Jessica

Expectations Part One

Kitty Pryde did everything for her people. She gave up having a normal life, lost years she could have spent with her dear mother and fought with her fists and with her words to grant freedom to mutant kind.

She always told her compatriots to work hard, to help their neighbour and look forward. All for the sake of a better future.
And yet, as much as she tried to focus on what was to come, she couldn't help but think from time to time about what was long gone.

After the cataclysmic events of the past weeks, in which even the humans found a reason to praise her, she got the opportunity to visit a home that was only alive in her memories.

Before Utopia, the unlikely dream in an inhospitable desert, there was a school made for gifted youngsters like her. She didn't spend much time in it but when she did, she met a curious bunch of people that changed her life forever.

They were fearless, relentless, hopeful and much more.
But they were also jealous, possessive, manipulative and much more...
They were imperfect, grey, they made mistakes that cannot be easily forgotten but they can't overshadow the good they did.

"They didn't ask to be different or to be heroes. But they accepted the challenge. They were a team. They were a family.

They are the X-Men."

That is what was written on the tombstone that stood where their empty shells were buried. Where there were once strong trees born in a remote past, now there were ghosts of a past far too recent.

For Kitty the hardest part to accept was that the one she missed the most wasn't even entirely there. She only got to hold his hand as she said her goodbyes.

And the others tried to tell her of the things he did, they tried their best to make her understand that she shouldn't miss him the way she did but she wouldn't listen to them. Every time she would remember the letter he wrote to her, the last hug he gave her and the words he told her.

Sometimes she wondered, if he was still with them: would he be proud of her?

Her eyes started to swell just wondering that, she had to cover them with her hands to physically stop them. Her eyes were blocked but her ears weren't.

"Hello, Katherine... sorry if I caught you at a bad time..."

The sudden voice startled her but she promptly took control of herself back and looked up at the only tree left to find a girl she only really met recently perching on one of the branches.

"Oh, Spider-Woman. I haven't seen you since, uh... the funeral."

"Yeah. I think it was pretty cool that you showed up." she said as she hopped off.

"Cap would have done the same. I mean, he already did, you know." she said gesturing at the field

"I see... anyway, as I said, sorry if this is not the time but I need your help."

"Jess, I'm sorry but I kind of wanted to keep out of all this." she replied sincerely.

"But... at the funeral you said you would join."

"I did but you caught me at —how to put it...— an emotionally fragile time. I couldn't say no, not there. Truth is, I want to spend some time with my mum. I haven't seen her in a long time..."

"...I understand, Kitty" or at least she thought she related to her but couldn't be quite sure, "... but Roxxon's still up and running. With S.H.I.E.L.D. gone, Monica couldn't help me and the case was stretched out again."

"Shit..." she said, truly disappointed

"I'm truly sorry for pulling you back into this, Kitty, but I need your help. I wouldn't trust anyone more than the girl that saved the world." she said, offering her hand.