Title: Among School Children
Author: aphrodite_mine
Summary: Emma's treatise on schooling, on her own and as a new headmistress of the Xavier Institute. A new threat is on the rise.
Recipient: st_aurafina (for xmmficathon)
Request Used: #3: Emma Frost, new teacher at the school, new telepath on the team, #4: A new team line up!
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Post-X3, minor spoilers for Emma’s introduction in Wolverine: Origins and the Emma Frost series of comics. Also, some general comic stuff, but nothing specific.
Notes: Thanks to lyssie and distractedone for the beta reading on Emma, and to my sister, fishy73, for the grammar fixes.
*
Among School Children
and it seemed that our two natures blent - William Butler Yeats
*
without
*
She was given the chance to join them as a child—which is what she was then—but there was no way her father would have allowed it, not with the Frost name already cycling in the news over her disappearance, over Christian’s suicide attempt, and his company working its way through debt and reconstruction.
And hadn’t Emma gotten herself out of that place herself? Hadn’t she dealt with her powers (nurtured them, thrived, really) on her own all of these years? Why step back now, why hand herself over to a man in a wheelchair, why give someone else free reign over her mind—a place she had already conquered for herself.
Perhaps, she thought at the time, the place might provide a good home for orphan boys like Scott, with whom she’d braved the darkness, or wild creatures like the Wolverine, who needed taming. But Emma Frost would forge her own way, cast her own mold.
She didn’t believe in coddling. Still doesn’t.
*
When she started her own school, she didn’t think of it as a rivalry so much as an alternative. And where students were concerned, she turned away more than she accepted. After all, she didn’t have the time or energy to mother lost souls; that’s what Xavier’s was around for. Why bother taking the cases she can’t win?
Compared to the X-Men, and the disbanded and humiliated Brotherhood, Emma called the chosen few her Hellions, and they didn’t dare call her anything but Miss Frost. A few of them were faces she knew from the news, from the spectacular light show of the way things collapsed during the past months. Pyro triggered an alarm at her New York City high-rise, and she almost killed him for it, but after a moment in his mind, she found the switch to turn him to liquid fire and—clever boy—he could control it. Turns out, he wasn't bad with note taking either.
A few pathetic specimens came her way before finding the Institute: girls with utterly useless powers named Tabitha and Paige from backwards towns in the Midwest, sporting hickish accents and jean jackets. Emma kindly suggested that they take a taxi to Westchester.
The flyover states weren’t all bad, however, since they brought her mysterious triplets called the Cuckoos: Esme, Celeste and Sophie, telepaths with a hive mind, girls who took after Emma in ways more frightful than reassuring. Still, they rounded out her team (the brute force needed the balance of brains) nicely, and served as a backup, should Emma herself ever suffer an incapacitation, something Xavier’s Institute hadn’t planned so well.
*
But then, she couldn’t call it Xavier’s anymore, not without the strange burden of guilt that she hadn’t gotten involved in a war that wasn’t her fight to begin with. The man was dead, and his followers grieved. Of course, he was only one of many lost to the pointless violence between factions; Scott among them, and another, the telepath called Jean Grey, and those were just the named few. Many more didn’t have the benefit of a grave, buried anonymous under Phoenix’s psionic blast. If Xavier had survived the ordeal, he would have heard an earful from her—and every government agency on the planet, to be sure—about the idiocy of keeping a ticking bomb like The Phoenix under that kind of wraps. Though, in some light, Emma admired him for trying.
The school was cut off now; limping around headless and missing vital limbs. They had no telepath to run their precious Cerebro, and no real leader at the helm. (Not that Emma was interested, per se, but she managed to hear things, always.)
It didn’t take long for the call to come.
*
within
*
"Moira MacTaggert," Emma said, picking up the phone. Secretarial bills went down exponentially when the use of a little telepathy was involved.
"I'd prefer if you didn't invade my thoughts, Ms. Frost."
Emma laughed. "Hardly." She stepped over to her office window, overlooking busy New York streets. "Your business?"
"I--we--Emma, we'd like to make a formal offer to you, to be headmistress of the Institute. I'm sure you already know about us, and what we do--and with the death of Charles Xavier, well, we're left quite directionless in many ways."
The sun glinted against high-rise buildings. "You need a telepath to direct your students, and--oh yes. To use that silly machine of yours. Cerebro, you call it?"
