DocTachyon
Antlers
Eddie Brock
Pirouette
Captain Uni
Supermaxx
Natty
Ezekiel
Nemaisare
E M M A F R O S T
E M M A F R O S T
E M M A F R O S T
The unmistakable shape of an exquisite white silk gown lay strewn over the back of a chair, and shoes had been left abandoned; kicked aside in the heated moments. Even the bed had shifted and dragged and the sheets had twisted into disordered tangles. The very air was thick and warm and alive with psionic energy. Emma Frost lay in the ruin, her hair loose and skin flushed with a thigh thrown unapologetically over Scott’s hip; claiming him and the night entirely.
Scott traced in idle patterns along her spine in their aftermath, his own breath still uneven as his gaze travelled the room to see a lamp on its side spilling light across his suit that lay haphazard. Just torn buttons and crumpled fabric. “This was the best day of my life, Mrs Summers,” he sighed out against her cheek, leaving soft tracing kisses at her jawline.
Emma’s fingers travelled back to rest against the bare warmth of his inner thigh and she smiled faintly with a blushing playfulness. “That’s still Mrs Frost to you, darling,” were the words she murmured to him while his lips moved over her.
He answered with motion, rolling her onto her back with little restraint and an easy confidence; his knee nudging her leg aside as his hand threaded into her hair. “Mmmm,” he hummed out against her. “In here and tonight, you’re Mrs Summers. My Mrs Summers.”
“Alright,” she breathed out; husky and unguarded. “I’ll be Mrs Summers here as long as you promise to forever adore me.”
“Didn’t I just vow to in front of all our families and friends?”
Her fingers tightened around his own and she smiled softly. “Mhmm.” For a long moment, neither of them moved, they remained happy in their embrace. “You know… I always wanted to be important to someone,” she finally confessed, without her usual armour of wit or ice. She lay before him, bare and luminous. “And today I felt that way.” Heat still lingered on their skin; the echoes of their passion remained alive in every overturned thing.
“You are important to me,” Scott affirmed, holding her tighter. The vulnerability that she had unmasked was not lost on him. “The most important.”
“Promise me,” Emma whispered as her eyes closed. She rested her forehead against his and settled against him, “that I won’t ever be something you learn to live without.”
“I promise.”
Krakoa’s living pathways unfurled underfoot as Emma headed out far beyond the emerald sprawl of living gardens. Tucked into cragged cliffs were the Departure Stations; silenced hubs of movement. As Emma’s boots pressed softly against the living floor, there was a subtle vibration that let her know Krakoa itself was aware of her passing. Every wall pulsed faintly as the blend of organic growths and precise engineering acted as veins and delicate circuitry. It was a quiet order here. She moved through the polite crowds of mutants flitting with their calm purposes, and there, as if in a twist of fate, Cyclops stood.
His stillness carried command and anticipation in equal measure. He had not been stung by the same feeling of a twist that Emma had; he was here by design to greet her. To force the encounter and to confess. As she approached, his eyes narrowed behind his visor and he stilled himself. Even after all this time, her presence made him nervous, stirred something within him despite his usual grounding force. Emma’s lips curved just slightly as she approached him.
The mood of the hub shifted almost imperceptibly as the on-duty mutants stole glances from behind their consoles and along the walkways. Whispers moved like cautious birds through the air of their shared awareness of a rare convergence. Emma Frost and Cyclops, together on the platform. This was not a casual meeting, even in a place accustomed to comings and goings, the charged tension was immediate and drew a silent, careful attention.
“Cyclops,” Emma greeted politely, shredding the silence behind a perfect smile. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to go off and be very brave somewhere?”
He smiled faintly at that and lowered his shoulders. “And you,” he said carefully before shifting his weight and scanning the horizon. “You’re the talk of Krakoa,” he laughed. “This Gala of yours… And not only that but your new student. More tricks,” he said, adjusting the strap of his visor. “More tricks of cruelty dressed up as lessons.”
She didn’t slow. She didn’t look at him. “If I were so cruel,” she began coolly, “why is it that Somnus continues to work with me? Sought me out in fact.” She assessed him with an unbothered gaze and let her pale eyes sweep his physique, she’d known it once. “Oh no… I didn’t coddle him.” There was a mocking bite to her words before she continued. “And I won’t. I showed him the face of his power, and he thrived.” She let the words settle between them.
Something weary and old threaded through Scott then, the ease with which she could cut through critique and make herself sound… Reasonable. Scott exhaled. “Yeah, but you don't need to punish people.”
“Really? You’re going to lecture me?” She sighed.
“No, I–”
“I what? I know you’re not here by coincidence. Out with it.”
