her, and she can't prolong this contact any longer. But she doesn't understand why her breath caught when Piotr smiled at her. When she reaches the bar, Garret throws a towel at her. Ten seconds later, she's smiling at a customer, and she stops thinking about Piotr Rasputin.

-

The silence has been hanging between them since they sat down in the coffee shop, and Kitty doesn't know how to fix it. She thinks it was Garret's teasing her about her piece of ass as she clocked out that made her extra aware of Piotr as a man. And he is a man, no longer baby-faced-cute and sparkling with the energy of a teenager (or even haggard as he watches someone he loves die and is then betrayed). The lines of his face have strengthened, and he's a man cut from granite (or steel), handsome in the way playboy billionaires are supposed to be.

More than one woman has glanced their way since they left the bar.

"This is awkward," he finally says into the quiet.

"I'm sorry." She blushes as he raises an eyebrow. She hasn't blushed for nearly a year. Not since Garret first commented on her appearance behind the bar.

His eyes touch her face, and he smiles, "It's all right, Katya. We don't have to talk."

The double entendre doesn't seem to register with him, but Kitty can't help the way she shifts in her seat. Damnit. A memory flickers through her mind: begging Piotr to take her virginity so that she wouldn't die a virgin (not quite so crudely, of course, but she's older now and knows that's what she was doing). He'd refused. It's been longer than seven years since that ill-fated proposal, and she's not a virgin anymore.

It's fucked up.

"Piotr--" She stops, licks her lips and watches the way his eyes catch the movement of her tongue. Completely fucked up. "You're right." She stands and moves around the table, feeling strangely predatory. "We don't have to talk."

He's still sitting, which makes him low enough that she has to bend to brush his mouth with hers.

When she starts to pull back, his hand catches the back of her neck and holds her there. She can't help the gasp that escapes her as his other hand slides around her waist brushing the bare flesh above her pants, pulling her against him. His thumb slips upwards, under the hem of the vest she's wearing over her halter top and she presses into him, shifts and almost whines when he draws back, letting her go.

"Katya..." His voice is shaky as he stares at her.

She swallows, then reaches out and threads her fingers into his hair, nails brushing his scalp. "My apartment is... I mean..."

Piotr's thumb brushes over the skin above her waist again, and he stands. She doesn't move, and they're pressed close enough that she knows he's just as affected as she is. "You will not regret this?"

"No."

For a moment, he studies her, reads something on her face or in her eyes--whatever it is seems enough as he nods. "Very well."

Kitty doesn't remember leaving the coffee shop any more than she remembers the walk to her apartment. The first clear memory is dropping her keys because Piotr is kissing her neck. She grumbles a protest when he releases her to find them. As soon as they're in her hand, she tugs and phases them both through her door.

"Efficient." He murmurs against her neck.

"I try to be--" Her breath catches with his hand drifting down her back.

The next coherent moment is pushing him onto the couch, straddling his lap (and she doesn't remember taking his shirt off, but his muscles are hard with use and his skin tastes saltier than Pete's did--and then she stops thinking about Pete), arching back as his mouth closes on one breast.

It doesn't take him long to begin to drive her insane, and she blames her lack of a sex life for the way she pleads with him in short, panting breaths.

She steps back to wriggle out of her pants and underwear, glad her boots were the first thing off (apparently). Before she can work on his, he's dragging her back against him, fingers sliding across her and making her brain stop working. When he pulls her higher and leans back, urging her to straddle his face, she has one last coherent moment of being glad he's so god-damned strong, because otherwise she'd fall on the floor.

Hands hold onto her hips and he moves his mouth over her. Tongue, lips, teeth and Kitty can't help the cries that exit her mouth even as she blushes at the intensity of the reaction.

If she had a brain left, she would be wondering how he got so good at this, but she doesn't have anything but nerve endings and heat and pleasure coiling until there's nothing she can do but grab at his wrists, trying not to scream as the orgasm wrenches through her.

Panting, dripping with sweat, muscles going limp, Kitty stares down at him. "Piotr..."

His hands move her and she flops bonelessly across his lap, staring at the smirk on his lips. "I hope your neighbors are understanding."

Regaining her equilibrium, Kitty shifts and kisses him. "Oh, yeah. My roommate likes playing Manson at three a.m." She pulls back, reaches down and strokes a hand across him, causing him to groan. "We should move to the bedroom. I think she's due back soon, and I don't do shows."

His hands caress her skin, "Very well."

Shakily, she stands and holds out a hand. When he takes it, she smiles. "I'm glad we don't need to talk."

-

Kitty shifts and the arm draped across her waist moves with her. The presence of someone else in her bed jerks her awake, and for just a moment, she's back on Muir Island (she can swear there's stale cigarette smoke in the air) with Pete Wisdom crankily telling her that mornings were for ponces like Braddock, and didn't she want to laze about just a little longer? Then reality reasserts itself, and the man at her back (much too large to be Pete anyway) mumbles something into her shoulder.

"Morning to you, too." Her voice is scratchy with disuse, and she wriggles around to look at her clock. It's not on the night stand. Further investigation (with Piotr mumbling about her moving too much) and she discovers it on the floor, face cracked. There are other bits and pieces on the floor, too. Her reading glasses, the mug she keeps forgetting to take back to the kitchen, her physics textbook and several odds and ends. A flush steals down her body at this evidence of disarray, and she worms back under the covers until she's pressed against Piotr's chest.

He makes a half-hearted attempt to kiss her, which she evades. "Morning breath."

"Mmm." He grunts.

Her arm slips over his waist and she closes her eyes, "Go back to sleep, I don't have to be up for a while."

There's no answer from Piotr, and Kitty half-smiles before letting her breath out. It's not quite morning yet, and so she absolutely refuses to deal with the consequences of having sex with Piotr Rasputin. If there are any.

He's warm and solid against her, and that's all she cares about.

-f-

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© 2005 ALC Punk!