This is not how a superhero should act.

Of course, he's really sick and tired of being a superhero. Tired of doing the right thing. Tired of standing up against evil. Tired of fighting the good fight.

He's also really, really tired of Sue telling him what to do.

So he's here at the college bar where he looks even more out of place thanks to the premature gray at his temples, though he thinks, between that and the suit, he probably looks like a professor, so maybe he'll just get laughed at and not thrown out of the bar.

Getting thrown out is probably going to take talking to her.

She's young. Too young,, his mind reminds him, and he'd really be all right if his mind would shut up every once in a while. She's gorgeous with her dark eyes and dark hair and wide smile and she looks like she's capable and smart and she's wearing glasses which, he has to admit, is something of a turn on.

Not that he's getting turned on.

Except he is.

"Hello."

She looks up and there's something in her eyes - wariness, he recognizes and understands, but there's age in her eyes and it frightens him and saddens him all at once - but then it's gone and she's smiling that polite smile that young people smile at him. "Hi."

"I…I noticed you today. In your class."

"Which one?" She's polite, which is points in her favor, because half of the students he sees and meets aren't. "I have a few classes."

"Astrophysics."

"Oh." Her eyebrow rises slightly, though it's obviously not a trick she's perfected. However, he can tell she's not impressed. "Only girl in the room, hm?"

"Er, no. I was mostly interested in your theories on nucleosynthesis and how it effect gravitation lensing." He sits at her table uninvited, but he can see something softening in her gaze, and if there's one thing that earnestness has taught him, it's to press the slightest advantage. "The cosmic ray spallation hypothesis was fascinating. What on earth made you think of it?"

"Not Earth, actually."

"Pardon?"

"I didn't think of it on Earth."

"Ah." And then there's the possibility that she's insane. He never has luck with women.

"You don't know who I am."

"Er…should I?" He's getting that sinking feeling. Not the same one that says that the girl across from him is insane or just turning him down. It's the one that comes when the girl across from him holds out her hand and says…

"I'm a mutant. Kitty Pryde."

He sags, even though he doesn't want to, and he only stops when he feels his skin start to react. A quick hand across his face and everything is back where it belongs, including the polite smile he's learned to perfect with Sue in the lab every single day. "Oh. Nice…nice to meet you, Kitty."

She looks at him, really looks, and he runs through the list of mutants he knows and knows of and remembers her. Phases through things, shorts out electrical circuits. Smart and clever and trained by Wolverine himself. Reed sighs. Why does he always have a thing for women who can kick his ass?

"Reed Richards, right?"

"What?" He realizes he's looked away and shakes his head, focusing back on her. "Oh. Yes. I'm Dr. Richards. Yes."

"No one else in class had a clue what I was talking about today."

"I know."

"You want to go somewhere and have a drink?"

"We're in a bar."

Kitty nods and, it takes a moment for him to realize that she's coming on to him. "I know."

"Oh. Oh. Well, yes. Yes." She's too young for him, but as she gets up from her seat and starts walking, Reed finds he really, really doesn't care.

She tosses her bag in the corner and he blinks at it, startled as it settles next to a purple pillow, causing the pillow to spread its wings and snort a furrow of smoke. "That's Lockheed."

"Like…er, like the planes?" She goes into the kitchen and he shuts the door and smiles at the…dragon? "Good pet?"

"He keeps the crime rate low." She comes back with two beers and glances at the sofa and the suddenly wary dragon. "Maybe not the couch."

Smoke roils across the room and Reed swallows. "Maybe not."

"Lockheed?" Kitty goes over to it - him? - and scratches his - its? - head. "Be good." She looks at Reed and waves a beer in his direction. "Reed?"

"Er…yes?"

"Come here."

He follows her to the kitchen and out onto the fire escape. She settles down on a blanket that smells of the night and leans back against the building. He moves beside her and stretches out and accepts the beer, staring at the brick building across the alley. It's good beer and it's cold, and he needs it more than he ever thought possible. He takes another drink and then a longer drink and then Kitty's taking it out of his hands and setting it aside.

"Do you have to concentrate?"

He stares at her for a long moment then reaches out and strokes her cheek, leaning in to taste her lips, wet and inviting from the beer. She kisses him back and it's slow and easy and then she pulls away, all smiles, settling closer to him.

"Do you?"

"Concentrate on what?"

"Your power." He glances over and watches as she leans back against the building, sinking into the brick a fraction of the way. "I used to have to concentrate to phase. Now, Professor X thinks it's my natural state and I have to concentrate not to."

"I have to think about it when I'm…emotional. I lose control then. Like most everyone else, I guess."

"Don't you have a fiancé?"

He nods and leans in and kisses her again, feeling the slight tingle of electricity on her skin as she brushes his cheek, fingers phasing into his skin. He chuckles softly - it feels strange, feels good - "Yes."

"Just checking." She gets to her feet and, for a second, it's like she's floating. "It's different for me. When I'm emotional, it's harder to phase. My mental state blocks the physical one. Shorts it out." She reaches down for his hand and nods away from the kitchen, away from the couch, toward her bedroom. "Wanna see?"

Reed nods. He does. Even more than he wants to hear her theory on relativistic beaming and Olbers' paradox.

But not by much.