“I don’t want to argue, or lecture.” He sighed again, all full of the resignation of being witnessed for his motives. “Some things just don’t change, do they?” He tried to smile too, like an olive branch that carved itself above his strong jawline. A place she used to kiss him. “I came here to tell you,” Scott said slowly, almost as if he was testing the weight and sound of his words before he said them. “It’s Jean. Jean and me… Jean and I… Have been seeing each other.”
From her side, Emma’s expression did not change. Of course he would choose this as his moment, in public. She let the corner of her mouth tilt with a faint, dry amusement, letting nothing else crack or slip. In some way, she was surprised that even inside the news didn’t seem to rock her. “I see,” she spoke plainly. He’d already planned that she wouldn’t react in any kind of coarse way here. “Things really do stay the same. Congratulations to the two of you.” She was all full of resignation too.
Her reaction was expected, of course but Scott’s chest still tightened. “I… Wanted you to hear it from me, not anyone else.”
“How noble of you as always,” she smiled back – all teeth and ice. “Am I to be wounded? Appreciative?” It was almost amusing that even now, Scott remained clumsy with his words and still clumsier with his timing.
“That’s not–” He stopped momentarily so as to let his thoughts recalibrate and to find the right words. To gain back his balance after her petulant verbal shove. He’d placed the wound on her but he didn’t feel like pouring salt upon it. He never wanted that. “I just didn’t want it to be a secret that... You know, overheard or something. At a bad time. Krakoa is all grapevines right? I… I know this isn’t the right time,” he added quietly.
“History always has a way of repeating itself when no one learns anything, Scott.” She said gently as if on some level to soothe him, or to at least cut the cord he was holding onto that made him feel like he had a window to her emotional response. “You don’t need to manage my feelings. You lost that right when you stopped being responsible for them.”
Before anything else, Scott nodded once. Conceding to a point he had already lost years ago. He studied her face, searching for cracks that were no longer there; not for him anyway. “Are you… Seeing anyone?” he asked with hesitation driven by desire to find the familiar with her again. Hadn’t it been long enough?
“No,” she warned in a response laced with a crisp edge as sharp as the half smile that was formed from the sheer graceless audacity of him. “And it would be none of your business anyway, just as whatever you and Jean do is none of mine.
I’m heading to New York,” she continued. Moving and turning the conversation away from him. “Although I suppose you knew that, or else you would not have waited for me here…” She left him no room for interruption. “I have things to tend to before the Gala. Exactly the kind of unglamorous work that helps to keep our utopia alive and well.” She let her words hand, neither an invitation or farewell.
“I see,” Scott added. The presence of the wall between them was so heavy. “I’m heading out too… With Kitty and Bobby, we discovered an abandoned lab, we think it's Sinister’s.”
Emma’s brow arched with a distant but precise interest. “How nostalgic,” she said. “I am sure I will hear all about it when you return.”
“Emma-”
“What?” She smiled thinly at him. “We had our chance at that monster, why are you dangling it in front of me now?”
“I guess we have both just chosen different distractions,” Scott uttered tersely.
“And God knows you choose to dress yours in your martyrdom.”
He held his tongue. He always did.
“You can’t seriously hope to find him at an abandoned lab he would have cleared out already or laced with traps? Scott, please.”
“I have to try something- it has to be worth something, so that when this over and when he’s finally dealt with then we can actually… We can– You can talk about her–”
“Don’t,” Emma said in an absolute manner.
Scott blinked. “Emma–”
“You don’t get to make her name, her, all of her... Some... Conversation you get to schedule. You moved on,” she snapped. “You could tell yourself that the bigger picture mattered more. Goodness. Maybe it does.” She stepped back then, placing a further distance between them with a practiced ease. “Go. Find Sinister’s scraps. Maybe find his trail and stop him. I genuinely hope you succeed.”
Scott looked at the shape of her then, something he lost years ago and something he once had.
“Do be careful though. Jean does hate it when you’re reckless.”
“I’ll try,” he answered, unwilling to fight back with her. He knew what it would cost to exchange those kinds of blows with her here. “I’ll have to trust you to keep our world in one piece while I chase him, then.” He sighed out.
Emma’s gaze flicked to him before she turned and stepped toward her transport pad. The psychic hum of her presence lingered enough to leave Scott momentarily unmoored until the movement shimmered around him and carried her away and he exhaled once more. When everything settled with her absence, the platform felt all the emptier for it.
He’d lingered just long enough to watch her leave and it hadn’t been the first time, he would guard her back even now, wouldn’t he? And if she was right about the lab, and it was likely that she was – that dreaming for answers to be found was a dangerous and foolish thing. Well, he was a fool through and through, a hopeful one.