"Ms. Frost..." Dr. MacTaggert's voice held a hint of warning, but a warning that had no real power behind it.
"My own students are invited as well, with--" she cleared her throat, smiled, "--equal opportunities as those already residing at the Institute. And your choosing of me is well researched, I'm sure, so I can assume that there will be no regrets or questioning or choices I make." They weren't questions.
"We'd like if you could start within the month."
"I look forward to it." She managed to lace the ice in her tone with sugar. Dr. MacTaggert was a fool, inviting Emma into their midst. She wouldn't play pawn to a dead man.
*
Emma was organizing her new desk--Dr. MacTaggert had insisted that she move into the mansion completely, to ensure full leadership capabilities--when the buzz started around the edges of her mind. Just the children, she thought, but then a louder voice broke through, one sparking with recognition. Rogue, and she had heard the story about the poor girl with hungry skin who had fallen for the lure of Worthington Labs' cure, leaving her life with the X-Men, vanishing when it looked like she would be useless to them after all. When it seemed like the cure had worked, that she was homo sapien, and not homo superior.
The girl looked younger than Emma expected, her cupid's bow lips pressed flat. "I want you to let me back on the team."
"And what, exactly, would you bring to a team? De-powered as you a--"
The desk began to rise, shaking off all of the books, the cup of pens... "What makes you think I would be back if I were still de-powered?" In a flash, Emma knew it was true--physical evidence aside. Rogue had been blissfully happy, pathetic really, living her make-believe life, making up for lost time. And now her skin was deadlier than ever and she could utilize--
"All of them?" Emma asked, hint of a smile at her lips. She'd have the Cuckoos fix her desk later (or Esme would do it, while Celeste and Sophie watched).
Rogue crossed her arms across her chest, frowned. "All of them."
Something to work with, then, finally. Unlike the welcome package the Institute came with. "Welcome back."
*
Of course, taking this position meant that she was back with the chaff as well as the wheat. And the merging of teams wasn't the smoothest of transitions, what with the male posturing going on between Bobby and Pyro. Poor Iceman was stuck in the elementary use of his powers, as he insisted that Emma stay out of his mind, that he could "figure things out on his own"; meanwhile even Wolverine had to acknowledge that John was a skilled asset to the team.
Emma took to watching practice from the observation deck, controlling the terrain they fought on with a mere tug on their consciousnesses (the only one who minded was, of course, Wolverine, who called the experience "fuckin' unnerving", to which Emma simply patted his hand and chided him on cursing in front of the children).
After dazzling a Sentinel with her ability to shed skin and reform her identity, Paige turned toward where she knew the observation deck was (the girl had a good sense of direction on her, Emma had to give her that) and shouted "Why don't you ever come down and fight with us, Miss Frost?" while managing to completely miss the battle continuing behind her turned back. Her brother, Sam, shot her a glare as he 'cannonballed' around that very Sentinel to prevent it from clobbering his little sister to bits.
"Wanna pay attention, Little Bit?" Wolverine shouted, readying to be launched by Colossus at one of the larger metal foes.
It wasn't the smaller Guthrie's fault, of course, that she was completely useless in battle, but that didn't mean that she couldn't learn to assist her brother, or her more gifted teammates. Emma imagined a small-sized Sentinel teetering towards Paige, and awoke her to the threat. Miss Guthrie, to your left. And please. Use your imagination, I doubt this machine is interested in your husking abilities.
"Precisely why I don't go down there. I'd be abusing them physically," Emma mumbled to herself, as Paige karate-chopped the high-tech robot. "Best leave that to Wolverine."
*
Another disturbance; Emma never could manage do get through these days without one. The Cuckoos alerted her with their shrill mental cry in one voice, The Angel has returned, and Sophie trailing with a fainter thought, Mine, no questions, to which Emma couldn't help but smile. She didn't bother with the inner workings of the triplets, let alone the dating and personal life of her students, unless it interfered with their learning--either academically or on the field. She expected Storm or Moira to deal with those minutiae. However, Warren Worthington didn't return to the campus of the Institute for Higher Learning on an everyday basis.
She and he would have a conversation.
*
Emma leaned back in her chair, having offered the boy coffee and having been twice refused. "Please tell me, Warren, what is so urgent?"
"Magneto has been spotted--"
"Hardly newsworthy."
