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The Same Side of a Coin

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Emma Frost does not like her new team mates.

“These are my thoughts. You just have no regard for any of our privacy!”

Raven is probably her least favorite.

“Even Charles managed to stay out occasionally, and you must be at least as capable as him!”

Growing up with a telepathic brother, she’s convinced herself that she knows, that she can understand.

“Between the two of you, you’d think you would welcome the chance to relax instead of just using your powers every five minutes to…to spy on us!”

She doesn’t.

“Don't be a child. It takes far more energy to stop one's self from hearing thoughts than it would otherwise. It's a telepath's natural state.”

Not that Emma is surprised.

Nobody but a telepath could.

In the end, the curse of telepathy is to always understand, and to never be understood.

“It would be like asking you to stop being blue.”

Emma knows what she says, of course she does, and she smiles when Raven rages out of the room.

It doesn’t take long before the others come to Raven’s rescue. Emma is used to being alone, to being the odd man out. Nothing is more frightening than a telepath who refuses to behave, and no matter what Raven and Erik seem to think, none of them know how telepathy works.

‘Relax.’ What an interesting concept. Emma supposes Raven believes that the word ‘quiet’ means something to her as well.

Telepaths make people uncomfortable. Even those who refuse their existence.

But they’re needed, and there’s always someone cocky enough to believe that they can be controlled.

It doesn’t particularly bother Emma, but it does have something to do with why she’s always the right hand woman.

Erik is usually Raven’s main advocate.

“With the way you attack her, I sometimes wonder whose side you’re on, Ms. Frost.”

The funny thing about “Magneto” and “Mystique” is- they believe because of their experience with Charles they are experts.

They aren’t.

“I find her amusing.” Emma leaves out how frequently she finds his own hypocrisy incredibly amusing as well.

They like to think that she and Charles Xavier are very different, opposite sides of one coin.

They aren’t.

And she laughs silently, to herself, whenever Raven or Erik makes a remark about their “naïve” friend.

Emma doesn’t understand how Charles could have ever put up with them.

It is one of these days, one of these conversations, when the two of them are planning and ranting on and on about how Charles would never do this if he could just understand, that Emma’s laugh is not as silent as it was meant to be.

--

Mystique’s thoughts can be summarized thusly:

Just because she/he hears doesn’t mean that she/he can truly understand. It’s not like they’ve experienced these things themselves.

Wrong. It's not like reading a book. With the thoughts come everything; the emotions, and the pain.

Always so easy for him to say, he’s never had to hide.

Wrong. Emma knows that Charles has always hidden the true extent of his abilities.

….her, he promised never to read my mind…

Exactly.

…never had any regard for my privacy.
…personal thoughts, my secrets…
…never wanted anyone to know…
He never cared.

And so they go on and on…

--

Magneto's thoughts are blocked from her.

Emma doesn’t believe she needs to elaborate on that.

--

Emma’s quite sure she hasn’t laughed so hard in a long time. By the time she’s done, the two are glaring at her, which is really nothing new.

“I’m glad you find Charles’ naiveté so amusing.”

“Sugar, your brother was never the naïve one.” She laughs. “A naïve telepath, do you have any idea how ridiculous you two sound?”

Magneto rolls his eyes. This is a situation he thinks he’s used to. The arrogant telepath will now tell him the way of the world. He thinks her powers blind her to reality.

Emma sometimes wonders if he understands how predictable his thoughts are, even with the helmet.

“How dare you! Don’t presume that you know everything just because-“

And just like that, Emma is quite done.

“No, Mystique I think it is you who presume. The more you talk about Charles the more it amazes me that you could have lived with a man for so long and still know nothing. Naïve? Do you realize how silly you sound? Not only has that man seen the horrors of the world, he’s experienced them as well. That’s what happens when we manifest Mystique, we hear everything.”

The girl’s mind is racing.

