X-Men fanfic: "Tough Love"
Title: Tough Love
Summary: After the mess with Mystique (in the last issue, especially, of Manifest Destiny), some of Bobby's teammates decide that an intervention is in order, but get more than they bargained for.
"Face it, Bob, you've got a thing for reformed bad girls," Warren told him.
"Or reforming bad girls," Hank added.
"That's not true!" Bobby denied hotly. His friends shared an amused look.
"Lorna," Warren said.
"Leyna," Hank offered.
"Cloud."
"I want to add Infectia, but I'm not 100% positive that our frosty friend was cognizant of her malevolent nature -- despite the attempts of myself and our young wards at the time to open his eyes. And anyway, she certainly wasn't reformed."
Bobby wilted into a chair guiltily.
"I wasn't there for that," Warren pointed out, then, "Ooh, how about Emma?"
"What about me?" Emma Frost asked, striding into the room. It was amazing how the clicking of her heels against the floor didn't seem to register in their ears before she was there.
"Shall we add your esteemed self to the list of ladies for whom Robert has demonstrated his attraction once they had joined the side of the Angel?" Hank placed a paw on Warren's arm to make his meaning clear.
"It was only one date," Bobby muttered rebelliously, mouth half-obscured by his palm.
"One disastrous date," Emma clarified, amused.
"Oh?" Raising his eyebrows, Warren turned to look at Bobby. "You never said 'disastrous'."
Bobby raised his eyebrows right back. "We were chaperoning a high school dance and there was a terrorist attack. The 'disastrous' was implied."
"You may as well add me," Emma said airily, then she, too, turned towards Bobby, who began looking uncomfortable under all this scrutiny. "Drake, what do you think is the most powerful force in the universe?"
"Love," he answered, clearly baffled by this apparent change in topic.
"And as long as you think that way, people like Mystique will be able to take advantage of you." She waved a hand imperiously and walked out the door.
Bobby shot out of his chair and followed her into the hall.
"You can't just say that and walk away like it's the end of it," he told her, tone accusing.
"Why not? It's true."
"What's true is that love is the most powerful force in the universe, Emma. I have seen an entity who could eat suns cool her wrath for the sake of love. I have seen a child so powerful that, feeling unloved, she plucked the stars from her galaxy to make as empty as she felt inside -- and, finding out she was loved, put them all back. I have been erased from existence when my dad was killed before I was born, and had the embodiment of Oblivion itself restore me for the sake of the love that part of it once felt for me, when she was mortal!"
"I have seen love spurned turn a man into an inhuman monster," Warren said quietly behind him. "Love has made me hesitate to bring an enemy down, and people died because of it. The grief of love lost has driven me to kill."
Bobby had turned while Warren spoke, and had seen the pain in his face. He went to him, arms outstretched.
"Cameron was a sociopath. He fooled everyone. You have to stop blaming yourself --"
"Bobby, don't you see?" Warren grabbed his arms and shook him. "The parallel between then and now? At least Mystique warned you."
"Maybe it is only women," Emma mused. "I heard you make an excuse for Hodge just now. Do you forgive him?"
Bobby spun back towards her. "No!"
"But you have forgiven me," she pointed out.
"You deserve it."
"Do I?" She stepped right into his personal space. "I violated you." Her voice was silky and malevolent. "What I did to you was actually worse than what I did to Storm. I only stole her body -- you, I held prisoner, helpless, while I made your body do things you never dared dream you could do."
Bobby took a step back, but Emma moved with him.
"Afterwards, your friends made sure you weren't on my guard rotation, even though I was strapped to a bed and psychically shackled -- and not because they thought you'd exact revenge, oh no. They know you better than that. No, it was for your benefit. They didn't want to increase the trauma to your psyche by forcing you to deal with me."
He kept backing away, face pale, and she subtly steered him as she pressed forward. His back hit the wall.
"And you were traumatized. You even ran away from home, but you couldn't escape what had happened. How long did you hallucinate me chasing you, Drake? Weeks? Months?"
"Emma..." Bobby's voice was just shy of pleading, just short of warning. She let him slip away, but prowled after him again with all the patient menace of a panther.
"Admit it: you were terrified of me."
"I -- yes, I admit it." He licked his lips. "But, Emma..."
"It took being driven by something that scared you worse than I did to get you to face me," she pointed out.
"Death," Bobby whispered, and swallowed thickly.
"You attacked me in my own office," Emma recalled. "You were violent. Rage fuelled by terror." She smiled darkly. "It was quite thrilling, from my perspective."
