The place is a corner bar like uncountable others in this city - for some
reason, in Beacon Harbor, /lots/ of people feel the regular need for a
drink. Couldn't imagine why. About the only thing that separates it from
every other corner bar is that it's close enough to the apartment Pete
used to have that Kitty and Pete both have the layout memorized in
disturbingly precise detail - and thus they're willing to be drinking
there /at the same time/, instead of one spotting for the other. Because
dammit, they /all/ need a drink. And Kitty promised Piotr explanations.
And she's /not/ letting Wisdom out of her sight, and ... well, for some
reason, the prospect of letting Piotr know where they're currently living
was never even raised out loud, in front of him anyway.

Kitty's scrubbed her face clean, let her hair down into its usual loose
curls, ditched the gloves and the headset, and pulled on a leather jacket
- unlike the guys', hers /isn't/ black. She's still looking strained white
and more than a little bit unsteady, but after the painkillers she took
earlier kicked in, she hasn't been flinching at the prospect of
conversation. When she took Piotr and her drink aside, she was even, oh,
walking normally without needing to be prompted to avoid obstacles. "So,"
she says finally, propping her head tiredly in a hand, "I promised you
some explanations, didn't I."

Piotr has also changed back into his standard street wardrobe, feeling
much more comfortable in something non sleeveless - he's never been one to
show himself off too much, but it does work when it comes to menacing. His
jacket is a cruddy brown color, by the way. He puts back his third shot of
vodka rather casually - Them Russians Is Good Drinkers - and shrugs a bit
to her, his heart going out to her when seeing how peaked she looks. "If
you feel up to it, the information would be nice to have... but if it is
distressing at all, we can leave it for another day."

Kitty crooks a very small smile. "More distressing to you than to me, I
think. I've had time to get used to it." This particular Russian also has
a /whole/ lot more body mass to absorb that alcohol than she does. Or than
Pete does, for that matter, and the Scotch /he's/ drinking is /not/,
unlike Kitty's, half-and-half with water. Kitty glances casually aside,
rechecking that nobody but Wisdom is close enough to overhear. "To start
with, um... his name's not Kurt Wagner. It's Kurt Darkholme." She pauses,
watching Piotr - trying to see whether the name's familiar.

Piotr orders another vodka, and listens to Katya... trepidatious as to
what she might tell him... anxious to learn about Kurt. "An alternative
version of the Nightcrawler I know, I see... obvious judging from what he
attempted to do this evening..." He looks away for a moment, as the name
Darkholme rings a dim bell. "Where do I know that name?" he asks aloud,
almost to her, but more to himself... he furrows his brow a bit...

Silence for a moment, Kitty watching quietly till they're alone again.
"Try putting it with the first name 'Raven,'" she says then, somewhat
resignedly. "Also known as Mystique." And given the pivotal role the
blue-skinned shapeshifter has in defining the differences between several
timelines she's gotten to take a look at, she's willing to be /that/ name
will ring more of a bell.

Mystique. That does strike a chord. It's been so long since he really
thought about The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants... "THAT name, I recall. A
shapeshifting spy, particularly cunning, blue-skinned, rather convinced of
mutant superiority." Never had too much personal contact with her, but
enough to remember her. She was striking to say the least. But then it
dawns on him... "Bozshe moi... Mystique is Kurt's SISTER?" he asks her,
looking at her with wide eyes... wondering if it's true, since there
wasn't much of a way to tell how old Mystique was, with her shapeshifting
ways.

Kitty pushes a hand through her hair, gathering her curls at the base of
her skull - the same place she knotted them up earlier. They're long
enough to do that now. Amazing. It's been years. "Good memory," she says,
with a twitch of a half-smile. "... but sorry. Not sister. She's his mom.
This Kurt - didn't spend much time in Germany. She came back and got him
when he was just a kid. I think he grew up with Rogue for a little
sister." Here's hoping Piotr had a Rogue; at the moment, Kitty honestly
can't recall.

Piotr just looks wide-eyed at her. MOTHER. Wow. He can't quite fathom
that, although it makes plenty of sense.. two blue-skinned mutants MUST be
related, he supposes. He nods for a moment as he remembers Rogue as
Mystique's adopted daughter. "Ah, yes, Rogue..." he says, almost
wistfully, remembering people he tries not to think about often. "Well...
is there any word on who the father is?" he wonders, curious about how the
Kurt he remembers would take this news...