He still had to try for something. He wanted answers too, even if she no longer believed that mattered. Somewhere out there, a lab waited with a path lined with shadow and faint traces of the unacknowledged weight of their shared history. He’d walk it alone if he had to. The hub returned to its rhythm and the whispers faded.
Scott traced in idle patterns along her spine in their aftermath, his own breath still uneven as his gaze travelled the room to see a lamp on its side spilling light across his suit that lay haphazard. Just torn buttons and crumpled fabric. “This was the best day of my life, Mrs Summers,” he sighed out against her cheek, leaving soft tracing kisses at her jawline.
Emma’s fingers travelled back to rest against the bare warmth of his inner thigh and she smiled faintly with a blushing playfulness. “That’s still Mrs Frost to you, darling,” were the words she murmured to him while his lips moved over her.
He answered with motion, rolling her onto her back with little restraint and an easy confidence; his knee nudging her leg aside as his hand threaded into her hair. “Mmmm,” he hummed out against her. “In here and tonight, you’re Mrs Summers. My Mrs Summers.”
“Alright,” she breathed out; husky and unguarded. “I’ll be Mrs Summers here as long as you promise to forever adore me.”
“Didn’t I just vow to in front of all our families and friends?”
Her fingers tightened around his own and she smiled softly. “Mhmm.” For a long moment, neither of them moved, they remained happy in their embrace. “You know… I always wanted to be important to someone,” she finally confessed, without her usual armour of wit or ice. She lay before him, bare and luminous. “And today I felt that way.” Heat still lingered on their skin; the echoes of their passion remained alive in every overturned thing.
“You are important to me,” Scott affirmed, holding her tighter. The vulnerability that she had unmasked was not lost on him. “The most important.”
“Promise me,” Emma whispered as her eyes closed. She rested her forehead against his and settled against him, “that I won’t ever be something you learn to live without.”
“I promise.”
Krakoa’s living pathways unfurled underfoot as Emma headed out far beyond the emerald sprawl of living gardens. Tucked into cragged cliffs were the Departure Stations; silenced hubs of movement. As Emma’s boots pressed softly against the living floor, there was a subtle vibration that let her know Krakoa itself was aware of her passing. Every wall pulsed faintly as the blend of organic growths and precise engineering acted as veins and delicate circuitry. It was a quiet order here. She moved through the polite crowds of mutants flitting with their calm purposes, and there, as if in a twist of fate, Cyclops stood.
His stillness carried command and anticipation in equal measure. He had not been stung by the same feeling of a twist that Emma had; he was here by design to greet her. To force the encounter and to confess. As she approached, his eyes narrowed behind his visor and he stilled himself. Even after all this time, her presence made him nervous, stirred something within him despite his usual grounding force. Emma’s lips curved just slightly as she approached him.
The mood of the hub shifted almost imperceptibly as the on-duty mutants stole glances from behind their consoles and along the walkways. Whispers moved like cautious birds through the air of their shared awareness of a rare convergence. Emma Frost and Cyclops, together on the platform. This was not a casual meeting, even in a place accustomed to comings and goings, the charged tension was immediate and drew a silent, careful attention.
“Cyclops,” Emma greeted politely, shredding the silence behind a perfect smile. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to go off and be very brave somewhere?”
He smiled faintly at that and lowered his shoulders. “And you,” he said carefully before shifting his weight and scanning the horizon. “You’re the talk of Krakoa,” he laughed. “This Gala of yours… And not only that but your new student. More tricks,” he said, adjusting the strap of his visor. “More tricks of cruelty dressed up as lessons.”
She didn’t slow. She didn’t look at him. “If I were so cruel,” she began coolly, “why is it that Somnus continues to work with me? Sought me out in fact.” She assessed him with an unbothered gaze and let her pale eyes sweep his physique, she’d known it once. “Oh no… I didn’t coddle him.” There was a mocking bite to her words before she continued. “And I won’t. I showed him the face of his power, and he thrived.” She let the words settle between them.
Something weary and old threaded through Scott then, the ease with which she could cut through critique and make herself sound… Reasonable. Scott exhaled. “Yeah, but you don't need to punish people.”
“Really? You’re going to lecture me?” She sighed.
“No, I–”
“I what? I know you’re not here by coincidence. Out with it.”
“I don’t want to argue, or lecture.” He sighed again, all full of the resignation of being witnessed for his motives. “Some things just don’t change, do they?” He tried to smile too, like an olive branch that carved itself above his strong jawline. A place she used to kiss him. “I came here to tell you,” Scott said slowly, almost as if he was testing the weight and sound of his words before he said them. “It’s Jean. Jean and me… Jean and I… Have been seeing each other.”
