strangetrip | [GP/EP] We are programmed to receive

Fifteen days into this particular strange trip, Kitty had redistributed alcohol supplies between the cafe, restaurant, and night club to make it possible to easily tend bar wherever people decided to gather. Today, as most days, she settled into the lobby cafe after chivvying the cook into chicken tenders and french fries (after convincing him it was a single plate meal). It was the closest she could get to "bar food" from him and someone would probably arrive sooner rather than later to make something else.

A few people trickled in after awhile, but none of them demanding. Like her, they drank coffee from the samovar she'd put out. And also like her, most of them had something else to keep them occupied. At the moment, Kitty had a notebook open (from the gift shop; she kept her school notebooks separate in case she made it home during the term) and was sketching plans to upgrade the hotel's computer technology. She needed more raw computing power to work out the energy requirements to do what Illyana did with a thought.

She lifted her head periodically to check for new customers, and had just seated herself at the end of the bar after refilling the samovar when the first new new customer arrived. Immediately, she flipped to a fresh page in the notebook and headed it "Day 15" and made a hash mark for one new arrival. Then she looked up from her notebook and offered one and all her best bartending smile.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"You will when you feel comfortable enough. Trust has to be earned. I get that and it should be." Wyatt finished what he thought she was going to say. "Especially after going through a war, trust is easily crushed and hard to give out again."

He thought of Rufus and while he trusted him with his life and understood why he'd done what he had to protect his family, there was still a kernel of doubt for Wyatt.

"It's not that," Kitty protested. A little feebly, but it really wasn't that she didn't trust him...exactly. "It's more... I do trust you, but someone I trusted just hacked the network of my particle physics lab and rigged it to blow, all because he suspected someone in class of being a mutant."

To be fair, it had been his bitch girlfriend, not him who had instigated it, but Kitty didn't feel like being fair. Honest, yes. Fair...screw fair. "I managed to save everyone in the lab, but it outed me. I went from anonymous and safe back to Kitty Pryde, mutant, X-man, inside a day. That would've been bad enough, but me and two of my friends were being targeted by mutant-hunting artificial intelligences at the same time."

It had been three months ago, now, but she still remembered it like yesterday. "I trust you, but I'm really freaking tired of being wrong." Tired, terrified. Tomato, tomahto.

Wyatt had no idea what an X-man was but it assumed it had something to do with being a mutant. "I get that, I do. You aren't sure that you trust your instincts and you're second guessing yourself." He smiled a little, "I've been feeling the same way with my friend Rufus. He was forced to betray me by a powerful group that threatened to harm his family. It's not the same as what happened to you, not even close, but I wanted you to know that I do truly understand about trust both in someone else and with your own instincts. What is that saying about fool me once shame on you, fool me twice... or that old President Reagan thing about trusting but verify?"

"I've had to work with people after they betrayed me. It's never easy." As she had with Lara, Kitty allowed herself to trust her feelings about Wyatt, allow herself to care just enough to stretch her hand across the table to curl her fingers around his hand. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry you didn't get that resolved before you ended up here."

She offered a small reassuring smile as she squeezed his hand. "Thanks for being decent about me being a mutant. It goes a long way."

Wyatt found himself squeezing back on her hand. "Not a problem and thanks for being decent about the whole time traveling thing. You took it a lot better than I did when I found out about it." Not that he'd let anyone at Mason Industries or Homeland Security know just how rattled he had been.

"Not my first rodeo." After she said it, she took in his clothes again and quickly covered her mouth to try to stifle a laugh. It didn't work, and after a few moments, Kitty stopped trying. "Sorry... I just... sorry," she said again, buried her face in her arms on the table, and gave in to the laughter.

Wyatt watched her laugh with a smile of his own. After the day's events, it was really nice to hear that kind of joy, especially after the dark tinge of the conversation that they'd had earlier.

[GP/EP] We are programmed to receive

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