…told him not to read me… And so on. When it comes to her brother, Mystique doesn’t think of much else.

“Yes yes yes, he promised never to read your thoughts. So once he was able to create proper shields you made sure he had to use them all the time. Really Raven, I’m shocked you’re so angry that you were always in a different form. It seems only fair to me.”

As always, little Raven looks to Magneto.

Emma doesn’t even try to hold in her disgust.

“You expected that man to completely block one of his natural senses. It’s like putting a blind fold over his eyes because you don’t like the way he’s looking at you.”

Of course, they both take this as a reference to Raven’s blue.

Well, if she’s going there, if they aren’t getting it, she may as well go all the way.

“You know what happens in the mind of a telepath when someone dies and our shields aren't up?”

She takes her eyes off of the girl and moves them towards Magneto. She doesn’t take his eyes off of him. “We feel it, every single agonizing moment. I can only wonder what it would be like to be actually inside a mind as it happens.”

She sees the recognition in Magneto’s eyes before his face goes blank again. She wants pain. She wants regret.

Not surprisingly, his eyes are filled with anger.

“For someone who could care less about Charles Xavier, you have a lot to say in his defense.”

Deflection. Typical. And….disappointing.

This is why Emma doesn’t bother with silly things like hope.

“You aren’t a telepath, and you’ll never understand.”

A telepath can never be understood. Mystique is already justifying her actions. Counting the wrongs she’s suffered at Charles’ hands (so dramatic), remembering how calm Charles always was, how in control. How Emma and Charles are two very different people, so Emma could never fully understand him.

Ridiculous.

“You’re drawing lines within your own kind.”

His comment stops her. Calmly, as is her nature, Emma walks back to Magneto. She moves as close as she can and puts a hand on the edge of his helmet, pulling his head even closer.

“You drew a line the moment you put on this helmet.”

He moves his head, sharply. She continues.

“The moment you decided that you would forever have an advantage over any telepath you will meet, even the ones who aren’t a threat. The moment you apparently considered them to be your greatest threat. The moment you decided that all abilities are to be cherished, except for the mind readers. Because it’s invasive, because it’s dangerous, because it makes you uncomfortable.”

His lips purse together.

“You want Charles to behave, you want him to behave the way you believe me to. You put up with me because you feel you need me. Because my power is useful as long as I’m using it on someone else. But it’s never beautiful. Not like Mystique.”

For the first time, Emma begins to wonder if Erik has done Charles a favor by leaving him. Or even if Charles wanted him to go.

“You have her walk around naked, her mutation, her blue in everyone’s faces. Which really, Raven, a man tells you to walk around naked so you do it?” She rolls her eyes. “We can’t block her out, which is the way you want it. It’s the way you want all…most of your ‘kind’ to be. In the open, no need to hide.”

The two of them are silent, stunned.

Raven is unsure. Because Erik makes sense, Erik is right. Emma is exaggerating.

What else are they supposed to do? Allow her to know their every secret? Every thought? Emma could reach into her mind and change it if she wanted to, is Raven supposed to just accept that? To let her rein free?

“The fact that I haven’t hasn’t even occurred to you.”

The blue girl’s eyes rise abruptly, as they usually do when Emma reads her thoughts.

“It’s the possibility, the very fact that I have this ability that frightens you. Don’t be ashamed, you aren’t any different than anyone else in that belief. It’s only to be expected.”

Her voice is not soothing. She doesn’t mean for it to be.

“Mutant and proud….except for me. Except for Charles.”

She turns to leave again. They don’t stop her.

She doesn’t expect them to.

Emma doesn’t need their acceptance. Emma isn’t Mystique. She is Emma Frost, and she needs no other name, because she is proud of the one she owns. She is proud of the power that she owns.

And while Magneto continues to move forth in this little war he naively seems to think will end with the humans, Emma is well aware that it will not end so easily.

Because a mutant mind works no differently than a human one.

Any telepath can tell you that.