Disclaimer: Verily, they are not mine.

A/N: I discovered this after my external hard-drive went kaplooey recently and I was forced to claw back as many files as I could from my old hard-drive. Imagine my surprise when I discovered a folder marked 'Unfinished Fics' and found an XME file in there with the working title 'Small Wars'. I'm not sure what I was intending this to be back in 2007 when I wrote it. I think it was meant to be the opening chapter of a much longer story, but I figured I'd finish it off and upload it as a miniature 'slice-of-life' ficlet instead. It has been soooo long since I wrote for XME, but this may have whetted my appetite to try writing something new for one of my oldest, dearest fandoms.

Small Wars

© Scribbler February 2007 and February 2010

It's hard for Kitty, sitting on the back row of a senior biology class and pretending not to twinkle. She's a twinkly kind of person. She's also a pink kind of person, as well as someone who can blow through advanced algebra but still wear a Tellytubbies backpack without irony.

She scratches disconsolately at her nail polish while Mr. Morgan drones some more about phloem. Like they haven't heard enough already? It was all in the chapters they were supposed to read for homework, but most of the class didn't bother, so she, the only diligent student, is forced to endure a 'recap' that lasts most of the lesson. They were supposed to be dissecting pig kidneys today, so it's not a total loss, but it is deadly boring.

Which is why she starts to read the graffiti on her desk. Normally she wouldn't bother – graffiti takes a backseat to actual, y'know, learning – but she could repeat Facts About Phloem in her sleep.

'Mandy loves Pietro.'

Kitty rolls her eyes. There are three other hearts with the suffix 'loves Pietro', all with prefixes of different girls' names. There's also one marked 'Trish Maximoff' in elaborate calligraphy that indicated a very boring double science period. The other bits of scrawl are typical and uninspiring in their predictability.

'This is crap.'

'Death to Science!'

'The Morganator is an asshole.'

Standard fare for the average high school. Someone started a lengthy conversation with a student in a different class, which obviously continued over several weeks. Ah, the psychiatric wonders revealed on desks the teacher can't see properly. Kitty rates their spelling just above monkeys with typewriters, and is considering the lie about how, given enough time and typewriters, monkeys could type the entire works of Shakespeare, when her eye is caught by a tiny drawing in the top left corner. It's an obscene cartoon, detailed in all the wrong places. Underneath, cut into the wood and inked in afterwards is the legend; 'Bobby Drake takes it up the ass'.

Kitty does a double-take. It's one thing to read others' graffiti, but quite another when it talks about someone you know. Glancing up, she gauges how long Mr. Morgan will take to draw on the board. Hastily she scribbles over the cartoon with her ballpoint. It's her first time defacing public property, but she figures she's just restoring balance. No jury would convict her. She's defending the honour of a friend. That's praiseworthy, right?

Unfortunately, Bayville High isn't renowned for employing juries. Or caring much about honour versus the school budget.

"Miss Pryde."

Kitty freezes, pen still poised over the absurdly smiling face. Her cheeks flame, hot embarrassment creeping into her hairline and making the skin on her skull itch. "Uh, yes sir?"

"Is that desk yours?" Mr Morgan asks despairingly.

"No, sir."

"Then why, pray tell, are you autographing it?"

"I'm not, sir, I was just –"

"I can see full well what you're doing, Miss Pryde. Really, I'm surprised at you."

Kitty refrains from replying, "Me too." Instead she concerns herself with blushing scarlet at the sniggers of the seniors now staring at her. This class has no Institute kids but her, so she knows if she looks up there'll be no comforting faces. She's the class pet; the little freak who has skipped ahead because her brain's so big it threatened to ooze out her ears if left in any freshman class but gym.

"I'm afraid it's detention, Miss Pryde. Even with your sterling record, I can't ignore this wilful destruction of school property." Mr. Morgan sighs. It's a deep sort of sigh, like canyons in oceans and Booker Prize winning novels. He seems genuinely disheartened at the proof she's just another teenager.

All at once Kitty feels furious with the person who scratched the cartoon. Not only is it offensive and insulting to one of her friends, it has landed her with her very first detention. She scowls at it, as Mr. Morgan fetches a detention slip so he can return to the marvels of phloem.

As the slip flutters onto her desk, he gives her look that's a mix of reprisal and dejection, which only blackens her mood further. She likes Mr. Morgan. Sure, he's boring as a sightseeing tour of the arctic tundra in a blizzard, but he gave her a chance when other teachers wanted to leave her un-skipped so she'd raise the freshman grade point average. He had faith in her. Now she feels like she has let him down somehow, which means she'll work extra hard on her biology report tonight, as well as coming to detention, and all when she'd been planning to veg out with a Prison Break box set.

Stupid graffiti. Stupid graffitiers.

After a while she raises her eyes. She's still angry. It doesn't abate as she glances around. What she sees is surprising.

One or two seniors give her approving expressions. A dishy guy wearing sunglasses indoors on a cloudy day gives her a thumbs up. She raises an eyebrow at him, which he takes as acknowledgement. His grin widens. Kitty bends her head and makes copious notes in her homework diary about her report. If she plans it now, maybe she can claw back the pilot episode before bed.

Fitting in is such a drag. Seriously. If this is what it takes to get people to accept you when they think you're just smarter than average, what would it be like to try gaining acceptance if they knew your very DNA is beyond average? How would sunglasses guy react if he knew she can walk through walls? Would any of them still look approvingly at her? Why do her peers value idlers more than hard-workers? Why is it better to be mediocre than to stand out in this town?

She sighs. At the end of the lesson she shoves her stuff in her backpack and hustles out of the room before anyone can talk to her.

"Kitty? Hey, Kitty! Wait up!"

She skids to a halt just past the drinking fountain. Kurt jogs to catch up, still dragging a sleeve across his mouth.

"You seem in an awful hurry," he says with a cheerful grin. Kurt is always cheerful. It's, like, built in at bone-level – like he's human Prozac or something. You can't help but smile around Kurt, even when he's not horsing around. It took a while for Kitty to really get that, which was all sorts of embarrassing, but thankfully that was a long time ago. She likes to think she has matured since then.

She spots the seniors from her class rolling their eyes and talking to each other, gesturing in the direction of herself and Kurt. Just as she thought – fair-weather only just covers it. They don't rate Kurt very highly. Class clowns only have so much mileage in their coolness stakes. Kurt is one of the nicest people Kitty has ever met, but to them, he's just another oddity put there for their entertainment.

It's kind of sad, what a person would have to sacrifice to find acceptance with them.

"Kitty?" Kurt continues to grin, but his eyes hold a spark of concern. "Is everything okay?"

She sighs once more for good measure. Then her natural twinkliness returns. Who cares what those seniors think? Seriously. And what is with wearing sunglasses indoors? L-O-S-E-R!

She shakes out her ponytail defiantly and shrugs. "No biggie. Just another day of high school."

Fin.

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