"I never asked," Kitty says ruefully, slumping a little further. Odd how
comfortable bad posture can get when you're pretty close to wiped out. "I
should've. Should've, apparently, done a lot of things, but -" She shrugs.
"He's a hard guy to get in touch with." With the teleporting and all.

Piotr nods to her, noting her fatigue and wanting to reach out and rub her
back comfortingly, but knowing better than to lay a finger on her with a
drunk Wisdom nearby. "Do you know how long he's been here?" He almost
wants to ask 'how long have you KNOWN' but there's no real sense in
getting antagonistic about being kept in the dark. "Did... did he know any
of us? He did not seem to recognize me..."

Particularly the back. Oh, that would not be good. Kitty's eyes drop a
little, down, a little away: guilty. "Saw him for the first time in May.
Hadn't seen him myself since, since June. There was a news thing that
mentioned him in September; he helped stop one of the bombing attempts."
Serious now, she glances up at Piotr again. "I should've told you, but -
it's - Piotr, he grew up with the Brotherhood. He's used to thinking of us
as the enemy. Kind of hard to explain. Mystique's been here longer, she's
established, and once I knew they'd hooked up - it got even harder to
figure out a way to put it that wouldn't make you want to charge out and
try to rescue him, and wind up in trouble up to your neck. Should've just
trusted you to have more sense than that. I'm sorry."

Piotr is, at first, feeling a bit indignant about this, and it shows on
his face, as much as me might try to hide it. He has to look away from her
for a moment... down at his glass. "I've been stranded here for four
years, Kitty..." he starts to say, as though he feels like he's being
treated like a silly little brother when he's got more time logged on this
world than the two of them combined... but he doesn't continue with any
sort of admonition. It's fruitless, and she did just apologize for it. He
just sighs to let out that little burr in his saddle out of his system. He
hates to admit it, but there might be some weight behind her argument,
too. Finding out one of his best friends was here might cause him to do
something he shouldn't. "How long has Mystique been here... and is there
anyone else I should know about?"

It's a good way to make Kitty sort of slide down a couple of inches
further where she sits, though, as if she were trying to shrink a bit.
"Sorry," she repeats, more quietly. "I just - get worked up where you're
concerned. And Kurt. I worry too much." She reaches over to lay her hand
on one of his for a moment, less a comforting or even an apologetic
gesture than a nervous one: checking to be sure he's really there, really
solid. "Nobody else that I can think of offhand - nobody we didn't talk
about before. Unless you ever knew Meggan? An, um, fae, from Britain?
She's around - we don't see much of her, though." Which leaves the
Mystique question still needing an answer, doesn't it. Oops. "I'm not sure
how long Mystique's been around. A minimum of a year, her Raven identity
has ... a pretty impressive reputation by now." Not in the 'good' sense of
impressive, from her tone, at least by Piotr's standards. "Maybe more.
Possibly a lot more. We're not exactly on friendly terms; that I know of,
we've met up maybe three times, and two of those - well, I didn't know
till Kurt showed up tonight that that /was/ her."

Piotr feels her touch on his hand briefly. Wisdom's presence keeps the
angst at bay, which is at odds with the booze intensifying it somewhat.
But it's not nearly as annoyingly strong as it used to be. He shakes his
head at the mention of Meggan. Then it clicks for him... Weasel WAS
Mystique... THAT was the weirdness he saw. He almost mentions this to
her... then realizes she's aware of it, too, so he tries not to make it
sound like he's that slow on the uptake. "She seemed eager to help us do
some good tonight... even insisting that no lives were taken." he says,
evenly. "Should I assume that her assistance tonight was because of
ulterior motives, then?"

