for quiteafew

[electro_kinetic]

It's not hard to find Noriko on any given day at the school. Not only does she have electric blue hair braided up into a beaded mohawk--which, thankfully, her manager at work does not give two shits about--but she's kind of the only electrokinetic. Follow the sound of crackling and popping and it will either lead you to her, or to the microwave containing someone's popcorn.

Today she's probably even easier to find; she's in the remodeled kitchen, late, after coming back to the school from the coffeeshop with her work shirt in hand. Her tee-shirt is still on the counter, and on closer inspection she seems to have a massive black eye to take care of and a set of headphones at probably hearing-damaging volume levels in her ears, bent over in front of the freezer.

Dinner and an icepack, that is the plan.

Comments

[quiteafew]

Kurt has been told to make himself at home in the institute while he waits for his family to come through the area; the Professor had managed to catch them in Texas. The phone call had been short by necessity but a balm to both he and his mother. She'd known seeing the news, though he'd hoped she wouldn't. He'd barely talked Herr Gehlhaar from cutting short the tour to come get him, but they needed the money. Even without their star performer, the circus had been selling better than they'd anticipated. Not as well as it once had, but people simply don't go to the circus anymore.

The first few days he'd kept to himself, venturing out only at night. On seeing that the students genuinely didn't seem frightened by him, he began to show his face more. Rarely during the day still, and when he teleports down to the kitchen its to raid the left-overs from dinner. He doesn't expect anyone else in the kitchen, and teleports in not two feet behind Noriko.

"Gott! I'm sorry," he apologizes while quickly backing away to give the young girl room. "I didn't expect anyone down here."

[electro_kinetic]

Faced with mostly her bare back he won't get the eyeful that he would if she'd turned around, but Noriko really hadn't been expecting anyone else in the room either, much less one who hadn't come in through the door. When there's an unknown voice accompanying the noise of his teleportation she whirls around, holding the yellow shirt to her front after lightning-fast pulling it over her head, but it's a little late to cover up the noticeable bullet scars on her back, and the long wobbly scratch that came from the difficult setting of a broken rib. Against the old wounds (even the less obvious ones in the bends of her elbows that are still there if people look) the riot of her shiner is kind of hard to miss

"--The fuck," she manages, eyes wide as her breathing settles. He's clearly not a threat, not if he's apologizing, so she doesn't quite go into auto-fight mode as quick as her teachers would assume. "Neither did I."

She blinks, and pulls off the headphones with a flick of her head to get her hair untangled from them, and momentarily regrets that she doesn't already have the things she came down here for, because this means word's definitely going to spread about how she looks and she does not want the professor getting the wrong idea about her place of work, because it's one of the only safe places the rest of the kids frequent. And then she lays eyes on that cross, and it occurs to her that her ease with cursing could be a problem. "Uh. Sorry."

[quiteafew]

To say he notices the scars instead of the nudity would be a lie; Kurt notices both, but her state of dress is trivial compared to the scars littered across her back and side. He notices the shiner as he's glancing away t give her privacy, studiously looking out the newly repaired window.

"I am sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you." His accent is no thicker than normal in the situation, though given how heavy an accent he does have it might not be possible. All the travel hasn't tempered his German accent a bit as it has some of his fellow travelers.

The windows show her reflection from the shoulders up, and Kurt keeps his eyes fixed there until he sees the shirt settle on her shoulders. Meeting her eyes, his eyebrows draw together when she apologizes, pulling at the scars on his forehead. "You did nothing wrong. I should have been more careful teleporting."

[electro_kinetic]

"Contrary to what people might tell you I don't actually aim to make anyone uncomfortable," she says only a little dryly, though to his comment about being careful teleporting she can really only lift her brows and shrug in a sort of 'what can you do' motion. It happens a lot with her.

"You didn't hurt anything or anyone, so no harm no foul on that one. I assume you're new here, though." They get new people and those seeking safe passage to other places all the time, really, but only ever of their own kind, never a human yet. It's kind of a weird school that way, but that is also kind of why Noriko lives there. And her family hasn't ever made mention on the few times someone's contacted them on her behalf of wanting her to come home. "I'm Nori. Ashida Noriko, but you really don't have to use all of it." She hesitates only a second and holds out a hand, figuring that the guy's probably got issues of his own being blue--and she will not dignify any thoughts that cross her mind on the state of any body parts, that's just the street kid in her that never does shut up--that he won't mind her lower arms and hands being covered in slim-fitted metal gloves.

