Lord Yellowtail's Writing Room

An AU wherein Kurt gives up his crush on Kitty much sooner, and is drawn to Rogue instead. She appreciates that he's not completely oblivious to her own feelings, and the two recluses stumble around each other with all the shared flustered, fumbling lack of social experience they can muster.

Somehow they meet in the middle, and by the time they find out they were supposed to be related, it’s far too late…for Mystique’s plans, at least.

senmut

1. Kurt gives up his crush on Kitty a lot sooner. They still end up being best friends, but he's a lot quicker to realize she doesn't like him like that and move beyond the over-enthusiastic (almost desperate) attempts to flirt with her. I get that he mainly did this (at least in my head-canon) because he was so desperate to be accepted by normal people and Kitty seemed the most normal person available (and was a very pretty, adorable person, too boot), but having watched the entire series has convinced me there is truly nothing there. Kitty was always devoted to Lance, even when she shouldn't have been, and they actually took time to showcase her flirtation/chemistry with Colossus at one point, minor as it was. In light of the whole series, watching Kurt try to flirt with her (and her almost-violent rejections of him) in Season 1 just makes me kind of sad.*
2. Kurt is still Kurt, and chivalrous and kind and willing to be friends even with those who are currently his enemies (at least, when he can tell they're not really evil), so without so much of his brainpower and attention focused on Kitty in Season 1 it's not hard for me to imagine him taking more notice of Rogue and interacting with her, if only to get her to leave the Brotherhood and join the X-Men.
3. Kurt is also a wanna-be Don Juan who only avoids being a bit creepy by being incredibly sincere, so it's not at all difficult to imagine Rogue actually starting to have a crush on him while she's still with the Brotherhood. Because Kurt is (insane enough to be) completely unafraid of her, and sweet, and is trying to be her friend even in the middle of Charles Xavier and Mystique's clandestine gang war, even though they're on opposite sides. (This is kind of how I feel the conflict in Season 1 comes off, to be honest, before things start to escalate and get more serious.)
4. Kurt, unlike Scott Summers--who is not only totally devoted to Jean Grey (even when he's in denial) but also sees the world in shades of red and probably can't even see blushing--is not completely oblivious to Rogue's interest and, amidst pleased shock and happiness, would recognize how rare and special an opportunity this is to have some sort of relationship, and gather up just enough of what little calm he possesses (when not enraged, which makes him eerily calm and dangerous) and manage to stumble forward just well enough to acknowledge her interest without scaring her off.
5. So by the time Rogue joins the X-Men, she and Kurt would have this undefined, flirty, almost-thing which is basically them being pleasant with and getting to know each other in the midst of an unspoken agreement to be just as in to flattening each other as the rest of the Brotherhood and X-Men seem to be.
6. Mystique is a bad mother who doesn't pay enough attention to her children for various reasons, so she is of course oblivious to any of this.
7. So Rogue finally defects and joins the X-Men and Kurt is so thrilled that he asks her (privately, with no-one knowing) on a genuine date-style date, and given their history of ... their thing, she accepts.
8. No one figures it out (because Rogue is an extremely private person and Kurt respects that) until they are quite solidly an item that everyone in the mansion is thrilled with (because neither Kurt nor Rogue are fun when they're being emo) and everything changes.