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fembuckTitle: Another Day in Paradise
Fandom: X-Men
Pairing: Jean/Emma
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine, the characters belong to Marvel and I’m just borrowing them for a spell.
Summary: A brief look into Jean and Emma’s life together amid the chaos of life at the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters. The story is a companion piece to my story Underneath it All, and takes place about a year after the events depicted in that story.
xxx
Part 2
Danger Room – Morning - The Next Day
Emma crossed her legs and leaned back, bracing her arms behind her on the most comfortable rock she could find, and then tilted her head back allowing the tropical sunshine to warm her face. Kitty was glaring daggers at her from her left, while Ororo ocularly attacked her from the right. It was just like old times and Emma had to fight the urge to smirk. Her little demonstration the day before hadn’t gone over any better with the rest of the team than it had with Jean, and they had not tried to hide their displeasure from her.
Emma was distracted from her teammates hateful gazes a few moments later however, when the doors to the Danger Room opened and Jean and Scott walked in, Scott carrying a large case in his hands, as they made their way over to the rest of the group.
~What are you two up to?~ Emma asked as Jean pushed on her shoulders until she shoved over enough that the redhead could take a seat on her rock as well.
Jean simply smiled in response to the question, which made Emma frown and eventually turn away from Jean in a huff when the redhead remained silent.
“I know that we’ve started off the year rather … colourfully,” Jean began once Scott had found a place to sit and nodded at her to begin.
“Actually, I’d say there was a distinct lack of colour,” Kitty piped up coldly, eyeing Emma and her completely white ensemble, “and feeling,” she continued disdainfully as Emma calmly met her eyes.
“Kitty,” Jean said sharply turning her gaze on the young brunette. “I realize that Emma’s little stunt yesterday,” she continued ignoring the indignant look her lover sent her, “left everyone less than thrilled, and I assure you there will not be a repeat,” she continued meeting Emma’s eyes for that and holding them for a couple of seconds. “However, there are more important issues that we need to focus our attention on at the moment.”
With that said, Jean then inclined her head towards Scott, passing the proverbial conch-shell over to him. Professor Xavier had left her, and to the befuddlement of many, Emma, in charge of the institute after he left, but Scott was still the team leader and she was more than happy to leave the more technical aspects of X-Men operations up to him.
“We’re a team,” Scott began standing up. “We’re a super hero team. And it’s time we started acting like one,” he continued turning to look at all of the assembled members of the team as he spoke, his eyes lingering on Emma for a quite a while longer than anyone else.
Emma met his gaze blandly for a moment, and then sighed deeply before lowering her head to consider her nails. Scott bristled at the dismissal, as he usually bristled when forced to endure Emma’s presence, but Logan interrupted before he could respond to Emma’s scorn.
“Hoa, whoa … wait. This is gonna be about tights, isn’t it?” Logan growled impatiently, drawing Scott’s attention over to him.
“Don’t worry, dear. They’ll be thermal,” Emma piped up, smiling as she turned to face Logan. “You won’t have to worry if it’s cold out,” she continued, dropping her gaze to eyeball his crotch.
Despite herself, Jean’s lips curved up into a smile, but she quickly lifted her hand to cover mouth when Logan’s brows creased together until he was glowering at Emma.
“Don’t matter how cold it is outside,” Logan muttered darkly still scowling at Emma, “there’s always something to see.”
Emma’s smile widened until it was practically predatory and her lips parted to speak, but before she could get a single syllable out of her mouth, Jean reached over whacked Emma solidly on the arm.
“If Emma’s through dazzling us all with her wit, let’s get back on topic. To answer your question Logan, it’s about everything,” Scott continued giving Emma the stink-eye one more time before he set about ignoring her all together. “There’s truth and there’s perception. Ideally the two would meet, would exist in harmony but the reality is that what is true and what is perceived to be true are often not the same,” Scott continued beginning to pace. “The truth is that we’ve saved the world enough times that there should be a statutory holiday named after us.”
~Most of us anyway~ Kitty thought cutting her eyes at Emma who to her extreme annoyance winked at her in response.
“That’s what we do. That’s what we’re here for. The general public’s perception of us is far different, however. As far as most of them are concerned we’re freaks … or worse,” Scott went on. “The fear is that we’re Magneto’s waiting happen.”
“Still don’t explain the tights,” Logan grumbled to himself as Scott puffed out his chest chugging ahead with his speech full speed.
“We’ve been taking it on the chin for so long, just trying to keep them from being wiped out that I think we’ve forgotten we have a purpose. I know that the rest of the world has,” he continued as Emma looked around raising a perfectly arched eyebrow.