Kitty makes a face down at her drink. Apparently his glossing-over was
successful. "I'm not even going to try to guess how deep a game she's
playing. But - she'd managed to infiltrate the group before I managed to
track them down; she was the one calling in warnings." Keeping the later
bombing attempts from actually, oh, /hurting/ anyone. "And she's well
aware of how to work the media. The difference is - this time she was
doing it for /our/ side. If any of them had died, or even gotten seriously
injured, just stopping /this/ group wouldn't've done any good; they'd've
spawned a couple of dozen bunches of imitators, now with brand-new martyrs
to avenge. In order to stop them for good - we didn't just have to /stop/
them, we had to stop them without hurting them and with enough evidence on
hand so that even this place's justice system had no choice but to put
them away. She - she got that." Just a little wobbly again. Taking a
swallow of her drink and closing her eyes for a moment afterward probably
isn't the best way to fix it, but it does help make her feel better. "Got
what she wanted. Discredited their faction. Without calling too much
attention to ours. Making us look too good would just create a backlash -
people in charge of the media don't /like/ us. Don't care most of the
time, but won't let us get public support. I don't know - what Kurt
thought he was doing there. It sounded like it was a surprise to her to.
I've got, got a way to get in touch with her. I'll check and make sure
he's, you know. Okay." She's rambling now, and her realizing it is
visible: she closes her mouth and gives Piotr a quick, apologetic blink.

Piotr nods as he listens to her explanation, not really noticing her
rambling, as what she's saying is interesting, makes sense, and reveals a
much more convoluted puzzle to solve. "Rather cunning of her then, I
suppose..." he mutters, ordering another shot. He would never have thought
it through so much. The whole point of the X-Men was to make a show of
saving lives and working with humans... perhaps this is the reason it
never really solved the larger social issues - creating a public backlash.
He likens it to the trend he's witnessed when people get vocally tired of
popular TV shows or celebrities - they make no bones about it... but the
X-Men were never POPULAR. People just went right to being sick of them. He
shakes his head and sighs a bit. "Are you certain your ability to get in
touch with her will not be cut off now that you know her secret?"

Sometime he ought to get Pete started on that topic. The man can go on for
hours dissecting the /exact/ and /precise/ flaws in the X-Men's strategy
and why precisely they never reached the levels of acceptance and, yes,
popularity that, say, the Avengers did, or the Fantastic Four. Okay, those
aren't parallels he'd have used, admittedly - given that he counts
"spandex and codenames" as one of the flaws... But that would require both
men being /willing/ to sit and talk with each other for hours. Kitty nods
up at him, tired, but not /that/ tired. "Yeah. It's Raven I can reach. Not
a contact I'm real comfortable with, either, but I'll live with it."
Another half-smile, and she straightens up, switching subjects. "Piotr?
Thanks. Without you, this would've all gone to - uh, well, we wouldn't've
been able to pull this off, tonight. Probably not at all. Definitely not
without casualties." Probably starting with Wisdom, as people fled the
upstairs down the /un/blocked stairwell. Not that Kitty's mentioning that
one out loud.

Piotr could possibly be convinced to have a civilized in-depth
conversation with Wisdom, especially if his relationship with Kitty gets
any deeper than it is. He'll want to really KNOW the man to make sure he
won't hurt her. He is still not satisfied that this man is not more
trouble than he is worth... but he can really sense that this isn't his
Katya... and Wisdom is probably more suited for this Katya anyway. He's
admitted that to himself - not that he'd do it out loud. It helps to get
past it. He glances over to her as she switches gears and thanks him,
causing him to smile a little bit. "Nyet... I did not contribute that much
to the effort. I am certain you could have succeeded without me. It is I
who should be thanking you for including me in the plan. It... felt good
to be doing something proactively again, especially putting an end to that
group of misguided souls."

Piotr's Katya would've been having /fits/, months ago, about the mere idea
of a Kurt Darkholme. Or about drugging opponents. Or about even the
faintest possibility that they'd been helping Mystique work toward some
goal of her own, /whatever/ that goal happened to be. Or ... yes.
"Could've /stopped/ them - this group - but the best outcome I can think
of involves one of us bleeding all over the place and at least half a
dozen of them dead, and most of the rest involve explosions." Because
sometimes /nothing/, but nothing, substitutes for an animate solid steel
wall. Stopping people, distracting them, pushing masses of them /up/ a
/stairwell/... wow. And then, teasing, "And I didn't see a /bit/ of rust.
You're still pretty darned good at proactive, for all your griping about
being out of practice."