"--using his powers--"
"Again, Warren, Rogue has returned. I've anticipated Magneto's return, sooner or later. Do remember that you are speaking to a telepath. Try and make this interesting."
Angel flexed his wings, pausing to look out of her office window at the courtyard below. "Mr. Lensherr is gathering forces on an island east of Africa." At her look, he continued. "I'm not surprised you haven't heard about the movement; it's taken me months using my father's company equipment to confirm what I do know--and that isn't much. My contact in Madagascar tells me that their numbers aren't so large yet, that he is building a base underground."
Emma was silent, filtering through the steady stream of information Warren allowed her to access along with his words. No easy maps, no lists of those joining up, no confirmation. "And what do you propose I do with this information, Mr. Worthington?" Emma smoothed the white linen of her finely tailored pants before looking up, meeting Warren's eyes.
He was surprised. "Why, take him down, of course. Professor Xavier--"
"Is no longer with us."
*
Before falling asleep each night, she took mental stock of the school and the students, peaking in at their states of mind, registering any threats, any danger. First her girls, The Cuckoos, squabbling gently with each other, then onto the other Institute faculty. Storm; reading over her lesson plan for the next day, hardly worth a second thought. Wolverine, who Emma often found more fascinating due to his dreams and repressed memories (and perhaps, that part of her remembered him from her childhood, though he didn't seem to), wasn't thinking much of anything tonight.
She considered the core group of students, from Rogue to little Kitty Pryde, and passed the usual corners of her mind searching for their thoughts.
Nothing.
Not merely a lack of substance, that wouldn't be cause for worry. But nothing. A blank.
Emma had no difficulty seeing Paige Guthrie; the girl was in the kitchen getting a late-night snack. And there, her Pyro. Already asleep and dreaming of a strange concoction to do with chocolate mousse--but the others?
She was shaken enough to find a robe and consider taking to the halls for a physical search, the thought becoming more and more absurd. However, just as she touched the doorknob, she felt a buzz, her mind blurring and then sharpening, until she could sense them all, acutely, every one.
*
She watched as Bobby took down a Sentinel, sluicing his path with ice, and quickly blasting all of the robot's joints with frozen crystals. A positive effort, but hardly effective--so proved when the Sentinel jerked free of its temporary holds and caught Bobby in a telekinetic hold, leaving him futilly shooting ice in a harmless direction. Rogue finished with the smaller opponent she was dueling mano-a-gloved mano, and moved on to rescue her former lover (interesting, what Emma picked up on during these little exercises) utilizing Magneto's power crush the Sentinel's skull from the inside, short-circuiting it.
As Bobby fell, she ironed-up her form, a la Colossus (delightful, Emma thought) to catch him.
You really sh-- Emma thought at Bobby, but caught heavy resistance. Something blocking her.
Clearing her throat, her anger rising, Emma pressed the intercom. "You might consider, Bobby, working with me on the next stage of your abilities. I think we both just witnessed your weaknesses."
*
"Dr. MacTaggert."
The door opened slowly, and the doctor entered Emma's office with a sigh. "I do wish you'd let me knock properly, Ms. Frost."
"Trouble in the labs?"
Moira sat down, pressing her fingers along the edge of Emma's desk, making the nails go white with pressure. "Actually, Ms. Frost, I thought we might talk."
Buzzing. Something--someone--trying to hedge in on her mind...? Emma awakened her senses.
Cuckoos, help me snuff out the intruder-- she called, but found only white noise.
"What have you done, Moira?"
She grasped her head, as suddenly, there was pain inside her head so intense as she could only remember experiencing when a prisoner of Weapon X.
Dr. MacTaggert blanched. "It's not what I've done."
Emma shut her eyes tight against the deluge.
"It was him. It's been him all along."
*
without
*
She is diamond, impenetrable. She'll be safe this way, her defenses up. She is all right but not right; the world is white, blank.
Emma cannot see, though she opens her eyes, notices the place around her has color and shape and form.
"My poor girl, I can't imagine what he must have..." The voice is gritty and alone, though she has heard it before, on news reels and in the memories of her students. "You're safe here, in any case. For now. Though we've limited idea of when Charles will strike."
She's afraid she won't be able to walk, not without the balance of a mental tail. "Here?"
"Genosha. And you can call me Erik."
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