“How dramatic,” she drawled a second later. “Certainly I appreciate that,” she went on meeting Scott’s gaze as much as anyone could. “But I’m not sure the others have gotten your visual metaphor,” she continued wiggling her toes in the water that surrounded them, before checking on how her rock – New Zealand it seemed – was doing underneath her.
She’d thought about inquiring about the miniature version of the planet that they were traipsing around on as the others found continents to sit on, but she hadn’t thought that she’d actually get a response.
“Actually, that was my doing,” Hank interjected before Scott could respond to Emma. “I programmed the Danger Room to replicate Hawaii because I thought it would create a relaxed atmosphere. Obviously I should have been more specific about the scale,” he finished watching as Kitty propped her foot on Japan and then sighed wistfully.
“Remember when this place was just flame-throwers and rotating knives? I miss that. Now I have cloud-hair,” she bemoaned causing Ororo to smirk.
“If everyone’s through digressing, I was in the middle of a speech,” Scott sighed before waiting for everyone to turn their attention to him again. “The point is this – we need to get into the world ...saving lives, helping with disaster relief, hell even rescuing cats in trees. We need to present ourselves as a team of bonafide heroes.”
“Here come the tights,” Logan muttered.
“That’s right Logan,” Jean piped up quickly when Scott’s head whipped around to glare at the man on his left.
Logan and Scott had been getting along better since Jean and Scott’s divorce, but they weren’t bosom buddies by any stretch of the imagination and Jean wanted to avoid an altercation. She had fallen out of the habit of breaking up fights over the past year since Emma and Logan were able to converse civilly with other, most of the time at least. And, when Emma’s sense of humor, did manage to rile Logan up, the two of them still never came close to trading blows. Jean wasn’t sure whether it was a result of Logan not wanting to hit a girl, or if it was due to the fact if he tried to hit her Emma would make him think he was a girl, but she was glad that she didn’t have to deal with breaking up brawls between them every other day.
“Superheroes wear costumes,” Jean continued when Logan turned his attention towards her, breaking the tense eye-contact between himself and Scott. “I know that we already have uniforms, but I can safely tell you that the black leather we’ve been sporting … well, it makes people nervous. A change is definitely in order.”
“So tights,” Logan concluded.
“Tights,” Jean confirmed before nodding to Scott who grudgingly moved over to the box he had brought in with him.
“I’ve already got an outfit,” Emma drawled as Scott carried the box into the Pacific Ocean and set it down.
“We’ve made some modifications,” Jean replied glancing over at Emma as she struggled to find a way to tell her that her White Queen outfit was far too BDSM and well … slutty, without Emma taking it badly. “Your previous … outfit, doesn’t exactly convey the … uh, message we were looking for.”
“Yeah, I think we’re going more for truth, justice and the American way, than screwing for humanity,” Kitty offered remembering exactly what Emma’s old outfit looked like … or didn’t since there really wasn’t much of it to see. She still didn’t understand how the bra stayed up. It defied reason … and gravity, and it upset and disturbed Kitty in a deep and enduring way that only Emma Frost was capable of.
“Well I wouldn’t,” Jean began glancing over at Kitty and frowning slightly as Emma’s head snapped around to pierce the brunette with a positively arctic glare. “I mean, granted there will be less boobs,” Jean continued feeling that cool gaze turn on her. “But … um, it’s still white,” she offered shooting Emma her most charming smile. “With a cape,” she added hopefully.
~I thought you liked my outfit~ Emma thought eying Jean as she moved around the group helping Scott hand out the costumes.
~Maybe I’m being possessive~ Jean responded trying to keep her face neutral as she moved among the group. ~Maybe I want to leave marks your other outfit wouldn’t hide~
Emma licked her lips and then gracefully extended her hand to accept the outfit Scott was holding out for her. He waited for a second as if anticipating some kind of sarcastic comment or complaint but she simply said ‘thank you’ much to his surprise and suspicion.
The truth was that as visually stunning as her other outfit was that it was somewhat impractical at times and it left her physically vulnerable when she was not in her diamond form. It was – difficult as it would be for most of the people in the Danger Room to believe – for sentimental reasons that she was loathe to give up wearing her White Queen outfit. However, if Jean was true to her word, Emma was sure that she could find a way to cope with the loss of her beloved Hellfire attire.
~Darling, if you keep up such talk I’ll have no choice but to strip you naked and ravish you on Russia, spectators be damned~ Emma mentally drawled to Jean, a pleased smile touching her lips a second later when she saw Jean pause and then breathe in deeply on her way to Ororo.
