Snow

Baxter Building...

Sue Storm stared at me, perplexed by the intricate puzzle that is the life of Robert Drake, a hard worker who has a focus driven mindset on random subjects. A teenager that comes off as unsociable and awkward, but cares deeply for the ones that are close to him.

Sipping my coffee, Sue stared at me and my baggy clothes. "Sooo...you haven't said anything the entire way back home."

"How old are you really?" She asked questionably.

"What did my resume say?"

"18."

"That old."

"How were you able to fight those guys?"

"Trained."

"Who trained you?"

"An old guy."

"Were you not cold?"

"Very."

"Grrghhhh!!!"

Our back and forth question and answering caused Sue to get frustrated at my lack of interest in the conversation. The tension continued to thicken as Sue glared at me, while I sat sipping coffee unbothered by her stares.

"Take off your shirt." Sue suddenly ordered.

*Cough* I choked on my coffee at her out of the blue orders, "...Umm...What?"

She narrowed her eyes and stood up, walking towards me. "I need to check your body for injuries."

I took on her challenge and stripped out of my baggy long sleeved shirt, revealing my lean body with toned and compact muscles. Sue's eyes went wide and her face reddened as her eyes traced every inch of my body.

"You done?" Feeling a bit uncomfortable at a woman staring at my naked body, I haven't had such intimate interactions with a girl since Emma.

Sue snapped out of her daze, "Y-Yeah, you're good." She looked away and tended to Reed's eye while I redress leaving us in a awkward situation. Feeling awkward I said good night and went home.

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Shield Base....

"Commander Hill, we have detected repeating abnormal ocean currents in the South Atlantic region."

Maria Hill walked over to the SHIELD agent behind a computer and looked closely at the screen showing the ocean. "And...that entails what?"

"Oh...umm...it means that either large rocks are moving, or one very large oceanic creature disrupting the currents." The flustered agent explained.

Maria Hill furrowed her eyebrows and looked intensely at the image of the empty ocean, "Monitor the changes. If its dangerous, then we report it to the Director." Hill decided.

"Right away ma'am."

Hill let out a deep sigh and looked towards Fury yelling at a group of agents, "He's got a lot on his plate."

"If I may ask ma'am. What happened?" The timid agent asked.

Maria Hill stared at the furious Fury with tired eyes, "There has been a wave of unnatural and dangerous events happening, and we have no way of stopping them."

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Baxter Building.....

"Boom! Told you ya. You can't beat me at this game Johnny." I smugly set down the PS2 controller and smirked at the defeated 13 year old boy.

"What...how...and you used YAMCHA!!" Johnny shouted in frustration as I defeated him in Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkachi for the fifth time in the row.

We were lounging around in the rec room, being an assistant in the holiday season not much has to be done. So Johnny invited me to play some games, which I dominated him at.

Johnny laid back and let out a deep sigh lamenting his pitiful losses. "Hey don't you have school?" Johnny scoffed at my question and sat up straight.

"I don't really need to go. Sue makes me go to make friends my age." Johnny sighed and walked to a nearby sandbag, "What I really want to do is find that Iceman guy."

'Huh, I forgot that Storm's are geniuses.' I walked around and melted in a beanbag chair staring at little Johnny strangely. "Why do you wanna find this Ice guy?"

Johnny who was dancing and jabbing at the sandbag stopped and looked at me with excitement. "Are you kidding! This guy is like the first real superhero, since Captain America!" Johnny bounced around and rambled animatedly, "I wanna be out there too, fighting crime, saving damsels in distress. That would be so fun. Plus he controls ICE how cool is that!!"

My figure visibly sagged and I melted into the beanbag more and more, "Being a hero is fun and all, but you could get seriously hurt or worse the people around you get hurt..." I stared into the blank ceiling remembering the thugs I ice'd in my short time as a hero. "Isn't Iceman a killer though?"

"WHAT! NO!" Johnny recoiled in shock and denied the tabloid news, "That had to be his arch nemesis framing him or The Bugle doing something shady." Johnny kept playing with the sandbag, until he punched too hard and hurt his fist.

"Ahhh!!!" He held his hand in pain, while I ignored his ongoing stupidity that happens everyday.

"Thats 5 times this week mate." I counted out and provided some advice, "Learn how to throw a punch or you'll hurt yourself."

He flexed and stretched his hand to get the numb feeling out when he suddenly remembered something. "Hey! Robbie, you can fight right?!?"

My sleepy eyes jolted awake at the alarming statement, but then closed again with no worries. "Sue told you..."

"Yea, she kept going on and on about it for a week now. You have to teach me." Johnny slid and kneeled next to my beanbagged form begging me. "Please make me your disciple, master."

