"So scream you, out from behind the bitter ache.
Heavy on the memory you need most.
Still want love, ugly, smooth, and delicate
Not without affection, no not alone.
And instead of wishing that it would get better,
Man you're seeing that you just get angrier.".....Matchbox 20

************

At different times in her life, she had asked herself the same question again and again. Why? Why did she go through with it? As she looked down at the steel-clad giant turned flesh, the scars standing out in relief on his sleeping face, she sighed and came up with the same answer she had come to a hundred...,or was it a million...,times. Because they had been friends once. Due to that friendship, she had hoped and trusted that he would come to love her. That hope and trust, badly slashed and battered though it was, still kept her by his side. She had hoped, however naively when she was younger, that perhaps he would come to love her in the ways he hadn't been able to before. The way he had professed to love her at one time, when lies had fallen so easily from his silken lips. As she had grown older and more cynical, she had realized what types of lies he had actually told her, and had stayed with him for another reason...,because she did, in her own way, still love him, and staying with him was expected of her. That, and it was safe... comfortable... almost like an old teddy bear that she could still pick up and remember what it was like when she was young. Yes, it was a form of denial in its own right, but she felt that after all she had been through for a long while that she was justified to hold that teddy bear close to her. At one time she might have strayed from the normalacy and safeness of the relationship but, with the way the world was now, safe and normal were something she and others fought very hard to keep. It was a state she no longer took for granted. Even if that certain safe state made both her and the man lying on that bed miserable sometimes.

She wondered how her friends would have reacted had they known what she had done for them. And she HAD done it for them. They had so much hope for the two of them in those days... they had seen young love, and pictured how their lives should have been. After Wanda had died, their relationship had even given Magnus hope that perhaps there was yet brightness and light in the world. She felt, at the time, that she had to live up to those expectations. To be everyone's hope for a better tommorrow. It was all personified in a lie, but in a way that was somewhat fitting. At least she felt that way at times. What better way to personify the tainted hope they had? The world had changed from humans and mutants living in peaceful co-existance to merely existance and survival of both sides. Yes... the "love" that the others had looked to with such hope had been a fitting symbol indeed.

She still remembered the day, so very sharp and painful that it still managed to slash pieces out of her soul upon occasion. She had been so in love with him then. She saw him shift slightly in his sleep, punctuated with a soft sigh, and felt the memories rise up out of the ashes in her mind. Yes...,she had loved him so deeply, trusted him with everything that she was, and then one day, a week from their wedding, he had destroyed that illusion she had constructed around her world. She had decided to surprise him and, perhaps, try once again to seduce him in her innocent way, since he did not want to take her until their wedding night. If nothing else she figured they could go out and he could sketch a nest of birds she had seen which she knew would appeal to his artist eye. She had found more than him in his bedroom. The memory still brought pain, and a part of her relished it because it made her feel alive. She had found him... and one of the healers in his bed. She had at first assumed that perhaps he had been hurt worse than she had been told in their latest battle, since bare skin was needed for the deeper healings with that one particular healer. She didn't even remember her name anymore, but she did remember the denial SHE had felt at seeing him in bed with the woman, and the moment she had seen the guilt flash through his eyes. It was then she knew the truth and had felt what was left of her innocence die. She STILL hated him for that moment.

She still woke up some mornings and, looking at his face, so peaceful and unguilty in sleep, she wanted to pop her claws through him to end it, and to cause him the same type of pain and disillusionment he had caused her. But she hadn't done that, that fateful day, or since then. She instead had turned a deaf ear to Piotr's excuses and had gone through with the wedding plans because her friends thought she'd be happier than they would be in the cruel ugliness the world had become. She even let Piotr believe that it was alright, that she forgave him for his folly, or at least that was what he took her silence and the continuing wedding plans to mean. She still loved Piotr enough to not want to drag him through the proverbial mud even after the betrayal, and so she had gone through with the wedding and did her "duty" on her wedding night. She had since slept on her side of the bed, if in it at all, and had been as much of a wife to Piotr as she was able. With one exception. She never said she loved him anymore. She wondered if he even cared if she did or not.

She snapped herself back to reality when Piotr switched positions in his sleep yet again, this time with a frown furrowing his brow as he subconsciously sensed someone in the room with him. She moved as stealthily as her codename, a shadowcat personified, as she moved across the room and through the door with not even a disturbance of air to show her passing. She couldn't have Piotr waking up. That wouldn't do at all, since the overprotective soldier would insist on coming along as her bodygaurd or something, even though they both knew all too well that she could and would take care of herself. That, and Magnus had said he wanted to meet her alone. She adjusted her wrist claws outside the compound, popping them to make sure they were working correctly and smoothly. A miscalculation in this day and age could get you killed faster then you could think, so she felt you could never be too prepared. That's why she had two guns made of high-density polyfiber plastic on her, and a large knife the size of a machete down her back in a sheath that fit perfectly between her shoulder blades. She tested the draw quickly because it was still a relatively new weapon, and nodded in satisfaction at the results. She drew it fast enough that it would keep her alive, and that counted for a hell of a lot. She put it away and had just checked to make sure her throwing stars and other weapons were in place when she saw the small dot of red on the horizon. She concentrated with a slight amount of effort, and let her physical form become ghost and shadow. She felt the breeze life her and cocentrated on meeting Magnus if not halfway then damn close, so that Piotr would have no chance to get involved, thinking to herself that this better be good.