[quiteafew]

"You haven't made me uncomfortable," he assures her, under the assumption she's referring to her partial nudity of a few minutes ago. Living in close quarters his entire life, both with his immediate foster family and the larger family unit of the circus, coming upon people in various stages of undress was a normal part of the day. Particularly in the span of time surrounding a performance, when costumes were being donned or shed in a flurry of movement.

"Ja. The Professor has been kind enough to allow me to stay until I can return home with my family." His tail swishes behind him, not quite fast enough to be a nervous gesture. Too late, he hopes the foreign appendage won't startle her. When she holds out her hand he glances at it nervously before taking it in his own, his two thick fingers curling under hers. "Kurt Wagner, though in the Munich Circus I was known as the Incredible Nightcrawler." Despite the tenseness of the situation, a note of pride creeps into his voice, accompanied by a straightening of his posture.

[electro_kinetic]

The nudity is more or less comfortable for her; that and she wanted to gt out of the forest-green polo that will always smell like coffee beans. She's been around it enough that it gets stuck in her nose already. It isn't hard to figure out where she works from that.

His name gets a tiny smile, somewhere between amused and bemused at the way it straightens his posture and makes him relax--or she's hoping that's relaxing. She recognizes the name in that vague way people do when they haven't heard something in years, but doesn't comment yet as she just figures out the handshake, grip light but unafraid. "Nice to meet you, Kurt. I'd give you the welcome spiel but that'd probably just be weird by now." Nori's watching that tail, but it's more out of fascination than anything; she herself could pass for human if it weren't for the gauntlets and the funny proclivity for her eyes to glow blue.

"Circus, huh?"

[quiteafew]

Relaxed is when he dips back down into his habitual slouch, the set of his shoulders looser this time, less drawn in than they had been when he had surprised her. It surprises him vaguely to not have gotten an immediate brush-off on mentioning his stage name; at best, eyes tend to glaze over when he brings up the circus. At worst, well there's a reason he's avoided the Wolverine socially. The irritation at having his life's work so roughly dismissed lingers.

"I've heard it a few times, ja." He releases her hand, letting his own drop down to his side, the too-long sleeves of his borrowed coat helping to obscure the strangeness of his hand as the fabric slips down. She seems more innocently interested in the tail than unnerved, and Kurt wonders briefly if she's younger than the sixteen he assumed. His eyes stay on the bruise deepening on her face.

"Ja. My family and I have worked with Herr Gehlhaar since I was young."

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko is familiar with Logan's brusqueness--very familiar, given she absolutely would deck him for consistently calling her 'Blue' if she thought it would do any good in the long run. But it won't.

As the bruise deepens and blood begins to pool under the skin, her eye does begin to ache and she brings the heel of her hand to it with the faintest of creases between her brows; it does hurt, she can just ignore most of it. She's been hurt worse, but yeah, ice would be fabulous right about now; unfortunately she only has two hands and while one is occupied hunting through the freezer sounds like an avalanche waiting to happen. "I'm not even going to pretend I can mimic that name correctly, but he sounds pretty cool. What do you do there?"

Maybe he'll stare less at her face if that eye is covered. She's hoping.

[quiteafew]

"It's going to get worse if you don't put something on it," Kurt says softly, deciding to cut right to the elephant in the room. "You have little plastic bags in the kitchen, ja?" He knows they have ice, and while he's also aware of the first aid kits Kurt tends to forget that some of the more modern ones have heating and cooling packs for injuries.

He smiles, a warm expression wide enough to flash white, narrow teeth. "Trapeze, usually. Acrobatics and--contortionist, I think is the English word for it? I'm sorry, sometimes I forget the correct words."

[electro_kinetic]

"If we're being honest," Noriko says slowly, "It's going to get worse no matter what I do to it. He got me good." She got him better, but isn't saying that. Yet. Hopefully not until she has to. "But yeah, we have icepacks. I just haven't gotten to one."

