Author Note: TW - sexual assault. Sexuality talk. And I realize this is not canon for either Iceman or the White Queen. But, in this little universe pocket I've created, it works.

St. California

By Mice

Part 2: Santa Monica

-Santa Monica-

June in Southern Los Angeles should be warm from morning to midnight, but Santa Monica is different. Not dirty enough to be Venice, too rent controlled to be Malibu. It's a meeting point of wealth, privilege and…

"You get used to seeing homeless crapping on the beach."

"Drake, one does not get used to it. You grow numb and uncaring. You figure it is someone else's problem."

"You're the CEO, you could do something about that."

"My cause is mutant equality."

"What if that guy was a mutant?"

"He isn't. Nor is he a woman - I know you were about to ask. And that, too, is different." Emma took a sip of an exceptionally weather poor choice of a mojito. The mint was very fresh and crisp. She had the foresight and the fashion sense to bring gloves to this bar on the beach at night.

"Being a woman always makes it different. Dahlia talks a lot about what it was like before, when she presented as a man. And all the crap she deals with now. And she's a mutant." Bobby drank his old fashioned, wishing he had the power to create more whiskey than ice. Not that he could create ice right now, even if he wanted to.

"You are definitely not the same boy who went around demanding answers for questions you never asked."

"How do you mean?" "You were privileged."

Bobby took a deep breath. "Yeah. And I never wanted to admit that. Poor me, I'm a white male with a living family who didn't disown me who could pass for human and straight." Bobby held up his hand. "Before you say anything, I lived with how many telepaths and nobody picked up on it? I could pass for straight. Or maybe just being too immature."

"At least you can admit all that. Some men would just trip on how bad they had it."

"Well, you've never had dinner with my parents but, again, I have…had parents to have dinner with. My mom died a while back. And my grandmother isn't doing so well right now…"

"The path to self discovery is not an easy one. Especially when you are going from one catastrophic life event to another. It takes a lot for a body to heal. To regenerate. To get out of a frozen state."

"How about to get into a diamond state?"

"Truly, a trauma response."

He drummed his fingers on the table to put his words in order. "My grandmother - Nan - said something to me recently that made me wonder if we have more in common than I thought."

"She thinks you are an empath?"

"And to shut it out, my powers evolved to freezing myself."

"A literal trauma response. Freeze or flight - your body chose freeze."

"And now, I can't freeze anymore."

"And you're now more open to the world than you ever were before. Seems that you have thawed."

"That's why I want to talk to you about Lorna Dane."

Emma took another sip of her drink, running through what she had heard and the impressions she was getting. She recalled that there was a sort-of love triangle between Bobby, Lorna Dane and Scott Summers' brother Alex back when they were all teenagers. Lorna obviously chose Alex. There were some rumors of what happened between Bobby and Lorna privately. Bobby was sore at Alex for some time, but everything seemed to be under the bridge, but never friendly. In fact, whenever she thought of it, there was always a gentle nudging to change the subject coming from somewhere.

A gloved hand waved away her thoughts - it was her own. "I'm glad I brought gloves with me. This beach is —"

"Emma." Bobby took her hand that was tracing in the air. "This is the fifth time I've tried to talk to you about this tonight. And then you go off like a goldfish. Focus."

She woke up from the distraction. "What is that?"

"A mental lock. From a friend. For if anyone tried to pry, they would just…go think of something else."

"Not Xavier…it was Jean."

The shame was on his face. "I took it too far. Nobody knew I was gay because I didn't want to admit it. You can't zero in if you can't tell yourself the truth. I was already a mutant, I didn't want to deal with more. With being considered lesser than I already was."

"That would have been a lot for anyone, Bobby."

"But I fucked up, Emma. There was a wedding and we all had hotel rooms in New York. Lorna invited me into her room. I felt like this was it. I could finally prove to myself that I was normal - at least with this one thing. She was flirting with me, touching me, I thought this was my shot. So, I engaged. Her eyes were on the door, but I just thought she was nervous. As time went on, we got further along, but then..she said to stop. It was so quiet so I pretended I didn't hear it and just kept going. Because I was so close to being normal."

"And she tried to stop it again?"

"Yes. Still quiet. Her eyes glued to the door. And I said, "I'm almost done." And then I was."