"I needed -- I thought I need your help."
"I refused to give it to you."
"No, Emma -- you did help me. You forced me to save myself, made me confront my own denial."
"Yes, I did, didn't I?" She circled him, studying him. "I deliberately provoked you until you were angry enough to get over your fear of yourself. But I couldn't have done that if you hadn't hated me, feared me, as much as you did. And I have never understood why that changed."
The look Bobby gave her was peculiarly sympathetic.
"You could have taken control of me again. You could have made me believe I needed you for that level of control. You could have saved my life and left me indebted to you. You didn't." He reached out and gently touched her shoulder to still her. "That made me realise I could trust you, at least a little."
Emma snorted a delicate, ladylike snort. "I wanted you to trust yourself."
"Yes. Exactly." He wagged a finger at her. "You encouraged me to be strong on my own, when you could have manipulated me. Those aren't the actions of someone who was just waiting to 'violate' me again, Emma. And when I figured that out -- when I felt that first instinct to trust you -- the fear went away."
She raised one eyebrow. "Just like that?"
"Just like that," Bobby confirmed, nodding. "And once that happened, I was able to see what you'd done to me in a different light." He stuck his hands in his pockets. "When you took over my body, you didn't do it to hurt me. Oh, you probably didn't care if you did, but it wasn't the goal; it wasn't even an issue. It was never about me at all. It was about you, and your trauma. Your students."
Emma paced away from him, crossing her arms.
"You loved them," Bobby said softly. "No one would grieve like you did... Well. Once I let myself understand, it was easy to forgive you."
"Easy?" Emma repeated incredulously, the ghost of a mirthless laugh making her voice husky.
He shrugged. "Yes. Easy." Bobby caught her gaze and held it. "Giving you a second chance was the right thing to do. I should have seen that sooner -- Sean, he knew from second chances."
She shook her head slowly, as much to banish the topic of the dearly departed as because she could see where this was going.
"You thought Mystique deserved another chance?"
"Didn't she?" Bobby lifted his hands, palms up. "She isn't irredeemable, she just wants to think she is. But I knew there was a soul in there to reach, Emma, because I know she loves Rogue. And I reached her -- that's why she threatened to kill me. She doesn't think she can afford to love me, because it could hurt her. She doesn't want me to love her, because that will hurt me, has hurt me, and she discovered that that hurts her, because she does care for me."
"It's all about love for you."
"It really is." Bobby gave her a crooked smile. "I hate to be the one to break this to you, but love is the dream. When humans and mutants love each other as friends, neighbours, family -- that'll be equality. And when every being feels that way about others, that will be peace. It's what the X-Men have always fought for."
"Oh, good God," Emma said, tolling her eyes. Bobby just grinned.
"Congratulations, you're co-captain of the Love Commandoes."
"Please, spare me. You can't actually believe that."
"I can. I do." He shrugged again. "It won't happen in my lifetime, but it will someday, as long as someone still believes."
Emma shook her head.
"You're really sincere."
"I really am. I even love you, Emma, in a way. Considering our history... how can you doubt what love can do?"
"You love me?"
"As a friend."
"Even though you loved Jean as a sister, and I stole Scott away from her?"
Bobby snorted. "Scott cheated on his wife with Jean, so I don't know why she was so surprised. You might wanna watch out for that, by the way. He's got a real thing for telepaths, too -- let's not examine his relationship with Professor X too closely --"
Emma surprised them both by bursting into laughter.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, a hand over her heart, "this intervention has not gone at all like I planned."
"Intervention?" Even as Bobby spoke, the hallway seemed to fuzz away into darkness. Hearing his question echo back at him, he opened his eyes and found himself staring at the ceiling above his own bed. "Intervention for what?" he wondered, confused.
»The aforementioned predilection for bad-girls-gone-good,« Emma's telepathic voice informed him, 'feeling' amused. »However, it stems from your faith in the power of love, which is the core of your belief system and therefore a key component of your personality. I doubt therapy would help.«
Bobby sighed. According to his alarm clock, it was only an hour after he'd gone to bed.
»I'll report as much to Scott.«
"So long as you leave out the part at the end," he said to the air.
»I'll think about it.«
Bobby groaned and covered his face with a pillow. He seriously considered just getting up for a while, even though he was still tired. Psychoanalyzing a guy in his sleep wasn't fair!
»Good night,« Emma said, and just like that, he was out like a light.