~If you come back in your White Queen outfit after they leave … I’ll let you~ Jean purred back, a slight blush touching her fair cheeks as she handed Ororo’s new costume to her.
Their psychic link allowed Emma to feel what Jean was feeling as well as to hear the redhead’s thoughts, and to her surprise and immense delight she could tell that Jean meant it.
~The Danger Room isn’t exactly secure, Tiger. Someone could walk in on us as I plow your fertile fields~ Emma sent to Jean, crossing her legs as excitement began to thrum through her body.
Emma herself was not concerned about being caught in the act. As a member of the Hellfire club, she had engaged in erotic activities in rooms full of people before, so the idea of one of their teammates stumbling upon them in throes of passion did not disconcert her at all. In fact, she found the possibility of discovery quite thrilling. She suspected that Jean would not enjoy being found in a compromising position by one of the others however, and felt it was her duty to warn the redhead – even if it meant playing Mistress and Pawn in their bedroom.
~I know~ Jean whispered, her mental voice tickling Emma’s mind in the most pleasant way. ~That’s why I want it. The possibility of discovery is … ~ Jean moaned softly in her mind, knowing that hearing her excitement would make Emma throb.
As much as the members of the team liked to talk about how selfish Emma could be, in the bedroom the blonde was very giving. Emma found great delight in giving Jean pleasure, to the point where Jean sometimes had to wrestle Emma underneath her in order to touch the blonde – though often Emma exhausted her to such a degree that it was a struggle for Jean simply to remain conscious let alone fight Emma for dominance.
~You make my heart sing~ Emma drawled playfully, though the wave of emotion that followed was raw and naked, conveying the utter sincerity of her words.
Jean’s eyelashes fluttered and then slipped closed as the wave of love Emma released washed over her. Her telepathy had been a cause of some angst for Jean as an adolescent and then again as an adult. Despite the trouble it sometimes caused, she had been aware of the utility of it however, and had always been grateful for the help it allowed her provide. She had never understood the true beauty of her power until Emma however. She had never comprehended its true splendor until she felt Emma’s love flowing over every inch of her. She had heard it said before that there were some things in life that words would never be able to properly express no matter how proficient the artist wielding them, and many times in her life and in her marriage Jean had felt that devastating reality. And, having struggled, as all people struggled, to make herself understood using a medium that could never hope to satisfy a users needs, Jean knew how lucky, how blessed she was that her telepathy now allowed her to feel and express those things that words were too inadequate to convey.
“They’re doing it again,” Logan complained loudly as Jean and Emma silently stared at each other.
“What?” Scott asked looking between Jean and Emma with a slightly worried expression on his face. The others in the room didn’t seem particularly alarmed, but he had never seen Jean zone out so completely before, or Emma for that matter, and it disturbed him a bit.
“That thing that they do, where they stare at each other like nothing else matters in the world until everyone around them feels like insignificant spec of dust, or worse, like a pervy voyeur peeping into people’s windows watching them grope on the couch,” Kitty responded realizing that Scott probably wouldn’t have seen Emma and Jean like that before since he avoided non-work related socializing if he knew that Emma was going to be present. “Hey, does anyone have a sharpie? I wanna give Frosty a mustache.”
“Touch me and you’ll spend the rest of your life barking at cars and peeing on fire hydrants,” Emma declared, suddenly turning to lance Kitty with her piercing blue eyes. “Something in the terrier family I think. They’re yappy, aren’t they?”
Kitty’s eyes narrowed indignantly and Jean sighed softly and took a seat knowing that Emma and Kitty were about to put on quite a show.
TBC…
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 01:59 am (UTC)I particularly loved the absolute sincerity of Emma and Jean's interactions, how adorably in love they both are.
This as a whole was wonderful, and if I were to pick my favourite bits, I'd have to quote everything. :P
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 02:34 am (UTC)I really enjoy the way you write these characters. How both Jean and Emma seem to simply become more when they interact with each other. Jean seems to have more confidence in herself and Emma seems more compassionate, despite herself.
And this made me laugh:
Kitty's attitude is super amusing.
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Date: 2011-02-17 04:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 05:55 pm (UTC)looking forward to the next chapter!
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Date: 2011-02-18 04:00 pm (UTC)I love the Kitty and Emma dynamics. Too funny.
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Date: 2011-02-18 10:48 pm (UTC)And yay for psychic love fests in front of the team!
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Date: 2011-02-20 01:23 am (UTC)I think it'd be epic if you took on the Cassandra Nova possession thing from Astonishing! That had to be my favourite comic of all time. : )
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Date: 2011-02-20 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-20 04:41 am (UTC)