A Mutant's Mother's Day, a x-men: evolution fanfic

A MUTANT'S MOTHER'S DAY

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Emma Frost was not a morning person.

Pulling long hours as the headmistress of the Massachusetts Academy and as the White Queen of the Hellfire Club meant that she begrudged every extra minute that she wasn't asleep when she could've been.

Woe to her that woke the White Queen from her slumbers…

"HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!" Catseye shouted as she leapt on her adoptive mother's bed.

"Shar—OOF!" Frost grunted as the six foot tall, 140 lbs. girl landed on her.

"Catseye made Miss Frost breakfast!" She exclaimed happily, holding out a tray out slightly singed pancakes and burnt toast.

"How nice." Frost said as she bit into one, trying not to wince as she regretted never giving her daughters lessons in cooking…not that Frost knew how to cook either. That's what servants were for.

Catseye transformed into her feline form and curled up next to Frost and purred contentedly.

"Thank you Sharon, dear." Frost said, trying to keep her annoyance out of her voice. "I really appreciate breakfast." She added, stretching the truth to the breaking point. "Of course now I have to get purple cat hair out of a bedspread made of pure silk and gold." Frost thought to herself. "Oh joy."

There were times Frost wished Sharon had turned out more like Yvonne. While Sharon was certainly intelligent enough—her relative lack of sophistication aside she was capable of total recall (thanks to a photographic memory) and went from being totally illiterate when Frost first found her living as a cat to upper grade school reading levels in less than a year—but never proved as promising as Yvonne in other regards.

With Yvonne, Emma could see her becoming a member of the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle one day. With Sharon, Emma couldn't see that happening. Sharon wasn't capable of the ruthlessness Yvonne was. Sharon could be convinced to take part in an attack on the Friends of Humanity—because they were a genuine threat to other mutants and because Emma asked her—but not because it filled the designs of the Hellfire Club or because it brought their plans of world domination closer to fruition.

What's worse, Emma had discovered that Sharon had an instinctive knowledge of when she was being lied to and knew that Sharon would never countenance it, despite Sharon's love of Frost.

"Besides," Frost frowned. "She doesn't comprehend or accept the differences between the Hellions and the X-Men and Misfits: she doesn't understand why her personal friends—like Rahne—must be her team's foe."

Emma had not been thrilled with Sharon made friends with Xavier's pet wolf. The fact that they considered themselves "sisters" undermined Emma's hold over her. Only an idiot could fail to see how such relations had undermined and eventually ruined Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants—now the aptly named "Misfits."

Catseye stretched languidly and idly scratched at the bedspread. Frost winced. "Now I'm starting to understand why Magneto and Mystique didn't want their kids living with them." She thought darkly. Catseye yawned once and then—exhausted after getting up early and making breakfast—shut her eyes and started snoring…actually purring.

Mother's Day or no, Emma couldn't spend the whole day in bed. When she was sure that Catseye was asleep, Emma slid out of bed and got showered and dressed.

Brooding darkly over Sharon's—perceived—failings, Emma strode towards the Massachusetts Academy's research lab.

As she headed down towards the sub-basement, Emma ran into Sue Tenny; better known as the Sky High dropout-turned-villainess called (rather accurately in Emma's estimation) Royal Pain.

"How's the research going?" Emma asked. Royal Pain glared.

"It would be going better if my sons weren't idiots!" She spat. Emma raised her eyebrow. She knew that Royal Pain had a pair of children from a relationship she had before her Pacifier gun backfired. Though Pain's technopathic skills were the result of an X-Gene, neither of her children were mutants. Emma kept them around because they were—after a fashion—child geniuses…though the emphasis was mostly on the child part.

"What are they doing now?" Emma groaned. Royal Pain just pointed inside one of the laboratories where two boys were rolling about on the floor, wrestling with each other.

"You're a crotch-sniffing butt-head Jack!" A short-bald child in a green jumpsuit shouted.