She does have to smile at the idea of his being a contortionist--which she'd believe, she hasn't seen anything to the contrary yet--but raises a brow and nods at his tail. "Does that get in the way as much as I'd think it does, or are you used to it?"

[quiteafew]

"There's little that can be done for the bruising, but the swelling we can still prevent." Kurt doesn't ask, yet. Care for the body comes first, then comfort for the soul. He motions toward the freezer behind her. "You keep them in there?

"The tail," he asks, the spade of said appendage lazily hovering around his head. Its habit to keep it close in mixed company, until they're accustomed to the tail and how it moves. "Nein. I've had it for my entire life, as far as I know."

[electro_kinetic]

"Yeah, they're in the freezer. Looks like a bag of frozen algae, but what can you do," she says with a shrug as she watches him, and alternately that tail spade. It's kind of weird, in a good way, and she wonders how prehensile the limb is--and mildly wonders how handy he is with it. It's second nature to her to see everyone in levels of potential; potential to hurt her, or to use her for another pawn the way the Professor does whether he thinks that's what he's doing or not.

She did not get shot twice in the back because they are making cuddly friends of everyone. There's no excusing that.

"I imagine that would take some getting used to if you weren't born with it. Are the scars natural, too, or did you do those yourself?" She's not totally blind, and they are eye-catching, and she knows more about the scarification movement than she usually lets on. Comes with the territory of having blue hair and a thing for putting holes in yourself, evidenced by the five earrings and a currently-missing nose ring.

[quiteafew]

"Then sit. I will get it." He motions with a hand toward a nearby chair, stepping with the gesture in the opposite direction to go around her. Despite his hunched stature, Kurt's movements are exceptionally graceful and light. His tail swishes around and opens the freezer door before the man himself could reach it otherwise.

"It certainly took my mutter a while to get used to," the older man answers with a low chuckle, reaching into the freezer with a hand. The tail, while it has a longer reach, also has a much smaller amount of fat between muscle and skin than his hands. "The ones I could reach, I did. The others were done by people I trusted."

[electro_kinetic]

She sits, but watches him from her good eye with a wariness and a circumspection not often seen in people her age, much less with the carefree attitude she projects. It's part of how she learned to function in the world, always keeping one hand free and one eye on the surroundings, watching for the tipping point to any fluid situation. It marks her as a street kid, or an abuse victim, either way it's true.

"Most mutations do take parents a while," Nori says, with the voice of someone who'd know firsthand. "It's good work. Clean lines and all, and even scarring." She risks a little smile once his tail is wrapped around the freezer door handle, because that's not something she sees every day even living here. "They're really pretty."

[quiteafew]

Her wariness also seems like an echo of his own; even among 'his people', Kurt keeps an ear to the metaphorical ground. Though they are all God's children and these in particular are dazzling in their potential to create a different tomorrow, they are not his people. He shouldn't think such a way and feels guilt for it, but not enough to try to stop.

"At least she had a few years before she and my vater had to pull me off the walls." He smiles again at her, quick but warm for all that its brief. "Danke. They're angelic symbols, most of them. Some are alchemy.

"Is this it?" He holds out a pouch of something that does indeed look like algae.

[electro_kinetic]

"You manifested early?" she asks. "Or were born manifest?"

It's not that uncommon, really. And, hell, he's nice enough--though the pointed teeth get a blink, and a mildly surprised look; those are a part of the whole look about him she hadn't noticed while he spoke. But he certainly hasn't seemed inclined to hurt her, and that's pretty damn rare for strangers in her opinion. "Yeah, that's it. Told you it looked like pond slime."

Noriko just shrugs, though when she lets her shoulders back down one of them pops like it's been dislocated before. Lot of injuries for a twenty-year-old, but all of them actually explainable. "...Will you tell me more about them? I don't know anything much about angels, or alchemy. But I like how they look." They seem to fit him, and she's not sure she could imagine that face without them.

[quiteafew]

"I'm not certain. Much to my parents' dismay I was on the walls almost as soon as I learned to crawl. But I didn't know I could teleport until I was not much younger than you are. I don't know if its because I couldn't, or if it was because I'd never had to try."

The breath he draws in is a little slower, steadying. Even decades later, the memory of Amanda's shrill scream when the rope snapped still sends a sick chill down his spine.

