Who is Wanda?

This one goes out to Nightcrawler's Shadow, because she asked for a follow up to Never Really Bothered to Come Up With a Title. And look, it even has a title.

"Who is Wanda?"

Kitty's quick, biting tone as well as the demand she flung at him like a discus had caught Kurt by surprise, and for a moment he wasn't sure he understood the question. "Vas?"

Her arms were straight, locked stiffly against her sides, hands clenched into tight fists. A sure sign that she was well beyond angry and steadily making her way onto absolutely livid. "Wanda. Who is she?"

It had been several weeks since he had returned to the newly rebuilt Institute-to Kitty-and during that time things had been…well perfect. Not in the literal sense perhaps, the professor had yet to wake up, most of the team was still MIA, and it was still open season on mutants, but Kurt was positively euphoric.

His admittedly vivid recollections of his brief real relationship with Kitty had hardly done it justice. He had remembered how easy, how right things had felt when they had fallen into place before disaster struck and he had run away. But he had forgotten just how comforting and exhilarating just her presence was, the rush of warmth that flooded his veins and the delicious tingling chills that danced up and down his spine right to his toes every time they touched. The easy way she made him laugh, how good it felt banter, to argue back forth, the wonderful frustration that built when she had a comeback for everything.

It had been astounding, even to him, the way they had simply picked up several steps ahead of where they had left off, his own thoughts echoed from several mansion residents when Kitty had casually announced "Our room's gonna be pink, Elf. Sorry." The nagging feeling of doubt, that things were moving too far and too fast. But at the same time, he knew they had moved as slow as molasses for years. They had already been friends as well as lovers; anything else was simply standing still.

And even through the insecurity that followed doubt and uncertainty, he adored the level of comfort and trust she awarded him by allowing him such closeness and intimacy. He loved that he could twine his legs together with hers, curl his arms around her shoulders and waist as his tail came to across the length of her hip until he was literally wrapped all around her, pressed so tightly against her that even the air could hardly come between them.

But it had never really occurred to him at any time during those weeks of bliss to mention Genosha's Scarlet Witch to the current object of his affections. He hadn't been trying to keep anything from her exactly; he just didn't see it as anything important and so had never brought it up. Clearly this had been a mistake as she apparently heard about the other girl from someone who wasn't him, and if looks could kill he would have been nothing but a pile of ash on the kitchen floor.

"Magneto's daughter," he said carefully, not entirely certain where she was intending this conversation to go. "I met her when I was on Genosha."

"When you wanted to stay." It was not a question, and the icy, flat tone of her voice left no room for argument, no chance for defense.

"Ja," he said, his own voice calm and steady, though he felt his insides curdle. He and Kitty had never had fight, not really. Oh sure, they had heated disagreements, but there had always been a playful, almost teasing edge to even their most intense arguments. This was clearly shaping up to a real one, with hurt feelings and words that someone would later regret, and Kurt was not at all sure how to handle it.

Kitty closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath through clenched teeth, obviously trying to keep her famous temper in check, "You wanted to stay on Genosha because she was there."

"N-no. Not-not exactly." He was stuttering and he knew it. But he wasn't sure what to say, didn't know how to defend himself. He hadn't lied, there were a lot of factors that had reasoned in to his desire to spend more time at Magneto's promised land; the problem was that while Wanda had not been his only motive, she had certainly factored in. But he didn't know how to say that without fueling the fire.

Kitty's eyes, more expressive than any body language, were steely gray, and hard and cold as ice, reflecting that she too had caught the slight lapse in his speech, and had fallowed the obvious interpretation.

Logan ambled through the kitchen doorway as Kurt struggled to untangle his tongue, to explain the mess he had inadvertently created before things got out of hand. "Kit, Elf, I want the two of you to take a run through the new-"

"Shut up!" Kitty growled, half-screaming. Logan looked appropriately shocked for a moment; Kitty was one of the few who was not afraid to knock Wolverine down a peg if she thought he needed it, but the infuriated, blatant display of disrespect was well out of character. Kitty, however, had not taken her eyes from Kurt's. "You lied to me."

"Vas? I've never lied to you Kitty!" he insisted vehemently, his own more mild temper beginning to simmer at the accusation.

She stamped her foot, the rage and hurt welling inside her needing some kind of an outlet, as her fists slammed against the air at her sides, "Yes you did! You never even mentioned her. Not even in passing. Not once. And in a relationship omission is still a lie."

"It vasn't omission; I vasn't trying to keep anything from you!"

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

"Because there was nothing to tell."

She laughed, a harsh sound, hollow and bitter, laced with sarcasm and hurt. He winced inwardly, feeling sick with knowledge that he had caused that empty, painful sound, "You were seriously considering staying on that island with someone else and you think it's nothing?!"

Kurt snarled right back at her, his patience reaching its limits, and his own temper beginning to flare. The accusation hurt; it hurt that she really thought that Wanda or anyone had managed to dislodge her place in his heart. It hurt that she was standing the kitchen screaming at him without even giving him a chance to explain. The rational portion of his mind calmly explained that he'd had his chance to give her his side of the story several times over, and if he had just told her about it in the first place, this whole fiasco could have been avoided. But he couldn't be bothered with such logicalities at the moment because all he wanted to do just then was lash back out at her the way that she was lashing out at him.

"What about Bobby?" The anger left him with the half-growled words that left his mouth.

Bobby had been harboring a not-exactly-secret-crush on Kitty for months and was still nursing the smarting wound Kurt's return had left him with. Once after Bobby had gone off somewhere in a huff, curious about the other boy's fierce reactions, he had asked Kitty if she had ever begun to return Bobby's obviously intense feelings.

She had cocked her head thoughtfully, looking past the trees, the grass, the sky, somewhere deep into her own thoughts, before shrugging slightly and offering him a small smile, "I don't know," she'd responded, "Maybe with time, if I ever really believed you weren't coming home, but…"she trailed off and smiled up at him, making his heart flutter and all thoughts of Bobby and the slight jealousy beginning to boil beneath his skin fade away, "I had to give you a chance to come back for me."

"Okay, you two, just calm down-"

"YOU LEFT ME KURT WAGNER!" Kitty exploded right over Logan's attempts to defuse the situation. Tears filled with anger and hurt welled in her eyes, making them sparkle with beautiful pain and Kurt's stomach churned even as his insides to turned to stone. Kitty never cried; he'd only seen her tears once before, and both times he was the cause. Her voice dropped now, hardly a whisper, a hurt, broken sound, and knew, knew with every breath in his body that only he could ever elicit such a sound from the otherwise strong, confident woman before him. "Not the other way around."

"Kitty," he reached for her then, wanting curl around her and kiss her hair. To tell her he was sorry and hold her until her tears were dry and make certain she never made that sound again.

But with his barest movement the anger was back, evident on her face and crystal clear in her icy gray eyes. She flinched back, away from his seeking fingers, something she hadn't done since her first days back when the Institute was new. "No!" she snarled so intense and hazardous he felt Logan step back instinctively with him. "Don't touch me!"

With that final stinging, furious demand, the fight was over. She turned on her heel and stormed away.

Don't worry folks, I have no intention of leaving it there. There shall be another installment to this…story I guess it has become although I don't seem to be posting it as such. I've already gotten a jump start on the rough draft; if I'm luck it'll be up later today, if not, it should be up no later than Thursday, although I refuse to make promises on that count.

Oh, by the way, does Logan call Kitty Half-pint in this series? I haven't heard him refer to her with the nickname, but that doesn't always mean anything.