"And you're a mini-sized bald loser! Even Omi looks better than you!" And older, red-headed boy wearing eyeliner snapped back.

"Gizmo! Spicer! Knock it off!" Frost barked at them.

"I knew I should've checked the background of the DNA donor." Tenny grumbled.

"Donor?" Tenny nodded.

"I had two of my eggs placed in cold storage—in case anything ever happened to me I'd have an heir or two to carry on my legacy. I looked up evil genius at a DNA bank and acquired the samples. Trouble is, I should've checked just who the donor was."

"And this mysterious donor would be—?" Frost asked when the door was flung open.

"Smoopsy-poo! Dr. Daddy's home!" Dr. Drakken grinned as he strode in.

"Oh god…" Tenny moaned, putting her head in her hands.

"You and Dr. Drakken? Geez, I knew you were a failure, but I thought you had some standards!" Emma gaped.

"That's enough!" Tenny retorted. "Don't you think I feel bad enough?"

"No!" Emma answered simply. "What are you even doing here Drakken?"

"Can't a father come to check on his boys?" He asked. "How are the doomsday weapons going kids?"

"Rassafrassam Titans blew it up last week." Gizmo muttered.

"My Jackbots got trashed by the Xiaolin Warriors…again." Jack Spicer admitted. Emma groaned and wondered why she kept them around.

"Boy geniuses my foot!" Emma thought. "I knew I should've just stuck with Dr. Octopus." Aloud she said, "Now that you've seen your…progeny…will you be leaving?"

"Well Shego stopped by to see her dad and I don't want to disturb them…I really don't want to disturb them." Drakken said, shuddering.

"Shego's father?" Emma asked as she stepped out of the lab and walked past one of the exercise rooms. Inside was Shego, locked in combat with a lean, deadly looking man in a mask.

"You've mastered the art of the death stroke and terror." He complimented her as they fought. "You've grown well, my child. My ravager, my…Rose."

"This rose has thorns father." Shego said. "Congratulations on joining the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle…Slade."

The man smiled underneath his orange and black facemask. "Indeed."

As Emma watched father and daughter spar she felt a stab of jealousy. Here was a child following in her parent's footsteps. The model apprentice. Emma would never have that with Sharon. Yvonne? Yes. Sharon? No.

In a dismal mood, Emma stormed out.

"Just what is the trouble with Sharon?" Emma asked herself. "She's playful, she's warm, she's compassionate…where did I go wrong with Sharon? How could she be such a disappointment? How did I fail? She's practically an X-Man! Why couldn't she be more like—" Emma paused.

Did she really want Sharon to be more like her? Emma's sister Adrienne was like her…that's why she tried to steal Emma's business and betrayed the Massachusetts Academy to the Purists in an attempt to kill her and her students.

Perhaps it was better that Sharon wasn't like her.

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Catseye woke up and stretched. She was a bit surprised when she found her mother gone but realized that she couldn't have spent the whole day in bed.

Still in cat form, she leapt down from off the bed and headed down the stairs and outside, back to her dorm. She still had her present to deliver to Miss Frost.

As she walked into the Hellions' Dorm, she had the misfortune of running into Monet and a few of the other Hellions skulking about in the kitchen. None of Catseye's usual defenders—Evan, Yvonne, and John Proudstar—were present.

"Look what the cat dragged in." Monet sneered. Catseye bared her teeth in a silent warning.

"Monet can go soak her head." Catseye rejoined as she turned to her human form. "Catseye busy. It's Mother's Day."

"Mother's Day?" Monet laughed. "Oh cat girl, don't tell me that you actually think of Miss Frost as your 'mommy', do you?" The other Hellions laughed nastily.

"Miss Frost is Catseye's foster mother." Catseye said stubbornly.

"Yeah, your foster mother." Monet stressed. "As in, your real mother abandoned you in the gutter where Miss Frost found you! Neither of them love you; you moronic evolutionary throwback! The only reason Miss Frost bothered was out of pure charity, at best. But the real reason is because you bring some more muscle to the team. That's all. You're not her daughter and she'll never see you as one."

