Frozen Hearts—Underground

Frozen Hearts: Underground

**Hello again! Frozen and X-Men belong to their respective owners. Thanks for reading!

—Prue Lawrence**

Outside the door, the hallway beyond felt eerily dark. Elsa knew she was underground, but these halls felt oddly out of place. The thought about Xavier sending them down here unnerved her. Wouldn't he be able to send her a message, by telepathy? Unless he couldn't, unless… She shut her eyes tightly. No, Xavier was alright. He must have good reason for why he wasn't there. She breathed in and out, deeply.

"Are you going to move anytime soon?" Blake's drawling voice asked from behind her. He sighed, putting his hands in his pockets. Elsa forced herself not to strike at him, though the temptation was blindingly strong.

"If you get us killed, I so swear I will hunt you down and kill you as a poltergeist," she hissed, turning her back away from him again.

"How did Queen Elsa know what a poltergeist is?" The mockery in his voice felt all too exaggerated.

She held back the urge to snap at him again, but her shoulders tensed up. Blake, thankfully, didn't make another scathing comment.

Elsa hoped desperately just to see Logan. She imagined him with his metal claws out, all but snarling at anything that would hurt her. She shut her eyes tightly. She signed up for a high school, not for threats like this.

A hand took her arm, and she cried out when she felt herself more or less pressed up against someone. Someone with their forefinger up to their lips. Someone with short, blond hair.

"Bobby!" she threw her arms around him once he let go of her. "How did you find us here? Where's Logan and Rogue?"

Bobby must have taken in a mouthful of her milky blonde hair because his tone sounded very muffled. "Elsa, you have to be quiet. We split up down in the tunnels. We have a meeting place in five minutes. Come on." His arm slid around her middle, and Elsa felt herself coil. She nearly ran with him until she turned around.

Blake stared at the both of them, a sour look on his face.

Bobby looked confused as he looked back at the other boy. "Blake, aren't you coming?"

He sighed, his step sauntering. "Yeah. I'm coming."

Bobby looked meaningfully at Elsa. His expression said, What's with him?

Elsa shook her head. I'll tell you later.

Bobby jerked his head encouragingly at Blake. "Come on."

Elsa barely managed to get any idea of her surroundings as Bobby took her by the arm and guided her swiftly through the halls, all but sprinting. Lights flickered in the tunnels, though they resembled very strongly the high school above them. How Bobby knew his way through here somewhat disturbed Elsa. Bobby must have been in several situations like this before. Either that or he just memorized where he went.

Elsa gave up looking back at Blake, but she couldn't help feel a pang of regret at being so cold to him. She felt partly responsible for leaving Blake behind, but it wasn't exactly something she could control.

I was just scared, she thought to herself. Another thought occurred to her.

"Where's Xavier?" she asked, breathlessly.

Bobby shook his head. "I don't know."

Elsa wanted to explain her theory about Xavier being the one who sent them down into the tunnels in the first place, but as she looked ahead, she saw Logan and Rogue. Rogue had been pressing her gloved hands into her hair, looking exhilarated but scared. Logan saw them first, and he tapped Rogue's shoulder. Her face instantly brightened up at the sight of the three of them.

At least she doesn't hate me, Elsa thought, though the thought was ridiculous. Of course she did. But Elsa was with Rogue's boyfriend. A situation like this wouldn't bode very well. But Rogue's expression looked genuine.

Elsa took that as a good sign.

"Come on, kid!" Logan called, gesturing with his hands. Elsa never felt more relieved to see anyone, before. A look flashed across Rogue's face as she glanced at Elsa, then to Logan. Elsa wondered about it—for a moment. Then she cast it from her mind.

She ran to Logan, who gave her a deadly look. "Don't ever run off away from me again, you hear?" His voice was a snarl, his words a bark. Elsa got the feeling why people called Logan the "Wolverine." She sank under his gaze.

