Greater Than What We Suffer (Part Eight)

I dreaded this more than anything else I'd had to do all day long, and I had only been thinking about doing it for the hour that I had been off of the plane.

Standing in front of the office of one Emma Frost, I hesitated to knock on the door. The last time we had been in one another's presence hadn't ended particularly well. I had been a little shit, and this lady used to be a badass supervillain. She absolutely wouldn't have forgotten what I'd said.

Oh well. At that point, I couldn't just turn around and leave. It would have taken more effort to do that than to raise my hand.

*KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!*

"Come in."

Whether she knew it was me before I had entered, I didn't know. I couldn't tell by looking at her if she was surprised. She was definitely still angry though. The look she gave me could have frozen a burning flame solid.

There was a decided amount of sharpness in the first words out of her mouth, as passive as they were, "I didn't expect to see you here without being told to be."

Fair enough. It was a last second plan, so even I didn't expect to be there that night, "I'll be honest, when I came over here I was expecting you to be gone until tomorrow," I took my hat off and ran my fingers through my curly hair, "I kind of wish you were, so I could say I tried without, you know, actually having to do this awkward crap."

Being vague was only annoying her, which I didn't have to try had to do given our thus far strenuous relationship, "Tried what?" She asked, "Do you have something else to say to me Mister Marcher? I would have figured you got everything off of your chest that you needed to with your tongue lashing the other day."

I didn't sit down. I stood as tall as I could in front of her. For once, I wanted to be taken seriously. I wanted her to realize that I was more than just some kid, "I know you guys did your best. And I know that there's no way any of you could have ever wanted this to happen, but it did," It wasn't like any of us needed the reminder, but it had to be said, "I don't want any promises that it won't happen again. I've heard the stories. This place has been destroyed at least twice before I ever showed up here."

She couldn't see my point yet. To her, I was beating around the bush, and she didn't like me enough at the moment to go along with that, "So what do you want?"

Fine. To the heart of the matter then, "Would you guys listen?" I asked. She seemed to look even more miffed at me than before, but I had already started going down this particular path. At that point, there was no reason to stop, "I mean, you say all of this stuff, you and Cyclops, about how we're the next generation of X-Men, and how we have to be ready, and accept responsibility. I tried. I really did. I tried as hard as I could. Even to the point where I was ready to get thrown out of here for messing up the Danger Room."

"I don't regret stopping you from doing that," Miss Frost interrupted with a raise of her hand, "My intentions were to make sure the Danger Room stayed operational, true. But in full hindsight, if you had done such a thing, torn the central computer out, you would have given it the chance to gain a body separate from the room itself. We found that out the hard way. As fond of you as I may not be, I would never wish death on you."

Well, as much as I didn't like many things about Miss Frost, I didn't want any friction between us to be because I was acting like a brat, so I kept going, "When I brought the Danger Room stuff to anyone that could help, you guys made me feel like I was five years old, crying to my parents about the monster under my bed."

It was an error in judgment. An oversight. There was no worse thing to accept when it came to a disaster – that it could have been prevented, or at least contained if you looked as closely as you needed to.

"You're teaching us how to be heroes. So don't you think that you might want to hear us out when something's up?" That was all I wanted to say. I didn't hate her, or any of the other staff that overlooked what I had to say, but this crap couldn't happen again.

Miss Frost got up from her desk and stepped forward to me. I was several inches taller than her, but it felt like we were eye-to-eye. Was she reading my mind for something? I couldn't tell. And if she was, what for? "You find yourself in a very awkward time in your development, Mister Marcher," She said to me, "No longer a boy, yet not quite a man. Not quite an X-Man, yet so much more than a civilian."

It was a rotten place to be in. We were supposed to be getting groomed to take up the mantle in the place of the true heroes one day, yet we were looked upon as needing to be protected. They wanted us to be children, but they expected things from us that kids couldn't do.

I felt like a school for superheroes was a bit of an oxymoron. You couldn't dip your toes into that kind of pool. Either you were all in, or you were all out.

Miss Frost walked past me to a shelf where she had some kind of alcohol. She poured herself a small drink and walked over to the window that looked out onto the campus, "In a perfect world, these sorts of things would never be your problem. Not yet. This is a school. A place for young people like you to learn, and to feel safe while you do it. It's not supposed to be some kind of place where you feel like you have to fight for your lives. Even if that is in essence what we are preparing you to do as future X-Men, there will be a time for that. And it wasn't ever meant to be anytime this soon."

No kidding. It was a nice sentiment, but one that had already been ruined for me before any of this ever happened, "It doesn't look like the universe agrees."

She turned her head over her shoulder, a wry smile on her face, "Clearly. Then again, given the track record of previous members' ages, the universe never did care," The original X-Men were only my age when they were stuck saving the world. It was a lot to live up to, "Apparently our enemies, and only they, can decide when you are old enough to fight and die."

Well, they could throw me into whatever tiff they had with the elder X-Men. It wasn't like I had a choice, even if I was unwilling. But if they were expecting me to roll over and be cannon fodder meant to chip away at the morale of the senior staff, they could kneel down and suck it. I would microwave their faces off first. I said it before, but something like the Danger Room snafu was not going to happen again on my watch, and it absolutely wasn't going to happen to any of my people. Not as long as my incandescent ass continued to draw breath on this Earth.

If someone decided to try and take a shot at the junior varsity team because we were 'soft targets', it was up to us to make them see just how bad of a decision that was.

"Anyway, I came here to get that off of my chest, and to apologize," I choked that last word out. I was not a fan of apologies, "I'm not sorry for being mad. I meant what I said, for the most part. But I threw in the unnecessary stuff just to hurt you. I'm better than that. I don't need to take cheap shots to make a point."

I was pretty sure that none of this made anything better. She had pissed me off something fierce the other day with her little mind games. I had said some very heinous shit in return not too long ago, just to be hurtful. It was a start though, which was all I wanted out of it. I was still kind of hot, and I wouldn't be totally over everything for a while.

Miss Frost seemed to accept it though. She didn't tell me off outright, or dismiss me straight away. Maybe she wanted to get past it as well, "I didn't think you would be the type to seek me out to apologize once something was said and done."

She was still my headmistress. If I was going to be in the X-Men, she was probably going to be my boss. I could dislike her personally as much as I wanted. When the shit hit the fan, I needed her to know I was willing to let bygones be bygones; and vice-versa, "Well, I'm trying to be a good guy. Besides, you know what they say? 'We must be greater than what we suffer.'"

Like I said, I would be better. I had to be.

But oh, boy... this was only the beginning.