"Shut up!" Catseye hissed, trying to maintain her composure. "Hateful, nasty girl see, you all see! Catseye loves Miss Frost and Miss Frost loves me! You'll see!" Catseye ran up to fetch her present from her room and stormed out of the dorm.

Catseye brushed aside Monet's remarks as the bitter, spiteful remarks that they were and knew Miss Frost cared about her. She knew it. She had to. After all, didn't Rahne email her to tell her about what she was going to do with her adoptive mother, Dr. Moira McTaggert? They would go horse-riding, swimming, have lunch in the wide open fields…why couldn't Catseye do that with Miss Frost? Sharon certainly didn't see any reason.

She spied Frost coming out of the building that housed the campus laboratories and gyms. Practically giddy with excitement, she hurried over to Emma, who still hadn't noticed her.

Frost was talking to herself. Catseye caught a snippet of it as she approached.

"...what is the trouble with Sharon?" Frost was saying. Catseye stopped dead in her tracks.

Miss Frost couldn't be talking about her, could she? "No," Catseye shook her head. "She couldn't have been." But she was.

"…where did I go wrong with Sharon? How could she be such a disappointment? How did I fail?"

"Wrong?" Catseye mewed silently. "Catseye is…disappointment? A failure?" Her eyes filled with tears. "Monet was right. Miss Frost doesn't love Catseye." Catseye dropped her present for Miss Frost with a clatter and started crying.

Emma, who had been too wrapped up in her own thoughts to detect Sharon's presence, heard the noise and looked around. She saw Sharon.

"Sharon—" Emma started. Sharon just turned on her heel and ran off, still crying.

"Miss Frost not love Catseye. No one loves Catseye." Sharon thought as she ran.

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"Sharon!" Emma shouted as she chased after her, cursing herself for wearing high heels. "Stop!" Emma lost sight of her in the woods outside the campus. "Blast it, where could she be?" She swore. Resorting to her telepathy, Emma started scanning for her wayward foster daughter.

"Sharon? Where are you?" Emma projected.

"GO AWAY!" Came Sharon's impassioned outburst, followed almost immediately by the more mournful plea, "Leave me 'lone…" Tracing her cry, Emma made her way through the woods. Sharon was crouched behind the trunk of a large tree, her knees drawn up under her chin and her face buried.

"Sharon…" Emma said softly. Catseye shook her head. "Sharon…please. Talk to me."

"Miss Frost hates Catseye." Sharon sniffed. "Heard you say so."

"I don't hate you Sharon," Emma said. "I never meant to hurt you. If you'll let me, I'll help take the hurt away." Sharon raised her head. Her hair was messy and her eyes moist and red.

"Miss Frost can't take hurt away." Sharon shook her head. "Never."

"Don't be so sure of that." Emma said as she reached into Sharon's mind. "I'm sure in time you'll—forget. Forget." She stressed as she erased the last few hours of Catseye's memories. Sharon fell asleep.

Sighing, Emma started carrying Sharon back to her dorm and put her to bed. When she awoke the next morning she would have no memory of anything that had happened. Emma chastised herself for being so dense as to speak her thoughts aloud.

Shortly afterwards, it occurred to her to retrieve the box Sharon had dropped earlier. Emma found the package where Sharon let it fell. It was brightly wrapped and topped with a bow.

Frost brought it back to her building on campus and opened it. She idly cleared away the packing foam to reveal the present inside. It was a framed picture of Emma and Sharon—in her human form—obviously taken not long after Sharon first arrived at the Academy. Sharon looked decidedly uncomfortable in her human form, but was smiling nonetheless. She had latched onto Emma as soon as she had shown Catseye that she could become human, instead of simply living as a cat, as she had been doing when Emma found her.

The frame had a label at the bottom that read: "World's Best Mother."

"No, I'm not." Emma said as she dropped the package—and the present—in the trash. "No I'm not."

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