"Pffft...I would but I'm too lazy." I chuckled at his display but shook my head no. I spotted a curious Sue listening at our conversation by the door and made my way to her. We both walked to an open balcony leaving a saddened Johnny behind.

Sue leaned on the railing staring at the bright city below lighting up the night sky. I settled next to her, leaning back on the railing and looking up at the dark and empty sky.

"You know, Johnny's obsession with being a hero only got more intense ever since our dad died." She confessed with a sad smile, "Everyone looked after him and all he wanted to do was help out."

"Yeah? What about you?"

She turned to me confused, "You should talk about it to move on, drinking at some bar isn't going to help." I spoke referring to her night out at the bar.

"Like you would know anything about losing your parents..." Sue said dismissively.

I clenched my eyes at her accusation, but they turned soft as I looked into her grieving eyes.

"I know what its like to lose. To feel so desperately that its not real, but to wake up and face reality."

My hands started to fiddle with my mother's necklace, recalling the memories and rollercoaster of emotions of killing my parents, and then finding them alive only for them not to know who I am.

"My parents are gone too...but I'm the same, I can't move on. Becoming emotionally numb is not healthy. So you need to move on." I confided.

Sue gasped in shock, "I-I'm sorry. I didn't know." She lay a gentle hand on my arm to provide comfort, "What did you do to cope with the grief."

My eyes shadowed as I spoke in an empty voice that startled Sue, "I became cold."

I quickly plastered a happy smile on my face, "I'm usually not the type to share. So maybe a story for another time."

Sue could see through my fake smile and was about to say something, but a drop of rain fell on her face, disrupting her thoughts.

"Ugh...rain." She turned around to wipe the raindrop off, "It's December. It should be snow. Snow would be way better than rain."

I let out a small smile and hid a hand behind my back, turning it into ice and shooting a blast of frost into the drizzling sky. The rain gradually turned into white snow. All the while I never noticed the curious little kid eavesdropping on us and his little scurry off in shock.

"Snow is pretty nice..." I pointed out, stretching my hand and catching drops of snow. Sue was a bit surprised at the sudden change in weather, but went along with it. She turned to see my content face along the falling snow.

"You know, I never got to say thank you for saving me at the bar."

I raised my eyebrow at her recollection, "Yea, plus you raped me with your eyes. So thats two you owe me."

She blushed red as she remembered forcing me to strip. "How about I buy you dinner?"

"Sure!" I happily replied, "I love food. Chinese? Korean?"

I began listing out different restaurants and different cultures being naive about Sue's question. All the while she just smiled happily, glad that I agreed.

*BOOM!!* *BOOM!!* *BOOM!!*

The explosions fired one after another, with different pauses in between. We looked out to see massive flames centering in downtown Manhattan.

"What's going on?!?" Ben Grimm, followed by Reed and Johnny, came running out into the balcony to see the aftermath of the explosions.

"Some sort of attack?" Reed asked out loud, his right eye still had a faint outline of purple.

My phone suddenly rang, seeing it was Freddie, I stepped away from the concerned group to take the call. But a nervous pair of eyes followed my moves.

"Freddie, what's going on?" Hearing loud sirens, people screaming and shouting. I deduced he was near the explosions.

"Kid, we need you."

"What?"

"(Sighs) You've seen the explosions? The Professor thinks it's a mutant causing all of it, and not on purpose."

I rubbed my eyes tiredly, a little annoyed thinking about Xavier. "Can't baldy just put the mutant to sleep?"

I heard a nervous chuckle on the other side of the call, "Thing is...Xavier told me that he doesn't want to be put on the spotlight yet. There are fire and rescue, plus police all over the kid causing it. So he told me to call you. There's a suit at the apartment that he ordered for you, something about being independent."

My eyes hardened at the Xavier's cowardice, "So, I get to solve this my way. Fine."

"Hey! Don't freeze the entire place, I'm down here too."

I hanged up and look back to the group and tried to quietly slip away, but Sue caught me asking where I'm going. "Ummm, my roommate called and said our apartment might have been caught in the blast." I quickly made up a lie, they mostly believed me except a skeptical Johnny.

"We should come with you." Reed offered.

"NO!" I shouted abruptly, "I-I mean it's safer here, plus I can take care of myself." I quickly left the room to avoid anymore questions and ran to my apartment.

Quickly reaching the apartment, I found the new suit under the couch. The suit is different from the X-men uniforms, as this one is mainly a long black jacket reaching my knees with a blue snowflake pattern at the cuffs and end of my coat and an icy blue trim all around. Putting on the navy blue long sleeved buttoned shirt and black pants and boots, I complete my image.

'(Sighs) Looks like Iceman is coming back.' I move throughout the apartment and open a window. My face starts to become obscure as it turns into ice and a frozen blue hood starts to form around my head. I focus my mind as I gradually turn into mist and disappear from the room.

"Time to go public."