"Did you feel normal?"

"I definitely felt different. I couldn't put it into words. I didn't have time. Alex came knocking on the door looking for Lorna. And I figured out that she had come to my room to make Alex jealous. She kept looking at the door because she was waiting for Alex to interrupt us. She thought he'd find her right away and "save" her. He didn't. He was pissed and threw me out into the hall. Jean came out. She had just started dealing with her telepathy and saw what had happened. She put a lock on it before any of it could get out. She swore to me that none of it would ever get out. Because it couldn't get out. It would make everything worse."

Emma leaned back in her chair, unblinking. This was a total Jean move. The perfect daughter of a college professor, growing up in privilege. The pressure to be perfect. And having then first discovered she was telepathic, the ability to make sure her friends were also perfect. "So she created that lock. What did you think had happened after that?"

"Not that. I hadn't remembered any of it for years. I just thought Alex came in on us innocently talking and made a scene."

"What made you remember?"

"Annie Peckinpaugh."

"Who?"

"Hank's protege? She's engaged to Sean Cassidy now?"

"Her? How?"

"They actually don't live too far from here. She helped him—"

"Not that. How did she help you?" Emma made a note to check in with Sean.

"Annie has perfect memory. I think that's her main power. We slept together for a while. Then she began having my memories. That unlocked a lot of my memories. That with my mom dying, that's when I began using."

"How did Jean take this?"

"Not well. She didn't really like Annie. Maybe she knew what she'd unlock."

Emma made a note to check in with Annie as well. "Robert, did you sleep with Jubilee?"

"I thought it would make me normal. It felt like normal." Bobby shook his head. "I'm not normal, Emma. Did you see any of this when you took over my body?"

Her breath grew heavy. She remembered the gentle nudge and fought to focus. "No. To be honest, I didn't really think of looking for any dark secrets."

"Just my sexuality?"

"I didn't need to go inside of you to know."

Bobby clutched a linen napkin on the table and brought it to his head. He felt hot and dizzy. "I don't know how to make any of that right. I'm not the good guy in any of those situations."

"And that realization coincided with you quitting the X-Men."

He nodded. "I'm not a hero."

—Santa Monica Beach—

Emma and Bobby walked on the rough sand. It was nearly morning. The sky had stars but no moon.

"You know, it's not easy to realize your sexuality."

"Maybe not when you're you."

"Oh? I just came out fully formed and ready for sex?"

Bobby stopped walking. "I don't mean to offend you, Emma, but—"

"Bobby, it's going to take a lot more than that to offend me. I know Sebastian Shaw."

"Oh."

Emma nudged him to keep walking, holding onto his arm. "Remember what I told you earlier about control and fashion and sex?"

"Thank you again for switching clothes with me. You were right. It made me feel very powerful."

"Did you feel the eyes on you?"

"Yes."

"Did it make you feel wanted?"

"Yes."

"Did it make you want any of them?"

"No."

Emma turned them both to face the ocean. "So why do people assume that I am always on the verge of some sort of orgasm?"

"Do…you not want that?"

"I've gone through the process to make sure that I was normal. After some trial and error, I just realized that I was different. And I learned how to project myself quite quickly when the time came to seduction. You know, for power. For appearances. And, frankly, I'm just not good with physical touch. The fantasy, the speculation that I am some sort of sexually charged fuck doll is far more powerful than the truth."

"That you're asexual?"

Emma took a deep breath. "That's my secret."

"I thought your secret was your old nose?"

"That secret is that I couldn't always project the right one and I had to admit defeat and go under the knife. I have always been open to the work I've had done."

The moon, full, peeked itself over the horizon and Emma curled up under Bobby's arm.

"Why do you feel safe around me?"

"Well, I know your terrible secrets, you know mine. I don't think you need to prove again that you're normal because, Drake, you know that there is no such thing as normal for anybody. There's only misery disguised as unattainable goals. Now. Are you going to watch this moonrise with me or not?"

Bobby and Emma stared at the horizon. The earth fell silent, like when snow falls in the dark. And as the moon had rose entirely out of the sea, challenging the earth in size for planetary dominance, a homeless man crapped on the beach.

And this was normal for Santa Monica.