FIN
Cross-posted to frozen_breaths.
Summary: After the mess with Mystique (in the last issue, especially, of Manifest Destiny), some of Bobby's teammates decide that an intervention is in order, but get more than they bargained for.
"Face it, Bob, you've got a thing for reformed bad girls," Warren told him.
"Or reforming bad girls," Hank added.
"That's not true!" Bobby denied hotly. His friends shared an amused look.
"Lorna," Warren said.
"Leyna," Hank offered.
"Cloud."
"I want to add Infectia, but I'm not 100% positive that our frosty friend was cognizant of her malevolent nature -- despite the attempts of myself and our young wards at the time to open his eyes. And anyway, she certainly wasn't reformed."
Bobby wilted into a chair guiltily.
"I wasn't there for that," Warren pointed out, then, "Ooh, how about Emma?"
"What about me?" Emma Frost asked, striding into the room. It was amazing how the clicking of her heels against the floor didn't seem to register in their ears before she was there.
"Shall we add your esteemed self to the list of ladies for whom Robert has demonstrated his attraction once they had joined the side of the Angel?" Hank placed a paw on Warren's arm to make his meaning clear.
"It was only one date," Bobby muttered rebelliously, mouth half-obscured by his palm.
"One disastrous date," Emma clarified, amused.
"Oh?" Raising his eyebrows, Warren turned to look at Bobby. "You never said 'disastrous'."
Bobby raised his eyebrows right back. "We were chaperoning a high school dance and there was a terrorist attack. The 'disastrous' was implied."
"You may as well add me," Emma said airily, then she, too, turned towards Bobby, who began looking uncomfortable under all this scrutiny. "Drake, what do you think is the most powerful force in the universe?"
"Love," he answered, clearly baffled by this apparent change in topic.
"And as long as you think that way, people like Mystique will be able to take advantage of you." She waved a hand imperiously and walked out the door.
Bobby shot out of his chair and followed her into the hall.
"You can't just say that and walk away like it's the end of it," he told her, tone accusing.
"Why not? It's true."
"What's true is that love is the most powerful force in the universe, Emma. I have seen an entity who could eat suns cool her wrath for the sake of love. I have seen a child so powerful that, feeling unloved, she plucked the stars from her galaxy to make as empty as she felt inside -- and, finding out she was loved, put them all back. I have been erased from existence when my dad was killed before I was born, and had the embodiment of Oblivion itself restore me for the sake of the love that part of it once felt for me, when she was mortal!"
"I have seen love spurned turn a man into an inhuman monster," Warren said quietly behind him. "Love has made me hesitate to bring an enemy down, and people died because of it. The grief of love lost has driven me to kill."
Bobby had turned while Warren spoke, and had seen the pain in his face. He went to him, arms outstretched.
"Cameron was a sociopath. He fooled everyone. You have to stop blaming yourself --"
"Bobby, don't you see?" Warren grabbed his arms and shook him. "The parallel between then and now? At least Mystique warned you."
"Maybe it is only women," Emma mused. "I heard you make an excuse for Hodge just now. Do you forgive him?"
Bobby spun back towards her. "No!"
"But you have forgiven me," she pointed out.
"You deserve it."
"Do I?" She stepped right into his personal space. "I violated you." Her voice was silky and malevolent. "What I did to you was actually worse than what I did to Storm. I only stole her body -- you, I held prisoner, helpless, while I made your body do things you never dared dream you could do."
Bobby took a step back, but Emma moved with him.
"Afterwards, your friends made sure you weren't on my guard rotation, even though I was strapped to a bed and psychically shackled -- and not because they thought you'd exact revenge, oh no. They know you better than that. No, it was for your benefit. They didn't want to increase the trauma to your psyche by forcing you to deal with me."
He kept backing away, face pale, and she subtly steered him as she pressed forward. His back hit the wall.
"And you were traumatized. You even ran away from home, but you couldn't escape what had happened. How long did you hallucinate me chasing you, Drake? Weeks? Months?"
"Emma..." Bobby's voice was just shy of pleading, just short of warning. She let him slip away, but prowled after him again with all the patient menace of a panther.
"Admit it: you were terrified of me."
"I -- yes, I admit it." He licked his lips. "But, Emma..."
"It took being driven by something that scared you worse than I did to get you to face me," she pointed out.
"Death," Bobby whispered, and swallowed thickly.
"You attacked me in my own office," Emma recalled. "You were violent. Rage fuelled by terror." She smiled darkly. "It was quite thrilling, from my perspective."