Closing the door, his tail scoops up a dishtowel from where it had been left hanging on one of the oven handles. As he walks over to her, he transfers the towel from his tail to his hands and wraps the ice pack in it. "Did you hurt your shoulder as well," he asks mildly, offering her the ice pack.

[electro_kinetic]

"...How young do you think I am?" she asks, brow raised as she takes the ice and gently presses it to her face with a hiss; it does sting a little to have something cold over her eye, but not horribly. Not enough for her to take it off, because it'll go numb sooner or later. She just moves her braids out of her face, and makes sure they're not getting tangled in that chain about her neck. The ornament on it is hidden by her collar, but it's not overly large.

"Not today," Nori says, shaking her head. She's too quick for that coworker to have gotten more than one good shot in. "Today was just the eye, really. The rest was from...not a really long time ago, but when Stryker's men came through here. Two shots to the back, a broken rib, and a dislocated shoulder. And a hell of a headache from that sedative they darted us with," she explains, watching his face to see his reaction to the list. It's by far not comprehensive of what's been done to her but she is not getting into drug addiction with someone she met less than an hour ago. "Everything was treated by a hospital, it's all fine. My shoulder just pops sometimes."

[quiteafew]

"Fifteen," he guesses, trepidation without fear sneaking into his expression as he tenses again slightly. More noticeable is the way one foot slides behind the other, as though he's anticipating the need to dodge.

Kurt doesn't seem overly worried at first; there's more understanding in his face, accompanied by a slight nod at certain points as though to say 'yes, of course. That makes sense.' Its when Stryker's name is mentioned that his expression turns dark with regret, glancing away as though he can't look at her.

"So do mine, especially when the weather's bad."

[electro_kinetic]

"I'm twenty," she says without rancour, because people have guessed that age before, and she has the wonderful trait of actually looking young. She's actually amused at the way he shifts as if he thinks she's going to be mad about it.

Nori notices the glance away, and tilts herself on the chair--she's got one foot hooked around the bottom of the cabinet to hold herself from falling--to catch his face again. "Nobody blames you for that, you know. Least of all me. It would have happened sooner or later, the way that man hated us." He is part of the 'us' already, because he's a mutant just like them. Older, younger, American or not, that part doesn't change. And she tries for a smile to make him lighten up, even if it's lopsided--thanks to the icepack. "I'll get used to it. It doesn't really hurt, it's just an extra sound effect."

[quiteafew]

"I'm sorry." The apology comes nearly on the tail of her correction, even as the muscles in his legs relax slowly. The rest of him doesn't move, particularly his head where she is closer to his face than he's accustomed to 'outsiders' being.

"Perhaps not," he answers quietly, pale yellow eyes meeting hers more for lack of anywhere to look. "But I have still done things that cannot be taken back simply because I wasn't myself."

He doesn't return the smile, though he tries. Somewhere between the intention and the action it gets lost, leaving a slightly less tense expression with no small amount of gratitude. "Wait until you're my age. That will change."

[electro_kinetic]

"All of us have," she says quietly, simply enough for it to be obvious she means it. "It's part and parcel of what we are." They are born as one person, and change over time--sometime rapidly, and without a guide--into another to deal with their mutations.

"...Wait, how old are you?" she asks, a little taken aback by the comment about his age. Not something she'd have pegged a maybe-thirty-year-old to say at all.

[quiteafew]

"It wasn't for me." He sighs, eyes closing for a brief moment. "I know, Noriko. Even so." Her name is pronounced carefully but correctly, with a slight pause between syllables.

One corner of his mouth twitches upward, and there's a hint of an expression that might be impish, in another situation. "I am nearly forty, and on a rainy day I feel fifty."

[electro_kinetic]

She blinks. A lot.

That was not an answer she expected, and moreover isn't one she's sure she really believes, because as she looks him up and down he does not look forty. Seriously he does not. And she can't really deny that the answer makes something near the pit of her stomach tighten, but Nori does her best to not acknowledge that.

"...For real?"

[quiteafew]

Now, finally, she gets a grin out of him again; bright and broad and sharp with narrow teeth that his lower lip covers the tips of.

"I have good genetics." His eyes are twinkling as he says it, lively in a way that he's rarely hinted at since meeting the X-Men.