Maps: Bobby
I didn't grow up with her. I was the generation before her, the first generation actually. She came after my time, after I went off looking for a real life. She was part of the golden generation, the generation that could do no wrong in Xavier's eyes. By the time I had grown disenfranchised and frustrated with the real world, she had left, gone off to become disenfranchised and frustrated. She had come back even quicker than I had. In the end, we all come back. Of course, we all had our different reasons. Scott kept coming back because it gave his life purpose, an explanation for all the bizarre events that happened in his life. Logan kept coming back because, really, he had nothing else. Piotr kept coming back because he was scared and he liked having someone like Xavier, someone omnipotent like that who could tell him what was best. Kurt kept coming back because of the gated walls, though he would never admit it. They kept coming back even when they were getting too old to fight. But I know that wouldn't happen to her. The only reason Kitty keeps coming back was to fight. I can understand it, really. I've felt that draw of fighting too, the attraction to the way that it defines everything so simply. But I've seen her eyes in the midst of battle, and I know that she feels a million things more than I do. And I'm glad, because I'm terrified by what I see in her eyes. I don't know her so well. Like I said, we're different generations. I don't know what's happened to her, all the little social whispers they keep out of the files. But something must have happened to her and something bad. She's one pissed off girl. She's so small, but she's all frustration and anger when you get her into combat. She doesn't kill per se, but she enjoys kicking the shit out of her opponents, you can tell that. Sometimes I watch her fight and I wonder who she's thinking about. Who makes her so mad that she wants to hurt them like this. Most of the time, I just follow her orders. I make small, meaningless steps to divorce myself from Xavier and the rest, a part of me still longing for that ordinary accountant life. But with staying here, I'm getting a sense of power that I could never get in a cubicle. So I guess we're all trapped here by our own insecurities, huh? Except Kitty, of course. I'm with a non-mutant, which I guess is my little dig to Xavier who, surprisingly, doesn't support us. For all of us talk about co-existence, he keeps encouraging me to date some girl with a codename like Sparks or Ghost girl or something. Nope, not for me. Maybe for Jono and Sarah and maybe for Piotr and Kitty who just got married, but not me. Maggie Macbeth is for me. Yeah, I know how ridiculous the last name is. I constantly tease her about it, my own little Lady Macbeth with the soiled hands. Her hands are regularly soaked in blood, actually; she's an ER doctor. She has long curly hair, wide blue eyes and freckles and she's all mine. I love her fiercely, in a way that scares me sometimes. I would say I'm protective of her, but she'd hate it if she thought I was constantly defending her and she'd probably hit me. She's very modern, this woman of mine. Maggie doesn't like Xavier about as much as he doesn't like her. There's something off with that man, she says. Her nose always scrunches up when she says that so her freckles form constellations and I can never take her seriously. She doesn't like how I keep coming back to Xavier. But she's never given me an ultimatum and I'm grateful for that. She does get along with the rest of the team, at least superficially. I took her to Piotr and Kitty's wedding and we stood off to the side for most of it. I pointed out everyone and told her why they all kept coming back. I was about to tell her about Kitty when she interpreted me. She doesn't keep coming back, she said. She's trapped. That's Maggie. Dramatic and empathetic. Of course, this was all before we found out that Kitty was pregnant with Piotr's baby which, I'll admit, kinda cheapened the whole thing for me. It wasn't your average wedding. Besides the fact that an angel was in attendance and the couple was married by a German demon, a lot of different people gave tributes to their love. I know that the best man and parents are usually supposed to say a few words, but during the wedding ceremony, before they had actually been married, Ororo, Scott, Xavier, Rachel and a few others had gone up to the front and had told stories about how much in love the two were. It reminded me of a funeral, the way you give eulogies while standing next to the body. It didn't seem to faze anyone else, so I said nothing. Since when does the Iceman ever interrupt a good time? Maggie hates it that I get called Iceman. She thinks it's childish and degrading. Of course, she calls me cube, as in ice cube so since when is she the one to talk? I really do love her, though. And she knows that and it makes her happy. But we're not necessarily your average couple. Besides the whole ice thing, I mean. Because at Kitty and Piotr's wedding, we stood together and watched as they come back down the aisle, man and wife. And I knew I was supposed to be overjoyed, my heart brimming with love for their love and in turn love for Maggie. But I didn't. Instead, I turned to her and whispered that I never wanted to get married. And her, being the modern woman that she is, agreed. She talked about it more in the car later, her jacket wrapped tight around her, her legs pulled up to her chest, fighting off the cold. She said a lot of big words, things like "marriage is colonization" and I drifted out for a while. I just listened to the authority in her doctor voice for a while. And then she stopped. She pulled her curly hair back which is something she does when she's being very serious. She looked at me driving. "Robert Drake," she said. She was being very solemn. "Promise me you won't be like them. Promise me one day you'll be able to walk away from Xavier and not go back." What could I say? We all go back in the end.