A couple of moments later she was floating under his power and brown eyes were locked wiht grey. "Magnus." The greeting sounded cold and bitchy even to her ears, but old habits died hard if at all. His greeting was cold, true, but a spark of welcome entered into it, "Katherine." She looked at him, the correction automatically falling from her lips, "Katya." It had been that way since she had been given the name by Piotr a long while ago and she had kept it after killing the slavers that had slaughtered her parents... it was a sort of reminder to her that things could be taken away quite easily. He nodded as they floated there for a second and then, perhaps sensing they weren't going to exchange pleasantries, Magnus got down to business. Reaching within the folds of his cape, his eyes shining out from the depths of his helmet, he took out a folder and handed it to her. She reached out for it tentatively. She wasn't used to getting folders from Magnus unless an assassination was needed or some very major problem had just come to his attention that needed a quick and quiet ending. While she appreciated that he wanted to use her skills and such she still hated to see those manilla folders, with a passion. She didn't let any of this show, however, as she flipped the file open, and found herself looking at pictures of a man. There were shots of him that looked like they had been taken from the air. She didn't ask who had taken them since it wasn't really important, but whoever had taken them had been talented, she'd give them that.

He was handsome in a rugged and uncut kind of way. She looked closely at his suited figure, realizing that he emanated danger even from a photograph. Interesting. He must be in the assassin business or something close to it, she thought to herself. She flipped the photo underneath the folder and found herself looking at a closeup of his face suddenly. She felt a shock go through her as she looked at his eyes. It wasn't only the color... she'd never seen that shade of grey before... it was the look within them as well. It was a look so jaded and cold that it took her by surprise. She'd never seen a look like that in someone else's eyes... she just tended to see it when she passed a mirror. She flet something she had never felt in a long time, a feeling... almost a need... a want of human companionship. She wanted to talk to this man and find out the source of his pain and anger. Because she knew, perhaps better than anyone, what could cause a look like that to become imprinted on someone's face.

"Who is he?" She was even surprised by the amount of intensity in her voice. She quickly gained control by force of will and tried to explain, without looking and sounding like a fool, exactly what she was feeling, "I'm...intrigued. What exactly do I have to do with this? Do you want him dead?" She glanced down at the profile in her hand and quickly scanned until she found a name, "Pete Wisdom? What do I have to do with him?" Magnus's answer surprised her for a moment. "Actually, no, I do not want you to kill him, Katya. I want you to work with him." Katya glanced at him for a moment and then back down at the file in her hand, feeling the obscene urge to grin at the last name combo they would have had had she been unmarried, "Pryde and Wisdom. A good combo, if nothing else. It'd be cute if my last name wasn't Rasputin now. Alright, what's the mission?" Magnus looked at her intently for a moment, probably not used to her cracking jokes she was sure, so intently that had she been younger she might have started to sweat, and then abruptly his face went blank again. She was amazed at times that her and her colleagues had gotten so good at covering what they were really feeling with that type of blank mask. The mask before her spoke, "The mission is for you to work with Mr. Wisdom to help shut down Apocalypse's band of private assasins that he has managed to find the last two years. They go by the name of Black Air. I'm sure you've heard of them." Katya nodded stonily, not knowing where this was leading, but not liking it already. He continued, "They are now running themselves out of Old London and have plans that have just been given over to us. They are planning to assassinate the Human High Council." Katya felt herself gasp despite herself, and felt shock show on her face. "But that's suicide. With the Sentinel projects and the nukes they have under their command..." Magnus looked at her for a moment and nodded gravely. "Yes, but they are planning to make it look like an accident. Wisdom used to work for them. He realized the sheer lunacy of Black Air's actions, so he says, and got in touch with one of my contacts in Old London. He wants to help shut Black Air down before they go too far. They are doing this without Apocalypse's consent, but I'm sure that, even if he did know, he wouldn't do anything to stop them. The thing that bothers me about Mr. Wisdom is that he knows too much about us to make me comfortable. He knew where to find my contacts and what buttons to push to make sure I didn't slam the perverbial door in his face." Katya looked at the dramatic figure before her for a long moment in time and then asked the one question that was burning in her mind, "Why me?" He knew what she was asking. Out of all of the more subtle members of the team, why did he pick her. While she was competent she wasn't on the same level as, say, Logan or Nightcrawler. Magnus glanced down at the world below him for a moment and then locked eyes with her. "Because you are the best person for the job and I trust you. You have done things for me that the others have not, and I realize how rare the kind of loyalty is, that you would sacrifice your principles for this cause. This mission MUST be done as quietly as the people who are trying to cause the assasination to happen, if there is a chance of success. Nightcrawler might be able to do it, but he allows himself to lose his temper. Wolverine has left to go off with Jean, and I fear that he would not do me any favors at this point in time. This mission must be done with the utmost subtleness, or all the hounds of Hades will come crashing through our doors before we are ready for them. Or so Mr. Wisdom asssured me, and I believe him." He took his helmet off and tucked it under his arm in frustration, his emotions betraying themselves through his actions. "And there is a bigger and more irritating reason that makes me not trust him at all." Before she could ask what that was, he growled out the next words like they were something foul and Katya felt her heart drop to her knees and her world spin off its axis. "He refused to help us unless we gave him what he wanted." Concern and anger radiated off of him in waves as he finished, "He wanted you."