"I needed -- I thought I need your help."
"I refused to give it to you."
"No, Emma -- you did help me. You forced me to save myself, made me confront my own denial."
"Yes, I did, didn't I?" She circled him, studying him. "I deliberately provoked you until you were angry enough to get over your fear of yourself. But I couldn't have done that if you hadn't hated me, feared me, as much as you did. And I have never understood why that changed."
The look Bobby gave her was peculiarly sympathetic.
"You could have taken control of me again. You could have made me believe I needed you for that level of control. You could have saved my life and left me indebted to you. You didn't." He reached out and gently touched her shoulder to still her. "That made me realise I could trust you, at least a little."
Emma snorted a delicate, ladylike snort. "I wanted you to trust yourself."
"Yes. Exactly." He wagged a finger at her. "You encouraged me to be strong on my own, when you could have manipulated me. Those aren't the actions of someone who was just waiting to 'violate' me again, Emma. And when I figured that out -- when I felt that first instinct to trust you -- the fear went away."
She raised one eyebrow. "Just like that?"
"Just like that," Bobby confirmed, nodding. "And once that happened, I was able to see what you'd done to me in a different light." He stuck his hands in his pockets. "When you took over my body, you didn't do it to hurt me. Oh, you probably didn't care if you did, but it wasn't the goal; it wasn't even an issue. It was never about me at all. It was about you, and your trauma. Your students."
Emma paced away from him, crossing her arms.
"You loved them," Bobby said softly. "No one would grieve like you did... Well. Once I let myself understand, it was easy to forgive you."
"Easy?" Emma repeated incredulously, the ghost of a mirthless laugh making her voice husky.
He shrugged. "Yes. Easy." Bobby caught her gaze and held it. "Giving you a second chance was the right thing to do. I should have seen that sooner -- Sean, he knew from second chances."
She shook her head slowly, as much to banish the topic of the dearly departed as because she could see where this was going.
"You thought Mystique deserved another chance?"
"Didn't she?" Bobby lifted his hands, palms up. "She isn't irredeemable, she just wants to think she is. But I knew there was a soul in there to reach, Emma, because I know she loves Rogue. And I reached her -- that's why she threatened to kill me. She doesn't think she can afford to love me, because it could hurt her. She doesn't want me to love her, because that will hurt me, has hurt me, and she discovered that that hurts her, because she does care for me."
"It's all about love for you."
"It really is." Bobby gave her a crooked smile. "I hate to be the one to break this to you, but love is the dream. When humans and mutants love each other as friends, neighbours, family -- that'll be equality. And when every being feels that way about others, that will be peace. It's what the X-Men have always fought for."
"Oh, good God," Emma said, tolling her eyes. Bobby just grinned.
"Congratulations, you're co-captain of the Love Commandoes."
"Please, spare me. You can't actually believe that."
"I can. I do." He shrugged again. "It won't happen in my lifetime, but it will someday, as long as someone still believes."
Emma shook her head.
"You're really sincere."
"I really am. I even love you, Emma, in a way. Considering our history... how can you doubt what love can do?"
"You love me?"
"As a friend."
"Even though you loved Jean as a sister, and I stole Scott away from her?"
Bobby snorted. "Scott cheated on his wife with Jean, so I don't know why she was so surprised. You might wanna watch out for that, by the way. He's got a real thing for telepaths, too -- let's not examine his relationship with Professor X too closely --"
Emma surprised them both by bursting into laughter.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, a hand over her heart, "this intervention has not gone at all like I planned."
"Intervention?" Even as Bobby spoke, the hallway seemed to fuzz away into darkness. Hearing his question echo back at him, he opened his eyes and found himself staring at the ceiling above his own bed. "Intervention for what?" he wondered, confused.
»The aforementioned predilection for bad-girls-gone-good,« Emma's telepathic voice informed him, 'feeling' amused. »However, it stems from your faith in the power of love, which is the core of your belief system and therefore a key component of your personality. I doubt therapy would help.«
Bobby sighed. According to his alarm clock, it was only an hour after he'd gone to bed.
»I'll report as much to Scott.«
"So long as you leave out the part at the end," he said to the air.
»I'll think about it.«
Bobby groaned and covered his face with a pillow. He seriously considered just getting up for a while, even though he was still tired. Psychoanalyzing a guy in his sleep wasn't fair!
»Good night,« Emma said, and just like that, he was out like a light.
FIN
Cross-posted to frozen_breaths.