From her side, Emma’s expression did not change. Of course he would choose this as his moment, in public. She let the corner of her mouth tilt with a faint, dry amusement, letting nothing else crack or slip. In some way, she was surprised that even inside the news didn’t seem to rock her. “I see,” she spoke plainly. He’d already planned that she wouldn’t react in any kind of coarse way here. “Things really do stay the same. Congratulations to the two of you.” She was all full of resignation too.
Her reaction was expected, of course but Scott’s chest still tightened. “I… Wanted you to hear it from me, not anyone else.”
“How noble of you as always,” she smiled back – all teeth and ice. “Am I to be wounded? Appreciative?” It was almost amusing that even now, Scott remained clumsy with his words and still clumsier with his timing.
“That’s not–” He stopped momentarily so as to let his thoughts recalibrate and to find the right words. To gain back his balance after her petulant verbal shove. He’d placed the wound on her but he didn’t feel like pouring salt upon it. He never wanted that. “I just didn’t want it to be a secret that... You know, overheard or something. At a bad time. Krakoa is all grapevines right? I… I know this isn’t the right time,” he added quietly.
“History always has a way of repeating itself when no one learns anything, Scott.” She said gently as if on some level to soothe him, or to at least cut the cord he was holding onto that made him feel like he had a window to her emotional response. “You don’t need to manage my feelings. You lost that right when you stopped being responsible for them.”
Before anything else, Scott nodded once. Conceding to a point he had already lost years ago. He studied her face, searching for cracks that were no longer there; not for him anyway. “Are you… Seeing anyone?” he asked with hesitation driven by desire to find the familiar with her again. Hadn’t it been long enough?
“No,” she warned in a response laced with a crisp edge as sharp as the half smile that was formed from the sheer graceless audacity of him. “And it would be none of your business anyway, just as whatever you and Jean do is none of mine.
I’m heading to New York,” she continued. Moving and turning the conversation away from him. “Although I suppose you knew that, or else you would not have waited for me here…” She left him no room for interruption. “I have things to tend to before the Gala. Exactly the kind of unglamorous work that helps to keep our utopia alive and well.” She let her words hand, neither an invitation or farewell.
“I see,” Scott added. The presence of the wall between them was so heavy. “I’m heading out too… With Kitty and Bobby, we discovered an abandoned lab, we think it's Sinister’s.”
Emma’s brow arched with a distant but precise interest. “How nostalgic,” she said. “I am sure I will hear all about it when you return.”
“Emma-”
“What?” She smiled thinly at him. “We had our chance at that monster, why are you dangling it in front of me now?”
“I guess we have both just chosen different distractions,” Scott uttered tersely.
“And God knows you choose to dress yours in your martyrdom.”
He held his tongue. He always did.
“You can’t seriously hope to find him at an abandoned lab he would have cleared out already or laced with traps? Scott, please.”
“I have to try something- it has to be worth something, so that when this over and when he’s finally dealt with then we can actually… We can– You can talk about her–”
“Don’t,” Emma said in an absolute manner.
Scott blinked. “Emma–”
“You don’t get to make her name, her, all of her... Some... Conversation you get to schedule. You moved on,” she snapped. “You could tell yourself that the bigger picture mattered more. Goodness. Maybe it does.” She stepped back then, placing a further distance between them with a practiced ease. “Go. Find Sinister’s scraps. Maybe find his trail and stop him. I genuinely hope you succeed.”
Scott looked at the shape of her then, something he lost years ago and something he once had.
“Do be careful though. Jean does hate it when you’re reckless.”
“I’ll try,” he answered, unwilling to fight back with her. He knew what it would cost to exchange those kinds of blows with her here. “I’ll have to trust you to keep our world in one piece while I chase him, then.” He sighed out.
Emma’s gaze flicked to him before she turned and stepped toward her transport pad. The psychic hum of her presence lingered enough to leave Scott momentarily unmoored until the movement shimmered around him and carried her away and he exhaled once more. When everything settled with her absence, the platform felt all the emptier for it.
He’d lingered just long enough to watch her leave and it hadn’t been the first time, he would guard her back even now, wouldn’t he? And if she was right about the lab, and it was likely that she was – that dreaming for answers to be found was a dangerous and foolish thing. Well, he was a fool through and through, a hopeful one.
He still had to try for something. He wanted answers too, even if she no longer believed that mattered. Somewhere out there, a lab waited with a path lined with shadow and faint traces of the unacknowledged weight of their shared history. He’d walk it alone if he had to. The hub returned to its rhythm and the whispers faded.