He grunted. "Come on. And you," he said, looking pointedly at Blake. "Catch up next time. And wipe that smirk off your face before I do it for you. This is a serious situation."

Elsa glanced back at Blake, whose face was now deadpan. Did he really think this situation was funny? She exchanged glances with Bobby, or would have if Bobby wasn't giving Blake a dirty look.

"Come on," he murmured to Elsa, and again, shamelessly before Rogue, grabbed at Elsa's arm and tugged him along with her to run with the group.

Logan led them to above ground, which Elsa felt grateful for. She didn't notice it much before, but as she was underground, she felt like her stomach convulsed. The group was resting in a small grove of trees; Logan left them to scout around the area, telling them to keep a constant lookout. Elsa felt a chill run down her spine when Logan left. She felt incredibly exposed. But Bobby, who sat next to her, made the anxiety more bearable.

Elsa glanced behind her, but the school was a small dot in the distance. She sat on a boulder with Bobby beside her. Blake sat in a tree above them, and Rogue said she was going to scout around for more vantage points where the enemy might be. The enemy. Elsa shivered, thinking again of Hans.

Her voice shook as she spoke to Bobby, quietly, though she hoped that Blake and Rogue wouldn't hear. "Any idea on who those men were?" She shivered. Bobby, in answer, took off his jacket and slipped it around her shoulders. His warmth radiated from it, making Elsa doubt his nickname as the "Iceman." She nodded her thanks.

"I dunno," he murmured back to her. "But it's happened before."

She felt disbelief cross her face. "Really?"

He nodded. "It makes sense though, right? I mean, who wouldn't want our powers? We could be child soldiers."

Elsa shivered, but it had nothing to do with the cold. "That sounds horrible."

"It's been done, too," he said, his voice disgusted. "That's the sad part."

She shook her head. "Xavier would never allow something like that." But she felt almost unconvinced. Even Xavier seemed fallible. He was too gentle, too kind. Too vulnerable.

Bobby seemed to notice her expression. Without warning, he kissed her cheek. "Don't worry," he said, "Xavier will know what to do."

It always went back to Xavier. But Elsa's posture stiffened from something else.

Bobby's face blushed a rosy color. "Sorry, I wanted to comfort you."

Elsa shook her head. "It seems that my old habits are coming back. Intimacy isn't something… generally shown in public."

"I'm sorry."

"No—" Elsa raised her hand to his shoulder. She realized again, that she no longer had to wear gloves to conceal her power. Xavier, Jean, and Logan helped teach her enough so that she didn't have to. Her bare fingers still seemed strange to her, unusual to the point of alien, as they splayed on Bobby's arm, which she now realized was firm and muscular. "I'm sure it's something done all the time, here. I will grow used to it." In answer, she kissed his cheek back, though she wasn't sure if it was appropriate.

Out of the corner of her eye, Elsa saw Blake's eyes flicker with something like hatred. She stiffened again. Surely the gesture wasn't wrong, was it? Bobby had done it to her. She cleared her throat, and sat up straighter, feeling a flush come to her cheeks as well.

Rogue came back into the clearing, and secretly, Elsa felt glad she didn't see the exchange between her and Bobby. Surely it should have been harmless.

But Elsa could feel the same acrid look from Blake. She shut her eyes, tightly, as though she had done something incredibly stupid. Rogue's face even flashed something like jealousy towards Elsa. Had she seen? Elsa wondered.

Bobby cleared his throat, and scooted away from Elsa, looking incredibly guilty, his face flushed. "Did you find anything?" he asked, tentatively. Rogue nodded, and for a moment she seemed distracted.

"I think we've escaped from the school successfully. No one's been following us, from what I've seen." Her face darkened.

"Where do we go from here?" Elsa asked, nervously. Her fingers tapped her knees. "What do we do? We can't go back."

Rogue just stared at her. "I don't know. I just hope Logan has some kind of plan."

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