Piotr smiles a little at that, actually blushing a little. He decides not
to bring up his near-botching of the plan with the whole mask transfer
situation. If he hadn't been in position... well... all of those drugged
people would probably still have just passed out before they could escape.
It still felt good to be at least semi-useful again, though. "Well, thank
you... but as much as I do not want to admit it, Wisdom is rather adept at
keeping things on track," he responds, teasing back a little. "I doubt I
would have been as effective without his direction..." He glances Wisdom's
way, too, curious if he's eavesdropping, although it occurs to him that
there's probably some earpiece hookup going on as they speak. "I am just
glad to be of use. Feel free to bring me in anytime."

What. He managed it, didn't he? He caught himself. For as long out of
practice as he's said he is, that's not so bad. Kitty grins at his return
teasing. "Careful. He might be listening." Brown eyes sparkle - though if
he /is/ listening, it's not through her cellphone. The hands-free set did
not come inside with her, though the cellphone itself did. Hurray,
emergency contact methods. "Yeah. He's short on finesse - like you didn't
know that already - and he's kind of a bastard, but he's a /clever/ rude
bastard." Fondness? Well, yes. "And you better be careful. We might just
take you up on that, and start interrupting your sleep at random intervals
to come and get shot at." And fondness for Piotr, too, if of a different
sort. Hesitation, for a moment. "I did hear gunfire - but you didn't seem
to be having any trouble. Still don't. You're okay?" Steel can shrug off
some bullets, if they even hit him, but there are a few guns that could
actually /hurt/ him. Not that it's likely they had any, but still.

Piotr shakes his head and smiles as she calls him a bastard
affectionately, the sort of thing that always strikes him as odd. "No.. I
had no problem with the gunfire. Wisdom was on the guards behind me
quickly when I was mopping up the stairwell, although I doubt they would
have done anything to me were he not. They might have escaped, though, and
that would not have been good." He knocks back his next drink, with an
inhalation and a bit of a 'shhhhyaaah" exhalation, shaking his head a
little and smirking. "Sleep just isn't sleep without the threat of
interruption. It makes you appreciate it more when you DO get it." he
responds. "I'll be expecting the calls." Hopefully, this proved to them
that he can be worth the trouble to call out, since they seem to be
worried about his competency, or at least his ability to act rationally...

... given that they're both still influenced by unpleasant, and entirely
different, memories associated with his counterparts. Wisdom's got the
trust issues; Kitty's got the driving urge not to be reading any more
autopsy reports. But Piotr handled himself well. Just fine, when it came
down to it. And there's an odd sort of pleasure in Kitty's expression when
Piotr mentions Wisdom dealing with the guards behind him. Not to mention
the /way/ he mentions it. Something relaxes in her shoulders, and she
lifts her own glass, grinning a little more broadly. "If you say so. God,
I'm glad you don't have a car," she adds half-admiringly, glancing at his
emptied glass. "I've got no idea /how/ we're getting home - I mean, I
haven't been drinking as much as you two, but I don't even know /how/ to
drive, and I'm thinking this just isn't the time for lessons..."

Piotr grins to her a bit.. he hadn't thought about the whole
traveling-home process. "If worse comes to worst, I can always carry you.
I am quite certain I could lift you." He smirks a little bit. "I can lift
Pete, too, if need be... although I could also drag him along behind me if
he did not wish to suffer the indignity of riding on my shoulder." He
smirks a little bit at the image of carrying that guy home like that.

Okay, now Kitty's going to put her glass down, because she's really not
coordinated enough to manage both holding it /and/ giggling. "I think,"
she manages weakly, "we can probably manage a taxi." But oh, the image. Oh
dear.

Piotr nods to her. "A taxi might also be of use... but I could use the
fare to buy groceries..."

Kitty muses, "Your place is in walking distance from here - I know, I
walked up that way often enough." She considers the empty glass again. "I
keep wanting to say 'staggering distance,' but for you? I don't think so."
Flash of a grin. "But I think the budget'll stretch enough to get you
home, too. It's the least we can do after keeping you out all night."

Piotr shakes his head. "Nyet. Save your money... for a good Christmas
present for me." He smiles mischievously - an odd sort of smile for him.
"Good luck getting that man home... call me if you need any help." He
stands up from his stool, stretching a bit, and only barely feeling a
buzz. "And Katya... thank you." It's a lower-toned, quiet thank you. For
the compliments, for getting him out and involved, for touching his hand,
for tolerating his angst, for even wanting him around. His eyes make it
seem deeper than his words do... but then his lips curl into a smile and a
nod to her before he heads out.